This is Me eater podcast coming at you shirtless, severely bug bitten in my case underwear listening to podcast, you can't predict anything presented by first, like creating proven versatile hunting apparel from Marino bass layers to technical outerwear for every hunt. First like go farther, stay longer. Okay, Rosemary, tell me where where did we just spend the last two weeks? Alaska? Okay? What were we doing? We were fishing? Uh? Did you know that? In um? Did you know that?
In the book? Like the book I most recently had come out, which is called Outdoor Kids in an Inside World, I write a lot about how you kids like to spend a lot of time flipping rocks over? Can you and your own words? Would you mind explaining to me why it is you like to spend so many hours flipping rocks over on the shoreline because there's sculpting under some rocks, and then after you see the scope and you hit them with rocks, and then what do you
guys like to do with those? Like tell some of your favorite ways, like tell well, first off, how big is the sculpen um? Like, I don't know, the average size is like two inches, but they get pretty big, about as long as your finger, Yeah, bigger than that, bigger than your fingers. And then when you cook them up, how do you like to cook them up? Um, over a fire? And then why are you guys you smash them with rocks? What's what's that about? To kill to
put them out? Are there things you find that you don't that you just find and then look at and let go? What do you mean, like the crabs for instance, that you find? Yeah, what's the most surprising thing you ever found under a rock you flipped over? Um? Probably a scope and that was all white that had like had like this really long nose. Oh, and then he came and told showed him to me like you thought something was maybe wrong with him. M hmm. Um did
you find many of those little eels? Those gunwalfish? How many years have you been flipping rocks over at that place? Well? What when's the first time that I ever came here? How old was I like a little baby, like a little kid? Then like six years? And uh? Have you noticed any trends over time? Does it feel like it's the same or does it feel like over time it's changed? With what you find under those rocks, Like, is it one year real good for scalpiens and the next year
it's really good for crabs? Is it pretty much like those rocks never change? Those rocks never change. You feel it's pretty consistent? All Right, I'm gonna ask your brother something, Jimmy, how much to what degree do you would you go with Rosy on that? Um? I would say that the amount of scalping and like crab the dungeoness that you find out in the deeper water right outshore at super low tide definitely varies from year to year. Some years you'll find uh, some years it will be really really
good for big scalpen they'll be in. It's kind of just the two different streams. Was that? Like, were you disagreeing with that? Okay, Okay, you don't buy it? Yeah? Do you think it's consistent? Um? But you're not gonna take debait? Are you? She's wrong? Um? The big scoping are either in uh, there's since there's two streams there either in one of the streams we found some there's never really really big ones like seven inches long in
the farthest right stream. They're always in the they're always in the left stream. It always seems to be where we find the big ones because it's underneath a lot of help. It is a lot of help, and it's more for the area for the bigger ones to hide, and it's a lot uh slower moving water, and I think they like that more too. And then the other one is a lot is rocky, very shallow water, and I think the big ones like they're being a little
more wider area. Like That's why if you had to pick between um, salmon fishing and flipping rocks and picking up scolpens, what you pick um, I'd say salmon fishing. Uh, And I'd say the reason I like salmon fishing so much is because you kind of like, you know, you're if you go to the nope, we'll bleep it out, we'll bleep it out going if you go to the
fun salmon fishing. When you go to when you go to the salmon spot, um, you either you're dedicated to fishing salmon or catching flounder if you drop your jig down and try to hit the bottom little spoon. But what I also think it's fun about that is seeing the sea lions, seals, all those other creatures and uh knowing that there could be anything down there in the deeper water. Do you want to do you mind sharing with people what you got in trouble with what you
got in trouble about yesterday. It actually happened earlier while you were gone, but you got trouble about it yesterday. Oh. Um, So I was so like absent minded about changing my clothes for like two weeks. So mother, when I can packed his clothing, she was quite shocked to find that all of the socks and underwear, we're still in these socks and underwear. That's impressive. Two weeks. That impressive. The only time I changed my clothes is when because my
mom took this oh what are I called? Oh, took a vacuum sealer, put um my clothes and a vacuum sealer like some clean clothes and just vacuum seal it up. And that was for the flight home. For the flight home, that's the only time I changed my clothes. You discovered kind of a hot tip while you're up there about how to prepare for an early morning wake up call.
Can explain that hot tip to people. You just sleep in your clothes, keep your rain jacket in rain hands, hanging up outside with your hat and then you just step out ready to go. You're already dressed. It's a good idea. Yeah. The comedian hit Chip, Mitch Edburgh had an idea that he was gonna get his clothes made out of blankets, so when he laid down at night, he's already there. You go for bed, Rosemary. That's my last question for you, buddy, ready if you had to,
what's your favorite thing about the fish shacket. What's one area that you could see for improvement at the fish shack? M hmm. My favorite thing about it is come up here and say yes, just like you're eating ice cream cone. Okay. My favorite thing about it is you eat ice cream cones that far away. Okay. My favorite thing about it is um okay. And what's the area that you think could be a lot better about the fish shack? Mm hmm.
Maybe get a new little like outhouse like house thing not so there's not so many spiders, Oh, spiders in the outhouse. Okay. And Jimmy got one more question for you. Seth Seth's a frame there, Seth Kelsey's a frame. Uh, what's your take on that place? Um? How would you rate the amount of work they did on that place. I would say they did nine out of ten on getting everything ready. Um, I say that when they got there, it looked like a grizzly bear took her two cubs
and destroyed everything in that house. And then it hadn't been touched for five years, which is grizzy bear part didn't happen, but the other part did it, and they got it whipped into shape. They made it look really good. Okay, Okay, I appreciate you guys coming giving us a download. Man. One last thing and I'm all done. You guys go about your business. You came in here and sat right in that seat, and you and me told a story about a thing that happened to us where we had
a real close call. What did you think of that? You think people should check that out? Yeah? Um, a lot of love went into that podcast. You guys can run along. You guys are great. Why did I get to tell my Turkey story? He said I would tell my Turkey story. You said I would. Oh you want to tell turkey story? Yeah? Rosie. Also you you were eager to tell you wanted to tell a story about something to happen to you. Okay, let it. Let's hear it.
I want to hear it. So we were in a turkey hunting stand because we were turkey hunting in Texas at my dad's friends place, and um uh, there's like a bunch of turkeys that came along and my dad was like, oh, that's a bearded hen and I was like cool. So then um my brother was like, oh, I want to shoot it, and I was like, well, I want to shoot it because you got you got first turn on wild pigs and I got first shot on turkeys. So I took a very long time to aim,
but then I shot it. It was bearded hend. What's my mommy's new nickname, bearded buddy? Are you ready to go a good? All? Right? We are not in Alaska. I pointed that out only because we're supposed to be in Alaska. We're sadly not in Alaska. You really want to know why we're not in Alaska because we had to come back podcast because Seth left it like he left a day early and when I went looking for him,
I couldn't find him. So we're recording back in our studio se Fault and he knew I when I got there, I said, just so you know, I have the podcast kit, and he was like, yeah, we'll get to it. Well, I was waiting to build up experiences. I took that as he will come find me when it's time, and then you let the clock tick out, and then and then left the day early. Steve decided that it was time to record. After you were gone out of time.
