00:00:01 Speaker 1: Hey, everybody, welcome episode number six of the Honey Collective. I'm been O'Brien. I'm joined today by none other than Remy Lauren. I'm sure you know Remy from his appearances on Solo Hunter. He's been featured on Meat Eater, he once had a show by the name Apex Predator, and he is most generally a badass. This podcast I believe you'll enjoy, mostly just because we were sitting on a porch, drinking beer late in the night and talking about hunting, talking about values, and generally just shooting the ship, as as two people who enjoy spending time together, had a great meal, had a few after after dinner beers, and recorded a conversation that we both enjoyed having. So I won't say much more about Remy, or about the podcast or about the conversation other than to say I hope you enjoy. We sure did Episode number six. Putting my line in my corona, my line is also in my corona. Now, let me tell everybody out there a little story me and Banner sipping coronas in his backyard at this time. But the corona part flashes me back to I don't know a few weeks ago when we did this very same podcast, Yet Ben decided to use a memory card that was probably less storage space than a U what is it, no, Kia Razor. It came out of my game boy, Remember when you we're playing Snake on your phone and you thought that point zero five cell phone pick was epic. He decided to take the memory card out of that and record a very high quality podcast on it. So we talked for an hour and a half and nothing came up again, and except we enjoyed Corona, just Crestfallen, we were just no. Actually, you know, we got most of it recorded and then I went to put it on my computer and it it was one of the best podcasts ever I will say it is. It was a very avant garde podcast. It's like one of those podcasts where it's it was an expression, it was an art form. We just we talked about We did the podcast without recording it, and then we go and tell people on the podcast, and those people tell those people and it spreads like wildfire through the community of people will say, do you remember the time that you heard about the time that you heard about the podcast? Now did you hear that podcast? No? I didn't hear that podcast either, but here's what I heard about that podcast. So, like a Jackson Pollock paying for the rest of the night to annoy Ben and everyone else, I'm going to keep referring to the other podcast. Um It, it'll be you know, we'll remember this years from now when we're old and gray. We'll remember that podcast as as just time lost in an age where everything was recorded. There was a moment where we had a discussion we thought was serious. It turned out to be nothing. Yet that duck face picture you took still remains. All those gripping grins I've been posting for the last ten years remained, still remained. Well, it remains that we've seen. If this one will ever make it anywhere, we don't know which. I'm even weirder talking to the abyss and actually as a fellow tech savy type of human, um, I'm checking myself. You're out about eighteen right, Yeah, we're getting a little record action. So let's see. I don't remember what we talked about, and I don't really care. It doesn't matter what. Here's the thing. Here's the thing. Tell me, tell me if someone else was like, let's do a podcast, and I did a podcast and it got deleted, and they're like, let's redo the podcast. I would say, good luck, you just tell the story. But because Ben O'Brien is a very dear friend to me and I appreciate what he does, I was like, of course, Ben, I don't think you were like of course. I was like, like I forgot my wallet, Like I think you do a fancy dinner. And I was like, would you like to return to my house I have I have some coronas and we can sit on the back porch. Oh, there's some headphones back here. Hey listen. I I it was very sad like that, and it I was very It was a very somber night. My wife and I didn't even look at each other. I knew what I had done and I knew what we can never get back. It was like a death in the podcast family that that lost. Maybe one day I'll find it on some old techmo bowl card that I never knew I had. That's why I record all my podcasts on vhs, just it's so hard to erase, just in case one day, well you have to erase it. I'm gonna look at you, turn you down a little bit. We're letting everybody behind the curtain here, behind the podcast curtain. So I think we're gonna talk about hunting. That's probably one of the things that we'll touch on here in this podcast. But I think the first thing I want to talk about is your upcoming nuptials. If you're comfortable with with going over what they what that looks like, you know, for Ben O'Brien, I'll do any kind of I will really divulge into my life. I think people I like to be a little secretive. I don't like people knowing my business. Actually nobody. I don't think anybody really knows about your your wife, your fiance. You got to close the deal, but I don't think there's a lot of people that that definitely not Here's the thing. People are always saying to me, Oh, someone finally tied you down, wrangled gin What makes them think that I'm the one age? No, not in that way. But you know, I might not be the catch in this this relationship. I mean, I would say it's likely from what you've described your lovely fiance, she's the catch. She is the catch, you told me. She gets up at four in the morning, she does I think it's just oould do me. That's a bad pressure. She accomplishes more by seven am than most people will in a week. And I and you know that's what Are you intimidated by that? A little bit? Not gonna lie, I feel it. I feel in fact that she's like, yeah, I was, what do you What do you do from five to seven am? When the answers punching kickboxing bags to stay in shape? I get scared. Do you think she's just doing that to assliminate you? She's just doing that just to keep you in line. Like, listen, Remy, I will say this, as far as as hunting goes, and this is actually an interesting topic that many many people might shy away from. I'm just gonna go all for it. I like, that's kind of what we're after that interesting topics. Think about this. I grew up and a lot of times you try to you either do one of two things. You mimic the family that you grew up in, or you do the exact opposite. I was very fortunate enough that I grew up in a great family. Okay, that's probably rare in today society than it was twenty years ago. Parents stayed together, brother, or your friends were very I grew up in a very tight knit family. My dad likes to hunt. My mom not a hunter. She actually grew up in a family of what I would probably consider for most people out the hippie vegans, because they were vegans and fairly hippie esque. However, I've kind of converted most of them into eating wild gaming, which they love now. But my mom enjoys going out hunting with us. The lady is one of the best spotters I have ever met. I probably got my spotting abilities from my mother. Sorry, Dad, I mean he knows it's true. In my outfitting business, she'll be home, she'll be She does a lot of the cooking for us, and she is. She could be on top chef like. She is a phenomenal cook. She does an amazing job. You would It's not like home cooking. It's like but one day she'll look up on the hill, Oh there's a deer, and she doesn't get excited like somebody that hunts does. She's seen enough deer on the wall and whatever that she'll look at a deer. She's a better judge of mule deer than probably of the self proclaimed trophy hunters out there. She does not bullshit, and for some reason, she has an eye for rack bracketing deer. She could look at a deer and be like, knows whether it's the quality we're looking for or not. One week, we had a client with a special meal their tag. This is a long story, I'm getting around and going back. So we had a client with a meal dear tag, special meal dere tag. This he actually, I think if I remember correctly, he might have even won the super tag for the state of Montana, which means he can hunt anywhere in the state. And I happened to guide in one of the better units, so he decided to come up with us. Maybe it was just druetic camera. So the guy is hunting his ass off all week. My mom's cooking up the last meal. The guy has not killed a meal here. She calls me and it's like, hey, Remy, there is a big buck behind the lodge. You should probably get you over here. And I'm like, okay, Well, the hunter was with another guy that day. I was, oh, kind we killed their elk taking it into the butcher and I was just coming back. So I'm like, oh, ship, Well, these guys don't even have phones with them because like, this never happens there in a good spot. So I drive a hundred miles an hour to this. I go to the lodge first because I'm thinking, my mom, does she really know what to think? She points up there. I looked through the binocularcy oh ship, Yeah, yep, you know what a big love your mom big non to points going everywhere, and then I drive down go. I drive to where their truck is parked because I saw it earlier in the day. I literally am sprinting up trying to find these guys, find them, get them. They jump in the truck. We drive back a hundred miles an hour, and the last night of the hunt, he shoots this deer that my mom had spotted. I was like, awesome. And then a couple of years later, my mom's spots a buck and she sees she'll see she looks at deer all day. She's like, oh yeah, dear, dear, dear, spots another buck. Tells my buddy about it and he ends up shooting the buck and it was buck. It's just she has a knack for finding big deer. She now here. Here's where the story relates to her and what I was going into. She tells us about this deer behind the lunch. We shoot the deer. She then proceeds to cry and cry and cry. They killed my buck killed the deer. My mother is not a hunter, but she enjoys going out. She enjoys the process of hunting. When she generally spots the things that get shot. On my Nevada elk hunt, which was took me ten years to draw, she spotted. She's sitting right next to a professional hunter and she spot appen to spot yell that I ended up shooting. Every time she cries for that animal. Then she wipes her tears away and she will put on probably what's close to her body weight and meat on her back and pack it out. But she loves the process of hunting. But she has told me she could never kill something herself. So, you know, a lot of people their families. My family dynamic was my dad hunted, my mom did not, but she enjoyed going out. I never had a desire to look for a spouse or partner that hunted. It was not in my radar. It wasn't something that I wanted. It was actually something that I seeked to find. Somebody that didn't hunt, not some weird Freudian whatever thing. And you're like, I'm just gonna be honest with myself. But to be honest, I thought, Yeah, I've got a buddy whose wives hunts. And what does he do. He guides his wife hunting all the time. Not that that's typical every time and not that. And if you're my buddy and you're listening to this and you think it's you, it's probably not you. It could be my other buddy, A lot of buddy. Everybody just calmed down, But it's not you. But I got I got it all the time. That's my job. So when I go out, do I want to be taking somebody else hunting? No. I like to hunt alone. I like to do my own thing. That's how that's my escape, that's how I reset, is to be out alone. Well, hm, my fiance, current fiance, my only fiace, let's walk that back, my lovely by current, I meant she's my fiance now, but she will be my wife. Got it, got it, we got saved it saved. Um Well, actually, you know I