#55 - Wild Adventures and Conservation Conversations w/Lucas Paugh

What happens when a successful executive trades the corporate grind for a life of global hunting and raw adventure? Lucas shares his journey from Montana farm kid to world-traveling hunter, revealing why he walked away from a 22-year career at 42 to chase purpose, not paychecks. From surviving a brown bear charge in Alaska to feeding entire villages in Africa, his story blends thrill, ethics, and a deeper connection to nature. Whether you're into conservation, travel, or redefining success—this episode will make you rethink what it means to truly live.

To follow Lucas on IG: @lucas.paugh.805

Chapters

• 0:00 Lucas's Journey from Montana to Corporate Life
• 16:21 Trading Corporate Career for Hunting Adventures
• 32:58 The True Ethics of Hunting and Conservation
• 1:02:18 Global Hunting Adventures and Close Calls
• 1:42:17 The Changing World of Hunting and Conservation
• 2:19:32 Family, Legacy, and Finding Joy in the Hunt

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:09

all right, dude. Well, thanks for coming. I know you're in town rolling through and, uh, I wanted to snag you real quick because you're hanging out with a good buddy, yours chad mendez. He's. He's a new local here in town, yeah, which I'm excited for. I want to get him on the episode and, yeah, I know he's pretty busy. But, lucas, thanks for joining me. Man, you've, uh, you've crushed it in the business world and we're able to retire pretty early, I'd say.

Speaker 2: 0:33

Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1: 0:34

And then you took all this uh time that you now have on your hands and you have traveled the world hunting and been on some crazy adventures, yeah, so I want to dive into that before we do one thing that I do on the podcast, which is a little bit different, and I I want to give veterans in law enforcement companies an opportunity to send us product completely for free so I can help any way I can. I feel as this, this platform, grows, I want to be able to introduce and give back to the community.

Speaker 1: 1:06

So I'm going to send you home with some cigars which are the war machine or the platoon cigar. He was actually a combat marine, got out, became a cop and got shot in the line of duty. Okay, so he's got a absolutely wild story. Hopefully we can get him out here soon. And then sea state coffee.

Speaker 1: 1:21

He's a local guy, recon marine and, uh, he started this after getting out and he just makes some of the the best cold brews, and I've actually never had a coffee before in my life till I had him on the episode and he called me out and made me drink it and it was. It was actually pretty good. So, um, but yeah, so we'll make sure to send you home with a bag of coffee and some cold brews and some cigars. So, and then I got a pile of we dug out the OG wild chaos shirts, some all hunting related ones. So make sure you go home with a pile of shirts and uh, yeah, so we're gonna, we're gonna get you all all swagged up. But, dude, jump right into it. Man, I know you've traveled the world. Like I said, you got some pretty interesting stories. Let's just start with where you're from.

Speaker 2: 2:01

Yeah. So, first off, thanks for inviting me. I know you and I have kind of connected through kind of like I know, the hunt expo I'd see every year and just kind of through social. So thanks for uh, thanks for extending the invite. Um, yeah, so just a little bit about me.

Speaker 2: 2:13

Born and raised uh, north central Montana, small farm community, um, less than a thousand people, where the town is called Chinook, um, um, great Falls if you're familiar with Great Falls, mount St Romero Forest Base there, just to the north and a little bit to the east. So, yeah, I grew up there, small farm community, grew up on a farm and a ranch, like I mean minus 40 below wind chill in the winter times, like walking to school every day to the bus, like that was, like that was my upbringing. I don't miss those days. No, I uh I've become very soft since I've moved to California and I'll talk more about that, but my whole upbringing was was Montana. Um, through high school, went there and then went to college, uh, in Butte, Montana. Um got my undergrad and graduate degrees there and, uh, of all places, got relocated to central coast of California. Um, was that a weird transition for you? What year was this. This was 2003, 2004. Okay, so it was, my last year of college was 2003. And then I relocated in 04. It was a little bit.

Speaker 2: 3:16

I had actually worked two summers, worked in oil and gas that's where I got my education through. And uh worked for a fairly small independent company in California. They had recruited me to come and uh and uh work as an intern. I did two summers there and just felt like this is where I needed to be. And uh, I still remember like pulling that 26 foot U-Haul leaving Butte Montana, like everything I owned to my name was in that U-Haul and made the voyage and uh, yeah, I mean I not too much detail, but 22 years later I'm looking at myself saying I'm basically retirement eligible due to my my time with the company, really 20 years, yeah, locked in, and uh, the company was kind of going through a sale and uh had some vested interests that uh basically was able to take away from that.

Speaker 2: 4:05

And um, yeah, I walked away from 22 years working for one company Like people say like very rare it is, and like part of my role in the company was like recruiting. It was engineering basically was what I worked in, but recruiting engineers and uh, so I would do a ton of hiring and, uh, I would get resumes that are like four pages long and I used to look at those and think, like this is a problem, like is this person going to show up and in two years bounce, whereas my resume was like one page, one company, multiple positions not even a page. Yeah, it was like like just like super boring. But you know, now it's like normal people. People work two to three years and bounce. So, anyway, long story short, um, but during that whole time, I mean I know we'll talk more about you know some of my kind of my hunting stories, but I mean I was looking back.

Speaker 2: 4:58

Um, my dad's birthday was April 4th just recently. He was born in 1944. So his birthday was four four, 44, just just as. Like you know, how could you? You know, how could you, even, how could you even think that? But he passed in 2001. But I always go back every year on his birthday and look at old photos and I pulled up a photo when I was probably four years old and we had a, an antelope strapped on the top of a 1978 honda civic. Like that's how we grew up, like I was three or four years old, out with my dad like wearing jeans or car hearts.

Speaker 2: 5:24

You know, absolutely jeans, absolutely jeans. Flannels, like that was. That was hunting gear back then, you know, and uh, so anyway, you know I've, I've hunted my whole life. Um, it's really become, I would say, part of, probably like my identity to some extent. Um, you know, I had a very successful career, very professional. I mean. I was, you know, four in the morning till five every day for years and years working, chasing a career, and I just kind of realized, um, I was 42 at the time when I stepped away, as November 23,.

Speaker 2: 5:53

It was like I don't need to do this anymore and I think you know people have asked me, like you know are were you scared, were you worried? And I was, like I was ready for it, like I was ready to jump out of this corporate because we got big, we got corporate and we that changes everything. Exxon mobile and shell were the owners and it just like I mean not to get into all the the bureaucracy, but de and I all that stuff hit our company and it just covid hit in 2020 and, and there were just so many things that you know the company ended up going remote.

Speaker 2: 6:27

So a lot of changes. Dude, I was like your whole attitude.

Speaker 1: 6:30

Everything changes about something that you've loved or dedicated to for so long, right, and then it's just time. So I feel, I, I agree when, when that time comes, and you've, you just got that gut feeling like man, I've had a good run jump.

Speaker 2: 6:54

No question, like it was a switch that flipped and I just like my purpose there I felt like was done to some extent. The company was changing a lot and and partly like me internally and how I was raised in certain things, it was just hard for me to align with certain things and uh, yeah, like I said, I actually um announced in like the early part of 23. They kept me on for most of the year to transition my role and then uh, into 23 man, it was just like 2024 was just a crazy year like started out literally I I flew to Turkey, I spent two weeks in Turkey, got back, went to Texas and then I spent basically my whole fall um traveling, just hunting, doing the things that I love to do, and and I've somehow figured out like a way to like continue to do this and like not have to be in this big corporate structure world every day. And I just I think like, as humans, like we just figure stuff out right, like I don't have a military background and you know, I've listened to some of your shows, I know a lot of your, your um, your host or your, your folks that come in or our military base, and it's like when they come out of the military. It's like a whole new world, like I got to figure out life again Right Cause that's all I know. And it's like that was your guys' career. Same thing for me, like I bounced out of corporate world and now here I am, just like free.

Speaker 2: 8:14

Some days I get up at four in the morning and do my thing. Some days I'm laying in bed at seven 30 and have nothing to do Like and my stress levels are almost to the you know, the minimal like cortisol levels. Are not married, no, kids, good for you. So that helps. That's how you're able to travel so much that helps. I will say, you know people ask like, how do you do this? Like, are you married? I'm like no. I'm like do you have kids? I'm like no, and I, you know I, that was part prior. But, um, probably one of my biggest regrets of life is, at this point, I haven't had kids. And you know I I love kids. Uh, I have nephews, so they're a big part of my life. I treat them like my own. But you know it's uh, it's just one of those things Life is, you know, crazy and things happen. And you know here we are today and and uh, make the best of what you have.

Speaker 1: 9:01

Absolutely. Yeah, I mean to each their own. But it's funny you say that you know, because everybody just I feel the, the veteran community gets the huge spotlight for the, this tough transition right, which it is, because we're showed nothing, we're taught nothing as far as like living a real life on the, on the outside. But since starting this podcast and I've talked to so many law enforcement or athletes college athletes it's just as bad for them. You got to think of this kid that started playing Pop Warner football at seven, eight years old, even younger, and they go with their whole entire career, all the way through college and then their senior year, that last game, and most of them are already graduating. They're like, okay, cool, have a nice life. I mean, the colleges are no different than the military. They give absolutely zero fucks about them, Right, they're just, they're an athlete that are generating money and revenue for the school and they got a fan base.

Speaker 1: 9:57

As soon as you're up your shelf, life's over, yeah, and it's the same thing with law enforcement and everybody else. And so, yeah, I mean the corporate world, you, I mean 20 years of one business that all of a sudden it's the doors open and you're like, holy shit Like what do I do with my life? I mean, you have so many habits, so many just rituals and their day to day that you're probably so used to that are ingrained in you. It probably took some time to readjust and be like I can, I'm not setting my alarm today.

Speaker 2: 10:24

I know I remember this was like Thursday I had my going away party and it was like Friday morning. Like the next morning I woke up and it was like, okay, this is cool. But it wasn't like until Monday, cause Mondays were always that. What am I going to get into? You know cause oil business is 24 seven.

Speaker 2: 10:40

Those things never stopped going. The weekends, you know, always have problems. So it was like Monday morning is always so. It was like it was Monday when it hit me. It was like wow, like I don't have to deal with HR issues Cause I I was a leader in in in my role in management and so I'd have to deal with people issues and have you know all that stuff that you know. Like you say you're climbing this corporate ladder to try to get somewhere and at the end of the day, it's like I mean none of that stuff anymore really matters. It's like, cause I've always had this burning desire and I was always able to fit my personal life in with my work.

Speaker 2: 11:11

I had an extremely great work-life balance. Like, if there was any plug, like I'm so grateful that I had that time with the company that I did. I would call my boss and be like hey, I'm stuck in Kyrgyzstan. I would call my boss and be like hey, I'm stuck in Kyrgyzstan. Like I'm going to be gone like another week. He's like have fun, we'll see you when you get back. Like everything's going to be here when you get back. Right, either someone's going to take care of it or it's going to be here when you get back, like so. I had a super good work-life balance and it enabled me to to continue to pursue my passion of traveling and you know, seeing these experiences, going places that most of the world's population will never see, places that you know I've traveled and gone to.

Speaker 1: 11:51

And that's what I want to hear about.

Speaker 2: 11:52

It's the experiences like more than anything.

Speaker 1: 11:55

That's why I love it so much. And you know we could get into this a little bit. But you know, as, as a hunter and you, you have a social media following and you got a show. I mean you've, you know as as a hunter and you, you have a social media following and you got a show. I mean you've. You know you guys do your thing, and the amount of hate that we get from the anti-hunting side, right, the biggest thing, what makes me laugh about them is is that my kids at their age, have experienced more of this country and what it actually truly has to offer of being in the woods, being on the water, being in the desert, being in a forest. They're experiencing nature on a on a level that none of these anti-hunters, these, these animal rights activists have ever experienced. And I will put my kids toe to toe with any of them to be able to talk about a bear's habits and what they're doing in the time of year and when the deer are switching and when they're going to start coming down low. They don't know any of this shit, right, and so for us it's.

Speaker 1: 12:56

It's such an incredible thing to be able to experience. I mean, obviously you've done it on a worldwide level, yeah, which we're getting there, and you know I want to start traveling with them and experiencing different things. But you get to see communities and I'm speaking for this, for here in the united states that you have probably wild stories, but you know and I've traveled, I've done africa, argentina, things like that but you get to experience, like just these little towns and communities. You're like this is the coolest place we have been in a long time, like let's, let's stop here for a couple days and just experience it and the culture and these little communities.

Speaker 1: 13:27

And it's so incredible of what the hunting community or hunting community, what the hunting industry or just hunting itself, was able to open you up to so many different experiences all over the place. And that's one of the biggest things that I get. Like I don't and I I I never deny this but like I'm not one of these guys, like man, I can't wait to go and hike my ass off for 15 miles a day, like some dudes live for that shit. I want to get in, I want to kill something, I want to get out.

Speaker 2: 13:58

Right.

Speaker 1: 14:07

I want to experience it but I'm not. The days of me grinding for for 30 days in in the mountains like doing a whole season chasing elk with a bow miserable to me now right and so yeah but I I love that experience, to be able to get in, you have fun.

Speaker 1: 14:16

Your experience is so many things and and just it's the whole process from start to finish. That that really draws me back. And then the things you get to see along the way. That's the coolest part. I don't ever hear a lot of people talking about it, but it's that's what when we tell all these stories like, oh my God, we met this guy and he was crazy, you know, it's just that's the, that's what gets you out there and that's what that come along with these adventures, right.

Speaker 2: 14:42

Well, it's like I don't know who says it, but it's like learning is everything, or learning is experience. Everything else is just information. It's like you know, I, I work with a company called the experience and I've released four or five films with them and I've got two or three more in the queue. But like that whole, that whole production company, our whole thing is about the experience. Like the, the animal and the crosshairs, the shot, like that's secondary, it's the lead up, it's traveling, the the 20 hours of plane rides, the, the 15 hours on a land cruiser the six hours on a horse just to get to where you can actually get to where the animals are.

Speaker 2: 15:21

I mean, you're talking 70 plus hours, right, it's that whole experience. And then it's like there's this, this little short period of time that shows the hunt Like, and I appreciate that because, like, people ask me all the time like, like, what drives you, like why, why do you go to all these places and think you have to go hunt all these animals? And it's like, for me it's like it's not about the meat, like I'll never go hungry. I mean, we're just you and I are just talking about a fast you did, like which is incredible, like we are so resilient as humans, like we'll never go hungry in life. You can always go to the supermarket or you can go harvest it yourself, you know. But it's really about the people that you meet.

Speaker 2: 16:00

I mean, the first time I went to Turkey and hunted Ibex there, we literally stayed in a village, in a home where these people had no windows. In this home and it was in March and it was cold and these everyone kind of sleeps around this little fireplace in the middle they couldn't wait to feed us, like they have they hardly have anything Right, and they're feeding us foods, and we slept in this home for like three nights with this family. Like they don't have phones, they don't have social media, they don't have cars, right, they're just happy that americans are there and someone's there for them, to give them life and they're the happiest they could ever be.

Speaker 2: 16:37

We give them so much life like I just spent. I spent almost a month in mozambique in october and those people specifically like their salary is about a hundred dollars a month, maybe to $200 a month. If they make 1500 to $2,000 a year, that's a good salary for the trackers and the skinners, right? These are people that have nothing but the clothes on their back. That's all they know. Are people that have nothing but the clothes on their back.

Speaker 2: 17:06

That's all they know. And literally when they see an animal down and you're with it, they are so happy. I hunted a Cape buffalo and when that buffalo was down, immediately they started skinning, taking meat off, started a fire and started cooking the meat because that buffalo to them allows them to eat. Like, when we took that in and we we took the buffalo, got it cleaned up, took it into the village, I mean, everyone shows up and like is thanking you, greeting you. The chief is like thanking you, we drive away and the pH is like you realize, you just fed a village for three months. And I'm just like, like you know, like it's a totally different view of hunters, but hunters never get that Right. It's like you were saying it's the antis, it's the oh my God, how can you kill animals? Blah, blah, blah. It's like, well, I don't do it for me, I don't do it for my ego, I don't do it for the meat for me, I did that for hundreds of people, just so they could survive. Yeah, right, well.

Speaker 1: 18:03

I've. I have a buddy, not a, but I have a client that um very successful guy hunted all over the world and he he's he's done some um elephant hunts. He says the only thing that is left from an elephant is the wet spot on the ground.

Speaker 2: 18:20

It's if I tell you how they conserve the animals, like my buffalo this is a 20, some hundred pound animal. I mean you don't realize how big those things are until you walk up to them and then you're like, I mean it's. I mean I've I've hunted a lot of big animals, like moose, but like Cape buffalo are next level and the only thing that was left there was the actual insides of the stomach lining, like the, the, basically everything that the buffalo didn't, uh like, digest the stomach lining, every organ, everything, bones, all loaded up in the truck, I mean and this is the craziest part it's about.

Speaker 1: 18:58

You know, since we're kind of on the topic of the anti-hunters and the animal rights people, I completely agree with them on a lot of things. I don't agree with how chickens are stuffed in cages, and you know on these chicken farms how they're treated. I I'm a hundred percent against that. I'm a hundred percent against how these cows in the slaughterhouse like there's things that we can do to give these animals 100% of best life and like it's my goal as a father and how my dad raised me is nothing suffers. You make a bad shot, get on it, get another shot in it, get this animal down. That's our due diligence as an outdoorsman is to kill that animal as fast and as ethical as possible, right? So when you see these people like you agree with no, I'm with you. I'm with you but as'm with you. But as my God given right, I still have the right to go out and kill an animal in the mountains.

Speaker 1: 19:49

This is an animal. It's roamed its whole entire life. It's it's free range. It's dodged every predator. It's survived as a natural instinct. It's fair chase. That's my right to be able to do it. Just because you don't agree with. It doesn't mean it's wrong, but we could come to an understanding on a mutual ground that I'm with you that these pigs shouldn't be in cages and their hooves are rotten, and you know, and it's, it's, that's a sad, that's sad to me, it's, it's unethical and I feel animals, it's, it's, it's a god's creature and it should be treated with somewhat respect and in a healthy environment. And so I agree on a lot of them, and I also agree that there's a lot of hunting ethics that are kind of. You know, there's some things I'm like, you know, I hear about, and nothing wrong if guys do it, but and I mean, if I had the money I'd probably do it, but who knows? But these guys that are chasing grizzlies in Russia at a helicopter, they just get let out in the helicopter. Push them by.

Speaker 1: 20:44

I'm like to me, I that's just my thing Experience you're looking for it's not the experience I'm looking for but you know, but to me I I couldn't like defend somebody Cause to me when this big bears running and I like dude, we're sitting on bear rugs for so to me that's not sporty, like I want to. I want it as free range, as ethical and as possible, and so like yeah, I could agree. Like yeah, I mean this bear's tongue's hanging out, it's running by you and you shot it out of a helicopter or the helicopter let you out and drove it by you. To me that's not hunting.

Speaker 1: 21:16

Right so but to each their own. So we could, I feel like if they just listened and realized what actually went into going into the mountains, finding the animal, being able to kill the animal, bring it at home, the process of going down and breaking down an animal in your own home and being able to wrap that up and put it in your freezer there's nothing greater. And then having these stories and then your kids my, at least for me, I'm like having my kids part of that, or like my. When my daughter shot her first bull like we do, it was the greatest thing ever. Huge experience, right.

Speaker 2: 21:49

Huge experience Life changing could be for that child.

Speaker 1: 21:53

Absolutely.

Speaker 2: 21:54

Right.

Speaker 1: 21:54

You know, my daughter my youngest shot her first whitetail this last fall. She did almost the whole entire deer on her own. I was actually doing a podcast today when we were starting to process it. I'm like, hey kid, you got to do this on your own, 10 years old. I give her a knife. I'm like don't cut yourself.

Speaker 2: 22:11

You know how it is. You got to learn. Improvise, you got to learn.

Speaker 1: 22:15

And we finished the podcast and, dude, she had all the silver skin off of it, all in the little groups and I was just like just follow the lines. The animal tells you where to cut, just follow your instinct. And I was expected to just be chunked up everywhere. She had a phenomenal job at it and she still talks about it and, like her little friends now come over because we fed a couple of them some antelope, because she's super proud and wanted to be able to share that with her friends. Every time her friend comes over she's like and it's just like, okay, like that's that to me, there's nothing wrong with that. I, I don't feel there's anything wrong with that. The animal had a free chance and so I feel that there's a lot of common ground. But us, as hunters, were so defensive and anti-hunters are so defensive.

Speaker 1: 22:54

But if they realize hunters care just as much for animals as as they do, we'd unless you're more right I mean I would say more right, unless you're like the sadistic side that are, like you know, laughing because his deer's legs, whatever. To me I don't know.

Speaker 2: 23:09

Right.

Speaker 1: 23:10

I don't deal with that, and so you know, but yeah, it's, it's teach their own, it is a. It is a business of killing an animal, taking a life in there's. It's not easy, you know. And so, yeah, I get it Like when I shoot a bear man, I don't feel good when I shoot a bear, because I love bears so much and I've invested so much into bears and learning everything. When a bear dies, I'm like I just get that feeling. I'm not like yeah. I just killed this bear.

Speaker 2: 23:32

I'm excited, but it's like damn, dude, you know like it's out, squirrel hunting or whatever, like, whatever your thing is like. I've met so many people that are experts in so many different biological science things and guys that are like loved is just squirrel hunt, like that's all they do is squirrel hunt. Turkeys, yeah, turkey hunt I mean birds or waterfowl or whatever, and it's like, but it's so cool that someone has that much passion for something, but they truly do care more about that animal than anybody else does. And to kind of piggyback on what you're saying, I think part of the problem is is education, absolutely, like a lot of the conservation organizations, try to educate, try to promote. Hey, we're, you know, we're transplanting animals here. We're trying to, you know, make sustainable, you know herds in these areas and, like they're, they're doing a decent job.

