Ep. 342: Getting Busted for Touching Air

We're unrecognizable. No one knows who you are. No, huh. This is the first like media thing you've been able to do pretty much. I've talked about some people on the phone. Oh yeah, but you haven't been. You haven't been on one of these here digital radio programs, the first. It's awesome. Man. We also exclusive and we also have Brandon Butler here, who's an Arson victim, also a Missourians. People come up with you in the airport and be like, are you an Arson victim? You would be surprised how

many people have heard this story. Well, it's a great story. Is it? Hell? Out of me? Man? Oh god, I'm depressed After I heard the little summary this morning from Brandon. Yeah, I shouldn't be it's not a good thing. I mean, no, it's horrible. And then did you see how nice this place became, the place that the poachers burned down? How nice it became after we were there last You think he would have waited to invite us over when it was all done up in fancy. I wanted you guys

do experience and when it was raw, rawn cold. Yeah, it's a it's a tragic story, but there's like a little bit of justice in the end. There is a first, a couple of things. Cal you were telling a story that was so good we wanted you to start over again. But it's an apropos for this podcast because it is about government, hyperlocalized government, which is your homeowners association or in my case, condo owners Association, of which I got

I got a hot tip for listeners. I bought a house with the h o A, but I didn't really know what it meant, Like I hadn't I hadn't bought a bunch of houses. I bought one other house before, and there wasn't anything like that. And then I heard that there was one, and I didn't really think about it. I know now that I would never ever, ever, ever, ever again by a house with h o A. It's like a group that makes it that you can't have your boat, that you like, can't work on your boat

the way you'd like to work on it. Yeah, exactly, And I think like the seasonal approach, like your friend was saying it is A is a great one. Right. It's like, if you want to work on some junkie old vehicle, that's totally fine. But if it comes to be that there's four ft of snow on there and then there's junk everywhere and you're obviously not working on it, then it becomes not fine. Yeah. I can see that.

That seems reasonable to me. Yeah. It's like if you have your uh, you know, let's just say, let's say you're bringing your camper somewhere and the world's washed out like that, they got to fix the road. I don't know, Yeah, and you don't want to do Yeah. I can see where where you're going with that. But here, here's the deal.

What if you're you didn't have let's say you didn't have an h A and your neighbor and you could do it where you live and your neighbors like, you know what, I'm going to open up a burger joint at running out of my garage so now, and that wouldn't be an h A issue, that'd be a zoning issue. Well, I'm saying, let's just say you were outside of the you're on the other side of that line that's right behind your house, and you're outside of uh you know, city limits or whatever, and you were in a place

where you could do it. I understand you don't. You're saying that I live in a place where it's zoned for someone from my neighbor to open a burger restaurant. I'm saying you. I'm saying you, oh, I'm making up a place where you could do that. There's no rules. Well I'll give I'll give you a good example and no zoning. Okay. For for for instance, my h says, because we are zone, obviously, you can't have a business. You

can't have a burger, you get zero business. I don't know if it's a burger joint, but you can have one's going to your house for burgers. You can have have an auto repair shopdo okay, a welding shop. I'd like that very much. I wish all my neighbors had welding shops. Well, I actually I wish it was welding, welding, fabrication, electric, lumberyard, plumbing, tackle stand. All of a sudden, your neighborhood wasn't nice and quiet, and there was like five people coming to

visit whatever business it was. You'd be like, Oh cool, but what's what's having a camper or a boat in your drive. He's trying to go extreme. He's trying to. He's trying to because there's yeah, there's the extreme version of h o A and extreme versions of any neighbors that h o A s are wish. I wish that my I wish my house was the only one that looked nice because people be like, jeez, that's a nice

looking house. But your people got jumped out cards. And then when I needed a part right now, I need I need a piece of aluminum. I don't give a ship two inch four inch wide. I needed a piece of aluminum bar stock in Alaska, at our fishack in Alaska. There's sure should know h o A. I could easily find that by going to my neighbors and looking around where they keep all their garbage. Here it doesn't work

that way. But if all my neighbors had junk collections, I'd go like, hey, do you mind if I dig around like I'm trying to find out you know, you big whatever. They'd be like, hey, bad, I got all my junk here, don't cut yourself, tell you man. So yeah, you know the Latin calvete m tour buyer be aware, covers it all m It's like, oh yeah, that neighborhood. So to be realistic, what I would say is this. I would say that if like, well I start on

my point, I won't do it again. If I did, I would be like I would have an h like I would make an h oo that said the h o A rules are it's cool to have and that list things I like? Right, campers, boat trailers like stuff I like? And that was okay, Can someone live in your camper full time in your yard? Depends what the groove is and if I like it. So I'm swinging in to the condo the other day. And it's work live right. So they are businesses on the bottom level,

residences on top and what do they call them? Living works? Yeah? Work live, live work yeah. Um, but they're duels owned and and that doesn't make too much of a difference here. But uh, buddy across the street works on wind generation, power generation stuff, and and he's a major tinker. He's got his garage open all the time. He's got this little bulldog named Blue Cheese. And uh, what kind of

tinker is he gonna do? Woodworking? Lots of woodworking, lots of moto stuff, lots of bicycle stuff, um, automotive whatever. Like he is into it. And that's what's cool about the neighborhood. Or it's slowly changing. But um weekends especially like everybody's got their garage open, and and nobody really wants to go bullshit with each other because they're too busy tinkering. But you can always walk over and borrow a tool that you need in between the open garages.

Sounds like a great neighborhood. It's yeah, it's ideal. Well, we've been getting this infestation of rock doves city pigeons and they've shown up for the first time. They're crapping on everything. I'm have been and I don't own an air rifle anymore, but I was trying to solicit some work from somebody who does. My boy will do it. But the problem is we just had to order him a new magazine for his gammo this morning because according to him, it broke. Then he lost it, but it

didn't matter because it was broke. We're going to pay to fix something. This air rifle shooting. Is that okay? With the h O A. It is? It is because I'm the de facto president. I was. I was stupid enough to join the board. You put a clause in there, and then everybody else moved away. So so there was one board member right now, right now, which is not up to the by laws. But here we are, nobody wants to do it. I get it. Um, So I

come polling in yesterday. Blue Cheese, who's always a potential speed bump, come strutting out there, and uh, he smashes this squab, this flightless pigeon on the on the side of the sidewalk, like he catches it. He catches it, which is not super likely, right, And so I'm looking around and determined that the only place that the nest could be is inside the barbecue of this neighbor who I got, you know, flightless because of its youth, of its youth understanding. Yeah, So it's a it's a you know,

city pigeons. So just get out of the nest and the dog grabs it. And then you know, my dog takes great interest in that, and she gets it from the bulldogs who's super piste and there's just a slight height difference there, and so he's jumping up at her. They're making all sorts of noise. She's trotting around super

proud with this burdener mouth, looking around. Then the other neighbors show up, who are from away, will just say, from Steve's old neighborhood in Seattle, and they're watching all this, and I'm I'm more concerned with the origination where this bird came from. You got a hot clue now, so now I can eliminate the nest. The situation that I am with the bird that's in hand literally has already been caught, and uh, my neighbor from behind me goes,

can you just end it quick? And so kind of without thinking, you know, I like call snort to hell. I'm looking for the nest. She hands the bird off.

I grab it by the legs. I give it a quick like like you know, like towel whack, and then chucking in the dumpster, and you know, I'm still like focused upwards and I turned around and there's just kind of a scene, a quiet scene of like it was too smooth, it was too effortless, right, Yeah, they wanted more like contemplation and you to come over and be like, hey,

let's wrap our heads around that. Right. Yeah, that was intense, but uh, it's not now how it works on the main streets of bos Angeles, you know, Uh, Okay, we got a lot to cover, so we're gonna go and talk about why aren't two things here we're making We're talking about Brax and Hicks. You guys know what you guys got kids? Oh yeah, two girls, two girls, old kids and now babies. Yeah, do you guys remember what

a Brax and Hicks contraction was. We're talking about how there's only two women that listen and and um, I don't know why we're talking about that, because we do wonder why we're covering Bracks and Hits contractions. But but we were wrong because three women wrote in we're off by a lot, by a wide margin. Uh. They had things to say about Bras and Hicks, So we're off. Someone wrote in, if only two women listen to the show,

I'm half of them. She went on to say, as for Braxton Hicks contractions, they can happen for half of her, none of a pregnancy, and very in intensity for each person. And there's no way in hell a woman who's had a labor contraction could confuse the two. Another person mentioned that her husband had a cousin whose name was Braxton Hicks, spelled differently Braxton Hicks. It's a great name. Uh, Karin, got your talk about your blue belt crin jiu jitsu.

Thanks are putting that in the talking points, Yann not necessary to talk about, but yeah, I gotta. I've been doing jiu jitsu for a little bit over a year with Crown Gracie and very unexpectedly gott a promotion the other day. So so if I help me understand, let's say I through a wild haymaker at you. Do you feel that you would then beat my ass? Is it useful like that? It's so jiu jitsu is a drunken wild haymaker. Yeah, I mean it's it's it's a lot of things, but part of it at his core is

self defense. So it doesn't matter if you're bigger than me or stronger than me. If I've got technique down, if I can feel myself in my body and feel like what and see like what you're doing or about to do, then I might just be able to get you in a little pretzel. Okay, So let's say she's going to subdue you. Yes, exactly. I can't do anything. That's so so never mind the wild haymaker because it

doesn't work. But like let's say, Um Yanni, I was like, okay, now, Karna, Yanni will fight right right, and there's no haymakers, just like you guys square off to fight. Do you feel that you would beat Yanni's ass? Because you know this martial art? I would say I have that I did about six weeks when I was um, and that stuff sticks with you like a bicycle. So so the first thing I would try to do is get you to

the ground, just like I'm asking it. It's a yes or no question, would you be able to beat you? And he's asking a fight? Really that it works that good? It's on after this podcast. It's all technique. It's you know, if you're a smaller person going against a much bigger, stronger person who doesn't have the level of technique that you do. You can, you can subdue them, but are you relying on them also fighting by the same set of rules like do you know what? Like okay, so

you're not you're not. It doesn't have to be that that there you're playing checkers, they're playing chess like there doesn't matter. Oh so many factors come into play, but there might be things that they don't. You know, someone might like step to me and be really cocky about their ability and not defend themselves in places where I

don't know, I might be able to do something. I watched this play out in high school, like world enough now, Like we were there when UFC kind of started, and we had this boddy named Jay who thought he was like studying it and he was a martial artist. We had this truck driver named Valente who was like six four two twenty in high school. And Jay's like, sure he can take him because he knows all these skills.

So we move all the furniture out of Valente's like parents upstairs, and there's tile and Jay's like in his gear or whatever, and Valente's and something like ripped up a C d C T shirt and Jay comes running at him. Valente lifts him up as high as he can and slams him on the tile and the fight was over. That was the big guy just overpowered him.

A friend x ex girlfriend from a long time ago studied judo from from like a Judo family and very very tiny lady and my friend who was Division one linebacker whose claim to fame was he once tackled Barry Sanders picked a fight who everybody knows was a very difficult target to tackle, very difficult um. But he picked a fight with with her and it was over shockingly fast. She will up and all she said was, they always

tried to pick you up. I thought you said yeah, No, there's no I don't think there's a lot of hyahs and Judo Judo is like, yeah, is getting you to the ground is very explosive, So that's not surprised. Her takeaway is big guys always try to pick up smaller people and throw them down. I don't know, but she's just like, yeah, they always try to pick you up. I couldn't really see it because they're kind of wrapped up, but he was and was like okay, okay, okay, okay.

