00:00:00 Speaker 1: Oh hey, everybody welcomed Episode ninety two of The Hunting Collective. I am Benjamin Patrick O'Brien, and I'm joined by Phil middle name Taylor, Charles Philip Charles Taylor, Charles Taylor, Philip Charles Taylor, the third. He's also an engineer. Here eater, and we're bringing to you another show, another week, another show. This one is good. I promise. We have Ryan cal Callahan, host of Cow's Weekend Review, mustachioed man of mystery. You will very much enjoy what he has to say. We talked about Phil's first hunt. You're more excited now, Phil, Oh, yeah, definitely. I mean it hasn't you said Phil's first hunt? Just it hasn't happened yet. Clarification. No, I'm trying to build, Uh, I'm trying to build suspense Phil's first hunt, which hasn't happened yet. And uh, how to mentor what it means to be a mentor how to do it a little bit better. Coyle's got a great perspective on that. He's been taking new hunters out for a long time, thinking about this for a long time, and so we're gonna do that. We got a work sharp master sharp moment. We're dwindling down on the number of those we're gonna run, so you'll hear about that. And then we went to Princeton, New York to hang out or Princeton, New Jersey, sorry, to hang out with Tovar Ceruli. He's the author of the book The Mindful Carnivore was a vegan and became a hunter, wrote about that. But in the years since he's written that book, he's done a lot for conservation, does a lot of work in the field. So it's great chat with Tovar. But before we get to that, Phil, I just burped, did you cut it out? Yes, it has been cut out. Expose the listeners today. No, I'm sorry. We'll keep going. And now this episode, I guess I grew up on an older road. The medal always did what I told until I found out that my brand new clothes a game second hand from the rich kids next door. And I grew up fast. I guess I grew up. I mean, there are a thousand things inside of my head I wish I ain't seen, And now I just wanted to a real bad dream of being in like I'm coming apart of the scenes. But thank you Jack Daniel. Oh hey, everybody, welcome to episode number ninety two. Is that right, Phil? Ninety two? That's correct, I get it right. Yeah, uh Episode ninety the Hunting Collective. We're coming to you from Bosman, Montana inside the uh wonderfully adorned podcast studio. Phil, do you have anything to do with this? Absolutely nothing? That would be a producer? Karin Karne Schneider. Oh boy, y'all star. They all star. They did all this decorating. There's a small tree in the middle, Whites. It's wonderful. Coconut air freshener. Cal. Do you have any Christmas traditions or anything like that that you do. I like to go hunting or I do a lot of cooking, simple but effective, very on brand. It's very similar to many of the other days of the year. Generally, it's like you have time off and you want to do the things you don't do when you have to work, which is cook, eat, hunt, hang around with your family. I don't really have any Christmas traditions. In fact, I'm not really that big into Christmas. Cal. I will admit I have a hard time with Christmas because, um, there's just like a lot of undo pressure that people put on themselves, which is I just find to be like, absolutely not the point at all at all. In fact, I've told many of my aunts and high moments of stress, like if people don't like the way your food turned out, fuck those people. Fuck them. That's kind of like my Christmas saying fuck him, fuck him if I didn't if you didn't get the president you liked. I don't buy anybody presents. Do you buy presents from people? Cow? I buy presents when I'm like, oh, this is like the thing, Yeah, this is a necessary thing. And I'm kind of getting um a little bit. And my sister knows this, My older sister knows this. Um. But I feel like she is now gone to like, well, I'm gonna make sure I get you presents because I want you to get your nephew presents because now he's old enough to like put two and two together. Because she's guilt tripping you, I feel. But I mean, that's just like growing up in a big Catholic family. That's Catholic guilty. She's gonna I feel so guilty already now I do. I will. I wouldn't buy gifts for children, That's fine. I have eight nieces and nephews, uh, and a son. That's nine people right there. I gotta buy gifts for that's enough. If you're an adult, live with it. You're not getting gifts from me. Phil, I'm not gonna get anything. I don't want anything. Yeah, you know i'd be mad if you got me again. Yeah, I'll be mad if you get me again. Don't worry. I was gonna get you a Star Wars Christmas sweater, and now I'm not because I'm upset you're not gonna get me something. My uncle Mike on my mom's side said one time. If it's not if I can't drink it or eat it, I don't want to. And I think that's that's perfect. Perfect. I feel like the older you get, the more of that is how people. It was just my birthday and my family just got me like cake, and and then they're like, here's some cookies, and they here's some chocolate covered pretzels and here's a cupcake. It's like, holy sh it, you guys got it. I'm gonna get diabetes. Here's some whiskey to wash it down. Perfect. That's great. And so I do not like the holiday season for many reasons. There's plenty of nostalgic reasons that I like to do it. I do own a home them with the suburbs cow. I don't know if I'm gonna put lights up? Probably not. Oh what's your h o A say about that? Do they get? But I don't know. I don't talk to them. I'm sure there's something in there like, well, you know you have to have to if you don't know, what about you phil you put up lights. I bet I had lights up before. Thanks guys, and my h o A is usually pretty strict that they were fine with it. They're like, they don't care what you do for Christmas. I think they're they're all about it. Are there h o as in this world that forced you to put up decorations? Oh? Guaranteed, really guaranteed. I wasn't aware. Yeah, I'm not doing it. I'm not a good suburban homeowner. I would tell you that right now. It's not looking good over there. I just I don't like that it's Christmas or whatever, so you have to I'm like, no, it's days off. Yeah, like you don't have to do anything anything now Again, I would I would defer if my kid says Hey, I'd love to put up some lights. I'd like, all right for you, I'll do anything. Yeah, But like I'm not inclined to go out and and do all that. Yeah. And I'm I'm a good helper outer. I like, like, if I have a job, I'll be happy, much more happy to go do that job for you, mom or grandma or whoever. Um. But the reality is, like this holiday is not for me. Yeah, thanksgivings for me. Like we you guys have a lot of grandchildren and great grandchildren and and that's what the focus is on. And that's great. Um, And so why don't I, like, I'll just steer clear and come see you on our non busy times and then we can actually hang out and chat and catch up. And then I'm into it. Phil, Your children get that you shower them with gifts. I wouldn't call it a shower. Get each a few few things, you guys go a sponge bath of gifts? It trickle of moist washcloth? Yeah, yes, sort of a yes, sort of a water boarding of gifts the opposite. Delete that from the show. I'm not waterboarding children. What is the big gift? That's something I am always interested in well in Santa for the big gift, but Santa usually yeah, it's usually one big gift from Santa and then um, their their mom and myself handpick like you know, three or four smaller things take the ar Yeah. Yeah. I got socks and gloves every year of my life until I was eighteen from someone in my family. I remember as a kid telling him like, don't worry about it, like I got somebody for that. My mom has the whole inventory list of what I what I got and I don't got, so I'm good, like, just just give that money to somebody that needs it. But the gift giving is an intense, intense to edition. Yeah, the wheels fell off real hard on the gift giving side of things for me because I was like, you know, like knick knacks like framed pictures and things, and I'm like, yeah, it's very thoughtful, it's great, but I'm like, I live in my truck right where like you guys can either hang onto this or I have to take it to Goodwill. Now it's practical. I appreciate that. With your gifts, could you also get me a storage unit okay for six months rent? Please? Yeah, Well, we got a lot to get to a lot of get you here, we're gonna Last week or maybe one of these weeks, we talked about a term. Have you ever heard this term cow for a small buck called slingshot, buckhole, sling shot. I can see that. I've never seen it, Like you got the sling shot, you got four ky Do you have any other names? You've got a couple people right in one dude. Actually, Kyle Hurtzog actually drew a T shirt daddy. I don't even understand what it is, so I'm not gonna explain it. But um, he had a bunch of different ideas for what we would call small bucks. You got any other names? Any lingo for for a small buck? You give me spike buck, forky buck. Oh no, I mean yeah, But they're like in kind of the moment thing. It's not like something I would because I shot a small buck this year, um at the end of the season, and you know, but I'm like, oh, here's Adnkerdinker. That's a good one, little Dnker, little feller, which is just unfort like I hesitate to say it because it sounds derogatory, but it's like very happy, like I'm gonna eat that buck. And I'm gonna give my elk to my dad because that's what he thinks is like the best meat is elk meat. So I'm gonna I'm gonna have this delicious little fellow. Yes, exactly. Um, some other things. There's a lot of stuff that's come up. Last week we had Maggie on was that last week? That wasn't even last week? I don't even know what week I think it was. And Joe Maggie and Joe. Last week, Thanks Phil episode ninety one, Maggie told us about her first year. Sweet I was just binge listening to uh col's weekend review yesterday while I was doing some stuff around the house. You caught up on all the caught up on all the ones that missed over the last month or so, and you were talking about philosophies about taking new hunters. You didn't tell the story of of our new hunter and here you took that guy her first buck. But you kind of gave your philosophies for how to set these things up for success because they are quite um, they're fraught with a lot of things you can do wrong a mentor standpoint. Absolutely, yeah, And so we have somebody in the room here Phil, it's Phil who's gonna be a new hunter soon in we're putting the Phil ghost hunting plan into full action, full action. We don't know what we're gonna do yet, what's gonna be great? So having you here, like we need to interview Phil about what he's feeling and try to help them get prepared for for what's to come. So I figured you'd be the perfect first person to kind of figure out what hunt we might want to do and how we might want to settle fill up here for ultimate success in the field. Yeah, I'm really honestly, I'm ready to hear it. We'd start with with your goal. You know, it's like what why would you want to go hunting? Like, what what do you want to get out of it? All right, give it to us, Phil, while you want to go hunting, I'm making you go number one. I don't know the reason. Number two is that it's just I guess it's a man. The older I get, the harder it is to kind of find new experiences, you know, And this is something that I feel like, is it would be I mean, i'd I'd like to imagine it would be like exciting and new and fulfilling in its own way. Um, I guess I'm not going to know until I get out there. Uh So I'm not really compelled, but I guess I'm curious. Is the is the word? Yeah? Yeah, not unwilling exactly. Yeah. Would you do it if you didn't work here? If you I can say no, I would not. Yeah. And it's and it's just because I mean, I've told the story a hundred times on various podcasts, but it's just I didn't grow up with hunting, and I don't know until I started working here, I didn't really know any hunters. Um, so I never I'm sure I never would have would have I would have done it, so yeah yeah. Um so would you say, like you want to try to kill something? Yeah? I think so. Yeah. Spent a lot of time thinking about it, like I don't at all. I mean, like that's the I'm trying to think. I trying to put my practicing with stray cats and behind the house just three or four a week and even get him in the microwave anymore. Yeah, I mean, I guess. I it's it's hard because I haven't really Um, I'm sure it'll become more of a reality next year. But I haven't really thought down and kind of put myself in that headspace yet. But yeah, it's like, like I said, I'm not really I'm not really compelled to do it and do it yet, but I'm I'm just I'm willing to try something new. Um. And you know, it's like everyone here always it seems to do put a lot of thought into it and do it for the right reasons. And yeah, I don't think I could choose a better experience than having mentors here in Meat Eater. Um. Yeah nice, um, oh yeah, it's the hard thing is is for the mentor especially is truly just like focusing on this is the time that I have dedicated to help another person out and really separating yourself and and saying like I am just here to facilitate this first and foremost. Um. And you know it that that takes a lot. And you know, I know a lot of folks that I know that just aren't really up for that task, whether if they're being honest with themselves, which is hard to do well. And it's an incredible it takes an incredible amount of maturity on a lot of levels. And um, we had Maggie and Joe Fornado in here, and Joe talked openly about like I could shut the book. I could, I could shot ten times. And when he was talking to me about it, like and he's in his mid twenties, he's fired up about hunting. That's all he cares about. That's all he wants to do. Um. For him to be able to separate that enough to to get Maggie good experiences is a big thing. But to do it's a way that you talk about it when it takes lots of maturity. Yeah, and and but the reality is too is like I have I don't think I've ever taken a first time hunter out when I haven't put an elk in the freezer. So like archery season, putting elk in the freezer. Once that's done, like absolutely more than game too, you know, go out and call um or you know, get and then dedicated some time to the first time hunter set up so um. And then the other part is just just that whole honesty factor with yourself over and over again and recognizing all these things that you've come to take for granted, which is just the the sheer gravity of the situation. Um, and we saw that a little bit this week out on the back forty with Anna Borgman, who's somebody who um has you know, dispatched domestic livestock um as a butcher, and we've let up to this first time hunt of hers and then you know, Mark Kenyon's got a deer hanging in his barn and you could just see, like all of a sudden, like we just sighted in the muzzle order, which absolutely new experience, like there's a little bit of firearms experience there, but certainly nothing like that. And then it's like, oh, and here is what you're after, and you could just see like the wheels really turn, the eyes widen a little bit, like she reaches out and grabs the buck by the ear kind of fondly, and it's like, oh boy, like really like, oh yeah, here it is some emotion. Yeah, and uh it, you know it should be that way, and the it is being honest with the gravity of the situation. Firearms are freaking big, scary, superintimidating things for people who did not grow up with firearms. I mean, it's just absolute deal and you don't want to jump past that fact because you can die. And that first time you can have a life altering experience in the absolute negative way, you know, if all of a sudden they cause harmed in themselves or somebody else, you know, and and just a lapse of cognition, right, just just a total well I thought the safety was on. I didn't remember that there was around in the chamber all the jillion little things. And and something that I have noticed and picked up on is when we were young, then I'm guarantee you this way um, And Lakata put this in a really funny way too, I was like, well, you know, something that I've noticed is like when I was growing up, when it is your father or your uncle, um, and you're this young child, they absolutely harass the ship out of you on gun safety in a way that you would never speak to an adult. And you don't have you're not in a position in life where you're speaking back to people. I mean, you just aren't about