Ep. 226: The Life and Times of the Antler Man

Nor where you stand with on X. What you're about to hear is a visit me the Latvian Eagle Spencer new hirest the flip flop Flasher, our beloved producer Cringe Schneider visiting a man and three forks, Montana, known as the Antler Man. He has a collection of sixteen thousand antlers arranged in a barn with an artist's i for symmetry and design combined with a genius sense for what's weird in arresting the guy has never bought an antler.

He found most of the stuff in the collection himself, or traded antlers that he found for peculiar oddities that others had that he just had to have for his own. Walking into the door literally changed my life. It changed how I think about art, obsession, big box, wildlife, and compulsion. So come along with us. Walking to Jim's hornhouse in three Forks, Montana. Get your life changed? Who runs this whole garden program? Here? I do the weeding and watering

and and told not to wind. That's a raspberry patcher. Yeah, that he's not gonna fence. You don't have beer. Come in here and head of at it. We tried to share seriously in the garden. I try to raise enough for the rabbits that are come in. And if the deer come in, they and they really don't if they can select, they don't bother them much. Jim, do you have a hunting background? Yeah, I mean I was born and raised because that's how you got interested in antlers?

Is hunting right? I mean most people that I got interested in antlers out of boredom. I'm Colin. Were you shed hunting this year? Are you retired from shed this year? I had some problems with my feet and I didn't get out near as much as I wanted to. But yeah, I'm as out, but I'm the last guy out. I don't go in the snow and I don't go on the cold because because I don't like the snow and I don't like the gold, and I'm afraid if there's snow on the ground. I'm gonna miss something. Yeah, And

I realized, you're not out. They're chasing elk around with one antler trying to give him a knock the other one off. But I heard about that. I don't go to the game ranges. That's not what it is for me. And when I was in high school, I had a friend in him and I would do a little bit together. And then my brother and I went one time and we had to go to Colorado because he didn't want to show me where his person more in Montana, and I didn't want to show him where my spots were.

So he went to Colorado and ship hunted for a week. He collected antlers for he made a living out of it three years. But if he found anything odd or you keep it to the side. And then for my birthday or Christmas, he'd give me a odd antler that he picked up. And then I sold the ones to helped put my daughters through college. I was reading about that you sold two thou antlers to put your kids through college. Deer and probably around seven fresh ships to

help him. How old you know seven? I'll be seventy two in July. Looking good for seventy two. Man, not as good as I'd like to. Really, what line of work were you in? You know? I was as a professional. I was a planned control operator. I set in front of all years ago. I setted from the huge panel that had all the directions of where the chalk was ground in the last time, and then the last twenty years I spent sitting in front of the screen and did the same thing. So no, I didn't do anything

to physical built up a lot of energy sitting there. Well. Not only that I worked shifted, which which was wonderful. I worked straight graveyard for two years. And then then I'd get off at eight o'clock in the morning and I drive out an the hills and the shed. Right, let's continue our tour. We can go in the horn shed. Yeah, back this way, Yeah, called the and Jed, I can explain that I had my brother in law, my wife's brother. Ah. It was an alcoholic and he finally died of alcoholism.

But he made me a sign to hang on the door of the shed and you'll see when you go in this said horn ship. And personally I think the signs Tackie that I think the name is Jack. I don't think my brother in law made it for me. So it's up what did he drink hard? Hard? Look, I don't prect she never had never smoke, never d I remember when those photos were in Eagle magazine. It's really something, you know, I mean for a photographer, but they both fell off. We're looking at for there's a photo.

It's like it's three photos, a sequence of photos. And there's the one photos two bull out across and from right to left, what are they like like mature bulls? And then one of the bulls there's an image of photograph right, yeah, because I remember, yeah, yeah, anyway, there's a photograph where it's antlers fall off simultaneously and both of them are caught mid air falling off of his head.

One that they're so close together that one's like passing past his right eye and one's passing past his left jaw. And then the final photo is the antler and bull standing there next to these two sheds laying underground. If I remember correctly, didn't I think the photographer said that the bull actually spun at three sixty to shake him off. Oh really, because he didn' kind of a weird position like like he's, you know, wanting to do it. I've seen a white dale pick up a hind leg and

kicking are off. That's the only time I've ever and another one didn't. He didn't seem to worry about the other one. Have you ever found ah in your yard? Here? From one of the golf course here, I've got a picture of the buck with his horns, And I got a picture of the buck after he ship, and then it dawned on me they might be out in my yard by the pond, because he was just a little bit a three point one side, a weird one on the other. Did you keep in a special place? I've

got those enough doesn't even go into the Antler house. No, So do you have do you have hours? Like? Do people just come off the street to come here? Since it's been on the internet, I get a lot from Antless Obscurity, a great big story and they'll call ahead of time. I mean, I've got people telling me you've got to come in August. I said, She's kind of give me a note three or four days and i'll see if I'm gonna be all on. But of course, this year, I'm sure I'm not going to get us

any bit. So you don't have a signed it says come on, come on christ now, and then when people come, it's not like an admission charge. No, I've never The only thing I promote is my books, a collection and short storage walking the trail system. Here, I walked it six miles this morning. All profits go to the Headwaters Trail System. But I did was right, short stories about

walking the trail. And there's everything in here, from a serial killer there was our landlord, to the big sky with the mountain men, with quake that we were almost in and but just there's a lot of stories. You wrote this, published it and sell these to raise money for this trail, the trail. And I've almost got enough for a third book. We mean almost got enough not chilling, materious, Yeah, for a third book. You might find yourself in one of those stories. Al right, So can we go into

the hornhouse. Do what you gotta do is push on it. The lights are on? Oh my, oh yeah, really wow, that is incredible. Wow. I mean, like you've seen the pictures. You're not to prepare whatever. That is unbelievable. I actually thought I would take more space to house sixteen thousand. Look, how densely panty scenes are. This is you know what I didn't expect. It's like the smell is like a really satisfying antler smell. Seriously, no, I think so is unbelievable. Hey,

Phill the engineer here. You have to see this room for yourselves. Go to Jim's own gallery on his website at antlerman dot com, the Meat Eater Instagram account, Steve's Instagram account where he posted a walkthrough video, and the meat Eater Facebook page. I'm at help me out, I'm at loss. We just plented. We walked into a barn. What's it? What are the dimensions of this place? It's thirty by sixty ft long. Okay, so there's a center island runs the length of the barn and it is

encased How long is the center island? Forty feet long? Uh, encased in antlers, and then the whole periphery around it is like a bench runs around. The whole room, also encased in antlers, with a lot of like nice specimens put out for display, and then the walls, ceilings, beams. But it's not like randomly thrown in. It's it's uh like with a tremendous sense of balance in design, in style, and and just a sort of real native sense of aesthetic alignment. And there's anything like this. You got a

sprinkler system in here and stuff. No, I don't have an insured or any of that crap. We tore down an old gray straw uptown, and then we tore down an old hotel at Trident. But this is the flooring out of the buildings. The walls, this wood is out of those buildings, and they're all sixteen foot long, and the walls double thick besides the two before us on the other side or a foot apart, and way I could put antlers anywhere I wanted to. And you built

the shed for this purpose. Yeah, that's a long story to My wife started out wanting to remodel of the kitchen and I got a garage, and she wanted to do the windows in the house over again, and I said, I've never had a nice horn shed, and so I started out from remote in the kitchen. So many did you have when you built it? Like? How many do you have now? Oh? When I built it, I probably had thirteen fourteen? What year did you build this thing?

