Ep. 723: Dangerous Game

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:08):
This is the Meat Eater Podcast coming at you shirtless, severely,
bug bitten, and in my case, underware listening podcast. You
can't predict anything. The Meat Eater Podcast is brought to
you by First Light. Whether you're checking trail cams, hanging
deer stands, or scouting for ELK. First Light has performance
apparel to support every hunter in every environment. Check it

(00:31):
out at first light dot com. F I R S
T L I T E dot com. Accusing me of you,
He's confusing, he's getting like, he's confusing. Who got sick?
I'm sick like once every two years now is always sick.

Speaker 2 (00:54):
I'm not I know, not be ill.

Speaker 3 (00:58):
I'm not a no person.

Speaker 1 (01:00):
I have allergies.

Speaker 4 (01:01):
It's a bad year.

Speaker 1 (01:02):
In the show already started, it's I've been rolling for
two minutes. Can you make sure it starts with with
clarifying that sickly sad note that sickly sad is always sick.

Speaker 3 (01:15):
I'm not always sick. I feel like you're gonna get
sick and laughter.

Speaker 4 (01:20):
I was just.

Speaker 1 (01:21):
Because he's over here sniffling right now. I know what
are you sniffing about?

Speaker 2 (01:24):
It probably got allergies because allergies.

Speaker 4 (01:27):
No, it is the pullens bad this year.

Speaker 1 (01:29):
I think that would be rolled under sickly. Yeah, no
infirm this is general infirmity. Our friend Morgan Potter's here.

Speaker 4 (01:42):
Thanks for having me on.

Speaker 1 (01:43):
Yeah, it's good to be back. But by the time
you're listening to this, so because of because of things
in this world that I hate, like what.

Speaker 5 (01:54):
You really want to know?

Speaker 1 (01:57):
I'm really going to focus on one thing I hate. Okay,
in my opinion, it should just be that, Like, in
my opinion, it should just be that this is effectively live.

Speaker 4 (02:10):
The podcast.

Speaker 6 (02:11):
Yeah, like like as soon as it's done, it's just wah.

Speaker 1 (02:16):
And sometimes there'd be three shows in a week. Sometimes
there'd be no shows in a week.

Speaker 7 (02:20):
It just be like, what do we think, Phil Well,
I've talked with Karin about this, and I actually agree
with Steve. I would love it if we could do
something like that. We're just beholding to many agreements and
deals with with people and companies, and there's there's a
lot of moving parts. Great listeners of course, incredible company companies.

Speaker 1 (02:41):
I would change the show's name because that's what it
would be like.

Speaker 2 (02:45):
That sounds like something else. We won't go there.

Speaker 1 (02:50):
Like stupid like stupid reasons that I can't even begin
to like understand, let alone explain. I've had it explained
to me twenty times. I still don't understand it. You
know what, do we talk about this recently in Life Aquatic.

Speaker 4 (03:10):
With Steve?

Speaker 1 (03:11):
Yeah? Perhaps, Yeah, one of the top movies ever made. Fantastic,
It's like up there with Big Lebowski. Oh, definitely. Someone's
explaining something to his character, Bill Murray's character, and he says,
I don't understand that, but it sounds like bullshit.

Speaker 8 (03:35):
I ran into Mury in an elevator once I was
working at a post production or office, was in a
post production studio.

Speaker 1 (03:42):
Steve your phone, it's not how can you guys hear that?

Speaker 8 (03:53):
Ran into Bill Murray in an elevator in the same day.
I forget how many years ago this was. That he
was on the cover was it Vogue or another publication.
He was on the cover of it, and I was
holding that magazine while I stepped into an elevator together
with him. We were both there, and I just kind of.

Speaker 4 (04:15):
Was he cool?

Speaker 2 (04:17):
He was cool?

Speaker 8 (04:17):
No, I just looked at him and I like slowly
raised the magazine cover in front of my face so
that he was staring at himself and then we had
a little chuckle and then went our separate ways.

Speaker 2 (04:30):
That was was my Bill Murray.

Speaker 4 (04:33):
And he's one of the ones that I like, you
want to hope he's cool in like in the wild.
You know, he probably.

Speaker 1 (04:42):
Morgan Potter. He's an Australian, as you can tell. Hey,
do do for us your American accent.

Speaker 4 (04:47):
No, I can't do it. Oh it's bad. No, I
can't do it.

Speaker 1 (04:53):
What part of the country is your We could all
do Australian.

Speaker 4 (04:56):
So I've heard a couple of the Australians early before
you walked in this door. Well was key. We actually
not not so great you guys from that.

Speaker 1 (05:05):
Do him goof goofund him.

Speaker 9 (05:09):
That's not a knot.

Speaker 1 (05:12):
You've got a lot of material.

Speaker 4 (05:13):
I mean. I have a deal with my children that
when they can do, because you know they've grown up here,
when they can do a passable Australian accent, I'll like
give him a day off school, get him ice cream,
whatever they want. They've failed to Uh.

Speaker 1 (05:28):
They can't do. I could I can, maybe Randall can
give him some pointers. Yeah, goofund him a minute, Randall.

Speaker 5 (05:33):
Oh, now you're putting me on the spot.

Speaker 1 (05:38):
We'll just do that.

Speaker 5 (05:40):
This used to be a penal colony.

Speaker 4 (05:44):
That's no good.

Speaker 1 (05:48):
Shah. Yeah, nor we did. We did this with Southerners
one time, and the Southerners would do their Northern accent
for us and and then but we were to we
wouldn't do our Southern accent for them.

Speaker 4 (06:02):
Okay, yeah, I'm like I'm.

Speaker 1 (06:03):
Not doing that. No, I'm when they do their northern accent,
they do everybody as Wisconsin okay, oh yeah, Sam, And
that's how they do like a yang. You're like, well,
do your Southern for me, And I'm like, I'm not
doing my Southern for you.

Speaker 4 (06:21):
Yeah yeah, yeah. I wouldn't know where to begin. I do.
I love a good regional accent, though you know, Australia
doesn't really have that. So I like that America has
like regional variation. I appreciate that a lot. But we'll
do what.

Speaker 1 (06:33):
Just do a quick one. When you're telling your stories,
when you're telling stories to friends back home and you
have an American talking, you do it.

Speaker 4 (06:40):
Sometimes. If I've been drinking, it's a little for that.
If I've been drinking some American I just can't. I
just know I flat refuse.

Speaker 1 (06:49):
Fair enough, it's not.

Speaker 8 (06:51):
It's not.

Speaker 4 (06:54):
Good on mite.

Speaker 1 (07:01):
I get my hair cut at vip here and right
here close, and I'm in there getting my haircut, and
a kind of like if he's listening, with all due respect,
kind of the crazy looking guy walks in. Just looks
like he's been camping a long time, yeah, and not crazy.
It just looks like he's been a long camp hot,

(07:23):
a long hot camping trip. And he comes in and
he asks if he can get a quick trim yeah,
and he's clearly Australian. So he sits down and there's
you guys, Kevin and Jake, and Kevin's cutting my hair
and Jake is waiting for his next guy, and he's like, well,
if it's quick, I'll do it. So he ask some

(07:43):
where's the accent from? And he says Australia, and Jake
asks some like the same thing I would have done.
Is any crocodile's nearby? To which to what? He points
out that those are well north.

Speaker 4 (07:57):
Of him, And then he.

Speaker 1 (08:02):
Asked him what he does for fun, and the guy says, well,
we hunt a lot of pigs and and I kind
of perk up this and all sudden he goes, are
you the guy from meat Eater one? He was in
town for work? Oh? Really in town for work? He said,

(08:23):
he's here. I didn't catch what he was working on,
but he's sent here and he's got he's got two
three months of stuff he's got to do.

Speaker 4 (08:30):
I'll bet it's mining or something.

Speaker 1 (08:32):
I'm sure, yeah, I should say I'm sure.

Speaker 4 (08:34):
But whatever it was, it looks hot. Yeah, I'll bet
he came in looking hot mining out.

Speaker 1 (08:40):
By the time you're listening to this, for reasons I
cannot explain, I will be with Morgan Potter, who's sitting
here right now. We will be like a like an
alternate universe. We will be in Tanzania hunting for Kate Buffalo.
If you want to hear how if you want to
reflect back on how all this came to be, go
back to episode four four six, which is called when

(09:04):
an African Kate Buffalo Beats Your butt? Did we call that, Yeah,
we didn't call it beats your ass? Beat your butt?

Speaker 4 (09:11):
Yeah, because censorship.

Speaker 1 (09:13):
You know, m hmm, what an African Kate Buffalo beats
your butt?

Speaker 4 (09:18):
So it was just for alliteration purposes.

Speaker 8 (09:21):
Nothing to do back and forth between ass and but nothing.

Speaker 1 (09:24):
To do with cleaning her up. So we're gonna come
around and and talk about that in a little bit. Dude,
I'm getting excited.

Speaker 4 (09:31):
Oh me too.

Speaker 1 (09:32):
I just read a whole book about Kate Buffalo that
wound up oddly about Kate.

Speaker 5 (09:37):
Buffalo, which what's happening right now?

Speaker 1 (09:39):
I am, no, it's true. Yeah, what.

Speaker 4 (09:44):
If by the time this comes out, I'm not excited? Yeah,
you like, this sucks. And then I listened to this
and I'm like, but that's not true. There's a low chance,
low risk of that, I would say, very low risk.
What's the book that is not about Kate Buffalo that
supports to.

Speaker 1 (09:59):
Be Now, that's by the late writer. So we a
long time ago had on writer Thomas.

Speaker 4 (10:03):
Mack and I know him. Yeah, he passed away. I
did know that.

Speaker 1 (10:07):
I didn't know that. I was talking about get I
was telling Crid to get him back on the show,
and then it turns out he had passed away.

Speaker 4 (10:13):
Oh yeah, not terribly old. Yeah, no, not terribly old. Yeah,
pol guy, it's thunder without rain. Ah, I have I've
read it a long time.

Speaker 1 (10:22):
Ago, but you know how well, no, no, no, because it
only came out a year ago.

Speaker 4 (10:26):
Oh really.

Speaker 1 (10:29):
It came out posthumously.

Speaker 4 (10:31):
Okay, okay, is it like an anthology like a collection
of stories, original material.

Speaker 1 (10:36):
But it's just like how broad Agan's trout Fishing in America?
Uh huh, isn't about trout fishing in America?

Speaker 4 (10:43):
Gotcha?

Speaker 5 (10:44):
Just really disappointing.

Speaker 1 (10:46):
There's a great line about trout fishing a Roman. No no, no, no, no,
it's a nonfiction book. He just now and then And
I can say this because he's, you know, no longer
with this for for for sometimes, for like seventy five pages,
he'll forget that it's about Kate Buffalo.

Speaker 4 (11:03):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, and he'll be just talking about whatever.
Or is it more.

Speaker 1 (11:07):
Like like he does a big so he at one
point feels the need to sort of talk about movies
that might tangentially involve Kate Buffalo. So he spends a
lot of time on like like a lot of of
his generation that were interested in Africa, they're very interested
in Hemingway.

Speaker 4 (11:27):
Oh yeah, no doubt.

Speaker 1 (11:28):
So, rather than talk about Hemingway's run ins with Kate Buffalo, right,
he decides just to do a megabio.

Speaker 4 (11:38):
On Hemingway, gotcha.

Speaker 1 (11:40):
Or out of Africa? He has to talk about that.
So then he does a mega bio on like everyone
down to the financiers.

Speaker 4 (11:52):
Oh as opposed to the charts of it that it
was based on. He is like talking, he alludes.

Speaker 1 (12:00):
Of them, but he forgets that he's he forgets the hook.

Speaker 4 (12:04):
Right, and so then he's talking about the cinematographers and
whatnot and kind of just doesn't and just.