like shut up, dad, it's not gonna happen. It's not like I got it, Yeah, I got it, But I get you. I've experienced a lot of a lot of this in my life where you have someone either that's a veteran hunter that just isn't paying attention that day, or isn't used to this situation, or a new hunter. And then that person goes away. You get in the truck and somebody goes, oh, did you see did you see the terrible muzzle control? I'm like, well, you should, you should speak up. Don't tell me in the truck, tell that person in the moment. They gotta man. Absolutely, because I've I was guided half and half guiding a hunt in Texas when I lived down there, and the guy totally had an accidental discharge when a turkey shotgun in the middle of the morning. I'm explaining, he's pointing it in luckily in the air, but all you would have had to do is drop it down pointed towards me and I'd be dead. Yeah, was explaining to him, like the turkey's roost over here, and we're gonna go down this road and drop down in the bottom and boom. I was like, all right, okay, we're not gonna see anything now. Um, but that I've seen a couple of I had a couple instintes like that, and so um, if you think it's far away but it's not, it's close. Oh absolutely, And and like I said it Leocotta put it. He's like, it's not really abuse, but it kind of is a little bit like when that figure and you're a small child is like hey hey, hey, hey, hey, hey hey all the time. And again, we just don't speak to adults that way, but it is so hardwired into how I operate at this point, and I know it wouldn't be if it weren't for that. And so that is something if you are taking out any adult as a first time hunter, like that is some you know, people don't like conflict, people don't like you know, uh, frustrating situations or tense situations, Like you have got to get over that and you've got to say, hey, up front, I am going to be remind ending you of this this entire time, like like that's just the way it's going to be. Yeah, I'm happy to carry the firearm for you if you feel uncomfortable with this scenario, but that's how it's gonna be. Yeah, there's a lot of those moments, right, Like gun safety is one of them, but there's another thing, like dealing with life and death. How much do we want to talk about it. I don't want to sit down to lecture feel about life and death for an hour before we go hunt, and I feel like that, Yeah, Phil probably wouldn't enjoy that, and we're all thinking like it just needs to be enjoyable. Yeah, you don't want to be like, well Phil, this is more that this is about our human existence. We are but a virus on the land. But thanks. When I'm a thirty year old hunting, like I have children back, Yes, i have children, I'm raising them, but like, have that first time hunter feel like if you are successful, like feel that wound channel that a bullet creates. Yeah, like that's impactful ship right there. Well, how many times have you run into I've taken a number of hunters were everything seems okay until the moment the animal drops within sight. You will or you walk up to it and it's still twitching. Yeah, the muscle, the nerves are still firing off, the muscles are still twitching. What sometimes happens for quite a while, depending on how fresh, freshly deceased the animal is. I've seen people freak out at that. I think it's it's one it's a foreign thing, and two you're if you've never killed something, you wanted to go clean and I've had multiple people shoot again, shoot it again. I did that as a kid. I was like, got shoot it again, And he did shout this deer in the neck that he had already just crumpled. Um. That's something to deal with. And I and I wonder if you have any opinions on why it is like that. Why is it that a lot of these new hunters are getting that situation. They see it and they just want that movement to stop. They Man, It's just it takes being around a lot of death to be comfortable with death and knowing what it is like, knowing when you know the when that animal has passed right, Um. And when Sam shot her buck, I mean it was dead, like it took the couple of jumps on adrenaline because it was on alert chasing that dough and it was dead dead. Um. But when I started skinning out the ham, all those muscles in the ham were twitching, you know. Um. And I mean we like things to be you know, black or white, crisp clean, it's alive or it's dead, and there's nothing in between. Um. And you know there is as far as like that animal being alive, Yes, that's gone, but there's all these muscle firing off and and things like that, and blood isn't being pumped, but it does flow, um, you know. And that's not stuff that's like explained in the movies. No. And then you're also in oftentimes in a situation where you want to say, look, there's a myrriad ways this goes wrong. Right in terms of the animal. For us, we're gonna keep it tight nothing. We don't want anything to go wrong. In terms of us the two people. And you said in your podcast it's it's almost always better just have two people, and I agree with that one on one is almost always better. So I assume you have two people, You're like, hey, look we're gonna keep safe. We're gonna be safe. We're not gonna do anything stupid. We're not gonna go climbing up a hill. We shouldn't be going up. We're not swing this muzzle around. But on the animals end this, there's so many bad things that can happen yep um, But you have to you have to one try to address that. Be like, because I've run into new hunters that didn't think of it, that's just been looking around on social media and then only seeing big dead animals and never thought of the work that goes in. But then like when it when it comes to the term real part, terminus of the whole experience, holy shit, I shot something in the guts. Now I gotta deal with that. So I think of all the things to address before you go hunting, that's one thing at least to say. It's like, look, there's a lot of ways this can't go bad. We don't want that to happen, but it does happen, and if it happens to you will deal with it. But yeah, let's just let's just go out and knowing that's that's in the car, and then that is like you do your absolute level best to mitigate that situation by you know, by the setup right, like you're not again like you're taking yourself out of it and you're focusing on what is best for that first time hunter. And what's best I don't care what they say. What is best is being in a spot where that animal is going to come to you somehow someway, and like it doesn't need to be a blind or a tree stand, you know, like I have many many spots where it's like listen, we sit here long enough, something's gonna come out, um, and then you can control all the other things where it's like you're gonna be set up right, so it's not like popping the shoulder off your wife. A really quick getting into a shooting position, finding a rest, it's like, no, we've been here, hopefully for a couple of hours. We're talking about what we're seeing, we're talking about wind direction, we're talking about how to glass, and then it's like, okay, animals are starting to move. You should probably get ready, go ahead and put around in the chamber and make sure the safety is on. Um. You know, Okay, here they come, and you're controlling you know. The thing that I love about hunting is that there is no end to the variables. And I think an absolute foundational part of getting a first time hunter set up for success is controlling what variables you can. Right. So it's like you have that rest in place, and there's so much time and you've got to provide time, which is the hardest part um to practice all of this stuff that it doesn't have to happen in the moment, you know, because there's just so much And that's why I think that one on one, uh is so critical because man, we just don't have the ability to retain all of this information, especially when you put somebody in the position of doing something for the first time, something that's outside their comfort zone, something that can be stressful. Um, so you have to be telling yourself that and again set that up ahead of time and be like, listen, I'm gonna be repeating myself a lot. And it's just important. So Phil, Uh, if you had to pick of all the hunts that you know that we've spoken of, what, what would you pick because you have a whole year of any season that you want. Yeah, I know, I don't or we can pick for you exactly. I think that's what I would say, because I don't know. I have zero experience with everything, So I don't know what you guys would think. Would all like a kind of a good balance of what difficulty it should be versus the experience itself. Um. The environments. Turkey hunting is great. How are you with Dan gay Fever? Yes, please elaborate. Uh, Turkey hunt is always a good one because it's interactive. You're moving around, but you're not unlike uh, say, Spot and Stoff mule deer hunting. The animal is almost always coming to you. So you're still moving around, you're still mobile, you're not sitting in a tree stand all day. It's looking for one thing. But you still no matter what, if you're doing it right, you're in a situation where you were calling animal to you and you get to make that choice as to win and how it goes down. Um, of course it all it goes right. It's not perfect. But as as cowsan mitigating circumstances work, their failure could occur. Turkey with a shotgun is you know I've missed other people you know you miss But again, compared to a hundred and fifty yard show with a rifle, I feel like it's it's a little more um that those chances to fail are a little bit more mitigating that circumstance. And it's it's exciting to I love it. And it allows for some downtime during the day to work on a bunch of stuff. And and that's the biggest failure I see. The biggest issue is like I'm taking somebody out to get something or I got them this. That was my favorite thing you said that podcast so focused on. Somebody said that, oh, it's a failure. Man, you focus, like, there has got to be that failure time. There's got to be that slow time or else you're not you just do not have the amount of time too, you know, do anything for that first time hunter that they'll be able to replicate the next season. And if like, if you're not getting them in a spot where they can at least go out and try, then it's just like you're not providing much. And I've I've got so many bad examples, um from folks that have told me and like told me their stories and like the most proud look at what I did for hunting type of ways, where I'm just like, man, I would be shocked if that kid, that adult, that whoever even buys another hunting license because you just you took, you took all that you could have empowered them to be hunters and instead you just had them be a trigger poller and and that's it. So you like remove them from the situation as as much as possible. So like the timing is critical. The one thing that I did this year that I absolutely have not done in the past, But this is probably like the best thing I could recommend going forward because think of all the emails you get and the emails that we get into meat Eater and ask cal Um. He's like, hey, I'm a first time hunter, Like where do I go? How do I start? Right? So what I did this year, um is I took my first time hunter to places I had never been and I was like, Okay, like I'm learning, I'm gonna try to relay as much information as I'm taking him. That is why I think this spot is gonna be good or be bad as we go through it. Um, So just think of that, like you're not like assuming, but you're like, well, i've never been here before. And Sam, we got super sick of me saying like, but anything could happen. This is what I think could happen over here. But that's that's hunting, right if you were just if you were to think about, well, I know that there's a bear hanging out right here. I know there's a big elk right here. We're gonna go there, we're gonna see him. It's just if it works out so much of your thinking the list that you could be imparting that knowledge onto a first timer because you're like, well, this is exactly what's gonna happen. In this spot because I've a hunted a thousand times and by the way, you can't come here ever ever, right, And so that was the big thing, is you know, I was like, you know what the coolest part about this, Sam is like, now you and I have a spot. I'm I do not turn out. Both of these spots were really good. Do not like you do? Now you don't share it? I'm like, you do not share this, Like this is our spot. Like if I come here without you, I'll be calling you and just be like, hey, just so you know I'm going, and then I'm gonna give you kind of the feedback on the spot when I get back, right, and you're gonna have that knowledge. I'm like, but you don't take anybody here without me. I love it. I'm like, or if you do, you let me know, Like that's like the deal. If you have a spot now, if you're coming at it from a mentor side, I feel that you're gonna learn as much having to articulate the things you normally wouldn't articulate. You're gonna learn how to understand, well, why is that turkey goblin? When I call? What is this call? Why is this? What? What about this cadence? Why this? Why cluck? Now? You know? Why perr? Now? Why yelp? Now? Why is he in that tree? Why is he flying down that direction? Why is he using this part of the ridge to come down? Why didn't why when you hit the ground, did he shut up? You know? Um, just in turkey hunting, you can answer all those questions. Normally, you're only that dialogues in your head. It's an interer dialogue. We're like, I think he might the first hunt that we did. Um, never at any point did we have ammunition in the firearm. Like, just turns out we weren't ready for that. And you tell that to folks who are like, well, you gotta go someplace where they're gonna have a reasonable chance of success, And it's like, ultimately that's important because it's less time for the mentor if you kill something the first day. Right. But I'll tell you right now, the best thing that could happen is you do not have that success, because the more time that you can spend, the better that person is going to be the following season, guaranteed. Yeah, And for folks that work here Philly, you're included in this because you work here um, you get we're gonna probably film you or be making content about you. Poor Maggie. I mean, come on, man, Maggie and Tracy. The first time they've ever had to like wrestle with this stuff was on camera, and then we made it into a story for Netflix that I'm not saying it's a bad thing to do, but it puts a lot on those new hunters. So and I'll tell you, like, you know, like recapping these hunts as we did, like these people have never hiked at all with a rifle on their shoulder, never let alone on variable terrain where there are no trails, like and it's just another example of taking something for granted, Like I could damn near sleep with that shoulder with with that rightfle on the shoulder, Like it's just like I throw it on, like just like my hat, you know. And it's like, hey, this thing is a pain in the ask to walk around with. It is so awkward, Like I feel off balance. It's like yes, and you look off balance, but eventually, eventually you will figure that out. But it's a great reminder, you know. And yeah, so it's a great reminder that this stuff, it doesn't come all at once. You you it's it's a small step, then another small step. Every once in a while, you have a hunting season where you figure something out that is profound to make you either a better hunter or better able to handle the ship. That happens when you're hunting. Every once in a while you'll have one of those moments, for one of those years where everything goes wrong, where everything goes right and you learned something that that you can carry on. But usually it's tiny little things that you pick up over time, and then when someone comes to say how do I do this? You just unlow owed all of those small incremental learnings on them, like I know everything, but really it's it's every little minute of every little of every day that you spend hunting is a building block towards towards being a mentor. So, uh, we're gonna do it for you, Phil, We'll pick something cool for you. Yeah, I'm excited. I feel like it does because you guys keep asking me questions and I'm like, I don't know, I'm game for anything. But also it's it's it's true, I don't have any expectations. I don't know like what kinds of I'm going to enjoy it or not even and how I'm gonna feel about taking a life. I could not feel great