00:00:03 Speaker 1: All right, this is the Meat Eater podcast. We're recording, uh Prince Wales Island. I'm here with one of my favorite people on the planet, Mr Ron Layton. What's your middle name? Ron? No middle name, no middle name whatsoever, Just Ron Layton. And also Joannice, the Latvian lover who tell us who just got himself his first sick of blacktail box. Purely recreational hunt, not like a thing I want to be in the hero. But but tell him you're hunting story, honest. You know. I was retelling my hunting story about an hour ago over here, and I found out that I killed Jones Buck. No you did, Yeah, he did. I just told you I liked the hunt. Down here in the lower Muskegs. We were no muskegs. That's true, that's not There are bucks all over the place. What about the other forky that he didn't do? You need to tell your hunting story. I snuck up through some muskegs three nights ago. This is record. Why are you hunting at night? Let me set the stage. Would you like to dusk? Pre dusk we're out working on a secret project and in the morning and at nighttime there's a little free time, which you're honest who you might know from his famous T shirt line, the Hunt to Eat T shirt line. You can go to hunt eat dot com by when he's on his T shirts and helped make him even richard than he's already become selling his T shirts. You should send Rohn a free T shirt. I will um Joe would like one the Alaska shirts on its way. So you're making an Alaska Hunt each shirt. Okay, So so do you have any boots to go along with that shirt? Nope, he's not in the bootmaking business yet, just T shirt man. So uh yann, He's been feeling some of his free time, like the time normal people would spend going home watching TV. Afterward, Yeani goes out and looks for blacktail box. Tell me your story, Johnnie. I was sneaking around with bad wind. I ended up on a little knob like you were gassy. No bad uh. There There were no steady thermals. It was just the wind direction kept going. How what do you call it? Willow wa willow? That's a bad wind. Well, you never know which way is gonna be blowing. It doesn't it's not consistent. It just it'll shift. It might be coming out of the east, one time out of the south another and then it's called the willow wa Willowa. I had willow, and it betrayed my location to what I thought was a buck. All I heard was boom as it bounded off. So I ran over to where his bed was. That I saw then, so he was in his bed. He ran off. I stood there and looked for ten minutes nothing. I started still hunting down through the woods. Waited for another thirty minutes, and I heard him again, and he drifted off. Never could catch up to him. But he just knew he was a buck. You could feel in your bones, a single animal, you know. He sounded heavy to swear he was bed at. He had himself a real nice perch for the nice outlook. Seemed like a buck bed. It seems like a place you just sleep if a deer. Steve and I came back next night, sneaking in real quiet, real quiet, was great wind from a different angle. We got to about I don't know, a hundred yards or so, maybe a little less of his bed, and we sat down. Steve blue on his gear called it Ron gave him it's called the summiner. Do you do not name that called the summiner. Really yeah, because it summons him. That's exactly righted it. That's why. Yeah, I'm gonna get to blacktail deer calls your blacktailed deer calls in a minute. But finished story because I blew the summiner. Yep, we waited. It felt like fifteen might have been ten. But I had it in my head that we should be moving. I was getting ready to say, let's go, let's go. Picture. This is dank, dark, temperate rainforest nastiness. Here's that old buck. It looks thick when you just walk around it, through it or whatever. Since the minute you start to hunt in there and try to find a small h what do you think that buck ways a hundred fifty pounds or so? I didn't see it all that average blacktail buck probably that. I think it look like a hundounds. Yeah, so not not a giant animal. But man, when you start looking for those suckers, then you go, man, this place is really thick. It really is a jungle. Yeah. Anyways, we laid down some sweet notes on the summer. We had one good shooting lane. Ten minutes later, I was looking up the top of the hill and it's a little brown patch. Move well, Steve quit moving, so I probably he said don't move, So I quickly moved in order to look where he was looking by glassed him there. He was looking down at us, looking for that What are they coming to look for? Ron? When they hear that call, they were curious. They're very they they become very curious. And normally you're not going to get a buck to come to a call this time a year. Usually usually they will come, you know, during the rut. But well, we had going for us. As we snuck in on his bed, I think all he had to do is basically stand up to be like, what the hell is that? Well, I think that's basically what he did. I don't think he traveled. Probably probably was like what's going on? Well, curious again? But when you, hey, Yanni, go grab a couple of Ron's deer calls. Oh, I don't want to blow them. They'll blow damn thing. Um Ya, Yanni shot the buck. It was a good shot. It was Yanni's first sick of black tail. Now, Ron, let me set the stage here little bit, because I was playing Ron you'r. Ron was born in catch Can, Alaska many years ago Um spent his whole life doing a variety of things, but always hunting, fishing and whatnot. And Yanni just laid down a large collection of Ron's Uh, primarily handmade Sitka black Tail calls or black tail calls. First, I got a question for you, ron Uh. Before I was questioned, I was playing. There's just the of like you have the rainforest round here, just thick ass rainforest, live is old growth. Love has been caught at various times. It's just really hard to see. But here and there there's these features out in the rainforest called muskeg, and I think it's successional like they were wetlands, you know, marshy ground where Pete got built up and it crazes these openings. It's like it seems metal like, but it's very heavy moss and sedge in there, and it's like the only place you actually see what's going on. Ron. Do you think that the black tails like the muskeg or is it just you can see him because it's the only place you can see anything, Like, do you think that they're actually in it or you just notice them because it's the first time you can see beyond arms reach. Well, I take uncertain days, they're gonna be in those muskegs because of the sunn's out and they're they're just million around um normally. I mean, if it's a real bad day, if the sun is really pounding down, you're gonna find oh, most of the deer in the tall timber. And if you've ever been in the edge of a tall timber and have a breeze go through there, you'll understand why then, because it's probably a good maybe twenty degrees cooler, and especially with the breeze coming down through the the tall timber and the trees there, it's real comfortable. I know it was comfortable for me when I'm standing there in tall timber rather than out in the sun. And a lot of people don't realize it here, but the last couple of summers was almost record breaking as far as yes it is, and I've had that throughout my life where you do have warmer summers than others, So I know what standing around and a muskeag could do to me, you know, And especially if there's no breeze at all, you're gonna overeat heat, especially if you're in your camel gear whatever. So they like to feed in that muskang is there grass or anything that grows in there. And they you know, they like to forage anything. And in that muskeag there are a lot of them. You might might see that slow. Okay, Well, they do eat the slough berry, and if you look close when you're through there, you'll see a lot of the slough berries. So, and they'll forage on almost anything in there. Um normally they eat they eat on a plant called dear heart. And this dear heart the reason why why it's called dear heart. It the plant, the leaf itself is in the shape of a dear heart. But they find this very good. And there's been talk about how clear cuts will expose a lot of dear heart to the sun, which actually is bad for the dear heart. It takes a lot of the nutrition out of it. So a deer eating that is not going to have near the nutrition that it would have if they were eating that dear heart under the canopy, you know, in the tall timber and in the wintertime, especially with deep snow and stuff like that, they are dependent on this dear heart in the tall timber, and that's how help gets them through a deep cold winter. I've seen deer when there's a lot of snow forced to the beach, and years ago when you had a lot of snow forced to the beach, then there was sometimes that they had to actually bring bundles in of hay and start dropping around on the beach edges just to help some of the deer survived the I've heard that when you get bads though, they'll come down to feed on like sea lattuce and kelp that washes up on the beach and stuff. Yeah, whatever they can get, whatever they could eat on. I see him on the beach all the time eating and they there. I think they are eating the goose dung and the beach of sparages and and maybe even some of the pop weed or the bulk kelp. I know up at atln Island when they brought in transplant to elk, they have found that the elk really like the bull kelp. So they would come down and they'll be all over the beaches eating the bull cell. And they are thinking that maybe that is why this here group of elk here have some record sized antlers and getting minerals and stuff from the minerals, Yes, and and they do. They won't allow those antlers to be entered in or counted within any of their boone and Crocott because introduced or something experimental. They color experimental herd. So you know those elk like Land is the one they swim off when they come to Prince of Wales, right correct, Yes, well they swim They were transplanted only on Atland Island in the area there, but since then they migrated over into uh what's another island? I want to say, Samobia, But and now you can't hunt these the on both of those islands, at Land and Samobia. It's only a drawing for for elk. Yeah, but if they make it to this island, you can kill him on a deer tag or non resident can kill it. I don't know what a resident is, but a nonresident if you see an elk on this island, the deer tag is all you need to hunt that elk? Is that true with you? Should they keep making they keep liberalizing it? How much? How much was your deer tag? Because when I here for non residents A hundred fifty bucks? Okay, because when I talked to him here, I was just checking in it into that just for you. Um, because and they talked to about how it would be I think two hundred and fifty dollars for you to get a permit to get an elk on this island. A man. Yeah, they keep changing it, man like, they keep making it more and more easy. Well, it's probably because it's they're they're becoming thicker, and they don't want to until they fully understand what type of impact they would have on the on the uh local deer population and I sit good deer black tail. So until then, I think they want to be cautious about allowing them to spread. And they are spreading on the north end of the island. Here there's a pretty good uh I heard that was established in there getting after those things. Man. They yeah, and there was two. There was a Roosevelt elk and the Rocky Mountain. Rocky Mountain introduced And I couldn't. I don't know the difference between either one of them. You know, if I if I was elkus and elk, you you might be able to tell the difference. Yeah, I mean yeah, I mean there's some on the extremes on a big on up one. I can look at him and tell just on just sort of like the way they're shaped, you know, what I'm saying, they're like stubb here Um. Just for background, I always tell the story that when the way I met Ron, like I would, I wouldn't have met you if it weren't for you giving my brother Danny a jar of smoked octopus. I don't know how that was, because he came to your house in two thousand two. Right, he came to your house and you drove him around while they were doing some work. Right when I when when I sent him home with a jar of smoked octopus. He brought that jar of smoked octopus to my house to share it. I ate the smoked octopus. This is the best thing I ever had, And I said, I want to meet the dude that made that smoked octopus. So that's how you got up here to the following year, then when we came up to fish, right, and I thought of you, and before