Ep. 362: First Lite and the Cosmos

ever in the new First Light store. We're not we if you haven't picked up on this in the past, we will record and then and then we usually recording and Lee released the episode like some time later that at Krin's whim. So we find ourselves in one of these issues where there's like, um, there's our reality and your reality, and our reality is not open yet, but their reality, everybody who thought the show was live, your dreams have just been crushed, and their reality it's open.

My wife's been trying to explain it, to make my wife's hip on this new idea about how no one's actually right or wrong, um, because explain it. She's trying to explain it. Something he has something to do with how big the cosmos is. And there's a lot of ways of looking at stuff around the cosmos, you know.

So she's telling me that all the things that we're adamant about are just like um, like we're adamant about stuff, but it's just like this little teeny like imagine you have like dust in the air, right and the sun shining on it. Your ideas are just one of the many little places where light hits the dust. Like yeah, because it doesn't work. Yeah, if you weren't gonna say stupid,

I was, because it doesn't work for real life. It's like, yeah, well maybe noon isn't noon somewhere else, but for here, it's like you just got to accept that it's noon or one thirty. That's a terrible example for today's sean because it's actually tomorrow. We were at What's funny is we were She's she's laying us all out on me. We were up at this little this little in holding

we have. It's like this little five acre in holding, and my body has the one next to mine, and on his place is this old probably like I don't know, man, like a giant water tank. In the past, some was gonna bottle some spring water up there. So there's like this giant water tank and we'll climb up on the water tank and you can watch for trout down in

this beaver pond, but the water tanks yellow. And I'm standing on the water tank with my boy, debating with my boy whether or not like I'm gonna haul the water to anc out of there and make a hog roster out of it, to which he thinks, Um, it's a good place to stand and look off of. And meanwhile, not even we're like having an argument about the water tank, and she's not even paying enough attention to us, and she's laying this thing, I mean about our our things

are nothing. Wow, that's all. Yeah, And so I told her, But where does that leave you. I'm not gonna run around acting like I don't think what I think because it's like a little dust particle. Yeah, No, you gotta go through it like it's all logical and rational. Yeah, it's just one of those ideas. It doesn't have any I like it, but it doesn't. It just doesn't change anything for me. Yeah, if you're reduce your octane, I think it is a touch. She might be man, take

the edge off. She could use a little reduction. If your idea was a flash of light, you could in theory, look at that flash of light through the James Webb telescope like thirty years later and identify that thought out in the cosmos. Yeah, I'll be like, I'm still right. It was still right. Uh. What's going on right now? But not for you, for us and our reality and our on our dust particle is the first Light hoot Nanny has taken place right now? Who wants to explain that?

Which you guys feels best equipped? Three? We have three first Light representatives. Yeah, I could take that one, bridget. This is Kevin Harland Kevin Harley. Um. Yeah, So we run on the show like twice, three times, four times, I think, just a couple, I think, yeah, Um yeah. We run this thing called the Hooting Nanny every year.

It's it's simply like an ambassador summit right where we get everybody together preseason, go through a bunch of gear, um, talk about the future, and and just really kind of celebrate what I think is a pretty remarkable thing. We've got a great group of people, um from all of our companies and outside our companies, uh, talking about gear and kind of getting set for the year head and

you know we're right in it right now. I mean Antelopes season open yesterday here right for um, so we're in it and uh, we got everybody up from all over the country and um sharing some be heres and some good food and some good conversation and kind of leading into the season here. Okay, who wants to explain what direct consumer means? Ford? Why did you? Why did you put that on me? How you've been here the longest? That's true. Direct consumer means we sell clothing directly to consumers.

To elaborate, I'm totally different than that. That's like a big guest particle that's hard to deny its existence. No, practically, it means we don't have retailers. You can't go to our tree shopping buy First Light apparel. You gotta go to our website wwww at first slight dot com is the only place to get it. Cutting out the middleman exactly except now, except now there's a wrinkle in your

dust particle. Except we've introduced the middleman because now there's a wrinkle in the dust particle because now First Light has its own store. Indeed, we're it and right here, and it is. It's beautiful, owned and operated by First Light. But that's why we're in downtown Haley. You can come to the First Light. The first thing I thought coming in here, it's like, you know, I know about everything, but like to see it all. I'm like, holy col

there's a lot of stuff. Yeah, Karin was just saying, you know, when you look at a digital catalog on the website, you know there's a lot of stuff there. But yeah, spreading it out on hangers and end caps and on tables, it's it's impressive to see it kind of fully merchandized. Me and o'cal we're reminiscent about um. Kel was the first besides the two founders. Kel, we'll speak to it. Kel. Oh yeah, boy, but jillion years ago, Um, when when the Cosmos was still forming. That's your opinion.

It's just like your opinion, man. Uh yeah, as the first uh employees. So they're the two founder Scott Robinson, Kenton Caruth and uh and myself and oh yeah, tow Terry Camper trailer down here to catch him that I was using to work and guide and kind of live out of at the time and put it in the garage at the third office space that First Light had and we all worked right above it and then at the end of the day, I'd go for like a light jog and then wind up back at my terry

camper trailer and go to bed. Yeah. I just I want to restate that Cal lived in a camper in our office for six months. Six months. Yeah, and then Scott got real He was very annoyed with the presence of the camper because it wasn't like hip and cool. Uh. And then he would get even more annoyed whenever anybody would come in the office because to a person, everybody would be like, holy cow, sweet Camper'd be like, oh my god, you gotta get that thing out of here. Um,

you know I had to. I had to uh yeah, go through this gap in the fence that's not there anymore, and and shower at the Y m c A or over at h our buddy bricks off Icue. And other than that, things were pretty easy peasy. But you know, things grew and Casey Hawks was was actually it was Ross Copperman and then Casey Hawks um and yeah. So you know it was just like this slow incremental growth of kind of getting over these humps and um, very experimental, right.

It was like, okay, if this word year works out, then like if we do another year exactly, yeah. Yeah, And it was like that like that for a long time. So yeah, I would start out with just marino wool base layers and the like I kind of joke, it was like the forward model of like anything you want, as long as you want it in black, and it

was just black Marino wool. And then but like the secret sauce was the fact that that really Kenton, through a bunch of research and tying people together, um, through the power of the Internet, figured out how to print on marino intricate patterns. Like there were people out there who are putting like very basic logos on marino wool, but nobody could figure out how to make something like intricate that wouldn't like bleed or eventually wash out or

feel like real crap on your skin. So like keep that nice soft marino woolf feel still breathe, but have for instance, a camouflage pattern on on there. So um, that was a huge thing. And and the sales pitch at the time was like, well you've heard a smart wool. We're like the smart wool the hunting world. And it was hilarious because I would literally once a year get a phone call from Smart Wool Boulder, Colorado saying like, hey, you guys make all sorts of stuff and camouflage. How

do you guys do that? Oh? And I'd be like what now. They'd be like, yeah, can you tell us how you And I'm like, well, you know, we kind of compete against each other, so I you know, I don't think I'm gonna do that, and they're like no, no, no, no no, no, you guys are hunters, Like, yeah, you guys aren't in the in the in the outdoor space. And it was just a like a weird thing. So you could have asked them, what are you trying to hide from? We? Uh, we were punching out of our

weight class, is the thing. So like we were getting a lot of attention, real small company and then um yeah, just that slow incremental growth and then eventually, um you know right, I mean right when you came along. Stephen Ronnella came along through a couple of different channels, which was really funny. Um is when we were actively working on outerwear, and outerwear was like totally against the business model.

It was supposed to be this nice, tidy business of Marino wool base layers and that's it follow like the smart wool or ice breaker model, but strictly in the hunting space. And we learned that we were so limited in regards to our marketing, budget wise and otherwise because people couldn't always see your basse layer and so all sorts of people were the stuff, but nobody could see it. And if you can't see somebody wearing it, it's like a tree falls in the woods type of thing or

is anybody right type of thing. Reality. Yeah, And so that was a huge part of the push, like breaking that business model, um, you know for the first time, then uh to get in into outerwear because it allowed us to say, like, see, you can see it, like people are wearing this stuff and and it's really good and um yeah, just kind of snowballed from there. And then obviously Steve you uh got headn't started wearing the stuff and and we gotta start making more and addressing

more needs, you know. And I feel like that's always been the backbone of the brand, is versatility for sure, like tackling a giant temperature range with you know, relatively simple garments, um, and then trying to address the issue first, right, not address the marketplace, but address the issue that occurs on the mountain, right. So it's like, well, I stink, well, Marina wills not stinky. What else can we do on the in the outerwear world that would mitigate smell as well?