Speaker 2: 24:28

But we have not educated the public enough to really understand, like all of our forefathers and people way before us, they didn't have Albertsons, they didn't have refrigerators, right, they couldn't go to the store and buy meat and put it in their freezer. Like they had to go hunt and fair chase the animal. They had to dehydrate it somehow by hanging it out and letting it, you know, sit for days and days and days like salting, curing it, all of that, like you know, and I, I, you know, I, I read a book recently, one second after, and it talks about what happens after an EMP strike. And not to get all weird, but like if that happened in this country, cell phones are done, refrigeration's done. So you know, 60% of the world's population who takes prescription medications now they're gone, right, and then people that can't, that rely on a store to get meat, they're gone.

Speaker 2: 25:17

So it just, it goes through this phase of and I think about it and I'm like bring it like a world without a phone. And I had to go and actually survive and live on my own. I can pump water, I can. I mean, you know the things that to me are have become a natural way of my life. Like, put me anywhere, like put me on survival, put me on any of those shows, like I mean, you know, like I could, I could make it happen, you know, I could live in that. So, but the rest of the world, they just don't even think about it, they don't. And and it's like this glass, this glass ball that people live in. And but back to that education, it's like to what you were talking about. Like I have taken so many first hunters good friends of mine and their kids out and taking them on pig hunts in California and like that moment in life when they pull the trigger, I think it's a life-changing event for that kid 100% Because.

Speaker 2: 26:07

I'll go out with my buddy and he's like dude Jax has not stopped talking about that hunt we did a year ago. When are we going again? And if we don't do more of that? This is one of those things that, and it worries me, like kids are less interested in these outdoor activities. This stuff just kind of goes away. I mean, history repeats itself and a lot of different things, like if we don't have youth involved. You know, hunting in 50 years may be a pastime, you know. So it's like it's becoming that.

Speaker 1: 26:35

now on just the how expensive it is, Dude. Do you see what Utah just did?

Speaker 2: 26:39

Well, they're proposing double, you know yeah, supposing double you know, yeah, double up to double on tag fees for non-residents and yeah, non-res now is going to be 1200 bucks or 1500 bucks for an elk tag yeah For spike elk tag.

Speaker 2: 26:52

And then your limited entry stuff. I mean, I know I I've been following some of this stuff a little bit but it's like, yeah, just just domestically putting in for points it's getting expensive. But the international world of of like Obis, which is sheep, and like capper for goat stuff, even in North America, so Ibex have been like that's my one obsession.

Speaker 1: 27:13

If I could hunt, I want to shoot a hippo on land. I want it charging.

Speaker 2: 27:18

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 27:18

Get it the whole experience. And then Ibex. I dream about Ibex, but I've this go yeah, for the last five, eight years. I mean I'm like fucking, there goes that right, you know yeah I could afford one in my lifetime. Now it's like you know. I mean you can go to spain, I mean there's some cheaper ibex on set. You could definitely do, but yeah, in order to chase them. It's like dude, it's.

Speaker 1: 27:39

It's almost impossible now yeah so the price on everything has just gone through the roof. So it's now now this what became hey, let's take our kids out and go have fun is now like becoming this rich man's sport. Or you got to have a lease, got to have some private property, or you're just grinding it off in the back country and you're fighting everybody else that's out there. So, it's changed a lot in the last 10 years.

Speaker 2: 28:00

I would say I wouldn't. I mean I wouldn't call it like a a problem or like an epidemic, but there has been this since and a lot of it's been since 2020. Yes, there has been this escalation. I mean, in some species like moose have like over 200% in price. Stone sheep, like a lot of the North American sheep, have just gotten 30 grand to shoot a moose or something like that, now 35 to 40.

Speaker 2: 28:21

Now 35 to 40. I mean, I did mine in 2017 for 7 500 bucks. I did most of it myself, but transporter went in did it myself like probably one of the most rewarding hunts I ever did 14 day hunt off the grid, but like by yourself. I had one other buddy with me. Let's get into that dude. That was a wolves, I mean there was alaska makes or breaks you as a man.

Speaker 1: 28:45

No question it is the most intimidating and I haven't traveled like you have, like hunting wise, but alaska to me is one of the most intimidating. Will check you faster than anything place I have ever been right.

Speaker 2: 29:00

I mean, well, when most of the time, there's a predator anywhere within you know, five square miles of you, anywhere in that, in that state, like when we're talking predators, we're talking predators, yeah, big bears, wolves. I mean, yeah, stuff that, that A wolverine will fuck your shit up, no doubt about it. No doubt about it. Nobody thinks about that little angry bastard, right, right, no. So, one of my childhood friends, one of my best friends. As a kid we always just had this, and he's a big bow hunter too. We always had this dream of doing this whole like, basically, transport trip drop us off 14 days off grid in the middle of central Alaska. So we ended up finding a transporter, and there's there's a lot to. This is one of many stories, but anyway we got it all lined up.

Speaker 2: 29:45

We start from. I started in LA. I met him in Seattle, seattle to Anchorage, overnighted at Anchorage and then we took a small flight to Antioch, which is kind of central, I would say, more to the West, not the peninsula, but more central West in Alaska From there. And the crazy thing about Alaska is there's like what, four road systems there, right, major road systems that go to the major cities, but everything else is via float plane or some type of commuter plane. The lifeline of villages in Alaska is an airplane. When we landed there were people waiting there to get their avocados, their lettuce, their bread, like that's how those people survive right.

Speaker 1: 30:24

That shocks a lot of people because we do a trip every year with a bunch of vets and where we stay the first night we get in town, it's right on this lake and it is just float, plane float and there's just people unloading stuff and loan and they're just going. These guys are like man, what the hell's going on? I'm like that's that is. The transportation in alaska is right, plane like everybody has a pilot license there.

Speaker 2: 30:43

Everyone, everyone is a bush pilot there. Like that's just pretty normal. And even if they don't have their license, there's probably guys flying planes that A hundred percent yeah, that that have never, never formally got their license, but A hundred percent yeah. I've seen some kids where I'm like yeah, Well, then you get in, is it? Then you're just hanging on. Yeah, this is it right.

Speaker 1: 31:06

Just trying not to die.

Speaker 2: 31:07

But no, anyway, we took our trans, so we took super cubs in one by one, dropped us in all our gear, basically everything, and he's like I'll see you guys in 14 days, like one of those deals.

Speaker 1: 31:17

Yep.

Speaker 2: 31:31

Landed us on top of a little bit about like the hunt. I mean, we, we hunted hard, we were bow hunting, so we didn't even have sidearm, which is I had. I had a 10 millimeter, he had a nine millimeter, so we had a sidearm, but we weren't not like hunting with our handguns right and literally within like the first hour, glassing there's, there's a giant inland grizzly bear, you know, and there's a couple, and I had a black bear tag too on that. I bought one. I'm like we were seeing giant black bears. I wasn't really worried about the black bears.

Speaker 2: 31:52

But the grizzly bears, you know, inland Alaska, they're meat eaters. You know the coastal brown bears, they're so big because they eat high fat. You know salmon, you know, I mean they'll eat meat if they have to, but their diet is so high, rich in fat, with fish. But inland grizz, it's like, you know, you kill a moose, you're on the food chain, you kill a moose and that's what happened. I killed my moose and and um next thing, every day, four days straight, 14 trips. It took me to pack out close to 650 pounds of meat. It took me to pack out close to 650 pounds of meat and I, I like when you were talking about your fast. I'll show you a picture at the end of what I look like at my 10. It's like I look at that and I'm like I can't even believe that was me. But the thing was like. It was so rewarding because I shot the I I arrowed him, I hit him in the chest, ran off. He didn't die. I had to do a follow-up shot and I shot him and killed him.

Speaker 2: 32:46

Well, that same time, when I was going into stalking on my moose, I heard a gunshot and we're, literally we're 60 miles South of Antioch, which is there's nothing. I mean there's, there's a river there, but there's like I mean there's nothing. I hear a thinking and we didn't have communication time. I had an inReach to text out, but he didn't have any communication. So, which was hindsight not very smart, cause we split up every day and hunted ourselves, did our own thing, Like. Two minutes later I hear another gunshot and I'm like, okay, that's odd, like, and I'm glassing back to camp and I'm looking for my buddy and didn't see him. So, anyway, end up shooting the moose, kill them.

Speaker 2: 33:23

Um, and it was September, so it would get dark by about 11 ish and then it started getting light again at about like four or five. It wouldn't get like super dark, but it was kind of getting to that point where Alaska was kind of transitioning from all light all day to, you know, more dark. Anyway, I broke the whole thing down by myself that night. I literally, like it was unbelievable, like so I, I quartered everything, I got all the meat off of it, but I didn't get like the, the meat off the ribs that night. The next day I came back in Cause.

Speaker 2: 33:52

In Alaska the law requires you to take everything, all the meat, like. When we got back to Antioch there was a fishing game guy there and we literally had to go through. Here's the four quarters. I had to saw cut the quarters and thirds, because non-residents cannot remove the. You cannot debone the meat in Alaska but you can leave the bone. So I had to saw cut into thirds cause I could not pack those rear quarters by myself. They were so big and I had to go two miles back to my camp.

Speaker 1: 34:20

So so it would take you at least two trips to do a hind quarter yeah, and I was.

Speaker 2: 34:26

I was packing two cuts of those per trip, like that's 100. That was 100 plus pound pack, you know, through the marsh, through the bog, through the alders, like so, like I said, totally rewarding, but anyway. So that night I get back to camp, it's 2, 30 in the. I get back into camp and my buddy's laying in the tent. He's just laying there, headlamp still on and his eyes are just wide awake and he's like, did you get a bull? I'm like yeah, I've got one down, dude. And I'm like, how are you doing? He's like I had the craziest day.

Speaker 2: 34:56

He goes remember that bull on the backside of where we were Because we had called to another bull while he was living in this area. He starts cow calling to it. Things starts coming on a line to him. So he's like kind of panicking. He gets his bow, he gets his arrow set, everything ready. All of a sudden he hears a twig snap behind him, turns around and looks and that like five feet, there's this giant timber wolf there. Drops his bow nine millimeter right, point blank. Boom, drops this wolf.

Speaker 2: 35:23

Nine millimeter right, point blank boom, drops this wolf big black alpha no, I mean meat of the tripod. So he's freaking out the bull's like wondering, okay, he's got this bullet like 100 yards it stops, so he grabs his bow, starts.

Speaker 1: 35:37

I don't mean to interrupt, I'm 100% shooting that wolf over a bull. Dude Hands down Dude.

Speaker 2: 35:42

But it gets better. He made the right decision. It gets better. So he starts calling the moose back. The bull starts coming at him again. He gets his bow, gets the arrow knock, looks rack a silver tip. One's right behind him like closer. So he just grabs it and literally said it was like in its neck, shoots. This thing rolls that. One shoots two wolves in under two minutes within point blank range. The bull, the moose, runs off and he's just like. I get back at 2 30 in the morning.

Speaker 2: 36:08

This was at like six o'clock because I heard the gunshots yeah he's still worked up and these two he's got them all skinned out. They were sitting out. They were like almost eight and a half nine feet, nose to tip. These are giant wolves that he shot and uh, anyway, so he helps me a couple of days. Last day I go to get the head out and I and I'd always glass. I have a, some game bags that I have that are fluorescent. I set them out and they were so I could see where, like from camp, I could glass through my spotter and I'm looking and I'm like, and there was like clouds kind of coming in, but I could see something on the carcass. Sure enough, there's a, there's a, there's a grizzly bear on the carcass last day. So I'm like, oh, this ought to be fun. So my buddy was so worn out after the two days he's like I'm like, dude, just stay, I'll go get the head that cause that was the last time to come out.

Speaker 2: 37:06

We'd gotten all the meat, cut the rib meat out. I did a rib roll, so I took all the rib meat, but just terrorizing this, this carcass, and I get to probably like 200 yards and I've just got my 10 millimeter with me. I didn't take my bow, I had my pack and I just start yelling at it Like you know, hey bear, you know like kind of what you're supposed to do. Hey bear turns around, looks at me and it's you know face is just bloody, you know, and had you know meat in its mouth and it just kind of looks at me and it just clenches its jaw Just like one of those. Just you know how they do that, you know, you know, you've you.

Speaker 2: 37:45

I pulled the meat away too, just thinking that hit the carcass, don't hit the meat right. I pulled the meat probably a hundred yards away and all sides. So I start walking up to this bear and just does not want to leave this carcass and the one thing I should have done is I should have pulled the head below. I pulled the head above, to the right, so I had to kind of go by and around. Okay, so I get up to this bear and I just take my 10 millimeter and shoot, like you know, 10 feet to the left of it, shoot a couple of times, it gets up, freaks up. It runs up like a hundred yards, sits on top of this hill, turns around and just sits on its ass and just sits there and looks at me and just sits there and looks at me and I'm like, okay, so I walk up, I'm taking my pack off, I lay my pack down, I take the hat, I strap it in.

Speaker 2: 38:28

I had paracord.

Speaker 1: 38:29

And you're doing this without taking your eyes off this bear.

Speaker 2: 38:32

I'm literally watching. I mean, probably would take five seconds and would be like on me, like you can not look down.

Speaker 2: 38:39

No, I'm like sitting there and every time I had like a buckle, I'd look down, I'd buckle it, I'd cinch, and I had paracord. I was tying paracord on it, so I'd have kind of like you know, like something to hold, because those moose heads are just I mean, it's that head weighs, with the skull, 80 to a hundred pounds, Right. So I get this pack on and it's funny, I got video of me trying to put the pack on immediately as I'm walking back. I turn around and I look comes right, walking back down, right back to the carcass. Didn't even care and just started hammering that carcass again, walked off, walked back, got to camp, get back to camp, get back on my spotter still hitting the carcass.

Speaker 2: 39:17

Oh, you laid out that thing for a week, yeah, and that's. I mean, that's pretty common, like anytime people are hunting bears in Alaska, like if there's a dead something somewhere, there's 95% of the time there's going to be a bear on that carcass, you know. So, anyway, that was between that story, the hunt, the wolves, like that was like when we got back to Antioch and landed, we like both looked at each other and was like that was like. That was like level 10, epic, like everything we experienced.

Speaker 1: 39:45

You remember that on your dad.

Speaker 2: 39:46

Yeah, I mean who gets to go and like literally point blank shoot two giant wolves at point blank range with a nine millimeter of all things Like wolves are. Wolves are too hardy. But no. But anyway, he ended up not shooting a moose and I've told him and I'm indebted to him cause he helped me, help pack mine out. I'm like, dude, whenever you want to go back, you tell me I'm, I'll go and not even bring my stuff and just be your sherpa. And when you shoot one.

Speaker 1: 40:11

I'll just buy wolf tags, this time exactly we'll see in alaska.

Speaker 2: 40:15

You don't even have to buy wolf tags oh, I didn't know that yeah, you can just shoot them they're everywhere yeah, they're, there's some.

Speaker 2: 40:24

They're savages man yeah yeah, so anyway, that that was probably like from a north american standpoint. I mean, I've I've hunted a lot in canada bc, um, of course and I've hunted a lot in mexico, and mexico that's a. That's for a whole different other podcast. I mean, there there's always you have any cartel stories. I don't have anything like specific to like getting stopped and being, but like we were there on there one time and it was on a Turkey hunt of all things. I've deer hunted a few times down there, but we were on a um, we were on a Turkey hunt down there and, uh, one of the ranchers had to leave and go back to the ranch gate.

Speaker 2: 41:01

Every time, one of the things that I always look for when I go to Mexico is, like, if I book a hunt, like, will the rancher be with us at the border, driving us across? Right, at least we're with someone who can translate. I'm, I'm, I'm pretty terrible at at Spanish. I can pick up words and get by, but I'm by no means fluent, even working in California for 20 years, like I could pick up on it. But so always making sure the ranchers with you getting you across the border, driving you to the ranch, getting into the ranch, locking the gate behind you and driving in and then from there like the pressure's off.

Speaker 2: 41:34

You know there was something that had happened in a in a nearby town where the rancher, his father, was the mayor of that city Okay, which even made me feel a little bit better knowing that they had that many connections there. But there had been a shooting that had happened in that city and it was all cartel related and the rancher had to leave the ranch, unlock, go through the gate, go to the town, because his dad got involved in whatever the you know stuff but but like nothing, where we got stopped point blank like there's a wild stories.

Speaker 2: 42:06

I know people that have had that happen and like pillage, their vehicles took everything that they had like or just was cordial and they were able to, you know, get by without any problems. Sonora traditionally is not known for a lot of cartel activity, which is where a lot of the hunting happens in Mexico. But dude, at the border, I mean you see the stuff that happens, I mean in a lot of the bordering, nogales and places like that, I mean it's that stuff's real it is, and I think right now, with with what's going on, I mean president Trump, love him to death, love the family.

Speaker 2: 42:37

But you know, now, as to said, the cartel is like, is like tensions are high, yeah, yeah, number one like like security threat and then everything going on with tariffs. I mean there's a lot going on on the border right now. That's probably not a place that right now I would probably be traveling to yeah, you know, it's interesting, like I've had.

Speaker 1: 42:55

I have a buddy, a good buddy of mine. He has got the wildest cartel. I mean they, he was hunting, they were doing kuzdia one year. They're down there and they're on the ranch and they're on this other side of this little ridge and they hear like this is full auto machine guns going off and they're like what the hell? And they go over there, they're checking it out and they don't see anything. And they're driving out and he's like well, hold on, he sees something off the side of the road. He's like stop. And he gets, they get out of the truck and they go walking over. There's there's three bodies and they're still like bubbling. He's saying like they're still doing the process of right, pretty much dying, like holy shit, like what do we do? And he looks up and this truck is hauling ass at them through the desert and as it comes they just start running because what?

Speaker 1: 43:41

do, you do yeah they dive down in the desert and that truck just opened up on them and sprayed, all like just dusted everything. No one got hit, truck just keeps going, takes off and they're like we're fucking out of here, right, and I mean, but he's got so many stories of just dudes coming in the middle of camp at night. I mean I've wanted to go hunt Mexico for years, but he's such a good friend, I hear his stories and I'm like he's always trying to get me to go down. I'm like I'm good bro, um, I'll pass, I don't need something that bad, I know.

Speaker 2: 44:10

And the hunting is so good there, like if it's coos, if it's if it's mule deer, like even the desert sheep, but they the story of conservation there is incredible. I mean, desert sheep will probably be the cheapest North American sheep in the world because of the population and what they've done in terms of sustainability of that animal. But I had a bunch of friends where I asked them hey, how'd your hunt go in Mexico? Well, we didn't do very good. We couldn't go over the next ridge because the cartel was over there. We ended up just leaving the camp and I'm like I have not had one of those experiences. But I know that. I think it's just a matter of time. If you hunt down there enough, you know odds are, something could happen and I don't know this.

Speaker 2: 44:51

I just went in January. I took a group down, we leased a ranch and had a great time, shot good coos, deer. But I was kind of thinking in my mind I don't know if I want to keep doing this every year. Just roll the dice. There's so many other cool places and things to do and it gives you something to do in january, february, but it's like you know it's still. I mean risk reward, it's like in anything in life, right, or is the reward worth the risk?

Speaker 1: 45:14

yeah, I don't know it's so as far as traveling around the world, yeah, craziest country you've ever had to deal with so it was all a timing thing and it was just.

Speaker 2: 45:28

it was and you probably being probably still having roots in some of the military stuff that you've done like um, I hunted, I went to kyrgyzstan in 2021, okay, and it was post-covid. So there was the, the whole, you know, mass protocol. There was all the, the testing and all that we had to do. I remember I this is how crazy it is Get to LAX, do the, do the PCR test, which is the $150 test, the rapid 150 bucks land in the next place, do another one. So I'm like, I'm like literally between the last two hour connection, like I got a test again and I had to pay for it. You know, we just all these tests, all this crap, right Um, august of 2021. And you may remember this, when the Taliban, um, went into Kabul and took over, the airspace.

Speaker 2: 46:17

Yep, like I had just got back from British Columbia, had a week in between hunts. I had done a stone sheep hunt in British Columbia and I was literally backed up to this hunt in Kyrgyzstan. All this stuff was happening in Kabul before. I had no service in BC, totally remote 14 day backpack hunt. I get back into LA and I'm seeing all this stuff going off. No, airspace can't fly over Afghanistan. Well, kyrgyzstan, you got to kind of fly through Afghanistan. Well, faa had set regular like um, um, no fly zones all around Afghanistan. Like there were no airplanes flying around Afghanistan because they were Taliban. I mean there were videos of them on airplanes with fully autos. I mean it was the whole thing that the takeover.

Speaker 2: 46:57

they did so my mom, of course she's you know she's always worried when I travel. I always try to tell her I'm like you know, mom, it's like most places I go, like I I am. I feel more feared for my life in downtown Oakland than I do in a lot of places.

Speaker 1: 47:13

Oh, for sure.

Speaker 2: 47:13

Like it's just as bad in a lot of places in the in America than it is anywhere else. But so, anyway, um, we, we fly from LAX to Istanbul, connect there and we fly into Bishkek, which is the capital of Kyrgyzstan. Kyrgyzstan is five to 7 million people. Probably seven, eighths of that population is in Bishkek. Like there is, I think, less than a million people outside of the actual capital. Really, over 70% of the country is over 10,000 feet. Like it's when you just look, you just look up and you're like, okay, that's where I got to go to get the iPad. I mean it's, it's very, very, um I don't know what the word is Like when it's not like fearful, but like when you go into those mountains you're like, okay, I got to have like my game face on Right. But anyway, we land in Bishkek.

