Ep. 218: The World's Best Small Game Hunter Conquers Mongolia

Definitely better than Janni because, uh two reasons. I just genuinely like him, and too, he makes my job easy. I don't need to drag out, I don't need to like wrestle out thoughts out of him. He just got thoughts. So here he is, Kevin Murphy. I'm so glad to see you, like kind of because we got I got. I gotta look at you through a computer, man, which is not my preferred way of doing this. You know, I'm the same way, And uh, good seeing you guys,

And uh, you know it's kind of strange. Just like a week before you called me up and said, hey, you want to do a remote podcast, I had told myself I had had some bad experiences over the telephone interviews and doing some things that I would never do. I remote podcast over the telephone, I had told myself, But I am eating the words now because you guys are just like family with me, So I have no problem, no problem at I all set here and talking to you guys. It's just like you were in the room

with me. So yeah, I agree. Generally I would stick with your I would stick with that. But everything's you know, a lot of exceptions going on right now, and I don't one to ten Kevin, how how bummed out are you about how we weren't able to pull off our squirrel and rabbit trip in March. Oh, I was bummed out, but you know, and he said, hey, we're gonna Yeah, it's ten because I was up there pre tuning and ready to go, and I bought my day of a

yearly licensed day, so you for that. Yeah, So I was I didn't do the regular five day or seven day whatever. So I went ahead and I was gonna go back up there, but I decided not too. But we had a really good time. My seventh trip to Bearing Springs over the last eight years. Shot a little footage. I saw all my amigoes up there doing I hate you to all the people around bearing springs and enjoy you very much and look forward to coming back next year.

So I love going to southern Michigan. I really do very nice people up there, just like home folk, uh, dog lovers, good stout rabbit population and have a good time every year. And you can't hunting in Kentucky and Barts So it's uh kind of the tip of the spirit as far as the end of the hunting season and then you get to start all over again. Good have you ever seen it? I gotta I gotta rather because we're right now out. We were gonna before we plan that trip, we were gonna have Kevin come out

to Montana and hunt some small game. But the rabbit numbers have been so low and this is going this is going on probably three or four years. No, I don't think they have been really good, like really really good since two thousand eight, really good for twelve years since they've been like where you feel like something bad is gonna happen. There's so many rabbits. Yeah, Now, Kevin, have you ever seen like just numbers really low where

you've hunted your days? You know? Um, I've only been a rabbit for a real uh, uh, top notch rabbit hunter in the last uh since about twenty eleven when I retired, and I see those cycles. You know, there's a lot of things that can't happen. You can have a wet summertime, wet spring, and then a lot of the offspring dial off. Sometimes some parasites and disease come through me and wipe them out. Now with the squirrel

population crop, it's a food food driving thing there. We had some late frost here the last couple of weeks. I am a little bit concerned about some of our acron trees that kills the caspians on those on the tree limbs, so it could cut our food back. But rabbits, like I said, usually moisture, I think is more of a thing that drives those guys up and low. That affects them, you know when they're in the nest, dreadled baby rabbits out Um they are what do you'll have

cotton tails up there? So they're born western Yeah, they're born naked with their eyes closed, so you know, they don't have much to protect them, uh from other nature the elements. So I'd say that's one thing. But habitat is the big issue around here, and we had a wet spring in a wet summer last year, so it

knocked our population now quite a bit. I talked to quite a few rabbit hunters and they said they were having difficulty finding rabbits, and we've killed some really small rabbits towards the end of February or our season goes out the tents. So the last week we killed some rabbits that were really small and they'll cycle all year long, you know, try to raise offspring if the winner is not too too bad. Hey, Yeahny, what year was that that we were down to Wyoming hunting antelope. That was

ridiculous months of rabbits. Yeah, I was just trying to remember what what year that was, um, because that was like as good as it gets. Yeah, that was probably like twenty ish. We we put in some miles hunting turkeys. This weekend saw one cotton tail. Normally in that neck of the woods there'll be a lot of them, but yeah, it's been dismal. So then we we were gonna hut

here with We're gonna hut Montana with Kevin. Then we're gonna hunt Michigan and we got we got derailed by the pandemic and Kevin Joannie was saying, you had some what's your take on this whole pandemic situation? Man? You know this is gonna be my thirty six year of Germans were fair And UH explain that I'm a water

wastewater guy. Uh degree environmental geology background work started out working the health department, nine five of being environmentalists, going around doing different lots of different things, testing water, making rat poison a couple of tons one day. Uh tell me real quick, real quick. Uh give me the basic recipiant making a ton of rat poison. You know, I was just throwing whatever they told me to do because I was brand new. I didn't know what I was

handling whatever. But we had a little concrete mixer showing throwing stuff in there and bagging it up and stapling, giving away for free, no no graby clinic clinics. And then uh, I worked at a power plant for a while and they put me over the water department and uh make sure that we were sucking out river water. Make sure that was the chlorine was a residential high

enough to kill back all the pathogens in it. And then I transferred over to the wastewater plant in nineteen eighty nine, and I spent from eighty nine to two thousand and three are now until eleven. Uh, working my way up to the top of the Totem pole on the wastewater system and being environmental, let's see, and making clean water every day. So back in there. So you're your credential to your credential to at least have an opinion. Yeah, I think so. I mean, you know, I was permitted

place for operator. I can operate any plant in the United States. I'm qualified to do that. I do yearly see us and I've I've passed the exams to do that. UM. People can work under me. UM. I knew early only in my career as I worked my way up with Nashville is only two hours away. Within two hours, anything in the world could be I could be face to face beating up person, or it could be in the sewer system. And the sewer system is very hostile to

some pathogens and it's very inviting for others. So I grew up in the heyday of hepatitis c AIDS not knowing a whole lot about it. A BOWLAE outbreaks and I started reading books in journals and trying to protect myself.

I would go and have to pull samples at this at the local hospitals to make sure that they weren't dropping anything into the sewer system that they weren't supposed to be, like, you know, broken mercury thermometers or blood pressure machines or acid tones from the lab all at debris. So I'd have to go out there, open up a manhole, and you know, I'm right there in the front line of everybody in the whole area six So I knew

that I could personally be uh engaged in it. Uh my guys could be uh face to face with it, or I could bring it home to my family. So I started reading some some different books about pathogens of bowl ee uh mad cow disease. I just sounded intriguing. It was kind of a way to let my mind drift away from a work, but at the same time learn something about work. And I read a book and

I got out the other day looking at it. It was on the Spanish flu of nineteen eighteen, uh called the Great Influenza, and um by coincidence, I came by Fort Riley, Texas or Kansas back in uh December I was with Zack from c Z and his wife, she's an environmental engineer for Kansas Light Empire. And as we drove by the military basis, says, I am pretty sure that is where the Spanish flu started the epidemic, and that's where it was first recognizing that it swept the world,

just killing millions upon millions of people. And um, I said, it was, you know, very intriguing. I grew up in a small community. When I was a kid, there was three sets of orphans, all about the same age forty two. There was probably fifty years old somewhere in that time from I don't know a single orphan from then or from now. But after I read that book in two th us and in five I did a timeline and their parents evidently died from the Spanish flu. And that's

what that's what the Spanish flu it uh. It concentrated on people of childbearing ages. And you know, probably the book said like fifty million people you know, died worldwide, but so many people died in India. They don't have any any idea what happened. They tried to con That's amazing because this is the this is the thing that people draw. You know, this current situation is when people are looking for a parallel that they reach for that, yes they do, and I don't see it based on

my experience in reading the books. And they want to compare St. Louis to Philadelphia, and and I went back and read some of the book. You know St. Louis has right above the river system from us combined sewer system, waste goes out to the river the dispose of uh. They had some really sharp dudes in uh. St. Louis US and then Philadelphia wartime city people jammed together households of maybe you know, fifteen to twenty years and an

outdoor privy. So they were constantly in contact with each other. Uh So I asked some of the engineers that works, and I want to see somebody do a comparison between Philadelphia sewer system and the St. Louis and the population and all that to see how it compares. But you know from what I read in the book, and the guy's name was Barry. He wrote that book and he wrote another one on Rising Tides about the great floods along the Mississippi River. So he's a very good historic

author that that takes his research very seriously. So um, I don't see it from from what I see from the numbers that I drank out, it is a flu. My mom is eighty years old. She needs to be careful what she does. I have a friend that had a liver transplant. He's fifty seven. He needs to watch what what he does. But you know, we're all one microby way of being reckon our system. My former boss, Don hays Uh, he came down with West Nyle virus

and it wrecked his system. And I talked to the doctor at Vanderbilt University and he says, hey, Kevin says, everybody in this mosquito pit, it's West Nile virus. You may feel bad for an hour or two or two or three days. And he said, on some rare occasions, I see it wrecked somebody's system, like your boss, and it just totally you know, Anni lees and paralyzed him from the waist down and he had to have a track and he fought through it for for five or

six years and then finally passed away. In a very good person, a very good person to community, but very health vibrant, you know, for an older guy wrote his bicycle helped everybody out in the town. But like I said, you know, if I was a germophobe or whatever, I wouldn't be able to do the travels that I do and go out and do the things, or be even a hunter, you know, knowing that there's viruses out there. Raybies, you had trickin noses. I think you know, you just

take that. As a human being, we're very resilient on what we can do. We build up an immunity pretty quick. And I'm a firm believer, you know in that. Uh. But you know, when I went to Mongolia, I did take up a I think a dip theory of tests. I had my latest technics shots and I do believe in vaccines and if there's something available there, I will study it there. I might not be the first dude that gets a shot, but after after a few people take it and look at it, I will. Um. So, yeah,

I'm a firm believer in the in the vaccines. And I'm a dude too that you know. I had the months of the measles chicken pox, uh, and then then I got I went through the line one day at school and they vaccinated me, and this alien it come up here on my my my shoulder and popped out there and grew back to your culture for smallpox. So I have been vaccinated for smallpox and have the scar for that, and a lot of the young people have

not never went through uh any of that stuff. And you know, I can remember my mom, all three of us, my sister Kim and my brother Kent. We was running. Asked while through the house with with the months, and my mom's said it, Kevin, if you don't settle your grass down, says, your nuts is gonna shrivel up the size of a marble. So you know it doesn't have me. I don't know if I listened to her or not. I do have two kids, so but I do remember her saying that. So, but you know I've been exposed

to that, and we've become sterile America. We won't even hardly drink tatwater. You know, you go into the office and you see a uh you know, bottle water, a water machine and all that, and there's a certain amount that you can get immunity. I've got a good friend that he his dad's engineer. Uh they had a plant in Iraq or Iran. He said, man Burfy, I hate going over there when I was a kid, said I would, I would get dys interior every time I'd go until I built up a community to it. And he had.