Speaker 1 (12:09):
For long stretches of time forgets about the subject at hand.
But then now and then it comes back to it
in remarkable fashion.

Speaker 4 (12:15):
Yeah, yeah, it sounds familiar. I think I flicked through.

Speaker 1 (12:20):
This book, but I don't write that way. I don't.

Speaker 4 (12:27):
His writing style is kind of unique. I think I
flicked through this book, and as I recall, there was
a good chunk of it dedicated to like the like
the evolutionary history of Cape Buffalo and their relationship with
other like ovids. Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 (12:44):
That's the part I liked. And here's the deal. If
I was just sitting down looking to read a book,
yeah I would like it. But I was just sitting
down looking to like get a gig Buffalo info rather
than reading the Wikipedia page, which.

Speaker 4 (12:56):
I've read twice for the cinematographers of h Yeah, so.

Speaker 1 (13:01):
Like my needs as a reader are not being adequately met.

Speaker 4 (13:07):
By the book, my needs as a centophile totally checking
that book has been said.

Speaker 1 (13:14):
I was reading it to cram for our trip.

Speaker 4 (13:17):
Yeah, yeah, no, I think I can recommend some other reading.
But yeah, you know, the thing about Cape Buffalo is
I was kind of you know, I read Hemmingway and
all that stuff. I mean, I've read, you know, a
huge amount of literature and nonfiction related to African hunting,
but I think nothing can kind of adequately prepare you

(13:38):
for like seeing your first one. Oh it's so cool.
I still remember the first one I ever saw, and
I just be like.

Speaker 1 (13:47):
I want to get charged, bad man? You say that now,
I've been looking at a lot of videos my body.
Just send me a video some guys getting beat up
by one the other day. I'll tell you the crew
that's gonna be worth he does not want to get.

Speaker 4 (13:59):
That's what I wanted to actually get hit though, So
what is your if you had to, like, if you
had to, I mean, other than just the ferocity of
the animal from those charge videos, what would be your
kind of like main takeaway as fire as just like
how it all goes down.

Speaker 1 (14:17):
Just that this again, because picture that is here. I
don't necessarily want to get charged. Blake. Yeah, I was
talking to my buddy yesterday the cent in my office,
and my buddies hunted them a couple of times and
they had an instance no charge, but they got they
were they were. He said, the trackers are tracking yep,
And all of a sudden, he guy holds his hand

(14:39):
up yeah and touches his ear, and they've been he said,
they've been following him for a good part.

Speaker 4 (14:43):
Of a day.

Speaker 1 (14:44):
Yeah, and they can hear somehow their trajectory on the track,
like for whatever reason, something out ahead of them had
bumped them or something gotcha. So he said, they're going
and they're they're following the trail, but all a sudden
you can hear them and they're coming at a good
cliff like something just happened, and they're coming yep, And

(15:07):
so he says they're way off and then they're like
in their lap, right yeah, and shoots one at thirty yards.

Speaker 4 (15:15):
Nice good range to shoot one out.

Speaker 1 (15:17):
In their lap. So then you're like he's like that,
like that scratched the itch because he's like I was
worried that it would be that like, oh, I could
you know, through the brush, I could kind of make
out like a shoulder blade and someone saying go go
go it. Yeah, and then you shoot and it's and

(15:38):
it's dead, and you never like you never were in
its presence.

Speaker 4 (15:42):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (15:43):
Yeah, and he felt like he he was.

Speaker 4 (15:45):
So happy to have it that they were they were
like there, Yeah, it was exciting. Yeah, you were like
they were there without the without the sort of yeah,
absolutely trying to kill you aspect of it.

Speaker 1 (15:57):
Yeah. I think he said, yeah, they were. He said
they were oblivious to their right but still he's like,
you can still just like like feel.

Speaker 4 (16:03):
It, Yeah, feel the intensity of being that close to them. Yeah,
I mean that's what that's kind of what I endeavor
to do on on safarias is get people a number
of those kind of like interactions, whether you end up
shooting one, you know, whether it's a you know, you
just kind of get up on a herd to just
get to get a look at what's in there. We

(16:25):
typically don't shoot from herds if we can avoid it,
but yeah, just having that that experience of being close
to them is definitely it's a big part of it
the charge piece is far less desirable standpoint. No, I know,
I know I picked that up. No for sure, for sure,
But I'm not going to pretend.

Speaker 1 (16:46):
I've had like little mix up with like minor mix
ups with grizzly bears, and I wouldn't give away as
much as you try to avoid it, and what did
you try to avoid it in hindsight? Right, I wouldn't
sacrifice any of those speriences in hindsight.

Speaker 4 (17:01):
No for sure, And I'm not going to pretend like
the prospect of a charge isn't part of the appeal
of hunting Cape buffalo, you know, it's, of course it is.

Speaker 1 (17:10):
It's how many grizzly how many grizzly bear attack people
have we interviewed? And when I say to them, there's
my two favorite questions in the world. Is a person
has wild pig problems? I say, if you could wave
a magic wand and all the wild pigs would be gone,
would you wave it? They always say no, not all
of them? Yeah, And then people like, do you wish

(17:30):
it wouldn't have happened? And people have a hard time
saying they wish it wouldn't have happened. The survivors have
a hard time saying. They're like, Eh, it's who I
am now.

Speaker 4 (17:40):
It's it's a survivors, yeah.

Speaker 1 (17:43):
For sure.

Speaker 4 (17:44):
But it is it's a good I mean, it's a way.
It's it's like a time and a place where you
feel something that I think outside of certain other like
walks of life, like being maybe a firefighter or a
cop or something like that, you get a kind of range.
What's a cop?

Speaker 1 (18:07):
Yeah, I mean other than those sort of that's more English,
isn't it. I mean we can go back.

Speaker 5 (18:17):
Firefighter.

Speaker 3 (18:24):
No.

Speaker 4 (18:25):
So outside of sort of those that narrow range of professions,
you get a you know, a sort of a series
of emotions and feelings that you're just not really going
to get elsewhere in day to day life. And that's
a good way to think. Yeah, I mean that's part
of the appeal. And then that does it leaves like
an indelible mark on you, you know, it kind of
changes your your perspective on stuff.

Speaker 1 (18:47):
How many times in your career have you felt like,
to whatever degree is something actually happened? How many times
in your career have you felt like a threat from
Kate Buffalo.

Speaker 4 (18:59):
A threat? Well, there's certainly been times. You know, I
used to hunt and I still do hunt in the
Cape Buffalo in the montane forests of northern Tanzania. It's
very high elevation, kind of these these mountains that come
out of the Rift Valley, and it's very dense vegetation.
It's you know, almost like you could you know, the

(19:20):
laymans to be caught like almost like jungle, and you
do inevitably get quite close to them in there, either
deliberately or or by accident. You'll bump into herds in
this kind of very very dense type stuff, and you'll
have situations where cows with calves and that will kind
of come out and like bluff charge you or or
sort of like run in your direction, and then you know,

(19:42):
a buffalo herd sometimes they'll sort of circle up and
like move a little closer to you, particularly in the evenings,
you know, as part of sort of like a defensive
posture that they kind of create. So I've certainly been
intimidated by Cape Buffalo a lot. But times where I
could say that I was genuinely at risk of like

(20:03):
serious injury or death probably less than ten more than
five how many years fifteen, So we got a thirty
three percent chance. Well, no, because you're doing a bunch
of times every year. Yeah, I'm doing a lot of
doing a lot of trips. Yeah it's not one trip
a year, it's not that lucrative, but yeah it's you know.

(20:29):
So coming back to your charge videos, my kind of
takeaway from them is a lot of them have a
little more chaos than I would typically want to see,
particularly if I was running the deal. But you know,
everyone can sort of armchair quarterback these things. But the
other one is just how difficult it is to adequately

(20:51):
prepare yourself for that moment, Like, even as a professional hunter,
how difficult it difficult it is to override like the
natural brain chemistry impulses that you get under that kind
of stress. Like it's just I look at the guy's
body language, I look at like how they like what

(21:13):
they're doing, and I can just see because I've been
in that situation, I could just feel like what they're feeling,
you know, And to me, it's like a mixture of
like you get this huge rush of adrenaline, right, but
you also get like this fight or flight thing. And
I think what happens is as a part of your
brain that like looks at the size and power of
the thing, and it's like fights off the table. It's

(21:35):
a flight this is a flight deal.

Speaker 1 (21:39):
Careful analysis, I've decided that this is.

Speaker 4 (21:43):
A flight deal. But the reality of it is you
have to override that because you're really your best and
pretty much only chance of survival with you know, some exceptions,
is to just stand as still as you can and
make a serviceable shot that's going to that's going to
knock that thing down or turn it because ron and

(22:04):
you're just gonna get flattened. Yeah, you're gonna get flattened
trying to dodge too. They've got incredible ability to sort
of like readjust their course and.

Speaker 1 (22:13):
They got hooks. They got hooks. Yeah, so he's got he's.

Speaker 4 (22:16):
Got, you know whatever, thirty six forty inches forty inches
spread of reach, which, yeah, if he moves his neck,
he can sort of rapidly readjust that to where they'll
grab you and they get you with those hooks. That's
what kills you. Sure gets man just a little bit.

Speaker 5 (22:34):
Rides off on its back.

Speaker 4 (22:36):
Yeah. Yeah, there was one recently where a guy was
like kind of flicked up and on its back. I
saw I saw a video of that. It's yeah, it's rough,
but I mean, yeah again, I can sit here and
say all these things, but in the moment, it's tough,
really tough.

Speaker 1 (22:55):
Random and I are working on a project right now
we do this. Have you heard of our stuff? Meet
American history? But did the Long Hunters in the Mountain Men?
We're doing buffalo hunters right now.

Speaker 4 (23:04):
Yeah, yeah, the the Long Hunt is one that was
fascinating to me. I really enjoyed that.

Speaker 1 (23:08):
All good. We're doing buffalo hunters, the commercial buffalo hide hunters. Particularly,
there's a couple of instances there where guys are getting
in that case where guys get trampled or tore up
by American buffalo American bison. What's happening to them is there,

(23:28):
they got a dozen of them on the ground, but
unbeknownst to them, one.

Speaker 4 (23:32):
Is it's the dead ones that kill you.

Speaker 1 (23:34):
Yeah, it's like whatever, and they're in there doing their
work and all of.

Speaker 4 (23:38):
A sudden, it's it's up, it's up, and you know,
like yeah, in their midst Yeah, And there's a handful
of accounts like this, but there's one we saw where
the guy.

Speaker 1 (23:48):
And all of it winds up on it because it's
the only way to get clear of its horns. Oh okay, yeah,
he gets like on it.

Speaker 4 (23:55):
Oh really it can't Yeah, I can't get it. Yeah,
it's like grabbing the tail, I guess of like you
know what I mean.

Speaker 1 (24:04):
Yeah, I think there's a mention of that too. A
guy got one's tail. Yeah, the guy wound up being
like he wound up and trying to get out of
its way on it and then I can't remember he
rode it till it collapsed or whatever the hell he did. Yeah.

Speaker 6 (24:16):
My favorite one is the guy who jumps on his
horse and then accidentally shoots his horse and.

Speaker 4 (24:23):
Oh dear, yeah, I'm I was. I always imagine that
buffalo hunting, you know, in the American West, is like
a longer range kind of pursuit, you know, with those
sharps rifles and these guys.

Speaker 1 (24:36):
Yeah, these guys are these guys, they're like, in their
preferred setup, they were two three hundred yards.

Speaker 4 (24:44):
Away, right, And is that I mean, obviously they were
capable marksmen, But is that because the herd would just
behave differently?

Speaker 1 (24:51):
Yeah. Yeah, they're relying on a level of confusion. They're
relying on the herd not really understand where the shooting's
come from.

Speaker 4 (24:58):
Gotcha. And then.