about it, you know, and like, uh, but I'm completely willing and excited to try it. So um, some people come into it the attitude. Well, some people come into it like I've read thirty books, I've listened to all the podcasts. I'm ready to go. Other people are I really just want to do this? Can you take me? I don't have the time. I'll do the podcasting and the reading after I've done this once and realize I really want to do it again. Other people have already dive dived into the idea prior to the action. And so it's it's willingness being the only requirement. Yeah, in my book, Oh absolutely man. And all you gotta do is be able to appreciate being outside like you got that. It's impact. Hunting will show you how to like really appreciate that stuff because it just adds some different meaning to it. And and and I'll go to bad on that statement, that completely unprovable point I just made. Yeah, we're we're a kind of proof of it. You know, it's empowering than to know things and then have your choices matter in the outdoors. If you go left on the trail, right on the trail gives a ship, you might take a little bit longer. But when you're at hunting, every choice matters depending on what your outcome. If your if your goal is to get some and and eat it, every choice matters, and so um, if you're just riding a bike, those choices just lead to a little bit longer of a trip. Maybe yeah. But in the case of going outside and making choice, is hunting is the way to experience reality. I was laughing too, because, Um, I was getting my land navigation skills. H questioned several times, Um, and I've been lost a lot that. Um, yeah, that's valuable time in the woods man. It's also like, well how do you know about It's like, well, I spent a lot of time failing a lot of times taking the wrong direction. Uh yeah. You developed principles and philosophies like like I'm not gonna go downhill unless I absolutely have to, because you know what, and these mountains that it doesn't make any sense. I was talking to some search and rescue guys and they're like, little kids always go uphill. O, my little kids, So maybe you do all this time in the woods and then you're, uh, it's just to get back in touch with your Memmalian brand. You're like, get up high, I can see you from there. Smoke signals all right, Phil, Well, I'm excited for your journey. Me too. Oh absolutely, man, absolutely fun. Yeah, and we will document every last bit of it. My friend can't wait. I know you you're excited. We're really going to change that home recipe situation too, Like you're gonna be busting out all sorts of stuff. Yeah, uh, probably stock. You're gonna be making stock, man, My wife's making stock, like stop, just like chicken and turkey stuff. But the house always smells incredible, thoughts, great stock is like the best smell you should do. Stock candles, What don we come out meat eater candles just like bone stock. My buddies were making on the for the Cow's Weeken Review product line. They're like, you're gonna get sponsored by Yankee Candle Cow's. We can review Cow's, we can review candle smells smells like desperate another week to turn in that show. We got to get it out there. Well I did, I really we had talked about we have to our Ceruti on awesome, great consa writer, great writer, great conservationists. Um. We tend to talk about his book Mindful Carnivore most of all, but we went way past that in in the in this conversation it was a great one. UM specifically a point that There's a couple of points that came up that were important for me. One of them was, I feel like that I I am maybe the living embodiment of having two hunters and having been two types of hunters in my life, and you're probably you might be this way through Cal. Early on in my life, I was the what I would call a normal hunter. I hunted because my dad did. I fell in love lit because my dad showed it to me. We didn't think too much about it. It was go out, shoot a deer, whatever was legal, go back home, skin it out, take the backsteps out, fry him up, and ed him at Camburg. Out of the rest. It wasn't really We didn't think about conservation. We didn't think about life and death too much. We didn't think about all these other entanglements that are part of this show. In your show, Cal and all this stuff we do with meet either. So I for the first maybe I would say ten years, twelve years of my hunting life, it was just kind of a pastime. It's a sport, it's the thing we did. And later on in my life, as I traveled around met people like you and Steve and started to think about other ways to do it, I became more of like an adult onset discoverer of these things, you know, conservation, the principles of our North American model of wild like conservation, all these things that I just didn't even know for the first fifteen years of my hunting life. And so that's something that we talked about with Tovart that I found to be something I think a lot of folks that have lived let listen our stuff, that lived their life hunting may think too like I. I became a better hunter later in life, but I'm glad the first fifteen years happened because I got to just be a kid and appreciate how fun it is and how cool it is to be out there with your family doing really fun stuff that has some benefit. But then later in life I started thinking about it, probably too much. But I'm glad that both those things happen because I got to kind of appreciate both things. Oh yeah, man, Oh that's something that I think somebody like Phil that goes like, you're never gonna get to just be a fifteen year old kid doing it. But there's a lot that you can you bring to the table as an adult on set hunter or whatever we call them. Your your ability to just go out and shoot a brick a twenty two mma and kill a thousand gophers in a day and not think anything of it. That you'll never experience that my friend. Sorry, Phil, I can't do it anymore. God, but it's it's that you'll hear it what we talked to so are, But that concept goes off in a bunch of different weird ways. You know that that exact thing when your kid you can shoot a bunch of Robbins. In fact, uh, somebody who works here as kid got drilled with a b begun recently. I'm not gonna put anybody's names out there, Steve, uh, but that like, when you have that as a kid, that's a pretty precious time you come to figure out later in life because then you gotta wrestle with all the moralities and ideologies and ship that we talk about on the show. So that was something pretty profound for me to think about those two versions of myself and kind of when I started to become the second version, which I am now, Um, when that maturity and adult kind of the responsibility took hold and I started to try to be better and think about it in a better way. So, um, something that hopefully you guys will get from that conversation. I enjoyed it. But before we get there, Phil, we only got we only got. Uh. We're only doing nonzo sharp moments to the end of the year, folks. Man, I'm gonna miss it. I'll miss it too. We might bring it back next year, we don't know, we don't know, but we're only gonna do them till the end of the year. And so we only have a three left three lefts. So right in now at THHD at the meetia dot com if you want to win a work sharp field sharpener, many many, many of you have. We haven't picked our last couple yet and so you still have a chance to win. So if you haven't written in the THHC to mediator dot com, please do with your not so sharp moment to to remind you it's something dumb you've done outdoors. That is it. And the better you're writing, the better your pros, the better your chance of getting on right. Phil said it. Yeah, they've done some really good storytellers, really good. Not too pres but not too short, just the right length, just the right length. Okay, get the point to the point al right, play the jingle fill not the sharp moment you don't have, won't you marry me? All right? Bye, cal bye, thank you, get back to work. Trevork Carter is this week's winter. He's got a story for us, he said, Hey, y'all, I was a pretty keen duck hunter back in college, gap years, changing majors, switching universities, man, I had a lot of time on the water. Around about my third junior year, I found a piece of marsh while out cat fishing that looked like it would hold some ducks come winter. Winter came as much as it ever did in South Carolina, and the weather man promised a midweek cold front. Thinking that everything else would be working, we decided to skip class and drive out to the lake. We left early or late, depending on what's in your drinking cup, arriving at three am to the mud strip, landing my mercury had quit again like a hound, especially coming up limp every time. It was cold out, so we were going to have to tax slowly across the open water with a borrowed trolling motor. Anybody who's been a young dude in college and not had a crappy trolling motor on their boat doesn't know life. Some I'm with you, Trevor. It was cold, rainy, and the battery died a hundred yards into the trip. We brought oars, but not the knowledge of how to use them. The old squared fronted john boat was much too wide for one man to row, and we cut a few circles that that freighted our tempers before we straightened it out. And I cut a few circles phill. He just means they rowed around in a circle. Got it. With an hour left before sunrise, we arrived at a likely looking spot and called it good. We tossed out a few dozen decoys, our excitement bulldozing past practicality and good sense, using up the last scraps of energy we had from our only hour of sleep and a pot of coffee. We waited ten minutes before shooting light The wood ducks started fly hanging, whistling, wings had a scrambling load guns and stair holes through our wash dials. Despite the barrage sounding from the marsh around us, we waited until finally the croc, the croc. The clock struck legal nothing. Empty skies grew hazy and reddening eyes. As another enthusiastic sunrise brought disappointment. Time passed and an awareness passed over the boat. We all looked southeast to see alone duck flying in. It was a big duck, a general term used for anything that wasn't a wood duck or hooded merganzer, and we all knew it. My calls hung forgotten around my neck. As the bird flew in on a string. I had to squint hard through the sleep and morning sun, but I tracked the iridescent green head as it approached, slow and fast. As soon as it broke the perimeter of our decoys, feet inches from the water, I raised and pulled the trigger. My pellets tore through the water all around him, but he didn't go down. My next shot followed on his heels of the first, but I'm clearly behind. The third round cracked hard against my shoulder. A three and a half inch surprise for my early morning shell grab. But the duck doesn't go down. I tried to reload, but he was gone. I realized, as I struggled to stuff a shell backwards into my shotgun that I was the only one to shoot. What a realization, Philip. I turned ready to put my friends to the question, but stopped short at the expressions on their faces. They looked at me like I had cancer to spare written plainly in their eyes. It did not last. Pain turned quickly to mirth as the inquisition began. What were you shooting at? It was just one mallard there flew in right? Why are you shooting so low? There was no denying, even though I tried. Somehow, through the fog of exhaustion, I managed to shoot a tube full of twelve gauge deal at the reflection of a duck in the water as it flew. Overead my shots so well executed. To my eyes, We're about forty yards low. Not the kind of shooting that's easy to live down. At least I had the windage right. If I have a more embarrassing story, I'd probably have repressed it. Thanks for reading, Trevor Carter well done, Phil play the jingle not so sharp, mom, you don't have that's pretty good man, Yeah, I like it. I wonder I mean, how much light was there this was happening. I was full full daybreak yep. Um, So there's no sting at the water. Just imagine. I'm sure there's ripped ripples everywhere, Like was he I've never been in his shoes before. Is this something that it could happen to something? It's hard to say. Okay, it depends on the angle the duck was flying. But boy, that would be a hard one to pull off, all right, because you're you're normally your eyes are trained on the duck, and like there's a moment when it's time to shoot. That's the excitement of duck hunting. Duck is flying in, you're waiting, you're waiting, you're ready, and he cups his wings. He's clearly committed to coming into your spread. And then you pick him home when you say shoot. And so there's normally never a confusion such as this. But good job, Trevor. Why it's not so sharp? It's not so sharp, and you're gonna win a work sharp field sharpener. We'll send it right to your house. It would be super great. So next time that you're wasting steel shot after a mirage. It's almost like he was in the desert and saw, oh my god, an ice cream truck. Very similar. All right, well, we're gonna get to Mr Tovar s rually well, travel all the way to Princeton University the Princeton Library to talk to Tovar a couple of weeks back. It was a great converse station, and I hope you enjoy I guess I grew up on in all the road so far. How are you doing? Um? Wow, how are you? Oh man, I can't complain. We're We're in the Princeton Library. I feel smarter, just be just to be hanging out of here, right right in town, right in town, Yeah right, anytime in a kind of a weird place. Um, but I guess an apt place to have a conversation such as as we're about to have. And it seems like there's a lot of very very smart, affluent people walking around here, maybe some vegans. I bet there is no doubt, no doubt. Um, can you quickly normally try to start this by um describing our surroundings? These are these aren't very exciting things. So can you give people a quick run through, um, of of who you are and where you're from. We'll save your your book and some of your other work for later on, but just like your general background, where you're from. Yeah, um, so, I grew up in New England and in New Hampshire, Vermont and UH live for a while in New York City, um in and around my my college years. UM And I've done a variety of things throughout my life on the workfront, carpentry, forestry, freelance, writing, consulting, a whole a whole bunch of a bunch of things. But have really you gravitated toward uh work around conservation and different communities you know, environmental community, hunting community, and other other communities and their perspectives on our relationships with with nature and do the values and perceptions that we bring bring to that. I think one of the when when we sit down for these conversations off and I think one of the things that I want to make sure we always cover is when was that moment where you remember first thinking well, I have some connection to nature, I have some interest in You know, some folks when they were a kid and they were looking at bullfrogs and wondered what how this all worked? Um, some folks way later life. For you, what was it? What was there a moment that you can remember where you thought this, It's kind of who I am and what I want to do. I spent so much time out doors as a kid that I don't really remember a time when I wasn't sort of immersed in it. You know, I was swimming, you know, not long after I was walking, and you know, catching bull frogs and tadpoles not long after that, and and learning to fish when I was pretty young. Uh so, No, I've so always immersed in that. As I got older, I started to think more about you know, different perspectives and different backgrounds and cultures and and all that sort of human dimensions of it. But the you know, the connection with the natural world, you know, from you know, picking blueberries to catching trout is you know pretty ingrained and how I was from when I was pretty little. Were your who who in your life kind of helped push that forwards? Your parents or were there other other folks in your life. My parents were certainly certainly supportive of of all that and being outdoors and everything. Um, you know, my dad, for instance, wasn't particularly into fishing, but he had a good friend who had actually grown up in the Bronx and ended up getting really you know, connected the outdoors, and so he became my fishing mentor when I was a kid. But yeah, I would say, you know, a lot of people were supportive, but on the on the fishing front in particular, my friend Willie was was a big, big factor. People who listen to