Ep. 593: Patience is a Good Hunter, with Will Primos

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Uh.

I normally like to when we're starting the show, I normally introduce I find myself. I introduced guests like, uh, like I'm dealing poker m hm clockwise if I'm gonna do it counterclockwise because I want to end on a finale. Giannis is here, Seth is here, Krinn, doctor Randall, Corey is here, and Will Primos nice to be here. You're one of my.

UH.

I don't want to. I don't want to get off on the wrong foot by overdoing it. You're one of my he you're one of my communication heroes. And let me tell you more about why that is. Okay. You've been making products for hunters for your whole life, and you've been talking to hunters for your whole life, yep, eye to eye. You don't talk down to hunters. You don't talk, you don't criticize, you don't talk negative. You have an infectious enthusiasm about the hunt. You have an

I'm seventy two. I started the company in nineteen seventy six when I was twenty four.

I've never heard I've never heard a single person say a single negative word about you.

Oh my gosh, Okay, that's awesome.

Let me tell you something that don't happen. Yeah.

Well, one time I killed this big deer, really big deer in Mississippi. And my wife goes, have you been on the internet? Have you seen what they're saying about you? And I'm going no, And she says, well you ought to. I said it don't matter what that what?

By the way, what are they say?

And they said, well, you killed it in a pin, you raised it in a one acre pin, and then finally killed it. I said, Okay, she says, you're not going to go and answer that.

He says, no, you know, because we'll primos don't do that. Yeah, it don't exist. So I ain't worried about it. And it goes away.

But you know, I'm sure somebody says something bad somewhere, but you know, the you know, the camera doesn't love everybody. And I didn't want to be I didn't want to become some known hunting person. That's not wasn't my goal. My goal was to make a living. My goal was to share my love of the outdoors with others and get them to love it and hopefully want to protect it, because if you protect what you love.

Yeah, so if I.

Can go out there and share il cunting and share waterfowl in the green timber or just wherever we are turkey hunting, you know, just whatever it is, if I can share that and you can fall in love with it, then you'll want to protect it. And it's all about habitat. If we don't have the habitat, you ain't got the critters they take. Each animal takes a certain quality of habitat to thrive. And so that was kind of my goal.

Now you're you're.

Gambling, because if they don't, you've really you've really kind of hurt yourself. And so the key to that is to keep your ego out of it. And that was the secret behind Primos. When we hired people and we had people and it was all about them, and because everybody got to hunt, it wasn't about Will Primos. Everybody got to hunt. When we went, we went, we went. I would hunt usually first, and I didn't wait for the biggest one.

Did a Cory Well for folks not watching, uh Phiel just gestured to uh Corey, who sorry, Will just gestured to Corey. And you guys a hunted together, which we'll talk about.

Yeah we have.

So so anyway, you can't wait. So you can't wait for the biggest one. If there's somebody behind you and you only got five day window to try to fill tags, and so I wouldn't kill the first thing that was decent and let the person hunt. Yep, yeah, I'll never forget. I forget what year of the fire was up there at the c two thousand and one or nineteen ninety nine or somewhere. Anyway, we were hunting, I begive this

He went.

As soon as he went down, I said, bail, let's go.

We went.

After we got over there, he's going up hill. He's about forty yards away. So I'm running the camera. So I sat down with the camera. At the same time I got on the hyper lip.

Yeah yeah.

He turned around and started coming. Brad scrambled him. He's putting his release on getting he's getting ready. So this elk comes up there and Brad won't shoot. He won't shoot. So I got my range finder out of my vest and I ranged him. I said fifty five. The elk stops, turns round and walks sixty. Brad nails him at sixty yards. Brad turned, he runs about twenty five yards and falls over dead and rests. You think you'll go three thirty, said Brad. You just killed a four hundred inch elk, He goes.

Are you kidding me?

I never saw what elk the rest of the trip, so Brad was gonna kill the first one he saw, and he did. But you know, it's not about you. It's about sharing. It's about being there, it's about loving it.

Yanny, tell Williams what you used to tell me about the Truth video series.

I don't know how it was hugely.

You're talking about going down and checking at Walmart see if they were out yet.

Oh right, pre internet?

Yeah, yeah, I would go to the Walmart every two or three days. You got them New Truth videos yet you know, and they look at me like the what you know? Because you know, we were in Avon, Colorado. I don't know if you ever passed through there. That's where the Walmart was there in Colorado. But oftentimes that department might not have somebody that actually knew anything about elk hunting.

I be like, yeah, it's about.

This big, it's gonna be kind of green, it's gonna say the truth on it.

Can you call me when it gets here?

Yeah, let's go back to the beginning. And and and in the beginning, you were born with very crooked fingers, my little peaky fingers. Shout those off.

I don't know from my mother, my mother's side of the family, there's an extra boat in therere shaped like a triangle.

From south right. Huh south from the south. Yeah, well, my mother, this probably is from her Irish shide of her heritage.

I'm fifty Greek, and yeah, that's where a primo.

That's where that makes more sense.

That's where primos come from. My daddy was half French and half Greek. Okay, he was a freak.

That's what he said. That's what he told me. My daddy just passed away at ninety eight World War two vet hell of a guy.

I'm telling you what, no kid, you know, kid and wonderful man.

And your mom's still alive.

Yeah she's ninety seven.

Yeah wow. Yeah, but anyway, had a lot of turkey meat or something.

Oh yeah, a lot.

So you were born out with crooked pink. Yeah. But they don't get in the way.

And I don't worry about him, but some some people have to know all about him, like people like you.

First thing, I asked you, right, when I meet someone, I always checks if they got ten fingers there you go. And in my account, I was like, wow, he's got nine, he's got ten, but.

But one looks at off. So yeah, yeah type and I got it in something. No, I've done that too.

Well.

Yeah, So did your dad hunt?

My dad was a it was a depression child, you know. He he went through the Depression, He went through World War two. He was a navigator in the Pacific and lot never had a dime and was always working to support his family to take care. So yes, he hunted, but it was very limited. But I'll never forget.

I was six years old, double barrel, side by side fox that he paid ten dollars for us Model B Fox double trigger. I'm not familiar with that gun.

It's a side by side made by Fox. But anyway, we walked out the back door and we went squirrel hunting. I was so excited to go squirrel and my daddy sees a nest. He goes, let's see if there's a squirrel in there.

God, they go red squirrel.

Comes flying out of that nest.

That is a hammer. That was a fox squirrel. Yeah. Yeah, this is just a little joke with us because in the South, like we have a red squirrel, in the North a pine squirrel. Okay, and in the South they confuse. You got confused Yankees because when you tell Yankees that you got a red squirrel, I'm picturing what we call red squirrel with the tailor out with that No, with his tail he's how long is the pine squirrel?

Well, the same little pine squirrel that runs around out west.

The one that gives me away when I'm sitting there college, like he's always chittering at you, like that's a red Like we'll hear red squirrel. So when you guys from the South are getting red squirrels and you're talking to Yankees. Yankees are thinking that you're getting little.

Our squirrels are twice that big. They got a big white face.

Yep, that red squirrel. Yeah, that red squirrel. Uh. So was your So did your folks your folks were us born though, Oh yeah, they're they're us born. Yeah, got it. And you would get and he would do uh some little bit of hunting.

Oh yeah, girl hunting, dove hunting, take me duck hunting, duck cutting on the river. We didn't do any serious waterfowl hunting. That was left up to my uncles. My uncles were all interested in playing. I had four uncles and they were awesome, and they they took me serious waterfowl And when I was eleven years old, that's the first time I stood in twelve inches of water in green timber and watched two hundred matters come down.

