Ep. 399: The Kingpin Antler Dealer

we're joined today by an extraordinarily controversial guest. Thanks admission, who who's left open the idea that you might be a bad guy, who's here only under duress, who wasn't gonna do the show until he until he got to read an Instagram comments. Do you're the first? You're the first and only guest we've ever had? It came on, um inspired by Instagram comments? Well, I wasn't. My wife was inspired by it. She read the comments and she goes, you have to do it because I'm a non controversial

kind of a guy. I don't like controversy. Picture. Actually don't. You don't even have Instagram? No? I did, but I just that's a good way to avoid I did. I did figure out how to get on it. You did, and I did follow you. Awesome. I think I follow you and Joe Rogan. You don't follow Yanni, not yet, but I will. What's your handle? What's that? Oh? Like? Yeah? How do how do people find on Instagram? I think it's Tony dot Shoffler. Okay, KRANI explain what happened on Instagram.

People are so titilated now. I don't know if we keep leading them along without them knowing what's going you know what I mean? Like people are on there, like on the edge of their seat. Well, what date was us? Probably pull that mike down crane two over two months ago? Step put up a post forty five thousand three pounds of Elk antlers loaded up by a buyer. Listen, explain

what's in the picture, and then read the caption. It's an image of a ginormous shipping container on a huge truck and the doors are open, and the only thing you see, kind of packed from left to right to from ground to ceiling, is just antlers and a couple of guys unpacking, like hand packed, hand packed, hand packed into a shipping container like you wouldn't fit a mouse

in that shipping and tag packed to the gills. So full elk candler, full of full of elk handler forty thousand three and then now read the caption, and I put this up at Stephen Ornella curious st e v E n Rhinella yep. Three pounds of elk antlers loaded up by a buyer and headed to overseas markets. This year, shed hunters were getting around twenty dollars a pound for

the fresh brown elk antlers. This buyer told me that the average weight of an of an antler he buyas is five pounds, but they get up to twenty pounds apiece. So do the math? Did? I say? No? But I did some. I I was curious about it, and I did some research. And I bet you the ones you're holding that Bowsman Chronicle picture of twenty pounders, No, they weren't what they were. Probably they were probably in the

fifteen pound rank. I think the largest, the largest single shed we've ever bought off a wild elk was about one pounds. There you go, underwent millions and million in the pound. Yeah, and then and then also the price was up to I said up to okay, So but listen, man, I was consultant. I was consulting with you while crafting my caption. But I apparently left off when I threw out the poundage thing alright, So so you know, minor

minor inaccuracy is notwithstanding. I put that on Instagram because I met our guests here, Tony who from Rocky Mountain Antler Is that it just Rocky Mountain Antler, Rocky Mountain Antler Company LLCA. I met Tony Shoffler from Rocky Mountain

Antler Company lllse up in Alaska. We had a brief meeting, a brief running into each other in which I found out what his business was and I said, man, you have to come on the podcast, and Uh, eventually, in our conversation coming on the podcast, he sent me the picture and I thought, well, it's interesting as well, and I put the picture up on Instagram. In in UH in the comments section, Holy cow, hundreds and hundreds and

hundreds people comments. How would you typify the comments? I mean, it's the range from people being interested, people being amazed at the number of antlers, people criticizing UH the China market. People people talking about the you know, just what they're used for and how it's nuts. I mean, I would I don't think there was any one kind of overwhelming drawing drawing parallels between that and the commercial UH slaughter of animals from the early twentieth century, just the whole

range of things. I thought. I thought the normal comment would be, damn, that's a lot of antlers. Yeah, like this, one guy wrote, So you're saying that's just under a million dollars and antlers. Holy f I'm in the wrong business. So you had that's that's what I thought. Please let me explain that was that shipment was nowhere near a million dollars. That was the lowest grade antler that you can buy, and it's only worth a couple of dollars a pound. Okay, we're gonna get it all that. I

just wanted to set the set the scene, okay. Sorry, Oh no, no, no, you're doing great. You're doing great. Um, Jamie, are you here to talk or not here to talk? No, she's here for the BS filter for me, So I don't get too carried away with my story. Oh, you guys are married almost years. Yeah, I know you hasn't married twenty nine years. Yeah, it's fantastic. Can each of you can each of you hit us with um it was a secret twenty nine years of married? Yeah. Mine.

As you get up in the morning and you look at your wife and you go, honey, I'm sorry, because sooner or later during the day it's gonna happen, and she just get it out of the way right off the best, Honey, I'm sorry. I'm trying that tomorrow morning. I'm a little overdue on that. Right now. What what do you got? You got anything hot? You an hot even though you're not here to you're not here to talk. You know, your wife would probably say the same thing. Uh,

patients and a strong backbone. M hm, because I know that's what she'd say to her. Well, if you're man, yeah, but it's also she puts up with a lot of me not being around. You're on the road a lot, you know, if you do this full time. You know, Yeah, the Antler business came between us, but it didn't. How long you been married, Brodie? What year is it? Uh? Sixteen? Yeah, sixteen? Well you got a good shot at making it. Oh

I've made it, manka that twelve year. If you can get past that, I got no worries yet, twelve All right, go along. Uh, here's something really okay. I'm gonna go down to the thing I think is most interesting. Check this out, A guy writes in The Guy writes in oh Holmett, Oh, this didn't happen to him, I have to his friend. Still, damn it. Now you get into the whole like right, exactly, there's a hearsay element. Damn, it's unreliable. Notice that, but for it? So I thought

it happened to him. But you mustn't been really excited about this tilating story. Listen, this story is a great story. Okay, so everyone bear in mind. This is something to happen to a friend of his, so you know who knows. Okay, Pennsylvania. Set the scene. We're in Pennsylvania. Do you you want me to set the scene. No, I'm just saying that we're in Pennsylvania. Oh my god, it's it's how did I

not notice this? It's his friend's brother. Yeah. This is like when you go to a thing and some guy comes up, like look at this bucked at my neighbor's cousins brother's brother in law's neighbor. Got That's why I'm not I'm not like there's an unreliable narrator element to this, like I don't know, well know, because it's still it's still is interesting, it is, Okay, so listen, I'm just gonna Actually it happened to me. I was just Pensi Lane and here's what happened to me. This is great.

They're in it. Okay, whoever the hell it was an antler. I believe every word of it because it's like, who would make it up. They're in an antler restriction area in Pennsylvania. Well, the whole state's antlers. It used to be not that way, and it switched to antler restictions. I don't know ten years ago. The whole state. Yes, when I was a kid, you could shoot spike Bucks the whole states restrict Yeah, the whole states. That's not true. Listen,

it is. I was just hunting there with my musket. Yeah, and you it's most of the state is three points. No, okay, Steve's wrong. Most of the state is three points. That could be brow tein and a fork. The northwestern part of the state where I grew up, has to be three up, meaning a brow time would like it doesn't have to have a brow time, but it's gotta have three up. So main beam g one are would be two three? Steve, who are you? Colin Seth on his

way to Southdakota. So I was buying this pilot antlers off this guy? Which guy hang? Prior to two thousand two, antler restriction was two points what had to be a spike, So that's when they went to UH statewide antler restrictions. It's not that's not accurate. Bear with me, man, Phil. Why don't these people answering their phone if you had shot a spike with your musket, you've been breaking the law. Rick, Yeah, Hey, is the entire stay of Pennsylvania an antler restriction unit? Yeah? Yes,

so like the entire state can't hear you? I want to say it again right here on the air, the entire state. And Seth correct me if I say I'm with him? Was trying to answer. But the entire state of Pennsylvania is a first people sixteen and older is a three point on one side restriction. But there used to be at least a served part up near Warren County near Erie on one side. But correct, the entire state. If you're over sixteen, you cannot shoot through like it

has to have three legal points on one side. Yes, that's also verifying agreement. Day okay, but why when we were hunting did no one mentioned this to me? Yeah? I wish this would have been a trivia question. I don't have information that we didn't. I feel like we did. I could have shouted four game, didn't he'd be in the pokey right now, we would. Did you tell Steve that like about the three point rule before we did? Then yes? On the podcast, right, I got I gotta go.

Jean didn't mention that ship and he put me in like legal jeopardy. So listen anyway, that sets this whole thing up. Okay, but does set the whole thing up. This guy's hunting in Pennsylvania. He's in Uh, there is a rule you have the buck has to have three points on one side. Where they're hunting, that has have three points on one side, not counting the brow time. They call that three up in Pennsylvania, not counting the

brow time. You here. So since white tails throw a brow time like nine nine on, this is a ball part of white tails throw a brow time. So he's saying to be illegal, it's it's by a by a eastern count needs to be uh an eight point right, So when you remove the brow tins, he's got three on each side, he's gonna have three on one side, not counting the brow tign. Now this guy shoots a buck with no brow tign missing it's brow tign, but

has three times, he gets cited by an officer. The officer's view on it is that since there is no brow tign, his definition is the next up antler becomes a brow tign. Like imagine you have a line of people and the first person in the line, the person in front of the line, is eliminated. Then number two is, all of a sudden number one. That's his claim. I took this to hefflefinger helfl fingers like a brow time

is a brow time. The absence of a brow time does not promote the next antler to a brow time. Like a brow time is a very definitional point, but it doesn't have it. It doesn't have it. But that doesn't mean his his body down the line becomes him. But if you're scoring it, it's not like if he doesn't have a brow time, then all of sudden, the G two would become the G one. That wouldn't happen, right, But under the law, it doesn't matter. If it's got three points up, it's a legal buck. Let me allow

me to allow me to half a finger dissected the law. Okay, assuming this is all described accurately, see see that that's classic helf of finger like he already knows right, he already knows the layout. Assuming is described accurately, that sounds like a mess. To quote, I'm reading something. Assuming this is all described accurately, that sounds like a mess. But I'm not sure this email is describing it correctly or

the l EO is wrong Law enforcement officer. Okay, the law linked below says that it has to be three points on a side, not including the brow tyne in a few units, and just three or more points anywhere on the antler and the rest of the state. That's correct. Okay, The dear this person describes would be legal everywhere, so I don't understand the issue. The law below doesn't classify a G two as a brow tign. It just helps people understand what a brow tyne is by saying it's

the one right above the burd. I would not read that to mean that if it doesn't have a brow tin, then you count the G two as a brow tign. It just means you can't count the brow tin is one of your three points, and those few counties where it is more restricted, that's correct. If an officer is counting this dear's G two as the brow time and then saying the deer is illegal because it only has two more, then that is clearly a misinterpretation of the law.

