August 26, 2023 • 38 mins
Hunting Matters co-hosts Ramon Robles and Joe Betar talk about Joe's upcoming trip to Afognak Island, Alaska in pursuit of Sitka blacktail deer, salmon and halibut.
Joe will also discuss his plan to observe the Afognak Coastal Protection Project and Alaska's ecosystem and its recovery since the 1999 Exxon Valdez oil spill in Alaska's Prince WIlliam Sound.
Joe will also discuss his plan to observe the Afognak Coastal Protection Project and Alaska's ecosystem and its recovery since the 1999 Exxon Valdez oil spill in Alaska's Prince WIlliam Sound.
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Episode Transcript
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(00:02):
Tradition, conservation, family, theoutdoors. It matters to you, it
matters to us. This is HuntingMatters presented by Houston Safari Club Foundation.
Here's Joe Batar. Good morning,Welcome to Honey Matters on KPRC nine fifty.
(00:23):
This is your host, Joe Batar. I am Ramon Rubliss, and
thank you guys so much for joiningus again this week for Hunting Matters.
Kind of weird. My bags arepacked. We don't have a guest today,
folks, if you're listening, wedecided not to have a guest because
we're tired of guests the show down. Are they tired of us? And
I think that's what it is now. We we decided to do something a
(00:45):
little different this week. We're gonnatalk a little bit about a trip I've
got planned coming out here very surely. And before we do that, I
want to jump into some information aboutour show sponsor, Houston's Far Club Foundation.
Got some cool stuff going on,folks. Go to the website at
we hunt we give dot org andcheck out the upcoming monthly events. September
fourteenth Byron Sadler, one of ourlife members is going to be talking about
(01:07):
his recent journey up to the summitof Mount Kilmanjara and just so happens,
Byron's only eighty years old when hedid it. We're gonna be having oh
this is new. We hadn't talkedabout this one on September twenty first,
we're gonna be having a happy hourat a place called ag Leather in the
Woodlands. They do custom custom beltsand all kind of cool stuff. And
I think this place also can doyour like your animal hides and and cure
(01:30):
them and tan them for you andturn them into clothing items. Yeah,
that's cool. So I've got myI've got my eye on a like a
full length alligator coade. I wantto get done with like a mink collar.
I'm thinking that that'd be a goodlook for me. I was thinking
maybe some sort of waya vetta bringin the Latin flavor to crocodile. Yeah,
but those are typically kind of breezyand well, maybe would use this
(01:51):
like oh just on the tabs,on the on the shoulders. Maybe you
have your style, I have udbe a hot one. There'd be a
winner. Whenever you're going to writea barra me. Yeah, it's cool.
So there'll be more information coming onthat and then October five, our
big annual Sporting Place tournament at aGreater Houston Sports Club. Go to we
Hunt, we give dot org,click on the membership button, go to
the drop down under monthly events.You do not have to be a member
(02:14):
to attend these events, but we'dlove for you to come out and join
us. U join us a littlefellowship, talk about hunting, fishing,
meet some of the members. Maybeyou'll want to sign up, become a
member, and those things are comingup. There's always something coming up every
month with more announcements to come.So, so you're going to interview me
today, Yeah, this is kindof weird. Yeah, I'm not used
(02:36):
to that. Well, first,I'm not used to looking you in the
eye because you know, we usuallyhave a guest we can focus our attention
on. Right, So this isgonna be quite awkward and difficult, but
I think we're gonna make it.Manion managed to make it. Okay.
So our guest this week is UJoe batar Yep from Louisiana originally yes,
okay, and it's b tar ohb tarka long ae Okay eat right,
(03:01):
I've had teacher tell me that sinceI since elementary school, I was pronouncing
my name wrong. They all pronounceit Bautar. So this is not your
first foray into Alaskan hunting. Secondtime to go went back in twenty nineteen,
going back to the same place,and you always have a specific animal
(03:23):
in mind to hunt. Well,this trip is different. Usually on my
hunting trips, if I've got somethingplanned scheduled, it's it's it's about okay,
we're gonna hunt these animals, orwe're going to do this that this
this journey actually started as a anendeavor to go and look at the recovery
(03:44):
area in the Kodak Archipelaga. Ialways said that word wrong, just southwest
of Prince William Sound. And ifyou recall back in nineteen eighty nine,
the xcelon Valdis, if you're oldlike us, the XI and Valdis had
a huge oil spill there consider oneof the worst marine environment disasters that our
nation's ever experienced. According to ourformer President Bush. That's hw and so
(04:08):
a friend of mine, Tim Richardson, said, Joe, you need to
go and see what's happened because ourorganization, Houston's Farcliff Foundation and a lot
of other organizations and a lot oflegislators and a whole lot of other people.
We're part of the cleanup and fundingthe cleanup and the recovery efforts of
this pristine Alaskan wilderness. If youwill. He said, you need to
come see it. And this happenedaway before my time in Houston's Farclof Foundation.
(04:30):
He said, you need to comesee how the area is recovered and
what we've done. So I'm like, yes, I would love to go.
So it just so happens we tiein some hunting and fishing with it.
We will be doing on this trip. We'll be talking to some local
probably local podcasters are radio people therein Kodiak, meeting with fish and game
officials and talking about some of therecovery efforts there. And the Black Bear
(04:55):
Trust are the bear trust that's there. We've been real involved with their efforts
in Alaska as far as Bristol Bay. So there was a mining company it
was trying to go into Bristol Bayand secure all this land. And based
on corp of Engineers U S.Army Corp of Engineers study And I'll tell
you the short story of it is. This is the largest salmon hatch fishery
(05:17):
or hatchery in the US. Itis where most of the salmon in the
US go through, and so thatgot shut down. We were part of
that opposition, and they're still tryingto bring it up again and trying to
trying to reverse the ruling by thecourts to open it up, to open
that area up for mining of mineralsand things like that. So we're hoping
that never happens and trying to geta legislated to where they can never open
(05:38):
up Bristol Bay for mining. Ithought you were saying miming. I thought
they were going to be like Marcel, Marcel be just as bad. Okay,
yeah, well but more entertaining,I'd argue. But my interest in
it is I love to hunting fish, and let go do that, and
we're gonna do that on this trip, but also to look at these recovery
areas. And you know, wetalk about it a little bit, but
the people that are hosting us arepart of conservation highest form as well.
(06:00):
Okay, and I'm looking. Soyou're flying into Kodiak. Yeah, so
I leave on my birthday, thenight of my birthday around six out of
Houston. I'm going to Chicago.Then I'm going to I'm all nighter from
from here to Chicago, Chicago toU Anchorage, and then from Anchorage I'll
roll into Kodiak about seven am thenext morning. Wow. Yeah, that's
(06:21):
all flights are weird over there now. They've reduced a lot of the flights,
so the same thing coming back.How long's the layover in Anchorage?
Uh? Four hours? Okay?Yeah, I think. I think I
get in around one am and Ileave out of there around four or five
am. Okay, to Kodiak.Yeah, but then it doesn't stop there.
Eventually, then you make it overto the uh what's the items You
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call it the fog Knack Island.So, well, what we'll do is
we'll fly into Kodiak with the guys, all the rest of the crew.
They'll be five of us all together, and they'll come in stagger. So
I'll get in there, I'll getget our Airbnb set up, I'll get
a rental car in Kodiak, andthen I'm running them back and forth.
I'm going back and forth the airportpicking up everybody, but all day and
then and then going to meeting withpeople there in Cody ik As well.
Yeah, and I like Cody ikIt's your typical small town, but it's
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except it's in Alaska. Yeah,and there's some cool stuff there to just
see. Just checking out the restaurantsthere, just you know, because you
gotta do your recall. Sushi,Cody Ikhana. I think there's a noodles
place called Noodles. The sushi placethere is the best I've ever had is
there. They probably plug it rightout to pull it out of the water
and then they just what it's stillbreathing when you set it on your plate.
(07:26):
Yep, Okay, yep, theygot they got some really good seat
food there. All right, Well, we're gonna run to break, okay,
and then we're gonna come back andtalk to you some more. Sounds
good, but you're taking us inand out still right. It was kind
of weird. Sure, unless youwant to be there. No folks taking
a break here on honey Matters KPRCnine fifty. We'll see you guys after
the break. Bosom now clear.I hear the clock. It's six.
(08:13):
I feel so fun fromwhere then.I got my eggs agat my pancakes too.
I've got my needs everything one you, I break the oaks and make
smiling. Well, come back toHoney Matters on KPRC nine fifty, and
we running through the Alaskan artist.Yeah. Do you have a bunch of
(08:35):
them about the apex of Alaskan singers. I hadn't heard of anybody else.
Oh man, Welcome back to HoneymattersKPRC nine fifty. This is your host,
Joe Batsari. I am Ramon Robeless. And it's weird because if you're
just joining us, we are herewith our guests. Joe Batar, that's
me, Joe Bitar is heading upto Alaska a couple of days. Today's
(08:56):
the twenty six. You're heading outon the thirtieth. Ye, and you'll
be gone, Hello, be goneon the thirtieth and back on the seventh
of September. Oh well yeah,I'm just pulling up the calendar here.