Or um, boy, I sweat like crazy? What can we do to mitigate um, you know, uh, enhanced breathability, mitigate all that moisture loss in your garments, keep you dry when the tamps drop. Stuff like that, address address the issues staying warm if you do get wet, climbing into your sleeping bag at night and being like, oh that feels good, I feel like a clammy ass mess yeah,

or you know, spending a ton of energy. And that's something that we learned, certainly, like working with a lot of folks in the military space is just how important it is to actually be comfortable. And it was a really interesting like dual conversation that was going on at the time because we're like talking to lots of lots of folks in the military world that we're talking about comfort and at the same time the hunting world was

like talking about being tough. But on military side, they were like, boy, you can get a lot more done if you know you're taken care of, like you're not wasting a bunch of energy combating all these feelings of boy, am I actually gonna make it through tonight? Like boy, it's sure, Cole boy, I'm sure, wet boy. All this

stuff chaffing me. You know. So once you address that that comfort and find like those those prime ranges for UM, breatheability, moisture wicking um, insulation weight weight to insulation ratio, so you're not carrying around a bunch of superfluous layers UM, then you can really start performing beyond what you thought you were capable of, because now your brain is like free and easy to just concentrate on the task at hand. And it grew on a sheep. And it grew on

a sheep. Yep, yep. The last the extremes right, so like very cold nighttime temps, very hot daytime temps. And uh, an animal that isn't capable of changing its clothes. Oh, I love that sales pitch. It's so good on the tridge, you know, on the consumer show floor, you're like, well, just think about a sheep. Can it take its jacket off? Showed me the sheep that takes its own jacket off. They start pulling out their credit cards. Cal what I'm hearing? What what I'm hearing is that there should be a

bronze statue of you in this store. I mean like they could use it like a mannequin. Oh oh boy, we still need to sell thanks. You know, they got to keep the lights on clay Um. But yeah, you know it. It was really wild and it was cool too. It was really like a work environment that was so kind of hectic and busy that there wasn't time to kind of like look outside of our our own little world for a long time. So there wasn't a whole

lot of like, what's what are other companies doing? It was going off of really like personal experience and the knowledge that we could only build in very small increments, And it was like the whole we need here's our need list that far exceeds what we can build year to year. So what we build has got to be really good and it's got to address the most needs out of the gate. Uh. And I think that was a super super healthy foundation to have, like very scrappy

um and Uh. We spent a lot of time like toiling and testing over you know what that next garment is going to be because this could be our last year, right, So M clear what all you've been up to? Well? Been been traveling a lot for Burgarase. It really excited about some of the series and different stuff that we're gonna be doing. Been That's mainly what I've done this summer.

Travel one for Burgrease. We try to do in person interviews with every every podcast we do, So I'll travel and go meet somebody, talked to him for a couple of hours. Man, if the sixty something episodes we've made, I've done like three zoom interviews. Oh you'll lose something, man, It's it's I feel like it's really important. Yeah, we got uh someone who's Texas is to me today. But but but Karan has been reading up on it too. You're about this dude that those Broilty sent it to us.

You know when you go to a phishing access site and they got the like what they call a vault toilet, right, so a picture like a like a phishing access john. So there's a there's a thing called the vault toilet, right. It just looks like an outhouse. But you're going and it's got a tank underneath it, and they'll have all the signs being like, hey, man, don't throw weird stuff down here, because we can't it's hard to pump. And and Montana fish Way Parks they have a very like

their vault toilets are are sort of branded. You just no one when you see. One story came out about a guy they tracked him down. A guy in southwest Montana who dropped his phone down in the vault toilet. So he strips down, Oh my gosh, gets the toilet seat off there, and gets down in there. Everybody can't get back out, you know. It's and he's got the door locked, the handle off, you know, one of the crew. He couldn't get out of the whole. He's stuck in

the vault. You know. One of the craziest parts of that story, though, is that he can't get out, but somehow they managed to get a camp chair down in which makes me think the reason he couldn't get out because he couldn't lift himself out, not because he was wedged otherwise. How else did they get the camp chair down there? He was down too far to get a grip, so they had the damn it. They had to break into the toilet passers by. He spent three hours in there. First,

it was like that it was an overnight adventure. He spent three hours in there. It must have hailed a passer by. That's a surprise. If the passer by, uh, he's still. The weirdest thing is he didn't get his phone back. Well that once you finally get down there, I mean, how much digging are you really gonna do? My daddy's telling me a story. Well, let me return, Like, where do you hold if he ditched all of his clothes, where does he hold onto the phone in order to

climb out? Right? You can't put it in your mouth at that point. I don't think this guy thought that through that much. But if he finds the phone, he can call somebody or well, he's probably I don't, I don't know. I'd I'd like if Crint had not mirophone job, he printed her job, he'd be sitting here right now as he climbs down into the vault toilet, spends three hours down in there with his clothes off, apparently hails

the passer by. The passer by damages something to get get into Wait, wait, wait, can I stop you Steve the passer by? Was he going knocked on the door. It'll try to investigate if I'll find him. Please don't, please don't use this right now. Um. So the pictures came out and like the Montana fishing game, like they recognized their own pit toilet. Not only that, they recognize what access point it was at. So someone was able to track the fellow down, um to rescue him. It

was on the Big Hole River. To rescue him, they passed the lawn chair down to him. He was able to stand on the lawn chair and then get a grip on the lip and pull himself out. So you're somebody came out of there without the phone. I hate to see this to say this because I love Montana and Butte Montana a lot. But I'm assuming the dudes from Beaute Big Hole River. That's yeah, that's beauty, beaut

America's fishing river. I gotta ask, what, like, what shots you gotta go get after that kind of probably appetitus, all kinds of stuff you probably want to you'd probably wanna what is it happy? And that's kind of they don't vaccinate you for happy. I can't remember I don't know, but Samonilla E Cole Eyes all in there, brothers down there eating and stuff. Man, I mean, but uh, we'd like to find him. I mean he likes to fish apparently.

I'd love to have him on the show and not to goof on him, not to go I mean, what do you want to know from this guy? Well? Why he why he didn't find the phone? So you know, like what was going through his mind? You're not as worried about when he was out of the toilet and the thought process that got him down There would be three areas I'd explore. I'd explore, Uh, four areas I'd explore, Um, how did I'm guessing it's obvious how it got down there?

Is there anything unexpected about how the phone got down there? Yeah, that'd be interesting to Um you're making a call right like, you're like you're gonna do this or not do this? So what's at stake? Why the sense of urgency? Um? And certain decisions around that? What was the cleanup plan? Right like that? What were those three hours? Like what kind of thoughts went through your head? And then the fourth area I'd exploring in the interview would be, um,

where's the phone. Know why it's pertinent is every time you use one of these government buildings as we call them, there's that sign that says, don't throw X, Y and Z down the toilet. It's extremely hard to get out. And every time you read that you have to take that mental journey of boy would be gross to be

down there? Like what would it take? Um, But there's a possibility like what if this dude from Beaute is in like waste management, right and he's just like not, He's like, I've done a lot worse for a couple of hundred bucks type of thing. If we put this episode together, you would be a good guest to have on as well, be Kevin Murphy who worked in waste management.

So like we got the guy, got the guy, we get someone from the phone company, We get Kevin Murphy about like what you know, like what could be down in there? Um, I have a vindication and in a major craction, me and Cal have a major correction to make um the vindication. Remember we covered we we talked

extensively in Callahan. You were there, were talking extensively about the actor Nick Offerman's writing an article about UH bullying an aggression on this podcast, his perceived him thinking that that like that like coming from the host of the podcast, came from a um like a background of bullying and aggression, for having for having pointed out my feeling that Henry,

the late Henry David Throw was a candy ass. Uh. And then we were trying to think of who was it, who was the gut because he says I jumped down a guest throat, and you said, I think the guest was Brent West from High Peaks Alliance from me. So Brent West wrote in so here, So now we've heard from the person that I was aggressively bullying Brent West.

