Ep. 440: Glassing for Sheds

If this is the me Eater podcast coming at you, shirtless, severely, bug bitten, and in my case, underwear.

Listenst you can't predict anything.

Presented by First Light, creating proven versatile hunting apparel from Marino bass layers to technical outer wear. For every hunt, First Light, Go Farther, stay longer. All right, good lord, there's a lot to talk about. Should we start with introducing our guests. We're talking about Phil's new haircut.

People.

People get more conservative the older they get generally, not always, but generally, and that's happening to Phil with his hair.

Because my hair is getting more like militaristic.

He pretty soon is gonna have a flat top.

That's what my grandpa died with. So it's only a matter of time.

He's gradually going flat top. And Chester got a ball sack tattooed to his arm. No, can I see it again? Oh No, that's been there.

Yeah. Yeah, if you if they would just close this upright there, it would be because like for.

Sure, yeah you could have. I mean, if you've got like the wrinkles, and if he got even a little bit drunk, well, if you gave me a tattue gun, I could turn it into a c and.

B wow, was the first time I heard that.

I was trying to think of how to keep a family family friend would still be clear?

Just so everybody knows, it is, in fact, not a ball sack.

It's a proof of sex tattoo. And it's a proof of sex tattoo.

It is all right. It's an old like spade fly, like a steelhead, like a swing and fly swinging.

All right, I got through this material.

All right, Oh Chester, I've seen that tattoo a thousand times, but I just didn't see it that way.

Now you can't un see it.

Did you know what it was?

I've always known, But then when someone when you said what your sister thought it was, then I looked at it all anew.

Because when my arms down like this, you know, kind of can I is?

Can I get a pen? Can I give it a couple of little Can I give it a couple of little hairs?

Just to see? What? Like? The only one we have is a sharpie?

That's too bad?

What kind of fly is that?

It's just like you know those like spade flies, those fancy feathered flies that people tie up with a guinea hen. And it's one of them. Danielle and I were in Hawaii and I was we just decided to get tattoos spur of the moment.

Did the Hawaiian know what that was?

No?

M hmmm.

He's like, oh that's cool, and then he had.

A little snicker with his buddies in the back.

Yea tourists.

I love that tattooed Chester. I think Chess has also got an arrow tattooed up and down his arm.

Yeah, it's not really proportional. My mom hates that one. It's like a crossbow bolt.

With the giants.

Oh yeah, it's got a lot fletching.

Yeah.

Yeah, and he's got to fly on the other arm. What you got a trap on the other arm?

No, I should should.

I did a big old double long spring on there. Joined today by Ben dettamante am I saying that, right, you did you nail it. You guys are Italian, you know.

I like to say I'm one hundred percent Italian, although I'm not actually a hundred percent Italian.

A little bit to twenty five fantastic, yeah right where I'm at. Yeah, it's a good number. Have you done the twenty three and me?

Oh yeah, yeah, we did the whole breakdown. Really, I think it was like about a quarter for me. Well, actually my dad did. I didn't do it, so I'm deducing from his results. Yeah what I am?

Did you know I'm ten times more African than Elizabeth Warren is Native American.

I say, count it. I'd be putting that on two percent paperwork. Count it because my my Italians are from Sicily. That's a good place. We're from Lake Como apparently.

Oh really so you go by?

Uh?

I know this because on your social media stuff shed crazy? Tell people about that. You know you're not like crazy about building sheds.

Well, no, I don't know anything about building sheds for sure, but yeah it does, you know, come up a lot, you know, shit crazy. But yeah, that's kind of just a little thing. I started social media back maybe twenty twelve or something, start a little Instagram page, and now it's my identity. Because you love picking up I love picking up sheds.

Do you get sick of it?

Sometimes? I don't get picked like sick of finding sheds, but like the grind that comes with like constantly going out and trying to find new areas and stuff gets old, for sure.

Really yeah, but you you retired from being a custodian.

I did.

We're gonna get into that, yeah, in order to in order to hunt sheds.

Yeah. I left an illustrious career as a custodian to do this full time. So it's a interesting way to make a living.

And right now it's like, you should not be here right now, you should be doing that.

No, I'm sacrificing some prime real estate, some prime time in the hills to be here, So you guys are welcome.

I found a shed yesterday, but then I realized I'd already found it.

Yeah, you refound my dog.

Because my dog carried it off and I thought I found it, and then I got to looking at it and realized that it had the same string that I used to hang it into a tree.

It's probably just as exciting though, right.

Oh hey, another thing you know we like to If you're a frequent listener, you know that we like to tack things on the end of the show. So the show will end and you'll hear a new thing that's interesting or whatever. We're going to tack on an episode of our new podcast, This Country Life with Brent Reeves. It's the it's really really good it's really funny. I driving, if I'm driving around, listen to it. I laugh out loud. My kid, my older boy loves that show. He just

It called, Phil, the stuff in my pockets?

The stuff in my I was gonna say, what's in my pocket? The stuff in my pockets on the end of the show. So give that a listen. If you love it, go over subscribe to bear Grease and you'll see it. You'll see it rolled into the bear Grease feed. I like it so much, I might steal it from and put it in this feed. Phil, you think about that.

You and Clay might have to throw some fists, but we'll make it happen.

We'll see enjoy that when you get to the end of the show. Gordon Lightfoot passed away.

One of the greats.

Oh my god, the legend lives on inarguably.

Inarguably he wrote the greatest song of all time, the Record of the Edmund Fitzgerald. Interestingly, if you go on Spotify, the record the Edmund Fitzgerald has this is just one measure, okay on the album Summertime Dream. The Record of the Edmund Fitzgerald has fifty two million, seven hundred and sixty five and thirty plays on the album. It came out on a seven minute song. They came out the record, Phil, can you check what year record the Edvan fie Gerald

This is nineteen seventy six. So he wrote it right out.

So at the centennial, at the American Centennial, the American bi Centennial, Gord, Canadian folk singer Gord comes out with the greatest song ever written by man, the recor of the Edmond Fitzgerald on that album that it released on that's something he plays, it has on Spotify. So just a relative picture here, fifty two million will round up to fifty three million plays on his album Summertime Dream.

I wonder if that's because people have a hard time, like holding their attention to something for seven minutes.

It sounds only three and a half minutes long.

And it's catchier like to the mainstream too, is it?

It's been sampled?

Hasn't that been?

Like movies and stuff sundown. Oh yeah, it's been sampled, and I think, like, wasn't it like P Diddy? What the hell's his name?

Is that what he goes by these days? Right?

Yeah, so I'm sure he goes by his name.

Now the wreck for you, for you folk, Phil, Let's queue up the part where he talks about Lake Michigan, because there's a part and this is always spoke to me because I grew up on Lake Michigan. Lake Michigan steams like a young man's dreams, Her islands and bays are for sportsmen. Well, he he what he does in his song. He does a comparison contrasts between all the great lakes, and he's like, basically, Lake Superior is a

That's a good line.

That's great, which makes it seem like it's like a like a like a wimpy little lake. Not that theed mephis Gerald's Hall and iron Ore, I believe from Duluth to down to Young's I believe it sank in a horrible November storm nineteen seventy five. Twenty nine people aboard. It sank in five hundred feet of water in Lake Superior. At five hundred feet there's no life and no light, and there's no current, which I didn't really know until recently.

No current.

It's in five hundred feet of water. So you used to not be able to dive it, but you can. People can dive it, and so starting in the nineties people started to be able to dive down to the wreck. The bodies are still identifiable. No whoa still identifiable?

Really?

Yeah?

Sitting in thirty four degree water, no current, no light, no life. A guy took pictures of identifiable bodies. They later made it illegal to sell out to dive that wreck and pull stuff off it. But they took the bell off it and they replaced it with a bell with all twenty nine sailors his names etched into the bell. So now in five hundred feet in Lake Superior is a bell, a new bell with all twenty nine sailors.

Names on it.

So at the Maritimes Sailor's Cathedral at a church in Detroit. The next morning, someone came out and rang the bell in Detroit twenty nine times, once for every person lost on the ship. A journalist saw him do it and knocked on the door of the church and interviewed the person who rang the bell, and that became a big news story. So in the Reck of the Edmin Fitzgerald, when Gordon Lightfoot says the church bell chimed till it rang twenty nine times for each man on the Edmund Fitzgerald,

The crowd erupted, Oh my god.

I often allude to when we beat the Russians in hockey in the Olympics in like the eighties. That feeling of that emotional catharsis that America went through when Gordon. It was nothing compared to when Gordon stood up and said in Canada it'll be It'll be whatever, thirty five years of November. I mean, people wept, oh, and he passed away, made it into his eighties.

In the rooms of her Icewater mansion, Michigan steams like a young man's dreams.

Oh.

You know when they killed Ben Laden, they supposedly put him in a in a sack with an anchor and overboard.

I would like to get Gord's carcass.

It's not too late. I'm assuming.

You might have a lot I don't know.

I would like to get Gord's carcass, get that same set up and go right to that waypoint that's where he belongs to put him down there with the thin well you weighed it down.

Last thing's light foot. He might just that it's a good.

Joke, just like he's a three good jokes.

I would say.

If I had jokes, good yours, I'd say, I'm super loud.

Yeah, maybe your headphones are just quiet.

Oh so rest piece, I gotta do a cover of that. Oh you should have Dandy Warhol's covered it seven minutes. That's the third thing I want to add. It got to number two and stayed in the Billboard charts for months. And this is at a time when songs had to be three minutes long, and they were a boy it was a song? Was this three and a half minutes long? Okay, verse chorus, verse, chorus, bridge chorus. It was like love goes wrong, Like there's love, it goes wrong. I left her,

I can't funny thing you're saying that I wrote a song the other day, and it's exactly what you're saying.

It goes wrong, it's gonna be a hit.

Verse chorus, there's no bridge. I don't like bridges.

Oh bridges are Chester Chait put a bridge in it.

And here's the guy that comes out with a seven in it. Song detailing in great specificity and iron ore freighter sinking in Lake Superior.

With the tonnage.

