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The MeatEater Podcast
Ep. 258: The Chit and the Poof
Play Episode
1h41m
Steven Rinella talks with Rick Hutton, Rick Smith, Dirt Myth, Loren Moulton, and Seth Morris.
Topics discussed: Steve's fake teeth woes; Dirt's incredibly dirty hat; when Steve's brother ate a lightbulb; the ban on Sunday Hunting; how Seth and Rick had to identify 50 trees just by looking at little twigs; Rick's dad as the first American to get a deep brain stimulator implanted through his left shoulder so he could still shoot a gun right handed; huntin' the strippins; Steve's parents' honeymoon taken in an ice shanty; touch hole size; closing the frizzen and all the other click noises; Steve blaming Seth for blowing up his great opportunity; a vicious hang fire; the camaraderie of deer drives; and more.
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Speaker 1: This is me eater podcast coming at you shirtless, severely bug bitten in my case, underwear listening podcast. You can't predict anything presented by on X. Hunt creators are the most comprehensive digital mapping system for hunters. Download the Hunt app from the iTunes or Google play store, nor where you stand with on X. I'm having a lot of problems with my fake tooth. Well I have to fake I don't. I have a few fake teeth. One of my fake teeth. We're gonna fill the listeners at home into what we're talking about, Okay, then we'll get down to a bunch of this stuff. Okay. Um, I feel like I told people along time we're hunting in Damn. When was that last fall? Hunting and wheming? And I developed a horrible, horrible toothache, like bad, um so bad that I was it was hard to eat my supper got real painful. Ran into a guy that I would have thought, I don't mean to discredit this dude, like I just caught him on a whatever day, like, but someone's like, hey, that guy is a dentist. And I don't mean to generalize or stereotype like looking at him. I just didn't see dentist. When I looked at him, I wasn't like, there's a dentist. I expected dynist to be wearing a golf shirt or something, right, yeah, but lo and behold, the guy was a dentist. And he goes in, uh, he goes and gets me some some kind of opioid from his dentist shop. And I started taking that get holding right away. I walk into my regular dentist and he's like, that thing's got to come out. And I had broken the what do you call it, part goes way up in your head, your root. Yeah, I cracked the root probably a long time ago, but it had become all infected. So they pulled it out and they packed it full of I know I covered this on the show. They packed it full of cadaver bone. Oh yeah, remember here. So there I am walking around all days spitting up chunks of someone else's bone. M not show people. And then when they put that cadaver bone in there, I asked him, I said, what can you tell me about the feller? Who uh, who's bone I have? And they can't. They can't tell anything about him legally, they can't just that or they don't know or whatever, but I would like to. I wanted to visit his relatives or something to tell you he could have been a horrible guy. I don't know. How do you know? It's just one person probably swallowed some of that and then what They filled the cavity full of bones, So you're I might be screwing this up. They fill the the vacated spots, They yank all the junk out of there, basically take a jackhammer to it and put all that gunk out of there. Then they fill some full of some dude's bones. And somehow I could be getting this wrong with like like like your body recognizes bone is bone somehow and then makes it turn into bone fills in the gaps. Yeah, it's like, oh, I get it. There's something. But the little granules come up. It looks like three g gunpowder coming out of there. You are spitting it up. You know. I'd spit it up and show people eventually that that healed up. I had to wait months. I say, how long does it take for your body to start that process? I think it was like three or four months? Okay. Then I go in there and they put in a titanium socket like a female redded a component, and you're body heals around that. The bone heals around that socket. So he told me, if you ever lose this tooth, mean the one that's given me all the trouble. He's like, if you ever lose this tooth, it'll take a chunk of your jaw with it. Like this thing is in there, and you put that socket there, then you wait three or four more months. During that interval, I started the question why I have the molder anyway? Yeah? Why you just get it removed? Because, um, once I got used to it not being there, there was no problem. And I started asking around and a lot of my closest friends and associates are missing their teeth. Seth here say something stuff. I'm just he doesn't have one, he says. The only well you tell him? South, Tell what, what's the only time you remember that you're missing your molar? The only time I remember, um, when I missing it is when I'm eating trail mixing a peanut that's just the right size and get stuck in there. Let's see, open up. It's like a decoit moler. Oh yeah, this this tooth was a root canal that they did a root canal on it, and then you know, they killed the roots, so just eventually decayed and fell apart and fell out, and I took the rest out, and they tried to talk in to give him two thousand bucks for a new one. Yeah, they told me I had to come back and get it paired up or fixed up, and I never went. My problem is I lost the one right up front, and if I didn't have that, I would be I think I would be judged, well, this hockey player, this front one's fake. I always believe in getting your front ones. Yeah, you have fake's front horse trailer handy man Jack, how'd they happen? Dirt? That is the dirtiest hat I ever seen in my entire life. Definitely the record. It looks like it's waxed, candidates waterproof. This handyman Jack's a good story for the listeners, so they prevent losing the front two table. Let me tell I want to hear it, but it's want to remind people where we're at. I'm in the middle of telling this is not what this show is about. The show is about firearms. I'm in the middle of telling about all my problems in my tooth, which is people are dying to know about this is like really like people are loving this episode. Never mind you please, I want to hear the handyman Jack. I'm joking about them. I'm joking, but no one cares about my moler. But I'm gonna tell them anyway. I don't care. Well, you just I was they care about. I was always told with those handyman Jack's that you know, keep your face away from the handle because they're prone to kind of jump on you. People know what a handyman Jack is. Dead man's life and it was jammed up. Nowadays, the young waper snappers like to have a fix to the outside of the truck red because they're gonna do some serious jacket uh um, hey do can the monkey Wrench gang? He was he had a lot of good things. Oh yeah, they're great, but if they get gunked up. Well, it got gunked up. We had a horse trailer on it, and then my brother couldn't get it unloose, and I just went over there and kicked it, and the handle popped me in the face couple of times more than one. It was quick because it was like, yeah, I kicked it and it released whatever was stuck, but my face was over the handle. I mean before I didn't even hurt. There was like a battle of Buster, the battle of the Buster scrugs or the guy getting shot twice by the pistol. It doesn't even know it because it's so quick. Yeah, knocked that tooth out. I actually broke it and knocked it. Now it's just bent kind But yeah, to root canals and set both those chief line. No, just the one, but I think they did two root canals because it got infected or something. I camera. Yeah, it was funny in hell. One time I had my brother shot this one out for begun. No man, we got to take an uh we're little kids, man. We took aluminum arrows and cut the ends off them, cut the knock off and cut the insert off. And we realized that those light bright pegs, remember light bright. Oh god, it gives me like you get this, there's this board full of holes. There's a light bulb when you get these designs right, and like be letters to tell you what color, and you put these little pegs there and the light would come through the peg and you make like so whatever you make like unicorn or something on a light bright. But a light bright peg fit perfect in that illuminum arrow, and so we do blowgun fights with those light bright pegs because like a pointed projectile man it had had like a good ballistic coefficient man that light But this du we hung out with Davy Cole. His old man worked at a ball bearing plant and had all man or a ball bearings. And so someone came into some ball bearings that fit that same tube, and we realized how to do something called a machine gun, which is where you'd fill your mouth full of those ball bearings, take a deep breath, right and then and you'd use your tongue funnel him in and you'd get like a semi automatic effect fully automatic. So I'll be like, right, and we had these fortresses built and whatnot and goggles, you know. But I remember he come up and he kind of ripped me, crotched the eyeball with a with a you know, with a burst, and shot the tooth clean off at the gum line. Oh man, this story, like this story really starts to make its own gravy, because man, I want to get back to this other thing, but this is this is interesting. I go in and I don't want to say his name the dentist that the denk I initially go to see and that did a root canal on me, was later shot and killed by his own son. He was watching TV and his son came up behind him. How old was this? No? No, no, old dude, older dude. Oh, I actually have a picture of my old man. It's in my desk, my old man that dennists in the in the in the Dennis's kid that later shot him in the back of the head watching TV. What was the reason? I don't know about it. I don't think about what happened. So he that dentist does a root canal. I'm building up to another part of this. But he does a root canal, and and I don't see any problem. Like the root canal is fine. And I go throughout my life and I keep getting these fake caps on there. How old are you? Um? Had just grew that tooth too, because you only need a little one falls out, like my kids are losing all their teeth all the time. Now, Yeah, it just grew that new big bastard good target. I know. So uh a decade, it goes by, a decade plus goes by, and I developed a horrible toothache hunting deer, which is the weird part hunting mulder. Just like the tootha I'm trying to tell about. Now, I develop a horrible not a toothache and nose ache. I think something's wrong my nose. I think I got a nose disease. So we get done with our hunting trip and I go to the dentist or a doctor. I'm like, man, something's wrong the inside of my nose. And he's like, no, that's not a nose you got a tooth problem. To go to dnist. It's not a nose problem. It's like the dentist and he's like, your root canal is abscess or failed or whatever. He gets the rooting around in there and pulls out a hunk of rusted file. It looked like a file that if you threw a file down into the ocean, like in some ocean beach right at my fish shack. If you throw an old rat tail file out there and left it there for ten years and went back and got it, that's what it looked like, a rusted, pitted, how long file about an inch and a half long. Holy show. And the guy got it out and he said, man, I could not tell what I was looking at on the X ray, and it was metal and he had