I mean, I keep a record. This building is probably sixteen years old, maybe seventeen years old, so yeah, I probably won't have had about twelve. And you don't. You don't buy antlers. That's the difference between my collection and anybody else's, and that's what makes it unique. And that's why I've been married for fifty two years. That's why you've been married. Yeah, because I've never spending money on horns, or I probably wouldn't be with you. But I've never

bought a horn. I've trade, I've sold handlers, and I've traded antler pound for pound to get some of the weird stuff. But I've never bought an handler. Anybody can have a shed full of horns, all he needs enough money. And I've been to the auction in Jackson Hole and there's people that have that kind of money and they bought their shed full of and they bought they buy their handlers. But I've never bought an handler. I usually started people out over here. Wait, well, real quick, what

happened to this guy? I have no idea. Well, it grew around her. Yeah, this bowl, I know what happened to him, Just a regular six point but it hung itself. He was feeding around the edge of the cliff and there must have been a little bit of green grass coming up and he was feeding on that and he got he slipped, and when he slipped, his front legs caught in a crevice like this, and his hind legs were about that far from reaching the ground, and the kayo sat him from the bottom up. And that's how

I find. Of course I didn't have a cell phone or anything like that, so I didn't. You weren't able to document it. How many these animals were killed by hunters and how many were you know? I mean, I know the sheds are sheds, but I mean the ones that are the complete skulls and stuff. Is it mostly stuff you found dead? No? Uh. Back in the seventies and early eighties, we had a dump ground route during

uton season, a dump ground route. Yeah. We go to uh Whitehall, so star shardan alter over the hilled In is down to Harrison over the Pony and back to three forks and people just throw the antlers away and that's where I pick up that just go to community dumps. Yeah, besides find them up in the hills. And like I said,

some of them I've traded four over the years. I want to ask them bad questions, like the kind of questions that every person who comes here and asks you they've probably heard, like what's your favorite, what's your biggest, and what's your smallest. Here's my favorite. I carry it with it's in your pocket. That's a shed antler. Huh. So that answers two questions. Small favorite? Why do you like that one the most? Because it's small and I

can put it on my keychain? Okay, and it's a shed and if you're peeing in the bushes, you can find one of them. That's what you found that one. It's been more in smooth by time man. But yeah, just being in my pocket. So it's not the biggest story. I mean, I've got huge ailcorns here. This is a she had said. I was reading the article where you were saying that you can't appreciate how big some of the antlers are because they're on a giant wall full of a bunch of antlers. Yeah, I mean you don't

realize how big then you got. You gotta actually look at them. Some of these mule deer sets are and I've only got one in the whole place. That makes a boon and Crockett and I don't measure anything, but that happened to measure that one, because that's the biggest night talking about it's down the line. There's one like up there. It's got the bullet hole, but it's probably

still in it. This one I rescued guy out of town here calling me up and he says, I got a big set of alcorns out there, and if you want him, you can have him much better, come and get him because my kids are cutting the points off for knife hands. They cut the one off the back there and cut the top off that one, and they had almost cut through this one, and they beat on the skull with an axe. I did rescue it. This one. I found this, and I found in the same area

a week later. Have you ever found a velvet shed down the line? Hold? And so you did? You didn't do the biggest. What's the biggest? We're getting the favorite and smallest are of the key chain. These are all giant. You your ships, you just gotta like, look, you can't really help, but you gotta like pick one up to look at it, or also just gets lost in the crowd. I guess touching and picking them up is okay. Here, boy, hell yes, Now, what do you know would be satisfied

with that? It's a fairly decent four point buck. Okay, you put it next to something like this, then you can appreciate how big these and these are all big giants or have lots of points. Do you know roughly what percentage my species is broken down in here? I know exactly how many white tail I have that are three points with the brawl point and not many or four points. I know exactly how many mule deer I have, But same way, and whether they're big or freak or what?

Do most these? Do you remember them? Look at that? Do you find that? Yeah? That and this is his other? This is his? Oh it's a match? No? Oh, no, one year, that's the same year. But I do have his shed sets over here. What's the most consecutive years you've picked up the same box handlers? It's down the line here, so you just the same here they were find within a hundred yards one another. I bet you everybody tells you this. I was gonna tell you that

you like, not for the show or anything. I think you were making a huge mistake to not have a sprinkler system in an alarm system and ship. That's the other thing. People ask me, what's gonna happen to all this when you die? And I'm giving ship be dead. Seriously, I hope you change your mind. Man, don't worry my The only thing I've told my daughters I hope they don't turn in and chandeliers and dog choosing salt shakers. This is a cool fine here. Yeah, that would be

the devile time. So he'd been laying for a long time, laying in my freaking brothers flower bed. So I talked to him out of it for about ten years. He said, a friend, give me that, and I told him I wouldn't give it away. Finally give it to me. Besides going to the right spot, Okay, is there a thing that you think makes a good antler hunter besides the area? Like are you seeing the ground in a way that do you feel that you're seeing things that all the

people are walking past? Okay? I looked you up a little bit. You've got this. Yeah, Okay, I'm a twenty. I'm trying to think about on her to look for sheds. No, that's not me, that's Mark Kenyon. But ye okay, And the thing is that the sheds you found on of the earth. I understand how that works. I was telling the podcast. Oh yeah, he's talking to that microphone, all right. So yeah, Mark Kenyon, who likes the ship, he likes the shed I'm an incidental shed hunt. I picked them

up and I'm doing other stuff. Yeah, I mean I during hunt seasoned, I usually don't get to shoot anything because I'm packing too many freaking horns. But let let's say you had three things. You had the sort of meta area, right like the region like such and such valley. Okay, the meta area. Then you had the sort of micro area,

meaning that hillside or that brush patch. But once you're in the micro area, the like the specific search area, do you feel that there's something that sets you apart with how you look at the ground, Like do you see things that do you feel like a hundred people have looked at but they didn't notice. Two years ago, I was walking into our area that I like for sheds on and I'm walking in on the trail and hunters go in there, back and forth. I've been through

it the year before. Coming out this time, I happened to go up a little bit above the trail, like from here across that and I'm walking on and I looked down and then there's this huge six point alcorn from last year. It's laying times down in the sage brush. All these people had walked within ten ft of it and never saw it because it looked like a sage brush log. It looked like a like a branch of a sage brush in the turn white. I mean, it was a huge six point el corn just happened to

be laying. Uh. I had another incident not too many years ago. I'm walking another game trail and I'm walking along and I see these two little shed two points. And I've been into on this trail probably over thirty times over the years, and this little bucket shed this horns and I thought, well, that's cool, so I reached down to pick him up. Here's this huge seven point deer horn that had probably been laying there for forty years times up in that stage brush that I'd walked

from me to you buy and never seen. I mean. And the other thing is I wouldn't have some of the freaks and some of the sets I do. But I've went into areas and I know, hell, there's been four or five guys enemy, but I'll crawl down into a hole or a brush patch, or down into a canyon, and I might find an old bucker and old bull. It's it's done. I'll go over and hunt the north sides on certain time winners, because if it's a light snowfall and uh they shed late, they're gonna be on

that side to stay cool. I mean to me, it makes a lot of difference in the weather. So, like I said, by the time I go all the south slopes and tops of ridges has been covered. It's talking about like seeing things you've looked at a hunter times. I got a friend out Miles City who was a cotto hunter. He says, his whole life he's been sitting against the same rock wall and this little kind of an indent in the rock wall, calling Kyles. He comes in, he kind of back sin and sits down, calls Coles

