00:00:00 Speaker 1: Hey, I'm Casey and I'm Tyler and you're listening to the Element Podcast. Got it? What's going on? Everybody? This is the Element Podcast, brought to you by First Light Gear. And today we have got outdoorsmen from every line out there. Trump is with us to Trump that's right, I'm here then trumping them red do you know what I'm saying? And they hitting on their heads right. So, Um, we thought we talked about a few things today. We've been doing a lot of stuff. We've had some videos come out on YouTube, and we will have some other ones come out on YouTube. You'll go check that stuff out. Um, but we wanna talk a little bit about some of the fun stuff you can do right now. Eric, You sir, proved to the world that they don't know what they're talking about when it comes to what is actually a red fish lure? That's right? Is that the truth? Yeah? Well, I mean we're down here in Texas. So I just threw on some Texas rig you know. There you go, that's what you do, right, Let me tell er Texas rig not Texas. It's like it's like the singular plural thing to the next level. There. Just threw on some Texas rig That's right, he did. He did. They saw some dol and throw on some Texas a whole head of cattle out there. Um, you we're being chastised. Probably my friend Brian. Yeah, he doesn't know anything. He doesn't know anything. Friend. Yeah, for your choice and lure, yeah yeah, and then you caught the biggest fish of the week. Yeah. I try and teach him a thing. But how did you do that? I just throughout my lure and fish bit. Was there any grass in the way? Yeah? There was. That. That is the main reason why I threw on in Texas rick because I like kept catching grass. So because what were you using first? Uh? What Brian says? A heavy jig? But the package set a sixteen ounce It was like a swim or swim bait. Yeah. I had a swim bait on it too, And so I was catching a bunch of grass and I went to Texas Rigg to go weedless. And so apparently reds don't just eat swimmy fish looking things. They don't. You know where I think I figured that out. Uh, A formative trip in my life. I was eight years old. My granddad, my dad and myself got in my dad's what and that what's that one song Johnny's daddy was taking fishing? Yeah, yeah, I'm gonna know a little blond girl though it was me. Um. We jumped in my dad's MASD to be twenty three hundred, which is a single cab standard Mazda truck tiny and we headed to Poor Ransas, Texas from East Texas. You know who else drives those trucks? People in the world countries, That's right. You will see those uh on the streets of India. Um. Well, um, we got us a uh a charter on like the scat cat or wholf cat or something, which is like an offshore party boat, which is the worst way to experience off score fishing for sure. There's like forty people. Have you done that before? But it's I mean it was awesome as a kid. Uh. There are people people were sick, and there's a concession standing the inside, you know, so like you can get like nasty food, and so like half the people who were getting sick and half people are eating like nachos, and all people are getting hung up because what you do is you drift fish and um, all these lines it's bunch of pin centator four arts right, so there no one knows how to use one of these things because you have to level wine when you phone when you're really in. So everybody's kind of tangled up there. And then all the lines are out the boat trolling ribbon fish or drifting ribbon fish, and kingfish hit one of those and then that kingfish goes sideways and catches all of the other lines. So you don't really even know who caught the fish a lot of times but went out on that thing and then caught it in a tiny shark. But we stay down there for three days in bayfish while we were there, and UM, as eight year old, that means you just throw the cast net a whole lot, which is a lot of fun. I love throwing a cast net because you never know what you gonna come up with. UM. And while I was casting any one time, I was stepping around, bless you, sir, and um this I told this whole story to get to this, UM. There was a spot in the mud where I took a step and out squirted a sand eel out of that mud. When I took this step seal and he was like probably twelve or fifty inches long, but kinda looked like a pop fish kind of, but it was different. And how does this thing relate to the thing that stripers eat up in the Northeast. I think those are real eels, like American eels. I don't know for sure, but I feel like that's American heel. Uh. There's also uh a fuzzy worm whatever they're called, the tarp and eat the worm hatch. Yeah, those things are fast everything swimson creep me out. Yeah, dude, it's weird. And that's also strange that like a two inter pound fish is taking a time to eat like a three inch little worm and swimming. Weird. Weird. But that's where I just like, okay, peak right there that you know, the old bass worm probably isn't that bad of a thing. And I think it's neat that you thought that, Hey, I'm getting hung up. Let me change it to something I know doesn't get hung up. How many fish you kitch on that man? A lot? Really, I don't remember how many. But did you fish Texas rig the rest of the trip. No. I went back to the swim bait when I saw Brian was catching them, and then UH just kind of went back and forth. Did you catch any on a lizard, yes, Texas lizard. Yes, I've never caught a fish on a lizard. Did you see a lizards swimming? I did not. I'm pretty sure I caught some trout on the Texas rig too. Really. Yeah, that's interesting. I feel like they're they look up a lot more than red fish. Due here's something people, people people. So would you say that these fish that are eating lizards like nothing they've ever seen? What causes them to eat that? I would say instinctive impulse. So they're instinctive. They see something moving, it looks like it could fit in their mouth. And that's why I told Michael's, uh, we're down there, and I said it, man, I feel like fish are just dumb. Like you just put the right color in front of them, they're gonna eat exactly what. I don't even know it's colored, dude. I think it's just size and motion. I don't like I've always matched the hatch, so it's different depending on like what the thing is. So yeah, I think that if you've got bass that are eating two inch shad and you try to throw a lizard at them, they're gonna have a hard time eating that. But like if they're just in ambush mode and they're sitting there waiting on something. The difference in a sassy shad color and a sexy sad color or what you know, like one of them got a little green on its backing them a little bit yellow or whatever. There ain't no way. I mean, I just still am not convinced in any way that um, a croppy jig that's white on the front with pink tails is like they're buying that, but they're not gonna buy white on the front with purple tails, you know. The only thing that I think is that maybe it messes with the way they view the profile of the baits. That's like a darker bait might seem bigger or I'm with you on that, but I think that like the little discrepancies, I don't see how it's posted. Basically, when I do it, I just if it's cloudy or the water's muddy, that's when I use black or blue, And if it's clear water sunny, that's when I use green stuff. That's basically the only coloring I do. So if you if you like, you don't color when you go to restaurant, they don't do when they offer it. Uh. So, if fish are considered dumb by Eric and many other people, are they dumb on the scale of animals or