In my opinion as an Arizona guy with no law enforcement experience, there are a few scientific papers out there that defined terms for the times of all servants that I would trot out in a court case to show that is an incorrect interpretation. A G two is never a brow time. If the brow tign is missing, then the deer just doesn't have a brow time and the G two is still the G two, So they need to go get that guy out of jail. I have

a heart. I'm not saying this guy's a liar. I have a hard time believing that a Pennsylvania game warden would not have a good understanding of this law. It's been around for a while. Like, I have a hard time buying it. That is, like, because it would be happening all the time, Like every six pointer that got shot that didn't have a brow time would be like, but not those little basket at six is a lot of them, don't guy, wrote in. Another guy wrote in, and it was a guy. His name is Joe Tony.

If you have anything to weigh in on any of these, please do thank you. Okay, you awome. There's a lot of talk about antlers. You know, well, I think that that's why you know. That's I think that you know o'caran over there. I think that's why she probably threw that in there. I should have probably brushed up on my Pennsylvania game loss. Here's this one. There's nothing to do with the antlers. Guy wrote in, he's got he's

got interesting. He's got an interesting point. Your coverage of lead pollution issues, so our coverage of the lead the lead debate, that's how I described ride. The coverage UM has been great, he says, but I wish you would also mention a less serious but still annoying AMMO pollution issue, plastic shotgun wads. I am a San Francisco based hunter. He there's a parenthetical he puts in, says, yes we

exist in fisherman. I love up. This is him. I love uppland and waterfowl shotgun hunting, as well as surf fishing the ocean. Many times while fishing the beach I have come across plastic shotgun wads, including some marked six, which is mostly used for upland hunting in California. It disturbs me that shotgun hunting involves littering plastic in the form of a wad with every shot. Nobody is seriously expecting to retrieve their wads. On principle, we should oppose

this littering, especially given all of the new research on microplastics. Additionally, the concern about giving hunters a bad name is especially salient here in California. Surf fishermen have all I had with groups like the Surf Rider Foundation to fight important battles for public access to beaches. Surf Riders also, in my opinion, rightly concerned about plastic pollution at beaches and

successfully pushed through a plastic straw band. As a result, I believe hunters would be well served by understanding the WIDD problem and proactively working with potential partners to try to solve it, rather than risking becoming their next target. Shotguns worked well with cardboard wads before plastic was even invented. In modern biodegradable materials offer even more options. There's no reason today why shotgun hunters need deliver to litter every

time they pull the trigger. Great point it is, but ammo maker's gotta decide whether they can afford to do that. Well, paper will, I mean, wads do a lot more now. Wads do a lot more now than what they like. Originally, a wad was just the bear year between the shot and a barrier between the powder and the shot. The wadding in a in a musket would be it would

help form a grip in the rifling right um. With shotgun, if you if you didn't have wadding there, I think that you would every time you tip the gun, your powder would go filter into the um. Your powder would filter into the shot. And also nothing would really carry the shot out. But now wadding like grips the shot, controls the pattern, carries like actually carries it a little ways before the fins. As the fins open up, it

slows down, but like like contains the shot. But I don't know if someone told me that in ten years someone was gonna be making some of that ship out of corn starts that like, uh that you're throwing your compostor and it rains a couple of times and vanishes, I wouldn't be surprised by that. I mean, I think obviously it's a litter problem, but a bigger litter problem might be at the jerks that don't pick up their shells off the ground. Yeah, but as easy, Yeah, well

that's avoidable. And this is heart like you can't find him. That's good. It's a good point. It's interesting point to think about. I do now and then look and be like, bamn, a little wads laying around everywhere? Do you do you ever get your hands on any cardboard shells back when they you know, the old shotgun shells? Yea wax. I was reading about the guy that killed uh. I was reading about the guy that killed the guy that killed Jesse James. He took he took a bunch of pipe

and cut the pipe in. I think this is true. I read it might not be true. He took a bunch of pipe and cut the pipe and little short chunks and it took a chisel and knocked those chunks in a little like picture that you too had a wedding ring, okay, and then you took and laid that wedding ring flat on the ground and took a chisel and start a busting it to pieces straight down anyways, filled the big double barrel coach gun full of that cut him in a half pretty much. I don't that's true.

Did mountain men bait? Here's a question that came in from Long Island, A lot of emails from low representation UM emails, some very low representation states hunter hunter representation. Did you know the answer? You have to look look into this a little bit. I know the answer. I'm not interesting the question. I'm not interested in the particulars. I'm just I'm not interesting the actual answer, and it's interested in the mentality of the question. Oh, I'm interested

in the answer. Did mountain men bait? Hey me died to Crew. My name is Paul and I'm from Long Island. I'm a longtime fan and I had an interesting question for the Meat Eater Gang to discuss on the podcast. I was reading a comments section on baiting for wild game Dear barrat cetera, and I was wondering what the Meat Eater Crew knows about how the Mountain Men hunted and trapped and whether or not it ever involved baiting

on a large scale. This came to mind because a lot of hunters questioned the integrity legitimacy of harvests that are a result of baiting. However, praise the methods are ways used by mountain men of decades centuries ago. I think this is an interesting and potentially divisive subject. Okay, let me say the great question. First off, I'm gonna establish, Uh. I want to establish when people say a mountain man, what are they saying? Um you Okay, A mountain man

means a very specific thing. You could watch a show called the Mountain Men, and that's like not mountain men. That's uh, that's like a like a contemporary thing called mountain But when we talk about mountain history, we're talking about like a very specific thing from a very specific time frame. Uh. These were the most probably the most well traveled uh individuals of their time, probably the least xenophobic individuals of their time, um, and the greatest risk

takers of their time. If you wanted to do something like today, like the mountain en did, then you would go, like during the Afghanistan War, you would have gone to the uh mountain ranges that separate Afghanistan and Pakistan and gone in that atmosphere and try to go become a professional hunter in those mountains at that time. Uh, the mountain man era began the minute the Lewis and Clark

expedition ended. So it sort of begins with John Colter's return out to the West trapping beaver and it ends about two when the beaver market collapsed. So we're talking about a mountain man. We're talking about like professional beaver trappers who operated in the inner mountain west between about I mean really like it heated up like um too, did they bait yep? Uh? The only the way they trapped.

They didn't use connor bears. They only us footholds and and and it seems like they almost exclusively used castor sets castor mountain sets using foothold traps. So every all the bea were the all the mountain men caught were probably caught with bait lure not bait. And I'm sure they were savvy enough to put some fresh peeled willow or aspen to supplement their sets in the fall season. But they were using lure uh for hunting big game. Now,

I can't picture it. They didn't do like side hustles with the other kind of fur, not during that period. Not during that period. Now, when the beaver market collapsed. Those many of those guys then got into very serious baiting, Like a lot of them became wolfers. Like the wolfers followed the beaver market. Well, the wolfers kind of came like the real serious wolfers came the beaver market collapse

in thirty two. Then you had the hide hunting era, the buffalo hide hunting area that kind of came on its heels. What came on the heels of that was the wolfer market. And they bait it where they would kill an animal, kill a buffalo, whatever, gash it all over, pour Strict nine on it. Wait a couple of days, come back to your Strict nine carcass and pick up poisoned wolves. So that was bait. They would take another way that guys would for doing grizzlies, either for bounty

money later on or otherwise. You take a mule out to a good spot, shoot the mule, hunt the mule, and shoot shipped the can of the mule. So yeah, big time baiting. Um, A lot of the guys that were commercial bear guys trapped and they had baited that. You know they're they're baiting with traps. I don't know that I would. I don't know that that's where I would look to find um if I was going to defend baiting today, I don't know that that's where I

would look. Any thoughts, Here's a good one, you guys good. Yeah, it's just there's just not enough to to compare. I don't think it's just not the type of hunting that we do today, like a commercial market hunting. Yeah, this is a good one that I think we're gonna be done. This is the last one that we're gonna get into the antler market. This guy writes in from Nova Scotia. I live in Mahone Bay, Nova Scotia. This is this is a real this is you thought the antler thing

in Pennsylvania was interesting? Phil Way, do you hear this? I really hope it involves you being embarrassed on life on the air. I live in Mahone Bay, Nova Scotia. You're following track and film, got it? I bought a six to seven acre I sweaty doesn't know how big his parcels. He bought a six to seven acre piece of land in mm hmm. Moving back to my hometown of London, England. What's that meaning? From from London, England. Oh from Oh, okay, so he was living in London. Hmm, okay,

Feller from London. This is someone. This is like really far out for us. I thought nutsought Long Island was like. So he's a guy from London. You wanna talk about low representation? Moves the nova Scotia by six to seven acres a piece of land, and twenty fifteen the appeal of the land. He goes down to say it was a dock on the ocean, sidewalk into town house to raise kids, and land to hunt white tails out back. There's only about a one acre piece at the back

where I can discharge a crossboat. Okay, buys a land. He's got a legal place. He can discharge his crossbow on an acre of land. Now they're coming to do eminent domain across his property in order here's where the rub is, in order to put in a power corridor to serve a new solar plant. So he's in the admittedly awkward position of being a nimbi about alternative energy.