Speaker 1 (25:01):
A thing that really surprised me about in all this
research is, uh, two shots per animal was good? Okay,
you'd brag about it. Oh interesting, Ye, you'd brag about
two shots per animal. Okay, yeah, I would have assumed. Yeah,
that's interesting.

Speaker 4 (25:18):
Okay.

Speaker 6 (25:19):
There's a counts of guys making a stock and then
realizing they're too close, back backing out another one hundred
and fifty yards or something like Seth did with his dear.

Speaker 4 (25:30):
Ye, not intentionally.

Speaker 1 (25:34):
The philosophy of these guys, yeah, and it like evolves,
But the hunting philosophy of them is that you whatever
one seems to be, there's like there's a drift to
the group or whatever. So whatever one seems to be
the point, Yeah, they like to wound it.

Speaker 4 (25:52):
Oh the lead animal okay, yeah, and then the sless
the hoods rules.

Speaker 1 (25:57):
And then you watch and whoever seems most inclined to
take John to leave wound that one, yep. And then
whoever seems most inclined to leave and then hitting him
in a way that they don't run. And what's kind
of gruesome bo is it was sometimes intentionally hit him
in front of the hips.

Speaker 6 (26:15):
Yeah, there's one guy likes to shoot him in front
of the hips. They just arch their backs and kind
of just stagger around.

Speaker 4 (26:21):
Because then the other ones are like, well he's not leaving, yeah, gotcha. Okay,
so they like this one.

Speaker 1 (26:26):
Yeah, but it's still standing here. I mean there's like
a there's a.

Speaker 4 (26:29):
Real different ethetic and there's.

Speaker 1 (26:32):
No you know, the thing we've observed. I'm not going
to talk about it too much, right NOx, we'll talk
about a lot more later. But the thing we've observed
is out of the Long Hunters, you have like American heroes, yeah,
Daniel Boone primarily out of the Mountain Men, you have
Jim Bridger. Yep, the Hide Hunters produce no heroes.

Speaker 4 (26:52):
Yeah yeah, yeah, sort of they've cut they produced no heroes.

Speaker 8 (26:56):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (26:57):
Yeah, there's no American hero spun out of that gang.

Speaker 4 (27:02):
It took a different sort and took more of a rug.
Well yeah, just like a oh just there's a wickedness too.

Speaker 1 (27:11):
I mean yeah, it's it's just like what they their
skill set and all that, and their toughness is like undeniable.
It's like unparalleled what they could endure. But there's just
a brutality. Yeah, that emerges that you don't. Yeah, that's
sort of like an awareness ethical gap and an awareness,
an intense, deliberate spoken awareness that you're getting them all

(27:39):
like you knew, they knew.

Speaker 4 (27:44):
By and large they knew exactly what they were doing.
Yeah's and by and large did not care. It's just
a different gang man, a different gang. You know, a
lot of the great African professional hunters of of last
century were at different times kind of doubled as like

(28:06):
game control officers or were given the task of eradicating
a large amount of game, either to make way for
agriculture or human settlement, you know, relocating different tribal groups
or white settlement in East Africa. And yeah, it was

(28:27):
it's interesting how they could kind of go. I definitely
wouldn't suggest at all that they were able to kind
of go as down and dirty as those Buffalo guys,
like intentionally wounding stuff. Would I wouldn't suggest that that
was kind of part of the program. But they were
able to make this transition from being a very ethical,

(28:49):
very kind of very much focused on adhering to you know,
ethical constraints and game laws and things like that, to
going and kind of culling large numbers of l in
buffalo and other species to kind of make way from
for agriculture and then kind of seamlessly transitioned back into
very selective you know a lot of kind of European

(29:12):
sensibilities to it, kind of professional hunting. Yeah, which is
interesting to me. And what year was that Craper guys
coming up? Was that like in the is that like
the guys that were emerging around that.

Speaker 1 (29:22):
Sort of heyday that kind of like Hemingway heyday of
the Yeah, thirties and forties for sure, right.

Speaker 4 (29:28):
Up until so I would say from that, you know,
the early sort of pre First War, World War right
up until the kind of yeah, the heyday of the
fifties and then and then.

Speaker 1 (29:39):
The heyday was pulse. I was stupid to see the
thirties and forties because the headache was pulst World War two.

Speaker 4 (29:44):
Well, there was sort of two. I mean, it depends
on how you look at it. You know, there was.
To me, kind of defining the heyday is difficult because
there was different things that were good about different eras.
You know, the eighteen nineties were incredible as far it
was like Theodore Roosevelt. Yeah, well his was nineteen oh nine,
I think was his Safari and so, you know, just

(30:07):
before that, you know, things were Africa was so unexplored
and so wild. But on the you know, the downside
of that era was your firearm technology wasn't you know,
where it was post the first after the First World War,
and then also you know, your risk of dying of
some tropical disease or whatever, it was massive. You know,

(30:28):
the end of the First World War was a real
golden age because the the British then acquired what was
then Tanganika which is now Tanzania and sort of added
that to their you know, territory that they could hunt
and there was a lot of kind of exploration and
opening up of that country, which is fascinating. And obviously

(30:51):
the firearm technology had come away a long way as
a medical stuff. And then you have the arrival of
the motor car in the thirties, which really changed the
game as far as where you could get and that
was kind of what precipitated a lot of the change
where even the East African Professional Hunters Association saw the

(31:12):
riding on the wall that Safari was going to go
in a totally different direction because it would open up
this possibility for a new clientele that had less time
to dedicate it to it. Like the Roosevelt Safari was
a full year because there was you know, they had
some trucks and that forgetting, but there was no roads.
You know, the motor cars weren't widely available, so a
lot of it was just on foot. You know, they

(31:34):
would go out and hundreds of porters carrying their gear
and just kind of march out into the wilderness. Whereas
the motor car changed it where you could have shorter
duration safaris, you could get places quicker, you could you know,
the logistical aspect of it was more kind of under control.
And then you know, the arrival of the aeroplane, so

(31:56):
you know that really allowed people from the US and
you know Europe as well to kind of it just
became more accessible.

Speaker 1 (32:05):
Speaking of the airplane, you know what I can't get
into what's that? The book?

Speaker 4 (32:08):
You got me onto? Oh West the Night? Yeah, West
with the Knight. You canind of get into it. Struggling, Really,
you don't what you don't like Beryl's her right style.

Speaker 1 (32:19):
No stylistic I don't like her as a stylist. Yeah,
I didn't know there's a little bit of controversy that
there's like some people say.

Speaker 4 (32:25):
That she didn't write it.

Speaker 1 (32:26):
Yes, I don't know if I believe that or not.
I mean, it's not it doesn't look.

Speaker 4 (32:29):
To me like there. I think her achievements don't. It
doesn't take any if she didn't write it, doesn't take
anything away from her achievements.

Speaker 1 (32:38):
It happens to women because you know that there's a
there's an argument that Harper Lee didn't write to Kill
a Market it was written by true Mcapodi.

Speaker 4 (32:46):
Yeah, I've heard that.

Speaker 1 (32:48):
Anyhow, I can't get into it.

Speaker 4 (32:50):
Yeah, I'm sorry to hear that. It's a it's a
great book, but no, it's not. Well, it's a matter
of opinion.

Speaker 1 (33:02):
She was appreciative.

Speaker 4 (33:04):
She was an impressive woman, there's no question it. Sure,
and in an era where get to your point. I mean,
even the great Karen Blixen wrote under under the sort
of pseudonym of Isaac Dinnison when she first published Out
of Africa.

Speaker 8 (33:19):
What.

Speaker 1 (33:20):
Yeah, gotta figure I should have learned that from the book.
I'm the other disappointed.

Speaker 4 (33:25):
Well, yeah, I'm surprised you didn't go into that and
into those nuances.

Speaker 8 (33:31):
Uh.

Speaker 1 (33:31):
Oh, you know, we gotta do chili. These are chili
has a hunting story to share with us. Oh good
New Zealand hunts do a New Zealand accent.

Speaker 4 (33:40):
Uh, it is so hard.

Speaker 1 (33:41):
I mean, like, well you can't because then you gotta
word you got to use the C word every other word.

Speaker 5 (33:45):
Yeah, that's that's a hard tart one.

Speaker 4 (33:47):
That was.

Speaker 3 (33:48):
That was probably the funnest part about being on there,
because you.

Speaker 1 (33:50):
Know what when I came home from there, When I
came home from there, I had like I made the mistake.
I made the mistake one time of arguing my wife.

Speaker 4 (33:59):
Oh oh yeah, well I didn't know.

Speaker 7 (34:05):
We've talked about this on the podcast before.

Speaker 4 (34:10):
It doesn't go well.

Speaker 2 (34:11):
The energy of a kiwi is.

Speaker 1 (34:13):
Well, yeah, it's just like you can't. You can't do
their thing because their thing every it's like their thing
relies on like how we use the word and a
lot they use the sea word.

Speaker 4 (34:24):
It's but it's a term of endearment. Really, it's not.
It's not like it's much more universal.

Speaker 3 (34:29):
Yeah, I mean like there's ways that they say it,
Like if if you were to get called like a
right sea word, like what they called you that like oh,
he's being right whatever then like you're not you're in
the cross HEAs.

Speaker 2 (34:40):
I mean I've recently been.

Speaker 8 (34:44):
And they're Irish and they use it every other word,
but I guess I've not.

Speaker 3 (34:48):
I said it the other day here in Bozeman my
house is like, yeah, it's a terrible thing.

Speaker 1 (34:53):
That's why I can't go back.

Speaker 4 (34:54):
That's no good.

Speaker 5 (34:55):
I can go back just to be able to say
that's great.

Speaker 4 (34:58):
But yeah, I don't know if I could do the
like hey bro, hey you go you knowing that in
Australian it's that they sort of flatten their vows so
like I would say chips and they'd say chips.

Speaker 1 (35:10):
Oh yeah.

Speaker 3 (35:12):
I feel like they also are just they're more like
kind of calm about it, like they're like they're being so.

Speaker 4 (35:16):
Much more located.

Speaker 1 (35:17):
Do you're again with more confidence?

Speaker 4 (35:19):
Hey bro, hey gown.

Speaker 1 (35:21):
I don't think that's that's something different.

Speaker 4 (35:23):
That's like that's like I.

Speaker 3 (35:24):
Can't I can do the Australian like if I mean
you think, do you think, hey.

Speaker 1 (35:29):
Bro, hey bro is New Zealand is it more of
a hey bro, hey bro? Yeah, listen your body when
the mind and go hey bro, I don't know and
then ask him what do you think I'm doing right now?
I spent thirteen days there.

Speaker 3 (35:44):
I'm not gonna be like a subject matter expert.

Speaker 1 (35:46):
Hey bro, he's not gonna say I think you'd be
in New Zealand.

Speaker 4 (35:49):
No, hey bro, no, he's the zaying I declined to
do that America.

Speaker 1 (35:57):
Again.

Speaker 3 (35:58):
I can't Jesus.

Speaker 6 (35:59):
I gotta think of like a word or like a phrase,
don't do uh hey bro. All I can think of
is just lines from flight of the content.

Speaker 9 (36:06):
That's all I'm thinking right, just like banned meeting.

Speaker 3 (36:12):
So it's like you're talking about Honting, Like, so we're
gonna go over there. Yeah, I can't do it.

Speaker 1 (36:16):
It's very effeminate. I know they talk like they over there.

Speaker 3 (36:22):
The guys you're with the Yeah, I'm gonna get I'm
gonna get hemmed up. I know I am. Zan's gonna
watch this and he's gonna call me a right to.

Speaker 1 (36:32):
Talk like New Zealand. That's fine, but yeah, we we go.

Speaker 3 (36:36):
We went to New Zealand for thirteen days to do
a public land uh Tar hunt. That was that was
the main goal.

Speaker 2 (36:43):
Yep, for for me, you enlighten me about tar.

