00:00:10 Speaker 1: This is the Meat Eater podcast coming at you shirtless, severely bug bitten and in my case, underwear. Listening to Hunt Don't Meet You Eat podcast. You can't predict that anything. All right, Jimmy Dorn's here. Can we see what you do the pizza guy? Any questions to come up? Now? Jimmy was just being a good friend and drop by now here. He is sitting in We ate some fantastic pizza, did we ever? Man, Well you're welcome. What's it called. It's called Belltown Pizza, downtown Seattle, Belltown. Yeah. Well Jimmy does all that pepperoni and all that every it's all wolf meat. That's it. It's ground up. He grounds up his own wolf meat. Still called the health department. So any pizza, any piece of questions? Any went here as tofer him over to Mr Dornan. Also, you had you had a big year. I had a fantastic year, big year, very big here. Yeah, best ever So I'm relatively new Hunter definitely this year was took the cake. I'm a little worried. Next, you're not in pizza sale, No, No, just American elbow greaseman, just running his business, getting out there, mixing it up, getting a lot of a lot of excellent big game hunts. Yes, very good, very fortunately wears a meat eater T shirt. That's it in the mediator T shirt smell lucky charn or he carries in his backpack and he's kind enough to take pholdo himself with it. Maybe it depends on how bad it stinks on day four. No tearing it up. Yeah, no, fantastic. Yeah. Two mule deer and an elk when a mule deer in Central Oregon elk in the Missouri River breaks in Montana and uh, and then shot a really nice elk by Fossil and Central Oregon. Great stuffy. And then you got some doves. Shot a few doves you know. Um, we had some of those doves for Thanksgiving dinner. You're welcome. Some people kept calling them little turkeys, little turkeys because we did the whole right. Because my wife I was complaining of Thanksgiving because seldom do we eat turkey on Thanksgiving? Yeah, kind of like we just like cook you save up like good stuff, so do you ever? Thanksgiving we had hooligans or candlefish, king salmon, halibit uh moose smelt met in morning doves, and because people like Gripe, my brother Matt and my wife bitch about the lack of a turkey. So I plucked those morning doves and cooked my little mini turkeys and it did look like little mini turkeys. Man, it was cute. But everybody got their own little turkey. Yeah, I did that A piece there turkey. Yeah, it was a step in the right direction. And normally I don't even few the normal sides. Like last year we did was called a mixed boil, you know, which is like all kind of boiled vegetables. And but this year we had all the normal sides. A matter of fact that you know that mash potato we're eating last night, that ships from Thanksgiving? That's old. Still it was good. So that was just mat just like a cream mash mash yams. But I mean, think of how old that is, How long ago is Thanksgiving? Just been sitting in my fridge a couple of weeks. You don't feel sick at all, Dude, you'll be heading for the door. Hey, you know a lot of here's this. I'm not glad you're here. Um is that is mashed patoes? Like pretty stable? I would say it last a while when I was in college, I needed a couple of weeks in I don't know now, would be about a week probably when you were because you're in the commercial food business, are you, um, are the guidelines likely? The guidelines are probably like, we'reridiculously safe, right they are this proper holding temperashure, stuff like that, proper refrigeration, making sure you know you don't want to get in. Does it feel extreme? Ors it feel reasonable? It's totally reasonable. Yeah. Something with potatoes. When I worked at a restaurant to get a ski pass for a while, we serve baked potatoes. They're wrapped in aluminium oil, and there was a strict, hard fast rule that you could not take those potatoes home. Like they're very worried about that, and maybe because it was just because the aluminium oil would hold it in that like danger zone too long could be And what is it that you would get from uh potato like that? I have no idea. I don't know in case it's spending a lot of time in the bathroom other than I'm not really sure. Because I read something not too long ago about potato salad because everybody thinks that's got mayo and ship. No, it's not the mayo, which the potatoes. It's actually yea son. Potatoes grow back tia really quickly, especially combined with the mayo, And so it's the potatoes that are the problem, not the mayo itself. Oh yeah, I always thought it was the mayo too. Of course it's mayo because that stuff gets nasty. But it's the potatoes. You're gonna get sick for those mash those weeks old mash cats. That was weighing in with the Voice of Reason on tatoes was Ron, give us your last name? How you sounded out? I struggled with that one. Everyone struggles with it. You got it on the on the front of your new book, Traditional bow Hunters Path. That's not a King of the Mountain will pants you're wearing, is it? No, it's not King of the Mountain Remember that company? Yeah? I love King of the Mountain stuff. I have a King in the Mountain vest. Did they still around when that ship came out? I was just I couldn't. I was so paralyzed by jealousy when that catalog came out, and I was a young lad. I wanted the trapper will pull over and I'd look at that price tag three fifty at the time, which was in the eighties. Oh yeah it was, which is thousands now. I remember being like, what it must be magical, but that was doesn't be able to fly. That stuff was the quality close we've will you know for the day. I mean that stuff was great, but it was meant. It's selling point was you can machine washing. So I remember Cabela's came out with a knockoff. They came out with a knockoff, and I bought some of that ship and took it out of Hunt, and after I got a wet a couple of times, it was like I was wearing uh yeah, like I was in a Shakespeare play, because it's just whatever happened and hadn't happened, you know. And then you you get where you didn't want to wash them because it's just gonna make them worse. So the pretty soon they're just like when you walk, they sort of crackle because of like dried blood on the knees and ship, you know, but those are the do you like them? Here's don't drink too bad in that picture? Not too bad. Actually have a wool coat that I loved that was made by a company called wolf woolens or something like that. I don't know what. The same thing happened. I were in the rain. It shrunk, it got really small, and when those deals used to her arms out and the sleeves come up to here. I loved it so much I took it in my in my shed and I made a frame out of two by fours and I hung cement blocks off of it, stretching. Wait waited it. They kept wetting it again and trying to get it. Never worked, never got it back. It was all misshaping and screwed up. And I gave it to a friend. If someone came in your shed and they think you're up to some weird devil stuff, you're doing some weird I've been that same situation with a pair of came the mountain. I think they were called the bum Light pant on them as a hunting guide, you know, and had to have the best and uh same thing. I washed them and I don't know if the no. I did cold wash. I mean that's what you have to do, and even that, just like the complete saturation of that wool. I put them on the next time, and I was a ballerining, you know, it's just like what they called them, and they're like, yeah, you need to rewind them and then slowly stretched them. But when it had happened, and when I was trying, I just you know, overpowered, I guess, and busted the scene that kind of go that's like between the waistline in your pocket, and just ripped him right across. So they ended up fixing them for me for free, but they couldn't stretch them back out. Well, somehow they got to be back to normal side. I don't know if I just warmed back into normal fitting. But that was ten years ago and I haven't watched them since. You guys want to see a good segue. You're ready for a big segue. Jimmy Um as a traditional bowl hunter, imagine you're hunting wool lot ron. Yeah, of course that's a great seg I like, well, I like fleece because you gotta be quiet. You gotta be gonna get close, and so you gotta be quiet. Like what's like, okay, traditional bowl hunting, now that's recurbing longbow. Recurbing longbow. Yep. Let me say, I do want to get back to being real close and real quiet and all that. But like, I don't understand how is the recurve traditional because recurs like a long bowl. Right, you have cultures so they feel that. Correct me if I'm wrong, But the bow and arrow in North America as a technology is maybe four or five thousand years old, and people were still shooting long bowls up to the moment when they got their hands on firearms. Whoever was using a recurve? Like who made the recurve? Yeah, you have to be careful of the term traditional, I think, because it you know, it's just taken on its whole own life. And so when I think a traditional bow hunting in the traditional archery, it's really kind of this generalization of everything pre compound. Yeah, that's yeah, So it's really I mean, for me especially, I think of it as post war era, you know, nties through you know, the late sixties, you know when the compound came into being. You know, that's really when traditional arch tree took off and became really popular. I don't think traditions means a response to the compound. No, No, I think it took offense to post war air I did, I said, yeah, yeah, I mean I think you know, people coming back from being overseas from being in the war. I mist phenomenon is true for hunting in general, but you know for archery, especially coming back and being able to pick up a bow. You know, a lot of the states were just legalizing, you know, seasons for archery. At that time, archery was super popular. There was even not just bow hunting, but you know, there were archery lanes in the cities. There was you know, all kinds of archery competitions, and the fifties mile Man belonged to the Chicago Bowman. Yeah, exactly, and it was you know, like the then Pope and Young was kind of a thing and they're pushing for seasons. But he was a recurve hunter. But like a recurve isn't a throwback, Like but who didn't vent the recurve? So, I mean recurve goes back to probably some asiatic style of bows, you know, where there's a lot of um, you know, there's a lot of reflex and deflex in the limb um, some recurving of the limbs, you know, to get get static tips in some cases. You know you have seen these bows, uh you know, some of them made out of bone and send you horn and send you. Uh, it's fantastic. Yeah, but it was never like an America. It was never There's like no American indigenous cultures that were shooting recurve bows, not that I can think of. Probably the earliest I can think of was the bowyer for the Bear Archery Company, Fred Bear's bowyer was Nail's Grumley, and he used to build a static reach recurves on the end of what you might otherwise look at and think was a long bow. You know, it's got these static tips on them. Now what so you do your hunt in primarily the recurve, recurve V and long bow. Yeah. I killed two good bucks this year, one with a long bow, one with a recurve and forth. It was not just an idiot um. You know, it's no different than guns or whatever. You know, you just have a bunch of stuff you'd like to play with in different setups. And one of the things I love about traditional archery is just each but each bow is different, every piece of wood is different. Every you know, whoever made it has put their own their own touch on it. You there's a lot of craftsmanship that that goes into it, and so everyone is different. It's just like, you know, going hunting with a different buddy every time you go out. Now, did you did? You used to cool so far jimmy out all that? Absolutely? You did you? Did you get into it as