are they just dumber than humans? Well that would be a very taxonomic question, Tyler. How many animals are there Bazilians a lot? Uh? And it's really hard, you know, it's hard for me to judge the intelligence of a bug because a monarch knows too head south and like what a milk wheat planting is and all that kind of stuff. The worst place. Monarch also doesn't know how to get out of the cardboard, you know what I mean. So it's like intelligence is uh more than two dimensional, I think. So that's kind of a difficult thing to say when it comes to um, you know, what they eat? I don't feel like most fishing. What I'm trying to get to is like people have no problem with you catching and just you know, fileting up some fish and eating them. Then turkeys people like eating them too, you know. Deer sometimes people get a little weird about grizzly bears. Don't even think about it, you know what I mean. Wait, how does this all play together? Man? Why? Why? I mean, there's a there has to be an intelligence animal intelligence factor that plays this. This is uh, this is a different direction, but you'll like it. Um, what makes humans different than all the other living things out there? Are you asking me for an answer? Or is this rhetorical? I'm asking you for an answer. They have an eternal soul? Yes, that is correct. And where do we get that? Like in the creation scheme of things? Um before animals? God no humans made last um Um. God breathes his breath into man, whereas animals are just created. A difficult question for an answer, Wasn't that's kind of specific thing there? Well? That it's a big difference though, is that humans have the you know, the spirit of God and then the breath from God that is what created man, and then everything else is just you know, dare I say inanimate even though it's animated. You know, it's kind of an oxy moron, right. I just wonder, I just wonder what makes them what it makes humans decide what is okay culturally to shoot eat all that? I don't know, because you have vegetarians all the time, they're like, oh, but I eat fish. Yeah, that's exactly right. That's a that's a big thing that happens. Well, they don't breathe there, so it's just a very foreign thing, right, Yeah, And the same thing like you know, I think vegetarians can eat eggs or something. Maybe I don't really know for sure. Uh, there's probably you know, all kinds of different variations on it. But like, um, I would say that's probably a big thing that it is in a different realm than what we do. So it seems just more foreign you know our fish or birds? Number fish, fish, yeah think so really yeah, what do you think? I don't know many are we patted a turkey last the windows see some really smart ones that here's the okay, so we are talking like on the philum level here, right, So it's pretty difficult because, uh, phylogenically, um, you're saying that a horse is in the same phylum as like a gopher, you know what I mean. So you can't just say, like, well, animals are smarter than birds or whatever, you know, because those crows that we saw today are way smarter than a gopher. Um. But at the same time, everybody knows a horse is like a lot smarter than a turkey, So it's kind of hard to kind of quantitate that on such a high level I would say, but over I don't want to. I don't want to make a shot towards Willie Nelson here. But I feel like it's like, then when it comes to this that question that I keep asking here, that it's like Willie Nelson where it's like nobody really knows, like basically he's just famous for being famous. Yeah, it's like somehow cultural culture just kind of latched onto this, you know, harmless, redheaded stranger guy and uh, and then he got like he kind of was like your grandpa that smoked pot or whatever, and so that was funny to people, and then it made him more popular and more likable or whatever. And then he's just like this huge icon cultural icon. Uh. When he really didn't have people get mad here. Uh, he didn't have like a bunch of crazy big hits. He wasn't that great of a singer in most people's opinion. It's just like, you know, he's super super popular. Is that what happens with bears and wolves, where like you don't know where it comes from. It all of a sudden it's there, and it's like this is a this is a problem. It's a real meat eat or term to say right, this is a Steve thing, but it's a karmatic, charismatic megafauna, right. Some people like the big stuff, and bears represent that like to a t. We're I think that. Uh, people like dogs a lot too, and bears are kind of like dogs different. I mean, they're you know, they're wolves are the worst, um. And that's that's why I want to go make gonna eat a dog. Man, it's culturally acceptable down there, you know, like you're talking about what makes them culturally acceptable. I'm down, dude, I'm telling you, like it would be worth it. Um. So I don't know. At the same time, I don't. I don't really want to eat a bobcat. Yeah, you know what I mean, I dog. There's also a certain level in you know, people might not like this, but a lot of stuff does go back to biblical things, right, the cloven hoofed animals that chewed the cud that was considered clean um, and so uh, stuff like the powd animals and things weren't considered clean to eat um. So at some point in time there was like a religious back into that. You know, nowadays that's not really we don't live by the old ball, but there's like the right, Um, they fund the police, right, that's right. I mean that's no justice, no peace. So I think that that's probably part of it. It's like, oh, it's weird. It's like, uh, you know, you can see what you think is a turkey in a pasture and you're like, man, i'd eat that, and then you realize it's a turkey vulture and you're like, oh, I wouldn't eat that. But they lay the same size of egg animal because I've I've rescued baby turkey vultures from addicts and they are ugly. Has it ever crossed your mind to actually eat one? Then the egg? Yeah? Really, yeah, because I remember the last time you had one, you brought to my house and you were, well, somebody brought to our house this this egg existed somewhere palpathetically. I don't know. I don't think you even knew where it came from, just in your truck or something. Maybe I don't know, but like now, it's uh, it was something you definitely weren't considering eating. I didn't want to at the time, but maybe when you're younger, I suppose I considered it and decided not to. Um, so did they stink. I can't remember. Fountains stink. Stunt buzzard stink where they live? I hit one with my rear view mirror one time on my truck, and my truck. My truck stunk for like a week. Do you throw up when you hit him? Did he throw up? That's like the defense thing and throw up? Yeah? They gross. I thought I was gonna miss it. Swooped down into my mirror. Would you rather eat a turkey vulture? Which actually too kind of have a little bit of delineation here? Um, the Mexican vultures are the real gross ones. Turkey vultu. Yeah, turkey vultures are kind of clean, um, kind of little see, but um they Would you rather eat a turkey vulture or a water turkey? Eric? You go first? I don't even think I really. I mean, I've kind of seen the water turkeys here, but I don't know if I really know what they look like. But it sounds better. Water turkeys are literally water buzzards. Would but I, um, I would hate to do this. I would hate that to be my only choices. I think I could play this game for a long time. Would you rather eat this or this? We should do a whole episode. Let's do