Ep. 257: The Burrito Buck

or know an episode ago. Um, we launched the what's that called seth Brandon Butler's Cabin burned down by Poacher go fund me. That's the hell of a name. The go fund me site is called Brandon Butler's Cabin burned Down by Poacher, And we gave everybody heads up about this go funding that was put together for our friend Brandon Butler, who whose cabin was burnt down. Uh in

mysterious temporal proximity. I like that sentence and mysterious temporal proximity to him having reported a local poacher who he I witnessed trying to jack light deer night before Deer season opened. So Butler's buddy puts up this go funding site and UM, you are you kind generous folks out there have been kicking in heavy duty and the things up to nineteen thousand, seven hundred and sixty eight dollars

four three donors. Now, Butler pointed out that he had his place insured, but you know, he had all his heirlooms and stuff there, and he also had a lot of stuff that he uses to like host people and do river trip us. And uh is that good dude that tries to do good stuff with his place. There's been like a major development and this deal, so we wanted to have him come back, not just to talk about the money. And he didn't set this thing up. His body set it up. Did I clarify that? Yeah,

his buddy set it up. But he's gonna share this kind of interesting development around this case of his place getting pretty much smoked down to the ground. Brandon, but the real quick man, glad you could uh join up with this real quick here. Well, we'll probably have to check in with you multiple times as this whole uh deal plays out with your place getting burnt down, But uh, give us as much as you can give us right

now about like the latest. Yeah, it was hard not to tell you guys everything I knew last time, and all your listeners and the readers of Patrick Durkin's article, the outpouring of care and support has been overwhelming. So first of all, thank you guys so much for the opportunity to share the story. I also want to clear

up real quick. You know, in the article that I did with Patrick, I had a number of people reach out and say it sounds like he classified the whole area as guilty, and of course that wasn't my intentions. I mean, you guys have been down there. Anybody that's followed my work knows how much I poured into try and support that area. And I have lifelong friends that I've made down there, and I love that area and they're absolute salt of the earth people. What I was

talking about was a very local subculture. So when I was talking about the culture, I was talking specifically to my little neck of the wood, so to everybody in southeast Missouri, Shannon County, Missouri. You know, I'm trying to stand up against the people that have, you know, held everybody down, held all the good people back. So it wasn't a blanket statement. So with that out of the way, I had game cameras up multiple game cameras, and I even set kind of a dummy camera out where I

knew people would see it. The chip was missing from that camera, but the arsonist did not did not find the two cameras I had pointing at the front and the back of the house. And they pulled the chip from the dummy camera. They did, and they thought they had They thought they had gotten away with it by pulling the chip from my trap camera, and they did not find the two cameras that I had in the woods. So I've got the suspect on camera walking to the

house carrying a rifle and a bottle of accelerant. And then I've got him walking away from the house carrying just the rifle, and you can see fire coming out of the back window. So he had broke out the back window and and lit it from there. Um, he's in jail now. He he showed up to his probation meeting. This guy was in prison for for meth and firearms previously.

He's he's got about four pages of arrest records on what we have here in Missouri called case net, where you can look up what somebody's done in their lifetime, and it's gonna be front page news and that local newspaper this week coming out. Um, and it all is tied to the poaching situation. Now, this guy's got multiple poaching violations that he's been um arrested for in the past on his case net. But he wasn't in the

truck that night. It was actually three women, and man, I went all in cis on trying to figure out who these people were and got to the shooter, who was a girl and I'm not gonna use their names, but it was a girl from St. Louis and then coreries father's girlfriend. So that was the tie. Essentially, he was going to be the hero for I guess these women that came down the road at eight thirty at

night and and poached. But there's you know two of the are all three now have have confessed and and gave a swarm statement, and all three got tickets for artificial light after dark or after hours and firearms from a v are hunting from a vehicle. So they all three got three tickets. And um, that's the whole, the

whole poaching story. Um, this guy's he's on a no bond warrant right now in in jail, and if everything goes well, he'll he's facing four different felonies and hopefully he'll be uh reunited with his old chums in the state pen here real soon. When you torch the dude's place, what is that called? Well, I'm a arson Arson. I'm

really pushing and hoping that this becomes a federal case. Um. I literally just met with the Lieutenant Governor of Missouri, Mike Kehoe, two hours ago in the Capitol to talk about the situation and what I've learned from law enforcement down there. It's just a real hard place to be a law enforcement officer. There's so much public land, it's so remote and rural. There's there's no cell service across

most of the county. But I'm I'm trying to make a case to the Department of Conservation and the Conservation Commission that law enforcement doesn't need to be divided out equally. So right now, in most cases of Missouri, we have to uh conservation agents per county. I kind of liken it to we have more law enforcement in urban areas than we do in rural areas. When it comes to

city and state police. We need more law enforcement as far as conservation and conservation agents in these rural areas than we need and say St. Louis or Kansas City. So hopefully there's going to be a change made that will readdress the resources being applied to where they're most needed, which is in some of these Southeast Missouri counties. And then I've gotten a commitment from the Lieutenant governor to explore a potential task force, joint task force with multiple

law enforcement agencies. And my next step is to talk to an old senator friend of mine who is now on the parole board to ensure that this guy's parole is uh IS is revoked and he goes back to

prison on that as well. And then I'm I'm working some channels to a couple of U. S congressman that I know well who covered those counties, and we're just making sure that this person goes away for a long time because I have I've been reached out to in the last twenty four hours by three other families that have had their house burned down within five miles of mine in the last year, and none of them had

cameras and and there's been no arrests. There's been no arrests made, so it would only be speculation, but it sounds pretty coincidental. Did those folks feel like, uh, those incidences were some sort of retaliation or or or have Did they have any idea? Do you have a cause? One guy had to run in with a known associate during muzzloader season last year, and then his cabin was torched and it was his grandfather's cabin. It was handbuilt. He didn't have any insurance on it. He lost so

many of his grandfather's possessions as well. Guy's name was Dwayne uh Man. I've met so many strangers in the last like forty eight hours that have you know, stories about the same sort of things happening in other states and across different parts of Missouri, you know. And I told the Lieutenant governor, it's it is painful to tell this story about a place that I came to love so intimately. And you guys saw that when you were there,

you know, I was. I had you there because I wanted to show you and your fan base like how great this area is. And it's it's underserved in notoriety. The natural resources, in the wildlife and the fish. It's it's such a great area and there are good people there, but everyone down there lives under the same cloud of fear that if you if you stand up for what's right, we're gonna burn your house down. And in my case, I stood up for what's right and they burned my

house down. So there, you know, it's there's some reality to it. And and it's a shame that this is gonna cause other people to not go down there, and it's gonna hurt the economy down there, and it's all because of a few bad apples. Well, man, I appreciate you coming on to catch us up on it, and when, uh, when a couple more things shake out, um, I like to have you back on again to to to fill us in. And then we kind of were earlier. We touched on what was going on on the go funding site,

which is great to see. So Brandon Butler, thanks a lot. Man. Um as this you know, as whatever part three, you let us know when you think it's time to come back and and fill us in now where ship stands now, then then now you know what I'm talking about. Yeah, thanks again for your guys support. It's been overwhelming, So thank you. Yeah, man, take care. Uh Okay, we got a couple uh we're still reeling from the pandemic here. I'm now you've had it, right, Seth, Me and Seth

have had it. We're survivors, Yanni and call you guys have not as far as you know, I haven't had it. No, No, have any of you guys had it? Our remote guests? Nope, nope, nope. Can you guys introduce yourselves? Do go ahead first, because you're on the left of my screen. Yeah, why not say what you do all that kind of stuff? Okay, Yeah, my name is Duke Waste Unique Customer Service wrap over here at First Light. Yeah. Answer phone calls eight hours a day, five days a week. So I got a

big old meal here this year. That was nice. Yeah, if we had a time, I'd like to I'd like to add. I was talking to Josh Prestine moreing about this. They're like, it is quite amazing that you can call first Light. It's just regular old Joe Hunter. You got some questions about gear and a dude, the Hunts. I don't even you never gave me an actual number, Duke, but I'm gonna go ahead and throw it out, like two hundred days a year for mule Deer, maybe two fifty.