Yeah, okay, So week soyou get to Kodiak and you spend the
day there. Yeah, you spendthe night. I mean, you spend
one night, wake up, thenyou're probably on a little puddle jumper,
(09:18):
yea helicopter. So the next morningthe routine is, uh, the next
morning we get up, we goand pick up any supplies at our host
need from the grocery store because theylive on an island. Yeah, you're
like the door dash. Yeah,and uh, let's get our gear all
together. U dump everybody down atthe floatplane airport, go take the rental
car back, take a taxi backtogether. So it's a little logistical stuff,
(09:41):
but luckily Kodiak is not a verybig island, so and we typically
what we do is the morning wedepart from Kodiak out to go into the
wilderness, we stop buy There's asporting good store there that we typically go
to and you pick up any suppliesor baits or anything for fishing. Anythink
somebody's forgotten spray because you can't carebear spray over on the trail plane and
(10:03):
then fish boxes and anything else,so they have these collaps. While fish
boxes we take out on the plane, they're light weight. They're lightweight,
and that allows us to get allour fish back and frozen and shot back
to us home. Yeah. I'mactually pulling up a Google map of Kodiak,
and I naively pulled up this treeview thinking there was going to be
(10:24):
anything, and of course there's not. No I wanted an idea of what
Kodiak, Alaska looks like. Youcould look up big rays sporting goods and
hang around and there. Yeah,okay, it's cool because Kodiak, like
I said, it's a small town. But you can be at the breakfast,
the local breakfast joint and look overand there's a bunch of guys from
Deadliest Catcher hanging out having breakfast there. Sometime you can basically I like to
(10:46):
drop all over the island and lookat their seals. And there's the thing
that freaked me out, not freakedme out, was surprising to me,
and I should have known this myfirst time there. Was the bald eagles
that are everywhere and people, tothose people that live up there, they're
like, god, no, there'sfifty. You'll see fifty of them in
a parking lot in the dumpster.You know. Yeah, it's crazy.
And they're so big and huge andmajestic and beautiful. But yeah, the
(11:07):
bald eagles they're seals and can youeat those there? Can't eat the bald
eagles. They're kind of tough.Yeah, to soak them with buttermilk overnight,
wrap them in bacon. But it'scool. Little shops and things,
and they have a great fish andwildlife has a great place there where you
can go in to learn about thelocal wilderness and the animals and the species.
(11:28):
It's almost like a mini museum.And the native art stuff, uh,
the Innuit and Alaskan uh, youknow native Native Americans that are there.
They have art shops and things allover the place. That's kind of
cool. So I probably bring youback all turquoise if you appreciate it.
Like, let me think here ofthe uh what's older, the state of
Alaska or Joe Bitar. The stateof Alaska was Alaska, believe. Oh
(11:52):
but the forty two they are,okay, yeah, I'm sixty four.
Well, hey man, sixty fourthe year of my birth. I'm not
sixty four. You don't look it. Yeah, okay, And they had
a guy that's the other day,so twenty five yet. Sure, But
it's so cool because I mean there'slike that whole air, that whole Kodiak
National Walife refugees. There's like twohundred and fifty species of mammals and fish
and birds. Yeah, and thelargest brown bears in the world, and
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and that's where they live. Imean, that's just you know, that's
what they're doing. Oh uh nineteenfifty eight. Okay, still still stay
older than me. Okay, alright, just making sure. Let's see,
I have some questions runned down.What is the largest animal there? You
think you could take down with yourbear hands? M hm and kodiak alasco
worthy if I had to? Probablya blacktail, said could blacktail deer if
(12:39):
I had to? If you well, attacking, that's what the Yeah,
that is the foundation of the question. You had to It's not you go
up to and you kill it.It is fight for your life bear.
Now yeah, well, of course, not a bear comes, do you
know what to do? I mean, you don't have the bear spray.
Let's say it to black bear,always have bear spray and laska. But
let's say it's not and again,uh, be very still and make myself
(13:00):
big if it starts kind of meanderingtowards me. Now, is there different
reactions for different bears? Because Ithought a grizzly bear you just pray,
and then a black bear you mighthave a fighting chance. I think I've
never had a I've had I've hada black bear climb up in a tree
with me before, and you hadto kind of hang a jabet jabet with
its paw with a little the endof an arrow. But I've never been
(13:22):
on the ground face to face witha brown or grizzly. But you know
they always say either, you know, make yourself bigger, not intimidating,
but larger, and and you know, make some noise if you have to.
And if they're charging you, theonly thing you can do. You
can't out run them, so theonly thing you do is curl up in
a ball and protect your botal organs. Just yeah, let them finish and
protect your botal organs. Yeah,you wouldn't even try to throw a haymaker,
just one if it kept on andkept on, you know. Look,
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the thing about bears is this.I would never want to shoot a
bear if I didn't have to,of course, but if I had one
charging me, And the thing aboutit is a bears, especially browns and
grizzlies, to some extent, willfall charge you like an elephant or something.
They'll kind of you know, I'mgonna get you him and then back
off, you know. But ifI had if I had a situation where
I knew it was imminent, theattack was imminent, I'd probably try to
(14:07):
position myself somewhere where I could getbetween something between me and the bear,
rocketry or something, and I'd fireoff a shot from your rifle. Yeah,
but if if it came out ofnowhere, you know, they come
out of nowhere and hit you frombehind and knock your rifle with or anything
like that, I guess the onlything you do is grab your grab your
knife. Are they pretty quiet animals? Yeah? Yeah, they really are.
But let me ask you this,just in the in the aftermath of
(14:30):
an attack like that, if youended up conquering this bear, wouldn't you
feel almost obligated to open up itscavity and just eat its heart? Just
kind of man and versus wild beast. Master, I've just vanquished this enemy.
The romantic side of me probably would, Yeah, I've Actually, it's
weird you asked that, because I'veactually thought about that before. What would
happen? You know? You actually, if you've got a nuisance baar attack
(14:52):
or something like that, you can'tlegally keep any part of it. Yeah,
you've turned over to fishing games.But yeah, that you ask that
question because I'm like, yeah,if it was me and the wilderness by
myself, probably take a bite outof the heart out of respect. Yeah,
right, and just that energy carrieson through you. Yeah, I'm
knock on wood. I hope Idon't have a No. That's why we
(15:13):
talk about it because it's not gonnahappen. But you also should be mentally
prepared. Well. The other thingis people don't think about us. We're
gonna be deer hunting a few daysthere while we they're up in the mountains
in the middle of nowhere. Andthe thing about it is when you make
a shot in Alaska on specific areas, it's a dinner bell. Bears hear
the gun shot and they go,oh, something's down, So they will
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they will if they're in that areaand they hear that shot, they will
come to you. And then thecloser they get them where they smell an
animal carcass, and then so it'sthe thing is, typically we're hunting pairs.
One guy's cleaning the deer if that'sif a deer goes down. The
other one's kind of walking around withit with a rifle and scoping and glassing
down the sides of mountains, upthe sides of mountains and make sure,
oh there's a bear it's coming.Okay, we gotta get done and get
(15:58):
out of here. Yeah, soyou got to you gotta skin the deer
yep. And we quartered up rightthere, yeah, right there in the
field. Yeah, as quickly aspossible. See. The limited hunting experience
I have is you throw the animalon the on the mule and you go
to camp. You hang it up, you know. But out there,
of course they drop us off.We we have a main base camp on
(16:18):
one island. We get in theboat every morning and they drop us out
on these surrounding islands and we don'tsee them again until nighttime. Now,
nighttime there sundown is nine thirty thistime of year, so we won't see
anybody until probably eight thirty seven,six is seven ish, I think I
can't remember which. When you're there, you want to see as much of
(16:41):
it as you can, as longas you can. Does it feel like
it's fifteen hours now? No,because we're we're in the mountains, are
in the water all day long.Yeah, it really doesn't. We're watching
and looking and it's kind of likeone time I was in Paris and I
ran I think seven miles from morningwith a buddy mine and I'm not a
long distance runner, but it wasbecause I was so busy looking everything.
It's the same thing in the mountains. You don't realize how fast time goes.
(17:03):
Well you had to add the factthat you ran seven miles. Well,
I mean you had to say thatwas the longest I've ever run,
probably in one continuous time. Butyeah, without anybody chasing. But we'll
do seventeen miles through the mountains onthis trip a day a day a day.
Yeah. The out and back?Is that what you're doing? You
go out and in the straight lineor do you kind of make a snow
up and down through forest and upon peaks and saddles and yeah, how
(17:23):
do you navigate? We'll save that. I can answer that. Taking a
break on Hunting Matters KPRC nine fifty. We'll be back after the break your
wheel, No, you were,I just can't love to be What is
(17:52):
the brea all Lime sim and welcomeback to Honey Matters with you gest Joe
Batar and your guest Joe Batar.I am Ramon Roeblists. I'm gonna tell
you something. If it were upto me, and we get to have
(18:15):
walk out music. When we cameout of the tent and went on the
hunt. This would be this wouldbe my wa would be down with that.
The Bears would hear this and goall crap. Yep, Ramon's on
the prowl, the big Bears home. You hear that Bears roll band.
It's a free for all. Herewe go boys. You know, I'm
actually I've got that in my playlist. I'm taking an earbud with me.
(18:37):
I'm gonna have to pop that inand he'll be thinking about you as I'm
dying climbing up the side of themountain one day. But you know,
it's funny you say that. Mynovice brain never considered the fact that you
actually literally have to train for thistrip. Ye You have to actually carry
stuff on your back to and walkand hydrate all kinds of things. Yea,
(19:00):
if you want to enjoy yourself.Yeah. Now, I've been on
trips like these before where and I'mnot saying I was more prepared or whatever,
but I've been on trips where I'vebeen better prepared than some of the
other people in the group. Okay, I love to go to gym.