So it turned turned the conversation around real fast. Okay, last thing Yanni wanted to plug. I haven't downloaded yet, but Bogaine loves it. Oh, it's so cool. Everything in this room should get it. It's free. It's called the Merlin Bird. I D by the corn L Lab. Everything about everything good about birds is from the Cornell or not absolutely. Yeah. Oh I just opened it and says your five day grace period is over. Worth paying whatever they're going to charge. What do they want to listen?

I don't know. I'm not gonna go in and figure that out right now. What you're gonna pay it? Yeah, because all my recent bear hunt you can. They have a sound I D so you can just hit the microphone button while you're sitting there at first light and all the birds are going off, and it just starts running. It just starts showing up every bird. There's a whole it'll be like the whole list will be like ten birds, and then as each one's going off, it'll highlight it.

So you're just sitting there watching it, and all of a sudden, the robin highlights it goes away, Then the chipping sparrow highlights it goes away. Then the Mountain chickadee highlights, then the Redbreast of Nuthatch highlights. Do you gotta have service for it to work? You pre download like sections of the United States and see. Man, you know that's good to know, because what's daunting is we're gonna, um, we keep a good list at our house, but we're

gonna start doing a list at our little property. And it's just daunting because it's like starting from scratch. And this is so easy because it's not all these not all the normal ones that you're accustomed to because your higher elevation to kind of habitat time. So I was

actually doing in reverse now. I was sitting there listening to him, going oh, that's that bird, and I could see the picture on my app and then I could glass around and look at the little birds flooding around and find them and go, oh, there is the redbreast and Nuthatch's great. Okay, do your last little promotion. I want everybody go and watch the brand new six episodes of my show called On the Hunt on me meters YouTube channel. Brodie, have you washed them all? How many

have you watched? Still catching up? Who's watching? Who's watched? One in this room. I watched one nice. Would you think Turkey's with room app it's fun like that. Yeah, I'd say watch more based off of that. Okay, good, thank you, cal Sorry, we gotta tech. We got an email today said that that was the finest thing that this company has ever produced. Did you see that? You know, I did see that. It's very nice to that person to say that. Is that an email peer reviewed? It

was my mother. She's been a great supporter over the years. Okay, we're gonna get into Law and Justice. Que the song Philip, now here's the thing to make this legal. Everybody needs to comment on it because it's criticism hit it gentire is a little twangy. My opinion, it's a great too. That's my comment. I've never watched this show. No, it's not a show. Oh there he's singing, singing. He just said, law me all right, turn off. It's the Law and

Justice episode. Who's sang that? It's this dude from He's kind of like a He was just kind of fixture around Austin, Texas. Had a lot of mental problems, had a lot of substance abuse problems. But now and then pull it together and do these albums and um. He then later did an album with an outfit called Okerville rigor Ockerville River out of Austin and they kind of brought a lot of his music to life. But he's had a lot of uh, he was troubled individual. Is

that how you say it? Okkerville Okerville? Yeah, it's from a Russian novel. No ways, God, that didn't stick as a kid. All right, Brandon, Ready, Okay, we got two major things to cover because we're gonna we're gonna do a big follow up. Well, these are both stories, the Missouri Corner Crossers I guess felt called Wyoming corner Crossers whatever the hell the Wyoming corner Crosses from Missouri we've reported on quite heavily, and then we reported on Brandon

Butler's justice saga quite heavily. And now we're gonna do a recap on both with everybody in the room. So if you can give us a, um, where we last left off. I think where we last left off was the suspect was in custody. No, no, no, no recap the story or recap the whole thing. Are you sitting there you hear a bunch of gunshots? Yeah? So I gotta go back a little bit further than that and talk about how I even got there. Um, there was a camp called Camp Zoe that fluent girls from St.

Louis would go to in the Ozarks. Fluent or affluent, affluent, and uh. The governor at the time of Missouri was Jay Nixon, and his mom had been a camper at this camp and then she went on to become a counselor at this camp. This is in Shannon County, Missouri, just north of Eminence, maybe fifteen twenty miles at most. And the governor always had, you know, he had affinity for this property. It was beautiful sinking creek. You guys

saw sinking creek flows through it. And eventually it got bought and turned into a music venue and it was called schwag Stock. That was a music It became, you know a place where hippies would gather and swim naked in the creed. Was it bigger or this is just on year. This is just down the road where the state park is where we went and the general the

general area and hippies in the creek. Then it became worse than that, you know, the weed turned into heavier drugs and ultimately the d e A raided this property. In two thousand and ten, it went up for auction and the state bought it. The governor had, you're into the distinction now between hippies crazy as hippies. Yeah, I don't have hippies and meth heads in the same category. Like it went was that kind of transition, not even crazy. It went from like you know, smoking weed in the

creek to too hard drugs. And at that point the d A guess had enough and they came in raided the property, confiscated it for like back taxes and others, and then the state bought it in an open auction. They ended up paying six dollars it's a little over three d That's how the state park came into be there, and it was the governor's vision. He had like a year left and he just went all out on building this property, and it's the premier state park in the

state of Missouri. Now. They put like sixty one million dollars into it. Have you guys been to Echo Bluff. I was just gonna ask you if that's what it was it is, if you was trying to look up I've been buy it It's pretty, isn't it. It's a beautiful state park and absolute point of pride for the

state of Missouri. But because of this kind of contingent of folks, a very small contingent, I have to be careful because I guess last time I got in trouble because I got generalized and saying like it's the whole area. A guy getting a lot of trouble. He's from England. Yeah, man, he got a lot of heat. I'm talking about very a very small group of people that lived like back in the woods, like in these hollers, that like this outlaw way of life that they've been conducting for generations,

where like rules and law simply don't matter. But the majority of people down there are incredible people, Like they're just salt of the earth, hard working, love the outdoors. But it's like they got a hide from just like bully mentality. They can't speak up for good, they can't speak up for like justice, because if they do, then they're gonna face like ramifications. But back to the park. So the governor puts all this money into the park.

At the time, I'm running the Conservation Federation, which is like the state's largest conservation nonprofit. It's affiliated to the National Wildlife Federation, and the governor asks me to kind of help lead pr issues, like make people see the benefits of this part coming into this part of the state. So I'm doing that, and while I'm there, like exploring this property, I finally decide, this is it. Like I've been waiting my whole life to have a place like

my own property, in my own camp. You know, my first camp was like a g I Joe sleeping bag under the stairs of my parents basement. And then in college you became a camper, and like the dream of just having a cabin like that was always the dream. So now I'm like, this is it. I'm gonna buy a place down here. Through a series of like fortunate events, I find this forty acres real close to the park on the creek, surrounded by public land, and I get it bought, and now I show up in my conservation

truck like wrapped with like conservation on it. I mean, man, I grew up not too far down the road from you in northwest Indiana, did a lot of working like Gary and and some really rough places as a kid. And now I think about it in a sense, like like when I reflect on the decision I made, it would be like going into Gary and building a mansion and expecting like you're just gonna be friends with all your neighbors. You know, like everything's gonna be fine, you know,

even if you're not trying to change them. You just being there somehow like shifts this mentality you conservation, following the rules, and uh so I go about it, and you know, but I tried to, you know, immediately do well. I went to Sam's Club and bought those tins of popcorn and I took him to everybody's house on the road for Christmas into three you got like cheese and

caramel and all that. So like I'm I took those out and now I'm thinking, you know, now these people are like, who is this dude, Like that's coming to our house with a tin of popcorn to like introduce himself. But ultimately that was like my introduction to these folks and my like please don't burn my house down, like offering, and things were good for a while. I hired all local contractors. Uh you know, it was just a real rough piece of ground. I brought in a guy with

a bulldozer, he cleaned up a couple of acres. There was an old cabin there. I took it apart, piece by piece so I could repurpose the materials, Like the old roof became the ceiling in the new cabin, the rafters became bookshelves, just a lot of that. I took this old potato sack that was insulation in the old cabin, and I framed it because it was, you know, a hundred years old installation. It was cool, so ship like

that was just what made that place spout show. And then we started hunting there, and I guess maybe they had a few a few people kind of had felt that I was encroaching on their public land. You know how that goes, Right, they've been hunting there for a while, somebody else comes in, start hunting the same public land, and I'm bringing guys down because you got a parcel, but your parcels by public land. And my parcel was surrounded on three sides by a parcel of public land

that's like sixty contiguous acres. And there was probably about three or four thousand acres behind my house before you got to a road. Uh that I really started getting to know. It's where yeh, it's killed his turkey. Well you too, you killed yours there too, well, And I found a crippled up turkey that I killed. I actually jumped it. That was a good story. That's one of my proudest most So it's going well, it's going well for a while. That park comes in. The locals start

working at the park. You know, there's jobs now, like a hundred people are employed there, and and like the local sentiment starts getting better for the park, but it is bringing a lot of people in there. And and then there's that group that has like the frustration for the fact that this area is becoming more exposed, like more people know about it, more people are visiting, and I assume there's just like a deep seated resentment towards that.

And if you go back a step further, there's just a really deep seated resentment towards government by a lot of these people in general. Because the national park there, which is called the Ozark National Scenic Riverways, it's a hundred and thirty five miles of river corridor consisting of the Current River and the Jack's Fork River, with acres of public land along those rivers. Now a lot of it was taken by imminent domain back in like the

fifties and sixties to become that park. Everybody was paid, everybody was you know, nobody's land was stolen. But that's the sentiment by a few people is you know, the land was stolen from us. Well no, you know, a check has past. But there's like but I mean, yeah, there's people that held out and and that that's a common story. And like it's like there's resentment for sure, and you have your farm being taken by eminent domain for a park. You cannot expect to be like, oh,

you have no right to be mad. We gave you the money. And it's different. Way I think about it is like if my grandpa said something, it was gospel, you know. And now you've got this generational anger that comes from like the people who actually lost the property to the two or three generations after that are now like carrying that flame that are like, you know, I'm gonna find some way to right this wrong because it's like our families heritage. So there there is like this

real deep resentment towards government in that area. And and now they come in and put this park in and start bringing people and then people like me show up by property and you know, want rules to be followed, like don't shoot here at night with spotlights. Uh, don't run your dogs illegally on my property. Things that are

just pretty basic. But we're getting along fine until maybe three years in and my friend Eric is hunting a tree stand along the creek and there's this little seven point book out in the field in front of them, and a truck pulls up at the opening to this field, jumps out, two guys jump out, and they start firing on this book. They wound it not guns season, it was guns season. They do most of their potent. I'll give them that. Most of the poaching actually does take

place during the rifle season. So they wound this book. It runs up onto my property, beds up, they go switch vehicles. I guess they got like a shooting vehicle and a hauling vehicle, so they had to go get the pick up. Yeah, multifaceted poaching operation. So then they come barreling across the field in the hall and rig jumped the buck up and it runs right at my buddy who's sitting on a power line cut at the creek, full blaze orange and they just start unloading on it again.

Now bullets are like whizzing past my buddy's tree stand and he's screaming at him, and they're now they're like, oh ship, you know, they're scared that they they're shooting at this guy. So they come up and then they explained to him that it's his fault because he didn't put a blaze orange marker at the opening of the field so they would know not to shoot from the road. So at that point, like, I don't call the law.

