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On this episode Tyler Jones And K.C. Smith are riding along with Tyler Vanderkolk and James Beard award winning chef Jesse Griffiths. They talk about Jesse's new book "The Turkey Book" along with everything to do with Tyler's bow shop "Archery Country". They also discuss the Texas hill country and hunting along with it. Check below to see everything Jesse And Tyler have going on! Thanks for listening!
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
I'm Casey and you're listening to the Element podcast. We
are sitting around rubbing our bellies after a delicious meal
(00:21):
here in the Texas Hill Country. I got Tyler Jones
here with me, of course, watched him do some cool
things this morning. We have got Jesse Griffiths, the James
Beard Award winning author and chef right, and then we
have got Tyler vander Kolk right of Archery Country, which,
(00:42):
if you don't know, is a bow shop there in Austin.
Do a lot of cool stuff, pretty good following on
social media as well if you want to see some
funny things happening.
Speaker 2 (00:51):
And uh, we can say everything, though they don't put
everything out there.
Speaker 3 (00:55):
That's true.
Speaker 1 (00:56):
Yeah, you see Tyler at the shop, ask him for
to see that real funny stuff. And we've been out
enjoying the Hill Country man for some specific reasons, but uh,
in general, if you're not from Texas, we have a
region in the central part of the state called the
Hill Country and it is, in my opinion at least,
(01:17):
the most beautiful part of the state, especially this time
of year early April. Everything's waking up. Everybody loves spring,
but here, especially the wildflowers the birds, the butterflies, all
the things just go to just raging. And along with
that comes some turkeys and also do the thing. It's
pretty pretty sweet. So you grew up here, Tyler, born
(01:41):
and raised Austin, Texas. Things have changed a few a
little bit country.
Speaker 4 (01:46):
It's still the Hill countterh So this is where we
came when we were kids. Man, Really at this direction,
with this direction, we lived in Austin, which is an
hour away, and we go to the lake and do
all this stuff in the springtime. This is where you went.
Speaker 1 (01:59):
Man, How about that?
Speaker 5 (02:00):
That? Man?
Speaker 1 (02:00):
Do you still and I can tell, but I'm just
kind of prompting you almost. But yeah, you know you
lived here your whole life, but you still had appreciation
for the bluebonnets that stuff.
Speaker 4 (02:08):
Yeah, never get old, man. Yeah, it's beautiful.
Speaker 3 (02:11):
It's incredible.
Speaker 2 (02:13):
I've never I've I've hunted all over the state, been
here my whole life in Texas, but not here in
the hill country. But I've hunted the hill country a lot.
Never seen anything like this. This property in particular, I
don't know if it's different and other properties around here,
but like where we're at is you cannot believe I
can't explain to you the amount of blue bonnets that
we've seen.
Speaker 5 (02:33):
It's hard to convey. It's like an ocean, it is.
Speaker 2 (02:36):
We were on top of that hill yesterday and looking down,
and I had already said this to Casey at one point,
I was like, man, I wish they would take aerials
at this time of year, just to it would look different.
You would think of is that water, you know exactly.
But we were on top of a hill yesterday and
there was like it was just solid blue pasture, you know,
out probably a mile and a half away from us
or whatever. But like you had to you had to
(02:57):
look at it and think, oh, that's probably the blue bonds.
Speaker 3 (03:00):
That's not a pond, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1 (03:02):
There's one time I vocalized yesterday. I was like, oh,
there's a pool right here. And then we walked around
the corner and it actually was a little opening with
blue bonnets, and I felt kind of dumb. I don't
know ifnybody caught on, but a mistake, you know, but
it was a cool mistake, yeah, because it was you know,
and we were joking about how like you felt like
you needed to be in a canoe or something when
you're walking through them as opposed to walking around, you know,
because it's it felt almost water ish because it kind
(03:25):
of flow through there.
Speaker 5 (03:26):
What's not blue is red or our neon, green or
yellow or white as every flowers blopping.
Speaker 2 (03:32):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's Indian blankets are one of my favorites.
Speaker 3 (03:38):
Red with the yellow around the edge.
Speaker 1 (03:40):
They are, in fact one of my favorites too, except
for a really specific moment, And that moment is whenever
you're walking through the woods and you glance to your
left and at eighty yards there's a big Indian blanket
in the shade, and it was just like a turkey
they get a few times now to me, I guess
(04:04):
you can't. You just have to empathize with you instead
of sympathize.
Speaker 3 (04:06):
I appreciate that.
Speaker 1 (04:07):
But we've been out turkey hunting out here, and it's
like there's a neat thing that happens. As an outdoorsman,
as a consumptive user, you get to feel just in
my opinion, a little more a part of the process
of what's going on out here instead of like, and
don't get me wrong, I love to drive around put
binoculars on new types of songbirds or look at the flowers,
(04:29):
or you know, have a nice dinner on the porch
of my wife out here, or whatever it may be.
But there's something about being out and like interacting with
the critters that just puts just an extra amplitude onto
the enjoyment of it, you know, and then to cap
that off with eating the critter that you're were interacting with.
(04:51):
Thanks to Jesse. I'll talk more about that in a bit.
It is pretty awesome. So you said you've been coming
out here kind of your whole life, and hunting has
been a part of what you've done your whole life.
Speaker 4 (05:02):
No, actually wasn't.
Speaker 1 (05:03):
When'd you start hunting?
Speaker 4 (05:04):
So when I was eighteen I started hunting. Good buddies
of mine in high school were hunters. I grew up
so my dad was a Vietnam that guy that just
came back and lost his flare for all of that stuff.
So we didn't grow up hunting at all. I always
wanted to kind of, yeah, but buddies in high school
(05:24):
got me into it. And then when I was a kid,
my dad thought this was the pinnacle of the United States.
He had traveled done some stuff and he was like,
it does not get any prettier than the Texas Hill County.
Speaker 3 (05:37):
That's cool.
Speaker 4 (05:38):
So subsequently, when we went on vacations, we weren't rich
by any means. So Dad was like, load up the van,
we're going to burn it. And we'd go to a
place called the Edgewater that had, you know, really crappy canoes.
You could rent me go out there and just sink
and swim back and catch perch and whatever. But yeah,
grew up doing it out here. Yeah, it's awesome, man,
(05:58):
it's beautiful. Did you get into the hunting side of
stuff with your buddies, Yeah, My buddies got me into it,
and it was one of those deals. It was the
typical progression. You get into it. You shoot something from
way way far away with a rifle and you're like,
that could be a little harder than this. And when
I knew it was peak pinnacle for me was I
(06:18):
was in a blind one day and I really wanted
to watch the ut football game. So I'm in a
blind and it's a little chilly out and I'm I
have two thermoces, one with chili in it and one
with coffee in it, and I'm watching the Texas football
game and a deer stepped out and I was like, ah, yeah,
I mean I'd probably take that. So I turned the
volume down, I rolled the deer, and then I watched
(06:40):
a couple of minutes and went and cleaned the deer,
and I was like, I want a little more of
a challenge. Yeah, that was the archery aspect. I went
from that to a open site thirty thirty than that
for a couple of years, and then got into archery
and I never really looked back.
Speaker 1 (06:55):
Have you ever seen that meme floating around? It's like
the invention of archery and it's like a guy Renaissance painting.
He's like, I'd like to stab that guy, but he's
over there. Yeah that's exactly.
Speaker 5 (07:05):
Yeah, No, that was it.
Speaker 4 (07:07):
It's awesome, man, archery is so much I don't to me,
it's just it's not more pure. It's just you're so
much closer. You're hearing them step out there, and you're
you know, I don't know.
Speaker 1 (07:19):
So you made that a big part of your life now,
but somehow or other you became a taxiderm as long
as way I did. What's the origin story on that?
Speaker 4 (07:28):
Oh? Man, it's a so the super short version is
I was not the brightest crayon in the bus in
high school, got out of high school, didn't want to
go to college. My parents were like, we'll get used
to saying you want fries with that. So I started
a filter company. I worked for a year for a
(07:48):
company that basically did air conditioning and stuff like that.
I saw a need for a niche of a niche
of a niche, and I started a filter company in
Austin called it Austin Filter Service. Real original and long
story short. I started that in nineteen ninety eight and
it was hammered. It was good, it was busy all
the time, and then it would just dump off in
(08:10):
the wintertime. And I started guiding with a buddy of
mine down south in the year two thousand that was
a taxi dermist, and I would just from November till January,
I'd be there just literally like helping him whatever I
could do, learning it and all that. And then in
two thousand and five, the story is, the Steiner family
(08:32):
and Austin bought Archery Country and I had known them.
I went in and said the guy that owned it
was like, man, you should put taxi iermy in here.
I was doing it out of down South then Floresville,
down south by Sanaton, And yeah, I didn't look back.
I started it. They complimented each other really well for
a long time. And by that I mean it was
(08:52):
summertime was hammered with filters. Wintertime was taxidermy. And then
I figured out how to make him work, and then
I kept that, so that business is still in business.
I still do that. Uh. And then in twenty sixteen
I sold the filter company to buy into the archery shop.
Speaker 1 (09:08):
And so is that all those mounts in the shop?
Are those all your mounts that you've.
Speaker 4 (09:12):
Done a bunch of them? Marvels I did? Yeah, I
shot that guy and mounted that dad.
Speaker 1 (09:18):
Would you mount an eland from for someone else? Or
would you? Oh yeah, oh yeah no, I've done it.
So a lot of a lot of textterment's like, don't
want to do big critters.
Speaker 4 (09:25):
Yeah, that is true. Thing, it's way harder to do
smaller critters. Oh really, And I've done some stuff that
would just blow your mind. It's absolutely ridiculous. I've done
some like movie prop stuff, And one story in particular
was a they wanted a bush baby. Have you ever
seen a little African monkey bush baby?
Speaker 5 (09:42):
Thing.
Speaker 4 (09:43):
So they needed one for the show called The Leftovers
on HBO, so they hired me to do it, and
I quoted way high because I didn't want to do it.
So it was like twenty five hundred bucks. So I
had like rabbit skins and I built this thing. And
then you built one.
Speaker 1 (09:57):
Oh, y'all didn't come up with the bush baby, No, no,
you you can't.
Speaker 4 (10:00):
They're like shinger and whatever. So I made one out
of rabbit skins, and dude, it looked like something you'd
win out of a crane machine. It was the worst
looking thing you've ever seen, the absolute piece, Like the
worst thing you've ever seen. I didn't want to give
it to him. I remember when the day they were
coming to pick it up and take it for the
movie set. I was like, dude, these guys are gonna
(10:21):
rip this check and be like what are you doing dude?
And they ended up using it and liking it and
loving it. The smaller stuff is way harder, and that
was what they came to me. They were like, have
you done ringtails squirrel? Like what have you done?
Speaker 3 (10:33):
You ever had to do an illegal animal?
Speaker 4 (10:36):
I have? I have done some crazy stuff. It was
all game warding. It was all through them, but like
owls and stuff like that.
Speaker 1 (10:44):
For like educational purposes or whatever. Yeah, have you ever
got a bald eagle?
Speaker 4 (10:48):
I have not. The other guy want me to do
a golden eagle right now? Oh?
Speaker 1 (10:51):
Really?
Speaker 4 (10:52):
He swears he's an Indian on a tribe and has
his card.
Speaker 1 (10:54):
And does he have to like wave a feather by
to make it? I don't know, but I'm out on it.
I do you feel about doing a soft iguana? Could
you make a soft iguana?
Speaker 5 (11:05):
I bet you could. Yeah, I don't know how you could.
Speaker 1 (11:10):
I'm sure there somewhere, and I kind of want to
get one mounted. But it's little mirror Boo from the Turkey.