I went looking for him. I couldn't find him. M hmmm, Listen, it's tough to it's tough to find a time for that kind of stuff up there. Career long days. Yeah, there's a lot of a lot of stuff that needs uh sorry, Seth and Kelsey, and then Kelsey's brother and your her brother's Kelsey's here, Seth, Seth, now wife, that's here. That's great wedding, isn't. When I got up into the wedding, Yeah, you did a good good job. Um, A lot of
people still talking about it. These two are married. Uh. They bought a shack next to our shock And what I think it's endlessly funny is that. Uh. When I was up there this June, I looked up and something seemed different, and I realized that the entire front porch had fallen off of the house ye, and crumbled into the yard. It's funny because when we bought the thing, we had made all these jokes about how it would be great even if it fell over. Even if falls over,
it's a good idea, and it actually kind of fell over. Yeah, it's rough, man. I do want to talk to you guys a little bit about shack shack ownership, which we're gonna which which I want to get into in a little bit. Uh, couple things getting up top. Then we got a whole bunch of stuff we gonna cover. Bro. Do you got like a Grizzly report and a Wolf report? Uh? Yeah, I can't do both. Good doll sheet report. I crashed out though Wolf. That's all right, lots of new, lots
of news to cover off on. Uh first though, up top, So culdn't have we already dropped We already dropped the story, right cam Kurt Connell's on last week's episode. Yeah, that's that's my standing. But to reiterate camp fire stories too,
So we did. If you remember back, if you you faithful listeners, if you remember back, you remember we did an episode where we closed the episode um with a story by Sam Laurie where it was called The Mud Puddle about a game or and in pursuit of a sociopathic elk poacher, and that was Metators, camp Fire Stories, Close Calls. Well, the follow up to that collection is out now which is called Meat Eaters, camp Fire Stories, Narrow Misses and more Close Calls, and it includes lots
of good stuff. So we got I mean, you're hear from the people involved. A couple of guys stranded on an ice cake in the Arctic Ocean with a polar bear. A guy who had a shoot at his own friend to save his life. A guy whose life was saved by his dog after he blew himself in the leg. Duck hunting. Oh goes on and on. It's got more blood in it than It's like a Quentin Tarantino movie. The amount of bloodshed. I have not listened to it yet, and that's making me just what you said, there's making
me excited to the bloodshed, isn't it. It's like it's like a lot of it. But see here's the thing I like to point out. It's called narrow misses the more close calls. So it's they all have happy endings. It was if they had all died. I point out that it would be hard to make the recording with them, very hard. Uh. The other day, the kids like that, I don't know if you're there. Uh. The kids like, shoot, twenty two's at the shack and they're supposed to always
verify that no one's in the outhouse. Not that the outhouse is down range, but it's like off to the side. And Jimmy shot and someone yelled from the outhouse, and then he got in trouble. But then the person came out and said, if you kill me, I'll never talk to you again. Um, there's a near miss with starting to fire there. Oh yeah. Jimmy's cousin burn singed all his hairs. I have watched that. It was harrowing that the hair in his head or his base were trying
to use an accelerant to get a fire going. A lot of lessons are learned at the check I think we get in trouble. People get in trouble for various things. I don't know i'd be lying about said people didn't get in trouble up there for various things. To save space to less it looked like a special effect at a concert. So a lot of bloodshed but happy endings. It's like, it's a riveting collection of story. So we
go out and be comb we we go. We use our listener network in other places to find great stories. And one of the things we talk about in the collection is how many stories come to us from people's kids. People right in and be like, you have to try to get my dad to tell X story. Um, and it's out now. It's called me Eaters, camp fire stories, narrownesses and more close calls. I don't know how many hours is this A lot of hours? Six six hours
of listening. It's a Penguin Random House Audio original. The last one debut on the bestseller list for audio. This one is riveting. I think you'll love it, and I hope everybody goes and checks it out. I don't think we have immediate plans to drop another episode, to drop another story on this show. But refer back if you're if you're titillated, go back to last week's episode or whatever the hell, go back to what was the episode called.
Go back to if there's letting the air, there's hoping the heart, and scroll to the end, or listen to the whole damn thing. Whatever suits you and listen to the story the best shot of My life to give you an idea of what you will find in this audio collection. But you got a road trip drive to work. Whatever this thing is, it's like we kind of sweat it out over, you know, like a podcast a little bit free form. This is it's like we sweat it out over every second of this thing. It is very
very carefully crafted. Um, I'm sure you will love it if you go and check it out and give it a listen. UM. Also first episode of our new culinary show on YouTube featuring Kevin Gillespie, who a lot of people know from Top Chef. It's called Sabertooth. It's out now on our website and on our YouTube channel. In the first episode, Kevin hunts Rix in Texas with Jesse Griffith's They do a big butcher project on the animal the hook up with Danielle pruittt to prepare meals from
the orcs. Following episodes of Drop later in the year. The next one will include our beloved Clay Nukem from Bear Grease and Bear Meat. And also this like this series coming out coincides with the culinary giveaway. This giveaway runs to August thirty one. Okay, So if you want to enter the culinary giveaway, go to the meat eater dot com. Okay, you can enter the win it's a value.
You can get a processing so a meat processing and kitchen gear pack pitch that is curated and selected for you by Kevin Gillespie himself based on your cooking preferences and style. So this will include some assortment, some agreed upon assortment of lemb product, lodge stop, a cutting board, a Kudu grill, et cetera. So you go enter at the meat eater dot com and the package has a thirty value and say it's just it's a giveaway, Okay.
What it is though, So you'll get on the phone with Kevin Gillespie and he'll talk through like your cooking preferences, what kind of meat he got the freezer and whatnot, Okay, and then he will pull together a meat processing and kitchen gear package curated for you. The package will include lemb product, large product, Stop product, you get a cutting board, you'll get a Kudu grill that suits your needs, etcetera.
Then on top of that, you would get a one hour long private cooking class held digitally, so it's like a remote cooking class, of virtual cooking class with Kevin Gillespie. Kevin will develop a recipe specific to the winner and what that winner has in their freezer cool package value at the me eater dot com. And that is to celebrate the release of Saber Tooth, our new YouTube series
hosted by Kevin Gillespie, which is launching right now. Alright, so we're gonna move on now to something we've talked about a whole whole shipload on this show, and that is the now infamous, the famous Wyoming Corner crossing case where some hunters went from public land to public land and stepped over a section corner and got in trouble for having their shoulders having passed through the air above
someone's private property. That we followed this case exhaustively. So an episode, the most recent one we we we touched on a while ago and we had an episode called all All Up in Your Airspace. More recently, episode three forty two, we had an episode called getting Busted for Touching Air In it. We through our advocacy of these hunters who are fighting these civil and criminal cases against themselves, we've helped drive a lot of people to go to a go fund me site which is Defending, which is
a legal defense fund for these hunters. Okay, as we covered when we had him on, so these guys are from Missouri. We had the Missouri guys out here in the podcast studio and did this episode with them. At
the time they had finished up their criminal case. They were not guilty in their criminal case, but they have a civil case now brought up against them, and the civil case is going to get The civil case could really help set the precedent for this because if these guys cross a corner again, never stepping on private land, they're placing one foot in public land on one section and they're placing the other foot in public land on the other section. In these guys case, they actually used
a ladder. One side of the ladder was on public land, the other side of the ladder was on public land, and the act of climbing over their ladder, their body passed through some like corners of private airspace and that was criminal. Um. Of course, what's at stake here is the landowner is very much wanting to have that landlocked public land all to themselves. They don't want public they don't want the public on the public land because they
can control access to it. But what they're pretending is they're pretending that they're worried about this little piece of airspace for a half second that someone passes through it. For the civil case, the guys need and if you if you listen regularly the podcast, so we followed us and followed us for this civil case. The guys need get this. It's a big gass for everybody. Um, we will go in and and I feel like we'll probably will probably take money out of our land Access initiative.
