00:00:12 Speaker 1: I guess I grew up on a Hey everybody, welcome to episode. Of course. I'm Ben O'Brien and I'm joined by Phil Ty Engineers say hello Phil, Hello Ben. We're feeling it today. Huh yeah, something like that, something like that. Phil seems a little melancholy. He's wearing a mask, getting ready go to Costco. I love that this is uh gonna be a good episode. I think. What Friday, I got to talk to my good friend Wyman Menser and uh shed a little tear during the interview. You may not be able to tell during the podcast, but we start talking about our dads and I got a little for clemped a little you know, just a little something something, and uh a tear, a single tear because my dad, Joe knows. We were out hunting when I found out my dad had a hard act not too long ago. I had four blocked arteries, four stints put in his heart. So that's gnarly gnarly experienced. So we talked about that with Wyman, but also just his life, what he how he thinks about wildlife, and a very interesting point that he makes about regret in terms of trapping and killing predators namely coyotes, bobcats for basically his entire life. So he talked about that coming up, so you stick around for that. Before we get to that, Phil feels nervous, a little bit nervous. It's just the allergy medication. He's been vape penning some some benadryl. That's in the break, Um, But we're gonna talk. I don't think we can do much here without talking about the current riots and the George Floyd case and all those things. You know, I don't know that we can go forward with any I'm about to read some emails and silly things about White Claw and and you know what we do, Phil, This is kind of the thing the show that we do. But before we get to that, I made a post on social media the other day about, uh my buddy Charles Rodney. You guys all know Charles Rabman Rodney, right, Joe Charles Um, just saying that I don't have I don't how many black friends, but I do have Charles Rodney. UM. And I've been lucky enough through Charles to learn a lot of things about my own perspectives on race and essentially people. Just you learn a lot from Charles riding no matter what you do. We learn a lot about rabbit hunting, but also a lot about shared perspective. Him and I share a lot of things in common, and boy, we share a ton of things that aren't in common. But one of the things that as I sat and thought about, um, all that's going on in our country, I definitely felt sad. I watched some I watched the video of George Floyd getting assassinated by the police officer, and I watched a bunch of looters beating in a sent bystandards and shop owners, and I just was very sad and couldn't sleep, didn't know what to do, and so I was thinking about, you know, what's my place? And all this my place seems rather small. This podcast seems rather minutscule in terms of its impact on what's going on. But I will say that we have talked about this, the issue of race in the outdoors before UM. We talked about it at length with Carolyn finnieback in November. We talked about it at length with Steve Ronella uh a month prior to that, and then on episode thirty of the podcast where we first met Charles Rodney heard his story growing up as a poor share carper's son in segregationist Louisiana. And so I will say not this isn't braggadocious at all. It's just to say that we've been thinking about this and talking about this here for a while in terms of how do we be more inclusive, how do we think proactively rather than reactive. I would much rather be proactive to the issues of race in America than reactive. When somebody gets killed and then I get very upset and that becomes my interaction with racial injustice, I'd much rather address it before we're at this inflammatorys tage where we are now. So I thought about having Dr Carolyn Finny back on Jonathan Hall, a writer, a black writer, on to talk about it. But I went back and listened to Hunting While Black and Questioning our cultural Competence with Dr Carolyn Finney, which is episode eighty nine of the show featuring featuring one Phil T Engineer and Miles Nulte, And I felt that that listening to the whole thing again, I was a little bit nervous that we we maybe didn't hit the right notes, or I wish I had covered different things. But I was pretty proud of the result of that podcast. So I'm not gonna go in any diet tribes or have any guests on about what's happened right now. I think if you want to know what I think or what th HC in general thinks, there's a right approach to everything, go back and listen to that one, listen to Dr Carolin Finney, listen to Miles Nulta, and listen to what we had to say back in November, and I think you'll get um all you're gonna get from us. So Phil, Yeah, anything you want to say, everybody you can abstain or just no. Man, it's uh if it fucking sucks. You know, my wife and I tried to talk. I mean not try, we did. We talk to our seven year old, which is like pretty young, but it's like he's getting to that age where you know, uh, just you gotta start exposing him to stuff like this, and it was really hard to because you got to give it context, uh, context of the history of this country even before slavery, Like the ship has just woven into uh, the entire history of this country and our ancestors that came before America, and um, it's very important to be incredibly proud of the things that this country does right and unbe able to understand all this the shitty things this country does and try to improve and uh uh and you know the reactions to everything. Um, I I don't even have a lot to say. I'd like, I'm really glad you brought up the Carolin Finny episode because it's more important for everyone to listen right now to voices like hers. Um yeah, uhh, yeah, you know. I did have to address with my three year old for a minute and he just started calling it the bad guy news. When I was when I would like flip on the news and it would be on, he would see it. He was like, is that the bad guy news? Not really? I mean it's a little half and half at this point, um, but just really breaking it down for a three year old is a nice way to give yourself some perspective, like be kind, to be kind to one another, and try to find however you can, however hard it might be, trying to try to find empathy for everyone around you in your in your life and then define what empathy is. And so there's a lot of illogical ship being set out there by a lot of people um, people supporting murder, people supporting violence and rioting, and it's structtion of property. People um trying to take pick up a video of someone beating another human being and then rationalize it away based on some emotion of fear or anger or frustration with our society or some point in it. That's all bullshit. You shouldn't listen to any of that. You should find someone that's that's you know, like my friend Joe Rogan or someone like him, who was just expressing shock and awe and the need to be constructive. That's probably a better thing than most of the inflammatory stuff that you'll hear out there. Now. David Goggins had a great video, but actually always does as he always does. So I would seek out those constructive perspectives, seek out those that wish to better themselves and better people around them. And that's really all you can do at this point. Um. It's a confusing time, especially to be on any any media, news media, social media doesn't really matter. It's confusing time to to wade into those waters. I've tried to avoid much of that as I can, but here we are, so I'm I'm incredibly sad and incredibly piste off at everybody that's doing things to harm this country because I love it. Ah. I know a lot of policemen, most of them, all of them that I know, are wonderful people and would do anything to protect their community and the people around them. Um. I will say that we're in the office. There's a lot of people in here, and everybody's walking by the door waving, So it's nice. It feels like we're back Phil. It feels like we're back my back to the windows. I can't see anybody, I feel. I feel real lonely right ka. Everybody's out there, everybody's self. But anyway, it's a sad time. Um, we won't we won't harp one in any further. But I'm not gonna be one of those ones that just makes us a hunting podcast and we forget about what's going on the country, especially when it's it's this insane. We're definitely living in um Michael Bay movie some sort of right now waiting for I'm waiting for the comment. I'm waiting for this the astronauts that are gonna come save us from pending doing so. Uh, take a deep breath, everybody taking a deep breath. Breathe out, breathe out, breathe in, Phil, and breathe out. Don't not towards me because don't breathe on then because of social distancing, other people have to use that, and we're gonna move on. So thanks for sitting through that. Appreciate it. We got some stuff to get into before we get to Wyman Menser. Now. We got two weeks of podcast where I think we probably got the most emails ever. Two weeks ago was the tail of one Brett Bond and Glenn Bond, the bear attack that everybody's still talking about. Last week we had Robbie Sansom and Nick Holla. Robbie's from Forcing Nature Meats and Nick is from Impossible Meats Possible Foods as I was corrected, but there's meat there. So a lot of people wrote in with a lot of interesting thoughts. I'm gonna start with the the shorter one there was. There was some criticism of how we did this um and I'll explain in a minute, but I'll let Brandon Kendall, who wrote and kind of put his criticism into words. He said, I thought it was just a little underhanded that you had the impossible Foods representative on first, and then you had the representative from Forcination meats on after the fact too, in a sense, critique impossible. If put in a similar situation again, maybe you have the two on simultaneously so they can have a dialogue. I thought that was a bit unfair to impossible foods. Brandon goes on to say that he I love the show, and that's it's a nice little it's a nice criticism one I thought of before we went into it. Filled you listed things, did you feel? Uh, it went through my mind? What to my mind doing? But um, you know, I think I think you gave a good explanation of why you didn't want to have them on simultaneously, because then it would might just turn into kind of like a a polite shouting match or something like that. Listen, I'm not I'm not here to say that I'm I'm a completely impartial viewer of the situation. I work for a company called meat Eater. I eat meat. If you follow me on social media, post a lot of the pictures of meat and such, and so for me to then feign some impartial observer at that moment felt a little disingenuous to me. So I am, in a sense accidents as the proxy to what is a debate UM. I've heard other podcasts and on this issue and similar issues surrounding. It seemed like just a tip for tat study for study, data for data, and people just get off into the weeds so quickly that you can't really address some of the larger issues that are there. So I felt if you separated the two you this could hear them out and then you can compare and contrast how many people that wrote and did say they were piste off by the end of Nick's portion and then redeemed from redeemed from. I mean, that's that's I don't think that's a surprised No, No, listen, we we can do this and still recognize who we are and still try to explore things that are kind of outside our realm of of normal thinking. So that's what I wanted to do there. I do I take that critisis him in stride because it's