Ep. 502: Hunting with Barstool’s Sydnie Wells

This is the Meat Eater Podcast coming at you shirtless, severely, bug bitten, and in my case, underwear listeningcast. You can't predict anything. The Meat Eater Podcast is brought to you by First Light. Whether you're checking trail cams, hanging deer stands, or scouting for ELP. First Light has performance apparel to support every hunter in every environment. Check it out at first light dot com. F I R S T L I T E dot com. Hey Philip, you turn the

The other day I went into a gas station in North Dakota and I needed to buy some zinfandel, which is zen cho we called zinfandale. But the kid wouldn't let me buy it because my Montana I D did not scan and I was like I was jones and for some because we were on the way back from Wisconsin and I had long car ride. Danielle, my wife's in there, crying baby. It was just like I really needed it.

She wasn't crying baby. No, there was crying baby. Crying baby, said my wife, Danielle in there crying baby, like she's in there going I think, I think, I said.

And the anyways, I got I kind of got mad, and I never do that.

That's what happens to as I was this is a this is a well known thing with addicts.

I was like, dude, I was like, here's three credit cards, here's my work. I d it, says photographer on it, and call the cops. No, I didn't go that far, but I like convinced them to get me the zims.

It was either that or you're gonna tear that place.

I made it.

Don't made me go out and get my chainsaw.

Made it through the drive.

I'm gonna pick it up it. Can I pick it back? My thing?

I know? Sure? Okay.

So I was in Duluth, Minnesota a long time ago. I was driving from I was driving across the country. I took a little side d two were up into to Duluth and I'm in a bar in Duluth and I get carted. I was a youngster back then, and uh twenty six, twenty seven years old, and I have a Montana driver's license. And the guy at the bar says, I'm not kidding you. He says, hey, can you bring a grease trap to my buddy's Pete's joint in fours?

And you didn't know? The guy?

No, what did you know? The guy get me forty bucks? What'sppened? Did you know?

The guy in four corner?

Idly, I hand my bar to my bye and I need to a bartender. He goes, you live in Montana and I'm like yeah, and he goes, he knew Montana well, and he's like he knew. However, we got to talk about where I was going, and he wants me to detour and drop a grease trap off at a bar in uh uh in four corners near here, like the Corner Club. I can't remember what the name of the place was so long ago. He says, I'll give you forty bucks. All you gotta do is bring it there

Perfect.

So it's called American elbow grease. How does this relate to the tobacco thing? He said, you got to start. There's a loose there's a tenuous piggy bag. Okay, joy today Sidney Wells from outdoor Sports. What am I saying? Barstool not outdoor barstool outdoors? Yes, which is part I'm mixed. I combined out.

Door barstool sports. Yeah.

I meant to say barstool sports, but it's barstool outdoors.

Yeah, it's been a long day.

And tell us why it's been a long day.

We've been duck hunting all morning.

Under the tutelage of our other guests, Brady Davis, give us the setup. How would you say what we're give us what we were doing.

So we'd been watching this field for a handful of days. You know, it's it's a cut spring wheat field. It's been loading up with ducks, loading up with keys, loloading up with swans. Yeah, I actually had three swans, decoy to day and land.

Yeah, you don't see that. That's pretty cool.

That's cool.

A circle that is not normal, circled around. They're pushing through right now.

Nobody had a tag.

No, and even if you did, you can't hunt him here in this flyway.

If I'm if I'm not mistaken, I think the only place you can hunt him is up it freeze out Lake North.

So, yeah, we had a good game plan, good setup. Man. I thought we had a heck of a morning. I mean good time.

You did good at playing clean up too.

Yeah, you're right.

It was a good morning.

It's really fun and talk some crap, and I was shooting birds and he shoots a He shoots an old ass ten gauge. It's eight seventy it's a Browning BPS. Okay, Yeah, you can't tell because it's painted like an American flag. Yep, I know.

Yeah, it's Zarah Codad. It's a ten gauge pump with a thirty two inch.

Barrels, the lords gauge. It's the Lord's.

Gauge, and the home with that thing all the time.

I hunt with it as much as I can. Yeah, what I'll tell you is it's a strike killer.

Well every time he hits, he's like, well that's the ten gage. Well you still have to aim it. Yeah, it's like just a little more going on. Like you could give that gun to a lot of people, nothing's gonna happen.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, there there's there's a bit of skill involved for sure.

Yeah, everyb what that is called is that's called leading proper.

Yeah.

We did have one goose that was it was a heck of a poke with the ten bore. Yeah, at one high goose. That was good.

But now I had a great time. It was fun hunting with you guys. We got him.

It was funny hunting out of the A frame too, because when I was told there was gonna be a dry field, I thought I was going to be in layout lines. So the A frame was great to hear that we were hunting out of.

It's so comfortable. Yeah, we had a guy. We had a guy on the show. Chester. You were there, Chester's here and was there? Max bard Is here, was not there, Chili's here, was not there? Seth's here was there? Mm following Yeah, we got it losing a lot of listeners. Do you know what I'm gonna tell Chester about layout blinds. Yes, we had a guy on the podcast who was in a layout blind and uh someone said, like get him,

I picture you right in the middle of your foot. Yeah.

I always picture you'd shoot off one of the sides. You shoot off your pinky toe, like I could picture shooting off my big toe. I can't picture plucking the three middle toes, goal, pucking the three middle toes out of the spread.

I just picture blowing the whole damn thing.

Yeah, all their toes.

You have a picture of that somewhere way down on your.

Way down there. No, I wasn't there when he did it, but I was there, and he told the Now, my old man was shot in the foot rabbit hunting and carried those pellets for a long long time in his foot. No tolls removed. And then he didn't want to tell me. They tried to keep it secret. So he acts like he uh, act like he had had some kind of other injury and they kept it secret from people that someone had blown him in the foot.

There was a guy last year here in Montana, a young buck that blew his foot off and had to get life lighted out of the field. Uh, pretty pretty much like the bottom half of his like or top half of his foot.

See that ceases to be funny.

What that's not?

That's not I was telling the funny story. But it's funny like shooting yourself.

Like, No, he wasn't using a blind at all.

Do you want to know the crazy thing about this guy?

He still shot the geese.

He's still the delay or ducks, so he's getting out of his layout blind Boom.

Max knows this guy.

Oh you do. Yeah, that's the.

First time we met. Max was on that Oh because Max stopped in on that shoot.

Max stopped in flayed a bunch of walleyes and.

Then packing a big old dip there chest. You can't talk. Uh you know him? Yeah, Danny, Yeah, Yeah, I know Danny.

Boom.

There goes his toes and he's still like the delay. The realization is, so he shoots it. He still shoots. But then here's where it falls apart. If you ask him if he hit he doesn't know. So somewhere between somewhere you following me, yea, somewhere between shooting his toes and registering whether or not he had a hit, it struck him what had happened.

Yeah, he probably started shooting and realized something bad just happened.

I usually block out when I shoot into a flock of geese. Yeah, I still got all my toes still.

Yeah, this is precisely why we had that long safety speech this morning.

Oh I really appreciated that safety speech. Yeah, yeah, good, Yeah, we do it. No, that's great. Yeah, it's like a really a really uh thorough motivational safety speech.

Dude, I love that. Yeah, there's so many people, like, there's so many times people don't do that and then like stuff happened.

You know what it was in my it was it was helpful because it uh the way you handle it in the story you tell uh, it's effective because it made it. It burned in my head.

Yeah, you rethink things no matter how many times you you know, are out there hunting or holding a gun. It just it's always good to have that fresh reminder.

I was telling them, we do it even when it's just us like the same guys we hunt with day in and day out.

We could have hunted twelve days in a row.

And at the start of the hunt before shooting, like, I'm going to stand in front of the A frame blind and give a little bit of a soapbox speech about safety.

Yeah. That constant reminders good because some people get overconfident.

Well, and sometimes the more you do it right, when you're doing it every day, you just getcent you get complacent.

You get like a version of you get like a version of yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah exactly, And so we go through it every day.

Luckily, everybody that we hunt with that's kind of on our team takes it serious. But especially when with guests and new people. Right, I'm like, hey, we're going to harp on you if we see anything that shouldn't be happening. Yeah, let's just let's just do it right from the start, and it's way more fun than we don't have to be paranoid. And because we've all hunted with people that, like, thirty minutes in, you're.

Like, we should have a safety speech.

We don't effective about oh sorry, go ahead, even just the reminder of the gun on the A frame, like just talking about not getting it caught, safety, all that stuff. That's just gonna a reminder.