a response to like experiences rifle hunting or were you just were you just a bow hunter flat out? Your old man was a rifle hunter. Yeah. Now, I grew up with a rifle and a muzzleloader, hunted mostly you know, fifty caliber flintlock to three to seventy UM. And I got into I had a bow, you know, growing up as a kid. I had this little fiberglass bow that a neighbor gave me and I loved it. Man, I went everywhere with that thing. I just couldn't be separated from it. Used to shooting our field and we had this big creek by our house, and I'd go out there and you know, fling arrows at muskrats and stuff. And then I just kind of got away from it because my family wasn't into bow hunting. We were, you know, we were into gun hunting. And we used to go to our cabin in Pennsylvania and gun hunting and I loved it. And then, uh, you know, at some point in college, I went back to the compound bow and I started hunting with a compound bow a little bit, just to take advantage of the seasons. Yeah, just take advantage of the seasons. And I did like the bow hunt. It wasn't like I didn't like it or anything. I just, you know, I just had gotten away from it. And then, you know, I tell this story in the book. You know, I ended up in the hospital. I fell down a set of steps and you know, messed up my back a little bit. And then I killed a deer, kill a small buck, and I tried to whale him over a fence, you know, kind of one of these clean and jerk moves, was a woven wire fence, and I just totally wrenched my back, ruptured a disk in my back, and it's really messed up. Deer hunting injury. Deer hunting injury injury. Ended up in the hospital and traction. And yeah, my my girlfriend at the time standpoint it was not worth it. She brought me this grocery bag full of magazines, and one of the magazines in that bag was Traditional bow Hunter. It was issue, and I pulled that thing out and I started reading it. It was like, it's just a little fire. Now I write for the magazine. Yeah, I just not stopped reading that magazine. I read it over and over land in the hospital, you know, legs pulled up in ropes, and when I left, I was like, this, this is for me, this is what I want to do, and I've just been doing it ever since. I love it. Yeah, that's the thing about like bow hunt. My relationship with bow hunt was eyes that along with most people, I grew up with you just telling the bulks to let you. Gave you much more hunting seasons, you know, like in Michigan, I grew up general firearms ten days long. If you bow hunted, you started bow hunting for deer October one. You hunted up to the November, the mid November rifles season. Then the woods fills up with dudes, right, it gets chaotic, that thing ends, and you bow hunted again for another month and a half. Yeah. I mean, just like triple or quadruple, your stay is always out in the woods. But it was that. But it was never like, um, you know, I always appreciate the challenge of bow hunting, but it was just a thing like I like to hunt. There was a bow season. Therefore, you know you hunted with a bow. But I was never looking to then go and this might not be the word you use, but I was never looking to then go handicap myself by having a self imposed limit on the technology. Yeah, yeah, I think there's a couple of things. I mean, you know, self imposing yourself to something that's more primitive can come and like, you know, you can do that for a lot of reasons. So you know, somebody who picks up a rifle might self impose some trophy quality. You know, I'm only gonna kill at white tailor you know, I want to kill a big six by six bull elk. You know, for me, I didn't have a ton of money. You know, when I started out doing this, I couldn't really travel as much as I wanted to to go hunt, and so self imposing traditional archery on myself. And I've I've only hunted with a gun maybe three times in the last twenty five years. Just don't do anymore. I don't do an I have a hunt only traditional bow and those and the times I have hunted, it's been with a with a flintlock, and I have taken a couple of deer with that, But you know it's for me. It's all been recurving longbow since then. But it's that that's the that's how I'm self imposing my It's where I'm getting the new challenge from. So instead of killing something bigger, you know, I'm interested in getting closer and making my equipment more primitive so that you know, I get that same kind of rush and that same kind of challenge and experience. You know, you can only shoot so many white tail does you know before he's like, yeah, I'm gonna try something a little different. Maybe I'll you know, long bow and wooden arrows. It's another way to kind of get at this. What's your effective range? You know with with eat with each set of tackle you're using there, like, what's the what's the not pushing it? But you know, a good reasonable shots? Is that right? Nice and clothes? Yeah, twenty yards is you know where I like to be. I've shot you know, white tails out to a little over thirty. I shot a clip springer in Africa at over thirty, you know, but generally twenty yards. And I know some guys who like that, you know, they set up their ground blinds or tree stands or whatever. For the closest shot they can with something like a long but they want to be ten yards twelve yards. I've actually found that that's worse for me because when you have that animal on top of you, I mean, you have no room for air, You're gonna get winded, You're gonna you're talking about wol clothing and being quiet, you know. Yeah, I mean just just getting the full draw is impossible. And so I've learned that for me, about eighteen yards is where I want to be. You know, you got to start getting above eighteen. Weird stuff can happen, but at eighteen that's pretty good. You know. With an example of weird stuff they can happen. Well, deer can jump the string. You know, you can screw up a shot pretty quick at thirty five yards with it, you know, with a traditional bow. I mean I regularly practice out tot you know, and I can I can hit the you know, the vital zone and on a three D target, you know, easily at thirty five again and again and again. But that's not a live animal. That's not an animal that can jump and move. It's like the compound shooter who likes to shoot who will fling arrows at ninety but then he's deadly exactly. It's also a whole different ball game when you're cold, when you're nervous. I'll talk a lot about, you know, performance anxiety or buck fever in this book because I think it it probably is the reason it's so hard to replicate that in practice training. You know, I used to always have guys at the range when we'd have hunters coming in. We go and, you know, shoot a couple of shots, and like, all right, you're going is good? Now run fifty yards, turn around, sprint back, grab your rifle, and then off your knee. You know, let's see what your group looks like at a hundred Yeah big. You know it's like, I don't know any other way to Yeah, what's your take on it? You can't prep for it. Do you think you can prep for You can't prep for it? And well, you can prep for it, but I think it's even worse with traditional arch your gear, because if you're shooting a compound or a rifle, you've got a site. You know, it's it's just talk compounds. You know, you've got a site, pin and you've got a peep and not only are they tools for you to you know, to hit your target, you know, to line up and hit what you want to hit. Put there. It's a support system. It gives your brain a set of you know, it's a mechanism that you know what to do. You're gonna draw that bow, You're gonna line up the pin and the peep, You're gonna put the pin on where you want to hit, and you're gonna release your arrow with without sights, which is the way most guys shoot long bows and recurves. There's none of that, so you have to force your brain, you know, and your whole body with you know, with all the adrenaline pumping through you come to full draw. Pick a spot, you know, on the animal. Just find some ripple of muscle, you know whatever it is a little dappless unlight, and look at that spot and stare it down and come to full draw and release. And there's just no support mechanism, and it's so easy to fall apart. It's really easy to just know. I mean, you know, you just whom and the arrow is gone, and you know it's nowhere near the animal you're trying to hit. So you talk about um it was funny you managed like the ripple of muscle or sunlight. You're talking about being not just I'm gonna hit the deer or not just that I'm gonna hit the rib area, but you're like, I'm going to hit that that thing. I'm gonna hit that little hair that's out of place right now, it's the whole like burdock or whatever on his side exactly. I mean, you have to. It's so hard. We have to train yourself to do that because you don't. I mean, when that big buck comes in or any animal comes in, you know, you're just your blood is pumping, you're you're not thinking right and being able to really slow yourself down and say pick a spot is so important. When I was a kid, my old man would put stickers on our bows and the sticker said, stay calm, pick a spot now that you remember, not that you would remember to read the sun bitch and sticker, but it's just on there, you know, and it was like it's reminder. But I remember like the first year miss of the boat. It was, you know, feet from the base of the tree and you couldn't imagine that. You couldn't like, how could you miss that you can't. But then you pull remember like those first times bowing. I was twelve when I missed the first year of the bow. And you pull back and you think about it like you you couldn't even there's no recollection of doing any of the things you're supposed to do. It was just like there's a deer and you pull back and let go. Yeah, And I think a lot of that's adrenaline too. I think it's why we forget. You know, you take a shot and you don't even remember where the animal went. You don't remember seeing the arrow, you don't remember the shot. I think your body is just so overloaded on adrenaline that you just can't Your mind's just out of whack. Yeah. I talked about this in the book too. But you know, there's lots of you know, studies with humans looking at multitasking, and we really suck at multitasking. You know. You can, you can type an email and eat your lunch, But try to type an email and talk on the phone at the same time. I mean, it's really hard to do that, you know, because you're using the same kind of mental capacities, the same kinds of things in your brain. You know you you make those decisions with the prefrontal cortex of the brain each side. It's responsible for for making all kinds of decisions when you're multitasking. And for me, you know, I just have to break the whole shot sequence down into two steps. And so when I see an animal and I decide I'm going to shoot, I have this whole thing I do in my head where you know, I pick a spot, bow arm, my bo arm goes in a certain position, and I draw to my first anchor where my my hand comes to rest under my cheekbone, and then I reaffirmed my spot. I'm like, all right, I'm I'm on my spot. I'm still on my spot. And then I just keep pulling until I hit my second anchor and boom the arrows away And you're literally running through a checklist in your head. Kind of That's what I do when I practice, when I'm actually hunting. Not the checklist doesn't always come because things are happening so fast, but if the actions come, they're just they're turned into your brain. You know, the muscle memories there, the you know, it's all in your head and you just kind of do it. But if I don't have that system, you know. I found this found us out the hard way. I'm just off all apart. You know, I won't make a good shot. But with the system, I'm good. You know. So now when you aim, I know you talked about this in the in the book, talking about like what what's the term like point when you aim off