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Speaker 1: This is me eat your podcast coming at you shirtless, severely, bug bitten and in my case, underwear lessening podcast. You can't predict anything, have like your own show. And I was like, oh, I don't think you're talking about to say that. Um, your turkey talk did not inspire me, but I would love to be able to bottle Brittany's lap. You don't like that, y'all. Don't know what you brought up recently that I've been meaning to bring up with other people. Don't maybe think like a lot less of you. Uh yeah, it's just saying that it's gonna happen sometimes. Yeah, just just saying that. When he was guiding l Hunters, did dude like, there's turnover day, right, and new guys come in. Janice would look and and hope to get a signed to the person that looked like they were the highest tipper. That's what I was curious about. Look at their shoes or something. Because we were talking about tips in general, and we were talking about somewhere we were talking about where they were pooling tips. I said, I'd like that because you would like that. Well, yeah, because when the new crew rolls in, you can you can't pick the guys out like they do the rolls in. It's like you were saying, save five thousand dollars over ten years by collecting metal scraps, and then at the end of the week he doesn't kill out and he tips his dude a thousand bucks, and you're like, how how did that happen? Sounds like a big tip. That's a giant tips you were saying. I thought you were saying the guy with the metal scraps would not tip. Well, well that's what you would think, right, So you're I'm saying you can't pick them out. The guy that was stripping down copper wire for ten years just to go on a hunt, you'd be like, I don't want him. And then it turned out that you could. You didn't really know because maybe he had stripped so much copper wire. Right. I grew up. This is the last I'll say about this. Uh, you can explain more. But I grew up with guys that were so ambitious, but not ambitious that rather get jobs. These guys one time went and hot wired some kind of piece of heavy equipment in order to load a spool of rubber coated copper cable into a truck and then spent days with a fire burning off the coating to sell them and like how much copper were talking about a giant spool pounds hundreds of pounds of copper. Yeah, that's where some money, and had a campfire and just rather than like getting a job, I'm just working for yourself, man, But um yeah, some guys don't back up, so so I just I just felt to you, like knowing you, I felt like you would you would say uh, or the way I understood you to be before, before I found out how you really are, I would have pictured that you'd say like, uh, yeah. You know. The guys come in and I look and I try to find the one who's dreaming the most, the one that's hungryest for this hunt, because I want to team up with him and give him an experience, and by god, if I need to pay him to do it, I'll do it. I need the guide's dreams of the client that you want. A guide probably change, you know, as you mature as a guide, it changes because like in the beginning, you're like, I want the guy that's never elk on it, and then he won't call me out on the fact that I've only hunted two weeks more than he. And then later you sort up probably get to the person that you're like, man, I wanted to do this is just gonna charge, gonna get up at three am. He wants to hunt the top of the mountain every day and hike three hours in the dark every day, like three hours in the dark back every day. And then I think right towards the end at least definitely happened with fishing for me, is that, Um, I like taking just newbies and beginners that just you know, you show them one bugle and elk and they're just like, wow, blew my mind. That was unbelievable, you know. Um And even if they weren't the best hunters, if they at least were just trying into it, and you know, that's how you wanted a guide, So that changes, I think, you know, but you are working at the end of the week. Sure it's nice to go to the bar with the big wall in your pocket. Yeah. What was a good tip for how long were these elk hunts? Five days? And what was a good tip at the time what the hunt cost? It was a bargain basement hunt. Man, it was cheap. It was like three thousand ish for our treat, maybe even a little bit less. And uh, but we hunted a lot of public land, you know, and you might run into other dudes, and then I think, like if you hunted out of the cabin for rifle, might have been thirty five thirty eight ish something like that. So good tip, A good tip. I think like everybody was stoked if you got two got it two to one and you were like fine to go walk out of there with two hundred bucks from each guy. You know, you felt like you were getting stiffed if it was they only give you a hunter for the whole week, you know, but every now and then you did get a dude the three down the k like he basically double because we're getting paid two hundred bucks a day and so he would double your wages for the week, which was sweet cash. Yeah, exactly cash. Yeah. Are you related to Mark Roscoe, the former governor? I am? Then your dad, Now that's my uncle, Yeah, my dad's oldest brother. So you're like politically connected. Oh yeah, no, not necessarily, I mean yeah, yeah, how uh that was in the mid nineties, Yeah, it was, so he was and he had two terms here and unfortunately can't bring the exact dates to you, but yeah, it was in that time for him. Uh and and having a back having your own do you own out do you own stone Glacier out right? No? No, I do not? You run it? What a how's it work? Um? Yeah? Like you like the explain to me? You tell me, I will explain it to you. Can we hear who you're talking to? Is it too early to no? Let's do no, let's let's do round tablets here. Pete Munich, Pete Munich has been out here before. Um talking goats. Yeah, because Pete runs Rocky You know how Janice has the Rocky Mountain Squirrel Foundation. Pete Munich invented, right, you invented the Rocky Mountain go to lines once upun a time, which is the only got focused mountain goat focused. And you were inspired like you you had like a moment, like a like a epiphany. Uh. Yeah. I saw the Governor's tag Big Horn Tag in Montana get auctioned off that wild cheap Foundation one winner for five eighty thousand dollars and eight I didn't know what ever went that high? Yeah, well we gotta return to that because that's something I want to talk about anyways, talk boy at. That money went back to the state of Montana for sheep management and conservation. And I love mountain goats and had previously hunted one and kind of inquired about our governor's tag Mountain goat Governor's tag, and then kind of started asking about volunteer opportunities and conservation efforts and that kind of a quiet answer. So the go To Alliance was formed? What what did the goat tag go for? That same year? The Montana Governor's Mountain Goat tag ranges from about fifteen to twenty three thousand dollars. I don't know they had one. You never hear about that? Yeah, a lot most states do. See, all right, we're already digging a hole. Man. There's so much easily explained now, Okay, so Pete, you also work Peter or Pete, I see, just go But you also work for Stone was Yes, I do. It's like you're main because you don't make money off running the go to line. Um, then Kurt tell to tell all about what you got going out? Now, Okay, So, Um, I am the lead designer for Stone Glacier and I'm also one of the owners and the founder. I'm the founder one oh yep, one of yep. Yeah. We were in the room where you design packs. Yeah, yeah, a lot of it. You know, n I do right here. Um nice quiet space, you don't, you know, no distractions and uh have everything you need right here. So yeah, I started Stone Glacier back in two thousand twelve, and then this last year, you know, we're looking for growth, we're looking to expand in other markets, do lots of other things, and we found um the right people that wanted to be involved, and and so you know, it's given me the time to move back into the design primarily and focus on on you know, what I need to do to grow the company. You know, back in the mid nineties, I was saying, went a little later now, I was like, you know what, there's no more room in his world for another micro brewery. Yeah, just a few. Yeah, look at both around declared market saturation. Yeah. But is it like, is it scary? Was it scary getting like starting a backpack company? No, it wasn't scary at all. Um. I think you know, financially, it wasn't scary, just because of the way that I went about it. Um, I wasn't looking to hit a home run. I wasn't looking to leverage my you know, my family's life savings. UM. I was just looking to bring a product to market that I thought was viable, that people would use. Uh and and so that was the only step was actually taking on myself. I talked to other companies, you know, nothing serious, um, but you know, they had their own programs going. They were doing their own thing, and so that that was the only option. And started very small, you know, a minimum run. And this was a side gig. This is not Kurt's full time job. Yes, yep, yep, yep, exactly. So uh, all time job, full time job, high alted electrician in Alaska. Yeah, that's why this room is plastered with stuffed doll sheet. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I wanna use me up there? Is that just don't know us now how gonna use you up there? I was up there for Oh yeah, so you're stacking up doll rams. Yeah, I was trying you shot all these doll sheep yep, yep. Question. That's the brown that is a Montana big one. That's the that's the unlimited that is Yeah, I want to talk about that a whole bunch. And then Brittany brothers, you've been on here a bunch of times? How many times been on here? Only two times? No? No No, no, that's not true. I guess after the episodes too, So four times? Can you laugh for a minute? No, because the fella I'll just tell Brittany fella rode in last time you were on and and he was saying that he wished that he could bottle bottled Brittany's laughter. He provided full contact information. So I feel like you should chuckle for him. Now, Well, it's organic, right, Like I have to be prompted. I can't just like fake it otherwise, you know, would be the fun in that? Um, what do you have to say? Did you want to get in a turkey the spring? No? I didn't. We went once with Janice and Helen and her boyfriend came into town and my boyfriend and the whole Patelis clan. And then another time my boyfriend and I went out east and were attacked by like the worst tick infecon infection. But it doesn't those ticks don't matter. Oh they sure as held. When you have two dogs that are crawling with hundreds of ticks, why would you bring dogs turkey hunt were hunting turkey's illegally under the bush. We were not hunting with dogs. They were hanging out in the camp or while we went in the morning. But then like during the day and it was like ninety degrees to during the day, so we're like hanging out and then they just like suddenly realized they were crawling with texts. The problem with those laugh The problem of those ticks is that when you pick them off you, you always leave the parts in you and the parts in you. It's like a bastard. But they don't don't really bite onto you for like another for like a day or so. But once they get on, you get in your weight, they get onto your belt anywhere, man, and then they grab on and you tear them off, and then you think you got them, and then it itches and swells and you gotta get a tweezer and a razor. Ticks off of myself and our pets growing up all the time, I've just never seen anything or experience anything like that. But these ticks don't carry lime, right, so it makes them cool with me. Okay, Well, it's like it's like it by mosquitoes. I'm not gonna go west. Still still better than Mosquito. They don't carry West now anyway, So next year, yeah, without the dogs and maybe no ticks. Good luck that kind of comes with the territory. So I want to talk about these these this Big Horn deal a little bit because what's interesting is that both Pete and Kurt have done the impossible and killed the Big Horn from a and this isn't gonna be anything the people listen killed the Big Horn from an unlimited unit. Um. But first I want back up, what at what point when you're doing high volta uh electrician work? Why why are you? Like? Man, what I really should be doing is is stitching backpacks? Why? You know what I mean? Yeah? No, it was more on a necessity. I was. I was accessing or trying to access some areas in Alaska that you know, if you if you could if you can make one trip in and one trip out, then you've effectively doubled the range that you could cover. But if you had to make two trips out with you know, all the extra gear that you're carrying in an entire sheet. Do you mean hunting off the road system? No? This is all yeah, this is all flying you know, flying in a super cub drop off at a strip. And then what mountain range were you on chew gash In and the Laska Range alone? Well, yeah, I mean most of the time there. There was a couple of hunts I went with with good friends. But that's that's really where it started. That's where I learned that I or I was trying to learn how to sew because you wanted to make modifications I've gone through like you were trying to like dick around with your exist exactly. Yeah, that's exactly what it was making a superpack well lighter, lighter, and just a little bit more function for specifically what I was trying to do, and but primarily it was weight. It was being able to take things out of existing packs and still be able to put them back together so they'll function. So, like, what would be an example what was it back? Like, what would be an example of a backpack that you started? Right? Were you? Like? What kind of pack would you buy that you'd want to dick with to make different? It was it was pretty much all of them at that point. Frames. No, I didn't I didn't carry any external frames. I went primarily with the internals um, you know I had some north face, had some arc terics, and a majority of the time it was removing things and still being able to put it back together so it would work. So you know, get rid of extra pockets, extra zippers, extra straps, move a strap down lower so you had more load compression. Uh, you know, simple things like that. And you know, slowly, yes, I started ending up closer to what we have today. Um like a way as stripped down back pack, Yeah, yeah, for sure, for sure, and being able to keep it modular. You know. Interesting enough, one of the first backpacks that is when I went up there. I don't know if you guys have remember to ever use yet was the old Coleman external. Yeah. Well they had different packs that you could put on there, so now you could you know, at the time this was you know, yeah you said you didn't use external pa, No, but not like that, not like the true tubular external. So that this Coleman frame was, you know, a footprint that was very small and in in comparison to say, you know the Kelty or the Barneys, which are I mean good packs on that when we started using in Alaska. That when I first started hunt up there was the like the tubular Yeah, I mean the full on like pins with the for sure, the pins with the key, the key ring molders, the hold the pins in and ship like that. Well and still squeaky is all. Okay, they are squeaky, but I mean they're the go to if your hall and moose. Yeah. I don't know of anybody who you know, who would say much different, especially the guides and a lot of the guys that use them in Alaska. It's just bomber, you know. You throw a hind quarter on there, you have something to lash too. Um, It's just it's just a different animal than this, you know. And so um, yeah, that's kind of where it all started as far as the sewing portion. And then so you bought a soul machine or hint doing it? Yeah, no, no, I bought