Brendan Burns and Jason Harrison are the founders of Kuyu, the premier hunting clothing company. They talk about how they started their company, how they got into hunting, and what it means to be a hunter. They also talk about why hunting is so important to them, and how they think about it in terms of how they run their company. It's a great episode, and I hope you enjoy it. Thank you so much to Brendan and Jason for taking the time to talk to us. We really appreciate it and look forward to having them on the next episode. If you like hunting and gear, you'll love this episode. If you don't like hunting, you're in for a real treat! This episode is a must listen, and we really appreciate you listening to this episode of the podcast. We'll see you next week for our next episode, where we talk about hunting and all things related to it. Cheers, Joe and Brendan. XOXOXO - The Hunt Club Podcast - P.S. This episode was recorded in Tucson, AZ. We are working on a new version of this podcast that's coming soon. We're working on transcribing the audio and putting it on a website. Please send us your voice messages and we'll try to make it into a podcast so we can improve the audio quality and make it better for you. Thank you! - Joe and Jason Thanks for listening, Joe xoxo - The Hunter Club Podcast - Cheers. - Tom and Jason xo - Jake & Brendan Check us out! - Jeff Perla - The Hunting Jerks - - Kevin Cheers - Mike - Jason Harrison - Jake - Paul - Brad - Sam - Evan - Ben - Tim - Jack Joe - John - Chris - Chad - Matt - Matthew - Andrew - Daniel - Dan - Jeff - Adam - KuyU - Will & much more! - Tom - Nick - Brian - Steven - Jay - James - Christian - David - Justin - Dylan - Sarah - Jordan - Michael and more? - Jake . And so much more... (Thank you for tuning into this episode? & so much love to you guys! - Thank you for your support and support?
00:00:18.000In comparison to a lot of other sporting good companies, if people think about a hunting company, you think about some Duck Dynasty type shit.
00:00:29.000What I like about your company is there's not a lot of people that take what you guys do, like make clothing and gear...
00:00:39.000And take it to the most technical and most intelligent, like, what is the best shit you can possibly make?
00:01:56.000We created the category with Sitka back in the days, back in 2004, because I was wearing all mountaineering gear and wondered why I was the only person that wanted that style, that type, that performance level of hunting gear.
00:02:11.000And came up with a concept, introduced it in 06 to the hunting market, and it exploded.
00:02:16.000Created the entire technical apparel category, and it's just, it's now what everyone's chasing, it's what everyone wants to wear, and makes a significant difference for our customers in the mountains.
00:02:25.000Well, there's a bit of, there's a lot of hunting people are kind of fashionistas in a way.
00:02:46.000One of the reasons why I wanted to have you guys on is because I've done the best job I can of trying to educate people as to what I see when I talk to people that are really intelligent, really ethical, very...
00:02:59.000Very involved people that are fanatics about hunting.
00:03:02.000Because I think people have a distorted perception of what hunting really is.
00:03:58.000And it's something that is, you know, really, really obviously a very important part of my life.
00:04:03.000Well, there's not a lot of high performance, you know, super skilled things where you also have a lowest common denominator kind of guy that you're associated with.
00:04:13.000I mean, if Mountaineers, you know, had a guy that was wearing a white tank top and was down at the climbing gym falling off breaking his head every week, people would perceive him slightly different.
00:04:23.000It runs, you know, the guys that are doing the most extreme stuff in the world and The perceived person that's down here, you get lumped in with the lowest common denominator guy, which is not the case at all.
00:05:05.000And I think companies like yours and what you guys are doing and the videos that you release on YouTube, especially when you're going over the extreme engineering involved in your packs and your gear and all the different things, to me, that stuff's fascinating.
00:06:08.000Well, it's also, you guys have engineered these clothing, your clothing line is incredibly quiet, which is also a really important thing.
00:06:16.000And there's so many different levels to getting it right when it comes to hunting gear, getting it right when it comes to, you know, I mean, it could be the difference between success and failure.
00:06:27.000And this is one of the things that I wanted to kind of highlight about this pursuit.
00:06:32.000I don't like to call hunting a sport or a discipline.
00:06:35.000I mean, call it whatever you want, but it's not...
00:06:40.000It's weird that you have to lump it into this other thing.
00:06:42.000But I think that people have a distorted perception of it because of what you said, because of this lowest common denominator guy, the Bubba thing.
00:06:50.000But the more I've gotten into it, the more I've met people like you guys, or people like Cam Haynes or Steve Rinella.
00:06:57.000Remy Warren and you get deep in you realize like this is a really difficult discipline very very difficult that has many many many layers to it really does I mean you look at the some of the expeditions we're doing up north you know we go up to the Yukon or Alaska or Northwest Territories and we're going from point A to point B like a normal expedition but we're hunting yeah on top of that exactly we got to manage the game that we take out on top of that yeah the weight and the extremes and the conditions and the weather I mean it adds to I mean,
00:07:26.000you have to be really well prepared, really physically, mentally, and also with the right equipment and gear.
00:07:33.000Yeah, I mean, you had in the mountains on some of the stuff we're doing.
00:07:35.000I mean, it's not like, it's comparable with mountaineering, but, I mean, you don't have to, you know, it's not A to B. You just got to survive to A to B. I mean, you have to thrive in the mountains.
00:07:44.000You have to understand what's going on with the animals.
00:07:48.000I mean, it's, it's, Even more in depth than just getting from point A to point B. And a lot of these places we're going, there is no reason to ever go there unless you were hunting.
00:07:58.000I mean, there's some random mountain in the middle of an ice glacier that's not particularly tall, but there's no reason to go there unless you had something to go there to look for.
00:10:07.000Match with us with this animal and you know you want to go see if you're up for the challenge I mean that's what we've been doing for is the world's oldest and greatest sport I mean if you're not you know you're either hunter or a berry picker yeah and the the level of intensity that's involved in that moment when you actually try to take that animal after that incredible hike in after 37 miles of risking your life to get to that point and then that moments there just the extreme amount of pressure and intensity involved in that moment That,
00:10:37.000to me, is what defines the real challenge, the ultimate challenge of hunting.
00:10:43.000And this idea that it's a bunch of people that like killing animals, or it's a bunch of fat yahoos that sit around drinking beer.
00:11:04.000And to be able to test that against the toughest conditions, against the hardest animals to hunt in the most remote places is, to me, the ultimate test of being a human being and the ultimate test of being a hunter.
00:11:17.000And that's what drives me and what we do and why I train you around, why I'm always thinking about gear, about food, about weight, about how I can improve from what I learned on last year's hunt to this coming season's.
00:11:38.000Well, it unfolded for me, and it still continues to do so, because I've only been doing it for four years.
00:11:44.000I mean, Rinelli got me involved, and he took me out to Montana in 2012. And, you know, I was like, oh, yeah, this is going to be interesting.
00:13:27.000That doesn't translate that well to the rest of your life.
00:13:30.000If you're that dude down there at the intramural wrestling, you've missed.
00:13:35.000Hunting is one thing that is just throughout your entire life, depending on where you're at, you can always continue to learn and pursue it.
00:13:44.000Sometimes you don't have a ton of time, you can do a short hunt.
00:13:47.000Sometimes things are going well, you can do something that's an epic adventure, but it's always a challenge.
00:13:54.000The animal you killed last time does not care.
00:13:58.000The new animal you're hunting does not care what you got last time.
00:14:02.000You have to go out, you gotta be sharp every single time.
00:14:05.000Yeah, and everything has to be done right every single time.
00:14:08.000And what I like about guys like you two is you take two dudes like yourselves who are both like real goal-oriented savages and you put together a company like this that pursues that one ultimate experience and says, what is the best shit that we can make?
00:14:23.000What is the best way we can pursue this?
00:14:26.000And that's why I built Kuyu the way I did.
00:14:29.000Having learned from Sitka selling to retailers the limits of what we can produce.
00:14:32.000And I was super frustrated, the fact that I was walking away from the best materials and walking away from the best innovations.
00:14:39.000And when we sold that company to Gore-Tex, I had the freedom to go start something new and to eliminate the retailer so I could go build a business platform specifically so I could go out and take these amazing materials, amazing designs to market that I couldn't do before and get them to market through this brand,
00:14:57.000Cuyo, which has made all the difference.
00:14:59.000Well, isn't it interesting that this has all happened at the same time where the internet has kind of exploded in this way that people are doing a massive amount of shopping online.
00:15:08.000I mean, I have one of those mailboxes where they get your packages for the company, and when I used them 10 years ago, I'd get a package every couple days or something like that.
00:15:19.000Now, every time I go, there's stacks and boxes and shit, because I do all my shopping online.
00:15:47.000When you can't produce the best products possible for your customers because they can't sell it, they can't add the value any longer because all they're offering is price and selection.
00:15:54.000So price wins in a sea of selection with no one there to explain why a new product is so much better than the old product.