Yeah, another thing that you said that actually changed my behaviors. As if I'm sitting there and I'm like, two hands on the two hands on the shotgun and I know a bird's gonna commit, I'll put it on fire, right, And in your safety talk you said you're gone, goes on fire when you're up.

When it clears the blind. It was pointing out, and so I kept being same thing. I can't do that because I get yelled.

I clicked and clicked. I was like I clicked and I'm like, oh ship, and I clicked it back.

That well, in that moment, right, it's like that final moment, like everybody's dead quiet, everybody's holding still. Your senses are heightened, and sure as hell, you'll sit there and you'll hear click. You just clicked off safe and I'm like, so I click it.

Bag loud counting. Yeah, so three clicks and you're out of the fields. Yeah, Well with that, do you do you kick? Like, have you ever had an instance where you had to like stop a hunt because someone's not falling the rules? We've had to reprimand before for sure, what does that like look like for you guys?

Usually just when you see it happening, like the second happens, you know, and try not to be an ass about it, but like, hey, man, like matter of fact, if we're going to keep hunting. I was serious about what we talked about, right, Like, I'm not the fun police, but we do all want to get out of here alive and say, like, this is supposed to be the most fun thing ever, so let's keep it that way. But there has been times when we've had to stop and

I mean, I can do it.

We can all.

Yeah, yeah, we were on a hunt. There's a guy that we know who is very you know, accomplished and does it a lot. And you know, Seth had to say twice nothing personal against the guy, but just be like Beryl, you know.

Oh my gosh, that's my biggest it was at.

Our heads multiple times.

I unload on my kids about it, and I can never always try to weigh, uh, like how much to freak out on them. We don't want to turn them totally off, but you're trying to scare the daylights out of them. It's fine balances someone. If anyone's figured that out, send me an email.

I personally know two people who got killed duck hunting. Seriously, yes, personally, no, two people my my father's cousin and then a kid that my brothers went to high school with. And it's like, it's it is bad. And both of them happened in a very similar way. They were in a boat and

Of Can we move on?

But but I just want to say that. I just want to say that because it's a reality and I'm personally connected with two people, and I don't think this gets talked about. Actually enough is gun safety, and it happens all the time.

This is why we harp on it. Another another Brady Davis rules. He don't let dogs in the A frame to tie.

Too tight and they just knock over crap.

Too tight, knock over guns. Yeah, you know, their tails are always waggon, you know. And I it makes me so paranoid when I see people with a dog in an A frame and they'll always tell you like, well, my dog's good.

He don't he don't freak out. He does everyone everybody's got a good dog always watches where his tail.

Man.

So we we have a hard and fast rule no dogs in the A frame ever, and they're always in a dog hide by themselves.

And I appreciate it.

Like when guys like Max comes and hunts with us and brings his dog, which is phenomenal dog, they're just totally cool with it. Like I tell him when you're coming, like, bring a dog blind. Even if we have a big A frame and there's only four of us hunting and there's tons of room.

Well it's not for just the hunter safety, it's for the dog safety too.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, we do. We do a series uh meat eaters camp fire Stories, which these audio originals and it's people telling the you know, so far the two we've done have been and close calls, so like, shit, that almost happened, real bad. And one of the guy tells a story about getting shot by his dog. Yeah, it happens. I mean you read about it, so you know,

That's cool.

That's bad to the bone. Because how tight you put that thing? Oh? Yeah, I mean you tight tight? Uh? Okay, cid you give me your impressions of the hunt. They were gonna pull that tongue out, the.

Impressions of the hunt ducks tongue. Well, we should go ahead and start doing that. But I think that it was a great hunt. I went to Canada and I shot zero birds go down in Canada.

Yeah, that's hard to do.

How'd that?

Yeah?

I want to know the same thing.

How'd that go?

When was it?

How many days did you hunt? Uh?

Three? Give me okay, I lied, Okay, we saw zero ducks. The first day we shot some specs, which was actually pretty cool because of Illinois, they're super smart. But they were tornadoing down. WI shot I think like thirty birds, snowgies and specs. The first day wasn't that bad, but that was between like twelve people, and then we didn't shoot anything in the rest.

Of the trip.

We had two more hunt days.

Yeah, we shot the evening because I think we were trying to shoot ducks that in the evening didn't anything. In the next two days we didn't shoot anything, which I get it, like that's hunting, it's not always going to go that way. We did kill a mule deer, so I wasn't that upset, but uh yeah, the weather did get really warm and the wind. I don't know, I don't know. We just didn't kill them. I don't. I don't want to hate on anybody or anything because it is how it goes typically.

But but you're a little bit hating on them.

I'm just a little salty. It just sucks my first time up in Canada.

You're not hating on them, you're hating on that.

You didn't get ducks, yes, that big cold front that just came through or no.

So it was okay. So it was mid October we left. I hunted I think like the fifteenth around there. So they had a cold front come through and they were shooting hundreds of ducks. It was awesome, but I was mule deer hunting, so I was focusing over there. I came back, weather warmed up, cold front's gone, and there was like no ducks flying.

We.

Like I said, the first day, we shot some specs and some snow geese. So it was a horrible But it wasn't like a lights out Canada trip which everybody goes to Canada to do like, I've never been up there.

You were a victim of the old You should have been here yesterday.

Yeah I actually was, yes, yes, and it sucked. Yeah, it hurt, but it is what it is. I'm just gonna have to go back up there.

Yeah.

When things go real good, I'll tell people you were here yesterday. Yeah, that's how good today was. Yeah. This is like one of those days that if it was tomorrow, we'd be talking about it. Yeah, but you were here, yeah, today, you were here yesterday today.

Yeah. Today it was a good day though. So that's why.

Tomorrow, if it sucked, you would refer back to today. Yes, and so you should have been here yesterday.

Absolutely, it's great. Yeah. Absolutely.

We recently had a guest on uh, Crian, do you mind teeing us up from duck Like but it just come come tee it up, cran, Okay, here.

You go teeing up. We recently had Phil Loveretzky on from the University of Texas at El Paso and his lab is teamed up with Ducks Unlimited for a project called Ducks Duck Dna. You can visit that at duck dna dot.

Com and you can listen to the whole damn.

And you can also listen to our entire podcast or watch it on YouTube.

What do we call that one? Our wild ducks really wild? Yeah, exactly, so our wild duct really wild. He came in to talk about the way that you have game farm mallards and the way game farm mallards are breeding their weakness and habits into wild mallards in the United States exactly.

And one way to help contribute data to their growing research is by participating yourself as a citizen scientist. So we've got a bunch of test tube vials with an agent in them and a reagent I actually don't know the right word screwing that up, Yeah, sauce. And the instruction is to cut the mallard tongue out or part of it out. And we've got kind of this little

You know, ladies, gentlemen.

Crinchnyder very well, all right, Science time and Karin Karin Morris.

Now Seth has If you're not watching on video, Seth has Karin's lab code on. So I don't think he's got his own sweet labte that says Karin. Yeah, get to borrow. Not that cool yet? You ready, Yeah, let's do it. I'm gonna I'm gonna tell you what's happening. Seth is holding the Seth is prying the duck's mouth open, and he's revealing its tongue, which is a Chinese delicacy.

Yep, save your tongues if you have time.

Have you cooked them up yet?

Crinn?

Yeah, Seth, I would say quarter quarter of an inch.

Right there, So just a quartern in quarter of an inch from the top.

Get this joke. It's on the tip of his tongue right there at the little indent. Yeah, you get it.

They kind of naturally have a spot that shows you where to cut.

Really, it's like God wanted to just send the tip of his tongue in.

There.

He goes, Oh that noise? Was it up? Sharp Knight?

Getting number one?

Seth has cut the tip of its tongue on the number. Is it probably marring Phill's special studio table? Oh yeah, Brady? Did he cut into the table.

I don't think he cut into the table, but I use the table as it's a cutting makes a fine cutting.

Boarder marring Fill's special table.

Can I touch this with my hands or is that gonna mess anything up?

I think you're fine with you.

I don't know. They might have.

Goodness all right, and there it is specimen number one. There's number one.

Yeah, okay, now you got to fill out your sheet.

I don't have anything to write.

We can do that later.

So yeah, we just that's all it takes. We just participated in citizen science. So now this will get submitted with a lat lawn court will get submitted with corn. And it's one of the kind of what other kind of biometric detail they want off that they they don't need to ask a lot, they can just figure it out themselves, right. They want to know male female.

Yeah, they want species, sex, location, latitude, long longitude, date, comments, got it?

Probably ought to put this into fridge, right.