Through the trees. And I was, I was, I was? That was it? So you had some serious experiences, ah young, Yeah? Yeah?

Uh.

Do those guys make calls? Like how did you get interested in making calls?

So, my uncle Gus was a great caller and he blew ay Jake Gardner's single red call guy from Uncus, who was friends with Chicken Major's famous call maker, and so I took that call and my daddy had a lathe and I just tried to copy it. And that started my game calling desire to figure out how to make things that made sounds.

When you say you took a leave, like, explain that to people that might not.

You chuck a piece of wood into it and you turn it to shape it like you want, and then you drill out the center.

Uh, you've got to make the soundboard.

You've got to figure out the curve and how how to make the cork hold it in place. Well, the cork is a wedge that holds the reed to the soundboard. What's the what's the reed gonna be made out of?

The reds? Are we?

We in the old days were very limited in the products. But when when I started in seventy six doing stuff, we were borrowing from the medical industry and the automotive industry, any any technology that we could to building into game call So my lar became.

The reed of choice. My Lar, Yeah, uh for for reeds.

But you have a spool, and so most people think where you would stamp the read out with the length of the spool, Well, if you do that, there's a huge curve in the reed which totally changes the sound.

Oh well, you'll never get that curve out of it, that's right.

So you've got to You've got to stamp it crossways. And then if you stamp it on the outside of the there's a slight bow in that reed, And if you stamp it out of the center where it's called up in the center, there's a much tighter that totally changes the sound of the call.

And you can't press that bow out of there by getting a little warm or something.

You can try, but I was never able to do it. And whether it's upside down or right side up on the soundboard.

Makes a huge difference to So can you nowadays just get it flat? I don't know. I couldn't do it. Couldn't get it flat when you were doing that? Why did your dad have a lathe?

He just ThReD a woodworking shop. He was turning and building would just as a hobby, building stuff all the time.

He built tops.

You put him in a box and tie a string around and pull the little top, go around and bunce around and knock stuff over. He's always doing.

Stuff like that. God who'd you sell your first call to?

Uh?

Buck Deerman?

I don't know who that is.

Buck Derman was a friend of mine. He courage old as a buddy years okay, yeah, and he he encouraged me because the calls he had, the turkey calls he had, were following apart. And he said, look, you can do this. I said, I can't do that. I don't know nothing about making no turkey call. He goes, yes, you can. So I went to work and built one in box call, no mouthcoll. You did those first, that was the first.

What you made.

It was a It was a double read. It had two reads stacked on top of each other. They were the reads were an eighth of an inch apart.

And you made that before you made a wood call. That's right, huh would you? Would you? How you build that?

How do I build the You just one and got like prophylactic latex, and well you'd go back then we called them rubbers. They weren't called prophylactics because that dirt. That word didn't exist where kids they were called, that word exists.

And so we go to your tooth brush. Your toothbrush is a prophylactic. It's a disease prevention.

To understand that. But anyway, so we'd go to the service station because you could not buy them in a drug store. They weren't on the count yet, only given like a prescription, so you you weren't allowed to buy. So you go to the service station and you'd buy whatever they had, and most of them were lubricated.

Now would you go be like, hey, I want you to get the wrong idea. I'm making turkey calls here.

Well not, there's a story about that.

Ok So, finally I went to Daddy and I said, Daddy, I finally figured out which one of these rubbers works are the best, and it's not lubricated, and I need to order them from the pharmacists.

But I'm only seventeen or however old I was. I said, would you call mister park in the Parking's pharmacy and.

Order me a case?

He said, be glad to so.

Okay.

So they called me and said you're rubbers are in. Okay. I went down there, walked up to the counter. Mister Parker put him on the counter, and my my counselor from high school, Miss.

Breelin, walked up. He knew he knew you know.

So he looked at me, and he looked at her, and he handed them to me, and he goes, you can pay at the girl up front, and I went okay. So Hays Brayley took off up front and his little blond headed, blue eyed girl up there. He had a little job as a cashier. I put him on the accounter there and she looked there and she goes, we're having a party at the grove tonight. And I said, you don't understand. I'm making turkey calls out of these. And she said, you can come anyway.

That's a true story. How long you been married?

I've married thirty four years. It's a second marriage for Mary and I.

We have no children. We mean a second marriage.

Ye.

You haven't married the same person twice, but you've been married.

Oh you know, I was married once before it didn't work out.

How long you married the first time? Fourteen years? On paper, it's a good chunk of time. Yeah, but then you knew it wasn't right.

Oh, I knew it long before that. Yeah.

That's an interesting way to put it on paper.

Yeah, that's a qualification that goes a long way.

Yeah. Uh So this guy asked you to come a turkey call. Yeah, and you get your robbers, you get some aluminum.

I got some beer in ten beer cans to walk me through it.

Well, you at first, you got to shape it.

You gotta side. Everybody's mouth is different. That's one of the problems with turkey cars. Some people have very narrow palette. Some people have very high palette. Some people have wide palettes and low so the mouth is huge. So I can look at somebody's face and have a pretty good idea, but I'll have them lean back and open their mouth and look at their palette because they tell me they're

So so you can eyeball someone's palette and then make a recommendation yeah, yeah, and so so then you start trying to get that to fit so that that call becomes the roof of the mouth and once you can.

Seal that there and pass air through it. It's all about out your jaw.

It's all about how you move your jaw and how and how you use your lips to be able to call turkeys. But explain the back in those days, what you got together to make a call.

Well, I started out with an adhesive. It was kind of like a contact cement that I would coat onto these illuminum frames that well, you illumined them out out of beer cans. It wasly ten uh, and you would get that on there, and then you put get the right stretch that you thought you'd put it down on the frame, and then you part of the beer can the lid. Sometimes the lid with lid was usually too thick, but that had worked because it helped separate mine a

That was Pennsylvania innovation.

Yes, as far as I know, that's correct.

So when you sold that first call where you just saw off to the races then or was it slow? You know?

I charged him twenty bucks, you know, and he was thrilled. And that was twenty bucks in nineteen probably seventy.

Five or so. How many calls did you give him for twenty bucks?

One mouth gul.

Wow, wow.

Yeah.

I wantn't go sit there and do all that. I mean that there was too much.

And Buck understood, and he said, I want you to I want you to make me more.

How many could you make in a day?

Here?

I asked that question, Seth, I don't know. It was usually a night because I was working in the day and i'd get home sometimes eleven o'clock at night. I was in the restaurant business with my family, okay, And so I might work two or three hours and I might make six or ten.

It took a while. If I had the parts done.

Yeah, if I had the So would you go through and make all the parts and then and then have a night where you just went through and finished everything.

I ended up using double sided sticky tape rather than a glue, and that worked pretty good. Oh. So that would put it on one side of the frame, peel it off, put the latex in place, and then seal it did stick to it? Gotcha? Is it safe to say that if you hadn't discovered making calls, you to bend restaurant business for career?

No?

No, I didn't.

I didn't love the restaurant business. It was too confined. I I just couldn't working twelve fourteen, sixteen hours a day, six days a week most of the time, and part of the seventh day. I just it just was, it didn't work for me.

What was the family restaurant?

We had five of them, my grandfather, my daddy's daddy, immigrated at eight years old from Greece in nineteen oh eight.

Came through New Orleans.

