Ep. 164: Cameo for Turks, Dad Noises, the Anti-Hunter Populist High Ground, and Another Ask the Eagle with Janis Putelis

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:12):
I guess I grew up on an alder row. Hey, yeah,
great buddy. Welcome to episode one six four of The
Hunting Collector Dave. I'm Benjamin O'Brien and we are joined,
as always by our trustee, the engineer Phil Phil. Hello, Hello,
I'm trusty. Yeah, you're trusty. Um did you watch the

(00:37):
Super Bowl? I had it on in the background as
I was in the kitchen for the entire game making
super Bowl style food, And by that I just mean
like greasy and grossly unhealthy. Um, so I kind of
saw it. I didn't. I didn't watch the whole thing though. No. No,
So you were making super Bowl food and missed the

(00:59):
Super Bowl exactly? Yep, okay, makes sense, makes lots of sense. Um, well,
you're gonna hear this is kind of another inception. If
you ever listened to our best of we often get
into going into the past to talk about the future. Uh,
and we we accept you guys a lot. Well, you're
gonna hear that this this episode. I realized that in
our Asked the Eagle segment with the honest tell us,

(01:21):
that is what you're gonna hear. Later on in this
year program, I made a super Bowl prediction and you'll
have to wait to see if it's right because now
that we're airing this after the Super Bowl, Um boy,
I think I'm gonna sound pretty smart. I don't. I
don't know, Phil, I don't know if you remember what
my pick was. I don't know. I'm halfway through editing
the podcast now and I haven't gotten there. Um we yeah,

(01:44):
we we made some picks there towards the end. And
I'm not gonna blow everything, but I'm a genius. I
did a little betting, I did a little winning. I'm
just gonna just leave it there. It was very it
was a good night. It was a good night. My
wife was not a fan of me getting into the betting. Um.

(02:08):
But now I'm going to give her for a Valentine's
Day an envelope full of cash. Written on the front
will be the word SPA. So yeah, that's that's another
topic we we get into in the podcast with the
honest gift for your wife. So, man, this is all
coming together for You's all coming together, and you know,
shout out to my dad. He called me the other
days like, hey, let's listening to the podcast last week? Uh,

(02:30):
And I heard that you're in marriage counseling. Do we
need to talk about anything? I said, we're good, dad,
it's the good kind of counseling. I'm ben, I'm I'm
glad that you came out and said that, because I
think it's important to normalize that kind of stuff because
it's it's very healthy, and uh, I don't think people
should be ashamed in any way. It's kind of it's
kind of cool. It's kind of cool. So we talked

(02:51):
about that a little bit too, because we have some
marriage advice from from the asked the Eagle. So a
lot of things are coming together rather unintentionally, but to
just so everybody knows my marriage is absolutely fine. Uh So,
in case you were wondering, in case you were worrying
about us, uh So, we're gonna start off this little
portion of the show. Um, and this is so damned true.

(03:12):
We had an emailer right in and the title of
the email the subject line was help ethical dilemma, which
I know you can't ignore. He basically called me out
because he knew he was he was going to get
on the show. He knew it. His name is alec S.
Since we're not doing last names. He listened alec s um.
He said, Ben and Phil, I hope all is well

(03:33):
and your hate mail has since chilled out, which it has.
I recently graduated with a degree in wildlife biology and
just started a job in West Virginia with U s
d A Wildlife Services. In college, I spent extensive time
researching what part of the wildlife field I wanted to
go into, and I came to the conclusion that as
an avid hunter and outdoorsman, Wildlife Services would be a

(03:54):
good fit. As you know, this agency does a lot
of lethal control of many different animals. As a owner
and cult member, I strive to use as much of
every animal that I harvest as possible in my private time.
My mental struggle emerges when it comes to what I
do for work. We rarely utilize the animals we kill.

(04:14):
Some states will donate certain animals, but West Virginia only
donates some of the deer they kill to a local
animal refuge to be used for feed, and there are
reasons for that in which people at a much higher
pay grade than me have decided. I struggle with knowing
how many animals we as an agency kill and simply
throw into the garbage. I know you and Clay discussed
this some this past week with the Bears of California,

(04:36):
But I'm looking for a little advice how to deal
with this part of my job. Of course, these animals
are being killed for a reason. That doesn't make the
amount of waste easier to process in my brain. Alec
s well, Alec, Phil you want to try to take
the outsider's view on this first before I jump in,
or would you like me to go first? You tell me?

(04:57):
I mean, I don't have a lot to say except
that I mean, I think you obviously want to try
to use as much as the animal as you can
whenever you can. But also I mean, I that's not
always possible. Um, I would assume. So, I mean it
takes a lot of work and and manpower to process
animals and um, but I don't know. This is this

(05:18):
is out of my out of my knowledge zone. So, Ben,
I don't know. If you have more info, well, I mean,
I don't know the same that I have info. A
bit of a perspective. There are organizations like Hunters Feeding
the Hungry UM hunters and Farmers Feeding the Hungary, a
couple of different groups that specifically UM gather venison and
other types of edible game meat, to donate to homeless shelters,

(05:44):
to donate to to any any place that needs protein,
any place that needs me. So this does happen. This
is something that I think we often overlook in our
in the hunting space. I've actually have a cousin who's
on the local board of directors for for one of
these such groups, and I've talked to them and heard,
you know, some of the challenges that they have in
some of the ways that they need support. And really,

(06:05):
I think the first step is to get this idea
out there that hunters are already taking the onus on
themselves to take meat either they're not gonna use or
they don't absolutely need in giving it to folks that
are gonna need it through organizations like this, and so
that is something that I think is ingrained in the
hunting community already. I don't know if Alec even knows

(06:28):
about these kind of groups, but that's something within the
hunting community that we we do and we should be
I think more proud of and more vocal about than
we already are, um because there's just lots of ways
that we can help buttress the hunting argument one way
or the other. But this one is one that I
don't think we've ever talked about it on this show,

(06:50):
and I don't think I've heard talked about very much
around our company, and its kind of like the the
overall lexicon of people talking about hunting. But again, I mean,
I've read the APHIS impact report that comes out. This
one was last week came out. It's from If you
don't know what APHIS is, it's the Animal and Plant
Health Inspection Service that's run out of U s d

(07:12):
A Wildlife Services. Um. What do they do Well, they
do a lot of stuff, but they protect the health
of US agriculture and natural resources against invasive pest and diseases.
One of the big things they do is they help
people in wildlife co exist. So that's this cohabitation we
often talk about with wildlife management. So it's a big
part of it. UM. I'd, like I said, I've I've
for for other work that we've done in this company.

(07:34):
I've read this impact report and thought about it critically. UM,
So I have a little bit of experience with it
and I know what's in there. UM. Certainly U s
d A itself that where you work ALEC, they have
they list out their core values. I'm sure that that's
baked into your job, and one of them is responsible stewardship.
They say, we guard, conserve and preserve us d A resources.

(07:56):
The taxpayers haven't trusted to us, so really they're looking
at it from a resource management and the resource they're
they're talking about there they listed out specifically or us
PLAN and animal products and so if you dig into
the language in that impact report, which, like I said,
it's so interesting because it's just got a lot of
it just goes to show the complexity of managing wildlife

(08:19):
and our day and time. They say four hundred forty
thousand responses to farmers, ranchers and others requesting direct control
or technical assistance who reduce the impact of predators on
their animals just just predators. That's just the predator part
of it. And the way they shape that then is
to say that we protect more than fifteen point eight

(08:39):
million head of cattle, sheep, goats and their valued at
over two point five billion. And you know, we talked
about this on the show. I had a bunch of
wolves attacking cattle um up in some public land where
I elk hunt, and I got a bunch of that
on trail camp and we talked. I talked with the
local rancher and the game board, and we they brought
up bringing in Athist trappers to come in and try

(09:01):
to thin these wolves out. And so it's it's something
that I've dealt with just as a hunter here in Montana.
So it's not something that you would be immune to.
Just as a regular hunter. You you get to run
into this, whether there it's wolves or anything else. And
so it's something that we all need to be aware of.
But I'd be interested in for Alec to kind of
tell us what he's seeing on the ground, because it
does say in that same impact report that that Aphist

(09:23):
donates hundred and thirty eight tons of goose, de your, elk,
and other meat. That's more than one million servings of
protein for people in need. They're making full use of
this resource um from they say, from the wildlife damage
management work, which I'm sure is varied um in its scope.
So be interested for Alec fel is kind of like
what corner he is working in and what that looks like. Alec,

(09:46):
You're in a better position than I just talk into
a microphone. So UM, keep his updated, man, try to
make some moves, because it would make me uncomfortable too
if my job was to see that animals die. Um,
and those animals weren't utilized. So keep us in touch,
alec s, keep us in touch. So last week, UM,
we had a bit of a change over the end

(10:10):
of we had to did we have a good idea
about a billboard? Do you think it was a good idea?
I thought it was a great idea. I was proud
of it. Yeah, yeah, it was. It was. It was
an idea, but it seems like it's not a bit idea.
It was. So I had this great idea where we
would use money. We would raise money via Cameo two

(10:34):
buy a billboard downtown San Francisco, and that billboard would
be full of bare facts and it would be close
to Senator Wiener's office down there and San Francisco. So
we could help educate folks, not to troll them or anything,
but to really educate them. And the best way we
knew how it was just to go where they are. UM,
And that obviously didn't happen by the time we were

(10:55):
going to release that podcast. Sorry, last week, our podcast
came out a little late, but we just wanted to
amend it so as not to have you guys jump
on Cameo give us money for something we were gonna do.
Um that being set, Cameo is live. If you go
to Cameo and you search Ben O'Brien, I will pop up.
You can then get us to do whatever you want

(11:16):
over there on Cameo, Me and Phil will do literally
whatever you type into that machine, and uh, we'll make
a video for you and it'll be it'll change your life,
I think pretty sure. So go to Cameo. All the
money that we raised there and from now until whenever
we cut that off is going to go directly to
the n w TF. So we are going to save

(11:39):
the turkeys and really help save nd WTF because they
are hurting. They have lost a lot of jobs. They
will some layoffs. They told us recently that they stand
to lose what to me is a shocking number of
members without a banquet season this year. It's like thirty
five thousand. I know I have that right. That's a

(12:00):
shocking number of members that they stand to lose UM
over the cancelation of banquet season. And so we want
to help them out all that we can. We're gonna
do some more stuff with the first Light later than
the year will help. We'll announce that as we pushed
forward a Turkey season. But we we we know we
need to have the N E p t F around.
We need to have them strong and healthy so our

(12:21):
turkey populations can be supported in the ways that they do.
So that's that's that. But moving on more to the
point of that billboard. In a conversation that I was
having on social media, and now that I've returned to Instagram,
I just took a couple of months off now and back.
It's great, It's fine, a big deal. I learned a lot.
But now that I'm back there, I wanted to talk

(12:41):
a little bit this last week about us versus them,
because when we celebrated and I celebrated the fact that
they Withdrew sent it bill to fifty two last week
and there will be no at this at least at
this current time pushed to band bear hunting in the
state of California. It was something that I celebrate a
lot of people around me celebrated um with with just cause.