a sewing machine and that that was quite the learning curve in itself, because you get what you pay for. You know. The first one I have is garbage and you just fought it right there. That's a jukie. Our singer is good. My mom runs a singer, don't be bad mouthed singer. That's when I was a little kid. My mom, when I was looking at my mom sold our clothes. We wore homemade clothes a little. It sounds like kind of amish, Yeah, should we not? All we had a lot of homemade clothes and we hunted deer and homemade wool clothes. Wow, that's awesome. Yeah, wool pants with elastic waste, you know, yeah, a lot of that. Times change, man. Oh but I had a follow up question. So like mains and singers, No, back to walking as far as you could and not had to make two trips out. Um, So you're just thinking, like, if I make it lighter, even if it's by this a couple of pounds, that will essentially just remove a whole trip. Yeah, yeah, obviously. Okay, okay, but that doesn't work with just the pack because you're you're adding with with the with the sheep head and all the meat. You got like forty five pounds of meat the heads, Like thank god, I had eight quite a eight ounce pocket out of my pack. It doesn't matter, No, it does, it does in the end, Okay, So it's it's it's the entire I need to let you ask this question. No I did, I got it out. No, it's the entire it's the entire program, you know. So it's everything that you carry in the pack. It's the difference between going in on my first sheet point where you're sixty five pounds. Yeah yeah, I mean there's it's you know, a sleeping bag that weighs a pound and a half more than what I have, you know, ultimately, and so you go through your entire gear list, your tent, you're you know, you're stove, you get dialed in on your food. All of a sudden, you're looking at thirty five pounds going in. Now you're looking at thirty pounds difference coming out. And so even at my lightest weight, I was still looking in that hundred and ten hundred twenty pound range of one load coming out, you had thirty pounds on that. I'm not doing it. I know that there are guys that are doing but that and the dollars take care of That's it. That's it. So you know, at the end, when I decided I'd gone through, I'd gone through all the rest of my gear. Because you could, you could spend money and you could buy that. That's all you had to do is just pony up the cash and drop weight out of your pack. But once you got to the pack. You know what what you mean, like like that just buy lighter. Buying like a lighter stove is going to cost more than a big heavy stove. Yeah, yeah, exactly. And so you got down two, you got down to let's say you're doing. You got down where you could do a nine day, ten day hunt. It varied, it varied, so you know, you're looking at that you're looking at two pounds of food today. So it really depended on where you were going and what you were doing. Um and so you know, some of the areas you knew that there was only five days of hunting going this way out of the strip, there might be seven days going the other might be ten days. You know. You just all depended on the specific hunt. So the actual weight that you left the strip from that would vary and it would carry on. You might fly in with then just hang a bag, I don come back. You're gonna come back and you're gonna go the other way. And and then it also depended on the country. So when you go into certain spots, you know, maybe it's tight. You know, maybe there's only one canyon that they're in there. So now you're not going to carry a four pound spotting scope because you know that you can glass most of it up with your binoculars once you get there. You just knew a little bit more about the program than say, you know what we do when we just go out down the canyon here LK counting might be trying to look at something that's two miles away. So I think just the the entire program got more dialed in up there because you're going back to the same spots, so you kind of knew exactly what you needed and you'd start cutting those things out and you know, so that's that's where you ended up. You know, I can picture that you're saying when you uh, when you when you were out doing that kind of stuff you just mentioned because you mentioned spotting scopes. Um. I thing I like about Sheephunt is you can burn up the ground so quick. Yeah, because you're looking at this like black rock or is that that rich that Rick French made that movie? Yeah, black black white sheep. So you don't it's not like glass couzi or you're like, I know, I'm looking at tenam. I just can't mind it. You know, it's like, is there a white thing sitting there? No, let's move. It is. It is. But you know, it's amazing how much little things like they just the topography and then the little swales, a little cuts. They absolutely and light. I mean, you get up in you get up into that kind of shale country and you get a certain type of light in the middle of the day and things look, rocks look lighter, everything looks lighter. The sheep, you know, they're laying in this dark shale, so they you know, they don't look white like they're not all of them look white like this. You know, they're more of a dirty So you would think that they'd be super easy to find, but you know, sometimes they're not. Sometimes they are. Sometimes they're standing in the middle of a great, big green patch and they just stand out from miles away. Sometimes you're right on top of them. The worst thing to have to us hunting sheep one time is that snow is very frustrating. We we found sheep one time after it snowed by. Just eventually found some tracks with my spotting scope and started following the tracks with my spotting scope and eventually lost the tracks. I was like, oh, where do you go from there? And never realized it's something staring at it. That's where they ended. Yeah, it's like they're not quite they're not snow white though, they're like yellow. But it was just like eventually the snow melts and we're back in business. That really that really feels like you're like not hunting real good anymore. Yeah, that snow happens. No, that makes it tough, It makes it treacherous. What years was that you were that you're up there doing all this. Um, I moved up there and I guess it was nineties six and then moved back in two thousand ten. Yeah, back to him Montown, And that's when you started making packs. Did you just quit Electrician NG altogether? No, No, I didn't. I didn't ever quit. I think that's that's one of the keys to the business personally, because what do you mean, because I was able to make decisions that are best for the business, not best for me. You know, I wasn't trying to put cash in my pocket. I was able to do mean, it was key that you kept having a different Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah exactly, And yeah, you know it was it was a really unique decision. But I didn't have to be in a spot where I was trying to pull extra out so my family had health insurance. And you know, especially when you're when you're smaller, and and I think it allowed, in my opinion, allowed the company to grow faster, you know, pose it. It's not my personality to try to go hit up an investor and take out hundreds of thousands of dollars in leverage everything I have. Um not that I didn't believe in, it was just not my personality and I would rather I believe that if I was building a good product, that it was going to grow itself. You know, I didn't have to shove it down anybody's throat. And there was a process of going along. When you bring the first you you bring it to market, you get that feedback and you you slowly start to make those changes that take it from a good product to an exceptional product. And you need that time. You can't just come up with it. I mean some people do. I shouldn't say it way. I didn't. And I knew that it had room to expand and it needed to grow. You know what's different about them? And I've used the Brazilian packs, and I liked the Brazilian packs over the years, but it's like some packs you get and you're like, it's just like someone's like, I'm just gonna make a pack, like how people make packs. My key my secret sauce would be how I market my pack, right honest, gonna go take you know, whatever people like and make a version of that and try to sell it. It's like a very different pack. Yeah, I mean, you get it. You gotta mess with it for a minute, and then you go through like a day of a little bit frustrated and then all of a sudden you're like, oh no, ship that's why that's like that, And then that's a fun feeling to have over the course of a few days where you kind of go like I got it now, you know. I mean, like your buddies like no, no, no, do this and you'll be loving You're like, oh yeah, that's right because it's like really unique features and unique design. Is it kind of like solve problems that you didn't know we're there? But one of the biggest things is is uh that it's like they're so like, I don't know, tidy is that a word you guys using the backpack? I think we're gonna start but cleaning. Yeah, like clean tidy packs. Yeah. We were eating a real fancy dinner there night, and I told the smali a remember the wine. Just he had all these wine descriptions. I said, you need to start describing certain wines as rough and tumble wines. He wasn't using. He was using a lot of more effeminate terminology, but he out the other. But yeah, it's like a tidy kind of like clean nothing, no ship snagging on brush kind of pack. Well that's because you put that on the lady. No bills and whistles, no ships snagging on brush packs. Yeah. Well, what I was really hoping to do for myself was to have a pack because at the time, you know, it's hunting in Alaska, is hunting sheep, doing a little about to moose hunting up there. And then I was coming back and I was hunting in Montana, yeah, you know when I could get Yeah, but that was before that, unfortunately, so I was still having a draw a tack at that point. Um, what do you mean, Well, they have to come back to hunt in Montana now, so you but that's only good for one year, right, that's a good question. I don't know, because I wasn't ever in that because I think there was like two different kinds, like one was just if you were. Yeah, I can't remember how they were, but anyways, didn't have that program. Yeah, they didn't have that program. So a long story short, I was looking for. I was just looking to build a pack that I could use everywhere, and you know, the same thing if I was going hiking, if I you know, whatever it might be, so I could pack in all my gear just like you said, take it down and make it tidy and be able to day hunt out of it. Still pull my bow, keep it tight, you know, tight footprint on your back, and just try to hit that middle ground so that you always had it on. Because I didn't ever take my pack off, you know, whether it's whether I was packing all my stuff in or whether I was actually hunting. Um, I always had it on. So I wanted to be functional. I wanted to be narrow on the pack so you can move. Didn't want it to be noisy, and just like you said, tidy, but then but then you can blow it up. But then you can blow it up. Always have people being like, I don't understand what you always gott in that pack. I'm like, lot's is nothing in that pack. But I'm not gonna get something and then go on some hell hike back to go get my pack and then hike all the way back up again to go fetch it. That's it. I was gonna have it with me. Yeah. And if you have an empty pack, you know, and say you're hunting out, you can you know, you can get a lot out if you have your your friend with you, because yeah, that's why. More and more of the packs I like are the kinds that like have a lot of space that actually blow up big. But the key is making it that once you tuck it all into itself and sinch everything down, it's like you basically got like a board on your back almost, but it can blow out and be like a gigantic m haul in apparatus. And this thing too about packs is uh, I kind of always tell me because you know what you used to get in situations where you're gonna like leave your pack for a minute. Yeah, I just I never leave you know the pocalypse now, never get out of the boat. And I'm like, never leave your pack. People like they get to where they're gonna like, yeah, I think we're gonna make a shot from the ridge. So this is all leave our packs. I'm yeah, you know what's gonna happen. Then you're gonna get up on the bridge. You're gonna like, shoot, it's gonna you're gonna wing it. It's gonna run off. You're gonna run over the next bridge and see what's going on. You're gonna see it, go over the next ridge and next thing you know, it's been dark for three hours. You don't know where you're at, no clue where your pack is. You know, It's like I do I now every time I think like, yeah, I leave my pack, I'm like, no, you will not leave your pack. Yeah, yeah, you're not gaining much in it, even if you're carrying all your gears. So now if you're at thirty five pounds, you know minus rife plus your minus, if you always have that with you, you hunt right to dark, you kick out a flat spot, you're going to sleep, and you wake up and you go when you compare that to try and to go back to camp, get back into a spot, trying to figure out where you're at, hiking in the dark, all that other ship, Mandy, you're just way ahead of the game. In my opinion that and that's what I always try to do. I'm not gonna say it always happens, you know, because sometimes it just doesn't make sense. But typically on longer hunts, it's everything goes with you every step, and then you know you can back out and throw a camp up. But I don't know if I've ever seen somebody leave their pack behind and have it work out to the time. Countless times I've seen, and myself included dropping packs, not once. I can't think of one time it was like, thank god, I've even like, he God, I didn't bring my backpack. I've even taking mine off and then like got away from it and then I thought about it, took away point. You know, it's just like, yeah, never leave your pack, Never leave your pack. So did already mentioned you guys both killed a thing in Unlimited you I wanna explain this now. Earlier I called Pete and said, hey, add up. How many big horn tags there are? Okay, state of Montana. How many big horn tags are available in this state of Montana lottery tags? Yeah, I'm gonna start even more bases in this Okay, this is for New Jersey cat ladies so they can understand we're talking about, Um, there's there's uh, this is this. I'm gonna I'm gonna trim this up a little bit and say there's three types of hunting tags. Yeah, I need to jump in. When you don't like something, I to say, I'm trying to simplify it without two two types might be the most simple. Laders govern tas. Okay, okay, okay, So you got There's the thing we call over the counter tags OTC tags. It's a kind of tag where if you're hunting deer in Wisconsin, Michigan, wherever, and you can go down to the gas station and buy a life anybody, anybody, any time, just go in, you buy your deer license. In that situation, the resource is strong enough to meet all of the demand, all of the demand on the resource. There's no restriction on allocation of opportunity. Anyone who wants to go can go. When you get a population of animals that has more demand than supply, you need to limit how many people are gonna get an opportunity to hunt. And you do this by having what we call limited draw tags lottery tags. And what they do is they find a democratic way to allocate the tags to all the people who wish they could go, and it generally works at you fill out the application and send in a little bit of money or sometimes a lot of money. The state um does a drawing, pulls names out of the hat, and then they hand out tags. And some tags are lottery draws, and it's like, if you fill out your materials, you'll probably get it, right, you know, you could be you could be almost guaranteed to get it because there's one hundred of