00:00:08 Speaker 1: This is Me Eat podcast, Coming at you shirtless, severely, bug bitten, and in my case, underwear listening podcast. You can't predict anything presented by first Light, Go farther, stay longer. Okay, we're joined today by Yah Yang. Yeah, yes, sir, I love that name, man. Thank you. The kids goof on your name a lot when you were a kid, Yeah Yang, yeah, a little bit, A little bit. I just tell him it's it's pretty Minnesotan. So I got My joke is that when you know, when we came to the country through the immigration, they couldn't pronounce my name and my my name and mung is actually jaque. Yeah, they couldn't put announced it. So whoever was there was just like, all right, let's just let's just do yeah hy a and be done with it. That's That's well, at least that's my story. I don't know if that's true or not, but I'm not I'm not striving for equivalency here, but I'll point out that there was in my family name. Did I talk about this recently? There was a split and how they spelled it the A and the I, Yeah, the A and the number of ends and everything, and I I have an article where I think I was talking about this where my dad's uncle hit a cop hit a cop cart. He was Italian and the I and in little really like in South side of Chicago. Italians and Irish guys didn't like each other. But I said, you simply could not go to the Irish neighborhood. They'd kill you. His uncle hits the Irish cop named Philip to me, who's off duty too. Me goes home and gets a gun. It comes back and kills my dad's uncle. I still have the newspaper clipping. Um, and my dad would show me the article, his point being how the ronella's spelled. So the ronella's who are family members in the articles have different spelled names. Oh, but he's like, but it's the same brothers, you know. I mean it's funny. Um so ja, yes, yeah, you said perfectly there. But when you but you don't do that? Does your family? What does your dad call your mom or dad? My my family caused me. I see, but you just make it easier to everybody else. Yes, yes, I do that. It's like Janis and yeah yeah, um current of course Phil's got a haircut scheduled night. That's right his um, it's getting down in his eyes. He had to do a little head flick. Yeah. Yeah. I was telling you before the podcast that I judge. I judge when I get my hair cut, like the timing of it based on when you start making fun of me. I know that that's about the right time. So I like to keep it high. I like to keep the hair high and tight. Here in the studio, it's really strict sets here. Uh, tell everybody. You don't need to tell where you went, but tell everybody about your big fishing trip stuff. I wouldn't call it big fish. This will interest yeah, this will interest yeah, because um, this would be These will be fish species he's familiar with as a Minnesotan. Yeah, I was. I was fishing body of water um in Montana this weekend that I fished before, and an impoundment on a large river. Yes, you typically do well in the spring. Was small mouth in there, but I hit it a little too late and they moved off their beds and deeper. And I just haven't figured him out this time of year yet. But you hit at the same time last year, No, earlier last year? Yeah, okay, um, But the soccers were spawning. The water was clear and I could see him. I'm not talking about that fishing trip. I'm talking about the other big fishing trip. Oh that one. Yeah, four back. I'm not afraid to tell about that one. Everyone. Oh yeah, oh yeah, Memorial Day weekend. It's hundreds of miles long, more more shoreline than California. And and I think, no, seriously, look it up. You want to hear a good little fact like that. Um, Prince of Wales Island has half the land mass of the Big Island in Hawaii, but something like four times or as much shoreline really because all those fiords and jaggedy ass shorelines. Um, yeah, four pack amazing fishery. Walleye fishing was tough at first. Um, It's like we pick up one or two during the day, but we kind of figured out in the evenings they were sliding up on those hard breaks, sliding up there. Yeah, just sliding right up there to feed. In the evenings, they're going up shallower, we would we would catch them pretty good. Um. And when you guys are doing that, what do you so you're camping out fishing, what do you guys doing with your with your filets? That's what they say in England, we just put them in the cooler, keeping keeping cool. Just gutted whole fish, or you're flaming fish. Now we're flying fish and then put them in a cooler. Um, and then just come home and then deal with them all. Come home, you guys frying fish while you're there? We No, we didn't, We didn't while we were there. What all the kind of species did you catch? Um? Drum? Catfish? You caught freshwater drum? Yeah, they're in there. Yeah, caught one that's a rubbery fish. I caught one last year. Do you ever flay one of those? Yeah? I did. I didn't this year. I did last year. You flame and you think you're in for a treat. They're beautiful. My dad used to cook them. But they're like gorgeous flames. Yeah, they look like they taste good. They're like a little springy. It's like they make that noise when you're chewing them. They make the noise of the cheese curtain, like you generally don't want your fish to go when you're chewing it squeaks on your teeth. Man, where I grew up that people were way more interested in the rock in their head than uh than eating them? Yeah, they have a blow. They have a large version. What's it called? It's that you're not the old? Yeah? Yeah, what the hell's that word? It's just a souped up version of old. You make little earrings on it for your wife and stuff. Have a good little thing for you to get into man, like make an animal part jewelry. You need to catch yourself a big drunk. I think I do. Are these like those kind of like uh, little parts that mimic like or a setted pasta like that, like a little thumb print. You find them washed up on the beach. Sometimes. My brother had some because yellow eye rock fish have some biggins. And my brother had some kind of jewelry made for his for his woman, his wife Juanita. One of the many fish called cheap head. Did you did you flay it out? No? I put that one back. M Um. We caught some pike. What did you do with those? Played them through some back? But I mean we caught a lot of pike. What do you guys do with all the wide bones on your pipe? Um? I actually didn't take any pipe place? Do you like? Rick cart and he Rick caught uh? I think his biggest was thirty five and quarter, big old fat gut on that thing. Does he does he make pickled pike? Um? He typically doesn't, but he I think he's gonna try to this year. He took it back a bunch. Yeah. You ever hear pickled pike? Yes, I've had that because it dissolves the bones out. That was one of the greatest discoveries I've ever made. Man, I did not that I made. I mean, you know what I'm saying, I ever learned about. Yeah, when I was a kid, my old man would buy pickled um, you know, for Christmas. I don't know why. I like, I don't know where this is the thing, pickled herring or whatever, ye creamed herring or something for Christmas Eastern European. I don't know how you got on that. But then he learned how to make up. He learned how to make it out a pike with the sour cream and ship or not, and he would make huge jars of that now and then. But you gotta get on it. You can't let it linger in your fridge for a long time. Soon as it started getting cloudy in there. How do you flay a pike? Well, you ever see miles machee do it? No? Okay, do you do like the five? Like the five flame? Meth no I have, I don't like it. So all through growing up, we would just flame like if flay it, take the flay off like normal, and then you cut it into like a three, and then you cut the how if it's a big pike, you cut it laterally, and then they got two big long strips. And then we would take a flame knife and cut about every cut through it almost all the way through it, every the same way like the cart way, the cart preparation. So you take a piece, it's like, let's say the size of like three of your fingers put together in your hand, like if you peel your pinky and your thumb away, I got big like banana fingers. But if you kill your pinking, your thumb away, that the three fingers, and then every quarter third of an inch or so you cut almost through it. The tailpieces bone free, so always like and then you fry that and the little bones kind of cook out. You know, now what I do, That's what we used to do. Now what I do is I take the flight off and I take the tailpiece off, and I'll freeze the tailpieces, just regular fish, and then I'll take the bone in pieces and make fish cakes or pickled pike. Um myles mache. He can very quickly. Um, if it's chilled, nice and easy to work with. He just deep bones at some bitch. Yeah, I could get that strip out pretty good. It's like it's like as John McPhee when John McFee was writing about cleaning American chad, he just he equated it to fixing someone's watch. It's like, um, it's like that kind of work to get that bone line. But that's my brother does. I'm not bad. Yeah. I was like watching videos on the five finger exploding Heart pipe trick. I don't know that all that. No, they say it's like the five You get the five boneless flats off of the pike and it's just oh yeah, you cut into the back, put on the back. But I did that and it just did like skinny strips. No. No, it's like you cut like laid on its belly and like going behind its head and come out you take the tailpiece off, the boneless tailpiece off this. I just lost a dollar bet to Spencer New Heart because we have the tailpiece of a common cart and I said, the tailpiece doesn't have white bones. He says, that's not true. They go all the way and I was like, no, they don't. And we took a tailor piece and cut into it six pen six bones, like he's got why bones to the bitter end, but on a pike they peter her out at the dorsal fin. Yeah. Anyhow, um, we went morrel hunt last night and me and me and my all my kids and brodying his kids and uh, we're stopped around for a while and we finally find something. My little six year old looks he ghost, he finds some rel. We find him real and he goes, I saw those earlier? And what did he say after that? I thought it was a bee. I was like, I got to see this. I'm not kidding. And earlier he had got tangled up in a little briar patch and he was winding and moaning about being stuck in a briar patch, And I said, was it before after he got stuck that briar patch? And he says, this was before that. I go back to that briar patch and start kind of backtracking where he came from, and there's a morels. I saw one of those earlier. That's hilarious. I was impressed you found it. Yeah, but we ended up really good. Yeah, a couple dozen, I'd say we had you know, um, well, my wife just came up with a new hashtag for him, which is keep tinkering but we are, which is uh. But we got back to the truck and there's like a place where if you parked and went looking, you wouldn't look because not given too much way to say, that's right by the dumpsters, like by the dumpsters. It's like it's just too obvious, like you would never look there, like you park and you'd never been. It's just like a weird little pocket. And we got done and then just kind of got checking around the dumpsters. Doubled our take in about ten minute, the old dumpster spot. But you know, what is there, like they're growing tight association, like what's what kind of matter is found right by this? Had no I had all the attributes they did. These morales weren't keen in on dumpsters. It had all the attributes. It was like like we're after the I don't know, I think this is more rigid than it is. But do you want morales, y'all. No, I don't do you want any kind of wild mushrooms? You know? Really? Um uh. We used to think it was like there's you know, these different species sort Morchella escalenta, which is like translates like delicious moral and there's like more cell E conicus not. And I think the world is very clean, and it's like, oh, that's this and that's that. I might be wrong, but my understanding now is that it's like you can't just run around declaring this morale that I just gonna ask you if I like the ones we're finding kind of a light tan, say, like in burn areas, do they look there? Yeah? And then you go to the burns sometimes sometimes you do get those those round toped, big yellow bastards and burns. But my understanding that could be wrong. It's just like it's like Morchella escalenta maybe is that big gass yellow river bottom morrell that associates with dead, dying, damaged, whacked out cotton woods. Um. And there's like you so kind of wet ground kind of right around now for here, it depends on your elevation and everything. My buddy in the San Juan Islands, he's picking Morrell's March, you know so, and Robert Abernathy in South Carolina gets him in March. Anyhow, big messed up cotton woods and then it kind of gets where the grass is what like, you know, it just starts to look Morelli man, that dap old sunlight, twelve inch high grass which made it. You could have been walking right by him without seeing them. And the last little dumpster cluster was at a stone dead cotton wood. Okay, okay, okay, stone dead. Um got a black bear there a night. It's been a while since you shot a bear in it, man, been a while. I've seen something get seen something get shot since then, but I haven't shot a bear in a long time. Ah. I saw post clay had hardly any fat on that bear. Well we yeah, like in the where you'd find it, it didn't have that much. But then I gave when we caught it up yesterday morning and package it all. I'm gonna bring you some crant. I got it all packaging. I cut off enough for but no, I cut off enough off of the off the high end quarters. I cut off enough to under a cup of oil. But no, not fatty, but like really nice hide on it, very stout, well muscled, just not a lot of fat on it. What do you do with the feet? Keep it? I'm gonna get a tan and rugged out. I had that. No, no no, no, just if you're right, if you're going to