That's include scouting, looking and all that. Am I right? Am? I approximately right now? But you still have a job, right. What the hell's your guys vacation policy? Man? Well, that's just the thing, man, Like your guys end of this business. Get better vacation than these aren't full days. Like just like as in skiing, if you go out and take a couple of runs, accounts as a day of scheme.

So when he makes a quick jaunt, you know, three miles into the woods in the morning, just look at a deer for fifteen minutes and it makes it back to work by eight. That counts kill. Let me let me ask you. I got a couple of things we gotta do. Dude, I don't want to go into too great a detail. You got a nice deer this year, really talked about where or anything. Had you ever seen that deer before you got it? Yeah, quite a few times. I actually missed that thing twice, so uh the year before.

Oh I see, I knew it quite well. Now real quick, I want to finish my thought. The point of it being that you can just like you're gonna get customer service from a dude that is just like an absolute back country, mule deer, professional expert, whatever you want to call it. You're not just like getting just some rando that just learned the First Light line recently, and it is gonna recommend you know that you use the middle of the road base layer because you know it should

work for all things. Like Duke's gonna really dive in and just give you a top level service from a lot of experience, give you the straight dope from a real person. Yeah, I just I don't know. I can't get over it. I mean, how many other companies can say that they have someone with that kind of experience and success doing customer service for him? Do did you know this? Uh? Never mind. I was gonna quiz you on something that's in the news, but that's not fair. Okay,

Phil changed my screen around Chase Chase. Now it's not left right anymore. Now it's like you guys are like, I don't know what you call that? Just different, Chase, Go ahead, what do you do, Chase Millman? I run operations for First Light Meet or fhf UM. And I think it's worth noting that from Duke's introduction that Cal thought his name was Buck for half the trip, let's get that out on the open, which if you know the Monkey Ranch Gang like it's it's a great little crossover,

I feel. Yeah. I'll point out these guys are on and joining us remotely, they're all down and catch them where First Light is based because they're just coming back from So seth, Yanni cal Duke, you just met Chase, who you're meeting Matt who you haven't met yet or all just returning from the the Sonora accused your trip that I was unable to oh because I had been Uh, I was afflicted. So what else you gotta say for yourself, Chase?

Not a whole lot. That's about. That's about all there is to say about me on the on the work side, got uh you got like a wife girlfriend. I did not have a wife girlfriend. We'll hook you up, man, I do have a girlfriend. Oh, I haven't hooked me up in a long time. Man, I'm kind of itching to hook somebody up. Okay. And then Matt, my name is Matt de Roger's. I'm the line manager for De Roger's something Matt d I answered all of them now, but I managed Western Big Game product line at First Sight.

All right, Okay, we gotta take care of a couple of things. What I wanted to share with you guys, Yanni and Seth, do you know that you know on the past episode when we had Luke Combs and dan Isabel on ye yes, and they were just releasing that tune that they played for us. I think we even had them playing that tune on Instagram or something. We definitely recorded better together. Yeah, Kylie just told me it

just hit number one. So I sent Luke and dan attacks yesterday like saying how uh, congratulating him and saying how I had such proximity to that to them their process of writing the song that I felt a little bit like I had written it. And dan Isbel wrote back and said, that's in keeping with you being a hunting TV host and that you always take credit for ship you did not do h hurt, which hurt man. It's all he's hitting a little close to home of

that ship. Man. Yeah, he's pretty sharp that I think he. I think he might. I think maybe all of our talk about everybody likes to ask, you know, if it's so much harder um hunting with a crew, and I would point out that we scare more, but we spot a hell of a lot more. You know, it's a lot more eyeballs looking around. Um, so, cal do you know what's up with that? I wanted to tell people about this Oklahoma deal. Yeah, I mean it's like kind

of like but this is a real politician. There is a real life politician, like elected to office who I can only imagine is acting on behalf of a very very niche part of his constituency. And he's introduced a bill to get the Oklahoma Fish and Wildlife to institute a legal bigfoot hunting season. Yeah. Now if he's been pressured by a constituent, we hear from this constituent. Because people don't realize Oklahoma is a real sleeper bigfoot locale. Oh I did not know that. I don't know that.

Everybody's always thinking it's like Oregon, Washington, Michigan, Peninsula, Pacific Northwest, you know, and I'm naming like wildly different places. But but no, but they all have something in common common. It's kind of like that northern thick some wet, wet dank, yeah, bigfoot country. So I'm sure the serious big foot hunters are like many hunters thinking when it a specified season

opens up it's not to protect the resource. It's going to exploit the resource even more because new regulations off and draw a lot of new eyeballs. Right, So I'm sure the resident big foot hunters in Oklahoma are really shaking their heads that the spotlights being put on that. Yeah, it's like a spot burn, Yeah, Oklahoma spot burn on bigfoot hunting. The dude the Oklahoma that wrote us a lot of nasty letters. Do you remember when we had

remember Laura was it Crats Crantz. She did this whole podcast on like bigfoot people, and we had her on to talk about bigfoot people and it got this Oklahoma dude super fired up, and it wrote us a bunch of letters. And he's a bigfoot person and they hunt bigfoot's and he wrote in letters about them shooting guns at things they heard off in the woods and whatnot at night. But they haven't gotten one yet, and he wants to be able to kill it so he can

be like for that your pipe and smoking. He wants a dead one. But I think, hey, they want to not get in trouble when they get one or have anybody take it from him. Yeah, I'm hoping that if there is a season. Then there will also be a lice or a tag that's part of the bill that's uh covered in section one. In fact, does it have a price, I believe the price would be set by Oklahoma Wildlife Conservation Commission, but it does say a season and license. I'm hoping it could just be like a

boon to the department, as in some extra revenue. But I also don't want it to promote more of what you just described, shooting that stuff, running off through the woods at night, shooting, shooting it sounds in the night. Well, yeah, because what it was he like the minute I saw I had two legs and was standing up right, I started shooting two years ago. Was the state of Michigan. Somebody hit somebody that he was Oh that was Montana. Yeah.

The guy put a big foot suit on, jumped out on the road to spook someone and got hit and killed. Hopefully would have thought he had like a real Harry in the Henderson's moment. Man, keep imagine like that poor guy. We should find that person, get him on the show. Hopefully the season is closed during Halloween mm hmmm and any other hunting season. Yeah, it's the world coming to um. I want it out real quick. What's this feller's name again? Murtz? Oh yeah, I have his letter right here, right now.

It is John Murtz, John or you found it? What? Okay? My wife's sending a picture of the letter. Now. Why do you think that the spearing decoy that John Murtz made for you is somehow superior to my spearing decoy that he made for me? Well, in my very minimal dark house spearing uh experience, I've had great luck with red and white in mine because of the Latvian colors. Matvian flag colors came red and white, and it's just like, you know, like you were a catch fish on like

the red devil spoon. Yeah, Like it's that color combinations of There's a very popular surf casting rattle plug surface thing that's classically red and white. That's right, red head, white body. You can't think of the name of it. But I think that mine is this color. To see, they were all customized. Cal He sent cal one that has a mustache. It's a cute little bust. It's like a sand Juan worm mustache glued on to the front. I think mine. I didn't. I never made up if

it ain't shark truce. It ain't no use. But I think maybe I was like quoting it and he heard me say that. Even though it's not my saying, I believe it's you know, I buy it, but I didn't come up with it. But I'm gonna I'm gonna use this thing this weekend. And I just head Travis Barton, the fancy fireman welder uh who normally welds like stuff

for nice houses, handrail and stuff. But I keep telling him that's bad for his soul and he needs to do like weird hunting and fishing welding projects to keep him like in touch with his true self. How does he feel about that? He believes me that it's true because he just made us to Pike spears chase over at first, like he's going all the way to come chodka to fish for steelhead and ensure that he can go all the way across the world and have a

successful trip. I'm gonna paint him up some sharp truce beads to guarantee some fishing successful. That's nice when I call those bees are aren't making the trip? Cal? Oh well, Cal made you a special beat and you're not. And you're not gonna bring it with you. What's the deal, Chase. You need a little you need a little background here. There's like he's going to catch these steelhead right that only live there. It's like this, it's like this steelhead trip of all steel head trips to go over to

far East um Russia and fish to come Chodka. And he is going to stick to like some purist type techniques and would rather only catch twenty with purist techniques than a hundred by fishing of plastic bead And it's a research trip where every fish is uh you know, wade survey and scales taken, a tagged and released. Um. So it really if he fished to beat a little bit,

