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zero to save off your initial purchase. My name is Clay Nukeoleman. I'm the host of the Bear Hunting Magazine podcast. I'll also be your host into the world of hunting the icon of the North American wilderness Prepare. We'll talk about tactics, gear conservation. We will also bring you into some of the wildest country on the planet. Chasing the fair. You often hear us talking about Northwood's bear products and specifically their gold Rush, which is a friar grease additive.
We're doing a giveaway this week. We're gonna send a eight ounce bottle of gold Rush to one of you. Here's what you gotta do. Go to iTunes and rate our podcast and leave a comment. Take a screenshot of your comment, and then send it to us either through Instagram Private message, Facebook private message, or email us at info at far hyphen hunting dot com. We'll send out a bottle of gold Rush to you just by leaving
a comment on the podcast and radiness. This is a really fun podcast with some guys that I've known now for about a year. I started watching the Untamed on the YouTube when they were just getting started, and I saw that these guys had a lot of potential, mainly just because of how authentic they were, and I could tell that they were good hunters, and I could tell that they were committed to the platform and what they
were doing. I reached out to these guys a while back and just to encourage them and just to say what I thought they were doing. It was cool. On this podcast, I sit down with Josh and Kirk from the Untamed YouTube channel and we talk about building the YouTube platform, YouTube analytics. We talked about some hunting, we talked about hound hunting, we talked about their very unique style of deer hunting, and it's just overall a super fun podcast. I even do a couple of impressions of Josh.
So you're gonna want to check this out? Say it again. I've been I've been going back and forth on it. Well, no, I think I'm dyslexic. I was putting the D before the L and called you, Colonel Idler. Yeah that sounds pretty good. Yeah, I like that better. But everybody says the Elderton. Nobody says the Olderton. We are at the We're in Indianapolis. I was actually confused about what town
I was in this morning. We drove from Arkansas last night and Uh, I told, Well, I guess I wasn't confused about the town I was in, but I said, I said, Kobe, we were here last year, and he was like, no, we weren't. We were in Louisville, and I said, no, we weren't. A t A was in Indianapolis. So I guess I was confused about what town I was in last year at this time. But then he said that you were flying I told Kirk last night, I said, he's flying up. I said, that's a long
drift Rkansas. It was a long drive. It was nine hours in the rain. But hey, we're here with UH with two of our two of our buddies, Uh from a YouTube channel. I'll just put it on the table, Uh Josh, Uh, geez, we're gonna cut this out. Pronounce your last night. I've been going to Josh Oddlerton for like two years, Josh Josh Alderton, Josh Elderton, Josh Elderton Price and uh and Zach over here, and I got
Colby Moore head the bear Tech. But h man, we're gonna have a good, good conversation about I want to hear about. We're gonna talk about some YouTube stuff. We usually don't go into like the back room of outdoor media to that kind of talk about, you know, kind of how some of this stuff works. But I want to talk to you guys about your YouTube channel because you guys have built a really cool YouTube channel. Um and I think you've got forty something thousand subscribers on
YouTube and producing a lot of content. But I'm more interested in your hunting. I want to talk about your white tail hunting and some of your bear hunting with hounds and uh, turkey hunting. You got a you got a turkey video that's got three point three million views, don't you That's crazy? Because we did. It was a compilation video. Yeah, it's got three and a half. We talked about it all the time. Yeah what Josh? Okay, before we hear Josh's voice too much. Yesterday in the car,
I did a Josh impression that was uncanny, uncanny. I'd like to hear it right now. Well, I tell you I lost it. We it was so good. I got excited more to come see Josh and to come to yesterday. Yesterday I told Kobe that Josh called me and I said, I said, yeah, Josh called me. He said, hi is Josh, And I nailed it, nailed it, nailed, and then I lost it because this it was like better it like
it's about the voicemail. I left it. No, just just talking to you yesterday I told cold said, Josh called me, and I just was trying to say what you said and you were like, Hi, this is Josh. That's pretty good. How are you doing? Are you doing? Man? We're gonna have a great time at a Yeah. I mean Kirk's coming up. Yeah, hev me rolling. It was good by Well do you think Zack? Because that is that pretty good? Pretty good. I had a whole conversation with COVID. It
was amazing. You have a lot of conversations in the nine and a half hour drive. Uh. Me and Kirk saved the world on our drive in New Mexico. So I bet you did, oh twice? Yeah. Well, hey, Josh, introduced yourself, give us us a little a little uh, just your where you're from, your family, just a little bit of history, just so we can kind of know who you are. UM, Josh Ilderton. So Clay can pronounce my name right, Obviously he's thought I was somebody else
the last couple of years. Born and raised in West Virginia. UM military guy, UM veteran Marine Corps and got a wife and a son. And I absolutely have a die hard passion for anything outdoors. And I could care less what it is. UM, I just like being outside. Um. So you were in the military when you graduated from high school? How long we're in the military five and a half years. Originally was in for four and then I signed an extension to go back over seas for
eight teen months, and UM then got out. And I want blue blue collar guy. Um. I've got a construction company and a welding fabrication shop, and I believe in you know, everything you get you you go after, you get paid for hard work. I mean, I believe in it. If you get up early and every day and you get after it, then you get rewarded for it. Um and then the untamed you know, Kirk. Um, I brought this idea, you know a couple of years ago about the untamed, and I bought into it. And did you
guys know each other? We we we were acquaintances. Yeah, we kinda uh my buddy Trace yea. And of course you know if you watched our videos, you've seen Tracey in the videos. He uh he was like, uh, hew, do you want to go bear hunting? And uh that's how I met Josh that way. Yeah, Kirk, go ahead and introduce yourself so we can, right, Okay, Yeah, I didn't want to get too far into it because I was kind of part of the story. I guess. Um. My name's Kirk Price. I'm also from uh West Virginia.
Um I have. I've been doing this video thing for uh quite some time now. It started as a hobby when I was probably in middle school. I was just using my parents cameras, using cell phones, whatever I couldn't get my hands on. And uh I got a anyways, I started you know, building up quite a bit of footage, and I got a job working for Buck Commander while I was in college, and so, uh it was kind
of like an internship deal. I wasn't looking to do it full time, um, but it was more of like a you know, a life experience I couldn't turned down. And so I went out there and I worked for Buck Mander. I lived in Arkansas and uh, actually I don't know. Yeah, I lived in Arkansas. Uh actually it's called do you know where Harding University is? A? Okay, so I lived like right there, and seriously I believe it.
