#2248 - Michael Waddell

24:29And even people like Chuck Adams, who was always one of my heroes. You know, Cam and I were talking a lot about that in Texas, just golly Chuck Adams was hunting these elk and always had that little green beanie shot those double X 78 arrows and man, you know, nobody is like, you know, all the kids and even me, you know, I was just little chubby white kid that thought if I bought air Jordans, I could jump higher. And Michael lied to me. You're a liar, Jordan. I can't jump any faster. I can't run any faster. But, you know, Chuck, when I saw those arrows and I'd see that bow, I like, man, I got to have that.

25:03I want to be like Chuck. You know, I want to be like Fred bear. And so it's just amazing to see and to see that we still are celebrating it. So it has a very deep connection to the human mind. There's something about archery that I think it's because as human beings evolved, you know, we developed the bow and arrow. They invented it. They refined it. And that was how people hunted and got their food. I think there's a genetic memory of that that's inside of our heads because there's like, there's something eerily satisfying about hitting a target with an arrow. It's so much different than anything.

25:38Like, I like practicing shooting rifles. I like, I've hunted with rifles. I like it. I like it. It's great. Same here. It's not the same. It's not the same. It's like a ten time tenfold different. Yeah, it's it's a it really is amazing. It's like every time. If I go rifle hunting, I love it. I mean, absolutely love it. Still love the whole culture of it. I grew up in Georgia where I mean, people were on these leases. You know, it'd be a mead mead property, which was Timberland or Georgia power lease. There'd be ten of us on 500 acres or sometimes more than that. And so, you know, everybody took a 30 off six, Redmonton, semi automatic, you know, a scope on it with over and under sights and we'd meet up at Uncle Morgan's barn, me and my dad and Scott Steiner, my Uncle Tommy and Uncle Jeff.

26:28And where are you going? I think I'm going to go to the boat seat. You know, I'm going to holler one. Nobody talked about when or nothing. And it was just a bunch of old guys high five. And we would walk back there and hunt with a rifle. And soon as you heard a rifle shot, you're like, that was Uncle Tommy. I bet he's got a big one. You know, and so it was just so amazing that part of it. So I still go back and do that from a culture standpoint to feel just that feeling and vibe of being standing there and a pair of K -Mart boots with some old walls coveralls, draped. And then we walked over with him a white long handles, you know, that we thought we could go to the anarchy end.

27:02And we asked him to just cotton it. What soon has got wet? She froze the death. And just a thought of that of being literally in my time, 11, 12 years old, just being one of the men with a 30 out six on my shoulder climbing up in a pion tree and a tree stand built out of leftover lumber from my dad's construction job. That was the most unsafe thing in the world. And a lot of people got hurt following these things. And I remember we got our first bow. My dad and I, my dad had an old brown in bow and he had a couple old recurs when I was young and he pecked around with them. And then I remember I was 13.

27:34I was working him on the job site. And that's what I my summer job. My dad was a carpenter. And so I'd go working man. He worked cornbread hell out of me too, you know, just to show me how to be accountable and just what it was like to work. And he paid me $2 an hour. So he said, you need to pick out something as a goal figure out what you need to save you money for. You don't even blow it on something stupid. And I said, well, I don't I don't know. And at the time some of my buddies were saving up won't skateboards. Well, at the time we lived on a dirt road. So I'm like, what am I going to do with a skateboard?

28:03You know, I was like, I can't I got to go into the city to use a skateboard. So my buddy Jackson Bishop, we called him boo. He lives in the city and we hunted together. He said, I'm behind me. He said he was working my dad and I too. And he ended up saving his money and bought him a really cool skateboard. I remember he built it and went and had posters of it. Well, I ended up deciding that I need to get me a bow and arrow. So I went and bought me a Martin pro eliminator bow from Big Book Train Post. I was paying $200 for that sucker. Was that a compound bow? It was a compound. But what year did compound bows get invented?

28:37It would have had to been, I would say in the 70s. I mean, the first I remember was talking about Fred bear, the old white till hunter. And then you had to white till 102 and stuff like that. And then I know Brown and came on pretty soon in that. And then obviously you had. That was even have sites back then. We had like a pen site. It was like a bracket and it has had this kind of rudimentary site that you could scroll in and out. But there's no range finders. Right. There were no range finders. Is that it right there? Look at that. The original compound. Look at that up to 50 % more speed and penetration.

29:10That was 66. So I felt like this would have been in the 80s because I. 66 because I feel like. Wow, that's wild price. Solo hunters can't afford to be without one. The way they used to market things back then. It's so funny. I know I love to see those old field of streaming out your life. Yeah, it's just I mean, it's a window into a different time. You know, can you imagine taking that to Utah to chase and they open the mountains? Oh my God, you have to be so close. This episode is brought to you by Buffalo trace distillery. Actually have some Buffalo trace cigars here. They just sent me one of the world's most award winning distilleries that's been making whiskey the same way for more than 200 years.

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30:46That's Buffalo trace distillery dot com distilled aged and bottled by Buffalo trace distillery 90 proof Franklin County Kentucky Buffalo trace American family owned independent and perfectly untamed. Cameron wouldn't even have to towed out a buck on his shoulders. He could just to that around probably be as heavy as a white tail. How heavy is that thing? Look at it all the metal all the components and all kind of feet per second you get now that sucker. Oh, look at this 1926 Arthur Young bow hunting. It's a grizzly here. They said it's a whole wow. Super close. Holy cow. I've never seen this Jamie.

31:30Thanks for pulling this up. This is so cool. What did that hop on 26? Holy smokes. I bet they didn't even have to buy license I bet they just went hunting too. Oh yeah I bet there was no licenses back then I mean when did the. Alright, he he hit him somewhere Yeah, he it's it shows it follows it up here, but I mean to film this is even crazy because this is 1926, I'm right wow. You gotta be so close with that shitty bow. No doubt. And man, I tell you what, man, intriguing. Like those guys right there, there are books that they wrote. If you wrote those same books now, like if you and I went on a hunt and we said, hey, you know, let's just write an article and present it out to our life and publish it just as we saw it, which is so cool about what we do here is having chance conversation and kind of air out anything and everything.

32:26And obviously culture has changed the world. I mean, these podcasts, but back then, you know, you had articles, well, they write these books and it would be so like, I would read it sometimes the same page two or three times. It'd be like, you know, Saxon Pope talking about Arthur Youngtoy. Yes, I found out. I think it's too far, 70 yards is too far to shoot at a Kate Buffalo. I put three arrows in him. He didn't seem hurt. I got two in the rope, one in the neck, and you're like, they didn't edit this out. It's almost like, right, right, right, right. It's almost like me and you hunt in squirrel.

32:57Like, man, I'll tell you what, I don't like him pellets. It's just not, those pellets in that air rifle are not, I just not knocking the squirrels down good enough. Like, oh, you wasn't supposed to put that. Can you edit that out? They were just like, okay, let's put this in a book and let's sell it. Let's put pioneers. They were learning. They were learning how to do it. But you imagine how you get crucified sometimes for the people that don't understand hunting, even ethically hunting and making a good ethical shot where there's a bow or an arrow or a rifle. And back then, they were like, all right, let's go try to hunt some African lions.

33:28I don't know what is going to take to kill them, but we'll see. They were just experimenting. Experimenting. And they took a boat over. Think about, I mean, I want to go to, I've been to Africa quite a few times. How long has it taken to get to Africa and a boat? It was taking a months to get over there. And they would take a whole ship. And I think they, I forget. I don't want to say it because it could be inaccurate historically, but I want to say, they was taking 40, 50 bows, these recurs. And like, just tubs and tubs of arrows. I mean, just, because they were just launching them. It's like, they had more freaking arrows and PDD had baby oil.

34:08I mean, it sounds like, it's like, man, how many hairs can you fit on this boat? Like, well, we're good, shit. Well, they probably knew they weren't going to get any over there. And they're probably making them themselves. Yeah, and I think it documents as it talks about, like, look, if our bows tear up or in this experimental process, we might need a little stronger bows. So, you know, I mean, sometimes, very rarely I even do this. I'll go to pretty decent places. I'll take one bow, very rarely I take two bows. I used to think it'd be beneficial, but then I started to realize, many things are so dependable.

34:39I don't need it. Maybe I take a bow press or an extra cable, or an extra string or setup, but I mean, they just had to take everything. And they really didn't know. That's such a commitment to adventure. Get on a boat with a bunch of bows and a tub of arrows. I mean, how do you tell your wife that? It's exactly. I can't imagine now that, you know, Joe and I plan a hunt trip here and you go home and say, hey, man, just, man, what else was talking? And me, him and Cam are thinking about running a hunt hogs. Well, how long are you going to be going? You know, it's Christmas time. It's like, well, two days, and we're just going to drive down or fly over here, do they?

35:14Can you imagine, hey, baby, I think I'm going to Africa and we're going to try to hunt some line. We don't know what's going to happen. We're back about six, seven months. Yeah, I'll be back next year. I mean, I'm going to go hunt lions with a pointy stick. Exactly. I should be back. I don't think. Not sure what it takes to kill one. No internet. Yeah. No, no, no. I mean, nothing. How do you research? How are you learning form and technique? Yeah. Who are you learning? You just have to practice and then eventually figure out, well, I held my elbow this way. It seemed to be better than this way.

35:45Yes. I'll just tweak it. Well, this is where we get. And even the civil unrest, imagine this. I mean, I hear people talk about hunting and the dangers of potential rogue wildlife, but I've never been that, you know, grew up real country. So I've never had any fear of any animals, you know. Matter of fact, if I was bear hunting and I thought, you know, somebody said, hey, man, bear's love pork chops. You walk through Alaska with a pork chop, and Nick might get a better chance to get a shot of like, well, hell, you reckon they'll come? Let's try it. You know, I want to shot it one. But think of the civil unrest.

36:16I've always been a, you know, if you, I went to Zenbobway one time, me and Nick Mutton, several of my buddies, we went over to Zenbobway and it just happened to be when Meghabi was rerunning. And so he had a political opponent. And so just when we think people listen to this, that, you know, politics in America are crazy, well, guess what? Somebody was running against Meghabi. So did they debate it on a podcast or even talk about it on CNN? No, Meghabi just went and killed the guy who was running against, like, okay, I win, you know, so we end the story. And so the internet was shut down. And so I remember being over there and like, man, I'm kind of scared, not of an elephant or a lion.

36:52I'm like, what is this? I don't have a phone, I don't have internet. I have no way to talk to my family. I don't have any, and my money got stolen. I was an idiot who went over there, like with my backpack, with cash, and like, you know, a bank envelope, everything that you read, like, okay, I'm an idiot. So I go to, I go to take some money to, to, we were talking about going fishing on the Zambizi River. And so you know, I was like, I'm gonna get a little money. I'm gonna tip this guy if I go fishing. Like, dude, where's my money? And it was all gone. So I don't know if it was between when I landed in the South Africa somewhere in my room.

37:31I don't know where, but all of my money. And I think I had about $7 ,000 cash, which for me, that was a lot of money. Like, I mean, I was devastated, not only I lose the money. I was like, I didn't have money to lose like that. But now I'm like, what am I gonna do? And so they take me over to Botswana, and I get some poolers from an ATM, because there's a little more Westernized. But I remember calling home, it's like, man, that we ain't in Kansas no more. This ain't a white tail hunt. And in my mind, I'm so singled in on the venture and thinking of sacks and, you know, of Pope and Young and all these guys.

38:11And I forget, like, wait a minute, there's people dying and starving over here. And I'm just over here trying to maybe find a Kate Buffalo or a Gimsbucker something. And that's where I learned a lot in my young travel of just what's out there. Do you ever watch a Pedro Ampuros videos? No, no. Jamie, let me, I'll say that to you. He's a fascinating dude from Spain, then he travels everywhere to Bohunt, everywhere. Oh, I can already tell, I'd love that. Oh, you'd love it. He's great too. His hunting adventures are really interesting, but he goes all over the place. I love that. He goes to like Tajikistan and play there.

38:51Holy cow. There he is. Look at that. I mean, you can tell, look, I mean, just, he's, you know, super, super, super dedicated Bohunt, and you know, travels to Greenland. He was in Greenland with Remy. They were hunting together. And just his stuff, Pedro's videos are really, really well done, and he's such a likable guy that it's a good introduction to people that don't even understand why anybody would be interested in Bohunting, because he realized like this guy is, he's as much fascinated by the adventure of it all, then as he is even the hunting aspect of it. Like he really enjoys being in these very different cultures and very different parts of the world.

39:36Like he hunted elk in Mongolia. Wow. Mongolia has a large elk population. I didn't know that. Yeah. But it's really funny because everybody goes there to hunt, hunts with a rifle. And so all the guides who speak Mongolian, like they're like, what the fuck is this guy doing with his bows? This is stupid. Like, go shoot it. What are you doing, Pedro? He's like, I can't shoot it. It's 98 yards away. You know, like, we have to get closer. It's like, just shoot it. Yeah, just shoot it. Shoot it, kill it. Let's get out of here. We've been here for fucking three days. They died of it. But this dude's got a really fucking great channel and a ton of videos.

40:11I mean, he's been doing this for like making these videos for like 10, 15 years. I'm definitely going to subscribe to that. And you can see the buffalo. Where's the buffalo? Is that, is he dead? Oh, it's a mouflon. Oh, that's a mouflon sheep. Oh, you went to a different video. Okay. Go to the Mongolia elk hunt. Because it's so fascinating. They stayed in a yurt. So they stayed in one of those felt tents like Genghis Khan used to live in. And they traveled in the woods. And it looks like you're in Wyoming. It looks like you're in Idaho. Then the urex always wanted to fast what Missy Elliott was wrapping about.

40:45No, your paramonition round here. I don't think so. I don't think she has the knowledge of yours. I just wanted to say it. Yeah. But if you scroll further ahead, you could see some of the footage. Oh, this is Ibex in Mongolia. Dude, dude. Oh, hot too, man. Google, it's not that search elk in Mongolia. He's got, I mean, he's got tons of, there it is right there. See, World Records elk. Right there. Second row, that one, bam. Yeah, that's a Mongolia. See, that's to me so fast. Man, they're crazy. Look at that. That looks like you could be in Utah. Absolutely. And they just totally didn't understand why he was using a bow.

41:27Because his dad was there. His dad hung with a rifle. And he's successful. And, you know, he's got a close guy. And those look like just your basic Rocky Mountain species. I don't even know how they got there. I don't know if they were always there. I don't know if they were introduced or really don't know. There's a year. Yeah. And that's what they're staying in. You really just know. I did not even know that they were elk in Mongolia. Yeah, I didn't either until I saw this video. Know what out of you knowing you could hunt there. And I think that's what people don't realize living in America.

41:54Yeah. We can hunt. I mean, go do that in China. Get hunger in China and decide you want to go get your mess or rabbit and squirrel. Well, they might not be done. And you can't legally hunt. You can't legally hunt in China? Not in China. Not at all. There's several states. You can't even bow hunting in a UK. I know, isn't that crazy? I mean, I don't know if that goes back to Robin Longstried. Or I think some of it does. A lot of the folklore, because that was a poaching to the King's property. You could do it. You could poach with a bow in America. Well, that's what people don't understand. The Robin Hood was not about stealing money.

42:24It was about using the King's land to hunt animals. Correct. Because people were starving and the King had all these animals and you weren't allowed to hunt them. You couldn't. And Robin Hood was like, this is bullshit. Like, yeah, I'd take this bow in here. Let's go eat. They're stagged out here. And so I, yeah, I don't, I'm always the more I travel, like seeing this that Pedro's done. I hadn't done that extensive of traveling. And I've never, if it ends with a stand, I just stay out of it. I made any extra zez in the whole world. I try to be. Yeah, but Pedro goes everywhere. His, I can't recommend his show enough.

42:58It's so good. It's in a way. I'm gonna check that out. Late night when I want to chill, when I'm at home, I come home from the comedy club. I'll throw on some of his videos. Check out Pedro. Chill out. I wonder if you ever heard of this. What is that? I was looking at the initial books coming out of hunting trips to Africa and so. Dingunek. Multiple people said they saw this. One guy said he even shot one. In Africa, they saw it. Yeah. How long ago was this? 1907, I think. What the fuck? Do they have a photo of it? No, it's just, it's my, it obviously my name be a real thing, but the descriptions of it were backed up by multiple people.

43:31Huh, a carnivore that chose to hunt or devour nearly whatever it wants to save for elephants. Holy cow. He had tusks. Dog had a beastfish. What? I don't even think Jim Shock is hunting one of them. Why did you find this, Jamie? Yeah, literally. I'm looking at all these history books about like different expeditions. And this was one from 1908. They went to look for some certain things. They encountered this in Lake Victoria. Huh. It, I mean, it's, it's probably not real, but maybe it is. But it seems like it is. Like, I want to believe he encountered by Lake Victoria when asked Bronson's own hunting party provided nearly identical descriptions of the creature.

