 I learned in ultramarathoning you just pushing yourself push, push, push way beyond what, you know, most people a marathon is like, oh my god, a marathon, which it is a big accomplishment, but it's nothing compared to a hundred mile or 200 mile. So once you take those shackles off about what you thought was extreme, and then you're like, wait, what people do what? And then all of a sudden, then you're doing it yourself because you've trained your body to do that, then you even in regular life, you have more confidence. I mean, you guys know, you know, you lift, you know, get a PR bench 405 or whatever, you have more confidence going to the store, right? Yeah. So it's the same thing. It's like you can, you can, you know, humans are so, there's so many, so much or so, I don't know, so many factors weigh into being a human and our minds are so powerful. But you learn that that confidence thing that you can gain in one thing can carry over to other things. And it's, I don't know, that's running and hunting has done that for me in life. What's up y'all? Because this episode talks a lot about crazy stamina and doing insane hunting. Here's the program we're going to give away today, MAPS OCR, obstacle course racing. So work out like an obstacle course racer. This is a very different kind of program and you can win it for free, but you got to do the following. Leave a comment below in the first 24 hours that we drop this episode. Subscribe to this channel and turn on notifications. If we like your comment, we'll notify you and you'll get free access to MAPS OCR. Also, we got a sale going on right now. We have a bundle of programs on sale and we have a single program on sale. So here's what they are. The bundle is the starter bundle that includes MAPS anabolic, MAPS Prime and the Intuitive Nutrition Guide. The program that's on sale is MAPS Split. That's a bodybuilder style program. Both of those things, 50% off, huge sale. So if you're interested, go to mapsfitnessproducts.com and then use the code MAY SPECIAL for that 50% off discount. All right, here comes the show. I want to start us because you said something that I just wouldn't have thought about with hunting. I think hunting more relaxing, peaceful, but we were talking about hunting grizzly or lions. Like, I think that you would have to have people that are similar and Justin made the point of like these rock climbers that climb with no rope or anything. Is that what it is? Is it an adrenaline thing? Is it a certain type of person that is attracted to that type of a hunt? I don't know. I mean, I just know for me, I can't speak for anybody else, but I just know I like testing myself at the highest level. And that's, you know, whether I'm running, you know, even training hard, bow hunting. And to me, grizzly is dangerous game. In Africa, you know, there's Cape Buffalo, which are called Black Death. There's those lions like you talked about. And then grizzly bear North America, brown bear here too. Those, if you're not at your, you know, if you make a mistake, you're hunting deer elk, they just spook and run away. You make a mistake hunting something that can kill you, you know, there's a lot of, there's a risk. And so it requires you to be at your very best. So do you, is there like levels to this game? Like you, you hunted certain game for so long and then eventually said, okay, I'm ready for this. Like how did that transition work? Yeah. I mean, basically I just started, I grew up hunting. So all I could afford to hunt really was deer. And so that's what everybody did. You just deer hunted. And then, you know, there'd be a question, you know, back at high school or whatever. Oh, did you get your buck? You know, and that's just, did you kill a buck deer? And so it transit, it, well, it evolved. And that's the same thing where my training at that time was just, you know, like the weight, the concrete filled plastic weights, you know, the 8.8 pounds and all that shit. And so it was training with those and doing five or 10 Ks to now you, to now I hunt dangerous game and I run 100 or 200 mile races. So it's like, there's that whole journey. And just like with lifting and training, like you guys know is, you know, you reach a plateau, you push hard, you reach another one, you keep moving that, that goalpost and, you know, you're 20, 30 years down the road, you're a completely different person. What's the, what's the insurance? If you, let's say you go, I don't mean like literal insurance, but like you have to carry a sidearm or something that can protect you. If let's say you go and hunt a grizzly, you hit it, but it's not a lethal shot. And it's coming for you. You just pull out another arrow. Like what do you do? Yeah. What? Most people take sidearms. Yeah, they'll take a hit. And you don't? I don't. Wow. Why not? Is it just because you want it just to be as pure as possible? Yeah. My attitude and people won't get it. People can criticize it. I don't really care. But if my intent is to kill the animal and in turn it kills me, that's the way it goes. That's what we're doing. Wow. That's the first way of looking at it for sure. Kind of. I mean, I don't know. People can criticize anything and they would ever say, I'm just talking. But I did make a shot on a grizzly this last about a year ago from right now. And I thought I hit it perfect. And I hit a little forward arrow went through the front of his chest. It looks, it got one long apparently. Anyway, so we're blood trailing it and it's got super thick in the alders there. And I didn't want any guns there. I wanted to go down. I wanted to finish this bear and in Alaska, a guide is required. I would rather just be by myself, but by law, a guide is required for dangerous game up there. So there was a guide there and then a couple buddies too. We were filming it and I just, you know, said, don't shoot it. Don't, you know, we spotted it. It was wounded. And at first we thought the bear was dead. The guides said dead bear. So it was like, you know, that felt good. And then it raised its head up. So obviously it wasn't dead. And I just said, don't shoot. And I got down. I was about 10 yards from it. And I was in the thick alders and I was a full draw trying to get an arrow into it. But you have to have a clear shooting lane and the bear charged guide. I'm pretty sure it happened really fast shot missed. One of my buddies had another gun and hit it in the back hip and I hit it in the chest as it charged. And it got to about four yards. And it was just it, I felt bad for the bear because I didn't want, I don't want a wounded animal. I don't want the animal to suffer. I'm trying to kill it as mercifully as I can and make a good shot. So I felt bad in that. And then secondarily, I have my, my hunt. I felt it was tainted a little bit because I, as you, your words, I'm a purist. I don't want guns on my bow hunts and I've never had to have that happen. Never had anybody have to, or I've never had to finish an animal with a rifle. So, but the point is, if it was just up to me, it just would have been me and the bear. And I would have either killed it or not. And that's just the way it goes. But so that, that happens. I don't, I don't take a gun now. Is bow hunting considered more merciful than a bullet? I think if it's done right, you know, people who, who might not know. I think that a gun would kill quicker. But what happens many times, like I've killed a lot of bull elk, big animals, 700, 900 pounds, 1,000 pounds, even some of the Roosevelt bulls I kill in Oregon. And they're so wound up and they fight all the time. So an arrow hitting them through the lungs, they don't even really feel it. They just, sometimes they act like nothing happened. A horn pierced them or something? Is that what they think? A horn pierced them that, you know, they get jabbed by sticks. There's, you know, it's, it's rough living out in the mountains your whole life, right? And they're 10 or 12 years old. So they've been through a lot. So they can't, they don't really know what happens. And then all of a sudden their blood pressure drops and then they're dead. Or a gun, a gun will kill by shock. An arrow kills by hemorrhage, the blood I talked about. A gun, it's shock. So there's broken bones. There's a loud sound. There's, you know, muscle torn apart. They definitely know they've been shot. So if you don't make a perfect shot, it's doing a lot of damage and there's a lot of shock. And so to me, the most merciful death for an animal, they're all dying too. I mean, it's not, nobody's making this out alive there. They're not living until they're 80. It's not in a nursing home. It's not, they're either dying from starving or predators killing them or another animal is killing them, another, you know, their same species. So if they're going to die, which they are, I think the most merciful death for any wild animal is a well-placed arrow. Interesting. I had no idea about that. Would it be, would it be sick? So now I'm trying to think of the, all the different variables. And cause off the top of my head, I would have thought what Adam said, that a bullet would have been more merciful because killing fast or whatever. Yeah. Do people miss more often with bullets because of the distance? In other words, if I have a