We've talked to Calahan about this, take money out of our land Access initiative fun and kick in. So we're putting our money where our mouth is and we'll do that. Uh. These guys need another thirty five dollars alright, they need up quick and they're gonna need another ten down the road. Uh. A friend of ours m wey, I mean Jared oakleyf who's helped keeps the prize of the whole thing, is even offered up like they got some ideas. Um, we've
talked about maybe auctioning off the ladder. What's funny is one of these guys as a fence builder. It's my favorite detail. He's a fencing building, so him being intimate with fences made a ladder to get over the fence. We talked about making shirts. Corner crossing ain't a crime whatever. Doing a book signing event. He's throwing these things out like a suppose out to me. Me doing a book size and a book signing event in Jackson Hole, whatever
it is. We gotta raise money for these guys. It's an easier U R L at the go fund me now though, why O corner dot com? So why now? Sorry? From the top, w y O corner so w y O c O R N E R dot com. And that's where you can go find the go fund me site to help fund these guys legal defense. Now, what's that stake? What's that stake? Is this? There are multiple Western states that are pretty hazy about whether or not
corner crossing is legal or illegal. In in Montana, for instance, they recommend against it right, and it's generally been widely understood to be not allowable, But the tide is turning and people are getting educated about this issue. It would open up millions of acres of public land. Whatever happens that these dudes in court, okay, in the civil case,
then they get fined or whatever. Like whatever happens these guys isn't gonna change the law, Okay, but it's gonna if they can prevail, it's gonna really make people question trying to prosecute people for the practice. So this isn't like us U. S. Supreme Court case is gonna once and for all decide the fate of legal of corner crossing.
But if they can throw the book at these dudes the way they have and put the energy and money into trying to prosecute these guys for crossing over a little teensy weensy bit of private property airspace while hunting public land, the next guy is gonna be like, I'm not going near that ship with a ten foot poll because we already saw what will happen. It's like, these guys can probably pull it with the right legal defense. These guys can pull together and beat the civil case.
And it's like it's like it's it's a it's a slow battle that needs to be waged. This is it's a slow war that needs to be waged. This is a battle in the war. Is getting these guys off of these charges that they're facing. It doesn't end it, but it goes a long way towards helping it. The next real big battle I want to pick up, and this is a big one, is I want to pick up um taking on in my home state of Michigan. First, getting Sandhill crane. That's the that's the that's the white whale.
The first step one is getting Sando sand Hill crane season from Michigan. Step two is the white whale, which is a Michigan dove season. But first the corner crossing problem has to be addressed. Then fourth is getting wildlife management and yells a national park handed to the states of Wyoming and Montana and turning into wilderness area. Let's take care of all Sunday hunting. But let's and then a universal orange hat law. Used to be very anti orange.
I think it should be a national like it's like an orange hat and orange that's what that's what wil does. Orange hat. Yeah, I'd be fine with that orange hat during big game, big game rifle orange hat down. And I don't want to have the feds up like I don't want to have I don't want to take that approach. What I want to do is come up with a case so compelling that the states willfully adopt it because they're like, no, there's an idea. Yeah, be a hard
experiment to run. I think I talked about this, but my kid got a costed ice fishing by a guy who is mad at him because his dad thinks you should be able to hunt yellowstone. I'd like to find that guy beat as well as little took us. Uh So if that's you, let me know. Um, in the end it will be of the Wyoming corner crossers. It will have required It doesn't sound that it's like depends on how you look at it doesn't sound that bad.
In the end, it will be that it costs. So the three Wyoming corner crossers, um they're legal defense will have been about twenty six and a half thousand per hunter. Yeah. Meanwhile, the taxpayers of Carbon County, Wyoming have footed the other side of the bill over something that they probably aren't that worked up about four on behalf of a out of state landowner. You know what we should do? You know that show law and Order. We should have a
media produced version of lade Order. This would be make a good movie. That's a good idea. You could do poaching cases and those of your end shootout du dunt dunt and that that the song. No it's not, it's like courtroom drama. Drama. Phil will just take that record and yeah, I already got d so big, big heads up on that man as much as people can do.
And like I said, I'm gonna like, did you make a note to go tell cal that we gotta you know, I actually already just emailed the both of you, not yet, I mean I literally sent it one minute after you first said it or less. I'll put uh this do you read this out out? Well, read it first, then read it out loud. You'd like it if he says hello from his iPhone, I'm not opposed to that would be well w fit to get the ball rolling. There you go, see job cry, it's great producing live on
the air. Wildfire season just starting now, and holy cow, man, I just wanted to discuss the two bits of Alaska news. Um three million acres in Alaska. You know, when you're trying to describe how big something is, you always like you always talk about how it compares the Connecticut or Rhode Island or something. I get a little bit burned out on that. But they've burned an area the size of Connecticut. If you look at a map of everything
in Alaska, it's on fire. Is They have fires from everywhere from the from if you imagine the Brooks Range line, Okay, from from west to east and down. The whole state is dotted with fires. Even one out in the Allusians Aways. Southeast Alaska full of fires. Oh my goodness, that little island, holy ship. Them fires like a couple of days ago, massive my uh my bro Danny was going taking his boat to go mushroom hunting, had a different fire and
had to cancel because of new fires. New fires were keeping him fro getting to the old fire, just cranking. That's crazy. I never like picture Alaska burning that much. I was one time hunting um on the north slope of the Brooks Range and we were hunting cariboo, and way off you can see this tundra fire. Oh really, you know, And it was cold as ship. It was October snow ice. And one day we walked over and you can just stand next to the slowly moving tundra fire.
It won't go out till the snow puts it out. You know, you can stand there and warm up real good, but you have to walk a mile and a half to get there. But you can walk a mile and a half over there, away from camp, away from the river, and go get warmed up as you wanted to be at the tuns of fire, and then come back to where we were camped on a graph bar and freeze your ass. It's like a mile and a half, you know, a mile and a half to walk over there and
get your hands warmed up. Yeah, every time I'm up there, it's just like raining, So it's kind of hard to One of the things that's driving a lot of that fire is the beetle kill. Oh yeah, right, so they had like the whole like you know, the Keynai Peninsula was almost like denuded of of of spruce, right, and so in a lot of places the fires are that beetle killed cooking off. Yeah, that's what led to a lot of Did you notice going fires in Colorado too? Did you know, going in to catch can um, a
lot of their hillsides are turning brown? Nope, I as advanced what he thought it was. He wasn't sure. He said it might be from light snowpack the Oh really yeah, apparently the cold temps will um freeze the roots. Got it. I guess the snowpack help prevents that. I don't know. That's just I don't know for sure. But in all fairness, Alaska burned. So here's the other years that Alaska on record has burned three million acres. Like I had a
three million acre fire season. Now the weird thing is fire season just getting going right, So they're already at three millions. They burned three million in two thousand five, they burned three million in two thousand four, they burned three million in nineteen sixty nine, nine fifty seven, in nineteen fifty and that's when accurate accounting of acres began. So it's not like unprecedented, it's not unknown, but things are just getting started. A lot of fire burning. Oh
here's a good transition. You don't even build this in the size of Connecticut has burned. The other day, we were talking about Connecticut and we're saying, what do they call? You just wrote that in the script. You didn't say how here's a cool transition, says speaking of Connecticut. A few so a few episodes ago, we covered off on Mountain Lions in Connecticut, and someone wrote in about truthers and deniers, and we're talking about connecticutors or whatever they
call them. Two people wrote connecticutens. Two people wrote in to say that what they're called is nutmegers. That settles it. There's apparently there was a problem in Connecticut once upon a time where you take a little chunk of would and carve yourself a fake nutmeg for what reason, so then pawn it off on some unsuspecting person. And they actually had to ban the practice of whitland fake nutmegs to sell to people, and they're called nutmeggers. My old man,