He showed me in college he had a bottle of tap water that come out of the municipal system of where hell, it didn't look any better than Berkeley Lake. And I just saw him back in February and I asked him, so, man, remember that that bottle of tapwater that you had from Iraq or Iran? And his eyes lit up and he said, oh, I bet my mom

still got that. I said, that just fascinated me. And you know, small things like that fascinating that we take for granted in this country, that that other places, you know, they don't they don't have that, that that mechanism that makes sure everything as safe as it can be, that we just take for granted and uh don't utilize. You know, the research is out there. Yeah, So tell me real quick about this hunting station wagon you're working on. Oh,

I brought back from the dead yesterday. A American Motors Corporation nineteen eighty four American Eagle four door, four wheel drive station wagon that has not been uh fared up since nineteen or two thousand and eight, so twelve years it has not been on the road. I got it jacked up, put some wheat eater gas, and it got a young boy out there showing him the way. He's thirty eight, says he's raising on a farm, but he's scared to death of a handy man jack. So hey, Stefan,

you can't pull that wheed eater gas. And there I see, yes I can. So the guess date was bad. So I just got the fuel line off the uh uh, the fuel pump, and got me a water bottle. Now I do consume water bottles. It is very convenient a lot of times. And I feeled it full of wet eater gas, which was some lubricant in there, and stuck it down in there, and we fired it up and

she never missed a lick. Jacked it up, took the tars and wheels off of it, and then just let her set there and ida and spin and loup all the seals and everything up. So I'm gonna bring it back to the dead and baby drive up to Montana and go hunting, and let about six or eight beetle hands rolled out the back end it will be like back in nine four. So you're saying where you're from. Uh, used to be that you'd have instead of a hunting truck, you had a hunting station wagon. Oh. I can remember

that as a kid. And I've been on a mission here the last a couple of weeks. I put the feelers out to all my friends and jump people and everybody that I know. So, man, I'm looking for some kind of vintage station wagon. Everybody says, ma'am, Murphy went jump, got up really high. You get two three hundred dollars for a body of Everybody started crushing it. So, Uh, I found a big Buig State UH wagon over in uh Liveston County. So I drove over there and it

had a Pearl Harbor Survivors license plate on it. And I pulled into this trailer there and I kind of looked at around. Looked like nobody was living there. And I went down the road a couple of miles and found two dudes on the side of the road talking some farmers, and I talked to him about it. So, well, it's someone so lives there. So she comes to the door, she'll have a shotgun. I said, that's the kind of lady I like to deal with all up front. She

means business. So I found this American eagle. It was only like two miles from the house. So I got the local uh car guy. I'm always dragging in scouts and wagoneers and vineage for wheel drives. So I got him to haul it to the house yesterday and he was kind of saying, man, yeah, before he spent a bunch of money and needed fired up and all that. So I got it fired up yester afternoon and I I sent him a picture of it, and he was as excited as I was that brought it back from

the dead. So you know, I'm just like projects and doing stuff and get it going and bringing the old stuff back. Why why was it a station wagon thing back in the day. Is this because availability? Yes, because his family cards, you know. And I was talking to the to the uh Mark Valley of the record guy. He says, you know, when I grew up as a kid, says we raised hosting cows and said we would buy a bottle casts from a guy over in Callaway County and said he had a station wagon instead of a

pickup truck. He says, you know, a new pickup truck was about five thousand dollars and he could buy an old used station wagon for five hundred. He could haul his feed mineral he'd called calves in it right every but yeah, it's just kind of availability, something cheap. There was a lot of station wagons out and uh, you know, you can't call a hall a bunch of kids in a car, so it's multipurpose and it's like a mini

van of the day. The station wagon was there's three three of us kids and then my mom and dad, and then we put the dog in the back. And hell sometimes we just have a sedan and haul the dogs in the in the back of it. We didn't have a hunt you know, a designated hunting truck like a like a bid now. So yeah, this was availability and necessity. And then you got, uh, you got this new dog. Yeah, don't even tell me. You name the dog wings and things. It sounds a good restaurant. You know.

The dog was pre named. It took me three months on my best Jedi negotiating to get this dog. It comes from Patrick Flannagan and it was never about money. It was about being worthy enough to own a really good, outstanding hunting dog, and I wanted something small, and I went with us uh hunting in uh December out of Kansas with zach of c Z and I had my bird dog center. Uh Dan, Lieutenant Dan out with us. And he's a he's a pleasure to hunt. He likes to go out and make a circle, come back in

and get his head rubbed, rubbed. And I've got another Why do you call that dog, Lieutenant Dan? Oh, it's got a good ring to you know, Lieutenant Dan. He's worthy. He wants to serve you and do whatever is necessary. How uh And so we hunted with a sage wh was the brother two wings and things, and uh we hunted on a Saturday on Monday, the monday before he was neutered. So they turned him loose and he out hunted all of our dogs put together. It was a machine.

And he went out and he pointed something out the middlefield and I walked up there and I saw something gray and furry. The first thing that I thought that went through my mind was it was a badger. And I needed to protect the dog because I didn't want the badger to tear his foot off. You know, Uh, body real, real hard. So I hollered badger and then I got to look at it. He had a coon pointed out there in the in the field. So I'm

thinking multipurpose dog. And I asked him, says, man, has this boy, Patrick Flanagan is from Border to the Border. Has he got any dogs left like that? He said, I think he's got three. So my I started negotiating in December for the dog and finally ended up getting the dog in March, so she's been in a constant companion. What did the negotiation look like? It looked like a lot of being worthy enough to to own the dog, to convince me that I was gonna hunt and take

care of her. Because the dog was born on his girlfriend's Lacy's birthday, and she named the dog Wins and things, so I had a whole lot to overcome, and um, finally he gave in. We had a couple of trial runs where the dog was supposed to be delivered, I

couldn't show up and finally got the dog. And after I had the dog for three or four weeks, I sat down one day and wrote Patrick handwritten letter, tell him how much I appreciate him letting me have the dog and I could tell what kind of dog, that she was very highly intelligent, highly motivated and a very special dog, and that there's more to life than money, and a good hunting dog to a good person is a good thing. That I didn't even have a wheel. I know, all my stuff is gonna go to my

two kids, uh seth in Caitlin. But I wrote out on my money to go lan uh note uh that if anything happens to me, that the dog goes back to Patrick Fland again and had his phone number around it. So I put where did you put that note? Hell, I can't find it. I don't don't where it is. But uh, like I said, I told Patrick, anything ever happened to me, that dog would go back to him and lace What sort of questions was Patrick asking you in this like interview and process, Well just kind of

you know how much you're gonna hunt? What are you gonna do? Of course they had seen me, what the hell's he dick? What's the hell's he dick? You do? Has he didn't he look you up? Yeah? He did and he saw and and that probably helped me hunting with you two guys and see that I was a crude dog guy. So, yeah, y'all, you guys helped me convince them that that I was worthy of having a really really good, top notch bird dog. He's he's very particular about his his dogs and who they go to.

It's not you know, I think a better question. I think a better question would be, is he worthy of you having one of his bird dogs? Oh? I think so, he's he's a dog man in the clan, So I think very much, so very much. Now one's changed the name from wings and things. Like I said, it seems like a restaurant you finding. You know, she's got she's got two spots owner they looked like a pair of wings. We can we can see her right here. There's two spots. Kind of hard to see, but they look like a

pair of wings. Look like her kidneys are sitting outside of her body. Yeah. Yeah, she's kind of kind of Dolpho right now. But I don't know how they come up with that name. But you know, it's kind of like changing the ship's name. What you get, get it? It's bad luck to change the dog's name. She responds, she's a very responsive dog. You know what happened? We just got a dog for our kids, And when the dog came from the pound, they had named it our

daughter's name. Okay, so we didn't want to have two people named Rosie, so we had to change the dog's name. Well, that's that's certain circumstances. I can understand that. Well, and those dogs at the pound, they've only had those names for hours, let alone days. That's what we thought, too, is like the dogs that you know that that's what

they named it. It couldn't been like the horse I bought one time that I made a deal on a horse and then I asked the guy what his name was, and he looked at me, and then he looked at the horse and said his name was Star. But she had a star on the floor. So I'm pretty sure. I'm pretty sure that's where it comes from. It didn't have a name till I asked. And you know, over in my gully, they don't give a horses a name

over there because they might have to eat them sometimes. Oh, I got you, so, uh yeah, I want I want to get to this Mongolia situation. But we got a couple of other things. When I talked to you about what when you're yelling at that dog, what are you gonna call it. You can't say wings and things running around on the woods. I just call her wings, you know, That's what I do. I just I just I just holl her wings. It's kind of like, you know, but you bad toe. I just call him, you know. Butchie,