and leaves. His whole life, he said. One day he realized he got too old and he couldn't rise up like he normally does, so he had to spin around to put his hand to climb up the other way and spins around. There's a ice age foalsome point. He said, I've been sitting on that thing for forty years and I never had to stick my face back in there to look those are those are some of the things that happened. And what I find now that I'm older,

as I moved slower, so I see more. You can explain that to me and feel him there really light huh oh, yeah, I look at that. Yeah, I mean a lot lighter than you would think they would. So I'm thinking he was in the velvet. It never got something happened and they just kind of drooped and then they hardened up. Yeah, it's like we're holding the antler

deer antler. It looks like it looks you know, it's kind of like a what would have beout a three point you know, six point buck Eastern count, but it looks like it just kind of one day melted, started to melt and then stop melting. And when you pick it up, it's really weirdly light, like it doesn't have the density. Yeah, it's like the tips melted away. This is the same about five years on one side, two years on the other. Same buck five years on one side,

four years on the other. So you found the same buck shed five years a row. Look at him? How call us were they to each other, they were in the same general area. Did you find multiple ones and that guy you started you find one one year, find one the next year, find one the next year. Much just kept going back. Yeah. He surprisingly like didn't growl as much as you'd expect for like looking at the bucks five. No, you're expecting to grow like just like

this exponential growth year the year. But this thing is very similar. If you look at that one on the back that has that little point at the bottom, that's four years in row. And he started getting big towards end this buck here three years on once, three years on both sides. He stayed virtually this is a little bigger, but pertually this did not change much. That's I mean, it's incredible that you have like an intimacy with a single animals period of time, and then a lot of

people say, well, how do you know? And I can just by look at that. I mean, it's obvious to me. And then this is genetics. I found these on a ridge two point four point same ridge I found his ships from the year before two point four point on the same ridge. I found these. Holy cow, these are sheared the same year these are that's his offspring two point four point really all the same? Rich? What question

are we up to or to the moves? Steve? Oh, no, you still gotta shows the biggest Oh, we haven't got to the biggest shot. These are all elective. Broke their skulls and broke their antlers and snapping off from fighting. How often do you find a drop or find a shed get interested in it? What's the most energy you ever put into finding the match? Like you just knew it had to be somewhere three years and I never find another sign three years. It's like you just wanted

to find the other one. We couldn't find it. Yeah, I mean I found a shed actually two years on a moose shed. When I find a shed, and I started making a circle for me to you, and then I just keep going out, and I just keep going out, and I just keep going out. Sometimes I find more ships that way. Well, what was the probably a little bit hard to answer. What's the farthest you ever found the farthest distance that ever separated a matching satching set

that I knew we're matching. I would say on Egan Mountain, probably all three miles before he dropped his other one. He dropped his other one. Wow, that bowl? Are got a thumb on this side? It's not broke, it's flat on the top, and there's a hole about that big around that goes down into a skull. He goes, bull hole. No, No, I think that's the way it grew. It's a one big, nice, thick, heavy, five point antler and the one thing like one antler the size of your thumb with a hole down through it?

Do I point it out like some more mundane sheds or heads? How confident are you that like you would know the source of it where you found it or win? Well, just between you and me, I can make up anything. You're not gonna be able to know whether I'm telling you the truth or not? How like? How likely do you think you'd actually know? Though? Well? I mean in here, under here, those are two points as thick as you can stack them on both sides, and you can pull

one of them out. And I haven't got a freaking clue where. But anything that's odd or different or that I associate with a certain day or something I can on this whole stack is like right hand or left hand? Yeah, these are all set? How many you're in there? Like there's hundreds of them in there. Yeah, those are all bound ones down there and the ones that are white here. And actually, if you look at this long enough, this

side mirrors that side. You'll find a bull or a buck over there in a similar one on this side. And you did all this is setting all this rock into the vertical poured concrete. Later on in the years, when I find an elk coorn that wasn't any good, I'd cut the burl off and that's where all the birds came from. Well, so you this whole barn walls matched symmetrical. Yeah, Oh, there's a lot of O c D in here. Do you feel like you have like

a serious O c D problem? Where My daughter does, and she's a special ed teacher, so she thinks you do. How much time do you spend in here now, Jim, I'll come in here once or twice a week, and that's in the winter when there's nobody around, and then I'll have guys that come over and go through it just before one season get jacked up. I guess, I don't know. Is this like an evolving display? Are you

moving things around actively or not? That's further down the line. Okay, I'm gonna ask you a question in your your instinct is going to be to give me an answer that doesn't satisfy me. Okay, okay, why why? Why? You know that's a million dollar questions, is there? Why? Like? What is the why have you ever thought about it? No, it's a it's in a compulsion, uh an addiction. Uh? Yeah, all those things were you at? What age were you when the people around you thought I was weird? I

was in high school. You started being weird in high school? Other you know, guys were fixing up their fast cars and chasing girls. And I was out of the freaking hills, hiking around. And even when I was too young to drive, my mother would take me out here on the edge of town at these foot hills, right over here where the tea is, and drop me off and pick me up at the end of the day up the Gallatin.

After we went moved down and my dad bought some property across some castle rock, and I was then I think, Uh, they would take me up the canyon and drop me off along the highway and I'd be gone for the day. And did you have a thing where you where you would lay in bed or wherever you think, and we're like, make a thing and it'll it'll end up looking like this. No, but I can tell you some weird stories about looking for run and I hate to tell him because then

people do think you're weird. I'll be walking through the hills and I'll just be walking along, looking around, looking around, and I'll stop and I'll think to myself, I'm missing something here, there's something I'm not seeing, and I'll pause and I'll look around and stuff, and I'll stay there and I'll even kind of look around and I'll find a ship. You get a premonition, I can tell you another one. I'm working great of Yard. I'm gonna work. During my break, I kind of doze off. I have

this dream. I have this dream that there's this big power pole and there's these two white, real nice white tail sheds buy in this power pool. So I don't think anything. I'm not riding my bike back and forth to work. It's about a mile. A year later, I have the same exact dream. That day. I'm leaving work and I look out in the field and there's a big power line that goes through the field and there's a power pole there and it's in a dip. I walk over there and there's two white tails ship. Okay,

really that story? Yeah, that's no ship. You had the dream twice. I had to Drea a year apart. Yeah, I can make it weird. Okay, this doesn't look any different than any of the rest of them. But one more question about that. Does your wife she uh? Is she amused by you? Is she is it inspiring to her? Is it you know what I mean? Did she pick up sheds? When we first got married. She realized that I collected ships because even when I was going to business college and where we met in Boise, I'd go

out of Boise and pick up sheds. But once we got married, she thought I went a lot. So she's thinking, man, he might have a girlfriend or something. So she went with me a few times just to see, Yeah, he's just that nuts. He doesn't have a girlfriend. So no, she doesn't go this buck here, that's a three inch point out. Another buck stuck in the skull? Oh you kidnapped off? Look at that? Yeah, so it's a he's got a skull? Was that found? Was that killed by

a hunter? Found? Dad? I was found found in a dump. I never even knew I had it till I put it up here. It's kind of a spindley little buck. He's got five five times on one side, four around the other. But embedded in his skull is a antler time where he got jabbed, poked in, snapped off. Is it in the school or just tucked under the hide in the skull? Punctured skull but didn't kill him? Speaking of getting poked um, why is that purpose? A lot of sharp things in here? Have you ever sustained an

injury from an antler? From me fallen on antlers? I was walking one day and I had a white tail in my hand with a nice brow point, and I slipped and fell and felt like that jammed that browl tie through into my hand. And I've got a lot of scripts and banged up something, but nothing. If you did decide to sell all these two people who want to make chandeliers and not since to shoot myself first blood, like, have you ever figured what that dollar amount would be?