Speaker 2: 48:03

We had to do, they had to alter the flight path because of of flying near Afghanistan, which was kind of like you know, whatever, like you know, planes are traveling everywhere every day. You know, um, it was during COVID, so there was that whole unknown. You know, am I going to be able to fly back? You know it. Just there were so many unknowns about about the world at that time and traveling internationally was you know, you had to have all these quarantine plans. I mean, dude, I think back now and I, I, I told myself am I going to laugh or cry when I look back on what we did during that time and seriously, there's parts of me that want to cry to think about what we did during that time.

Speaker 1: 48:40

Oh really.

Speaker 2: 48:41

Well, just like we really did that, like, what, like, what. Well, like, I just think, like in my corporate world, we would literally we couldn't be in a conference room, but we would sit with masks on in the office You're there, she's over there and we would have a meeting on teams like this looking at each other, but we couldn't have a meeting in a meeting room, like that stuff. To me, I just like you know, we've just we've totally gone crazy. Anyway, long story short, um, we do our hunt and we have a phenomenal hunt and we get back to Bishkek.

Speaker 2: 49:12

Um shot two really good Ibex and it was, it was the quintessential um travel, you know, 20 some hours. Get in a Land Cruiser 14 hour, drive nothing out of Bishkek. There's no domestic flights in Kyrgyzstan, it's. You get in a vehicle and you drive. Then we get back. We get to camp overnight, get on horses the next day for six hours, cross these just torrential, huge rivers on horses, cut into these glacial mountains, like it's. I've got a video on it. It's, it's an unbelievable trip. We do the hunt, we get off the mountain, we get back. We had one last night in camp. We get back to Bishkek and part of like traveling with the animals like um which actually ended up being a good thing Um, you can fly home and travel, like with Ibex, if you get your CITES permit, which is basically your import permit to take them back. You can put them in check bags and bring them home and that saves you a year from having to wait to clear customs, saves you the fee to have them shipped.

Speaker 1: 50:11

How are you putting these in check bags?

Speaker 2: 50:14

Are you knocking the horns off the skull? Yeah, so they boil the skulls. The horns come off because they're a goat, and then the hides they salt treat, or the sheaths. I should say sorry, yep, exactly, there are sheaths that go over the skull, so the skull's boiled, no brains in it, no, you know any of that neurological material. The horns come off, they're banded together and then the, the, the hide or the cape is salted and closed. So I mean literally one soft-sided bag. I had two ibex in that thing that I checked as a, as a as a check on that, I'd never even heard of that.

Speaker 2: 50:43

It's when people tell me they're going, I always tell them I said make sure your outfitter can get you all your permits ahead of time so you can travel home with them, cause it'll save you thousands of dollars and shipping and all that other stuff.

Speaker 1: 50:55

Well, years to get it back, years to get it back.

Speaker 2: 50:58

Right, I've got stuff sitting in Turkey. Right now I've got I mean, I've got a lot of stuff sitting because of US Swisher Wildlife having problems getting the import permits. So, anyway, we finish our hunt. We get our PCR test because we had to do the, the a negative test. Well, my camera guy and the other guy with me, they both tested positive, of course. So we're like. So back then it was the 10 day quarantine.

Speaker 1: 51:19

Like how are you coming down with COVID in the middle of Chizikistan?

Speaker 2: 51:24

Like the being in the mouth, the one place you want to be, where, yeah, covid doesn't even exist in these places, right?

Speaker 1: 51:32

I'm surprised they were even playing by the bullshit rules.

Speaker 2: 51:36

I know Well. The problem was is for us to actually get on our Turkish airline flight. We had to prove a negative test.

Speaker 1: 51:43

Okay.

Speaker 2: 51:43

So, anyway, they made that happen Cause they you know, they basically just the lady came and did the swab. That was the worst swab I've ever had. She, she put that thing in both of my nostrils and I felt like she was like tickling the back of my brain, dude.

Speaker 1: 51:56

I'll be honest with you. I've never had a COVID test. None of my kids, none of us in this family. We've never been tested. Yeah.

Speaker 2: 52:02

I was against all that, the jab, all of it. But it was like to travel. You had to do the test. Oh, I get it, and uh, so anyway. So we do the test. One big one, or actually a couple of them, come back negative. So that delayed us a day, which actually was okay, because we were still getting the permits to be able to take our animals home.

Speaker 2: 52:19

Well, during this time, somehow, like the Fox News of Kyrgyzstan it's called Sovoda, I think S-V-O-D-K-A. I was going back and trying to prompt my mind so I could tell the story, because this was four or five years ago the Fox News of the country of Kyrgyzstan somehow, somehow got a picture of me with my Ibex and it says American hunters come to our country, hunt Red Book animals. They need to be thrown in jail, blah, blah, blah. So I start getting all of this mail and it and I'm not kidding you Like I could not keep up with my Instagram DMs deleting or blocking. They were coming in that fast, cause what had happened was is somehow this photo got out, this news forum put it on their Instagram feed and then it just got shared. I mean message from the Instagram account, like the verified Instagram account saying we are putting your Instagram account on hold for 14 days. Blah, blah, blah. Dude. It blew up everywhere, like all over the country, was this picture me and my buddy, andy, behind this IBEC.

Speaker 1: 53:42

It was legal 100%.

Speaker 2: 53:43

But back to our conversation about education. People there think that ibex are you know, it's like a cow in india. Like you don't eat cow there. It's a sacred animal. Like there are people in those countries that have no idea what we, as americans, bring as tourism to these countries. We bring life to these people, right? So this went on for two weeks where hate mail hate mail. They were finding me through my YouTube account. They were finding me through um. They found emails that I had attached where I was getting death threats. You should die. The same way these animals did. I mean all that stuff, right, just kept going and going. And um, my buddy asked me he goes are you worried about this? Like is this like, and I'm like. I mean I am, but I'm not like. What are they going to do? We're already back in the States. We've got our animals.

Speaker 1: 54:37

Thank.

Speaker 2: 54:38

God you brought them back Right. Absolutely no-transcript can think of. Is we? We whatsapp pictures to our outfitter and our guides oh, did they send them and that and all well. Then they started reaching out to me cause they were like this is getting bad, like Russia's involved, and I mean we were right on the Chinese border where we had to clear. That was another part of the story. We had to literally go through a small part of China and we had to clear our rifles. I mean, everything in in Asian countries it's military police. You've been to Argentina. You, you, you, everything is military police there. They're all MPs, they all have fully autos. Like. They're not like our. You know customs people or whatever. Like they're like if something goes down, they can protect themselves.

Speaker 2: 55:55

You know we had this little debacle with a serial number issue which ended up being a. It was a, it was a. It was basically a typo, but it was a, it was a. It was basically a typo, but it caused this little bit of. You know they start questioning and you know they speak Russian, kyrg. So it's like. It's like a Russian basis, but they have kind of their own dialect of Kyrg is what it's called in Kyrgyzstan. So you're just like your head's, just like spinning Cause you're thinking, okay, this might be it, I might be like that American gets thrown in Russian prison, you know, or Chinese prison, but um, but no, we get back. All this stuff just gets crazy.

Speaker 2: 56:31

And this went on for about a month and then it just slowly started to just like nobody cares anymore taper out Like it was the next thing, but like how that happened and like how that photo got onto their like national news in that country and it was like, literally, it was like Americans come to our country, hunt red book animals. They need to be prosecuted for this If you see them. Blah, blah, blah. And I was just like and I'm serious Like when I got that message, when I saw it from the official Instagram account. They're like we are putting your, your account on hold for 14 days just because of I was getting reported so much. They were reporting me, you know, and that's what antis do They'll tag, they'll tag all their anti buddies in a comment somewhere and then they just go report your account, report your account, and that's what happened. And then it got had to got reported so many times. They were just doing that out of basically a favor for me to be like okay, we need to, like we're going to let you disappear. We're going to cut this guy for a while. You know, like cause they see my stuff Like yeah, I'm a hunter and all that, but it's like nothing I do on there. All the photos are good, I respect the animals. Like I don't sit over the animal and like hold the antlers or that, just from coming off, covid the whole thing with Afghanistan, like wondering, are we going to get there, you know. And then we're in Kyrgyzstan. Bordering those countries is Taliban, you know, like you. Just, you never know.

Speaker 2: 57:55

I went to Turkey in 2022. At the same time, russia invaded Ukraine. All this was happening. Of course, my mom and my mom's a common theme in all this, because she's always worried. She's like is this safe, honey? I'm like I'm gonna land in istanbul, I'm gonna take a small plane, I'm gonna be in the middle of the mountains. Like I'm 100, you know, comfortable with doing this.

Speaker 2: 58:16

Well, the overnight we had in this little village town it wasn't the night we stayed in the, the little house that I told you about, where they didn't have windows. We stayed in a hotel and then we drove to that. Turkey got fled, with Russians and Ukrainians. Because what happened was is when Russia invaded, like Ukraine sits, like the Dead Sea sits here, turkey sits here Mediterranean, you got Russia and Ukraine and part of Ukraine touches Turkey on the northwestern side. All these people fled into Turkey. So they were everywhere. There were Ukrainians, or I mean you can just tell like when you look at like kind of Russian people they have that kind of that. Look like they're no, like just the way they talk right.

Speaker 2: 58:56

Yeah, everywhere, and I was just kind of like I mean I think it's safe, like I mean you know, but nothing ever happened. But it was like that was just another time where I timing was like you know, you book these trips years in advance right, for sure.

Speaker 2: 59:11

Then you're getting ready to go and all of a sudden, you know this, what's been a cold war for how long blows up, and yeah, and then you got all these people dying in the, in the. So it's just like. So that was in the hunt, the hunt was great, but that was just another example of like, like. You can't make this stuff up, you know. But like at the same time, unless it's super like concerning or, like you know, national level, like Homeland security threat super high.

Speaker 1: 59:49

It's not what worries me, it's getting stuck or put in jail for something, prison in some foreign country. Like that's the scariest part to me.

Speaker 2: 59:57

That scares me too, because most of the time.

Speaker 1: 59:59

I mean, you're in the mountains at 10, 15,000 foot elevation, like what are you going to run? Even if you run in a Taliban, like they're not, yeah.

Speaker 2: 1:00:07

Imagine if you had gang, big gang activity in Boise. You land in Boise, get in a car and you head North into the mountains. Yeah, You're not going to. I try to relate that to people Like that's really what it is. Yeah, you land in these big cities. Your exposure is the time you land, get your bags, get in the car and drive.

Speaker 1: 1:00:24

That's like landing in Johannesburg, you know. I mean you probably landed there a thousand times. I was just there. Yeah, get you shit. I mean they got a guy sitting in the truck to watch the bags and there's guys sitting in the back you like. Well, grab as soon as you leave.

Speaker 2: 1:00:36

I mean, it's nothing point in time, that's your biggest exposure. And you know, I don't know. I I always choose, I always tries to choose the outfitters very wisely. I always question, you know, I've got kind of a vetting process I use. Um, I've got a lot of people in industry that, hey man, I'm thinking about going here, who would you recommend? Right, it's always trying to be, I would say, as you know, careful as I can, but you just never know.

Speaker 2: 1:01:03

I was in Mozambique. I talked a little bit about the buffalo hunt, but poachers, I mean we run into poachers during my hunt. We run into illegal fishermen. Dude, it's like what do you think about when you hear about poachers in Africa? Like people are like out there shooting them. Right, they're hunting poachers. Like anti-poaching units and operations. When you really get to understand them, it Like anti-poaching units and operations, when you really get to understand them, it's actually not about hunting the poachers. It's actually about catching them and either giving them jobs to come and work for you and pay them because they're actually the best hunters, absolutely. And some of the outfitters have figured out when they catch these poachers they'll pay them to be guides and skinners. So they're not out poaching because there's some. I mean there's no better hunters out there than guys that basically do it illegally for a living, right, as bad as that sounds. So there's actually kind of um, it's like kind of like using terror against terrorism. It's like it's not like if you can't beat them, join them. It's like use their own skills, you know to to to better you type of thing, right.

Speaker 2: 1:02:02

So we're on this trail and we're looking for Buffalo and and uh, they ride bicycles there. That's how they like they. They don't have much. I mean people in Mozambique it's. I mean you probably saw in Johannesburg and you've been to Africa. Like those Metro places there's wealth outside of that. It is as third world is anywhere in the world. And it like it's always grounding to me because when I come home I'm like I look at you know I sit and I sit down and I got, you know, food in the fridge, I got a phone, I got a car. Like these people don't have that stuff. You know it's like it's so it's so grounding to do these trips.

Speaker 2: 1:02:38

But anyway, we're, we're driving in the cruiser and my pH stops. He gets out and he's just frustrated because poachers push animals off these guys' concessions, right. Fishermen push hippos and crocs out of the rivers. Well, when they've got hunters coming, they're spending a lot of money to come to Africa to hunt. And they've got these guys illegally fishing, netting fish and then, you know, basically selling them in the in the towns to make money. They're pushing all the animals out of there.

Speaker 2: 1:03:07

So it it's a problem, it's a legit problem and uh, anyway, we're, we're driving, we catch, we catch the bike bicycle track, we take it down and we catch it.

Speaker 2: 1:03:18

And then they ended up being actually guys that had they make boats out of bark tree bark like cano's. It's amazing, yeah, they, I've got some videos. So, um, one of our lead trackers went, had the guys come over and they were illegal fishermen, they didn't have fishing licenses, basically, but you could tell, like they were blowing a lot of the animals out of the area and, uh, I didn't know what to expect. Like, do these guys have guns to the like, you don't know, like I had a bow, like we had a three 75 in the truck, but like I, you know, I don't know what to expect. And you know, they basically end up checking their license, license is expired and they're on basically private property, cause this is a concession that the government land technically owns, but the outfitter gets the ability to guide and it's like his, his concession, right yeah, mozambique's wild. There's no fences, like that's what's cool about it, it is as wild as it comes.

Speaker 2: 1:04:13

Yeah, you're driving and there's a lion sitting in the bush like gets up and starts. Yeah, I mean, just that's. That's Mozambique. But there was an. I told my camera guy I'm like you need to like video.

Speaker 2: 1:04:23

This Cause, like this is stuff that people don't realize what happens behind the scenes of, of Americans come pay all this money and they don't realize the problem of poaching and illegal fishing there. So that was kind of a just an interesting day. It ended up being a day deal where we kind of lost a day out of it. But oh, that sucks, yeah, because then they got to take these guys and detain them, they bring them into camp and then somebody's got to drive them in and all they do is they take them back into town and they end up right back in there again. Oh for sure. But my pH was telling me how what they've done, like I say, with some of the poachers is he pays them to work to. You know, because these, these people are destitute. They'll do anything to shoot an animal, sell the meat, do whatever some of it's just for survival.

Speaker 1: 1:05:11

You know that and so okay. So this is where I've always been torn on the counter poaching stuff in africa, because obviously the rhinos, the the um elephants and things like that, 100 the ivory right, that's the% the ivory right, that's the value the ivory. But then they're catching these guys that have like a snared warthog and this dude's just. I mean I would be doing the same thing If I had to provide for my family. There's no loss, 100% when it comes to taking care of my wife and kids.

Speaker 1: 1:05:38

There's no law that I'm going to get in my way to be able to feed them, Right. So that's where it's like. I mean, are they real? I get it, it's poaching considered for them, but at the same time they can't just go to the store.

Speaker 2: 1:05:50

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 1:05:50

You know they got to provide somehow. So then you're almost in like this torn situation where it's like fuck man, I get what the dude's doing, but like, where else do they have that opportunity? Cause everything's leased up by these concessions, that's it.

Speaker 2: 1:06:01

Yeah, and that's honestly you've hit it Like. He'll load them up, he'll drive them into town. You know, tell them don't do that. You know they'll tell the authorities, authorities don't do anything there. And they, yeah, they just they. If the problem is is if they don't end up there, they'll end up somewhere else.

Speaker 2: 1:06:20

And I appreciate I've been that I've got really interested in it. I'm working with a company over in Mozambique that does basically they're, a complete anti-poaching operation and I do a fundraiser where I'm helping fund some of the units there. But, um, all it does is it doesn't stop the poaching, it just moves it. So like if this guy's got a problem but he's spending a ton of money, uh, boots on the ground, hiring guys on motorcycles to get them they won't be on his concession, if you will it just moves them somewhere else. It doesn't really stop it, it just essentially moves it somewhere else. So the hunting gets great where his place is. But it could get even worse where someone else can't patrol it, someone doesn't have the money to patrol it.

Speaker 2: 1:07:01

What's the solution? I don't know, I think. I think a lot of it is um, and I don't know how, even with. I think a lot of it comes back to education. But how do you educate people that have never been in school, never lived their life at all, with understanding anything about conservation? What the animals use is for, like what it does, you know it's life cycle. Like these people, it's strictly survival. Oh, a hundred percent and a hundred percent. So I've learned. Since my trip I've worked with a. There's an organization, dallas Safari. There's a gal she's like, she's doing a PhD on anti-poaching in a certain area of Mozambique that I was actually near and it's I'm working with her. I'm actually going to try to help fund some of her, some of her, um, some of her doctorate, but, um, it'll be interesting to see, because that's one of the things she talks about. It's one of those things that will never go away. I think you just have to slow it down.

Speaker 1: 1:07:55

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 1:07:56

That's all you can do, like it's almost like gangs and cartel, like you can deter it from one place, but that doesn't mean it's going to end, it's going to stop. Right, so anyway, it's stuff like that. I mean, when I flew to Argentina 2007 was the first international trip I ever did Went and did a um stag and a bunch of stuff down in Argentina. And we get off the plane and everyone hunting down there in March is hunting birds. I mean, you know that's dove is like yeah.

Speaker 2: 1:08:25

It's like the reason you go to Argentina. Well, me and my buddy are the only two that have big game rifles yeah, big game hunters. So they're all checking their shotguns, whatever. And then we show up with, you know, our two 70, 30 odd six and and we didn't have, like we're in this interrogation room, military police MPs got their fully autos and they're looking at our paperwork. We have all our stuff from you know, the U? S that shows caliber, blah, blah, blah. How many bullets do you have? Going through all that, visas, all the information, and they speak Portuguese in Argentina, which is like a Spanish dialect, but it's so fast, like I don't know what your experience was, but like I was even having a hard time picking up on words.

Speaker 1: 1:09:04

Nothing.

Speaker 2: 1:09:05

Because they were speaking. So, and this is 2007. I don't have um, you know, translate on my phone, which now, like you I don't know if you knew this this is like a cheat code you can download um different languages onto your translate app, whether you have Google or whether you have an iPhone. So even when you're off like because usually they only would work when you have service Now you can download languages where, if you don't have service, they'll still work. So, anyway, pretty cool. Wish I would have had that back then, didn't had a dictionary that would basically translate from English to Spanish.

Speaker 2: 1:09:37

We are in there sitting there writing out with this basically trans I mean, the book was that thick writing out like what we were doing, cause they didn't understand we weren't bird hunting. Why do you have these high power, high caliber rifles, you know, yeah. And then, like in some countries like Mexico, if you bring a five, five, six, or a seven, six, two, that's anything military, that's a huge problem, that's anything military, that's a huge problem. So that's like a no, no, but like not knowing that guys bring two, two, threes, or bring, you know, three, oh, eights, which is basically the same caliber, ground can become a problem. Anyway, ended up being where we ended up getting through and we literally had to like we were in there an hour like writing sentences from English to Spanish using this dictionary, just to like tell them hey, we're hunting big game, here's our outfitter we're hunting with. Here's his name, here's where his outfits located. We had like the brochures, we were showing them and it was like it was like talking to like a three-year-old.

Speaker 1: 1:10:34

And the best part about that is, whenever you're in these foreign countries, they never have an English translator. Oh, no, oh no, you would think with how much travel that goes on and I'm not saying it's required or this should happen, right, but you would think they'd be like man we have. We have a decent amount of guys that come through here from the united states or anywhere in the world that are just english speaking. Yep, and this would make life so much easier if you're sitting there like I have.

Speaker 1: 1:11:01

You're like, bro, I don't know what you're saying, like, what do you want from me? And it could be so frustrating.

Speaker 2: 1:11:06

That's like, like I say it's kind of a rule now, like anytime I land, it's like, okay, you're gonna have someone meet us right when we get a baggage claim, because once you get a baggage claim, you grab your rifle, then they take you in the room. The guy's there, he's got the you know because you got to get permits, all that stuff they're going through all that. They're talking, they're asking us questions, they typically can translate, which is, oh my god, like makes life you're in and out so much easier. In and out, it's just like that was my first trip and I like I learned so much from that. And then I went to africa and you know, didn't? I've been africa four times now and it's like you do these trips and every time you learn more. It's about that like experience of learning, like you just learn and I get called a lot like hey, man, I saw your trip, I want to go do that. I'll call them up and spend 30 minutes like hey, you need this, you need this, you need this, make sure you do this, you need a visa if you leave the airport, blah, blah. It's like just all the things you figure out trial by error. You know when you fumble into it and realizing that that you got to do that.

Speaker 2: 1:12:01

So, so, um, yeah, it's, I think I think I told you, but I think I've been, uh, six, six continents.