busted off the guy that got shot by his kid had busted off a hunk a rat tail file up in there. Pastor and whatever told my old man, or told my old man, or didn't tell me old man, I don't know, and uh sealed it up in there where it's set to rusting the cane and whatnot. I don't know, it's not it's not oxidizing. Maybe there's an oxygen. I don't know if it's oxygen there not, But either way, got all rusty and I kept that thing and walked around it for a long time ago. I can't figure out what the hell I did with it, which leads me to question about that was this around when you went to a guy on it the first time? No, No, that's what I'm trying to get taken. Well, I'm trying to get to my main dental problem. But the funny part is one time, so I had that fake too, like from the all this the whole story, I had that fake tooth, and one time it fell out in the snow. It's about knee deep snow, and I knew right where it fell out because I was laying down trying to shoot. I was actually late, like drawing a bead on something, and um in the snow, and all of a sudden, like when I put my cheek up to the I put my cheek up to the stock, it felt like something not right, do you know what I mean? Like it's like a normal field or like somehow not right. And and yeah, and it was just we looked and looked through that snow. But you can't find a tooth in the snow? Were you muled you're hunting that time? Dude? Did you get the critter you were beating up on? How is that great? How was that gripping grand photo? Having a bad time with that tooth? So this current issue I'm having once I got it out, So you don't have a tooth. Another close relative of mine, uh, he's missing a couple of them. And he said, I'll think less of you if you get that mouler installed. Like they don't serve any purpose. And when I went in, they make you sign a little thing because they must have a lot of people go home thinking they're gonna get a molar and change their mind once they realize that they're stupid into that. They try to make you sign like a little agreement that you're gonna turn back up again to get the mouler installed, which can't be binding. But anyways, all the time goes by and I don't even want the stupid mouler anymore. But people keep trying to say, like, oh, your teeth will all migrate spread out. And my wife would say, if you smile big, I can see the whole where it used to be as a cameraman, you smile real big, I see that whole, you know what. Then I get where I don't even care anymore, and I think mullers are stupid. And I go down and they put the moller in, and there is not a day gone by. I'm happy they got that molder in there. It is the This is what me and Rick were talking about before we hit record. It is the food catching this some of a bit on the planet. I watched your brushing your teeth there to night, and I was like, wow, Steve's really going to town outside of his face. But you thought I was doing it over here. I thought you were, But then I was over here you were in the mirror. Maybe no, I looked I just glanced up at him, but I saw Steve just going to town. I was like, oh, man, I must be still trying to get stuff out of your teeth. Well I get it out all the time. Something's stuck in there killing me. Uh that's all okay, that was That was an interesting story. I have a question, oh, please go ahead, unrelated to your teeth, but when you were doing the ball bearing fights, did anyone ever swallow a ball bearing? Not that I recall. We had a lot of access these. Oh. An invention we worked on for quite a while and we're a little is we um. I felt that you that we were working on an invention whereby you'd take ball bearings and make a masking tape you it was meant to be a frag grenade. M not a frag what's the kind of gre you're from the military. What's the grenade that has the shrapnel that flies out? Frag grenade? But you're trying to probably claimer, but all that is the kind of just go nothing happens like a concussion grenade. Fragmentation grenade is the one we were working on it. We're working on a frag grenade in bention, by which you take half dozen ball bearings and wrap them in masking tape, and then when you pulled back with your slingshot, thinking being that you'd hit a tree or outside of a house or whatever, and the masking shower squirrels or your brother or whatever, shower them with freg freg. I think it's a good inventive thing for kids to do that work. No, we never got it perfected. We worked on We worked on quite a bit that little bit of technology. Yeah, a lot of good access to ball bearing. Another one more ball bearing question. When you guys were going around shooting knees at each other, would you pick them back up off the ground and keep popping them in your mouth as you'd go My mom's if you went in and I should have my mom on the should My mom's primary gripe in life was um, if you you know, like my mom had a hoover vacuum. Um. Remember I had a little light bulb like a little headlight. Yes, I remember my brother taking that out and eating it and just caught in the inside of his mouth on the holy hell and needed to go try to eat it. I screwed it out. When he's a little little kid, pulled out, not during the baby dude. He crashed into the side of the house one time. I got thirty two stitches across his fore him. My mouth thought he was dead. Older brother, You need to have your mom, Matt and Dan the podcast to sort all this ship out. Because my dad didn't know what my dad had. He had one of those sleds of the Runners on it, and my dad's shoved down the hill towards the house and he didn't know he couldn't steer. My dad sy He's kept going, going, going, going, flap right into the block foundation of and uh got all those stitches and yeah, then ate that light bulb out of the hoover. But man, listen to my mom back and you know, like and also you're here like where you suck up one of those ball bearings or babies or something. Oh my gosh, you would get bad. But I'm sure I have no doubt we recycled. Yah, it was pretty covid. Yeah, you gotta steve, You gotta hanger on the left. Good things, good thing, it's radio. I want to get it though, man, you got it. Um, explain to me U one of you pencil we're in Pennsylvania. We're with two genuine Pennsylvanians. Rick Cotton, I've never been on the show before. First time, Seth Morris many times, dirts from Montana. No Pa roots here, Lawrence here, how's it going? Minnesota guy Minnesota, camera, Minnesota and Washington. Never been hunting his life, Smith Um explain to me how uh I want. I want to get into the like the flint lock deal, but I think the first thing I want to cover off on, which is really interesting, is that we spent a fair bit of time talking about Sunday hunting over the years. It's very interesting to me that the ban on Sunday hunting goes back three years prior to Custer dying at the Little Big Horn. Unrelated, very unrelated, but he put it in perspective, Yeah, eighteen seventy three mm just wrapping up the old Civil War was uh. I don't even so. A lot of that stuff researched before we came out here. But I definitely that predates depends Whania Game Commission, but that might be one of the first legal laws pertaining the hunting. I know it says also but the band of seating spotted fawns in one year in eighteen seventy three, they banned killing fawns with spotted coats and Sunday hunting. Yeah, and it's like deeply rooted in this state. I would love to go back to hear um what was said at the time me too, Like what was like like like how vocal was the debate I have? Yeah, I don't know if it was super vocal or anything, but you just the only way I can wrap my head around it, it's, you know, it's Commonwealth, and Pennsylvania is a Quaker state. You know, Philadelphia and the history of the states all based in the Quaker faith. So yeah, the Sabbath cannot go out on Sunday to day of rest. So that's But other than that, I don't know the exact route to that, But I can't imagine was he it was accepted generally, Probably was, to be honest, I think, so, Yeah. I wonder if people were pissed. I mean, some people had passed and some people had to ignored it for long. I was just I bet a lot of people have ignored it. What's interesting is that then stood for like a hundred and six years and just now, just now it's they're starting to ease. Was the first year Sunday hunting is allowed. Seth knows the Actually they allowed three Sundays. Yeah, there was one Sunday, which was one Sunday in archery, which was the last Sunday in November. It's not the last Sunday November, but the last Sunday of the season is in November. Um, the Sunday during bear season and then a sun the first Sunday of the rifle season in Pennsylvania are the three Sundays that you can now hunt unless you choose to hunt coyotes, foxes, or crows. That is a okay, definitely, it must be the devil's critters. Well, they messed with agriculture more. That's why. That's why it eased up. So what do you do you think they're aiming toward? Like, um, there's like a lot of movement away from blue like blue laws at first two. That's what blue laws will be, like all these things like your tavern can't be open on a Sunday, you can't do this on a Sunday, that on a Sunday. Do you think that this is just like a step toward like getting rid of that altogether. Yeah, and I think Pennsylvania is the state that's been stepping that way because when we were kids, I don't know the alcohol on by week, like no alcohol sales and Sunday. I remember my dad could never you can never buy alcohol on Sunday. And now you can write something like that or yeah, there's in it up now because he used to always be distributors and now there's beer and stores, like they're allowing grocery stores to get and I don't it's because those stores are buying. There's like a there's like a set amount of liquor licenses m h. And like I don't, I don't think they can make anymore. So like if a bar goes out of business, someone else can buy their liquor license, so like you know, for an example, there's a bar in Milesburg, Pennsylvania, which was, um not too not too far from here. Um a bar went out of business. A gas station bought the liquor license and set up shop right across the street and they sell the gas station cells like twelve packs and stuff. Yeah, cells beer, which that never used to be the case. So like that's easing up, like blue laws are changing now Sunday hunting, which that's been a big thing. And I haven't been in Pennsylvania for all that shift, but I know growing up here, I couldn't stand the fact that we could not hunt on Sunday. I thought it was the dumbest things terrible. It would it be such? Is like as strict as if you were hunting out of season? Or is it like a lesser five? You know, I don't know, but it's I think it's yeah, hunting out of season for sure, it's that kind of punishment. Yeah, I would think, Rick, you know, since you better never better in the show before, tell them, tell people what you do. Know, then we're gonna talk about what you do in the past. Okay. Uh So, I am the content community manager for f h F Gear stands for Fish Hunt Fight Gear. We manufacture the Viinal harness you wear on the show and a bunch of other US made hunting and fishing gear. So in some tactical gear. And then, uh, you studied forestry, you like you answer? Did you guys meet through the forestry world? Yeah? We met at penn State mon Alto, which is a branch campus of the main the main campus UM which is in mon Alto, Pennsylvania and used to be the Pennsylvania State forest Academy. Gifford penn Show