it. Let's do a minor one here. Everybody come up with two? Already used one? Anybody ready for one? Um? Kind of it has to be nasty, no, okay, uh, but it's more fun to do things that's like would you rather eat a new guy or milk? You know it's kind of yeah, but would you either eat rather eat a earthworm or a tick earthworm? For sure? I think mine is gonna be would you eat frog giggs? No, you have to answer this question because yeah, yeah, earthworm by a Little League coach to earthworm before our last game to inspire us. We still lost perfect and now he is the d a perfect I think drug administrator. Yeah, whatever, the whatever the big one is it's over a district, right, yeah, yeah, yeah, sounds right? Yeah? All right, Eric, you got a question frog eggs or a salamander like a whole salamon the eggs do they have tadpoles in him? I don't know. I'd go. I would be in seeing frog gigs. I kind of it's almost like I haven't had this either, but it would be like boba ti. Can you imagine making frog gigs? It would be kind of cool it would be neat a little sugar in there. Yeah, what do you got? Um? I like going with the bird stuff because they're familiar, you know. Would you rather eat a coote m I've cooked over an open fire with no I was young? Sorry? Would you rather eat a coot or a kestral? At this point? A kestral for me, because you've already had. I don't think I know what either of those. So a coot or those little black things that swimming and look like ducks? Okay, yeah, yeah when we hunted with mark um and then a kestral is the tiny raptor that you see flying around eating grasshoppers and small things. Call them sparrow hawks. A lot of times I probably try to coop all right. They look more edible, for sure. They definitely are more legal. I have to do another one. Yeah, Would you rather eat a dog or a kitty cat? A dog? You know my answer? Kitty cat? I think I need a kitty cat too. Man. Cats are tiny because I don't like cats. I don't like either of them. Don't be tender. I guess maybe i'd be stringy. I don't know. Tastes like pork's whatever. He says, I bet you they do. Everything tastes like anything chicken or pork. Yeah, that's whatever it tastes like, Eric, chicken, what do you say, chicken? Talk about? That's what's on my mind. Oh my gosh, I have another one. Never mind? Do you rather eat um? Would you rather eat uh? Bold or all accapatio? For sure? All right? Eric, what's your last question? Um Man? People are yelling because they don't know. We know it's occato. Guys, don't worry. Possum they don't know, or a opossum or possum possum or a m hm m mmm like the T shirt? Yeah, get one, um a gopher? Oh, I go for for sure, go for a lot cleaner. Do you know my possum story? I may have told it on the podcast, but it's probably time to tell it again. I have a couple, but only one of them I'm going to tell now. The other one probably is not good for company. Um So. I used to work for the state uh doing uh animal control pretty much while animal control stuffs trap state trapper and um at this guy who was losing calves to coyotes, and he didn't want us to use any snares. And that stuff. So hunting was the best way. And I had um a night vision unit that they loaned me to use to do a little It was just for scanning and I didn't have it attached to the gun. But he had a dead cow that I could go sit over and try to kill some of the coyotes. Heard this one, it's gross. So the cow has been dead about a about a week, so it's kinda been eating on a little bit and it's starting to dry out some. And uh, I'm sitting there thinking kyotes are gonna show up for sure. I got the wind said. I don't see any coyotes all evening. I'm sitting there kind of in the dark, thinking that, well, okay, they're coming later. And then I see in the night vision something moving over to the left. Well it's a possum, and I'm like, oh, that makes sense. He's gonna go eat some of that cow. This possum crawls up on top of this cow, like is he doing? And then he crawls to the rear of this cow and does a reverse ace ventura on this cow and crawls up in the body cavity via the anus of this cow. What's the saying here, these rhinos, uh, rhinos are kind of hot, or I don't know, I know it, I can't something nice, Ventura says when he's so. Ever, since then, I don't touch possums because they're gross. All right, I've got one. Also, it's impossible for possums to eat seventeen million ticks a year or whatever. The status is gonna bring this up ear there, Yeah, whenever you you do the math, that means it possums eating three d something ticks a day impossible? Alright, one more, all right? A maggot or a tick? Oh, maggots. Unfortunately, tick is one of the worst things. You know what I's thinking about ticks today because I was like, you know what place of ever had a tick? It's in my nostril? H but they could get there. Yeah, imagine having a tick in your nostril all of a sudden you just wake up and you're not breathing very good on one side, or there's a it's a seed tick and you just can't get out of there because it's all up in there. Can you imagine in your ear? Yeah, it could happen. Absolutely single dude like me. Scary. Yeah, that's why you leave all that ear wax in there? That way they can't get in there? All right, I got one more. What's your last one? Would you gathery rather? Would you rather eat brayin manness or a mon art butterfly? Oh? Man, it's for sure. I've considered even a manness. Anyways, there's a lot of protein there. Dude. Those are creepy. Those have a higher intelligence. The butt section of one of those things is very like, yeah, but the head's gonna I'm telling you, dude, they're they're higher. They're higher intelligence than most bugs, maybe all bugs. The smartest bug there is smartest bug. I feel like this is actually I mean praying. Man, it's might be up there, I'm telling you. But what's what's considered a bug? Things with six to eight legs? Maybe I don't know. Uh yeah, so you're gonna count crustaceans. So are you gonna count stephilopods? M those are things that make fossils in the so, uh, octopus would fall under that. That's octopus technically, statistically, you know, there's probably somebody with a degree is yelling at me, but you could call an octopus a bug? Yeah? Yeah? Does it even it doesn't have a brain, does it. The octopus have brain? Yeah, they're super smart. They got a brain in each tentacle or something, don't they. It's something weird, something weird about But octopus. I think the smartest of all those is a cuddle fish, if I remember right. They're creepy, the little reverse squids with beaks. Yeah there, yeah, it's to be it is that makes sense. Yeah, it's a bird. It's a bug. It's a the land bugs of the land bugs. I feel like, um, there's this thing where crawfish which that landbug. But I wonder if crayfish are smarter than we give them credit for things that live a long time. I feel like they're gonna be smart. But that's not really true because trees livel a really long time. Side story on praying mantis. At the moment I learned this dude, Casey here, it's really good. I have visued. We're like storming through some tall grass to get to a spot because the night you killed in South Dakota, I believe. Yeah, that first year I found you guys, and we're just storming through this tall grass and he just stops. He goes, look that praying mantis and I stopped and I'm like, where away. Oh, We've been doing a lot of hunting too, man, speaking of that, you know, like, um uh, it is fun to get out there and storm around in this stuff, especially right now