Brent what says what I don't think of froman understands what I think he's mistaken for bullying and aggression is a thing called ritual opposition, and he sent me an article about ritual opposition. Ritual opposition is basically what you're doing when you dig with your friends all the time. M then if you're like dog on your friends or give your friends a hard time, you're engaging in ritual opposition. And it's argued that ritual opposition is the same as

hugging somebody, that it's like a necessary. It's a necessary component of how people embrace those that they that they're fond of, dog on them, like dogging on each other. It's the sanguage version of your Michigan hello, he sent me? Oh yeah, yeah, that's why I like I greet people by giving him the finger. Ye, what's up? It's it could. It's also potentially cultural steve, the way that you manage people like inside of like a podcast or relationships. I

really think it is. I gotta tell a story Bear Hunting Magazine. I owned Bear Hunting Magazine for years and one time I had a guy called me from the Northeast and he was upset about something and he was just like pretty much yelling at me, and I pulled the classic Southern just like I'm so sorry, blah blah blah, really soft with him, and that even made him more mad.

And what I learned was when the guys from the Northeast called, we're upset about something, you came back at him hot and they you got the problem solved real quick. See what I'm saying, Fighting fire with fire? Yeah, well,

I mean it was it was. I feel like it was a cultural It's a cultural misunderstanding how to get a problem solved, and I think Steve, I think our friend Steve runs into that and you can get offer Himan a little break here if if you'd like and say that, like maybe you know, uh, it's a secondary type of appreciation people have for you when they learn

your opposition tactics. Well, it even goes on in this article that that the guests sent me is um the it says, uh, it's common for men to use fighting as a way to explore ideas. I write the article, I uh, we should say High Peaks Alliance, Brent. They're just completed a big bridge project on a very popular hiking trail up there. Um, so if you're traveling the main big Main Woods, you should check out High Peaks Alliance. They do a bunch of great work. And um, I

kind of personally want to thank Offerman. Nick Offerman for introducing a real soft spot for him. Well, what I have a soft pot for is that line of um where the throw appreciators point out that he often hiked in wet shoes. No, he he likes. So he was pointing out like just how tough Throw was and he would hike long ways sometimes with wet feet, And I get I've gotten a lot had little use for people that couldn't keep up, which I think is mean and ship as I pointed out on a previous episode, but

think he's a bully. I've gotten a lot of appreciation just thinking about that line. When somebody's kind of posturing up, you know, I think to myself, I bet that guy even hikes and with wet feet. That's how tough they I bet he has little use for those who can't keep up. Um, here's a letter you don't want to get calls speaking to you now too. This is you and me. I would like to advise you that your recent podcast episode was full of wrong and for nation.

And he goes on to lay it out, and it's this is like a bad This is one of the worst corrections we've ever had to do. So I'll skip ahead. You say you are from Michigan and an outdoorsman, but I am disappointed in your lack of knowledge, he points out. So we're talking about the Camp Grailing expansion. It's not in the up. We kept saying the up. It's in the northern Lower Peninsula. H So that was air, right,

that was the air. But the other error is he He goes on to talk about a lot of ways in which he and and other outdoorsmen have through the years really had a hard time with the presence of

the guard camp there. In cites these examples of people doing exercises and being soldiers doing exercises and not being where they're supposed to be, conflicts on rivers, on and on, and he says, they say they're not going to to do this and that, but they're already fixing to do these activities that they say aren't going to happen on this expanded land. But we're referring to is camp Camp

Grailing is looking to double its size. So I think it sits at around a hundred fifty thousand acres and they're wanting to add a hundreds of thousand acres of surrounding state land. What they're trying to do is there trying to gain access to surrounding state land. I will uh this is the best part of doing corrections though, as everybody gets to learn about the issue twice, which makes it doubly valuable. But but he uh is very incredulous of what is they're saying is going to happen.

And and part here's what part of what is feeding this issue. So the camp is looking to double the size of the area they can use for training exercises. So they're gonna they're gonna expand their ability to train out onto like some hundred fifty thousand acres of state land, and it would result in no one's arguing this point.

It results and temporary closures when they're doing exercises. Yeah, and they think, you know, like cause for great concern, right if their track record up to date isn't stellar, that an expansion would be caused for concern for sure. Uh, here's where some of the confusions coming from with people trying to suss out what's going to go on if

this expansion takes place. So the military spokesman said, National Guard spokesman comes in and says there would be no new trails built for tanks, no bombing or shooting, no new buildings or fences. But then they go on to point out that they're setting up firing points, which they're setting up artillery areas on the new land that will

be used to fire into existing areas. So you're sort of like, oh, there's no new infrastructure, but there's new in structure and it's creating a fair bit of anxiety among people about this expansion. Yeah, part of the thing people don't like about bombings is the big banging noise there happens to be one on both fans, right, So so he's mad. The guy that wrote in is mad at me. He says, like a lot of people around here have lost respect for you now, which is that

that's a bummer. Uh, he says. What he's mad about me is not that I'm fenced sitting on the issue. Remember, I was like the whole point is I was saying, like, here's one of those areas where I have a hard time making in my mind. So I'm sort of like, you know, I'm weighing this idea between um that it is not a habitat loss because it's not a subdivision

or right. It's giving soldiers access to forest to train on forest land, and you appreciate a strong military, and so I weigh that, and I way that it's not leading to a net loss and wildlife habitat. It just winds up being an access issue at the expense of hunters and anglers in support of military training. So I'm sitting where, you know, I'm a little torn, But he's like, I'm not mad at if you're being torn about. I'm just mad at if for having your facts all wrong. Sure, sure,

he said, it's a hundred fifty anchor expansion. Yeah, and the camp has been the camp had the camp originally had a land grant. Then they've done these series of state leases, and this individual, I don't want to I don't want to go through them all because I might make the same mistake again and not fact check out everything. But this individual goals to like a whole litany of issues, even things that have made the local T news TV news.

We're saying, just recently, there's a group of soldiers who went down the Mannistee River on a raft with a machine gun at the front on the area they weren't supposed to be. It even made the local TV news. UM many many incidents over the years. So thanks for writing, and it's good stuff. And and for clarification, it's not it's on the upper Lower Peninsula, the northern Lower peninsul he points out, it's the you know, like tip of the mitten fread Bear country. Oh yeah, uh, here's not

everything that comes up. We're we're recently discussing what it's like to to spearfish in fifteen thousand feet of water where you're just occupying the surface lens and we're amusing about, um, there's stuff at the bottom, there's stuff at the top. But how boring would it be if you were in fifteen thousand feet of water and went and hung out nine thousand feet down? Who's home? And the answer is nobody for for the for the most part, like there's

not something that specifically lives at that. There's stuff that will touch it a sperm way, ill you can get down to eight or nine. But yeah, you're in a you're you're in the area. But it but it brings up that we're talking about there's still you know, the deep deep's gonna top with this new thing they found. Yeah, so in the deep, deep, deep deep, in the deep

deep deep, deep, deep and forward. What what we're talking about is that layer at which sunlight ceases to penetrate and in that zone there is essentially no life that that hangs out there that we're aware of yet, which is like bases its operation there. Right, Well, what are life wise? What size life are we talking? There's gonna

be something like big stuff you might catch. There's something but life transitions something they'll chase some maps to uh like it's stuff that is waiting for things to fall

to the to the to the very very bottom. Um. And there is a type of snail that was discovered and the fun name is a pegul in snail because it's got these it looks like a pangulans like you know, scaled armor on its foot, but it's it's part of this family of armor footed snails and it's a great example of it would be called like an extreme o file. So it hangs out in an area that is what

every other form of life would consider not hospitable. You can't can't live there because the temps exceed like five degrees. There's sulfuric acid, there's all these gases um. It is

an extreme place. Hence extremo file and h This little snail with the iron the iron foot is really really bizarre because how it eats is it holds a chemical compound in its throat and by basically breathing in the toxic water around it, that chemical compound reacts with it and it's able to extract it's nutrients from you know whatever spits out of that compound and then slide your tongued on that snails throat. But it's just like life.

I've never heard of anything that. That's how it exists. Right, it's amazing and five degrees fahrenheit. Wait, why is it so hot? Yeah? What temp down there? Does? Do you start getting close enough? Right like that you're in thin parts of the crust where water starts getting warmer again? Well that's like beyond warm. Yeah, right, but at what point is it like waters? Not thirty four degrees? Now it's sixty again, seventy again, you know, like getting warmer?

Are you looking for a banana belt down there? But that's where you got a deep drop. What's crazy about the snail too, is so it's got this like scaled armored foot and they thought it was protective. Did you get into this? Yeah, they thought it was protective because of course it looks like armor, right, um, And I guess in a sense it is protective, but it's like

a reactionary. It protects against itself. It basically like you could call it the druel that is the byproduct of its feeding comes out, and it would and it contains sulfur which is um, a very common compound in how you kill snails in the garden. Um. And in order to protect itself against this sulfur that comes out to protect it from its own breath, from its own breath, it's grown these uh kind of iron plates on its foot. How are we talking here? God, it looked fairly big.