them available and in most years only guys apply, so they're limiting, but it's easy to drop. The third kind of tag is like, I'm gonna do the third kind of A and the third kind of beat the third kind of A. The third kind of tag is awarded not democratic, but it's awarded to the highest bidder, okay, and there's very few of those in the country. The reason I bring that kind of and that's the thing that there's a thing called landowner tags. I am doing A and B three. A is a landowner tag where a guy owns a big gas chunk of land and it provides core vital habitat and so the rewards this individual for providing good while theife habitat by giving him some tags that he can do with as he wishes, and he can sell them, use them, give him to his nephew. Three B is a governor's tag that's sold to the general public. Highest bidder. Is everybody cool with this? STI permit governor's tags. What's what makes governor's tag so valuable is that many of them you can hunt all year anywhere that they issue tags. What do you mean all year? There's so like you buy the Arizona Governor's tag. Because here's the thing, was she It doesn't matter because he doesn't shed his horn. He's not like you know, so you could feasibly hone when you can hunt when no one's hounting. When she would she really if you draw like the if you get the governor's tag elk tag, you're not gonna go in May and shoot some bowl of six inch velvet stubs sticking out the top of his head. But what she was like? Why not? So they sweetened it up by letting you hunt year round, And they sweetened it up by ah, you tell them to get rid of that gun. I'm tell him to get rid of the guy, right, I wasn't pop it. It wasn't out he handed you see, he handed me gum. He was like, oh, you want some gum. I was like, no, dude, I don't want I don't want some to take your gun out. So, uh, where was that? We're talking about Governor's tex Governor's tag. But yeah, but so you can hunt anywhere in the state, but you can't hunt anywhere in the state. You can hunt anywhere in the state that hunting for that species is allowed in some form or another. I mean that makes sense, right, or glacier because now the highest selling Governor's tag in the country happens to be in Montana. Correct, And every year it go that always makes the news. Often times it goes to a guy who owns the chain of sandwich shops. Sandwich shops he likes. A man with a chain of sandwich shops like to buy the governor's tags. The guy that owns Jimmy John's right, the same guy. It's the same guy. He's bout some numbers. It is it limited to just Montana resident residents ever bought the Montana go Okay, and uh, it's always in the vicinity of between over three hundred thousand dollars every year is a little different. Um, but I think between two to five dollars. So with that kind of like timeline, what's the percentage of that person, Like, um, what's their success rate? These guys are these guys? Yeah, they're not hunting them though they're trigger men. When a guy buys the governor tag, what he does he hires a whole posse. He hires a posse of of eager young fellers who go out and scour in this state. They scour the Missouri Breaks. So the biggest rocky mountain big horns in the world is the General's amis Johnny Street. The biggest rocky mountain big horns in the world come out of the Missouri Breaks. There's some tankers in Alberta. What's that area now, Bertha Line? But big, big ass. You're like, yeah, just stay you stand behind a big horn. Look at the way that scroll. I was going to ask you because we had a video YouTube. Are you telling Joe Rogan about like how big those hanging way below what I tossed you in the garage? That honest Yeah, I was picking up meat for the cookbook shoot that were actually in town doing this feat And he's like Hey, you haven't he used to, he's and he throws me a set of frozen You need to make a extra big pack for packing those time. So that's the governor's tax. Now when when it dude buys a governer's tag, This guy generally like, you're a trigger man. The guys of bibles are trigger man. They don't have time, right, They're not gonna go out and spend the whole summer out sweat is that they have all of the time in the world. No, they're not here. Not here. That's the difference. In Montana, you have to hunt within the rate. Well some seasons. Every state handles the governor's tax is in the general hunting season, just like everybody else who would draw the tags. Yeah, basically what they get here is they get to hunt any unit. So um and actually I don't believe that there's any area here that they can hunt that there isn't already I've never heard. Yeah, I've never heard of exclusive access. And they don't have exclusive You can go to river Bridge where you want, and you can go to places that might only have that might only otherwise to give out one tag. But what so, I mean oftentimes a guy will buy a governor's tag because he already knows what he's going to be going after, because they'll get ten, twenty whatever. They'll hire glasses who will go out to the areas that everyone knows holds big, big horns. And these guys are like, these are real woodsmen. Those are the guys hunting the ramp. And they'll put together a dossier on every sheep they can find in the unit, and the guy will peruse the dossier. Come on, the detail of this kind of stuff would blow your mind. I've given you the version that doesn't make people that angry. So but so the incentive, like long story shirt, the incentive is that they spend a lot of money and then it goes back into conservation. Right. Yes, there in lies the rup So okay, I wasn't getting all this not gonn get a little bit bar uh okay, let's up eighteen for you to Martin versus Waddel was a Supreme Court decision, and it was a Supreme Court decision that settled a dispute between an oysterman got a commercial oyster harvester in the New Jersey meadow lands and a landowner who traced his ownership of the land to a land grant made by King George the Second to the Duke of Earl, I believe. And when King George the Second gave this land of the Duke of Earl, who passed along down the line to him, he gave him the land. And with the land came all the fishings, huntings, hawkings and foulings. Because in Europe, when you own the land, you own the animals. Now the guys out picking oysters. The guy says, you can't pick oysters. I own the oysters because I owned the land up against the water where you're picking oysters. Goes all the way to the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court decides, they say this, They say, because we have the Declaration of Independence, and the Declaration of Independence stripped all of the rights of the sovereign, stripped all of the rights of the king, and gave it to the people. So by virtue of the Declaration of Independence, we are deciding that the animals in this country belong to the people, that you do not belong to the king, and the animals will be administered on the people's behalf by their state. And it was meant to be that we had a system of the democratic allocation of wildlife. Governor's tags are a perversion of the democratic allocation of wildlife because you're selling it to the highest bidder, lottery draws or democratic with your name in the hat. Everyone's at the same chance. However, here's where it's the kind of thing where I don't agree or disagree because of that money is spent on the ground for big horn conservation and big horns are absent, Like we've done a lot for recovery. We don't even scratched the surface. I'm putting big horns back where they block, like elk absent from their historic range in this country. You would never get that because it seems like elk revery, but they're not there. Used to be elk in Michigan, you know, And I mean there's some number, but they used to. Like if you look at elk distribution in this country at the time of European contact is the whole damn country almost. So there's a lot of work to be done on big horns, and that's a big gass chunk of money every year. Maybe it's not fair. It's very very hot topic, hot contentious topic, and both sides are right my first years. They're both wrong first years guiding in Arizona. I can't remember. I think I was still scouting you because I didn't have the client with me. But I was going to hit the spot out that was like two hours almost from where our staying via truck and then um like side by side because the road was so rough, right, So get up trailer like thirty minutes, get to a rough road, plump side by side, and then run another hour and a half in the dark trying to get to this spot at daylight to see who was hanging around. So no, ELK, I think I was just going to check a water hole. You, Yeah, as I'm kind of closing it on the spot where I'm supposed to get huh yeah, down in this area. Can you add this on your story? Yeah, down in this area, you could take a bucket of water and dump it out on a road and the bullet come out and wallow in it. Yes, sometimes tell that story added in somehow weave it in. Yeah, I don't. I don't know if they've ever actually made a wall by the thing that they had seen spots where there was like old tracks, maybe like the remnants of some wallowing in a road like in an old dry and they said, oh, I wonder what would happened, you're yeah, we just they happened to have whatever. You know, it was fifty gallons of water in the truck for whatever reason, probably to fill up the trailer, and they dropped six gallons into this mud hole and put a trail cam up in the tree and came back twenty four hours later and sure enough it's a dry place. You weaved it right in. So continued, But yeah, I'm buzzing down the road two hours, you know, through the darkness and trying to look at my GPS make sure I'm in the right spot, getting ready to start hiking, and uh, I kind of see like the flash of like where my lights might hit some other like tail lights or something. As I'm kind of getting closer from getting to park, and I think I had to park. Maybe it was like the end of the road, or I forget what the reason was why you had to stop there. But anyways, I'm pulling in and I come around one or more corner, and also I can see that there are trucks there, you know, and there's some people and they're awake too, must be hunters. I mean, there's the only reason people would be out there, you know, awake at that time in the morning. And as I pull up, it's like the whole camp is like, who's that, you know, and they turned and I must have seen twenty headlamps turn in my direction and they're just shining up all these trucks and I'm like, holy ship, and I kind of got scared. So I'm like, what what what what? What? What? Why? Why are you guys all out here? It's party? And so I just kind of kept rolling, went on, did my scouting, and then later it didn't take long, you know, through who I was with, you know, there was some texting phone calls and they're like, yeah, do you guys have a guy down here this morning? And they're like, yeah, we've been on a big Bowl and we've got seventy trail cameras out um, you know, we got the guy coming in tomorrow. And I was like, all right, I'm not gonna hang out here any longer. But there was a Governor's tag. Yeah yeah, I mean, I'm not kidding. It was like twenty headlamps all turned at once, like who's rolling in there on our spot? On this big bowl that we've been looking for. So then what kind of tips do you think that those guys get you? Can you fill in some of the details on the dudes that find the rams for the governor's tag? Guys, have you been involved in that? No? I haven't. I haven't that interests you. Uh no, not not necessarily, but but not because I have anything against it. There's just you know, I'd rather be scouting for myself to um. Now, when you say you have nothing against it, what do you mean? I mean I don't have anything against it? But what do you mean by that? Well, I think it is something to be against it. It' no, I personally don't know. I think that it's a hot topic. You know. It's interesting because just for the reasons we're talking about. Yeah, yeah, some people don't like the idea that that you can just go by what what what somebody else has to put in for. But you have the chance to go by it. I have the chance to go by it. You know, I could mortgage my house. I could do you know, any of those things and throw my name in the hat if it is that important to me. So, you know, the fairness you're saying, you would mortgage your house to buy the Governor's not like you gotta bee. I don't know, I thinking about yeah, sweethearts to be talking about something thinking about no, But I mean, I mean we're all free, we're all free to raise our hand at those auctions. So so yeah, and I yeah, I see both sides of it. And it's different, you know. Um, but if someone said, like, hey, you like to you're good at fine and cheap, would you like to do some scouting for me, you just uh wouldn't. I don't have time. I don't have time to go scout for myself these days, you know. So it's maybe it's just a different spot that. Yeah. And I've never never been approached to it, I'm not. But we do have several close friends that have been involved in the process. Yep, yep, for sure. And you know you hear, you hear all different types of stories, you know, like you saying with you know ten twelve guys. Uh, the guys I know have been involved. Are you know a couple of guys out there bust in their ass to do scouting year round? Well, I wouldn't say y're around. You know, they're typically not in those areas in the winters, but you know throughout the summers and and yeah, I mean, so somebody pays for it at the end, somebody's paying for them to be they are they are there. Those are like crackman, those are the crack commando hunters. Yeah, there's no woods in the Missouri River breaks there the brakes, you know, and you look at the history of the Montana Governor Tag. You know historically they weren't up here hunting the brakes. You know, back in the late or in the early and mid nineties, they were hunting Perma Paradise and they were hunting wrong. Absolutely, yeah, Scott and oh yeah, those guys and I want to say it, Scot, I might have it wrong. There was there was a guy who bought it two years in a row, chasing one ram or as the story goes, um somewhere in that nineties time frame out of Perma Paradise or one of those units. I mean, it's a true mountain hunt. It's uh and you know what I mean, they're in the timber that that so so you know you have to take it all with a grain of salt because it's uh one unfair. No, No, absolutely take me to task if you just don't know that I described it the wrong way. No, No, absolutely not, because but I will say, in my opinion, I think that there's a vast difference between a governor tag in Montana with the guys I know that have been involved in the work and all the rest of it, in comparison to what you might describe where you have a twelve month season, um, you know in one of these other states and the boat shot in August when there isn't even a hunting season. So those are two different animals. Yeah, whether one's right or whether one's wrong, I'm not saying, but those are that's that's a that's a different deal. Because these bodies do some of the Governor's sheep Desert sheep tags, yeah, down in Arizona. And these are some dudes that like to be out. They like to be out in the wood or not. They like to be on the desert and they like to be out the desert for months on end, and they like to look through b knoculars. That that's what these guys like to do. And they're they they're the ones that are hunting those sheets. It's just like the guy that's one point, I'm not gonna let you change my mind about not to try to change my mind anything like. Those are the people that hunted the sheet for sure. Every now and then, though, I bet you must get somebody that actually wants to hunt on their own, and it doesn't some other guys do the leg where. Yeah, there's a good friend of our, Lorenzo from Go Hunt has the Idaho Big Horn Governor's tag this year