gun, I'm assuming, so I don't know anything about hunting. So this is just, you know, pure question. I'm assuming with a rifle, I'm going to be at a further distance, which also would make it much more difficult to be accurate. And you'll probably see more beginners using rifles. So do you see more wounded and you got to keep shooting them type of deal with guns than you do with arrows? That would be, that's hotly debated. Really? Yeah. Because yes, they shoot further, but they're also more accurate. So there's more rifle hunters. So by and large, bow hunters in the general population of animals kill less because there's less bow hunters. There's less successful bow hunters. There's more hunters in the grand scheme of things, higher success rate. So with those people are imperfect, things happen. So the, the wounding rate is probably greater with the rifle, but it's because there's more of them. The percentage it's hunting is about personal integrity. And it's about doing ethically what you think is right. Everybody has different ethics. Some people I want to make a perfect shot. I put a lot of pride in killing that animal quickly. Some people maybe they get too wound up in the moment and shoot when they're not ready and kind of lose it for a second because it's so intense and don't make great shots. And I'm not saying I'm perfect, but I try very hard to be perfect. Some people might not have that same approach. And so, you know, it's, it's, it's about as hard as it gets. I mean, I want to talk about the precision. You mentioned that for what it takes to actually pull this off. The work that goes into that the 10,000 hour kind of rule for, you would kind of suggest for somebody to get into bow hunting because it is, it requires so much more attention to detail. Yeah. It's definitely a rep related endeavor. I mean, just like lifting weights, you know, good at lifting weights overnight. You don't get big overnight. So it's the same thing. That 10,000 hour rule. A lot of people throw that around. I don't know that it's that. I'm not sure what it is because I've seen people who've been doing it for 30 years like myself. I think this is my 34th season who still make errors, but those reps definitely do help because when that animal comes in, it's such an, or you stalk the animal and that it's like the adrenaline is pumping so hard that it's like a crescendo. Sometimes it's like just your eardrums feel like they're, it's just flowing, right? And I remember the first bull I ever shot at in 1989, bull came out of the, it's reprod, it's logging country. So reprod is where the timber's been cut and then new trees been planted. So the trees were about 20 foot tall and they parted like the parting sea and then this bull comes out. And I was on my knees sitting there watching this bull and his big black horn, seven by six Roosevelt bull. And I was watching it and my arms felt like they were asleep. And it's like tingly. And I was just like, I didn't know if I could even pull my bow. So with that type of adrenaline, those type of intense moments, it's really hard to master the shot with reps. You can make the shooting subconscious because it is that precision. You can be so far off by one little error. So reps help definitely, but also time in the mounds, time being close to animals, learning, you kind of have to be a little bit of a biologist. You know, we talked about it before we started recording, if you hit an animal, you're reading the blood. So you're doing a little sort of a live autopsy, I guess. What do you mean by reading the blood? Like what are you looking for with that? It'll be different color based off of where it's coming from. Yeah, liver hits dark. Lungs are lighter pink. Kind of sometimes they have bubbles in them from the long, from a long hit. Yeah. An artery, muscles going to bleed different than if you hit guts. Guts will, the stomach will be a clear fluid. The arrow might smell. It has a stench to it because it goes through the stomach. So yeah, there's the type of hair that's on the arrow or this on the ground. Belly hair is different than back hair on the animal, whatever animal you're hunting, different colors on deer. There's white hair on the belly. There's dark hair along the back. Oh, interesting. So it's, a lot is going into you. So as I said, a biologist, you need to know anatomy. And then also you need to know with the animal how they might react to the hit. What are they going to do if you hit an arrow? If you get them in the stomach, you need to know how an animal will die from that. And so what to do if you hit them in the lungs, what to do? You need to know where they, if they're wounded, where they might go in bed, how they react after the shot, given the tracks. So you're looking at the tracks on the ground, how they run off can be an indication of how wounded they are. So all this so much goes into it. Wow. So the reps help. So the whole point of that, the reps help the shot, yes, but there's a lot too successful hunting more than the shot. But if you can control the shot, well, then you're controlling what you can, because you can't control all that other stuff. Yeah. Right? So with anything to answer your question is, you do everything you can to control what you can. So what, okay. So you say your arms freeze, like in that situation, you just, would you rather hold your shot or would you try to kind of work through that in that moment? And like, and how do you sort of, how do you get past that first step, I guess, if you do have that kind of reserve going into that, that big of a moment? You know, it's why, why do some quarterbacks rise up and with the game on the line? Yeah. Why do some people get up there and brick a free throw? You know, so it's kind of that. It's everybody goes through the same, people internalize it, deal with it differently. They have a different mindset. Some people might be quote, built for it. You know, people like to say, I'm built for this. That maybe that's true. So some people might really never master that moment. Some people will be able to, things as they say in sports all the time, things slow down. It feels like slow motion. You're doing exactly what you practice a million times and it worked just like it's supposed to many times. It's somewhere in between to where your arms are tingling or everything slows down. It's like, you just want to find that sweet spot where it's still working and you're still mastering that. You've taken a few like well-known individuals. Now that you're known for doing this on hunts, any, anybody surprise you with their ability or maybe the opposite where you thought, this guy's going to do pretty good and then this isn't pretty. Yeah. I mean, I, hunting doesn't care who it is. They don't, money doesn't matter. Well-known doesn't matter. You know, I mean, it's one of those things. It's just like you put 225 or 315 on the bench. Doesn't matter how rich you are. It's probably not going to get it off the rack, you know, unless you've got some strength. So yeah, I mean, one thing I will say, Joe is because I think he's been training his whole life. He might, he, it's been, it's a journey to learn that all of the different factors, variables that I threw out there, but as far as mastering the shot, he's so dedicated to whatever he does, you know, whether it's jujitsu or comedy or podcasting. So archery, it's been the same dedication to that. So he can make the shot. He definitely can make the shot. So he's been good. I mean, pretty impressive how well he can shoot. Yeah, I would imagine people who've fought or people who've been in combat probably are more likely to be calm in a situation where they're presented with an animal and they have to make a shot versus, like, if you've never experienced that kind of stress, then it might not know how to kind of handle it. Yeah, I mean, you'd think so. I mean, I think he'd remember this, but the first time I took him to Colorado, the first time we had two bulls coming in bugling, which I don't know if you guys, have you guys heard a bull bugle before? No. It's anyway, it's like this high-pitched scream. It's so intense. So we were in this creek, kind of a pretty sharp creek drainage coming down, very tight, which means it was maybe 50 yards across it. So we were in the bottom of it. Two bulls were coming down. And it was coming down at crunch time, which means something's going to happen. The bull's going to see you. You're going to get a shot off. Something's going to happen. And he said at that time, that was 2015, he said that was the most intense thing he's ever done. Oh, wow. That moment. Of all the things that he's done too. So yeah, you talk about all the things, you know, people in fighting, it's just different. It's just probably each discipline has their own... Sure. I mean, you got to master that discipline. But I think the preparation and going into it, you're probably mentally more prepared. But still, that's still going to be super intense. It's still new. Still new. Still a new thing. How did you become known for doing this kind of stuff? Like earlier off air, you were saying how you grew up, everybody hunted. How did you end up becoming known for doing this? Well, I mean, I always wanted to be a writer. That's what I wanted to