That's what I'm saying. Like, if that was the case, to go and catch a whole ship pile of him, right, I mean he can sit and catch him and be selfish, you know, but he's going to come Chota for research. I don't want to do the species of disservice by not fishing your beads. But there is a certain amount of recreation that's involved in this trip as well. It's it's it smells a little bit like that. Back to the oh. When I called, um, Travis Barton, what's the

name of his what does he work under? Barton Fabrication. Barton Fabrication, Dude, the spears like a work of art. When I called him and said like, hey, uh, and I asked about his familiarity with pike spears, he pointed out that he grew up in Minnesota and when you were in metal shop, all anybody made spears, pike speers, pikes. Beer making has change right now people use those like uh CNC, you just cut it out of plate steel. You don't like sharpen up barbs and well the whole

thing together. It's like a freaking handle. And then you get a piece of like ten inch by sixteen inch plate steel and cut the whole Is that how he did it? Yeah, he has the scene C machine, Dude, it's like a gorgeous gorgeous Did you give him like specs to work off of or did he find him on the internet or I sent him a photo of my body's spear that he likes a lot, and I sent him the sort of recipe. But when I've done that, he had already been online researching it and then didn't

use the didn't use the design I sent him. He used the design that it was very similar, but uh and he even put like a little decorative twist and what it's like, it's a freaking gorgeous spirit. You know that guy. He likes to run the hashtag built not Bought. Travis does. Yeah, like without trying to be he's very much like at the forefront of a like a movement in across our country and maybe the rest of the world, like a very green movement to like limit you know,

big manufacturing. You know, people just like make and stuff at home with what they have. Um, he embodies that without Actually he's certainly not doesn't think of himself as at the forefront of some green movement. You know. No, I didn't know built not bought. Yeah, that's good stuff, man. It is ties in well with what's going on on Yannie side of the street. Whereas brand new appliances or

crap in the bed, Yeah, I don't. I don't think it's can tell you how to athlete, tell you that came to fix my Samsung, Raine said, the one company what I told you not to buy from Samsung? Like, okay, really, you got some dud appliances from Samsung just one um, but he in general, he was just telling me that from what he sees, there's very much a planned um

and um. He's just like if I if you don't have it, He's like, I recommend right now you go online and get yourself an extended warranty because like you know how every appliance now has like a digital display of some sort. And he's like, on an oven, it is literally right above the part where the heat is

escaping the most. Well, guess yeah, it gets cooked. He's like, so these I replace these boards all the time, two to three years into the appliance, and it doesn't matter if you spent eight dollars on your range or five thousand. That thing is going. So that's the appliance you had. That's bad And yeah, yeah, well and that wasn't what went bad on us. For us, it was the based the the element that heats up the oven, that like starts the heating process. But that's what's gonna happen next.

May I feel terrible you get screwed over by those guys. I used toe rice to run their phones for a while. I had to sing called Samsung White Glove Service. Remember that I do. It's like it was like for celebrities, but apparently they made it down to like D list celebrities in their celebrity list because I was I got white glove service, which is pretty nice, but then I gave up on them all together. Dude to New York, I kind of want to talk about this. It's a

good one. Oh, let's first talk about this. So some guy in Idaho cal Yes, sir, do you know about this that you're talking? Poetrs? Now? Yeah, tell everybody about this just because you got you got. I don't used to live there, are you? First light fellas familiar with the big Idaho Uh poetry that just got busted? Here the the guy that killed the mountain goat nanny with a bunch of practice practice bolts from a crossbow. No, but Chase, this is up in year old neck of

the woods. Uh. Guy shot sorry, I shouldn't say a guy, a suspect shot a mountain goat with To me, it looks like a like probably not a hunting style crossbow, but the bolts, which are the short little arrows that people fling out across bows. Um, we're stuck in this mountain goat. This nanny female mountain goat and they're they're not hunting set up at all. Their their target bolts. So no, uh made for targets, not for effectively and

and humanely. You would call it killing something. And Idaho fishing game was forced to youth and eyes the nanny mountain goat. And they haven't caught the dude. They have not caught the person. So if you know someone here,

I'm gonna figure out how to solve this. If you know someone with a crossbow, they like to call them like instead of have it like if you're like crossbow enthusiasts, they like to have it be that there's horizontal bows and vertical bows, if you know, and that's a if you know a vertical bow enthusiast and you knew they had some practice bolts and then were horizontal horizontal bones.

If you know a horizontal bow enthusiast who had some practice bolts and then one day you noticed that he had three fewer practice bolts than he had previous, you might have a clue. Yeah, shiny gold boot, there's no one call I feel like you know about. I think

this is an interesting one. A guy in New York I feel bad for this guy, kind of a guy in New York is barbecuing up a barbecueing up a canine, and apparently the some version of the police show up and and uh confiscate a hunk of his whole canine that he's grilling up to send it off to Cornell to find out if he is cooking, as he says, a coyote or, as neighbors suspect, a dog. It is

illegal to cook a domestic dog. However, the state of New York says it it is legal to having at least having your possession or do what you want with a coyote, carcass, hyder pelt. You actually found this out that it is illegal as a cookoo domestic dog. I tell you a lot more I know about this than that falls under the like domestic animal or animal abuse. Im i'm missing missing too, mixing two abuses up there. Uh yes, animal abuse. Now when I here's something that happened,

I thought that that. Ah, I'll share a million years ago when I was writing a story for Outside about animal cruelty. Sorry, that's what the word I was going for animal cruelty. Million years ago and I was writing a story for Outside about the consumption of dogs in Vietnam. I had a line in my in the draft of my article that I submitted where I had some line like to the effect of, you know, everybody knows it's

illegal to eat a dog in America. And the fact checker kept pointing out that where are you show me that it's illegal to eat a dog in America? And I'm like, oh, I just assumed. I don't know. I didn't actually find that somewhere. I was just young and stupid at the time, and younger stupider, and then once I had to actually look into it, it's it's illegal in California, it's illegal in New York. Well then that there's no there's not a prohibition I eat your dog.

You could eat your dog right now. The area it falls into is like, is consuming a dog necessarily rolled into animal cruelty? But like if your own dog, whatever, got if you ran over your own dog in your driveway, there's nothing saying you can't consume that dog. Yeah, there's probably. I don't think there's any rule against euthanizing your own dog, right, So no, um, what this One of the things that's brought up is it was like, why is it, Uh, why is it not possible to buy dog meat in America?

And when I was doing working on this article and I want up talking to some U. S d A inspectors and stuff, and it was like, you're just never going to get Um, you're just not going to get an inspected facility. You're not gonna get like the U. S d A. You're you're not gonna get them to

come inspect um and certify that product. Right, So that would be what would block someone from trafficking and dog flesh, But it wouldn't be any kind of in most states, it would be kind of any kind of other prohibition, Like there's nothing says you can't do it. It's just no one's ever gotten set up to do it. So this dude, he says, he's have you seen there's no pictures. I speaking, I'd like to have this guy in the show, Um,

have you seen any pictures? They searched around to see if and had reported a dog missing that fit the sort of stature and girth of this dog, which I thought was grant. They couldn't turn up any reports of people searching for a a canine in the area that that fit this general make and model if you will. Yeah, like he was kind of cooked, but I don't know.