Speaker 2: 1:12:08

I haven't hunted um South, like Antarctica, or anything, but I've been over 30 countries that had something related to to hunting. Early in my career I got to spend a little bit of time in like Dubai and spend some time in UAE and um Oman and which was just totally different Like um. That was at the time when Dubai was like growing, like it wasn't, it was starting to become oil money, but there was like it was kind of on the front end of that and we had had some technology that we were doing in California that they were wanting to do with heavy oil, so there was some consulting stuff. So, like that was my first real like um, like I would say, introduction to like the world outside of north america. And then I was like 2007 went to a conservation organization and sci bought a hunt there next, you know, or in argentina, and then it's just been like this endless pursuit of you know different places, and there are certain places I would go again and there are certain places I'm like okay, check the box. Where is?

Speaker 1: 1:13:07

one country you would never go back to um, that's a good question.

Speaker 2: 1:13:15

Um, what's your least favorite country you've ever been to? Everything in South America was great. Um, I love South America. I love Africa, asia, of any place. Um, I went to Greenland a couple of years ago and it was like getting there was like like really, yeah, it was, it was.

Speaker 1: 1:13:39

I want to do. Greenland I want to take my wife to Greenland, so bad Cause she is obsessed with the Royal lights. Yeah, which I want to go there.

Speaker 2: 1:13:43

Forland, I want to take my wife to Greenland so bad because she is obsessed with the Aurora, rorealis, aurora lights, yeah, which I want to go.

Speaker 1: 1:13:46

Go there for that. I want to shoot a muskox and I want to shoot fox. Go there for that. I want to shoot foxes there.

Speaker 2: 1:13:50

For that. I mean it, it, but that's like one.

Speaker 1: 1:13:52

I wouldn't necessarily say I didn't like turkey and hunt ibex every like the coolest hunt in the world, like greenland went and did it check the box like was it not that cool? I've heard mixed reviews about greenland. That it's kind of, because I mean, let's be real, muskox isn't the most sporty animal. As soon as they know you're after, they just like turn and face you and they do a little bit.

Speaker 2: 1:14:15

I mean it was. I mean we bow hunted, so it was. It was a bit more of a challenge. But like, if you want to shoot a musk ox, don't do it in NWT, cause it's logistically, it's cold, it's 40 below, you're on snowmobiles. Like do it in Greenland, yeah the, it's like September in Idaho hunting.

Speaker 2: 1:14:31

Like it's like it's the, it's the place to go to do that it's definitely the place to go there, iceland, to see the the Northern lights night. Step out of your tent and you're looking up and you're like, wow, like really like every night we had we did some time lapses that were just they're unreal, unbelievable, but it just like we did it. We did a film on it. Film was cool, like everything was cool. I'm just kind of like man that was all right, you know.

Speaker 2: 1:14:57

But like asia, just like every time I go to asia and I've been to a lot of the, a lot of the different countries in asia I'm going to be spending all of september in mongolia this year. I've got um, you're doing an elk hunt there.

Speaker 1: 1:15:10

What's that? Are you doing the elk hunt there?

Speaker 2: 1:15:11

not really something about hunting wapiti or morale outside of north america. I just it doesn't like. I don't know, because i've've been been to Mongolia. I went two years ago and hunted both Ibex there, so I saw a video.

Speaker 1: 1:15:28

Who the hell was it? I know you've probably seen it. They were hunting bulls there in the forest was like yellow. All the weeds were yellow.

Speaker 2: 1:15:37

Yeah, it's beautiful.

Speaker 1: 1:15:39

And then they shot. They shot the elk and then they went and did two species of. Maybe it was. Was it Pedro?

Speaker 2: 1:15:45

they shot the elk and then they went and did two species of maybe it was, was it pedro.

Speaker 1: 1:15:47

Pedro impero, he, he does some pretty cool films.

Speaker 2: 1:15:48

He's the one that went with his dad.

Speaker 1: 1:15:50

Yes, yeah, so we, I was actually. Yeah, he was one of them and he shot that he does giant, he does some really his.

Speaker 2: 1:15:57

His cinematics and his videos are awesome top notch, yeah, top notch.

Speaker 1: 1:16:01

I might have been like the andas or whatever. Okay, somebody, it's somebody, I know. But uh, what's T? Maybe TJ at a Colorado.

Speaker 2: 1:16:09

TJ Sanchez, I mean he's he actually hasn't hunted Mongolia. He needs to go to Mongolia.

Speaker 1: 1:16:14

Somebody. But yeah, I watched that. I watched this video in the. It was the most beautiful forest I have in. Bulls are screaming and it was just like one of those things really you wouldn't do it over there.

Speaker 2: 1:16:25

Huh, I wouldn't say I wouldn't, but it's like I get my so much of my fix elk hunting here. Like you're talking about, man, I don't want to grind anymore. Last year in September I was 23 days straight hunting an elk in Montana, like just just it w. It was a grind to the point of I took one evening off to take my mom to dinner and I had a one call work call one morning, but other than that it was day and night. I was out chasing elk and I was pinching myself every day and every night because this was a tag it took me many years to draw 23 years max points. It was literally a place where I grew up hunting as a kid but never, ever drew an elk tag there.

Speaker 2: 1:17:00

I draw the tag and I'm just so like it was gonna be big or I was gonna eat my tag and shot a good bull. Um, but 23 days straight like that's rough and I was just, I mean, at by the end of that, I was just like, like mentally, spiritually, emotionally, just like when that animal was down, like it, just it just comes out of you, oh, you're like, you're grinding, your, your hike in, your I mean, yeah, you're, you're living like a homeless person after an animal.

Speaker 1: 1:17:27

That's, yeah, like screaming, telling you where it is all the time and you get it, especially bow hunting and I explained bow hunting to people is that you got to imagine a thousand stars and every one of those stars have to perfectly align for you to even get a shot off Right, and then you got to have some luck.

Speaker 2: 1:17:47

On top of that, a lot of luck.

Speaker 1: 1:17:49

Yeah, and especially for archery, it's one of those things that it's like, so, just because it's okay, cool, here it comes, it's on a string and then it bink or whatever.

Speaker 2: 1:17:59

Right, as you let the arrow go, he turns and, yeah, the arrow goes.

Speaker 1: 1:18:04

Windshifts. Let the arrow go. He turns and yeah, the arrow goes, wind shift something. Oh, it's some fucking dude. I've had problems. We're like a llama. We were, I was with you, this llama come running through this problem not after elk, but we were hunting, uh, turkeys. And dude, this thing's coming in on a string and this llama from nowhere. We don't even know where this thing came from because, like, screaming through where we're at, chasing these turkeys and we're all like looking at each other. Got an old video. We're dying laughing like what the fuck is a llama doing out here? But it's just one of those things like that's hunting, but yeah, it's, it's, it's interesting for sure.

Speaker 2: 1:18:35

I didn't mean to go off topic of mongolia, but no, it's just, I mean, asia is just like one of those countries like I, I could, I could go every year Like I haven't been to Pakistan and that's on my list to go and hunt there. Um, there's a lot of, there's a lot of threats there. I mean it's just just in conjunction to where it sits Like it's kind of like, you know, I mean, when you think about, like Syria I hunted on the Eastern side of Turkey my first time we were right on the border of Syria. There was a lot of stuff happening on that part of the world, right, jerusalem, I mean all that stuff is right there and you know it's like it. I would some things I would probably do and I would choose differently where I went, but I would. It still wouldn't stop me from hell. Yeah, I want to go do that, you know like um, russia is is on the list.

Speaker 2: 1:19:22

Hunting brown bear and moose is not out of a helicopter but, um, I may get the opportunity. I actually had an opportunity to do that, had a guy call me and say, hey, I literally had a last minute slash price. Can you go? Like can you be gone in a week? And it was like two weeks ago. I'm like, well, I'm, I'm here, I'm going to see my family in Montana next week. We're going to spend Easter together. Like I got all the stuff lined up. I'm like I just can't. I can't do it Like I'd love to. But so that one's on the list.

Speaker 2: 1:19:46

But you know, I've been a little resistant to Russia. Um, they started allowing visas two years ago. Guys are going there and hunting, um, but that's still kind of one of those places that wrong place, wrong time. You know you're that American in a Russian prison and you're held hostage and that stuff happens. You know, I mean how many Americans, how many military people have been held hostage in countries you know? Um, you know for how many years before we get them out. Or you know God, whatever happens, like so there's always that threat. But then it's like I could be driving home and someone you know T-bones me.

Speaker 1: 1:20:23

I mean, it's like live your life right, I mean do the things that make you happy.

Speaker 2: 1:20:28

And if you're, you know, thrill-seeking. I mean I'm not going to go bungee jumping or jump out of an airplane, but I'm going to go do cool shit like chase animals up the side of a mountain and you know like it's the million dollar question.

Speaker 1: 1:20:43

As an avid outdoorsman like yourself, if you could hunt one animal the rest of your life, what would it be?

Speaker 2: 1:20:50

It's elk man. I'm telling you, really, I love elk hunt.

Speaker 2: 1:20:54

I was not expecting that Born and raised in Montana Like um, mule deer, I love mule deer. I'm looking at your mule deer, like just, I love mule deer. Like mule deer, just do something to a guy. Like more guys do dumb shit hunting mule deer than any other species. I'll push some lines. It's like mule deer just make people make bad decisions. Because mule deer are just, they're like the quintessential To think something. Lives as far as Alberta and as far south as the Baja of Mexico. Like in everywhere in between that animal thrives Like it's. It's amazing the story of, and really the conservation story, mule deer. But now elk are elk in September or like there's. I mean, if I could only do that the rest of my life and I couldn't hunt for 10 months out of the year but hunt for two months of elk like I'd probably be a happy man.

Speaker 1: 1:21:43

Yeah, you know it's a. It's an incredible experience to be to see it's besides like, I think, turkey, maybe a couple others. It's one of the only animals that you can actually communicate with, right and and have a conversation If you want to or not, or not.

Speaker 2: 1:21:59

Let them talk and let them mess up.

Speaker 1: 1:22:00

Slip in and yeah, yeah, exactly it's kind of always been my tactic.

Speaker 2: 1:22:03

People ask man, how do you kill elk? It's like they're telling you where they are. They're screaming, you know bulls bugling or a cow's calling like get in tight and then maybe have a little chatter with them. But some of these it's funny because everyone's tactics different and I I like to learn new things like guys, bugle, bugle, bugle, bugle and it's like it can work. But like I just I don't like giving up my location but it you know it's a tactic, but no, I think elk would.

Speaker 2: 1:22:30

I've really got on the ibex bug. I've shot ibex, eight ibex in the last four or five years and I've just gotten like super interested in that species. Like I'm not chasing anything. I'm not chasing, you know, achievements or awards. Like, um, when I shot in kyrgyzstan, sci records reached out to me. They're like can you bring this to the convention? We think it could be in the top 10, maybe top five. I'm like, yeah, I don't care. Yeah, and that's what it's about. The horns are sitting in my house, not mounted, like they're sitting there, skull on the on the floor. I'm like that's cool, like one day I will get it mounted and you know, like taxidermy, whatever, but like. It's just not like. Not about that, not about the meat. It's like I want to go experience cool shit, you know, and that's like so. But elk, elk do it for me. And I'll say one cool thing about California there ain't much about it, that's cool. But one cool thing is I can start hunting elk in July in California.

Speaker 1: 1:23:24

Wild.

Speaker 2: 1:23:25

And then I'm literally hunting them till December in California and then in between that I can hunt, you know, rocky Mountain and Montana, or if I draw a tag. So I'm like I'm literally elk hunting from July till December, off and on.

Speaker 1: 1:23:37

Damn, I never even thought about that.

Speaker 2: 1:23:39

Our archery season opens in July. That's when they rut, so we're like a month forward. Are you hunting toolies, toolies, okay.

Speaker 1: 1:23:46

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 1:23:47

And then the late season rifle stuff is in December. So, um, I'm and I'm, and I'm an. I'm a guide in California, so I usually book a couple of guys a year, take them on their once in a lifetime hunt. So I've never the tag. So so I just I just there's something about elk that I just you know that animal, just it does it for me Like you know some people are everyone in the West it's mule deer.

Speaker 2: 1:24:17

You know when you ask them that question. You know if I can only hunt one thing, it's mule deer. I fricking love hunting mule deer, but elk are just, I don't know, and they taste good, it's hard to hard to beat a good elk tenderloin.

Speaker 1: 1:24:29

So yeah, but yeah, it'd probably be elk. Let's say mine's probably bears, bears or elk. Yeah, I love bears, I just obsess over them yeah, I just want to want a giant bear steps out your predators are. There's something about predators um bears, dogs, lions when you can get close you know it's like that close and get inside of a predator's bed like their own kitchen, and they have no idea you're there and you could slip in, and Exactly that to me is that to me is awesome.

Speaker 2: 1:24:54

It is. I mean, lions do that for me. Um, I haven't done a lot of bear hunting. I did a one hunt on Kodiak and it was a 10 day deal. Didn't shoot a bear. I was a bow hunt and was supposed to go back. Never went back. I've shot a few black bears like never really got the bear bug, yeah. But cats yeah, cats definitely do it. I've never shot a wolf. It's probably top two or three on my list right now. Okay. But my thing is like I don't really want to like pay a bunch of money, go to Alberta, sit over bait and shoot a wolf. Like I want to be in the deep forest to Idaho and hear one you know howling and come across it and like literally shoot it in its own habitat. Like that's how I want to hunt a wolf.

Speaker 1: 1:25:37

Like I need to get you connected. Do you know Luke Sterling?

Speaker 2: 1:25:39

Oh yeah, yeah, I know who he is.

Speaker 1: 1:25:41

I don't know he's a good buddy of mine and uh.

Speaker 2: 1:25:44

I know that dude, he levels them. Yeah, I see a social media stuff. It's crazy.

Speaker 1: 1:25:50

Yeah, so it's like Doubled up with his son a couple of years ago.

Speaker 2: 1:25:53

Really.

Speaker 1: 1:25:54

Yeah, Called the whole pack in his son dumped one. He grabbed the gun from bank and yeah have you ever been out in the forest and heard one that just that, that roar, just that low?

Speaker 2: 1:26:09

I don't think people understand how at least for me, the first time I heard it it's the eeriest sound it is like the first time I heard it was actually in idaho, um, at the time it was married before my brother-in-law from here and we went up and we went above Lucky Peaks Lake and some spots up there. I heard that first howl and it like and I've, and I've been, had been hunting for 20 years Montana like never seen one in the wild, heard the howl. 20 minutes later ended up seeing one I had. I had killed an elk and was eating on the elk, but it was like eerie.

Speaker 2: 1:26:45

And then last year got onto a couple different wolves. It wasn't during season, um, but I got. There was a, there was a like an alpha male, black, and then like a, a silver tip one with it six, 700 yards away. And I was just videoing them, phone, scoping them and send it to a couple of buddies and they're like I was waiting for the gunshot, like what do you do? I'm like well, it wasn't seasoned, but, um, there, there's something about wolves though that just like.

Speaker 2: 1:27:08

Make your hair stand on the back of your neck A hundred percent Like they're just I don't know. It's like, it's just the whole predator thing. And predators have a stigma of oh it's a dog, oh the bear you know like. Or the lion stuff, oh it's a cat Like. How could you do that?

Speaker 2: 1:27:23

It's like these animals they're, I mean they're leveling like, and I think of lions in California. It's a great example. I mean our deer populations have absolutely tanked over the years because when they stopped the bear, they they put the ban on lion hunting in the eighties, nineties in California. Lions have just taken over everywhere. I mean they're in people's backyards, you know. They're eating people's pets. Bears are getting out of hand in California, you know, and they stopped the use of dogs in California years ago. Well, they've never hit quotas since then, you know, and bears are going to continue to procreate, you know. And if they're not, if they're, and you know, like a bear, it's like a pig bear, it's like a pig. I mean they can live to be 10, 15 years old they got a boar.

Speaker 1: 1:28:03

I mean, I had my buddy.

Speaker 2: 1:28:06

I have a buddy that killed one and I think they aged it like 20 years old or 19 years old no surprise, like so, you got an animal that, probably within 15 years of its life, is procreating every year, putting out two to three cubs at that age every year, right? So anyway, predators it. That's a whole other conversation, because it's. There's that a that hits a bone with a lot of people differently because of Any Disney character any Disney animal, don't even, don't even public it Right.

Speaker 2: 1:28:35

And I know a lot of guys that don't like they're avid predator hunters and you know they run dogs, they treat cats, all that and whatever. But it's like like they just they don't have a big presence on social media because of that.

Speaker 1: 1:28:45

Like the hate community is just it's out there I think the worst thing for, like the predator community, especially hound hunters, I get it, I completely get it. You put in all this work with your dogs. You're running them all season. Try running them. Right season finally opens up. We don't have to post a video of your cat or the bear falling out of the tree and just smacking branches I get it.

Speaker 1: 1:29:13

Dogs, just dogs stretching this thing out. Like I get it. It's that you're, you feel rewarded because your dogs just did everything, that you train them for that moment, right, but it's bro, I see these videos and I'm like, oh my god, like even for me, I'm like I would like why, we have to be out there.

Speaker 2: 1:29:34

We, the hunting community, are our own worst enemy. 100 like that stuff gets out there, and that's the stuff that's all they see. It's all they see, yeah it's not the ethic you talked about the ethical side and you know you don't want the animal to suffer Like that.

Speaker 2: 1:29:49

A lot of times that story is not told either. Or you know just the the moral principles of what hunting is like. No, it's that gets put on a platform, that's what gets to you. Or the animal's still alive and it's suffering, and that people post that and people want to like in today's age. And, yeah, and that's what gets you know, pushed across all the platforms and gives what we want to do and love to do such a bad name. But we are truly in most respects. Even the conservation organizations. I support them. I do all the shows with, with the company I work with. I love supporting the conservation stuff, but all they want to do is tear each other down. They rah, rah, rah the animal. Oh, we're putting more animals back on the mountain, but at the same time they're trying to tear the next one down.

Speaker 2: 1:30:33

And it's like guys, we need to unite on these fronts because the antis are going after this one and this one differently and they're smart enough to know now how to go at certain things to get certain. Like Colorado's going crazy right now, right, binding lion hunting. I mean they're like on the path of California, but like they're figuring out ways to get legislation passed, that they're sliding it into certain things or or wording it certain ways that people don't realize the next thing you know, oh, you can't hunt lions anymore, right? Fortunately, there's been unified fronts with these organizations. Bear hunting in California that was on the docket four years ago, right. And it's like, if we stop bear hunting in California, like the population has doubled in the last 10 years. Like that's proven science. Like they actually finally use science and biology to look at. Imagine that, yeah Right. Imagine that, yeah Right. Not emotion, and they're finding that okay. Like, um, they're talking about reinstating the use of dogs again in California for bears. Like going the other way.

Speaker 1: 1:31:34

Yeah, that never happens. I feel they're going to have to eventually. For mountain lions, I mean, I have a buddy that was a canine unit in California. A mountain lion came out of the, the foothills went. He was four streets in, so four blocks in from where he was at, and his service canine was in a kennel out back.

Speaker 1: 1:31:56

But those tall ones that don't have a top on it right mountain lion went in and ate the whole entire gut, everything killed this canine dog and comes home and goes out to let his dog out and it's-.

Speaker 2: 1:32:07

Eviscerated.

Speaker 1: 1:32:07

I have pictures. I'm sure he could send me pictures, but done.

Speaker 2: 1:32:12

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 1:32:12

And from a mountain lion. And it's like holy shit. If that mountain lion's willing to do that, like good luck, leaving your little foo-foo dog in the backyard. It's going to be a. And now you look at these coyotes running the streets broad daylight in some of these neighborhoods.

Speaker 2: 1:32:24

They can be. I mean a pack of coyotes can easily take down a fawn. I mean bucks that get old, older and after a rut season, a week, yeah, about three or four coyotes, a pack of coyotes, that buck's done Easy. So it's like, yeah, I mean, it is truly. I mean survival for these animals, and predators eat other animals. I mean I get the circle of life you know better than anybody Like, but I also think they need to be managed too, for sure. It's like we manage the heck out of whitetail, we manage the heck out of mule deer. You know, we've got great stories to tell. You know bison, north American bison we're almost extinct in this country, and now look at how they're thriving T thriving. Thule elk in California is another great example of a conservation success. But predators need to be managed too, for sure. But it's such a touchy Emotion, feely, it's all emotions, you know, and the one good thing, though, is some states are becoming more, I would say, open about the science and the biology around what these animals.

Speaker 2: 1:33:20

They're putting collars on them, they're using telemetry to see what their range is, where they're going. You know wolves can move, you know, hundreds of miles. Grizzly bears come out of Glacier Park and they end up in the big hole of Montana and they cross major interstates to do that. Yellowstone they I mean it's insane where these grizzly bears go and how far they go. They've got them from the Yellowstone that have that have been tracked and collared into central Montana. Yeah, mountains and major highways and freeways and you know, and with same thing With an ease too.

Speaker 2: 1:33:56

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 1:33:56

And then they'll just go right back. They just do a loop right back.

Speaker 2: 1:33:59

I know it's insane, like I need. I know I need to get back to here Cause that Sal's going to be in heat and at this time, but they're traveling, looking for, trying to find that. I mean it's, it's bizarre when you really look at how some like and I think of like Elkin California, they have the best life in the world. They don't have to migrate, they don't have to go anywhere. They probably live geographically within 10 miles their whole life, whereas Elkin Wyoming they could move up to four or 500 miles, you know just to migrate out of an area so they can survive. You know like. Or Montana, like just.

Speaker 2: 1:34:31

But it's like you think of these animals in North America, I think of mule deer. It's like the perfect example of something that lives in Alberta, where it's cold as hell in the States, and then in the Baja California where it's a hundred and some degrees and thrives like. It's just, animals are so resilient and they just adapt to you know their environment, you know that's just what they do. So anyway, yeah, I could, I could go on, man, but yeah, it's.