started it because we grew up in Milford, Pennsylvania. He started it, uh, and then penn State bought it turned it into a branch campus. But all the original buildings on the campus were built by the original forestry students. Like they would show up up by train, they would get issued acts, a bunch of tools, they go to class, they come back in like Conklin Hall on the campus and everything. They built all that by hand, all the forestry students. So the campus still has a very big associate degree program. That's sort of Seth and I started in the associate degree UM got our associates in forest technology, and then I went to Penn State. We both went to penn State main campus. I finished with a bachelor's and forced management. Seth switch to agriculture. So, well, what was the draw to forestry. I swant to be in the woods, and I thought going into it, I just wanted to be in the woods. I thought it would make me a better outdoorsman learning UH, and that was always ultimate goal, to be like a well rounded outdoorsman woodsman like a naturalist. Yeah kind of you can say like that, but I'll just get better at hunting and fishing, you know. And I thought that would be a good thing. I also thought it would be easy, like could be something I can do in college, because I did not. I wasn't good at math. I didn't wanna you know, do any like crazy crazy. Uh. I want to say like they want to work hard in college, because I definitely ended up working very hard. But you were mistaken with the easy part. Yeah, that's why I was just going around it. We get slap in the slap in the face. It was extremely hard and have way more math than ever, statistics everything it was. Yeah, and and at that point, mon Alto which it still does, has a very hard program. Well, you guys are telling me about the tests where they take fifty limb buds, leafless branches, sections of twigs, sections of twigs, lay them out and you got to identify all. So you'd walk in the laboratory. They be fifty sheets of paper and on each piece of paper and they were all distance out so you couldn't cheat off your buddy. And you'd walk around and no complete silence everything, and they'll just be a one inch four inch little twig with just the buds. But what about unlike the pines and stuff, there be u fascicle like which is the clump a clump of needles like a five needle or three. You know, hard pines, well not always. You got a lot of different types of conifer. Now it's all stuff native to Pennsylvania since we're in Pennsylvania, but a lot of the species rupping down that northeast. But like with the hard pines, you got table mountain, pitch, all different types like you can it can get a little tricky, or there be a cone, an armored cone. You know, the soft pines were easy for us here and that in Pennsylvania, but sometimes the armored cones, like shortly pine, table mountain and pitch, sometimes their cones are a little hard to tell apart. So it would just be that and you'd have to do family genus species in the Latin, and I think sometimes it asked like you'd have to say a fact about that tree. You had to know all that and then yeah, that was for dendrology and we had I don't remember on that one. I was good at the at dendro. I wasn't good at anything else. I really wish I knew my trees better. I walk around and go up, that's the tree. We had to be able to identify how many tree species it was in like our hundred twenties, like ballpark is what we learned family and species. And we'd have we'd have like we would go out so we would do part of our exams where we would do like field tests, and like we would walk out into a field. We'd have these little pieces of paper and our our professor would point to a tree and we'd have to write it down and handed to her h and then she'd do that for I don't know scies. We weekly like that. How many in your class? I think I graduated with like nine or eleven or something like that. I started with third with thirty some in the program, but after the end of the two years it was only like sixteen, may be of my associate and then I only graduated my bachelor's with like six to nine people something. There was some attrition, very very much. First they first they dropped like flies because it's hard because everyone did they pick it. It's weird you guys got that far. Then chickened out and went into different fields, didn't I worked. I worked in forestry. Then he went into the military. Well that was a different like goal. But then when I got back, I went right into work for pheasants forever. And then I worked for pheasants forever and then went out to US for service. And I used to work for the Game Commission in college. You know your observation that you thought by studying forestry you could be better at hunting and fishing. Um, we're having it. We were talking about that one time with with our beloved Pat Durkin mhm, and like just like woodsmanship and being a naturalist, right, and he was saying, Um, he's kind of expressing this almost like it's unfortunate. He's like, you know, he spent a lot of time profiling like very effective deer hunters, like stone cold killers on white tails. You know, he said, the thing he's found a lot of these guys they can't tell you what kind of tree their tree stands hanging in. Really, that like amazes me. He's like it just like it takes a lot, but it doesn't take that I saw. I saw one time, I saw a dude. Um, he's like instant famous does a lot of white tail hunting in the Midwest. And he was going around like scouting the property and he was saying, how, um, you could tell this was a fresh deer rub because it was low on the tree. Then old deer rub will be higher in a tree because the tree grows up. Yeah, And I was like, leave a comment. I didn't know, I don't, but I was like that man probably knows his shipload about deer but has no clue how a tree grows. But it definitely doesn't know how a tree grows. That's really funny. Yeah, uh, yeah, that's interesting because, um, we shot the steel broad head into a tree in our yard and we're a little and you can still see like a little swell from it there and it yeah, never change height. Um. That's surprising though, that that's the case, because I felt like, and I'm sure Seth would agree, when you learn all your species and then to you really start getting into like silvics of the species, Like you can look back that the whole Landscapes of history book, and you can look at how stuff regenerated. You can look at stumps, you can start breaking the for it like we do. We break everything down and stands okay, group group of trees that is um unique to like a size species. You can start lumping them together and you can just create these rooms, like you can actually create a betting area wide deer betting there. Then you can see travel corridor and then you can actually see like why especially with mass producing eastern hardwoods, when you're dropping acorns and everything, and like we're talking about their day, like there, the deer will eat white oak acorns before they start hammering on the wet red oak acorns because the tannins and stuff. See, when you start knowing that, you can break it all down and make sense. It's not just a bunch of green stamps. I think it's like it's a component. It's helpful, but there's a lot of ways around it totally. Just like you know, every day I'm treeing the woods, but be fidgety. I think it helps. Not patient, but you don't need to, but it definitely helps. So when uh so you got out of that whole deal, got out of school, Yeah, and then I want to get to bout I want to get to the part about uh no, you know where I'm going. I asked you as there's a part of that I had to ask if I could ask, but I'm not asking that yet. But um, I caught when we were talking, so I know you were in the service and your old man was and he was injured in Iraq. Yes, it's it's so weird that at this point to be talking to a grown man who's old man was in the Iraq War was injured in Iraq. What branch of the services? He in Marine Corps. Yeah, he was forty he turned forty three in Iraq. He was old though when he was there. Yeah, he Um, he did twenty four years. Most of that was in the reserve. So yeah, but he and that he got deployed, you know three, Yeah, because it was right after like I shot my first year when I was twelve. Everything was two thousand and two, and he deployed in January, went to Iraq and came back and like just under a year. So you were twelve and the old man got shipped off to Iraq. One of one of the last times we really like had a father son like experience was when I shot my first year. Yeah, and then uh, but you didn't see your dad for years. Then he got super busy, like for pre deployment all that and everything, and they left in januaryly beginning, yeah, maybe middle January. I can't remember exactly when he left. I went to RACK, but he got a traumatic arain injury there and then came home and from that brain injury, he had a traumatic brain injury and a bunch of spinal injuries and he just but like he just took ivy prof and they didn't they didn't ship them home after They really didn't know what was going on with him, and he just got a Parkinson's is um so from his brain injury. He has a lot. He has mobile problems. He's mostly in a wheelchair a lot and stuff and has problems getting around right. And just saw him at Christmas. Soon when he's doing he's doing pretty good. He with so it comes and goes, but it's all neurological. He has a deep brain stimulator too. He's one of the first people in the US to get a deep sprain stimulator. So he has it, and I'm pretty sure he was the first guy to have it installed on his left shoulder instead of was right because he wanted to still shoot a firearm and they were all putting him on He had the right shoulder, and he asked the surgeon if he could put it on his left so he could still shoulder a firearm. But it's like a pacemaker goes down into his brain pulse states and um helps his uh dopamine levels for mobility and everything. So yeah, so with that, I yeah, I uh so, then you felt compelled to go to the Marine Corps. No, no, it was it was opposite. All I wanted to do was go to the Marines when I was a kid. And then I with his mobility and struggle as I was just being a sixteen year old kid being an idiot, and I just struggled with that fact. And I was irritated at A because we had to kind of figure out what was going on with his situation with the v A and he couldn't work no more when he got medically retired and everything. And so I did not join the military eighteen, which is my biggest regret in my life, even though I'm glad where my life is right now, but I did not join an eighteen. I went to college and did mon Alto, and then my sophomore year of college, I started having big regrets about it, and I made the decision to to just join after call post college. So that did how long? Uh so I did? Uh? I was doing officers candidate like recruiting and ended up graduating and I was six months out. I was living on cess farm, just way to get like a date to go to officers Can school ship date, because you don't like you gotta get accepted. And at this time there's a huge bottleneck. They really slimmed down how many guys were going officers Can at school. So I ended up getting impatient and I enlisted, um various reasons, a bunch of family stuff too. I didn't know if I can, Like my dad wasn't doing too well at that point, um so, and I wanted to go infantry really bad. So I ended up the contract I did was infantry, but I went reserve. So so then I did boot