because, um, for a lot of people, uh not our friends in Alabama, Mississippi maybe, but for most of the country, there's not much deer hunting to do right now. But there is other stuff out there. And we did some axes hunting. We've talked about that. We've also been doing a lot of pig hunting, which is pretty pretty fun. Pretty pink pee in a parachute. You ever heard that? I think I have heard that. Does that mean I don't have a clue, but it's the thing I heard a lot growing up. Um. I don't know if that was like a some type of slogan for a brand or something or what, but um, anyways, I'm derailing us. It's a big hunting and I think that hunting, yeah, I call it punting around here. Um. I think that there are two things that pig hunting reminds me of. Ah, not like recollecting onto other things I've done, but instead, like it reminds me of why you should do pig hunting is eight. You can sharpen your skills really, really, really well and effectively for a lot of reasons we'll get into and be It reminds me about how when we hunt, we really are trying to obtain food, and because pigs are so it's such an easy bridge from shooting a pig to eat a pig, because, I mean, it's one of the three most consumed animals on our continent, and it might be on the planet. I mean, but I bet it's one of the top on the planet. Goat is number one. Goat is number one most consumed proteins. I know that an Asia pig is wild. Actually, we're talking to a friend the other day who was talking about that. Um, you know, like there's a lot of pigs in the Oriental stuff. And I for lunch today had hog had l pastur, which is probably the best application. It is so good. I don't know that that thing you made the other day yesterday was and it was good. I made a like a a stew it's kind of like a pizzole. Uh made me say it was it was, you know, it has the homny in it. But I used serrano roasted serranos and um, well of those cherubs or what are they're called? What I was trying to say here the toma teos. Um. Yeah, I roasted garlic, toma teos, serranos and some onion in the oven and then emulsified it and turned it into a paste and put it in there, and then used a quart of Neil guy stock bone stock that we made here, and then just some kind of uh, some combin, some origo, some salt, and made a stew out of it with some hog backstrap. And it was delectable. I would say it was. Actually, it started out really spicy and then it kind of tone toned down after day or two. So that was nice, um, but really good application and definitely reminded me that like, hey, it's really cool to shoot hogs because you can eat them. Is it acceptable to eat pigs? I would say yes, I accept the pigs, but pigs are really smart. Pigs are really smart. Weird, it is weird, charismatic smart. Megafauna head is also acceptable to eat. Yeah, it's the best of all the world's but they they the nasty and I think that's what that's where it is. Yeah, I think that's the difference. So people don't. So it's a bunch of hoity twities that are have a problem with eating Oh yeah, they just I would say, anybody has a problem with eating anything as cleaner than now. Yeah. Um, so I don't know. Uh, you know, I never realized how smart pigs were because most of the time because I was blasting with shotguns as soon as saw him. But growing up, I didn't show pigs. But I have friends at the Brendan had a show pig. And if you don't know, if you're not from a part of the country, this is common in Texas. Your your wife's from my family a showpiggers. Um, it's funny phrase. Uh that Um you show animals, which means you raise this animal as a young one, uh and fatten it up and then you walk it around when you're dressed up in your cowboy outfit and um, people judge you on like the way they them all behaves and stuff and the way it's built. It's the animal husbandry competition. Yeah, it's called four H or or ff a things like that. They have that kind of stuff out there here. They call it four Yeah, he's gonna looking at it without one of the ages. Uh so that's actually one of the ages, and you know all the h is um it would be homemaking husbandry. Uh, I don't know. I don't know what they are. If you know what those are Texas, I don't know. I mean I could look it up, but I didn't even know what they were looked it up. I didn't even know that those were. Like you thought, I didn't know. Whatever you got it just more of a figure head. There's four ages, but we don't know. He's a clover. You know, it's after you've just sended to the seventeenth level. But anyways, when Brendan had a show pig, it would play fitch like better than a dog. It's weird. Like he tossed a stick to it in the pasture and sit there look at you and you point it. Go, get the stick, bring it back, drop it at your feet, and sit back down where it wasn't look at you yet. That's weird. Yeah, It's like Babe is a real thing, you know how Like the dogs and Babe were all like, you know, running around crazy hurting the sheep and then Babe like chili, you know, chili which in a very chilaxed manner like herd. I don't know what the pigs said that, but like he would go get the stick walking and would walk it back and sit down like a very relaxed animal shake it. No, I don't think he shook. Yeah, that was but that was a cool pig. But um, speaking of the chilax pigs, um, the spotting stalk aspect of hogs. Yeah, it's pretty cool. The fun I got hype several times today. UM, let's talk a little bit about that. How we go about that? Um, So we decided to walk several hundred acres today with a herd of elephants. Did you look on your phone how far we walked? It's a pretty decent little walk. Um. Basically, you know, when we go to do this, we try to find a way to walk a loop so that we don't ever walk the same stuff we've already walked. But also it gets hard to do that sometimes because the wind excuse me, the wind doesn't always work out for you in the entire loop. Some parts of the loop are better than others, so you have to either create a different approach or hope that the lay the land works out for you, or just say, you know what, We're just gonna walk, and so we decided to walk a loop. You and I kind of, Um, well, early on we almost killed a big, big boar um that got up probably sleeping not far from us and heard us walking. Um, you were Uh, we saw him. We both started pulling the arrow out of our quiver. We actually heard Greg say there's a pig and it's very emphatic about that it was. And then uh, and then we looked up saw him start pulling out arrows out of the quiver and um. Immediately as soon as I started having a little trouble pling my arrow out, I saw year getting years out. So I just said I'll range So I pulled my range finder up hit him said like fifty eight point five. So I said sixty because he was kind of he was getting ready to walk away or he was walking about the time that I pulled my range finder down, said sixty right there. And Uh, anyway, long story short, he takes off. Um, we didn't get a shot at him. And then we work this big loop uh near creek. So we're kind of like working down the edge of these creek systems and river systems and stuff, and just trying to like hang out near water and thick cover basically, and we're in these big river bottom flats where you can see a long ways to through this stuff because it's used, you know, it's it's floodplain. Just kind of working slowly and as quite as possible as a lot less wind today, so we had a lot less uh stalking cover noise. I kind of liked it, though. I like to be able to hear. So it's kind of a catch twenty two because we've had