I didn't know your name, but I called you the smoked octopus guy, smoked octopus guy. Ron does a lot of shrimp trapping. Explain shrimp trapping, and explain how you get octopus in there? Now, now all the trap is big enough. Yeah, And actually I had some octopus in there that we're pretty good size. And of course, the the entry holes on a shrimp trap or for the most part about two inches across maybe round. And the size octopus that I got that trappter, I just I have to think, how how do they get in there? But because the thing's thirty pounds to get in there? Oh, absolutely, And their head is as big as yours. I mean it's the biggest human head at that point. He's just like, I don't get it either. How they get in there? And and they get in there because they want to eat the shrimp right right, The basically their tentacles is actually about the size of what would slide through there. So they have the the eight tentacles bluss their body. So they have to they have to probably do it slow and and squeeze in there. But I guess they do it. I mean they do it that way. Yeah, shrimp trap like picture in your mind, like like picture, oh man, like like a bushel basket. It's quite a bigger a bushel basket, and but the same basic shape and like a compressed cylinder, you know. And you put bait and the usually use salmon parts heads whatever fish heads, clean fish, and you put a halbet head or salmon head in there. Yeah, I don't know. In my shrimp pots, I don't use allibant carcasses. It doesn't seem to work as well as it does with the salmon salmon heads or carcasses, So that I want to when I put my pot I want to be as efficient as I can because obviously the price of fuel there's an issue. So when I set my potts, I want to be very efficient. And uh, I learned um over time. You know when they call hanging bait, well, you don't ever want to hang bait in your pot? Hang it from the top down. Yeah. What do you say about is uh, let me, let me finish this, let me I want to get this explained to people. A picture we're talking about. It's like a cylindrical trap and it has funnel shaped entries on it, so you know, the shrimp can kind of he wants to get in there, and he finds his way through the little funnel entries and it's harder for him to get out. It doesn't prevent him from getting out because you see him squirting out of there all the time, but only holds them in there. And these shrimp are big like the ones you target are called spot shrimp, big as shrimp, deep cold water, and they we're going feed off. Salmon Heads are just carcasses, you know, and uh, you set in between thirty and fifty fathoms of fathoms six ft so deep water. Actually, different areas cause you to fish at different depths. So wherever wherever I find. So if I move into area with my pots, and I have ten pocks, I want to set them in vary in various different depths. So I want to spread out and try to find where I get the best pots, where the the depths that they're fishing best at. In certain areas, you might find around forty fouthoms, is if and that's the best. Other areas it could be sixty and where I'm at now that's the case about sixty sixty two is what I target now sixty water, right, yeah, And it's what we're saying about hanging bait. You don't like the name hanging bait. Hang bab means just taking a carcass, like people use different baits for shrimp. Like you can take this stuff like it looks like dog food's actually made like a commercial bait looks like dog food. You fill it full of a little can, but that's all ship you gotta buy. You know. Hanging bait, that just means like a carcass, right, you put it on a skewer like on a club. Looks like a souped up safety pin. Yeah, it's a souped up safety pins. So you you pierce your fish parts and usually go through the the both eyes and the head and then bringing the tail. So what I The reason why I do that is I don't want anything floating the top. And that's what I'm saying. When and they say hanging bait, it's a misnomer, it's not. Well, actually it is floating baits. So I put my bait on the bottom of the trap so that it won't float up to the top. So if you have it on the top hanging down, then your base gonna float up to the top. And I saw the shrimp half to do. For the most part, trap sit on top of the trap outside and eat so you're not catching the amount of shrimp you could catch if you had it on the bottom. And that's what I found. Yeah, I'll point out I have shrimp pots and I don't get a I mean, I don't get a fraction of the shrimp of roskins and his pots that in the same water kind of pisces me off. But that's one thing. Yeah, he's got a big cold you' here, he got a cold out deer hunt. He's not used to being cold and wet when you used to. Uh, did you ever commercially shrimp? No? Well I had a little bit, okay, and uh it was just for a couple of seasons. Yeah, but it was nothing big. You know, it qualified me for a pot fish free license. But for me, I'm not into that. I'm not into going out running pot fish. Uh, pot fishing. So what do you mean, it's just like you just didn't enjoy it, well, that kind of fishing. Yeah, I really, I really didn't. In the time of year that they set the season for is a bummer because that season there, it just happens to be executed at the time when the shrimper fully egg and everybody are you know that the shrimp or unise unisex, so they both if there's such a thing as both male and female orphro did it right, so they are all egg bears. Okay, So visualize the time, the time of year, I start shrimping in in June or July, you as personal youth like subsistence use as my gathering. Yeah, I don't like the word subsistence, but so I just call it the use of the resource or customery and traditional use. So this uh this uh shrimping. When I shrimp, maybe one if that are egged. But if you come into October, starting in in late September, they all become started to get become an egged, and it's going to turn it around to where upwards of are egged. Yeah, and it bothers me that this yere is allowed to go on. In fact, it was this way in British Columbia and it became problemmatic h to the quantities of shrimp. I mean they started dropping and they figured out why. So what they did is modified their seasons too. I think they start in April, so they're all spawned out. They're already hatched, so you're not they can shrimp outloaded. You're waiting till it's matched. And by doing that, they're having a pretty good uh season down there. For for their commercial guys. Another they may have been doing down there is they would they wouldn't go back of fishing an area until after three years gone by. So they'll fish this one area let's say two thousand and one, they won't go back to that same area until about two thousand and four. So what they do is send their fleets out to a different area. But everything rebound. Everything rebound, no chance of it be becoming damaged. In everybody, all of your consumer groups, whether it be commercial or personal use, or sport or anything, have a better catch rate, a better success at their ability to get shrimp. So here I've been I've been trying to convince uh A biologists and catcher can two dropped the season down a little bit, let it rebound. I've had commercial uh shrimp fishermen say they should do this, they've noticed to catch declining. Well, sure they did, and and a lot of them just that they can't bring it upon themselves. They even go out there and fish it. But does that mean it's going to rebound. Maybe not. There's other people that come in here and fish. Maybe they don't know there is here, But every time a person moves in, he doesn't come in with one pot, he comes into a hundred and some of them have a d permit, our license so even by that, even by coming in and experimenting and stuff like that, you're still catching fish and removing them out that are fully eggs. So how do you describe the area where shrimp? How do you describe area where you like to set for shrimp? Well, like, what are they looking for? Because it just seems almost kind of arbitrary. I'm sure it's not. I find the areas that I like the UH set by pots. M hmm. You could see on your sounder the colors and whether colors are darker or more color there that anser bottom with a denser bottom. That seems to me that you have better success with that situation. And if there's no color in there are very little and you can see a little. But I find that to be a real muddy bottom. And I've brought some pots up after setting there, you know, and it just covered with that claygy type mud and I had rocks up on top of it everything, And I don't know what was going on. Rocks on top of the trap rocks, I mean mud type rocks, and I think probably when I was pulling it, maybe it shoveled some up. But that tells me then UH bottom is pretty deep in that mud. Yeah, and maybe that's the place where they spun. I don't know. But you don't have a real success rate of catch there because of that. And I know that when I bring my pot up that their mud really has a bad spill with phosphors. Bad spill. So explain what you do, like when you catch the octopus? How do you how you prepare the octopus? And I know that you turned that when you catch me, you turn his head inside out, turned the mantle inside out. Well that's part of part of how you kill him. That I mean, I like to remove the mantle as soon as possible. And and you don't cut that meat up. I do, and I have and I will, yes, But for the UH smoke docks octopus in the jar just tend to use the tentacles, which makes better texture everything everything down. So when I when I UH, when I get that uh I put in a bucket, you can still see even with the head off, that tentacles are moving around. They're still trying to crawl out of the bucket. So so after I get back, let's say, after I get back, then what I do is I cut away each tentacle and then with a suction cups still on and stuff like that. Put on my sink and then I take the hide off. After I get the hide off, how you do that? Boil it off or skin it off? I skin it off. And I found that if you take and he has a stainless steel sink there, and if it's not been frozen or cool too much, you could put the suction cups on there is they stick to the side, so then you can take your other hand and pull that hide and it stretches out quite a way. So you do that in at same time you sit down there and cut your with your knife all the way down. It removes pretty easy. It doesn't remove everything but yet because you have a little bit around tentacles. But I don't want to remove that because are the suction cups. I don't want to rem me with that because I don't want to lose any of the suction cups. That's all part of that good part. Good part. You know, skin each arm out, skin each other arms right be four ft long, three ft long, right might be, but it doesn't matter on the size or anything like that. It's just I want to get the skin off of it, hied off as much as I can. Then I put it into uh boil and water, and I bring it back to a roll boil, and I'm talking vigorous roll boil, and allow that to boil away and keep it in there for about thirty minutes. And any other fish you do this too, it's gonna tough in it or or fault have it fall apart eventually one or the other. But tasty well on on the octopus there actually it tenderizes it. So after that then I take it out and then it's the time that I cut him up into the size pieces I want. And then then we go to a brine, and I use a dry brine. It's four parts brown sugar to one part salt. I don't want to use a lot of salt in there because the octopus meat really draws a salt out faster than any the sugar. So I go a four to one brine. And then once that's brian enough, which doesn't take very long, and the pieces not the whole arm, but you gotta cut up. I gotta cut up there already hot dog for a little kid, right, and and that's the pieces that are going to go into the jar. So it's already to go into the jar after smoking. But I mean, so once you're doing that, then then we take them out, And I say, we a wife. My wife is either doing it or assisted me in doing it, and uh, she is getting pretty good at it, probably better than me. You know what, ladies are good cooks. Well, it's true, not yours. And well you got a modern I live in a modern family, man, you do, Yannie lives in the modern family. I know. I think your brother does to that he does in a modern family, cooks more in your family. Honest, you do the most to my wife, and I yeah, I do. Did you know that that's how she is now around? How would I know that? I don't know, just talking to guys like, well, yeah, but I've I've