That's a great, great question about fifty cent piece. Yeah. Um, But it's like we know so much about the world and we know nothing about it. Like there's these whole host communities that are based in these super specific um little climates at the very very bottom and crushing depths that we're just discovering right now, and and uh yeah, I just think, like what what what could we harness that for in a good way? My kid recently asked me how many animals that there are we don't know about?

And that's account had accounts, you don't know about them? Right. You gotta wonder what if Spencer starts running out of pardon my plate things, if he could go on a little season season five, we asked deep, Yeah, we've tried the nasty sea ducks, so let's start trying sulfur filled snails. Giant clamps, there's all sorts of stuff down there the vent. Here's no one for you callahan uh anti venom. A person wants to revisit your experience when your dog got

zapped by a rattlesnake. Yep. So the question is he's gonna be hunting Sharpie's in Montana this fall. He's nervous about snakes. Hasn't encountered him, he says, he hears the anti venom is a waste of time and money. Yeah, yeah, it's you know, unfortunately, like this is a part of veterinary medicine, where yet you're gonna have a bunch of folks that agree with you and a bunch of folks that go like, yeah, but it's your dog. Um, So there's no anti venom? Is this cocktail of venoms from

common snakes? For instance, the one that we used on Snorret doesn't even contain the venom from the Great Bay Sin rattlesnake which she was bit by. Um. But she had an incredibly positive reaction to the anti venom, And I'm very glad that we used it, and we used it at a time at which most people, even like the pro anti venom people would be like yeah, it's not gonna help, so it's late basically in the process

earlier the better is the golden rule. Uh, and we used it at the twenty three hour mark, I think mark almost instantaneous positive results. So UM. I had been on the phone with several vet friends of mine, UM when I did get cell service, and they all said, you know, like they weren't there witnessing the situation. They weren't.

They were definitely like listening to me, but also going off of their past experience of you know, in j role, labradors do not die from rattle snake bites in general, right, Um, don't you know the dog is gonna be very uncomfortable, don't worry about anti venim Um, she'll make it. You know, it's not gonna be pleasant, but she'll make it. And they're saying that body mass wise because I always heard the smaller dogs more likely to die from rattle snakes

or poisonous snakes in general, larger dogs better off. I think that that's definitely a rule. But it's just like dogs are face level with snakes, you know, from the beginning of time, and they're just built to handle that stuff way better than we are. And I brought up this case from a human that had been bitten in the same region and he ended up spending like three months in the hospital and I think lost at least

a portion of his leg. And I was like, well, what about this guy, big, big football player type guy. And the straight up was like people are sissies compared to dogs, Like he's not a fair comparison. Do you know that hunting guy in Arizona Lee Hop You ever met him? I have not? No, no, Well yeah, but I mean, first of all, that guy knows his biz.

If you ever in the hunting guide business in Arizona need a hunting guide, that guy knows his situation real well, yeah, he got zapped by one spent time in the hospital. He's like, it's like you say, most dogs don't of the people that get bit by rattlesnake don't die. I would have thought it'd be so much higher than that. Not say that again, of people that get bit by

a rattlestone do not die. But have y'all have y'all heard me talk about my friend Fred Lally that's been bit like twenty He can't he doesn't even know how many times he's been bit by venomous snakes. He was on that he was a snake handler. He's been bit by king cobra's, uh, multiple type rattles all the rattlesnakes in North America. Yeah, and uh a couple of venomous snakes from Asia, and uh he likes it all he does. He take anti ven him resistance. Fred Lally. He's eighty

one years old. He's missing a big section of his hand, and uh he he would not go to the hospital for a for a common snake bite, for a king cobra or something. He probably would, but wild, I mean, I don't even want to. I appreciate you sharing that, but what but but tell me more like, well, I just we're just talking about annam him and he he doesn't he most of his snake bites. He never went to the hospital. Yeah, it was just cool. I just

have a friend a bit twenty times, that's all. I had a friend by a rattlesnake and he went to the hospital, but they didn't have the anti venom so they put him on a helicopter and flew him to another town. And he went up with a nine thousand dollar bill for the helicopter flight. Uninsured. Did they give him the anti venom or did they billings and hit him with the anti venom? And he said the real

stinger was a nine thousand dollar helicopter ride. I haven't talked about it with him in a long time, but he was pointing out way back then that he was still trying to like sort that whole thing out all the money he owed for that. I uh, yeah, But to stick with the anti venom um, I you know, I mean, it's your dog. You gotta make make the decision. And you can see how they are reacting to the bite um. I think snort either is has a strong reaction to rattlesnake venom or she got a lot of venom.

And the thing that you will always come to no matter how many vets you talk too is they do not know how much venom is administered. Like it could be a dry bite quote unquote dry bite where there is very very little to zero venom injected by the snake, or it could be a crazy huge amount and it's just like an unknown Well always heard along those lines. With snakes, the babies are more dangerous because they can't

moderate the amount of venom they deliver. I have no idea if that's real, but I've heard that pretty consistently through the years. Yeah, I've heard that too, and I know I think there is a study that's kind of gone through that, and I think I probably I shouldn't even comment. I think there is something to that, but it's like not as as black and White would wish

it would be. Yeah, Kel, I want to get into one. UM. I don't know if you've been following it, it's it's tough one to get into the the hunting closures in Alaska. It's like it's like you have to do like an eight hour special on the same but we're gonna do

We're gonna it's not gonna We're not gonna do that. No, we we need need to find some experts though, because I think you do you want to summarize this, summarize, but I'm just trying to think of where to begin with the with with one of the Russians were came to Alaska. So oh my god, enough people that like I I like, we we covered another version of this before, but I want I want to get into this. This news item from Alaska UM a kind of troubling news thing,

A troubling thing that keeps happening in Alaska. So I have often um, I have often explained how I am very supportive of federal land management agencies. Like there's the thing the Feds do well. I think the FEDS do land management well. Um uh, they with with you know, all the land management agencies. We have the National Park Service. I don't hang out them that stuff much, but it's there. Bureau Land Management hang out a lout their USDA National

forest Lands hang out a lot there. National Wildlife refuge National wildlife refugees kind of Bureau of Reclamation. Yeah, um yeah, they have some of the most. The Bureau Reclamation, as we now know, has the most some of the most know not some has the most visited public lands in the country. Is that because of like reservoirs, Yeah, they have that. They have the most visited piece of public federal public land in the country to administered by the Bureau of They are no, I think they have the

most visitors. It makes total Lake of the Ozarks Missouri like places like that, amazing pit toilets. What makes what makes federal land like ladder to get out the one we're talking about, we carved early Yeah, we covered a state pit toilet earlier, and happens in there. There's no ladder, don't even put a line free to grab. So what was one might be like, well, why would the Feds

be good at land management? The Feds are good at land management because they're um, they're more immune to the to they're immune to some of the whims that take over at the state level, and they have a different financial structure. So we have well funded federal land management agencies and they can manage lands. They can manage public

lands and perpetuity. What happens at the state level, Oftentimes the states have a lot of pressure to monetize land, right, So many times states will have state land and it's in the constitution that the state land be be monetized,

not long term, but short term monetized for short term game. Right. Um, you might have states that have state land and then it's such that you can't spend the night on the state land or you need a special permit utiliz as the state land or the state land gets leased out for livestock grazing, which means then that the public has no access to it. Conversely, the Bureau Land Management land leases livestock grazing on a chunk of land that doesn't affect the public's ability to hunt on camp on use

the land. UM. The multi use doctrine that the you know, the multi use doctrine with um Our National Forest is like it's like a beautiful doctrine where they're saying, we have this land, we're managing it for many uses, some of its wildlife habitats, some of its timber extraction. Uh. We have pieces of land that they've managed for well in excessive a hundred years. Uh. A lot of wonderful land management comes out of there. But I don't think that the Feds do a very Their talents expire when

it comes to wildlife management. That's my personal opinion, with the excess option of things that are legitimately like like things that are on the Endangered Species you know, the things that are listening on the Endangered Species Act that are legitimately endangered. UM. There are some great federal protections to help recover those things. But when it comes to the management of fish and game species that is a state game state, they do it best. That's my preface.