I'm still like the executive director of this organization constantly promoting like anti poaching campaigns and doing the right thing, and in that instance, I didn't, you know, and that never sat right with me. I wanted to keep the peace, so I went and talked to the people and tried to like smooth it over like good, like neighborly. And it did get smoothed over with some of the like powers that be, some of the more like patriarchal type

in that area. But the guy who did it, he just went around telling stories and making up lies and and that started breeding this kind of like anti sentiment towards me in a small like contingent crowd. But we lived with it for years until we got to gun season of two thousand and it was Sunday night and me and my buddy Nathan, everybody calls him Shags, My cousin Derek, and my buddy paddled down like we're sitting

around this campfire and a truck comes across. Remember how we couldn't come across the creek, so to get into this property you had to like drive on a an underwater bridge, like we call him Arkansas bridges because they actually build them underwater. And uh, you come across this Arkansas bridge and when it's flooded, you've got to come through the forest. And I took you guys in through

the forest. The bridge is all flooded out, but somebody comes across any ways, we couldn't believe that they were crossing it. This truck pulls in and this is like eight thirty, so it's three hours, three hours after dark. It pulls into this field, like right at the base of my property where the old man who had owned

it died like two weeks before. And I've been over there that day and the power line people were there, and I thought that the power line people had recognized that this was now a vacant property and they were coming in there to poach at night. So when his truck pulls into the field, they throw on like an led light bar and we can see the muzzle flashes before we can hear the shots. And at that point I just jump in my side by side and take off to try to confront them. My buddies come running

after me. The truck evades and gets out of the holler, and that I was like, that's it. I'm this is this is the line in the sand. So I call the game wardens who I know, we call him conservation officers and and m hurry and they come out. But that morning we went looking for the truck and we found it before the agent got there, and I knew who had belonged to at that point, and it it was like, this is gonna be serious if I crossed this line. So they actually come out and they they

reiterate that to me. They're like, you know who this belongs to, and I'm like yeah, and they're like, what are you gonna do? I was like, I can't not do it, Like it's never sat right with me that I didn't in the first time, like I'm the guy telling other people to do this, Like I gotta do it at this point. So I turned him in and it ended up being three women. There was a younger lady who I guess had come down to hunt and didn't get a deer, and they were like, oh, well,

we'll get you a deer. They went out to get a deer and they all three. I was in the courtroom. They all ended up pleading guilty. You know, there's no reason to say their names at this point or anything, but they you know, they got multiple violations and each about a thousand dollars and fines and and pled guilty to that. But the suspect uh in burning down my cabin. It's like one of those women's boyfriend's son who's been like in and out of prison all this time, and

now he's back in prison. So that was like November, and it was January four when this dude came and burned your What was the date he burned on your place? It was at like ten o'clock at night on January four. Got trio cam. Yeah, so I set out and I told that before too, you know, I I thought I'll set some trail cameras out where they'll think these are

the cameras that I'm using to protect the property. And then I took the real cameras and hit them much further back in the woods and had like good shots of them. So I got pictures of the dude like on the porch, walking up to the cabin carrying a rifle and a bottle and that's obviously like a bottle of accelerant. And then I've got a picture of him leaving, uh, leaving the property with fire coming out of the far

back window. And then I got a thirty second time lapse of it burning for the next hour until the fierty part gets there. And then there's actually a picture in me like when I approach that the trail cam caught. But yeah, they actually pulled the chips on the dummy cameras, thinking like this idiot, you put these cameras right where we can see him, you know. So the trap worked, and uh so I got I got the photos, and I went I went to court like multiple times, and

it was a very interesting experience, you know. And you can show the photos of this dude from his Facebook and he's wearing like the same mossy oak sweatshirt and that the pictures to me are very clear, like I know who it is. But in a court of law in a county of eight thousand people, where four thousand of them are probably related, like, is it enough evidence

is demonstrate some doubt? Right? So they get a lawyer for this guy and they're talking about this sweatshirt in this court case and Shags is there with me in the courtroom and the sweatshirt that everybody in that county has. So that's the lawyer's point, right, And he goes to the to the the deputy that's on the stand at the time, they're like, what about the sweatshirt and he's like, well, yeah, it's very clear sweatshirt. And he goes, could that be

a sweatshirt that everybody in this county has? Do you yourself phone that sweatshirt? No? I do not, says says the uh county policeman. No I do not, because you do not? Well, do you have a massio cat? No I do not. He goes, well, do you know people in your family that do? No? I do not. He says, well what do you do? He goes, we're that other? What's that other? One, and somebody in the back of

the courtroom yells real Tree court. Yes, in court, and the whole like now the courtrooms laughing like we're a real Tree family, which makes total saying oh yeah. Like so it's a long story short. We've been going through the and if you would have wanted to take that logic, you could have been like they sold eleven thousand units of that, so you know, to me, it's it's very clear.

But what had happened is three other cabins and I'm aware of were burned down within twelve months of mine, prior to mine, and one sense mine and a United States federal property, the Round Spring Rangers Station, which we'll get to, but nobody had been told was torched, and that's in retaliate. The story just keeps going, man like, so I start making a stink about it, like most people just took it like there's nothing they can do. They show up their cabins burned down, there's no evidence,

there's no cameras, there's no nothing. Well, I know who did it, and I go to the Lieutenant governor, sit right down in his office. I called my congresswoman, like I just immediately communicating with the head of the Department of Conservation Law Enforcement, and talking to the director, I get one person removed from the FBI. Like, I just went as deep as I could go, as fast as

I could do it. And the cabin was burned on January five, and that dude was rested on January fifteenth, and he hasn't been out of jail a day since and he's still still not been charged with mine. The beauty is is when he had broken into another cabin, he left his parole papers behind. I had to keep him someplace dry, right, and he wanted to keep those safe, uh, and and had committed back that sending explain it to

me again. So he was squatting in some dudes cabin and was you know, I had his parole papers and left him on the table. So that's how they knew he was there. And ultimately he's pled guilty to this charge. Like I'm trying to understand, Like, well, when you think a point just not like he just forgot his possessions. Would usually a place you probably take a picture of your kids, right, you know, you gotta have some documentation to get around in the world. So he had stolen

some stuff like a four wheeler and a generator. And but the real, like the part that like is crazy is like he had these outstanding felonies hanging over him since two thousand and sixteen, and nobody triggered him. Like he was going to like probation meetings and they're like, oh, yeah, like you've got two felonies that we could ring you up on, but you know, keep your nose clean and

what sorts of felonies. It was a Class CY felony for like theft, and I don't I don't know exactly, I don't have to go into that case net and look it up. But but ultimately stealing that four wheeler and and uh generator or whatever that constitutes a Class C felony, and burning my entire house down is a Class D felony. So the way like burning your house, everything, everything into the ground with an accelerant because there was no yeah, like no potential for physical harm to a

human supposedly is what dropped the charge. But the dude carrying a rifle and how does he know your buddy's not staying, My kids weren't sleeping in a room upstairs. You understand, like what like what does that go by I don't know. I don't like two guys go to stay in your cabin, one of them runs into town to get a couple of cool ones. There's no car there, right, I don't get like what it doesn't make sense to me.

I don't either. If you burn a large structure with multiple bedrooms down, I don't think you could have should be allowed to be like I knew no one was there. How did you know when no one was there? I agree? But anyways, the charges of stealing the fore wheeler and the generator were higher, and he's since pled guilty to those. It's worse to steal the generator and a quad runner than it is to burn someone's house to the ground,

must be, at least in this case. But if he would have gotten charged on both, I was told that those sentences could be run concurrently. So honestly, you know, other than me being able to have the satisfaction of saying that like he did it for sure, you know, legally I could say that right now, I have to say, like, he's a suspect, but he's in prison. It's a five year stints. Yeah, when he's out, can you get him

after for Bernard cavan down, there's like three years. I think we have three years, and and that's why, you know, like there's still an ongoing case. I actually called the prosecutor and I got a call back from the agent and he was like, this is what you shouldn't say, this is what you you know you can say, but be very clear that he's a suspect because it's an ongoing investigation. So are you are you breaking any rules right now by talking to us and saying what you're saying.

I don't know. I don't think so, like that's all out there. But aren't there multiple suspects because things just keep getting burned down? Or is this you're just saying, we're just talking like about my place. So so then what I did is I went, you know, I'm very friendly with the Department of Conservation. You know Sarah Parker Pauli our directors, like a personal mentor of mine. I think she's one of the most outstanding conservationists in the country.

And but I went to and I said, look, you got a for two acres of public land in this county. It's obviously known as one of these places where like infringements happened, but we divide up our agents essentially two by two by two. We don't need the same number of conservation agents in downtown St. Louis as we need in Shannon County. So at what point are we gonna like ramp up enforcement down here? And boy, ramp it

up they did. They were flying helicopters over these camps and it was hilarious, you know, like they started a Facebook like page to fight back, to get a petition so they would be left alone. They're gonna get a petition done that they were going to give to the sheriff so law enforcement would leave them alone while they

were conducting their poaching. I don't know, it went it went away after a while, but they were like so mad that like helicopters were like coming and sitting over the top of them while they were running their dogs illegally. So what they do is that they released these dogs.

And you know, I'm the first one to sit here and say, like what you're doing with mingus is awesome, like having hounds and with hounds and all of it, you know, I love it all, but in this sense, in this instance, it's illegal, and it's illegal because they're running them on everybody else's private property. They're shooting every day that they can shoot. It's taken this property that I developed in my dream and essentially ruining it. As like hound after hound after hound comes through my forty

acres on opening day of deer season. And the worst part of it is is they'll run the dogs towards the river, and the deer will get in the river, and then they'll they'll watch on their GPS as to where these deer are gonna cross or where the dogs are gonna cross the deer, and they'll run a jetboat up there and and shoot the deer like as it's trying to get across the river. So it's you know, it's just this ongoing battle, and they like they make t shirts for it, like it's our tradition or whatever.

And the hound hunting is illegal there. Yeah, how long has it been illegal for forever? Hunting the deer's illegal, Yeah, I mean coyote hunt you can yeah by saying how, I mean like how running and it's a it's a just an ongoing battle. That's even more evidence than Missouri is the North. That's a good point. Remember I sent you that quote that one time about Missouri. You know that it's just kind of its own place. Um, so

you know that that was a big issue. Was like the hounds that just continuously run through and and then they get this like uh effort to try to curb it this year, and and some dude in retaliation goes and burns down the Round Spring Ranger Station, like this very historic building that had all the records of you know, the area and the river ways. And and they got him too, like he's in jail now, and was he a local? Yeah? Yeah yeah? Was he a foulon? Yeah?

I mean, dude, we should have you should have a poster of him in here. It would fit with your motif, like have a picture, yeah, creek, we get that picture. Yeah he was. He was quickly apprehended and brought to justice. That was a guy that has that distinctly, Matthew looked to him. He's messed up, man, that's him. Yeah, burned

down the station there. They stole a truck too, and that was like outside of their m O. Like it's normally not theft normally, it's just like because you don't get in that much trouble as long as you don't steal a generator. Uh, And then right after that, some other guy came in out of a small town like kind of in between where I live and this, and and bought like a big chunk of property, like a

five hundred acre chunk of property. And there's all these like unincorporated roads, old logging roads that are still used for transportation. And the people who had owned this property before left this gate open, and he came in and locked it. So they ripped the gate out, burned his house down, burned his tractors everything. He's like a he's like a farm, but insurance agents. So I found his office and went and talked to him. Its like, was he well insured? Yeah? Yeah, I mean he's a but

you can always use more because it's more. But you know, it's like welcome to the area, man, you know. And again like, have they apprehended who burnt his place down? No? No, But it was a blue pickup truck because it left blue paint on, left blue paint on the gate on the getaway, smashed through the gate. They never call who burned that place down? And there's your whatever happened to going over to talk? I like that, man, I gotta go over and burn that house down, right, so damn.

