#817 - Jason Hairston & Brendan Burns

[0] couple hours and yeah we got the gun what's up gentlemen how are you good thanks for having this job for people who tune into this podcast i got brandon burns and jason who run a company called coo you which is uh the premier if if you if you could look at your company like in comparison to a lot of other like sporting good companies and like if people think about like a hunting company you think about oh it's like some duck dynasty type shit you guys what I like about your company is there's not a lot of people that take what you guys do, like make clothing and gear and take it to the most technical and most intelligent like what is the best shit you can possibly make?

[1] That's it.

[2] And go do that.

[3] But because of that, this company's become this gigantic company.

[4] I found out about you guys by, from my friend Martin Putellis who works for Meat Eater.

[5] He was wearing these clothes.

[6] I go, what's what's going on with that?

[7] What he got there?

[8] And he's like, this is Kuyu.

[9] This is this new company that's out.

[10] Feel this.

[11] Feel this.

[12] This is ultra light.

[13] It's the best kind of fabric.

[14] So he started telling me about your company.

[15] And I just love when people go for it.

[16] I love when people, like, people wouldn't think that there's like this big market to create the most technical, most ridiculously engineered hunting clothes.

[17] You would say, well, what the fuck?

[18] Who's doing that?

[19] Like, who cares?

[20] Yeah.

[21] Who needs it?

[22] But then listening to you guys on a couple of podcasts, I'm like, these guys are fucking sharp dudes, super sharp, intelligent people who just happened to be in love with hunting.

[23] And so you've taken this mindset, this achievement -oriented mindset, and put it towards this company.

[24] And it's fascinating to me. Yeah, I just got into it because I wanted to make stuff I couldn't find.

[25] I wanted better performing products.

[26] It's what, you know, we created the category of a sitcom back in the days.

[27] back in 2004 because I was wearing all mountaineering gear and wondered why I was the only person that wanted that style, that type, that performance level of hunting gear, I didn't believe that I was alone and came up with the concept, introduced it in 06 to the hunting market and it exploded.

[28] Created the entire technical apparel category and it's just, it's now what everyone's chasing, it's what everyone wants to wear and makes a significant difference for our customers in the mountains.

[29] Well, there's a bit of, a lot of hunting people are kind of, fashionistas in a way totally they're like ooh what do you got there was that under armor ooh is that first light like they they start like looking at your stuff almost like girls look at shoes and purses and shit it's it's really kind of interesting that way well no one likes to go to hunting camp be out geared right your buddy's got the coolest latest stuff they're like what what is that one of the reasons why i want to have you guys on is because i've done the best job i can of trying to educate people as to what i see when i talk to people that are really intelligent really ethical very very involved people that are fanatics about hunting because I think people have a distorted perception of what hunting really is totally do it's like Yahoo's beer drinkers it's Bubba I mean people think of hunters as Bubba Rednecks driving out and drinking beer shooting stuff out of the truck and it's so not that at least our customer base and what we do I mean it's a true lifestyle it's a heritage it's been passed down in my family it's where we live and breathe it's why I train every day it's what my focus is in my life and what I've done for a career and a business and it's there's a lot to it and the places we go require that or you're going to pay a huge huge price and so it's a way for me to test myself as a as a human being as a man as a hunter and in life and it's something that you know is a big big part of me it's been passed down from my father and I'm passing down to my kids and you know we've been hunters for two million years I'm freaking proud of it a lot of people show away from it and it's something that is you know really really obviously a very important part of my life and well there's not a lot of high performance you know super skilled things where you also have a lowest common denominator kind of guy that that you're associated with i mean if mountaineers you know had a guy that was wearing a white tank top and was down at the climbing gym falling off break in his head every week people would perceive him slightly different right it runs you know, the guys that are doing the most extreme stuff in the world, and the perceived person that's down here, you know, what people, you get lumped in with the lowest common denominator guy, which is not the case at all.

[30] I mean, that's a real good point.

[31] Yeah.

[32] And, yeah, I mean, it's certainly what we're doing and we're testing our products.

[33] I mean, we argue that it's in a different format than even outdoor gear.

[34] I mean, we're, when the weather's bad and you're on a climb, you stay in your tent, when the weather's bad and we're on a hunt.

[35] What do we do?

[36] Yeah, especially if you're not bringing much food and you're counting on killing something and eating it up there.

[37] Totally.

[38] It's an endeavor that's a very, very difficult and misunderstood endeavor.

[39] It really is.

[40] And I think companies like yours and what you guys are doing and the videos that you release on YouTube, especially when you're going over the extreme engineering involved in your packs and your gear and all the different things, to me, that stuff's fascinating.

[41] It is.

[42] Because I love people that are just going for it, that are just engineering the shit out of things.

[43] You guys are chopping down toothbrushes to make them lighter and all the stuff you're doing.

[44] I was listening to one of the podcasts where you talk about your Excel sheet that you make, a spreadsheet that you make.

[45] Everything goes in.

[46] For every hunt, you weigh everything out so you know exactly what everything weighs before you're going on to a mountain.

[47] You have to for what we're doing.

[48] Yeah.

[49] I mean, you look at any endurance sports.

[50] You look at cycling is a great example.

[51] I mean, ounces they've proven are huge if you're climbing on a bike.

[52] and the bike weight and the body weight on all that leads to better performance and we found the same to be with with what we're doing on backpack hunts I mean every ounce over a 10 -day hunt really adds up in calorie burn and calorie deficit which then turns out to be performance and you know it well from training well it's also you guys have engineered these clothing your clothing line is incredibly quiet which is also a really important thing and there's there's so many different levels to getting it right when it comes to hunting gear, getting it right when it comes to, you know, I mean, it could be the difference between success and failure.

[53] And this is one of the things that I wanted to kind of highlight about this pursuit.

[54] I don't like to call hunting a sport or a discipline.

[55] I mean, call it whatever you want, but it's not, you know, it's figuring that.

[56] Yeah, it's, it is what it is.

[57] It's weird that you have to lump it into this other thing.

[58] But I think that people have a distorted perception of it because of what you said, because of this lowest common denominator guy, the Bubba thing.

[59] But the more I've gotten into it, the more I've met people like you guys or people like Cam Haines or Steve Ronella or Remy Warren.

[60] And you get deep in and you realize like this is a really difficult discipline, very, very difficult that has many, many, many layers to it.

[61] It really does.

[62] I mean, you look at some of the expeditions we're doing up north.

[63] You know, we go up to the Yukon or Alaska or Northwest Territories.

[64] And we're going from point A to point B like a normal expedition, but we're hunting on top of that.

[65] Exactly.

[66] And then we've got to manage the game that we take out on top of that.

[67] The weight and the extremes and the conditions and the weather, I mean, it adds to, I mean, you have to be really well prepared, really physically, mentally, and also with the right equipment and gear.

[68] Yeah, I mean, you head in the mountains on some of the stuff we're doing.

[69] I mean, it's not like, it's comparable with mountaineering, but, I mean, you don't have to, you know, it's not A to B, you just got to survive to A to B. I mean, you have to thrive in the mountains.

[70] You have to understand what's going on with the animals.

[71] You're up early.

[72] You're up late.

[73] I mean, it's even more in depth than just getting from point A to point B. And a lot of these places we're going there is no reason to ever go there unless you were hunting.

[74] I mean, there's some random mountain in the middle of an ice glacier that not particularly tall, not particularly.

[75] But like, there's no reason to go there unless you had something to go there to look for.

[76] And that's the cool thing.

[77] I mean, we're seeing stuff that nobody would ever go see.

[78] Yeah, it's like A to B with a very complex biological puzzle.

[79] Totally.

[80] Yeah.

[81] Yeah, it's so different than, like I said, a lot of people think of it.

[82] And one of the things I like about your company is you guys are represented by this big horn sheep.

[83] I mean, that is like a part of your logo, which is one of the most difficult animals to pursue.

[84] Sheep hunting is a pinnacle, man. And it defines for Brennan and I and for people in the company and people associate with the brand.

[85] I mean, it is the ultimate dream.

[86] It's what we all dreamt about growing up is someday I would be a sheep hunter.

[87] I'll earn the right to go sheep hunting.

[88] Because it's so difficult.

[89] It is.

[90] The opportunities are limited, and it's an animal that lives in places that we, you know, we can visit, but we can't live there.

[91] I mean, they live in places that you just, you know, the normal, we only get to like a snippet into their, into their life because it's places you can't, you just can't live.

[92] I mean, you can't go.

[93] And you can die.

[94] Absolutely.

[95] Yeah.

[96] I mean, Cam Haynes' good buddy, Roy Roth, died just this past season.

[97] You did.

[98] Fell 700 feet to his death while sheep hunting.

[99] I was hunting, I had a tag in Alaska and the Chugatch, a couple, a little ways over from there.

[100] I mean, we went 37 miles in up, up to two forks of a glacier.

[101] And, I mean, we got to where you could physically, a human being without climbing gear could not go any further where I killed my sheep this fall.

[102] I mean, 15 -year -old ram living up in the rocks.

[103] I mean, like, that is some of the, that's some of the most, that's some of the toughest country in the world.

[104] I mean, it's brushy and ice and nasty.

[105] And, you know, again, it's not, it's not pleasurable to go in there.

[106] Like, you have to really go into something like that.

[107] You have to have a goal or a reason to be in there.

[108] It's not like, I'm going to go grind out this miserable brush and, you know, poor, you know, shitty, rainy weather.

[109] Yeah, you just like, why would you be there?

[110] He wasn't.

[111] Because you go there because you want to see, you know, this is going to test me?

[112] And you want to see if you can match with this animal.

[113] And, you know, you want to go see if you're up.

[114] the challenge.

[115] I mean, that's what we've been doing for it's the world's oldest and greatest sport.

[116] I mean, if you're not, you know, you're either hunter or a berry picker.

[117] Yeah, and the level of intensity that's involved in that moment when you actually try to take that animal after that incredible hike in, after 37 miles of risking your life to get to that point and then that moment's there.

[118] Just the extreme amount of pressure and intensity involved in that moment, that to me, is what defines the real challenge, the ultimate challenge of hunting.

[119] And this idea that it's a bunch of people that like killing animals or it's a bunch of fat Yahoo's and sit around drinking beer.

[120] No, there's way more to this thing.

[121] This is an insane like really primal pursuit.

[122] It is.

[123] We always say you're either a hunter, you're like Brendan mentioned, a berry picker.

[124] It's in our DNA if you're a hunter.

[125] And to be able to test that against the toughest conditions against the hardest animals to hunt in the most remote places is, to me, the ultimate test of being a human being and ultimate test of being a hunter.

[126] And that's what drives me and what we do and why I train you around, why I'm always thinking about gear, about food, about weight, about, you know, how I could improve from what I learned on last year's hunt to this coming seasons and preparation of it is, A, it's fun.

[127] I love it.

[128] I live it and breathe it, and it's challenging.

[129] It's really challenging.

[130] Well, it unfolded for me, and it still continues to do so, because I've only been doing it for four years.

[131] I mean, Rinella got me involved, and he took me out to Montana in 2012, and, you know, I was like, oh, hey, this is kind of be interesting.

[132] Let's see what this is all about, because I had watched shows and I had read some stuff about it.

[133] But one of the things that he said, he's like, man, there's a steep learning curve to this.

[134] There's a steep learning, and it goes long.

[135] And I was like, well, how long can it go?

[136] You fucking find an animal, you shoot it, you kill it, and eat it.

[137] Like, what's so hard?

[138] but then as you get into it you realize and then of course bow hunting which is the most difficult of the most difficult pursuits and as you get into it you realize like oh this is like some crazy puzzle it's like some crazy challenge that you have to figure out that also involves a way to procure your food it does and it's a skill set you never quit learning on every time you go out i learn something new yeah there's a there's a there's a natural progression you go through i mean it's like you're just excited to be there right and then you're you're you're and then you see it with people you take out for the first time, they're just like, oh, kind of what's going on here?

[139] And, you know, and then all of a sudden they get a little click, and it's like, I want to get one, you know.

[140] And then, you know, that's usually a couple years.

[141] And then, yeah, I want to get a nicer one than one I got last time.

[142] And I want to do something a little more challenging.

[143] And it just keeps progressing until, like, you know, until you get, you know, wherever it ends.

[144] And it's, you're hunting the toughest animals, the biggest animals, the oldest animals in the toughest conditions and being successful and a lot of people won't get there but it's it's it's always a challenge is something that never gets old i mean it's it's you know it's comparable to any athletic event only you can do it for your whole life you know i mean there's lots of stuff you do athletic and then in growing up or whatever and it's like but it doesn't really translate you know a college wrestler that doesn't translate that well to the rest of your life yeah exactly if you're that dude down there at the intramural wrestling like uh you've you've missed you know so hunting is the one thing that is just throughout your entire life depending on where you're at i mean you can it you can always continue to learn and pursue it and you know sometimes you know you don't have a ton of time you can do a short hunt sometimes you know things are going well you can do something that's you know an epic adventure but it's always a challenge it never gets easy i mean the the the animal you killed last time does not care the new animal you're hunting does not care what you got last time you have to go out you got to be sharp every single time you know yeah and everything has to be done right every single time yeah yeah and what i like about guys like you two is you take two dudes like yourselves who are both like real goal oriented savages and you put together a company like this that pursues that one ultimate experience and says what is the best shit that we can make what is the best way we can pursue this we do um and that's why i built coo the way i did having learned from sitka selling the retailers, the limits of what we could produce.

[145] And I was super frustrated the fact that I was walking away from the best materials and walking away from the best innovations.

[146] And when we sold that company to Gore -Tex, I had the freedom to go start something new and to eliminate the retailer so I could go build a business platform specifically so I could go out and take these amazing materials, amazing designs to market that I couldn't do before and get them to market through this brand, Kuyah, which has made all the difference.

[147] Well, isn't it interesting that this has all happened at the same time where the internet is kind of exploded in this way that people are doing a massive amount of shopping online.

[148] I mean, I have one of those mailboxes where they get your packages for the company and, you know, when I used them 10 years ago I'd get like a package every couple days or something like that.

[149] Now every time I go there there is stacks and boxes shit because I do like all my shopping online.

[150] Everyone does now.

[151] It's a crazy thing how that's happened for you guys like right as your company started was right at the same time.

[152] It's like you caught that wave right at the crest.

[153] When I look back, it's like we orchestrated it and timed it perfect and like we could see the future.

[154] I could see the downfall.

[155] You called it.

[156] I mean, Brent and I talked about it.

[157] I'm I can, there's a problem with retail.

[158] When you can't produce the best products possible for your customers because they can't sell it, they can't add the value any longer, because all they're offering is price and selection.

[159] So price wins in a sea of selection with no one there to explain why a new product so much better than the old product, there's a problem.

[160] And I saw it coming.

[161] And now you see it, you know, getting exacerbated every day with new reports about retailers failing, malls going out of business.

[162] Retail is in big, big trouble.

[163] Amazon's, you know, made that happen faster.

[164] The Internet's made it happen.

[165] And it's all looking back with Kuyu.

[166] Timing was, it's everything.

[167] I mean, as you know, with business, you know, a lot of it is timing luck and being the right place at the right time with the right concepts and ideas.

[168] And we totally nailed it.

[169] We kind of came in at the exact same time with Onit that you guys did with Kuyu, and with the same exact model, selling directly to people, getting the very best shit you can possibly get.

[170] What is the, like, forget about cost.

[171] What is the best most nutrient dense foods, most nutrient dense supplements?

[172] Let's figure out a way to get the best stuff.

[173] Find who's got the best protein powder?

[174] Who's got the best?

[175] Well, it's cost prohibitive because of this, and retail gets marked up.

[176] Exactly.

[177] that's the issue right is like when you sell something to a retail like a cabellas or something like that they tack on a bunch of money a ton right they make a lot more money than we did 100 percent so we make it more money than you guys no no i mean they tack on a hundred percent so a jacket that i'd produce for 100 i'd sell to cabellas for 200 they sell to you for 400 bucks wow for putting on a coat hanger and throwing it on a rack makes it convenient you know if you're like in a place and you need a jacket and you lift your jacket at home but it's It's a faulty model.

[178] It doesn't make sense.

[179] If you're a guy like you that does research and knows exactly what he wants and you can put a tape measure on yourself and know how big you are, I mean, I'm roughly an XL and you could save yourself money and get a better product, it's no -brainer.

[180] Well, also, the amount of research that you can do.

[181] Like, if you go to a store and you talk to the guy that's behind the counter, you know how many times I've talked to people?

[182] Like, you go to a place that sells car parts or something like that, and you ask a guy a question, and he says something that's totally.

[183] totally wrong.

[184] You're like, well, I know that's not right.

[185] If you don't know that, how the fuck do you know where this goes?

[186] Totally.

[187] Yeah, I mean, you have to be someone who's like deeply, deeply involved in the product to be able to explain it to someone who becomes obsessed.

[188] Exactly.

[189] Like if someone who's like like, like your packs, the way you guys engineer the carbon frame of your packs, like I spent like a fucking hour and a half the other night watching videos of how you guys make packs.

[190] Isn't it cool?

[191] Yeah.

[192] The first thing he said right off the bat is like, we're going to pull the curtain back.

[193] I'm going to tell everybody what everybody has been afraid to tell everybody.

[194] If you educate the person to know what they're looking at and you're building the best stuff, they'll end up back here.

[195] And so he's just like, no one had ever said, here's what fabrics we're using, here's where we're getting it.

[196] Here's where our factory.

[197] Here's what we're doing.

[198] I mean, like, competitors like, are people going to seal it?

[199] You know, I don't care.

[200] You build the best stuff and you sell it at a good value for what you have to.

[201] And man, the whole transparency thing has been incredible to watch.

[202] And be in direct where you can communicate directly with your customers, as you know.

[203] It's so freaking powerful, and they love it.

[204] And we're able to build so much trust.

[205] I mean, I started blogging about Kuyu 18 months before I ever launched.

[206] I talked about the fabrics, materials, the factories, the process of building a company.

[207] And I really did it just to keep my name associated with the next brand.

[208] As I left and transitioned out of Sitka, I had no idea what it would create.

[209] And it created this massive following.

[210] People started engaging with me and asking me questions.

[211] and I was listening to their suggestions on products and educated them on what great fabrics, what great design was, and they just ate it up, and the consumer loves it.

[212] The retailer wasn't given it to them any longer.

[213] Back in the day, I grew up working in an archery shop in Orange, California, from Bob Fromm was a really, really amazing archie shop owner.

[214] And he was the guy, right?

[215] I mean, you walked in and said, Bob, what's the latest, greatest stuff?

[216] And he could tell you all about it.

[217] You go to Cabellas now, like you were saying, saying the guy on the floor has no clue the customer knows more than the retailer now and you know by and taking with kuyu and going directly to that customer and giving them all that information giving them the power to make the decision they ate it up and then be able to be involved them through this process you know they they just build a ton of trust with you it's like they understand the brand they understand you they understand how you think and why you're making those decisions and then they trust you and once you have the consumers trust and you don't break it you know you you can really build a brand off of that now.

[218] Well, a guy like me who loves to geek out on shit, too.

[219] Totally.

[220] It's obsessed with things.

[221] That's what I love, that I can go and watch all these videos and read all this stuff about all the different engineering that's involved and creating your products.

[222] And when I do that, it gets people more excited.

[223] That's why I think it was a brilliant move to blog about it in between the time of building the company.

[224] It was.

[225] I mean, I look back now and it's like I had a blueprint on how to build a company today when we did that.

[226] I looked back and read the blog post, and I just go, wow, I can't believe I actually did that without really knowing what I was doing because it seems like I executed it so perfectly.

[227] And I was just falling my gut and interacting with the customers.

[228] And it was so, so powerful and such a big thing because as I built this business model, which was the first of its kind in this industry and even the outdoor market, people told me, cool idea, but how are they going to find you?

[229] How are they going to trust you to buy your product to begin with?

[230] How are you going to get customers soon enough so you don't go out of business and run out of money?

[231] because so many companies will go create a website, launch, and no one knows about it.

[232] Right.

[233] How do you create that interest in advance and create the demand?

[234] Well, you can spend a ton of money.

[235] You look at like a Warby Parker or a Hairy Shave or Dollar Shave Club.

[236] Well, they spend more money than they're bringing in and they're burning cash like it's going out of style to create demand through high levels of marketing that's very, very expensive.

[237] Or you can do it like we did and educate the customer and be transparent and build trust in advance.

[238] and then launch, and then you've got your best sales force in the world, which is your customer base.

[239] Because everything about your brand.

[240] You guys have this advantage in that hunting, because it's such a difficult pursuit, because it sort of gets in your DNA, you become obsessed with it.

[241] And when you become obsessed with it, and you find a company that's also obsessed with making the very best shit possible, and then you guys geek out to such a high level on the videos and on these descriptions of what you're making, then these obsessed people become obsessed with what you're doing.

[242] And then they go, oh, well, if I'm going to do this right, I've got to do this this way.

[243] They do.

[244] And it's great.

