In this episode of The Joe Rogan Experience, the host talks to Bigfoot expert Graham Hancock about his work on the Bigfoot documentary "Sasquatch: The Hunt for Bigfoot" and why he thinks Bigfoot is not a vegan.
00:00:22.000I mean, but I think he's got canines like us, so there's a good chance that he does eat meat, you know?
00:00:27.000I think hunters are the number one argument against Bigfoot being real.
00:00:31.000I've never met a hunter who's seen Bigfoot.
00:00:34.000No, and especially some of your guests you've had on, and on top of, I mean, even myself, and now you spend a lot of time in some pretty desolate places, and all the trail cameras, we should have gotten one picture.
00:00:46.000Yeah, trail cameras throw a big monkey wrench into that Bigfoot thing.
00:00:49.000I agree, and I'm always, it's still, you know, the conspiracy of that, I'm still, every time I check, especially when you get in those deep, dark places out west and all throughout the country, and even the south, I'm thinking, maybe just this time.
00:01:13.000I mean, I was thinking back and even listening, you know, like you had Rinella, of course Cam, a lot of my hunting buddies and people I look up to as well, Remy Warren, all those guys.
00:01:22.000And you start thinking about the amount of time we spend in the woods, and we don't even see a mountain lion.
00:01:51.000I mean, they know there's a thing called the Gigantopithecus that lived somewhere around 100,000 years ago that was a bipedal hominid that was 8 to 10 feet tall.
00:02:19.000I was dug deep into that and then went, because of hearing him on the podcast, and went and watched, just finished season two, watched season one soon after I'd seen him here first.
00:02:34.000Well, once you realize, first of all, that there's real physical evidence that something happened around 11,800 years ago, that the Earth was most likely pounded with asteroid debris.
00:02:46.000And it probably fucked civilization up pretty bad, and it can happen again.
00:02:53.000I mean, hearing his perspective on it and how he researched it, and it's from the standpoint, there's, you know, as we know, politics and everything gets involved in everything.
00:03:05.000And it's just almost like he was a journalistic, really smart, intellectual guy who was intrigued.
00:03:11.000It's just a good approach the way he studied it to me that made it even more compelling.
00:03:15.000And then the findings he did find, I don't know, I was very intrigued by that.
00:03:24.000Yeah, because in Ethiopia, there's a specific church in Ethiopia that has always been rumored to be the place where the Ark of the Covenant is stored.
00:03:51.000And then he started doing a deep dive into history and historical accounts of the Covenant and the Ark and all these bizarre stories that have lasted throughout history.
00:04:04.000And the real evidence that there was really sophisticated societies that lived thousands and thousands of years ago when we kind of assumed that people were hunters and gatherers.
00:04:25.000And he believes that society had reached a very, very sophisticated level of technological achievement and then something happened.
00:04:33.000And now we're living in like a rebuild.
00:04:36.000Even though we're very sophisticated, you know, in terms of technology, our technology has gone in a completely different direction than theirs did.
00:04:44.000And where did Graham ever, in his conclusion in some of that about the covenant, did he ever think that it's still there?
00:05:02.000I just had watched something on that because I'm intrigued by all that kind of stuff.
00:05:06.000Well, you know, when you really start digging deep into it, it's very fascinating.
00:05:10.000This one particular place has been protected for so long and all these people that have supposedly seen it describe something that's, you know, Trump apparently has like a model of the Ark of the Covenant at Mar-a-Lago.
00:05:26.000Yeah, he's got a recreation of the Ark of the Covenant in Mar-a-Lago.
00:05:32.000And that whole covenant was pretty cool based on how, you know, God had said, look, you know, had an intervention saying, this is how big it's got to be.
00:05:39.000It was built out of a certain wood, inside and out, gold, the handles, everything was there to hold the commandments.
00:05:48.000But then I saw something to where, I don't know if Jamie...
00:05:51.000Jamie and Mike could probably pull it up, but where some people speculate it could be under the Catholic Church.
00:07:18.000All that ancient civilization stuff is so fun because it is really kind of a mystery, you know, and it's fascinating when, and I'm sure you've been hunting before and you found arrowheads.
00:08:48.000It's such an easy routine to keep in the mornings.
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00:11:56.000Yeah, because a lot of nerds, a lot of archery nerds, they get real good at it and then just leave them scattered around places or pretend they found them.
00:13:16.000And supposedly what they did was, is they didn't necessarily, weren't trying to kill the buffalo.
00:13:22.000They would herd them and they would just kind of peck them with the arrows and then they would run the buffalo off of this cliff.
00:13:29.000And so It would basically die coming off the cliff.
00:13:33.000And it was so cool, across the valley, you could still see all those stone rings to where, supposedly, the ladies or the squaws would sit there and look back.
00:13:42.000And as soon as the men basically had, you know, whatever amount of buffalo, I guess, over the drop, they would come and butcher.
00:13:49.000And the men would go back and, you know, smoke the peace pipe and relax.
00:13:56.000Remy was telling me about this one site where they had a buffalo drop and the pile of buffalo was so large and there was so much decay that it actually created a fire.
00:15:34.000It just really stretches your mind and your imagination to imagine living like that back then.
00:15:40.000And that these people, while, you know, Rome was being built, the Colosseum, Europe, all these different places in the world, these people were living the same way people lived tens of thousands of years ago right here.
00:16:27.000And even sadly, even amongst the natives, some of that culture is being lost with them more.
00:16:33.000And so we even go out every year and do a hunt with their kids.
00:16:36.000take 15 to 20 Navajo youth hunting every year out there with the Navajo Game and Fish.
00:16:42.000And they have a lot of mentors, Gloria Tom, who she's just stepping down, but she was the kind of in charge out there.
00:16:48.000And we would go and work with people like Jeff Cole and that whole Navajo Nation, the families, and we'd take just their kids, the kids of the Navajo Nation hunting.
00:16:55.000And sadly enough, they're like a lot of kids in America eating Little Debbies and playing It's like, man, you've got 17 million acres in your backyard.
00:17:44.000So basically Pope and Young were two guys that basically just kind of revolutionized archery as we know it a lot of times.
00:17:49.000I mean, obviously throwing around names, you got to talk about Fredbear and stuff like that.
00:17:53.000But prior to that, there was an Indian named Ishi out of a California tribe.
00:17:58.000And I'm not good enough at remembering exactly what tribe that was, but there's a lot of cool information that you can read.
00:18:04.000Obviously, if you ever get your hands on Saxton Pope and Arthur Young, any books, it's fascinating.
00:18:09.000Like my favorite book of all time is called The Adventurous Bowman.
00:18:12.000A friend of mine, Jeff Johnson, who's a writer, gave it to me, and I read it all the time.
00:18:16.000And even my kid, I read him that book at night, you know, and this talks about their first venture into Africa and when they went there, when they hunted grizzly, when they hunted elk the first time.
00:18:25.000And so these guys were kind of based on what I can assume seemed to be pretty much city slickers who had basically a patient called Ishi who taught them how to hunt.
00:18:36.000And pictures of him, you can still see him.
00:18:38.000He looks like he's dressed at a Ted Nugent concert in 1969, you know.
00:18:44.000And so now that's become, similar to Boone and Crockett, Pope and Young is an organization that's formed around celebrating certain animals that are trophy aspect.
00:18:54.000And if you get, say, a white-tailed deer that nets 125 inches on the Pope and Young scale, you can enter them into the Pope and Young record books.
00:19:02.000And every category of species, like elk, bear, caribou, moose, so on and so forth, has that.
00:19:07.000And so it's just kind of to celebrate...
00:20:11.000Like that's literally from the source.
00:20:12.000And there's another thing, and it's crazy to think about this.
00:20:16.000Another thing I read and heard told, because obviously, you know, you travel around and it's always trying to figure out, you know, what's fact or fiction.