when me and him's out, there's so uh. I shortened it up, and a lot of times you just say here and she'll come in, come in here. So, you know, when I'm out hunting, especially birds and stuff, I try to keep the communication down and use a whistle because the animals they hear your human sound and they know there's there's some ship up that you better be looking out, you know, So I try to keep you know, sometimes

squirrels don't give it down, you know. In the rabbits, only time you need to be quiet with them is when they're one circling back around. Other. Than that, you know, you can talk and carry on. And that's why I love small game hunts so much, because you'll be out there with your friends and showing new people what's going on, and they don't have to be super silent, you know, and just just go to the moments where you need to tone it down and be quiet, but of the

time you can talk and bullshit around. So yeah, I need's got a question for you. Well, no, I'm just gonna say that I feel like that name is fitting because the more I think about wings and things, it's sort of to me it means versatile. It means that the dog is, you know, mostly on wings winged animals, but it also was gonna hunt other things. You're very true, that is a very good way to look at it, because I can make this Doug pretty sure to do

anything at all. I was. I was coming home the other night and I had baby too many gin drinks and I was in the jeep and we were coming down the road, you know, the long lane, and there was a bunch of deer out there, so road that's right, And I was just across the the field there with my new I'm corrupting some young youth. He's twenty two and his name's Connor, and Abbey's twenty one. And they they think I'm a old dude. Like I said, that can stay up past ten o'clock. And I've been over

their house hanging out. Coming home. We were in the little c J five, my nineteen sixty five half cab and we saw some deer, so I wings was up on a dash looking at him. So I started chasing them, and she started barking her ass off at him. It's probably not a wise thing to do, because the first next time I had her out in the field, she she went running after some d years. But I had to eat collar around her, so there was no big deal.

So yeah, she could be very versable, very vocal. I can make a squirrel dog out o her, no problem at all. But Patrick would would beat me to death if I did that, so I can't do that for a while. Maybe raising puppies sundays out of her. But she's she needs to be able to You're you're allowed to breed her. Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah yeah. There's no conditions other than just to take care of the dog. Okay, before we leave the dog, tell us what breed it is,

because I don't think we know that. She's a half crossed between a German short hair porner and an English parner. So a little thirty two pound dogs. She was the smallest the run of the letter, A little female um so, very unique dog. I wanted a small dog, nothing large to take you know, have to U up kick. I like beagles and small squirrel dogs, so I'm not a I'm not a big dog guy forty five pound dogs. She probably weighs a little bit less than forty pounds.

I haven't weighed lately. But I like a small dog with lots of finesse, and she's certainly meets that that credentials for that. All right, what I thought you wanted to ask about, Yanni, was, uh, if you could be get out after the turkey's Kevin. You know you can make a turkey dog out or two, There's no doubt. And I've got a buddy in West Virginia and that's all he asked me. Said, many of you had that

porters after a turkey. He's a turkey dog hunter, and that's on my list to do, is go man, my kid, My kid has fired up about the prospects of fall turkey hunting with a dog. Yes, he thinks that sounds like how a person should spend his time. You know, I'm right with him. I'm voting with him. Uh. You know, during ticks attract come to me like I don't know why, some kind of firmones or something I generate, but I've already picked out probably like thirty or forty off of

me this year already. I hate being out there in the woods this time of year. But turkey hunting with a dog, anything with a doll or animal, that's that's what gets me fired up. Yeah, any whatever happen does applying for like Land between the Lakes turkey tags that we of up on that, yeah, we never did it. Oh hey, you know what I just drew, Kevin, check this out just today. I drew UH for New Mexico. I drew an X tag okay, feral or you know around New Mexico. I drew an off range X tag

that's good for June. Mm hmm, hot as hot. And then I drew ah, I drew a female ibex tag for next February. Right right, that's that's You're very lucky now. So no, you haven't done any regular turkey hunt in the spring now now, not eating not. I just doesn't you know. After I go through hunting season and usually kind of wore out and stuff, and it just does

not intrigue me. Everybody's trying to get me to go and do at you know, and I love hearing a big gobbler gobble and I might go some I've got the sportsman tag, so I've got a turkey tag and all that. So when everybody gets it out of the system, I might go out there and piddle around and take a gun and mess around something. But now I haven't been been turkey hunting whatsoever. Yeah, so I may end up going to get bored and whatever, do a little prospect and see what's going out in up the woods.

But I'll give to everybody else first and let them kind of get burned out that I might go one of the tail in and mess around a little bit. So I've got no skills a turkey hunter. I can't stay still, so I'm still leaving with my bad knee moving around too much. So I leave that for the for the turkey hunters. So explain the main thing I wanted. We wanted to get here, and we've been trying to get you on to talk about this quite a while. How how you recently got back from a trip to Mongolia?

How did how'd that come on your radar? Like, I know, you've got like a lot of wanderlust, and that's one of the reasons I love you, is you got a lot of wanderlust, but your wanderlust is usually more targeted towards you know, driving around the country chasing small game credits around. How did it come to be that you thought that you had to go all held over to Mongolia? Well, um,

what you said? I retired twenty eleven. Uh, grew up always wanted to go, you know, to Canada walleye fishing, or go out West Kansas South Dakota pheasant hunting, and never had the resources to do that. So they as I got established and older, and then it retired. Um, I had some friends and went to Canada, been to Maine a couple of times, up in the up Drummond Island hunting, um so and um drumming and snows your hairs snowsho hair grouse. Yes, yeah, yeah in in those dudes. Man,

that's a special place right there. A snowshoe hare will run four to six miles up there on that island before you get it. You know, it is something to kill a snowshoe on drumming. They run and running. Your your ship better be in shape, or those those hairs will run your dogs to death if you're not careful. I've got some buddies from West Virginia. They've got it figured out. I've teamed up there with them and we had an absolutely fabulous time running the snow shoes up there,

um September early October. Oh so yeah, not not in the middle of winter now now, you know, there's no hunting season. That's kind of a preteen for them to head north until their season comes in, and uh, sometimes it's a little bit warm. But we had an outstanding hunt. Two years ago. The rabbits turned color yether. They're still brown. They are just starting to turn just a little bit,

you know, on their bellies on the underside. So yeah, I've never seen a true snowshoe, you know, solid white, But for my adventures to a Michigan and and Maine, they've always been, um, just kind of starting to turn. I did hunt snowshoe one time in Maine. My first time I forgot that was probably like twenty sixteen. Yeah, I think, uh just hired an outfit ter to go and hunt. Hunt snowshoe. Totally different than running swamp rabbits or cotton tails. They stay in the shadows all the time.

They won't get out hardy in the open at all, you've got to get right in there and get right on the track. Pretty much, they're hard to predict what they're gonna do unless you've got a good GPS and you see the dog track. So it's a it's a little bit different hunting than than our ore dumb cotton tails and the sleeks swamp rabbits that we have. We used to get them with very limited success late in the winter with snow shoes, wearing snowshoes, pushing them, trying

to drive them. Just break the habitat up into chunks and try to drive them out. And if we go out and get one or two, we'd be all excited. Yeah. Well, like I said, you know, you pretty much look on the GPS and we have to run our dogs from four to six miles. You can pretty much average that per rabbit, and so you know, you might have two races in the morning, take a pack of dogs and let them rest and then bring another pack out that afternoon,

or just let them rest. So it's a it's you know, it's quite it's quite interesting to see a rabbit go that far for that long. You know, have you know, five to eight nine beagle hounds, you know, pounding after the things. So are truly truly enjoyed. And is that a four or six mile loop that they're doing or because that multiple loops, multiple loops, and that's how you

know you can you can usually pin them down. You look on your GPS and see that track and try to get something more close on that track so you can kill them, because you know you're in that that conn for forest, so you can't see very far at all, Like you know, a ten twelve yard shot is about in a lot of times, so you just try to

get somewhere where you think you can. You can be on that rabbits track, blow your GPS up as as big as it goes, and try to find, you know, a couple of loops when the dogs that brought him through there and standing right there and then next thing you know, he's come twenty five yards or fifty yards down the road from me or whatever. So they're pretty crafty, very crafty, uh for for a rabbit. So I enjoy it truly to have a pack of dogs and try to outsmart you know, something with a brain about the

size of probably a on a walnut. Sometimes they win, sometimes I win. All right, let's get back this. Uh, I no idea reality there the Mongolia. So you've traveled around a bit right, went to South Africa and you know everything's high fenced over there. I saw some score earles. After about six or seven days, I said, man, it would be a shame that I come all the way

to South Africa and not getting me a squirrel. So I asked the people that we were staying with us, I want to kill a squirrel, and they thought I was kidding, and so, uh, nobody's ever asked to kill a squirrel. You know, I think I was the first one ever killed any Egyptian geese. I think you posted those uh that I was they were eating, and that we killed those. Over there. We barrored some decoys from some rednecks South Africans and set up at an irrigation pivot.

Raymond and I, he's my wing man. Um, he's been to uh South Africa. Then we went to a nickel rodwood to shoot some white winged doves uh and killed some Yucatan black throated Uh. Bob White's down there. Uh. We're gonna go after some tree ducks and never did get any of those. The wind was going so bad and then I went to Costa Rica caught a hundred pounds sailfish, and then I wanted to go on a truly, truly adventure. So that's how we ended up with Mongoli.