Speaker 1: 1:34:55

What's the wildest adventure that you've ever been on Like? Have you had any near death experiences hunting Any close calls?

Speaker 2: 1:35:18

Um nothing like I would say. Like came charging at me or um. You know, my Buffalo hunt was got a little Western. Um hit my Buffalo, ran off. Um thought he was. I mean I hit him in the heart, made a really good shot on him and um spun around.

Speaker 2: 1:35:28

Two other bulls came, hit him from the front, hit him like animals know when, like the, like the boss or the you know the herd bull has been hit or he's, you know, he's, he's hurt, you know, around and uh, my pH had a had a four, 70, double, you know, that's like between three, seven, five, you know, uh, or uh, you know, four, five, eight, or a four, four, 70. And anyway, the thing ended up inadvertently going off Like there was just kind of a bit of a shit show that happened, but, um, that wasn't like a near death experience. But when you hunt, like Buffalo, like when you hunt an animal, that I mean it could trample you or eat you in a matter of seconds. Like we were driving, this is Mozambique and this is wild, we're driving and and my pH stops and the trackers on top they start tapping the top of the truck and we look over to our right and they start talking in their, in their language, and we'll end up being a. Like a five-year-old lion was sitting in the grass.

Speaker 1: 1:36:26

I mean, I'm sitting there, binoculars, like where are you guys looking and it's like right here in the grass and I'm looking, I'm like I can't see him.

Speaker 2: 1:36:34

All of a sudden you see him, just move his head. Enough when they get in that grass, it is incredible how a male lion can just I mean camouflage. So he goes, check this out. He connects his phone to Bluetooth and he has a speaker on the truck like an external speaker and he starts like a, a male, like a, a male charge, like that's, like this sound that males do like before they're getting ready to like. So he plays that. The male gets up and then he does it back to us and he just starts. He just starts growling at us. You can feel, and I'm just like uh, so I get.

Speaker 2: 1:37:10

I we were outside of the truck. I get in the truck and my pH's wife, she's like get ready, get ready, like cause he was probably still a hundred yards, but he said probably two to three seconds he would be at us Like if he wanted to charge. So then we get back in the truck, he's going, we drive. And one thing about African PHS, and you may experience this they're pretty cocky, like oh, you know, he grabs his four, seven. He starts walking out too. He's like come on, so I get out of the truck and I'm kind of walking, the line stops and he starts slapping his tail on the ground, like I mean like a slap, that would be like, you know, if you took a towel and like like a slapped out, hard hit in the ground and I'm like, no, I'm good. So I come walking back but never obviously charged us, but like that animal is so powerful, oh, and like so big you don't realize how big they are and like even leopards.

Speaker 2: 1:38:02

Like I hunted a leopard and that was like that was a, that was a like super interesting experience because you know, leopards, guys can run them with dogs, but like they bait them a lot of times in Mozambique and and uh, you're hunting them at night, cause that's when they come in. Shooting a leopard during the day it can be done, but it's pretty uncommon that they find them during the day. But you know you get this cat that that gets up in this tree and starts eating a baboon and this is like the best predator hunter in the world. Like you've seen like videos where Jaguars jump out of like things, grab a fricking big old croc or whatever and like pull it up and like pull it into a tree and it's like still like the animals are just, it's so impressive, like leopards are like the most impressive animal, like seeing them alive in the wild. It's. I mean, it's like hearing a wolf howling.

Speaker 2: 1:38:53

Like it's just, and they like grab on to the baboon's arm and like one bite and it's literally snaps the arm, like their jaws are so stinking strong, like so, anyway, shoot this, anyway, shoot this, shoot this leopard. How many nights did you sit? I sat five nights. Oh, you got lucky. I got lucky. I mean everyone I talked to. They're like be prepared to go back. Right, I mean you're gonna leopard. Huh, like sat for 14 days. Yep, sat 14 days. Nothing on bait. Well, we had like five baits out and five or six baits and like three of the baits were all getting hit. Well, this lie, the, the cat that ended up shooting, it was with a female and they were a mating herd. Well, the problem was, is it's really hard to tell the difference in a male and a female?

Speaker 2: 1:39:36

okay and you don't want to shoot a female, that's a problem, right, especially because it's it's against the law. So we were. There was always these two moving around and one would get up, would eat some of the baboon or the water buck, come down. The other one would get up. Well, really, the only way you can tell is you just see their nuts. Like you got to get the right angle.

Speaker 1: 1:39:53

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 1:39:53

And um, to tell whether or not, like it's got nuts. You can also kind of tell, like the way their heads are shaped a little bit differently than the, than the females anyway, the male's in the tree and he's literally just hammering this baboon and we're looking and pete's like, oh, it's the female. So we, you know, like my heart rate goes back down. All of a sudden we pull up their phone and I start looking and we've, we there's trail cameras he has on the tree, because when we're not there at night, if we're not sitting, that one we want to know is a male coming in, right. So we start looking at the trail camera photos and we start looking and, okay, we're looking at this male. Their spots are called rosettes, okay, and there was this one distinct rosette on the male, on its left side actually it was on its right side because that he was he was turned so on its right side it was this little distinct rosette that basically gave him away from any other cat we were looking at, just stood out. We're sitting there and you're on them. Well, you have a green light on them, right. So I'm just sitting there and I'm like looking at this thing and look back on my phone and my pH is right behind me and the drill was if he clenches me twice, it's the male. Shoot, right. So we're looking. And we're looking and pull up my phone. He had the pictures too. He's looking at his phone, he grabs my binoculars, looks. I mean normally the cats will come eat for five, ten minutes, leave the tree, come back. So he's been on this bait for like 15 minutes. Oh, okay, he's just like shoot that fucking cat. And I'm just like so. I'm like already, like I'm okay, he's just like shoot that fucking cat. And I'm just like so I'm like already. Like I'm calm, right, okay, it's the female. And right now I'm getting like the hair sticking up on my hands because it was like zero to 160 miles an hour. Like, okay, it's the male. I got to pull the shot off, right, shoot, the cat goes up in the tree, hits the ground. My camera guy got on video so we're able to watch. Like everything looked good. Hits the ground, rustles in that deep growl that those cats do Like like it was him. It was his death growl.

Speaker 2: 1:41:54

But we didn't know there were five of us in the blind me, my pH, his wife and two camera guys. We let it sit an hour, we get out. The rest of the crew comes because we had radios, we radioed them. 10 guys showed, 15 people were walking up. You've probably heard horror stories of wounded leopards. Oh yeah, right, and basically what my pH and he was like educating us. He's like looks like a good shot, but you know, wooded leopard is is probably the worst animal other than a Cape Buffalo to go in on Right or like a lion, but a leopard is. You know they're. They're in the top two to three like worst wounded animals. So we're walking up and I'm just like you know, I'm not like freaking out, I know I made a good shot, but you just you never know, right, you just nick something, or did you only get one lung, like you're always wondering.

Speaker 2: 1:42:43

And uh, here I am and I've got my bow right, and then everyone else is there and they've got a three, seven, five, he's got his four, 70. So we've got, and then, and then the other tracker had a nine millimeter. So I felt like okay, but he told me he goes, a wounded leopard will just pick one.

Speaker 2: 1:42:58

Like he's not going to jump and he's just going to, like, wipe everyone out. If he's wounded and he's sitting there and we're coming at him, he's going to pick one person and that's who he's going to go after. And what they'll do is they'll run and they'll they'll jump, they'll try to grab you by the head. Their feet and their claws will get you in their stomach and they'll just tear and they'll try to tear your, your intestines out, and then their hands will wrap around you on the back and they'll just pull you in and then they take their feet and they just start clawing. I only know that because one of the skinners was called. He was a part of the bite club. Well, he got the leopard, grabbed his arm and then caught up and then got one swipe and basically cut him open.

Speaker 2: 1:43:39

Now a lot of times people die from the infection, for sure, not like from the wounds of, like you know, the, the actual what the animal does. But uh, cat ended up being dead there. It was perfect shot, he was dead. So I was like like the biggest sigh of relief of my life, but like that minute of us getting out of the blind and walking up to where we thought he was. Like it's dark, you know it's it's 11 o'clock at night, we all got flashlights Like yeah.

Speaker 2: 1:44:06

And it's like I got this line of guys like it's probably not going to be me, but who in this group of 10, like Rochambeau, like who's it going to be If this thing's still alive? That's going to, that's going to come in and that was wild and that whole thing, like I bet it was a good cat too. I saw this picture.

Speaker 1: 1:44:28

Yeah, really good cat, yeah I was like a seven, eight year old mature male. Yeah. So, dude, we were um, we, when I was in africa, we were hunting and we're in this dry creek bed and I didn't know I had this obsession for baboons, did never even a million years that I even consider I'd ever do me to give a shit about baboons.

Speaker 2: 1:44:47

And I am.

Speaker 1: 1:44:48

I would book a trip to Africa just to hunt baboons.

Speaker 2: 1:44:50

It's, it's it's interesting, right, primates are weird, like not to cut you off, but like there's something about baboons like.

Speaker 1: 1:44:58

I'm not trying to sound sadistic, but it's almost like hunting a person in a way, because how they? What drew me to this? And I know I'm probably gonna catch you for that but there's this giant baboon and there's this pole like a. It was like a tree but it didn't have any branches on it, but it was cut off and it's behind it and my, the pH, my buddy, he's like, he's like man shoot. So we get the right angle and I, I put the sticks out and I get on it and this thing, literally, like behind, pulls it, pulls his head out and the whole body pushes. It just got every. Every time I drew on this baboon it would just so we go back to the other side, cause now it's looking at me from over here.

Speaker 1: 1:45:36

So then we go back to this and then it moves back again and I'm like okay, this is, this is interesting. I've never had something like counter me before.

Speaker 1: 1:45:43

Like know that he's like very, very alert of what's going on On to me Right and so he finally takes off and it meets up with its troop and we're in this dry creek bed and these baboons come running across and my buddy's like get ready, get ready, I'll tell you which one to shoot. You want to shoot the big alpha? And I'm like, yeah, yeah, let's, let's wait for that. Well, I see these baboons, and this one baboon runs, goes down in the dry creek bed and goes up on the other side. So now we're in the creek bed, there's one on the other side and then a second baboon goes in the middle and then a third baboons on, so there's two on the top of the creek bed and there's one down in the middle and he's like get ready, they're gonna all start coming.

Speaker 1: 1:46:21

I'm like, what do you mean? He's like those are, those are the like security for him. I'm like what? So then all the females, the young ones, little ones, adolescents, they all start running behind these baboons. And then the one on the top goes down and relieves the one in the bottom is almost militaristic in a way, like they were, like relieving each other, as they were, but providing protection in a way. And uh, then this big, big, just giant alpha just comes. You know how they have a swag to them. They don't just walk like they strut yeah and he's like holy fuck man, shoot it.

Speaker 1: 1:46:55

Like that's the one and nothing was ready. I'm trying, and so I just free handed this thing and it's like 200 yards out and I just held my breath. As soon as my crosshairs touch it, I let one rip and I hit this baboon dead perfect it just sits down on its ass.

Speaker 1: 1:47:11

It grabs, it's, it's you know where I hit it. It lets out this scream and it takes off over the hill. He's like oh fuck man, it's not good, it's not good. I'm like what's not good, I hammered that thing. He's like no, no, it's not good. Like we need to go, we need to get more guns. Like it's just my buddy and I, so we go get the help and these dudes come out and a couple guys got these ancient old rifles. He's like listen, if this thing is still alive, you got to stand your ground, because if it, if you run and it grabs you, he's like it's almost as bad as a leopard, like once a baboon has you, they're so strong they're not.

Speaker 2: 1:47:43

They're not letting go. They're so strong they don't even know their own strength. It's like apes.

Speaker 1: 1:47:47

I mean yeah, they're same deal so we come walking out of this riverbank it was like some seal team coming out of the water right like I got my rifle and I got all these like trackers with guns, which I don't trust at all, and I got one ph and some dude's got a spear and other guy's got a rock and a log. Like I'm like this is a shit show. And he's like whatever you do, don't run. We got to shoot this thing. So we come out of the creek bed and this baboon had like died and laid down in this like dip so you could just barely see it and we're like there is there. So we're all sneaking up and we get to like 30 yards of this thing still alive. This baboon was like let out like its last breath. Every motherfucker runs really, and I'm the only one I draw down on this thing and it doesn't get up, but I'm watching it, yeah you're waiting, looking around, like you motherfuckers, like everybody took off running because I thought it was getting up so much for safety and protection

Speaker 1: 1:48:39

yeah, right, I was like my buddy's, like my bad babe, I thought it was coming. I'm like dude, oh my god and so, but we were laughing about it and uh, but I couldn't believe the size. I couldn't even pick that thing up like we do. I did a picture and I literally like held it for like two seconds and then had to put it down because of how massive it was. But that moment struck something in me that I obsess.

Speaker 1: 1:49:05

I ruined a kudu hunt because this, we hear these baboons coming and they're barking. You know they bark and yeah to each other. I look at my buddy and I'm I'm bow hunting and and, uh, I'm like what's that? What is that? That's, those are monkeys, right? He's like, yes, baboons don't worry about. Like there's giant kudu in this area. So what had happened was this guy works with this orange juice factor or whatever. So they bring the pulp, but in the wintertime and they dump these oranges. It's not really to hunt off, but it's like a substance for these animals. But he's like, dude, we're gonna go. And the guy said there's the.

Speaker 1: 1:49:42

The ranch owner said there's giant kudu in here. I'm like cool, so we're sitting in this blind. We actually chopped this blind in, put a little makeshift pop-up, blind like this. There was. I don't even know if they were hunting this concession, we just literally rolled it. The guy, my guide, made phone calls and we roll in, but anyways, these monkeys come in and then they're all eating these oranges and I'm like I'm like, oh, dude, like I'm gonna shoot one. He's like you're not shooting a baboon. Bam, like no, like there's giant, we're gonna shoot a giant kudu. I'm like, no, I'm fucking shooting a baboon. He's like, no, I'm not. And like we're arguing. And I'm like, dude, I'm telling you I'm shooting a baboon. He's like no, I'm telling you we're not shooting a baboon. And then this giant giant I mean he had like gray face on him comes strutting in and this was the wildest thing for me. This baboon literally goes up behind this female, stands on her hind heels, grabs her, looks dead at us like turn, like he knows you're there those were there and just starts humping this

Speaker 1: 1:50:41

baboon and I'm like I'm fucking shooting this thing. He's like you're not. We're fighting in this blind, like back and forth, back and forth. I'm like give me your gun. He's like I'm not giving you my gun because it was out of bow range. Yeah, and uh, I'm like give me your gun and he's like I'm not giving. I'm like, bro, I'm shooting this bad. He's like you're seriously gonna ruin this hunt over a baboon. I'm like 100, yeah, and I hit that baboon and they take off and they run.

Speaker 1: 1:51:08

We give it a little bit and they're all. You could see them like a couple hundred yards out and they're all. There's just baboons and they're all screaming, they're going crazy, and he's like, all right, let's go find it. We gave a little bit. He's like, well, this hunt's ruined now, like let's go go find him. Like cool.

Speaker 1: 1:51:19

So we we were sneaking through and uh, we come around this corner and the baboon is standing on the ground where we thought he'd tried to climb a tree. But he got weak and he fell and it's like wrist got caught in like a crotch of a tree, right. So it's like feet are on the ground but it's kind of like stuck. This thing looks and sees us and it's like, like screams, it's like reaching for us. But we're probably 60 yards away and I was like what do we do? What do we do? And he's like I don't know what we do hammer him. So he's like let's back out of here.

Speaker 1: 1:51:48

So we back out, we give it, we give it a few minutes, and then the whole troop just erupts. They go crazy. He's like it just died. I'm like what do you mean? He's like they're going, they're nuts, they know it just died. And it's like let's go see it, dude, this thing's fangs were worn down Ancient. He's like this is the oldest baboon I have ever put my hands on. But yeah, after that, dude, I was like every baboon, stop the truck.

Speaker 2: 1:52:12

Stop the truck. The cool thing about Mozambique is all the bait for leopards. Leopards love baboons. I would go, we'd just go out and I'd be like my camera guy with me. I said, dude, you're shooting all the bait on this trip. Oh he was, we were hammering baboons, but they're smaller, they're South Africa, they're, they're, they're genetic orfs there.

Speaker 2: 1:52:31

Humans. They're not as big in Mozambique but, yeah, you can hammer them for bait, but I shot one in South Africa. This is a weird story. There was a. It was in a cotton area where they were. They had a. It was a cotton field and the workers there were picking cotton but they also planted tomatoes there and they had same thing, like they had tomato, you know, like tomatoes that were sour or whatever and they pile them up. Well, like a month before I got there at this area that that the our pH had access to, um, this lady was picking cotton and had her baby out and like in a manger out in the field picking cotton and he's fashion up, male baboon comes in, grabs the baby and gone like, took it, bit it in the head and ran off.

Speaker 1: 1:53:16

Oh shit so.

Speaker 2: 1:53:17

I was like and so I went, I shoot a big male there and and I don't know if it was the, you'll never know, right, If it was the one but when we came back through and stopped and the family came out and saw that there was a dead male baboon, they were like the lady was crying and it was this whole thing and I shot it with a bow. It was, it was eating tomatoes, but like he came in and had a female with him and he was a big male, like said, just like humanly weird. Male, like said, just like humanly weird. I got a picture sitting next to him and it's like not a whole lot much smaller than me, um, and their hands have fingerprints.

Speaker 1: 1:53:50

It's, that was trippy. For me it's weird, it was trippy. I was looking. I'm like it was just it's a human hand. Yeah, it's 100 it is interesting.

Speaker 2: 1:53:58

I don't like mythology and like all that like way back I don't. You know, I'm fairly religious but like, yeah, I, whether that like stuff happened or not or where we originated, like I don't know and I don't really care. But when you hunt animals like that and you see them and you're like when they're able to counter, okay, okay, I kind of could see a few things here that are there's a lot of.

Speaker 1: 1:54:22

I'm with you see a few things here that are just a lot of these, I'm right, yeah, very religious. I don't believe in evolution. I believe that there's evolution, that animals evolve right I'm not. I don't believe we came from some blobs anyways. Yeah, but when you put your hands on a baboon, you're watching me like there's a lot of similarity there's a lot going on here.

Speaker 2: 1:54:39

That's just like kind of weird, crazy like wow okay, this is a little. This is probably the closest thing I'll ever do to be like shooting a two legged animal versus like a four legged animal. So yeah, it's, baboons are cool, though.

Speaker 1: 1:54:52

What's your most memorable trip? Is there one that stands out about you that you wish you could do again? Um?

Speaker 2: 1:54:59

probably the most memorable trip um was it had been an elk hunt with my dad. Um, my dad passed in 2001. It was actually nine, 11, damn near to the day. It was just kind of weird, crazy thing. Um had cancer and but he, he was really like he's. When I think about, like why and how it's. Like it was him, like that's, that's how we live. Like my dad was even the extent like when we were kids, like if we hit a deer on the road he'd throw in the back of the truck take it home, skin it, and we'd like we ate it.

Speaker 2: 1:55:30

You know, like, like nothing ever went to waste. So like I'd done a, uh, an elk hunt with my dad, um, kind of in central Montana, and and, uh, it was like one of our last like hunts together before he got he got really sick, you know, and just, and then when he got his cancer, it just I mean we should have got him better care and we didn't. You know, it's just one of those things that you, anyone can look back on, anything you know, and and armchair quarterback, but, um, we did an elk hunt together and we shot cows and it wasn't like we went and shot these big bulls, but it's just kind of one of those things like that hunt, from then on there's not a day one, but there's not a trip that I go on where I'm anywhere, that I don't think about him, you know, and it's more of wishing and like I know he's with me, like, oh, yeah, he's with you. You know people say that and he is right, but like, truly, like some of this cool stuff I get to do, I would love to be able to take him with me. You know, like dad, you and I are going to hunt in turkey, or we're going to, you know, we're going to argentina, or you know, or been to new zealand and done that whole thing like he would have.

Speaker 2: 1:56:35

Just he would have never been able to afford and have the means to do that because we didn't have a lot of kids. But I would have made, found a to to do that stuff with him. But I was in college when he passed and um never got to really experience a lot of life after school and growing up, uh, when he passed. But it would be, it'd be those memories with him. I mean I've done some cool stuff and got to do some really cool things, but nothing replaces the time I had, you know, certain memories of being with him. I mean chasing antelope on a sage field, doing 60 miles an hour in an old two-wheel drive truck, and just you know what I mean. Those types of things that like.

Speaker 1: 1:57:15

Your girls have been there yeah.

Speaker 2: 1:57:16

I mean you can't, you one, you can't, you can't replicate it and be like those are things that you just you know, know you, you don't ever forget you know, oh my, I have.

Speaker 1: 1:57:26

So like I think about my, my old man and god, we were big waterfowl hunters growing up, you know, growing up on the canadian border, upstate new york, and hunting big water sure and it's just the I mean god the stories that we had growing up as kids out there just learning Right, my God, think about back in the day when we were kids, there wasn't social media, there wasn't Onyx.

Speaker 2: 1:57:52

So like you would go to the hardware store and get it like a paper tag, like that's where you bought it. You didn't apply in the state. They have all your information. They sent. Like it was so different, you had a stamp from the post office.

Speaker 1: 1:58:02

And then you had to go down to ace hardware right, or we had racks, which is like a furniture shop. They'd print you out your perm right, your tag or whatever.