00:20:23.000But I'd listen to Casey Means on this podcast.
00:20:28.000Supposedly, Ishii, who come in, who was actually living very primitive, but come in and once he started hanging around and got westernized, quickly got fat because I don't know if Little Debbie's is around then.
00:20:57.000Just around a lot of people, and all of a sudden he was trying to fight Probably viruses and diseases and getting an abundance of a certain food he wasn't used to.
00:21:06.000And supposedly, I think he got a little heavier and less healthy just being around.
00:21:15.000Just a fish out of the creek and backstrap out of a mule deer.
00:21:20.000The way everybody did for thousands of years.
00:21:22.000It's just so interesting that if it wasn't for guys like Pope and Young and Fred Bear, I mean, how many people were evangelizing bow hunting back then?
00:21:31.000I mean, how many people were making it something that was, you know, because as soon as rifles came along, the way everybody looked at it was, oh, rifles are better.
00:21:44.000But to make that choice, this decision that there's something more connected, more spiritual about archery and bow hunting, if it wasn't for those people that were promoting it, people like Fred Bear, who was so articulate in the way he would describe things and the way he would describe The benefits of just archery practice, about how archery just removes your cares.
00:22:09.000If you could just concentrate on that target and just practice archery, it cleans your mind.
00:22:32.000And to think back of where it was to where it is, but then you think about the rifles and the technology we have there.
00:22:38.000But keep in mind, I'm sure, you know, in those people who are really hunting for substance, Absolutely.
00:22:45.000If we leave tomorrow and we can't go and get us a nice steak dinner, or we can't go to the grocery store and buy us some chicken or ribeye, whatever it is we decide to eat, well, absolutely.
00:22:55.000If we're like, hey, Joe, your wife and my wife is wanting us to kill a few squirrels, and we're going to have squirrels and gravy, and my wife makes some good biscuits, it's like...
00:23:03.000Why don't, you know, let's leave the Hoyts at home.
00:23:07.000Let's just go get us a mess of squirrel.
00:23:08.000And so I think probably they looked at it that way.
00:23:10.000And once that came about, and then it slowly becomes somewhat of a, I hate to even say it as a sport, because I don't look at it as a sport.
00:23:20.000It's a discipline, but I think to know that we're still going back and celebrating that and still talking about issue and Pope and Young and the Fred Bears and what they set forth and even people like Chuck Adams, who was always one of my heroes.
00:23:34.000Cam and I were talking a lot about that in Texas, just...
00:23:37.000Golly, Chuck Adams was hunting these elk and always had that little green beanie, shot those XX78 Arras, and man, you wasn't nobody.
00:23:44.000It was like, you know, all the kids and even me, you know, I was this little chubby white kid that thought if I bought Arras Jordans, I could jump higher, and Michael lied to me, man.
00:24:05.000You know, I want to be like Fred Bear.
00:24:06.000And so it's just amazing to see and to see that we still are celebrating it.
00:24:11.000Yeah, well, it has a very deep connection to the human mind.
00:24:16.000There's something about archery that I think it's because as human beings evolved, you know, we developed the bow and arrow, they invented it, they refined it, and that was how people hunted and got their food.
00:24:28.000I think there's a genetic memory of that that's inside of our heads.
00:24:31.000Because there's something eerily satisfying about hitting a target with an arrow.
00:25:49.000From a culture standpoint to feel just that feeling and vibe of being standing there in a pair of Kmart boots with some old walls coveralls draped over with them old white long handles, you know, that we thought we could go to Antarctica in.
00:26:04.000As soon as it got wet, she froze to death.
00:26:06.000And just the thought of that, of being literally, in my time, 11, 12 years old, just being one of the men with a.30-06 on my shoulder, climbing up in a pine tree in a tree stand built out of leftover lumber from my dad's construction job.
00:26:19.000That was the most unsafe thing in the world.
00:26:22.000A lot of people got hurt falling out of those things.
00:26:24.000And I remember we got our first bow, my dad and I. My dad had an old browning bow and he had a couple old recurs when I was young and he pecked around with them and then I remember I was 13 and I was working with him on a job site and That's my summer job.
00:26:39.000My dad was a carpenter, and so I'd go work, and man, he worked the cornbread hell out of me too, you know, just to show me how to be accountable and just what it was like to work, and he paid me $2 an hour.
00:26:48.000So he said, you need to pick out something as a goal, figure out what you need to save your money for.
00:26:51.000You don't need to blow it on something stupid.
00:29:37.000And man, I tell you what, man, intriguing.
00:29:41.000Those guys right there, their books that they wrote, if you wrote those same books now, like if you and I went on a hunt and we said, hey, let's just write an article and present it to Outdoor Life and publish it just as we saw it, which is so cool about what we do here is having a chance of conversation and kind of air out anything and everything.
00:30:02.000And obviously, culture has changed the world.
00:30:04.000But back then, you know, you had articles.
00:30:50.000You get crucified sometimes for the people who don't understand hunting, even ethically hunting and making a good ethical shot, whether it's a bow or an arrow or a rifle.
00:31:00.000And back then they were like, all right, let's go try to hunt some African lions.
00:31:04.000I don't know what it's going to take to kill them, but we'll see.
00:31:23.000I don't want to say it because it could be inaccurate historically, but I want to say they was taking 40, 50 bows, these recurves, and like...
00:32:33.000I can't imagine now that, you know, Joe and I plan a hunt trip here and you go home and say, hey, man, just me and Waddell was talking and me, him and Cam were thinking about running to hunt hogs.
00:32:42.000Well, how long are you going to be gone?
00:36:42.000And just his stuff, Pedro's videos are really, really well done.
00:36:48.000And he's such a likable guy that it's a good introduction to people that don't even understand why anybody would be interested in bow hunting.
00:36:55.000Because you realize, like, this guy is...
00:38:00.000Go to the Mongolia Elkhunt, because it's so fascinating.
00:38:05.000They stayed in a yurt, so they stayed in one of those felt tents like Genghis Khan used to live in, and they traveled in the woods, and it looks like you're in Wyoming.
00:40:15.000Yeah, I'm always, the more I travel, like, seeing this that Pedro's done, I hadn't done that extensive of traveling, and I've never, if it ends with a stand, I just stay out of it.
00:40:26.000Yeah, and these extra Z's in the long word.
00:40:29.000Yeah, man, that's like, I try to be good.
00:42:49.000Matter of fact, I'm going to do everything in my power, and anybody that listens to this ever, even ever knew my name, knows everybody's like...
00:42:57.000Dude, you've got to get Cam and Rogan to go turkey hunting.
00:43:25.000Yeah, Rinella's done it, and so I went down there with actually Troy Link of Jack Link's Jerky, and he's a big hunter, so we all went down there, kind of for the adventure, and to say, yeah, we hunted the jungles.
00:43:36.000And dude, amazing, you know, you got all that Mayan civilization and all this stuff that I saw, even Graham Hancock, but what people don't realize, we're out in the middle of this jungle, and I'm walking around, and the guy I'm with, he don't know English, and I'm like, and Cohen Stone, our producer, he's standing there, and I was like, dude, this is a...
00:43:56.000Like, we're walking up and I'm trying to figure out if I can hen call because nobody had ever figured out if you can hen call to these oscillated turkeys.
00:44:03.000I get to looking around and so finally I'm tapping this guide on the shoulder and I'm like, bro, you know, Mayan?
00:44:24.000So I only knew about the ones that was on the postcards.
00:44:27.000When you're out there having a corona on the beach and somebody trying to sell your engraving to your wife in some ring or something, I'm like, oh my god, dude.
00:44:36.000And I wanted so bad for a turkey to respond and to put my back against that.
00:44:41.000And so I did a little video and I was like, man, this is insane.
00:44:44.000But when would I have had a chance to see that had I not been a hunter?
00:44:47.000So that gets you down the rabbit hole of like, well, what was this?
