00:00:08 Speaker 1: This is the me eat your podcast coming at you shirtless, severely, bug bitten, and in my case, underwear listening Hunt podcast. You can't predict anything presented by first, like creating proven versatile hunting apparel from Marino bass layers to technical outerwear for every hunt first like go farther, stay longer. All right, everybody joined today by a number of esteemed guests, but the most esteemed of all, Jay Scott Colburn and Scott Outfitters. Do you guys still go by that name rods getting people asking about recommended guides and whatnot. Uh, I can't go wrong with Jay limited limited inventory though, right, yeah, pretty much? Now this man take a bullet for you. I don't know about that. No, I feel like, um, if someone can like uh, I feel in terms of I don't have I don't have like tremendous amount of experience around the big game guys, but I got enough. I feel like you have to be if someone's going to rate them out in terms of organized not overselling like very careful, uh not on mean value like trying to like create like a low dollar value, but like very cognizant of the money, like what the expectations are of the money being spent. It's probably because you don't have any Um, there's no desperation about you. Well, we have a great team. So I'm surrounded by really good people and I think that's a huge part of it. Um, A huge part of our successes is having you know, from all the way from you know, people that help people cross the board, or two cooks, two guides, um, you know, surrounded with a good team. It really helps. But I think, you know, I think one of the things outfitters over the years have kind of gotten a bad rap, if you will, is the expectations of the hunters coming. Maybe you're too high. Um. And so what I try and do is paint a picture of exactly what they should expect. And it's kind of a bar that we try and uphold. And so and you've been at it long enough to kind of know what to expect. Yeah, we just finished our twenty six season in Mexico, and um, it's been an unbelievable ride. It's hard to even believe twenty six years. But you know, Mexico is an unbelievable country. And we do cups and Gould's hunts down there, goolds turkeys, um, and it's it's something that I enjoy. I hope I get to do for a long long time. It's uh, Felps and I were talking about this, Um, it's like the good old day. No, I can't remember. Some one of us were talking about this. I'll introduce everybody else. A. Uh, We're like, it's the good old days. Right now, I'm gonna ask you about what what what ways in which it could the good old days could end right now. There's gotta be ways in which the good old days would end. But right now, I think like goulds and coups and stuff in Mexico, like spitting distance from the US border is like the good old days. One of the things that I think so unbelievable in all of you guys have been to Mexico is to me, it feels like you're going back in time a hundred years and it feels like it's pure hunting. To me, it feels like, you know, you've you've kind of left your cell phones behind and you're just with your buddies and you're just out there. You know, there's coyote eesy open, and there's maybe Turkey's yelping or and and you know, there's there's have a line of fighting and it's like you can kind of get out there. There's five miles off there's a guy walking a donkey with a scabbard lever action, and you can sit and talk for twenty minutes about what in the world was that guy doing and he's just smiling the whole time. And you know, you see things that run and fence lines or whatever. You though. Yeah, I mean it's literally like going back in time a hundred years and I feel like that working cattle off horseback. It's like, yeah, and the way of life is so simple. I think that that's one of the things that draws me to Mexico is the adventure. Um, not that we don't have adventure here in the US, but it just feels like the old days. It feels like old times. It feels like, you know, almost like you're looking around for wagons to be going by, and you know, horse drawn buggy types. It's really like that transition is so immediate. And then you can look off and see one of those boards, which is like perhaps the most technologically sophisticated that you're gonna look at for months. Yeah, you can see that with one eye and the other. You feel like you're back in there. We're going to get it all that, uh, in most greater detail with with againting highly esteemed guest h J. Scott Phelps here, yep, and it's Pelts. So have you got anything to say for yourself? No, keep it real simple, yeah, until Yeah, I'm gonna keep it right there. Philly might as well unhooked that Mike. It's like wasting that Mike's waste electricity. Uh, Phil, of course, Callahan, of course you can say something zippy. I know. Well, I mean we got we've got all sorts of awesome stuff to talk about. Season ten just dropped, right, That's why Callahan's here. We're gonna talk about that. Garrett Long, what's up? And of course Paul Lewis from u F HF Gear I'm here second time on the show. Second time one of my absolute favorite human beings on the planet, particularly right now, because he uh, he's always always open, doesn't run around spewing a bunch of bullshit. I can tell you that open to new ideas and uh, we we got new projects in the works that we're in the R and D face. Are you guys, you guys doing R and ddgether. Yeah. Yeah. He woke me up out of bed the other morning and said, hey, I have an idea. Is that a? Is that a rearrest nod? Yeah, it's FHF business card holders. What's the plastic window on the side. Well, Um, you signed an m D A and won't get back to you on that. He can tell anybody'd have to kill you. You're gonna tell me you called Paul mill Knight tell him about that bag. Yeah, yeah, I will, I will tell you. But we got um again. I'm doing on on live on the air. Come on, let me see the bag. Let's take a look at the bag. This is right, this is this is core f HF Core Stephen Ranella organizational items. It's a hamster holder. What'd you say it was? It's an organizational item? No, I thought Garrison was a hamster holder. So that is a little place where you put stuff. There's a spot for a mable keeps things nicey nice in the parlance of oh well, if it keep stuff nicey nice, I'll take ten. Is this what you think about at night when you're laying in bed? If on the type of person that um occasionally does have good ideas, but if I don't immediately transmit those, then they're gone. Yeah. Yeah, man, I do think there's gonna be like Tanados and Steve's truck here by the end of the day. Because I'm excited about him. Now, I keep myself organized and uh, it has something to do with shotgun shells, audience. That's a great idea. It's a great idea, already, got it. It's not hamsters. It's better it could double Paul. We're stiff with a new rifles thing right now. Man. Uh, they are in production right now. We can you go a pre order one. You can't pre order yet. But we were waiting on the the swivels is what the hold up was. And they're all us maids and there was a Steve. It's hard to get steel, so that was given that little dinky bit of steel, a little bit piece because like one I beam would make right. Um. Yeah. We ordered quite a few of them though, and they're they're in production as we speak, so hopefully we'll see him. What's it called? Tell tell people the name of the sling? Uh? Does you have a zippy name that doesn't it's probably rifle sling At this point. So, Um, it's no bullshit. Yeah, none of the names. We have a real zippy. So if you've been waiting to if you're gonna get a new rifle sling or like need a new one or just want one, I would check this. This is a great rifle sling. Yeah, and it's got so the pages live on the site right now where you can sign up for notification as soon as we get them. Um, we aren't taking pre orders, but you can definitely sign up to your email. You know, you get an email drop as soon as as soon as they hit the site. Yeah, you got. It's got like a little clip. What do you what do you call those clips? Like a buckle? I don't know if it's just a buckle and it it's got a clip right clips to your backpack, like there's a the is the mail end of the female end clips your backpack. The mail end the mail ends connected here, So does the mail end of a clip. It's the same kind of clip that you'd have, you know, on a on the shop kind of sternham strap or something Sternham strap your backpack, like the same basic idea. Right, So the mail end of that clips up to where your backpack shoulder strap joins your backpack and it just hangs out there like you don't even know it's there. But then when you sling the rifle, you can just click that into the sling itself, and then for like jumping, crawling, whatever, it just stays glued there, yep, and it stays on your pack. It stays on your shoulder. Great anyways, but that little clip in this one hand, you can reach up free it fast yep. And it's it's got an additional uh strap on the bottom so you can click the bottom end of the rifle to the your waist pack or your waist belt as well if you want to. I know you don't typically run it like that, but I like to run it up there. It takes the weight of that rifle off. Yeah, I do dark, but not the daytime. Yeah, definite speeds it up. My wife loved that, um that little guide to that you put on your shoulder strap your backpack, because one thing I've never thought about is you look at her and like she's got her backpack on and then there's no shoulders. They come outside of her backpack straps. So she puts her sling on and it's just like it's constantly falling off of her back back there's no extra bone and me, yeah, you like, clip that in there and put the guide up and it just stays riding there all day. She loved it. Yeah, definitely kind of an optional clip, but that'll that'll be included in the sling. But yeah, I use it all the time, both both buckles and the clip. But definitely let's keep less tension on the sling itself and hold that sling steady and not move around. You guys knows how in the talking uh points, I have a note says divorce and my wife listen, listen, she like put So she puts our kids in in some kind of ski thing up on the ski hill for nine saturdays in a row, and every Saturday like, well, I was gonna we're gonna go ice fishing this saturday. Already paid, already paid. I can't now already paid. There needs to be a way you pay to go ice fishing. That's ice fishing is great problem. There's no one to pay. Because if I could go in and be like, oh no, already paid, I paid for them the ice fish twelve saturdays in a row this winter, we got six clinics lined up. I know. It's like it's like in her mind it's like inviable. They have to go because she paid. And it's like I'm like, well, I'm sorry, I don't know who to pay. I don't I didn't know who to pay to make it. Then we get ice fish on Saturdays. This is the stupidest thing in the world. If Brodie's wife did the same thing with his boys, I just feel so bad for these kids. They're options. The whole skiing thing is so stupid. It's like it's like, I get it for kids. The primary you go down and hill, you're like we we but like at a certain point that place is mostly full of grown ups. Do you think the Olympic athletes make that same noise. I'm sure they do. It just is driving me crazy that they're missing out on nine saturdays of ice fishing. Yeah, you need to like rent a cabin or something like that I pay for that. You pay, yeah, rent it on on a lake or something like that, and be like already got I don't know, Sorry, we can't do ski this year. Is already paid for ice fishing, rent to snowbear. There you go, because they get free there at their age. Their their licenses are freeze. I can't say paper to licenses. Yeah, you gotta get a cab and there's no one to pay. We're gonna have to call David Wise and just ask him one question, Dave, what what noise do you make when you go down? Gravity is working working. It's so like when I was a little kid. I like to go sledding, but I mean sometimes you move, you move on. It's like I would like ship my diapers. I did that for a while. Then I sledded for a while and like I got over it. It's like, yes, gravity holds you down slick slopes. It's like I don't care. Man. Uh, did you guys see that giant bobcat Yanni just got. Did look like a big cat pound box. Well in Felts one one up them Felts Felts one optim already. Well we just caught one back in the cubby st way back in Washington. That was thirty three. Whoa, it was a giant, but our cats are so ugly back home. That was thing is um Yanni's cat. You just want to bury your face on that thing. Yeah, because they got the big What makes a bobcat and the what makes it cool and valuable is the if it's got, yes, like a clean white belly with well defined black spots. And uh, it's funny about bobcats is you know, a few years ago and this stuff is always exaggerated, like like a few years ago cats were exceptionally high, and everybody run around being like Bobcat's worth a wep because it's like maybe like one bobcat sold for eleven so then it becomes every bob cot on the planet's worth. So I don't really know, they're very valuable. It was like a lot of guys were getting like six hundred dollars, eight hundred dollars for high elevation Western bobcats. At the same time a bobcat from my home state of Michigan would be worth fifteen dollars because they don't have that belly. Why you know, I don't know, man. I was texting about a similar thing with our our good friend and your fellow Arizona James Heuflefinger. This morning work was a little bit about stuff. This morning I sent him a picture a kid had sent me a picture of a deery killed in Florida. To had like that crazy black mask um and the helple fingers like it just seems like a Florida thing. Man like deer that have some weird throwback to when they at a point when they had face markings, like like dark facial markings. And he said, in that area, it's I'm going to get him with varying degrees of black marks. And I don't know if it has something to do with um, it would be an interesting thing to take a bobcat, you know, from nine thousand feet in Wyoming and send him to Michigan and with his progeny wind up having not spots. Hmm. Yeah, oh I caught a little teeny bobcat, like teeny teeny um, but one slipper. That yeah, one slipper, But I was an impressive one at Yanni's got And they're filming a thing right now about hound hunting throughout hound hunting for lions, and Yann he's got his pound puppy dog in all the credit to um Jake's dogs. Well, I think he's got like some like unbelievable dogs and so Mingus must not have been in there mixing it up on that one. I don't know, but Yanni's pretty modest about I mean, he's a pound dog. I think if he would, if Yanni would go out like his he got the dog for his kids and then sort of after the fact wanted to make it like a lion hound. I think if he had started out right getting a lion hound from one of his lion hound friends, be in a different place right now. Agreed to a certain degree. I mean, a hound's brain is dedicated to that nose, So I think I think that breed of all is gonna probably it's gonna be chasing something like you can kind of get on board or not. You know, when that dog comes in, Like when we're staying somewhere and I have my dolphel bag and that dog comes in, it spends it devotes about an hour and a half to your Duffel bag. I'm like, what what just like every single thing in there. I'm like, you know, most dogs have come in and do like a once over, but no, he just