do a whole rug again with his claws and everything on him, yeah, I got a couple. I don't know. That's one of the problems, not a problem. Like one of the things about bears is how many bear hides do you need? And you're not gonna waste it? You know what I mean. It's just like, but I'm back into it now. I mean, we used to hunt bears so heavily, like really would devote a lot of time to it, and then I just kind of for a while just got sick of those Southeast bears. It tastes like fish, Southeast Alaska bears. It tastes like fish. But no, we we had a great time. I don't even make like a like a coat cape kind of situation, or I don't know why I don't do that. It's hard to pull that off. You know. Ronnie Bain's ruled to never wear a hat that has more personality than you do. I don't know, what do you think about having a cape that has more personality? Majes Steve rowing in here with a bear cape workout pants. Actually see him starting the rocks. It was it was ninety degrees. Oh, that would be brutal. It was like you it was it felt barry till eight thirty in the morning, and then the day we got one. So we went up hiked in this area a couple of miles in hot Earnhill. Got there, it got cool, and then we're in a big burn that had like it was like a mosaic burn from a long time ago, and there's still nice little timber patches, just kind of glass in those timber patches. First night, boom, there's a bear. Put the moves on and he gave us the slip. Uh. In the morning, we're like set up to glasses this west facing exposure so that we're looking east and there's so much haze in the air, like kind of the morning was shot just like I was like looking into a blue smoke. Almost sat there for twelve hours in the blazing hot sun with these egg grow ants that were fired up about the heat. I think, yep, Oh, you try to take a nap and just feel ants all over you. It's misery. That's a long day. They set up a shade tent, gets me about eight thirty, starts feeling barring. There's at the damn Bear and we got that one. Yeah, sweet, it was good. It was good. Uh you're hanging in there. Yeah, I'm I'm here. Don't go anywhere. We're gonna get into some We're gonna get into some hardcore history in a minute here man. Uh oh, their dad said krant a note I sent her attacks. I was reading an article about Prince Harry. The Prince Harry and Oprah are launching a TV show about mental health, and I said to Krinn, if I had something to the effect of if I had list every program ever made in the history of the planet in order in which I would watch it, I would start with that on the bottom, and then I would fill everything else in. It was like the weekend and I get a text from Steve and He's like, remind me to talk about how this is the thing I at least I'd be least likely to ever watch. And I'm like, okay, well this came on the heels like it's very un American to like the royal family. It's it's like, here, I'm breaking my own rule by talking about him. But it's super Unamerican. We had a whole war to get out from under the monarchy, but people still act like it's cool. I read an article at the Times where some guys like Ummett, what when his when his his his his wife? It's like, oh, they're mean, right the royal family. I read his article Times being like Holmett, you're surprised that there's a problem with a monarchy. This is a shocked everybody. Like globally, the whole world has moved away from monarchies because of the abuse, nepotism, anti democratic everything, like you get to lead because your dad, Like you're born into a certain family and you get to be in charge because of who your dad was or your mom. And then someone points out like, oh, they're mean. It's like, no, ship, I mean, isn't that the whole point? It's not like the world's going to monarchies. I don't. I don't know if we've been drifting from that for hundreds of years. They're oh, I thought they were all super nice, really nice kings and queens, remember that stuff. God'll be like, but looks Steve. They're much nicer now because they don't exactly do off with their heads, so you know, now they ride. I was telling my kids they ride around little carriages and like, no, they don't. I'm like, listen, So I had to pull up pictures. I got my kids hating him out. Yeah, you gotta teach your kids love and everything, but I'd like, I try to be very precise and teach them certain hate, but I try to teach them to really despise the royal family. I'm getting I'm getting somewhere with her. Yeah, I was just like, holy cow, man um, holy cow. I usually try to not like burden listeners with opinions of mine have nothing to do with what we with our set of things that we like with our world, right like the world the brand promise of what it is we talked about. Well, I play kangaroos, that's all like in, that's all in, and Prince Harry is out. So I need to apologize for having brought up something that's out and I'm not gonna like, yeah, apologies. Just a quick weekend text to current I think most would agree. Here's some kind of interesting where there's a um this is reporting a handful places there's a bill there's so there's some folks pushing the band like they got a gripe with kangaroo hunting in Australia, which is like a very tightly regulated industry in Australia where they want to ban the import of any and all kangaroo products into the US. And it has a kind of a weird history. So I didn't realize this, but back in the seventies, kangaroo numbers were, kangaroos were down and hurting. I know, they go like wildly, you know, they're they're wildly cyclical. And in seventy one California banded import of kangaroo parts, so just into that state, right um, and they have a there's a commercial kangaroo industry in Australia, so they have all kinds of there's all kinds of non native wildlife there that's that's less regulated there. Right now, they're trying to exterminate what how many cats? They're trying to feral cats, all of them. Yeah, they got a goal to shoot off two million cats or something in Australia. It was there's a lot of non native stuff that's more liberal and unregulated hunting, but they have a tightly regulated kangaroo industry where it's basically it's like they harvest it like you would imagine harvesting livestock, but it's a wild animal. So there's market set and people come in and established. You got to get you know, these commercial licenses, you have to pass tests to become a sharpshooter. UM and a long time ago California band parts and then the US Fishing Wilder Service followed suit and banned the import of three commercially shot kangaroo species because they're worried about declining row populations, even though many Australians felt that that was not a concern. UM. Eventually they were removed from the US List of Endangered and Threatened Wildlife, apparently deemed recovered to but the California band lingered until the mid two thousand's and people didn't pay much attention to it. And then a vegetarian activist group sued Adida's for selling soccer shoes that were using imported kangaroo skins. This got me think about when I was a little kid, I wanted to pair of shoes called ruse they had. I was wondering if they were made out of kangaroo hide, but they just had like a little zipper pocket. Uh yeah, but my mom wouldn't. I thought it was because we were poor, but my mom just wasn't dumb. My mom not being dumb made me think we were poor because she wouldn't let us have any name brand stuff. We couldn't get like you'd want like real Drido's, but you had to eat like store brand potato chips, you know, and you wanted it in a bag. So you go to school and be like a bag to said Doritos, but would be like a little sandwich bag you full of like store brand ones. Yeah and uh yeah. She never lets to have any cool we wanted, like Nike sneakers. You bring up Adidas. I'm a huge soccer fan, played soccer and growing up, and I think Adidas is most popular shoe. Is kangaroo leather still today? Is it? I wonder if it was the Sambas, remember that black and white. It's not Samba's, but it's the they call it the Copa moon dials. I had a pair, um played in them, you know, most most most of it grown up, So you kicked some goals and that does that? Does that ball bounce off that kangaroo leather? Nice? It's super the leather is super soft. So I mean, you know it was more um, I would say. I played in the midfield, so it was one of those like more like passing type of shoes I would say. So, yeah, very popular. Adida shoe didn't have like psychological ramifications where you felt real spring when you puts. I just knew that I needed to leather it up like you. You had to buy this oil with it like it, keep it to keep it like whether um waterproof's got a subject matter. Yeah, so they sued a Yeah this vegetarian activist groups sued Adidas for selling soccer shoes using imported kangaroo skins. Now they're trying to revive this whole thing. A bunch of international activist groups and a member of the U S House of Representatives and an Australian politician who is the loan elected representative of the Animal Justice Party. So if you want to get yourself some kangaroo chops, stock up on them sneakers. A smart thing to do, dude, right now, if you're a big Adidas man's buy a bunch of those shoes. I did take that money and buy a wallet boat and send pictures of that wallet boat to Chester and say suck at Chester. I say I was able to do with kangaroo shoes what you were never able to do with bitcoin. Uh. Here's a great here's a great thing. Now. And then a news story comes out in a million people, a million people texted to me, and a million people texting me this one, that there's an article in The Atlantic, um, which is like, oftentimes a reasonable publication, I feel, and it's not their fault, but someone just published this peace uh arguing that in in the in the Great Saga of wolves being magical, magical creatures. And again I'm not hacking up hold that like wolves. I like seeing them, hearing them, looking at him everything. Uh. But it's like, if you want to stop highway vehicle collisions, you need to get yourself a bunch of wolves. And it was pointing out that, uh, pointing out that in and I gotta look in it this more and it's like, there's like the whole issues of causation and what's that thing king causation is not Ye, there's the same correlation is not equal causation, arguing that in counties in Wisconsin, in counties in Wisconsin that had wolves come in, there is a reduction in highway vehicle collisions with deer with deer okay, saying that there wolves are saving us so much more money and avoiding car crashes, then they're costing people in livestock death, saying, oh, yeah, you wolves and all of a sudden, But see, wolves have been around for quite a long time in Wisconsin, so it's not like all of a sudden, there's like none and then you put some there, and then that's where the causation thing comes up, because there's been a reduction in deer car collisions in certain counties that have wolves. And I pointed out to kran I was saying, hey, uh, if you're good at math, we should figure out how many deer car collisions that hunters prevent, which is imperfect, but it brings up points, so you have just just for sake of just set the whole thing up. This is an incredible number. Nineteen thousand, seven hundred and fifty seven Wisconsin nights collide with deer every years, like many many a night. So let's say twenty thousand deer car collisions in Wisconsin every year equals this will surprised me to how few deaths. That leads to four seventy seven human injuries and only eight deaths and I think six of those are motorcyclists. So you imagine like the percentage of vehicles on the road compared to like you know what I'm saying, like what percentage of highway passengers are in a vehicle versus on a motorcycle, which is like overwhelmingly vehicle car um That makes it seem like, uh, I think we could pull those numbers two. But the fact that eight, that six of eight fatalities are dudes hitting my motorcycles is pretty crazy. That is crazy. It makes you think that, like that's another thing in your head when you ride a motorcycle. So if a wolf kills twenty deer per year, wolves and Wisconsin are probably killing about twenty four thousand, two hundred deer year hunters. And they're saying that these wolves can lead to a reduction in deer car collisions. And I brought it to Kroll how many how many deer car collisions to hunters prevent? Because wolves killing Wisconsin about twenty four thousand deer hunters kill a night eight thousand. Basically, round up hunters kill a hundred and eighty nine thousand deer in Wisconsin last year. That's a ton of dude. Wisconsin is killed a hundred eighty nine thousand deer. So that would be the real article. I was pointing out. The real article would be holy cow, do hunters prevent a lot of death? And then when you go hunting, people be like, why are you hunting? I'd be like, well, I mean saving lives, saving American lives. In that way, hunters should get a discount or car insurance. Yeah. But then Karin was like looking into this more and pointed out that pointed out to me that they were saying the effects of wolves on saving human lives on the highway is beyond the deer they actually killed. But it says that wolves, unlike people. I don't don't this might don't get Wolves create like a landscape of fear, which we had a podcast episode named Landscape of Fear. Wolves create a landscape of fear and move deer away from heavily trafficked areas. But if you look at a map of where deer car collisions occurred, to occur along the interstate system. So they're sort of saying the wolves like to hunt the interstate. Wolves are out on the on the interstate hunting deer and push them away from the interstate into the remote areas where the wolves don't want to go. Kind of maybe. I mean, I think it gets complicated. I went down a research hole, so I think we'll have to come back to this. But Steve, your your thought was that UM, that most of the deer car collisions happen in urban areas. Most of them are occurring, and that is absolutely like the leaders