Yeah yeah, And uh so I got well, actually the guys that I was filming and like I was headquartered right there, but I would drive down to Louisiana. They're there in uh Louisiana. So it was you know, I was jumping back and forth across the line. Um. But yeah, so I got my start to Buck Commander, and really they taught me. You know, I went from just running a camera and auto to really running a camera, you know,
really learning cameras and stuff. And then uh, after that was over, I went to I went back to school when you know, finished school up and while I was in college. Uh, that's when Tracey was like, hey, you know you want to go bear hunting you And I was like, sure, you know I didn't. I'd never coon hunted. Rabbit hunt had nothing to do with hounds. I mean, I knew you know nothing about it at all. At Bear Hunting Magazine, we partner with some of the best
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So he's like, Hey, we're gonna rote with this crazy guy. He's like, he's my buddy. He's like, but like if he does something good, I know who you're talking about. Yeah, I think he's in the room with the spoiler alert. He's like, uh, you wanna you wanna go? So I was like, yeah, let's let's go. I I took my camera and uh, I was just taking still photos. You know, these people were probably never had cameras around him, and I'm pointing it out. I'm just going to town taking
photos and stuff. And I had a blast. And and that day was I mean, we we I believe we treated bear and killed it and we had a really good time. But I was like, man, I was like that that Josh Kat. I was like, you know, he's
pretty cool. So we went about our ways and then we wanting to start, you know, I was wanting to do something and I was I didn't, you know, want to get stagnant, and uh, you know, Tracey and I started talking and we went to Josh, and I was like, hey, you know, I started thinking, and then you know, I realized West Virginia has a training season for Bears. That's um all year long. I mean, you can run bear anytime West Virginia. So I was like, huh. And then
this YouTube thing started. You know, I could tell that it was going to take off. And and uh me, you say YouTube thing? You mean you didn't have a channel yet, know, you just spent YouTube in genera that platform. I could tell something was there and and people were probably gonna start going away from cable because none of my buddies have cable anymore. And like, I feel like my generation is kind of changing that, like we're going to like fire sticks and rokup or whatever it's called
and stuff like that. So we went to Josh. Wait a minute, you said my generation as if, like, Josh and I are old? Is that what you is? That what you bet? I kind of implying that, but I wasn't going to directly say it. He opens doors for me, and there's your stuff before you, sir, You go ahead. We've been mistaken for father and son how many times? A lot? I mean, oh yeah, kills me. We're going to a gas station. We're going to gas station get our biscuits before we go bear hunting. It well though,
they'll be like, oh, here's your dad's biscuits. There. I don't know what you wanted. Well, if you had a beard, you look a little bit older. Listen, that's what I listening. I want a beard so bad. It's just not gonna happen. They don't. I don't know if you've seen me trying to grow one, but it's pretty good work, pretty patchy. Okay. Anyways, we went, I just I kind of we figured out that YouTube platform was was a good way to go
for us, and uh I knew. I mean I when I went bear hunting, I literally was like, I don't even I don't know if I've even seen a bear hunting video, like how hunting video. So then I got on YouTube and I was like bear hunting with hounds, just some generic search, you know, And of course I come across your videos and I was like, I was like, this guy, you know, this is the only guy I've seen doing any type of hound stuff. And it's not
like you were only doing hound or something. You did a wide variety of bears, but you had some hound hunting videos on there. I was like, huh, and the ones that you had on there had done really well, like views wise, So I was like, man, I was like, we need for this YouTube, like we want to put out a ton of content. And I was like, bear hunting is a ton of content, Like it's interesting just
because you can do it so much. Training season is all year long, twenty good days in the fall, like a white tail rut, right, and for us, you know, it's not about killing the bear. Um, it's about it's about our dogs and the hounds. And so when we're able to video, you know, people see our dogs progress on you know, on video or seeing new dogs and they ask us about them. It's just unlimited content and so uh yeah, that's kind of how the Untamed got started.
But yeah, so the when did you actually start the YouTube channel? Um? Our first video was in Okay, so just almost almost two years. So let me describe what kind of the different styles of YouTube channels. To me, you guys are like a classic YouTube channel, Like the platform is really seems to be designed for people that are producing a ton of content, would you agree, Cobe I didn't have Colby introduced himself tech the um people.
People think I'm Colby's father, they don't. Yeah, yeah, I gotta keep it trim light like, so it looks like it's intentional. So the platform really seems to be geared towards people that are producing a ton of content, like putting out weekly stuff, you know, um in in you know, the hunting public. That they kind of they didn't they didn't pioneer that at all, but they they made it
real successful in the hunting space. Yeah, I don't think that they pioneered it, but I'm gonna tell you right now that they opened a lot of doors up for because like Hushing had been on YouTube for I think eleven years, eleven or twelve years, So I think that
they they're like original outdoor channel. Yeah, now what th HP and I honestly we talked about it all time, but we get in a buying on our channel because of content, because Kirk is the editor, producer, the hunter, the houndsman, dog handler, you know, everything you know, and we're wearing all those hats. But YouTube reward you. We can see a difference in YouTube when Kirk in the office season, when Kirk's able to pound out the videos
and we're putting two videos out a week and working instant. Yeah, then all of a sudden we start going to the top of the food ladder. Yeah yeah yeah, and our subscribers, our views, everything goes up. So if we miss a week. So there's there's analytics that are working behind the scenes. Like I think most people that would watch YouTube that aren't creators YouTube creators, they might just think, well, if you put a good video up, it's gonna get a million views. If you put a bad video up, it's
gonna get a thousand views. It's not true. It's there's there's there's algorithms and mechanisms at play that are bigger than what YouTube even lets people know. But they do reward people for consistent content. Um, they reward people for the type of content I mean, like hunting stuff is already at a back. It's it's like a step back from their premium content. They penalize us because it's like
sensational content. Like if we were creating I can't remember the exact terminology, but I mean, if we were creating like you know, like ballet videos, they would they would much more freely distribute our stuff. We we we talked about it yesterday on the web here, and it's funny to bring up, but we talked about it. If if Kirk would we talked about Moon and Truckers. What we talked about Moon and Truckers got the road out here. Can guarantee it. If we Moon Truckers and videoed it
and put it up, it would blow up. We'd get millions of views and people would laugh. And but for us it's it's not the right thing to do. So we decided against it. You know. And then without door videos, you kind of take they would rather have that type of content then an outdoor setting content. Yeah, like you know, more geared towards hunting. Uh, there's a there's a classification and and and I've really studied into it when I first got our YouTube channel, going, Um, there's a classification
that we are inside of there. I mean, they they have ways to categorize creators and we're automatically and I can't remember the exact details of it. Basically, our stuff is already at a slight disadvantage from more stuff that they would consider like benign content. Um, but I wanted to say so, so you guys are producing kind of
like live action stuff. Like the whole the whole thing is that you're producing content that like it's quickly coming out to right, It's not so typically when you watch a show on the Outdoor Channel, that stuff is filmed a year a year out, like from like two thousand and eighteen, but it's two thousand nineteen, but you're watching two thousand and eighteen footage, So they got that's why you got. You know, there's a lot more done to
it and stuff. But the way we do it is I might film it tomorrow and put it up today, and it's I mean, that's that's what that's why YouTube is popular, right, I mean, that's why it works. Right. And and you know I've seen um TV shows, uh you know, hunting shows that they'll take their episodes from the show and then directly upload that same edited version they put on the show and put it on YouTube.
It'll get like and these are like major like big money production TV shows on the Outdoor Channel, they'll put it on YouTube and they'll get like two or three views. And that's because the content and what what people want to watch from YouTube versus TV is completely different. And some people, you know, they can't understand that it's tough to wrap your mind around. Yeah, but there's an authenticity factor that comes in when you're looking at something that
has a time stamp that was from last week. Yeah. I mean when you when you watch it and you're like, man, they filmed this last week, you know, and it feels it feels relevant, it feels like real time. I said partly just that all to say, what we're doing now is not very good for YouTube, even though it's working for us. We're getting to the point where we're trying to make eight to ten kind of cinematic, polished, like the best you know, production that we can do in
produce eight to ten maybe twelve videos a year. That's kind of our platform, and it actually doesn't work very good for YouTube. We would do better on like Netflix or or something like as an episode show. And that's just the decision we made. You know, we don't have a U which I mean Netflix could be a route of the future. You know, well, boy, if anybody could
play no, no, I mean, it is work. It's just a little different strategy when you know, you know, when we met last year, you were at twenty six thousand subscribers. When we talk last when you're you're right almost fifty now, yeah, yeah, so this working. I mean obviously, so something's working there and you're not doing the consistency. You're not hitting the
consistency part of that algorithm to drive you up. But when you do put a video out, I'm sure that once people start watching it, then YouTube goes, hey, they're watching bar Hunt magazine videos. So they start clicking and start putting your thumbnail up above everybody else is for a while, and then Peter's off. I'm sure that they, yeah, start driving it back down. It's so interesting to me
from a marketing perspective, all that stuff. But we had a video, well that bear video, the Roy Clark you know, uh Appalachian Laurel Mountain bear video. This last week it got like sixty five thousand views. Yeah, it was dead for a year, I mean, just gaining like views a month. I can't tell you why that happens either, it will random does that happened too? It goes. It happens all the time. Now. The only one that stayed consistently growing is the one we have with every three inion views.