was gonna say my current fiance is a hunter, but she was not a hunter. Maybe I'm digging myself all that whatever, does that make sense? When I met her, she had said to me she would enjoy going out, but she did not hunt. She never could see herself killing an animal. And I thought that's fine. And I was like, dude, like wild game meat, yes, score, because that's that right, there is a deal breaker for me. Well if she met my wife, right, my my wife. I took her squirrel hunting one time, uh in the Ozarks. I shot two squirrels. It was hot that day, shot two squirrels. She said, this sucks, let's go back. And that's the only time. That's the only time we went out hunting together. But she can cook the hell out of that squirrel. She can cook the hell out of an elk. She happily does it. But I had to get her to that point. Like when I first met her, she had that tried that stuff. But now if I go out and I'm like call her on day three, I'm like, I'm having a tough elk hunt, She's like, are you see an elk? Like yeah, she said, just shoot one. We need to meet Like that's come home, come home, come home. We need that. And so I have that separation church and state where she is very much in support of those efforts, almost to her own benefit, like she understands. And then when I bring the meat home and we start I start processing, and she's got a lot of like, oh, I'll take some steaks out of that, let's go butterfly with those, will go three inch with those, those will just take this, make some hamburger, And she has these exactly what she wants. What have we try making lunch? Me? Do we need to get a slicer? I was thinking this is I don't think I would want in any other way. Not that if she tomorrow turned up like your fiance did and said like, let's let's give it a shot. I'd love to see what it's like. Not that I wouldn't jump for a joy to spend that time with her. But at the same time, I appreciate what we have right now. I don't know want to change it. Yeah, but you probably feel the same way I do. Is, whether she hunts or not, if she turned her nose up to wild game, it would be a very hard household to live in. Oh. I mean that's that's that to me is more different than having a difference of political opinion. Well, I was. I had the first experience where I liked so Hannah, my wife, it goes to a lot of mom groups and stuff. If she stayed at home mom and she met this this um husband and wife team and they both um or very nice people. We went to their house for a little dinner party and I just they asked if I would bring some alchemy, so they've never had it before. So I brought some elk less nice chunk of backstrap, which to me is like this. You know, if I didn't like him, I would have brought him some sausage. I thought, maybe we could be friends with these people. I'll bring them some backstrap. Will we go over there? And I cooked it up on the grille, which I you know, I didn't have any tools in my own. I just figured we'll just cooking in their environment. It's it's not gonna be bad. It's elk cooked it up pretty ill in a grill. When Webber grill cooked it up, it was good. Slice it up and uh, the husband ate it up, was loving life. And the wife slices a piece of it off and eats it, and I'm like kind of watching her like weird reactions and church kind of hide her like what seemed like discussed And my wife said, like, how did you like it? She said, m m, it tastes a lot like liver. And I just thought, that's the worst reaction. I've never heard that reaction to a medium rare backstrap in my entire life. And I could see the guy think. The embarrassment on the guy's face was was clear to me, and I just thought it made a thounce my wife, I don't know what I would do. I'm not sure what I would do that I understand. Yeah, yeah, so where was it? Oh, yeah, I was. I was just talking about how my fiance before she started, before she actually went hunting, she would go with me in New Zealand and we would hike up the mountains and I would shoot the animals. But every step of the way she was one like walking my footsteps. I've hunted with a lot of people in a lot of places. She was the only person I've ever met that could keep up with me. Therefore, she is a badass, whether she will She's very humble, she is a school teacher. She likes to keep to her own. She has zero social media. She will not go on social media. She is very very reserved. Doesn't I have a Google home in my house? She doesn't like them. It's listening to us, right, let me may work for the CIA. I'm not sure. Lets this question. Did she know anything when you guys got together and started getting serious. Did she know about your you know, like who you were in the hunting industry or or now you're standing there, or did she just think you're some hunting fellow that play at a profession? Yeah, she's like, this is interesting. What do you do? I don't care what do you do? No, but she she actually came to Montana and did some cooking and kind of like learned what I did just to get a better sense of everything that I do, which is cool, and go to New Zealand and all that. I mean, she's a school teacher, which is awesome, just very caring and but she can keep up like nobody else I've ever met. That's pretty awesome. Okay, it doesn't matter, however, Uh we read she recently shot her first dear, which who was she was extremely excited and watching her go through the emotion of it. Yeah, I mean, she she shot the deer and she made a perfect shot. I'm talking like, she's a very good shot. Her dad's a good shot too, so her dad taught her to shoot. But she never wanted to hunt. But she's a very good shot, so she shoots, makes a great shot. Wow, Okay, now I'm gonna lock the guns and the guns safe and never give you the combinations. Just kidding. Um, where was he going with that? I think that was all because of the punching bag thing, and then fear of the lady, and then well, just wasn't feeling what it feels like that somebody who now it wasn't a hunter. You felt comfortable with that idea, you grew up with that. But now she understands what hunting is, and she's gone through the steps that I went through when I first started hunting. Now she went through maybe a little more range of emotion, but she understands what it means to kill what you eat. She understands what it means when I put the biggest thing that I saw was originally she thought, oh you can have you can do whatever you want in the other parts of the house, antlers whatever, not too many, but no antlers in the better I agreed to that. I'm a sensible man. You know you can. There's some things you can, right. I agreed to that. People out there thinking Remy is a hard core motherfucker he would never agree to that. I agreed to that. But when she shot her first dear and it happened to be a buck, we weren't actually trying for a bucker. We were just whatever dear we could. It was access to dear and most of them have lost their antlers. But it's cool that she got a buck I actually really wanted to get. She didn't care. She just wants to meet. But when she shot her first buck, the range of emotion and then she was like, wow, these antlers are mine. Now I want to put them up on the wall. I have a perfect place for it, right above the bed, in the bed, in our bedroom. And I was like, now you get it. Now you get the value that I put on it. It's not it wasn't a giant buck. It was no quote unquote air quote trophy. But she went through a range of emotions. She cried. It was she had taken the life of something that was beautiful. What was beautiful then became meat that we ate and nourished our bodies and was good and healthy for us, and then those antlers became a symbol of the experience in the way she describes it as one of the most vivid experiences of her life, like a very clear defining moment from someone that didn't hunt and thought could never hunt to now wanting to put those antlers up on the wall, and to me, that validates the process of hunting, the process of antlers. I have mounts in my house and what those mean to me. It doesn't mean some trophy, some chest pounding trophy. To me, it's a memory that when the meat in the freezer is long gone, I will forever remember the animal that sacrificed its life. And it's it's funny to me that we we as hunters have so not we not maybe not me and you, um, but maybe like our upbringing brought this on a little bit. It was funny we as hunters have so poorly represented the idea that you're talking about. I was watching I was watching the other day, like the trophy documentary on CNN. That's why I watched that. And then I was watching some NR a t V just as I wanted to kind of catch what was what was stirring up controversy. And then there was in both cases there was people who had trophy rooms that were literally one giant room with upwards of a hundred and seventy five heads full body mounts around that room. And and to me, that denotes a collection rather than a collection of experiences like you're talking about, or a collection of really important moments in your life and very vivid memories and things that are you know, really just an experiential for you. You You have a giant vaulted ceiling with seventy five heads on it. What's that look like? It looks like you're collecting those animals? Not that? Not that somehow you have a hundred and seventy five experiences you want to commemorate. It looks like you're you have a hundred and seventy chess pieces on a board or something something of that nature. Probably something smarter than that, but that's what it seems to me. And I wondered, historically we've done a poor job of representing what amount should should be and what it and probably moreover, what the funk it could be? What you what could it be? To you? It could be anything you want it to be, right, I mean there's people that do not hunt and have a cabin and Jackson hold Wyoming with antlers and mounts all over it. They mean nothing their decorations. I don't see any set of antlers in my house as decoration. When you look at the white tail on your wall in your living room, is that decoration to you? Absolutely? It might be a decoration to your wife or someone that walks into your house, but to you, it's not decoration, right, And she understands even though she put that all together like a decorative like piece, it looks, she understands what I what I When you see it, you see a memory, and she understands that. She's like me, I wanted to look nice. I understand for you, this is what it's going to be. And we talked about that when we uh moved into this current place, like once we we had a kid to come at the decorating one out the window destroyed everything, But well said, I said, I would like each room to have have some totems in them, Like when I walk into the room, I can think, like immediately I just I look and our LA night trip last year, my guest bedroom in there. I've got the access there. I killed shot that thing at eight yard. It's not ashamed to say I was at some point a shame to say that, not after I thought through and then I have a move fline in there that I shot with a rifle basically off a truck, like at the same at the same level, both from the same hunt. However, we got a picture of Messian Well, I'll do I'll talk about we gotta tell I think part of part of this podcast. I hope we could just tell some fucking hunting stores and get that get to that. Um. But to me, that room even more over to representing our hunt together, it represents that place, like how it feels and what it means to me, and like how it changed my perspective in the world, Like what the islands of Hawaii are to be. They're a simpler place, They're they're