here's a hot tip for you. My old man in World War two, he was for a while, he was stationed in North Africa, and he said, they made a lot of money smuggling. Nope, you get a carton of smokes. Story, you get a carton of smokes. Uh. The locals we're dying for American cigarettes. Loved American cigarettes. So my dad would say, you get a carton of smokes, and you'd pack it full of sawdust and then you'd put two real packs on the end. And then when you stopped
on the trains, never being transported. You'd hold the cart and out the window and haggle over the price. And you'd haggle over the price of the carton cigarettes until the train was ready to start moving, at which point in time the deal would be finalized. You would then hand them though sawdust packed carton smokes and take the money. And then you were like a bad person. He became a but he I don't know how he justified it, but he would tell that story like he's quite proud
of himself. Just a swindler. Ah, yeah, Nutmegger's um which is also apparently a soccer move. What's the move you're asking, Steve? Yeah, if he knows, if he if he knows that it's a or is that from the email? He goes on to say, I would note that nutmeg not only refers to the aromatic spice, but can refer to the act of passing a soccer ball between an opponent's legs to a team eight or oneself. I just found out my kid's gonna play soccer in the fall. A little bumped
your falls over. Uh, you know the cam? How do you pronounce that peninsula? Ive never been there. I'd like to go there. Cam chaka, cam chacta. I think it's that. Yeah, cam chacka cam choco. There's a there's a vodka. Call that. Russia's Alaska. A Russia's Alaska. It's a peninsula the size of California has like steelhead runs. I know that they got. Yeah, they got steelhead runs. They got like great hunting, moose hunting, brown bear hunting. Uh A helicopter. This was interesting. This
was interesting because we just had it. We recently did an episode with a biathlete helicopter being flown by a well known Russian biathlete. I goor Melanovsky. You think it's Igor. Gotta be Igor? Or let's not like speaking? Little dead Igor Malinovski was flying with a couple of business men, one named Zoya and one named Sergey. July Sergey, how did you ask him? No, that's how you pronounced those names, Sara and Igor. Helicopter crash and then they found This
is the crazy part. They found the bodies way far away, consumed by bears. The bears drugged the bodies out of the helicopter, mold him and consumed him far away. Do we know that they were alive when the bears found. That's my question. It says it was seen to be a fiery crash. It is. Here's this is a quote. It is believed the corpses we're dragged away mald and
eaten by wild bears that populate the region. One of the highest densities of brown bears on Earth on that peninsula, and estimated ten thousand to fourteen thousand bears live in the peninsula. So that's about the population estimate for brown bears and grizzly bears and all of Alaska. And they're placing that on a California sized chunker ground, way more
than Western United States. That's nuts. You know, that suck to survive that that crash and then get mauled by bears, would be stuck there in mobile out of the helicopter. You're like, who survived that? One big bear comes And that's the kind of story I wouldn't put in close calls. Hey, count you couldn't do it. I asked Paul Schommer, our guest, and he was on episode three seven a Gold Medal podcast, if he knew Igor and he said he did know him personally, He definitely knew of him. And then he
said that the situation is classic Russia. You can't just be a helicopter crash. You had to involve a bear as well. So it's like the one thing that will maybe more classic is involved bottle of vodka. Yeah. Maybe we're not sure if bottle was recovered from the scene or not. Okay, Brody hit us with hit us with um. The latest Grizzly report, the latest this was bound to happen,
report happen Grizzly report. If you're not familiar, there's a very famous grizzly bear in the Jackson, Wyoming area Grand Tita National Park area bear three books written about it. Who's that photographer that made her famous? Mangelsson. He's one of the guys that applied for member. They had to draw for grizzly bear tags. He drew and then wasn't going to use his tag. Oh he was trying to draw it and throw it into the garbage if you want. Anyway,
he was real worried about this bear getting shot. Um. These bears h are constantly in contact with humans in the Jackson area. UM roads get closed down for them when they're in neighborhoods. Things like that, and uh, what data this take place on a couple of weeks ago. It looks like, um, so mid July one, she had four cubs that she basically they're they're raised to adulthood, there would be adults. She's going to get rid of
them this year. So two years old, I'm guessing. Um, and one of the cubs, a male, was killed by fish and game officials. Fort recorded conflicts human human bear conflicts and they finally had to kill that bear too keep people safe. Basically are people having a total connection about it. Um, it's incredibly unfortunate. Photographer, author, and bear advocate Tom Mangelsson said the latest incident. Um, I'm sure
down there, but but that's the reality. Like, I think a lot of people don't realize how many grizzlies across the Western United States end up being you know, they like to say euthanized by fish and game officials. I mean it's probably I have no idea dozens and dozens of bears end up getting shot by fishing game officials. So I'm sure people are working over a course of time, yeah, yeah,
but yeah, a bunch of years. Ye yep. So, and this one seems like it was it was just bound to happen um fishing game officials fishing Wildlife Service officials say they continue to ask for the help of residents and visitors to secure attractants around homes, rental properties, and businesses. The actions of those living and visiting bear visiting grizzly bear country main vital. So it's like, you know, typical stuff. It's a a fed bear is a dead bear kind
of thing. Moving on down to a uh. Someone wrote and needed advice on an ethics issue. This is this is the thorn. This is a thorny one because it it becomes likely it's like one of those places where legal and more like legality and morality collide. Do you feel like it's not an easy answer for you. No, it's not easy. When I read this, I thought maybe for some people it would be well, like I said, it's morality and legality and and and I'll get it. I'll get into I'll get into it a little bit.
This guy says, I have a question for the consideration of the podcast brain Trust in shore. If you encounter a wounded animal of your target species, so that's important, a wounded animal of your target species while hunting, what would you do harvest it, or let it walk away
and wait for a healthier alternative. I'll tell you I've done every variation um in the in the not so distant past, I have, and I wouldn't now because I'm just more I when when I felt there was a moral issue that collided with a legal issue, I would go on the moral issue side. That's what I would generally have done in the past. I have in my day killed two mangled up deer wild deer hunting that I did not tag. Mangled up meaning shot by hunters
and wounded. One had been shot and lost, and one had been hamstrung by coyotes and somehow made probably maybe in the water, made it out to a little teeny island. And I found it on this little teeny island mostly dead, but not all the way dead. Mostly dead. So my thinking was, um, it's gonna die, It's gonna be here dead, uh,
And I shot it left it. Another time, I was sitting there and I'm sitting in this bottom of this coolie like more like a like a tight little box canny thing, and down comes a deer with her back ham shot out a lot of exposed meat, exposed bone, all packed with dirt. It didn't happen, just like minutes those days days old. Also, no way, shape or form was it gonna live. I shot that dear so so I didn't take the first one. I just shot and
left it. I shot that dear and cross the line because I ate a backstrap off it, but did not we ate a backstrap. That night, I shot a wounded meal with their buck once and tagged it. You did it, I did, and I've and I've done that. We even did an episode I was hunning. Cused you one time and shot a wounded couised your buck and then met the guy that had shot it was He was still up looking for it, but he was as glad that I got it and I kept it. I tagged it
because he had shot it three days pride. I think a lot of people like take this stance that morally they're obligated to do it because they assumed the animals gonna die this horrible death. But deer can survive some pretty brutal stuff like there. When back when I lived in Pennsylvania, there was a dough that was all had been shot on one of her front legs, and for years and years she was in the same field, you know, across the street from my friend's house. They called her,
of course tripod. But like that deer got shot in the leg and lived for years, And you know, I think people just assumed they're going to die this horrible death, you know, and the incidences on top about maybe it's more I'm not thinking of it wasn't gonna live. Now I did it, and it's like I did that. You can't do that if you could kill it and tag and if you have a vale, tag, but you can't do it. Now, my thinking evolved on it, for like, if I was in a similar sitution, right situation, right now,
Here's why I wouldn't. I wouldn't because one like I might not totally agree with the law, but I understand why it's there, and I don't want to sort of like take on. I don't want to sort of like challenge the whole the foundation of the regulatory structure by saying if you don't agree with it, it doesn't matter. Yeah. The second thing is is you'd be like if you see what it's been shot by a gun, you'd be like, well that's not natural, right, or like humans did that.