do. I always enjoyed sharing my stories, sharing my experiences. And so I wrote a, I killed this buck when I was 15, this little spike buck. And I wrote this English paper on it. And then the, my English teacher in high school said, oh, you're pretty good at this. I probably, I still probably got a D on it or whatever. Trying to make it feel better. I was just lazy on grammar and all this, but I think the, the storytelling, yeah, that's, that's a whole different part. Cause people can be very good at grammar and everything, but not a good storyteller. I tell these, I have the same experience. So I was actually in advanced English, but I'm the worst grammatically still to this day. So words still, it's still, I'm terrible. But my English teacher came to me and said like, you write really well. Yeah. It would be all chalked up red. Yeah. So I have a very similar story. Maybe it's the same, right? So, and it's like, it's a lot, it's like a lot of things. It's like some things you just can't, unless you have something in you, it's hard to really be great at it. You know what I mean? So to be a storyteller, it's hard to train to be a storyteller. Either you can tell a story or you can't. Now putting that on paper is a whole different thing. But anyway, so he said, what did he say? Oh, he said you should write for the school paper. And I'm like, I'm not writing school papers. How dorky is that? You know, I was playing football with basketball baseball. So I was like, but anyway, I remember him saying that. And I remember that felt good to get some positive feedback on my writing. And it's like, okay, well, I like to tell these stories. So the transition into a bow hunting, I killed another spike for my first bow kill and a spike bull elk. And I wrote a story and it got published. So that just kind of started this journey as I wanted to be a hunting writer. And then from there, I self published my first book and it, you know, barely sold 5,000 copies. Then I got it. I was an editor for a bow hunting magazine. I got, you know, pretty much got rejected by all the big magazines. I want to write for bow hunter was a big magazine. Peterson's bow hunting was a big magazine. They would say, oh, you got the basis for a good story, but you need to blah, blah, blah work and all this. So I just sent it to a smaller magazine and they'd publish it. And I wouldn't make anything, but my name was in there. So that felt good. Anyway, so then I wrote another book that was very popular. And that's kind of how we got here. Then I was on, started being on TV, hosting things. And got a little bit of a following. And then Joe saw in 2014, he likes watching YouTube videos, still does. And I was carrying this. One of the training things I'd do is I'd carry this 130 pound rock up this hill by the house. And it's about a 1,100 foot gain over a mile and a half. And so I'd carry this big rock. And Joe was like, what is this guy doing carrying a rock for what, for bow hunting? So he, he tweeted and invited me to come. I just posted it today actually, because it's kind of where this journey started. But asked if I wanted to come to LA and be on the podcast. Oh, that was your guys' first encounter. Oh, wow. Interesting. Are there competitions in this? I mean, I know very little of it. Are there competitions where you can go and compete against other hunters? Not hunting, but shooting. Okay. So definitely shooting, but not hunting. Did that ever appeal to you? Because I know you have, and I don't know if these guys know this or not, I actually not long ago heard you talk about your dad. Your dad was like quite the athlete. So do you have that in you also? Do you have that kind of athletic competitiveness in you? I'm very competitive. I was, I'm not an athlete like he was. I mean, he was an amazing athlete. And just, you know, what happens a lot of times is you start drinking, he flunked out of the U of O and was, you know, had incredible potential. And ended up going to Oregon State. Same thing happened. And so he had like this amazing natural ability. I don't really have that. I, you know, I would just run and just play football like what everybody did and was okay, but not like what he was. It seems like there's a lot more interest in hunting nowadays. Is that true? Is it gaining a lot more people than before? Is it something that's gaining popularity? Western hunting definitely is, you know, I think overall numbers of hunters might be going up slightly, but the lure of Western hunting and the mounds and living this adventurous life and, you know, like a lot of men want to, you know, it's like this genetic thing, I think. I mean, we're here because we were hunters at one time. That's how we survived, right? So there's something, there's something in all of us to be a hunter, you know, in a city, it's hard to feel it probably. But I think there's something to it when people talk about it and explain it. And then I know a lot of men hear it and they're like, I want to know what, I want to know what it's like to go in the mounds, kill my own meat and bring it home to my family. I mean, that's, there's a big draw these days to that, that mind, that story. Yeah. I've never hunted, but I've always been very interested in what got me most interested. I had a client once who was, for ethical reasons, for their own reasons, was vegan. And we would have these conversations. I'm definitely not vegan. I eat lots of meat. And she said to me, we had this whole conversation around it. And you know, my, you know, my point was, well, you know, we hunted as humans and this is where apex predators, this is why we're here. And she said, well, have you ever killed your own animal? And I said, well, no, I never, when I see meat, it's in, you know, it's in wrapping at the grocery store, type of deal. And so that made me feel a bit like a hypocrite. And so I said, you know what, I think I'm going to do that at one point and see kind of what that's, what that's all about. Are there more, more men wanting to do it for that reason right there? We're like, hey, you know, I've never done this. That was Joe's exact journey. Really? Okay. And he'll say, I heard him say recently on one of his podcasts, it was going to be one way or the other. It was going to be, he's going to go vegan and not eat meat because he didn't feel right about it. Or he's going to be a hunter. Oh, interesting. And this just through my own reading, I didn't realize how big of a role hunters play in preserving the environment. Conservation. Conservation. So I had no idea. So, and oftentimes you feel like they're at odds because you have the, you know, animal rights people like, don't hunt, that's terrible. But I think you could probably make the argument that in terms of conservation hunters probably are more responsible for conserving more than even environmentalists. Would you say that that's a fair statement? Yeah. The whole thing is both sides have the same interest. Hunters do care about the animals. I mean, which seems odd because we kill them. But also our money is what goes to conserving the habitat, the species, creating better habitat. Like some places are very hot and dry. So hunter money through hunting and our license and tag sales goes to making water holes for the animals. And that helps, you know, they can get water when it's dry out. But just we pay for biologists to study the animals and their numbers and the land has what's called a carrying capacity. So as humans encroach on wild lands basically as the cities grow the land has less carrying capacity of animals. All that needs to be studied to figure out how many tags, hunting tags should be allocated for that area. So that's all funded. That has to be funded by something and that's hunters that fund it. So hunters care about, just like anti-hunters care about the animals, hunters care about the animals too. But it's just coming from different directions. So, yeah, hunters definitely pay for more than anti-hunters are very vocal and they are very passionate, I'm sure, about their beliefs. But they're not, very few of them are writing checks. Oh, that's interesting. You mentioned Cameron when we first started Critics and this kind of, this conversation kind of is going that way. Like what are some other misconceptions that you, out there from Critics? About hunting? Yeah. Yeah, I mean, just that we're, you know, bloodthirsty killers out there. There's a stereotypical hunter which is driving around, drinking beer, drinking beer, maybe, you know, not respecting the land or the animals. So that's a pretty lazy, even in Hollywood, the movie's like, a hunter's hardly ever a good guy. It's usually some redneck, hillbilly. So, you know, because of that and because a lot of people grow up in cities and they're not exposed to hunters, a lot of people attach that stigma to them. The hunters I know are very committed, very dedicated to training, to being their best. They care about the animals. They don't want an animal to be wounded and suffer. And that's what I see. And there's a great sense of pride in procuring your own meat, as we talked about. You know, it's easy to go to the store. It's definitely easy to go to the store and buy meat. But our life is built on convenience these days. And I feel like, and