and he's going d I y. Really, Yes, he's going to Hell's Canyon all on his own, really on the Governor's coolest guy ever. That's cool. But Steve, someone paid you to go scout for them to the Governor's tag, would you do it? Listen? Man? Uh, at the time that I would have been at the at a time, absolutely, but I wouldn't have been qualified. Like at the time that I would have jumped at the opportunity, I wouldn't have been Not that I'm qualified now, I can make it like some sort of argument now that I would be that I would be able to go scrape up some sheep and maybe find some sheep in a place that people hadn't known they were there. Whatever. So I like to wander around the through binoculars. Um. But yeah, at a time I would have jumped at it, but I would have been a shitty hire did later been like, I don't know why I did that? Do that job camp up there with his girlfriends some van so uh um no, So anyhow, that's that's uh three beat okay? How many? Okay? Drawing So so the Governor's tag, you buy that for a whole shipload of money. You get to go hunt if you want to draw a tag in the vicinity Air governors tag holders like the Hunt, meaning the best units in the country. You have about a percent of a percent. It's about one in a thousand less than that. Yeah, you know, we'd have to look up. I can tell that I haven't put in for fifteen years and I haven't drawn it yet. Oh yeah you are. You are less than one nineteen. I've been putting in for nineteen years. They've been doing bonus points for fourteen or whatever the hell is. Yeah, that's right in the back of their eggs. You can look it up for each unit. But you know, I want to say a lot of them are in that you know, four tenths of a percent or five. But if you draw and in some tags get better. Like you know, we're just talking about rams too, because you can draw U take like my old girlfriend, you take first year she ever applied, But we're talking about rams. There are some units that have slightly better odds, and those tend to be units um that don't grow big gas ramp when you see even good odds and good odds. What we're referring to is a three to five percent draw. I don't think there's such a two to on some years, that would be the best odds you could find in Montana and chasing, and that would be the extremely good odds. And when those odds come up, it's usually because the weird fluke happen, so like a bunch of attention focuses somewhere else. Everyone then looks and goes like, oh wow, now that the results came out, I see that last year you had a two percent chance of drawing in this unit. I'm gonna try that next year and that's like, yeah, you and every other dude in the world is gonna see that, and then you're all gonna pounce on that unit. And then the next year you're gonna look in that unit had a point five percent chance of drawing because everybody saw that. It was a two percent. So you're not the longest short of it is, you're not gonna draw big horn tag. My brother drew big warntag. Very good. Um this year, No, no, no, A few years ago, a lot of years ago. We had fun though. Man, we had a great time. He drew down at um just outside of Gardener. Oh, very good. There's an unlimited unit across the road. Yeah, but he drew the cinembar mountain there. Uh so there's that you're not gonna draw one. If you do draw one, you're gonna get a ramp, right Yeah, Well if you show up and put in some time, you kill ramp. It was a hundred nineteen tags. Yeah, and I don't know if we missed a unit on there, but it was just looking it up beforehand at success rate and so and this is this is off of it. This is off of just the tags issued, so that that's not even assuming everybody hunted. This state has a shipload of relative to all other states, Like this day has a shipload of tags. They gave out a hundred plus tags. Yeah, I think it. Well, this this has it at a hundred nineteen but I would say it's there within a couple of them. Does you say how many mugs applied for a hundred nineteen tags? M hm No, Well times of hungry right or more so, if you draw, you're gonna have a high quality sheep hunt and if you put in your time like you will kill a sheep. Yeah. But now keep in mind all this ship has nothing to do with anything. We're just laying the ground where what I want to talk about. There are a couple of spots where there's a different system in place, and these are the famed in some circles. These are the famed unlimited units, and they're very remote areas in Montana where any where it's over the counter where any time to kind of over the colm, you gotta put it in. You gotta fill out the application and send it in. But anyone that wants can go. Try to get the sheet guaranteed draw guaranteed draw. You fill in your application, you can hunt sheep. Yes, the application may one, Okay, it's unlit by May one. You send in your thing, you can go. And theise are the most not the most yeah, like borderline, the most rugged areas in the state. I would argue outside of the state. I mean that's some of the earlier stuff in the lower for what they do to what they do to protect the herd is they put a mortality quota down where they're like, anybody that wants can come hunt. But once you boys kill what two once to get killed, it's over. So you gotta be calling because that's what if it was a draw hunt, they'd be given her unit per unit sheep can get killed. Yeah, and what's the cutoffs? Remember, like with bears and units like that, it used to be like seventy two hours buffer periods. Yeah, I feel like yeah, and I feel like one of them is shorter than that. I think that that one out of gardeners twenty four. How often does it go over though pretty rarely. Every year is a little different. You hear about it happening more back in the day. I've heard a lot of stories of you know, in the night for satellite communications or yeah, because people wouldn't get word. Yeah. And in some of the unlimited units, Uh, what makes them tricky is it the sheep aren't even there correct until the weather turns bad, So you could have the whole season pass and the weather never gets shitty enough, and the sheet like when we when when my brother drew a big horn tag, we're hunting sheet that are coming off lightning peak and you could hunt on open day. You could go there and cover every square inch of the unit. But they're literally like there are not cheap in the unit. Correct, And then one day there are sheep in the unit because they migrate down into the unit and then you go down there and there they are. Um. So some of the unlimited units are like that. But on the unlimited units to have or they have a mortality to there's some years that no one gets the two. Oh. Absolutely, it's it's very regular. So I mean last the quota never gets met. Last year com Yeah, last year five O two didn't didn't is what these specs say. So yeah, I mean half of them and and I think that that's pretty normal. That's pretty normal that half of them won't fill out. Yeah. Well, and you have to take into consideration that the season opens September. There's no weapons restrictions, so you know most people are hunting with a rifle and goes until the Sunday after Thanksgiving. So what is two and a half months and an unlimited numbers of people going there and they can't scrape up two ramps. They sold two d unlimited tags last year. Yeah, that's what the specs said. So did you you got one last year? That's it. I'm surprised if it's that low. Yeah, I mean you got killed eight eight. So the success rate was, uh two point six seven, So two point six seven percent of the guys that throw in on the unlimited get yeah. Yeah, yeah, And I mean it's and that's that's pretty standard. Um, I you know though those numbers aren't. That's not dude. Yeah, that's a normal year. That's that's a normal year. And you know, and take all of these with a grain of salt because you you know, you you pull these off the fishing game websites. Ouf there's if we're off a tenth percent. Yeah yeah, So now what year did you do this? Two? Did you try a lot of years before you got one? Two years? Did you guys get yours? Did you have you both gotten yours in the same location, different units? Yeah? Yeah, all right, So tell me what happened, like, like, give me the rundown on what happened when you did it? Your first year? Start with your first trip. Oh yeah, Well my first year, I had just got done Honey in Alaska, and um I took a RAM up there, and uh, I was a non resident. I wasn't a resident of Montana at that time, so I bought the I bought the the over the counter non resident tag for the unlimited units and I came down and I mean, you were non resident Montanas, non resident Montana at that time, and uh, you know, I came down and and just gave it everything. I had just flew down to Montana. Your with your up backpack that you made yourself, That's exactly what it was, and struck off into the mountains. Yeah, struck off into the mountains. And you know it's a by yourself. Yeah. Yeah, but it was an interesting story because it was it was before I don't know, it was a few days before the season started and I was trying to get on. Yeah yeah, but you know, the more I learned about it there that rarely happens. Really, did you sure hear about it? Yeah, but it's kind of like you hear the same stories where you have to be their opening day and be on a RAM or you'll never fill it. Well, I mean the data tells you that that's just not the case. So but regardless, So I'm standing in the parking lot, I'm getting all my stuff together, and I'm in this trailhead and there's a guy kind of getting his stuff together. I don't know if he's hiking or what he's doing. And then Allison a rifle case comes out and we're starting from the same trailhead and there's only you know, there aren't a ton of them throughout, you know, these units, because you're going into the wilderness. And so I figured, well, I'm gonna go talk to the wilderness with the capital W. Yeah, it's readily designated wilderness. Yes, their tooth wilderness. Yeah. And so I just said, well, I better go chat with this guy. Yeah. It's like four days in you take different routes, you're both standing on the same mountain. So yeah, I went in and talk to him. He was a really nice guy and he said, yeah, this is my seventh year of doing this, and I was like, man, that's that's awesome. You've got some stamina on this. It's in the back of my head I'm thinking he hadn't no, he hadn't killed no, you know, you know, well, it's like kind of quison. How long are you going for? He's uh, six seven days, you know each time, and and and so I'm thinking you must be looking for something pretty special. So I asked him, I said, well, you know, how many how many legal rams you ever seen? You know, you pass over some I'm trying to get some information so that you know, Bootleather, like, why did you want to come do this? Um, had you read about it? Well? I grew up here, you know, so I had always known if about it, Yeah, yeah, yeah, But you know, at the time, it just wasn't as compelling because I grew up in the western part of the state at the time when that's where all the Governor Acts were coming out of. I mean, they're shooting one ninety plus rams out of multiple units out of the west, and you weren't going to take your name out of that hat because the odds back then we're you know, we're better than they are now. I'm not gonna say what they were. I don't remember, but you're like, yeah, I'm gonna go for one of the yeah, yeah. And then they were right out your back door, you know. We go and take pictures of him during the winter, So you had this, yeah, this kind of attachment to it opposed to driving halfway across the state into unknown. Yeah. So but I was talking to the guy and I was asking, you know, how many legal rams he had seen, and he said, I've never seen one, and so you know that. Then like I shook his hand and good luck. I said, well, I'm gonna go this way if you're going that way, and kind of walked back to my truck, and it's thinking, well, what do I do now? You know this this dude sounds like he's put some time in here, and and it was pretty much the way my trip went. You know, I I covered a lot of miles back in I don't know, spent five or six days. Someone laid some way point was but a pre way point. But if someone lays them like hey check here, check here, check their No, because I didn't at the time, I didn't know anybody who had ever hunted it. I've never you know, I've never talked to anybody. I yeah, I didn't have any information. And it was before these days where information, yeah, and misinformation, you know a lot of misinformation, which is kind of one of the reasons you know that we're talking about specifically what it is, because I feeled a few questions on that and um, but yeah, I went in, went in, and I didn't turn up USh sheep ushep. Yeah, I'm not. I'm not certain that where you're seeing sheep trails carved into the screen. Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, you can feel like you're where they sometimes there, yep, yep, you see sign, you see sign, but you know you kind of walk out of there. How many days did you do it? I'm trying five or six days. It wasn't super long, and um, and then I had to go back to Alaska. So you know after after that though, was at that point in time, were you like, I'm going to be like a sheep guy, Like I'm gonna be like a sheep dude who hunt sheep? Um? I not necessarily. I think it was just something that was really really enjoyable. And I knew that within the next few years that we were going to be moving back to Montana. So yeah, yeah, my my my time in Alaska was limited and saw I was looking for other opportunities and had the time and thought, well, I'm gonna, you know, go start to get my feet wet and but then after that I found out you're gonna have to figure out a lot more than this. This is what it's going to be, dude from the trailhead No, no, no, no, I didn't. But the sea it didn't get closed and there wasn't a ram taking the first part. No, not that season, if I remember right, And um no I didn't how many rams were in there? Ah, that's that's a I don't know. If they're killing two, there's got to be, like, there's guy to be a substantial number of male, substantial number of ramps. They can't I mean, if they are openly the idea that two are going to die. Yeah, they're very they're very conservative with those populations. Yeah. Um I I really couldn't speak to that. That's a tough one, and I think it's tough for everybody too, because some of it's, like you said, some of his migratory, So you don't know what you're gonna get coming into some of those units. So now you you might be making judgments off populations that you don't have access to except there they're during the winter or um or maybe they're not all migrating. That way, you have some of the sheep that actually don't live in the unit. Going the other way, that might be just on the fringes of the unit. You know, you have some sheep that are you know, quote transplant sheep that have been transplanted by one way or another. And then you have um, um, you know, these historical herds that have been there since whenever you start of time. So you have all of these different factors. And I think that's what makes it interesting is that it's not just one population. There's a lot of different things going on, and all of these units are much different when you go into them, and um, you know. But that that's that's what makes it cool. But I think it's also it's also you know, notable to be able to say that it's not a free sheep you know, it's not, you know, just just because it's the only open tag and I believe, but I know it's the only open sheep tag in the lower forty eight Canada. You don't need a guide, you know, Alaska, you need a guide, so pretty much in North America to my knowledge, if you're not a resident of last yeah, yeah, so I mean it's open to non resident aliens. You can come in here. From any country and buy that tag the same way. So there's really no restrictions on that portion. So