unpacks it with his nose. If he's getting information off that thing, that's like from the last guy that owned it. If you could like plug in like a ticker tape thing and just be like just peeling out rolls at information. Yeah, it makes yourself conscious. Yeah. Delta United, Michigan, Arkansas. So right now, uh live and available Part two of season ten. So season ten equals ten episodes. Part two just hit up at Netflix. Um. So, we're gonna do a few questions. The questions already poured in. Cal is gonna handle the questions with me. Let me put my spectacles on. Here's one for you, Cal. Why do you look like a turtle that lost his shell when you're wearing a suit? I think that has to do with your skin tone. Perhaps, Oh yeah, I mean you got real Irish lineage. We aren't known for deep tans, I suppose, um and I am in case you didn't notice, balding at a rapid rate that's accelerated since the eighth grade. And when did the first hair come out? Well, it wasn't so much that I just always have like real like the pits, like the recessed um widows peak. Yeah, and I don't know where it comes from, but it's like an architecture thing. Probably. Um. Like, I used to have like long curly hair, believe it or not, and it looked like the comedian Gallagher. But I could always like grab that mop and pull it back and people would just be astounded at how far in the skin went to the hairline. How old were you when you were bald like bald bub Well, I was twenty one, slick ball. Yeah, I mean this is as as you know, as I suppose, as bald, as as I have ever been but hasn't come back. At what age did you look in the mirror? You're like j you went bald at slick bald at one and it went like that, I would say, and probably a year went from like I think I'm losing my hair to bald. Whoa, Yeah, so that's what I was curious. Did you start to shave and then you went like Michael Stipe then just went short? Yeah? Yeah, no. I got plenty of unsolicited feedback as to I should just shave my head. Yeah, well you normally do. And now you kind of got the little side deal going to hunt. Oh the touncture, that's what monks would call it, um, But yeah, I'm aware of that. It's just I shaved my own head and it kind of gets knocked in down the list. Next, when did your fall out started? Probably? And then the same as kel a lot of unsolicited comments that I should probably probably just get it over with Phelps twenty five. The thirty was a bad, bad stretch from my hair. Hairline quickly moved back over those five years. Yeah. Look at fill down there, man, it's the full head of hair. Cocky is I'll get looking at all these bald guys in here right now. Um, yeah, I think that's where the turtle camp. You know. It's a dark wet suit bald head. Yeah. Sure, that's a great association. There's a great detail from the Battle of a Little Big Horn where it was a lot of irishman like yourself that died that day, um with Custer. And there's a detail that the next day some soldiers were coming up the valley and they didn't know what happened, and they saw on the hillside brown splotches, brown things on the hillside, and they saw spear white things stained in blood on the hillside. They thought that the the Custers command, most of caught the Sue and Cheyenne in the midst of a buffalo hunt, and that what they were seeing was buffalo hides laid out, and then the white fat of buffalo streaked in blood upon closer inspection, it was dead horses and stripped and mutilated irishman and that white skin was so white it looked like buffalo fat. You think about that, cal it certainly lines up. I mean I remember looking at my grandpa's legs, you know, I'd like cross his legs and his slacks it ride up a little bit, and just being kind of horrified. Yeah, in awe, like a translucent type of situation there, like it's just been just had has not seen vitamin D in decades. Another question that came in is what's up with Danny's neckcare? I have no idea. Yeah, yeah, I think these are the same folks that give you an unsolicited advice on how to cut your hair because you're not doing yourself any favors, right, and they're like, look at that neck hair that guy. Why on earth did Robert Abernathy throw raisins in his wild turkey salad? I'll point out that that's the question of a not very careful observer. I think he threw cherries into that. So here's my question to you, why can't you pay better attention? Damn? But in all this time and effort, next show, don't pay attention to the details. Well, it's the last time I ate a steak. I eat him all the time. I'm sure the question is beef steak. Yeah, they're skinny shaming me. It's still okay to skinny shame people. It is the last thing. The last thing you'll be able to do is you'll be able to ridicule poor Southern males. Like that'll never You'll always be able to do that, Like you'll always be able to ridicule on movies or whatever. You'll be able to ridicule poor Southern males, and everyone will always think that's funny. Like they'll never get like, oh, you shouldn't do that, that's terrible. It's like they'll they'll always be a target. Yeah, but didn't we talk about this on the on the trip, And you'll always people, no one, no, no no matter how woke society gets, they'll still think it's a good idea to ridicule poor Southern males. We talked. I was thinking that it was like a deal where someone's trying to give you a compliment, but they're like making a little under talk. Still skinny shame. Yeah, I just got skinny shame by two women, right and I don't. I don't think they're trying to shame you. I think they're like trying to compliment. But then it's like Jason and I were saying, how we get told all the time, like, God, you're just too ripped, you got too much muscle going on. That's not what it is. I don't remember the last time it's okay to skinny shame. And I'm not saying it shouldn't be. I'm just saying it's puzzling to me because as society start, I was collectively saying, we're gonna stop dogging on each other all the time about stuff, not that one. I do think it will eventually become bad to skinny shame, and then movies will still make fun of poor Southern males. It's my prediction about that. I think, yeah, sure, I mean, folks are gonna folks like ribbon on each other, right, so you're gonna rally around the things that are still acceptable. I was making the comment we did some hockey playing a couple of weeks ago. Actually, while you guys were in Mexico, and uh, folks were talking about like old hockey movies, and I had purchased a bottle of Newman's own salad dressing for the trip Paul Newman's and a famous old hockey movie. Um oh yeah yeah and movie a long time ago was what the heck is it? I can't remember very uh grapes. Anyway, we'll figure it out. But he like slap Shot. I couldn't. I was I yeah, slap shot. He thought it was slap shot? What was his what was his search? Can you tell me what I feel like? I feel like he didn't. I thought he typed in Paul Newman hockey movie shown. Yes, absolutely, I'll give it to you guys on um that anyway, just an example of like something uh in one's past that was apparently broadly socially acceptable at the time, type a humor that is like like, you cannot, it's hard to make it through that movie. At this point you went a little bit yeah, big time, big time. And then you know Newman's own foundation all profits go to philanthropic deals, and you're like this guy on the salad dressing once said this in a movie. Yeah, someday, the wrong person is gonna watch Slapshot, and Paul Newman's whole thing is gonna be over many Steve I got a question for you real fast. I see you keep popping those designer glasses on. I've got a solution for you. What Lasik eye surgery Because it doesn't work for reading. I just got it done just for reading, well, so I don't have an eye problem. Besides reading, I couldn't sit on the couch and read the golf scores on the TV or the football or whatever on the TV. Now I can sit and read them perfectly. Have you always to read Royal coachman over there on that thing? But have you always needed glasses? So the last couple of years, my eyes have gotten worse and worse and worse um at night, especially low light. And I went in and got lay sick, and they said one downside, as you might not be able to like read your phone. So I got it done eight am. The next morning I was and I can read my phone and my computer screen really, so you might have it checked because I got an eye exam coming up to find out what. But I mean, this has been happened since I was forty five, Just like slowly, it just gets worse and worse. So I use these these readers can see it. I could I actually do it. I just had to make a weird face, tip my head at a weird angle and get back. Can you see at a distance? I mean, can you see a buck out there? Extremely? Well? Okay, so your distance is fine. My distance was my last eye exam. They told me that my distance stuff is still spot on. It was just reading fine print is I'm going down. We're gonna get down to the bottom of I bought these on Amazon. I bought five for ten bucks. What power twos? You know, I was gonna tell you when you brought that up the last time. My my buddy Kyler's dad passed away, right, and we used a bunch of communal stuff for horse packing and and things like that, And every every item that we touched of his had a pair of reading glasses in it, the little fold up ones that you know that that fold out. So I just went to that strategy. I was trying to do the thing where you have a pair everywhere that she doesn't work. Now I have a pair of everywhere, so funny saddle bags, old duffel bags, the jockey box in his truck, the glove compartment in his truck. That I mean, they were just everywhere. Yeah, So that's way you gotta do it. Here here's some serious, more serious questions. What was my favorite episode from part two? Indisputably the show we do with Kimmy Me and Callan Kimmy Warner. What are you thinking that itels all that hurts Phelps because Phelps and me did a episode together. Yeah, listen, Felts, that was not a hit against you. Man to say, um that, to say, uh, Felts, I'll give you some money later. Listen, you just gotta do your next l count while holding your breath under water. That was a great episode. That was a great episode. We had a good time, loved it. But um, I just like I said, man, I feel like I wasted my life by not being a spear fisherman. It's not my fault because where I was born. I wasted my life and if I could redo it all over again, that's all I would do. I can tell you from a viewer standpoint, I really enjoy the spear fishing stuff and some of the stuff on your social media. It's yeah, it's something that even though you're from Arizona. Well, I'm fascinated by it. I've never done it, but it's kind of gotten meat to thinking of doing it. It's hard all the other cool stuff, especially at this point in life. I think it'd be very different, Uh if if you started out of the gate being able to hunt on land and hunt in the water. But at this point in life, he is literally being dropped into another world and it's hard to recreate that experience elsewhere. Right, So like that's kind of what you're up against. It's super new, So it's fun, right, it brings back like the kidding you that's the steep part of the learning curve, right, Yeah, exactly, you've done it quite a bit too, right, trying trying, Yeah, yeah, the efforts there, we might lose Kale to spear fishing. I mean, like he's gonna die because he had a tricky squeeze and bled out his nose and then he's got a problem where he comes up and kind of like gets a little fainty. Well that is one question I had, like can you and just kind of surface fish or do you technically you have to dive. Spent many years just surface fishing so you can just enjoy spots. But then I then I really but the people that are serious about it, they're like they kind of like mostly regard themselves as free divers. But we would go to the Bahamas and and you know you're like the deep as you go as eight feet right and did all that, but it's it's you're just does it become a point where like you gotta get to the depths to get where the bigger fish are. And I think that if if I could get where I could comfortably fish, if I could get where I could spend a minute at seventy ft um free diving, if I could go down and lay on the bottom for a minute at seventy ft, I would be very happy with myself. So how long would you say, Like, I would sign that contract right now. Yeah, And that's that's your max. I would say if I could have a down to like a minute laying on the bottom of seventy ft of water, if someone said like I'll give you that, but you'll never have more, that's as deep as you can go, Yep, you can will sign it right now. You can spend a minute at seventy ft. You'll never get another thing, but I'll give it to you right now. I would sign in that contract. Yeah, yeah, I mean that that's like, that's that's probably like a little bit more than what you really need. In most most places, you do a hell of a lot of fishing, hell of a lot of fishing. When when you say that, though, Steve, how how long does it take you? Because I'm thinking about this in terms of just holding your breath, how long does it take you to get down there and back up? It would be a two minute downtime, two minutes down underwater, to be underwater two minutes total total? Yeah, because, uh, you might have a max breath hold Jill. The max static breath hold is what type that? In Phil It's it's like like nine minutes max. Like that. That's not exerting yourself, right, So if a free diver, like if if you're talking to a good spirit like take like Greg Fons, okay, um, and I might I might mutilate his numbers. Apologies Greg. But let's say Greg Fonts has a downtime. His like, his known downtime is three minutes, meaning he can go down for three minutes, not a problem. Most of his dives are gonna be ninety seconds because when you come to the surface, your recovery needs to be twice as long as how long you were down, so it takes away how responsive you can be to what you saw while you were down right. Also, you can run into trouble, meaning like let's say Greg is spearing oil rigs. You go down, everything's going fine, you shoot a fish. The fish shoots through one of the support columns and kind of rats around your leg a little bit. Now, if you've already overstayed, if you're downtime's three minutes, and you're like, oh, I'm at two minutes thirty seconds, because it's only gonna take me thirty minute, thirty seconds to get to the top, and then you do something like that, not what happens to you. So they'll they'll just do like ninety second dived dive, three minute recovery time, ninety second dive, three minute recovery time, and they're just and they developed that Caiten, So it's not always about it's not always about like what can you maximum get away with, you know, And so they'll if they're comfortable at three, they're probably up at ninety seconds. And then if something crazy happens, like you're down there and then you see something, you still have something you reserve to go make it happen. But they're not down there like pushing limits all the time. The world record was set in team by a Spanish free diver at twenty four minutes and three seconds static breath hold, No way, no way, was he breathing out his nose. Article on how like scientifically it's done, But I haven't. You have got to be kidding me. I think it's like cold water, certain depths. There's some things to it. Um that's somebody gets some fish that doesn't do anything right. That's like there's no exertion