Speaker 5 (11:17):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (11:17):
Yeah, it worked pretty per So. Is artistry something that
you come by naturally? So like you can draw and
stuff like that too. I was always good at that
stuff growing up, And so you just kind of converted
that into taxi and you.
Speaker 3 (11:28):
Say it's a passion, like you like doing it still?
Speaker 4 (11:30):
I love it.
Speaker 5 (11:31):
Yeah, it's fun.
Speaker 4 (11:32):
Yeah, and it's it's also something that it's cool. It's
kind of like Jesse stuff or anybody else's craft. You're
taking something that's you know, inanimate and something that just
looks like, you know, a tan hide looks like just
a lot of hair over there, and you're turning that
into something that looks realistic that will full you if
it's in the woods, you know, that's the goal. You're
(11:54):
trying to make it look his life like as you can.
Speaker 3 (11:56):
What rereativity is cool?
Speaker 5 (11:57):
Man?
Speaker 2 (11:57):
I love like I just think it's they one of
the hardest things that humans can do is make something
out of nothing pretty much, you know what I mean,
Like essentially to take a few things and then make
something completely new out of it, you know for sure,
Like I like songwrit you know, and to me it's
like it's a little more I can. I have a
process sometimes where I can think about I could explain
(12:18):
to somebody how I do it, but to them it
makes no sense. And I had to come up with
that at some point too, so at first it didn't
make any sense to me either, you know what I mean.
It's like, it's like, how do you put these things
together and make something that people like? You know, so
pretty cool that you do that same deal?
Speaker 4 (12:35):
It's fun.
Speaker 1 (12:35):
What's your favorite a mount you've ever done?
Speaker 4 (12:38):
Oh, it's probably one of those movie problems, man, Yeah,
I did. So they needed There was a show on
AMC called The Sun and it's a weird story, but
they needed a cowhead on like an Indian war spear.
And the scene was the Indians are mad at the guy,
the landowner, so they killed one of his cows and
(12:59):
they stuck it in his front and they were like,
don't you know, mess with us.
Speaker 5 (13:02):
Or something like that.
Speaker 4 (13:03):
So the whole the super short version is I went
to a place where they butcher cattle and I was like,
I just need a head. I'm not looking, you know.
They thought I was looking for the meat, like cheek
meat or something like that, and I'm like, no, I
just need the skin, man, just just a skin, and
they're like, dude, this guy. But anyway, I bought a
(13:24):
cow head and I mounted it. And what was cool
was I mounted it and I was like, dude, that
looks dead, it looks realistic, it looks awesome. And it
was a black cow head. And so the producer comes
back and he's like, yeah, by the way, this is
a night scene. We needed like a white It'd been
nice to tell me that. So I bleached it. I
took peroxide and I bleached it and it turned out
(13:45):
to be this like kind of chocolate brown color and
then I airbrushed it white and all that and it
in the show it looked unbelievable.
Speaker 1 (13:55):
Hollywood crowd doing this stuff Austin.
Speaker 4 (13:57):
Austin's full of Yeah, I mean everybody knows that Austin's
kind of a hub and yeah, sure, those dudes, they're
all around Austin and they're always looking for the best deal.
They're always looking for something. And it was yeah, yeah,
just got linked up with.
Speaker 1 (14:09):
So Taxidermy was kind of your avenue into the bow
shop because your friend at that point in time.
Speaker 4 (14:14):
Was like, hey, put your stuff in here, yep, yep, yeah,
And I put a shop in with him. So when
he bought it two thousand and five, I at the
old place. I had a range in the back that
was just a couple of lanes that they blocked off
and boarded up, and I put a couple of coolers
back there and did it out of there for six
or seven years, and then we moved over to the
shop we're at now, where I've had my own space
and all that. Yeah, that's how it started.
Speaker 1 (14:36):
And it's cool. So the uh, did you set out
in life like wanting to be a business hunter. That
was kind of like a thing.
Speaker 5 (14:42):
It kind of yeah in a way, because you.
Speaker 1 (14:44):
Did the filter thing, yeah, the tax or everything, and
now you do the best.
Speaker 4 (14:47):
A lot of it was to be to be, I
guess brutally honest, was to be a punk to everybody
else because I was basically like trying to I had
something to prove. Yes at a point where it was like,
you know my parents and not my parents were dogging
me or anything. They were just like, come on, man,
make something of yourself. And at the time, every single
(15:08):
person was going to college or had something that they
had kind of picked out that they were working towards
or something, and I was the polar opposite. I bopped
out of there and was like, man, it's a nice
world out here. There's some pretty blue bonnets and we
go completely just floating around life.
Speaker 1 (15:24):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (15:25):
At one point I buckled down, and like I said,
that was in ninety eight. That was when I was like,
all right, well, I'm gonna go chase this pretty hard
and I can intermix this and start making something of myself.
And yeah, what makes a good bow shop customer service?
Speaker 3 (15:41):
I would agree with you. We talked about it a
little bit yesterday.
Speaker 4 (15:44):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (15:44):
Yeah, it's like anything else. Manmid right, and don't.
Speaker 4 (15:48):
Be a punk, and like when you're wanting something, you
have it, and even if you don't have it, you're
not rude about it. Whatever.
Speaker 3 (15:55):
People love that Zude.
Speaker 2 (15:56):
Hunting is kind of like a big dog kind of thing,
you know. It's like people in the hunting space like
to be thought of as a good hunter. Rights probably
similar to archery. It's like you like to be thought
of as somebody who knows what they're doing when they
walk into archery shop, but not everybody does, and they
know that about themselves, so when they walk in, it's
like this is kind of an intimidating atmosphere, you know,
(16:19):
and you get on, like we produce videos and you
get on and look at YouTube comments and you would
be like, do these guys actually know what they're doing?
You know, because everybody wants to think tell you you're doing
it wrong or whatever. And so to be a to
have that customer service man for me, like I'm still
not like an archery nerd, you know, I mean I
find something that works pretty good. He informs me of
(16:41):
a lot of the things that like, I might need
to know, you know, cool, and I'm like, uh, I
might try that, you know, or I don't really care,
you know, whatever it is, and then and then I
go for it. So like if I still would say,
if I walked into an archery shop, there would be
things and conversations that I would be like, man, I'm
fixing a look like a you know.
Speaker 4 (16:58):
And it's also it's like speaking really liked earlier. There's
stories of guys that are like, no, that that particular
product will absolutely not do that, and You're like, well,
I've done it and it'll do it, so sure.
Speaker 5 (17:11):
So yeah, I gotta say. The first time I ever
talked to you, I've I ever met you was years ago.
I called on the phone at the tax ermy shop.
I don't remember what I needed, but it was a
dumb question and I was scared and I was like,
I'm about to call a tax ermy studio with the
dumb question. And I called and when I hung up
the phone, I said, out loud, that is one of
(17:32):
the nicest people I have ever talked to. No. I
was like, I can't believe how how nice that interaction was.
And ever since then, you know, I've just been a
big fan, and it's just like, and yeah, you're you're
absolutely right. Your customer services is phenomenal.
Speaker 4 (17:49):
You have to yeah, and it's it's one of those
deals too. At the Archery shop, when you're dealing with
people all day every day, it's easy. I can see
how these old guys get to where they're like, I'm
done with it, man, what do you want? You want
some broad heads, get broad heads and get out. You can't.
And that's one of the one thing I preached to
my guys is like, you have you just have to
(18:09):
be cool to everybody who comes in. They're they're probably
intimidated when they're walking in the door. They're for sure
intimidated if they're not a hunter and it's camo and
deer heads on the wall and they're looking around and
they're like, oh, man, I don't want to talk to
these guys.
Speaker 1 (18:23):
A neat thing about your shop. I don't know if
it's always been this way or if this is something
you do about design, but you walk in and it
feels like you you get to look at the product
before you have to like look at the desk. Yeah,
you know, like the disk is intimidating a lot of times,
yeah for sure, and so like and I remember I've
been in there and you you kinda if you want somebody,
(18:46):
I don't know if this said Woul always is, but
if you like need something from the guy to disk,
you kind of go up there and be like, hey,
what's up instead of like, hey, what are you doing
your guy? What do you mean? Yeah? Like it's it's
low pressure. Yeah, you know, which is is good?
Speaker 4 (18:57):
Man? No, We've that's the one thing I've beat into
my guy. Like when we all sit around and talk
about stuff, it's just it always goes back to just
be cool to people because you never know where they're
at in their day or anything in their life or anything.
And a lot of it is just you don't it's
not reinventing the wheel. It's just being like, hey, man,
(19:17):
what's in for?
Speaker 5 (19:18):
Yeah?
Speaker 4 (19:18):
And then cool if they're like, man, I'm kind of
thinking about hunting at some point, you're like, all right, cool, man,
let's go look at compounds, because if you go to
free curves, you're gonna be the same conversation.
Speaker 1 (19:34):
So Jesse, you talk to him about taxidermy. That's how
y'all kind of yeah, got linked up. I didn't expect that.
Speaker 4 (19:41):
Yeah, I don't.
Speaker 5 (19:41):
I honestly, I wish I could remember what my question was.
It was probably like can I bring you a duck
and still get the meat? That was probably answer that
because I always wonder.
Speaker 4 (19:51):
You definitely can do it for people really throwing a
zip lock and then go to it still.
Speaker 3 (19:56):
So if you freeze it guts in, is it still
good still good to eat?
Speaker 4 (20:00):
I think it is if you do it within a
reasonable amount. So like if you shoot a duck and
you're like, I'd love to get the same mounted and
you freeze it immediately when I do it, like, I
like it kind of partially frozen when I'm skinning on
ducks and stuff like that. So it's really easy to
do it. Cut the breast out, stick them in a ziplock,
and keep yelling about what you're doing.
Speaker 5 (20:21):
So m Yeah.
Speaker 1 (20:22):
We just actually did a video that'll be out pretty
soon on the Metior channel that Jesse helped us with.
Because I know my way around a pocket knife, but
Jesse shows up with like nine different knives in his
leather sheet to do every little job he needs to. Right,
we saw that while you go it's pretty sick. So
you kind of helped us with some breaking down of
(20:43):
a bird and that sort of stuff, and we'll look
at that stuff or that stuff will beyond video and
y'all can check that stuff out. But like, that's kind
of one of the things that you you bring that's
so unique about what you do, right, is like that
questions you asked, I'm about can you keep the meat
if you want to get a duck mounted or whatever? Right,
And so the meat is a huge part of what
(21:05):
you do. Infamously, the hog book is awesome, right, it's
the thing that's been around for a while or famously
maybe maybe not even I.
Speaker 6 (21:13):
Don't even know how to use that word. Yea of
(21:38):
known right, yeah, yeah, of known prowess.
Speaker 3 (21:40):
Right.
Speaker 1 (21:41):
So and then now we have the Turkey book that's
coming out. Would you say that you know your way
around a turkey as well as you do a hog.
Speaker 5 (21:49):
That's a good question. I might, I might not. I
think I'm still really learning turkeys. Yeah, I feel yeah,
I feel sometimes like I could like almost do a
hog in the dark.
Speaker 1 (22:03):
That makes me said yeah, because I feel like, you know,
it's so much better. It just really sets that finish
line way out there.
Speaker 5 (22:12):
There's well I think it's you compile tricks. Yeah, after
a while, and there's nothing that's going to help you
do that besides experience.
Speaker 2 (22:19):
See that's what I've been learning from you this week.
I've been mentally trying to store some of those tricks,
you know, like just some of the things even with cooking,
like the when you cook the turkey breast, just talking
about the ninety percent role or whatever. I mean, that's
super applicable to somebody who's cooking chicken certainly, you know
(22:40):
what I mean, And that's something that's like done by
millions of people every year. So you just make and
I and me too, so I I mean I it
totally never knew that, and you always just sitting there
chewing through chicken real hard, you know, yeah, because of that,
you know.