You take objections ay of that, Okay, it would be you know there's exceptions to everything you ask. I'm like, well, migratory birds, and that's a wrinkle because no state gets to manage it on their own right. And let's explain why they. Why do you? Why does the feds? Okay, let let's look at this for ment. Sean has brought up the great exception ducks and geese. So migratory waterfalls

managed at the federal and state level. I because they move from state to state, So you can't have one state, say let's say Louisiana, Texas, from now on, we're gonna have it be that ducks are always open and there's no bag limit. It's our wildlife right, which would completely screw everybody else. So you're boning everybody else on the flyaway. So in that case, there's federal oversight. Well, I'll point out another great example halib it because like on the Pacific,

so on our Pacific coast, halibut move around. Halibut are managed not just at the federal, state, state, federal, international level, because we have treaties, same way we have WATERFALLO treaties with Mexico, we have treaties with Canada about how we manage our halibut. So you're right, there are cases. Yeah, but it's like it's not a clear cut and dry case with migratory birds because you don't know what it it. It doesn't even exist that there would ever be like

a state management versus federal management. Nothing compared, there's no comparison, no control. Yeah, this is all just a preamble to try I'm just trying to lay a little ground. Yeah, yeah, for what's going on in Alaska. In Alaska, you have these federal subsistence boards. Okay, so let me give you.

I'll give you like a little tidbit about Alaska that isn't gonna um that doesn't actually have anything to do with what I'm talking about, but it's just interesting Alaska, Like at the highest levels when it comes to the allocation of natural resources like fish and game resources in Alaska, at the highest level, when it comes to allocation, they look at it like tiered use, okay, top tier use of subsistence, right, so that the subsistence user group and

subsistence has nothing to do with your income, Like like to be a subsistence user in Alaska for the most part, has nothing to do you could be you know, uh, uh uh tells his name doesn't want to buy Twitter. Elon Musk could move to Cassan, Alaska. He could move to wherever Arctic circles. But Elon Musk could move to certain Alaskan like zip codes and he would become a subsistence user based on his location. Okay, so it's not

doled out by need, It's doled out by location. M Those subsistence users are always like gonna get they they eat first, next is the next. It eats first is commercial. Okay, so subsistence, commercial, recreational eats last in Alaska. Um, that's just like a high level view on resources. I didn't know that commercial commercial trump. If someone's gonna give up, if something's getting paired down and someone's gonna give up, it's gonna be recreation. So would be recreational. Well but

what I mean the type of hunting we would do it? Yeah, very Yeah you're the low, like like we're the lowest of the low. Yeah, we're non resident. You're like nonresident recreational, which people are like, dude, everything is luxury resident. It's

like no one cares. Just to be clear here, there are in state recreational users, right and the way it typically like subsistence is defined is by typically if you have to travel some amount of distance, like you're not a subsistence user, which is something that's been been fought over greatly and even that's crazy. So for example, we're just getting hug. Yeah, I feel like I want to argue about this before we can get into and I haven't gotten to the point. But let me tell you.

Let me tell you another interesting wrinkle. Okay. Let's say, uh, let's say you're a federal you're federally qualified subsistence user. Okay, So let's say you live in southeast Alaska and you're a federally qualified subsistence user. You can set a thirty hook longline for halibate. Okay, just based off your zip code if you're qualified federal subsistency, So based on your where, based on where exactly you live, right, you might qualify to set a thirty hook long line for haliban which

are federally regulated. Okay. Now, if you live an anchorage, but you go to this area where you're allowed to set this thirty this thirty hook longline, you're not allowed to because you're not a federal subsistence user. However, if you live in downtown, you could live in a mansion in downtown Anchorage in travel to a place that has state subsistence regulations, and then you can fish under state subsistence. So you can go and role play as a state

subsistence user. So if you're an anchorage and you travel to an area and let's say Prince Wales Island, you live in Anchorage, you go to Prince Wales Island, you may not set a thirty hook skate they're a thirty hook longline for halibit, because that's a federal, federally regulated

species and you're not federal subsistence. You can, however, set a one hundred hook sable fish long line because even though you can't do it where you live an anchorage, you are now acting as a subsistence user where you are. But if you catch a halibit on your longline, you must let it go. Hmm, let me give you another one. You are, you live in a mansion and anchorage, You go to Prince of Wales Island, and you drop your

rod and reel down. You are allowed zero yellow eye rock fish and one other species of nonplagic rock fish per day. If you leave your rod at home and go out with a hand line. You go to the same spot, same bait, same hook, with a hand line. There is no limit to how many non plagic rock fish you can have because you're using subsistence tactics. So two things A I'm confused, yeah, oh yeah. B I subsist. I feel like when I go shooting ELK, I'm subsisting

off the l I'm not gonna buy me. But you can't get into like imagine the world, Like I support all of this. I want to point out like imagine that you had to um, if you're a rural resident in Alaska, you don't need to go prove how bad you need it. It's just where you live and and

and here's the you go back to statehood. A wrinkle with Alaska, even like accepting stayhod or wanting statehood, was the ability like historically, socially, culturally, like we are people who live off the land, and they need to be able to be that people in rural areas in Alaska can have a way to live off the land. How it came to be that you can go to an area that you don't live in vacation there and use local subsistence strategies that you have to ask someone else

how that ever came to be a thing. I don't know. Is there any to get into the ah? I don't believe it. With like a heavy pause, I need to think it over. So your main is the main thing in life that I think about. Is there anywhere even close in the US with a stringent and complex of game laws. No, there's nothing, even because they're they're managing like a dozen big game animals they have, like think how big they I mean it's different fish, they got

a mountain range beside of California. It's like they're they're managing all those big game animals, managing a huge commercial industry. You have subsistence people, you have Native Alaskan villages where people have historically lived off the land. It's like it's it's well, there's twenty seven game management units which are divided and then divided again. It's it's complex incredibly and they do and I feel that they generally. I feel the State of Alaska like I feel the State of Alaska.

Jonging does like a phenomenal job sorting out all this complexity, all these user groups, and you know, their wolves are not on the endangered species list. They're grizzlies aren't on the endangered species list. They have an intact regime of megafauna. Mm hm. They got good salmon runs, could be like, well they got lucky. Okay, they haven't blown it, but now we need to talk about what's oh that are not doing so well. But we're not there yet. Okay.

There's a thing that happened in the Western Arctic around the Western Arctic Cariboo heard and this is very contentious. So these are places like I've been to and hunted places in the Brooks Range that a few years back, and we covered this a few years back. Um, the Federal Subsistence Board came in an over road what the state wanted to do with their wildlife management plan, and they made this thing where non local, so not not

even subsistence users from other places. They made a thing where they took this huge quadrant basically like a quadrant of Alaska, the northwest quadrant of Alaska, and closed it to non made it illegal for non locals to hunt caribou in some of the you know, remotest like mathematically

remotest parts of the North American landscape. Um. It was cited as being like resource conflict okay, because there was competition for resource near villages between locals and non locals, and how do you feel about how that might sound. It was not what the state wanted, and the state felt that there's no reason to even argue that that's necessary. This thinking has now spread. There's an area so everything west of the Saga is a hard river to pronounce,

and I've canoed down and whatnot. The Saga the nerk talk river folks called the sag Um some of the only not the only, one of few places that you can go and one of the few places you can go in Alaska and uh hunt doll sheep and really good doll sheep country from the road system. There's a handful of spots. It's hard. People do it every year. It's it's hard, but this is this is one of those spots. Um. They've had some brutal years on sheet

sheep numbers a way down now. The Western Interior Alaska Subsistence Regional Advisory Council just managed to close doll sheep hunting for all users on one point million acres of land, against the recommendation of the state. How many acres one point eight million, one eight million acres of land and Steve, that board does that? Where does that sit in sort of the federal hierarchy? Is that US fishing wildlife? Is that like a or is that its own whole thing?