I'd like, I thought this was something interesting to bring up because the kyo the only coyote I was, Um, it was while we were hunting CU's deer in Mexico and you guys just got back from hunting cuse dear Mexico's every transition. I'll tell you one thing about that transition is it's premature because because I'm not ready yet, So I couldn't figure out if the guy got his meat back or if how much did they how much

they confiscated to me? I I the couple of articles I read, it sounded to me like they took the entire well, they took his whole thing meal, which would make sense. How does that mean you can't do that to somebody? Well, yeah, imagine somebody comes up and takes the rack or ribs off your barbecue and they're like, listen, these may or may not be so we'll get back

to you. I wouldn't be real happy about that. No. I like how the article points out, like now that a journalists will include like a detail that is like a telling detail, and you could tell that they it's very important to the person covering this that it was a makeshift grill. Yeah, I read that. Jo. It's like like there, there's sort of there there, there's saying something there. I think the journalist and this fellow's neighbors are probably

on the same page. They're like, there's more than likely nothing going on here. But for some reason, I don't like this person. Yeah, and I'll know that it seemed to me to be a makeshift grill, not like a super nice grill. M hm. Weird dude cooking some weird ass meat, some makeshift grill. It really paints a picture. It's like incriminating. Yeah. And he's using the hashtag caught not bought and what was the other one, Johnnie the made it not built, built not bought, caught bots doing

a little cott not bought, built, not bought. At the same time, the neighbors couldn't stand who does he think he is? He's he's mixing up off his hashtags. Man, there's a hashtag. I want to get into count if we feel like getting into it right now. You tell me if we wait or not. There's one more thing I want to talk about, Big Giant Colin's Oh that guy that got his uh testicle torn out of his scroll them. We'll talk about that at another one. I didn't hear that one, so horse riding story. But I

do want a quick touch on this colon deal. Um. And do we want to talk about the hashtag that was brought up in conversation around who the woman that president now President Biden has put forth as his nominee for the Interior secretary. Oh the not specifically about her, but about the movement that could be a big talking point. Yeah, do you want to get into that an hour later? I think it's a it's a fascinating topic. Um, we may as well kick it off. It's not because what

we should do is do it real later. Yeah, yeah, okay, tell everybody just just the vagaries. So um are it's an appointed position. She hasn't been um confirmed confirmed yet, thank you. Deb Holland, who's out of New Mexico. She's from a publo in New Mexico. Yeah. On her bio it says thirty fifth generation New Mexican, which I think is is cooler than hell. Um, hard to calculate. Hard to calculate for sure, but you know, around Montana, it's

like you you opened conversations. Generation. Oh yeah, fifth generation. Yeah, you know what I mean. He was just telling somebody. You know, it's like, oh, yeah, nephew for Christmas. My sister Courtney popped out or a niece for Christmas, and uh, you know it's your sister popped out. Yes, yeah, oh my god. You know, like, but you thought it was your nephew. Well, the nephew was present, but you know, it's like fifth or sixth generation, and which was she like,

I'm I'm pregnant with Cal's niece. They held off on identifying the sex. Yeah did it old fashioned? Yeah? And you and yeah, I'll be the first to tell everyone that. Uh, my sister does a very very consistent and good job of of working the Catholic guilt on roping me in more firmly into family affairs. And I keep saying, we'll wait till they get older, and I'll give him a bunch of stuff and we'll be able to go do things,

which I think and she thinks you should get started earlier. Yeah, but I I don't know really how to do that. We're not no. I one time when we took a little nephew of yours fishing Yeah. So that's that's Courtney's son, my nephew, and so that sister had a daughter. Yeah you were like I thought you were like full fledged uncl ng Yeah, thank you. It's years ago. You've seen him since it's intermittent. Yes, I have moving on. Uh So anyway, UM hashtag is land back, which is the

land back movement? Right, and there's conversations and this has been going. We gotta be clear about, right did it go on? If you don't clarify the point, I'll make sure to clarify. The point is it's give the land back to the natives, which would be the inhabitants of in our case, North America, within the the United States prior to European uh, Europeans setting foot on the soil and and spreading disease and claiming big chunks at other

people's property for ourselves. UM. Fascinating subject. It is a quagmire. Um, unless you think that all Native Americans were on the same same team, same page, and they all know like identifying who occupied what at what time, what at what time? Because later like you know that that um, you know, the sue had displaced a group from the Black Hills and presumably they had displaced another group for the Black Hills. And oh yeah, and and yeah, just like the mixing

of races, religions and and who's leading who. I was just reading a great book that old Martin Heinrich told me to look up, which is Lost City of the Monkey God. And they in a relatively small area, the the Empires that rose and fell in a in a pretty small area in a pretty small amount of time. Yeah, when we were caribou hunting, he told me about that boat. Yeah, pretty pretty neat. Um. So yeah, land back would would be the hashtag and it's it's a really interesting one.

And um, it's it's gonna be coming up a lot. I guess, yes, it's going to be coming up. And presumably the land back is not coming from the private sector. Presumably it would come from public land. It would be coming from public land. Yeah, that's the pieces that are most like obvious. The most obvious target would be that you would do public land right, so would be federally

managed lands. Yeah, which I was. You know, I was swapping emails with cal about this yesterday and I pointed out that, well, one cow pointed out that it's very awkward conversations. It's hard for a bunch of white dudes to sit and act like we got a handle on covering it from all angles. But I was thinking that and I put this to kel Oh. The thing I wanted to clarify before I even say my thing is

that it's presumptuous. It's like it's it's like if Biden's Interior nominee um is uh, what's the word you use? She's confirmed um it would be the first Native American Interior secretary. Uh. And it's known that she has um voice this perspective or it is sympathetic to this perspective. In the lead up to this, this appointment confirmation, she hasn't said my thing is gonna be land back. It's just like articles I've read about her to try to

get a sense of um. As soon as the appointment came out, like, I was very much rooting for Martin Heinrich. That would be like the in my mind, the dream that makes this all worthwhile, the dream Interior secretary in my view, because Uh, I like where he's that environmentally and he's like very friendly to hunting and fishing. When

that didn't happen, I was like who's this person? Um, I wasn't that familiar with her, and I remember people like like journalists speculating on what might be her priorities. And the two of them that were that I read about, we're both alarming to me. Would be uh, land back, so taking public land and handing it to sovereign groups.

And that someone was speculating that moving more public lands over into renewable energy production, so wind and solar, moving away from not that I'm like, not that I'm excited about drawn fossil fuels from public land, but um, definitely not excited about turning them all into wind farms. Uh. And so I was like, yeah, but there's no indication from her what like, you know, there's no indication from her that is gonna be her priority. It's just speculation,

but I think that it's gonna put. I was saying, it's the cow that if the if the land back movement is that it would be like, oh no, the obvious thing that you would give back would be to give federally managed public lands, so lands that belong to all Americans, regardless of race, creed, religion, whatever, like they're all of ours, we all have a say in them that you would hand them to groups that are our sovereign nations, two tribes that are sovereign nations not subject

to all federal things. Is gonna put organizations public land protection organizations like b h A in a very weird position. Yes, potentially right, How do they not? How does how would it not become weird for them? To be consistent, they'd have to say, no, we don't believe in the transfer of public land. It's the private groups. Yeah, I mean correctly, You're right, So the sovereign nations from what I see

right now. And and to be very very clear, I've got a ton of education to do on this and and this is um a great great way to kick started. And uh, deb halland or Hayland, haland Hayland. Uh. If you're listening, or somebody in your office is listening, we'd love to have you on and get your information, your two cents on all this stuff. But um, yeah, you would man as a board member for b h A, I would be anti transfer of public land or sale of public land too a sovereign nation or sovereign entity,

just like we have been. I don't I don't know, I just don't see a situation where we couldn't be I could see a possibility where we you know, I get to a point where we have much more input from many more groups on sacred sites, sites with you know, huge anthropology and and archaeological uh you know, importance and and coming up with a better way to you know, have access while protecting those areas, bringing more people to the table, which is something that gets regurgitated all the time,

have more voices, have better conversations. Um. But that doesn't mean it's not something we need to do. But an outright transfer like land back, begin with like land back to who I could see a way it would kind of like I don't know how I feel about it yet, right in a large measure would depend on scale, uh you know you ever like just I'm just bringing up in New Mexico because Hallen's from New Mexico. Like Bandolier National Monument. Okay, so it's like an ancient Pueblo National

Monument site. Um, it's managed as a monument, right, it's a it's geographically like to find to be sort of you know around this monument site. It's not this It's not like hundreds of thousands of acres, but it's this site.