44:09The title is referenced to the author having been given special permission to hunt the closed territory of Louis de Massai, Kisee, and Sotik. Wow. What the hell was that? Just looking at that. Very strange. It looks different in a bunch of the drawings though. Sure. I mean, I don't have a picture. But like, remember when we were showing those ancient pictures of what a whale looked like to people that had never seen a whale before and had like wings and a lion's head? So I was fascinated on all that those paintings. I'm wondering what it could be. And engravings, it kind of some of it, you can see like, okay, we still have some of those animals that looked that way.

44:46And then some kind of looks kind of mystical. I've never seen the ones that cave paintings where it's like a stegosaurus. Yeah. Like, how did you know what that looked like? Somebody had exactly, they didn't Google it. Right. Did, were there a few laying around? I mean, I wonder. I'm so intrigued by that. I think I'm more intrigued with it hunting and traveling and being in these places. Like, we went down, I love the turkey hunt. I love the turkey hunt. Matter of fact, I'm gonna do everything in my power and anybody listens to this ever, even ever knew my name knows everybody's like, dude, you gotta get Cam and Rogan to go turkey hunt.

45:23And you go, I went turkey hunt once. Did you really? Well, with Rinella, he took it. Did you really? Yeah. It was fun. Yeah, he's fun. I love turkey hunt and I just love it. And that's how I kind of broke into the industry. It's definitely a superior turkey to eat. Ooh, they are. They're delicious. They are delicious to eat. And but anyway, with that said, we were down right out of the Eucatampinescent hunt and oscillated turkeys, which is a different species. You can hunt all these turkeys and get different slams. Yeah, I think Rinella's got the slams. Yeah, Rinella's done it. And so I went down there with actually Troy Link of Jack Link's jerky and he's a big hunter.

45:56So we all went down there kind of for the adventure and to say, yeah, we hunted the jungles. And dude, amazing, you know, you got all that my and civilization and all this stuff that I saw, even Graham Hancock. But what people don't realize, we're out in the middle of this jungle and I'm walking around. And the guy I'm with, he don't know English and I'm like, and co -installing our producer. He's standing there and I was like, dude, this is a, this is one of those pyramids. Like we're walking up and I'm trying to figure out if I can hencall, because nobody had ever figured out if you can hencall to these oscillated turkeys.

46:28I get to looking around and so finally I'm tapping this guy on the shoulder and I'm like, bro, you know, my end, he says, oh, see, see? And I'm like, there's so many of those structures out there. Yeah. And we're out there hunting turkeys. They don't think nothing about it. It's kind of like us walking around out in the middle of the woods in Georgia and finding an old whale. And you know, we're in truth. They're like, oh yeah, they're everywhere. So I only knew about the ones that was on the postcards, you know, that you go in. That you need to. Yeah, when you're out there having a corona on the beach and somebody kind of said you're engraving to your wife and some, you know, ring or something, I'm like, oh my God, dude, and like I want to so bad for a turkey to respond and to put my back against that.

47:05And so I did a little video and I was like, man, this is insane. But when I had a chance to see that had I not been a hunter. Yeah. So that gets you down the rabbit hole of like, well, what was this? And what is that calendar? And I wonder what Graham Hancock is. So when I'm seeing some of this, I'm like, dude, I was in that area. I didn't go to see that particular piece where he's talking to this authority. But I did go, you know, 30 miles south of there or 100 miles and I had a chance to work a turkey around one that's not even been excavated. And it was just, boom, I'm on. They find so many of those too.

47:39The jungle just overrun all that civilization just overcame it and they find them with, you know what, Lidar is? I hurt, yes, I saw, well, I didn't know about it until I watched that on the Netflix show with Graham. It's crazy. Showing how there's flying over in those rings. See if you can find that pyramid, they just unearthed in Guatemala. They just unearthed some huge pyramid in Guatemala. And that's, we were south. I think it was Guatemala. We were right there and kind of right on the southern tip of Mexico just as you go into Guatemala. And I was just intrigued and we're in the jungle and standing these little huts and I read these little tents like almost a screen porch.

48:19I was just, I was blown away. And the whole time I'm like, thank you Lord for allowing me to be the hunter to go see this, to experience this. And to, I don't know, I was just, I'm overwhelmed. I've never got bored with it. And the more I do it, the more humbling it becomes. As soon as you start thinking like, man, I got a bunch of help with my bow and arrow. I got just figured out I'm about to run right through them. I know where they're going to be. And then you go out there and they just kick your butt. Yeah, there's no real figuring it out. I mean, you, certainly you get to your level or a level of camhains or remi warring.

48:52You become very proficient. You understand what to do. And what here it is. Find lost city in Mexico jungle by accident. Holy cow. Yeah, this is what it was. It wasn't Guatemala. So archeologists found pyramid sports fields, causeways and connecting districts, amphitheaters and the southern central state of Campeche. Campeche, yeah. Campeche. They uncovered the hidden complex, which they have called Valeriana, Valeriana using Lidar, a type of laser survey that maps structures buried under vegetation. They believed it is second and density only to Cala, Camul thought to be the largest Maya site in ancient Latin America.

49:35The team discovered three sites total in a survey, the size of Scotland's capital Edinburgh by accident. When one of the archeologists browse data on the internet, that's so crazy. They found it by accident. See, that's amazing. And I cat the same vibe when I was down, because we weren't too far out of Campeche when we was Turkent. And so as we're going through there, and there's thousands and thousands and thousands of acres, I'm not even sure I set up. I don't know if it's, you know, governmently owned in this case, Mexico, Arthits Village. But when I saw that, even though we've videoed it, I asked later I come back and the main outfit or he's very fluid in English.

50:14He said, yeah, we don't, you know, there's all kind of stuff out there. We don't talk about it a lot, because this is our hunt and ground. It's almost like the buffalo drop story. They don't want people to work, you know. They really don't want grand hand -cock down there with a team of filmmakers from California like, you know what I see their point, but I don't. I absolutely. And they kind of, but I think that's what's fascinating about all that we're able to talk about in share now, culturally, you know, as we realize, if you grow up hunting in fishing, well, I really assume everybody did. I didn't think there was somebody that had an each squirrel.

50:49I was just, I did a walk. I didn't miss squirrel tails 45 years old. That's what I'm saying. And I grew up to where, like, laying and eating with my papa like one day, damn it, I'm gonna buy me some rib eyes. You know, it's like you eat enough squirrel and rabbit. And it's great, but it's almost like, man, I'm gonna get that big family packet chicken. And we ate plenty of that, but it was always a fallback to where you understood the good Lord's New Global Resources and how to hunt them. So taking an animal for table fair wasn't anything at all to even cheer about other than, you know, almost in the blessing of blessing your food.

51:25Like, thank you Lord for giving us this opportunity to have a place to hunt. So it would be a chance to go put a fish basket out. I remember my papa would talk me so many things. He made corn liquor and just country of the damn chicken. And I looked back, he passed away when I was 12, both of my grandad's did it. And my dad, Evan, what else same way? I mean, they taught me so much, but I just assumed this is what every man was. And I figured this is what everybody knew. That's how you grew up. Yeah. And I remember I started working in the hunting industry when I was young. I remember I tell this story.

51:57I just remember like going to a nice restaurant and people were in appetizers. And I'm like, what are we doing? What are we doing? Like, what does that mean? It was like, bring us some ceviche and some calamari. And you guys like cheese sticks. Look, I know they're unhealthy. Everybody like cheese sticks. I like cheese sticks. And like, you know, like, and then all of a sudden, we sat in here chatting like we are and everybody's having a cocktail. And I'm like, man, I'm so happy. This is the fun. I'm loving this. And I'm literally going back and at the end of night calling my dad, like, you ain't gonna believe it.

52:33These everybody's eating before you eat. Like we had, we getting shrimp cocktail. And you know what, I'm over there. And it sounds crazy. And almost like it's exaggerated, but I was so overwhelmed. I was so intrigued with the city and just people. I would be the guy talking to everybody, you know, from the, from the, you know, street people to like, what's up, dog? You know, they're, you know, like, man, what's it like out here? You know, like, man, you ever, you ever ate a pigeon? Man, I've got these pigeons. Go get your couple catch up packets from McDonald's and get your rockets. Hell, people you see, and so I was, it was almost like the Zacked opposite from some of them.

53:13Now my city friends who have gotten just enthralled with hunting, they introduced me to so much of the city culture that, you know, I still get excited. Everybody don't think I would, but I still love to get excited to go out, I had a chance, Joe Montaña is somebody who's got a show on outdoor channel. So he has this big cigar, dinner every night, and I mean, every year in Burbank. And saw the Fente's, you know, and all these different, you know, movie stars and stuff. And so he's like, man, why don't you get a table, come out and join us? I'm like, yes, I took my wife, we're all country. I was so excited to just get dressed up and everybody think I wouldn't like it.

53:48But I was like, man, this is cool. I'm out there having a cigar. There's the guy from Rambo, I forget his name, but it's in Karate Kid. The, uh, yeah, sure. And I'm like, I'm meeting some of these people and I'm thinking, it's amazing how culturally being so country and how now I'm talking to some of these guys like, man, dude, you're the hunting guy. Can you, man, why don't you take me hunting? I'm intrigued with that. Yeah. And so now having a chance, I know you've had like Jim Breweron, which what a cool cat. I love Jim. He is so fun. I couldn't hardly hunt with him, or Theo, for just constantly laughing.

54:23I mean, I like to cut up and have good time. The first time I went hunting, I went with, uh, Renella took me in Brian Callum. And it's the same thing that Brian Callum's fucking hilarious. We're just crying laughing in Montana, freezing our dicks off, having a good time. My experience was the opposite. Always lived in cities, always, you know, and then the first time I went hunting was with Renella. I had been camping before when I was a kid, but there was, I had no real exposure to nature. Right. And I remember just after that week doing it, I was like, I'm doing this for the rest of my life.

54:54Like this hit you. Oh, 100%. I remember cooking the backstrap over the fire. It was me and Renella and, and Callum and the crew. And we were just like sprinkling some like season salt over these backstrap and cooking them over the fire. And we're eating them with our hands. And I was like, I'm doing this for the rest of my life. This is like one of the greatest moments I've ever had in my life, one of the greatest experiences. I felt so tuned into it. I was like, this is something I've been missing. Like this is, and it's a whole new world. I explained it. I was like, it's like you're in a different dimension.

55:30The first time I shot a deer was on that show. So I had never hunted an animal before. I'd only been fishing. And the first time I'm looking at that deer through the crosshairs of that rifle, and I'm just calming myself to squeeze a shot. And I squeeze off the shot and the deer drops like a stone. And I was like, oh my God, I'm like, this is what I'm doing forever. And then once I started eating it, I was like, oh, this is, this is my new thing. I'm like, I'm obsessed. I was obsessed. God, I'm obsessed. And then obsessed with what I would, all I had been missing, just the experience of being in the woods is so different than anything.

56:08The way people think of hunting, unfortunately, we've been poisoned by movies where the hunters are the bad guys. They're always douchebags. They're always like poaching animals and harassing people. Hunters in movies, it's a trope that they've always been like cruel evil people like this, bambi. The bambi, the Walt Disney movies are the worst. They ruin people. They ruin this idea. People who buy burgers from McDonald's will look down on someone who hunts an animal in the woods. And it's correct. It just, we've been, our brains have been distorted. Our perceptions have been distorted by media.

56:45And I realized that being in the woods, hunting. I was like, this, first of all, this is very difficult to do. Mewal deer hunting in Montana, in October, freezing cold in the Missouri breaks, fascinating. Just the whole, the environment is so unforgiving and doesn't give a fuck about you. No. The quiet and the isolation out there. And a weird kind of loneliness, like a, not loneliness, but a realization of where your place really is in the natural world. You're not special. No. There's nothing significant about you. Crying assault. Yeah, you're just one of many living things trying to get along out here, trying to get by.

57:29And you have an advantage, obviously, because you have a rifle and you have binoculars and all that other good stuff. But the reality of it is, it's very, very difficult to achieve success, especially if you don't know what you're doing. I was very lucky to have a guy like Rinalda show me around. But once you do it once, he'll like, oh, God, like this is incredible. And then to eat that animal, completely different experience than any other meal I've ever had in my life. Yeah. It's such a piece that comes with it. And I try to explain that, but there's no way to explain it until you experience it.

58:01Right. You know, I was even trying to explain it to Theo. I don't know if I got that across, we laughed you. Theo is a unique dude. Man, he's one of the most, I've met quite a few people, not as many as you, but Theo by far is one of the coolest unique people I've met. And I remember we get out and we're gonna turkey hunt. You know, and I knew, first of all, I think I ruined his whole excitement of it when I said, all right, man, I'll wake you up. We get about 435, you know, he said, what'd you say, what else? I said, oh, man, I didn't sign up for this. You know, I didn't say this in a brochure or an, and so Caleb Presley, who was a varsity sports, he was there and I was a big fan of those guys.

58:38So I was trying to make sure I gave him the best experience I could, you know, because I, you know, just like Renella, with you, I knew the magnitude of, okay, these guys, I hope they want to do it again, but we go out there and Theo had not been around a gun a lot. And so I figured it'd be easy. I had a 20 gauge, well, I can't remember the 20 or 12 gauge. I had a couple, but I put red dot, those bush and L red dot scopes on there to make it really easy. Not having to shoot the B, just look through this, I'm taking, see the red dot, put it on the turkey's head, pull the trigger. So Theo's looking through that thing.

59:09So you know, I said, no, Theo, I mean, this is not even daylight good. He's got sunglasses on. And he says, he's looking through this joke. He's looking through this shotgun. He said, oh, man, he said, I see that red dot. He said, when I pulled a trigger, turn green.

59:28And I said, Theo, it's a, there's clips of it. And I literally, he said, and then he looked and he said, who's on, who's on other team? There he is. That's it. Don't shoot, don't shoot. Don't shoot. Don't keep it, keep feigning off the trigger. Okay. I see what I'm saying. You can see the red dot, the red dot, the call is in. Get it. All right. And who's the other team? That's the other team. I don't think I'm sure, look, I say, I'm taking it. Bro, he lives in another dimension. Yeah, so Theo lives in a neighboring dimension. And he just comes and visits us. Oh, God. Theo and I went to the UFC two weekends ago.

1:00:07Yeah, as we again, when I was two weekends ago, we were in Vegas and then after the fight, you went to dinner. And I swear to God, the dinner was, it was an hour and a half of me and Theo crying laughing. Just crying. Tears wiping my eyes. I can't breathe. I go, dude, this should have been a podcast. We should have filmed this. Oh, God. I can only imagine. We were crying. We were just crying. He was saying the most ridiculous shit. And I was laughing so hard. It was so much fun. He's so fun. He's so fun. I had so much fun with that guy, man. And he said so much that I couldn't repeat. That was so funny.

1:00:42And then he said so much that I could. But I hadn't met anything quite like him. He's a one of a kind. He's a one of a kind. Such a big heart, too, man. Oh, he's such a nice guy. He's such a kind person. And just a very unique talent. And that's the thing, too. Caleb, on the other hand, he ended up getting the turkey Caleb. And he kind of took to it pretty quick. Theo liked it, but I think he's a tension. If it is a tension deficit, he definitely had it. He's got that. And he was kind of cool. And anyway, and I realized, Theo had more fun just kind of walking around, checking out the cows. And I mean, dude, that would be a whole, you could do a special of Theo just walking around.

1:01:26Maybe after a mushroom or something, just let him walk around and just describe what he's seeing. I mean, our producer come back and he, I saw him way away. He's, I was tired, man. I've been hunting a lot. He said, man, we're gonna go take a venture, walk around the ranch farm. It was down in South Florida. I come back, our producer was laughing. He said, man, I can't even tell you all I heard in what Theo was saying. He said, I've never laughed so hard. And I said, I can only imagine. I can only imagine, but, uh, but yeah, man, I don't know. It's just like that, that part, I think that's the most beautiful thing for me coming from where I come from and even, you know, seeing all the different people from all these cultures.

1:02:03And there's so much, and I completely understood this too. There's so little that separate us all from the most rural country guy to the most urban city guy for no matter what race, ethnicity. It's amazing how there's so much entertainment and things. If you just open your mind, not pretend to know it all to wanna learn because there's so much you can teach me, so much I can teach you. And it's just amazing. And it's definitely giving me a whole lot better perspective. And I don't know, that's been probably the coolest part of what I've had a chance to go on and venture in a journey is to be able to, you know, meet someone like Brewer, who's like, you know, he didn't really was in non -intrigue with hunting.