(13:05):
But here's the deal. What happens in that celebration is
we we reconfirm the bias of us versus them. There's
an US people I listen to this podcast, people that
love hunting, people that go on the internet and and
promote hunting, socialize the idea of hunting being a good
thing for everyone. There's that group, and there's them. There's

(13:28):
the San Francisco crowd who doesn't understand us and wants
to ban everything that we do. And that that, again,
as we talked about last week, spins back into what
we talked about all the way back with Miles Nult
Miles Nult t and division and politics in our culture.
It spends back to that in a lot of ways.

(13:49):
And so what I wanted to say was there's us
versus them mentality, and there's no understanding how to grow
us without reaching across to under don them. Right Like,
if we're just going to create this this adversarial relationship
with anybody that doesn't agree with us, we're never gonna
be able to create a place within the hunting community

(14:10):
that's acceptable for everyone to enter, whether they used to
be anti hunting and are converted, or they all they've
always loved hunting and just wanted to get into it
finally as an UH, as an emergent hunter, not adult onset.
No matter what the reason is, we've got to create
the feeling that that it's acceptable to disagree with us,

(14:31):
but it's it's unacceptable to try to ban the things
that we know to be productive for wildlife. So that's
a tough balance or shades of grave, of course. But
I got an email from our buddy Eric J out
of Minneapolis. He goes by Progressive Outdoorsman. He writes in
a lot thank you, Eric, for I always enjoy your emails,
even if we don't read them. Here he said he
enjoyed last week's episode with Clay nucom UH, and he

(14:54):
said I had to say that there wasn't near enough
emphasis nor a strategic emphasis on the last point discussed
under what people can do and educating non hunters is
the point he's making. The part about joining groups and
getting ourselves educated is important. It's the first step. But
the battle for the future of public support of hunting
lies with the undecided persuadable people. They tend to be

(15:16):
urban and suburban, most likely the left winging leaning or centrist.
They don't know hunters or certainly not people close to
them and their lives. They have an uninformed opinion. That
is my milieu. Is how you say that, phil That
is my milieu. Yes, would be in it. Okay, I
live there. That is who I am, except that I'm

(15:36):
a hunter and passionate about hunting. I can tell you
that the people I'm describing are persuaded by several points,
but the absolute strongest point is that the meat is eaten,
and it's legally required for most species. Clay's points in
regards to bear hunting are especially strong here. That everything
is utilized. Number two, hunting is highly regulated. Number three,

(15:57):
science supports hunting. It's needed for the environment. Number four
we bring a lot of money in political support to conservation. Lastly,
a direct counterweight to the propaganda lives from the state
centator who introduced the band mentioned that meat from hunting
is very often low carbon footprint and sustainable in a
world that is warming and may have trouble feeding us
without destroying it. So I think it's intellectually interesting that

(16:21):
you go and talk to animal rights people. Sometimes it's
also a waste of time in terms of winning the issue.
Another really important thing we can do is recruit more
hunters from urban areas, especially hunters of color. Those populations
are core on the liberal base in the US and
very low percentage of them hunt. But there's no lack
of interest from those communities. And he goes on a

(16:42):
little bit further, but I think that he makes the
point there. Yeah, yeah, he's he's saying what what I
was thinking before you started reading this email, which is
like one thing that you and Claig what Clay kind
of went off on and he sounded really defeated at
one point during your interview, was that, like he's he
has this thing where he says that we're arguing with
just raw emotion. There's no facts or science these like

(17:05):
and yes, no matter what topic you you argue on
the political spectrum, there's always going to be an extreme
point of view that will not be converted. But those
aren't the people that you need to try to reach
out to, which is which is exactly what with with
this email is saying, and like, there's there's these people
that are somewhere in the middle that are either uninformed

(17:27):
or don't care. So you give them reasons to get care,
and you give them information, and you're you're never gonna
get people that are that far away. You just need
to start reaching out to the people that you actually
have a chance of connecting with. Yeah, Phil listen man,
I agree with you. Um, I want to address though
I don't want to move away from what you just said,

(17:48):
because I agreed whole hardly, But I want to address
um what Eric said, specifically challenging that I talked to
animal rights people sometimes and that might be a waste
of time on any of this issue. Now, look, that
is there's a lot of things that that is. We
want to confront the idea at opposition number one, and

(18:09):
want to do that in a public form so we
can be seen calm lin and collectively confronting what we
might call a radical idea in our own space. That,
as I've said just now and they'll say again, create
hopefully creates everyone or gives everyone a feeling that we're
willing to confront these issues. And if they're having those

(18:33):
same questions, which to a lot of people are obvious questions,
and it's a simple one. Why would you hunt bears?
Pretty simple? That question can be taken from somebody on
on the extreme end, an anti hunter, we might call them,
and played up on a political or social level, simply
asking that question, charging that question, which is what State

(18:54):
Center Weener did, and using that to push forward what
seems to be logical legislation, general logical moves to ban things.
So I would say that people in the middle are
connected to both poles. Rights are connected to hardcore hunters,
and they're connected to hardcore anti hunting vegans and rights activists.
Only by that they're susceptible to the communication coming from

(19:16):
both ends. So I want our communication to be to
be as welcome as it can be, and to be
as cogent and thoughtful and educational as it can be.
That's it. That's you know, I don't I don't want
to say that we maybe didn't talk enough about how
to speak directly to those non hunters, but I think that, um,
it's kind of baked in. Does that make sense, Phil? Yeah,

(19:38):
Oh that was easy. Well, it's it's it's tough, Ben,
because like, yeah, I I agree with you. It's just
it's hard when the other side, and from from like
an outsider's perspective, it's hard when the the why do
you want to hunt bears? Argument? Uh, they have the
high ground. And I don't mean that morally mean, like strategically,

(20:01):
it's way it's way easier to to to put that
in front of in front of people's faces and convince
them than it is for hunters to do the same. Yes, yeah,
what you can call that the populist high ground, like
they have the populist high ground. They do. Absolutely, we
talked about that last week a little bit. Um. That
is very true, something that we always should be thinking of. Um.

(20:24):
But I'll go back to I flat out refuse and
some people just don't like me for this, and that's okay.
Like I flat out refused to create this narrative of
us versus them and they're evil and we're good. I
just it just does it seems intellectually dishonest to me
to not take this from like I've done the research,
I've thought this through. This is my position. But come

(20:45):
with yours and let's let's argue it out. Let's debate
it out. I don't want you gone, I don't want
you off the face of the earth. I don't want
you to be relegated to downtown San Francisco. I want
you to come and hear my very thought out answer
to your question. That's what I want, and I'll always
want that UM, even if I firmly disagree, which in
this case I absolutely do. So that's just how it

(21:05):
is for me and understanding you know, what Eric is
is emailing in and what you're saying. Phil definitely understand that.
And I think that's kind of why we started this
year program. So because I was around a lot of
non hunters for a long time and I answered these
questions that every damn cocktail party ever went to UM
in Austin, Texas. So it was part of the reason

(21:27):
I felt like it was necessary to get on board
with a weekly podcast all the work that entails UM.
Before we get to Yanni, we gotta we got uh
some really good entries for the t a c Theme
song contest. Uh sung by kle Array are good friend

(21:48):
of the show. So we're gonna give you guys another week.
But to reiterate, we are crafting a new theme song
for this podcast that means the thing that plays in
the beginning and at the end and maybe even in
the interstitial parts where we have ads and whatnot. This
is all gonna be strung together by Filled, the engineer
for this show, and we're gonna let you jump in

(22:09):
and help us write it. So th HC at the
Mediator dot com. You got one more week. We'll we'll
get into next week what we want to do going forward.
But um, you can write in and you can give
us some words to sing too, and a lot of
you have already done that. Um, I could go down
the list and and read some names. Russell Edwards sent

(22:31):
some pretty good ones in. You got Greg Smith, a
bunch of things, Kelly arth Earth. I'm breaking our rule
in last names and initials. But a lot of things
already in there that are top of my list of
things I'd like to try with Kleen. So get in there.
You can be enshrined in THHD history and help us

(22:51):
with our new theme song coming up later this year. Excited,
Phil excited. I just need your commentary on everything. Yeah, no,
I'm I'm I'm very excited for this. And I honestly
can't believe that Kayla Ray is on board. I gotta
h it's great. She's great, But a lot to get
to today. We had fun with the honest you this
asked the Eagle segment is about my favorite thing that

(23:13):
we do. I think it's probably your favorite out there
in a listener Land, just because we get to talk
to folks like Eric Hall and Mike Peterson and a
bunch of you guys that emailed in with questions for Joannice. Um,
it's fun one, you know, after all the heavy topics
we've been rolling through, after all the social and cultural
divisions and things we've been talking about and banning this,
it's fun just to answer questions even though some of

(23:34):
them did fall into those topics I just mentioned, So
enjoy our friend honest would tell us and asked the
Eagle okay, another asked the Eagle, honest would tell us

(23:54):
before we call people you honest. Uh, we always have
to just do a little bullshit. Um. We were talking
earlier a little bit about dad noises. You make more
dad noises than than ever right now. Yeah, they're increasing
dad noises for sure. Can you describe, man, that's like
a dad noise kind of thing there? You know, we're

(24:15):
supposed to have your phone turned off, it's not, and
it's not. That's kind of like, yeah, that's a dad thing.
And I just noticed that your phone case is snow cameo,
which I got mixed feelings about that. Well, someone else,
Brody Henderson, once said like, what's up with your phone case?
Like as if I was making a statement, and I said,
it's like the one they had at the store. Is

(24:37):
controversy surrounding snow came I wasn't aware of it. I
mean I didn't purchase it as like, oh, this looks cool.
It was like the thing they had there and I
got it. But Brodie's like, what's up with that? I
think it's just interesting just to have a cameo phone
case in general general and snow cameo would be like
the lamest, like the most extreme version of camera you
could choose. Yeah, it's like making a fashion statement with Ammo,

(25:00):
which in in our world is not a good thing
to do casual camp. I imagine if I just want
was sitting here right now, Phil and Infusions came you'd
be like if he had a shirt on them, And
then if I had had a jacket on that was
in that snow cameo, you'd be like, huh, what's going
on today? You know, where's he going? Yeah, someone's birthday? Yeah?
Is he's shooting like a James Bond movie in the out.

(25:22):
That's the only time I think of snow cameras that's
what it is. Now. Plenty of predator hunters and snow
goose hunters, you know, do the whites to hide? But yeah, no,
I I you know, I might have to change it
now that I know that it's it's making people feel
a certain way because about you. About me. Yeah, there's
a statement behind. I don't know exactly what the statement is,

(25:44):
but it's saying something about you. For me, it was
like what cases you have? They were like one and
I was like, okay, I'll take it. And then I
remember Brodie bringing it up at some kind of gathering
like really, guy snow came on. Huh, cool guy, cool guy.
Huh big cool guy looking a big pants on. Brad.

(26:06):
All right, well we're here to the call. Uh. We
we have a reverse calling show here on Nask the Eagle,
And I'm proud of the listeners of this show and
the fans of be honest. Yes, yes, I side chat
you with your phone case color. We were talking about
dad noises. We have only time for one tangent conversation.