Like it's better if it's like a real villain, right, Like, but it have to be a solar energy like a thing that everyone's supposed to support because it's green energy, and now he's got to be a nimby. I'd like to know why he can only discharge on an acre, like is the rest like within town limits or something? Or you know, have you gone to his website solar Sham dot c A. Have not? Did you go krint? Why are you not reason why? I think you can

research the piss out of this crint. You didn't call him. So let me get to the let me get to the rub. So exppropriation is their Canadian version of eminent domain. We have an he's going on to say, we have a concept of injurious affection, which are personal damages and the reduction and value of the rest of my residential property. Do he's claiming? Tell you back up, here's what he's claiming. They're claiming, here's the land value for us running. Well, no, no,

you're not. You're not valuing You're not valuing it right, because what you've just done is destroyed my ability to like hunt deer on my place. How are we gonna draw how are we going to value that? You're not valuing that I had a little mini chunk of hunting ground and you're destroying it. And then you're telling me it's value is one thing, when the value is exponentially

greater because of the circumstance. My sidebar question would be if he discharges his crossbow and his little one acre piece and that said dear runs off that one acre

piece and dies. Oh, that's that. This is the thing that I've been arguing about with with not arguing about, texting about with my buddy dog during where they have some of these public access programs and he was pointing out to me that some of these public access pro like public access and private land programs are making deals on like ten acre parcels and guys are bow hunting it.

In the amount of conflict that the rises. It's like, how are you anticipating that you're gonna bow hunt white tails on that size piece of ground and have it be that it's dead on the ground like you're asking. Yeah, and then you've got all those that urban deer hunting that's happening now too. Yeah, But I feel like back, you know, any anything east of the Mississippi, hunting white tails on a ten acre chunk is very normal. Ten acres and acres like in Indiana. I'm not saying no,

no, No No, you're not listening to what I'm saying. No, I'm not telling about what's going on or not going on. I'm saying there is a high flight risk. There's a high risk. Okay, for instance, Carl, I'm not gonna say

his last Carl has a very small parcel. You know what Carl did before he ever put a tree stand up, went and talked to his neighbors, every single one of them, and said, I don't I'm not planning on I'm not hoping this happens, um, but I'm laying the groundwork for the fact that I might have to come pay you a visit. And here's why. And he secured an okay under those circumstances ahead of time from everyone around him good neighbors. That was Duran's point during this point wasn't

not to do it. During his point was so many problems could be taken care of if people were just a little more neighborly. That was his point. Yeah, I agreed, be a good neighbor. He talked about someone that got a deer this year that was literally it was literally hung up in the neighbor's fence. M hmm, Okay, ready, how like, okay, how did you get into how did you get into antler picking? What do you what do you like to call it shed hunting? Antler picking the

antler market? Yeah, jed hunting because you're a third you're a second generation generation um working on possibly third Sam coming up, that's your boy. Yeah. Well, my dad was probably the first i'd say, large scale commercial buyer in the United States, way before it was cool. And how did that come about? Like what what years was that? Going on mid seventies seventies he started buying antlers? Yeah, well he was, he was. He used to pick him up back then, I need only pick up the big

brown ones. And he was selling them to there was I don't know how to say this, like an Asian buyer middleman in the States where buying antlers. How would you say that? Karin um that that was quite fine. The reason I say that is is I can't remember if it was a Chinese or Korean at the time. Sure, and there are different you know, Asian Asian folks who believe that antlers have medicinal value. So yeah, that was totally appropriate. So anyways, he was selling them to these

buyers and he was tired of them taking advantage. They were, he mean, he felt he so presumably he felt he was selling them for a lot less than their actual uh. And then there would be two or three of them there, and that one would be throwing the antlers over the truck into the bushes before they weighed them. You know, they just weren't scrupulous buyers. Yeah, what state was this going on in? I think I don't know where the buyers were, but it was in the It was in

the Montana area. And he got tired of that, so he went and convinced the local bank two bankroll them. And so he started buying and going around the middleman straight to the overseas market. And it kind of just snowballed from there. Who was who was he? Who did he go to to find a direct market for his antlers? And what were they using them for? Back then? They were using them for medicinal purposes. I guess they grind them.

Right now, they were slicing them in wafer thin and simmering them in a tea and I'm sure they were probably mixing gensng and some other herbs in there and drinking the broth. Really, yeah, have you done this? Green? No, I never have. But there's a picture of that, the like really paper thin slices that I put into the document just for you to see. You know, there's some serious serious the look at some screen grabs from Amazon, right, So I went down the rabbit hole looking at all

the different forms that you can consume. But that's that's velvet. It could be velvet. And below it's just is the slices. Okay. So there's two products here that that Crim pulled off Amazon. One of them, one of them has four ratings, five star, five star review, four ratings Elk Elk Velvet Antler. But I think that's from like farm raised this, Yeah, and they're calling it it is it's from Elk Farm. They're calling it velvet antler for dogs. Gluco Samans supplement Hip

and Joint Health. Yeah. I was gonna say, I'm not really learned it. I'm certain, but I'm pretty sure it's Glucosa. Jamie just said that Tony knows the well, No I don't. I'm not seeing I obviously can't prepared and then up to so no, yeah, he sh'll pass over. Another product that Krim pulled up two ratings, three star review. Oh that that little bottle is uh that that little bottle? How many ounces is that bottle? Krim? Oh? I can't see right now. So they're they're touting it. Uh, I

don't know what's it like? A four ounce bottle? Find out what the hell that humping that bottles. They're touting it as a joint health, anti inflammatory, increased energy in a healthy coat for your pet. And then there's another product that she has here that krim pulled up from Jin Sang store and more dear Antler slices, Premium whole seek a dear Antler sizes energy hormones. Here's the description. This is a this is from E s A. This

is from English as a second language individual. I believe deer Antler slices, Antler velvet whole slices, seek a dear Antler lou wrong energy horm owns sex health for men and women. I got a question back in the middle of a question, were already talking like, I think that's pretty so I want to go back to no, I'm I'm not even scratching the certain Remind me, though, I've

got a story about that for you. Okay, um, Back then that was the only market like he wasn't perhaps selling big antlers to taxidermist or none of that stuff that's going on. There was always a market for like a few belt buckles and some knife handles, but no, uh, majority of it was going straight up. Was your was your old man? Was he always looking for ways to make money outdoors? Like? Was he a fur trapper? Like, uh, mushroom hunter? He trapped? He originally moved to the Madison

Valley to for the lion hunting. Okay, so yeah, and he trapped, he process wild game just so. He just pulled it together from the outdoors. So it's natural for him to be like, hey, there's money to be made in antlers, or I could find a way to make money handlers and getting antlers. When did he establish your Guys Company? He went and he incorporated probably in the early eighties. And when you were when were you born

before then? I was born. Yeah. Anyways, I moved up to Montana from San Diego when I was fifteen, and that's when I got kind of what were you doing in San Diego living with my mom? Oh? Yeah, so I came up here. It's your mom and dad. I don't want to open old wounds, No, I mean, no, they divorced when I was young, And you're I hauled you off to San Diego. Well, no, they were. My

dad was down there and then he moved up. Oh I see, and then uh, anyways, I came up the visit and saw that you could carry guns in the truck and get away with it, you know, And I'm like yeah, so and then I got started. He was already buying and selling then, and I just kind of started helping out after school and on the weekends, and then started doing it full time. Probably eighty five ish is when I started actually traveling on the road buying.

And back then it wasn't like it is now. A lot of people brought their stuff in and I just buy antlers all day long at the shop, and people just stopped by all day long with piles of antlers. And then I did start traveling and meeting buyers. So was it like very seasonal like used to be? You suhould be very seasonal basically at starting early April and

then by July you were done with the buying. But now with the antler market being so competitive and so many people involved, now it's it's a year round thing. So talk to talk to me about when you got started. What was you had a shop in the Madison Valley and yes, and you had a sign out that said I buy antlers, we buy antlers or some such Yeah. Probably, yeah, And people are bringing in what all kind of antlers

mainly deer and elk. And how are you value how are you valuing before the antler market exploded and they became all these multiple competing things like dog chees and all this other afrodisiacs, all this ship there's no afrodisiacs involved. Say that that's a myth, that's a If it was an aphrodisiac, I'd be in prison because I snored enough of this dusk during the course of a day to kill the average mortal. But what are they harvesting in

New Zealand? What are they harvesting all that velvet for supplements? Right here says it helps sex for energy, horse sex, the velvet things like different man like that. It was like all over the news a couple of years ago, Like that's the set. I think the hormone thing is tied to the velvet. There is to stop sterone in there to a certain degree, but it's not a it's

not a sexual enhancement that I'm aware of. M And you know, well you would think, right, I mean, yeah, like you get done with the day of antler cutting. And but look I did some research and um there's a there's a you know, some scientific journal articles out there that are testing the antler core beyond just the velvet as well. So I mean from from a from a single article, uh, from science direct, there are some conclusions that the deer antler base has emerged as a

good source of traditional medicine. Oh sorry, let me back up, um key. Findings both in vitro and in vivo pharmacological studies have demonstrated that dear antler base possess immuno wow im you know, dolatory, anti cancer, anti fatigue, anti osteoporosis, anti inflammatory, analgestic, antibacterial, anti viral, anti stress, antioxident you

get the picture. They're like twelve more antis um and although the mechanism of action is still not clear, the pharmacological activities could be mainly attributed to the may your bioactive compounds amino acids, polypeptides, and proteins. Based on animal studies and clinical trials, dear Antler Basse causes no severe side effects. So this is just one uh research studies, key findings. Uh. Do you know do you know, um, when you're talking about the early buyers, do you know this?