it makes it a very unique thing that way. But in the same respect, it's, um it's not very successful. So what happened the second time you went? The second time I went? Yeah, yeah, completely different out of that. But UM yeah, I just changed my whole program about everything that I was going to do. And is the only thing I did know, no different unit right next to it, and what you do differently, UM, I spent a lot more time glassing. I um like valley floors are from big Glass and two's it's it's kind of a little bit of everything, you know, because it just depends on where you can see from. UM and I just tried to spend as much time as I could that. That's really what it comes down to. I don't think that there's there's no trick. There's no that's I mean, if there was a trick, if the historical data, the historical kill data was always accurate and guys kept going back there there, there wouldn't be a sheep unit staying open for two and a half months. So you know, that's I think that's the cool thing. About it is that they just do what they do and you gotta figure it out that year. So um, probably then then that's that's what makes the population sustainable the unsustainable as it almost self manages. So what happened? So what happened? Uh? So I went days vote, I was I carved. I was gonna stay in for thirteen. Um, I think I ended up staying for twelve I believe twelve eleven or twelve and so, and then it was what had to been eleven because I ended up getting a ram on the tenth day. And yeah, ironically enough, as I was working through, you know, kind of my plan how I was going to work through the different drainages that I was hunting. I had spent a day and a half glass in this one area because this big country and it takes a lot of time to cover it, and there's a lot of timber, so it's um, you can sit there all day and you know, all of a sudden something appears, so they have to be very patient. And I had moved one drainage down, looked back to where I had just spent the last day and a half, and there he was, and it was right at dark and so I tried to get whatever sleep I could that night, and then got everything loaded in my pack well before daylight so I could make it back over to the glassing spot and try to pick him up again for ast thing in the morning. And I did and made it over there, and I found him, found him that morning, and he was feeding out in the slope, pretty exposed by all by all standards, kind of where where they were hanging out. But I knew the sun was going to be moving around on him, and so he dug a bed right there on that right just up out of where he was he was feeding. And so I waited about another hour, hour and a half, and sure enough sun came back around. As soon as the sun got on him, he picked up and went down into the timber yep. And so he kicked out a bed and and didn't use it for long, No, not for long at all, textbook sheet moves. As soon as the direct sunlight got on, let me move, you don't like it. And and so then it was probably o'clock in the morning, and it took me the rest of the day to get over to the other side, got up above him, found the bed that he was in that I had put him to bed in and he wasn't there, and this was probably not you mean, not the one in the timber, but the one the second bed. So you saw him going to the timber laid out yet, so I'm going to bed and then I was able to pick that one up, and so I knew he had to be in the area. But I just you know, I had kept working up and down this this rock spine, trying to pick up anything, figure out where he went, and all of a sudden, he just popped out in this little avalanche shoot and it was about three three and fifty yards and the wind was the thermals were just howling, and I mean probably and he just came out and walked straight across. It was probably twenty yards open. I never had a shot, and he disappeared into the timber on the other side, and I just, I mean, it was it was, and it was timber kind of forever out there. There was no big opening. So you feel like he had picked you up at that point or no, no, absolutely not. He's not gonna feed that timber though, it's not. No, no, it's not. But there was definitely enough grass that can travel in the timber two though, Oh I just could go to usware. Yeah, yeah. And so I spent the rest right until dark trying to find him. And I had moved down this rock spine and got my spotting scope out, and I found him and he was bedded behind this big pine and he had just tucked in just right. I couldn't see him until I got into the right vantage point and there he was, and had had my one shot kind of through the one area, and I fel well, this is the only opportunity I'm going to have, so so you know, but it was a great solid dress. You're on rock, laid down at all the time in the world, work through it. But there's a horn requirement there, there is, Yeah, yeah, but I have a three quarter curl. Yeah, it's half curl. How do you know it's it's it's from the base that everybody should look at the rigs, right, don't take my word for it, but it's from the base of the front base of the horn through any portion of the eye back. And they write that differently depending on the unit, right, like some of the some of the that I don't know about, don't know, yeah that I'm not sure. I mean I'm not saying from one unlimited unit, but is that the same as it is for for limited units? I believe so, Yeah, it's always thought it was the corner of the eye three quarter curel okay, looking at him sideways away in a circle. Yeah, and you and and did, and you had to figure that out. I haven't had a chain in the night before you saw. I had. I had looked enough and as soon as I you know, it was it was coming back up, you know, coming off at that bottom, and I could, I could see the horn coming back up, so that it's a pretty was he by himself? Yeah? How do they determine that then, because isn't it for doll sheep? It has to be all the full girl for dolls. Well, there's three things like in Alaska's three things that make a doll legal full curl. So you're looking at him on the side, he's got three circle or you count eight annually, so eight girlth rings, or he's broomed now it's he's broken off both of his lamb tips completely. So so I guess how do you deter like, why is it different in one state and different than the other. It doesn't have to do with like how old they Well, there's units in Idaho they used to have horn restrictions and now they don't have horn restrictions. Is that just because there's more Well what I heard was this, and this is just like a dude who used to guide. They're telling me and lots of you don't all the motivations right, Like a lot of times there's rules in place and and people have ideas about it, but without really digging into you don't know like why really did it beat? But a guy explained this to me and some of the Frank Church. There's like a unit in the Frank Church in Idaho that I think went no horn restrictions because I think there was some cases in which um people were not identifying rams properly and then due to the remoteness of the area, felt that rather than going in reporting, they just kept hunting. So they to take that to remove the obligation of a person have to make a prisoners maybe never hunted chap before, maybe not never hunt cheap again without putting that situation where they need to be able to judge the legality of that ram. They got rid of that requirement in that area and they just said, it's just up to the hunter's discretion. You're allowed to ram and and not made it to wear people. At one time, we were sitting and checking a ram. Were you there? We were checking a doll ram in Alaska one time, and while I was there, I saw three illegal rams. I got there and there was a guy checking an illegal ram not knowing it was illegal. There was an illegal rams sitting there that they had just confiscated from a guy, and Awarden came in with another illegal ramp that he had just taken from a guy that was trying to hide it from him. So I saw four rams during my visit, mine being one of them, and the other three were people bringing rams in and then saying I'm sorry, that's not full curl. H. I had a friend one time that had one held and he got it back and in the end they said, it's fifteen sixteenth curl. We'll let you keep me Listen. There is nothing more stressful in life. I'm talking even when your wife, like her water breaks. Nothing more stressful in life than the minutes that passed between you touching that trigger on a sheet and you're getting up to that sheet. It doesn't matter how much you look. It's just like it's not fun. Uh half curlers legal? No, three quarters I'm sorry when I'm saying three quarter curl legal. So he's I'm looking at the sheep right now by himself. So if he wouldn't have shown up, or if you just not looked there, I might still be hunting up. Have you ever gone back? Have you done it again? No? Well you're out for seven years, so I get you kill Yes, I get I get my tag back next year. So you never get to really get that good at it. Yeah, there's there's a few guys who have got good at it. Just yeah, I got I was read a book about there's like a book about the unlimited un you know, there's a book about big Horns. There's a big section in about the unlimited units. And there's some guys who are kind of had like some legendary status they'd got to yeah you know or whatever. Yeah, there are people that will go for a hat trick, try to get one from each district. So not what, so what happened you got one on your first attempt? Absolutely not? Oh no, I don't know. If we got to the end of Kurt story there you're sitting. Yeah, I got it, you got it. It's more. I think the night of camping after you shot the sheep is the best part of the story, so I think you should hear about that through the sheep went for a role. Yeah, the sheep went for a role, ended up you know, finding it. They're dark, and ended up just kicking out a flat spot behind a tree. Just and but you know, it was interesting because you had focused on it for so long, and I'm sure lots of people have experienced things like that where I couldn't sleep, you know, I was just so you're so excited, but but not in this excited yeah, where where you want to like jump around and not like you want publishers clearing out. No, no, no, kind of like kind of like it's just hard to take it all in. Yeah. I threw up within an hour of shooting on I puked. I don't know what balances were going on in me, but water wouldn't stand down. Yeah. Yeah, it's very similar. This is heavy, heavy, grizzly bear country and now you're camping with a dead hand of it, with a dead an Yeah. Yeah, yeah, so you know, but it happened. It was all right at dark, so I, you know, other than you know, taking care of the general cleaning of it. You know, I hadn't started any butchering or anything. But you know, from there it was just because there were so many griz in the area. Is back to the whole thing that we're talking about. Being able to make one trip, you know, that makes a big difference to not have to leave it behind, not have to figure out here in the wilderness. You have to sling it well. And you can't keep and cap the skull. Yeah, you have to take everything out and that that's a load. You can't skin the head. You can't skin the head. No, yeah, what's the thinking on that. That's a good question. I can only speculate because they don't they don't publish it in their eggs or anything. But my guests would would be that they can validate it's only forty eight hours old. You have to check it in four Yeah, I got it. Allows them to make some determination, absolutely, Yeah, you have you know, the eyes. You know, there's a lot of forensics that they can put together. It's not somebody's walking over into the next unit, you know, showing up three days later and saying hey, yeah, yeah, yeah for sure. Well then it took me the better part of two days to get to your yep. Yeah, yeah, I was just barely under the limit. But yeah, I mean it's uh yeah, it's a it's a very unique experience. I'm looking forward to going back again. It's up again next year. Yeah you're gonna go oh yeah, no brainer. Those three people you think that were they hunted it last year? What do you think the average number of days put in? I don't know, you know, and I don't know how they calculate that, because I was never quizzed on how many days that I spent. I don't know. If you were, I could take an educated guess at it, I would say seventy of the people that buy the tag go hunting. Oh you think so, I think so. Yeah. I haven't dabbled in this at all, but I feel like that's got to be high. Well only just from areas, just some units where I know, like even limited drawing units where you do look at like participation rates. Um, i'd be I don't know, I could be, I would be. I would be a little bit surprised A seven people put in some time of the people that do go home, No opinion somewhere in there of the people that I like to believe that these are pretty serious people that are investing in their time and they want to talk to anyone who's done it, who was like not an accomplished from well, I think people do try to go get their toes wet and very quickly decide this is not for them and this is not fun. And I think there are people like that that buy the tag and pretty quickly throw the towel in um. But on the flip side, the guys filling tags and the guys doing it year after year pretty hardcore about it. There's a pretty hardcore scene that goes out and does it. And I would argue puts in seven to fifteen days looking steep and still not fine and cheap, and you have to I mean, if if the success rates only less than three, you know you're gonna have to put in some time. Think you're gonna have to go your way, You're gonna have to have a lot of things all come together. It's night. You can be the best at dude in the world, but if you if if you're not in the right place at the right time, it's not gonna happen. So I think that that's that's kind of the interesting part is that it is. It's just a lot of time. So it's not like something you would like go out every weekend and go do like you need like a big chunk of time, like five to seven days you want to be serious about it. Yeah, but there's you guys are riven. The nature of the country wouldn't work do like weekends if you're not gonna go out for a couple of hours after work. No, No, I mean a lot of yeah, a lot of the sheep country. You know, it takes better than a day to access, and you know, while there are trails into this country, you're you're not spending a majority of your time on them. Um or if you are, you're probably not seeing sheep. Yeah, So how many times did you try before you got one? I killed a rim on my fourth year, So I met Kurt in two twelve and never knew anything about unlimited sheep hunting, but very quickly got the bug just from talking with Kurt Um. The next year or two thousand thirteen, was the first year I bought a tag, and I would argue I had better intel than were you guys. Were you guys. Were you guys working on backpacks together at the time? Ye? Were? I was working at SNAs at the time, and when Kurt brought Stone Glacier to market for a short time there, SNAs was the exclusive retailer. I was the marketing director of SAS and met Kurt and shot some product videos and photos with him and learned up on his backpack company that he was starting, and pretty quick there was building him in my garage after work to help Kurt chore is done. Yea. So that's where my involvement with Stone Glacier began, just kind of after hours, lending a helping hand when Kurt wasn't able to get everything done. But anyways, two thousand twelve met two bought my first unlimited tag. And what I was saying is I would argue that I had some of the better intel of unlimited cheap hunters. Kurt had done a tremendous amount of homework that he was generous enough to share with me, and I felt like I went into it with a lot of information, which in hindsight really doesn't mean a whole lot, Is