00:46:38.000So archaeologists found pyramids, sports fields, causeways, and connecting districts, amphitheaters in the southern central state of Campeche?
00:46:56.000Using LIDAR, a type of laser survey that map structures buried under vegetation.
00:47:01.000They believed it is second in density only to Calakmul, thought to be the largest Maya site in ancient Latin America.
00:47:10.000The team discovered three sites in total in a survey the size of Scotland's capital, Edinburgh, by accident when one of the archaeologists browsed data on the internet.
00:48:28.000And I grew up to where, like, laying and eating with my pawpaw, like, one day.
00:48:33.000Damn it, I'm going to buy me some ribeyes.
00:48:35.000You know, it's like you eat enough squirrel and rabbit, and it's great, but it's almost like, man, I'm going to get that big family pack of chicken.
00:48:43.000And we ate plenty of that, but it was always a fallback to where you understood the good Lord's renewable resources and how to hunt them.
00:48:50.000So taking an animal for table fare wasn't anything at all to even cheer about other than You know, almost in the blessing of blessing your food, like, thank you, Lord, for giving us this opportunity to have a place to hunt.
00:49:04.000So it would be a chance to go put a fish basket out.
00:49:07.000I remember my papa taught me so many things.
00:49:09.000He made corn liquor and just country as a damn chicken coop.
00:50:05.000And I'm literally going back and at the end of the night calling my dad like, you ain't gonna believe it, everybody's eating before you eat.
00:50:15.000We're getting shrimp cocktail, and I'm over there.
00:50:19.000And it sounds crazy and almost like it's exaggerated, but I was so overwhelmed.
00:50:24.000I was so intrigued with the city and just people.
00:50:27.000I would be the guy talking to everybody, you know, from the street people to like, what's up, dog?
00:50:33.000You know, they're like, man, what's it like out here?
00:53:13.000And the first time I'm looking at that deer through the crosshairs of that rifle, and I'm just calming myself to squeeze a shot, and I squeeze off the shot and the deer drops like a stone, And I was like, oh my god.
00:53:26.000I'm like, this is what I'm doing forever.
00:53:28.000And then once I started eating it, I was like, oh, this is my new thing.
00:53:35.000And then obsessed with all I had been missing.
00:53:38.000Just the experience of being in the woods is so different than anything The way people think of hunting, unfortunately, we've been poisoned by movies where the hunters are the bad guys.
00:54:34.000Just the whole, the environment is so unforgiving and doesn't give a fuck about you, the quiet and the isolation out there, and a weird kind of loneliness.
00:54:47.000Like, not loneliness, but a realization of where your place really is in the natural world.
00:57:24.000that was the other team look did I say I'll take it bro he lives in another dimension Theo lives in a neighboring dimension and he just comes and visits us.
00:57:40.000Theo and I went to the UFC two weekends ago, last weekend, two weekends ago.
00:57:45.000We were in Vegas, and then after the fights, we went to dinner.
00:57:48.000And I swear to God, the dinner, it was an hour and a half of me and Theo crying, laughing.
00:59:31.000I think that's the most beautiful thing for me, coming from where I come from, and even, you know, seeing all the different people from all these cultures.
00:59:38.000And there's so much, and I've completely understood this too, there's so little that separates us all from the most rural country guy to the most urban city guy, no matter what race, ethnicity.
00:59:50.000It's amazing how there's so much entertainment in things.
00:59:53.000If you just open your mind, not pretend to know it all, to want to learn, Because there's so much you can teach me, so much I can teach you.
01:00:02.000And it's definitely given me a whole lot better perspective.
01:00:07.000And I don't know, that's been probably the coolest part of what I've had a chance to go on an adventure and a journey is to be able to...
01:00:14.000You know, meet somebody like Brewer who's like, you know, he didn't really, was not intrigued with hunting.
01:00:19.000It was more the conspiracy of what was going down and like, dude, I went to go get some chicken breasts and some chicken wings to watch football.
01:00:37.000And so, you know, you've hunted enough, you and Cam, where, you know, you get an elk, and it is a reverence.
01:00:42.000It's not like you—everybody reacts different.
01:00:44.000But, you know, if you played a good era, kind of the Ted Nugent, the spirit of the era, the spirit of the wild, and that era goes in there, and you've worked for it, you've practiced, and when you know it's a good ethical shot, and you know that you got and essentially put the tag on that bull, it is almost like spike—some people, it's almost like spiking the football when you get a touchdown.
01:02:02.000And I think even Jim talks about it, but I just sat back and I'm like, man, how cool is this?
01:02:09.000And then the same token, Jim's like, hey man, if you ever down here and want to come to one of my comedy shows, for my wife and friend to go do that, or to see something I've never seen, or to go home and still tell my dad who's 71, you're not going to believe...
01:02:59.000But once you find common ground, and once you experienced it, like, experiencing nature for the first time for people that are in the city, It's so overwhelming for them.
01:03:10.000It's so interesting to watch them just walk around the woods and just be confused and not knowing how to navigate, not knowing where they are, and being exhausted, not knowing how much energy it takes going up hills.
01:03:53.000like you obviously think of Hoyt, you think of Realtree, you think of these different companies that are around the hunting culture but I remember one year I had a chance to work with Hormel Denny More Stew.
01:04:05.000And so they did the sweepstakes and it's like win a turkey hunt with Michael Waddell.
01:04:10.000And so we did it and they run 30 second ads.
01:04:12.000That was when you know everything was a bunch of 30 second ads and so the guy wins it, him and his son Well, they get there, and I realize they'd never hunted.
01:04:21.000And it was my first time to experience guiding somebody that knew nothing.
01:04:27.000I mean, I'd guided a lot of rookies, but I'm talking about when I say had no clue of nature.
01:04:42.000And so I remember we're walking, and I realized that, okay, this would be fun for me because from the basics of everything, just the mountains, the streams to the tracks.
01:04:52.000So we're walking along, and me and his son and him are talking, and I say, look here.
01:06:22.000It's like, you know, somehow, you know, they think that you go to Antarctica or North Pole and these polar bears are sitting having a soda and high-fiving and talking about Christmas.
01:08:03.000Obviously, you can go to the store, but out here, there's no fucking stores.
01:08:06.000So out here, if you want to survive, if we lived here forever, this is the only environment you're ever going to be here until your heart stops beating.
01:08:33.000You just can't boil it down to 10. Pedro does a really good job of showing how difficult it is on these crazy adventure hunts that he does.
01:08:41.000But even still, it's an hour or hour and a half.
01:08:43.000The reality is it's 10 fucking days, man.
01:10:12.000Because, like, I have a whole training routine and a shooting routine, and, you know, I want to make sure I'm shooting 100 hours a day, seven days a week.
01:11:48.000I mean, I'm sure like you, you know, obviously say in the comedian world to kind of draw parallels, that opportunity to go out for 30 minutes or an hour to make someone laugh and they're digging on the stuff that you're performing.
01:12:02.000There's got to be a natural high that comes with it.
01:12:05.000So there becomes an addictive quality to it.
01:12:07.000And it's not necessarily about the money.
01:12:09.000It's just a certain situation that feels good.
01:12:11.000So you wonder, like, when do I want to step down for this?
01:12:13.000And it's kind of like, you know, Keith Richards playing a guitar.
01:12:18.000And I think hunting becomes like that.
01:12:20.000And to the point with me, like the things I love, and I've been blessed that inevitably my financial opportunities have came from hunting.
01:12:28.000Promoting hunting and working for different partners, as is Cam's, and many of us, Remy, Steve, a lot of us, but I'm still so addicted to the point to where my wife, she loves country music, my wife Christy, and so through people we meet, we've got invited to some really cool things, you know, from get-togethers to parties to situations, awards to ceremonies to different clubs, and so a lot of times we'll try to go, and it's actually a cool thing for me because, hey man, I met this person Would you like to do this or that?