five guys in the woods. Um you know, y'all know this, but we film what we do now, so we have the whole crew pretty much every time we do something, and that just means it's you're just not as effective in the woods because you're louder, right. But from a hunting standpoint, I like stalking around on the quieter days because I can be pretty quiet, uh you know, stalking so I can hear stuff. I like to hunt with my ears a lot. Yeah, I think, uh, if I can see pigs out feeding or something like that, I would rather be windy. But I mean like when so basically long story shore, we did this big loop. Didn't see anything but a bunch of deer and the deer running off. They scare pigs when they run off, and so Casey and I are like, he asked me, do you think how do you think that's doing for us? I was like, probably not good, especially if you keep bumping them in the direction we're going. Deer way more uh perceptive than hogs are, so probably partially because they're taller. Uh So, like we're walking through the woods and deer seeing us at four hundred yards away because we're not like hunting deer. We're not trying to you know, it would not be the way you hunt deer. Um. So we're bumping deer and they are definitely We've seen it in action, right, We've seen deer spook hoggs because the hawgs kind of like, oh what else, dear when I'm from better get out of here too. Um. So, like we know what they're smart. They know when the deer freaking out something's not right, and they don't tend to just sit there that happens. They don't rely on their cover nothing. They just take off in a trot. They absolutely rely on the fact that they can just trot faster than most things and cover and a ridiculous amount of country. So we kind of we kind of made our loop decision at that point to go ahead and turn back. And we make this big loop turn back walk aways and we're getting down to some good cover where we have seen pigs before, and uh, it just looks good. I mean it kind of like the elevation drops down and gets really kill pigs there. Last year it's on YouTube. You all should go check it. It's like the boar or sow or what. I don't remember what the tiple is, but it's some actually some really epic hog hunting footage from some spot and stalk stuff. Tyler did. Yeah, it's cool. Um. So anyway, we get down in there and uh, and Casey and I are kind of probably hundred yards aparty more and we're kind of using hand signals to say are we going this way? We're going that way. So we decided to push into the word towards this creek and said to work up the creek. Um, while the wind is kind of kind of with the wind to an extent, and we're gonna work across the wind instead. Well, I don't go probably fifty sixty yards before I pulled my binos out and start glassing in this bottom and I see like a patch of hair, It's like a square foot and I was like, man, I can't tell, but I think that's a pig. It looks like hair. I can't really tell. It's like a hundred yards away. Anyway, long story, shore, we make the casey and I make the kind of um, you know, I kind of waving flat my arms to get their attention and you know, tell him I see something. And we decided it is pigs or whatever. And then he comes over. We make some plans and um, and so he's gonna try to kind of flank one direction and see, you know, if they bust out, if they go that way or not. And I'm gonna go right at them. And so Eric and I go right out and we got across the swamp. And so this is where like I really wish that I had some wind noise, some wind cover, because we're kind of cross the swamp and stepping over big logs and stuff, and it's just like so slow, right, and so everybody else's there is probably just bored out of their mind, you know, standing there watching us creep. But we're within, you know, seventy yards of these pigs, we can't make a bunch of noise. And and here's the deal. When you're when you're stalking a big sounder, there's inevitably gonna always be some weird hundred hundred fifty pounds sow that like all of a sudden comes out from behind a palmetto and she's at like forty looking right at you, and you didn't see her until then, you know, even though all the rest of them here at seventy and they're all feeding or whatever, and so you just gotta be super careful or you're gonna get caught by that one. And then there's no shot, no video, no fun, you know. And so we, uh, we work across this swamp, we get on a dry land. About the time we do, they kind of move in a direction that I had seen them all kind of starting to move, uh, right before we decided to stalk for them. And so they were kind of heading in this direction down this creek, and so we have to like get up on this hill and then in this high spot in the swamp and then kind of work down towards them. And there's just a million leaves, you know, and so you still have to be super slow and quiet through that stuff. And uh, you know, the whole time we're working down towards them, they kind of stop a little bit, and then we kind of catch up with them. We get within fifty of a few of the bigger pigs, and they're in and out of this stuff. There's so many limbs, like you gotta consider on a fifty yard shot, like you gotta consider your aeropath because it's gonna be kind of high. You know, Like even though I have a clear line of sight to this pig at fifty, there's these limbs on these seater elms coming out at you know, eight ft nine ft up that my my arrow has a decent chance of clipping right. So I end up drawing like four different times and letting down just because a of that, and then be because the the pigs are moving a lot. I mean pigs. Pigs don't sit stand in one spot very very much. They're on They're in a constant like move two steps and then walk two quick steps here, and then walk two quick steps here. Another thing, this is a this is a tip if you're ever stalking pigs. I noticed this today and I've noticed it before, but it was reiterated in my mind when this happened. Every time a pig comes out from some brush and goes into a gap where you can shoot it, almost every time that pig sees the gap and stops and looks almost every time. So like every time I saw a pig come out of the brush and get into a gap at like forty, he would turn his head and look down that down that like alley. It's like they see the the alleys that can they can see a white ways and they always stop and look. So you know, when a pig first steps out, if you draw, you're probably getting seen, you know. Whereas if you draw before he steps out, then he's gonna stop, look for about three or four seconds, and then he's gonna keep walking and you might be able to grown him or stop him or whatever. But that happened several times. Just remember that. But anyway, we had a we had a big boar in there just doing circles checking all these souths and there's piglets everywhere. There's literally probably forty pigs. It was cool because I could see into there with a banos. I was watching you and Eric, and I was watching the pigs, and you know, at distance, y'all look like you were like five yards from that. You're probably like forty or something. Um, but I was the whole time I do, y'all were like in the in the mix there, and so I could see all this happening from kind of a third person perspective. It was like a really neat dude. At one time, there was all these little tiny's, like fifteen or a dozen little tiny like the size of my phone. It looked like babies. Well they at one time they'd make it like the herd of them makes a mad dash back towards us and I and I was like, okay, there there, if