Humans should finish the job. But then you're sort of saying that, like like hunting, the hunting the species is unnatural, right, just as Kyle's might chew it up and it gets away, a hunter might shoot and it gets away. Um, so now I wouldn't. But but but to be clear, the primary reason that wouldn't I wouldn't want to. I don't want to like get fined and getting all kinds of trouble for doing it. Yeah, just keep it. And it's just like no, it's like not, it's not worth it
enough to me. And I get why they have it, because it's like you're trying to limit Um, you know, there's not a ton of room and that when it when it comes to like the tagging process and the regulatory structures and tag allocations, there's not it's not built in for a lot of like personal decision making. Yeah, it's I mean you've got to follow some pretty clear cut rules that are already confused. I mean they're clear cut, but they can be confusing as of what you're allowed
and what you're not allowed to do. And if you don't shoot one, you know you're not going to get in trouble for anything. You can always call your State Game Agency, if you have a cell if you have a cell synal. I've heard still words of um guys calling gay warns about that kind of stuff, and they say, you can dispatch it. I'll be there, like make sure you're there when I get there. But like sometimes they'll
give you permission to do that. That will happen a lot with road kill or you know, deer that are injured by car, someone would give you permission to put it down. The one that i've so, I've accidentally shot wounded stuff right into his wounded and later found out I was wounded. You killed a bard had been wounded. You know, I was wounded the deer I shot. I knew it was wounded, but I knew it wasn't wounded
that bad. Like that deer would have survived. They had been hit in the ankle bone and shattered its ankle bone. But he was getting around pretty good. I could see he had a weird little limp right and I and I got him, like like realistically, I probably wouldn't have got him if he hadn't been injured, because he's just kind of doing a weird thing. He's like crossing a
hillside of a weird time. Everything about it just seemed like a little off, like why he was where he was when he was, you know, it just seemed off. But I could see he had a little limp. I didn't know what it was like out there was like, oh, he'd been shot. And then not long after I butchered it, here's a guy on a hill coming down my way and he's had spent days looking for it. To his credit, and he didn't try to contest my putting my tag
on it. He was happy as hell. He just wanted to know it and finally put it, put it to rest. But that deer was totally fine, like ate the whole deer, no problem. One of the things you get into, like these other deer on top about There's no way I would have, like I ate a backstrap off one. If I had to do it and then just put my tag on it, I wouldn't have done it because I wouldn't wanted all that compromised. I wouldn't want all that compromise me in exchange for what I could get, which
would have been like something better. And I'll point out both the ones I'm talking about were does. But I was in illegal dough area. Anyways. Yeah, I think it just comes down to personal decision, and there's no right or wrong right. If you want to burn your tag on it, go for it. If you don't, you're not obligated to. Oh here's another one of these narratives, little stories. I was sitting there with Yannie one time in Colorado,
you remember this, and I catch a lifetime. I catch a glimpse of Buck coming and all I see is he's got antlers hanging down around his jaw. As I'm looking through the brush, he's way off, but here's a deer. I look, and I could see antlers around his jaw, and I'm thinking, if he's got that, I mean the antlers around his jaw, imagine how many he's got on top of his head. So I said, holy ship, buck of a lifetime, only to realize it was a little
dinky buck who just got hit by a cart. His head gear and his skull cracked, and his antlers hanging down around his jaw, and he had nothing up top. Yanni never Yanni still teaches me about and have a buck of a lifetime. But we tried to go after him and get get him, and he gave us a slip, but he I don't know what was gonna happen to him. A lot of times those that happened, those type of injuries, they survive. That's yeah, that's the final bit for this
for this listener's right. And then it is like the final bit to consider is they can live through some crazy, crazy stuff. They can live through stuff you would never live through. I remember going to a deer process when I was a kid in Baldwin, Michigan, and this guy had not a coffee can. He had coffee cans full of broadheads that he'd pulled out of here. Yeah, I shot a bull one time that had a bullet lodge in it, like in his backstrap right next to the spine.
And I mean it had to have been years ago. Yeah, I had that elk verde bro that's healed around a problem. There's no way that that wasn't limping for some period of time after that happened. And some guy could have been like I should put them under. Well, that bull went on to live, So I'd put it this way.
Remember a long time ago and we covered the saying where Florida was doing a mortality study on deer and they were trying to advise hunters how to how to there they were advising hunters on how to behave toward deer that they're wearing a GPS collar, and they're saying, don't shoot it because it has a GEP This is They're like, this is a mortality study. We're trying to study what kills dear, including hunters, and they're saying to people,
don't shoot it because it has a GPS collar. But then don't not shoot it because it has a GPS collar. They're like, try if you can to do what you would normally do when you see a deer with a GPS collar, because they're trying to find out like what actually kills dear. So my advice on wounded stuff would probably be if it's like you really want it and it's wounded, go for it, but don't feel obligated to
do it. Here's another one, right for another one says I sure could use your help in solving a marital issue. My wife thinks I'm dumb. I don't know's right any more information. He goes on, Oh, this is good for you Pennsylvania boys. Growing up hunting in central Pennsylvania, I've grown accustomed to referring to animals with the same singular
and plural name. Sure, because in many cases you should one dear too, dear right that dear those dear Yeah, one bear, two bears, bear says really, so he says, he goes that, He says this one dear too, dear, one bear to bear, one dove, many dove, et cetera. I like to think that I'm consistent. Squirrel, rabbit, turkey, fish, you name it. He goes to the same program. In my opinion, if it's multiple animals of one species, the logical thing to do is to refer to them with
the same singular and plural word. Now he goes on. My wife whole hardly disagrees with me, and has taken to polling friends and family alike on this particular issue. The bear versus bears conundrum has become somewhat of a de facto party game at this point, and are ever expanding sample size. One thing seems clear, no one has the answer and everyone's usage is different. So in your expert opinions, what is correct? Please tell my wife. I'm not dumb. Thanks Dan, How with your wife? I don't
think it's like it's like it's not one thing or another. Well, no, there's no consistency. I think it's a usage thing. I would never say. I know guys growing up, they'd say I saw a two buck totally. Yeah, it's like very much like I don't know if it's regional or time or ended, but yeah there it's like a way people talking this fella Dan and I grew up in the same county. Probably how do you know that, Well, he says,
central Pennsylvania with Helva County, Center count Center County Pennsylvanians. Oh, that's about as central as it gains. Everyone talks like he does. Yeah, they saw two buck. I don't think that's right, Like like I know people do it. I think it would be I saw. I would never say I saw two deers. Right from a grammar teacher's perspective, I saw one, I saw one deer, I saw a couple dear. I would say that I saw two deer.
I saw two deers. Yeah, I would say I saw I saw one deer, I saw two deer, I saw a couple of deer. I would then go on to say I saw one bear, I saw a couple of bears, I saw two bears. I saw two bucks, I saw two doughs, but I only saw one deer. I saw three deer. Two of them were doughs. Or you caught one perch, or you caught a mess of perch not purchasing. We used to joke about that, I'd like to return this purchase when you caught a perch you didn't want. Uh. Yeah.
In central Pennsylvania, it's common to be like Salk saw a few buck today a couple of dolls. Is there actually an answer? I think it's just like like I said, it's it's grammatically Yeah, I think there is. But regionally they'd be like, go to hell. This is how we talk. I'm trying. I wish I could give the rule. I think that if you went to like Harold Bloom, is he dead? I'm not sure. Okay, you went to Nome Chomsky, who's actually trained as a linguist before he became an activist.