Speaker 3 (22:53):
Yeah, that's right.
Speaker 5 (22:54):
You.
Speaker 1 (22:54):
One of the things that you put off I thought
was neat was the percent yield on a turkey.
Speaker 5 (22:57):
Yeah, it's very hot.
Speaker 1 (22:58):
It's real hot. H Would you say like fifty five
percent or something?
Speaker 5 (23:01):
Yeah? I actually like charted one and it came out
to fifty five percent of its live weight. And that's
I mean, that's that's a bounty yeah, you know fish yield,
I mean thirty five forty five, and then everything else
kind of less than that, you know, and so bang
for buck Turkey's it's up there, and it's also it's
(23:24):
my favorite. So I just get excited if you get
a twenty pound bird on the ground, like, oh, that's
eleven pounds, you know.
Speaker 1 (23:31):
I like that quick math. Yeah, I'm into that.
Speaker 3 (23:34):
That's good.
Speaker 5 (23:34):
Yeah, yeah, that's substantial.
Speaker 1 (23:36):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (23:37):
I think that people look at turkey and they don't
think that they're substantial. Eleven pounds is a lot of meals,
and it's an easily stretchable protein too.
Speaker 1 (23:46):
Exactly right, thinking about that, you're not using it like
you are a beef steak, where you're sixteen ounce sirloin.
That's sixty ounces of meat. You know, with a turkey,
oftentimes you're using that as a component in a dish, right,
which is kind of what your turkey book kind of
culminates into.
Speaker 5 (24:01):
Right.
Speaker 1 (24:02):
It has a lot of the cooking in the recipes
and stuff like that. Right, So like to not spend
too much time on what's gonna be on video, But
you just made us some tacos out of a jake breast.
I shot a jake on this trip, which I was
ecstatic about, right, but and very tasty. But that what
was like maybe two pounds of meat something like that?
(24:23):
How much?
Speaker 5 (24:24):
Yeah? I mean yeah, I'd say a pound and a half, yeah, Max.
Speaker 1 (24:28):
And that gave us all a nice lunch. Yeah, you know,
and you talk and you're mixing that with high quality ingredients,
which like you always do, but like eleven pounds of
turkey meat, that's like, I don't know, you're looking at
seven eight meals for a family.
Speaker 5 (24:43):
Easy, you know. Yeah. And I think a big, a
big part of the book is how to stretch it.
Because the book's written for somebody that's gonna, you know,
hit nine states and fill their tags. It's also written
for the for someone that's gonna shoot one bird and
how they can treat that bird and get the absolute
most out of it because it's not only is it
(25:04):
a resource, and it's such it's such a different topic
than hogs, you know, and then like a call to
action about an invasive it's like let's go kill them
all and eat them versus let's kill a few and
really enjoy them. And but you need to try to
extract as much of that goodness out of each one
as you possibly can. And so I think it's it's
written for for somebody that has a bounty of turkey,
(25:25):
and it's also written for somebody that's got one. Maybe
it was the first turkey they ever shot, and how
how are you going to stretch as many possible meals
out of arguably one of the best game animals on
the planet.
Speaker 2 (25:38):
It was very arguable, actually a lot of arguments inarguable.
Speaker 3 (25:45):
Inarguable, that's it. I was like, pretty good right there.
Speaker 5 (25:48):
Yeah, it's my it's my personal favorite. So it's easy
for me to be like on that.
Speaker 1 (25:53):
Soapbox, did you go up doing a lot of turkey?
Speaker 5 (25:56):
No, sir, But I will say I mean I did
start hunt until later in life. I mean I was
probably in my very late twenties, but I do remember,
and I put this in the book, this story. I
remember traveling through the whole country with my dad and
we went to a rest stop and in this canyon
below us, I saw a bunch of turkeys. And my
(26:17):
family didn't hunt, but something clicked and I said it
out loud, I want to shoot one of those thirds.
My grandfather had had a shotgun and all I'd outline
all this in the book and tell this whole story.
But my grandfather had a shotgun that was just described
to me that it could blow a hole through a door,
(26:38):
and so I told my dad, it is like, I
want to shoot a turkey with Grandfa George's shotgun that
can blow a hole through a door. And so that
was the first animal I ever wanted to hunt. And
then as I started hunting, and it's a difficult bird,
I mean, at least for me. And so you know,
as as I progressed as a hunter, I really was
(27:01):
starting to get taken by the hunting as well. But
since the first time I tried wild turkey, I was
just very taken by the meeting, and I'm highly motivated
by that.
Speaker 1 (27:11):
So at what age did you get to fulfill your
dream of shooting the turkey?
Speaker 5 (27:15):
How old was I when I killed turkey? I was
probably in my early thirties.
Speaker 1 (27:23):
Did you do it with Grandpa George's shotgun?
Speaker 5 (27:25):
I did not. I did not.
Speaker 1 (27:26):
Do you still have that shotgun?
Speaker 5 (27:28):
I do not have it. The first one I killed
was with a rifle.
Speaker 1 (27:31):
As a lot of Texans, yes, my first starty was
a rifle as well. Yes, you know, because we have
a very unique situation. We have a fall turkey season,
and in the fall you can shoot hens and gobblers
in some county in Again, let me give the element disclaimer.
This is not legal advice, so check your rules and regulations, right,
But I think that turkeys are almost by textans treated
(27:55):
as bycatch. A lot of times. You know, you're you're
at the dear lease in the fall and a turkey
rolls through, and you're like, oh, yeah, I haven't seen it.
Hear I'll shoot that, you know. But that's when I
kind of first got the taste for it too. Yeah,
you shoot one of those. I shot a hen in
the fall one time at eighty seven steps, which again
I also I'm not giving people advice on shot distance,
(28:16):
but I was twelve and I thought I could hear her,
and sure enough killed her dead eighty seven steps and
took her back to camp and we stripped it up
and fried it up, and.
Speaker 5 (28:26):
I was like, I liked to team turkey.
Speaker 4 (28:29):
That's it.
Speaker 3 (28:30):
So when when did your cooking career begin?
Speaker 5 (28:35):
I mean, I love cooking. When I was a kid,
I loved it, and then I started working in restaurants. Also,
I mean when I was legally able, you know, I
think I was probably about fifteen sixteen when I started
working in restaurants and then gravitated to the kitchen by
the time I was about nineteen or twenty, and I've
just was in the kitchen ever since then and just
having never left, and I enjoy it every single day.
(28:58):
I love cooking, and I will for my entire life.
Speaker 2 (29:02):
You can tell, man, when you start working on something
like just you have the light in your eyes. Man,
when that's going on, it's it's evident. So you've done
some You've done some like traveling, it seems it would seem,
and learn from a lot of different people, different cultures, right,
And because I heard you talking about maybe some time
(29:22):
you spent in Mexico at one point, yes, doing so.
Is that was that like an employment deal or those
mostly employment deals or are those just like, hey, I'm
just going to go learn something new, so I have,
you know, more arrows in my quiver.
Speaker 5 (29:35):
Yeah, it was just a learning deal. I also I
did not go to college and our cooking school or
anything like that, and I felt like the best way
to learn would to be go out there and see
what other people are doing. And doing, and I learned
so much. Most of what I learned that has informed
my my career was that when you went to a place,
you saw how they reacted to their ingredients and how
(29:58):
they respected those resources, and how they would foster that
in the form of a cuisine. Like if you go
to southwestern France, you know you're gonna get walnut oil
and duck and white asparagus and oysters. And then if
you go to the you know, mountainous part of Mexico
and Monterey, you're gonna get dried chilis and dried beans
and goat. And both of those cultures have done absolutely
(30:22):
as much as they can with those and they've almost
perfected it. And it's just and to see the techniques
and the culture and the tradition and how much love
they put into that, and then you can come back
and then what I did is just tried try to
replicate that in Central Texas. And then I mean, honeywood
comes just such a big part of that because it's
(30:42):
such a part of our heritage. The land supports so
much game here that it naturally became part of that.
And so travel really really informed that, just to see
how other people do it and the techniques, you know,
and whether that's based in creativity or artistry or just
based necessity right, just to see how other people are
(31:02):
doing it. It's fun.
Speaker 1 (31:03):
Travel and like interest in the culinary arts, those things
are hand in hand. It feels like like and I
think that oftentimes travel is is kind of like the
gateway to like being interested in food, because I can remember,
like my and I nowhere near where you are. But
I also too, it's tylered as well, like enjoy cooking,
(31:24):
enjoy unique opportunities with food. And I can remember going
to Costa Rica as a seventeen year old and being like,
oh wow, this is different, and it was like my
whole world was opened up, like oh look at all
this different stuff that you can do with food and different.
Speaker 3 (31:36):
That's where came exactly right.
Speaker 1 (31:39):
I went to Costa Rica and it was like, man,
plantains are awesome. Those things exist.
Speaker 3 (31:43):
I just I just don't like them for whatever reason.
Speaker 5 (31:45):
Potato and a banana had a baby.
Speaker 3 (31:47):
Yeah yeah, yeah, I just want the banana, you know
what I mean.
Speaker 1 (31:50):
And those cultures they love their star just too, you know,
like there's Yuka and there's Hiccama, right, like all this
stuff and it's like, wow, these are like potatoes but healthy.
Speaker 3 (32:00):
Like this is all right?
Speaker 1 (32:02):
Yeah anyways, and then so you love turkeys, love them.
You happen to have some friends that love turkeys, and
you got another friend that's got some turkeys. And here
we are, guys.
Speaker 5 (32:14):
Yeah, we're all.
Speaker 1 (32:14):
Here hunting and hanging out together. It's been a great
couple of days. And I think that Tyler and I
have cemented our opinions this week that Rio grand turkeys
are the supreme subspecies of wild turkey. There will be
some people yelling about that, but that's okay. Michael is
one of them. He thinks Easterns are cool, but no way,
these turkeys are awesome. Jesse, you have put some miles
(32:38):
on your boots. You may have even worn a little
rubber out there. Yeah, y'all did a lot of chasing
this week.
Speaker 5 (32:43):
We did a lot of chasing. I love it.
Speaker 3 (32:46):
I love it.
Speaker 5 (32:47):
You know, I mean I didn't I didn't see a turkey.
Speaker 1 (32:51):
You never saw it.
Speaker 5 (32:52):
I never saw one. Oh, you heard turkeys. We were
close to turkeys, we knew where they were. I was,
you know, a little frustrated, but you know, when you
it's it's that that next day or that later in
the day feeling, and it's just like I would do
I would do it all over. I would do it
all over as part of it. It really it teaches
(33:13):
you a lot of grace about why you're here in
the enjoyment and you know, the time of year, company,
the food, and it's okay that those turkeys are still alive.
It's totally fine. Yeah, you know, it's not. It's not
like chasing pigs or something like that where it's like, well,
we need to get a job done. It's it's great
that they're still out there. And I still got a
(33:34):
lot of time left.
Speaker 1 (33:35):
Which of the chasing pigs you couldn't lay off of
so you didn't see a turkey, but I.
Speaker 5 (33:44):
Did see some pigs. Yeah, why can't I quit you? Yeah?
So yeah, there's a TSS around a fifteen dollars hog
right there, and I just I went for the small
one and.
Speaker 3 (33:57):
It's still pretty good price per pound.
Speaker 5 (34:00):
It's it's great. No regrets here, no regrets at all. Yeah,
you dressed out to about five pounds. I picked it
out and uh, it's gonna be great. I'm gonna do
that piglet under a brick. Recipe from the Hog Book.
That's a good one where you brind it and then
marinate it and then you cook it over like kind
of tall over coals, you know, put some space and
slow cook them, do the ninety percent. You cook them
(34:20):
about ninety percent on one side and then flip them
and do about ten percent on the other side.