I don't care, don't care. You don't have any wild guests. I been very no. I've been extremely fortunate that I've had a I had a steady job for thirty nine years and a good union wage. My wife was controller at tried and at the Smith plant for twenty five years. Uh and she controlled the money for the plant, and so we had a good income. So I except to put the Dottars through college, I've never had to depend on.

But wouldn't you like to know if it's like a hundred thousand dollars or a million dollars because you're not going to make any difference. And that's one reason it's not insured, because I don't know how they would do that, how they would try to figure the vaut I mean, Christ, they got people who are That's what they do for a living is figure out values of was that Lloyd's of London, Lloyd's of London, something like that. They come out and whatever they do. I'm not saying you dude,

sure it man. I just feel like you need to put a sprinkler system. Now. Why is this little why is this little pair of spike antlers sitting next to the giant giant box? Just to show people there's a difference. They wouldn't get realize there's a difference. There's a ship. This one here I found in a dump. If you look at it, these are terms actually wrong. And then if you look at him here and here, it looks like somebody grabbed it there and there and just twisted

his antler. What do you say you used to do that dump loot so you would drive hundreds of miles just looking for the specific purpose of looking in dumps through the dump. My three daughters can tell you horror stories about being parked at they all are dump and having a picnic while their dad was down scrounging through the dump looking for antlerch What other good stuff would you find in the do besides antlers? Antlers? Was I found my daughter a pair of shoes one time. She

know that's where they came from. She doesn't have Studies in the yellow Stone show that elk have started holding their antlers longer since wolves were introduced. Have you noticed around here that like elk shed later because they have to use them as weapons against wolves or haven't you notice any difference? I, like I said, I just think it depends a lot on nutrition in the winter. What you're saying, Spencer, because I feel like it takes thousands

of years to drive that kind of evolutionary change. Man, I didn't do this study. I'm telling you what I think in Montana state that now he published it on his blog. It's a peer reviewed it's pure because he had his cousin read it. I guess it's possible. But you have noticed, no, because wolves aren't a problem around here. I mean, there's a few wolves, but people don't realize how many freaking deer and now mountainline kill and how

many mountainines there are. Do you find a lot of heads that you did were covered up like mountain lion kills. Grizzery bears cover mountain lion hang them up in a freaking tree? You found where mountains hung a deer in the tree? Huh? Yeah, this is the biggest, the mirror heaviest mule deer probably damn some porcupine on on them. Yeah, and they've been laying there here when I found. It's really something. Are you ever stunned where you find like a white tail shed where it shouldn't be, were an

elk shed where it shouldn't be. Three years ago, I was not too far out of town, and I was up in some cliffs, and like I said, I'm the last guy there, so I'm looking everywhere, and I get up in these cliffs, and I think, you know, the way the winner was maybe there'll be a big buck that she had his horns up in there. So I'm crawling around in the cliffs to find this great, big fresh moose horn. I'm a long ways from anywhere there should be a moose, and I looked for three days

and I never found the other side. We've had something similar hunting sheep, doll sheep to find moose shed antlers. So he's up there in the winter, late winter, but you're so far up, like you're up on the glaciers. There was no even willow around, and you were like how in the world, Like what was he doing? You know, just up up up. Yeah, it's hard to picture that he would even you know, survive. And on whitetail. I mean I was in high school there was that was

never a white tail this area. I never saw a white tail. A friend of mine up the Madison shot of white tail. I think I was a senior, but we never white tail has never come in until seventies around here. Have you ever seen another ship like this? There's this that's cool, Oh wild, what the hell happened

to that's off? Yeah, it's like a buck that I don't know, it's like a four point described that spencer four point buck has another four point buck growing out of its main beam after the G three for with one of humunculous is it's like a little man that lives in your body. It's like he's got I don't know how to expand that. You know they have a term for it, an elk. When you see that kind

of like, um, what is it? Someone? It almost looks like flames coming off the back of the bulls, like a whole series of like it looks like a moose's brow tine points. Yeah, just yeah, but these are these are not short little bumps about three four in times. That seems so rare. There's probably not even a name for it. You can just get there. You can just coin the term whatever you like. A rib cage. Yeah, do you ever think about doing it now? I don't think it's smart. I was gonna give you a design

tip where you make a separate building. We're just the real weird ship in it. So then you come in here and you're like whoa, And then you go in there and it's all the weird stuff. But that's probably would be a very good idea. I ain't can kind of ruin it, like to mix them up. Oh, here you go, Yeah, I've been there. So here we're looking at a bullet. What the hell you get going on? You gotta do a fence. It's a telephone wire. He's got a phone wire. Oh I see. Then he shed

his antlers bound together by the phone wire. But if you look at it, pick us up. Yeah, look at all the places that it's broke. So he got in that and wound and wound and wound and finally broke free. And then I mean the antlers weren't any good. I passed it up a couple of years around. What do you mean you pass it up? Old Matt? You saw this? It didn't want it? I said, I passed the apple cup, And then had dawned on me that you know, that's kind of neat. I'll watch him. Do you leave lane? Well,

if they're all chewed up, I don't. If I'm fairly close to the truck, I might drag one back. And I why don't you? How would you see that? And I think that that was like it took me two years to a curty that you liked it? That what you need. This is a bullet. Took me two years to find the other side. And I actually saw this bull and he was pure white, and you found the match and this is and I saw him when he had his antlers, and then I found one, and then

a year later I finally found the other side. You got to be the single person on this planet has such an intimate relationship with hundred kind of square mile area. And I tell everybody, probably, oh, I don't know of my collection. Come within on her mile radis at three fours. I'm being in Colorado. I've been in the eastern part of the state, a little bit Idaho, but most of them right around here. And we used to have the

giant herd out of the Yellowstone in the Galloton. I never did get over in Town Minor, the Livingston, never did get over there. There was too much around here. Everybody says, oh, you went to the park. I didn't have to go to the park. I've been along the edge. Yeah, I never. I mean, hell, they all come down and you want to see the biggest spencer ten points in sixteen pounds, So that's a ten point sixteen pound beat up. Why don't you call that a double main beam, probably

way sixteen pound. I mean, I read about these guys that are finding these twenty pound antlers, but I've found over two thousand elk horns and I don't have a one that weighs twenty pounds. Sixteen is the biggest. And maybe when it was fresh or something that might have been. This is considerably dry. It might have been a pound or two more. But just never have look at that, and you're thinking a kid had been smart enough looks for the other side when you you found out when

you were young. I was just so excited that I ran all the way back to the highway to shoot with my dad. When you come to pick me up. Do you ever catch a porcupine eating antler? I I've got a friend that looks for antlers and shoots every freaking porcupine. I've never I talked. I went up in the trees. I talked to him. I don't have any Moscity. There's enough fan or about there. Do you use binoculars when you're shed hunting? No, I do have us, and my brother he's one of these guys who gets them

on a knob and he's just glass and everything. And I don't I have a spotting scope, a little binocular. If I see something, I'll look at it and see if that's what it is. But I don't glass. I zig zag, zig zag, zigzag. I'll tight your zig from your egg. It depends on what i'm finding. That can be three ft apart or can be tin. So if you're looking through like a thicket or sage brush or something, you're doing very tight. Yep yep um. This is probably the most points I have, And this is the one

I spent three years looking for the other side. You never found it. You never found it. Okay, how many points is that? I think there's thirteen or something. I guess, and I when I count points, I don't count the broad times. Yeah, but if you just count up the points, I mean why not. I mean, at a point, it's just a I mean at a point, it's a point. I mean all this other stuff is a point. That's the point. So you counted that up and didn't count back.