that right? See? I thought it was like when I've because I've thought about this and you know, a good bit over the years, and like, I don't know why, because because some stuff is this way, maybe I wished it was this way. I thought I was like once you know what's up. But it's just different all the time. So the most valuable piece of advice Kurt gave me, beyond the maps, beyond the spreadsheets, beyond every little piece of advice he gave me, the most valuable thing that ever stuck to me was don't go chasing dead cheep. I like that because you get some information that there's been five there's been five rams killed there in the last twelve years, it's got to be the spot. Don't go chasing that cheap. He's not there anymore. And that there's a lot of truth. That there's a lot of truth because you're saying if that was the case, yeah, they'd all the seasons would all close in a couple of days, correct, And it's just not. And the other factor that you need to take into consideration is these are timber rams. These sheep live a tremendous amount of their life in the trees, so visibility is so low. Not only are there next to no sheep in there. The few sheep that are in there are extremely hard to find because they're spending so much time in the trees. So I started in two thousand thirteen and I dove head first into it, and I went on a big rip, big week long expedition, and I think I went in like five days before season opened. And on night one, I had scouted quite a bit that summer. I think I had done three different backpacking trips that summer into the bare Tooths, never seen a sheep, just scouted country. Night one, hiking in, I saw like eight nine sheep and a piece of g I just thought I had it figured out. None of them were legal rams. It was a family band using lambs and a couple of young you know, two or three year old ram banana heads. But we call him and I was like, well, there's gotta be his big brother coming up behind him. So I camped with him. I camped with them that night, I spent the next morning with him. Was like, there's no big brother here. And as much as I wanted to hang out with those sheep, because you're you're looking at the easter bunny, I mean, you have found an animal. You are not supposed to have found. So it's a fascinating animal to spend time with and to look at. And as much as I wanted to sit there and stay with those sheep, it was like, there's nothing to shoot here, keep moving. Never saw another sheep a week, So that was my year one. Actually this is a whole another story. But what, okay would it work? When does season end after Thanksgiving? So you still not into the ruck? Well, it matters. Some of these districts are very unique. There are migratory areas and some of the unlimited areas that with the right snowstorm and with the right day on the calendar, things might be a little easier than normal. And what I was going to suggest is whatever like to wait for him? No, that's tactic to wait for rams to find us late. That is the tail end of the season when the rams might be starting to think about rut. That absolutely is a tactic that people use, and I think they've viewed successfully. But yeah, it's tough. It depends on where you're at there because you know, some of some of that writting, you know, they move up to winter, so now you now you're at you know has been blown off. Yeah, yeah, so you know, the different herds do different things in there, alright. So some like on day three of that first year camped, I was camped on a really cool spot, kind of perched on a cliff, a very steep spot with a big drop off below us, and I was had a great view and I was posted up there for about a day and a half half and out comes a humongous black bear way below me. I has a big bear. And then I'm like, guh, it's feeding on something. It's like messing with something and digging and feeding on something. And I put the spotting scope on. It is eating a mountain goat. Yeah, And I don't know if he killed the mountain goat of the mountain goat fell and died, but he is consuming a large, dead white animal down below me. I'm like, that's a big bear and I love mountain goest. That's not cool that he's eating this mount goat. So like had it out for this bear. And a couple of days of not seeing sheep, you get burnt out quick, you lose. I mean, I think the stamina required this, the endurance, the mental endurance of not seeing an animal day after day after day. It's exhausting and it's very discouraging. And so it's bear showed up like that'll work. Bear season to open until the same day that sheep season open. Long story short, I watched this bear the next day going to another drainage. I was in the next drainage a couple of days later, and here's this big, giant bear again. And so I wound up shooting this bear. It was the worst decision in my life. I now had to pack a black bear out of the Beartooth Wilderness. It was it was a psychotic movie. Oh yeah, which is a damn shame because I had just gotten into the best sheep habitat that I had touched that whole week and I had to put a bunch of bear meat on my back and walk out. So that was year one and that was a very humbling experience and pretty discouraging. UM did it year after year. Did not see a legal ram until summer scouting of my third year. And I don't know, Hi, fact can speak for Curt here, but I've when I found a legal ram. You you like you are looking at Santa Claus. I can't I can't even begin to explain to you, Like the feeling of seeing an animal that you are I'm not supposed to have found. So it's a really cool thing and it's super addicting. So I found a sheep summer scouting, and uh, I had my plan, and so, you know, three or four days before season, was heading back in to the general area where I had seen this ram during the summer and I couldn't find anything. Season opened opening day. I'm hiking up into a drainage and as I'm coming over this big saddle, I run it. Here come three hunters towards me, and I realized that's they've got a mountain goat on their back, their goat hunters, and they filled a tag on opening day and I should talking great goat, congratulations. Hey, what are the odds you've seen some sheep more legal ram? Oh yeah, we saw one this morning. Like, you gotta be kidding me. You saw you saw I rama this morning? So they're like and I and I grilled him. I was like, let me be like, let's talk in detail about what you saw and where and exactly what it was. And they were very confident that they had seen a legal ram. So I climbed the highest peak to my right in that saddle. From that saddle, I went feet up to the tippy top of the peak and I sat down, and I said that was eight am. The in the morning, seven eight am, I ran into those people get up on top of the peak. I sat there all day. I was like, I know he's somewhere. He didn't vaporize. I sat there all day, and thirty minutes before dark, this ram comes loping through the saddle where I had talked to the goat hunters like full run. He looked scared. I you know, hunter, it's opening day. There's some traffic there, pack trains coming through some of these drainages, there's some commotion compared to a normal day. This ram just comes running through long a story. I sort of camped on that it wasn't opening day. I apologized this was prior opening day because I spent a day and a half with the sheep, not able to shoot him yet. So that's what it is. Goat season opens before unlimited season, so these goat hunters filled the tag call it September twelve. I can't shoot this sheep until September. So I find him, put him to bed. I lived with him for I didn't leave him for you know, I lost sight of him throughout the day and stuff. But I spent the better part of two days with the sheep. You know, the night of September. Next next morning is opening day. The sheep beds three yards from my tent, just me and the rim. That's it. And he's three yards away from my tent. I'm like, that's great, son's gonna come up. I'm gonna go dump this thing, and I'm I'm going to get this room. Well, that night, a horrible blizzard blew in. Hardcore snowstorm came in and uh, really nasty weather. And so I got up in the dark and I was like, I don't care, it's nasty out. I know where that sheep was sleeping. He's got to be somewhere close to there. Even if he moved, he's somewhere over there. So I go out in the dark and I got soaking wet and really cold. Sun came up. Sheep's gone. In hindsight, that sheep definitely high tailed it down into the timber when that weather blew in. I looked and looked for him that morning, and as hypothermia began to set in and as more bad weather began to blow in. I I've quickly realised I had to leave. It's like I can't, I can't stay up here in this state. So I hiked out. I went home, I did a load of laundry, slept in my bed, and I came right back and I hiked back in and I spent a lot of time looking for that sheep. I never saw him again. So are you glassing up all kinds of elkinship when this is going on? Or is it not like that place is pretty void of life? Grizzly bears, A lot of grizzly bears. You see a lot of grizzly bears. Sometimes you see goats, but no, there's I've seen one. In my four years of hunting in there, I've seen one elk heerd, a couple of mule deer, a couple of goats, and a bunch of bears in a couple of sheep. Yeah, so what year was that? That was my third season. And see, that's like I'm getting I'm dialing this in a little bit. I'm starting to regularly see sheep. I'm feeling a little more confident about it. And then uh, year four is almost repeat opening day found a ram weather blue in lost lost ram bad weather blue in. It was like absolute repeat. I went home, I walked out of there, hiked all the way out to let the weather. You know, you get these forty eight I think you can sit in your time forty eight hours. You can hike for ten hours and get out of here. What happens just like this wet shitty snow. You think like like I got three days of this two days again, it's all side. Yeah. So I went home. Whether whether the storm did some laundry went back in there, um turned up. No, I didn't turn up sheep. I camped next moek. My tactic throughout my four years of funting, which I still think is the most productive way to do it is to get to the highest point you can. And I don't think that's exactly Curt style, but that's how I hunted the unlimited is I would go to the tippy top of stuff and I would post up, and I would spend whole days sitting on mountaintops where I could just see everything, and then you turn around and you could see everything over there. So just keeping visibility in your favor. And something I didn't wasn't good at before I was hunted sheep and was uh, you know, talking with Curt about sheep hunting a lot was the sun? How important it is to plan your day around the sun, to work with it. Work with the sun, don't work against it. Always planning your whole day around I'm gonna be glass into the west in the morning, I'm gonna be glass into the east at sunset. And this is this is a tricky thing, man, because if you're up in a glass and tip and you got sixty degrees and stuff you want to look at when the sun is bad for one of where you're look in one direction everything is shadowed, and you look at another direction and everything is just glowing nice. It's like you gotta make a decision where like I'm gonna ignore the shadowed ship as good as I know it seems, and as much as there's probably animals over there, I'm gonna ignore that and just glass and stuff with the sun is really working for me. But it takes like that takes discipline because proofs of you waste your time staring to that shitty stuff. We meanwhile, the good side, they like the animals glow. Oh yeah, when the sun hits them. Yeah, you gotta put everything in your favor and using the sun to your advantage while glassing is certainly a good place to start, because then he said, they start moving to once the sun hits them, right. Yeah, A big horn sheep on average, I don't think likes to lay out bed, particularly in direct sunlight. I think like if a sheep beds in the morning in the in a shady, nice little spot, and at thirty eleven AM and the sun gets up a little higher and the sun direct sunlight is hitting that sheep more often than now, he's gonna get up and he's gonna go find a second bed for the day. He might move yeah yards into the timber. Yeah, he might move on the other side of his tree. Gone. Yeah. So uh anyways, went back in and turned up a ram right at first light, same ram, No no different sheep. And uh do you like you're like Joe unlimited? Now no gum. Now Jim turned up some sheep right at first light, made a quick move on him and moved in tight on him, and he pegged me. He I wound up being within a hundred yards of this ram, bumped him. Oh and he had he was bug eyed staring straight at me when I shot him. Oh that's one you got, Yeah, I got him, got you? Mm hmm. So now you got seven years seven years. Well, I drew a permit in Alaska, so I'm going to sheep hunting next month. Oh yeah, Drew gotch catch permit. So I'm going doll sheep hunting in August. Yeah, get one of these white ones hopefully. Yeah. Man, so but that one. Because you don't have a relative up there, you gotta right, you gotta hire a guy. Correct. Yeah, that'll be fun though, it'll be awesome. Yeah, it's gonna be a really fun trip. Fly in No, it's a hike in only it's a state. It's the state at state Park. It's Upper Eagle River, which is uh, you start at the nature Center. I think I'll have to connect you with my brother. Man, guys need resources, and for sure I'm going up on Monday. Actually yeah, so maybe we go get lunch with them. Yeah, but whatever, you know, stuffs living. When you live in Anchor, do you find a lot of dudes have a lot of dead ship in your garage throughout the fall? Man? Because that's this is like having a house thera. People are like, hey, man, I use your freezer. The amount of what's funny about his house the amount of bear spray, A lot of milk crates of bear spray. Because everyone flies to Alaska. Then they're always like somehow wind up sleeping in his house or storing ship in his house and he has like crates of pepper spray. Yeah, that's good man, those are good stories. Is it worth it? Like? Is it too hard? Are you interested in going? I'm not like asking because I'm not asking you like take me, but um, is that not interesting? Is it just like too hard to be? Like, Okay, I'll throw in with a body of mine. Is the kind of thing you kind of gotta be doing it for yourself. I was not really into solo hunting when I started this whole endeavor. I in fact didn't like it, and it was something you have to get comfortable with because you find out really quickly it's very hard to find somebody to join you in the middle of the elk rut on a two percent hunt. On a two percent hunt, yeah, because if you had some sweet tag like like I like to jump in when friends draw like bitch and tag because like, yeah, we're going there. Is gonna ship run around everwhere We're gonna shot a big old one. Let's go. But to have it be like now, we're not gonna see anything anything. You like to come. There's lots of barrass you just like to come and watch me not get anything. It does interest me. I think I will this year. Yeah, it does interest me. I've got a couple of good friends who are giving it hell several years into it now, and it doesn't interest me because we have to do it again for seven years. You can try again and it's really exciting because Kurt gets his tag back next year, So you'd be loving now. Is it helpful? Um? If someone did want to go and like I'd like to go and just glass up with you, is that helpers? It just want to be not helpful because then you've got to deal with too many people's attitudes. More eyes. Yeah, I mean it's more eyes the split, yeah exactly. Yeah, I've I've never been in that situation. I can't really speak to it, but I would have to think if you have somebody that's like minded, that wants to spend the time and they want to pound glass, yeah, and that they don't get