Speaker 1 (34:24):
That slick. So did you imagine that before you shot
the pig or you.
Speaker 5 (34:27):
Like thinking about that? Yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm I'm I'm
already like, you know, I think you some some chopped time,
some garlic, and you know, it's like, well then I
got to crawl under this fence and then a little
olive oil and some better you know. Yeah, well, I
mean all I had was a turkey load, so I
(34:49):
had to choose a small pig. There was a there's
a lot of choices in that sounder too, and I
I I think I made the appropriate on.
Speaker 1 (34:56):
Yeah, it's nice, man, it's good. We joked about what
cabrito is a a baby goat, right, and so uh,
moron or moron is is is wild hog or at
least one of the words for him, I believe, right,
So it's and we decided we're gonna call it yeah,
and uh sounds like a good application to me. It's
gonna be good flating them out and give them a eat.
Speaker 2 (35:16):
I've got the I have the hog book you sent me,
and I have a field, which is just awesome.
Speaker 3 (35:22):
I love that book, man. I got to go through it.
Speaker 2 (35:25):
I go through it about once a year, and I'll like,
I'll go through a big portion of the book just
to read it, and you know it's I like it
because so the reason that we started out what we
we we were kind of known as deer hunters, but
what we wanted to do is like we didn't want
to be you know, big buck hunters, experience podcast or
(35:47):
whatever you like. We didn't want to have like a
name that was deer hunting. We wanted because when we
grew up, we were chasing pigs in the winter, we
were catching bass in the spring, and we were you know,
in the summertime we might go to the Rockies and
chase trout and fish for sure. Yeah, and then and
the you know, hunted ducks a lot. I was crazy
about waterfowl when I was like high school and college.
(36:09):
And the only reason I won't do it now is
because we don't the My local lake just doesn't have
aquatic vegetation like it used to, and we don't have
the birds. But and because we did hunt a lot
in the fall. But I mean, long story short, what
I what we have always done naturally is just chase
stuff whatever season it is, right. So that's what I
love about a field is that like I can, I
(36:31):
can whatever. It could be March or it could be November,
and I can go into that book and look and
there's something that makes sense and it and it's also
very practical. Like the recipes. You know, you're like, hey,
you can do this, but you can also do it
like this. It's really basic and you probably have all
this stuff in your kitchen.
Speaker 1 (36:47):
You know. That's where that that hot bird like those
little quailspee, isn't it?
Speaker 4 (36:52):
Yeah?
Speaker 5 (36:52):
Yeah, hot fudbirds.
Speaker 3 (36:55):
That's such a good recipe.
Speaker 1 (36:57):
That's good stuff.
Speaker 2 (36:57):
I've done it. I did it with and it was
we were we were doing it for a Super Bowl
wings contest and my wife beat me with a garlic
parmesan and recipe. But it was they were really good
and I ate them till I couldn't eat anymore. I
wasn gonna eat my live swings.
Speaker 5 (37:17):
You know, that recipe was a success because I saw
one time on a I think it was the Texas
Hunting Forum, somebody used hot fry as a bird I'm sorry,
hot fry as a verb. They said, did you hot
fry your doves? And I was like, I made it
like that, you know. It wasn't did you make poppers?
But instead said how did you hot fry? And I
(37:38):
was like, well that recipe it got some traction, you know,
and it was just like a different way to do it.
And it's I love that one and as a family
favorite for sure, and it's a good way to do doves.
Speaker 2 (37:49):
We also did the We my family and we took
a little vacation down to mattic Order and we we
did some crabbing. It was just it was it was
just basic, right, We're just walking around the crab net
and the and the marsh grass and we caught a
couple of decent ones and we did the pasta with
the crab because it's a that's like, that's how I
(38:12):
mean noodles and rice.
Speaker 3 (38:13):
Those are things that make a little.
Speaker 2 (38:14):
Bit of meat go a long ways, right, And uh,
I just I love that section too, because you have
like this whole like beach cooking section you know, in
that book, and it's really cool.
Speaker 3 (38:22):
But that's a good recipe too. I love stuff. It's
simple and tasty. Man, so good.
Speaker 1 (38:27):
You're a restauranteur as well, and Tyler, I know you've
eaten a few of Jesse's meals. If you had to suggest,
like one thing off of the menu or one of
the things that Jesse has made for you, what would
it be. I hate to put you on spot.
Speaker 4 (38:40):
But I'll put him on the spot. I'm a I'm
a fat boy from So I've had the nilghai Rabbi.
Speaker 5 (38:50):
Or it's a it's a leg stick.
Speaker 4 (38:53):
Yeah. Yeah, So that was between that and the pork chut.
I mean pork chop every time.
Speaker 2 (39:02):
Yeah, that's all I hear about and I've never had one,
so you'll are making me wrong hungry.
Speaker 3 (39:06):
But everybody that I talked to you is like, oh yeah,
the pork chop, Man, the pork chop. Even You'll say
the pork chop, you know.
Speaker 1 (39:12):
Yeah, it's it's another world, very satisfying.
Speaker 4 (39:17):
Meat sweats.
Speaker 1 (39:19):
As a second friend that references made this week, So uh,
tell people where.
Speaker 4 (39:27):
Artcry Country is we're in smack middle of Austin, but
we're we're kind of becoming known more outside of that circle.
We're trying to branch out.
Speaker 1 (39:36):
It's the hats man, got cool hats.
Speaker 3 (39:38):
That's the only reason.
Speaker 4 (39:39):
That's the only.
Speaker 1 (39:41):
Customer service.
Speaker 4 (39:44):
A T shirt. Yeah, No, it's been awesome, man, it's
been fun trying to grow, but we're in awesome.
Speaker 5 (39:50):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (39:50):
We're just just a shop trying to do our best.
Speaker 1 (39:53):
Yeah, y'all have a you know, it's it's a great shot.
But I think in particular the range stands out. You know,
of course the customer service, but it's a big range,
and it's you know, if you I thought it was
unique being in there that we were kind of siding
in and tuning a bow. There were guys in there
purchasing like you know, top of the line models for
like upcoming hunts. And then there were people in there
(40:15):
you can rent like recurves, you recurves and stuff right
and like do date night or whatever. Right, So like
it's it's like this serve all type shop. It's pretty cool.
Speaker 4 (40:25):
The thing I've tried to do is make a is
have somebody for everybody when they come in and we've
accomplished that. So if you're the frat boy, I gotta
I got that, dude. If you're the super redneck dude
working under own ninety three Dutch, I got that. We
got them all.
Speaker 1 (40:45):
It's cool.
Speaker 4 (40:45):
Yeah, it's cool.
Speaker 1 (40:46):
Yeah, Jesse, you've got Doe, which is a restaurant. I
tell all my friends if they're in Austin, they should
go to. I appreciate there's another, uh taco truck or
I might be talking about that wrong. Can you describe
the other thing?
Speaker 5 (40:57):
Yeah, Losilva. It's out at the desert door just jillery.
Uh and it kind of I would I would describe
it as like West Texas bar food, but with mostly
wild game, a lot of a lot of wild boar,
a lot of nil. Guy, we do quail dug. There's
some turkey on the man.
Speaker 2 (41:13):
I got a question for you, because you at die
do a you're seed oil free.
Speaker 1 (41:17):
Let's go.
Speaker 3 (41:18):
Is that a catching on?
Speaker 1 (41:20):
Guys?
Speaker 2 (41:21):
Is that a what What is is? Do you live
your life like that? Is that how you do at home?
And that's a choice that you made because you think
it's healthier, right?
Speaker 5 (41:31):
Yeah? Or it's just for me. It's quite simple. It's
just a connectivity to ingredients. I have no connection to canola.
Speaker 2 (41:41):
May either and right, and so I I'm not a
nutritionist and I wouldn't I wouldn't purport to be so,
but I just I just like to understand all the
ingredients and my the way I select all the food
at Doue is what I feed that to my daughter,
and if it doesn't make that cut, then it doesn't
(42:03):
get served to the general public.
Speaker 5 (42:05):
And so we have over the years strived to become
seed oil free and then recently went all the way
in so it's just large tallow butter text to solive
oil and then we use a fermented sugar cane oil
just to make mayonnaise and things like that.
Speaker 2 (42:22):
It's awesome, man, we've been, we tried. It's it's actually
a really hard thing to do. It's very hard to do.
Speaker 1 (42:29):
If you're gonna consume pre made bread product products is
almost for sure. That's where Yeah, I'm on the train, man,
I appreciate that.
Speaker 3 (42:37):
Yeah, that's good. It's awesome.
Speaker 1 (42:39):
And so, uh, the big thing coming out right now.
One of the things that we're kind of correlating our
Turkey hunting video production stuff that we've done is around
the Turkey book. So tell us a little bit, you know,
we've been talking about it some. But give us the
you know, the three point thing on the Turkey book
and where they can find that.
Speaker 5 (42:56):
Yeah, it just came out right in time for Turkey season.
It's it's a journal of my season last year. Actually
it was just like mid March through mid May of
last year. Four hunts, four corners of the country basically Texas, Georgia, Oregon,
and Connecticut. The hunts and then all the cooking that
(43:18):
we did in between with the birds that we were
lucky enough to get. Uh. And it you know, I
set out to make a smaller book than the Hog
Book and a failed still it's just it's it's heavy.
I mean, it's a big one. I don't know how
I did that.
Speaker 1 (43:33):
It's beautiful.
Speaker 5 (43:35):
We worked with you know, the best photographers, Jody Horton,
who has been my photographer partner on three books now,
and then we brought in also another guy named Sam
Averrett who did a phenomenal job of doing some in
the field shots along with some of the food and
so heavy on photography. I love that. I like looking
(43:56):
at pictures myself and.
Speaker 1 (43:58):
Picture books are my favorite.
Speaker 5 (43:59):
Yeah for sure.
Speaker 1 (44:00):
Yes, too many words to get confused.
Speaker 5 (44:02):
Yeah yeah, and so uh yeah, and it's available now.
We were able to get it out pretty quick on
It's the wild books dot com and we have the
hog Book is available there as well as the Turkey
Book and then all the associated merch We have slate calls.
Speaker 4 (44:16):
And I went and bought it and literally I did
the call.
Speaker 5 (44:22):
The hats. I tried to do a shirt.
Speaker 1 (44:24):
That yeah, you present us with some of these terrific hats.
Yeah you know, uh, Tyler didn't bring us any hats.
Speaker 2 (44:36):
Yeahst terrible, send us something he is.
Speaker 1 (44:44):
So we got a signature first Light specter hat with
a turkey on it. This is the Turkey Book insignia
or logo.
Speaker 5 (44:56):
On the cover.
Speaker 1 (44:56):
Yeah, it's pretty cool, man. I killed my bird in it.
Yeah yeah, so I appreciate it. I need to make
like a mark or something for every turkey that's right. Yeah,
absolutely cool. Yeah, I'm wanna do that right now. Well, guys,
appreciate y'all and all your hospitality and your friendship and
like the knowledge that you both share. And this is like,
I love these times whenever a hunting camp comes together
because I've never hunted with either of you, and it's awesome.
(45:20):
I can't wait to do it again. We got the
INtime from you.
Speaker 5 (45:25):
It is not crazy.
Speaker 4 (45:28):
I'm surprised we're all here anyway, because I took Jesse
out here last year to try and get a bird
and we put some miles on boots and did we hear.
Speaker 5 (45:37):
I think we heard about four miles.
Speaker 4 (45:41):
Away and that was it and I was like, well,
he's not to come back.
Speaker 5 (45:47):
I love this.
Speaker 3 (45:48):
It's all about that call of the taxi.
Speaker 4 (45:49):
We know, yeah, exactly, fellas.
