Order of Man - Become the Hunter

00:00:00.000 As many of you know, I have begun to immerse myself more deeply in the world of hunting.

00:00:04.540 I've always been fascinated with the life and mindset of a hunter, but never really

00:00:08.440 grew up being too exposed to it. And now that I am, my mind has been open to what it truly

00:00:13.360 means to not only be a hunter, but a conservationist as well. Today, I am joined by a man that I

00:00:18.880 have been watching for a long time, Mr. Donnie Vincent. He's a filmmaker, a conservationist,

00:00:23.660 a hunter, and one of the most trusted voices when it comes to the symbiotic relationship

00:00:28.760 between the hunter and the hunted. We talk about how we have not evolved out of hunting,

00:00:34.620 how ignorance around hunting is hurting all of us, how to become a better steward over

00:00:39.580 our resources, and how to become the hunter. You're a man of action. You live life to the

00:00:44.580 fullest. Embrace your fears and boldly chart your own path. When life knocks you down, you

00:00:49.680 get back up one more time, every time. You are not easily deterred or defeated, rugged, resilient,

00:00:56.080 strong. This is your life. This is who you are. This is who you will become. At the end

00:01:02.320 of the day, and after all is said and done, you can call yourself a man.

00:01:07.800 Gentlemen, what is going on today? My name is Ryan Michler, and I am the host and the founder

00:01:11.440 of this podcast, The Order of Man. It is my job to go out into the world, find men who are

00:01:18.380 achieving in every metric of life. I mean, we've had New York Times bestselling authors, we've

00:01:23.880 had athletes, scholars, warriors. I mean, you name it. If there's a man out there who's

00:01:29.120 achieving some level of success in his life, it's my goal to go out, have a conversation

00:01:34.780 with that individual, extract some of their knowledge and wisdom and information, and

00:01:39.180 distill that down into these conversations that will help you and me and every other

00:01:42.680 man listening more adequately step up in his life and the lives of the people that he has

00:01:47.620 an obligation and responsibility for and in his community and business, every facet of life.

00:01:52.120 As you know, if you've been with us for even just the past two or three weeks, guys, we've

00:01:57.220 had some incredible, incredible guests on the show. We had Chris Hogan, TJ Dillashaw,

00:02:02.100 we had last week David Goggins, and then this week we have Donnie Vincent. So the lineup is

00:02:07.180 very, very powerful. I hope that if you have been with us for any amount of time, you are

00:02:11.340 enjoying the conversations, and more importantly, that you're applying them. When I started Order

00:02:16.320 of Man four years ago, it was my goal to help bridge the gap between what we as men know

00:02:21.420 we should be doing and what we're actually doing. So if you are applying this information,

00:02:26.220 you're learning, you're improving your life, please keep the messages and emails that you

00:02:30.840 are sending to me. Keep those coming because that is the fuel that quite honestly lights

00:02:35.620 my fire a little bit and gets me going and makes me want to continue to do what it is

00:02:39.800 we're doing here and continue to level up the guest and level up my ability to have

00:02:43.460 conversations with these guys. I know and I recognize that I could not do it without you.

00:02:47.920 I've got a great one again lined up for you today. Before I get into that, I do just want

00:02:52.200 to make sure that I introduce you to my friends over at Origin, Maine. And again, a lot of you

00:02:59.160 are probably already familiar with what these guys are doing. If you're not, everything they

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00:03:08.940 lineup that they have. And then also their nutritional lineup. It's the joint warfare, the super krill,

00:03:14.620 the mulk, which is a protein supplement. It's all made a hundred percent in America, in Maine.

00:03:20.060 I've toured these guys' facilities. They have two facilities now, and I'm telling you, they're running

00:03:24.500 an amazing, amazing organization over there. And of course, all their nutritional lineup with Jocko

00:03:29.820 as well. So I know a lot of this stuff is stuff you're using, and I've received a lot of positive

00:03:36.220 feedback from what you're using. I certainly have experienced the results in my life when I'm using

00:03:41.880 the super krill and all the other supplements that they offer. So go check it out. Origin,

00:03:46.440 Maine.com again, origin, Maine as in the state, Maine.com. And then if you end up picking anything

00:03:52.060 up, make sure you use the code order or D E R at checkout because you're going to get a discount

00:03:56.680 when you do. And that's always good. If you're going to buy it anyways, get the discount origin,

00:03:59.940 Maine.com and then use the code order. All right, guys, with that said, let me introduce you to

00:04:05.440 my guest. I know a lot of you guys are probably familiar with Donnie. He's somebody that I told you

00:04:09.940 before. I deeply, deeply admire and respect regarding his work with the wilderness. I mean,

00:04:14.980 this is a man who truly has immersed himself in the connection with nature. And he is one of the

00:04:20.980 leading voices and champions of sustainable and ethical hunting. Now he's a biologist. He's a hunter,

00:04:26.640 a explorer, a conservationist, sportsman, and also a filmmaker. And this is one of his most powerful

00:04:32.840 pursuits from my perspective is his films and that of storyteller. I mean, he creates amazing,

00:04:38.200 amazing films, documenting his journey into the wilderness, his connection with nature

00:04:42.960 and the hunts that he pursues. So if you've ever considered hunting, or if you, even if you already

00:04:48.560 are, then following Donnie should be an absolute requirement. I hope you guys enjoy this conversation.

00:04:56.060 Donnie, what's up, brother? Thanks for joining me on the show. I know it's a busy time of year for

00:04:59.740 you. So I'm glad that you car some time out to join us.

00:05:02.700 Oh, I appreciate being asked. It's a big honor. Really. I appreciate it. It is a busy time of year,

00:05:07.120 but the busy times seem to be getting closer and closer to one another as we go here. So

00:05:11.780 it's incredible. Thank you. Yeah, you bet. I mean, people say like it's busy right now. It's always

00:05:15.720 busy, right? I mean, it should be in a way we should be busy and consumed with the things that

00:05:19.760 we want to be consumed with. I think that's where you've actually done a really good job is that

00:05:23.620 most people I would say are consumed with things they may not be that interested in,

00:05:28.440 but you seem to be consumed with things that you've had a passion for, for a very, very long time.

00:05:33.560 That's exactly right. I often get asked just because people are curious, you know,

00:05:38.000 obviously, I shouldn't say obviously, but I own a production company in Hudson, Wisconsin, that largely

00:05:43.940 does quite a bit of work in the outdoor space, whether that be archery hunting, rifle hunting,

00:05:49.540 fly fishing, regular fishing, whatever, backpacking. We do a bunch of commercial work for different

00:05:54.260 companies, and then we produce a number of outdoor adventure films wrapped around myself.

00:05:59.140 And so people ask me, when you're not making a hunting film or a documentary,

00:06:03.360 and you're not filming commercials for other companies, what is it that you're doing? And

00:06:08.660 the answer is I'm hunting and fishing without a camera. That's literally what I'm either working

00:06:13.920 out, grocery shopping, or I'm in the woods trying to get groceries. That's basically what it breaks

00:06:19.780 out to.

00:06:20.660 Has it always been that way? Because I think there's a lot of guys who would love to,

00:06:24.760 maybe it's not hunting, but find something that are extremely passionate about and be able

00:06:29.000 to build a lifestyle around it. Has this always been viable for you?

00:06:33.820 It has. It's always been at the forefront of my mind. I didn't know that I was going to do this for

00:06:39.080 work. And I'm so thankful that I get to, but it's always been at the forefront of my mind. When I was

00:06:44.640 a kid, this is literally all I thought about. When I would pour through books that my father had on

00:06:50.420 the shelf, I was completely inspired to want to hunt and fish and to want to go to the wilderness.

00:06:55.700 And again, I had no idea that this would become a job for me, but that's how things trend. In fact,

00:07:01.500 when I was in college and I went to college, I went to get a degree in wildlife biology because I

00:07:06.000 thought, okay, obviously I love hunting. I love fishing. And even though I didn't grow up in a

00:07:10.980 hunting and fishing household, but it was something that I wanted to do. I've known since as long as I

00:07:15.800 can remember, I had known that I wanted to hunt fish, but without having a mentor living with me,

00:07:20.760 without having my dad kind of guiding me along, it just always lived in my mind. And I would go

00:07:26.020 about my regular life and just constantly think about it, read about it. When I started going to

00:07:30.120 school, I thought I'll get a degree in wildlife biology and this will be incredible because I'll

00:07:34.540 go out and do research in the field. And it worked out perfectly. That's exactly how it worked.

00:07:38.520 And when I was in school, I was still hunting a ton, maybe even too much. It's odd now,

00:07:46.160 but I had several friends kind of sit me down and say, Hey man, like you need to start taking

00:07:51.860 life a little bit more serious. You're like, I am taking it serious.

00:07:55.820 Yeah. And basically that's was kind of my rebuttal is they were confusing. You know, I'd be a freshman

00:08:01.620 in college and I'd go up to Alaska for a week or two and I'd come home and then I'd have to pull

00:08:06.460 all nighters to try to get ready for exams. I wouldn't get very good scores on my exams,

00:08:11.220 still garnering the material, still going into my brain, but I wasn't testing very well. And,

00:08:15.500 and I was, you know, needed rest and was stressed out. And friends of mine that were close to me could

00:08:21.260 see this. Like, Hey man, like, you know, maybe you shouldn't be going to Alaska. And I just think

00:08:25.420 I would tell them that's not an option. I have to go. I have to spend time in the wilderness. I have

00:08:31.340 to see these animals. These are the things that I want to live for. So I'm going to go do that.

00:08:36.460 And work and I'll deal with my college studies in the background where we are ingrained to do the

00:08:43.240 opposite. We're ingrained to be good students. We're ingrained to go to college and be really

00:08:46.900 good students there and earn a good job, buy a nice house, buy a nice car, and to kind of fill

00:08:52.340 out our self, you know, our resume, if you will, and try to try to be as big as we can to our,

00:08:58.040 our family and friends. It's my opinion anyway.

00:09:00.600 No, I think you're right. I think that's why they are confused and probably others who look at your

00:09:04.480 life and wonder what the heck is this guy doing, you know, because it is not a traditional route.

00:09:09.500 Although you seem to have a lot of success with it and just the personal satisfaction and

00:09:14.560 accomplishment that comes with the adventures you've been on.

00:09:16.720 It kind of became itself, right? You know, I met some guys, like I said, I was doing this,

00:09:22.580 I was telling these stories and it was funny. I'd go to the Arctic circle. I'd hunt caribou. I'd come home.