And then they will be able to take that mallard and so far what that should based on the conversation we have with them, that should come back wild mallard, purebread. That's your remembrance. Yeah, that that duck should come back purebread. But they're watching the very slow westward creep of pen

Lead?

Like is it what happened? Like if there's multiple times, I'm like he's talking about his dog.

He was doing the safety protocol and he said Lead. I'm like, well you should probably keep your tone down here.

Lead, I mean named my next dog. Take him, Brady, what's the punchline? Well, we named him lead because it's the only lead we can legally use in the field. There it is.

And I love single syllable names for a dog, So Lead we can use lead because he's good in the field.

So yeah, yeah, he did great today. It was a good day. Saved us a lot of walking great dog. No, he does, and he like he has he brings a lot of gusto. Yeah, he he. I would say he assaults the geese. Not not in a bad way. It doesn't like mold. Yeah, but but if it's if it's running away, he's on it. He's like he goes after that football player.

He had one today. I mean it was like a thousand yards. It was a sailor and then he ran way out to it. Right when he got to it, had joker got up and flew like another three hundred yards and went back down and freaking all the way there, came back.

He was he was catching his breath on this thing. Yeah, yeah, that was awesome. That Uh listener listener question here.

Uh.

The topic is fuzzy waterfowl regulations. This is something we've discussed a great bit, but we'll discuss it right now again. This this fella says there's a great area. This is the This is a listener email. There's a great area and waterfowl hunting regulations. I have to edit this is it? This is verbatim.

Crinn I had to edit a little bit.

Okay, apologies to the listener. There's there's a gray area and waterfowl hunting regulations, which is a rule I'm trying to edit it on the fly, which is a rule that's broken in ninety nine percent of grip and grin waterfowl picks. There's also a discrepancy in party shooting. Okay, this is like answering your question, but you don't know what the question not his fault. What are you talking about? Is this? I believe Krin is this correct? He's talking

Someone's just got to claim that ducky he claim the dock.

Yeah, and that goes against or goes towards their limit.

Yeah, And so this isn't negating, it's not negating. The listeners thinking but it is fuzzy, and I think the way you cope with the fuzziness is you kind of look at over the course of time, where do you see people get in fractions. They get in fractions about shipping ducks, transporting ducks after the hunt. I've just never heard of somebody getting in trouble over like a like a like a dispute like that, meaning a bunch of people shoot someone claims the duck. I mean, of course

No, No, I agree.

I think somebody's got to claim it.

To Max's point, the other thing we do is if we have a lot of people in the blind and we're like really getting them, we will lay the birds out behind the blind in separate piles. So it's like, okay, Brady, Steve Sidney, you know, Dane, whatever.

One there.

I think the biggest thing is as soon as we're done in the field and we're about to go and and this boggles my mind that people don't do this, but we tag them.

Yeah, yeah, you this morning did like what you're supposed to do.

Yeah, I mean it's a federal law that you have to tag birds for transport, and so we tag them and it's got the hunter's name, you know, the county that was killed, the species, the number, the signature, everything on that tag. That one is a fascinating rule because so many times people have been waterfowl hunting with us, and I'm sure Max's experiences and you're like, all right, we're going to tag birds, and people look at you like you're speaking Japanese man, like what are you talking about.

Yeah, like, we got to tag them. I tag them if I'm if I clean them and leave like a wing attacked and I'm flying somewhere and I'm flying them home, I would tag them. But I would I never in my life tagged bird to drive ten twenty miles down the road.

Yeah, as long as they're with you, you're fine, okay. But yeah, to Brady's point, for like any kind of transportation, if like you leave your birds with someone else, they got to be tagged for sure.

So the way the rule is written is I think it's actually like if you're going from the field to your abode, then you're you're good but like today we went from the field to launch to the office here for the podcast and then home. And you start doing that, then they need to be tagged.

Yeah, now you're in a building that's not your home and there's birds in your truck that are not completely yep, you're not you're not with them right because they're out in the parking lot right. So and it takes two seconds to tag the birds.

Like, it's just a simple rule to keep, and you just make sure you're always above board all the time.

You know, another another rule that you always hear about being a rule, and you don't hear everybody get in trouble with the rule is, uh, you know, you're not supposed to have like eagle feathers, hawk feathers unless you're like a Native American or something. We had a word none and he said he's written two citations that And he said one time he is at a red light and there's a guy next to him that his his rear view mirror is draped in rafter talents.

Oh my goodness, pulls him over.

Another time he's it is leaving his grocery store pushing a shopping cart and looks in the back of the truck and there's a dead owl in the back. So he waits to talk to the guy and he said it was funny. Is both people their immediate thing was to tell me their Native American? Oh my god, neither neither was the very Scandinavian that was like, that's like the little thing everybody has in her head. Is I think it's okay? I like you're Native American? Right, It's

No, I've actually didn't know about the feather.

So is your mirror drave you're gonna want to get.

What I'm saying is like, does that mean.

It means that you're not allowed to have that? That what I'm saying If I.

Find it on in the cornfield and I see a feather.

Yes, like if you took that feather, and like if you took that feather and put it in your backpack again, it's one of those rules that it's a rule, but you just don't meet. There's many more people that have picked up a egle feather than there are that got in trouble for picking up ego feathers. It was just one of those interesting rules that you sort of have the feeling in the back of your head that there's something about how you're not supposed to do it.

Well, I didn't know that I'm not picking up feather, so nobody come for me.

But this guy's point was he presented, he was presented with two things that he couldn't ignore. In no situations he would. He stepped in because the one was just like like this, like sort of you know, chandelier of rapid talons caught his eye and then everyone was like the actual dead owl. But that's the thing. It's just like, you know, maybe they dyed the damn feather and it looks like ego feather.

I don't know.

Yeah, like if Oscar is out in the field and he picks up an eagle feather, you know you're.

Not gonna lot, You're not gonna call him and stuff.

I don't think.

So we were on a hunt last year and we shot a goose and it sailed like the next field over and the boys kind of all marked it, like I think he went that direction, and so I got out of the blind and I like went on a hike with lead.

I'm like, we're gonna go find this goose again his dog, My dog led, Yeah, it's an effective method. Get that goose. Let better not that hasn't been illgal since nineteen eighty six, right, But we.

Hiked our butts over there, and I'm like, all right, he's in this direction. So with dogs, you can send him on a blind retree, right, like they didn't see it go down. You just send him, Yeah, send him out and they'll work the area. And so I sent him out and he's kind of working and I'm giving him some some commands, and all of a sudden, he gets real birdie. I'm like, yeah, got it. I mean it just happened on thousands of times. Grabs a bird, comes back and.

I'm like, that's not a goose, that's not a goose.

And brings back a dead hawk mmm, And I was like, oh crap, Like what do I do? So I like he he brought it to heel, sat handed it to me like he's supposed to do, and I like took it and instantly walked right back to where he had picked it up from. And it's straight underneath the power line. So all I can assume is it like this hot got sat down the power line and I literally like left it there and turned and we were like walking out,

Uh.

Upstairs in my office, I have a photo for my dad's like I have a photo Pilford from my dead father's old photos, and he has an old photo where it's him and some other guys and they got cottontail rabbits hanging from strings, and then on the end of the the and the one of the strings they got their owl, which is like, which was just like how there was a matter of course, Yeah, it'd be like if you were a small game hunter, get the hawks

You want to talk about stay with a lot of trail cams.

I am Wisconsin, That's what I am talking about.

It's a lot.

It's a lot there. Yeah, everywhere that there's no regulations on trip.

You gotta be careful where you pee.

My did you see the picture I recently got with my beaver cam that's ten to you.

Oh, it's fantastic.

Yeah, it's like you think that i'd be getting like an award from National Geographic It. I got a beaver cam set up where it's on a little crossover between a pond and the creek, and I just like to watch the beavers go by. I so I want to wake up with the more. Let's look on her and see what all and everything and its brother comes through here like everything it's not I don't want to say where it is. It'd be illegal to hunt. It's in an urban environment, urban environment, but it's just like this

Doesn't they call them like false wheals or something? Yeah?

Uh, mice rats, rats, pack rats, mice otters, scrats, mountain lion, deer, a pet dog, house cat. What about a mountainin dude fishing? No mountains give me time? Anyways, I get on it. The other day, an otter standing there with a really nice trout holding it by the head. Wow. And you can tell the chiut's still live. He's all like curled up.

Yeah.

And thenett Otter sat there, like perfectly sat there and devoured that fish in front of the camera.

That's cool.

That was great.