So the battle continues. I suppose and I sold the property. Story sold the property. I did. Honestly, I don't feel safe going down there. I mean there's been things said and and uh and messages given. I didn't know you sold it. Did nearly quadrupled my money on it, So it wasn't all bad. Did you have did you put a little disclosure in there? It ended up going to

a guy. What's really nice is it went to a guy who's related to some really good people down there, and he called me recently and he got my email and emailed me, and I called him back and he wanted to know about like the plumbing system, and I think it's in good hands. I'm happy for him, and I feel like a few years from now I could go down there and like have a beer on the porch with him, Like he was a good dude. I'm glad it went to him. No ship think you like

so you rolled away? Yeah? Man, Like I it's like Hatfield and McCoy's, I can't go down there. Like there's families down there that are like on my side, and they got to like secretly be on my side, you know, like they turned into this thing. And there's two little boys that live down in that road that are you know, very special to me, Like I really really care about him and uh and their parents are my gonna be lifelong friends. And there's an old guy, but they gotta

flip you off when you're in town. I just don't go down there. They come up and see me, you know. And I don't remember if you met that old man I called the mayor, Darryl Tucker like I called him. I don't want to drove around spoken cigarettes, drinking bush. He weighs like a ten pounds and drinks. Mayor. Yeah, so he's still down there, but he's selling his place and getting out too. At this point he's going back back north little ways and for the same reason. Yeah,

it just became like uncomfortable. It just it just became uncomfortable. So but there's people down there, man that I care about. Like, no, no, they're not winning. They're not winning. It's like their way life is changing. Like and if I can affect it from the outside by bringing in you know, heat, justice or whatever and and making sure that you know, they don't do it to the next guy, then then I win. Wow. I had no idea. Yeah, we're gonna set up shops

somewhere else. I don't know, not yet. I did, you know, pick up a small forty acre chunk in North Missouri. It's like a forty acre bean field where he killed giant ball Bucks killed some really good ones there. But it's not the dream, you know that I might join Yanni up in Wisconsin. I've been looking up around Hayward, like when when I was growing up, you know, it was like that whole Chicago land area. Every how do you feel about that? You honest outside moving in, you know,

y burnt Yanni and the mother Lavian's will burn. The story will be even better when it's against Lavian. I'm building my next house out of concrete blocks, big box. Yeah, so no, man, I you know, growing up, it was we'd go to Michigan, we'd go to Wisconsin. Like that's what we did. We just went north. I'm sure you guys went north all the time to even though you're already kind of up then all some one day you

wake up and all the big bucks or southea. Yeah, yeah, there weren't big bucks up there when you were a kid. It was like everybody knew the good deer hunting. Wherever you lived, you went a little bit north and then one day, like I said in the nine early nineties, also was like you were leaving Big Box to go up in the woods and to go up north and hunt for keys. Yeah, in the in the swamps. So

I don't know where I'll build another place. I mean I lived out here for four years walking down Main Street today, you know, I lived in Bozeman in two thousand and six, and it looks a lot different. You keep hearing the stories the Bos Angeles is, as Cal said earlier, and you've been in Los Angeles, yeah, quite a few times. Not quite there yet, not enough stut

started out like sleeping little bird, just like this place. However, rodeo team I heard, you know, I don't I've never been anywhere I like more in Montana, that whole area up and there. I think that's still kind of unspoiled. So that might be a place that I look at you not anymore that out Yeah, bleep it out just like we did last ball, and they're like, yeah, they don't like outsiders. Everybody in that towns and outside not everybody,

but it's like whatever, we'll call that don't get me started. So, um, what you end up doing with the money people raised after you burned the cabin after they burned the cabin down.

Thanks for asking. I did want to address that. You know, you guys helped push this go fund me, which was a strange feeling, you know, like I'm I'm not in a situation where like where I needed financial help, but it was very very comforting to have that and what you guys did, and and Pat Durkin and and so many other people and kind of helping tell that story and push it. Like the feeling of like camaraderie from the industry was so much greater than the money that

came into that account. But I went up to Michigan and bought a stealth Craft drift boat out of Baldwin and a brand new six horse four stroke motor. Um and I've still got a little bit left and going to figure out what to do with it. Um. But yeah, the industry man like it was so good. Camp chef sent a they sent so much stuff at truck showed

up with like a palette. Yeah. And sadly, Tim Anderson was a longtime mossioa guy, and you know he passed away unexpectedly, but he sent me like a note and said, hey, our mutual friend Pat Dirk, and I was telling me your story. I hope this helps. And he sent me like all this Mossio clothes and um, yet he sent me a new cooler. I mean, like people just really really stepped up, and you guys had a lot to

do with that. And and I'll tell you, you you know, like I expected to have these emotions of like vengeance and like real deep seated anger, and it never happened. It still hasn't happened. Like it's just acceptance. And like stranger showed up. We did a clean up day and like people I had never met showed up to help me clean it up, and like run trailers up to the scrapyard and we scrapped it all. The guy brought a tractor and you know, we all went out for

dinner and you know, we cleaned. It took five years to build that place, an hour for it to burn down, in four hours to take everything to the scrap yard. But like, dude, the you know, for lack of a better word, just like the love from people, like I've never really felt anything like that before, Like it was incredibly humbling and comforting, and the positives that came out

of the experience have like outweighed the negatives. And it's it's hard to listen to my kids talk about like missing it, you know, because I truly did build like it was like my Willie Wonka chocolate factory, you know, like it was my dream place that I wanted when I was a kid. So my kids could have what I had manifested in my head so many years ago.

And they would bring their friends down and these are like mostly girls that had never been on a river before, so they were kayaking and rafting and jumping off cliffs and catching crawdads and fishing, and like that was the best part of it all. I was like sharing that and getting them to put their phones down, Like for the longest time, I didn't even have the internet, so they were forced to like play cards, read books, you know.

And and that's the part that I missed so much, is because like my girls are going to be a sophomore, going to be a senior, and they're in this position like now where it would have been even as they're getting older, it would have been even more fun, you know, to have them down there on the rivers and doing that. So so yeah, I'm looking for like a comeback spot, you know, because I want to be able to provide that. But you know, they're gonna be going to college soon.

The older one she wants to come here. She was born in Montana, so she has like a big spot in her heart from Montana. The younger one wants to go to Florida and be a marine biologist. So they're gonna split which after that, I don't I don't know where I'm gonna build a place. But I've always loved the north Woods, always loved the North Country. So I'll

keep us posted. Man. Yeah, maybe I'll invite you once it's all finished this time, please, But with all all the poachers around, I don't know if I'll be able to find a crippled up Turkey that's someone that shouting with twenty two. Yeah, well, I don't know. I mean, I assume a lot of listeners probably know that you guys came and Turkey hunted there. But that was a lot of fun. And you know, Clay Nucom was there

and we fried Crappy and Bear Grease. Hal Herring came down there, Hal who lives in Augusta, Montana said the coldest night he's ever had in his life was in that cabin and the governor. Damn, it became a really special place. Was it was a place to like highlight the beauty of this region and like all the natural um serenity that can and does exist in pockets. But it's just curbing that that mentality of like this few, these few people against the world. All right, I'm gonna

jump into the corner cross the situation. Ready, yeah, let me. I want to do a quick because we've we've talked about so I'm gonna do a quick recap for people, and then you can we can get into details that you guys, because I got a bunch of questions. Um, as we've explained, Yanni explained corner crossing. You've done enough. You're probably good at it. For the for the thirtieth time on this show. If you look at Yanni's in scene,

he can he can straddle a corner like no other. Uh. And a lot of Western states when uh they became states,

they were given land um from the railroads. Correct me if I'm wrong here, I'm sitting still hitting down the right pathcal and Uh, they ended up being public and private land that was literally put out in a checkerboard fashion, So you can imagine a chackerboard, all the red of being public and all the lack being private or vice versa, doesn't matter anyways, I can't what was the reasoning for

that in the original. It's so the railroads were given a ton of land in order to open up the West, basically for taxpayer base, right, the railroads were the most efficient vehicle to get a bunch of people seeded out into the Great Unknown in order to start bringing in more cash for for the government. And they were being they were being compensated for the track building with land

grants exactly exactly. So, um, it's funny that you bring up hal Herring because he had this great quote and he calls it an unholy union between government and industry. And uh so, yeah, they got all this land. They could sell it, they could lease it, they could do

whatever they want with it. And then there's also like the state house sections, which when a state became a state from a territory, they were also granted sections of lands set aside for the purpose of raising funds for public education, um or just raising raising funds in general. So do you know the reason for the actual checkerboard pattern?

You know what? It all came out of the jefferson Ian grid system, which is how we came up with this marker system, right, the monument markers that that show the checkerboard deal. But it's this idea that that Thomas Jefferson came up with to literally make sense out of

something like that doesn't make any sense to people. Right, Like, I'm staring at what could be described as the Hell's Canyon landscape behind Steve right now, and that's it's like trying to make nice even grids that can be divvied up, soul old and accounted for with our tax system and revenue system that we have even in a place where

little grids don't always work. So corner crossing being yeah, so it ends up being that there's all this public land that is um again either the blue or the or the sorry, the black or the red on a checkerboard, and it's inaccessible because most believe that you cannot go from one corner of public to another corner of public because you violate the person's airspace as your shoulders and hips pass over their land. You're doing them harm. Well, technically,

it's not just your whole shoulders and hips. I mean it's your body. Whatever the hell. Yeah, no, I mean, yeah, it's your whole it's your whole body, because that that corner isn't defined. It's infinite and all. It's infinitely finite. Yeah, the narrowest line. But the philosopher and you could say that I am equitably in all four places. Sorry, man, equal parts public as to private. It's only half of me is doing only half of me is problematic. It's

infinitely fine, but it's still a problem. So a lot of states have this is a a giant question mark looms over the issue of corner crossing where states, like the state of Montana, they basically recommend against it. Right. In some places it's not it's like not specifically clear, like people might recommend against it. There might be sort of a question mark lingering over whether it's okay or not.

Um Our guests here got a little bit, i'll see, got famous in the in the in the in the access world, in the public access world, got famous for going into, going in and hunting an area where they had corner crossed. Okay, in Wyoming, in Wyoming. Now, can you guys lay out what you were trying to act? Like? How much ground were you trying to access through the corner hopping of? How many corners can you can you? Would you mind to introduce to do that first? My

name is Brad Brad Cape. We're from Missouri. Uh my buddy Phil sitting over here. Go ahead, Phil, Philly yeomans from Missouri. From Missouri. So, so to back up a little bit, be in Missouri Ozarkins? Did you burn his place down? I know she has clear the area. We're only an hour or so from that area. We're like the north of the Ozarks. He's deep in the Ozarks. So to be sitting in Missouri and thinking about corner crossing is non existent. It's not a thought process, you know,

it's unheard of. Um So, because the land is not laid out like that wrecked I cannot explain our story if I'm not standing on a sidewalk or a tile floor, it's it's unexplainable, which typically front in Missouri. So when we found this place that we wanted to look at and was looking for access in there, it was an it was a no brainer. You know, I can park right here on the corner on the County road and

walk right into this thing. That's what I wanted to ask you, guys, like you picked that spot based on what that little corner would then give you access to potentially one of the reasons that's okay, we're getting into one of my main question, Bonds can hit it right now because you're kind of answering it. You weren't looking to do like a Rosa Parks asked civil disobedience. You were looking to get some hunting in. Absolutely, We're just hunters.