01:15:02.000And then I hit me like, what a selfish...
01:15:04.000I don't know how many turkeys I've seen shot, or how many turkeys I've shot myself, but here it is, I'm 50 years old, and I'm saying no just like that, without hesitation.
01:15:59.000Well, the reality of it is if you haven't experienced hunting, you don't understand why people are so drawn to it and why the experience is so much more powerful than anything else you have in life other than the birth of your children, you know, being in love.
01:16:17.000There's a bunch of experiences that are wonderful in the regular modern civilized life.
01:16:28.000When you hear the swat of that fucking arrow hitting the vitals, and you see the spot right in the golden triangle, you see the blood dripping down, and you see him stumbling forward, you're like, we got him.
01:17:32.000They've been ducking mountain lions for five, six years, and they know any little snap of a branch, any little, like, moving of a rock that sounds like it might have been a predator's paw.
01:17:49.000And that's another thing people don't realize.
01:17:51.000You know, they think, oh, you hunters are going out there and, you know, getting these animals.
01:17:55.000And, you know, obviously the hunters have such a responsibility and the balance of a lot of things.
01:18:00.000You know, and Mother Nature is, first of all, very brutal.
01:18:03.000And there's a lot to be learned through nature.
01:18:05.000There's a lot of things we think we know, but then if you really dig deep and you're in the mountains, you realize, wait a minute, that was all human nature.
01:19:49.000Their thought is they want to get it to the point where the predators and the prey balance each other out where there's no need for hunting.
01:19:57.000And they would like to reintroduce wolves to help in that.
01:20:00.000It's animal activists that have taken these positions that should be held by wildlife biologists who have an objective understanding of the populations and how to keep them healthy.
01:20:10.000And the way they're doing it in California is you've got mountain lions everywhere.
01:20:14.000In this one ranch that I hunt, they had a waterhole, they had a pond, and they had a trail cam.
01:20:20.000They found 18 different cats that visited this trail cam.
01:20:35.000But there was a time, I think it was 28 square mile radius that I know at least in the state of Utah.
01:20:41.000So I'm not saying every game of fish department, you know, I call it, or fishing game, or fish and wildlife would say.
01:20:47.000But they had specifically, they said, a male mountain lion basically controlled 28 miles diameter.
01:20:55.000Only to find that in Utah, I've got some friends and outfitters that went out there when they did have the quota tags.
01:21:01.000Now you can just buy a tag over the counter or get depredation.
01:21:05.000You can hunt mountain lion all the time because they realize, look, these mountain lions are killing a lot of elk, a lot of mule deer specifically.
01:21:10.000On top of that, you don't know what the winter is going to be and what that's going to kill.
01:21:14.000Then you got wolves, you got bears, you got all this stuff.
01:23:01.000I heard Rinella, because Rinella spends a lot of time in desolate places.
01:23:04.000And I didn't specifically talk to Cam.
01:23:07.000But kind of in perspective, I started working.
01:23:12.000In the area of either guiding or working with an outfitter, working with companies that were doing shows for, at the time, TNN that turned into ESPN, now Outdoor Channel, now YouTube, so on and so forth.
01:23:23.000Well, so as a young kid, you know, in rural Georgia, I finally had a chance to start going and seeing these places from Saskatchewan I got to go to Africa, all over Mexico, and now I'm hunting all across the western landscape, not just in Georgia hunting whitetails and turkeys and squirrels there.
01:23:40.000I've only saw one mountain lion in the daylight.
01:23:47.000I think Rinella said he saw six in his lifetime in the daylight.
01:23:50.000So what you realize, if you see a mountain lion in the daylight, now I've seen a lot of mountain lions, but they all have been in a tree behind a dog or running behind a dog.
01:23:59.000I'm talking about just you and I glassing, looking for meal deer and like, Joe, mountain lion.
01:24:23.000I have 500, a little over 500 acres I live on in Georgia, and so I noticed that I was finding all kinds of fawns, and they did a bunch of studies from University of Georgia, Auburn University, talking about how many deer that coyotes eat, which you can't blame them.
01:24:38.000Why would you not eat a fawn in the fawning time of year and feed your pups?
01:24:42.000So I decided, actually, of all people who got me into trapping, it was Blake Shelton.
01:24:48.000He was trapping in Oklahoma and loves it.
01:24:50.000So I'm like, my God, if this country singer who hosted The Voice can trap, I've got to learn about this.
01:24:57.000So I dug deep and 2019 and 20, man, I just dug in and just learned a lot more about trapping instead of putting out dirt hole traps or leg hole, dirt hole traps and different things.
01:25:09.000And so I caught in 2021, I caught like 22 one year, 19 another year, just on 500 acres.
01:25:17.000And if we go hunting tomorrow, now think about 20 dogs that are smaller than a German Shepherd, but a small, you know, Canine dog that lives on your property.
01:25:56.000I got different things and tractors trying to make the wildlife habitat better to make sure I got better areas for my turkeys to brood, making sure I'm planting resources.
01:26:20.000And so for me to say that and to think that you can just spend nearly $4.8 million, $5 million to reintroduce wolves and think you're going to get tourists to come out there and look at them.
01:26:29.000These wolves, if they could talk, they're like, these people don't have a clue.
01:27:14.000All these PETA members, they're all fine, long as it's your dog and your cat.
01:27:19.000But all of a sudden, you let a herd of deer come in and eat their $40,000 worth of landscaping, and a mountain lion kill their pet, they're secretly calling me like, hey, bone collector?
01:27:31.000I'm not going to lie, that's a little offensive, but...
01:28:51.000You know, of course, he loved that you had Trump on and that you had kind of bringing some light to that and giving him an opportunity to talk.
01:28:59.000And so I find across the board, same conversation I had talking to some squirrel hunters, talking about Cam Haynes.
01:29:09.000You know, he runs and he does this stuff.
01:29:11.000And what brought me and Cam back together to even going out and talking on his podcast, you know, we grew up close to the same age, same trajectory.
01:30:16.000I said, man, he's had a cool conversation.
01:30:18.000And so he and I quickly kind of said, man, why have we not even hunted together?
01:30:23.000Like, we've been at trade shows and stuff and done some stuff.
01:30:25.000And And so that's been really cool for me, an old friend I've known a long time, to get back in camp, and the conversations are so funny.
01:30:33.000We get to laughing and cutting up, and I don't know, it's crazy.
01:30:38.000Well, I think one of the beautiful things about social media for hunting and podcasts for hunting is that people have an opportunity to hear a completely different perspective about what it is that wasn't available before that.
01:30:50.000I got into hunting because I started watching Spirit of the Wild.
01:31:51.000I was, when Rinella had reached out and I had a chance to be on his podcast, you know, I I would say I'm a very secure person, but at the same time, I know I'm country.
01:32:01.000I know I'm the, for lack of better words, the guy that...
01:32:32.000At first, when I first started meeting and hanging with Rinella, I thought, man, I hope he don't think I'm just this old redneck crazy dude.
01:32:40.000And then once we've become friends, it gets back to the whole how everything is so much tighter that you realize and how we all have so much respect for each other in different lanes of bringing it.
01:32:52.000I mean, you've got different players on a team, all playing for the same team.
01:32:56.000But they all have a different skill set.
01:32:57.000And so we all grow up a little different.
01:32:59.000And so again, I just assumed growing up in my small little area, just out of Manchester, Woodbury, Georgia, I really think the area I was from was called Booger Bottom, Georgia.
01:33:12.000And I just thought, well, Booger Bottoms are everywhere.
01:33:15.000Well, you find out there is a lot of different little names.
01:33:59.000And people that eat meat, too, by the way, right?
01:34:01.000Yeah, I mean, it really hit me when I started traveling.
01:34:04.000I literally was like a kid that was just, you know, getting up every morning for Christmas.