So in Wisconsin they have this Snapshot Wisconsin. And what Dirkin was writing about was he was writing about this is Dirkin like a I don't know if Dirkin uh I feel like Dirkin Rather than being a wolf hater or a wolf lover, which comprises ninety percent of Americans, Dirt falls in that sweet spot of like sort of wolf rational Dirt or Dirkin is wolf rational. But he hears people saying in Wisconsin like you can't get a picture of a deer anymore. You're like, I get more

Where's that is that up north.

It's gotta be someone want to look. Yeah, So Sawyer County, Okay. Not one northern county. So assuming not the southern ones, they don't have wolves. Now one northern county had wolves on every camera.

That's up by Hayward Good Musky country up there.

Saint Croix County two percent of the cameras. So in Saint Croix County, there's forty seven cameras. In Saint Crai County, forty seven enrolled cameras. In Saint Croix County, two percent of the enrolled cameras picked up pictures of wolves. Dunn County thirty cameras, two picked up pictures of wolves. Then you get to this. Douglas County, sixty one of cameras set out will grab a picture of wolf.

Wow.

Iron and Price Counties sixty three percent of cameras set out capture wolf. Uh. Marinette County is the top for deer photo prevalence, But there's some interesting stuff with bear prevalence. Bear photos far outnumbered wolf photos in every county except Shiuano.

What is it, Shano, No, it's not Shano.

I'm looking at it right here.

Shiuano tomato, tomato, shawano, shano.

They're just like it did shortcutting it.

Yeah, I guess that's probably just how we say it. We had a cabin over by mountain, which was not too far are from there. We did see wolves seanel, we saw deer.

Two thirty cameras. Check this one out. This is interesting. So in that county, thirty cameras snapped five hundred and twenty nine bear photos and five hundred and twenty two wolf photos.

Wow.

Saint Croix county forty seven cameras one wolf photo. Now I'm not reading all of Durkin's article, but Dirk, I guess the main point of Durkin's article is that there aren't as many wolf photos as you'd think. But I look and I'm like, that seems like a lot.

This a lot, especially on that point near Duluth, right by the border of Canada. That's a that's a lot. That's not very good for your deer population.

Okay, ready, now again, things could get things could Here's the final synopsis for all the counties in Wisconsin and for sure, oh sorry sorry, this is only northern This is the stats for only northern Withisconsin. And this is the final totals, and keep in mind the same things can get multi photographed many times. I had a camera one time, that photograph, you know, the photograph the same doing fun five hundred times, right, So bear that in mind.

I mean wolves are so much more nomadic too.

Just which they it means they could show up on potentially more cameras or probably perhaps less because they're not camped out in some little spot.

I think perhaps less because they're not camped out. Let me think of how many times you have a deer camera out in Wisconsin and you get you get the same deer coming through every night.

Yeah, same food bloods.

One of my favorite wolf stats when beavers are dispersing in May and in the northern Great Lakes I can't remember it is ninety eight percent of wolf scats contain beaver remains. And then by the end, like by the late summer, when they're not dispersing anymore, it just drops off precipitously to next to nothing.

Yeah I read that.

Yeah, they hammer beavers when the beavers are dispersing, and then they just forget about them go on to something else.

So it was the point of the article saying that the wolf problem isn't really a problem in Wisconsin.

Uh, let me tell you about I wanted to say a couple things about darkin Okay. I recently got a note from Durkin. I told a story recently about losing a friend of mine, and I got a note from Durkin about touching in with me about the story I told about losing a friend of mine. I showed the note to my wife, which my wife said, that is one of the good ones, meaning Durkin. If everybody on this planet behaved like Pat Durkin, there wouldn't be any problems.

He's saying is it's not as bad as everybody thinks it is, because you go up to those counties and you talk to those people and immediately they're like wolves. You know.

Yeah, everyone jumps to blame it on wolves. Maybe the bears are killing I.

Think has to do with logging up there in the Nicolay National Forest and not having there's there's more and more old growth and not as much like new brows and things like that. For deer that at least in the area where we were at. I mean, there are wolves. There are wolves, and there are more wolves. And you think, I mean, when they opened the season, you know, in Wisconsin, to shoot wolves. It was staggering how quickly they got to quote.

Which always makes me think there must be a lot of wolves. But let me let me give it to dir I'll give it now that we got into it and we're questioning Dirkin's, uh, you know, journalistic integrity. Here's the headline. Northwoods deer outnumber bears wolves in trail cam survey.

That's the headline.

Dirkin goes on to say folks who scoring gray wolves often claim they see more of them than white tailed deer when poking around Wisconsin's Northwoods the past twenty years. Meanwhile, trailcams are now as common as ravens and woodticks in those forests, providing round the clock surveillance of bait pile's, food plots and two track trails. All that photographic evidence

Something like that, successive something to shoot for.

That's awesome. Pat likes deer so much that you know he put stickers on the truck. Pat's put stickers of famous deer on his truck. Oh, he loves really likes deer.

Is he like goes You're like there's auctions where they sell like the antlers.

Probably, Yeah, he loves deer in the Edmunds.

Fitzgerald knows a lot about the Edmond fitz and knows a lot about the Navy. Okay, he was in the Navy, knows a lot about that. I've never had that happen in the shittiness of the sign He's saying, I've never had that happen in twenty years of hunting that part of.

The Nicolay National Force.

Well, give me the first part chester.

Uh chikwam chika mcguan chikwamag chikwamagon chikuwama.

Gun chakuama gon Nicolay National Force. Isn't Nicola the fella that showed up Green Bay, like cross Lake Michigan and showed up with Green Bay and put on a Mandarin robe like he thought he's in China. This dude for real, real, This dude for real? I think Nicolay when he crossed Lake Michigan, He's like ha, and he like had been carrying like a China made robe of some sort and put it on to go and like meet the people.

He's like, Wow, the muskie fishing is good, and check.

Suspiciously like the other side of the lake Nikola nashed Forth. Dirkin goes on. Then again I saw no wolf sign either, which makes sense. Why would wolves waste their time and energy hunting such lousy deer habitat, especially after a scientifically documented quote very severe killer winter for white tails. Then there's a passage I'm not gonna read. Then I'm gonna try to end this whole thing we're doing here by getting to this to continue my quote of Pat Durkin.

And then what's the regulation in Idaho for wolves is they're not they're delisted.

So we like we like I did something. Wolves were successfully delisted in the Northern Rockies. So they were successfully delisted in Idaho, Wyoming, and Montana. And it's been very whip saw in the northern Great Lakes seesaw what's the term whipsaw? Back and forth, back and forth.

Yeah, yeah, you can like in Montana right now they're listed. You can you can go and buy a wolf tank, like.

You could be walking around with one in your pocket right now. In fact, I am.

You were right about the nick let guy showing up in Green Bay with wearing a Chinese dress.

What you think about that, Krin More, that's totally.

Thanks.

Now here's the thing, speaking of Kren, here's the thing Krin has been hot on. Crin's hot on, like urban urban rat hunting is the new flathead noodling?

Do you agree, Sydney?

Do you remember? Do you remember the way flathead noodling just captured the collective imagination of American media. It was like, there's always been some guys that noodle flatheads. Bercard Bilger wrote the book Noodling for Flatheads, which is about Southern the way Southern culture still exists in the US, and exploration of Southern culture. And it became that every TV host anyone on the planet over the next decade went

I'm not gonna lie. It was so much fun, so fun.

No, no, I'm not a down on it. I'm not down on it. I'm just observing that it became a media fascination.

It was it was a trend it a trend.

And right now it is a major trend and Krinn is hot on it to go rat killing with dogs and cities. And while noodling was supposed to be like a city man's introduction into rural culture, this is a rural introduction into urban culture, like you'd come from the sticks to go see how these city boys rat killer dogs.

Like Jack Terrier's probably right.

Is Crin is really itching to have one of these rat hunters on the show.

They're up in northern Montana, on the border of Canada, because Jack, you might we're talking about to our front Tie and Calgary. There's no rat population in Alberta. I think because they just completely wiped them out. They got them yep, with dogs maybe, but that's like in the rit and it's on the border.

This hasn't come up with me eat a trivia. But my understanding is Anchorage, Alaska is the large something has some superlative it's the largest, the world's largest port city with no rats. And when a rat shows up, they have a ship fit they do when a rat someone if a boat comes into the rat it's like code red. So Krim, what are you gonna do? Are you gonna get one of these people on or not.

No, I just want to clarify, I'm not quite sure I want to have one of these city folks. I just find it, No, I just find it hilarious that major mainstream UH news organizations and newspapers seem to have a fascination with hunting through the lens of UH you know, city residents hunting rats with their docs. In's right, they're all it's like you can you can just google it and their articles in like uh New York Magazine, Washington Post, the New York.