1:02:44It was more the conspiracy of what was going down and like, dude, I went to go get some chicken breast and some chicken wings to watch football. You couldn't find any. The government Fauci is making me learn. Why don't teach me how to kill a turkey? You know, in the other hand, first morning out, Jim kills one. And so, you know, you've hunted enough, you and Cam, where you get an elk and it is a reverence. It's not like everybody reacts different. So, but if you've played a good era, kind of the Ted Nugent, the spirit of the era, the spirit of the wild, and that era goes in there, and you've worked for it, you practice.

1:03:17And when it, you know it's a good ethical shot and you know that you got, and essentially put the tag on that bull, it is almost like, some people, it's almost like spiking the football, and you get to touch now. So, I was so excited that Jim Brewer had just got a turkey that me and I had Ira Dean, who used to be in that country group, Trick Pony, who is just a trip in itself. He's good friends with Jim, and they live somewhere close down there in Naples, Florida. And me and Ira are just grabbing him, look like you rastling, jujitsu. So, I got him in here, like you got him, Jim. You know, and we're like, you know, punch him, like you smoked him, you know, you dude, right in the head.

1:03:54You know, we have five in the gym, so we're like, like overwhelmed. Like the woman in the shower on Psycho, like what did I just do? And he's killed something. And all of a sudden, I forgot, this is a guy in the movies, this is Canadian, that group is a kid watching a certain day. He's never been there. Right. And so, and then we slowed down, and it wasn't even hardly any time after that, you know, Jim's a set and then he takes the turkey and he's holding it, like a, like a little puppy dog, and he's holding it in Ira. My buddy gets it, he grabs his bean, say, hello, Jim. And he's like, and I think even Jim talks about it, but I just set back and I'm like, man, what, how cool is this?

1:04:34Yeah. And then the same token, you know, Jim's like, hey man, if you ever down here and want to come to one of my comedy shows, and you know, from my wife and friend to go do that, or to see something I've never seen, or go home and still tell my dad who's 71, like you're not gonna believe, you know, what I saw in Austin, you're not gonna believe what happened in, you know, wherever Las Vegas, when we're at the shot show, it's, I don't know, it's, it's pretty amazing. It's pretty amazing. The media of travel, right? The more environments you could go into, the more completely different cultures you could explore, you get a, just a wider sense of humans.

1:05:09Yeah. And you realize like, we have more in common than we do opposed to each other. We're, we have much more that we share than we don't. Correct. And the, what really is, is just like what environment did you grow up in? Yeah. You grew up in the country, I grew up in the city. Yeah. But once you find common ground, and once you experience it, like experiencing nature for the first time for people that are in the city, it's so overwhelming for them. It's so interesting to watch them, just walk around the woods and just be confused and not knowing how to navigate, not knowing where they are, and being exhausted, not knowing how much energy it takes, going up hills, or how we're gonna get back.

1:05:48Yeah. Where are we at? We're eight miles deep. Yeah. Yeah, we gotta walk eight miles back. When is that gonna get us back? We'll probably go 11 PM. Yeah, it's gonna be late. Like, what? 11 PM. Yeah, we have headlights. Put on your headlamps, like what, we're gonna walk in the dark, are there animals out here? There's a lot of animals out here. And they know where you are before you know where they are. 100%. Yeah. It is, it is so intriguing. And to think about. To a different world. It is a completely different world. And for me, it was so cool. I've over the years, working for different. I call it more non -ademic.

1:06:17Like, obviously, we think of Hoyt. You think of Real Tree. You think of these different companies that are around the hunting culture. But I remember one year I had a chance to work with Hormel, Denny More Stew. Hormel had Denny More Beef Stew. It's so they did the sweepstakes. And it's like, when a turkey hunt with Michael Wattell. And so we did it and they run 30 second ads. That was when, you know, everything was bunch of 30 second ads. And so the guy wins it, him and his son. And well, they get there. And I realized I had never hunted. And it was my first time to experience guiding somebody that knew nothing.

1:06:51I mean, I got it a lot of rookies. But I'm talking about when I say had no clue of nature. Never shot a gun. Never shot a gun. I mean, immediately, you know, had a big Rambo Knife tied on the side of his head. You know what I'm saying? It's like, okay. It's, I remember we walking and I realized that, okay, this would be fun for me because from the basics of everything, just the mountains, the streams, to the tracks. So we walking along and me and his son and him are talking. And I say, look here, this is a coyote track. Right here. Look at this. Cool. And you can see it in this and arrow of a perfect coyote track.

1:07:27Oh man, that's cool. I'd like, you know, and everything he would relate to would be to a cartoon like the coyote, the bugsman running a show. I said, yeah, like bugs, bunny, road runners. Coyote, but this is the real coyote. And I said, oh, this is cool. Check this out. This is a bobcat track. Oh man, I say, look, here's a, here's a turkey track, but this is a hand track. This track is different. I'm explaining to him the different things. I mean, we saw everything that day from hog, have a later tracks. So finally, we're walking. He's just so cool with these tracks, like taking pictures. He said, hey, man, any, any Cheetos around here?

1:08:00And I said, what? And he said, you know, Cheetos, you know, Cheetos. I said, you tell him out like Cheetos like snacks? Snacks? He said, oh, yeah, I mean, any of those animals. And that's what? What? I swear, animals. He, that just shows the disconnect Cheetos, Chester, the Cheeto, which I guess is from a true animal, a Cheeto, but Chester Cheeto, he was, like, is any of those tracks, can you, if you see one of those tracks, show me what a, you know, Chester Cheeto track was like, I'm like, you know, we don't have Cheetos, but there is no Chester, the Cheeto. But then it hit me, it's like he was talking about the movies.

1:08:42Well, Bambi is so real to them. The fox in the hound, I mean, it's so rip. It's like, you know, somehow, you know, they think that you go to Antarctica or North Pole and these polar bears are setting, having a soda and high five and then talking about Christmas. Deep Klondike, boy. Yeah, he climbed that bar like, what's up, what else? Come over here, man. Have a Coke with us. You know, it's like, no, that's not, these animals will smell you and they come hunt you. They might wait a minute. A seal that we got to wait days for him to come out of the hole and hunt them down or look, there's a dude just been eating a lot of fried chicken and collard greens and cornbread, I bet that sucker.

1:09:20I bet he can't run fast. I was going him. And so it's just a disconnect of not knowing and thinking that everything is almost like going to the zoo. And then when it becomes hard, you know, in you two or three days in and you're not had an opportunity, he's like, dude, what is going on? Like, we're hunting. I mean, I've even had him like, dude, I thought you were good. I mean, well, I'm trying. I'm trying. It's just this animal. It does not want to get on your plate. It's not an easy thing to do. No. And that's also the problem with hunting shows. This is a hunting show. If it's a half an hour show, it's 22 minutes of actual footage.

1:09:57And so you're boiling down a 10 day hunt to 22 minutes and the reality is that gives a distorted perception to the people at home. Like, oh, it's easy. It's they just go there. They put the animal in their crosshair. That's not fair. Like, you hear that all the time. That's not fair. Like survival's not fair. You think it's fair that the lion gets to kill the gazelle. It's not fair. No. Of course it's not fair. There's nothing fair in nature. Wire elephants big. Why am I small? There's nothing fair. No. This fair doesn't factor in. This is what you're trying to do. You're trying to survive. Obviously you can go to the store, but out here there's no fucking stores.

1:10:31So out here, if you want to survive, if you want it, if we lived here forever, this is the only environment you're ever going to be here to your heart stops beating. Correct. This is the only one way. You've got to figure out the wind. You got to figure out where they are. You got to pattern them. You got to figure out how to sneak up on them. You got to figure out how to execute a shot without getting buck fever. You got to do all these things. Like, this is the only way. It's so deep. You're right. And it is difficult. It can't boil it down to 10. Like, the picture does a really good job of showing how difficult it is on these crazy adventure hunts that he does, but even still it's an hour, hour and a half.

1:11:08Like the reality is, it's 10 fucking days, man. 10 days. That's right. 10 to 12 miles a day, sweating your ass off, coming back exhausted, your feet hurt, your back's killing you, and just sleep so hard, you sleep like a dead man. And then that alarm clock goes off at 4 3 and a half. Oh, you get some coffee. You with a jet boil and you're freezing, you're trying to warm your hands up and then you're off again. Yep. But it still almost feels like, I always talk about hunting and opening a day. It's kind of like Christmas. It's like, you know, when you finally do get to that September and I just use elk hunting as an example because I know you love elk hunting.

1:11:44It's almost like you are tired. You've been grinding. You've had, you know, doing your daily gigs of whatever you're doing and responsibilities of everything in your life. Finally, I'm in elk camp and you're already tired and that first morning, you maybe don't sleep good because you're anxious and excited. And then all of a sudden, you finally fall in a deep sleep and all of a sudden, you're like, but then all of a sudden, it's kind of like as a kid when you wake up. You know, Santa Claus is like, man, I'm not sleeping, I'm listening for him. I'm like, milk cookie for him. And then, but then you fell asleep deep and all of a sudden you wake up, like, Santa Claus says, you jump up and you're still tired.

1:12:18And so hunting to me is still that. But that's amazing. It's still that after all these years. I still get excited. So that's the same with Cam. I mean, he's been hunting his whole life. He still loves it more than anything. I plan on it so hardcore that like, when Netflix gave me a comedy special, I had to make sure that it was the beginning of August. I was like, I need time to get ready. Yeah. Cause like I have a whole training routine and a shooting routine and, you know, I want to make sure I'm shooting a hundred hours a day, seven, seven days a week. I want to make sure my accuracy is fully dialed in.

1:12:48I have 100 % confidence. My cardio is on point. I got to be ready. So I was like, it can't be any later than like August 5th. I'm like, I need like four hard weeks. I mean, I'm training for it all year round, but four hard weeks, almost like you get ready for a fight. It's some of those may be still, do you still have maybe executives looking at you like, I don't understand it. Like so September 12th through the 23rd, you're not going to find me. Yeah. And to them, they don't understand like, you know, outside of people playing football, like you still see the Christmas games and the Christmas games or Thanksgiving, but for me, like Thanksgiving and Christmas very rarely, you know, all of us kind of like, I'm taking that day, you know, I'm taking that day.

1:13:32And that's kind of like, unfortunately, now we get in these hobbies of hunting. Like, okay, I can't do anything in first week in April. That's turkey season. Yeah. September, oh man. That whole month's gone. Yeah. And November, oh man, the deer are running. I don't know that y 'all got anything in July. Yeah. I've had big guests, like important guests, they wanted to come in like September 10th, I'm like, does not going to work. Can't do it. Is not going to happen. Well, it's the only time he's in America. I'm not going to work. Sorry. Let me know if he come back. Yeah, let me know if you come back.

1:14:01I'm not missing that. It's just, it's my favorite time of the year. There's nothing like it. I have a funny story that happens similar. You know, people wonder like, do you ever get tired of it? You really don't. I mean, I'm sure like, you know, obviously I say in the comedian world to kind of draw parallels that opportunity to go out for 30 minutes or an hour to make someone laugh and they're digging on the stuff that you're performing. There's got to be a natural high that comes with it. So there becomes an addictive quality to it. And it's not necessarily about the money. It's just a certain situation that feels good.

1:14:35So you wonder like, when do I want to step down for this? And it's kind of like, you know, Keith Richards playing a guitar. Maybe never. It's like this is part of it. And I think hunting becomes like that. And to the point of me, like the things I love, and I've been blessed that in evolution, my financial opportunities have came from promoting hunting and working for different partners as his cams in many of us, Remy, Steve, a lot of us. But I'm still so addicted to the point to where my wife, she loves country music, my wife, Christie. And so through people we meet, we've got invited some really cool things, you know, from get -togethers to parties, to situations, awards, to ceremonies, to different clubs.

1:15:17And so a lot of times we'll try to go. And it's actually a cool thing for me, because I say, hey, man, I'm at this person. Would you like to do this or that? And one thing in particular happened, my wife loves country music. And there's a lot of those country music guys that I hunt with. So I had gotten a text from a guy they was having the some awards ceremony around the country music. I forget which one it was, but when they had it at the Dallas Stadium, and anyway, I had got invited, it's like, hey, if you want to come out, Waddle, look, man, we'd like to have you have you have to, you know, man, we'll treat you like one of the singers, you know.

1:15:48And so immediately I said, oh, dude, what's the dates? And they said, this April, like it was, I forget what it was. It was, whatever it was, it hit right in Turkey season. Like right when I knew, I hadn't even had anything planned. This was time, but I knew kind of like, you know, September. So I said, man, I'm sorry, thank you so much for the invite, but I'm not gonna be able to make it. Well, my wife and I don't have a relationship where we'd go in through each other's phones and stuff like that, but that particular, my phone was setting, it was maybe a week later, setting there. And that same gentleman had text me on another matter.

1:16:20And so he had just texted me, I said, Chris, you get my phone. So she did, and somehow that got, she just happened to look at that text. And all of a sudden I couldn't figure out, she was just kind of giving me the cold shoulder, like the rest of the day. I'm like, what did I do? And I couldn't figure out what I did, you know. So finally I was like, look, baby, you know, I figured out a lot of things about Elk and Turkey. I ain't figured out a woman completely. And so I know, I don't pissed you off some kind of way. I don't know what I did, but you know, help me understand. She's, you know what, I do have a bone to pick with you.

1:16:51And I was like, okay, well, let me have it, you know, let me have it. And I'm already thinking, I ain't shit, you know what I think. She said, you know what, I know you like hunt turkeys. I'm like, okay, all right. And I'm like, yeah, I love to hunt turkeys. She said, but you know what, we could take one night and go to a really cool ward ceremony. Maybe we could hang out with Blake and have a drink and just chill and relax and Luke was going to be, and I, and I was like, what are you talking about? And then she said, well, I saw all the text and we were invited to go to the awards. And you quickly just said, no, didn't even talk.

1:17:24And I'm like, and then I hit me like, what a self, I don't know how many turkeys I've seen shot or how many turkeys I've shot myself, but here it is, I'm 50 years old and I'm saying no, just like that without hesitation to, no, I mean, I would be fun. In my mind, I'm thinking, dude, if I was June or July and I had your number, I'd be texting everybody, dude, we all going, can we have a drink? Hang out? Sure. But it's like, nope, it wouldn't matter Elvis Presley. It's gonna be the show, I was like, and then it hit me, I'm like, man, I am. Little selfish. Yeah, and it hit me there and I did, I said, I'm sorry, because you're right.

1:18:05I could have just got a commercial flight. We could flew out there and spend a great evening, had a great day at night and saw the awards and come back, but in my mind, I'm thinking, why would anybody go to a big city in a middle of Turkey city? I don't understand that. And I'm trying to, I'm still learning. Still learning, you know what I'm saying? Well, the reality of it is, if you have an experienced hunting, you don't understand why people are so drawn to it and why the experience is so much more powerful than anything else you have in life, other than the birth of your children, you know, being loved.

1:18:42There's a bunch of experiences that are wonderful in the regular modern civilized life. But when you get that bug, you get that bug, you know, you get that bug. When you hear the swat of that fucking arrow hitting the vitals and you see the spot right in the golden triangle, you see the blood dripping down and you see him stumbling forward, you're like, we got him. We got him. And every sense in your body is on 10, your fucking goose bumps have goose bumps, everything. It's just, there's nothing like it in the world. You want to stand up and tie that bandana like on Rambo first blood. Like, yeah, it's just, you just, I don't know, it's crazy feeling.

1:19:24And I hope more people get a chance to experience it. But it is hard to do. It's so hard to do. Especially like archery elk hunting or archery mule deer hunting, probably even more difficult. I agree. It is so hard to do to get someone addicted to that. Boy, you've got to, you've got to get a special kind of person that's willing to like the learning curve is so long. And the physicality of that high desert mule deer. Yes. It's in brutal. And also those mother fuckers are smart. Oh, yeah, you think they're not ducking mountain lions for five, six years and they know any little snap of a branch, any little like moving of a rock that sound like it might have been a predator's paw.

1:20:07Oh, yeah. They're on a swivel there up and they're bouncing, boing, boing, boing, seah. There you go. And that's what other people don't realize. You know, they think, oh, you, you, you hunters go out there and you know, getting these animals. And, you know, obviously the hunters has such a responsibility and the balance of a lot of things, you know, and mother nature is, first of all, very brutal. And there's a lot to be learned through nature. There's a lot of things we think we know, but then if you really dig deep in your end of mountains, you realize, wait a minute, that was all human nature.

1:20:36This is nature. There's a difference, you know, so many examples that you can get into. But at the end of the day, these deer also have coyotes. Now they reintroduce wolves in some of these places. And they have done studies that in some cases, they feel like an adult male mountain lion can kill up to 100 mule deer, one mountain lion. So you're talking 80 to 100 animals that they kill. So when you think about us, even if we're athletic, that's a year, that's a year. That's one. And they've done all kinds of studies. I know the, the state of Utah has been really proactive, which is great. And what I love about Utah game of fish is what they're doing.