It just keeps going, keeps going, keeps going. It's not extremely fast, but it's also not slow. I mean, it just it doesn't stop. And um, the biggest reason why is, uh, what I believe is the thumbnail. I think the thumbnail when it comes to YouTube videos, and that's what people will put all their work into the video. But when we first got started, we actually talked to someone locally and he said, if you spend you know, three hours editing the video, you need to spend two hours on
your thumbnail. Which you know that's probably overdoing it. He was making a point to me, and it's stuck to it. Stuck with me because I figured that out. So I'll think of a you know, my when I'm out there hunting or I'm out there doing whatever, the whole time, I'm thinking what would be a catchy thumbnail, because the first thing you gotta get someone to do is click on the video before anything. It doesn't matter how good
the video is if they don't click on it. Yeah, the our our best videos have good thumbnails and that that usually is a big part of it. But well, uh, so you're you're working full time, and so the un teamed guys, you guys turkey hunt, you're deer hunting, your bear hunting. Those are the main things you're doing, right, Yeah, Turkey bear deer, and then we will travel to like like we just got back from Mountain Lawn. Yeah yeah, yeah. But now the new Mexico stuff. Y'all just put out
that this year. When when was that decent Thanksgiving week? Yeah? Man, that was awesome. Well, the one video was from last year when the very first one, so I saved did something we normally won't do, saved a video from two thousand and eight. Well it was two thousand nineteen in January last year, and and uh, I saved it because I knew we were going to go back out there.
So I was gonna let that video kick things off for the new set of videos, hoping it was just kind of a shot in the dark, hoping that this year panned out, which I was guessing it was going to, Yeah, because we just went in with a different strategy. Yeah, and it panned out so nice. Well for for anybody that's not seen your white tail stuff, then you are killing some incredible deer there in West Virginia. Is it
West Virginia? I thought we were hunting up in Kentucky. Yeah, yeah, no it Uh, we we had a good year the first mean, I was just surprised that the quality of bucks that you all pretty consistently see, right, I think that surprised a lot of people. It does. It does because you don't when you think of West Virginia, you don't think of big white. You don't think of white
to hunt. No, nobody does. Yeah, Um, especially in the in the industry now and then the spot in stock I'm like you guys are doing, describe describe a hunt in those places you are hunting, Josh, Um, miserable. Miserable, No, not miserable. In the train it's and it's fast. I mean, you know how in the Midwest you've got these big valleys and canyons and yeah, it'll take you all day
to walk from one side of the other. And in southern West Virginia where we hunt, I mean you'll be the top of a ridge in the creek and on the other other side of the ridge an hour and a half. You know, it's it's straight up, straight down, back down. Yeah, and we're hunting. And then we hunting an old old coal mine and reclamation. So it's kind of like so it's open when they when they get
down with the reclamation part of it. I mean, it kind of reminds you of the Midwest of kind of the rolling hills and the kind of prairie until it grows up. Now, when it's it grows up, it's just a big forest. Call. So you're you're nasty, thick hunting time the way you are hunting, and that I guess is sort of limited. Well that stuff grow back, oh yeah, yeah, yeah,
So like it's kind of strange. But like just because this area is awesome right now, we're able to and not that it gets bad, but you're you're hunting style has to change because it's just like our clear cuts. I mean, you'll probably have clear cuts. I mean, we're they're they're cutting and they plant pines. Maybe you don't,
I don't know, but in Arkansas they do that. And then you know, you'll have five six years before the pine trees grow up so tall that it's just a thicket, right, you know, but before you might be able to see three yards and too. You know when they say they freshly uh you know, reclaiming area something, well they'll use like hydro seed and you know they'll be clover and stuff, and so you know, there's it's almost like a mountain food plot that we don't have the luxury of ever
hunting other than when something like that happens. They're still mining there and doing stuff like that. Oh yeah, so there'll be new places you can. Well, the surface my is going is going away. Just they're just taking they're peeling the tops off these mountains. Yeah, and then and then they put it back, but just not to that. So if you haven't seen their videos, these guys are glassing on tops of these big ridges and seeing seeing across big valleys and spotting deer and then moving around
and and that's what you know on our videos. It is so hard to show the viewers. Kirk does a great job in in a fifteen minute span to show the viewers that what a day's like. But we might last for three hours and not see anything. Yeah, and you just get headaches and it might not see anything. It's just like the video of him we were talking about it last night of him spotting is talking that that Bucky he shot in the early season. I mean
they laid down the human lane. They laid down there for three hours in the rain, sixty yards from this deer and stayed right there until the deer stood up. But you can't put that three hours in there. Nobody's gonna watch it. Um So it's hard to, yeah, to show really how difficult it is. Yeah, in the time and the in the in the misery and you know, not misery because you're after loving what you do, right,
But I'm saying it's sometimes it's it's really tough. But I mean we hunt on the I think introduced Kirk to hunting on the ground. Yeah, I mean I didn't. I grew up hunting like, uh what typically most people do, Like a hunted a piece of private property. It was
just like a basically like a family farm. We had you know, stands here on that point, you know that cut through whatever, you know, the typical spots like that, and uh it my my style of hunting was what I would think like most p people do, you know, not not what we're doing now. What we're doing now is like the Midwest, like the it's like multier hunting or something. That's fun. That's what it's so crazy about it, right, it's a it's so I mean, it's extremely fun. Is
there a lot of that kind of country over there? Um? A decent amount. Yeah, I mean there's it's not it's not all over the place. You got to be in the right areas. But yeah, yeah, so I mean it's like, well, I could guess that in the stand and hope something comes to this funnel, or I can go out there and chase them down in gilly suits and try to make it happen. You know, were you hunting like that your whole life? Yeah, I've hunted on the ground. I think I've killed two. Two of my dear have a
tree stand. Most of your hunting was off the ground. Yeah, we taught you to do that. Did you just start? Know? When I got out of the service um Apacan buddies with a guy named Keith Alfrey, and uh, we started hal hunting together wild boar and we started hunting them on the ground. And I was watching him hunt on the ground then just like spotting stock hunting them. Yeah, dogs, No, you can't hunting hawks with dogs there in West Virginia. But just hunting on the ground and jumping them up
and then stalking them after you jump them. And but then we started deer hunting, and I started deer hunting with him, and he would he would walk, grunt, he'd blind snort ways, um everything. And I was like, and then we started killing deer. Nick we we we doubled up one day and I was like hooked. We killed two pope and young deer on the ground on one day. And I was like, man, this is the best thing ever. And you see so much. That's the greatest thing, you know.
I'm not real keen on. I mean I do it because I think that there are certain times that you need to hang in the tree all day long. Um Like if I mean, like you know, Ohio or something, we don't have the same terrain that we're do in West Virginia. UM, So I think that you know, there's times that hunt on the ground, but you see so much and you see something dear opportunities. It's just like Kirk said, you can you can sit in this stand, in this saddle or wherever on this ridge on this
point and wait for a deer to come. Or you can go out there and you can see there and try to make it happen. Now, you're your chances of getting a shot in that saddle, in that tree stand are higher if a deer comes through, higher percentage chance of Yes, absolutely I think may sit there for three days. So on the ground, I don't think that the success rate of getting a shot it is lower. But you'll learn, you're you will learn a lot about the game's terrain.