Times sends them all to me, I have the.

Washington posted a podcast about these rats, like it's just I don't know.

Text a lot, and I have to sort through all her rat killing, all her rat the ones that interest me.

You helped to like look up the facts. But when we're in New Zealand, we're watching the television with the news, Okay, tell them TV Russian TV news is on. They were having a cat killing contest, like house cat geral cats.

Yes, and they got the school kids rolled into it, yep.

And it was a tournament and they had they had to literally cancel the tournament because some people's house cats were actually getting killed with collars.

Then covered it.

Yeah, well we covered we didn't cover that aspect of We covered the aspect of it that everyone was fine with it until they got the kids involved. And then then people got like.

There if I wasn't until they're like, where's a mister Peppers. He was here today and he got out and he got killed.

Well, you know what I'd say, I'd say was mister Peppers maybe not in the.

House, but mister Peppers got out the house.

That's on him. Then it says that's on mister Pepper.

It says the kid who killed the most cats between mid April and the end of June won a total of one hundred and fifty five dollars.

What a time to be alive. That old fashion of fun that was just springs right now the New Zealand yesterday is today.

If we had.

That's nuts a Sydney earlier we were talking about I was talking about we're talking about hunting as kids, and you talk about growing up and like falling asleep. Oh yeah, I under a blanket.

And the blanket to the blind.

So you got you got into it young.

Yeah, it was more like a like how you told your kids. I don't care what you're doing. Cancer plants are coming with me.

Yeah, like better tell Johnny you can't make.

Yeah, that was how it was. But Dad, it's cold, it's too early. We'll bring your blanket. You can sleep on the floor. So that's what I would do, just like five years old, sleeping and he'd wake me up. That's why I called my first turkey woke me up. I shout a jake.

He woke you up and let you know his time.

Yep, he's like, you know, I'm like seven, I think, and I shot him. Yeah, shouted jake. Did it was midday snooze?

Did you ever think it was? Was it close to backfire?

And what do you mean?

That's the whole argument people make. People say like, well, I'm just easing my kids thin because I don't want to.

Backfire, not in a blackfire.

I mean I always saying, what, like was that was that part of the calculus at all?

Like what do you for me?

Uh no, no, it's not, it's not. I need to I need to note it down. Smart ducks. I'm asking a very confusing question.

Did your like, did you eating out that early?

Did it either like come close to turning you off, or did your dad worry about turning you off by just being like we're going I don't care what you want.

No, because it made it like a natural thing, like I will I. Since I was little, I had a bone arrow, and so I always knew that that was what we did. I had no idea. I mean for Easter. We would go to Texas every year for my Easter break and we would They would put out like the Mexican Easter eggs where you smash them when the caffetti comes out in the woods. So we would be hunting hogs.

But did you ever take a year long break?

I mean when I was in high school, I was in softball and basketball, so slowed down, slowed down, and I was like a little social butterfly, but I still hunted. And then I got to college and then I was like back on the grind.

Really, Yeah, where'd you go to college?

I went to Illinois Wesleyan University as a private school in near Illinois state. What's it called Illinois Wesleyan.

I've heard of, like Hillary Clinton go to Wesleyan.

There's a lot of different Wesleyans. There's like an Iowa An Indiana. I don't know. Probably they're like, yeah, I don't know, they're all similar.

And what kind of hunting did you do there?

So?

I was a nursing school there, and uh, I so didn't have a lot of time, but I had a buddy. It was my dad's friend that let me hunt his property about fifteen minutes away, so I would be in my scrubs and I would take him off of my hunting clothes on really fast and get fifteen minutes and climb up a tree and a deer hunt.

Did you finish the nursing deal up?

Yeah, I'm a nurse, really, but I never practiced as a nurse. Just a waste of money. Yeah, I'm like, dang, I got these student loans. I don't even use it at least.

Oh yeah, they're going to cut everybody loose.

That's not uncommon.

Oh my gosh. Yeah, but like a nurse, I could have done something different. I mean, I can always fall back on it. I'm very happy, but it sucked.

You're still all the money? Yeah, I remember. It felt pretty good. And I finally paid off my student loan. And now when they talk about forgiving everybody, I'm like, dude, a little late for that. I paid mine off. Yeah, give everybody. I want my money back, Like, why should I be penalized for having paid mine off?

Then?

Also everybody else gets to walk. It's totally unfair.

It's not gonna happen. I'm just gonna have to keep crying and paying it off, like I don't even use this. Dude.

If you get years paid off, there, send me some of that money. I paid my stuff, man, I paid myself like an American old kind Yeah. Yeah, old style pay their loans.

Uh.

Well, how old are when you got your first deer?

I shot a button buck and I think I was like eight or nine. My bow forget yeah, cross compound bow, a vertical bow. Yeah, I have a picture of it.

What's the world come to that? I have to say? Vertical boat compound? Yeah?

Yeah, I remember I was honey with an old serious Yeah.

He recovered it.

Yeah, I mean it was fifteen yard shot. I just remember he died in like a little field right in front of me.

I shot a button buck my first year with the boat at twelve. So he got me beat.

Oh there we go, no kid. Yeah. And this old man that was Honey with, he's so nice and he was so excited for me.

Who was the old man?

He's my grandpa's friend. I don't even know.

He just took me.

I have to get us to supervision.

They're like, you take her.

I I was so excited. He gave me a payday, and I was like, oh, you know, I'm little only I hate paydays. So I pretend to like drop it, you know, and they're like, oh, I dropped it. And he's like, oh, it's okay, I got another one. I'll never forget that, never forget that.

Yeah.

So young though, man, that's young.

Yeah.

Had you been shooting? Did you start shooting when you're real little?

Yeah? We still have the little compounds.

It's like like this big yeah, and now you probably shoot it and you're like, how in the hell did I kill a deer with that thing? That's that's the way I look at that little town.

I think I got lucky. It was a button buck. I don't need too much in the button book.

You know.

Well you still got I hit it.

I still got to hit it perfectly. Yeah, not perfect nowadays, but huh. Yeah.

And that's like your passion today is whitetail hunt.

Yeah. It's just kind of like what we were talking in the blind. It's like when you're really good at something, that's something that I'm confident about, like I know what I'm doing. There's other things that I like doing, like waterfowl hunting. I don't know everything. I'm okay with saying like I don't know everything about waterfell honety. I like to go with my friends, but like that stuff's my bread and butter. So that's why I love it so much.

And how much time do you put it into it every year?

I mean a lot. I one year I hunted ninety days straight because my white tail I didn't kill until.

January ninety days straight.

Wow.

That was when I just graduated college and I was trying to like make video and get into this content creation and I really wanted to kill a big white ill and I did it finally like two days.

Started to lose your mind.

Yeah, absolutely. I was just destroyed. I was the only one in the family had who hadn't killed one, and I was the one that hunted the most and had it even fired an arrow. So it was pretty distraught, but I got it done.

Were you trying to find a specific buck.

Yes, his name is mister Perfect. So a lot of people who followed along with my Instagram and my socials and everything, they knew who mister Perfect was. And I got into fifteen yards of him and he was quartered towards me, and uh, he just got spooked and ran off and distraught. Never killed him?

Oh you never got him? No, where is he now?

Well my dad killed him the next year. But that's okay because he killed him and I killed his book.

So we just kind of flopped switch swop. Yeah, what year was this going on?

Then twenty twenty twenty got it?

Yeah, and that buck died in twenty twenty one.

Mister Percy, mister perfect died in twenty twenty one. He was a nine year old deer.

Do you guys name all your deer?

Are big ones? Yeah? This year, we don't have any deer that we've named, So we're just kind of like whatever.

Store, like, no one deserves getting talked about.

Yeah, well there's some, but yeah, not really. I mean there's some big ones, but there's there's a home farm of ours that we like are you know, my great dad grew up my family grew up on and it's really special to us, and we're really picky with what we harvest off of the property. We're not going to like over abundance harvest the deer. Like if there's a nice four and a half year old five year old,

At that age, they walk around looking up, don't they.

Yeah, there's they're just walking around. They're gonna stand five yards from me and just.

Like, well, I'm saying that eight or nine years old.

Oh oh yeah, like that knows the look.

He knows to check the trees before he goes.

Absolutely. I was hunting this aercup we called six pack, and he was perfect. He was a pretty twelve pointer. Okay, he was like seven years old. This dough is in the middle of the rut. She came right under my stand five yards I'm like, holy shit, he's coming. He came, stopped fifteen yards and was just looking up and then just turned around and walked away and never got a shot at him. A lady, I killed him, but I killed him next year in the rut. So I was like, I love.

