Once-in-a-Lifetime Hunts w/ Joe Griffin

In this action-packed episode, host Brian Krebs interviews Joe Griffin, an avid hunter and outdoor industry professional, to dive deep into the world of Western big game hunting and outdoor adventures. Joe shares his inspiring journey from a lumber salesman to a prominent figure in the hunting industry, revealing behind-the-scenes stories about creating authentic hunting content and navigating the emotional highs and lows of hunting adventures.

The conversation explores monetizing hunting content on platforms like YouTube while maintaining authenticity, the emotional contrasts between everyday hunts and high-stakes adventure hunts, and insights into elk hunting, mental strategies, and balancing work with outdoor pursuits. Brian also discusses his preparation for an upcoming grizzly hunt in Alaska, including bear behavior, hunting regulations, and the excitement of multi-species hunts, fishing in Alaska, and the quest for shed antlers.

Listeners will gain practical advice on truck camping, staying warm in cold weather, ensuring access to clean water, and capturing outdoor memories through photography. From local connections in Zealand to archery techniques, moose hunting challenges, and the camaraderie of the hunting lifestyle, this episode is packed with inspiration, actionable insights, and personal anecdotes to fuel your passion for the great outdoors.

Whether you're a seasoned hunter or new to the world of big game hunting, this episode offers valuable perspectives and strategies to enhance your outdoor adventures.
 

https://www.instagram.com/joemgriffin/

Connect with Brian Krebs
https://linktr.ee/thewesternrookie

Have Questions or Comments? Send an email to Brian@westernrookie.com!

Sponsors and Discounts:

GOHUNT Insider - $50 Gear Shop Credit with code WESTERN 
https://alnk.to/g3aa8L4

GOHUNT Gear Shop – 10% off most items with code WESTERN https://alnk.to/e75Pm4u

RTIC Coolers – Keep Your Meat Cold!
https://bit.ly/RTICCoolers

First Month FREE at MTNTOUGH Fitness with code ROOKIE  https://bit.ly/MTNTOUGH_ROOKIE

Save $150 on Steelhead Outdoors Gun Safes with code WESTERNROOKIE https://tr.ee/fbNvbFXX6Q

Save10% on Maverick Hunting Blinds & Accessories with code WESTERNROOKIE https://tr.ee/vWHcxHKo4u

Save 10% on Ollin Digiscoping Adapters with code TWOBUCKS 
https://tr.ee/ZE1XcQ-fbb

Save 20% on your first order at Bull Elk Beard Oil with code TWOBUCKS https://tr.ee/X4mp2wWCRK

‍

Brian Krebs (00:01.054)

Welcome back to another Western rookie podcast episode brought to you by go hunt as always I'm your host Brian Krebs today. We've got Joe Griffin on the podcast Joe I got to admit I've been following your adventures for like five years. I don't we've never met in person to my knowledge I don't know how I came across your pages But I've been following along and I'm like I don't Understand this guy's a life because you probably go on more hunting adventures than a lot of my friends combined

Try to. Anyway, I don't know. You're a guy. Yeah, I prioritized it for sure. Even kind of within our family, we all kind of do. So and it's changed over the course of five years for sure. lot of it stayed the same, but some of it's kind of moved around a little bit. I guess just to kind of dive into that, what I do for work.

has changed in the last five years too. So I used to be a lumber salesman for a large lumber company to custom home builders. And I would help people design their house before the builder would go through and start throwing sticks together. And then I did a film a while ago about my father actually that passed kind of a hunting film that was at that Badlands Film Fest on an ETA. And

met a guy down there who did outside sales and territory development for a bunch of different hunting and shooting brands and just kind of hit it off with him. I'm like, huh, that seems like that'd be kind of a sweet job for me. So I think I had two or three beers in me and I'm like, give me your boss's number. I'm gonna give him a call and see if we can't work something out. So I called him like, hey Todd, think you should hire me. And a couple months ago was five and he calls me and he's like, actually, I think that would probably work out pretty sweet. And I was kind of

developed in the career that I had at the time and kind of got cold feet and he's like, called me all cocky like he wanted this job and I'm offering it to you you're getting scared. Like, yeah, all right, he's called my bluff. So I took the job and I started doing that. Basically, I run the sales and some marketing efforts in the whole Great Lakes region for 14 different brands in the outdoor space. And that led to

Brian Krebs (02:26.52)

a little bit more freedom than what I had before to do some different hunts and some different opportunities with different hunts. Yeah. So it's very multifaceted. And even as I kind of explain my day to day life out loud, I'm kind of like, wow, this still sounds weird. so I do that for a day job. And then I also work with a media company called the Fair Chase. Yeah. And we do historically three or four big hunts a year.

that we film and produce, that we largely sell those films to sponsors. Once in a while, we'll keep one for our own YouTube channel, but for most part, those get bought. And now we're kind of ramping up to like, looks like five or six maybe this year. And then aside from that, I live in Michigan, so we have a really long deer season, a really liberal bag limit.

So we just do a lot of hunting. fiance and I spring bear hunt every year. My son hunts harder than I do, I think, sometimes. So we just hunt a lot and we prioritize it. We live in a little modest house. We don't have a whole lot of really extravagant bills, so we just hunt a lot. Yeah, that's really important, I think. The whole prioritizing.

People love to say, I'm a big hunter and I like to prioritize hunting. But a lot of that happens not in the fall. It happens in March when you're in your banker's office getting a pre-approval letter for a house. happens in June when you're house shopping or truck shopping or a new Polaris 1000 XP comes out and you think you want the whole Northland package. It's like that's when you prioritize hunting because that payment's due every month.

even in fall. It's really rude of these banks to have payments due in the fall, but they do. Ignorant. Yeah. They don't understand what we're doing. Right. But no, that's really cool. think I came along, I feel like I remembered some of your content during that transition phase where you were kind of saying like, hey, life is changing. And I was like, that's pretty cool. And then honestly, I would have guessed that you were doing like guiding.