I love to work out. It'slike if I don't go, it's good
for you make I get I'm ina bad mood. It's just something I've
(19:21):
always done. When you do thesetypes of hunts where you know, what
happens is you get on the boatin the morning, they take you to
an island. You could be onthree or four different surrounding you know,
satellite islands at a time, soyou're seeing different scenery every day. But
the first one they'll they'll drop uson typically is this one island. You
get off the boat, you walkup. Everybody got their stuff, I
got the stuff. We break offinto a couple of groups, two to
(19:42):
three people per group, and thenwe just start walking separate, you know,
because that's the way you hunt cipicalblack tailed deer out there this time
of year. If it has snowedalready, which it will not be this
time of year, the deer willcome down to the beach and you can
walk up and down the beaches andtypically do spot and stall. I can
try to try to get onto deer. It's still in the fifties, lows
(20:04):
in the mid forties probably the deeris still up at the higher elevation,
so you have to go to them. And a lot of these islands.
The main one we hunted last time, which I'm sure we'll do this time,
is halfway up, it's like rainforest. It's thick, you're you're turning
sideways to get through trees. They'renot really trails and that sort of thing.
And if it's rained, which thetip of that does sometime in Alaska,
(20:26):
it's muddy. Okay. Then whenyou get up to a certain point,
after about an hour and a half, two hours of that, you
get up to what we call saddlesand clear open areas, still forests and
things like that, but it's morerocky and it's more elevations. So that's
part two, phase two of theclimb. And you just go back as
far into the range as you canand look at your watch and go and
(20:48):
you know, I got to beout of here, and it's X amount
of clock and I've got to beback out down down at the down at
the beach by. You know,whatever time our pickup time, schedule pickup
time is, you scare until moretime to go up than you do coming
down. Is a quicker to comedown or quicker to come down, unless
you've got animals, deer or somethinglike that. But it works out.
(21:10):
So back to your original point,Yes, training the elevations there you're looking
at, you know, not thattwenty six hundred feet above sea level.
So it's not like you're climbing thetop of the Colorado Rockies, but you
are walking a lot. We didone day last year we did seventeen miles.
I think the next day we didfourteen miles combined in one day.
And so what I start doing ontop of the weightlifting stuff is I start
(21:33):
doing more cardio and then I startthrowing weights in a backpack and I go
on the StairMaster, I go tothe park here, whatever. But this
week I'm at I do I domy workout, my regular lift, and
then I'm on the treadmill or theStairMaster, mostly the stair the stairstepor for
about twenty minutes, twenty five minuteswith a twenty five pound weight in the
backpack, I will be wearing outthere, yep. And that's typically what
(21:56):
I'll carry. And of course whenyou dump meet in that if you're heading
back, it's a different whole differentgame. But you're kind of pumped from
the hunt. You kind of youknow, make your way down and going
down is easier, and the waywe track it is I've got a I've
got an app on my phone thatlays up basically a bread crumb trail.
Okay, so that's what I wasgoing to ask. It's pretty wide open,
(22:17):
and you kind of remembered their landmarkswhere you already come back down in.
But I do have a I liketo see how far we walk,
So I turn on that app connectsto satellite and it can track physically.
The app traps where I am andI can just follow it back if I
get lost. Okay, yep.So when you go out that day to
hunt, you have a backpack yep, mostly empty because is that where you're
(22:40):
putting the food? Yeah, somy my backpack is I've got so here's
what I've got. I've got arifle. I've got a backpack. I've
got binoculars in a harness, andI'm luckily this time I've got range finding
binoculars. So I'm not carrying arangefinder and binoculars. My btonoclars do it
for me. Backpack is going tohave a blowout kit or or a med
kit in its keep a first aidkit with me, especially in this type
(23:02):
of area where there's mountain climbing andthere's beers. Things gonna happen with a
full tourniquet, full bandaged kit,that whole thing. And then I have
a camelback full of water, whichI usually have electrolytes in, and I
pack a couple of sandwiches that weprepared that morning and some jerky and things
like that. So I don't havea whole lot in the backpack. I
(23:22):
want to keep it empty for game. And then I carry up game bags,
which look like they look like bigsocks. That's what they look like.
Yeah, So if you if you'relucky enough to get a deer,
we caught it up, break itin, put in those bags. You've
probably seen them. They're like thekind of like the bags you see hams
hanging in. Oh yeah, yeah, they're kind of like that keeps the
flies and everything off of them.We roll them at that throw them in
the backpack. If you're lucky enoughto have a couple of people with do
(23:45):
you share the load and everybody helpshaul it out. You have to bring
the head out, No, butyou do. If you shoot a deer
that you want to, if youwant to do any taxi Army or you
want to keep the horns. Yeah. So yeah, last time we did
where there was a guy who gota got a new number one world record
Sitka blacktail deer on the island wewere on. We knew it was big,
we didn't know how big. AndU Yeah, we hauled out four
(24:07):
quarters backstrap and ahead. Wow,three of us. What do you do
with the rest of the carcass?I mean, you take every every bit
of meat you can and typically you'llleave it because the bears and the predators
are they they're gonna come. Yeah. Yeah, the rule and the ethical
thing is to do and also therule is in some places, whether it's
(24:30):
Canada, British Columbia, the Yukon, is you have to take especially like
let's say in the Yukon hunting moose, you got to take every piece of
meat you can take off that moosethat is consumable. That's the law.
Yeah, it's the right thing todo, so okay, but everything else
you leave for the buzzards. Thebears they'll be on it. You know,
they'll be on an instantly, hopefullynot immediately, since you know you're
(24:52):
you're still they're cleaning it. Yeah, all right, one of the things
you mentioned was electronics, So youdo bring it's your iPhone that you're gonna
use to use the satellite, takeout the tracking. I take the iPhone
if I have a book on it, which sometimes you know, if you
can't sleep or something with the time, the sunlight chain, singing music and
(25:15):
uh we we I use the GPStracking app on it as well. The
cool thing about this is the wholetime I'm there, we have a two
way radio. They have two wayradio for coast gardens things like that.
There is there's power on generator aboutan hour a day, so there's really
no reason to charge phone other thenif you're going to run music through it
because there is no internet. Yeah, right, so you're basically disconnected.
(25:38):
Yeah, you're disconnected from all civilization, which is great, right, Yeah,
it's cool least for a week.Yeah, it's it's wonderful. It's
really, it's really And we'll talkabout how it is acclimating back to society
after a trip like that. Yeah, I'm sure it's it's kind of different.
It's weird, but so I guessthey kick on the generator after y'all
have gotten back. It's not asif they kick it on. It too
(26:00):
in the afternoon while y'all are outsIt usually in the morning and when we're
having breakfast they may kick it on. Or when we get back at night,
they may go, hey, ifyou want to do charge your phone
or do whatever, you know,we're going to kick the generator on for
about an hour. And what isthe purpose of that, I mean,
what do they can what are theytrying to do. Let's give y'all an
hour's worth of modern convenience. Ithink that or if they sometimes they got
(26:22):
to work on stuff they have,it's dark in there or you know,
but there's no refrigerators, there's nonothings because all the food is kept on
basically on the window sill of theback room and it keeps it cool enough.
So do they have outlets. Imean that they have a couple outlets
in that place. It's it's thisplace was an old fox farm back in
the eighteen hundreds. It was Europeanfox farm way back when. And then
it became a fish cannery and theybought a few years back and they live
(26:45):
there and it's it's not typically likea hunting and fishing deal. They live
there and they host people people comeand stay all the time. You'll well,
while we're there, you'll have threeor four different boats with people sailing
around the world that will just showup and hey, can we come in
for dinner? And last time there'ssome Russian couple sailed up in there and
it was there for twenty four hoursand came in and brought dessert for dinner
and they had it was cool.But yeah, it's it's just you know
(27:11):
whatever. I guess it's for convenienceto the guests who are there. Okay,
you know, it's really nothing else. So yeah, you see you
talk about that, and I thinkto myself, Okay, I realize there's
no internet, so you're not gonnabe using your phone, right, but
I have this battery anxiety. I'dhave my phone for tracking purposes, like
like I imagine you do, tojust navigate around it easier. But if
(27:34):
it's not one hundred percent by thetime tomorrow comes around, I'm kind of
freaking out. Yeah. Yeah,is that just me being what's it called
just being so acclimated to societal life? Where is that even a concern for
you? No? Not, whenyou go there, it's not. And
I wasn't surprised by that at all. It was like, I'm good.
(27:55):
You know, I didn't need anythingto I didn't really need to charge anything
and things like that. No callfor any sort of electronic while you're there,
I mean, no need. Youdidn't. You weren't a camp and
you went, Oh, my goodness, if only I had electricity for no
my razor or something. None myshaver, noah, because I don't shave
when I'm there. Yeah, barelynobody shaves. Yeah, that's another thing
(28:17):
I'll ask you about when when wecome back. It's you know, those
the facilities. It's cool. Thefood's good. They prepare stuff that's caught
in the water. They prepare stuffthat you bring into camp. Trust me,
I got questions about a guard andall that kind of stuff. All
right, taking a break here onhunting matters KPRC nine fifty. So you're
(28:56):
too old to remember, but thisis the barreness sssity. He's from the
Jungle Book. I remember this.I used to have this album. Oh
kid, really, I still dothe vinyl. Yeah, it's good to
see that resurgence. I'm a vinylfing Yeah, I'm too that. Most
of my high school albums I betthose are worn out. It's pretty not
(29:17):
great shape, y'all. I've hadto buy some stuff I used to listen
to just to have it again invinyl. All right, this is a
Hunk Matter show with Joe guitar ramonrobos. Joe is actually leaving the show
to live out in the landscape.That's right. I'm never coming back.