this podcas No, I had a Willie. My Willie's name was Bill Miller. Well we also called him Willie. It just it seems to me like there's a lot of people in our lives, whether for most of us as our parents. Of course it was my dad, but if if that wasn't the case, then imagine a good parent finds some other outlets, some other person to kind of get you down the path you want to go. Yeah, exactly. Um, do you as you're you know, we're going to talk about your your switch from vegan to hunter and in your book The Mindful Carnivore, But do you remember what what point in your life do you remember thinking about your consumption and wondering about death and wondering about that a little wonderful cycle that we now know to be so complicated. Um. I think as a kid, I just didn't question it. You know, wherever food came from, I ate it. Um. Sometimes I was involved in it, you know, I was catching fish or picking berries or whatever else. Uh. And it wasn't until like my late teens, maybe when I was twenty, that I started to question it a bit and think about it and wonder about whether it was the health of the healthfulness of that food, or the ethics of that food, or the environmental footprint of that food. So the time in our lives when a lot of us started to question who are we? What are we doing here? What does this all mean? This is the time filled with anks exactly all the emotions as you move through all this, I think we will get to your your switch to being a hunter. When does it? When does the introduction of veganism come? And when's the first time you saw that and thought, well, that looks that's pretty interesting. I might try. Yeah, I mean it was. It was a bit gradual in that I started to you know, wandering, you know, gee, how much of this kind of food? You know, how much meat is healthy for me? Just think about diet a little bit. I knew folks. I knew vegetarians late in high school. Um ah, my my girlfriend was vegetarian and her family vegetarian. So I was introduced vegetarian food and I was totally open to it. Um. And I think the real, the real pivot. I'd been ah away from fishing for a while. I've been living in the city and why not. And I went fishing and I hadn't killed my own food in a while. And I caught a trout and reeled it in, and you know, as I killed it, there was just a moment of hesitation and doubt, like m hmm. I didn't need to do that, Like I didn't need to eat that fish. I could have eaten something else, you know, I could have had rice and veggies or whatever. Um. And So I had been, you know, thinking about my values and my path and had actually done a little retreat uh in uh in New York State with the Buddhist teacher not Han, talking about compassion and you know he's in't they encouraged vegetarianism And there's nothing that point you towards vegetarians and like Buddha, right, So I just you know, thought about all that, and so that moment of killing that fish was sort of a turning point for me where I started for a while, I was vegetarian, so I'll try this. You don't need to kill other other sentient beings too to live. And then from that moment, you know, the other sorts. I became interested in vegetarian philosophy, vegan philosophy, and realized that the dairy industry has huge impacts on animals and the egg industry. So I just started moving further and further away from all of those you know, animal foods. And what year was this, so this would have been like I was twenty, so like ninety one. Okay, it's quite a while ago. I mean, I think I think that's that's a good point to stop and say, like, when you're in the vegan in that world, in that mindset, and you're and you're looking at the impact of your consumption, did did you develop your own community with other vegans? Did you? How did you? And obviously you weren't logging onto some chat room, going on social media and sharing claiming to the world your veganism, so it was probably a more personal thing at that point. We have in this in this more modern nine nineteen world, we are very likely doing it so we can share it on It's going to be shared on Instagram or some social media is part of your life. But at that point, you just didn't have that. No, you didn't have access to sort of the digital echo chambers today, right whatever perspectives exactly. Uh So, Yeah, I mean I knew plenty of people who weren't vegetarian or vegan, but I also new folks who were. I spent my last couple years of college and you know, right in New York City and both among classmates and O there's new plenty people who were vegan vegetarian, and all of my you know, the ethics, the environmental questions, the health issues, you know, all of the logics that I was bringing to it at that time all pointed me in you know, staying on that path for that period of time. Yeah, And I've been I have been diving into veganism like you wouldn't believe. I'm interested in not only like it's ideologies and how it's constructed, but also how it's growing. I was looking at some surveys and I had in my mind, we know that hunting is declining, right, We've talked about that on this show, and probably in every corner of the hunting world recently, we know that it's declining. So I started looking is vegan? Is the vegan lifestyle, the vegan diet folks that are practitioners of this is that growing while hunting is declining. So we can kind of lay bare what we're dealing with here in terms of these two types of not only diets, but this has become a lifestyle. It's become a way of thinking. But I think on both sides, and I'll say that I have what we already know US Fishing and Wildlife Service. When I was looking up about four and a half percent of Americans um actually hunt and that's doubt right now, and that's down. That was twenty seven a teen and that's down from seven point so that's about three trop over all that time, which was when you started thinking about vegans. Coincidentally, and then I was looking at, okay, where was the vegan thing? I looked at a couple of data points from this group called Global Data. They said from seventeen, which is only a three or three year span. Um U S consumers identifying as vegan group from one percent to six percent um in that time. That's a increase over that number. So if you were to just pull those apart, your five four and a half or so four point four percent of Americans hunt around six percent of Americans are vegan, and the line graph, you're going in opposite directions for those two things. So I think as we look at as we look at this conversation and talk about it, it's it's interesting to see what the dynamic there. Yeah, I mean there's a lot of interesting tangents off that. I mean, one is that vegetarianism in America is actually pretty old. Not so much veganism, but vegetarianism in America has you know, been here in various concentrations and forms since the eighteen hundreds and has religious roots in large part. But there was actually, you know, you and I were right before we started talking about um, you know, vegan athletes and so on, back when Teddy Roosevelt was you know, ironically, when Teddy Roosevelt was you know, this very prominent figure in conservation and the culture, vegetarianism was pretty strong too. And um and and it's connections to you know, physical exercise and and all. So today, Yeah, they're there are these sort of trends, and I think that they aren't necessarily at least in my experience and the conversations I've had people over the years, they aren't as diametrically opposed as they necessarily here on the surface. UM. And there are some common threads and values that run through parts of the vegan community, in parts of the hunting community, UM that I think are hopeful. We've addressed those a lot of those here and will continue to do because I think the most compelling thing about this is because these things seem diametrically opposed, but they're not really. There's there's some some some places where we diverge, right, there's some ideas where we just can't get together. But in general, like we value animals, we want to make sure uh their robust populations and all kinds of habitat, Like we have a we share a value system. We just disagree on how to get to where we want to go. UM. But I think are in North America, especially in the US, that's one of the most unique things we have going for us. We all value the animals in the same way, and we've done it we've applied those same values to like non native species like the pheasant and native species and other native spec he's like the pronghorn, white tailed deer and things like that. So we're not unlike other countries shunning the non natives and building up just the native species like for example New Zealand. That's what they that's what they're want a mission to do right now. So there's there's just a lot of things, but we share a value system we just don't um and my conversations with with vegans and other folks that practice that we just don't. It's the death and life thing that we just can't get around, you know, we just can't get together on. Then how did you I mean, obviously you were saying when you were a vegan, you were thinking about how am I participating the death of these of these sentient beings as as is the popular term. You know, where was you? Where was your mind? Then? I mean, do you feel like you were a better participant in consumption in society when you were a vegan? Um? Hmm, I don't think I was better. I mean I was I was committed to causing the least possible harm as I understood it, um and the least the least possible suffering because I understood and those are noble goals, right to cause minimal, minimal harm, minimal suffering. And as I understood the world and my role in it, that was what made sense, was to just refrain from eating those foods that act in itself. And also you know there's the environmental dimensions that I felt were important reasons also to you know, just stick to a vegan diet. Um. So I was, I was sincere, and the values and motives behind it were good. Um, and my perspective shifted, right, Yeah, talk about that shift. I mean we I think that's something that obviously can be an example for a lot of people. I mean there's we we often here people that go on vegan diets for for ethical reasons. I think like six out of ten of vegans say that they're doing they're living this lifestyle, eating this die for ethical reasons like that. And so it's it's often that people will say that, but then they run into health issues like to run into low bet twelve, low iron, a lot of a lot of things like that, joint issues on and on. Um, what was it for you? Um? The first step was that I realized that eating agricultural crops also had substantial impacts on all kinds of beings, you know, from you know, clearing, ah, whatever the previous habitat was to create a crop field, whether that's prairie or forest or whatever. You just just wiped out a whole habitat to create whether it's a monoculture or not. You just totally change that habitat uh and displaced a lot of critters and and probably wiped out a bunch in the process. And then you know, past control so called, whether it's deer or other other animals, um let, let alone, pesticides and so forth. I started to read there's a great book that you may be familiar with um called Heart and Blood by Richard Nelson, which I read and I was still vegan. I read this and I was a fantastic book, amazing book about deer and our relationships with deer. And one of the things he documents is that deer being killed in every corner of the continent to protect every crop we grow practically. And I found that a little uncomfortable right as a vegan, And but I still had this notion that was like well, okay, if you're out in the Midwest and you get these massive soybean fields, okay, they're doing They're killing lots of deer. And it was when I realized that, you know, three miles down the road, the little local organic farm growing strawberries and salad greens whatever, they were occasionally shooting deer and constantly smoked, bombing woodchuck burrows and stuff also, And that brought it home like, Okay, there's a lot of gray here. So I was still I was still vegan, right, But what those kinds of realization started to do was to take those very sharp delineations I had drawn, like sharp black and white, hard edges of you know, plant good, animal bad. In terms of food ethics, you know, it's like, okay, if this farmer who's growing the salad greens and strawberries that we're eating is having to kill deer to protect those crops, and then he and the guy who shot the deer are splitting the venison. You know, like that venison and those strawberries are part of the same food system, right, there's no separation. Um. It's that was the first step for me. It was just softening those hard ethical lines I had drawn. And then to three years later, um, when some health issues started crop up for me. I've been vegan for close to a decade. I wasn't severely ill, but my immune system was not doing great. And uh, my my doctor, who is a Buddhist natural path not someone who is gonna like, you know, tout the all American diet, you know, but she had some blood work done and and talk to me about my about my blood chemistry and someone's going on with my health, and said, you know, you might want to think about, you know, adding some some other food some some animal foods into your diet. So my wife and I my wife was vegetarian also and had been vegan. Uh, she sort of came along for the ride on vegans and with me. Um, she and I said, well, okay, we better do something little different here. And so we you know, first tried like having a little yogurt, you know, and having yogurt like almost ten years of vegans, like it's a radical movie, like hey, look at this bacteria, But I mean psychologically, yeah, it's you know, So some yogurt, some eggs, some wild fish. I started to experiment with that, and my body really responded, well, um, And and then I started to think about, Okay, what about participating directly again like I did when I was a kid and I was fishing, And so I started to pick up. I decide I'm gonna pick up fishing again if I'm gonna be eating other creatures and dealing with the fact that I'm a living, breathing animal who also eats and has a footprint, whether that's in terms of agricultural crop land or the death of a particular creature. You're I have a footprint. I can't pretend I don't have any footprint here, you know, minimize it, make it sustainable, minimize suffering. Yes, great, And you know I'm not invisible. I'm not like ethereal right, I have a body I eat. Um. So I started fish again, and and I never I didn't grow up hunting, but I started to just think about the possibility of of of getting engaged there. Yeah, did you like? That's you're very you know, you're very far from that when you're thinking of like an ethical vegan mindset, You're very far from you know, what I'll just do. I'll just kill something because that's better than what than what I've constructed here, which is something that I've heard multiple times on this podcast for folks that had been vegan and turn hunting, like they just they realize the gray area that you just discussed there, They realized that they're that gray area is full of not only large ca agriculture kills animals, but also large scale agriculture destroying is destroying this planet as much. I've talked to some folks recently in the regenerative agricultural world that believe that that large scale plant agriculture is more harmful than large scale animal agriculture in some ways. And so then that gray area becomes this, It becomes full of these contradictions and conundrums and things you have to then go figure out. So as that's not uncommon um to where you're headed, but um it normally heads goes to hunting once you've kind of come out of that decision making process, like, Hey, I can't trick, I can't fool myself anymore. What do I do now? Hunting seems to be a natural, you know, spasm like a spasmatic way to be like, I gotta go back and do this the right way and see if this meant this feels better once you started hunting. Um, I'm assuming you did just kill a deer on your first your scale? Right now? How long long? How long do you're comfortable that you could go in the woods, Like did you just have a mentor what when was it that you felt like I can step in the woods and sit in a tree and hunted deer? Right? Because I know dear was the first thing you kill. I mean, well I actually game first. Um. Well, A couple of thoughts. One is that I think one of the reasons does a natural or a common move for some folks towards