noticed. I've noticed a little bit with your brother when I whenever I travel North, I go out for does their place for dinner, And yeah, he's doing something, he's doing the cooking. But I didn't know that was all the time. Constantly more and more dudes, like more and more dudes nowadays, especially guys I know the hunt, Um, they always cook. So do you think do you think that it's the woman that is becoming more not lazy. I wanted lazy. No, no, I wouldn't. I wouldn't say lazy, I would say smarter. I know what it is. Man, Well, I don't know. I I could cook, and I have from time to time, and it's probably rare that I do, but sometimes I do. Um, but I interrupted you to talk about the problem with another problem. Actually I'm joking. I prefer it that way. I like to cook. Uh. So you got the octopus smoked, Well, I got talked pus section and Brian. So I take it out of Brian and I wash it off, so I get all of the Brian that's attached to it off and then from there then I go out, I put it on my smoking racks and I let it tack up, become tacky. That's to me, that's the most important part of smoking than any other of your brianing or what type of what type of would you're going to use the smoke? It's a muss. You have what's the name of that that the pelical pelical form pelical. So once that's for him, then you can fire up your smoker and get it going. And we don't because it's going to be jarred. You don't want to overspoke it because the jarring process enhances the intensity of the smoke. So just by doing a real light smoke, Uh, you're not trying to cook it there because you already boiled it. It's already safe to eat, right, that's right, it's it's safe to eat. And but you don't want to overspoke it. It's it's a must because even your salmon, you have to be real careful because it might look good, it might be good to eat then, but when you go to put it in the jars in through a pressure cooking, it tends to really enhance that smoke flavor. And it might even coming out there looking a little bit different, a little bit more dark than you would like to see, and it might be coming out a little bit more dry than you would like to have. You think, in a jar and stuff like that wouldn't be dry. But I've had some come out, uh in a less desirable condition. And well that's one of the weird that knows when you're smoking stuff, like when you smoke, when you smoking jar salmon, we're seeing jar the time about putting in you like mason jars or curve it, you know what it It really doesn't matter anymore. Now. I used to like U or Bell Ball. Oh h yeah, I know. I used to like I like the ball because they had a different membrane on their ceiling jar to the tops um then they the cur did and the cur had more like a paper uh deal gasket like to seal the product. And I just didn't It didn't feel comfortable with me. So but now they're all now they're more of the same. I think they're all they're running all that same type rubberized membrane in there, so it's more safe. I think that way. Well, they say, is what North when you do when you smoked octopus, and when you smoke some of your salmon and jar it, you have like a like there's air in the jar, not air, but there's a vacuum. I mean, it's not full of liquid. So you could take your smoke doctopus and rattle that ship around like a like a rattle inside there. Yes, and you don't need any liquid in there. And if that's one thing good about the jar. And I started using jars, and it was by accident. I used to use cans, steel cans, steel cans, and then had to go through and use the tour can seiler. Yeah, my brother Danny has on those few. I ran out, I ran low on cans one time and I still had some fish, so I had some jars and lids and I put them in there and I pressure cooked him in the same batch, mixed them, intermixed them, put them in there, run them through it. But I noticed something that I probably would never have noticed because of that because now it's the same heat, the same length of time, everything, but the product came out of the jar a lot better than out of the camp. And when I seen that, I opened up can in a jar. Yeah, and I put him out and it's it was obviously different, a different texture, different flavor, everything, and the jars were a lot better. So I used so I started, Yeah, I went and I switched to it now. Also, the jar is what they call South Anny, and a lot of people don't realize it. On that can sealer, you have the numbers. So what you're supposed to do as you go and you set that uh numbering sequence there, run your can and seal it to the first portion to the number two, take it out so aside, do the next one. Now you have to back it up to one again and do that and keep on doing this until you get enough. Then you run it through your pressure cooker for about and reach your ten pound pressure uh and bring it up for about oh maybe ten minutes. Then shut your pressure cooker down, take those cans out. Now you have to handle them when they're hot. Then you start from the number two infinny ceiling them. That's how that works. That's how it's supposed to work. Nobody uses that, nobody understands why. But that's part of the venting process. In other words, if you run your seiler through number one and then run on to number two, you're not allowing that that canned event properly. So that's why they do it that way. That's why it's recommended that way. So on a jar it's automatic itself any and that's a lot of reason why it's a better product. And I took one down to one of the local fish processing processing plants and catch again one of my jars down glass jar that was full salmon, sam you know, sock in it. And I asked, a god, did you catch sky here? Are there any runs around here? So runs on the island there are, yes, there are several in various states of whether they're out fished or over fished and stuff. And most of your streams, mostly all the stream sky streams are taken a hit. They have taken a hit. Yeah, it's they they really need. They're in bad need of some type of enhancement program or back off from the commercial fisheries. I think are our fisheries in Alaska. And I'm getting off the subject again. It's tough to stay on it, but I'll bring you back. Well. Our fishery in Alaska, the border fish. The court ruled year about nineteen I think it was eighty something a D four maybe sometime in that area. That the Board of Fish has also been authority since that ruling came down. The Board of Fish does not have to listen to biologists. So if the biologists comes out and say, don't open this, it's gonna hurt and damage that resource, they don't have to listen to them. And I have to ask because a bunch of all their interests all have their ear well they might be like serving other interests. Yeah whatever, No, no, that's true, and uh, and I think that's what happened. Another important thing about this is that they have one Board a Fish in Alaska and it will meet down in Southeast Alaska once every three years. So you have three regions, so you have the Western, Central, and Southeast. So at any given time, and this is this is the problem. At any given time, anybody that the majority of the people voting on open opening or a closure of a fish season, they're not stakeholders, so it's easy for them to say, well, it's not gonna affect me. Yeah, go ahead and open it. I'll vote the way you want me to. And that I think is the worst thing we have going for us. So I've made suggestions on all levels of government to do away with this here statewide board of Fish and go regional. Have a Board of Fish just for the Southeast region. That way, you have people that have a stake in it, and everybody local expertise, local expertise, local knowledge, and they have a stake in it. And not only that, if they make the bad decision, they can't blame it on somebody up north, you know, and maybe they'll make a better decision that way. But when you have two thirds of that board voting on it that aren't even from the area, it's easy for them to say yeah, but they voted on it. Yeah. See I had nothing to say about it. It wasn't me in other words, So yeah, and I'd like to get that fixed. So we're going to go back to wet again. I want, so I bring my your canna sok salmon. I bought my cannasake salmon to the local. You caught and smoked yourself, caught and can yourself, that's crewe. Yeah, And it wasn't in a jar. And I was curious. And there's a way. They have a method in there to check at any given time the pressure in a camp or the suction in the camp. I think they call it the mercury pressure. So I asked the fella there if he could test us. He sall yeah, yeah, and he says, did you do this at home? Yes? Well, and then he went through a big speech. He says, well, I'll tell you what do you guys, we have special equipment here, and our equipment is that just before that can is sealed, we have a vacuum that vacuums out all the air. So we'll get nine pounds of mercury pressure in a camp and that's all you're gonna get is about three pounds maybe at the most three and a half. I says, okay, could you check mine though? Yeah, So you went in and checked it, put the pin in, you know, into the lid, and it went right away to twenty nine mercury and which is three times? What is this? What theirs is? And he was puzzled. You did this at home? And I said, yeah, amazing, we want to get nine pounds and you got twenty What is what? Why is it more pounds? You just got it because I, like I said, and I'll reiterate, the jarring method is self vending. So when it's self vending, it gets that to a precise vending thing. It's not a guess. It's not a vacuumine out. It's actually in there, in it it. As it heats, it really eases all the air in there, and then when it collapses and seals, it's perfect. It's yeah, it's as well as you're going to get vented. Did you ever jar Do you ever? Uh? Jar halbot? Canon jar Helbot? I've canned and jarred both helibate, Yes, now you okay, you've always fish halibut m hmm. Yeah. However, did you call your first Albert when I caught my first halibut, I think I was about eight eight and a half something like that maybe, um, yeah, I just was eight. Um. So I was down at New England fish docks. I was down there to cut halibate cheeks. And let me explain that what that means, why you were doing that and what that means. Well, I went down to cut helibate cheeks so I could just sell them to the rest round. So we used to go down there and cut about twenty pounds of alibut cheeks to day and then go around the restaurants and sell it to them for fifty cents a pound. And they are a tickle pink with it because they get number one. They get it delivered, it's very fresh, and the price was right in the cannary. They weren't using the cheeks at that time. No, they were not, So you can just go and dude didn't care. You just dig through their pile fish carcasses and caught the cheeks out right. And I don't I think to this day they're not using them. I think to this day they're not not. I can't be certain of that, but I know back when I was longlining that they wouldn't pay you for the head. So when they wait, wager hallibit, they removed the head. So they're actually not buying the head from you. So the head belongs to you. They leave the collar around the fish, but caught it from the gilt cover forward right right, and and so that head really, uh, it belongs to you. And after I'm done, I might have a couple of toads are full of heads. So I just alert somebody and that I talked to the VFW to go down there and have them cut the alibut cheeks and stuff like that, and maybe they could. When you were long lining, you do that right now, This is when I was long lining. But when you were a kid, you'd go down and cut the cheeks out. How many pounds did you cut out? Twenty pounds a day? Uh, that's how long did that take? Well, it didn't take long. I mean we didn't have the best knives either, but you know, so I I'd bring a pairing knife from home and get down there and get it done, and then you make your rounds to the restaurants to catch can Then we started down and make a rounds and most of the time we sold them out, what would you get for fifty cents a pound? So I make ten dollars a day. What did you do with the money. Well, that's another thing there. I bring it to where my mother charge their groceries, and I just walked in there and give him ten bucks. Stay here. But this is on my mom's accun. I used to bring it. I used to bring it home. I used to bring it home to my mother. And that was back when bingo started. You know bingo? Yeah, you know Bengo. Yeah. And the funny thing about that is that Bingo was first introduced