No, no, no, He'llbe gone for a week, week and
a half. And we're just talkingabout the trip. I have a lot
(29:38):
of questions because one day I'm hopingto be invited to such an excursion.
What's that smirk? We all knewyou were invited on this trip, and
you hesitated? He who hesitates?And we'll do it again. Oh,
we had just bought property. Yeah, and I thought, oh man,
I can't be throwing money out afterthat. Yeah, so even though I
(30:00):
offered to pay your way. Wait, hold on back, all right.
So earlier you'd mentioned before you headout, y'all, pack some food to
eat, some sandwiches, And Igot to think, Okay, what possibly
could be in those sandwiches? Sowe're talking white bread? Yeah, they
maybe you brought in from Kodiak yea. Perhaps if they need if they needed
or if they had it there.Yeah, okay, it's not made bread
(30:22):
out of you know, beach sandand wheat or anything. It's okay,
nothing exotic like that, all right. And the meat, the protein,
uh, they bring. They havelunch meat there sometimes or sometimes she'll make
sandwiches, a slice of let's sayshe cooked a roast the night before,
she may slice that up and havethat out. Okay, so they should.
She'll the lady who runs the lawshere, Colleen, will cook a
(30:48):
cook a hearty breakfast and then she'slike, pack your you know, get
your lunches ready, and it'll beyou know, not chips, but they'll
be sandwiches and pickles and things likethat. And we've all always have a
pack of jerky with me or somethinglike that. You bring it, you
bring your own usually bring jerkey inwith me. And yeah, and then
trail a little trail mix something likethat and break it up into portions every
(31:08):
day and take it out. Justhave an actual little thing. Especially for
the first time I was there,I didn't know what to expect. I'm
going to pack shore lunch for itwhatever. But yeah, so we do
a couple of sandwiches, grab somefruit. Usually there's fresh fruit there,
things like that, and take thatout with us, throw it in the
backpack and go and try not toeat it before noon. I know that's
(31:30):
actually before too, because we're outthere for twelve hours. Yeah, and
then water. The water situation.You said you had a camel back,
because that usually enough or it's right, Yeah, I I typically it's I'll
take a camel back and maybe I'lldo a portable container, small container in
the side of my backpack. Butyeah, everything there is filtered rain water.
There's no running water there, sothey have some sort of tub or
(31:53):
something. They have a big yeah, it's a bad tub, and we
just scooped. They've got two big, large plastic containers that they collect rain
water in. Yeah. Wow.Yeah, and that's you. That's what
you're drinking water. And they've gota filtration system on it. You bring
tablets or any or any sort offilter last time straw, life life straw,
(32:15):
what? Okay, just drink itand hope for the best. Man.
See, I am so apprehensive justbecause I've never been exposed to anything
like that. I would just beso afraid of you know, dang,
I'm dead simply because I forgot tobring wrigley speriment chewing gum right or something.
You know, I overthink things,and I know at the end of
the day you need a lot lessthan you think you do. I always
(32:35):
overpack, yeah, and I thinkI overpacked the first time I went there.
I'm not making that mistake again becauseyou know, we're in a floatplane.
There's five of us on a floatplane, so there's a limit weight to
pass it too much, can't bringmuch and yeah, I packed too much
less time, So I'm gonna gobare bones this time as much as possible.
But then you're at that thing inthe back of my mind, what
if I need two things a litbomb? Right? Yes, So okay,
so let's run quickly through your packingthis Well, first of all,
(32:59):
when you get on that that plane, I guess they have to know how
much you weigh. So yeah,they're taking away you get on the scale,
and then they take your bags andthey throw your party's bags onto a
scale before they load them in,and you're you are standing on a scale
too, Yeah, so I can'tsay, you know, two oh five,
so they're yeah, they'll weigh usindividually and they'll add them all up
(33:20):
and they're like, you gotta dosomething. So before we leave Kodiak,
we all travel with hard cases forour firearms, but we'll probably leave those
at the floatplane airport and just carrythe rifles in our laps. It's an
hour and a half northwest of wherewe of Kodiak. Yeah, so you
don't really need all those hard guncases, so they'll let you just take
the rifles on a plane. Yeah, yeah, yeah, and you leave
(33:43):
the hard cases with the at theairport at the at the float plane airport
and then come out and get themon the way back. And what's the
rifle you're taking. I'm taking thegun works nexus. It's a new rifle
you come out with. When sixpoint five PRC. You were talking about
that round last week, I think, yeah, pretty good stopping power on
that. Yeah. Yeah. It'sflat, flat trajectory. It goes a
long time, It goes a longway, didn't didn't you know? It
(34:06):
didn't move very much? So youbore sighted, your scope got it's all
sided in taking to the range everything, So if you miss, it's your
fault. Yes, okay, it'sabsolutely my fault. How many rounds of
AMMO a box? I'll take abox and a half, so just in
case. Yeah, I take thirtyrounds. Probably do you shoot at all
at anything other than I mean,do you target practice on the island.
(34:29):
We'll get there and the first daywe'll go out and set up some targets
and make sure we're close or sightedin. Yeah, yeah, yep.
And the socks. How many pairsof socks are you taking? This is
gonna be at least a seven daytrip too, I take, I take
at least I'll probably take fourteen pairsof socks. Fourteen pairs of socks to
(34:52):
a day, uh yeah, orten? Probably ten? Now I don't
think that that's my overpacking brain.Probably take ten pairs. Okay, See,
I thought you were gon I saytwo, and in my mind I
said, well that makes sense oneeach day, you know, you alternate
you clean one. The problem isif you get out there and it is
raining. Yeah, you want tohave dry socks. Wet feet are the
worst, the worst. Okay,yeah, I mean but ten. I'll
probably take more socks than underwear.No specific kind of socks like marino wool,
(35:17):
a wool. Yeah, I've gotsome all weather wool too. Have
you tried Alpalca I'm not even joking. Al Palca socks. I have a
couple of pair of those. They'rephenomenal and I don't know how that stands
up in the wilderness, you know, in Alaska, but certainly comfortable pair
this time of year. It's Itake a light grade, medium grade wool
sock because it's not gonna be cold. You want something that dries quickly.
(35:37):
Yeah, and that's what those do. One pair of boots. I take
a weare pair of marrals there,which are kind of like ankle high hiking
boots. And then I take afull I pack a set of heavy duty
boots. And because you do notwant to be without your boots. And
last time I was there, Idid have a blow out of my regular
hunting boots date one, and Iwore the barrels the rest of the week.
(36:00):
So that did you? Okay,Yeah, that's fine. And when
you say full fledged boots, whatis it like a little bit above the
ankle with a good strong support inthe ankle and and pretty pretty aggressive treads
on the bottom on the soles.The mails are kind of medium treads,
but you know, it got mearound so and you're dressing layers obviously,
so you got a big thick jacketor no, I do a bass layer
(36:23):
at that time of year in thesixties, between sixties and forties, I'll
do a bass layer if it's coldand raining. Other than that, it's
uh, lightweight camo, lightweight camo, and then a rain suit. Do
you have to be in camo?Yeah? I mean yeah, hunting in
Texas, I don't think you haveto bear blind. No, you need
to be in camo there, Okay, Yeah, you got to wear the
(36:44):
orange vest. It's not required.Oh yeah. I used to wear an
orange hat though, just in case. Hey, look, just because it's
not required doesn't mean you shit right, Yeah, don't don't shoot at me.
It's me. Hey, guys,it's me. Yeah, I'll wear
an orange cap just in case.Rain gonna rain a lot often on it
does not two too rainy that timeof year. Hopefully we will have that
good track record again, but thereare times in Alaska where it doesn't stop
(37:06):
raining for days and days. Wehadn't even gotten to the fishing portion,
but I know we got a minuteand a half. Well that's what hand't
what we're going this time of year. The it's not optimal for a Sitka
black tail hunting. It's not easythat time of year, but we're gone
because we can hunt deer, andwe were gonna make the peak of the
salmon run. This time of yearis not good for deernny, it's good.
They're there, they're just not downon the beach, so you have
to go to them. So thesalmon run, the silver salmon, the
(37:29):
cohost salmon, and the halibut willbe there this time of year, so
we're gonna we're gonna hit both.And they say the salmon run is gonna
be really good this year or isgood? How much of a hard time
would it be on me? HadI gone knowing that I don't eat seafood,
you'd be fine. Uh, you'dbe fine. Yeah, as far
as the meals and things that areprepared there, it's fine. I mean,
don't get me wrong. I wouldeat sea you know, salmon,
(37:51):
you go catch fish, Yeah,I'd catch fish. I'd even we have
hot dogs, and we did whenwe get fishing. We have hot dogs
on the shoreline, So is thatright? Yeah, like the jet hot
dogs or these like move some Cariboohot dogs or that true deer hot dog.
Yeah, I mean when in Rome. Yeah, I wouldn't be picky
to that extent. Carib sausage isphenomenal. That's what they serve at their
local restaurant for breakfast, Caribo sausage. All right, we'll get thirty seconds.
(38:12):
What else you want to say?Uh, say your prayer for me.
I'll make it back. I'm excited. I am very excited for you.
Happy birthday. Thank you. Idon't see you before then, which
I probably don't since we don't socialize, ye, but yeah, happy to
bear fifty nine years old. Man. I hope you make it up and
down those hills. I'm gonna giveit my hall all right, do it.