00:09:28.700 I met some friends that work in the outdoor space for different companies and they'd ask me just

00:09:34.560 outright, hey, what is it that you do? And I said, oh, I work as a biologist or, you know,

00:09:39.300 I'm in college right now. And as we get to know each other, I'd say, oh, sweet, you know,

00:09:43.140 I just got back from Alaska. Oh, no kidding. Yep. What were you doing? You know, I was all up in the

00:09:47.200 Arctic circle. Oh, no kidding. You know, and then you kind of flesh out the story of what happened and

00:09:52.100 then they're fascinated by it. So then they, you know, in a circle of friends, they have you tell

00:09:56.460 another friend the story and then another friend the story. And so people just kept asking me my

00:10:00.200 story and kept asking me of the place that I've been and the things that I've done and the animals

00:10:04.680 that I've researched. And the more adventure that I filled myself with, it seemed the more people

00:10:09.760 wanted to ask me questions and to hear stories of the latest. And so that kind of just perpetuated

00:10:15.600 into people starting to offer me jobs, if you will, whether it be, this is going to sound really

00:10:22.040 silly, but whether it be a modeling gig, because I started being asked to model some products in

00:10:27.400 different genres, right? Outdoor space. When I first started out, you know, they're like,

00:10:31.400 hey, well, you know, we want to use you on a couple of these photos. Will you wear this backpack? And

00:10:34.940 I'm thinking, yeah, oh my God, somebody's going to pay me on my picture tape today. Yeah, sure.

00:10:38.820 Done.

00:10:39.720 And that kind of snowballed into a photographer named John Hafner. I was a very talented outdoor

00:10:45.540 photographer. He, he tagged along with me on a, on a sheep hunting trip up into the Yukon for 10

00:10:51.680 days one time. And when we got back, not only did I have this fantastic story of the hunt,

00:10:56.800 but John had all these amazing images from the hunt. And so as I was telling people about the

00:11:01.860 story, I could show them these incredible images that John had shot. And so we had our own little

00:11:07.020 adventure ourselves of, of working as subject and photographer. And so it was just really cool

00:11:12.240 experience. It was a really cool way to tell stories at the end. And, and people responded to it so

00:11:16.920 big, you know, people were so hungry for some more of the story and some more of the content.

00:11:22.300 I just kind of started thinking like, well, maybe, maybe I should go and do a few more of these and

00:11:26.580 just share them with people. And it kind of snowballed into what we have today.

00:11:30.800 I think that's the reason that it resonates so much is because mostly what people get of hunting,

00:11:37.400 as far as the story goes, is a quick snapshot of somebody standing over a dead animal,

00:11:42.560 right? And yet here you are expanding upon not only the kill, but the adventure and the challenge

00:11:50.720 and the adversity and the lessons. And so I think there's something to be said for the format that

00:11:54.800 you've used that actually explains the heart and mind, I guess you'd say of a hunter, as opposed to

00:12:00.660 the action itself.

00:12:02.680 You know, it's funny that you say that because we see these photos and it is very difficult

00:12:07.160 difficult to identify with those photos, whether you're a hunter or a non-hunter, somebody who is

00:12:13.160 unsure about hunting. It's very difficult to identify with these types of photos. I have these

00:12:18.780 types of photos. You, if you hunt, you probably have these types of photos. It's, it's a proud moment

00:12:23.740 when you're successful. It's so rare, like a little kid, you end up taking a picture with your deer. And

00:12:28.740 some of them are very endearing. And of course, we all have our own opinions. And a lot of times I'll see

00:12:34.460 these photos with an older gentleman or a young kid, and you can almost see what happened that

00:12:40.120 morning. And, you know, you see there's a fresh snow on the ground. You see them, they're holding

00:12:44.520 this buck. You can tell, you know, they're Northern Maine or Northern Wisconsin or whatever. And,

00:12:49.080 and you kind of build this story and it warms your heart, if you will, if you're a hunter and you

00:12:53.580 smile and you move on. But some of these pictures have kind of gravitated into, you know, you see some of

00:12:59.760 these photos that are more difficult to identify with the elephants and rhinoceros and people see

00:13:06.700 these things. And certainly now with social media and computers and the, and the free sharing of,

00:13:11.800 of these images, it's tough to wrap your head around. It's a little bit more difficult to see

00:13:15.480 the story. It's a little bit more difficult to see the why. It's funny when I think about my own

00:13:20.960 hunting, when I'm fantasizing, if you will, about the things that I've done in the places that I want

00:13:26.160 to go into things. When I think about the animal being down, when I'm finally successful or something

00:13:32.760 like there's places that I go to, I'll give you a, for instance, when, when I'm up in the Arctic

00:13:37.460 circle, I've done this a number of times in my life. I seem to keep going back there. I have my camp

00:13:43.940 all set. The sky is as big as you can, as anything you can imagine. The stars are unbelievable.

00:13:49.560 I'm back in my camp. I have a fire going in my teeper, a small riverwood fire going next to my

00:13:55.860 tent. I've got my caribou hide draped over a small log or a boulder and I'm flushing out the cave,

00:14:01.920 flushing out the entire hide, if you will, like a rug. I've got the quarters of the animal and the

00:14:06.700 back straps drying on a willow rack next to me that I built. You know, I'm going to be having some of

00:14:12.100 that for dinner later on tonight. And then I can look over and see, you know, the antlers that I took

00:14:17.360 from the bull and I can see a skull and the dry blood on it. And these are the things that I

00:14:22.760 continue to go back to when I'm, when I have my own time, when I'm finding my own peace, that's the

00:14:29.000 type of hunting image that I go back to. I don't ever think about inches of antler or how good this

00:14:34.180 bear was or whatever. I always am thinking about my camp, who I was with. I kind of think about the

00:14:39.640 other animals that I saw during the day, the weather. And then I always seem to go back and finding

00:14:44.800 peace with flushing out that hide, looking at the meat, getting a good heart crossed on it,

00:14:50.720 basically being a good steward, a good hunter, a good steward of the land. And I see all these

00:14:55.460 pieces as I'm going through this, this act and it's just terribly rewarding. It's very,

00:15:00.580 very hard to describe. It sounds awfully barbaric to just say it off the cuff like that, but it's

00:15:05.520 terribly rewarding. It's really interesting because, and I had told you that I started hunting

00:15:10.100 the end of 2017 was my first hunt and it was, it was absolutely amazing. And then I remember

00:15:16.560 vividly walking up to this, this animal that I had just killed. It was a really strange feeling.

00:15:22.700 It was, it was a sense of satisfaction and pride knowing that I did what I set out to accomplish,

00:15:27.820 but also it was a little bit of a loss. I was saddened a little bit to see this amazing

00:15:33.960 whitetail deer lying there at my hands. And it's really hard to explain why somebody who cares so

00:15:41.880 much for the wild and nature like you do, uh, and, and then reconcile that with what could be

00:15:48.880 considered taking from her. Right. Yeah. That's the difficulty, but that is the nature of the beast.

00:15:54.280 That is, that is our engagement. That is how we are designed. That is our role on earth and people,

00:16:02.800 we, we, we've lost our way so significantly. There's so much factory farming and there's so

00:16:10.120 much agriculture found across the globe, so much so that it dominates any other landscape by far.

00:16:17.860 And the population of cows and pigs and chickens dominates the animal landscape so much by so far,

00:16:26.980 it's so far out of whack. That's where people tend to go with their minds. And they say that,

00:16:32.800 we're human beings, this is what we do, this is how we perpetuate, but they've almost nearly

00:16:37.660 completely forgotten that we started out as a very simple society that moved into being hunters

00:16:44.900 and gatherers. And that is this engagement that you have with the wilderness, this engagement that

00:16:50.080 you have with wild animals, this living off the land, if you will, a measured take where you're also

00:16:56.440 giving back to, to the habitat and to the land. This is the, the relationship that's designed to,

00:17:02.360 to exist. This is where we would really, really thrive. If we never, I think about this often as

00:17:08.220 well, what would the earth look like if agriculture had never been invented, discovered, and we were

00:17:15.060 still nomadic, still moving around to where wild crops were coming to fruit and still moving around to

00:17:21.680 where the herds were still raising minimal amounts of babies because we just simply couldn't still

00:17:26.760 having very high mortality rate as a species. I really wondered, um, how wild the world would

00:17:33.280 still be. Of course it'd be completely black and white what it is now. That sadness that we get

00:17:39.140 is we have that consciousness. We have that awareness. That's what makes us human beings to me

00:17:45.640 is that you have that part of your brain that you can compartmentalize this act that just happened

00:17:52.400 and realize that for lack of a better term, that you were the executioner on this day. And so there's

00:17:57.320 some guilt and there's some, not guilt, but there's some sadness that comes with the responsibility and

00:18:03.020 maybe a tiny bit of guilt as you're organizing it or, or trying to make sense of it in your mind.

00:18:07.760 But it's also, you know, by removing that buck, was it a buck? Did you say?

00:18:11.820 Yes, that's right.

00:18:13.380 Yeah. So by removing that buck, you've done almost nothing to the population. You removed an

00:18:19.480 individual. You're hunting responsibly. Some of his guts and his blood and his spur and things that

00:18:26.660 you didn't personally take with you are going to be reabsorbed back in the ground. And this energy,

00:18:32.360 we all know, cannot be generated. It's going to be consumed and transferred. It's really amazing.

00:18:38.200 And you get to, and you get to have some remarkable food for yourself. And so it's a,

00:18:42.280 it's a good engagement all around if done responsibly, if done with a conscience and always

00:18:48.820 having an idea of, of where you are, how you're engaging with the wildlife, how you're engaging

00:18:55.480 with the habitat, and just always trying to make the best decisions on how you're, how you're moving

00:19:00.340 forward with your hunt, if that makes sense.

00:19:03.100 It makes complete sense. And I think you should be saddened a little bit. If you're not, I almost

00:19:06.940 you've got to be a psychopath. If you're not saddened by, to some degree, what it is you're

00:19:11.620 doing. But I think those who are successful in their endeavors with interacting in nature,

00:19:16.680 the way you do are able to reconcile the sadness and the joy and the accomplishment that comes from,

00:19:24.040 like you said, interacting with, with nature, the way that we are intended to,

00:19:28.380 and the way we have been for hundreds of thousands of years.