You must notice because this is a quote from you, this fellow Johnny Wang as being uh an early like godfather of antlership and basically yeah, so you eventually got to go eventually went into competition with him. I'm assuming kind of he was. I met him when I first got going, and he was going down to that Antler auction, but he was blaying Antler's But then he kind of faded away, and my dad kind of took over that

godfather role when you guys he was. My dad was the buyer for years and most of the people that compete against him, we're actually buyers for us at that time. So he created his own competition, which is human nature. You know, how would you guys, how would you guys get How would you guys create a buyer mark a

buyer network around the country. You just touch base with people and they find you, they find me, um, and you've got to establish a relationship with him and deem him trustworthy because there's a lot of money involved, and you know you have been stung before. Do you bankroll your buyers? Most of them? You do? Yeah, so you've got to be real careful. How many buyers do you how many buyers work for you buying nailers? Let's say a good at least ten in what what geographical area?

Mostly the Rocky Mountains? Uh, And I do have some buyers out in the Midwest. I'm establishing some contacts out there for white tail and anilers. Yeah, what are those being used for the same So the goals were the same stuff. Yeah, there's a heck of a lot more white tailed deer, and although their antlers are smaller than elk, I would think that overall there would be generally a more mass of white tail antlers in this country than

there are elk canlers. Right, there are probably pounds and pieces. Yeah, white tails are almost coast to coast. Now, I think you know, when I first started hunting in Montana, when you were in diapers, probably maybe, uh, you didn't see white tails hardly at all on the river bottom. First deer I ever shot with the bow was a mule deer buck on the river. And now you know yeah, taking over the world. Man, When you say you've got you've been stung before, is that like you've ended up

with antlers from someone that got them? And the meaning you you send money to buyers and don't they don't give you antlers back or they take you. I was just wondering if you with your competition, Yeah, I was wondering if you ended up with antlers that that person shouldn't have had in the first place. No, tell me what what what's antler worth? Right now? Right now? The markets down soft relative to what relative to win to the springtime, the shed season that usually strengthens up then also,

so it's on a seasonal slump right now. Right basically, Yeah, everybody's pretty well. I guess you gotta go out and three months and you've gotta buy your whole year's inventory in three months. And when most people get full up then they back off. So are when you when you set out to buy antler in the spring, are you trying to fill a you're trying to fill a specific order. You're just trying to buy as much as you know

you gotta night. Yeah, basically now you're trying to buy all you can because there is a lot of competition. Now there's buyers everywhere, you know. I'll go in states and literally see three different Antler buyers sitting on the street in three different towns in a thirty mile radius. So, yeah, you gotta really hustle. Now. You see ads for it in the paper all the time. Classified, Yeah, craigslist billboards, billboards. Have you ever done one of those billboards? No? Oh really,

I don't advertise very much. I've run under the radar. I don't drive with trailers, don't have big brands on it. My name and phone number. People find you, they know who you are, they'll find you m word of mouth. So what is Antler going for? Let me like tell me like white tails, mule, deer, elk, moose, Like, like, what are we talking about? What could a seller? Right? No? No, no, no, okay, whenever the hell? What when one's peak? Well, it depends.

Let's go to March, last March, March or April, whatever the hell monk makes most sense. Well, last year, the price went down in the winter, and then late winter early early spring people start running out, and then they'll go out and buy, and then I'll bring the price up. Because what happens is rather than just going out and hustling and buying me olers, people try to outbid you by fifty cents a pound, and all that does is

bring the market up. Yeah, you can go out and pay, you can go out on the street and buy antlers and pay less than the going rate, and you're still going to buy antlers just by being there. But you know,

that's what happens. And when the demand, like right now in the last couple of years, the demand exceeds a supply and that drives the price up to right now, right now, it's probably a pound for any kind of antler, No, just for the egg, the brown fresh elk, okay, And what's a white tailed deer antler that's running twelve maybe right now for the brown stuff? Each is it like elk and white tailed deer and mule deer are all different, and each one is graded A, B and C. And

how is three grades? There's I have four grades actually, you know, you got the A which is the fresh quality, natural brown color, and then there's the B grade, number two grade, which is stuff that's laid out for a year. Um, it's got hairline cracks in it, you know, and it's faded. And then you have the c your number three grade, which the chalk it's been laying out for several years. And then we have what we call the number. I

have a number four. I call it coca grade, where it's stuff just falling apart, nasty, that's just gonna go to powder. So but coca grade is still sellable and viable. I tell people it's all worth something. And I encourage anybody that's out there picking antlers. If you see an old, rotten chunk, pick it up, because if somebody goes in behind you and finds that chunk, they might go back. But if somebody goes into an area and you've picked even the little chunks up, they might not go back.

Mm hmm. Pick your area clean. Well, I mean yeah, but so, but there's no secrets anymore. I mean people are everywhere. Now there's every year I say, man, there's more now than ever, And the next year there's even more now than ever. More what pickers or pickers shed hunters I'm gonna call them. Yeah, you know, I I used to buy a lot of antlers off of a few people. Now I buy a few antlers off of a lot of people. Basically, do you think, like, are the majority of shed hunters out there doing it for

money or just recreation? They're doing it. It's it's basically like catch and release hunting. I guess yeah. I mean I used to. I was serious about it for a while in Colorado and it got crowded out. What we used to shed hunt, you know, in the eighties when not a lot of people did it, and it was nice because we could shed hunt one area. What you do is you watch the elk, see what they're feeding.

You get their daylight, let them go in the timber, and you go up every other day to their feeding area, just pick up a few antlers, and the elk never left. And then when they're done shedding, then you go into the beds and pick up the rest of the antlers. Now, when one elk loses one antler, there's four guys up there running around looking for it, pushing the elk around

and m hm. You know, it's just it's very competitive, especially if there's a big one everyone knows about and they got him named, and well that brings up the shed hunting seasons now, right, Because I think that especially like in the migration corridors down in uh, was it

southwestern Wyoming the big meal deer that area. Um, people are going in there and running the deer round, you know, and you stop and think in that early spring, that's when the animals at their lowest levels and they're hungry and you know, and pushing them around is very stressful on them. So m But yeah, yeah, like Colorado, I think anything west of is shut down to the first of May. We've had you know, game ranges around here that are shut down to the first of May. That's

been for ever. But Nevada, you know, Wyoming is west of the divide. I don't know if they've gone statewide yet, but for picking seasons. Yeah, are there guys right now? Um? What about you? Let me let me ask the question first. Do elk ranch antlers follow the same market path is at its own market guys that are raised the elk and ranches? Yeah, I don't know. I don't. I don't buy a lot of that stuff. So you buy multi

wild antlers? Yeah, that that that stuff if they cut it in August, you know, just when they're peeling velvet. They're white and real sharp, and there's that blood. There's a lot of blood in there. But it just seems like the wild antlers that are out in the sun, the wind, the weather, that blood and the wild stuff stays good. The stuff in the ranch because they cut them and they throw them in sheds or barns and they get hot anyways, that blood spoils and it when

you cut them, it smells like rotten proteins. They're just cutting them. They're beating each other up. Yeah, when they're in a and when they're in a finched in area. You have to do that because when the rudd hits. Do you know, are there guys right now that you know, even though it's gotten crowded, how many guys are all there that you deal with it, are able to that are able to at least make a seasonal living picking antlers? Quite a few. Yeah, there's people that literally go on

vacation just to do that. Um. There's a lot of people that are hunting guides in the fall and they don't have a lot to do in the spring. That's all they do is pick. There's a few pickers out there or shed hunters, I should say, excuse me, that find a lot of antlers, a lot, but they don't have anything else going on. Um, I tell people, if you're gonna start shed hunting, don't do it. Don't depend on the money. You're going to be greatly disappointed. You know,

there were some comments in that picture. You know, I've never that's why I can't find an antler. Well, no, that's not true. The reason you can't find the antler is you got to go where they are in the wintertime. You can't just go walking around the hills and expect to find an antler. It doesn't work. You know, you got to go to their winter ground, you know, or where they live at that time of the year to

find the antlers. You can't just go wandering around. So what are the talk about how the dog to market came in, Like when it came in and how it changed the business? I mean I was blown away. Um, I'm sure it was going on long before I was aware of it, but I was blown away when I started hearing from people that are paying seven bucks ten bucks for a six inch chunk antler, a little half piece. Well what happened was way back when, like I said,

we'll go back to the beginning. It was mainly export and then there for a while that went could put that flattened out. They stopped importing Antler's overseas because of why something got a different market. Just something happened. There was something went wrong over there, and a lot of it has to do with the strength of the dollar against the yen or wand or whatever and anyways. So then that there was always export, but that was just it.