We'll see you guys next week herehunting matters if I make it back,
baby, Yeah, KBRC nine fiftyand you're only getting down
Tradition, conservation, family, theoutdoors. It matters to you, it
matters to us. This is HuntingMatters presented by Houston Safari Club Foundation.
Here's Joe Batar. Good morning,Welcome to Honey Matters on KPRC nine fifty.
(00:23):
This is your host, Joe Batar. I am Ramon Rubliss, and
thank you guys so much for joiningus again this week for Hunting Matters.
Kind of weird. My bags arepacked. We don't have a guest today,
folks, if you're listening, wedecided not to have a guest because
we're tired of guests the show down. Are they tired of us? And
I think that's what it is now. We we decided to do something a
(00:45):
little different this week. We're gonnatalk a little bit about a trip I've
got planned coming out here very surely. And before we do that, I
want to jump into some information aboutour show sponsor, Houston's Far Club Foundation.
Got some cool stuff going on,folks. Go to the website at
we hunt we give dot org andcheck out the upcoming monthly events. September
fourteenth Byron Sadler, one of ourlife members is going to be talking about
(01:07):
his recent journey up to the summitof Mount Kilmanjara and just so happens,
Byron's only eighty years old when hedid it. We're gonna be having oh
this is new. We hadn't talkedabout this one on September twenty first,
we're gonna be having a happy hourat a place called ag Leather in the
Woodlands. They do custom custom beltsand all kind of cool stuff. And
I think this place also can doyour like your animal hides and and cure
(01:30):
them and tan them for you andturn them into clothing items. Yeah,
that's cool. So I've got myI've got my eye on a like a
full length alligator coade. I wantto get done with like a mink collar.
I'm thinking that that'd be a goodlook for me. I was thinking
maybe some sort of waya vetta bringin the Latin flavor to crocodile. Yeah,
but those are typically kind of breezyand well, maybe would use this
(01:51):
like oh just on the tabs,on the on the shoulders. Maybe you
have your style, I have udbe a hot one. There'd be a
winner. Whenever you're going to writea barra me. Yeah, it's cool.
So there'll be more information coming onthat and then October five, our
big annual Sporting Place tournament at aGreater Houston Sports Club. Go to we
Hunt, we give dot org,click on the membership button, go to
the drop down under monthly events.You do not have to be a member
(02:14):
to attend these events, but we'dlove for you to come out and join
us. U join us a littlefellowship, talk about hunting, fishing,
meet some of the members. Maybeyou'll want to sign up, become a
member, and those things are comingup. There's always something coming up every
month with more announcements to come.So, so you're going to interview me
today, Yeah, this is kindof weird. Yeah, I'm not used
(02:36):
to that. Well, first,I'm not used to looking you in the
eye because you know, we usuallyhave a guest we can focus our attention
on. Right, So this isgonna be quite awkward and difficult, but
I think we're gonna make it.Manion managed to make it. Okay.
So our guest this week is UJoe batar Yep from Louisiana originally yes,
okay, and it's b tar ohb tarka long ae Okay eat right,
(03:01):
I've had teacher tell me that sinceI since elementary school, I was pronouncing
my name wrong. They all pronounceit Bautar. So this is not your
first foray into Alaskan hunting. Secondtime to go went back in twenty nineteen,
going back to the same place,and you always have a specific animal
(03:23):
in mind to hunt. Well,this trip is different. Usually on my
hunting trips, if I've got somethingplanned scheduled, it's it's it's about okay,
we're gonna hunt these animals, orwe're going to do this that this
this journey actually started as a anendeavor to go and look at the recovery
(03:44):
area in the Kodak Archipelaga. Ialways said that word wrong, just southwest
of Prince William Sound. And ifyou recall back in nineteen eighty nine,
the xcelon Valdis, if you're oldlike us, the XI and Valdis had
a huge oil spill there consider oneof the worst marine environment disasters that our
nation's ever experienced. According to ourformer President Bush. That's hw and so
(04:08):
a friend of mine, Tim Richardson, said, Joe, you need to
go and see what's happened because ourorganization, Houston's Farcliff Foundation and a lot
of other organizations and a lot oflegislators and a whole lot of other people.
We're part of the cleanup and fundingthe cleanup and the recovery efforts of
this pristine Alaskan wilderness. If youwill. He said, you need to
come see it. And this happenedaway before my time in Houston's Farclof Foundation.
(04:30):
He said, you need to comesee how the area is recovered and
what we've done. So I'm like, yes, I would love to go.
So it just so happens we tiein some hunting and fishing with it.
We will be doing on this trip. We'll be talking to some local
probably local podcasters are radio people therein Kodiak, meeting with fish and game
officials and talking about some of therecovery efforts there. And the Black Bear
(04:55):
Trust are the bear trust that's there. We've been real involved with their efforts
in Alaska as far as Bristol Bay. So there was a mining company it
was trying to go into Bristol Bayand secure all this land. And based
on corp of Engineers U S.Army Corp of Engineers study And I'll tell
you the short story of it is. This is the largest salmon hatch fishery
(05:17):
or hatchery in the US. Itis where most of the salmon in the
US go through, and so thatgot shut down. We were part of
that opposition, and they're still tryingto bring it up again and trying to
trying to reverse the ruling by thecourts to open it up, to open
that area up for mining of mineralsand things like that. So we're hoping
that never happens and trying to geta legislated to where they can never open
(05:38):
up Bristol Bay for mining. Ithought you were saying miming. I thought
they were going to be like Marcel, Marcel be just as bad. Okay,
yeah, well but more entertaining,I'd argue. But my interest in
it is I love to hunting fish, and let go do that, and
we're gonna do that on this trip, but also to look at these recovery
areas. And you know, wetalk about it a little bit, but
the people that are hosting us arepart of conservation highest form as well.
(06:00):
Okay, and I'm looking. Soyou're flying into Kodiak. Yeah, so
I leave on my birthday, thenight of my birthday around six out of
Houston. I'm going to Chicago.Then I'm going to I'm all nighter from
from here to Chicago, Chicago toU Anchorage, and then from Anchorage I'll
roll into Kodiak about seven am thenext morning. Wow. Yeah, that's
(06:21):
all flights are weird over there now. They've reduced a lot of the flights,
so the same thing coming back.How long's the layover in Anchorage?
Uh? Four hours? Okay?Yeah, I think. I think I
get in around one am and Ileave out of there around four or five
am. Okay, to Kodiak.Yeah, but then it doesn't stop there.
Eventually, then you make it overto the uh what's the items You
(06:43):
call it the fog Knack Island.So, well, what we'll do is
we'll fly into Kodiak with the guys, all the rest of the crew.
They'll be five of us all together, and they'll come in stagger. So
I'll get in there, I'll getget our Airbnb set up, I'll get
a rental car in Kodiak, andthen I'm running them back and forth.
I'm going back and forth the airportpicking up everybody, but all day and
then and then going to meeting withpeople there in Cody ik As well.
Yeah, and I like Cody ikIt's your typical small town, but it's
(07:05):
except it's in Alaska. Yeah,and there's some cool stuff there to just
see. Just checking out the restaurantsthere, just you know, because you
gotta do your recall. Sushi,Cody Ikhana. I think there's a noodles
place called Noodles. The sushi placethere is the best I've ever had is
there. They probably plug it rightout to pull it out of the water
and then they just what it's stillbreathing when you set it on your plate.
(07:26):
Yep, Okay, yep, theygot they got some really good seat
food there. All right, Well, we're gonna run to break, okay,
and then we're gonna come back andtalk to you some more. Sounds
good, but you're taking us inand out still right. It was kind
of weird. Sure, unless youwant to be there. No folks taking
a break here on honey Matters KPRCnine fifty. We'll see you guys after
the break. Bosom now clear.I hear the clock. It's six.
(08:13):
I feel so fun fromwhere then.I got my eggs agat my pancakes too.
I've got my needs everything one you, I break the oaks and make
smiling. Well, come back toHoney Matters on KPRC nine fifty, and
we running through the Alaskan artist.Yeah. Do you have a bunch of
(08:35):
them about the apex of Alaskan singers. I hadn't heard of anybody else.
Oh man, Welcome back to HoneymattersKPRC nine fifty. This is your host,
Joe Batsari. I am Ramon Robeless. And it's weird because if you're
just joining us, we are herewith our guests. Joe Batar, that's
me, Joe Bitar is heading upto Alaska a couple of days. Today's
(08:56):
the twenty six. You're heading outon the thirtieth. Ye, and you'll
be gone, Hello, be goneon the thirtieth and back on the seventh
of September. Oh well yeah,I'm just pulling up the calendar here.
Yeah, okay, So week soyou get to Kodiak and you spend the
day there. Yeah, you spendthe night. I mean, you spend
one night, wake up, thenyou're probably on a little puddle jumper,
(09:18):
yea helicopter. So the next morningthe routine is, uh, the next
morning we get up, we goand pick up any supplies at our host
need from the grocery store because theylive on an island. Yeah, you're
like the door dash. Yeah,and uh, let's get our gear all
together. U dump everybody down atthe floatplane airport, go take the rental
car back, take a taxi backtogether. So it's a little logistical stuff,
(09:41):
but luckily Kodiak is not a verybig island, so and we typically
what we do is the morning wedepart from Kodiak out to go into the
wilderness, we stop buy There's asporting good store there that we typically go
to and you pick up any suppliesor baits or anything for fishing. Anythink
somebody's forgotten spray because you can't carebear spray over on the trail plane and
(10:03):
then fish boxes and anything else,so they have these collaps. While fish
boxes we take out on the plane, they're light weight. They're lightweight,
and that allows us to get allour fish back and frozen and shot back
to us home. Yeah. I'mactually pulling up a Google map of Kodiak,
and I naively pulled up this treeview thinking there was going to be
(10:24):
anything, and of course there's not. No I wanted an idea of what
Kodiak, Alaska looks like. Youcould look up big rays sporting goods and
hang around and there. Yeah,okay, it's cool because Kodiak, like
I said, it's a small town. But you can be at the breakfast,
the local breakfast joint and look overand there's a bunch of guys from
Deadliest Catcher hanging out having breakfast there. Sometime you can basically I like to
(10:46):
drop all over the island and lookat their seals. And there's the thing
that freaked me out, not freakedme out, was surprising to me,
and I should have known this myfirst time there. Was the bald eagles
that are everywhere and people, tothose people that live up there, they're
like, god, no, there'sfifty. You'll see fifty of them in
a parking lot in the dumpster.You know. Yeah, it's crazy.