Yeah now and then something slips through the cracks. You could picture just as well that Gord would have written to Edmund Fitzgerald and no one listened to it. If that's the greatest song ever written, Tonight we rides the second game. That's what I was. That's number one in my book, great detail, that's my favorite song. Pancho Villa comes into the US raids a Texas town. Black Jack Pershing, who would later make his name in World War One, goes in pursuit of him, chases him for two years.

Yeah, there you go. It's a great song. Oh man, we should make a playlist, Phil, we can do that.

You made a playlist for the live show that you you had me, this would be a different bla be a different one.

Blackjack pershing on a dancing horse is waiting in the wings.

I had looked like it's yeah, it's like the writing of Cormick McCarthy, where you got to look a lot of stuff up, stuff up, because he said, when Jackie wasn't looking, I stole his fine spade bit. The hell's a spade bit. I didn't know what did you know what that was?

I mean a general idea of what it is. I don't know too specifically.

It's a spade shaped blade that goes into a horse's mouth, So when you pull on the rein, it drives that spade shaped blade up into the roof of its mouth, greatly irritating.

That's how you push a horse hard.

He says when he catches he was going to catch Pancho Villa and make chaps out of Pancho Villa's skin.

Shoot his horse. Yet they laywise in this twenty seven brides Yep, it's a good song.

He observes that you don't need no teeth for kissing gals and smoking sheep stars. I sleep with one eyes open need neath God's celestial stars.

Yep, that's back.

When they could write rest in peace, Gordon, rest in peace. Maybe even better than dumping them over the ship, was he to get one of those divers and go tuck them in down in that ship. Hmmm, get a wet.

Suit for that.

I'm surprised there's no life down there. Yeah, that's that was very surprised.

In the ocean. Giant squid eat them.

Yeah.

So, if Gord's family's listening, think about this, or you could just take a more modest approach. Put his stuff in a big, old heavy.

See that thing we got.

You know that artillery shell we got down there? Oh yeah, put his ashes in there. Put a bunch of melted lead in there, and right down where you want her.

They could use that artillery shell if they wanted.

Gordon's families listening, We have an artillery shell.

Oh you know what you should do?

I got it now, Phil, We're gonna wrap it up on this conversation. Yeah, this is what they should do. Get a bell, Oh, carve Gord. Here lies here lies Gord or Gord or Gordon lightfoot, depending on how if the person etching it has that much time Gordon, lightfoot into the bell, invert the bell, put the ashes in there, pour a bunch of lead in on top of that, and.

Then you got to ring it one time for him church bell.

Chime to the ring one time Gordon for the for the writer of the Edmundon.

If you didn't end up in a family plots to you, where would you want your body or ashes to?

I know exactly where I want it. Yeah, I've told my kids. I've told my wife. None of them listens. I know exactly where I want it. I want it on top of a particular butte, and I want preferably them to quarter my carcass out. I've explained this to him. Oh my god, I want to be quartered out hauled up there. It's three miles hauled there and left there, tucked in a little out of the way so I could be scavenged by wolves and grizzlies. That's what I

Who's packing the head.

It doesn't matter me. It'll be out to my kids, just three of them. It's like not a bad load. Now, it's fifty pound packs.

Quartered cooled, properly, bled out in a game bag and just tucked in out of the way, and something can eat me. That's what I want, all right. It's a near green burrial. We burned a lot of time, up, Krinn.

We can cut half of the talking points.

What was a few things here?

There's some great stuff in here.

This is interesting. Okay, here's the deal. You guys are all familiar with Saxon Pope, Pope and Young. Okay, I didn't know this. So Saxon Pope had a book, Hunting with the Bow and Arrow nineteen forty seven. Now, Krinin if I'm understanding this is in Saxon Pope's book. Yes, so Saxon Pope and what was Young's first name?

You remember him?

Art?

Yeah, Saxon Pope and Art Young, two early archers.

Uh who.

What's kind of funny about archerie today is people talk about traditional archery. Traditional archery isn't old. I mean it took a long high like traditional archery took off, took a long hiatus. Now, at the Battle a Little Big Horn in eighteen seventy six, they were still well at the Federman Fight, which is sixty three eighteen sixty three. I think it was the Federman Fight sixty three or

He later greased his boots with it.

Wow with his wonder how.

Rendered down his own belly fat and greased his boots.

That is waste, not want not.

Yeah. When I when I'm talking, when I'm explained why I love America, That's why I love America. That's why America is my number one favorite country. No, I like that, you know, bald eagles and belly fat Gordon Lightfoot's country would probably be a distant third for me.

That's pretty grotesque though.

That's why I refuse to lose weight. Like you never know, and you're gonna need a little boot grease, you know, to come in handy.

You could, Yeah, you could grease a handful of boots.

I thought he was going to render it and like cook something minute me too.

That's where I thought it was going.

That that would have been see, that would have been just that's just gross.

Yeah.

Still after our this guy, someone wrote in, so we still get a lot of notes about gators from our Gator podcast, and I remember one guy wrote in that he loved hearing, he loved hearing all of you Northerners get real excited about alligator fast. So this guy writes in, I really enjoyed your podcast, especially the recent episode and alligators. He's a private lands biologist in southeastern North Carolina. Part

Yeah, that's another a gap.

Have those been on the internet.

I thought about posting, but that seems like a good way to get your account taken away.

Yeah, it's old. Yeah that happened. I forget what year it was.

I told you about when I was in fifth grade. The teacher brought in pictures of her boyfriend's remains removed from a crocodile. What's interesting is another alum from Rhese Puffer rode in to say, dude, I had the same teacher, same grade. She showed me the same pictures.

Wow, He's like, you.

Weren't wrong, because you weren't remembering wrong. She showed me those pictures.

That's I never thought.

So she kept her job for a while.

We know that for sure.

We used to fish wally dogs right out in front of her house. She lived on the Muskegon River.

Swamp as she sings pasted.

Oh yeah, was it pictures like what we saw? I mean basically, it's like a gator's belly open and you see like an entire you know, it looked like it just looks like your arm. It wasn't digested because it was so he sent like an arm. It's like it's like someone someone who is retrieving the arm from the belly. It's almost like he's like holding the hand of the severed arm.

Hand was.

Just someone pulling it like an arm.

What's the story behind it?

It was just there was an attack.

Oh okay, last summer, this guy goes on. You know what it reminded Seeing that photo reminded me of and I'm still traumatized from it. I don't know if I ever told you the story.

Here, I'll show it to everyone else so they get traumatized.

When I was a little kid, I watched them pull remains from an airplane wreck.

Oh what if you don't know that he's not alive in there, like maybe she's just helping him out, like he's he's like, get me out of here.

He's But then there's another picture of you know, like the person lying there without there.

This guy goes on. Last summer, I found an entire barred owl and a recently consumed turtle inside of a seven footer that turned up dead at a golf course after being killed by a larger gator. They had a GPS alligator swallow a basketball and that slowly starved to death. It took it multiple years to starve to death. That same alligator also had a six inch arrow shaft embedded in its skull behind the eyes that likely altered its vision.

Jeez, I wonder how did it get a bard owl?

You know, my here's my theory on it. After I thought long and hard about it. That owl was laying there dead in the water.

That's what I thought most probably.

Do you remember on a recent episode we were talking about them having those gators mummies, the Egyptians having two thousand year old gator mummies. That gator mummy has thirty one crocodiles in it. It had a five point five foot croc and thirty kroc babies, all embalmed and positions so as to appear riding on the larger individual's back.

Wow.

In the antiquities, there's a term called the provenance might saying that right provenance, meaning like, let's say I came to you and I said, hey, check this out. I actually own the Mona Lisa. People will be like, well, I'd like to understand the provenance of that, meaning how did it flow from the louver to you.

Steve's actually a very successful harder. Yeah.

In eighteen ninety nine, Phoebe Hurst of the Hers family, right, she bought it from an antiquities dealer in Egypt. Now, so we were wandering in there. They said, how there was a fish hook in there, and we're like, what kind of fish hook? And why would it not have corroded? They believe it was a bronze hook, is how they caught that thing. So people in Egypt two thousand years ago fishing gators of bronze hooks.

Yeah, it's less susceptible to corrosion than copper and contemporary forms of iron and steel, says this archaeologist. And yeah, bronze would have been consistent with contemporary fishing fish hook manufacturers at that time, even well into the iron Age.

Here's a story from Minnesota. Oh you'll appreciate this, Ben, all right, Ready, guy in Minnesota was living near a registered sex offender.

Oh, let me just do the transition. This guy who wrote in about the Gator Mummy is shared this story because his parents live in this town where it happened, and he didn't he doesn't. He didn't bring it up with his parents or ask around because it's a small town so everyone knows everyone. So this story comes from the same guy who just wrote in about the crack Mummy.

So he has eclectic interests.

Yes, very much. It's a very interesting email. You know, you don't expect the second part of the email after reading the first.

But yeah, like usually when you send someone an email, you put the really interesting.

Part in the front.

Yep, yep, Like you'd never be like, oh, and by the way, I was mauled by you know prey.

Yeah, it's a whole sworded story. I don't want to get into all the details.

But basically a involves antler sheds a man, a.

Man be a child, molesser to death with an antler.

Yeah, I support it.

Multi use dog chews, well, they I.

Mean they can be a serious weapon. I mean I've thought about it many times, Like when I'm not carrying you know, pistol or bear spray. Got a he shed just in case.

Would you go pedical side first as the club or.

I think i'd have to try to get the times in there. Yeah right, yeah, a little bit of stabbing motion in there. I think like a big like a five point like a raghorn elk shed. You could get some leth velocity behind that thing.

Be pretty easy for that to accidentally end up one hundred eighty degrees the other way at some point during a struggle.

Well, oh, and your opponent would turn it on you. Yeah, yeah, not in my experience.

But the guy wrote in about me complaining about I think that Wisconsin voters and I'm just I'm carpetbagging here. I'm not from wiscons I'm not a Wisconsin voter. I think Wisconsin Nights have made a horrible mistake and not allowing through the ice Northern Pike spearing.

In their waters. The argument against it.

Is they won't be able to tell a pike from a musky. That's what the argument sounds like in that voice.

They won't be able to tell a pipe from musky. That's people, Why why why don't they keep the closing musky waters?

Well, hear me out, How can hunters and anglers be trusted to.

Tell a tell a uh.

Female from a male.