Speaker 3 (36:46):
Yeah, so I guess like the best way I could
describe tar to somebody like that hunts a lot in
North America would be to describe them as like kind
of like they're very similar to like a North American mountain, go,
like you know that's how I described like, same kind
of environment.

Speaker 1 (37:01):
Same horns, kind of weird, kind of weird bald faces.

Speaker 3 (37:04):
Yeah, weird bald faces, huge maine like kind of like
a lion's mane on their torso. And you know, based
off of like how old they are or or whatever
like that, the horns and the main will change, like
the older they get, I think the more blonde. From
what I was described or what I was told, it's
like the older they get, the more blonde. Like I

(37:26):
don't know if there'll be some Yeah, there'll be some pictures.
I think Phil will throw up there. But the funny thing.

Speaker 1 (37:33):
About do you want to see those pictures?

Speaker 7 (37:36):
Tuned into Radio Live that aired several weeks ago, because
that's what we'll be talking about.

Speaker 3 (37:39):
Oh okay, you put it on, but yeah, like the like, well,
I'll get into it. But from the tar that I shot,
it was about a five and a half year old
that the horns have rings, kind of like your big
horn sheet, so that's how you kind of age them.

(38:00):
And the tar that I shot was about five and
a half but it was super blonde, and Zane told me,
he's like, I've never seen a five and a half
year old with that color of a man, so I
thought that was kind of cool. When I shot mine,
there was a darker and older tar bowl they call
him bulls and Nannies. He was right next to the
one I shot, and uh, but for some reason, I

(38:21):
just found this one to be a lot more pretty.
I was more interested in the one that I shot.

Speaker 1 (38:25):
Did you say they call him so it's I don't.
I didn't remember this. It's bulls and nannies, not billies
and nannies, not bulls and cows.

Speaker 4 (38:32):
It's bulls and nannies.

Speaker 5 (38:33):
Yells.

Speaker 4 (38:34):
And then.

Speaker 3 (38:37):
Yeah that's.

Speaker 1 (38:40):
But yeah, so.

Speaker 3 (38:42):
Chilly.

Speaker 1 (38:42):
Look at that look good?

Speaker 4 (38:44):
Nice one?

Speaker 2 (38:44):
Yeah great, Yeah, that's that's beautiful. You sent me some photos.

Speaker 8 (38:50):
It looks like the American alpine too, and I got
a darker face and then really blonde.

Speaker 3 (38:55):
Talking about chilli or the animal, yeah, it's my spirit
animal that things.

Speaker 5 (39:03):
Probably I like the Southern hemisphere, it does.

Speaker 3 (39:06):
I also want to point out that that's not where
I mean, that's not where I shot that thing. That's
we're kind of like in the river bottom. We had
to get that thing flown out because I couldn't we
couldn't physically get.

Speaker 2 (39:20):
There flown out. Oh that's very helpful.

Speaker 1 (39:23):
I Well, so like I shot fell where you couldn't
retrieve it.

Speaker 3 (39:26):
Well, yeah, like we thought we could get up there
from where we were standing, and then so I shot it,
So we get we get up to where we go.

Speaker 1 (39:34):
I want.

Speaker 3 (39:35):
I wanted to find these tar and we found them
pretty early in the morning, hoping they would come back down,
but they never did. And uh, when I shot I
hit it. I showed Zane or the photos in the
video of me shooting it, and he goes, I don't
think that we're going to be able to get up there?

Speaker 9 (39:51):
And is that what this picture is, Chili?

Speaker 4 (39:52):
Are you pointing up there?

Speaker 1 (39:53):
Yeah?

Speaker 3 (39:54):
So, like my body's kind of in front of the mountaintop.
But we thought we would be able to zigzag our
way up there and at least try to try to
locate it the next day because we had I think
I shot it with about an hour left of daylight left,
but I showed.

Speaker 5 (40:11):
Zany's just like, yeah, it's not worth it.

Speaker 3 (40:13):
So the next morning Scott from Helly Rural Flights, he
came out and uh, and he picked it up and
so he had to get it. And like when Zane
got back after they dropped it off back at camp,
Zams is like, there's absolutely no way you were to
get up there because it it from I shot it
and it fell pretty much on this ice shelf. And

(40:37):
Zane said, if like if it would have like slid
two more yards, it would have kind of went all
the way to the bottom and you would.

Speaker 1 (40:42):
Be able to get it.

Speaker 3 (40:42):
But he's like, if on foot, there's just absolutely no way.

Speaker 1 (40:47):
So but oh, that's sweet. That's your camp.

Speaker 4 (40:49):
That's were you on the eastern or the western side
of the Alps. We were on the eastern side, eastern side.

Speaker 1 (40:55):
Nice.

Speaker 4 (40:55):
Yeah, I'd done that hunt grueling, yeah.

Speaker 3 (40:58):
And just it's that's such a pretty placed I mean,
we we didn't have a lot of options like where
we could go. I mean that that super greenside kind
of off to my left there, that was like the
main mountain we were hunting. But sorry, my watch is
going crazy, but we could kind of go around to

(41:20):
the right in between the snow Capped Mountain and in
the green Side Mountain. There we go up there, but
there's a glacier in between those two mountains, and there's
a great glacier off to my off my right shoulder too,
so we couldn't really go anywhere other than straight up
the mountain or off to the left, so we were
kind of limited. But it was just unreal country. Like, yeah,

(41:41):
we drank water from the glacier on the glacier rivers,
like that was super fun. That was from where I
shot and down at the bottom you can see the
kind of screen field that's where we were camping. Yeah,
super abrasive and super like intimidating country. Like I wasn't
I knew it was gonna be tough, but I don't.
I don't think I was like mentally prepared as much

(42:03):
as I should have been.

Speaker 5 (42:04):
But uh, yeah, no, it was.

Speaker 3 (42:07):
It was a great trip, a lot of fun stories
that that was definitely like a hunt of a lifetime
for me. It was interesting learning about like tar and
like how they how they hunt down there, and like
like private land, public land and all that all that stuff,
like there is public there's kind of like three main
ways to hunt that you got like your your kind

(42:27):
of your game ranches, which would be like your c
A ranch or your Galt ranch, staying at a lodge,
hunting private land, and then you got your public and
then you got like free range private. So the guys
will like, if you want to shoot a stag, guidled
by the stag and then put it out on private
and then you just go hunt it, So say.

Speaker 1 (42:45):
That again, Oh yeah, I got you, you know.

Speaker 4 (42:49):
Deal, Yeah, which is what two.

Speaker 3 (42:51):
Of the guys did for the stag and fallow. So
but that was fun to kind of do that. Like
I didn't I didn't hunt stag follow bit.

Speaker 1 (43:00):
You didn't run in any shammies shamah.

Speaker 3 (43:04):
Uh not not on No. When there was a guy
that was with us and he opted in to shoot
a private lantar via helicopter and so he's got he
just got flown in and hunted a tar that way.
He They said that they when they were doing that,

(43:24):
they saw some shammy on this private land. But I
wasn't with them at the time, and but yeah, apparently
they're kind of the numbers of of tar and shammy
from what I was told in the area that we
were in there kind of getting decimated.

Speaker 1 (43:42):
Because that's intentional because the I mean they helicopter gun
him to reduce the numbers.

Speaker 5 (43:47):
Well, yeah, so Zay called it tarmageddon.

Speaker 3 (43:49):
Back in the day, there was just so many tar
and they made like this helo the HeLa hunting legal
and like you could do that, and so they just
like absolutely decimated the population. And you could argue, I
mean that's good and bad because they were overrunning and
they were very much overpopulated. But when I talked to

(44:10):
like Zaye, he goes, yeah, it kind of makes it
like hard when you have clients and you're going into
a public spot like we probably saw I don't know,
twenty tar up on top of this mountain, and he goes,
you told us he's like ten years ago there'd be
hundreds on this mountain, and so like, yeah, you could
argue both sides of the story. But yeah, from from

(44:32):
what Zam was saying is like he's not seen the
numbers that he would like to see.

Speaker 1 (44:37):
There's often that tension with these with places Australia speaking
for your homeland, New Zealand, Hawaii, Okay, where you have
non native populations of game and you have like the
environmental movement or more like like kind of like the

(45:00):
radical end of the environmental movement wants to see them
all eliminated, which puts them in an odd position because
they're arguing for you know, it's it's like they're arguing
for like sort of the death of the animals, pointing
out that they're non native. And then you have the
hunters who are like being like, yeah, I control is fine,
but I don't want them eliminated because by this point

(45:22):
you have a century or more of people who've grown
up with the resource. Yep. You know, you hear like
it's pretty commoner, you know, and and and you get
it in Hawaii, where there's there's groups will buy like
preservation groups will buy stuff, and they want the goats gone,
the sheep gone, the hogs gone. And then you got
like Hawaiian dudes who hunt, and they're on the end

(45:45):
of being like, man, you're kind of like destroying our
our resource. And we don't really care if they're technically
native or non native or whatever. They're here, They've been here,
We've always hunted them. My grandpa hunted them. Don't tell
me they don't belong.

Speaker 3 (45:58):
Yeah, yeah, like I think like the big issue down there,
Zan called him greenies, you know, but the their argument
is that there's a where they like what the tar eat,
and then in tar's case, they're eating like vegetation. They're
they're just destroying like a plant and taking it out.
So yeah, when term again happened, that was like the

(46:21):
main the main argument was like, well they're destroying and
this plant and this this grassland.

Speaker 1 (46:26):
And plant plant biodiversity. That's the argument Hawaii to plant biodiversity.

Speaker 3 (46:31):
Yeah, and yeah, I think you just got to have
a certain level of conservation when it comes to that.
You can't like decimate the population, but you can't like
let them run free too, so you gotta be well.

Speaker 4 (46:41):
And I don't know how well Himalayan tar are doing
in their native range either. It would be a shame
to lose that that population. And I mean it's certainly
I don't know if there is a huntable population of
them in their native range.

Speaker 2 (46:55):
They might be Yeah, southern Northern Indian, a western Bhutan
and Nepal.

Speaker 4 (47:02):
Yeah, yeah, and I wonder if there is a is
a huntable population there. I'm not sure, but I somehow
doubt that if there is it's very large. So it's
important I think, to have you know, have that kind
of repository of genetics there in New Zealand. But yeah,
that preservationist kind of impulse to just like get rid

(47:22):
of it take it back, especially in a place like
New Zealand has no native mammal seems a little strong.

Speaker 3 (47:28):
Yeah, it's either super far left or super far right.
I mean, but I don't know as far as like
the hunting goes. Like it was. It was tough and
it wasn't like ideal from Zane's perspective, but it was
still like a really great hunt. Like watching tar like
just up on top of these mountains and doing their
thing like that was it was unreal, Like I said,
triple a lifetime.

Speaker 1 (47:52):
Well, your observation about mountain goats, it's like more likely
that that's even more like mountain goats umbers you saw. Yeah,
you would climb up and be like, oh, there's two
hundred billies up there, right, You're like you're like chasing
like a billy or two right, you know, And obviously
depends on like what sort of like where you're at.

Speaker 3 (48:13):
You know, like one area is going to have a
bunch of them and the next might not. It's like
it's typical for any sort of hunting that you do.
But yeah, I guess I kind of had this false
narrative like going in to New Zealand. You know, I've
never I've never paid for a hunt like this, I've
never done anything like this, and so I kind of
had this this ideology that like I'm gonna go there
and I'm going to be looking at two hunder tar

(48:34):
every single day. Oh and like quickly learned that that
was not the case. But I mean it was still
it was like it was more authentic. I would say,
like I got like, obviously I was in New Zealand,
but I felt like I was back here in Montana
trying to find an elk or you know, a bear
or something like that, which was which I enjoyed. It

(48:54):
made it made it feel a lot more genuine.

Speaker 4 (48:57):
Absolutely so it was it was good well done, good.

Speaker 1 (49:00):
Work, chili.