And they're so big and huge andmajestic and beautiful. But yeah, the
(11:07):
bald eagles they're seals and can youeat those there? Can't eat the bald
eagles. They're kind of tough.Yeah, to soak them with buttermilk overnight,
wrap them in bacon. But it'scool. Little shops and things,
and they have a great fish andwildlife has a great place there where you
can go in to learn about thelocal wilderness and the animals and the species.
(11:28):
It's almost like a mini museum.And the native art stuff, uh,
the Innuit and Alaskan uh, youknow native Native Americans that are there.
They have art shops and things allover the place. That's kind of
cool. So I probably bring youback all turquoise if you appreciate it.
Like, let me think here ofthe uh what's older, the state of
Alaska or Joe Bitar. The stateof Alaska was Alaska, believe. Oh
(11:52):
but the forty two they are,okay, yeah, I'm sixty four.
Well, hey man, sixty fourthe year of my birth. I'm not
sixty four. You don't look it. Yeah, okay, And they had
a guy that's the other day,so twenty five yet. Sure, But
it's so cool because I mean there'slike that whole air, that whole Kodiak
National Walife refugees. There's like twohundred and fifty species of mammals and fish
and birds. Yeah, and thelargest brown bears in the world, and
(12:16):
and that's where they live. Imean, that's just you know, that's
what they're doing. Oh uh nineteenfifty eight. Okay, still still stay
older than me. Okay, alright, just making sure. Let's see,
I have some questions runned down.What is the largest animal there? You
think you could take down with yourbear hands? M hm and kodiak alasco
worthy if I had to? Probablya blacktail, said could blacktail deer if
(12:39):
I had to? If you well, attacking, that's what the Yeah,
that is the foundation of the question. You had to It's not you go
up to and you kill it.It is fight for your life bear.
Now yeah, well, of course, not a bear comes, do you
know what to do? I mean, you don't have the bear spray.
Let's say it to black bear,always have bear spray and laska. But
let's say it's not and again,uh, be very still and make myself
(13:00):
big if it starts kind of meanderingtowards me. Now, is there different
reactions for different bears? Because Ithought a grizzly bear you just pray,
and then a black bear you mighthave a fighting chance. I think I've
never had a I've had I've hada black bear climb up in a tree
with me before, and you hadto kind of hang a jabet jabet with
its paw with a little the endof an arrow. But I've never been
(13:22):
on the ground face to face witha brown or grizzly. But you know
they always say either, you know, make yourself bigger, not intimidating,
but larger, and and you know, make some noise if you have to.
And if they're charging you, theonly thing you can do. You
can't out run them, so theonly thing you do is curl up in
a ball and protect your botal organs. Just yeah, let them finish and
protect your botal organs. Yeah,you wouldn't even try to throw a haymaker,
just one if it kept on andkept on, you know. Look,
(13:46):
the thing about bears is this.I would never want to shoot a
bear if I didn't have to,of course, but if I had one
charging me, And the thing aboutit is a bears, especially browns and
grizzlies, to some extent, willfall charge you like an elephant or something.
They'll kind of you know, I'mgonna get you him and then back
off, you know. But ifI had if I had a situation where
I knew it was imminent, theattack was imminent, I'd probably try to
(14:07):
position myself somewhere where I could getbetween something between me and the bear,
rocketry or something, and I'd fireoff a shot from your rifle. Yeah,
but if if it came out ofnowhere, you know, they come
out of nowhere and hit you frombehind and knock your rifle with or anything
like that, I guess the onlything you do is grab your grab your
knife. Are they pretty quiet animals? Yeah? Yeah, they really are.
But let me ask you this,just in the in the aftermath of
(14:30):
an attack like that, if youended up conquering this bear, wouldn't you
feel almost obligated to open up itscavity and just eat its heart? Just
kind of man and versus wild beast. Master, I've just vanquished this enemy.
The romantic side of me probably would, Yeah, I've Actually, it's
weird you asked that, because I'veactually thought about that before. What would
happen? You know? You actually, if you've got a nuisance baar attack
(14:52):
or something like that, you can'tlegally keep any part of it. Yeah,
you've turned over to fishing games.But yeah, that you ask that
question because I'm like, yeah,if it was me and the wilderness by
myself, probably take a bite outof the heart out of respect. Yeah,
right, and just that energy carrieson through you. Yeah, I'm
knock on wood. I hope Idon't have a No. That's why we
(15:13):
talk about it because it's not gonnahappen. But you also should be mentally
prepared. Well. The other thingis people don't think about us. We're
gonna be deer hunting a few daysthere while we they're up in the mountains
in the middle of nowhere. Andthe thing about it is when you make
a shot in Alaska on specific areas, it's a dinner bell. Bears hear
the gun shot and they go,oh, something's down, So they will
(15:35):
they will if they're in that areaand they hear that shot, they will
come to you. And then thecloser they get them where they smell an
animal carcass, and then so it'sthe thing is, typically we're hunting pairs.
One guy's cleaning the deer if that'sif a deer goes down. The
other one's kind of walking around withit with a rifle and scoping and glassing
down the sides of mountains, upthe sides of mountains and make sure,
oh there's a bear it's coming.Okay, we gotta get done and get
(15:58):
out of here. Yeah, soyou got to you gotta skin the deer
yep. And we quartered up rightthere, yeah, right there in the
field. Yeah, as quickly aspossible. See. The limited hunting experience
I have is you throw the animalon the on the mule and you go
to camp. You hang it up, you know. But out there,
of course they drop us off.We we have a main base camp on
(16:18):
one island. We get in theboat every morning and they drop us out
on these surrounding islands and we don'tsee them again until nighttime. Now,
nighttime there sundown is nine thirty thistime of year, so we won't see
anybody until probably eight thirty seven,six is seven ish, I think I
can't remember which. When you're there, you want to see as much of
(16:41):
it as you can, as longas you can. Does it feel like
it's fifteen hours now? No,because we're we're in the mountains, are
in the water all day long.Yeah, it really doesn't. We're watching
and looking and it's kind of likeone time I was in Paris and I
ran I think seven miles from morningwith a buddy mine and I'm not a
long distance runner, but it wasbecause I was so busy looking everything.
It's the same thing in the mountains. You don't realize how fast time goes.
(17:03):
Well you had to add the factthat you ran seven miles. Well,
I mean you had to say thatwas the longest I've ever run,
probably in one continuous time. Butyeah, without anybody chasing. But we'll
do seventeen miles through the mountains onthis trip a day a day a day.
Yeah. The out and back?Is that what you're doing? You
go out and in the straight lineor do you kind of make a snow
up and down through forest and upon peaks and saddles and yeah, how
(17:23):
do you navigate? We'll save that. I can answer that. Taking a
break on Hunting Matters KPRC nine fifty. We'll be back after the break your
wheel, No, you were,I just can't love to be What is
(17:52):
the brea all Lime sim and welcomeback to Honey Matters with you gest Joe
Batar and your guest Joe Batar.I am Ramon Roeblists. I'm gonna tell
you something. If it were upto me, and we get to have
(18:15):
walk out music. When we cameout of the tent and went on the
hunt. This would be this wouldbe my wa would be down with that.
The Bears would hear this and goall crap. Yep, Ramon's on
the prowl, the big Bears home. You hear that Bears roll band.
It's a free for all. Herewe go boys. You know, I'm
actually I've got that in my playlist. I'm taking an earbud with me.
(18:37):
I'm gonna have to pop that inand he'll be thinking about you as I'm
dying climbing up the side of themountain one day. But you know,
it's funny you say that. Mynovice brain never considered the fact that you
actually literally have to train for thistrip. Ye You have to actually carry
stuff on your back to and walkand hydrate all kinds of things. Yea,
(19:00):
if you want to enjoy yourself.Yeah. Now, I've been on
trips like these before where and I'mnot saying I was more prepared or whatever,
but I've been on trips where I'vebeen better prepared than some of the
other people in the group. Okay, I love to go to gym.
I love to work out. It'slike if I don't go, it's good
for you make I get I'm ina bad mood. It's just something I've
(19:21):
always done. When you do thesetypes of hunts where you know, what
happens is you get on the boatin the morning, they take you to
an island. You could be onthree or four different surrounding you know,
satellite islands at a time, soyou're seeing different scenery every day. But
the first one they'll they'll drop uson typically is this one island. You
get off the boat, you walkup. Everybody got their stuff, I
got the stuff. We break offinto a couple of groups, two to
(19:42):
three people per group, and thenwe just start walking separate, you know,
because that's the way you hunt cipicalblack tailed deer out there this time
of year. If it has snowedalready, which it will not be this
time of year, the deer willcome down to the beach and you can
walk up and down the beaches andtypically do spot and stall. I can
try to try to get onto deer. It's still in the fifties, lows
(20:04):
in the mid forties probably the deeris still up at the higher elevation,
so you have to go to them. And a lot of these islands.