You were there because they were out, absolutely, and we could draw up permit, you know, just like that. Because I think there's the impression from a lot of people that it was like all these are the guys that we're gonna push it until something happened, just to clear things up, like you're gonna go and get in trouble on purpose. Yeah, it was never a thought process. I mean, it never entered our mind. We never dreamed in a million years that I'd be sitting here right now because

I stepped through air. You know, our bank accounts wouldn't be big enough or something like that. And uh, you know I've been talking about public lands for a long long time. And I'll be real honest that the great public land battles of Missouri don't come into into play real often, so advocates from Missouri is kind of uh stretch, I guess. Yeah. Yeah. So we we looked at draw statistics and kill statistics and we're looking for a place

to hunt. You know, it is all that was. And so when I'm like, hey, we can get a tag right here, you know, then we actually went there first and went two thousand nineteen, leaving from a antelope hunt, I'm like, hey, let's go drive around this. So we go and drive around this mountain and this is the first week of rifle season for ELK and there's no camps, there's nobody there, there's not a track. We pull off and work on our trailer lights, there's no vehicles go by.

So we're like, we're onto something here. We got our own little oasis. We just gotta figure out where to park and how to get in there and hunt. Got it. So that was the gist of of the whole deal. But how when you lined out the property you wanted to get into and where you could park, how are you certain that you were going to be able to do that step where where there's you have a foot on public and you're placing your their foot on public even though you just stepped from a red checker spot

to a red checker spot. You know, because there's the question where fences aren't accurately laid down? You you know, you gotta be pretty good right to know that one ft and one and one fts in the other. Was this the thing you thought about? Is were you thinking about precision at all? I'm a fence builder by trade, so I've been around property corners, property lines, researched all of this. That's what I've done for thirty three years, you know. So somebody had a question looks like I

know how to find the survey steak um. So that's what we did. But but did it even the first time you did it? Where was it even in your head that, look, we're going to corner cross or where you were you just like we're just gonna go from here to here to hunt like you like a corner crossing thing. Was it even an issue? Did you know

you weren't really supposed to do it? No, it was a laughable thought that we couldn't step from here to here, and I think, like not even to the point where you wanted to call and clarify, just like why not. It was laughable, honestly laughable to us that and everybody we talked to that you can't step from one to the other. But why the latter, because this is my other big question you brought a later kay ah, yeah, that's later. Um. So we're still in the two thousand

nineteen season right now. Well, we didn't hunt nineteen. We just looked at it and said, yeah, that's a place we want to go. So back home through the next year, studying maps of where public is and roads and how to get in there. We do that. We go in there and hunt. It was easy, it was fun. We didn't have any problems until we haven't. Elpdown. Um ended up. Deputy comes out, landowner. This is not a conservation officer. Deputy well, a sheriff's deputy. If we roll back a

little bit, the landowner calls deputy. I call the game warden. Game warden says, we don't even come out and investigate these sort of things. You're corner crossing. It's nothing to hear for us to do. The deputy. No, the game warden. Okay. The game warden says, I don't do I don't take corner cross and calls correct. And we had read the Attorney General's Peace. You know that everybody's read and Game and Fish site. We're we had this conversation even we're hunters.

So where do you research when you're an out of state hunter? You the website for the Game and Fish Commission. You know, it's where we got our information. Um, we call the game warden from up on the mountain because I can see the deputy down in the valley and say, I gotta make sure I'm getting this right. And this is you cross the corner correct, And then you're hunting the land you got into correct. And you look and lo and behold you see a deputy correct down at

the corner at your truck. No, not at the corner in the in a canyon there, and we were up on the mountain and you feel as always looking for you correct. You just feel this. So you know we knew the game word or not? The game warden, UH, help me outfill the landowner the ranch manager says, he comes and sees us and says, hey, you're not supposed to be here. We say we're on public land. He says, okay, I'll go call the deputy. I got you. We say great, Um,

so we go on. When the deputy shows up, we are up on the mountain and so then we don't know whether we have to turn around and go back down to see the deputy or carry on. And so I called the game warden and said, what's my obligation here? What do I do? And he says, your obligation is to go to the elk that you have down. You know, if the deputy doesn't have his lights on and isn't hollering for you over the speaker, your obligation is to your down elk, which is a legal obligation. Correct. So

that's what we've done. Fast forward today. I believe deputy had came to our camp and left a note on my truck window said call me. So we call him. He comes, We have a meeting, a pow wow. He says, you guys aren't doing anything wrong. The deputy, the deputy, why is he there then? Because he was called there so he had to call and investigate, you know. So he comes, he's like, I'll go out and take a

look at my own two eyes. Yeah, he come out and talk to us, and his investigation determined that you're not doing anything wrong. He says, go hunt. You know. Phil even said, so we're good to go. You know this is in two thousand twenties. Says, yeah, you're good to go. We told him how we crossed the corner. You're good to go, and I'm gonna go tell the landowner. There's nothing he can do about it. So that was what what are you thinking now, Phil? What are you thinking? Yeah?

Thinking we're we're good to go. You know how else? I thought about it long and harder. All right, you guys thinking, you guys got a pretty good hunting spot. You spend a few more days hunting there, and we were actually tagged out and we're backing animals. We took two days to tag out. So there was no no altercation with the law on that trip. No no no citations issued, nothing, nothing nothing. All the combusion that he came to though, is you got a darned good helk

hunting spot. Absolutely so, now how could you not think that? Right? It's two thousand twenty one. So what it happened was landowner takes two tea posts and signs in a chain and goes over the top of that corner. But why are his tea posts on public land his tea post around private land private? How is he not violating like or does he do it in such a way that he's never his chain or nothing is on the You can't because I'm saying, maybe he blocked only his corner,

so you can't like enter his corner. What did he block? So the tea posts were one on each side of the corner on private on private property, and the chain was stretching across chain between him with with signage. Okay, and since these corners are infinitely finite, his chain is on public land, that's the way we see it. When he used the signs. Yeah, he put one sign low on the post and one signed high on the post and overlapped him to try and block the whole corner.

And you're seeing this for the first time. When you get there, you can see it. You can see it from the county road. So you so his positioning of the signs was like meant to be not informing someone was also meant to be preventing passage. Well, he testified in court that he took the chain down. Okay, and what was his reason for that? If we want to go there right now? But well, he was asked if that change served he said, it served no purpose. That's why he took it down. Why did you take the

Chiant chain down? It served no purpose? Did? He wouldn't answer. Man, I need to go more of these court cases, man, just like conversation, the chain conversation. Okay. So yeah, go on, you're on the ground and you see this for the first time. We know the signs in the poster there because you see him when you show up. We knew previously that they were there. We threw the latter in Missouri. Do it through like through the grape vine. I don't

need I don't need other details. But yeah, pretty much okay, okay, okay, So you became aware and so too, just out of respect for the landow like like, I'm not doing my job if I don't dig in a little bit here. I don't need to know specifics. But you leave in twenty no sign, no arrest, no sign, no nothing. Signs were there in saying what no trespassing? Okay on this

section in this section, got it? And then you be you're made aware that this person has taken additional steps and has tried to obstruct the corner even though you were told by law enforcement that you're doing nothing wrong. That's how we took it. So rather than going and haggling about, well he needs to remove that and doing that, you're like, okay, we'll just bypass the obstruction since we've been told we're okay, correct, We just made it easy.

And in that interview, in the year between those two hunting seasons, had you learned more about what an issue corner crossing was in the West, Like, you know, you weren't really aware of how crazy it was in in the next year, did you learn that it was a big deal out here? And I don't think anything changed. No, No, our minds weren't. But you didn't just casually start researching the issue in history of corn to the corner crossing debate some yeah, but yeah, not enough for you to

not enough to change your mind. There's so it was very simple for us. There's no law against corner crossing. Yeah, you know, if you get on the message boards, if you get on talking to whoever you want to talk to, it's all fluff, it's all horseshit. You know, there is no law against corner crossing to deput He met and said, yes, go ahead, you know, game ward and won't even come out, you know, and and investigate it or even help us do it. In a state that's very, very friendly to landowners,

like you know very well. We don't know this well no, no, I'm just saying, like Montana is known as a state that's like they don't have a lot against it, in a state that's very i would say friendly towards private landowners. Yeah, we're assuming, you know, we don't know. We just know there's no law against. That's that's our thought process. So this so you're thinking, this guy can do whatever you want. I'm not gonna go bang on his door and ask

him to move it. I'm just gonna go around it. Correct, you know, up and over? Who makes a good ladder for going over corners? A fence builders all type fence perfect. Yeah, yeah, it's made out of fence pipe. It's really serendipitous as you man. Yeah, there were some strange things of how this all worked out. Can we have that fence for the for we have a thing called the auction House

of Bodity. The ladder can we get that ladder that I think we already offered it maybe to uh that country hunters and anglers like a like a like a like Adam see Him exhibit or something. We talked about. We talked about it donating it to the Carbon County Museum. No, that's a great idea, man. Is it lightweight? Is light enough to carry up there? You know I built it as light as I could. Only had to go a couple hundred yards, you know, and still get over the corner.

He trumped it out here on a trailer. Yeah, you'd get a little side business going. Man had to be very tall ladder, right, I know how tall teposts was, so we just made it six inches taller than that. It really seemed yeah, like a simple go together plan. Sure, and you're not just destroying or defacing private property because you're not doing anything to alter the t posts which are on private property. And we are private landowners back in Missouri. You know, we've got public rivers go right

through the middle of our place. You know, there's all kinds of people using the public waterways, you know, through our land. So we we know how that game, you know it's played. You just tolerate some things and established boundaries and just be respectful of people. You know, we never thought for once that we were disrespecting anybody. Were somebody said we touched air. You know, that was just crazy to us to think of such a thing. Okay, so you show up, Um, do you want to take overfield?

Want to talk about the whole hunt or what? Yeah? We no, not just friends. He has in high school with my wife somewhere a long time five six se I don't know, and six handful of years you went to high school with his wife? Did you day hurt? Did you guys have a lot of like Western hunting experience or was it just I hunted Colorado for like

through the nineties? Okay, so yeah, you know, but then a hiatus of raising a family and doing you know what everybody does, building fence, building fence, trying to make a living. Uh, me and Phil get to be buddies and say hey let's go west. Got it? You know? So that's what we did. So we've been doing it handful of years. You are you fill your fifty? I got a birthday about I was gonna say six seven days? You guys neck and neck? You have you because you

have built the fence. You I'm sorry, I'm sorry you built the ladder, UH to cross across the corner without touching these private tea posts letter on private land? Have you reached out to UH conservation officers? Are law enforcement prior to your trip to in addition to your preparation of how you're going to cross these teapots? No, we had talked to law enforcement, you know, that said we

were doing nothing wrong. Um. And so the latter's kind of an extra, just just because you don't want to bend his ship out of the way, it's a it's an extra to be ultimately clear as to our intent, um. And even in one we rely on our intent. You know our intent, we think or we think we're decent guys. We're just trying to do things the right way, and our intent is to hunt public land. So I got a level of you on something, and I'm glad it

turned out the way it is. I in my mind leading into this day when I would meet you in my mind and I I thought that there was more of a like um, like a like fixing, like trying to stick it to someone, screw him. Yeah, I didn't know, like like I thought that there was like a cuteness to the ladder, but the ladder is more like, no, I don't want to It's absolutely a tool, you know. Yeah where you you know, you like had a legal

scholar and be like, wow, let's try a ladder. No, no, we we've had our share of attorneys through this whole thing. You know. We're just a matter of what do we have to do to do it correctly to where nobody can question us. And we have a mentality of we will walk a mile further than the next guy. We will do whatever we have to do, you know, to to hunt, you know, to pursue our game, you know, to be successful. We're gonna do what we have to do.