(26:30):
We should, like I make more dad noises, and not
even in the things that you would expect them, like
sitting down. Is I think okay? Time to make a
dad noise. But I make dad noises just like leaning
forward six inches to start typing on my computer. I
did that. I was like, oh yeah, and just leaning forward,
and I felt I felt incredibly lame for doing that.

(26:53):
Do you have what's a dad what's your go to
dad noise? You see that You're I think you're just
you're more aware maybe because that Probably I might do
little shifts too and growing a little bit, but I
don't notice them yet. Getting out called out when I
get into bed. Yeah, that's definitely like the end of
the day. Let's hear it, mega dad. I don't I
can't replic you can't do It's some kind of I

(27:14):
wish we had a little bed in here you could
get into. Yeah. Sometimes I'll make an annoying dad noise
like and then but then I'll realize how insane it sounds,
and I'll turn into a bit and I'll just like
go even harder. Once I realized, my wife gets giving
me the sight eye, and I'll just be like, yeah,
I do that a lot, just to really love it. Yeah,

(27:36):
I think getting out of the truck is probably my
loudest dad noise these days. But if for those of
you out there that don't have children, you probably don't.
I don't think you can physically make this noise unless
you have often. Oh no, I think it's instead of
it's not the name dad noise isn't like the proper title.
It's just like close to forty or over forty. It's
like it's an age thing. Yeah, definitely more attribute to males.

(27:59):
I think it is. My wife and males are afflicted
by it more they are. Yeah. No, it's something that
science has yet to just you know, discover the cause for.
But maybe this podcast will spurn him a new study
to help us. But I I would say that over
the last since I turned thirty five, my dad noises

(28:20):
have tripled. Conservative estimate. Trouble now, like if you're a
let's just say you're a Viking and you have to
like slam through a door or you know, move some
giant block to save your family when the I don't know,
the neighboring, you know, villages trying to burn your house down,

(28:41):
like you will grunt and roar to to see some
in strength to do whatever you have to do. So
you think those two are kind of correlated, Well, that's
the sad part because I'm not I haven't moved to
Boulder lately, and I'm still making those noises. I'm only
making I know what you're like. One My point is
that you're you're summoning a little bit of strength to
like move my knee and I go, I want to

(29:04):
remove my legs at the dinner table. Yeah, that's a
sedentary lifestyle. Sedentary lifestyle. Sometimes when I get out of
the truck, I go, whoa, Just like getting out of
the truck was a you know, a big time decision,
and all of our ancestors are are weeping for us, Like, really,
guy really had too many chips. I'll probably do that

(29:26):
at the super Bowl that's coming Sunday. I want to
make sure I get a run in today. Yeah, just
just thinking about how sad this conversation is. Speaking of
super Bowl, though, I am making Rotel dip. Buddy. You're
probably familiar. You just don't know that it's called rotel. Yeah,
just the Rotel, Right, It's like that's like the brand

(29:48):
of it's kind of like a Pico to the guy
out sort of tomatoes and chilies, exact onions and stuff exactly.
You could probably get away was just doing um like
a block of belvita with the can of rotel, and
you could call it um ca Okay, so yeah, ok,
rotel dip. If you punch it in look for a recipe.

(30:08):
Adds one more ingredient, which is usually squirrel ground beef,
which is like with like tacos seasoning. I was just like, maybe,
like I think refred beans would be good. I grew
up eating this. I grew up eating this, and we
just never called it that. Yeah, for sure, it's it's
it's you know when the thing about this kind of
dip is when it cools, it looks it's the grossest
looking thing ever. Yeah, it gets a film on the top,

(30:31):
like ice fishing where you gotta go through the top layered.
You got a Matt finish. Yet I have a really
crock pot and the only thing I think I'll ever
use it for. Maybe I'll come up with another reason
to do it. But yeah, I put my and war.
You can't get on the top because then it's just
it's a sad looking thing. It's like vomit. So I

(30:52):
was kind of surprised. You know, my wife and her sister,
they're pretty healthy people, and uh, I was told yesterday that, uh,
those two are very excited. If there's anything that is
there is there's anything that sports culture encourages us to do,
is just be sit on her ass and be fat
like it. Just it wings beer sports. Every commercial during

(31:15):
it is like do you need like laxatives and and
acids and meatballs? Because all that was that look a
little more road tons a little bit than the three
of us. Yeah, yeah, we're spelt. Although my body's falling
apart obviously based on dad noises. Uh, but yeah, I will.
I am going to make the dad noise of dad

(31:36):
noises when I'm done eating. What are my wife's telling
me what she was making? I'm gonna just make like
some you know, a little uh it's probably smoked prong horn.
Will do a little some sort of dip, maybe in
a ju or something. I don't know. I don't know what.
I'm gonna do, something cool, maybe some non French style. Yeah,
I do this thing. It was like non bread and
then you it's like a little Peter bread I think,

(31:57):
And then you just put some shaves none like n
A A n exactly uh, and then you put a
little shaved smoked meat on it. Put some finishing salt
and then you dip it in this like as you
it's really good, so I might make that. Um. There's
also sometimes horse rash involved. But we should call some people.
We got a lot of Last time, we upset a
few people that we didn't call, so this time I

(32:20):
want to try to get through it. I forgot about that. Yeah,
but I didn't put that guy on the good Yeah. Yeah,
our apologies. We we ran out of time. Yeah, we
ran out of tide, so we don't run out of
time this time. But I'm I just like talking to
these folks, and so we'll see how it goes. But
first up, Phil, you remember the guy as I dial here,
do you remember the guy that ship his pants and

(32:43):
Key West? Oh? Of course, yeah, yeah, of course this
is that guy, Mike p hopefully his pants in Key West.
That's how he Jimmy Buffett b Side released get Paints. Well,

(33:04):
this is Mike. Hello Mike, this is the honest Ben
and Phil t Engineer. How are you, sir? I'm good? Hey, guys,
keep going on. Good Phil, you want to turn him
up a little bit? Hear him? Give me give us
a test? All right? How's that sound that sounds pretty good.

(33:24):
You guys better, that's better. You go that film like
when you're in the business, the best way to test
is you just tell everybody what you had for breakfast exactly.
So all right, Well, I had three eggs, a balled
meal with some cinnamon, a little bit of raspberries, and
some walnuts crunched uff on top. That's my breakfast. Impressive.
Very I forgot to have breakfast, and now I'm hungry.

(33:48):
I'm very hungry. I'd be gonna lie lion hunting if
I had a breakfast like that. I know I might
be taking a nap a breast. That's that's lovely. You
move up Boulder and make some vikings like Mike, you're
a dad, right, I remember from your from your not
a sharp moment your dad, Yes, sir? Do you make
dad noises? Absolutely? Anytime I get up from the couch

(34:10):
or you know, up or down from the couch. You yeah,
I think it's kind of one of those things sometimes.
I I like to make an extra loud grunt noise
any time I have to pick up anything like minis school,
like a like a paper towel or something. Yes, up
a lego or two? Yeah, yeah, that's we're realizing that

(34:33):
like our our caveman ancestors would be so sad to
hear this, hear this conversation because we I make it
just walking down the hallway, or just like one time
I I was sitting at dinner and I just like
kick my legs out a little bit more. And I
made that just just trying to straighten your leg out
a little bit extra. Yeah, and I don't even haven,
but my knees are perfectly healthy. But dinner table, though,

(34:56):
you have the compounding factor of having a full belly.
And I think if you have a full belly, it
just makes every movement yet where I need to undo
the top button. So I'm pretty lucky there. But absolutely
full belly movement to require some sort of some sort
of sound effect, like it expanding and contracting the diaphragm.

(35:19):
Maybe maybe maybe there's a scientist listening that can tell
us what's going on. Man, it sounds soft by telling
you the cure for dad noises is yoga. Yoga, dude,
I'm I'm fully in. Like I hurt my back ice fishing,
which is an awful, awful thing to say out loud.
I had to carry the Auger, like maybe a hundred

(35:39):
yards down the hill and I heard my back and
that's it. I heard my back. I don't know what happened.
And I had to like pick up a perch out
of a hole. That was it. And I'm injured. So anyway,
Mike were we never are on time with this program,
so we gotta get to it. We gotta get to
your question. I'm gonna go ahead and let you ask
the question. But Yanni, uh, just a preface. Yanni already

(36:02):
talked to his wife about this last night in bed.
I think right, Yanni, I did he did, so, Yanni,
y He's got some real dope for you. So go
ahead and shoose your question out there, all right. So, uh,
when I asked the question, it was I think it
was like back in October and I was getting ready
to go. I have a public lands hunt that I
do up in North Florida and it's over my birthday

(36:25):
and Halloween. So my wife is always very cool with
me going hunting and fishing with my buddies. She never
gives me a problem. But I was wondering if you
had a suggestion on uh, you know, maybe like a
small token appreciation, like a small gift or something that
I could give my wife, uh, just to kind of

(36:47):
ease it, you know, because you feel guilty leaving home.
I know you guys have talked about it on the show.
Before you leave and you go on these trips with
your buddies and you're having a blast and the wife
is at home dealing with the kids. So you know,
you always feel a little guilty. There's always like a
little bit of homesickness that goes along with that. And
I was just wondering if you had any suggestions on

(37:09):
something I could I could uh give to my wife,
just uh you know, show my appreciation and and make
the make the trip a little bit easier. I guess
saying it out loud, it sounds like it's more for
me than it is for her. But you know, I
just wouldn't. But do you guys know about the push gift?
Do you guys ever get your wife? I heard about
this for the first time like three months ago, and

(37:31):
and we've had two kids. I heard about it after
we had kids, and I was a little disappointed in
myself for, you know not and I didn't realize it
was such a big deal. I don't worry a normal
guy doesn't do a normal guy. So, like, a push
gift is a gift, and it's usually an extravagant gift
that you get your wife after she gives birth to

(37:52):
your child. You know, yeah, what what what does this?
Where's is the push an acronym no pushing the child out?
I see, Yeah, so it's kind of a it's a
it's a bit of a gruesome name push gift, but
that's what they call it. And people will ask you,
like mostly old ladies would ask me like, what did

(38:13):
you get for a push gift? I was like, so
this thing's been around, this happened apparently there's like it's
like it's the thing that people do. I feel like
it's a thing that like normal, normal folks just don't do.
I think it's an elitist. It's elitist. I agree with you.
I'm gonna agree with you on that. I think we
should all agree on that. It's elitist. I feel like

(38:34):
the gifts, Mike, um, it's the easy way out. Okay.
I I agree with that. Because the push gift too,
I can see it like, well, I just got her
those new diamond ear rings and listen it's my wife,
it's not my wife style, and I can't afford those,
so I've never done it, so I really don't know
what the reaction would be. But I can see that

(38:55):
I just got out of those diamond ear rings and
so now I don't really feel like I need to
change as many diapers or get up in the middle
of the night as much because I kind of paid
her off. And I think that the little gift thing
before a hunting trip or after a hunting trip could
kind of be the taking the same way. And uh,

(39:15):
I can just tell you that for me personally before
talking to my wife last night, who just cut me
off with the answer. I didn't even get to finish
the question. She knew what I was good getting at.
But is that in general, I just try to hustle
and like, like, we had to pick up our kids
and drop them off at school, right, so there's no
bus service, so that really cuts into people's work days,