Speaker 8 (49:01):
Yeah did you get to do you get to bring
what do you get to bring back and not bring
back and eat or try or not?

Speaker 3 (49:08):
So so you can bring to mynology. You can bring
the meatback. We we did not we ate a lot
of it down there for for days, but then we
just donated the meat. The reason being like it's just
you know, like bags were super expensive, like to like
I would probably had to bring bring three additional bags
and like just for two bags down there, it was

(49:29):
already four hundred. But oh it was good. I mean
I didn't there's nothing about it that was just like
if I were to eat this again, like this is
gonna be this is tar. I mean it was a
red meat. It was you know, wild game meat, and
but I thought it was good. Uh, I definitely need
it again.

Speaker 2 (49:46):
Adjacent to anything else you've tried, Like you know.

Speaker 3 (49:49):
Nothing really stood out to me about it, like I mean, yeah,
I mean like it wasn't that much like I would
probably say, yeah, Clo, I'm I don't know, maybe like
an elk ish, but like not like if you have
like a really good elk, like you know it's elk,
I'd say it's like your average elk.

Speaker 1 (50:09):
I mean to me.

Speaker 3 (50:11):
But ye as far as like what we can bring back,
like you can bring I'm gonna bring back like the
high I'm gonna get a shoulder mount and then I'm
gonna keep the euro Mount as well, so I'll replicate
the horns, put those on the shoulder mount and then
keep the euro mount.

Speaker 1 (50:23):
But yeah, who's gonna stuff it for you?

Speaker 3 (50:25):
Well, I see, I'm gonna talk to John.

Speaker 1 (50:27):
Hey, he's stuffing a couple of things for us right now.

Speaker 3 (50:30):
Yeah, hey's taxi ar me. I'm gonna talk to him.
I don't really have a taxi army guy, because I've
I've I don't even have a shoulder mount. All my
euro mounts I do myself. So like this is a
whole new experience for me as well.

Speaker 1 (50:42):
So he's gonna do that big beaver. Yeah, and then
uh yeah the Boston with the boys. Guys, they want
that beaver done, like what do they call that three
point stance in football? Yeah, they want a beaver done
in a three point football stance. And then he's gonna
stuff my Uh, he's gonna do the rug with my kids.
First bear wallhanger rug? Got you stuffed in head?

Speaker 3 (51:05):
I wanted to do a wallhanger rug like that mountain
go there.

Speaker 1 (51:08):
But well that's what I. Have you ever hear the
writer Ben Wallace? I have not you ever hear the
book The Billionaires Vinegar?

Speaker 3 (51:15):
I have not?

Speaker 1 (51:16):
Are you aware of the fourth Coming book? About the
guy that invented bitcoin, the mysterious.

Speaker 3 (51:22):
Yeah, definitely familiar with that.

Speaker 1 (51:24):
That fourth Coming book.

Speaker 3 (51:25):
Yeah, fourth coming book.

Speaker 1 (51:26):
He wrote that.

Speaker 3 (51:27):
Okay, well.

Speaker 1 (51:30):
I gave him my tar rug. Yeah, you've told me
this story, and I reached out recently just want to
just make sure it wasn't in some storage unit. And
I'm like, hey, while I got you, how's that tar
rug sitting right here in my office? Love it?

Speaker 3 (51:46):
Like I kind of told you that he that he
likes it. You're not getting any because.

Speaker 1 (51:51):
If he said, oh, you know, it's in the storage unit,
I would have gotten it back. But he still likes it. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (51:56):
I I wanted to do that, but I talked to
when I was talking with Zaying, I'm like, hey, you know,
like would that be like I don't know if because
they're pretty connected with those guys are pretty connected with
those animals, you know, they they have like honorable ways
of doing things and and uh so I was like, hey,
what would be like the best way to kind of

(52:17):
like just honor this animal, Like what would you do
with this thing? And he's like, well, honestly, i'd shoulder mounted.
Like I think a shoulder mount is a good shoulder
Mountain is a good representation of like this animal. And
he goes, not a lot of people do the rug thing.
He's like, it's not it's not a bad way to
do it. He goes, but like with yours, since my
man was so blonde, and he goes like, you're gonna

(52:40):
if you rug it out, you're gonna cut through the
middle of that and then you're gonna flay it out
and it's not gonna look the same. So to kind
of get yeah, to kind of I guess, capture the
essence of that that creature, he said, shoulder mount So that's.

Speaker 1 (52:56):
What I did.

Speaker 4 (52:56):
Where you're gonna hang it right.

Speaker 3 (52:58):
Above my Bed's good idea, right above the bed.

Speaker 1 (53:03):
Watch his transition. Well, I can't transition out of your story.
Oh is your story done? Oh? One last question is
that that co whticle tire? Is it tuned up?

Speaker 4 (53:11):
Good?

Speaker 1 (53:12):
Playing good for you?

Speaker 3 (53:14):
You know, I don't know where that thing's at, to
be honest, it's not.

Speaker 1 (53:17):
It's not playing good right now? No, what do you what?

Speaker 3 (53:20):
What is that the transition?

Speaker 1 (53:22):
No, there's a follow up question. Uh so I don't
I don't have a transition out of that. But I'm
going to do a thing, and then you'll see that
it transitions into something else. I sent crena article the
other day. It's actually a tragedy. Right, But there's a
there's a man. There's there's a guy in Florida and

(53:43):
a law enforcement officer described his criminal history as meth
This is a quote quote meth arrest, meth arrest, meth arrest,
meth arrest, meth arrest.

Speaker 9 (53:55):
So he does some myth.

Speaker 4 (53:56):
Yeah, doesn't leave to the imagination.

Speaker 3 (54:00):
Now where the story is going.

Speaker 1 (54:02):
He had some kind of psychotic break, swam a lake,
like like law enforcement was after him. He like swam
a lake and gets attacked by an alligator in the lake.
Comes out. They tried, I think they tried to tase him.

Speaker 2 (54:24):
Didn't work. He was unbothered by that.

Speaker 1 (54:28):
So here is he's been attacked by an alligator in
his arm, shrugged it off. Well, they ended up they
ended up having to kill the guy.

Speaker 2 (54:37):
Yeah, because he tried to take the firearms off.

Speaker 5 (54:40):
What did they do the alligator?

Speaker 1 (54:43):
There's no follow about the alligator.

Speaker 3 (54:47):
It's a great question, thank you.

Speaker 4 (54:49):
Impressive that he managed to get free. Well that that baby,
you know, I know what the headline is.

Speaker 1 (54:57):
Bitten by alligator, man is killed after charging at deputies.
Sheriff says. Then the authorities say that Timothy Shoals, forty two,
of Mulberry, Florida, swam across an alligator filled lake before
a violent encounter with deputies in the neighborhood. Most guys,

(55:18):
that's gonna take the fight out of them.

Speaker 4 (55:20):
Yeah, I would think so, I would think.

Speaker 8 (55:22):
I message back that I thought he was on bath
salts or something. I think, uh, or just there's something
real strong too.

Speaker 3 (55:31):
Yeah, I guess, I don't know.

Speaker 1 (55:39):
He was trying to get a shotgun out of a
cop car. Yeah, I'll get you a shot yep. But
the whole, the main gist of the article is that
you get into it late and get attacked by a
gator and come out fighting.

Speaker 4 (55:54):
Yeah. Yeah, but juice him up made an altered state.

Speaker 9 (55:59):
That's not impressive if you're on math.

Speaker 4 (56:01):
I know not.

Speaker 1 (56:02):
That's not the word I'm looking for. I mean, just
like it's it's extraordinary, as evidenced by the fact that
it was reported started that like the article like that
catches a fellow's eye, Yeah, the New York Times. Yeah,

(56:22):
but like in my mind, once you read about it.

Speaker 9 (56:24):
You're like, oh, he's on myth and I just like, hmm,
it just kind of doesn't make it seem as cool.

Speaker 4 (56:34):
I don't know that cool is something.

Speaker 1 (56:36):
I had my cool chart out and I was trying
to figure out where to plot.

Speaker 5 (56:44):
To press less cool.

Speaker 1 (56:45):
So so just to just to get into your head here, yeah,
let's do it. It winds up that this guy is
stone cold, sobered, stone cold, ten am Monday morning. Yeah,
gets attacked by a game and then tries to kill
some cops. You'd put that like, if you.

Speaker 4 (57:03):
Know this is just the gator thing.

Speaker 9 (57:05):
Oh okay, like you said about how you just shrugged
off a gator attack.

Speaker 1 (57:10):
Oh, just the ability to shrug off a gator attack,
that's what you made it sound like.

Speaker 9 (57:14):
That's what what was like interesting to you about this.

Speaker 4 (57:20):
Kind of been very big of a gator.

Speaker 7 (57:22):
I don't but a guy struggling off a gator attack
on meth is not that impressive to me.

Speaker 9 (57:28):
It doesn't seem that cool. I understand the cop the
whole cop thing is not cool.

Speaker 1 (57:32):
I understand.

Speaker 5 (57:35):
Yeah, it's like charge the cops won.

Speaker 8 (57:38):
So if the guy is super charged by meth and
doesn't feel that his arm has been bitten by a gator,
that is less surprising that he would shrug it off
or not even be all there to experience it, versus
if a guy were sober, and would you know.

Speaker 1 (58:00):
When I first read this, I thought it was about
a man. Then I started thinking it was about a gator.
Now I think it's about a drug. And you know
where my head's going. You know where my head's going next.
And this is the sad part, And this is like
why stories like this their eyes heart is like somewhere
as a heartbroken mother.

Speaker 4 (58:19):
Yeah, yeah, I'll tell you one other thing. No, if
it's been a nile crocodile, he wouldn't have he wouldn't
have got out of the out of the swamp. They're there.
They are entirely more ruthless species than a gator as

(58:40):
far as I can tell.

Speaker 1 (58:41):
Give me some specs on a now crocodile.

Speaker 4 (58:44):
Oh man, I mean they're they're massive creatures and I
think that from what I can tell, they're one of
those things similar to like I think i've heard this
about like bass or over a certain size. For every
inch they grow in length, they grow in girth. So
the big ones are incredibly girthy. I mean I shot

(59:05):
a fourteen foot one time and kind of like you
could barely sit on its back.

Speaker 1 (59:10):
It was so so broad.

Speaker 4 (59:13):
We have one. We have one where you're going in
Loganzo Game Reserve and Loganzo Game Reserve. There is a
man eating crocodile currently on the on the loose. His
name's barda Wayway, which in Kiswahili kind of trans it

(59:34):
would kind of translate to like not yet you in
so far as like he hasn't gotten you yet. Last year,
last year he ate five fishermen.

Speaker 1 (59:44):
No, yeah, but how is he catching the people?

Speaker 4 (59:47):
He follows their canoes and he waits till they get
out to unload their fishing nets, and then he nails them.

Speaker 2 (59:55):
Steve wants to go after him.

Speaker 4 (59:57):
Now he's got five people five last year. I don't
know what the tally is now. I'll have to check
in with the guys and see where we're at. But yeah,
he's been absolutely terrorizing this village. I tried to get him.
I think I saw him. I'm certain it was him.
Because a big crocodile like that, they're quite territorial. I
doubt there'd be another one of that size. In the

(01:00:18):
same area, but he wouldn't come to my bait. He
was too kg, too clever.

Speaker 1 (01:00:24):
Huh.

Speaker 3 (01:00:25):
So, what's like like the processes the hunters are just
like keeping an eye out for him, and like they say,
I'm shooting them.

Speaker 5 (01:00:31):
Or well, what's like the plan to sew well?

Speaker 4 (01:00:35):
First, first off, we weren't really aware of his existence
until we did a kind of river based anti poaching patrol,
which we do frequently, but we kind of pushed it
into some areas where we hadn't done one in a while,
and as a process, we caught some kind of guys
violating the fishing laws. And you know, while they were

(01:00:59):
kind of tained, our guys got to chatting with them
and they sort of were telling this story about this
particular man eating croc and so that kind of peaked
my interest and I wanted to wanted to hunt him.