hunting, is that one of the values that underpins ethical vegetarianism erathical veganism um is I think a desire and a commitment to recognizing what is happening, recognizing where your food comes from, recognizing that, you know, some eggs come out of some pretty horrific factories, you know settings, and you know chickens are treated horribly same thing with you know, some production of eef and fork and so on. And one of the common i'd say ailments that we have as a modern society is not knowing and not wanting to know not just about our food, but about lots like just putting blinders on, Like I don't really want to know how any of this is produced. It's so much easier, whether whether it's my smartphone or my food, or my clothes or my car. I just don't want to know, right, And once you start to know, it's uncomfortable. And then sometimes you have to make a decision about what you can do about what you know. So one decision is I'm gonna become vegetarian or vegan. And I think that that that same value underpins some hunter's choice to hunt, including most, if not all, of those who came out of being a vegetarian, like I'm gonna know what happens because I'm gonna do it. I'm gonna be right there and deal with it and confronted. So I think there's a common there's a common motivation there. It strikes me. Question I would ask too, is do you feel because you're what you're talking about is a really complicated understanding now of of where your food comes from, and you're being struck with this. I'm being lied to, manipulated, I'm being told this is healthy when it's not. I'm being told this is the way that our American diet works, and this is the way that you know, I should be comfortable in eating this way, and you feel I did this too. When I started reading about factory farming and reading about the way that we get our meat and even the word organic, the way that's been bastardized and thrown around, you feel a little bit angry, a little bit used, a little bit lied to, a little bit part of a big system in which you have no control. So then you start searching around for control. And one of the things that I've thought about when i've to I've thought about veganism is that it becomes it's like really religious idea almost um And I wonder if people aren't confronting this really hard truth and taking the first easy way out. Is that something that you would agree with or I'm just trying to explore, like, how you get from confronting this this really basically terrible idea of the system that you're in. Now you you want to weigh out immediately, and and maybe veganism is just the intellectually easiest way to get out, But I'm not sure. I'm not sure about that. Yeah, it's interesting, I mean, I guess my caution there would just be that I, um, I don't want to dismiss right, No, dismiss the people or the ideas that. Like I said, I think we share so many values that it's it's silly, but there's I'm just trying to, you know, break down the mechanics of how you go from facing this hard truth to getting getting to veganism and then and then often coming back. I've seen that. I've seen that enough to know that it's it's a small trend, but a trend on the word. Um, I think that, you know, the the very sort of relatively it's simple personal conclusion that we can draw, for example, like oh I didn't need to kill that fish, or I didn't need to eat that piece of factory pork or whatever it is. Then I think we naturally look for ways to apply that more broadly. Right, And so there's all kinds of what Once we start to think that and look around and read and talk to people, we're gonna find resonant ideas. Some of those are gonna be veganism. But you know, I could just have easily at that point in my life perhaps um, you know, come across you know, start to have a conversation with a really ethical hunter, because you know this is really important, you know, like nutritional food for you, but you don't want to get it from that factory. Here. Let me show you how. You know, I could have been a different direction, right, and again it would have been like I don't know if that would qualify as like the easy way out right, but it's a prepackaged or not exactly be packaged. But you know, here's a set of ideas that someone else has already thought through, is going to help me. Yeah, gets my own point, Like veganism is not easy. No, just saying I'm not gonna eat any of this stuff that's readily available. I'm gonna go in this whole new exploratory way to eat. That's not easy. Um, but I think you become it can become fundamentalists, so can hunting. Right, So you know, we just know we're right, and we're gonna and now here we're gonna justify it, you know. Yeah. That and that's what we were just talking about. That Game Changers documentary that I get. I have so many emails about this thing. Um, there's that's it's it seems to me like it's vegan propaganda um in a weird way. So I don't know, um if if that's just where we are as a culture, there's there's that side of the coin has an easier outlet to get things like that out into popular culture. I don't really know how that works, but certainly because vegans is on the rise and hunting is on um the decline, if you were just to say, like, hey, I think both of these are kind of in in a weird way of solutions to what we see is a massive or responses to this stimuli of understanding that this there's this big issue part of Then then with that application, what are we doing here with the rise and the decline? Is it is that that Hunting's PR agency sucks and that vegans PR agency is great? Is it that? Um? Is it just where people are being exposed? There's the political bend that that most vegans are liberal. I think I can't remember what I have to look up the numbers, but there's numbers saying like I think eleven of liberals are v are vegan and only two percent of conservatives. And that's like where do you live, what's your community? It's always cultural factors. Yeah, so I could keep going. I mean more liberal people live in urban areas more, you know, and that's where kind of the centers of a lot of veganism. Um, You're not going to Sheboygan and find it a bunch of ethical vegans. So I say all that to say, I mean that there's some exploration in there. I'm sure have you thought about all the things? I just all the random to that is uh, I mean I think that right now in this like just speaking for the US, I think it's true somewhat elsewhere in Canada and Europe and other parts of the world to some degree as well, But right now in the US, my sense is that a fairly substantial proportion of the hunting community and hunting media are not really tuned into like mainstream communication and values and like how to get the starting to be like starting to talk about local food. And that's happening right state. Wildife agencies are starting to recognize that, and you know, the whole R three recruitment, you know, retention reactivation um is starting to tap into oh, you know, we need to think about these cultural differences, We need to talk about values, we need to think about food as a primary motivator and use that message. But a lot of the you know, the sort of what has been the juggernaut of the hunting industry for recent decades is so oriented towards particular demographics and particular value systems, and and sort of repeating particular stories and images that just do not resonate with most of the public, right, and so out of touch. Yeah, where whereas the vegan you know, you know, filmmakers who are making game changes or whatever else, you know, are probably quite a bit more in touch with what's going to appeal and resonate with. They clearly are. I mean, I think they clearly are, just by looking at where we are in the trends, and and if we were to say, if we were to say, put level set these things they say, veganism isn't is not great for the environment on a mass scale, we know that. I mean, we certainly could figure it out. Um, hunting on a mass scale wouldn't work either. But if we level set them as like, both of them have good qualities, both of them have bad qualities, And then we start to examine why one's growing in one drinking and I think what you're saying is is a huge part of it but one of the things, you know, you've said that you've run across other people who you know, we're vegetarian or vegan, became interested in hunting. Um, I know folks who are vegetarian. But the leade meat, if it's wild and if it's taken by a hunter, they know and respect. So it's you know, that animal didn't come through a factory farm, the animal lived a wildlife, and they trust that person, that hunter they know to have conducted that hunt and taking that animal in a really ethical way. And so there's okay, this is totally sustainable in terms of environmental footprint as long as they didn't you know fly that smiles to right. But but if this is you know, something they took, you know, within their normal you know where they would be anyway, Um, and they trust the ethics. You know that that that relationship between the hunter and the hunted and and that ethical to mention, there are plenty of people who are venterharing vegan, but because there ethically and environmentally driven, will make an exception for that, and they recognize that as being within their values set, you know, And so there's that that overlap. Yeah, like if you're looking at it as a ven diagram. I think that that middle piece, the pieces Alten focused on in that circumstance is bigger than we think it is, and all we have to do is kind of talk about it enough where people are realizing we're like this, if if you would look at veganism as a tool to better yourself your diet in the environment, and hunting is a tool to better yourself, you're diet in the environment, you can do both. Like it's if we would just erase the idea a lotical battles here, which which again I think, um, most people get into hunting for for much different reasons than vegans, you know, more modern vegans to get into veganism. Um, I think maybe that's part of why more vegans are activists than hunters being activists, and part of the reason why that culture is more insular and hunting and less and less so in vegan circles. And there again that's I'm making that up, but that's just what it seems to me as you try to kind of empirically look at what's going on with this stuff, and the trick is for me anyway, you know, what I've tried to do over the years is to cultivate those conversations where people who are coming from all those ferment perspectives are welcome, you know. So it's not oh, this is hunting propaganda and this is you know, vegans are bad and wrong. No, this is a conversation where we can collectively think together we're not gonna try to necessarily change their mind, but give each other new insights and new perspectives. And you know that takes a willingness on everyone's part um to listen, not just to count of the other person's argument, right, but to really understand where they're coming from and get a sense of what are their values and recognize common values um and not be so defensive and protective of ourselves right, which, no matter where we are on these spectrums, a lot of us are. You live in that you like, you live in those echo chambers, and then when you're asked to are confronted with something uncomfortable, there's this immediate pushback from the table. And I've gotten that when I've had vegans on and animal rights folks on and um bear you know, bear advocates that don't want another grizzly very killed for the next millennium. Um, what you what I find is that there if you can remain calm and collected and just work through these ideas, there always is common ground. There has to be where where humans living in the same environments, here has to be common ground. And so in this case there must be too. Um by wonder you know, have you seen kind of both sides of the coin more modern in the hunting sense as you look at um and are possibly frustrated by kind of where the core hunting community is going. Um, how do you articulate that? You know, you're looking at your the urban set of people that are they are in these urban environments. They do very much want to get outside and reconnect with nature. They yearn to eat better, and but they just don't know this is a real option. They they're thinking about trophy hunting when they think about it, so they're driven away from learning about it. Um. I have my feelings on why that's true. Why do you think you know that's happening and things aren't bubbling as they probably should. Well, it's interesting, I mean, it's probably a maybe should be called like a micro trend. But but there is growing interest like I mean just between like when I was trying to shop my book around, find an agent, find a publisher, which I've never done before. Uh, we had a marketing plan, and so we had to look at other books in the genre broadly. And you know, there were some really thoughtful hunting books, you know, Ted Carrosotte's work, and Richard Nelson's work, and David Peterson's work that had come out in the previous you know, decade or two, um, but nothing really recent, and nothing really focused, especially the recent ones really focused on food and nothing about vegetarian and most people, most people grew up hunting. Richard Nelson didn't grow up hunting, but a lot of these folks grew up hunting. Who who you know? Right? These books? And I looked back a few years ago when I was given a talk thinking about the variety of books that I seen come out um in and around the time that minded, and I realized that just in this span of a few years, there was a slew of books. Right, My book came out, Georgia Pella Greenis book Girl Hunter came out, Jackson Lander's book Hunting, Deer for Food came out, um, Steve Ronald's book Mediator. You know, came out, Hankshaw's book Gathered Cook came out. Uh, you know, there was just this I think I'm missing, oh um, Lily mccallin's book called a Mild. So like half a dozen books came out in this like three year period, and the only one of them was a lifelong hunter is Steve. Everyone else who wrote these books were people who came to it as adults, and some of them who've been vegetarian. So there's this, you know, following the sort of beginnings of local food movement and Michael Pollen's work, and you know, in the past ten fifteen years, there's been this spike and in conversations and interest about hunting for food and all of that. So I actually think it is happening. And then you know people who whether urban or or rural or suburban, there is a there is a spike, and it's not gonna I don't think it's gonna turn around, like the demographics of of hunting in a dramatic way, the number of hunters in a dramatic way. But I think it's changing the conversation about hunting. So it's not just oh, it's all about trophy hunting. That's not people's image of what hunting quote unquote is totally agreed. Right, There's just other there. There is those traditional core hunting things that you can go find. They're everywhere and a lot of them are legitimate. But then you have this new crop of of folks Like I met Georgia Pellagreni five or six years ago, and she was first getting into this, and then I read Omini Worst Dilemma. But Poland I read your book and I remember thinking whoa and I wrote. I started writing some stories for Pigeon Telling magazine about the media revolution, and um that was twenty twenty fourteen when I wrote a cover story where we just had a big chunk of meat on a knife and we said the media Revolution and we talked to Steve and Georgia and another I was recognizing it even then that that something was happening. But I think your point is kind of where I sit now, is like, does this trend, whether it's a micro trend or something that will become more macro, does this trend have enough steam kind of change the tide of the overall hunting numbers or huntings overall cultural impact. But you know, if you think about numbers. I think one question is, so how many hunters do we want? So, as you said, we can't have two hundred million active deer hunters in North America, right, I mean it would be insane. We have a lot more moneyless, you know what I mean, it wouldn't work, right. Um, So what percentage of the population is four percent? A good number is is too many? Like point four percent is probably less than we want. But I mean somewhere in there there's a sweet But the question that I'm interested in is less like the numbers. It translates into conservation dollars. But there's other models for funding conservation, whether it's sales taxes