more pristine. Um, they're more cultural, they're more reverence. So when I look at those heads, I think about that culture, and I think about what from that culture can I bring to my own home to better my child or to better my wife, my relationship, my wife and traditions that we could codify that make more sense. Um, And so it's yeah, it's freaking way deeper than even just an experience for me, Like it's well, the other the other thing that I noticed is when I come over to your house as a hunter, in your garage there's sets mantlers. I get excited about them. Where did this deer come from? Telling you about this, dear, it's not some it's it's sharing an experience. It's remembering that animal, that hunt, that struggle, the ones that didn't have a struggle or story or a meaning. Oh that one, well, I don't know, but it's every single one in there. You go, Okay, this was this, this was Every animal has a story. Now you go, antlers are on the wall. Yeah, well the story is all the meats gone. We ate that animal. You don't have to tell me about that. I know that as a hunter, but we spend forty five minutes every time I come to your house, I'm looking through going, oh, yeah, what what was this one? Where was that one from? Where did you get this? Tell me about this? That's a cool bull. Look at this bull out. Wow, that's a really neat bull. It's not a giant bull, but it's a nice six point bull. Yeah. That was my first bull in Colorado and we were just talking about it. It's like, how about that moose. I'm like, that's the moose I shot with Joe roguean like five years ago. When I first met Joe. I didn't say, like, hey man, that's my right. I said, that's the first moves I've ever killed. I killed it with Joe Rogue is the first time him and I ever got together. It's the start of our friendship. It was awesome, And I'm like, is it a Canadian moose? Yeah, Canadian moves. I've ne your hunting Canadians. That would be a dream of mine to go hunt Canada because of the venture, the place, the memories to everything. The meat is a part of it is a big part of it for me. But yet you have these antlers or some people do mounts or whatever. I like having that memory, so I don't forget. Okay, photo is the same, yes, but you can't hold a photo in the same way that you can hold well. Right, You're looking at that bull I killed in the Colorado a couple of years ago, and you're like looking, oh man, look at this, you know, look at this little piece of metal jammed into his base, or like there's just a the tangible feeling. That's why I always and we've done this in our in our professional career. Like you you contrive this picture of you in the animal right, like you set the right lighting, and you sometimes move the animal's body over to a different area that looks more beautiful than where he actually died, which is is almost taking away from that experiential piece a little because you're now taking like he died in the place he died, like and you pull him over to I do. I've done that before. You take shoot an animal in a brush pile and pull him over to the night the nicest peak and take this photo that's that is epic. Now that represents the landscape in some way, but it also doesn't represent where the animal died and what that experience was like. So that's one thing that I found going forward I'd like to change for me, is I want a photo of me and the animal in the place that I died, where that experience happened. You know, in the case of your wife, maybe where she cried, like maybe in that place a photo that kind of represents that moment. You'll never capture that moment, and it's entirety. But at least you can represent what where you were and what it felt like for you know, think about thirty four years from now, what that what that will be for you? You know what that moment, tear felt moment over the deer would be. Um And why would I not want that to be well represented in a photo? Why does it have to be fucking you know, cut the tongue off and wipe the blood off and do that, you know, like, what's the what's the value in that, you know, other than a trading card? Well, and and and here's where we may agree or we may disagree. I don't know. I hope we disagree because that we can and then we can talk about what we talk about. They agree, it will be bored when I okay, yeah, I actually didn't know where this podcast was going because our last one just win a completely different direction. I had to refer to the last one so I can release that. It's like podcast number one, I'll be surprise. And you talked like you're not your wife will here back? Oh my god, why did you say that? Fast? Okay? I like, if I take here's here's the way I see it. If I take what we would call a gripping grin because I I actually getting the corona burp pop there inside. We're gonna call you out on it too, don't you. We're drinking beer here now we're moving our little microphones to to burp and mac noise. You don't want um? Okay if you? Oh yeah, I'm talking about the gripping grin. When I take I take what I consider really good gripping grins because I do it for clients and I do it for myself, and I set the animal in a way. When I look at a hunting photo, I don't give ship hoo's in the background. I don't even see the person in the background. I'm looking at the animal. And for me, when I set a picture, I want it to be an acceptable representation to showcase that animal. And that's the way that I give respect to that animal, because I know that I might be in the background. But it's not about who's in the background. I mean, you could show me a picture of a mule here and I couldn't tell you whose faces in it because I'm staring at the rap right. Priorities, priorities. But if the animal looks like in a disgusting manner or whatever that does not show it in the best light. I don't like that because I like the animal to be represented in a way that gives value to the animal. So if I'm sitting behind an elk and I set it up in the elk looks, You're like, oh my god, look at that elk and I'm in the background. That's perfect. That's what I wanted as a photographer and as a hunter and as a guide. That's what I wanted. That's what I was going and I would make it clear that on my side of things. And I feel like this is going to be some kind of underlying theme of this podcast. But have you talked about this before. We've talked about listening podcast. I've talked about it. But I like the different Like there's a lot of these subjects that come up, probably because I kind of lean towards them, but they come up, and then there's always different angles on on the subject, even if you talk about it six times. But in this case, I'd like to say I don't have a problem with the idea of what you're talking about. The grip and grid. I don't. I do it all the time. But what I've come to to understand about in my own mind about it is that where it shows up is the importance because when you and I trade back grip and grins, we know what that means. Like you and I know, like the in the first role of journalism is know your audience. So you know, if I take a grip and grin and I just sent it to you, and I'm like, dude, check this ship out, and that's awesome, Dude, what a dear, and that's our conversation. Great. There's nothing in that that could be There's no preconceived notions or no lack of knowledge around that. Deer. If I put that online for how many hundreds or thousands of people keep we're gonna We're gonna do that every every te um. If I if I take that grip and grid and then put it online, I don't know who might see it. I don't know who my audience is. I I think I might know, but I don't. I don't know. And so my idea is to take the grip and grand if you feel strongly about that personally, it's a personal thing that you really feel like you have to do, but just be be cognizant of where it goes like this, if it goes out to social media, be you know, be cognizant. I mean there was to be quite honest. Um, there's a guy out there who posted this really heartfelt written piece about hunting mountain lions a couple of weeks ago, a real famous fella in the hunting industry, and the image did not go with the text. The image to somebody who's never hunting before, it was like this mountain lion over his shoulders and just him run to the snow, and it's all dramatic and seemingly contrived, and you're just thinking, if you would have just got that, if you would have just got that different the words would have matched the image, because the words don't match the image for people that don't know. But for me as a hunter, I know what that image means. I know what you're trying to pick there, So I'm cool with it. But the idea of someone else missing out on that awesome experience because they see they preconceive the notion that that thing is might be negative. Did it tells me that there's there's something we can change in that, and there's something we've maybe should change. That's a lot about that's a lot that goes into a lot of the things that we're talking about in our last podcast. Okay, now here's where I will agree and I will respectfully disagree because I know which mountain lion photo and thing you're talking about, and I actually thought that that was really well done my opinion. You thought the mountain lion was all done? Yeah, I thought I liked the photo. That my personal opinion. I thought the photo was very tasteful. And it was also a friend of ours that took the photo, and I thought he did a really good job. If we're thinking about the same one, I hope we are. Okay. It was very recent. It was in British Columbia. Yeah, Okay. I I thought I the image captivated me personally, and I thought it captivated me enough. Because here's the thing I have. I had another friend and he wouldn't care if I talked about it, But I had another friend post a picture of him with a mountain lion. He's a Canadian, and that picture got blown out of proportion, disseminated to europe okay, grabbed ahold of by European mainstream media in the UK. He then got on blast hate mail death threats, the British Prime minister calling his penis small or not not even know the Canadian Prime minister, the lady Canadian prime Minister saying that he had a small penis. I mean it was. He became infamous in Canada, one of a thousand people holding a mountain lion. He ate the mountain lion. I know him, you know, I know what he stands for. I do not think he's a disrespectful hunter. They made a television episode which I saw at just before they I don't think. I don't even know if it's gone to tair or whatever. I saw this and everything in that episode. If you saw the whole story, you would understand the story. But the picture and the caption and the understanding didn't. And because mountain lions are a sensitive subject, people do not know about them, they don't understand them, and people that don't are the most vocal. He got blown way out of proportion and it was a bad deal for him and hunting in general, for him, other Canadians people who hunt mountain lions, which there's nothing wrong with now, especially there's really nothing wrong with in our current management system. Now let me talk. Now I'm going to take a little rabbit trail just for ten secs. We've got ours. We've got ours listening to this rabbit trail by you existing. M Okay, Let's let's pretend there's a person that doesn't hunt. It's listening. That's not going to happen. But there's a person listening that doesn't hunt. By that person existing means that we need to hunt the mountainline. What what why is that? Well, let me explain. Let's take my home state in Nevada. For instance, native species in Nevada