Uh pike black bear.

I'm pointing to the skot doc.

I'm trying to think of I'm trying to think of here.

I'm in a little buying here because I'm trying to think of a duck species where you need to know male from female, where the male and female are not super And I'm struggling, But okay, thirty minutes before sunrise. You can be trusted to tell a drake from a mallard. They can trust you with that. Yeah, you can be trusted to tell a two inch long spike antler from

A beard or not.

The one I shot barely a singular feather.

It's a feather.

A beard is a feather, a singular feather growing out of his chest. We can trust hunters to figure that out, but they can't be trusted to tell if you're spearing a pike or a muskie. You can be trusted to know if you're throwing a pike or a muskie into your ice box. You can be trusted to know that you're putting a gaff into a pike or muskie at the hole when you're tip up fishing, but you can't be trusted to tell a pike from a muskie when your spirit. And a guy wrote in saying you have

He thinks that you.

Should definitely be allowed to spear northerns in with Wisconsin underwater with goggles on spearfishing, because those people aren't drunk. He then followed up with a chart that shows excessive drinking by county across the country yesterday, Okay, excessive drinking by county across the country, Holy cow, Wisconsin. Excessive drinking is marked by dark blue. Wisconsin is the only state where ever, every county is, all of Wisconsin is dark blue.

Yeah, that's bizarre.

And then you go to Utah, Dude, those guys don't drink because there's that joke, like there's.

That joke like, oh, you know, how do you take to I'm not gonna tell jokes. We got.

Listen Utah, they are not excessive drinking, but I wonder if it's all like voluntary, like do you excessive drink?

Gonna say yes to that question.

You know what the funny Wisconsin like, yes, sir.

I do you know what? The thing I noticed about that Wisconsin map is Lake Winnebago is all white.

But because they're not excessive drinking on the there's a misrepresentation.

It's just.

When that thing is frozen.

Why is green? Yeah?

Why is green Bay white?

That's a great green Bay should be dark blue.

If you notice in Montana, Gallatin County, the county county we're in right now, hard drinking, hard drinking county.

But Wisconsin, my goodness, and they like to pull a cork around Duluth too.

I just love how clearly Utah's outlined in that map so you can't really tell it.

And Appalachia, you know why, because they're making their own and they're lying about it. Yeah, don't have any no, none here, None of that stuff in this household.

The dry county is here because.

Appalaysia sober as the day is long. Wisconsin just wunk as a skunk. And he says, that is why you can't trust those people with us.

With a speaking of tell us about forest floor foods, old fashioned kid Chester.

Oh oh yeah, we have those on sale. So my dad he started this. We've talked about it before, like a cocktail garnish company for like Bloody Mary's and stuff. It's great state to be in for that kind of business, as you can see. But now meat Eater and they have been if they're selling that old fashioned kits on the website, so you know, after you get done spearing pike and whatnot, you can have yourself a cocktail.

Continue to contribute to that dark navy blue color.

Yes, yeah, yeah, they My parents actually just got their products at the Brewers Stadium, so they call the Brewers nice. That's big Packer games. They have some of their stuff there.

Congrats.

N kind of cool, yeah, kind of proud moment.

Recently recovered the this move like all these people banning kangaroo leather.

Yeah, like Adiita Snike And why did.

Doug Why did bubbly Doug write me a think about posh spice? Was she on the list of people remember the band?

That's a Victoria Beckham? She's a huge eg fashion person.

Now who's married to that?

Was?

Who that was? Yeah?

Well, what's her story like? Did she is she protesting? Because Doug was pointing out her husband has used has worn out thousands of shoes made of kangaroo.

I wonder if she is. We didn't I didn't research that.

Wasn't Victoria Beckham one of the names that Steve listed in the in the p She's married to David Beckham and.

She has a fashion line that will don't use kangaro leather, even though her old man's been running around and kangaroo.

Shoes his entire life.

There you go, genuine. Ozzie wrote in just thought I'd add some detail to how idiotic the kangaroo leather boycott is as a roushooter myself, as a way it's controlling kangaroos. We have two different permits, harvest permits and drop permits. Harvest permits require a firearm accuracy test, butchering course and certified holding rack to acquire on top of a gun license oh okay, a certified holding, so they're heavily licensed to get their firearm, which all in all costs around

And he points out that kangaroo leather. They're not killing kangaroos for their leather. The leather is a byproduct of hunting the animal and consuming its meat.

Much like beef leather, hm, cow leather, cattle letter, whatever you want to call it. You know you're not. No one's raising them. I shouldn't say no. Maybe some freakish situation.

They are.

No one's raising them. Oh, you know, this girl I went to high school with married this dude who was from South America and he was in the cattle business. And this is crazy. He was telling me that he buys leather for luxury automobile manufacturers and he targets leather not from the US but from areas in South America where they don't use barbed wire.

Oh huh, makes sense.

Makes sense.

He's he's looking for absolutely blemish free leather for the finest luxury cars and he needs to find it where there's no barboaring.

That makes sense.

Put that podcast.

That's good stuff right there.

Just put it there.

Kangaroo leather is like really really soft, right.

I think I've I've heard it's really durable, but I don't.

Durable and kind. I think my soccer shoes probably kangaroo leather back.

In high school. You can buy like the kind of back to the ball sack topic, Like you can buy a kangaroo coin pouch, like we bought it at the airport when you're coming home from Australia, like a kangaroo nutsacker.

You got that tattooed.

That's what it's reminded me. Yeah, So because of Posh.

Spice, a lot more kangaroos are just gonna good work.

We should like partner with some hundreds in Australians start like a butcher box of sorts.

Yeah, I wish I had a whole different Like if I could like wrap up my current line of work, my new line of work would be parkas with coyote, rough kangaroo, leather sneakers. Now just double down on stuff. I would double down on great ideas that people are throwing out from being dumb.

Yeah, utilize those natural materials that are going to waste.

Yep, there you go.

Ben.

Are you are you interested in ethics? Connectquette?

Not really not my strong for sure.

Here's a listener. We got Chester in the rooms. We're gonna hit it. Currently listening to podcast episode four three to one, and I had to drop an interesting, complicated scenario that is related to the discussion the crew had regarding the unwarranted disclosure of the status of firearms in someone's house for the sake of guest children present in the house. This guy's a very good writer. Last summer, my girlfriend and I were on a No, he's not well. Plus he wasn't on the house, he was.

In the house.

They were on a rental house tour.

He's back to being a good rite.

Last summer of my girlfriend and I were on a rental house tour for a prospective apartment in Western New York. At one point during the tour, we sat down with the landlord. I should note this is a parenthetical. I should note that she was a novice landlord as this was about to be her first rental property. To review our responses to a tenant questionnaire, we filled out. One of the questions on the questionnaire inquired about firearms ownership

Should I have lied, Yeah.

Dude, But he didn't know initially what this girl's reaction was going to be.

Right, listen, listen.

If the things said do you plan on partying? What are you gonna put?

I'd be like, yes, occasionally, I don't think so. I'm from I think the least amount of people that know that you have firearms, the better.

I would have put down. I would have put down short for Nunya, which is no.

Mind your business?

Really, Yes, absolutely, yeah, even if you didn't know what, like I suppose have the question in there was a red flag, well it's.

A liability question. I would have flat outled. I would have flat outlighted, and I wouldn't have viewed it as a moral infraction.

Yeah, I mean I agree with you.

I agree. I probably would have done the same thing as he did, later thinking I should have lied about.

It Chester because it's chattikit. Yeah, you get to have the final say.

Oh, the final say.

I mean.

He's struggling. This is tough.

I don't know, man, I it's depends how bad they wanted the apartment. There's a lot of things in there that ches.

You don't get wishy washy bro.

I probably would have done the same thing he did.

Do.

I think.

It's not lying.

It's not lying, it's deferring. It's it's not lying, it's it's putting. It's it's it's uh.

When someone asks you do you plan on storing something in this place? And you tell him no, and then you do it. That's a lie.

Okay, let me put it this way. Let's say your heartboring, that's why it's okay. Let's say you're let's okay, here's let's say this. Let's say you look out the window and there's a cold blooded axe murderer in your yard and he knocks on the door and says, I'm I'm gonna murder your wife.

Where is she?

And you say, well, You're like, well, I can't lie.

She's in the closet.

But that's different, Nori. This is a one to one scenario, perfect analogy.

I can't tell you probably got to grab one of those guns.

And film full of holes.

I'd be like, I'd be like it. She's she's in the bedroom right now. And if you try and take one step in this house, I've got a shotgun sitting right next to the door. We're gonna have a dog.

Try to think of another scenario.

All right, here's I got a scenario where Chester has to lie. Yeah. Yeah, So say you check into a hotel, you put down one guest, one room, then you meet a go off tinder. I mean, obviously this doesn't apply to you. You're gonna go to the front desk and tell them you have another guest in your room. No, I need to update.

Excuse me, ma'am, excuse me. I just actually do need to add a guest to my room. And then Chester has to go back to his date and be like, the lobby's closed. You're just gonna have to go home because I can't update my thing to say that there's two people in this room. I'm sorry, but.

At the time that he said one person, he was telling the truth. It's different to update.

Yeah. I could allow that, but I think you got to gauge the situation because there might be cases where the landlord wants you to have guns in the house too. Maybe that could win you an apartment. You have to judge. Judge lit the landlord a little bit character. Yeah, if she's wearing a you know, federal shirt, Yeah, I got guns.

Yeah.

I mean he.

I don't even know if the if he I think him lying in that case is valid.

Looks like you're struggling there. I think you're just.

Wasn't feel.

That's good.

I mean, he didn't know.

The big thing here is probably know not have guns in there.

It's New York.

Give us.

The final answer.

I think if your wife really wanted that apartment and you did too, and you had guns, mm hmm, then h you could fib about it a little bit.

Let's say you were Harriet Tubman Apple's Taples.

I mean, did he get the apartment?

I didn't read that far.

No, either way, the scenario really chapped my Oh. Sorry, Luckily for me, we ended up living elsewhere for unrelated reasons.

There you go, a little wishy washy Chester Ben.

You'll appreciate this one. This is our last news item.

You know, I'm ready. I'm excited.