true. I did. I call I actually called UM our buddy Robbie and said you want to listen to it, and he said, yeah, so okay, and I sent him the the audio, the rough audio of the interview with Nick I'm not. I'm not trying to hide that. I'm all. I'm there, I'm right there with you. Um, it was not fair to Impossible Meats. It was a critique of them, I feel, a very necessary critique of what they're doing, because what they're proposing is pretty radical. So I felt like, from perspective of somebody who eats meat and enjoys it, it is a necessary critique. Um. And so we'll probably continue to do it that way if we get back into that and we feel like there's two two opposing sides. Um. But always open to suggestions. Joe, you got anything there? You want to anything? Do you listen to that episode? I think he did a great job. But it definitely went through my head too that it was a bit unfair towards and Possible Meat Impossible foods. Yeah, but you know too bad. Like you said, you never claimed to be unbiased in the situation. What a welcoming environment people are gonna like, was it unfair? Yes, come on my show and defend your show. It's gonna be unfair. You'll love it. No, But I mean you you've visited Force of Nature Meats. I think they are friends of the show. I don't think going into this anyone was expecting an unbiased look at this, but I and I thought it was a good even though it was in the end of critique of what Impossible is doing. I think having them having one of their representatives actually come on your show and speak to their uh quote unquote benefits and the you know it was would would have been way better than you reading off of their mission statement. And like, I think it was good to have them on and to have them make the point themselves, for sure, and that was a good thing that Yeah, and I'll tell you and Joe probably knows this because we talked about this because he helped me schedule it. I didn't know what to expect coming out of the Impossible. Coming into the Possible Foods interview with Nick, I had no idea if he was gonna push hard against meat wholeheartedly, if he was going to be unreasonable, if he's gonna pair it some of the more public comments that seemed inflammatories to me. But he didn't do any of that stuff. Um. I definitely went into an open minded just with like some very curious questions, but I also was I've also made a decision in that case to wear my bias on my sleeve and be like, I'm a I am a potential consumer of your product, but I'm a very skeptical um consumer of your ideology. I don't really believe in it. Things got a lot of holes. Let's talk it through. I'll see where we go. You may get you know, may bring me a little bit closer. You may push me a little bit further. And I would say, and thinking about it, he definitely um pushed me the girl. He definitely pushed me a little bit closer to his ideology. And it just it makes more sense than it did go in in And I think if if you were just asked Nick if he thought that was when, I'm sure he would tell you yes, um, whether what came after it? And I will also say as inside I told when we were done, I said, Nick, here's what I'm gonna do. You let me know if if you're not into this, if you think that's this is some sort of trap. I said, I'm gonna send this audio to this person and he's gonna listen to it. We're gonna react to it together because I feel like, you know, he has a perspective that's important. And Nick was like, fine, sounds good and so at least being open both in mind and in approach. Best I can do for you there, Um, But I appreciate that Brandon and uh I take back the too bad Phil. I could see that upset. I could see you were mad and that I thought it was funny. I just build the product you want. I'm just here to press the buttons. I don't want to lose you. I don't want to lose you too. Rnella somebody like that. Alright, I put it back in Great, he's already lost, man, I don't know what we got. One more, one more Russell Edwards. He says like this is gonna be hard to sum this up, but he opens with good day, Ben, which I'm assuming meansies from Australia. I'd say that's a good assumption. Gonna go there. Thanks so much for having Robbie Sansom on your podcast after the Impossible Meats, Dude. I listened to the episode over several days and found myself seriously depressed. After listening to the first guest, Sansum made me feel much more hopeful. Now this is as aside as I said, this is kind of what most people were saying, especially to hear that we could actually feed the current population with regenerative agriculture incorporating animals. Well, bug the hell out of me was the impossible meets guy using the word efficiency. This is not a good word to apply to the living world. Think about what it means. When your boss starts talking about efficiency, that means he wants to exploit you even harder. To take a moment to make some points in my head. Uh, thanks, Russell. Efficiency means reducing living beings to resources to be exploited for profit, and then exploiting them to the greatest possible degree. Efficiency as a goal is a exactly what has taken the animal parts of our food system to horrible places. The vegan solutions to eliminate animals has nothing else matters but domestic animals. It's full hearty. But the entire living world matters, as do the non living systems they depend upon. And so he goes on and on and on. At the end here basically I feel like I'm getting your point, Russell. At the end he starts getting a little sci fi. Now, you like you might like this film, you like Star Wars, m this may be something that they did on the Eboch planet. I don't I don't know forest moon of end or was it the forest moon of end Or? Okay? He said, Um. Possibly the next wave to watch out for in coming decades is artificial photosynthesis. That's right, who needs plants? People are working on building panels that produce carbohydrates from atmospheric carbon dioxide, water and sunlight that in turn can be used as a processed food input or a biofuel. Just think about how they will spend that in efficiency terms. Where would that lead one of those on every rooftop and the rest of the world given over to nature. Okay, so then the population expands and there's no rest of the world, just buildings covering everything everywhere. I think this is all crazy talk Google the Cartership scale. Scientists already considered in the nineteen sixties the concept of a civilization that exploits of the energy that strikes its home planet in the form of sunlight. That's just a type one civilization. Can we keep going? We feel like we got it. It It reminds me, It reminds me of this capital of the Galactic Republic, Corrussant. It's a planet, it's entirely a city. Oh yeah, isn't that greenery. It's like a beautiful croissant. What's it called Corussant? I'm hungry now let's leave it with that one. Anyhow much like the planet of Croissant, the card to ship scale, it needs to be brought up here. We couldn't get through this conversation about the cardaship scale. I was thinking that when I was talking to to Nick and then boom, here it is. You know. Um, I don't really have any response to Russell's email other than to say, like, I'm glad people are thinking about ship No, it's good really thinking about it. Yeah, And Robbie brought up a lot of that uh stuff in the response to Nick, where it's like, okay, so impossible is doing these things too? Like yeah, with only domestic livestock in mind, but what about all these other issues that this planet is having, like regenerative regenerative agriculture is working to solve other things that, um, that have to do with the rest of the you know, environment. Yeah, I mean listen, a big part of this. I don't want to get into my theory about robots. Joe's heard this a lot when we go hunting. I got a theory. It's growing theory about robots. I'll break it out at some future episode. And I also know that I promise I would tell an episode about shipping my pants on this on this episode, but we don't have time. We gotta tell it next time, thank God. Like I feels is upset by it that I was gonna tell it, We're gonna tell it next time. Um, But anyway, I think that is like a big part of this conversation. We're gonna have, um, the authors of a book called Sacred Cow on and the documentary called Sacred Cow, and you're coming up, and what her name is? Diana and Rob Trian and Rob. We'll go with first name, so we'll learn their last names later, Rob Wolf, Rob Wolf, Diana Rupp like that, And I think that's somebody I used to know. That was one of my teachers, my third grade teacher. I think Rogers. I want to say, yeah, Diana Rogers, MKA DOWB Elementary, Diana Rupp ms ms Rupp. I'm hitting the fifteen second skip button right now my head skip, okay, skip, we cut this out anyway back to like this is just gonna be cut out and then when I come back, I say things like, hey, listen, this is where the altar where we'd like lay at the altar of technology and progress. You never know where it's gonna take us. And then I eventually in the future episode lay out my robot theory from that one time I took D M T. So that's coming up right, probably episode one thousand. Okay, yeah, okay, is that your email ding or mine? He's yours? Definitely Joe's. So now Joe comes in. I finally muted my email thing. If listeners will remember, now Joe comes in, ripping. I thought my computerscent of the time on mute. So Ben, I miss your email ding, bring it back. I'll bring it back. I hit mute on it. Anyway, this is going way off the rails. I feel, man, it's been. We were back in the studio and it's been. It's been hard to get this together. Phil. We gotta get back. We get our gear, our sea legs back on this. It'll happen. It'll happen. We'll be better next time. But for now, a fantastic conversation with one of the best humans living in the face of the Earth, Wyman Men'ser. Now if you don't know why. I'man He is a legendary Texas photographer, wildlife biologist, teacher, student of the outside and one of my favorite people. So you can go back and listen to our previous episodes you want to learn about his story. It is amazing, but I've got a lot of good tidbits come from him. Right now, here's Wyman, Mr Wyman, how are you, sir? I'm good. What's going on in Benjamin, Texas? Well? Uh? Actually the weather is nice and I've been taking my youngest son up flying, teaching, trying to teach him the basics of flying, and just having a good time doing a lot of photography, real estate photography, mostly on ranches around the state. And everything's been going well good. What's uh, what's the quarantine? I imagine if I had to guess the quarantine hadn't effected you any but I'll ask the question anyway, it really had. The only time, uh, you know, I get involved with having the quarantine is when you go into government building. I went in yesterday and and uh, use a little profanity, tell them how stupid it was. One of those wearing a mask they handed me and then I omped out. I'd expect nothing less from East. You're still on real That's why I like you. How's how's everybody family? Slenda? Everybody Goody's doing, Slenda is doing doing we all the boys are fine, and Rick's doing doing good. So so how about your family? Oh we're doing good. Yeah, I was telling you. We got chasing little kids around, taking my son fishing for the first time the last couple of weeks, and he's been he's eating up with fishing and eating up with. We had a couple of bears got shot by my buddies, is what we been, butchering bears in the garage. He's very interested in that idea. So yeah, he's he's