would be a mule deer. Okay, a mule deer is a browser. The browser requires certain habitat to exist. Through thousands of years of evolution, that mule deer has grown to fill a niche in an ecosystem over a very long period of time. Now, Native Americans even further back than that hunted these animals. They were apex predator in this ecosystem where this animal lift. Over time, this animal's habitat has changed, it's adapted, but it is still primarily a browser. It lives in the mountains. It finds refuge and safety in the habitat that it's involved to live in. During the winter time, it migrates into other areas. But it's a high desert area. It needs tall sage, it needs mahoganies, it needs buckbrush, and it needs some form of high protein grasses. Now, by you existing, what does that mean? That means that you as a human have negatively I acted those dear whether you know it or not. How first off, there are many animals in that landscape that should not exist there. Maybe you're the person that doesn't hunt, and you're the person champion championing, championing, third times a charm for a wild horse or feral horse which is a larger, more aggressive species that has no natural predators yet in a high desert competes and outcompetes for the same water source. Okay, so it outcompetes for the same water source. So now the mule deer, which now you will the horse. Now, no, the horse has no predators. So the horse can go into the flats into where there's no cover and live on water. Once it's destroyed the water sources in the mountain, mule your habitat which the horse would prefer. Once those are gone, it can now move into flast the meal you cannot and there's a reason because they are a lot easier to kill in certain places by predator the mountain line. So the mule here is now competing against the horse, which was introduced by man. Also, a guy's driving down the highway and he throws a cigarette out the window and starts a forest fire. Okay, that forest fire rages through an area, which fires naturally create new growth. But there's thousands of invasive plant species that now take over this new growth, one of them in this particular area that I'm talking about. Just this isn't a hypothetical, this is real life. Cheat grass. Cheat grass outcompetes native grasses for the soil content, grows faster, has nothing then the mules you can eat, but now you know these invasive animals and other things can eat it. We just sitting back in our homes don't realize the devastation is humans we've placed on the environment. Now you're sitting in your house in a valley outside of a city, in a suburb which was prime winter range for mule there. So now they are at a loss because their water sources are damaged. They're areas are burned and replaced with non native species of grass. That they need or cannot live in on suitable habitat. And we also have things like a fire starts from lightning and then we go suppress the fire so it can't get new growth, but that new growth either way would be infested with non native species of grass. So now we have a deer population the needs managed because the environment can't be cannot balance itself. And you also have to remember that human hunters have always been a part of the equation. So now we have this number because of human interference, needs to be managed. Now we have a population of mountain lions that feed on the deer that need to be managed. The deer need to be managed for a reason. The mountain lions now need to be managed to in turn manage the herd of deer that we need to manage because of our shittiness. Long story is, we now need to manage mountain lions, so that that's the justification for now. I felt that that photo was captivating enough for me to read a thoughtful caption which I thought made a good point about the hunting and what goes into mountain lines. So someone that had no clue reads it and goes m hm, and that's all you need. Yes, So that's why I disagree with you on that one. However, in our last Invisible podcast, I had said that I think there is is a disconnect between hunters and what you're putting out to the general public and what is good for hunting and what is good for the individual. I had said that me personally, I hunt bears. Oh you want bears now? I sometimes I don't necessarily like bear meat, like a like alchemy. I stopped hunting bears for a very long time for no other reason than I just over it. Then I hadn't hunted bears for a while, so I thought, yeah, well, good hunt bears and it was exciting and fun. And I still eat bears, generally make sausage out of them. Some people love bear meat not meat. It's okay, It's not bad. I don't. I don't dislike it. There's just other things. I appreciate what you're saying that because I feel like there's a lot of over compensation when it comes to bear me because people attack bear hunters so much. I love the meeting. Do you do you really love the meat? It's it's different. But I also I'm not gonna lie. I have some kind of emotional connection to certain large predators, the same emotional connection that many non hunters have. And that's not a lie, that's just me personally. Yeah, I I see nothing wrong with wolf funding. I've guided many hunters wolves. I've never shot one. Now I've tried. In the early years, I thought okay, because I had so many experiences with wolves around me before it was legal to hunt them, many experiences, probably more. I think I had sixty wolf encounters in one in one like in one year, I don't know, before the seasons were open, I mean documented, just I practiced calling to them. I could call them, man. I knew these animals in a way that very few people would. I did it because I thought these animals need manage them when the open a season. I want to be the one person that can effectively hunt these animals. When they finally opened a season, I thought I didn't really care anymore because I maybe because I had some kind of emotional connection. I grew up with a pet wolf like. I really liked the animals, so I had some kind of emotionalation. But that does not say that I wouldn't shoot one because they need to be managed. That also doesn't say that we should let emotion manage wild I believe if I'm going to stick to the theory of sound wildlife management through certain principles, and I'm gonna stick to it no matter what. Yeah, Well, the question I just we had a good conversation with Shane Mahoney little podcast number five, and it was very much about like the answer answer the question what is best for wildlife? What is best for the wildlife in Montana where you got in Nevada where you live, and you very clearly are always thinking what's best for the what not what's best for me, remy the hunter who wants to go and shoot a wolf and hanging on my wall. But what's best for the elk? The wolf? Me as a human, my own consumptive habits, what's best for all those things? Like what is best not what's best for the one wolf, what's best for everything? And it's totality, that's the that's the idea. Exactly a lot of these areas, wolves and elk have been so far removed from each other that it negatively affected the environment. Now, it affected the behaviors, it affected a reproduction. There's a plenty of studies out there they say, oh, this and that, and now in my particular area, wolves were not killing as many animals. They found out as many elk as mountain lines. Yeah, everybody blames the wolves. Wow, there's a lot of a lot of facts. I'm gonna I'm gonna just preface it with this. I'm not a biologist, but I spent a lot of time of observing animals in their natural environment. I see things many biologists who have to go into a desk and make reports don't see. Now, there are a lot of biologists that biologists do amazing job. I've met with a lot of them. But biology is a lot about observation, and I get the privilege to observe a lot. I pay attention to a lot of things because if I don't notice the small things, I will not become the most efficient predator that it can be. So I noticed a lot of things. Where I'm going with this, no clue. That's not even talking about We just wanted to do a humble brag. Well I am not a biologist. I just remember you saying that you're not a biologist. That's all. No, we started out and some we went down a rabbit hole that was gonna be ten seconds and now we're talking about wolves. That's how this stuff works. Bullshit, really, but that's weird, the emotionality of wolves. What I don't even know. I was talking about people that don't hunt bastards and then seeing may we were talking about antlers and either way, I don't know, and be like, damn, that's where I was. That's where there was nine coronas ago. Dang it, dang it. Well, listen, yeah, we're well into the evening. What it's late in the late of the nighttime, things like this to bed. No, hell no, hell no, no, we're gonna shift. We'll just shift to something fucking else that we well talking about. Oh, social media? Yes, okay, so that was such a long social media gripping grip and grins. Yeah, listen, So last year, hunting to me, this is this is the key this I said all that to say this to me, hunting is extremely important to see hunting go on is extremely important it to me, And this is my personal opinion. So and I'm not singling anyone out. This is my personal opinion. Hunting to me, is more important than anything else I do. I understand that I have made a living hunting. I've also made that living in some in some ways being in the limelight of showcasing hunting to other people. Okay, now, in my mind, I only do that for the benefit of hunting for hunters, But I am also very cognizant of those that are in the middle because in America and many hunters do not understand this. But this is the absolute truth of it. Hunting is not a right. No hunting is a privilege. Hunting is a privilege granted to us by many people in the middle that are neither hunters nor no hunters. There's probably a like people now the second Amendment, that's the right. Yep. If you're into a R fifteen, you can scream rights all you want, right because it's written into our constitute. Hunting there is no constitutional amendment for hunting. No hunting is Hunting, especially in the modern sense, is an idea that was codified in the nineteen thirties, really, and that has evolved into this thing we know today through so many twists and turns. You could you wouldn't believe it if I if you told you the true story of hunting is the conservation and management tool that is a privilege granted to us by what I would I'm going to call the decision makers. Now, the decision makers are the people in the middle, the people it's your house to left into the right. Okay, so we have decision makers. They're the ones that make the decisions. These decision makers when they see something. Because now, if you wanted to be influenced by hunting, you had to go into a sporting goods store. You can see the pictures on the wall. You have to make a conscious effort. With social media being so public, anybody can see the what I would call the bragboard of the local sportsman's warehouse. I forgot about that. That is a thing. Uh. Now, when I was a kid, I loved going into my local is called Mark forns Trick. If you're ever in Reno, Nevada, do yourself a favor and go into a sporting goods store called Mark forn Strike. There's a big elk sign. It's on kids skiway. I loved going to that place. No, because the mom and pop like badass sporting a story that p will actually know what the hell they're talking about. Disappearing, do you remember, I'm sure I don't know if it wasn't. I don't know, was that West? I mean, we're the