1:21:16And they're listening to a lot of these mountaineering type of guys who are not, you know, have a doctored embeology or are balancing nature. They're just ranchers, they're outfitters, they're hunters, they're somebody that's immersed themselves. And, you know, they might not can set there and re -site Shakespeare, but they can certainly tell you what they've seen. They don't claim to know it all, but they can tell you things that they are seeing out there. There's often kinds of intelligence. 100%. Yeah. And a lot of the game of fish sometimes we'll get, at times, arrogant to say, well, what am I going to learn from?

1:21:53A Joe. What am I going to learn from? Right. What am I, Remy Warren? Come on, dude. Okay, you hunt a lot. But, you know, I got a doctorate in this. Well, like California's a great example. Yeah. A lot of their game and fish, I don't even think they call it game and fish. I think they call it fish and wildlife. Correct. Yeah, because they don't want the concept of game to be introduced and be hunted. They're thought is they want to get it to the point where the predators and the prey balance each other out where there's no need for hunting. And they would like to reintroduce wolves to help. They do.

1:22:24It's animal activists that have taken these positions that should be held by wildlife biologists who have an objective understanding of the populations and how to keep them healthy. And the way they're doing it in California is you've got mountain lions everywhere. Yeah. In this one ranch that I hunt, they had a water hole. They had a pond and they had a trail cam. They found 18 different cats that visited this trail cam. See that 18 different mountain lions. That goes beyond what biologists will tell you. As a matter of fact, a lot of times a lot of the studies are now it's been changed and everything the goalposts are being adjusted.

1:23:00But there was a time. I think it was 28 square mile radius that I know at least in the state of Utah. So I'm not saying every game of fish department, you know, I call it a fishing game or fish and wildlife would say. But they had specifically said a male mountain line basically control 28 miles diameter only to find that in Utah, I've got some friends and outfitters that went out there when they did have the quota tags. Now you can just buy tag over the counter and you can or get depredation. You can hunt mountain lion all the time because they realize look, these mountain lions are killing a lot of a lot of meal deer specifically on top of that.

1:23:36You can't can don't know what the winter is going to be and what that's going to kill. Then you got wolves, you got bear, you got all this stuff. This outfiter took a business card and he put it down. He said, well, I know y 'all think this, but I want to show you what I feel Dakota. He said, I shot 10 mountain lions in this business card. He said three of them was here. So your theory that one male mountain line is in this 28 mile diameter is completely busted. This is not on anything I've studied. I didn't go to Harvard. I didn't go to Auburn University in a wildlife department. I don't have trail cameras out there.

1:24:08I'm just telling you that with red bone hounds, this is a true statistic. Here's the photos. And so what has happened a lot of those people got together and what I love about Utah, they are listening and they're saying, okay, this oh, so he'll be able to know something. Let's listen to him. And so they're just and now the deer numbers going up. The hunting's getting better. And and it's unfortunate that that really some of these people might be right that nature does have a great way of balancing itself very more way more brutal than what you and I would approach. Yeah, the management process.

1:24:44But everything's changing. I mean, you know, you talk about California, you talk about how they reintroduce the wolf saying Colorado. Well, all that was voted in in a very urban area, specifically Aspen, all the ranchers. I don't think it should be voted in at all. It shouldn't be. It is valid biology to me as ridiculous. It don't make sense. You should have to have an understanding about what you're voting on from perspective of the people that are actually in the field. Correct. And the reality of mountain lines is like, you're not going to get an accurate assessment from someone who visits it once a month.

1:25:13They think you can go out there and sell tourist tickets to watch the mountain lines. You can't find them. I tell you they're there and they know you're coming. They smell you miles away. They're not going to be anywhere near you. And if you do see them, it's rare. I heard Rinella because Rinella spends a lot of time in desolate places. And I didn't specifically talk to Cam, but kind of in perspective, I started working. In the area of either guiding or working with an outfitter, working with companies that were doing shows for at the time, TN that turned into ESPN, now outdoor channel, now YouTube, so on and so forth.

1:25:47Well, so as a young kid, you know, in rural Georgia, I finally had a chance to start going to see in these places from Saskatchewan to all over Canada, got to go to Africa, all over Mexico. And now I'm hunting all across the Western landscape, not just in Georgia, hunting white tels in turkeys and squirrels there. I've only saw one mountain line in the daylight, one. Now I've spent tons. I think Rinella said he saw six in his lifetime in the daylight. So what you realize, if you see a mountain line in the daylight, now I've seen a lot of mountain lines, but they all have been in a tree behind a dog or running behind a dog.

1:26:23I'm talking about just you and I, glass and looking for Neil there and like, Joe, mountain line. You don't see him. You don't see him. And in same wood wolves, I've seen two wolves in my life, both were in one was in the Yukon, one was in Alaska, in the daylight. I've heard him countless times. You know, we've been camping and spike tents and you hear the wolves. I've heard them all across places where wolves exist, but you don't see him. Another perspective is even coyotes. I have 500, a little over 500 acres I live on in Georgia. And so I noticed that I was finding all kind of, you know, fawns and they did a bunch of studies from University of Georgia, Auburn University, I'm talking about how many deer that coyotes eat, which can't blame them.

1:27:02Why would you not eat a fawn in the, fawning time of year and feed your, your pups? So I decided, uh, actually of all people who got me into trapping, it was Blake Shelton. He was trapping in Oklahoma. Love's it. And, um, so I like my God. If this country singer hosted American, you know, or the voice can trap, I got to get learned about this. So I dug deep in 2019 and 20, man. I just dug in and just learned a lot more about trapping. And it's putting out dirt hole traps or leg hole dirt, dirt hole traps and different things. And, um, so I caught in 2021. I call like 22 one year, 19 another year, just on 500 acres.

1:27:41Wow. And if we go hunting tomorrow, now think about 20 dogs that are smaller than a German shepherd, but a small, you know, K nine dog that lives on your property, some are passing through to think that in a four week period, I could catch 22 coyotes that at times, you know, hunting a lot, I would see, see them time to time along that also called seven fox and two bobcats. And I don't know how many coins and possums. So for people to think that you see this all the time, you don't, I live there. And when I'm home, every day I'm up and I'm riding, checking food plots, putting in food plots. I got bulldozers.

1:28:20I got different things to track just trying to make the wildlife habitat better to make sure I got better areas from my turkeys to brewed, making sure I'm planting resources. And I don't see these things. And this is all I've ever done. So the people that live in Aspen or just out of L .A., you know, not trying to throw shade on them, but you don't know, man, I don't know how to hit a half pipe like Tony, Tony Hawk, either. So I'm still learning. And so for me to say that and to think that you can just spend nearly 4 .8 million, five million dollars to reintroduce wolves and think you're going to get tourists to come out there and look at them.

1:28:53These wolves, if they could talk, they're like, these people I have a clue, you're never going to see me. Well, not only that, but they took wolves that were already depredating livestock. Yeah. That's the ones that they captured and they moved to Macolorado. Were they going to continue to do the same thing? I just, it read something other day. They, you see, they're removing one of those herds. They're trapping them and removing them because of all the depredation of killing livestock. Yeah. Guess what? If a mountain line kills a hundred deer, one, and then he's, okay, God blessed the fact that he is nature and he's hunting a deer or an elk.

1:29:25But guess what they do when that starts running low? They're like, man, that dog looks good. Yeah. We were talking about this yesterday, the San Francisco, when they kill mountain lines in the Bay Area, 50 % of their diet is pets. Ain't that something at all as well? All these PETA members, they're all fine. Long as this year, dog and your cat, you know, and but all of a sudden, you let a herd of deer come in and eat their $40 ,000 worth of landscaping. And a mountain line killed their pit. They're secretly calling me like, hey, oh, hey, bone, bone collector. I'm not going to lie. That's a little if it's a butt, but we need you to teach.

1:30:01So how quiet is your bow and arrow? It's like, oh, hypocrisy is it hypocrisy .com? Calling me, it's like, well, it's uneducated. It's uneducated. They just don't know what they're talking about. And they don't have any experience in it. And again, what we talked about, the idea, the mass media idea of a hunter is very negative. It's very negative. Very negative. It's sad because what you'll find too is some of the best people in society. Some of the best people. I mean, they're really down to earth. I mean, a set around a campfire with somebody that's grew up very rural. Their excitement of talking about everything, typically is pretty awesome.

1:30:44Also, their appreciation of hard work. They very much appreciate it. And I think that's not even my dad, man, he's 71. And I said, dad, you ain't going to believe it. Joe Rogan takes me and invited me to come up on the show. And he said, man, I like that. Rogan. He said, that dude. It's funny. He talked about my dad. I got it, you know, going to that impersonation. He's like, that Joe, man, he's out. He's out. He's out. Man, he worked out a lot. You know, and I'm thinking, how does my dad know the routine? He knows it. I like him. I, you know, of course, he loved, he loved that you had Trump on it and that you had, had kind of bringing some, some light to that and give him an opportunity to talk.

1:31:23And so I find across the board, same conversation I had talking to some squirrel hunters, talking about camhage, you know, it's like cam is a beast. You know, he runs and does this stuff and what brought me and cam back together to, to even going out and talking on his podcast. You know, we grew up close to the same age, same trajectory. I'm the southern guy. He's a west guy. He's a fitness guy. You know, I'm kind of a little Debbie eater fried chicken collard green, but we still figured out a way. I always said, somebody asked me, it was a difference to you in Cameron Haines. I said, Cameron Haines runs quickly to the top of the mountain.

1:32:00And I sat down and I called him off the mountain. I got to, I'm going to figure out how to communicate with him. You know, and I said, there's a lot of different ways to cross a lot of different ways of skin to cat, as they would say. But at the end of the day, I was talking to some squirrel hunters over in Alabama. And these guys prototypical, what you'd pull up, look like Billy Coleman from where the red fern grows, you know, had squirrel dogs. And one of the guys, he had to be in his 60s. And literally I had some chew in the back. He said, man, you friends with that Cameron Haines. And I said, I am.

1:32:29I said, I know Cameron a long time. He said, man, he's seen like a good dude. And I don't know why he hit me like this guy. I wouldn't expect to mention Cameron. And so quickly, I contacted Cameron. I said, man, it's had a cool conversation. And so he and I quickly kind of said, man, why have we not even hunted together? Like we've been at trade shows and stuff and done some stuff. And so that's been really cool for me and old friend. I've known a long time to get back in camp. And the conversations are so funny. We get to laugh and cuttin up. And and and I don't know. It's crazy. And I think one of the beautiful things about social media for hunting and podcasts for hunting is that people have an opportunity to hear a completely different perspective about what it is that wasn't available before that.

1:33:14I got into hunting because I started watching Spirit of the Wild. I love that. That's when I got fascinated with it. And then I watched Runella's original show, which, oh, God, I can't remember the name of it. He had a show. What mediator though? No, no, no, before a meat eater. Yeah. God, I forget the name of it. But his show, it didn't last very long, but I thought it was really interesting. And I knew Helen Cho, because Helen Cho, who worked with Runella on that show, she also worked with Bourdain. And so, you know, I was friends with Bourdain. And so I got introduced to them through that and Helen got Steve on the show.

1:33:53He didn't even know what a podcast was. He did. He was like, what are we doing here? We went to we were filming out of the ice house in Pasadena at that time, the ice house, the comedy club in Pasadena. And that's where we had our studio. And so, uh, there's Runella sitting there. He's like, oh, kind of a little dismissive of this. Like, what is this nonsense? Yeah. And then now he's got one of the biggest podcasts in the space. It's funny. He's done a phenomenal job, man. It was great. He has. I was, uh, when Runella reached out, I had a chance to be on his podcast. You know, I would say I'm a very secure person, but at the same time, I know I'm country.

1:34:26You know, I know I'm the, you know, Flax, better words, the guy that, you know, I killed a lot of stuff, you know, I ain't no way to say it any better. I could say harvest, pluck, take, but at the end of the day, you know, I grew up where in Georgia, we could kill 10 deer legally a year. So mostly with the boat and then Alabama, the neighboring state, you know, you could kill a buck in a doe a day for a long time in Alabama. And that was people that tried to do it. It wasn't ever, did you get you a good one this year? Like, yep, 47. But what? Like, yeah, I, you know, and so it's a lot of food.

1:34:56At first, I was, you know, when I first started meeting in Hangman, Renella, I thought, man, I hope you don't think I'm just this old red neck crazy dude that, you know, and then once we've become friends, it gets back to the whole how everything is so much tighter that you realize and how we all have so much respect for each other in different lanes of bringing it. And it's just like anything. I mean, you know, you got different players on a team, all playing for the same team, but they all have a different skill set. And so we all grew up a little different. And so again, I just assumed. Growing up in my small little area just out of a manchester woodberry Georgia.

1:35:34I really think the area I was from is called Booker Bottom, Georgia. And I just thought, well, I, Booker bottoms are everywhere. Well, you find out there is a lot of different little names. There are no lights there. But I just really assumed everybody did. And I was just completely devastated when I went to the city. And, you know, and I tell somebody like, man, you know, what do you do? It's like, man, I work for a company. We do hunting shows T and N. You know, I'm so proud thinking, man, I should be a pass out of business card. Me to girl with this. You know, like, oh my God, you're a killer.

1:36:03You kill Bambi. And it just, bro, it just completely devastated you. Because you had never been around people who were anti hunting. I've never had, I didn't know it existed. I mean, I was that naive. I did not know. How long will you when you first encountered people that were anti hunting? I was in my early 20s. Wow. I was in my early 20s and I worked. How was it to wrap your head around that? It blew me away. And people that eat meat too, by the way, right? Yeah. I mean, we really weird. It really hit me when I started traveling. I literally was like a kid that was just, you know, getting up every morning for Christmas.

1:36:35I was having a chance to work for Bill Jordan. And I had met him through winning a turkey calling contest. And he asked me him and David Blanton. I can't say enough a great things about Bill and David. David Blanton believed in me when, I mean, he always believed in me so much. And he said, Hey, man, we'd love you to help guide hunters. And back then everything around hunting was media, outdoor live field and stream. So there wasn't any hunting shows. But then about that same time, TNN after these NASCAR races introduced an outdoor block, which if you go back and look, people like Jackie Bushman at the time, what year was this one?

1:37:09This would have been for me. It'd been 90, it'd been the 92 or three or four somewhere right in there. Did they even have range finders back then? No range finders. I bought the first one I'd ever seen. It was a bush now and I still work with bush now. I think looked like a car battery. Literally, you know, I had safety straps. I had to like change. I like one strongest man contest to hold this thing up. But they had the little ones you could roll. And it didn't even tell you when the temperature changes, it's going to give you an accurate. It's going to change with the weather. But no, it was, you know, just guessing.

1:37:41But was it a laser range? It was the first ones was like a roller. You rolled two things. I forget how exactly that worked. But it come and it gave you basically a rough estimate, a rough estimate in the be like 42 yards or 40 yards. And then bush now to my knowledge come out with one. It was a bigger one. It looked like said it kind of looked like a small battery is big. And it had a laser on it and you could range it and it gave you, you know, the yardage. And obviously it wasn't angle compensated. It didn't have any of the arc, the angle range compensation had any of that. And the first person I ever saw that even talked about that was Chuck Adams.

1:38:17I was videoing with him back in those TNN days and. And just explained to people like the angle compensation is like an arrow is quicker going downhill. So if you're shooting uphill or downhill, the angle you have to gauge how fast the arrow is going to go the feet per second based on the angle. So if it might look like it's 50 yards as the crow flies, your rangefinder might say 42. Correct. And you got to put your rain, you got to put your side at 42 yards. Otherwise it's a shoot right over its back. And it works. Yeah, it works really well. It's unbelievable. And that to me, I didn't know existed.

1:38:53Have you ever fucked around with those garment sites? No, I haven't. I've always wanted to try one. It's great in theory and great when it works. So when it works, yeah, I've had a problem with it a couple of times and I gave up on them. And I'm hoping they're going to get better and they outlawed them in Utah. I tried to bring it to Utah a couple years ago and they had passed a law maybe last year. And the best thing about it though, it's like a red dot. You get the dot. You have a clear side picture. No post. You can see just that dot just that dot on the vitals. It's amazing. And the fact that you could go to full draw and just press a button to range and then say maybe the animal moves 15 yards to the left.

1:39:32See, it's a press it again and you get a range and you have a perfect shot. But some people think that that's cheating. That's, but it's the same. It's just taking a step out instead of picking your range finder off your binopult pouch and checking it and then changing your site and then drawing back with this, you're doing it right from draw. So from full draw, you just keep getting ranges. And then you can also hit it once and then the second time and you'll get a pins. So you get 20 to 80. Nice. So even if you, so then all your pans have come up. Exactly. Based on that. But if you just want to an accurate range, you get that.