00:19:30.560 And I get where you're going. Psychopath might be a little bit heavy, but you might not be very

00:19:35.820 aware. Sure. Yeah. There's a contingent of people also have the great belief that wild animals are

00:19:44.000 literally just here for our taking. I'm not, I'm not one of those people that falls in that belief. I,

00:19:49.940 I believe that we are just part of the ecosystem. Like the rest of these animals,

00:19:53.180 it's just that we are so dominant. We're overbearing on our ecosystem and theirs and we're

00:19:58.760 just taking control. So there are people that I think that are less aware or they've fallen into

00:20:04.560 the false belief that these animals were quote unquote put here for us to take and that everything

00:20:09.760 is going to trend towards harmony. A lot of people, I think really hang their hats on an understanding

00:20:16.940 that everything is going to be okay. Let's just continue on. Everything's going to be okay.

00:20:21.680 There are checks and balances in the world and there are, there are, there are some big checks

00:20:26.020 and balances that will probably be coming down the pike for human beings as we get super, super

00:20:31.700 populated. But yeah, I think you should definitely have, if you're aware at all, if you have that

00:20:38.940 conscience, that, that consciousness to sit back and look at the event that just happened,

00:20:43.820 there's definitely going to be, I think it's very normal to have some heavy sorrow and some

00:20:49.120 great perspective of the events that just took place that day. And I'm glad you said that there's

00:20:53.900 definitely that lack of awareness or maybe just an ignorance about the ramifications of what it is

00:20:58.280 that, that we're doing as we're out in the wilderness. I think the term that you used earlier,

00:21:02.080 and this makes perfect sense is being a steward, right? Yes, you are harvesting from the land,

00:21:07.540 but a good steward also gives back so that he can continue to harvest into the future and for

00:21:13.520 future generations. Yeah, absolutely. And who are we kidding? If you hunt, if you're hunting well and

00:21:19.380 good and you're hunting with the highest of ethics and you are hunting free to range animals, our

00:21:24.920 success is minimal at best. I mean, it is nominal. Yes, it is. On average, it's somewhere around like

00:21:32.140 20% success. And so when you start looking at how wildlife biologists are managing these lands,

00:21:38.620 you know, it's hunters are not making a massive impact on, on the wildlife. What's having a massive

00:21:44.980 impact on the wildlife is lack of habitat and lack of conservation and lack of setting aside

00:21:50.660 areas for them to remain wild. So these animals can, can go about their day. It's really remarkable

00:21:57.240 how much we accept how much land has been tilled under and how much land has been turned into pasture.

00:22:05.560 It's just absolutely remarkable that, um, more people aren't upset about it, but what are we

00:22:10.940 going to do? We have 7.6 billion people on the earth creating food for them is, is one of the

00:22:17.020 issues that people are solving every day. Right. And part of the problem too, is that looking at a

00:22:21.580 family eating an ear of corn or scarfing down on a big bowl of cereal, isn't quite as emotional as

00:22:28.400 somebody cooking meat that they had killed earlier that day. There's just something that comes with

00:22:34.420 taking life that isn't quite there for, or, or I should say the connection isn't there when we're

00:22:41.340 talking about harvesting crops and grain and these sorts of things. Definitely hunting, fishing,

00:22:46.980 definitely collecting your own wild forage from the forest, whether it be mushrooms or berries and,

00:22:53.420 or cultivating your own food, even on a small scale is so much more rewarding than just strolling into a,

00:23:01.160 uh, supermarket. And you definitely have a perspective that can only be gained by doing

00:23:06.760 those things. And as far as hunting, you know, a lot of people look at a picture of a guy with a

00:23:12.440 giraffe and that picture of a guy with a hippopotamus or a big grizzly bear or whatever. I don't even,

00:23:18.220 you know, everyone has their own animals, these megalophonum, these big animals that attract

00:23:22.760 emotions from people. And, and I'm guilty of the same, but they're building a wall up when they see

00:23:28.360 these images and their understanding of hunting is starts to kind of slip. And that question that

00:23:33.380 they have aren't, aren't being well orchestrated because they have a little bit of malice in their

00:23:38.680 mind. When, if you back it off, like some of your listeners that might not be hunters, but are

00:23:43.040 interested in hunting, but say, man, I don't, I, you know, I have no interest in going to Africa or,

00:23:47.840 or some of these exotic lands and shooting some of these animals. Well, the very things that you and I

00:23:52.620 are discussing can be seriously rewarding by going to a wildlife refuge near someone's home,

00:24:01.080 grabbing a 22 rifle or a, or a long gun, a shotgun and going out and hunting gray squirrels and fox

00:24:07.240 squirrels and, and cottontail rabbits and, and bringing them home and skinning them out, throwing

00:24:13.000 them in the frying pan is unbelievably rewarding and far more difficult than anyone can fathom.

00:24:19.960 But really that's the essence of hunting. That's the essence of hunting for most of us that are

00:24:24.860 serious and call ourselves hunters. It's much more represented by a goose or a duck or a squirrel,

00:24:30.560 a rabbit, a whitetail deer, maybe a wild turkey that the animals that I just listed represent

00:24:36.040 90 some percent of the animals that are being hunted in, in a fantastic fashion and, and adds so much to

00:24:43.240 your life. I mean, it defines mine.

00:24:46.000 I really liked that you talk about the seriousness of what we're doing as well, because I think there's

00:24:50.540 this, it's obvious we are mass consumers, right? And so if, if being able to have access to food

00:24:56.980 isn't challenging, it's significantly easier to consume, just like it's easier to spend other

00:25:01.360 people's money. Right. But the more that I realize how challenging the hunt actually is,

00:25:06.560 the more that I appreciate when we do sit down at the dinner table and have a meal together.

00:25:12.600 And I'm not consuming as much because I realize, Oh, this actually takes effort. And there's a

00:25:18.260 symbiotic relationship between the amount of effort I exert and the food my family and I get to eat.

00:25:25.120 Yes. Yes. I've, I've done this on a, on a, on an outlier type scale where I've been on

00:25:31.180 caribou hunts in Alaska or wherever, and the caribou aren't migrating and I'm up in the mountains.

00:25:36.780 It's snowy. It's cold. I only have a little bit of food with me, excuse me, because, you know,

00:25:42.820 ultimately my plan was to arrow caribou and feed off of him the rest of the time that I've been

00:25:48.100 there before the pilot comes and picks me up and they don't show up. That's the way the wilderness

00:25:54.020 sometimes they don't show up. And so I'm trucking around the mountains with my bow in my hand and

00:25:59.380 I'll happen upon a spruce grouse or a ptarmigan or maybe even a duck. And I will put on a full scale

00:26:06.900 stock onto this animal. If my belly is driving my lust for hunting this animal, you know, I'll crawl

00:26:15.880 up to one of these grouse or I'll crawl up to a pond or a stream and arrow a duck or arrow a

00:26:21.340 ptarmigan. And which is like a, a, a tundra grouse, a small grouse. And I'll,

00:26:26.300 I'll arrow this thing and carry it back to my camp and, and I'll clean it in my teepee. I'll,

00:26:31.620 I'll get it all cleaned up and I'll taking every bit of flesh that I can because I'm very hungry.

00:26:36.160 And it's just the ethical part of the hunt anyway, and throwing in the frying pan with some onion and

00:26:41.920 some little garlic and a little bit of oil that I brought with me. And, you know, I'm sitting here

00:26:45.780 and eating this grouse and it's just terribly rewarding, terribly rewarding and terribly,

00:26:50.560 it tastes better. It's an intrinsic experience like no other. And honestly, it's like,

00:26:56.300 nothing I've ever experienced in my life, extremely rewarding and on the smallest of scale

00:27:01.900 of hunting. But it's just so appreciated because I'm hungry because I worked hard and being an

00:27:08.660 observer of the Arctic in which if I'm not there, I'm not doing that. And it, and it's really difficult

00:27:14.960 to weigh in on a subject matter. It's really difficult to weigh in on a population and, and to

00:27:20.600 be a contributor to any of these areas that you aren't visiting. And so being there and releasing

00:27:25.160 the energy that comes from the grouse's body into my own, and then also it's feathers and bones and

00:27:29.740 things that I don't eat get reabsorbed back into the ground. It's just tremendous.

00:27:34.160 Yeah. I actually wrote down a quote from your new film, The Other Side, and he had said,

00:27:38.180 and I'm paraphrasing here a little bit, but, uh, it's difficult to rescue anyone or anything

00:27:42.880 from too far of a distance. And yet that's what a lot of these people are. I don't know if they're

00:27:49.280 even attempting to do it, or they just want to talk about doing it, frankly, but they want, go ahead.

00:27:54.460 They just want to talk about it. Yeah. They don't want to actually go to these areas.

00:27:58.280 They don't actually want to see what the people of this area of the world are experiencing or the

00:28:02.900 wildlife of this area of the world is experiencing. Like I'll give you a, for instance, and I'll just

00:28:08.380 make this up because I don't want to call anybody out, but you know, let's say there's an Eskimo

00:28:11.960 village in Northern Alaska or Northern Canada, and they're still killing whales, you know, and you might

00:28:17.280 get somebody from being, I'm really extending the latitude here of the story, but you get somebody

00:28:23.140 in New York or LA or Chicago that, oh man, I'm completely against whale hunting. Whales are

00:28:30.040 declining as they are. You know, we have to save our oceans. We need to stop these Eskimos from

00:28:35.120 killing these whales. Well, you have no idea. You haven't been there. You haven't hunted whales with

00:28:40.920 these people. You have no idea what it means to their culture, to their society. You don't even know

00:28:45.620 what it means to the whale, because I'll guarantee you these people care more about these whales in

00:28:52.980 hunting them and killing them and using them as traditional food for their nation of people. They care

00:29:00.220 more about these whales and more about the ocean than you could ever, you know, embody from your home

00:29:05.820 in New York. And so that's all I mean is that we have to go to these places. We, and it's not necessarily that

00:29:10.920 you have to go to a place before you can speak about it, but we have to go to these places to

00:29:15.360 see really what's going on. And we have to go to the, if you're going to these places, you really

00:29:20.300 care about them because that's, what's driving you there anyway. And so it's just important. It's

00:29:24.560 really important. We can't save anything from the other side of the world. And we certainly can't,

00:29:29.080 you know, in that line that I wrote, we can't save anyone either because if, you know, if you're

00:29:33.980 standing there at the edge of a pond and your friend just fell through the center of the pond,

00:29:38.720 just fell through the ice and you're standing on shore, you know, you really don't want your

00:29:42.880 friend to drown or freeze to death, but standing on shore and willing him to live is not going

00:29:49.200 to do a damn thing. You're going to have to pony up and find a little bit of ocean and slide

00:29:54.320 out on that ice yourself and put yourself in risk and put yourself in the game to try to save

00:29:59.920 his life. And that's, to be honest with you, that's really what being a hunter means to me is

00:30:04.500 I'm in the woods, I'm in the forks, I'm on the lakes and I'm seeing what's going on and I'm

00:30:10.760 engaging with the wildlife. I'm engaging with the weather. That's just how I want to go about

00:30:16.400 my existence on this earth. This is how I want to live my life. These are the elements that

00:30:21.060 really make me feel like I'm alive. Well, how do you strike the balance between,

00:30:26.640 let me back up a little bit here, because I think there does have to be some maybe regulation or

00:30:32.040 some oversight. I don't know if self-management is enough. I don't know. What do you think? Is

00:30:37.040 this something, if it was just allowed to run rampant and everybody to do what they felt was

00:30:40.880 in their best interest, that we would be able to sustain hunting and nature itself? Or is there

00:30:46.120 some oversight required? Oh, oversight. Absolutely oversight. We have proven, as human beings, we've

00:30:53.580 proven time and time again that we can't regulate ourselves. We can only regulate ourselves

00:30:57.660 if our population would have been regulated. Then, potentially, we could have regulated ourselves.