You went to Harold Bloom and Noam Chomsky, we are both dead. No, did Nome Chomsky pass away? Either way? You go to a linguist, he's hanging on it. You go to a linguist for Harold Bloom over Noam Chomsky, No, Chomsky is a conspiracy theorist. Did you know that he's still alive? Like he's like a big critic of American exceptionalism and all that. That's different from I'm not going
to go to him. I'll go to Harald Bloom. Uh. And when you asked them, I think they're going to tell you that it's it's it's that you saw one deer, you saw two deer, you saw one bear, you saw two bears. But then again, there's a picture of you know, a bunch of crabs on the wall, and you could say, and there's a bunch of crab in that bucket, a lot of crab. You can say that a lot of crab. Yeah, it's not a good back. That's a lot of shrimps. No, you wouldn't know, Forrest Gump. Might you know what can
you can? You contact the linguist at some local university or something to find out, Yeah, record them giving the answer. Uh, contact someone from penn State, you know her seasons Central Pennsylvania. Do that if you can contact the linguist or a handful of them and record them saying what they think. Why what I'm saying is true? Is true? I guess who was born in Pennsylvania. Uh. One of my favorite quotes from my friend Matt is uh, I'm giving us
for listeners so they can use it too. Someone explains something to my friend Matt and he said, I don't know why that's not true, but that's not true, which I use all the time because it feels like there's no way that's true. I like, I haven't looked it up for anything, but there's no way that's true. So we could probably say this guy is not dumb, but he's not right either. Devid don't think he's dumb. Okay, we gotta give him. We gotta give him an answer.
Far as I know his whife's dumb, he's the one that wrote it, and he wrote a well worded thing. Think it's a matter of dumbness. I think it's a matter of rightness. Mm hmm, Mike, But she went dumber and stump. I don't know. She hasn't written a letter in you're going to get one after that. Oh, speaking of grammar, Uh, I don't know. I haven't seen one yet. Like literally, Sam James just told me they're live like
they hit today. Do you guys remember when a guy wrote in and we had a good laugh because he wrote in a letter about it was like basically like sexual violence among turkeys, and it was a long letter that was all one sentence, and Mark Kenyon said, Mark Kenyon was in the studio and Mark said, you ought to put that on a shirt. And that's what we did. My new favorite shirt inspired by episode three story slash sentence gets a little dark, doesn't all. It's violent. It's
dark and violent. It's a one sentence story still in stock. It's one thing, never ending sentence about sexual violence among turkeys. Maybe the best one sentence story ever. It involves necrophilia. Do you send that fella? So we've published his it's necro it's everything you don't want your kids to get involved when they grow up, all on one T shirt.
We published like the whole his whole letter in a very small script on a shirt which is called the Turkey Letter T Shirts Letter T shirt, the most kind of horrifying letter we've ever gotten published on a T shirt in very small letters. But if you look carefully with if you get a little reading glass or like a little magnifier, get real close to it, you'll be able to read a story that is will curl your hair. Yeah, if you go on the website, you can zoom into
it and see it. Can you read the story of you zoom in on the website? You can? This is just like a screen grab. Yeah, dude, I'm gonna live in it. Shirture having a shirt with a lot of writing that no one will ever know what it is, literally no pictures. Stephen, I had this argument, Hunter Hunter, like Drew this really awesome, A little like small Turkey car too, like the eyes. I think just the text
is better. Want to just the text? What I really would be cool if it was on the front and the back because then someone behind you on the plane because you need to read the story. I'm not gonna think you're some kind of weird stick you want to limit who? You want to limit who actually gets to read the shirt, and when it's up front, you can monitor what's going you. Please stand still for five minutes
so I can read your shoe. If you're just blast through the grocery store, people are gonna be like, my god, I just caught a sentence of holy cow right now. It's alarming. Great t shirt The Turkey letter t shirt at the mediator dot com Oh, you can read the whole Yeah, they're not, they're not. We got it, We got yeah. Yeah, dude gonna live in that shirt. But seriously, everyone can read that passage if they just put their
little mouse over the paragraph, I can read the whole thing. Wow, you should sound magnifying glass and it comes with a stick so you can beat off people trying to read your T shirt. Oh, Kelsey, here's the thing I gotta ask you before we get into your your last experiences. Um half a finger wrote us a letter you donated. Just tell you tell the story, um, Jim. Actually, I had no idea that this was a thing until he
pitched it to me. But the Western Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies, I think they have a think I spoke to that or one time. Did you They have a yearly get together. I think I think Oklahoma City. Well maybe it moves every year. I'm not sure. But this year was in Oklahoma City and they had an art show as part of the event, and it was a juried art show where people would send in UM their pieces and it would be judged and then the
pieces would be auctioned off to benefit the organization. So he put that on my radar, and I sent in three prints to the show and they sold for a bunch of money. Yeah, they sold, and um I actually won Best Show for with one of my pieces, which is cool. It's a nice little resume builder. Um. So yeah, all around, great experience and I wouldn't have known about it if not for him. So great, Thanks Jim, And he'll be on the show soon. We're having helf a
finger prey so yeah. Yeah, I've never met him. He sounds such a great guy. One of the smartest dudes on the planet. Mat Yeah, he was awesome. He was updating me on the event, like every couple of hours, sending me an email. Tell tell people about your gallery in three forks. You don't want to tell him about it? No, I would love to. I like it that someone came in and asked if you were married to me? Yeah no, but I'm married her. As I said, I was like no,
thank you to somebody else. Um, I get people in all the time asking about me eater and like podcast fans, Yeah yeah, are the neighbor the neighbor? Yeah yeah. Um it's funny because I actually I went full time and as an artist after our Alaska trip last year. I had decided I had I set it up like this was real sweet. I had decided that I was going to put in my two weeks at my job before we went from egg from egg to artists to artists, but I hadn't told them. So I went on the
trip like just in the best mood. No, and I had that in my back pocket. But anyway, Um, I went full time last year and then in November we moved to Three Forks, the town of Three Forks, Montana, And in January I opened up my own studio and gallery there right off Main Street. So and it's been great. It's an awesome space. And do people so people just come in and buy stuff? Yeah? So do most days you make a sale? Yeah? Yeah. I would say it's
pretty consistent, at least one every day. It's nice because I don't. I used to work from home, um, which I never realized how distracted you can get working at home. So everybody always asked me, like, is it distracting having people come in because I'm painting or drawing the entire eight hours a day that I'm open, but people can come in. It's actually less distracting. People come in. Then it would be to just like work at home and you know, go do the laundry or take the dog
for a walk. It's it's go time when I'm there, regardless of whether people are in or not. Give people your Instagram handles and go look at it so they can see your art. It hard. Stuff is mind blowing. Everythank you. It's k Underscore Ray Artworks and Ray is r A. Why did you come up with something so hard to remember? I don't think it's hard to remember. I couldn't use my last name. I was anticipating getting married at some point when I started my business, so
raise my middle name. Made that happens. Said if he's like, if you didn't want to change your name, He's like, well, then let's just stay boyfriend girlfriend, all right. That was never said during the time that I was deciding whether to change my name or not. That was only brought up after where he's like, well, I tell you what I would have done. Yeah, if that he would have, he would have had it be Mrs Seth Morris's art gallup. So you're down there painting away, and people if they
come down there, you're in there painting away. Yeah, it's cool because you walk in. It's two rooms. The first room is my studio, so you walk in and the first thing you see is like me and whatever I'm working on, and usually I chat with everybody that comes in, and then they you kind of continue on to the second room, which is a gallery, and that's where all the artists hanging. I have originals, and then there's a whole wall of frame prints and just prints. So it's
a range of prices and stuff for sale. But you can kind of come in and chat with me, and then you can kind of have your own little time in the gallery where I'm not like, you know, they're looking over your shoulder. It's a nice flow, and you sell originals and prints. Yep. And I still do a lot of my sales online. I still have everything available there and I ship quite a bit across the country. But it's nice to have the space where people coming through Montana can come in and come see the work
and come see the work in progress. That's been a cool part of it. How many hours days someone you can let you down there, Um, it depends. It really depends. Like it's not even I thought it would be more on weekends, but it's just variable. I can't like say, on average, I have a few typically someone in there or typically not someone typically not. Yeah, it's it's a nice mix. It's enough for me. That kind of makes a day go faster for me. Did you keep regular hours? Yeah,
Tuesday to Saturday, tend to six like a banker. Yeah, it's like I have my morning routine and then I go in there and I'm open for an hour after people typically get off work, So that kind of allows. Do you have a gone fishing or gone hunting sign that you hang on. I just when we went to Alaska, I said gone fishing close to a second. Yeah, So, uh, tell people about the shack you guys bought se um so the A Frame Adventures LLC. So I'll go back
a little bit. When I first went up to your place, Um, that place was for sale, and I came home and was like, hey, Kelsey, there's this Like I told her about the whole trip, how awesome it was. I like instantly fell in love with that area, and I was like, there's this place for next to Steves. It's for sale. We should like check it out. And she was like yeah, whatever, Um, yeah, connection to the area, you know, and then I came up.