Speaker 1 (45:52):
This has been awesome. Thank y'all so much. You guys
will leak to all that stuff in the description below,
both for Archery Country and for everything Jesse has gone in.
Special said with the Turkey Dog. You need to check
it out and remember this is your element.
I'm Casey and you're listening to the Element podcast. We
are sitting around rubbing our bellies after a delicious meal
(00:21):
here in the Texas Hill Country. I got Tyler Jones
here with me, of course, watched him do some cool
things this morning. We have got Jesse Griffiths, the James
Beard Award winning author and chef right, and then we
have got Tyler vander Kolk right of Archery Country, which,
(00:42):
if you don't know, is a bow shop there in Austin.
Do a lot of cool stuff, pretty good following on
social media as well if you want to see some
funny things happening.
Speaker 2 (00:51):
And uh, we can say everything, though they don't put
everything out there.
Speaker 3 (00:55):
That's true.
Speaker 1 (00:56):
Yeah, you see Tyler at the shop, ask him for
to see that real funny stuff. And we've been out
enjoying the Hill Country man for some specific reasons, but uh,
in general, if you're not from Texas, we have a
region in the central part of the state called the
Hill Country and it is, in my opinion at least,
(01:17):
the most beautiful part of the state, especially this time
of year early April. Everything's waking up. Everybody loves spring,
but here, especially the wildflowers the birds, the butterflies, all
the things just go to just raging. And along with
that comes some turkeys and also do the thing. It's
pretty pretty sweet. So you grew up here, Tyler, born
(01:41):
and raised Austin, Texas. Things have changed a few a
little bit country.
Speaker 4 (01:46):
It's still the Hill countterh So this is where we
came when we were kids. Man, Really at this direction,
with this direction, we lived in Austin, which is an
hour away, and we go to the lake and do
all this stuff in the springtime. This is where you went.
Speaker 1 (01:59):
Man, How about that?
Speaker 5 (02:00):
That? Man?
Speaker 1 (02:00):
Do you still and I can tell, but I'm just
kind of prompting you almost. But yeah, you know you
lived here your whole life, but you still had appreciation
for the bluebonnets that stuff.
Speaker 4 (02:08):
Yeah, never get old, man. Yeah, it's beautiful.
Speaker 3 (02:11):
It's incredible.
Speaker 2 (02:13):
I've never I've I've hunted all over the state, been
here my whole life in Texas, but not here in
the hill country. But I've hunted the hill country a lot.
Never seen anything like this. This property in particular, I
don't know if it's different and other properties around here,
but like where we're at is you cannot believe I
can't explain to you the amount of blue bonnets that
we've seen.
Speaker 5 (02:33):
It's hard to convey. It's like an ocean, it is.
Speaker 2 (02:36):
We were on top of that hill yesterday and looking down,
and I had already said this to Casey at one point,
I was like, man, I wish they would take aerials
at this time of year, just to it would look different.
You would think of is that water, you know exactly.
But we were on top of a hill yesterday and
there was like it was just solid blue pasture, you know,
out probably a mile and a half away from us
or whatever. But like you had to you had to
(02:57):
look at it and think, oh, that's probably the blue bonds.
Speaker 3 (03:00):
That's not a pond, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1 (03:02):
There's one time I vocalized yesterday. I was like, oh,
there's a pool right here. And then we walked around
the corner and it actually was a little opening with
blue bonnets, and I felt kind of dumb. I don't
know ifnybody caught on, but a mistake, you know, but
it was a cool mistake, yeah, because it was you know,
and we were joking about how like you felt like
you needed to be in a canoe or something when
you're walking through them as opposed to walking around, you know,
because it's it felt almost water ish because it kind
(03:25):
of flow through there.
Speaker 5 (03:26):
What's not blue is red or our neon, green or
yellow or white as every flowers blopping.
Speaker 2 (03:32):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's Indian blankets are one of my favorites.
Speaker 3 (03:38):
Red with the yellow around the edge.
Speaker 1 (03:40):
They are, in fact one of my favorites too, except
for a really specific moment, And that moment is whenever
you're walking through the woods and you glance to your
left and at eighty yards there's a big Indian blanket
in the shade, and it was just like a turkey
they get a few times now to me, I guess
(04:04):
you can't. You just have to empathize with you instead
of sympathize.
Speaker 3 (04:06):
I appreciate that.
Speaker 1 (04:07):
But we've been out turkey hunting out here, and it's
like there's a neat thing that happens. As an outdoorsman,
as a consumptive user, you get to feel just in
my opinion, a little more a part of the process
of what's going on out here instead of like, and
don't get me wrong, I love to drive around put
binoculars on new types of songbirds or look at the flowers,
(04:29):
or you know, have a nice dinner on the porch
of my wife out here, or whatever it may be.
But there's something about being out and like interacting with
the critters that just puts just an extra amplitude onto
the enjoyment of it, you know, and then to cap
that off with eating the critter that you're were interacting with.
(04:51):
Thanks to Jesse. I'll talk more about that in a bit.
It is pretty awesome. So you said you've been coming
out here kind of your whole life, and hunting has
been a part of what you've done your whole life.
Speaker 4 (05:02):
No, actually wasn't.
Speaker 1 (05:03):
When'd you start hunting?
Speaker 4 (05:04):
So when I was eighteen I started hunting. Good buddies
of mine in high school were hunters. I grew up
so my dad was a Vietnam that guy that just
came back and lost his flare for all of that stuff.
So we didn't grow up hunting at all. I always
wanted to kind of, yeah, but buddies in high school
(05:24):
got me into it. And then when I was a kid,
my dad thought this was the pinnacle of the United States.
He had traveled done some stuff and he was like,
it does not get any prettier than the Texas Hill County.
Speaker 3 (05:37):
That's cool.
Speaker 4 (05:38):
So subsequently, when we went on vacations, we weren't rich
by any means. So Dad was like, load up the van,
we're going to burn it. And we'd go to a
place called the Edgewater that had, you know, really crappy canoes.
You could rent me go out there and just sink
and swim back and catch perch and whatever. But yeah,
grew up doing it out here. Yeah, it's awesome, man,
(05:58):
it's beautiful. Did you get into the hunting side of
stuff with your buddies, Yeah, My buddies got me into it,
and it was one of those deals. It was the
typical progression. You get into it. You shoot something from
way way far away with a rifle and you're like,
that could be a little harder than this. And when
I knew it was peak pinnacle for me was I
(06:18):
was in a blind one day and I really wanted
to watch the ut football game. So I'm in a
blind and it's a little chilly out and I'm I
have two thermoces, one with chili in it and one
with coffee in it, and I'm watching the Texas football
game and a deer stepped out and I was like, ah, yeah,
I mean I'd probably take that. So I turned the
volume down, I rolled the deer, and then I watched
(06:40):
a couple of minutes and went and cleaned the deer,
and I was like, I want a little more of
a challenge. Yeah, that was the archery aspect. I went
from that to a open site thirty thirty than that
for a couple of years, and then got into archery
and I never really looked back.
Speaker 1 (06:55):
Have you ever seen that meme floating around? It's like
the invention of archery and it's like a guy Renaissance painting.
He's like, I'd like to stab that guy, but he's
over there. Yeah that's exactly.
Speaker 5 (07:05):
Yeah, No, that was it.
Speaker 4 (07:07):
It's awesome, man, archery is so much I don't to me,
it's just it's not more pure. It's just you're so
much closer. You're hearing them step out there, and you're
you know, I don't know.
Speaker 1 (07:19):
So you made that a big part of your life now,
but somehow or other you became a taxiderm as long
as way I did. What's the origin story on that?
Speaker 4 (07:28):
Oh? Man, it's a so the super short version is
I was not the brightest crayon in the bus in
high school, got out of high school, didn't want to
go to college. My parents were like, we'll get used
to saying you want fries with that. So I started
a filter company. I worked for a year for a
(07:48):
company that basically did air conditioning and stuff like that.
I saw a need for a niche of a niche
of a niche, and I started a filter company in
Austin called it Austin Filter Service. Real original and long
story short. I started that in nineteen ninety eight and
it was hammered. It was good, it was busy all
the time, and then it would just dump off in
(08:10):
the wintertime. And I started guiding with a buddy of
mine down south in the year two thousand that was
a taxi dermist, and I would just from November till January,
I'd be there just literally like helping him whatever I
could do, learning it and all that. And then in
two thousand and five, the story is, the Steiner family
(08:32):
and Austin bought Archery Country and I had known them.
I went in and said the guy that owned it
was like, man, you should put taxi iermy in here.
I was doing it out of down South then Floresville,
down south by Sanaton, And yeah, I didn't look back.
I started it. They complimented each other really well for
a long time. And by that I mean it was
(08:52):
summertime was hammered with filters. Wintertime was taxidermy. And then
I figured out how to make him work, and then
I kept that, so that business is still in business.
I still do that. Uh. And then in twenty sixteen
I sold the filter company to buy into the archery shop.
Speaker 1 (09:08):
And so is that all those mounts in the shop?
Are those all your mounts that you've.
Speaker 4 (09:12):
Done a bunch of them? Marvels I did? Yeah, I
shot that guy and mounted that dad.
Speaker 1 (09:18):
Would you mount an eland from for someone else? Or
would you? Oh yeah, oh yeah no, I've done it.
So a lot of a lot of textterment's like, don't
want to do big critters.
Speaker 4 (09:25):
Yeah, that is true. Thing, it's way harder to do
smaller critters. Oh really, And I've done some stuff that
would just blow your mind. It's absolutely ridiculous. I've done
some like movie prop stuff, And one story in particular
was a they wanted a bush baby. Have you ever
seen a little African monkey bush baby?
Speaker 5 (09:42):
Thing.
Speaker 4 (09:43):
So they needed one for the show called The Leftovers
on HBO, so they hired me to do it, and
I quoted way high because I didn't want to do it.
So it was like twenty five hundred bucks. So I
had like rabbit skins and I built this thing. And
then you built one.
Speaker 1 (09:57):
Oh, y'all didn't come up with the bush baby, No, no,
you you can't.
Speaker 4 (10:00):
They're like shinger and whatever. So I made one out
of rabbit skins, and dude, it looked like something you'd
win out of a crane machine. It was the worst
looking thing you've ever seen, the absolute piece, Like the
worst thing you've ever seen. I didn't want to give
it to him. I remember when the day they were
coming to pick it up and take it for the
movie set. I was like, dude, these guys are gonna
(10:21):
rip this check and be like what are you doing dude?
And they ended up using it and liking it and
loving it. The smaller stuff is way harder, and that
was what they came to me. They were like, have
you done ringtails squirrel? Like what have you done?
Speaker 3 (10:33):
You ever had to do an illegal animal?
Speaker 4 (10:36):
I have? I have done some crazy stuff. It was
all game warding. It was all through them, but like
owls and stuff like that.
Speaker 1 (10:44):
For like educational purposes or whatever. Yeah, have you ever
got a bald eagle?
Speaker 4 (10:48):
I have not. The other guy want me to do
a golden eagle right now? Oh?
Speaker 1 (10:51):
Really?
Speaker 4 (10:52):
He swears he's an Indian on a tribe and has
his card.
Speaker 1 (10:54):
And does he have to like wave a feather by
to make it? I don't know, but I'm out on it.
I do you feel about doing a soft iguana? Could
you make a soft iguana?
Speaker 5 (11:05):
I bet you could. Yeah, I don't know how you could.
Speaker 1 (11:10):
I'm sure there somewhere, and I kind of want to
get one mounted. But it's little mirror Boo from the Turkey.
Speaker 5 (11:17):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (11:17):
Yeah, it worked pretty per So. Is artistry something that
you come by naturally? So like you can draw and
stuff like that too. I was always good at that
stuff growing up, And so you just kind of converted
that into taxi and you.