That's right. What I would say, that's the thirteen And what I write is with if it has a broad time, I put it with. But I don't count the point. Do you have you realize that they like that is longer than some of these. Yes, you said you write it down. Do you have like this documented somewhere like

every handler you have, you do. I've been showing you that you keep a log, but oh yeah, I keep it journal ever since nineteen sixty nine of everywhere I've been what I found that day, but I saw that day. I keep a strict record of like that bunk, in this bunk. These are all shed sets and vocal biologists like ever shown interest in your stealth. No, you don't into a book. Well, then everybody would know where I go.

You mentioned to Fear that that you would be that that someone would come look at your collection and their takeaway would be You're The takeaway wouldn't be like, Wow, I'm so glad that someone took the time to find this stuff and put it on display and allow people to come look at it. But instead their takeaway would be like this is a weird dude. And as and you were explaining to me that you're a lot of

other things too that are weird. Well, yeah, but I thought you when you did it, I thought you'd do the old I'm a husband and the father, but you did No, I'm a tell us. I have a four ton four hunderd ton rock collection. I've planned that you hauled in your pickup that I've hauled in my pickup and load of the stone at the time. I walked the Headwaters trail system. Here, I've walked getting close to twenty one thousand miles. My goal is to walk miles

and that will take me around the Earth. I've ridden an exercise bike and never left my uh bedroom, and I wrote it around the world twice fifty miles. Do you keep tracking the miles that you put in um picking up shed antlers? It's in my journal just I keep track of the hour, Well, not really the miles. I keep track of the hours that I've spent roughly how many need to have you logged? I have never added him up. You don't have any guests thousands? I'm sure?

Oh yeah, not really? What uh? I get the sense from you talking to you like because you know, well, let me see this first. How many people come in and say the things I was saying about fire systems and insurance and alarms. I've had people ask about the alarms. You're the first one on the fire system, but I've had others on insurance. But I've had people come in and look around and say, oh my god, all those

dead animals. Did you kill all these animals? And I say no, And then I explained about finding them and everything dies, and I said, the wonderful thing about shed hunting is you can be aunt i hunting. You can be vegetarian and you can still be a hunter, be a shed hunter. What percentage of people show up here that have no background in hunting or deer or elk, like, don't know anything about these animals, I would say, Or

so you get a lot of Germans in here. Uh, it just seems like a place that German tourists would show up at. They got a whole thing about the West and like Americana. Weirdly you like Germans. Nah, probably not anymore. I had a Chinese guy come down from Canada and he had been he works in Canada, but he was from China, come down, brought me a big bouquet flowers. Huh. I've had a lady come and she might know she was from the coast, brought me U brought me a chunk of salmon. Uh. I've had things

like that over the years. When I was gonna get out about the insurance thing and the fire thing. After spending a couple of hours with you, I feel as though, if let's just say it did like it was just you woke up one day and it was gone. I feel like you wouldn't even like I don't. I feel like you just would go about your business. Why would I'd be sad? And to tell you the truth, about twice a year or three times a year, I have a dream that I go out there and part of

the antlers are gone. Somebody stripped the walls and hauled them off. And I've had antlers stole from me before I had I had a shed over here where I had that. That's before I had built this shed. And I had uh elks. That's two of more Boone and Crockett that were stole. They should pass a special law that if anyone ever messes with any of this stuff, it's automatic capital punishment. Well, it was interesting, like a

special applicable to this property. The odd thing about the when they stole the antlers, there was a lot of it going on because that's when the prices first, so there was a lot of it going on. So the cops come to him and they said, would you donate some antlers for a sting operation, and I said, no problem. And this went on for a couple of months and uh, nobody ever. They put him somewhere I don't know anyway.

They finally brought him back to me, but they never found a guy that stole the people have stole mine. So my brother was in California. My brother comes back from California and he he knows that these antlers have been stolen, and he says, I'll find out. He went uptown to the bar and three hours later he come back and told me the three guys that stole them get him back. No, but we paid him a visit, but they were gone already. They sold him. Oh they'd

been gone there. They had already made it to Korea. Really sold him to a buyer and gardner. My brother, okay, go ahead. Uh, my brother, this doesn't rival your collection. But he had a spruce tree in his yard that he was he'd liked to wrap antlers around. And one day he comes home they're just gone, you know. And another body had a moose head moose antlers school hanging above his garage door. The same time period of yeah, jim, um,

you're seventy two. Now you told us earlier. Was there a timing you're Antler collecting um life and career when the collection was more valuable to you, to you personally, like where you would have been and had more sorrow had to be stolen or burned up or anything. No, because I don't work that way. I don't. I don't live in fear. It's not like I'm brave or anything. But I just don't look at things that way. I mean,

I've got enough else. I mean, I've been so fortunate in my life with my three daughters, uh with the worthless son in laws, with the grandkids. I mean I really have and uh so No, I just I don't look at life that way. But do you look at him just like their material things? Maybe you shouldn't really just place that much value on material things in a way. Yeah, nobody's offered to steal the rocks. I haven't any problems, not one. When we were in the shed, you mentioned

that hunting Antler hunting saved your life. Yes, what is that story? Okay? I was, I knew I had a heart murmur and actually it kept. I was gonna ask you about that. You got a big scar running down your chest there. Yeah. Uh, member of the Zipper Club. I mean that's what they call it. Anyway, I was, I knew I had a heart murmur. In fact, it kept me out of the Vietnam or I flunked I draft and uh, but I played football in high school

and things like that. But anyway, I was actually in the hills just north of town here, and I was down in the bottom of the canyon. I was looking for sheds. And I had a good day. And I started up out of that canyon, and and I knew my wife, and this before I didn't have a cell phone. I knew I she'd be worried because it was late. Uh, and I was trying to man. I just I couldn't.

I'd go for ways and I just dropped and I kept Finally I made it to the truck and I got home and pulled into the garage there and and opened the door and literally fell out of the truck. I mean, I and she came out running out there, and I said, I can't do this anymore. I just I have got no energy. Well, my brother and I had a shed hunting expedition plan to go back to Colorado. The two of us and it was about a week away.