Had just started scrolling through the Internet thinking of things to do, and I had been fascinated by falconry. I've got a young friend up in KANKI keep Illinois Clayton that you post a picture of him and I we had caught a red tail hawk just for him to show me how how how easy it was to catch a bird of prey. And uh, I don't want to

be a slave to a bird. I want to be a consumer like the rest of my buddies when they go rabbit hunt and I keep them for three sixty five days a year, and then maybe they go rabbit hunt with me two or three times a year, you know, and have a good time. And that's the way I am with a bird of prey. Would not want to own one, be like owning a snake that eats every day.

So uh, I found it very fascinating uh to go over there and just you know, got on the internet and started scrolling through looking for somebody who uh an outfit or something, got some references and UH called some people up from the U S had been over there. And there's one guy, his name was Mark and he had been over there, and Uh, I kind of asked him, said, hey, mr, Uh, what kind of adventures have you been on? He said, Well, Sunny Boy said, when I was about eighteen, I was

over in the Micon Delta wait around. I said, thank you, sir for your service, and I appreciate it very very greatly. And that's all the information that I need. And there was a couple of vendorians out in California. They've been over there twice, and so I talked to them, I think via email or whatever, and just you know, UH just decided what was going to go on an adventure

and that's truly what we did. It was an adventure that started on I got off work at a project on the Friday the twenty September, got up the next morning on the twenty one of September at three thirty, went to the Nashville Airport, flew to Atlanta, Atlanta to Soul Korea, Soul Korea to Ulan Batar, and then Ulan Batar to Cove and then drove to g so at about four thirty Tuesday afternoon, we rode into the eagles camp. So it was quite the adventure just getting in there.

Got handed off by probably with nine different people. You know. They was out there, uber mass around there was archichects engineers. It didn't make any sense to me. I've got a like a story that would last for ever on that part, but very good people enjoyed it very much. I plan on going back and uh probably a year or two and go down and Gobi buy me a new motorcycle righting around for five to eight days, and then go back and see the eagle hunters that I spent ten

days in the desert with. So explain these the eagle hunters. They're not hunting four eagles now. Um. I had the opportunity to meet like six different eagle hunters out there and they're uh, they're from Kazahstan that came into the southern tip of Mongolia. Uh. Mongolia is population of about three in people and they become a democratic in the early nineties, about ninety two. And Mongolia to give you an example of how big it is. You started at Cincinnati,

OHI go to Salt Lake City Utah. That would be from you know, left to right, and then the top would be Nebraska on the Hall of Nebraska down to Dallas, Texas. And only three million people live in that land mass. You know. Here in Kentucky, I think we've got to four point eight million. I thinks what's in Kentucky. So you've got all this land mass and you've got only three million people out there. I think Montgolie is the

uh highest elevation occupied occupied country in the world. Uh. So you know we were always I think above a mile high. And Ulan Batar is you be as people call it as I call it. Uh, it's got like one point for million people. You know, half the population lives in one city over there, and that really the other the other half. When to get in there, they've got seven coal fire power plants cranking out admissions, uh,

putting a strain on all the drinking water. I met some environmental engineers is over there working on a project to take the water from their wastewater plant, use it for cooling water at the electrical plants, and then uh use their their fresh water for a drinking water system. So I'm out, you know, meeting people and looking for maybe a future job or whatever. I was like younger, I think I would go over there for a while and work. I just fell in love with the country

with the people were so nice. Uh, it's very vast um you know. Me, we've been hunted with. Usually I'm the first one or so to see some kind of animal. And I got over and I got stressed because they were seeing all these animals and I was not seeing it because it is just so vast out through there. Uh so what what what what makes the eagle hunter eagle hunter? The fact? Okay, you know they're born into

the into that family of eagle hunters. Uh. Opposedly, there's somewhere less than you know, three hundred some people say, like a hundred true eagle hunters left in the world. And they'll go out and uh uh. Four of the eagle hunters that that I met, they wrote out like seventy five miles to the mountains and they robbed a young uh pump eagle as they call it, from the nest. And they'll get the biggest eagle that's in there, that's

a female. They use the female to hunt with and then they'll bring it back home and then they will train it uh to work for them. Um. And I didn't get into really a lot of detail how they did that, but I ordered a couple of books from National Geographic and I saw one picture and read a short article that said that after they robbed the bird from the nest, they bring it home and put it on like a clothesline, and and the bird was set

there and flop and stay upright. And then when the bird lost all of its drive to stay upright and turned upside down, then that's when the eagle hunter would go in full with it. And then he broke its spirit and he would bring it back and and train it, feed it, and it become a companion uh with them to hunt. You know, there's their natural instinct to hunt their raptors. They want to use their talents as far

as they're beak for a defense weapon. There. You know, I saw, you know, I met several different eagles over there and mess around with them just a little bit. Not once did any of them trying to pick any of us or do anything. But their talents are very very deadly lots of p s I as far as force, you know, they can kill a small a small wolf pup you know if need be, But foxes and rabbits, you know, no problem at all for them to uh to kill a Mongoldian fox or a rabbit over there.

And these are golden eagles. Golden eagles, yes, yes, female female golden eagles. Wingspan about six foot way about you know, fourteen pounds and uh when you see pictures of these guys, they're always on like they seem to have a giant bird. And the dinky horse, yes, very small mountain horse. It's it's it's golden in the mountains out across the flat desert. Not worth a damn in my opinion. But those dudes, man, they've got full wheel drive. They'll go on a wonder

one slope anywhere you point them. They're like a mountain goat. I mean they can really digging and go. Their asks is scared to death of a stream. Hell, they want even cross something that's like, you know, a foot wide, unless they see where another horse or another animal has crossed. You gotta get on their ass and get on them pretty hard to make them go through water. They do not like that. But yeah, they're on. No small Mongolians

hype forces very stable. I went out there and they had three uh staked out, so you know, I feel with horses a little bit. So two of them had their heads down at the ground, not paying intention, and they had one to head his head up. I checked him out and I just grabbed him as my horse. So I kept him for ten days and I made a good choice. There's no doubt in my mind that

I got the best out of those three horses. Now, the thing about people that are into falconry here in the US at least is uh, you know, you know it's all said and done, you're not really like hunting to get meat, you know, I mean you're not getting that much stuff. What you do get the birds messing with it. And you know you're not like filling the freezer with as a as someone who's into falconry. That's fair.

You think that's a fair statement, Oh very much. So you know, I went on this trip and I read a book called Eagle Dreams. Uh. I forgot the author. He's a hunter, dog guy whatever, But I read that book and he made one trip early in the after they've become democratic, and they never called anything, so I knew you going in there. I did a little research that most likely that we might not catch anything, but

hunting is more than that. Yeah. But but but but but but my question is these dudes, these these eagle hunters in Mongolia, they're just like practicing falcony. Are they Are they using it because they're hunting stuff because they want to eat it? Uh, It's in their heritage, in their blood, you know. They they don't believe in killing a lot of animals. You know, they were satisfied just going out and with their eagle on her shoulder and getting after some stuff and flying it and they don't

have to kill anything. I showed up some of the pictures of like a some epic rabbit hunts and squirrel hunts that that I had been on it. They just kind of shook their heads. And then there was one uh, like like filling hotel gates up full of rabbits and stuff and they speak to them. There was We went to the Eagle Festival and we had a private concert from some musicians there and they had one song and it was about a mother getting on her son for killing a lot of animals. He had the kill lust

as a lot of young people do. Uh, And I did at one time in my life. But the song was written about that he was going out and killing two media animals and uh, they they had their instruments tied in with some like some little puppet things. But it was pretty It was very very intriguing and to hear that song to kind of go in with some culture that I had already experienced, so I knew, I knew what they thought a true hunter, and then they

had a song to go along with it. So that was that was something very unique from m. Did their ancestors, like you use this method to as like a primary way to secure protein like ever? Or is it always just been sort of more of a you know, not novelty, you like, an ornamental type of a hunt. You know, they've very got a very close bond with all types of animals. Uh. You know, they had dogs that would would sleep all day and bark all night. And I saw some cats that were just tathered up. But they

brought that from Khakistan. Uh And I don't really know the relationship how far that goes back. You know, there're nomads. I think it probably was a way for them secure food at one time, you know, back in their heritage, and they just kept it going because you know, as far as guns and weapons and stuff, they were very limited on what they could do, you know, bows and airs,

Genghis Khan, whatever. But when you've got a bird of prey that can come out of the sky after a rabbit, I would say that at one time in their lifetime that they probably were used very beneficial to help them be uh be hunters and gathers and live off the land. You know, they have a very harsh environment that they

live in. Go up in the mountains and live in a yurt, a felt tent our gear or whatever we want to call it, and then spend the whole summertime up there and then come down in the valley because the winters are so severe, you know, like a minus seventy degrease fahrenheit uh is how they gets So. Yes, they are very you know, very hardy type people there. And I could see it sometime in the history of those guys that that they use that bird of prey to help them survive and get through. And it's kind

of like you know with a squirrel dog. You know, at one time in history that was a vital part of a person's house to have a squirrel dog. And they were multipurpose. They you know, protect the stock, was a guard dog at their house whatever, and helped them to gather food and maybe herd cattle or or livestock, kept varman's away from the chickens. So I look as an eagle as being part of their history that they just keep going and at one time point in time it's it was it paid its way by by catching

um meat for the table. What are the primary things they like to go for? Like what they like to use these eagles to hunt for. Uh, there's like two or three different kind of foxes over there, and then they have the snowshoe hair. Um. Um, there's also they got some kind of wolf. Right, they've got some wolves over there, and um the homestead that we stayed with our dock is the eagle hunter I was with there.