Speaker 1 (01:01:12):
Can you just just to help me, Yeah, understand this
whole thing. Can you describe what is the village and
how is it positioned, and what is the sort of
like vibe in the village.

Speaker 4 (01:01:22):
Yeah, so it's on the edge of the game reserve,
so it's in our hunting area, but it's outside of
the boundaries of the game reserve itself. So there's an
old German railway that kind of goes between the game
reserve and Ugala National Park and then that kind of
crosses a bridge, and where that crosses a bridge, there's
a village there. It's a fishing village, you know, the

(01:01:44):
people are there's some little bit agriculture and some other
stuff going.

Speaker 1 (01:01:47):
What are they netting there?

Speaker 4 (01:01:48):
They're netting anything and everything, but primarily the species are lungfish, catfish,
and tilapia, So.

Speaker 1 (01:01:57):
They're netting him for a commercial market, personal.

Speaker 4 (01:02:00):
Use a combination of both. So they subsist off them
and then they dry and kind of smoke the surplus,
and then then that gets transported to other kind of
population centers where it's sold. How many people are in
a village like that, I would guess there's in that
one fifteen hundred two thousand, oh okay, So it's a

(01:02:22):
good it's a good number of gotcha. And so they
kind of they they go up and down the river.
There's portions of the game reserve waters that they're not
supposed to be in that they occasionally kind of violate,
and there's there's laws about the size of nets they
can use, the types of nets they can use, the
kind of the you know, the amount of nets and
hooks they can deploy and stuff like that.

Speaker 1 (01:02:43):
So it's pretty like what would be recognizable to an Americans.

Speaker 4 (01:02:46):
Control fish regular yep. Fishing regularly, absolutely yep. They require
a permit to fish, so they have to you know,
they have to actually go and purchase a fishing permit
that gives them a window of time in which they're
allowed to fish. So it's it's a controlled fishery and
we work together with TAWA Tanzania Wildlife Management Authority to
kind of you know, keep tabs on that that fishery

(01:03:08):
and how it's going, how it's impacting species, and it's
an important ecosystem. There's obviously the crocodiles there which are
an important species, the fish, the birds, the African clawless
otter in that waterway as well.

Speaker 1 (01:03:20):
Whenever you heard of that beautiful Can I tell you
a thing that I'm worried about that someone told me,
someone told me I want to get back with crocodile.
But just what you just mentioned that like clawless arter,
someone told me that when you go to Africa for
the first time, hm uh, you're so like overwhelmed and

(01:03:41):
exhausted from the mental processing overwhelm that did it that
you lose it, that you lose that, like you lose
everything that's in the moment because you're so like tripped out.
I could see that and the like only later when
I got home, was I like able to kind of yeah,

(01:04:01):
because like I was just overwhelmed. Yeah, it will be
nice because you'll be documenting it, so you'll be able
to revisit a lot of that, which is cool. But
I think I can see that. I mean I can
see there's certainly times even me, just the the wonder
of it all, you know, just gets you.

Speaker 4 (01:04:18):
I Mean how big I would say, roughly the size
of our kind of you know, the North American Yeah, yeah,
about that size. Back to this crocodile. So yeah, so
we found out about him the way we typically hunt crocodile,
you can you can certainly have like sort of incidentally,

(01:04:41):
like you'll be driving along the river or walking along
the river and you'll see a sandbar or like a
termite mound or something close to the river where they'll
have slid up on and be kind of sunning themselves.
And then you can kind of make a stalk and
try and position yourself for a shot like that. A
lot of times will will put bait. So we'll drive
some kind of heavy steaks into the river bank if

(01:05:03):
there's not a tree or a rock or something to
anchor to, and put some some stinking meat there to
draw them in. The big advantage of that is you
can really control where you put it, because the problem
with a crocodile unless you make the perfect shot that
destroys its central nervous system, like instantly, one flick of

(01:05:25):
that tail, if that gets them back into the main
stem of the river where there's flow, and these rivers,
you know, the Ugala River has significant flow. It's gone,
he's gone never you'll never find it.

Speaker 1 (01:05:35):
So you hit them in the brain, right in the brain.

Speaker 4 (01:05:38):
Yeah, you try to sort of that we call it
like the smile where they're kind of there, you know,
their their jawline kind of goes like this, just above
that and kind of between this little little horn on
their head. You sort of try to shoot them there
and it kind of if you do it correctly, it
really pops their skull open. I mean it's quite it's
a bit you know, it's quite visceral. But then you

(01:06:01):
know they'll flick around a little bit, but they won't
with their cash. They're done, Yeah, they're done. And then
whereas you know, there are times when you can if
you miss that shot, you know, like a next shot
something like that, where you fail to sever the spine,
or you you know, you hit them somewhere else, they're
going to just flick right back into that deep water
and you'll never find them even if they die, just

(01:06:22):
get swept away.

Speaker 1 (01:06:23):
So when you bait them, are you trying to get
him the moment he finds it, or is he going
to start hitting the bait.

Speaker 4 (01:06:29):
He'll start hitting the bait, So you need to have
a good look at him. I mean, you know, there's
there's two ways, you know, and you've got a big
crop coming. I mean one, you know, just the sort
of size and scale of it, you can I find
it very hard to judge them through binoculars. I've got
to kind of look with my eyes. So you don't
want to be too far away for that reason. Also,
you know you're shot, you know you've got to you've
got to put it in a little slot like that

(01:06:51):
sort of three inch by three inch, so top of
a single serving yogurt contander. Yeah, exactly, that's kind of
what we're talking about. So you've got to be you
want to be closer for that. But aside from that,
you know when oftentimes you'll put these baits and you'll
get a lot of small crocs on them. You know,
there'll be five, six, seven, sometimes ten, like anywhere from
six footers, eight footers down to three four footers kind

(01:07:13):
of splashing around making a lot of noise, tearing this
beta part. But when the big boys coming, like they
can they can sense it, whether they make vibrations or
vocalizations in the water something like that, these crocs split
the little ones, will one big man evaporate, Yeah, and
then you'll see this sort of head come up. They
have like this big it's like a tennis ball on

(01:07:34):
the end of their nose. And then you know, you'll
you'll usually let them sort of get comfortable drag themselves
out of Ideally you have the bait where they have
to sort of drag themselves out of the water a
little bit to kind of expose that shot. Yeah, but
that's impressive and.

Speaker 1 (01:07:51):
Those water ways, is it inadvisable just to be down
weighing around on the edge.

Speaker 4 (01:07:56):
I you can, you can do it. I mean there's
area is like it just depends on how the water looks. Right,
if you've got sort of a bit of a shallow flat,
you could you can splash around there.

Speaker 1 (01:08:07):
No, he's not there.

Speaker 4 (01:08:08):
Yeah, you know you'd see him coming. You know, you'd
have to make a wake. But like if there was
a big pool, I wouldn't I wouldn't go near it.
He could be just waiting, waiting there in ambush. You'd
have a hard time seeing him. You won't know till
he's got a hold of you and they move like lightning.

Speaker 9 (01:08:23):
To what what do you shooting those things with?

Speaker 4 (01:08:25):
Like what rifle you well, whichever one you shoot the best? Scope? Yeah,
scope rifles ideal, Yeah, whatever you shoot, I mean typically
will sometimes when you're sneaking up on them. You know,
you'll you'll be following buffalo buffalo tracks by the river
and it's okay, there's a massive croc on that sandbar
and the guy's got his four sixteen. That's what you're

(01:08:45):
shooting it with. Gotcha in an ideal world like where
I had all the time in the world to set
it up kind of build my blind, get everything staged.

Speaker 3 (01:08:53):
You know, six.

Speaker 4 (01:08:57):
Does the job again with that shot, You're not you're
not trying to kind of achieve penetration. You're just trying
to pop that brain open.

Speaker 1 (01:09:08):
Talk about sharp pleaseman, not to keep buffalo.

Speaker 4 (01:09:11):
I'm I am a firm proponent of the shoulder shot.
So kind of come up that leg about a third
of the sort of you know, third of the way
up the body from the belly line, and put it
right on the shoulder there in the like on the
shot on the bone, not behind the shoulder, on the bone,
break that shoulder. Because and this is something that that's changed,

(01:09:33):
there will be some of the old school guys will
very much disagree with me, and I will would argue
that their thinking is rooted in a different era where
high quality bullets weren't available. There was just a lot
of junk, and so one would always try to shoot
behind the shoulder to make sure that you got adequate penetration. Now,

(01:09:55):
if you're shooting something along the lines of a Barn's
TSX swift a frame that type stuff, it'll more than
adequately penetrate that shoulder bone and then you break them down.
They don't go as far. You know, it's it's a
lot of trauma. A busted shoulder is really going to
slow them down, hitting them right and the shoulder right
in the shoulder, everything below the scapula or below the scapula, yeah,

(01:10:17):
sort of somewhere near that joint, you know, somewhere where
that scapula kind of joins on to the to the
other bone there. Let's say he's cording away from you,
cording away from you, you're gonna so what I like
to talk about, I like say, imagine you have X
ray vision, and so if you can't break the on
side shoulder, shoot the off side shoulder. Well, if he's

(01:10:37):
come with dead nuts, dead on. It depends on how
he's holding his head. But when they typically sort of
if they're a little bit curious, you know, they won't
you know, they're sort of they've seen something, they'll kind
of hold their head in a fairly I would say,
fairly neutral position. It's not too up, it's not too down.
Unless sometimes if they're they'll you know, they'll be laying

(01:10:57):
under some vegetation kind of in the shade, and they'll
still and up and to see you, they'll have to
sort of dip their head to see under the vegetation.
In that instance, it can be tough, but typically I
sort of just go right below the chin kind of
into you're trying to get it into this kind of
clavigal gas, and that's not inadvisable. It's not my favorite,
but sometimes if it's that or nothing right, like if

(01:11:18):
it's if you've got to make that shot. But I'll
tell you one thing about that shot. When it's done properly,
it like it really rocks their world. So if they
don't react to how I want, like how I would
expect them to, that'll be a time where I'd consider
backing up, because what can happen with that shot. If
it's off. It'll kind of hit the sternum, which on

(01:11:40):
those things is sort of like a you know, a
very V shaped and obviously extremely robust piece of bone
with a lot of sort of sagging skin hanging on it.
And what that can do. The sagging skin will kind
of set up the bullets so it really mushrooms quicker
than it would on a sort of a torte like flank,
and then it will hit that stern and kind of

(01:12:00):
go along sort of track along the sternam and wind
up kind of in the arm pit, if you know
what I mean, having done no damage to the vitals,
you'll get some blood. You follow that thing forever and
it's it's it's a bad deal. So I don't. I
don't love the frontal shot, but I don't. It's not
off the table. It's not like we never do that.

(01:12:22):
It's something that sometimes you've got to make it happen.

Speaker 1 (01:12:24):
M hm.

Speaker 4 (01:12:25):
And no Texas heart shots on a follow up shot, yes,
Like as a first shot, absolutely not. But as as
a follow up the Portuguese brain shot, I've never heard.

Speaker 1 (01:12:45):
Imagine it's running away.

Speaker 6 (01:12:47):
That's why it's important to travel people from other cultures.

Speaker 1 (01:12:50):
So because you learn about short placement.

Speaker 4 (01:12:58):
What's better on that follow up? Though? If they do
spin and turn away, then your classic Texas Hartscher is
trying to break that hip is so on.

Speaker 1 (01:13:06):
A follow up like, once you make your first careful shot,
is any shot good?