(39:36):
and so when I'm home, I try to be the
one that does that. When I'm home, I try to
be the one that goes to the grocery store. My
wife also doesn't like to do that. UM, just trying
to help out as much as possible. And anytime I'm
like feeling lazy about, you know, doing something around the house,
I'm like, that's right, I'm gonna be gone for a
hundred days this year. I should probably hustle um and

(39:57):
get her done. Um. So I just thing that, like,
you know, just you know, hustling. And another thing is
I pushed my wife to uh do things on her
own and with her friends as well while I am home.
And that's not necessarily to make me feel good, because
I know that it does help her out. But she

(40:19):
sometimes sometimes I think, is so unselfish that she's like
just will not think of herself first, you know. And
so I had to be like, look, i've got these
I'm thinking about going outline hunt on Sunday. I said
this yesterday, Like I've got these like tentative plans. But
if you tell me that you make plans to go
on a hike with your sister or whatever, like I'm
cancling you go and do your thing, you know, if

(40:42):
nothing's going on, I'm out a good spouse all the time.
That's a lot. I mean, that's a lot. It's a
lot of work, but I think you can do it.
But yeah, but that's actually sounds probably like the best
course of action. I mean, you know, it's cheap. That
sounds like, yeah, it's cheaper, it's the way. It sounds

(41:03):
probably like the way to go. Though. Let me just
say I would just bribe her with some sort of gift.
Then you could be lazy a hundred days a year,
you know, I like, yeah, I'm gonna go hunting, you
stay with kids. Yeah. Jennifer's answer, like I said, before
I even got to the end of the question, was
clean the whole damn house, especially the bathrooms. Yep. I

(41:27):
feel like you're just trying to see what you'll do.
You know, it's like, see what she get? Maybe you
do all right? Well, Mike, Uh is that helpful? Yeah? Absolutely,
I mean, you know, hearing it from Yanni and thinking
about it now, I mean that sounds like a much
better course of act than trying to bribe her with
some sort of you know, some sort of gift or token.

(41:51):
I mean, she would probably much she does a lot.
I mean, you know, we're we've got two kids, I've
worked a lot and stuff, so she does a lot anyways, Uh,
And it would probably be just helpful in general if
before I left. You know, I did some stuff around
the house, made sure everything was squared away before I left,
instead of you know, leaving in a in a hurry,
like like what happens so often. You know. Yeah, well,

(42:14):
this is the second episode in a row that I
brought up our marriage counselor uh, my wife. When I
go to marriage counsel, his name is Doug. Shout out
the Doug. He's probably listening. And Doug and I were
talking about, like, what what's the marriage for? Like what's
my role in the marriage? Right? And I said, I said, hey,
you listen. I think what I used to think when
I first got marriage was in a relationship, that some
part of the marriage was there to make me happy.

(42:36):
But what I realized now is like my role is
to make the marriage work. Like I don't I shouldn't
expect anything from the marriage other than my part of
it was just to make everyone, make my wife happy
and make it work, like that's my EXPI earlier expectation was, well,
you know this, this relationship should make me happy somehow,
But I like, lately only no, that's not it. That

(42:57):
it's never gonna work if I think like that, because
I'm gonna because then I agree with that. So shout
out to Doug for that guidance and advice. Um, I
might have I might have Doug come on and do
like a segment because we last week we had an
email from some folks that were telling us that THHD
has kind of helped their marriage. And this week we're
given more marriage advice and right and we have Dr

(43:20):
Phil Phil do you want to comment on this? Well, no,
I mean I agree with with with Yanni. And one
thing to the point out too is like I know
this isn't the case with everyone, but like my wife
and I share a bank account, so when I go
out and I buy her a gift, I'm like to her,
she's she's kind of appreciative, but she's like, you took
my money to buy me this thing that I could
have done myself, whereas doing chores or thinking of like

(43:44):
making dinner for the entire week before you're gone or
they awake after you, like like, just that's the stuff
that she, my wife, like well, will notice and appreciate
more than me going out and buying or something that
she could have done herself. Yeah. Well, my wife's birthday,
I bought her she turned. I won't give her age up,
but I bought her the number of roses that was
her age and it was cool. But he didn't have

(44:06):
anywhere near the impact of me, just like taking taking
her ice skating with the kids, like actually did me
something to show that I was thinking of her. So
I was like, man, I wasted twohundred bucks on those roses.
I could have just flowers. I was going to actually
mention flowers because I personally enjoy them. I think, you know, baseball,
flowers brightens up the room, brightens up your day. But yeah,

(44:29):
we went and got just a small bouquet for my
wife's birthday recently, and I was out, like, I think
sixty bucks. Well, my dad, for forty five years ran
Ben's flower shop Hagerstown, Maryland. Is now retired, and my
one of my one of my wife's first jobs is
that a uh florist. Didn't any time I get her flowers,
she gives me like a little a little look of

(44:52):
you know, disappointment. She's like, I can't believe you spend
all this money on this. You're just gonna die. They're
just gonna die, all right. Now. She likes him, She
likes him, sometimes so, but it's still like I can't
believe you did that. All right, Mike, Well hopefully we
helped you. And um, please keep us when the when
the spring comes around for your turkey on or the

(45:12):
fall comes around you let us know how it's going. Yeah,
please keep that marriage, Please keep the marriage hot. And uh,
let us know sounds good, guys. I appreciate you. Guys.
Give me a call, man, this is awesome. Oh, no problem, man,
have a good day and uh, we'll talk to you soon.
Take care of so Mike, this is your honest. Well,

(45:34):
this isn't be honest. This has ben this is honest.
That's be honest. And then there's Phil. Phil. We're gonna
check your your sound here says good. Give us tell
you tell us what you have for breakfast so we
can check your sound. Uh, eggs, cinnamon rolls and bacon.
Geezy breakfast. Everybody we call has awesome breakfast. Yeah. The
guy just at home, so I got cooking in the morning.

(46:00):
Look at this guy. This guy too solid. We got
a lot of good hc world, you know, I love it.
I figured it'd be that way, Mike, I figured. But
we just got off a call with another Mike, who
was asking us about what to do to make his
wife happy so he could leave to go hunting in
the fall and feel good about feel good about it.
And we just said, be a good husband all the time,

(46:21):
sacrifice for your lady. Friend. Um, so you have when's
the baby, dude? Man? Right now? April fourteenth is our
due date? So coming up here, and well you're gonna
have you have any kids? Now? Is that your first one? No,
this will be the first. It's a boy. Um already prepped.
I got the nurse re done and trying to keep

(46:41):
everybody happy that way. Nesting, nesting, it's gonna be. It
will be different for hunting, that's for sure. I know
this is what season is. The week before he's due,
so I'm hoping he holds out. Oh yeah, if he
gives you, like at least a couple of days turkey
on and before he comes, and at least he'll come
over the summer. We always have this argument around here,

(47:02):
like you can't you shouldn't have a kid during the
during the fall. My first let was born in October.
I'm a seconde in January. Mike, you have some questions.
You wrote three questions in give us your like, give
us the one that you feel like is the most impactful. Pick,
just pick it. I think I got that one right
here if I had to pick one. My question to
you guys and your honest um, both as individuals and

(47:25):
for Mediat as a company, as a hunter and conservationist
environmentalists as well, it's a lot of times kind of
a two way side of things. How do you guys
go about making decisions at the polls when unfortunately a
lot of these issues tend to go on either side
of the political aisle. Yep, that's a good one. Yeah,
you want to take that one first, you want me

(47:47):
to go. I've answered this a lot, so I got Yeah,
I got a lot dope on this one. Um. I mean,
it's not hard for me. It's like I'm a I'm
an issue by issue voter. And uh. We interviewed an
author by the name of Michael Punk on The Mediator
podcast who wrote the book The Revenant, and uh we

(48:09):
got talking to him and I don't know if he
introduced himself as such, but at some point he described
himself as an extreme centrist and that really stuck with me,
and uh, I sort of I'm like proud to walk
around and carry that badge and and to know that, Like,
if I was to share like my voting record, you'd
be like, yeah, this guy's kind of all over the place,
and I'd be like, well, yeah, it's because for these

(48:31):
issues I vote this way and these issues I vote
that way. Yep. Um, I kind of shared. I shared
who I voted for, and that was fun for me,
for everybody, for everybody to file on from from the side,
those are how many people voted for buying Seventy eight
million voter for one, seventy four for the other. So
either way, you're gonna have seventy some million people. Um.

(48:55):
I think about it in the same way. I mean,
I'm obviously try to be pragmatic and in the center.
I would say I'm right of center, and my political
leanings is what I would say. I almost always would
side with UM folks on the right on the conservative side,
certainly socially UM, but when it comes to the environment

(49:15):
and it comes to hunting and fishing, I probably lean
way left in terms of what I'd like to see.
If if I'm just trying to put my views into
the buckets that we've developed in our country, so I
know that, and we've in Mike knows this since I'm
sure you've listened to me talk about this, that when
you go to the polls and you have to vote
one side or the other, each side has lots of

(49:37):
drawbacks in terms of what my value set is. I
want a second ament. You know, I'm a strong support
of second Amendment, but I'm also a stronger supporter of
um reasonable extraction and taking care of our environment and
and want to see a suggress climate change. So both
those things don't fit into one bucket. So I don't
know if I like, I don't know personally if I

(49:58):
can give anyone advice on how to make those decisions.
But you just got to weigh those options and determine.
I've had, like I said on this show before, I've
had people who really um, we're really right wing tell
me that our public lands are not under threat, like
you're you're overblowing the threat to public lands. And I've
had people on the left tell me that I'm overblowing

(50:19):
our threat, the threat to our guns, our gun rights.
So it seems it seems as if either side would
like to convince you that their threat is more important
than than the other. So I think that's probably the
most the biggest struggle that I've had, just to try
to suss out, like what really is going on, even
though I know the issues on both sides. Um a

(50:40):
lot of times you can vote different. One one piece
of advice I guess I could give is a lot
of times you can vote different in your state than
you do on a federal level or different regional um
state politics, so you can really protect your rights a
little bit, a little bit more, you have a lot
more impact. I was talking to Rachel Um I think

(51:00):
it's Schmidt now it is. Yeah, it's probably been that
way for a while. I just didn't know that, but
you know, Rachel Schmidt of course friend of yours, and
she was just telling me and making some good points
about how we should all be more involved on a
local level because you can actually make a difference there
and there you can make such a difference, then maybe

(51:22):
you could if you if it's that important to you,
you could still kind of stay on that side of
the aisle that you prefer, but you could change those
people's point of view closer to your point of view,
so you wouldn't necessarily have to like vote the other
direction to like get what you're getting at. You can
just go and like talk and send letters and emails

(51:43):
and maybe your side is like, oh, you know what, Yeah,
it's a good idea. You know when I look at
I don't know if you went through this, Mike, when
you voted, But when you get to the voting booth,
like you really, well, something's gonna suffer here, especially when
you're voting for, um, the president. Something's gonna suffer here
when I make this, when I make this here choice
and you just kind of got to decide, Mike, is

(52:04):
there like a thing that happened that like causes you
to like worry and think about this or or like
how does this manifest itself in your personal life? I
mean I feel that, like obviously with this presidential race,
this question is more general all the time because the
presidential race was so one sided, defending one way or