It's more fun and it's and it works for it. Like we said, it ties into content because now we're getting Yeah, we spooked the buck, but we got a YouTube video out of it, you know, you know, and we don't care if we spoke a buck. And we're not like most. I mean, I get the thrill of I'm you know, I hang chalk cameras and stuff, but I'll take it, you know, a good buck, you know, I'll shoot it. I mean, it doesn't have to be a monster. It doesn't have to be that deer that
I'm hunting. You know where the business we're in, uh we are, you know, Josh always says we're opportunists. You know, we don't. We don't pass up good bucks. We care less you know, uh you know about killing big giants or something, but we will. I mean, you know, everybody, everybody, everybody wants to kill Crockett just to give an idea of how good some of these deer are. How big was that dear that trace killed this year. Oh that was I believe it. And uh, it grossed almost one
almost one night. What are you serious? Yeah, in West Virginia. And yeah, you know those pictures. I thought, I mean, just because of where it was from, I thought, there's no way that deer is as big as it looks. I mean, nothing against them. And I didn't. I knew it wasn't a trick photo. It was just like, that's a huge deer, that deer um in that area, that
there was one killed a few years ago. Um that scored two at three And we believe that might that that dear has some relation to it, whether it's his father that he didn't video that he did not know. Yeah, he was just hunting. I mean, Tracey's kind of took a step back because of his works. He's a pipeliner so and he's seven days a week, so he took kind of a a step back from the video. So
that's his second boom. Crockett deer in West Virginia. That's incredible. Yeah, Zach's killed one or two, he's killed two boot and Crocketts. Is that in West Virginia. Another buddy of ours just killed too. Bootm. Crockett's his brother killed one Bootom Crockett. Um, yeah you got killed. His brother killed one this year. Yeah. Yeah. It is a great uh white tail. And it for the people listening we hunt in bow only county? Is
that because there's so many people there? Why did they do there's four counties in West Virginia that are bow only. There's no muzzleload or no no firearms whatsoever. They closed in nineteen seventy nine because of the dear population. Um, there were no dear so it wasn't a safety concern. Well, I think part of it was safety. Um, there were there had been a couple of shooting accidents. There was a safety concern and low deer population. And then low
deer population there was no hunting at all. No, yeah, I mean it didn't no bow hunting anything. And then they and what they did was because of how low the dear population was. We talked about hogs. They brought in wild hogs ums and and that's what people get. You're like, uh, you think, like why wouldn't they let you know, everywhere else in the country. You go, They're like, uh uh, wipe the hogs out, you know, kill them all you know, trap them that you know, you got
that attitude towards them. But our hogs are like they're supposed to be on wild, so they don't they don't spread like those Ferrell hogs do. And so you know, I don't know how long the hog has been there, but they're still in the same area they put them in years and years ago. And they brought those hogs in because there was nothing else for people to hunt. Really, yeah, y'all just do things a little different West Virginia, don't you. Yeah? Yeah,
Like how many states bring hogs and release them? Oh man, I had no idea. Yeah, yeah, And so that those bow only counties, Um, the deer have time, yes, And that's the number one that that That explains a lot to me. I mean, I mean, and you let a deer get old. It's not only so the rest of the part of the state is three bucks. You can kill three bucks, but only is one buck. So you've got you know some really, I mean, people will be like, oh, they've brought deer in from I've heard all kinds. They
brought deer in from Wisconsin. They've brought deer in for down there. But that's not the case. Um, the deer are they just have more time to you know, typically you're not and it's not you're you're taking to all the right equation. Yeah, that's exactly right. So you're taking a place that the dear one have time to grow. And number two, it's hard as heck hunting down there. Uh, I mean it, it is. Access wise, it's tough. If just someone you know, someone comes down there and tries
to hunt, it's a good luck. Yeah, if you don't know the right you know the right thing, the right people, the right I mean, you will learn quickly. If you and Kobe would come down or to bow hunt, obviously you all would happen in with us. But it's not a resident at the nation, right, you might you might run into crazy Billy up the Holliday. You might bring come out with a shotgun just because Yeah, very little. I say the same thing about Arkansas to keep people
out there. We're very we have secret we have quink. We have very little little public land. You don't have public land. We have very little. Okay, Now a lot of West Virginia has a lot of public am I right? And like say the county, I'm I'm from Boone County. I don't think there's actually any public land in that time. I see. That's surprising to me. Yeah, and I think that we, you know, Boone County actually might be the only county in the entire state. That's cool, man, that's
all news to me. I didn't I didn't realize that. So that's why the quality of deer is where it's at. Yeah, in those southern four counties. They call him the Southern four hunting only counties. Oh that's cool man, Um, that's cool. So that that's what gives them time and there everything all game really flourishes down there. Do you have real good turkey hunting? Oh? Yeah? Man? How many? This is
how I know. This is my gauge. I mean maybe it's everybody's gauge, but I know what I would tell you if I was talking about Arkansas, perfect morning in the spring, standing on a ridge, bartel hoot, how many gobblers you gonna hear? Gobble? You might not hear him none less depends on that morning. I mean, I mean, would that be some places where you'd hear oh? Yeah, absolutely, yeah. I mean I'm talking thing in the world. Okay, would
you would you hear? Would you hear twenty. No, I don't think I have a piece of property, um, now that is loaded with turkeys. I mean, like I he's never took me down there. Yeah, this is a secret piece of property. Okay, they know what county it's in, hel wrong county. But a lot of people too about Arkansas. Don't worry. I know you're lying, but it is. I mean it's actually kind of different terrain and it's part of the reason why. Um, it's like rolling it more
rolling hills and stuff. Which is I prefer hunting that turkey hunting then that straight up and down you know. Um, but I mean it really is. I mean I tagged out the first two days season. Uh, I made turkeys. Can you kill too? Just to so? I mean he you killed one out there? He missed one too, Yeah, the first turkey ever missed. I'll get you. Yeah, you could that you could. You could hear tin twill birds for sure in the mornings. You know there's a lot
of birds in West Virginia. Josh, what's your what's your favorite thing to hunt? Well, let me let me let me back up from that question. I think, uh, I think you guys kind of represent kind of the the true Southern woodsman in that I find a lot of Western guys maybe, and that's the wrong way to say it. My dad wanted me to be a He called it a pH d. He said, I want you to have a PhD in Arkansas hunting. He wanted me to be a deer hunter, turkey hunter, bear hunter, you know, like
do all these things? Well, know how to you know, just be a woodsman that could hunt all year round. That that's the way I perceive you. It's somebody that's doing a lot of stuff. Am I righting? Yeah? I mean I are you a good turkey hunter? I killed turkeys? Am I the best collar in the world? No? Do I get up every morning? Do I hunt until legal time every day? Absolutely? You do? Does that present opportunities? It does? That goes back to the hard work I
believe in it. I mean, am I the best turkey collar? No? But do I kill turkeys every year? I? Absolutely will? Yeah. I love smashing the heads. You get a little bit excited when you kill them, don't you. Yeah. Back to the three million views, That's probably part of the reason why Alice video does good because I don't think I've ever seen someone freak out like you did on a few days. Uh yeah, yeah, baby, you know, and then you know I get excited. I mean, um, I love turkey,
I mean I love it all. Um, if I if if I could do it twelve months out of the year, I would, I mean, which which we hunt probably nine or ten months out of the year because we predator hunt. I mean, as soon as we get back from here, you know, we're gonna start predator hunting and we'll do that for a couple of months and then back into turkey hunting and the um training season after turkey season,
where what's your favorite? Um, what's your favorite thing? You gotta have one that you wouldn't Actually you can just pick one. Do you just get one time of year? I cut in though it really I just I could care less if I'm even hunting anything. I just like being outside. Um yeah, I mean yeah, you know I'm not. I like being out there. I mean I love turkey hunting. I love dear hunting. I love my hounds. Yeah, there's no better. There's nothing better in those in those tide
hollis in southern West Virginia. I'm telling you right now, Clay, there's not a better sound than a pack of five head of hands coming through it and you hear you hear them from way off and it's just like a it's all together. And then as they get closer and closer than you start haying, Hey, that's gage, that's that's bliss, that's you know, you start hearing all the separate barks and it's I'm telling you man. And then in those tight I mean, it's just a great sound. I love