or other other ways to fund conservation that have been implemented in some places. Uh, it's more what's the what's the cultural and political climate and around hunting? You know, how is it understood and how are those who are concerned about it are opposed to it, how are they engaged and how are those who practice hunting engaged in the conversation? So that hunting is something that can go on and not just be banned because it gets hated, um, but something that is recognized as being a practice that has environmental value, has ethical value, is a reasonable and defensible and valuable way of engaging with the natural world. And that's what I want to see happen, right And I don't think. I don't know that it particularly matters whether of Americans hunt or twelve percent of Americans you know the other or eight percent. How are they perceiving it? If they're perceiving at all, you know what's there and right now, you know it pretty consistently over the decades. You look at the survey data, you know, by and large Americans support hunting if it's done for certain reasons, if there are certain values implicit in it, if it's done for other reasons or other values were listening it not so much in popular culture, we may kind of a dividing line. Right hunt for food good? I don't know. The numbers are always plus people or at least plus eight percent most that I'm seeing, they they vary as they would that. You know, if you say do you agree with hunting for food, and that simple question, four out of five, eight out of ten, nine out of time people say yes. And then if you switch it and you say do you agree with the trophy hunting? Almost everybody, and then it becomes what does that mean? What stuff you mean? And you know what if you're you know, you value the meat and you're looking for a big animal. I mean there's there's lots of layers to these conversations, and in removing those layers in the pop in the more popular sense, that's where we are, Like, that's exactly where we are. We're kind of stuck with these two you know, polarized versions of what hunting is. It so either really ethical and and really trendy and really good for you and really you know, if society is just asking is this a good thing? We've decided I think that that is, and that this other thing, trophy hunting, is kind of the underbelly of the practice. Right, That's how much trickier. Yeah, unpacking it would be. It would be terrible unpacking. But but I think you're right that there are some forces. Um, hopefully this podcast and and what we're doing a meat eater can be scene. Is that like that that we're just trying to kind of walk forward this idea that we truly and strongly believe in. I know you do too, that when done ethically, when done right, when done thoughtfully. Hunting is a prescription. It's a medicine for how we relate to animals, how we eat them, our own diets, and all those things. Um, yeah, our sense of being part of the natural world, all these things. Yeah. Absolutely. And the you know, the people who didn't grow up hunting but but come to it later, even if they just think about it, even if they just try it for a year or two, they become ambassadors too. Family members, co workers, circles of friends who may out include any other hunters, just to shift the conversation and say, here's another perspective or you know, here, here's why I tried it, or here's why I still do it. Does it matter if they remain part of the ex percent of you know, Americans who hunt and then passed on to their kids. If they do great, but they just changed the conversation a bit. Yeah, And we're in a I think we're generationally in a space where we can change the conversation going forward for for good, not that like a patrilineal look at hunting like I got and a lot of people that I know have like their father. My father taught me a certain way to go, and it really wasn't based on the things we just discussed. It was based on this is what we do, it's a pastime. It wasn't. It didn't devalue the animal, but it certainly didn't have the step to it right. But you know, it's interesting when I was, like, when I went back to grad school and did some research on this and started interviewing folks, one thing that I recognized is that a lot of folks who grew up hunting, there were things about their lives there, families, background, they're hunting. Maybe all of those things that they just took for granted, like feeling connected to the land they were maybe they were farming family, or they just hunted, but they fell connected the land, so they took that for granted. They knew where at least some of their food came from, including some of their meat. They took that for granted. Um, they enjoyed being in the outdoors and these amazing experiences they have, some of which I have to do with the animals zone, which don't. Um, there's all kinds of things that they just took for granted. That many folks who come and hunting later in life and who come for those reasons they want to feel more connective to land, they want to know where more their food comes from, they want to have these experiences in the outdoors, etcetera. They're actually valued by both groups. But someone who grew up hunting, you just you inhaled that as a kid, right, you just you just that we just took that for granted. So you weren't consciously thinking you maybe were consciously thinking about, oh the challenge of it, or that this that whatever the the sort of was forefront of one's mind. They would have identified here's why I hunt. I know, yeah, all those things I hate for granted, Yeah, I guess that's also why I hunt. But that's just taken for granted. And so I think we just emphasize different things that even though we actually share a huge amount of common what's at the forefront of my mind is I'm coming out of being a vegan. Is like, you know, ethical meat and a confrontation with life and death. Right. Well, you know, my buddy who grew up hunting, you know, he's like, yeah, I get that, I love hanging on my death, right, but the you know, the food and and the life and death. You know, he has been leaving breathing that since he was twelve years old too. And I find that, you know what, I found that through through having these exact conversations that I've found myself jealous of the adult onset hunter and vice versa. Right, I'm like, hey, I never really got to think about this until I was a little bit older, and I was you know, I was exposed to people like yourself and Steve Ronelle and other folks that that kind of throw that at me and said like, hey, look, you have to be you have to understand natural history. You have to understand how the natural world works, and how ecosystem work, habits of those And I always felt like I missed a lot of that. I think a lot of the adult onset hunters would look back at me and say, you got an incredible gift where you could spend time with hunting, where you could just appreciate the practice and the craft and and the nature of it without having to wrestle and struggle with the more existential uh you know, and you got immersed in this knowledge and skill. It was you know, you know, by the time you were fifteen years old, like you'd probably you know, learned and then forgotten you learned more things than I've yet learned about actually hunting. Right, Yeah, so we just the way that I got to experience it was very much how it was passed down over many, many generations. And now we have a whole new generation of adult onset hunters. I think you fall into that that are learning it in a hole with a whole new prism, a whole new lexicon of things to try to understand. And I think, my, I don't know, I'd love to hear what you think on this. I think that has the ability to change what hunting is and more or fit generationally. You know, down the road where there's a lot, there's you know, say there's a million, I don't know what the number is, and say there's a couple of million adult on set hunters over the next decade that jump in. And they jump in for the reasons that you did, or reasons similar to you. They're going to teach their kids, um that this thing they learned that, as you said, that enriches their lives. And then they become ambassadors and they're really into it there listening to crap like this and reading books and jumping in. Two people like yourself and George Pellegrini and Jesse Griffiths and folks like that, and so that you feel, like like I do, that has a chance to kind of generationally redefine for a lot of people at least what hunting is and kind of set that path. And I think if we can do that in a way that you know, like this conversation brings together the lifelong hunter and the new hunter instead of saying, oh, we need to take this old rotten thing called hunting and transform it culturally, so it's well, no, no, let's find a way to honor and respect this whole suite of perspectives that are coming to this and all these backgrounds and and you know, we're not all going to become the same kind of hunters or you know, I think exactly the same way. But we can have a shared understanding of what it is we are each doing out there and be in conversation with with the the public more broadly, you know, and the culture more broadly about about hunting um and just just onto those perspective. That's the trick, right, I mean, that's the trick. I think I probably falled into that trap, and I think a lot of people that really want to see change and really want to be able to go to somebody like, look at this thing and it's totality. Look at hunting and its totality, how great it is. It does have cracks, it does have punishes, and there are things that there's things that even that most hunters don't agree with that are happening in a very legal sense in the hunting space. UM, and so I think that is that they're they're in lies. The major issue with with folks that have a voice, like do you say I'm frustrated with this, let's end it, or hey, listen, I grew up doing this. I grew up watching Hunter Specialist DVDs and and idolizing guys that were shooting Big Bucks and like Real Tree's Monster Bucks twenty big Bucks. That was like how I grew up. I don't, I don't. I'm not going to discredit that. Now that I've come to some other understanding about what this really is and kind of grown, I'm gonna say, like, I appreciate that's where I came from. I understand that I got to live a life where that that could be UM. Kind of under the guise of my father and the culture that we lived in. I was able to do that and not have to worry about any of this other stuff. I'm glad I got to do both. But some people, UM, I think, like you said, want to change. I've had people in this podcast that, Um, there's a magazine called Modern Huntsman, and it's it's editor came on here and and basically just said, there's an old way and there's a new way, and I'm the new way. And in a lot of ways I can't agree. The boy that's troublesome. Yeah, yeah, I mean that kind of you know, sort of throw the baby out with the bathwater. One of the things that I have argued, and I think I do argue one spot in the book is that because UM, hunters in this culture are a minority, you know, one of our main challenges how we get perceived by the majority, right, And that's part of what this struggles are over what's the new way, old way, what's going to work? Be more sensitive to public values, you know, my mainstream value. I think it's an important conversation to have. You need to be aware of, um, the reality of what hunting is and how it's perceived. And yet we also need to find ways not to dishonor you know, some of the real roots, the cultural roots of of hunting as as it has you know, existed for you know, for decades and centuries. And I think that's proven tough for hunting. It's because it's proven very tough. It's you can look at it in any number of ways. You can look at it in the archery space where crossbows or not. You know, I know that my my dad now has shoulder issues and shoots a crossbow and and has found hunting much more pleasurable later in life because he's he's deadly with this crossbow, with a vertical bow. He had a lot of trouble over over the just wounding deer and it kind of it worried him. So just that one example, but there's a lot of examples within our space where um there's an example by I wan't have been name, and a lot of names here of of magazines and brands love I love on her husband Tyler. Don't they'll take offense to the point I just made. But there was another magazine that's been around for a very long time that just had an article that talked about um it was it was it was full of angst and a little bit of anger, and it was pointed towards um the food culture and hunting and kind of this cross section that we've touched on a bit here, and it there was some anger in that, Well, we don't want people just coming in hunting space us to eat, you know, they have to understand that there's other things. You know, we want to celebrate Sloppy Joe sandwiches and venison burgers, and we don't want to have to just be cooking shanks and be told that that. You know, there's so many people coming into our hunting space that just wanted, wanted for this reason, and I felt for for reasons you've you've already explained. I feel like, man, that that's tough. That's a loss for us. I feel, um, if we're gonna we're gonna act that way in regards to like how people come in. And I don't think anybody comes in with a foodie mindset is saying that Sloppy Joe's suck um and and and what the guy that loves Sloppy Joe shouldn't be saying that you can't have you can't be have a refined Asabuco and celebrated. So there's just an example of something that came out. I mean there's all sorts of sort of culture and class connotations again come into that. Right, It's like, oh, you know who's coming sort of taking over our tradition, who's moving in on our space politically culturally? You know that's against pensiveness about that, and there's can be from either direction sort of a superiority like ours is the real way or the right way, and that kind of you know, righteousness is not going to get us very far. Yeah, that it was a shocker for me when I read it. I thought that I understood it. I understand the sentiment like you just said that, that's a perfect way too to articulate that feeling where you're I think this comes it's a starting to come out more of seeing it more around. Of course we're exposed to more things via than social media, but you've seen it more around where there is an angst about where some of this more ass hunting gets popularized and there's popular hunters guys like Joe Rogan and retains. This hunting kind of gets introduced to more people, Um, the folks that are kind of either sitting in the background, or would you would consider more core or folks that that don't see hunting as as this aspirational new thing. As we've talked about that kind of where I was when I was a kid, where where major parts of my family are. Now that that's happening, there is a micro culture war going down. Um, I'm heightened too. It sit in the industry and I read as much as I can, but it's happening at some level. Right. Have you seen any of that of it from where you are you exposed to that? That's something? Am I just being an insular I read so much of it when I and immersed more in it. You know, I definitely have seen, say I've seen some of that. Um, I think a lot of you know, some of it's cultural and regional part some of its generational. I mean, I think it's gonna he's gonna work itself out. We're gonna figure it out our time. And you know, just like you know attitudes about oh you never knew you never take antalyst, dear, you only take bucks because we need the population to grow. I was like, well, you know a lot of people have realized that a lot of parts of the country. But there's a new way too many deer. We actually can't do that anymore. We actually have to do this differently, and especially the younger generations, both lifelong hunters and new hunters have embraced that and recognize the ecology and biology involved and and we'll take those happily. Um. But you still have some old timers who are like, I'm not gonna do that. You just refuse, and I get it. You know, it's all right, you know. So I think I think we'll well these conversations within with the honey community. Yeah. I think social media always UM, I hate to always harp on that as it's it's but it's such a factor and now we communicate. Um. I think it has very much influenced because we're able to see, we're able to get a more visual look at the cultural differences in hunting. I mean, I