And then then there was the chandelier furniture market that oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, that was in the nineties. There was a butcher, a baker, and a chandelier maker in every town. Now there's a butcher, a baker, and a dog chew maker in every town. Before we do dogs, let's do the let's do the chandelier market. Okay, that would have only affected premium grade ship though, yeah, basically, so then then the stuff that wouldn't work for that,

then you just sent it overseas. So you were buying at that period, you were buying with an eye towards chandelier market during that time. Yeah, the four point meal deer sheds are nice, big brown ones. That was brought the big money. What was that? What was big money? My god? It was up to eighteen bucks a pound, I think, wow. And then there even for the chandelier market, you were still buying them by the pound and not

by the piece. By the pound, and there was and how many of those might go into a big chandelier. Back in those days, we had some that were three tears. There'd be sixty antlers in them. See, man, I like I thought about getting it. No, I didn't want to get into the supply business. But I looked at I had a nice pile of antlers for quite a while, and I just kept thinking about how it's gonna run wire through all that ship and make some crazy thing out of it. You know, I never got around to it.

You know how many people we're gonna do that? And then they show you antlers with screwed up drill holes and broken off screws. And I even went so far as the talking to buddies of mine who were showing me how to go about it, and little kits and stuff. How you get that drill to drill around the corners like directional drilling. Yeah, they're really took off. Is that market dead? Now? That's still there? But now you look

at them. Sometimes you'll be sitting there in some new West Full lodge and you'd be like every one of them antlers is exactly the same fake because they make a fake you. Now, yeah, we back in the day, when was that in mid nineties, we were we had a Cabella's we were selling we made this small chandelier that was on a metal fixture and it was small and we were selling them through Cabella's and we were selling hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of them. How many

antlers around those? Eight? Okay, so eight mules your antlers? Yeah, white tailed, they were white tail and meal there. Anyways, j what do you call it? The boulder? It's just a brand. The name that gave it. We had a red Lodge. We had you just come up with the quirky names. But so you were making you were in the business personally, I wasn't. I don't have the self discipline to build one, okay, but you were using your antler and haven that we had we had people working

force that we're making them full time, got it? And anyways, so then Capella's bought this fake antler company where they were casting fake antlers and then they started doing their own. But that to me, like that that that that that just feels like, I mean, how could you get into that. Who do you want to fake Antler? Sandler? A lot of people wouldn't know the difference. A lot of people wouldn't know the difference between a real one and a

fake one. And then the cost is third. That's something that blows my mind too, is how could it be cheaper to make a fake antlers some plastic into Yeah, the other ships laying around on the woods, dude, Yeah, finite quality though. Okay, I gotta interrupt our timeline for a minutes. I'm gonna forget to ask you this. Do you buy it on? Will you buy deadheads just to get the antlers off the school? Or do you say to the guy cut them off, then I'll buy it. No,

a lot of times I'll buy him. We've got the big commercial saws, and it makes pretty quick work of it. So the same thing, you cut the skull off and weigh it. Yeah, there's no there's no prohibition he gets selling a deadhead as long as it's legal in the state that you're in. And Wyoming you have to get them tagged in the fishing game, and and um, I

think New Mexico that's taboo without a tag. You know what I like about the system in New Mexico's when you find something out in the woods like that, like a deadhead. Um, we found h Ibeck's deadhead in a game ward and comes out and he value and he puts a value on it and you buy it from the state. So we found a I Beg's deadhead and it wasn't in a great condition like it could get more, but it was just like a young deadhead. And he came out and I came already told us. He said

ten bucks. So he spent ten bucks in gas to come and tell you. Because that's what's funny about it. What's funny about it is he was real curious about our hunting license and all that too. You get he got a two for he. Um, we called that we had a dad head. He came out, gave us, told us ten bucks. Does me and Kevin Murphy? I think we each paid five while I'm here and and then basically while I'm here, and he got down to brass tacks and our legality and stuff. So the chandelier market, Okay, Um,

you got into that. Your antler company, yeah, my dad's antler company. Yeah, I got it. And uh, what were the years of that was hot mid to late nineties. Yeah, maybe into the early two thousand's and then it kind of peter fell out of fashion. Well yeah, but it was still going, it just wasn't as strong as it was. Yeah, I saw a lot of that were you're honest and I were at that time the ski towns. Oh yeah, yeah, that's that's a weird thing about ski people in ski towns.

That was when the lodge decor was big. But why are they always into that? Like, why don't they decorated like their skiing if you go to I had to do. But I had to go to Big Sky one night there and I had to go to Big Sky one night and at the hotel, you know what they dress up like at the hotel, like cattle ranchers. So why are you guys dressed like cattle ranchers? They were dusters. It's like, why don you dressed like ski people? Like you're like the this is the this is like the

opposite of cattle ranching. Lets, this is the end of it. Why in the world are you dressed like cattle ranchers? Do you really want to Why would a ski plays have elk handlers when it's the antithesis of ELK. They don't think all that through anyways. Chandelier marks, chandelier market, right, So then like tell me how that you to like how like where did the chew toy thing come from? M hm? You know, everybody, not everybody, but a lot of people said, oh I was the first to do

it before anybody else. But but you were the first? I don't know, but I mean, you know, a lot of times in the antler business, the first liar don't stand a chance, you know. But um, when it comes to my piles and how much I buy, and you know, it's always a one upmanship. But there's a guy down in Texas, I think Mike who started it text and name Mike. Yeah, and what did he do? Um? Basically, I guess he saw one of his friends dogs chewing on an antler and and the light went off. Yeah,

I mean ranch dogs. But I can't I can't verify he was the actual first. But if he wasn't, it was a close tie. And around what year was that that someone had the light bulb go of? No idea? I think the dog chew business has been going on pretty strong for yeah, fifteen ish years. There's in that New Yorker article, uh said two thousand and four. I mean at some point, like the pet health food market latched onto antlers, and that's that's got to have it.

There was a big scare that came from China. There was a bunch of dog food and dog trees that had like cardboard in it, and there was a big deal and people started, I think they started going organic and stuff like all natural. Yeah, And I can spend a lot of money on their dogs, more sohol than their kids. I was telling Karan, No, it's a better return on your investment. With a dog, you get unconditional love.

What do you get with a kid? You know? Well? Dog, I keep telling my kids that dog you got, I tell him, I sell him this yesterday. The dog you got it's only good for in our ten years. Is gonna be dead. But I'll be around a lot longer than that. It doesn't matter, does it. No? They think they still like that dog better. You're right, So how do you buy for the dog? Like when you're when you're looking at a pile of antlers in your head, are you like that looks perfect for the dog chew business.

It's all pretty much perfect for the dog chew business, even the Chalky ones. I don't sell Chalky ones. I know people that do, but I don't sell the Chalky ones. But you just told you tell your guys to pick up everything. Yeah, there's there's a market for all of it. Okay, So but you said you don't sell Chalky ones for Oh I see two and two together equals slow boat overseas? Got it? Well, I know, I don't get it. What's that mean? Containers? Okay, overseas to Asian markets, export, got it?

So they get separated out? Yeah, oh yeah you great him? Got it? Great them out? So who comes to you to buy? You're not bagging up and going around and banging on the door to sell dogs shoes? Who? Who do you see? Who you? Who's your who's your end concern? Like? Who you? Who orders dogs? Who bones from you? Most of them are the distributors that distribute to the pet change and I sell mostly bulk. They taken branded, they package it and then they send it off to the

pet stores and you buy it and cut it. Right, what are you doing all that in this? And what volume of stuff are you cutting up? For dogs? Volume is total play? Yeah? Like how many pounds are going out there in the world. How many pounds of antlers are going out there in the world? From just me, from what how are you put? Yeah, how have you put your grip around the size of the dog? To industry?

It's hard to say because, like I said, if you ask a lot of the buyers and how much they buy and how much they sell, they're not going to give you an accurate answer. You don't say what do you No, I wouldn't tell you even if I knew, I really don't know my exact pound ditch. It's always coming and going. You know, you a trailer load, you sell half a trailer load. It's always coming and going.

So what's walked me through? Why not UM? Walk me through the reasons to not share that because it'd be like you're because you don't wanna UM, you don't want to expose the magnitude and impact of the industry because you don't want to inform competitors. Yeah, I just want to protect my little slice of the pie, and you feel that by giving me concrete numbers every time I ask how much of this or how much of that

would impact your slice of the pie. Possibly because people know where I go, and that's why I fly into the radar. There's other buyers. In the middle of the night, I stopped and then this is no kidding. I stopped in this unnamed town and stayed the night, and I got a phone call from a friend of mine in another state and says, so and so just called me, what are you doing in this town? What town was it? It was over there. It was in Grants, New Mexico.