Who gets to have the n who gets dames come natural?

My dad names him. I'm like, all right, let's roll with it.

Got you?

Yeah?

Do you get a lot of deers showing up in the rut that you don't see?

Yes, that's why we love the road. We have a couple pieces that we hunt that you know, but but up there some neighbors or some reserves, and that's when it's just like game on, like this time of the year. That's my favorite place is to hunt suks you just don't know. And I love places where there's no trail cameras.

Yeah, because.

Yeah, I think trail cameras honestly ruin it for you. They think they ruin it like you. You're constantly looking at him. I mean I'm constantly looking at him. I'm like, were they popping up? So when it's an area where I can hang a new stand or getting a climber and I'm like, I have no idea what's been coming in here. I can look at the tracks, look at the sign, and then who knows what's coming coming to me? You know?

I feel like they prevent you from going hunting too, because if you don't have anything on your trail camera, I'm you gonna go hunting and sit in that stand.

Yeah, but you can miss, you can miss some like I gotta I almost gotta like. I thought of this the other day. I was on my and drive my jet boat down the river, and I was like, there's nothing sounds better than your own jet boat, and nothing sounds worse than someone else's jet boat. I feel like trail cameras nothing better than your own trail camera, nothing worse than you'd like, you don't be sweet if I was the only guy that knew about these, because I like,

And then you're like, okay, fine, just tell me.

Yeah. Yeah, that's the only problem I have with them.

I mean it's nice. It's just like you talk about trapping and putting them out. It's kind of fun to see what's coming by and what you get trapped.

Well, that's just that's just wildlife observation.

Well, I enjoy that. Yeah, and then when it comes to, oh, where's all my big bucks, it's just it does ruin it a little bit. Nothing shows up, be like, well, I'm not going to go there. Maybe mmmm, I don't know. I love it, I love hate relationship.

I just got back from Wisconsin on my parents' property and we don't have any giants walking around this year, and it we have some nice ones, but it definitely was like, like.

Man like because you were a trail cam and he never got them right.

Yeah, I mean we we were trail cam and deer that that like shooters, but usually there's like on camera we have one or two giants, and we did not have that this year. So I wasn't like as excited when I got out there sit in the tree stand. Yeah, but the thing that kind of kept me going is like, you never know, it's the rut and deer can show up. But if we didn't have those trail cameras, I probably would have hunted a little bit harder.

Well, let's revisit something. It wasn't in this in our last studio, so I can't say it happened right in this room. But remember we had dustin huff on. Yeah, who killed the huffbuck. So biggest white tail killed in the in the US, right, is the second biggest in the world.

It's big.

Biggest biggest white tail typical, right, biggest typical, the biggest typical white tail in the lower in the US. He never got a picture.

Of it, but he had cameras out.

But other guys got pictures of it but didn't tell him. So once he killed it, he realized every time dicking Harry around town had a picture of it but weren't telling anybody. He's like, eh, and he didn't know about it. Yeah, that's awesome. So it's like, you know what I mean. So you could be like, wow, there's no point in going out, but dude.

Yeah, yeah, I mean I still went out. Yeah, And I was like, there is a chance to have something like that happen in the area we're at, for sure. But when you don't have that deer showing up like we have in the past, like big, it's just you're not quite as.

Honestly, this year though I think not this is just this year, but every year, just during their run, Like we were talking, it's the best time because whenever I just see a bigger deer moving. I'm like, the big boys are moving as time. And that's when I took Jack out with me where we didn't have the new trail cameras. I had a neighbor call me and say, I've seen a drop time buck in one of those fields. I'm like, all right, we're just gonna go over there

There's no Why why didn't you shoot those? Because they weren't big enough.

You didn't get No, I didn't get a chance. The big one came in. Uh, the wind was swirling. He was in front of a bunch of tall corn stocks, and I was shooting mechanical, so I didn't want to shoot through the corn obviously, because you know, one nick it's going the opposite direction. But he was a five on one side, big two on the other. He was funky, but he was very heavy, and he was probably like a five and a half year old deer maybe six.

So have you had a fix?

You did?

Just shot right through that corn.

If I had a better opening, I didn't want to. You know, with a mechanical you can have like a little tiny sliver of something and just yeah, yeah.

I don't want to be crashed. But when you when you say, like, like, are you like a numbers person, Uh like score numbers.

No, we don't score a dear. Okay, I've never scored any my dear. Huh.

So it just it feels like a big one.

Yeah, I think it's a big it's a big dear. I'm like, mass, he looks like that big body, doesn't look young, got it? I'm shooting him.

Arrol's fine, Yeah, you're not like, he looks like a one seventy. I'm going to hold out for a one seventy five. No, that that'd be pretty big for white tails.

Yeah, yeah, it's pretty I mean we're in in the Midwest, is nice. So we get some big bucks, but don't happy with one fifty one sixty. I got two tags, so got it?

Never put a tape to one.

I don't even know how.

I'm not kidding I have a little pamphlet that shows you how we scored my boys antelope there today his prong horn. But I I go years without scoring something. But whatever, a friend of mine wants to score something, I get real happy. I just don't personally ever score anything. But antelop are super easy to score.

Yeah, I could.

See Jimmy getting way into that score.

Way into it. Wait, Jimmy this year, No, but he wanted to.

At that age. I was telling these guys earlier day. At that age, they're real into like him and all the kids at school that hunt. They're real into like who got what with what caliber rifle? Yeah, so it'd be like I'd love that. Though Cayden got a buck with a six five creed where I don't know, I don't know. It's just like the whole point, the whole point is.

What Jimmy got one within mag and it didn't have a muscle break.

Yeah, they're all like gun riders performed flawlessly. I remember a dude bragging to me one time. It was a dude in Canada bragging to me that his kid killed an elk with the two forty three. I was like, Wow, that's something. And later I met the kid was talking to He shot it nine times. This was the dad left eye.

Oh no. The kids they're just like yes.

He's like, I try to die by the time I was old. Man just didn't tell me that. That's the thing I have too in my kids. He's like, what a blank kill a blank? Always? Could you kill a bear of the twenty two? Kill a bear of the butter knife? May have you got enough time? It's so yes, but no, now, uh you do a little duck hunting mm hmm. But opportunistically we share. We're opportunistic duck hunters.

We are. I think we're similar with a variety that we harvest a variety of things.

Some have opportunistically and some of it. You put it like this. He's like, it's just not where I spend the energy. Yeah, you'll go, but it's not where you put.

The energy exactly. It's more of just I have a little bit of free time, or I killed my white tail and I can kind of hang out a little bit. My grandpa wants to go, Grandpa and I will go out. Or if it's snowing, it's like ten degrees right, ten mile an hour winds, snow's coming in. I'm gonna go duck hunting with my.

And you go hunt what kind of stuff?

And what kind of stuff?

Yeah, like what kind of you guys field hunting?

You guys hunting or flooded timber or a flooded corn.

Corn?

So it can be pretty good.

Yeah, it can be pretty good. Yeah.

Now you a squirrel hunter? Yes, you squirrel hunting?

Yep.

I've taken Jack, who's sitting behind me, squirrel hunting like three times already this year.

Yeah. You guys just creep through the hardwoods. Or what do you guys do when you're.

Creep through the hard woods? Listen firm jumping tree to tree and shooting with my twenty two or my air gun.

That's the noise of them jumping tree to tree.

They're jumping and they're barked in and they're cutting redneck that noise.

Like, I got to I han't done it in a while, but I got to spend spend h five nights and four mornings sitting in a tree stand recently hunting and oaks, you know, deer feeding on acorns and acorns, acorns and per simmons. And I kind of forgot about that. You know that noise Like when I was a kid, us people take two quarters. Oh well no, and rub them and it's supposed to be like a like but the squirrel. Yeah, but just you can, like sitting in that tree stand,

Are they're just so you know, they're five fired up because there's a deer running underneath them, just barking their heads off.

I'm like, perfect, Yeah, it's Uh. The number of squirrels you see deer hunting gives you a lesson about how you ought to hunt squirrels. Yeah, if you really want to hunt squirrels, you'd go and be as serious as a deer hunter.

One thing that I do want to try. I don't know if you've ever done this or anybody else has, but with dogs, we've a bunch of that. I've never done that.

I don't have. I don't when I say I've done a bunch of that, I've been the guy that gets to tag along shooting all the squirrels.

Is it fun?

Oh, it's the best thing in the world.

Is it cool how the dog works? Yes, say, this tree and like a like a raccoon or something, it's.