Speaker 2: 1:58:10

Yeah, such different times, and you know, I mean just like game wardens, like everything then was so different. You know kind of cool and yeah, bullshit with them. Now you can't do anything without someone you know know, knowing where. Or you post a photo oh, I know where. That is Like you know. It's just there's so much of that now, but like back. Then you think back like man, there's days I wish we could just go back to life without all this distraction in life and just enjoy, you know the things that that that brought us joy as kids.

Speaker 1: 1:58:41

Trying to not glamorize everything, we were just doing it because we needed to put duck in the freezer, like ours, you know. Yeah, I'd shot a couple of whitetails. I was like my dad was not a whitetail hunter, I think he did it for a season. He's like this is the dumbest shell. Like no way Am I sitting in a tree all fall, right when there's birds flying. So I had to go out with my buddies. Like you know, I would go and learn from their dads and stuff like that. And it was just one of those deals. I mean, do we? That's what we did.

Speaker 1: 1:59:14

Right, it wasn't for likes, it wasn't for trying to get sponsored or any of that shit. We're out there in car hearts or waders, in a parka jacket, negative 20 degrees there, busting ice off of decoys while broadbills are flying. Right, and that was, and we never even hesitated. Right, we would have. I tell the girls that we'd pray for it to snow If we got a good snowstorm rolled in one night. We knew we weren't going to school in the morning. Right, my dad, we would have. I'd have all my hunting same with my brother. We'd lay out, my dad would kick our door and get up Birds are flying.

Speaker 1: 1:59:42

And we would be out and we would. I remember watching school buses drive by. We're hammering birds. We'd shoot a morning I'm not going to school today, no, we'd shoot a morning limit If the birds were flying. We'd go home, have breakfast and I didn't know any different We'd go out and shoot an evening limit. I just thought that was how we did it. That's just growing up, right, and we, if it dumped for three days straight, we were hunting. I mean, blizzards out there were like we're out there just frozen, covered in ice Cause it's so cold, right, and that was that. But that's what I feel a lot.

Speaker 1: 2:00:13

Now these guys and socials change everything, how all the companies have changed everything. Now it's just it's all for likes and there's not really. I get there's a huge number, you know, of hunters and everything, but I feel the majority of them don't have the passion from one like how, unless you grow up in it, right, they get it. I know people get it and they get the bug. But if you're doing it and you got to post everything on social, I mean, dude, I have some. I have some of my biggest deer in the garage. I'll never see the internet because I did it for me like taking my kids out. It's like I don't Right.

Speaker 2: 2:00:43

The best memories man are just with buddies or your oh it is Brothers or dads or whatever it's like such a progression, like cause there was an element of time where it was about the meat and it was about feeding a family and like I say now, like for me it's I'll never go hungry Like that's a side benefit to me, that's a that's a benefit of I shoot an elk yeah, I got me for a whole year. I ended up giving a lot of it away or I traded for stuff because people love it, like, but it's, it's for me. It's not about that anymore, you know, it's. It's really about, like I say we talked about, it's about the experience of doing. I mean, I could do the same elk hunt every year in the same place and the outcome would be totally different Every time.

Speaker 1: 2:01:22

Every time you get the same unit and you'll learn something and see something new every time.

Speaker 2: 2:01:26

So it's just like you learn every single time you go, and I mean, it could be out calling coyotes. I learned something just as simple as that you know, sometimes learning, and coyotes are a great example. They're super smart, clever, they get shot at a lot. They're hard to call, you know, but like when you pull one in and hammer one, it's like that's that I mean, it's an accomplishment, it's an accomplishment yeah, so I see these guys.

Speaker 1: 2:01:47

They'll go out for a night and they pile up 15, 20 cows.

Speaker 2: 2:01:49

I'm like hell good for you. Yeah, they do the thermal stuff which is pretty cool.

Speaker 1: 2:01:52

It's fun. Yeah, it's fun.

Speaker 2: 2:02:06

I mean, like I said, I've I've been very, I mean I'm very fortunate. I mean, yeah, I mean my circumstance is different than a lot of people Like I can it's like the wind, if it blows one direction I can go, like I can normally keep myself in good enough shape where, if something comes up and I can do it, I'm like I'm all in on it. You know, you earned it, though.

Speaker 1: 2:02:24

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 2:02:25

You earned it To some extent, I think so. I mean, I would say you pay your dues, but I mean for sure in some things, but in other things it's like. It's like you just never, ever stop pursuing a passion. Like I said, I chased a career forever and then I just realized, like that career turned into a job and then like it just wasn't. It wasn't, it didn't satiate me anymore, it didn't fulfill me, it didn't give me what I was looking for and it's, it's a huge risk in anything to step out of the world, you know, in the comfort of the world, you know, and completely remove yourself from that and say I'm gonna figure this out, you know, and I just think Americans and American people are just so resilient because everybody has a story. Everyone has baggage, but everyone has a story. Everyone has baggage, everyone has a story, but everyone's story is so amazing because everyone found a way to fight through adversity to get to where they are now and and uh, it's just, it's like the, it's the American dream, like you know. It's the beauty of living in America, where we have the ability to do what we want when we want for the most part, and whether you're successful or not is based on you, right, it's 100% on you, 100% right. Um, so yeah, and I've I've probably got so many more stories that I could tell, but I mean, I think the major ones are some of those ones like I shared and haven't had like a lot of the near-death experiences which I'm grateful for. Yeah, you know I haven't faced you.

Speaker 2: 2:03:52

I mean, one time on Kodiak Island we had a brown bear charge us, it was like a nine and a half footer and, um, we were hunting deer and uh, had already shot a buck and had taken care of the buck, dug a trench, put the meat in it Cause I had one more tag and we were sitting there looking at another deer and we hear the alders moving. And we were bow hunting again, of course, stupid us, but had side arms and uh, those alders in alaska, as you know, like we physically can't move through those they're it's it's so dense, so tight, and you're like trying to move and you just like there's no way you can fit through them. Well, when you see them like something coming towards you and they're like doing this and they're moving. There's only one animal on that island that can do that and uh, we were talking and I think the bear just like misunderstood, like thought I didn't know what we were. So we're yelling of course hey, bear, get out of here.

Speaker 2: 2:04:43

Bear, I've actually got a small video of it. I've got my 10 millimeter, my buddy's got his nine millimeter and then we were with another guy behind us. He had a 40. So we're all kind of like just like back to back right, like waiting for this thing to come out and it I I stepped it off. It was nine paces, so eight to nine feet.

Speaker 2: 2:05:04

Um came out of the alders and we were kind of in a small clear cut. That bear comes out and only thing I remember was seeing how big its dewlap was and how big like the hump and just the size of its head. Like you know, when you start looking at big browns, like their head will tell you a lot, right, especially the skull size. That thing came out of that stuff and didn't really look at us but came up and got back on its hind legs and and then we all just like started putting, you know, shots like into the ground in front of it and it spun around, blew out and ran off and but I mean, when we got done, like I remember, like setting my pistol down and I remember like feeling my heart rate all the way through my body, like in my fingers. I could feel like your pulse, I could feel like my pulse anywhere and we were all like this dump of adrenaline like cause you could see him moving out.

Speaker 2: 2:05:57

We had the wind right and I think what happened was when the wind shifted, I think he winded us and knew that we you know obviously bears bears noses are absolutely incredible he winded us, spun around and ran off, but like that was a, that was a touchy-feely, for sure. You know, we figured he was well over nine foot. You know, when he, when he stood up on his back legs like you have a different appreciation for an animal that big when they're on their back legs, like that and you're just like like three shots. I had a high capacity mag so I was like, okay, I need to save. Like if I need to put like 10 in this thing, I got like six to play with Right.

Speaker 1: 2:06:34

Yeah, nine feet, though 10 feet, you're getting a couple of shots off.

Speaker 2: 2:06:37

Well, that's the problem. You know they come at you and they've always said, like with a bear or most animals at charge, and I don't know if you've heard this If their heads up, typically they'll bluff you.

Speaker 1: 2:06:47

Yeah. If their head's down and coming at you they're coming Ears down and ears your head down, ears pinned you're, you're going to get it, they're coming, they're not bluffing you.

Speaker 2: 2:06:55

So and that's what I, you know, like I say he, he didn't really charge us. He came out and saw us and got back on his legs and then he kind of spun around and blew out after I think he kind of knew what we were and smelled us. But, um, yeah, everyone says and they've said that, like if, if their heads down and they're charging, they're coming at you versus head up looking at you yeah you know.

Speaker 2: 2:07:16

So elephants are the same way. If they charge, like with their head coming down, same way they're like you better unload, because if not, it's gonna. It's either gonna step on you or it's gonna grab you and it's gonna kill you like I got a guy that I'm trying to get on.

Speaker 1: 2:07:32

He's got to get him to come through town. He's filmed like 15 elephant hunts.

Speaker 2: 2:07:37

Really.

Speaker 1: 2:07:37

And he has the wildest. I mean he got caught in elephant grass and got charged in his elephants like stomping, trying to find him and he was like rolling and oh just wild, yeah, wild shit like that kind of stuff is yeah, well, you can't make you can't make that stuff up.

Speaker 1: 2:07:57

No, and he's got a lot of it on film too, like hunters, completely freezing, and he's like, yeah, fucking them out, like get charged. And these guys think that they got it. And yeah, he's. But elephants, I hear, is the next little me personal until I I have found I had this client for a while and he was a big elephant guy. I never elephants were never on my list because it's just. You feel like it's just like shooting a fucking, like a giraffe I mean different but like it's like shooting a house. You know, it's just. I always felt like it's just there and he was like, oh boy, he's like you. Once you hunt an elephant, nothing will ever give you a rush again, he's like everyone says yeah, I hear it a lot.

Speaker 1: 2:08:29

I'm like interesting, I just, but for me I don't know. They're very family oriented. They, they communicate, I I don't know. Right, I'm good, you know, for now I kind of got a.

Speaker 2: 2:08:41

I kind of got a little bit of like a rush to do my five now because I've got the buffalo and the leopard, and so it'd be like you know, elephant and and uh and lion, uh and lion, of course, and then rhino, which is now you can hunt white rhino in some countries A lot of them they do the dart thing, but you can still. There are some sustainable herds where you can actually still go hunt like white rhinos, but the elephant is the one that the lion a hundred percent like.

Speaker 2: 2:09:05

I'm actually already booked to go and do a lion, really, yeah already booked to go and do a lion, really that, yeah, um, you know, but the rhino I don't know, like that doesn't really, but it's like the elephant is the one that I'm just like I don't know, like it just doesn't like doesn't really do it. So but once again, like I I'm not chasing the big five, I'm not chasing the grand slam, I'm not chasing the capra ovis, this like I'm just living man. Yeah, if it's a cool experience and a buddy's like hey, do you want to do this? I'm like hell, yeah, let's go do it. Good for you, man.

Speaker 1: 2:09:33

I mean, that's that is, that's everybody's dream, not just the hunting side of things, but to be able to live their life and live it to the fullest right. And, like you said, man, everybody's got a story and that's the, that's the why I sit down with anybody and everybody and right, everyone's got a story and done some cool shit and got through some stuff and hurdles and accomplished things. And it's just, it's cool to be able to hear and that's why, yeah, no, it is. If you're rolling through, let's sit down and have this conversation.

Speaker 2: 2:10:01

I'm glad we did, cause I I've listened to some of your podcasts and they say a lot of the military stuff interests me, my. So my grandpa, um, my, my dad and my grandpa, both Navy, um, dad was as Vietnam, multiple tours, and then grandpa was world war two and uh. So I mean in back then, like in the forties, you know, like you, just if you were a male over 18, see ya. And then in the seventies, you know, of course, with Vietnam and my dad at that time, like you know, if you're not going to college you're pretty much going to be going into the military Right. And so my dad kind of followed in those footsteps.

Speaker 2: 2:10:34

And I actually had a point in my life where, um, I was very interested in doing, um, the Air Force Academy. I wanted to fly jets, yeah, and um. So I applied for the academy. I got the nomination from, from our governor. I went and interviewed with him when I was a junior in high school and got the nomination, thinking, you know, this is what I wanted to do. I wanted to be a, I wanted to go to officer candidate school.

Speaker 2: 2:10:54

Top gun was like my movie right and uh, so I wanted, that's what I wanted to be. I wanted to fly F-16s, f-18s, and of course that never worked. But I was always intrigued because my dad told me stories of being on patrol boats in Vietnam. Right, I mean, oh God, I would love to hear those stories and and I can't even replicate to the extent of anything because it's been so many years but then he never said a lot, it was never like confirmed this, but it was like, you know, you just point into the and you see black or fire and you just shoot Right Well, or fire and you just shoot right well.

Speaker 2: 2:11:31

I got interested in my grandpa a little bit more, because world war ii was always one of those wars that was like from like, from the time, like the whole time span of like, you know, poland gets invaded and then you've got pearl harbor, which is obviously a big one, um, you know. And then you've got d-day in normandy and then hitler commits suicide and then we just nuke him Right, you actually proved that he didn't.

Speaker 1: 2:11:50

Really, yup, history has been lying to us. I won't even get into that, no, but no, he did not.

Speaker 2: 2:11:56

But just like all the timeline. Like I know they don't really teach us in schools anymore, but like when I was in high school and like grade school learning about world war two, knowing that my grandpa, like I, got super invested in it.

Speaker 2: 2:12:08

Like I was just interested in the whole timeline of events and like where he was and amongst that and he wasn't in Normandy, but he was kind of a part of guys that had stormed the beaches and knew of that happening like during that timeframe. So is this like history if we don't tell those stories? And there are historians out there and I call actually I call them librarians, librarians, but even in the hunting industry, guys that I've looked up to for years, that I've had the ability to sit down and talk with, like the amount of stories they have and the things that they've seen that have done this since the 70s and 80s when those guys pass on, like unless they write a book or do something like this, those stories go with them to their grave.

Speaker 1: 2:12:51

you know, I don't know if you got to check out one of our previous episodes. I sit down with um george george, what was was it? George? I can't think if I got, I got, I'm, I'm fasting mind right now. Yeah, you're, you're in a different world, george. He used he ran Jaguars down in Mexico on these swamps and these boats, dude, it's a fucking awesome episode. I need to listen to that because I'm super intrigued by Jaguars.

Speaker 1: 2:13:21

They used to make these calls, these homemade Jaguars calls out of gourds, and they would dry it and they'd put sheepskin over them and put a hole in it and pull the string through with bees fucking badass. Man right, and this guy was running with some of the biggest legend houndsmen ever and just came from out out midwest and just hitchhiked across the us, ended up meeting this guy, was like hey, you want to go run jaguars in mexico? He's like let's do it, and ended up doing that for years. Right, it's a. It's a badass story. Yeah, he's just an old-timer. Both his brothers served.

Speaker 1: 2:13:52

One of them got killed storming the beaches and wild right he's one of those guys and, uh, he's a my buddy is with his granddaughter. He's like, dude, you got to document this guy's story. It's incredible. And he's like tell me about him, like yeah yeah but I mean down there and there's these little ponga boats like pulling themselves along, calling jaguars in the dark, and they'd have jaguars come right up to the boat in the water, like you know, didn't even know they were there, it's guys like that, like that's man that's the type of stuff we need, like I wish there was more world war two world.

Speaker 1: 2:14:24

You know these old just I just met one of my neighbors. He's a vietnam vet and I see a purple heart on his plate and he's outside one day, literally like three days ago. I was like when I introduced myself, he got yeah rocketed, got hit and then got a purple heart.

Speaker 1: 2:14:37

Then came a cop. So I'm gonna, I'm gonna try to. He's an old, I don't. I think he's one of the guys. Has no idea what a podcast is right but, but he's right here. I'll be like, hey, can you just tell your story? I want to document it, you know.

Speaker 2: 2:14:47

And so yeah, it's just cool, but there's so many of those stories out there that we have to capture it is, and it's like for history to live on, like if we don't either have those in a textbook somewhere or if they're not educating people about this stuff. Like it, it it truly just dies off and history just becomes something that you know, whether someone knew about it or not. It's like a a, a poof in the wind sometimes, you know, and it's like and I and I've seen it with some of the guys, like some of the like Jack Frost and some of these older, just bow hunter guys that I've looked up to as a kid, like I was on on the tail end of my stone sheep hunt and I was getting back to, to, um, to Three Mile Island. There's a cabin there and I'm just exhausted, 14 days backpack, you know, 80 pounds on my back, you know, I think it was 97 miles we did on that hunt. I get back to the Island and just didn't shoot a sheep, just like mentally, physically, spiritually, you name it just physically exhausted. And I get back into this cabin and I look down and I'm reading in this cabin and it and it's all like wooden cabin and it says you know, jack Frost was here 1983, hunted my first stone sheep, um, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. So I take a picture of this and I'm like one day I'm going to see Jack Right and I'm going to show him this. So I wrote my name on the laws, kind of seeing like what you got here? You know I was here this date, blah, blah, blah.

Speaker 2: 2:16:11

I'd put like sheep one Lucas, zero type of thing, right, um, anyway, I'm at Dallas Safari Club Um two years after that hunt 2023, I did that hunt in a one or 21 and Jack's walking through our Kuyu booth. He's got a, he's got a Kuyu vest on and I see him and I'm like that's Jack. So I walk over and I said Jack Frost. I said I know you don't know me, but Lucas Pai introduced myself. He goes, hey, I said I'm a bow hunter. You know we were talking a little bit. I mean Jack Frost, if, if, if, anything you know in the in the bow hunting industry, he's just, he's like one of those guys right, Late seventies did it all you know Fred bearish type guy, right, yeah, I said Jack, I need to show you something. I pull up my phone and I'm going through, I find it and I show him that and he looks at, he puts his glasses on and I immediately his face just absolutely lights up and he goes. That was my first sheet and he just goes on.

Speaker 2: 2:17:05

My first sheep hunt, 1983, day seven, shot my rent, I mean, tells me the story to the t, no shit. But the. The actual point of the story is he goes. You know, I was faced at that time with a, with a, with a it was, I think, what he said. Dichotomy was like it was. I had a situation. He goes at that time. He goes.

Speaker 2: 2:17:24

We didn't have a working vehicle in our house, my, my wife, we'd just gotten married, our cars were broke down. He goes. I had the option at that time to buy a new vehicle or go on a sheep hunt. Good for him. And his wife looked at him and she goes honey, pursue your passion. Good for her. So you know what he did. He went, he shot a sheep. The vehicle figured itself out.

Speaker 2: 2:17:47

But here's the interesting part about the story he goes back. Then he goes. I could have bought a new vehicle back then for around you know, 1500, well, not a, but a vehicle, right? 1500, $2,000. He goes. My sheep hunt back then was the same price. He goes. Guess what it is today and this was 2023, right, you know, a stone sheep hunts 85 to a hundred grand. What's the price of a new truck, right?

Speaker 2: 2:18:17

So it was interesting for him to tell that story of literally not that, like North American sheep have escalated to the price of a new vehicle, but it was like, wow, like people probably have that dilemma today Do I buy a new truck or to live, or do I go on a sheep hunt? Like it like hit me and it was like holy cow, but anyway, yeah, I showed him that and it was crazy to see his face light up and he, just 20 minutes we sat there he told me his whole story about his hunt. We had a lot of commonalities in the mountain, where we were, where we landed, you know. And then, uh, and he told me that story, he's like, yeah, I had the dilemma of whether I buy a new vehicle or I go on a sheep hunt and my wife said you're going on that sheep hunt and shot his ram. That really just like catapulted him into a completely different level. But, um, I bet.

Speaker 1: 2:18:56

That's not an easy hunt, man. No, that's not an easy hunt with a rifle.

Speaker 2: 2:19:00

No, I mean, most guys go on a stone hunt and it there's, there's, there's no other way to do it other than horses are on your two lakes, right, there's no access. So it's, it is a hunt, but um, yeah, it was just crazy. Those types of things. Like less than a percentage of the world population will ever go to those places that you know you've put boot tracks. I put boot tracks, like that's the coolest part to me. Then when you meet someone who you look up to who had been there and like kind of tells this story, it's just it's, that kind of stuff is just irreplaceable. You know you have a book. He's got multiple books, like Chuck Adams, maybe another one you think of like life at full draw. Chuck Adams is another guy I look up to, just a insane bow hunter. But Jack was even before Chuck's time. Like Jack was one of the OG Tom Hoffman. Those guys are like the OG archery guys, like just what a time, dude.

Speaker 1: 2:20:01

Imagine just how the giant deer and moose and yeah.

Speaker 2: 2:20:05

They took advantage of what we all wish we could have taken advantage of when, even when we were kids, Right when I was in college and early in my like just the abilities, the opportunities to do things, Whereas now you're like God, I've accumulated 20 years of points in this state and I still can't draw the tag. But I probably could have drawn it, you know, 15 years ago, when I had five point, like it's just all that stuff, you know, it's like anything you wish you could go back in time and doing it different. Good old days.

Speaker 1: 2:20:32

Those guys took advantage of that stuff back in the day, you know For sure. So pretty cool. It was their passion, man, we would have been doing the same thing.

Speaker 2: 2:20:40

Right, and today they're still at these awards handing guys awards Like they don't their. Their hunting schedule schedule has significantly changed. They're not doing what they used to do, but they those guys still get after it and it's still pretty cool. It's just they're not doing a 14 day backpack hunt anymore.

Speaker 2: 2:20:54

God no, you know, they're no, they're doing the stuff that's a little easier on their body, but, um, yeah, it's just for me that's motivation. I look at a guy like Jack Frost who's 80 some years old and he's still doing. It's like, okay, I got 40 more years in me of this. Maybe, hopefully, I don't know. Hopefully, right, yeah.