But this other buy scificities, other buyer had people watching out for my vehicle, and he knew I was there. And I just stayed the night and left the next morning. So you see what I'm saying. So it's just I like to I just like to be kind of secretive. I like to sneak around and get in and get my stuff and get out. And if people find that you're buying a lot of antlers in an area, they might come in and try to help you take some

of those from you. I got. You know, so's the hottest buying what what do you feel is the hottest town, like the least exploited, hottest buy in town in America? All Right, that's it'd be hard to It's hard to say earlier. Sorry, what's the hottest state? Like, what do you Coloradola? They do Colorado is a really good state, Colorado tracing me, Well, that's a good antler buying state. It is after the first of May. Of course. You know earlier how we talked about the mountain men. Are

you familiar with the fealler named John Coulter. Are you familiar with the fact that, um many people think he was the first, uh white man to see Yellowstone National Park. I'm not familiar with that, wouldn't surprise me. Um So then you probably aren't aware of the fact that for a long time they referred to to Yellowstone as Coulter's hell, and people didn't believe him know what he saw there? You know what he was doing when he when he went there hunting sheds? Nope, he was This is very

early in the beaver trade. Coulter was going around trying to make contact with tribes to see if he couldn't get them interested in the beaver market. In the beaver trade, Uh, was there a period in antler buying and you had to do something similar? Tell me about that, like, oh, like going into an area and trying to establish pickers. Yeah, you're going. And what I do if I go into a new areas just you take a sign and sit on a street corner, empty lot. They'll sign out there

and people will stop ask you a question. So a few antlers and you just end up. What I like to do is uh if you don't end up getting a buyer there, I it takes a year or two to figure out who the players are in the area as far as shed hunters, and then you just concentrate on taking care of them. I can't afford to sit all day on a street corner usually got to keep moving. Well, you gotta when you're traveling. You've got an x amount of day just to cover your overhead. You know what's

a big haul? Antlers for an individual? You can tell me this because is not you a hunter shed hunter? What would be if I, let's say I call you the middle of an annual hall. You're asked by calling the middle of the night, and I say, I'm not a buyer, I'm just a shed hunter and I have blank pounds. What would be the number that you'd say that would perk your ears up? Nowadays? Sure, five pounds. So if he says I got five hundred pounds. I picked myself. Your ears perk up. Yeah. Nowadays, Well, tell

me about thirty years ago. There's guys should find two thousand pounds UM. Truck loads used to be average three hundred pounds pick up load. When they say I gotta pick up load, it used to be three pounds. Now seriously, because they're all dealing with so much competition, because there's so many people doing it. Okay, I supposed to go into towns, I wouldn't even have to put up a sign.

They'd see my rig there. And if I had a few antlers, and we used to used to have a flatbed car hauler and put wire racks up so high, and you just throw a hundred pounds in there, and I pull into a gas station and people just start. We sit there for thirty minutes. People just start showing up. And you could buy two thousand pounds as fast as you could. You could buy two thousand pounds in a

few hours from people. Just Nowadays, you can sit there all day and you might not buy two hundred pounds because there was a buyer in that town the day before you, and there was another buyer two days before you. You know, literally you mean like someone seeing your sign at a gas station calling, you know, Johnny calls Bill, Hey, it looks like this guy's a buyer. So everybody's just calling everybody who's accumulated sheds and just just show up.

You'd have ten twelve people in line to sell your ship, you know, just you know, and it's not like that anymore. Are you familiar with role playing? That's the secret years. But I'll be a guy named Burt. Okay, we're role playing. You're you, you're you. You're in your hotel down You're you. You're in your hotel down into Mexico. You're sitting there and you're underwearing your hotel room. I call and I say, hey, I have five hundred pounds of um. I picked it

myself at five pounds of this year's brown elk candler. Okay, bunce of five point six point bulls like good stuff? Okay, um, I say, uh, what are you paying? That's gonna be how it goes right, yeah, ok And you say what whatever the prices at the time will throw me one out, Okay. If I if you were a picker, i'd say pund okay, yeah, then I go well, Bert said, he'd give me eighteen. We're role playing, that's your tell him, so you gotta

answer Tony. He says, said, okay, because I know I know Bert's lying, because I'm not going to an area. I know what it's like. It's like a set price that everyone's playing like the same. Yeah, they don't. They don't do it that way. A lot of guys will quote, let's say this is an example, and these numbers aren't set in concrete. The guy will come into a town. I'll pay teen dollars a pound for brown, elk you

get there. Oh wait, but they've got to be five points without broken points, and they've got to be a certain size and a certain shape, and then the rest of it a pound. So you net fifteen dollars and ten cents a pound. But to this guy's they got eighteen dollars a pound. But I don't grade like that. And if it's chewed on, it's worth even if it's brown, it'd be worth B grade price. And you know everybody's got their smoking mirrors, and I don't like that. I

got a question for you. Broken chewed it's all the same brown as brown. I got a question for you might not answer. So less is less is sometimes more? If if the if you're by, if you're giving me fifteen bucks a pound, you're making money somehow. I hope that this is where he's gonna. This is where he's gonna. He's gonna be totally transparent. The whole market is it? Is it hot in here? Like are you are you getting sixty in a pound or are you getting thirty pound?

Why don't we talking percentages? Yeah? No, I'm not making a pound. It's somewhere in between. Let's let's play what's that game? High lower whatever? Yeah, you're getting warmer. No, you try, I mean you try to when it's all said and done, if you could make okay, that's fair, because you got you got overheaded overhead. I could I could buy a very nice I could make a very nice mortgage payment on a very nice house just with my fuel bills every month. I got one for you.

We don't need to role play it, but thank you. You go into a town. Okay, all right, No, let me say this first. Like you you're one of the um you're one of the biggest elk Andler buyers in West not the biggest. No, but I'm up there. Well, okay, let's put it this way. I'm in the top so many tin Let's say I've downsized my business quite a bit. Okay, we'll get to that. I wonna know why, but I can answer it in one word. Okay, go ahead, Well

too three, too much work? Okay, that's fine. But anyways, uh, you you go into a town, you go down to New Mexico to buy Antler and get okay, time out why new Mexico white? Because you mentioned you mentioned, uh, you mentioned New Mexico earlier. Well, state you want to do Colorado? Okay? You go to Colorado? Colorado treached me? Really, well, you got to call Eagle Colorado. You go to Colorado to buy Antler? Been there and someone's like, oh shoot,

some guy was just in town by an ailer. Are you probably gonna wind up seeing that pile of antler as a buyer? Possibly? Okay? So when I so, here's where I feel that the price. Here's where I feel like the prices is that you're deceiving me in The price isn't fixed. Word goes around that it's eighteen bucks a pound. Some guy goes down with a sign in a van and sits there all day in the corner and buys a bunch of antler for eighteen a pound. When he comes to you, now he's got it. Are you?

Are you really not gonna like up it a little bit to get that big pile of antler? Possibly, But the word the number eighteen is just a fictitious number. I mean it could be. Usually usually the street level buyers will call him that sit there all day. They usually pay less. Uh kingpins. Well, I'm not a kingpin. No, I thought you were doing it sounded like drug vernacular. But you know what I'm saying is that you know there's tonnage buyers. There's different levels, and there's upper tier

and lower tier. I'm probably mid upper. I'm I'm not gonna claim I'm the biggest baddest guy in the world. I know I'm not. Um. I just do what I can do myself. And but basically, yeah, but I stay out of areas where I have people that buy for me working, so I don't create competition against myself. If somebody calls me from Eagle, Colorado and says, hey, I got fifty pounds or a hundred pounds, when are you coming? And I says, well, but here's a guy. I'll have

a guy get ahold of you. He'll just come and get him and he'll treat you good. And they're like, okay, all right. I got a question about a part of the market that may not fall under the poundage price. And that's like, do you do you have a completely little separate part of your busin this that's for like big Giant. That was exactly my next question, where where does the crazy ship go? Because I imagine those like

obviously the poundage thing doesn't work for that market. There is and I'm quoting air quotes for those who can't see a trophy shed market where things are usually bought like shed sets are bought by the set. Yeah, you can down the Western Honey Expo there and so late there's usually some booth set up and you'll see a set of you know, three eighties and they're asking five, six, seven grand form and good luck. But think they ever

sell them? Maybe one. You can put whatever price you want on them, but you can't go you can't put hundred on them and try to negotiate, negotiate up to so you put eight grand and come down, yes, you know, but no, that's that's that's a lot of money for a three I just made that up. I don't know if that's I mean a long time since I was there. I just remember looking at a set of sheds, going, jeez, really, that's a lot of money for a set of sheds.

What was the craziest thing or the biggest thing or whatever you've ever seen just thrown into a pile of sheds that came into the market biggest and craziest, Yeah, whatever, like oddball, Like I mean, if you looked at so many thousands and thousands of antlers, what kind of stuff flows through that catches you by surprise? Every once in a while you'll get a big boon and crockett shed, some species that gets into the pile by accident. They

didn't know what they're looking at. Yeah. And and a lot of times when I'm buying, you know, you're throwing hundred pounds around at a time. You're not paying much attention when you're unloading the trailer, going oh wow, and do another pile, Well, you just throw it aside, you know. And I've got a pile of trinkets, I call them. And that's what that was my next question. I've had

some of these trinkets for three or four years. And yeah, because they can't be like it's got to be a match set to really like or a very unique single ship. Did you bring us like a real crazy present, like a crazy as but but but that's not out of the question. But i'd have to bring it from Inns. I couldn't fit it on the airplane. But um no, I do a lot. I don't have a quote trophy

market where I sell a lot. I do a lot of trading with people like if I find if I know Bert and Eagle, Colorado or wherever looking for non typical mule deer sheds, and if I get one, I'll trade hand some poundage. I see. You know that's I do about nineties? How I do it? Got it? You're after the poundage? Well yeah, but I mean it's just it's easier to market it and sell it that way. Uh. If you go down to the auction in Jackson, you can see people sitting on the square and they get

their parking spots where they sell their trinkets. And they've got a lot of very nice sheds that are very expensive and they don't sell them. So you know, to me, I'm looking at it like I can take that shed, okay, and turn it into something that I can move instead of that money sitting there. Money costs money, right, so why not keep it moving? I took us. I bought here's the story. I bought a set of chalky elk sheds,

and they were really nice. They weren't giant, but it was like an eight by nine, okay, And I, I don't know, I traded a guy an antler. Well, I traded a moose paddle for him, so I had probably bucks in it, Okay. Then I took it and I drove it across the state and it was in Colorado, and I traded for two sixty pounds of assorted grades of deerler. So I ended up getting a lot of money for that. Is that a moose paddle? I turned a moose paddle into a fairly decent pile of deer

antlers home run for everybody you know. So, but stuff like that, And it wasn't. It wasn't two thousand dollars worth of deer antlers. I mean there's a lot of chalk in there and stuff, But I mean it worked out good. Do you do you notice um on sort of on on a meta scale, on a large scale, when you're when your hand link thousands of these antlers, do you notice years or you're like, man, there was great antler growth, or popular populations are down or up?