in the catch can by the churches two so to help them raise funds, and so it started out one day a week, and then another church will bring it on, so there's two days a week. Then another church it's three days a week, and then somebody else would want to bring it on, and they'd have Bengo and catch Can six days a week. And when they start that Bengo, it's at seven clock it starts. But my mother and everybody else would say, no, no, I want to get the best seat, and I want to go down and get the best cards, because they picked her own cards and they like combination numbers on our cards, so they get down here a good hour ahead of time, so they're leaving right when dinner should be. So the church has helped remove the family from a home y, you know. And and that upset me a little bit there, because one time a week is not bad, but turned into five, six times a week, it's bad. And then my mother was really stretching it to pay her charge building at the deal, and I heard her, oh, I don't know how I'm going to do this. But everything that I got, every nickel diamond I could scrounge up or whatever I used bring home here. Well, it wasn't doing me any good. I was just supplying her habit to go to Bingo. So I'm not talking down on my mother, but that was I could see where it was a problem, and I really did. He dearly loved my mother and she was the best lay lady on earth. But I realized that I got to do something different, so I started bringing home. I just go down to the grocery store. I knew the owner and I trusted him. Of course, there was no no receipts had given. I didn't even know what a receipt should have been here but it saw my mom's account and I had had it. He'd yeah, he passed away when I, uh, when I was seven, and there were six of us, so it was tough uh time. And but my mother it was also tough, and uh she kept the house together for the most part. You know, that's a lot. That's a lot to put on someone. It's a lot, yeah, and we I think we were very blessed and fortunate that my stepfather came along and they fell in love and got married and they had one other child after that. But that's that's a lot of burden, you know. I mean, it's something else you get married, but get married with six kids already. A lot of guys were in the art direction, man, I know. So anyway it worked out, it worked out good. And uh, I've I've been through and involved in fishing and stuff like that for a long time and I can remember talk about that. Hell but then when you were caught in cheeks, oh yeah, So I was looking around. I wanted to go ahead and put a line down over the doctor. So I started looking around the New England cantry for a hook, and I was finding all the hooks. Most of the hooks they didn't have a a circle in them like hook sports hooks to. These were all flat and that's how they tied them on to. Uh yeah, there's no eye in the hook. There was no eye. And I got to like smell it on there, right, And I was young, and I didn't know anything about that. I knew how to operate a hook, you know, with a circle in it, tying out there, but that I didn't. I couldn't figure it out. So eventually I looked around and I found woman was already tied and I tied a knot in that, and then I found some other line, uh long enough to wear it will go down and just right on the bottom off the dock of the cantry, off the dock of the can Henry. I wasn't thinking. I mean, so I'm down there and I tied it off on a big cleat and they had these big boat cleats. So I tied it off air went and cut the aliba cheeks and everything like that. And when I was done and went back, I grabbed that line and something heavy on it and I started pulling it and started jerking back and my brother was with me, and we pulled that thing to the surface and I said, that is too big. Now I'm looking down at this and it's a good forty ft drop from the dock down to the water. So there's no way are we going to get this halibit, which, as near as I can remember, I mean from what I know, it was probably a two pound hello, So there's no way. So I let it go back down and I ran and I found the superintendent and I said, hey, I got a big hell of it online down here, and I don't know what I'm gonna do to get it. I mean, can you help us? So he went down there and we brought it up, and he's seen how big it was, so whoa wait a minute, you know, So he goes rigs up one of these uh totes they had a rope, toote and stuff, and put it down. This was made out of wood and but big enough to handle that hell but for sure. And he had a big crane to do this with, you know, and everything. So that's how we did it, and then we brought it back up. He's operating that and he has a dip down in such a way so that when we got up we could just pull it and slide it right into it and it landed in there and he brought it up. I can't I can't tell you. I can't remember how much I got for the hell a but but that's the first fish I sold. There wasn't a bunch of money though, well it was, and I can't I can't remember how much. Okay, so but it seems to me like it was maybe twenty But that's that's a lot of money for me. For me anyway, So that was a good day. I had by ten dollars and for the cheeks and plus the hellibit deal. But that was good. And what when did you start? Like, because you did it several seasons of commercial halibut fishing? Right, I started there Joan and I bought they also uh in uh and that was when I went out trolling and then also long trolling for salmon. Right, well, how does the long line? How's the halibut long line work? Like? How's the commercial halibut fishery work? I mean just the mechanics that catching the fish? Well, like how would you guys get him? You know, like just like the actual fishing part of it. We had we were running snap on gear. It's a skate I had eighteen skates. Each skate i'd say, is a thousand feet long. And how many hooks you clip on that thing, It depends on how close you want to clip them on. But for the most part, I it slefts my mind. How many purp there's an awful lot of hooks. And then you let us soak, you try to pick go back. You set that thing down like you got the anchor, like you're running on the bottom, it's not hanging suspended, right, anchor on the bottom. Then a thousand feet of line with hooks, another anchor on the other end, and then a line goes out to your booty. Actually, when you run on my run, about maybe six or seven skates skates all in one rowe. So you have six or seven thousand feet of hooks down there over a mile, all right, at what depth? The whole variety of depths? Well, actually, yeah, it's gonna be a whole variety of depths speak stretch that long. It's all the same. Well, you'd be surprised sometimes out there there there are some of them like that. But for the most part, yeah, Well you can bait for with several things. Um I I wish we could bait with salmon. But and maybe some people do. Now you could buy it. You could buy salmon if you could get it, you know, I mean there are certain people that have the ability to get salmon. There's other people, you know. They have to settle for herring. You settle for hearing. You have to brian it because they just picked that ship or off the hook. Yeah, that's right. And then then then you can get squid. What does it brine? Do you know, Harry, We've been using their brine. Like I take the herring out, you know, when you buy them in the box or buy them in those little trades. I take them out for donald layer. Are you cream salt or rock salt? Put down a layer herring? Salt? Herring salt? Herring? Don't? I don't think it messes. I mean, they still smell nice, they're still oily, but they just don't rot as fast. Man. They stay really nice, and they get leathery after a while, but they still I don't think. I mean, I'm not a alibet, but in my opinion, I think even by salting them, they fish better. Also because what it does, it concentrates, it shrinks it down, takes some moisture out of it and yet more oilier. So they really said oil off more than that. Yeah, And then of course you know you get a hit on a smaller fish and stuff on an area's not scripting your bait off as fast. But so and which is something that you want them? So you could not you like, you didn't were able to use just salmon bellies or flames cut up into strips. You guys, you squid, you could, you could. You could use that, like I say, if you get there at the right time and stuff. But I wasn't moxy enough to a lot of the guys, A lot of the guys that fish at our sayers themselves. So they'd go out at the end of the season, they'd get the best of the chum they could, and they would freeze their own bait. Yeah, so they'd have their own uh freeze locker at the at at the cool stories or whatever. And these are the guys that have been in it for a long time and they know and they're they're fishing big time other fisheries. So it's what you know. So you were using primarily herring and squid, yeah, primarily, But that's at times I could find and locate some plibate are not hell but excuse me salmon, but it's it's uh, it's something that you had to really look for and get ahead of time. And of course, where am I gonna freeze a bunch of this bait? You know, because you need a huge volume. I'm a huge volume at bait. You know, hundreds of hooks and thousands of hooks. Yeah, so you run that thing out and you'd get all those hooks laying along the bottom at what from what depth? To what depth? Well? I like to write right around a hundred fathoms six ft of water? Yeah, it is your fish way deeper than sport fisherman or fishing for the both part, for the most part, Yeah, I don't I don't know. And we fish halibut half that depth or even a third. Yeah. Yeah, Well your reels probably don't have enough line to get down and it's just get way issues and current issues and you know, your bolts over one place and your apples ds away because the current. So how long would you let that thing soaked in? You don't want to her for rule of thumb, you don't want to let us soak any more than six hours because the sea lights. Yeah, you have sea lice problems. And if you get too much sea life lice in there, you're gonna have an issue that it's going to be no more number one grade, it's going to meet the number two. And the prices really dropped drastically if they see those lights on the fish. Yeah, And I went in. I went in to deliver my load one time and I went up and the sky here, so that's number two. So I grabbed it. I got my flight knife out and I played the thing out and everything and laid that flash down there and says, where why is this number two? Well, let's around the outer fins there it's eating away. Do you sell those fins? Yeah? No, Well again, why is this number two? So he had to give me number number one price? But what he didn't give me a number one price on? I said, okay, fine, I'll bring it back down the boat. Then, oh, you're not gonna sell it? And I said no, I'd rather give it away, didn't get screwed by you. I'd feel better. So that's what that's what I would do. Ye know, how many like when you pull it up, how many helbet might be on there? Again? How many might you deal with in a day m hm oh maybe roughly around maybe individual fish, right, and and then that day in a day, you're going to say in a day, but we have a twenty four hour open and we're fishing around the clock, or you might only get twenty four hours to do it. Well, that's what it was. They had some some openings were forty eight hours, but most of most of the last ones were twenty four Your whole season, yeah, well twice a year twenty four let's put it that way. But yes, and you can keep a boat and maintain a boat, and maintain a license and maintain all the gear in order to fish forts Well again you're you're you're also fishing your boat is fishing to other fisheries, okay, but for the most part, no, you wouldn't be able to and if you're only fishing long line in hall of it because the season is too too short. So they had you come in and go and it just I don't know who was doing the selection as to what day the opening would be, but whoever that was was very accurate on picking it the worst possible time of the year because of the weather. So the last Haliban opening that we had that I fished and the last one we that was pad, I mean they quit after that went to I f Q. I was fishing uh west side of Forest dr Island, and the both Canadian US weather said that I was blown thirty five knots when we put uh later a gear. But we did it because both Canadian and US said that the wind was supposed to subside. I had and dropped back. Well, it didn't increased. It went up to fifty and which made it