Dane County and UM and the top three are I mean, Dane is half a million people, uh Waukeisha if that's the way the right way to pronounce, about four hundred thousand, and then Washington County is a hundred and thirty six hundred thousand. And this is all data from nine so those are all urban counties and they have about seven to eight hundred deer crashes per year from but then number four and there are among the top ten counties, there are three, there are four rural counties UM, but number four with a population of about forty one people. Shawano County had seven hundred five deer car collisions. So there are a couple of data points in here that uh, you know, kind of poke holes are not poke holes. But um, it gets a little complicated here because there are some really low population rural areas crash with a lot of car crashes. What they're here. Here's the other thing is you've got to look at You could look at population, but that doesn't attest to highway traffic on interstate system. There's a lot too, and I want to do but I thought it'd be like when I first saw I thought it was the dumbest thing in the world. But that I I looked at I was like, oh, there's more to it. It can't be like easily. It's not easily torn apart. But there's some suggestions there, like the idea that wolves push deer from the areas that they hunt into areas they don't hunt, and would mean like they hunt highway systems, which I don't think that's accurate. But the primary point, and we should if they want to come out. I love that am. The primary point is I feel that they It's one of those kind of things you read and you get the sense that they knew what they wanted to show before they showed. Oh, definitely, there was a point someone from well, what's that school? Wellesleyan, Wesleyan at Hillary Clinton School. I don't think so. Maybe this list of counties also doesn't say where, like if there's wolves, they're not, which seems like, you know, inappropriate. Here's a direct quote from the she went to Wellesley the all women's college. Here's a direct quote from the from the person. Most of their influence arises through dread, not death. Their very presence creates a landscape of fear. Um that sweet that people want dear to be so afraid. They're very presence creates a landscape. It's like people want dear to be afraid, creates a landscape of fear, which pushes deer away from roads and other heavily prowled areas. This makes tremendous sense, Zanette said. Actually Zanette is a I think she's a biologist who was commenting article, but wasn't actually the person who uh conducted the study. I mean, I think there was a fair amount of doubt or just wanting to see causation, wanting to see this study replicated, because right now the conclusions are you know, but when Creta I talked about this morning, we're talking about it's more about um, it's more about sociology within ecology, because it's more about like what we want to see. And if you have a heavily pro wolf bias, you'll be like, all of a sudden, acting like you care about highway vehicle collisions. What I I mean if this was coming from if this article and I don't know enough about the person, if the article is coming from someone like let's say the government like task someone to be like, what can we do about highway uh, you know, vehicle dear collisions? Right, And this person is like, wow, we could advanced headlight technology right, which we've done a lot of headlight technology is very important. UM, better signage and high trafficked areas, we could do, wildlife crossings improved, you know, collision sensors, all of that collision sensors and increasing the when you cut brush away and cut trees away, some motors can see more with let's see you have a bigger window to see on the sides of the world. Won't be coming little tricks and little tricks and stuff like that. Some things that really makes sense. So if this person had looked at everything. They said, you know what, man, the one thing you're missing. After examining, after really getting into this, man, after really getting this, I think here's the answer. We bring a bunch of wolves to Madison. Turn them loose. You'll see, we'll put an end to your car crashes. Like then, I'd be like, tell me more, but that's not where it's coming from. Ah, we'll return to this. You should ask someone I don't know, man, maybe someone so much should come on and explain it. Can you do that? I'll see if I can find the the lead researcher. Okay, I want top of one last thing. Then we're gonna get a hardcore and oh no, two quick last things. There's three. We can skip some of the things. Okay, h this is interesting though. So a California park ranger, he's out doing his patrols in the California's East Bay Municipal Utility District. He's in the Sierra Nevada foothills, starts noticing all kind of petrified trees no one knew about it, Finds a bunch of petrified trees, finds a much more petrified trees, and eventually realized this like this giant debris pile of stuff from what from what year? Eight million years? Eight million year old debris pile of trees. And in here they find, once they get to digging around, an eight million year old mastodon skull with both tossed and tax six foot skulls on this thing. A rhino skeleton from back when we had rhinoceroses. There's a giant tortoise. There's a horse. There's a tape here, here's a good one. The remains of an ancestral four h pounds sam with with sharp teeth. Ye don't leave that at A sharp tooth salmon, four hundred pounds salmon running out of the rivers, running out of the oceans. A gompa there, which I didn't know about. It was an ancient elephant. They had four tusks plus six hundred petrified trees. That is so neat one of the most significant fossil discoveries in California history. They suspect floods and volcanic debris flows carried all this jump to this spot. That is cool, And they won't tell anybody where it is because some guy like me, it'd be so hard and someone's like, oh, yeah, right up there, man, keep finding all this crazy ship that you wouldn't go we have a quick look up there. Do we know if this was like one event or is it lay years of i't I didn't read that much. Yeah. I think everything they found there, Um, it's supposed to be a from the Miocene, which is twenty million to five point three million years ago, so there. I think they were kind of layers and stuff scattered across an entire er. And it's funny like the ranger found one, uh, petrified tree, and then kept walking around and found some others and then over I think it was a couple of weeks, like kept going, kept sniffing around. Yeah, and then he's like, you know, I think I need to call someone. Yeah. That would have been like if I was that ranger, they'd be like, what do you see there? Nothing? Your next Instagram post there with a wheelbarrow. Your Instagram post might have some tusk in the back nothing. Why, Um no, that's great. Wouldn't do that, that's great. That that's that's a cool fine. You know, I think when you think about all the cool animals here a long time ago, I'd like to imagine like we're not gonna be round forever like just whatever. I mean when you get to talk about geologic time, right, a disease event whatever to help, we'll destroy ourselves. Like no species gets to be here forever except the cockroach cockroaches. If you could come here like fast instead of going back in time, like I'm like, I want to go back in time to see all that crazy stuff. If you could go in time and go back, I'm gonna come back to the Earth in a billion years, there'll be a bunch of crazy ship running around. Ye. And what do you think we look like? Dudes with four tusks. I don't know. I'll be interesting. This guy in um, this guy in Idaho, we we got to talk about ravens killing livestock and deer and stuff. This was reported. I'm surprised what this is reported was reported in the hill. Yeah right. And idahole farmer he's always had bald eagles nest on his property, says this year something weird happened. He thinks that because it was such a cool spring that these bald eagles came to nest. But the fisher he wasn't kicking ass yet. I don't know. He's got a lake or he's got a lake, and he said it took a while to warm up, and he's wondering if their normal food source and the lake wasn't available when they showed up to nest. Anyways, they killed fifty four lambs, twelve to eighty pound lambs. He watched one kill, he watched one eagle kill seven lambs, and one day reported in the hill. Last little note here, Uh, hunters in West Virginia are mourning the loss of one of their hunt spots. They rolled what's this place called New River Gorge National Park. Used to be New River Gorge whatever preserved preserve. They harked seven thousand acres of land out of the core of this thing to make a national park. So seven thousand acres in the heart of the gorge, which is very rough terrain, local stale is some of the area's best hunting grounds. Um, they rolled that out. There's still sixty five thousand acres that you can hunt. They removed seven thousand and then gave a little bonus where they added about three seventy acres of newly open hunting lands. But yeah, stole seventh park service. I want to say stole a strong language. I just hate to see, like, I hate to see that kind of thing happened. I mean, if it's already good and protected as scenic River Wilderness area, whatever, I hate to see it be that they lay in this like you can't hunt it, Like I like to see ground protected from industrial exploitation and development. But it's a bummer to see that to get it pulled. Has anyone ever been to that area? And I've been there, Yeah, yeah, I've ever got great small mouth fishing. Really yeah, And you know it's fairly close to a lot of pretty big metropol metropolitan areas, so you know, I'm sure visits at this place will be you know that there'll be a lot of people going. But yeah, it's a bumber that land got because because I believe they're promised that they could always part of the previous designation and then they changed their tune our newest national park. How how upen arms are people about it? But are like locals that hunted, Well, I'm not, I mean I can't. I mean I didn't live near their enough to know how set people are. But you gotta imagine that, you know, you get your hunting, your quote, your hunting spot taken away. You're not going to be too pleased. You know. When I was living New York, we used to float the Upper Delaware near Callicoon, and that had gone under Wild and Scenic River designation. Man, you saw a lot of signs up and down the river. People pissed about it because the regulations, like used regulations change, um, And this thing became under as a National river under Part Protection in seventy eight, and people were sure, you can hunt the entire property, but then it then it just lost ten percent prohibited. Yeah. I mean, I'd imagine some hunters are really kind of pissed about it, um, based on just some of the articles I've read. But you know, I guess some of the other locals are are uh, you know, excited about potential economic prosperity might bring to the area. I mean, it's I guess it'll put West Virginia on the map a bit more so. I guess it depends on what your priority is. Oh yeah, if you're like a running a canoe livery, you're probably sit us all get on all those non outdoors, you know, all those non true outdoors folks, bhikers and bikers, hikers and bikers are all fired up. Last little thing here we'll touch off on because I want to touch off and it's just because it's from my home state of Michigan. Like there's Galley. I need to know more to the story. So what what is written here? Is a in this? Come on, Krint a massive fish poaching Well, I don't know. Look at all those laid out they broke off, you know, bags of I need to hear more story. If you want to find a good guess, get this guy out. I'm guess he doesn't feel like talking about it. But Krin's massive fish poaching operations. I don't know what happened here on County two guys find eight thousand, five hundred dollars combined for quote poaching hundreds of walleye, pan fish and perch. My panthers are with bluegills because perch or like a panthers either way, bunch fish. This guy's freezer got raided and then a game ward. And this is a weird thing. Just a lot too do I don't understand they thought out all the guys fish and then they laid it out and laid it out on tarps. He as if it were like bricks of cocaine and like as though like in classic drug raid fashion, laid out hundreds of perch filets. Yeah, like a cocaine like when you line up with a bunch of a ks and bags of dope and stuff from some like cartel raid. Perch filet's hundreds of perch flays laid out on giant tarps and in all of his empty ziplock baggies. So his freezer got raided and conservation officer found eighty five bags of frozen walleye quote panfish. I'm not happy with that term, and perch place in his house. The guy was ordered to pay seven thousand, nine thirty bucks where the fines and his friend was fine six hundred for taking over the limited percha taking over the limited purchase one thing. But the reason I need to know more is, like, was this dude, I don't know, Maybe that they were on doing for something else and that led to this. But there are a lot of people I know in Michigan that if at the end of a good fishing spell you went to their house and started throwing all their ship out, you'd find they had over their possession limit. What is including my old man back when he was alive, and even with following possession limit rules, if you've got say four or five people in your household, you can have a lot of damn perch in your freezer. Okay, let's say you're in because it varies because like the big leg, two different Let's say youre an area. Just for argument's sake, here, let's say where he's at, he's a lot of fifty perch per day, and the possession limit is two daily limits, so he can have in his home freezer two perch flays. But let's say you like, I'm just no one thinks about it. If you're tearing it up and you're like, I'm gonna have a