They told me we've been there three or four or five six nights or something there that a pack of wolves had came into the valley and killed a hundred and fifty goats and sheep, and that they thought that it was a she wolf teaching the cubs how to kill. And then after being there for like fourteen days, I found the only are one of the only squirrel hunters in all of Mogoli and found some trees and we were driving up the valley that morning, Well you had been,

we had been. Like Tuesday, we come into Eagle Camp and we spent that week there, and then the following Tuesday we left out on a four day journey across the desert on the horseback to go to the eagle Festival in Noogi and uh we did that. We came into town for two days for the eagle festival. We were supposed to go back out and spend some time with the eagle festival, but the people that were in

charge of us. I asked him, said can we do something? Says, we have been out ten days with the best eagle hunter and all of Mongoli, and to go with another eagle hunter would probably most likely be a disappointment. So can we do something else? Can we sight sees? What I asked him? He says, would you like to go see some some red stag? I said yes, I would

like that very much. So they picked us up at seven thirty on Monday morning and on a fore Runner and we went to a gas station to get some petrol and I watched them as the the fore runner. Uh gas tink clicked off. The two dudes got up on the back bumper and burped the tank to get an extra leader to a gasoline in the tank. I knew right then that we were going to go on a true adventure that day, just trying to get a

you know, three point eight leaders to the gallon. And they would just get a couple more leaders of gasoline in the tank. And we rolled in about midnight that night and across the desert and we might come to an intersection and they would be like five roads and they would stop and they would look at those roads,

and I got to figure it out. They always kept the moon on the rights the right shoulder all the time, all the way back through you know who it was there abouty have been a black type road right out there, you know, five miles away, and they just took us across country to give us, you know, our money's worth. But and we certainly did. And I highly recommend if anybody's an adventure to go to Mongolia and spend some time. But we went up the valley and looking for this

certain eagle hunter that knew about these stags. And as we were going up through there I saw a small herd of horses, and I saw this little black horse with its left rear flank with meat hanging in the wind. It was shredded, and it looked to me like a wolf had tried to bring that hamstring that horse and

bring it down and it ran off. I didn't have time to take a picture, and we finally we found the eagle hunter, and then through the interpreter, I asked it was that a wolf that had tried to eat that little black horse up the valley there, and he said, yes, it was a wolf. So you know, wolfs are constant threat for him. You would see, uh, scarecrows out around the campsite. They would bring their livestock in around camp at night and the dogs would bark all night and

you would hear them barking and stuff. They would have scarecrow set up and up on the ridges they would have like little rock men set up to scare away the wolves. But that was pretty predominant all through the area that we stayed in to see scarecrows, rockman. Everybody had a dog that slept all day and barked all night. Uh. So it was it was a true true adventure that I will, you know, just always think about and want

to go back and do something again over there. So when you struck off to go when you struck off to go hunting, like, how did that play out? You ride off into a good area, you're looking for what you're trying to visually see it. Um, you know we started out, you know, not knowing us whatever. So the first first day we do we do practice to see if we can ride horses, because some people come over there shift they can't ride a horse. That the guide told us. Man, I'm so glad that you guys can

can ride a horse. And so we strike off across the desert where it's flat and just see if you could ride a horse. So I have no problem. Raymond, my wing man, is with me, and he sneaks his wife and Tammy at the last minute there the month or two before we leave, and she's going with us. Be course, she's a nurse. I'm thinking, man, that's a good idea to have a nurse nurse on board. So the three of us take off, you know, out across the desert, just riding flat ground, seeing how we do.

And then we go up into the mountains like the foothills, and then we start looking for animals and the foxes and stuff. They like to stay around the livestock, you know, because the rabbits feel safe around the livestock. And there's this uh coal mainland of you know, creatures, their food

chain type deal. So so we're out looking up on the mountaintops there and we spend the first day with the eagle hunter, and I stayed with his ask like everywhere he goes, I'm bred there on me, you know, riding the horse trying to see something, trying to see a fox, and he says he sees with some a couple of times, but I never see it. But we're trying up in the up in the mountains. It's pretty treacherous. It's pretty steep ship there with shale and rock and

all that. You do not want to tumble off the horse because it would be bad news. But I think that first day he saw the how interesting I was to try to catch something, and I can stay with him. Then the next day we go hunting. He recruits two more eagle hunters out of the valley, and that day we do get after a fox and have three eagles in the air. After the fox and uh uh. They we see the fox run out, and then the three eagle hunters, like the foxes is booking away from you.

Right right, we're coming up the Cyber Mountain and they say fox, fox, Fox, and I'm looking and I don't see anything because everything's mono tone there. And finally I see a little grass at the top of a ridge and I see the fox coming over in silhouette across the ridge. So I see him then for the first time, and then he's over to the right, you know, to or three hundred yards, and then all of a sudden,

we circle back around to the left. And I'm not a I'm not a mountain to guy at all, you know, I'm flat land, swamp, river bottom, rolling hills type dude. So we've we've come around the left side of the uh the mountain. We're on horseback, and then we post up and then the fox he pops out of like a ravine at the bottom, and then they take off after him on this one to one slope and I'm thinking, ship, it's pretty damn steep, but I'm gonna trust my horse and I go on. Well, the guide in Raymond and

Tammy they stay behind. They it's too steep for them. So I take off after the eagle hunter's ass, and they put the three birds in the air, and then I see two birds dive bombing down over the next ridge. I think it man, they've got him over there. So I right over the ridge and there's two eagles on the ground and they look like they're fighting something. Well, they're fighting each other. They missed the fox. And then the young eagle, the third eagle, he flies off because

he's not he's being trained. He's kind of like a young dog, so he flies off, and then I decide I'm gonna gonna ride off with the eagle hunters. So he gets mad at me and scolds me. He cannot speak any English. So I finally understand that I stayed there with the two the two eagle hunters, and they get their birds apart and get them back on their horses. Now, why are the dog Why are the birds fighting? Um?

I guess just because they're predatorial. They missed the fox, so you know, they die bomb from from hyping the atmosphere, and and they just barely missed him. I didn't see that part of it. So they're just kind of like two dogs you know that gets after a critter and then hell there's no critter, so they get after each other.

So you know, so it's just, uh, you know, one of those rare things that that happened that you know, fox is pretty wildly and then you come from the top and then you gotta taken and granted that the birds this is the first of hunting season. Uh, they're out of shape. They're fat, it's warm, they're not that hungry. But the main thing is they're out of shape. They're

not conditioned for this. And I kind of I read about that in the book, saying that if you really want to catch something, you did to go over there in the cold winter time when everything is in shape and you've got snow on the ground and critters stand out, you know, they can see, they can pinpoint what's going on. Was that the was that the soul encounter you guys

had with the game animal. Oh now, oh now, now that was like the oh I guess it was a second or third day that we would been there, and then we went out a couple other times and the eagle hunter said he saw a fox, but I never I never did see it. But I believe you uh. Um. But when we started our trek out, we've been there seven days. We went fishing, two days, we called some grailing. One day that was my first grayling, and we fried it up and cooked it, ate the caviar the eggs

out of it. It was very very good. But when we started our trek across country the first day, I don't think we caught anything or got after anything. We spent the night with a family as we go, in a their mud and log hut, just you know, the three of us in there with the They had two kids and then two uh the couple, so there was uh seven of us in just a little room of

you know, probably fifteen by fifteen. And I slept in the bed for the first time and probably uh seven days when those old timey spring tight beds with no mattress or anything on it, so it felt like a Cadillac, like a water bed. I've been sleeping on the ground

the whole time. Uh. We would burn cal dunk and Campbell dunk and maybe a couple of lunks of coal at night during the adventure when we were at the Eagle Hunter's house, and uh, finally one night the wind would get up it got up so bad that it blew the top out of our our gear, and the stone pipe was flapping in the wind, and they was fred he was gonna burn down. So they took the stove outside and we moved in the actual eagle hunter's house and spent the last two days. But the first

day on our trick, we didn't get after anything. And the second day, uh, we got after a fox or two. But the third day we got after. We were coming and they said we was gonna ride up was riding that through the desert and we wrote up on this little mountain. They said we might get after a owl here. Now, when I first caught that an owl, yes, and now I said, I'm ready to catch a field mouse. I'm ready to catch something, it doesn't matter what it is. So when I first got there, I started looking at

all the vehicles and the motorcycles. Everything had feathers tied to it. And I asked the guy that, so, what's all these chicken feathers on your handlebars of your motorcycle in your rear view mirror. He says, Oh, it's a sacred animal, the owl. It protects us, and we kind of, you know, we look after the al. I said, well where do you where do you get all these feathers at He said, well, we get them from dead owl. So, you know, you just don't ask some some questions that

people to go into detail. And I found out just because someone can speak English better than me and answer my questions, that they know what in the hell uh they're talking about, and I know what they were talking about. So I just kind of dropped it. And we got over there and we had three eagle hunters with us, our guide, and then we had we picked up a flusher boy and his job was to write. If we were on top of the mountain, he would ride at the bottom and try to flush a fox or rabbit

out for us. Or if we were on the bottom of the mountain, he would be at the top trying to flush something out or roll off a boulder the size of a of a worship machine or what a recould or throw rocks. So we were we were down at the bottom of the mountain and he was rolling off boulders and ship coming off there trying to drive this this owl out of this crevice. Yeah, I was kind of it was kind of sketchy, you know, what was going on, but I was enjoying it. I was ready.