camp school of Infantry, and then I put back in reserving in Pennsylvania and I just did four years because at the end of the four years, my plan was I would try to go back officer. But that's when moving to Montana and that was a better new Yeah, I want to change that at all. Did your dad support your Oh yeah, yep, yep, he was Yeah, my mom supported to. Yeah, but it was you know, that was at the draft. I was in and left, so I was when everything was starting to really settle down. But yeah, no, I was very board. I grew up in a military family. Almost all the males of my family served. So talking about when you got like, uh, when you went through your health christ Yeah, okay, so this is part Steve really likes. Not that I like it, it's just something we's just like a thing we haven't never explored. Yeah. No, So that was a fat kid always you know, always overweight, um like all growing up. Yeah, for the most part, I got you know heavy when I was ten around then and everything all through. But I was still very active. I got was an Eagle Scout, did boy Scouts. We did backpacking all the time, fifty mile backpacks every year. We did a couple of them. So super active. But in college I got, like the freshman fifteen, really packed on some pounds and I got up to two and thirty some pounds. I am five that is funny, So the military only does he by whole inch, so I'm five nine on their records, but I'm five eight and a half. So yeah, they rouned you up. They round you up, which is good well because you get a weight cap and I was always one of the guys that was pushing it. So also they gave you an extra half inish to help you out in the weight case. That's usually generally what to do. Um, I'm sure to think how big that is? So what was the weight again too, like to mid two thirties. I can't remember what like the max max pound it was, but it was in them two thirties and I'm five eight and a half and in uh five months, I lost like fifty five pounds just one day. I just yeah, I made a decision. I was like, this is done. I'm done doing this and that's all it is. It's a mental But when you made the decision, what was your understanding of why it was that it had happened to you? Not tracking with the quiet? What's your like? You must have said, like you didn't make a decision to get thin. You had to make a decision that that underdo such and such thing like how did you know what the problem? So and I was thinking about doing the joining the military. I was like, well you got like there's weight rags. Everything got to be in shape. And that's when I made the decision. I was like, well, if I'm gonna do that, I need to just get in shape and too. I was never you know, I always want to be able to run faster and do all that. So that was just like little all I needed, and it clicked in my head. I was like, well, I'm gonna do it. I'm just gonna get in really good shape. So I went down got to like at one point, I got two hundred and fifty eight pounds. But what are the things you changed? Diet? I got up every morning and ran three miles because that's what the p f T was, so I knew I did work on that timet. Uh, well, I pretty much. This is where I made some mistakes. I starved myself. I like there was days some days I would eat a couple of oranges. Here was that committed. Yeah, I would get really bad starvation headaches, but I was just so committed. I was like, I don't care, it's calories. Your calories burned has to exceed your calories in. And that's all I did. And I just which definitely could tell. I think her hurt my stomach a little bit by starving myself, firing. But I you know, I would eat not like months of just low, low calories, but there'll be a day week I'd be like, well, I'm hardly gonna eat any day, just keep going and I yeah. But it was easy because once I started seeing progress, I was like, this is it. I am, I'm getting to that goal and I did it. So yeah. So it's just it was a mental decision to lose that weight, that's all it was. And it's painful, but well what I went out starving myself and that will get painful and everything, and yeah, but um, you know, one thing that was pretty awesome though, was the encouragement people like I knew seth Man when I lost on my weight and like everyone when they saw it was like real encouragement. When they haven't seen you in like a month or a couple of weeks and then they see you again, you're really working at it. It's awesome. I was, um, I was still up. He was easy year ahead of me. So I was, um, sophomore year, yeah, and you were junior year up at main Camera sell Us still a month out too. I remember coming back up to main campus to visit for the weekend and I saw him. Was like, holy sh it, like what happened because he just like I hadn't seen him for months all summer and I came up and saw him for the first time in like three or four months, and just like half the size he was, And I had no clue that he was even like trying to lose weight. Yeah, I didn't tell no one. I was just I told every when I came back to school. But yeah, that was it. So what was it when you the first time he went back in the woods, you know, lighter, like feeling fit. It was amazing? Oh man, Oh yeah, I feel like I could do anything. It was like running wise and everything in a Yeah, totally. I would encourage anyone, like if especially in a young person, to just do it. It's a mental decision. Just make decision and stick with it. It's gonna like suck, but do it, because man, once you're fit and everything, you can, like I'm addicted to running now. I love going for long runs and stuff and everything. So yeah, but tell people about the decision to uh expunge your Oh yeah, because that came up because we're talking about photos. Because I have a somewhat over Yeah, I ever regret now. I was so ashamed of those years of being overweight. How long were the years, well, from you know, ten ten leven all the way up until college. So to find years of you know, becoming a going from like, yeah, that's that's from a pivotal very pivotal. Because you showed me a picture of a big, huge, freaking bobcat you trapped. Yeah, and that was a couple of days where I went to bootcamp. Yeah. Well I was like, you look skinny as a bean. Yeah, I'll show these some mothers are on my phone. You should see how skinny I am. Yeah. Uh but yeah, but then I just destroyed and got rid of all the I called my fat pictures. I'm just like, I'm getting rid of I'm burning this part of my life out really. Oh yeah, And and I regret it because I rid of a lot of hunting grip and grins and hunting pictures and stuff I've killed. Man, I got some seth keep Yeah, he's got once a yeah digital on his phone. Um, but yeah, I just tried to erase it because I was like shamed of it. But now I look him back as I'm getting older, I don't know, a lot of people say you should just be proud that you did that, you made that change, you just keep going down that path. So yeah, it's tricky because you obviously switched up some habits, created some new ones that you're really happy about. But to be so like ashamed of of just yeah, it's I don't know, it's a tricky. It's a tricky thing, right, Yeah, definitely. I mean because I feel bad for that thirteen year old Rick Well what yeah, because I got picked on and stuff for what just just oh yeah, I mean yeah I was a fat kid. I got picked on hey heck yeah, yeah, the judgment that goes along with it. Yeah, you know, like what kind of picked up Well, you know general, like you ain't getting picked for a lot of sports everything like in gym class when you're a kid and everything. You know. Yeah, so that that part really makes it's breaking your heart. Really, that's just think about how I got kids? Man. People are they like they're they're evil little they don't know better, but they're just evil little people. Yeah. People are Yeah. No, I I can't remember like exact things people. I just remember sometimes being really stressed and upset. There they have moments of like incredible passion and moments of just wickedness. Yeah. Yeah, that's a really good way to put with kids. And then it can happen at the same time, one out of the left hand, one out of the right. Yeah. So but horrible little things. Yeah, well, can't be raising a bunch. So I'm saying just just I'm not. I'm not and I'm not acting like this is just I mean, I see them do things to each other. Yeah, I'm like, what who would like know what I know, would do that to like someone, even a stranger, little siblings? I don't. I think when you're young, you don't have you don't understand like the ramifications of what you say and how that would like burn and linger in someone's mind or anything like that. So but then again, I don't know all that led up to me just feeling like I'm sick of this and I made my decision. So if no one did do that to me or like I was, I wasn't frustrated with my physical abilities, would I have ever made the decision to change. I don't know, And I'm so glad I made that decision. What do you think now about you know, there's this kind of national dialogue right where this is yep, where you know, it's I don't know how to tell everybody about what I'm talking about. I don't know the obesity pandemic except yeah, the idea that that um like love your body, yeah, which is like a good advice, you know it generally, But then there's this this there's this idea, like I guess within the culture, there's a growing trend to be like that that that um, beauty was always defined a certain way, and so it was like this binary thing like you're like thin and beautiful or you're not your you're or you're ugly, And there's this this this um tendency to want to like to take this down, to have this not be the way that it's not like that such as you know, this huge percent of the population should sort of like feel the shame of not hitting a certain physical stature that society has deemed acceptable. But at the same time, there's like healthcare professionals who are like there are serious, like like there are costs to being overweight, very legitimate cost of being overweight, and it's not like a beauty it's like beauty not beauty is sort of like there there's the health component. Yeah, and I but you know, I'm I'm doing a horrible job of expressing it. But this is like a thing you hear about totally. No, I think you did a pretty good job. Let's explain that and I'll just say my personal opinion about it. Uh. I think everyone should be confident with themselves. I think that's big things. We're all different and it's weirder, and you compare like major athletes and stuff they run like, just be confident yourself, but be healthy that and it really pisces me off. I'll be honest. It when because people don't know my past when they see me and then they're like, well, I can't lose because I can't lose weight because of this or that, and you know, I'm fifty pounds overweight and it's just never gonna happen, and it's it is a It irritates me because I'm like, you can it is a decision because I woke up one day and I flipped a switch in my brain and I did whatever it took to accomplish that. And I don't think I think there's very few people that have a physical limitation to holding them back from being super healthy. And I am There's not a day I wake up that I would go back to that. I love being healthy. I love being able to go for big the wrong ron's. I love being able to go to the gym and actually perform the way I should for my age class. And I will say, there's there's health ramifications my knees. I think my knees are gonna give out