Speaker 3 (11:28):
Say it's a passion, like you like doing it still?
Speaker 4 (11:30):
I love it.
Speaker 5 (11:31):
Yeah, it's fun.
Speaker 4 (11:32):
Yeah, and it's it's also something that it's cool. It's
kind of like Jesse stuff or anybody else's craft. You're
taking something that's you know, inanimate and something that just
looks like, you know, a tan hide looks like just
a lot of hair over there, and you're turning that
into something that looks realistic that will full you if
it's in the woods, you know, that's the goal. You're
(11:54):
trying to make it look his life like as you can.
Speaker 3 (11:56):
What rereativity is cool?
Speaker 5 (11:57):
Man?
Speaker 2 (11:57):
I love like I just think it's they one of
the hardest things that humans can do is make something
out of nothing pretty much, you know what I mean,
Like essentially to take a few things and then make
something completely new out of it, you know for sure,
Like I like songwrit you know, and to me it's
like it's a little more I can. I have a
process sometimes where I can think about I could explain
(12:18):
to somebody how I do it, but to them it
makes no sense. And I had to come up with
that at some point too, so at first it didn't
make any sense to me either, you know what I mean.
It's like, it's like, how do you put these things
together and make something that people like? You know, so
pretty cool that you do that same deal?
Speaker 4 (12:35):
It's fun.
Speaker 1 (12:35):
What's your favorite a mount you've ever done?
Speaker 4 (12:38):
Oh, it's probably one of those movie problems, man, Yeah,
I did. So they needed There was a show on
AMC called The Sun and it's a weird story, but
they needed a cowhead on like an Indian war spear.
And the scene was the Indians are mad at the guy,
the landowner, so they killed one of his cows and
(12:59):
they stuck it in his front and they were like,
don't you know, mess with us.
Speaker 5 (13:02):
Or something like that.
Speaker 4 (13:03):
So the whole the super short version is I went
to a place where they butcher cattle and I was like,
I just need a head. I'm not looking, you know.
They thought I was looking for the meat, like cheek
meat or something like that, and I'm like, no, I
just need the skin, man, just just a skin, and
they're like, dude, this guy. But anyway, I bought a
(13:24):
cow head and I mounted it. And what was cool
was I mounted it and I was like, dude, that
looks dead, it looks realistic, it looks awesome. And it
was a black cow head. And so the producer comes
back and he's like, yeah, by the way, this is
a night scene. We needed like a white It'd been
nice to tell me that. So I bleached it. I
took peroxide and I bleached it and it turned out
(13:45):
to be this like kind of chocolate brown color and
then I airbrushed it white and all that and it
in the show it looked unbelievable.
Speaker 1 (13:55):
Hollywood crowd doing this stuff Austin.
Speaker 4 (13:57):
Austin's full of Yeah, I mean everybody knows that Austin's
kind of a hub and yeah, sure, those dudes, they're
all around Austin and they're always looking for the best deal.
They're always looking for something. And it was yeah, yeah,
just got linked up with.
Speaker 1 (14:09):
So Taxidermy was kind of your avenue into the bow
shop because your friend at that point in time.
Speaker 4 (14:14):
Was like, hey, put your stuff in here, yep, yep, yeah,
And I put a shop in with him. So when
he bought it two thousand and five, I at the
old place. I had a range in the back that
was just a couple of lanes that they blocked off
and boarded up, and I put a couple of coolers
back there and did it out of there for six
or seven years, and then we moved over to the
shop we're at now, where I've had my own space
and all that. Yeah, that's how it started.
Speaker 1 (14:36):
And it's cool. So the uh, did you set out
in life like wanting to be a business hunter. That
was kind of like a thing.
Speaker 5 (14:42):
It kind of yeah in a way, because you.
Speaker 1 (14:44):
Did the filter thing, yeah, the tax or everything, and
now you do the best.
Speaker 4 (14:47):
A lot of it was to be to be, I
guess brutally honest, was to be a punk to everybody
else because I was basically like trying to I had
something to prove. Yes at a point where it was like,
you know my parents and not my parents were dogging
me or anything. They were just like, come on, man,
make something of yourself. And at the time, every single
(15:08):
person was going to college or had something that they
had kind of picked out that they were working towards
or something, and I was the polar opposite. I bopped
out of there and was like, man, it's a nice
world out here. There's some pretty blue bonnets and we
go completely just floating around life.
Speaker 1 (15:24):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (15:25):
At one point I buckled down, and like I said,
that was in ninety eight. That was when I was like,
all right, well, I'm gonna go chase this pretty hard
and I can intermix this and start making something of myself.
And yeah, what makes a good bow shop customer service?
Speaker 3 (15:41):
I would agree with you. We talked about it a
little bit yesterday.
Speaker 4 (15:44):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (15:44):
Yeah, it's like anything else. Manmid right, and don't.
Speaker 4 (15:48):
Be a punk, and like when you're wanting something, you
have it, and even if you don't have it, you're
not rude about it. Whatever.
Speaker 3 (15:55):
People love that Zude.
Speaker 2 (15:56):
Hunting is kind of like a big dog kind of thing,
you know. It's like people in the hunting space like
to be thought of as a good hunter. Rights probably
similar to archery. It's like you like to be thought
of as somebody who knows what they're doing when they
walk into archery shop, but not everybody does, and they
know that about themselves, so when they walk in, it's
like this is kind of an intimidating atmosphere, you know,
(16:19):
and you get on, like we produce videos and you
get on and look at YouTube comments and you would
be like, do these guys actually know what they're doing?
You know, because everybody wants to think tell you you're doing
it wrong or whatever. And so to be a to
have that customer service man for me, like I'm still
not like an archery nerd, you know, I mean I
find something that works pretty good. He informs me of
(16:41):
a lot of the things that like, I might need
to know, you know, cool, and I'm like, uh, I
might try that, you know, or I don't really care,
you know, whatever it is, and then and then I
go for it. So like if I still would say,
if I walked into an archery shop, there would be
things and conversations that I would be like, man, I'm
fixing a look like a you know.
Speaker 4 (16:58):
And it's also it's like speaking really liked earlier. There's
stories of guys that are like, no, that that particular
product will absolutely not do that, and You're like, well,
I've done it and it'll do it, so sure.
Speaker 5 (17:11):
So yeah, I gotta say. The first time I ever
talked to you, I've I ever met you was years ago.
I called on the phone at the tax ermy shop.
I don't remember what I needed, but it was a
dumb question and I was scared and I was like,
I'm about to call a tax ermy studio with the
dumb question. And I called and when I hung up
the phone, I said, out loud, that is one of
(17:32):
the nicest people I have ever talked to. No. I
was like, I can't believe how how nice that interaction was.
And ever since then, you know, I've just been a
big fan, and it's just like, and yeah, you're you're
absolutely right. Your customer services is phenomenal.
Speaker 4 (17:49):
You have to yeah, and it's it's one of those
deals too. At the Archery shop, when you're dealing with
people all day every day, it's easy. I can see
how these old guys get to where they're like, I'm
done with it, man, what do you want? You want
some broad heads, get broad heads and get out. You can't.
And that's one of the one thing I preached to
my guys is like, you have you just have to
(18:09):
be cool to everybody who comes in. They're they're probably
intimidated when they're walking in the door. They're for sure
intimidated if they're not a hunter and it's camo and
deer heads on the wall and they're looking around and
they're like, oh, man, I don't want to talk to
these guys.
Speaker 1 (18:23):
A neat thing about your shop. I don't know if
it's always been this way or if this is something
you do about design, but you walk in and it
feels like you you get to look at the product
before you have to like look at the desk. Yeah,
you know, like the disk is intimidating a lot of times,
yeah for sure, and so like and I remember I've
been in there and you you kinda if you want somebody,
(18:46):
I don't know if this said Woul always is, but
if you like need something from the guy to disk,
you kind of go up there and be like, hey,
what's up instead of like, hey, what are you doing
your guy? What do you mean? Yeah? Like it's it's
low pressure. Yeah, you know, which is is good?
Speaker 4 (18:57):
Man? No, We've that's the one thing I've beat into
my guy. Like when we all sit around and talk
about stuff, it's just it always goes back to just
be cool to people because you never know where they're
at in their day or anything in their life or anything.
And a lot of it is just you don't it's
not reinventing the wheel. It's just being like, hey, man,
(19:17):
what's in for?
Speaker 5 (19:18):
Yeah?
Speaker 4 (19:18):
And then cool if they're like, man, I'm kind of
thinking about hunting at some point, you're like, all right, cool, man,
let's go look at compounds, because if you go to
free curves, you're gonna be the same conversation.
Speaker 1 (19:34):
So Jesse, you talk to him about taxidermy. That's how
y'all kind of yeah, got linked up. I didn't expect that.
Speaker 4 (19:41):
Yeah, I don't.
Speaker 5 (19:41):
I honestly, I wish I could remember what my question was.
It was probably like can I bring you a duck
and still get the meat? That was probably answer that
because I always wonder.
Speaker 4 (19:51):
You definitely can do it for people really throwing a
zip lock and then go to it still.
Speaker 3 (19:56):
So if you freeze it guts in, is it still
good still good to eat?
Speaker 4 (20:00):
I think it is if you do it within a
reasonable amount. So like if you shoot a duck and
you're like, I'd love to get the same mounted and
you freeze it immediately when I do it, like, I
like it kind of partially frozen when I'm skinning on
ducks and stuff like that. So it's really easy to
do it. Cut the breast out, stick them in a ziplock,
and keep yelling about what you're doing.
Speaker 5 (20:21):
So m Yeah.
Speaker 1 (20:22):
We just actually did a video that'll be out pretty
soon on the Metior channel that Jesse helped us with.
Because I know my way around a pocket knife, but
Jesse shows up with like nine different knives in his
leather sheet to do every little job he needs to. Right,
we saw that while you go it's pretty sick. So
you kind of helped us with some breaking down of
(20:43):
a bird and that sort of stuff, and we'll look
at that stuff or that stuff will beyond video and
y'all can check that stuff out. But like, that's kind
of one of the things that you you bring that's
so unique about what you do, right, is like that
questions you asked, I'm about can you keep the meat
if you want to get a duck mounted or whatever? Right,
And so the meat is a huge part of what
(21:05):
you do. Infamously, the hog book is awesome, right, it's
the thing that's been around for a while or famously
maybe maybe not even I.
Speaker 6 (21:13):
Don't even know how to use that word. Yea of
(21:38):
known right, yeah, yeah, of known prowess.
Speaker 3 (21:40):
Right.
Speaker 1 (21:41):
So and then now we have the Turkey book that's
coming out. Would you say that you know your way
around a turkey as well as you do a hog.
Speaker 5 (21:49):
That's a good question. I might, I might not. I
think I'm still really learning turkeys. Yeah, I feel yeah,
I feel sometimes like I could like almost do a
hog in the dark.
Speaker 1 (22:03):
That makes me said yeah, because I feel like, you know,
it's so much better. It just really sets that finish
line way out there.
Speaker 5 (22:12):
There's well I think it's you compile tricks. Yeah, after
a while, and there's nothing that's going to help you
do that besides experience.
Speaker 2 (22:19):
See that's what I've been learning from you this week.
I've been mentally trying to store some of those tricks,
you know, like just some of the things even with cooking,
like the when you cook the turkey breast, just talking
about the ninety percent role or whatever. I mean, that's
super applicable to somebody who's cooking chicken certainly, you know
(22:40):
what I mean, And that's something that's like done by
millions of people every year. So you just make and
I and me too, so I I mean I it
totally never knew that, and you always just sitting there
chewing through chicken real hard, you know, yeah, because of that,
you know.
Speaker 3 (22:53):
Yeah, that's right.
Speaker 5 (22:54):
You.