they come to us, the big ones are gonna naturally follow. The sALS are gonna follow, because that's what they did, go in that direction. And I told her because like I think they're coming our way, you know, And they were like I guess they were so small that they weren't covering much ground, but they would be like running, and then I would see him running like thirty seconds later, and I'm still like, how are they only gone ten yards? You know? It's like, hey, one time I saw you like reach back and looked like you were holding hands with Eric? What was what was going on? And I've been just telling him to stop or something like that. I think he was telling me to come towards him, because he did that. At one point he was doing like that. Yeah, I couldn't see Tyler's hand, you're covering. I was like, what do they do it? I didn't couldn't tell if Eric couldn't see. You're just enjoying the moment watching the sunset together, you know. Uh. But no, so we we um we were think we're getting in the mix. I mean we are in the mix. Like like I said, I'd already drawn like three or four times at fifty and just had pigs, dude, different weird things. At one point, the big board comes in and checks it, and I've got him at like forty three, and I drew back on him and and I mean he's barely got I got probably like a foot to shoot him in, you know, and I I'm clear, and I thought. I said, I said you ready, and he was like yeah. And as soon as I started, I said, are you ready? He starts turning and just hard quarter away and I was like, man, checked this pig for forever, you know, you've got to be so precise. And that's a long shot and there's brush and I'm glad I didn't shoot it. But anyway, he goes back around and we start to scoot up and get behind this big barrow tree or overcome tree, and I get right in front of it, and Eric's kind of like he has to be kind of behind me and out profiled from, you know, not against the trees. He's away from the tree a little bit. And so but we had we had by the time we got there, we had already known this for a few yards. We had like five yards to go to get there when the big boar betted and I was like, dange, dude, He's like right there, He's real close. So we we get to that tree he's bedded at like probably about twenty six seven yards and I can see him, like I can see his his back and stuff. And so I told Erica, like, you he's right there, you know, told him where. We got it all worked out, and uh, all the pigs had moved off, but you can still kind of hear him back in there and see a few of them, and so like I'm just kind of waiting. I'm fixing that I got. I finally got me a good angle or whatever. And I'm waiting. I'm gonna wait on the stand up and he's gonna walk behind this big tree. I'm gonna draw and then he's gonna come out and open and the gap and stop and I'm gonna shoot him. Well, Uh, I hear like a pig walking around, and I see one off like away from the group, kind of coming out to the left of him, and the group's all the right of him. Then it's coming towards us. It's a pretty good pig. And so I told her he was like, you see that big He goes, Yeah, it's like if it, if it comes close, I'm gonna shoot it. And so it kind of hung out back there forever. And then another one kind of came from his right and behind him and comes up and uh stops at like forty probably like forty yards and he's kind of behind this little hill, but you can see his ears and they're just like alert and he's just looking and I don't know if he could see Eric or of because Eric wasn't against the tree. You know, he's out having to be behind me to get perspective with the camera. But like he uh, he stopped for and stared at us. I felt for like a minute, and I was like, damn, we might be busted right here. And then he went back to feeding, so he was like forty or less. And so he's behind this brush. I pulled my range finder up to to range him, and I'm like struggling through the brush range him, and I finally get like a forty two yard range or something on him, and uh, and I put it back down. And when I put my range finder down, this giant board is standing up, walking off at twenty eight yards or whatever. And so my brain like goes into overtime or overdrive, you know, it's like freaking out. I'm like, he's about to get away. I only got two little lanes here and uh. And so he's already past the tree that I was supposed to draw behind, and he goes out into the gap and I, uh, draw back on him, and I'm telling myself thirty yards, thirty yards, thirty yards and drawback. He sees me draw, so he locks it up like they do and stands there and looks at me. And I settled the pen and everything, and uh, I when we had when I had drawn back on those pigs at fifty like four different times I had, I had changed my my pen, uh delegations or whatever to thirty forty fifty instead of twenty thirty. And uh, I shot the wrong pen. I knew they were thirty forty fifty, but like just you know, fried brain, all of a sudden, things go wild on the couch last night. Yeah, so and just didn't help, No, probably not. And so I shot. I shot the wrong pen. And I haven't looked at the footage, but to me, it looked like it went pretty good. It just went high, way high. He's strung, he's strung jumping, just a little strung jumper, stump, strong string up, strung, he was dumping. I got a little boot in the water. Yeah. So anyway, it was, it went over the top, and they all like three pigs. The three pigs knew that it was something was weird, and the rest of them they have a clue. Almost shot a brown after that. I couldn't get my air out of my quiver fast enough. And it is just, you know, so that's the way pig hunting goes though, And honestly, like making good shots on pigs is one of the hardest parts of the whole thing, because you're looking at a black blob and there's not a whole lot of definition. There ain't increase that you can see very easily. Sometimes it's just like mud caked all over them or whatever, or just black blobs. And and then also they sit low, So one thing you don't realize sometimes is you're shooting actually kind of high on them because they're sitting below the grass line a lot, like a lot of their chest cavity sits below the grass line. And so you know, I don't know. I just I think it's gonna take a while for me to become like really good at shooting pigs. Probably, Um, but they're fun to man. Let's talk a little about some of the indicators and things that, like you notice from pigs you put you picked up on one while I go about that hog stopping and looking, which I've never really thought about that much. That's a cool point. Um. It is weird though, how much they do use their vision, even though they don't have great vision, Like I would say, they see not as good as you r I. They don't see as good as a deer. Um. And like if you're standing still and you have the wind on pigs like they would almost walk up to you. They kind of got the t rex thing, you know, where as long as you're not moving and you don't have on brightly colored clothes, like, you're pretty much just not existent unless you're in a field and you're the only things that sting there, you know. And still the other day whenever it access hunting, we were the only thing in the field and they let us get to forty yards. But as soon as I drew my bow, one of the sALS that's say, when you're talking about freaking idiot just caught you and just zero tolerance. That's the thing though, they don't have tolerance at all. They will if they see anything weird, they will take off. And that's what people and that's