almost impossible to get out there and fish. I mean fifty knots twenty ft seas you know it's but but yet yeah, I feel you have to. But while we're out there, one of my deck hands actually I popped the hydraulllet cles and when that happens, your deck becomes extremely unsafe and and slippery, so because it's hydraulic fluid, right, So I just pulled everybody into the wheelhouse and we went in into the lee of the Forest R Island there and cleaned tried to clean that up and fix the hydraullt holes, but tried to clean the deck up. I mean, we've done a pretty good job on it. But while we were out there. The one guy them my crew members slipped and said he heard his back and he didn't really look really really good. I mean he had some discomfort, it was obvious and his pulse. So got a hold of the coast guard, let them know, and they came down to the island with the plane tree and I could see him there. But they wouldn't get within a mile of the island. They're afraid of the rocks or something like that. But I tried to explain to him, he comes straight in, you bring that ship right into me if you want. But they didn't want to do it. So they launched a hard bottom rubber dinghy and I cast him when they come up because during the blow and stuff like that, I ripped off a rubb rail on the starboard side of my vessel, so there was some exposed uh screws that were in there, and stuf off and I told him, you come up on my starboard side, you're gonna get a whole pope poked in your boat. And I said, come onto my port side. What do they do? They come on my starboard side and it's rocking and rolling out there, and there they brought out their corman or whoever he was. But he done some check in and it was his idea that they were going to go and air meta acam just sit you And I says, okay, but you're not going to take him in that hard bottomed skiff for you. And they sees back to your boat with a bad back or damaged back, injured back. Oh no, we'll do that nice as now I could take the all soul going to lee of the your ship, then we do the transfer in the lee. Means your ship doesn't want to come here in here to get into the lee of the island. So anyway, I couldn't talk him out of that. And uh so that's what they did, and they ever met a act um off. All this time it was taken. I was having to be laid up and stuff. And so by that time we're done there, and I went out and I had just enough time to get all my gear pulled in and I didn't have enough time to reset, because yeah, it was the whole day all right, And I was right down. I mean I went right down to the wire. I get my last skate on board. I mean it was close, because they're pretty sticklish about that. And if you're flying over and you're still pulling gear. After that's down, they'll they'll side you. Is that your last year doing it? That was my last year doing it, and all of the years and I fished, they didn't count that towards an i f Q. In fact, I think they stopped counting. That's the quota system, right, that's I uh, individual fishing data, so like just for listeners, like rather than a lot of fisheries have gone to this. They used to have these gang busters seasons where they opened it for some set time, like Ron saying regardless of whether if you want to make a play, you gotta go out and do it when they say they go do it later. They came up with a system, much safer system. I'm sure there's cons to it, but one of the pros is much safer because you'll tell a vessel it's licensed what he's allowed to catch, and he's more at his leisure to catch it. Let me know another important faction to that too is when they went to this system, I normally fished up through at Coronation Island. When they went to the individual quota. No before that, that was my normal spot. The only reason why I went to Forester Island. As my brother Ivan, he was on board and he says, we gotta try that, we gotta go out there. It's gonna be good. Buh. Well it wasn't. But for the most part, I fished up there at Coronation Island. And it's my belief that when they went to the individual quota system, they use your fish tickets to establish amount of quota you're gonna get, okay, and each fish ticket also puts down what area you got your fish from, So most of the guys would go to their same area over and over. They're they're comfortable that way because they know by going to new areas and stuff like that, you can get into all kinds of problems and stuff like that, not not knowing that there is coral trees down there and you're gonna damage and ruin a lot of gear and may possibly lose them. So it's good that you go back to your same area because you know, okay, it's free of coral, and the halibut are there and uh several things and not a lot of by catch. So that's that's what you gotta watch for. Two. You know, I mean, the only allows to keep like ten percent by catch on your yellow eye or your link d So if you get into a lot of them when you first start, how much are you going to keep? You know, so you have to discard it all right, because you don't know. I mean they have this here magic number, you know, and back then, back then, they didn't have the safeguards or a way of or or a procedure or or a law stating that. Okay, now I think they have to go ahead and at least bring him back down or to have a way of removing the air of yellow eyes stomach so that has has survivor ability after being cut drastically increased. So like uh, yellow eye, yellow eye, rock fish and rock fish along with some other species don't have a good way of regulating for pressure. So when you're fishing in even of water two of water, and you catch a yellow eye and their bottom fish and you crank them up in a hurry to the surface, by the time he gets the surface, he's cashed out. I mean he's got like his stomach hanging out of his mouth because there's swim bladder erupts with the alleviation of pressure and shoves it out of their mouth. For that reason, you're not supposed to size grade uh rock fish. You're not supposed to You're not allowed to be like, oh, I'll hang on to him and keep or I'll throw him back and keep fishing, because the thinking is you're gonna kill the thing. For a long time, people would take a needle and and try to puncture that swim bladder, and you can do it if done right, you can do it and let the pressure out and put the fish back. But people tend to puncture the stomach, which is fatal for the fish. So now there's these released devices we've been messing around with him where you pull that fish up, you put this release device on there and send that something gun right back to the bottom. And apparently you have very high success survivor raids doing that. But still even with that, you can't size grade rock fish. Like if you catch one and you're gonna continue fishing rock fish, that fish goes in the boat. You don't throwing back and continue to fish. I think you're noting too yellow eye. As a non resident. I'm allowed too yellow eye annually one a day to annually. But you guys would get big hauls of them. But in a commercial deal, and I was fishing up there and I got in close too close to the rock one time, big mistake, and I got a massive amount a yellow eye and link good. So I moved away from there fast because I didn't like what I was seeing. You know, I mean, you're discarding, you have discarded back and they're all floating. Some of them for whatever reason, uh could go back down, but for the most part they're just sitting there floating till they're done or tell some critters get them or eagle or whatever. But I didn't feel good about that, so I'd move off of it, avoid that area as much as possible. But um as I knew what I was catching and stuff like that, then I felt comfortable with keeping them on board so that I don't don't go over that ten percent because when you go over it then they could find you, and the finds a pretty steep and uh you had you had a lot of people viewing this uh fishery, so that when I go into the port and I'm eventually get under the hoist to be offloaded, then they'd have somebody from using the coast guard or somebody in there with ah. You know that with a type deal where they use the measure of your feet when you go get a new pair of shoes. Well, they had that set up, and they had it set up at thirty two inches and under ideal conditions and stuff like that that pull it through. Well with that halibit didn't meet that, then you're fine. So also you're you're supposed to turn out any how, but under two is supposed to be out with the cap on the top end for egg bearing females, like we're allowed to keep three pound halibit. You were allowed to keep them at back then. Um and right now, I've been out so long, I don't know, I don't know what what what their limit is on the high end, but this, uh the system here when they went when when they go in they closely you know, I mean like say you're sixteenth of an inch under you know they'll get you. But so I just put a mark on it thirty two and a quarter. Oh yeah, you know. I mean, let's let's face it, I'm not gonna I'm not gonna waste that. Your your tossed and you're turning. You don't have the best light. You've been up for already maybe forty hours, you know, without sleep because you have that baiting getting ready going fishing, so you don't have a lot of things in your favor for getting it right or very accurate. So to be on the safe side, they just marked a quarter inch over um right, and they do they closely do that. I mean they'll sit down there and have two or three people there with her to tow measuring device. And so how many years did you do that for? I just I just did it for the three three four years. Make money? You did? You made money, but you didn't you didn't get rich. I mean you made it. You Let's put it this way. I always made expenses. But uh and even on that trip that I only had one pull, you know, but that again was you know, it happened. So when you went when you quit doing that and you went back to just fishing and halb but with the rod and real did it feel funny? Like did it feel like because here you are catching hundreds of halbitt and also you're back out just a guy catching halbit for his own freezer. No, it didn't feel funny because I was doing that before I went long lining, you know, So I've always I've always fisted rod and reel, you know. So yeah, it was easy to get back into it that way. But did you miss the commercial stuff for you just done with it? No? At times they did, but they had it so goofed up. I don't, you know. I didn't miss probably as much as I would have if everything was going rosy and fine. But going out there and they're there, they're fishery. You know, though the fish the Halibate is monitored and controlled under treaty. So you have a treaty with Canada and the United States on that on the Halibu that is caught within their waters, right within their water and our so, uh, we don't have to say over what the season is going to be or anything like that. I mean, you could probably put in a suggestion to the North Pacific Fisheries Management or the Halibate Commission. But how far that is that going to go? You know, how many years did you do salmon? For? It's about about the same a little longer, um. But I seen Handwright do on the wall. Uh things well with regards to the price that I was getting at the h cold storage or the Canaries for hooks not nets. You're trolling salmon, right, But but you're you're sitting down there and they're giving the same price over and over and over again. The price never seemed to fluxuate very much. It did at the beginning of season, and if you were, if you were fishing winter kings, the prices were up then. And I I never did go up travel I was I was going to try to go up to sit and fish that out of there for winter kings because of the price, you get a better price, or you get a more fairer price. And I don't to this day, I wonder why it didn't follow through. Why why shouldn't there be a good price for king salmon all season? And you fish kings around here? You fish kings around here instead around Yeah, around Prince Welles Island. You know, the West coast was my favorite spot for kings. That's where I done most of my fishing. How was the season? How many days a year were you doing at? Well? The kings season fluctuated, Uh for the amount that was allocated, and UH it varied. It went went between two days to five days opening season, um, and then after that that would close down. You'd go ahead and fish coho for a while. Even that would close down for a short period of time in August. You know. So you had your various fishings, but the one thing that was