Speaker 4 (01:13:11):
Give it to itt is good? Yeah, you didn't come
all the way. So, like to your previous point about
those other guys with like two shots on a on
a bison was considered good, I don't. I don't have
any the more the merrier God, if it's still on
its feet, keep shooting. And then also for you know,
reasons like those guys experience where it's as I said,

(01:13:33):
the dead ones will kill you will oftentimes go up
even if it's looking thoroughly deceased. Put another one in
there as insurance.

Speaker 1 (01:13:41):
And then is there any situation where you ever tell
a client, like on the the animal's fine, so it's
not wounded. Were you're were you're shooting in the head,
shooting it in the head.

Speaker 4 (01:13:53):
I have had situations like that before. It's extremely close,
you know, you just for what a reason? Again, mostly
in that montane forest, one kind of stands up and
all you can see is the head kind of above
the vegetation, and it's like, yeah, you know, you're gonna
have to go for a headshot here. If you can
do it, if you feel comfortable, go for it. And again,

(01:14:17):
if you get it right, it's gonna have an instant result.
Otherwise I'm gonna have to back you up.

Speaker 1 (01:14:25):
You know, I didn't realize is standard And this doesn't
bother me, but it's standard that when you wound an animal,
that's that's it, that's your like effectively, you tag the
animal if you want to get away. And there are
units in there's a bear unit Alaska for instance, like

(01:14:46):
if you touch it, right, if you touch the bear
and don't find it, it's still regarded as that was
your tag. And and after like that's absolutely you take
a bad shot or get a bad hit, that's your
You scratched your.

Speaker 4 (01:15:00):
Yeah, absolutely, yeah, that's it. That one's off your license
and we write it down as wounded lost. Very sad,
sad thing to have to do, so a lot of
a lot of things, yeah, is to mitigate that. Be cautious, man,
Be cautious. Yeah, if the shot doesn't if it doesn't
feel right. And again, the beautiful thing about Africa and
especially where we're going, you know these premium areas like

(01:15:22):
in Tanzania, it's not like you like, oh that was
your buffalo. You know, we saw one for the for
the two week trip and you you fluffed it. It's like, no,
we'll get another chance. This one runs off, We'll find
another one. There's more, there's plenty.

Speaker 1 (01:15:37):
Do you guys use the term dagger boys? Can you
explain it to me?

Speaker 4 (01:15:42):
Yes, we do, we do use that term. Say it again,
dug a boy dugger, so it's a boy. So the
term dugger is it's a Southern African term. It's a
it's a Southern African well, it's a bastardization of a
of a word in one of the Southern African kind

(01:16:02):
of Bantu languages, which it refers to mud and the
reason boys and so the old bull buffalo that are
in their kind of bachelor phase or then in a
permanent bachelor phases sometimes is the case, will spend they
like to wallow. They spend a good you know, cape
buffalo or a wallowing animal. They enjoy it. They like

(01:16:24):
to It helps them keep biting flies away, it keeps
their skin healthy. So they they're wallowers. They love it.
And oftentimes you'll see those old bulls will spend a
good amount of time wallowing and they'll be really crusted
with mud. God, So that's where that's the origin of
the term. It's the mud boys. Yeah, it's one of
those terms like safari, which like is very much a

(01:16:45):
Swahili term. It's become kind of ubiquitous throughout the continent.
Dug a boy will be used to describe an old
bull buffalo kind of wherever you.

Speaker 1 (01:16:53):
Go and your plan, Like we talked about this before,
but your plan is you guys don't get on the
big or herds generally looking for like male little squads one, two, three, four, whatever,
yea little bachelor.

Speaker 4 (01:17:06):
Gang, bachelor balls. Yeah, that's the ideal. I mean, we'll
definitely we'll follow some herds and we'll get up on
them for the experience of that, particularly early on in
the hunt. And there are times where, particularly in Luganzo
because it has it has a big river and a
big lake. So what I find happens there more so
than other areas I've seen, is that a lot of

(01:17:27):
buffalo will kind of congregate there, bachelor balls and herds
will kind of be gravitating towards the same areas to
drink and kind of feed on that on that floodplain.
Not together, but they're not together, but they're drawn to
the same area and they'll kind of often like leave together,
so they'll kind of mingle. So you know, I have
found more, again, more consistently than other places I've hunted,

(01:17:49):
in Luganzo, you'll find like a really old buffalo or
a couple of really old buffaloes with a herd. But
it's a sort of loose casual association and they'll break
off of and sort of peel off eventually. So we'll
spend some time mixing it up with herds for the experience.
And again, like, part of what I like to do

(01:18:09):
is give you that opportunity to really feel that species
versus kind of just looking at the back of my
shirt for however many days, and then I put the
sticks up and say that's the one, Like, we'll really
try to get in amongst them and sort of see
how that, you know, just feel it, just enjoy their
presence and kind of get a sense of the species.
But yeah, the one I want to shoot, I'm almost

(01:18:32):
guaranteeing will be in a bachelor herd.

Speaker 1 (01:18:35):
And how do you know a shooter one you see like,
what do you see where you're like, that is a shooter.

Speaker 4 (01:18:39):
Hard boss. So the way the buffalo's horns grow, you've
got obviously that kind of bone core with the horn,
like the keratin sheath on the outside, and in a
mature ball, it kind of grows from the outside in
so on a young ball, and then you'll see this
very clearly when you're looking at them through your binoculars,

(01:19:00):
the kind of what we call the boss, which is
where the horns kind of come together over the top
of their head, over that kind of honeycombed bone that
protects their brain. It'll be it'll be still sort of
vascular and soft and pulpy, even like a little bit
of hair growing out of it. On a young bull,
a fully mature bull that will have completely hardened into horn,

(01:19:23):
and there may be a strip of hair or a
strip of kind of flesh, you know, skin, down through
the middle of the horns. Not all of them fully
meet in the middle. Some do, some don't. That's not
a like a determining factor of age or anything like that.
It's just like a genetic thing.

Speaker 1 (01:19:37):
Some do, some don't.

Speaker 4 (01:19:39):
But yeah, we want a fully mature, hard bossed bull
that's that's worn down ideally some of its horn, and yeah,
it is just that right one to take and tip depends.
The best one I shot last year was forty two
inches sort of from whitest point to whitest point. But

(01:20:02):
I've seen I've seen them there. I was. I had
a client last year that was a bow hunter and
we didn't manage to get on this buffalo, but we
we put a stalk on one that I would have
conservatively put it like forty four.

Speaker 1 (01:20:15):
He's still around.

Speaker 4 (01:20:15):
Oh yeah, you know where we got it? A general
idea vicinity here in this, Randall, we'll give it a crack.
Sty Is this what's this doing for you?

Speaker 1 (01:20:23):
Randall?

Speaker 3 (01:20:24):
Oh?

Speaker 1 (01:20:25):
What's all it's doing for you?

Speaker 6 (01:20:27):
I mean I've always had the I've always been really
curious about Africa. I think just for the sense of
like wonder like you described, just like the smell and
the soil and the plants and just seeing animals. But yeah,
I'm getting I guess what it's doing for it's it's
inspiring quite a bit of jealousy in me.

Speaker 4 (01:20:48):
And the reason it is. Yeah, yeah, reasonable position to take.

Speaker 1 (01:20:52):
So you're interested?

Speaker 6 (01:20:54):
Oh yeah, yeah, we almost. We're at the Tanna Wilde
cheap banquet. We got a little we're overserved and almost
went in on a safari with her with our friends.

Speaker 4 (01:21:08):
Where was it the.

Speaker 5 (01:21:10):
One in Bozeman? Oh, the safari?

Speaker 4 (01:21:14):
I have no idea.

Speaker 1 (01:21:15):
You were bit you were almost bidding on it. We
did bid on it? What country?

Speaker 4 (01:21:20):
It doesn't know? That's not a good style.

Speaker 6 (01:21:22):
Well, well we The first text message I saw my
phone the next morning was I'm glad we didn't wake
up as the owners of a safari got it. Yeah,
but it's it's always, it's always something that's kind of like,
you know, you got a couple of little voices in
the back of your head about things that you like
to do someday and yeah, I definitely have the itch
on it.

Speaker 2 (01:21:42):
Next time.

Speaker 4 (01:21:44):
Well, let's talk about send me the details, shoot me
a text, give you the give you the inside scoop,
whether it's going to be something new moregan.

Speaker 1 (01:21:56):
I hope you can reply quickly because I'm in the
middle of.

Speaker 4 (01:22:00):
In the middle of.

Speaker 2 (01:22:02):
Is it worth it?

Speaker 1 (01:22:04):
That's want of the fact check a couple.

Speaker 4 (01:22:05):
Of things, set a couple of guardrails for you.

Speaker 3 (01:22:07):
Yeah.

Speaker 6 (01:22:08):
No, I mean I think, like especially just the history
and sort of the the place of African hunting within
are larger hunting traditions like globally, I think it's it's
something I'd definitely like to experience and understand better.

Speaker 1 (01:22:24):
Yeah, I'm dying to go check it out. And like
with me though, the thing is, of course you can
just go check it out, but I need I need more.

Speaker 3 (01:22:35):
I need like like the.

Speaker 1 (01:22:37):
Immersive, like like the I need to get in there,
you know.

Speaker 4 (01:22:41):
The immersion is the thing. The totality of it, like
the history, the the flora, the fauna, the culture, the people.
That's what makes African hunting I think unique, aside from
the species and the conduct of the whole hunt, right,
all that's a separate thing. But if you just think
about like the appeal of it, why it kind of
it's people so much, it's just the Yeah, the totality

(01:23:03):
of it, all that kind of history and culture.

Speaker 9 (01:23:06):
I think we will make it.

Speaker 8 (01:23:07):
Get to highlight the difference between the differences between hunting
across certain countries in Africa, and that like the experience
in Tanzania, I anticipate would be very will be very
different than for example.

Speaker 1 (01:23:23):
Uh where, Yeah, in South Africa.

Speaker 4 (01:23:28):
Actually that's a fair yeah, for sure, I think so.
I think East Africa has that that reputation, and certainly
I don't want to take anything away from like there's
some amazing hunting that happens in Southern Africa, Central Africa, French,
you know, Francophone West Africa. There's some incredible hunting experiences

(01:23:48):
that can be had kind of across the continent. But
I think East Africa kind of holds a certain place
in people's imaginations because of Yeah, because of that history,
and because of the kind of like the way that
it was the birthplace of a lot of the kind
of conservation ideals and hunting ethics ideals and and sort of. Yeah,

(01:24:12):
I think this it's just what it's where your brain
goes when you think of Safari.

Speaker 1 (01:24:18):
I got last question for you. But how are we doing?

Speaker 4 (01:24:20):
Phil?

Speaker 1 (01:24:20):
Phil's real worried about getting out of here.

Speaker 9 (01:24:22):
We got ten minutes. We're good.

Speaker 4 (01:24:23):
Okay, you got ten minutes to answer to this question.
Lay it on me.

Speaker 1 (01:24:27):
Let's say I'm over in Europe and some guys like,
I'm going deer hunting in America. I'm going No, not that,
I'm going deer hunting in North America. First thing on
my mind is, well, that could mean any number of things. Sure, yeah,
are you hunting in South Florida?

Speaker 4 (01:24:49):
Yeah?

Speaker 1 (01:24:50):
Are you hunting in northern Alberta?

Speaker 4 (01:24:53):
Like?

Speaker 1 (01:24:53):
What do you mean?

Speaker 4 (01:24:55):
So?

Speaker 1 (01:24:56):
How different are like? You know what I mean? You're
going hunting and f Yeah, it's a big ass place,
big ass place. How different is it all? Do you
know what I mean? Very?

Speaker 4 (01:25:06):
Very does it is?

Speaker 1 (01:25:07):
What it seems different to someone there is? It would
seemed to be from Florida to albert.