[245] I mean, people we meet and hunters we meet or at hunting camp or traveling.

[246] I mean, it's amazing to me how much they know about a product and how much to know about the brand.

[247] I mean, they are, like you said, they geek out on it and eat all the little details up, which I love, because that's what I geek out on when I'm searching for these amazing fabrics.

[248] They're learning about new technologies, and I share it.

[249] These people eat it up.

[250] They love it.

[251] Well, it's really a sort of a master class in how to do things the right way, to foul passion, and being obsessed with something, but doing it to the utmost.

[252] Because if you do that, then the word gets out.

[253] The word gets out.

[254] The word gets out.

[255] People talk about it.

[256] And like I said, I found out about you guys through word of mouth completely.

[257] Well, and if you're actually doing it, too, I mean, like, the customers really see that, you know, like, you know, no one else that's running a company.

[258] I mean, you know, multiple hunts every year, big stuff.

[259] Like, believes in what we're building and takes it.

[260] it to the places that the worst place our customers could ever go and use it.

[261] And people respect it.

[262] They love, you know, not only that, that's what I want to do.

[263] But I know that, you know, he's already, he's done it too.

[264] We know, we've used that stuff in those places.

[265] Well, was it your blog that I read?

[266] Which, which blog was it where you guys were sucking water out of the top of a rock?

[267] It was one of the blogs for your company, one of the early on blogs.

[268] You guys went on a I don't know who it was or wrote it, but it was all Kuyu stuff.

[269] We were talking in -depth about testing out the products on these really remote back -country hunts.

[270] Yep.

[271] Yeah, I mean, it's how we figure out the shortcomings of our product.

[272] You can look at all the laboratory data.

[273] You can look at all the test results of what that's given back to you.

[274] But you really don't know until you put it in the conditions that we put it in.

[275] And we've, like Toray, who is my main fabric supplier, who's the most innovative Japanese.

[276] I mean, they are the bomb as far as technical fabrics go.

[277] And this is Japanese?

[278] Yeah, the Japanese by culture, build the best fabrics in the world.

[279] What are they putting in them?

[280] Because, like, you guys use a lot of synthetics, right?

[281] They do.

[282] I mean, they're, so their quality standards in Japan are much higher than anywhere else in the world.

[283] And they have a really high quality standard of the raw material.

[284] Then they have a really high quality standard of the actual yarn.

[285] And then they've figured out how to make their yarn stretch and recover with no elastic.

[286] It's why our stuff so light.

[287] But because of that process and because of their high quality standards, are incredibly expensive.

[288] But the Japanese, just by their nature and their culture, they don't do things that cut corners.

[289] You look at the building of a samurai sword is a great example.

[290] There's a lot easier ways to build a sword than a samurai does.

[291] The samurai sword is built.

[292] I mean, it takes a lot of time, a lot of patience, and it's perfect.

[293] I got one over there from 1511.

[294] So you know it, right?

[295] Yeah, that one's a real one.

[296] It's the way Japanese do things.

[297] And it's the same way of why they produce such amazing fabrics and materials, and they're continuously pushing the bar as far as innovation, reducing weight.

[298] And it's a partner for us that's just amazing.

[299] I found Toray well before I started Kuyu.

[300] I tried to build a Toray product line with Sitka, and it was just price prohibitive.

[301] I took it to a couple buyers at Cabela's one at Shield Sports, and they said, beautiful, way too expensive.

[302] So what are they doing to make this stuff so light and, like, it stretches a little bit, and it snaps back?

[303] back, but it's very light.

[304] So they have a patent on how they make the yarn.

[305] It's called Prime Flex Yarn.

[306] And if you look under a microscope, it looks like a spring, right?

[307] And so it can stretch out and then recover without any elastic.

[308] Everybody else has to put spandex or elastic or lycra in their fabrics.

[309] And elastic's super heavy.

[310] It holds moisture.

[311] It's also, you know, stretches and doesn't really recover until you wash it again.

[312] If you wear a stretch pair of pants with a lot of elastic, they kind of saggy after a period of time.

[313] You notice with ours, they'll fit the exact.

[314] back same way on day 10 as they did on day one because of their fabric, because of how they make their yarn, the stretch and recover that elastic.

[315] So why are they making this fabric, too?

[316] It's like, who are these crazy people that are out there, like, super engineering fabric?

[317] It's the Japanese.

[318] And they'll sell it into, you know, Japanese market, they'll pay for performance.

[319] Their pricing on their performance apparel is much higher in Japan.

[320] The European market as well for their climbing industry, and some of the ski brands run their fabrics as well.

[321] but nobody's really introduced their product line like we have in the United States because it's been cost prohibitive up until Kuyu business model came out.

[322] So they just decided essentially the same thing that you guys are doing, just figure out what is the best way to do this?

[323] That's how they do it, yeah.

[324] And they're a, and Tori as a company is a Japanese conglomerate, which is pretty typical of Japanese companies.

[325] And their base, the start of their company was chemistry.

[326] So they're a chemistry -based company that makes chemicals, and make carbon fiber, but it's chemistry that starts with everything they do and understanding how everything is produced and made.

[327] And it's that foundation allows them to put out these amazing innovations, to figure out nanotechnology and how to waterproof a down feather, how to make membranes that breathe two and a half times out of Gortex and still stretch and recover and a more durable.

[328] It's that foundation of who Tori is, is a chemistry company that allows them to push these innovations out.

[329] And then you add in the Japanese culture of perfection.

[330] and making things correct and having processes that continue to produce high -quality products and materials over time.

[331] And that's why Toray is so freaking amazing.

[332] I dork out over shit like this.

[333] Oh, it's so cool.

[334] I just love when someone's trying to figure out a way to engineer something to the very finest edge.

[335] They do.

[336] And then what's great about them is always pushing.

[337] And so they're coming to us with new fabric innovations, new technologies and innovation.

[338] And we're able to find their limits because of our customers and what they use it for.

[339] And I'm able to go back to their engineers now because I've developed a really big relationship with them where now their largest customer in the world and work directly with their team and say, hey, guys, your membrane works great except for these certain situations.

[340] And so they go and they try to figure out how to rectify that.

[341] And they will.

[342] Yeah.

[343] I mean, they'll commit themselves to fixing issues that we'll find the laboratory tests say they should never fail and we'll find the limits of it.

[344] I mean, not necessarily Brennan and I, but our guides that are spending 200, 250 days of their life every year in the mountains, they'll come back and say, hey, guess what?

[345] This happened in this situation.

[346] That's rare.

[347] But it lets us go back to their development team and say, hey, we found limits on this thing.

[348] And they listen.

[349] And they go back and try to re -engineer it to figure out how to push the bar further so those failures don't happen.

[350] I was listening to you on a podcast recently.

[351] you were talking about this new engineering that you're doing on your packs and how you're testing them.

[352] So, like, when you have a new product, say if you create a new pack or something like that, and you, before you bring it to market, do you get it to guides?

[353] Do you have them tested?

[354] Do you test it yourself exclusively?

[355] Yeah, so it starts as a process in -house, and we'll put it through certain tests depending on the product, like the new pack frame we just introduced today earlier at Cooleu Live.

[356] I don't know if you happened to see my live presentation for a flight down here.

[357] So you do a live presentation, like a product launch?

[358] I do that today.

[359] Yeah, kind of like a keynote thing like Jobs does.

[360] That's hilarious.

[361] Who the fuck's doing that with hunting?

[362] Nobody.

[363] You guys are savages.

[364] Not doing it well.

[365] Not doing it well.

[366] So you have this product launch.

[367] So what did you launch?

[368] What is it?

[369] Well, we introduced a new carbon fiber technology that just came out on the market a couple years ago, introduced as far as ability to start developing.

[370] product with a new fiber technology called spread toe carbon fiber.

[371] You'll love this because you geek out and stuff like this.

[372] So carbon fiber traditionally, the fibers are put into yarn, right?

[373] So they take each individual carbon fiber, group them together and make a yarn.

[374] Those yarns are then woven into fabric.

[375] It's what you see of typical carbon fiber look, right?

[376] The woven the woven look you see on carbon fiber.

[377] What spread toe is, instead of round fibers, they've figured out that if you flatten the fibers out, so instead of being round, they're flat, And instead of weaving them, they lay them next to each other, and then they run sew lines across it, which you can see in our new frame.

[378] And by doing so, when you mold it into a product, because that fiber is now completely flat and it's running the length of the product, it's much stiffer and stronger than if you weave it and it has, the fiber has to go up and over other fibers.

[379] It's not as stiff, not as strong, and the performance level, you give up quite a bit compared to spread toe.

[380] So spread toes all directional fibers, and then what we've done in our frame is we now can determine exactly how many fibers run from the top of the frame to the bottom of the frame.

[381] You count the fibers?

[382] Of course.

[383] And then lay in on a 45 how much stiffness we want and flex we want on the horizontal axis.

[384] So if you want our packs, you'll notice that it carries a load really well because of the vertical stiffness, but it's also comfortable like an internal pack.

[385] because of how much fiber we have running on the horizontal axis that controls that flex.

[386] So you want to have a certain amount of flex?

[387] Yes.

[388] Have to.

[389] But you got to figure out what that amount is, and the way to figure that out is by testing.

[390] We went through 18 versions of our frame to get to where the formula is that we now and reintroduced today.

[391] That's fucking hilarious.

[392] Who does that?

[393] I do.

[394] Working with our carbon fiber engineers and with our development team, Sean, in our office.

[395] Is there any other companies is going through 18 different versions of a carbon fiber frame?

[396] We're the only one in the world that produces one, so it's probably just us.

[397] We've got a patent on our frame design.

[398] Now, I know what carbon fiber is, but I don't know what carbon fiber is.

[399] You know what I'm saying?

[400] Like, my car has, oh, look at this, Jamie.

[401] Yeah, we're on the ball.

[402] Dude, killing it.

[403] Jamie's always on the ball.

[404] So it's a cloth.

[405] I mean, it's soft, it's pliable.

[406] How does it be, like, I have a Porsche 9 -11 GT3 RS that has a carbon fiber rear wing.

[407] I'm always like, it looks badass, but what the fuck is that?

[408] They lay it down as a fiber, and then you put epoxy in it, and that's what connects it.

[409] So the epoxy, so it starts out as a carbon cloth.

[410] It is.

[411] It's pure cloth.

[412] You can feel it flexes, moves just like a cloth.

[413] And, okay, here it is.

[414] This is what it looks as a fabric.

[415] So that's spread toe there in a bi -directional format.

[416] And then from there, you turn that somehow or another into this really hard stuff with a heat -activated resin.

[417] So you saw, if you go back to the mold, with a frame we're laying in there right there so we're laying that into a mold so we have a bottom mold it's all aluminum cut and a top mold and we lay that fiber in and then what he's doing is applying the resin and then we'll put the top mold on top and then we add a ton of pressure for how many thousands of pounds of pressure gets put on top of it and add heat and time and over I think it takes a little over an hour we will cure that mold or that that that resin into a actual part, and that becomes our frame.

[418] And what is the advantage of that over, like, say, any other very stiff or durable material?

[419] It's half the weight of aluminum.

[420] It's twice as strong as steel.

[421] And then by...

[422] Twice as strong as steel.

[423] It is.

[424] It's amazing material.

[425] And then also how we engineer the mold.

[426] And a big part of the engineering process of this is understanding how far a part you separate, the fibers create stiffness.

[427] So we have foam in between the carbon fibers and the center portion of the frame.

[428] That foam creates what they call modulus, which is separation of the fibers.

[429] And that modulus creates the overall stiffness within the center portion of our frame.

[430] And then how much of that we have within the frame determines how much flex stiffness, and then also where we're put in the fibers and how many.

[431] So there's a lot to it.

[432] The weak point of carbon is the epoxy.

[433] The carbon is the strongest part.

[434] And so the new spread toe, what it does is it makes it tighter, smaller, less epoxy.

[435] Yeah.

[436] And so what we got out of spread toe, which we just introduced, for no weight penalty, we now have a frame that's five times stiffer and stronger than what we had previous, which is still a really good performing product.

[437] And we just got five times better.

[438] That's insane.

[439] Isn't it?

[440] And so when you say five times stiffer and stronger, how do you know, is there a too stiff, or is it not a stiffness issue?

[441] It's a flex issue?

[442] Is there a difference there?

[443] Yeah, I mean, there is.

[444] And it's a challenge, right?

[445] It's finding that perfect balance.

[446] And you can do that with carbon.

[447] You can't do that with a steel or aluminum frame pack.

[448] And you really can't do that with any other pack frame design, which is usually some sort of plastic sheeting with aluminum stays.

[449] But the flex is kind of there.

[450] You can add more aluminum stays, but then still doesn't it.

[451] It's a piece of, yeah, it's a piece of, yeah, it's aluminum bar, essentially.

[452] Which you can kind of mold in a curve or whatever.

[453] It's sewn to a piece of plastic, shoved down the back part of like an internal frame backpack has.

[454] And it's to add some sort of support?

[455] Stiffness.

[456] Stiffness.

[457] Rigidity.

[458] It's what will pull the weight off somebody's shoulders and it will help carry that load versus just a duffel bag strapped to your back, which is uncomfortable, as you know.

[459] Well, that's where the interesting aspect of the engineering comes in when it comes to packs, because the same weight with a different pack feels different.

[460] Totally different.

[461] And that's something I think a lot of people are.

[462] not aware of.

[463] Like, you think, oh, if you're carrying 100 pounds of your back, you're carrying 100 pounds of your back.

[464] No. No, it's, it's depended entirely upon the ergonomics, how it sets on your body.

[465] It does.

[466] In geometry of how that loads transferred onto your back and the frame and balancing it, there's a lot to it.

[467] And, you know, in the past, before our frame came to market, you either had really stiff frames with external frame packs, metal or aluminum, and then you had this internal frame, which was really comfortable until you had to put weight in it, then it wouldn't be stiff -neff, and it would end up putting a lot of pressure and weight on your shoulders and your hips.

[468] So how do you engineer that?

[469] Do you have to try it out?

[470] Do you have to take one of these packs and wear it on a long back country hunt?

[471] And they say, okay, here's some, I got a little bit too much weight on my shoulder, a little bit too much weight on my hip, or how do you discern?

[472] It's essentially that.

[473] I do a lot of workouts with weight on my back in a pack on a treadmill.

[474] So I'm able, I'd spend a ton of time on our packs with various weights.

[475] and we do that.

[476] A lot of guys in our office do as well, as well as my PAC developer, Sean, and Brendan.

[477] And then once we feel like we're really close, we then ship them out to Brendan's guys, a bunch of guides, and say, test it for us.

[478] Put it through your world and what you're using it for.

[479] I mean, one of the challenges we have with our industry and backpacks is this huge, as you know, this huge swing of weight.

[480] Yeah.

[481] Because once we get something down, we've got to get all that out.

[482] So we're going to go from maybe packing them with 50 or 60 pound pack to all of a sudden.

[483] Now you've got a hundred plus pound load and you need to manage that.

[484] So how do you get a pack that can do both?

[485] Be comfortable with lighter weights and still have the ability to carry heavy weights.

[486] It's an engineering problem.

[487] And it's also an engineering problem that's handled a bunch of different ways.

[488] Like some people pack it inside the bag.

[489] Some people, the pack separates from the frame.

[490] You pack the meat to your body and then put the pack, the rest of the pack, strap that down on top of the frame.

[491] How do you decide how to handle that?

[492] that just trial and error as well well you want the weight closest to your back and closer you can get the better it is and it is it the closest to you can get it like flatter to your back as well like you don't you don't want it like bulging out right like if you have a large yeah if you have a hundred pounds and it's sitting in a two foot square at the lower part of your back that's not nearly as good as like flattened out to six inches and going over the entire circle you want to spread that up and down the frame as close to the frame your back as possible and how where do you where do you make it sit on your shoulders?

[493] How you strapping it in to make sure that it's in the right place.

[494] Or you want to carry the majority of the rate with your hips.

[495] So, I mean, you start at the waist, put it all in, and then shoulder straps, all that kind of stuff, and stand up, and then your load lifters and all the way up.

[496] But, I mean, you want to, I mean, it's individual thing, how it fits, but you want to start with, I mean, your hips are your strongest, your center of gravity.

[497] That's where you want the majority of the weight to be carried as close as you can.

[498] And this is all trial and error stuff that's been done through mountaineering, through all these different guys that are going on these.

[499] long backpack hikes?

[500] Yeah, it is.

[501] And then it's fit.

[502] And also, I mean, it's critical that you have a pack that fits correctly.

[503] Most people have a pack that isn't set up correct.

[504] And we found that with our packs, they're really easy to adjust the shoulder straps so we can get a perfect fit for each customer.

[505] And we put an instructional video out there of making sure the geometry from your load lifters, which are the straps that come off the top of the pack down to your shoulder straps.

[506] That geometry is critical that it's perfect.

[507] and it has to be at a 45 -degree angle.

[508] That will help take that load off your shoulders and transfer to your hips and help you manage that weight comfortably over a long period of time.

[509] So you need like geometry.

[510] You need like a triangle to set up to make sure.

[511] This is where the whole Bubba thing doesn't come in real well for our sport.

[512] Exactly.

[513] That's why...

[514] There's a lot to it.

[515] I mean, it starts at mathematics with the frame and designs and CAD and C &C machines and all that and the math and all through it and then it goes all the way through and you build it and then it requires testing and taking it, you know, in real -life settings.

[516] And people vary on what they like.

[517] I mean, there's some guys like to carry things a certain way.

[518] Some people like fit.

[519] You know, some guys like their pack way up high.

[520] I've fitted guys that like them way up.

[521] I mean, you can only know by testing it, by doing it, by carrying some weight.

[522] And how many different products are you individually overseeing?

[523] See, that's the most daunting aspect of it.

[524] Because you've got all this different shit going on at the same time.

[525] And on top of that, you're doing a dozen hunts a year plus and you're out there in the field.

[526] Like, how the fuck do you find the time to do all this?

[527] Well, you know, it's interesting.

[528] When you do something you love and you have a huge passion for it, I never stop working.

[529] I mean, I work the second I get up in the morning until the time I go to bed.

[530] If I'm not sitting in front of my computer working on stuff specific for Kuyu, I'm thinking about it.

[531] And that's, it doesn't feel like it's a lot of work, although I look back now and go, fuck, that is a lot of work.

[532] We put out some amazing products.

[533] And, you know, it's just, it's a process.

[534] And it's solving problems through finding materials and technologies and designs that solve those problems.

[535] There's a lot to be solved in hunting, fortunately.

[536] Because there's a big gap before.

[537] Brandon, pull that sucker up closer to you there.

[538] A big gap from, you know, some of the other industries are out there before Sitka and Kuyus come along.

[539] So there's a lot of work to do.

[540] And we've done a lot to take from where hunting apparel and gear was back in 2004 to where it is today in 2016 is a massive change.

[541] And not everything.

[542] as in -depth as the pack all the way from start to finish.

[543] I mean, sometimes you have great fit on something and you have a new fabric.

[544] Well, you know, I mean, how it's got to get tested.

[545] You've got to see how you like it.

[546] But it's not like 18 models of, you know, when you get a superior breathing, you know.

[547] membrane, yeah.

[548] You know, it's not all as in -depth as that.

[549] It's, you know, a lot of it's plugging in the right product to the right fit.

[550] And then you have a winner right off the bat.

[551] Well, I think what you were saying about the amount of work, this is also like how we were saying, that hunting isn't really a sport like it gets called a sport it's sort of its own thing when work is sort of its own thing too because you can call it you can call it work but if you love something it's not really work like showing up at the garbage depot and or the garbage dump and picking up cans all day and she love garbage I guess you could love garbage there's some people probably love being a garbage man yeah some guy out there screaming I fucking love garbage yeah yeah Yeah, but when you find something that you become obsessed with, that becomes a passion, it's like, it's a puzzle.

[552] It is.

[553] It's just like you're doing a game all day, almost.

[554] All day.

[555] And it's also, in a lot of ways, an art form.

[556] I tell you what, brand building to me is fascinating.

[557] And it is an art form.

[558] And there's no science.

[559] There's no blueprint.

[560] This is how you build this brand.

[561] And I think it's the most fascinating work I've ever done.

[562] It's truly figuring out a craft.

[563] Brand building is a craft.

[564] And it never stops, you never stop learning from it every day.

[565] I mean, you live it and breathe it every day.

[566] Yeah, it reflects you guys.

[567] I mean, that's one of the things that I found interesting about this.

[568] It's like you can kind of see when there's someone like you that's at the head of something like this and you're this driven, focused guy, you kind of see that when you see the actual brand itself.

[569] It reflects you.

[570] So this idea of like it being work, it's really like a passion project.

[571] It is.

[572] It truly is.

[573] Everything from the product to the brand building.

[574] to the videos, to the imagery.

[575] I mean, I've got my hands in everything.

[576] And I'm super particular about the way our image is presented to the marketplace.

[577] It's got to have, I can feel, I just tell people, I can, I can feel it, I can taste it, I can smell it.