00:16:21.000I mean as you know with business You know a lot of it is timing luck and be in the right place at the right time with the right concepts and ideas And we we totally nailed it We kind of came in at the exact same time with on it that you guys did with Kuyu and with the same exact model Selling directly to people getting the very best shit you can possibly get.
00:17:29.000If you're a guy like you that does research and knows exactly what he wants and you can put a tape measure on yourself and know how big you are.
00:17:35.000I mean, I'm roughly an XL and you could save yourself money and get a better product.
00:17:42.000Well, also, the amount of research that you can do.
00:17:45.000Like, if you go to a store and you talk to the guy that's behind the counter, you know how many times I've talked to people?
00:17:50.000Like, you go to a place that sells car parts or something like that, and you ask a guy a question, and he says something that's totally wrong.
00:17:56.000You're like, well, I know that's not right.
00:17:58.000If you don't know that, how the fuck do you know where this goes?
00:18:02.000Yeah, I mean, you have to be someone who's, like, deeply, deeply involved in the product to be able to explain it to someone who becomes obsessed.
00:18:10.000Like, if someone is, like, your packs, the way you guys engineer the carbon frame of your packs, like, I spent, like, a fucking hour and a half the other night watching videos of how you guys make packs.
00:19:35.000The retailer wasn't giving it to them any longer.
00:19:37.000You know, back in the day, I grew up working in an archery shop in Orange, California, from Bob Fromm, who's a really, really amazing archery shop owner.
00:19:50.000You go to Cabela's now, Like you were saying, the guy on the floor has no clue.
00:19:55.000The customer knows more than the retailer now.
00:19:58.000And by taking with Kuyu and going directly to that customer and giving them all that information, giving them the power to make the decision, they ate it up.
00:20:07.000And then being able to involve them through this process, They just build a ton of trust with you.
00:20:13.000It's like they understand the brand, they understand you, they understand how you think and why you're making those decisions, and then they trust you.
00:20:19.000And once you have the consumer's trust and you don't break it, you can really build a brand off of that now.
00:20:25.000Well, a guy like me who loves to geek out on shit too, who gets obsessed with things, that's what I love, that I can go and watch all these videos and read all this stuff about all the different engineering that's involved in creating your products, and when I do that, it gets people more excited.
00:20:39.000That's why I think it was a brilliant move to blog about it in between the time of building the company.
00:20:44.000I mean, I look back now and it's like I had a blueprint on how to build a company today when we did that.
00:20:48.000I look back and read the blog posts and And I just go, wow, I can't believe I actually did that without really knowing what I was doing, because it seems like I executed it so perfectly.
00:20:57.000And I was just following my gut and interacting with the customers, and it was.
00:21:01.000It was so, so powerful and such a big thing, because as I built this business model, which was the first of its kind in this industry, and even the outdoor market, people told me, cool idea, but...
00:21:32.000You look at like a Warby Parker or a Hairy Shave or Dollar Shave Club.
00:21:36.000Well, they spend more money than they're bringing in.
00:21:39.000And they're burning cash like it's going out of style to create demand through high levels of marketing that's very, very expensive.
00:21:45.000Or you can do it like we did and educate the customer.
00:21:54.000You guys have this advantage in that hunting, because it's such a difficult pursuit, because it sort of gets in your DNA, you become obsessed with it.
00:22:05.000And when you become obsessed with it, and you find a company that's also obsessed with making the very best shit possible, and then you guys geek out to such a high level on the videos and on these descriptions of what you're making, then these obsessed people become obsessed with what you're doing.
00:22:18.000And they go, oh, well, if I'm going to do this right, I've got to do this this way.
00:22:36.000Like you said, they geek out on it and eat all the little details up, which I love because that's what I geek out on when I'm searching for these amazing fabrics and learning about new technologies and I share it.
00:22:49.000Well, it's really sort of a master class in how to do things the right way, to follow passion, and being obsessed with something, but doing it to the utmost.
00:22:58.000Because if you do that, then the word gets out.
00:23:00.000The word gets out, people talk about it, and like I said, I found out about you guys through word of mouth completely.
00:23:05.000Well, if you're actually doing it, too.
00:23:06.000The customers really see that no one else that's running a company, multiple hunts every year, believes in what we're building and takes it to the worst place our customers could ever go and use it.
00:23:26.000They're like, not only that, that's what I want to do, but I know that he's done it, too.
00:23:32.000We've used that stuff in those places.
00:23:34.000Well, was it your blog that I read, which blog was it where you guys were sucking water out of the top of a rock?
00:23:40.000It was one of the blogs for your company, one of the early on blogs.
00:23:43.000You guys went on a hunt, and you were just talking in depth about all the different, I don't know who it was who wrote it, but it was all Kuyu stuff.
00:23:51.000We were talking in depth about testing out the products on these really remote backcountry hunts.
00:23:57.000Yeah, I mean, it's how we figure out the shortcomings of our product.
00:24:00.000You can look at all the laboratory data, you can look at all the test results of what that's given back to you, but you really don't know until you put it in the conditions that we put it in.
00:24:10.000Like Torre, who is my main fabric supplier, is the most innovative Japanese.
00:24:14.000I mean, they are the bomb as far as technical fabrics go.
00:25:16.000And it's the same way of why they produce such amazing fabrics and materials, and they're continuously pushing the bar as far as innovation, reducing weight.
00:25:23.000And it's a partner for us that's just amazing.
00:26:05.000And it's also, you know, it stretches and doesn't really recover until you wash it again.
00:26:09.000If you wear a stretched pair of pants with a lot of elastic, they can kind of sag you after a period of time.
00:26:14.000You'll notice with ours, They'll fit the exact same way on day 10 as they did on day 1 because of their fabric, because of how they make their yarn that stretches and recover that elastic.
00:26:22.000So why are they making this fabric, too?
00:26:25.000It's like, who are these crazy people that are out there, like, super engineering fabric?
00:26:35.000Their pricing on their performance apparel is much higher in Japan.
00:26:38.000The European market as well for their climbing industry and some of the ski brands run their fabrics as well.
00:26:45.000But nobody's really introduced their product line like we have in the United States because it's been cost prohibitive up until Kuyu business model came out.
00:26:53.000So they just decided essentially the same thing that you guys are doing, just figure out what is the best way to do this.
00:27:02.000Tori, as a company, is a Japanese conglomerate, which is pretty typical of Japanese companies, and they're Their base, the start of their company was chemistry.
00:27:12.000So they're a chemistry-based company that makes chemicals and make carbon fiber.
00:27:16.000But it's chemistry that starts with everything they do and understanding how everything is produced and made.
00:27:23.000And it's that foundation that allows them to put out these amazing innovations, to figure out nanotechnology and how to waterproof a downfeather, how to make membranes that breathe two and a half times that of Gore-Tex and still stretch and recover and are more durable.
00:27:36.000It's that foundation of who Torrey is, is a chemistry company that allows them to push these innovations out.
00:27:42.000And then you add in the Japanese culture of perfection and making things correct and having processes that continue to produce high quality products and materials over time.
00:27:52.000And that's why Torrey is so freaking amazing.
00:28:05.000And then what's great about them is always pushing.
00:28:08.000And so they're coming to us with new fabric innovations, new technologies and innovation.
00:28:14.000And we're able to find their limits because of our customers and what they use it for.
00:28:18.000And I'm able to go back to their engineers now because I've developed a really big relationship with them, where they're now their largest customer in the world.
00:28:24.000And work directly with their team and say, hey guys, your membrane works great except for these certain situations.
00:28:31.000And so they go and they try to figure out how to rectify that.
00:28:35.000I mean, they'll commit themselves to fixing issues that we'll find.
00:28:39.000The laboratory tests say they should never fail and we'll find the limits of it.
00:28:42.000I mean, not necessarily Brendan and I, but our guides that are spending 200, 250 days of their life every year in the mountains, they'll come back and say, hey, guess what?
00:29:00.000And they go back and try to re-engineer it to figure out how to push the bar further so those failures don't happen.
00:29:07.000I was listening to you on a podcast recently.
00:29:08.000You were talking about this new engineering that you're doing on your packs and how you're testing them.
00:29:15.000So when you have a new product, say if you create a new pack or something like that, before you bring it to market, do you get it to guides?
00:29:26.000Yeah, so it starts as a process in-house, and we'll put it through certain tests depending on the product, like the new pack frame we just introduced today earlier at Kuyu Live.
00:29:35.000I don't know if you happen to see my live presentation for a travel flight down here.
00:29:38.000So you do a live presentation, like a product launch, and you did that today?
00:29:42.000Yeah, kind of like a keynote thing like Jobs does.
00:29:59.000Well, we introduced a new carbon fiber technology that just came out on the market a couple years ago.
00:30:04.000Introduced as far as ability to start developing product with a new fiber technology called Spread Toe Carbon Fiber.
00:30:10.000You'll love this because you geek out on stuff like this.