Or do you definitely see that? What give me some examples of how how that might play out in a specific area. Let's say, okay, well, I'll start with the northern Yellowstone elk herd that comes out of the park and migrates up the Paradise Valley because it used to

be sixteen thousand elk roughly give a take. Now it's down due I don't even know less than seven thousand, still shooting all kinds of cows, you know when I attribute a lot of that to the introduction of the wolves, you know, and some areas where you have dry years, it seems like the antlers are brittle, okay, not a lot of mass and wet ears. You seem like you get good antler growth, good math. A lot of down

south and various states. They don't get their range until July, so things don't green up till later in the year, so that next year brings the antler growth. That depends on what kind of feed they're carrying in. So you can tell in some areas that are dry that the antler growth just doesn't you know, do you see certain like maybe that that I don't know if you'd see this or not, but like certain tendencies and like the elk antlers in one part of the country versus and

like they grow a certain way. There's characteristics. There's genetics, yeah, of course, Like for instance, certain areas in Arizona, New Mexico, you get those I don't know what people call the come the devil points that come off the brow times they stick up like this, or some areas have three brow times you know, or forked brow times, um. And then there's other areas where they got tops that come

out different. You know. Yeah, certain areas that Yellowstone heard for years you could tell what areas they came from because they had really short G three. That was just the genetics for the time. You still hear people talk about that all the time. Are there more deer antlers sold than elk antlers just due to the prevalence of

for example, whitetail nationally? Um. You know, in terms of like what you're what you're buying, what I'm buying personally, no, I buy more more olk than do, okay, And then maybe in the market I choose to do that, okay, So then maybe in the market generally nationally for buyers, that's that's a hard one to answer, you know, because

I don't know what other buyers do. But of course, realistically speaking, it would make sense because I think there are a lot more Dear in the United States things, right, And I mean I think when you know, I've I bought a Antler choo for my dog a couple of years ago. He showed absolutely no interest, so I never

bought one again. But it was a Dear Antler, not an elk Andler, So I can't remember seeing Elk antlers being used as dog choose, but I you know, I think it's been more Dear Antlers uses dog choose, but I can possibly depends on I guess where you go, but I shall mostly mostly Elk and in terms of your like based on the grade of the Antler, deer or elk, what grade of which antler becomes what end product, Well, the A or the number one grade in the number

two grade usually go for the dog choose and then the number three grade. I just I know people that sell them. But I don't like it. It's just they're they're so dried out. They could be riddle. But it's not so like greade a for you is going to dog choose and not someone's chandelier for example. No, I mean you always pull out. I've got piles and nice sheds, you know that I keep out, Yeah, chandelier quality in

case somebody's looking for something. I got a big pile of deer where when we get back and we're gonna start building our Christmas tree, Christmas tree out of antlers. It's you've been saving for that. Yeah, I just yeah, so um and then you know, and if and if nobody wants to buy this furniture quality, will say, then

then yeah, you know, you can always sell them. That doesn't really sound like the dog chew market is dominant, at least based on on how you're I think it's a controlling force right now, without a doubt, without a doubt, how would you rate the um in your experience? Like, how how would you rate the seediness level of the

antler market? Oh? Man, like I would things out. You know, it brings out the worst than a lot of people because like in the seventies, the late seventies, early eighties, like the fur trade when when it was crazy hot, it just it had, you know, it developed like a seediness. Yeah, and we've talked to game wardens where like it does a lot of people who are poaching are tied to some other type of criminal activity drug dealing or yeah. Yeah,

I get. And whenever I'm in towns um please stop me all the time, say hey, did you buy any antler's office so and so? And I said I And I looked through my receich I keep accurate re seats or no I deal with And I say no, And they said, well, keep your eyes out. This is a vehicle, here's the license plate number, here's my card. Please call me. Sure, no problems because they're stealing ant and usually there doing

that to fund other devices. Will say, possibly, it seems that it seems that's where it gravitates too much towards the illicit stuff. That tree is incredible. Yeah, could you guys make that tree? How many? No? No clue, No, it's got to be several hundred, right, Oh, it's probably it's probably a hundred and fifty minute of doing olk mixed. But yeah, it took us about three evenings parting around.

You know, when the one of the times on the antler market blew up, I guess it was kind of like I don't know, I don't know what year it was, And it probably because you've been in it so long. Something at the beginning of things don't seem like the beginning to you because you were in it, like from the infancy of various things. But I don't know when I became aware of like just like the antler market,

the antler market. I had a friend, my brother will last day any he would take all the shed antlers and all the ship he killed, and he'd make like a cylinder that climbed this big spruce tree, just rap a tree in it. One day comes so much is gone. A buddy of mine had I was actually in on this this bowl we killed. Another friend of mine up

in Alaska. We killed a nice bowl one time, and I was there with him when he got it, and we were talking about that, and he's like gone, hung on my garage for years and they come home and just gone. And I was right around the same time my brother's tree got picked clean. Somebody went through and

made a few stops, you know. But as a buyer, um obviously like, well I don't know, man, Like you know, if you, for instance, in some stuff, in some stuff in wildlife, a buyer is under like quite a bit of they're under quite a bit of pressure to vet what's coming. Like you go to a tax and ermist, right, they you can't just walking with crazy ship new attacks embers. He's like, I need your tag and whatever. If you go to a tannery, right, it's like, whatever state you're

coming from, what are the regulations of that state? Is it supposed to be sealed? Do you have records and all that? But when you're talking about antlers, um that you don't. There's no regulatory structure in place on tagging the ship, right, So how you know to what degree are you held responsible for where something came from when you have no real way of vetting it. You're really not. You're not. You've got your gut, like you know you can deal with some people and you go, this isn't right.

I'm writing a license plate down it. So you've had you'll have a guy approach and you're like, you didn't find those antlers? Like you got them somehow. Besides that sometimes. Yeah, you know, you can't go out and say that, but you get a gut feeling, especially when somebody shows up with a pile of chalky stuff that's nice and clean and it's got some grass and flower ly stuck to it.

I took it out of somebody's flower garden. Yeah. Usually if they show up with a couple of browns and maybe a number two grade and then some chalky ones, yeah, they're probably okay. But when they show up at the pilot chalk like they stole it from somebody's yard. M hm, might you then turn them away? No, I mean because if you're not knowingly doing anything, But that's when you

take extra notations because it could have been his flower. Better. Later, the police are going to probably stop and ask you questions. Here you go, I mean, I'm not a I'm not a hush hush guy. I mean, you know, the game warden or somebody came up. Hey, here's my It happened down in the auction uh three or four years ago.

I bought some antlers off a guy. He goes, you're gonna be here for a while, I'm sure, and he bought some antlers in bottom Foom and the trailer, and I left the auction and went to the motel room and I'm sitting in bed talking to Jamie on the phone and my phone rings and I look cold waiting and it's the three oh seven. It was Jackson hole number. And I said, oh, I gotta go. Somebody's wanting tell me antlers probably And they said, oh, this is So and so from the Wyoming game and Fish. Can we

talk to you? Sure? He goes, did you buy some antler's office so and so? A matter of fact, we did. He goes, where are you at right now? And I said, I at my motel And he goes, can we come by? And I said sure. He goes, I'll be there in one minute. So they knew where I was at because the antler had a GPS tracker in it. Oh so, but we didn't know. And then So opened up the trailer and he pulled the antler out and here it is and he goes, He goes, he sold you some morning.

I go yeah. He goes, we're the rest of his antlers and I go, here's eight thousand pounds in the trailer. You know, pick them. I don't know, you know, because they were all mixed, and I go, I, I don't know. But anyways, he picked it up off the game range before it opened down there one of the feedlots, and he took it to his house and they knew he had it, and as soon as he moved it, it

started signaling. And we bought the antlers and left, and the the fishing game where there two minutes after we left, so they they plugged that one antler just to just to do a sting, not a sting, but to catch people. And then then they'll go in on May first, right before May first, and I'll take it out. But I go here, here's my receipt here's my receipts. This is the check number I paid him. Uh, and they copied that and they said, hey, thanks for your cooperation, and UH.

The guy was with me that ended up having the antler says, hey, wait a minute, you're taking this. I'm losing money, and they says, well, we'll give you a slip you can write off as a loss, or they if the guy gets busted, restitution restitution, and ended up getting the restitution back. Years ago, I was working on an article about livestock theft and I was hanging out with some guys from the Rural Rural Crime Task Force in Bakersfield, California, and it was in scrap. Prices were high.