I could see situations like that, like very specific, you know, I could see where you could get a majority of Americans on board with these like very specific sites that had direct relevance to people that own them, significance to people that own them, like the site of you know, Wounded Knee, like you uh, Devil's How or whatever, like like very specific spots that had religious significance, and that you would hand over administration or whatever of these two

to their prior, you know, arguably rightful owners. Pompey his pillar would be a great example right next, And I can see that you would have one reception that that the public Americans might might perceive that differently than say, um, Yosemite, we're taking all of Yosemite National Park and you know,

getting it to its prior owner. Yeah, all of Hudson's Bay or Manhattan, Manhattan exactly, We're gonna go right to the start right road all started it was Manhattan or Plymouth Rock and you know that state that's not gonna

go right. But Pompey is pillar a great example, right like right now, there's uh, there's a cultural site, there's um, you know, all sorts of infrastructure set up for education, and I went and walked around it over Christmas and Pheasants Forever has a bunch of ground in the monument, and I hunted my way with the dog to the no hunting sign, threw my shots, threw my shotgun over the shoulder, you know, broken Eventually there's some other folks around.

I just didn't want to deal with anything, and I was using it over and one of those weather be over and unders. So I just broke the thing in three parts and threw it in my backpack so it didn't look like you were up to no good, right, And then just you know, toward the site, read all the signs that I wanted to see. My Grandpa's got a rock over there. He used to do some education tours on medicine at pump Eyes and uh. And then snapped her back together and hunting my way back out

to the truck. And it's like, but do we have to give up any of that? You know what I mean? It's a very small site, you know, poppies, Pompey, pompey, so Szaka Jewellah socaw Jeweah, Zacha Jeriah who was the I don't know they don't think they were married. The yeah, the the sort of the wife of a guide that was hired by Lewis and Clark on the Lewis and Clark expedition, and the guide wanted being like a kind of I think he's kind of worth his reputation was

he's pretty worthless. But his wife, Zacha juillah Um, who was with child right she was was was her child born Pompey was born along that Lewis Clark che Charbonneau, had a bad reputation. But his wife, who I think was snake if I'm not if I'm not mistaken, Sacha Jeria wanted being like very valuable. What do you mean she was a snake? I think she was snaking? Wasn't she She had she was had been born with snake and then had been uh had been born Looking up

real quick. She was born snake and had been kidnapped by another tribe and raising another tribe. But new certain landmarks around her tribe knew what she was born. She proved to be very valuable around some navigation and has been celebrated ever since. Is like the only even though she wasn't formally a member. I don't even think she was getting paid, like her whole man was getting paid

and he was I guess worthless. But so she's been honored ever since as being this like the only female member and I think so like like, well, they had a slave with him to York who wasn't paid, but he was given as he was gifted his freedom. After the expedition, she died in obscurity szaka Dwiah. But she has this kid. They named the kid POMPEII. And they got to a pillar. It this prominent pillar along the yellowstone,

like a sandstone pillar that sits there. Clark goes up and carves his name, and that's all, and for a long time had always been built as the only visual marker of the Lewis and Clark expedition. Is where Clark at us. I've went up and looked at it. You still go up and look as a damn name from eighteen o five or eight o six whatever is carved net freaking rock, very nice penmanship. And he named the rock Pompey's pillar, Pompey's Pillar, and then later interestingly Custer.

They had to shootout right below that, below that, below that spire seven years later. Mhm uh shone or shone e uh and from the lem High Zone. But who was she raised by? Which show? Uh? Remember the Lemhi band Uh the showy tribe. She was kidnapped by the Hadatza and then sold to Charbonneau. Oh you bought her, so she's like a slave. Yeah, you can bow that, Phil. Did you know all this? Yeah? I I did any

most of it. I feel like most of if you were a wife, a Native American wife, I mean you were pretty much a slave back then, right to a white trapper. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, I don't know, man, you've watched Jeremiah Johnson that I'm aware that's probably one of the ones I slept through in in in middle school. I'm sure i'd love it. Now, Steve, I'm sorry if I offended you. Alright, we're gonna put the coal in on hold. Cal. You don't with your little report about

who but your cal's like totally gross now oh yeah, definitely. Yeah. I'm I'm sure we're gonna get an overwhelming load of emails in As Steve said when we started this conversation by email yesterday, very aware that we're a bunch of white European man talking about this stuff, and um, very interested and very looking forward to seeing how these conversations

evolve on the land back movement. Yeah, we just gotta get the right people to talk about it with us, because I want to and I want to not talk about it. But on the other hand, you know, you don't be like, I'll tell you what these people ought to think. We're acknowledging it exists, and we're acknowledging that we need more info. Crain will find us the right

people to talk about all right, now, Old Mexico. Now, I missed out on the trip because I was afflicted with with covid C one niner, which which I got lucky and it didn't do anything bad to me. But um, how was it? Man? Was it like the greatest thing in the world that generally is the hunting highlight of my year? I saw that you said that in an email to one of these fellas, and the deadn't surprise

you did it? Mhm, Partially, I guess. I mean, I know that it's like, I know that it's like top tier, but I didn't know that it was like the number one highlight. You thought it was trapping golf course. Mus grats with Seth. I that that's hard to top. But Mexico is pretty cool too. Yeah, man, it's a uh he know, it's funny. Somebody in the group, I think Matt de said to me, he said, this is my first international hunt, and uh, I don't ever really look

at it that because you can look into America. Yeah, but half the stuff you see is in America. Yeah, we're so close to the border that you can see the border blimps um. But it does put it in perspective. It is an international hunt, and you can't you can't deny it. No, it's it's it makes it all that much more special. Yeah. But the fact that you drive over and then it's only like what the hell it is?

Would you consider any less or more international? If you drove into British Columbia went Stone sheep hunting, I would consider it equally uninternational for some reason. But I don't know why. It's a North American when I hear like an internationally, I don't know. It's just it's just stupid. I don't know. I mean like, I don't know why that's very much. That's a that's another country. But yeah,

they're intercontinental hunts. Yeah, I'm I'm mixing up intercontinental with international, and I think that's the probably the root of a lot of issues at customs for both Canada and Mexico with American Uh hunters traveling is there's part of your brain that just says, listen, your jobs. Just semantics. Yeah, like you're you're you're right next to I can throw a rock over the border. Let's not act like I'm

far away from my house exactly right up that a way. Um. Any kind of when we started going down to to scenario years ago, uh, there was always a little tension because I think we started going after things went, after the border got where it started to develop a reputation. Uh, the we were dismantling cartel's it was leading to a lot of strife, beheadings. Yeah, I was leaving to a lot of turf wars. Violence was kind of like boiling

over um. And it was like a little unnerving even though I don't know how many times we've been down there, nothing has ever happened. Ever, they're not even kind of did you were you guys little uh edgy driving down and being around no and you know, because I'm probably coming on you know trip number ten down there. Um, you know, every time you go you can get more and more comfortable. But I think that's a good question for the guys from First Light if if they felt

that edginess at all. Well, two of the dudes from First Light, I think spent a lot of time in Mexico. Yeah. We I've driven uh down to the tip of bo Back a couple of times and spent a spent a bunch of time down there. So um, first time taking firearms across, which was a little different, but uh, it wasn't it was. It was pretty mellow for the most part. Yeah, I'd agree with that. I thought the checking the firearms and was kind of the most interesting part of it.

But otherwise I don't think. I think you get down there and you realize it's it's people too, you know, like no one's looking to give you a hard time really per se. I felt pretty safe the whole time, Duke you two, no no fear of safety whatsoever or lack of safety. Yeah, I mean it, I do feel like it went pretty smooth. Um, that was the first time I'd ever personally traveled anywhere with a with a firearm, and so um, I mean, you guys helped helped me.