same age basically when I was a kid, will you too the deer? And once you were done skin in it and it was in the truck, or once you were done gutting and then it was in the truck. The next most exciting thing to do was to drive up to the check in station your truck, go in, check your deer in, get a cold cut sandwich, and then stand by that truck and eat that sandwich and and and happily wait for everyone to run up and ask about the deer. Like that was That was the moment. That was social media, but it was social media where we knew the auditor. Yeah, it wasn't like it wasn't somebody from San Francisco going, what the hell's in the back of your truck? Right? I would walk to the back of mark for a strike in the back you had to walk through. You had to walk past thirty five mounts that I stared at and dreamed about hunting those animals or finding something like that constantly. You had to go to the back. You had to take a pin. You had to get a pin from the line counter, which was next to a giant mounted polar bear in a case from the nineties. You had to pin that on the board and you could write something whatever, and I would first place I would go as I would go back to that board and I would look at what people had got and and then if I got something I was fortunate enough to be successful, I would put my picture up there and other hunters could see what I got. But it was just hunters. It was it. There was no it wasn't It was open to the public, sure, but it was very specific audiences. Was gonna be like I was going to Sea World, walked past the polar bear amountain to go to the bagboard. I was trying to get any problems. I was trying to get pepper. So what I'm saying is we are all ambassadors for the sport of hunting when it becomes public, to the to the decision makers. Now, if you do something that can potentially hurt hunting in general, I am very much against that. For me. There's certain things that just are to for for me. I shot a great bear last year in Montana. There was a big bear. It was a mature bore above average size. I know for a fact if I posted that picture, it would have increased my awareness or popularity in the hunting community because hunters would have seen it, they would have liked it. Also, I know that non hunters would have hated it and they would have jumped in against me. And then hunters would have joined the bandway again and defended me tooth and nail. And what would the overall outcome be of that. My personal following would grow because of some crazy algorithms and social media, yet hunting in general would suffer. So I chose to protect hunting because just because it's legal, just because it's ethical, just because hunters understand the meaning behind it, does not mean that it needs to be shared with Because when you throw a big net out there to the decision makers, certain things will stick in. Certain things won't. Well, we know, we know that carnivores specifically, there's an issue we understand. Like you could go inside right now to my house and you could find that my son has I counted one time, I always put it all. I was almost gonna do instants or just all the bear related pair finalia that my son parapdise probably not a good word. Bear finalia that my son has in his room throughout our home. He has bear pajamas. He has a bare doll, he has a bare wind up toy that flops around the fucking room. He has bears to him at this point in his life and going into his formative years, will be cartoon animals that he sleeps with at night that he I'm gonna let you have that burp without I won't call you out. Uh. Those bears are are personifying in his life before he has a chance to be understanding of what a bear is. Right, is that the the general reason why everybody has this feeling about bears of love and kind of personification. I don't know if that's all the story. That certainly is part of the story. The other part of the story is over the last eight ten decades, there's been a similar idea about carnivores, bears in particular, like they somehow have elevated themselves in the random order of how we see animals. Like I'm for sure, no, it's okay to show a film shooting forty ducks and not showing the breasting or eating of one of those ducks. That will be very little complaining by the general. Nobody's gonna, oh, my god, you shot that duck and you didn't and you don't need it. But if you shoot a bear and you just drag it off to the a TV and drive away into the distance and that's the end of the film, people will rip you a new one. And so what makes that duck more important than that bear? Not? What makes it more important than that bear. My son may have a couple of duck types of toys or any but he does not have the whole suite of duck related paraphernale inside of there. But he does have duck. He does have bear pajamas, and he does have a bear dollar he hugs when he goes to sleep like he has that. And I didn't. I didn't pick any of that out. That's just kind of what he would grab off the shelf, or what my wife would pick out, or or how it got there. But there's an element just of indoctrination and how we treat bears. I don't know why that is. I'm not I'm not smart enough to know that. Here's the here's the thing amongst hunters. I could text Ben O'Brien a picture of the bear that I shot in Montana, and it does not negatively affect hunting, right, So I can do that. Now, there might be people out there, Oh, you're just pussy, you don't, you don't stand up for hunting. Well, somebody compared when I said gripping grin's right. We were talking on the Gritty Bowman podcast about like and I. At the time, I will admit it was I was halfway through a t A, I was sick, I had It was trade Show's season, and I was a little bit and fed up with a few things, and I said, I just don't think anybody should do gripping grins. That's not the right thing to say. The right thing to say is in some instance as grip and grin should not be massively shared, as yours saying. But but in that instance, you just understand that the audience is the audience, right, I'm saying, Okay, if you can, Oh you well, you've you've posted bare pictures in the past, you've YEA, I have, Yeah, I know I have. Because I do I see anything wrong with a hunter behind a bear? No, I do not, But I'm a hunter, I understand, do I see? And and obviously these things evolved, right, So do I see something wrong now? I do now. Why do I now? Because for me, I see something that hurts hunting now, and this is a caveat if I especially no if I intent is is huge. You can't get charged with murder intent. If if I know that this is gonna be good for me personally but bad for hunting, I absolutely not do it ever. Ever, if I think that it will harm hunting in general as a whole, I will not do it. That to me is not being a pussy when you put something that you love over something that you do for yourself, because selfishness is what screws us all. Yeah, well, just think about this way. I've said, oh this, Do I have to have that photo? Do I have to have everybody see it? No? I don't have to have that. Um. I've come to just over the years, it's does that benefit wild life? Does that photo benefit wild life? And if I feel like hunting is beneficial wildlife and that photo doesn't benefit hunting, I can't in all good conscience share the damn thing because it becomes about me and not about what's what's good for that wildlife. And there's a lot of people, and I said that a couple of people would compare that to snowflake is um or or this. You know the movements, the social justice movements that are happening right now, And I said, that's not what it is, because it's not. It's not. There's two two things that I think people are always trying to get to the extremes. I'm not trying to eliminate all my hunting photos for everyone. And I'm also not trying to just post everything I absolutely want to and not care about what anyone thinks. I'm not gonna do either one of those two things. But I will take each instance of each photo and look at the landscape of which it's going to be presented and try to figure out the best way to present it. And if I feel like there's no good way to present it in a social media landscape like you did with the bear, you say, I don't need to do that. It would be selfish for me to put it up there, So I won't put it up there. I'll take it back. I'll show it to my friends, will celebrate it that way. The people that were with me and near me will know. And I'll put that rug in my house and I'll eat that bear. And then I won't have my motivation will have been in tren zick, and I will feel funn about that. Um All that seems okay to me. That seems like a pretty rational way to look at it. The bear that I shot last spring, the pictures I posted were of bear polish sausages on the grill, delicious. They were of bear meat, but no dead bear, And that to me told the story of what people who don't the general Pope. Did I share that bear picture with friends that hunt, Yes, of course I did. Do I see anything wrong with bear hunting? No, I don't. But I have to be cognizant of the fact that if I put something out to the public now, I might have in my particular instance, I've been fortunate enough to have been doing this a long time and have a lot of people that follow on social media, or what I think is a lot of people, because and I value every single person on there, and there's a lot of different opinion. But that platform to me is to benefit hunting. Let me ask you this, not just pander to hunters, because now you might go, okay, we only tell one part of the story, or you don't like, should I show an animal like that? A client shot bad and I have to finish off with a knife. I don't need to put that out there to the public because as a hunter, we understand that that is showing respect to the animal by giving it the most ethical death in a bad situation. But somebody that just grabs that video, it's going to be really bad for hunting. Well that's what like hunting is. You know, you know this better than anybody. Hunting is has a lot of nuances and a lot of like little weird ideo secrecies and a lot of complexities that you can't really put into a fucking social media post like you can't. And I would say, if you buy a license, you you are not at the time of buying a license, all of a sudden, a PR agent for hunting. You're not. You're a hunter. If you buy a hunting license and you and deporty go hunting, buy your hunting license and go do your thing, I'm all with you. But as soon as you take that hunting license in your active hunting and connect it with social media, if you put those two things together and you put them in a in a jar, shaken around and get your outcome, then you are a PR agent for hunting. At that point, if you if you said, I just buy I like to buy my hunting license. I have to go sit in a tree, like to shoot my dear. Don't care who knows about it. You are more than welcome as long as you're doing it legally and ethically to do whatever you would like. Right now, social media could be used for good, used for evil. John Dudley what said something like it's the ring of power, the ring of power. So yeah, you could use it for good or bad. But if you make something public, you are now an ambassador for hunting. You are whether you like it or if you like to hunt, you are an ambassador to the decision makers of a privilege. BC bears a good example. He got shut down. Many things got shut down because of the stupidity of people who said it's legal. But I'm going to share it with the world and defend myself like it's a right. It's not a right, it's a privilege. Well, your friend in in uh in the