big fish for I don't know, and you catch five six limits of perch because you're saving up for a big church fundraiser fish fry. He hasn't gotten on their radar Somewhere. No one's thinking about it after they go in the freezer. Like there, he's probably you know, I think about it with ducks. He's probably yeah, because that's federal like crazy, but someone must not maybe not, but I imagine he's like following like the daily limit. Well, they're saying this one guy got not. But here's there thing is, what are they gonna do with all those perch flays now they've got them thought out? Beat him into the bald eagles. Holy cow, I know eighty five bags of perch plays and they're nice scaled skin on, well put up. They took care It's not like they just caught him and didn't take care of him, like they took care of this this dude was. I don't know if he's selling them like what we found in the past and talking to conservation guys game wards and I'm not I'm not hacking on this game ward. I don't know the story, but a lot of times like that stuff comes out of that they're onto you about something, like you've done something, they're onto you about it, and that leads it's neither just like going and banging on doors and digging through freeze. It's got to be something because yeah, I'm sure they weren't like hey, stuff stopping in see what this guys in this freezer, like something happened. Maybe so here's another article and I it doesn't point out kind of like the backstory. But the main guy with you know, those bags Ziplock freezer bags. Um, okay, that's why I get a barrel of corn meal and just started put in a put in a fertilizer spreader. Just drive that over that big sheet drama hot oil. Thirty five, Wally, the daily limit is eight in what is freezer? Yeah, among the you know within the five taken that day, eighty five bags taking that day thirty five, Wally, the daily limit is eight, and anglers may possess an additional two days limit of walley as long as their process with a total possession limit of that's a lot of Wally. You're allowed to have a lot of wall in your freezer. Uh. Two hundred and forty five. Pan fish, the daily limit is you saw about bluegills there, Okay, like blue It's like it'd be like bluegill pumpkin seed, you know, with a total possession limit of seventy five, and he was over uh by three hundred and in D three additional perch, the daily limit is twenty five, and you can possess an additional two days limit as long as they're processed with a total possession limit of seventy five. I just like we're talking about a lot of things here that we don't really know about. But my here, here's I just want to explain this. My instinct when I see all those perch plays is like I've known this guy all my life. I mean, maybe it's part of a sting operation, like dozens of your extended friends and families. My yeah, it's like my old man and the old man he hung out with. Like I'm just I feel like I'm staring into the freezer. Okay, folks are sixty eight and I gotta I gotta scroll. I gotta scroll. Okay, they might have had a side hustle going on selling these things. Do you remember that big sting we reported on? It was like we report us a long time ago. Yeah, hang tight, dude, Okay, we reported on this long time ago. It was a big sting operation. Even had a name like like north Star and you read this as a poaching ring and you read the all the charges on these guys like racketeering, wire fraud. But it was and I'm not excusing it, but I had these names where you look and you think like, oh, it's the mafia, like they broke up a mafia organization because racketeering and wire fraud. But the wire fraud was like you had to do a call in to register your dear. So a dude choose too dear, has his girlfriend uh claim one on her tag, so she calls in to report to to report the deer to the deer Harvest hotline. That's wire fraud, right, racketeering would be a guy goes to he brings a buck down to his taxidermist to get it stuffed and pays the taxi and Smokey's smoking like snack sticks I'm not joking, pays the tax of derbys and snack sticks. And then they had a deal worked out where they got like reduced tax to dermy too, then get extra snack sticks. And they had some guy who had a gift shop and he's selling snacks sticks that made off their deer Smokey's. And then another guy here's there, here's their thing in this big roll up. There's a there's a another fraud. There's a there's a Walleye derby. A guy goes ahead of the derby and goes and catches wall in a different state. Okay, puts them in his his live well and drives over and signs up for the derby at a gas station like the gas stations, hold the Walleye Derby and wins the prize with Wallye. He caught in another state and had him in his live well, and it winds up being like this like interstate fraud thing. So on paper, it's like, holy ship, what were these guys doing? And you look at just doing a bunch of like he'll billy bullshit, like a bunch of things you would probably would't like a lot of guys wouldn't think about. You know, you're like, oh, yeah, I want your Hunter bucks. Let me bring you some Smoky's. It's just yeah, all right, yeah, how do you want to start mong your Mong? Yes? Sure? H m O n G. Let's start from the beginning. Who are who are the mom? So where you're from? First? I'm I'm in the Twin Cities Minneapolis area. Um, I live in Blaine, which is um City right side right outside of Minneapolis. And your Hunter newly Hunter yeah? Yeah? And your mom yes? And you were born in I was born in laos Okay. Walk us through who the monk were and how how so? The Mong are an ethnic minority group originally from the southern parts of China, and they at some point we're fighting with the Chinese because the Chinese wanted them to basically become Chinese, and a lot of the Moong were like, no, where there are a nomadic tribe, they have their own language, they have their own religion. We did not want to be Chinese. And so they were driven south into the Southeast Asian area, so Vietnam, uh, Laos, Cambodia, and that's where if you as a person here in the US, if you meet among person there from Southeast Asia essentially, and a lot of us have the same story as we were here because um of our involvement in the Vietnam War, more specifically the Secret War in Laos, what I have probably the same level of exposure. Um. Two Mong culture is a lot of people that hunt where I. It's like, I just know I have always known very loosely that there's a lot of Moong in the US. Kind of had something to do with the Vietnam War, and you like to hunt a lot, and that's about it. Yeah, so uh, but breakdown, like how how the monk got tangled up with the with the US, Like how they became on the U S radar. Yeah, so back in the fifties, and sixties when UM it was, it was around the spread of communism UM in in that area. So the the idea was we had to stop the spread of communism UM in that region. So you had UM North VIETM Vietnam, which UM was then UM UH trying to take over the country. You have the communist forces. So I'm not trying to talk about one particular group, but it was it was around the essentially stopping communism. And so the reason why it's called the secret War in Laos is like the you know, the US, we're not supposed to be be there, and they were there to be advisors UM in that region to use and UM advise the like the local governments there to fight against the spread of communism because didn't UM like portions of the Chiman Chiman Trail came through Laos, right, Yeah, basically most of it did. It was That's what's essentially what it was. It was a supply line and it occupied the eastern parts of Laos. My former neighbor at our Fishack in Alaska was a door gunner on a helicopter Vietnam and he now talks about it freely, but for a long time to not he's he's he's spent his entire tour based in Vietnam. But he said all their stuff was in Laos, dropping people off, picking them up, hitting hitting transportation lines all in Laus. Yeah, and and early in in in nine early sixties. It was they got the the authorization from at that time in GfK, who said, yes, look into working with some of the ethnic minority group in that area to help with like stopping the spread and really where among people came in, where they knew the terrain among people throughout history have Um, they were actually fighting even before the Vietnam War. They actually, oddly enough, they were fighting with the French, because you've been Vietnam and I don't know if you remember the kind of like the French colonization the influenced the influence there, and um, oddly enough, they'd always been fighting for their freedom. Um. If if if you look at some of the some of the his the publications, they they've always wanted to kind of be left alone. We we want to be our own people, and we were we were fighting against evil forces. Is kind of like what they would say is in their mind, the outside communist influence was more of a threat to them than anything else correct, So they're auto correct, right. So that's how they got involved, and they were essentially used to because they could just get places quicker, right you know. Um. The only thing that they didn't have were they didn't have firearms. Um you know, which which um eventually came from working with the CIA. What are the moons traditionally hunt with? They have like these crossbows, so it's like a wooden stock and then um, like the cross would be um like uh, it could be would or it was like it could be bamboo. Um. And then they use for the strings. They for for the strings, they use um like a material called hemp. I don't think you guys heard of that, but it's like a fabric um and they use hamp and like hemp, they use it for like clothing as well, and so you know that thing doesn't shoot really far right and so um it was like mostly for small game birds. My dad's so my grandfather owned one. If you had a blacksmith um in the village who could like forge parts, um, you built your own flint stock. I know you guys had an episode about flint stock up a while ago, and right, um, you know you it would be mad at the wood and then you had they had had different parts and then they cooked up their own ammunition. And I learned this recently too, is they went and got that done from the caves and use that to like reduce it to some liquid and then cooked it up with hamp as well. And my dad said, he doesn't know like the exact process gunpowder. Yeah, we've talked about here. We talked about the process about which Boone and other frontiers mean would make and they would say thing they'd go to caves for the guano and then somehow they would use uh, you had to have Yeah, they'd get saltpeter um ash. It took a willow ash your own piss. They went the thing down with piss and then they used um saltpeter baguano. I can't remember. Anyways, it seems like a way to wind up with a product that wasn't entirely consistent. And I knew. I knew that because we we had a very um prominent member in our clan who recently passed away, and I had learned that he had been badly burned because he was cooking up his own and then w uh we recently covered a story or discussed the story in Taiwan where the Taiwanese government is passing anti hunting regulations that are impacting indigenous Taiwanese. You talking about the indigenous taiwan He's still there hunting with homemade guns, and they want to switch to modern guns, and people don't want them to switch to modern guns. And they're pointing out the danger, the danger to them of hunting with homemade firearms. They want to have something safer, but they don't want they're they're afraid of the efficacy that would come from and so there's a desire to keep them hunting with with homemade weapons. But then the Americans give them like yeah, m my, my dad said his first his first gun was an M one car being so thirty is like a thirty cow um um. You know. I recently I just kind of really gotten into hunting, and so, you know, again I'm going back and kind of just learning about the first guns that they came They came across what you was your dad born fifty two? So was he did he does he have recollection like of the moon getting tangled up with the Americans? Yeah? Yeah? And and actually fast forward a little bit, the kind of like Montana connection and all this. It was a there was smoke jumper by name of Jerry Daniels right out of here, out of Missoula. I think he was born in California but lived in Missoula. That's why there's among people in Missoula farming and there's a community there. Fast forward battle bit and my dad was telling me the story that to come to America. Um, and this Jerry Daniels, Um guy was worked really closely with the moong and he was a guy that validated my dad's picture. Yes, you were in fact a soldier and you know because it was because he was a Special Forces soldier. Well yeah, so, um, what everybody was? I mean the guy that the guy, the guy that was instrumental in bringing to the you know when I lived in Missoula, for I lived there for quite a few years. Um, the farmers market there is just dominated by among truck farmers. You know. May day I was with my buddy, I was with my buddy Clay, and I was showing them around there and they still have like out in certain areas of Missoula irrigation diversions and stuff. And he sort of like semi urban suburban farms and where the traditional hats my my neighbor turns out um being Shang are from Missoula. His name b B and Shana there. Um they lived in Missoula pretty much most of their lives and they just moved into our neighborhood and we moved into the neighborhood at the same time. We we live in the kind of newer development. And um, we saw them at like our kids schools, and you know, you know, you can just kind of tell their mom, right, so you just say, hey, how's you going. Yeah, And so if you're a Mong dude and you see a mom dude you don't know, at a non Mong function, you just go high like talk like playing dinner or you just talk. You just wave, Uh, it's it's it's not it's cool. That's cool to go up there and say, hey, you know, you know you're I am among