01:34:10.000I was having a chance to work for Bill Jordan, and I met him through winning a turkey calling contest.
01:34:16.000And he asked me, him and David Blanton, I can't say enough great things about Bill and David.
01:34:21.000David Blanton believed in me when, I mean, he always believed in me so much, and he said, hey, man, we'd love for you to help guide hunters.
01:34:27.000And back then, everything around hunting was media, outdoor life, field and stream.
01:35:46.000It didn't have any of the arc, the angle range compensation, had any of that.
01:35:49.000And the first person I ever saw that even talked about that was Chuck Adams.
01:35:52.000I was videoing with him back in those TNN days.
01:35:55.000I want you to explain to people, like, the angle compensation is like an arrow is quicker going downhill.
01:36:02.000So if you're shooting uphill or downhill, the angle, you have to gauge how fast the arrow is going to go, the feet per second, based on the angle.
01:36:11.000So if it might look like it's 50 yards as the crow flies, your rangefinder might say 42. Correct.
01:36:18.000And you've got to put your sight at 42 yards, otherwise it'll shoot right over its back.
01:37:00.000And the fact that you could go to full draw and just press a button to range and then say maybe the animal moves 15 yards to the left, you just press it again and you get a range and you have a perfect shot.
01:37:11.000But some people think that that's cheating.
01:37:17.000Instead of picking your range finder off your bino pouch and checking it and then changing your site and then drawing back, with this you're doing it right from draw.
01:37:27.000So from full draw you can just keep getting ranges.
01:37:29.000And then you can also hit it once And then a second time, and you'll get pins.
01:38:20.000There was a site years ago that I remember, and it worked, in theory, great, but it wasn't like the Range or the Garmin, but they had these fiber optics that were glued to the middle of a...
01:38:33.000Basically of a piece of glass that went into the site housing.
01:38:36.000So you would buy this glass housing that, okay, if your bow was 280 feet per sack or 290 or 300, 320, and your pins were preset.
01:38:44.000So you went in and got your top pin dialed in.
01:38:46.000So then you had all these, but your site viewing was good.
01:38:49.000The problem was when it rained or if it got dirty.
01:38:53.000And what I did like about that is the fact that the reason I've always liked pins, multiple pins, is the fact that I could see my whole sight picture where my arrow is going from 20 all the way out to even if I'm shooting 80. In this case, most of my sights are set up from, say, 20 to 60 or 20 to 70. I try to put as many pins on my sight as I can.
01:39:14.000A lot of people don't like it because they think it's cluttered, but once I've mentally got used to it, if I range a bull, say, 65, when I pull back, Without having doing any other calculations, I put my 60-yard pin on that bull.
01:39:27.000It's in the clear, and then quickly, now it's like a memory of going back, and I quickly go back up to my 20-yard pin, and I'm looking all the way down through and estimating, is this arrow going to arc through?
01:39:39.000But basically, from 20 all the way out to my desired, where I want to hit, I can see the arc of my arrow based on my pin set good.
01:39:47.000So you know if there's a gap in the trees, you're going to be able to get right in there.
01:39:50.000I know if I'm at 60 holding dead on that clear spot, but I got a limb at 30 and my 30-yard pin's in the middle of it, I know, oh crap, I'm going to hit that.
01:39:59.000So that's why I don't like as much single pin technology.
01:40:03.000And then quickly, what I like about the pins, it's clutter, it's kind of old-fashioned, but I do like that a lot from that standpoint of trajectory of the ability to kind of kill or to take and fill a tag.
01:40:18.000And Cam and I talked a lot about those things.
01:40:22.000I definitely like the, you know, I like the handheld from a, if I really want to try to haunt in and be a little more disciplined and kind of the feel it go, not feel it go off and shoot with completely surprise.
01:40:34.000I like that, but I don't think that traditionally works as great for hunting because of the fact, I think you do have to know and to make that arrow go right now if you consistently have to Even in Texas.
01:40:46.000I mean, we're shooting animals at, you know, 20 to 30 yards, those deer.
01:40:52.000Sometimes the opportunity is right there.
01:40:53.000Sometimes they walk in, they're dogging a doe.
01:42:50.000I saw a clip of Elvis Presley the other day on this YouTube clip, and he was completely in panic.
01:42:56.000And this was like right in the prime of his career, and he was walking around, and it was a narrator saying, yes, Elvis notoriously would get just afraid every time he went on fray.
01:43:38.000And then to control it, and then when you fit that arrow through that window, and then you can pick up the phone and call your family and say, baby doll, don't buy an old steak because I'm bringing it home.
01:44:52.000Being successful is that if you can get through that Nervousness and I think it helps you in everything you do in life I think anytime you do something really hard very difficult I think that ability to overcome that difficult scenario helps you with everything in life hundred percent and when it comes to archery to it You're on that ragged line to where in your subconscious you can go from, you can be the hero or you can be zero that quick.
01:45:18.000All of that time, the money, the energy, the time that you did step away from the Netflix special in your case because, hey, I'm elk hunting.
01:45:26.000You know you got to somehow communicate with your buddies.
01:46:15.000And the only other person in history I've ever heard that, there was a guy named Kenny Bartram who was a motocross.
01:46:20.000He was the first guy to ever do a backflip on a motorcycle, and he landed it.
01:46:25.000And so he went hunting with us one time in Texas, and I said, Kenny, I mean, how much weed do you got to smoke to get on a bike and think you can do a flip for the first time?
01:46:34.000He said, man, I just always thought I'd probably kill myself, but I'd try it.
01:46:39.000I said, so you never thought you would land it?
01:46:41.000Every time I try a trick, I think I'm about to wad it up.
01:46:44.000I said, oh my God, how do you do that?
01:46:48.000And I'm thinking about me and my buddy, Boo Bishop, building a BMX track and building a little something we jumped over and thinking I'd be scared.
01:47:15.000I've often wondered, is there ever a comedian that walks out and is like, hey, I'm probably going to bomb, but I'm going to do the best I can, or I'm going to play this guitar the best I can.
01:49:33.000As a matter of fact, if there's any negative thing, I think the hunting industry and even TV shows that we produce can put a negative vibe potentially on trying to kill these big trophy animals.
01:49:45.000Don't get me wrong, there's nothing wrong with it.
01:49:46.000I mean, you're hunting Utah and the places we get a chance to hunt, absolutely.
01:49:50.000You're looking for, in that case, a seven- to eight-year-old bull.
01:49:54.000You know, sometimes they might score 320 to 370. At the end of the day, the trophy is for sure a mature animal.
01:50:00.000But you also got to keep in perspective, especially if you grow up where I did, where literally there's, you know, 10 guys shared a 300-acre property that they just want to deer hunt.
01:50:12.000Keep in mind, they're still managing a family.
01:50:14.000They're still dealing with the economy.
01:50:15.000They're still dealing with everyday strife of, man, how am I going to get off work, still get my kid to soccer practice or football practice, My wife is pissed off.
01:50:25.000I hadn't even took her to Applebee's in the last three months, you know, and it's like I didn't take the kids to, you know, Disney World and the only family picture we got in front of the Shoney's big boy.
01:50:54.000It's a, I call it, it's a cheapest, you know, antidepressant presence you can get on to where you can clear your mind, you can get away.
01:51:02.000Hopefully you can turn your phone off, get up in a tree stand or a saddle, whatever it is, whether you're hunting public or private.
01:51:07.000And we miss that in the hunting industry so many times.
01:51:10.000And there's people that are literally busting their ass for their family.
01:51:15.000It's not a sport to hunt, but it's therapeutic.
01:51:17.000They grew up doing it to be able to sit around a fire with other men and women sometimes and get away sometimes.
01:51:23.000To cleanse yourself of everything that's going on.
01:51:25.000And unfortunately, I think that's what drives people sometimes crazy, even in the city.