1:40:09One button press and it'll give you exact range and you know, it's based on everything is compensated into the site itself. So angle compensation is built into the site itself. You put in the speed of your arrow. So if you're shooting 285, exactly exactly. It's all factored into your bow. It's pretty incredible. I liked that a lot because, and I think I've heard you even mention this. What I love about archery is obviously you got these windows. Those everything ain't just setting out in the yard where you're shooting, you're shooting through the wood, especially if you out there, elk hunting, you got these windows and there was a site years ago that I remember.

1:40:47And it worked in theory great, but it was what and like the range or the, the Garmin, but they had these fiber optics that were glued to the middle of, of a, basically of a piece of glass that went into the site, housing. So you would buy this glass housing that, okay, three hundred, three twenty and your pins were preset. So you went in, got your top pin dialed in. So then you had all these, but your site viewing was good. The problem was when it rained or if it got dirty foggy, yeah. And what I did like about that is, is the fact that the reason I've always liked pins, multiple pins is the fact that I could see my whole site picture, where my air is going from 20 all the way out to even if I'm shooting 80.

1:41:32In this case, most of my sites I set up from, say, 20 to 60 or 20 to 70. I try to put as many pins on my site as I can. A lot of people don't like it because they think it's cluttered. But once I've mentally got used to it, if I range a bull, say 65, when I pull back without having to in any other calculations, I'm put my 60 R pin on that bulls and the clear. And then quickly now it's like a, you know, memory of going back and I quickly go back up to my 20 R pin and I'm looking all the way down through an estimate and is this era going to arc through. But basically from 20 all the way out to my desired where I want to hit, I can see the arc of my era based on my pin set.

1:42:11Good. So you know if there's a gap in the trees, I know the gap. But I know if I'm at 60 holding dead on that clear spot, but I got a limit 30 and my 30 R pins in the middle of it. I know like, oh crap, I'm gonna hit that list. So now I can just squat down. So that's why I don't like as much a single pin technology. And then quickly what I like about the pins, it's clutter. It's kind of old fashioned, but I do like that a lot from that standpoint or trajectory of the ability to kind of kill or to take in fill attack. And Cam and I talked a lot about those things. We talked a lot about the release.

1:42:46I definitely like that. You know, I like the handheld from a, if I really want to try to haul in and be a little more disciplined and kind of the fill it go, not fill it go off and shoot with completely surprised. I like that, but I don't think that traditionally works is great for hunting because of the fact I think you do have to know and to make that error go right now if you consistently have to even in Texas. I mean, we're shooting animals at, you know, 20 to 30 yards, those deer. And sometimes the opportunity sometimes they walk in, they're, they're dog and a doe. They're coming in every day or ain't coming in just to eat corn or take the food plot.

1:43:23They're coming in. They got one thing on their mind and that's, you know, mama is ready. And so they're coming in grunt and so that deer runs. He stops and you got to be at full of draw. No, he's 27. Come back and you got to send it right now. You know what I described it as the difference between practice and free throws and basketball. 100%. That's it. Stefan Curry. Yeah. It's not, it is, I mean, you don't get a chance to set up and have a surprise shot. 100%. That's a great way to, that's really what it is. I think practicing sure, but I think there's moments where you got to make that sucker go off.

1:43:57But then, oh man, yeah, this is great. Hunters like Levi Morgan, who hunts with a hinge. I do. I mean, just an animal. Yeah. He's probably the most decorated archer that I know. I mean, that does maybe a whole time. Yeah, because like all more killing him, all those guys are heroes of mine. I mean, like I very much look up to him. And if I can ever pull him aside, I just wear him out trying to learn, you know, right. And but Levi is right there, dude, far as winning and what he knows. And he, you know what, nothing about Levi. I got to give him credit. That dude is a cold blooded killer man. He is a great hunter too.

1:44:29Sometimes I don't translate. I know some people that are great tournament. Right. I mean, 3D tournament, ASA, IBO winners, but it didn't go over into the abilities. He's just free throws, free throws versus basketball. Yeah, no, it really is. Like you're standing weird. One leg is down. One leg is up. You know, you're on the side of a hill. You got to camp your bow a little bit. You know, you lean your bubble into the wind. There's a lot of shit going on. A lot. A lot of shit going on. And then you got the nerves. You never get completely over that. You know, people ask me all the time. Do you ever get nervous or get but fear like man, air almost every time.

1:45:04It's like, I think that's when if some of that, yes, you get good at kind of someone like stage fright. I saw a clip of Elvis press. I thought it was just so unique. I saw a clip of Elvis press the other day on this YouTube clip. And he was completely in panic. And this was like right in the prime of screen. And he was walking around and and it was a narrator saying yes, Elvis and notoriously would get just afraid every time I went on frayed. And I'm like, this is the king. Right. But but he was just pacing and he was being short with a couple of people. I wish I and in any way, he walks out there.

1:45:37I'm sure he crushes it. But I think it's similar to probably how some of those football players run and out on the field. There's no way you got all this clicking in your head. Like, ah, man, I got to remember Bill Hitchick has told me that he's in a new offense. I'm not sure. I don't know if I can read. I don't have a read this offense. I think hunting similar is to where everything has to click, but you still get that now is my opportunity. Yes. And dude, it still is overwhelming. And then to control it. And then when you fit that air through that window and then you can pick up the phone and call your family and say, baby, dog, don't buy an old state because I'm bragging at home.

1:46:12It's it's it's it's again, it's just an. It's not like you want to disrespect the animal, but you just achieve something. You're a grocery shopping in the wild. That's what you do. Yeah. I think it's something that's very difficult to do that you care a lot about. And any time to something that's very difficult to do that you care a lot about, you're going to get nervous. 100 % and when and especially with hunting, there's one moment where you pull that trigger. This one moment. Yeah. This one moment. So you've been practicing. You've been preparing. You pack in your gear, getting ready all for this millisecond in time.

1:46:48Yeah. You release that arrow and you watch right in. And it's very difficult to master. I don't think you ever master. You become proficient at it. You become good at it. But even the best hunters make bad shots sometimes. Animal moves, the wind takes the arrow in a weird direction. It hits a branch going in. You see it all the time. It's not an easy thing to do. So of course, you're going to have those nerves, but that's part of the reward of being successful is that if you can get through that nervousness, and I think it helps you in everything you do in life. I think anytime you do something really hard, very difficult.

1:47:27I think that ability to overcome that difficult scenario helps you with everything in life. 100 % and when it comes to archery too, you're on that ragged line to wear. And you're so conscious. You can go from you can be the hero or you can be zero that quick. All of that time, the money, the energy, the time. That you did step away from the netflix special in your case because, hey, I'm elk hunting. Right. You know, you got to somehow communicate with your buddies. Oh, man, I missed our worst. I made a bad shot. Let's let them lay. And so everything that you look forward to that whole year, could you could let yourself down.

1:48:01So it's a very individual, lonely feeling. Yeah. And you can't think about that before you pull the trigger. No, you can never think, I hope I don't make a bad shot. Because you can't. You can't. You can't. And I'm always, is you always, are you always positive? You think in when you're like, I'm about to put it on it. Yeah. Are you thinking positive? I have to. I do too. Yeah, I think you have to. I was interested. You know, I was talking, I mentioned Chuck Adams. Chuck told me that he did that exact opposite. He said sometimes I would say, Hey, I'm going to do my best. I'll probably fail. It was almost like Mr.

1:48:35Rogers neighbors. I said, you're kidding me. And then to me, this guy is the beast. And the only other person in history I've ever heard that there was a guy named Cavalck, Kenny Bartram is a motor cross. He was the first guy to ever do a back flip on a, on a, on a motorcycle and he landed it. And so he went hunting with us one time in Texas and I said, Kenny, how, I mean, how much weed do you got a smoke to get on the bike and think you can do a flip for the first time? He said, man, I just always thought I'd probably kill myself, but I tried. I said, so you never thought you would land it. He said, no, I every time I try a trick, I think I'm about to water it up.

1:49:09I said, oh my God, how do you, how do you do that? And I'm thinking about me and my buddy, Boo Bishop, building a BMX track and building a little something we jumped over and thinking I'd be scared to like, right. I can do this. Just jump over a little. Yeah, jumping the rap, like I'm probably going crash. I always would think I could. And then when I crashed, I'd be, you know, like surprised. Like I can't believe that. That hurt, you know. So I, Chuck and Kenny was the only guys that ever thought that thought that, you know, I've done one. That's a weird psychology. I don't think that's the best way to approach it.

1:49:39Me either. I'm going to really get at it. Is there ever a comedian that walks out? I had, I'm probably going bomb, but I'm going to do the best I can or I'm going to play this get tar the best I can. I don't know. I just sometimes people talk like that, but I think they, they're, they're fishing for compliments, you know, for their own self. Yeah. I think dry and I hope this works well. And then friends, like, come on, man, you're fucking hilarious. You're going to kill it. Well, you think they might be like fishing for compliments. Yeah. Kind of like you're tired and it's down and it's like, dude, come on, man.

1:50:07Yeah. I'll be open. Hit me. Yeah. You muster through. I know you're limping. Hit me. I'll go, yeah, okay. Yeah, you need a little of that sometimes. Yeah. Yeah. I think these experiences that we have that when we were related to people, it's, it's, it's one of the only places like in podcasts, the only places where you can hear it this way. And I think that's what we're battling against. We're battling against the media representations of hunting, which is almost entirely negative. And these perceptions that people have that hunters are cruel and then, then, then, this is term trophy. A trophy.

1:50:41Like that, that's the Mule deer that I killed with Rinaldo. That's the first deal. Say that's, that's awesome. I love that. And, you know, you could say that this is not a trophy Mule deer. It's not a very big Mule deer. As far as Mule deer's go, this is, you know, mature buck. But he's not a big one. Oh, he's, but he's been to me. This is, this is where it all started. And this is a trophy. This is not, if you went to a trophy unit and you shot a deer like this, people like, what are you doing? Why just shoot this? Why didn't you hold out for a big mature one? But this is like the term trophy gets thrown around and, and unfortunately, it has a negative connotation.

1:51:17But it does. I think Ted puts it the best way. Ted Nugent. Yep. He says, he says it's all the things. It's food. It's trophy. It's sport. It's all those things together. You know, I don't think of it as a sport. Like you said, I think the term sport, it's sports are awesome. Don't get me wrong. But it's not significant enough for for what hunting is. 100 % like that. You're, you're taking a life, you're feeding yourself with that life. It's more, it's more powerful than sport. And that's why it's more when you call it this sport of hunting. I'm like, I don't like that term. I agree with that too.

1:51:58As a matter of fact, if there's any negative thing, I think the hunting industry and even TV shows that we produce can put a negative vibe potentially on trying to kill these big trophy animals. Don't get me wrong. There's nothing wrong with it. I mean, you're hunting Utah in places we get a chance to hunt. Absolutely. You're looking for in that case, a seven to eight year old bull. Right. You know, sometimes they might score three 20 to three 70. At the end of the day, the trophy is for sure a mature animal. But you also got to keep in perspective, especially if you grow up where I did where literally there's, you know, ten guys shared a 300 acre property.

1:52:33They just want a deer hunt and they're trying to get away. Keep in mind, they still manage in a family. They're still dealing with the economy. They're still dealing with everyday strife of, man, how am I going to get off work? Still get my kid to soccer practice or football practice. My wife has pissed off. I hadn't even took her to Applebee's in the last three months, you know, and it's like, I didn't take the kids to, you know, Disney world. And the only family picture we got in front of the show needs big boy. So man, what am I going to do? But in the back of my mind, I was like, I sure would like to get off.

1:53:04Maybe Saturday I could spend all the time and go over to the hunt, leasing, hang out, maybe get a chance to shoot a deer. They're not necessarily thinking I got to kill a deer to put it in Pope and Young and Arbun and Crockett. They're looking, it's more than just a hunt. It is a getaway. It's a, I call it, it's a, it's a cheapest, you know, anti -depressant, press it, you can get on to where you can clear your mind. You can get away. Hopefully you can turn your phone off, get up in the tree stand or a saddle, whatever it is, where you hunt in public or private. And we miss that in hunting industry so many times.

1:53:34And there's people that are literally bustin' their ass for their family. It's not a sport to hunt, but it's therapeutic. They grew up doing it to be able to set around a fire with other men and women sometimes and get away to cleanse yourself of everything that's going on. And unfortunately, I think that's what drives people sometimes crazy in the, even in the city. Sometimes I walked around Austin today early. It's been nice breakfast and I just walked around and ended up running to this children's network that was trying to raise money where you can kind of adopt a kid and give them so much a month.

1:54:08So man, I did. Like, yeah, I talked to everybody. I just said, hey, man, what's y 'all selling over here? Like, oh, man, not only people don't come up and talk to us. We have to sell them as a guy from Europe and a sweet girl that was, you could tell that born and raised right around here. Anyway, with that said, I had it up, you know, I said, man, I want to pledge the money every month. So I picked me out of the kid in Guatemala. And so anyway, with that said, about that time here comes a street person and he is cussing me and her and that fell out. I mean, the most vile words you could, I mean, cussing like a sailor as they would say metaphorically.

1:54:39And I'm like, man, what's wrong with this guy? So I said, I'll get this a lot, you know, and it was just before I, not far from when I come over here. And the girl said, yeah, we do get that a lot. And the guy with the British accent or the European accent said, you know, we get it quite a bit. You know, he said, but I think there's a bad batch of something right now. And I'm like, oh, really? He said, I mean, you know, he said, man, people have been really mean lately. They've been yelling and cussing and screaming at us. And well, by the time a guy comes back and he's like, you M efforts, I know everything and everybody's retarded and I'm, and I'm like, and he's, he's right there in the set and I'm at the point to where, man, you know, I ain't scared.

1:55:18And you can, and you can tell their experience at more than I do. And I'm sitting there watching this guy. And then all of a sudden, uh, he's just yelling and screaming. I say, buddy, I said, uh, just so you know, we on your side, man, we love you, bro. I said, you right. You know a lot more than people realize you know a hell of a lot more than people realize. And I said, you cool. I'm on your team. So are they? And he said, and it was crazy. Joey looked at him. He said, thank you. He left. And, and it hit me. It was so weird. I got a little off track when I was talking about hunting, but I thought, man, the dude don't even really want to be understood.

1:55:51He wants to be heard. Right. And I thought how ironic that I'm going to speak with Joe today. And anyway, the girl and the guy says, I've never seen that happen. Like that just got diffused. He treated him like a human. Yeah. And I said, and sometimes it's almost like, uh, you know, I, you know, I, I've never figured out completely a lady in my wife. You know, sometimes it's always a game like, and I've learned that I don't know that I'll ever understand exactly what it is. She wants, but I know she wants me to hear and pay attention. And I think that's what society's doing, whether you're a hunter, whether you're from the city, but overall what I have found, whether you live in the city or the country, whether you get a chance to go to a rave or go to the mother ship, uh, which I hope to go by there.

1:56:36And I just want to check out the joint, you know, and, and so anyway, when it's all said and done, there's something about the peace and tranquility that you can refuel out in the woods. And it brings everything to a, to a focal point. And, uh, and you can be still and be quiet. And it brings everything back. And so in reality, it's not about people going to think if you different, if you shoot the biggest, high score in animal that you can put into bokeh and young or the bokeh and crock at record books, I think those of us, once we learn to respect each other, uh, each other and, and love each other's goals that, yeah, if I know that your goal is to shoot, say a three 90 bull, that one day, you know, I'll get a call and you're going to be high prevental eight and you're like, I just did it.

1:57:17Like, what? Like, dude, I swear, you know, well, for people who don't understand why that's so interesting to us, it's because they're the most difficult ones to get because they're the older, wiser ones. That's, that's, and also, yeah, when you look at it from a conservation standpoint, those are the ones that you want to hunt because those are the ones you spread their genes and they're probably about to get taken out by nature anyway. Correct. And get an eight year old elk or a done year old elk or a 10 year old elk. That's how many years they have left. I shot one 10 year old elk once his teeth were worn out almost nothing.

1:57:50Just an old tank. How much time did he have left? If most likely he was going to either starve to death or freeze death or get stabbed in a fight with another elk, he'd get stabbed and wound up. Mount line jump on him. Mount line jump on him or freeze to death or, you know, a number of other very, very cruel endings that mean I shot that elk at 40 yards. It was a perfect shot. He was down at 15 seconds. It was no tracking. So it's like that elk died the best way. Yes, he did possible. Yes, he did. He's not. He's not. They don't live forever and become angels. And that is a very good death compared to a pack of wolves or mountain line.

1:58:32You start to eat on you sometimes before they're even deceased. That happens all of this. So many of these are bears. Oh, bears are brutal, man. Oh, bears are very brutal and selfish animals. And crazy like hunting bears is the thing you get the most hate for. Oh, everybody thinks they're cuddly. I mean, I don't know if it's a we need the poo type of 100%. But it's like teddy bears and yogi and all that shit. We're all distorted. Like when people say you've hunt bears, I go, I've eaten bears. I've eaten three bears. They're delicious. Yeah. Like what? You eat bears. I'm like, I'll make you some bear sausage.