Of course, he was uneducated, didn't know anything, couldn't speak English, and his mother. The Turks killed his daddy. His mother lost their property to the Turks and brought them over to the United States for a new life. New Orleans restaurant business. All Greeks become restaurant tours, and he learned how to bake and how to bust tables, and he was very smart. He ended up building quite a quite a business.

But he wasn't building Greek restaurants down there. Say he wasn't making Greek restaurants, was he? It had all had Greek flares, to Greek salides, steak houses, different, everything had something very Greek oriented about it. Yeah.

Yeah, So I sold my interest in the company, owned stock in the company. Family five restaurants, and there were a huge Some of them were huge.

One of them was four hundred yards long, had thirteen banquet rooms, had.

Two restaurants inside it. She she's absolutely huge. Three hundred and fifty employees is huge.

Damn is huge. But I sold my stock back in nineteen eighty eight and told Daddy that I can't do it, and because you wanted to plow that money into your business. I didn't have any money, but I wanted to put my energy into business. At what point did you know that you were just that you had established yourself and you're gonna be making calls the rest of your life.

In nineteen ninety I had a million dollars in sales and my CPA told me I made money.

I said, show it to me.

He said, it's an inventory and it's unreceivable. I said, and now you owe this much in taxes. I went, well, where does that come from? He said, I guess you'd go borrow that too.

Oh, I gotcha. How many people did you have at that point? Oh?

Probably eighteen or so.

Yeah. When I sell the company, we had right at two hundred. Right shot, What year did you sell premost game calls? Night?

Two thousand and.

Six. Johanni wants to ask you a question.

About voiceover.

Yeah, man, we were just we had a little content summit with a bunch of our creators just earlier this week, and we and Steve talked about his approach to voiceover, and that was really a hallmark. I felt like of the truth videos was your narration. Talk a little bit about that, like why why Woul did that end up being the way that you guys did those videos where it seemed like you sort of recorded them, but there

Well, it's really hard to keep the camera running twenty four to seven, so to speak and capture every moment and every word. And then back then when we were doing it, we didn't have the audio capabilities we have now. You didn't have the wireless mics, so the mic was on the camera, so you had to tell the story to bring the viewer into place somehow.

So what would they do?

They'd edited, the editors would edit it on Avid edit systems the way they thought it out a beat, and then they would write what they thought needed to be said. And then they would bring me in and I would watch it and look at their words and change it to my lingo, to my words because I was I became the voice.

Man. I didn't realize, but we we really just stole will system.

Yeah, that's kind of how I feel.

We owe you some like we owe you some sort of payment for having accidentally stole your methodology, you owe me nothing you got. You remain like a very staunch supporter of a bunch of conservation or I shouldn't say a bunch, but I know you're heavily involved in conservation groups. Who do you like to? I know you help out NWTF a lot. Now who else do you get involved with?

Well, there's so many out there, but those that are so connected to being able to double and triple the money that they get through grants, those are the ones that I'm right now most interested in.

Help me understand that.

So if you give Ducks unlimited one hundred thousand dollars, there's a good chance they can turn that into three or four or thousand dollars.

But I don't understand.

I mean they apply for grants through the federal government typically to do matching campaigns, matching in dublin and tripling.

Okay, meaning if they're able to demonstrate citizen corporate sponsorship that somehow can lead to more.

Yes, it can. So what I center in on, all of my interest goes toward habitat protection and restoration.

So that's where you personally like to.

I personally try to put all of my enter into the ground on the ground.

That's correct. Yeah, you know.

So I'm just now engineering a situation. I have got a set of Party shotguns. Party is a London made side by sys the p U r D Y right p U r D E y d E y Okay Party shotguns. And so I have the only consecutive set serial numbered Party side by side hammer shotguns ever made four, ten, twenty, sixteen and twelve. And so I've been collecting these for about almost twenty years, and I reserved when I ordered my first.

One, I reserved all the serial numbers.

And so the guns cost somewhere through my through my years of buying them, somewhere around a million two and.

To accumulate the collection to get the collection.

And so I'm now giving those guns to conservation. And the Congressional Sportsman's Foundation, which a lot of people don't know about, is a fantastic organization that helps to protect all of our hunting and fishing rights, habitat restoration, habitat protection by state and federally. And they're out there fighting making sure the states passed the right legislation, making sure the federal government passes the right legislation, and so I

Can I tell you that's how that punk gun out there we bought from Rock Island?

Okay, Okay. So they're going to auction the guns off and the money is going to be divided between certain conservational organizations that protect or restore habitat.

Are you guys fixing the auction them as a block to a single buyer because people don't want to break them up?

Right?

That's I think that if you right now, we're about to make that decision for sure, But more than likely they're going to be sold as a set only, because if you buy a single gun, the set's not worth as much. What do you think it'll go for?

You know, it depends if you find the right guy who realizes that anything over the appraised value.

And I'm not sure what they'll praise for. They could have praised for a million, they could have praised for a million and a half. I'm not sure. You can't.

You can't build them anymore. That the fourteen and twenty eight will never be built again, So that person could come in there and say, well, look, anything over and above that I get to write off because all this money is going to observation. So it might be two million, five million, ten million. Maybe Stephen Ronnello will jump forward and do something with all that money that's under his.

I don't know that he will.

So anyway, it's all about habitat, it's about responing. And I love the grasslands. Just to think about the world that I read about in your book, in the Buffalo, your unbelievable book. I just couldn't put it down. But the story of of all of that that was Buffalo and the animals before him, and the grasslands and the tall grass and the short grass, and the prairie chickens, and they were they were thick like mosquitoes. And and the fact that we've lost so much of that we've

When's that action going to happen?

Uh?

Probably December of twenty five. You got to remind us when you do it. Okay, I'd love to. Maybe we can do a little thing where it follows along. Sure that auction happens. It's like a pretty discreet period of time, right, It's not like open forbidding for months or something.

Rock Island is the masters at that, and I'm not going to run their show. They know exactly how they're going to go about doing it.

Man, if you remember, let us know, it'd be fun to do a little something about that. Yeah, have you shot muscols guns?

Oh yeah, I've killed white tailed deer sixteen gage buckshot, you know, rough growl, sharp tails. You know you name turkeys, ducks.

I've shot them all.

That's cool that you use them actually and put it away Field.

I got a phone full of gorgeous pictures. You killed merge quail in Arizona, and you put that male merge right next to those hammers. The hammers have pretty dragons on them. When the hammers fall, the dragon breeze fire. It's cool.

So Corey, talk about your experience, how you know, will.

Well, let's see, I landed a job on a elk cotton ranch north of town here back in twenty fourteen and was offered to guide the next September, And growing up always watched Primos The Truth, Big Bulls one through fourteen or whatever we were at that year. And yeah, I was offered to guide Will's friend that was coming along, Mike ellig who used to own black gold archery sites. So I got to guide Mike. I think we got a nice bowl on day.

No, you don't take you know.

He scored three sixty three. He was an eight x ten.

I think I got one. It was a beautiful bowl.

But then your guide had to do something the next day, and I was offered to take you out, which was kind of a dream come true. Honestly, Oh man, we had fun, we did. Yeah, I think we hunted that afternoon.

Was he whining and moaning the whole time, you know, talking bad about old buddy.

We had a big bowl on a ridge above you, and I tried backing up as far as I could and tried calling him in, and the bowl had forty fifty cows with him and never never would leave his cows. And I remember after this, I think it was after the sun went down. It just, you know, that didn't work out. The planets didn't a line, as I like

You remember what I told you you should have done.