the point of the arrow? My brother's recurve shooter and hunter, and well he talks about it. I feel like he does, Yeah, gaps deadly. I don't. I don't really I kind of gat ye, right it is. And and so for me, you know, I have this whole system where I come to my first anchor on my face and then I keep drawing the string until the cock fare feather hits my nose, and that's my cute to release. It's like a little psychological trigger. Once the thing hits, boom, I'm gone. And that out to about twenty yards, I'm just looking at the spot and just looking at something I want to hit. But yawned about twenty seven or twenty eight yards. I can't help but see the tip of my arrow in my vision because you know, I'm coming up like this, and so the arrow is coming up into my field of view, and so at that point I used to try to ignore it. But over the years I've learned, why not use it, Just use it as an aiming system. So once I get to that distance, then I can hold the arrow right on where I want to hit. And if I'm further than out, if I'm thirty five, then I'm holding the tip of the arrow just you know, a couple of inches above where I want to be, and so on out you know yards. Now does your point of aim uh differ using traditional gear over compound placement? Like I'm as you get real afraid of the shoulder blade? Oh yeah, you do. Shoulder blades instant death, not not for the deer, but instant death for you as the archer. Not anymore so with traditional gear versus compound gear. Well, if, yeah, you gotta have weight. This has to be a hell of a lot less energy out of a long bowl then out of a souped up compound. Yeah, there is, And some of it depends on your your broad head to you know, if you're shooting a nice two blade broad head, I certainly don't want to shoot the shoulder, but if you do by accident, you can often penetrate the shoulder and get blade but not the bone proper. Gett into the blade, but not the action, not the not the fever or anything. So you can punch through the blade. You can with a two point you can like shoot a thirty yards or whatever, twenty yards you could go. You can put like a wooden narrow through that shoulder blade and get into the vitals. You can't. I don't recommend it, but yeah, you can absolutely do it. Do you aim like I usual, aiming for the crease? Are you us you back a couple of ribs just to give yourself room to play? Well? I mean, you know the game. I mean, you don't want to go back too many ribs because then if the animal, you know, if you get jumping the string a little bit forward or backward, then you're you know, getting into the punch, or if you just kind of screw up a little bit, you're getting into the punch. So I pretty much, you know, come up the back of the leg and then come you know, maybe a couple of inches back on the ribs about dead center of the body is where I want to be. And then do you ever take um? Do you just shoot broadside? No, I like quartering away, Yeah, I mean, you never do like face on shots. That's just too hard. You knew what I did this year, didn't I can tell by the way you're I shot my first ever deer this year quartering on in the brisket coming in. You know, like, you know, a shot that a rifle hunter or a combound I wouldn't think about. But you just you just don't do it with traditional gear, And I've never done it. Why wouldn't you do a traditional gear because you just can't get them. You know, you just have a little pocket in there where you can get to the vitals and there's just a lot of meat and a lot of bone in there to penetrate. And with a compound you can just kind of you've got the kinnetic energy to punch it through there. And so it's a still not a great shot with a compound, but it's one that guys doing with a rifle. It's you know, it's it's an easy shot. But with a traditional boat's you know a lot of guys probably listening to this podcast shaking their heads and you know, why the hell would he do that? You know, it's really a no, no kind of a shot. But I've been doing this a long time. I had a shot at a good buck. He was standing there. I kept looking at that spot and looking at that spot. I was calm, and I thought, I can do that. I know I can put that arrow there. And frankly, it was one of the deadliest shots I ever made. Yeah, deer went maybe sixty yards and was done. So, you know, it does work. Will I ever do it again? I don't know. I got away with it. It worked. You know. It causes a lot of you know, controversy and the hunter Oh yeah, I mean, guys get really piste off when they hear about other other you know, bow hunters taking that shot. You can I ask you, what kind of a difference in feet per second? Like what kind of energy difference sweet and modern compounds and all the traditional It can be pretty big. I mean, so I shoot bow. I used to shoot, you know, close to sixty or even a little over sixty pounds, but I changed my shooting style a few years ago and I dropped back to fifty pounds and I haven't seen any real difference in penetration. But so at fifty pounds, you know, I'm shooting probably a hundred and seventy five ft per second, and I'm shooting an arrow that weighs around five hundred grains. I think that works out to, like, you know, thirty five pounds of kinetic energy something like that. Compound shooters probably shooting more like I don't know, to seventy five is probably not out of the question at all about out right, and then maybe three fifty graine arrow, so you know, a lot lighter arrow, but you know, kinetic kinetic energy of that is probably up around more like I don't know, I bet close to fifty pounds. So yeah, there's there's a pretty big difference difference. Do you think that that for someone that haunts compound they want to switch to traditional archery? Um, what's the biggest challenge there is it? Do you think it's the proximity for people like you now gotta have the distance so you're custom shooting a certain distance, you gotta cut that in half. Or do you think it's just that it's so much more difficult to put the air where you want to put it. I think it's it's more difficult to put the error where you want to put it. Because even though compound shooters can shoot forty and fifty yards. You know, hunt mostly in the east, so it's mostly white tail stuff. Guys are still mostly shooting it deer at even with the compounds, So I don't think the distance is that much. When you're on you can kind of pick you in some ways you're picking the distance exactly. If you're set up is picking the distance. I think it's the lack of it is where it's back to the support system again. You know, when you're shooting a compound, you've got all that. You know, you've got those tools, you know, to be able to just kind of keep yourself calm, lay the shot in there the way you want it. And with a traditional bow you just don't have that. The other thing you don't have is let off, and so it's not like you can you know, you see you see an animal coming. You know it's it's passing behind a stand, a doug for or something, and you know it's gonna pop out at you know, twenty yards, and you know it's going to take a few seconds for that to happen. Compound bow let off you just pull when you've got good cover to pull, you know you're at full draw, you hold you wight. You eight, You wait, you wait, that animal pops out and you know you're able to get a nice shot off. You can't do that with a traditional bow. And you know, unless you're Hulk Hogan and you can hold it that long, you know you're waiting until just a few seconds or a fraction of a second to be able to get the full draw and get that arrow off. So that one like, you don't really camp out at all. Full drawing isn't the kind of like a fluid motion depends. You know, lots of guys shoot that way. They shoot split finger, so one finger above the knock, two fingers below the knock on the string. They're drawing, drawing all the way back and you know standard places middle finger, corner of the mouth, and they're just the whole time they're drawing, they're just burning a hole and what they want to hit. And when they hit full draw, the arrow is gone. It's that fluid motion. It's instinctive shooting. I'm kind of a hybrid system. I'm not a gap shooter, but when I get to my first anchor point, I'm locked in and I'm there for a couple of seconds and and I can hold yeah, a beat or too longer until I can get to my second anchor point and then I'm gone. So I'm a slower shooter than a lot of guys. But you can draw back and hang out for a couple of seconds, a few seconds, and then still do a nice shot. You wouldn't need to let off and start over again to get your system down. Yeah. I had a buck come in on me this year and he was coming at a just a nice crisp walk, and I came to full draw right at the point when I thought he was going to come out in my shooting lane, and he stopped it. So here I am. I have no shot, and I'm at full draw, and I'm holding and I'm waiting and I'm waiting and I'm waiting and I you know, just waiting for him to do is take like three or four more steps, and you know, my whole body's quaking like an aspen leaf. You know, I'm like, there's no way this is not going to happen. And so I had to really gingerly let down. And the good thing I did, because he ended up staying there for a long but now I didn't spook him, and then only he actually turned away and started to walk away and then turned back around and went right through the shooting lane. I hoped he'd come through and then I was able to make the shot. Yeah, yeah, yeah, what kind of stuff you want? Egg Land? I hunt mostly behind my house where I've got I own thirty six acres, and then I have permission on another gosh, I don't even know, probably two or three hundred acres, which I know it doesn't sound like a lot in you know, in Western terms, that's that's all. That's a chunk of land, and it's it's all ridge. You know, it's all mountain land basically. Not No, so not eggland. Nope, well used, I mean I traveled other places to hunt, so I do have some property. Your main hunting spot big woods, ye, big woods? Yeah, and you use you use bait for deer, No, no bait for me. New York States baits not legal, not New York. So so what do you? Ohio, I think are closest state that allows bait. So what do you what do you like to sit on that you're sitting on trails? I sit on trails, So bait is not allowed at all New York States. Not you're not even allowed to feed deer in New York State. I think I think that's true. It's true in some counties, and I think it's going to become true statewide, mainly because of chronic wasting disease, so there's concerns about that. So yeah, you can use set attractors. So what is your typical setup? I figure out betting areas and feeding areas, and I like to get close to betting areas because you know, deer aren't moving until you know the last light. So if you know, if you're sitting on food, do you sit there all day and you're not going to see anything? In a lot of cases, not always, but you know, especially if you're hunting in October, when you know deer they're not food stressed yet or anything, and so they're staying in their beds until after dark and then they're gonna get up and move to food. So if you can find those betting areas and get close. And what I like to do is figure out the terrain funnels. You know, I'm hunting mountain grounds, so there's you know, lots of little hollows and bridges with benches and that kind of stuff, and so you know, I try to figure out how a buck is going to get from his bed to his food. And sometimes there's you know, things that are like staging areas where you know buck will come out. It's a safe spot because there's some cover there and he'll hang out a little bit, you know, before heading off to the food and there's a great spot. So if you can figure them out where he's gonna mill around around, you do see that quite often, like just glass and deer, any kind of hunting situation with deer, I think