1:59:04And I'll tell you what you will fucking love it. If, especially if I don't tell you what it is, you go, what is this? This is great. It seems like beef, but different. And then if they knew how a bear's personality was, they were going, I mean, you want to kill them? Oh, they, they'll kill their own kids. Oh, yeah. And to breed mama to eat them. I mean, it's just a, it's a brutal world. And I, you know, I, that was things before I even had a chance to hunt that I recognized just domestically. And I'm, you know, raising rabbits, you know, you know, those rabbits would sometimes kill the, the little baby rabbits for the right and opportunity to breed again real quick with the, with the female in the pen, you know, and I realized in my pop off said, you got to separate them.

1:59:43That book, rabbit, kill that. I mean, I didn't know that. You know, I'm 10, 11 years old trying to figure out how to raise some rabbits or watching hogs, you know, pigs, but it always had on a raised floor, peeing. He had that raise up a few hogs. Man, them jokers are trying to kill each other, mean, you know, who does it dolphins? Dolphins, are they brutal like that? Dolphins, we think of them sweet and intelligent. They commit in fancricide all the time. What dolphin females have to do is they have to breed with as many males as possible, because when a female dolphin has babies, she has to take care of that.

2:00:16Baby for about six years. So when the male dolphins recognize a female with babies and they don't know that female, those are not his babies. Yeah, he'll kill those babies. So that female dolphin will breed. So he wants to breed her. So she will breed with everybody possible. So nobody knows who the babies are. And so since they're intelligent, they understand that they've, they've bred with that female before. So that could be their, their babies. So they don't kill them. So basically all the dolphins are hosed. All ho. Yeah, that's how they have to be. Otherwise their babies get killed. So they've adopted this polyamorous strategy to try to kill, to keep the male dolphins from killing the babies.

2:00:56Well, that's amazing. I mean, you watch the breed and season during elk. Like you was talking about this, fighting. And ironically, they never, they never get things confused. Those, those males are looking for the females. The females know that I'm all breed with this dude and strong as survive. And they are, you know, a lot of people say, oh, they're really not trying to kill each other. No, you wasn't out there. I didn't watch this on that geo. This, they're trying to murder each other. Oh, I've seen some amazing epic elk fights. It's some of the greatest things to see in nature. These big 800 pound animals running at each other with swords growing out of their heads.

2:01:29It's like a, it sounds like a, like some kind of Scottish fight back in 1400. Like a sword fight almost. It's like cracking baseball baths together against each other. And you hear it loud. You're like, oh, shit, they're fighting. It gives you cold chills. Oh, it's amazing. It's, it's crazy to watch the brutality of it. And you know, you'll find them occasionally dead. Yeah. Because one of them is stabbed one. We, we found one. Um, I think I have video of it on my phone. He had a, we were hunting him. He had a six inch time sticking out of his neck. Holy cow. It was broken off, sticking out of his neck.

2:02:03And he's still running his cows and bugling. I'm sure I have it. I had, we had the same summer thing in New Mexico this year. Nick Munt, who's, who's one of my best friends. We hunt a lot together. He shot a good bull like first morning. I was calling it was classic man bull come in. He shot it and we were just keeping them out there on the side of the hill. And, and all of a sudden, he's, look, a hair man. He had a, he had a tie again about four inches and it was broke off. Just right. I'll bust up and it's dude still come in. Yeah. I'm going to sign that Jamie this, this picture because it's so, or the video because it's so crazy.

2:02:37It's, it's so cool, though, to see that and, and experience it. And I think it's sad that most people don't know. And there's a lot of very smart people that, in some cases, they think it might be a little beneath them to, to understand what maybe hunting is truly about other than maybe what they see on a Walt Disney movie. And I think that is definitely kind of fueled me to be able to help educate and talk about those things. And I know Renella has done an amazing job of introducing that too. And there's a lot of great ambassadors we got right now doing that. Yeah, there's, it's a great time to be educated about this.

2:03:13And it's a great time. And there's a lot of people that have gotten it really interested in hunting from those kind of conversations with Renella and with Kandace himself. And how did you eventually get started doing it? Because like that's every young guy's dream that is ever hunted. Like, oh my God, imagine like making a living doing that. Like that's what I would love to do. Oh man. How did you, how did you pull that off? One of the coolest stories actually, only in America, you don't hear the story in Turkmenistan. But, you know, I grew up, obviously I said rule. I loved to hunt and fish. Very simple.

2:03:48My dad was a contractor. So I really thought that I wanted to maybe work with my dad or do what he did, hands on labor. I knew I didn't want to be an office anyway. I'll try to keep it short. But basically what I ended up doing is just enthralled my mom passed away when I was young. 16 and so my dad and I become more like brothers. And my dad, he had a night -dried education, hardest working man I've ever been around. And so anyway, we loved hunting fish and it become therapeutic. And so we got it in Turkey calling and had won some contest and met some of, you know, my turkey calling heroes. And that's where I met Bill Jordan and David Blanton.

2:04:24And I started guiding when I was probably 19. And then one thing led to another, start working full time there at RealTree. And just as a guy, as a camera guy, they had that shawl on TNN. And so I was just literally camera jockeying it from skin and deer, guiding turkey hunters. And it was David Blanton who said, man, you know, there's a lot more you could do. And so I kind of by default, Joe, how I got lucky too was when I hooked up with those guys, David Blanton and Bill, I got to do some of the turkey calling tips because I had won some contest. And so even back on TNN, I was as young kid. And they were like, hey, we need a, we need a tip, you know, the TNN tip of the week, you know, brought you about fill line packs, you know, something to like, you know, hey, man, I'm Michael Watt, I don't talk to you about y 'all in Turkey.

2:05:08Is that ain't no nothing about TV. So it was never top of mind like one day, I'll be hunting on TV. I was just thinking, man, I love this enough that maybe I can do that, I can work for this company. And I remember they paid me a hundred dollars a day to go guide some of my turkey hunting. And I told my dad's, man, I'm about to get rich. But it listened to this. They'll pay you this thing called mileage. I had no beat up Toyota truck, four cylinder. I said, dad, that's the suckers, they pay me a mileage. I don't forget what it is, but if I drive an hour, I make money. You know, it pay, and then if you stop at a convenient store, you keep your receipt and they'll pay for your snacks.

2:05:46Everything, I couldn't believe that because I grew up with my dad working, you know, like, oh, Timmy just fell off the roof like, well, let's call his wife, tell him to come get him. And then he'll be like, oh, you all right? No, I think I broke my leg, he'll, you know, it's like, dang, well, you're probably gonna be here tomorrow. You know, I doubt it. I mean, it was just rough, almost cowboy shit, you know? And so I couldn't believe this, you know? And so one thing led to another, and that was in the early 90s, right out of high school, and I'm 51 now, and that was in the early 90s, and in 1994 and five, everything started heating up.

2:06:20And in 96, David Blanton off of me a full time job to work in production. Slash guys. I had to be so surreal to be able to make a living doing this thing that you love. Completely. No one even thought it was a job when you were a kid. Yeah. It was not a thing you aspire to. No, and my family took it hard. My grandma and my uncles were like, I might as well just got on crack on the street. They're like, I'd went to heat in an air school and got a degree and worked a year with barringers, heating coolant out of Zebblin's Georgia. And I had me a truck, had my name on it, you know, Michael, you know, and had me my refrigeration tools and every Christmas, my dad and I boy, I got you another flaring kit.

2:07:00I mean, just blue collar culture. And all of a sudden, you know, I'm coming in and telling the family, like, hey, I don't know if I'm gonna keep doing the heating in an air deal, you know, like, what? Like, you got a truck son, you got your own uniform, you know? You got benefits. So I'm like, yeah, but there's this camouflage company want me to take Dale Earnhardt turkey hunting. And my dad was the only one that got it. Everybody else is like, it was an intervention. Like I'd go to Christmas and like, hey, now if you can pull your side, now you know you can't make a living at this hunting fishing thing, you know?

2:07:34You know, like, well, I don't know, but I'm young and man, this is really cool. I love this more than anything, but it was kind of that whole situation of... It wasn't a job before. It wasn't a job. And I was trusting them, but I was sitting there thinking, like, I'm pretty sure Bill Jones rich. I mean, I saw him with him Mercedes. He had him Mercedes -Benz. And a matter of fact, there's a really funny story about that Mercedes -Benz. But I couldn't believe it. And so my grandma was like, son, when you get tired of this, just go have fun with it. But come back to it. Almost no different than if you're a young kid, like I'm going to Nashville, I wanna play and get Tarn's scene.

2:08:12Maybe I can be the next Luke Bryan. And somebody in the family was like, oh, when he gets right, he'll come back, jumping to the family business, start putting these shingles on the roof. He'll get back in a sheet rock and just give him a chance. Hell, he was one of the best concrete guys I knew. That kid would work, he could run a bull float like some bitch, you know? And so that was me. And all of a sudden, they offered me a full time job, wasn't a lot of money. And I remember going back and saying, hey, they got all these names, 401K, they got benefits. I got I dental and I get to go on all these epic trips and I met amazing people, 100 with people that I was just shell shocked.

2:08:49I remember I met Leonard Skinnerd Band in a NASCAR sweet one time. The Madness Ever Got It, Bill Jordan. Madness I Ever Got. It of course, you know, Ronnie had passed on and half the members, but it was Johnny Van Zant and it was Rossington. And I'm sitting there, red knit kid in the middle, Adam O. P. Wade, like I can't believe it. There's Mark Martin's wife and Coatlin' like, man, I have made it. I'm a weird chicken thingers. And bro, all of a sudden I look, the door opens and they was just people in there. It's the Leonard Skinnerd Band. Look, just like, you know, like what I pictured. And I'm like, oh my God, you know, I'm freaking out and Bill's like, hey, hey, tell your band.

2:09:27I said, that's not only a band, that's Leonard Skinner. And Bill Jordan said, what did I say? I said, I swear to God. I ain't ever hit my balls, but I'm about to knock you out. You know, are you kidding me? And I never get, I went over there. And I was just, you know, I got a chance to meet him. But so many people I met and I couldn't believe it. And one thing led to another and really what the biggest break I had was David Blanton, who was like a big brother. I mean, like a father and he was such a good guy, good Christian guy, good hunter. Outdoor channel was just coming on. Outdoor channel was really kind of coming on.

2:10:09But at the time, you know, the kind of beat your chest kind of pride was the fact that you could be on ESPN and RT and in. And then TN had been through a situation where I think it was Viacom had some big merger. That was part of the MTV thing. And so they quickly through their kind of culturally said, hey, we need to kind of do away with this hunting thing. These guys are killing stuff and it become the Nashville, it was a Nashville network. Then it become the national network. Then it become Spike TV. And so everything moved over all the big Sunday night block mover of the ESPN, but you couldn't show impact.

2:10:44Well, about that time they started the outdoor channel on cable TV. They were looking for distribution. And so it was David Blanton. He said, Michael, we need to come up with a cool hook. And we need to create a show over on outdoor channel. And so getting back to meeting these people. And what I found it was fascinating. And it's just the same with these conversations you have. These people that you just look up to, yeah, you meet some people that are interesting and weird. But for the most part, you're like, wow, these guys are super cool, super talented. And that's what I was finding when I would run into a country singer.

2:11:16I remember Mark Chess not setting around and drinking whiskey and him playing a guitar and singing Hank Williams Jr. song, running into Bo Cephas, running into, you know, to Leonard Skinner and all those guys. And I mean, these guys are so down the earth and cool. And I realized that there was more to this hunting than just the staunch, you know, here we go with the incinitas ranch. Today we're hunting the Mesquite flats of Insinol, you know, right? With the coyotes abundant, there's a big book around the corner. How are you going to do it? Yeah, and it was just like, at the time, it was so sanitized.

2:11:45It was so sanitized. Everybody was starched. You go to a hunting show, everybody had on khakis. I mean, it's almost like we was a facade. And I remember telling David Blanton, I said, I think what we're missing is the culture and the fun. And everybody was very serious. And you should be serious if you're going to go take a bow and our rifle and take the life of a wild animal. But the camp life was so amazing. And we'd have different personalities, different NFL athletes. We would have comedians, people like Jeff Foxworthy. And I was just so pleased that these people that I adored and was big fans of was people that you could set around and have a glass of sweet tea or a cold beer and just laugh.

2:12:25And they were as real possibly more entertaining in person, kind of like you talk about Theo. People asked, he's really funny. Well, you should have been with us at this UFC fight. We couldn't even watch the fight. The guys, you know, cracking us up. And so I told David, I said, I think most of these people, if we could do a show, kind of document in just a camp life and the real reality of how much fun you have, I think we could sell that fun. And so David said, do it. He said, he said, a matter of fact, you host it. And I'm like, no, no, no, I'm not coming here to pitch you to, for me, to host a show.

2:12:56You know, behind the scenes, I'll guide, I'll run camera. I hope that it produced. I'd hit sent me to Maine to this international film in art school to learn how to edit on non -linear, the first avid. Oh, I'm up there like, I'm big. I mean, I got my business card like, yeah, I worked for real tree, you know, out there on TNN, you know, I'm over there. And I found out that was where it really hit me that a lot of people didn't like hunting like, oh my God, you kill animals. And I had all these beta tapes. And I remember I had Dale Earnhardt killing the deer on there. And I told the instructor, I said, I need to learn how to put this in the computer and build a hunt out of it because everything was AB role editing.

2:13:28And I knew how to do that pretty good. I said, but I need to learn how to do it on a non -linear. He said, oh my God, we never, we struggled to get footage. Y 'all got these $80 ,000 cameras because Bill was one of the first people to buy these really high dollar beta cameras that was out videoing with and putting them in a wild. And so anyway, as that, as I showed the footage, he said, man, can we use this and let the class use this footage as a project to build storylines? Because I had the cutaways, you know, back then you'd, you'd shoot the animal, you'd video that, then you'd go back. Okay, push your safety off like now.

2:14:01Like you'd pretend you just pretend. So it was like a reenactment. Now let's go back and build the pre hunt, you know, and it'd be like Dale Earnhardt walking through the forest with his gargle was on or however, and he's camouflaged like, yeah, we're going down here to a ridge flat. A lot of Akron's up there. Well, the deer has been dead a long time ago, obviously, by the time we shot that. And so he loved that then instructor because it gave us a chance to put the storyline. And I thought, man, I'm going to be the hero, you know, all these little girls up here and main and I ain't never seen a lot of people with purple hair and stuff.

2:14:29And I could tell it was kind of that cool hippie trend and it was artsy. And but in my mind, I'm like, I'm just, I'm just having a good time. And anyway, dude, immediately Joe, that it become a protest. There was two or three people stood in the class. Like we're not using this. We cannot. We will walk out these animals are getting dead. If you can prove these animals were not harmed. And I'm like, no, they're all dead. They ain't hard. I mean, they're dead. I mean, the, and finally, I had a, like a little bit of a meltdown. Because that was one of the first times that it really hit me where I had a mass of people saying, you know, almost felt like the anti -Christ because I'm the guy who killed the deer.

2:15:04And I thought it was going to be the opposite. I was ready to name drop. Like, look, I got Dale learned hard. I need to shoot a day off. I was ready to name drop and it just all. This is never experienced anti -hunting. Never. And so I learned that. And then one thing led to another. I remember when I went to the instructor. I said, man, look, I'm a little bit by that. You know, it is what it is. But even if you have to teach me how to class, I need to learn how to do this. I'm not doing, I'm a student, but I come up here. My employer sent me up here. I got to learn how to do this. So I came back pretty efficient as a non -linear editor.

2:15:35All of it didn't have any desire to know that that's what I wanted to do. But I was just wanting to, you know, sweep warehouse. If you want me to edit, you want me to take some hay hunting. You need me to put up a fence, skin a bug, you know, whatever. And then when David gave me that opportunity to do real tree road trips back in the day, is in 2003 at air. We shot it in 2002. That's when everything for me, because it was all about personality. It was all about having fun. And that's kind of, we kind of come up with the tagline. This is a different kind of hunting show. Will you were the first guy to bring fun and personality to hunting television?

2:16:09Oh, yeah. We tried so hard. You know, it was the first guy to be here. It looked like you were having a good time with your friends. It wasn't this stuffy presentation of like hunting. Like here he goes in the wild of Montana. He won't go far. Grizzly bears abound. Yeah. Hunting for the elusive mule deer. Exactly. It was a hilarious white tail. You used his secondary scrapes. He approaches his staging area. Exactly. You were having a good time. You were laughing and cutting up. And I think that's what made you famous in that world. It's like you were representative of what people really liked.