A repeat violator, shed hunt violator punished crank can't spell punished?

Yes, Typo.

A Bozeman man, so hometown man convicted of illegally stashing shed antlers in Wyoming, they point out to profit by selling them as dog chews. Can't set foot on federal public land or hunt anywhere in the world.

I don't get that one. Oh, because it's federal.

Why the world?

I don't know, Yeah, federal. Oh, it's federal.

I didn't know that.

So there's this thing called the there's this thing that's the It used to be the Western States Violator Compact, which now is way.

Beyond the way.

Now it's everybody. So if you lose your hunting privileges, if you lose your hunting and fishing privilege, hunting and or fishing privileges in any state, you lose them in every state that belongs to the Violator Compact and now provinces. At a time, it was like a collection of Western states because they would just have a problem with they'd have like a repeat violator, right, and then he'd be like, oh, okay, so I lost my hunting privileges in Wyoming. I'll just

He was going into.

Into areas before they're open, so shed hunting areas before they open up, finding big piles of sheds and rat hole and.

I know people that do.

I've known people that have done this in their younger, more reckless days. Uh, he's just going to make a little stashes and then wait for the season to open and go up and get it. But he got caught doing it multiple times. For the first offense, he was ordered to pay fifteen thousand dollars in restitution to the Wyoming Game and Fish Department and subject to a five year worldwide band on hunting. He was also ordered to not set foot for five years on the National Elk

That's not a cash.

That's a onewy three year old law on the refuge.

Wow. Oh.

He was charged both times under the federal Lacy Act. For you folks at home, here's what the Lacy Act is. The Lacy Act means that if you break a game law, like let's say you're in Michigan and you poach a deer. Okay, you poach a buck and your tax dervices in Indiana, and so you poach a buck and you drive an hour south to bring it to your tax nermous in Indiana. You violated Michigan's law by poaching a deer. You also violated federal law because you committed a wild LA violation

Yeah, he's a dog chewed dealer, I understand. That's the way I understand it. So he was going out and collecting inventory, and I thought I read somewhere that he was cutting him up and like bringing him out in horse saddle bags.

Mmm.

But I'm not sure if he's actually cutting him up out on the the ranger if that was just the way they made a sound in the article.

But Ben, you've probably seen some crazy stuff shed hunting, because I feel like shed hunters that I know that are real serious about it have seen some pretty wild stuff like that.

Yeah, Yeah, for sure, I've seen. Well, I just seen a lot of people do shady stuff like that. I mean that happens a lot. Like the stashing is is very normal. Like I found stash piles before more people stashed them during close times. You know, you walk up and them be five or six and one pile or something. But and then what do you do take them? I'm not going to leave them, Oh, because you're there doing staff.

We had it was a tragedy where not too far from here, a guy was killed shed hunting, killed by grizzly last spring shed hunting, and when they did the investigation, he had done one of those. Yeah, he had a little stash of antlers he found, left him on a ridge, went down into a bowl and got killed by a bear. But yeah, so he had his little micro stash there.

Yeah. It's pretty common, you know, if you get into a good handful of antlers to just leave him somewhere so you can keep covering miles and find it more and then you just pull him out later, as long as it's all legal. You know.

How did you get into the custodian business.

I kind of fell into it. It was I was doing I was going to school to be a paramedic. I was going to be a paramedic firefighter, and I had a year in between finishing my EMT one and two and then starting a paramedic program. I had to like wait a year for the course to come up again. And so I moved to the city where the school was where I was going to go to paramedic school, and just was looking for kind of a job in

But were you a daytime or nighttime custodian?

I was a swing shift custodian, so I'd go in like two PM. I'd be there for all the evening activities, football games, whatever was going on at the school, and I'd have like a cleaning list and I would get off like at ten pm.

Were you popular with the kids?

I mean I didn't really see them too much because they were all even school when I got there, But like I had some Yeah, definitely some buddies and stuff like there're some some kids that were fun to be around, and there was a lot of obnoxious ones too.

When you started getting really into shed hunting, well, when did you get really into shed hunting?

I got like crazy into it maybe twelve thirteen years ago, like right before I got married is when I got really really into it. But I've been doing it off and on since I was like fourteen fifteen years old.

Why, I mean, do you like them better? Like, do you like them better hooked to the skull or better off the skull?

It's a toss up. It's tough. There's definitely been times like when I was more into shed hunting than hunting, Like.

Would you ever be like, oh, I could shoot that big buck, but I might wait because I could probably pick his antlers up after they fell off.

No, just because the probability of getting them so low. But I mean there's times where like you see a big bull get killed and you're like, damn, I wish I could have found his sheds instead of seeing him die. You know really, yeah for sure.

And then when you got into it, did you got into it because the market.

Part of it, Yeah, for sure, Like just the ability to be able to pay yourself back, you know, pay yourself a little bit of fuel money for going out and finding Antler's. And then I really got into it because my brother in laws were just crazy about it since they were I mean since the early nineties, they've been just wild about it. And where'd you grow up? Southern Utah? What town Cedar City is where I was born, and then I live in Laverkin now and they were

But whatder prices right now?

I think the last I checked on Elk, it's like seventeen to eighteen dollars a pound for a brown Elk Antler, and then your hard white will be anywhere like ten to eleven. And then chalk, Like maybe chalk kind of has the most variation. If your antler buyer has a good market for chalk, you could get four four dollars a pound maybe out of your chalk antler, and if he doesn't, maybe a dollar two dollars.

Do those prices fluctuate much?

They do? Yeah, Like it seems lately they've just gone up a dollar or two every year. Oh, and they kind of start off like if a buyer gets desperate to fill an order towards the end of the buying season, he might bump his prices up. So sometimes you can do better by hanging on a little bit, yeah, and get maybe another fifty cents a dollar a pound.

Do you know what kind of profit these buyers are making.

I don't know. I was a buyer for like maybe a year or two, and I was aimed for a dollar a pound. But I was middleman of middlemen, you know, Like I was basically just using social media to find the seller buying antler and selling them to another antler buyer. And I just tried to make a dollar a pound and buy as many as I could, gotcha. So I think like on the top end they're trying to make a few dollars a pound per antler, like per Yeah.

How many layers do you think there are in this? Like seventeen middlemen?

It depends. When I was buying, the buyer that I would sell to had a buyer that he sold to, and he was an exporter. At that time, most the antler was going overseas for medicinal type stuff, and I know, I mean there had to be me than him, then the exporter, and then whoever he was selling to in China. So I mean it could be five or six layers to it, but a lot of it now is more.

What's been your thoughts on, Well, I'll ask you this not then we'll go back to we'll go back to earlier. What's been your thoughts on sort of what I gathered from my perspective to be increasing sensitivity around shed hunting activities and how they affect animals at their most vulnerable state in the winter.

I think it's I feel like it's overblown, like from what I can see in my experience. Either I'm fully biased one hundred percent admit that I want I want to shed hunt and I want to shed hut more. I hate shed seasons. I've been an opponent to shed seasons almost across the board.

Have you yeah, walt me through it? Want me through first. I want to see how good you can do. Articulate for me why someone would want shed seasons.

So, the theory behind most shed seasons is animals are depleted. You know, shed hunters on the landscape, displaces the wildlife, further depletes them and causes an increase in winter kill. That's the idea, and that sounds, you know, pretty solid, common sense, makes it makes sense to most people, and that's why these seasons continually get a lot of support.

So it does, Yeah, I could see that it might be theoretical. But there's an issue we've been covering a lot is the trail cam issue. Okay, And in talking about Arizona, Utah, Kansas public lands banning trail cams, we've gotten into like what are the different motivations for it, where some people that are some people that don't like trail cams are coming and saying violation of privacy. There's an assumed privacy on public lands. Yeah, and it's a

But we had.

Frequent guests on the show, Jim Hefflefinger, who's a biologist in Arizona. He sent us some materials on the trail cam question in Arizona, and there's a wrinkle to it that I hadn't considered.

Well.

One he sends us a picture of a water hole in Arizona that has fifteen cameras on it. Yeah, on the strip. I'm sure. A concern that was articulated in the documents that he sent was something I hadn't thought of. It was if you put fifteen cameras. First off, you have limited water, You're in a desert ecosystem, you have limited water. You have fifteen people monitoring pulling cards on cameras.

Yeah, and I hadn't thought about.

He's like, the amount of disturbance that is happening of a large group of animals, that's their place to go get water, The amount of time they need to be able to spend there getting cool, getting water, and the constant disturbance of people coming to check the cameras at the water is one articulation of what is the issue. So that's not even a thing I had considered. I've never considered wildlife disturbance. But I don't know that someone

Yeah, it'd be a tough thing to actually determine, because I mean, how do you look at the health of the animal versus the pressure and determine that that was the cause. But I think, like you're saying, with the trail cameras, I think that's a great argument for cell cameras, you know, is to those people don't have to go out there and actually check that, yeah, that water source. But yeah, it is a concern, especially out there in Arizona where there's that many cameras while the hunts are going.

So when you started Shed Crazy, like just like a sort of brand company whatever around shed hunting, do you imagine it being do you imagine yourself being mainly into shed hunting as a because they're cool to look at, or because you because you can make money messing around outside, which is everybody's dream.

Yeah, I always it was always kind of both to me. Like I love antlers, I still like go crazy. That sounds stupid. I love antlers. You go crazy? Yeah, I go crazy for ant But yeah I still am. I love to find big antlers. I love the idea that you can go to these premium units and find you know, giant bowls and Giant Bucks without having to get a tag there. You get experience those places. But yeah, there was always a financial element to it. For me in

Of How how would you rate? Uh? How would you? Okay, I think that that, uh, lion hunting.

Is really really hard.

Hound hunting for line, especially dry ground lion hunting. I think it's like very very very hard, like maybe one of the most challenging outdoor pursuits. Okay, I think that land I think that like uh.

Trapping uh fox and coyotes is hard.

Technically difficult okay, and then you can like kind of rank all these things out right, all these different outdoor pursuits. Do you like, do you think that there's how much uh skill? Do you feel like, how much skill are you utilizing as a shed hunter?

This? I don't know that I would have even call it skill as much as like determination.

It's like but think about it fer me though, And I'm wanna put words your mouth, but you have to know where they are, you know what I mean? Yeah, where are they standing the day when their antler falls off?