say, you follow a thousand people in there from all over the country, and your feet or whatever you're looking at is full of all these different perspectives and different you know, different ways to communicate hunting. And you see that and then all of a sudden you're you are now thinking, well, I don't like this, and I like this, I like this, and I don't like that, And then you set your echo chamber up that way, and then you push away all these different types of hunting and different types of hunters. I would argue that it's always been like that, it's just amplified now because we could see it. Um. I think that's probably that's has to be true at some level. Yeah, two things I want to circle back to. One One in the comment I just made about age, there's a lot of older hunters I know who are profly happetitudoes and get the ecollege and biology. I don't want to the younger hunters getting the old guys don't. That's not true at all, um, because I know a lot of older hunters who who is generally more really do get it generally more acceptable. Though in the younger Yeah, there's just a few sort of holdouts from the previous generation who just won't go there as always right exactly, Um. And some of this resistance you know that you were talking about two, A particular particularly refined type of cuisine coming into hunting, or just you know, food is not the only motive hunting, And just sort of this defensiveness and in celerity or division within that in community. UM. One of the things that I found really helpful from this. There's whole model called adaptive leadership about sort of social and cultural change, and one of the points they make in in that is that people aren't really resistant to change. People are resistant to loss. You know. People make choices to change all the time. Oh I get I get a new job with more pay, I'll take it. Oh you know, I get an opportunity to you know, get married to someone I love and and maybe have a family, I'll take it. Like people are choosing change all the time. Doesn't present challenges, yes, but they choose change. People don't choose loss, you know. And so when I think that's what some people within you know, some hunters and some subgroups of hunters have a fear loss when they see his other group coming in sort of trying to quote take over hunting or change what hunting is. It's it's that and that's what we need to manage and sort of have conversations about is there really lost happening and what's going on there. That's maybe the best way I've heard ever heard that explained. And I've thought about that a lot, and people who listen to this podcast will cringe it even talking about the grippage and photo, because we talked about that a lot. I think it's become emblematic of what you're talking about, right, in terms of change versus loss and that, and I've always brought up that, I think it would be nice if we change, if we should think about going away from that and changing, um, how we do it. I don't really do that anymore. I don't think that's just it's not the right way that I want to put out that my hunting story. I don't think we all understand why we even do that, why we all sit behind an animal in photo. I don't think we really understand why. Um, And if you start looking back, it's baked into some parts of our culture. I don't think we understand um historically and in other ways I can. I can send you a link to article actually it got I put it was visually came out in High Country, New and then and b h A reprinted it on online m about the photo. And I remember reading that one of the ethics and the emotions that are behind that photo, and how did different people perceive it? And part of the culture. I got into that when I was so I started saying that, right, there's a lot of people that push back on me. No, I like, I'm gonna do what I want to do, and this is how I feel about this photo. I don't want to lose it. Then, as you're just explaining change versus loss, I think what I'm talking about is change and how they see it is loss. Um, And and my points I've made in the past for very much around we're changing all the time. We're changing the way that we depict ourselves in hunting and other parts of our life based on society and culture and what's generally acceptable all the time without even knowing if there's things we would have done fifty years ago on a fishing pier that we would never do right now, and we haven't. We didn't actively say everybody stopped doing that, but over time we changed. Uh, And that gradual change is more acceptable. But when I articular related as I just quit doing it because that was I was done with it. Um, I think it comes across is like this may be a loss for our culture being taken away. It's being taken You're saying that you want to just take this away from us when I think I'm more as I like, developed this thought and try to understand my own feelings about this silly little photo that has become a bigger thing. Um, what you just said, I think incredibly profound around those ideas and how we present them and navigate them and why we feel angry one way or the other about it. And something as simple as a photo like that or a genre of photo, type of photo, can be incredibly powerful as a symbol. It's a cultural symbol, and you want to take that away from me, and my identity is wrapped up in that and you can't take that away. You know, all kinds of things get Yeah, I've felt that, and then I think one way to look at it me like, oh, there's a lot of assholes on the internet. But I don't look at it that way. I look at why are these people angry about this? And why is this? Why does this trigger to use the turn that's probably oversold? Why does this trigger this? Um? Because I feel I feel personally that this is it's been good for me. I've gone back and forth about doing it, and um, not having to sit down and take the photo has been helpful. Like I think for me, that photo symbolizes a lot of things I don't agree with within the hunting culture. So so for me personally, it's removed some of those things from from my experience. But that's just me anybody, you know, I think anybody can do what they want. It can be argued that photos certainly has done some bad things for hunting when it's used, uh, you know, in a negative way, but you can it also isn't positive in many ways too. So that for me, I think, as much as people are probably tired of hearing, it is emblematic of or analogous to what you're talking about there, you know, And so it would be that would be a good thing for folks to return to and remember from this conversation, that change versus loss example, that's a that's a big one. That's a big one. I realized that, Um, early in the conversation we started. You asked about one thing and we went you know, we went away down that that was how podcasts are designed. But I mean you asked, you asked about like when I got into hunting, Like how did I get ready to go out into the woods? You know? Um, and I don't know if you want to go back to that, please, you know, please, I wasn't gonna let you without that, all right, please do we We dove off into the philosophy, right, which is fun. They could you could call my pockets that diving off into the philosophy too soon. Um. So yeah, I mean I was. I had handled firearms a bit as a kid, so that wasn't a big barrier for me. But I'd never you know, gone and hunted for food beyond bull frogs. You know, I never hunted mammals. I don't even know what I would do with it, any mammal, let alone a deer, you know, if if I were to get one. So and this was you know, I was getting into this and like two thousand four basically when I started getting into hunting. Started thinking about it earlier, but but I really started to get into it in in two thousand four. Um, and my uncle is a hunters. I have one immediate family member, my mom's brother, who's a hunter. And though he lives about a five hour drive away, we exchanged thousands of emails, I swear, I mean I was just peppering him with questions, you know, And I was reading and just trying to orient myself. And I did some small game hunting. I did, you know, hunt snowshoe hair up and up and from out a bit. And that was a powerful experience to take a hair um. And then you know, having done you know, on a red and read a bunch of articles and talked about uncle, I I had some sense of being kind of ready to go deer hunting. Did you find a hunter? It helpful? I did it? I mean it was. It's limited, right, because the basic model is based on you know, kids who are coming out of hunting families. That it's not a mentorship program. Those are being developed in various states and by various organizations. But but it's a it's a safety you know, it's on our safety. This is what it really is. And so it covers some basics that are important and and it goes beyond safety a bit. Talks a little bit about conservation and ethics and so forth to some extent. But it's not a like a field training. To really train, its assumes that you have built into your social network or your family the people or person who's going to teach you. It's the minimum. Here's the minimum you really have to know exactly, so you know it, did you know you alluded to you didn't get one the first time you went out, and you know it. I didn't get it here in my first three years, you know. And that's not where I am. It's not on comment. I mean this, and the're not that danse or and the terrain is pretty is pretty thick and a lot of vegetation. It's not that easy to find dear um in a lot of the country that I hunt um. So I was glad the first year. Actually I'm not glad, but I'm not sure I was really ready to take a deer um. But that first year that I hunted, I hunted with my uncle for a few days and he got a deer while we were together, and so I was able to help him with that, which is perfect, Like that's exactly like where what where I was what I was ready for the next year, I you know, tried, I took a shot or two and missed that. I just think I shouldn't have taken And it was, you know, sort of horrified by how easily that could have been a bad, bad hit. So that was difficult. But about third year came along, I was like, all right, come on, a ready, why am I doing this? Still? It's cold? I'm you know, is there really any point? Um supposedly out here doing this thing? But it's totally inefficient. I'm not I'm not actually getting any food from this. This is kind of stilly um. But in retrospect, I'm glad like it didn't happen in my first or even second year, that I needed to have a number of experiences and and spend some time really experiencing the hunt and some of the questions that come up and and some of the challenges of it. Before I finally got I got to talk about building value for something waited three years anything you have to wait three years, so early and so early in my In my fourth fourth year, I got my first year, and that was incredibly powerful, and I didn't know if I'd ever want to do it again. I was just like, after all that, here's a big dead animal, like I mean, and and there was a lot of grief. I mean, just taking the life of a big, beautiful animal. Is that what you remember? We just had a a young lady that works at mediator On and she talked about briefly something that struck me more after the conversation than did in the moment that she on her first deer, which was just just a couple of weeks ago. Now, I had a moment with the deer where the deer was looking at her. It's only hundred yards way eight years away, and she thought, she in her mind thought, this deer knows what's going to happen. And I'm more comfortable now that its like somehow it would recognize the situation, the predatory situation. So that was just an interesting one to me. Other new hunters that I've run across are really interested in how quickly it dies and if there's any twitching or there's you know, so those things I've run into. What did you have any you know, kind of thoughtful moments or things that struck struck you during during that first death, I guess, I mean, I was really committed to not taking the shot unless I was sure. And this is like I said, The woods ended up being like thirty yards broadside waiting for the deer taking extra steps. There were no twigs between me and that deer, you know, or between me and that you know, vital area, and you know, I shot that deer through the heart. At thirty yards and it ran and fell and was done, and I wanted it to go with that quickly. But I think I really experienced shock, just emotional shock. I was, I mean shock it finally happened. I was like, after this many, you know, hours and weeks and years trying shock that had happened. But but emotional shock of just the impact at a at a heart or soul level of taking the life of another animal as big as you are or bigger. You know, there's something about that, especially if you've never didn't grow up doing it, that that hits you pretty Not for everybody, but it hit me pretty hard. And for a couple of days I was just in kind of an altered state of consciousness, just like whoa you know. And And during those couple of days I've always known, especially because going back to being our conversation, I was coming to hunting with many of the same basic values I came to vegetarianism with, including I'm going to confront where my food comes from and really be honest about it. So I had known from the get go that if at all possible, I was going to do all the butchering myself. I wasn't going to take it somewhere, you know, have someon else do it. And so in those few days, you know, a couple of days right after this kill, when I was in this altered state, I was also you know, skinning this deer and quartering this deer and butchering this deer. And that process of just this is the rhythm of working with a knife and breaking down this animal ended up being really important for me. Like in that process, I realized, this feels like really familiar, even though I've never done it before help my uncle, but it feels appropriate and fitting. It's part of how I relate to this place in this land and how I eat, and it feels sort of ancient and you know, sort of almost cellular memory of doing this. And Okay, even though it was emotionally shocking, this makes sense for me. And I don't I'm not eager to run out like next week and shoot another deer, you know, I'm not, in fact, but by next year I'll probably I'll probably go back out in the field try to do this again. And that's what we're listening to. That and you need to talk about alterstate of consciousness like those are those are next level experiences. I think within our world, it's like a three dimensional, very three dimensional experience. And for me, as somebody who didn't really get that, by the time I was able to consciously able to have an experience like that, or mature enough to have an experience like that, I had experienced so many deaths. I could never get there. You know, I've had had a lot of of those same kind of profound moments with far flung places and animals I've never seen. But but just confronting the death in that way, I don't I would be I'm unable to do it. I can't do it because I had experienced that. I remember as a kid seeing my dad shooting first year and he is gutting it, and I remember it's testings are still moving and snaking along and like that's burning my psyche um like many other things. But I would never have had. You know, what is almost could be described what maybe you're describing as like a transcendental experience with hunting, and so there again, it's just a relationship to that that you were able to come from a vegan standpoint. I think as a kid or even as a younger hunter, if you're waiting three years or something. You're you're more impulsive when you get a chance to do it, rather than more thoughtful, which you were, which maybe came from and my second year of taking a whole stupid that, yeah, like, okay, I won't do that again. I find myself sometimes overconfident. You know, look, well i haven't got a deer this year, I'm going to take the further shot rather than rather than sticking to And so we talked about ethics here a lot, and I find myself my own ethical funk ups and things that I probably shouldn't be doing, um, given my experience and my like a little bit of my ego around being a experienced hunter. Um, so I run into that. But I'm listening to your story. I think there's there's a lot of profundity and what that you went through, um, even for me listening to it from from the other side of the table. And the experience has changed over the years. I mean it's not like the second time