00:30:13.000So carbon fiber, traditionally, the fibers are put into yarn, right?
00:30:17.000So they take each individual carbon fiber, group them together and make a yarn.
00:30:21.000Those yarns are then woven into fabric.
00:30:23.000It's what you see of typical carbon fiber look, right?
00:30:26.000The woven look you see on carbon fiber.
00:30:29.000What spread toe is, instead of round fibers, they've figured out that if you flatten the fibers out, so instead of being round, they're flat, and instead of weaving them, they lay them next to each other and then sew.
00:30:40.000They run sew lines across it, which you can see in our new frame.
00:30:43.000And by doing so, when you mold it into a product, because that fiber is now completely flat And it's running the length of the product, it's much stiffer and stronger than if you weave it and the fiber has to go up and over other fibers.
00:31:00.000It's not as stiff, not as strong in the performance level.
00:31:03.000You give up quite a bit compared to spread toe.
00:31:06.000So spread toe is all directional fibers and then what we've done in our frame is we now can determine exactly how many fibers run from the top of the frame to the bottom of the frame.
00:31:20.000And then lay in on a 45 how much stiffness we want and flex we want on the horizontal axis.
00:31:27.000So if you want our packs, you'll notice that it carries a load really well because of the vertical stiffness, but it's also comfortable like an internal pack because of how much fiber we have running on the horizontal axis that controls that flex.
00:31:40.000So you want to have a certain amount of flex?
00:34:04.000In between the carbon fibers and the center portion of the frame.
00:34:08.000That foam creates what they call modulus, which is separation of the fibers.
00:34:14.000And that modulus creates the overall stiffness within the center portion of our frame.
00:34:18.000And then how much of that we have within the frame determines how much flex, stiffness, and then also where we're putting the fibers and how many.
00:34:39.000And so what we got out of spread toe, which we just introduced, for no weight penalty, we now have a frame that's five times stiffer and stronger than what we had previous, which is still a really good performing product.
00:35:42.000It's what will pull the weight off somebody's shoulders.
00:35:44.000It will help carry that load versus just a duffel bag strapped to your back, which is uncomfortable, as you know.
00:35:50.000Well, that's where the interesting aspect of the engineering comes in when it comes to packs, because the same weight with a different pack feels different.
00:36:16.000And, you know, in the past, before our frame came to market, you either had really stiff frames with external frame packs, metal or aluminum, and then you had this internal frame, which was really comfortable until you had to put weight in it, and then it wouldn't be stiff enough and it would end up putting a lot of pressure and weight on your shoulders and your hips.
00:37:26.000Because once we get something down, we've got to get all that out.
00:37:28.000So we're going to go from maybe packing them with 50 or 60 pound pack to all of a sudden now you've got a 100 plus pound load and you need to manage that.
00:37:34.000So how do you get a pack that can do both?
00:37:36.000Be comfortable with lighter weights and still have the ability to carry heavy weights.
00:38:12.000If you have a hundred pounds and it's sitting in a two-foot square at the lower part of your back, that's not nearly as good as like flattened out to six inches and going over the entire surface of your back.
00:38:21.000You want to spread that up and down the frame as close to the frame of your back as possible.
00:38:25.000And where do you make it sit on your shoulders?
00:38:28.000How are you strapping it in to make sure that it's in the right place?
00:38:32.000Or you want to carry the majority with your hips.
00:38:35.000So, I mean, you start at the waist, put it all in, and then shoulder straps, all that kind of stuff, and stand up, and then your load lifters and all the way up.
00:38:42.000I mean, it's an individual thing, how it fits, but you want to start with, I mean, your hips are your strongest, your center of gravity.
00:38:49.000That's where you want the majority of the weight to be carried as close as you can.
00:38:52.000And this is all trial and error stuff that's been done through mountaineering, through all these different guys that are going on these long backpack hikes?
00:39:01.000And also, I mean, it's critical that you have a pack that fits correctly.
00:39:04.000Most people have a pack that isn't set up correct.
00:39:08.000And we found that with our packs, they're really easy to adjust the shoulder straps so we can get a perfect fit for each customer.
00:39:14.000And we put an instructional video out there of making sure the geometry from your load lifters, which are the straps that come off the top of the pack down to your shoulder straps, that geometry is critical that it's perfect.
00:39:26.000It has to be at a 45 degree angle and that will help take that load off your shoulders and transfer to your hips and help you manage that weight comfortably over a long period of time.
00:39:44.000It starts at mathematics with the frame and designs and CAD and CNC machines and all that and the math and all through it and then it goes all the way through and you build it and then all of a sudden it requires testing and taking it in real life settings and people vary on what they like.
00:40:01.000I mean there's some guys like to carry Things a certain way.
00:40:05.000Some guys like their pack way up high.
00:40:07.000I've fitted guys that like them way up.
00:40:09.000You can only know by testing it, by doing it, by carrying some weight.
00:40:16.000And how many different products are you individually overseeing?
00:40:20.000See, that's the most daunting aspect of it, because you've got all this different shit going on at the same time, and on top of that, you're doing a dozen hunts a year plus, and you're out there in the field.
00:40:31.000How the fuck do you find the time to do all this?
00:40:57.000It's a process, and it's solving problems through finding materials and technologies and designs that solve those problems.
00:41:03.000There's a lot to be solved in hunting, fortunately.
00:41:05.000There's a big gap from some of the other industries that are out there before Sitka and Kuyus come along.
00:41:14.000So there's a lot of work to do, and we've done a lot to take from where hunting apparel and gear was back in 2004 to where it is today in 2016. It's a massive change.
00:41:24.000And not everything's as in-depth as the pack all the way from start to finish.
00:41:28.000I mean, sometimes you have a great fit on something and you have a new fabric.
00:41:31.000Well, you know, I mean, it's got to get tested.
00:42:58.000I mean, that's one of the things that I found interesting about this.
00:43:01.000You can kind of see when there's someone like you that's at the head of something like this, and you're this driven, focused guy, you kind of see that.
00:43:09.000When you see the actual brand itself, it reflects you.
00:43:14.000So this idea of it being work, it's really like a passion project.
00:43:58.000I always say every day, it's a dictatorship at Kuyu.
00:44:01.000It kind of is, and it works well that way.
00:44:05.000It's interesting because because of our growth and because of our business model, we're approached all the time by private equity investment groups.
00:44:13.000I'm throwing huge valuations of money at me.
00:44:15.000When I look at the opportunity, yeah, it's a lot of money, but I don't want to change what we've got.
00:44:21.000As soon as I bring in outside capital or professionals in looking at the business, they're like, well, you need to professionalize.
00:44:56.000There's a lot of podcasters today that are joining in with these gigantic networks, and they think that being a part of a network is like being on NBC or being on CBS, which it used to be a big deal back in the day.
00:45:07.000Like if you were doing a play, and NBC came along and said, we want to turn that play into a sitcom, you'd be like, we fucking made it!
00:45:16.000But now, if you have a successful podcast and someone comes along and says, hey, we would love you to be a part of our gigantic corporation, you're like, get the fuck out of here.
00:47:44.000How much did it weigh on the hoof, do you think?
00:47:46.000You know, a big bull elk would be six to seven hundred pounds.
00:47:51.000I mean, they get thrown a thousand pounds a lot, but, you know, to weigh them, like, there are a few great big bulls that'll weigh a thousand.
00:48:40.000What's a fascinating pursuit, you know, pursuing the apex of the genetics, you know, finding the animal.
00:48:47.000And it's also one of the things that's important about this, like, the pursuit of hunting is that this animal that you shot was probably, like, how old do you think he was?
00:48:59.000That's old age in the world of wild beasts.
00:49:03.000It's the ultimate, I mean, like, when you get to the level where you're consistently killing stuff and You've gotten the point that the ultimate level is to kill the biggest, oldest, most mature, historically significant on the chain of events in history of all the guys that have ever killed elk.
00:49:21.000Not all elk are going to be huge, but with any animals.
00:49:25.000When you kill something that's super old, super big, super smart, that is the pinnacle of where your skills have gotten.
00:49:36.000The biggest factor in doing that and getting to that point is having the time.
00:49:42.000I spent a decade of my life putting a boot track everywhere you could put one, finding where every elk was in my state and looking for the biggest ones.
00:50:52.000But Brendan would hunt and find an elk and spend the entire season trying to kill that single elk, which I thought...
00:50:58.000At least my experience at elk hunting was hard to find that same elk twice that I'd maybe see in the morning, and I would never see it again.
00:51:05.000Brent had the ability to hunt it down and kill it.
00:51:07.000Well, it's also the best thing from a conservation standpoint.
00:51:10.000You're talking about an animal that has spread its genes for at least 10 years, right?
00:51:15.000For 10 years, that thing has been spreading those superior genetics, and it's probably been forcing a lot of other males to get the fuck off the mountain.