So I thought, and I'm gonna go into I think I got some kind of an ammonia, so I'm gonna go and get a physical. So I went into the doctor and got a physical and and she says, I want to take an X ray of your heart. It's fine. So I went in there and uh, she come out a few minutes later and she says, that's the biggest heart I've ever seen. You're like, oh, thank you, and so, being the smartass, I said, I'm a big hearted guy. And she didn't think that was funny at all, not

even a little bit. And she said no, she said, there's So she sent me to the specialist in Bozeman. Uh. He said, you're a order is uh put letting blood back into your heart? He said, you're you're a or the valve is. He says, your a order is and your eyes He said it should be about this. Uh, I think three something and he says yours is seven and it should it could burst it any minute. So

I had open heart surgery two weeks later. And Uh, in that time between my having the heart surgery, I wanted to walk the trail and nobody had let me. You take some time off, cut into your mileage count, cut into my mile agecount, and within I was in the hospital for five days. Two days after I got a hop of the hospital, I walked the trail five miles. A week later I was back up to six miles. What year did you go out and deliberately pick up your first antler? How old are you? At what point

did you say I'm going to collect these antlers. I don't think I've said that yet. I mean, really, I went out and I found one, and I drug it down to the trailer. Uh. The next day I went out. Of course, I'm ten years old. I mean these are elk horns. I found another old white horn not too far from the trailer, drug it down to the trailer, and my father informed me right then he wasn't packing these damn things home. Oh this is like a like a camp. You guys had her cabin, so I didn't.

Do you still have those antlers? I'm sure I traded them. I mean I had two huge archroys out here at the end of this driveway. I had a huge archray at our cabin that was up the gallant and I had a huge mound in the backyard where my parents lived. And what I've done is traded most of the old elk horns for deer horns and sets and some of the freaks stuff. Yeah, so the I see what you're saying that you never like started a collection because you

kind of moved them all around. I built things out and I built but the sets, and I don't know why why, but my dad had an old shed on our property. In the sets I kept inside the sheds, I built the huge column. I took elkhorn, set the birds on the ground, tipped them in, wired them together, did that a second time, and I went on top of that and did it again, and went on top of that and did it again. It was probably fifteen

ft tall. So how how do you know that you had? Like, how do you know that there are that you have sixteen thousand antlers? Because I keep track of everyone of them. Well, how many don't you have that you could have had if you kept them? All? The seven fresh elk that I sold and put the help put the daughters through college in the fift hundred year, I don't count them in my collection because I don't have them. So that's another Handlers eighteen thousand, five hundred or something, and you've

never bought one. You've never like pulled your walls out and bought an Never have you ever had antler you really wanted. You're talking like there was only one. No, there's a lot of them that you wanted bad. But it broke your principles and to get along with my wife. Yeah, but after a while it became the fact, especially after antlers got worth a lot. Is that right? How he said that worth a lot of money? Uh? And I saw people buying antlers to form a collection or whatever.

That's when I really sat in thought, No, I'm not going to do this. I'm not I'll trade Andler for Andler, you know, I'll trade some of my fresh elk for a freaky shteer or set or something like that. I won't buy them. And I go to the antler auction, not this year, and I go to the antler auction at Jackson Hole every year, and Uh, I get a bid sheet because I want to keep track of all

the bids and how much antlers are worth. I go through the line on the side streets where they're selling all our antlers, and those guys know me and they know there, I'm just there to fondle our antlers. I'm not gonna buy anything. You express that like all these antlers, Uh, they're just material things? Are you try not to put

too much value on them. So then, like, how how would you react to what would your attitude be towards someone asking you for your shed hunting spots if they weren't going to go sell them, they just wanted to like appreciate them and put them on their wall to them take a freaking hike. That's what I tell Peo boys. You know. They says, uh, talking about the spots to look for sheds. I says, uh, you can go anywhere

I don't go. You said, you sometimes get somewhere and you don't see something, but you feel that you should and you wait, and all of a sudden, then you see it. I've had that where I've walked into the woods or walked into an area and it just hits me that there's something here I'm not seeing and I don't know if my eyes pick it up in it.

I'm not a real bright guy, so if it makes it to my brain or not, and I pause and I take the extra time to look and a lot of times I'll find an antlert, but there are times that I haven't found where he feels not bright about you. Oh, dyslectic. I don't know, is there right? Yeah? I've written two books. I do a lot of writing. Can't spell for ship. I don't know if that would be that. I don't think that. I would then say you're not that bright. I always had a hard time in school. Uh. I

barely got out of high school. I had a football scholarship offered to me. Hit Boys State. I tell people Boys State and they get real excited. But at the time it was a two year college. But don't you feel rather than brightness, it's probably like um dumbass lucky. No. I think it's probably that it's your brain is not malleable at all. You don't you don't get with the program, you know what I mean? Like my brother and my I think my brother and my sister in law they don't.

They never got with the program because they had a where their headed is so like definite, right, it's so strong and definite that you can't veer it. But it's going somewhere. It's not like your stagnant It's not like your brain just sits there and then it can't be pushed. So it's just it doesn't go anywhere. But you can't channel it either. It's just that it's going and no one's gonna bump it to the way it's supposed to go, so it just goes. Could be well, and that could

be the hell else would it be. It's like it's like it's like a there's a brilliance right, but no one's gonna move it left or right. And most of us get most of us get steered, get the Yeah, we get with the program, like whatever the program we're supposed to get with this, it's like, oh, I get it. You're supposed to have a nice house, got it. We're more like sheet You're like, oh, degrees are cool. I'm on it direction I'll get a whole shiploaded. Not our

own trailblazers. And we're not we're not finding the things that we want to find. We're kind of following some program because it's been yea, please tell me what to do. I think a lot of people jam it's complicated, but I believe he's paying you a compliment. I'm trying to get that there. No I'm extremely focused. If that's what you mean. I mean, when I'm out of all er hunting, that's my focus. I don't listen to music. I don't. I enjoy my surroundings, I guess, but when I'm doing

the rock work, that's where my focus is. I mean, I'm and I love that. I mean, you're a creative artist. If anyone comes here and sees what you've together and designed your writing, I mean, I've heard that, but to me, I don't see that. You don't think of yourself as an artist. That's probably pretty helpful people that do, like when I that's when I when that's the first thing I hear out of someone's mouth, and I was like, oh,

I bet not. I'm sure you'd like to be. Do you have a sort of internal compass, like uh, like ethos or a life philosophy that you used to check your behavior. I'm an introvoter and so like the pandemic, I don't even know what's going on because I've always been isolated that way, introvert. Like, how many days could you go without talking to anybody beside your wife before you felt like something was screwy. I don't think it'd be days. I think it'd be months. H I mean

I've I talked to my dog. Do you get along well with your wife? Well, we've been married for fifty two years. She had thrown my ass out yet so and saying, and I've given reasons. I've been extremely, extremely fortunate that way she puts up with with But then we do a lot of things together. Uh. I told you about the rock work up at the cabin. Uh what she does and we do together is on the south side, we have nineteen acres and uh we clear sagebrush. I mean we'll spend a half of summer clearing all

the sage brush. On the north side where the timber is. We trimmed the trees for what reason? Because we enjoy the work. See. I used to apologize because Uh, I didn't bowl, I didn't go I did golf for a while. There were things like that. I love that. That's an upsetting thought that actually you live on a golf course. I when I started golfing, I got about a seven handicap. I was doing really good. In one year we won

the club championship. That was fifteen years ago. And I haven't golf since because I went out on top Spencer here, he likes to swing the old club. What do you guys, what kind of euphemism do you guys have for golfing? What's your handcaps like tickling the piano. I'm not even good enough to know my own handicap, Spencer. I once put it to Uh, there's a guy knew. He was like, it'd be like hearing a gym golf like, it doesn't fit.