discouraged and to me is that all your gear prices, your fuel prices, your oils prices, your hydraulic fluids, all your part prices, everything was always going up, always going up with costs of living, everything like that. It increased moving up, but your salmon never seemed to increase that much that fast. So it was costing the fisherman. Uh you were losing a lot by that because of the prices for the fish that you were getting. It was remaining at a certain level, the same level. And uh so ices. Now this isn't for me. I just I'm not one that I like to be taking advantage of. So I'm not going to hang in there allow it to happen. You know. Um it's just me. Did you buy the l sold just for those that purpose to do hel but and do salmon? That's correct. Yes, I got into it. I always wanted to go back and do try commercial and uh I did you know I I started commercial fishing with my grandfather yea, when I was about eight. And uh he always fished the West coast and he was always the first one out last one in. So I went out there and he showed me how to gil and got him and ice him and everything. That was my job. And it was a hot, hot day then, I mean the time of year. I was like, sort of like what we we've we've had here this summer hard to a breeze and it's down there and you're out there getting redouble reflection from the water up in your it, and it really whammed with that. And I'd go down below after up there getting them and gilling them and gutting them and getting enough, and then I go down below the ice m and as I was down below there, it's just nice and cool, pleasant. And when I was down there, I noticed three or four coils of line back in the back underneath the poop deck there, and I said, that's uh, it looks almost like a hammock. I figured, you know, So I hopped up there. I hopped up there and lay down and see how comfortable it was. Well, I fell asleep, and the fish starts stacking up. My grandfathers so he went and looked down on the fish hoold. He didn't see me there, so I figured I was in the forecastles. So he went down the foecastle I wasn't there, came back yellowed out of the fishhold. I didn't answer, so he put the dreaded call out to the fleet that had fallen over. Of course, I don't know how much of the fleet was after looking for me and stuff, but I'm pretty sure a lot of them were. And I'm all the time I was down there sleeping, And to this day, I could not tell you how long I was asleep down here, but I could say one thing. When I did come up out of the down blowing hold, my grandfather was coming out of the wheelhouse. He had one foot in, one foot out, you know, and he's a big man, but his eyes meant me, and I was the first time in my life I ever visualized or seeing that he didn't know whether you wanted to kill me or kiss me look, and I think he went with a little bit of both. But he caught up to me eventually because it wasn't always that type of weather. So the weather had changed became a little bit rough, and that there was my first experience with seasickness, and I got sea sick. So he pulls out and back then we didn't have any plastic pails or anything like that. So he pulled out a Galvanis bucket of salt water, put it up on the hatch cover, and gave me a coffee cup, and he says drink, and I drank. He says more, and I drank more water, Yes, salt water, and I drank more. I don't know how much I drank. And all of a sudden I became deathly, you know, And I know I was down on the deck and I was rolling around like it felt like a bowl of jelly. All of a sudden I had to let go and I went with the edge of the boat and litterfly. I I'll tell you one thing. I'll tell you one thing. That was the first and last time in my life I was ever seasick. Really, it cured me. And I don't know whether it's a fear that I might have to drink all that salt water again or not, but it did cure me. I've never, to this day since then, ever been a seasick. I'm gonna try that because I still get seasick. I'm about fifty. When I think you have to have somebody bigger in you, you're a big old grandpa to make you do it. And I can force myself to when I when I died. When I'm diving, yes, I'll usually uh. Remember we were up here a couple weeks ago we went looking for scallops. I got I dranking the salt water that day where I threw up a little bit, not like you're talked about, just little SIPs and it makes my you know, but not like uh, it just makes me kind of you know, you kind of throw up in your mouth a little bit like that, yeah, snorical hanging out of your mouth. Try well, you don't get seasick to you? You don't think you don't. When I was a kid that we get seasick on Lake Michigan, but Lake Michigan get like six ft waves are big in Lake Michigan, but would be enough to make you seasick. My kid got seasick because he wasn't looking. He didn't know to look at the horizon. You know, he's like sicker he got, he's five, you know, sicker he got. The more he'd slink down the bottom of the boat. I can tell him, you gotta sit up, man and look around. I'll be looking at the boat you know, so what do you do when he is? He said, look as a boat a rising, I focused on the fishing. Usually if I focus on the fishing, I get better. But the horizon, yeah for sure. Or I just you know, make myself let it go and I get better. Do you know that you honest? Is woman's father as a boatmaker? No? I didn't know that. What type of boats? And make am a deep v uh bay boat? And then they make a flat bottom skiff North Carolina? Not man for rocks. I wouldn't do well up here, right? So did you guys see that that boat out here that I told you about? Did you look at it? The Japanese skiff? No? I found a Japanese gas can yesterday two days ago. Yanni found? Who found it? I did? Yanni found he saw something red up in the tide rack there. Went over there and it was a gas can with Japanese script on it, and I cut that off. I cut the Japanese riding out and nailed it to a post on my shack as found art. You know what found artist? Yeah? So so so so you're you don't do you don't report this stuff? Then? Who there's a site that you go on and report anything that you found, and uh, I'll put my job. I found a huge bottle of detergent, five gallon tank of detergent not longer on the beach, and I found a strip basket not long on the beach, and my Jimmy Carter had Jimmy Carter, Jimmy Carter nuclear sub hat. Oh okay, alright, I'm a beach coleman, son of a gun man. But uh so no, but there's a Japanese boat, the washed up new here there is out there, and Grendel, how are you going to look at it? I did? I went looked at it, and it's really a scuokum built boat. Uh. It probably came across a Pacific upside down the way it sits. And uh, I say that because the rails portion of the boat in areas is just pounded where it's been off and on beaches or whatever, hitting things. But for the most part, I ain't get salvageable. But it does have the Japanese name on the hull itself. But somebody, how long is the boat? Uh? Close to nineteen? Could you get it off there and drag it home? Oh? You could in a super high tide. Yeah, you found it right. Well, what I'd rather do is just go out there. I didn't get a picture of it, and I'm gonna go out there and get the whole name off of it. And there's a site that you go to, and in fact, one of the people on that site speaks and writes fluent Japanese. Oh, on a site that you are reporting into. So if you take a picture or anything that he'll be able to decipher what it is and and be interested to find out, you know, maybe who owned that polt or who? Oh? Yeah, man, it'd be super interesting. You had a gas can I founds busted up. Yeah, I mean it looks like it's been in the water long time. Do you know what they say in eighty million years that Japan we'll have a created all of the illusions and be docked up against Alaska. H What what difference is that today? It doesn't make any difference today. Something look forward to. Well, do you know your state originally accreedd and banged up against California, then rolled a transform and fault to where it is now. I don't doubt that a bit, you know, I mean you can picture I could picture, yes, Well, what did they say, Now your tallest mountains and your biggest valleys and stuff like that, in your biggest canyons, or blew the water. There's a book, there's a great trilogy written by geomic Fee about geology called Annals of the Former World, And in it he says, if I was going to sum this book up in one sentence, it would be at the top of Mount Everest is marine limestone. Well. He also says another thing in that book that's interesting. He says, if you imagine the history of the Earth as your arms spread out as wide as you can spread them. Okay, he said, you could remove all of human history with one stroke of a nail. Files are problem seem like, uh no, I know that. I mean the Earth. They date someone data back to billion years old. That's a lot old. I think the Earth in the midlife crisis because in four billion years the Sun's gonna burn out. We're in the middle, We're halfway there, is halfway done. I told my kids the son is gonna burn out and it really affected him and I couldn't explain to him that I meant in a long time. Shouldn't it's old? That little mean? You mean Yanni. What concluding thought, Yann, you took off your Lavian power ring? Yeah, the the saltwater, I think it's a saltwater there. It uh caused me to swell up a little bit. So it's getting a little a little snug as part of being a Latvian janice. Where is a Lavian power ring called names and it's something to Laban's And we were talked about this before. I think so the Laban stole it from the Old Testament, or Yanni would argue the Old Testament stole it from the Latvians where some guy had it where he's gonna go kill the Latvian king. And he said, just look for the guy with the Latvian power ring, and all Latvian dudes went out and got a ring just like the king's, so that no one could tell who the king was. It's old memory health you put a stripe put a red mark on the door in the Old Testament. So Yanni, in order to protect nam as the king, where's his Lavian power ring? One time I was making a off color jokes, I don't want to tell you about what about Yanni, and he was telling me that some one of these the next time I make that joke, I'm gonna see a flash of blinding silver as his fist glides in my face. But it's his NAIs and dance. It would be well deserved, right. My grandmother made that for me. His brother has one too, and he's got a lavian our tattoo. I think, I think, Steve, when was the last time you were ever disciplined? I'm forty years old, man, Well that's true, But when was the last time your wife's eighteen nineteen? Oh no, my wife. Yeah, my wife has a way like she has a disciplinary method, you know. Um, it works very well, uh rihanna. Any concluding thoughts? Oh, another thing about the lab empowering. You told me that you think about not wearing any rings anymore. Yeah, because no, because who just some celebrity just got what do they call that when your ring pulls your skin off, your whole finger hurt. Now there's a term for that, there is, Yeah, collared sleeved, Yeah, something like up. Anyways, I know quite a few guys have you know, being had that happened to him or had it close to happening to them, and so instead they've just gone to a tattoo for their wedding band. I'll tell you what. I quit wearing a wedding band, not because I'm trying to do something wrong, but for a lot of those reasons. And uh also, I had these watch bands and they're all metal, and then you could break them open to take them off, you know. And I had one of those. I'm working on my car, and I had this wrench and his source tightening a post down, and somehow that shorted across to the negative, and I think it's when I came down. My watch came down on the post of the negative and I had a hold of that, and it gave you te bolts more well that twelve votes with a lot of an preacher. I mean, I took my watch band off and I had that burning. It was just welts all the way around, just ring on a battery, and I caught it on a couple of tree limbs, and I proposed to my wife I stopped wearing it, and she said, I can get the tattoo. But I made at this fine life without a tattoo. I don't want to go get a tattoo. Now. I'm gonna ask her if I could just start taking a magic marker every couple of days, and magic mark ring mark just before you travel to me. Whatever. She just likes me to have it on. Meanwhile, meanwhile, sometimes you don't even know where hers are. I find him laying around now and then one day I found one in her damn shoe. So you're married. She's