because any bit of exertion sucks up oxygen. Even Kimmy Werner was saying on this spearfishing episode we did were me and cal are kind of expose our expose our beginnernus. And you know, Kimmey's a pro, like literally has been a professional spear fisher woman and recaptured like the what we captured on film that like shows off Kimmy's capabilities is like the tip of the spirit for like it's it's incredible. No, she wasn't feeling very good, uh and talking about exertion um cocking a three prong that like they're so in tune, like the good free divers are so in tune with their own physiology that she'll notice the impact on her downtime of having a three prong cocked because you're putting grip on something and that burns oxygen, like when Greg gets up. Like they don't drink. They're like monastic in there on dive days. And I've gone with them. They're they're they're they're like monks, you know, like they're watching. They don't want to drink the night before. If you're really trying to perform peak, like you don't want to drink the night before. There's a guy that cuts out dairy days before for any kind of clare like mut like mucus build up in your head. No coffee. Super careful about any medications you take, very careful about food you eat, avoid acids. It's a deep dark hole, which is but it's about like knowing yourself and your capabilities, which I want to swing back to um the issues that that I've been having. And you know, I worked on like a lot of breath hold charts and did a lot of training UM and and really did make giant leaps and improvements and in my abilities. And and the reality is, like I think I'm always going to be susceptible to the mistakes I've been making. Uh, But it's it's a training and repetition thing and and certainly a mental thing of knowing like the safe way to push your boundaries and improve and and sticking to that, you know. So it's it's awesome, Like I just absolutely love it. Wasted my life, wasting my life, and you're getting old. It's over now. I still had fun with Felps. Here's a question Felps from a listener. What what were your backpack setups on the Elk episode. I had a x O Mountain year, which I like, a whole bunch and then what you have for and then explain your arrow set up because I mimicked felps Ero set up. So I was running a Cafar forty four mag on that sob in um pack on that one, and then a similar we had similar size, similar size. We knew we were only gonna be you know, three to five days, so it was a perfect size without a bunch of extra room. Um, we still have the ability as soon as we killed to take you know, a quarter out on that first low. It's a really good setups in that that you know, four thousand and five thousand range. But as far as the arrow setups, um, we didn't go completely ashby. We just went with, you know, a semi micro diameter arrow from Black Eagle, and we put a lot of weight on the in the insert. So I think we were both shooting at grains on the insert and then we were both shooting a hundred grain iron will broadheads. Um, so kind of not in my my specific set up. I don't know where you ended up. I have a longer arrow, a little bit heavier arrow. I was it like grains um total arrow? Yeah, I don't know. Yeah, you're I think you're probably in the low fives. I just wanted to switch everything up, so I asked Felts that I should use, and that's what Felps told me I should do. So I got exactly the arrows and exactly the broadheads he said, and had that like pretty close range frontal shot. That bull took two steps and it looked like a garden holes coming out of his brisket. Yeah. It fell over dead. Yeah, like somebody watched it fall over dead. Yeah. I mean, if you were to fill you know, Allen jug up with some you know, water with some red food coloring and you just drilled that and just watched it explode basically. I mean it's it was like just a Yeah, I heard Phelps bull go down and that was I was twenty yards away from him and I heard it hit the day. Yeah, very very short blood trails on those with the very controversial frontal shot. Um. There's a question farrell goat hunting in Hawaii. Is there a process for Farrell goat hunting in Hawaii? There isn't. There isn't. We were hunting on a private ranch, big ranch north of wai Kaloa. That charge like there's like a trespass fee. There's a trespass fee, and then I think for different species there's trophy fees as well. So it's like if you kill something really big um that they're trying to keep around, there's there's something. But I think there's a lot of folks that you could call over there. And then then the locals hunt. Just the locals just hunt up in the mountains for goat and sheep, like just local meat hunters go up and hunt the mountains. But they're not gonna tell you. They're not gonna be like, oh, yeah, I go here, No way, no way. If you're going through all the hassle like to get over to Hawaii and all that, um, and you want to go do it? I mean that's what we did. Yeah. I think it's a great first step at least, and for all the activities that there are over there, it would be a very efficient use of your time too. So um, someone asked like, how Kimmy, what how deep was Kimmy going under the water? Like, so we're talking about that seventy ft thing. Kimmy can very comfortably fish at seventy feet. She can fish over a hundred feet deep. I don't know what her deepest dive is, but I mean she can fish it a hundred and over a hundred feet of water. Yeah. Um, yeah, she she did tell us that. I mean it is it's she may have done like one thirty for a minute and thirty. It's some something very similar to that. I you know, after we were done filming, we went fishing for a few days and I didn't you know, witness I swam with Kimmy on her birthday And that was like the day that she must have been feeling very good and just decided to not uh deal with me. I was there just trying to keep up and watch the scene, and the depth didn't stick out to me. But just the comfort of being underwater underneath big boulders, underneath caves for long periods of time with with you know, your your running line from that attaches your spear to your gun, you know, going all over the place through fish They're wrapping up on things and from the top side looking down like my heart was going because I was like, oh God, that the is not She's been down there a long time. It seems like a dangerous situation or a potentially dangerous situation, and but you're you're watching a person who is completely confident and completely relaxed, Like there is no difference than heard, uh, you know, untangling her fly line on the bank versus untangling this line underneath. It's like Steve would say, would be very like do do do do do do. I went back with my wife and kids between Christmas and New Year's The spearfish is Kimmy again and I'm so jealous. Man, waste my life. I'll tell you that helps multiple times. What was the tastiest fishy eight in Hawaii? Oh, we're the camera operators using scuba or free diving free diving. Kimmy's husband is a phenomenal Justin a phenomenal underwater photographer. He shot Kimmy's husband. Justin shot a lot of the underwater stuff. You're looking at the dirt shot out of it. Dirt's comfortable in the water. Yeah. Rick Smith is a Rick shot. Yeah. Some of the highly like some of the real doozies were Justin Justin on the deep stuff. And we we we actually uh yeah, and we'll probably we'll probably use him again. I'm hoping to use him again. Oh definitely. I mean we talked about on on the podcast that we did in Hawaii, but watching Kimmy do her thing incredibly impressive. And then Justin is there, you know basically driving uh, like an old portable television underwater would be like a similar like you know, like a fifteen inch old portable television for those of you old enough to remember something like that. That's like what he is pushing ahead of him in the water doing, you know, very very similar. Yeah, and it's it's unreal. So we did an episode about Ibex. Have you ever done the Ibex hunt? Jack In New Mexico. I drew uh like a the way the tags were because they have a once in a lifetime tag where you can hunt any ibex and then get a big male and they got what I don't know for horns are insane. I had a tag this good for a female or immature billy. So the horns gonna be like sub fourteen. And we did an episode about this. This This is a great spot and they they hang out in the Florida mountains and someone asked, why don't they just strike off and why like, why do they stay in the Florida's um. It's surrounded by I'll start by saying they don't desert flats, but it's surrounded by desert flats. So this this is a mountain dwelling cliff dwelling. Credit. When I say cliff dwelling, I mean they dwell on cliffs, vertical cliff faces. They are quite at home hanging out on vertical cliff face. So that's they're like, that's their refuge, vertical cliff faces. UM. And this thing sits out there's like an island mountain chain. It's like if you imagine a flat sea with a rocky island on it. That's kind of like the flat sea being the surrounding desert, and then you have this rock pile. People even call the mountain range like the rock so it's full of rattlesnakes. There's a lot of rattlesnakes. Ye. When they get you know there, they just hang out on the cliff faces to avoid predators. So he's got to like give up that that desire to leave, and they do leave. But the way they run it is the state is comfortable with them being in the Floridas where they were introduced. The state's not comfortable with them being out of the Floridas. You can at any time, a new Mexican resident can any time buying ibex, tag and shoot any ibex they see that's not in the Florida Mountains, and they do strike off. And um our friend on there, Jeremy Romero with Wildlife Federation. He uh, fantastic human being. Yeah, probably one of the best Phelps is gonna get offended by this. The best person on the planet, Jeremy Romeo. I just come out and saying the best person on the planet Jeremy Romeo, followed closely by my children. Um uh, he's got friends and he's they know people that have now and then like been out doing something and one of the surrounding mountain chains and be like, oh my god, and I bex and you run down and get a tag and it's all yours. And that's how they keep them from spreading out, which is very similar to how do they're running to how New Mexico is running the um Orcx situation where um orracs were introduced down to the White Sands Missile Range. They have a robust population there, it's very hard to draw the tag. And then around White Sands they're running. Uh. I think it's eleven seasons a year. Each season is a month long. I drew that too, so you pick your month when you apply, and like each seasons a month long. So outside of the White Sands Missile Range they're being hunted upper two hundred. I don't know what the hell it is. I can't do the math very good. Three days is it one month or two months? They don't hunt them down there. I used to be twelve months a year. I think it's ten months a year. They're hunting them three hundred days a year off base, and it's like when you get a tag it's on range off range, and they're just gradually getting them whittled away where they're confined only to that missile range and anything. Basically, it's not a free for all, but basically anything that disperses across that fence line is is basically up for grabs. UM. And you'll see that most people that kill one when you draw the off range, most orcs to get killed or killed within five miles of defense. Anyways, people aren't now and then they do. It's not like people are finding them a hundred miles away. You know, they're kind of getting them. They're getting the ones that flirt with the border. Uh, this is one for ja. This is what this is. This is I'm gonna have you field this one. Because of where you live. When you head into rattlesnake territory, do you wear anything different or carry anything for extra protection? Being in Arizona, genuine Arizona. A lot of guys wear snake shaps. I don't want to say don't do it, but I don't. UM had a lot of close encounters, but you just got to be really aware of constantly watching the ground, constantly watching where I'm putting my hands, my feet anything. You just stay you stay vigilante. Can you can you answer for me while we're on the subject, why in Sonora hunting COO's dear, why do you just not see rattlesnakes? So we've seen a few um in twenty six years, so I don't want to say you don't, but there becomes a point in time when it's cold enough at night that most of them den up because blow freezing every night. Yeah. Interesting. We have a ranch in Chihuahua that we punted three years in a row now and we found a snake den and it's right up against this cliff face and where you kind of have to walk to get up on top to glass. You got it. The way the angle of the hill is, you actually have to get really close, like from here to the wall of this den. And the first year the guys found it, you know, they came back that night and they were like, yeah, we were, you know, walking along this cliff face, and we heard one rattle and then we started looking in and it was just full of snakes. And then one of my guides, Nate, actually got down on all fours and was looking in the hole, and one of the other guys said, Nate, don't move, and in the grass he was kind of down on all fours looking in. I mean, it's pretty cool. I saw it this year. There was a snake coiled right next to his left hand and probably fifteen inches from his face. But it was old, so he just kind of backed away. Um. But they will get on those south facing slopes in their dens, and sometimes when it warms up, they will just kind of ease out a little bit just to get the warm soak it up a little bit. Um. But the reason you don't see them as primarily they're denned up when we're hunting. No, I no, I didn't bother me. But on the New Mexico, Sam or a producer about got it. Yeah. Well it's funny is there's, for whatever reason, like a great abundance of grasshoppers, you know when they jump, Oh yeah, but you got hundreds of them. So it's a constant noise of it grasshoppers and we're walking along. And also there's like a like a different cadence. And I don't even think Sam put it together, no, but I like heard like a a grasshoppers and she'd walk very It doesn't matter what time of year it is for me When you you know, you step on like dead grass or something and you hear that noise, you know, when you get scared enough, like initially you literally feel like your heart like I just lost twenty minutes off my life when I still hear grasshoppers click or or leaves or branches that just have that sound of I've been around enough snakes that it's it's you know, I'm convinced I've probably taken a month off my life when you add up all the times that it wasn't a snake. But you've never been hit, no, never been struck. Um oh, here's a question that came in thermal imaging. We discussed thermal imaging on a recent podcast. Uh, like Utah band thermal imaging, thermal night vision, which is really like taking over though coyote. It's like firmly ingrained into hog hunting. It's really impacting kyote hunting. Um Utah bandit because I know that people are using the scout right you follow her it all night long. Uh. And he's asked, what about game recovery? In my view, I don't understand that. I don't really understand the reasoning behind, let's take away the enforcement aspect. Okay, like meaning this, Let's say a state like Utah says okay, no thermal imaging UM, and they just say you