you guys know, because you train, you see, you see what the general population, what percentage they're asking of their body or taking advantage of what the ability of their body. It's, you know, it's, people are capable of amazing things. And it's hard to realize that when you're living in a time of convenience and you're never cold, you're never hot, it's a time of comfort. So, I just, I like how hunting kind of strips out away and you're actually out there seeing what you're capable of as a human. I think there's a, it's so powerful. Yeah. I mean, look, we have a nature. And if you take us outside of that nature, I think it's important to understand that nature. But you take us outside of that nature and inevitably we will have side effects. And what we try to do is medicate those side effects away. So, you know, if you don't exert yourself, you don't get sunlight, you don't challenge yourself, you're going to feel anxious, you know. And what we try to do is medicate that anxiety away because we're denying certain aspects of our nature. I don't think we need to go back and live like cave people. No. But it's important to understand that. I mean, you take an animal out of its environment and they behave, you know, studying animals at the zoo is very different than studying animals in the wild. In fact, if an animal grows up in the zoo and you put them in the wild, they'll starve to death. So, I think that's the big problem is we don't quite understand that at all. And then we wonder why we feel depressed or anxious or sad. And, you know, just in our space, we, you know, we go do these interviews and we went to these obstacle course race interviews and you interview the people doing these races and they're like engineers and, you know, people that sit behind the desk and why are you like crawling across your belly under barbed wire and jumping over this wall into freezing water? Like, why are you doing this? And they don't know how to put it into words. They just say, oh, it feels great. Yeah. And it's like, well, because you've denied your nature so much, you need this outlet. And hunting is something that, I mean, I can't, hunting is very much in our nature. In fact, I was going to ask you this, you must laugh when you watch those, like those naked and afraid shows. Survival shows. Yeah. You ever watched the ones with those like a vegan? Yeah, I'm out here to, I'm going to try and survive like, let's see how long they last. They'll eat anything. Yeah. At any dead end, right? It's like, might not even be dead yet. Yeah. They're like collecting berries and twigs. It's easy. Water. Right. I mean, it's easy to be passionate about, about when it's survival is on the line, all that's out the window. And you really strip down and you're like, okay, this is what's important. I just need calories. I need to eat. Yeah. Oh, this is about survival. Of course, that's not everyday life. But I think, you know, you talked about being medicated. I, you know, I feel bad for, you know, depressions on the rise. Mental issues are on the rise. Anxieties feels like it's on the rise. But are those people getting out of there wherever, their apartment or their office or whatever, are they exercising at all? Are they going on a hike? And it's just like, I don't think anything, there's no medicine that can be coming in and getting a good lift for an hour. You know what I mean? No. It's like, I don't, those people don't feel, I don't think that, I mean depression on people that go to the gym regularly, I think it's pretty low. You're right. Actually, so I've said this before, it's like people have headaches and they're taking ibuprofen, but what they're doing is they're banging their head on the wall. And so you got to tell them, hey, if you stop hitting your head on the wall, it would stop burning. You don't have to keep taking these painkillers. But yeah, studies show that exercise is at least as effective as medication at helping with the symptoms. But as you follow those studies along, exercise starts to outperform because obviously you become adapted to medications and receptors downregulate and all that stuff. Whereas exercise continues to pay dividends. So it becomes anxiety and depression. It crushes because it's your nature. You need to move. What's your, what's your, what was your scariest place that you've ever hunted or scariest to, you know, experience hunting? Scariest? Scariest. Well, when I was in Tanzania, I mean, so there's dangerous and scary to me. So scary. Explain the difference. Yeah. They both scared me. Yeah. Scary was in Tanzania, there's a lot of poachers there. And so they're, they're having a lot of people, problems with poachers sneaking in. And they weren't like the, there was a dead elephant there, but they weren't necessarily the ivory hunters. They were after protein. So again, everybody here, you, you're hungry, you want to go get a burger, you go, you can go to 10 different places, much different in Tanzania. So they have people that are out in the, in the wild killing animals for protein, but they're sneaking on places they're not supposed to be. And so they'll kill these animals. They'll hang them up to dry out the meat, put the meat in gunny sacks, have straps on the gunny sack, and then take it back to town and sell it. And so that's, they're just after protein, but they will kill to get it. And there we were hunting one day and I looked about 150 yards away and I saw this guy standing there. And I said, you know, it was with the guide there. And I said, I said, I see a man and he's like, where? And I said, 150 yards standing right there. I said, he's not moving. And he goes, give behind this tree. And I said, are we going to get shot? And he's like, just get behind this tree. So he yelled at him in Swahili and just said, leave. The guy didn't move. And so that was, then I saw another guy, I told him, I said, I saw another guy up in the rocks take off. And so they, they have guns. You know, I looked at binoculars. He had the guy down there had a gun. I didn't see if this guy had a gun around off those rocks. But anyway, so they have guns. They're willing. It's in certain situations there. If there's a risk, it's almost who can shoot first the poachers or the hunters. Cause they don't want to get caught. They're willing to kill you to not get caught. And then of course you got to protect yourselves. So, you know, it's whoever can shoot first almost. So that was pretty intense. I went up. So the guy ended up circling around and he came about 50 yards away and he's standing there. And the reason why he came 50 yards away is because they don't have bullets. They have a gun and they kind of have to make it a muzzle loader which is essentially like old style where you put gunpowder and a, and a, and a wad in there. Then you put, they didn't have lead for a bullet. So they'd put screws and ball bearings and things like that. And then they can make that go off. But the effective range is very close. So he was 50 yards away from us because he had to get close to shoot. Anyway, the guy I was with told him, you know, leave. And he ended up, he did leave. And then I went up to where that guy was in the rocks. And I found a bunch of their stuff, bunch of the stuff they're using for ammunition and also this white powder. And the, who I was with said that that white powder, that's what the witch medicine doctor says or witch doctor, I can't remember what he said. But back in the village, he would, they'd put that on their wrists and on their neck and they say that would make them invisible. So I think when the guy was just standing there, he thought he was invisible. And then he's just like, it's like, fuck my powder's not working. He's like, these guys are yelling at me. Keep up with me, see me. Yeah. So it's like, yeah. So they say they're going to be invisible and that'll help them on the hunt, right? So that's kind of their philosophy. Yeah, ritual there. And anyway, so that point is that was pretty scary because I'm not used to men and I'm used to animals and I'm not really worried about that. But the harder to read, right? You don't know what a person is going to do. You don't. I mean, humans are pretty unpredictable, especially with weapons. And so I didn't, you know, we ended up another time. We were driving in the Jeep. We're going to hunt, try to find these buffalo. And I saw, I said poacher and it was about 80 yards away. And then the, you have to have a, it's like a kind of like a game warden or has to be one with like, like people from United States over there hunting and there has to be one in the party. And as almost as soon as I said that, he shot. This guy behind me shot. And he's like, I got him. Whoa. And I said, no, I said, I was watching. I said, he goes, I got him in the leg. I said, no, you didn't get him. And, but I mean, it was just like, no, just. Shoot. Shoot. Wow. So that was. The Wild Wild West. It feels like it. So that was the scariest, I guess you could say. And then the sheep hunting in Alaska in super steep country, I snow, all that. That's probably the most dangerous, you know, bears, bears have their own risk associated. But the mounds, the mounds can win, you know, and. So the danger is the environment, not necessarily the animal