I think it went pretty dangn smooth. Yeah, but when you got across the border, you weren't like, all of a sudden worried about getting abducted by a drug cartel impossive possibly helped for ransom. No, that's interesting. It must just be different times, because that was definitely in our heads when we went for the first my first time, I thought about it, but I thought about a lot. But um, I mean this time, this trip was my second time down there, and it was like not anything

near the first time. The one time that I got most nervous was just when we were staying in a place along the highway for along like a very busy road, and I don't know why, but like nothing happened, nothing happened. There was one kid that just had a shady personality about him. And he might have been the nicest, like best, you know, law abiding kid citizen ever, but he had

he had a tinge of shadiness. But if he was hanging out with you guys on on a shoot for whatever reason, on some property in the US, from what he guys described me, he probably would have been like, man, I don't like leaving my stuff around that kid. Oh absolutely, And I was pissed because Steve made too sort of like not that it was necessary or even inferred, but to sort of like make everything just completely good. Steve made me give my pocket knife to the guy because

he really wanted a knife. Seems like if we don't give him your knife, and then who knows what's gonna happen? Give him your knife? I just got mine. Yeah. He was a burrito buck. Brito buck. Um. That's the buck that we killed on the last morning of the hunt. Um. So we're kind of going backwards here, starting with the last I'm just looking at what you wrote down. Yeah, but we can start there. What happened to us too, is that we got a It's really kind of odd.

The story starts earlier, no, the day before. UM on the radio. We use radios there to communicate both just you know, between hunting parties and then to also during the hunt to help us rEFInd deer that we've spotted from long distances. Well, I'm on the radio with somebody and some other dude chimes in, and it was sometimes because I don't know the guys from first light, you know that, Well, and I didn't know their voices. I'm like, who is that? You know? Now? Do you know who

you're talking to? This is you? Honest, I'm trying to talk to Seth, not Matt d So identify yourself. This guy's like, oh man, sorry, we're just on the same channel. We were down in Escanan and we're just heading back to the border. I'm like, oh, okay, do you guys recuse here hunt? Yeah, he goes. I'm like, how did you guys? Do you guys? Oh? Man, dad killed one and we killed I'm like, oh man. And when he said that, I'm like, does he think he knows me?

Because he just like said dad, Like, you know, like I'm supposed to know who his dad is, you know. So they had a decent hunt. I think they went three for four. But uh, he asked me how long we're hunting? I said through Sunday. No, through Saturday, drop going back on Sunday. Goes, oh, well, did you hear the military is closed on Sunday? And just for everybody listening, you have to check your guns in when you go to Mexico with the police and the military, the federalies

and with the US dudes. Yeah, and then leaving, you go through the same process and you get a signature or a stamp on this gun permit on the way out that says you are now leaving with the same weapon. And uh if you don't have that signature and stamp, you legally can't cross the border. And uh so I'm like, oh, you know we're supposed to leave that day, so we've gotta change plans. So uh we figured out that we

had to leave a day early. Luckily, the military is gonna still be open till five on Saturday, so we could hunt the morning. So we get that all figured out. But we are now you found this out for some dudes driving on the highway that you picked up on your radio. Yes, yes, and then then I I confirmed confirmed with our fixer uh cell phone and confirmed with her and so yes, we yeah, it was it was very uh um, what's the word not coincidental? So uh so we said, dad, this is the guy you know. No,

it's just like, yeah, it was. It was moving along pretty quick, and you know, we had hunting to do and and so anyways, we're feeling the pressure now where we're cut by half a day of hunting. You know, at least, you know, maybe a little bit more so. Anyways, last morning every's hunting hard. Cal has a tag unfilled, and so does Chase, and so we split the groups

up evenly. Uh, Chase and Seth and I go to a spot where uh we had seen some deer maybe the day before, and Seth had seen a little rut party where usually you see like a couple does or a dog getting chased around by two or three bucks. And we're gonna go to that same area and see if you know, maybe a branch chandler buck has shown up in that area. Can I can I interject real quick?

I feel like those rut parties move, They certainly can. Yeah, there's a road party and then you go there the next day and the rough party is elsewhere, man right. I used to think like, oh, I'll go there tomorrow hill, but they just pop over the hill or anyway. There was also a lot of doughs there. Yeah, I mean we had like what five six seven does in this one little basin and um or I mean literally one hillside. They were holding tight. Yeah. Yeah, sat Ha seen a

couple of small bucks. He had heard another very deep guttural runts down there. Yeah, it's crazy how much you hear the grunts um and uh. Anyways, we pop up on the knob cess looking that direction, and because we're near another zone that we like to hunt, I just go to the other side of the knob, maybe seventy five yards away, and just figured we'll glass all directions. And first bucklet pops up. You know, Chase is going to go after and uh, it didn't take but you know,

it was such a pretty morning. The layers were so nice in the distance of the mountains and the sunrise. Actually took two minutes to snap some iPhone pictures and it was just so nice. And then I put my binoculars up and and talkt to myself, look where you've been seeing the most, dear, And I looked on that one hillside and it didn't take like a half of sweep, and I'm like, oh, there's a buck. Call everybody over

And Chase like, looks good to me. Let's go. So we mail off the hill and we make it like a hundred yards some sets that's gonna stay back and and uh, we're and keep an eye on the buck and we make about hunrey yards down the hill and we spook another buck. Get ready, and I look back at Chase and he's like doing the like thing where like you're grabbing at your shoulder. We're like, you're you're looking for where your rifle strap is sling, and then

you're like it's not there. So he hustles back up the hill, goes to get my rifle, and he had to borrow my rifle. Oh yeah, yeah yeah, and uh yeah yeah, hard to go kill him without a rifle insight. I hadn't carried a rifle the first few days, so I got pretty comfortable with that program. And I'm glad that buck popped up. It could have been a real problem. Yeah, we might have made it a long ways down that hill and before he remembered. So we make it down there. Um,

we get in. We're sort of creeping up on this like low bench that's underneath the hillside the bucks on and uh, you know, sets kind of telling me last where he's seeing the buck. I can see this little draw that says describing for me. We're three to four

hundred yards away and I'm I'm feeling very confident. It's like we found a buck, we made the stock, and we refined him, and now we're within shooting range, right, So it's like you're like still a little anxious, but you're like feeling that like you're starting to get like those visions of grandeur. I like to call him where

you're like you're like imagining taking the grip and your photos. Yeah, yeah, we might have another buck dad here shortly and um at that time, I think he's like three fifty ish and we've I spot him and he's in this little shade patch and he's like white out in the open and We've got like a nice shooting lane to him, and I'm like, okay, I got him chase, Like, okay, cool, I'm gonna take my time and get super comfortable, you know,

make the shot. I'm like, yeah, that's the right thing to do, Like, you know, let's not rush this, Like we got a big open hill side ahead of us, Like we're gonna get a shot. Well, sure enough, that bugger, Like right, his chase is getting settled in walks behind a tree, and like an hour goes by and there's like he just feeds in a spot where sets like probably sitting up there anything Like why are they not shooting the most frustrating thing from our angle. We couldn't

see a deer like nothing. That's like, yeah, he's just right there, you know, it looks broadside to me, and we just had like absolutely nothing. So we're just like, stay on him, stay on him. Seth and I are talking about, you know, what trees were looking at to make sure that like when he pops out, will be in the general vicinity. Um, you know, Chase has the gun dial to the proper range. Well, the butt like hooks up with the doll where she was probably there

the whole time. But we finally see the dough and she starts moving up the hill. He's following her, and he proceeds to move up the hill and never stopped in an opening and just disappears, out of our lives. Gone, goes up up and over the top, open over the top. That takes maybe five to ten minutes as he makes this move, feeds a little bit, but basically follows her up and over the top to go to the shady

side of the hill. Out of our lives. Man. So we went from feeling pretty dang good about the situation to the lowest of low because it's the last morning. Now it's like nine am. We made like a call that the heart out was gonna be ten and because we had to go and pack and make it to the military, you know, by five, and uh, we're just bombed. Man. You know, it's just like you just it's the gut punch.