The main one we hunted last time, which I'm sure we'll do this time,
is halfway up, it's like rainforest. It's thick, you're you're turning
sideways to get through trees. They'renot really trails and that sort of thing.
And if it's rained, which thetip of that does sometime in Alaska,
(20:26):
it's muddy. Okay. Then whenyou get up to a certain point,
after about an hour and a half, two hours of that, you
get up to what we call saddlesand clear open areas, still forests and
things like that, but it's morerocky and it's more elevations. So that's
part two, phase two of theclimb. And you just go back as
far into the range as you canand look at your watch and go and
(20:48):
you know, I got to beout of here, and it's X amount
of clock and I've got to beback out down down at the down at
the beach by. You know,whatever time our pickup time, schedule pickup
time is, you scare until moretime to go up than you do coming
down. Is a quicker to comedown or quicker to come down, unless
you've got animals, deer or somethinglike that. But it works out.
(21:10):
So back to your original point,Yes, training the elevations there you're looking
at, you know, not thattwenty six hundred feet above sea level.
So it's not like you're climbing thetop of the Colorado Rockies, but you
are walking a lot. We didone day last year we did seventeen miles.
I think the next day we didfourteen miles combined in one day.
And so what I start doing ontop of the weightlifting stuff is I start
(21:33):
doing more cardio and then I startthrowing weights in a backpack and I go
on the StairMaster, I go tothe park here, whatever. But this
week I'm at I do I domy workout, my regular lift, and
then I'm on the treadmill or theStairMaster, mostly the stair the stairstepor for
about twenty minutes, twenty five minuteswith a twenty five pound weight in the
backpack, I will be wearing outthere, yep. And that's typically what
(21:56):
I'll carry. And of course whenyou dump meet in that if you're heading
back, it's a different whole differentgame. But you're kind of pumped from
the hunt. You kind of youknow, make your way down and going
down is easier, and the waywe track it is I've got a I've
got an app on my phone thatlays up basically a bread crumb trail.
Okay, so that's what I wasgoing to ask. It's pretty wide open,
(22:17):
and you kind of remembered their landmarkswhere you already come back down in.
But I do have a I liketo see how far we walk,
So I turn on that app connectsto satellite and it can track physically.
The app traps where I am andI can just follow it back if I
get lost. Okay, yep.So when you go out that day to
hunt, you have a backpack yep, mostly empty because is that where you're
(22:40):
putting the food? Yeah, somy my backpack is I've got so here's
what I've got. I've got arifle. I've got a backpack. I've
got binoculars in a harness, andI'm luckily this time I've got range finding
binoculars. So I'm not carrying arangefinder and binoculars. My btonoclars do it
for me. Backpack is going tohave a blowout kit or or a med
kit in its keep a first aidkit with me, especially in this type
(23:02):
of area where there's mountain climbing andthere's beers. Things gonna happen with a
full tourniquet, full bandaged kit,that whole thing. And then I have
a camelback full of water, whichI usually have electrolytes in, and I
pack a couple of sandwiches that weprepared that morning and some jerky and things
like that. So I don't havea whole lot in the backpack. I
(23:22):
want to keep it empty for game. And then I carry up game bags,
which look like they look like bigsocks. That's what they look like.
Yeah, So if you if you'relucky enough to get a deer,
we caught it up, break itin, put in those bags. You've
probably seen them. They're like thekind of like the bags you see hams
hanging in. Oh yeah, yeah, they're kind of like that keeps the
flies and everything off of them.We roll them at that throw them in
the backpack. If you're lucky enoughto have a couple of people with do
(23:45):
you share the load and everybody helpshaul it out. You have to bring
the head out, No, butyou do. If you shoot a deer
that you want to, if youwant to do any taxi Army or you
want to keep the horns. Yeah. So yeah, last time we did
where there was a guy who gota got a new number one world record
Sitka blacktail deer on the island wewere on. We knew it was big,
we didn't know how big. AndU Yeah, we hauled out four
(24:07):
quarters backstrap and ahead. Wow,three of us. What do you do
with the rest of the carcass?I mean, you take every every bit
of meat you can and typically you'llleave it because the bears and the predators
are they they're gonna come. Yeah. Yeah, the rule and the ethical
thing is to do and also therule is in some places, whether it's
(24:30):
Canada, British Columbia, the Yukon, is you have to take especially like
let's say in the Yukon hunting moose, you got to take every piece of
meat you can take off that moosethat is consumable. That's the law.
Yeah, it's the right thing todo, so okay, but everything else
you leave for the buzzards. Thebears they'll be on it. You know,
they'll be on an instantly, hopefullynot immediately, since you know you're
(24:52):
you're still they're cleaning it. Yeah, all right, one of the things
you mentioned was electronics, So youdo bring it's your iPhone that you're gonna
use to use the satellite, takeout the tracking. I take the iPhone
if I have a book on it, which sometimes you know, if you
can't sleep or something with the time, the sunlight chain, singing music and
(25:15):
uh we we I use the GPStracking app on it as well. The
cool thing about this is the wholetime I'm there, we have a two
way radio. They have two wayradio for coast gardens things like that.
There is there's power on generator aboutan hour a day, so there's really
no reason to charge phone other thenif you're going to run music through it
because there is no internet. Yeah, right, so you're basically disconnected.
(25:38):
Yeah, you're disconnected from all civilization, which is great, right, Yeah,
it's cool least for a week.Yeah, it's it's wonderful. It's
really, it's really And we'll talkabout how it is acclimating back to society
after a trip like that. Yeah, I'm sure it's it's kind of different.
It's weird, but so I guessthey kick on the generator after y'all
have gotten back. It's not asif they kick it on. It too
(26:00):
in the afternoon while y'all are outsIt usually in the morning and when we're
having breakfast they may kick it on. Or when we get back at night,
they may go, hey, ifyou want to do charge your phone
or do whatever, you know,we're going to kick the generator on for
about an hour. And what isthe purpose of that, I mean,
what do they can what are theytrying to do. Let's give y'all an
hour's worth of modern convenience. Ithink that or if they sometimes they got
(26:22):
to work on stuff they have,it's dark in there or you know,
but there's no refrigerators, there's nonothings because all the food is kept on
basically on the window sill of theback room and it keeps it cool enough.
So do they have outlets. Imean that they have a couple outlets
in that place. It's it's thisplace was an old fox farm back in
the eighteen hundreds. It was Europeanfox farm way back when. And then
it became a fish cannery and theybought a few years back and they live
(26:45):
there and it's it's not typically likea hunting and fishing deal. They live
there and they host people people comeand stay all the time. You'll well,
while we're there, you'll have threeor four different boats with people sailing
around the world that will just showup and hey, can we come in
for dinner? And last time there'ssome Russian couple sailed up in there and
it was there for twenty four hoursand came in and brought dessert for dinner
and they had it was cool.But yeah, it's it's just you know
(27:11):
whatever. I guess it's for convenienceto the guests who are there. Okay,
you know, it's really nothing else. So yeah, you see you
talk about that, and I thinkto myself, Okay, I realize there's
no internet, so you're not gonnabe using your phone, right, but
I have this battery anxiety. I'dhave my phone for tracking purposes, like
like I imagine you do, tojust navigate around it easier. But if
(27:34):
it's not one hundred percent by thetime tomorrow comes around, I'm kind of
freaking out. Yeah. Yeah,is that just me being what's it called
just being so acclimated to societal life? Where is that even a concern for
you? No? Not, whenyou go there, it's not. And
I wasn't surprised by that at all. It was like, I'm good.
(27:55):
You know, I didn't need anythingto I didn't really need to charge anything
and things like that. No callfor any sort of electronic while you're there,
I mean, no need. Youdidn't. You weren't a camp and
you went, Oh, my goodness, if only I had electricity for no
my razor or something. None myshaver, noah, because I don't shave
when I'm there. Yeah, barelynobody shaves. Yeah, that's another thing
(28:17):
I'll ask you about when when wecome back. It's you know, those
the facilities. It's cool. Thefood's good. They prepare stuff that's caught
in the water. They prepare stuffthat you bring into camp. Trust me,
I got questions about a guard andall that kind of stuff. All
right, taking a break here onhunting matters KPRC nine fifty. So you're
(28:56):
too old to remember, but thisis the barreness sssity. He's from the
Jungle Book. I remember this.I used to have this album. Oh
kid, really, I still dothe vinyl. Yeah, it's good to
see that resurgence. I'm a vinylfing Yeah, I'm too that. Most
of my high school albums I betthose are worn out. It's pretty not
(29:17):
great shape, y'all. I've hadto buy some stuff I used to listen
to just to have it again invinyl. All right, this is a
Hunk Matter show with Joe guitar ramonrobos. Joe is actually leaving the show
to live out in the landscape.That's right. I'm never coming back.
No, no, no, He'llbe gone for a week, week and
a half. And we're just talkingabout the trip. I have a lot
(29:38):
of questions because one day I'm hopingto be invited to such an excursion.
What's that smirk? We all knewyou were invited on this trip, and
you hesitated? He who hesitates?And we'll do it again. Oh,
we had just bought property. Yeah, and I thought, oh man,
I can't be throwing money out afterthat. Yeah, so even though I
(30:00):
offered to pay your way. Wait, hold on back, all right.