(52:25):
the other. You're gonna like the guy or hate the
guy either way. Um, But on a general level, I
have quite a few senators that I've reached out for
different things with b h A and gotten disappointing answers,
like land Water Conservation Fund and things like that. Those
things were going through, and that really kind of pushed
me to question some of those voting practices of just

(52:45):
saying hey, right sided or less sided UM. As well
as I've gotten involved at the state level UM trying
to push my own bills and some of those things
with representatives. So I'm trying to get more involved in
how to make those decisions and just think through that process. Yeah. Yeah,
I mean there's nothing other than really holding your local

(53:07):
representatives to account, you know, especially those especially the representatives
on a state level, hold them to account. I mean
we've seen we've seen this in action with Jason Schafitz
some years ago in Utah when they had some UM
public lands anti public lands bills that really it was
it was our group of people who went to him

(53:28):
and said, this is not going to stand like, this
is not the kind of legislation that anywhere in our country.
So it just happened with the Bear band in California
the perfect next example, right, so if anyone out there,
and I think it also happened with the Great American
Outdoors Act on a positive side for what we all supported,
where we all voiced our support for and it was
it was truly a bipartisan effort to protect the things

(53:50):
that and fund really in that case fun the things
that we care about. So it was great to be
a winning California. I lived out there during the town
hunting band and some of those times, and it seemed
like a no win situation for sportsmen out there. Yeah,
I was talking. I talked to a couple of local
reporters and kind of and and some folks that are
involved in that, and really that they felt like there

(54:12):
was one thing I didn't know. Um, some years ago
a build a band dove hunting that was had a
similar fate as this bear hunting band. Well, and I
believe in Michigan it's still banned. Is it for no
other reason that like doves are you know? Peace? Yeah,
it's I mean, it's just we're on shaky ground and

(54:33):
in a lot of ways right with the stuff we'd
like to do, So we just have to be vigilant
and sometimes just pick your battles man, like, just no,
this is the thing I'm gonna fight for in this
short term, and then two years from now or four
years from now, I'll have a chance to go back
and reassess where we are and try to shift focus
if I need to in terms of how I vote.
Absolutely never gonna be simple. Um, well, thanks dude, I

(54:56):
appreciate it, and I am going to I'm not gonna
tell anybody why I'm saying us, but I'm going to
join a convent and I'm leaving. I'm leaving me either, Michael.
All right, Well, I don't like to see which one
hopefully elect your podcast? Do you think they will? All right, Well,
I'll well, I'll wear whatever outfit I need to, and
it's all. I just owe a penance to Mike. And
I'm not I'm not saying any more about it publicly,

(55:17):
but I owe Mike so much I might have to
just come, like I might have to just come hunting
with you or something, or like buy you, like get
you out here to Montana again and get you a
tag or something. All right, Mike, Thanks brother, See Mike, Yeah,
have a good one. Hello is this Matt? Yes, Matt,

(55:41):
Ben O'Brien, Janice pateel Us and then Phil T Engineer.
What's going on? Buddy? Oh not that much? Was it
going good? Wherever? Here? Uh? Fielding questions? Here are you
in Virginia? Yes, here's the berg Virginia. What what's your
what's your favorite thing to hunt out there? What do
your most time? What do you want to the most
out there in Virginia. I always wonder about my side

(56:02):
of the world there. Well, I mean there's a lot
of course white tail hunt around here, and some good
turkey hunting. I'm actually really interested to get started into
bear hunting out a way out away. You got some
big bears down there these days North Carolina. You go
a little south, you can get some really big corn
fed bears well. And actually the county I live in
as the highest bear kill each year for bear season.

(56:26):
That's right, we got we got we got quite a
population here in the area. We've been talking about bear
hunting a lot here later because of California. But in
in the conversation that we had last week, one of
the things that Clay Nucom said that that got me
thinking the most was that of all the animals that
he knows game animals that we hunt, he thinks that
we use the most from the bear. Like every time

(56:48):
I kill a bear, I think about taking the hive.
We use the fat and and we use the meat,
you know, from a white tail. We don't necessarily, but
come on, now, use this kind of a strong term
for that side. Okay, even take the hideaway. At least
the fat is universally and and nobody's I mean, unless
you're wearing Ian warning. You make a couple of candles,

(57:09):
nobody's doing much. Or you're Jake Bullochira practicing. You made
some chapstick with your dear talent, but you don't, you know,
a little bit goes a long way there. That's true.
There's some dear talis soaps and things I've seen out
there in the world, but that those are like artists
and stuff. Yea. Now, if all of a sudden, like
half of meat Eater Crew was like sleeping under a
bear blanket, I'd give you that point. But right now,

(57:32):
just because we all pack them out and and tan
them and hang them on the wall, it's like, I
don't know if that qualifies as used. I was picturing
everyone under one bear like I was when you when
you were talking about like yeah, yeah, when we go
on to shoot mat. I want to know what methods
of take or in pursuit are legal there in Virginia

(57:53):
for bear hunting. I mean, I know, archer, archery, muzzleloader,
modern rifle up, Like, what about what about bait and dogs?
Dogs are legal? Bait is not. Yeah. I was just
gonna say that because they had the big, the big
controversh about dogs for deer and and that that part
of the world as well, and we talked about that
some episodes ago. Yeah. I it's it's always funny that

(58:17):
how we carve up bear hunting that way. You know. Well,
I guess we carve up deer hunting and others that way.
Some states have legal baiting, some states are not. Um,
So yeah, I guess we carve up a lot of
pursuits in that way. With ethics and what's gonna be
the way that you, uh chase them. I'm gonna go
modern firearm first off. Um. But actually today I just

(58:41):
picked up bow off of somebody who's they're getting a
new one for their birthday. Uh, and so they were
going to sell their old bow, and so I figured
I'm gonna try to get into archery hunting. Uh. So
I'm going gotta use bow off of a guy today
that way. So your question that you had, um, go
ahead and ask it. I won't. I won't ask for you.

(59:01):
So the main thing is is uh, you know, tips
on kind of getting started on that conversation of finding
hunting mentor and or you're talking to folks about, you know,
getting onto their private land for hunting. This is you know, Yeah,
I don't want to go and any I know Janice, Uh,
he likes the shorter shorter questions there, so would you

(59:24):
we'll just kind of go with that. I won't go
into the whole backstore I did in the email. So
you just you want tips on how to find more
folks to hunt with or or find a hunting mentor yeah,
or and also like possible you know, private land to
use because while while I have, while I have public
land out here, I mean, you know, twenty minutes away

(59:44):
from the National Forest, Uh, it's a little bit harder
to hunt than you know, some of the private land.
We don't have as much of the public land access
as you guys do out west. Yeah, no doubt about it. Man.
I've done very little public land hunting east of the Mississippi,
and uh every time I do, I think, like, boy,
aren't we lucky living out west? And man, if you

(01:00:07):
had to get this done out east, uh, you'd probably
I'd be a better hunter, but uh, I get let's
just start off there. The private land um our new
ceo actually dumb. Yeah, he was telling me about his
system for getting awesome private land when he was living

(01:00:30):
in Minnesota, and man, he crushed it. Like he was
kind of sad to leave Minnesota to come to Montana
because I think he was up to like twelve or
thirteen permissions or something like that. Yeah, the guy had
like sixty prepped trees for for saddle hunting. Yeah, exactly,
gonna have him on the show. Yeah, this guy, I'm like,

(01:00:51):
I don't know if you can if you're at the CEO,
I don't know if you're allowed to come on this podcasts,
but you should he says, yes, officials. But that's like
makes me feel good about working for a company who's
whose CEO has got sixty trees prepped and my numbers
might be office a while ago we talked about it.
But anyways, man, that guy took like a CEO's mentality

(01:01:12):
to to you know, getting his permissions and just went
all out and and and had basically a form letter
that he would tweak you know, per you know, landowner
um and just went after it with uh, just connections
and um, what's the word I'm looking for? Like when
you go out and put his feelers out there, putting

(01:01:34):
his feelers out but uh, um networking, networking, Thanks thanks
phil Ah. My brother in law just took a new job.
He's gonna be traveling the state of Montana selling uh,
kitchen equipment to like like big commercial type kitchens, like
if say, if a hospital you know needs, you know,

(01:01:54):
to build out their kitchen whatever. And I was like, man,
you know, being traveling salesman might be the best thing,
but dude, think about the people you might meet, you know.
And now we were thinking of ways to like kickoff
hunting conversations that might get his foot in the door,
just to even like open the conversation. I was like, Man,
if I were you, if I wasn't like duck hunting
country and there's not much elk hunting out there, I'd

(01:02:15):
be wearing a like a lapel pin with a goose
for a duck on it. Just something maybe a baseball cap,
you know, depending on how casual he dressed. He dressed,
I'm moving in the basic the pin I was the pelpin, yeah,
is don't wear lapel pins? Who do you see walking
out like politicians. Well yeah, but I see my brother
in law's kind of guy that's gonna stroll in wearing

(01:02:38):
a jacket. That makes more sense. Okay, so um, but yeah,
that way, you're not like coming in there and trying
to do business and then also being like hey, by
the way, you know, I noticed around here. You guys
got a lot of geese flying around. Do you know anybody?
But you know, at least there's a conversation starter so
someone can be like hell, like that you like Canada geese.
That actually works out for me pretty because like our

(01:03:00):
our Department of Wildlife Resources, they've done these hats that
have like vintage hunting stamps on them, and so I
have one for for a bear stamp and I have
one for a near stamp. So you know where in
those when I have those conversations, you kind of get
that started. It's very literal, but I love it. It's
like where the hat of the thing you want to hunt,
and you will manifest as if it's some secret Illuminati symbol.