before they would have because I was carrying around all that extra weight, and especially too I was an active kids. I was going on backpackers. You know, I'd have a big pack plus extra weight, all that extra weight, and uh, you can ask Seth he's heard I'll bend, I'll kneel down. My knees will crack loud, both of them, like, and I could tell some days I gotta like, I'm definitely gonna have those are that's the part of my body I think is going to start failing early with my knees. Well, let me ask you this as long as round the subject, Uh the people that goofed on you when you were a kid. Yeah, Um, do you now think like, thank god those people were so ruthless and awful. No, but I also I'm not I did. I'm man, it's kind of hard. Yeah, no, I don't think that. But then I also I think because of the subject we've talked about, I don't think you should totally ignore I think people should be like, hey, you know, if you have a friend that's that's overweight and unhealthy, should be like, hey, let's uh, you should think about taking some steps to just be healthy. Like you shouldn't ignore it. That's my That's what I'm getting at, you know, Um, yeah, I don't think I'm never like thankful. I got bullied for that part amount you know, life and everything. But I definitely I don't know. I'm just I guess I spent in a positive in my mind and you can't just look negative at it. Do you feel, um to lose a bunch of weight. Do you feel that you were more uh moving towards like a definition of health that you had, or more moving away from like getting goofed out by people moving towards a definitely in health. I think yeah, yeah, because like I was in college and everything. When I was I was like, my eye was fully well I wouldn't say fully developed, man, but by that point getting close. But I was myself, and I was confident in myself to who I was. But I just wanted to be in shape. Yeah, the goof and probably stop college college. Yeah, the goof and stop. Oh yeah yeah, because your old man it was a marine. Was he like, did he like look like a marine? Yeah? Yeah, he looks like a marine. Yeah he's yeah, he looks like a marine. He still he still looks like a marine. Was there a little bit of rebellion in there? He thinks it's illegal to not get a high and tight haircut. So yeah, I can't shake the old half. Yeah but you were a marine too, right, I don't know if that came yeah yeah, yeah to the Marine Corps. Yeah. Um yeah, which my like service was nothing compared to my old man's. I don't even talk about my service that much. No, you really don't know, No, I don't, um, but uh yeah, because what my dad gave up for the country and everything, I know, like I had a little a little bit of that, so I don't I don't talk about it much. Um. He's the one who got you started hunting though, Oh yeah, yeah I started. I mean I never I mean we joke about I don't I don't know anything about sports. I played some sports because I think my parents were like, we want you to be accepted, like try this. And all I want to do was play with guns and go hunting and fishing. But he got me started and all that, and I was in the boy Scouts all you know, all that to my eagle, um, but yeah, my dad got me started and all that. He grew up in a hunting family. So can I ask a question that might be jumping I had too much or maybe not? Yeah, man, did he did your dad get you into flintlock? Or where I'm sitting here thinking like how am I gonna get out of this and get into because I'm super interested in this, but I know where we gotta go. So as I'm sitting here thinking like howm I gonna do it, I was like I don't know if if people care about Oh no, they care a lot, dude, but I was. I didn't want to know what to do, and I was bought ready to hit panic and then dirt comes in. But that was an amazing transition because UH started out going small game hunt with my dad, like watching him shoot squirrels the Twain two, but the first deer I ever watched get killed. It was with a flintlock, but the one your dad was kind of shooting down on it kind of yeah, and I was kind of down at it too. Um we were out. So this you can transition this into I don't know if we're gonna talk about later, but Seth and I was real solid man. Seth and I both grew up in in areas of Pennsylvania that had heavy uh coal mining, and I did. I grew up in School County, the anthracite coal region, so a lot of hunting was so. Anthracite coal is hard coal, and eastern Pennsylvania from Scranton area all the way down to Pottsville, which is where I was born and raised, is where you can get anthracite coal. It's hard coal, it's shiny, burns more efficient, less sash, and more b two us yep, good clean coal versus by two minutes. But I grew up in that region. Seth grew up where they mined by two minutes coal. So he grew up in the ship coal area. He did. That's right, And you do you feel that like affected you guys outlook and personalities? What that he grew up in the ship like ship coal and good coal. No, No, I think it's shapes. I think I think it's shaped how we view resource extraction. But I don't think. I don't think, maybe think any less of uh. But we always called coal area, Yeah, comparable all this coal on the on the hills soft coal. Yeah, that's the only place in the US everything soft coal except for an eastern Pennsylvan's only place you can get in the U s is anthrasies hard coal. That's it. Everything else is by two minutes coal to some level. There's different levels by tuminus. What's lignite, that's by tuminus. But I think it's really crappy, but real chromic, real chremy coal. Yeah, Like I grew up, my grandmother would have coal on her bookshelves from all her family, like a couple of her brothers had mines and stuff. And they're like shiny black diamonds, like they shine. They're all washed off, but it's real shiny, nice looking stuff. So so when those guys are goofing now any about your weight, we're like, well, it's at least these are come from good coal countries. That didn't ocur to me. That was just normal that was life. But we always hunted out on a lot of coal land. Like we always said, down in the strippings, um, because really strippings, yeah, stripping pits, strippings, that's what they call it because they're stripped. Minding Ye yeah, right worth sitting right now right below, UM, I would have regarded as like you you clarified, it's not I would look that must be like that must be the mountaintop removal we hear so much about. But you're like, that's that doesn't even not technical strip. They they do recontour and level stuff during strip. Mind, we're close enough to the mind right now, we're sitting here. Earlier in the cabin. Then there was a little bit of a shake because they they must have detonated a charge up there to move some ground. You guys are hunting the strippings. Yep, we're ound the strippings. And I probably was like eleven, maybe maybe tan at this point, and I was getting a little tired. We're doing mouches, as Doug Darren would say, but small drives, just with with my uncles there was it wasn't a fawn drive. Doug wouldn't really agree with that. Oh he wouldn't is that he's a little stupid about it. Um, like a mooch. I've argued with dog about this a million times. In a mooch, which is like a deer drive, but not in a mooch. It would be that like there's like a like a blind sitting still hunting component to it. Okay, it kind of stems from like some relative of his probably looked exactly like them. Uh at one point in time it said something like, you know, I was just creeping along, Yeah, you know, mooching, right, And it'll be like if you're doing a mooch, it might be that everybody goes out in the morning and gets in a blind and their dear blind around the farm and even the neighbor the neighboring farm, right, Like, everybody's out there blind and it's scheduled that like we'll sit till about eight mhm. And then Dave and Bob are going to get out of their blinds and mooch along these two different ridges, okay, and just stir stuff and just gently gently get things astiring. And then like let's say Dave arrives at some other blind he hadn't been sitting in. He might climb up into that blind, okay, at which point Doug gets out and mooches down into a little bottom real quiet m and in around about that time, like surely climbs down out of her blind, you know, yeah yeah, and mooches around the dogs blind and then deb and it's this whole thing like that. Yeah yeah, okay, So technically we're not doing that. It's like it's just a little mini pushes, yeah, mini pushes a little um mini subtle, like not blowing deer out, but just nudging them, nudging along. My uncle was going through Connifer cover like we did a lot this whole trip, and he bumped out two dall when they came running. Well, oh, I gotta back up. I was tired, say does oh man, that's you brought up to say dough. Yeah, and it's a really bad habit. So did you grow up to say dough where you live? Um, I've things I don't I don't remember. Yeah, that's the way My entire family and obviously a lot of the guys that grew up hunting around how they said it. So it's just it's automatic. And I don't even think it's regional because we grew up with people that said it, yeah, do not Bucks? And does Bucks? And does Yeah. I think it's super common. I know a lot of people shall do that, and I don't even catch myself doing it. Like I saw um, but I was tired. And he climbed up on a big overburden pile of coal that was all it was left from years ago and it's all grown up around at everything. But he went up on it like it'd be in a stand to get an elevated shooting position at the end of this conifer cover. And my uncle book uh two does out and they came running right up, and one saw me sitting on a stump. My dad sent me on, hit the brakes and just watched me. And I remember staring right in her eyes, and I heard the flintlock go off on and like a foot to a big shot of blood shot out of her side, and she ran off thirty yards and piled up. My dad came down. That was like the first time I put my hands on a dead deer, and I was so chomping at the bit to go hunting after that. And then she feel like flintlock. I mean, my dad has killed more deer with his flintlock than his center fire rifle. Yeah, what year did they start the flintlock season? Here? Uh, seventy three? Checked that sheet front of you. I say, one second. That page covers the advent of the triple Trophy, where you get a special trophy if you killed a deer bearon Turkey in year, which they started handing out in nineteen sixty six, and then in nineteen seventy two, mysteriously they ended the triple Trophy program. I really need to rease I don't know the history behind that. I just knew was a good idea. For six years at my hunting camp, there was a few guys that had their hunting jackets and they had Triple Trophy patches on it. Well, how do I not remember? This is a damn year. I was born two years after Jeremiah Johnson. Yeah, so that was so Yeah. I threw that in on that little thing because I feel like that probably set the stage because that was such a popular movie. Um my parents watched Jeremiah Johnson at your about a year and three months after it came out, and that led to such a weird thought, that's a romantic movie. My mom and uh my mom and dad for their honeymoon. They went and stayed in one of those ice shanties you can live in. Oh, that's spent their honeymoons ice fishing and ice shanty. Do you think it was a scene where he flips the blanket off? Swan that like got your parents? Is that when you're thinking of your charlie? What's