And this guy was a lion hunter and it just didn't fIF that he golf I'm like, how could you like golfing? Like, you can't be a lion hunter who golfs. It's like, I want to hear you like the coolest thing in the world. It takes so much energy and focus and and like intelligence, and he goes, Man, you gotta golf all the time just to be shitty. That's right,

that's true. It's true. What are there some of the bigger changes you've seen in the whole horn pick and shed hunting activity, world, lifestyle, whatever you want to call it over there of course of fifty years. That's a good question. Weeds, Huh, that's the weeds in the mountains. Weeds in the mountains. There's places I go that. Uh, there was never any Canadian sast Oh, there was never any mullen. There was never any I don't even know. I didn't know the mullen was a non native well

in Madison County. It's a noxious weed Galluton County. It isn't. I hate it just for its arrogance. That makes sense, because it shoots up that big stock. Yeah, kids like to throw it like a spear. I can tell you that when Yanny was asking that question, what I was thinking that that where I thought you would go with it is um that when you picked up your first antler,

people probablyn't picking antlers wasn't probably a thing. Nobody picked up antlers, Like said, I'm the weird kid in high school that everybody has fast cars and girlfriends, and I was up in the freaking hills tromping around looking for antlers. You were cool before it was cool. Well, yeah, it wasn't cool. And I do that now when it became a thing. As the popularity of antler pick and antler hunting has grown, has it made you um like it, less like it more, or you're just like you're in

your own world. It doesn't matter the sort of cachet of it doesn't matter. I mean it doesn't matter in the in the fact that there's nothing I can do about it. I mean that I get hit over the head from my wife all the time. It's progress and so there's no if I if I could control it, I would more than likely like to, but I can't control it. So no, I got let it go. You gotta let it go. And probably one of my worst experiences, that's when I was in the Porcupine area a lot

and i'd find a lot of sheds. When I went in there and I found a camp and that's go. Those guys are in there looking for andlers for the money. And I found where they had camped and the stuff they discarded, and uh, that's when I realized, Man, this is all changed because the money is taken over and it's not for the joy of finding antlers or anything like that. It's it's for the money and college kids out of bozen hell. I didn't blame him from going

out looking for handlers. I mean, you could find a ten pound elkhorn then it was worth five bucks a pound. That's fifty bucks. You know, a lot of those guys were out in the hills look for the money. M hm. Is that part of your kind of market pride that that you won't have spent a dollar on an antler for your collection in a way? And the other thing is is there's a handle on the inside of that big door, and that's the only thing I've ever made out of an antler. I don't like to see I

don't like to see him cut up. Chandeliers are a wonderful thing. But you go to famous Daves, you see all them fancy and chandeliers, they're all ros and they're not yea. So I just made my kids three for Easter. I made him three custom uh meal deer antler marshmallow sticks. Good for you? You wouldn't you wouldn't like you would like something like that. No, you just depressed him and my birthdays in a month, and they'll thank you. I went, I went down to the hardword storm Boston Rod drilled

him out a pox them in there. I'm sure, yes they are. I mean I've seen some beautiful especially when they take the moose sheds and do those inchers designs. I mean, I've seen some beautiful stuff. Uh, I don't have an antler l corn buckle now for your your belt and I just don't see him. Don't see him. Cut up. UM. Give some antler hunting tips, like a hot tip, patients, and perseverance. You can go anywhere in the state of Montana where it's legal and find an antler.

Might be a white tail, it might be a mule deer, might be an ant might be a elk. But literally, if you're looking, and I always look I when I walk, I I memorize the distance in front of me for about ten ft. I memorize that as I walk as I look ahead. And then I'm always looking to the side because you got your foot placements sort of subconsciously picked out. And I'll do that going across the city park, and I'll do that going across the football field because

years ago and I started. I remember I was going up through a big open meadow when I was looking for antlers everywhere and fell flat on my face and tripped over a brush head five point alcorn. So now I study the ground and then I memorize it, and then I looked to the side as I go. I'm always torn um as a person interested in antlers and artifacts and old bones and whatnot, but also interesting spot

and game. I'm always torn because it's like two kinds of people, three kinds of people that don't see anything, and then there's like your far lookers and clothes lookers. And I'm very torn between being a far looker and a close looker. You know, see a hunting, I love to a mule deer hunt, but I don't even know if I shoot one anymore. I never liked elk hunt, but we lived on elk, so I always hunted him. But the animal, I guess, is not that important to me.

I mean, like anybody, I like to see a huge bowl or a huge bucker, whatever, and I love to see the animals in the yard and all that, But I guess my reverence is for the antler and not

for the animal. M what does it represent for you, I guess on the antler, especially like on elk horns, the energy that it takes to grow it, to me is I mean, I don't think anybody can even appreciate when they see a sixteen pound elkhorn and he's got a sixteen pound one on the other side, and he grew that in five and a half months after coming out of a winner that he freaking near started to death in after coming out of a rut that he was exhausted doing. I mean, to me, it's just utterly amazing.

I can understand why in old elks nine years old and dead tax in life, Yeah, I mean, it's it's just got to be a rat race all the time. I mean just and then too. I can't imagine the amount of nutrition or energy to grow. I mean, to be like you and me growing two legs in five and a half months every year. It's just it's amazing. The thing you said earlier that that I thought was interested, I asked you why, like the big why, right, Like, why in the hell would you? I mean, that's what

we're focused on. We're focused on in our conversation, we're focused on finding them. But to me, the energy put into the display you've built, which is which is like I would regard it as um this is gonna sound hYP hyperbolic, but I don't think it is. I would regard it as sort of like one of the most like kind of staggering, um like pieces of art I've ever seen. I'm not joking, no, but what's funny about that?

And I think I have one of the guy's books, But There was a guy from Bozeman that wrote a book about all the oddities in Montana. I mean, I can't even remember something, but they are all kinds of oddities. That he went around the state and wrote a book. Yeah, but I'm not comfortable. But then he wrote a second book and went around the state. And you know, I'm not needing them. It's not an oddity like I think

a oddity. It's got a lot of oddities in it, but I think as its thing as this thing, anybody anybody with with sort of UM, any art historian or anyone UM, people who are interested in sculpture or whatever, anyone would come in and be like, I get it. It's got all these constituent parts as a whole. It is a a man's lifelong o a creative piece. It is a piece of art that was produced over a long period of time. There's a piece of installation art.

And I've had a few people that's recognized. So when I asked you, like the big why, it's funny that you um are self aware enough for whatever where you said it's a compulsion, and then you don't dress up the compulsion as something else that you just recognize it

like you have a compulsion. I like stuff to be neat in my house, and I've only recently begun to say organized, you know, I've recently been saying like, yes, I recognize it as a problem, but it's not what I care to fix, and I would like the people around me to conform to it. Well, that's why my wife and I get along so well. Is the only antlers you'll find in this house are those? And I had to build this room on for that. There there

are no antlers and that part of the house. Do you look at other people with extreme collections and find them weird? Like if somebody collected sports cards or shot glasses or vinyl records, like, would you get it or would you belin that's strange? No? I would? I would. I mean I look at as everybody collects something. I mean, my wife collects Daniel Steel books. Uh. We have a bulldog uh collection that we've put together ourselves. But everybody

collects something. So are you, um would you go out of your way to go see um shot glass collection? Mhm? So you don't like collections for the sake of collections. I had an aunt and that's where I get my collecting. From who collected rocks, she collected clean xboxes, she collected all kinds of things. She had them. I've in fact, I've got it. She's got a matchbooks collection that I've put in a fifty gallon drum and filled it. So she but she never took care of her collections. She

had an elephant, she never enshrined them. No, I guess she had an elephant collection. Uh probably had five hundred different kinds of elephants. Uh, figurines and stuff like that. Most of them were broken. And I guess that's where I make sure I take care of my collection. But I think there's something to be said for walking tens of thousands of miles on trails and just being out in the correct. You there, I don't go any freaking trail. Oh sorry, I'm separating the trail into the woods. Yea.