They were running around putting transmitters inside irrigation pipe and ship like that. He goes, you could put a stack of irrigation pipe out by the road, put a transmitter on it. Just wait until the next morning. Gone said, it wasn't hard. You know how many during that that issue, how many times electricians had to rewire houses because they went stripped all the copper you mentioned? Um, you mentioned

two things. You mentioned calling it slowing down on the business, but you mentioned that there's a third generation coming up, So which is it? No, No, just downsized a little bit. I mean you can only handle so much. So No, I just pinned out some accounts, downsized a little bit to a more manageable level. It's kept growing and growing and growing. Is your business the kind of business that you could sell the business? Or does it die with you?

What's it worth? But I don't know, sky, I mean, you know the people I deal with, there's no contractual agreements, so I mean there's no monetary value on it. Uh, And most of my context that I buy antlers from other people. Know. I mean, with the advent of the social media, everybody knows everybody. So there you know so And I'm not a big social media guy. If you were to predict, you know, you talked about your son

um potentially being third generation. Where would you predict the market? Uh, where would you say it could be going in five years, ten years? Is there going to be a new thing or people are going to get tired of giving their dogs antler? Choose? I predict regulation. That's what I was gonna know. I was gonna say, what's going to happen? Is I think it's going to be regulated. It's going to be like hunting um. I think you'll always be able to sell antler dog choose. Where it's going to

go in five years? I have no idea. I wish, I wish, I wish I knew then what I know now. So I don't know. And maybe maybe possibly there won't be a big commercial market in five or ten years. I thought the dog tew market would have already played out. It'll play out. Well, I'm the guy that's all Bruise, I'm the guy that predicted that micro Bruce Roll, I don't know, I don't know if that pet markets going anywhere.

Remind me not to take any stock tips from you that though, anything outside of my don't because they're I mean, and it's not just the antler dog JeOS, just the single ingredient organic other things that are that the dogs are chewing on and eating. Uh. It's like Jamie cooks for our dogs. Now we don't give them any dry food. Sam shot that buck and that dope. The lungs, kidneys,

the heart everything. We're not heart eaters. So um, the kidneys, lungs, got all the internal organs and the dogs just that's a good idea. I do a lot of that for my dog, but I haven't done the lungs. That's a good idea. They love that stuff. I just boil it, man, I minced it up and boil it. She goes nuts. I do raw mm hmm. Don't even boil it, no flash, fry it and throw and there slowly transition them over so you don't have intestinal distress, do you guys? Has

c w D affected your business at all? No? Like moving stuff around, well, in certain areas of Colorado or certain areas you gotta you can't transport ahead out of the county. It has to be boiled in county for you to transport the antlers on a deadhead for well, I do that most of the time anyways, they take

up so much space. But no, the c w D. Other than that, No, it's it's not there's There hasn't been any case that I'm aware of that dogs have Actually No, I was just referring to, like in general, has that disease affected how the regulation around interstate transport? Probably it's a very small percentage of deadheads that you end up dealing with. Very small. Um. I lost another question. I was gonna ask you or the ones I do buy are already selling off so you just get in

stand up with the mandlers. So it's not a big deal. Well, I know what I was gonna ask. Cut out might not member when I was gonna ask if you're a seller? Okay, is there anything to gain? Role play? Again? No, no, we need to role play. Is there ever a pitch about why a seller should go to you? Like, do you feel like plugging? Do you feel like saying hey man if you okay? Or call me honesty? Yeah, yeah,

I'm pretty straight good. I when I when I like I just started buying antlers off a guy in the Midwest by his deer, and I go, look, here's my here's my deal. Okay, I said, I'm going to be brutally honest with you one way or the other. Either either way it could work bad, work for your favorite. And I said, I expect the same treatment in return.

I said, don't hide anything, don't pull any punches. I mean, if you got a problem, call me, you know, and if I have a problem with you, I'm gonna tell you. And you know, that's how we get along. So transparency, honesty, um, you know. And yeah, the new people that try out and if you treat them right, they'll come back. So how do people find you if they want to sell you pile anlers? You gotta care. I do care. They just word of mouth. My numbers out there people know

Tony Shoffer. Well, I'm just you know, I'm um, like one guy I know that I buy from. You don't know. You don't want to say your number right now? Bill, you got antlers and cell? Call me four zero six five seven zero three three seven one. I repeat four zero six seven zero one. You know what? You know what Three of the biggest lives are in the world. Was that a lie? I love you checks in the mail and I'm an honest antler buyer. What was the number he just gave four zero six seven zero one. Yeah,

it's that's really his number. Yeah, I got your number. Please please no hate mail? Yeah, no yourself mailer man. Yeah. Yeah. If your kid, uh, your kid takes over, he can he can adopt some of the new ways like social media and stuff like that. Definitely, he's there the our fourteen year old twins. Now I go to them my phone's not working and they fix it in ten seconds. Yeah. Yeah, Well, appreciate you coming on man, thanks for having me. It's I guess it's an honor. Like I said, I've some grin.

You guys are celebrities in some circles. I guess. No, I'm just kidding. No. You know, I watched your show since you started, and I kind of like the way you do it. They appreciate it. You know. It's not just going out there and shooting a big animal and I get a couple of big ones. No, you do, but you know what it is. It's not like you go to our private place and they know where this deer is and you set up and shoot it. Now you're out there doing the whole philosophical thing, and thank you,

appreciate it, and get some ideas on cooking. I like to do that for sure. One thing I'll never try is that boiled tongue that you and cal ate one time deer hunting in. Dude, you don't know what you're talking about. Man, Just to me and listen. Let me tell you. I want to give you a hot tip. Next time you get out when someone comes with some antlers, say how about you selling me that tongue? You get the tongue? Listen, what up? Listen to what I'm saying.

Put that tongue on pot of water and barely simmer it. Elk tongue, de your tongue, whatever the elk tong is nicer, Okay, barely simmer it until you notice it around where you cut it off that you know it's the outer skin is starting to peel away. Okay, all right, Now put it in cold water. Plunge in cold water so you don't in your fingers, and see can I peel all the outer skin off? If you can't let it boil longer? Eventually get all the outer skin peeled off. The tongue.

It's white when you peel it off. Now, put a dry rub all over that suthing bitch. Put in a smoker. Really, then you slice it up and eat that and tell me there's a problem that everybody that eats it says the same thing. That's good, some variation on that. You know, you know what I'm telling you, dude, after it's good. Tacos too, oh so fatty and good lingua mm hmm. Yes, after a couple of beers, I'd probably try just about it.

I gave it to you right now. If I gave it to you right now, you you didn't know what it was, you wouldn't know what it was, but you think it was pretty damn good. Our great Dane loves time. That's how it was the first time I ate Mountain Lion. I didn't know what I was eating, and you liked it. Yeah, Sure, looked like kind of it was pork chop. Looks like a pork chop. There's gravy and rice and a bunch of it before I figured out what it was. And I don't mind up what I like about that. The

fat is pretty good on it. You don't, but I had, I've had. I've had a mountain lion backstraft. It was captain fat, and the fat was good like pork fat, legitimately good. You got to cook it, though I expected to not be good. Oh yeah, you can get the old trick nosis off that. You know that a little bit of something about that, don't you know they're saying you can't eat the antlers Tony soul business And I'm going to tell you the story, and you got me sidetracked.

But a professional athlete that torres rotator cuffies playing professional baseball, do we have time? And oh yeah, us. Well, anyways, he tore his rotator cup and he got surgery and the doctor goes, here, take these pills, I'll help you. And he goes, what are there? He goes there antler powder pills. So I started taking them and the pain went away, and he goes, so he quit taking him, and the pain came back. So he started taking the pain went away, and he actually started a company and

was making those pillsel athletes take them. I took it, and yeah, a lot of Asian pains went away. So there's there's something to it, just like the Asian culture. How old is that? It's way older than ours? And I bet you they know a lot more than we do about stuff. Cringe. Yeah, she's only half agent. Just asked her. She'll tell you know, she knows a lot. She'll tell you I definitely haven't tried any of that.

Then maybe i'll you know, some people, it's just good for your dogs, and I'll lick us a milk gittler split in half. I'll lick it. Doesn't do anything. Oh no, I imagine not. Oh you know what about making like antler toothpicks that you that you'd start chewing on. Maybe that's a new fan. There you go. Possibly, thank you, it was a pleasure me. Yeah, thanks for coming and I appreciate him. Thanks joy, Hopefully see you again. Sometimes, Oh I think so. I hopefy people calling him and

sell you some sweet antlers. Here's the one deal man. If someone calls you and sells you some antlers and they say like, oh, hey, I heard your number on the show. You picked me out the coolest one there, not out of every batch, but like whatever, send me a cool one out of there. Okay, Well I'll tell you what I'll do. I'll do a trade with you. So I'll give you a couple of good cool ships. But I need some autographed swag from your friends. Like I said, they think you're some sort of a celebrity.

We're not gonna spoil that for him. Were signed some stuff, We're signed some stuff. Yeah, and we're gonna watch the mailbox for a sweet Antler. No, I won't mailbox. I'll bring it and let you pick him out. I'll stop by one of these times, better and better all right to tell you about your name and name of your company to Shaffler, Rocky Mountain Antler Company. There you haven't call him up some big pile. He's waiting for you in his underwearing the hotel room. Be maybe