Speaker 1 (22:54):
One of the things that you put off I thought
was neat was the percent yield on a turkey.
Speaker 5 (22:57):
Yeah, it's very hot.
Speaker 1 (22:58):
It's real hot. H Would you say like fifty five
percent or something?
Speaker 5 (23:01):
Yeah? I actually like charted one and it came out
to fifty five percent of its live weight. And that's
I mean, that's that's a bounty yeah, you know fish yield,
I mean thirty five forty five, and then everything else
kind of less than that, you know, and so bang
for buck Turkey's it's up there, and it's also it's
(23:24):
my favorite. So I just get excited if you get
a twenty pound bird on the ground, like, oh, that's
eleven pounds, you know.
Speaker 1 (23:31):
I like that quick math. Yeah, I'm into that.
Speaker 3 (23:34):
That's good.
Speaker 5 (23:34):
Yeah, yeah, that's substantial.
Speaker 1 (23:36):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (23:37):
I think that people look at turkey and they don't
think that they're substantial. Eleven pounds is a lot of meals,
and it's an easily stretchable protein too.
Speaker 1 (23:46):
Exactly right, thinking about that, you're not using it like
you are a beef steak, where you're sixteen ounce sirloin.
That's sixty ounces of meat. You know, with a turkey,
oftentimes you're using that as a component in a dish, right,
which is kind of what your turkey book kind of
culminates into.
Speaker 5 (24:01):
Right.
Speaker 1 (24:02):
It has a lot of the cooking in the recipes
and stuff like that. Right, So like to not spend
too much time on what's gonna be on video, But
you just made us some tacos out of a jake breast.
I shot a jake on this trip, which I was
ecstatic about, right, but and very tasty. But that what
was like maybe two pounds of meat something like that?
(24:23):
How much?
Speaker 5 (24:24):
Yeah? I mean yeah, I'd say a pound and a half, yeah, Max.
Speaker 1 (24:28):
And that gave us all a nice lunch. Yeah, you know,
and you talk and you're mixing that with high quality ingredients,
which like you always do, but like eleven pounds of
turkey meat, that's like, I don't know, you're looking at
seven eight meals for a family.
Speaker 5 (24:43):
Easy, you know. Yeah. And I think a big, a
big part of the book is how to stretch it.
Because the book's written for somebody that's gonna, you know,
hit nine states and fill their tags. It's also written
for the for someone that's gonna shoot one bird and
how they can treat that bird and get the absolute
most out of it because it's not only is it
(25:04):
a resource, and it's such it's such a different topic
than hogs, you know, and then like a call to
action about an invasive it's like let's go kill them
all and eat them versus let's kill a few and
really enjoy them. And but you need to try to
extract as much of that goodness out of each one
as you possibly can. And so I think it's it's
written for for somebody that has a bounty of turkey,
(25:25):
and it's also written for somebody that's got one. Maybe
it was the first turkey they ever shot, and how
how are you going to stretch as many possible meals
out of arguably one of the best game animals on
the planet.
Speaker 2 (25:38):
It was very arguable, actually a lot of arguments inarguable.
Speaker 3 (25:45):
Inarguable, that's it. I was like, pretty good right there.
Speaker 5 (25:48):
Yeah, it's my it's my personal favorite. So it's easy
for me to be like on that.
Speaker 1 (25:53):
Soapbox, did you go up doing a lot of turkey?
Speaker 5 (25:56):
No, sir, But I will say I mean I did
start hunt until later in life. I mean I was
probably in my very late twenties, but I do remember,
and I put this in the book, this story. I
remember traveling through the whole country with my dad and
we went to a rest stop and in this canyon
below us, I saw a bunch of turkeys. And my
(26:17):
family didn't hunt, but something clicked and I said it
out loud, I want to shoot one of those thirds.
My grandfather had had a shotgun and all I'd outline
all this in the book and tell this whole story.
But my grandfather had a shotgun that was just described
to me that it could blow a hole through a door,
(26:38):
and so I told my dad, it is like, I
want to shoot a turkey with Grandfa George's shotgun that
can blow a hole through a door. And so that
was the first animal I ever wanted to hunt. And
then as I started hunting, and it's a difficult bird,
I mean, at least for me. And so you know,
as as I progressed as a hunter, I really was
(27:01):
starting to get taken by the hunting as well. But
since the first time I tried wild turkey, I was
just very taken by the meeting, and I'm highly motivated
by that.
Speaker 1 (27:11):
So at what age did you get to fulfill your
dream of shooting the turkey?
Speaker 5 (27:15):
How old was I when I killed turkey? I was
probably in my early thirties.
Speaker 1 (27:23):
Did you do it with Grandpa George's shotgun?
Speaker 5 (27:25):
I did not. I did not.
Speaker 1 (27:26):
Do you still have that shotgun?
Speaker 5 (27:28):
I do not have it. The first one I killed
was with a rifle.
Speaker 1 (27:31):
As a lot of Texans, yes, my first starty was
a rifle as well. Yes, you know, because we have
a very unique situation. We have a fall turkey season,
and in the fall you can shoot hens and gobblers
in some county in Again, let me give the element disclaimer.
This is not legal advice, so check your rules and regulations, right,
But I think that turkeys are almost by textans treated
(27:55):
as bycatch. A lot of times. You know, you're you're
at the dear lease in the fall and a turkey
rolls through, and you're like, oh, yeah, I haven't seen it.
Hear I'll shoot that, you know. But that's when I
kind of first got the taste for it too. Yeah,
you shoot one of those. I shot a hen in
the fall one time at eighty seven steps, which again
I also I'm not giving people advice on shot distance,
(28:16):
but I was twelve and I thought I could hear her,
and sure enough killed her dead eighty seven steps and
took her back to camp and we stripped it up
and fried it up, and.
Speaker 5 (28:26):
I was like, I liked to team turkey.
Speaker 4 (28:29):
That's it.
Speaker 3 (28:30):
So when when did your cooking career begin?
Speaker 5 (28:35):
I mean, I love cooking. When I was a kid,
I loved it, and then I started working in restaurants. Also,
I mean when I was legally able, you know, I
think I was probably about fifteen sixteen when I started
working in restaurants and then gravitated to the kitchen by
the time I was about nineteen or twenty, and I've
just was in the kitchen ever since then and just
having never left, and I enjoy it every single day.
(28:58):
I love cooking, and I will for my entire life.
Speaker 2 (29:02):
You can tell, man, when you start working on something
like just you have the light in your eyes. Man,
when that's going on, it's it's evident. So you've done
some You've done some like traveling, it seems it would seem,
and learn from a lot of different people, different cultures, right,
And because I heard you talking about maybe some time
(29:22):
you spent in Mexico at one point, yes, doing so.
Is that was that like an employment deal or those
mostly employment deals or are those just like, hey, I'm
just going to go learn something new, so I have,
you know, more arrows in my quiver.
Speaker 5 (29:35):
Yeah, it was just a learning deal. I also I
did not go to college and our cooking school or
anything like that, and I felt like the best way
to learn would to be go out there and see
what other people are doing. And doing, and I learned
so much. Most of what I learned that has informed
my my career was that when you went to a place,
you saw how they reacted to their ingredients and how
(29:58):
they respected those resources, and how they would foster that
in the form of a cuisine. Like if you go
to southwestern France, you know you're gonna get walnut oil
and duck and white asparagus and oysters. And then if
you go to the you know, mountainous part of Mexico
and Monterey, you're gonna get dried chilis and dried beans
and goat. And both of those cultures have done absolutely
(30:22):
as much as they can with those and they've almost
perfected it. And it's just and to see the techniques
and the culture and the tradition and how much love
they put into that, and then you can come back
and then what I did is just tried try to
replicate that in Central Texas. And then I mean, honeywood
comes just such a big part of that because it's
(30:42):
such a part of our heritage. The land supports so
much game here that it naturally became part of that.
And so travel really really informed that, just to see
how other people do it and the techniques, you know,
and whether that's based in creativity or artistry or just
based necessity right, just to see how other people are
(31:02):
doing it. It's fun.
Speaker 1 (31:03):
Travel and like interest in the culinary arts, those things
are hand in hand. It feels like like and I
think that oftentimes travel is is kind of like the
gateway to like being interested in food, because I can remember,
like my and I nowhere near where you are. But
I also too, it's tylered as well, like enjoy cooking,
(31:24):
enjoy unique opportunities with food. And I can remember going
to Costa Rica as a seventeen year old and being like,
oh wow, this is different, and it was like my
whole world was opened up, like oh look at all
this different stuff that you can do with food and different.
Speaker 3 (31:36):
That's where came exactly right.
Speaker 1 (31:39):
I went to Costa Rica and it was like, man,
plantains are awesome. Those things exist.
Speaker 3 (31:43):
I just I just don't like them for whatever reason.
Speaker 5 (31:45):
Potato and a banana had a baby.
Speaker 3 (31:47):
Yeah yeah, yeah, I just want the banana, you know
what I mean.
Speaker 1 (31:50):
And those cultures they love their star just too, you know,
like there's Yuka and there's Hiccama, right, like all this
stuff and it's like, wow, these are like potatoes but healthy.
Speaker 3 (32:00):
Like this is all right?
Speaker 1 (32:02):
Yeah anyways, and then so you love turkeys, love them.
You happen to have some friends that love turkeys, and
you got another friend that's got some turkeys. And here
we are, guys.
Speaker 5 (32:14):
Yeah, we're all.
Speaker 1 (32:14):
Here hunting and hanging out together. It's been a great
couple of days. And I think that Tyler and I
have cemented our opinions this week that Rio grand turkeys
are the supreme subspecies of wild turkey. There will be
some people yelling about that, but that's okay. Michael is
one of them. He thinks Easterns are cool, but no way,
these turkeys are awesome. Jesse, you have put some miles
(32:38):
on your boots. You may have even worn a little
rubber out there. Yeah, y'all did a lot of chasing
this week.
Speaker 5 (32:43):
We did a lot of chasing. I love it.
Speaker 3 (32:46):
I love it.
Speaker 5 (32:47):
You know, I mean I didn't I didn't see a turkey.
Speaker 1 (32:51):
You never saw it.
Speaker 5 (32:52):
I never saw one. Oh, you heard turkeys. We were
close to turkeys, we knew where they were. I was,
you know, a little frustrated, but you know, when you
it's it's that that next day or that later in
the day feeling, and it's just like I would do
I would do it all over. I would do it
all over as part of it. It really it teaches
(33:13):
you a lot of grace about why you're here in
the enjoyment and you know, the time of year, company,
the food, and it's okay that those turkeys are still alive.
It's totally fine. Yeah, you know, it's not. It's not
like chasing pigs or something like that where it's like, well,
we need to get a job done. It's it's great
that they're still out there. And I still got a
(33:34):
lot of time left.
Speaker 1 (33:35):
Which of the chasing pigs you couldn't lay off of
so you didn't see a turkey, but I.
Speaker 5 (33:44):
Did see some pigs. Yeah, why can't I quit you? Yeah?
So yeah, there's a TSS around a fifteen dollars hog
right there, and I just I went for the small
one and.
Speaker 3 (33:57):
It's still pretty good price per pound.
Speaker 5 (34:00):
It's it's great. No regrets here, no regrets at all. Yeah,
you dressed out to about five pounds. I picked it
out and uh, it's gonna be great. I'm gonna do
that piglet under a brick. Recipe from the Hog Book.
That's a good one where you brind it and then
marinate it and then you cook it over like kind
of tall over coals, you know, put some space and
slow cook them, do the ninety percent. You cook them
(34:20):
about ninety percent on one side and then flip them
and do about ten percent on the other side.
Speaker 1 (34:24):
That slick. So did you imagine that before you shot
the pig or you.