antsy, their patient. They know the program. But if you want to go along and think that, you know, it's like running gun and elk during you know, the September on the chase that it's not it's not, it's it's it's just a lot of misery and miles and then sitting for long periods of time. It's a nasty place, man, it is it is. You know, you're just And then there are lots of different ways that people can go about it. I know guys have been successful many different ways. But you know, typically you're not gonna go, you know, jump one up out of the timber and packs it's pack stock helpful. No, you can't take a worse in to this stuff. No, it's it's been it's been done. Um. But advantage no, now, I mean some of the country you can't. Some of the units can't even get the biggest advantage you can give yourself as time, the more time you just have to clock. You have to go punch the clock. Yeah. Now, how often does it happen? Um, the day one, you know, different ends of the unit whatever, like day one? By am I am? Do you guys are about do you guys get them? You hear about the old war store. I mean, there's there's stories of that happening, and I've never heard of it happening in recent years, but it has happened. It's definitely happened where opening day three sheep get shot and then there's still a twenty four a grace period where you can legally harvest a sheep within the next two days. So I'm with you. So give me um, give me like a give me a big stone glacier. Sales pitch man, you ever done that before? I got our general manager, right, Harry, So catch up popsicle to a lady in white gloves, Bud. That's a fact. That's a line from Tommy Boy. If nobody else picked up, I got a good sales pitch. Sales pitch. You know. I had seen him around a bunch. I was like, yeah, another backpack and hunting backpack. You know, it's pretty good. But I hadn't really like I had touched him in Schnais, I think, and you know, farted around a little bit with him, and even I think I even had one Pete had shown me how do you use it? I carried around a little bit. But don't you tell everybody how we met um. How did we mean? We met in a bar right and we met a yoga class. I like that man. Kurt gave me a yoga pass for Christmas. One year I was doing some yoga. I walk in. This guy's got a meet you love it. I've been there six times. Yeah, it's the best. I like it a lot, so I wanted me to go last. There's a guy with a meat eater shirt on. I'm like, hey, you hunt. He's like yeah. In fact, I produced this television show called meat Eater Cool. That was pre uh the first time I saw you podcast with Randal and we went out to dinner and head beers. We went turkey hunting in the morning. Before that podcast, We've had some great turkey hunts. I'm a real redneck turkey hunter. Just kill him. I just get the turkey killed. And Janice is such an artsy turkey hunter. It's got to be this beautiful setup and I'm just just shoot the bird. Anyways. Sorry, doesn't serve me right. Talking about big old sales. Pitch yeah, act like, can I tell you story? The following story to the yoga class, and I'm like, oh sweet, yeah, good to meet you. If I see here again, don't see Pete, don't see pe, don't see p because one pass, don't I think the guy is a stingy crisis. He was chasing something else. Those in that class that was and uh, he's like, yeah, work out for me. Not doing yoga anymore. I remember it a little differently. Stretch. Well, I'm there quite often. Still haven't seen you? They call me yoga yoga, but no, I got like a lot of good it does you all crippled up all the time, blowing your knees out all the time. I tell you, I can't wait to go back in now that this knee is gonna be scoped and fixed. I'm gonna get to flex stability that I have in my left in my right knee, my right side pigeon is gonna go to it in the next level. Can you I can bend over now, I can bend over and palms flat on the ground and he's locked. Yeah, that's impressive. That's good that I can't even touch my toes bend as I am. Um so anyhow here I am. I'm like, hey, man, just think about getting a pack. Pack. What do you think I should get? Oh? We got you probably don't get this. I got the special sales pitch from Kurt at the now the old show room. Why can't I have the sale? Why? Why don't you give me the sales pitch? Because he doesn't hang around. He doesn't hang around in the show down here at the juke, he's stitching. But uh, I was just about to go backpack hunt with your brother or Lama hunting, and it's kind of like like backpack yeah, light, no, ladies and gentlemen. He's not mean hunting llamas. He means hunting with llamas as pack animals at Lama. Yeah, I've at Lama, but you were not hunting lamas. It was like in a It was in she could have been a house cat. You've had alpaca tastes like very tender be taste like me. Yeah, was it like all super cooked or was it like a steak? It was like a steak. Oh see I hadn't didn't get that. Yeah, I know. It was like very um yeah, like presented like a steak. It was like very tender back maybe I know. Yeah, I got a good place you hunt. Lama's giving my brothers, so I can't remember. Are you giving a sales pitch or not trying. And I was getting ready to go hunt with your brother and I had the solo and I'm in there and I'm like, yeah, I'm telling curtain be. I'm like, yeah, I don't know, man, only these packs like gonna be big enough because we're going in for six nights seven nights, maybe, you know, And I think I need a little bit bigger pack. And uh curts like, oh no, you don't. I did fourteen days in the limited ship unit with this pack and I'm like, okay, showing me please, and uh, yeah, so you showed me how to run basically the what do you guys call like the load sack, know, not the load shell, but what's the sack that goes between the pack drive back. He's like, you just take this, put your food in here. So this is this is it basically looks like a very a tidy game bag that's water resistant. Yeah, and uh, you can slip it basically between the pack in your frame. Yeah, because the whole bag will kind of move away and move away. Yeah. And then you just showed me. Then he just said, yeah, you just walk into the woods and then when you get to your spot, you're gonna hunt the best part about what I liked about this system is that you just pull that out, pull out your cord, throw it up in a tree. Now if you've got your food hung and you just send you down your backpack, you got a extra tidy pack now and off you go. I was like, man, that's the ship. So I was going to I was gonna start just like adding attachments and extra bags and you know this, that and the other. And instead I walked into the woods lighter on that trip, you know, because of that pack in that system, and uh, I was sold. Liked it. Yeah, no, And it works so slick man. I mean the whole time I was hunting when we talked about this earlier, but I had the capability to carry a quarter out had we gotten something. But while I'm hunting, I felt like I have a little daypack on, you know the ways nothing you kind of like forget it's there in your own pack. Did you use do you guys put the white hangbags? Do you use those? Do you not use them? I use them. I do not connect them to the backpack. You just you just use it as a I used them to organize my things. You don't you don't hang it inside there. I do not. I find myself kind of like liking the hanging in there. But I was curious if you guys did, because like I got, like, you know, put a couple of extra shells and ship like ship you might you know, Yeah, and I can just like reach in here. Oh, I use a bunch of them. I'm very organized in my backpack and have a little kits and stuff. But yeah, I've more often than not pulling them out and throwing them in. I just like I like having where I could even the dark, it's right there. Yeah, I just know when I put my hand in and I drag it out. Yeah. Johanna touched quickly on the ability to carry a quarter out and our load shelf feature and the ability to carry something between a frame and a bag. And that's worth talking about for a second, which is the physics behind why carrying something in a load shelf configuration. I keeping heavy stuff close to your back is the smartest way to carry heavy stuff off a mountain. And Kurt's taking done some cool experiments and we've got them all on our website. Um to where the lateral forces that the pack is going to affect on you are much smaller. When the heavy load is vertically oriented up and down, you're back close to your center of gravity rather than moving away from your center of gravity. So you can't change gravity hundred pounds, the hundred pounds, the hundred pounds, you can change the forces that that weight is going to put on your body was waving back and forth around. Yeah, the closer you can keep the heavy stuff to your back, the better it is. We're about lower higher, conventional wisdom is lower. Yeah, well, it it changes because it all depends on the center gravity of the body. Right, So, uh, take for example, in a in a standard pack, if if you if you wanted to, you know, you're working off of that that general fulcrum angle. You know, well just just that just that leverage, that the angle that it comes up, so that the farther you move it away from your back, the more leverage that's gonna happen. But the point that you're gonna work from is the center gravity of your you know, somewhere in your hips. That's that's that's the fulcrum. That's where it's you know, moving you back and forth. So you can move the load higher and achieve the same vertical amount of leverage as as if it was as if it was lower. But the problem is is now your lateral you know, you're left or right. Now you've increased that leverage going that way. So you know, there's this there's this uh, this this medium where you where you try to get it close enough to offset both leverage. And what we've found is when you draw it out out on autocat and you figure out the density of the meat and you figure out, you know, the density generally of of the gear that you're carrying, and you start moving it around and you're gonna get you're gonna get a center of gravity of your pack at some point. So you move it here, it might move up, it might move down. So the key is being able to get it the most in line obviously with your your center avenue, you know, which is generally going to be in the center of your hips and so I know one ever put a quarter in right side up. Yeah, Yeah, that's that's that's a great example of it. Yeah, because it's in it's physically in the same spot vertically, but you know, now you're left or right front to back, you know, being able to control it, so yeah, that that's that's kind of the concept behind it, is just being able to increase stability and any advantage that you can get. You know, if you're only packing it a few hundred yards to your truck, obviously it doesn't make that big difference. But if you're under that same load for for two days, you have to manage the meat. So now you have to be able to get out, especially in sheep hunting, if you're in the Northwest territories, you know, you're even earlier in the year in Alaska, you're in early August. You don't know what kind of weather you're going to have, so you can't just leave it in a ball of me You're gonna have to, you know, get it out, get some air on it, get it cool, try to get it on ice, if there's a glacier round, whatever, whatever you can do to take care of the meat. So now being able to manage it and keep it clean and then be able to repack it. So if you just end up with a you know, a ball of meat in the middle of your pack with all the rest of your gear, there's just there's a whole another level of dynamics. You need to start to work with. That's the thing you love. People don't realize how much And that was kind of hot days August September. How much you're messing with that stuff. You have to be on it all the time, airing it out, putting the shade, taking it out of the shade, putting your bag. You can't like throw it in a garbage bag and put in your backpack and then like, I think it's gonna two days later and be like no, no, no, that's it too and you could lose it quickly. Yeah, you're like keeping an eye getting the heat out of it, you know, quickly after you right after you take it, so you know, um, so yeah, that's that's kind of the concept behind it is twofold, you know. One of it is is an easier way to manage. To me, once you have it, keep it as clean and then and and you don't keep as much of it easy canbviously not lose anything. And then being able to have it in the most comfortable spot. So are are you h are you digging the backpack business like do most years? You you know, go and sell more packs than you did the year before and stuff like that. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, no, I I dig it a lot like it you're in its stay. Oh yeah, yeah, it's just started making all kinds of all this ship too. Oh you never know, there's there's a there's a lot more time to work on stuff like that right now. Yeah, I might do fanny packs us. I mean, but you're not kidding about making other stuff. I'm not kidding about that. No, No, they make some other thing. What would you go make? Uh like what completely out of pack? But like what class of like yeah, like what would be like mountain hunting gear? Okay, yeah, mountain and gear? Yeah, I think things that go along with it and naturally go along with it, the stuff that you pull out of your pack, you know, like a new kind of claw hammer. No, no, no, we're gonna see that's that's a lot of work. So it'll stay in like like high quality mountain ye yeah for sure. Yeah, I mean that that's the fun part about it. But give me a like, okay, here, I put it this way. What would be something that you'd be like say it finished his sense? You know, Steve, I wouldn't be surprised if down the road I made a blank five that made a piece of gear that you're gonna be carrying in our back in in a stone glacier back something that I might toe around in my path. There is a lot of cool stuff on the drawing board. Yeah, yeah, that's fun. Yeah, it is fun. I think that's that's the best part of the business as far as I'm concerned. Britain, how do you cut your leg up so bad? Chicken wire? Fence fence, chicken wire. I guess you're trying to restrain some chickens. No, my my might have a little five month old puppy that likes to get. You're trying to keep it, trying to keep it out of the garden. You got including thoughts, pretty, I don't want to I don't want to go first, I don't I don't got ship, I got nothing. All my questions are answered. I was gonna say, it's easy for Kurt to uh go sheep on in September and the middle of the raw in good Elk country here because he's already got a whole corner of his man cave here. They're not even on the wall. Um was just how many other five? Anymore? Five? Here's probably more others. Just beautiful six point bowls and anybody would be happy with. So once you've a mass knees and you're like, whatever, elk milk going cheap. I don't care if I see the animals anymore. I hadn't old client once tell me after we kill the six point bull those maybe he's big as the smallest one that I'm looking at here, And he said, yeah, he can never have too many six point bulls. I agree with that. Six points or six point right, Yeah, I think, like, yeah, I think I got mutely bucks. I feel like you can't just there's no I can see that like you'd say you can't, like for instance, for instance, like I went must cox on no desire at all to go Muskoxn. But I'm saying, like, yeah, I think that people find they're kind of a lot of guys find their thing, you know, like how many how many buck Racks be caught up hanging in Doug Durn's in the Buckman juice room. Twenty's not all his? But I mean, you know it's not He's not like, oh you know, two more and I'm done. You know, it's just not how he looks at it. What was your concluding thought? That was it? You can't have too many big old can have too many six points and that's how you get to go unlimit