So and then last year she came up and got to actually experience that the area, and she too fell in love with the area. So we came home. Um, and it was actually her who was like, we should seriously start like looking into this um and you know, see if we can buy it. So we couldn't do it just ourselves. Um, we couldn't afford it just ourselves.
So we got a couple um buddies involved, one being her brother Bob and our our other buddy Ben Levy, and uh, they were like we we mentioned the the idea to them that you know, we're looking at this place in southeast Alaska and it's like not easy to get to and a lot of things about its pain in the ass, but um, once you're there, it's like
the best time you'll ever have. And uh, those guys has never been up there, um, but they've like watched the show and I've seen kind of like what goes on up there, and it like took no convincing at all ever in that's kind of people you need. Yeah, yeah, And that's why we thought of them. We had they
had been out to Montana for a turkey hunt. The year before, so we had experienced like a camp setting with them and a hunting experience with them, so we knew what we were getting into with that dynamic and it was great. They're like enthusiastic, willing to come up and do the work. Um, we work well together. So it was kind of a no brainer. And we had tried to pitch it to a few other friends, at least one or two to you know, spread out the cost, but it ended up being us four that we're really
in for it and it's a great dynamic. How do you deal with the fact that like everything's rotten and kind of ruined and you'll never get it right, you just have That's just there's a level of that I feel. I mean, let me know if this is right or wrong, that you're just never gonna conquer. Right. There's structural issues as far as like the rotting things go that we
are fixing right away. Um, but it's the fish check and a corrosive environment where you're not there all year two can most things that we bought in our life up to this point have been in some sort of way, So it's like it wasn't a big shocker. It's like, oh, yeah, just something else we gotta fix up. We approach it like like the goal for me, the goal would be that you had a place as tidy and durable and clean and knee as a coastguard station. But that's never
gonna happen. And like every year it would be like the thing is for me to to enjoy the rest of my year. Every year I have to know that our shock is a little better than it was last year. And I can, honestly the straight face says, as long as we've owned our place, every year we leave it in Always we leave it in better shape than it was the year before. Like we've built on a little bit. We overhauled engines, like work done this doc project, changed
the plumbing, Like it's always a little bit better. I think you'll never get it right, but it's always a little better. The system you guys have is super cool and it works well because if you go to that place over time, you're able to appreciate the ship that was done three years ago or five, you know what I mean. Like it's like it's always improving, like you say, and you know, even as a visitor you learn to appreciate those over time. It's super cool going into it.
For me, like, there's only so many pieces of property up there, right, So my mindset was, I don't care if this place falls down tomorrow. It kind of did fall down a little bit in a little way. I fell down, but I didn't care if it fell down tomorrow. I just wanted to be able to lock down that area to eventually, because I knew someday, like I said, fell down tomorrow, someday I'd be able to, like we'd be able to put a new cabin on that place. So and I like, I like that aspect of it,
that it's always something to be working on. Is it's it's kind of like a project, and I like projects. And we had have already done in the one time that we were there altogether so much work and such an improvement over when we first pulled up, So like it's exciting to think about um over the years, what
it's gonna accumulate to. It's interesting that you guys were up doing like the four owners, and we did four owners, And I think a lot of people look at that thing like, man, that's not a good idea for four people to pitch in and buy like a permanent thing.
Like property. Yeah, but we have we just like haven't run into a problem with it, and and and the thing is, we would never have done it if we couldn't have done it that way, because it's a difference between everybody coming up with twenty grand or like someone coming up with a d grant at that time, and no one's gonna come up with a grant. Yeah, I'm curious, how like if you have any thing that has been a management from a management standpoint, how you do that
like from a group? Nothing? Ever, So I was gonna say for us, like the four of us have very different strengths that we bring to the table that are all necessary for this purchase. So I think it's gonna, you know, be that moving forward, that dynamic between the four of us beneficial, Like there's really no overlap. We need each other to make this work. For sure. People get different areas. Uh. I think it's a great strategy
people buying like hunting properties, recreational properties, whatever. And we do it like someone's always working on a project, like someone's always spearheading a thing, and you generally do it where you get everyone's like, yeah, that sounds like a reasonable idea. Um, this year, we got like a whole new like stainless steel counter in our kitchen, right, which is sweet, by the way, And we had all bitched about apply the rotten plywood one. I was like, I'm
gonna find one. So I've found this dude who's welding and fabrication and catch can commissioned him to do it. No. I never shared the plans that anyone, Right, I arranged the habit delivered. No one would ever be like, that's not what I would have done. Like it was like great. And then we share the cost and we have a lot of visitors. But the way we run it is like visitors like gas, pay for gas, groceries, expendable stuff,
and we all share maintenance like like boat issues. Maintenance is use anything like semi permanent or permanent, like we just share the expense. That's how we did it come up. It just makes sense. That's a natural way of running that. Um. And what's nice about that is it's very obvious when you're up there what the weakest link in the property is,
so like that naturally becomes the next project. Um. You know, I don't foresee a scenario with our place in the next ten years where it'll be like him and Han on what needs to be done exactly. Yeah, that's one of the things I'm glad we've never run into the problem of is we've never had somehow magically or not. Maybe it's just the way it should go and does go, or maybe we've got lucky. We've never had a person not be supportive of what the other people were supportive of. Um,
everybody's always been like, yeah, it sounds good. Yeah, her problem right now a long time. Yeah, our problem right now is we want to do so much and we're just like so gung ho and enthusiastic about it that we have. Our list of things we want to do next year is like a million things long. So we need to prioritize brought up against the financial reality, yeah for sure, and the time limit. I mean, we're only able to be up there for a certain amount of time.
So so we did we did our whole shack this year, we did a new counter. Did everything impacts right next year? Like, the one thing I know is we're going to replace our on demand hot water heater, but we didn't want to do that and t it did everything impacts. So now the next step on the man hot water heater, and then you know, whatever else down the line. How do you here's a question, how do you um prioritize?