living the three year old little boys dream life. He's currently I can see him out the window behind me. He's playing in a dirt pile with his friends, spraying um with a hose. So that's, uh, imagine that's how it should be. Well, I you know, I wanted to you haven't it's been while since we since you've been on, but since we've even talked um, and I will tell you that I I still it's probably been one almost almost two years, a year and a half at least since we chatted, And I still get emails every week from people saying that you're their favorite guest, your story is their favorite story of all the people have been on this show. Do you ever have hal well, you mean, we had the Eddie film and we've had you know, all the people that wanted to kind of immerse themselves in your story. Do you ever think about that kind of what what your life and story has meant to so many people? Yeah, you know, just recently on on Instagram, I received a note from a young lady up in Alberta, and she said that she had just watched the Eddie film and had decided that that she was gonna do. She was going to live her dream. She said. She said, you know, um, what you had mentioned about perseverance, you know, sticking with the plan even though receiving so many rejection slips. And she said, I'm gonna do it, and because of you, I'm gonna do it. Yeah. And I wrote her back and I told her, I said, well, you know, just knowing that they affected one person in a in a in a positive manner, I said, it's it's all been worthy. Yeah, Yeah, it's definitely affected affecting me in the way I live my life. But I tell you, you know, even her story, there's hundreds of people out there that feel the same way. And I'm sure when people here this coming a week that you're that you're on, they're gonna be jumping on by the thousands just to kind of like rehash you know what you're your life's meant. I tell you, And it's been cool to me just knowing you and being around you that you know, as authentic and real as you are, people connect with it. They just really do. I monitor you to say that, thank you. Well, we should tell some stories now, No last time we told you gotta you gotta millions. I'll let you freelance and just kind of tell whatever stories you feel like. But from your you say your eaching, are you teaching Pete to fly? Yeah? Yeah, Pete bought a challenger to it's a light sport and uh and specifically uh just to look for for wild cattle or cattle that they that they couldn't find in a and I say, when they were weaning or branding, and to look at but at water gaps, um like say after a big range, because most of these country is inaccessible here after a big rain, and he's just absolutely fallen in love with it. I mean he's he just said that this is the most wonderful thing. Yeah, well, how are you going about showing him the ropes in terms of what you've done in the past. Well, Uh, you know, I got my policy license in what nineteen seventy seven, and so of course I hadn't flown in four years. So I went and got my medical and and everything and uh and uh um. And then he bought the plane that of Whitewater, Kansas, and so a gentleman flew it into Knox City, and then I went up in it. And of course I had never flown a well it's been since nineteen ninety that I floor flew a light sport. Most of them my flying has been in uh, post World War Two era little tailwheel aircraft, you know, Pacer Ironica, Champ Chief. Uh flew by a by wing aerobatic for a while. But you know, flying is one of those things like riding a bicycle. You know, it doesn't take much practice to get back in gear. And so this fella took me up in it, and uh, he didn't let me take off for land and so he said, okay, you got it, and I went, okay, that's great. Uh. Thanks, and so he left and went home and uh. And so the next day I told Selina, I said, I have to I need to get up. I need to get up in the air and this thing. I have not flown this plane. And so the next day I went up and it was rough, the lots of thermals and and it was a it was a real trick, but I got down. Everything worked out just fine. And now things cool and I'm riding Shotgun with Pate, and of course I'm gonna he's gonna go over and start working with an instructor. I'm not gonna I'm not gonna get out of the plane until he's with an instructor and they check him out. I told him, I said, I'll show his ropes and the things that you need to be learning. But the instructor is going to be your main, your main source. I said that I will not get out of this plane and let you go alone, even though I know you probably can. You know, you're just gonna have to go with instructor be checked out. Like I was. He's a menser. He he'll figure it. Out. He's better not. Did you tell him? You tell him a story. He knows the story about your crash, right, yeah, yeah, yeah, he was just a little bit of guy whenever that when that occurred, when I had that engine failure at a low altitude, and to take it in, you want to tell it, tell everybody that story in detail. Know we probably before Yeah, I was looking for cattle from my brother and um, and so I decided that the last year land couldn't be found. So I just banked, you know, went into it. I sent into a climb about a hundred and fifty ft outitude a g L and the engine is quit. That was in a bank, climbing bank, and it just quit. And of course my old flight instructor was a World War two pilot to be twenty four pilot, and he hammered a lot of stuff in me about altitude, air speed, and instantly I realized that I was in lethal trouble. There was a potential of you know, of everything going south, and so I nosed it over and started picking my spots real quick. And uh, and the first first two spots obviously you're not gonna land where you came from. And my next two spots was a no go because of brush and Bible War fences. So I took a hill top and uh and so I I took it into rough country and and it flipped on me upside down. But I jumped out and walked away and look back and said, to hell, damn that was that's rough and I walked away. Did you go out in the hitchhike after to get home? Yeah, I h h I went out to the highway and the cowboy picked me up and he said, hey, man, do you have a flat? And I said no, I just crashed the plane alright, crash landed the plane. And he just stared at me and go, you gotta be a kid, and I said, no, I need to go home. I remember when we were shooting the YETI documentary about you that I can't remember the general's name, but he just said he grew up with you, and he said, my mom just didn't let me hanging around woman. Mike Gibson, Yeah, yeah, from the branch, yep. Yeah. That. I think that probably that's probably a good example of just why crazy thing. I think. I think that a lot of people have said that my brother and I were never house broke. That's true. Well, a lot of like we've been talking lately on this show, a lot about um, like a relationship to land, especially because COVID hit and a lot of people that aren't in your situation or even mine are finding out about supply chains and where their food comes from, and and really the fragility of kind of our society and what self reliance really is. And I feel like you're just the picture of for me at least, the picture of somebody that can just do for themselves and and doesn't need to stress about many of the things some people are worrying about now. So do you that all boils back down to your relationship with the big empty Um. I've never met a person that has such relationship with the land, that has such an intimate knowledge of it. I spend so much time on it. You thought about that recently? Is is you've watched the world kind of get turned around. Yeah, I'm thankful to be out here. Uh. The only time that I've really kind of stressed out recently is our our main computer, my Apple died after nine years, and so we had to go into Witchtall Falls and that was that was a real experience because you know, they everybody had to wear a mask and you go in and let you in one at a time, and that that was a drag. But you know, once you leave the larger towns and get out here in the in the smaller, smaller locations, it's not it's really not like. I went to a funeral this morning, actually a great side service of a guy that I've known all my life basically, and and uh, I walked up to a lady there, of course, everybody was staying around. I hugged her and she said, aren't you afraid of COVID? And I said, hell, no, I'm not, you know, so let me hug you and and that and everybody at the same way. Now, there were some elderly people there then, I'm sure had some had some health issues such as the diabetics and that such, uh, that type of thing, and they they had masks on. But the majority of people, they were just milling around. It's it just wasn't an issue. Yeah, yeah, I mean I knew, you know, not even talk to you. I kind of knew the stance that that you would take, just from the way you lived your life prior. Um anybody I'm gonna talk to you that's not really too you know that understands the situation, but kind of just pushing through would be you. Yeah, it's it's just not something. I mean, I feel sorry for the you know, the ones who have been affected by it, but my goodness, I mean you start looking at the at the years that we've had to go through various strains of flu and and um, you know the relative numbers of people that were that die that perished from that, and it's yeah, I mean I hate to say this, but you know, it's it's a political thing. As far as I'm concerned, it's just a political move. Yeah. I mean, did you've had I mean, you haven't spent you know. For for me, I've spent a lot more time with the family, a lot more time around home. I've got to kind to think about priorities and kind of carved out a nice life here working from home, doing these kind of podcasts from here with the family, and it's been I'm starting to get in a nice groove and I'm enjoying it. For you, you know, life hasn't changed, Like what's your you know, I know you probably you're probably not doing much kiot hunting, these days are if any at all. No, I mean I did a little bit this winner. Uh, this this particularly past year, We've had a tremendous crop of broom weeds and you cannot see an animal deer. You just see the tops of their backs in their heads sticking over. And so it is basically it killed this year's calling efforts for sure. Photography wise. I mean you just you just couldn't get any photographs. This is the first winner in recent memory that I've not taken any kyote photographs. Um, I think I might have. I might have taken a rifle out and shot maybe ten or fifteen uh, called him through the through the weed and got a close shot or a running shot or something. But basically I just backed away and just said I'm done, you know, for this year, and hope to God and we don't have broom weeds next year. Are they invasive broom wins? Oh yeah, it's terrible. Uh. Most ranchers try to spray for it, and uh, but it's pretty expensive. And those watching the bottom line that that don't have a lot of oil income and uh, you know, expendable income coming in that's you know, beyond just the cattle which the market now is off. They just can't afford to spray, and so and the and their young broom weeds are already coming up. Really, oh yeah they did. They're you know, they're through four inches tall and it's looking bad. Well, if people haven't listened to our first interview, I will pause and let people go back and listen. Okay, we're back, hopefully listen to live and tell his whole life story. Um. But one of the things about your story that's interesting, and I've