(01:03:23):
You will manifest if you wear just a bare sweater
and bear underwear and bare socks, you will manifest Bear
hunting opportunities private land, and I think just remember this
Spencer talked about it not long ago on one of
the podcasts that like, he I think tried well over
ten like double digit properties this year in Montana and
got shut down on each one. So just keep in

(01:03:45):
mind that like you might have to ask twenty times
to get that one yes, but that one yes is
if you If I was to weigh it out right now,
I'd say, well, what is it worth? How many times
would I go ask people? I'd say fifty just for
one yes? I mean, if it's like a you know,
forty acres, you know, I'm probably not. I don't know,
maybe it's worth it in Virginia to call for a
guy with forty But like if you had two acres

(01:04:09):
to yourself and it took you a fifty asks, buddy,
I just start calling right now and start checking off
the nose, you know. I always just I always would.
If I'm hunting a piece of public ground and there's
private ground that borders it, and I see a ranch
or out running cows on his private ground, I'll waive
them down and be like, hey, what's the deal with
the elk around these parts? And get talking to them

(01:04:29):
and just ask them questions if like they're on here
all the time, and then then you can be like, hey,
if you've ever need anybody do any work, I'm happy
to come and do some work. Um, I'm always hunting
up here. It would be cool to also have access
to this. I'm always right over, I'm always hunting the
border of your place. Would be nice to be able
to have that too. So that's got to be thinking
positive because as much as you hear all the doom
and gloom about how all the outfitters have leased everything

(01:04:51):
up and everything's being you know least up by you know,
private groups of dudes with you know, all the surgeons
and doctors have their leases on all the private land.
There's still plenty of stories, um like this when I
just mentioned Dan with I don't think he was paying
for a single one of them, and he had you know,
a dozen or so. You're generally looking for generational ownership

(01:05:17):
of land like my daddy's daddy's daddy's farm, right, because
a lot of times the newer landowners are buying it
for the exclusivity, Right, somebody that has a lot of
money that buys a place, they're generally not looking to
bring other people on, UM, but folks who are just
you know, normal folks that just have their have have
their property. Doug during comes to mind as somebody who

(01:05:38):
has you know, family land. It's not his lands, his
family's land. UM. And his idea that he's talked about
on this show before about game cooperatives, which him and
I talked about all the time, which is just offered
to do some work, you know, just like I'll come
here and work. Um. Alterleopold had the Riley Game Cooperative
and that's basically what it was. It was just people

(01:05:59):
coming to work, and then it got so interesting that
they started bringing in folks from the college and it
became kind of a small community thing. So it can
if if you can get lucky, you might stumble into
something real cool in terms of like who you know
and then I know, Matt, your other question was kind
of around mentoring you might be able to find somebody
in that you know, in that circle that can also

(01:06:20):
help you understand, you know, the best way to go
about some of the new hunt you're gonna undertake. Yeah, man,
I see in your email, UM, Matt said that he
already belonged to b h A and a couple other
conservation organizations, but with your interests in bear hunting, I
think I would find the Bear Hunting Association. Looks like

(01:06:43):
there's a Virginia Bear Hunters Hell, yeah, go join those boys.
I'm starting telling you're interested, man, And if it's if
they're at all like trying to keep this whole bear
hunting thing, especially since you guys can use hounds like
they need people to be pro this thing. And even

(01:07:06):
if you you might be a little uneasy about it,
a lot of people are, uh with just like the
chasing of game with hounds. I was. Now I'm the
pround over owner of a hound dog and I love
it and I want to be a spokesperson for it
because it's so great and you it's just one of
those things that you don't know until you go. And man,

(01:07:26):
I just I wouldn't. I couldn't believe that if you
went there and um, you know, you joined up with
them and hooked up with them, that you wouldn't find
somebody that would take you to the woods. And even
if you're not into like, you know, shooting a bear
out of a tree after a hound chase, that like
just going and learning that is gonna make you a
better woodsman, and um, you're gonna get into the woods,

(01:07:47):
get into places that you you know haven't been before.
And uh, I can guarantee that anybody that's you know,
running bears with dogs probably also knows something about white
tails and etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. Yeah, this gets me thinking
about the game cooperative idea. Really, you know, we need
some like official system to get people to connect landowners

(01:08:08):
and hunters. I feel I think that would be a
great especially in the digital age. I feel like that
would be a great resource to have people say I'm
willing to work, and people say I'm willing to let
you work for hunting opportunities and then make that a
thing for folks. Um, so that's the owner of that
idea is is our man, Doug during But I I
believe that to be something that we can do as

(01:08:30):
a community. So maybe in the future you'll have kind
of like a Zillo for for this where you can
go and click on a little you know, a little
dot on the map and it can be hey, if
you do this, I'll let you do this, and you
can call that person up, connect with them and go
do it. So maybe in the future one day. Um,
does that help Matt, It doesn't, I mean, and yeah,
something like that would be great because i mean, you know,

(01:08:52):
like I mentioned in my background in the scaluing movement,
I'm not afraid of any conservation work because I've done
plenty of it, you know, so helping someone in the
land is not a broad Well, it sounds like you're
doing all the right stuff. You know, like you said,
you volunteer for Boy Scouts of America there locally, and
t U and b h A and i W l A.
You know, all those are places. You know, if I
was just starting out and all this that, those are

(01:09:13):
places where I'd look to find mentors and hunting buddies
and build myself because I'm telling you, man, hunting alone
is great, but having a group of people that you
share that value system with you talk about your trade.
I mean, it's it's so much better that way. So
that's that's I'm sure a big part of it for
a lot of people that are hunting, that are new

(01:09:34):
to hunting that listen to this show, Yeah, it's the
it's the community. It's it's like kind of what the
whole idea of the hunting collective is based around. So yeah, no,
it definitely is important because it's you know, to have
successful on your own is great a lot of you know,
I love hunting by myself anymore. I probably like it
better than hunting with a crew. But man, there's nothing
like a deer camp with a bunch of dudes. There's

(01:09:54):
some folks that hunt solely for the community aspect. I
believe they give a ship less about killing the deer.
Deer camp is deer camp, you know, just gonna have
a lot of people in it. I love both aspects
of it. I've come to like, if you really want success,
sometimes I feel like you gotta strike out on your own.
But it can't always be like that. I've come to
realize in my older age, along with my grunts and

(01:10:17):
groans that I now have, that we're we're so lucky
to have this thing that we're so passionate about and
to have them groups that are so passionate about it.
Because if you think about it, like nationally, like who
else has that like name another like hobby or lifestyle
or sport that like can like it's coalesced the right word.

(01:10:42):
So many people will coalesced around it and be so
passionate about it. Mean, sure you have like sports teams,
but like it doesn't get you like a bond with
a guy you know or a gal, you'd be surprised.
Still is always the non hunter. He's got video games
he's gonna bring up. Do you tell me? What do
you think on a national level has like the same

(01:11:03):
sort of like, Oh no, I'm just saying sports in particular,
it makes they I think they it makes people insane. Um,
it does, But I totally see what what you mean.
It's not the same kind of I like, I have
a big sport. I'm a huge sports fan, and even
I like to return to it over the pandemic, and
my son is really into football, so like that has
returned me to it. I took some years off, um

(01:11:24):
of being like a fanatic, but I'm back to being
a fanatic. And I love it, dude. I love nothing more.
I love and going out and hunting and going and
watching having that bond my kid, my dad and my brother.
We talk sports all the time. But I've always said
that when you hunt with somebody, when I go to
like trade shows and the people that I've hunted with,
and even in a like a professional sense. The bond

(01:11:46):
is deeper than the kind of the artificial or superficial
sports bond. Now, I'm not if you play on a
team with somebody and you guys, you know, that's a
different thing. Like I'm more talking about sports fandom. And also,
you know, hunting is more accessible than sports in a
way that that you can participate in it because anybody
can buy a license. I'm awful, Like I'm awful at basketball,

(01:12:09):
so I'm probably not gonna find many people who want
to play with me. And and that's not the case.
And I know I'll play with you. I had a
granny shot, like, but I'm good at other sports, just
not basketball. I like playing those guys like you shoop
up on you. It's you is the Are you good
at basketball? You got the height? Yeah, I was gonna

(01:12:29):
says he's automatically good at basketball. I don't know. Yeah,
I can shoot it. I can shoot a basketball, alright, Matt,
Are you you played basketball? No? No, that's good. I
played football in high school. But that's about it. Yeah,
people from the East Coast would never dare play basketball.
Has made that up? That's well. I tell people. I

(01:12:51):
tell people all the time I was. I was born
in southwestern p A. And you know that's the place
where they've had tried to have like two professional basketball
team and they folded because nobody would go to the game.
So it's true. Yeah, I'm well, I'm from western Maryland,
so we're not too far. We're basically the same guy.
So I feel like you feel, Um, well, I was
just I was gonna say the key aspect. You know,

(01:13:11):
it definitely was something that I like about it. That's
because that's what I remember from my dad. All of
his friends were his hunting buddies. So yeah, it's a
different thing. It really is. I think it might sound
a little bit, uh overly dramatic or trite for somebody
that doesn't know what it is. Maybe like Phil, Phil
doesn't understand. Uh he thinks I. Phil thinks we have
a bond. Now he knows that we're best friends. Now,

(01:13:33):
wait till we hunt together. Wait till what's gonna the
emotions you're gonna feel when we are standing over a
dead turkey together, weeping, weeping, crying in each other's arms,
shooting in together. Well, it's fine, it's all fine. Well, Matt,
thank you brother for everything, and keep us updated on
how it goes out there. Thank you very much, and
I'll make sure to do that, and you know, try

(01:13:54):
to write into the future. You've had some great conversations recently.
I really appreciate what you guys are doing out there. Well, thanks, Matt.
We'll keep it up and keep that. Yeah, keep the
email inbox, man. The email in the box keeps me sane,
as I've said, on a daily basis, So uh, keep
firing away, all right, You'll have a good day. Thanks.

(01:14:16):
I'm so excited for the Roadtail Dip. My neighbor used
to make that ship and it was like it was
good the first like when it was warm, but then
if you ate it two days in a row, you'd
be like you die through this, you would die. But
like once a year, I'll put the hammer on it. Eric,
all I know about it. I'm sure Eric. Call what's

(01:14:41):
going on? Man? Let's ask Eric what he knows about Rotel.
Do you know anything about Rotel Dip? Yeah? Do you
know anything about Like do you guys ever have a
Super Bowl parties over there at the Hall Household? No?
But I'm made so she'd deal with Roadtail tomaotis there?
It is and and processed cheese. Correct. I usually use

(01:15:04):
the cream cheese and then the jar of the Okay,
so there is. Yeah, I saw that variation to some people.
If you don't want to go to the Velveta route,
you can go like half shredded cheddar and half cream
cheese and you'll end up with a similar result. But yeah,

(01:15:27):
some people call it rotel dip. But yeah, it sounds
like you could call it uh sausage dip too. I
called sausage deep. I used Buyer sausage. Last time. I
used by your sausage. That's what. Yeah, I'm getting that
inspired for football. I was gonna make like healthy things,
but now I feel like I had to make this dip.

(01:15:47):
All right, I was, I told you just a second ago.
I was gonna ask you this question later, but now
I want to hear what Eric's got to say about
it too. This is the eaglass Who who? Who are
you picking for the Super for the Super Bowl? You
know I'm not. I will also admit that I did
a little betting on this Super Bowl nice at the
beginning of the playoffs, right, and I just was betting

(01:16:10):
along each game. And I still have all my money left. Now,
are these like digital bets? Are you just? Are you
betting with buddies? Here in town? Here in Montana? You
can just go to like a little kiosk, put your
a little bet in there. And so it's completely legal, Phil,
I know what you're thinking. That's not It's a completely
legal thing that I'm admitting to here. Nobody asked Ben.