hearing that. And um, and then when I got into hound hunting, Um, I started doing it, you know, twenty years ago, but when I started getting my own dogs and my son, that's the big thing with me too on a hound hunting is it it's such an easy way to get your kids outside. Um My son has been He went to his first tree. He was almost three years old. He was doing diapers. I mean, I had a diaper in my back pocket and wet white,
you know when we went to the tree. And and to this day he absolutely like he's never killed a bear, and I don't know how many he's seen. But we have so many kids and it's just it's such an easy way to introduce kids to the outdoors. Because of attention Spain. There's always something happening when you're head hunting, and if it is, if there is a don't have to be quiet, don't have to worry about scent, you
don't have to work camouflages. But what I've told them because when I was working at Buck Commander, I mean I was filming Duck Commander two, I was like, this is our duck hunting, Like what they do? You know you have to sit there and beetles still when you've got ducks flying in whatever. But it's so relaxed. Yeah, there's other people involved. I was like, that's a good disc this version of duck hunting. And because we really
don't waterfoul hunt at all. I mean you know some people do in West Virginia, but it's very, very minimal. But I can answer your question. My favorite is hound hunting for real, for real, And I see that surprises me because you didn't even you didn't grow up with hound right, really like better than deer hunting. Absolutely do deer hunting. I get stressed out and stuff when I'm hound hunting. I mean I I've I'm obsessed with it
right now. I mean now I love he Yeah, the day that he came hunting with us with the crazy guy when he was the crazy guy, and he I will I could say, I could probably answer that for you and tell you that your favorite because he's doing something every day with the hounds. Yeah, I mean every like that. The other day we killed a bobcat with our hounds in West Virginia. Um, and then you know, the next night I was coon hunting, you know, with them same dogs. Like we don't will you call our
dogs meat dogs? Meat dogs? There's there's two things we don't want them to run well to genera, you know, we don't want them to run deer and Cootie's He's like, but I'll hunt mine on bobcat, uh, cons, bears whatever, take them to New Mexico for lines. Yeah. Yeah, man, that's that is really cool to hear. Yeah, that's cool to hear. You know. The so we can't run big game in Arkansas, but we coon hunt and my my dogs all their litter mates and all the lineage of
my plots of big game dogs. So I kind of have I feel like I've got a hand ending the big game dog, you know, but coon hunting for us all the I mean, I've taken I don't even want to say a number because I don't. I mean, fifty plus maybe a hundred people that have never hunted coon hunting with us over the last four years. I mean, it's and it's a it's a different introduction to people because it's uh, you know, I mean it's not the classic, but it's not the typical hunt that people think about.
It is a little different. But I've got a I've got a spiel that I tell everybody while we're driving to where we're going hunting. I mean, I I make I don't care if it's an adult. I'm like, I've got a two part spiel that I'm gonna give you. First, first of it's about plot hounds, and the second of it's about coon hunting. And I talked to him about striking, trailing, locating tree and talk about I mean, people don't know anything.
They think your dogs out there looking for a coon, like literally see in a coon and chasing it and trying to you know what. I'm like, No, they're they're trailing ground scent and there, you know, talk to him about a layoup. Anyway, I have a I have a pretty polished spield that I give everybody. But but I've never taken anyone coon hunting that had a bad experience, you know. I mean, it's it's social, it's fun, it's
exciting to be on the woods at night. Um. But it I mean, when I think about the number of people I've introduced to bow hunting white tail deer, it's a very small it's a very small number because it's it's such a specific I mean, they've got to be proficient with a weapon, they've got to be able to store meat, and you know that they're not just gonna kill a deer. Those number, those numbers will will continue to decrease unless we do a better job at introducing Yeah,
because it's not easy to introduce somebody to white tail hunt. Um. It's not easy to introduce somebody to turkey in when you can take them out. Yeah, and we've took several people out turkey hunting, Um, but it's not as easy as taking them up whether you're coon hunting. It would be easy taking somebody out of cat hunting. Yeah. You know, I think a lot of these people too. I mean, like, of to all the people that have coon hunting with me, say,
most of those people aren't gonna be hunters. I mean honestly that I'm not. They're not probably gonna be hunters, but some of them will be. But they they at least have a frame of reference for the rest of their life. And a lot of these people are kids, and at some point they're gonna go, here's something about hunters and they go, yeah, I used to hunt with Mr Clay and Shepherd, and you know, he'll have a positive image inside of his worldview for hunting because he
knew somebody. And you know, I mean there's benefiting. There's been a you know, we talked about recruitment and people sticking into hunting, which is what we want, you know, I mean, we want someone that goes hunting and becomes a hunter, kind of an autonomous hunter on their own.
You know. But even if you take somebody hunting and they have a positive experience, that's a benefit for us too, because the people that are going to ultimately make decisions for us and hunting are the people who aren't hunters. But if they had I mean, even these people, these kids go you know, we took a bunch of people,
a bunch of kids hunting around Christmas time. Well, they were talking about that at their Christmas and maybe they were talking that about that with their cousins who never knew about hunters, and you know, it just it's just a positive thing, like just just kind of a buzz inside their world that we went cool nuting last week hunting. Yeah,
that was great, was fun. That's a positive thing because those people all of a sudden, they're like, well maybe maybe hunters aren't Barbara, you know, the the second tier people, right, Yeah, so there's there's benefits inside of that stuff, even though we're probably not recruiting. But I mean everything said there you yet the nail on ahead. I mean, that was you're exactly right. Yeah, something I'd like to touch on. You were talking about, um, you're you know, you're getting
to um. You said, like like guys out out west and they kind of focus on this is changing subjects here, but they kind of focus on like just white tail or something. And there's people like where we live that just focus on white tail, and I feel like they are I was the same way. I mean, I just was.
I was a proud white tail you know, big buck hunter, but I was missing out on so much different hunting styles when I got introduced to hound hunting, and I'm like, these guys are just white to hunt and I'm like, listen, it's fun and all guys, but you're missing out on
a great hunting experience. And uh, I think, I mean, I think more people and when we try to, like we said, we try to bring people hunting, but if more people would try it and they would be like wow, especially hunters, you know, they're like, wow, this is not
what I thought. It was. Like this is fun because you find a lot of you know, just white tail hunters, but also you know there's a lot of like just coon hunters and just bear hunters, and like you see on our YouTube channel, we try to do it all. I mean, that's what man. I think. I think we're
pretty diverse fund. I mean, if you if you look on other people's YouTube channel and there's a lot of great animals out there, but they're focused on white tail in Turkey or they're elk hunters, and we we want with the End Team, we kind of just wanted to be um, we're not focused on anything. We're just focused on the outdoors and in our way of living. I mean,
I feel like I've introduced Kirk to several things. Since we've been in business in the outdoor, since we've had the entertainment, it's been great because he's because he's learned and got so much better at it than what we You know, it's fun to watch Kirk grow as that outdoorsman, not as a hunter, as a a woodsman you were talking about. And that's what we want to do. You know, I want my son to be a woodsman care less we knows how to hunt deer. I want to know
how to hunt everything. When you said that, you know you want to have a PhD in Arkansas hunting, And that's that's the same way that I look at it too. I mean I don't just nailed down to one thing I love doing. Like I got trapped setting out, ready to go home. I'm gonna go set traps soon as we get back. You know. Yeah, well I think what I think what you guys are doing. Um, it was specifically with hound hunting. To go back to that. I mean, hound hunting is people just media has stayed away from
it on purpose. I mean it's almost like in the last if you think about when outdoor television really started kind of in the nineties, that indoctrinated people so strongly, and white tails was where the money was. White tails was white tails were widely distributed. Nothing against white tails. I love hunting them just as much as anything. I hunt, absolutely and commit as much time to it. But it's like people, just like in everything people, that's just what
they focused on. And it was highly influenced by outdoor media also opportunity. I mean, there's a lot of pros to white hunting, but what's what's happening now with platforms YouTube, It's like, uh, it's like you don't have they the content doesn't follow the money, if I could put it that way, you know, I mean, like there's there's never been. What I'm saying is that you're free to show who you are without the constraints of some big sponsor telling you what you need to do to get the views.