had other people tell me this, which is always kind of gone back to your story that later in your life, you know these days you you got away from hunting as much and you took up photography, and there was a big shift in the way that you you saw, specifically kayotes, because you spent so much time around the bobcasts. I'm sure as well. Can you talk through a little bit about where you were and where you are in terms of of hunting kyotes and other predators. Well, Um, of course I started hunting coyotes in nineteen sixty five at the age of fourteen, and and I was totally totally I think, uh good way to say it. I was eating up with you yeah, I didn't go to parties. I didn't I didn't participate in any any public functions with my classes. And I think all I did was hunted constantly. And uh, my goal was to And then this makes seems silly, but I had a goal that I said when I was a freshman in college, and be the great hunter in America and a really loft to go and so uh and so uh. But with time, and you know, I when I graduated to college in seventy four, Uh, I still hadn't gotten enough of it. And so I moved out onto a big ranch. I had approximately three hundred thousand acres. At that time, there was no public hunting. I mean there was no lease hunting. You didn't even hear a rifle shot. You didn't hear a shotgun. And you would go days and days without seeing anybody with a cowboy. And I ran traps and I called coats day in, day out for winters. And um, but now that's changed. Uh. You your hope, perspective about life and appreciation for life, not just your own, but for all living creatures. I catched myself walking and I won't step on a bug, I mean unless it's you know, it's like it's a wasp or something. I do not like wasp. I'm being stung enough by them. But say, just a bug crawling across the road. My my whole philosophy is, hey, man, you got a life, and who am I to step on you and and ruin that life? What gold you might have had? To bugs gold? But to you it's a big one. And and coyotes, I mean, and I still enjoy and it's I think it's I enjoy hunting number one. I wouldn't even hunt dear if it wasn't for the fact I needed venuson. I have no interest in killing for horns except to make Kyle calls with them. Um, but I'm strictly a meat hunter. And uh as far as shooting rabbits and things like that, I will not do it. And used to when I was a kid. I shot him all the time. It's like, hey, you know, there's rabbits are here to feed something, and it's me and coyotes. M Mainly, I need to shoot eighteen more because at eighteen more I will have shot eighteen hundred coats with a rifle. I need to do that all in the book, right, all in your famous all, that's all my books, and yes, and so I do need to do that, and I'll probably start probably sometime in the summer, because once fall starts, you have all your least people coming in and they just infringe on their country and I don't want to do that. And so even though summer calling is not fun, and I always wait also until the pups are out of the dens and can take care of themselves, and I won't I won't shoot an adult that might have a pup in it then, because again, appreciation for life. Yeah, that's exactly what I was just gonna ask you. Do you feel like it was required for you to go through what you did during your teens and twenties and you know, being a trapper for a living to get to where you are now, that's kind of a thing that had to happen. It had to happen, honey. Growing up on a ranch um which my dad was a former known for for thirty years. It's twenty seven thousand acres bordered on the south by the Bradess River, fantastic hunting country, waterfowl. Quail. Didn't have a lot of deer, We had lots of chives, and Bobcats, and I just my brother and I both took to hunting, you know, like ducks to water, and so it was just an important part of growing up. Trapping. I remember setting steel traps for skunks and possums when I was in before I was ten years old, and so all of this was just a part of growing up and that phase of life. As I mentioned in uh in the YETI film from A to Z, you know, you start out as a kid at a and uh, and now I'm at the putty well at the end of the alphabet, and I just I feel life is really really significant, yeah, for everything. Yeah, I mean you don't really you can't really set time out like that when you're a little kid, you're just kind of looking down at your feet, you know, looking what's around. I can't really set time out as long as you know it will be. But yeah, I've always find that interesting that I've I've met other people I'll tell you why i'man and a lot of them are there too, creative like you, that are photographers or whatever, that have had that same shifting sensibility later in life. Um, and then when you know, when the I'm amazed at the at the people who don't. I'm I'm perplexed by it because you know, I don't know you um in my you know the even when I go out now to to to call with a rifle. Not anne percent of my stuff is with a camera. But if I happen to to take my rifles out to hunt to kill, it is a very personal thing. It's not it's not to you know, high five a bunch of people. It's not to try to prove something. It's between me and that coyote or that bobcat. And and it's how can I describe this? It's like each calling stand is very personal, and I remember it with fondness. Uh from seeing the animal, to watch it, uh its actions and its approach, to what it took to bring it down, to enter it into my into my books, into my journals. All of that is very personal to me. And it's and it's not to win a contest. It's not to say I'm the best. It's just me and that that one that one experience that I might have. Yeah, yeah, that appreciation that you said, it's it's so I've I've seen it on a deeper level for myself. You earn it over time, the more that you struggle with the craft of hunting or your ability to do it right, the more you kind of have appreciation for everything that goes on because I know you're making your own open recalls, you're reloading your own ammo, And so do you think of that those things as a craft? Essentially? For sure? Making the calls of course, reloading ammo. I've I've started that when I was fourteen. Also was shooting with thirty thirty, my first decent high powered rifle. And uh, and I reload now just because it's out of necessity. You know, I don't like to go by except for twenty two ram fire amo. Uh. But the making of the call is a real craft. Yah. I mean it's that's that's uh, that's would work and and getting the exact sound that you need and that takes a little bit of skill. What take take people through that, you know, like what's the raw material and then what's the process? Well, Uh, I can make it out of various kinds of would I preferm ski juniper, uh, oh, sage orange? Um. I've made it out of ebony wood out of South Texas, which is really hard wood. But you just take a chunk of wood maybe uh four inches long, And a lot of times I'll take a mesquite. What's actually the best and the most beautiful is a piece of what they call the root stock of a mesquite, which is underground. And we're talking old mesquites, what they call here bull mesquite. And you you might have a ball that's that's bigger than a basketball, and you take a chainsaw and you slice it like into it looks like kind of a roundish pie and probably two inches thick. And then I put it on a table saw and I'll slice it into bars, and then slice those bars into smaller bars the length of a call. And then I go to a sander and with my hands, I'll sand it. I'll spend it and sand it down to the configuration I want it. And then of course you drill your holes. And uh that accommodates a read. If you're gonna make an enclosed read, or you take a little dreamal tool and you saw out the mouthpiece, it's gonna be an open read. And with open read calls they're very difficult to make. Uh No, two calls sound alike. I've got probably thirty eight or forty of my personal calls, and all of them are open read and none of them sound exactly the light alike. And I've got a couple that sounds kind of but each one has its own sound, and I can't make too that that that sounds the same, and as much as I've tried, And it depends on the type of read material, It depends upon the curvature of the mouthpiece, depends upon uh, the opening that the air passage away. There's just a lot of factors involved in making a call and getting a certain sound that you want. Thinner reads make maybe a high pitch sound, then a thicker read it's um But then again, uh, that also ties in with the with the size of the air hole that goes through the mouthpiece. And so when I make a call, it's like everything is free Wheeland, it's all freelance. Man, it's south, it's out there. Well, I'll tell you I've seen him work. I don't think I don't think you and I have ever sat on Ko said where you haven't called one in. I don't want to. I don't want to pump it up too much, but I'm pretty sure. Yeah, well it's uh, yeah, it's a last year okay. The previous winner, which should be two thousand and eighteen two as a nineteen was a tremendous year for calling. I mean it was tremendous. I have my notes here and I don't recall exactly. I made two hundred two hundred something stands and called up I don't know, a hundred and eighty five coyotes or something like that. It was tremendous. Most of my photographed. But this year only really good luck I had was in South Texas when I I was uh, I had a predator calling photo safari on a ranch, a hundred fifty thousand nakered ranch, and we called up I don't know, probably thirty five codes in a couple of days, and the previous year to that, I think we've gotting forty eight in a couple of days. And if only, if only you would make a book of kis you've called in and let go. That's right. I remember, I remember the first time I met you over at the Spike Box Ranch, right, it was that the ranch we were right, We had a group of guys of their carde hunting and you came over and I remember seeing this book and not understanding it. Was a series of books, not the one book there seemed to me, and it was they were kind of stuffed pages going everywhere, but just a big stack of paper. I thought, what could this be? And then you started going through each line and the thumb print, um, the blood thumb print of each of each kid you'd killed, who you're with, the weather notes about the conditions. I'll never forget that, because I don't. It's such a unique you know, I know, you have a you know, a background and wildlife biology, but I don't think every biologist does that for that long. No, they don't. In fact, whenever I sent this information to a friend of mine who was a statistician, and he put he kind of did some statistical analysis on it, and he said, I can almost assure you there's no data like this anywhere. This is this is one of a kind. And he said, it's over seventeen hundred entries. Is that what you're saying? They're abouts? Yeah, it's it's a bunch. Yeah. Do you ever think about my first my first hundred coats when I was a kid. I all I did was just put an X to the number. And then after that I started thinking, well, you know, what maybe I actually start taking more thorough notes because this is something that could be used someday in the future, you know, you know, after long after I'm gone, And then several years ago, I decided to start using a blood print for possible DNA analysis because, uh, I know, I don't know. I'm pretty sure that biologists today would love to have a DNA analysis of the now extinct taxas buffalo wolves to figure out if there's any connection