00:31:04.320 And I'm talking, obviously, I'm using grand assumptions here, but there definitely has to

00:31:09.640 be management. There definitely has to be organizations, whether it be Fish and Wildlife,

00:31:15.060 the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, or Fish and Game. These organizations are needed to set these

00:31:20.180 regulations and to manage these areas because they're so precious now. They've always been so

00:31:25.700 precious, but they're so, so precious now because they're so limited. And so that's the trickiest

00:31:30.440 part about being a hunter. And that's the trickiest part about deciding whether you are going to hunt

00:31:35.700 or not hunt or deciding where's appropriate. There are areas of this world that's incredibly

00:31:41.640 appropriate to hunt. We're doing nothing but good. I actually don't even know areas. I can't even think

00:31:48.940 of an instance where hunting is a degradation on a population or hunting is a degradation on the

00:31:55.420 area. Every place that I've ever been, the hunters are bringing so much more than they're taking away

00:32:01.500 and going to these places. Of course, everyone knows that hunters bring in dollars. We're buying

00:32:07.140 licenses. We're buying habitat stamps. We're doing things like this. And it does rate us a lot of

00:32:11.740 dollars. Hunters raise more money for the environment per capita, right? It's not worldwide

00:32:19.460 because, you know, everybody's taxes are, it's a bigger sack of money than just hunters buying

00:32:25.440 licenses. But still, hunters are aiding far more than they're being takers. But it needs to be

00:32:33.960 regulated. It absolutely needs to be regulated. There's a lot of, there's still a lot of territory in this

00:32:38.260 world that is untouched. And there are some areas that are, you know, being overused, not by hunters

00:32:44.800 necessarily, or even individually. It's being overused by people in general. But I think with

00:32:51.040 regulation, a lot of things are possible. We have to start regulating with maybe even more

00:32:56.300 decree than we have been just because our, our wild areas are, are growing smaller all the time.

00:33:03.040 And our population, of course, is growing larger all the time. And farming and ranching is also

00:33:07.760 growing. And there's a balance there. It seems to get more out of whack every day.

00:33:12.920 And you know, it seems to me too, is with healthy regulation, it seems to me that these populations

00:33:18.180 of wild animals thrive when we do have this interaction, but it's done in a healthy manner.

00:33:23.620 And there is some regulation ensuring that, you know, we're not overhunting a population or

00:33:29.380 we're not doing anything that would actually deplete the population. And is that right? Is that

00:33:35.240 accurate that populations tend to thrive when there is ethical hunting going on in that area?

00:33:40.900 There are a lot of variables to look at, but yes, most populations do very, very well to be hunted.

00:33:46.600 It's difficult to compare where wildlife is now to, you know, the early 1900s, the 1800s.

00:33:54.800 Obviously that's when we are still discovering, and I'm primarily talking about North America,

00:34:00.520 we're still discovering the land quite a bit. And there's, there are definitely swings in

00:34:05.820 population decline due to, I don't even want to call them hunters, but people shooting wildlife,

00:34:11.500 people were, you know, that people are trying to exterminate the cougar and they're trying to,

00:34:17.780 you know, people were shooting millions and millions of buffalo and people are trying to

00:34:21.180 exterminate the wolf and the grizzly bear. And there's this notion of getting rid of predators

00:34:25.300 and this notion of this bounty could never be hampered. There's so much wildlife, so many wild

00:34:32.580 places that this, it was just too bountiful to ever, to ever fall under scrutiny. And so people just

00:34:38.420 shot animals at will, and they just moved west at will, and they just kind of dominated the landscape.

00:34:43.080 And so I'm not talking about that, but the landscapes that we have now, more often than not,

00:34:48.680 do very, very well to be hunted. The populations that we have do very, very well to be hunted.

00:34:52.780 And often the case need to be, obviously we all know about white-tailed deer and, and the American

00:35:00.280 black bear. And these are animals that continue to expand. Even the mountain lion, I was just doing

00:35:06.100 some research recently because I did a, I did a lion hunt last winter. And, you know, I kind of looked

00:35:11.000 at a lot of primers as to what was going on with lions, but a lot of traditional lion areas that have

00:35:16.680 fallen and the lions are being extricated from them, basically staying from particular areas are

00:35:22.580 starting to see lions again because their populations are doing so well here in the Rockies that they're

00:35:28.180 starting to expand out to some of their natural original habitats that they had. And so that's

00:35:32.940 where you start to see a little bit more infringement with cougars and people. But generally, populations

00:35:37.660 of animals do very, very well to be hunted if they're being regulated. And biologists are telling

00:35:42.080 you how many males to take, how many females to take. And then doing that, using hunters' dollars

00:35:46.800 in those particular areas to generate more habitat, create more protection, plant grasses that used

00:35:53.200 to be there and have been long gone, removing non-indigenous obnoxious plants that are taking

00:35:58.460 over and, you know, affecting songbirds and affecting reptiles and insects. Because these are oftentimes,

00:36:04.140 we want to look at the big animals, right? They're the ones that we see in the zoos. They're the ones

00:36:08.340 that we see in hunters' photos. They're the ones that are really, we're seeing from the car when we're

00:36:13.860 driving by and we see a dead deer on the side of the road, or we hit a deer with our car.

00:36:17.600 But really, there's a whole number of species, reptiles, the songbirds, insects that are in the

00:36:24.980 fungus and the symbiotic relationship between all these animals are far more important or just as

00:36:31.100 important as some of the larger animals that we've been identifying. And we now have to create

00:36:36.180 balance, right? We now have to chase this idea of harmony, or at least helping the idea of harmony

00:36:43.560 start to be a trend because we've done so much damage that if left untouched, if left unmanaged,

00:36:51.040 we would gobble up these resources in short order and we'd have literally nothing left. And now,

00:36:57.460 the one interesting thing that I think is going on is that 200 years ago, few people cared about

00:37:05.600 our wild spaces. And like I said, things were at such a bounty that people didn't think you could fish

00:37:11.520 out lakes. People didn't think that you could shoot enough buffalo. People didn't think that

00:37:15.460 elk would ever be removed or the mountain lion would ever be removed from some of these

00:37:19.840 southwest states. And these animals were literally everywhere. You know, it was a fantastic population,

00:37:26.840 but our attitudes now, I think are ones that are trending towards finding these areas to be so

00:37:33.400 precious that people are actually pumping the brakes now and saying, okay, as a species,

00:37:39.040 we went nuts for a really long time. We have eradicated a lot of species. We have knocked a lot

00:37:44.920 of species down through building, through agriculture, through grazing. But now people are finding these

00:37:53.540 areas that are so precious that they're really ramping up management, really ramping up creating

00:37:59.320 more habitat and restoring habitat. And so hopefully through that interest, these areas will start to

00:38:05.560 grow and we'll start to, maybe as a population, maybe as a species, we start to self-regulate our

00:38:11.120 own population, our own selves. I don't know. It's a complicated situation to think about as we're

00:38:19.240 reaching 7.6 billion people on the earth. It doesn't seem to be slowing down anytime soon. It seems to me

00:38:26.620 that mother nature is going to have to stand tall and maybe knock the population down quite a bit.

00:38:31.860 It's unfortunate, but it seems to be the trend of mankind. And that is to be humbled through

00:38:38.120 outside circumstances to realize some mistakes that maybe we've made in the past.

00:38:44.260 Yeah. I mean, you look at some of the Triassic period, the Jurassic period, the Cretaceous period,

00:38:50.880 you look at these periods where dinosaurs lived, you look at how long these animals are on the face of

00:38:56.840 the earth. And now they're gone. Other than the crocodile and arguably a couple of lizards and the

00:39:03.360 wild turkey, which has a great simulation to a lot of dinosaurs. Other than some of these avian

00:39:09.240 species and some of these reptile species being connected to dinosaurs, they're gone. And they were

00:39:14.860 here for a very, very long time. And they were here worldwide. When this place was Pangaea and all

00:39:22.780 these land masses were connected, they were everywhere. And then when these land masses

00:39:27.300 separated, they were still everywhere. And this is a massive, I mean, the populations that we're

00:39:34.000 talking about are unbelievable, which is why fossils are found everywhere. They're all gone.

00:39:41.020 They're all gone because mother nature selected them to go away for whatever reason. And in going away,

00:39:48.180 they created a lot of fuel and they created a lot of energy to be reabsorbed back into the earth. And

00:39:52.760 obviously the world has trended into where it is right now. But human beings, we have not been here

00:39:58.100 that long. And we have already done fantastic, fantastic damage. So I can only imagine that even

00:40:05.020 with our consciousness, that something's going to rear up and hit the reset button. Surely we're not

00:40:12.320 powerful enough as a species to completely decimate this planet that we have to where it can be

00:40:19.860 reconciled through evolution and through mother nature. And so it's really dark ideas to think

00:40:26.480 about. But I think it's something to keep in the back of our minds as we go about our days. And as we

00:40:33.100 go about our lives, because we want to leave as small a footprint as we can, we want to contribute,

00:40:39.460 even if it's just the tiniest little bit. And, and for me with hunting, this is going to sound very

00:40:45.260 selfish, very egocentric, but this is how, this is how I want to live my life. I'm not hunting.