Brian Krebs (04:48.43)

because typically people do the hunts you do when they're an outfitter or a guide. And it makes sense if you're doing, know, if you're in the industry, like it opens doors to do some really cool things, especially with working with brands. And so I would assume there's some of that overlap between like the brands you are responsible for growing and the stuff you guys film with. Like you probably have a couple of those that are like supporting each other and helping, you know, rising tide rates.

raises all the boats. That's what we definitely shoot for. When we can. Is to. I mean get as much bang for the buck as you can with these films and. Yeah. As as as you possibly can but it has to also be like organic. I'm not going to throw something in there that just doesn't make sense to. Like get a shout out or something because it's not being used but. Yeah. I forgot the first part of question a little brain dead this morning but.

We do try to get pretty good inclusion with that. And that kind of changed that crossover. Didn't jump into the film side of things right away. I still kind of got my feet wet with the sales side of it first. And I've always done like films a little bit, just like YouTube kind of lower production stuff, just for fun. And realistically, all of it still is just for fun. I don't make a dime.

on any of the videos. So it's literally just a way to go do hunts that I couldn't naturally afford. Yeah, which is powerful. mean, it is. Yeah, it's worth a lot to me. So when I say I don't make a dime, I don't make like a taxable dollar, but I have to spend 25,000 of my own money to go on a grizzly bear this year. Right. It's probably more valuable to you that way because it's

I don't think people understand how hard it is to make like a living wage from YouTube. It's gotten harder to if you got into it really early and I don't fully understand this whole YouTube spectrum and I think it's always changing. But if you got in, if you were monetized early, I think it's easier. But now you have to have a significantly better performing channel and nail all the analytics to actually make

Brian Krebs (07:12.386)

money at it. So there's obviously, I got some friends that make some stupid money with it, but you're kind of always riding that razor's edge of when are they going to change this? When are they going to tie back? And it's incredibly hard in our genre hunting specifically for a lot of reasons. Number one, you can't create hunting like active a role hunting content for 12 months out of the year in most places. Like we typically have a three to four month season. Right. So you got to make sure you get all your work done and things go well.

Also, YouTube doesn't like hunting. No. So you're going against the tide the whole time. Of all the social platforms, though, YouTube is probably one of the most like. Accepting firearms and things getting gutted and stuff like that. Instagram's gotten really bad. Instagram's bad. Tick tock is like Tick Tock's probably got the highest payment rates out of any platform, but strictest rules and what you can post.

So the on the fair chase side of things, I don't have to talk, but James and Jared and Tom run all the social. Yeah. just send stuff to them to post. But they've said that before, too, that like when something blows up on TikTok, it's it's big for engagement growth. I don't I don't have it because I think I'm too old for it. But it's it's tricky. Yeah. And I think a lot of people see like Mr. Beast, the hunting public meat eater, the big channels.

I Mr. Beast is in a whole other genre of YouTube. Like he is the number one YouTuber. And to hear him be like, no, I'm actually pretty broke. Like it takes all the money we make off a video to make the next video. And so even he's like, know, broke for him is relative. People are like, he's got to be a billionaire. And he's like, no, I'm not even close, dude. take a couple commas off and then you got it. And I just, for hunting, it's just so hard.

Fishing, think, is a lot easier because you can go fishing 12 months out of the year, produce content, and have your channel active. It's just hard to do that with hunting. And so a lot of people I talk to, they're like, I want to be a YouTuber. And I'm like, I've talked to a lot of cool people. Some people are doing great on YouTube. But some of the people I talk to that have the most interesting life, they're not monetizing content to pay their bills. just, like you, they've picked a career path that allows them to do a lot of the stuff they want to do for their job. Right.

Brian Krebs (09:36.684)

And that's like key, think. It fit me really well. And it comes with trade-offs. Like I'm about to go into show season. Yeah. I'm in Las Vegas, Reno, Dallas, San Antonio, Phoenix. I think I'm in six like huge cities in the course of like five weeks. And that's for me, I hate that so much. I don't like the hotels. I don't like

flying and wearing nice clothes and crap like that. So that's my trade off is okay, I'm going to sacrifice basically January, February, first part of March is just gone. But then spring bear season, I get left alone for like two and a half weeks. And then come again, August, I can go hunt in Alaska and then I can go chase bugling bulls in September, and then get my white tail fix in wherever and

be relatively unbothered that time of year as long as I kind of keep up on emails and check all the boxes that I need to do. But that that sacrifice definitely gets paid early on. I know some people love those shows. I just hate them. Do you find that you're in it? You're you go to the shows, you probably have a ton of friends, acquaintances and contacts from the whole spectrum of the outdoor industry, from guys that sit in offices and they don't even hunt. They just work for an outdoor brand to like.

Guys on the other end of the spectrum are like, no, I am not going to the show. I'm a guide. I'm an outfitter. I don't care. Like my business is full. My book is full for the next three years. I don't need to promote anyway. I'm not going. Do you find that the people that like the shows are typically like pretty rare to find someone that really likes and thrives that environment and also is like authentic and a genuine like badass hunter at the same time?

Yeah, I'd say that it's right there. There's definitely some out there. Like I know some guys that just they're social butterflies, man. They love to hang out. They love to chat. And there's times where I kind of wish I was that because if if you're both of those things, you're kind of a unicorn and you're probably going to be very successful. And I used to love going to those shows more. But now that I have to it and I have to go all of them, it gets just really overwhelming for me. But yeah.