You know, everybody's been there, and you're like you like, like I said, you could see the grip and grin and now now you're just like, oh man, I don't feel so good. But there's like a silver lining because everything happened that morning so quickly that we hadn't got our little burrito in. Now you've been down there, you eat like sometimes he's Brito's for dinners, but most of the britos go down as breakfast slash lunch burritos because

every morning Loope builds you. Or if there's a different cook there, but Loope we've had the last couple of years. We love her. She builds you like some version of a bean, potato, meat, bacon, maybe just some eggs in there, some salce or whatever burrito you know with you. This year Loupe was packing some fatties. These things were I think some of the times we're like double the size of the normal burrito. Filling up a like a court

size baggy two of them, like stuffed big burritos. Um. We've had at least two, sometimes three of these every single day. And we're on like day six now. So Chase and I are sitting there not feeling very good about ourselves. But I'm like, yeah, you know what, we didn't have our burritos yet today. Let's have a burrito and we'll just like keep an eyeball on this hill and you know, maybe something will pop out. There was a there was a doll. There there was a buck.

I tell Seth on the radio. I'm like, hey, just keep watching the hill if we're gonna have a burrito around about where you are. Yeah, I'm in basically in the drainage that Mark Kenyon killed his buck. But we're like up drainage upstream eight yards and we're down on a bench and looking up at the big, bigger farthest left yellow yes, um, before you move on. Yeah, when that's hill. When the buck that you guys saw go up over the top, he like, as I'm following him

go up over the top, another buck appeared. He like kicked up another buck. So there's all of a sudden too nice bucks on the hillside. Yeah, I left, he left staring. I left seth starring. I gave him my eighteen by fifty six? Is um sess looking through those things? And you know where I messed up? Man, I gave you my post too. And then I was trying to get my binos on ad at the bottom of the hill and I didn't have that capability. And God does

that burn. You've been used used to staring at him through the uh, you know, on a tripod, and then all of a sudden you gotta go into like some rinky dink balancing on your head on your tripod head. It sucks. Um. So yeah, ay chase you. You weigh in here anytime you feel it's necessary. But so, yeah, we'll have a burrito. So we're munching away on our burrito. It's kind of talking about how we're getting sick of eating burritos. Is there any chopped up onion that bridle?

That one didn't have any chopped up onions. I don't think it was still a day good burrito. A lot of us agree that, like with you and me, that after a week of eating maximum food, as much as we love it, the first four days, five days. On that last day, you're kind of like you're like ready to switch diets. On the other hand, just says he could just keep eating. Yeah, just yeah, I get that anywhere I go. Anywhere I go. I dug out the

my second burrito of the day for for lunch. This is after a showered and got ready to hit the road and do the march back across the border. And I will admit that that burrito did not go down quite as that one left a little something to be desired. So you found the other side of it, Yeah, the other side of your brido love. Uh huh. So Chase and I are stuffing our faces, munching away, kind of having a conversation, you know, while bits of tortill or

spitting out of it between our lips, and uh. We had seen a spike since the big buck left over already on the hillside, so we're like, okay, there might be some deer up there. A few more buys, the burrito go down and Chase looks up and he's like, well, there's a buck, Like, holy shit, I'll look up there and get my bios on him. And he just happened to be stopping a spot where he's like almost pretty

much visible with the naked eyes. I put the bios on him real quick, and you know, with a mouthful brito, I'm like, who goal and which I said, shoot that buck? And uh, you know, he gets down on his gun. The bucks like kind of in half, like I'm chasing the old scent of a dough move. You know. We're like, it doesn't look like he's gonna be sticking around long, right, He's not just sitting there feeding, he's like knows the

ground traveling. And because we had just gone through the whole exercise of watching that other buck move across the hillside every single marker or like visual marker on that hill, whether it was a big white snag with the black burnt gash on the front of it, or the two white rocks together the tall ponderos, so that's sticking up over the horizon. All that stuff had just been recently talked about. So as this bucks now moving across the

same landscape, it's very easy to communicate your whole vocabulary square. Yeah, I'm like, remember where we lost the buck, Like, get your going on the meadow below those rocks, dollar your scope to you know, whatever. It was six point five and you know, get ready, bucks gonna be there in two seconds. And uh. Kind of the second funny punchline part of this story is that earlier, when that other buck was going up the hill, I kept trying to like stop him in in in little openings and say

hey or like that, and nothing was working. All right, he was just falling on this dope. So this time the buck walks into this opening and I might have set a record for loudest because I like I amplified it with my hands and just gave it a you know, I might as well just yelled hey totally. And that bugger just freezes up like a statue in the middle of that opening, and it's like looking down the hill,

you know what was that? And Uh, again, we were ready because we had just gone through the same thing. So Chase already had like a nice rest set up and he was able just to get in right behind his backpack and he had them you know, bipod on his gun and uh we had the range dialed and uh, one shot and I saw the bullet hit and he ran roughly, I don't know, yards kind of downhill. One of those runs where his head's moving faster than his legs.

His front legs can keep up, you know, and uh fell over dead and uh, well, like sweet, that worked out. We both looked down. We were kind of bummed out to see that both of us had sort of thrown plopped our half eating burritos. Like they could have landed on six other five other sides, but they both landed with like the filling down into them. Yeah, and so you kind of pick it up and look at it. It's it's not as advertising it as it once was.

But yeah, that's the story of Chase's burrito buckh. The the Couzier hunt, in my mind, comes down like finding them. It's the fun part of it, right, It's the challenging part. It's the part that you get good at. It's the part that frustrates you that you're not good at. It's like finding them, did you uh having a bunch of newbies down there, these three fellers hadn't done it before, Like,

how would you sort of grade them? Oh? Man? Uh, top notch some of the best um As a matter of fact, they blow Jay's got away and not quite that good. But a couple of his examples of that the first day. Chase, he's got a pretty good Spanish vocabulary.

So he and I rolled around in the vehicle with one of the cowboys, the local ranch cowboys to um kind of go over some fence lines and make sure where we could and could not hunt and kind of talk about where you know, he's been seeing deer, and um, we had a little time left over that first evening and so we just stopped the kind of a rando spot to glass a little bit, and uh, Chase picked up a deer before I did, like right then and there, and um, then, Uh, I was gonna say Chase spotted

his own deer that he ended up killing the buck. Uh, So did Matt right, Seth? Yeah, we're yeah. I was hunting with Seth and Matt and uh, you know he picked up his own deer. So yeah, man, I'd say overall they did a amazing jobs first time deer hunters. And then did you uh the weather is a lot different than what we've seen a fair bit in the past.

I wouldn't say a lot. Um, it was really good the first two days where it was cold, deer on their feet most of the day, and then and then it got hot and I can't say that it got any hotter than it's gotten because I think in years in past we've had lolls too, and you definitely realized that like cooler tamps, cloudy days seemed to have the deer on their feet more make come easier to find um if if like our killing success you know has

any uh is an example of it. The first two days that were the coldest, we killed four bucks, and then we killed one buck. The next four days of hunting um that were hotter. So um Yeah, but I wouldn't call it abnormal. So jealous man, just freaking jealous. I was so jealous. I didn't know if I should like. I kind of felt like just hoping you guys didn't get anything like in something bad did happen traveling like

not like bad bad, but like pretty bad. I can see you wishing that on like Yanni and I, but not on you know. When I was having a mind movie about it, it was more that you guys, you guys or what. I just hope you had a great trip. Yeah.