just can't use thermal night vision equipment. It's probably because it's then it winds up being that you have no reason to have it with you in someone if you were allowed to use it for game recovery, then he'd be like, oh no, I just have it for game recovery. And it just makes enforcement heart So if you never mind that complexity, I don't see the reason. I don't see any reason to do anything that that makes any rules that make game recovery harder. I I think the laws that mean you that say you can't use a leashed dog for game recovery is stupid. It's already hit like let the person find it. I think the and this is always the issue, right, is like the where the intent gets misused. So um in theory, is this going to uh make that small fraction of the hunting population take a poorer shot, try to force an opportunity that isn't really there because they know they are. Their confidence lies in their game recovery technology, Like my dog will find it. My dog will find you. Just gotta get a piece of it, Yeah, get you know. Yeah, And so do you think do you think that do you think that that would happen? Yeah? Absolutely? I mean, but you know, what is the Venn diagram of the overlap of the folks who don't even buy a license or a tag and are out there hunting with the folks who are like just just hack away at it. We got thermal imaging in the trick. We'll find it. Because the thing too a dog. You gotta if you're using the blood tracking dog and it's on a leash um or you're using thermal imaging, the things as be dead. Well okay with the leash dog, Well no, you're right, because it could be hold up under a tree and you could jump it back up again. Yeah, and then that, yeah, I get it. If there was like a magical box that you know, it was like break glass in case of right, I'd be like, yeah, I have your thermal imaging in there, your blood trailing dog, you're you know whatever, drone in the sky. Because I don't like the idea wasted meat or or an animal that's gonna suffer needlessly or whatever, Right, so it's it's a tough one. Wasn't that the argument against iluminox. You know it's like, you know you're gonna hunt too late in the night, and I think you just other people are like, well, no, it just helps with recovery, right, So it's just kind of like a slippery slope that I agree. Man, I think if you're just using it for recovery, like let's say people are totally honest and not dumb, then I would say the other side is too. Man. With like thermal imaging, the investment level you have to go to to then go break the law, you know, like you just got to imagine it's not like throwing, you know, a spotlight in your backpack and you're like, oh, I'm just gonna go night hunt. Now. It's like that that level of investment that's required around thermal imaging. I just don't see those folks want to go out there and then like try to find something in then they can shoot it. I think too, there's a thing where people that don't understand the technology are always sort of it would be like this, Let's say someone sitting in Colorado and they're gonna sign a thing that says you can't hunt lions with dogs, and their minds like, what's a challenge? You know, they just understand that the challenge is incredible, right. It's it's like, if you want to talk, what was the challenge? It's a lot harder than shooting deer out of a cornfield? Yea, if we're gonna if everything's like, what's the challenge? Like, that's extraordinary. It's extremely challenging. You have to know a lot to pull that off. But I think that people look at technologies that didn't understand. They're also like they don't imagine being like this, um they image being like it just simplifies everything. But we had the experience where we got from. We we got some renter loner night vision equipment from this place called Ultimate night Vision to mess around with it. And dude, it's not like you just walk out and also you're like, oh ah, right, you know we were blowing a predator call at night. That stuff. There's a learning curveage. It's it's not that all of a sudden, like the world becomes easy, right you kind of we're sitting there, I don't know, is it an orangutang? You just see a little no it's a little baby mouse five ft. For me, it's either like a it's either a dear way out or it's a little baby mouse nibbling on my toe. I can't tell because I'm divorced from all spatial. Yeah, you don't have any spatial. This uh. This guy came and visiting me a Javier for with Wounded Warrior Outdoors and we went out with that thermal going after coyotes and he's like, oh g He's like, we got a cout coming in. It's coming into the call and he's getting all amp and I'm like, I just do not because I was looking through thermal, like I do not see this kylet and I'm like you sure, And he's like yeah, I can see his xagg into us, and I'm like, god, dang, you know, so I just like all I can see is that baboon. So I like I pulled my eye out of the scope right because we're like right next to each other. And I looked and his a R is pointed like I'm not kidding you, like fifteen feet in front of him and he's looking down and look and it was a mouse. And he's watching this mouse from back and forth right, but like that spatial awareness because he couldn't see the train, you know, and the stubble field looked like hills to him. That was a Kyle running in and it was a mouse at It's it's you know, I mean not even to say like what anyone ought to do about just saying you sort of get in your head that that there's certain things that do have certain magical capabilities, and then you messle and you're like, I'm guessing you could get there. Like if you're in the military and you train for years and years and years using this stuff, you probably get Really then you're probably it does become magical. But just to open up a box and throw those things on or look through a scope, you're like more confused and you would be wandering around the dark at first. I do want to say, like in H. Garrett's UH point about the investment, like how many people that UH would weed out from wrongdoing. I was interviewing a game warden years ago and he had told me He's like, you know, I don't care that much about the fines. He's like, I don't go for big fines. It's like what I go for is stuff. He's like I sees the toys. That's how you hurt these guys. He's like custom rifles. He's like, these folks have a laundry list of fines and things that they're already not paying child support that they're already h He's like, but you want to see somebody have a come to Jesus moment. He's like, you see that custom rifle that they're so proud of. There is five thousand dollar thermal scope UM and bald. You have you got any insight into that at all? No, definitely, we we saw that where it was like you said that typically the folks who are out doing that are exactly that they're already not paying the fines, already not doing any of that stuff. And yeah, it's the physical possessions that they're worried about losing. Um. You know, I'd used thermals and and and night vision both in law enforcement, and that I have to agree. It's that's why the like the Navy Seals have the four two goggles versus a you know, minocular that you're gonna see, you know, in the civilian market, depth perception, and it's it's tough. You have a hard time, you know it takes a lot of practice shooting with that stuff and uma, it's just a whole different world. But I agree as well that the like like you said before, that the um there are a small number of people out there who if they have it with them, if they have that break glass in case of emergency situation, that would be great. But there's often to a lot of people out there that are going to be well, I brought it for this, but it's gonna help me find it, so I'm just gonna use it now and then tell them I didn't you know until I brought it with me. For the others. I'll tell you one application for me for thermal imaging, which I've never used, but all my buddies were thinking, oh, you could find a big bowl or a big buck or whatever. I thought about turkeys roosted in a tree being a turkey hunter. How many times do you roost birds at night but you don't know exactly where they're at. You go in in the morning and you're like, do I shock them and wake them up? And then I got to move a little closer and then they might hear me, see me whatever. And the application I thought of it would be like I know they're pretty close. Oh there they are, Okay, I need to move up a little bit closer. You don't have to make any noise. Then you can just let them wake up and know that man go at one of the more because if you say, like no, find him at one in the morning and make a way point, because if you made him a little nervous at four in the morning, five of the morning, they'll be like all settled back down and it'll be like, whatever happened happened. But when the thermal imaging thing over the last couple of years has gotten big and we're just talking about big Bucks, I'm thinking about turkeys, I'm like, what an awesome opportunity to just be able to know exactly where they're at because I'm always in the morning going God, I don't really want to shock him because then I wake him up. Okay them? May I ask you this now? Yeah? Would you do it? I don't know, because here's the here's the question, and this is like the basis of this, right, is the gobbler you got that way as good as on a purity, the same gobbler that you made the wrong call to shock. You had to move they got nervous. They went the other way, and you had to come back the next morning, screwed it up again, But the third morning you got him. I think I think I've screwed up so much that I might if it was legal. I don't know if it actually is, but I think I might do it to just be able to be in position, know that I'm set up, um to have an interaction. I don't know, but I thought of turkeys. Everyone else is thinking a big box. I'm thinking about turkeys. Yeah, it's a it's a real. Um. There's a Pandora's box man hiding at thermal scope box. Uh would you? Here's the guy rolling in this good one. I don't really get this. Did you read this cow? The guys saying that, um, what state is this? In Central Virginia? Does a guy raising none? Okay? He has a local Oh my god, it's so confusing to me. There's a new animal product being offered by a farm in my area. He goes on to say, in a partnership with another farm that is committed to sustainable egg practices. One of my local producers is offering local non GMO. That's like, okay, but no, I guess that doesn't. Yeah, there's no such thing as the gmo rainbow trout available to anyone, but they could be fed a non gmo corn. I suppose, so he's offering local, non gmo, no antibiotic rainbow trout raised and low capacity pens in a river. They're feeding him on wild venison. How is that true? The trout feed is described as not the normal GMO grains and antibiotics and a dirty, tight capacity system. This is still quoting. They have a survival rate, which goes to show what a great setup it is for the fish. This is some of the only, some of the only ethically raised fish in the country that's okay. Feeding the us in is a double win as it thins the overpopulation of deer and gives the rainbow trout an excellent non gmo food. First off, wild deer not non gmo, especially in Virginia, because they're eating in gmo fields probably every night. But what are they talking about? It could be that these are road kill, would be my That would be the easy answer. So then if the cars are thinning the population, it's the cars that are thin the population. You gotta keep in mind, like the big Sorry, I want to use the word battle because but it happens on a lot of the national monuments over there that are battle fields where you have these crazy spikes and white tail population. They're getting them from sharpshooters who are could be some of that. Um, So that would be like the sourcing part. But the question of like would you eat that eats this that's surprising is like yeah, of course, because you have no idea what a wild turkey has consumed in Virginia's non GMO is just not true. It's just not not true. Yeah, Um, the and you know, like what what a beef for pig or chicken eats before it gets to your plate, Like I think you'd get surprised on what at least or at least that's a closed system. I mean, you can you can tell what you know. But there's a question in there of like would you eat rainbow trout that eat deer? Wild rainbow uh anywhere in the country or wild brown trout a cutthroat. They're all eating, they're normal things and then they're trying out some odd things. Um, and you have no clue what you're going to find in that stomach. Really, like, for instance, like that I caught last year was I always do a little stomach contents check, and you know it's like I have a pretty good idea what they eat. But this guy's gout had several rounds of what without testing is a wild gas, but I would describe as cheddar brought elk sausage. They had a distinct look of wild game, and I think you could attracted back to a local processors. I mean, I I'd much rather eat a fish to eat deer than like worms. Like the deer seems like a lot better option the in and of itself. If someone told me that there's a great fish and it eats deer, I wouldn't care. I just like I guess I'm not able to really focus in on his question. I'm more the details that leave me with a lot of questions that he even goes need to say. I'll keep the names of the farm operations out of this email. Here's a good one. We're getting around it. We're gonna get We're getting into cow's deer in a minute. Here, here's no one they gotta knew. Uh, everybody knows, like the COVID vaccine was an m r NA vaccine, um man, these guys at Yale got one worked out for lime disease. Very fascinating because it doesn't uh let me, let me put it to this way. So, the m r NA vaccine targets the antigens found in ticks aliva and alerts individuals to tick bites by triggering an immune response at the site of the bite. The vaccine also prevents the tick from feeding correctly, so it will quickly fall off the host, thereby reducing its ability to transmit pathogens and providing partial protection against the tick causing bacteria. Which is is I mean, I'd I'd sign up for that. I mean, I'm thinking right now about turkeys, and was talking to a friend of mine in Tennessee about going to get turkeys, and I mean, you you just get covered in tacks and they're the tiny one, you know. The I wonder if this one will become highly politicized. Well, no one's gonna come and tell you you have to get it, so it might not become politicized. If it's just like a thing. If if you want to go get it, it it probably won't be political. Yeah, if someone says, by God, by Monday, it's a creepy deal man. I man, Yeah, the TICK experience I had with UM, limes disease and UM and you know the journey that you went through as well, Steve, Like, that's scary stuff. Man, I don't For our next close calls, UM, for our next Close Calls series, I'm gonna tell the Tick story. That's a good one. I'm gonna have Jimmy sit down on it too. You me and my boy are gonna tell our lime disease story, the heartbreaking Yeah, we haven't done it yet, but I'm looking forward to telling it. Close call. Uh speak, Here's here's one for you. J speaking of being blind going blind? No, seriously. So, we cover a lot of in the Close Calls series. We talked about this too. We cover a lot of situations where UM hunters mistakenly identify a hunter for game, okay, shoot people on shooting other hunters an accident. An eye doctor