00:52:04.000And to be able to be that smart to get to this position in life, and for you to solve that puzzle, and to get in and shoot that elk, That's one of the things that sort of embodies the really intense difficulty in hunting.
00:52:23.000It's one of those things where, I mean, it's the ultimate challenge.
00:52:27.000I mean, once you've, you know, killed a bunch of elk and, you know, I mean, it gets to where it is the ultimate challenge.
00:53:50.000And when you eat that animal, I mean, the amount of satisfaction that comes from sitting down to a meal that you procured in the most difficult way humanly possible.
00:54:01.000I mean, you shot that thing with a bow and arrow in the mountains, and now here you are eating it.
00:54:11.000I mean, the thing about trophy hunting that's not understood is, like, it's the ultimate...
00:54:16.000It's the pinnacle of combining, you know, what you love to do and then this incredible skill set that you're developing to be better than, you know, I'm not saying better than anybody else, but it takes a lot of work.
00:55:10.000Well, the term is kind of screwed up because it's applied to things that people shoot where they don't eat it, which seems to be like a cruelty, like a pursuit, a vain pursuit of going out and shooting lions and shooting things that you're not going to eat.
00:55:24.000The weird thing about that is I was talking to a guy who was doing an article for the New York Times, and he said, I don't have a problem with hunting as long as you eat it.
00:55:32.000And I just said, you don't have a problem with hunting.
00:55:35.000I mean, you legally have to take the meat.
00:55:38.000I mean, the amount of people that would shoot something and not take the meat is, you know, the same as people that are thieves out on the street.
00:55:47.000So, like, the perception of, you know, guys just shooting it and, you know, just because 10 years down the road all I have in my garage is the head doesn't mean that I didn't use it.
00:55:55.000And so the perception, again, against the lowest common denominator guy, you hear about one horrible thing going on or somebody that doesn't take the meat and all of a sudden everybody's lumped into it.
00:56:37.000I mean, I grew up in an area where that's what I ate.
00:56:41.000Like I said, my parents never bought meat.
00:56:43.000The perception of hunting today is so screwed up.
00:56:45.000It is, but it's also because of cities.
00:56:47.000I mean, one of the things that's made us be able to be so comfortable and have air conditioning is technology and advancement.
00:56:53.000But it's also allowed us to be completely disconnected from where food comes from.
00:56:57.000And that's what allows people to stand up on these pedestals and point down at people that they think are doing something wrong when they're responsible for just as much death.
00:57:08.000They're responsible for more suffering.
00:57:30.000And all the pesticides and everything else that goes into it, it's mind-blowing.
00:57:33.000Bees and fucking rodents and all the different death that is associated with combines and wide-scale grain when you're growing and harvesting grain.
00:57:48.000I mean, we are consumers in some sort of a weird way.
00:57:51.000But to me, the purest pursuit of it Is what you're talking about.
00:57:56.000Archery, hunting, in the backwoods, in the most difficult environments.
00:58:01.000I mean, it is an unbelievably difficult pursuit that somehow or another gets lumped into this idea that it's a bunch of dumb people and they're cruel.
00:58:10.000If you're dumb, you're not going to be successful doing that.
00:58:12.000If you're lazy, you're not going to be successful.
00:58:16.000Yeah, I mean, I've been, because of Kuyu, been in New York doing a bunch of media tours over the last year.
00:58:22.000And to be interviewed by these people that live in a big city that have no...
00:58:27.000The idea of what hunting is like or what it's about is really mind-blowing to me because it's been such a big part of my life and everyone I'm associated with and friends with typically hunts or understands hunting.
00:58:37.000Their perception of it is so amazing to me that we would just kill an animal, cut its head off, and leave everything.
00:58:47.000I don't know anybody that's ever done it.
00:59:08.000Yeah, I mean, like this New York Times guy, I was just like, yeah, it's, you know, I took him through like the wanton waste laws and all that.
00:59:14.000And he was just like, he's like, wow, I mean, you legally have to take it.
00:59:26.000You know, one thing is like, don't get it lost that, you know, guys in the 60s, 70s, all, you know, and since, you know, aside from market hunting back in the day, which isn't real hunting, it was just extermination for, but I mean, it's, you know, people hunt, and they consume what they eat, like anything else,
00:59:42.000just like eating, you know, bread or anything else.
00:59:45.000I mean, you have, you know, it's like, you know, you got studs in your house, they came from a tree.
01:00:15.000And it's the last hundred that people have had an issue with it.
01:00:16.000Not actually the last 50. Yeah, well, it's when you see things like the Cecil the lion thing, and then everybody gets up in arms about hunting, and it just becomes this really distorted version of what it actually is.
01:00:29.000Yeah, but the stuff with Cecil, that's not even true.
01:00:31.000I mean, he wasn't living full-time in the park.
01:00:35.000There's a new thing that just came out in the hunting report about the whole background of it.
01:00:39.000I mean, there's a lot more to it than that.
01:00:44.000Oh, the guy killed Cecil Lyon, who's this super old male who had been kicked out of the Pride, apparently, and the whole thing with his brothers and the family and all that stuff.
01:01:03.000I mean, like, just beheaded is just a horrible thing.
01:01:06.000It's like, yeah, everything that gets killed and processed gets...
01:01:09.000Beheaded but don't you think that part of the reason why people get upset about lions is because people generally don't eat lions So when someone says that someone goes and shoots a line like why would you shoot this beautiful rare majestic animal just so you could stick it on your wall and And just think you're a badass because you've got this thing that could kill you if you didn't have a weapon and you got it on your wall now Well,
01:01:32.000I mean, it comes down to, like, predators need to be controlled.
01:01:35.000I mean, it's not one of those things that's pretty and people really love to hear that, but at the end of the day, it is true.
01:01:40.000I mean, like, you know, you were just down where I grew up.
01:01:43.000I grew up just north of the greater Yellowstone Elkhard, you know, between Gardner and Livingston.
01:02:05.000It's insane to think that we don't exist and these houses and fences and highways and stuff are not there and that you can just turn something loose and just let it run its course.
01:02:16.000People are even appalled by the natural core.
01:02:20.000A young lion take over the pride and Cecil gets chomped and destroyed by two other younger lions that came in and got him.
01:02:34.000And the other thing that's going on is that people love to broadcast how horrible...
01:02:41.000The people are that hunt these things and how these lions are, they need to be preserved and so important.
01:02:47.000Like Leonardo DiCaprio had something on his Instagram page the other day where it was like an anniversary of the death of Cecil and he was talking about how, you know, few of these animals that are left, they have to be protected.
01:03:00.000Very conveniently ignored is the fact that Zimbabwe is going to kill 200 lions now because no one's going over there to hunt those lions.
01:03:49.000It's very inconvenient when you look at the actual facts of hunting over there.
01:03:54.000Even hunting, you know, just quote-unquote, for trophies.
01:03:57.000That is where they get a massive amount of their revenue.
01:04:00.000It feeds a lot of the people that are over there.
01:04:02.000It makes a huge impact on their economy.
01:04:04.000And a lot of people don't like that, but I urge people to watch the Louis Theroux documentary about his trip to Africa, where he spent several weeks in this African hunting camp.
01:04:16.000It was like a high fence operation where they had lions and they were throwing, like, calves over the fence to feed these lions.
01:04:23.000And there's, like, two fences separating him from the lions.
01:04:25.000And he got to see, like, in depth what's going on.
01:04:28.000He's essentially saying that these animals, the only reason why they're here at all, like, massive amounts of them, is because they're worth something to people to come over.
01:04:37.000And if it wasn't, they're like, this place is so poor and so crazy that these animals would have been wiped out.
01:04:44.000And they were on the verge just a couple of decades ago before they introduced hunting.
01:04:48.000So it's such a catch-22 because they have more animals than they've ever had before.
01:04:52.000But the reason for that is because they're worth something to hunt.
01:05:07.000I have a hard time explaining it to people.
01:05:10.000You know, I mean, what makes a little kid who, when you're in the yard and there's a bird right there, like some kids, you know, just look at it and some kids want to chase that thing down.
01:05:18.000And it's like 10,000 years where the genetics that say...
01:05:34.000And so to explain that to somebody that doesn't have that, It's really hard.
01:05:39.000I mean, you know, especially while they're eating a hamburger from their pedestal, telling you how, you know, you shouldn't, you know, kill anything.
01:05:47.000Well, I almost think, I mean, I don't think anybody should be forced to do anything, but I almost think that it would be good for everybody to have to kill something and eat it, if you do eat meat, just to experience it.
01:05:57.000And, I mean, that's just killing something.
01:05:59.000But to actually go out and hunt something down and kill it and eat it, I think would...
01:06:04.000It would open up a lot of doors inside your mind, open up a lot of areas of perception, and give you this real understanding of what it means to consume life.
01:06:27.000People think just because it's in a package at a grocery store or in a cellophane with a styrofoam thing underneath that it didn't come from an animal or something.