00:40:54.000 I'm not hunting and taking animals lives and just being greedy and saying, Hey, this is what I want

00:40:58.260 to do. I'm not leaving anything better than how I found it. That's not it at all. But I want to be in

00:41:03.460 the wilderness. I want to be in the woods. I want to arrow a caribou or arrow a deer or arrow

00:41:09.300 a squirrel or a grouse. And I want to carry the weight of the animal on my back, in my backpack,

00:41:14.560 on my back. I want to break it down myself. And I want to throw it in the pan and hear that sizzle

00:41:20.320 and smell the onions and the oil and, and enjoy my life of contributing to this area, taking maybe

00:41:27.920 an animal, maybe not even taking an animal, but just being present and watching and paying attention

00:41:33.540 and, and just contributing, taking a little bit. Yes. But contributing to the wilderness

00:41:39.180 and the wildlife as I'm going, and this is how I want to live my life. Some people want

00:41:42.840 to be billionaires. Some people want to live in a penthouse in New York city. Some people

00:41:46.600 want to be movie stars or race car drivers, and they want to, they want to just exist to

00:41:51.660 where they get a paycheck at the end of the week so they can go have a cold beer and a piece

00:41:55.360 of pizza with their bodies and go bowling. And everyone has their own jam, but this is,

00:41:59.980 this is the life that I want to live in. And I know the reward is tremendous when, you know,

00:42:06.340 when I'm, when I'm putting forth the effort and the barrier of entry, the higher I can raise

00:42:10.600 my barrier of entry of getting my food and being in the wilderness, I find great satisfaction in that.

00:42:19.960 Gentlemen, just a, a quick pause before we get into the rest of the conversation with Donnie. One of

00:42:24.360 the avenues that we have taken order of man to or down over the past, I would say six months or so

00:42:31.740 is turning around and extending our hand to the future generations of boys who we hope at one

00:42:37.420 point will lead us. And that's why we started an event, an experience called the legacy experience.

00:42:43.400 This is a three and a half day experience in the mountains of Southern Utah. It's designed for

00:42:48.880 you as a father or a father figure and your son to forge a deeper connection, to foster some bonds,

00:42:55.860 and then help you create a rite of passage that you can use and utilize in ushering your son between

00:43:02.200 the ages of eight to 15, ushering him into manhood. So we are going to be testing you guys physically,

00:43:09.460 mentally, emotionally. Again, all of this is designed to give you as his father and him as your son,

00:43:16.740 all of the tools that you guys need in order to create a very successful relationship,

00:43:21.200 which in turn will allow him or help him down the path to becoming a man himself.

00:43:26.960 So if you're interested, go check this out. We don't have very many spots left.

00:43:30.420 It's April 11th through the 14th, 2019. You can head to orderofman.com slash legacy,

00:43:37.720 orderofman.com slash legacy. You can watch a video that we had posted from our previous legacy

00:43:43.300 experience. We've added three or four new events as of right now, and it's just going to continue

00:43:48.820 to get better leading up to the event. Again, it's April 11th through the 14th, 2019. You get to Las

00:43:54.940 Vegas with your son between the ages of eight to 15. We will handle everything from there. We'll

00:43:59.340 shuttle you guys up to the cabin and we'll have an unforgettable three and a half day experience.

00:44:04.440 Again, guys, orderofman.com slash legacy to learn more and to register both you and your boy. You guys

00:44:11.000 can do that after the show for now. We'll get back to my conversation with Donnie.

00:44:15.840 Well, but not only is it rewarding for you and it certainly sounds like it is, but it's,

00:44:19.640 it's rewarding. Like you were talking about, it's rewarding for nature. I think the counter

00:44:23.960 argument to that and something that a lot of people have a problem with is that they recognize that the

00:44:28.960 hunting industry contributes a lot, whether that's financial resources or whatever it may be

00:44:33.400 into conserving nature. But I think they have a hard time reconciling this idea of,

00:44:41.000 conserving just to harvest it later. I think that's...

00:44:45.560 That's silly.

00:44:46.560 It is silly.

00:44:47.340 That's silly. Yeah, we're not growing them to kill them.

00:44:49.880 Right. But I think people think that.

00:44:52.360 Yeah, no. If you looked at the success ratio, it's so minuscule as hunters. The population of

00:44:59.940 these animals that the hunters are giving back to and raising this habitat, far more are killed under

00:45:06.860 natural circumstances than by a hunter's arrow or a bullet. I mean...

00:45:12.020 And I would say that even hunting, I would even say that that is a natural circumstance,

00:45:16.860 right? That is...

00:45:17.460 Of course it is. Of course it is. It starts to fall a tiny bit. It starts to be...

00:45:22.000 And I can't stand this argument because it's never been the way in the world, but you'll hear

00:45:25.720 people say, hey, kill that elk with your bare hands. Kill that deer with your bare hands and

00:45:31.460 I'll leave it be.

00:45:32.780 Well, I'm sorry.

00:45:33.060 Or give him a bow or give him a gun and see how it is.

00:45:35.320 Yes. Okay. That's fine. I'll give an elk a high-powered rifle and I'll still shoot him

00:45:40.640 because he'll be running, dragging a high-powered rifle behind him as that's scaring the hell

00:45:45.660 out of him. I mean, the argument is so ridiculous. That's like saying when a grizzly bear grabs

00:45:51.360 a baby calf that was just born and snaps the back of its neck and carries it off to eat

00:45:56.840 it, you know, what are we supposed to say? Oh yeah, give that calf, you know, make that

00:46:01.020 calf 800 pounds. Give that calf seven-inch claws. See how you do it, grizzly bear. It's

00:46:05.740 not how it works. And we just happen to be... I mean, you look at us. We're basically baby

00:46:12.720 birds. We don't have fur. We don't have canine teeth. We don't have claws. We're not

00:46:18.200 strong. We're not fast. The only things we have, which is very powerful, so that comes

00:46:24.260 with an asterisk, the only thing that we have are these thumbs and our brains.

00:46:28.880 Interesting. Yeah.

00:46:30.080 So we're basically baby birds. I mean, if you don't think you're a baby bird, if you think

00:46:33.940 you're a tough guy, I don't care if you're a Navy SEAL or a Green Beret, go waltzing out

00:46:38.640 of your house tonight in the dead of winter with nothing else on and go waltz around for

00:46:42.360 a couple of days and don't use your brain to build yourself a shelter. Don't use your brain

00:46:47.140 to build yourself a snow cave and to start a fire. Don't do any of that. Just walk around.

00:46:51.220 You'll be dead. You'll be dead in 24 hours. No problem. No questions asked. And so there

00:46:56.300 is no fair. It's a pretty violent world there. And so as we go, as we engage with these

00:47:01.140 populations, yes, we have some, if you want to call them unfair advantages, I do tend to

00:47:08.220 agree with you. We have bolt action rifles that can shoot quite a distance. We have bows that

00:47:12.880 can shoot quite a distance. We have traditional weapons now that can shoot quite a distance with

00:47:18.200 and with quite an efficiency, but we built them, we made them. And there's an understanding of that.

00:47:23.740 And there's an understanding of being humane and killing an animal quickly. And these are the tools

00:47:28.520 that we've used in our societies. And they went from being a spear or they went from being literally

00:47:34.800 a rock to a spear to, I mean, can you imagine the cavemen used to kill things by shoving them

00:47:41.620 off, not shoving them, but hurting them off cliffs and also smashing them with boulders that they can

00:47:47.340 pick up, cornering them into an area against cliffs and then smashing them with boulders that could pick

00:47:52.480 up. What a horrible way to die. But that was the way of the world. And now we have more advanced

00:47:59.740 technology. Everyone that says anything like that, you are a massive hypocrite because every day you

00:48:06.720 get in your car and you drive to work and the footprint is so massive for anyone that thinks

00:48:13.900 that they are just living their life. I don't care if you're a vegan. I don't care if you grow all your

00:48:20.320 own food. I don't care. I don't care how it is if you're off the grid. Okay. So maybe people that are

00:48:26.360 completely self-sustaining off the grid, that little tiny, tiny percentage, they might be

00:48:32.020 free and clear of this, but everyone else is, even those people, I'll guarantee you they have tools

00:48:37.940 that have come from industry. And so this is how hunting is done now, right? And this is not raising

00:48:44.860 a particular species in order to harvest it. This is raising a particular habitat to generate

00:48:52.700 100 species or 1,000 species. And it just so happens that one of these species

00:48:58.200 is an attractive animal to hunt and is one that does well hunting. We can select a few animals in

00:49:05.440 increasing their population, right? I mean, when we have a herd of elk or we have a herd of sheep

00:49:11.660 and we have a tag for a buck or a doe, you know, when we go in to remove these animals, the biologists,

00:49:17.660 the organizations, the agencies that run these areas, they'll literally sit there and tell you,

00:49:23.400 okay, so we're going to give out 1,000 cow elk tags because we really need 250 of these individuals

00:49:31.820 to be removed from the population. Like, these need to be removed. Otherwise, we're going to start to be

00:49:37.620 overpopulated. And I used to have this, it was really cool, but when I was in Alaska,

00:49:42.800 oftentimes, the area that I was working, I was up there doing research for the Eospecial Wildlife

00:49:49.340 Service, and I won't name the area where I was right now because I don't want to call out people,

00:49:54.600 but the area where I was working, there was populations of Eskimos that lived there, Inuit,

00:50:00.000 and they were shooting cow moose. And the biologists up there were begging them to stop shooting the

00:50:06.360 cow moose because the population was so down from wolves in winter that they needed these cow moose.

00:50:12.800 To help repopulate the population. So they would talk to these native guys and they'd say,

00:50:17.960 please, please, please. They'd shoot a cow moose, you know, it was basically poaching.

00:50:22.040 They'd get a ticket, but they're native to the land. And so their, their punishment would be a

00:50:27.140 fraction of what it would be if I or you went up there and shot a cow moose.

00:50:30.480 Yeah, definitely.

00:50:31.340 A fraction, a fraction. They would get a small ticket, no jail time, no hunting privileges removed.

00:50:37.280 They, they actually came up with this logo and I love it. I actually want to have it redone,

00:50:43.840 but it was this logo and it showed 10 years of life cycle. And in the center of the logo,

00:50:49.720 it was a cow moose, a single cow moose. And then it had 10 rings around her, like a,

00:50:54.860 like you would see if you cut a tree down 10 years of growth. And it showed that that one cow

00:51:00.480 moose over 10 years brought about 250 animals into the population.