And then I saw this the first time I saw an animal. The first one I spotted a red fox. I castle kazack foxes, and they've got three different kinds over there, and I'm not for sure which which one this was, but I saw this fox and I started pointing to him and telling him fox, fox, fox, But they would pay no attention to me. And I got mad because I finally saw an animal on my own and they didn't want to. They didn't want they wanted this out. So finally the flusher boy ran this owl

out from under this rock crevice. It flew out, but it would never get over you know, five or six feet off the ground, just you know how owls they fly low to the ground. And then we turned the eagles loose, and we had three eagles after it, and it went around the mountain like three times with us trying to flush it out of these crevices, throwing rocks,

whatever we had to do. And then the last time that I saw that owl going around the bend of that mountain, it had three golden eagles after it, and then two crows or ravens come in. I don't know where they flew in from them, but they were on

the tail of of of the Golden eagles. And then it had five Mongolians on horseback and then just Raymond and I two Americans, And I don't think there's anybody in the world that's ever experienced that that type of hunting experience where you've got you've got an owl, three Golden Eagles, two ravens, five Mongolians, and two Americans on horseback trying to catch a critter. So the owl got away.

But yes, yeah, you know, um, the eagles didn't stand a chance because that thing was only like five ft off the ground and they couldn't get enough altitude up to dive bombed down and get that. But it was truly something very unique to witness that to be a part of it, experiencing on horseback up on the side of a mountain. Everything was kind of sketchy, you know, their gear in their tack. If I had that ship at my house, I would throw it away. And it's like a like a kids, like a kid that's saying

a lot. You're exactly right. My big toe would go on the stirrups. You know, they were afraid that somebody was gonna get hung up in the stirrups. Their reins were like a shoelace, and and the girt they didn't even do tie a girt note there. They would just make one rap around And it was like two or three days before even noticed that. You know, that was kind of sketchy all their equipment there, but it held up,

and you know, I made it back. But we left that mountain and we we people would just come out of nowhere, I mean out of nowhere, but Mongolians are constantly have binoculars and their glass and all the time looking for something in the distance. And people would ride up on a motorcycle or horseback or whatever and talked to us, or they talked to the eagle hunters. And some dude come in on a horseback and he told us it was a family of foxes on the next mountain.

So we rolled over there, and uh, we got after, We got after two foxes over there, and uh we ran around the side of a mountain and one of them he froze up at the tip of the mountain, and uh, the eagle hunter saw him, and the guide saw him. So we came over and we got off the horses and we walked over to the edge and he was down probably about a hundred yards or so, just frozen because he didn't want to move because there

was an eagle in the air. And finally we were all looking at him, and we gave him the stink high. You know how animals are, you've been out before, when everybody starts staring at something, animals feel that a lot of times, I mean they do. And so we all started staring at that fox, and he finally bolted and he ran down the mountain and there was a herd of sheets and goats down there, and he ran through them.

They turned the other two eagles loose, and that fox he headed into a head wind to the next mountain. So we got three eagles in the air. A fox running wide open across the desert plain headed to the next mountain, which is over a mile away. We've got three eagles on his ass there. Well, the first eagle, he peters out about just a quarter away and turns

around and comes back. The other one stays with him about halfway and comes back, and then the third one is on him, but he's in a head wind and he cannot he cannot flat hard enough to catch up with him, so he just sets his ass down on the desert. And then the little eagle hunter that's with us, he I don't know why he didn't ride his horse center. He just dismounts from his horse and he runs all the way down there and picks the and picks the

eagle up on his arm and brings him back. So, you know, I saw three eagles running after a fox and a head wind trying to catch a fox, and they were just out of shape and they couldn't they couldn't tackle that wind. And that fox. You know, he was smart enough that he'd come off that mountain, ran through those sheep and goats as a distraction, and then turned into the wind because he knew that that eagle would have trouble, uh, trying to capture him in the

wind like that. So do you get the sens these dudes, like, do they want to get something or they just want to be out messing around there? No, no, man, they want to get something. Because we left that mountain and one or the other and we got after, we got after another fox, and they was always on my ass all the time. You know, that damn horse wrote a blister in my ass. It was uncomfortable, and his jog trotten.

I'm a gated type force guy. I like when they hit a leg and good to travel across country there, but they were always on my ass every time I tried to gallop a horse or whatever. And we were going to another mountain over there, and we got after a fox and the flusher boy there, uh, he was trying to cut the fox off, and he had his horse at a full gallop going across the desert floor.

They told us to post up and not to go when he were, and he was at a full gallop and he hit a liming a leaming uh colony, you know, like a the little animal like the gopher that's over there. And he hit that colony there and his horse caved in on a hole and he went head over heels off that horse, and he finally got up brushing all the dust and everything off, holding his arm and rubbing his leg and finally got up on his horse enough and then got back over there. And still like two

hours later, he was still holding his arm. And he was a young dude in his thirties. But we got after a fox and they said he ran up into the mountain, up into a like a cave, a crevass on it, and those dude got up there about fifty sixty ft climbing around, and they all wore these boots, those Harness boots like the Harley Davids and motorcycle guys. You know. Rather they ain't worth a damn for climbing

around the rocks. But they are up there poking around trying to find, you know, where that fox was throwing some rocks trying to get him out. But yes, they truly were trying to catch some some creditors. Yeah, they wanted to catch, you know, catch something, you know, for us. But like you said, it was just the circumstances over there. And and that's part of being a falconer that you

alluded to earlier. There, you go out trying to catch an animal, you're not gonna get something every time, and it's kind of on an even playing field where you've got predator and prey out there, and it's just so who's the strongest or what conditions you are, who's gonna win that day? And if you want to get type of guy that wants to stack up a lot of game animals, and you do not want to be a falconer.

You're in for You're in it for, you know, owning a bird, taking care and of it, having a relationship where you can take an animal that you have tamed and go out there and turn it loose into the wild and it trust you enough to come back. And sometimes their eagles don't come back. One guy lost an eagle at the eagle festival. He turned it loose and it just decided it was gonna fly off and not not come back. So he's gonna go back to being

the eagle. Yes, and they do that, you know, they may keep an eagle for five or six years and then turn it loose and and then go get another one. The eagle hunter that we were with, he had a six year old eagle and a two year old eagle that he that he was training, and then when they got um uh solo, then they would release them back into the to the wild and let him go free. You know what you're talking about? How are you saying that horse legs to run and you'd like to run

enough another way? Well, there's like a gallop, you know, job trot and gallop like a lot of quarter horse and there's a canner that's kind of an easy slow you know, uh ride a fox trot, you know, different shuffle there. A gaited horse has a smooth ride. And I'm not a big horseman, but like I said, you know you could if your asses in a saddle, you can feel it, you know, get him in a certain I thought a horse was a horse until uh I got involved with him, a friend of mine, he's a

big horseman. Paul. You met Paul. We went over in eight breaths into his house. So I just thought all horses did the same, whether they run to Kentucky Derby

or pulled the card or whatever. But you know, there's riding horses and working horses and roping horses and mountain horses, and definitely those mongoling horses are made to billy go around on top of the mountain with no fear whatsoever beyond a shell slope and ship sliding off whatever, and seeing them a nice piece of grass and bend down and take a big bite and not worry about following

their ass off the face of them ountain. So yes, what I was taking interest in in Wyoming this year when we're hunting down there on horseback is how just how bad your scroll gets just beat up man on a certain when they get to try. Yes, this gotta be like, there's gotta be tricks for that. Well, you know, you can stand up in the stirrups, but my knees are shot. They are completely wore out. So I got no cushion in my knees anymore. I cannot do that.

So you know, basically I spent about ten days on horseback. When I was over there was your scroll just getting just beat up. Not too bad my ass. The saddle was too too small, so the back of my ass was cushion and the rest of me so I didn't have to worry about that too much. But you know, I kind of a horseman, so I kind of know how to get into saddle and use the back of my ass for the padding instead of the front of

my scroll them to ride out. Yeah, someone was telling me that part of the thing is like not to and chump when he starts trotting right, you clench your legs up and you make less room in there for everything to lay out how it needs to lay out. But I was wondering about if you went, if you'd be smarter to to to go no onies to go underwereless like if you were up there, they got they can take it to extremes. Let's say you're up there and nothing. You're up there in your birthday suit. Are

you still smashing your scroll? Well, you know you use your thighs too, and yeah, because yeah, when that horror starts to moving you, you clench up more. And someone said, it's it's being learning how to relax your thighs and not squeeze in so bad so that everything's getting beat up. I like, I'm telling you, I don't remember this being such an issue when I was younger, but it seems in the harder kind of ride, and it's a real thing where I feel as though you had sat one

might sacrifice his ability to have children. Not that I need that ability anymore. Well, it's kind of riding a bicycle too. You know, you're on a bicycle seat, so you just kind of mash my screw on a bike. Well, it depends on what kind of saddle, And like I said, it just kind of comes natural to me where I I've done enough miles in a horse and you've done enough miles in a bicycle to know how to maneuver yourself where you don't hurt yourself. So I think there's

a lot into that. Probably the more time that you spend in the saddle, the more comfortable you get, because I can look some of your photographs and tell you your tents on the horse, and you don't you know, you're not in control. Basically, I would never come. I would never come present myself as a horseman. I'm the opposite of a horseman. And I'm putting it out an

honest thing there. I'm sure we'll get some good feedback from listeners on it, but uh, I just need to if I was gonna become more of a horseman, Like if someone was said to me, hey, do you want here's a horse? You can have this horse? And if Dyven said, I'll even throw in like you keep the horse here and I'll feed the horse. In my mind would be man, do I really want to smash my scroll that bad all time? That's what would come to my mind. And Yanni, you're I know that this is

something that's on your mind. You do know? I thought we talked about this. We did. I mean, it was, you know, noticeable, But I feel like we rode all week and I don't know you haven't. You just get such a hit now and then it just hurts You're you're probably leaning too far forward, like I said, we're I wore a blister on my ass because I was leaning back to not I'm definitely yeah, yeah, you need to lean back into the seat of the saddle more.