with them and the other what twelve subspecies of wolves in America and in in Canada. Yeah, you're you're so connected. You're so connected to the land that way. I mean, because only because you've lived on and lived through it. Um. And this is just another how many years of of where are you making entries in that book? Uh? Since? Uh well not team see Steve five. I guess, man, I'm not give the numbers. I think it's fifty five years a long time. I know. My first my first entry, my first inch was actually on a piece of folded cardboard that I still have, and it has the date it has Uh who was with me? The rifles we were using, and that I called up a code and shot at two forty seven yards running and uh with a thirty thirty with a two and a half powersco upon it. He's yeah, you're You're Jeremiah Johnson, the big somebody. That spot is still whenever I shot it, my friend and I piled rocks upon that blood spot. You took me there once. Today, I remember that you showed me there the one time. I was like just about a couple of months ago. I went down there and trimm because there was a skunk bush had had grown over it, and I took chainsaw and trimmed it away so I could find it again to show my grandkids. Let me ask you, here's the interesting questions part in my head. If you ever used the GPS before, Oh yeah, do you feel like you have a knowledge of the land where you know the branches that you grew up on, that you lived on, the pitchfork and some of those or you you could just go to these places and your knowledge of the landscape even has the changes, is so in depth that you could just stroll through and you know where you are. Uh. Yes, for the most part. Now, some of the some of the more distant spots that I had to walk to, you know that might be a little difficult because of the brush encroachment of brush on some of these areas that it's just it's difficult to find. But for the most part, I could I go back to the same spot. I can go back to the same spot we where I set a steel tramp and n team saved me forward. Is that, like, have you ever talked to Selenda or your kids about having some sort of, uh, photographic memory, like some special power. That memory is not as good as it used to be. I think it's still probably pretty good. We'll have to get Salinda on. Let me get your wile, your wife for a post interview. Your abilities, your memory abilities? Yeah, I mean, is there other things you know, like that define your hunting life? The book? I feel. I feel like your books definitely do. You're the craftsmanship of making the calls and the way that you've kind of carved that part out, but also your photography, which I would imagine is your art. This is the way you express your art creativity. Talk about how that's kind of evolved over the years. I mean, you started out just trying to figure it out. Yeah, I think that probably the hunting played a big role in in the way that I photographed at least the angles that I use in appreciation for light. Um. Of course, uh, I began. I developed an interest in photography as a child, but didn't really get into it until I was in college. Whenever I was involved in some research on kyo to behavior and of course, of uh, my major professor Dr. Eckert Loan me an old Argus C three or something. I forgot the name of it, but or the model, but I took that with me, and that's I kind of like, wow, you know, this is cool. Thirty five millimeter. I had all the kode chrome. He furnished all the coode of chrome I needed, and I started shooting in and um. Of course, probably because I didn't take any courses in photography, that was an asset in me establishing a very personal style, because I know that whenever I was teaching at Texas Tech for twelve years in photography, that was something that I did with my students is that I explained to them, I'm not going to tell you how you know abc D. This this is the basics. You know your focus, you know your uh selection of subject matter, your composition is important. Uh, the use of light is important. But I'm not going to tell you you're the style that you need to have. You need to develop your own. And where I think that had I taken a course, I know I think and by talking to people who took photography in the earlier years, the instructors would would try to influence, you know, the style of a person. Well, I didn't have that. I didn't have that. That someone to spoil that for me. I just went out and just start shooting as I saw as a hunter, you know, eye level or below. Because I set a lot. I made my own. If I'm sitting in a blind, it was on the ground, made out of sticks. I never said in elevating blinds. And so I saw at the level the animal was seeing and and to me, that was exciting. And that's what I tried to convey. And that was supported by Gary Grettter, uh the art director at Sports of Film magazine in one when I was talking to him one day on the phone asking him, you know what can I do to break into the to the big three market and he said, well, he said, show me something different. Also, there was an editor to you know, it was it was Gary Gretter and James Eisenman, both from Sports of field. How I remember those names, I don't know. I was about there's that photographic memory. They told me, they said, we like your eye for light, and we like your angle that you shoot from, and so they said, just continue that, but select a different subject that's being shot. And I started wild turkey because people weren't doing wild turkey much. And that's how I broke into the Big three. Was I had three A National covers in one month with nothing but wild turkeys. But I spent thirty six days NonStop, morning and afternoon photographing wild turkeys. I mean every morning, four o'clock in the morning, I got up, went down on the river, used turkey calls, made blinds out of sticks, made up blinds out of gunny sacks, and used a diaphragm turkey call and I photographed turkeys and like it was the thing that was going to keep you know, that was gonna save my life. And uh and it got me. It broke me into the big markets. And the Big three back then was on field, stream, Sports of field, outdoor life. Yeah, when they were separate. Yeah, I mean that it's an amazing thing. Now. I actually had an email from a young man, he's a college student. The other day and he asked me, what do I do to break into writing and the outdoor industry? Mm hmm. People asked that all the time, but I never it's hard to respond to that. It is you. I hate to say this, but really digitals as a photographer. Digital photography is nothing. I mean, photography today is nothing like it used to be. When you live by the rules of Kotal chrome and uh and Fuji chrome, life was different than it is today. You had to be very much. You had to be exceedingly more knowledgeable. It wasn't this chimping and looking and going I oh, I can change this right now. You shot and then you waited a week to see if you had gotten the image, and it just made you well. It was like. It's like when my dad when I was nine years old and he bought me and Steven's fourteen. He gave me two shells. Number one is because they were too expensive. Dad couldn't afford him. But he would get in the closet and reach up and get that box where I couldn't reach it, and he had hand me two shells. He said, this is what you got today, And you made him count, and when you shot Kota chrome and Fuji chrome, you tried to make it count. I just went through a bunch of my images that I had shot in the Ukon territory. I just did a bunch of editing. I did not editing, but I got him on photoshop. They just to see what I had taken. And man, uh, you're talking about tough. I mean almost every day you had overcast, guys, you had rain, you had hailed, you had wind. We were on top of Rose Mountain. I was photographing stone sheep hunt for Sports of Field and we were up there for nine days, camped out two of us, three of us in a two man tent and the other two guys in a two man tent. And I was carrying a three two point eight and a couple of other lenses. And I could have done without the three and two point eight. As you well know, being a backpacker. Four pounds this can mean life, you know the difference between life and death. And I had an extra four pounds there. That's a lot of Snickers bars you could put in there. That's a lot of That's a lot of Oh Henry's. We were eating the Yukon back then, but but it was tough. But with digital I mean, I could have knocked that out so easily and it would have been just just nothing. But I mean the story got published the Yukon Adventure, but it was a lot of hard work. Well, And that's why I actually in that response that I believe that Dan Curtis is the name. I'm sure they'll listen to this, but I just said that. And in in the modern digital age, it's similar with photography that these other crafts. When we write an article, we posted right to the internet and we get immediate feedback. Did it get clicks, did it get engagement? Did it didn't do its job? And I just encouraged him to like back off that for a minute and work on the craft of expressing your thoughts coherently and and and in the way that it is authentic to you. And if you can figure that out first, you'll figure the rest of that stuff out, because it's plug and play. But the craft, you can't go back and relearn that craft. And I know you know it's it sounds to me like those years you had to know the craft because you would be a week before you got home from the Yukon before you knew if you did a good job or not, and you sent your images off and it was a week getting them back. Yeah, and so, but you're right. I'll tell you what the ditchal Ads has done for me though, at least on on On, I G and and Facebook. Is uh that I've been very particular about about editing what I write because I've kind of developed a style that I that I post. If it's not a political rank, which I'm doing fewer of those because I'm tired of uh. But it's experiences, something about history, uh, something about just the land. Like for instance, this morning when I went on my morning walk, I took my my iPhone and I was photographing Bobcat tracks, Kyo tracks um uh, textures in the sand, the way the recent rains have created these textures, um and maybe an Indian artifact or something, you know, it's not just something about the habit the habitat, you know, scunt bushees and how the roots are being washed away. And then I'll refer back to the writings of Randolph Marcy in eighteen fifty four when he walked across this country and how he defined the land and then the way I view it today, how it's changed probably from when he was here. And so I've gotten to where I really am into the editing portion. And that's a good thing because when I used to write articles for Peterson for the American Hunter back in the eighties, it was all done on a long hand on a yellow pad. I remember one day I wrote two articles for Outdoor Photographer. They wanted two different articles, and I wrote them both on a yellow pad, mail them in there. I mailed it in. I well, I typed it out, then typed it out. But but I think that my style has really improved because of Facebook and uh, and I g Instagram. Yeah, because I'm really I'm really, I'm really and I hate to say this, but I really watch what articles or what I say articles they go to bed within a you know, a reasonable a link, but what really touches people. And and I wanted to be very positive. I always wanted to be positive, something that they can you know, be uh, they can think back on and and maybe this is you know, how it affected them in their lives, if they were if