Brian Krebs (12:00.652)

You're right. The guys that are usually like really, really love those shows aren't the same personality type that love to be in the wilderness for 90 days at a time. Yeah, I can I can attest to that. I don't think I'm that guy. Like, I don't think I'm Aaron Snyder. I don't think I am a solo 14 day back country elk hunter. I've done a couple and I'm like, I don't know if this is fun to me. Like it.

It's not in my wheelhouse. I live in Minnesota, so not far from you. But constant people, you know, in my life. Hunting to me has always been with people. Like I don't live in Montana where every weekend I'm out by myself like practicing those skills. And so I did an alpine, solo alpine once. It was a 10 day. I shot a bull on the seventh or eighth day. Bad storms. I had to pull camp. was sleeping on my truck the rest of the week. And I was just like,

This is cool and I shot a great elk. He's actually in the next room. But I don't know if I want to do this solo. Yeah, that's and I've done a lot of them too. And there there are times where I've had similar feelings like, man, this is awesome. The bulls are just ripping right now. And I do and I really enjoy hunting by myself. Yeah. But I also really enjoy sharing that experience with right friend.

family and people that you love and stuff like that. And usually that crossover is right around like day five, six. Exactly. Yeah, it really is. So I feel like I'd maybe thrive. Obviously, I'm a podcaster. I talk to people for a job. So I feel like I'd be more on the spectrum of social butterfly rather than like true wilderness man. But I do kind of see that those typically aren't overlapping skill sets or interests.

Like if you want to be in the backcountry 90 days, it's probably because you don't really enjoy most people. Yeah. You know what mean? Like the stereotypical Alaska Bush man, like he's up there for a reason. Like he doesn't want to live in a city. He doesn't want to be surrounded by people all the time. He wants to be out in nature doing cool things like that. Salespeople, or maybe not just salespeople, but people that thrive in that environment, they like to be around people. There's not a lot of people in the backcountry.

Brian Krebs (14:24.288)

In most places, I think some places are getting overrun now as a problem, but you know what mean? Yeah, I think you're generally spot on with that. Our industry is kind of cool because it does grab people that want that freedom in the fall and drags them. I don't know if maybe maybe cool and drags and isn't the right way to put it, but it does bring people from the wilderness into the social spotlight for a minute. Yeah, kind of.

do their work and then they can go back out there. Yeah, I think it's cool. I like seeing the guys that go to the shows, but they do it on their own terms. One of the one that jumps to me is Ben Denimati from Shed Crazy, where he'll go to like the Western Hun Expo, but he's like got a fanny pack on full of snacks because he's just like this show is going to suck and I want snacks. Right. And like, that's pretty cool. Like you're authentic. Like you're not putting on a button up in a a sport coat.

to go to the show, you know what I mean? And you didn't just buy a new pair of boots, cowboy boots or Kenitrex to go to the show either. Cause there's definitely those people. Yeah, I haven't been to like Western Hunter or anything like that in a while. think we're going this year, but I know there was like, I maybe it was one of those guys made like a bingo card of like the different things that you see at the show. And it's like brand new crispies with bedazzled jeans or something like that.

Yeah, I mean I get it I would probably want to wear my kind of tracks to the show because they're the most comfortable feet where I have For being on my feet that long Because I work cowboy boots and kind of tracks and standing on cowboy boots for 12 hours a day isn't very comfortable Yeah, so I get it but brand new ones with the rhinestone cowboy jeans That would be hilarious. I think I've seen that too or just like I think he also posted a picture and like it was just of like everyone's feet walking by and it was solid crispies and kind of tracks

Yup, sounds about right. And it's like how you know you're a Western hunter and it's just boom, blue jeans and crispies. So that's pretty cool. But no, so getting more back to the hunting side than the industry side, you have done obviously a lot of stuff. I don't know why my camera's all messed up. Focus on me.

Brian Krebs (16:39.052)

probably moved my hand too fast. How do you like kind of rank the the everyday hunts or not the everyday hunts it could be Michigan whitetail to like the the hunts like the mountain goat you did. I think you also did a doll hunt. I mean these are like most people pretty much everyone will call these once-in-a-lifetime hunts. There's very few people that would ever do a hunt like that twice.

Which one kind of gets you more excited? The things that like you've been doing your whole life and working on, like with family, the traditional deer camp stuff or when those adventure hunts come along, are you like, man, I can't stop thinking about this and it's 12 months away yet? Honestly, like both. And I know that's kind of a softball answer, but they're they're very different to me. The ones that.

I enjoyed the most in the moment and I wish this wasn't true is like the simple shooting whitetails up at our cabin, turkey hunting, spring bear hunts. Like the hunts that frankly don't have a camera involved. I find it so much more easy to just kind of relax. Yeah, I want to be there. And I've gotten better with what's nice about the

film tons and those big adventure ones is I've never done one still yet to this day that wasn't like, kind of my idea and with people around me that like really support me and care about me. So they kind of just let me do whatever. So I don't have a ton of pressure in that regard. I did initially like when I when I first did that sheep hunt, I was working

with a different mapping company at the time, Huntwise. And they sold and kind of have this basically budget of hunts that they had to use up before the end of the year. And like, hey, we really appreciate what you've done for us throughout these years. What's one hunt you'd want to do? Like that you've always wanted to do. So I just kind of like jokingly said, doll sheep for sure. And we made it happen. So I just felt like so undeserving of it the whole time. And then when I finally killed one, I'm like,

Brian Krebs (19:00.27)