I feel like I'm all tensed up, scrunched up my thighser's my thighs as puckered up leaning forward, and it's just like a slug fest down in the air. Man. You are you are chance? I mean, like I said, I've seen a few pictures of you, and you just gotta learn to relax and feel confident and trust your horse. So you don't trust your horse. And that's one thing that you've got to do is trust your horse. You gotta have a good horse to trust. And U you know, Paul,

he taught me a lot about horses. I didn't only ridden like five or six times in my life before I met him, So I spent a lot of time in the saddle from about ninety two to uh, you know, two thousand and two. Man, we had some some fantastic squirrel hunts with you know, we might have eight or ten people out there in a half a day with Kevin is twelve buyers in a full day is twenty four on a squirrel hunt. That's what some of the boys would say. But you just gotta you know, it's

like riding a bicycle. After you get used to it and know how to maneuver around whatever, you'll keep from hurting yourself. And the same with you. You just need some more time in the saddle. Have a good horse, have have your your stirrups and everything fits you where you can stand up and cushion yourself in a big enough seat where you can lean back and feel comfortable, and find you that sweet spot where you can ride in maneuver and cover grounds. So you just need some

more time in the saddle. Was a yeah, my only horse. Like, I don't spend any time just messing around on horse. It's like we get thrown into situations where you're like, oh, we're gonna ride these horses up and look for a grizzly bear, ride these horses all through the mountains. I never just get a chance to just go out, and you need to pleasure. Develop my pleasure. I developed my skills.

Ye oh, go ahead. You just need to go out and pleasure ride and have no mission other than you spend a good day on the horse with somebody and have no mission other than to get comfortable and see the outdoors and cover some ground and find out what works for you. Yeah. Uh, your assessment of these these the Mongolian guys did, uh? Were they hunters? To look? Are they like? Are they are they? Oh next weekend or this? You know we're fishing, then we're gonna go

hunt this, and we're gonna go hunt that. Then we're gonna go eagle hunting. Are they like well rounded all around outdoorsman? Um? Probably as one trick ponies. Um. Yeah. You know they had high powered goods. They didn't have a lot of game there. You know it's been I guess vanished there wolves. Uh. You know, I had a twenty two rifle made in Russia and they had to bruno. Uh. I forgot what calibrat was seven point six by thirty nine or something. But they didn't talk about hunting a

whole lot. Uh. But as far as fishing and living off the land and all that, Yeah, they just didn't have you know, they worked and had to uh to take care of themselves. But as far as having organized hunts, now some of the one of the guys that was driving us around, he had a dragon off Russian sniper rifle and he talked about bear hunting. Uh. He was at an eagle hunter. You know. The eagle hunters are kind of like nomads, so they whatever it takes to

live off the land is what they do. They hurt their sheep herders, gold herders have camels, Uh, have cattle cross with the all the mont Goldian cat I'm going to blank. Uh. You know they are basically their diet is red and white uh, dairy products and meat. Uh. As far as vegetables and things of that nature, they do not have so like a yogurt, cheese, things of

that nature, cream, milk, whatever we had over there. But as far as a hunter, uh, they knew how all the animals act whatever, you know, whatever it took to kill a wolf, catch a wolf or whatever. Yes, but you know, my experience with them was just around the camp, traveling on horseback, uh, fishing. Uh, So we didn't have an opportunity to see a whole lot of different game

over there. We never saw a rabbit when we were out eagle hunting now coming back from the little squirrel hunting do there we got into we saw a Siberian lynx our European links. Yes, yes, it crossed the road in front of us. I got out, tried to force it around, surpulate back around because cats usually are very curious and not really afraid of humans that much. And and I got into it, and I noticed that there was a bunch of sticker bushes, thorn bushes there, and

then I put two and two together. That night when we were coming in, we saw several rabbits and they were around that same type of vegetation. So the rabbits, you know, there be like briar patches here. When we were out in the desert, we never I never saw that vegetation whatsoever anywhere. And they told me that most of the rabbits were up in the rocks, so they didn't feel comfortable getting out, you know, being silhouetted or whatever. But we saw rabbits. I saw the links with in

the in the thorn bushes. And then that night saw several rabbits coming in by moonlight and they were always in the thorn bushes. So uh, you can include this trip in there or not. But um, if you had, well, let me ask you this first. If it are you gonna like if I gotta talk to you in a year and you're gonna be a falconer and not a not just like a dog man. Uh. Now I could give up dogs for bird. Sorry, I wouldn't like that now.

As I said earlier, I think I do not want to be a slave for a bird, because you know, when I go on a hunting trip, I may take a pack of beagles or a bird dog or a squirrel dog, and then I still got some troops at home. I've got some very good neighbors that come over and take care of my critters while I'm gone. I would not want to put that on anybody taking care of a bird. And and it doesn't I'm fascinated by that. I've got some friends. I've got Clayton. I've got a

young boy and he's a connor. He's getting his paperwork together and I put him together with a friend that I talked to on the telephone has been a lifelong falconer. So you got to go under apprentice program for a year. Uh, and then you have to take a test and people have to sign of phone you and then you get a permit to catch you a bird. But now as far as me going out and Honey, I hope he gets one. I will be a consumer. I'll take my dogs,

maybe bar some horses. I'm out of the horse business right now, and we'll go out and catch us a squirrel or swamp rabbit or maybe out west and get some some um game birds or whatever. But now I don't I don't ever see me. I have no ambitions of being a falconer. I appreciate the sport. I want to go go back to Mongolia. I want to go in the US and and go on some hunts. But I'm fascinated by it. But as far as being bound to a bird, not not made, what was your uh

out of your season? Your season? What? What were some like? What's the biggest lesson you learned if you if you're factor in Mongolia? Everything else? What you find out about yourself by hunting? Uh? You know, uh hunters worldwide or golden And there's a certain bond that you can do uh by just small things uh that puts you all in a brotherhood. Um, you know, uh, just some things that you can do um To give you an example,

um um our young guys started out with us. He's thirty one, uh eyvall and uh when when when our game plan changed and we wanted to go sight seeing, they put an older guy guide with us uh to Tupac and he'd been over there, well, he lives in Mongolia. He lives in Mongolia. And I was kind of uh, not happy, not pleased that they were swapped guides up us, but it worked out for the best and I have two friends over there now. But he had been there

around Socialist time. He had he had led several geological expeditions out into the desert and the mountain region looking for tungsten, uh rare earth elements, uranium, copper and all this. And he knew about mine in and tungsten and all that. And of course, with my geology background, I find it very interesting and inquisitive. And you could see the landscapes over there, no no vegetation, so you can see veins where tungsten were, and the copper, the different types of

rock formations and all that. So we uh we uh went up the valley, made friends with the eagle hunter.

I saw that he had a squirrel, and he told me about getting a squirrel and where they were, and somewhere or another we got into the tungsten uh part of it, and he he had some not supposed to all the government owns all the minerals and resources over there, but he had some and he showed that to me, and I found it very fascinating, and I so much wanted to be a tourist and say, I would like to purchase a small piece of that tungsten front you, but I didn't. Kevin didn't do that. So uh, he

showed it to me. I handled it, my hands whatever, and we went Uh. He said about four o'clock these stags would come out and we could start looking at them. And they were about two thousand meters away up on the mountain side, and we were glassing, and finally a dole came out and I saw her, and then I looked over to our guide and I said, you tell the young eagle. Hunter said, uh, if I was ten years younger, we would be having that dole for five

finger feast tomorrow. And he he he told him that, and immediately, for some reason he got up and went in the house and got started beating on something and come out there and gave me a piece of that tungsten. And of all the things that I go back, you know that I paid for whatever. That is my most cherished, uh momento from the trip was that small piece of tungsten that I didn't ask for whatever, But we just

kind of communicated. He knew that I was gold and then that I would most likely supersede laws in values to be a true part of the culture over there. So that's probably my golden lesson there that there's a bond when people do certain things that you can tell. They can talk all they want to, but until they really do something, do you know that they are a

part of their brotherhood. So he knew that, Hey, at heart, I was a hunter and I didn't have to have a permit, but I would go up there and we would kill that animal together and have a face and it just clicked. I mean, it's just something magical surreal about that. So that's probably one of my big lessons that that I learned. And then Uh, my buddy Raymond, he taught me. He's my wing man. He goes all over the place with him, but he will not go

into any Gentleman's club in any foreign country. He won't let me go in there either. So but we were out hunting, and he showed me the difference between a where a squirrel had been in an acron in a in a a blackbird or a bird, blue jay, whatever. Do you know the difference? Have you ever seen that? Okay, if you'll hold the acron up, you know the woods floor was covered with acrons where something had been eating

on them. But but they pulled the cap off and then they like scoop it out with her beak and you can see beat marks in the acre were were I guess they hold that in there one of their claws and pull the cap off of it, and that we're able to eat that. But I uh, he taught me that, and I did not know that. So that's something about nature that I didn't. I just thought they were squirrels or whatever. I knew that they come in

and eat acorns. But right now I can distinguish whether it's um being eaten by a bird of some type or a squirrel. That's a good trick down. Yes, yeah, you know something, a little bit bit of information. You're never too old to learn something. Listen you know, finish that the squirrel hunt in Mongolia story. And then because you said you met the only other squirrel hunter in Mongolia, so did you bond what that did? That's that's the guy that that that broke me off a piece of tungsten.