Speaker 1: 2:21:11

I'll tell you one thing you know like watching those guys and you know through the passion and everything, my perspective on hunting has changed so much in the last couple of years because I got pulled into the hype and the social and having to feel like I have to produce and all that shit. And I worked with one last, my last company I worked with like big company in the industry and I told the wife because I was, I've never had, I've never been paid, I've never, I've always just helped company like I just it's just fun, cool, right, like I don't, I don't do it to be an influencer out of it and be some pro staff right to me that's fucking lame but and that's dying off, by the way, that stuff is yeah, big time Companies have realized they don't need those people anymore.

Speaker 2: 2:21:54

You don't.

Speaker 1: 2:21:55

And so what happened for me was I got more joy of watching my kids shoot a cow, elk or a freaking doe antelope than anything else. Right Than anything antelope right and then anything else right, then anything. And that's why I love guiding is because I get to watch a lot of people be able to take something for the first time. Or this dude saved up for five years to come out and hunt a giant deer or whatever, and then you get to see that reaction like that's when I started really processing. I'm like man like this. I got to get back to my roots. I got sucked into the game of yep. Oh yeah, this company's great.

Speaker 2: 2:22:30

And this Jones is exactly.

Speaker 1: 2:22:32

And now it's like oh, I went out with my youngest last year and I went up to my buddy's ranch. It's got a beautiful place and, dude, we just best time ever watching her shoot all of her, her and I, she we sat a whole whole we sat a whole whole fucking bear season.

Speaker 2: 2:22:56

She passed 22 bears that season, holy cow. And so that's patience. Was it her or dad? Was dad not telling her to shoot because there was a couple bears? I'm like just fucking shoot the bear yeah, we're good I'm over it, let's go.

Speaker 1: 2:23:05

But the rule in our house is we've killed so many bears is we have to shoot equal or above gotcha there's a standard so like we're not just gonna shoot a bear, shoot, there's no point.

Speaker 1: 2:23:13

I mean, right, 450 bucks, a tan of hide, you got 250 bucks, it was skull, right where you know like you're. You know we're shooting three, four bears a season. It adds up and so equal or above, and yeah, and then that this the last bear she killed. She's like dad, I want a mature bear. I'm like done. I'm like you're gonna have to wait and I can't guarantee it and these bears will step out and she'd look at me and be like and the next bear zone, look at me like every night, every night, and there's nights we'd have four or five bears roll through and I'm going oh no, she's.

Speaker 1: 2:23:44

And then finally she goes like dad. How do you how?

Speaker 2: 2:23:46

do you?

Speaker 1: 2:23:46

know how do you know when it's the one I'm like you just know, right, when you were like holy shit, that's shoot it, or when you lose your shit and you're like, yeah, shoot it. Don't question me, buck fever. Yeah, if you're excited and you look and you're like oh wow, like I haven't seen one like that, shoot it. And then finally this bear come cruising through and it stepped out and she looked back at me like I was like hammer time and it didn't even stop, it was just cruising and I actually mouth called this thing with my hand.

Speaker 1: 2:24:15

I was like squeak making squeaky noises stops, comes back, does a little loop and it's walking away and I kind of yelled at it. It stopped and looked back and as soon as it looked back that she hammers this thing and it takes off, piles up, but like it was. Just I'm like that's what it takes.

Speaker 1: 2:24:31

Right, it's that, but to watch that experience with her, yeah to watch this little girl have that patience to pass bear after bear and guy. I mean there's guys that come here and not, as you see, a bear and here she is passing 22 bears in a season. I'm like okay, like yeah, and I mean it was a lot of work, but you know, it was rewarding, it was a great bear. She had a little and I mean it was a lot of work but it was rewarding, it was a great bear. She had a little friend with her and it was badass and they both packed out.

Speaker 1: 2:24:57

I sat there and they were skinning, like I did all the main cuts, just so they didn't screw anything up, right. And I sat back and what do we have? Those last lights. You know those strings and those last light strings. Dude, I hung one up, put a freaking dark energy little pack on it up the whole area. I just sat back on my pack. I'm like, yeah, they're doing great kids. They sat there just getting the whole thing out, quartered it all up, put all the meat in their packs and, dude, I had two little helpers. They hiked everything off the mountain for me. I was like the world needs more of that.

Speaker 2: 2:25:22

Yeah, the world needs more of kids getting their hands dirty and you know, and just living like the life that you know people way beyond before us did. Like kids had to survive, just like adults did. You know back in the days, to provide man, absolutely, like it was about survival to some extent. You know, and like just primal, like I mean to your tune, like the cord you're hitting with your kids, like I feel the same way with my nephews. I've been fortunate, now that they're of age, to take them hunting, like I look forward to every year taking them deer hunting, where my dad took my brother and I deer hunting and we don't kill the biggest bucks, we kill nice deer, you don't need to though that experience of taking them to do that like it is by far the highlight of anything that I'll do all in a year, spending that time with them.

Speaker 2: 2:26:10

You know, getting them on a deer, getting them on the rifle, set up, like, can you see him? No, I'll, you know, run the power. Can you see him? Yeah, just like the whole sequence. You know the deer's running and okay, don't shoot. You know, and it's just like seeing these little humans that came from our you know genetics that can pull this off. Like that's. I mean, cause I was one too.

Speaker 2: 2:26:30

I was chasing, you know, I wasn't chasing fame by any means, but early, like on, like when social media started, I was posting every day and trying to make and then I just realized I'm like, should I? I don't think I post anything in the last two months, like, and I've got stuff I've done. I just, you know, it's like for me it's not even about that anymore. It's like the cool things are cool and the other stuff like it just doesn't. It's not that important to me anymore and it's, I think it's with people in hunting.

Speaker 2: 2:26:55

There's such a progression with, you know, like trophy hunting that takes a whole on a whole other you know thing like oh, you're a trophy hunter. It's like well, I like to hunt mature animals. Yeah, whether that means the animals a giant record book animal, or it's just an old, decrepit animal that, like, I like to hunt old animals Is that trophy hunting? Yeah, call it that, but I'd rather shoot that animal than shoot its offspring that's three years old, that never even had a chance to live Right, and so that's just back to that education. Like you know, it's it's hunting mature animals. It's. It's yeah, call it whatever you want to call it. But um, at the end of the day, it's like that's the progression I'm at and I can easily eat my tag now and be totally a hundred percent Okay With it If I don't find what I'm looking for.

Speaker 1: 2:27:39

Yep.

Speaker 2: 2:27:40

Cause I'll let that little buck live to be, you know, five to seven.

Speaker 1: 2:27:43

Why are you pointing Let me point them a little bit that little white tail.

Speaker 2: 2:27:47

there I was looking at your mule deer and I'm like, oh, that's a big mule deer, but like, but like. If that was a mule deer, you know, if I couldn't shoot that buck, I would let that buck grow up, oh for sure To hopefully. Maybe I could hunt them in two or three more years.

Speaker 1: 2:27:59

But I think when it comes to kids, it's the opposite. I feel a lot of these dads now they have, they have to son, kill the giant, you know, and they're all about this trophy picture when in reality that kid doesn't give a shit about Some kids get ruined.

Speaker 2: 2:28:18

First kid shoots that buck as his first buck.

Speaker 1: 2:28:20

Yes, that's why I'm a firm believer. First couple of seasons your kids should just be shooting does Get them out there. Get them experiencing the weather, the adventure, the experience behind the trigger. They get to learn the gun and they get to kill something. They get the process and then then it's in them. You all, you as dads, what? And? Or anybody that's taking little kids out. Our main goal, two main goals get them hooked on it. Right, have as much fun as possible when you're starting to chase inches. That's when and I did it with them and with her in the very beginning let's go hurry, we gotta shoot this deer. And then I'm like, what are we doing?

Speaker 2: 2:28:58

yeah, like this isn't fun, we come back on out of. It wasn't fun.

Speaker 1: 2:29:01

And then I was like all right, not with thank god, we've done it enough. Now it's like you put your kids on the gun. You're like all right, all right, range. Hey, here's the range dial. She's dialed. Yep, I'm in the spot he's got. It's beautiful now.

Speaker 2: 2:29:12

Right.

Speaker 1: 2:29:12

Super chill. But I see a lot of these dads and I take I do a lot of father son hunts like for the first time, even the dad. Right now I'm like he's feeding off of you, you know.

Speaker 2: 2:29:26

And so yeah, you can tell you can sense that too. A hundred percent Dads are almost living vicariously through their kid and they want their kid to, you know, shoot. I mean, we all want to shoot a giant animal but I I've. I've seen that happen where kids are first time have shot. I mean buddy of mine, his nephew shot a 218 inch mule deer.

Speaker 2: 2:29:51

It was his first mule deer and I'm like okay, that's an awesome deer, like he'll never kill anything bigger than that in his life. And the picture's terrible. The tongue's hanging out. They didn't do the pictures justice and it's like I hate that because I I respect the animals so much, like people hate when I'm around because it's a photo set. It's like getting married, like okay, we're gonna do this, but like that's how it should. But clean. I clean where the shot is. I clean the nose I put, tuck the tongue in or I like I make it to where as respectful as I can, because the other thing is people after the fact and I've had people a year later say you know what. I hated it at the time, but I'm so glad we took the extra time to take good photos because I can still enjoy them Right.

Speaker 2: 2:30:30

That's a moment in time. That will only happen at that point, but you could relive it again, got one shot at it right. You're never gonna you're never gonna be able to be holding that animal again at this time and people always give me a hard time about them. Like I always tell them, trust me, you're gonna appreciate this later that we took the time to take good photos cutting little saplings out of the ground I'm ripping grass. Getting the grass out of the way any of the girls, including my wife.

Speaker 1: 2:30:49

What's the part, what's the worst part of hunting with dad? The pictures yeah so I'm like no, get comfortable, it'll be a little bit.

Speaker 2: 2:30:56

I just hate seeing what people post sometimes and I'm like, oh my god, like terrible photos it's such a great animal, you want to hear a horrible story.

Speaker 1: 2:31:03

I chased this buck archery season. So two weeks of archery season with clients, two weeks of muzzleloader, and it was. It was like a 215, 218 mule deer. Two weeks of archery, two weeks of muzzleloader, two weeks of rifle. Then we went to late, late archery and then I think it was the rifle anyway. So like one one season. But there's, you know how the season?

Speaker 2: 2:31:29

yeah, it's multiple, like changes right archery.

Speaker 1: 2:31:33

I chased this buck every I just I knew where this deer was living. I'd cruise in there. He was always in an area we couldn't get in and, uh, I get a picture sent to me one day. There's like this 12 year old little girl sitting on this buck, pulled all the way back, jaws wide open, tongue hanging out, and I was like yeah, like congratulations, and she ended up shooting it from the truck out of a window because it was on their property. They just drove right up to it. I got the whole story. I was like. I was like so heartbroken. I'm like god he couldn't at least take a a good, a good picture. But yeah, that's it's. I'm a stickler with that because, like that dude, that animal just lived its whole life. The last thing I wanted to do to look like shit. You know, respect, exactly like I'll take.

Speaker 1: 2:32:20

I have a role when I was guiding. When I left that truck and I had a pack in, I put a roll of paper towels or a huge wad of paper towels always I got wet wipes.

Speaker 2: 2:32:29

I'll do a little bit of that like paper towel, the lips, wipe the whole inside of the lips and the nostrils.

Speaker 1: 2:32:34

I'm wiping the fur. I'm getting everything brushed off, cover anything with dirt if I have to, and I prop that animal up. And there's a science. There's somebody, I don't know who needs to do it. I'll do it if I have to, but somebody needs to host a seminar at these hunting expos of how to take a fucking grip and grin Right, because I mean they're behind the horns, you're blocking the horns. I mean even just leveling it, making sure that the animals horns are it. You're going to have the rest of your life.

Speaker 1: 2:33:00

That's all you're going to have Little details. There's so much. All the difference. I'll literally I will spend an hour prepping and my wife's just sitting there like are we ready? I'm like shut up, it's not ready yet. I know. I know Bears are the worst, because you kill a bear, they flatten out Right. So you gotta like try to like get this thing on a log or a rock. You gotta put some mass to it.

Speaker 2: 2:33:21

Yep, I was in Colorado. I drew a really good mule deer tag, tag new, of a buck. Um had pictures of him. The year before Buddy of mine found one of his sheds. He's, he's an outfitter there. Archery season in August they had a hunter went after him, um, in velvet, just 220 type buck, stud buck. In the unit I had the tag Um. They saw him after the second season still alive. I had a third season tag middle part of November. So I'm like great. So he basically sent me the last pin where they had seen that buck in second season lived and I said great. So I camped. I was probably within a mile of that of where that pin was, um hunting three or four days trying to find this deer. And I mean I was like legit, like I was okay, not shooting a deer If I didn't, you know, if I didn't see that deer, like I was going to kill that buck.

Speaker 2: 2:34:16

I'm in camp one night make a dinner and the side-by-side rolls up and this guy gets out of it. He's, he's, he's so big he can hardly get out of it. His brother's driving it and and brother, brothers, big guy gets out of the side, walks over and he was like, oh, you guys got deer tags. Like, yeah, what about you guys? He goes. Yeah, I got a deer tag. My brother's got an over-the-counter elk tag. I'm like cool. He's like, how are you guys doing? I said I've seen a couple, you know, deer, nothing that I'm really interested in and I'm like, how about you guys? He goes? Well, we, we, we got a pretty good one.

Speaker 2: 2:34:51

Today, driving on the road, buck was running a doe at 40 yards off the road. Guy gets out off the side by side, shoots and misses. Of course Deer runs up, keeps following the doe. The doe starts running off, hits it in the ass, hits it, hits it in the ass again. Anyway, long story short, he kills this deer, right, and they drape it over this log and none of the body is is like the body is like behind the log, the legs are behind the log. Oh, the legs, no, no, the legs are behind the log. So it's just the head, but it's like no backdrop, terrible backdrop, tongue hanging out. And there's this guy. He's, he's four plus four, four. He's huge guy holding this buck. And i'm'm like you have any like any other photos? He had three photos on his phone of it, one laying on the ground after he shot it and two of them holding it.

Speaker 1: 2:35:36

That was it.

Speaker 2: 2:35:37

And I'm like it was totally the deer Like I. I showed him the pictures I had from archery and then all that. I'm like 224 inch buck Guy out of Vernal Utah.

Speaker 1: 2:35:47

Good for him.

Speaker 2: 2:35:50

Right, guy out of vernal utah, just like for him, right, I mean good for him. You know, it's like you think about all the time and effort and we were talking about I was talking about this with chad like you might as well just go buy a steer, raise it and butcher it, because by the time you calculate the tag of an elk traveling there, the food you spend, the time, the blah, blah, I mean you're 15, 20 bucks a pound for burger, right, I mean when you really break it down. But it's the experience, right, it's going to elcon, it's going to do the thing.

Speaker 1: 2:36:13

Go with your buddies set up to buy a steer less wear and tear right.

Speaker 2: 2:36:18

Probably tastes, I mean, you know it tastes better.

Speaker 1: 2:36:20

Yeah, beef is king, right? One of those people, right, I mean I love.

Speaker 2: 2:36:23

I love beef, I mean, I love wild game, but every once in a while I love just having a good, you know steak. But, like you know, it's like those types of things where you put all this time and energy and know and like all and you have all the technology. I got pins on on. I know the canyons he's going, I know where he's feeding, I know where he's water and trying to find him.

Speaker 2: 2:36:41

And this old boy at two o'clock in the afternoon road hunting that buck stand off side of the road and you know it's like well good for him you know like what do you happen?

Speaker 1: 2:36:53

it happens and you hear about it all the time. I was working at when I was with cryptek. We're in the office one day and this guy comes rolling in I think he's wearing kuyu. You come walking in the office for like this could do it. You know he's like man, I shot a good deer.

Speaker 1: 2:37:04

Does anybody know how to score a deer? And I'm like I'll take a look at it. I don't have any tape but I'll take a look at I'm. I can look at a deer and be within five inches of it. I feel like on a real deer. I was like, yeah, let me take a look at it. He's like I think it's pretty good. It's my first mule deer ever. And I'm like perfect, let's go look at it, buddy. Like I'd love to see this thing.

Speaker 1: 2:37:21

I walk out there. I would have put this bucket 210, 215. It drops the tailgate out of his truck and I'm like, look, this is your first mule deer. He's like first mule deer I've ever seen. I'm like jaw dropped. Like where did you shoot this? He's like 39. I'm like the most hunted unit in the state of Idaho. You just shot this. He's like standing right on the side of the road I go you'll. You'll never see a deer like this again, especially in that unit I have, and it was like middle of rifle season how it had made it that long. It's a war zone up there, right? If anybody ever asked me where do I hunt, I know I said it right there, yeah just with everybody else.

Speaker 2: 2:38:08

that's the unit. Go hunt and you can figure it out, yeah.

Speaker 1: 2:38:11

Super easy roads everywhere and this dude shoots is, I would say, minimum two, 10. And I was just like you've got it. Everybody was just standing around the truck Like yeah never even seen a mule deer in his life and he's like, yeah, man out and shot it.

Speaker 2: 2:38:26

I think, more times than not, the legit hardworking guys consistently get it done every year, shoot like good stuff For sure, but it's the. It's the random dude that maybe hires an outfitter that you know draws a tag and it's like the next level stuff.

Speaker 2: 2:38:41

I mean, like these auction tags. I don't even like, consider that these guys that spend you know half a million on a deer tag, they, they're, they're shooting a deer, they're not hunting Right, these outfitters have found the deer, like, it's like counting the days to when the season starts, knowing that that deer is going to be dead. Like, I get it. It's money for, for conservation, the state, blah, blah, blah, but at the end of the day it's like it doesn't even financially. If I had the means, it's I't. It's not me, you know like, but, um, that type of stuff, um, you know, is out there too, and it's like it doesn't give the industry a bad name. It it just I don't know, but it's like those guys that not, I would say, necessarily deserve it, but they don't, like, they haven't really put in the time they go and do that stuff you know, I mean, if I had the money to fuck you money like they do, I would buy some some cool hunts for the kids, like I would want to go on those experiences.

Speaker 1: 2:39:35

You know right, not, I wouldn't be paying half a million for a fucking deer hunt, pay 20, 30 grand to go hunt, like you know. A good unit yeah, a good, I get a chance. A good unit and there's low pressure, 100, 100, right, 100. But I mean you see these guys and everyone's freaking jerking off over the no nothing on casey brooks. But I mean, dude, you shot it out of, he shot it out of somebody's yard and now everyone's like a new world record, not that's a whole other I have pictures of them, the hand feeding, that thing.

Speaker 2: 2:40:03

You know, the I'm like the trail cam video of it in the backyard there's freaking.

Speaker 1: 2:40:08

Yeah, I mean it's, it's one of those things, and this is just me, and I'm not shitting on anybody. If I had the money and I didn't know what to do with it, yeah, I'd be doing the same shit.

Speaker 2: 2:40:16

Probably, maybe, but that's, you're just killing, at that point People said that it's like well, would you shoot that elk if you had the tag? It's like it's hard to say no, I wouldn't, because it is, it's a giant. But how you do it and how it was done Like I. Supposedly he went on a podcast and told the story recently. I haven't listened to it but there's, I guess, some legitimacy to what he did. I mean, he bought the, he bought the governor tag and he's very wealthy, you know, and and he, to his credit, he's hunted and he's killed a lot of big elk Like he's. He's a killer. I'm not taking the fact away that there's a killer, but you kill an elk like that and then there's all the other stuff circulating. Get ready, like it's. It's not a matter of if, but when.

Speaker 1: 2:40:57

That's going to get put on. I don't know, maybe it's just because I'm not rich and he is, and it's a it's a jealousy thing or an envy thing that gets opportunity to do it. I'll admit it like if I had, if I had fucking money. But I feel at the same time I'd rather who knows the guys killed so much shit like where do you go from there? You get an opportunity, I get I guided, I guide guys like that to have that money. You know I've walked up on 230 inch deer and the guy was like cool, take care of it. Yeah, take care of it. Like they didn't even care, you know. So guys, do you know?

Speaker 2: 2:41:26

don't even care about the photos. It's like shoot it, show up the one day, shoot it, get on their plane, they're gone, like I mean they're.

Speaker 1: 2:41:33

There's that out there too, with some of these guys I had a dude, tell me the skull cap of deer once, like 205 muley, he's like add a skull cap before me. Oh, that'll look good.

Speaker 1: 2:41:43

In barn I looked at all like I'm not skull cap yeah, that ain't happening I was like I'll cape it for you and you could do what you want with it. But yeah, I was like I would literally do anything to kill this deer. At that point I was like I'm not gonna just skullcap if you could run a screw and put it and hang in the barn.

Speaker 2: 2:41:58

You know so right to each their own, though, but yeah, exactly to each their own to each their own I don't, I'm not knocking it like you're saying earlier, like some guys pay the money and do it. It's like you know there's. There's those people, there's people that can only maybe hunt in their home state and afford to and grind it every year, and there's every spectrum in between a people that do a little bit of this, a little bit of that and I think all of it combined. Like, yeah, a guy paid $1.3 million for a New Mexico bighorn sheep tag at the sheep show this year and it was a proxy bid. The guy's on the phone with his guy in the room bidding this up. The guy who actually wrote the check wasn't in the room and they know there's a big sheep in there and there was a big sheep taken the year prior. But they know there's another big ram in there.

Speaker 2: 2:42:46

$1.3 million Never has an auction ever broke a million dollars for an animal in North America. You know. But now you're seeing you know the Arizona tag last year for deer went for 720,000. Antelope Island tag goes for I mean, where's the roof Every year? Where?