that scene she lay after they getting married. She lays down under the blanket naked and then he clips it off and says, lord, um oh they started Muslim flintlocks. But it's the only state that has a flint lux. Yeah, yeah, so is it? Like? Why is that? Until? What the hell flintlock is? Man? We've covered it so many damn times. Yeah, seth, do you do it? You're I'm talking too much, But first tell what a matchlock is, or I could do that, but yeah, you tell what? Explain the matchlock better? Time Dred's beginning of sixteen hundred's the cutting edge technology was a matchlock. So it was a pan that came out the side of the barrel, held a priming powder and then an arm that would be cocked back and then when the trigger was pulled back, it would The Seared movie would release, and a smoldering rope would go in that and ignite the powder. The problem with that is as you as the rope kept smoldering back, you kept having to push it and make sure time was up far enough and time right. So it's like someone starts to drive or do your drive. Let's say with a matchlock, you might light the wick right when it starts, and by when here we come, you'd light the wick. I mean yeah, if they were doing deer drives back then yeah, that's probably doing or it would smolder. I'm not sure how like the rate. Maybe it was a super super slow so you can almost hunt for No, no, it would you would want to. Yeah, you're not like sitting there because I think they didn't have any lighters. Right, It wasn't a quick igniance. He had to try to take something from a candle or a fire to light. That starts smoldering that room. Until this very minute, I didn't know that that's what a matchlock was. Yeah. Yeah, and then then when the hammer held a burning wick and then pushed it right into the pan, they wouldn't put the wick out when that happened, you know, I don't I don't know I don't know if it did or not. I feel like it probably wouldn't. It would still be smoldering because there's ignition in the pan. It's not like it goes in and cuts off all oxygen or anything and there's nothing. And then that little pan of powder goes ye and then shoots into the side of the barrel through a thing called a touch hole and then ignite the main charge. And it pushed a patch and ball or just a ball because a lot of more smooth boars. Well I think all matchlocks were smooth boars. Yeah, he would throw that ball down the end of the barrel. So that is the bee's knees. What was what were the poor folks shooting? What was a bad gun during match lock time? Yeah? I don't know. Yeah, maybe not again some sharp little Yesterday's equivalent of the dude that comes up with a laser range finder. Yeah, decides, he says, you know what I'm gonna do? Man? What does he do? Sth he comes up with something better? It makes the flintlock. So the flintlock is um it's similar in the way and like how the parts move in a way. There's a hammer, there's a flash pan and then there's a touch hole that goes into the barrel. But over the pan there's you I think of like a flint and steel. So on the hammer there's a piece of flint held in by a little vice, held in by a little yeah, a little vice type thing. And then over the pan there's a frizzen, and the frizzen is the steel part. So when so you prime the pan, flip the frizzen down over so that keeps that powder kind of dry. And it's about it. The priming is about as much as like when you see it, you know in the movies and someone gets a little fingernail a coke or something. It's about like that amount of powder, like a pinch of salt, like a pinch of salt um. The frizzing covers the powder in the pan. When you cock the hammer back and pull the trigger, the hammer flies forward hits the steel on the frizzen, which flips the frizzen out of the way. The the sparks from the flint hitting the steel fall into the pan, which causes a little explosion, a little flash in your face, which then travels through the touch hole into the breach of the barrel, which ignites the powder, sending the patch and ball out of the gun. Yep, I think it was a good one. Yeah, yeah, depend oh you can go. Do we ever work? Does this ever work out? Like remember we were talking about the pig they'll have LENI eat the turkey ship? Yeah? Did you put on Instagram? Yeah? I did so people could go find it? Yes, it worked, It mostly worked. Did you see evidence of people going to see it because we talked about it? Yes, And I've received probably fifty messages of people asking me where they could see that video. Wasn't it right there? Yeah, it's in Just like I said on the podcast, it will be in the highlights under Texas. But why don't you just put it in the feed and eventually right well put it put it as opposed. Well then then like eventually, you know, someone listened to that podcast a year from now, can go can go to my highlights and they're like right there right on top. Yeah, but that was no one knows about that. That's picky about what goes in his feet there, Ye, there in a way that people couldn't find it. No, it's it's rick. Help help me explain it. It is easier to it's easier to find it in the highlights than it is in the feet. Well, you listen to me, he has an aesthetic to keep up with Mr Technology over here. That's me tapping listen. Well, I'm gonna put the world's greatest hang by your video. Steve will put in some stupid highlight folder. Steve will put it in his seed meat. I will put it in my highlight folder, right and then meat under p a flint lock right in the meat. Like when you go in, you cann type in at Steven Ronella and you're gonna be served up a Schmorgus board of visual imagery. If you go look, you'll find one of dirt having a great uh a great what's known as a hang fire. And depending on when this podcast comes out, um, don't expect it to be the first video on your feet. You might have to you might to scroll once you know what I said, Shmorges board, you're gonna do a bunch of No, you'll be served a Smorgas board of images. But it might be that particular video might be where they put like the lemon uh oh, like as you go through the thing, like you got rolls salad, crutains and baco bits. Right. Then you get into the right then he's like, you get the weird area where you had like cottage cheese and I peaches and peaches, and then you're gonna keep going. It's gonna be like a big vat soup and stuff, and you're gonna go down and there's gonna be dirt with the hang fire. Okay, that's where you'll find it. That's where you'll find on at Steven Ronella. Um, I didn't know you didn't come through on that, what like I asked, No, it's there. Fifty people couldn't find it. Yeah, well they fifty people have a hard time listening to directions more than more than that. So it'll be there. The hang fire. Yea, what the hell are we talking about? Hang fires? Yeah? Oh the sound of it. Yeah yeah, that's Lauren was saying. Sometimes it goes I feel like best case scenario. There is a small delay, right, No best case scenario. It's just like I mean, it's quick, it's it's yeah kind of right, slight delay, but it's not as slow as most people think though. Old flint lock, my old flint lock, which I sold on consignment um had a big delay, and maybe it was like there's all kinds of reasons that could be. It could be like I was using like goofy powder. I didn't have whatever, because in a flint lock, when you prime, the priming powder is a finer grain than the actual charge powder. I could have been screwing all manner of things up with my old flint lock, where I wouldn't have a delay. It would be like, right, my new one is because something about it Petter solely, Yeah, it's good. It said the configuration of the everything that when it goes right, it's very fast. It could have a lot to do with the touch hole. You might have might have had a smaller touch hole, were you, Yeah, if you weren't using four F powder too, it's like if you're using three like we talked about because Steve and I had a powder incident while hunting powder out, yeah, where we had to use some charge powder in our pants and I've I've never actually done it, but I always was told if you need to do that, it's going to be a little bit slower because that amber has to go down and it's smolders for a couple of seconds. With that bigger grain of powder, just just like you've taken kindling for a fire and trying to light heavy too heavy, like i've kindling or tinder tinder. Well, the reason I think that that might I don't know. I don't think that's why I had that delay is because I remember not realizing they were there was such things as priming powder, and have a hell of a time getting that thing to go off, and then got actual priming powder and got to work way better. But I think I want to establish so in that Sun four they start the flintlock season. No other state had a flintlock season. Don't why? Um was it? Because you guys had a lot of like period like buck skinners, like re enactor community in Pennsylvania. From what everything we can understand what started that. Pennsylvania is a big history with the Pennsylvania long rifle. And everyone always says like the Kentucky rifle, but you know long rifles started in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. UM German gun smith's took the really high precision rifles of from German and Swiss gunsmith's and southeastern Pennsylvania has tons of German heritage people moving here and settling. So those gunsmiths brought that really good craftsmanship and mixed it with the English style like Brown Bess long long rifles. Um made him super precise and then put rifling in him to twist and stabilize that patch and ball. Um. So with that, like even if you go to build a flint lock today and you order a stock a lot of and I just did it before he came, just to see how often. But a lot of the stocks are Pennsylvania counties, like the Lancaster style stock, the York style stock Burkes Bethlehem, which is a town, not a county. But there's so much um history and heritage with flint locks in the Pennsylvania long right like during that early to mid guns were flowing out of Pennsylvania. I think it was seventeen nineteen. Oh Man Merlin was his name, Seth. He's like the gunsmith that's like most like mostly noted for putting rifling and making the flint lock. It was like okay, and then up into the semi part there is another gun smith that that had a lot of oh Man like crap man what do you call it, like craftsmen underneath him. And really they started manufacturing on a larger scale. I can't say a large scale like we think of today, but larger scale Pennsylvania long rifles UM, and then gunsmiths from that took that technology down in Virginia, Kentucky, which is where a lot of people say Kentucky long rifle, but a lot it all stammed out of Pennsylvania. So with that, like I grew up with, there's muzzleloader clubs and seth uh, there's one up here, right, didn't you say there's one? I'm not sure about. My one scout master was really in the flintlocks. He would not use the center fire rifle unless he absolutely needed to shoot a deer and he wanted to shoot a deer that year. Um. My dad was really into it. He just loved flintlock hunting. Like I said, he killed more deer um with his flintlock than he did his center fire rifle. UM. And a lot of that came down to time to hunt. Because of the Sunday hunting thing. He would be off around the holidays and the season is after Christmas, UM usually for two weeks. We did have more time. That was a factor. Um. But with that, I just grew up going to a lot of muzzleloader shoots, and there's