[578] Everything with Kuyu.

[579] Well, that's one of the beautiful things about having a very small center of operation.

[580] Like, it's just you guys deciding how this goes down.

[581] You don't have to meet with a giant board of, you know, a bunch of different people.

[582] You're not a public company.

[583] You don't have to.

[584] There's nobody there to water down the Cheerios.

[585] Does that make sense?

[586] It's not a democracy.

[587] Water down the Cheerios.

[588] Yeah, no, we run, I always say every day, it's a dictatorship of Kuyah.

[589] Yeah.

[590] You know, it kind of is, and it works well that way.

[591] And, you know, it's interesting because we get, you know, we've, because of our growth and because of our business model, we have, we're approached all the time by private equity investment groups, you know, throwing huge valuations of money at me. And I'm just, when I look at the opportunity, yeah, it's a lot of money, but I don't want to change what we've got.

[592] Right.

[593] You know, as soon as I bring an outside capital or professionals, then look in the business, they're like, well, you need to professionalize.

[594] I'm like, for who?

[595] Right.

[596] What does that mean?

[597] What does professionalize my team?

[598] Exactly.

[599] Well, you need a CFO, you need a CMO, you need a CFO.

[600] I'm like, for what?

[601] Right.

[602] So we can slow down our process so we can change the culture that's built a really special, unique company.

[603] So a bunch of other people give pieces of the pie away.

[604] Right?

[605] Yeah.

[606] It's just such a broken traditional model as far as growing in business.

[607] And we're doing it just the opposite.

[608] It's the same thing with podcasting.

[609] There's a broken model that's, there's a lot of podcasters today that are joining in with these gigantic networks.

[610] And they think that being a part of a network is like being on NBC or being on CBS, which it used to be a big deal back in the day.

[611] Like if you were doing a play and NBC came along and said, we want to turn that play into a sitcom.

[612] You'd be like, we fucking made it.

[613] Woo!

[614] We're in.

[615] But now, if you have a successful podcast and someone comes along and says, hey, we would love you.

[616] to be a part of our gigantic corporation like get the fuck out of here we got to run we got to run away from these guys they're going to ruin everything and they will they will they'll come in they'll tell you what to do they'll tell you what you can't do no more cussing no more cussing for short yeah yeah you can't bounce around you got to pick your you got to pick your topics you're way too spaced out yeah you know what is what is what is water down the chiro is even fucking mean you can't you certainly can't cover hunting yeah exactly that's way too confident about twice a week yeah yeah i mean i had cam haines on a monday and you guys on this way it's i just don't i I don't think you should do anything other than what you want to do.

[617] I think if you could live the best life, it's like, what actually interests you?

[618] What do you actually enjoy doing?

[619] Well, do that.

[620] Is it possible all the time?

[621] No. There's some obligations you're going to have to have.

[622] There's family stuff, work stuff, business stuff.

[623] There's stuff you have to deal with.

[624] But do what you want to do the most that you can do it.

[625] Absolutely.

[626] I always say if you can be an expert in something you love, you can find a way to make a living in.

[627] I mean, Brendan's a perfect example.

[628] He freaking loves hunting.

[629] He lives it and breathes it, studies it.

[630] Look where he is now.

[631] Well, when I met Brendan, I met him this past weekend in Bozeman.

[632] And one of the things that struck me is you and I were talking.

[633] You have this fucking crazy fire in your eyes.

[634] You're like, I wanted to be the guy that kills the biggest bulls every year.

[635] And when I killed one big bull, I didn't want it to just be like, oh, it was just a fluke.

[636] Well, now you got to be consistent.

[637] And I was like, all right, this crazy motherfucker, I see where he's at.

[638] And then when you told me you had this gigantic bull down in Schneeze, which is a store on Main Street in Bozman.

[639] I went to the store just to see that bull.

[640] I was like, we've got to stop in.

[641] I got to take a look at this thing.

[642] And there's this elk that looks like something out of the Lord of the Rings.

[643] That doesn't even look like a real animal.

[644] It's breathtaking.

[645] It's fucking massive.

[646] Isn't it?

[647] I mean, you walk up to that thing and you look at it and you literally stop shooting your tracks.

[648] Explain the weight of the antlers on that thing.

[649] So, I mean, it's obviously unusually big.

[650] I mean, most elk, given their whole lifespan, will never achieve that.

[651] It's a truly special elk.

[652] and people like it's not just a number but i mean it is a shekel o 'neal of elk that's what it is it's that rare and uh yeah the horns it would when when the skull plates sawed off it weighed 54 pounds jesus so which is two antler i mean it's it's heavy and like unusually big they're just it just massive you know it's the biggest elk killed in 30 years in state of montana so it was what it looked like when it was alive right oh my god it's it way on the hoof do you think Uh, you know, a big bull elk will be six to seven hundred pounds.

[653] I mean, they get thrown a thousand pounds a lot, but, you know, to weigh him like, there are a few great big bulls that I weigh a thousand.

[654] It was a thousand pounder.

[655] He was 12 years old, you know, he was, uh, you're just a monster, you know.

[656] So the Roosevelt elks are the ones that have the biggest bodies, right?

[657] The Roosevelt elk have the, by far the biggest bodies, yeah, but not the biggest out.

[658] Right, not the biggest antlers, but like how big their bodies get?

[659] 1 ,200, it's a really big bull.

[660] I mean, you can see in photos of them, they're just enormous.

[661] I mean, they're unusually giant.

[662] I mean, especially really big bull.

[663] You know, and a, you know, like not every elk is huge.

[664] I mean, an old bull who's had good feed and lived a long time and was genetically big to begin with will be really big.

[665] I mean, they're not, they don't all end up huge, you know.

[666] They're, uh, just the one sea hunts.

[667] Yeah, well, it's a fascinating pursuit, you know, pursuing the, the apex of the genetics.

[668] you know finding the animal and it's also one of the things that's important about this like the pursuit of hunting is that this animal that you shot was probably like me how old do you think he was he was 12 years old I mean that is an old old old elf that is that's old age in the world of wild beasts it's the ultimate I mean like when you get to the level where you're consistently killing stuff and and you're you know you've gotten the point that the ultimate level is to kill the biggest, oldest, most mature, you know, historically significant went on the chain of events in history of, like, all the guys that have ever killed elk.

[669] I mean, not all elk are going to be huge, but with any animals, like, when you kill something is super old, super big, super smart, that is the pinnacle of where your skills have gotten.

[670] And a lot of people never get there, you know, based on, you know, they don't have time.

[671] I mean, the biggest, the biggest factor in doing that and getting to that point is having the time.

[672] You know, just having the time to, you know, I spent a decade of my life putting a boot track everywhere you could put one, finding where every elk was in my state, and looking for the biggest ones.

[673] I mean, it is, like the work, it's consuming.

[674] You have to love to do it.

[675] It's not fun.

[676] You just have to be driven to do it to want to be able to do it.

[677] But the result is fun.

[678] I mean, the photo that you sent me some text messages, photos of that thing on the ground.

[679] You see the size of the antlers.

[680] No, that's another one.

[681] That's another one he shot.

[682] That's a pretty big one too, but that's not nearly as big as the one.

[683] You want me to send it to you, Jamie?

[684] I'll send it to you, Jamie.

[685] Should I email it to you?

[686] Either way.

[687] Okay.

[688] And that was, you know, at that point in time, actually, when I killed that elk, I wasn't at the skill set I am now.

[689] I mean, I got pretty lucky.

[690] That was the third elk I ever killed.

[691] Right place, the right time, did the right thing, and, you know, just lit a fire in me like, I want to do that more.

[692] Yeah.

[693] That's ridiculous.

[694] that that was the third idea of killed.

[695] When I first started talking to Brendan about hunting elk, he would hunt a elk.

[696] And that was so different for me. I mean, I was just trying to find a bowl to hunt, any bowl, and I would try to get a good one.

[697] But Brendan would hunt and find an elk and spend the entire season trying to kill that single elk, which I thought, at least my experience of elk hunting, was hard to find that same elk twice that I'd maybe see in the morning, and I would never see it again.

[698] Brennan had the ability to hunt it down and kill it.

[699] well it's also the best thing from a conservation standpoint you're talking about an animal that has spread its genes for at least 10 years right for 10 years that thing has been spreading those superior genetics and it's probably been forcing a lot of other males to get the fuck off the mountain i mean when would me yeah that one did i never saw i watched him for three days morning and night before i killed him and he another bull never came near that thing that's like brock lesnar a vel yeah yeah or alf Ulster Overeem.

[700] Yeah, exactly.

[701] But, hey, old, like, Uberim, old Alistair.

[702] Yeah, Alistair, when he's on the Mexican supplements.

[703] Yeah, yeah, the new Alster might be a better fighter, actually.

[704] It's interesting.

[705] When you see an animal like that, and you realize how difficult it is to reach 12 years of age in the wild with mountain lions, wolves, I mean, Montana, it's like he's just got everything after him, grizzlies, everything's after him.

[706] and to be able to be that smart to get to this position in life and for you to solve that puzzle and to get in and shoot that elk, that's one of the things that sort of embodies the really intense difficulty in hunting.

[707] It's one of those things where, I mean, it's the ultimate challenge.

[708] I mean, once you've killed a bunch of elk and, you know, I mean, it gets to where it is the ultimate challenge.

[709] And you're not always going to win.

[710] I don't always get them.

[711] I mean, that's the beauty of it.

[712] I mean, like, you never get to the point where you're so good.

[713] Well, I haven't got the point where I'm so good where every great big one I get.

[714] I mean, it's getting there.

[715] I'm getting closer.

[716] But they do, you know, like you're learning stuff all the time.

[717] And it's one of those things nobody can tell you about.

[718] You can't, you know, I'm basically self -taught.

[719] My dad taught me how to read maps.

[720] And until you figure out, you know, why is an elk here?

[721] What's he doing?

[722] you know, not just wandered around like, oh, there's some elk over there, but like, why is he here?

[723] Why would he be here this time of year?

[724] What is he doing?

[725] Where is he going?

[726] What's his next move?

[727] Like, I mean, I've had bulls where I've hunted where I know what they're going to do before they do.

[728] Literally, I know what that bull was down here.

[729] He was doing this.

[730] And I was like, I think I know what he's going to do.

[731] And I go, the other direction come around the other way, and that's what he did.

[732] I knew before he was going to do it.

[733] It just comes from watching him spending thousands of hours and just data chunking.

[734] Yeah, and I mean, you see the picture of the Great Big Bulls, and that's great.

[735] There is right there.

[736] The time that goes into that, like nobody ever sees.

[737] They don't see hundreds and hundreds of days in between.

[738] Yeah, I was a young guy there, man, 22 years old there.

[739] It's amazing.

[740] Yeah, it is amazing.

[741] And when you eat that animal, I mean, the amount of satisfaction that comes from sitting down to a meal that you procured in the most difficult way humanly possible.

[742] I mean, you shot that thing with a bow and arrow in the mountains, and now here you are eating it.

[743] 12 yards, snuck right up on him.

[744] Yeah, it's cool.

[745] I mean, the thing about trophy hunting that's not understood is, like, it's the ultimate, it's the pinnacle of combining, you know, what you love to do and then this incredible skill set that you're developing to be better than, you know, I'm not saying better than anybody else, but it takes a lot of work.

[746] Better than you used to be.

[747] Better than you used to be.

[748] to get better and better.

[749] And, you know, the funny thing to me is always like the thing trophy hunting has got this weird stigma with it or whatever.

[750] And it's like, man, I mean, I eat the whole elk.

[751] I love doing it.

[752] I love the challenge of it.

[753] I don't, you know, I don't shy away from saying I love to kill animals.

[754] I mean, like, I love to hunt them.

[755] I love the challenge of, you know, take, you know, of getting the biggest one.

[756] I find it the most challenging thing I've ever done.

[757] But, you know, I always eat it.

[758] I eat everything.

[759] and you know and I take the hide and the head I mean I'm using more than most people are you know people like I just trophy hunting and whatever like hmm that's it's it's it's the challenge I mean the term needs to be changed that's it's the challenge of it well the term is kind of screwed up because it's applied to things that people shoot where they don't eat and which seems to be like a cruelty like a pursuit a vain pursuit of going out and shooting lions and shooting things that you're not going to eat the weird thing about that is I was I was talking a guy a guy was doing an article for the New York Times.

[760] And he said, I don't have a problem with hunting, you know, as long as you eat it.

[761] And I just said, you don't have a problem with hunting.

[762] I mean, it's, it's, you legally have to take the meat.

[763] I mean, the amount of people that would shoot something and not take the meat is, you know, the same as people that are thieves out on the street.

[764] I mean, it's so uncommon.

[765] So like the perception of, you know, guys is shooting it and, you know, just because 10 years down the road all I have in my garage is the head doesn't mean that I didn't use it.

[766] And so the perception, again, it's.

[767] It's the lowest common denominator guy.

[768] You hear about one horrible thing going on or somebody that doesn't take the meat and all of a sudden it's everybody's lumped into it.

[769] I mean, I grew up in rural Montana.

[770] I never had a beef steak at a restaurant until I was on a recruiting trip in college.

[771] I mean, I grew up eating wild game my entire life.

[772] My parents never bought meat ever.

[773] That's probably why you're such a good wrestler.

[774] Yeah, I guess, right?

[775] Get that fucking pure protein.

[776] Get that wild DNA in your system.

[777] Free range organic.

[778] Yeah.

[779] Yeah, that's the real food.

[780] But people, it's like a disconnect.

[781] They don't understand like, oh, man, you know, like, you don't need to do that.

[782] It's like, I'm not saying we didn't need to do it.

[783] That's just what we did.

[784] I mean, I grew up in an area where that's, that's what we, that's what I ate.

[785] And like I said, I never, my parents never bought meat.

[786] Yeah, the exception of hunting day is so screwed up.

[787] It is, but it's also because of cities.

[788] I mean, one of the things that's made us be able to be so comfortable and have air conditioning is technology and advancement.

[789] But it's also allowed us to be completely disconnected from where food, comes from and that's what allows people to stand up on these pedestals and point down at people that they think are doing something wrong when they're responsible for just as much death they're responsible for more suffering more suffering yeah yeah more suffering than hunters for sure absolutely but just as much death too and even people that are vegetarians even people that are they think by eating vegetables and plants that they're doing no harm the amount of wildlife habitat hat displacement that takes place in just growing kale is ridiculous and all the pesticides and everything else that goes into it's mind -bloods and the fucking rodents and all the different death that is associated with combines and wide -scale grain when you're growing and harvesting grain there's so much death involved and there's no getting around that I mean we we are consumers in some sort of a weird way but to me the purest pursuit of it is what you're talking about archery hunting in the backwoods, in the most difficult environments.

[790] I mean, it is an unbelievably difficult pursuit that somehow and other gets lumped into this idea that it's a bunch of dumb people and they're cruel.

[791] If you're dumb, you're not going to be successful doing that.

[792] If you're lazy, you're not going to be successful.

[793] You're just not.

[794] Yeah, I mean, I've been, because of Kui, you've been in New York during a bunch of media tours over last year.

[795] And to be interviewed by these people that live in a big city.

[796] that have no idea of what hunting is like or what it's about is really mind -blowing to me because it's been such a big part of my life and everyone I'm associated with and friends with typically hunts or understands hunting.

[797] Their perception of it is so amazing to me that we would just kill an animal, cut its head off, and leave everything.

[798] I don't know anybody that's ever done it.

[799] It's completely illegal.

[800] But that's what mainstream media is made out hunting to be.

[801] and it's like a mission of mine now to change that perception.

[802] And mine as well.

[803] It's a lazy, it's a lazy perception of it.

[804] It's not real.

[805] It doesn't happen.

[806] Not for real hunting.

[807] No. It absolutely just never happens.

[808] Yeah, I mean, like this New York Times, yeah, I was just like, yeah, it's, you know, I took him through like the wanton waste laws and all that.

[809] And he was just like, he's like, wow, I mean, you, you, you legally have to take it.

[810] Like, it's not something that's new, you know, like, it's always been that way in there.

[811] There is this cool meat movement that.

[812] that's been going on.

[813] But, you know, one thing is like, don't get it lost that, you know, guys in the 60s, all, you know, since, you know, aside from market hunting back of the day, which isn't real hunting, it was just extermination for, but, I mean, it's, you know, people hunt and they consume what they eat, like anything else, just like eating, you know, bread or anything else.

[814] I mean, you have, you know, it's like, you know, you got studs in your house.

[815] They came from a tree.

[816] It's where they came from.

[817] Yeah, exactly.

[818] I always say if we want to fix the health problems in the United States, make everybody hunt.

[819] The problem is none of animals.

[820] There's too many people, none of the animals.

[821] No, I know, but it's like obesity, overweight, you know, poor diet.

[822] Right.

[823] Make them all hunters.

[824] That all goes away.

[825] It does all go away.

[826] Because they have to live a lifestyle to actually harvest an animal.

[827] Yeah.

[828] To change everything.

[829] And hunting, you know, I mean, God, it's been our DNA for two million years.

[830] Yeah.

[831] And it's the last hundred that people had an issue with.

[832] It's not actually the last 50.

[833] Yeah.

[834] Well, it's when you see things like the Cecil, the lion, thing and then everybody gets up in arms about hunting and it just becomes this this really distorted version of what it actually is yeah but the stuff with cecil that's not even true i mean it wasn't you know he wasn't living full time in the park there's a new thing that just came out in the hunt report about the i mean the whole background of it i mean it's there's a lot more to it than that and and it's all how you how it's said too it's like you know all the guy killed cecil line who's this super old male who had been kicked out of the pride apparently you know and his you know the whole thing with his brothers and the family and all that stuff.

[835] Yeah, it's hilarious.

[836] And at the end of the day, it's like, ah, you know, it shot them and beheaded them.

[837] It's like, well, hey, that burger you got at McDonald's, guess what?

[838] It died and got beheaded.

[839] It's all how you've worded.

[840] You could also say it was processed.

[841] I mean, like, just beheaded is just a horrible thing.

[842] It's like, yeah, everything that gets killed and processed gets beheaded.

[843] But don't you think that part of the reason why people get upset about lions is because people generally don't eat lions.

[844] So when someone says that someone goes and shoots a line, like, why would you shoot this beautiful, rare, majestic animal just so you could stick it on, you.

[845] your wall and just think you're a badass because you've got this thing that could kill you if you didn't have a weapon and you got it on your wall now well i mean it comes down to like predators need to be controlled i mean it's it's not one of those things that's pretty and people really love to hear that but at the end of the day it it is true i mean like you know i mean you were just down where i grew up i grew up in just north of the of the greater yellowstone elk herd you know between gardener and livingston that's where i grew up and when i was in high school there was 19000 elk in that heard.

[846] You go down there in wintertime and see 1 ,500 bulls.

[847] I mean, it was, it was amazing.

[848] And they're down to 2 to 3 ,000 now because of, you know, the reintroduction of the wolf.

[849] You know, like, you have to control predators anywhere, wherever they're at.

[850] I mean, it's insane to think that we don't exist and these houses and fences and highways and stuff are not there and that you can just turn something loose and just let it run its course.

[851] And, you know, you mean, people are even appalled by the natural core.

[852] I mean, when you see a young lion take over the pride and Cecil gets chomped and destroyed by two other younger lions that came in and got and people don't even like seeing that right that's just that's just how it happened it's just attachment just attachment from the actual cycle of life it is yeah and the other thing that's going on is the people love to they they love to broadcast how horrible the people are that hunt these things and how these lions are they need to be preserved and it's so important like leonard ocaprio had something on his Instagram page the other day where it was like an anniversary of the death of Cecil, and he was talking about how few of these animals there are left, they have to be protected.

[853] What he very conveniently ignores the fact that Zimbabwe is going to kill 200 lions now because no one's going over there to hunt those lions.

[854] I'm just going to talk about that.

[855] So there's more of them, so they're decimating the undulate population, so now they're going to kill them and make no money.

[856] So they're going to lose out on millions of dollars in revenue.

[857] What would you expect from a guy that got attacked by a CGI bear.

[858] I mean, he doesn't live in reality anyway.

[859] A CGI bear.

[860] He probably didn't even write it.

[861] He's probably doing coke and banging hookers and just called his assist and, hey man, put something eco on my page.

[862] See something anniversary.

[863] Yeah, now they can't.

[864] Now that's a ton of money they could generate to shoot those.

[865] And I know a guy.

[866] I mean, I know booking, yeah, I talk to them all the time.

[867] There's a guy.

[868] Nobody will touch that with a 10 foot pole.

[869] It's a great hunt.

[870] It's a cool thing to go see.

[871] They do need to be managed.

[872] I mean, you know, like a lot of things.

[873] Like, it just is what it is.

[874] Well, it's very inconvenient when you look at the actual facts of hunting over there.

[875] Even hunting, you know, just quote unquote for trophies, that is where they get a massive amount of their revenue.

[876] It feeds a lot of the people that are over there.

[877] It makes a huge impact on their economy.

[878] And a lot of people don't like that.