oftentimes you'll see them where where they spend a lot of time in the in the after, like if they're coming out for the evening feed, where they spend a lot of time before really committing to coming out onto a big stage flat or coming out and do an egg field. You know they're up and they're not They're not like just standing there. They'll feed on some brows and yeah, but they say they know that like risky step and prolonging that risky thing, you know, And you can see a lot of mine in those places. You'll see lots of tracks and you know ship and as far and if you're looking for bucks, you know a lot of times you'll find rubs popping up the Yeah, because they're I think they're bored. You know, they're in there there. They don't want to go to the food because you know, that's a dangerous spot. Often doesn't have a lot of cover. They're in a place with a lot of cover, and they're just kind of moving around in there, maybe feeding on what's there, rubbing. Yeah, it's I don't think people I'm sure they do. Some people probably don't realize what twenty yards is close. Yeah, I mean you're like breathing the air with them. But must be you must be sitting there sometimes and have deer walk by, like that deer is so damn close. But I'm not gonna take the shot. Oh, I love it. That's one of my favorite things. Actually. You know, it's just you know how you know, having a dough and a couple of fawns walked by it, you know, at ten yards and they're right there. I mean, you see every hair on that deer. You can see her eyelashes, you know, you can you can see her their nostrils flaring in and out when she's breathing. I mean, it's not That's why I'm in the woods I mean that's the stuff that really makes your heart tick after after you know, growing up tree standing hunting for deer and then moving out west and just being so in love with spot stock hunting and backpack hunting, you know, like hunting really big country with firearms, especially UM or even just with bo but like traveling while you're hunting. Uh. I never got like really nostalgic for being in a tree. But then one day I was just out in Miles City with my brother and we spent a couple of days bow hunting out of trees and um after a long break from it, after a decade of not doing it, and I remember sitting in that tree being like, man, I just totally forgot the level of detail where just being there and and instead of you moving to things, are you moving into some things? Just that having the things come to you. Remember being like having raccoons messing in the tree next to me, and then squirrels and the way birds will come up and land on your arrow shaft and all that. You're like, oh, I totally forgot, like you watch wildlife in such a different way, or like how skin is rough, growls are I okay, think how many times sitting in my tree stand and just observing a rough growlse, which doesn't happen. You can hunt. You can be the biggest damn bird hunter in the world and you don't. The only thing you ever see of rough grouse is them going. But to be like, oh, yeah, there is he's feeding. Yeah, I mean malone, me's scratching and leaves. It's like you see ship that you just don't see. Yeah, I mean when you're hiking hunter. You know, we all all kind of evolved as hunters, and you know, we think about what it is we really like to do and and how we do it. And I got to a stage in my hunting where I felt guilty for not doing more spotting, stock hunting, or not doing more you know, kind of still hunting. It's always sitting in a tree or sitting in a ground blind. And I was like, man, I should really, you know, I should start doing more of that other stuff. And I have done more of it, but I always come back to this this thing, you know, where I've matured a little bit. And I said, well, that's what I love to do. For all the reasons you just explained. I just love of, you know, to to just figure the deer out. Just really learn a place, you know, learn what makes it tick. You know, where's the topography, where's the food, where do they bed? Where is that one spot in the entire forest that a deer is going to walk by? That's what really it's like a chess game. I mean, that's what really gets me going. And then on top of that, you know you've become part of the forest when you're sitting there for hours on end and you get to see the really cool stuff, you know, the the red fox, you know, leaping up in the air and snow diving after meadow balls. I mean, that's the kind of stuff you don't really get to see if you're out cruising around too much. But if you're right there, you know, you get to see a lot of interesting wildlife. Remember being here one time and watching a mink dedicate about twenty minutes of his life to trying to catch a chipmunk and some holes and some trees and just be like, man, you know genacious. Yeah, the ship you just never would notice, you know, I loved it. Now you mentioned ground blinds, you say, ground lines, not pop ups much. Yeah, that's like a generational thing and I think it's like so few people mile Man would build. He'd build a wigwam ground blind, but he was trained up hunting traditional archery, hunting recurb. When he switched to compounds, though, he would still quite off and build a wigwam style ground blind and he would even excavated out so it's just dead quiet. And then it's wigwam style dome. He'd build a brush dome. I mean where it was clothes on top. Where does the word wigwam come from? Like the Jibwe and other Eastern where you're born, those people, the indigenous people where you were born used wigwams. You were born in aam? No, you were born in a wigwam country? Typing wigwam in your damn phone? Isn't there a sock company called Wigwam? But nobody knows the style of house. Jimmy Dorn, you know what that means? Lowly pianman pizza, That shelter, Yeah, don't shelter, don't shelter, will reads and I don't know, leaves and stuff on it. They sheathed it with different things, anything barked grass. But it's like that's that's the first time I've heard of it. He's in it like because we built. I mean, that's all I sat in growing up. You know, until we were old enough to get into a tree, it was always ground by it. But we never built like a roof woven. It's like a woven thing. So you wind up, you go around your perimeter and put in long bendy poles and you make a circle long bendy poles. The imagine bending all those poles in and to meet at the top. And then then you have like what looks like umbrella staves with no umbrella, and then you run circular like you're there. They're basically forming lines of latitude. So there's your lines of longitude, like a half of the globe with longitude lines on it, and then you put in you take sticks and make your lines of latitude. Then you brush it in. But then you pick your shooting height, which is whatever your comfortable height is when your kneeling or sitting or whatever, and you leave that band of latitude not covered in any brush, and that's where you shoot out of and you could do a square dance there and they're not gonna know what you're in there. When I was with a lot of work, when I was in Africa. We hunted out of these. They called him rock hides, but they're they're basically pit blinds and then build up with rock to about waist high and then above that is basically a thatched hut, you know, with little shooting ports in it. And so it's kind of wig wam like but it's just thatched grasses and stuff. And I mean you'd get away with anything in there. Yeah, this is like basically, if he was alive now, he used to build these ground blinds now, and then if he was alive now, he'd have a pop up blind. Because pop blind same damn thing. It's like you can get away with a lot of movement. Somebody should make one and call it the synthetic wig wad. Yeah, you can get away a lot of movement to pop up blind, you know. Um, But anyway, yeah, I've never I've never shot. You put a lot more thought into where you're setting up your pop up blind. If you had to build that, know it was you would have you would have a couple of them around. You'd have a couple of them around. That would just be in your repertoire. You know, I can still take it. It's funny because the farm, one of the farms you grow up on, I could take you where it was like a spot where my old man like to sit and there was no appropriate tree there, and he would just have this, you know, this ground blinding sitting on it. But you'll you'll sit ground blinds. Yeah, but I don't build but don you just get whipped so bad. I don't build wigwams because they part of it. I mean, I'm on the move all the time. I use a climbing tree stand most of the time. I like to move from place to place. And if you're gonna stop and build a ground blind, you're actually gonna take out a saw and you cut some stuff much scent and disturbance. So I carry just a little like little mesh netting on fiberglass poles that I can just right down in front of me and I try to back myself up to a dead fall or even a bunch of dense grasses or something like that. Yeah, it's no trouble like a turkey blind set up almost. Yeah, that's my system now for them with the kids, that's what I carry because there's just no way you're gonna get them. It's still do you do you wear a gilly suit? Yeah? I love gilly suits. There are so much fun and they're tough with bos though, because you got all that strands of stuff hanging. That's what I do. I take scissors and trim it up. But I always tell guys who are thinking about a gilly suit, as you practice like crazy in that thing before you go hunting with it. I mean, even back here at your chest, you know, you you know, depending on your your body shape, you know, your bowstring sometimes can get into your chest, and with all those strands on there at snags, you really have to be careful. Now are you? Were you trained as an ornithology work an ornithology lab? Yeah, work at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, which is the like ornithology lab. Yeah. Yeah, I wasn't trained as an ornithologist per se. I mean my degrees are in wildlife biology and ecology and a little bit of forestry. But I did my master's work on on birds. I worked on American castrals. We just had a castral in one of our shows. Those castrales working while we're hunting. Uh Muelder, Nevada. A lot of castles in there. Yeah, what were you looking at with castrels. I was that that was working at a place in Pennsylvania called Hawk Mountain Sanctuary where they have a bunch of property there, and I was looking at just you know, how they select their nest sites. Their populations are declining, and trying to figure out, you know, what is it about their territories around their nest sites and the nest sites themselves that makes some of them really successful and others not successful. Why did nest fail in those places? You know, because it was just did you find anything like conclusive? Well, one thing I found is that, you know, kestrals do best in past your kind of situations. They don't like, you know, row crops, corn, soybeans. They just can't hunt very well. And for for the size of the bird, they have pretty short legs and so getting down into some of those row crops is tough for them. There's, uh, you know, lots of insecticides used in those places, and they feed on a lot of insects, so that doesn't work very well. But you know, past your situations are great for kestrals. The other huge thing is starlings. So if you have kestral nests either in a natural cavity in a tree or in a nest box, and you're pretty close to the farm proper, close to the barn where you've got big populations of starlings. Starlings will just go in there and they take their bill and they pierce holes in the kestrel's eggs and then it was build their nest right on top of the But the castrals will probably just they feed on the startling. They could eat the starling outside of the nest, but they just don't. They're just too timid and they just don't do