There's something with a bugle like you grabbed a bugle from me. It was still around my neck, and you said you should have wailed on it like this instead, because I think I might've been being a little too soft or something less aggressive.

Should I just just a frustration.

I mean we were both fired up still that it didn't work out. Adrenaline was still rolling. And then I remember we had a pretty solid hike back up to the truck after that.

Yeah, and now's your day with will Primos.

Well, and then the next day we went out and by eight thirty in the morning had a nice six point down.

Oh really Yeah, so you guys got together. Yeah, yeah, that was pretty cool. That's fun.

Mary and I got to do the calling. We backed up about eight.

My wife is a really good elk caller, and one time she called this elk up and my friend Brad Fast killed it and I was one hundred and fifty yards above and watching her. I'm going I just shut up and let her do it. And she was throwing rocks down the hill and doing all kind of make it all kind of racket and then she get on that dead, gumb that the open read hyperlip single, God the heck is that? And that elk came in there going crazy and Brad shoots him at ten yards. He

You know, there's like this thing, like this little rule for getting along with people socially. You don't talk about politics, you don't talk about religion. You're pretty open about your spiritual life.

Oh gosh, I love the Lord, I love I am.

I am.

I'm a believer in Jesus Christ. He is my in, my rock, in my guide.

And there's just no way that wasn't going to be part of your public persona, because I.

Mean, God knows, I know you. I mean, you know what lightning is. You know, he knows I know better you know.

But you lived by your walk.

You know.

And not everybody you meet as a Christian or wants to be or is in climb. That's that's fine, that's their choice, That's what God gave us, his choice. But I'm good, you know, yeah, never never any hesitation, none?

Yeah? Yeah, what what year was the first truth, well, the first truth that.

Six eighty seventh.

And when when you guys decided to make that, was it like we're going to see what happens.

Or was this in just no, let's see what happens. We don't know what we're doing. Yeah, the equipment wasn't good. We had a back you had a real to reel. You had to set the thing down on the ground and get it going out a wire, and had a camera. The stuff wasn't in the camera, it was on another backpack. He weighed about eighty five pounds to carry all the equipment, and you had to get to the where you were going to go and set it down and get ready and hope the turkey was.

Still around by the time.

And then climbing a tree.

You know, we always just for Why did you guys hire like professional camera guys.

Oh no, no, no, no, no no, we hired hunters. You've got to have a hunter behind that. He's got to tell that story through that lens, and only a hunter can do that.

Music to sess ears, Yeah, listen, man, this is like you're you're touching on the thing that we've that Jannis and I have spent an incredible amount of time discussing is and this is a real riddle. I appreciate that you feel like you got the code cracked, but I don't know. I think that this is whype be one of those areas where you and I don't necessarily align.

Okay, you're wrong and not right, but that's okay. You can teach a hunter to be a cameraman, but you cannot teach a cameraman to be a hunters necessary.

That has not necessarily been my finding.

Okay, uh.

In the we agree on this, in the best case scenario, you have In the best case scenario, you have a lifelong cameraman who's a lifelong hunter and observer of wildlife. Everyone would agree. Everyone would agree that's the best case scenario. I have found examples of both. There are really good cameramen, like the kind of camera and you'd want to call like a cinematographer okay, right, who never can get used to animals. They don't know how to behave around animals.

We answer to all that. Bottom line, we had a trademark. This ain't Hollywood, so we're not trying to win a cinematography award. We're trying to share with the public what happens. And the problem you have with people who aren't hunters is they can't anticipate yes, and if they can't, they're gonna miss something that really needed to be seen by the viewer.

But Okay, it's good. We're good. No, we're good. But but I don't want to I don't want you to think by me using the term cinematography, I don't want you to think that I'm talking about people who are trying to arts stuff up. If you talk to these guys, they don't talk about they're not like, oh, it's not beautiful. It's not that they talk about coverage. Right, Like you could be trained in photography, trained as a camera guy, whatever, that that doesn't mean that you're like focused on that.

Oh yeah, yeah, I get you.

Yeah.

I do agree with anticipation.

Like I filmed with Steve a bunch in the field, and I'm like to the point now where I can something changes with him where I'm like, okay, like I need to get ready to get some sort of shot here, you know.

Yeah. Well there's also a part he didn't mention is that I have to look at him to see if that was actually a gobble. Yeah. So Bratt Brad Ferrish was the was the master at being able to anticipate it and get over the shoulder stuff. Yeah, absolutely magical. But I like you. I like your word choice anticipate. Yeah.

But one time the Outdoor Channel, we were the rated number one on the Outdoor Channel, and they came to see us. They came all the entourage, about four of them, came to our office and sat down and said, Okay, y'all have got to change some things. Let's look at this footage. Look at so that right here. You've got to change that airplane has no business being in your footage.

Here. What airplane?

This airplane flew?

Oh, just some random airplane. Yeah, okay.

And the gobbler was goblin and got shot while the airplane was and then we looked at him and go just reshoot it and get some other ambient sound and edit the airplane out.

Okay.

And look, I don't think we're gonna be number one much longer. We're gonna keep doing what we do. Because of the feedback we get from the public that says, thank you, thank you for not reenacting scenes.

Gotcha, you know.

And the first time I saw a guy killing elk on video that was reenacted, he walked up with the camera here the elk in the middle, and the guy walking up and finding the elk.

You didn't like. That's bs. They all knew it was there. It wasn't original. We won't. You don't do that.

You get behind the guy and you you get what you get.

Yep. You fill it up with what really happened, and if you fall down, you show it and you get to laugh, which I've done, which we are going down a steep invitment and end up with your.

Self in the water and all messed up, and you know you show it.

Fine? Yeah, Hey, what do you think makes a good hunter?

What makes a good hunter?

Yeah, nothing to do with camera guys. But what do you think makes a good hunter? Oh?

Somebody that realizes what patience is and giving things time to happen, not trying to force it.

Yeah, yeah, you do? You do? You subscribe to that Turkey hunting philosophy. If you think you ought to do something, don't.

That that's that's fifty percent of the time.

That's what time you do do it. Yeah, you do it anyway, but you like the idea that you should at least double quite yes, question the impulse, Yes, sir. What's your favorite thing? You know is Turkey's your favorite? I always think of you as that. I imagine you'd be. You like turkeys. Turkeys and elk.

I'm glad they don't come at the same time of year. But in this stage of my life upland hunting. That's what got me into the shooting of sporting clays, and uh, I wanted to get better at shooting upland birds. There were certain crossers that I would not shoot will primos, if that dove or that duck was coming left to right because the way the winds we had to set up and the way the wind was on the on the blind or whatever. I learned not to shoot at him.

I want to go hit him. Yeah, well, what the hell you still shoot?

You know, I mean, thirty forty fifty you just set the shot out. I mean, I just, I just I just wanted to go shoot at him. Would I want't gonna hit him?

And so I would. I started shooting for the Claye because I wanted to go to these people who knew how to shoot this stuff and teach me this is good? Can we the it's a good chance to talk about sure, so kind of the reason I've always wanted to have you on, and we've talked about having you on over the years for various things. But what allowed it to happen? Now? What the reason you're sitting here is you sent me

Anthony Matisse.

Matteris so Will sent me an email about a book he's got that's available now, Straight Shooting for Hunters, a champions guide to using shotguns in the field. And it's by Will and Anthony Mattie. And the significance of that is here we have a lifelong hunter who knows the challenges of being in the field, knows the challenges of making real shots in the field on stuff that you got to not just nick but kill. And Anthony is a competitive.