Yeah? You do put a ton of time into the online maps and to understanding like the feed that they're utilizing, migration routes, where they are when the snow melts, where they're able to travel to because of snow, what the wind's doing, where they're able to find places to get out of the wind. You look at stuff like where the green up happened first, what kind of grass they were hitting early spring. So there is like a large barrier to being able to do it successfully is and

So right now, let's say you go to take a premium unit like name. It doesn't need to be one of your favorite ones, but name like what you'd regard as a great shed hunting state, locality, whatever however you want to put it.

Oh, I mean Arizona is a good state, and there's a bunch of good units in Arizona.

What percent of the antlers get picked up? Let's say you took a unit, doesn't need to be a specific one, take taking your mind, a great shed antler unit, a destination shed antler unit. Yeah, uh, what percent of the antlers to hit the ground? I think you can get as high as fifty percent.

You can probably kind of gauge it on how many like white and chalks you're finding.

With the popularity of it chalks, it's like, oh, someone didn't find that one, right.

That's the coolest thing about finding the chalk is that people missed it for multiple years, you know, and you just hit the right line to pick it up. But I think, yeah, I think in very popular units they get half and maybe more just judging them. I mean there are places now where I shed hint where you're pretty much only finding browns, so that most of them, most of them get picked up.

Did you know you're sitting across the table from an exceptional shed hunter I didn't.

I don't even try, so Wow, He's drawn to him like like a magnet, like like like a fly to excrement.

He is kind of like that one we've found in uh uh, Michigan, Michigan.

Yeah, seth, he found an antler hanging from a grape vine mich ducked under it so as to not poked my eye out.

I found a couple of kansas on this line.

You could be walking five people walking in the line, says, taking up the rear, and also you looking he's holding.

Antler, No kidding, Well, the shed eye is a real thing, Like.

He's got a shed eye. Yeah, well, I think it's like a Jedi.

But I'm always like when i'm I think I'm a bad hunter because I'm always looking at the ground because you always find cool ship laying on the ground, like arrowheads and sheds and cool rock.

I can't stop. I got I want you to finish, but I'm so hung up on can we let's make Can we have a hunter make a shirt that says of shedd eye Warrior.

It's like in my language, every think should no, But I think I follow a dude that's count On instagramad.

Warriors, so like a Jedi.

It looked like Luke Skywalker holding the antler.

I remember, I don't know. I think maybe I've seen it out.

There TYPD Warrior where it's Luke Skywalker, you know, like you know how like uh, it's like he's got laying everybody, he's kind of on the top and he's holding that lightsaber up in the sky.

Yeah he could be holding, but he's holding the antler.

I like that return of the shed Eye.

When you find him.

Let's do this, but don't ask any freaking lawyers about it.

Oh no, there's no Yeah, yeah, but I google it. It might just be like a user name for for somebody on Instagram.

Go straight to Instagram.

But he's like not, I think we're still good.

I think we are at people.

Oh shut eye master, Yeah yeah, yeah, that's what He's got.

Pictures of his girlfriend, so he doesn't care that much, committed at all. No, he's she dedicated because he does a lot of hunting and stuff too.

He's gonna be stuffed.

By shed crazy. I think I follow him.

Yeah all right, never mind, he already came up with it.

It's okay, Yeah, this was completely and he doesn't have a shirt.

Maybe we do a deal where he gets a buck off every shirt.

Say I said it, I want the buck off everything. You didn't say it like Jedi.

You said it like a said shde but you meant it like Jedi.

If I say that, I get the dollar a shirt, damn it. No, you can just do it. That's all right, you can have it. That one's free. I'll have some other good ideas in this podcast I have to charge.

Yeah, yeah, I feel now like we can't do it because this guy already came.

Up with him. But does he have like a logo or it's called the Shaddye Master. Come on, it's a good name, right, yeah, but there's nothing that has to do with like spin offs from stars Horses.

The whole name is a spinoff from star Wars. After this podcast, Jettikut question for you on the right, dar Chester. I'm thinking about stealing someone's idea.

And making didn't steal it.

You didn't know about it, Okay, and we have I can.

Tell you right now this podcast, we definitely kind of came up with this idea ourselves, not knowing about this guy. We should probably reach out to him.

Maybe maybe it's in the public domains. Go back and see how long it's been on Instagram.

Yeah, I mean if he has, it's good. I mean, if there is not a T shirt out there, SHEDI master.

He invented shed Sorry Chester, gohead.

If there's not a T shirt out there with a guy that looks like a Jedi holding up a shed.

Yeah, he's got none of that.

We should be able to do it.

I think it's fair play.

The jury says, yes, yes.

Well, because I feel bad now, please.

Collab. I might have to call the shedde I asked her shoot him an Instagram message.

Heads up, yeah, because here's the deal though, too, you said shedd I like game I shd I. When you said shaddy, did you were you thinking about how it sounds like Jedi or did you just mean a good game I shed eye.

It's both right. We called the shed Ie. We've called it the shed I forever. But I mean it's not necessarily referencing Star Wars, so it wasn't like a play on jet. I didn't like envision, you know, Seth fully decked out in Star Wars regal.

Wait are you saying CHEDI or.

Too?

That's good?

Let me see.

When you click on it says page not found. But someone made a shed Eye Master t shirt before.

What's the site? Well, no, it's a cowboy wielding of antler.

Yeah, but I mean, well.

It's close enough.

Don't talk to any lawyers, Karin. Time to get a good idea, to go to a lawyer, they're gonna be like, well, I recommend against it.

I got let's just wait for the cease and assists. It's like when has to play a song on the podcast, like, well.

Let's go check with the lawyer.

We'll just never mind. Let's just not do it. Happen you're check with the lawyers.

Don't do it because they're gonna tell you no.

Every good idea that you think you have. Nowadays, it's really hard to find somebody. I've got a real good idea that I thought of the other day.

Don't say it chets and we'll steal it.

But I think it would be I don't think I could do it unless it was with you guys.

Tell me later. It'd be a conflicting.

Why did shed Crazy become a humor site. It's like a comedy site.

Yeah, funny, thank you.

That's why I wanted to have you on because I always get like a mega chuckle.

Oh good. Yeah, it was really like kind of my wife's doing. So she's funny, No, she's not. I mean she's not going to listen to this, so it doesn't matter.

She's not gonna listen.

Yeah, she doesn't care what you do. No, really, she didn't even know where She texted me before, like where are you again?

You know?

But no, she is actually pretty funny. But I kind of like when I started the page, I thought people wanted like badass hunting content, you know, So I was trying to go down the road of like, oh, cool guy stuff. Yeah, and like she would look at my Instagram, She's like this is like not even close to who you are, Like why do you pretend to be like a tough guy on the internet? And so I started thinking.

About it, and did you have like kiss makeup?

Oh?

I mean it wasn't that tough. Like I didn't paint my face or go to the gym or anything like that.

But so you didn't get any kind of any kind of injections.

No, I mean nothing, maybe minor like light drugs. But so she I used to send her stupid videos like when I was out hiking I just make dumb videos and send them to her, and she was just laugh at them, and she's like, why don't wy don't you post these, Like why don't you show people that, like

So I just started rolling with that.

Kind of see what sticks.

You know, there's the one you did. It was a while ago, but you did one about it was like you talking like when someone asked you where you killed a buck or something like that. Yeah, it was like just the most like OFU skating answer.

Yeah. I think it's that Napoleon Dynamite clip the guy talking about finding narrowheads. But yeah, I like that stuff. Man to me, like, I want hunting to be like fun. I like, the whole badass mentality thing is so old and it's so played out and you have to like post a reel with like ass rock music in the background and then like make yourself look cool. I hate that stuff.

I did one of those fine.

I mean, yeah, Jess was legitimately tough though. Yeah, obviously tattoos and everything. His nickname at work is the muscle Hamster.

I could see it. I could see it. Oh he beat your ass. I'm sure. Yeah, I'm sure you would not shed though, beat you like a.

God.

So then you started doing that, But like, how do you, uh, you quit your job? Yeah, but it wasn't you didn't quit your job because you're making so much money selling antlers or was it?

Well that was part of it, Like you don't make that much as a custodian, Like news flash, you just don't. So like it's you don't have leverage, right, Yeah, it wasn't that hard to replace my income, So I wasn't earning a terribly like a large amount of money.

We go to college.

I just my EMT stuff is all I did after high school. But we kind of were in a place financially, like we got totally out of debt. We just decided that, like we were going to do that before we kind of did it so I could go to paramedic school, sold our house and sold all our stuff and got to where we had zero debt and we really needed like very little money to live on every month so you.

Were living in a house you bought and then sold it to rent.

Yeah, well that's a crazy move.

No one does that move.

Yeah, it's like not good. It's not a good move usually, like even in our circumstancedic. Well, I just have like I hate debt. I hate being saddled by debt. It makes me feel like I can't do what I want to do. So I just got rid of the house and the cars and everything. And we had a couple hundred thousand in debt, and we knocked it out in like six months and sold what we needed to, and then I started picking up antlers to get out of debt,

Oh really, do you sell everything?

Ben?

Like yeah, like ninety nine percent.

Probably you got a big pile of weird shit you found.

I got a decent like a storage locker full of just like unique or big stuff. M Yeah, I got some some crazy stuff.

It's almost like a little savings account kind of like times get tough if you just sell this.

Yeah, yeah, I've kind of been through some tough times though, so most of it's kind of got cold off to gauge how much I'm attached to any specific antler a few times.

But so when you were so how much? Uh get what's your average antler weight?

Like for el No? No, no, I ever, what what's a big elk antler? Way? Ten pounds? It's a big antler?

Okay, we had a guy talking and then we had a guy talk about like he must have been talking about like an extraordinary one because we had a guy. Was he saying like a twenty pound antler or something like that?

I mean, that's just an insane that's right, top zero zero zero point one percent. Like the biggest free range elk shed we've ever held is a set that my uncle found and the heavy side of that bowl weighs seventeen and seventeen pounds six ounces.

But that's a four hundred plus inch four Yeah.

Four hundred and nine inch set of sheds. Got ya?