how you doing? You know, like you're just curious with that's how you do it? Yeah, okay, so let's let me I'll get this straight. Let's say you come in and let's say, fills mom, you've never seen him, never heard of him. You walk in this room and fils. Mom. Yeah, you say, are you mom? Yeah, I would, I would because you can kind of just not like it would be like a knowing nod. I mean, it's like to just ask him what if he's not well. I mean I actually saw a family um on my flight here yesterday in Minneapolis, and they were like they were sitting there and you had a feeling, Yeah, why you knew because then they were you know, so I was just like, hey, how are you guys doing? And they were like, hey, you know what, why are you going to mind Town. It's like, oh, yeah, I'm just gonna go meet some friends, you know. So yeah, I mean they were just so you felt obligated to go chat. Yeah well yeah, yeah right, that's cool. Yeah. Uh, Okay, I want to get back to Asia for a minute. Your famous, But then I want to we gotta move into um stereotypes about mong hunters, Okay, and I'll tell you whole bunch of them. Okay, the in hunting Land, in hunting World, there's two groups that everyone knows they're just the worst on the planet. They're so everything everybody in bottoms it's uh, the Amish and the month Are. You know, they look like US, but they like to hunt, which makes me not like them. Um, you hear about so I want to fast for a little bit. Through the Vietnam War, so Americans started to pull out, and you guys got a big old bulls on your back because we abandoned it. And people are like, it's those like they're after you now right, I mean the Communists come down hard exactly, yes, and lay out kind of like with your own family. Here's you what that one up looking like for you guys when the Americans left? Yeah, so I was telling corindus. You know, in in the US, in some states they recognized like May fourteenth, that's among American Day, and that was like the last day that essentially all the key advisors and some of the key mong military personnel were evacuated out of Laos what year and so even even before and in nineteen seventy three, they had already signed a ceasefire in Paris. So when they signed that ceasefire, it essentially turned Laos into a civil war country because you had the group or the military that's um I think supports the royal family, which you know, Laos was a monarchy at some point, and then you had the group that is supported by the communists, So essentially they're still fighting to take over the country at that point, and so everybody leaves, um and um essentially to your point, among people have a bull's eye on there, you know, on them. And my family, between nineteen seventy five and nineteen seventy nine, we're essentially in the jungles of Laos, hiding, trying to go places where you may, where you can find relatives, family, um, food if you will, And there was still kind of groups that were hoping that those who were airlifted out would come back and take back the country is kind of what they say, right, So for four years my family were we're basically just running around in the jungle if you if you will, just like in hiding, living off the land, trying to avoid communists exactly exactly. Um. I get credit for being the oldest in our family, um, but actually, like I lost two siblings in that time as well. Yeah, to tell how that happened, I had a six year old brother. And the way that it was explained to me was, um, again, they're walking you know. Uh, in this particular instance, they're walking through the night and they had come under heavy fire, and we we had some relatives with us. My mom takes him he's six, gives him to a relative who is a gentleman because he can actually carry him, right, And my mom had me, and then my mom had Grandma, and so she gives him to our relative and they make a dash for form the other side of this road. From from my understanding, well, my mom and I make it across with other people, and as this relative and my brother are coming through, he says that he thinks my brother gets gets shot. So when you when you carry somebody on your back like like a child, they probably have some sort of tension. They have a grip on you sort of right. Well, he says that. Um. He claims that as they were running through and they came under heavy fire, Um, at some point my brother let go. And so at that point, he said that he made the decision to essentially leave my brother where he was and kept running. So they get to the other side, and you know, my mom's like, hey, you know where is you know, where's my brother? What was your brother's name? Tongue, And so our relatively goes, well, you know, he's been shot. Um, I left him in that general area. So my mom gives herself up. It's like, hey, you know, my mom's like, I'm a woman. They're not gonna do anything to me. They don't care. I'm just gonna give myself up. I'm gonna go trying to find, you know, my brother. She gives herself up. She's captured. She comes around and first she says, she calls for him, and no answer, right, and she's like, well, maybe he really is is gone, because he would have answered at that point. Um. The other thing was she's like, I'm calling. I'm calling to ask if anybody knows if it perhaps maybe he's next to next to somebody who's still alive. If you would share, like where you were. Well, people don't want to give himself up, right because if you give yourself up, you know, then there's a chance you die as well. Right, So there's that. So that's how I lost my older brother. No resolution though, no resolution, no idea where he's buried, no idea, yep, exactly. And then you lost a sister. I lost a sister in the same time period, in the same time period, and so my my my sister was lost in kind of this weird situation where they again they were, um, you know, and it's related to hunting. You know. They get to this village and you know there's like they just they're starving, right and you're you're running around, Um, you're hiding and you don't really have much to eat and so um. The story is, my dad goes and traps this squirrel looking animal and he can't find the like the English equivalent or the American equivalent of it. I was able to find some YouTube, so I'll send it to you guys, if you guys are interested. But he's he finds this this type of squirrel. It like it burrows itself into next to chee stumps into the ground, you know. And when I was in Vietnam, I was with a guy that had killed at about that in your book. Yeah, he had killed a squirrel like creature. There was some kind of like I think it was like an arboreal marsupial of some sort. But it looks like it look a lot like a squirrel and you killed it. Uh. He was showing me the tree where he got it, right. Yeah, maybe it was like I had never seen one in my life. I wish i'd I didn't see until he'd already burned the hair off it, but it was it was the equipment would be like a you know, like a squirrel sized. So the story is that he goes and gets traps one of those. They come back and they cook it, and she somehow got sick from that and like passed within um, like a half a day or something. So again I get credit for being the oldest, but I you know, I lost two siblings, um, and then essentially they were and you were alive at that point, just very little. Yeah, I mean you were months months old, months old? How much were the month pissed at the Americans for leaving? Um? I wouldn't say that, No, No, I mean I think from everybody that I've talked to, if anything, I think among people have more resentment against the monk who left, um, if anything, but more resentment against the monk who left earlier, who left like who left who left the country in general? Right, so they'd have resentment against Europe Oh yeah, yeah for splitting, for splitting. Yeah, Like I'll be honest, I Laos probably isn't the first place I traveled to. You song, and laws would regard you guys as like traders. Yeah, you can say that, Yeah, I would, I would agree with that saying yeah exactly. Um, Like as a young person, I don't know the Laotian language. If I knew the language, I probably think about, hey, m one of my mom was it it's it's pretty country. Um. But like my wife and I don't think we have like louses in our you know, like the first place we'd visit, simply because I think they would have more resentment against like me versus Americans. There are people who didn't make it to refugee camps, who didn't make it out of the country eventually, and they kind of stayed behind and are still in the jungle all these years later, like living still, I'm still being you know, in essential, like like persecuted by by people there. It's funny because you hear um, I should say it's funny, But you're so often here in terms in relation to in China and recently in the race relation to Taiwan, other places where you hear about persecution of ethnic minorities, and it's I think it's hard for Americans to get like that kind of like geo political sense to understand that even in those places you had like indigenous people's right who had these distinct cultures and so that the same way you might have the sense of like like you might have this sense of in America, you have this r ro American culture. We all know it. Well if this Euro American culture that collaborated with ward with indigenous peoples and there's still like an indigenous you know, autonomy in places. But this is something that happens all around the world, like displaced indigenous individuals that in some way live you know, oftentimes especially there live much closer to the land than in our places. Are that ethnic minorities did not attain their own nation states, like the majority of China is Han Chinese. There are many many ethnic groups that just didn't get their own country that they're in power and specific to the Mong, it was really because as an ethnic minority, we occupied you know, in our case like Laos, the hillsides of Laos. You know, I mean, I think this happens everywhere too. Is like you just don't like, you know, ethnic minorities occupying that don't have a country occupying like your land. You know, so walk through how you what was the process but which you guys ended up in the US, and then why did you, why do somebody go to Minnesota? Um? Yeah, I get asked that all the time, you know, like it's that you guys like the cold or something. Yeah. Well, I mean if you think about it, if we occupy the hillsides, you know, the hill the altitude would higher, so we're you could say, we're used to the cold. The reason why we ended up in Minnesota was it was purely by chance. Um. So if you again, if you meet among persons here in the US, their story is fairly similar. You gotta target on you. When you know everybody pulls out. You essentially had to make your way to one of these refugee camps, the biggest one being in in Thailand. So also you have to get out of the country. You had to. You got to get on the country on foot through the jungles, you know, whatever it is that you took the men. Um. I get told this story all the time. The the you know, when people started pulling out, the men would like go and buy tubes for themselves, like like you know, inner tubes, you know what I mean, you know, and crossing river, crossing the river, for crossing the maykong Um because they knew that at some point they would come to the river and they would need to cross it. And so you know, my parents get like separated. They get back together, to get separated through various reasons. Well they make it to the river together, thankfully, you know. And some people didn't make it to the river together. They were like separated the whole time, had to meet up back in Thailand. The mek F is the border between Laos and Yes and then flows into Vietnam. Yeah, so if you cross the river, you like you make it to Thailand. Essentially, Um, they gets it the river. My dad puts you know, my dad can't swim, puts in the tube. And but the way my mom explains it is like she basically thought he was gonna drown because can't swim. Only has only has a tube because they're up in the mountains. Yeah, because the mountains. I mean I think they fish. But I mean there's really not from my understand there's not really not places for you go to like the swim or learn how to swim. I had a friend who grew up on a ranch at nine thousand feet in Wyoming, and she says nothing of us not Yeah, says nothing to slim and it's cold, so um so, yeah, he tosses in turns. I mean my my mom said that he's he's gone there. I mean there's you know a lot of people died a crossing that river for some reason. He makes it across, and you know the way he explains it, but what about the kids, Well, the kids stayed on the other side. I mean, you you The idea was, if he makes it across, he can maybe find tie officials or that can then come and just send one person across the exactly come back with the boat or whatever. Yeah, and so he goes by himself himself, not with your mom, No, not not with not with my mom, my grandma and whoever else, Um, my aunt. There's this whole slew of people there and you guys just like living off the land at this point. Yeah, exactly. And I'll get to this. But he he tosses and turns, gets across, and he like sits down to rest. And he the way he describes it is, this thing comes out of the water and he thinks it's like some you know, young people believe in like like water dragons or something something like that, right, like mystical like some mystical animal. Right, He's like, this thing comes out of the water. I'm like, he's like, I'm done for It's like it's it's probably some you know animal that's like coming to eat me, right, I guess, I guess it creates a wave or something. What turns out that it was a tie boat that saw him cross and came to get him, and a boat. Yeah, so he was kind of tripping from yeah. Yeah, he was in rough shape. Yeah, he was. He didn't know what it was from his description, he thought it was some my dragon is like, oh boy, this is it, you know, this is it. I crossed the herver and this is it. Turns out it was UM, like two