Speaker 4 (01:25:13):
If I would have that exact same reaction if I
if I met someone here in an airport bar and
they're like, I'm on the way to Africa to go
on safari, you know, hunting safaria, I'd be like, where
are you going and what you know? And i'd have
something you've told me ideas yea, but yeah, you've precisely
you told me nothing. I mean it just I think
if I, if I kind of boil it down to

(01:25:35):
like why Tanzania is different and where we're going is different,
is what sort of sets us apart? Is that free range,
those big vast areas. There's no fences that drew me
a big, huge country expanse of it, you know, and
Iget I think we talked about it. This is on
the last podcast. Tanzania has got roughly thirty percent of

(01:25:56):
its land mass set aside as wilderness of some sort.

Speaker 3 (01:26:00):
You know.

Speaker 4 (01:26:00):
Some of it's got some some you know, grazing and
seasonal agricultural activities. Others other parts of it, like where
we're going in Luganzo is just pure wilderness. But it's
it's a it's a massive amount by by modern standards.
It's a massive, massive amount of wilderness there, and to
be able to hunt those species in an unfenced environment

(01:26:22):
where they're not a reintroduced animal you know there, or
or purely introduced animal there that's ancestral stock. That's as
wild as they get. You know that book I was
being slightly critical of, Yeah, Thunder without Ring. I was
being a little too harsh on't it. Yeah, because you
know what it did explain is one that cattle disease came,

(01:26:44):
a render pest.

Speaker 1 (01:26:45):
Render past came and then jumped into the Cape Buffalon
just decimated the calor.

Speaker 4 (01:26:50):
Yeah, yeah, crushed them. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:26:52):
Early. He spends a lot of time on render past. Yeah,
and the famine that emerged from first the famine of people.

Speaker 4 (01:26:59):
That were herders the cattle got flattened.

Speaker 1 (01:27:02):
Yeah, but then also the famine that extended to other
people that had been hunters and just wiped them out. Yeah.

Speaker 4 (01:27:10):
Yeah, it's more than hunting. Oh yeah, renderpest massive for sure.
Of all the things you know that set back game,
it's I mean even I don't think render pest. I
think renderpest is one of two diseases that humanity is
successfully eliminated altogether, like completely, we're free of it. And

(01:27:31):
so it's that in smallpox. Render pest, I think right
up until the fifties was like an issue in East Africa.

Speaker 1 (01:27:39):
But it's a great name for a disease.

Speaker 4 (01:27:40):
It is, yeah from German, Yeah, cattle disease, and so
it when it first came in, I think it's almost
one hundred percent like fatal in you know, species that
are naive as far as being inoculated to it. But
over time obviously that you know, you gain natural immunity.
And then there was efforts made by the veternary departments

(01:28:02):
in what at those times were colonies to to kind
of mitigate it. But yeah, it hammered the population of Buffalo.
But what the also interesting thing that you can kind
of glean from the renderpest epidemic is that those animals
came back, you know, in vast numbers because the habitat
was intact. And that's the that's the difference. You know,

(01:28:24):
if you have these sort of massive wipeouts of species,
it's something that's happened throughout you know, history as a
result of climate or whatever. If the habitats intact, there's
a there's an option. There's a possibility for them to
come back as long as you've got some kind of
genetic reservoir. But if you destroy the habitat, you're done.

(01:28:45):
So as remarkable how robust and resilient these species are
in the face of things like render pest.

Speaker 1 (01:28:52):
If the habitat's there. Here's my actual last question. What's
a big group? What's a big group to run into? Oh,
kate buffalo. It depends very much on the area. In Luganzo,
I would say a big herd would be sixty to
eighty just because of the terrain and kind of like

(01:29:13):
and yeah, the environment, the lion population. But there are
certain areas, like you know in Mozambique, even southern Tanzania.
I've seen some really massive herds. But you know where
you get like big sort of floodplain areas where there'll
be hundreds and them out there. Now, well, we're not
knocking around, are we going to run in the allons?

Speaker 4 (01:29:33):
Almost certainly, yeah, almost certainly. They're there all the time.

Speaker 1 (01:29:38):
Sickly, he'll be sick.

Speaker 7 (01:29:39):
I don't what's it like like grizzly bears here, We
got to watch out for him if you run into them.

Speaker 4 (01:29:46):
Generally speaking, No, Sometimes they'll put on a little bit
of a bit of a performance, but generally these ones,
they'll they'll sort of slink off. You know, if they've
got to kill nearby, they might be a little more
reluctant to leave and they'll kind of like, you know,
they'll posture a little bit, but you're you're very unlikely
to have an issue with them. And just in that

(01:30:07):
context of like bumping into them somewhere. What about snakes,
I would be surprised. We may see them, but more
more often than not, like I would say, in all
my time in Africa, eighty five percent or more of
the snakes I've seen have been like on the road
sunning themselves. When and you sort of drive by and

(01:30:28):
I was like, oh, there's cobra.

Speaker 1 (01:30:29):
Do you guys got that one where you're supposed to
just lean against a tree and die.

Speaker 4 (01:30:32):
Because yeah, yeah, yeah, black mumber, Yeah for sure.

Speaker 1 (01:30:35):
Yeah. Sure.

Speaker 4 (01:30:35):
You run into those often, yeah, not often, not often,
it's uncommon, but.

Speaker 1 (01:30:40):
It's so bad. The best thing you can do is
lean against the tree. You ain't gonna live.

Speaker 4 (01:30:45):
Yeah, true, with that, So it is so yes, and no,
so they have I'll tell you just lean against the tree.
I'll tell you two stories about black mumbers, which and
we can kind of we can leave it at that,
but it's uncommon to see them. And again usually it's
that same thing. You'll see them from the car. They'll
kind of be beside the road.

Speaker 1 (01:31:05):
And do you pass through them when you see.

Speaker 4 (01:31:06):
Them, No, we typically leave them alone. One time I
was in the Salu. I was in southern Tanzania and
I was were following Buffalo with a client and there
was kind of little depression, like this little valley that
had tall grass in it, you know, seven eight foot
tall grass, and we, based on the freshness of the
buffalo tracks that we were following, were kind of the

(01:31:27):
trackers and I had a little conference and sort of
determined that they likely weren't in that tall grass like
they'd passed it wasn't that big of an area. They'd
kind of passed through it and gone and beedded down
somewhere in the meombo like in the woodland. So we
were pretty confident in being able to just sort of
pass through it. So we're pretty casually like going through
this tall grass, sort of following these trails at the

(01:31:47):
Buffalo and elephants and other stuff had made through there,
and yeah, I'm just sort of fairly not totally asleep
at the wheel, but sort of just you know, going along.
And next thing, like the two trackers kind of they
went around a little sort of corner and the grass
in front of me to where I couldn't fully see them.
Next thing, they both just sort of like evaporate, just

(01:32:08):
like gone. They just like flew past me like not
a word said, just like disappeared. And I'm like, oh, no,
the buffalo are in here. So I sort of pick
up my rifle safety off. But normally with buffalo in
that kind of context, like it'd be a cow with
a calf or something, and you'd hear them like they're
gonna they a lot of times, they'll vocalize, you'd hear
them crashing around. It was like silent. A couple seconds later,

(01:32:32):
this black mumber sort of reared up to like just
below my eye level, kind of comes around the corner
and the grass. Yeah, I mean this thing was thick.
It was sort of probably like diameter, I don't know,
like four or five inches, So it was like a
thick snake, big snake. I couldn't see the full length
of it. But it was really reared up. And they do.
They really rear up, which is why they so deadly,

(01:32:54):
because they'll strike you in areas that you can't put
like a tornicuit, like you'll be So I just pulled
my front trigger and I still can't tell you to
this day whether I hit that thing or not, but
I'm sure the muzzle blast from like that that distance
rattled its cage and I just turned around, grabbed the client,
just ran, just got out of there.

Speaker 1 (01:33:13):
Because they'll come out. Yeah, they will.

Speaker 4 (01:33:15):
I mean they do. What the guys said later was
he was like just curled up on the trail and
when they kind of like got up on him, like
he sort of got agitated, right, like he felt like
he was being accosted, and he sort of reared up
and and sort of like sort of came towards them.
And then he was probably just more or less curious
as to what had happened and kind of came around

(01:33:36):
that corner and got a face full of nitro express
Let's see you man. But I also heard a story
about it. I also heard a story about a young
Massi boy that was bitten by one in mass island
and there's this wonderful place not far from a RuSHA

(01:33:56):
called Messerani Snake Park. Will actually drive by it where
they have they have a bunch of snakes. Yeah, it
sounds grid, but it's really cool. They have a bunch
of snakes and they have a clinic where they extract
venom and they do all the stuff there and they
treat pretty much. They're the hub for all of northern
Tanzania for like snake bite victims. And so the other

(01:34:16):
kids that this this Massai boy was with recognized that
he'd been bitten by a mamba. So they they kind
of managed to get him to a road where they
flagged down a guy on a motorbike and they got
him on the motorbike and they all took off their
belts and kind of belted him to the guy because
they knew he was going to pass out. I mean,
was a verger passing, and he passed out somewhere along

(01:34:38):
the journey. They got him to Mazzarani, they gave him
the like, they gave him the treatment, the anti venom,
and apparently like a couple of days later it was fine,
really happy as a clam. The only injury he had
like like that was you know, kind of sucked. Was
when he passed out, like one of his feet had
kind of dragged along the black top like he's got
a got serious road rash. But he was, he was fine.

(01:35:01):
So I'm not going to say it's one hundred percent fatal,
but yeah, if we're out there in Luganzo, we definitely
want to avoid those things.

Speaker 1 (01:35:07):
But I'd be surprised. That's gonna have two huge belts
on now, yeah, so we can just belt to steal
to boots.

Speaker 5 (01:35:16):
Don't come home from this true.

Speaker 6 (01:35:17):
Well again, helps not gonna help you, just for the
dragging your feet there, you go, well there.

Speaker 4 (01:35:27):
And the other thing about him that's kind of spooky
is they'll they're like semi arboreal. They'll go up trees.
So there are guys that have been bitten like from
above right down the top of his head.

Speaker 1 (01:35:37):
Right through his little hat.

Speaker 3 (01:35:38):
That's not gonna have a good time.

Speaker 4 (01:35:41):
No, we won't. I'd be surprised if we see one.
If we do, it'll be cool because we'll be from
the car and we can all go and not have
to worry about getting pokem sure, catch it.

Speaker 1 (01:35:51):
Worry all right.

Speaker 8 (01:35:54):
Before we are going to We just got to say
that your dream will come true because we will have
a handful of bonus episodes dropping just a couple of
We'll have a lot of wwops.

Speaker 4 (01:36:11):
F W A P.

Speaker 7 (01:36:18):
Three.

Speaker 8 (01:36:18):
Yeah, we'll have a bunch of wwops while we're in
country turned around, you know, within a matter of days. Uh.

Speaker 2 (01:36:28):
Podcast video Stevie.

Speaker 1 (01:36:31):
Stevie Hemingway calesay.

Speaker 8 (01:36:36):
Thursdays for a few weeks, so you can stay tuned
for those.

Speaker 1 (01:36:40):
I can't wait, I can't wait.

Speaker 5 (01:36:42):
You're there now.

Speaker 1 (01:36:45):
Now I'm getting excited, man, I want seeing them snakes.

Speaker 4 (01:36:48):
Thanks coming out man, absolutely, Thanks for having me being
in the bush with you. We're gonna have a hell
of a time. No, I think it's gonna be fun.
I think it's gonna be fun.

Speaker 1 (01:36:56):
Congratulations on your hunt.

Speaker 4 (01:36:57):
Thanks sir, Phil.

Speaker 1 (01:36:58):
We're getting out of your hair.

Speaker 9 (01:36:59):
Thank you, sir.

Speaker 1 (01:37:00):
We're only seven minutes overdue. My boy's calling me. Oh no,
I can't tell this. I got a funny story about
my kid. I'll tell later. Nothing to do with our
subject matter, all right, guys, Thank you

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