01:51:30.000Sometimes I walked around Austin today early, had me a nice breakfast, and I just walked around and ended up running to this children's network that was trying to raise money where you can kind of adopt a kid and give them so much a month.
01:53:40.000Yeah, and sometimes it's almost like, you know, I've never figured out completely a lady.
01:53:48.000My wife, you know, sometimes it's always a game.
01:53:51.000And I've learned that I don't know that I'll ever understand exactly what it is she wants, but I know she wants me to hear and pay attention.
01:54:00.000Whether you're a hunter, whether you're from the city.
01:54:03.000But overall, what I have found, whether you live in the city or the country, whether you get a chance to go to a rave or go to the mothership, which I hope to go by there or not, I just want to check out the joint, you know.
01:54:14.000And so anyway, when it's all said and done, there's something about the peace and tranquility that you can refuel out in the woods, and it brings everything to a focal point.
01:54:24.000Point, and you can be still and be quiet, and it brings everything back.
01:54:28.000And so in reality, it's not about people going to think of you different if you shoot the biggest, highest scoring animal that you can put into the Bope& Young or the Boone& Crockett record books.
01:54:37.000I think those of us, once we learn to respect each other and love each other's goals, that, yeah, if I know that your goal is to shoot, say, a 390 bull, That one day, you know, I'll get a call, and you're going to be hyperventilating, and you're like, I just did it.
01:54:56.000Well, for people who don't understand why that's so interesting to us, it's because they're the most difficult ones to get, because they're the older, wiser ones.
01:55:04.000And also, when you look at it from a conservation standpoint, those are the ones that you want to hunt because those are the ones who spread their genes and they're probably about to get taken out by nature anyway.
01:57:42.000What dolphin females have to do is they have to breed with as many males as possible because when a female dolphin has babies, she has to take care of that baby for about six years.
01:57:53.000So when the male dolphins recognize a female with babies and they don't know that female, those are not his babies, he'll kill those babies so that female dolphin will breed.
01:58:05.000So she will breed with everybody possible so nobody knows who the babies are.
01:58:10.000And so since they're intelligent, they understand that they've bred with that female before, so that could be their babies, so they don't kill them.
01:58:17.000So basically, all the dolphins are hoes.
02:00:07.000Yeah, I'm going to send Jamie this picture, or the video, because it's so crazy.
02:00:13.000It's so cool, though, to see that and experience it.
02:00:16.000And I think it's sad that most people don't know.
02:00:20.000And there's a lot of very smart people that, in some cases, they think it might be a little beneath them to understand what maybe hunting is truly about, other than maybe what they see on a Walt Disney movie.
02:00:35.000It kind of fueled me to be able to help educate and talk about those things.
02:00:38.000And I know Ranella has done an amazing job of introducing that, too.
02:00:41.000And there's a lot of great ambassadors that we've got right now doing that.
02:00:44.000Yeah, it's a great time to be educated about this, and it's a great time.
02:00:49.000And there's a lot of people that have gotten really interested in hunting from those kind of conversations with Rinella and with Cam and yourself.
02:00:56.000How did you eventually get started doing it?
02:00:59.000Because that's every young guy's dream that is ever hunted.
02:01:03.000Like, oh my god, imagine making a living doing that.
02:01:33.000I'll try to keep it short, but basically what I end up doing is just enthralled.
02:01:36.000My mom passed away when I was young, 16, and so my dad and I become more like brothers.
02:01:41.000And my dad, he had a ninth grade education, the hardest working man I've ever been around.
02:01:46.000And so anyway, we loved hunting fish and it became therapeutic.
02:01:50.000And so I got into Turkey Calling and had won some contests and met some of my Turkey Calling heroes, and that's where I met Bill Jordan and David Blanton.
02:01:59.000And I started guiding when I was probably 19. And then one thing led to another.
02:02:04.000I started working full-time there at Realtree.
02:02:08.000As a guide, as a camera guy, they had that show on TNN, and so I was just literally camera jockeying it from skinning deer, guiding turkey hunters, and it was David Blanton who said, man, you know, there's a lot more you could do.
02:02:21.000And so I kind of, by default, Joe, how I got lucky, too, was when I hooked up with those guys, David Blanton and Bill, I got to do some of the turkey calling tips because I had won some contests.
02:02:31.000And so even back on TNN, I was this young kid, and they were like, hey, we need up.
02:03:57.000David Blanton offered me a full-time job to work in production slash guide.
02:04:01.000That had to be so surreal to be able to make a living doing this thing that you love when no one even thought it was a job when you were a kid.
02:04:20.000I'd went to heating and air school and got a degree and worked a year with Barringer's Heat and Cooling out of Zeblin, Georgia.
02:04:27.000And I had me a truck, had my name on it, you know, Michael, you know, and had me my refrigeration tools and every Christmas my dad, oh boy, I got you another flaring kit.
02:04:39.000And all of a sudden, you know, I'm coming in telling the family like, hey, uh, I don't know if I'm going to keep doing the heat and air deal.
02:05:33.000Matter of fact, there's a real funny story about that Mercedes-Benz.
02:05:37.000But I... I couldn't believe it, and so my grandma was like, son, when you get tired of this, just go have fun with it, but come back to it.
02:05:43.000Almost no different than if you're a young kid, like, I'm going to Nashville, I want to play a guitar and sing.
02:05:50.000And somebody in the family was like, oh, when it gets right, he'll come back, jump in the family business, start putting these shingles on the roof.
02:05:56.000He'll get back into sheetrock and just give him a chance.
02:05:59.000Hell, he was one of the best concrete guys I knew.
02:06:01.000That kid would work, he could run a bull float like some bitch.
02:08:06.000And it become the Nashville, it was the Nashville Network, then it becomes the National Network, then it becomes Spike TV. And so everything moved over, all the...
02:08:15.000The big Sunday night block move over to ESPN, but you couldn't show impact.
02:08:20.000Well, about that time, they started the Outdoor Channel on cable TV. They were looking for distribution.
02:08:27.000He said, Michael, we need to come up with a cool hook and we need to create a show over on Outdoor Channel.
02:08:34.000Getting back to meeting these people, and what I found that was fascinating, and it's just the same with these conversations you have, these people that you just look up to.
02:08:42.000Yeah, you meet some people that are interesting and weird, but for the most part, you're like, wow, these guys are super cool, super talented.
02:08:48.000And that's what I was finding when I would run into a country singer.
02:08:51.000I remember Mark Chestnut sitting around and Drinking whiskey and him playing the guitar and singing Hank Williams Jr.'s song, running into Bo Cephas, running into, you know, to Leonard Skinner and all those guys.
02:09:01.000I'm like, man, these guys are so down-to-earth and cool.
02:09:03.000And I realized that there was more to this hunting than just this staunch, you know, here we go with the Encinitas Ranch.
02:09:10.000Today, we're hunting the mesquite flats of Encino, you know.
02:09:37.000And you should be serious if you're going to go take a bow and arrow or rifle and take the life of a wild animal.
02:09:43.000But the camp life was so amazing, and we'd have different personalities, different NFL athletes.
02:09:48.000We would have comedians, people like Jeff Foxworthy.
02:09:50.000And I was just so pleased that these people that I adored and was big fans of was people that you could sit around and have a glass of sweet tea or a cold beer and just laugh.
02:10:01.000And they were as real, possibly more entertaining in person, kind of like your talk about Theo.
02:10:12.000And so I told David, I said, I think most of these people, if we could do a show kind of documenting just the camp life and the reality of how much fun you have, I think we could sell that fun.
02:11:12.000Because Bill was one of the first people to buy these really high dollar cameras.
02:11:15.000Beta cameras that we was out videoing with and putting them in the wild.
02:11:20.000And so, anyway, as I showed the footage, he said, man, can we use this and let the class use this footage as a project to build storylines?