I think that if a bad hunt it wouldn't have um bode well for you because I think that you want to go back next year and you want to hear good things about that ranch and go back to that ranch and have and be able to think about it for a year that like, there's we saw some big bucks that we didn't kill. They're alive next year. Yeah, but it could also be like this, like let's see you went and it was no good. Then it would be like the year Steve couldn't go. We weren't able

to really pull it together. M might be how you viewed it. I didn't realize to what degree he really made the hunt, you know, the gear conversations around the dinner table at night, we're definitely lackluster without your presence. How much did you guys talk about how you wished I was there was that like a thing that would come up, like at least at least a half dozen times a day. So if there's twelve waking hours in a day, i'd say, you know, every two hours, you'd

be like, God, do I wish? Yeah, I wonder how Steve's doing. You're sure makes this trip. Finally had to bam the topic from conversation out right. Yeah, I was getting kind of weird. You know, Uh, Seth, you got your first CUIs dear, Ye first cust Basically my Seth was going down there as a as a photographer, but then also he turned into a hunter at the last minute when I couldn't go. Yeah, which did you like sharing a gun? Oh? It was. It was like the

best experience. Everybody carried Cal carried the gun. He ended up spotting the deer and he was like, do you want to shoot that deer? And I was like yes, and he handed me his gun that he had been carrying. Um, We've made like a little sneak on it to get in a position, and I shot cross canyon to seventy two. It was like a magical sneak too, because we ranged put you right where you needed to be from where

we spotted the deer, and it was for something. And then three and a half minute, five minutes sneak was to sewo. I mean it was great, not one of those aggravating sneaks where you do a lot of sneaking and you're like, oh, I can see yea four oh nine. Yeah, So I shoot the buck. We watched the buck die, and we it there and talk about it for a little bit and then Duke and I drop like we drop off the hill and I hand the gun back

to Cal and he continues to hunt. It's like having a having like in the old days, and you had a guy to carry your gun. Yeah. Yeah, So I had his gun for like maybe ten minutes. And this was an important deer too. It was the first morning, first day, and I mean got it right over with. Yeah, it was just like getting the ball rolling, you know, it was great. And then we hiked out of there, switched locations, so that was like right up the dos are cut outside of the ranch where you could drive

if you had vehicles capable of getting there. But we just hiked out of the ranch. Um, which works great anyway other side of the creek or the other side of the creek, yeah, um. And then topped off her water, drove back up into the zone where I've gotten a couple of bucks now, and Seth found a great glass and knob that we hadn't been to before. And Seth

spotted a buck that Duke wanted to go after. And and I'll give Duke a lot of credit here too, because the it was a you know, I mean, relocating after you move is a lot of times easier said than done. And he took off down our mountain, went across the drainage started going up the other side, and he was like, okay, yeah, I got him. Okay, well

that worked out. That take care of but also like very good decision making skills on on old Buck Duke's part, because he was like, that's a good buck, I'll shoot that one and off to the races essentially, so many alright, so real quick, what do you guys like? You guys like thumbs up, thumbs down on hunt? Who's her? Did you guys meet Jay Scott? Yeah? Yeah, Yeah, he's a good dude. What what's just uh what you guys about as much fun as you can have? What's your guys like, uh?

Just one at a time there? I know where it's hard because your remote, But what's your give your sort of high level impressions of the whole deal? Um? I thought, man between the country and and doing it in Mexico, like the folks down there on that ranch, um and that who's deer themselves, I thought it was about as much fun as you can have on aunting trip. Honestly, I see why um guys try and do it every year. I loved it. Yeah, I would, I would echo Chase.

I think just echoing what he said, and I personally enjoyed the the disconnectivity of the Hascian and all that you're kind of just only focused on the hunt, and there's there's not a lot of service or electricity or anything to really distract you. So I felt like it's kind of freshing in a way to just focus purely on that. Matt. Matt speaking of the lack of electricity

and the lack of because the stuff. Well know that if you remember, the house is set up on a solar system, but the solar system has been um down. I think we've been there three years. I think it's been broken three years. And so like one day we had like an hour of electricity after dark, and then the following six days it was just like you know, living back in the day flashlights and flashlightsh candle Duke, did you end up throwing a tape on the buck

that you shot? You know, I haven't yet. I plan on doing that here in the next couple of days though, just just out of curiosity. Um, but I have not yet. Yeah, be interesting. It would be great to get Matt's as well, just is because Matt's is a little whiter, just just healthful references. Yeah, your honest buck is a great, great buck, like the you know, he just like the frame visually everything is is uh kind of like that next class. Oh yeah, I was badass, but he broke one of

his antlers off. Yeah, and to me, I was like, oh, that's an awesome buck. That's an awesome buck. That we met up with some of J Scott's guys on the U. S side of the border. We had to drop some stuff off to him and they're like, boy, that would have been a good one because it was because it was busted, really referencing the busted portion. But it was like kind of dismissed there. They're focused more on what's not there than what is there. Right, That was the

way I took it anyway. Yeah. Well yeah, I'm I'm glad you guys are back. Man, I'm glad nothing too bad happened to you. I'm glad you got all all that action. That's good stuff, man, it's good stuff. Thanks. We'll trying to go next year. We'll let you shoot first. Yes, that's a good idea. It's still a magical trade, man, good one. That's great. Real dry this year, not much Oh yeah, that's an interesting point to bring up. Becass has been there in years past. Uh, so dry that

the oaks there. I don't know exactly what brand of oaks they are, Um, but it's a gambles, I don't think so, not lives or gambles. Well, I think it is a live oak. Is like a group of when when I just think of live oak, I just think of an oak that doesn't drop its leaves, you know, that has literally you know it actually more like I'm being a dumb I'm gonna cut that part out. It acts like a cornifferous tree almost, like right, it just

has green leaves year round. And uh, because I can't remember if the oaks at my in laws on the coast North Carolina they call him five oaks, I can't remember they drop them anyhow. Uh, probably fifty of the oaks on these hillsides were red and brown with dry brittle leads from drought yea. And interestingly, they weren't spending any time on the yellow grassy hillsides like they like to do feeding. Like if you saw them there. Cal made a good point. It's just like they were just

traveling across it. And uh, we saw a deer full on like on their hind legs. Matt actually saw my buck just like on its hind legs feeding inside of a small oak, just picking acorns off the oak um. And then the man's anita also we realized produces some sort of a berry or fruit they like to eat, because we saw quite a few deer like just in the man's needa head on the ground for five ten minutes at a time, just slurping up something at the base of those bushes. I'm glad you guys added to

the body and knowledge. Twenty one species of oak occur in the Sonoran Desert region, so that kind yeah. Uh, but here is the thing that we would be paying attention to this year is good water years. They don't need to drop any leaves, and they'll they'll stay green and pour water years they'll shed their leaves and so we definitely saw way more evidence those leaves turning and dropping. So alright, boys, alright, first, like guys, thanks man. I

was bummed that you couldn't be up here. I didn't know you weren't HERETI I walked in here and you weren't here. I thought you were here. Yeah, I wish I wish we could have made it, but hell of a trip. Yeah, everybody's gotta get themselves some vaccines and whatnot, and we'll we'll get together and talk about it. Alright, buddy, cal will continue to dig in on this. I want to cover more of this song. I want to talk about the landback deal. Yeah, me too. It it'll be

it'll be a good conversation. We didn't get to talk about that giant colon when we talk about it on an upcoming episode. What I'm gonna look into as part of that conversation. Do you remember that, like supposedly Elvis's colin was full all kind of cheeseburgers and stuff. You know what I'm talking about? That was that I always heard was it was? But it was John Wayne too. Wasn't it all kinds of cheeseburgers? Yeah? Yeah, pack full

of burgers. I didn't know that. I do know that. Um, you want to see you This is my concluding thought. You want to see a freaking documentary. Have you watched Five Came Back? That's the five different directors. It's it's a documentary about five directors who were directors or became directors who served in world War two and about the

impacts of that on their careers. And then there's five contemporary directors that are kind of telling like Spielberg and are kind of telling the story of these individuals and they're it's like heartbreaking, heartwarming. It's a phenomenal documentary. It's about film, war everything. But in it it was pointed out, you know, John Wayne did all those john Ford movies.

John Ford is one of the directors they cover. They also cover the guy that did uh Um, Frank Coppa, who did It's a Wonderful Life, which tanks so bad at bankrupted the production company, which is crazy tanked tanked It's a Wonderful Life. He lived to see it do what it did. But john Ford, you know, made all those movies that John Wayne. John Ford was a veteran. John Wayne wasn't a veteran. And the movie talks about how they used to kind of like humiliate on set.

All the veterans was kind of humiliate John Wayne, flying leathernecks, always acting like he always playing these roles where he's like a soldier and a symbol for yeah, and he wasn't. And these dudes were and they tease him because they said he didn't know how to salute right, never learned how to salute right. I thought it's a good movie, man, all right, anybody, thank you, thank you, thank you, see you. Fellas to you, guys, thanks guys, thanks guys, thank you, see you guys. Skin