It's part of the Federal Subsistence Board is a federal subsistence board based in Alaska and like made up of people making decisions that are Alaskans or are they sitting? The federal board rep resents federal subsistence. You federally designated subsistence users in Alaska to local board. They're broken out into regions. But in this case you have the state biologists saying, because because here's the rink with doll sheet management,

it's a full courl. These areas have a full curl restriction. A rama is gonna hit full curl till he's eight nine years old. He's gonna die when he's eleven. So they've had some bad winners that really hampered cheap. The state is saying, our management plan, it doesn't matter like they're killing about like in one of these areas, when of these archery areas they're killing about five mature rams

a year. A lot of people get to try. It's very little success rates, but they're killing about five rams a year. They don't even have a fresh survey. It's it's like it's anecdotal what people are seeing. They're seeing they had some rough winners. Sheep numbers are down. The state whose job it is to do this kind of thing, is saying there's like sheep numbers are down. Hunting mature rams is not going to affect sheep populations. We're not

killing you's, we're not killing lambs. You're killing mature animals that are that are arguably at the end of their life. It has no impact. But then the FED comes in and says, like, no more sheep hunting on one point eight million acres of land. Screw your professional perspective through said,

and what's their impetus, what's their motivation? Like if if we were to try to speculate or they say why someone feels, well, like there was some bad winners, sheep numbers are down, and someone feels that somehow or another, not killing mature rams five adult rams is going to help rebound sheep numbers that state biologists feel, and not just that the Wild Sheep Foundation is against this, like everybody's coming out against this, and it's just this alarming trend.

Is this alarming trend of of you have a fashional agency that has a like an amazing track record of managing big game and imagining a disparate bit a use a disparate user group who now, like outside of any kind of scientific reasoning or any kind of scientific understanding, people are just sort of like coming in and making these like extremely arbitrary massive closures shutting out hunter like shutting out hunters on areas like like almost on a whim.

It's like whimsical. Uh I I. So the survey that the data is based on is a two thousand twelve survey. Um, there's twenty five per cent of of that two thousand twelve number left in the current population, is what what they're saying. So it's like it is an alarming drop

population wise since two thousand twelve. UM. When I first heard of the closure, my gut reaction is like, oh, that finally happened because at places like Sheep Show, I've had conversations without fitters who have told me, you know, eventually this is going to get shut down because something is going on with the sheep population now very anecdotal, but i'll hit some added wrinkles. Well, let me let

me finish this. So then when I got around to reading about this after my gut reaction of I was actually quite surprised to get the state that the state was. I assumed that, oh, yeah, that thing is finally happening that I had heard about years ago at this point, and so I was pretty surprised that the state of Aliaska was not in support of UM. But the it

sounds like there's a gap in the current data. Well, here's why it's a little here's why it's a little unfair to lump it in with the caribou, like the caribou moose stuff in in the in the Western Brooks Range. It becomes a little bit unfair because, uh there, it's like it's being closed to non local users. Here they're closing it even to subsistence users because people can hunt sheep on like like local federal subsistence people can hunt

sheep outside of the full full curl restriction. So if you were really trying to stop harvest, you might go in and say, okay, we're gonna stop harvest. The federal subsistence users are gonna stop harvest because they can shoot using lambs, or we're gonna change their regulations around the state is the state their use of non their non subsistence hunters who have a full curl restriction shouldn't be

getting rolled into this. But it's like, well, if everyone's gonna take a hit, if someone has to take a hit, everyone will take a hit. Yeah. Yeah, it's uh kind of akin to I don't know what pops to mind. Is like sage grouse right where it's like, we know the girls are getting beat up from a bunch of different factors, but we also know that hunting isn't one

of those factors. Like he doesn't factory into like the long term viability of these populations, um, and we need hunting around in order to a gain data, be keep some public interest on on this bird because eventually we're gonna need to get a bunch of support to help this thing out and figure out the fact that's kind of like one of my big access to the grind right now is the death spiral of sage grouse participation. Yeah.

Oh you know what's funny I felt, uh the one concerted effort I made to hunt stage grouse, and we did an episode about it. It was right when they everybody was still celebrating the they came up with these great comp mises in the in the in sage brush country, some sage brush see you know, areas of whelming northern Colorado, portions of Idaho. They came up with all these great compromises. They had this stellar sage Gross recovery plan put together.

The Secretary of Interior at that was that Sally Jewel at the time. She was when it was completed. It was her um. They announced that ees A protection is not warranted, and it was kind of like ees A protection is not warranted because y'all have put together an adequate plan to avert disaster. A huge Kumbaya moment, huge, everybody was excited, and it was it was sort of like the they were rewarding the plan by not doing it, and then they just, I mean, uh, elements of the

Trump administration just like wholeheartedly ditched the plan. To just ditched the plan. But in those sort of like halcyon days of thinking that the plan was in place, I went and hunted sage gross and felt weird doing it. Yeah, I actually went back and watched that episode at some point in the last year two during sad obsession with sage grouse, and I remember being like, oh man, that

sounds great. No, that didn't happen, but it felt weird, Like a minute ago they were going to declare it an endangered species, but now that they didn't, we're gonna go hunt for them. Like how do you explain that to a five year old? But it was funny because so many people in the sage grouse recovery world, we're welcoming and encouraging hunting because they're like, we want public participation in the resource, and it's it's a negligible harvest,

like the hunter harvest doesn't matter. What matters is the habitat, loss, fence, strikes, all these other things. Um, but it did feel funny. Yeah, yeah, I don't want to reil the conversation. I can talk about stage grauss a lot, but sheep felt weird cheap. But with sheep, sure, you'd like, okay, sheep numbers way down the whatever, does it feel funny to go hunt a full curl ram in that area? I'd be like, it doesn't like that full curl ram doesn't matter. The

biologist to tell you to shoot him. It doesn't matter. Well, quick question. When you said subsistence, subsistence and sheep don't go together. In my head, you need to go. You need to go read uh Stephenson's My Life with the Eskimo. So they're killing a lot of sheep. Somebody's killing a lot of sheeps. I mean historical. I mean people. Have

you ever read Osborne Russell's Journal of a Trapper? I have, but that's mountain sheep in at It's interesting because the one spot in that book he talks about when they're living off bison, they got where they couldn't find any and decided to go win your way up hind the mountains. Yeah, so they could hunt big horns. You know. I kind of got a piece of that. Recently. I was tickled.

We did a buddy of mine got married on the main Salmon River and we did a week long trip and we saw in x as many sheep as we saw deer, and I was like, holy shit, it's like in the good old day. It was awesome when he used to see four or fide. We didn't see that many at all, But but funny like that was a super stable and common food source for people who weren't quote unquote in sheep shape. It was like, oh, I gotta go get some food for you don't know they

were in sheep shape. It was like cookie going out to slide some meat underneath the tar. You know, really didn't have ergonomic boots with like really nice insuls. In My Life True In My Life with the Eskimo, which is written in the early nine hundreds, he talks about Native Alaskans who live in the high country, the Brooks Range. All their clothes are white, all their blankets are white,

that they live off sheep. That is badass. Well, it's kind of the sheep eaters in Central very similar people there. There's folks were definitely sheep shape seasonally and otherwise would just be doll sheep specialists. So there's there's definitely a subsistence component to it. It's just and you know, no matter what you feel like like being a guy that doesn't live in Alaska, I'm like a tourist there. You know, we we have a shack there, but we're not anything

but anything but locals. I'm like a person that loves the place and I kind of recognize where's my business, not my business. It's not my business, and it's carpetbagging. However, it's alarming. It's alarming because it's a broad It's like I just hate to see people's I hate to see people's hunting and fishing privileges stripped away, especially when the agency, like when a trusted agency manager is saying this is unnecessary. Well, it definitely feels a little grizzly bearish to me from

the Northern Rockies. There's a little bit of a we don't know anything about the I'm sorry for we don't know anything about the the motivations of the actual people that made this decision. I mean that when they getting pressure, it was their political pressure. Was that we don't know that for every decision that's that's like on the docket, there's like a public comment period, right, so like I guess their constituents, for lack of of a better word, can call him and you know, kind of give their

opinion on the matter. Um, but as we think they made this decision based on that, that's that would be the whole right, I mean, that's the way the system is supposed to like the each member of that board is supposed to be representing not just their own thoughts. But you know, people are people. So remember that Depeche Mode song. People people go yeah, but you know it hurts right when they use broad strokes. I guess, I

guess what I'm getting at. It's like some of the some of the grizzly bear stuff in British Columbia, and you see different places where for sure, like an anti hunting agenda or some agenda outside of the conservation management space. It's like it's pushing people to make decisions. This is probably not that. So yeah, so that's a great point. I'll touch that real quick. The decision not to hunt doves in Michigan is nothing to do with biology. It's

social talleans for killing a symbol of peace. Okay, so it was advertised as like a dove is a symbol of peace. How can we allow hunting of a symbol of peace in this state? And people voted it down many years ago. Nothing to do with nothing to do with dove populations. You can't doves in Michigan, but they're delicious. Couldn't sur forever in Iowa, I don't think you can still. But another example be grizzly bears in the northern in the Northern Rocky ecosystem. It's not a biological thing, it's