So earlier you'd mentioned before you headout, y'all, pack some food to
eat, some sandwiches, And Igot to think, Okay, what possibly
could be in those sandwiches? Sowe're talking white bread? Yeah, they
maybe you brought in from Kodiak yea. Perhaps if they need if they needed
or if they had it there.Yeah, okay, it's not made bread
(30:22):
out of you know, beach sandand wheat or anything. It's okay,
nothing exotic like that, all right. And the meat, the protein,
uh, they bring. They havelunch meat there sometimes or sometimes she'll make
sandwiches, a slice of let's sayshe cooked a roast the night before,
she may slice that up and havethat out. Okay, so they should.
She'll the lady who runs the lawshere, Colleen, will cook a
(30:48):
cook a hearty breakfast and then she'slike, pack your you know, get
your lunches ready, and it'll beyou know, not chips, but they'll
be sandwiches and pickles and things likethat. And we've all always have a
pack of jerky with me or somethinglike that. You bring it, you
bring your own usually bring jerkey inwith me. And yeah, and then
trail a little trail mix something likethat and break it up into portions every
(31:08):
day and take it out. Justhave an actual little thing. Especially for
the first time I was there,I didn't know what to expect. I'm
going to pack shore lunch for itwhatever. But yeah, so we do
a couple of sandwiches, grab somefruit. Usually there's fresh fruit there,
things like that, and take thatout with us, throw it in the
backpack and go and try not toeat it before noon. I know that's
(31:30):
actually before too, because we're outthere for twelve hours. Yeah, and
then water. The water situation.You said you had a camel back,
because that usually enough or it's right, Yeah, I I typically it's I'll
take a camel back and maybe I'lldo a portable container, small container in
the side of my backpack. Butyeah, everything there is filtered rain water.
There's no running water there, sothey have some sort of tub or
(31:53):
something. They have a big yeah, it's a bad tub, and we
just scooped. They've got two big, large plastic containers that they collect rain
water in. Yeah. Wow.Yeah, and that's you. That's what
you're drinking water. And they've gota filtration system on it. You bring
tablets or any or any sort offilter last time straw, life life straw,
(32:15):
what? Okay, just drink itand hope for the best. Man.
See, I am so apprehensive justbecause I've never been exposed to anything
like that. I would just beso afraid of you know, dang,
I'm dead simply because I forgot tobring wrigley speriment chewing gum right or something.
You know, I overthink things,and I know at the end of
the day you need a lot lessthan you think you do. I always
(32:35):
overpack, yeah, and I thinkI overpacked the first time I went there.
I'm not making that mistake again becauseyou know, we're in a floatplane.
There's five of us on a floatplane, so there's a limit weight to
pass it too much, can't bringmuch and yeah, I packed too much
less time, So I'm gonna gobare bones this time as much as possible.
But then you're at that thing inthe back of my mind, what
if I need two things a litbomb? Right? Yes, So okay,
so let's run quickly through your packingthis Well, first of all,
(32:59):
when you get on that that plane, I guess they have to know how
much you weigh. So yeah,they're taking away you get on the scale,
and then they take your bags andthey throw your party's bags onto a
scale before they load them in,and you're you are standing on a scale
too, Yeah, so I can'tsay, you know, two oh five,
so they're yeah, they'll weigh usindividually and they'll add them all up
(33:20):
and they're like, you gotta dosomething. So before we leave Kodiak,
we all travel with hard cases forour firearms, but we'll probably leave those
at the floatplane airport and just carrythe rifles in our laps. It's an
hour and a half northwest of wherewe of Kodiak. Yeah, so you
don't really need all those hard guncases, so they'll let you just take
the rifles on a plane. Yeah, yeah, yeah, and you leave
(33:43):
the hard cases with the at theairport at the at the float plane airport
and then come out and get themon the way back. And what's the
rifle you're taking. I'm taking thegun works nexus. It's a new rifle
you come out with. When sixpoint five PRC. You were talking about
that round last week, I think, yeah, pretty good stopping power on
that. Yeah. Yeah. It'sflat, flat trajectory. It goes a
long time, It goes a longway, didn't didn't you know? It
(34:06):
didn't move very much? So youbore sighted, your scope got it's all
sided in taking to the range everything, So if you miss, it's your
fault. Yes, okay, it'sabsolutely my fault. How many rounds of
AMMO a box? I'll take abox and a half, so just in
case. Yeah, I take thirtyrounds. Probably do you shoot at all
at anything other than I mean,do you target practice on the island.
(34:29):
We'll get there and the first daywe'll go out and set up some targets
and make sure we're close or sightedin. Yeah, yeah, yep.
And the socks. How many pairsof socks are you taking? This is
gonna be at least a seven daytrip too, I take, I take
at least I'll probably take fourteen pairsof socks. Fourteen pairs of socks to
(34:52):
a day, uh yeah, orten? Probably ten? Now I don't
think that that's my overpacking brain.Probably take ten pairs. Okay, See,
I thought you were gon I saytwo, and in my mind I
said, well that makes sense oneeach day, you know, you alternate
you clean one. The problem isif you get out there and it is
raining. Yeah, you want tohave dry socks. Wet feet are the
worst, the worst. Okay,yeah, I mean but ten. I'll
probably take more socks than underwear.No specific kind of socks like marino wool,
(35:17):
a wool. Yeah, I've gotsome all weather wool too. Have
you tried Alpalca I'm not even joking. Al Palca socks. I have a
couple of pair of those. They'rephenomenal and I don't know how that stands
up in the wilderness, you know, in Alaska, but certainly comfortable pair
this time of year. It's Itake a light grade, medium grade wool
sock because it's not gonna be cold. You want something that dries quickly.
(35:37):
Yeah, and that's what those do. One pair of boots. I take
a weare pair of marrals there,which are kind of like ankle high hiking
boots. And then I take afull I pack a set of heavy duty
boots. And because you do notwant to be without your boots. And
last time I was there, Idid have a blow out of my regular
hunting boots date one, and Iwore the barrels the rest of the week.
(36:00):
So that did you? Okay,Yeah, that's fine. And when
you say full fledged boots, whatis it like a little bit above the
ankle with a good strong support inthe ankle and and pretty pretty aggressive treads
on the bottom on the soles.The mails are kind of medium treads,
but you know, it got mearound so and you're dressing layers obviously,
so you got a big thick jacketor no, I do a bass layer
(36:23):
at that time of year in thesixties, between sixties and forties, I'll
do a bass layer if it's coldand raining. Other than that, it's
uh, lightweight camo, lightweight camo, and then a rain suit. Do
you have to be in camo?Yeah? I mean yeah, hunting in
Texas, I don't think you haveto bear blind. No, you need
to be in camo there, Okay, Yeah, you got to wear the
(36:44):
orange vest. It's not required.Oh yeah. I used to wear an
orange hat though, just in case. Hey, look, just because it's
not required doesn't mean you shit right, Yeah, don't don't shoot at me.
It's me. Hey, guys,it's me. Yeah, I'll wear
an orange cap just in case.Rain gonna rain a lot often on it
does not two too rainy that timeof year. Hopefully we will have that
good track record again, but thereare times in Alaska where it doesn't stop
(37:06):
raining for days and days. Wehadn't even gotten to the fishing portion,
but I know we got a minuteand a half. Well that's what hand't
what we're going this time of year. The it's not optimal for a Sitka
black tail hunting. It's not easythat time of year, but we're gone
because we can hunt deer, andwe were gonna make the peak of the
salmon run. This time of yearis not good for deernny, it's good.
They're there, they're just not downon the beach, so you have
to go to them. So thesalmon run, the silver salmon, the
(37:29):
cohost salmon, and the halibut willbe there this time of year, so
we're gonna we're gonna hit both.And they say the salmon run is gonna
be really good this year or isgood? How much of a hard time
would it be on me? HadI gone knowing that I don't eat seafood,
you'd be fine. Uh, you'dbe fine. Yeah, as far
as the meals and things that areprepared there, it's fine. I mean,
don't get me wrong. I wouldeat sea you know, salmon,
(37:51):
you go catch fish, Yeah,I'd catch fish. I'd even we have
hot dogs, and we did whenwe get fishing. We have hot dogs
on the shoreline, So is thatright? Yeah, like the jet hot
dogs or these like move some Cariboohot dogs or that true deer hot dog.
Yeah, I mean when in Rome. Yeah, I wouldn't be picky
to that extent. Carib sausage isphenomenal. That's what they serve at their
local restaurant for breakfast, Caribo sausage. All right, we'll get thirty seconds.
(38:12):
What else you want to say?Uh, say your prayer for me.
I'll make it back. I'm excited. I am very excited for you.
Happy birthday. Thank you. Idon't see you before then, which
I probably don't since we don't socialize, ye, but yeah, happy to
bear fifty nine years old. Man. I hope you make it up and
down those hills. I'm gonna giveit my hall all right, do it.
We'll see you guys next week herehunting matters if I make it back,
baby, Yeah, KBRC nine fiftyand you're only getting down
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Bookmarked by Reese's Book Club
Welcome to Bookmarked by Reese’s Book Club — the podcast where great stories, bold women, and irresistible conversations collide! Hosted by award-winning journalist Danielle Robay, each week new episodes balance thoughtful literary insight with the fervor of buzzy book trends, pop culture and more. Bookmarked brings together celebrities, tastemakers, influencers and authors from Reese's Book Club and beyond to share stories that transcend the page. Pull up a chair. You’re not just listening — you’re part of the conversation.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!