falling, falling. And so, and then that, that, that was the country that that was 2008. I killed a ram there. And then my, my best buddy who got me into bow hunting in 2015, he fell and he died there. So it was just like, same, same country. But that's like, for dangerous, that's about as dangerous as it gets just because you can't control. You don't know what, what's the situation. Now, in a situation like that, does that also make that like one of your kills you're most proud of? Or do you have a specific kill that was like, this was like. The one of the most proud. I mean, it's memorable for sure. I mean, they're all, they're all special in their own way. I mean, and probably some of you doesn't hunt, probably sounds weird to say kill special, but killing an animal, it's, you know, it is life and death. It's there, there's need to be some weight associated with it. Like you're a burden you're carrying because you're taking this animal's life. And so they're all, when I say special, I mean that it's meaningful. Right. And they're all meaningful in a different way, whether it was who I was with the situation, what I was going through at that time, maybe personally, you know, after Roy fell and died, you know, the first hunts, after he was gone, who, who got me into bell hunting, those had a different weight to them. So, yeah, I mean, they'll, to answer your question, there's some that are more memorable. You know, me and Roy's last, last hunt is memorable. That sheep hunt was very memorable because it was pretty dangerous. The experiences, you know, in Africa are amazing, but then sharing like Joe's first hunt when I took him or, you know, I hunted with Luke Bryan before for bear. Those, those are memorable too. Interesting. Yeah, I was just going to say because of the way that you approach hunting and there's almost kind of a spiritual element to it. It's like you're bringing it back to, to ancestral ways of, of doing this. Have you ever been approached or been a part of like, like a native tribe, for instance, like being able to get in with the way that they kind of perform their rituals and go into the hunt and all that. Is that something that you've ever been a part of? I mean, I have a little bit of Cherokee. I mean, I have a, actually a Cherokee card, but, you know, it's not like I have a ton of Indian, but as far as... They make cards? Yeah, yeah, you can get it. Really? Yeah. It's like a membership card? Yeah. Oh, wow. It's like at the tribe. Oh, interesting. Yeah. So I have that, but I do hunt the San Carlos Indian Reservation every year. It's Apache. And it's like the, the premier elk hunt in the country. It's like just magical country. And when I go there, I have so much respect for the people and for their traditions and how they honor the animals and for the animals themselves in that country. But the country seems, I don't know, I feel more connected there than almost anywhere. And I don't know if it's just in my head because, you know, there's, we have this, you know, what was that movie with Daniel Day-Lewis? Young Guns? No, no, no. I mean, yeah. So I mean, I don't know if it's from watching shows like that forever. So you just, so you have it, you're already, you're kind of prepping yourself to like, okay, I'm supposed to be, just to feel something's more special here. But when I've been there and looking into these big canyons where not a lot of people hunt because it's so remote or they're so deep or whatever. And, you know, I'm like, I feel like I remember we were standing there before and the wind was blowing and I had in my head, it seemed like the mountains were moaning. That was the wind. And so I don't know if I'm making it up, but I feel something different there. And when I kill a bullet there, it's, I don't know if it's more meaningful, but it's different. And it's, I do, I think there's more of a connection. They have sunrise dances there. And I was invited to one, but I haven't been to one yet. So they have ceremonies there that I'd love to be if I'm allowed to be part, just at least witness. And then, you know, even like we had this, this, she was, I think, I think she's full-blooded Apache, but she would come in and cook. And so I would sit and talk to her and hear all the stories and talk about even the food she's making, using the acorns there. I mean, I'm just like, I can't get enough of that stuff. So yeah, I think, I think hunting has made me more connected to the land and the animals. And then Native American tradition has enhanced that even. So it's more about like just the remoteness and like you being immersed in like the ultimate nature that not a lot of people get to experience. Yeah. I mean, when I hunt, if I see another boot track, I'm just like, it sucks. You always want to be, think that you're like exploring or you're in, you know, you're, me and Roy, who's my buddy who got me started hunting, we'd always want to go over the next ridges, this draw to go further and deeper than anybody else and get it in this, you know, the promised land basically. So yeah, I mean, that's always the draw is like the most remote, the most rugged, where nobody else would want to go and you're there, that's as good as it gets. Is that what led you to the ultra marathon? Is that part of the strategy of that? Of like, if I can run and push this limits, I can go beyond most people. Yeah. Because with the way I grew up, it's all public land. So it's basically everybody's against everybody to find the best hunting area. And I learned pretty quickly that the mountains, you know, I hunted the Eagle Cap Wilderness in Oregon, which is Oregon's largest wilderness. I mean, you guys have some bigger ones here. Like the Trinity Alps Wilderness is huge. And that's up in Northern California. Marble Mountains is a good one, but it's not as big. But the Eagle Cap is 30 miles wide by 60 miles long. Big, big mountain range will allow mounds. I call them the little Alps. They're super, they're rugged, deep, remote. And when I first started hunting there, I was like, God, this is, this is a lot. They'd break me pretty much. You know, and I, it's very hard hunting. And so I was thinking, man, if I could run, you know, I knew in my head it's like, if I could run 100 miles, I could be anywhere back in here. I could hunt anywhere. The mountains would never stop me. And so it was kind of connecting all this and wanting to be the best I could be in the most rugged country that I learned in ultramarathoning. You know, it's just you just pushing yourself, just push way beyond what, you know, most people, a marathon is like, oh my God, a marathon, which it is a big accomplishment, but it's nothing compared to a 100-miler or 200-miler. So once you take those shackles off about what you thought was extreme, and then you're like, wait, what, people do what? And then all of a sudden, then you're doing it yourself because you've trained your body to do that. Then you, even in regular life, you have more confidence. I mean, you guys know, you lift, you know, get a PR, bench 405 or whatever, you have more confidence going to the store, right? Yeah, so it's the same thing. It's like you can, you know, humans are so, there's so many, so much or so, I don't know, so many factors weigh into being a human and our minds are so powerful, but you learn that confidence thing that you can gain in one thing can carry over to other things. And it's, I don't know, that's running and hunting has done that for me in life. Oh, totally. So when you're hiking in 20 miles, which I'm assuming is not super crazy, you're going at, you know, 15, 20 miles to find the right place or whatever, and you kill a 900-pound or 800-pound animal, how do you get it back? Yeah, so like, so if the animal is 900 pounds on the hoof, which would be a big bull, you're going to have about, say, roughly 300 pounds of meat. So the guts you don't haul out, the height you don't haul out, the bones you don't haul out, really, like the rib cage or anything like that. You might haul the leg bones because the quarters are attached to the leg bone, so you can bone it out, which means you take all the meat off and then you'll have 300 pounds of meat. So 300 pounds of meat, if you're by yourself, you can carry probably 100 pounds. It's going to be very hard if you're super deep. So you go, say, if you're 10 miles back. So you get 10 miles out with 100 pounds, 10 miles back empty. 