But that's but people like that authenticity and and we're and you're showing people a whole bunch of new stuff inside hunting that maybe they were never exposed to that the mainstream media did not expose people too. And I mean, I think that's one of the greatest things about And
it don't matter if you're on the YouTube platform. Now we like the YouTube platform, but the the commercialization, yeah, of the outdoor industry, they've killed themselves, um like any other basically, you know, if you don't know talking talking about like just pushing product product products people this deer without this, that and the other. You know, and yes, I mean Cope could go out and what he's wearing
right now and kill dear. If you're put yourself in the right situation, and we don't, we're never going to get in a position that we have to. We have to be told that we're doing stuff like that. That's where you were talking about. You know, you don't have we don't have these sponsors telling us. Yeah, we have a couple of sponsors that we're working with right now, but we're very choosy. But and they understand your platform,
understand that. If they don't understand, we don't deal with them because and they've been great, they're very soft sales. If you can show our products are stuff. If you can't, we'll catch it next time. It's not like you're gonna have to put us on their hard part to stay in that way, right because money, you know, money talks, and money is what makes things. And you see, you see these some of these bigger outdoor platforms. It's hard to when when you get to a certain place, yeah,
because I'm always curious about that. It's like you have to I mean you you do have to have money, you do have to have sponsors. That's how we're able to do it full time, you know. But there's a happy medium there where you don't get to, I guess money crazy and and start doing things that you typically you know, you don't want to get away from you know, what we're doing now, We never want to get away
from it. We always want to stay in check. Yeah, because as soon as we start, you know, pushing products and stuff, you know, on people, then we're doing what you know, it's already happened on you know, a lot of not not every show does it, but a lot of what you see on TV. And we're just not interested in that. And and people will comment on our videos saying we love that you guys don't do that. I mean they've they will come out and say it like we enjoy watching the video where you didn't have
to name fifteen different products that you were using. We just watched you use them. But on the flip side, you know, you have to have that. You have to. It's expensive doing what we do. Yeah, and it's been a it's been an investment for us, you know, the past two years, because you know, we definitely ain't making no, you know, we're not making any money right now. Um. Now, is there a potential? Yeah? There, I hope that there's potential with what we're doing. I feel like what we're
doing is good. Do you ever think about YouTube putting the clamps on you in some way? Oh? Yeah, it scares me because we've had a couple of warnings. You ever had a video flag? Uh? One time? Only one you can go? Look because I mean, did you dispute it? We did? Did did you win? I have one to actually, so I take that back. I had one flag that state flag. Now sometimes like I uploaded one and it
flagged it immediately and I was like a robot caught that. Like, no one's sitting on YouTube at their headquarters like they've they've messed up. I've had a couple were like that, we've disputed in one. Um. But yeah, well I think I think I have one video that that they said no it was and I disputed it and they said graphic violence. Yeah, they said too intense. This is what they said, and no I did. But it's still still
a lot of tizable video. It is. We always when when when Kirk appealed it, um, which is great because they were going to just kill it, right and when Kirk appelled it, we got an age restriction. But you can't it's it's not monetized. Yeah, that's what I was thinking. It's probably okay, of course, I think I think YouTube something has changed because before it's probably before y'all were even doing stuff. When I first got on YouTube, my
stuff was just getting hammered. Yeah, and I would have to dispute it, and some I would win and some I would lose. One of my videos, I honestly think, would probably have been the highest viewed video that we have if they had not flagged it. Now I lost the dispute, and it makes no sense. While I lost the dispute and it's just a it's just a bear kill with a boat. I mean, there was nothing. I didn't even show skin in it or in in Uh. That video at the time was gaining fifty thousand views
a day. I mean, it was just like and it got up to two or fifty thousand views that got flagged. I lost the dispute, and and it's still on YouTube, but it they shut it down, they don't promote it, and the video still has six hundred thousand views, so it got you know, three and fifty thousand views, just like I think that video probably would have just marched up if it hadn't got shut down. And that's crazy
that YouTube. I mean, of course it's their platform. They have the power just to say, oh, no more on that video. But you know, you don't know who also is reviewing the videos, Like I don't understand how the process works. Like you might have uh, Tom that YouTube in your video, right, but then a lot of it is automated. Yeah, when you dispute it, I think it actually goes to yeah, I think you're right on it. Yeah. Yeah,
I've got a trick. I'll tell you after this. I've got a trick if you're actually doing with a person, Oh yeah, I think it might work. But um, Kobe can even what else would you like to talk to these guys about? I think I would go back to the whole thing about sponsorship. I mean, because the thought I had is like, you're not really looking for sponsors. You're looking for partners, you know, someone that understands that they're partnering with you and something rather than just financing
you to do something. I mean, at least that's that's what I see inside of the pieces. I don't even like using the word sponsor, pro staff. I hate those words. Yeah, and so I think that's something that I've seen inside of the people that we work with, is it's just people that were companies that are wanting to partner with us and they want us to just like use their products. And yeah, I mean sometimes I mean, well, you know,
like Instagram and stuff. You know, it's like, hey, we're using this, but but it's it's more of like it's more like building a strong partnership and friendship with something that you know, it's like we're with you for the long haul and not just something it's like, well, we're
just here, why it benefits us? You know? Um. And I think that's one of the things even up here when we see it's like when we're coming here to a t A, We're we're going and we legitimately just want to see the people, you know, we're not coming here to like the conversations we're having isn't like, well, what can we do to help you, or what can we do to help you? It's just like, hey man,
how are you doing? You know? And I think building relationships has to like it, at least from our platform, it seems like that's something that that I've seen this valued more so than just like what the other person gets from the other. It's like, yeah, we're building together, but at the same time, it's it's more so I just like you guys, you know, and and I like that we're forging something together that's for our mutual benefit,
you know. Well, the I mean the advertising dollars create false relationship really, I mean, like really what people want to see is they want to know really what Steve Ronnella would use if he wasn't being paid, Like like, that's what you really want to know. And and so you know, because anybody, I mean, I mean, that's just the nature of the planet is money causes people to to do stuff. So we're trying to create these and I and talk about Ronella, I think he's kind of
done that in a lot of ways. He kind of helped build the soft sell into a wider market by the way he kind of did things back eight or nine years ago. But point being, that's what we're trying to do is just I mean, like in y'are too, I've talked to you. I mean, you guys are only
partner with people that you truly believe in using their stuff. Yeah, and then yeah, a company reaches out to us and we haven't used it before, you know, we've never used that product, but we'll say, okay, you know, send us something. We'll try it out. You know, we're not just going to be like, yeah, send it to us, we'll sign
this contract and then pay us ten thousand dollars. You know, well you want to try this out, and uh, if it's something that we're like, hey, this is legit and we're comfortable, you know, the people that watch our videos and really enjoy them, we're comfortable you know, telling them about this, then then we'll go with that company. Yeah.