Like you're up there and you have all these things that you want to get done on the house work wise, but then you also want to enjoy being there and go fishing and exploring and time with your family. Like do you does that just kind of fall into place? Actually, it falls into place naturally. But we'll go into a summer. No, and like we need to dig a new privy hole, So dig a new privy hole. Moved our house, Like we definitely need to do this whatever, And every year
we get more done than we thought we wouldn't. Yeah, do you ever leave wishing you would have just relaxed and fish more, had more like less work, more fun. Yeah, No, we got the perfect balance. I would engage. I would jump into the exact same thing somewhere else, Like I want to do the same thing down and like Grand Aisle. Yeah, Usiana, which is like the Alaska of the South, Like I want to do the same thing down there. I would do the same thing anywhere, not anywhere, but I would
do the same thing in really rich fishing environments. I would buy another shack with a bunch of people and just use I should write a little pamphlet unlike how to do that or how we've done it with success. That pamphlet would be you better plan on doing a lot of work. Because you tell people you're going up up to your place for whatever a week, oh, going fishing to Alaska. They're like, oh, that must be so nice. You're like, well, you know it is, but like you're
working NonStop. It's like not a relaxing fishing. It's not for everyone. We went to the bookstore and catch a Can and we were asking about any literature that would be um tied to Prince of Wales, and she pointed out one author who wrote a book titled A Miserable Paradise. Was like, that's great, Yeah, yeah it was. It was
the first year up there was awesome. The so we've talked about in the past, but the porch fell off the place this winter, um and that was like that was like the first thing we did, like even before we even walked into place, like we had four people just like pulling those boards apart and stuff. Was that the bonfire, big bonfire you had that that was the
couch bins of multi clothes. Um. But yeah, my like my priority is like get the place so it's not gonna fall over and not just road away, and like get the boats running to a point where we can depend on them, you know, and like after that, it's just like kind of what you said, pick a project every year and get it done. But like, yeah, this and like this is remote and off the grid, so you can't go to the hardware store, which is very frustrating,
so frustrating when you need something. You're like, dude, I am one spark plug away from being set and I can't get the spark. And like I'll point out that if we didn't have you guys there, like we would have been screwed with a lot of ship just because like if I didn't have the right tool or whatever, I just walked over to your place and grabbed it and make sure I put it back in the right spot. But yeah, there's like so many things that we were working on that was like we just didn't have the
right stuff to get it done. And it's very helpful having you there. You know, you guys have been established there for what twenty some years almost, but Apparently you don't need the right stuff to catch hudder and pound hall a bit right. Yeah, we got lucky. My My one frustration, um is I don't the only thing in my life where the more I do it, the worse I get at it. It would be uh black cod fishing. Oh you think you're getting worse at it? Yeah? Didn't
you bring in a few one this year? You've gone all in on that too. I'm all in, and every year it gets worse and worse and worse. The first time I ever dropped down within like five minutes, I had a black cod, caught a few that day. Then when out that summer did real good. And it's just gotten worse and worse and worse and worse. What was going through your head when you pull that one black caught up and took a good look at it this year? This year, I was ecstatic, So I like how cold
they are when they're coming up out of water. Didn't you say something about maybe it could be like a migratory issue. No, I just gotten worse at it. Man, it's personal. I don't know though. I mean, the halibut fishing this year seem way slower of it was way off every year. There's things that are good and there's things that are bad. It's gonna ask you did it pick up when it got warm after we left, No, Sam and fish was lights out? Yeah, that was fun.
The help of fishing was dead. Scalop diving never been better. Yeah, I mean not that you know, they've always been there, but shrimp and seemed a little dead. Never been better on scallops. Crabbing was good, black cotton was miserable. Every year something's good, something sucks. Boy, it sucks letting those yellow eye go, man, I got a lot of those. Can we tell the story, the hilarious story about the two giant helibit from our camp. You can close it out,
but I'm afraid you'd be giving away your little spot. No, I'm I'm gonna talk more about the people in the dynamic and our little dinghy that we had ahead. We'll close out with that, Okay. So it easily could have been UM said you were there, so I'll let you. Yeah. So we we were having um when we bought this place. It came with came with three skiffs, um and three motors. One's a Honda thirty horse. One was a Mercury forty horse, and one was a Suzuki four horse. And that's the
thing about these types of deals. When you buy something and you're not there to inspect, there there's no like inspection. There's no formal process. So like you get the list of things that are on, they don't move out either, and you don't know whether it works or not. Yeah, so we went and I went into this being like if we can get at least one motor running and boat running to go fish, I'll be the static. So
we're going through the motors. We find out that um, the Mercury, it wasn't gonna I mean it's it was running, and then it wasn't running. We couldn't figure out what's going on. So we determined that that thing wasn't gonna work for the summer. And then we had uh Honda thirty which fired right up and was running like a champ. But the UM there was a seal on the hydraulic cylinder that was leaking and we leaked all of our
hydraulic fluid out of the electronic tilt. So um, we couldn't tilt our motor up, which you need to be able to do that. So that one was out and all we had left was our little Suzuki Kicker four horse and we put that on a It was a Sears boat. I have no clue what time. It looks like it's been through the ringer, No clue what year it was built. Oh that is an old yeah, moss hanging off. So we couldn't go too far in it.
So we would pack four people in the evenings and go out to this one hole um and fish halibut. And I think it was the first night we were out. It was, yeah, the first night we were out there halbut fishing. Um all right. We had our one buddy, Sam and his back or his girlfriend Becca were up there with us, and we're catching like quillbacks and stuff.
And I was teaching them how to use like the deep release and whatnot, and um, she like, and I was very adamant, like you are, like when you're running these circle hooks, because we were we were just running um some circle hooks and and cut bait. And I was like, when you get a fish, it's not like normal fishing where you set the hook. You just gotta like reel into them. So um she at one point in time starts getting this hit and I'm sitting there watching a rod and she's like, what do I do?
And I just it got to the point where I was like, real, she she starts reel and and you never think it's gonna be so big gas fish, you know, there's always the opportunity for that to happen. But she starts reeling and you can tell very quickly that it's not just your average little halibit or rock fish or yellow you know whatever. Um. And yeah, she fought it for a while and it got to the point where
she was like, couldn't fight it anymore. So she handled the over, pulling the boat all four people in this little serious but we didn't have an anchor, so it was pulling the boat all over the place and uh, finally get it up and get it up to the surface. And we didn't have a harpoon or anything. We had a gaff in a rope and my buddy Casey gaffed it. And as it was coming up, I was like telling Casey, I'm like, when that thing gets to the surface, you're
gonna have to gaff it. And I said, when you gaff it, just freaking hold on because it's gonna go nuts, and I had this video him doing it. The thing comes to the surface, We're all like, holy shit, we were not expecting this huge halibit. He gased, thing goes nuts. Um, he ends up, it ends up coming on gaffed several times. Uh, luckily kept it on the hook. Um, we're able to
get a rope around its tail and we um. You know, when it finally settled down, I bled it out, so it died before we brought it in the boat because I was telling him like, do not bring that big of a fish in the boat still alive, because everything in the boat is going to be out of the boat, you know, if that's things in here flopping around and you're gonna break an arm or whatever. This sounds very calm. There's a video. It is complete and total payoff. U.
So yeah, finally got it. Uh. You know, we killed it in the water and brought it in the boat and putted our way back to the cabin and we're we're like so excited to get back and show you guys at night because no one was expecting that UM was one seventeen, That one was one, and then the next night it was the next night I think, Uh, those guys. I wasn't there for the next night, but those guys went back out and caught a one thirty three in the same spot, so amazing, two biggest fish
of the whole trip. A lot of people pounded a lot of water. They they were just beyond ecstatic. They left and she was like Becca, She was like, I need to do this every year. You need to invite me every year. Do you guys remember the first night when you brought that big one back? What Steve said coming, It'll never happen again. Yeah, But also a lot of people were saying that the big ones coming two. Yeah, I said, I sighted five times when we caught two
giants in the same spot. You're right on that, Well you're right in wrong then all right, guys, go, uh, what's your what's the name of your gallery? I call it the studio Gallery, but you can find it on my Instagram which is k Ray Artworks and my website is k Ray artworks dot com. K Ray It's okay r artworks. Go check out the work, get your turkey T shirt mhm, then listen to claus calls and then don't ate some money to the Wyoming corner Cross just
getting expensive around here. Yeah, don't to the Wyoming corner Cross shack in Alaska. Find up some people and buy a rotten shack in Alaska. I don't know all right, but thanks for joining me.