2:16:46It's just someone having a good time and enjoying themselves, which is really what a lot of the hunting is. It's a lot of bonding and camaraderie. The camp time is almost as fun as the hunting time. Oh. And you're all just sort of winding down the end of the day, having a good time together, relaxing, telling stories and laughing. And it was. And even to this day, it's kind of still where we kind of settle in. And it's like, you know, honestly, I'm not really trying to outhunt anybody, but we'll try to outfunt everybody. And so if you come to camp and this myself, big old T -bone, you know, he lost his leg.

2:17:22So he's not hunting with us as much. You can't get around to to to cancer. He lost his leg. And then but Nick and I, I mean, we're going to have a good time. And if you desire to get serious, which we do encourage, hey, it's time to buckle down. There's a time for fun. There's a time to to hone it in. But we just make try our best to make it fun. And I've learned that if you do that and you can make friends, that's the biggest form of the trophy you'll ever get. Yes. That's the trophy. But the stories you got was set in with Ronella and the people around the camp and that experience. You meet people from all over the country in our case, the world.

2:17:57And then the next thing you know, it's like even more special. And so I know people, I say a lot. I know people that's got some amazing trophy rooms, but they're lonely. They dusty and they really made a lot of friends because they were so beaten or chased, killed the next biggest thing. Yeah. That they forgot that the trophy is relationships and the adventure. And yes, inevitably this deer is hanging on the wall that your family has enjoyed over a period of sometimes a year. Sometimes it'll take you a year to eat elk. Right. A full elk. It's a lot of meat, but I don't know, man. It's just an amazing journey.

2:18:32And I, I mean, I never felt like I was that talented is other than the fact I just had a lot of good work. I think my dad put in me and I was really had a passion for it. And I didn't have really any weird opposition pulling me away from it. It pulled me toward it, but growing up so rural and blue collar, I had to prove to my family that there was a livelihood here because they literally looked at it like, when they'd get that boy drug tested, I don't know. He's listening to this. He thinks he's going to video deer hunts. That's what he thinks. And he's going to skin a few. He's going to take a few celebrities hunting and he's going to get free camo, but you can't eat that camo.

2:19:14And I ain't going to buy the solves very steak. How are you going to go to Benanza? Well, it's interesting because fun and personality and camaraderie are infectious. It's like people, they're drawn to it, but it's not something you can manufacture. You either have a great personality or you don't, but having a great personality is very marketable. So it's kind of a weird sort of catcher. Like you can't pretend you're that person because people won't buy it. You have to actually, the reason why it worked with you is because this is who you really are. That's you. And so you didn't even know you had this thing that was marketable.

2:19:52No. It was just you being a person. It's a great point because to this day, I'll go to, in a side, because I'm now, you know, when I, I know you love classic cars and I hear about the things you talk about, and obviously I'm a big fan of the podcast. And so one thing that draws me in is the fact that culturally, we're into the same things. You know, Rubich cubes and 80s and always, my favorite car was a 70 super sport, you know, Shavell. And so, dude, I, I, I, I, Black with white stripes. Oh my God. I love it. The same one like on John Wick basically. Yes. That's a 70. Yeah. So anyway, I, I was just so, just amazed by, I don't know, it's just all, all of it.

2:20:34And, and, and even now when I meet people, that's the first thing they'll say after we hang out. And I just had it up at Cactus Jack with a, with Cameron, I had two or three of the guys, like, hey man, and these are older guys like, appreciate you, what, man, you just like, I thought you'd be. And it kind of takes me back. It's not offensive, but I'm like, what, what was I supposed to be? And I, I guess I realize and Cameron, I've talked a lot about that about like, it's odd that there is a thing that is fake that people can't be transparent. Yeah. That people can't just talk their feelings. And everything we say, don't mean our assessment is always correct.

2:21:06But at least it is something to be heard and told. And then at the more you talk, I think that's what reshaped the politics this year. When you look at Trump coming on, JD, Harris passed. Well, it proves like, what did you really have something to say and could it be valid and could you be real? And everybody I think appreciates real, even if they don't like the person that they see, necessarily as, as real. And now everything's in question. It's like, you know, it's like, these rappers are they really as tough as they say? Is it was Diddy Gay? I thought this dude, I thought he had done shot more stuff than I have.

2:21:43You know, and it's like, I don't know. I don't know. It's just like it's, yeah, when people ask me all the time, like, oh, you met Jelly Roll, what's he like? He's exactly like you will be like. That's right. That's why he's popular. That's a genuine real human being. Like Brian, exactly. Exactly. Good cool cat. Yeah. Luke Holmes, same thing. That's exactly who he is. And that's what people are worried about. There's someone not being like that. Like you see someone who's real fun on TV and they're real friendly and then you meet him in real life. Like, oh, it has an asshole. He's either waitresses and, you know, he's shitty to the fucking the valley driver, you know.

2:22:20It's, you want people to be what you hope them to be, but oftentimes you're prepared for them to not be that. Yeah, you represent that too, Joe. It's like, you know, I remember going to Utah and hunting and I was like, hey, man, you know, before I ever knew I'd get a chance to meet you and talk with you and I said, how's Joe? And then he's like, and then first thing I asked Cam is like, dude, he's unbelievable. So you meet and you are that person. And in a question for you, I've often wondered, do you think that's starting to affect Hollywood a little bit to where now if you look at the most successful people, it is the realest people.

2:22:52You know, people might not even like say a Donald Trump, but people are gravitated because they think, hey, man, this is him. This is real. I think the best thing for people in Hollywood that are entrenched in that world is to shut the fuck up because as soon as they start talking, people like, just as Robert De Niro starts talking, I'm like, Jesus, get that fucking microphone away from this. So I can enjoy taxi driver. Yeah, it's heartbreaking. It's heartbreaking. Yeah, I don't want to hear, I love De Niro. I love those mom who is like, I don't want to hear him that he's a moron. I don't want to hear him talking about politics and about Trump supporters and just shut the fuck up, man.

2:23:27Like you didn't think this through. Like this is, and he's getting yelled at, he's doing an outside press conference like, Robert, you're 80 years old, don't ruin this thing. You've had this life where you were fucking raging bull. You know, you were in the Godfather. Like, stop, stop, stop doing this. Don't do this. I'm terrified to meet some of those people I looked up to now. You should be. I mean, like, I met a few of them. And for its actors in particular, because their whole business is pretend. Their whole business is pretend. You know, one of the things about guys like Theo or comedians, you run into comedians, their business is the opposite of pretend.

2:24:04They're real. Their business is just being a real person talking shit. Yeah. They're professional shit talkers. Yeah. You know, having fun, being silly, talking shit about things. And actors are not that. They're weird people, man. And the one thing that's harming them in Hollywood is that they get exposed for being who they really are. And a lot of these people that pretend to be all, clean cut and find out they're in a freaky shit. And it's like, and it's easier to expose stuff now because social media, I'm sure, like back in the day, I can only imagine the parties in Whalen, Jennings and Murrow Hagger.

2:24:40Can you make some of these pictures on the wall in here? Can you imagine some of this stuff they didn't have to worry about? Nobody. Right. I mean, so there was really stars. When it's skinned. Can you imagine? Led Zeppelin. All those people, the party. Hendrix. Oh, yeah. Jim Marx. Oh, God. Craziness and no accountability. Nothing. And all they got to do is like, I was not there. Perfect. And now, yeah. You can't go on a ill cut and everybody knows you're there. Everybody's kind of fucking camera in their pocket. Everybody. Everything is being filmed. And so many people get exposed for who they really are.

2:25:11It's weird. But it's also probably good for humanity. It's good for, let's, one of the things that I think is the rise of podcasts is people get to see real people have in real conversations. And some people can do it. And some people can't. And I think the Harris thing was they were worried that she couldn't. I think they made a good assessment that she couldn't. I don't know, man. I mean, I've seen her have fun with people. There's this one very funny conversation when she's talking about meat in her in -laws for the first time, where her mother -in -law grabs her face. And it's really funny.

2:25:42It's funny listening to her saying she's laughing hard but a real laugh this time. Maybe she could now, though. Maybe she's so, if there is a machine. Because you know what is fair to say, even on Harris, I'll say this, or Kamala Kamala. And that's what's amazing. Me, I didn't think she had a chance to win because I didn't even know, I still don't know what her name is. I mean, I don't know what to hail. Is it Kamala Kamala? I think it's Kamala. It's Kamala. It's like, well, I'm probably gonna screw it up. It's like, you know, and then CNN's gonna be like, yeah, you heard Rogan didn't even call her name right.

2:26:15It was like, it's, but at the end of the day, maybe now that she's under out of that whole situation because you see, and I think the world's changing like where record producers and stuff are controlling music and if you're gonna get on a radio station to where everybody walks a tight rope, you have to kind of, you're working for this machine. Hollywood, I'm sure the same way. You got people that I can't, I remember Ted Nugent tells a story, was it Kurt Russell? He was one of his best friends was Kurt Russell and Kurt likes to hunt. And this was, Ted just told me in a hunt camp, and I asked him, I said, man, how is Kurt?

2:26:49I love his movies too, and big fan. He said, dude, Kurt is amazing. He said, but he had to, to a degree, during that time frame bow to that machine because he couldn't do these things. So I think now it's like, you don't know what's real because you don't know if there are trying to do this for a career or if there can be real. And then at times, okay, I believe Denero, in his case, is finally his true colors and finally, like I'm enough to where I can be real, but the real you do see in him, I'm like, go back to being fake. Just come and give me a big, I don't want to say this ass. Oh, you really don't know.

2:27:21I don't want to hear someone lecturing me that I just, oh, it's so sad. It's sad. But I think real conversation, like celebrities were always people that were on a pedestal and you didn't think of them as real people. You know, you never got to see John Wayne having long form conversations where he explains his position on this or that. You just never saw any of that. And I think more of that is being exposed now. And I think it's probably good for all of us to not have these ridiculous perceptions of these people and think of them as being larger than life characters. They're just humans. They're just regular people.

2:27:59They're all just human beings. And some of these regular human beings are really fucking good at playing bad guys. But you mean in real life and they're real super sweet. They're really nice people. They're just good at their job. Their job is pretending to be an asshole. That's true. You know, and it's what we, we, the more conversations we have, the more conversations that we have access to, the more we get to see the patterns of how human beings think and behave, and the more we get to see what we like. And generally what we like is nice people being real. That I totally agree. That's what people like.

2:28:31And that perspective you shine, you know, obviously you got a lot of respect for Mike Tyson. I think he's the baddest boxer, toughest, I mean, I idolized him as a boxer. I didn't know much about him as a man or what he was going through at the time, but like when it come time to watch a boxing bout, Tyson's on a card. There was no one like him. But what a sweetheart of a man. And I listened to, I listened to it. And just the things he says, he's so sweet, that you know, he says things that you don't even know if he's funny, like he was talking about, you know, Joe, you know, you ever get a wreck when you fight?

2:29:03You know, and I think, I think you giggled and he's like, no, I'm serious. You know, and I'm like, whoa, you know, I'm like, whoa, you know, I was like, I feel you Tyson, I was hunting elk, and you know, New Mexico and Bullcome Bugland. And I was kind of getting like $5 worth of jawbreakers. It was getting there because I was getting excited about this adrenaline of this elk. So okay, you're doing it fighting. But in my mind, I thought it was kind of the joke too, but he's such a sweet, do you think her? He's a sweet guy, but there's a monster in there. Joe, and he could hit that switch. He's scared.

2:29:37He's still scary. Oh, he's scared the shit out of me. Me and him the first time, like, I think Kevin Hart was the first one to say it. He said it was like, it's like you're in the room with a lion. It's like, you're like, okay, you're probably dead. This lion cool, he's not gonna kill me, okay? You know, it's like, Jesus. But it was, there's certain people that I meet that like, you know, I meet him like, I can't believe I'm in the room with Quentin, Daron Tino, like that is bizarre. That was, there's a few of those people that you meet him, you know, like Trump's one of those people. You mean, like, yeah, he's right there.

2:30:06I may, I may as an uncle. Not a novel. That guy, unlike anybody else, can be himself. Yes. That guy can be himself, no matter what. He can be himself at press conferences. He can be himself on a podcast. That's a huge strength that he can be himself. You either like who he is or you dislike who he is, but you have to respect that guy can be himself. He is. And guess what? The more you talk about somebody like Donald Trump, like him or love him, he has pretty much as now, you know, the sack at time he's going to be president. He is accessible to the people in a weird way, meaning I had a chance to even meet Trump.

2:30:42He talking about the hunting history. He came to Las Vegas. We used to have this thing called a Go to Moose Awards. And I knew Donald Jr., he was a big hunter. And anyway, the word got out that, hey, Trump, this is prior to the election, the 16 election. He came to Las Vegas, just say, hey man, there's 13 to 15 million hunters out there. I need to see where they see what the situation is here. I think they're good people. And I hear this from my son's Eric and Donald. So he comes there and I had a chance to meet him. And same thing, it was like, wow, this is before he's president, but he's still Donald Trump.

2:31:15And I remember I didn't know much if I could, you know, in my mind, is this the guy I'm going to vote for? He was still in the primaries. But I remember the first thing he said to me, he said, his Donald Jr. introduced me to, he said, dad, you know, this is Michael Wattell. He works in a hunting history, does hunting shows. He said, man, immediately so nice. And but I remember with the words he said that I knew he wasn't a politician was real. He said, so you do a lot of hunting. And I can't do it there in question. But I said, yes, sir, I love it. That's all I love to do. He said, I'm not good at it.

2:31:45I don't have the patience. My son, they're very efficient. They're very efficient. They're very good. They hung all around the world. And he said, but I got a question. These wolves, what's the deal with the wolves? They're killing a lot of shit. And I said, Mr. Trump, it really is a problem. I got friends and ranchers out there. These wolves, they reintroduced them. They spent, they spent a millions of taxpayers' dollars out there. And this is in my mind, if I am playing this role of inferior or redneck or insecure, in my mind, I'm trying to talk humbly to kind of help him know what I know some friends out in Colorado have going through from cattle to domestic problems to the elk population.

2:32:24He said, well, the simple, if they're causing a problem, we need to do something about the wolves. And I remember thinking, I'm voting for this dude. I'm voting for this dude. I don't care what he's talking about grabbing because I'd been to a few little nonprofit, you know, in Washington DC with lobbyists and stuff where we're trying to get some money from a bill for the NWTF and Brewden Habitat or Rocky Mountain Elf Foundation. And I found most of the politicians were decently fake, almost similar to a California LA actor type of this. For this, whereas like, okay, if I need to be nicest guy, I will be, but yeah, I need to figure out who he is and if he's got credentials and what power he has.

2:33:02Yes. And so for me, here I am feeling like I'm the lowest person in this room. All these other guys are, you know, heads of major corporations within the hunting industry. And I'm just this guy who likes to turkey and it's got to show on the outdoor channel and I'm getting the chance to shake his hand. But he's just as real with me is he is the guy who maybe is, maybe the richest guy in the room or possibly the most famous guy in the room. And I found that fascinating that he was that way. On the other hand, I'm over there talking to a senator at Washington DC, that a party at lobbyists put together and it's like, everything is good to meet you.

2:33:34I too like to hunt and so gratifying to see this. I'm like, just a fake person. Just come. Yeah, weird, right? Yeah. It's weird when you're around them because if you're capable of talking to people fake like this, what are the things you're capable of? Yeah, you're a strange human. That's exactly right. And your whole aspiration is to like stay fake and to make as much money possible while being fake. Exactly. In the whole time again, I never dug into politics like I'm talking to a guy that once I do go back in Google, he come into office, he was making, you know, he's making as a senator, I don't know what, 50 to 100 grand a year.

2:34:13And now he's worth, and it's all he's ever done, now he's worth $10 million or $10 million. It's like how, like where that comes from. I don't think my grandma would understand that either. Nobody understands it. It's like so transparent and it's right in front of your face, like the Nancy Pelosi situation. She's never made more than $175 ,000 a year. She's worth $100 million. How does that happen? It's like corruption. Corruption. It only happens through corruption and it's transparent legal corruption. It's very strange. And it's on both sides. It happens everywhere. If you look at the stock trading and the red versus blue, they're both right up there.

2:34:49They're all there. They all have inside information. They're all, and they put Martha Stewart in jail for it, didn't they? Yes. Well, they actually put her in jail for lying. She lied to federal investigators. That's what they, but it was Comey. It was the same guy, and went after Trump. It's real wild. It's real wild when you see what it really is all about. And there's politics on both sides. And it's not a right or a left thing. It's a power and corruption thing. And it's, I feel like there is a little bit of momentum that feels like there's a little bit of a cleansing process. It's gonna take a long time.

2:35:22I think to get there. But I think everything that's happening now it feels through opportunities and outlets like this that people can talk and people can understand what's real and fiction or at least debate. Yeah. It seems like everything from, I don't know, the political world to just everything about the truth about whether it's hunting and fishing, the truth about the cosmos possibly. Yeah. Some of this stuff about ancient civilization to people and people that love Jesus Christ, you can really dig deep and you can have good conversations. And it's not just dictated by a certain machine. And I love that.