sheep points after even mask and you have to give up some you know. Now, what's up? So your wife doesn't like you have You can't put antlers and whatnot up in your living room? No, I could. I like having everything right here. Just I like my space. Yeah, yeah, that's one of the things I like about my wife. Yeah. I put anything anywhere I want. People are always like, oh, I can't put it in the bedroom. It's it's like, dude, I don't say i'd go get a new wife, but my wife, My wife doesn't mess any about stuff like that. Man, I'm not saying yours does. You just like to keep it all tidy. I like my space and I come down here. That's what I want to as a fan of Buffalo too, I take it because I see two pieces of art Buffalo on them. Yeah. Actually my sister painted that one for me. Yeah, back in the day. But yeah, you know I like about you most Kurt is it? Uh you keep everything real neat I have a real problem like with neatness means that I like it. I like it too much. I like it too much. I don't have a problem keeping neat. I just like I like it so much that it becomes a thing in and of itself. It's like there's a great functional quality to neatness, right, But for me, neatness is an end in itself. Do you understand what I'm saying. That's when it becomes a problem. Yeah, Well a four and a six year old take care of that, and two four and seven so they did, Like we have a fish and check. And my brother who likes stuff neat too, He's like when he closes his eyes and pictures it in the future, he pictures a coast guard station like that neat you know, yeah, I like that, but this this room doesn't make Matt. Matt's trick to neatness, though, is to get rid of all your ship, he says. He goes, when I shut the door in my house, I like, it's not like I'm walking into a gymnasium. So his need is is just to expunge the house of all items. So it's like his house is like about as empty as a house could be, because that means it's like there's nothing too straighten up because he got rid of it all, you know, just like stripped. He lives a monastic, like a fairly monastic life, he commented on liking my house, but he lives nine hours away from his wife. They have separate homes that are nine hours apart. Wow. When they hang out, it's like they're like like a dating couple having a good old time, good stuff. Yeah, and it's not like they're they're not about it. They're not about it, like, oh, we're just trying to get through this right, And then it'll be that they're like just very fine with that. Him having his very neat house without even having her ship. Well, I figured out it was well like when you guys first asked me to be on this particular podcast and you said you were going to talk about she hunting the whole time, I was like, I don't really have anything to contribute, which I didn't have much, But but what I will say is that I think you guys. I went into it thinking like, I don't think I could ever do is she hunt or would ever want to do in I think you guys your enthusiasm definitely changed my mind. I'm not going to do it, but you're like that she would have a hard time shooting a bull elk because they're too majestic. Oh my, she has a thing of like the majestic quality. I don't know, and majestic you should see him up close once they're dead. But that's the thing. Yeah, I don't know. It's like I feel like and I've just never I've never had the opportunity, so I can't say, like, what would happen like in the moment, you know, it's hard. It's one thing to say it now sitting here, but it's another to say it like actually in the moment. But I don't know, Like I feel like if I saw one, I would just be like like last to see last season, Um, my boyfriend I went hunting in for meal and the Missouri breaks and I had an opportunity at like a huge um and I like, I was just like my boyfriend was like, are you gonna just what's going on here? Like my jaw was on the floor. So it's weird to me because that seems like a patriarchal perspective. But to have a woman say that she grants a male animal a higher majestic score, that's entirely possibly and a female seems like I like it because it's unexpected. I would just expect to have I would visualize that as like this, like very like patriarchal view of animals. I don't know. The male is more he's the he's the special one. Well, he's more like spectacular. I mean he has these incredibly huge, you know antlers that you know, took him a long time to throw those. No, he grows a few. I don't know. I mean it's just like there's something more like majestic to the way that they look. But I don't know it has it has I don't know. I can't I can't explain it. I can't explain that was a good one. Uh you anything you don't want to add? Well, I don't you ever get shocked messed around with high volted electricity. I guess you don't get any chances to have it. No, No, it's kind of a one shot deal. You're combine the two somehow high voltage packs into like tie fashion and like make fancy packs with like glow in the dark. Yeah, yeah, with your specific tools. Yeah. Yeah, that's a that's a tough one to go. You know, people will spend a lot of money on their recreation. They really won't spend it on their work necessarily, so yeah, but it would be fun. I mean, you're not gonna make like a super up tool kit for I don't think so compete with Lows and home depot. Yea, um, never been shocked. You got anything you want to add that you didn't get a chance to, Like you were wishing had come up, but it never came up. No, uh no, I mean I just appreciate you guys having us on and it's been a lot of fun, learned, a lot came up. I hope you can sell a whole shipload of packs. Man, Well thank you. Yeah, yeah, we're gonna We're gonna keep hammering on it. And I think you guys need to start to marketing campaigns. One would be tidy. Two would be we kill unlimited rams. Just have a sign says that yeah, non guided we killed non guided unlimited rams. Well, you know, it's it's funny that that's that. That would be My only closing comment on that is is that the the unlimited cheap hunt is Uh, people are pretty tight with the information and the guys who go in there and spend the amount of time, uh, you know, you own it. You can earn it and so. But in in the same respect, you can have all the information in the world from guys have been successful and go in there and you know, not not see anything, but you know it kind of reminds me of fight club or something. You know. Number one rule, right, first, number one first rule, do not talk about Sorry, but you haven't done anything bad because you guys haven't even named like a train now range um. But that's a question I have is do you feel like it could be a possibility that you might get your tag back next year and then you can haunt every year until you're like, all right, I'm over on them to sheep hunting and not kill another ram. Well, there's only a two point five seven percent chance that I you know that I take. I mean, obviously you're a positive thinking person because you're gonna go in there and try and every time you walk in there you're thinking, I'm gonna kill one. But like that's a realistic possibility you could hunt another twenty years and not kill another sheep. Yeah, And and I think it depends on you, know, how you where you hunt, what you want to do. Do you want to spend more time exploring it? Do you want to. It's not that this is going to happen. And it might sound silly to say, but it almost be disappointed if you walked in there and only spent three days after waiting seven years and you got one. You, I mean, you wouldn't turn it down. And I don't want to, But there is there. There's a lot to being able to look up at that and and and say, you know, I invested a lot of times. There were a lot of good memories went along with it. That might be the representation of it right now, but really what was special was just the stuff that I got to experience where you know, how you grew back there, how you overcame things that that you didn't think maybe you would. You know those times when you haven't seen anything for nine days and you start the question why am I here? You know, you spending time with my family right now, I haven't seen anything for nine days, and then the tenth day something's there. It's like it just happens like that. So you know all of those things that you start to grow, and then you start to apply that to say LK hunting, where you're seeing many elk in comparison, and and it changes your your perception of hunting. I think is probably the most positive thing that's done for me, because you pay more attention to, you know, all the little things that happened imposed it just you know, the big things and something standing in front of you. So because some days there aren't no big things, yeah, many days, most days yeah yeah, and you're you know, after nine days of being by yourself, it doesn't happen very long. You are very often you start to run out of things to even think about. Most people, most people, it's an interesting people will never ever happen. Bring a book or three, Yeah, bring a book. Work with the Sun. That was a ringer of a closing thought right there, Because do you have any final thing you want to add? Man, things that didn't come up that you wish you'd got to talk about. I want to talk about a big old posts were just caught in our shrimp pop. But I'm not gonna talk about that right now. Ok it was actually my buddy shrimps. I am so confused about. Okay, we got big I'm thinking of a cat son. You want to talk about something that never had you guys, think unlimited sheep hunt. It's like seeing sand Claus. Yeah, getting octopus to shrimp pots, just like you know, you pull a lot of shrimp pots, not get oxoputs. Go out the other day and I boaded over to my like a buddy of mine was out pulling shrimp pots and he was kind of mad that I wasn't coming to help him, and I don't want to go because it's it's a very difficult area to take a skiff too. And I go over there and he already he had eight and the water he already pulled six. He's kind of pissed. I'm not really pissed, but he's annoyed. Um, hook it up, pull a pot, big old pusts man. Yeah, he's in my freezer right now. I was all geared up to talk about that. So tell me how you're gonna cook it, because we did that a couple of times in Alaska and we never really got it figured out. Yeah, it was really good. It just was you had to you had to work at it. There's a couple of ways people do it. Um. One way as you take a switch like I know that one chef likes to use the apple switch stick and beat the snot out of it or uh in Japan. They'll take a bucket and they'll have salt Corse salt in the bucket and put in the bottom of a five gallon bucket with a bunch of very coarse salt. Punch it. No, just put it in the bottom and just start punching the legs and punching the legs and working around and punch and punch and punch. You're saying this is to kill it, to kill it, Yeah, we figured that. Yeah, to kill you way lower than you think it would because the brains to tenderize it crazy. Yeah, So you just you ever watch Gero Dreams of Sushiyah. There's a scene in there where someone's tenorizing just beating in the bible bucket, uh my mentor in all things, uh, all things salt water um par boils them. So thirty minute he gets no beating at all, he gets pissedly say parbo he rolled, he'd like to say roll boil. He roll boils them the arms for thirty minutes and then the kind of this outside skin kind of comes off. You scrape it off. Then he packs in to dry Brian four to one. Then he smokes it, then he jars it and it is the best ship on the planet. Man. My closing thought is, man, is that puss sound good? Man? I want some Oxtrobus for dinner now. Umm. Would just be at tune. Encourage people to try new things and collect as many experiences as you can. And if unlimited Cheap Hunting is one of those things, go for it. Yeah, there's only guys out there trying to kill ten sheet. Just know what you're getting into. Just know what you're signing up for in the realities of it, and it's the most rewarding thing. Oh yeah, that getting out there and doing stuff thing is so important if we're just getting like general life ship, because when you're laying there dying, we got a couple of minutes, you're not gonna be like, Man, am I glad I didn't do that unlimited Cheap Hunt Right, It's just not gonna be what you say when you die, unless you're dying on the cheating you whatever you say, I'm not answering. I'm done talking, okay. Um. I don't know if this is the time for because what if he wants to tell us a story himself, who we're gonna possibly go in and hang out with positives and decent. He miss You guys know Jim Pozwits one of Montana's greatest conservationists. Well, he's a national figure. Yeah, he's a national figure. But he did most his work. He's very yeah, but very influential cons You could you could say that he you know, not single handily, but he certainly spearheaded the effort that kept the Yellstun River from being damned. There, helped keep it the longest free flowing river in the country. But I was hanging with him the other morning talking, uh, doing some recording of some other stuff. Sorry to something, Well, I've messed something up. The longest freestone river in the lower forty eight not the country, copy um and Jim, I think it's eighty two this year, and drew a goat tag I think second or third time. He's like, I've already killed, I think he said. And he's killed too. He's like, I'm already killed two, don't need to kill a third one. But he says, I'm not giving this one back so someone else can go kill. I'm gonna give this got a pass go up there, that's going to get to live another year. Right, But because of his health, he also cannot make it up to go. And it's the first time I asked him the first time the health is keeping you off of hunt? He said, yep, I said, ship if I'm eighty two and I get to say that this this year's the first year, the first time not going up on the mountain because of my health, Like it'll be a good life, right. He added to that to say that, he said, like, that's all cool, I'm happy with it. Whatnot? He says, you know, kind of he says, I hope you know when the time comes or when there's that moment I think you can all kind of get when I'm getting at here, He's like, I hope to see what that goat is seeing. Well, it's kind of a beautiful stout. He's a good thinker. I know I wasn't say anything, but uh, sorry, Jim, I'm not talking. I'm channeling Jim Posits, so I'm not actually saying Jim Posits was talking about. Uh, you know, he's an elderly man and a couple of years ago he was out hunting and near his home in Helena and he's climbing up to a place to to hunt Elco place where he knows the outcome through and ship I got myself in the situations in earlier. Okay, before I tell you this, I'll tell you some other thing now. Roosevelt Poter Roosevelt, So Roosevelt um has his famous quote where a guy said, like, so earlier, I talked about how it came to be that the wild animals belong to the people. Um, you know, Roosevelt was, I want to be conservative and conserved wildlife. And so someone once said that Roosevelt like, if it belongs to us and it's ours, why can't we just go get it all? And he said, it doesn't just belong to you, it belongs to those Americans. Ill in the womb of time. What a line so posits is uh going up the hunt, and he becomes aware of a father and two kids behind him and on the trail, and the father is holding the kids back because he's reluctant to allow his kids to come smoking up past some old man. And Jim realizes that they're like purposefully plodding along out of out of deference, and he says that he turns and talks to says, I want you to go ahead, and he says and he's telling the story. He talks about um them passing him, and there are three generations worth of those people that we're in Roosevelt's womb of time out, sharing the resource. He's a profound dude man. That sounds like it. He's got some real s angers, all right. Thanks for joining h