02:11:39.000Now let's go back and build a pre-hunt, you know, and it'd be like Dale Earnhardt walking through the forest with his gargoyles on or however, and he's camouflaged like, yeah, we're going down here to a ridge flat, a lot of acorns up there.
02:11:50.000Well, the deer has been dead a long time ago, obviously, by the time we shot that.
02:11:54.000So he loved that, the instructor, because it gave us a chance to put the storyline.
02:11:58.000And I thought, man, I'm going to be the hero.
02:12:00.000You know, all these little girls up here in Maine, and I ain't never seen a lot of people with purple hair and stuff, and I could tell it was kind of that cool hippie trend, and it was artsy.
02:12:09.000But in my mind, I'm like, I'm just having a good time.
02:12:11.000And anyway, dude, immediately, Joe, it became a protest.
02:12:15.000There was two or three people stood up in the class.
02:12:29.000And finally, I had a little bit of a meltdown because that was one of the first times that it really hit me where I had a mass of people saying, you know, almost felt like the Antichrist because I'm the guy killing deer.
02:12:39.000And I thought it was going to be the opposite.
02:13:23.000And then when David gave me that opportunity to do Realtree Road Trips back in the day, it was in 2003 it aired.
02:13:30.000We shot it in 2002. That's when everything for me, because it was all about personality, it was all about having fun, and that's kind of, we kind of come up with the tagline, this is a different kind of hunting show.
02:13:40.000Well, you were the first guy to bring fun and personality to hunting television.
02:15:17.000If you do that and you can make friends, that's the biggest form of the trophy you'll ever get.
02:15:22.000Yes, that's a trophy, but the stories you got with sitting with Rinella and the people around the camp and that experience, you meet people from all over the country, in our case the world, and the next thing you know it's like even more special.
02:15:35.000And so I know people, I say it a lot, I know people that's got some amazing trophy rooms.
02:15:40.000But they're lonely, they dusty, and they really ain't made a lot of friends because they were so beating their chest to kill the next biggest thing that they forgot that the trophy is relationships and the adventure.
02:15:52.000And yes, inevitably, this deer that's hanging on the wall that your family has enjoyed over a period of sometimes a year.
02:16:00.000Sometimes it'll take you a year or two to eat elk, a full elk.
02:16:07.000I never felt like I was that talented, other than the fact I just had a lot of good work ethic my dad put in me, and I really had a passion for it.
02:16:19.000And I didn't have really any weird opposition pulling me away from it.
02:16:24.000But growing up so rural and blue-collar, I had to prove to my family that there was a livelihood here because they literally looked at it like...
02:17:30.000It's a great point, because to this day, I'll go to, and aside, because I'm now, you know, I know you love classic cars, and I hear about the things you talk about, and obviously I'm a big fan of the podcast.
02:17:43.000And so one thing that draws me in is the fact that culturally we're into the same things.
02:17:46.000You know, Rubik's Cubes and 80s, and I always, my favorite car was a 70 Supersport, you know, Chevelle.
02:18:27.000And I guess I realize, and Cameron and I have talked a lot about that, about, like, it's odd that there is a thing that is fake, that people can't be transparent, that people can't just talk their feelings.
02:18:38.000And everything we say don't mean our assessment is always correct, but at least it is something to be heard and told.
02:18:44.000And then the more you talk, I think that's what reshaped the politics this year.
02:18:48.000When you look at Trump coming on, J.D., Harris passed.
02:18:53.000Well, it proves like, well, did you really have something to say?
02:20:18.000And a question for you, I've often wondered, do you think that's starting to affect Hollywood a little bit to where now, if you look at the most successful people, it is the realest people.
02:20:27.000You know, people might not even like, say, a Donald Trump, but people are gravitated because they think, hey, man, this is him.
02:20:34.000I think the best thing for people in Hollywood that are entrenched in that world is to shut the fuck up.
02:20:39.000Because as soon as they start talking, as soon as Robert De Niro starts talking, I'm like, Jesus, get that fucking microphone away from him so I can enjoy Taxi Driver.
02:21:53.000And the one thing that's harming them in Hollywood is that they get exposed for being who they really are.
02:21:59.000And a lot of these people that pretend to be all, you know, clean cut and find out they're into freaky shit and, you know, it's like...
02:22:08.000And it's easier to expose stuff now because social media, I'm sure, like back in the day, I can only imagine the parties at Waylon Jennings and Merle Haggard.
02:22:16.000Some of these pictures on the wall in here, can you imagine some of the stuff?
02:22:19.000They didn't have to worry about nobody.
02:23:07.000I mean, I've seen her have fun with people.
02:23:09.000There's this one very funny conversation where she's talking about meeting her in-laws for the first time, where her mother-in-law grabs her face, and it's really funny.
02:23:18.000It's funny listening to her saying she's laughing hard, but a real laugh this time.
02:23:42.000Well, it's like, well, I'm probably going to screw it up.
02:23:45.000It's like, you know, and then CNN's going to be like, yeah, you're...
02:23:49.000Rogan didn't even call her name right.
02:23:50.000But at the end of the day, maybe now that she's out of that whole situation, because you see, and I think the world's changing, where record producers and stuff are controlling music, and if you're going to get on a radio station, everybody walks a tightrope.
02:24:29.000To a degree, during that time frame, bow to that machine because he couldn't do these things.
02:24:34.000So I think now it's like you don't know what's real because you don't know if they are trying to do this for a career or if they can be real.
02:24:41.000And then at times, okay, I believe De Niro, in his case, is finally his true colors and finally like I'm enough to where I can be real.
02:24:49.000But the real you do see in him, I'm like, go back to being fake.
02:24:53.000Just come back to me and think, I don't want to see this asshole you really are.
02:25:21.000And I think more of that is being exposed now, and I think it's probably good for all of us to not have these ridiculous perceptions of these people and think of them as being larger-than-life characters.
02:25:50.000The more conversations we have, the more conversations that we have access to, the more we get to see the patterns of how human beings think and behave, and the more we get to see what we like.
02:26:01.000And generally, what we like is nice people being real.
02:27:28.000But there's certain people that I meet that, like, you know, I meet him and I'm like, I can't believe I'm in the room with Quentin Tarantino.
02:28:03.000The more you talk about somebody like Donald Trump, like him or love him, he has pretty much, as now, you know, the second time he's going to be president, he is accessible to the people in a weird way, meaning...
02:29:39.000They're spending millions of taxpayers' dollars out there.
02:29:43.000And this is, in my mind, if I am playing this role of inferior or redneck or insecure, in my mind, I'm trying to talk humbly to kind of help him know what I know some friends out in Colorado have gone through.
02:29:57.000Cattle to domestic problems to the elk population.
02:30:10.000I don't care what he's talking about grabbing because I'd been to a few little nonprofit, you know, in Washington, D.C. with lobbyists and stuff where we're trying to get some money from a bill for the NWTF and Brood and Habitat or Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation.
02:30:23.000And I found most of the politicians were decently fake.
02:30:27.000Almost similar to a California, L.A. actor type.
02:31:36.000And the whole time, again, I never dug into politics.
02:31:38.000I'm like, I'm talking to a guy that once I do go back and Google, he come into office, he was making, you know, he's making as a senator, I don't know what, 50 to 100 grand a year.
02:31:48.000And now he's worth, and it's all he's ever done.
02:32:50.000I feel like there is a little bit of momentum that feels like there's a little bit of a cleansing process.
02:32:55.000It's going to take a long time, I think, to get there, but I think everything that's happening now, it feels through opportunities and outlets like this that people can talk and people can understand what's real and fiction, or at least debate.
02:33:10.000It seems like everything from, I don't know, the political world to just everything about the truth, about whether it's hunting and fishing, The truth about the cosmos, possibly some of the stuff about ancient civilization to people and people that love Jesus Christ.