[879] But I urge people to watch the Louis Theroux documentary about his trip to Africa where he spent, he spent several weeks in this African hunting camp.

[880] And, you know, it was the same thing.

[881] It was like a high fence operation where they had lions and they were throwing like calves over the fence to feed these lions.

[882] And there's like two fences separating him from the lions.

[883] And he got to see like in depth what's going on.

[884] He's essentially saying that these animals, the only reason why they're here at all, like massive amounts of them, is because they're worth something to people to come over.

[885] And if it wasn't, they're like, this place is so poor and so crazy that these animals would have been wiped out.

[886] And they were on the verge just a couple of decades.

[887] ago before they introduced hunting.

[888] So it's such a catch -22 because they have more animals than they've ever had before.

[889] But the reason for that is because they're worth something to hunt.

[890] Exactly.

[891] They're economic resource.

[892] And because of that, they have value so they're protected.

[893] And there's money to protect them.

[894] And people get put off by the fact that people enjoy the pursuit.

[895] Yeah.

[896] You know, and it's one of those things.

[897] Like, I have a hard time explaining it to people that, you know, I mean, what makes a little kid who, when you're in the yard and there's a bird right there, like some kids, you know, just look at it and some kids want to chase that thing down.

[898] And it's like 10 ,000 years where the genetics that say...

[899] Two million, actually.

[900] Yeah, you want to do it.

[901] Like, this is something that is built in you want to do.

[902] I mean, you felt that you didn't draw up hunting.

[903] Right.

[904] And all of a sudden now you can't...

[905] I mean, you think about it every day.

[906] That's all you want to do, I'm sure.

[907] Yeah.

[908] And so to explain that to somebody that doesn't have that, it's really hard.

[909] I mean, you know, especially whether eating a hamburger from their pedestal telling you how, you know, you shouldn't, you know, kill anything.

[910] Yeah.

[911] Well, I almost think, I mean, I don't think anybody should be forced to do anything, but I almost think that it would be good for everybody to have to kill something and eat it.

[912] If you do eat meat, just to experience it.

[913] And, I mean, that's just killing something.

[914] But to actually go out and hunt something down and kill it and eat it, I think would open up a lot of doors inside your mind, open up a lot of areas of perception, and give you this real understanding of what it means to consume life.

[915] it's it's it's there's a there's a lot to it it's a very complex thing that's going on when you're eating an animal a lot to it's like you talked about that disconnect i mean there is a massive disconnect yeah it's weird it's people think just because it's in a package at a grocery store and a cellophane with a styrofoam thing underneath that it's not didn't come from an animal or something yeah but you should almost have to watch even if you're not going to do it you should almost have to be there where they kill the cow and then string it up and then cut it up and how many people would become vegetarians then right remember that whole cow thing that went on a couple years ago.

[916] I think it was in a slaughterhouse down in Southern California and those cows are sick and they're falling over and they got video of it and it got out there about the processing of meat and all these people up in arms about it.

[917] I'm like, that's always been that way.

[918] Yeah.

[919] And it just got public.

[920] And people were appalled by it.

[921] But that's the reality of beef and industrial food complex versus the animals that we hunt, you can have a great life.

[922] You know, most of them like the one, the animals Brennan I hunt, which are the older ones, they've had a full life and they've had the opportunity to experience things in nature and reproduce and have, you know, what an animal's life should be like.

[923] We're a cattle or, you know, any type of industrial type of food animal like chickens or cows or pigs.

[924] I mean, that's, I mean, it's like living in a concentration camp.

[925] And it depends on the situation, too.

[926] I mean, like my wife's father has a big ranch in eastern Montana and they, you know, raise and process all their own stuff.

[927] And, you know, like people talk about, you know, like, all the beef and meats horrible and stuff.

[928] Not where I come from.

[929] I mean, they take really good care of those animals.

[930] And it's very important.

[931] And they don't go to the, you know, the giant stockyards and all.

[932] It just depends.

[933] It's all relative.

[934] You got to look at everything as it is, you know, like, what, you know, where did that come from?

[935] At least you know where it's more connected.

[936] Yeah, when people hear about grass -fed beef, one of the big complaints, they go, God, it's so expensive.

[937] But, yeah, it's not supposed to be that cheap to eat life.

[938] Yeah, exactly.

[939] You know what I mean?

[940] I mean, like, a steak can be so cheap.

[941] It's ridiculous.

[942] You think about the amount of effort that has to go for you to get this $5 steak, the amount of effort that the animal has to grow, it has to be fed, it has to be taken care of, then it has to be slaughtered, cut up, packaged, processed, sent to stores, put on the shelves, and then you go and buy.

[943] Like, look at the prices.

[944] Like, oh, my God, no shit, of course.

[945] You could try doing it yourself, and you would value it.

[946] You would realize, like, wow, this is actually a pretty good deal.

[947] And all the process, but it's not all the same either.

[948] Like I said, I mean, there's lots of great ranchers that care about what they're doing and do it right and all that stuff.

[949] And, you know, again, your lowest common denominator, you get, you know, a place that's got 70 cows packed into one shoot and people are like, oh, my God, we're up in arms about it.

[950] It's like, well, that's not the norm on everything either.

[951] I think it's good, though, that people are being aware of this, and I think it's good that people are up in arms because I think there is something really disgusting about factory farming, undeniably disgusting.

[952] And I think the education of people and getting to understand, like, yeah, this is a. system that you're a part of.

[953] Even like the really hardcore radical animal activist that risk their lives and makes these crazy fucking videos and get inside slaughterhouses and violate those ag -gag laws, I salute them.

[954] I salute them for getting that out there.

[955] I do too.

[956] I mean, it shows the other side of it.

[957] Yeah.

[958] The bad side of it.

[959] People don't get to see it.

[960] We shouldn't be shielded from the truth in any way, shape, or form.

[961] And that's one of the things that's allowed this factory farm system to get so disgusting is the fact that people haven't been able to have their input.

[962] They haven't been able to see it and protest against it and say like, hey, you know, you shouldn't be treating living things like this.

[963] Totally agree.

[964] I mean, that's, that story doesn't get told enough.

[965] And I think the reasonable people who love animals and maybe they don't have any desire whatsoever to eat them, that those are the people that I think respect the pursuit of hunting and respect the idea that, look, a person, it's not something for everybody, but neither is marathon running neither is weightlifting neither is so true football jujitsu anything difficult wrestling this is not for everybody you know everybody's not going to do a lot of things that are hard to do but if you want to procure meat that's the best way to do it couldn't agree more and everything that goes into it yeah that's what i love about it well i think it's important to spread that i think um that's sort of getting out there as well as the there's this anti -meat movement and anti you know animal cruelty movement and i i respect that i understand where they're coming from unless you're driving the lexas with the leather seats i mean honestly it's like it's like you know yeah you see it all the time guy wearing leather shoes and a leather belt you know talking about you know his impact and how little you know being vegan or whatever it's like man that's just the hypocrisy is insane of people you know like living in a house like how much is animal byproduct from from everything you use and it's like well yeah but i just had a salad today it's like yeah that's i mean it's killed 50 rabbits when they harvested it's it's it made you feel good but in reality you're just bullshit yourself yeah but they don't even know they're bullshitting themselves if they if their perception of what they're doing was accurate then they would have a good point but it's it's an ignorance to what what is actually involved yeah it really is i don't i don't believe in killing anything it's like every time you get in your car man i mean the most animal the most life i've ever taken is every time i take a 500 mile road trip i mean and i got to wipe those things off my window.

[966] I mean, like, people are like, oh, you can kill the shit out of bugs.

[967] Right.

[968] You know, fish or cool or whatever.

[969] It's like, ooh, we got eyelids involved.

[970] Now it's getting weird.

[971] It's like, well, where does it?

[972] Where is it?

[973] Yeah, exactly.

[974] I used to live in Boulder, and I lived next to an ashram.

[975] And the lady that ran the ashram, this Buddhist ashram, she used to poison the ants.

[976] And I said to her, what are you doing?

[977] I go, you poison the ants?

[978] She was like, well, it's inconvenient.

[979] We really don't like to do it, but they get in our kitchen.

[980] I'm like, oh, shit.

[981] Yeah, that's where you draw.

[982] Boy, you guys are, this is some weird gray area you've mentioned.

[983] You're a murderer later.

[984] You're a mass murder.

[985] You've killed fucking thousands of beings just today.

[986] But an ant's a weird one because, like, I've seen people, like, they'll see an ant on them.

[987] They'll squish it, and then they flick it on the ground in your house.

[988] Totally.

[989] It's so little, they don't care that it hits your kitchen floor.

[990] Yeah, exactly.

[991] But if it was a mouse, like, if someone in your house stomped a mouse in the middle of your kitchen, you'd be like, what the fuck, dude?

[992] Like, Jesus Christ.

[993] Because it makes more of a mess, and now you have to consider what's actually going on there.

[994] Totally.

[995] People are fucking weird.

[996] They're weird.

[997] Yeah.

[998] It's weird.

[999] I mean, but that's not really what I wanted to bring you guys in on.

[1000] That's like a beat -in -to -death subject on this podcast.

[1001] You don't want to talk about ants?

[1002] No. I love ants, by the way.

[1003] Do you, a big ant fan?

[1004] Yeah, yeah, they're cool.

[1005] Wouldn't it be amazing to be able to pick shit up that was that much bigger than you and walk around within your mouth?

[1006] Yeah.

[1007] Oh, yeah.

[1008] When it turns to, when you start talking about what they're capable of, yeah.

[1009] And what's also.

[1010] This is like an anth the size of a cat.

[1011] could be able to pick up a house oh yeah yeah and they no free will whatsoever yeah there's no decision -making they just do have you ever seen those aunt death spirals no got to check it Jamie pull something like that up the ants follow the firmones of the queen and when something goes yeah I get it too when something goes wrong when something goes wrong like their scent gets screwed up or the queen dies the queen gets removed but the scent still there the ants will circle.

[1012] They'll circle each other and spiral.

[1013] Yep.

[1014] Like a hurricane until they all die.

[1015] And you're talking about thousands of them.

[1016] Really?

[1017] Yep.

[1018] And they'll keep circling.

[1019] No one knows what the fuck's going on.

[1020] That's the true power of P right there.

[1021] Yeah.

[1022] I mean, look at this.

[1023] That's amazing.

[1024] And a few of them are going the wrong way.

[1025] They're like, there are good news.

[1026] There's a few rebels.

[1027] That looks like the freeways in Southern California.

[1028] It looks like a hurricane.

[1029] It does.

[1030] I mean, it really does.

[1031] That's the eye of the storm in the center there.

[1032] And they're circling around.

[1033] and they don't know what the fuck's going on.

[1034] So that's with a dead queen.

[1035] Yeah, well, it's either a dead queen.

[1036] I'm not exactly, James, see if you could find out the actual exact reason for it.

[1037] No, they don't know.

[1038] They're following hormones in some sort of a way.

[1039] But when they're doing this, I mean, this is just shows that this being, these ants have no, you don't have to just find an actual explanation for it, not a video.

[1040] But when these animals are doing this, like they don't have any free will.

[1041] They have this sort of directive.

[1042] This is what they do.

[1043] You know, they make the nest.

[1044] They build a beehive.

[1045] They do this.

[1046] Like a friend of mine was Ben O 'Brien.

[1047] You guys know Ben O 'Brien from, used to be worked for Peterson's hunting magazine?

[1048] He was telling me about one of his friends had a queen bee somehow.

[1049] They got stuck in their car.

[1050] And this hive of bees followed them for 20 miles.

[1051] They followed the car for 20 miles because the bee was in the car.

[1052] like they don't have any like man she's gone me we got to let her go we can't we got to push on yeah there's no free will it's just what they do yeah there's no decision making it's just what they do the queens they never follow her they never give up no it's a bizarre form of life yeah and they have these really weird things that they do if you've seen like like videos on different ant species where the females will chop the males legs off I think is that leaf cutter ants would do that?

[1053] I forget which one.

[1054] But they chop, they take the mail and they're going to breed with them and they essentially cut his legs off so that he can't move and then they carry him to wherever they want, they want to fuck him, and then they take him and breed with him.

[1055] I've met a couple girls like that before.

[1056] You've been a bad way to go about it.

[1057] I guess.

[1058] You take my legs off.

[1059] Lying there.

[1060] A stub.

[1061] Yeah.

[1062] Just wiggling.

[1063] Wiggling.

[1064] Yeah.

[1065] It's like, but and again, no thought process.

[1066] There's no meeting.

[1067] They don't have a board where they sit down and decide how to do this with the mail.

[1068] They just go about the way they've always done it.

[1069] Yeah.

[1070] What a trip, huh?

[1071] Yeah.

[1072] Here you go.

[1073] How to make ants commit suicide going to spot.

[1074] You can make it happen?

[1075] You can make it happen?

[1076] Yeah, it's just like you can force them into a potted plant and they'll just start following each other and next thing you know.

[1077] They should burn that in on the show.

[1078] We could put one right here.

[1079] It'd be rude.

[1080] People would be angry.

[1081] They'd protest.

[1082] Yeah, right.

[1083] That's cruel.

[1084] But that's the thing, like a certain amount of death is okay.

[1085] I mean, every time you wash your body, you're killing flora.

[1086] You're killing living organisms that are on the surface of your skin.

[1087] There's no getting around it.

[1088] And there's no way to live a life where you're not killing other life.

[1089] There's this constant cycle that's going on in some sort of a weird way that most of us are detached from.

[1090] It's the way it's always been.

[1091] Yeah.

[1092] It's bizarre not to be in touch with it or just to deny it.

[1093] I mean, like, no, I'm not doing that.

[1094] Amen.

[1095] Man, I mean, and there are, like, there are a few people that, you know, try as hard as they can and all that.

[1096] But most people, like, they always give up, though.

[1097] They love the idea.

[1098] Yeah.

[1099] But, you know, implementation is where it gets complicated.

[1100] So I think there's also a problem with entertainment, like the anthropomorphizing of animals and Disney movies and things along those lines.

[1101] So, like, when you think of an animal, you think of this big, furry, lovable thing, you don't think of this, you know, like, what an elk is essentially a warrior.

[1102] It's this living warrior that has weapons grown out of its head And they run around and they kill each other When I was at Tahoean Ranch You've been to that place They found this huge Like 390 class bull Dead that had been stabbed by another bull He just ran them through And he was lying there dead on the side of the mound With holes in his body From the other bull just fucking headbutted him to death I'm going through it right now I got a four -year -old son And he watched this little show called The Lion Guard which is like and all these animals get together and they're all friends and and we started watching he would ask questions and stuff and and now I'm like we watch you know if you want to watch the lion guard that's fine but I've explained to him like the cheetah and the lion and the hippo they don't get along they're not buddies and we watch Discovery Channel and he watched you know like the day we just watched the Wilder Beast a couple days ago we watched the Wildebeest getting eaten by the by the crocodile and he was just like whoa you know it's like and now like when it comes up he's like well that's just pretend But I want to watch that.

[1103] And it's like, that's fine as long as we know, you know, that's not really how it goes.

[1104] You know, we'll go Discovery Channel and watch, you know, killers on the Savannah.

[1105] And, you know, it's like, wow, the lion doesn't get along with anybody.

[1106] He eats everybody.

[1107] And, you know, I don't want my kid to think that, you know, well, it's just a big peaceful thing.

[1108] And they're all this big symbiotic relationship and they all love each other.

[1109] Now, man, that ain't what's going on.

[1110] Yeah, it's weird the way we've chosen to distort these animals.

[1111] And like polar bears, like there was a picture that was going on on Instagram, A lot of people were posting up of this enormous polar bear walking around with a cubs head in its mouth.

[1112] Every day occurrence.

[1113] They're cannibals.

[1114] 100 % of the males are cannibals.

[1115] And most people have no idea of this.

[1116] So they think of a polar bear like Klondike bar or Coca -Cola salesperson.

[1117] Yeah, there's the photo that's been going on.

[1118] And this is just food for them.

[1119] Absolutely.

[1120] I mean, in a polar bear, he's not an omnivore.

[1121] No, 100 % carnivore.

[1122] He eats people.

[1123] He eats whatever he can get a hold of.

[1124] Yeah, I mean, that's all they eat is meat.

[1125] They're not like a black bear or any other bear that can eat anything.

[1126] All they eat is flesh.

[1127] That's it.

[1128] That bear at the zoo is eating meat.

[1129] Yeah.

[1130] You know, they don't let you see it.

[1131] But the polar bear at the zoo, just hammering away at it.

[1132] Yeah, that's all.

[1133] That's one of the darker things about the zoo, too, is we take them away from their actual purpose.

[1134] I think if you're going to have a zoo, it should be like you should have animals that, if you ever see that zoo in Iraq that they had, when before we invaded Iraq, they had zoos where they used to just let.

[1135] like a goat loose and then they would open up the gate and let the lions come out and jack the goat and there's videos soldiers took videos of these things and people were like aghast like i don't understand why you think you should be able to keep a lion but don't let a lion be a lion like you're gonna do all the killing for how is you giving him some fake meat no you giving him real meat okay so something had to die in order to get but you don't want him to do it why don't you want him to do it like what the fuck are you doing yeah What is a zoo?

[1136] Trust me, the lion wants to hunt.

[1137] That's what they live for.

[1138] Here's the video.

[1139] So they have these goats, and these goats are just wandering around.

[1140] They have no idea.

[1141] They let them loose, and then they open up the gate.

[1142] And when they open up the gate, the lions, apparently, they do this all the time.

[1143] So they're hip to what's going to go on.

[1144] They're stretched out and ready to go.

[1145] Oh, yeah.

[1146] They're warmed up.

[1147] Yeah.

[1148] They don't want to pull a hammy when they get the goat.

[1149] So they open up the gate, and as soon as they open up the gate, it is just on like Donkey Kong.

[1150] I bet they got walkout music and everything They're just ready Yeah, this queen is playing We will, we will rock you Here it goes, boom, they open up the gate I like that zoo It's not that weird to be fascinated by that And for those guys to look at that and go, wow, that's, you know, that's lions being lions, like that's pretty wild I mean, they're going to eat today one way or the other And here's another interesting thing It's interesting for us to watch If we're watching and we're going, whoa!

[1151] Oh, and we're laughing.

[1152] Oh, my God.

[1153] But if we were there and we were laughing, and then people get upset.

[1154] Like, there's an instinct to, like, listen to those guys laughing while it's happening because they're filming it right through the fence and go, wow, a bunch of assholes laughing at death.

[1155] But meanwhile, it's okay to laugh out if it's on a YouTube video.

[1156] Totally.

[1157] It's okay to throw a bug in a tank and watch a fish eat it.

[1158] It's like, ooh, cool.

[1159] Right.

[1160] But it's like a goat and a lion.

[1161] It's like, whoa, that's getting weird.

[1162] Well, it's like watching a fight.

[1163] Yeah.

[1164] I mean, we want to see the guy get knocked out.

[1165] The next step is death.

[1166] Right.

[1167] So take it as close as possible.

[1168] Oh, yeah.

[1169] I mean, we find thrill in that.

[1170] Well, the guy chokes a guy out and he steps off of him and he's totally unconscious.

[1171] The only difference between that and death is time.

[1172] The amount of time he has the choke.

[1173] That's it.

[1174] It's it.

[1175] Keep that choke on for another minute.

[1176] That guy's dead.

[1177] Yep.

[1178] Or not even a minute.

[1179] And we get millions of people who want to watch it.

[1180] Yeah.

[1181] But at least that's, they make a decision.

[1182] They both make a decision.

[1183] They're both going to enter into this.

[1184] And it's an extreme form of a competition with, dire physical consequences and that's why it's so exciting to watch i mean i think the parallels when you're watching something like that it's a little different a little different but but still it's that it's a detachment thing it is yeah it's well you know watch a movie you can watch a movie where 10 people get shot and they get punched and kicked and everybody gets their ass kick but if they fuck if they're naked they start figuring what are you showing me like what is this like people are weird we're real weird they like to draw the line on certain things for whatever reasons no it doesn't doesn't make any sense whatsoever no it doesn't it doesn't that's why with a hunting thing you can't win at all yeah i mean you do a good you do as good as job as you can and putting forward an educated you know opinion of why what we do and and and at the same time being you know where i'm unapologiate about it too it's not like somebody there's not a conversation that could convince me that what i'm doing isn't what i was meant to do you know no when it comes to hunting i mean you you you know you put forward that you know we try and tell people about it and and educate people as to what it is and people are going to feel how they're going to feel.

[1185] But at the end of the day, I mean, nothing's going to change with us either.

[1186] How did you go from being a guy who's obsessed with being the best hunter you could possibly be and wanting to be the best hunter in the world?

[1187] How did you go from that to working for a sitka, an apparel company, a hunting company, and then going to Koo You?

[1188] Well, so after I killed that big elk, I was in, you know, I started writing some stories.

[1189] And like I told you, I mean, I really, you know, there's a lot of guys that get something.