Got um American noble agree. Yeah. Yeah, it's just kind of how we roll, you know. So we get there, we take off up the mountain, you know, our very first evening. Um, we spend the night up on the mountain, you know, with the base camp done at our truck, and at daylight the next morning, here's the ranch manager guys driving up and down you know, through bll ground. But they're they're hunting us. They're looking for us from

the from the get go. Um, so they don't find us because we're up on the mountain overlooking them, and we take off and we spend four nights, four nights to evade them or take off up the mountain on our hunt, just like your camping. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Um So we spend four days, four nights hunting off our back. Uh Phil kills will they fourth day? Um so we're archery hunting the first four days. Rifle season starts October one, so we have to go back to our truck camp

switch out bows for rifles. And of course everybody knows, you know, that archery seasons over rifle season starting. So they all, when I say, they all the ranch law enforcement whoever, they just set up and waited for us, you know, to come in that evening. And so we get that they know both seasons over correct, you know. So it's a logical time we're gonna come back to our camp. So we get to the corner, we take

our ladder, we go up and over the corner. We see trucks parked over here on the county road, and trucks parked over there on the county road with our camp in the middle. We know these trucks you know, we've seen them their ranch employees like you guys are gonna quick pack up all that stuff and all house. You know, I don't know what they're thinking. They just don't like us there. And then the landowner is a is a far parmaceutical feller, right where is he from?

North Carolina? North Carolina. He made a bunch of money in pharmaceuticals and bought that ranch. Huh, that's the way we understand it. Do you know they don't do any outfit in or guiding on that, not that I know of the research I'd done on the ranch is the previous owner had some outfitting. But this guy I think just uses it as his private hunting oasis. You know. Don't blame him. Yeah, awesome, good for him. Whatever. So

we crossed the corner. We're walking to our truck. I just happened to turn and look up and I see dark green trucks sitting up on the up on the mountain. Assume it's a conservation agent, you know by his truck. Tell the guys, hey, conservation agents is watching us, you know, And we talked about that's we we wanted them there. That's good because we can see these other guys staking us out. We're wanting helped for a confrontation. That was one of the mouse to UM. We get to our camp.

It went in five minutes. Conservation guy pulls in, UM and he's just smiling and laughing. He's like, I cannot believe you guys built the ladder. You know. He's like, I even called my neighbor and said, you're not gonna believe these guys built a freaking ladder, you know, to go over this corner. And we're like, yeah, we knew what we had to do. He's like, well, I'm calling in deputies the ranch. We're all gonna have a meeting, and we're all gonna get on the same page, you know,

with what's going on here. Um. So we're like great, so, and this was all we we We were in our tent. We maybe even ask him be on supper or something and supper drinks whatever. The deputy showed up, he goes outside the tent. We stayed in our tent. They go out have a meeting. However, along with that CEO and the deputy. Yeah, yeah, two deputies. I picked that one. All the law enforcements getting there and the speed on what's going on, and the ranch manager, Oh so he's

got their ear then is there? Which is the famous body cam video of him making an idiot of himself. But and he was the one kind of threatening law enforcement with do you know who my correct you know who my boss is? You know how much land he owns he has? I mean, it's but we don't know any of that's going on. It's a brutal deal too, like it's it's it is an important part of the picture, but it also has nothing to do with the picture. But it's about fifty square miles of private land. It's

a lot. And how much uh, how much did you guys figure you hunted of public land during your the season of confrontation will call it like eight sections something like that. You can't have eight sections within eight sections of public that he has the fifty thou of privates.

I'd have to look on a map. But that's that's pretty maybe something like that which you stepped foot in, right, You didn't grid eight sections, which would be eight square miles were calling and hunting camping, Yeah, and we didn't. We didn't grid it, but we covered that many sections, you know, from top to bottom basically made a horse shoe up the mountain and back down as one does picture you were hunting. So we're sitting there in our tent after they have their meeting and they say we're

gonna go have it. We're gonna go confer and then we'll come visit with you. That was the initial conversation that we had. We never talked to the deputies. They never came and spoke one word to us. Do you guys still have meat on the mountain from yes, yes, because as as at this point, we only had the one bull down, correct, and you pack some of it out, but not the rest. We hung it all. It was we we hung that whole bull. Yeah, we didn't bring out because we had our all of our baby and

all of our everyone. He was skinned Cordon and hunter Tree. Game Warden walks back into our tent and says, okay, we've had a meeting. Um, he says, guys, it's public land, it's your land. Go hunt again. Yeah, this is a different game Warden. They switched game Wardens from two one and then and he comes to the same thing losing. Yeah, he just the deputies. Deputies never came and talk to us. But if you watch that video there pointing there they're

crossed pointing to fingers at each other. Uh, you know it's my instruction that you handle this. No, it's it's our instructor you handle this. So with the ranch manager

right there right, you know, to do something right. But at the time, we didn't know any of this, you know, we're just sitting in our you know, because the body came, which is which is public all later and got to be a part of this meeting with the CEO and the correct and he's saying do something, to do something correct because somebody's behind him being like, you better do something.

That's your job correct. And then and then he wants to he wants to play like he's safety ranger because you know, it's my concern that these we got hunters coming in tomorrow, they're gonna shoot anything they see. You know, we wanted over these guys right right, kind of paints North Carolina hunters in a bad, bad light, and North Carolina they come out here to win and shoot anything

they see. So the gist of it was though, because we had had a conversation with the law enforcement the year before, you know, we were really trying to get it clear and down to not have a conversation when you're out there trying so we could hunt, because that's really all we care about. And so I questioned the game ward and I said, did you tell the ranch this I wanted to question, And he says yes. I told him it's public land. You guys are going right

back in there. And that's when he asked us, the ranch wants to know where you're going to be, really and for safety, for safety, which you could say, it's really none of their business, and that's pretty much what I said. I said, we're gonna be on all the public sections on the mountain south of where we were, and I said we will work our way south and west in the morning, which is a lot of information more than I wanted to give, you know, but that's

what I did, and that's what we've done. Next morning we get up and I can't remember if that next morning, I believe we had those same two trucks sitting on the county road watching us still the next morning, after they were told by the game warden that we were public land hunters going and hunting public land, to leave us alone. And so we go up the mountain, we spot mule deer. Zach our hunting buddy has a mule deer tag. A side by side comes driving up there

on private land. But they come driving up within a couple hundred feet of us on the public They are no. They stayed on. You know, we're following a line east and west. Um, we're watching the mule deer. They pull up, let's say, beside us a couple feet and just shut the side beside off and just stand there and watch us. Um. We're wearing orange, you know, we're not trying to wear on a wide open hillside behind a big rock. Hard

to find, you not hard to find at all. Um. We don't know if they've even seen the deer, you know. But eventually they started the machine and took off. We go on up over the deer, go over the lip. We presume we end up zach Kills. You know that mule deer. We haul it back to camp that day. So we get back to camp mid afternoon, early afternoon. Not time to go back up the mountain again. So we stay at our truck camp that day. Um. They

next morning, I don't believe anything happened. The next morning, nobody's there watching us and we go back up the mountain again, get in on some elk. I killed a bull that morning. Um, we packed your elk, hung my elk. Long day, huge day because we crossed multiple canyons. We were tuckered out when we got back that night. When you're doing it right, you don't take the yeah, the ridge road. Um, yeah, you guys, because you guys are prevented from taking a straight line of travel because you

got to adhere to the public section. And we laugh about we have pictures of all those corners. Every time we come to New corn we take a picture of it, just proved we've been there. Because I bet you we laughed about this. There's nobody been in a lot of in the corners since the surveyor put that stake there, because I mean they are in some hellish, hellish places, wild wild the places you find them. Yeah, And we brought full elk out on our backs across those corners.

So pack your elk out, have and part of line, I believe, yeah, and come back down the mountain. We rest the next day. We don't do nothing, and we have ranch vehicles stake us out and basically watch us in our camp all day. The hell are these people supposed to be doing. Ranch's killing me this whole time? Right, You think of the enormity of the property, and I just can't help but wonder what the hell else is

going on? God animal wise, like the elk and deer and antelope playing on the other you know, forty two sections of landed, right, So where are we at. They're surveying camp they're watching us camping, they're counting your cards. Yeah, we're not doing anything but laying around being lazy, recouping um the ext What do we have? We have a partial elk to go pack out right, the rest of the remaining euro olk. Yeah, so we're going back up

the mountain. These guys one truck that believe that morning, right, we could back up a little bit. We did have a confrontation with them, if you want to tell well, it was that it was that day, right, so we we couldn't go to the bathroom. We got We got a truck on one end watching us, and a guy right above our tent watching us. You can't even go and relieve yourself, Yeah, without exposing yourself. He got his penis out and waving it around. I was staring at

him through my ten by fifties. So we head to the local convenience store to to let our buddy John use the restroom and get a little ice cream and and whatnot. Um, but the white truck that's watching us as we drive away. He starts driving away, but we're we're gonna pass each other. Brad stops him pretty pretty. Brentley just said, ask him, are you watching us? Guys like, no, I'm watching. Well, what are you doing? I'm scouting? Brad's

a little clear on this. Uh. I asked him if he had permission, you know, is if you're scouting, you must have permission. Hunt. Do you have permission? He says no, and said what are you scouting for? He's like, well, well, first he said he was scouting for the next week, and I said, do you have permission? He says no.

I said what are you scouting for? He says, well, across the road is a public cow area and um, I said, well that season is not till December in January, and he's like, we'll have a good day and took off. And so that was kind of He's on the radio going now if they ask you this, right, but you can tell that they had a little bit story. Hey, if they talk to you, just say you're scouting. You know, they're supposed to be just making your stay miserable. Yeah, exactly.

They're just pestering us, is what they're doing. And so that was that. The next morning, we still have this elp to get out, but we're feeling good. We're heading up the mountain. I gotta ask you a question. I'll forget later, but I should. I should ask it later, but i'll forget. Have you guys thought about doing anything civil against the people who are ruining your time and obstructing your ability to hunt like a hunter? Harassment ahead? Alright?