So an absolute stomper trophy bowl by anyone's standard. Yeah, sixty thousand dollars Southwest Reservation Hunt Bowl. Yeah, we'll throw a seventeen pound anler.

Yeah, but not always because I found one of my biggest single elk sheds is off of a three hundred and probably eighty inch bowl and it's a six and a half pound dollar what. Yeah, just it doesn't always translate. So much of it's just related to the amount of moisture in the area. The desert bolls always way less.

You can probably find heavy ass antlers in Pennsylvania elk sheds. Yeah, but you can't sell them.

Oh really yeah? Really?

Yeah? Why, I don't know. You can't sell like animal parts other than like fir and stuff that you trapped.

That's interesting.

They roll antlers into that.

If you go across state lines and sell them, is at a LASIAC violation.

I don't know.

Sure, So that's interesting.

Do you know do you know the logic behind it?

Uh?

No, I think it's just is that just with elk, No, it's.

With Yeah, I think California has something similar to because my buddies that live down there, I was just keeping them, keeping them. They said they can't sell them down there for some reason.

Yeah, unless they change that, But as far as I know, you can't sell antlers that Pennsylvania.

Yeah, just says PA dot Gov. I didn't open up the page directly, but part of it is it is unlawful for individuals to possess shed antler shed antler, to sell, barter or trade, or to offer to sell, barter or trade any shed antler.

That's wild.

That's from the Game Commission. Now let me click to see if there's any rationale.

Grow up.

I don't understand the I mean, I'm not I'm not here. I don't like to just start randomly, you know, being like what bullshit like. But I don't understand the logic. I don't understand the logic that that if a farmer found a elkshd antler on his place, and it's not attached to the skull, so there's no question about that, you can tell an antler that shed naturally. There's no question that he shot the bowl in order to sell four hundred bucks worth the antler. I just don't understand.

Yeah, I mean, it says it's lawful for individuals to retain deer an elk antlers found on public land, so as long as they were shed through natural causes. But what's unlawfuls for them to possess it to sell, barter or trade.

So, yeah, I heard the public land.

Thing.

You want to know, crazy ass deadhead rule is remember when we were in when I drew that Ibex tag in New Mexico, Yeah, that is this is crazy.

And we found.

At the base of a cliff we found some Ibex horns and so they don't shed, right, So it's it's like if you find the horn, it's something died not shed, so it's different. But we called the game warden.

You were there, were.

Grab Yeah, remember that grabbed him.

You got to call the game ward The game ward comes out and says, here's what you owe the state if you'd.

Like to have that, And it seemed like you you could almost like kind of barter with.

Him, right, Oh yeah, the game warden. Besides it like on the side right there, what do you say, twenty bucks?

Yeah, something like that, and you're paying cash. Yeah, they give you a receipt or.

It might have been like we offered twenty he's like house fifteen or something like that.

Yeah, and then he proceeded to check our licenses.

Yeah, but we were dialed after he cam.

He also checked out.

No, he's like while I'm here, what permits have a look?

Yeah, But at first I was like, what the heck? But then you know, you're like, this guy's doing his job.

Yeah, I think for those ibex horns, I kept one, No, I didn't. Kevin Murphy kept one out and who else kept the other one? You have one, and he wanted like twenty bucks. But if you found some big like two hundred inches melely deadhead, he might come and say that they can just as well come and say, uh,

And you just you can bid on them. Yeah yeah. Utah does that every year too. They have a big auction every year.

So if you if you look at it, let's say you find what is the value of when you just said you go out and find a few antlers and that's a couple hundred bucks or whatever. You can go out your place and find like like let's say you find a three fifty bulls one side off a three fifty bolt. You could be holding a couple hundred dollars.

Yeah, if it's if it's a brown antler, yeah, you could one hundred to two hundred dollars pretty easy. If it weighs up again, could you.

Sell I could see the appeal of that, because like you could go trap, like trap a beaver. You got trap them, haul them all the ship you need to buy, flesh them, yeah, stretch them. Yeah, and that takes specialized equipment.

Yeah, this I mean you can meet your antler buyer when you get to town, or you'll hand your cash and you're done.

So can you sell like a big set for more money than if it was just like a like an individual antler sometimes? Or could you sell them to like niche markets like a taxidermist or something that.

Yeah, you can sell them to collector sometimes if they're over like you know it's on elk, like big big like three eighty or seventy three eighty plus. Or the best thing you can do is if you find a set, like an older set off a bowl that somebody's killed a lot of times, they'll want them so you can make a deal with them.

Oh or you know thought of that.

Yeah, sometimes you can get a little better price for like a big set from a buyer to like, if you have a big set, they might I mean what I usually do if I have something big or special, I'll just kind of set it aside and just ask the buyer if that's worth anything more than regular poundage to him, and he might have some sort of a market for it. And then I've got like maybe an extra dollar a pound or a couple dollars a pound out of something big.

Gotcha.

But if you find like a super freak thing that's just cool look at, that's a whole different market though it can be. Yeah, you're just can you just set up a website? Would be like weird ass shit I found.

It's not a bad idea.

I write that down.

Do check with the lawyer on that one. Yeah. I saw the couple on eBay just out of curiosity to see what they would do, and they both sold for a ton. I posted them on my Instagram. I'm like, I found these sheds. They're on eba, go bit on them. I saw the elk shed for like nine and fifty bucks what, and then a deer shed for like I think it was like two eighty or two ninety really, but you can you can.

Get a little more for a nice match set too.

Right, Yeah, depending like same if they're above that trophy class like on deer, they had to be over like really one eighty or have somebody has to have some attachment to them.

A shed I have that I feel would be of exceptional value, but it has a very prominent position in my home. I have a moose paddle that was burned a little bit in a fire and has a weird drop time coming off the back of the paddle, so it stands like a three legged tripod free standards man, and it stands like totally on display with a little prong of growth coming out the bag, and you can tell that it's been burnt, singed and burnt in a fire.

That's cool, it's a beautiful While you're here, you should go out the three forks to what's what's that guy's name, Jim Oh?

The Shed Antler Museum.

Yeah, dude, look at that place.

Really, you'd like it the most?

Yeah, like to check it out.

How you gotta do it?

Yeah, it's just a collection he's got out there, dude, he's got like thousand never how it was talking about the louver earlier.

This is like the louver of antlers, but like and the building has also made it.

You know, this guy is an eccentric, obsessed dude, and he was doing it when it wasn't a thing people did. He has the craziest He's one of two people I know that legit found a bear trap. Oh really like the old and the Woods found a grizzly in the Woods found it. Have always wanted to find one of those, you and me both. Yeah, my buddy Mike found one, and he found one.

Huh, that's cool. Yeah, I'd like to check it out. I could spend some days there.

I'm sure we did a show from there. He's a hell of a gardener too.

He lives a couple of blocks from me.

Oh yeah, you guys are neighbors.

Jim Phillips is his name you there?

No, I haven't.

It's I saw some pictures. I don't know what you guys posted them, but it looked like the inside of a barn or something like.

Maybe we have pictures on the website.

He's a craftsman man. He's an obsessive collector. I mean he's a collector of weird rocks, trees.

I don't know, that's cool.

He's obsessive, probably, I don't know, might be a hard man to live with.

He seems lovely. He's also a writer.

But the amount of work.

Everything he told is everything around him.

Is like craft thousands.

Yeah.

Yes, he's like see that garden. You look at the garden, be like that looks like thousands of hours. Yeah, see this this should I do with the trees I planted to? Like, that's thousands of hours. Everything he does, all the rocks he has, yeah, and then what he does with them.

His whole front bed in his house is all like instead of mulch, it's all fossilized wood that he found and brought back.

That's so cool.

Thousands of hours.

It sounds like my wife's grandpa. He was just like picking up antlers in the sixties seventies and just to have them in his yard when he when he passed away, Like he had one hundred plus deer antlers just in his planter in his front yard. Yeah, just went out and got him because he thought they were cool.

Imagine if you took all the time you spent doing like dumb, non memorable stuff and spent it doing like obsessing over your space in like finding things and building things out of things you found.

It's a I would like, I love this place.

He's was a great guess, great guy. I think that his place would be as interesting to someone who is interested in human behavior as it would be to someone that's interested in Chad Antler's I mean this in the Krin's laughing. I mean this in the nicest, most flattering way possible.

Yeah, it's like, it's interesting to see how different people focus their energy and their time, and that is like a visual representation of god knows how many hours of someone's mental focus.

Yeah, and he at some point early on had to have envisioned in his head some aspect of what it was going to look like in the end. Meaning when I'm not trying to quate this to the Pyramids, I am. When someone started making the peer mids, they were like, and it'll look like this one. We're done, right, Yeah, do you know how much money and poundage that is?

I was just going to say, you're probably gonna eye that and like estimate.

He's never sold an Antler trades.

He's never sold he trades and fines.

That's that's respectable that's commendable.

He'll find a bunch of normal stuff and then trade it for the weird ship.

Yeah, he likes the weird stuff. Huh. Oh, and he's got little he's got.

Like clubs like antler. I mean, he's got all kinds of things that maybe would work very well weaponry.

No, you and him be, You and him be best friends.

I'd be. I could spend a lot of time at that place, for sure.

I'll find his contact information for Yeah.

You got to be like best bodies.

Did he find most of those?

All of them trades?

Yeah?

You got You guys get kicked off of each other.

There's like a big oh man, that's double beam bull. She's he's got a few years on you. Yeah, I'll catch him, give me some time. Well, I just mean an age. I won't catch him.

Well, no, eventually he'll stop right and then you'll.

With diminishing opportunities. We'll see though. Like it's getting harder out there, is it. Yeah?

For sure are the good old days of shed hunting over?

Yes? And no, like you just I mean you got to work for him so much harder now. It used to be like we would literally drive out to Nevada, park in the desert walk and pick him up. And now you got to be pretty pretty calculated because the people interested in him. Yeah, it's because he's damn YouTubers ruined it for everybody.

Yeah, ruined the finding of antlers. Have you gone down the path of getting a dog to do it?