it. I spent the time with a guy that was in the blue bluebird restoration and he like typified his work as um just on a large property. You know, he was having great success of bluebirds. But he was like, if I was going to condense it, all doubts, I kill English barrels and starlings because that's that's how you helped bluebirds. There's no doubt about that. Yeah. So uh, like, is there a certain amount of writing involved? And you're like, wow, how did you, like, why how did you come to start writing an article and books and whatnot? Look, if you got that whole of the set of obligations yeah, I just love to write you know, my you know, when I'm out hunting and I have all those experiences, you know things we were talking about, seeing all kinds of wildlife and and dealing with bows and arrows, which I just love. You know, there's a whole rich history of archery in all the woods and there's just so much you know, richness to it, and I just felt a need to start to write it down. So I used to write it down for myself. And one day I said, well, you know, maybe I'll just write this down a little more formally and send it to a magazine. And it took me a few tries and then boom, one day I got a letter into mail and said we've accepted your article and we're going to send you a check Gigantic magazine. Check Gigantic. I don't know about that, but I was like, oh yeah, And I was just I mean, you know, I have a full time job. I have a career that I love, you know, doing conservation biology and wildlife work. But you know, this was something that I was really passionate about and I and I wanted to do, and so I've just done it. Sure, I make a little extra money on it. But honestly, it's not enough to It's enough to buy a couple of bows and go on a couple of hunting trips now and then, but certainly not. I mean guys who are freelance writers and make a living at it, I don't know how they do it. I mean, you've got to be a machine to turn out enough articles, you know, to really do well at it. But for me, it's you know, it feels a niche in my brain. So what year was the first year? Um? Once you sell your first article too for publication? Two thousand two, maybe two thousand two or two thousand three, somewhere in that ballpark. And then how so, here's the thing I always wanted about with writers, Like, like, I think there's people who are really into something like your airplane enthusiasts, let's say, And that's the thing you are, your airplane enthusiasts, and then Sunday you write a book about planes. Or You've got people who are writers and they're like, I'm gonna write, so here's my subject matter? Right? Were you the I'm gonna write and you found your outlet through traditional archery or you like, I'm going to do traditional archery and then eventually like, I know so much, I'm going to write it down. No, my, my, my connection was definitely through archery, hunting and then writing. Yeah, you're like, I'm gonna dispense my uh wisdom or try to like put some of my thoughts and find out what exactly they are by putting them on the paper. Yeah. My freshman year in college I had to take a remedial writing course just just to get in. I mean, you know I did. Coming out of high school. I was no writer. Yeh see, I was gonna write some damn thing. Yeah, I mean I knew I was gonna write Yeah. Yeah, No, I definitely was not that. But once I figured it out, you know, once I figured out what I needed to do to get better as a writer, I loved it. I mean I just hate right into it, into the I got into the craft of doing it. And I write a lot for work too. I mean, I you know, a lot of what I do is you know, as conservation biology that's focused on strategic planning, and so I take science done by other people. I take science that we do, you know, in our own team, and you know, this is what you what you guys were talking about earlier and figure out how to reformulate that into conservation and management recommendations for wildlife. That's what I really love to do because so taking information making an applicable to real world situation exactly, and especially to practitioners, you know, to foresters and land managers and people who are actually out on the ground doing it. What I want to do is give them a cookbook. I want to give them a set of best management practices to go out and manage for you know, whatever sweetest species we're talking about. Yeah, I can imagine likely you got the guy I always think about my my friend Doug Darren. Um. You know, he's got a background and he manages a family property, um and they do egg and they do timberlands and stuff. But he's got all these little battles on, you know, like certain oaks right, like trying to get some native like oak species regenerated. And it's a huge problem because you know, white tails love them. Can't get him up, you know. And imagine like as he's figuring all this out, you also have there's probably resources out there, you know that some guy knows. But just making the the two people come together you know, or like you got the guy who's like trying to do something like on the ground stuff and given that person all those tools of what might be known in the academic world, you know, and making sure that all those connections get made. Yeah. I mean, for so many years, those connections didn't get made because you know, scientists, by virtue of where they worked, often at academic institutions, weren't you know, they just didn't get into making policy. They you know, they were steered away from any kind of advocacy and they you know, they weren't translating their results into management recommendations. And so much of that has changed now. I mean, you know, where I work, we're encouraged to do that. You know, we really want to take that next step and take the science and and put it on the ground. And you know, cooperative extension units at a universe an extension agent exactly. It is meant to be that guy who's the liaison between practice there like land managers in research, right, yeah, exactly. And I mean those were set out initially to try to figure out how you can get your Holstein to produce you know, more pounds of milk. But you know now that's that's widened out into you know, into soil conservation science, and you know, I do non game bird work, and you'd be amazed at the number of people who are they're interested in doing that kind of stuff. They own fifty acres that was once a working farm and it's not a working farm anymore. They've got some money and they want to manage for wildlife. You know, they want to they like birds, they want to have you know, some warblers around or whatever it is. Yeah, coming from a like a Western perspective, um, I think it's hard for some people who have a distinctly Western perspective don't realize the importance of private lands conservation on the eastern half of the country where you just don't have that, uh, where you don't have you know, lot of a lot of these states in the West fifties, six of the land mass is federal or state forest public land. So you look at like, oh, yeah, all the conservation work, you know, like happening in these areas. You get out on the east and the landowners aren't doing good conservation work. It's not happening. Yeah, I mean some of the species I work with, like golden wing warbler and wood thrush, as much as of their distribution in the United States is on private land. So if you can't do conservation on private land, moving the needle on those populations, you know, trying to stabilize the population and recover them, you just you aren't going to do it on public land. Yeah, I mean, there's plenty of ways that it happens. But you almost like to see you like to see more credit go to those people who um on there. You know, I think it Doug and many many guys like Doug. But those people who are thinking about that stuff, like, in addition, they have an obligation, right Like you have property it's expensive to maintain, you have an obligation to you know, pull resources off there and try to make money or break even or whatever your situation is the land. But then people who we talked about earlier about handicapping yourself with certain things, but like handicapping your operation by having some obligation to wildlife on there as well, is this is the way the hell off subject. But it's important work man. But you you're dealing that kind of stuff so all the time, and you're trying to figure out cooperative solutions to a lot of this stuff. Like you know, as a suite of species, grassland birds are declining faster than any other bird group. And a big reason for the decline is just the way in which we take off hay crops. Now we take off more crops, and we take those hay crops off earlier. And so these are these are birds that nest right on the ground. They're obligate ground nesting grassland birds, and they just get hammered by you know, the the hay mowing. And so figuring out how you work with farmers so that farmers can still get their hay crop off, can still feed their animals, can still make money from selling hey, and you can still you know, have a window of time where you can get at least one brood of young you know, of those grassland birds off. I mean that that's the kind of stuff that's fun to me because, you know, working landscapes are that what you know, what this country is built on. You know, landscapes need to continue to work, but they also need to be able to produce wildlife, and so figuring out how to do that is it's an art end of science. I worked for a greenhouse for quite a while when I was in high school, and we would in the summer day, uh in the spring, they'd be hardening off the flat. You know, flats like when you go buy plants, they come into those little like a flat, like a flat of flowers. Right, we'd move hundreds of flats out in the fields. They'd come out. You'd be lowering the conveyor into greenhouse. He'd be empty these entire greenhouses and lining these fields of flats. So just be like a field of flats. Remember one time and we're all they're pulling in thousands of flats and I find a flat that had that killed your head, put its eggs in the cup of the flat. So we pick every flat up and I leave the one flat laying out in this field, and I explained to the owner. I'm like, hey, you know that one out there, I didn't pick it up. Scotto killed your eggs in it. That's not much walks out in that field, picks that flatum still setside greenouse. We're like, come on, I mean, I I was so soft as a kid. I remember being struck by that ship is being like dude, come on, so how how long did it? When did you start working on your boat on traditional bowl hunters path, Like, how long is something like that taking when you got a whole of the job you're trying to do. Yeah, And my son was born just as I was starting to work on this thing, and so you know, I was one of those deals where you get up at four in the morning, you know, and you're right for two hours like mad at the kitchen counter until I hear him wake up, and you know, and the whole family thing starts. But I don't know if we start to finish, it's about two years something like that. I mean, I think I turned the manuscript in about I don't know, maybe fourteen months or something like that. And then there's that whole you know, editing process and production you know, you know the drill, you know that goes into all of that. So who do you man, like, who's the most who's the best audience for it? In your mind? Is it? Are you thinking like, uh um, is it meant to be for people looking to get into it? For dudes that are already into it? Yeah, it's everybody. That's a tough question. Well, this is one of those first books to where you know you're throwing the kitchen sink at it a little bit, you know, because it's the first time I've done it, So I guess I have I have three audiences in mind. I have traditional bow hunters, you know, transitional archers who are already into it, and there's