tie officials with their boat, and so they go they grab him, go to the other side and grab the rest of the family and and and berry them across. So that's how we make the Thailand. So there has been tension between Thailand and Laos well UM at that point because they're helping, they're like taking in and assisting in the escape of of people that they're trying to catch. Well at that point in kind of the history of this UM, you know, I think even the US government coined it, like the Domino theory, you know, could they They're like, basically, if one of these countries fall, the rest in that region is going to fall. And so um, at that point, you know, Thailand wasn't at war or didn't didn't have any idea. So um, and I get through what are political treaties that they had at that time, I supposed, you know, the Tie camp was the big refugee camp that everybody had to get to, right, So they go to the refugee camp and essentially he goes and meets up with his commanding officer. By chance, four days later, the guy, the guy that he served it with the commanding officer, I had heard that my dad was still in Louse, essentially running right, hiding running, and uh, four days after getting to the Regge refugee camp, he goes into the room the commanding officers there and the gentleman I mentioned earlier from Missoula, Jerry Daniels, is in the room. He says that, well, I knew who Jerry was, and um, you know, Jerry was one of those guys. He was like an advisor, but he was a guy who was like train everybody and guns or taught people, you know, like the type of guns. Like he would come and say, hey, you know what this M one is? You know what this M sixteen is? You know do you know these things? Um? He goes into the room, and by this time my dad was um the way he described it, he was so thin. Then neither of those guys recognized who my dad was, and they say, hey, what are you guys doing in here? And he, you know, my dad goes, my dad's name is Dua. So my dad goes, you know, I'm Dulah and I served under you, and like basically they have this big group hug right, and I think there was just like hey, we you know, we thought you were you were gone or you were still running around. Um, and so I know, I just arrived four days four days earlier. So essentially the journey to hear was so they get there, Jerry confirms, hey, you are a soldier, and that's when the process starts to come to America. My dad I wanted to go to California first because there had already been some people here in California, some relatives. And they gave him two choices, California or Minnesota. And my dad said, I'm gonna go to California. Well they did the paperwork, and it's like, well, the people in California that you say are you, they're only your clans people. It's not media immediate family. So there's like we're looking for immediate family. Well there, even though in the Mong culture, your clansmen are actually much more important than say, like your sister. Even your clansmen is really you know what what you know? We when you talk about among families, it's all about the clan. So I'm a part of a clan. Those guys aren't your they're your clan, but they're not like your first cousins or anything. They're not your brothers. So we can't send you to California. So they get stuck there for seven months. They're in the refugee camps for seven months. And then my mom had a brother, and we also had other clansmen end up in Minnesota around that time. The UM there's a couple of Christian organizations in UM groups and people in Rochester, Minnesota is that's it's actually where we ended up. It was in Rochester, Minnesota, and I we we still came in contact with those folks today and we hunt on their land, and I had a conversation with him a few weeks ago, and the story from them was, you know, it was just two couples, James and Verie and then Bill and Sandy, who they like, They were friends, and they got together and they say, hey, we want to do something. We want to sponsor a family. And their reason was it was just the right thing to do. You know, they knew that among people fought in the war alongside the US, and they just wanted to do something out of the kindness of their heart. So they talked to some folks and they get together with their respective churches and they say, well, we want to sponsor family. That family ended up being us. So we end up in Rochester, Minnesota, and we had an goal my mom's half brother as well as some other clans member up in the Twin Cities, and so we end up in Rochester for um two years, and then we moved up to the Twin Cities. Basically, what year, So what year did you land here? So you're uh, yeah, a ninety Well I was one and a half. My brother, um oh, I was counting from yeah, so uh so seventy five to seventy nine. I was born in seventy nine. We're you know, we make it to UM, we make it to the refugee camp in essentially a year passes and then we end up in Rochester. Tell everybody about the prohibition on eating animal hearts. Yeah, so yeah, you're gonna like this. Um so among people UM before the introduction to Christianity. So you know, we talked a little bit about earlier about UM French influence in Southeast Asia. UM the like some of the very first non among people that non Asians UM that among people came in contact with were like French missionaries priests that introduced UM among people to Christianity. I grew up Catholic, I was telling Corinna's and for the longest time I didn't know why, but I grew up Catholic. UM. So the traditional religion is UM. You know, they call it animists UM Shamanism, the belief in in ancestral spirits, right, and so if you were sick, we didn't believe that it was like physically you were sick, you know, we believe that there was your your spirit was sick. There was some sort of spiritual imbalance. So you would employ the the service of a shaman. He would come and you know he was He's somebody who can go into the spirit world and and you know, and and and fix your spirit or or you know, or battle the spirit or the evil spirits and warded off right, and that would make you better. Um. Well, the story around the heart is um, Uh, there was there's a curse that's laid on UM, very specific clan group and I'm a part of that group. Yeah, so your group is under a curse. Yeah. And and this is the legitimate This is a legitimate curse. So um, and the curse goes as follows. Uh. So the religion you know, animus Shamanism, Um. The story is that there was a long time ago there was there was a ceremony going on and so this was a traditional ceremony. In that ceremony, they were cooking up the stew, right, and the stew in there. There's different versions of this depending on who tells it. But there was a ox heart or or cow herd um and the shaman or the group of people there um had asked um a young man or a boy that was nearby to watch the stew make sure no messages, make sure nobody messes with it and the the The only significant details that I remember from what with this this this young man or young boy, was that, um, he had a mental disability. So it's so you know, to be not to be like politically incorrect, but he was. He was like, um they in the mong were they? He said, like he's he was slow, right, and so um, he's his task was to wash the stew. So these guys go off and do the thing, come back, and when they come back to grab the heart, it's nowhere to be found it and they can't find it in the stew at all. And so they talk it over and the conclusion that they came up with was, well, we need to use his heart. Um, yeah, we we need to use his because he can't like in a way I think he can't defend himself, like well the slow boys. So they're like not only that, but its like I think the idea was like what they were asking him, like where was it? He like he couldn't explain, right, So they looked all over, can't find the heart. He must eat it, so he must have eaten it. And so at this point if he's he must have eaten it then in order to to make things right, well, we had to use his and so what they ended up doing was they end up killing the boy using his heart. So they do that, and as the story goes, they find the boy, you know, dead and at the end of the ceremony and everybody's cleaning up, they come back and they're cleaning this pot. Well, hell, the heart was stuck at the bottom of this this pot, right, and so now they a big cover up in suits. It jumped wild. Yeah, so they're you know, they're they're they're um conspiring amongst themselves, like we got to cover this, right, and there's a um And I don't know this. I don't know the significance of the lady. She might have been like a relative of the boy or the young man. While she overhears what they had done, so she lays the curse, which is a doozy, right, basically the curses from this day fourth none of the men in this clan. What is the name of your clan? Um, Well, my last name is Yang, so I'm a part of the Yang clan. Right. So in Mong culture there's eighteen clans. So if you if you're a Mong, you you belong in one of these eighteen. You recognized by the last names of the person the curses from this day. Fourth, anybody in this clan, any of the men in this clan. If you eat heart, you will go blind. And that's heart and I'm never eating heart now to be fair, you know there's eighteen clans, and then in those clans there's subclans, right, so we're not all related. Um, because you know, depending on where you're from in parts of the country. Even though I'm I'm part of the Yang clan, this curse doesn't actually affect all the Yangs. It only affects like certain subclans who observe it. Yeah, so as a Mong person you grow up, well one for sure, Um, you can't marry or date somebody of the same last name, and that applies to the entire like clan. So you have to go out of your clan. You have to go to your clan, did you Oh yeah, yeah, yes, yes, but your wife's mom, my wife's mom. Yeah, but out of clan, out of clan, she's a van. Yeah. And so does she hang onto that name? Oh yeah, she hangs onto it, Yes, my wife did. Yeah, are pretty good reason, a good reason like that, she said you didn't wanna have to like update all of her stuff. Yeah, you know, Um, mostly the Mong women hold on to their to their maiden names and that in that curse. Yeah, it was that another clan that placed the curse on your clan or like who um the Yeah, that's a good question. I actually don't know. Again I mentioned I don't know the significance of the woman. Yeah, but it was so um the the so the woman laid the curse and it only affects them men of very specific subclans right. So um, going back to you learning the things you grew up with. Number one thing you learn as a young person, don't marry your client. Can't You can't marry because they're consider your sibling, the consider your brother or your sister. Um for me. Number two is you can never eat heart. And you haven't and I haven't any heart of any animal, no heart. We have these beef heart pills. I'm hoping, you know, I've never tried, but I'm hoping. I'm you know, I'm hoping that, you know, like if I were to eat it by accident, you know, I'm hoping, like the spirits are so you know, every time you eat heart on you know, wherever on this series or whatever. I like, dang, I can't do that. And you know my buddies are you know, they're like, yeah, you know, once we you know, if we we ever shoot a deer or whatever it is, we're just we're gonna eat a heart in front of you, and you there's nothing you can do but at it, you know. And I'm like, yeah, that's true. And then you know at family gatherings, you know, all the women would eat heart. Would your wife eat it? She would? Yeah? But um, all the like we go to gatherings and all the women be like just making fun of the men because they're just sitting there eating the heart and they're like, you guys can't touch it. Yeah. Let me tell you a story I heard. Let me tell you a story me and Johanni heard Missouri. Okay, okay, guys tellings. There's no squirrels around right now. You know where this is going. Okay, why the monk killed them all? Yeah, big roving bands of monk came down from Minnesota, conducted a massive squirrel drive, which I didn't know. It's the thing, I don't know if they got tree climbing gear what they conducted a massive squirrel drive. Okay, killed off all the squirrels in order to sell them. And I said, who do they sell them to the other monk? And I said, so hong it. So a bunch of mone came down from Minnesota, drove to Missouri, conducted a massive squirrel drive, killed all the squirrels, drove back to Minnesota, and sold them to other moms. Correct, I got it. Uh. Do you hear a lot of this kind of stuff? I I I certainly know of among loving squirrels. I mean, squirrels king among among people, right, even even more so than deer everything. Oh yeah, uh jib read that article. There's an article in Harper's magazine decades ago called squirrel Hunting with the Monk. I might I might have heard of it, yes, Um, but I'm not gonna die among people love the squirrels, and because they you know, if you think about it, um, small game was really what they were able to hunt back in the mouse and so you know call it, you know, just having the the the love for the taste of squirrel. And my dad today, you know, he would him and I go squirrel hunting. The only hunting with him and I go together is squirrel hunting, and because that's just what they love to do. I think they like to chase. I'll be honest and say from a lot of people that I have talked about, talked to, they're they're like just somehow really good at hunting squirrels. Um. And I know there's like squirrel calls out there. You guys have ever heard that, Like they use um, lemon grass to to call him the squirrels. Yeah, yeah, you're here rubbing two quarters together and I'm not. But I've just been taught to like to blow on lemon grass early in the season, make a little distress. Yeah, basically you're creating the stress call of of of baby. When it works, when there's still young squirrels around, like in September, it brings them all out. One of what the hell's happening? Like a hawks got one of them or