That was the first thing I think I said on camera. I don't know what to say. I just don't feel deserving of this thing. So I had like this weird sense of guilt about it almost, which is so hard to describe, I guess. But those big adventure hunts, they're awesome. You dream about them 11 months out of the year until you finally go and then you have this like short window of like panic. Like, am I ready? I going to do everything to make it justified to

partners to invest in this. I got a lot of people and brands and things riding on this, I need to do well. And then when you land in the bush plan, then none of it matters. And you're just like, okay, I remember what this is. Yeah, I'm good. So that one's more of like a roller coaster of emotions and thoughts and feeling. And there's a lot of stress. And there's a lot of like, I didn't realize this going forward or going into this, but I kind of felt like if I can make a product,

out of these hunts that I can sell to people. It'll be so much less work to go and chase these animals. But looking back at it, like basically when we do these projects and we film these hunts, we double the price of every hunt just by making a production out of it. So if the hunt's 20 grand, we've got now two plane tickets to get there, one for the camera guy. Typically on these guided hunts, they charge like a fee to have a camera guy along because it's another charter flight in.

Yeah. We got to pay the camera guy and ours awesome, but he's also expensive because he is so awesome. Right. So we've basically taken something that was unobtainable money wise and doubled that price. And they're like, what are we doing here? Yeah, it is crazy that brands like you think of a hunt and it could be something like you would legitimately have to save your entire life for for most people.

Yeah, like most people would have like most people wouldn't be able to justify like $2,000 a month to save up for a hunt and do it in two years, which is I mean, that might not even be enough for certain hunts. Yeah, like it's like I'm to be able to save $200 a month and hopefully I can do it in 20 years. Right. Yeah. And then a brand will be like, hey, can you guys get this in by the end of the year quick? Because we have like extra money we have to spend. Right. And to them, you're like, what?

Brian Krebs (21:27.662)

There's all different kinds of curve balls and we work with a really awesome partner now, World Wide Trophy Adventures that provides a lot of these hunts to us to get content for that hunt. So that has alleviated some of that stress for us for sure. Okay. Most of it, frankly. But to answer your question, the ones that I get most excited about naturally would be like on

November 14 when I'm driving up to the UP with my family and we're dog tired from the last hunt or whatever work project one of us had and we're gonna get there at two o'clock in the morning and shooting time is at 7 o' six. That's when I'm absolutely tingling and floating. It's like doing, and I've gone up there for 21 years. That's like the most natural feeling happiness with hunting. Spring bear hunting is something I do.

every single year out in Montana. I freaking love spring bear hunting. Flying out to Bozeman to get into a U-Haul to drive up to Northwest Montana with my fiance last year. like, this is the most natural feeling happy in hunting that I can remember. Do you find that like, though, the hunts that you feel that way, would you categorize them as like type one fun?

It's all type one for me, honestly. I've been asked that before. I've not even in the shittiest spots with like that goat hunt. It's still type one to me. I don't like reflect a year or two later on and be like, that was actually really cool. In that moment. That's one thing I'm very thankful for now is I'm able to appreciate that very quickly. Like when we were dehydrated on that one, I'm like, this sucks right now, but it

like in a day, this is going to be awesome. So I still call that type one. It doesn't take much reflection to realize how cool it is. Yeah, that for me, it's always short. It's but it like I've been on mountains before. Back in Elko, it's crawling into some nasty stuff, some death marches where I'm like, man, this sucks right now. This sucks. But like that night in camp, it's like, man, we just did something cool or, you know, the next day driving home.

Brian Krebs (23:48.584)

For me, it's always immediate as well, but I do recognize the difference between an uphill endless death march with an elk on your back versus like antelope hunting. Yeah, like there's nothing that ever sucks about antelope hunting. It's always type one. Even when you shoot one, it's not hard. The barbed wire in the cactus is what's type two about that crap or rattlesnakes, I suppose. But we didn't see any rattlesnakes.

I didn't get any cactus. actually, like, I've been telling my, I went with my wife, her first Western hunt this year, and I was telling her like, gotta check, you gotta check before you sit down in Wyoming. Like you have to look down. There's cactuses out there. She's like, I know, I know, it's not my first time in the mountains. And it wasn't, she's backpacked before, before she even met me. And so I'm like sitting down, we find like the first batch of antelope, first day, like we were setting up camp, we're late. I'm like, there's some antelope. I sit down, forget to check, sat right in the cactus, myself.

It was a small one. It wasn't a big one. And then for the rest of the week, we're fine. but yeah, the cactus do they do suck a little bit for sure. But other than that, like there's nothing really like physically draining or like mentally draining, which usually happens after you're physically drained. Right. Yeah, I've actually never had an antelope tag myself ever.

If you did it, think, well, so many things are relative. And that's what I was going to try to ask you about. Like, I think a lot of people would maybe view spring bear hunting as a pretty physical challenge. You typically have to go pretty high up. There's usually they're in steep country. Like it's not the same as white tail hunting in Minnesota. It's very diverse. I've done some antelope hunts. Like my fiance had a tag two years ago and we shot one there. So it's kind of one of those hunts.

similar to that where it is what you make out of it. I've killed some spring bears that were grueling nasty packouts through some really like big canyon country with rivers in the bottom. And last spring I shot one on a cow pasture. That's crazy. Yeah, coming down out of the mountains into this cow pasture and eating a dead cow. So like, and I've been on hunts, James and I did one in Northwest Montana that we were

Brian Krebs (26:09.774)

yeah

park there for the night and then there's other guys that are going to do a eight mile loop around the rim and really get after it and they get back at two in the morning and then they're gone at first light and the other guys are making breakfast in the morning. you can kind of make it whatever you want it to be. you want to go balls out and really get after it, you can. Or if you want to make it like kind of a more chill hunt, do a little bit of fishing mixed in, pick up some mushrooms, whatever, and hunt bear the last two hours of the evening.