[1190] have a great stroke and luck in life and all of a sudden they killed one big thing or they win one small lottery or whatever and you never hear from again and that was like that you know growing up being a hunter like to kill this huge elk was yeah I was just I mean right place the right time an amazing thing for me but I was at the time super conscious that I don't want to be a one hit wonder I mean I want to do it more I want to be really good at what I'm doing I mean like I grew up reading hunting books and like the best hunters in the world I want to I want to defend his title yeah exactly I want to keep the strap after every year, you know, and so I just, you know, put the work in.

[1191] And then I was doing some writing.

[1192] I was at a trade show when I met him.

[1193] And I didn't work at Sitka.

[1194] I was the first, they had an athlete team and one of the first ones.

[1195] Pro stuff.

[1196] First year.

[1197] Not really an athlete team.

[1198] Yeah, whatever was.

[1199] They called that after I left.

[1200] Pro staff, we were talking about them the phone.

[1201] It's a weird term today because you can sort of buy a hat that says like pro staff.

[1202] Oh, yeah.

[1203] The franchise is completely dead.

[1204] I mean, like I said, you know, pro staff with everything.

[1205] Like when you can buy a hat that says it, it's, it's dead.

[1206] I mean, it means, it means nothing.

[1207] It's, it's been, but back in the day, it was.

[1208] I mean, like, back when print media and, like, at the, one point in time, it meant you were vouching for our product because you used it.

[1209] And you earned the right to vouch for it.

[1210] You had, you had the photos.

[1211] You have the accomplishments.

[1212] You earned the right.

[1213] It's not so much today.

[1214] You have, you have the credibility to say this is, this is good stuff or not, and not because you did social media wrap.

[1215] but because you actually had been out there using it.

[1216] And killed big stuff.

[1217] Yeah.

[1218] And have the track record.

[1219] So I met him a trade show.

[1220] And, you know, like I said, every now and again in life, you have something that's just right place of the right time.

[1221] And I'd kill that big elk.

[1222] And it kind of was getting known.

[1223] And I met him in the booth.

[1224] And he's like, you're that kid that killed that big elk.

[1225] It looked exactly the same.

[1226] It still does.

[1227] Yeah.

[1228] And so we hit it off.

[1229] And I started helping him testing gear and shot a commercial forum down and stuff.

[1230] And we just became really good friends.

[1231] And then when the whole deal went down at Sitka.

[1232] Um, he, you know, it's like when you're, when your guy, you know, your guy is, you know, there and is leaving, you know, you have a choice.

[1233] You can either go with your guy or you can, you know, stay with, you know, what's whatever the, the best thing you think is to do.

[1234] And I was like, man, whatever you got going on next, let me know, I'm, I'm down.

[1235] What did you think about this pursuit that he's on to create the most finely engineered, like, to the extreme products, like what he's doing?

[1236] it's it's fine i mean he's he's hit everything on the head that he told me i mean we flew down we went to a i flew down like i don't want to say it was like a november or something a year before he's kuyu started kui was already started but beforehand and he he basically is like nostradamus in hindsight i mean he was like listen he breaks out this he i remember i'll never forget he had this briefcase and he pulled this thing out and it was a carbon fiber frame and he's like this is this is the backpack we're coming out with and the whole business model and all that and it's like I'm not the smartest guy in the world, but when I meet a really smart dude that's got a really good idea, you know, I'm not that dumb.

[1237] You're smart enough to recognize smart people.

[1238] Yeah, yeah, I was like, I was like, man, I don't, yeah, it's, I mean, when you see something, you go, dude, I want to know more about that.

[1239] And that seems like it's going to fix a problem.

[1240] And just, you know, the knowledge of what he knew about everything.

[1241] And, you know, we were buddies.

[1242] And it's like, dude, why wouldn't you want to go, you know, work at a company where you're going to be able to hunt as much as you want.

[1243] you're testing gear and and I mean truly living the dream and not just saying it like living the dream like you don't you wake up every day and you like what you're doing and you know it's it's been awesome I mean that's and so so yeah he said he's been basically I'm looking for somebody to run this part of it and and it's like he's like you'd be perfect I'm like well perfect well I think people like you were attracted to the pursuit of excellence yeah and when you see the pursuit of excellence in another form you go well there it is like that's how it is with me when I started seeing your company and I see a company that's trying to like deeply and seriously engineer something I geek out on shit that I'm not even interested in buying like if someone's making the craziest grandfather clock in the world and I see this guy that's engineering these things so it's accurate to like one 18th of one second over 20 years I'm like oh I want to I want to know what's going on this dude's brain that makes him want to make this unbelievable grandfather clock like i'm fascinated by pursuit you know when someone's trying to do something better than the people that have done before it i'm fascinated by that so you must have seen that in that for for a guy like you and and i know what i i know what i know what when i see a good idea um the one thing is like i'm not i wouldn't say i'm necessarily the best at doing like super intricate things or knowing exactly how to get there but when you see somebody that knows how to get there and like it'd be a good combination and you can you know assist in that in somebody that when they're headed on the on the on the right direction it's like yeah I'm down with that and and then you know I have my input on what what we do but you know at the end of the day it's you know a lot of it is you know and how he goes about stuff it's cool to watch I mean it's like it's I always tell people like at what we do is it is it's exactly what you think it is like there's not like oh you step in the room and it's like oh yeah this is some other guy's stuff we're going to knock this up that's not going on But that does happen in some companies.

[1244] And you were pointing that out all the time.

[1245] That's disturbing to me. When you look at the future of this, how far can you keep pushing this?

[1246] I mean, this is a fairly new thing that people have been ridiculously engineering, hunting and outdoor equipment, and it obviously exists in, like, the mountaineering world and the RIEIs.

[1247] And, you know, they try every year, they're trying to come up with better and better stuff.

[1248] But how far can that go?

[1249] Like, is there a point where you're going to have it done?

[1250] Like, this is the best backpack anybody could ever possibly make.

[1251] These are the best clothes.

[1252] I mean, is there a point where that ends?

[1253] You know, today, innovations happen faster than ever has.

[1254] And with this business model, we can implement those innovations quickly.

[1255] And we're always looking for the next greatest thing.

[1256] I always am.

[1257] I mean, I search the globe on a continuous basis for what's new, what's next.

[1258] align myself with the innovation leaders for every single category, whether it's marina wool, whether it's leathers or whether it's for our gloves or whether it's carbon fiber for our packs.

[1259] We had our designer down at Stanford meet with a carbon fiber scientist down there that's working on some leading edge technologies around carbon fiber that won't even get to market for a few years.

[1260] We're that interested in seeing what's next because we can implement it, because we have no price restrictions.

[1261] For us, it's a never -ending pursuit.

[1262] always new ways to make things.

[1263] And it's why I tag the line for the business of ultralight, because if I can find a way to shave an ounce or gram, there's a reason to redo that product.

[1264] There's a reason to reinvent that product because that makes a difference.

[1265] And that was my focus with this, is that Toray's technology and how they make their yarn, carbon fiber, it all led to ultralight.

[1266] And ultralight means performance in the mountains.

[1267] And so my goal is to get our weights continuously to come down as far as our product without giving up performance, and that's through using really innovative technologies and designs that are all focused around that.

[1268] And I mean, from where we started to where we are now, I mean, we've taken pounds and pounds of weight out of people's kits and packs and seen the results, and it's been amazing to watch people that normally we walk into the mountains with a 70 -pound pack, now leaving with a 40 -pound pack and coming back and saying, it made all the difference in the world.

[1269] I can hunt now, and I thought I was done because of pack weight.

[1270] Now, have you guys thought about implementing any sort of workout routines or diet routines or things like that on your website and sort of shaping people's ideas about getting your body prepared?

[1271] I'd like to do more of that.

[1272] I really would.

[1273] We started developing our Mountain Fit line that will come out next year.

[1274] So using all of our fabric innovations into a performance fitness line for our customer because they're all training for hunts.

[1275] And I have wanted to step in and help people get fit, nutrition, supplements, and bring that to our customers as well.

[1276] We just haven't gotten there yet.

[1277] But I think it's absolutely something I know I want to do because I live it and breathe it every day, just haven't done it yet.

[1278] Don't you think that's also another aspect that people don't realize, like how much physical requirement is necessary in order to hunt, like especially mountain hunting, elk hunting.

[1279] You're going in the mountains of Montana.

[1280] You're at fucking 9 ,000 plus elevation.

[1281] It's unbelievably difficult on the body.

[1282] And I think most people don't realize how much physical preparation is involved, especially you two guys.

[1283] You're a former wrestler.

[1284] You're a former football player.

[1285] You guys have athletic backgrounds.

[1286] You know how physically demanding this is.

[1287] The hardest things I've ever done have been hunting, without a doubt.

[1288] And I mean, it's hard to say there's stuff that's tougher than college wrestling practices.

[1289] I've definitely, you know, I mean, you've pushed it to the limit, especially on some of these long expeditions hunting.

[1290] I spent 24 days backpacking in the Bob Marshall last year to find a sheep, to find one ram.

[1291] And it's like, until you've actually done that.

[1292] I'm talking like it's not just you know how far or how long but it's sustained it's at a sustained high level of focus also which you know like you can you can grind away at stuff and you can you know just go and go and go but I mean again when we get we don't just go from A to B we have to be you know you have to be on point in the mountains too I mean you have to be sharp you got to be ready to execute when the moment comes you can't be just sort of trotting along like a zombie yeah I mean when you get up early in the morning if you're not glass and every single time with with the same enthusiasm and the same or that's your grid system or whatever you have to be as intense on day one as you do on the last day because you could miss what you're looking for you can't you can't let up that's the beauty of it and I mean yeah you I mean physically fit I mean there's lots of different stuff I mean you know he's got his whole training regimen and you know everybody's different but you know like whether it's yoga or you know cardio and you know how much you're eating and I mean it's it's it never ends you There is no magic bullet.

[1293] The puzzle, you're always breaking it down and doing a new puzzle.

[1294] Yeah, I do every year.

[1295] Yeah, and everyone has different physical requirements.

[1296] There's some people that are older, and you're just trying to kind of maintain the best possible shape that they can get in.

[1297] There's some guys that are younger.

[1298] We're trying to get them into ultimate fitness.

[1299] When you're training and you're doing all these backpack things, you say you're carrying weight.

[1300] Are you using weight plates?

[1301] Like, what are you carrying around in a backpack?

[1302] So I've used, we have these sand bags.

[1303] that are set up for putting over, like, the booms in our video room is now what I use.

[1304] You can buy them in 20 pounds, 25 pounds, 30 pound increments, and that's what I put in my pack to train with.

[1305] And so, like, right now, as we're rolling in, we're about 45 days away from a sheep hunt in the Yukon, I'm really stepping up my weight.

[1306] So I'm training with a 90 -pound pack now.

[1307] And I'll do a two or three -hour hike, 1 ,500 to 2 ,000 vertical feet.

[1308] And now I'm doing it in the middle of the day with the heat we're having because it adds another mental toughness factor to it.

[1309] Plus, as you know, it adds a whole other level of fitness, too, when you're in the heat.

[1310] So my goal is to try to train in situations with weight and conditions that are harder than what all experience in the hunt just for the mental strength as much as the physical part of it.

[1311] Because you get beat down on day three or day four and you just, I see a lot of guys just fold in the towel and say, I've had it.

[1312] I'm going to go home.

[1313] Right.

[1314] Just physically they don't have anything left.

[1315] Nothing left, right?

[1316] So there's a mental side of it too that's a big part of it that gives me confidence when I'm going on these trips because it's, I mean, they're freaking grinders.

[1317] I mean, hunts where we walk for three freaking straight days with 70 pound packs before you even start hunting that's just to get into the area from the time you wake up until the time you go to bed and that can you know most people can make the phone sat phone call and get picked up and taken out and we hear about it all the time from from clients and customers so we try to help them get prepared lower that weight so that doesn't happen to them when you're doing something like that and you're preparing for something like do you start off with like 20 pounds and do like how do you how do you how do you do that how would you advise someone?

[1318] Like, say if there's someone listening right now that says, hey, I'm, you know, I'm going to go on a hunt this winter or this fall, rather.

[1319] And I need to really get physically prepared, but I want to blow it all out in one shot.

[1320] Yeah, you definitely want to build up to it.

[1321] And because I don't stop training.

[1322] I come out of a hunt.

[1323] I'll go right back in my training.

[1324] But for a lot of guys that are just getting to ease into it, right?

[1325] I mean, you want to, like you said, start with 20 pounds and build yourself up over time because last thing you wanted you to do is going to hunt hurt.

[1326] I've done that before.

[1327] I've overtrained or done too much going into hunt.

[1328] And you have to be careful, especially as you age.

[1329] I tend to get tendinitis and joint pain more than I ever have.

[1330] And so it's managing your body through that process and having something left when you leave.

[1331] But being fit enough and having your feet in good enough shape and your boots broken.

[1332] I mean, there's a lot to it besides just the cardio part of it that goes into the hunt.

[1333] Yeah, I think people would benefit from seeing, like, if you could make like a blog on how you do it or outline.

[1334] Totally.

[1335] Outline how you start off and how someone would build into it and maybe consult with someone who's an expert trainer and figure out what's the best way to get people prepared, like to develop an actual workout for pack hunting or for even hiking.

[1336] Any sort of thing where you're walking uphill in the mountains with weight on your back.

[1337] It's like, boy, that is an unbelievably difficult thing to do all day, every day for several days at a time.

[1338] And it's just a different biomechanical movement.

[1339] I used to trail run a ton before I hunted.

[1340] And that was enough.

[1341] And I've gotten older, I've realized that I need to train more specifically for hunts.

[1342] And that's carrying a pack with weight.

[1343] And it hits different muscle groups as you've felt.

[1344] It gets more up in your hips and more in your glutes.

[1345] And it hits a whole different muscle group than Trail running does or that weight training does or training on an elliptical stair master or whatever that is.

[1346] There's no substitute for spending time in a pack with weight.

[1347] There just isn't.

[1348] No, there's no sub.

[1349] It's so different than anything else.

[1350] It's just so exhausting.

[1351] It is.

[1352] And it hits a whole different muscle group.

[1353] And your heart and lungs may be in shape, but those muscles aren't, and it taxes you.

[1354] Yeah.

[1355] As much as I lift weights and workout and kettlebells and all this stuff.

[1356] I packed 100 pounds for like three quarters of a mile in the fall, and I was fucking dead.

[1357] When it was over, I was like, oh, my God.

[1358] I can imagine 70 pounds on my back for three days at a time, walking all day.

[1359] Just to start hunting.

[1360] Yeah.

[1361] I'm not in good enough shape for that.

[1362] So if someone listening to this, is there a resource?

[1363] Is there any, like, sort of a website they can go to that can give them some good workouts for something to get prepared for, something like this?

[1364] You know, there isn't one specific to what we're doing.

[1365] And I think it's a great idea that you have is really laying that out.

[1366] I mean, we talk about all the time.

[1367] We take all this for freaking granted.

[1368] We've grown up doing it, right?

[1369] These spreadsheets, people like, oh, my God, that's so amazing you do that.

[1370] I'm like, I've always done it.

[1371] Right.

[1372] How in the hell else you know what your pack's going to weigh?

[1373] Right.

[1374] And that you're not overpacking, and that you have exactly what you need and how much you need of it.

[1375] And we break it down to, like, calories per ounce and ounces per day.

[1376] As far as our food, we bring, I mean, I go on a sheep hunt, I don't rely on the outfiter to a pack for me. I bring all my own food, and it's all weighed out.

[1377] It's all, it's all calculated out to the exact calorie per day I'm going to eat.

[1378] What kind of food do you bring?

[1379] A lot of whole foods now.

[1380] I used to bring, you know, lots of bars and Cliff bars and power bars.

[1381] Now it's real food.

[1382] And Brent and I've both gotten into that.

[1383] No. Nuts and whole grains and getting away from the dehydrated meals so much to have, you know, high sodium, not a lot of nutritional value.

[1384] And really trying to focus on, you know, bringing breads and peanut butters and cheese.

[1385] cheeses and things that will stick with you versus high sugars and you know quick burns right when you have dehydrated food how how nutritious is that stuff i don't think it's just calories i think it's calories and if you really look at their calories are not that many calories per ounce um they're light and uh some of them have higher calories per ounces than others but i mean brandon's come up with a really good recipe with your with peanut butter and some noodles and like stuff you get really creative with it i've been i've been kind of building my own like my like stuff uh it wasn't my idea exactly but modified it a bit and a couple things of ramen and peanut butter and fats and jerky and stuff all that's the higher weighs about the same and has double the calories and and you know one the one thing i this is what i do a lot is advising people that are going on a big hunt you know it's like start today don't put it off don't get a plan like get a pack on go for a hike start working out right now you know it's gonna and and uh get all your gear in order and and at the end of the day it's going to be a grind you're you're not going to you're not going to be full the whole time you're not going to have all the energy you need like that's the beauty of it it's like you can train all you want to do at the end of the day you're going to be working on the deficit you need to be sharp and you just can't have to grind through it and you have to be tough you know that's the beauty of it you can't be a wimp and do this so how do you figure out how much peanut butter to bring how does well you can't bring enough right so you're going to burn what i mean a thousand two thousand calories an hour when you're carrying heavyweight altitude is it really that much Yeah.

[1386] 2 ,000 calories an hour?

[1387] You'll do 1 ,000 calories on a treadmill an hour.

[1388] But is that even possible?

[1389] 2 ,000 calories an hour if you're hiking for 12 hours?

[1390] At altitude with weight, it's possible.

[1391] It's why you lose a pound a day, 2 pounds a day on these hunts if you're not in total shape going in.

[1392] Which is your body just burning off way more than you're taking in.

[1393] Yeah, you're going to be a calorie deficit no matter what.

[1394] And that also puts you at a mental deficit.

[1395] Totally does.

[1396] Makes you mentally exhausted when your body starts using all its resources to take part of it.

[1397] Yeah.

[1398] The same feeling you get cutting weight, you get on a huge trip when you're running out of food, you're way back in there.

[1399] It's just like you just got to dig deep.

[1400] Like, how do you show up for practice when you're cutting weight?

[1401] You just got to do it.

[1402] And you just got to dig deep and your body will, your body responds.

[1403] I mean, the cool thing is your body respond.

[1404] It will eat what it needs to eat.

[1405] And you just keep going.

[1406] I mean, it's going to be, the beauty of it, it's never easy.

[1407] I mean, it's going to be tough.

[1408] Well, that's one of the things that's so exciting about it, right?

[1409] It is this unbelievably difficult pursuit.

[1410] man now if you're going like explain to me a hunt like say if you're going to go on like a mountain goat hunt or a sheep hunt where you know you're going to go into very difficult terrain and you have X amount of days how do you pack for that like as far as food yeah two pounds a day two pounds per day yep and then you range of between 100 to 120 calories per ounce on your food choices so I break it down do you concentrate on vitamins do you do you think about like I do yeah I'll bring I'll bring supplements I'll bring, you know, whether it's, you know, electrolyte replacement tablets or vitamins and that type of stuff.

[1411] And then the other part of it is just whole foods, making sure we max out that calories for ounce, high fat content.

[1412] And then the other thing I tell you to tell people is try it when you're not hunting.

[1413] Totally.

[1414] You have to.

[1415] If you don't like it, you're going to hate it on the mountain.

[1416] Like when you're about these new pro bars, have you tried a pro bar?

[1417] Yeah, I got those.

[1418] They're kind of nasty after a while.

[1419] I mean, there's a lot to it.

[1420] There's nuts and grains.

[1421] Yeah, they're very filling and they're very big and dense, but try eating one for 10 days or three of them a day for 10 days.

[1422] At the end of it, you don't even want to eat it.

[1423] And so I believe now, for me at least, and what I recommend to our customers is bring food you like now that you love and focus on that stuff versus trying to get crazy on something new you haven't tried and thinking, okay, I'll go to RIA and buy all these different type of exotic bars and that'll be my food source.

[1424] Dude, before I was on a ketogenic diet, I was eating like 10 of those pro bars a day.

[1425] so I don't know what you're talking about.

[1426] It's peanut butter and chocolate ones.

[1427] I fucking love those things, man. Jamie loves it too, right?

[1428] I lived on them for 14 days in the mountains.

[1429] I couldn't, if I ate another one, I threw up.

[1430] Well, you know that expression.

[1431] Find me the best -looking woman somewhere there's a guy who's tired of fucking.

[1432] Yeah, exactly.

[1433] Totally.

[1434] Yeah, I mean, a lot of it with the food is you got to try it out early.

[1435] You got to try it beforehand.

[1436] I mean, tell people like, if you've never eaten Mountain House, I mean, it is.

[1437] It's like second naturedust.

[1438] I mean, it's so much of that shit that it's like.

[1439] I got, I mean, I got...

[1440] Tell people, Mountain House is dehydrated.

[1441] Yeah, dehydrated food.

[1442] Is it a freeze -dried or dehydrated?

[1443] Freeze -dried, yeah.

[1444] Whether it's Mountain House or, I mean, there's a million kinds of it, but I've gotten aware, like, I can only eat a certain...