whatever. Now, I will say, I don't know, like I don't see people selling squirrels. I don't know. I've never been on you've never gone down to Missouri for Big Squirrel Drive? Yeah, the squirrel the Grave Missouri Squirrel round Up. Um. Yeah, yeah, they love squirrels. I don't know about the selling part. I mean in Minnesota. I if you told me where I go buy scores, I wouldn't. I couldn't tell you. Yeah, I like I should be clear about the point I was trying. Like the point I was getting at is this idea that um that it's like and you'll hear just often, you'll hear just frequently like I hear it frequently. Is that, um, they're these kind of like we hold like in areas where Euro American hunters and then they would use competing, not not like they're all hunters together, but like there's like you're you're like competing against this other entity, this other group you're competing against. The monk and the moong are kind of um, like these sort of supernaturally good hunters but also don't know what they're doing. They get to be both things, Like they get to not know what they're doing, but also they're super they have like supernatural prowess, and they u zero regard for hunting rules, kill everything, eat it in weird ways, eat weird things. I mean, you just hear it all the time. And I heard it from a guy I don't want to say who was. I heard it from a guy I don't want to say, who was I heard it from a guy last year complaining about he doesn't hunt squirrels. He's a deer hunter, doesn't squirrels, complaining about how the monk killers squirls. But you don't hunt squirrels. We mean they kill all the squirrels. If he was hearing about a dude looked like m hunting squirrels, he'd be like that guys el squirrel hunting. But if it's a moment like the squirrels, do you know what I mean, it's just like a thing. Yeah, you mentioned the Amish earlier, and I'm sure Seth heard it. I heard it in Pennsylvania. And when we talk about this, we'll get flooded with the emails starting like the second this droughts and flow the emails be like, yeah, but seriously that uh that? What's that pump um Remington rifle? The seven sixty six Everyone growing up everyone called that the Amish machine guns exactly if it wasn't that it was a lever action. Um, yeah, what how much do you have any insights into how I mean from your angle, do you have insights into how like where that that stereotype? Like why that's appealing to people. Are are you? Are you subject to that? Do people do like white dudes meet you out hunting and they know you've been up to no good? Jean? Is this like a thing you live with? Or Am I telling you things you've never heard before? No? No, no, I don't think that's that's new news. Um, it's not new news, you know, um And and in fact, you know a few weeks ago I talked to Um Liaison from the d n R who he was among Liaison a long time among the Aison retired now, but I mean he said those same things and so like he said the same things in what way and that you know among people would I mean they hunt in in in groups. Um, it's it's we just go together. That's one that's and that's that's something that we brought over from looses. And people don't like that. Well I guess it. I guess not. You know, instead of like one buddy, you go with more people. So having a hunting camp when you go to deer camp and here's sixteen people at deer camp, that's cool. Or a pheasant drive with thirty guys in South dudes, well there, yeah, there's that right, And then so that one being like groups of people, yeah, groups, And then we were talking about this is like among people go early man, we we okay, we're talking like you know, it's it's that whole public private land, you know, UM kind of conversation right um on public land. We I mean, I the Turkey season just wrapped up in Um on the thirty one to May, and my buddies and I went out at four in the morning, and so we were there and there was nobody around. UM. And to say, to answer your question around you know, being subject to it, well, I mean I've heard UM, and I'm full aware of it. And then I haven't been hunting long enough to like maybe experienced that. UM. But in talking to this liaison, you know, he says that uh moong relations with you know, in this case, we'll just say say, you know, the whites in Minnesota over the years have just have become a lot better, have become better, have become better. It's like he's like, it's it's ten times much better than you know. He's for he first started hunting in Minnesota in nineteen seven, so he was he was there very early early on, and he he had He's like Yeah, this w m A that we have in the Twin Cities used to be full of squirrels and now they're the squirrels are all gone because you know, he shared it with people and then you know, all the monks went and killed all the squirrels. Okay, I mean I'm looking tonight. We we love you guys, got onto it. You guys got the spots. Okay, all right, we're getting somewhere now. How so you knew Okay, did Gerald Man come here in automatically or did he not hunt when he came? Um? Well he not not right away. UM. You know I talked about um Bill and Sandy Sulivan who live in Rochester today. They have eighty acres UM. I think it's considered like the drift just drift list area of of the of Minnesota, Southeastern Minnesota. UM. And they actually introduced my dad to hunting UM in UM like eight one, I think is what he said. So shortly after they arrived. UM because among people were farmers as well, and she was she was telling me, Sandy was telling me that we got your mom uh plot of land so she could farm. And then UM, that's kind of what they did for a little bit before they came up to the cities. And then I remember my dad hanging um a buck in um in our basement after he shot it, like early eighties. So he didn't hunt right away until um, you know, like Bill and Sandy and and some of the people that we were um that brought us over here and and sponsored us, like took him hunting. Yeah. Uh, And that's pretty hard to get used to. Like if you went from subsistence hunting in the in a like lawless civil war exactly region of kind of of a war torn Southeast Asia and all of sud it's like, oh no, you go down and you buy this permit and you follow these rules and you can't do this, you can't do that. A lot of this menu a day, it's probably huh yeah, yeah, there's a lot of that, right, And and and again in talking to you know that the ore the liaison, he said that there was a lot of that. There was, you know, among people came here, didn't know the language, right, had no concept of wildlife management. Um in Laos there there wasn't none. Like you hunted because you were hungry, and you know, you just you hunted anything that you could see. Um, so coming here, you know, yeah, there's some for some for the for people coming over here. It was something that they you know, how to get used to. Um. You know. Some other issues he said early on, were just language barrier, right. Um. You know if and and you know, you meet somebody on the woods, if you don't understand language, sometimes there's issues. Um. But one thing he did tell me was earlier I mentioned about it getting way better. He said, the young hunters now understand the laws, understand public versus private, understand um, shooting light understand possession, limited understand um, all these They know the rules and regulations as well. And so it's almost like now that you know, we all understand each other, it's like it's it's it's almost like again it's gotten way better, like a generation removed from the lawlessness. Another thing occurs you about the situation you're describing that your family was in and all those years, is um, if you imagine just this concept of private and public, if you were a nation lists you're coming at, you're a nationalist person right moving across the landscape where you don't own property, you have no government, you know, like you spend your whole life or you're not supposed to be according to someone's definition. And I imagine it's probably also hard to show up and get like, oh, I see like that fence. They're right, don't you know, When your sort of whole existence has been going where you needed to go, people shot at you. Yeah, yeah, exactly exactly. And you know, he also wenttioned, you know, and this makes sense to me. Early on, we we didn't have anything, and so you know, you were too busy trying to acclimate to a new country. You were too busy establishing, um, maybe a career or going to school or or um, you know, just making a living here. And so we mostly hunted public lands, right, And he said, no money to buy land. Yeah, no money to buy land. Um. And he said as through the years, among people started buying boats, right, started buying land. And over the years, you know, at least what he's seen in Minnesota is that we've kind of just become a part of the hunting community. It's just like, yes, like mong people are just they're they're like us essentially. So it's got he says, It's just you know, through the years, it's just gotten way better. Especially he credits the young hunters for again, understanding the laws, the rules and and and and abiding by those. Uh you so you're interested, Like you got a gun you have you know, you bought a gun for personal protection before you bought a hunting gun. Yes, how did that go? Like how how did that come? Like A yeah, and you were brought up around guns or no I wasn't. I was. And so you know, going back to like my relationship with my dad, I mean, you know it's kind of like, you know, you want to call it like kind of like the Asian relationship is like it's respectable. Right, And again going back to growing up here, my dad spent a lot of his time just providing for us. He works second shift, so you didn't really have that interaction. Um so he never took us hunting. Um and so um it was going back to the whole gun thing. Like my my wife's actually a federal officer. She carries she she actually had issued one, but she just chooses not to to carry it with her. But um my, my, why I didn't get into hunting until like a year ago, right, was ignorance of I didn't I didn't want to handle a firearm because I equated hunting with firearms. Right. Two. I The other piece was, well, you need private land at least the way I was thinking was you need private land in in Minnesota to be able to hunt. So like it was like those two barriers to entry almost right. Um, So a year ago this week, um, some a buddy, some buddies, my cousin and a couple of buddies decided to go fishing in South Dakota. Um. You know, if you think about a year ago this week, Um, there's a lot of unrest in Minnesota. You had the murder of George Floyd behind four officers, You had the pandemic going on, you had Asian hate going on. And so here the four of us are like, hey, let's go fishing in South Dakota and and enjoy some time. And one of the very first questions that came out of that was which one of us has a gun for for personal protection? Now not that we would ever hopefully would never use it or need it, but like that, like that was something that came up for piece of money, for peace of mind. And so you know, it was a seven hour drive from where we were. You know, we went fishing in South Dakota. So we kind of like just talked about it. And the one guy who did have consumed carry, he you know, he basically gave us the low down, right, you know, seven hour drive you know. You of course talked about it, and he lived in an area where there was actually looting, like in his backyard. Right, He's like, I have this because legitimately, I we should be protecting ourselves because everything that's going on. So it's kind of like this perfect storm of things. And so I came back and I was like, I was just like gung ho, and hey, you know, I need to go get myself. And I'm a leader. I'm a contributor to you know, the what are millions of people that bought sorry yeah yeah, I contribute to that. Yeah yeah. So um, and that was your first firearm purse? That was that was my first firearm purchase. Did you go get a concealed carry permit? Yes? I did so right away. It came back, I gotta permit to go purchase and then you know, took the class and got the license to carry. Um, and so I got that, so you know if you so I got it. So I'm like and then my brother is actually a state trooper in the state Minnesota. So he's been hunting for a long time. Heavy law enforcement. Yeah, you, um, is that unusual? Uh, there's a lot of Monge going to law enforcement. Are you kind of an anomaly that your wife and I don't? There's there's not many. There's some like I have a first cousin within law enforcement. So I mean I think I think there's there's there's some of that, but it's not like a no one. It's like a like an industry, y'all infant or no. And you know there's there's there's people who are involved with the community. Um. You know, we had like the first mung Um state senator a few years back. So I think Mong people are really into like serving. I think serving is the right word, is that we like to serve um. And so you know, my brother started like showing me how to use it. And then shortly like shortly after I got my nine milion, I buy an a R fifteen, right and so to two six and I'm not I like so so that was like my first deer rifle. Do you have you hunted deer? I have yet? So, um when when you in any case, why I got into a hunting. Um, so I'm shooting this nine millimeter. I'm like, at one point I realized, you know what, I hope I never get to use this or have to use this, right, but shooting is fun, like you know the act of shooting and going to the range for my brother him showing me how to you know, take it apart. This is kind of fun, right, I'd like to shoot more. And so that's kind of like what spurred the whole hunting Like itch, Um, now, did you put a scope on your a R or like a red dot on put a red dot on it? Yeah? So, um put a red out it. And then I wrote this in the email to you guys too. Is around the same time my buddy, Um, I bought forty acres up north, and he's like, you know, he he was he just bought it. Um, he