We we wrote statements, but that's not up to us to whether charges are brought us. But but I mean, are you will like there? Have you considered taking legal action against someone who's intimidating you know, we had a discussion civilly whether to do something civil. I don't know that it's worth it, simply because the way we hunt, we don't spend that much money. I mean, that's the honest to God's truth. We don't have guides, you know,

we don't have big expenses. We and so I believe the Wyoming law tells you what you can recoup, which is your tag Um, if someone's intimidating you, does it have to be that you suffered financially. There's not like a thing like just general intimidation. So there is a law of hunter harassment. That doesn't need to be that you lost money. Correct, But to do it civilly, for us to push something, we would have to do it

in a civil manner. Otherwise it's a criminal thing. And so what we've done, like you're saying, the criminal thing isn't up to you. Correct. The criminal thing would be someone would determine, a prosecutor in that county would determine, I'm going to go after the people who are harassing these individuals criminally exactly, and so that's up to them. We we wrote our statements all individually of our experience

of being harassed by this ranch anywhere one. Whether that prosecutor is going to pursue that, no, what's your what's your gut instinct? No, we turned it in. Um, we turned it into the game warden. Game Warden told me that he turned it into the prosecutor. Prosecutor told game Warden that we'll wait and see how the criminal thing pans out, Well, the criminal thing is panned out, you know, not guilty. But we haven't heard anymore on the civil

on the harassment issue. That's really interesting. Man, if he can if that and I don't know him from anybody, but it's interesting if that prosecutor can just decide that he doesn't want to do anything about hunter harassment in his county. It's a but I think they have that soul power. That's interesting. Are you cool with hunter harassment in your county or are you not cool with it? Maybe it comes down to what that harassment is, Like it's impeding there. It's a fair documentation, but is it

impeding their ability to hunt? I mean, who knows how they define it. It gets a little better, it gets a little better. Well just at this point, right, like just that is more than a lot of people would stand like sure, you know, because just like you said,

like what you guys want to do is hunt. Dealing with people in these confrontational manners is not hunting, right, That's not like Okay, when I go out to hunt, I know there's going to be this big confrontation and then I'm gonna go do go have a nice walk alone and next year I need to bring my ladder and my little outhouse shelter. I could pee in private,

get a lawyer on retainer. Yeah, okay, not exactly the goal. No, you know, so we're going up the mountain to reach you the last of this elk, and we knew we were being watched from the same guy in the same truck. And you go straight up a mountain and you peek and you hit a road. It's on the BLM that goes across the middle that they used this road a lot. It's a ranch road, and we see the ball of

dust coming, you know, from the ranch. Manager comes flying across the ranch and he drives right up to us and goes, what the fuck m But he just had enough at this point. That's the first words out of his mouth. You know, what are you guys doing here? Um? And I simply tell him we were told we could be here, you know, three days ago the game warden told us it was public land. He told you the same thing, it's publicly and we're going to hunt. We got a bull we're gonna go get. We're standing in

the middle of a BLM section. Because he actually he ordered us back to camp get back to camp. The landowner, the landowner manager, the ranch managed, the representative of and you were like, you were you guys were on public land. He was on, yeah, we're in the middle of you know. And he's like, you get back to your camp and no, you know or what right? He just said no? And I said, where you got a note to go get I'm done talking to you. We're going. And so we did.

And so this this road, you know, kind of makes a makes a big bend that goes I measured it's like seven hundred yards, I believe. And he followed. He turns around and follows us within twenty yards of us in his truck, creeping, creeping down the road and walking in f um. So we cut a corner. Good way to get you guys out of there. Would be gonna pick up that elk and help you back to camp.

You would, wouldn't that be a neighborly thing and you'd be out of there gone, Yeah, right, that's your last tag. Well see you next year. We had asked him to do that the year prior, and he kindly declined. I did ask him a year before, Hey, you want to help us all this out? And He's like, no, I can't do that. So finally we have enough, right, and so we stopped. I waved him forward, you know, and go, dude, you're harassing us. You know, you can't follow us in

your truck across the middle of public land. We're trying to hunt. Get out of here, leave us alone. Um, And he's go ahead, Phil, you tell this part of it better than I do. Oh gosh, you questioned him. Yeah, I just he said. He he said, well, I'm hunting. Well, where's your orange? He kind of looks behind us, you know, does a head whip, you know, and uh, Zack says, uh, it's not legal to hunt from your truck either, is it? And he can say he says, I can do whatever

the I I want? Right, is exactly what he said. Really, do you guys we're reading film any of this stuff with your phones or anything? No, no, no, it was you don't think of that crap. And you're just a little bit you're just wanting to get You don't know what's legal either, you know, probably do that stuff. But we actually read him the attorney general's opinion. We did, right.

I forgot about that. John did. Yeah, And he had never seen that before, or he acted like he had never seen that before, and he just did a lot of head nodding and okay, yeah, but I can do whatever the right. Yeah. So after that confrontation, we take off again. I don't know, did we get a half mile maybe phone rings it's the warden. Yeah, he says, Hey, I hate to do this, but I gotta ask you guys to get back to camp. He's the phones are

blowing up all over the place, press quterer's offices. You know, there'll be a deputy. Uh, go to your camp till you till you hear from me. But meat on the mountain, we should trump everything. And he knows this. The game wardened us and he was super nice to us, very professional, pleasant through everything, everything kind of we had with him. Um, so we do we turn around and go back to

our camp. It wasn't too long. A deputy shows up, you know, and he's getting super nice and it's kind of lighthearted about it and says, hey, I got called on this trespassing thing on this corner deal. But you guys are just corner crossing, right, And we're like, yeah, we're those guys. He's like, that's what I thought when I got the call, I thought it was the same guys. We it was you guys you know that we've got called on before and you're just corner crossing. So he's like,

go hunt again again. They wanted to go back down to your camp. His exact words is go hunt. And I'm like, well, game Warden told us to come hang out here, So we're gonna hang out here, you know, because that's what he's like, Yeah, that's probably smart. You know, that's what the game warn't asked you to do. So that's what we've done until that evening. Um another deputy show. The deputy shows up and says, he instructed to ask you guys citations. But he instructed who by his boss?

His boss who take that for? Whoever you want to take that for. Whether that's the sheriff, for the prosecutor, I don't know, but he was ordered to come give us. In the background, someone's working political lines here, a lot of phone calls the governor. No one would assume you know, we know what we know, you know the rest of it. We're assumed, man, you know. So I questioned him, you know, how did we trespass? And he wouldn't answer any questions.

He just said, you gotta tell the judge, asked the judge, and in the end it was that you're you went through the air of that person's land. In the end, that's apparently with the argument, because no one that that's the thing I think it is. It's so obvious I hesitate to bring it up. But what we're talking about here is it's like it's funny because we're talking about h it's about one thing, but we're talking about another thing. What it's about is that you have a bunch of

private land to yourself because it's land locked. Yeah, I'm sorry, you have a bunch of public land that only you can hunt. That's what this is about. You want to keep it that way because it's sweet. But what you got to talk about instead is this issue of that your body is crossing when you do that that one step, you're violating their airspace. And they're acting like they're they're sort of saying like, no I care about the airspace.

They never go like I'm trying to preserve private hunting. Yeah, that's just smoke, you know. It's it's like one of those weird things where but then you get to go to court, and in court they can't say, well, I'm trying to have this kind of sweet deal that I don't really pay for, but it's sweet, so I just

want to keep it that way. They gotta like focusing on his airspace on airspace saying well, and all of our encounters with law enforcement were always on our side, you know, but you could tell that they were being

pushed from other directions. What's confusing to me is like I've always known that you're not supposed to do that, at least by rule, but it doesn't sound like the conservation officers approached at that with state by state keep in mind, right so, and even within the state of Montana that on paper has a stricter view of what corner crossing is, there are counties that will not prosecute corner crossing like it is too much of a quagmire,

it's not defined well enough. Yeah, the time of the court is too valuable to have to wade through this, and they want to punt it to a higher court, which is interesting England enough. One way that can be seen how this case is is going here with the civil suit has been punted up or grabbed however, you want to see it by the federal magistrate. So when when agents are going through the academy, this isn't an

issue that they're being schooled on. I'm sure that, like do they look like they have a bunch of drugs in their truck? If so, this corner crossing thing would probably be something you'd want to pay attention to. I think game wardens are like, this is a this is not our we don't we don't oversee this. This is for the county sheriff. Their trespassed to hunt man. I missed out on some good hunting over the years. Well, the the way we understand it, the game and phishes

right on their website. You know, Attorney general's opinion is it's not illegal. So when you tell me you just always knew you weren't supposed to do that. How did you know that? What did you read that said I can't. That's a great question. In this state, they they recommend against it. Yeah, that's I think. Even on wyomings it says we recommend you don't, but it's not codified as illegal.

It doesn't say they don't recommend. Most of my Western hunting was in the Eastern part of Montana and out there. I mean, you just know not to because it's recommended against it. So I had a conversation with a BLM law enforcement officer about an area that we were going to take a helicopter into, and he flat out said, well why would you do that? Guys walk into that all the time from this road. Well that's a good point.

When you asked where I learned it from. Randy Newburgh did that with that helicopter and like blew that big issue up. So that was one place that I had heard that I suppose. Yeah, my opinion, just being an out of state or and trying to read some information you know, on this is the powers that be, the people that don't want you to corn across, have done a great job of feeding propaganda bullshit to the public,

you know. So and what got me pointed down that is I found the real estate ad for this ranch when it went when it went up for sale back in the earlier mid two thousand's, and I read it and it said that the public this is a real estate add says that the public ground around this ranch has been litigated through it. It may have, I can't remember. It said a district court or a a court system, and that it was deemed that the public couldn't go there.

So I didn't believe it. That's in the listing, that was in the real estate listing. I think I even may have that printed off somewhere. Wow, that's great, man. And so I I tried to look up these court cases has and found out there was no such court cases to tell me that a realtorn. So, I mean, here's here's just just to show our side of the

fence here in Montana. And I started collecting a file on these because I had It's some one of those things that when I'm having a bad day, I like to make it even worse by fuming about this horseship as you called it, cute almost new two bedroom, one bath cabin on six plus acres with the two car garage being sold, fully furnished with all appliances, blah blah blah, ready to be a rental full time or part time residents. The subdivision boast private trout stock ponds and access to

public land behind a locked gate. Uh So this is comes right back full circle to our h O A, our evil h O, A discussion that we started this thing with, And then it goes on to talk about just a short drive off the county maintained, which means everybody county taxes you're playing paying to maintain the road, uh, and school bus route taxes around the land only it's a commodity anyway, Sorry, just got a curiosity. Were you guys access in state or BLM? Both? All right? So

there you are. He gives you your citation, and the citation carries with it. Can you do is it mandatory? Court? Could you just pay it with the whole thing? Right? Unless you set the date for November eight? That's right, good job, so you guys would already be out there hunting. That's perfect, a good deal. Uh, you get a lawyer. Well, so it's it's a seven fine if I remember right, we know we didn't do anything wrong. We're in a conundrumal what do we what do we do here? You know?