because they're smart. But the weird thing is and maybe it's just because they're smart. Humans are smart. We also like kill ourselves on purpose a lot of times. Uh. Like, um, if you are at the spot they want to be because of food, you can spook them and sit there and they'll talk themselves back into coming back out, which deer will never do that hardly ever. You know, like they are gone, but if you're if you spook them, what you're not gonna get is like what a deer, especially mule deer, will do, bound off a couple of steps and look back and give you a shot. That's where the old squeealer comes in. That's you have to because if you don't, they will just do the trot thing forever there's gone. They just find the nearest squiggly tail and follow it and they just go. So that brings up another point that I really key in on is like there's sensor black blobs. You can only see the things off of them, so you can see their tails and you can see their ears. A lot of times both of those things give them away. There they have a little bit of an arch rounded back, so like when you're looking at distance, you can kind of see that sometimes through the grass. But if you're stalking pigs um and you see ears, it's a bad thing because they are alert to something they because you won't see it. When they're feeding, which they have their heads down, it's like they tuck their ears, but they're just kind of relaxed. They don't have as much dexterity in their ears. Dear dude, But when a pigs on alert. They go and they kind of lift their heads halfway up and then their ears point right at the sky. If you see that, it's bad. They're not meant to uh lift their heads very high. They don't do that. They're they're built to be ground dwelling nostrils. Yeah they can, but they can think. There are a lot of force in the four or five inches they can move there. It's wild. But um, the other indicators at the other end, the tail is a huge thing when you're spotting stalking. I noticed it today on those pigs. Whenever you were in there. The whole time I was watching them, they were flipping their tail around and eating. And if their tails flopping around flipping, that means they're happy hogs and they don't have a clue in the world anything is wrong. So, like y'all were close, but I could tell why you were taking your time because it's like, well, they're completely relaxed. There's no concern at all. Now, whenever the tail stops, you know something's up, and it's it can be very subtle, like all of a sudden, they just kind of stopped. They don't really move, man, That's that's exactly what that board did. When I drew, he literally didn't move, he didn't look at me. He just he just stayed in that same like perpendicular side profile. And but he was looking right at me, right with his right eye, and I was looking for an escape. Yeah, that's right. And so and another thing that they'll do is they'll almost do the like fakey out thing, where like they they're like thinking about what they're about to do, but they're trying to act like nothing happening, but their tail will give it away exactly right, Yeah, exactly. That's what the very first board we saw did too. We saw him so close and he just like stared at us and then was out. Yeah, they're just kind of ease off almost, you know, he's like, maybe they don't see me exactly. Yeah, it's kind of It's kind of weird, man, But there are a lot of fun because like they are easier to spot and stalk than deer are. Absolutely, but they're not like if you wanted to kill him with guns, yeah you could smoke them, right, but like two seal the deal. The closing fifty yards is really tough. Still a lot because there's a lot of eyes they here well they do here really good and they um, So you're really honing skills a lot whenever you do. And I think, honestly it's helped me kill some deer on the ground in the past few years. You know. I can't be like, oh, that's because I huntred hogs, but like, just overall experience hunting stuff from the ground just teaches you a ton m m. Yeah, dude, I used to hunt. I used to stalk ducks at my dad's place all the time. That was what I did all the time when I was young and I and I do think that it has helped me a lot when it comes to stalk and stuff, because it's I mean, you get to where you're stalking two hundred things that have sharp vision, and you can learn when any of them gets weird at all, you know, and you've got to see the whole thing. It's like being a dB um if you can't vote, if you can't see more than one route and what's what you're exactly what you're looking at and you can't focus on the other things in your periphy and you're not gonna make a very good DV. You have to see like all four routes sometimes you know. So it's it's the same thing like and you and that's a learned thing you can you can learn that, and you don't like you're not necessarily going to do that the first time you go to stalk a pig or the first time you go to defend routes, you're gonna look at the guy that you're on or whatever, you know. But somebody goes, hey, you have to see that route and you go, oh, well, okay, I can see that. I just didn't pay attention to it. And it's the same thing with stalk and it's like, I mean, you're gonna get caught by some random sALS and you're still going to even if you see them all sometimes but like you know, you get better at seeing all the pigs and what they're doing. And oh, there's once I gotta look over at that one because it's stopped all of a sudden, real weird and it's not flicking its tail anymore. Sometimes also, when you pick hunting and there's a good sized group or sounder as they're called, um, you have to settle for the pig that you're given. You can't always hunt the biggest one, like you just get caught by one, and it's like, I gotta shoot that one because it's the only one in the open, you know, so you kind of have to you almost that. And then when I'm deer hunting, at least a lot of times, I look at a deer and I like, kind of this happens fast, but I familiarize myself with that animal, and it kind of almost like lock in on it, like a predator place pray scenario. Hogs. It's kind of hard, and you kind of see how lions lose the zebra, you know, because they're just all in and out, in and out, and then all of a sudden, like you have to decide I'm shooting that particular one. Like I said, it's a little difficult to do from kind of time, especially in that particular one goes behind a tree or do something weird, you know, and then you're like, oh, there's another one over there, and then he comes out and you're crazy. It's like, you know, if a hundred mallards came in on you, you know, and you didn't have much experience with it, you would not pick one. I can tell you when I was a kid, when the large swarms of blackbirds flew over. I tried the whole shoot up amongst him kind of deal, and it doesn't work. You gotta pick one you got you got, even if it's a shotgun. You gotta pick one to shoot at. You gat the shoot in there around him and hopefully hopefully get one. You know. It's it's pretty cool, but we uh, we do have some hogs on the ground, and uh, there will be a video from this and other things that transpired that we won't go all the way into here on the podcast Reckon, So you have to watch footage. Yeah, it's sick, dude, Uh over the shoulder stuff. Oh j Michael laid it down, say Michael j uh. And in that case, I I got to hunt and uh or we were both hunt, but I got to I got to pull the trigger and uh, I did get to pick out the pig because it was a different color than the other ones, and