Shooter and a hardcore hunter also hard lives to duck hunt.

Okay, so Will. The premise of the book is to take technical shooting expertise and the dos and don'ts of shooting and apply it in real world scenarios so that when you sit there like you're saying, and the wind's blowing left to right and the bird's coming right to left, that doesn't mean that you've got to not shoot.

Yeah, the nuances of the game of sporting clays is incredible. And by sporting clayes, I mean shooting stuff that's flying through the air. Okay, for instance, I'm behind a setter, a pointer Germany short air their own point, and I'm moving.

Up to the side of the dogs.

The dogs got a view of me where you hold that gun, where that gun starts from, because you're going to be low gun, You're going to have to mount that gun.

And then where your eyes are.

Your eyes can come back to focus one hundred thousand I forget what the exact number is, but let's just use one hundred thousand times faster than your eyes can.

Go out to focus. Keep back up and say that again your brought us up there. I'm on a thing. I'm on a kicking life where when someone tells me something I don't understand, instead of going Huh, that's great, I go like, no, I don't understand so and that doesn't mean they need to re explain it, okay, so it allows room for explanation.

Quail or right here at this door, which is approximate, and lay ten feet away from me, and that dog's pointing right there.

Well, rather than look right there, I want to look over and beyond at about fifty yards in soft focus, so you know, like you know the birds there because the dog's telling you. And instead of staring at the brush like you see it.

Here, So the quail could be here here, here, here, it could be anywhere, because the dog's got the scent and you don't know if that they've run off and stopped again or what. You don't know exactly where they are, but you know about So don't try to look and see the quail and see where where they're going to come from. Look over them and beyond them, say fifty yards.

Well, if you're look at how you're ever going to just hold them right out of the bushes, all right, smarty, So your eyes come back to focus so much faster than out to focus.

So if I'm looking and solve focus and the quail rise, my eyes come back and see the flash. My eyes come back and grab the flash. Now, I don't look at the quail. I look at his beak, I look at his head. I look at you can. Some guys are really good at being able to shoot only male bob whites rather than just fifty fifty it because they're looking that intensely and they pick out that bird. And then your hands. Your eyes tell your brain where your

Yeah, that's a good point, man.

Yeah, when you're throwing a football and the guy's running, you're not looking at the ball. You're looking at the runner, and you're deciding how fast you gotta throw, how far you've got to throw it, at what angle you've got to throw it so it will drop into the receiver's hands. Your brain calculates all that, and through repetition in practice, which is what sportingclays gives you, you learn to be

You pull the trigger.

Yep, that's technique one yeah, that's one yeah. And then you've got maintained leads because of what the how far it was, whatever, You mount in front of the target, match speeds with the target, and then.

Pull the trigger. That's my technique. Is that bad?

Not necessarily, But if you can learn the all three techniques, you know, if you can learn how to swing through, how to maintain lead, and how to mount, own the bird and stretch it all three, you will be a much better shot because they all come at different times that you should apply depending on a distance, angle, and speed. So how how far it is? You know how fast it is, and you know, uh and the angle is it a quarter?

Is it straight away? Is it going straight up? What is it?

So?

I mean, I've gotten I've gotten crazy about this game. Anthony Matterez helped me tremendously. I went up there and took lessons as part of this book. I took lessons from him and carry luft Our editor stood behind me and videoed everything that was said. I've got the videos of Anthony Saytan, will you don't trust yourself? Will You're not look you're you're stepping up to the plate and you've You've gone to the prom and you've got a date.

She's what you got. You know you ain't gonna find another one.

And it's just amazing the analogies that he use to be able to help me understand how to properly move a shotgun. But I've made friends with Givin Miles from Arizona and his wife carrying both world champions, Bill Maguire from Tennessee World champion. I mean, these guys are so much fun and they're so great and they're all very accomplished. And when I went to Anthony, he wrote a book

I went, how's he no mon name.

He turns out he's a duck hunter and all he uses is the witch. Yeah, so he and his brother are big witch callers that they hunt. They live on Delaware Bay on the river there and they hunt every day. They're crazy. And so he called me the next day. I said, how'd he get my number?

You know what kind of deal?

He actually emailed me and I said, how do you get my email? And he says, call me sometime. I adn't mailing him back. I said, is now a good time?

He said sure. I called him.

He said, let's write a book together. I said, okay, what are we gonna write a book about? He goes about you learning how to shoot?

Well, you know that eye trick. That's great. I never heard that eye trick with birds, like I am absolutely try it dissecting the sage brush or whatever. Being like, I'm gonna see that try I'm gonna look for that sucker. What are your eyes doing in the duck bline?

Oh well, it depends on whether you're the one who's controlling the blind or not. If you are not the coller just gonna call the shots. You're not doing the colling. No, you're looking down hopefully you're seeing the reflection in the water. Mate, you're watching the collar. You're you're hiding. That's the worst thing waterfowlers do is they don't hide, and the ducks see something they don't like. Maybe circle one more time. Whatever, you know, you gotta hide, so.

So you'll you're content to miss the show.

If you're not, you have to be if you want to get good shots, okay, because you're screw up putting your big old white face out there. You know, we wearing masks and stuff like that. But they see movement you. It's best to have something over you.

So when you go to make the shot on a mallard, are you you're looking at a part of the mallard?

Right?

Oh yeah, It depends on the shot. If he's coming into decoys, I'm I'm naming at his feet because he's coming down. If he's let and now he's rising, you know, I'm I'm just mounting right on the duck and moving my gun slightly above his head, just like maybe an inch, trying to shoot him right, you know, just as as he moved. Depends on the steep.

Whether it's a teal that's real fast and rising, if the duck's crossing.

It depends on the speed. George Digweed is the twenty eight time world champion from England. He's won the World champion, Anthony's won everything. Uh, George has won the world, especially in Hungary and in Dubai and all over the place.

Uh.

And I just went to England and took lessons shot a day with George Digweed and the guys. He's he's he doesn't know what he does.

He's so good.

He's incredible, he's incredible.

He primarily uses swing through.

He starts behind the bird, gets perfectly online and comes through the bird and for ninety five percent of his shots. But there's just just so wonderful studying this and understanding. But writing that book, you know, with with with Carrie and Anthony was incredible because I have now I now don't have any excuses.

That's the deal. Well, yeah, because now you wrote a book about it. Yeah, it's gonna be embarrassing when you miss. Oh yeah, oh yeah, oh yeah. I want to tell you the worst shot for me, Maybe you can tell me what the problem is. Darks come in you know whatever, they're coming into decoys. Everybody shoots and then you get the one that's like he's leaving, he's going up, he's going right or left, and he's going over your shoulder.

Okay, go in this mount right behind him and follow his line, and when the gun passes his beak, pull the trigger. The speed of the gun will give you the lead. Mount own the duck, come right through and that gives you the line. And move right through and look at something on there. Look at his beak, look at his feet through something. Don't look at the duck, and do not look at the gun. It's just like when you hit a baseball.

You're not looking at your bead at all.

No, no, Now, the only time you would do that, The only time you would do that is if a low flying bird is coming in and he's close to the ground your gun. Your brain will confuse the dark color of the you see the gun.

In your periphery.

I'm gonna use this analogy. It's like it's like merging into traffic. You're not looking at your hood. You're looking at the track, and so you're timing your speed of your vehicle to either merge in front of a car or right behind it. That's what you're doing with a shot gun. You're taking your gun and you're matching speeds with the bird and then slightly moving ahead to pull the trigger that gives you the lead.