writes in He's got a very interesting point that I hadn't considered in all these discussions we've had UM. He says, as an optometrist, I'm curious as to what type of vision the hunters have that mistakenly shot another hunter thinking there were some big game animal I'm stereotyping here. This is him the eye doctor talking. I'm stereotyping here, but slightly far sighted middle age males for years of age. Which middle aged males that age. That's a lot of hunters, right. Most of them that have never worn glasses before, eventually lose their distance clarity in the same age as mentioned before. And most of the time they say they see just fine. But he goes on to say, not according to my visual acuity charts. I wonder if they see a blurry ma million blob because they see quote just fine and decided and decided to shoot. Sometimes, putting a new pair of distance prescription glasses on a dude that thinks they can see, it's like putting distance prescription on a kid who truly has never seen clearly before. They're like wow. So he goes on to say, if you're a hunter, uh, maybe there is cause for you now, and then get your eye exam. There could be someone who's spent their whole life thinking they see everything just great, and it's the decline is so gradual that pretty soon they see a movement and they feel like, well, how would I make that mistake? But they're just not seeing the way they were seeing. I am that guy five years ago, ten years ago, and you're not meaning to do anything wrong, but you think you have capabilities you don't. This year in the fall at the Odd six Ranch Hunter, we were actually drive into a spot in elk. Some milk ran out and he goes check out that bowl and I could tell it was a bull just because of his body. And I could tell it was a bull. He's like he's got a little kicker without popping up my binos. I mean, he's twenty six years old and can see it like that at two yards and I used to be able to. I just saw an elk, could tell it was a bull, but I had to pop my bino was up to even see what he was talking about. To me, that was kind of the straw of like, hey, I need to go get surgery. And now it's amazing how driving, you know, I mean, I'm even thinking like this summer, like rowing my raft and stuff. How blurry I was actually seen not being able to see you know what I was missing? Yeah? Interesting, Yeah, And it was just kind of a blurry blob. You can still see it, but you can't define it. That makes sense. I'm curious though, with these accidents, if it's a like, do you imagine that this guy was like looking at it and was like, I can't really tell what it is on his shoot and it's like this calm or like is it a site issue or a judgment excitement issue? But let's play let's play the optometris. Let's play he's not saying he doesn't know for sure, he's sound. It's a thing to wonder about, but let's let's like take that as a thing. It would be that you've hunted your whole life and you've learned to like really trust your vision, but you don't realize that it's gone down and you're operating on a cockiness that came from that you developed over years of seeing very well. I like it's a reasonable thing to bring up, but I think it goes back to I mean, everyone needs to pull up their buyos and do a check and say what am I shooting at? And I am not in any way excusing shooting people. I feel this guy's I feel this guy's got like a couple of open slots and his like his schedule and he's trying to fill them. Let's let's I can't fathom, even if my eyesight it was going bad, how you would ever get to the point of let's just say regard let's take people out of it. A black bear versus an both walk on four feet, Like, how do you ever get to the point where you mistakenly to me, that means you're replacing an entire animal color characteristics, You've made the decision to pull the trigger on what you think is behind the shoulder, Like, I'm not buying it. I'm just saying that I don't think that would ever be even maybe, uh, you know, in all the cases where a hunter has shot another hunter, you don't think that poor vision I might have something to do with some of it. I think it could start it. But at the end of it, there's got to be a judgment. Fact. I mean, you have to end up everything. There's a judgment. I know what I'm saying. Similar to Jay's example where he right off the bat he was off. But then there's the progressions. There's that decision tree where you're gonna get a better look, You're gonna figure out if that's the animal you want to shoot, where are you going to shoot it? Like there's like seven more stops, like the initial eyesight might have got you going down the wrong track, but yeah, I know, I'm with you. You might you might have been like, oh, oh, here's something, but then there's like six things that need to happen and you somehow skip them all. Yeah. That's when when someone shoots a person hunting and I was like, holmet, so you thought you were aiming behind its front shoulder or where like you'd picked your spot. I would argue though, that almost every single accident involved someone shooting without pulling up their binals to check what they're shooting at. Are you with me on that? Yeah? No, you know what if the time and the finals, I think it would eliminate every almost every um. What would it be false? That'd be interesting thing to look at is if if you could have a if you could have sat down and done like exhaustive interviews with everyone who's done a mistake and identity shooting, would you ever find someone who would say like, oh no, no, I even put my spot in scope on it? No way? Yeah? Right, I mean, and I think a lot of these cases come out of areas where there's not a lot of bino use period, Right, they don't have kind of a site shot. You know, you hear something and you're so lamped to get something. The turkey accidents, right, it's like that, like the highly um advertised incident in Colorado of this year, you know, open site muzzleloaders, so they're just you know, optics are probably never being brought into the situation. Did you hear the episode we did with the turkey guy that got shot turkey hunting twice in the same place. What, yeah, and had to he got you, Preston Pittman. It's been shot twice turkey hunting. He's a great in the same place or like in the same spot hunting spot and and had two very different attitudes him the shooters. One shooter was uh so distraught and apologetic that he quit hunting and Preston Pittman had to gradually get him back into hunting. And the other guy was mad at Preston. Well, Preston sounds exactly like a turkey, so he probably called him right, and he was blaming the guy that shot up was blaming him. Well you shouldn't, you know, you're kind so so it's my fault that you just shot me with the shotgun. That is one thing that I always tell people, like, if you're calling no matter what animal it is, and you start hearing other hunters come your way, A lot of guys think it's fun to call in other hunters and you're like, oh, I called I called Jay Scott in you know where, right called Phelps in? Like they would would be like, oh, look what I did. I always say, listen, if you start hearing other hunters call back to you, like I would not be the first one to just jump up say hey hunter, like it's not worth calling him in nice and clothes, don't mess with it. Yeah, you don't wait till he's trying to plug your Yeah. One number nine shot t s sanges things a lot Abernathy, I can't remember what shot size. He was saying he shouldn't be able to use. This So funny because Robert Abernathy's like, maybe someone had fives. I don't tell he had. And he's like, man, I don't think you should be able to use those. That hurts what he's talking about because he'd been shot, He's been shot by someone using that. He doesn't think it's a good turkey load. He put I think I told us, did I tell the story about him. He put his He was sitting there listening to a bird calling, listening to a guy. They're just trying to think about where it was and how he's gonna get over there. And he puts his foot up on the stump. Byam, the guy shoots him in the leg. In conversation with the shooter, the shooter explained, when you put your foot on that stump, it looked just like a time going into full strut on real I exam, I exam, and you can get all sorts of Abernathy fix on Season ten, a one in a million. I don't want to say he's the best guy on the planet because Jeremy Romeo, but he's close. Wonderful man, wonderful man. Love the guy an American treasure. If you haven't seen season town, it's live on Netflix right now. Check it out and put a bunch of work into it. Cal's and two episodes. I what percent is two out of five? Phelpst Cal's and of the episodes, which that's a lot bald, white little head, shelter turtle, see that, uh, A bunch of other awesome stuff. And can we say that we're in the midst of working hard new episodes, new episodes which would be not season ten, Part three but season eleven DVD DVD. Here's what we're gonna start talking about COO's Deer. Um. Your hip to the fact that that that the esteemed biologist James Halflefinger has once and for all put to rest. Not what the deer is called, but like how that man pronounced his name. I've heard rumor. Yeah, um, did you know that our our mutual acquaintance, Chris Denim I think, has now said he's going to switch to cows. Yeah, I would. I would tell you that I don't know anyone that uses cows deer other than Jim Heffelfinger. Well, now, Chris Denham supposedly I know Chris. Do you see his little stickers? I was gonna give you what I did. You actually sent me one one of your team, Kylie uh butcher the deer and not the name cows. But you're gonna keep calling him cous deer for sure, me too. Do you think that there's um Do you feel that you're the most you gotta be? You have to be the most experienced Cou's deer hunter on the hunter on the planet. I don't think, so who would be more? I don't know who would be more. I mean there's lots of guys that have more days in the field than I do. Probably, yeah, I mean I have a lot, but I don't bet there's no one that's seen more than you. I mean I've definitely seen a lot for sure. Think years, don't don't be don't be modest, but think about it seriously for a second. Who can you think of that might have seen more than you through a pair of an actors. Well, I think one of the benefits that I do have as I go to Mexico and have for twenty six years, and so your opportunity of getting to see a lot of bucks is big. I had one of my guides acts actually asked me, it's like, how many bucks do you think you've seen in your life? And I was like, I never even thought of it. And he's like, well, you've been going to Mexico for twenty six years, how many do you see in a year? And I was like, probably a hundred at least. He's like, that's twenty bucks. I've never thought of it, but I you know, it's hard to believe I'll be forty nine this month. You know that aspect alone, it's hard to believe I've been doing it for twenty six years. You know, it feels like you know, I misfired up today about custar as I was the first day I went out. Yeah, there's nothing. There's nothing in me that has waned um with cous dear. I'm as excited to go. I'm as fired up to go when I see big deer. I get as excited as I first did. Um, did you know, Felts, what age was it that you were going to allow yourself to shoot a white tail? I was gonna start white til hunting at the age of seventy. So as much hunted as this guy has done, which is like like a lot. He had never ever shot well until this year, had never shot a duck, had never shot a white tail because he's so committed to Camille. Here is that any type of white tail? No, I was reserving that for the North American white tail, So I I the coup's dere. But now he broke like, how old you So you've missed it by thirty two years. But I feel like even though these just carry the name of white tail, the hunting can't be considered white tail hunting. So you don't regret having gotten one. Oh, not at all. Like I was telling j before the podcast, like I'm trying to figure out how to go again next year. Yeah. He was asking a lot of questions about your outfit, je because someone said something. Yeah, he said something like jay'son as if you really want to go see some couzier, you gotta go, like, you know, eight miles south of the border. And we're like, now we're fine with our plays, Like we're gonna stick to our place. So the day we die and Jason perk right up, he's like, sowhere now. Yeah, So you don't regret going and doing it. No, not one break. It was extremely fun hunt, Like one of the best deer hunts I've ever been on. What is it? Why is it so fun? Man? It's hard to I was trying to put it all together. I don't know if it's like I was telling Jay a game before, like the combination of you're seeing just enough deer. I mean, it's still hard. These things are hard to spot even when you know they're in your your optics, Um, you're seeing enough bucks, you know, It's almost seems like it's a one to one buck the door ratio, so you're not just like glassing up eighty does a day to see two bucks. So it's like a good balance. They're just sneaky and you know, do cuse deer stuff enough to get away from you time and time again, so when you do spot them, it's not a guarantee. And it's just that combination of you're probably gonna find success. It's just how it's all gonna come together, which is kind of like the perfect mix. And then you know it's Jay mentioned earlier, just an off grid feel of it. You know, you've got the cowboys running around and you know doing you know, they basically work to live, and it was just it was just something cool about it, just you know, kind of untouched country. It seems like, yeah it is, Um it's wanna kind of like my favorite thing now is hunting Youth Deer Season, which is two days long. I love hunting Youth your Season with my kids, but um, it sounds like a seasonal highlight. You just get so lost mentally. You know, there's enough going on. I thought about a bunch of times before, but like for me, I have the most fun when there's when something's detailed enough and hard enough, there's you don't have other things to think about, and once you get up and get going on the day, there's enough just like excitement and things happening and um like visual st him you lie and this feeling of being like in another land that until your until you go to bed, till you climb in your sleeping bag at night. It's like, I don't think about anything what I'm doing. I just think about what I'm doing. I mean, we might have like a few laughs, you know, throughout the day, which is just part of it, but for the most part you're just it's like this kind of time just to really take whatever seven eight days and just focus on something. I think one of the things too, it's like you said, such a visual aspect with the glassing um and you know, we glass everything we hunt up here, and you know the lower forty eight. But when you get to Mexico and when you're specifically hunting coust here, it's so glass ng intensive um and and you can have a big buck and he's running the dough and you can have him right in the center of your buyos and you can literally start look away for a second, open your pack to get your spotting scope out, and go back in your buyos and you're like, they're gone for the rest of the Where did they go? Where are they? What? I just looked away for a second. Then sometimes they're right there. They never moved, so you just looked for you looked away, You look back in and you say they're gone. Then