my story was something they could relate to. Yeah, well I'm glad you're on Instagram. It's been a pretty new thing, right getting on there. It's really I think, what every worry I'm I love it. Man. When I saw you rolling there, I was like, that's gonna change it, That's gonna make it better right away. Well, yeah, I think what you're saying rings true in a lot of ways, and but it's also a bit of a trap for me personally when you kind of know you know that, I know if I put a certain type of image up, I'm gonna get a reaction, right if I put up an image of beautifully bloody backstrap, just seared and beautiful and I'm about to eat it. I know people love that. I know people love a grip and Graham with a dead animal. I know there's certain just certain things I know from the experience of being on there, and I try not to train myself to chase that. But at the same time, you want to kind of have a relationship with the people that are reading and seeing your stuff. So it's I find that creatively, I find that just a tough thing to measure. Well, I tell you, I try with mine is too cut A cut a swath across a wide a section of viewers from both the other side who don't want hunt, who appreciate just photography, and then I had just enough to bring in the people who like the hunting as well, and so I'm just kind of ducking in and out, you know, just sort of like you know, I want I want to hit everybody. I want to hit everybody. Yeah, So I don't, I don't. I don't. I don't post anything that I've killed because, uh, to be totally honest with you and be rather blunt, I've killed him, I've killed plenty, and and I don't. I don't like to show a dead animal anymore. You know, I don't even like to really even look at the pictures that that I've taken myself with dead animals. I know that they may might seem an extreme uh through the other side of the fence to go. But I appreciate hunting and um, but it's almost like I try to approach for more spiritual you know, a realm. Yeah. No, I've I've gone that way, I guess earlier in life than you than you did. But I still I still find that there is a struggle that you gotta that that life and death struggle you kind of gotta wear it on your sleeve if you're being honest with yourself, you know at some level. That's that to me, at least the healthiest way to approach it, Like, I know, this is a life and death for that animal, and I gotta kind of wear that, And if I don't wear it feels like I'm just kind of brushing it off. So I don't have to do this. True. It's it's it's true, you know, and I'll and I'll admit I mean, uh my big deal. Now, if I'm gonna, if I really need to kill something, I'm gonna go out and kill a grackle, a boat tailed grackle, because they are totally a useless creature. They destroyed those nest And what was it about five years ago? I kill one thousand, four hundred and seventy one grackles with two and whether record there and record those in a book? No I did. I did record the final number. Yeah. I mean, that's that's always been, you know, the way you're able to articulate kind of your journey, that's always been the most interesting part of it for me, and I think other people too, that you're you're able to now sit and say, you know, I'm a thirty or four year old man. Am I looking in the future? Is there gonna be a time where I look back and have regret about some of the killing I've done? I know you talk, You tell a wonderful story about a certain coyote and a certain trap that you remember. Um, I'd love to love to hear that, because I think it is always a so so raw to me when I when I hear you tell it. Yeah, that's uh. I can I find myself revisiting that day And that was a nine team said before and uh, and it still brings back emotion. And there has been counting traps and rifles, you know, there's been thousands of cops since then. But that particular moment, he just I don't know, I did something to me. It was a young coy and and it didn't jump at me, It didn't try to bite me, you know, I didn't try to to to lunge like a big male will do sometime. And then when I shot it, it just it was almost like in his face it looked at me and when why do you do that? And then it just rolled over and I sat down and cried. I sat down and whip because of it and wondered, what in the hell would I am I doing? But I've chosen that lifestyle for that winner to do that every day. And so I continued skinned e when I sold him. But it's that's boy. I'm telling you that to this day, I still feel that emotion. And then there was another card, right that you gained some respect for that kind of turn it's world and and didn't give up. Right, the one that I caught in a trap. Yeah, I still remember. It was j two pasture on the on the this big ranch and and uh, I still I can still remember. It was a cloudy, overcast, rainy day. I believe it's in probably December. And I remember I had a Canon TL with a fifty millimeter lens that that was. That was all I had with me that particular day in a cold of chrone six four and it was a big male and uh and that kind that kind I mean he he just looked at me and said, just bring it on. And I thought to myself, you know, here I am, I'm fixing. I'm fixing to despatch you, skin you and sell you, and you're gonna be one of many. And I'll forget which hide was yours, which fur was yours. But you have You've made a you know, you've made an impression to me today because you know that this is the end. You're Caughton in the number four new House trap. You're not getting away, and I'm standing here with a twenty two pistol and I mean, he just in his eyes it was like bringing on and I'm ready and they've just gotten that. I have that photograph and it was published in Texas Monthly as one of their great photographs that was taken in the They published in twenty five years of Texas Monthly. Yeah, when I think of your images, I think of that one particularly because I know the story too, and I remember seeing it and it is that like I'm going down swinging, look on that kid's face, and I know and I'm sure this, I'm sure this is true. And you would agree that the amount of time that you spent taking up close photos of these cords learning because when you call it, I did to kill it, call it in, you kill it, and the interaction is more transactional. When you called in to take the photographs, you're you're kind of capturing it's it's essence, it's emotions what it's doing, what it's motivations are, right, And I'm sure that's a of the years. Yeah, over the years, you've kind of come to to know these animals in that way. Yeah, when do you when you call him in the photograph from you're looking for those expressions and it's it's so sometimes I find it amusing. Like for instance, uh, okay called up a year or so back, and it came around the cedar bush. I thought it was coming in and coming down when and it came around the bush with the intention I mean he came, it came around ready to fight. It's one of those rare ones because most of them come in kind of like oh god, you know, I don't know if I had to do this or not. This guy came in to whoop somebody's ass, okay, And and the wind was in my favor and is it trotted buying me so close that I had to pull back with my one four hundred to like one hundred millimeters. It was boat up, tail was bushed out, hackles raised, its head was low, its ears were down, had a slight grim sown his face like you know, I'm fixing to kick your butt. And then all of a sudden that you can see the expression and its eyes changed and it was like, oh shits, I mean I screwed up. And that cowd last time I saw him was like four yards and there was nothing but a cloud of dust with this with this great street in front of it, running through the big empty I've had a lot recently. We've talked to vegans on the show a little bit, animal rights folks, people that think differently than you and I in terms of this. But I feel like the you know, what you've developed through your life kind of has a is a weird mix of you know, because when you have an animal rights person, they really are thinking about the animal, that single animal, its emotions, what it what it wants to do, it's family. They're really personifying or anthropomorphizing those animals. Um And I've always you know, and now that you're kind of describing that, there's some elements of of where you are today, right like what you have done and where you feel that there's some emotional connection to these animals. There is, um. You know, It's like I I did research pray for one time when I was at Tech, and uh it was on wolves, the gray wolf, and uh, and it talked about the family, you know, family units and the uh what would you call it, the alpha and the beta. You know that that hierarchical system within the pack. Of course kyles don't have that, but when you work with them as much as I have, they're an extremely intelligent animal and and they interact with one of I've watched them coming in in groups, especially in the mating season, and how they react and they play, and you start realizing, you know, yeah, they you know, they know each other and they're not just some animal out there that's that's has no soul. Basically, you know, they they recognize one another. They interact through vocalization with one another, through scent, you know oldfactory uh means and uh and you you start of flight. Uh. Think of them as you know, as really a living being. It's not something you shoot and just throw away. And that's one of the reasons that I take all these notes. I don't want to each each one that I've that I've harvested. I don't want to be to be shot in vain whether someone uses them after I'm long gone, uh, you know, the next you know, two generations down in my notes or if they're still around and people can look at them. They perhaps learned something, uh where, something that might change people's attitude towards predators. See that's it. By in the seventies, in the sixties, fifties, and start out in the fifties. I still remember the fifties and sixties whenever you know, the poisons were being used, the ten eight, the strict nine folium, the bad stuff, the really rough stuff. And to all, almost all landowners, it was like, couds are bad because they look bad. They look like a wolf. And in the early twentieth century, wolves were basically deemed Satan's you know, they were like Lucifer. They were here for one reason that was to kill cattle. And I think that was that was probably transferred over to kyles because they look like a small wolf. And and I started this. I started having this attitude in the seventies whenever I would talk to ranchers and that they blame everything on said, well, you know that's not true. You know, I know because I was raised on the ranch. I know that, Yeah, you've got calves out here, and I know some of them die, but you don't know what kill that kiss, So don't blame everything on coyotes, and so I was kind of a champion, you know, a guy who championed coyotes even when I was killing so many of them. And so now I've become even more that that way. And I hope that through these notes that I've taken and the research that I conducted while I was I was that Texas teg Well someday even further influence that attitude toward predators. I think it's changing. Yeah, And and people are realizing, hey, coats aren't the demons. They are not the demons that that so many people have have made them out to be. I mean, I I think I like hunting coats. I mean not as much as you to most of the cameras we've already already talked. But I will continue every once a while to shoot a kyae with a rifle because I