All these analogies you're using, like when you throw a ball, you don't look at your arm. When you're driving your car, you don't look at your car right.

No, listen, when I got to shoot a little bit with an instructor in Latvia a couple of years ago. Anytime I've shot with an instructor and I'm I first thing, I'll tell him as well, not that good because I'm left eye dominant and I shoot right handed. And this guy he looked at me and goes, oh, So I was like, well, still sometimes I like to close my left eye. It helps me line everything up. And he goes, oh, when you you play basketball at all?

I go, yeah, decent shot.

You know.

He goes, do you close one eye when you shoot your basketball?

No?

You know, no, I just that yeah, so very very free.

People are a hundred percent left or right eye dominant, and there's a there's a test to do that.

Did we show it in the book, so not to this one. So if I'm looking at you, you know no that that only shows you, which is okay. Because this is an audio thing, there's a video component which you can find What's Our What's.

Our Meat Eater podcast network on YouTube.

Make sure you hit the subscribe. It was also so

I don't tell that is like a like a an arrow pointing out.

Yeah, make the make it inverted.

I love you get as small as you can look.

Tighten her down, down down, So you got a little aperture there and then aim that at someone.

Yeah, that tells you what you're most most likely to eat. But the real test is like like like right now, I am going to point at your right eye, okay, and I want you to look and see where my finger is and lined up on my eyes?

Where is it? Oh? Huh? What where is it? Where's where is where is my finger in relation to my eyes?

On your right eye?

Okay? H where is it?

On your nose?

Will you? Guys will yelling at you? So you look at his eyes when he points, say that very naturally. If you see me to get off his land, I'd probably get off his lamb.

So what you're doing is you're you're establishing how much dominant?

Do it to me? Because I don't understand huh, doud do the same thing to me? I'm trying to understand what he's seeing.

Okay, So I'm going to point. I'm gonna you're you're trying to tell me. You're trying to tell me which one of my eyes is dominant?

But I got both open. Oh yeah, you're closed. I am too.

So I'm gonna point my finger at your right eye. Where is my finger lined up.

On my face a little bit that way.

Of center, looks that way to the left, Steve.

Right eye, Will's right eye. I'm looking at you dead eye with both my eyes. It's on the bridge of your nose.

Should be my finger should be lined up with my right eye. It's not right there.

It's dead nuts on the bridge your nose. Okay, now now you got to you got two left eyes. Now now I'm pointing my finger with both eyes with my left hand. Now it says that way.

So what you're doing, you end up you end up establishing somebody can be cross eye dominant and they get their both.

So if it's on the middle of your bridge, you're seeing with.

Both your eye, both your eyes. So that's that can be very hard for a shooter because it's brains does the brain doesn't know which eye to tell the hands where to go. So when you have when you're when you're dominant, you can be eighty percent dominant, ninety percent dominant. See, so it's very important to establish that. So you should establish that and One of the things you could do if you wanted to do, You could put a dot

Yeah, I've done that.

Yeah, so that it makes your other eye your you're said left eye, your your left eyes dominant.

But can we establish like a very basic thing you it's true, this is true right like when you're when you're wing shooting, there's no reason to be closed in the eyes.

Well, I was going on to that, we got distracted a little bit. So if the bird is loaded the ground and coming in close, coming in right at you, the brain can confuse the barrel. You're seeing the barrel like the hood of your car. It's in your periphery. You don't really see it, but your brain is going well, and you think you're on the target and you miss, Well, that's a that's a spot shot. That's a spot on aim shot. You point it like a rifle. So for

God then you're aiming at like you're shooting a turkey. That's right.

So there are instances, and Anthony talks about it in his book Straight Shooting. He was a young guy, he was doing really well. He was down in Florida shooting in a major tournament, and I believe he shot. He came, he tied for six, but he was he was winning. And he got to the station with that low incoming and Dan Carlisle was an Olympic champion bunker trap and other disciplines, and he taught Anthony never to close the eye. And Anthony went back.

He was tearful. I believe he was like eighteen years old.

He was tearful. He was gonna win this tournament and he tied for six. He went home and thought about it, thought about it, went back to this hotel, thought about it, thought about it, and the next day he shot one hundred straight. He figured out that he needed to squint an eye or close it a little bit on these incoming straight birds to be positive where his brain was being told his gun was pointing.

Hmmm.

So there are disciplines and nuances within the game for different stuff. Just like you said, that's the way I shoot, you shoot and maintain lead. If you would mount on the bird on some of those then barely move in front of him, it gives you the line you're not when you mount online, you're taking out the fact that I'm too low or too high. You start right behind the bird and move straight through, so you're in the line with the flight of the bird.

M hm.

And that takes out fifty of your error over and under.

Mm hmm.

But Steve, that sounds exactly like what you've told me in the past when you've taken me out. You're like, imagine a paint brush and you're painting beyond the bird. I don't think you told me to keep an eye on the dot. You're like, you're going beyond the bird, in front of it from the beak, and that's where you're shooting because the time that you know.

Okay, So yeah, there's a lot of things in life where we tell people your thing fine, then you catch yourself not but yeah, like in my you know, and then in the heat of the moment or whatever, and you just might have not doing there's certain things you don't do, you know. But I've done enough where I can try different not as disciplined as you are. But I've done enough shooting where I know that in some

That brings you to understanding gunfit. So gunfit is not the number one thing, but if you want you to get to shooting a little bit, gunfit is major important because when you mount that gun, when you mount that gun,

Pa, there's not better, no no news to me.

I can show you right now George Digweed shooting clays at a one hundred and thirty yards with not too hot of shells.

I can't picture that. You see the video kind of like lobbing it in there. Man, you're holding for drop.

Yeah, he is doing that too, but it's incredible.

Are you ever holding for drop on ducks only.

If they're seventy five eighty yards or further? Okay, you shoot slightly.

Off, so that's not the thing you're not.

You don't shoot at him that far. Yeah, you don't shoot at him that far.

Here's one thing I'd like to ask you a lot of times I've heard from water fowlers that a good way to know if the duck is close enough to shoot at is when you can see their eye.

Yeah, you've heard that that's really close. That's good, that's good, that's good.

But it means that like, there's that mandatory or do you feel like, oh no, I could easily shoot when I can't see can't make out the ducks eye.

Oh yeah, you can see the color of the head. You can just mallards are great because you could see the green head from the hen. You got something to focus on. But typically you learn like bow hunting. Yeah, when before rangefinders got so easy to use and so forth, if I can look at that tree and I can see the distinguishing mark bark on that tree with my twenty twenty vision, twenty fifteen vision, when if I can see that, I know that that tree is thirty five yards are closer.

Hmm. That's a good little trick.

Yeah, but you've got to know your eyes to be able to do that.

That's a great trick.

And here's here's here's a perfect example to kind of help you put some of this lead and so forth. Let's say that birds doing that. Okay, he's flying pretty fast and he's I'm just shooting as a way to say goodbye thirty yards Okay, So what you do is.

Showing him out here up here comes the bird over your head. Oh, you mount right behind him and when you move straight down the line, your hands, your gun will hide the bird. But what you're doing is, if the bird's flying at twenty miles an hour, you want to move your gun at twenty one or twenty two miles an hour.

So you combine. And when you combine, you keep moving your gun and you bend at the waist and.

You pull the trigger, and he will crumple when you pull that trigger. Are you already pulling the second shot?

No, okay, you're not, like, because he knows he's gonna hit it.