When I go out in the woods, I don't follow any trickers. You just bush whag. I just I cover an area. I don't. I might get on a deer trail or something a little bit, but I don't. I don't do trails. But there's something to be said for going into the woods and being out in the middle of nowhere and collecting, working to collect your to a master collection. And that The other thing that I'm thankful and away for my wife is receptive to is I've always gone alone. And that was long before there were

cell phones or anything like that. I mean, and do you still now travel and look for sheds in in grizz country alone? Yeah? And I've had a couple of grizz encounters so that we're extremely scary, but I was never I guess I can tell you one of them. I was. And this was up in the galloon and again, I've got a really nice, huge pack of al corns. I probably got fifteen or twenty on my back. But

and I'm coming out, but that's not enough. There's one little spot in there where I wanted to go up, and there was kind of a pocket back in there, and I wanted to go in and check it out see if there was anything there. So I got this big old pack on my back and I'm going through these trees and I get back into this spot and there's a spot pren as big as this room that looks like somebody raked it with a garden rake, and right in the center as a cow l kid and

I think to myself, that's a grizzly cash. So I took off and I headed down out and I had to go across the creek, and the creek was high and really flowing, but there was the three logs. So I get up on the logs and the water is kind of splashing up on the bottom one. I get up on the logs and I hear the grizzly roar. So I turned around to look, and I'm kind of walking backwards and I slip and I fall backwards with the pack on my back between the two logs, and

I'm pinned there. I mean, I can't the straps are, I can't move, and I hear him roar again, and he's closer. He's coming, He's following me. And I lay there and this is a God's honors truth. I cried because I knew he was coming up on and I was I was dead. There was nothing I could do, and I was laying there, and I laid there and I lay there and nothing happened, and nothing happened, and finally I noticed that I had my hunting knife on my in a scabbard and I could get it with

the two fingers, and I could. When I got it out, I could cut that one strap. So then I freed myself and I got and I still never heard the bear. So then a normal person would have just headed out of the country, not me. I packed the horns on across the creek, fixed the strap, put the pack back on, and headed out. Wow, I don't think I've heard the roar of a grizzly Oh Lord, and you could tell that. Do the noise. I can't do the noise. Do an

approximation of the noise. I'll tell you what scarier than that is, mountain lion. And I've had them follow me and heard them. I was. This was when I was a kid. I was up Dry Crack out of Townsend, and I was fishing, and I was so concentrated on my fishing I didn't even know it got dark in the moon come up. My parents they were just going nuts. They were driving up and down the road a holler and and I could hear this one mountain lyon on one side screaming, and a mountain Lyon on the other

side screaming above me. My mother was screaming. And then I've had mountain lion where I'm known there tracking me where they're following me, but they've never I've only ever seen two or three in my lifetimes. You can go a long time between seeing them and that it's usually

just a flash. Any other follow up questions I got mine answered kind of concluding by backtracking, but it kind of there's like there's a magic in that room that pictures just don't They just don't do it justice and you can call it art O C d. And I think it's art by way of O C d UM. But going back, Steve always like to say that there's two types of people, or three types of people. I'd send a picture to my wife. There's the there's people

who think you can put everybody into two exactly. I sent a picture of the room to my wife and uh, she said, that's crazy. Is that even ensurable? So that person and uh, I think you're one type of person and she's the other. I Uh, it's I think it's it's impressive and it's it's it's magical. Yeah, do you imagine, um, at this point, you're seventy two, do you imagine, Well, I'll be I gotta make it there yet it's almost are you um? Do you imagine now like you've kind

of you're you're wrapped it up. Okay, no, because I still enjoy doing it. Like I said, I'm a little slower now, I'm gonna try to be in a lot better shape and i'll go with some in the fall. I'll be in a lot better shape next spring and get out and try to cover more countries. So you think there's horn to be picked out there right now? Oh? Yes, yes,

just waiting for the fall. Yes, when the green grass, when the first frost comes and knocks the grass down, and the rattlesnakes to go off and do their business and leave me alone, then I'll go out and pick it all up, or I'll at least go around and look for some. Rattlesnakes are probably my biggest concern, more so than grizzly bears or why them? Because they bite? But are you running into that many of them? Do you know? Why? Do you know why you're running new

a lot? Because you probably got good eyes for seeing stuff, and you see them where other people don't see them. And I'm in the and I don't bother him, I don't kill him. The other day I had my daughter, my my seven year old in my five year old. He might not have been five now they're seven five. And I was messing around and they're messing around, and they come running up about a little snake. They found a little snake and a little hole in the rocks.

And this thing was like a rattlesnake, dead size of your wrist, curled up in there. This I was a little black and white one, and I was nothing, little, nothing, black and white. My oldest daughter tells the story that I was fishing down on the Missouri and my and the kids were a little and my wife had him all spread out on a blanket, and I was fishing along the bank and I scared this rattlesnake up and he come up over the blanket and she grabbed a

kid in each hand and took off. Well, there was still one on the blanket because we had three kids, says Mom left me this. Uh, this is like in my house. I put my coolest things, my coolest fossils, antlers, piece of petrified wood, like on my fireplace mantle, and my bookshelf and office desk uff like that. This has made me feel wildly inadequate, like there are thousands and thousands of things here, like literally thousands that would trump the coolest things that I have. So this is just

like a wildly special place. I did find myself fake feeling a little masculated about my pile of cool things, like I look now, I'm like, what's the point. See, that's the object of the shed is And that's why things are displayed because I had seen so many piles in a in a grub corner of a garage or somebody's yard or whatever, so I wanted to make the

effort to display them. And it's not just the overwhelming amount of antlers in there, which in of itself is powerful, but it's the Yeah, it's the way that you have, the the symmetry that doesn't even really reveal itself. You can kind of okay, there's a lot of foms. Yeah,

Spencer're not keep for going to tell you. Um. Doug Durn was listening to a previous episode and he was half listening and he heard about rock picking and he thought we were talking about going out into a farm field and gathering up the rocks, and he was very supportive of the conversation. It was happy to hear that that was your background of rock picking, and that was dismayed to learn that you're doing recreational rock hounding. And he was like, never ever ever confused rock picking were

rock hounded. It's another another cut corn situation. All right, well, Jim, thank you very much for your time. Man, this has been a great tour. Yeah, thanks for having us. I enjoyed your company. And that's the idea of the horn chead House, whatever you want to call it, is people to come and enjoy it. And when we're home, if we're not up at our cabinet stuff, when we're here and people get in touch with me, then I'm more

than them happy to take them to the collection. And how do you want to tell people now over the air, how did you get in touch with you? Should they just google you? They can google me. You might get a few. He's got a website. What's your website address? Antler Man dot com. Okay, just go to antler Man dot com and uh get ahold of me email from there. You know what my new life goal is, I'm gonna find some kind of antler and I'm gonna bring it over here and you're gonna beg me for it, and

then I'll give it to you. Okay, I don't know, I don't know what it's gonna be, but I'm gonna find some thing. It's gonna be something. It's gonna be antler like with a grown around a human skull or something I like to find. And you're gonna be like, you're gonna try to break your rule to buy it, and I'll just be like you just have a jim. Okay, thank you very much. Yes, thank you