you keep looking, keep looking, and they're in the exact same spot. Okay. Then there's times when you do the same thing and you look and they are gone, and I think, to me, that's what makes acoustier so exciting is the fact that you know when a bull ilkus down in there at yards and he's in your buyos and you look away from your spinning scipe most of the time, as soon as you pop back in, he's right there. Acoustier could literally be standing with his face, you know, turned this way and rack shining in the sun, and you're clearly focused. You look away for a second, back in and it's like you really have to look, and he's not changed his pose at all. I had something very similar. We're I was walking to meet up with Yanni. Know, I was kind of done glass and the point um, and I look and naked eye one it's it's two yards away. I see what my naked eye and it's and I mark it because it's right. I just in my head, I just realized it's at the sunline. The sun's coming up and it's at that line of like shade meat sun on the hillside. I see with my naked eye. I put my braoculars up and I registered I to be like, oh, it's a buck. And I go to sit down so I get a more stable look. And then I'm like, that's some bitch snuck away. And I knew where he was. He's on the shade line. And I looked and looked, and I'm starting to try to look to see where he might have gone. And I go back and I realized, like you're saying he had moved, he's in the exact same position, in the exact same shade line. And just like and to me, that's the entry that that's what really gets it for me. And then Big Deer to um, you know when you when you are fortunate to get big deer in your hands, to me, they're so unique. Every rack is different, and that's what I like about him. You know, there's really no cookie cutter. When you get big ones, there's really no cookie cutter racks. They're all different, they all are shaped different, you know, summer wide, summer tall, heavy than whatever. It may be extra guards, but when you start getting big mature, CU's deer. To me, that's just like the icing on the cake. It's a cool crater. Man, Yeah it is. Uh what would you take on a Garrett? I mean, man, yeah, um, I feel like but I wouldn't even say that it was white tail hunting, Like it's just it felt like a cross between white tail and mule deer. And then like this element of black bear hunting where you're like sitting and watching these fingers and waiting for the sun to come around. And I think what I liked about it was you knew there was Like you come to a face and you know there's deer on this face. There's enough deer where you know there's gonna be deer on this face somewhere. You just have to find them. And so it's like the most intense glassing session I've ever had in my life, because it's like you know it's there, like or you can even watch it walk into a little brush patch and you know there's a deer there, and now you just got to spend your morning, your all day, in Paul's case, all freaking day in one spot looking at this like brush line, waiting to see this like a little tiny I mean, they're like how many pounds hunter pounds? So it's like painting your dog kind of brownish gray and then trying to find him the woods. You know. It's like and I think to add to that too, is like when they go into that brush pile, you don't know if they went in there and they betted down, or they went in there, they're gonna squirt back out. And then you're watching the brush pile, and you may watch it for an hour and you're like and then all of a sudden, like thirty yards to the left, You're like, I've been watching the whole time, and somehow that sucker squirted out from there over to here, and I've literally been watching and now he's just standing there in the wide open. You know what I mean. It's the buck. The buck I got this year. Uh phelps saw it saw go down into this little timbered hole rutting the door or just yeah, he pushed he wasn't super interested. It just kind of followed her off. We surrounded the area, and I was even telling you, I'm like, there's no way if I'm sitting there, there's no way he's gonna come east. And we're kind of watching. Yanni got, where's no way he's going west. I got, there's no way he's going east. Both of us are gonna see it if he goes to the north. I don't know if both of us to see if he went to the south. And there's one little like potential out the north, always the back door. Yeah, And we sit there all morning and I just happened to at one point look over and be like, well, he got out of the trap. I mean I still got him, but it was like and way out of the trap. He was way out of the trap, but standing there and playing side to me. Over any other animal that I hunt, they have a way of like we call it going then in the tunnel system, Like we're all sitting around, like you guys were watching for that buck and somehow he slipped out of there. And it's not like you're farting around, you know, digging around in the pack or you're doing whatever everybody's looking, and then all of a sudden, someone's like, hey, I got him. He's way over here, and you're thinking, how in the world did not even happen to me. They're the only animal that I hunt. They kind of have that element of like they're small enough and they're weary enough that they just do that. I was really nervous going into this because I don't have patients typically when I'm hunting. I you know, I'm like, I don't see anything. Let's go see what's over the next ridge. And I didn't think I could sit there that long. But these quickly proved that you could sit there and just you were always expecting to find something. You know it might take all day, but you just it kept your hopes up. I think all day just sitting there, like you'd glass the same tree, the same bush, the same shadow, all day long, not seeing anything, and then all of a sudden there's one standing in the middle that you have no idea how he got there. Garrett made a comment, He's like, I don't want it to be I don't need it to help me, but I would like when I finished glass in a spot and I won't take any action. I would like a way to know how many were there. Did I cover it? He's like, I'm not. I'm not gonna go back. I'm not gonna exploit the information, but I would like when I'm all done, I would like someone to tell me, h, Garrett, you eight bucks laying on that hillside, which might be just maddening to missing. I think one of the things too with coustre that that gets me so fired up is kind of the strategy and tactical standpoint of like, if you can consistently be looking in the places where those deer are the most, you're gonna see more. It sounds real elementary, but I have to be constantly, you know, on my podcast and Instagram, I askering answering a lot of questions, and that is, you want to use the sun in the morning at your back, so you're using that sun to brighten and illuminate because they pop, but then you want to reverse that. Okay, as the sun is is, you know, getting till midday and afternoon, you want to be focused with the sun in your face, looking in the shade and if you can focus your afternoon glass and a lot of people like to use the same thing and let the sun shine in the after noon. Well, they are looking where ten of the deer are the other nine percent, or on the other side of the aspect of the hill. They're on the shady side of the hill. Absolutely in the evening. So you want to be in the east, because I, if I had, if I I usually try to make a move to get where I'm looking at the illuminated stuff in the evening. No, so if you do the opposite, I bet you'll see more dear than what you saw the night before. You're later you're waiting from to come out of the shade. So in the afternoon, I am I when I get to a property or I get to a new place where I'm hunting cus dear, I say, where is the most predominant afternoon shade three hundred and sixty five days a year, which hillsides give those dear the most shade? Why do they want the most shade? Because it's most You know, you're there in January when it's cool, but most of the time in Mexico it's very hot. So those animals learn to find on all those ranches the hillsides that give them the coolest spot to lay. So if you focus your attention in the morning with the sun helping you, which ironically it's the same side of the hill, so you don't really have to shift much. So that's going to tell you that those deer are gonna be on those east facing slopes. Those north facing slopes a lot, they come over to the south chase a little bit, but they very rarely will bet on those south facing slopes. They're in the thick brush. And so in the afternoon when when I started, you know, helping people try and focus, it would be no different than you, Jason helping them with an elk tactic. Focus on the shade. In the afternoon, you're gonna see way more bucks and you're gonna find more mature bucks. H percent. It's like something I'm Adam and about glass into the shade in the afternoon, and I think I think mule deer hunters could take it too, because, um, you know a lot of the arid places where mule deer are they seek shade. You know, elk do too, So in the in the morning you want to look with the sun and flip around and just seek shades. So down there, like what exposure is it? So you're looking at east facing slopes. Okay, because the sun generally, you're generally always gonna want to east facer. I'm east and north north north, excuse me. East, north and northeast facing slopes, you will find more cou's deer bucks. The does, I would say, frequent the south facing slopes more than the bucks do. So when you do have running, you do have those does on the south facing slopes. Box will come over, but a lot of times they'll push those doughs over and find a shade pocket. So if you if you're looking in the afternoon using the sun to your advantage, you are looking where only ten percent of the deer are. Can you explain for everybody how like, how does dear management work in Mexico? And how is dear management just different than the way it works in there. So I don't know the exact percentage, but I would say of property in Mexico is private land. Uh. Those private land, most of those ranches are active and working cattle ranches. Uh. In order to register your ranch, you have to get a survey done from a quote unquote wildlife biologists, which would be a Mexican wildlife biologist who works for the state who works for the state or not sure if it's better state. They come out and they do their surveys at night with a spotlight. They drive down the road and they count ice. Then they look at the number of hectarias, which is for acres um that the property is, and they kind of have a well we saw, you know, forty two eyeballs and this amount of time, and it's this mini hectoria is so we'll give you eight tacks. And they're they're very conservative. I would you find you would you agree with that? So a general rule of thumb from an outfitters perspective, if the ranch has twelve tags, I would say it's good to harvest six if it If it gets eighteen, it would be nine. If it gets six, it would be three. I always like to really I thought like, when you look at the massive size of those places, then you see the number of tags the issue, I'm like, man, they're being pretty conservatives. Well in my opinion though, so hundred inch bucks and bigger as you know you've hunted down there, what seven eight years or so, um, they're hard to find because they're the older they're the four or five, six seven year old deer will they You know, coyotes are after him, lions are after him, poachers are after him. I look at Mexico. In my opinion, when the ranchers get their tags, I always like to cut them in half. If they get twelve tags and they killed twelve year him, my opinion to three or four years, there won't be any four year old bucks left. I mean, if you got like high test hunters in there who are looking for big books, right, and but then you have properties that are high density and low density, and I would say that the survey method isn't exactly the most scientific. Counting eyeballs with a spotlight for a couple hours or a couple of nights in a row, I don't think you could get a real I think you could ask a group of like you guys hunted there for seven days, how many deer on the property. I think you could come closer than someone driving around with the spotlight. Um. But so they register the ranch, and then the rancher, the owner of the property, is issued those tags. It would be like in some of these states where there are quote unquote landowner tags. Then they're free to do what they want with those tags. But when they're cowboys shoot a deer. If they do, there's no way people putting tags they And so that's the element from an outfitters perspective that I always have to manage is our cowboys shooting deer. Because there's some ranches that ranchers um maybe haven't had their property out or registered and gotten their UMA registration, so they don't place a value on those deer. So from an outfitters perspective, I try and shy away from those properties. If I show up and there's deer legs all over and there's hanging racks all over, that's a really good indication that, hey, these cowboys are shooting shooting deer completely outside of the system of like outside of the tag. So you've got the tag system, and then you've just got hey, we're gonna shoot a deer. The deer that you know they just shoot to eat. Those obviously don't get tagged. But you have to watch um and I try and look for owners that place value on their wildlife. By not letting the cowboys shoot their deer. That makes UM and then once they see a value in those deer, they really start to understand management more and more. One of the struggles that I have is trying to explain to owners, yes, you get twelve tags, but if we shot twelve year this year, none of these American guys would want to come back next year because we've basically shot every mature dear on the property. And certainly if you did that for a couple of years, then you would just have two and three year old year running around. Have you ever heard any ballpark as to um how many deer per square mile are down to? That kind of haven't. But the thing about Mexico that has always intrigued me, say more than Arizona, other than some of the things we've already talked about, is the fact that you tend to see more as many bucks as you do does. So we marveled about that, and that's the part that's so lost him is getting to see bucks. I mean, that's what fires me when you see like when you're glassing along and all of a sudden you realize you saw a tail flick. I mean, like you know pretty good, like you're already you're like, I've probably right, and and if you hunt in Arizona, you know you could go and see fifty or sixty does and see three bucks. Well, if you see fifty or sixty deer in Mexico, probably twenty of them thirty of them are bocks. That's the difference. So it's it's almost like a target rich environment, you know, if from an aspect of I can't wait to see what the next buck I see is. That's what I just love about Mexico. I think that's what makes getting out of the sleeping bags so exciting down here. Man. You always just like, dude, today could be the day. Yeah. And and going to when they're running, um is a really cool thing because I feel like, you know, I spend all September at the six Ranch watching elk Rut and I've done that for a long long time. Um, But I feel like getting to watch accous deer truly running in their environment is a really neat thing. Uh. When we're down