Most of the time those guys are successful too, honestly. Yeah, they just, yeah, they didn't put in six miles before they shot the bear. killed themselves to do it. That's funny. Yeah, that's the one thing I think is like every hunt you do, like everything is relative. I mean, if you have done some pretty wicked stuff, like it's going to increase your threshold for what is difficult. And I don't know, I still believe in you'd be a great, maybe a testament or someone to either say I'm dead wrong or on par. But I think anything

that starts with goat or sheep hunt is probably the hardest you can do. Besides maybe the Alaska pack out moose, like once you shoot the Alaska moose, that pack out is probably also brutal. But for the entire week, I don't think there's any shooting a mountain goat in the cattle pasture. No, no, that doesn't happen. But honestly, there are some kind of nuance stuff with the goat and the sheep world too. Like if you go into the NWT, there's some of those areas where

guys get dropped off with a helicopter and they're terrible far from the sheep or the goats. mean, Kodiak is a little bit different because you're not far from goat country. You just have one nasty dig to get to them off the shore. And honestly, we did a goat hunt in Colorado right after I did mine. Lexi drew a tag out there and it was tough. It was terrible. Frankly, there was zero goats in our unit.

Brian Krebs (28:38.754)

but the neighboring unit right across the ridge, we saw goats in a very accessible spot. So it is still kind of nuance-y with a couple of those things, but by and large, yeah, if you're up for a goat hunt, you're up for a sheep hunt, it's physically hard, it's mentally hard too. Did you find that after some of those hunts, like elk hunting took on like a different feel? All of a sudden you're like, man, this is like...

easier, it's more fun. Like I'm able to maybe dig in and be present more versus kind of like we all have a way to like when things suck, you kind of just like push out. You just push out of your mind. You kind of just go down into this hole. Right. And you're just kind of focused on like left foot, right foot, left foot, right foot. And you look up and you're at camp and it's over versus like I feel like if it's easy, you don't have to do that. And you can be like more in the moment through the process. Do you kind of feel you know what I'm talking about? Like does it

Do other hunts take on a different feel after you've really pushed yourself on a hunt, something else, and you're like, okay, now I have a new limit? Yeah, it's a new limit and the perspective of it changes too, because it's like, and I think that I've gained that limit and that perspective more honestly from elk than what I have sheep and goat. Just because it's so different. When you knock down a bull,

for the first time and you're by yourself and you're four or five miles in there, like there's a kind of feeling of, crap, what have I done? There's an shit moment for sure. Like it's gonna be hot tomorrow. I got to race this out of here tonight. Yeah. Like I've had more of those like kind of empowering, yeah, you physically can do this. You just have to buck up and fricking do it. Moments with elk than I have with sheep and goat. The sheep and goat growth, I guess that I've had.

has been largely mental. Like, yeah, you can do this and you're not gonna, you're not gonna die. You're not gonna fall to your death. Like you're gonna figure it out. You can go longer without water than what you think. Yeah. But it's it's more of those limitations. But as far as like depth of how far you're gonna go and impact something out, most of those hard lessons are learned with elk. Yeah, I think it's I agree with you completely. Because I think elk kind of lend themselves to like allowing people to go as far as they want. Whereas like,

Brian Krebs (30:59.244)

I've never done sheep or goat, so I don't want to sound like I know everything for sure, but I feel like it's one of those hunts where it's like you. Is it true that you pretty much glass from the bottom like you don't go climb into one until you know where he is and he's in a spot? And then if you have to like get up and over and register glass of different drainage. Sure, you do that, but it's like you can kind of just keep walking. Yeah, there there is some angle of that with with sheep and goat and it's largely.

rain base like where we go hunting we glass from the top because the bottom you can't see anything so we're on the top of this rim looking down into this river gorge where all the goats are on both sides of this gorge so you're literally just walking along this top the whole time gradually getting higher seeing them on either side of this river in the bottom when i did sheep it was a little bit different because there wasn't like a continuous ridge to stay on yeah

I like to, and this is true of almost all Western hunting, I like to keep my elevation if I can. for sure. That's obviously your vantage, right? So if you can follow a spine through something and cover country on both sides, you're doing yourself some big favors rather than doing this up and over. Yeah. But we were able to kind of keep our elevation with goats and kind of gradually bring that up. We didn't have that luxury with sheep. It was up and down.

So that one would be tough. But yeah, think Elk is nice because you can like, anyone can go and you make of it what you do kind of like the spring bear. if like you could all of a I always joke about like make bad decisions, but we have two guys in our group that every year, like day one, they would go on an absolute grueling adventure on accident. Like it wasn't the plan. They just started walking. They're like, that looks cool. Let's go over and check that.

and then they get there like all we should go check the next one and also it's like five minutes from dark and i'm using my spotter to glass elk and i see them like eight miles away on the skyline walking the wrong direction still and then they get back in their shot for day two they did like twenty miles in the rain on day one and so i i always kind of like it but you made that decision you didn't have to do that you can see a single out there you just curious what the skyline look like as relatable

Brian Krebs (33:23.572)