02:33:27.000You can really dig deep and you can have good conversations and it's not just dictated by a certain machine.
02:33:58.000It feels like with this crew of people, with J.D. Vance and Elon Musk and RFK Jr. and Tulsi Gabbard and Vivek Ramaswamy, I think there's a real chance that things can change, a real chance that we can expose some of the deep-seated corruption, some of the problems that we've had in this country and move us onto a better path.
02:34:17.000And I find I still got friends that are diehard Democrats and pretty darn liberal, believe it or not, even me, that works in the hunting industry.
02:34:48.000No one really believed that she was going to be a great president, and they certainly didn't believe that Tim Walsh was going to be a great vice president.
02:35:29.000Because I remember growing up in that same rural area and, you know, my grandmama and stuff.
02:35:35.000But when I could sit there and talk to my youngins, you know, my son Mason, I said, Mason, When you come down, run by and get us a gallon of milk.
02:36:57.000You know, and then you're telling, you know, like, we're blessed to go to these hunting places, but they're not cheap places to hunt, to be able to technically trespass on these properties that are privately owned, and or if you were to go on a public elk hunt, you know, the private public.
02:37:37.000And we're going out there to go hunt, just in supplies and setups.
02:37:42.000Oh yeah, just in your bow and your arrows and your broadheads and your fucking rangefinder and your minos and your gear and your clothing and your boots.
02:38:01.000Like I said, you could either buy you a small farm in Kentucky or just get you a new bow.
02:38:06.000I mean, that's what it feels like these days, you know.
02:38:09.000But I tell you, it's absolutely so amazing that we get a chance to even do it and even get back to hunting.
02:38:16.000I tell people all the time, it's like, you know, I've always stood by the fact, I don't think, You're a badass that you hunt.
02:38:24.000I think it's just badass that we can have that opportunity in America and that we can fall back on that.
02:38:30.000And if times do get hard, there's a certain piece once you understand the craft of it, a little bit of that rule of living and knowing how to skin a deer, knowing the best parts.
02:38:45.000But at the end of the day, There's a certain piece as a man, especially, and I think overall, even though we're in a world to where, you know, we got these equality and women can do what men can do or supposedly, but at the end of the day, I've always looked at it that my job is to provide, you know, safety, some type of structure, food and care for my family and any man that's out there that knows nothing about nature.
02:39:10.000That if these cities shut down, that would be a terrifying experience.
02:39:55.000I told somebody a while back, I said, man, I'm going to tell you, when you become a hunter and you understand it and you become simple, all the financial situations you might gain, money's nice.
02:40:05.000I agree that it don't necessarily bring you happiness.
02:40:07.000It is great to be able to have the money to do those things we talked about, just eating.
02:40:11.000Or maybe it is that 70 Chevelle that's like, I've always wanted it and you can buy it.
02:40:16.000But at the end of the day, there's a peace comes to know that I could potentially lose it all, but if I got my wife and my kids and I got this bow and arrow, I might actually gain a little bit because now I got peace and tranquility.
02:40:30.000I got a certain stillness that is more valuable than anything I could find at the rave or in the middle of the city.
02:40:37.000And so I've often told people, even if you love the city life, which what people might not realize, I love the city life.
02:40:44.000It's so fun to visit, but that's just it.
02:41:15.000Well, I think, Michael, one of the things that people really enjoy about you and I've enjoyed talking to you is you have a genuine gratitude towards life.
02:42:41.000It was just, no matter what, there's always going to be people that doubt you, especially if you want to do something that's high risk, low probability of success.
02:42:50.000You know, it made me dig deep because I think of that.
02:42:52.000And the reason I ask you that is because that experience I had with my family, it was kind of mind-boggling because I thought they would see it as I did.
02:43:00.000And I think there's a difference in perception or the way we perceive things and the true reality possibly because you've got to sometimes bring yourself out and look back in from their point of view.
02:43:08.000And I learned it as I've become a parent because now I've got kids and they're wanting to do something.
02:45:09.000There's people that don't want someone to take a risk and succeed because they never took a risk and they don't want to confront themselves with that thought.
02:45:18.000They don't want to be confronted with the reality of what they've done with their life.
02:45:46.000I've texted several people all the time, especially when I think about it, people along the way who said, Hey, buddy, let me pull you back.
02:45:54.000Stay away from this stuff, but you're special in this.
02:46:04.000Literally, me in the right mood, especially with this young lady right there, I'd have wanted to hit him.
02:46:11.000I don't know mixed martial arts, but I know a goddamn haymaker, and he didn't see it coming.
02:46:17.000And, I mean, he was calling this girl all kind of names, and you MFers, and all it took was when he said, hey, bro, I'm on your side, and immediately he was just like, he just wanted to be heard, and maybe that's it.
02:47:05.000And it made me feel so good to know that you're that deep into it.
02:47:08.000And but when you start looking at so many of these things that's out there for us, what I find about the hunting community, it is a community of people that welcomes all.
02:47:20.000And they want you to learn, and they're so appreciative that you might just take a look into this culture that sometimes can be criticized, that sometimes can be judged and think we're barbaric or we're hillbilly or uneducated or just ruthless.
02:47:35.000And what you'll find is there is a part of that that with dipping into nature, mother nature, you have to kind of become an animal with that and be Like the bear, like the predator, you are a killer.
02:47:47.000You have to come to full draw to feed your family.
02:47:49.000But it's so welcoming, and I've never seen anybody alienized.
02:47:54.000I've never seen anybody that I've thought that was a solid person within the industry and are just people around my house that wouldn't bring in, feed you, and say, come on, let me show you what this is about, boy or young lady.
02:48:04.000And I'm proud of that, and I'm confident, and I know that there's nobody, even the people...
02:48:12.000I remember one thing that was epic that happened, Joe, and it hit me pretty hard.
02:48:19.000My daughter, Addie, had asked me, Dad, in a situation if we're at school and there's something bad happening, I was talking about some of the school shootings, and I saw we just had one.
02:48:43.000They had these outside doors that went out, and quickly, there in Harris County, Georgia, it goes off into the wilderness, you know.
02:48:48.000Matter of fact, my farm is right across from the high school.
02:48:51.000And I said, Addie, I'll tell you what I want you to do.
02:48:54.000If something goes awry, I said, you know, you've hunted with me a lot and you understand, you know, how to hide and slip around and stuff like that.
02:49:02.000I said, if something happens and you can see that exit door and you can get out and you can hit the woods, I want you to go right then.
02:49:34.000Maybe a beat-up minivan with a mom riding around with some, you know, maybe it is that old 70 Chevelle, because that guy appreciates good cars.
02:49:49.000And I said, if you find somebody with a four-wheel drive truck that you know probably resembles your granddaddy, or me, or Nick Munt and all these guys, you jump in there.
02:50:01.000They're definitely going to have a gun in there, and you tell them what happened, and they will protect you until they can find me.
02:50:05.000And when I thought about that, I was dead serious, but then I thought, that goes beyond my daughter.
02:50:10.000Anybody, it wouldn't matter if you was Muslim, Christian, or goth, or whatever, if you did that in the country, somebody's going to stop and say, hey man, what's going on?
02:50:21.000I think most people has that opportunity.
02:50:23.000But if you raise around that culture to where you're ready to help and you're ready to assist, love is so deep and the nature and the human nature is to protect and to make sure this person is doing good, even if they don't align.
02:50:41.000And that's probably my biggest joy, whether it's taking a Jim Brewer or a Theo, is when they see it, that's always, even if they don't get something, they're like, man, this was cool.
02:50:59.000And Kayla Pressley was at this little funk.
02:51:01.000She said, Waddell, my wife, his fiancee, I don't think he's married yet, he said, my wife said, hey, if something happens, we're going to Michael Waddell's house.
02:51:07.000She said, you don't even know where he lives.
02:51:11.000She said, well, I'm still going there.