No, this is not I don't know if this is a this is a uh, this is at assary, This isn't a wing shooting question. But uh, in your mind, what's a far away turkey? What's a fire shot? Forty yards? Okay? I won't shoot one past forty just because it's not the game, right, and it's not the game, and it's not fair.

There's too many little things that can go wrong. Okay, but it might be forty five, but I misjudged the distance. Really, Yeah, I shoot tss. I shoot a twenty gauge youth eleven eighty seven with a silencer.

What do you use for using an optic or to shoot beads.

So, because the silencer is a big can, I had to put a I put a Bushnell hologram kind of sight. It's kind of weird. No matter where your head is, as long as the dots on there, it kills it.

Dude, I was into those, well, no, I wasn't. I was using those for my kids. The red dots, Okay. I was putting red dots on a break open four ten okay, because it's just easy to explain to a kid. Yeah, I shot red dots last spring on turkeys. I'm done.

I'm a bead gallon turkeys. If I didn't have my silence shirt, it's beads.

Done with that craft. Yeah, it's fun, but it's just it's just another thing to think about it, man. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, it's another thing thing.

She should have shot gun, you know. And I've gone to the silencer because of my ears.

Sure, so I know that you got to. You got to. You got the hearing aid, I got to hear it. You blew your years out of your head over the years.

Look, I was the Martians ship instructor and the Air Force. I taught people how to shoot them sixteen's and thirty eight and forty five stuff they got shot down in the airplanes. They could protect themselves, and they didn't tell us to protect their ears. They gave us some mere must in Lackland where I trained, but they didn't tell us we had to use them. And then I shot skip. I was the I was the Mississippi State Junior skeeek champion in nineteen sixty four at twelve years old. Nobody

I won.

Isn't that something I didn't wear? Hear in protection?

So now I've got I've got, you know, I've got here in eighth and I got high frequency back. I can hear high frequency. I can talk to a child now, whereas I couldn't for a long time.

And you know, did it bring the gobbels back? Yeah, for a long way.

You know.

Grace started it.

She came, dear precious friend of mine, and Grace she's meeting with me, and she looks at my chart and she says, will you need to be wearing here in age? I says, I don't really want to wear here in age. I'm due fine without him, she says. Will the first The first thing that somebody who's lost the kind of hearing that you've lost is gonna get is dementia. Your brain quits using that part of the brain. And so I said, okay, I'm in. So she'd send a lady

I'm headed that way. Yeah, and I was not regret it. Well, the gobbles are getting hard. I always talk. I talk about this all the time. But like my kids, there's one like, no, it's not shut up. Just like Seth and I have fish as next to each other. I'll yell something over that Seth and he'll yell back. I'm big. I look at my kid. He said this.

He said, Look when I say we have the camera, mean, what do you saying?

Yeah, that's what'd you say. Now I can hear what they say.

I got these here and they're they're incredible.

Or even in the boat. My daughter will be in the boat and it's set a little bit of background noise of the motor running. Not even bad should be looking out the front of the boat talking everybody in the boat. I'm like, what's she talking about. I'm like, ros, you got to turn around, look at me or come back here. But I can't hear you from one end of this eighteen foot boat to the other.

Well, it's a pretty good test that I can hear everything you say in this room because that microfat is in front of your lips and I cannot read your lips. Reading lips is a big deal when you start losing your hearing.

I tried so hard not I really try to enforce the hearing aid stuff with my kid. My kid had these we uh on the fourth of July, whereas by by the fireworks, you know, and my kid had these kind of like souped up snapp its that came in this plastic thing, and he decided to try to open that package with his teeth that had his ears ringing, oh blood, his lips all bloody, and one of them snapped. It snapped a couple of them because then it detonated

You gotta own it like I don't.

When I I don't mean own it like how people use it now, Like you got to own that. You know it's your responsible. I mean own it like they didn't possess. I got you, and it was just a part of the deal that some guy would light one off next to your head. It's just like there's that old feeling.

I know, somebody who wanted to be funny and he had a few too many beers and he had his thick of dynamite and they were trying to make it blow up in the air, and he held it the fust just the right late and he went off right there.

You got to see his hand his ear. It gives me a sickening feeling now thinking of all that time, all those times when I would just be like for two days, know when someone touched one off next to your head.

Yeah, look, the foam mere plugs are inexpensive. They usually give him away gun rangers. And if you know how to use them and you squash them down and put them in your ears and then hold it in there until they swell up, that helps tremendously.

That's all Anthony uses. Really, that's a grace start of it makes fantastic. And he just uses the old phoemis.

Yeah, the old phoneies.

Yeah, better nothing. And I'll tell you what, like when you're young, you can't picture if someone had told me, like, oh later, you'll have hearing problems. And I don't even have, like really I have like kind of hearing problems. You can't hear bugles good like the guy next to you can. And the worst is not hearing gobbles. I have to

Which like an alcoholic. The first step is admitting you have a problem.

You have a problem with yeah, calls and hearing. Yeah, that's my two primary problems. Uh. You and I are both big fans of Jeremiah Johnson.

No, no, no better cinematography, no better word.

You think that was the Hunter? Let me ask you, do you think a hunter shout that movie or a camera guy?

I think it was a camera Well, can you get a little closer to your microphone please?

I'm I think it was the camera guy. Yeah, yeah, Uh, will brought me a gift. The position of this suggests that you're trying to take credit for writing Jeremiah Johnson. But it's just your email address up top. That's it's the entire script, Yeah, for Jeremiah Johnson. So the v O, there's a little vo. There's a narrator that has a couple of lines in there up top and at the end discreet and and then it's every word and then

Yes, So what inspired me was when when delle gue has come up on the Indians. After he's after the Mormons buried him in the sand and he got dug out, you know, not the Mormons turn Mormons, part Mormon, but anyway, you know, he finally gets there and he goes in there to kill him. He starts screaming as he's going in to kill him. And I'm listening, listening, I've listened

I will, but I want to did you once you found out what it was, did you then watch yes, okay, and you're convinced this is what he says.

Yes, okay, now now it made sense. It's kind of like a song that you can't really understand. But once you read the lyrics and listen to it song, oh that's what he's saying.

In cases any idiots out here in the listening public, There's a movie called Jeremiah Johnson. It was directed by Sidney Pollack. Uh. It's set eighteen thirty six, So what the movie is set?

And I believe it's set in like eighteen sixty Was it that late?

It was the well, no, it was right. He was coming out of the.

Spanish American War. Yeah, yeah, that's later.

Yeah, sixty three, No, not sixty.

Three, somewhere in there.

Okay.

Uh.

Robert Redford plays a character Jeremiah Johnson. He's coming from war. He's coming from the Spanish American War, not the Spanish Mexican Americans come from the Mexican late eighteen forties. No, I don't think it's that. It is, man, he just missed. He just missed the fur era. Yeah, take that up. Randall, doctor Randall. You know, Randall's got PhD in what history? All right, Turkey, all right, it's all I got. So

Go for random.

I gotta double check all these sources.

That's true.

He's going back to the primary source work.

Okay.

Uh.

Jeremiah Johnson is the Spanish. The Mexican American tales name of the war, Randall Mexican American following the Mexican American War. He wants to go and be a mountain man. But he arrives, and he arrives in the Northern Rockies and the heyday's over, the beaver trade is wound down. He just wants to be largely left alone. He encounters these number of these great characters. He sort of acts very accidentally against his better judgment. Starts like a little family.

That's correct.