10 miles out with 100 pounds, 10 miles back empty. So what are we at? 40 miles there. Last load, 10 miles, 10 miles. So there's 60 miles. That's crazy. And 30 of it is with 100 pounds. Hardly anybody can do that. Hardly anybody can do that. That would be super extreme. You can make more trips with lighter weight or they get pack animals, horses, mules, llamas even. We used to have llamas because horses were super expensive. So you could buy a llama for 150 bucks. They could carry 60 or 80 pounds. Now the llama doesn't come with you on the hunt, right? Or do they? It's like back at camp. You leave them back at camp. Got it. Then you go get them and come back. And llamas were good because if you have horses, you need a horse trailer. If you have a horse trailer, you need something to pull the horse trailer. So there's a lot of money involved there. You don't need that with a llama? With a llama. You just throw them in the back seat or what? You can put a llama. I've seen a llama in a station wagon. Shut the fuck up. That was a joke. You're really good. You just push them in and their heads down like this and it's just like... What? I have no idea. Yeah, so we would have a Toyota two-wheel drive and made... We had no money. You know, we got to remember this. No money at all. But Toyota two-wheel drive with plywood walls and have four llamas back. Shut up. I can just imagine seeing that drive by you on the freeway. What the fuck is this guy doing? We were talking about the stigma of hunters. We were ruining it for hunters right there. Because they were like, look at these fucking hillbills. So that was us. I didn't even know that was a thing. That's crazy. So any worry that a predator is going to find your kill at that point? Are you more vulnerable because now you have a dead animal and then maybe they can smell... Like some wolves come along? Yeah, I mean, it's... There's a risk, you know, with... Sure. You know, that's how they live. So especially in a wolf country, which we don't have a ton in Oregon, they're moving in now. I don't think you guys have them here. Maybe up in the Sierras, maybe, but probably not. But yeah, I mean bear country. You got to get your meat up off the ground in a tree and they can still get it if they want to, but you're just trying to get that meat out as soon as you can. Oh, interesting. What has been one of the hardest tracks like that? We were giving the example of if you went 10 miles in, what has been one of the hardest halls for you? I killed a bull 12 miles back once. I killed one 10 miles back once. The 12-miler I had, I went, I walked 10 miles. I knew these other guys were on the other side of the basin. Well, other side of the range that we were hunting. So I went over to them and I said, hey, I killed a bull. Can you guys help me get it out? I'll, you know, buy hotel rooms and pizza and all this. And so we all, we made one trip out 12 miles and then back in and it's like that, even that. Yeah. The guy who I rode over there with. I mean, that's a marathon, right? He's like, I'm done. Yeah, it's a marathon. He goes, I'm ready to go home. And I'm like, I mean, I killed it opening day, which is the first day of season. He was done. I gotta go home. It's just something. He got pizza though. Yeah, he did get pizza and he got a hotel room, but it's, it is so hard. Yeah. Could you not walk in like on flat ground? 12, 12, 12. I mean, you're basically running a marathon hauling something. You're also going through like the woods and you're climbing over. So I made a mistake on that one, which could probably cost him his hunt, but so the trail went around this whole ridge and down this thing and it was 12 miles out. And I was like, well, if we go over to the edge here and the river straight down and the roads are on the other side of the river, I go, that's only five miles. Well, there's a reason why the trail doesn't go that way. Right. But on the map, you're like, that's not very far. So we go over there and we're starting to head down and it's so steep and boulders and we got all this weight on our back and he ended up falling in between these rocks backwards. And if he would have been by himself, he would have been, there's no way to get out. Luckily, he, you know, and he could have hit his head because he got a hundred pounds pulling you back and you fall. I mean, you could have hit your head and who knows what you could have died. You know, I'm not trying to be dramatic. But anyway, it wasn't a good situation, but we were there. So we've, you know, got all torn up, going through brush had to cross the river at the bottom and it was just like, oh my God, that was, it was shorter, not easier. So it's the, you know, the point A to B isn't always the best route. And so anyway, that was, there's, there's just a challenge. Once you get an animal on the ground, it's a whole nother part of the hunt. But the reward is great. I wanted to ask you like what in your opinion was like the best tasting meat or like both the best tasting and also probably like not the best tasting as well. Like one versus the other out of all the animals. Well, my wife made liver last night and I'm not a big organ. I mean, it's like, oh no, you know how good this is for you. And I'm like, I know, I know, I know, believe me. I know I heard it all. I'm not eating it. And she's like, I mean, it's going to be so good. So anyway, she made up this liver and I hate onions too. But anyway, she made up all these onions. Oh, it's awful. Awful. So I can't do that. Okay. A lot of people feel that way about bear, but I like bear meat. So. I heard it's greasy. That's what everybody says. Okay. Yeah. So I mean, So them eating berries, is that play a factor in it? Yes. It depends on what the animal's eating. Yeah. If it's eating berries, it's going to be very sweet. If it's, it depends on the time of year, because a lot of times they're only eating berries when the berries are in season. If it's a bear that's on, like in Alaska on salmon, it's not going to be as good. Because it's just or if it's eating. It's probably more fatty, I would imagine. Well, they'll eat anything. Yeah. If it's rotten, it doesn't matter. Like a mountain lion, they have, they want fresh kills. A bear will eat, they could have maggots on it. And they'll eat it. If they're eating a bear that's been eating maggots. I mean, that's going to be so good. Probably not going to be the best. But I killed this bear last year in Colorado that was eating acorns were in. And it was eating those non-stop. I mean, it was so just gorging itself as this big old boar, which is a male bear. They, they, a sow as a female, a boar as a male. And it was this big old boar we figured maybe 20 years old. And that meat is so good. And it's just like, you know, it would be like, so he was total keto. It was like all protein and just a beast, right? But the meat is just delicious. But as far as the, one of the best meals I've had, it's always been when I've killed a bull in the mountains and stayed back and cooked the meat over the fire. Oh, right. Oh, interesting. And so. Well, experience, the experience makes a big difference. I think so. Of course, the restaurants know that. You go to a restaurant. Yeah, you got the candlelight. Yeah, it makes a difference. You got the, whatever. You got the green house and meals, sir. So it's like, it's all about the setting, right? Well, for a hunter, you can't beat the setting of in the mountains where the animal lived in. And eating a backstrap would be like, it's like the T bone. The backstrap is the muscles right alongside your spine. So that's just solid steaks right there. And that's, or a tenderloin is on the inside. On the, like, it'd be right under your spine. And there's, there's two tenderloins there. And that's the best meat because it's in the body cavity. It's, you can like almost, you got to cut it a little bit, but you can almost tear it off. And it's a piece of meat about maybe 12 inches long by about three or four inches. And it's the best steak you'll ever have. So if you're cooking that on a stick over a fire in the mounds, or you kill the animal, it can't be. Earlier you mentioned, I think it was a buffalo. You said it was black death. I think you named it. Cape buffalo in Africa. Now, why is it, is it one of the most dangerous? I've heard that they kill more people. Yeah. Okay. They kill a bunch of people. There's more of them, which is why. Is it just that they're super aggressive? They're aggressive. Yeah. And you've hunted them with a bow? Mm-hmm. I killed one in 2014. Holy cow. Where do you try to hit an animal that big? I mean, I'm assuming in the chest somewhere, but lungs. So through the side. Yeah. You want to get behind his, behind his shoulder. And then they have super heavy ribs, like a two by four. And that's, they're 15, 8, 1500 pounds. Yeah. Solid muscle. Super thick hide. Just pissed off. I mean, they're, it's hot. They're black. It's like, it can be any more tougher conditions to live. You know, in that, in that environment, it's just a harsh environment. You know, there's lions there. It's like, it is definitely survival of the fittest back there. I mean, as high as are just ruthless. And so when an animal is, everything's tough. The people are tougher. The animals are tougher. The country's tougher. Everything is tougher. So trying to kill that with the arrow is, you know, I, I hit this bull good 63 yards, made a good shot. And I was like, I put my arms up. I was like, Oh thank God, you know, I was so happy I made a good shot. And if, if that was an elk, I feel like it would have went 50 yards, piled up dead in seconds. Bull took off, ran off. And I was just like, I said, did he go down? And there's like this big herd of buffaloes. And I, I said, did he go down in there? And the guy I was with said, I, I didn't see him go down. The name Ryan is who I was with. And, and so I said, let me get on that. You know, it's kind of hard. A bunch of buffalo tracks. So we went around, I climbed up on this termite mound, which the termites make this big, like probably 10 foot high. I climbed up there and I was looking and I could