there, guys, we're always like, Man, if Jay was here, I'd ask him, what do you guys? I don't want to dominate the whole conversation here. I think the glass and thing was one of them. I feel like we were circling the mountain a lot, and probably at the wrong time of the day. I had listened in. It's Jay's fault. Until this moment, he has never in all the interactions I've had with the man, he has never explicitly told me that. So you just remember this. You want a lot of I've cost you a lot of big books. When you go to a property, whether it's in Mexico or anywhere else, what you want to find is where is the most predominant afternoon shade on this mountain. That's where you start m HM day in and day out. Where if I wanted to get out of the sun, where would I go sit? That's another way to think of it. In other words, it's hot, where am I going? Well, if I get on that ridge and sit on that face, that's going to be the shadiest spot on this ranch. That's where you want to go. And then you branch out from there and you always hit those shade pockets. Now I'm reviewing in the in the times we've hunted, the place we hunt, I'm reviewing all of our like known buck pockets. I need to go. I need to get on the map and go look and see if they can form well. And and the other thing is I get people. There's always exception to the rule. And there's always those thick patch of mesquite or oak that does provide shade that is on a south facing slope, but they know they can scurry their way up there, and they can lay there all day and they can get a nice breeze and they get shade. So I don't want to say that you can't find deer on west facing slopes. I'm not the kind of guy that's like, yeah, but what about Like I get what you're saying, but I would even tell you in Montana, if you focused your buck hunting on on shaded afternoon slopes, you're gonna find more meal their bucks. I got a question. I do know my question. So when we're looking at some of these bigger mountains out there, I found myself when you go elk hunting right and you're looking at this mountain, usually what I end up doing is I go to the tree line and I look like just below where the tree line is, and I kept wanting to do that with coups. Right, you'd like look at this rocky point and be like, God, the biggest buck on the ranch has to be right below that rocky point at the top of the mountain. Is that true or are they just like because the pressure just all up and down the mountain doesn't matter. I would tell you I like to go to the top of the mountain and look down, whereas a lot of people like to go and look up. I feel like if you're up and looking across or down and across, you can see the grass is tall, so now you can see at the angle you're looking into the grass, rather than if the grass is here, you're looking up and you've got a very short angle window there. When you're up looking down, it increases your spectrum of like, I guess it's increasing your angle. Um. But as far as like where are big bucks in relation to the top or the middle or the bottom of the hill, I would tell you in Arizona, where they're getting pressured, the furthest away from roads, you can get the you know, the deep dark hidie holes, or even the top of the mountain where no one's getting that's where your older age class bucks are going to be. In Mexico, it doesn't really translate because no one's hunting them. You're you know, so they It's not like, oh yeah, six groups have already gone through here. They've killed all the easy stuff. Let's go to the top. But what I like to do is like hour before light hiking with a flashlight, headlamp, get to the top. I like cone peaks because I can get up there and very quickly. You know, those cone peaks are very rarely like as small as this table. They're more like this room or twice the size of this room. You can bounce there and cover a bunch of different country, like glassing the peak you're on. I'm on the peak looking at the other country. So I like to go to cone knob peaks where I can just glass for thirty minutes here, bounce to the other side, glass for thirty minutes, bounce over here to the north side, class and cover be on the highest thing around, the highest thing around, and cover basically all of the country in a six hour period and look at a ton more country. That makes sense because you can very easily just bop around. It's much like walking a ridgeline where you can look left and look right as you're going up a ridge line or down a ridge line. That gives me twice as much country to look at. Mega glass. I was wondering, Yeah, I was one on this trip. Yet it's a place that you had marked for us Mega glass that no one's ever glass from. Yeah, we always laugh about the place called Mega glass. That's where That's where i'd go really because I'm Here's what we laugh about going so much is um stick. Yeah, We're like, whoever uh put this there? They found it on the top of map. Janice has asked me about Mega glass before. For whatever reason, that canyon where Mega glasses I just envision. Listen, we have to piss out of that area. But we just don't want it for Mega glass because you have to bring like some repelling equipment. I want to be on the highest knob that I can get to most every time. Glass that we always laugh about. That's our primary landmark, Mega Glass. And then it brings into big glass too. I like using you know, I've had you know, I've had basically every pair of big binos made. You know. I like using big glass as well and there, but I also like glass in two fifteen. I also like glass and through tens close stuff. But then I also like really reaching out there and you know, looking into those shaded slopes. I have a question for you, j as far as how long do you invest in the area to like dig up a big buck, you know, like a blacktail. I might hunt the same area for thirty days and never see him again, or see him at night or on a camera where it seems like when we did find a book, we would see him again and again in that area like heavy eight um, you know the buck that Garrett ended up shooting, like they were bucks that we had seen in that area again, Paul's buck, we've seen him there, were able to find him again. So if I know they're there, I won't leave. If if if I if I know there's a big buck there, um, you know, if if someone had seen a big buck, Um, I know that that deer likely is within five hundred yards of where someone saw him. Yeah, they run a realt so when they rut, they the bucks cover a lot of country. Um, but does pretty much live within an eight hundred It's proven. Richard Awkins fell study you should. I don't think he's alive anymore, but airs on the game of fish. Ricard Richard Hawkins felt collared up on your deer and studied buck and dough and how they travel. Hefl finger probably knows all about it. Um. And they say that uh CU's deer dough spends her whole life within an eight circle, no kid man. Yeah, so that that goes to show like where where those bucks are? They're gonna go find those Doughes. But they're so homebodied and so habitual that like, if if I knew that there was a big buck in the canyon, I probably would bounce around and get different angles in the canyon. But if I know he's there, I'm not leaving. So all right, So let's flip the question a little bit. Say your glass and you feel like you're doing a really good job, You've given it. You're all like, are you giving a good bucky looking area? Like two days and then you're gonna go find a new area or every spot is different and it's kind of a gut thing and you just have to the worst thing you can do when you're glassing is be second guessing. And I do it all the time. You're second guessing him. I'm wasting my time. So you have to kind of bridge that gap of like I have to invest the time and I have to literally know that this deer may only stand up ten minutes of daylight, and I've got to catch him when he's standing up in those ten minutes. Okay, that's one train of thought. You've got to watch that your mind wanders going. The buck isn't here. You've been looking for three days. I can't tell you how many times that darn I have pounded over a country looking and just covering different angles, looking in the same spot, and five days later the buck stands up and he's there the whole time. I think one of the biggest mistakes whose deer hunters make is when they find a big buck, they take their eye off it. That's a whole another subject, but I always tell people, if you find a big buck, do not, for any reason take your eye off it. I don't care whether you're using hand signals, whether you're using radios, whatever your comfort of of communication, whatever you want to do, but if you're trying to kill big bucks, keep your eye. Someone has to watch that deer at all times too, to an extent of like darn I always laugh. Uh, I know that if Darr finds a big buck, I know that he's not taking his eye off If he has to go to the bathroom, it doesn't if he he he will not take his eyes out of those binos on that big buck. And that's how we have been very successful in killing big bucks, is that when you hunt with guys that do not take their eye off the deer, the chances of that deer getting away are go way down. If you dig your lunch out of your pack and you get up and you take a leak and you stretch, and he could have just popped over the hill. Now you're looking in a canyon. That all you'd have to do is just know that he popped up thirty yards. You don't even know that because you took your eye off. I mean, it's it's it's not rocket science, but it's it's funny how I talked to a lot of people and they're like, yeah, I had this big buck and I had him, and he was running this dough and he was chasing her all around and I needed to get closer. I said, well, wait a minute, who was watching Who was watching it? He goes, well, I I was alone. I said, well, you didn't watch it till it bedded down, till it was hot, till you knew that the deer had a chance to probably lay for at least an hour, where then you could move and get in position. Well, no, it was first thing in the morning, it was first light, and he was chasing the stow and he was just a sitting duck. I said, well, yeah, but he's running around chasing the dough and now you don't know where he is. So what I try and do is tell people like, watch the buck, keep your eye on him, bed them down, try and stay thirty minutes to make because a lot of times they'll bed down. They do this all the time. They'll come in, run around, they'll lay down twenty minutes, they get up and change beds. They don't like where they're laying. So I watched for like thirty minutes. Yep, he's not moving, and then I make my move. And then one other tip. And I don't know why I've turned this into like you know, Jay's tips, but um always mark the landmark where you saw the buck, the dead oak tree with the limb that points out to the ride or the white rock or whatever it may be. Even take your phone out and take a picture, because when you across the canyon, get up on another knob, you get over there and it always looks different. Always. I think that's a good That's the thing I've always harpened to people about is it just you got in your head that it's like a little peek and there's a ridge coming off and you get over there and it's just not it changed, you know, the perspective that the angle change and it looks different. How many times have you got over and you're like, I've been watching this steer for three hours and you're like, where is he? Oh, there's the rocket's way down here. I thought it was more of a perspective that it was up here. Well, when I got over on this point, it's now lower. Um, those are all little tricks that you know. I've just I've learned so many times the hard way and those deaer have gotten away that I kind of have a system that I go about hunting them. I want to get to the biggest, like the thing that comes up most when talking about hunting the border country in Mexico. Give me your like what is your perspective on like the security risk? So I mean like you can't tell me it's absolutely zero. Oh no, it's not zero. I mean, like, what's giving your sort of after all these years, like where you add on it? So I don't think there's anybody in the world that would deny that there's stuff going on within of the border on either side that that would blow our mind. Um I would argue that that there's probably worse things going on on the U. S side, because now whatever is going on is really illegal, and they're trying to get whether it be drugs or you know, people trafficking or whatever, they're trying to get them to the destination. Whereas in Mexico, UM, I, other than being able to call the authorities, if you will, call the Border Patrol, call FBI, whoever you made, police, whateverever you may call. I feel like in Mexico it's actually safer because there's designed routes and and and things that you know, those those people want to push things through, and certainly that we've all heard stories of ranches where oh yeah, we had you know, traffickers just trafficking through. We just don't hunt there. We're not. I'm not gonna put me or anybody else in a situation where I knowingly have a situation where things like that are going on. So you'll see activity thirty miles south of the border. So, but what needs to happen there, Like I do understand there's a lot of staging and there's a lot of different things travel out. So you know, it's not like I'm an expert. I'm just speculating. I've watched a Narcos Mexico like everybody else. But you know, they're bringing product in from other countries, and they're bringing it in through the ports, They're bringing it in through boats in the ocean, They're bringing it in uh via airplanes. And they have to have a place to stage, and then they have to have a place to be able to get stuff driven from there from point A to point um. So I was thinking more like foot traffic, but you mean like just like like infrastructure for narco traffic. Yeah, And so like the foot traffic, the people crossing things, I mean they literally drive them up within five of the border and they crossed um and and that's a whole another story. I used to have guys that that work for me. I'm I'm I'm a real estate investor and constantly kind of improving properties and building stuff. And I've used a lot of guys from Mexico to build all kinds of stuff. Incredibly talented. But they would tell me stories like, hey, it's Christmas, time. Uh, we're gonna go home for a while. We'll be back in about a month. So when they get back, I'd be like, so, how was it we had to walk like fifty miles? It was fine. Um. You know then stories of oh we had to walk and we ran into some bad guys and they took our shoes. Hm. You know, like if you don't use a certain traffic or I guess a coyote and you're with someone else, or you're on your own just crossing the border walking back in, they're gonna take your shoes because you didn't use them, you didn't pay them. So you know, hear stories like that. But as far as safety, um, when I'm outfitting the Cou's deer and the Gould's turkey, it's always my number one thing. I want to hunt properties that we're that are not around that kind of stuff. So I try and limit the exposure to that stuff because it does go on. Um, I can tell you in twenty six years, like you know the stories of like, oh, our group of cars got stopped by a care a van with guys with machine guns. It's never happened. Now, I've never seen that. I never lost a hunter I know people. I know people that that's happened to UM. But a lot of it is, you know, taking