not. Yeah, she's always like, oh she got him both on none on one on, don't know where they are. And meanwhile, here's me puffy old finger, the ring on it. We'll tell her you to turn that in for a n They actually gave this to me when I bought her ring nilon and ring or something. I thought about getting one of those silicon rings. You said, I can do that if I want. Well, Joan had Joan had one. I think it was jade jade ring, your solid jade ring? Was it? At one point in time? I thank you still have it? Oh maybe she didn't that It was up made out ja dyke, very expensive. But um there's a thought too, So y'all he's gonna quit wearing as possibly all right, Yanny. Concluding thoughts, you wrap up questions you're gonna chance for quickly thoughts. Ron When after John's turn I guess I have a concluding question. We might gonna squeez be able to squeeze another hunting. How far do we have to go up the hill so that we're not hunting like a low end muskeig. Dude, listen, I don't believe any of that. You don't. I just want to stay on everybody's right side around here, are you? Okay? Okay? You guys know this buck NI killed personally? Okay? What was his name? Did he have velvet or not in velvet? Name was Bucky? And he was not in velvet. And I'll tell you had the most symmetrical two points that you ever saw. That's not this one. Oh yes it is. So I you know what you ahead and do your hunt and stuff like that. But you know, really, I thought you guys were sport hunters, No meat hunters. You're a meat hunter or a sport hunter? You like the challenge? Yes, then you're a sport hunter. Do you like the channel? You don't want to be accused of being a sport hunter. I hunt for fun and meat. I wouldn't ut, I wouldn't hunt. Then let me ask you this challenge sporting meat. I'm a sporting meat guy. So let me ask you this, why don't you shoot your critters in the head. I'll tell exactly why don't shot critters in the head Because I was brought up or my father. The more reasons to this, but I'll start with the first one. My father would hold up a tennis ball, volleyball. Okay, you'd say, which would you rather hit? That was the first thing. Later in life through I've been fortunate to do quite a lot of hunting, I have generally found that at aiming for the lungs is consistently. When you puncture the lung, you have a dead animal, you have a huge margin for air, and oftentimes you have very very very low meat wasted john broadside shots. When I have seen people do headshots, if they're not an expert marksman and they don't know their own limitations, they're dealing with a very small margin of air. Like when you're off an inch, you're off and it leads to blown off jaws, punctured ears, whatnot. It's just bad. You can hit the rack and split it. Well, that's gonna ring its bell and knock them down. But you know, I mean, I don't think guys, don't guys who shoot lungs. Aren't shooting lungs strictly for the reason they don't want to mess the rack up. Well no, okay, but to me, all your dear head, yes, or the neck, but most of them in the head. And the reason why I do that is we utilize the heart in the liver. But he likes the Yannie likes the lips. Okay, so you like the lips and the nose, ears, cheek meat. I like cheat meat, right, No, you ever roast deer's head, picked the meat, the tacos. No, I have waste all that meat. Well, I don't call it waste because that there's a given. I mean, you gotta hit him somewhere. Yeah, and uh so you know, and tell and tell I acquire a taste for brains, tell them if I ever. But even if I do hit it in the head, I can utilize the brain if I wanted to tend the hide with it, you know. So it's not a waste there. But I don't. I don't want a chance of And I always give my son and his friend a bad time because sometimes they don't bring back the heart liver because the shot of the body. No, no, they always should. They always do head shots, Well, what's how far? Like, what's the maximum distance you shoot at at a at a black tail? Typically the maximum distance, like it will be a long shot for you, the way you want to fifty yards for the head. Yeah, I don't care. If you're Lee Harvey Oswald, I think that that's a bad aim. Well, that was a really bad thing. I just said. I didn't mean that. The reason I just talked about Lee Harvey Oswald's earlier, I was talking with someone about going to the museum in Dallas, the Book Depository Museum, and I remember looking out the window and expecting it to be a much longer distances. It was a very short distance. People always made a big deal about how could he have done it if you hadn't have had this, and that it was impossible they could have made it with a site open site, And I said that went around like that is not everybody, All the guys that hang out with the do that shod no problem Anyeah. I should have said that that was insensitive. However, I don't care if you're a great shooter. I think that you Well, let's let's when you said that maximum okay, and most of my shots are within a hundred yards some of them even, you know, like when I got that one big four point, you know I didn't even use my scope. Who was so close? I mean so when you say my maximum shot, well that was you know when I took and when I got Here's what this this are. I'm not gonna have this argument with you because you've been hunting your whole life. You've killed umpteen million deer. Like, you know what works for you. Okay, you know what your capable of, you know what works for you. But would you agree with this statement? You have a grandson, right, did you tell your grandson hit him in the head, hit him in the lungs, hit him in the head. His his last year he shot it was a five point? Yeahs was that his first year? Was was that his first year? And he shot it right and knows put it down pretty quick on all right. I'm a long man. Yanni's a long man. An Yeah. I had a couple of bad experiences. You know, I had some good experiences put down this animals very quickly with the head shots. But I had a couple Its uh for me, It doesn't warrant taking that shot anymore. First year, I ever shot thirteen years old, shot him in the head, had to run him down, kill him with a knife, And that was probably Josh shot exactly. Now. Another thing I saw happen some years ago when they started. You know, when when buffalo leave Yellowsto National Park, the way the laws are set up down in Montana, Wyoming, when buffalo leaves they Also National Park, he goes to being wildlife to livestock. Unlike every other animal. If a wolverine, wolf, elk, black bear, grizzly bear, mule, deer, antelope leaves the Also National Park, he's wildlife. Buffalo which is just as native and has just as might have the right to the lands any of our creatures leaves ye Also National Park, he becomes livestock. The Department of Livestock rounds him up and sends him off to slaughter. When they first started open up some permitted hunting for these things, and it wound up being in many ways to serve the interests of killing them off. But the various tribes in that area who had a historic claim to that area were allocated tags to go kill buffalo. When I was working on my book about buffalo, I went with not with but I accompanied without them actually asked me to accompany, but I went out with the net purse when they were there to shoot five buffalo and they were doing headshots. At one point in time, I think that they had all five of the ones they hit in the head. We're still wandering around with holes in them trying to It's like you need to know exactly what you're doing. Had they been shooting for long, they would all eventually got them all. Had they been shooting for long, you hit it through the long, it's gonna die buffalo too. I don't know what what type particularly around you're using that you gotta have a sturdy one. But I was just sorry of those we were up BEYONDI was there. We were talking to these uh choot pigascimo. They shoot walrus is a two threes in the head, like you're saying, So if you know about shot placement, those boys, do you know exactly should exactly where to hit the waters? Said? The waters can't get off the ice when they hit it like that. It can be done, but a lot of people don't have that skill set. So it's clearly you know what you're doing. You've been doing your whole life. Do you average Joe Schmo. I think it's better off aiming behind the shoulder because he can be all shaky and all nervous and all kinds of crap like that and still be six inches off in any direction and kill the thing. You could take and getting your or your canoe and go right out here now, even in that big right here. Now, set yourself up a target over there, take your rifle and try to hit that target while you're in that canoe, and saw how much how many times you're gonna miss? Well, it's illegal. You're talking about the Eskimo shooting walrus from their kayaks, and this is an open open and this is open ocean, and they have a way of knowing and timing their shot on that thing. Rocks and rocks back up. They do expert expert marksman, no you get. I mean, they definitely know what they're doing. But I was a distinguished marksman, a little bit better an expert in the military, a little bit better an expert. But I'm not saying I've been shooting all my life. My father, if you be where he died, and he goes about five years old, he bought me a single shot twenty two and he would go out target practice and he was teaching me certain how to handle it, care for it as that. When I was young. After he died, of course, I couldn't utilized or going with it, you know, do the gun again until I was a little bit older, and a new way my mother would allow me to do that is I had to go down and at the Civic Center and catch again. They had actual indoor range and I went down there and went through marksman course you know and stuff, so you were pretty closely supervised for safety and everything like that. So I was taught then, but I was also taught sighting, you know, using your site patterns and this and that, and I got pretty good with it, and just over time I got real good. I mean they're in UH pistol, you know. So what did you shoot when you were in the military. Well, I shot I shot the A R fifteen M sixteen h A R fifteen what a lot of people know of that semi automatic, but ours was fully the M sixteen. I shot the M sixty machine gun. Is that they have in the helicopter doors. Yes, and then the also UH qualified with a M seventy nine grenade launcher and a three point five rocket launcher which is the bazooka, and those I used caliber side arm. Uh god, what else they took away from me? When I went entered into country and Psycho on Tauson Air Force Base, they had just put it over their duffel bag. Put it between your feet there and you're standing there, wait, and they came through and started taking everything on my douffle bag. But I brought brought with me. I brought I brought my thirty eight Smith and Weston pistol and they seized it. And I thought that was the dumbest thing they could ever do, you know, because I'm I'm used to that weapon, and what's gonna hurt? Just another weapon that you have in a war zone, you know, mean while you got an M sixty door gun, well sure you up there? Well no that yeah, But I mean I thought awful funny about that. I thought I would never see it again. You know. He got back, It got back, and they nailed it right back to my our post off the box. Back then. I guess they could do it, you know, not anymore you can't mail to the post office box. But they made it back. It was every when I got back anyway. Uh, well, last question, what do you what's your how'd your dad die? He's so young. My father was in the engineers Army engineers and they went Toknawa and they were gonna pull their invasion going on to Okinawa. So he and his squad went on their first undercover darkness to start clearing away so that they're not bottling necked on the beach by obstacles and stuff like that. So they went in and started working u stealth and and and wiring it up so that when that started, then they'd start blowing all these obstacles up and clearing the way so that they're not jammed up waiting to get for seed off the beach. And in that process they were they were still working on the roads and stuff like that that there getting the stuff up off the beaches. So his whole squad was facing towards the beach, so they get out the way of all the amphibious vehicles coming up off the beach. So they had the you're being cautious about that, and one of the fellows that were driving one of those amphibious rigs, Uh, they shelled him and he went into shell shock. Life uh like