Speaker 5 (34:27):
Like thinking about that? Yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm I'm I'm
already like, you know, I think you some some chopped time,
some garlic, and you know, it's like, well then I
got to crawl under this fence and then a little
olive oil and some better you know. Yeah, well, I
mean all I had was a turkey load, so I
(34:49):
had to choose a small pig. There was a there's
a lot of choices in that sounder too, and I
I I think I made the appropriate on.
Speaker 1 (34:56):
Yeah, it's nice, man, it's good. We joked about what
cabrito is a a baby goat, right, and so uh,
moron or moron is is is wild hog or at
least one of the words for him, I believe, right,
So it's and we decided we're gonna call it yeah,
and uh sounds like a good application to me. It's
gonna be good flating them out and give them a eat.
Speaker 2 (35:16):
I've got the I have the hog book you sent me,
and I have a field, which is just awesome.
Speaker 3 (35:22):
I love that book, man. I got to go through it.
Speaker 2 (35:25):
I go through it about once a year, and I'll like,
I'll go through a big portion of the book just
to read it, and you know it's I like it
because so the reason that we started out what we
we we were kind of known as deer hunters, but
what we wanted to do is like we didn't want
to be you know, big buck hunters, experience podcast or
(35:47):
whatever you like. We didn't want to have like a
name that was deer hunting. We wanted because when we
grew up, we were chasing pigs in the winter, we
were catching bass in the spring, and we were you know,
in the summertime we might go to the Rockies and
chase trout and fish for sure. Yeah, and then and
the you know, hunted ducks a lot. I was crazy
about waterfowl when I was like high school and college.
(36:09):
And the only reason I won't do it now is
because we don't the My local lake just doesn't have
aquatic vegetation like it used to, and we don't have
the birds. But and because we did hunt a lot
in the fall. But I mean, long story short, what
I what we have always done naturally is just chase
stuff whatever season it is, right. So that's what I
love about a field is that like I can, I
(36:31):
can whatever. It could be March or it could be November,
and I can go into that book and look and
there's something that makes sense and it and it's also
very practical. Like the recipes. You know, you're like, hey,
you can do this, but you can also do it
like this. It's really basic and you probably have all
this stuff in your kitchen.
Speaker 1 (36:47):
You know. That's where that that hot bird like those
little quailspee, isn't it?
Speaker 4 (36:52):
Yeah?
Speaker 5 (36:52):
Yeah, hot fudbirds.
Speaker 3 (36:55):
That's such a good recipe.
Speaker 1 (36:57):
That's good stuff.
Speaker 2 (36:57):
I've done it. I did it with and it was
we were we were doing it for a Super Bowl
wings contest and my wife beat me with a garlic
parmesan and recipe. But it was they were really good
and I ate them till I couldn't eat anymore. I
wasn gonna eat my live swings.
Speaker 5 (37:17):
You know, that recipe was a success because I saw
one time on a I think it was the Texas
Hunting Forum, somebody used hot fry as a bird I'm sorry,
hot fry as a verb. They said, did you hot
fry your doves? And I was like, I made it
like that, you know. It wasn't did you make poppers?
But instead said how did you hot fry? And I
(37:38):
was like, well that recipe it got some traction, you know,
and it was just like a different way to do it.
And it's I love that one and as a family
favorite for sure, and it's a good way to do doves.
Speaker 2 (37:49):
We also did the We my family and we took
a little vacation down to mattic Order and we we
did some crabbing. It was just it was it was
just basic, right, We're just walking around the crab net
and the and the marsh grass and we caught a
couple of decent ones and we did the pasta with
the crab because it's a that's like, that's how I
(38:12):
mean noodles and rice.
Speaker 3 (38:13):
Those are things that make a little.
Speaker 2 (38:14):
Bit of meat go a long ways, right, And uh,
I just I love that section too, because you have
like this whole like beach cooking section you know, in
that book, and it's really cool.
Speaker 3 (38:22):
But that's a good recipe too. I love stuff. It's
simple and tasty. Man, so good.
Speaker 1 (38:27):
You're a restauranteur as well, and Tyler, I know you've
eaten a few of Jesse's meals. If you had to suggest,
like one thing off of the menu or one of
the things that Jesse has made for you, what would
it be. I hate to put you on spot.
Speaker 4 (38:40):
But I'll put him on the spot. I'm a I'm
a fat boy from So I've had the nilghai Rabbi.
Speaker 5 (38:50):
Or it's a it's a leg stick.
Speaker 4 (38:53):
Yeah. Yeah, So that was between that and the pork chut.
I mean pork chop every time.
Speaker 2 (39:02):
Yeah, that's all I hear about and I've never had one,
so you'll are making me wrong hungry.
Speaker 3 (39:06):
But everybody that I talked to you is like, oh yeah,
the pork chop, Man, the pork chop. Even You'll say
the pork chop, you know.
Speaker 1 (39:12):
Yeah, it's it's another world, very satisfying.
Speaker 4 (39:17):
Meat sweats.
Speaker 1 (39:19):
As a second friend that references made this week, So uh,
tell people where.
Speaker 4 (39:27):
Artcry Country is we're in smack middle of Austin, but
we're we're kind of becoming known more outside of that circle.
We're trying to branch out.
Speaker 1 (39:36):
It's the hats man, got cool hats.
Speaker 3 (39:38):
That's the only reason.
Speaker 4 (39:39):
That's the only.
Speaker 1 (39:41):
Customer service.
Speaker 4 (39:44):
A T shirt. Yeah, No, it's been awesome, man, it's
been fun trying to grow, but we're in awesome.
Speaker 5 (39:50):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (39:50):
We're just just a shop trying to do our best.
Speaker 1 (39:53):
Yeah, y'all have a you know, it's it's a great shot.
But I think in particular the range stands out. You know,
of course the customer service, but it's a big range,
and it's you know, if you I thought it was
unique being in there that we were kind of siding
in and tuning a bow. There were guys in there
purchasing like you know, top of the line models for
like upcoming hunts. And then there were people in there
(40:15):
you can rent like recurves, you recurves and stuff right
and like do date night or whatever. Right, So like
it's it's like this serve all type shop. It's pretty cool.
Speaker 4 (40:25):
The thing I've tried to do is make a is
have somebody for everybody when they come in and we've
accomplished that. So if you're the frat boy, I gotta
I got that, dude. If you're the super redneck dude
working under own ninety three Dutch, I got that. We
got them all.
Speaker 1 (40:45):
It's cool.
Speaker 4 (40:45):
Yeah, it's cool.
Speaker 1 (40:46):
Yeah, Jesse, you've got Doe, which is a restaurant. I
tell all my friends if they're in Austin, they should
go to. I appreciate there's another, uh taco truck or
I might be talking about that wrong. Can you describe
the other thing?
Speaker 5 (40:57):
Yeah, Losilva. It's out at the desert door just jillery.
Uh and it kind of I would I would describe
it as like West Texas bar food, but with mostly
wild game, a lot of a lot of wild boar,
a lot of nil. Guy, we do quail dug. There's
some turkey on the man.
Speaker 2 (41:13):
I got a question for you, because you at die
do a you're seed oil free.
Speaker 1 (41:17):
Let's go.
Speaker 3 (41:18):
Is that a catching on?
Speaker 1 (41:20):
Guys?
Speaker 2 (41:21):
Is that a what What is is? Do you live
your life like that? Is that how you do at home?
And that's a choice that you made because you think
it's healthier, right?
Speaker 5 (41:31):
Yeah? Or it's just for me. It's quite simple. It's
just a connectivity to ingredients. I have no connection to canola.
Speaker 2 (41:41):
May either and right, and so I I'm not a
nutritionist and I wouldn't I wouldn't purport to be so,
but I just I just like to understand all the
ingredients and my the way I select all the food
at Doue is what I feed that to my daughter,
and if it doesn't make that cut, then it doesn't
(42:03):
get served to the general public.
Speaker 5 (42:05):
And so we have over the years strived to become
seed oil free and then recently went all the way
in so it's just large tallow butter text to solive
oil and then we use a fermented sugar cane oil
just to make mayonnaise and things like that.
Speaker 2 (42:22):
It's awesome, man, we've been, we tried. It's it's actually
a really hard thing to do. It's very hard to do.
Speaker 1 (42:29):
If you're gonna consume pre made bread product products is
almost for sure. That's where Yeah, I'm on the train, man,
I appreciate that.
Speaker 3 (42:37):
Yeah, that's good. It's awesome.
Speaker 1 (42:39):
And so, uh, the big thing coming out right now.
One of the things that we're kind of correlating our
Turkey hunting video production stuff that we've done is around
the Turkey book. So tell us a little bit, you know,
we've been talking about it some. But give us the
you know, the three point thing on the Turkey book
and where they can find that.
Speaker 5 (42:56):
Yeah, it just came out right in time for Turkey season.
It's it's a journal of my season last year. Actually
it was just like mid March through mid May of
last year. Four hunts, four corners of the country basically Texas, Georgia, Oregon,
and Connecticut. The hunts and then all the cooking that
(43:18):
we did in between with the birds that we were
lucky enough to get. Uh. And it you know, I
set out to make a smaller book than the Hog
Book and a failed still it's just it's it's heavy.
I mean, it's a big one. I don't know how
I did that.
Speaker 1 (43:33):
It's beautiful.
Speaker 5 (43:35):
We worked with you know, the best photographers, Jody Horton,
who has been my photographer partner on three books now,
and then we brought in also another guy named Sam
Averrett who did a phenomenal job of doing some in
the field shots along with some of the food and
so heavy on photography. I love that. I like looking
(43:56):
at pictures myself and.
Speaker 1 (43:58):
Picture books are my favorite.
Speaker 5 (43:59):
Yeah for sure.
Speaker 1 (44:00):
Yes, too many words to get confused.
Speaker 5 (44:02):
Yeah yeah, and so uh yeah, and it's available now.
We were able to get it out pretty quick on
It's the wild books dot com and we have the
hog Book is available there as well as the Turkey
Book and then all the associated merch We have slate calls.
Speaker 4 (44:16):
And I went and bought it and literally I did
the call.
Speaker 5 (44:22):
The hats. I tried to do a shirt.
Speaker 1 (44:24):
That yeah, you present us with some of these terrific hats.
Yeah you know, uh, Tyler didn't bring us any hats.
Speaker 2 (44:36):
Yeahst terrible, send us something he is.
Speaker 1 (44:44):
So we got a signature first Light specter hat with
a turkey on it. This is the Turkey Book insignia
or logo.
Speaker 5 (44:56):
On the cover.
Speaker 1 (44:56):
Yeah, it's pretty cool, man. I killed my bird in it.
Yeah yeah, so I appreciate it. I need to make
like a mark or something for every turkey that's right. Yeah,
absolutely cool. Yeah, I'm wanna do that right now. Well, guys,
appreciate y'all and all your hospitality and your friendship and
like the knowledge that you both share. And this is like,
I love these times whenever a hunting camp comes together
because I've never hunted with either of you, and it's awesome.
(45:20):
I can't wait to do it again. We got the
INtime from you.
Speaker 5 (45:25):
It is not crazy.
Speaker 4 (45:28):
I'm surprised we're all here anyway, because I took Jesse
out here last year to try and get a bird
and we put some miles on boots and did we hear.
Speaker 5 (45:37):
I think we heard about four miles.
Speaker 4 (45:41):
Away and that was it and I was like, well,
he's not to come back.
Speaker 5 (45:47):
I love this.
Speaker 3 (45:48):
It's all about that call of the taxi.
Speaker 4 (45:49):
We know, yeah, exactly, fellas.
Speaker 1 (45:52):
This has been awesome. Thank y'all so much. You guys
will leak to all that stuff in the description below,
both for Archery Country and for everything Jesse has gone in.
Special said with the Turkey Dog. You need to check
it out and remember this is your element.
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