a ton of information in here that I think they'll they'll like and can benefit from, lots of how to stuff. It's for compound shooters who want to pick up a traditional bow. And traditional archery is one of the fastest growing sports that we have. I mean, people are really coming to it and there's not a lot of good information out there about how you make the switch. So, you know, compound shooters wanting to switch the traditional archery is is another one. Another audience. Like their challenges or what they're facing are different than someone who's got no archery background coming into it. Yeah, it's a little different. And just you know, what boat do I buy? I mean, you know there's there's hundreds of bowlers out there now, you know, do you get a long boat, do you get a recurve? Do I spend a thousand bucks on a custom bow? Or should I just go buy a production boat? Now you come down and be like and help people. Are you just try to muddy the waters in your boat? I try to help people, know, so you're like specific recommendations, well specific as you can get, I mean without being brandy is different. I mean, I'm looking across the table here at Yanni, here what six one? Probably you know you're you're a big guy, and you know your your whole situation is going to be different than mine. And so when I make recommendations about what boat to go with, you really have to there's some generalizations. Yeah, but okay, I guess kind of what I'm getting at is this in the in the how to like we did some how to stuff, like some like how how to books and and there you want to be like, oh, yeah, you know, a good pair of boots should do X, Y and Z, right, So you can leave it at that, or you could say, for instance, this is a hell of a boot, like do you help people where you're kind of like, listen, I don't a whole bunch of hunting killed a bunch of game. There's a lot of reasons, there's a lot of arguments foreign against all this kind of stuff. If you're on defense, go recurve, not long bow, or you just kind of say, like, here's all the ship to consider. Yeah, I guess I think I mostly just say here's all the ship to consider a little more pointed than that, you know, But I definitely don't say, if you're making a switch from compound, yeah, absolutely have to shoot a recurve because that's the pathway then to the long bow or something. I just don't believe that. I think everybody's got to make their own decision, and I think, you know, if you give them good information, they can do it. People are smart, I mean, they can figure this stuff out, you know, so I try to steer them down the right path. Now do you feel that, Uh, do you find yourself trying to talk people in the traditional are you like, if you're interested, here's a resource. Yeah. I I talked to try to talk people into it in the sense that I'm really passionate about it, and I love, you know, the leather and the bone and the wood and all the stuff that just comes with it. To me, that gets Yeah, I didn't love you know, it's just so cool. But on the other hand, you mean, you gotta have to have a lot of time to invest in practicing, you know, every day and have a place to hunt, and really, you know, not just time practicing, but you're not gonna go shoot a squirrel or a rabbit or a deer every time you go out with a traditional bow. It's gonna be every tenth time you go out, or every fiftieth time. And so if you're working, you know, seventy hours a week at some job and you have three kids and you really want to learn how to hunt, or you're already a hu her and you just want to do something a little different, it's probably not the right thing for you at that time. So no, I don't I don't you know, take people by the shoulders and say, hey, you gotta do this. Yeah. That's the thing though, because people are saying to me like, oh, so you think that everyone who I'll go hunting, I'm like, no, no, not at all. No. If you're interested in, I'd love to have a chat with you, but I'm not gonna like try to convince you to be interested in. There has no doubt. I'm amazed at the number of you know, this whole notion of you know, adult onset hunters. You know people who are you know, who have never hunted there in their twenties or thirties, or you know, maybe even forties or fifties, and they're coming to hunting. And we're seeing that so much in New York State, you know, coming out of out of the city and out of other urban areas, people who have been introduced to hunting through food and through meat eater. And you know, I get it all the time. I work at Cornell University where I'm surrounded by students that are coming from all over the country and they hear through the grapevine that I'm a hunter, and then I'm a traditional bow hunter, and they'll seek me out and come to me and say, look, you know, I've never done this before. And and by the way, I don't tell my classmates I'm interested in this, but I really wanted to. I really want to check this out kind of thing. And I'm just that did that never happened ten years ago? And yeah, I shouldn't say never, but it didn't happen often, not like it is now. Good. No, there's no doubt about it. In my mind. The biggest argument against I like, I own a long bowl, I own a recurve. Never killed a big game animal with a long bowler recurve. Yanni and I talked about this not long ago. It's like my thing is like my primary goal as a hunter. It's like primary goal as a hunter and fisherman. Uh, you know, I got a million secondaries, or I guess you only have one secondary. I got the second third, four fift six, right. Primary goal is that I don't did uh I have enough meat where when my family's eating at home, we have wild game meat. That's like my number one thing, so all else falls from that. It's like I want to be that when we're eating in the Ronella household. Like when I cooked dinner at night, I go into my freezer and I got enough game meeting there where, you know, and I think that, Um, if I knew, I was gonna fulfill that all the time, and I fulfill it quite handily right now, primarily because of the particulars of my my occupation. I have absolutely no problem doing that. But let's say I got into some other line of work down the road that really limited how much time I spent outdoors, and I was looking at that long bowl as much as I'm like, man, I told I respected, right, I respected no end Um, I got kind of like some family ties of that stuff. I get it. It's it's like a higher art. But I look at something like but I know, if I you know with that righte me, I'm gonna be piling I'm piling up the pounds of meat. I mean, we eat a ton of innocent I mean, it's almost the only meat we eat. And so you know, my goal every year is to stock the freezer too. And it takes a lot of time with a long bower recurve, but you can do. But I mean, I have three deer in the freezer right now, and you know that's a that's a good jump on the situation. By the time the season is over, I hope to have two or three more. And you know, in battle debtal, you know there's a that's my wife and I have three year old son, and I have a daughter who's just two months old, so she's not eating venison yet, but she will be soon. And uh, yeah, you got if you're pointing away a few deer, you're loving it. Yeah, and you know that I mentioned earlier, But you got a lot. But again, you got a lot of days into it. Yeah, hunting three days, huge amount of time. I mean, you know, I my funny. We were cleaning out some stuff at the house a couple of weeks ago, and my wife ran across one of my old hunting journals and she starts leaping through and she was like, holy shit, you hunted every single day from October one to almost the end of November. It's like, yeah, I either get a morning hunt in or an afternoon hunt for every day. I mean, I don't do it anymore because I have a family and I just can't. But when I was single, I when I was out there all the time. But you mentioned about phil in the freezer those times that I was pulling the muzzle loader out in the last twenty five years, it was at the end of the season and the freezer was empty. So that's your freezer filling. Like, baby, I'm getting serious getting out this here flint lock. That's crazy. Take no prisoners, Yeah, prisoners today. Man, I got this souped up fire over minds all rusty too, and the scopes are the scope of stocks all banged up, a system mess. So would you do you ever think you're right about hunting with flint locks. That's a whole damn thing too. Man. Yeah, I don't know, I love My dad got me into flint locks, and I just love doing it. And yeah maybe someday. Yeah, you gotta have nerves to steel because you need to hold steady between the first boom and the second boom. Most people the first boom they got the muzzle six inches up in the air. You gotta sit tight. Boom. Well, when you get those really delayed fires to you know, where the flint hits, the friends in the powder in the pan flashes and your hold, hold, hold, and all of a sudden boom. You know, by that time, you're well off what you were going to shoot at. Yeah. I've done some mess around with those back. I like that stuff. But yeah, it's fun. But but do you what do you think you're gonna do? You think you do more books? Yeah, definitely thinking about another book and working on it now. I was working on in the hotel room a little bit and just kind of framing it and getting some stuff on paper. At the moment, it's not going to be about bow hunting. No, it's gonna be it's gonna be about hunting. Uh. It's I found in writing this book that I like writing about people, you know, I love writing about natural history and hunting and all that stuff. But I really love writing about people, and I'm passionate about conservationist and the whole hunter concert conservationist movement. And it strikes me that, you know, we hear all the time about this whole suite of people who you know, who founded the Hunter Consolvations, different pin shows, r now, all those fells all. Yeah. I've only in the last year really started to like just dedicate a little bit of free time of like learning more about that the name. But there's a whole bunch of others too, like FDR you know, did a whole bunch of you know, found in the Civilian Yeah, oh yeah, yeah, yeah, some of the like the New Deal Works. He had a hand in founding National Fish and Wildlife Foundation, and there's all sorts of stuff other He's an unsung hero if he in fact is a hero, absolutely no one talks about that guy. So don't talk about I mean felt I had to get a little bit tangled up in World War Two, but I mean no one talks about it through the lens of conservation. Conservation. Yeah, you just put your finger on what I'm what what the book is going to be about It's my working title is his Red Hands, Green Hearts stories of American hunters and conservationists, and so what I want and I want to tell their stories how it's I don't want to just do like you know, Roosevelt did X, Y and Z. Why did he do it? What wres? What his hunting experiences? Like? What how of Leopold hunt? I mean, you know, I've Leopold actually from what I've read, wasn't a very successful hunter, and his wife actually out hunted him a lot. But those stories are now he seems to do a little bit of blundering in the game. Yeah, yeah, exactly. He kind of was that was like the kind of take the long walk. Yeah, and like, well to come up with some of the stuff that that he said, you had to have a long walk exactly. Yeah. I'm as you probably walked past a lot of ships like deep and thought and then he realized, I'll stand. So I just want to I want to find some of those figures too, like FDR, like um Stewart, you do all uh, you know some of these people who who were hunters and did great conservation work but are completely unsung. You know, we just don't know about him, and I want to tell their stories. Yeah, that's interesting. Now Stackpole Books is kind of cool because they do so much stuff in the in the