00:51:05.500 Oh, wow.

00:51:06.760 Yes. And so what happened was they put this on sweatshirts, they put this on coffee cups,

00:51:11.300 they put this on a number of different things, stickers. And what they did was as some of these

00:51:18.020 native guys, as they would come to the office and turn in their unused moose tag, not a cow moose tag,

00:51:23.340 but an unused moose tag, they could take a sweatshirt and a coffee cup and some of this other stuff for free.

00:51:28.920 I know it sounds silly. I know it sounds silly to probably most of your people that are listening

00:51:33.040 to this, but when you're living in the, in the very most remote wilderness and you come to town

00:51:38.600 very rarely, when you can come to town and turn in your moose tag and get a coffee cup and a hooded

00:51:43.400 sweatshirt, it's actually a pretty cool deal. I know it sounds interesting. Yeah, it really does

00:51:47.920 have effect. And so my point is the biologists know in this area, absolutely. We must stop killing

00:51:57.080 cows so we can repopulate this area. Whereas there's other areas of Alaska where they're like,

00:52:05.320 okay, we have to kill 50 cows in this area. You know, like, let's just say, I'm just making this

00:52:10.960 up, but let's say around Anchorage, they say, okay, we're having so many cows, you know, attacking

00:52:16.900 people. Again, this is human and wildlife engagement. If we weren't there, of course,

00:52:21.320 these things wouldn't be going on, but that's just the facts of life.

00:52:23.920 Right. And so they say, okay, in, in Anchorage, we've had two people killed by cow moose.

00:52:28.860 They are, you know, destroying property. They're getting hit by cars. We had 10 more people

00:52:34.240 killed in a moose vehicle, uh, accidents, you know, so they say, okay, we got to kill 200 moose

00:52:40.900 or whatever it is around Anchorage. So they give up 200 moose tags. And so this is the balance that

00:52:46.220 I'm talking about. And them not killing moose in Northwestern Alaska, not killing combos in

00:52:51.560 Northwestern Alaska is a good thing. Then killing 200 moose around Anchorage is a good thing.

00:52:58.920 It's also a good thing. Sure.

00:53:00.580 It's also a good thing. And I tell people all the time, if you and I were in Africa right now,

00:53:05.240 somebody put a giraffe in front of me this year, hunters will pay a lot of money to go to Africa

00:53:12.680 and hunt giraffes.

00:53:13.880 Yeah. Yeah. I'm sure.

00:53:14.900 I don't know why, but guys do it. And the guy that goes and hunts a giraffe and shoots a giraffe

00:53:19.440 probably has a great interest in Africa, has a great interest in giraffes and very likely is going

00:53:26.020 to very, very likely. This is where people kind of get the disconnect. Very, very likely is going

00:53:31.020 to go to an area that needs to have giraffes killed. And that's where people really, people go,

00:53:36.740 Oh my God, you went all the way to Africa to kill a giraffe. Are you kidding me? And you took this

00:53:40.260 stupid photo, but really a lot of these hunters are going to areas where giraffes need to be killed.

00:53:44.580 And my point is, if I was standing beside you in Africa right now, and there's a giraffe standing

00:53:50.540 in front of us and you handed me a rifle and said, here's a tag, here's a rifle, shoot that giraffe.

00:53:56.980 I'd say, absolutely no. Thank you. I have no interest in it. I appreciate it. It's not for me.

00:54:02.900 And if you said, I'll pay you a million dollars. Here's the rifle. Here's your tag. I'll pay you a

00:54:07.280 million dollars. Shoot that giraffe. I have no interest in shooting that giraffe. You can keep

00:54:11.680 your million dollars. A lot of people are rolling their eyes right now, but I'm dead ass serious.

00:54:15.480 I'm not shooting a giraffe for a million dollars. But if you came to me and handed me a rifle and

00:54:19.780 a tag and said, Hey, this whole region is completely overrun with giraffe and the bulls are killing each

00:54:27.560 other during the mating season. And they're absolutely destroying all their habitat. These trees that

00:54:32.980 they're feasting on are going to take 25 years to recover. And we're about to go into a huge

00:54:38.360 bust of the population. A lot of these animals are going to starve and die of predation because

00:54:44.200 they're going to be too weak and sick to flee. We need to get to draft numbers down. I say,

00:54:49.880 give me that fricking rifle. And how many of you want dead? Okay, 10. Here we go. Let's kill 10

00:54:54.060 draft. I'd be happy to be there and engaging the wildlife and reducing the number of giraffes in order

00:55:00.780 for the population to sustain itself and to start do better for itself. And that's where I think a lot

00:55:05.900 of people are missing this is that many of these populations do very, very well to be hunted. Some of

00:55:14.580 them only need males removed. Some of them need females removed. Some of them need a lot of animals

00:55:20.300 removed. Some of them only you want to remove only a few. And so, you know, there's just a lot of

00:55:26.700 different variables and a lot of moving parts. The problem is, we want to stand on our soapbox.

00:55:33.320 We want to say, I'm a hunter. I'm going to go kill a giraffe. You can kiss my ass if you don't think

00:55:37.980 so. If you don't like it, I don't care. You can kiss my ass. That's a horrible way to go about your

00:55:42.260 life. Just like if you say, I'm against hunting. You're a savage beast. You're going to murder that

00:55:47.720 giraffe, which is literally impossible because murder is taking a human life. You get these two opposing

00:55:53.180 sides fighting over the space. Seemingly, both of them are doing things to try to build their

00:55:59.440 self-worth, their resume. A non-hunter says, oh, yeah, I stopped. I shut down hunting in Tanzania.

00:56:05.820 Ha ha. Look what I accomplished. Now all the animals are never going to flourish in that. Oh,

00:56:11.180 they don't. Right. Oh, the poachers moved in. Now there are no animals in Tanzania. Now it's a

00:56:16.520 wasteland. And now it's a, you know, fallen under war. No worth of the wildlife or the wilderness

00:56:21.800 now because no one's there participating. No one's watching it. No one's protecting it

00:56:26.180 to the hunter that says, you know, kind of the same thing. Well, I can go there and shoot

00:56:31.120 whatever I want and I can pay to play and all these things. You build these walls between

00:56:35.760 the two people and you accomplish nothing. Whereas if we went into these things with a

00:56:40.500 very open mind and we said, okay, what can we do to this habitat in this population of animals

00:56:46.500 to help it sustain and to help it grow healthy and to keep it protected and to show the world

00:56:53.440 that we are interested in these giraffes. We're interested in these plains game. We're interested

00:56:57.160 in these elephants, these rhinos. And by being interested in there and by being present, we

00:57:01.800 are protecting them and giving them worth and changing their actual landscape by picking up

00:57:08.100 shovels and chainsaws and using fire and all the things that the earth was intended to do.

00:57:12.880 These are the symbiotic relationships that really exist between hunters and wildlife and wild lands.

00:57:20.000 Just saying you're a hunter doesn't mean you're doing these things. You have to actively do it.

00:57:24.040 You have to hunt well and good. You have to be conscious about what you're doing. You have to

00:57:29.240 understand that when you go into an area and do these things, you have to try and leave it better

00:57:33.600 than when you found it. And if you're not doing that, you shouldn't even be there.

00:57:37.480 Well, I think this is why your work is so important because you are educating, right? You are

00:57:41.740 expanding upon the story that we typically see through one picture. And then you have ignorance

00:57:46.480 on both sides, right? You have some of these quote unquote hunters who are competing for

00:57:50.640 the biggest animal rather than worrying about the ethical hunt. Then you have these on the other side

00:57:56.580 who want a virtue signal and tell everybody how wonderful they are because they don't mistreat

00:58:00.760 animals. And both sides are getting it wrong or they're not painting the entire picture.

00:58:05.560 They're extracting one little element of it and saying that this applies to everything,

00:58:10.960 using it as a broad stroke that just isn't reality.

00:58:15.940 Yeah. I think anytime, and I'm generalizing here, but I think anytime you pick a side,

00:58:20.780 you're picking wrong.

00:58:23.240 Hmm. That's interesting.

00:58:24.780 Instead of picking a side, you need to keep asking questions, keep taking in more and more

00:58:30.800 variables because, and even if you say, yeah, every year I go up to the Brooks range in Alaska

00:58:36.180 and I go caribou hunting and, and yep, and go up there every year and I shoot my two caribou.

00:58:41.480 And, and then somebody says, you know, well, Hey, the population up there is, it's not doing

00:58:47.240 so well. Like they're really on a decline. And if the hunter says, well, I don't care. That's

00:58:52.120 where I go every year. I go up there and I shoot my two caribou. And, and that's what I do.

00:58:55.880 So again, another gross overgeneralization, but that's not, that's not the question that

00:59:00.740 we should be asking ourselves. That's not the soapbox we should be staying out. We should

00:59:03.560 be saying, Oh, okay. So I wonder why the population is down.

00:59:06.860 Yeah. Let's evaluate this.

00:59:08.320 Yeah. Are they still giving tags out? If they are, if they're still giving out, let's just

00:59:12.760 say a hundred bull tags, they're no longer giving out a cow tags. They are still giving

00:59:16.040 out a hundred bull tags because they want economy to continue on in the area and, and they want

00:59:21.780 to get licensed sales so they can continue to pay for pilots to fly surveys to buy aviation

00:59:27.740 gas. And, and okay, so I'll go up there and I'll buy a tag. I want to go look around myself.

00:59:32.360 I want to see what's going on. And that's the stuff that I think is fantastic. That's

00:59:36.380 what makes people interested. Not that they're trying to, I hate this term because it's new

00:59:41.240 age, but this kind of humble bragging, if you will, right. These people that are kind

00:59:45.360 of building their resume and they're trying to call other people out to add to their own

00:59:49.100 self-worth like, Oh yeah, I stopped hunters here. I did this or rather than that, if we

00:59:54.500 all would just continue to ask ourselves about this complex world that we live in, these complex

01:00:00.380 species that we're sharing the world with and these other complex human beings that we're

01:00:04.860 sharing the world with and simple as it sounds, but wearing a smile and trying to be a forward

01:00:11.200 thinker and not pick individual sides and trying to take the ever changing variables in as we're,

01:00:17.320 as we're making our decisions. I think that's more important than anything.

01:00:20.100 Well, I think this is why I found your mountain lion hunt so compelling is because initially

01:00:25.360 you had these reservations about not wanting to shoot a mountain lion and yet you opened

01:00:30.340 yourself up to, to the hunt itself and the process. And, and I think you walked away with

01:00:36.300 a new perspective with that hunt.