also have to be the closer one. They got really close and it was way bigger than we thought it was. Oh my goodness. Yes, And I think I experienced the same thing today looking through my binos. I was looking at all those pigs in front of all I was like, ah, I see that boy, he looks like it's like a hundred and twenty five pounds or sounds look like seventy five pounders. I bet you they weren't. I bet you they're a lot. Boy was big. The first boar we saw today was really big, Like he looked big. It was from just long too. That's another thing that's underrated on hogs a lot of times. So wild hogs, um aren't Russian boards. There escaped and re naturalized, um just you know, swine from farm swine. And there probably is a little bit of a Russian board in some of them, but overall, you know, they are just a different pig than the wild European pig. But that all goes to say there's a lot of different genetic variety in them, and you see that most often in color. But there is also different body shapes, even though it's like not something that you think about too often. That hog today was long and like stretched out but also muscular. I bet he was surprisingly heavy, you know, because like the pot belly ones, they're heavy. They're not a potbelly pig. It's it's different. But like there's round ones right that are heavy, and for sure some of the biggest pigs have shot are the fat round ones. But that big sucker like that, that's he's like, it's just like a six six dude weighs a lot, even though he's skiing. Yeah, you know, yeah, for sure. You see it tied end, You're like, oh, it kind of looks like a normal dude. Yeah, whatever, it's this big today. He very well. He was for sure over two and who knows. Um, I want to get to where we can wait him a little bit more. I know. I was just thinking now when you're talking about this, I was like, man, there's gotta be a way we can maybe keep a scale like on the full Withether or something a little uh come along or something to Yeah, it would be cool. Yeah that you know, we were talking about the pig video that we're gonna release here pretty soon, but there's also a video coming out even before the end of y'all's fishing trip Eric day this releases, right, I think, so yeah it sounds good. Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah. So you're just Texas rig worm fishing, gigantic trout and nice reds. Yeah, dude, the Texas Slam makes an appearance in that video. That's right, dude, you know what texs slam is, so y'all the Tixas slam as a group. So it's a flounder, a red fish and trout and um on the same day. I had a slam personally because did you in the same day day may have happened same but most of the time, like the bigger coolishment stood all the same day. I think Brian did too. Yeah, so that's cool. So there's a toad trout it is. It makes me sick a little bit. It's a giant yeah, like I've never I mean, I think the biggest trout it calls twenty four, which just looked big fish got away like eight pounds, didn't it. Probably I think they say thirty weigh ten pounds. That's what I've heard too, ten to twelve. It depends. Also, those fish are eating one pound mullet often, so like mullet. Dang, I'm telling you, dude, I think they're good. Somebody rode into us about eating mullet, that's right, Instagram or something, and I know that. Um, it's been a thing. There's been a commercial fishery for it. I know, like in the in the seventies and eighties when the Bays froze. Supposedly, like the trout population just went to zero, so there was no commercial trout in some of the stores, and mullet would show up advertised as as sea trout. So it's a thing. Yeah, Mullet row is also a thing too. People eat the row out of those things. Yeah, so I would be I might need to go like do like a mullet, catch clean cook. I mean, I've seen some biggins like there's surely you know, here's the deal. It's like this, uh, A tiny little beaty shad is gross, but you find a really big gizzard shad, surely you can get in there and find a piece of meat on that thing that's not that nasty. I kind of feel that way about a big mullet too, And they're not as nasty as shadow. They stink. Mullet has to have a particular smell. Did you notice that we didn't really mess with them? They have a very particular like I smell something like that smells like mullet. It ain't just like it smells like fish. Mullet smell a little bit not as not as slimy as a uh as a like a hardhead. Hardheads are slimy. Y'all, don't catch any of that because you didn't hardly live bait fish. You need some hard heads in your life, per did you on your worm? I caught the state record on fly out there. It was weird, but dude, so I used to I know, we're trying to wrap this up and we're kind of kind of getting off the trail here, but I used to kind of get my feel of the bay fishing when I was a kid, when we were down there and I would snorkle and I would go out there and swim to where the baits were in the water and watch them. It's pretty cool because you're like this. So it'd be egg weight with a piece of cut mullet or or hut valley who or something suspended in one of those potholes. And if you sit there and watch, you see the piggy perchs just it's a swarm. There's like sixty or eighty of them just going wild. So no wonder the red fish find it, right because those little piggy perch are flashing, going nuts. And then a sea robbin would like kind of like crawl along the bottom over there near it and like jump up and get a by, Like it's really cool to be underwater watching that happen is a learning experience for sure. I'd like to do some snorkeling and some clear cold rivers. Not the cold car is not my favorite, but like clear cold rivers typically have some pretty good, uh pretty cool fishing them. Yeah. Yeah, it's neat to just watch fish do stuff. That's why bass Pro has them tanks. It's my favorite, my kid's favorite part. It's still my favorite part now. And then we go every time we go there, it's like the first thing we gotta do is go look at the fish tank. And I don't know if it's because I'm getting older or if it's this is true, but I feel like they used to be better than they are now. It's like it's the same old Back when they first did them, it was a nice fresh car, but now it's just the same car, but it's glassy eyed and twenty years later, you know what I mean, he's still in there living. He's just gotta looking rough. They need to exchange them. The cropper. You're kind of on a forty five just swimming, you know what, kind of like a trout has been released after somebody stuck their fingers and it's gills. Or I was there one time when they were feeding the hybrids. You know, before they had the one in Mesquite, there was just the one in Grapevine, you remember that. And uh, over there by the saltwater stuff, there was a tank that had only hybrids or what you know, y'all call them a palmeto bass or whatever. The wipers wapers. We were doing a wiper fishing. Well they were they were feeding the wipers over there. That was an impressive thing to watch, uh because those things are like really fast, yeah, like and they would attack from far off like that fish should be like ten foot from the mina and like in a blister, just go, what's a minute? What's a minute? You minute? That's a girlfriend you're looking for, Okay, so she can cook a good muffin and cookie too, oh man. Scotch bonnets, blue bonnets and minute bonnets. That's what Eric's all about. That's the Texas right tex tree right there. Man. Remember guys, do it Texas style, and remember this is your element