like to shoot. I like to I've told my wife and other people, they say, why do you still you know, hunt kayas occasionally because it was so much a part of my being and growing up and and I and it may seem funny, but I like to know I still have it. It's like some men like to chase women, not me to see if I still got it. I like to chase kay once while with a rifle. I can still shoot at two d and fifty yards. I can still roll a coat and a hundred yards that it did run. I can still snap shoot as a cow passed between two two bushes and nail him just as he appears, right before he disappears. A snapshot, and then I congratulate myself. I go down and I take my notes, I take that blood thumb print, and I go home and I'm happy not to shoot another kite for weeks, if not months. Yeah. I mean you you came up in a time where it was you know this, these things were really getting going. I mean you're looking at the nineteen fifties when pelts were you can get up to twenty bucks bucks for well, you know, in the in the seventies, that's when it started. When I was a junior at Texas Tech nineteen seventy three, I had no idea that you could make money with with coyotes. And one of my professors, Jared Flinders, who's back in Utah, his home state. Uh, I went out one weekend and uh just camped out and I shot thirteen Kyo was at weekend and I was looking at the picture the other day. I had a tent. I not a tended. I had a piece of tarp stretched over an alert rope tied to a fence post, and a shovel and that was my tent for the weekend. And I had all these coyotails hanging up and I showed that professor and he said, hey, man, you ought to be skinning these things. And I said, well, I didn't know this bring anything. He said, let me get Let me get ahold of a fur buyer in Utah, big Sandy Utah or a sandy Utah. And he said, yeah, I said, sent to this guy. So I called him and he said, well, I've never bought from Texas. I don't know what they're bringing. And so I sent this one skinny coad that that I had uh taken the pelt from and send it to him. And I got a check for fifteen bucks in nineteen seventy three. Fifteen bucks was something. It meant that I could now go home on weekends. Instead of ride a horse and work cattle all weekend, I could hunt all weekend. And so that's that's whenever I started actually selling pelts was nothing sent me three, because I mean, you're coming off of decades where the coyote was vilified, and you talk about the pioneering the West, I mean the early eighteenth century when Lewis and Clark first encountered them, all the way till when they've become this like there's a war of extermination against them in the decades after that. And then now I think with I don't know if you've read Dan flores book Kyoti America, it's a he's been on here and now you like with guys like him, and you're even the way you speak of people are starting to understand them a little bit more because as prolific as they are, is amazing and an adaptable animal they are, I understand, you know, their ecosystem service that they provide. I certainly don't down people for hunting them, but I think if you're gonna hunt them, you need to understand them and what they do. They're not just they don't just kill every fond that drops they I mean, there there's so many things that we have to get over, you know, as as as a society about the cat, well, I'll tell you something that a lot of people don't understand, is uh is Dale Rawlins. Dr. Dale Rawlins, who's premier research individual on on coil populations, and his work has proven the scientific research guys working on their masters and PhDs and such that where you have kyoats, you have the best quail populations because kyotes are predators on raccoons, skunks, and opossums, those creatures who prey on nesting birds, and so Dr Rollins is uh conclusion is, Hey, if you want a really good quail population, you better leave the kyotes alone to some extent. Don't go out and try to shoot every one of you, see, because they're doing some good out there. Because let me tell you something with with people, especially in Texas now that I'm probably gonna raise some iron here, but it seems like nobody textas no other hunt deer anymore except from a blind offer corn feedure. I'm proud to say I've never done that. And corn feeders create a a superficial population density increase in so high in raccoons that had it. If it weren't for the the feeders, and then in the amount of corn is being favored, we wouldn't have this many raccoons Yeah, and so these dudes are out there really racking up a toad, you know, racking up some numbers on on on nesting birds, and kyles go after these dudes. Yeah, and skunked as well. Yeah. And I remember in other conversations that we've had on this podcast, you start to realize, because how how quickly kylets have spread across this country. I mean, they live in swamp, live in every ecosystem you can think of. They live in swamps, they live in the planes, they live in the big empty they live in the brush country of Texas, they live in Mexico, they live California. They thrive there. And thinking about how, you know, our human attempt to kind of wipe out predators from from these food chains, the kyote is kind of like a spasmodic way from nature to be like, oh, you're gonna kill all the wolves here, We'll put these back, We'll put these here. You're gonna eliminate this part of of the ecosystem. Well, here comes the kaio just taken over. And I've seen that. I'm I'm a young man, but I've seen that in my lifetime. You know, when I was a kid in Maryland, we didn't have coyotes, but now we do. UM and you'll see more than you see. They're very adaptable, very adaptable animals. I mean whenever you whenever you have basically a war waged since the extra pation of the wolf, a virtual war for aerial gunning to you know, early days of stryct night and and ten eight and thalium and sodium syanide which they still apply that UM and they were able to you know, to spread throughout the country. I mean, that says a lot of farmers. An adaptable creature. Yeah, I think I want always get these numbers around, but it's like six point five million of them were essentially terminated from middies have been nineteen fifties. Close to seven millions. I don't doubt it. I don't know the number, but it's it's a bunch. So it's an amazing story. And like that, you know, it's amazing that it's it's kind of tracked your life and in so many ways do you think about why you why you chose coyoats or why predators? It's so weird. Yeah, I've had people ask me that and I don't know why. But coats fascinated me from a child, Uh, lying in bed at night on the ranch back in the late fifties and early sixties. We didn't have air conditioning and the windows would be open at night, and of course we lived like a mile from the Bradness River upon a hilltop and we would always get a breeze. And I remember lying on the bed and the breeze and night breeze blowing the curtains across my legs, and then you'd hear the coyote start howling, and that would is totally fascinating me. And I mean I would go out and look for their tracks, and of course that they hit up my dad's chickens, and and that was a that was a sort of a connection that we had with them also and U and then whenever I shot that first kyo, and it was like, wow, man, I'm hooked forever. I mean, it's I'm just just have this insatiable desire to learn as much as I could about Yeah, because I've always I mean from what you've done in your life, from photography to hunting to trapping to you know, building out an old jail house to live in with your family. You and Rick I don't even know how you and Rick built that dug out in the heat of the Texas was like the summer of Texas. You dug out the side of a hill. I don't know how you do what you do, but I mean you're kind of taking taking everything to the inst degree. Right told Rick recently, I said, listen, this dugout is fantastic. I love it. You know, we were down there, like I was down there yesterday. We planted a bunch of buffalo soats buffalo grass on top to try to minimize some of the water erosion. And and I said, I'm not gonna do anymore. You know, I'm tired. I mean, this was an endeavor that that still baffles me because it was in the summer of two thousand and fifteen and in two thousand sixteens whenever I had a stint. Yeah, and I asked the cardiologists, it was a ninety percent blockage in my left left a order and artery. And I'm not I'm not a heart surgeon. I don't know which one's a r or artery. But anyway, I had compared to a naty, compared to a natomy attack. But I forgot all that stuff. But anyway, he said, I said, why didn't I go down? Because there were days that we were cutting down trees at weighed a hundred and fifty two hundred pounds and carrying those things and a hundred of great weather to the pickup, loading him in a trader, these fifteen twenty ft long trees. Why didn't I drop? And he said, probably that's what saved your life, because when you were jogging that day down that creek with your with your boots on, and and I was really pushing it hard, and I felt that little tinge it's that little ton of a an electrical shock in the middle of my chest, and I want something to not right. And then I went to the cardiologists and and they did the ct calcium stick skin and he told me, said, you got blocking somewhere. And when he said not, when they went in and did the angiogram and uh, it was blocked each And I said, well, you know, why didn't I go down? And he said that dugout work, that stress, that hard work that you've been used to probably saved your life. So that dug out a special meaning to me. Yeah, I mean, I remember I was living in Texas, and that visited you guys when it was mostly done. Yeah, I walked in there. And I walked in there and I thought, well, you know Rick and Wyman there, you know, no spring chickens. He's you got. You know you're in your sixties then, right, weren't you. I was a sixty five yeah, five years old to do that. I'm thirty four, and I'd be if I had to look at that job, I'd run. I'd run screaming from it. I'm just telling you, I remember. Yeah, It's it's just a way. It's you know, like like flying my drone one day and I flew over the jail house and uh and looked down at it at the patio that I built. And it took twelve years, uh to to build that patio. And I couldn't afford to hire anybody to help me, so basically I did it myself. And then my boys were old enough at the time sometime they would work the Bobcat loader and help me load rocks. But you know, we're talking about thousand hound rocks. And but I got in my head, I'm gonna do this, and uh, it was just I don't just the way I am if I if I get into something, I'm gonna do it right, and I'm not gonna do it at all. Well, there's just some fantastic lessons in that. You know, when we when the folks like me or other filmmakers try to like encapsulate as I've been a part of trying to take your story in China, tell people what meaning there isn't it? That's one that's a big part of it. I mean when I saw you and Rick just working your tails off to build that dug out, I thought, I was I just shocked, you know, and to sit there and I was happy. I was happy with the dug out. And then he wanted to do the dead the deck. Yeah, the deck that you guys builds even crazy, give me a break man. And then whenever we got finished with the deck, he went, it's not big enough. Let's go let's make one. Let's make it twice as big. So I just took my head, Okay, let's do it. And we finished that and then did the Then I built the rock firepit. Yeah, and uh and finally