(01:16:30):
You seem a little defensive. Okay, where are you now?
You had a hundred fifty where you at a hundred
seventy seven. And so if I win my bets, I
bet on the Tampa Bay Buccaneers to win. So if
I win my bets, I double my money. Do you
want them to win? Are you just betting? I do?
I do. I'm a Tom Brady fan. Oh God, is
that bad? Oh? My stomach just turned over. He's a

(01:16:52):
forty three year old man. He looks like he's twenty five,
drinking from the fountain of youth. Good for him. Have
you ever seen like Ben tom Brady fan? Because he
sees what he wants to be? Yeah? Have you ever
seen like a picture of Terry Bradshaw and he was
forty three? He looks exactly the same as he does now. Yeah,
he looks awful. Tom Brady looks like he he looks

(01:17:13):
like an eighteen year old boy. He is. Something's going on.
I think he might have sold his soul as what
I think. But I'm betting on the man Ben respects
that I expect that. I'm betting on the man that
can defy time and defy age, because I think he
might have other tricks up his sleeve. But I've bet
against I will admit had to have betting against the
Chiefs multiple times and lost each time. But I don't

(01:17:35):
put a lot on it because the Chiefs are good.
I'm just hoping that it's going to be an exciting
super Bowl. Me too, a good one to watch. So
I only watched like one, maybe two football games these days.
But Eric, who are you picking? I'm glad to go
who was a Buccaneers If he can do that? Yeah,

(01:17:57):
I like it. I like it. It's bad, It's like,
not really smart to bet against the Chiefs, I think,
but I'm doing it, and I like, like, your head's
a tom like Tom Brady. Is something different about Tom? Right?
Look at his face? Just look at his face. They've
put a picture like George Blanda when he was forty three.
He just looks like he's eighty. So I think there's

(01:18:18):
something going on. Yeah, he and I are similar in age,
and I certainly look a little bit older. Yeah, but
I don't color my hair. Do you think her color
is there? I don't know. If you're in your early forties,
man like a little bit of gray, it's pretty normal.
But not for Tom Brady. I mean, he looks. I
mean just look at him, all right, Eric, what's your question?

(01:18:44):
Look at it? Like, look at him in the combine
when he was like in his twenties. He looks. He
looked older when he was twenty than he does right now.
I think he might have the Benjamin Button thing going on.
Oh it's it's almost as if he has a full
time nutritionist and probably plastic surgeon. And I heard that
I chef. He spent a million personal trainers. Yeah, I
heard he spent a million dollars a year on his health. Yes, Eric,

(01:19:07):
I'm just gonna kind of want to gauge the type
of man you are. If it was hunting season and
you had a good hunt on this upcoming Sunday, like
a good sit for a deer or a bear or
whatever you're into. Would you skip the Super Bowl to
go hunting? Absolutely, yeah, of course, yeah, I guess now

(01:19:28):
you just DVR and watch it later. Of course. No,
I have The cool thing about football is that you
can just start watching in the playoffs and like most
of hunting is over, so it's kind of like a
nice little thing you can do. So yeah, No, there's
lots of football during hunting season, which I never see
because I'm doing other things. But yes, lots of folks,

(01:19:49):
lots of folks leave the deer stand to go catch
their you know, the home team playing. Like Doug says,
the best day to go hunt your neighbors in Wisconsin
is when a pack pack. Yeah, you don't really be fun.
And I know they do it in Minnesota him they
watch a simple bowl they're sties. Yeah I would do that. Yeah,

(01:20:16):
they get a little generator, put a little TV on.
I'd do it. I would be into it. But no,
I enjoyed this like this time of years kind of
off time. Right. You can around here. You can go
chase mountain lions or ice fish or there's a lot
of stuff to do outside, of course, but it's not
as pressing as like ELK, and I don't mind on
a nice Sunday if if I get get up and
go locally for in ELK season, if it's quite at noon,

(01:20:40):
I don't mind going catching football game, coming back, you know,
a little bit later on, takeing a little break, watch
a little football. I don't mind doing that on a Sunday.
So I'm not against it. But I would never ever
pick football over hunting, no matter what good. There's no scenario.
So Eric, do you have a question. I just I
like to let you freestyle. I didn't even ask you

(01:21:02):
for any questions, but you have anything. It doesn't even
have to be a question about. It would be anything
that you want to talk about. What you what? What
did you have for breakfast this morning? Air? Oh? Give
me man? Actually stopped at Angles, stopped a dude. I
love Bojangles, love it, Stoles go on the way. I
don't work. I've never had Boles, Sauces, graving fries. I've

(01:21:30):
never had a bow Jangles. I don't think I know
what it is right that Coast chain. It's like a
chicken place. Yeah, yeah, chicken and biscuits. Yeah, it's like, yeah,
chicken and biscuits. Yeah. But it's a It's like a
Chick fil At, except much greasier, in my opinion, tastier.
For that reason, I'm not caring for the biscuits. There's

(01:21:51):
too much butter on them. I mean, you just just
to have a towel. Sounds great, are listeners? Man? This
is the third or fourth call we've had. Everybody's had
an amazing breakfast. Man. I had like an orange and
I just feel like I when I'm a little Clementine's
special k with red berries over here. Yeah, that's when
my child ate this morning. Yeah, it's it's all. It's

(01:22:12):
sweeter than I wanted to be, but I still need it. Yeah, everybody,
I'm impressed for everybody's breakfast choices. I'm hungry now too.
But there's no bow j Angles in Bozeman though, No, no, sir, nothing.
And what else you want to talk about? Ericole? What
do you want to ask you? Honest, he's here, I'm
in I'm in the Hammot camp and here will be

(01:22:33):
the last year. But and I don't get out far
away from the house. You know, they know you sometimes,
so y'all more in the back country stuff? What what IEMUK?
Do you ever year or had to stay at over

(01:22:54):
night and what I don't need specifically put in your
pants thinking I might have to stay over that. You know,
I've never been caught out. I've stayed out kind of
on purpose, really really late, and by the time you
get back, you might as well have called it staying out.
Like one time we had a the hike was just

(01:23:15):
long enough and we had to wait just long enough
on this blood trail because we we had like a
suspected you know, bad hit that we h we just
kind of decided to take a nap. I think we
woke up around midnight and then followed this blood trail
and found this elk and uh then chopped it up
and you know, got back to camp whatever it was like,
you know, guys were going to get up in like

(01:23:37):
the next hour or two. You know. But these days,
I think the only thing I really I don't know,
I have like a little back country organizer kit that
weighs probably a pound. It's got my my what we
call like a kill kid in it. You know. I
got a zip tie to attach a tag and maybe
some you know pecord which has multiple uses obviously, you know, uh,

(01:24:01):
backup knife, backup head lamp, in it. Um my tepee
or or you know, baby wipe stash is always in there. Uh.
And it's certainly got firestarter, which I think if one
thing you always want to make sure you have is
like a very easy way to start a fire. And
to me, that's more than just carrying around a big lighter. Um.

(01:24:24):
I have these little things I got him at the
r A. I it's it's actually meant to be a
like a fuel for a stove. I think it's called
es bit, and they're like it's a little white piece
of some kind of fuel. It's hard, but you can
like that thing and it'll sit there and burn for
ten or fifteen minutes. And if you can't get a

(01:24:45):
fire going with that, then either you're kind of host
or or you don't have you know, any kind of
fire building skills, you know, But I don't know. I
don't really Otherwise I don't carry like a shelter all
the time. Um. I do like to think about, you know,
what the weather is going to be in the next
twenty four hours, and if it's gonna get nasty, I

(01:25:06):
like to have some rain gear with me. Well, well
before we go, Philly engineer, he's just getting let out
of Big Yawn. It's clearly not into Eric. You want
to tell anything about Phil. I mean, I feel like
Phil's turkey hunt is uh, I mane, it's like two
months away now, two and a half months away, and uh,

(01:25:27):
it's planned for real, it's happening. It's happening. It's gonna
happen in Montana. Okay. Phil requested a local hunt, and
so I've set up I haven't really told him this yet,
but I've set up a hunt up near white Fish.
It's a bit of a drive, but there's lots of turkeys.
It is private land, and uh, we should be able

(01:25:47):
to do this. We'll see if that that's that's my
first option. I have other options around, so I don't
want to pigeonhole listen to that one option. But there's
lots of turkeys there, it's private ground. We'll be able
to get on him. It's a nice little day hunt,
and uh I Phil wants to sleep in a hammock
or something, we can do that. But I think we're
gonna have lots of action and lots of learning opportunities.

(01:26:11):
And be honest, you should definitely come with us for
Phil's first range time. Whenever he gets nice and we
can start to you know, early March probably when we
start to really dial in and now we can have
a little calling session. Maybe you can even do it
here in the podcast. So, but I want to let
Eric you know you got any questions for Phil. I
see barrels forward into the in his hunting future. Probably

(01:26:32):
you know, we'll definitely change his life. We just don't
know how. Yeah, larre these number one wasn't real high.
Maybe you know, maybe we'll be after the first time.
So we're just rooting at more. After his first time,

(01:26:53):
he's gonna like it. We'll go back it maybe eventually
go by sale that. So that's like, yeah, I mean
I've said it before, Eric, I'll say it again. It's
it's nice and it's Eric, who are who are the
fire behind me? Exactly? Yeah, Ben's a wet blanket over

(01:27:17):
my fire. Yep, that's true. It is true. I could
see it in his eyes. Whenever you're honest, is like,
come on, Phil, start hunting, and he perks up a
little bit. He seems a little more serious, and I'm like,
come on, Phil, get your think that. It's like when
your kid, when you're talking to your kid, and you know,
like you telling him to do something is going to
make him not want to do it. I think you
just have to do some reverse psychology, ben. Yeah, like
I don't want you to exactly like something. You wouldn't

(01:27:39):
be able to do it anyway. An engineer, you know
it doesn't even know anything about hunting. Huh. Yep? Is
that working? Yep? It kind of is? Alright? Cool? Cool?
Thanks Eric? Thank you, Eric Hall. Um. I expect I
expect that you'll be giving your your opinion or at
least your writing skills to the theme song. Are you
gonna do it? We will not. I'm not all right

(01:28:05):
as a man of stand your ground, Stand your ground,
air call all right, we'll go forward without you. We'll
go forward without you, all right. Well I'll be listening.
We know that I will. I love it all right, man. Well,
thank you as good it talks to you. Keep keep
on keeping on it there. Yeah, thanks for your time. Eric,
Always a pleasure see you, okay, be honest. I feel

(01:28:30):
like asked the Eagle as a hit man. We talked
about this every time, but I feel like we gotta
get Eric call in here. Eric Hall sometimes brings the energy.
Other times it's a little more sedated this time. I
think he was full of bou Jangles, French fries, gravy.
I'll do it too. I'd be ready for a nap.
You've never had that meal there, but yeah, yeah, I'm

(01:28:51):
gonna try it next time I'm in North Carolina, hopefully
this summer. Man, I haven't been in three years. Really, yeah,
because either work or my house or pandemics. Yeah, yeah,
I um, I'm kind of got a craving for all
kinds of stuff after what we heard from our folks

(01:29:11):
in the breakfast uh scenario, like cinnamon buns, bacon, French fries, gravy. Boy,
oh boy, but yes, asked the eagle. Is my I
would say it's my favorite thing to do because we
just talk to people that we really like to talk to.
So thank you to Mike, Mike, Matt Eric. But what's

(01:29:32):
the what's the next what's the next thing you're excited about?
You you can go lion hunting with old mingus. Yeah.
I've been trying to make it out two days a
week while I'm home. He's at least treat one line
I know hasn't treat himself. He has been a party too.
He's been. Yeah, he's been at a couple of treats
with lions in them. Okay, but um, yeah, we keep trying.