I uh not really. I started talking to a kid recently about getting one, but I just am not. I'm not a good dog owner. I'm just not home enough. Like, we have a dog, it's a family dog, and she's awesome. I love that dog. But for me to take a dog with me everywhere I go so much of it's like staying in hotels and driving around of my van. It's like taking care of it would probably be too much hassle at this point, But someday I will when I'm back to kind of just doing the Western, like

About it with my buddy Josh like five or six years ago, and I always wanted to do it, and I was going to do it the year of COVID, which is twenty twenty, and everything got so screwed up.

I couldn't do it then. So as soon as we got out of that darkness, I started planning trying to figure it out.

So if you imagine the pile, all fifty of the shed antlers in a pile, how many white tail sheds are in that pile?

Oh man, a lot, like thirty something, and there's one access to er yep from Hawaii.

Yeah, yeah, there's probably two or three moves sheds.

Yep, yep. Moose trips planned and figured out right now. Caribou maybe I think we'll get a caribou. It's kind of in the works. And uh yeah, maybe a seca dear maybe, Uh, I don't know, maybe a sandbar. I'm not opposed to picking up a couple exotics while I'm out and about. Well in Hawaii, you'll have to, yeah for sure.

Why uh you know what if you to get a glimpse of what shed hunt used to be like, probably I mean if you go way way back, there's all kinds of areas in Alaska where no one's gonna pick it up. There's no way to get it out of there, right, And you'll see like a saddle, you know, like a pass, and you'll fly over it and it'll be literally dozens, yeah,

Know, just everywhere.

That's the stuff I dream about usually at like usually if you go to any landing strip in Alaska that are down along the river that most of them are like down along the willow flats. You just often are landing willow flats and you get like, oh, we got to wait an hour for the next plane or whatever, and you just start cutting loops you will find a moose antler.

Really, Oh yeah, that's sweet man, that's you know, they're nasty, yeah right, but yeah, Well, I've talked to some guys up there that are really good, you know, shed hunters in Alaska and that's I mean, they say, they just it's not finding them. It's just the logistics of getting them to anywhere you can even collect them or sell them or whatever.

Yeah, we met a guy that does it for moose out of a super cub and he just lashes them to the struts. But yeah, but he's looking. He's picking up huge brown moose sheds. Yeah, and apparently the money is good enough that you're like burning that level of fuel.

Yeah, what's uh, what's moose moose shed worth versus antler per pound?

It used to be the highest. Like when I first really get into selling antlers, everybody wanted moose. But I think it's kind of slumped off a little bit comparatively. I think there's I can't remember if I read it. Maybe it was caribou, but there's one type of antler that's not as nutrient dense for like a dog chew, and the hardness isn't right for dogs, so it doesn't have as desirable of them.

It might that might be caribou, but well that stuff is exceptionally hard.

Yeah, yeah, I've heard that. But I know the markets for moose is down a little bit. I think it's like maybe fifteen or sixteen dollars a pound.

Last I heard another way down another thing about cariboo, which is interesting.

It's got flex, really a lot of flex.

Huh.

Yeah. I don't think I've ever really held like a big caribou antler.

Oh you could take a big ass antler, put one in on the ground and press the top.

And really yeah, very like bendable, got flex. Really you'll see those caribou running, you know and stuff and it jiggles.

Yeah, that's cool, it'll be it'll be back like hard Wie is like almost pliable.

You can bend well, no, it goes right back, but it's got spring to it.

Do they think they break less because of that? Man?

You know where you know where they talk a lot about this is in John McPhee's Coming into the Country. He talks about the tool use of caribou antlers and talks about but I can't remember.

I have to see if I can find a cliff note somewhere. That sounds like a good read.

So when you do the all fifty uh, what's the goal of picking up shed antler in all fifty states?

That's it quest?

Can I follow up on that? Is it like you have a standard for size measurement or you'll like step foot in the state and be like Spike okay, yeah.

Yeah, Like we got it to Arkansas. We met up with my buddy Austin down there and he just had some public land kind of that he shed once occasionally. And we got out of the van, we crossed the road, walked up the hill and boom, Spike shed. I'm like, get back in. The fanboys were out of here. Count it. Yeah, we've knocked her off and away stays you guys so far fourteen and that's just since March.

So are you gonna find one here while you're here?

Yeah, totally. We're going tomorrow meeting up with Dylan from on X and we're headed here to Montana to look for El Caner.

I I I.

Got a little well you know what, The water's up right now?

Pretty bad? Yeah? Got a spot.

Yeah, oh man, I think that I have a spot where you could very very very close by.

So I like to hear, go find some sheds. Yeah, I could take your point and sit it on the air.

I'm not gonna water is higher right now.

Waters.

I went and looked a little something something this morning for something and I couldn't get there because.

No, I swim, you can't even tell us what you're looking for.

No, when we leave here, I'll take you to a spot and I'll show you, and I guarantee you're going there and find one.

Really, if you got a good shed, I I'm down. Yeah, I got the shed. I I got the shed.

I you know where I'm talking about?

Do I maybe what kind of a shed? Would it be? White tail? Right on? I like picking white tail sheds. I found a new affinity for it. I got just the spot from you.

Let's go.

I'm not going that's fine, I'll show you where perfect, you'll be there and not long. That's good.

I like.

I like urban antlers. Yeah. I used to pick a lot of mule their sheds, Like in town and Cedar where I grew up. They were just coming to town at night and feeding vacant lots and everything, and we'd go pick them up. One of the biggest deer sheds I ever found came out of a vacant lot next to our hospital in town.

Really nice.

If someone came and said, I'm gonna take all your sheds, but you can only have one shed, and that's the only shed you can have for the rest of your life.

What shed would it be? Oh? Man, that's tough. I have this this Nevada ble that I picked up, and it was like it was cool because it was the first set I ever found in this new area. I went out there exploring, never been anywhere near there, and uh hiked all over, never found really any sign or anything. I got up on this point to glass, I put up my binocular glass and sheds. Oh yeah, yeah. We

It's so funny you say that, because that's another way hunting moose. You find so many moose sheds.

Yeah, glassing just spot them scanning around.

That's a great point.

Yeah, it's a tip.

Glass and tip. That might be a good episode for the show Glass and for sheds.

I wonder if we should claim it like.

Glass and shed ched. I wore, Yeah, there you go, So I glassed up, like yeah, one thing I like to do, and I'm glass for sheds. I'll put a timer on my phone and I'll make myself glass for that long, because otherwise I'll get distracted and I won't won't put in the actual much. I think I set a timer for twenty minutes one spot.

Do you like a string grid that you follow?

I try to just follow terrain like I do. I do. I mean, I do grid, but I'll just follow a ridge down, pick up the next ridge, and go back up. And if I'm going too fast after my ride myself to slow down.

As you're talking, I'm thinking how many times I've glassed up like mildew sheds.

Yeah, you can see them from a long ways away, but.

I've never sat down to glass of shed. Yeah, but you're just glassing and be like there's a shed yep, that works the same. I can see how one would discover that, huh.

But I glasted up a giant five point side out there, like an elk side, and I really wasn't even expecting there to be elk in that spot necessarily, and uh, it was a long ways away. I got over to it and it was busted, but it was a great big like a three seventy type side off of a bowl.

And it's paid off multiple years.

Oh yeah, I go back there every year at some point. So that's the number one for me.

Have you, I know, the timing's way off, But does does your shed hunting activities inform your hunting activities a little bit?

Like I do have some deer that I target and try to find their sheds specifically because I can hunt them, But most of the time I'm head into units that I'm never gonna have a tag in, at least not for a long time. But it's helped like buddies, like my brother in law drew an elk tag in a unit in Nevada that I loved to shed hunk, and it was a late rifle tag, so all those elk

It's not like a major tool what I wanted to ask about to lay out from me, how you're going to tackle the whole country. Are you being systematic about it?

No, I'm not that systematic. I'll start in Florida's zag well, kind like I'll plan my road trips like that. Like I just did a road trip from Utah. I first place I was Texas, and we found some antlers in Texas, and then we shot over and I got Mississippi and Alabama, and then we went north and got Arkansas and then up through Missouri and then went to Wisconsin and got Wisconsin Haikeyani's place and in Wisconsin and then you found you fohon on the left. I didn't find it on

But so, but here's the thing, here's what you're not thinking about too clearly. You got to go back down now and do Florida, South Carolina, North Carolina, do Alabama.

Yeah, I got Alabama.

You should have mopped up that little corner down there.

It's timing though, like I can't. I mean not trying to stay onn the road for like two weeks. You know, do you turkey on it all? Not much.

It's gonna say, if you're a turkey hunter, you could fit in a lot of turkey hunting with these with these shed trips, for sure.

And there's a lot of people that when I tell them I'm coming, they're like, let's go hunt turkeys and look for sheds, And I just kind of tell them like, I'm here to get antler and get out of here. So probably passing up some good opportunities. Does your wife like to look at the shed antlers? No, she doesn't give a shit, Like I'll bring them home and show them to She's like, yeah, good job. Anyway, Yeah, I've been home with the kids for seven days.

So I was gonna ask about that. How many kids you got?

I have three boys, and how old? Seven, eight and four? That's great. How long you've been married eleven years? Eleven years? What's the key to eleven years of marriage? For us? It's to be gone a lot. That works great for us. You don't get burned out. No, Like it's good because, I mean, me and my wife were a good team.

Do they like shed hunting?

Yeah? Yeah. The older they get, the more like they want to be involved and stuff. I'm excited for them to get out of school this year because we're going a bunch of places this summer, little shed hunting family vacation. Yeah, we're gonna go knock them all out. So that'd be good, good movie man. Yeah, I'm excited for a little.

Shed hunting road trip that have broad mass appeal.

Wouldn't it? Yeah, niche as it gets baby.

So this summer where you.

Guys gonna head, I'm gonna start knocking out Western states. I left a lot of them undone and just not mess with because of snow and because of the seasons, and because you can get antlers all through the summer in the West. They don't really get eaten up that bad and you can find out clanntlers in the tall grass.

Are there any states that you're most worried about and you could use a little intel and you might take this opportunity to throw out, Hey, shoot me a DM as the kids say, about any hot tips for how I can pick off some certain state.