And that's elk hunting like you can do that elk hunting lets you do that so it kind of lets you find your physical limits sometimes Yeah, yeah, I have definitely learned to kind of slow down a little bit mentally with elk because I was one of those guys that if I heard a Bugle with 20 minutes left to go I was like talking myself and all I can make it I can get there I can move that bull. Yeah, something I would lose my elevation

get way far away from camp cross the drainage come up on the other side and it was dark before even got to the bottom but we'll get to where he might have been but tunnel vision is something that was that was my my biggest Achilles heel for hunting for a long time was just and and not even just in hunting in the moment but like balancing work life yeah father relationship things I used to get I just found out I'm going on a grizzly hunt

and 25. And two or three years ago, that would have like shrunk my world to just this grizzly hunt and like, forget to do things around home, forget to like, be intentional with relationships and like focus on my world. Yeah. Just thinking about this stupid bear. And I've kind of learned to back out and curb that perspective a little bit more. And I've had to do that in the moment with hunting too, because I would

Like I said here at 2 p.m. Mughal and just run my brains out after him before I even like, huh, let's look at this situation. He's in a terrible spot. He's with a pile of cows. He's still moving. Why am I going to go chase? Or like he's actually only two miles from that other road and I'm already eight miles from the way I came in. Like tomorrow I could just start there. Right. Yeah, I could have a 20 percent chance of killing him instead of like the half percent that I have right now. Yeah.

That's a good point on the whole like the perspective thing. Yeah, I don't think a lot of people think that through in either situation. I think a lot of people like forget that like, you know, to kind of like compartmentalize to a degree at home. And like in the moment. I feel like some people and it's not always the same way. I think some people.

Brian Krebs (35:42.382)

would maybe like focus too much in the moment on like all will get him tomorrow or that's too far away or you know what i mean like i feel like there's some of that to where it's like no you like try you know maybe it's thirty minutes maybe it's four hours like yeah it's a long way away we have four hours a day like like eventually got to go after one so it's like quick decision-making and i i think that that's one of the those guys to where they're like they spend too much time

meticulously trying to pick apart an area and learn it. And they spent all their time on a ridge with a spotter and none of the time in the dark timber trying to fire something up. Yeah. Where like, I don't want to drop into something until I know what's in there. I'm trying to figure this out before I blow it up. half of all cunning is blowing blowing it up. Yeah. You got to go get in there and ruffle some feathers with them too. And yeah, same with like work life too. Like you have to

You have to know when to take the time for you and you have to know when to make sure that your boxes are checked. Yeah, it's probably harder when work life is sometimes hunting. It's definitely until you get a rhythm for it, complicated things at times. And it's it's put me in some weird situations, too, where. I'm doing a film for a brand, but I'm also like managing their money in some perspective.

and on the sales side of things. And when you wear multiple hats, like, it's tough to be like, great at all of them for somebody. And if they're pissed off at you for one thing, but they love you for another, they're probably gonna be pissed off at you for both in the short term. So it is kind of a delicate dance that you have to figure out. And it took me a few years to do that. And has made me very careful on like,

who and what I involve in certain projects, because I just really want to make sure that it makes sense for them as a brand for growth. Like I used to just be like, you want to get involved in this and be a sponsor of it? Sweet, we'll throw you in there and get you some content. like in my head, I'm like, I don't know how we're going to like make this make sense for this company. I wouldn't naturally use this product here. Yeah. I'll try. So now I won't do that. For an example, that's maybe like really easy to understand. Would that be like

Brian Krebs (38:07.19)

You might love reveal cell cams or a cell cam brand for white to hunt in Michigan, but it makes no sense to include them on a sheep hunt film. Yeah, that would be like an extreme example. Right. Because that one, I know they wouldn't even enter. They're like, what? No, we're not spending money on that. Yeah, I wouldn't think so. And we do work with those guys. They're cool. But honestly, we've done a pretty good job with with the placement overall. It's more just like

their marketing strategy and the content that they need in that moment isn't necessarily high end films. They need to be in front of people more regularly to grow. And one look at a high end film doesn't necessarily associate a brand that they've never heard of with, I'm going to go buy this. If it's a brand that they're aware of and they're like, we're seeing it associated with this type of hunt. This is obviously really good glass or something like that.

then it's more valuable to them. So it's not so much like the arena that it's in, it's the format that it's received in. Gotcha. That makes a lot of sense. That makes a lot of sense. So you just found out that you're doing a grizzly hunt in 25. I am. So that would like, I've been trying to make grizzly work forever and find a way that we could do it and make it a cool film and afford it. Frankly, that one has been like,

my biggest bucket list for a long time. So I'm very stoked. And I'm actually going with the guys that I sheep hunted with in that same area, which that area is holds a very special spot in my heart. So to be able to hunt a grizzly there, I hope that I get one but just the ability to go chase one there has me very excited. so you're talking either Northwest Territories or Alaska.

Alaska, yeah, so it's like actually a brown bear. know everyone in the state says grizzly for Anything. No, it is a grizzly. they are grizzly. Okay Yeah, the way that it works, and I don't know the the exact

Brian Krebs (40:17.518)

longitude line, but anything north in Alaska over a certain line is considered a grizzly. And then anything south of that is considered a brown or there's also a range. I think it's like 30 or 40 miles from the coast. So bears that largely feed on salmon, peninsula bears, island bears, those are going to be your browns. And then north of that line, all the way up into the Arctic, those are all

grizzlies by boot and crocket standards, even if they eat fish. Gotcha. We'll be in kind of a unique spot west of Denali, where they do have some salmon runs, but they're largely what you'd call an interior grizzly bear. So it's going to be a smaller framed bear, but they're feeding on berries, they're feeding on dead moose, caribou, fish when they can get them. They're just kind of survivors. They're not like the coastal bears that are

getting drunk on salmon every day. I've heard that the interior bears are the wicked ones. They are. Yeah. So you doing it with a bow? We're working through that right now. That would be nuts. I know a lot of people do it, but every I think most people that bow hunt them are bow hunting coastal bears. Probably. Yeah. Yeah. The thing about the coastal bears is they're I would say they're a little bit.