a social thing. Like people, they can't stomach the idea of killing the bears has nothing to do with the number of them or the viability the population in this case, the stuff in the wet in the in the Western Brooks Range with the caribou moose. It's about wanting to protect my own And you have people who you have local on the ground, individuals who have a mechanism by which they can keep a resource for themselves and not have competition from other people coming in and disturbing that,

and they utilize the mechanism. It's like, I don't think that they would come and tell you it's anything, but

it's anything but like a selfish desire. And then when we, you know, initially talked about the cariboo closures, we we tackled that right, and it's like, how it's like, if you had the ability to uh close down your favorite hunting unit to just just the folks in your community in order to relieve the pressure from nonresidents or folks outside of that county, would you you know, yeah, your name, Yeah, Like let's say you have let's say, yeah, let's say

they have a river access you have a river access site, and there's competent and there's conflict between floaters and fishers. So tubers, mom's taking their kids swimming, um, people who just talk loud. Yeah, those people moms taking their kids swimming versus mom taking their kids fishing. And they and they all get in a fight. And then and then some ages come says, Okay, the only way you can use this river access site as if you're fishing. Done deal, No, no,

no talking. Half the people are gonna be like sweet, yeah, and I'm just gonna be quiet about it. Yeah. When I came into the brand new first Light store, I couldn't help. But notice I couldn't helping those large display right off the bat, first rack in, first racking of an unusual assortment first Light waterfowl first, some other whole build up. Who wants who want to talk about that? You don't like that build up? Tell us Sean or

whoever who wants to talk about this. Sean is the most legitimate duck hunter here and that should start with passion from Shahn's Dark Report. Do you get emails about Sean's Dark report. Uh, some emails, probably more Instagram messages, but corrections or helpful stuff. UM. Yeah, usually just like kind of added on things like you know, here's something else I want you to do a duck report about A lot of that, A lot of like you should do a duck report on this. Um back to the

rack when you first come in the store. Um, we're working on have been working on for quite some time. Something that. Another thing I've been getting all the Instagram messages about, real tight lipped about is uh new First Light waiters they coming, which is by far the product I'm most stoked on and most pumped about. Like our launched this year First Light waterfowl stuff was fun and cool and all good stuff. But you know, there's a reason that my Instagram messages and emails were flooded with

So are you guys gonna do waiters? When are the waiters coming? Tell me about waiters? Are there waiters? I don't see you in waiters. But we've been keeping it even from a non you know, a non pretty tight yeah, trying to even I'm getting emails about that and no one knows who I know Instagram lest forward, Oh yeah, I mean just hey, so trying to buy waiters this summer. I know you're not gonna tell me, but should I buy waiters this summer? And I'm like like, wink, you're right,

I don't blink. If first lights coming out with waiters, like summer is a hot time for waiter, buy him. So let's layout, like what what is the full? What? What is the full waterfowl? Like what all is available currently? Yeah? So? And and why like why the timeline? You know, well, I mean what we have out right now is a smattering of existing for slight products that makes sense as

waterfowl products with additional design pieces heavy smattering. Yeah yeah, yeah, okay, fair, But like we have right all the first slight wool that makes sense as waterfowl gear. And then in addition to that, like we have the refuge collection and the ground control pack and the LZ and things that are waterfowl specific and designed for water fowlers. But um, you know, of course one of the things that all water fowlers use and need is waiters. But waiters are they are

probably the most demanding product. Like they are the thing that's hardest to get right and takes the most time to get right. And I mean you're expecting something to work both as a like beating through the brush, breaking through sticks and ice, and also being impenetrable and waterproof. Yeah, for long periods time, more than a day. There's a bit of a bit of a unicorn. Yeah. It reminds me back in the day when I first started working at First Light, working the phones. I used to get

to callings like I'm looking for Jack. It's insulated, it's waterproof, it's breathable, and it makes you invisible. Like my response would be like, if you can make that jacket, I will buy it. I'm not Superman. We don't currently stock it, unfortunately, but it's true. With waiters, it's similar. You kind of

needed to do damn near everything. I think what deals more death the waiters and anything on that well, barbedware, fences, beaver hard beavers are on waiters, man, they're excellent pungee pitch little pungee stick an ice man like that is like just kicking ice for hard right at the top of the boot, especially when you're in that shop, like their shin that stuff where you're using your shin to chunk up ice and that that is a cool thing about these bad boys, right, These are not your No, no,

these waiters are. They're the real deal. They're serious. And you put beaver proof on the label, I flip. They think that'd mean attacked by a beaver. We could just make a sweet little logo to put on the outside beaver chewed stickproof, just angry beaver. When I was I used to have this uh Chevy pick up and we put uh we I ripped the exhaust out and put cherry bombs on it, as one does, and just straight pipes out the back and didn't cut the straight left

the straight pipes a little too long. And I one time on the UH so I'd be like messing around, reaching into the back of the truck, trapping with my waiters on in and out, in and out and out. And I remember standing there and smelling something and burned a hole through. Burned a hole through the right leg of the waiter right above the knee on that straight pipe, and then later the day that day, the same day, burned a hole through the other waiter on the left pipe.

I've burned matching like matching round exhaust pipe hole. I have done that, not on a pipe, but on sunflower heaters, on those real cold days where you like, I gotta get as warm as I can and you hug that sunflower heater in the blind just little too close. But these these waiters are you know, I not. It's like it's just a thing. It's a fact that I got. I don't know how I destroy waiters in the way I do, but last year I think I was on my six pair of waiters. By the end of the season.

I was gonna say, man, do you get you spend more time returning waiters then you do in your waiters. Something you need to get yourself a patch, kid man. I used to like I used to be going through a muskrat trap and season were waiters and that, And I will say, like, when you're on the road as much as I was, it was just like those ones leaked. Now move on to the next set. And by the last duck hunt of the year, I made clay where

where holy waiters. He's like, these waiters leaked because I'm already wet, dude, this is the last thing I had left. I only had one pair of waiters. He was gonna take care of me. We were gonna we were gonna hunt.

And he was like, man, I got I got some sweet waiters, I mean Sean, Sean, we were from duck Lore and Challenge fair Like, I gotta be clear here, these are not for slight waiters, right, We're filming duck Lore, and so I had to be wearing waiters on duck Lore that weren't first light waiters because we weren't showing them yet. But on all the nonm yeah, the camera

guys got to wear like the best waiters. I was super jealous because I'm wearing these huge, baggy waiters that leaked, and then the camera guys were wearing the first light waters sleek that kind of pisses me awful. Hey, so you're you're you're tiptoeing around that these are these are designed to be super tough and now and and so when I was with Sean, I I don't I didn't know much about waterfowl hunting, and I just like in private, so this is this is a look into our private conversation.

In private, I was like, tell me the truth. Are these waiters any good? And I mean, Sean was kind of upset about just life in general, so I was waiting for him to just be like, man, they're okay. The first lights. You know, this is after my boat broke down again, and and he he gave a glowing review and said, these things are gonna like change the waterfowl market. Really yeah, well in private. What we're missing here right now is is the pitch the pockets. Are

they zippered? These aren't ship proof waiters? Do they have do they not have boots attached to him? What are they? Yeah, you can tell us anything. I think we just leave it, leave it with. We had I think eleven guys on that testing trip in Arkansas. I mean we were really we were getting reps on these and I mean was there I wore them all year off camera or had

camera guys wearing them all year off camera. But but we circled up at that camp or after that camp in Arkansas, and I I'm pretty sure all eleven guys said it was the best waiter that ever wore. And I did have critiques, to be fair, It's not like they came out of It's not like I was like, yeah, job, everybody, these are perfect waiters. But we we made some changes over the summer. Yeah, out all right where they need to be. I think, yeah, here's my waiter ship in

the store with that. So we used to fish the St. Mary's River, which separates uh Um, Michigan's Upper peninsula. I'm positive allegedly it's not the northern Lower Peninsula. So when if you imagine Lake Superior, Lake Superior sits what it is twenty three feet higher than uh Lake spireces three ft higher than here On. So there's the Sioux Falls, and there's a lot the Sioux Locks goes around the Sioux Falls, so the iron ore boats and stuff can

come and go. But anyways, where it's spills, it's it's some feet higher, goes through the Sioux Falls. There's this river called the sat Mareious River, which is basically not basically it is. It's Lake Superior draining into Lake here On Um. And this river's wide, wide wide. You and me ran it in a boat together, yep. Pre nine eleven Um. You could just buy a book of bridge passes two bucks apiece and you would go over and the people, the coustoms, people just get to know you.