clubs around here. And from what I could tell from that history is there was a Pennsylvania Federation black powdered shooters. I think I'm saying that right, and they were pushing because the archery hunters now had their season, their piece of the pie, and they started pushing then in there, you know, early seventies for that to be there to be a designated muzzleoader season. And it's written still in a lot it's a flint law ignition only. It cannot be anything more modern than flint law ignition. We do have an early season in October or Pennsylvania does um uh that you can use modern inlines now, but the post Christmas late season is flint law ignition only, and that early season is dough only. Can't you can't shoot the antler? Uh? The first problem I ran into hunting my first Pennsylvania flintlock season was not one I anticipated. The these guns have what's called a that trigger. They're a Hawking style hawk like is that the model? So Hawking styles from what I can read, and I'm not an expert on any of this, so, but like my gun is more is a more aft traditional Pennsylvania Kentucky long rifle style. It's a little shorter just because it's modern. Um. The Hawking style came later when they started doing um because a lot of Pensilian long rifles were thirty six to forty five caliber, and then when fifty caliber became a big thing in modern rifle flintlocks. Um Hawking was a manufacturer and of a style too. They cut the stock back, shorter barrels, but it usually a lot heavier. Like you guys can notice my rifles more slim lying than yours. Yours is a lot heavier, which goes to period correct of that firearm from what's that call? Where to hire someone to read while they play with beads? What you stay like? I'm playing palm raider type and playing Yeah, so that's what this is. So you're gonna hear the cock. It it's on. It's on, half cock right now, longer go all the way for it. Okay, here's half cock, satisfying closing the frizen. No, I am what do you say activating? I was just saying setting the trigger, so okay at this point, now I'm gonna full cock, Okay, I love those sounds. Now, if I were to pull the this thing has two triggers in the trigger guard. If I were to pull the front trigger, I would have to give it a mighty tuggins to go off. It's heavy, a lot of tension in there, heavy heavy thing, a lot of slop that noise, that slop no when I do us there's a big hook shape set trigger which I'm not going to activate the rear trigger. That's craftsmanship. Now, if I so much just look at that front trigger, she might go off. It's probably like mmit, it is scared as sh I mean, still, it's gotta be what like a like a two pound pull. I think that's one that's under two pounds for sure. That's that's around one pound. Now, I had my c Z twenty two trigger done and polished, and I have that problem now and then where I'm just drawn a bead out of squirrel and it would go off prematurely. This is a little more scary than when they go off. So and here's why. Here's the problem with the stupid thing, not not stupid, not in stupid, is that you're fiddling around in there. Mm hmm. So here you are, here comes here. You see a bunch of deer come charging through the brush, and you see antlers, and the rule here is it has to have three on one side. And you see that. It's a nice clean eight way legal okay, And your normal thing is just to shoot. But now I gotta be like, Okay, I got a lot of little things I need to do in short order. I need to go like this, I need to go, and then I need to like all all these things coming at me. So I do all that, and then I'm kind of like swooping in on him. He hits the brakes and I'm coming in on him, passing from left to right, yep, to eventually settle up and draw a bead on the white of his brisket because he's like handshaking, don't yeah, yeah, He's on top of you, and I'm looking around. I've activated my set trigger and my fingers kind of hunting around for the other trigger to make sure I'm in the right spot off to the side of his head, like way off to the side. I felt bad walking up And that was my opportunity. Yeah, that was that was the only opportunity he had at a buck. And that was your first day if Seth was a good host and guide, yeah, tell yeah what he would have done. He would have known that that was a great opportunity, a great drive. We would have gone and two shitty drives. Yeah he got seasoned. Yeah. See, I thought I was being a good host, seasoned and got more accustomed to the equipment. He was putting it in the premo spot on the best drive possible to just get it down, at which point we became seasoned and accustomed to the equipment. He would then have said, now I got a drive for you, But instead we no sooner like walk out the door and here I am shooting straight straight around out of my I felt bad too, because I felt like I jinxed you a little bit because before we were sighting in the muzzleloaders. I even said, as joking, I was like Steve. There was so many times when I was younger and I got my my Petter Soul shoot in the dirt in front. Because I grew up. The rifle I got when I was twelve was a single trigger. It's just a Lineman muzzleloaders, so I was used to that, and then somewhere in my mid teens, I got my Petter solely with the set trigger, and I shot the ground in front of so many dough because I would. I would get super excited I hit that set trigger and as I'm bringing the rifle up to draw bead like you were, I wouldn't even feel it, but my finger would get too close to that and I'd shoot right in the dirt. It didn't even occur. Like we talked all about all the hang fires and this and dance and all that, it didn't occur to me till I was leaning on my stone and I'm sitting here looking at this thing, and I'm thinking, like, at what point am I gonna do all this stuff? Mm hm oh yeah. I mean like like when I see the whites of their eyes, I'm gonna set my set trigger. And I was like sitting here kind of like obsessing about it a little bit, like what was my sequence? Like how is that going to sequence it out? And he thought it all way through and here's my buck. I don't I don't touch my set trigger now until I'm on the in and around the vitals. Seth lifts up, aims, set trigger pull. Yeah, yeah, and you you do that after some mistakes. Unless Seth never made that mistake, but I definitely did a bunch of times. My other um mishap was, uh, we went to a spot and Seth had a good little drive planned out, and I think it was Yeah, you and me climbed into. We got into they're gonna push a whole hollow and we're posting that. We're posting. Let's cover off on that real quick. Because I grew up, Yep, you do a deer drive and on this deer drive you have pushers and sitters. Oh you called him pushers to push the man pushers and sitters, And I grew up saying drivers and posters and I don't know. The posters are what you hand Yeah, no post that you. I don't know why, but that's just what everyone I knew. Because you're driving the guys walking or driving the deer towards the guys who are standing a post. So when you're dropped off, you stand right there. You stand that post until the drive's done. And that's why you're a poster. And Seth calls him chasers and watchers. Chasers and watchers. Yeah, like the side hill behind camp here, we would I would say, we're gonna chase that side hill. Sure, push it out. Sure, So Rick and I go in and we're the sitters and the pushers are gonna push a whole hollow. And it's a long They got a long way to go. It's a big hollow. So we sneak in there and it's what you guys call game lands. Its own by the Pennsylvania Game Commission, and they I was surprised. See they do some food plots. Oh yeah, I remember that one truck to pass us and I said it was a food and cover crew. They they every every region has food and cover crews and they all have state game lands they work on and they maintain food plots. Um, they do the stocking of pheasants, and they'll do if they have a lot of time, they'll do a lot of t s I timber stand improvement that they do a lot of active management. They do a phenomenal job. They do amazing real active management. Yeah. Well, I was just we were walking alone all somewhere, like staying in the turnip field. The deer been digging all the snow out. So we snuck down in there and got in our spot and we sat there a little while in low and behold, I see that a deer is out feeding and has gotten about its bed in his feet. And I wanted to call off the drive because it's coming my way anyway, a little fawn not spotting. So I wasn't gonna violate that UH. I would have been in violation of the uh fakes on the second page. I would have been in violation of the seventy three prohibition on killing spotted. And it's coming my way, and I'm just waiting, licking my lips, you know. But eventually I see Seth coming and the it had been a wet day, extremely big wet snow all stuck up in the trees and all that wet snow dripping. Everything was wet, and this fawn is already enraged. But I can't get a clean shot. But let's see Seth and bound on my way a little bit and stops like very close. And this time I'm like, you know, I'm gonna shoot the top it's heart off the way. I'm aimed up on it because any adrenaline over shooting the fawn has abated. Because I've been standing there for twenty minutes. I think I was gonna get a shot at it. And I draw a good south beat on it in click, nothing but spark, just spark, no flash in the pan. And I had allowed my when I opened the frizzen up it was like putting in there. I had allowed my thing just to get soaked. She isn't conducive to black powder. No, And I observed it, Chris, I observed it, Chris Ridge Pounder, Chris that one could at this in this moment say, uh, it just goes to show the struggles they put up with in times of your But I was like, it's more like it just goes to show the thing the mistakes they probably didn't make. Yeah, in times of your yep, like they would have been. Man, wet day like this, everything dripping all the time, sitting here, probably be a good time to scrape that junk out of there and put some dry powder in and do whatever it takes to It just didn't occur to me. And I had done a bunch of times, man so checked it. Then I just like got bored of checking it or whatever. It's funny like that dear like if he could tell stories, uh, he'd be like And I looked up near he was burned down at me and he hit the trigger and just and here I am tell the story. I forgot to keep his powder drack. That fun to be like moral of that story, keep your powder. How hot of a commodity was powder? So that like would they're back in the times of yore? Would they often discard it? Oh? Sure? Or was it like one of those things like well, no, I know people they would dry it back out again, and they would make it from scratch and wet and wet it with their own piss. But to dry it down I don't know, Like I probably just depends so much like if you if you're on a long hunt and commodities were scarce, I could picture that maybe you'd foul up it and you'd put it in a little place no one that you're gonna try to rejuvenate it later, and you can try it out, put it back to use again. Don't dry it out with the lighter. Somebody had that bright idea, Hey, why don't you just put a torch to it? Oh yeah, with a lighter in there. Stevie said about like the mistakes they didn't make. Uh, that's one thing. Add you know, when you see old paintings of mountain men, and any kind of frontiers. And he's always creating his rifle. You don't have it slung, but there's slings on him, you know what. I