01:00:38.980 I did. Yeah. And I didn't want to, it's a really good example because I didn't want to kill

01:00:43.320 a lion. There has to be intrinsic value in what we do as well. Right. And that's where

01:00:47.920 we're all individual. Like you might be Gaga over Rocky mountain elk. I might be Gaga over

01:00:55.500 the white tail deer. And so every year you go elk hunting every year I go white tail deer

01:01:00.600 hunting. So we're still engaging in the wilderness. We're still living our lives as hunters, but

01:01:06.000 there has to be some intrinsic value. And so you enjoy elk hunting. So you go elk hunting.

01:01:09.620 I enjoy white tail deer hunting. So I go white tail deer hunting. Well, there was no intrinsic

01:01:13.520 value to me in avoiding lion hunting. I just, it didn't add up in my mind. And it's funny

01:01:19.200 because I wanted to see the hounds because that's how they're often for your audience. Oftentimes

01:01:24.020 lions are tracked down by hounds, treed or kept at bay on a cliff. And then a hunter comes

01:01:31.820 in and shoots them. So to me, that didn't add up in my mind. That had no intrinsic value

01:01:36.540 to me whatsoever. I didn't want to chase an animal with hounds. I didn't want to shoot

01:01:40.560 an animal that was quote unquote afraid. And I didn't want to just shoot a fish in a barrel,

01:01:45.280 right? Just shoot them out of a tree. And so I was not against it, but it just didn't have

01:01:50.060 any intrinsic value for me. But then my friend Ben Storak said, Hey, I have to kill some lions

01:01:56.060 in my area. Remember back to my giraffe example to you of if we have to kill giraffes, now I'm

01:02:01.500 interested in what we're doing. I don't want to pay to kill a giraffe, but if we're, if we're

01:02:06.480 killing giraffes for management, yeah, man, where do I sign up? Or if you need me to pick up a shovel

01:02:12.260 and dig a trench or cut trees on like I I'm here to help. My friend Ben said, Hey, the, the biologist

01:02:18.340 want me to kill some lions in this area. And, and he goes, and he wanted to kill some lions in this

01:02:22.800 area. And that's where the value started to come to me. And so I thought, okay, well I'll come

01:02:27.680 up, you know, cause he kind of called me out and he said, you're an open-minded guy. You're the one

01:02:31.980 that's always saying, don't pick a side. So he's like, don't pick a side. Why don't you come up and

01:02:36.160 hunt lions? And if we do the entire hunt and we get the line in a tree or on a cliff and you don't

01:02:41.040 want to shoot it, you don't have to shoot it. And if it's a line that I want removed, I'll shoot it

01:02:45.200 because he had a legal tag. I said, okay, that's the, that's a sound enough deal.

01:02:49.500 Right. So you can go participate and see, right? Sure.

01:02:51.960 Yeah. So I can go and participate and see, and you know, you can't save anyone or anything from too far

01:02:57.440 distance. So let's go to British Columbia in the winter and let's go look at lion tracks. And I did

01:03:01.880 that. I went on a lion hunt and I tracked the lion with Ben. Uh, we tracked them by foot. Uh, I did

01:03:07.980 end up killing a lion and we tracked that particular line by foot for, I forget what it was. It was like

01:03:13.860 22 or 23 kilometers that day. And we couldn't use dogs where we were because it was so dangerous. It

01:03:18.740 was very, very steep vertical cliffs of five, 600 feet, uh, covered in ice. It was late February when we

01:03:26.180 were there. And it was very, I mean, there are a couple of times that, you know, we had to be

01:03:30.360 extremely careful with our foot, uh, placement because if we lost our balance or we slipped at

01:03:36.000 all, it was done. Like no one could stop us. We were going, yup, that's it. We were all in a hundred

01:03:41.760 percent. So we had to be very careful. And so no dogs for the first 22 or 23 kilometers, whatever it

01:03:47.340 was. And then the lion did actually work up out of the cliffs, did cross a forest road. And he went up

01:03:54.360 into this big timber and started going to the top of this mountain. When that happened, we brought

01:03:58.800 the hounds in and we released the hounds, which is a spectacle to see. They get so excited. Oh,

01:04:04.080 I'm sure. Oh, they just lose their minds and just, you see their energy. And, and so we went another

01:04:10.700 like three kilometers or something like that after this lion up to this really deep snow, super physical

01:04:15.780 hunt. And we get up there and I was very interested because I was looking at the line. He was in a tree

01:04:22.560 and I saw him looking at the dogs. It was really funny because I thought I was going to go up

01:04:27.500 there and see this cat with his ears tucked back and his tail flicking like a house cat

01:04:32.440 might. And to see his muscles kind of tight, like he's annoyed and fearful and angry and

01:04:39.380 wanting to fight, you know, and I went there and I looked at this cat and it's funny because

01:04:42.420 he was just hanging out on a tree. He was completely relaxed. He was sitting there just, you know,

01:04:48.780 he had an eye on the dogs and on us a little bit, but he was just kind of checking things out.

01:04:53.120 And as I got out there to him, he was just like, all right, I've had enough. And he pounced out of

01:04:58.200 the tree, right down to the base of the tree. Yeah. He jumped right out of the tree, right down

01:05:02.240 to the base of the tree. I wasn't 10 yards away. And then he boiled off down the mountain and you

01:05:07.920 know, the guys released the dogs cause they were chained up. They released the dogs and dogs got

01:05:11.980 out for him again. But when he jumped out of that tree, he was just like, yeah, I'm getting out of this

01:05:15.640 tree. And like he knew, right. He was adding it all up in his head. This wasn't going to be a good

01:05:19.560 scenario for him. So he jumped out and ran away and we tracked him again and treat him again. And

01:05:24.400 I think he was just had enough. He's a predator. So he's just hanging out. And so I looked at Ben

01:05:31.000 and he said, Hey, it's a big male. This is the one thing that I learned afterwards. But Ben goes,

01:05:36.200 it's a big male. It's an old male. It's one that we want to remove. You can go ahead and take the shot

01:05:41.680 or I'll take the shot. And I was completely invested the entire day. We started tracking that

01:05:45.420 animal at like 6am and here it was at like 430 or 445. So you're going all day, all day,

01:05:52.200 literally the last minute of legal, like literally the last, I mean, we had like three minutes to

01:05:57.240 shoot this line or else we weren't going to be able to see him anymore. We're going to go down

01:06:01.260 the mountain. So I could see his vitals and I came to full draw. I was using a bow and I just settled

01:06:07.120 into my anchor point and I put my sight picture right on his rib cage. And I quietly went through my

01:06:12.700 shot execution and my arrows hit right through his chest and he jumped out of the tree and expired

01:06:18.880 just a few seconds later. It was interesting, like coming to full draw and the line was just

01:06:24.600 sitting there. I'd never done that before. I'd snuck up and shot deer in their bed. I'd shot deer as

01:06:29.280 they stood up out of their bed and I'd snuck up and shot plenty of animals in my life that had no

01:06:34.180 idea I was there. But this one knew I was there. There's nothing keeping this animal there that I

01:06:39.840 did under my own skillset. The dogs were keeping this animal there. And so that, that part held no

01:06:44.940 water for me. And so I became kind of a, you know, executioner that day, if you will. But again,

01:06:50.940 they want to remove some lions. I had been invested the entire day as a hunter, hunted this animal well

01:06:56.480 and good, hunted him really hard, but the shot just kind of held no value to me. And so I shot him,

01:07:01.720 I killed him. And then we ate him. That was one of the more rewarding aspects of the hunt because

01:07:07.680 we had worked so hard to get this cat. Oh, I bet. I bet. Yeah. And it was fantastic table fare.

01:07:13.060 Very little of that cat. We were in camp a few more days. Very little of that cat's body made

01:07:18.020 it out of camp. And what it did, went home with one of my good friends, Dawson Devaney,

01:07:21.920 to feed his family. The rest of it, we all ate in camp. And it was just, I mean, it was model line

01:07:26.180 breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Really? And it was just, yes, it was fantastic. I've heard it's good.

01:07:30.800 Oh, it's so good. And so it was very rewarding. And then we went to the biologist. I went and met

01:07:36.000 with the biologist there for a compulsory inspection. They have to look at the fur and

01:07:40.820 they take a tooth and they look at the skull. And what I found out though was remarkable is this cat

01:07:46.220 was just under 190 pounds. And he was just a little over two years old. Really? Yes. And so Bennett said,

01:07:59.520 hey, this is a big old Tom. I was like, okay, well, it was a big Tom, but it was not an old Tom. And so

01:08:04.720 then I started talking to the biologist and I was mystified that that animal could put on that much

01:08:10.560 weight. I mean, it was the size of a big deer. Oh yeah. Huge.

01:08:14.760 Last than two years. It was a massive, massive animal. And so it was just remarkable to hear the

01:08:20.100 biologist say, no, he's two years old and he showed me how to age lions. And it's very easy to

01:08:24.580 age lions. And I was just unbelievable. And I asked him, I was like, so, you know, I wasn't

01:08:29.300 looking for validation. I, I talked to the biologist before I even went up there. I wasn't

01:08:33.660 looking for validation saying, Hey, did you need lions removed from this area? But I kind of asked

01:08:37.140 him why. Cause I was curious if we were just removing lions to protect the deer and the sheep

01:08:42.700 or if we were removing lions because they were over abundant. I didn't get a clear answer. I'm

01:08:49.320 suspicious that we were removing lions because there was a lot of mule deer and a lot of bighorn

01:08:54.240 sheep in that area that bring a lot of economics to that area and bring a lot of interest to that

01:08:59.860 area and are good for the area's habitat. And these cats, where I was, these cats become terribly

01:09:05.600 successful. They actually showed me data and I wish I had it memorized and I'll have to track it down,

01:09:11.020 but actually showed me data where this cat, one particular cat, not this cat that I killed,

01:09:17.240 but one particular cat had wiped out something like 27% of the sheep herd in one year.

01:09:23.700 Whoa. One, did you say one cat?

01:09:27.260 One cat, one year.

01:09:28.900 Oh, wow. Yeah. Hyper efficient.