was still like a powerful and the third time was still and it's still a big experience to take a deer, but it doesn't do quite the same thing to my consciousness, Like it doesn't have the seem emotional shock and the same sort of level of grief off like, oh my god, this animal is dead and I'm the instrument of that. I did that. You know, it's not the same. I've integrated into my psyche more so, it's now more I was trying to It was like this like a media or coming in hitting a planet, right experience, even seriously you think of it. It It was like this massive impact And now I was like, no, that that's already part of my psyche, is already integrated, and it's still important and and reverent and powerful experience, but it's not this collision. Yeah. And I have a three year old son and about to have another one here in a month or so, and I think about them when when when you're talking and I was introduced in a in a wonderful way, like I have great appreciation for the outdoors via my family, my father, especially now that I'm a father, I think about these concepts and exactly when and how do I explain it. So my son already sees me out elk hunting all the time, and every time we go outside, he's are we gonna see an elk? We were in Maryland this week for holidays. We went outside you here for walking in the woods, and he's like, are we gonna see an elk? Are we gonna hunt elk? Are we make Hamburg? Or something? Nobody were not unforsunated like here now there used to be a long long time ago. Uh, But I think about that now in the future sense, where where where do I go with him? I'm not going to drop the bombs of of ethics and consumption in our humanity and our ancestral past. I'm not going to drop those bombs on him for quite a while. Um, But I also don't want to forget about him when when that happened. So this is just something something I'm thinking about it. I'm sure, um that you have to about the future of this thing and generationally what we do with it. Where where do you land on that? If you're explaining to someone who has it, is I a young desire to get into this, how do you walk them through it? Or how would you I guess in this case? Yeah, well, I mean I've actually I've started to mentor young guy who's now thirteen, over the past couple of years, start to get him into it. And we haven't gotten him in here yet, but we will soon. Uh and uh, you know, he like he knows about a book and like I think he has a copy and he can read it if he wants, when he's ready, or if he started it. And I'm always open to as in question, you know, to answering his questions. Um, but I'm also not I sort a way for things to come up naturally conversation. You know, when it's when it's safety and you know, ethics in terms of making a clean shot, then I'm gonna be proactive making sure that we have that conversation, not in some giant philosophical way, but like you know, let's talk about shot angles and let's get this really clear and um do that kind of that kind of technical mentoring and not driving you know, my sort of personal philosophy either, you know, and he'll come out with him, you know, with you'll go through you know, a hunter education class and you know they walk him through a practical course at the end as part of his conservation camp. And there's a different shot opportunities. Would you take this? Why not? You know, there's no necessarily right wrong answer and lots it's a safety issue, but they're walking through this course, and you know, he gets to this one and there's two bears and he said, no, I mean I wouldn't take the shot. To me, ask some you know, the instructor ass and why not, and he says, well, they're together, and like he's recognizing the relationship between the animals. Just like a dough and a and a faun. There's a lot of hunters, including lifel hunters, who won't take They might take a dough, but not if there's a fun there, even though they know the final survive or but there's a relationship. And I think, great, that's you know, yeah, yeah, and then we know we we make these conscious decisions. If for me, I was just recently a situation where they said, well, there's was hunting in Texas. There's an old lady on this ranch. She really wants food. She can't go out and hunt herself. She's kind of the patriarch of this ranch in which we are hunting. And my first thought was my streets first, dear, I see, I don't really care size of deer either. They had to do a deer call anyway, they had to kill a hundred does, and so some of the gloves kind of the ethical gloves come off when you have like, oh, I've reason my way into the first thing. I see, let's go. They're gonna have to kill these deer anyway, and this is going to go to a good cause. I'll be able to deliver a personally deliver this food to this eighty eight year old lady who can't wouldn't move to get it herself. And so I found myself just first though, I saw crack done, took a shot. It worked out fine. But then afterwards, um, it's a it was a one a year old deer that I normally wouldn't shot, have taken back to camp, and some of the guys are cool, that's that's kind of a small one. Um, without knowing the situation, and then I have to explain it away. Just got me thinking about it. I don't feel like it was the wrong thing, but there were just little moments in there where we like to, you know, either take the gloves off or in moments where we can we do. Um. So it's interesting, but I'm sure I'll be doing that for the next thirty years. Yeah, do you think going through going you know, back to your experience from from vegan to hunter, do you think that will become more common. I know we've kind of touched on maybe why it happens and danced around philosophically. Do you feel tangibly that that because veganism is growing, that there will be some sort of return to bunting like we talked about, I think that, you know, that micro trend of of non hunters as adults skinning and hunting, including some whore x vegetarians x vegans, I mean, that's certainly happening. I've been surprised, like I thought, God, this is kind of weird that becoming a hunter aftering the vegetarian. When I was going through it, I thought this is weird. But over the years I've heard about and met more and more people who have done that. It's like, I mean, it's not so weird. You know, it's not that uncommon. Uh So sure. I mean, if there's a if there's a bit of an uptick in veganism, and then some people are returning to more of an omnivorous diet but bringing those questions and those values back to their to their new diet, I wouldn't be surprised if we see a bit more of that. Looking back on your book now, I mean it's been some seven years or six six and some years since it came out. Um what do you think about that experience? Being able to put that out there and and like you said, talked to a lot of different people and go promoted. I mean, we're way past that point in a book's life cycle. But what what do you think? It was a great experience. I mean, I said I had done some freelance writing, but I've never I've never written a book and was not I'm not even sure about the book talk and promotion process. But it stretched me. I mean, it gave me a great experience. I felt like I needed to write that one book. Well, I write another book maybe, but for whatever reason, and that was a story that I needed to find a way for me. It just felt important. I felt called to do that one and to engage in that conversation in a variety of ways online, in person, and and through the book. Um So, I think it was a really valuable experience for me, and it seems to have been welcomed by a wide range of people, hunters and non hunters. So I'm glad to have been able to contribute that. Yeah, and I think it's as I remember, you know, it's been five years now since i've read fully fully through when I was picking up the experts and prep for this, but I found it to be, I think at the time and even now as strangely a modern American story. It's just kind of you don't expect that, you know, not that anybody would would even maybe want that, but but um, in terms of our diet and our choices and now we moved through this world, it's pretty strangely modern American, like we're having to have these thoughts and think through some of this stuff. And I remember being impacted by that, and even now thinking back to it, it is there's some threads in here to what we're all thinking and trying to do. Well. Like anything, it's a product of its times, right, It's a product of what's going on in the culture and society right now. Yeah, seven years feels like I'm feels like forever, but it's still you know, it's not the nineteen fifties, right, still still pretty recent. That's true. That's true. Uh, well, well, thanks for joining me. I do appreciate it. I know we we I always jog off into the philosophical very quickly my pleasure in doing it. I think one thing in closing, um, I wanna I'm gonna keep bringing up Game Changes because it's something that, like I said, I was just answering our THHD at the mediator dot com inbox and there's a bunch of people that were asking questions about that documentary. Do you feel like there's a way to take either your story or a story like it and and produce something as effective as it seems like Game Changers has been? And telling Game Changes again tells the story of vegan athletes and really goes through to to vegan diet and presents meat as some sort of poisonous alternative to the vegan diet. I wonder I know um our own company, Steve Ronello, made a documentary called Stars in the Sky, but it didn't get the same visibility as Game Changers. Do you feel like that's that's on the horizoner could be done. I don't know if it's I don't know if it's on the horizon, but I think it definitely could be done. I think there's been some places where I've seen examples that relate to that about like environmental education for kids. Uh, there's a great short documentary ALTIVI short documentary called Mother Nature's Child and it ties into like um Last Child in the Woods by Richard Louve and all the sort of environment location you know, Steve Stephen Kellert's work again, all this environment education work, and there's a little sex in there. On hunting. It's just like twelve year old girl who's going out for her first tier hunt. It's it's because the overall film is it's not like this is about you know, meat and hunting. The overall film is about environmental education and getting kids connected to nature. But within that there's a little sectional hunting, and so it's I've seen a few examples like that where it's presented as part of a conversation that reaches an audience that can I think is maybe not thinking about hunting much, but it comes in from an angle that that resonates. And so whether it's about food and local food and sustainable food and ethical food, and hunting is part of that conversation. You know, if it comes in like in blaring neon lights, this is about hunting, that is not necessarily the best way to engage to start the conversation. Yeah, you're talking about a very pragmatic, common sense approach to this is a part of this conversation um, as opposed to this game changers that seems like it's just blasting out one thing UM. And so I think it's a big part of part of the conversation me, especially with this cultural creep that we're experiencing. What is what's the Will there be a galvanizing moment where folks that aren't sitting in this room, you know a lot of the people in this library probably don't really know much about this conversation. Is there a galvanizing moment that we're that we're headed towards that question? None of us can answer, but it would be nice. Yeah, I think it's It may not be a galvanized moment, but over the past like ten fifteen years, it's like started to happen. Yeah. Well, and you've you've been a large part of that with with your book. So you can still go and purchase we act like it's been it's in the annals of Times right somewhere in the archives. You still go to Amazon and purchase The Mind of Corner, where I suggest if you haven't read it you do so. Thank you too, Fary, glad to be here. Thanks Matt, Right, I guess I that is it. That's just all we are done. Wow. I really like the mix up there. Yeah, more like a Ebnezer screw like Christmas type of thing I'm doing. Um hey, a couple of days here, next week, next Monday. This is gonna be the Meat Eater. What do we call it? Filled meat or Christmas Special? I don't think it has a holiday extravaganza extravaganza. I have no idea. I'm sure Karen will will name it something, have something name is something entertaining and unless they kick me off, I'll be on there. I wrote something called let's not spoil it. I'm spoiling it. No, Banner wrote something that you can hear on the Meat Eater Holiday Extravag's gonna read the whole thing. Oh no, that's a horrible idea. Okay, go if you listen the expectations everybody listen to this knows about Meat Eater podcast. Um, but anyway, go over there, listen to the Mediator Holiday Christmas Spectrums. Something fun. It's something clever and Ben did a great job and you're gonna want to hear it. Can I not say what it is. No, don't say what it is. Wow, Phil, Phil starting to get a bit. But now people are going to go over there because they're gonna be curious. Yeah, we should keep talking about it, but go over there and listen to that. That's gonna be cool. Um it was fun. I dressed up like Santa uh in, like a dime store Santa costume. It was terrible. It's terrible embarrassing. So check that out. Also, you know, we don't want we don't talk about much anymore here Phil, the Hunting Collective, this is the season to buy stuff the media dot com. I wanta talk about that too much anymore. We got too caught up with other stuff. But if you go over there and you go to shop, and you go to apparel, and you're gonna see stuff like the Aldo freaking Leopold t shirt. There's some Honey Collective hats still left in stock. There's a Hunting Collective hoodie still left in stock. There's all kinds of stuff there that you can buy th HC related and hopefully we will make make some more as time goes on. And so you know, I found also we used to have we sold out of him, but we used have a pro nuanced anti bullshit T shirt. There's a lot of people out there swiping my T shirt, Phil, Yeah. Some knockoffs. Yeah, a lot of knockoffs out there. So if you if it's not at the mediator dot com, report it to the authorities, right, yes, be a good CITI tell the police, the Internet police. That's people are ripping off my idea because probably nobody's ever thought of that before. I'm real proud of it. Heny. Wait. A lot of stuff for you to do, a lot of stuff for you to buy. But I'm only saying this because I figured you're in the buying mood anyway, and so that's it. That's all I got till you got anything else. No, I don't have anything. Uh. Next week is Christmas, and we were gonna be gone, Yes we will be We're out. We're out of here. So we're giving you the best of th see starting next week for four straight weeks, the best of t So you're gonna love it. A lot of you rode in to tell us what to do. We put together a lot of episodes for you. The first episode features my favorite characters, and that's Wyman Menzer Dushan Smintana, Charles Rodney. That's the first episode. There's my favorite characters from ninety some episodes of The Hunting Collective. Uh. We have appearances from Steven Ronella learning about Game of Thrones. We got Cameron Haynes doing packed ump talking about The Bachelor. We've got rewind on our trip to Berkeley. We have a whole show about bear attacks where guys gets get their sacks ripped open by bears and faces ripped up by bears. We have a whole episode on Legends of the Outdoors Vlarious Geist, his returns, Um, Jim Pozwits, and Colonel Tom Kelly. So lots of that. I very much enjoyed putting that together over the weekend for everybody because I love all those people and I love all those moments and they're very special to me. So enjoy those. For the holidays. We're gonna go celebrate Christmas. I'm gonna have a child. But we'll see you after all that in about a month. Anything else to say, Phil, uh, you know, just just be safe and have fun out there, guys. Yeah, um, yeah, I hope to see you again after the name come back soon. Bye, you know. Because I can't go a week without doing right, oh without right ring out right wrong, drinking in even don't. Sitting at the possible would stop this rohole route. Either lacking all on our parashoes or tell me what is it that I should

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