And I think on those videos, one of the things I really like is it just looks like you guys are having fun, you know, And I think that's something that produces a lot of buying on platforms like that, is they want to see, like again, that relationship and just having fun and and I think even like being able to show like the relationship between a person in his how you know, like those relationships are good to see two And I think there's there's a lot of
mystery that's been created around those things because you just don't see it as much. I mean, like I grew up, um, you know, running coons and and hogs with hounds, and so it's like I had a view inside of it. So it was like when I came around the magazine or Clay started putting stuff up, it's like I had a particular type of buying. They're like seeing big game hunting with like cat and bears. It's like that's a
whole new thing for me. Like whenever I came into it, but I understood the relationship between like, uh, like we had hounds and so I understood that relationship, and so it was like, man, this is really cool. I didn't know you could run them with with hounds. You know it is it is so um hidden in the in the outdoor world, and nobody wants you know, people in the outdoor world don't want to talk about it because it's like a I don't want to say it's like
the evil side of hunting. But it's like day and night. If if you're a hound hunter, then you just looked at differently in the outdoor industry. And and that's what people what we're trying to do is is it doesn't We could care less if you hound hunt, if you bathe hunt. We've talked, we'd go on and on about it, and it will be the demise of the outdoor industry if we're not altogether. Because there's so many, uh, non hunter interest groups that we don't have to deal with
in West Virginia. Those groups would be stupid to come into our borders. Um. But we could care less. And that's what the problem. You know, we don't look at you know, Clay hunts over bait for bears and you hound hunt too. Yeah does that matter to me? Is it going to affect me? No? I'm for Clay doing that because he's in the outdoors. He's promoting the outdoor industry. Um. And that's what Clay always refers to it as is
bear huntings the low hanging fruit. Yeah, yeah, you said that last year, you know, are this is We talked about this a lot, but we still haven't clarified it a ton. But I can clarify it. In short, I think that bear hunting is actually one of the most important pieces of the whole of the hunting scene in North America. Point being that bears are the entry point for the anti hunting sentiment and anti hunting action, legislative action,
everything to come into the hunting space. So if you were just a monitor the wide sphere of the hunting world, it's not the Deer's not elk, it's not pheasants, is not ducks, it's bears and lines too, but more bears, and and and So if you were a hundred years out looking back at this little point in time, and you know that the strategy of anti hunting organizations is incrementalism. They're not trying to knock it all down at once
because they can't. Trying to chip off pieces. If you look at what they've done over the last fifty years in this country, they've chipped off pieces. They chipped off bear hunting in these days, they chipped off line hunting, they chipped off you know, certain things. So the most important thing at any given time in history in terms of preserving our way of life is that you guard that low hanging fruit, because if you guard that low hanging fruit, they can't get to the thing behind it.
And so that's our hashtag. We're using guard the Gate. So we're saying bear hunting is the gate. So there's a lot of resource and time in the outdoor industry being invested in a lot of different places, which a lot of that stuff is really good. What I'm saying is is that we need the broader support of the outdoor community that is targeted towards the preservation of bear hunting, because we got nothing left to give the anti hunting
community in two thousand and twenty. I mean, all the all the chief has been blown off by the wind. I mean, like what we have in North America right now with our bear hunting with hounds in seventeen states and our you know, lion hunting in different places. I mean,
it has been whittled down to the foundations. And so my whole thing is, if you're an elk hunter, if you're a deer hunter, if you're this kind of hunter on board with helping, you better be on board with those guys because and now this ten years ago, five years ago, I might have said this was like fearmongering or something, but it's not. Man. The last seven years we have been on the forefront, but through Bare Hunting Magazine being the only bare hunting magazine in the world.
I mean like we have a unique perspective on the on the anti hunting sentiment against bear hunting um just because of where we're placed. And I mean they are on track to knock us off the map in the next twenty years. I mean, that's that's there, that's what they think. If they did that, they absolutely would be taking another step up the ladder, which they'd be saying, you use elk decoys, to use those little puff up decoys that have elk ears on it and look like
a cow elk and blow blow calcols when you're elk coming. Really, that sounds unfair to me. I think that's unfair. I think we're gonna take away all elk colling. Just spot and stock elk hunting. That's all you can do. I mean, that would take the knees out of elk hunting, right, I mean, you know that sounds like again five years ago, I said that was just it would be like conspiracy
theory or something, but it's not. I mean, North American hunting will be vastly different in twenty five years, fifty years, ten years. If we don't do something, and I feel like that the bear hunting piece is really critical, I do. Yeah, I completely agree. I mean, and it's not nobody's saying that.
I mean, it's it's like that, but it's a it's a broad picture, and it's a long picture, and people have a real hard time looking at the long term picture and the big broad picture because people, Yeah, I mean, we're kind of like the red headed step child of that. I mean, you're in the outdoors, you're you're kind of
black eyed. And because I mean it, it's hard because you also have fellow hunters that hunt other animals that don't support you, you know, and in that unity, that's what we try to do with our YouTube channel, I mean, because of how diverse we are with you know, we put out a bunch of white tail videos, we put on a bunch of bear videos. Well, we have people that I love our white tail videos. They'll comment like, yeah, I don't I don't like your your your bear videos,
but I love your white tail stuff. I don't think I don't think it's fair that you use dogs on theirs, you know, so we're we're hopefully, you know, showing you know, those people that typically wouldn't watch a bear video, but because now we're popping up on their phone to hey, you know, we like these guys. What they're doing is actually pretty cool. You know. It's we're open, yeah, through our YouTube channel that we're kind of merging two worlds.
So what do you guys tell people about hound hunting, like the benefits of it? Because I know I've heard like Clay talk about it like the office. I'm just curious, like whenever people to say that to you, Like, what do you say about hound hunting like it's it's benefits and and like its purpose. Well, a lot of what I've learned from it is actually listening to Clay. I mean you can, uh, you can when you have a
bear tree, it's catching at least hunting. I mean you can decide right there, um, you know, is that a boar? Is that a sow? How big is it? Um? Doesn't need to be taken out? Um, you can make all those decisions right there at the tree. Um, you know. And and it's it's and when we shoot a bear um out of a tree. Nine percent of time the bear is dead before it hits the ground. So like when we shoot, you know, someone might shoot one of the bow, which of course I have no issue with.
They'll shoot one. You don't know exactly where you're going to hit it. You know, with a gun, you don't always find them. The bears that that we run, you know, most of the time we're catching and then we make a you know, we can make a clean, good decision,
ethical decision should we kill that bear? And so in terms of in terms if if we're actually talking about the ethics of being humane to an animal, it would be hard to stand in a court of law with an unbiased judge and not say that that's actually the most ethical that when you're talking about the death of animal.
Because the animals in a tree, you're able to make a good shot, You're able to make a decision about the sex, age, whatever categories that that you have, if you have any you know, you're able to make that decision. And and you know, an old hound hunter and Appalachian Mountains told me this in response to somebody saying that running bears with hounds was cruel, like actually cruel to the animal while it was being ran. And he said
the old man. What the guy said to me, He said, Clay, He said, there are critters being killed on that mountain right now as we speak, being chased down by coyotes, being caught by raptors being you know, hawks being. I mean like this idea that you know, how's chasing the bear is something unnatural, something new. I mean, Mother nature had a much more cruel death plan for that animal.