The best thing in the world.

They don't.

It's different than a raccoon because you normally you got usually got to look for them. Yeah, but they hear them, they smell them, they see them, whatever, and they're on and they're on that tree. They're attacking the tree. And then sometimes you got to go in and uh. Here's my contribution to this discipline. I've talked two of these people into the importance of carrying binoculars because then you

Yeah.

But sometimes it's like, oh shit, there's a squirrel. But sometimes you look and look and look and look and look and look and look and determined that it went into a hole. And then you yell in a hole, let's go, you know ho. That's that's the Southerner yelling in the hole. It's so much fun.

All right, I'm gonna try it.

Oh, it's the It's like on a good day, sess been out. Yeah, it's the greatest thing. Clay Newcomb's got squirrel dogs, and my buddy Kevin Murphy has squirrel dogs and we'll go out with those squirrel dogs. And I even had him bring his squirrel dogs up to where I grew up, because where I grew up, people didn't hunt them with dogs. And I thought that it would be the greatest thing in the world because of the score. Wouldn't be whatever, They wouldn't have evolved with that level

And then everybody got poison ivy on the.

Squirrels because those sons of bitches were lining their nests with poison. You know when you know when it's glued, when poison ivy where it sticks to the tree and it makes that hairy that like hairy coating. They're harvesting that to line nests. We're hunting late season, they're harvesting

Everyone got it bad.

I don't want to do that part, but definitely with the dogs.

And then you're looking at pictures and it looks like your base you like stuff and squirrels down your pants and stuff like once you knew what was going on, you look at the pictures. She's like, ooh, el was dumb. That was dumb. The time I had the one around my neck, that was dumb. Don't really think about that

Oh yeah, and he's one of those guys that doesn't carry binocular so doesn't carry vinyls. He can't see him up there. Yeah, Vinos, you can see him.

It is fun early season though, when you're just slowly walking, so much fun.

I used to go into the White River bottoms and you could. You know, you get a limit pretty.

Quick, and they're so good to eat. Do you how do you clean? Do you cut them in this in the middle of the body or do you go from the tail?

Yeah, we call it pants and shirt, pants and shirt?

Okay, yeah, I know I can. I clean them from either pants and shirt or just from the tail when you lift them up, tail skinning them.

People that are good are good, but when you mess one up, it's no fun. Kevin Murphy does it. He paled he tails skins. Did you grow up tail, skin.

And seth Uh?

No?

I was shirt and pants? Yeah, shirt and pants.

How did how did you get into barstool? That's what I want to know? Like you were your dad was obviously they had the media side of things going, so you were involved with that, But like, how did that all go down?

So it's really funny. I was in Oklahoma. I just shot up my Oklahoma white tail, and that night I was talking to my cousin and I was like, man, I really want to do something on my own. I don't want to be I saw the following.

But not from your dad's stuff.

Yeah.

Yeah. And then I had, you know, I picked up some people throughout the way, and I was like, I don't want to be Tim Wells's daughter. I want to be Sidney Wells. I want people to know me for me, not because of my dad. And I was talking to my cousin about that the night before and I was just like, I don't know to do. I gotta kind of figure it out. I was I had no money. I had a little bit of saved up through working

Like, details, we are woven into the stre we are Okay, that's a weird ass story.

You're got to tell me why we.

Can talk about it. Actually, not like no one applied. We're just woven into the story.

Because I have some questions after the cameras are off to.

About this story that I'm trying to tell.

You, yeah, probably you're not gonna say it on air, Okay, we'll talk about so anyways, So then I just literally sent an email and just some like YouTube videos, and then I met with Gaz, which is like Day's right hand man, and I just told him what I do and like what I would want to do. And then I met with Dave and he was like a ten minute conversation. He was late because he was in a Jingo tournament, but no, and then he was just like, Okay, cool, yeah, that's what you want to do, roll with it.

And so he's kind of like an animal He's like an hs US animal rights guy.

Though, Dude, he does not care what I do, which is the crazy thing.

I wanted to. I want to, like, I always wanted to have like a debate with him about because I know he's into like hs US and stuff. He means not not not the kind of he made sightry we take care of dogs, but the other kind of he made society. So I feel like he is isn't he? I don't I thought he's like an animal rights guy?

Is he not? Not? Really, he just doesn't want to see it. He just he loves animals, but he doesn't.

He doesn't love him as much as I do.

I don't. Yeah, I don't know more, Yeah, I don't. I don't know. Like fidal Berg, I don't know if you John Fidelberg. He told me he's one of the main guys who's been along for around for a long time. He said he wrote a blog one time, I'm an alligator eating a turtle, and he Dave was upset with it. It had him take it off a long time ago. He's like changed, Dave, because I mean I post so

So did anyone have any idea of like your background, like before you went and inns like they didn't know who your dad was. They didn't know any of the stuff.

They didn't know anything about hunting in the fish. Actually, I had a couple of the Barcelo people already following me. So one of them is his name is Brandon Walker. He followed me. But he's from West Point, Mississippi, which is where the mass Yoke headquarters are. So he's friends with the mass Yoke guys. So I think he knew of me he likes to fish, and maybe a couple of other people, but not not really. No, they didn't.

Yeah, so you're being a teacher too.

Yeah. And then I'm going on a duck unlimited hunt in January. They invited us to go, and I'm going to bring two of my other coworkers who's never duck hunted.

Cool, that's really cool.

Yes.

So I mean I feel like I don't put pressure on anybody either, Like I'm not ever going to do that if you're not comfortable with it, Like I'm not gonna make you do anything but the doors open. I'll teach you, I'll help you. We won't do things crazy off the get go. I want you to like it and not be freaked out, just like going squirrel hunting, like that kind of small thing, and they're all interested. I have had anybody be like what the heck?

And you guys will film a lot of like Jack, Yeah.

We film it all.

Yeah.

Want you introduce Jack back here? Poor guy?

Oh yeah, this is Jack. Jack or Landy come here and.

Say hi, Hello, meat eater world.

Yeah, so that's really fun. I think I've introduced the sport a lot to Barstool and like the audience, and been able to show our coworkers who may have not maybe wanted to hunt or even thought about it, or maybe even a disagreed to act, enjoy it, which is really fun.

So yeah, how long have been?

Three years? Almost three years? In February?

What were the questions you said you wanted to ask us when I said I was gonna tell you a story later.

Well, I'm gonna talk to you about it later. But what I'm not gonna say it you can ask me a question.

Maybe started to play warmer and colder. I gotta standoff, start.

Like who's gonna gave first? That's a question. Standoff? Now did your life change through all this stuff of like of Barstool getting sold to a casino and then the casino giving it back. Did this change your life at all?

No? At first I was scared because Penn owned a hundred percent of it, you know, for a second before they get it give it back to him for a dollar. That's when I got nervous. Dave bought it back for Yeah, So that's that's when I was nervous.

Anybody can read it. You don't need to. It's not gonna change your life.

They just, you know, we were more of a corporation. They were going to you know, insurance, and I was a bigger brand with sponsors, so.

They have insurance before that we did.

I don't know, maybe they're I'm insured probably right, oh that stuff. I have health insurance. So I'm saying like they were scared that somebody who's gonna get shot on a shoe.

Oh that kind of insurance. But I like your company had an insurance.

No, no, no, no, no, just like liability. Yeah, but it's hard. I told him, like, I hunt every day, so you can't have somebody on site with me every day. Also, you're gonna have somebody to tree stand with me because.

You want to get an insurance. Man excited that, No, it's not the insurance man be like, dude, I've seen the numbers.

I'm not going.

No, pen is great. But I think we're all pretty happy, Daves. We're all happy Dave's has.

So do you find all stuff just by reading the news? You're like, oh, that happened.

No, we have like meetings, but sometimes yeah, I'm like whoa, Like, no, we got it all figured out. Everybody talks to one another, which is nice.

Yeah. How how connected are you with the the The main office is in New York right.

It's moved. Yeah, so there's like two main ones now, so Chicago and New York. So so some people are there Dave's. I don't know what Dave's plan is. I think he's still in Miami. And then Big Cat and some of the other guys just went to Chicago. So we've got a big Chicago office and I'm still connected. But this time of the year, I'm not really in the office. I'd rather be out hunting and filming.

Yeah, I can't. So when you're in the office, you're in the Chicago Yeah.

Yeah.

How many people work there?

Oh jeez, I think we have like three hundred employees.

Now, whose studio is better? The studio Space podcast.

Don't ask that I'm in the Chicago off.

This is just like way better than the studio.