How do you fight this? We all kind of wanted to fight it, um, but it's still it's seven fifty bucks. We could just be done done with it and you can go down and be like all right, right right, and you went and paid it, then, were you just gonna come back next year? And pay it again. Well, we hadn't thought that through all, you know, but me you know that, Hey we just double the cost of our ELK tag and pay the fine and go you

know type thought. But that's as far as that went. Um. But we've met some local guys and they're like, hey, this is ridiculous. We know an organization I want to try and hook you guys. Put you guys together. And so this b h a group, this back Country Hunters and Anglers Wyoming, Wyoming, the Wyoming chapter, Um, I can't remember. We get connected it and there they want to know our story. And so we write them you know what happened a statement and send it to them, and they

see it as an opportunity, as a legit. You know, you guys haven't done anything wrong. We want to back you on this. And so they set up the go fund me thing and get that ball rolling. Um. They find attorneys. You know, hey, I know this attorney. That attorney, you know, contact these guys and so we just got on the phone and got representation and it's snowballed. You know, it went to what it is now. They've done a

phenomenal job of getting that money going. It raised what thirty some thousand dollars fast fast ultimately, you know, right around seventy and then it kind of flatlined a little bit. And then Steve hears about it, you know, and throws an Instagram thing out there. Me and Phils checking game ameras or something out in the woods one day and my brother in law John text and says, have you looked at the go fund me? I'm like no, and

He's like, look at it. And it was just it was clicking after you threw the Instagram message out there, and it like doubles in money overnight and here we are. You know, the whole thing just grew. How long was that? So? How many of you guys had to show up for the trial? Four of us? How many days was the trial? Are you serious? Now? Who did three days for a misdemeanor? Did the actual landowners show up? No? Did the ranch manager? Was he was? Was he wilf? Was he wanting to

be there? Was he called to the stand? I assume he was called. Actually he was called by the prosecutor. He was prosecutor's witness. And this is this is like there's a jury, this is a jury thing or not? Because it's a misdemean is not a jury it is a jury trial for him. I didn't know this because you had to plead you pled not guilty, which makes it a jury thing. Well you still didn't you have

to request a jury trial. I believe the whole legal side of I didn't know this A misdemeanors only six jurors. I don't know that either. Yeah, so learned that through this less expensive Yeah, I guess um three days of three days of looking at different maps that were the same map just in a different color, you know, and legos. Did you guys have to outline like everywhere you went and things? No, Well we're defendants, you know, so they have to prove us guilty. Did you did you have

the ladder? There? No, the ladder they come into play. There's pictures of the ladder. We weren't going to haul the ladder back. How are did the jury deliberate lunch? The lunch? Yeah, they ate lunch and was out and so they deliberated for an hour and a half which included lunch. Correct, and they come back and what not? Guilty? Is that easy? It's nervous. That's pretty nervous deal standing up, you know, whether jury is gonna guilty. Would you have had to pay court costs? I don't know, I wonder

at the same time, you know, yeah, I don't. I don't know how that guy played out suits or nothing. Now, when we teased my my brother in law John, there's what we're hunting, buddies. He's the nervous one, you know, it's just scared to death somebody. What's gonna think he was a criminal, you know, because he touched air and so we teased him about getting his own jump suit, you know, don't pick up the soap type thing. Be a good Christmas present. And there's there's stands right now. Um,

and I don't know to what degree. You can't really get into it. They're revisiting this through a civil suit. We have been sued civilly by the landowner. Do you know what can you disclose how much you're being sued for? There is no amount right because you have to prove the damage. I believe it reads. The amount is to

be determined to buy the jury. Sure, so the jury would have the serious weight on their shoulders of determining how bruised the airspace is and what that bruising would amount to in a dollar figure of air that moves what that surgery is gonna when you go to settle up with the air, it's different air, and it's different air. Yeah, I read this thing one time that was saying that, um, you breathe. When you breathe, you're breathing in air molecules

that had been breathed by Jesus. The air molecules are just like, how so who lord knows where those things are now? And what was the value he assigned him? You know, terous if you could ask him what do you think about this whole corner crossing thing that's going back to It's not much, I imagine, going back to what Steve said, My favorite part of this is that they can't say the quiet part out loud, which is that we just want to protect our suite that's ours.

Are quotes, but so like when you're sitting in the courtroom and there this the phrase touching air. I know that's not how they framed it in the courtroom, but just like, did it sound did their defense sound preposterous? Like that's exactly what it boiled down to. So he never returned to the drudge Judge was like it was a man or a woman. A woman judge okay, never turned to her and said, uh, your honor, let me

leavel with you. Um. I bought this because I thought I could hunt all this public ground and no one else could. And this is kind of sucking that whole deal up. Well, he was never there, hired hand in there. Did the lawyer, did the lawyer for the other side that they seem pretty committed? Or were they kind of I rolly the prosecutor, Yeah, they were very committed. He wanted to see you guys get in the fire under his ass I was a woman was a female actually,

but I don't know. We never understood what why she had a horse in this race? Well, you know what was the judge's demeanor about the whole thing? Did she seemed to be there but time was being wasted? Or

professional professional? You know. I was on a jury one time and we convicted a guy on It was a crack cocaine deal and we convicted and then the judge says that, Jerry, I want you to hang around for a minute, okay, And then all this stuff happens every leaves and the judge says, I'm gonna tell you some things that if there's any amount of guilt that you might feel, I want to put that guilt at rest and tell you about some non submissible evidence which he

then aid out all this ship that they couldn't tell you about, and you're like, dude, why are they not have told us about that? Right? Like shooting people strangling people? It made you feel good about putting the difer the like they couldn't be because it was like he already had been in, you know what I mean, And then you get done today like damn, i's knowing that all along, Man, I would have been sitting there out what I would

have done? What what they try to get you to not do, which is getting to make them pay all over again for he done earlier. Right, And we used to hope going through this whole process that people look at us and go, I think they're pretty decent guys that were just going hunting, you know, because we've read the stuff where people thought we were trying to get

arrested on purpose, and that's insane. You know, when you guys were camped there over like both times, did you have any groups of hunters drive by and me like, m, what are they up to? There. We had a we had a couple of guys stop and say, hey, you know, trying just trying to feel hunting situation. And so I used to fish a lot competitively and stuff. So I've learned how to your competitive bass fisherman. Yeah, a little bit.

So you learn how to have those conversations and and talking not without yeah, you know, so that's the same thing you're do in the hunting world. A few now, Steve, just out of curiosity, how did you jump to the conclusion that he was competitive bass fisherman because he's from Missouri. I didn't think he's a competitive trout fisherman. Well, no, they probably got some good trout fishing because like if you tallied up how many competitive fishermen are in the world,

wouldn't be competitive bass fisherman. If I was talking to a Bahamian and he says a competitive fisherman, I would think he's in like the tuna caw cutters being from the Bahamas and all good conclusion. So the do we want to talk about the unlawful enclosures I Act, which was I want to save that, okay, because that that's a super interesting where this is headed. But that's one of the things without without bringing you into without Oh you did hang your hat on it. We hung our

hat on that Unlawful Enclosures Act. Well, so that held, that came up in court, that came up in our personal conversations of building a ladder and them trying to block us all that. Well, cal I haven't been keeping you up speed because it's it's brand speakay new, but I'm working lead on a guest that could get into

the subject matter expert perfect awesome. So I was trying to just to milk this out more, you know, the um but sorry that it is relevant for this because that was the argument that allowed it to be kind of plucked into federal court, the civil civil trial, because so it is, it is emerging already like that conversation.

I thought that was like a conversation that will come eventually. No, there is an art human made on behalf of all four of our corner crossers that said, um, this civil suit has no basis because of and I'm very very much simplifying and uh anyway, well, the reason I'm going easy on this is I have been I'm not trying to be like cryptic. Well am I I don't know

enough about it. I've had I've had off the com I've had off the record conversations with individuals who have they've off the record explained issues around the enclosures thing um that I would like to get into in the future because it's very interesting, and do it in a way that doesn't lead people in a lot of bad

directions and assumptions. That and as and and and as in the studio, Dave Wilms, who doesn't have a no horse in the race right just as a bystander pointed out that the Enclosures Act has been used around like commercial travel. I think if I remember correct, it's on public records. It is on this episode. Uh, around this show. It's been used around shipping, it's been used around trucking commerce, but it hasn't been It's never been applied to pedestrian traffic.

And in his pondering um, his pondering is was in on the on the episode previous episode, his pondering was what would happen were one to take pedestrian traffic and look at it through the lens of the Enclosures act um, And to date that hadn't been done. And he could and he I can't remember exactly, but he brought up ways in which it would be an interesting conversation and he could see this, and he could see that, but but it hasn't been applied to foot traffic. Interesting. Did

I kind of roughly summarize that correctly? On on the civil suit? Yeah, it's part of the argument, I believe. Um, we haven't had great in depth conversations. We've had small conversations, you know, with attorneys, and we let those kind of the legal thing. I just sit here and keep thinking of as as an out of state hunter, and there's thousands of us that go west to go hunting. Why can't it not be simple as what you can and cannot?

Do you know? Have you shouldn't have these conversations. Do you guys still have a little jingle in your legal defense fund? No? Really? Now it's short and I've got one more attorney bill I need to pay, So we're gonna have to have some conversations and get some more money rolling. I don't think we need much. What when will the civil thing become more clear? Like what you gotta do and all that? We don't know yet. Um,

there's some judgments, some it depends on that federal court. Right, Well, the federal courts keeping the case, and so then there's a there's some emotions out there that they have to rule on first, maybe just a motion to dismiss. I don't remember exactly attorney jobs. Yeah. One of the problems, and I've learned this watching different Supreme Court cases, in federal cases. At oftentimes you want it to be like this um like final decision, right, But a lot of

times it's like what happened? No, it's so like the findings are so obscure. Would be that our ruling is that the state should go in better define part of this, better define a term at play here. That was it that guys are gonna have to define air, right or like you know, you're like like, oh, also would it be like and just like it just winds up being like another sort of they punted, right. That was part of the argument in court was they argued over the

definition of public land and private land. And so the prosecutor wanted to use the definition of private land, and so our attorneys argued the definition, Well, in that case, we must have the definition of public land. M And but if one would have been you know, he wasted a lot of time in court? Were you following everything in court? It was easy to follow if just someone who had been sitting in there, and we're sitting in a room. The courtroom was about twice this size. So yeah,

there's no getting away from any of it. You're righting amongst the middle of I Did it ever get to where they were arguing over obscure stuff you hadn't thought about before? Were you? Were you tracking the arguments like you knew what was going on? Oh yeah, there's a lot of stuff you don't think about that they brought up. The surprise, you did come up lot of that before we actually went to court to all the different motions and arguments were right forever, I thought we already did this,

you know, word it a different way. Right, So where things are at now? Did it screw up your hunting plans? For that's what I want to know. Where are you hunting? This ball place might be a little blown up now, Well, we're probably gonna draw tags this year for don't say too much, Phil, You don't have that kind of information. Remember, I'm an old We've got we've got other planes. We'll hut somewhere the landoord he probably just invited you out by this point, didn't he My phone hasn't ranked gys

his guides out there, right he should? Well, maybe you read a letter that says come on out to our place in Missouri. You know, Yeah, he can't come there you go. I'll take him hunt there you go? Yeah, swap right. Um, we're gonna wrap it up first first, to raise some money for your legal fund. You need to develop like packable, lightweight, like carbon fiber version of

that uh that ladder. Well, when you guys do find out what's up ahead, please let us know and we'll help get some more will help get a little more jingle rolling for you. Yeah, when we know that street turn for money, Johnnie John, He's like, we're they gonna some jingles. He's trying to think of a jam. Uh yeah, thank you. It's very very much for great. I want to take a picture of you guys. Here's here's some evil. Oh yeah, this brings me all way back to the

outlaw of Josie wales Man. You don't mess with the Missourian's Missouri boat rad. Alright, guys, you guys sticking around for trivia. I guess if we're supposed to be better. That'd be great. I'll probably beat you guys. Asses. We're counting on it. Fills the trivia the tall right. Thanks, Thanks, I really appreciate Please come back. Don't do any other podcast right,