That gave it to me, and I got a bottle of wine out and we drank and he told me about going up in the mountains. It's like a European black squirrel. And I've got a picture of holding up the pale that was one of his. You know, they'd have these like a little shrine in their house where if they were eagle hunter, they would have like a

rabbit pelt, uh hair pelt, snowsho hair, uh fox whatever. Well, he had a squirrel pelt hanging on his wall, and I instantly bonded with him when I saw that, and he told me they lived up in the mountains and there was some timber. That was the first part of Mongolia that we actually saw any trees. The rest of it was just rock and just arid um um, just you know, high mountain desert. I call it desert. It's really the mountainous, the most mountainous region, most barren region

least populated in all of Mongolia. You got to Russia up on the top. You got Khakistan kind of in the middle of the point in the China. We probably got within fifteen miles of China or closest, and within sindy five miles of Russia in Khakistan, UH during my trip. So we're in that far left corner of Mongolia, right on the border of China, UH Kakistan in uh Russia.

You know how to sit with you eat and all that eating just meat and in dairy, I feel like the tears some people up well, you know, we were concerned about that. Everything that we had read said, you know, the food was kind of bland. Bring you some hot sauce, some salt, whatever. So uh, the first stop that we made after we got situated was to go into a small grocery store. We bought five pounds of salt, a bunch of different hot sauces. All that make a long

story short. We left it all with them. Our food was excellent. We had our own cook We had some type of vegetables. Every single day. I eat a banana just about every day. I took ester vitamin C and a vitamin B one, uh, basically the same formula as airborne. You know, we were at a high altitude the whole time. I was worried about altitude sicknesses. But you know, we ate like kings over there. And finally we had to tell them had hate cut our food off. U. But

we had a cooked soya and I've made some. She showed me how to make some Kakastan doughnuts and fried them and uh cheap fat one night. But our meal they had, you know, special meal for us. We would have eggs and cream of wheat and uh peppers, and we had a pretty wide variety of food to eat. And so we did not have you know, traditional and old just a red and white diet. So they were very they were very accommodating with us on that and

the food wise it was very good. Uh. Every little homestead that we came into, the Mongolian people very friendly. It's like old old country folk when I was a kid. You come to their house, they get their best food out that they've got and may be left over biscuits, country ham, bacon, some old coffee, sweet tea or whatever, and they would have us a feast and they wanted to hear about what was going on in America, about our kids or about our jobs. And it was just wholesome.

I mean, I just I just fell in love. The longer that I stayed over there, the stronger that I got, and the more that I liked the country and the people. Even though there's a key communication barrier there, you know, there's always some kind of interpreter or whatever saying, and some people welcome me into their house. Uh. One of our drivers, his family, his his younger sister. She was young and she played uh I like a little uh uh musical instruments, so she serenade us uh during a

one visit. Uh. So it was it was a truly adventure, just jam packed food, uh entertainment. Um. You know when I went to the Eagle Festival, I met little Spi girl Jillion. You know, I spent ten days out in the desert with the best eagle hunter and all of Mongolia, and then we pay money to go to this event where all the eagle hunters bring their eagle in that they do competition. It would be like uh, you know, being out west bird hunting with the very best bird

hunter like Patrick and his dogs. Uh. For ten days and then going to some pay preserve and paying money to shoot some quail that's been raised in this cage the entire life. So that was that was kind of the scenario. So I just couldn't get into it. And there's a bunch of tourists, a bunch of tourists there, and I looked around and I saw this blondheavy girl with its orange toboggan onum so saying, hey, come talk to me. So I went over there and started talking

to her. And she says she was a jump bond dealer awful Wall Street, and she wanted to do some traveling before she got to a uh in their in their early thirties, and so she found me fascinating that I squirrel hunted and hunted and did all that, and uh we've become friends. And she even came in in uh they and twenty ninth of February, and um, I took her and we got a swamp rabbit in a uh fox squirreld. So we're we're friends today, like like

Dayton friends or friend France. Just you know, I've recruited someone into the uh you know, I have done the recruitment. We've got retention and reactivation. So I've got a young lady female that never been hunted in her life, had never killed an animal, that her first animal was a swamp rabbit, and yet he had eason killed a swamp rabbit. Yet good. So so you know we're we're friends. And uh, she finds hunting very fascinating and uh it's pretty unique story.

You know, She's traveled around the world, went to Antarctica, sent me some pictures about being down there with the walrces and the penguins and all that. So, uh, you know, I'm ready to anybody I can get in the honey world. Not everyone is is made to be a hunter or traveler whatever, but I'm all for recruitment, getting people in and to show them that hunting is more than killing

an animal. It's going out, maybe going to you know, may I just go to Baring Springs, Michigan and and beat some of the local people, go out and eat and and enjoy their friendship, you know once a year, or maybe I go to a foreign country and see what all they eat and meet a person that maybe I just become friends and just talk on the internet or you know, telephone call or letter or whatever. So there's a lot more to a hunter than just going

out and killing an animal. Uh. There's a you know, friendship, camaraderie, there's a common bomb, very complex uh you know, uh scenario of being being a hunter, and not everyone is meant to be a hunter. Um. So you know, I can respect people that don't want to hunt. Um, I'm after the people that's in the middle, that that would that I could recruit into the honey world. You know, at one time I had lots of competition, and I

don't have any competition anymore. It's just seems less and less every year that we have people out hunting, hunting with dogs and pursuing you know, nature. So I'm all for trying to get as many people as we can into the into the field and and support you know, buying license and protecting our environment. And if you don't want to hunt, that's that you're right, you don't have to hunt. Hell yeah, Kevin, thank you man. I can't

wait till Yeah. We gotta get back out. I'm we gotta get back out, bad bad, bad bad, And I'm talking to kind of getting out where we get something. But we gotta, we gotta I gotta we gotta, we gotta talk about a couple of quick things here, Kevin. I'm gonna act like I'm telling you about it, and then you act really interested, okay, and then listeners will will not realize you're listening to uh us plugging our

own stuff. So you can ask questions too if you want. Kevin, we got a new new new series, new YouTube on our YouTube channel, a new thing we're putting out called Meat Eater Hunts. Different stuff launches. I know already happened. It's already out launched. That's what I meant to say. April Meeta's YouTube channel. We got two new and we put up two new episodes every Wednesday. The ones we just put up so far, first week's episodes is a spear fishing trip me you know Yanni did in the

Channel Islands. And then we got uh one of Yanni's elk hunting trips jannest Is elk hunt in Colorado. So those are the first first week's episodes of Metiator Hunts. This is something we'll be rolling with and doing more and more of coming up, so check those out. What else, Yanni? So yeah, how's that sound, Kevin's are you gonna go watch the spear fishing. That's right up my alley. You know, to go hunt some fish. You know, do it. It's

the greatest sing in the world. Man. You know, when I go fishing, I like for him to be biden. I don't like fish for fish. Now, I can go hunting and hunt for something and not get it. But on the fish, I want to be out out hunting. So that spearfish and that sounds like on my bucket list. You know, I wasted. I wasted my life. Man. If I'd have found out about it, I would have taken a different If I had known about it earlier what I know about it now, I would have taken a

different path in life. I'll take a different path. I would be living some cold ass mountains. I can tell you that I'd be living in some tropical environment right now. Um, So everybody should go check that out. Mediator Hunts. Go on YouTube channel. Subscribe to our YouTube channel. We got we've all kinds of junk up there, good stuff. Good jump up on that and uh, Kevin Murphy, Dude, I miss you so bad knowing that I can't hang out

you and I can only look at you. This is gonna lift soon that we're gonna start getting back to normal. It makes me depressed. I miss you. I miss you bad. It's good having me on though. I'm glad to seeing you guys. And like I said, you're just like family. You're in the brotherhood. You know, we we bond together. We get it. You know, you don't don't even have to say something. You know, a good hunter can just look at somebody and go after game or whatever and

know what the other guys thinking. And that's part of the being a well accomplished hunter there that you don't have to you know, talk or what every body language, just eye contacts say hey, we need to do this. It's kind of you know, like uh telepathic with really good hunters. And I'll put you two guys right in there with me on that part. So uh yeah, maybe we get you any swamp rabbit one of these days. I'm looking forward to Kevin. All right, he might have

to get rid of that that mohawk. We'll talk about it. He might grant he might be to bring that mohawk with him. All right, Kevin Murphy, the world's greatest small game hunter. Ken, I gotta tell you this. We recently had a guy ask he wrote in to ask who's the second greatest small game hunter? And we told him, uh, we didn't really have any ideas for him. It's not that kind of thing. There's like the greatest, then there's everybody else. I appreciate it. I'm trying to throw a

bunch of people into being the second best. And there's a lot of guys out there. Yes, there's a lot of guys out there that can feel my shoes, and I'm gonna do whatever possible I can to help them get up there to be number one. That is uh, my goal in life from from here on out to help either your accomplish or the beginning hunter or whatever.

If I can hit you in any way, I wanted to send a message to say, hey, get out there and and everybody's wanted advice, but the best way to do it, like you guys know, is just get out there and start doing it and do what fits you because everybody is different, uh, and how they tackle things. So just do see you know, like riding a horse or riding a bicycle. Hey, get out there and do it and see what fits man. Next time I see you, Kevin On gonna see it for real. It's not gonna

be on this screen. I'm gonna reach out and give you a pitch on the cheek or a titty twister. I don't know what, but I'm gonna. I'm gonna make physical contact with you. Kevin. You guys maybe go do some pleasure riding together where you Yeah, you come, We come on horses. Now we're gonna going, alright, Kevin, thanks again, man, Thanks due. I missed you so bad. I missed you so bad, I can't stand it. Uh you too, jest Hey,

thanks alright, guys, Kevin, world's great at small game. Hunter Murphy, take care, Thank you all right, sign it out,