I think the northeast has me a little worried. I main I have really covered like a lot of friends who pick up moose paddles. Main, but like I really don't know my way around any of the stuff, like Vermont, New Hampshire, New Jersey. I mean, there's a lot of states out there that I'm just going into totally blind, and I don't really know anybody. So anybody in the Northeast would be super helpful then, even like North Carolina,

I found sheds in New Jersey just driving around. Really, there's so many deers that're just just laying around.

That's that's what I like to hear.

See stay right in the van.

It won't be that big of a deal.

I know a guy that has so many white tails on his place that we were talking about ship antlers and he was complaining about them because they puncture his tires.

Well, that's one of the that's one of the pictures.

The first thing that came to his mind when we talked about shy.

Doesn't he just become a seller real quick? You know?

Yeah, they don't. There's a farmer he does.

Farmers like to farm, and that's about all they want to, you know, not all they want to do, but I mean it's just a demanding thing. And he's like, yeah, it was very critical of deer for dropping things that puncture his tires.

Well that's the number one like positive response when we ask for permission is is farmers saying like, yeah, get those damn things out of the field, please. But like we even call people an offer and be like we're picking up antlers. We save you some tires, and I mean you save them one one of those track tires are expensive.

Yeah, tell them I'm from the Tire Preservation Society. Yeah, that's honestly a decent pitch. We're doing some that's a shirt trying to find a shirt and here somewhere, Yeah, volunteers antler and it says the Tire Preservation is a shy warrior.

And he's like smashing a tire with an antler. They could get somewhere. It's gotta be a t shirting here somewhere.

We got a good shirt coming up, because my body. Tommy, he's in a Kyle Milken tournament.

A tournament.

Is this the blue collar.

Wisconsin Listen, he's serious about man, they got a team there's prize money. You got to milk a wild cow?

You got wild? Yes, now I know what You're just pictured him exercise in his hands. Man, you got to catch a cow and milk it. Yeah, those are pretty rowdy.

That's a great turn to do that.

That like rodeos, I think, right, you gotta get a drop of milk.

So he's got a team and we're sponsoring his cow milking team. And then uh our artists, our artist did his team shirt Spencer. It's a gnome with a big old one of them old style bug jugs of milk riding a milk bucking milk and cow. And so Tommy needed five of them, but we made one hundred and five. We're gonna sell a hundred of them.

One of those.

I'm gonna sell ninety nine.

I'm keeping one.

Wouldn't have one if you got to, Well, we'll sell you one. Have something to sell here, all that's fair.

Just give me some kind of a promo code, give me a deal we'll give you.

Or if you trade me that five you know what that five that crazy five point Yeah, give me that. I'll give you that for a T shirt.

Milking shirt. Yeah, I'll think about.

It all right, Well, tell people how to find you. You stick around for trivia?

Yeah? Have you ever listened to the trivia show? Yeah? I did one during hooton Nanny. I think your first light so yeah I did. Spencer hosted, Yeah, Spencer hosted. How'd you do? I think I got? I did?

Okay it the first light store in Haley.

How'd you do? I think I got four or five? Right, I think I maybe got second or third. So strong player. Yeah, I don't want to oversell it.

You know, he's gonna he's gonna throw you a bone or a shed. Okay, good stuff. That's he's gonna throw you a bone a shed. I'm gonna say that during the trivia show, like it was my joke because it might be.

Different people listening.

Yeah, some people know I stole it, but I might catch a few that don't know, because I meet a lot of people in the airport and whatnot that just listen to the tribute show.

Mm hmm taking over.

Yeah, they're like you just like, oh my god, my boyfriend listens to the whole time. Drives me crazy stuff like that. But yeah, what was that joke?

Oh, throw you a shed?

But I don't know what it would be.

How do you throw a shed hunter a bone in the tributa show?

I'm sure we'll find out.

Maybe it'll be something about like regulations.

What state.

It'll be like what state does not have a ton of excessive drinking?

Yep?

Probably like yeah, my home state.

Yeah, I like to see that map. If they're talking about green yellow though, it would be a whole different story.

Green yellowp uh huh.

Yeah, Donta's number one and green jellow consumption, which is what like narrow jellow shot. No, no, this is no, there's no innuendo involved. I'm talking about actual jello jello. Yeah, I didn't know that. It was like, why do I like green jello? I don't know, man, I was just born there. That's something that we always eat. Huh.

Do you hunt pretty hard?

Yeah?

Do you hunt more than you hunt shit? Do you hunt deer more? Or do you hunt animals more than sheds?

Yeah? Probably now you do?

Well?

Yeah. I used for a long time, No way, a long time. I would shed hunt maybe like fifty seventy five days a year and then just hunt my couple tags in Utah. Let me ask you this because.

It's the true test all right, have you ever shed hunted deering hunting season?

Oh yeah, yeah. There's a lot of times where like I'll start hunting and start glassing antlers and I'm like, screw it, I'm shed hunting now, and so I'll just go start walking ridges and picking up antlers. If I start finding sheds while I'm hunting, I drop interest in honting. But it's dedication, Yeah, edication, shedycation.

How about this like shed heead like like you know, like like a grateful day, but it's like all those little rainbow bears, you know, but they're holding different sheds. Yeah, huh, you guys are that.

I can tell you guys are new to the shed market. I can tell also, Yeah, that's completely original. Yeah. I think you could find it on instolvent look it up Phil shed heads.

All right, tell people how to find yourself.

So you find me on Instagram at shed crazy all one word. Same with YouTube, shed Crazy And uh, you've got a lot of subscribers on YouTube. Yeah, it's like maybe thirty twenty five thirty thousand there. That's great.

Yeah, how how often you drop video?

I've been dropping two a week while I've been on this shed tour.

So you got some fresh content.

Oh yeah, there's a bunch. I think there's at least I think I'm totally up to date on the USA tour. So Sweeten, everything's live over there?

Does that live under its own house?

Not really, It's just all on my shed Crazy channel. I'll make a playlist for it so people can just binge those episodes if they want. But cool, that's great, Good luck man, Thank you. I appreciate it.

Sure you don't want to ask for any hot tips any spot.

I mean, I have a link on my Instagram that has like a Google form people can fill out, and it's a bunch of questions and like, you know, information.

That's such a way.

That was my wife's idea again, So it's a form they can go and fill. It's like a questionnaire basically like what state are you in? Like what kind of animals you know, like you know, shed hunts. What's your information? And then I can go through to the back end and read the responses and then contact people via phone or email off of their responses so.

He doesn't get bombarded with random I.

Understand now, yea, because I'm getting like hundreds of d MS people that come here, and I'm like, oh, sweet, yeah, for sure I will. But then they're so lost in the messages by the time, Oh I understand, I get there. So it's a big help. So check them out.

Shed Crazy, your real name doesn't even matter. Bend out of money.

Yep, nobody calls me. That calls me Shed what's your wife call you? I don't know, I can say it on the air.

All right, man, thanks for coming on.

Thank you guys.

But yeah, if you want to have a laugh, go to Shed Crazy on Instagram. Super funny videos, no toughness, no zero percent, just fun, just laughs, no tough all laughs. Yeah, all right man, thanks a lot.

Rid On.

On seal Gray shine like silver in the sun.

Riright, rid On alone, sweetheart.

We done beat this damn course to dad taking her new rid We're done beat this damn parsday. So take your new one and right on.

Welcome to this country Life. I'm your host, Brent Rieves from coon hunting to trot lining and just general country living. I want you to stay a while as I share my stories and the country skills that will help you beat the system. This country Life is proudly presented as part of Meat Eaters Podcast Network, bringing you the best outdoor podcast the airways have to offer. All right, friends, pull you up a chair or drop that tailgate. I

To hand him his.

When I see my Dad reaching his pocket and hand it to him, I couldn't believe what I was seeing. I wasn't allowed to touch it, and here mister Bill was scraping and gallging on metal with all his might.

I was shocked.

That was a killing of fence. But my dad just looked on like nothing was happening, Like the previous eleven years of proper knife care instruction that he drilled into my head had never happened. That's a knife, not a screwdriver. That's a knife, not a hammer. And yet right before my eyes, I was watching mister Bill slap annihilate the edge off my father's case knife, which was the knife everyone who knew reeves was correctly spelled r EA and

I kid you not.

My wife doesn't tell one because she has me, but if she wanted to, she would, and I would make

All right.

Pocket knife covered that one pretty well, at least till we get to the other pocket. But until we do, what else is in the old right front pocket? Chapstick? Now here's a disclaimer down here. We call lip bomb chapstick regardless of the brand, but we never call it lip bomb. Hey, I don't make the rules. I just live bomb. That's the end of the disclaimer. Chapstick. Not much you can say about that. Sure you can. You can dive it on a cut to help stop bleeding.

It ain't a case.

It's a well made pocket knife, I assure you. But I'm talking about what's in my pockets and what I like the best. You may hate case pocket knives and like something totally different. I don't care. That's fine with me. But you ought to be in jail if you do. Just kidding, not really. What about that sack of jewee a one dollar coin, Well, I can tell you it was minted in two thousand. Monetarily it's worth whatever a

The buckeye.

If you've listened to any of the Bear Grease Render podcast you may have heard me mention it. I'll tell you about this particular one in a minute. First, I want to talk about why you'd have one.

To begin with.

Esculus pavia, commonly referred to as the red buckeye, that is the most prominent variety of the two known grove to Arkansas. It produces a nut, which is actually the seed, and it grows in a pod that matures in late summer. Now, folks have been toting them in their pockets for luck for generations. There's an old saying that when you'll never find a dead man with a buck eye in his pocket.

Now.

I don't know if that's because you don't find a a lot of dead men laying around, or because it wouldn't be too cool to peel for through their clothes if you did, my family, close friends, and I would give them to each other as tokens of good luck for hunting. Somewhere in our families passed it was dictated that one hunter had to give it to another for it to work. You couldn't just find one and put it in your pocket and reap the benefits. That ain't how that works.

Now.

I'm not superstitious at all. I just firmly believe that if I was to lose the one I got in my pocket, that I wouldn't never have another successful hunt. The one I have I've been caring for close to ten years, and it means a lot to me. First time I met Old Clay Bow, he'd ask me to come film a bear hunt for him in the Washtall Mountains in Arkansas. He and the majority of his youngest took me around where he grew up hunting, and we wound up on a mountain in the area and I

Y'all be careful