know, man, And I thought a lot about that, and I never put much mind to it. But cradling it in the crook your arm. Yeah, that's why I hardly ever because my dad never let me. He'd never even let me have a sling on my rifle until I was older, because he's like that lock, you protect that thing. He would keep it tucked, not in your armpit because I'm moisture, but just up under like keep keep that arm like a wing over that thing. And then when you're holding it, when you're holding it vertically, everything's running up and down it. Yeah, water will run down the barrel. Like I said, we used to take on really rainy days which didn't have it, and it didn't do that one day we probably should have done that, but take vaseline and we put vasoline in front of the lock, in front of the frizzen, so if any bead of water was running down the barrel, it hit that vasoline and shoot off to the side instead of going down continuing into where on the barrel where your touch hole is. But like that's one thing. How maybe your powder got wet walking into that stand. Well, I had a slung all the time and it was wetter, and hell yeah. The funny thing about that day, it was a real wet day. Oh yeah. And at the end of that day I had already had a misfire. I reprimed, I I cleaned, took a needle and cleaned out the touch hole, reprimed and had a vicious hang fire, which people will find in the main feed at Stephen Ronella on Instagram. They will find that video dirts dirts hanging fire. Uh. And then the other guns didn't go off either. No, And it took quite a do one to get up. Man, it was a wet old day because in the next day everybody's gonna work. Yeah, damn Dale hunt, you gotta stop. And you started putting the powder, the primer powder in when you sit down. You went to hike with the primer powder, started knocking it out of there and then filling it up with sap. But it was just like ridiculously wet. I mean, it was the kind of wet that would been on comfortable even regular hunting, because you just get all that wet water and snow down your facing that all time, I felt extremely humid compared to Montana, which seth and I grew up here and now coming back, I can't believe how humid it feels. But Monday was particularly bad. I was thinking too that I don't really know that um as a neophyte flint lock hunter such as myself, like I would probably be more effective just with my boat. That's not as fun though, No, but no, it's fun to go through experience what I'm saying, Like if you're just like a dabbler who's not even gonna spend like a week practicing, but just like shoot a few times and be like I'm ready to go, Like you don't if you're like if you shoot, if you shoot ar tree a lot, you don't see better just bringing a damn boat, it's gonna go off. That's one thing. Your effective range might be a little men that a little less, but you like at least you know what you're doing. Yeah, but your dad was pointing that out. Flintlock season, no people out, No one's out. Didn't see any other hunters. Even when we went and hunted, we saw one dude. I guess I didn't see him, but a suspicious figure. Yeah, I don't know that. Did you see him? No? I never saw Yeah, and he just he was in his truck and as we went down the trail, I think he got out and it was kinding to the left of us. We didn't see him with anything because been trappling. But Pennsylvania has a ton of hunters, right what's the the I don't know if that's true right now, but they've kind of always had the highest hunter like hunter per capita. They had the highest number of hunters, like twenty point something hunters per square mile. Two thousand thirteen, they had twenty and a half hunters per square mile. Highest hunter density in the US five and nineteen. Five hundred and fifty eight was just rounded up, uh, five hundred and fifty nine thousand adult resident hunters. And that figure wouldn't even have caught the three of us because we're non residents. Yeah. Yeah, we are more down from a million. I think in the early eighties it was like a million. That's crazy. A lot of hunters, um. I do like the flint lock hunting though, man, Yeah, what was your honest like opinion? I know we had a lot of things go wrong. Okay, I go places and one or two things happens. Either go and be like, dude, I want to do that again, or I go like that's cool. Um they had that real like like to do that again feeling. Let me ask you this, if so, Montana doesn't have any kind of dedicated muzzleloader season or anything like that, but we have weapons restricted areas. Would you if you were going to go on a dough hunt or something in that weapon restricted would you take that flinlocker? Would you be like, I'm just gonna take my bow. I'm never touching that thing again. Well, in keeping with my general philosophy, I would bring my regular muzzle loadera enough my general philosophy of generally speaking, I'm like I'm gonna use whatever like things like whatever the rules are, like the thing that's like generally most effective for the rules. So like when it's archery season, I use like a compound bowl with pins and a mechanical release, right like I don't I'm not out there with a recurve. Uh. When I when it's general firearms season, I use a like a center fire rifle with a good vortex scope on it. I carry a laser range finder, right like I generally am um, generally am like goos and things in my favor. Yeah, understandable. I used to set double long springs for beavers and I discovered the MB seven, so uh yeah, So I feel like, but what I did when I was having a weird fan of a weird mind movie about I don't know why was it if I went hound, if I went chasing lions with a body mine, I was like, I should bring this thing out when you shoot the lion out of the tree. But then I was like the kind of person brings a flint lock out shoot a lion up tree? Because houndsmen don't like the fetishize the shooting of the line. They don't like to make a thing out of it. It's kind of get it down like a lot of it makes them uncomfortable to even use a bow because they're like, the point isn't shooting the thing out of the tree. That's a formality if we're gonna kill one, Like the point is catching it. So like acting like there's something going on here that's not going on, like it's in a tree, Like the hunt's over, we caught it. If you want it, then we're gonna shoot it. But we're not gonna act like like that's not the thing. The thing is that we caught it. So if you said, like, remember my flintlock, you'd probably they're probably a little bit like, let's just bring a gun, go for hunting, go over hunting with the flint rock. I'll do something with it. I don't know what. Go for hunt. We should just even if we don't ever helpt with it again in Montana, can just start shooting. No, I will use it. I like it. I'm going to start shooting it. I'm gonna start Flintlock Shooters Association. Would you would your your hunter dick Son shoot a flintlock? Oh, yeah, because I have a flint lock. I have a percussion cap, black powder pistol. Oh he's dying, will shoot that thing. So yeah, I'm gonna have start shooting flint lock for sure. Man. Yeah, I'm gonna have them trained up on the foot lock. It's easily the coolest gun to take pictures of the film, so much as going on and big sparks and like it unfolds over a long enough period that it's not like invisible to the camera, like you can see all the little steps. It's great. It just feels good carrying it. Oh yeah, it's fun going. And I was. I was talking to Dirt and he was saying that, like it's it's a cool style upon him, like the deer drives because you're like like at one point we're running our assets off, trying to trying to cut deer off, and it's like very active and oh you're not just sitting around waiting. You're like very proactive. Yeah, a lot of strategy, busting your ass to try to kill my first dear to deer drive, did you no, No, No, I feel like I was part of the hunt, actually part of it this time push pusher, chaser, chaser. It's a camaraderie that goes with deer drives too. Yeah, and you can bullshit and stuff. Yeah, afterwards you all meet up and tell stories about what happened, what you saw. So there I was, and you're looking at a lot of tracks, all the animals squirting everywhere. Yeah, we saw a lot of tracks from a lot of different animals. Bob cat, Fisher, else turkey, elk, gray fox, gray squirrel, gray squirrel, weasel. Did we figure out what that weasel was mr he has had he didn't turn white. But they these guys are saying some weasels you don't turn white, yep, which I know I didn't. I've never seen the weasel in January. It wasn't white. I don't think I've caught him in January. But December brown brown. Yeah, there you go. Alright, any final thoughts, Rick, I was just thinking of a Sunday hunting flintlock season. We didn't kind of touch on like how those we talked about Sunday hunting and how we couldn't hunt on Sunday, which was our first day here. But I think what drove Pennsylvania's flintlock popularity for that season was no Sunday hunting. Because if you Seth and I added it up um at least years ago before we moved away. If you only took one vacation day and you took off the old original opener which was on Monday for our firearm season, and you bow hunted with no hunting on Sunday, you had five Saturdays and bow season. That sounds right, Seth, like five Saturdays and bow season, the two Saturdays and rifle and the opening Monday. You took off or maybe six it was six, I think yeah, because it was nine days, and schools around here typically have Monday, some summer Monday and Tuesday you get off school for the first two days of the rifle season. But if you only did that, you got nine days of deer hunting and then you're done if you didn't buy a flintlock and partake in the flintlock season, which most I think it worked out. Just a lot of hunters were off after Christmas, between Christmas and New Year's already, because yeah, so it was just very conducive to getting more opportunity out in the field that you picked up a flint lock. And I think that's what really because you're already getting screwed anyway. Yeah, you're getting screwed on hung days. So this was another way you could try to fill that tag and get out there. And it was fun. Like we just talked about the camaraderie. Yeah, I just you know, I always thought it was a blast going out there with a big crew and sending a lot of shots and missing. I did a lot of missing when I was younger, that's for sure. But I don't know, I think it's neat that are you know, one aspect of how opportunity was taken away, maybe drove enthusiasm for another opportunity that Yeah, South got anything you want to add, Concluders, um man, I'm just excited to have everyone here at the family camp Cuboos Hallo camp. A lot of good memories in this place, and it's cool to be able to add you guys to the memory bank, you know, hunting out of this place. We never took that picture, no, man, we could probably do one inside here. There you go, all right, everybody, thank you uh for joining and Rick, thanks thanks for sharing. Yeah, I know I felt like I did all out of talking this. Yeah, I feel kind of bad for listening. So man, we covered some ground. Yeah, but thanks to you Steve for let me come along on this trip. It was pretty exciting to being back at this camp and getting a shoot flint locks again. We'll do it again. We'll come out here and catch a fisher. Well, I like it trapping in there too, squeeze it in Okay, alright, body, thanks a lot. St
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