2:35:59That's pretty amazing that all of us can come together and you can have a conversation. Yeah, it's a good time. It's a crazy time to be alive, but I think it's a beautiful time. It's amazing. I really do. And only in America, baby. I swear in America. In America. I have more hope for this country right now after this election than I've had in a long, long time. A long time. It feels like with this crew of people with JD Vance and Elon Musk and an RFK junior and Tulsi Gabbard and Vivek Ramaswamy, I think there's a real chance that things can change. Real chance that we can expose some of the deep -seated corruption, some of the problems that we've had in this country and move us on to a better path.

2:36:41I do too. And I find, I still got friends that are die -hard Democrats and pretty darn liberal. Believe it or not, even me that works in the hunting industry. And even them, I feel a sense of almost like, I was having a conversation with a friend of mine from New York about this. And he's liberal, but he was like, listen, everybody pretends that they're mad at Trump one, but there's a recognizable feeling of relaxation in New York. Like some sense of logic has prevailed. No one really believed that she was going to be a great president. And they certainly didn't believe the Tim Walls was going to be a great vice president.

2:37:20That was crazy. That was crazy that that guy was supposed to be one heartbeat away from the fucking president. And then they also knew that there was so much corruption involved. Everybody knew what they were doing with the Twitter files and all that other shit. There was so much that like, this is probably the right way. I know. I mean, and people were paying attention that have never been intrigued. Yes. And I think a lot of things happen there. It's like, most people, somebody asked me, how do you know when you're rich? And I said, well, when you don't know what a gallon of milk costs, that to me.

2:37:53Because I remember growing up in that same rural area and my grandma and stuff. But when I can sit there and talk to my young and my son, Mason, I said, Mason, when you come down and run by and get us a gallon of milk, get us some cereal, we'll just have cereal. And I got some sausage. But get us a gallon of milk and a loaf of bread. Well, that there was a case when I was a kid. Grandma said, hey, run by. Look, don't go to big star. It's 25 cent more over there. Go over there to John Mark. They got a deal right now. As a matter of fact, go buy me a couple packs of that ground round that run a special gallon of milk.

2:38:28They drive over here and new where gas was the cheapest. And when you get to a place to where you know you're doing pretty well, it's like, I need some gas. Pull over. Yeah. You ain't worried about driving across town. Just save a quarter. My friend Brian has this thing. I say it all the time. He said, this is how rich you want to get. Where you can go to a restaurant and order whatever you want and not worry about it. Yep. Everything after that is bullshit. And then look and say, hey, I won't tip 20 % or 25. And you do the math. Just write it on there. Yeah. That's you are rich and you are blessed if you can do that.

2:38:59Everything else on top of that, you don't really notice it. It's kind of bullshit. I 100 % agree with that. And I think that backfired on a little bit of the whole Harris thing when she said, no, everything's good. And she's telling that to people who know exactly where the cheapest milk is. And they were going to vote for it. And they're like, yes. Boys, I'm kidding. No, it ain't. I'm struggling out here. You know. And then you're telling, you know, like we blessed to go to these hunting places. But they're not cheap places to hunt to be able to technically trespass on these properties that are privately owned.

2:39:32And if you were to go on a public health cut, you know, the private public, well, look, go get us a year. If we did right now, me, you and Cam and Remy planned us a good DIY hunt. It's like, well, Joe, you're going to get to your I'll go get the mountain house. Right. Cam's like, hey, man, I got plenty of mountain ops and whatever. And I'll blank some coffee. You imagine putting a year out in the middle of the Imagine the promise you if we just dutched it, dutched it, we still got three or four grand of peace. Yeah. And we're going out there to go hunt. Yeah. So just in supplies and set up. Oh, yeah, just in your bow and your arrows and your broadheads and your fucking rangefinder and your minors and your gear and your clothing and your boots, the tires on your truck and gas and this, that and then tags and, oh, it's, it's not cheap.

2:40:24Oh, it's not cheap. I like said, you could either buy your small farm in Kentucky or you just get you a new bow. I mean, one. Yeah. It's what it feels like these days, you know, but I tell you, it's, it's absolutely so amazing that we get a chance to even do it and even get back to hunting. I tell people all the time, it's like, you know, I've always stood by the fact, I don't think you're a bad ass that you hunt. I think it's just bad ass that we can have an opportunity in America and that we can fall back on that. And if times do get hard, there's a certain piece once you understand the craft of it, a little bit of that rule living and knowing how to skin a deer, knowing the best parts.

2:41:04And yes, you can't eat it all, you know, you can eat organs, you can eat real meat. You can do all those things. But at the end of the day, there's a certain piece as a man, especially. And I think overall, even though we in the world, to where, you know, we got these equality and women can do what men can do or supposedly, but at the end of the day, I've always looked at it that my job is to provide, you know, safety, some type of structure, a food and care from my family. And any man that's out there that knows nothing about nature, that if these cities shut down, that would be a terrifying experience.

2:41:39The Mercedes won't start. The Wi -Fi don't come on. You can't run down a Starbucks and all of a sudden you can't go to the market or call Uber Eats to deliver you sushi or your favorite pizza. And you've got to walk to where they're going. Now you've got to walk it. And you have no skill set. Yes, I sometimes, but guess what? I've gotten pretty good at the cities. I know how to work these apps. I can grab me an Uber. I can grab, I can go talk to somebody or I can Google and say, man, I'm a walk down here to the steakhouse. You can certainly navigate their world a whole lot better than they can navigate yours.

2:42:11The world that me and you love the most is hard to navigate for some people. And I think they're starting to realize it. And I really know it's a long learning curve. It takes forever. And there's a piece. I told somebody a while back, I said, man, I'm going to tell you when you become a hunter and you understand it and you become simple. All the financial situations you might gain, money's nice. I agree that it don't necessarily bring you happiness. It is great to be able to have the money to do those things we talked about, just eating. Or maybe it is that 70 should fail. It's like, I've always wanted it and you can buy it.

2:42:40But at the end of the day, there's a piece comes to know that I could potentially lose it all. But if I got my wife and my kids and I got this bow and arrow, I might actually gain a little bit because now there's no, I got peace and tranquility. I got a certain stillness that is more valuable than anything I could find at the rave in the middle of the city. And so I've often told people, even if you love the city life, which what people might not realize, I love the city life. It's so fun to visit, but that's just it. I want to visit. I'm ready to get back out. Like, the thought of things I could do in Austin, there's a million things.

2:43:16My mind's going to wide open. Like, man, I'd love to go to the comic club. Well, I loved it. Man, I heard the steakhouse was great. I got this. They got that. This place got the best martinis and this cigar bar. But once I do all that, I'm ready to go back to the campfire here in Whipple Wheels and Kyle goes, how do I'm like, you ain't going to believe? And I'm puffing on me if when they say, you ain't going to believe the steakhouse that Joe told me about. It's heaven. It's heaven. Well, I think Michael, one of the things that people really enjoy about you and I've enjoyed talking to you is you have a genuine gratitude towards life.

2:43:46You know, it's infectious. It's real. And I think appreciation for this beautiful, chaotic world that we live in is a virtuous thing. It's a very important thing. Well, that means a lot and to be able to see that it means it's more to me than anything because I do. I mean, I don't even know how and why. Sometimes I ask myself and I mean, like I said, I've just been so blessed and it's been amazing. The people I've met and learned so much, I mean, it's just, I don't know how it happened. Going back to that thought, my grandma was living room like, what are you doing, boy? You know, it's like you got a brand new flaring kit.

2:44:30That's also one of the reasons why it's so cool because it worked out that way. It wasn't like it was all easily planned out and it's a natural path for you to go down. Did you have much of that, Joe? Like obviously growing up where you did and I mean, you've, I mean, same amazing opportunity. You had so many cool things that's happened. Did you ever have any people like, what is, what's Joe doing? Oh, yeah, everyone. My parents for sure. Could be a comedian. Yeah, what the fuck are you doing? Like, you're not even funny. They didn't want me to fight when I started fighting. They're like, you're going to get hurt.

2:45:02They didn't want me to do comedy because I was good at fighting. Like, why don't you stick with that? It was just no matter what, there's always going to be people that doubt you, especially if you want to do something that's high risk, low probability of success. You know, it made me dig deep because I think of that and reason I ask you that is because that experience I had with my family was kind of mind boggling because I thought they would see it as I did. And I think there's a difference in perception or the way we perceive things and the true reality possibly because you got to sometimes bring yourself out and look back in from their point of view.

2:45:33And I learned it as I become a parent because now I got kids and they want to do something. I got a boy, Mason. He just, he moved to Charleston, South Carolina and all of a sudden I become a grandmama. And my mind, I got, hey, when I get back, Christie, we're going to have some cornbread and collard greens and fried chicken. I want to come back and tell you because he listens every episode. My son McCoy, my are all of them. So in my mind, I got him pictured living in a little house right there around the farm. Well, he bups and moves to Charleston, South Carolina. And I'm like, what are you doing?

2:46:04Are you on crackney? You tell me. What are you doing? And then it hit me. It's like, man, I'm being my grandmama, I'm being Uncle Tommy. And the reason they was that way and say with Joe Pant, they love people love us so much that they don't want us to fail. And I think inevitably we can fail people as, felt the people we love the most because we want to keep them safe. Yes. I don't want my, you know, I know it's a world where a while, a woman can go out there and cut wood. I want my damn wife cutting wood. I'll cut the wood. Right. Let me get the calluses. I don't want my wife going to the door.

2:46:36You know, if a villain's at night, I'm not saying she couldn't shoot more better at me. I don't know. But at the end of the day, I love her enough. I don't want her hurt. I don't want my kids to fail. But in reality, why not? Somebody's got to do these small percentiles. Somebody got to be a Michael Jordan. Yeah. How did Michael Jordan, what was this? Somebody say you can't make a living. You know, I'm sure somebody. And so I think we want to put everybody in a safe spot. And if you think about it, if 80 % or 90 % of people can do these things, well, guess what? Go try the 10, 20%. If you fail, jump back into the 80%, and you can at least say you tried.

2:47:08Yeah. At least say I tried to make somebody laugh on a stage. At least say I tried to sell a hoit bow and enough to make money. And they'd give me a percentage of something or have my name on a bow. I don't know. You can at least try it. I don't think it makes you arrogant or over zealously confident. It's just why not? Well, I think there's people that are afraid to try that will try to attack you for trying. Yeah. There's that. There's crabs in a bucket. There's that. There's people that don't want someone to take a risk and succeed because they never took a risk and they don't want to confront themselves with that thought.

2:47:43They don't want to be confronted with the reality of what they've done with their life. Maybe they did have a dream. Maybe they did want to be like Luke Bryant. Maybe they did want it to be on stage singing. Maybe they did want it to, you know, they wanted to do something extraordinary and they never really took the chance. And so when they see you taking the chance, they want to fill you with doubt. They do. It's unnecessary and unfortunate aspect of human nature. I see that and I feel that from time to time. But it makes you appreciate the people that encourage people. It really does. And I texted several people all the time, especially when I think about it, people on the way who said, hey, hey, but let me pull you back.

2:48:18Stay away from this stuff, but you're, you know, you're special in this. You go do this and keep doing this. Man, people don't realize what that means. You know, I think about that. I think about that street person is like just, I mean, literally me in the right mood, especially with this young lady right there, I'd have wanted to hit him. And I don't know mixed martial arts, but I know I got a day in Heymaker and he didn't see it coming. And I mean, he was calling this girl all kind of names and you MFers, y 'all, and all that took me and he said, hey, bro, I'm on your side. And immediately, he was just like, he just wanted to be heard.

2:48:52And maybe that's it. Maybe you, I don't know. And, and people just get tired of being outcast, you know, people want community. They really do. They want friends. They want, it's like you were saying before that like the relationships you make in this life, that's the real trophy. It is. And that's the one thing. I guess the last thing I'd want to leave about the hunting community. And I think you felt it just from people you've seen or maybe researched. And like Cameron said, he said, man, you don't find a better student than Joe said, he knows more about broad heads than the companies themselves.

2:49:22He researches this stuff. He knows the geometry of bows and bracelets. He's so dig deep. He said, he just, he loves it. And I was, and it made me feel so good to know that you're that deep into it. And, but when you start looking at so many of, of these things that's out there for us, what I find about the hunting community, it is a community of people that welcomes all. It doesn't matter. And they want you to learn. And they're so appreciative that you might just take a look into this culture that sometimes can be criticized, that some kind be judged and think we're barbaric or, we're hillbilly or uneducated or are just ruthless.

2:49:59And what you'll find is there is a part of that, that with dip in into nature, mother nature, you have to kind of become an animal with that and be like the bear, like the predator. You are a killer. You have to come to full draw to feed your family. But it's so welcoming. And I've never seen anybody alienize. I've never seen anybody that I've thought that was a solid person within the industry and are just people around my house that wouldn't bring in. And then they say, come on, let me show you what this is about, boy or young lady. And I'm proud of that and I'm confident. And I know that there's nobody.

2:50:33Even the people that might talk bad about them, they're going to treat them good. And I remember one thing that was epic that happened, Joe, and it hit me pretty hard. My daughter, Addy, had asked me, said, you know, hey, what would, what in a situation if we're at school and there's something bad happening? And you know, it's talking about some of the school shootings. I saw we just had one. I'm like, what should I do? And I was like, was there any kind of mandate of what you should do? And I said, well, they say do this, this and this, hide under your desk and sit there and wait and they lock the doors.

2:51:03I said, well, I'm about to go against protocol, Addy. And I knew her school. They had these outside doors that went out and quickly there in Harris County, Georgia, goes off into the wilderness. You know, matter of fact, my farm is right across from a high school. And I said, Addy, I tell you what I want you to do. If something goes a rye, I said, you know, you've hunted with me a lot and you understand, you know, how to hide and slip around and stuff like that. I said, if something happens and you can see that exit door and you can get out and you can hit the wood, I want you to go right there.

2:51:33Don't wait around. I want you to go figure out the situation. Like if a bear is coming in the tent, you get out the tent and get up to tree or what did you have to do. And I said, but here's what I want you to do. I said, you go and I never told you to judge somebody because I don't believe in judging a book by the cover. I don't believe in that. But I said, but in this case, in this adverse moment, you go out and you find a beat up old Chevrolet truck. It's got an NRA sticker on it. Maybe a beat up mini van with a mom riding around with some, you know, maybe it is. I don't say any surveil because that guy appreciates good cars and you jump out and you stop it.

2:52:07It's going to be a complete stranger. But I want you to pick out that person. I said, you know, you and find out and I said, if you find somebody with a full -wheeled drive truck that you know, it's probably resembles your granddaddy or me or Nick Munt and all these guys, you jump in there. They're going to have a little snack. They definitely going to have a gun in there and you tell them what happened. They will protect you until they can find me. And when I thought about that, I was dead serious. But then I thought that goes beyond my daughter. Anybody, it wouldn't matter if you as Muslim Christian or God or whatever.

2:52:38If you did that in the country, somebody's going to stop. So, hey, man, what's going on? They're going to quickly evaluate it. And I'm not saying everybody won't. I think most people has that opportunity. But if you raise around that culture to where you're ready to help and you're ready to assist, love is so deep and the nature and the human nature is to protect and to make sure this person is doing good. Even if they don't align in thought process. And so I'm proud to come from that. And that's probably my biggest joy where there's taken a Jim Brewer or a Theo is when they see it. That's always, even if they don't get something, they're like, man, this was cool.

2:53:14This was fun. This was some good folks. A little scaredy y 'all. A little scaredy y 'all. And Theo and all of them said, man, something happens. I'm coming. Yo, how's Waddle? In Kayla Press, the resident of St. Funk, she said, Waddle, my wife is fiance. I don't think she's married. She said, my wife said, hey, if something happens, we're going to Michael Waddle's house. She said, you don't even know where he lives. She said, well, I'm still going there. And so anyway, that's just cool. I'm proud of that. That ain't anything to do with me. That's just a culture. It's just such an amazing culture.

2:53:47It's amazing culture. I'm sure you share that. Michael, I really enjoyed talking to you, man. Thank you very much. Thanks for having me, man. It was a lot of fun. Thank you. I'll tell everybody what your social media is where they could find your hunts online. Oh, yeah. Obviously, boneclector .com. We don't Instagram. At official bone collector, I think it is. And then there's a Michael Waddle page. There's a bone collector page. And heck, I'm on TikTok. So yeah. All right. I'm dancing around over there too. So I want everything. It's China Spinal Me too. But anyway, thank you, Joe. I've been a fan of longtime.

2:54:19Appreciate it. It was a lot of fun. Thank you very much. All right. Bye, everybody.