01:09:32.280 Hyper efficient. And this guy just had this sheep population, he had their number,

01:09:37.620 you know, at home and you know what they're doing, you know, their escape routes. Like it was just

01:09:41.220 really efficient. So they want to remove that cat. And that's what I'm talking about. There's a lot of

01:09:45.060 variables. It's very difficult to make generalizations. And I've had a bunch of people

01:09:49.340 from Europe and from different areas of the world write me letters with a lot of hate saying,

01:09:54.320 I can't believe you killed this animal. They're endangered. They are not endangered. They are

01:09:58.380 endangered in areas of the world, but where I was, they are overpopulated.

01:10:03.180 And those endangered areas aren't, unless you're poaching, getting a tag and nobody's hunting them.

01:10:08.500 No. And it's not even the same mountain lion, right? It's a subspecies of the mountain lion,

01:10:13.100 like the Florida panther is a subspecies of the mountain lion. And then, you know,

01:10:17.820 there's different puma species from around the world, but they're not endangered where I wasn't.

01:10:22.060 In fact, and it would have been legal, but in fact, the biologist said to me, I said,

01:10:26.480 so tell me about this area. And he said, it actually would have been really good if you

01:10:29.720 would have killed two or three.

01:10:31.460 Oh, wow. Yeah. So even more.

01:10:32.880 I said, really? And he said, yeah. He's like, it's just the area. It's like the area has been

01:10:36.820 lion hunted in a while. We could just take a few individuals. And I was happy to just take one,

01:10:42.000 but that's what I'm talking about. Like that hunt held very little intrinsic value to me.

01:10:47.520 I got a lot more value out of it, participating in it, which is goes along with what I'm saying

01:10:53.020 that we have to go and we have to participate to know, because I found the hounds to be terribly

01:10:59.900 rewarding to be around. I found the houndsman to be a fantastic gentleman. And the whole experience

01:11:05.580 before and after the kill was everything that I had hoped it to be. And 10 times more. The only

01:11:13.020 part that still holds no water for me was actually killing the cat, which is not very becoming in

01:11:19.660 any instance, the least becoming when an animal is being held at bay by dogs, but it's not becoming

01:11:26.200 in any instance, sneaking up to a deer spot and stalk or shooting one out of a tree stand or,

01:11:32.160 or however it may be. The killing is always, always difficult. It's just was a tiny bit more

01:11:39.040 difficult in this instance for me personally. Yeah, I can definitely understand. I can see

01:11:43.880 why that's the case, but you know, I commend you and those who do the same thing for getting in the

01:11:48.400 trenches, if you will, right. For really finding out, for really experiencing it rather than just

01:11:53.340 talking about something you have no idea of, of what's actually going on and what's actually

01:11:57.440 happening. It's quite interesting. I'm always going to be a hunter, right? I'm always going to

01:12:02.600 hunt. I'm always going to, I mean, if somebody told me, I mean this, like I get to travel around

01:12:07.360 quite a bit and I'm very drawn to Alaska. I'm very drawn to Northern Canada, North America. But if

01:12:13.200 somebody told me, Hey man, you can only hunt within, you know, 30 miles of your house the rest of your

01:12:19.000 life. Okay. That's cool. I don't need these grand adventures to solidify what it is that I'm doing.

01:12:27.840 I enjoy the mountains. I very much enjoy being up in the Arctic circle by myself and not seeing an

01:12:33.960 airplane for 14 days or 20 days or not seeing another human being and just seeing the wolves

01:12:39.140 and the grizzly bears and the caribou and moose. I enjoy that. That is so much soul food for me. You

01:12:43.960 can't even imagine, but I can nearly, if not exactly get that same soul food by hunting gray

01:12:51.880 squirrels in an oak grove in central Wisconsin or hunting the white-tailed deer or hunting rough

01:12:58.520 grouse or pheasants or mallard ducks or whatever it is, wherever I am, whether it be the smallest

01:13:04.240 little pothole, farm pond, hunting ducks, or in a little woodlot, removing a couple of gray squirrels,

01:13:10.500 wherever I am, it's very rewarding to chase my food down this way. It's very rewarding to actually

01:13:16.900 be out there and feel the biting wind and the raindrops and the snow and try to chase that

01:13:22.820 hardiness that our ancestors had that was long, long gone, but try to chase these kinds of experiences.

01:13:29.880 I can do it just about anywhere. And there's so much interesting areas out there. You don't have to go to

01:13:34.380 far off places to find this adventure. You can literally do it in your own backyard and you can

01:13:40.240 make places, the tiniest of places. I've got some land here that I hunt that I planted. It used to be

01:13:46.780 a picked cornfield. It looked like a muddy parking lot. I planted warm season grasses three years ago.

01:13:53.780 Those grasses are now chin high on me and I'm seeing way more. It's amazing. And I'm seeing snakes and

01:14:00.780 frogs and turtles and songbird species that I wasn't seeing before. And it's just 26 acres that I

01:14:08.400 planted in grass. It cost me like $3,000 to plant this stuff in grass. It's very expensive. My estimation

01:14:15.220 of fun is very expensive, but it's so rewarding. And did I change the world by planting 26 acres of grass?

01:14:22.180 Nope. I have no effect whatsoever on the world by planting that farm field into 26 acres of grass,

01:14:29.320 but I have a tremendous effect on that neighborhood. Yeah, you bet. Of course.

01:14:33.440 The turkeys, everything from all the insects, all the symbiosis going on between the insects,

01:14:39.560 the reptiles, the birds, the mammals, the human beings, grasses, the trees, the fruits,

01:14:44.860 like everything is singing out there because I planted 26 acres in grass. And so we can make a

01:14:52.140 tiny difference that changes a small area where we are. And if we do that everywhere,

01:14:56.420 it's going to start to add off. It really is.

01:14:59.820 I love it, man. That's powerful. Well, Donnie, we're bumping up against time. I want to ask you

01:15:03.300 a couple of questions as we wind things down and wrap things up today. I did get you prepped a

01:15:07.780 little bit for this one. And you said you had an answer right off the bat. So I'm really curious

01:15:11.440 about hearing your answer to this. And that question is, what does it mean to be a man?

01:15:14.380 To me, being a man, I think we were designed to be warriors. And I think to be kind and to give

01:15:21.860 more than you receive and to fight for those that can't fight for themselves, that's what it stands

01:15:26.560 for. Excellent. Excellent. I believe in that as well. Well, Donnie, how do we connect? I know you've

01:15:31.640 got the film that just came out, I think, I want to say just a couple of weeks ago, actually,

01:15:35.320 called The Other Side. How do you guys find out about that and the other work that you're doing?

01:15:39.580 Yeah, so you can go to donnievincent.com is my website. And then find Donnie Vincent on

01:15:45.720 Instagram. I think it's Donnie underscore Vincent and Facebook, of course. So we live in all those

01:15:51.020 realms. We sell our films, we sell DVDs and Blu-rays, and then we sell a live or not live

01:15:56.440 streaming, but a streaming option. And we're growing all the time. And yeah, whether it be

01:16:00.640 production or, or shooting documentaries, you know, you can find us outside and generally with cameras.

01:16:06.560 Right on. I love it. I love the storytelling aspect of it. I

01:16:09.300 wholeheartedly agree and believe in what you're doing. You've been instrumental in helping me.

01:16:12.900 You may not know that on my journey over the past 14 months now is I'm entering this world and

01:16:18.560 learning a little bit more about what it means to interact with, uh, with the nature. So I really

01:16:22.440 appreciate you, man. That means the world to me. And the letters and engagements like yours,

01:16:27.520 where people are new to trekking out in the woods and the wilds and engaging with their food and

01:16:32.840 engaging with the wildlife and doing it because of something that they saw that we did or just doing it

01:16:36.860 because they've had this burning desire their whole life. But finally we were the catalyst to

01:16:40.620 get them to actually get out of the pickup truck or walk into the woods. I just think it's awesome.

01:16:44.820 It's super, super rewarding. So I appreciate that. Thank you.

01:16:47.860 Right on. We're going to get some more men introduced through this podcast. So always glad to help and

01:16:51.640 glad to be on the same path as you. A little bit behind, but on the same path. I appreciate you,

01:16:55.960 man.

01:16:56.400 Oh, no. Same place. Same place. I appreciate it, man. Thank you.

01:17:00.400 Gentlemen, there you go. My conversation with Donnie Vincent. I'm fairly certain that you're going to walk

01:17:04.340 away with some new information here. And I know I certainly did. And I, and I'm involved. I'm very

01:17:09.500 involved in the, in the world of hunting and to be able to have a conversation like this with somebody

01:17:13.540 that I've admired and respected for a long time was, it was a real honor for me, but I hope that

01:17:17.840 you guys are walking away with some new information as well. One of the things I really like about Donnie

01:17:21.520 is how level-headed he is. I mean, I think there's so many people out there that are just polar opposites,

01:17:26.820 right? They're in one camp or the other camp. And I think Donnie is somebody who is so level-headed

01:17:31.760 that he's willing to consider differing viewpoints and then make decisions based on as much information

01:17:38.500 as possible. You guys probably heard that in our conversation. So if you are interested in hunting,

01:17:42.880 or if you've been hunting for a while, go check out what he's up to. I mean, absolutely incredible

01:17:47.040 stuff, including his latest film, The Other Side that is linked up on our show notes as well,

01:17:53.520 which is at orderofman.com slash two zero two as an episode 202. So check that out. Check out what

01:18:01.280 Donnie's up to connect with me and connect with him on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube,

01:18:07.460 wherever you're doing the social media thing. We always look forward to hearing from you and look

01:18:11.440 forward to hearing what you took away from the conversation as well. So as we wind things down

01:18:15.880 today, guys, as I always do, I just want to make sure that I let you know that I recognize you in

01:18:20.740 this as well. I mean, this is a battle to reclaim and restore what it means to be a man. And if it was

01:18:25.520 just me, I don't think it'd be nearly as successful and it certainly wouldn't be as, as, as relevant.

01:18:30.260 And, uh, interesting, I guess you'd say it from, from my perspective. So I really appreciate you

01:18:35.540 being on this journey. I appreciate you sharing. I appreciate the, the ratings and the reviews and

01:18:40.280 everything that you're doing for the order and for the movement. So guys, I'll let you get to it.

01:18:44.180 I hope you have a great week. Uh, make sure to tune in for tomorrow or ask me anything in Friday for

01:18:48.380 our Friday field notes, but until then go out, take action and become the man you are meant to be.

01:18:53.380 Thank you for listening to the order of man podcast. You're ready to take charge of your life

01:18:59.020 and be more of the man you were meant to be. We invite you to join the order at order of man.com.

Order of Man - January 29, 2019

Become the Hunter ｜ DONNIE VINCENT

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