see him. And I said, okay, I see him. He's down. And Ryan goes, be careful. You know, there's a saying seen, I've seen a lot of dead buffalo kill guys. So people think they're dead. They get over there. They, it's not dead. You're dead. Cause you get grounded in the, so I ended up, I had to, it wasn't the prettiest thing, but it just happens. I had to shoot. I had one arrow left. I hit this bull every time in the chest. So tough. It was just taking them. And then so finally he said, he goes, if he gets up after this one, I'm gonna have to shoot him with a gun. And I said, I don't want you to shoot him with a gun. And I said, he's done, but I'd been saying he's done for the previous five arrows. Anyway, he was done, but it was a tough animal. That's crazy. So for people like us who are interested, but zero experience, we got no experience with hunting whatsoever. What's a good place to start for someone like us? You know, we're interested in the experience. Obviously we've never done this before. And bow hunting or just hunting in general? Hunting in general, I would assume that bow hunting is far more technical. So I'm assuming that's probably not the best place to start as a beginner or I don't know, I'd love your opinion. Well, yeah, bow hunting is harder, I think. But the thing is, like with, there's archery pro shops, like how far San Diego from here? It's pretty far. It's pretty far. Well, I'm sure there's an archery pro shop here in town. I just don't know what it is. I just know of Bobby Fromm owns the one down and performers archery in San Diego, but I know there's one around here. The thing about an archery pro shop is it's kind of like a bar. You kind of go, people go in there and hang out in BS. You can learn a lot just from BSing to hunters. And also then you're shooting and you're kind of getting good discipline of archery learning. People say, oh, you've never hunted? Well, you should check out this, you know, whatever. Got it. With rifle hunting, maybe it's because I'm not a rifle hunter, but maybe a gun shop would be the same thing. I mean, I'm sure there's, you know, a gun shop here. I don't know if you guys have firearms, but that might be a place to go talk, but a lot of gun shops are just catering like home protection or people with everyday carry and not always hunting what an archery pro shop is pretty much always hunting. So I mean, I would say one of the two, a gun shop or an archery pro shop. Yeah, I've actually seen there's this new, so you've heard of like frisbee golf, like so there's been like courses kind of set up like that with archery. Yeah, yeah. And 3D courses. Yeah, so that was something that I had just noticed. I didn't know if that was like a new thing. No, that's been around forever. But that's a, that's another fun thing. So you go and you, they have these foam targets set up and they have a stake that you shoot from and you get there, you go through your routine, you shoot an arrow at the target, you score it because there's different rings on the target. Like, you know, hard as a 10, eight, five for a body shot. So yeah, and then that's where you talk to all the guys. They, everybody's new at one time. So everybody was kind of pretty helpful because nobody's born a great bow hunter. So it's like, it's like everybody's been on that, the bottom of that learning curve. Yeah, I have to ask you this just cause I heard a podcast where you're kind of talking about like some Hollywood actors techniques and you're able to kind of break down their form and, yeah, it was fun. Yeah, just maybe like a few of the best examples and worst examples, I guess. Yeah, I did that for GQ. The best was, I can't, God, what was, it was actually a cartoon. It was brave. Brave. Yeah, with the girl with the red hair. Oh, they got good technique. Oh my God. She's nailed it. Really? She had great technique. I was like, I was like, this girl could shoot. Disney hit it. It just sold you. No. I wonder if that means, what I would think, when you said that right away and what came to mind is I bet you Disney actually probably went and they probably videoed a real good bowman, right? You would hope so. Yeah, and then probably, but they don't do that all the time either. Right. Because I've seen like, I think it was Robert De Niro, looked like an idiot, you know. That was Kevin Costner. Robin Hood. Robin Hood. That's right. Excuse me. I never saw that one. Oh, you did see that one? No, I never saw Robin Hood. Because he splits the arrow. I mean, he's got to be better than his English accent though. That's what Brave did too. She split the arrow. Yeah, yeah. The bet, let's see, well, Rambo is pretty cool. Everybody loved Rambo. Yeah. But that was a good technique, was it? No, it was. He had the bow canted a little bit, which means it's not straight up and down. It's kind of at an angle. It's kind of like when you see the guys in the movies that shoot the gun like sideways. Exactly. They probably didn't hit nothing like that. A little ghetto-ish, I know. So you can't blow up a helicopter with a bow and an accordion. No, that's pretty badass when he did it. And I also love how shredded he was and, you know, he looked like a beast. But God, I don't know. There's... Who had the... God, sometimes she did train... What was that? Hunger Games. Oh, yeah. Oh, there you go. Yeah, she trained. Yeah, so she did pretty good. So the kind of physical fitness that you need to be able to do these kinds of things, it sounds like a lot of just stamina, like just the ability just to endure these long treks and the ability to just kind of, you know, weather the environment a little bit. Sounds like that would be the most important. So if someone's listening, they're like, hey, this is someone I want to get into. Strength is important, but you really want to have the ability to just be able to do this for a long period of time. Is that correct? I think so. You know, there's kind of an analogy, or not an analogy, but I just know from experience, everybody's fired up the first day. The second day, they're still doing pretty good. You know, get some miles in the first day. The second day, you might be a little beat up from all the miles the first day. You know, you're kind of new to the mounds because you've been living in the city. Second day, maybe not quite as good. My thing is I want to be as good on the 10th day as I was on the first day. Right. Because on the 10th day, I should be better. I should be more in tune with the mounds. I should have a better idea what the animals are doing because it changes all the time, depending on the weather, depending on water, depending on feed and whatever, if it's a breeding season or not. So I should be more dialed in on the animal and their behavior and I should be, if I have that endurance built up, I should be more mountain tough because I've been in there 10 days. Most people, they're good on day one, day two, a little bit less. By the 10th day, they're pretty much worthless. They're probably at home by the 10th day, actually. So, but if you can still, if you had 10 days to hunt, which is, you know, a weekend, a whole week and another weekend, that's a long hunt. On that second weekend, you should be at your best. Awesome. Cameron, do you think hunting has made you a better father? Yeah, definitely. What, so that is, absence makes a heart grow fonder, right? So, yeah, when you're in the mountains by yourself, oh my God, you think about every mistake you've ever made. You know, every, I'm gonna tell my kids I love them. I'm gonna, when I get home, we're gonna do this and I said I was gonna do this with them and I never did. You know, it's just like, you like, A lot of time to think. A lot of time to think, a lot of, but on the flip side is I've seen, I've seen guys who maybe had an argument with their, with their old lady before they left or their girlfriend or whoever and they get back there and you can make some crazy, I mean, she's having an affair. She is having an affair. She's having, I gotta get home. I know, you've overthought it so much, right? You've over-analyzed everything and it'll screw up the hunt. So, a big thing is making sure your home's in order before you go on the hunt. Oh, because it's, yeah. I could just see that you're on your way out and your wife's like, hey, you didn't do that thing. I said, like, honey, I'm about to leave on my hunt. We can't get on here right now. I know, I know, yeah, because, but the thing is, is you just, we're so, I guess that's another point. We're so distracted in normal life. You know, when are you ever just sitting by yourself thinking? So, in the mountains, that's all there is. Absolutely. People aren't used to it and I think I've written in a book, but one of my books is like, you find out who you really are with that much time by yourself and some people don't like that person. Yeah. You know what I mean? Oh, yeah. It's like, it's just too real. Yeah. And they're just like, okay, this is not for me. I can't do this because we, humans nowadays kind of need that distraction, it seems like. Do you find it very meditative? Oh, I do. Yeah. Oh, totally. Yeah. Have you ever had like a spiritual experience doing this? I don't think so. I mean, just in general, I just feel more in tune and, you