outdoor space. You've been around a long time, have you like to work with those guys? And I guess you can't say if you didn't know. They've been great fantas stick I mean they've been such like a constant and UH as far as like like uh natural history stuff and hunting and fishing spaces and venture traveling. Yeah. I mean it was funny because when I had the idea for this book, and I wrote the proposal and I sent it out to a bunch of different publishers and Stackpole was top on my list, and I never heard back from them, and so I was picked him again and never heard anything. And I was literally just about ready to sign a contract with someone else when Judas Snell from UH Stackpole returned one of my Yeah, and she she said, she said, absolutely, we're interested in your book. I'm so sorry I haven't been able to get back to you. And it was just like boom, everything fell into place after that, and so he was I mean she was literally hours or a day away from you know, where I was from from you know what's going with someone else? So where what's the best way people? What's the best way people find your book? I'm gets on Amazon right, It's on Amazon. Um you can buy it there, but you can also buy it at my website, which is Traditional Spirit Outdoors dot com. Well, all, what what kind of stuff is on your website? It's stuff about the book and other stuff. I do a lot of freelance writing, and you know, I'll do writing for people's websites, kind of content development, that kind of thing. And do you do other ship? Like are you nap? Do you nap broadheads? And do arrow shafts and stuff? Make arrows? But I don't do any napping. You haven't shot. You haven't napped ahead and tried to shoot something with it. I've tried. You say, you make an arrow? What do you what's what's your blanks? Late? Yeah, I'm starting with a starting with just a wooden shaft unfinished, you know, I buy a wooden shaft and then go from there. Seater. I like ASH. You know, Ash is a little heavier. In your book, you talked about the fletching and the fletching process. Yeah, that's fun. Stuff. Yeah, for sure. So say the website again, it's uh traditional Spirit outdoors dot com. If you go on area, they probably buy a signed book off right, they can get a sign book. And the other thing they can do is I give ten percent of all books sales back to back country hunters and anglers. And so when you remember the cover price, the cover price when you're buying book, you give, you give two dollars and ten cents to b h A. It's generous, you know. It's I think conservation is so pissed ance at Patagoni they only give one percent. You're really gone on those boys. It's dead trout pictures. It comes from a place of love. It comes to a place of love. I've always like, I know a lot of guys hunting patagon I like Padagon. You actually met a feller that works a Padagon not long I was tell him about that. It's just that I feel like they've you know, you got this like patriarch kind of started this company and he's like, uh, he likes to do a little hunting and fishing and whatnot. And I just feel like they haven't got they haven't got the member, they haven't got trolling for him or a representative to give us a call. At one point that he was a closeted hunter. I think that's that's not true. I think people he's not closeted. He like he's like open about because he did. He was just recently profiled in the New Yorker and uh and then there he talks about a bit about hunting. He's not closeted. But I thought he's closeted. Yeah, I don't know anyhow what was I saying? But why that? How did that come up onto the planet? You know, Yann did a whole t whole damn T shirt run. I think he gave all the money. Sid. I can't compete with that, Yann. It's been good for how good for you? We've been well? I just think the exposure, you know, it gives us. It's it's marketing. But so alright, So explain that you had a tir you had a T shirt. There's b h A written on it. Yeah, we we we specifically made a T shirt for this person for this take the money out to make the T shirt? So at yasah. Yeah. Yeah, So like I said, profits al right, So once we paid for the shirts, paid for the design you like losing money, because that's that's the bad business. Any won't even be around to do any good for him. Yeah. No, it's great. Man. When you get an email or you know, a personal phone call from Land and he's like, dude, you guys really put your you know, your money where your mouth was and like we just got another check from you. Guys were so stoked, like you send the check in. Yeah, yeah, it feels really good. I might have told it. I might have told stop. I told this story on the podcast. I one time went to God, have I told the story. I was down and remember something North Carolina, Like what's the trendy town in North Carolina? Charlotte, North Carolina. And this guy down there I was doing this. He does this wild game dinner okay, where he charges you know, seventy five I go sevy five bucks a seat. He's wild They didn't dinner. And I pointed out to him, like, you know, some of the seminal wildlife conservation legislation in this country had to do with banning the sale of wild game meat. And that's kind of how we recovered our wildlife species because we got rid of market hunting and what you're engaged in here is you're engaged in market hunting um and you're breaking a whole lot of laws by having by charging for a wild game dinner. We talked some more about him, like he goes, oh so, and so I'm like, yeah, places do fundraisers. You can do fundraisers with proper accounting. You know, where you have wild game dinner and you raise money and the money goes is not a for profit venture. And he then says okay. And so then I I go to one of these dinners, this private book tour thing I'm on and he's and he says, how and I get to pick the recipient of the money, and I picked. I picked the theater Roosevelt Conservation Partnership. After that dinner, I got hold of him and say, hey, you let me know if you ever get a check from the organization or the person or anything. Never got it, Never got it. And he's talking about it at the event. Tricky son of a bit. Yeah, if you know, I didn't like, I never like went after him bought it. But you know, I don't want to talk about anything. But but you know I didn't do like all the work I should have done to like document whatever. But I remember thinking it was a little bit. Yeah. Uh so you write them in, you just like write the check, you keep track of it or whatever. But they sell it too. Now, yeah, we had to. We're gonna print some more up and get them some shirts to sell. You guys sell Belltown Pizza T shirts. Lots of them comes summer. The tourists like to take them home, for sure. They walk all the T shirt pizza. Get a cool T shirt? Is that why you're asking me who does our T shirts? Yeah? I got a great guy did our T shirts. Situations mass Man. Everybody's like calling me up, trying to hit you up for T shirts because I know I know you. Yeah, just earlier Jimmy Doran hit me up for a Netgator for a friend, a kid of a friend. Yeah, my buddy Coady's kid, Ridge is gonna have anybody name Rich. We got a guy we worked with it we named the Bridge. He's a little his name is Chris. We name him Ridge Pounder. It's a cool name. Yea. His wife was miss Pounder, Rich Pounder. Whatever happen. That's some bit she needs to come back out with us. Yeah, he's talking to it all. Yeah, I'm keeping keeping the leash. I'm just trying to shorten the leash, you know. But yeah, he had to go and just you know, test the water's other places. Realized that he was already working for the great, the good fault. Yeah, Jimmy got the closing thoughts. Wow, not really, just enjoyed learning a little bit more about long bows and ree curves and I still have yea. You you shoot some arrows out of a have a compound, nice matthews and I like a lot. But you shot a freak buck with it. I think last week I did. I shot a really old, really smell, crazy looking, crazy looking deer um. Yes, five and four. It was really super old. You looked like you've been through hell. He's not in good shape. I did him a favorite. I think he was in the autumn of his life. Very end. Yeah, there's no uh no fat, No blood came in. I was just bizarre, but in about a thousand ticks on him and a distinct smell. So it was you probably served all that media. Yes, specialist, it's a little funny. We'll give you a discount of one. Yes, super Bowl, you ran a Super Bowl special area and so if you if you could sell it, that's what they paid a big box for. Across the Atlantic in Germany were I was told by a guy who's who you like? In Scotland stuff they do, you know, they got like different sister and there with landowner own it's not like America. Like America the people on the animals. There the landowner owns the animals and they sell. And the German market rutting stags, they want running stags. They like them. The word they use high. Okay, I think didn't we hear the same thing about the big boars in Texas and somehow they that's rights meat out for the big boars. I don't want that big boar. I'll take that little fat south. What are you saying for the European markets. Some European markets they like a good they like when they're eating game meat. They want to know I want to know it and they don't want to around. Oh it's so tender and mild and like that. Yeah. I've been trying to keep that in mind lately as I go through my meats, and you know, just like taste and whatever and just not have the like it's like eating these chicken breasts for always like, oh, the blander it is, the better it is, as opposed to being like oh me and culture in general. Yeah, like the measure of good meat is tender and mild. Yeah, exactly, it's tender and mild must be good. Yeah. And instead now I'm like, you know, maybe I want to shoot that runted up buck. You know, dude, we did a pepsi challenge. We were eating raw meat out of one and a half year old buck and raw meat out of um, like four or five year old you know, full on buck. Now, the one had been hanging in a tree in cold weather for several days, so that that gives it. The big buck had been hanging. It's just like you would have known, not even and everybody talks about oh yeah that old buck. Well I'll shoot a eat her buck, and you know all that. It's like, dude, that buck. There was no difference between those two bucks. Raw meat, the same cut. The bigger buck actually, um, it was better texture. Yeah, to the tooth it was better than the young buck. But I was the young buck was literally killed eight hours. But that fresh meat has a real iron taste to it. It's got like hasn't gone through its rigor process. Yeah, what's that process called helen choe you know ye e K G May where they catch a fish. You ever see this, Like I was out fishing with Helen and they catch fish and they cut the tail and bend the tail back, and then they run a steel rod like a piece of wire through the spinal column to relax that fish. But I saw guys in South America they called a big river turtle and they um ran a willow, not willow probably, but a long, bendy green stick all through down its spinal column and that just melted that turtle. Just relax. If you cut that off, turtle, you gotta wait six seven hours before you can cut it up. This turtle was just like yeah. But the same way when they shot Cattley. You know, I've watched the process cattle and like big slaughterhouses. You know, they hit with that captive bolt gun, hang them up. I think they hit with the cats with bolt gun, flip them around and hang them up upside down, bleed them, then electrocute them. And once you useapp them, they're just there's no flinching and kicking, just yell, yeah, they're just I think it does something to the whole the whole rigor process with the nervous system. But they got that same thing by running that rod through that turtle. Dude, I think it was not. You just eat it right then, and there probably