01:06:43.000Remember that whole cow thing that went on a couple years ago?
01:06:46.000I think it was in a slaughterhouse down in Southern California and those cows are sick and they're falling over and they got video of it and it got out there about the processing of meat and all these people up in arms about it.
01:06:55.000I'm like, that's always been that way.
01:07:09.000Most of them, like the animals Brent and I hunt, which are the older ones, they've had a full life and they've had the opportunity to experience things in nature and reproduce and have what an animal's life should be like.
01:07:23.000We're a cattle or any type of industrial type of food animal like chickens or cows or pigs.
01:07:33.000It's like living in a concentration camp.
01:07:37.000My wife's father has a big ranch in eastern Montana You know, raise and process all their own stuff and, you know, like people talk about, you know, like all the beef and meats, horrible and stuff.
01:07:49.000I mean, they take really good care of those animals and it's very important and they don't go to the, you know, the giant stockyards and all.
01:08:22.000The animal has to grow, it has to be fed, it has to be taken care of, then it has to be slaughtered, cut up, packaged, processed, sent to stores, put on the shelves, and then you go and buy.
01:08:34.000You could try doing it yourself and you would value it.
01:08:36.000You would realize like, wow, this is actually a pretty good deal.
01:08:39.000And all the process, it's not all the same either.
01:08:42.000Like I said, I mean, there's lots of great ranchers that care about what they're doing and do it right and all that stuff.
01:08:47.000Again, your lowest common denominator.
01:08:49.000You get a place that's got 70 cows packed into one chute, and people are like, oh my god, we're up in arms about it.
01:08:55.000It's like, well, that's not the norm on everything either.
01:08:58.000I think it's good, though, that people are being aware of this, and I think it's good that people are up in arms, because I think there is something really disgusting about factory farming.
01:09:07.000And I think the education of people...
01:09:10.000Getting to understand, like, yeah, this is a system that you're a part of.
01:09:13.000Even, like, the really hardcore, radical animal activists that, you know, risk their lives and make these crazy fucking videos and get inside slaughterhouses and, you know, violate those ag-gag laws.
01:09:32.000We shouldn't be shielded from the truth in any way, shape, or form.
01:09:35.000And that's one of the things that's allowed this factory farm system to get so disgusting, is the fact that people haven't been able to have their input.
01:09:42.000They haven't been able to see it and protest against it and say, like, hey, you shouldn't be treating living things like this.
01:09:50.000I mean, that story doesn't get told enough.
01:09:52.000And I think the reasonable people who love animals and maybe they don't have any desire whatsoever to eat them, those are the people that I think respect the pursuit of hunting and respect the idea that, look, it's not something for everybody, but neither is marathon running,
01:10:08.000neither is weightlifting, neither is football, jiu-jitsu, anything difficult, wrestling.
01:10:43.000I mean, honestly, it's like, you know, you see it all the time, a guy wearing leather shoes and a leather belt, you know, talking about, you know, his impact and how little, you know, being vegan or whatever.
01:10:53.000It's like, man, that's just, the hypocrisy is insane of people, you know, like living in a house, like how much is...
01:11:00.000Animal byproduct from from everything you use and it's like well, yeah, but I just had a salad today It's like yeah, that's I mean 50 rabbits when they harvest it It made you feel good, but in reality you're just bullshitting yourself Yeah, but they don't even know they're bullshitting themselves if they if their Perception of what they're doing was accurate then they would have a good point But it's a it's an ignorance to what was actually involved.
01:11:25.000Yeah, I don't believe in killing anything.
01:11:28.000It's like Every time you get in your car, man, I mean, the most animal, the most life I've ever taken is every time I take a 500-mile road trip.
01:11:35.000I mean, and I've got to wipe those things off my window.
01:11:37.000I mean, people are like, oh, you can kill the shit out of bugs.
01:12:12.000You've killed fucking thousands of beings just today.
01:12:16.000But an ant's a weird one, because I've seen people, they'll see an ant on them, they'll squish it, and then they flick it on the ground in your house.
01:13:25.000When something goes wrong, like their scent gets screwed up or the queen dies or the queen gets removed but the scent's still there, the ants will circle.
01:14:48.000He was telling me about one of his friends had a queen bee somehow or another got stuck in their car, and this hive of bees followed them for 20 miles.
01:14:58.000They followed the car for 20 miles because the bee was in the car.
01:15:02.000Like, they don't have any, like, man, she's gone.
01:15:33.000But they chop, they take the male and they're going to breed with him, and they essentially cut his legs off so that he can't move, and then they carry him to wherever they want to fuck him, and then they take him and breed with him.
01:15:45.000I've met a couple girls like that before.
01:16:15.000Yeah, it's just like you can force them into a potted plant, and they'll just start following each other, and next thing you know, they're all dead.
01:17:09.000So I think there's also a problem with entertainment, like the anthropomorphizing of animals and Disney movies and things along those lines.
01:17:15.000So when you think of an animal, you think of this big, furry, lovable thing.
01:17:48.000I got a four-year-old son and he watched this little show called The Lion Guard which is like in all these animals Get together and they're all friends and we started watching he would ask questions and stuff and and now I'm like we watch you know if you want to watch the Lion Guard that's fine and but I've explained to him like the cheetah and the lion and the hippo they don't get along they're not buddies and we watched Discovery Channel and he watches you know like the day we just watched the wildebeest a couple days ago which the wildebeest getting eaten by the by the crocodile and he was just like Whoa!
01:18:19.000You know, it's like, and now, like, when it comes up, he's like, well, that's just pretend, but I want to watch that.
01:18:24.000And it's like, that's fine as long as we know, you know, that's not really how it goes.
01:18:27.000You know, we'll go to Discovery Channel and watch, you know, Killers on the Savannah, and, you know, it's like, wow, you know, the lion doesn't get along with anybody.
01:18:36.000To think that, you know, well, it's just a big peaceful thing and they're all this big symbiotic relationship and they all love each other.
01:21:26.000But if we were there and we're laughing, then people get upset.
01:21:29.000There's an instinct to listen to those guys laughing while it's happening because they're filming it right through the fence and go, wow, a bunch of assholes laughing at death.
01:21:37.000But meanwhile, it's okay to laugh at it if it's on a YouTube video.
01:22:58.000I mean, you do as good a job as you can at putting forward an educated...
01:23:03.000You know, opinion of why, what we do and, and, and at the same time being, you know, where I'm unapologetic about it too.
01:23:10.000It's not like somebody, there's not a conversation that could convince me that what I'm doing isn't what I was meant to do.
01:23:16.000You know, when it comes to hunting, I mean, you, you, you, you know, you put forward that, you know, we try and tell people about it and educate people as to what it is and people are going to feel how they're going to feel.
01:23:25.000But at the end of the day, I mean, nothing's going to change with us either.
01:23:30.000How did you go from being a guy who's obsessed with being the best hunter you could possibly be and wanting to be the best hunter in the world?
01:23:36.000How did you go from that to working for a Sitka, an apparel company, a hunting company, and then going to Kuyu?
01:23:42.000Well, after I killed that big elk, I started writing some stories.
01:23:50.000You know, there's a lot of guys that get something, have a great stroke and luck in life, and all of a sudden they kill one big thing, or they win one small lottery or whatever, and you never hear from again.
01:24:00.000And that was like, you know, growing up being a hunter, like, to kill this huge elk was, yeah, I was just, I mean, right place at the right time.
01:24:06.000An amazing thing for me, but I was, at the time, super conscious that I don't want to be a one-hit wonder.
01:25:15.000You have the credibility to say this is good stuff or not, and not because you did social media reps, but because you actually had been out there using it.
01:25:25.000And killed big stuff and had the track record.
01:25:28.000So I met him at trade show, and like I said, every now and again in life you have something that's just right place at the right time, and I had killed that big elk, and it kind of was getting known, and I met him in the booth, and he's like, you're that kid that killed that big elk.
01:25:43.000Yeah, and so we hit it off and I started helping him test and gear and shot a commercial for him down and stuff and we just became really good friends and then when the whole deal went down in Sitka, he, you know, it's like when your guy, you know, your guy is, you know, There and is leaving,
01:26:12.000What did you think about this pursuit that he's on to create the most finely engineered, like to the extreme products, like what he's doing?
01:26:28.000I don't want to say it was like in November or something, the year before he's...
01:26:31.000Kuyu was already started, but beforehand, he basically is like Nostradamus in hindsight.
01:26:38.000I mean, he's like, listen, he breaks out this.
01:26:41.000I'll never forget, he had this briefcase, and he pulled this thing out, and it was a carbon fiber frame.
01:26:45.000And he's like, this is the backpack we're coming out with, and the whole business model and all that.
01:26:50.000And it's like, I'm not the smartest guy in the world, but when I meet a really smart dude that's got a really good idea, you know, I'm not that dumb.