Mountain Lion is a great example, and I I just think that as much as you can talk around the issue, it's it's your friend had very little control as to the reaction to that image like he had control of what it. You know, he probably didn't take the image, so he had little control of even what the image looked like at the time. In the moment, it may have felt really good to him. Looking back on it, he may regret that image. So there is that element of it too. In the moment it feels good. But when it feels okay, but when you you have the opportunity to hit that submit button so it goes up online or goes on Instagram. You can then make it a secondary choice to say, like, it felt good at the time, it's a real photo, there's nothing wrong with it, but I feel like it might be misinterpreted. And I love hunting and it enriches my life and any misinterpretation of that enrichment would be disastrous. So I'm gonna just hold this back because maybe maybe it just doesn't say what I wanted to say. Here's here's a funny example is if somebody were to say to me, you're letting Peter win. Okay, bastards, really, who's letting Peter win? Peter's biggest growth spurt came after their Facebook shoot selfiees not animals. They trolled the ship out of hunter's on that one. Didn't they Here's what happened. Every hunter that used that hurt hunting they created. They let Peter win by thinking that they were forming against them, because what they did was they decided to post the most disgusting hunting photos that they could find. Right and those hunting photos became public to the decision makers, and the decision makers saw those and said, if this is what hunters are, I'm not okay with it. We'll break it down. That looks like somebody who is mocking another person who cares about an animal's rights, Like, I'm a hunter, I have all the rights. This thing's dead. I don't care about you. Like that's what that is. It's like, fuck you. I have the right to hunt and you don't. And I have the privileged hunt and I tower over this animal. I killed it and it has no rights. So by that, Peter now gained ammunition, and you became the anti hunter. Anybody that negatively affects hunting is an anti hunter, whether you hunt or not. So if you're a hunter and you have inadvertently harmed hunting, you're an anti hunter. You are the cause of hunting. Now if you went on a legal hunt and you'r And let's say, I don't know, this is a hypothetical, but this happened, actually, hypothetical, spear bear. Hypothetically, Hypothetically, you do something and you posted on social media and the reaction is so negative that it gets banned. You you still call yourself a hunter. I don't know, no, but I'm saying, let's say I went on a bow hunt, right, and I legally had a mule deer tag. Okay, this is just a hypothetical, and I legally had a meal deer take and I accidentally, like I shot. Everything wasn't right. The wind blew, the deer jumped ship happened, okay. And then the deer runs down the hill into a subdivision and I continue filming and like everything I do is legal, but I end up laughing and slitting the deer's throat with a paper clip that I sharpened and and I some and it just looked horrible, and I go, ha ha, fuck you, Peter. This is what I did this weekend, killing animals right in the video to the person that doesn't hunt. Looked horrific. Okay, I'm not I'm this is high pathetic. I'm just posing a question to people. The video looked horrific, and the general public lashed onto that video much like and and some of these instances are uncontrollable, right, Like, we don't know the outcome of it, but if something is you go, yeah, my auntie who doesn't hunt, might not like this, right. The general public jumped on that video, and now in every state across the West, bow hunting was banned. Is Pete the asshole? You know what I'm saying? Or is the person who negatively affected hunting to the point where now no one in the Western United States can bow hunt? Who who ruined it? Who is the anti hunter there? Well, that's just a good question too. Well, and there's there there's a First Amendment aspect to that, Like you know, you can't you can't yell fire in a crowd of theater. You can hunt like you There's there's a lot of things in hunting that I think, when I examine them at their that at their core are a little bit uh allowing us to shirk responsibility. And I feel like, you know, the term hunting is conservation. That's a little bit like, yeah, shirk responsibility of being a conservationist. If I'm hunting, I'm a conservationist. I don't have to do any actual conservation work. I just have to go hunting, and I'm all good. I don't have to go to help and translocation or get to a banquet and give any money. Not just buy a hunting license. I'm a conservationist. Now, I feel like that's shirking a bit of the responsibility um of the duality of hunting and conservation. The same way in this there's a responsibility of the duality of buying a hunting license and having an outlet to share your experiences. There's a responsibility in both those aspects. You can't say I'm responsible because I have a license. I'm responsible based on the ethics and the legality of the structure built around hunting. But I go online and I'm a I'm a cowboy, do whatever I want. You can post whatever you want on Instagram. They may blur it out and call it sensitive, or they may kick you off if you take it too far. But in general, compared to the actual act of hunting, social media has no rails, and you it relies on your own sensibilities, and at some level you have to get I would compare. I always try to compare my hunting pursuits to my social media pursuits, Like there's even though there isn't the same ethics that I find a way to connect them. You know, I try to transfer my ethics in the field to what what shows up on the screen. And if you can do that, then you're almost never lose because it's the parallel experience is going to show through you don't You don't need to have that video. If you're being an asshole out in the field and you shot a deer in the in the hindquarters four times and you walked up and split start with a paper clip in somebody's backyard, then you know your ethics in the field probably weren't worth showing on social media. Um. Yeah, because there's there's what's legal, what's ethical, and now there's a new category what's socially acceptable in the public eye. And Okay, but I feel like this is important to say, is you could probably go through my social media or whatever and find things you go, Now, that's questionable. This guy. I'm not saying I'm perfect. I'm saying that as a community, as a community of hunters, we should self police ourselves in a way that is not putting someone down. So so I would say if you ben saw something that I did and you just said, hey man, I love what you do, but I'm not so sure that this helps hunting, because there there needs to be the line is super Oh yeah, we don't know. Like you you just said, I thought this mountain lion picture is bad, And I said, I thought that mountain lion picture is good. Okay, maybe we'll put that in the gray area. But now there's some stuff that you go, yeah, I think the general public isn't gonna like that. Well, there there's a great example at Western Hunting ex but this year, and I'm not I won't bring anybody specifically into it, but there was a piece of content that was shown to a group of people, and in that group of people there was another you know, by a very important person and influencers, you know, put themselves out there and showed this content, and another very important influencer in the crowd was not happy about what was shown. Basically, the ethics of the hunt or or just the way that the hunt was shown wasn't in the light that that the person in the audience who I feel has is a great opinion and it's very important. UM felt to be right. And that person came to me and said, hey, I want to talk to that content creator and just tell him how I feel. What do you think? And I said, you better go do that. And if it was me, if that happened to me, if I showed a piece of content and somebody came to me that I respected and said I don't agree with that, I damn well, hope I would sit down and take that to heart and watch it over again through their eyes and try to figure it out. UM. And I think that's what you're talking about. We not only need to self police, but we need to respectfully police each other and just exchange ideas in such a way that would just give some perspective that maybe you can't get from just your own bubble that you live. Yeah, because I I did something this year and I thought, Okay, I mean I I spend too much time. I don't post a lot on social media. If people follow me, they probably go he passed three things this month. Because it takes me because I just I start to do something and I got forget it. It's it's a pain in the like it just it stresses me out because I have to think about now in my position, because I care so much about hunting in general, and I know that there are a lot of people that will see it that do not hunt. I particularly need to be more careful than someone else. Okay, So for me, it's very hard because it may I would prefer to just go pin it up on the board in my local sporting good shop and just have that audience look at right. But but also I've been given an opportunity to help influence decision makers, the ones that grant us the privilege to influence them on our side, so that my kids can have a hunting tag and go out hunt mildier with their bows, not because someone I don't want to be the one that posted the video the bands off bow hunting in the Western United States him a bit. This is a hypothetically. Yeah, I'm gonna make a Netflix show about like a futuristic Netflix like a Well, I think we've covered this. We got this covered. Um, people know how we feel. I want to before this is over, We're pretty were like an hour and a half deep. That's not bad. We've done three hours each and many other podcasts before. Yeah, but this is now combined three hours because we did an hour and a half to get a race. This may get a race too, you don't know. This may be zero. That's it. No more, no, no more podcasts with our brien. Um. I want to tell some hunting stories, man, um. So we've hund it together a few times, probably not enough times, um, but a few, and I just want to tell some of those stories, and particularly I think I last year would be a good place to start mouflon hunting, because that was an afternoon, right, I mean, it wasn't It wasn't a whole, It was not a fold. It wasn't a seven day pack. That was like a three for me. That was like a two day trip that felt like six months, didn't it like? And that trip me and you took a what essentially was about a five or six or our trip around to the western part of Lanai to an area where that helps the mouflon and chase muflan. I just like you felt like we were there for days, but we were only there for half a day, yeah at most, and got to mouflon. Um. I'll let you start just basically where we were and what it looked like. But the story just just from the time we got out of the truck to the time we got back in and went back to town. It was a pretty good one. Yeah. Well, we went up the canyon and I feel like we were told we were not going to get any start there. I mean, you gotta start there about what the place to look like and what they took very steep. They're like, you can't walk up the hills and York sheep, it was basically hard to kill. It's very loud, there's a lot of lava. Rocket's very steep. Sheep live up high. You will not be able to kill something with a