Speaker 1: 2:43:01

I bet you when is this going to end? I bet you, if they auctioned off a grizzly hunt in Montana, it would go for millions. Oh, I bet.

Speaker 2: 2:43:11

Millions Montana or Wyoming, if they ever opened that up, which they kind of wanted to and they were going to do a lottery, and then they stopped it. No, I guarantee, just because I could say I shot a grizzly. First one yeah, interior North. America To be the first person to do it. Lower 48. Whenever, yeah, whenever, that was Right.

Speaker 1: 2:43:30

Yeah, they should have one that goes up for auction and they should have one that goes up for lottery, just like Antelope Island.

Speaker 2: 2:43:35

Yep.

Speaker 1: 2:43:35

And think about the millions of dollars that would generate. But we're go off of emotion.

Speaker 2: 2:43:41

Yep.

Speaker 1: 2:43:42

You, you're, you work off of emotion. Yeah, take the antis out of it. Take everybody out of it. There's, the numbers are obviously there, because people are getting eaten every year by grizzlies.

Speaker 2: 2:43:51

The numbers are are increasing every year yeah, everybody's getting fucked up on trails and it's happening more and more every year hunters and outfitters, it's not just hikers. Oh, that one in wyoming, the, the outfitter got killed.

Speaker 1: 2:44:04

That was here I thought, or was it idaho, northern idaho where the the client ran in the outfitter guy there.

Speaker 2: 2:44:09

There was that one too. Yeah, I think there was one in Wyoming, but nonetheless you start to lose track of these attacks from grizzly bears.

Speaker 1: 2:44:17

And here's the crazy thing and I think I've talked about it on this podcast. I know I talked about it in the other one I have video footage of the state of Wyoming flying over grizzly bears that are snared for grizzly snares and shooting them with shotguns. If the numbers are that high, why aren't we doing it? It's because they're working off of emotion and they want to appeal to the anti-hunting crowd. They don't want to offend them, but instead they'll set bait piles with snares around them and they fly them and they do a rotation and they fly in, they shoot these bears in the face with a shotgun, they land the helicopter, they cut the head off, they cut the paws off, they completely shred the hide, they shoot a bunch of holes in the skull and they leave it and they take a. They take a hide sample and they take a meat sample. That's all they got to bring back. Why? Why are we doing that? So the antis don't get offended? You mean to tell me that's more?

Speaker 1: 2:45:12

ethical than just opening it up and raffling it off and making millions of dollars for your state. Make that make sense, right, make it make sense that you're flying. It sucks to watch this giant bear pulling itself as you're hovering over it and you just I get it. They're state trappers. There's nothing on them. They're doing their job and what they're paid to do they're being asked to do, but it's the state that's doing that, because they don't want to offend people.

Speaker 2: 2:45:36

Santa Rosa Island, california. Great examples Kaibab Mule, deer Genetics implanted there, roosevelt elk on the island yeah, Making $15,000 hunts like doing great. And then the antis well, we want to return. Santa Rosa is one of the channel islands near Ventura and Santa Barbara there. So you've got like, you've got like Anacapa, san Miguel and Santa Rosa, all the islands out there. Anyway, the antis had something like oh, we want to return Santa Rosa back to its natural state because we don't like the hunting. So went out in helicopters and shot every single animal out there, left them, shot them and left them. I mean legit 200 plus inch deer every year out there being shot, you know, and and conserved and managed and being able to hunt, you know providing, you know money to, you know conservation, all that and wiped it out. And now it's just a, now it's just an island.

Speaker 1: 2:46:25

Yeah, just why it's like Karma answer oh there, just shitting all over it and Exactly, rotting away Exactly, and something that was like Catalina's next.

Speaker 2: 2:46:34

I mean, catalina, you can do the sale right now. You can do the. They've got free range bison on their end. They've got the black tail hunts and I'm trying to get on the island this year to do a hunt, just to say I did. You don't shoot big deer there. But it's next, catalina is going to be next and then you're not going to be able to hunt catalina. And it's like all the years of guys like guys that I know that archery hunted like the wild goats and the deer and stuff out there, tell you the stories how good catalina was. And now it's like same thing. It's on the chopping block, you know.

Speaker 1: 2:47:01

It's like that's where I get frustrated with these conservation groups, because they're all. We're making a difference and cool. You gathered some sheep and you flew them in and colored them and moved them to another state, which I've. You've done those before.

Speaker 2: 2:47:13

I have.

Speaker 1: 2:47:13

I've done the captures.

Speaker 1: 2:47:14

I feel like it's. I feel like a lot, not a lot, but I feel like some of them are dying of stress. Anyway, with mule deer, they're, they're, they're moving these things and they're losing them, which I get, it's part of it. But you get these and I'm cool with that. If we want to implant new mountain ranges and we let those herds grow, cool dude, I'm all, I'm all for that. The problem I have with these conservation groups is like what the fuck are you doing to fight to counter what we're going against? It's like they're, they're like a blind eye eye to. I think blood origins may be the only one that, yeah, robbie, he does a lot of stuff he does a lot.

Speaker 1: 2:47:53

He really puts a good message out. But, like, where the fuck is mule deer foundation? Where's rocky mountain elk foundation? I love mule deer foundation. Like, I've known all those guys for years. Right, they've taken care of my organization. They take care of vets. Like I'm not knocking, but like were they. Maybe I I just don't know and don't see it. Maybe they should do a better job putting that message out there.

Speaker 1: 2:48:15

But like, who's at congress fighting for this stuff? Why are the hunters having to do this? Why are we the ones having to be the voice? Right, when they're the ones bringing in millions of dollars a year off of our backs? Right, those motherfuckers ain't in washington, at least that I see who's doing it. Like, why aren't they the ones that are countering all this shit? Why aren't they the ones that are trying to put in new legislative bills to be able to open up areas or close areas down or whatever it may be? I mean, right, you have um bha, which is the biggest piece of shit organization on the planet. In my opinion. I don't give a fuck. I'll say whatever I want, because I'm not involved in the industry. Those guys are the biggest pieces of shit. People that like it's a cult man, it's a hundred, it's a liberal hunting cult is what bha is old. When I found out that one of my buddies was working for him they were paying him 75 000 a year to be a community liaison in his area 75 I was like bro, I have my own charity.

Speaker 2: 2:49:13

I've had it for a decade yes, I know there ain't nobody making that, it's they. They have been able to somehow start and, like some of them, have been ancient years, like you know, like like mule deer, rocky mountain elk. But when you really get behind the scenes of what some of them do I'm not a member of any. I used to be a member of a lot of them, life members, something like. I've stopped all of that and there's only a few organizations I really affiliate with that I think align with, like Kuyu, conservation Direct and GSEO. They're doing some cool stuff. They're actually taking sheep out of areas that are very good, sustainable herds, moving them to areas to try to get them to be sustainable over five years so we can hunt them in the future. Like that's private equity, private funded, not funded by any guy buying a tag. Like it's all privately funded stuff. So, like that stuff I can align with.

Speaker 2: 2:50:01

But I had an elk tag in New Mexico a few years while I was like wow, 2016, 2017. And and it was an RMEF thing. But, um, it was specifically around a private piece of easement that they had bought to open it up to basically be, um, an opportunity for elk to move through there, where basically they'd open up to public land Like it was landlocked long story short there. There was a lot of stuff that went on, but they bought the ranch, held onto it for five years, didn't do the easement, turned around, sold it for double.

Speaker 2: 2:50:33

It's just like so when you hear the behind the scenes of certain things that they're doing and, like I said, I don't want to throw you know meat or you know bad juju on any of them, because I do feel like there's some things in the organizations, that's positive but when you really kind of hear what goes on behind the scenes on a lot of them, to your point well, catalina's getting ready to get shut down. Why are we fighting who's in DC or who's in Sacramento right now, pressing to show how much money that makes and what it does and the ecology of the island and how certain things thrive? Because the animals are there and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. All of that nobody is.

Speaker 1: 2:51:11

No one's helping. You're sitting here with 32 million in your bank account. Spend it Right. Put it in the conservation of fighting Right Fighting our rights so our kids can have the ability to hunt one day.

Speaker 2: 2:51:22

Yep, so they can go hunt Catalina in 20 years and, you know, say, hey, my dad hunted this. You know, back in, you know 2020, like it's, those types of things are going away and it's just, it's, it's death by a thousand cuts. It's, it's everything that the antis, the lobbyists, the NGOs whatever you want to call them like. They're slowly finding ways to maybe not ban the animal, but do something else. That, in turn, you know causes the animal to to basically where you can't hunt them or whatever. Right.

Speaker 1: 2:51:54

And it makes me think, cause I and it's like, dude, my buddy. I don't know if you know James Nash very well, One of my best friends. I mean he's just, he's just a guy, huge outdoorsman he's, he's very educated, he knows everything about Oregon and the animals and he's having to go to portland and like and sit in front of congress and or their legislative there and fight the fight. I'm like why is there not an organization has a paid staff member that knows every fact, all the numbers, and go there and do what he's doing? Why does it take us?

Speaker 2: 2:52:26

to have those people. I know a lot of organizations have people internally that are supposed to be doing that stuff and who knows where it goes I don't know.

Speaker 2: 2:52:35

Some battles get won, some battles get lost. You know the battles that win. I think we don't celebrate the successes on the battles we win and we solely focus on the negative and the ones that we don't. And that's just life. Like, how often do you ever celebrate successes? It's always. I did this really cool, but I didn't do this and I failed, and it's like it's everything and it's just life. Like, how often do you ever celebrate successes? It's always. I did this really cool, but I didn't do this and I failed, and it's like it's everything and it's in life, it's work. It's like we rarely celebrate successes and I think the more that the successes are shared with people and education and understanding, then they'll actually realize that it's not all the negative. All the time there is some good things happening, but rarely does that ever see, you know the light of day. It's always this fighting this that's happening. We're going to ban this, we're going to you know data. It's just like constant and uh, I do. I do plug like SCI as much as I.

Speaker 2: 2:53:22

The organization is out for money which they. They're very money driven. They are putting a lot of the money, or their, their money where their mouth is Like they are putting people on the front lines and doing some good things, um, so there's, there are some success stories out there, but you mentioned a few earlier that, yeah, I don't support anymore, because when you start hearing what happens like I had a friend that worked, she was, um, like the secretary at at a very high level at BHA, no-transcript, and like everyone's like it was like a KKK, like forum, like all these say white people, like white people going in the middle and they're just like you know, yeah, sicker, first, first line, just like okay, okay, this is weird, like I am not following that group. And then I went one year and it was kind of it, but I don't even know if they're still. I have no idea, like if they're even still going or what like they're used to see their stickers all over people's trucks.

Speaker 2: 2:54:45

I think it's just like a lot of things and waves like flash in the pan, you know like, and I'm sure there were things that they did that were positive, but I just couldn't align with the ha was the blm of the hunting industry yeah for sure it still is yeah, just blm jesus.

Speaker 1: 2:55:01

So I would put it, that's what I'd compare them to. Right like what do you do? Right it's collect money and send people on parties right, that's it right.

Speaker 2: 2:55:10

I think some of it is people join them and they start them and they they become rich off of it, like absolutely, or they feed their agenda to. You know, you see all these pictures. They're out hunting and it's like, okay, come on, man, like you know, you couldn't afford that on a salary.

Speaker 1: 2:55:24

No, you go back to prior to you working with bha, and you shot a fucking shit little 120 inch white tail. Now you're killing giant mules of moose and stone sheep and it's like right.

Speaker 2: 2:55:36

Yeah, wild sheep is like I. I I support them to the extent of going to the show. I believe in some of the stuff they're doing, but when you get in the inner workings of even that found or that organization, it's like man, I just see like you would like me as a hunter.

Speaker 1: 2:55:51

I would love to see wild sheep foundation partner with kuyu, since kuyu's actually doing something. Why aren't they funding that? Not even it's, it's why. Why is there this riff or this line? And and it is the charity world? Because I mean, dude, I've had a charity for 11 years and there's like this oh, these are our veterans and these are our donors and sponsors, it's like. You know, it's right. It's a really weird community. Is the charity world? I get it.

Speaker 1: 2:56:19

I've been in the trenches for over a decade yeah but if you're truly about the veterans or you're truly about conservation, it's like man, those guys are crushing. I've reached out to you like hell, how can we help? You guys are doing something badass that we don't do. Can we help fund a program? Right, that'd be incredible. Like why isn't wild sheep foundation is bringing in 23 million dollars a show or whatever it is? I could have blown that out of the water, but I I thought I heard that number oh no, it's those sheep tags are they're and they're them every night and then they're bringing millions of dollars a night.

Speaker 1: 2:56:51

Okay, cool, why are? If you're picked at some of that and be like cool, we're going to allocate that this. This program is actually making a difference and they can use help. These guys can use help. We could fund these Right.

Speaker 2: 2:57:04

I don't know, maybe there's an element of some of that happening. But then when you see what they're like their president and the people are making in that organization, there's only, like you know, eight paid employees or whatever. It's a it's, you know it's, it's small overhead but you know, when it's public record that you know the head guy leading it's making, you know, half to three quarter million dollars a year Unnecessary.

Speaker 2: 2:57:25

Yet he's never shot a sheet prior to being the president Now. Yet he's never shot a sheep prior to being the president. Now he's got two grand slams, like you know. You just kind of start looking at it and you're like I don't know, like I hate to, like throw that on anyone and like say, put yourself in those shoes. And you're probably given opportunities. Like hey, I got an extra tag. You want to come up and shoot a dog. Like what are you going to say? But in the limelight of it, when you look at it, you're like come on, man. Like you know everything.

Speaker 1: 2:57:54

Yeah, perception is reality a lot of times and and uh but not to throw hate on any, all of them but I would like to see more.

Speaker 1: 2:57:57

I would like this especially where the world is right now. You got doge and everybody's calling everybody out and everything's happening and full. Everybody wants to see full transparency. I think that and this isn't like a bash fest, this is just me as an outdoorsman that contributes to some of these, and I go to these events and I've been at having booths at these shows right where, where, and I get it. This year we helped plant 33 000 trees and we built 62 juggler guzzlers in the mountains for cool. Where the fuck? That didn't cost what you guys raised last year or the year before.

Speaker 2: 2:58:37

Yeah, you know, like I say, you work in the for nonprofit and that fulfilling work as it is and I I do a little bit of work in it as well, for I got, I started a scholarship endowment but like it's, it's a lot of work but it's. It's. The rewarding part of it is seeing what you actually do with it and where it goes and understanding and knowing that. And the problem I think at the scale of these wildlife organizations is there's tens of thousands of people they're seeing all of this happening but then not seeing the result. You know, right, well, yeah, we just sold a sheep tag for 1.3 million and the Wyoming tag went for 400,000 and blah, blah, blah. And next thing you know, yeah, you've raised $5 million tonight in one room in an auction.

Speaker 2: 2:59:19

Okay, like I'm kind of just a little curious, like I don't need to know the details, but like, help me out here, cause technically, a lot of the money does go back to the state. Now, wild sheep does take a commission on these tags cause they auction them there. They're making money on it. But like that $1.3 million, I bet a million dollars of that money went to New Mexico. Technically, the way it's written in the in the charters is that a lot of that money goes to those states. Great, well then, in that state, show me where that million dollars went okay.

Speaker 1: 2:59:51

So that's my next thing, that these states how much money are they making off of us? Take, like, uh, new mexico, right, you have to pay up front it's crazy.

Speaker 2: 3:00:01

Oh yeah, your license your everything.

Speaker 1: 3:00:04

You're bringing in millions of dollars on just applications. Right, you're putting that in a bank account. You're making, you're making interest off of the millions of dollars that you just raised. Let it sit in the bank for a couple of months before you draw tags. Then you refund their people. You just made a huge chunk of money off the interest series. Why are you gonna sit here and tell me that your fucking mule deer numbers are down. What are you doing about it? Like the states are even worse. I guess we don't even need to get into that rabbit hole, but all I want to see is where we're at in in in this year, moving forward. I think it would help a lot and do the community a better justice is showing everything that's going on. Right, you got fucking 1.3 million dollars from a sheep tag. You could hire a pr rip and a social media agent to sit there and post every day about all the cool shit that's going on in your organization or state.

Speaker 2: 3:00:54

And I think, to some extent, maybe that stuff happens and it's like, I say, it's just not communicated or and if it is going on, who knows, right Put it out there more Right, more transparency. But that type of stuff. If that positive message is going out, it helps shut down a lot of these negative messages and the antis and all like. That's what I mean, like we, just as hunters in the community, we don't tell our story.

Speaker 1: 3:01:15

Well, you know, and that's and that's where, like when an anti-hunter comes and tries to attack, he's like what have you done? What have you actually done besides bitch and wish the most horrible, vile things on people on the internet, which anti-hunters are the absolute scum of the earth when it comes to the things that they say about children, everything on that sense. Give us the numbers to be able to fight back. Put it out there. Hey, this many acres got converted.

Speaker 2: 3:01:43

Yeah, we opened up this easement that opens up 20,000 acres to public land hunting and blah blah, like you just yeah, you don't hear. And that's what a lot of these organizations were put in place for was to try to private the privatized stuff, open some of those easements to allow more acreage. And you know, and I, I heard that story about RMEF. That was my last year as being a member.

Speaker 2: 3:02:04

I'm like you know, I like all they're doing is basically a ranch brokerage firm is all it is buy the ranch, sit on it, sell it, make more money, roll it into the next one and maybe get a conservation project or easement out of it. But if they don't, oh well, we tried, you know it's like so got our two years.

Speaker 1: 3:02:21

We've made made some interest on this. We don't get hit with capital gains. Let's take the money and roll to the next one.

Speaker 2: 3:02:26

I mean it at the end of the day, it's a business. I get it for nonprofit, whatever, like, if you're publicly traded, private, whatever, I get a business as a business. But especially in that world you got you're. You're supposed to be very transparent, right? People are donating a lot of money, thinking that, okay, I'm writing this check, whether it's because I can, or whether it's for tax reasons, whatever, like people that can write a check, that's great. Like I appreciate those people. You know I like to give my time and do things. I'm more of a give my time acts of service versus walk away, like I'd rather do something that's meaningful. But everybody, in terms of giving, is different. But, um, it's like be transparent, just it's all I'm asking.

Speaker 2: 3:03:07

Just you know, know, if you did this or have this, let us know and make it very public that you're doing things where the actually money is is making an impact and so well, dude, we've been rambling. I don't know if this is normal or not, but this is every episode yeah it's good, I yeah, I could. I could probably keep going just every time you get down a hole right, you just keep going.

Speaker 2: 3:03:32

But no, this is like I was telling you earlier. I haven't really. I've been a lot of places. I was trying to think, as I was driving up here, like certain things I wanted to highlight, but like I'll drive out of here and there'll be five things I wish I would have talked about, but like I haven't really had a chance to like talk through some of the cool things I've done. It's had a chance to like talk through some of the cool things I've done. It's always been, hey, can we do a 30 minute on your little? And so I was like, yeah, I just kind of a little bit about this and it's over. But like the ability to just like oh yeah, that time I was in colorado, or oh yeah, that time I was in, you know, africa like just to tell some of the cool things, like that's why I like this man I try not to like have like a, an agenda, like.

Speaker 1: 3:04:06

obviously there's points and topics that if people accomplish one talk, I definitely want to cover those, but for the most part we're going to sit down and have a conversation.

Speaker 2: 3:04:13

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 3:04:13

Very, very talk and very open and just enjoy it and enjoy the conversation. And I'm glad you swung by and um, yeah, man, I appreciate your time. This was cool.

Speaker 2: 3:04:24

I like.

Speaker 1: 3:04:24

I like to hear the stories. You're very blessed man.

Speaker 2: 3:04:26

I would say, yeah, I am, I'm very fortunate, like I, there's not a morning I don't wake up and I just realized, like you know, I I'm very fortunate, even, you know, for not only the stuff that I've done, which is, you know, pretty cool, but like just being able to to live and like live in this awesome country to be able to do the things we want to do and and um, cause not everybody gets that privilege Right, and I've always viewed hunting as a privilege and it's one of those things that it's a nice two, and we realize it every day that more and more of it's getting taken from us. And if you take that for granted and don't do it, you know you're going to be the one saying I wish I would've done that. You know people say to me all the time why do you go to Africa? I'll do that when I'm 70. Well, I may not be there when I'm 70. You know, I wait till you're 70. Yeah, it's not the, it's not a, it's not a, you know, physically demanding whatever like, but it's the time of your life. Yeah, it's great, it's awesome and it's an experience Like it was 95 degrees and 90% humidity and I was going back, no air conditioning for almost two and a half weeks, living in a like in a nice, in a decent tent but had a shower.

Speaker 2: 3:05:34

But like those were the conditions like complete opposite of what you would expect, you know, and like a oh, I went up in the mountains and the snow Like no, it was the complete opposite of that. But like I may not be able to, the government of Mozambique could say you know what we're done, we're done, we're not letting hunters come anymore, like that's why it's like if there's an opportunity, I'm going to seize it, because just because it's out there now doesn't mean in 20 years it's going to be there. And I know a lot of people that are living proof that said, you know, I used to hunt in Cameroon or other places or places in Africa where I did this, and now you can't hunt those anymore there, you know. So, anyway, I hunted Kenya. Well, you can't do that anymore.

Speaker 2: 3:06:13

So, anyway, it's, it's uh, we're blessed, we're all blessed, to be able to do the things we do and the things that give us juice and joy and and and fun and all that. So, no, this is, this was cool, cool man. Appreciate it. Thanks for your time, yep, thank.