know, a deeper connection, I guess, to why we're here and what we're supposed to be doing. And I mean, if you want to call that spiritual. That's kind of spiritual. Yeah, maybe. I've just, I never, I don't know. I just enjoy it. It's, I need it. You know, I feel, I feel, you know, we talked about, I hate talking. I hate podcasting even though I've had a podcast. But I feel more at home in the mounds than I do. I feel like a lot of times we just kind of go through. I like meeting people. I like hearing people's stories. But I like being in the mounds more. So that's got to be interesting for you then because of all the attention and fame you have now, well over a million people following you on social media. You've been on TV. How's that been? Cause you're not someone who I think that would seek that type of attention. So how have you handled that? Has it been? Everybody likes attention. You know, whether you say it or not, it's like you want to be validated, I think. But what I like is I like sharing what hunting means to me. And I like sharing the positive aspects of hunting. I like exposing people to hunting and the lifestyle. So if I have to kind of wade through the storm of some dipshit on Instagram, every once in a while to, like in the end hunting wins or we move it in the right direction a little bit. We break that stigma or the stereotype. I can deal with that. I would rather be in the mountains with somebody exposing them to something or sharing something with them or like running. I like running, you know, if I can, I like finding the very best at whatever it is they do and training with them. Yeah. In the mountains, you know, like the Courtney's the ultra runner best in the world or this other girl I run with Emma. She's an Olympic steeple chaser, Goggins, of course. These people that I can, I can become a better person just by being around them and seeing how their mindset is. How savage is Goggins? Yeah, he's, I've always said, I go, we don't need a bunch of Goggins around. I mean, it would be a rough go if there's a bunch of Goggins walking around the streets. It's just the moralizing. Yeah, he's tough. I mean, the thing about him is like what I said on Rogan too is when it gets harder, he gets better. I mean, he gets, he gets in and he talks about this. It's like, there's the David and then there's the Goggins. And I saw it firsthand. It's like he flips his switch and he's doing more reps at the end than he was doing at the beginning. That's wild. Yeah, it was. And then after all that, then he does a hundred pull-ups every day to finish the thing. And then in the ultramarathon, he was having some issues with his feet. You know, ultramarathons do this interpret feet. It was raining and snowing. He had to take his shoe off. Normally, if people are messing with their feet, it's like not a good sign. We were 20 miles down. But by the end of it, he was, he moved ahead of me going up this last hill. And so he's ahead of me. And I got up there, I had this guy filming it. And I asked him, I said, hey, I said, how did, how did Goggins look? He's like, he looked good. He came through here with, he had no shirt on and it was raining and snowing. And he's like, he's yelling, they don't fucking know me. And I was like, and I was like, who is he yelling to? And they're like, there's nobody up here. Just in the air. So he got better at the end. And it's just like. That's funny. What do you guys eat when you're out there for that long? Do you guys bring, do you have to bring food with you? Or do you like just fast for a lot of that? You know, your body needs calories. Unless you, unless you, some people get fat burning and they get keto and they, they do, their bodies can run. And there's one guy that I've run with before. He's run a hundred miles and 18 hours on no calories. Most people, and you guys know it, if, even if you're going to lift for a while, you, you want to get some calories, maybe through the shake or something else. But when you're running for sure, you want to get, you know, a hundred calories an hour or something like that. That's what those gels are all about. Those gels have 90 calories. And towards the end of a race, you can pump that 90 calories of carbs in and, you know, get pushy over. So yeah, you want to, you want to get some in, depending on the length of the race. If it's a 200 mile multi-day race, then yeah, you got to eat, you got to stay up on the calories. Because once you fall behind, you're never catching up. You saw on these long hunts, do you bring stuff like that with you too? Yeah. Okay, same stuff. Yeah, of course. How was, how was hunting with Luke Bryan? How was he? Was he cool? Yeah, oh no, he's great. He's a great, just Georgia boy. Just nice as can be. He had never really hunted bears. So it was pretty intense. It was pretty fun. But he had a show. He had two shows in Edmonton. And I would hunt Albert every year. So he had a day off. I think he had, I think it was Friday and a Sunday show in Edmonton. And so we had one day and he ended up, he didn't get a bear, but we saw a bear and we're close to bear. And it was pretty fun. How did you guys link up? I mean, did he reach out to you? Were you guys friends before? How did that happen? My buddy, Rick Carone was friends with him. He kind of introduced us. I think it was through Rick mostly. He's a, he had a hunting show too. Or my, maybe still does called Buck Commander. It's on the outdoor channel. Okay. Him and Aldean and some other like pro baseball players. And so Rick Carone would film for them. And that was my friend. And he's since died of cancer. He had pancreatic cancer, but he introduced us and, and so we kind of went on some hunts together. Have any of these guys that you've taken on hunts like that? I mean, you've taken so many people, have they turned, I mean, like turned into lifelong friends like Joe? Yeah. Is Joe like the only one or has there been other guys that have turned into big friends? No. I mean, you know, anytime you go through something real like that, it, it, I couldn't imagine. It's a bond. Yeah. And it's the same thing like a long, hard race or like me and Goggins training or a hunt like this. It's not just like, hey, let's go, let's go to dinner. You know, there's people you go to dinner with. You haven't experienced the dinner. You don't care if you want to even ever see again. And with hunting, it's not, it's like you have that thing because you got this common goal you're after and you're willing to help each other out to get there. And that's, you know, I think people in the military have that a lot. They do. And it's like a brotherhood. Yeah. Well, it's, I don't want to, I don't want to say it's like that, but it's, it's similar. Yeah. No, you're a good friend to have because if the shit hits the fan, you know, you're going to survive. Yeah. You know what I mean? There's no food. That's the goal. Yeah. We'll get full of zombies. My buddy can get us food we're fine. Yeah. It feels good because you know, with this whole COVID thing hit originally, you remember that like the meat was gone. Yeah. It's like, it's like pretty, the shelves were pretty bare and meat was like a thing. And so I did hook people up with meat and that felt good. You know, as hunters in communities way back when hunters were providers. And so I've always, I liked that mindset about, you know, I killed this. Here you go. There's something, there's something powerful about handing people meat. Do you pretty much do that every time? Cause I know the friends that I know that were big into hunting almost every, every kill they would come back and normally give some to some of your friends and stuff. I think it's like almost every hunter I know does that. Yes. Like an unsaid rule. It is. It's like, because like I said, part of community was hunters provided. Interesting. Yeah. Did they restrict hunting when, when the pandemic started or is that? I'm sure they, they wouldn't have been able to even if they tried anyway. I think, no, they, well, yeah, I mean, I think in Washington, I think there was a spring bear season and for some, I don't even know how, know how it makes sense that they didn't, like you couldn't go fishing by yourself on a lake. He's like, what? It's so ridiculous. What, why are you limiting that? It's like, yeah, just retarded. It's like the circle you gotta rest it down. Yeah. You can, you can hunt, but you gotta wear a mask. I think they, I think some states lost a couple seasons or a season or two. I know we couldn't go to Canada. So Canada lost all their, Oh yeah. out of like the, from the guys from the states going up there. They lost a lot of money the outfitters, guides up there. Good deal. Well, Cam, this was great, man. Great having you on. Very, very interesting. Again, this is, personally, we've just have lots of questions. We've been talking about this ourselves and we got to ask one of the best. Thanks for the opportunity. Appreciate it. Thank you. We all wore black today. I'm glad we got that. Oh, I didn't notice that. Look at that. Yeah. Now this is great. I mean, I, I'm honored to be on the show and thank you. And I love this. I mean, love what you guys are doing and Appreciate it. Awesome, man. Thank you. Thank you very much. Good time dude. Thanks.