uh, and turned his amphobious vehicle back around, started heading back down the beach and ran over half my father's squad, including him. And I can remember as uh the child. I could remember looking at his back, you know, when he had a shirt off and you could actually see it still see some treadmarks and big scars and everything like that where they had straightened his back out. Well, he always had problems. They're always in and out of the v A hospital all the time, constantly. And I didn't know how my mother had six kids, but she did, you know, so something was working. But for the most part, he was pretty sick, pretty sick person. And as near as I could tell, he had problems with ulcers. I think he probably had some cancer. Um. I don't know though, but he went down. It was in the hospital. Uh. My younger brother, Ivan was just born. I think Ivan's birthdays. See, I don't know d end of June one July. But my father died before he could see him. Uh. He died in the hospital in Portland. Uh, in the VA hospital. After he died, and the v A knew it was service connected, they knew damn all it was, but they did not they denied my mother any help. All right, yeah, you know, and that always rubbed me bad because when a veteran. I wasn't married when I was in Vietnam, but I couldn't. I've seen other veterans that had a wife and kids home, and I've seen the fact they had on him and they really missed him, and that was the most important thing to him, and they didn't want to get blown away and leave there wife and kids without any means of support. And so Joan and I at one time we were going through Seattle. We're at the Red Lion Red Line, and this one fellow from Ketchikan there was going back for American Legion convention, and I told him, I says, you know what really bothers me that a veteran, when they're having a disability and they're married and they have kids, but they're having a they're getting a disability pension from the v A. If they die, that pension goes away, and that's not what that veteran wants. And while and I told him a story about when I was over there, I seen how what effect it had on the soldiers that did have a family back home, immediate family, their wife and kids, and how they were saying anything else, all the anxiety about their financial well being. Right, yes, if anything happens to them, whos how are they going to be taken care of? In other words, And that's true back then, if something was to happen to him, their wife and kids didn't get anything. I guess imagine they have so securities help them a little bit, but for the most part nothing. And that was true up until actually when the guy listened to me and he went back and it made a difference. That's when they started the process. So I'm one disabled now, anything happens to me, now, at least Joan will get some of my pension. But before then that at came in. If I was to die, she would get nothing. Boom be. So if I was making house payments and we had house payments and she didn't have any other income and stuff like that, but maybe so secared or something, she would be hurting and probably lose her house. So they did. They came through and they said that right now she'd get a third of what I get. Uh, I feel it should be a little higher. When I retired from law enforcement, I reduced my monthly Uh what they're going to give me two as sure that Joan would get something when I passed away, pass away. So what I did? I set her up to where because I was wasn't taking my full retirement, some went you know, kept back, but anything happens to me now and I died before her or whatever she'll get sev. There was another one where I could have set it up for fift but no, I mean she was on there going going through what hardships and stuff like that. I went going through the police department and going through different things, and you know you do, and so I know there was a lot of times I had a phone home and tell her, hey, locked the door a little to rifle, you know, because just be on the safe side. You never know because of the case you worked or something that's going to be big out for vengeance. Yeah and what what what the person told me, you know himself. So yeah, it was So that's what I'm helcol about the military there there they turned around a little bit and just like I'm maybe keynote speaker for the upcoming UH gathering for the he had error veterans over in Craig of September. I was asked to give a talk for about a twenty minute talk and uh in there. You know, the United States government for in the last decade, let's say, has realized what especially since the returning from the veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan desert charm. They came back heroes, you know, and we never did. I mean I came back walking through Stack Airport, had some demonstrators in there, and they're calling me baby killer and one spat spat on me. I don't think you'd be spent on anybody else after that. I mean, I think you learned this lesson because changed a little bit. Well, I knocked them out and I was putting a bathroom in there and cleaning off all this bit, and then walks too poor to Seattle Police Department be personnel and two MPs. The one guy asked me, did you hit that guy out there? And they turned around. I pointed, put my finger in the chest each one of them. I said, it hit you. You you and you as you called me a baby killer and spit spit on me. They did that, and I said, yeah, I showed him where they spent. By the time I got out of there, they were gone. So which was good. But I was coming home. Yeah, I was coming home. They gave me a brand new uniform, fitted me for it, and I got home. When I left the house there, my mother was in the kitchen painting totem poles and the seat seat sitting there, and when I came back, snuck in the back door there. Well, I got my stepfather down to the bar. We had a few tips in my uncle, and I had another guy that I ran into. He was in the Navy coming back. So we're sitting there in a bar, and I wasn't twenty one yet, so I told him and neither neither neither was it. Neither was it was this other guy, So I told him, he come on, we deserve it, you know. So we went in there, and even the bartender once in a while to buy his drinks. I thought it was pretty cool. But for the most part, when I got in there and I got home, my mother was at the kitchen table there painting total bulls. Yeah, and she turned around, looked, went back to painting total bulls, and all of a sudden to realize I was back home. So that was about welcome home enough for me, you know. Yeah, all right, Rannie got any concluding thoughts. Yeah, I do, you know. Lately here I realize one thing, and I came to a conclusion there's only one thing good about old age that it doesn't last long. And that's the only thing good about it. So anyway, no, I'm I'll tell you. I'll tell you another one too. I I added on to this when I heard of someplace house, but I added a few other things. But the Golden years, it's not the Golden years. It's what I refer to as a metal years. It's where you get silver in your hair, golden your leading, your ass our deficiency, your brain is, our mind is like a steel trap, rusted shut. You have enough platinum credit cards to buy the world, but not enough gold to pay him off. And I think that they're more accurately describes it than the Golden Years. But yeah, I since nineteen two thousand, uh, nineteen nineteen two, since two thousand seven when I had my episode of the last cloudy and stuff like that. My before that, I wasn't as good as shape as you, maybe even better. But now I mean I've I've been crashing going downhill. And then I had at open heart surgery and one of those metal valves put in and that they're further depleted. I mean, anybody could look at me and it was and you're not disabled, you know, but looks ain't it. I mean it's what I can there could. I can't do anymore. And because of all this here going on at one time and the medications they got me on, you can't. I mean, yeah, how old are you? Well past retirement age? What's retirement age? Sixty year older? Now? Well, sure, yeah, I am, but that has nothing to do with it. I mean really, I mean, Joan isn't in better shape than I am? Yeah, you know, and she's older than me. She was the she was a founder of the International Order of Cougar's her. I just kidd none, you, yohn. What can I tell about your wife? Johnnie? I never got to wrap it up. Tell about your wife? You go tell these guys about your wife, Johnny. Johanni's wife asked him to get married and he said no. I said, yeah, he he loved his wife so much that he broke the Latvian uh like ring broke the Lavian bloodline. Really so that I'm gonna blow your I'm gonna blow it. Quick note on you're I'm gonna close the episode with a quick note, did you make this one? No? No, this one for sure. That's a nice one. It looks like the Summiner. Yeah, it does. Look it's just like the Summiner. I'm gonna start out with uh made in call and then here's a here's a wounded calf. Yeah you like that? Ron, which one do you get better? Responsive? The wounded calf makes dose come and snort at you bucked their feet up and down and as that could bring in a buck Yeah heard doing all that? Oh yeah, I've had that happen to me all the time, and especially this time a year Doe roiled up in the buckle show up. Yes, yeah, eventually I will, because that does doing a lot of stomping against norton. Yeah, so you'll keep holding her attention as long as you can. Yes, I will as long as I can. And you have to hide real good. I mean I was down for curiosity up. Yeah, I was just gonna go with some dude. I was down underneath the log stick. Dear, call out and boat again. As soon as she comes back stomping real close by. I mean I had to stop, stop a foot away from my head, you know. But I'm under the log and I'm all right, and she'll act like that as long as she can't spot. Yeah, so don't know the source one. No longer you could get her to stop and snort and stomp and snort, the better chances are and getting a buck to respond. Those are bringing blackberries to all constantly all the time. And you know, one of one of one of the times, I was up there at Paul's bite on a road system and I see look down below and here is two do down there. So I tried to get them to stomp and stuff and I blew and they did. They were stomping and snorting and stuff like that. So I said, this is pretty cool. When I was up there, and never once while as soon as they slowed down the blow it again. They continue stomp And I see something on the tree line coming in, so I scope it. And as soon as I seen what it was, I sent a chill up by spine. And I didn't realize, but this bear, black bear was move crawling in real slow on his belly, yes, coming in, and that just sent a chill up my back because I'm in a muskag blowing my dear call, and I always hear a little subtle noises around the back of me or off to the side, you know, and I figure, well, there's got to be a buck coming in and stuff like that. Well it never did come in, you know. But yeah, And I had a friend of mine that was sitting in a small muskag and he had his rifle down one of the chamber safety off. He's blown his derkle and he's sitting on this stump or or logged and a bear come bolting out of the other side of this year short must gag and before that bear realized that he was not a deer or something, the bear spun. As he spun away, the ass of the bear came around and knocked my friend off the log on his back, and he never even had a chance to raise his rifle. That's oh, they're fast. They come in very fast. And I didn't have time to stick around and see what that bear was going to do with the doze, but he probably should have. But I had a hunt to do, and I started going up throat, but I only took a picture, you know. He he was coming in south and get in within that prancing distance of maybe what maybe a hundred fifty two. So that's right, ladies and gentlemen, you have right here. Bears are fast, but not as fast as you should run. Two hunting dot com by one of you his T shirts. I like that. I love it. Thank you. That's h U N T t o e A T dot com. Remember I get nothing. I get nothing for promoting Yanni's T shirts, sides, free T shirts I have too, free T shirts. I'm gonna make you if you don't send Ron and Jonah free T shirt, I'm gonna quit plugging hunting Well. I take you out a plan. Plug the Cassan Restaurant. If you're passing through Cassan, go to the Cassan restaurant. All you can eat everything for one dollar one dollar. Oh yeah, all right, tune in next time

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