01:27:47.000And when you see the pursuit of excellence in another form, you go, well, there it is.
01:27:50.000Like, that's how it is with me when I started seeing your company, and I see a company that's trying to, like, deeply and seriously engineer something.
01:27:59.000I geek out on shit that I'm not even interested in buying.
01:28:02.000Like, if someone's making the craziest grandfather clock in the world, and I see this guy that's engineering these things so it's accurate to, like, one 18th of one second over 20 years, I'm like, oh, What's going on in this dude's brain that makes him want to make this unbelievable grandfather clock?
01:28:38.000I wouldn't say I'm necessarily the best at doing like super intricate things or knowing exactly how to get there but when you see somebody that knows how to get there and like it'd be a good combination and you can you know assist in that and somebody that when they're headed on the on the right direction it's like yeah I'm down with that and and then you know I have my input on what what we do but you know at the end of the day it's you know a lot of it is you know and how he goes about stuff it's cool to watch I mean it's like it it's I always tell people like at what we do is It's
01:29:22.000When you look at the future of this, How far can you keep pushing this?
01:29:27.000I mean, this is a fairly new thing that people have been ridiculously engineering hunting and outdoor equipment, and it obviously exists in the mountaineering world and the REIs.
01:29:39.000Every year, they're trying to come up with better and better stuff.
01:30:08.000I mean, I search the globe on a continuous basis for what's new, what's next, align myself with the innovation leaders for every single category, whether it's marina wool, whether it's leathers, or whether it's For our gloves or whether it's carbon fiber for our packs.
01:30:23.000We had our designer down at Stanford meet with a carbon fiber scientist down there that's working on some leading edge technologies around carbon fiber that won't even get to market for a few years.
01:30:32.000We're that interested in seeing what's next.
01:30:42.000And there's always new ways to make things.
01:30:45.000And that's why I tag the line for the business of Ultralight.
01:30:48.000Because if I can find a way to shave an ounce or a gram, There's a reason to redo that product.
01:30:55.000There's a reason to reinvent that product because that makes a difference.
01:31:00.000And that was my focus with this is that Toray's technology and how they make their yarn, carbon fiber, it all led to ultralight.
01:31:06.000And ultralight means performance in the mountains.
01:31:09.000And so my goal is to get our weights continuously to come down as far as our product without giving up performance.
01:31:14.000And that's through using really innovative technologies and designs that are all focused around that.
01:31:20.000And, I mean, from where we started to where we are now, I mean, we've taken pounds and pounds of weight out of people's kits and packs and seen the results, and it's been amazing to watch people that normally would walk into the mountains with a 70-pound pack, now leaving with a 40-pound pack and coming back and saying, made all the difference in the world.
01:31:37.000And I thought I was done because of pack weight.
01:31:41.000Now, have you guys thought about implementing any sort of workout routines or diet routines or things like that on your website and sort of shaping people's ideas about getting your body prepared?
01:33:06.000Until you've actually done that, I'm talking like it's not just, you know, how far or how long, but it's sustained.
01:33:13.000It's at a sustained high level of focus also, which, you know, like you can grind away at stuff and you can, you know, just go and go and go.
01:33:21.000But I mean, again, when we get, we don't just go from A to B, we have to be You know, you have to be on point in the mountains, too.
01:33:30.000You have to be ready to execute when the moment comes.
01:33:31.000You can't be just sort of trotting along like a zombie.
01:33:35.000Yeah, I mean, when you get up early in the morning, if you're not glassing every single time with the same enthusiasm and the same, whether it's your grid system or whatever, you have to be as intense on day one as you do on the last day because you could miss what you're looking for.
01:34:32.000What are you carrying around in a backpack?
01:34:34.000We have these sand bags that are set up for putting over the booms in our video room, is now what I use.
01:34:41.000You can buy them in 20 pounds, 25 pounds, 30 pounds.
01:34:43.000Increments and that's what I put in my pack to train with and so like right now as we're rolling and we're about 45 days away from a sheep hunt in the Yukon I'm really stepping up my weight so I'm training with a 90 pound pack now and I'll do a two or three hour hike 1500 to 2000 vertical feet and now I'm doing it in the middle of the day with the heat we're having because it adds another mental toughness factor to it plus as you know It adds a whole other level of fitness too when you're training in the heat.
01:35:07.000So my goal is to try to train in situations with weight and conditions that are harder than what I'll experience in the hunt.
01:35:14.000Just for the mental strength as much as it is the physical part of it.
01:35:18.000Because you get beat down on day three or day four and you just...
01:35:21.000I see a lot of guys just fold in the towel and say, I've had it.
01:36:06.000Say if there's someone listening right now that says, hey, I'm going to go on a hunt this winter or this fall, and I need to really get physically prepared, but I don't want to blow it all out in one shot.
01:36:17.000Yeah, you definitely want to build up to it.
01:36:20.000I come out of hunting, I go right back into my training.
01:36:22.000But for a lot of guys that are just getting into it, ease into it, right?
01:36:25.000I mean, you want to, like you said, start with 20 pounds and build yourself up over time because the last thing you want to do is go into hunt and hurt.
01:36:33.000I've overtrained or done too much going into hunt.
01:36:36.000And you have to be careful, especially as you age.
01:36:38.000I tend to get tendonitis and joint pain more than I ever have.
01:36:42.000And so it's managing your body through that process and having something left when you leave.
01:36:48.000But being fit enough and having your feet in good enough shape and your boots broken.
01:36:53.000I mean, there's a lot to it besides just the cardio part of it that goes into the hunt.
01:36:57.000Yeah, I think people would benefit from seeing if you could make a blog on how you do it or outline how you start off and how someone would build into it and maybe consult with someone who's an expert trainer and figure out what's the best way to get people prepared to develop an actual workout for pack hunting.
01:37:19.000Any sort of thing where you're walking uphill in the mountains with weight on your back.
01:37:25.000It's like, boy, that is an unbelievably difficult thing to do all day, every day, for several days at a time.
01:37:31.000And it's just a different biomechanical movement.
01:37:33.000I used to trail run a ton before I hunted, and that was enough.
01:37:36.000And as I've gotten older, I've realized that I need to train more specifically for hunts.
01:37:40.000And that's carrying a pack with weight.
01:37:42.000And it hits different muscle groups, as you've felt.
01:37:45.000It gets more up in your hips and more in your glutes, and it hits a whole different muscle group than trail running does or that weight training does or training on an elliptical stairmaster or whatever that is.
01:37:55.000There's no substitute for spending time in a pack with weight.
01:38:10.000As much as I lift weights and work out and kettlebells and all this stuff, I packed 100 pounds for like three quarters of a mile in the fall, and I was fucking dead.
01:38:20.000When it was over, I was like, oh my god.
01:38:22.000I can imagine 70 pounds on my back for three days at a time, walking all day.
01:39:23.000Getting away from dehydrated meals so much, to have high sodium, not a lot of nutritional value, and really trying to focus on bringing breads and peanut butters and cheeses and things that will stick with you versus high sugars and quick burns.
01:39:45.000If you really look at their calories, they're not that many calories per ounce.
01:39:49.000They're light, and some of them have higher calories per ounces than others, but I mean, Brendan's come up with a really good recipe with peanut butter and some noodles and stuff.
01:41:56.000That's one of the things that's so exciting about it.
01:41:58.000It is this unbelievably difficult Huge test, man.
01:42:02.000Now, if you're going, like, explain to me a hunt.
01:42:04.000Like, say if you're going to go on, like, a mountain goat hunt or a sheep hunt, where you know you're going to go into very difficult terrain, and you have X amount of days, how do you pack for that?
01:43:09.000At the end of it, you don't even want to eat it.
01:43:11.000And so I believe now, for me at least, and what I recommend to our customers is bring food you like now that you love and focus on that stuff versus trying to get crazy on something new you haven't tried and thinking, okay, I'll go to REI and buy all these different type of exotic bars and that'll be my food source.
01:43:27.000Dude, before I was on a ketogenic diet, I was eating like 10 of those Pro Bars a day, so I don't know what you're talking about.
01:43:32.000Those peanut butter and chocolate ones?
01:44:27.000If you've never done it before and, you know, all of a sudden you go on this great big trip and you're stressed, you know, you're traveling and all this stuff and all of a sudden, you know, it's like throwing diesel into an unleaded car.
01:44:37.000I mean, if you've never ran on that before, you don't really know how you're going to run on it.
01:45:40.000Well, hunger goes away in some sort of a weird way.
01:45:43.000And there's also a bunch of different people that are involved in this now that are coming up with snacks and different foods that you could take with you.
01:45:51.000That's one of the reasons why I wanted to ask you guys what you're carrying around.
01:45:54.000But once your body's into ketosis, then you just need high-fat, high-fat Fat content foods, and you've got to figure out how to keep them okay, or keep them from going bad while you're out there in the mountain.