more predictable and where they're going to be, especially in the fall. Right. You can set up on them. You can almost like deer stand hunt them in a way. To a point. Yeah. I mean, you watch watch the fish, right? Yeah. interior bears are a lot more. And again, I'm speaking from what I've been told and what I've read and what I've seen. But interior bears are a lot more nomadic. I have seen interior bears. I don't have a lot of experience with the coastal ones, but.

you can see them on one ridge and then 10 minutes later they're three quarters of a mile on the other side just looking for berries like they're they're very nomadic and tough to kind of pin down. So I definitely will have a rifle with me and I have no qualms whatsoever about shooting it with a rifle. like the only reason that I would shoot it with a bow to be honest with you is if like day five comes along and we see a like medium sized grizzly in a

Brian Krebs (42:40.462)

pretty good spot where I think I can kill him with a bow. like, really don't want to shoot one of this size on this day, but if I could do it with a bow, that'd be awesome. Yeah. Can you add, so since you're in Alaska, you could get like a locking tag for something else. Right. So we're also going to have at least a black bear tag with this as well. but primarily focusing on, on grizzlies, but if we see a stopper black bear for sure going to go after it.

that time of year, I could also get a caribou locking tag. It's not a great caribou area. that herd is extremely nomadic. Yeah. Extremely unpredictable. And it's a smaller herd. but there are some good bulls in that area. It's not moose season yet. it would be Wolverine season. I would definitely have a wolf tag. I always buy a wolf tag if it's available, no matter where I go.

I'm still number one. That's pretty much it. The one cool caveat to that area is that they have, they actually have bison in that unit that were brought there like 1920s, 40s, something like that. And you can actually draw a bison tag for that time of year as well in August. So that could be cool. That's the draw tag and it's like a 4 % chance that you'd get it. But I might put in for that too.

I was thinking more so like if caribou was a easily attainable, like side mission, get a caribou tag, meet for camp. If you shoot a bull, great, got a bull, but then like you have carcass. Right. And then you're going to have bears. Yeah. I'm probably going to chat with the guy around that July timeframe and be like, what do think about caribou? Should we get a tag? The cool thing about it, actually what I'll probably do, I did this in the sheep hunt.

I bought a caribou tag, never saw a caribou, but you can actually tag a black bear. for sure. That's so though we talk about it a lot on the podcast, actually, because we go over every every Western state application for like the deadline, what you need to know. And Alaska is obviously like I think there's more misinformation about hunting in Alaska than any other state. Like I'll talk to one person and they'll be like, no, you need a guide for everything. And I'm like, no, that's not true. And they're like, yeah, it is. I'm like, I.

Brian Krebs (45:07.438)

I promise you it's not true. just did like a three hour research project on Alaska. There's like three species you need a guide for across the state. The rest of them, there's got all kinds of options, maybe not every unit, but like you can hunt moose DIY in Alaska. A million people have done it. And they're like, no, I don't think that's right, man. And I'm like, I'm sorry, I don't know. I guess I can't help you. It's just goats, sheep, and then your big bear species. The browns, right? Yeah, browns are grisly. Yeah.

Yeah, everything else you can pretty much go tackle. But it's not all the sheep, right? It's just the stone. Just all they have is tall. So in Alaska, yeah, they don't have any big horns. No, no big horns. There there was the very, very eastern part of Alaska, some crossover with the stones there. And that creates that fan and sheep. But primarily, I think most of the fan is around the the B.C. side.

Gotcha. But Alaska just constitutes as sheep. So all sheep have to be with an outfitter. Yeah. But I think the best ones, spring black bear, caribou, and moose, like the easiest ones to go on as a DIY, have lots of opportunity to do DIY. Blacktail too. yeah. I always forget about blacktail because to me it just seems like a whitetail I wouldn't normally shoot on my home farm.

Yeah, I know it's not fair to think of it that way, but to me it's just like well that just looks like a whitetail that I wouldn't shoot for three more years. Right, it looks like the whitetail that I do shoot here. Well you, Michigan's got to rep, especially the upper P, like you can't be too picky. Yeah, but the cool thing about them, and I would like to do that hunt soon, that's one of those ones that I'd like to do kind of like an antelope hunt with a big group and do like the boat fishing, duck hunting, shooting the fox on the beach.

It's the all encompassing part of that hunt that makes the black tail appealing to me because you're doing it with buddies. Yeah. Doing it on the boat in Kodiak. You're catching halibut and rockfish and pulling crab pots and shooting sea ducks and all kinds of cool stuff while you're shooting your 85 inch eight point. Yeah. Have you talked to people that have done it? I'm sure you have. Yeah, I've got a close buddy who's actually my taxidermist too.

Brian Krebs (47:33.442)

that does it every year. It's like the coolest thing. I've done that boat based hunt for black bear in the spring, which is like the same hunt in a sense, but just going after deer instead of bear. Yeah. And it was so cool. Like the sea life that you see catching the fish. Like I honestly had more fun standing on the back of the boat and catching little halibut, like little chicken halibut and eating them.

than I did chasing the bears and I love bear hunting. Yeah, it was just new to experience and it's like relatively cheap. I think all in it was like thirty five hundred bucks for a week. That's not bad for any hunt or like guided fishing trip. mean, like if you go to Mexico on a guided fishing trip, you're to like eight hundred dollars a day. Yeah, for sure. So no, I have a but I was just going to say I have a buddy that did pretty much all of those things. But your tax term, it sounds like he's done it more. I'm right there with you. I.