boat, right. So we're like, man, I don't really care. I just wanted to walk around. And we're walking around and then I spot something, a glimpse in the trees. All of a sudden, the glimpse explodes and starts running up the hill and I make the pat what I'm gonna call the patent remy Warren, and they stopped. But there's a mess of poetry in between us and the ram. I think to myself, this smile, this might be my one chance, so I draw back. Okay, I dropped to a knee I think I had. Where did you range it? For? Someone yelled up the yard eache I ranged. Now. I do a lot of practicing that is very unconventional when I practice. I thought about this the other day. I thought about like a little meme that says, oh, you shooting your backyard and flat ground when it's sunny and hot out. That's cute because it's like, thanks for sharing that picture. That has absolutely nothing to do with what you're gonna experience in the field. For at least for eye hunt, it's always steep, raining, shitt either stuff in the way I generally shoot through. Like when I if I'm practicing in the backyard, I'm gonna set stuff in front of the target and practice shooting through stuff. Often practice shooting around stuff, and practice shooting in the cold and the hills and the all that. When I'm sighting in, yeah, I when it flat and nice out. Now, Yeah, repetition is one thing, But for me, it's all about hunting. I'm not a target shooter. I actually probably do worse in targets than I do while hunting. So for me, I've practice shooting through a lot of stuff. I know how to gauge whearing arrows flying. Yeah, you a little humble brag. I'm good at trajectories with rifles, with bows. I've shot a lot. If you, if you if that's what I mean. My practice is about mastering trajectory, not hitting it. Not be the arrows. You have to know. I know where that arrow is. I when I looked down a site, I see the path of the arrow, not just the animal. I see a trajectory. The same with a rifle, like I could, I could. You could shoot a gun. You could tell me about the weight and the grain, and I could see where that gun shoots. Then you can hand me that gun and I can shoot that gun out to six hundred yards no problem, because I know trajectories. That's just like I've done it. That's where my practice comes in. That's just over years. That's what I pray. I practice different than other people. I like to visualize those kind of things. So when I'm shooting through stuff, I know whether my arrow is gonna make it and you can take it from So I draw back. Let me take it from draw back, and then's like looking like hmm. And then I said range it from my perspective. You drew back and I giggled a bit inside. I'm like, ha ha ha he what is he doing? I thought you were just like testing it out, see what it looked like through look like on a fifty seven yard impossible show. No, I got this, so you said range him and I said fifty seven yards. He said I got this, And I'm like what and then flack and And in my mind, your arrow would have had to do some sort of serpentine pattern to even get near the sheep because those coet trees. It wasn't just one or two Coet trees. I mean there are little ships of trees like there was probably twenty of them between me and you and the and the sheep. And I thought, in my mind, I'm like, well this is I mean, he stopped showing off from me, and I'm looking through the binos, and you shoot and I see this. I see the mule kick and then it disappears in the trees, and I thought, oh, well, he clearly just shot in the guts or something. I mean, there's no way because from my angle, the vitals were completely covered with the coal. So from my angle I intentionally covered the vitals because your line of sight is not your trajectory because the tree in front of us was twenty yards, so I intentionally put the branch and I knew that all I could see because it's to the right. It's all I had was the vitals from left to right from behind the tree. And then I put the branch on its vitals. But I went up, you know, so you saw me. I drew back, I put it on it, and then I went down and I could see the leg and I knew exactly where my pin was, but my pin was on a limb. But I knew that my arrow was gonna be where my upper pin was, which was completely clear at the twenty yards and later shooting by like a I don't know, eight inch by eight inch hole, maybe at fifty seven yards, and that kind of trajectory over that arrow, the trick over that arrow, if that's seven yards. So anyway, I am. I am watching this all go down and just thinking this is an interesting this. I think he might have hit that sheet. So we go up there, We walk up and it's in this is like boulder field lava rocks, where you gotta kind of traverse this boulder field and get up on this flat where we saw this sheep go and at the point where we get up to the first set of boulder fields, I think we all kind of knew this as a dead sheep. Like you were like I hit him, like I heard it, and Sam so hold our photographer like I heard it too, and we're all, I mean, you're talking about a candle up size set of vitals. Yeah, if there the move on her. And this was a you know, two or three year old ram, so smaller still um And so we go up tracking after this thing. We get about halfway up to it, and you could see it. At that point we're like, oh, it's it's down. And had only gone maybe seventy five yards, and lo and behold, maybe twenty yards in front of us jumps up even bigger ram. I'm much bigger. I would have mounted that dream now at this point, not in the weird time you might have mounted it. In either way, this ram jumps up and runs through the coue of trees in the boulder field. I immediately draw my bow. I got knocking a row and draw my bow. It runs out to about what like thirty forty yards maybe, I mean it's probably forty yards. It stops in the trees, and I'm thinking the same as you. The trajectory of the arrow. There's probably four or five trees between me and the ram. And I was like, I've got to I've got to aim to the right so i can hit this thing in the shoulder because if I if I aim much further to the left, I'm gonna hit this tree. So I got aims to the right. And all the while I'm trying to figure this out, You're gonna you're over there, going I'm gonna shoot it. I had nothing in the way. I'm not joking. I was. I was ten yards in front of you. It's I could have here sheer shot of thirty yards and I'm going, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait wait. So I'm like, okay, okay, o' brien, alright, fine, uh saving the sheep's life. And I'm I'm thinking much like ever, and I saw your shot. I got a forty couple of yards shot here, and all I gotta do is not hit this tree. You're like, how far is it? I was like, I don't know, close enough? Do you really need me to frail this? It's pretty close? Kill it, kill it. I don't know, put any pin on it. Kill it now. So I'm like, okay, I put the pin on it, pull slowly, pull back, let that air release, and it wacks a tree most definitely not in the center of the tree, but not in the center of the animal either. That thing goes running off. I put another air on. I'm trying to find it again. It stops at like eight yards. Rammy's over there trying to find it, and it just scampers off into the into the nothing, to the abyss that could have been your dree. Ram I was shot a tree. He's like. I was like, He's like, I don't have a shot. I was like, I got this, Like, no, no, you greedy, Okay, that's all right. It was funny. It was funny the fact that I would have been just as excited if you would have shot it, absolutely but in thement like it would have been in the moment you would have we know both though you would have killed anything. I wish that I could have flashed you into my vision of what I saw and I was. We should also mention while we're talking about this, I'm at full draw two yard. I mean, this thing is very close to me because I was quite a bit further because you were at the ram, and he jumped up and ran pretty much right to me, well, that's like, so you walked past the ram, you wouldn't say, I'm walked past the right And I was staying back taking pictures a little you guys walking up to it, and then I took a little bit of a different round to get to to where you guys were and jump this thing. And so, you know, I think the characterization is it ran past you and I didn't have to. We're probably five six or you know, we're a good ways away from each other, but enough that we can talk to each other. But how about don't shoot it? And so and this is to me in my mind, right, like I have a pretty clear um knowledge of your ability, right, and then I see you make this shot that in my mind is seemingly impossible. And now I'm in a situation where all I have to do is dodge a couple of trees. You know, yours is a ten out of ten minds of six out of ten, difficulties, seven out of ten. Maybe if I've give myself some credit, and I just whacked that tree like it was my job, and it was a nice rund. But anyway, we get up to your ram to care that pretty quickly, take some pictures, skin him up, get him down to the trail. Our guide comes in the truck picks us up. Now we're driving out, and I've hunted enough of the boat to know that, like, if you don't wound the animal and you miss it with somebody with with my skill level, I know like if I don't wound the animal and it's a miss, it's it's it's just as positive as if then I got a shot, as if I killed it, Like I don't. I just in my mind, that's just how I treat it. We're driving out and I'm thinking, man, I wish I would have got a move along, and we know we're probably not coming back to that area they were they were talking about just one one day out there, and uh, we roll it in the truck. We're rolling down and we see some sheep, We pop some sheets. They run up over the hill into these lava rocks like three or four yards away, all right, And then with the rifles in the truck right next to me, next to my bow, I'm like, I'm not getting out of here without one of these. We're gonna eat this tomorrow on a on a Hawaiian beach, which we in delicious, delicious, the best meat ever, which is what is kind of why we wanted to get some mouflin. So I get out of the truck, roll over, rest, boom, shoot this thing and it falls over dead. Um, And I wanted I wanted us to talk about this hunting story, mostly just because the truth of the matter is, Um, I was just to kind of in kill mode at that point, Like I wanted to kill a mouf and the one I killed was an old ram, nice ram whatever. It was a pretty long shot with a rifle, but nothing, you know, nothing all that amazing. But I didn't at the time we were there. I I knew that I wanted to kill this animal. I knew that I wanted to meet and I knew I wanted the experience of killing it and seeing and having that. And I wonder what your examination of that is, Like your hunt was pretty pure, and the way that we came upon across the animal, you shot it. You didn't get to like stand like muzzle or rifle. Boh, I'm in a truck. I'm not in a truck. Look, we didn't have any prior prejudice against Muflan. We just knew we wanted to hunt and succeed, and by the time we got to mind that, the whole tenor of the day had changed. Like we already had one. I wanted to get one, and that's what happened. So I don't know that. Like so I feel bad about this, which I don't know if I do or not, but I definitely know what my goals were going into it and and what it ended up being, and that thanks hanging on my wall in there. I don't feel bad about it. But we actually here's my assessment, and we talked about this earlier. I maybe I had a client one time and maybe even put it better