01:46:05.000But almond butter, things along those lines.
01:46:06.000Yeah, we're bringing a lot more of that than powder bars.
01:46:09.000Yeah, and peanut butter, the problem with peanut butter is most peanut butter you're going to get is going to be loaded up with sugar.
01:46:15.000You're going to get the insulin spikes, you're going to get the crashes.
01:46:18.000When you're talking about 20 pounds of food, that doesn't seem like a lot.
01:46:22.000If you tell me 20 pounds of food for how many days?
01:48:16.000You just rip the top off it, shove it in your mouth, and chew it down.
01:48:20.000And you can see what all the ingredients are.
01:48:23.000It's ketogenic, and it's got cacao, it's got turmeric, cinnamon, sea salt, maca, honey, grass-fed butter, It's all like super, super good stuff.
01:48:35.000But it's, you know, a lot of calories for like a little tiny thing, but very nutrient dense.
01:48:39.000And for someone who's trying to burn off nothing but fats, it's a good way to go.
01:49:23.000And one of the things that I'm finding with myself and with a lot of my friends who've gone on it is your testosterone goes up, noticeably.
01:49:29.000And some guys, it's going up by double.
01:49:32.000It's because the precursors for testosterone, it's all about fats.
01:49:36.000It's all about your body turns fats, saturated fats and cholesterol, all that stuff that you're eating from healthy fats turns that into hormones.
01:49:47.000And it's one of the big problems with going on high carb, low fat diets is that your body has a difficult time creating hormones through that.
01:49:56.000Really interesting and new stuff that's coming out is that these guys that are taking it, they're finding that when they're doing their blood tests, that their testosterone levels are higher, their growth hormone levels are higher.
01:50:37.000If you go back five years ago and you read some of the studies that are done and what people recommend for as far as diet, now, today, it's totally contrary to that.
01:53:48.000He beat down Mayhem Miller as a TKO. But the TKOs, yeah.
01:53:53.000I mean, he's also sitting down on his punches better.
01:53:56.000Jason Perillo, his boxing coach, has really been working with him and done a fantastic job with him and with Chris Cyborg and a bunch of other people that he trains.
01:54:04.000The build-up to that reminded me of...
01:54:06.000Keith Jardine talking about Houston Alexander.
01:54:09.000It was like, I kept thinking, like, man, he's really dismissive, like, not even in my league and all that stuff, and all of a sudden, you're done.
01:54:27.000Yeah, and the last thing you want to be is the guy that says, this guy can't beat me, I'm gonna go in there and fuck him up, and then you wake up with a flashlight in your eyes.
01:54:39.000And then you have to deal with that ego that allows, like, the ego tells you that it's gonna protect you from all this, you know, you're the baddest motherfucker ever, you don't have to need to worry about shit.
01:54:49.000Hoo, I don't even have to worry, and then BLAM! And you're like, God damn it, ego.
01:55:45.000Most arenas have them now, and you take these little radios, and you turn them on, and it actually has a frequency that picks up the commentary.
01:57:04.000At a certain point in time in that hunt, You either get them or you don't like that the percentages work out like that I mean, it's that's that's the cool thing about it.
01:57:13.000Well, I think also like honey, it's very It's not perceived correctly by a lot of people.
01:57:18.000It's very misunderstood And a lot of people think of it as this barbaric awful thing involving bullies and assholes when really they're incredibly intelligent difficult people were pursuing one of the most One of the most difficult things to do with dire physical consequences if you fail.
01:57:34.000Those bullies and assholes, they don't have the dedication to get there.
01:57:38.000Well, they don't have the understanding of who they actually are.
01:57:41.000In order to face your own fears, like a lot of the bullies and the assholes, you can get a certain...
01:57:47.000Distance with that, with physical power and genetic attributes.
01:57:51.000I mean, some guys just hit fucking hard, and they're just good at taking a shot, and if you stand in front of them and wail with them, they might catch you and knock you out and beat your ass, and you just got beat by a bully.
01:58:01.000But the reality is, when those guys get to Estipe Miocic or Cain Velasquez or, you know, the best of the best, they're going to get fucked up.
01:58:17.000They have their understanding in order.
01:58:19.000And those guys are some of the nicest, most down-to-earth people you're ever going to meet because they get their ego checked on a daily basis.
01:58:26.000Every one of them I've met, we have some guys that are customers of ours, TJ and Mendez, and I mean they're really sharp guys, very sharp, and very nice, very polite, not assholes, very thoughtful, I mean just great people to be around.
01:58:42.000And they also recognize that same thing in hunting.
01:59:35.000It's this medal trophy thing that you get for playing football in college.
01:59:38.000And then he's the quarterback for now the Cardinals, but then he was Cincinnati, and he had a guy on the team that took him hunting during one of their bye weeks.
01:59:48.000He grew up in Orange County like I did.
01:59:50.000And he said the first time a deer walked under his stand, a buck, The adrenaline and the DNA of that process took over, and he is just a diehard hunter now.
02:01:23.000Well, it's flat out better for you, too.
02:01:25.000Yeah, and I'm really into pursuing the art of cooking it in a bunch of different ways, too.
02:01:31.000And that's another thing that I learned from Rinella.
02:01:34.000I'm getting Hank Shaw, who I think lives up your way, too.
02:01:37.000He's a wild game cook, a famous chef who's Turned to becoming a hunter because he was interested in trying to prepare this food and being more connected with food.
02:01:48.000So then he started hunting and then using...
02:01:50.000He uses a lot of local ingredients, too.
02:01:53.000A lot of, like, ingredients from the area where the animal actually lives.
02:02:50.000Chefs like Anthony Bourdain, he took me hunting in Montana recently.
02:02:53.000We went on a pheasant hunt, and he's a big fan of doing that as well, as cooking the animals that he hunts himself and showing you how to prepare it properly.
02:03:04.000He's done that a bunch of times on his show and very involved in it.
02:03:09.000Yeah, it's actually fun to put different marinades, put different recipes together.
02:03:13.000I mean, I throw it on the barbecue, but there's a lot that goes into it.
02:03:15.000And then also, you know, something that people don't do, I think, enough of with Wild Game, they wonder why it doesn't taste right.
02:03:21.000I don't know if you do that with yours.
02:03:23.000I do sometimes, yeah, but most of the time I just cook it.
02:03:26.000Yeah, I mean, it's better if you age it.
02:03:28.000You can do a quick age in your fridge where you put up like on a rack in like a pan or a plate with like a wire rack that gets it off the bottom of it and then put foil over the top and let that blood drain out.
02:05:10.000But do you do that in a fridge right there?
02:05:11.000It just seems weird because people don't do it, but it's like a guy I know, that big African PH, he'll take a whole hindquarter and Steve Cobreen, he told me this.
02:05:20.000He'll take a whole hindquarter and put it in a fridge at his house for 30 days.
02:08:59.000And you do it as a rub, and you put the kebabs on that thing.
02:09:02.000Granted, you're starving to death by the time you kill this animal and put it on the fire, but it is off the hook.
02:09:07.000Well, when I hunted with Ronella the very first time and shot a mule deer, and then we ate the liver that night, we hung up most of the meat in the tree because it was pretty close to dark, and we went back the next day to pack it out.
02:09:19.000But when we went back to camp and ate liver and onions...
02:09:23.000Like, from an animal that died two hours ago.
02:09:26.000It was like the most insanely delicious food I've ever had in my life.
02:09:29.000I couldn't believe how good it tastes.
02:09:31.000Yeah, you guys hunted down from the ferry up on the Missouri up there.
02:09:59.000See if you can find this, because it's pretty funny.
02:10:03.000We were there, and Ranella is obsessed with these bighorn sheep and their balls, and he's like, the moment I kill one of these things, I'm going to kill it, and I'm going to take one of those balls, and I'm just going to eat it.
02:11:05.000When you go home and tell people what a bad spot I took you to, and you say, boy we didn't see a lot of bighorns though, what they're gonna say is something like, what kind of dumbass hunts mule deer in bighorn country?
02:12:19.000Well, he's another really important factor in educating people about hunting because he's a very well-read, very intelligent guy, very educated, and really very, very ethical.
02:12:30.000I mean, as ethical and as driven as you can be.
02:12:34.000Do you read his book, American Buffalo?
02:12:48.000Well, he had this guy on his podcast, Dan Flores, who is a wildlife biologist, wildlife historian, I should say.
02:12:55.000It's an amazing podcast where he details the history of animals and European settlers coming over here and wiping out of the various animals and what's being done to try to restore that.
02:13:06.000They're trying to do something called the American Serengeti, where they're trying to put together an area, a protected area as big as Yellowstone, but that's actually going to involve hunting.
02:13:34.000But, you know, that's a huge success story right there.
02:13:36.000I mean, those sheep were planted back in the 1970s.
02:13:38.000It's probably the biggest herd in Montana and certainly the best sheep hunting in the world.