[1445] Some of them function better for me. Like, I don't like any of the red sauce.

[1446] I don't like...

[1447] Don't ever eat chili mac, by the way.

[1448] Why?

[1449] Just try it once.

[1450] Goes right through you?

[1451] Yeah, your buddy, anyone you're hunting was going to be bummed, you ate it.

[1452] But if you got somebody you're hunting with you don't like, feed him chili mac.

[1453] But if you've never...

[1454] A lot of hang time.

[1455] If you've never done it before, and, you know, all of a sudden you go on this great big trip and you're stressed, you know, you're traveling and all this stuff.

[1456] And all of a sudden, you know, it's like throwing diesel into an unleaded car.

[1457] I mean, if you've never ran on that before, you don't really know how you're going to run on it.

[1458] That's why you've got to do it would do it.

[1459] Right.

[1460] You know, and a lot of people, you know, it freaks them out, you know.

[1461] That's the thing leaving the outfit, because you on a sheep hunt, they'll provide the food.

[1462] Right.

[1463] But shit, you don't know what they're going to give you.

[1464] They don't know what you're going to like.

[1465] They always overpack you.

[1466] I mean, the food bags they'll hand you'll be 40 pounds for 10 days when you really need.

[1467] 20 pounds because they don't know last thing I want is a client that doesn't like what they have to eat or runs out of food and so this is all part of it and then part of it you may not like what they provide you the key in general thing is super interesting and I'm messing around with that actually as we you know as we speak because the thought of being able to go for 10 days with sustained energy while you're burning your own fat versus I mean that is that is like I would say that's cutting edge I'm messing around with that right now that's why I got the MCT oil and all that stuff I'm going to try that this fall of the sea because I've been in places where you know and it's kind of funny like I've had times where you run out of food or you have so little food that I think your body has switched over to where it's just straightly absolutely and then you feel fine like it's like it just goes away so well hunger goes away in some sort of a weird way and there's there's also a bunch of different people that are involved in this now that are coming up with snacks and different foods that you could take with you when you're that's one of the reason why I wanted to ask you guys what you're carrying around but once your body's into ketosis you know that Then you just need high fat, high fat content foods, and you've got to figure out how to keep them okay or keep them from going bad while you're out there in the mountain.

[1468] Yeah.

[1469] You know, but almond butter, things along those lines.

[1470] Yeah, we're bringing a lot more of that than power bars.

[1471] Yeah, and peanut butter, the problem with peanut butter is most peanut butter you're going to get is going to be loaded up with sugar.

[1472] Yeah.

[1473] And just you're going to get the insulin spikes.

[1474] You're going to get the crashes.

[1475] When you're talking about 20 pounds of food, that doesn't seem like a lot.

[1476] If you tell me 20 pounds of food for how many days?

[1477] For 10 days.

[1478] Two pounds of food a day.

[1479] I'm fucking is our panicking already I'm panicking I'm starving I'm gonna starve You gotta ration it out I mean you got to ration it out Yeah And I mean it's not like You're sitting around Like oh man I'm ready to get something to eat I mean you're doing stuff You're glassing it Right I mean it's just like here's You know It's broad line As you're hungry too It's going It's like going on a diet It's it's basically You're in the mountains But you're meal prepped Like there's your little meal You know It's like these guys That's like That's all you get And do you have them broken down to packets?

[1480] I have a broken down per day.

[1481] So I have a Ziploc bag with my day.

[1482] How big is it?

[1483] What does it look like?

[1484] It's about this big.

[1485] I mean, it's not very big.

[1486] That's so crazy.

[1487] And then, you know, every day is broken down exactly that way.

[1488] So what's nice about it is you get back and out, you're exhausted.

[1489] You take your empty bag out that you ate all day.

[1490] That goes in the garbage.

[1491] And then you pull your new one out of your food bag and dump it in your pack.

[1492] So there's no guesswork?

[1493] None.

[1494] Can't be.

[1495] And are you eating this stuff like we're talking about before you go out there?

[1496] trying to live off that for a few days?

[1497] I'd try everything year -round.

[1498] So if something new comes out or we learn about something new, I'm trying it during my training, I'm trying it in the off -season and make sure I'm going to like it.

[1499] Have you ever, there's a new product that's out, this friend of mine has put out, it's called Fat Fudge.

[1500] Have you heard of this?

[1501] Nope.

[1502] It's, see, pull up, I think it's P -H -A -T -Fudge .com, I think, is her, the website, which she sells it.

[1503] But she's, or it might be paleo -chef .com, but she's created this um it's like a snack it's very nutrient dense it's a fudge that has mc t oil in it very low sugar i think it's got like a little bit of honey in it um but they're they come in these small individual packets dude i fucking live on this stuff it's fantastic but that's the type of stuff that is so powerful in the mountains yeah because it's a small packet you know just rip the top off it shove it in your mouth and uh chew it down and uh you know you can see you see what all the ingredients are it's ketogenic and uh and uh you know you can see you see what all the ingredients are it's ketogenic and uh It's all got, you know, cacao, it's got turmeric, cinnamon, sea salt, maca, honey, grass -fed butter.

[1504] It's all, like, super, super good stuff.

[1505] But it's, you know, a lot of calories for, like, a little tiny thing, but very nutrient -dense.

[1506] And for someone who's trying to burn off nothing but fats, it's a good way to go.

[1507] It is.

[1508] Yeah, the concept of burning fat versus using sugars was introduced to me. We're doing some VO2 max testing and weight with our packs on at a UC Davis Performance Lab.

[1509] and that guy trained, worked with U .S. cycling team, and they were talking about this movement ended burning fat versus using gel shots and sugars.

[1510] Yeah.

[1511] And I've started to, in our diets and what we bring, that's been our focus.

[1512] And this made a really big difference.

[1513] It's made a big difference with me. It's made a big difference to a lot of UFC fighters.

[1514] Misha Tate switched over to Akisha Teatogenic diet before she won the title.

[1515] Brian Carraway, her boyfriend, he's on a two.

[1516] He said weight cutting is way easier, his performance levels are higher.

[1517] And one of the things that I'm finding with myself and with a lot of my friends who've gone on is your testosterone goes up noticeably.

[1518] And some guys, it's going up by double.

[1519] Really?

[1520] It's because the precursors for testosterone, it's all about fats.

[1521] It's all about your body turns fats, saturated fats and cholesterol, all that stuff that you're eating from healthy fats turns that into hormones.

[1522] That's like what it needs.

[1523] And it's one of the big problems with going on high -carb, low -fat diets, is, that your body has a difficult time creating hormones through that.

[1524] I didn't know that.

[1525] It's really interesting and new stuff that's coming out is that these guys that are taking it, they're finding that when they're doing their blood tests, that their testosterone levels are higher.

[1526] Their growth hormone levels are higher.

[1527] It's really interesting stuff.

[1528] Like, I think your body is designed to eat that natural food, like plants and vegetables and meats.

[1529] It is.

[1530] You watch a bear what he eats first, all the fat, off of fish, before he even eats the meat.

[1531] Yep.

[1532] I mean, that's their number one.

[1533] food source or energy sources fat first i mean it's a wonderful thing it's just for for whatever reason our society's decided that's what makes people fat's really the sugars yeah it's the sugars it's a hundred percent the sugars but it's this stuff changes all the time and if you go back five years ago and you read some of the studies that are done and what what people recommend like for as far as diet now today it's totally contrary to that it is it's interesting how the the edge is always moving it's the cutting edge of this stuff is always it's always changing and People are always coming up with new studies that show better ways to eat.

[1534] And that's the fun thing about what we're doing is we're, you know, we're always, there is no magic bullet.

[1535] I get guys call all the time like, hey, what jacket do I need?

[1536] It's like, dude, it doesn't work like that.

[1537] Yeah, clear.

[1538] First of all, what is the name?

[1539] What does this mean?

[1540] What is Koo you mean?

[1541] It's an island in southeast Alaska.

[1542] Oh.

[1543] It's got the highest density of black bears in the world, and I've hunted it.

[1544] And it wasn't dot -comed.

[1545] And I just like the way the name lays out.

[1546] I like the way the balance the look.

[1547] And when I was hunting it, and this is when I had Sitka, I was hunting there with my ex -business partner and actually Gore -Tex before they had licensed us and invested in us.

[1548] And I woke up one morning before everybody else is sitting on the back of the boat and I was like thinking about Kuyah the name.

[1549] And I was like, that's what I'm the name of next company.

[1550] And I don't know why that even came to my mind because we're in the midst of building Sitka, but I just liked the name for whatever reason.

[1551] Just my gut told me that was it.

[1552] Go with the gut.

[1553] Totally.

[1554] Always.

[1555] Every time.

[1556] Every time.

[1557] Isn't it amazing when you follow it?

[1558] How powerful it is?

[1559] It's my whole life, right?

[1560] I've always gone with my gut.

[1561] Totally.

[1562] Yeah, there's no other way.

[1563] You know?

[1564] So many people are driven or the entire life is about fear.

[1565] And it dictates everything they do versus following your gut and putting the fear aside.

[1566] And once you do, it makes all the difference in life.

[1567] Yeah, fear's good.

[1568] It is.

[1569] It's a motivating factor.

[1570] Yeah.

[1571] Well, it's also the lack of fear can be very very much.

[1572] dangerous.

[1573] Absolutely.

[1574] One of the things that I always say, like people that are not scared when they're fighting, like those people are in trouble.

[1575] You're in trouble, man. You should be funny.

[1576] Nobody likes to be scared, but when I was competing, the worst tournaments that I ever fought in, I was not nervous.

[1577] I was too confident.

[1578] And I just performed poorly.

[1579] But when I was fucking terrified and like completely on edge, then your body's just, it's just primal.

[1580] It's just like you get down to that, that the bare minimum amount of understanding of what, what you have to do, of the the rest of the world fades away and all you're thinking about is that task.

[1581] You're cutting out everything else.

[1582] There's no thought about bills.

[1583] There's no thought about the future.

[1584] There's just what's going on in front of you right now.

[1585] And if you can get down to that, that's when you perform it your best.

[1586] But it's fucking terrifying.

[1587] So nobody likes it.

[1588] Nobody likes to be, like, when you see guys that are in, like, the UFC, that are like, here's a good example.

[1589] I'm a big fan of Luke Rockhold.

[1590] I think he's an awesome guy.

[1591] He was just talking about on the way down.

[1592] He was way too relaxed.

[1593] He thought he was going to kill Michael Bisping.

[1594] And Michael Bisping fought that fight like he was going in against a fucking silverback gorilla.

[1595] He was terrified or not terrified, but, you know, jacked up with nerves and like, you always have to be.

[1596] It was all in the line for him.

[1597] And that's why he knocked him out.

[1598] Such a great sport.

[1599] Is that his first knockout too in the UFC?

[1600] It's his first KO like that.

[1601] That's what I was telling him on the way down.

[1602] He stopped Jorge Rivera in Manchester.

[1603] Long time ago, though.

[1604] He beat down Mayhem Miller as a TKO.

[1605] But the TKOs, yeah, I mean, he's also sitting down on his punch is better.

[1606] Jason Perillo, his boxing coach, has really been working with him and done a fantastic job with him and with Chris Cyborg and a bunch of other people.

[1607] The buildup to that reminded me of Keith Jardine talking about Houston Alexander.

[1608] It was like I kept thinking like, man, he's really dismissive, like not even in my league and all that stuff.

[1609] And all of a sudden, you're done.

[1610] Yeah, you can't.

[1611] When a guy's a professional fighter, if you just.

[1612] stood there and let him punch you in the face would it knock you out yeah absolutely okay so that it can fucking happen it happens all the time yeah and the last thing you want to be is the guy that says this guy can't beat me i'm going to go in there and fuck him up and then you wake up with a flashlight in your eyes like what what's going on the doctor standing where we don't move you're like oh shit what happened motherfucker yeah and then you have to deal that that ego that allow like the ego the ego tells you that it's going to protect you from all this you know you're the baddest motherfucker you don't have to worry about shit who i don't even have to worry and that Blam!

[1613] And you're like, God damn it, ego.

[1614] Yeah, exactly.

[1615] Your ego leaves you alone.

[1616] Like, where are you now, bitch?

[1617] Ego's on.

[1618] It's okay to say it.

[1619] Just don't believe it.

[1620] Yeah.

[1621] And even if you say it, you've got to be real fucking carefully.

[1622] Yeah, you got to be...

[1623] Well, look who you're saying it to.

[1624] These guys are killers.

[1625] Yeah.

[1626] I mean, I just, man, that sport's awesome.

[1627] It's a crazy sport.

[1628] It is.

[1629] Brandon's got me into it, and I'd never miss a fight now.

[1630] Have you come live yet?

[1631] I have you been to live?

[1632] We went to the Thompson Hendricks.

[1633] I've been at like 25 of them.

[1634] Yeah, he was at Thompson Hendricks.

[1635] You know, Lorenzo Fetita's nephew owns Go Hunt, yeah.

[1636] Yeah, so Lorenzo and our buddies, so he took me. We got full access.

[1637] Oh, that's awesome.

[1638] Oh, that's beautiful.

[1639] Yeah, the big one's coming up next weekend.

[1640] Totally different experience alive than on TV.

[1641] Oh, yeah.

[1642] Yeah, I was like, wait, I need to build a hear Rogan so I know what's going on.

[1643] Well, they have these little things, these little radios that you can get at the concession stand.

[1644] Can you really?

[1645] Yeah.

[1646] I miss that.

[1647] Most arenas have them now, and you take these little radios and you turn them on, and it actually has a free frequency that picks up the commentary.

[1648] Yeah, it's excellent.

[1649] It's really cool.

[1650] I miss that part of it.

[1651] Well, sometimes something's going on.

[1652] You don't know what happened.

[1653] Yep.

[1654] Yeah, and like they stop the fight.

[1655] Like, why they stop the fight?

[1656] You don't realize, oh, his fucking legs broken?

[1657] Yeah, exactly.

[1658] It takes a while.

[1659] Yeah.

[1660] Yeah.

[1661] Yeah, commentary and it also, oh, I believe you can get, I'm not sure about that.

[1662] That might just be fight pass.

[1663] One of the cool things about UFC fight pass is you can listen into the corners.

[1664] Oh, you can.

[1665] Yeah, so the corner guys are miced up.

[1666] So you can, you can hear, like someone's saying, oh, you know, his hands broke or, oh, you know, this is what you got to do.

[1667] You get insight that you wouldn't get really get.

[1668] Yeah.

[1669] You just get insight and you also get a sense of building up anticipation.

[1670] Like if you know that a guy's got an injury and then he's trying to gut it out, it makes it even more exciting to watch.

[1671] Yeah.

[1672] I mean, it's an awesome sport.

[1673] Like I said, I only have a couple hobbies, watching MMA hunting.

[1674] That's it.

[1675] And they're very, they're very comparable, like, you know, from going from being a wrestler.

[1676] I mean, it's just, it's exciting.

[1677] It's slow portions of nothing and this training.

[1678] grinding and all of a sudden and then every now and again you get a step in and and see where you're at I mean it's it's you know like you always say like two guys I mean that's that's a strip down as it gets you either win or lose 50 50 I'm either going to win or I'm not and same with hunting I mean at certain point in time in that hunt you either get them or you don't like the percentages work out like that I mean it's that's that's the cool thing about it well I think also like hunting it's very it's not perceived correctly by a lot of people it's very misunderstood and a lot of people think of it as this barbaric awful thing involving bullies and assholes when really they're incredibly intelligent difficult people who are pursuing one of the most one of the most difficult things to do with dire physical consequences if you fail those bullies and assholes they don't have the dedication to get there those aren't the real guys well they don't have the understanding of who they actually are in order to face your own fears like a lot of the bullies and the assholes like you can get a certain distance with that with physical power and genetic attributes.

[1679] I mean, some guys just hit fucking hard, and they're just good at taking a shot, and if you stand in front of them and wail with them, they might catch you and knock you out and beat your ass, and you just got beat by a bully.

[1680] But the reality is when those guys get to a Stipe Miochik or Kane Velazquez or, you know, the best of the best, they're going to get fucked up.

[1681] Because those guys are just as physically strong, just as K, but also have their mental shit in order.

[1682] They have their ego in order.

[1683] They have their understanding in order.

[1684] And those guys, are some of the nicest, most down -to -earth people you're ever going to meet because they get their ego checked on a daily basis.

[1685] Every one of them I've met.

[1686] We have some guys that are customers ours, T .J. and Mendez, and, I mean, they're really sharp guys.

[1687] Very sharp.

[1688] And very nice, very polite, not assholes, very thoughtful.

[1689] I mean, just great people to be around.

[1690] And they also recognize that same thing in hunting.

[1691] They do.

[1692] You know, T .J. and Chad are gigantic hunters.

[1693] Oh, my God.

[1694] I mean, Chad, who lives for it.

[1695] He does.

[1696] to do that, like, from now on.

[1697] Most really good athletes that you come across that are hunting.

[1698] I mean, like, that's, that's like their second passion.

[1699] They love doing them.

[1700] Well, it's tons of baseball players and football players.

[1701] I mean, it's because, like, man. Well, the intensity.

[1702] You get the same, you get the same drug out of it.

[1703] Well, it's the DNA, right?

[1704] I mean, those guys, same guys are the hunters of the tribe.

[1705] Right.

[1706] Are the athletes.

[1707] Yeah.

[1708] And it just, it's a natural, natural deal.

[1709] We had, uh, Carson Palmer is a customer of ours.

[1710] And he had never, it's kind of like you.

[1711] Never been hunting before.

[1712] Who was he?

[1713] Carson Palmer is a quarterback for the, uh, Cardinals.

[1714] I literally don't follow any of the sports.

[1715] That's awesome.

[1716] I can tell you everything you want to know about MMA or kickboxing.

[1717] I love a narrow focus.

[1718] Now, I'm all about narrow focus.

[1719] Apparently, yeah.

[1720] So Carson won a thing called the Heisman Trophy.

[1721] I heard about that.

[1722] Jamie told me about that.

[1723] It's this metal trophy thing that you get for playing football in college.

[1724] And then he's the quarterback for the now of the Cardinals.

[1725] But then he was Cincinnati.

[1726] And he had a guy on the team that took him hunting during a off, you know, during one of their by weeks.

[1727] Put him up in a tree stand.

[1728] He never been hunting before.

[1729] He grew up in Orange County like I did.

[1730] And he said the first time a deer walked under his stand, a buck, the adrenaline and the DNA of that process took over.

[1731] And he is just a diehard hunter now.

[1732] And it's all he wants to do.

[1733] When he's done playing football, he only wants to hunt.

[1734] He wants to invest in Kuyu so he can be involved with hunting.

[1735] I mean, it's just that happened for him like it happened for you.

[1736] Yeah.

[1737] See it happens so much with athletes.

[1738] We have Brent Burns plays for, it's a game called hockey.

[1739] Hockey.

[1740] That's on ice with skates.

[1741] Oh, ice.

[1742] Yeah, skates.

[1743] It's actually, well, it is water, but they freeze it.

[1744] Freeze water, right.

[1745] Yeah, and he's the same way.

[1746] He just got into hunting, and he is just like, this is the most amazing thing.

[1747] Yeah.

[1748] Just DNA.

[1749] It's intense.

[1750] It's unbelievably intense.

[1751] And again, incredibly rewarding.

[1752] I mean, like, when I go to a store and buy a steak, there's no reward.

[1753] It's like, oh, this is delicious.

[1754] I can't wait to eat it.

[1755] But it's not like, you know, cooking up a deer backstrap that, you know, you had to get out of the mountains.

[1756] Yeah, I love your Instagram posts of your elk steaks with the jalapinos.

[1757] Yeah.

[1758] Did you ever eat that way?

[1759] the next day I went and cooked it up just like you did oh dude I sweat like a pig I got sweat pouring out of top my head everybody's laughing at me but I'm like it's so good isn't amazing yeah oh man with jalapinos man if you tried it that way every way possible it's all I mean you can't I've had it I've had it raw to burn anything you can put on it love it all yeah yeah it's the best meat you can ever eat it is and my kids have been eating it for four years now I have a six year old that's been eating bear since she was three so awesome yeah it's the healthiest food.

[1760] It feels better.

[1761] It feels better when you eat it.

[1762] It really does.

[1763] Well, it's flat out better for you, too.

[1764] Yeah, and I'm really into pursuing the art of cooking it in a bunch of different ways, too.

[1765] And that's another thing that I learned from Ronella.

[1766] I'm getting Hank Shaw, who I think lives up your way, too.