So now he's like has a wife that he didn't want, he has a child that he doesn't want, and he tries to establish a life for them. Spoiler alert, they're killed, and it sets him on a quest for vengeance. And through time his thirst for vengeance is sated, and and he's just now like a sort of ghost of a man and living alone in the mountains. And I will say that the vengeance in this case was really the crows, because he made his amends when he went and kill

And he left one and that one then reports back to paints his shirt red, which is the headed guy, head of the tribe, and he says, and the drenth of them is built on one warrior, and so they send one warrior at.

A time to kill Jeremiah. Yep, and he is able to kill everyone that he sent after you.

Okay, if I may interject, there's no specific year that's pinpointed to the movie, but.

I know that if there was, we wouldn't be arguing about it. I'd be holding it right in my hand.

That's fair because he was a veteran of the Mexican American War, and he's still wearing his cavalry pants when he went into the mountains Mexican American War eighteen forty six, eighteen forty eight.

Okay, I didn't know.

He encounters a man. He's out in the desert and he encounters a man buried to his neck, just his head's bald headsticking out. No, he's wearing it. He had hair at the time. No, he was bald, bald time. Yeah, And he yells something, he says, I am delG you, I can whip my weight andes that everybody knows that. What they don't know is this, straight through a crab apple orchard on a flash of lightning. I never knew that till last night. Yeah, you've stolen my pelts and die.

Trying to search engine optimism.

No one's searching that because they don't know that that's what he says, it would get se O zero. No one's searching that today. Straight through a crab apple orchard and a flash of lightning. Well, I love the movie most because then, so we're gonna go to this is this an episode of Steve Reid's movie Scripts?

So you don't know what about?

Are we gonna skip over the part where he's running into the house, the part that Will didn't know what he was saying.

Now we know was not in the house.

He's the Indians are sleeping.

So yeah, they attack him.

So the young boy that he's been forced to take on as a son. And Jeremiah have found del U buried up to his head and you know, asked him, he said, engines bury you here twarnt marmons. So they dig him out. And now the search becomes to go find these Indians and they were black Feet, I believe, and to find them and and and Dale is gonna kill him. Jeremah doesn't want kill him. He's supposed to be left alone. Yeah, and that's when he's that's when he when when Dale g that's when he's that part

He meets his bear claw, Chris lap Lap, and he said, Chris lap begrudgingly saves his life and gives him his initial education and mountain living, how to stay warm, how to get food and all that, and then uh, how to trap you leave. Then Chris lap leaves him and the end Jeremia Johnson's like way up in the high country. He's uh cooking a rabbit. Now. One problem, the one problem in Jeremiah Johnson. There's one distinct, singular problem in

It's like it's.

It's no way. They almost got to the end with that. If I would have been there as a consultant, I would have said he needs to really try to pull hard and can't get it off, and eventually tries to cut that leg off because I don't care how you cook a contail rabbit on.

A fire, so you think it was a like it was pre cut or was a farm raised.

The rabbit reaches out bearcrock. Chris Lap pulls up. Ask him, everything's unspoken this movie. Ask him what's on the spit? Chris Lap asks Jeremia Johnson what's on particular. Jeremiah Johnson says, no, who guess what? Yeah, Chris Lap asked Jeremi Johnson, what's on the spit grown particular? And he says to him, he replies, have you grown particular? And he says, only about the company I keep, mm hmm. But he throws he.

He says, not about my feeding, just the company.

That's just the company I keep. But he's willing to come talk to Johnson. Johnson then removes the leg of the rabbit and it's just too easy. It's always tripped me up.

Maybe he had an instant.

Yeah it. If he pulled it off, I'd be like, yeah, this looks great. There's a movie I want to get into subtlety. We're nearing the end of the show here will but there's a very good movie called You Can count on Me, Okay, And it's about a brother and a sister who are orphaned and then one of them becomes like a family person and one of them becomes an addict and wander and the whole movie. You never know why the movie is called you can count on Me. No one ever says you can count on me. Nothing.

Some folks like it mostly I hope you will farewell.

No, you left out, he says. They speculate about what month it is, and they don't arrive at an answer. Right, It's just left is an open question. They don't know that. They're so out there now and so removed from anything to say March. I don't believe April. Yeah, he goes, March. Maybe I don't believe April. Winner's a long time going stays long. This high march is a green, muddy month down below. Some folks like it, farmers mostly. Then he says that he changes the subject. It's a non sequitor.

To me, to me, paints his shirt red, and Jeremiah's ending scene is about forgiveness.

Yes, it's it's it's paints his shirt red, that offers the sign of peace. I shouldn't leave that off.

And then when Jeremiah gives, gives when he realized when he reaches first gun at first because he thinks we go again, and then he realizes it's paints his shirt red, and he realizes he's offered the peace sign. He cannot stretch his hand any tighter.

Yeah, you know, he goes and then he goes higher. It was like got the trump got his earshot fist in the air defiant. Yeah, but it's not. It's a piece. He stretches it and then he like strains to get it higher and instead emitting, he's just got rags wrapped around his hands.

Well, I'm telling you, it's been wonderful to meet all of y'all as a bee here. It's been absolutely great. And as far as the book goes, you can pre order audio right now. You go to Amazon and and just type in Straight Shooting for Hunters and audio. Yeah, the audio version and the book. The audio version will come out first, and the audio is read by me. It's my good, perfect, it's my voice.

You let some idiot read it.

Yeah, so it'll be Straight Shooting for Hunters And type in Primos or matteris and you can pre order the audio and that'll do you a lot of good riding your car. Listen to it. But the diagrams that are in the book are very visual.

That's why. That's why when you said audio, I was like.

Sure, when you go to talking about pointed the eyes and establishing how dominant you are and either I it's in there and then the swing through the pass through, the maintain lead.

You know. All that is in the book Street Shooting for Hunters, A champions Guide to using shotguns in the Field Anthony Mattise correct and uh, Jeffert Will primos Jack, big Jack Jack, Big Jack, Oh, big Jack. Sorry, I'm little Jack. Well, thanks for coming on the show man. It means a lot to me. Like I said, are up top, I'm gonna and I'm gonna end it the same way I began. I've uh always admired you and and and your positivity and and just like euphoria for family,

I've gone her a whole lot more respect than I deserve. But let me thank you because you've taken up the torch and the work that you do and what you do with your team and sharing with the world what meat eater is all about and what loving outside is all about. It hunting and fishing is awesome.

Good Thank you, good ship, keep it up, thank you.

Good job, Thank you.

Thanks Will.

Yeah, You're welcome.

Thank you. It's in the morning and I'm dropping the game.

Little my boys, it's getting her my dog. I'm running with my dog.

I've got a black flat.

Blood down the mountains and curl.

Any kind of game feeder, Hofir, I got my dog.

No runing with my dog?

Well first like midnight. It's all the same, me and the dog.

We're after the game, wet lands, up lands.

Mountain juices, we get to jews. Well, it's turning the morning.

Mount to drop the girl.

Come on, little little boys.

Let's getting late. I not my dog.

I'm going hunting with my dog.

I got a blooted leadhound a mountain care.

And it kind of gave it all leather, Afir.

I got a dog, and I'm going to hunting with my dog. Will let its first like mid ninety soul, the same being the dog gonna go get us a game. So wedd landsy up lands are.

Just some mount cues.

You know you did tooose?

Yeah, I don't.

Do.

Don't feel like today, the lapse of thirty all it's bad, don't matter how anything, knowing no l

In the