I mean, we'd fish sometimes when I was going to school at Lake State, we would sometimes fish three four days a week. On the Canada side, you can keep more fish um, So we'd go over there. I'm sorry. You catch board fish fishing the canvas side because you could access the rapids. So the u s side he had like a bunch of the locks you could go over and fish, sort of like a more natural riverscape come from the Canada sides. We'd cross all the time.

And in the when the pink salmon ran in the fall, the water be pretty low, and if you were a bold waiter, so we would uh get cleats, you know quarters if you had like felt boots and then put

some quarkers on them. We had me and my buddies, we had like routes that you could get way out into the river, and it'd be you'd cross here, and then you go up a hundred yards and go out, and then you go down two hundred yards and go out a little more, and then go got a cock eyed angle and and you'd wind up like way out

there fish and fish that people didn't fish at. And one time we get way out there, and I don't want to say who it was, My buddy all of a sudden has the need he's got the gurgling number two. This is after a long night at the bar, and he's kind of in the situation of needing a way what to do, because now he's got an hour invested into getting out Like that serious of a walk to get out there, there was not. There was no joke.

In fact, people would people that didn't get it with kind of like marvel at how one could get out there. But well, you know, you figure out how to get out there. It was just a dicey walk. So he had to shout his waiters, there's nothing else you can do, and just kept fishing through it. He fished through the

whole thing. That takes strong man, that takes this waiter farts thing, you know, and you take your way that a new level fish through the whole thing, gets back to our house and drives back with us this belt on there it gets back, goes up and into the shower. Yeah, smart guy takes his waiters off. Did he keep those waiters. I'm sure he did, because that's that's nothing that What

got me thinking about that. What got me think about that is back when none of you, like you know, growing up, not having any kind of money, you'd be like you look at your waiters like how you look at your car. Some hap your waiters you'd be like how how will I ever recover? You know what I mean? Like like life would end if you broke your ain rod? Mm Like well, like when your waiters went, dude, you

were done, You're gonna go buy another pair? No, which is a testament to why, Like I do think that there's a lot of waiters out there right now that are pretty pricey and the quality has just gone to crap. I mean, there's a there is a brand of waiters where in the last two years, I quite literally the first week of using them just to seem pops and start leaking, like has nothing to do with a puncture

or anything like that. And you know that's always the that's the most common thing that fails on a waiter anyway, Right, it's the seems they just bad seems bad work, bad tape job, and you get that leaking in the crotch. Right, We've all had it where you all of a sudden there's a day where now you're just pants are wet right in the crotch for no reason, had nothing to do with you chatting in your waiters and had everything

had everything to do with just crappy waiters. And we went into this conversation early as a team looking at trying to solve the major problems that Sean's just describing, right, So the first thing out of mind is, let's make these the most durable thing that has ever been introduced

to the to the waterfowl world. And that's kind of what that was our I would say, like our lunch are going forward, like how can we break these in showcase that you know, this iteration didn't work, Let's move on to the next thing, and pretty pretty proud of them. And the other thing about them for all the guys down in Clay's Country that wear waiters every hunt is they'll come into timber camera, which is a fancy new detail, a new timber camera that we can't talk about that.

We'll leave it at that. It's can we say we could say it's sweet? It's sweet? Yeah? How long you were you spent developing until you like got it to where you want? Because this is like a long time coming, right Oh yeah yeah, two and a half years. Um, I forget I mean type I feel like it was like eleven point six or something iteration type of being

our current waterfowl camera that we dropped this summer. Yeah, I've been screwing around with the waiters myself for well over a year, Yeah, just me, and it's yeah, it's been longer than that. And I think what's interesting to realize too is like waiters don't just like come as waiters, right, there's like material selection and all these things where we spend time touching, feeling, trying to break UM and Logan Williamson, our our waterfowl product manager, has been in it for

you know, two plus years, you know. Oh, and it's worth saying we've got a pretty sweet partner lined out that's those things together. Yeah, you want to mention that one, you do that they're Kevin. Yeah. So we've been working with a company called The Cross, which I'm sure you're familiar with, little little company over in western Oregon. UM who is uh as a company obviously not uh new to the game of of rubber boot development and things

like that. So UM, without saying too much, the construction and sort of the development of this UM specific boot for these waiters is uh far and away the best thing I've put my footage. It's not even like it's not even in the same realm. It's like we're talking like new materials, new construction, a different way of looking at a different way of looking at breatheability, like the whole bit, just the ability to like going to room and say, like what is impossible and how can we

make it? For days on end last year like buy design on purpose, stood in the water, you know, thirty five degree water for seven eight hours straight with no way to get your foot elevated and out of cold icy water like skimmed over water. And you know, because of my own poor layering decisions, end up with a cold core, cold thighs, but warm feet which just doesn't shockingly warm feet like that was a big takeaway from that. That's that's one of the whole thing. But the waiter

is that boot, that's great. One's drop date. We can't be that. It'll be available in about a year at some point. But what you can do right now watch this transition. But what you can do right now is come down to Haley, Idaho and come to the new First Light store. Check it out one and only on the planet. It's really cool in here. I tell them that they need a duck that Sean killed hanging in here. You know, I've never I've never got a duck mounted taxi so stuffed stuff, so you should get the first

one put in here. Uh, we're in wrap it up. We're gonna do trivia. How do you guys feel about it? Trivia? Or have you ever listened to the one of the shows I've been practicing up? Do you feel like you're gonna win or lose? Definitely not gonna win, but I'll hang in there. Have you been practice just cheating? Encyclopedia ty Edson after he came on and played with us, and he's a strong player. His the guys that weren't

call him the blue collar scholar. I was shocked at the Turnpike thing, like y'all didn't know what Turnpike truebors were. There's like two of you that shocked me on the I think that was Yeah Ray while Hubbard Yeah you know, oh yeah, Waylon Jannings absolutely were trying to make this generational right now. No, I'm just saying I just like Turnpike. It was said by the first light crew that they

would think Ford is good. So now for you know, when I when I don't know something and someone points out that I don't know what, they kind of want to tease me about it. I always reminded there's probably a lot of things I know that they don't know that is so mature. Got him, got him back? Do you even really know? I don't want to name him all, but there's probably a lot of Hold on, Steve, do you actually come back, actually tell me your favorite topics.

I'll come up with the set here. Do you actually know it? Or is it just your perception of a dust particle? Yeah? Like the sun coming through bright and clear to me? Can I just interceed quickly? My gut reaction throughout your whole description of that philosophy about not understanding anything about life just makes me think of their nihilist Donnie. Oh yeah, it is. That's what I was

thinking almost the first five minutes the other day. I was this is the honestly got the last time I say the hard day is Seth and Chester, who are frequently on the show, both happen to have Hawaiian shirts on, and I informed them, where were you in Hawaii? Or yeah, yeah, okay, well you know we wanted to get them. We wanted to get them hats and said howilly, So they had their Hawaiian shirts on, and I was trying to explain

to them about the what the Boogaloo movement. Oh yeah, it's like a nihilistic it's like a it's like a remember nihilist, it's like a nihilistic uh militia group. What's yeah, what are they called again? Boo yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. The world's good. They wear Hawaiian shirts, and I I would think when I saw these guys, I was like, I think you guys are like here from the Boogleoo movement. I have no idea what I was talking about. I

think that got the old chest. You're feeling a little self conscious because later on in the day, do you remember this he came up to Steve and I and he said, you know, um, some local guys uh kind of gave me the stink guy. And I think it's because of my Hawaiian shirt. Like that dude in Hawaiian, you must be like gestures like legitimately one of the nicest people on the planet. Time Like, alright, So check out the First Light store come through hay the Idaho

if you're if you're passing through, check it out. UM stay tuned for these super waiters coming soon. Full line of waterfowl apparel, um anything else that's good how big lighters with the first Light logo on there. If you're a smoker, or to someone who likes to start campfires, come by and get a genuine about an outdoors oriented person always likes to be prepared. You know what those are called, right? You gotta got a lighter in one pocket,

and I still call him cigarette lighters. I can't think of what else to call them. Well, these are called first lighters. I can't. I can't take credit for that. That already happens. Well, I bet I've come up with a lot of good things, all right. Thanks a lot to fet