I haven't been in any of the studios yet because it just opened.

Let's Phil be the judge of this.

But the Chicago office is gonna badass. Maybe we got a full court basketball.

Court and I'm talking about the studio.

Probably part of my take is probably going to be the best.

Well, listen, I was recently in some real I was recently in some really fancy studios. Yeah, they had a muscos.

They got a buffalo and the buffalo shot in the head with the bull?

Is that no blackbird?

A couple of k They got a squirrel bottle heater?

What about the leather.

Studio?

This is the best happened. We recently had a wake up call. I think I told you about this earlier. We went to some fancy studios and and and Phil felt like he was getting studio shamed. Oh no, remember that, Phil.

I mean I I wasn't mad. It was a very comfortable experience, but.

Then later confided me that some of those studios weren't all that. Oh well, I mean, the spaces themselves are are spectacular, but the microphones just.

The coffin.

I'll say this isn't in Phil's words, but some of these studios were all hat no cattle, the cattle being the mic, wouldn't you say, Phil.

Yeah's a good way to put it.

Exactly, how damn good mics.

I seem like he spit a big dip stream out.

I think my seats.

He still walked in and said, so, uh, what's the Some of the stuff we were talking about, some of the stuff you'd like to do that you'd like to do in the future, like trips you'd like to go on. You mentioned how you kind of have a sort of an interest in South America.

Yeah, well I've been to South America, so I've already like, oh you.

Know, no, it was not that you brought up fishing doratto. Ye, Yeah, that's interesting.

I would like to do that.

What else is interesting?

Neil Guy talked about shooting Neil Guy down in Texas to you guys know what Neil Guy is? Yeah, I think just a story about Neil guys.

Is really interesting down here.

Oh there, just hold it up.

So if you don't know, if you're listening to what a Neil Guy is, go google it. It's really cool.

And tell him none of that. Just go to YouTube and look at what right now, Yeah, it came like that we skinned it and that was under the meat.

No, kid, that's a nice We're all surprised you shoot that.

That's a deadhead.

Oh it is nice one.

Well, I shot a nice one.

I did.

I accidentally got a nice one. You don't to accidentally get a nice something.

Yeah, you're like, oh, this is good, but you get it.

And there was like holy shit, and I'm like, oh the great.

But this is a story, you know, like COO's deer anark Hello, Couzier would love to kill a coups deer. My dad and his buddy went to Mexico to shoot COO's deer and his buddy shot his first cous deer. It was like one hundred and twenty inches.

You got to ask.

And he's like my dad was, you know, like holy everybody's oh my gosh. And he's like, oh is this good?

Yeah?

Accidentally get the big one. Yeah, I accidentally got so I got a nice one. That's a nice one that was found as a deadhead.

That's a nice one, yea.

I have my other one, My my other accidental nice one is at my house. But if you want to go hunting Couzier, you can come hunting COOZI you with thoughts. We go in January. You can't come this January, but next January. Next January, I'm serious, We're at we go to Sonora.

Okay, I would love to. I've never killed one. I really want to.

Don't shoot a big one.

I'll try not to, don't accidentally.

Probably won't even know.

You're gonna be like.

We just tell you like that is huge and if you don't measure it, you'll never know.

Okay, scenario, it will just be like they told me it was giant. All right, they told me it was a giant. Nokay, what other? What other kind of dream things like cool trips?

You want to do a grizzly bear. I haven't killed an elk. I need to kill an elk. I don't know. There's a lot. Probably I don't know if I have a desire to kill a sheep or not. A caribou would be cool. I think I just need to start out west thone. Do like the smaller things like the coos, and not smaller, but the kousier, the elk. Have you done it never done anything in Alaska like a blacktail.

Oh yeah, I like to do that.

I just would love to just kill a grizzly too. I think I would be really nervous. I had a black bear climb a tree with me when I was younger. Scared me. Use I think I'll be really nervous to see grizzly up close. But I really want to do that and with my bow.

Didn't your dad spear grizzly?

Yeah, I took him like like ten trips or something. It was a lot. It was hard. You know, you got to get it right under you.

I can't imagine that.

Yeah, I would freak out.

Yeah, yeah, that's an alpha dog. I was gonna ask you a bunch of stuff. But he spared a wolf, but he's.

Not I would like to kill a wolf. Oh, I don't know if he's ner.

Dad speared himself.

He spared himself. Yeah.

Do you mind talking about that for it?

Yeah? I can talk about that. So with the spear, he's always really good at making sure I mean that those things are you know this, this like this, and it's super sharp. You know, he goes right through an animal right when they're underneath you. Die instantly, super deadly with him. When he keeps it in his tree, he always make sure it's somewhere safe. Maybe gets out, it's not gonna fall. Well, he wasn't thinking. He just climbed

That's crazy.

Yeah, I just thought of the thing I was gonna I was gonna make the thing I was gonna tell you an interesting thing, And then I remember that the person that told me made me swear not to tell anybody. Got it?

All right, Well, we can talk about that off camera, but no, the spear like, I mean, yeah, he spares a lot of things, and he's really good at keep making sure. I spirited a black bear when I was younger in Canada too, so we're always making sure it's safe because those dang spears, I mean their deadly goes on an animal and instantly. That's the one thing that's great about them is it didn't.

They killed quick.

So you killed one with a spear? Is it a weighted spear? Like?

What do you mean?

Like is the shaft weighted? Is this shaft like got lead or embedded?

And you would know he would know more, but I don't. I don't know, to be honest, I don't know the whole Diana dynamic of the spirit.

There's a really I don't want to say it's good. There's a documentary and I don't want to say it's a great documentary because it's just it covers something interesting, but it doesn't cover it in the in a perfect way. But it covers these Indo Nesian harpooners that they still they still fish dolphin. I don't mean like mahi mahi, but like porpoises. Man arrays sperm whales with harpoons and they don't use a harpoon gun, and they don't use

On.

He's in on the whale. That's another power play. And these guys like they're they are whalers and they try. The movie has this sort of like a little bit of a tenuous It has this sort of tenuous environmental messages that I wasn't totally I need to spend more time on because it was basically this culture hadn't practiced sustainable fishing practices and had like destroyed their fishery and

Well, we all have that in our like our blood instinctually, like hunting, whether you're a hunter or not. If I don't know if you agree with that, sure, yeah.

When I'm sitting there and jigging hal a bit and in a humpback comes by. No. No, I never do, but I always comment on it you think about doing it, I'll say to my kids, can you just imagine? Because we carry a harpoon for landing. You know, it's basically like a you're basically gaffing. You're gaffing of fishes on a hook, but it's just you just deliver the gaff with a harpoon chef. If it's not like, you're not like harpooning it, you're like, what do you call it?

You need a bigger skiff.

Oh, I would never do it, but it always like something deep in me, something deep, some evil, deep thing in me wonders about what would be like to just.

To, but you.

Don't care if it's evil.

I can't even finish the sentence.

Maybe it is evil, you hear me, I keep going just to.

Can you imagine just one time Sidney Phil's throwing up a sign and says three minutes.

You know, I was trying to keep that on the download. That's why I held up a sign without saying.

Tell people, Tell people, tell people how to find you?

Okay, you can find me all over social media. You can spell my name s Y D N.

I E, which is how you spell it, which is how.

I spell it, spell it right, Sidney Wells or anywhere on barcelwell Doors, so YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, all the above.

Thanks for coming on, man, Thanks for having me today.

It was a good day.

About duck hunting.

Yeah, and now we're going back to Illinois.

So well, I'm not you are well?

I am?

Yeah.

Hopefully you can see me with the big old buck.

Yep, and we both al big thanks to Brady Davis from Flying V the best. I had a great time basically telling us where to point and.

Shoot and clean it up, clean it up.

And he's still going to go clean up.

Yeah.

We didn't even big our own decoys up.

Yeah.

I did kind of help set him out.

I was talking about I mean you said that. I was talking about, like, you know, our bird clean up when we're missing, and he's just like, don't guys, I got this gage.

I think I meant the fact that he now has to go and like pick up empty shells and decoys.

Yeah.

Sorry, No, we were on a bit of a time. He's very time conscious. Dane and I are headed back to go pick up the spread all his other attributes, and he's time conscious.

Yea, such a good great guy.

Gets you where, get you your dogs, gets you where you need to be at noon. You gotta be on time in life.

Yep, that's right.

Thanks everybody.

On the seal, Ray shine like silver in the sun.

Ride Ride, Ride on along, sweetheart.

Were done beat this damn horse to death. Taking a new one.

Ride.

We're done beat this damn horse today, So take a new one and ride on.