That's what I always say. I mean, you know, you see kill a bear with a with a shotgun after it's been chased for hour and a half by hounds. Mother nature had a much more cruel death planned for that critter. Doubt whether whether he died of starvation at old age, whether they got killed by rival male, whether he starved out in the then one winter after a
low mass crop and no beech nuts. I mean, it's like man, nature nature is cruel, and you know, like the antis, they don't want to hear that side of it, you know, they want to ignore that that part of it. They don't. They don't want us being the ones that that you know, take that big mature bore out of out of the hearth. They would rather it's out of sight, out of minds, they really don't have to worry about what actually goes on, and so they typically ignore everything
you just said. You you ask Kirk a question. I just couldn't help myself. I had to just jump in there and answer it for him. Sorry, no, you did. Once again, I agree. I feel like one of the things that there's a disconnecting is just like inside of life. It's like a lot of people just don't understand struggle or like the way things actually work. You know, it's like just the way that kids are raised and stuff.
It's like things are so easy and so disconnected that that you just lose that sense that there's things that you have to struggle for or there's things that are just hard. And you know, it's like thinking about you know, dogs chasing the bear and the way mother nature is. I think that there's a lot of people that are just like they're just disconnected by the way that it's perception nature. Yeah, false perception nature. And I think I think that we add a human element to that that
is valuable for people that to help them understand. I mean, like you guys YouTube channel, people seeing you guys being real and liking you. I mean the first time I watched you, I just liked you. I mean, and and that's highly valuable. I mean, like an anti hunter that was just adamantly opposed to running bear I figure that
of them. If they came to my house and had dinner with me and my family and set around, and I mean, and I knew they were anti hunter, and they knew I was a bear hunter, they would walk away with maybe not a totally changed mind, but they would have respect for me. I feel like they would, I mean, just just in I mean, in so anyway that the whole idea of a face with a person, and that's kind of what following a channel on YouTube does,
is you kind of feel like you know somebody. So I think there's some benefit inside of that that people people probably there's just a there's a human, there's a human involved with it. It's not just a barbarian. It's well, some people might think Josh is barbarian. But I've given you a hard time, Josh. I hope you know, I
hope you know I stay on him since he's used to. Yeah, I mean, but that's the greatest thing about the channel and YouTube, is it When you came up thus last year you were and we were sitting at our table when you just came up and say, Hey, Josh, what's going on? And I was like, hey, it's Clay. We never even met, but we've seen each other on YouTube. So that's the That's one thing I do like, and I think that that's one thing we try is connecting
personally with our audience through the video. And well, uh late an hour at a Giovanni's Pizza and logan and uh, I had put a video up that the night before, UH where Josh and I weur bear hunting and I forgot my radio and I walked down to the dogs. So the bear came out of the tree and I was down there by myself. He couldn't track me, didn't know where I was. I couldn't talk to him, didn't know where he was. We just knew that the bear's
gonna end up somewhere. But the point is I forgot my radio, so I'm walking and we made it me in the video like we talked about it because because it was a cluster, it was a cluster and that and and that's kind of that's that's kind of like who I am, though, Like I do stuff like that all the time. You know, I'm I'm kind of true. Josh, absolutely my messy, unorganized, no radio, no gun, GPS, no nine, no nine. He is scattered and gone. All he is
is I'm getting to the dogs. But what I'm getting? Yeah, yeah, back to So, I had forgotten my radio. So I'm walking out of Giovanni's and a guy says, hey, Kirk. He was like, he was like like, I look at him like I didn't know who he was. He said, don't forget your radio. Forget That's cool And that's the number one roule. Do not leave the truck without a radio. And I've done better. We got those chest harnesses that we've gotten probably sixty messages on what kind of chest
harnesses do you all have? Where do you get those? That's that's our most asked question. You would not believe. What's the answer, can Tara non affiliated? No, they probably who we are. But I guarantee if they go back and they look at seals from two thousand and eighteen to two thousand and twenty, they had that. I guarantee that their chest pouches, the ones that we wear, they've went out of the They've had to produce God knows how many and can they're they're paramedic and smoke jumpers.
That's what they were, the firefighters, like it's a safety pass. I would be like just google Chest Harness radio. But that's why biggest questions and I probably copy a past of the link to Amazon to that. I can't even tell you how many times we should be should be anything about it is. Kirk still to this day would not have one if he did not cabbage on to mine. Kirk is like a pirate. He he participates in a
lot of piracy. Chest Harns s D cards. Don't leave any s D cards Kobe around this man because it's like it's like the guy off of X Men. He with the SD cards and metal he doesn't ye, he's like s D do with SD cards. Yeah, you know what I'm saying. But now it it worked, what what what we do works for us? And and I don't. I mean, I'll take the opportunity to give Kirk a lot of ADDI boys, because I mean I'm not any technical guy. Most people probably know that on our channel
that listened to us and watch us. Now I'm learning, Yeah, slowly, he's learned how to turn the camera on ye. Yeah, but he Kirk has done a superb job at the editing, producing and and everything on that on that and um but and it's and it's working for us and that's what matters. And we're having fun. I mean, yeah, did we get pissed at each other? Absolutely? We do. I mean, when you spend that much time with somebody, if you
don't have disagreements, then you're probably not real with each other. Yeah, I mean, um, do we get aggravated with with Lane? And you know Lane probably with Lane a lot. Well, I mean he gets brought well, he gets brought in and that's why I'm gonna say, but you know, he gets brought into a group he's never been around. Uh, he doesn't know our hunting habits. You know, it gets intense. Um, I can imagine. But you know, we have a good time.
And that's what you know, that's a that's the main that's a we wake up, you know, like for instance, I'm full time doing this. I wake up every day. I Mean my stresses in life are, Man, I gotta get that video edit of a hunt, you know, a hunt, you know, and then I can get it done and I can go out and hunt and video and I wake up every day with a smile on my face, you know, because if I absolutely love what I'm doing. Yeah, that's awesome. Man. Well, hey guys, any closing closing thoughts,
anything you wanted to say that you didn't get to say. Oh, there's a lot of stuff I wasn't able to say. I'm just I need to I need to close the podcast and my Josh voice, Yeah you should, I can't do. I wish you'd been there, Josh. It was awesome. I'd love to hear it. Yeah. Well, I just I want to thank you all for you know, having us and hopefully you're your audience like listening to us. And I'm sure we have a lot of it'll be a lot
of crossover. Yeah, it'll be cool that we they got to hear us all together, you know place and I appreciate that, just the support, you know, since we've had our Champel, Clay and I've talked a lot on the phone, and um, I know that we don't um have to endure with a lot of other people in Hannah States endure. We understand that, but and we never want to hurt anybody in the other states. And what we do what
we do. Want to show people what we do. Yeah, and we've had those discussions, but just thank you all for supporting us and our channel and what we do. Yeah yeah, yeah, Well we're fans. So check out the untamed YouTube channel and I guess this is going on your podcast too, so people can check out the bear hunting magazine of our people may not even we don't talk about the YouTube channel with time, but hey, thanks guys, thank you. The wild places wild because that's where the
bears live. You should do it. And Josh's boys place wild, that's where and I think Josh needs to say it now. We need to say it full through. So it's keep the wild places wild because that's where the bears. That say it like full throttled Josh, it's keep the wild places wild because that's where the bears. I'm gonna take my headphones off. We might even use this give me give me a fist pump No no, no, I mean I'm like a yeah baby, yeah, yeah yeah, keep it,
keep the wild. Yeah. I don't even know what I starts to say, the wild places wild because that's where the bears live. Can you write that now? Yeah, text to keep keep the wild places wild because that's where the Bears live. Yeah yeah, baby, I can't do it. I enjoyed it. Guys that