(01:29:55):
We're keeping after it. But Steve and I are going
down to hang out with Clay Nuke. Yeah. He was
telling me in about ten days hunt squirrels behind his
fight hunting and then hunt coons behind his plots. And
I'm bringing mingus down for that too, to get him
on some coon. It makes has got some good experience
and as young young hunting dog life, he mightn't have

(01:30:18):
been around some good hunt dogs though he has he
has for sure. I just know there's a lot of
dogs that at his age have done a lot more well.
Before we go, Jannice, I'll give you this opportunity to
speak with with Phil about his turkey hunting, because again
what I say, it's little to no effect, if not

(01:30:39):
a negative effect. So now that we him and I
have talked about kind of like the n r A
gun safety rules, we talked about that, we haven't talked
about kind of turkeys yet or calling turkeys. We'll get
into that later. I've got plenty of time, I feel,
at least a month or so to get through that
but do you have anything you want to say to Phil.
He's perking up right now as we speak. I think

(01:30:59):
Phil should know and this will help Phil keep you
fired up throughout this process and get through the next
because right now, for me, the next two months are
just like like just I'm buzzing with anticipation because it's coming.
It's coming. We're gonna hear a gobbel soon and we'll
be in those beautiful spring turkey woods. But for you,

(01:31:19):
I mean, it means nothing. But what you should know
is that when it's all said and done, Ben calls
in a turkey, you shoot him. I'm sure that's gonna happen.
You're gonna have to breasts and two thighs and two
legs some of the finest eating out there, so good
if you do it right. The breast you almost can't

(01:31:41):
mess up. I mean, I mean, you can cook them
anyway and your kids and they don't like it. Something's
wrong with them. I'm not joking there like it. It's
so good. Like there's a lot of times even with
I cook an elk or something that my kids are
kind of like, but they have never given me an
aunt about turkey meat smoked hunting glazed. Just come on, man,

(01:32:02):
just come on. Like turkey cord on blue is my
favorite thing in the world. Schnitzel is wonderful. You get.
Anything you do with a chicken, you can do with
a turkey. That's a that's a new T shirt. We're making.
Anything you do with the damn chicken, you can do
with the turkey. Except when you're eating it, you have
to tell a story about how Ben called it in

(01:32:24):
turkey Parmer, John, Right, what's your favorite what's your favorite meal?
White includes a white meat? Phil? I mean, is it
is it like wrong to say fried chicken? It's not
wronged turkey because basically schnitzel is pounded fried turkey, And
if you don't go through the process of pounding it,

(01:32:46):
you can just do what we call turkey nuggets. Turkey
nuggets are Oh my gosh. Now I can't take it, dude,
I can't take it. I'm taking I told you this,
I could I my I was blind, and then I
went to the n w t F conference last year.
I had no idea. I had no idea. It was
such a big deal. No idea. I've been trying to
tell you. I gave you a book that I don't

(01:33:07):
know if you've read it yet. I haven't yet. I
will before we go. You read The Temple Agent. So
it's just it's like a full on sickness. I mean
they say that about a lot of outdoor passions and activities,
you know, fishing and hunting in general, but the turkey's
just really really grab you. I mean, just yeah, it
is a part of it. I know this to be true.

(01:33:31):
A big part of it is the anticipation and because
we have like adul drums. This is we're currently in
the hunting dull drums, at least in where we live,
and then everything comes to life and just like so
happy to be out of the dull drums and then
you hear the turkey gobble in it. I think the hook,

(01:33:53):
the hook has more to do in the beginning with
like I don't than anybody, especially adult on set hunters,
who go into it with anything other than a like,
it's a turkey, he's it's he has a brain the
size of a p How hard could it be? And
then you go out there and you have like just
enough success like calling and talking to one and you're

(01:34:17):
like feeling like you're gonna have a dead turkey and
then he just walks away and then it happens again,
and he whatever, it's just like it doesn't happen. It
doesn't happen, and and like that's what's got my wife,
she's like getting to be Someone once said it, Parker Hall,
I think said that his mom. His mom, Parker Hall,

(01:34:38):
is a grown man, you know, of my age roughly
and uh, he says, his dad and hunt him his
whole life. And it wasn't until they retired and started
doing like the annual they do an annual park Hale's
parents start in Florida in late March and then driving
RV some direction north and west, and somewhere around the
end of May they quit hunting turkeys. I can't wait

(01:34:59):
till its. He's like his dad kind of has like
a very casual attitude about it, and you know, spends
a lot of time reading, hanging out. His mom, he said,
is mad at the turkeys and kills and tries to
kill a lot of God what um, that's kind of
And at first I was like, that's kind of weird
to say someone's mad at the turkeys. And I think

(01:35:21):
what they're trying to say is that like you have
become so hooked and you are like so started, like
entrenched in this like battle of wits with this bird
that should not really have, like you be at the
same wit level as you. Yet there you are, and
you're like engaging with him and you can't stop it.
And here's the thing. The bird has only his natural

(01:35:43):
instincts to fight back. That's all he has. We have
a little mechanical box that can fight because he's not
fighting too to avoid, to to evade us. Yet we
have a little box that we can see the entire
world on from any level. We can zoom out to
a world the planet view and zoom into the tree

(01:36:07):
that he's in. And we have fake you know, plastic
sometimes real feathers on decoys. We have constructed all kinds
of devices to make the noises that they make, and
yet sometimes none of that can do. Hey, we have
driving up. You think that the odds are in your favor.
We create, We created the printing press and the combustion engine,

(01:36:28):
but sometimes the turkey just beats us. And that's what
you needed. I had a Nemesis bur here locally last year,
and it was like the coolest thing. I hated it.
During the whole thing. It was embarrassing to get beaten
every time I went. But boy, this year I can
see that Turkey's little face. Oh there's nothing that I'll

(01:36:49):
get you out of bed at three thirty in morning
than to have a nemesis burg. It just is. I'll
tell you this, this is the end of it. I
feel like we're getting long winded here, we wrap it up.
There's there's a lot of passion I can tell can
you wrap it up? But like my good friend Scottie
Justice says, there are a lot of things in life
that you can be late for. Tricky hunting is not

(01:37:11):
one of them. That's right. So when Ben says get
up and be there at three, you get up and
you'd be there, Yeah, because you've gotta be waiting on
him before the old Tom wakes up. That's right. Any
last words, Phil, can't wait see you. That's it. That's

(01:37:36):
all another episode in the books. Thanks to Honest tell Us,
Thanks to all of you that emailed in and we
called and you answered the phone and you were in
for another asked the Eagle. Like I said before we
got started as my one of my favorite things. And Phil,
I guess who got his prediction right on the Super Bowl.
Ben O'Brien, That's that's right, that's right. Uh, just another

(01:38:02):
reason why I might get out of the hunting industry
and just join the gambling world. I think it might
be smart anyway, that the email came in from fad l.
He said, a good at afternoon, Ben and Phil, And
this is like the most desperate email I think we've
ever received. Please please, please please film Phil's first turkey hunt.

(01:38:24):
The long road all your fans have had to endure
and during the COVID shutdown and the antipacent for Phil's
first hunting experience, it must be seen. Phil, I wanted
to run this by you because I know it has
been a long road. And pretty soon we're gonna start
buying our tags and we're gonna start announcing dates. We'll
start filling everybody in on what they can look forward

(01:38:46):
to in the spring season. Here at th HC. Lots
going on. But are you okay with being filmed? Yeah,
of course, I'm I'm just here to make to make
this show as as good as it can be. I mean,
what I prefer to not be filmed? Well, yeah, obviously, Uh,
you know, Maggie. Maggie up in production Tracy on the

(01:39:09):
other side of the building were films for the Meat
Eator television show for their very first hunt. And I
think both of them would have preferred not to be
But you know, I'm I'm I'm doing it for you, Ben.
This is all for you, and you know, honestly it
might be fun. Who could say, uh, let me just

(01:39:32):
say this to you, Phil, Let me say this, and
I am serious about this. If we filmed this, even
on my phone, and anybody talks shit about Phil, I'm
coming for you, Okay. I would like probably gonna send
you a series of mean emojis or something on the
Internet because I will protect Phil from all the slings
and errors of the Internet. I won't have it. This

(01:39:54):
is a warning out there everybody. I won't have you
talking about Phil that way. Okay. He didn't miss that
turkey on purpose, just practicing what I'm gonna say. He
didn't miss those three turkeys on purpose. He was trying
his best. He he didn't. He didn't trip over that
branch and cut his face open on purpose. No, he
was tried his best. He gets a participation trophy from me.

(01:40:19):
I'm gonna make anyway. Well here, stop talking. He's talking
about Phil Ben because this isn't it's not like precious.
Leave alone. Sorry, I'm all fired up now, I'm hypothetically
fired up on your behalf. I'm done point point all
the cameras at me, and and and let the internet
judge me. I don't care. Stay away from Phil bastards anyway.

(01:40:44):
I think we will, we will, we will film it,
at least for for social media. That's some sort of
posterity here for this, this long awaited journey of PTE
filled the engineer. So uh, just stay away from him.
Stay you from him. The only thing you're allowed to
do with him is play video games, and that's it.
Thank you. Then, just to wait video games with that

(01:41:05):
guy sometimes. Here's the thing. Then, this season of Destiny
has been kind of slow lately, but guess what tomorrow
or today as this podcast is airing, the new season
of Destiny to start, so I'm sure I'll be on
more often. I'll be playing with Destiny to is that
a first person shooter game? Is? Wow? Look at you

(01:41:26):
using the lingo? So you will it help you with
shooting turkeys? You think? I mean? I think the skills
are directly transferable. I'm because I was wondering why I
even had to take Hunter's safety since I've been shooting
guns on a TV on a TV screen since since
I was like seven, So I don't old CV, I
don't know. Okay, all right, put it on the resume. Yeah,

(01:41:48):
all right, Well um again, we're gonna We're gonna announce
real soon here. We got a lot to do, but
we need to raise money for turkeys. So go to cameo.
It's an app, it's a website. Type in the search bar,
Ben O'Brien and I will pop up and you can
buy a video. A chance for us to make a
video for you and your family, your friends, whomever. Fifty

(01:42:09):
bucks of pop. Every single dollar that we earn is
going to go to the n w TF. Every single
red scent that we earned is going to the nd
w TF. I would really feel says that we can't
do it, but I would really love two hundred of
you to be um so kind and generous as to
do this for us and help us praise ten grand

(01:42:30):
I know it's a lot to ask in a pandemic.
I know fifty and grow on trees, but I promise
we will make it worth your while and we will
send that money to a really good cause. So that's
my plea. As as Ronell always says, I'm begging and pleading,
but I hope it's for the best for turkeys and
fulfill and all you new hunters out there. So we'll
see you next week. Say bye, phil By, because I

(01:42:53):
can't go a week without doing run oh breaking out
wrong and I'm to wait wrong breaking in heaven.

All Episodes

Episode Transcript

Popular Podcasts

On Purpose with Jay Shetty

Stuff You Should Know

Dateline NBC

.css-15opob5{left:0;position:absolute;top:0.8rem;} All Episodes

.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Ep. 164: Cameo for Turks, Dad Noises, the Anti-Hunter Populist High Ground, and Another Ask the Eagle with Janis Putelis

Episode Transcript

Popular Podcasts

.css-r6mb8g{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:1;overflow:hidden;}On Purpose with Jay Shetty

Stuff You Should Know

Dateline NBC

All Episodes

Ep. 164: Cameo for Turks, Dad Noises, the Anti-Hunter Populist High Ground, and Another Ask the Eagle with Janis Putelis

On Purpose with Jay Shetty