severs all those nerve connections from the spine going out to the muscles and you know what, they're like this. You pull the arm out, the arm comes right back. You do that to it. He's just the brain is probably in. They're firing away, going, you know, pull a pool pool pool, but nothing's happening because it's all cut off. Speaking to Zap and me, did you ever get to try that tender buck gadget something? No? I still got it too. I want to try it, but it's like our hunting isn't really conducive to it. You have to take it out the dugs. Yeah, the place where we can get the whole cat like, Yeah, I can get a little my backpack up and put a battery in the squitching You got to carry a battery on. That's bad enough. Just get it from the car to the pier. Man. I can't imagine hiking back in four miles of a twelve vault. Um yeah, um, I think you did a really good job roun on Um. I owned a traditional for probably I don't know, at least six years, maybe a few longer. About the turkey got on accident I shot. I'm proud to say I've gotten three shots at elk with my recurve, all well within my range. You know. It's like that twenty yards or less range. All three arrows went clean over their backs. At the time, I was like, I was spending for for me at the time, big box to drive up to Montana because our our Monta or Colorado was archery seasonal closed. I would drive up to Montana, spends on a week long hunting trip and then fling one over the back, and I was like, I'm getting a confound. You know. Next year killed the cow um, but still proud of the fact that got in close. And numerous other times, you know, I let Elk walk it, you know, twenty five or whatever, and I think I'm gonna come back to shooting traditional at some point. But the turkey that I did kill um Before I shot at turkey with my shot gun. We would chase turkeys around with a reekers, which is super fun. We would do it just like Elk like have a caller behind us, you know, that would be calling the turkey and he'd come in strutton. And if that turkey strutting and he turns away from you, you've got all the time and you know, freedom in the world to draw your bow back and get a nice shot. They can't see nothing. But this is actually in the fall, and uh, when we're hunting Nebraska, I mean it's like it's near unlimited like turkey killing, Like I forget, you can kill quite a few in the fall. But we're basically just ambush on the roost, you know, so we would just like hang out where we knew they were gonna be coming back towards the roost and the evens, you know, so you're just in there, nothing's going on. And then five minutes later, it's like fifty turkeys around, you know. And a lot of times the young ones them are they still poults at that point And even if it's the fall, yeah, you can tell. I mean there's only like five pound birds, you know, but they're fighting and screwing around or whatever. And I had these I think they were two jakes, and they were locked up like they do with their necks. You know, like literally twirled around each other. And I'm thinking, oh, just easy, no big deal, you know, and I just draw back, try to pick my spot, let go and again, just right over the back of the one. I'm going, oh and right, I kind of say oh. At the same time, I hear this kind of like weird, like this turkey noise that's basically like oh, you know, and there's so many turkeys around that. Then I'm like, I'm better go check that out, you know, as I jump up and run, and my arrow had just like gone over this little rise just enough, and there was a hand back there, and she's running off of one of my arrows. Stuff been like, yeah, let's pull back on those jakes. And I saw that hand and thought it looks like a good eater. You know, you had to act like you meant it. Man. My buddy still makes fun of me who I was with, who had killed you know, piles of turkeys, you know, prior to that. But that was my first ever turkey you know, of any kind of you know, turkey kill. I come running back with that hand and now now everybody's like, oh, you carry him by the legs, right, Well, I got that hand by the neck. I'm just like, yeah, look here, here's my hand turkey. But anyways, back to the book, I think you did a really good job of like taking the pressure off of what traditional bow hunting isn't there, and you really explain that well to where like you're we're talking a little bit of touched on it earlier, where people get into and it's like, well, what makes it traditional? Do I have to be walking around in pure buckskins and moccasins or of course, yeah, you're right, and a coon skin hat, right, But You're like, no, it's like whatever you wanted to be, you can have it be that way and then pick what you like about it. And I gotta say, like, yeah, shooting those recurved bows, it's such a different thing locking off with a compound, you know, there's just such a beautiful, smooth, something flowy about it. You know, shoot him is great. But all that I have kind of like a follow up question, and as I was always wondered, it's a problem that I have with being um, left eye dominant, but the right hand and shooter and shooting traditional and everybody's always like you gotta shoot left, gotta shoot left. So now I have a left handed longbow. I've been messing around with a little bit. My shooting is not that great. It might get better, But my question is, like, how come people just don't take the simple bows that like you have on your cover here with a recurver longbo and just put like one pin they there. Yeah, that is that like totally okay cool? If there's just this weird thing that's happened probably in the last maybe twenty years. I mean, if you go back to the fifties and sixties and well, I like to collect vintage bows, so I have lots of old Beare bows and Ben Pearson's. They all have holes on the back of the riser where there used to be a site. I mean those old guys all shot sights when they're recurve bois, shot burger buttons and flipper rest on them. Yeah, exact. But there's this mindset now among the traditional archery crowd that you're not traditional, or you don't shoot instinctive, or you're somehow cheating. If you put a site pin on a recurve and I say foodie to that, that's a bunch of crap. I mean, if you want to use a site pin on a recurve. Do it, man, It's still it's it's there's still so much fun to be had with a recurve. And if that sight pin gives you some confidence, or if your cross eye dominant feel like it would like just having that one pin, I would just be like there is oh, it's but it's all or it's already. Like when when people start to act like there's like these rigid definitions of that stuff, it's like, what do they think there's a gatekeepers exactly, Like yeah, like all this equipment, but yet you flipped through three of hers Archery and it's not like side pin for a recurve. It's like it's like literally not in there. I think. I don't remember the name of it. But three Rivers does sell this really cool site. It's like a trapezoid shaped thing that's a little little frame. It's hollow, it's black like hello in a real lightweight to luminum, and one edge of it is painted fluorescent yellow. And so it's not a pin, but it's like an aperture you look through. So you've got that thing attached to your riser and you're looking kind of through this aperture that's not you know, it's not a pin prick like you're trying to put an arrow there, but it gives you a frame of reference and it's fast too. It's not like a pin where you gotta dial it in and it's just just come up and he bucks it in like on a rear receiver. Right, let's they call that on a peep yeah peep, yeah, you know, trying one of those. Yeah. Well, my brother who my brother Danny, who hunts, shoots a lot with the recurve, does some honey with his recurve. Um he you know, shoots carbon arrows, and he had to really look to find a carbon arrow that didn't have the fake wood on it because he felt like, He's like, I'm shooting carbon. I don't want to then try to act like I'm not and bullshit people, and he goes most of these carbon arrows sold have a would finish. We're supposed to be like, you're embarrassed about shooting carbon, but he's like, I'm not. I was like, like, I'm not gonna go out of my way and pay extra money to bullshit people. I shoot those bullshit arrows. He said, you almost have to. Well, the reason I do is because they're heavier because they're marketed to traditional bull hunters and they're a little heavier than standard carbon arrows for it. But he found and I have some right, I got something around here somewhere high high planes or something. Yeah, but he said, he said, you're almost forced in doing it because all the arrows of the of the right, you know, all done. But yeah, there's three rivers. Three rivers carry some guy that you just buy black. And he felt so much better about it, where he's like, it's like, guys, remember um, you know, like sneaky pete pool cues, right, great pool cues that are made to look shitty, so it looked like you were shooting a bar stick when you were actually shooting, like you're actually shooting a good QB. Did want everybody knows you got like they like make it look shitty cosmetically different, Yeah, I gets so fat. Yeah, but there are a lot of gate keepers. Yeah, I mean it happens in every discipline, you know, but it's like, oh yeah, you know, he gets a lot of elk. But you know he you know, shoots at bible or yards whatever, and in the traditional archer it's like oh yeah, but he's not he shot, he's snapping him. He's napping his points out of glass and not obsidian. Somebody's always going to give grief, oh man. And in your world there's a lot of it, and in the fly fishing world is a lot. Oh yeah. I mean, I'm sure i'll get emails after this podcast. You know already you're not traditionally. Let's get a coonskin cap. You'll make up for it. You got you got any final thoughts, bron, Yeah, I mean, I guess my one final thought here. You were asking earlier about you know, if I think peop should get into traditional bow hunting or traditional archery. And I don't know. I'm not going to force anybody into it for hunting sake, but I do think if you like to shoot anything, whether it's a handgun, shotgun or rifle, a compound bow, you'll love shooting along bow or recurve. It is just so to me. It's so satisfying to see that arrow fly, and you know, it's a little slower than a compound so you actually get to see the arc of the arrow. You know, the whole quid bone leather thing again. And the other thing I think that's just so freaking cool about it. And the thing that I don't know if I'll be able to explain this, but the thing that keeps me coming back is that it's one of the only hunting forms where it's your own energy from your body that's going into that arrow, that's going into that animal that's putting meat in the freezer. You know, it's like chucking a spear or something, but you know, everything else, something else is going to store that energy for you. But it with traditional bows, I mean, it's you, it's your shoulders, your him, you're back. You know, it's your own energy that's going into that arrow. And I don't know if that's maybe be an esoteric thing, but you know, it's just so cool to me. Yeah, we gotta Yeah, you can get all you can get, poetic, all you want. We're here. Um all right, So once more, your sons of bitches out there that want to start shooting trad bows. A Traditional bow Hunter's Path, Lessons and Adventures of Full draw Ron Roarbau Jr. What's your website? Again? Traditional? What is my website? It's Spirit Traditional, Spirit Outdoors dot com or you go find it out, you don't you don't get mad when people buy it off Amazon or No, I don't get bad. They can get We talked about three rivers. I should plug them. You can get it from three years to nice who broke her that I did that, getting in there and doing it. Yeah, you have to alright man, thanks tuning in, all right, thank you