[1767] He's a wild game cook, a famous chef who's turned to becoming a hunter because he was interested in trying to prepare this food and being more connected with his food so then he started hunting and then using he uses a lot of local ingredients too a lot of like ingredients from the area where the animal actually lives it's really interesting too that is yeah do you cook i barbecue that's it just about everything fire and meat yeah uh that's all i do if i if i can't barbecue i won't cook it well that's the best way anyway it is you know especially no it really is um but yeah talking about chefs like guy fierre he's a client of ours you know he is yeah sure yeah and so he's he's actually become buddies with with brendan because he likes to smoke meat and cook meat like you do and uh we gotta shave his head yeah right it's not the 80s buddy he loves this frosted tips got to go i know that's hilarious holding down to hack that stuff off yeah we got a three yeah we got three haircuts for one this morning by the way yeah if you haven't noticed yeah god damn your haircut looks good thank you very much yeah yeah locks of love no hope here yeah yeah kids are got to have to shave head too yeah exactly yeah um like chefs like anthony bourdain he uh took me hunting in montana recently we went on a pheasant hunt and uh you know he he's a big fan of doing that as well as cooking the animals you know that he he hunts himself and and showing you how to prepare it properly and he's done that a bunch of times on his show and very involved in it yeah yeah it's it's actually fun to put different marinades put different recipes together i mean i throw it on the barbecue but there's a lot that goes into it and then also you know something that people don't do I think enough of with wild game, they wonder why it doesn't taste right.

[1768] It's proper aging your meat.

[1769] I don't know if you do that with yours.

[1770] I do sometimes, yeah, but most of the time I just cook it.

[1771] Yeah, I mean, it's better if you age it.

[1772] You can do a quick age in your fridge where you put up like on a rack in like a pan or a plate with like a wire rack that gets it off the bottom of it and then put foil over the top and let that blood drain out.

[1773] And how long do you age it for?

[1774] I'll age backstrap for 10 days in my fridge.

[1775] Really?

[1776] And it is so much better.

[1777] What does it smell like?

[1778] It doesn't smell like anything.

[1779] Really?

[1780] Nothing.

[1781] How come it doesn't stink after 10 days in your friends?

[1782] Because it's not rotting.

[1783] It's just aging.

[1784] They do that with beef.

[1785] Right, but then the outside of it is all black.

[1786] But that's what you're supposed to do.

[1787] You cut off the outside edges.

[1788] And that's what you do with your backstrap as well?

[1789] What you do with any meat, yeah.

[1790] But that outside doesn't stink?

[1791] Nope.

[1792] It just gets dry.

[1793] And it actually builds a crust.

[1794] You trim off the crust and cook the middle a million times better.

[1795] What is the temperature that it has to be at when you're doing that?

[1796] You can cook it medium.

[1797] You cook a medium.

[1798] No, I mean, when you're...

[1799] If you're going to quick age, it goes in your fridge, you're just a normal refrigerator temperature, which is what, I don't know, 36, 38 degrees.

[1800] Right.

[1801] But when they, like, dry age meat, when you go to, like, one of those butcher shops?

[1802] I think they're hanging at similar temperatures.

[1803] My brother went to culinary school.

[1804] He's the one that taught me that.

[1805] Really?

[1806] He's like, you need to age your meat.

[1807] Because you'll get all the blood out of it.

[1808] The blood is what causes a gamey or flavor.

[1809] And also, it also tenderizes your meat when you age it.

[1810] Try it.

[1811] Right.

[1812] You take a piece of backstrap, put it in the fridge with a little bit of soy sauce and some brown sugar or something on it.

[1813] I mean, you're not eating sugar anymore, but if you do that, it'll, I mean, it's phenomenal.

[1814] I don't know if it would go bad.

[1815] I've never left it long enough where you couldn't eat it, but, I mean, weeks.

[1816] I've left a back shop for weeks.

[1817] Weeks.

[1818] It doesn't rot.

[1819] That's interesting.

[1820] Is it more sustainable because it doesn't have all that fat on it, like a beef steak?

[1821] They age beef.

[1822] Right.

[1823] But do you do that in a fridge like that?

[1824] It just seems weird because people don't do it, but it's like a guy I know that a big African P .H. He'll take a whole hind quarter.

[1825] He'll take a whole hind quarter and put his fridge in a fridge at his house for 30 days.

[1826] And then it's the best.

[1827] It is.

[1828] A P .H. for people who don't know is a professional hunter, which in Africa is like a guide.

[1829] Yeah.

[1830] Yeah.

[1831] Do you know Steve Cobreen?

[1832] No. So he's a bow hunter, really cool guy, big guy.

[1833] He's basically killed everything in Africa with a bow.

[1834] I don't know that anybody else has ever done it.

[1835] Like this guy is the real deal.

[1836] It goes into the gnarly places but he takes people hunting over there and stuff but almost entirely a bow hunter himself like stud and you know I'll introduce you to it's really cool like everything and out no one's killed more animals in Africa than him everything he's been everywhere to everything we're just thinking of his meat sit in the refrigerator for 30 days doesn't go bad try it's crazy yeah I mean it's covered in foil but a rack so the blood can drain out and it can sit there for it'll be a You'll be amazed at how long you can age it and how good it is when you do.

[1837] Is that the key?

[1838] Because I've had meat that I let sit in like a bought a steak at a store and let sit in my refrigerator for too long.

[1839] Then you open up the meat.

[1840] You're like, oh, it smells terrible.

[1841] Well, that's already been aged too.

[1842] And it's sitting on itself, right?

[1843] And that.

[1844] Is that the key?

[1845] Yep.

[1846] That it has to drain.

[1847] You have to get out of its blood.

[1848] So you got to get it.

[1849] Don't wrap it up.

[1850] Don't contain it.

[1851] Right.

[1852] Yep.

[1853] You need have air flow underneath.

[1854] And then you can, the other way, if you don't have a rack, you can take, I do is a bowl, right?

[1855] or a pan, I'll put foil over it and punch holes in it.

[1856] Uh -huh.

[1857] So it suspends it in that blood and go through those holes in the foil, and then you put foil over the top and slide in your fridge.

[1858] Do they sell, like, a rack for aging in your refrigerator?

[1859] Yeah, they sell like a little cooking racks that are just like screens with, that are designed to go in a pan and get stuff off the, off of a pan.

[1860] That's interesting.

[1861] I'm going to try that.

[1862] You got to try it.

[1863] Yeah, I haven't been doing that.

[1864] Oh, it'll make a huge difference.

[1865] I marinate sometimes.

[1866] You know what I like to do?

[1867] I like to take Newman's own balsamic vinegar.

[1868] Yeah, just put it in that for, you know, five or six.

[1869] Six hours.

[1870] Italian dressing is a great marinade.

[1871] Yeah, yeah, it's excellent.

[1872] And then pull it out.

[1873] Someone served sheep.

[1874] I was at a camp.

[1875] It was actually at Tahone.

[1876] We were pig hunting.

[1877] And someone brought by some sheep backstraps, and they had it marinated in Italian dressing.

[1878] God's right there.

[1879] There's nothing better than doll sheep or stone sheep backstrapes.

[1880] It's amazing how good they taste.

[1881] It's so good.

[1882] Cheap meat is.

[1883] Is that the best meat of all the meat?

[1884] meats?

[1885] Is big horn the same as Thinthorn?

[1886] Bighorn's not near It's good and like The harder you work for it, the better it is But like a sheep, tenderloin Pulled right out, one minute Each side, as hot as you can get it I mean, it's just...

[1887] That's it.

[1888] You just want to sear it.

[1889] No one will ever know how good it is because they never make it out.

[1890] No critic will ever get a bite of that.

[1891] Right, because they never get it out of the mountain.

[1892] No, never comes out.

[1893] Most of the time you cook it while you're up there, right?

[1894] Yeah, a lot of times, yeah.

[1895] I do, man. We have a thing called man kebabs, which is you got to hunt down the animal, you got to kill it, you got to bring it, you got to pack it back to camp, you got to start a fire that you create, you got to harvest the willow stick that you're going to put the meat on, and you chop it up, you slide on the meat, and at the time we only had top ramen seasoning, so we sprinkle the top ramen seasoning out, put it over the fire, that's a mankabob.

[1896] No vegetables.

[1897] It's kind of funny, though.

[1898] The top ramen is the season, but top ramen seasoning is fucking good.

[1899] It's fucking good.

[1900] When I used to eat that stuff, and I get some of it just a little bit on the table and put it on my finger it's delicious it's a good season good seasoning you get really creative you don't have much it's probably a good idea too like to bring like in camp it's a small packet it's already sealed up it's like a good size for seasoning and you do it as like a rub and then you put the kebabs on that thing granted you're starving to death by the time you kill this animal and put it on the fire but it is off the hook well when we when I hunted with ronella the very first time and shot a mule deer and then we ate the liver that night.

[1901] We hung up most of the meat in the tree because it was like pretty close to dark and we went back the next day to pack it out.

[1902] But when we went back to camp and ate liver and onions like from an animal that died two hours ago, it was like the most insanely delicious food I've ever had in my life.

[1903] I couldn't believe how good it tastes.

[1904] Yeah, you were hunting, did you guys, you guys hunted down from the ferry up on the Missouri up there?

[1905] Yeah, yeah.

[1906] I hunted sheep in there a bunch.

[1907] Yeah, it was a cool.

[1908] We saw a lot of sheep up there.

[1909] It's probably pretty hard to get a tag though, right?

[1910] Hardest place in the world, yeah.

[1911] Is that the brakes?

[1912] Yeah, yeah.

[1913] Hardest place in the world to get a tag.

[1914] That's interesting.

[1915] They're just doing a really good job of making sure the populations go up.

[1916] Biggest sheep in the world.

[1917] And, yeah.

[1918] They had giant balls.

[1919] Like, we spent a whole segment of the show concentrating on the balls of the sheep.

[1920] Like, Rinella made a video.

[1921] It was few people to find this because it was pretty funny.

[1922] We were there, and Ronella, like, is obsessed with these big horn sheep and their balls.

[1923] And he's like, the moment I kill one of these things, I'm going to kill it.

[1924] And I'm going to take one of those balls.

[1925] and I'm just going to eat it.

[1926] I've eaten them.

[1927] I've eaten them.

[1928] They're great.

[1929] They're the biggest of anything, though.

[1930] You've eaten sheet balls.

[1931] Oh, yeah.

[1932] That you killed.

[1933] Yep.

[1934] What does sheep balls taste like?

[1935] I'm not eating sheep balls.

[1936] You're not going to eat it?

[1937] I'm not doing that.

[1938] I'll save it for Steve.

[1939] Just meet good like everything else.

[1940] You're like Cameron Haynes.

[1941] Cameron Hayes won't eat heart.

[1942] You won't eat liver.

[1943] You want to eat anything.

[1944] I'm like, you're crazy.

[1945] When we shot an elk, I was cutting the hard eyes.

[1946] Like, you're going to eat that?

[1947] I'm like, fuck, yeah.

[1948] I'm going to eat this.

[1949] Around the hole I put in it.

[1950] Oh, yeah.

[1951] the hole.

[1952] Depending...

[1953] If it's a bow and arrow, you don't have to do that, you know?

[1954] No, you know.

[1955] You get that weird, funky lead in your mouth.

[1956] Yeah, exactly.

[1957] So, look at, this is him and I up there, and he started...

[1958] He started obsessing about the balls.

[1959] I know exactly where you guys are.

[1960] I mean, exactly where you're at.

[1961] When you go home and tell people what a bad spot I took you to, and you say, boy, we didn't see a lot of big horns, though.

[1962] What they're going to say is something like...

[1963] What kind of dumb ass hunts mule deer in Big Horn Country?

[1964] You've never seen a scrotum?

[1965] He's seen a scrotum on a bigger man. Really?

[1966] It's just, it's a sight of a hold.

[1967] I'd love to show you if you turned right.

[1968] Your house on trackers.

[1969] No, it's perfect.

[1970] It's just, it's like a church bell.

[1971] Really?

[1972] This is like a church bell hanging down between his legs.

[1973] Wow, what's a giant.

[1974] Are they all sweet?

[1975] Crazy animal.

[1976] Yeah, this is one of the...

[1977] Were you able to see that church bell in me?

[1978] Yeah.

[1979] It's impressive.

[1980] He's excessive.

[1981] If I ever draw big money, here it goes.

[1982] The first thing I'm going to do, I'm going to, when I kill one, I'm going to punch my tag, and I'm going to eat the contents of that sack.

[1983] Just straight up, just...

[1984] Raw?

[1985] Just right there, like apples.

[1986] Why?

[1987] No way.

[1988] I know.

[1989] Why?

[1990] I don't know.

[1991] I don't know.

[1992] I feel a calling to do that, man. I feel a calling to do it.

[1993] Well, he's another really important factor in educating people about hunting because he's a very well -read, very intelligent guy, very educated, and really very, very ethical.

[1994] I mean, is ethical and as driven as you can be.

[1995] Do you read his book, American Buffalo?

[1996] Yeah.

[1997] Well, I didn't read that one.

[1998] I read the other one, the Meteor one.

[1999] Oh, did you?

[2000] Read the American Buffalo.

[2001] I heard it's fascinating reading.

[2002] He's got a history of American Buffalo is tragic.

[2003] Yeah, it is.

[2004] And he spells it out so well.

[2005] Well, he had this guy on his podcast, Dan Flores, who is a wildlife biologist, who, wild life historian, I should say, it's an amazing podcast where he details the history of animals and European settlers coming over here and wiping out of the various animals.

[2006] And what's being done to try to restore that, they're trying to do something called the American Serengeti, where they're trying to put together like an area, like a protected area, like as big as Yellowstone.

[2007] But it's actually going to involve hunting.

[2008] really they're buying property right now in montana i mean that's going on what's it going to be well i don't know i don't know that much about it i only just bought a property that's not very far from where you guys were there that that that that they're it's in block management you're allowed to hunt it but it's you know they're pulling i think they're pulling the cattle off it and you know that's that's a huge success story right there i mean those those sheep were planted back in there in 1970s it's probably the biggest herd in in montana and certainly the best sheep hunting in the world and they were planted in there in the 70s and started hunting in about 1990 they restarted hunting again and i mean they were totally brought back from money from an auction tag put a transplant in there and they've exploded onto the landscape they were shot out by market hunting and and domestic sheep interaction you know years ago and then brought back and now it's the best place in the world you know and that wouldn't happen about hunters yeah it is an amazing success story and that's that's also an interesting thing these auction tags which is really weird where you let someone, you give them this opportunity to hunt, and a lot of times these guys are spending hundreds of thousands of dollars.

[2009] I guided the most expensive tag in history, $485 ,000.

[2010] Right there, Missouri breaks.

[2011] Yeah.

[2012] What?

[2013] He wanted those balls.

[2014] So a guy paid, I mean, there was a huge ram that, a couple, there was three of us that guided it.

[2015] And there was, yeah, a guy paid $485 ,000.

[2016] And the money thing about that is really weird.

[2017] it's this perception of some rich dude buying it like you're paying for an opportunity to bypass the system to do something that you would normally have to draw that's it's as simple as that it's not like i'm gonna spend this huge amount of money and you know it's this huge head hunt and this ego thing and you got guys living i mean like there's so many misconceptions about what goes on with that type of thing that it's not even funny it's a tax write off it's a donation to wildlife if you really care about wildlife and it gives the guy an opportunity to take you know and again if you're a billionaire if you've made a ton of money and you care about wildlife and you love to hunt why would you not do that it's not that weird i mean i mean it's all relative it's money and it's a donation and yes we had we had this big sheep we spent 18 days hunting and it's the biggest one ever been killed with a auction tag in the united states and was a phenomenal hunt and a guy you know was glad to donate the money and it's you know it's provided new sheep transplant it's money for wildlife that would not exist if they didn't do it it's one tag and raise a half a million dollars well that's the big contradiction when people talk about hunting and hunting being for conservation, how it helps conservation.

[2018] That is one of the biggest examples of it is how much money goes into helping these animals and habitat preservation and reintroducing them to areas, like what the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation has done with reintroducing elk to a bunch of different places.

[2019] Sheep is the biggest success in North America.

[2020] I mean, they were shot basically into a few places, and they've brought them back through.

[2021] And it's strongly been through money by guys that are fortunate enough to be able to do it.

[2022] And it is a total misconception.

[2023] I mean, you are paying, the guy is paying money as a tax donation and he's giving money to something he truly cares about that he loves and is probably grown up doing is, you know, this guy was self -made, started painting boards in West Virginia and started a bank and made a billion dollars, you know, like he loves hunting.

[2024] That's what he loves doing.

[2025] It was not some rich guy paying to, you know, put a head on his wall and he was glad to do it.

[2026] And you're paying for the opportunity.

[2027] I mean, the thing that's always lost in it is, is the dead animal or whatever.

[2028] The guy's paying for the opportunity.

[2029] We had no advantage over anybody else was the same season everybody else did and the guy um we ended up killing you know a great big ram which was you know obviously the goal but i mean one sheep raised a half a million dollars and that's incredible and and the guy it was he's paying for the opportunity he's not paying for you know you know it'd be a hell of a lot easier to buy a great big head to put on your wall than it would to be to spend that to spend that much money and then go out there and maybe not get them but the the pursuit is is what drives and how does that work like there's three guides so did you guys scout in advance and find the big sheep?

[2030] That was the unique situation.

[2031] We had, so, and it's basically a three -year story of following one RAM.

[2032] This is a ram we called B -52.

[2033] And in 2010, a friend of ours was with a guy who killed a ram up in the brakes, same deal, exact same area you were in, and there was a big ram standing with it.

[2034] There was two big Rams together.

[2035] He killed one of them.

[2036] And the next year, when we were up there scout and we came across this ram, And we're like, that's the same ram in the photo.

[2037] They took a photo right before they killed it.

[2038] And then we tried to hunt him in 2012, didn't get him.

[2039] And in 2013, it was like, this ram, he was really big, and then he slipped through two years.

[2040] Nobody got him.

[2041] Smart old sheep.

[2042] I mean, really smart.

[2043] And it was all of a sudden, you know, we let a few guys know that, hey, there's not an unusually big ram up here.

[2044] And if you want a chance to hunt it, and it's unique in the time frame and the fact that there's not always big sheep around.

[2045] I mean, this is one year, this RAM is alive right now, and we told a few guys, and five guys went to, you know, there was five guys that were willing to pay a half a million dollar that went to, I mean, there was five guys bid in over $460 ,000 for the opportunity to hunt this area.

[2046] Look at the size of that thing.

[2047] Oh, my God.

[2048] There you go.

[2049] The horns on that thing are insane.

[2050] Yeah, Willie Hedinger, Al McKinney, and myself.

[2051] And, I mean, we spend 18 days.

[2052] like rattlesnakes out there.

[2053] And it was an awesome hunt.

[2054] I mean, it's a smart old ram.

[2055] It was a it was just a really cool deal.

[2056] And the guy, we ended up getting it.

[2057] How far do you take it from?

[2058] He almost killed it with a bow.

[2059] I snuck him into 12 yards, came over the top on it, and a resident hunter being a dick came down the ridge and spooked the sheep.

[2060] Spotted us, knew we were hunting a sheep, and came down and spooked the ram.

[2061] But he should have killed it with a I mean a resident hunter with a sheep tag with a sheep tag yeah they do it on purpose yeah I think so yeah I mean if you saw three guys and you knew that they had a guy with them that had paid $485 ,000 to be there and he knew all this you would probably think I'm probably in the right area right I'm gonna follow these guys yeah yeah no shit but that's what it gets weird with public land right it does that ram bugged out we killed him 10 days later nine miles from where there and how far was the the shot when he killed him he shot him at 4th 460.

[2062] That's a different ram.

[2063] That's another, that's a different ram.

[2064] God damn, that thing's massive, too.

[2065] That's, that's, so I was fortunate to be on both of those.

[2066] That's two of the top five sheep ever killed in Montana in 10 days.

[2067] They are just majestic beasts.

[2068] When you look at the, what nature is given them in their head, like what a crazy animal that develop these gigantic battering rams out of the top of their skull.

[2069] And the photos really don't do those things justice.

[2070] No. You put your hands on those horns.

[2071] I mean, it's impressive.

[2072] Both 11 and a half years old i mean that's that's the end of his life i mean he's you know he's run his full course that ram actually did not rut at all that ram had a broken shoulder and we had seen him for a couple years and he had a really small body and he was actually a non -dominant sheep and it was just kind of floating around out there he wasn't he was physically physically past his prime yeah so did he like fall or something or hunting accent it's hard to say it's hard to say yeah i mean they have a tough life yeah they do for an animal like that to live that long this nature is so incredible and it's diversity, that this is something that we have here in North America, this incredible animal, just a strange looking, I mean, almost, we're so used to them.

[2073] We know they exist, so I don't think we kind of appreciate them as much as if you were just introduced to them as an adult, if you'd never heard of or seen it before, probably blow you away.

[2074] Totally.

[2075] It's like, what a crazy animal.

[2076] It's got a battering ram on its head.

[2077] It does.

[2078] I always say, like, with desert sheep, you know, they have this tiny little knack and it's like, when you see one out in the desert, a desert sheep, a big ram it's like they wouldn't look any stranger if they were green like if they landed on mars if they landed on mars and all of a sudden there was a desert sheet popped his head up you'd be like that's about what i thought to be here you know it's rocky and dry and his neck's this big and he's got a 50 pound head like yeah that's about what i thought have you ever seen the video with a ram and the cow butt heads i haven't jerry there's a video crazy video where this ram starts moving towards this cow and the cow's calf and the cow decides it's going to headbutt this ram watch this go full green.