than I could put it. But here's the thing. I am a hunter. Ben O'Brien is a hunter. Now. If you if I was in Austin, Texas, which I am, and someone tonight and text me he said, hey, you want to go quail hunting at six am tomorrow, I would be there, like that is illegal with with within the legality of the law. If there, whether it's a shotgun, oh no, it's muzzleloading quail season, I would say, hand me over the muzzleloading shotgun, I will be there. But I'll be there because at my purest form, I am a hunter. If the only thing that if you were was legal was a rock, the legal weapon was throwing rocks and you I don't squirrels, I would be there, right. I I of going out and hunting. So for me, if I'm in one moment bow hunting which is one of my major passions, and hunting is bow hunting. But I look at all forms of hunting equal. Yeah, because whether you I I love spotting, stock backcountry bow hunting, if I'm going to put it in a category, but if you like to hunt on a private ranch and you generally drive around and you spott a deer and you shoot it with a rifle, I have nothing against you, as long as you don't post that video. I think it's good. Rifle hunting band were good. Here's the thing that goes back to Ranella and his brother. I can't remember it's Matt or Dainty, but one of his brothers. I believe Matt. It's about the purity score, right. You look at each hunt, you look back at each hunt, and you look at all the elements, and then you look at its purity based on not only like just your ideals, because you can't look at the same hunt every hunt in the same way, like that destination hunt and I who knows for you and I whether we'll ever go back there again. I mean we are, but at the time you don't know. So you have to kind of treat those experiences like they're one offs. Now if you live there and you could go shoot Mufflan every other day if you wanted to, you would treat that experience differently, hopefully, And and so for me, like each hunt has a purity score, like what's my goal? What feels right? And then what I always say, like when you sit down with that dead animal and think about it, does it what does it feel like? What does it feel like? And that will tell you your purity score. It feels like the most amazing feeling in the world. Much like like you if you go out solo hunting for seven or eight days in New Zealand, you shoot a tar with your bow, I bet the purity score feels pretty damn high for that. And when you're sitting over that dead tar, you feel like you're on top of the world. Now. In the same wave, if you roll in the truck and jump out and run up a hill and shoot a mouflan sitting over it, you feel like you've achieved something, but the purity score doesn't feel quite as high. And all I would ever say to anybody is like, you gotta learn from each one of those feelings that I learned from that feeling a little bit. This is me personally. I've never in my life, and whether you look at videos and other things that I've done or what I've never, I like to share my experiences, but only because I feel fortunate to have so many of them. I've never in my life hunting for someone else and you're like, oh, you're a guide. Yeah, but I'm doing that because I love it to do it. I'm I'm helping that person hunt. But it's something that I love to do. When I did a video for under Armor, actually it was one of their Ridge re p episodes, it's titled Alone. Now that's a I don't like the title of it because obviously I'm not alone. It was a weird title for it. They were trying to capture something. Sorry, I don't like the title. All three people were alone. Yeah, um, because most of the time I'm hunting I am alone and they were trying to tell a story, and I get that, but it's part of the voice over in there was very true to the way I hunt. Since I was a kid, I would go out and I would maybe hunt and pass up larger animals just because I love the experience of being out hunting so much that I wanted to extend it till the last day. But that's me. So then I started giving myself different challenges, make ways to make it harder, because the more difficult it was, the longer I got to hunt. And I still do that today because for me, the enjoyment is in the labor of it. I want to struggle. I want to go through the paces. I want to feel like I earned the animal, and in that I gain more respect for it, I learned more, I become a better hunter. So that's just my way. There's other people that go out and they want to shoot the first year they see on the first day, and that to them is is their purity. Well that score, That's how I would ask you, like inside of that level, because after you know to fully fully. But we're talking about with that um lan I hunt. I shot a nice buck at a long distance with a bow A couple of days before I shot that move float with a rifle, you know, so that you all measure this back to how you are as a hunter or whatever. In the purity score of that was like ten out of ten. When I sat over the top of that deer, um, just sorry, just chicking a minute, that third red light there. I mean, that doesn't mean just recording to any card or anything. Just let's just recording. But when I sat over the access here I shot, which now I was hanging to my house here, Um, the purity was ten out of ten. And when I sat over that move fline, the purity was a little bit less. I don't know what the number was, but I would ask like I think I would ask you the question though, Like, so, say you have a ten days plan for a back country hunt, because I've talked to you before, you're like, I'm three days in. I have to hike up to the phone booth here just to get some service and call people in texts or whatever. And so obviously, like you know you're gonna be out there longer, and you're looking for a certain deer, well, you have a certain deer you're looking forward. You run into that deer one day two and you have he happens to be laying in a place taking a nap where you can get to pretty easy with your bo It's a tony yard shot. He stands up, you smoke, and he goes, runs the house and dies. Do you feel like your purity score is lower just because the happenstance of it? Or um? Are you just looking up at the deer gods and thinking thank you for that opportunity, Because that's knowing that it doesn't come all the time. It just depends on all the time in the day and when it feels right. But if it doesn't feel right to me, I pass up the opportunity. And that's just me personally. But for me, more than anything, I enjoy being out there. I mean a couple of years ago, I had a muli tagging a great area. I legitimately passed up a giant buck on the first day one that other guides in the area were clamoring over because it wasn't the time yet. I wanted to get time to know the area and find deer and have my hunting experience. Now my hunting experience get tarnished and the end up being the worst time of my life. But eighteen days later I was really piste off and wanted to hurt myself, myself and everyone else. Now that's that's a joke. But no, I was very frustrated by the end of it and things went bad. But you know it was it was an experience. I learned a lot and had I shot that deer on the first morning. The first five minutes, I wasn't ready. I wasn't ready to go home. I should have been home. That's like I looked back at my upbringing. You may look back in the same way. But every year I I I have done this for the last three years, probably since I really known you. Um, every year I'll sit down at some point early in the year and think about the past year and the experiences I've had and try to like formulate a bit of a It's like a series of bullet points. So what's changed in me? Like? What has what different? What would I do now that I wouldn't you before? What have I decided not to do anymore that I've done in the past, Like what what do you know? What are the changes? And me as a hunter, because I feel like it's important to always to mark those and you can do that. I'm sure you know how it isn't You can do that every year and sometimes you decide, nah, bear hunting is not for me, and then two years like you're like, oh yeah, bear hunting, let's get back at that. Because it's a cyclical. But I feel like that's important for every Hunter's just you have so many experiences. I mean, what you want three hundred days a year sometimes in the field and on a good year or beast year, depending on most like, that's that's in the field. That's yeah, But I mean I was a full time, full time. Yeah, that's a hundred obviously. Well it's so you know, you you have these like as you say, you you become closer to animals, you understand them, you understand certain particular animals, and and it mean it has to change the way you feel about hunting. Has I mean, there's no way that days in the field doesn't affect you in a freaking massive way. Yeah, it does in some ways, but in other ways it just affirms to me that I just love being out there. Yeah, that's all I care about. I'll do anything to you just be out there. And when that feeling dies then, I don't know. That's a sad day. Yeah, when you're like, well, am I sat here for the paycheck, sad day, that's a sad day. It's a good place to end it. Robbie Warren on a sad day, Pass me another Corona. We are out of almost out of corona? Is my wife cut more lines than we had coronas sorry, which is unfortunate. She's way well, Ben, If you don't lose this one, that's uh podcast, gold podcast. I can't help you any more than is this the last time? The last? If this makes the air, does that the first aired, second time? Last time? I don't know. Is this If this makes it to air, does that erase the prior transgression and inspire you to come on later? Or is this it? Regardless, Ah remains to be seen into boil until next time, until maybe next time. Just kidding, Thank you, buddy, Yeah, I appreciate it, Ben, bro all right, that's it. Episode number six is in the books. I'll tell you what one of my favorites. There might have been some rambling, there might have been some mistakes. We're gonna leave that all in unedited conversation. Just two guys that love hunting. And I can't tell you how privileged I am to have known Remy for the time that I've known him and to hopefully, you know, go on this hunting journey with him for for the next uh number of decades, since we're both around the same age, and I feel like we've got a lot of hunting story left to tell and I can't wait to tell with Remy. And I would thank him again for joining me on the Hunting Collective for a second time, and we'll apologize for deleting the first podcast that we did a couple of weeks ago. Anyway, if you want to find any of the other five podcasts we've done previous to this one, you can go to the Hunting Collective dot com. You can check out Steve Ornella, Ryan Callahan, Aubrey Marcus, Shane Mahoney, John Dudley, and of course this one. There's videos there, there's articles there. There's an article there that I enjoy called the meat Eater Revolution that I penned some years ago that is basically about how intellectual foodies and people that are are angling hunting in a different way can help us. Let's see our pursuits in through different prisons. Hopefully you enjoy that, you'll enjoy everything at Hunting Collective dot com. All these episodes are down load a ble is that a work? Downe a little more on Stitcher and iTunes. If you so happen to go to iTunes, please give me a review. Hopefully it's a good one. Please subscribe to tell all your friends to do the same, and hopefully we will see you here next week for episode number seven. Bye.

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