care of of hunting on ranches that that's not going on, hunting in areas where that's not going on. And then we don't travel at night. We travel within the ranch locked gates at night. But we make it a point highways, whatever roads, you just don't travel in Mexico at night. It's a good rule of thumb for safety. Have I done it? Sure, I've traveled at night, mostly by myself. Would I do it with people? Know? Do I make it a practice to know? Have I done it a few times? Yes? We use when we cross, we Jay has a network of people he knows, bilingual people he knows and trusts who live on the Mexico side. And when we cross, we use one of Jay's guys who drives escorts us. We have a little two or three car caravan. Like this year we had in my truck we had a can m on a trailer, which was the first year you guys have brought that, did you really? It was awesome? Changed everything be able to get around it changed everything. Yeah, we brought down I brought down a UM. I have a four door canam side by side. You could get everywhere changed And I had and I had my f one and you could do it quickly. Yeah, I got my phone fifty. It's got like a you know, two inch lift on the front, air bags on the back, good tires. Right. Um, we could drive that anywhere, drive the can m everywhere. We got everywhere we wanted to go. It changed everything. They're trying to limp around and like rented minivans changed everything. Yeah, I mean we had a great year. We had our best year ever. And we're kind of like, why was it our best year ever? And yeahn't need to We were like, why was our best year ever? Like the transportation thing has to be a huge Yeah, you guys have been renting trucks and and driving around and these roads across the boarding on these Mexican ranches is because of the monsoon rains. The roads get washed out very very easily, very very quickly. Um. Pretty much with you know, any u TV, any quad, you can get around and kind of rock crawl and do what you'll do. When trucks you're fairly limited. Um. One thing I'll point out and then we can get back to the people that help you know, crossing the UM is for anybody listening. If you're doing a d I Y hunt, UH, that you need to know that you need the truck, the trailer, and the u TV all to be in the driver's name. In other words, Steve, you couldn't and Garrett's quad. You can't mix ownership. They want to see Steve ron Ella, Steve Bronella, Steve Ronella on truck, trailer and u TV or quad. You can't put Jason's quad on your trailer. It would have to all match your name. You get a vehicle transportation permit UM when you go a certain distance south of the border UM. And then there are some quote unquote travel free zones that you don't have to get permit, but most of my ranches you have to get a vehicle permit. And that's just something that everyone has to have a passport. Uh, everyone has to get that transportation permit. Yeah. So we use and we cross. We use someone to come help us with the paperwork, which doesn't can be or doesn't need to be the same person that we use to escort us. I think it's important to have that translator. You know, you have someone who knows the process, because right there at the border, you know, you get your gun, you get your transportation permits, you get your gun permits checked at the police. You know, you're basically doing all your border stuff. Then you travel about a mile away to the military, where then that person helps you get your guns crossed at the military. And a long time ago, I figured out that it made crossings a lot smoother if I had one of my people there that understands the process, and any little things that come up, uh, they can handle and talk to who they need to talk to to get everything okay. If you are the place, were only, like as the crow flys, only fifteen miles in the borders. But on those thirty minute drive we came to one a National Guard check station they had set up, and our and our escort we become friends with over the years. He spoke to the guys and then it waved us all through. Yeah, we already had to have an interaction, and then we get all to our place. And then, like you said, when we're talking about like your hundred years back at the time, we get all to our place, unload our food in a ranch house, and then it's like all that ship is just gone. Yeah, it's just gone. It's a nice feeling to kind of be able to wash that away. Now, don't get me wrong. Like on the ranch you guys have, there's a few hills that you can go up and boom, you get cell service, you can check in, so it makes it kind of nice. Um. But and and and people ask me all the time, they're like, will we see checkpoints? I say, listen, when you're on the highway and you come across a military or police checkpoint, it's a good thing. They're like, how is that a good thing? And I say, well, they are actually monitoring the roadways, they're keeping it safe. So by actually having a checkpoint, they're keeping it safer than if there was no checkpoint. And it's just willy nilly out there all right. Man, So you like, you don't do any d I Y Gould stuff. All your Gould stuff is guided. Yeah. So this will be my thirteen season doing Gould's. Um, I believe I had you down there, and maybe my first or second season. I feel like my Gould's Turkey operation is really blossomed. We've got a lot of phenomenal properties. Now why don't because you let guys, So not let you have guided cous deer hunts where you do you get you got you guys, and you have like you do for us where you arrange Yes, so I have d I, y COU'SE. You range like a property range, the tag system help everybody hunting and they're on their own. How can you not doing Why don't you do that for Goulds? You know, I've thought about it. Um, it's a good question. I've thought about it and thought, you know, I've kind of run through the different scenarios and I just always keep coming back to guided Goulds is probably a better scenario. Um, you know details. I don't really know why. It just seems like maybe we'll do some in the future. But feeling yeah, because me and Yanni we're gonna talk you into letting us do it. Well, I could definitely arrange you guys to come and do it. And uh, how how far into the future are you booked up for Goulds or for so I'm booking right now for next January. Um, and and a lot of guys like to really book you know. I try not to get too far over my skis. I just try, and you know, suit all all book for three even before I go in two. But I right now, when we just finished the January season, I don't really like booking six. I just prefer to kind of stay out twenty three. Um, you know, I've got a great schedule lined up for Gould's Turkey. Still have some opportunity for this the spring coming up any thing, because like you get like like guys like me, who I'm um if I I might become a World's Lamb holder, But the Super Slam Turkey thing, you need to get that Google's Turkey. Yeah, that's hard. I get so many people. Most everyone that comes for Goulds is basically wanting to check Google's Turkey off the list. It's funny though, when they come down you've seen Goulds, they're just amazing bird. Um how they become a person that wanted to check it off the list. But then now they've come three, four or five years in a row because of the hunting is so good. I got a hot tip of people on the if you're doing the d I y uh kushans with Jay, if you got a friend, like, what does it want to be? Like? A ranch has got three tags, four tags, six tags, whatever the hell you put together a group of guys, right, man, if you just to enhance you you don't need to, but to enhance the experience. If you've got someone who's like pretty checked out on Spanish so you can talk to the cowboys. Yeah, we had two guys this year. Yanni's getting pretty good. Ross Copperman from First Light was with us. He's pretty good, real good man. Yeah, because it wantes it being like you see some things that you it kills you that you can't ask like like what is with whatever? Yeah? Why is it like this? Yeah? Or like or like where like some giant drop antler? Where like where did that come from? Yeah? Yeah, it's so nice if someone could go and hack their way through with the cowboys they're out riding around. Yeah, it's real healthful. One thing you do have to watch with cowboys, it's it's just human nature. Is you know there's some that oh yeah, there's big bucks everywhere and they're pointing the mountains and stuff. You kind of got to learn which ones. You know what a big our main body down there at our place. There's no buck you can bring in that he won't be like oh no, no no, no, yeah, that's not a big what are you doing? And then we're like where and he just points like he's like, yeah, kind of they're they're everywhere. He said that there's bucks bigger than Steve's everywhere on that place. Yeah, And I mean that's common that. The other common thing is that there's two things. I say, how many points twelve every It doesn't matter which if I'm in Chihuahua or Sonora, whatever state I'm in. You asked the cowboy, what's the biggest buck on the ranch? It's a twelve pointer? You know, I've never seen a twelve pointer in my life. And every ranch you go to do say and and then the other one is they have nicknames for him. Oh, it's the same nickname. They call him El Negro because their cape is dark. Oh, it doesn't matter what ranch you go to. There like a grande buck named El Negro lives on that here. You know what his name is, it's old mossy Horns. Yeah, I mean, it's just it's funny to me how it doesn't matter where you're at, they're all the big ones are El Negro because and when you do kill a big mature buck a lot of times their cape is a lot darker, a lot darker. Yeah. Uh, we're gonna wrap up, but tell people how to find you. Probably the best way is to send me an email at Jay Scott Outdoors at gmail dot com, My Instagram, Jay Scott Outdoors, um Colburn and Scott Outfitters on Instagram. I answer my direct your past so I have to credit you and YAWNI My podcast will be seven years old, uh in about two weeks. I started very quickly after I remember you and Joannie sent me your pilot episode and I said, well, what's a podcast? I started and it's Um, my podcast is much more boring than your podcast. It's real informational, real educational. Puts a lot of people to sleep. But it's been tactics and a lot of texts, a lot of tactics and strategy on all sorts of big game. Jay Scott Outdoors podcast. Um, and you said how people to find if they want a book, Yep, just Jay Scott Outdoors dot com. I mean there's a lot of just hype in Jay Scott Outdoors and Google and you'll find me. Yeah. We've been doing sulf with j for honestly, like we've been doing stuff with you for a decade. I think it's ten years and again Turkey and Buffalo again have just I've said a bunch of times, have just been throughout every interaction, just always impressed with how you run your program. Well, I appreciate it, just like no just clean, clear, no bullshit, honest dealing, highest ethics. It's like it's just been a pleasure to to do all that, to range all those cool hunts with you over the years. Well, I appreciate. I I really value my reputation and and I never want anyone to have a bad experience or a bad hunt. So you know, I feel like sometimes I take it to heart, maybe even more than I should. Sometimes that sounds kind of bad, but that's that's the bullet taken out. So I really I really want people to have a smile and really want him to love Mexico. I do, and you know it's it's it's important to me. Yeah. Well, I hope you keep at a man. We all had a great time. Um. I'm always waiting for my text message from you saying it's time to commit. I need you to get you back down for Goold's Turkey. I feel like you did it ten years ago, so I can go down to watch him. I feel like to like in your Turkey hunting life spectrum, when you hunted Gould's, I feel like you were a little bit new, and I feel like you might appreciate it even more now that you've hadn't seen I haven't seen as much, nearly as much at that time. As if the birds are amazing, there's a bunch of them that gobble and strut. I mean, they're just phenomenal. I'll do it, I'll do it. You're gonna gould S felps. You probably anti Turkey. No, he's anti White Tels, but he's not. He's pro Turkey, pro Turkey. The Goulds are on the list. Oh they are. Yeah, got any concluding thoughts, Paul, just give me like thumbs up your thumbs down on Mexico. I loved it. It was a good trip, the whole thing, Like Steve said, the whole experience was a blast. Did you get some good food too? I didn't ask you guys that that's some of the best lots of good food by day seven, though, You're like, I don't know if I want to see any rate. The main thing is we just laughed our asses off. We uh one thing before we closed, Steve Jason, I got your little present. Yeah, coming out of Mexico. We know that you were very self conscious about a certain pair of shoes because you didn't want to be a poser. So I got you a pair of hay dudes. Oh so you're in. You don't think I'm gonna be a poser? Well no, because now now, now if somebody sees if somebody sees you and heyes, you asked you what my shoes size was? Oh yeah, so you lied. I did, yeah, and I was just lying about why he needed to know. I asked Katie and then she's like, I think eleven. But then she never got so we went a different route. I'm always admiring uh amways admiring Phelps is hey, dude, loafers. But he was telling me that ropers wear them, and I don't want to. I thought that if I would be like if I got a ten gallon hat and he said, no, you can pull it off. I'll had no cattle. Yeah, he said, like an old dad type guy like me could wards. The way we figure is now now you can be like uh if someone's like, oh yeah, Hey, dudes, you're like, oh, yeah, my buddy's got him for me, but you don't have to like eat. Yeah, you shouldn't have those Like my buddy's got him, I gotta wear him every once someone pull my hotass boot off and putting this thing out, it might change your life. Yeah, it's like crocks, but not made out of rubber. I have one little closing thought. While you're trying your shoes on, look at that, um, I said, I am since time a guy that wants to go back to Mexico and Cou's hunt, and let's not like only talk about how fun it was and all the good stuff I wanted to focus on, like the thorn RNs and the cactus Like, yeah, no, I'm I'm just joking with this Jay, not not de turring anybody from go to going to Mexico. It was amazing, but you shouldn't go to Mexico just to make sure. There's the number one you should have in your pack is tweezers. Yeah, yeah, it's a great idea. I had my wife digging one out of my finger the other day. We got with you too much for me to handle, so she dug it out for me. Yeah, my wife says, you're on your own, even though I'm gonna even though I'm gonna leave her over the ski situation, and still she still did me a good turn on. She still did me a good turn on my slipper picking. All right, man, we gotta wrap it up. Jay Scott, thank you so much, thanks for having me. Don't screw us on our place. I'll try not to. We're coming back. You got a lifelong customer and Phelps, don't screw it up. I'll do my best. Thank you very much. Man. All right, Jay Scott, Jay Scott Outdoors, Jay Scott Podcasts, Colburn and Scott Outfitters. Right, yeah, that covers it, okay. In the meantime, Phelps Phelps game calls. I'd just hit him up for some turkey calls for the spring and uh Paul with f h F Gear at f h F gear dot com. That's alright, guys, Thanks a lot,

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