[2079] Check this out.

[2080] Watch.

[2081] The ram comes into vision and the cow's like, fuck this.

[2082] So it sees it.

[2083] Watch this.

[2084] Knocks the cow out.

[2085] K -oed him.

[2086] And he gets up.

[2087] I can't tell if that's a bull.

[2088] Is it a bull or a cow?

[2089] I can't tell.

[2090] It's hard to tell.

[2091] It's a blurry -ass picture or a blurry -ass video.

[2092] But just this tiny little thing that weighs about 150 pounds, the cow's much more than a thousand and chaos it with a head butt.

[2093] I've seen them.

[2094] I mean, I've seen Rams that.

[2095] had their skulls broken entire horn torn off like that the amount of power i mean they they get up and when they hit and then it's like this state of right after a guy you know where after you'd take a huge uppercut and they just stand there and kind of go oh and then they kind of come back and they're like all right let's do that again i didn't get enough of that they've got they've got cTE yeah oh for sure yeah don't do a football study on them yeah exactly i kind of wonder like what what crazy design that nature has figured out a way to have all these various different designs.

[2096] Here they go, boom!

[2097] And they just stand there.

[2098] Look at this collision.

[2099] That's when to make your stock right then.

[2100] Well, one of these dummies needs to figure out how to dive under and get an uppercut going.

[2101] Get some leverage.

[2102] Yeah, just like, don't headbut them.

[2103] Fake them.

[2104] You got to juke them and then slide under.

[2105] You're talking about the balls.

[2106] Big Horn Sheep have two moves.

[2107] So it's this move right here.

[2108] And then when they're posturing and kicking each other around, their other moves, they get behind each other and smash each other in the balls.

[2109] Oh, I mean, the front kick to the nuts is a big horn sheep.

[2110] Look at the balls.

[2111] Look at the balls in these things.

[2112] Watch this.

[2113] Boom.

[2114] Look at these nuts.

[2115] Yeah.

[2116] Look at these nuts.

[2117] Look at his nuts hanging.

[2118] If I had nuts like that, I'd never wear pants.

[2119] I'd be like, everybody's just deal with what I've got here.

[2120] And you wouldn't be doing a podcast.

[2121] You'd be doing videos.

[2122] I'd be in the poem business, son.

[2123] And that echoes for like the sheep I hunted last fall.

[2124] That's how I actually found them.

[2125] Oh, you heard it here in the middle of the night.

[2126] Boom.

[2127] It sounds like gunshots going off.

[2128] Really?

[2129] And you get up.

[2130] Yeah, it took me four hours to figure out where they were because it echoes all over.

[2131] But about every 25 minutes you hear, boom, and it just sounds just like a gunshot.

[2132] And it's like, okay, they're there.

[2133] And you start honing it in and boom, there they were.

[2134] Wow.

[2135] 10 rams and they were button heads, yeah.

[2136] It's pretty cool, like little things like that.

[2137] It's like you just so cool.

[2138] Well, being out there in the wild, you get to experience firsthand the diversity of all these wild, like mule deer with their incredible racks or elk or big horn sheep.

[2139] And there's so many bizarre creations.

[2140] And there's so much diversity.

[2141] Oh, they're hitting each other in the balls.

[2142] Oh, yeah.

[2143] How rude.

[2144] Look at it.

[2145] He's just kicking him in the balls.

[2146] He's like, fuck you.

[2147] I'm going to get behind you and kick you in the balls.

[2148] It's like, no, no, no, no, no, I already know that move.

[2149] And they just spit it around each other.

[2150] Every time.

[2151] He's kicking the other sheep in the balls.

[2152] Yeah, they never get five minutes like you do at UFC if you get kicked in the balls.

[2153] Oh, yeah, they've got no time outs.

[2154] No time outs.

[2155] It's hilarious.

[2156] They know that they have balls, so they go to attack them.

[2157] How the fuck did they figure that out?

[2158] how do they know that balls are i guess they know that they have balls do you have balls that big you're gonna figure that out yeah you're gonna sit on something's gonna hit those things but what a bunch of dickheads they're they're fascinating too they're like i mean when they're in the rut they're they're they're totally different animal than when they're when they're when they're when they get late in the year and start chasing like there's nothing they just go insane isn't that also bizarre that they have a season where they have to have sex where you lose your mind yeah once you're we got that too let's let's sort of yeah but we're We get to do it all the time.

[2159] It's called college.

[2160] And we can jerk off.

[2161] Yeah.

[2162] You can alleviate it yourself so you can think clearly.

[2163] These poor bastards, you know.

[2164] Wait, all year.

[2165] Yeah, all year.

[2166] No wonder they go nuts.

[2167] Yeah.

[2168] Just getting ready.

[2169] No wonder their balls are so big.

[2170] And they're born with weapons.

[2171] Yep.

[2172] You know, and as they get older, the more dominant ones have the bigger weapons.

[2173] It's just this, what a strange system that nature's figured out.

[2174] It is, isn't it?

[2175] And it's also strange to me, like how you see when it's all over, they bachelor up.

[2176] Like when the rut's over, like, we, we would.

[2177] We went moose hunting in BC last year, and when the rut was over, we found these, like, bachelor groups of moose that probably were trying to kill each other just a couple of weeks ago.

[2178] Well, you know, you beat up somebody your best friend's after, right?

[2179] I guess.

[2180] Right.

[2181] But you don't bang his girlfriend either.

[2182] Yeah, well, I don't think anybody has a claim on any of them.

[2183] They're all just running around trying to score.

[2184] But I think when it's all over, they're probably like, what the fuck was, what were we doing just a couple of weeks ago?

[2185] Yeah, exactly.

[2186] What came over us?

[2187] Yeah, I think they knew.

[2188] I know, but it's just strange that it comes over them once a year.

[2189] Yeah, and it's so strong.

[2190] And the rest of the time, like, a big ram wants nothing.

[2191] Like, if you're, if you're sheep hunting the rest of the year and you see and use, you're in the wrong spot.

[2192] They want nothing to do with them.

[2193] Really?

[2194] I don't blame them.

[2195] Same with big bull elk.

[2196] They serve their purpose.

[2197] Yeah.

[2198] Same with bull elk, you know.

[2199] I mean, aside from the rut and a few times where they interact, the rest of the time, like, if you're seeing tons of cows, you're in the wrong spot, dude.

[2200] Well, that's what I told you about when I was in Montana, and we saw a hundred elk together.

[2201] all cows this time you yeah no no all cows yeah or little spikes or something yeah exactly i saw like one spike it's uh just it's so fascinating the diversity that that nature's created so many different animals like that well and hunting gives us the opportunity to truly see it as it is oh yeah versus like a national park or yellow stone yeah to see it as it is up close in its natural habitat when it's quiet and you get to see those things the way it's been for so long does it don't you feel like when when you sneak up on an animal too and you you lock eyes with that thing you know it almost feel like you're in it almost feels like a different dimension or something like that because you're you're in this world that they exist in and there's there's no cell phone service there's no people anywhere near you it's a very strange environment it is it is and it's like everything else gets tuned out too it's like this laser focus of what's happening right then all your senses go way up i mean at least for me it's like smell and like you can feel the slightest breeze in your face and uh you know you can see that animal move really really close like you'd never would notice before because of that laser focus intensity just kind of takes over your whole system and there's something there's something there's something about tricking an animal that's whole focus in life is to not get caught that is a great sense of feeling like oh yeah you do everything right in the right place and this thing walks by and like oh and arrows already on the way it's done deal it's like you you did it I mean You outsmarted something that's 10 million years were the genetics, and you got it fair, you know, especially with bow hunting.

[2202] Like, you got in that close and got them.

[2203] Not only that, we're clumsy.

[2204] Our noses suck.

[2205] We can't see very good.

[2206] Yeah, hearing's dog shit.

[2207] They have ears like satellite dishes.

[2208] They're spinning around, left and right, looking all over the place trying to find you.

[2209] Like a mule deer in particular.

[2210] Those giant ears.

[2211] Well, in their nose.

[2212] Yeah.

[2213] Oh, yeah.

[2214] Power of scent is crazy.

[2215] Yeah.

[2216] I've seen the craziest stuff at the farthest distance.

[2217] Hundreds and hundreds of yards.

[2218] They say, fuck this.

[2219] Done.

[2220] What?

[2221] Yeah.

[2222] And you think the wind's blowing at your face and it's actually going around the mountain and ends up right back out of it?

[2223] It's just amazing what happens.

[2224] People are like, oh, you're out there hunting chasing a poor defenseless animal.

[2225] It ain't defenseless.

[2226] If it was defenseless, I'd have a way more big ones.

[2227] Right.

[2228] You know?

[2229] I'd always get them if they were defenseless.

[2230] I mean, they're, they're, they're, they're, man, I've, I've seen them, you know, I've, I've hunted animals where they got one with you or gone.

[2231] Yeah, well, and like, gone for days?

[2232] No, gone.

[2233] Never saw him again.

[2234] Gone.

[2235] He figured me out, gone.

[2236] They're around wolves.

[2237] Totally.

[2238] You know, bears, mountain lions.

[2239] I've seen, yeah, I've seen deer do some crazy things, like lay down on the ground and, like, hide from hunters and let hunters walk right by him, like, within yards.

[2240] Wow.

[2241] And just do some really cool stuff.

[2242] Sneak away from people, and you go, those guys never knew.

[2243] They were five yards away from a giant buck, and that thing just totally outsmarted them.

[2244] It's the coolest thing.

[2245] Yeah, they're tuned in, man. Dumb humans walking by.

[2246] He's like, no problem.

[2247] I was just lay down.

[2248] They'll never see me. Just imagine if you were a 300 -pound animal that had to escape something killing you all the time.

[2249] That's your every day is try to get some grass in your system and get the fuck away from everything that wants to eat you.

[2250] Once you're trying to get laid once a year.

[2251] Polygamist.

[2252] Definitely not, you know.

[2253] You're sleeping outside in Montana.

[2254] Yeah.

[2255] In the winter.

[2256] Yeah.

[2257] I think it's amazing and we're so lucky in this country that the people like Teddy Rosa, The people that founded these areas for public land, they set them aside and allowed these places to be established where these animals can live.

[2258] And we never have to worry about them being taken over and they build malls there.

[2259] I mean, it's a really beautiful part of America, even if you don't have any desire whatsoever to hunt, the fact that you can go up there and backpack and camp and be in that natural environment.

[2260] It's a really beautiful thing about America.

[2261] Totally.

[2262] Yeah, I mean, the perception of hunters were just out there to kill something.

[2263] for me it's a small part of the whole thing it's a good part though it is but it's being out there too yeah yeah it is definitely being out there to be there and to get to experience all that i mean obviously i wouldn't be there without a tag i get invited to go hiking or go to a park all the time or you know national park i'm not interested but i mean it's a i mean being out in the mountains in the wilderness and seeing all this stuff is just awesome yeah it's not like if you go hunting and it's unsuccessful it's a zero it's like a six it's like a six out of ten if you if you if you get a big elk it's a ten Yeah.

[2264] But if you go out there and nothing happens, like, oh, so hiking is a four.

[2265] So it's two points above a hike.

[2266] Armed hiking, we call it.

[2267] Especially if you actually see the animals.

[2268] If you don't see the animals, it's like a five.

[2269] If you don't see anything, you're like, what the fuck we're doing this spot?

[2270] If you don't see anything, you need new friends.

[2271] Yes.

[2272] Somebody's been lying here.

[2273] Yeah.

[2274] Or you just something happened, you know, you never know.

[2275] Now, these bighorn sheep, they're very difficult to get a tag for, right?

[2276] Yep.

[2277] In Montana?

[2278] Like, there's so many of them now, though.

[2279] Um, yeah, but I mean, there's still not enough to go around.

[2280] It's, it's the most, it's the most exclusive tag in the world.

[2281] How many do they give out?

[2282] In Montana, I give about 150 a year.

[2283] I drew one last year.

[2284] Oh, wow.

[2285] Yeah, I mean, the odds in the best place are like one in 500.

[2286] Um, it's a lottery system.

[2287] And then the lads in the, like, in the roughest areas that have better odds are like one in a hundred.

[2288] One in five hundred.

[2289] That's incredible.

[2290] So Brendan drew a sheep tag in Montana to hunt one sheep.

[2291] Yep.

[2292] You had one sheep in mine.

[2293] He showed me the picture of it when he drew the tag, goes, I'm going to kill this sheep.

[2294] How did you know about this sheep?

[2295] And guess what?

[2296] You killed it.

[2297] The sheep's dead.

[2298] Yeah, you're a savage.

[2299] Totally.

[2300] I was like, I'm so glad I'm not that sheep right now when you drew that tag.

[2301] When they lose their mind once a year, they come out to the winter range.

[2302] And a buddy mine, Robbie Doctor, had found this ram on the winter range and she sent me a picture of it and said, dude, you know, this is a huge ram in an unusual area.

[2303] and applied for it.

[2304] I mean, it's happened before, like, oh, there's a big sheep.

[2305] Nobody knows it.

[2306] We didn't tell anybody.

[2307] And then he showed up again the next year, didn't draw the tag.

[2308] And then last year I drew it, and it was like, I drew the tag.

[2309] And it was like, he's on the outer edge of the life expectancy of a sheep.

[2310] You know, it's a 500 -square -mile area.

[2311] I'm going in there as long as it takes.

[2312] 500 square miles to hunt.

[2313] One sheep.

[2314] And so, mind -loring?

[2315] That's pretty crazy.

[2316] Think about that.

[2317] Well, that is the ultimate pursuit, right?

[2318] We're talking about the most difficult challenge of hunting.

[2319] With a bow.

[2320] How many yards you get him from?

[2321] Just outside my effective range.

[2322] Long shot.

[2323] I snuck into 15 yards for 20 minutes.

[2324] It took me 24 days to find him.

[2325] I passed up 33, 8 -year -old or better rounds.

[2326] How many days did you spend scouting, too?

[2327] Oh, I mean, I lost track at time.

[2328] I mean, I put on, I mean, a crazy amount of money.

[2329] What job do you have?

[2330] We all need one of those working for cookies.

[2331] He said he said he's like, when I was like, dude, I drew the tag.

[2332] and like I was emotional I drew it like I mean people don't understand like oh you got a tag to hunt this thing it's like 25 years in a row of nose of no right well how many people put in for the tag and there's 150 tags available so which is 150 tags in the whole state the whole state and how many people are putting in this area two tags two tags so you got one of two tags 22 people applied for two tags and I drew one wow it was like amazing and you know and I had a picture of this ram and like he had showed up on the winter range and then disappeared in this abyss called the the Bob Marshall Wilderness, and it's like, I'm going to go in there and find him.

[2333] And how many total days were you hunting?

[2334] Oh, I mean, 24 days, I hunted 24 days.

[2335] How many scouting days you had was, like, ridiculous.

[2336] So you're going back and getting food and going back again again?

[2337] Yeah, I was doing four or five days at a time.

[2338] And like all good things, you know, like all the most amazing things, you know, timing's kind of a bitch.

[2339] We had a baby do.

[2340] In the middle of it.

[2341] My wife would fucking kill me. Right?

[2342] Out there chasing one.

[2343] Did you see any other rounds?

[2344] Yeah, but it wasn't quite big enough.

[2345] You piece of shit.

[2346] I passed up 33 rams before I push.

[2347] Hold on in a cell phone.

[2348] Yeah.

[2349] He just got here.

[2350] So, yeah, I mean, I was after this one sheep.

[2351] And I thought, and, you know, like when you talk about really getting into no animals, he had showed up on the winter range and twice.

[2352] We had pictures of him two years in a row in the winter range.

[2353] And it's just like, okay, we got a picture of this big ram.

[2354] Well, you know, I started looking at the pictures and comparing them.

[2355] And all of a sudden, I noticed that in one picture from 2013 or from 2012 and one in 2013, he had the same two young Rams with him.

[2356] A year apart, 10 miles apart in distance, and he had the same two sheep with him.

[2357] So all of a sudden I'm like, you know, most people would be like, oh, it's just a sheep.

[2358] And there's a little half curl.

[2359] And then there's a young kind of unique looking ram with him.

[2360] And I'm like, it's the same ram.

[2361] So all of a sudden, I got a ram band that I'm looking for there.

[2362] You know, it's kind of a symbiotic relationship.

[2363] young rams allow old rams or old rams allow young rams to follow them around they show them kind of the hills and they kind of tolerate them it's not like hey you're my buddy or anything they just kind of like when the senses start to slip you'll see old rams with young rams and they're keeping an eye on their back for them and they kind of show them around so i figured out this ram who was 13 years old which is the oldest so i ended up killing him obviously and he was 13 years old which is the oldest ram killed in the whole state of 150 by two years so he's beyond He's off the charts old.

[2364] So he had these two young rams with him.

[2365] So I, you know, basically I haven't known enough about sheep behavior.

[2366] I was like, okay, I'm looking for this old ram and this massive area, but I'm actually looking for three sheep.

[2367] Because if I see either of those two young rams without him, I'll know he's dead.

[2368] It makes a big difference in 500 square miles to look for three sheep versus one apparently, huh?

[2369] I guess.

[2370] So I went in there and I was like, I'm going to go find every sheep in the entire unit.

[2371] And I went in there and I found, I thoroughly believe that I found every single.

[2372] single sheep in the area.

[2373] I counted almost 50 more sheep than the biologist thought was alive in there.

[2374] That's so crazy.

[2375] Isn't that nuts?

[2376] Did you take photos of these?

[2377] Oh yeah.

[2378] The bio I get him to the biologist?

[2379] Yeah.

[2380] Yeah.

[2381] He's kind of changed his management plan in the area a little bit like he knows more about it.

[2382] I mean it's and it's like I went in there because you know for since I was a little kid it was like man that's something I always wanted to do and then you're going to get this opportunity.

[2383] I'm like I'm not going to go do the easiest thing.

[2384] I mean I passed big rams, big rams with my bow, but I wanted this ram, I wanted to have like an epic hunt and just to see if I could do it, see if I could find him.

[2385] And I hadn't found those young rams about 23rd day.

[2386] I said, I heard him popping heads, started glass and cutting the timber apart.

[2387] And all of a sudden, you know, another key to the puzzle, all of a sudden, there's that little young ram that was with him standing in the timber.

[2388] Boom, I got them.

[2389] Go down there.

[2390] There's 10 rams in there.

[2391] My ram walks out.

[2392] That's him, you know.

[2393] It took me two days to kill him but i found him and you're doing all this by yourself um i had i had my buddy that originally found the sheep when i found the rams i called him he's he had a regular job and uh it was about a 10 mile uh it was about a 10 hour hike in he hiked in to help me hand signal and kill it that's a good friend right who hike in 10 fucking hours for you yeah my friends would be like dude uh my wife just told me i gotta go walk the dog yeah i'm busy yeah fucking hiking 10 hours it's funny i call and pack it for you yeah it's a good friend he found the ram originally and then yeah and i i called him and he he disappeared you know he jumped off of work like like his wife was in labor you know jesus christ rolled out like i got to go you guys on like the same breeding cycle like rammed no no his wife was like he left like that like it was like hey my buddy found the ram i got to go and and it's where you know it's a montana thing he's like the guys that that he works with are like yeah go man you got to go your wife was ready to pop no she had we had had the baby oh you already i left yeah i left uh we had the baby September 11th so I had left like seven days I went out and we had the baby everything was great and then you left right after the baby was born well it's almost even worse I stayed all right you know you're sleeping all night honey I'm gonna kill a sheep yeah you know my wife I mean she was just like a couple days like you know we got everything settled back in and she was she was basically like get the fuck out of here wow his wife's amazing that's amazing yeah she gets it well that's a good story to end this with because that's sort of bodies what I appreciate about what you guys do that you guys are really like the one -tenth of the one -percenters of the outliers of the crazy people that are pursuing this as a just an incredibly difficult biological puzzle it is so awesome I appreciate what you guys are doing never you got to we got to come I'll do it I'll do it I'm in let's put one together figure it out let's definitely figure it out it's next level but listen thank you guys for just being you and thanks for doing what you're doing.

[2394] Like I said, I love when people are just fucking going for it.

[2395] So this was a cool podcast for me. It's life, man. And it's cool to watch you guys geek out and see all your innovation.

[2396] And I just appreciate it.

[2397] Yeah, we appreciate it too.

[2398] Love the coverage.

[2399] Love what you do as far as exposing the world to hunting.

[2400] It's awesome, man. My pleasure.

[2401] So people want to get a hold of you, KUIU, on Twitter, right?

[2402] Is that the Twitter handle?

[2403] I believe so, yeah.

[2404] That's the website.

[2405] It's the website, Kuyu .com.

[2406] All right.

[2407] Only place in a world you can get it.

[2408] There it is, folks.

[2409] Good night.

[2410] It doesn't seem like three hours.