02:13:44.000They were planted in there in the 70s and started hunting in about 1990. They restarted hunting again.
02:13:51.000They were totally brought back money from an auction tag, put a transplant in there and they've exploded onto the landscape.
02:13:58.000They were shot out by market hunting and domestic sheep interaction years ago and then brought back and now it's the best place in the world.
02:14:09.000And that's also an interesting thing, these auction tags, which is really weird, where you let someone, you give them this opportunity to hunt, and a lot of times these guys are spending hundreds of thousands of dollars.
02:14:21.000I got the most expensive tag in history, $485,000.
02:15:03.000It's a donation to wildlife if you really care about wildlife.
02:15:06.000And it gives the guy an opportunity to take...
02:15:09.000And again, if you're a billionaire, if you've made a ton of money and you care about wildlife and you love to hunt, why would you not do that?
02:15:34.000Money for wildlife that would not exist if they didn't do it.
02:15:37.000It's one tag and raised a half a million dollars.
02:15:39.000Well, that's the big contradiction when people talk about hunting and hunting being for conservation and how it helps conservation.
02:15:45.000That is one of the biggest examples of it is how much money goes into helping these animals and habitat preservation and reintroducing them to areas like what the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation has done with reintroducing elk to a bunch of different places.
02:15:59.000Sheep is the biggest success in North America.
02:16:12.000I mean, you are paying, the guy is paying money as a tax donation, and he's giving money to something he truly cares about, that he loves, and has probably grown up doing.
02:16:21.000This guy was self-made, started painting boards in West Virginia, and started a bank and made a billion dollars.
02:16:54.000And the guy, he was paying for the opportunity.
02:16:57.000It'd be a hell of a lot easier to buy a great big head to put on your wall than it would to spend that much money and then go out there and maybe not get them.
02:17:22.000And in 2010, a friend of ours was with a guy who killed a ram up in the brakes, same deal, exact same area you were in, and there was a big ram standing with it.
02:17:32.000There was two big rams together, he killed one of them.
02:17:34.000And the next year when we were up there scouting, we came across this ram, like, that's the same ram in the photo.
02:17:41.000They took a photo right before they killed it.
02:17:43.000And then we tried to hunt him in 2012, didn't get him.
02:17:46.000And in 2013, it was like this ram, he was really big, and then he slipped through two years.
02:17:55.000And it was all of a sudden, you know, we let a few guys know that, hey, there's not an unusually big ram up here.
02:18:02.000And if you want a chance to hunt it, it's unique in the time frame and the fact that There's not always big sheep around.
02:18:08.000I mean, this is one year, this ram is alive right now, and we told a few guys, and five guys went, you know, there was five guys that were willing to pay half a million dollars.
02:18:16.000I mean, there was five guys bid in over $460,000 for the opportunity to hunt this area.
02:18:52.000I snuck him into 12 yards, came over the top on it, and a resident hunter Being a dick, came down the ridge and spooked the sheep, spotted us, knew we were hunting a sheep, and came down and spooked the ram, but he should have killed it with a bow.
02:20:15.000And we had seen him for a couple years and he had a really small body and he was actually a non-dominant sheep and was just kind of floating around out there.
02:20:32.000For an animal like that to live that long Nature is so incredible in its diversity that this is something that we have here in North America, this incredible animal, just a strange looking...
02:20:42.000We're so used to them, we know they exist, so I don't think we kind of appreciate them as much as if you were just introduced to them as an adult, if you'd never heard of or seen it before, it'd probably blow you away.
02:20:59.000I always say, like, with desert sheep, you know, they have this tiny little neck, and it's like, when you see one out in the desert, a desert sheep, a big ram, it's like, they wouldn't look any stranger if they were green.
02:21:08.000Like, if they landed on Mars, if they landed on Mars, and all of a sudden there was a desert sheep pop to set up, you'd be like, that's about what I thought it'd be here.
02:21:27.000There's a video, a crazy video, where this ram starts moving towards this cow and the cow's calf, and the cow decides it's going to headbutt this ram.
02:22:14.000When they hit, and then there's like this state of right after a guy, you know, right after you take a huge uppercut, and they just stand there and kind of go, oh.
02:22:22.000And then they kind of come back, and they're like, all right, let's do that again.
02:23:01.000So it's this move right here, and then when they're posturing and kicking each other around, their other move is they get behind each other and smash each other in the balls.
02:23:07.000The front kick to the nuts is a bighorn sheep.
02:23:54.000Well, being out there in the wild, you get to experience firsthand the diversity of all these wild, like mule deer with their incredible racks, or elk, or bighorn sheep, and there's so many bizarre creations.
02:25:31.000And it's also strange to me how you see when it's all over, they bachelor up.
02:25:35.000When the rut's over, we went moose hunting in BC last year, and when the rut was over, we found these bachelor groups of moose that probably were trying to kill each other just a couple weeks ago.
02:25:44.000Well, you know, as though you beat up somebody, your best friend's after, right?
02:26:25.000Aside from the rut and a few times where they interact, the rest of the time, if you're seeing tons of cows, you're in the wrong spot, dude.
02:26:32.000Well, that's what I told you about when I was in Montana.
02:26:34.000We saw a hundred elk together, all cows.
02:27:24.000And it's like everything else gets tuned out, too.
02:27:27.000It's like this laser focus of what's happening right then.
02:27:30.000All your senses go way up, at least for me, as far as smell.
02:27:34.000And you can feel the slightest breeze in your face.
02:27:37.000You know, you can see that animal move really, really close like you'd never would notice before because of that laser focus intensity just kind of takes over your whole system.
02:27:47.000And there's something about tricking an animal that's whole focus in life is to not get caught.
02:27:53.000That is a great sense of feeling like you do everything right in the right place and this thing walks by and like, oh, and arrows already on the way.
02:29:14.000I've seen deer do some crazy things, like lay down on the ground and, like, hide from hunters and let hunters walk right by them, like, within yards.
02:29:22.000Sneak away from people, and you go, those guys never knew they were five yards away from a giant buck, and that thing just totally outsmarted them.
02:29:57.000I think it's amazing and we're so lucky in this country that the people like Teddy Roosevelt and the people that founded these areas for public land, they set them aside and allowed these places to be established where these animals can live and we never have to worry about them being taken over and they build malls there.
02:30:17.000I mean, it's a really beautiful part of America.
02:30:19.000Even if you don't have any desire whatsoever to hunt, the fact that you can go up there and backpack and camp and That's awesome.
02:33:51.000And I had a picture of this ram and he had showed up on the winter range and then disappeared into this abyss called the Bob Marshall Wilderness.
02:33:58.000And it's like, I'm going to go in there and find him.
02:34:01.000And how many total days were you hunting?
02:34:41.000So yeah, I mean I was after this one sheep and I thought, and you know like when you talk about really getting to know animals, he had showed up on the winter range and twice.
02:34:49.000We had pictures of him two years in a row on the winter range and it's just like okay we got a picture of this big ram.
02:34:54.000Well, you know, I start looking at the pictures and comparing them and all of a sudden I noticed that in one picture from 2013, or from 2012 and one in 2013, he had the same two young rams with him.
02:35:07.000A year apart, 10 miles apart in distance, and he had the same two sheep with him.
02:35:12.000You know, most people would be like, oh, it's just a sheep, and then there's a little half curl, and then there's a young, kind of unique looking ram with them, and I'm looking like, it's the same ram.
02:35:21.000So all of a sudden, I got a ram band that I'm looking for there.
02:35:23.000You know, it's kind of a symbiotic relationship.
02:35:25.000Young rams allow old rams, or old rams allow young rams to follow them around.
02:35:30.000They show them kind of the hills, and they kind of tolerate them.
02:35:33.000It's not like, hey, you're my buddy or anything.
02:35:35.000They just kind of like, when the senses start to slip, you'll see old rams with young rams.
02:35:39.000And they're keeping an eye on their back for them.
02:35:57.000So he had these two young rams with him.
02:36:01.000Basically, knowing enough about sheep behavior, I was like, okay, I'm looking for this old ram in this massive area, but I'm actually looking for three sheep.
02:36:08.000Because if I see either of those two young rams without him, I'll know he's dead.
02:36:11.000It makes a big difference in 500 square miles to look for three sheep versus one, apparently, huh?
02:36:58.000I wanted to have like an epic hunt and just to see if I could do it, see if I could find him.
02:37:03.000And I hadn't found those young rams in the 23rd day.
02:37:07.000I said I heard them popping heads, started glassing, cutting the timber apart, and all of a sudden, you know, another key to the puzzle, all of a sudden there's that little young ram that was with him standing in the timber.
02:38:49.000Well, that's a good story to end this with because that sort of embodies what I appreciate about what you guys do.
02:38:54.000That you guys are really like the one-tenth of the one-percenters of the outliers of the crazy people that are pursuing this as just an incredibly difficult biological puzzle.