that's enough. Yeah. Well, if you're out there listening to this and you're you know, you're looking for some motivation that that's it right there for me. There's a lot of people that are fancy themselves motivational speakers. But just look up to find photos of woman's dugout and when you see it, I will share some when we share this podcast. When you see it, you're gonna be like, huh, how two guys. Yeah, same thing with the jail house. I know people for people that don't know you, Um took an old jail what what year as the jail house bill? And what year what did you what year did you require it? Uh? Purchased it in not teen eighty one. And then two other individuals, Tracy Cartwright and Mike Waldron, Um, we we tackled. They did the really tough work. You know, we're I'm not a carpenter. I'm Jake leg at Best. I'm weekend weekend guy, and I can't make a square box. But but what I could tackle was the more crude stuff like putting in the uh the floor joist, things like that and uh. But it took about two and a half years to finally get that thing livable and U and it was. Tracy was here just just probably an hour ago, and we were just talking and laughing about the jail, and I told him, I said, I walk over there occasionally I'll just just shake my head and just turn and walk out. I just can't believe it. I can't believe it happened. Yeah, it was a tremulous effort. If you would have told yourself A one that you know at two thousand, I think it was thirteen or whenever the year it was, that you were gonna be on h G TV and the it was there two or I know twice, possibly three times, and h ETV I know twice. I know another group came in. I don't recall who they were, but it's been on on the other little TV specials. It's a little short short runs, uh news articles and so. But yeah, it's a it was a worthy cause. Each time I drive by it, I look up and I'm proud that it happened. But but I don't get on top of it anymore. I used to. I used to get on the get up to take a ladder and pull it up on top of the house portion and then extend that up on the eaves of the jail, and then climb up to the very top, which is like thirty feet up and and inspect the ten and the skylight, but I don't do that anymore, mainly from from my wife, from Slenda saying you are not going on top to jail anymore. Well, thank the Lord for Slenda being there to keep you, keep you grounded literally in that case. You know, I'll tell you when you when you're telling the story is stints. You know, my dad just oh three weeks ago, had had a big heart attack and had three stints put in. He had three ninety percent of blockages. Um. And I remembered you having that done back in you know, those years, and telling me about that. My dad has has had heart problems for some time. Um. But it it got me to thinking about when it happened. We were locked down so I couldn't go see him. But and he's fine, and he's relatively fine now. But there were some emotions in it for me, like thinking about my relationship, what my dad had been to me, what I might mean to my children. You know you, I'm sure you you've thought about that before. But I know one thing we've never really talked about was your relationship with your dad, kind of what he meant to you and how he helps you become who you are. Well. Dad, of course was one of the old fellows that older people that he was born in nineteen eight team and uh, and he grew up without much in a big family. Um I can't I don't recall exactly, but they had like, you know, four or five brothers and a couple of sisters and they just didn't have much. But he grew up working all, you know, very hard, and uh. He taught my brother and I a good work ethic. You know, you don't you don't just come by things sitting on your butt. And I guess that's one of the reasons the jail got it was, I mean, the the dugout and the jail was accomplished because we just believed in work and hard work. And that's that's. Uh. You derive good things whenever you take time and energy to show people you care and are willing to work. And so that's that's one of the things that Dad instilled in us. And also, unlike a lot of old timers, I mean whenever I was cowboying as a as a young boy and a teenager, you know, he expected me to be a cowboy. I broke horses, uh, you know, rope through cattle, you know, through branded I did the whole schmir something I have no interest in anymore. But uh, Dad realized early that wasn't in my heart. He realized that, as the old adage goes, I just danced to a different tune. I loved hunting. That was my deal. When I worked cattle. I was also interested in archaeology and paleontology because constantly looking for airhead and bones. And he told my mother one day he walked in the house and said, I don't know. I don't know about that boy. He's not ever gonna make a cowboy because he just his heart's not in it. And and Dad realized that, and so he let me, oh my direction, and that's that's there was something big about about the old timers. I mean that that was a tough call for him. You know, a lot of people know you're going to do this. Um Now, I know my mom, she was born in twenty six and she always thought I would have a desk job. She's I know whenever I got out of tech, and saved me for it, and she said, what are you gonna do that? Well, I want to trap for a while. She said, you need to get a job in and have a desk job. I said, well, that's the last thing I want to do. And she never said much more about it after that, but she thought because I was an educated person, I needed to use it. But but both mom and dad let me let me dance to my own team, and I appreciate that. That's a big part. I know. You've always told me stories about when you and Rick were kids, like you just kinda were gone. They would let you just go and be on the right. They would yeah, ride horses, go hunt. They started out early and just said look, you know, be careful. But they weren't hovering helicopter parents. They just said watch for rattlers. And lord knows, we lived right right on basically on top of the den, and we would walk across big rattlers cold up that would And that's probably one of the reasons that I don't kill rattles next today, is because I don't. There's no telling how many rattlers let me walk by them as a little boy in my youthful years and just said, hey, he's a punk kid. I'm gonna let him go. And because I can remember coming upon some that like lifting up piece of wood and there would be this huge rattler laying there and I just let it back down. Yeah, he could have struck out hit me in the leg and so, but Mom and Dad basically just said watch for rattlers and be careful with those guns and just let us go. That'd be a nice T shirt for I like that. I like that, you keep it, I can't. I just tell Selinda she can make that happen, and she I'll tell you what. We've got a lady who does T shirts, and I believe what I'm gonna put. I'm gonna have a T shirt. Mate. All our request is just you send me one of the first ones. I'll wear it every day, will you got it? Man? Well, listen, I mean that's a great that's a great note to end on. Man. I Um, I can't tell you how much I appreciate you and appreciate talking to and sharing stories and thanks for thanks for being so willing to share stuff with everybody. I think it's important for a lot of people. Well, it's, uh, you know, I'm at that point in life where I don't mind, you know, sharing with people and helping people and instilling uh you know, some enthusiasm for what they're what they have in their hearts and if I can do that, I'm willing to help. Are doing it alright, man, alright, appreciate thanks so much. Thank you again. That's it. That's all. Another episode in the books. Thank you to Mr Wyman Menser and his wife's Salinda, their entire wonderful family there and Benjamin Texas can't wait too, I can get on the plank, So I go down and visit him, take some photos, maybe shoot some kayots, depending on how he feels, we feel. But wonderful conversation, a wonderful man. Another one of these people that are kind of in my world that I m looking back on all my interactions, all of the podcast, everybody I've met through hunting and through being in the outdoors. Um boy, I'm thankful for Wyman, very very very thankful for him, and so I really appreciate all that he said and has done for our show. And Joe Fernando and Phil course T Engineer. We got through, we got through the the difficult topic of ray and riots in the United States. We talked to you about regenda to agriculture. We're gonna kind of put to bed at some level for now. The Brett Bond Glenn Bond bear attack story. We're gonna move on to other things. UM, a lot of a lot of good stuff planned in upcoming episodes before we go. I just phil discovered this email from Russ Taggart. Now, UM, there's no secret that I want to get the title sponsor from White Claw in the show. Are you aware of that film? I made that clear, right several times? Several times. So this is an official plead to the folks at White Claws. I think anybody listens in the White Claw marketing team, I don't know. I mean, they're kind of a big deal. It's probably like one or two meat eater fans somewhere in there, right, Yeah, So maybe they're listening. Maybe they're hearing this, Maybe they're feeling charitable, maybe they're feeling like there's a lot of compelling, engaging content, a lot of synergies, a lot of marketing speak here. I'm speaking to you marketing people at White Claw. Um. Russ Tagget wrote, any any said this and this is something that if I happened to work in marketing and White Cloud probably want to hear. Um, as as Ben O'Brien, the Influencer Ben, a special thanks, as I have heard you refer to drinking white claw on a recent trip to town. Russ is from Canada. I came across white Claws in the liquor store and I knew I had to try them. As I potted at the selection of flavors. He spells it with a you Canadian spelling. I thought a phil right away when I saw they came in Mango clearly was a sign tasty and refreshing. Thanks again, Russ. I just thought i'd read that. You know, Ben, we disagree on a lot of things, one of them being the white Claw flavor tier flavor tiers. But one thing we agree on is that mango is a top tier flavor. Real quick, just quickly before we go. I know we all have to get as this show has been a little scatter bread and I'm aware of Fields going to clean it up for us. Uh, watermelon my new top flavor. Just come on, just just an awful, awful, just a bad opinion, just wrong. It's just wrong. You had the watermelon. Yeah, it's not. I don't want that in my hard seltzer. It's watermelon, Jolly rancher, great a plus watermelon, White Claw keep just get out of here. Got done, nice day. I'm done a nice day of bear hunting. And I go to the gas station, you know, and they're there and there is a nice forty size I did this the other day. There was like a giant can. I mean, just you know, Paul is a tall man. I felt. And then it was watermelon white clone. I got one, and then I safely drove home without drinking any of it. And then when I got home, I let loose and before I had unpacked my stuff in the garage, I had drank two thirds of the watermelon white clawth tall boy. I was feeling really good, and that's when I decided it's time. I mean, listen, we all can't have you just sophisticated palates that appreciate the the noble pa and the bet the better white cloud flavors of natural wine and grapefruit. But that's okay, that's fine, all hail watermelon. We'll see you next time with a hunting collective. Because I can't go a week without doing run drank

Save this episode