said he bought it for hunting. So one got over the fear of firearms too. Hey, we have forty acres we can hunt on. And that's really what kind of like pushing me over the edge? Was it? What was it something since your dad did hunt, were you interested in it as a kid or and you just never had the opportunity. Yeah, it was. It was exactly that. It was. You know, my brother and my dad went all the time. I've just like never given it the time of day. But you were like you were philosophically opposed to owner in the firearm um or just didn't uh not a post to owning one. I just like I was just scared of like physically handling want to right, Well, once I got over that, and then um, hey there's forty acres of land we can hunt on, right, and so and these are more dudes you're hunting with. Oh yeah, yeah, my my best friends. Yeah exactly, and um so we were all just like kind of gotten to this, um like, hey, let's let's let's do this right and this this was like August dish right, So the rifle dear rifle season was November, and so we like we started buying all the year. Um and you know, uh, in Minnesota, there's a north in the South region. So in the south you can do shotgun only. Um, there's the northern region where you can do like rifle. So I like, I I was gonna go with my air fifteen two two three, and they were going to go with shotguns. And so we got all geared up and you know that's so you're in the rifle. Are the shotgun area. We're in the rifle. So you can do you can do, but you were in an area where you could do it. You could choose, but they already had shotguns. They were gonna use their shotguns and you were going to use your a r correct correct how to go? Didn't tag, didn't didn't. Um, yeah, we did. Anybody get one? No, nobody got one. Nobody got we saw. Yes, Well here's the story we saw and so you know we saw, but they were so I mean two to three I think for me was I think semi five yards and under because it is kind of what you know through our research, right shotguns is like the same thing sixty yards and under close. You had to otherwise you know, again, we wouldn't shoot right. Well, we started seeing deer and they're like hundred fifty yards away, two hund yards away. So after the first week um of hunting, and after the after the week and a half, we saw a deer that was way too far away, right and um, we actually went on a separate property, private property that backed up to um Uh state land and so we were seeing deer like a hundred yards two yards away. Well, I'm sitting there like I never I don't have a shot. I don't I will never be able to shoot if I have. You know this a R and I'm not not gonna rs. But the next day I go and I buy six five cree more because I'm like, I gotta go. I mean, you need to go longer. Right, and so again I went from like no guns in June and last year and to semi and cartridges. I would have been like I got a two three and buy a big ballbuster. Man, I buy like a three hundred or I know that you're gonna choo. He said, how are you guys? Were you guys posted up and stands or how are you like all hunting together? Um? You know and experienced right? So um we were you guys trying to do a scroll drive day? No? No, and I sc drive. We we we be set up in blinds and so and then we had the one buddy who had who had a stand tree stand, and we didn't really after the few hundred the couple that we saw were like a few hundred yards away, we didn't see anything. And then and then the season ended and then my brother and I did go down to Rochester because they had some heavy c W d UM areas down there, so they were trying to get out rid of all the year. So him and I did go down Rochester a couple of days to see if we can find some. But we we didn't run across anything. If anything, I I spooked probably more dear than I could count. But you're this fall, you're going out, Oh yeah, this this this fall is is. Um, I'm doing our tree. Um, so I've started, you know, shooting bone arrow and then yeah, we're we're counting on the days of the rifle season. Yeah. So did you did you end that first season just like an addict? Uh? Pretty much much Yeah yeah, And and um, I was telling you guys, the turkey season just ended, and I'm totally hooked. We're totally hooked on. We didn't get a turkey. But here's the thing that's awesome, right, Like he you know, didn't do any of this. I mean that's why I kind of loved this story. Like you weren't doing any of this. And I know you've told me that, you know, you've gone back to reread Mediator articles on the website and gone back to rewatch seasons of the Netflix because people think if you didn't get anything, no, but I mean, like it's not. You know, these are a bunch of guys. They have it in their blood and it's probably a reawakening right now. But you're just like you keep on getting out there and you're trying to like they're teaching themselves and it's like Brody took me out last last season. You know, I've got everyone in this office to help show me the ropes in they're just going out on their own. I was telling you, you know, the Turkey season in Minnesota is um there's six seasons. So if you do archery, you can hunt the entire six weeks or the basically middle of April and in May. If you're doing shotgun, which was what I was doing, you had to pick one. So I picked season two, which is six days. If you don't tag, you can actually come back the last week, which is actually thirteen days and you can use your tag there. So I hunted um six plus essentially I think ten eleven days and the last in this the last season just just ended. I was going almost every day and I did like, um, you know, I get up at you know, we were talking about getting their damn early. So my buddy and as we get there at four because the we we kind of got it down to the gobbles will start around five nish and five o'clock to shooting light. Um you know, um five o'clock shooting lights. So around you knew that there was gonna be got But we we stumbled onto this like field by luck on on its w m A and you just knew that the gobbles were gonna be coming out of like five. Do you guys running any other hunters in there? No, we didn't, And I think there because well you know, well we get there at you know, i'd wait and you can ask my wife that I got up at three thirty, right, got ready drove to the spot by four. Um. So the spot, you know the field, you had the field and you have the parking lot and so, um, well I already have a car and then my buddy shows up. There's two cars there. And you know, one of one of my rules with you know, buddies for safety is that if you drive into somewhere and there's one or two cars, just go find in a different place. Right, So we were it, so we kind of like monopolized, personalized. So yeah, yeah, so so I did. So I'd wake up at four, hunt, you know, try to try to catch a gobbler until like eight, go to work, work all day, and then go to tennis. And then after tennis, i'd go you know there was you know, there were still light, I'd you know, I'd go back to ye And I did that for like ten days. Yeah. One of my friend Robert and Athy, he likes to get out there. I would sleep for an hour just waiting for the birds. A gobble. Yeah, I don't much, just sitting out to swamp. But I don't know why we're out. We're out here basically last night. But it feels like I was telling Korean, you know, I have so much more appreciating wildlife. But like for crows, you know, because you know, I I the crow call with me, but the crows like what just shot? Got? Yeah? And I'm like, man, this is this is so cool how they work off of each other. Do you crim mentioned this earlier, like like an awakening or whatever. Do you okay? As you learn to hunt in in America, do you feel that you're joining an American tradition or do you feel like you're joining among tradition. I'd have to say it's it's um a little bit of both. I think hunting is in my blood and you know, when I rode in, it's like I felt like it's always been a part of me. But I love everything about the American um, the American hunter and what we have here. I just needed something to kind of like like like uncover that. I felt like, ummic, yeah exactly, well yeah, well yeah, I blame a lot of stuff on the pandemic and racial tendemic. Yeah, not like that to get a guy out hunting, exactly exactly. Um, you know, a year ago this time, I didn't own a truck, I didn't want a boat. I didn't hunt, and I didn't own a camper. And I have all those you know, I do all those things now, you know a lot of I mean, you're not lone like a lot of people. And I rediscovered the outdoors. What kind of boat? What kind of boat? You get? Oh? I got I got this. Um it's a seventeen foot they called like a bowl rider. So it's not like a fishing boating thing. It's really so I could pack a lot of people in there and we just go you know, pleasure boat. Yeah, you find on craigslist. Facebook, it was on craigsliste No, but they were they were being bought. They were being bought like like crazy. I mean I remember looking at this one, um like it came on in that minute. I say, I'll take it, but I want to see it first, and the guy just like sold like you know, but like they were gone. You know you mentioned um going on that fishing trip with your buddies. Had you always fished like from the time you were a kid? Um? Yeah, off and on. Um. You know, we take the kids. You know, I have three kids, um uh fourteen, ten and six. Oh of course my daughter Michaela. My daughter Michaela makes it like that one makes wanted to make sure that I said to you that she says, hi, yeah, because she's actually gonna be probably be my hunting buddy. She got she's already got um this a month ago. I bought her, um a youth a youth shotgun, and we went out once because the range where we live, we lived close to a range and it's free youth Tuesdays, and so her and I went out. She shot it once, probably my fault, but she couldn't take the requestion, Oh dude, here there's a trip. You probably know. It's like the first time daughter ever shot a turkey load was when she's shooting at a turkey, okay, I'd load okay, okay, target loads you know, like clay loads, and they just said, oh, it's not that bad, it's not that bad. And then when they're actually shooting is something they don't know. I just had her shoot and we're like, fake. I put a red dot on a break open four ten for it on turkeys with and we like, you know, sighted it in the red dot for on a turkey silhouette. And then I was like, oh, let me shoot a couple of times, and I put turkey loads in there and made sure we were good on the pattern, and it never had her shoot one. And as she shot at a turkey, never brought it up the fact that it's like the recalls like five times. That was that was my fault because I should have realized that low brass, get some low brass target loads, and she shot it once. She was like, Dad, I don't think I can do it. I don't think I can do it. This season so I'm like, okay, okay, well you know, but so yeah, okay, people are gonna want to get up. People are gonna want to get ahold of you. A lot of people are just gonna want to get ahold of you. It's just a thing that happens with when guests come on. You can choose to like I don't want to hear about it, or you can tell everybody how they might drop your line or find you on social media and shoot your d M or whatever. You can ignore or not. I have a Facebook page and I have an email. People want to email me, they can send it to us, and we can send it to you. For people, it'll go like this to people will be like, people be like, he can hurt my place. I'm telling you, man, I'm telling you really, because I never get that. You won't you get that. But he'll get it. He'll get it because his story is touching. Yeah, he's like I was born in a very opulent country and had a lot of hunting opportunities and grew up hunting, and people like screw that guy. Bro's got boats coming out, boats coming out of his ears. He's got ye. But yeah, people are gonna want yea to hunt it. I'm telling you they're gonna let them. They're gonna tell no place, email us forward the info. I feel like you should come out on turkeys with us next spring though. Um, yeah, I you know, i'd love to. I think I'm like I said, I think I'm hooked. Um. Um, you know hearing that gobble every morning. Um, you know, my buddy and your blood. Yeah, it's it's it's addicting that springs. That's why I went in like ten days in a row, right, you know, you know when you're fishing and you got your and you got tension on your line and the wind blows and it makes that siren song. Their day. I was telling like we were it was a real winning you here you know on the wind. And I said, man, you hear that you'll never be able quit fishing. And he said, I hate that, So Steve, maybe we'll need you to do a squirrel drive with Yeah, you teach us how to do a big, big squirrel drive that's so effective. We kill every squirrel Missouri. And I will teach you how to Um, we'll teach you how to get turkeys. No, I'm serious, man, I'd like to have you should come out on turkeys with us. We have a good time. I'll take you up on that. I will. I will. Or you know what we could do too, is because because you're close sand Ways, we'll go hunt turkeys at doug Derns. How old your kid, she's tend. Here's what we're gonna do. Here's the plan. Do not make plans for Wisconsin's youth turkey season. Okay, do you understand what I'm saying? Yes, yes, don't tell Doug that I invite you were and are neighbors. You know, neighboring stays. We love each other. We're gonna hunt my so your daughter and my daughter and my boy are gonna because Duck's too damn old for the youth season. I'm too old for the youth season. We got his place locked up for youth season. Locked up. He knows not to let anybody hunt for youth season. But your daughter and my two kids are gonna hammer it for youth season. That sounds great. Yeah, yeah, we'll be there. It won't be squirrel season. We'll do a squirrel drive. Yeah. Thank you for coming on, man, I appreciate it. Thank you very much for having me. Yeah, it was a pleasure. It was a good history lesson. Thanks a lot