would love to go on Alaska like multi species, mostly fishing. Like I just think putting a pot in the ocean and then coming back six hours later and having a bunch of shrimp, like fresh shrimp just sounds amazing to me. My wife doesn't get it. She doesn't like seafood. She likes like freshwater fish, but she doesn't really like seafood like crab or lobster. And I'm like, I don't get it. But it would be so cool to set a bunch of crab pots and shrimp pots and then go fishing, catch some halibut, whatever. Like I don't care. I don't really know.

a lot about Alaskan fish. know about halibut and rockfish are the orange ones. They can be. So they have, think there's 11 species of rockfish there. So there's the yellow eye, which is that big orange one. Then there's the China rock bass. There's all like the dusky, guy with the big spikes in the top. And there's, it's crazy. Like how many different things that you can catch just by, and it's funny because like you have this big, big ass reel and rod. There's nothing about it. And a one pound.

jigging spoon that you put a herring head on the bottom of it and you just drop that thing down till it hits the bottom. You feel the bottom and you just start doing this and all of a sudden, boom, there's weight on there. Like it's so not technical coming from a like fly fishing center pin fisherman background. It's just fun. Yeah. There's like a youthful fun about it. Like I'm just gonna go stay on the back of this boat and drink a beer and see what bites look. Kind of like our version of bobber fishing. Even simpler.

Brian Krebs (49:59.116)

Yeah, just throw it out. Yeah, I want to do it so bad. I don't know. I've never shot a bear and I've never even gone bear hunting. There's no reason I'm opposed to it. Like I'm not anti bear hunting. I'm not like, nah, that's not my thing. It's just literally middle of the road for me. Yep. And that's where it was for me too. The reason that I went on a bear hunt was I drew a Montana general tag. This is eight years ago.

Maybe more. And I was like, somewhat nervous about like, okay, this is a $1,200 big game combo. I want to really make sure I capitalize on this. So I'm going to go out in the spring and like kind of scout some areas while I'm bear hunting to try to make this elk tag really worth it. And then I had so much fun chasing bears. Yeah. And then I got like hopelessly addicted to black bear. Do you ever hunt them in Michigan?

I drew a tag a long time ago and I've got seven points right now. I should have drawn it the last two years, but didn't. And somehow my son draws it almost every year. yeah, which is such crap, but he shot a big one this year. He shot like 300 pound really old sow. Just lost his mind with it. We've got a cabin on the Western side of the UP and on a bunch of the property around there, but.

We got a ton of bears. It's a different experience hunting them over bait than it is like glassing one up on a green hillside and making a move on them. Yeah. I love both. have any problem with baiting a bear. It's just a very different experience. Like it's kind of like one of those ones that you can do a bunch of different ways. can chase them with dogs. can call them. You can spot and stalk them. You can bait them. They're just they're cool. And I love to eat them. I've never really eaten a either. I think I might have had like

one bear sausage one time. But you know what would get me on board real fast? If you were like, Brian, I've got a spring bear spot in Montana and the way it works, I don't understand it, but where these bears are in this spot is the exact place where all the elk drop their antlers. I'd be like, sold, I'm in. I would literally forget to bring my rifle out of the truck. I'd just follow you around and look for sheds. So I don't have that spot.

Brian Krebs (52:26.476)

well it doesn't happen because in the spring they're usually up high and that's not where the elk drop their antlers i have found in i don't know how many hundreds of days of hunting out west i think like four elk sheds yeah they just usually i've same i've gone out west every year sometimes twice sometime sometimes three times and i've found two or three elk sheds total in that hunt is it just

They're generally not where you're hunting in the fall. They migrate to winter. And so it's not going to happen. In general, though, like I've gone looking for them. I've gone like the Sun Ranch when they've opened up, like on May 15, the Sun Ranch lets people go out and look for the sheds and hundreds get found in the first 10 minutes because there's people on horses and side by sides and whatever. Never found one. I just suck at it. Like I'm looking at the sheds you have behind you on the wall there. Yeah, that is.

So what you have hanging in that top row is what I've had your life. Yeah. And that's only half the row. Four of them are actually here. We did a podcast last night. And so like these two sheds, I have a buddy from South Dakota that has the match to both of these sides. That's cool. He lives in Iowa. The sheds came out of South Dakota and he's got the match to both of these. And these are some tank whitetails. I mean, I'm sure you know from Michigan, but this has like a six and a half inch base.

Yeah, that's solid. Though I have an elk shed. literally have an elk shed on the ground over there that's got a smaller pedicle than this white tail. It's crazy. But yeah, I agree with you. Like, just don't... It's hard to find elk sheds. We went to New Mexico with a guy that finds them. Like, some people find hundreds. And this Steven, I actually have a podcast with Steven Demaro. He has record with him and his son and like their friend group is 750 in a year. That's wild. Yeah.

I've just never been like, think sheds for me is kind of like what black bears are for you, where you're just kind of middle of the road lukewarm on it. Like if you see one, you'll pick it up, but you'll never like change your plans to go find, to go look for one. Yeah. And I've gone and looked for them too. just mainly like when I need some, need to get out of the house and move a little bit or something. But yeah, I, I'll, if I find a chalky one, I still pick it up and carry it around. Cause I think it's cool.

Brian Krebs (54:54.944)

I think honestly I have found more moose sheds than I have anything else. Well that's wild because those are actually the hardest ones to find. We found 13 in one day. That's insane. There's people that will like pay you for that spot. I know people that like that they were most of them were torn apart by mice and grizzlies but we did find a couple of really good ones. this was in Alaska.

That one was in Alaska the day that we found that many. That was when we were sheep hunting. But even when we were goat hunting, we found four, I think. Do you ever find any giants? No, the one that we had was probably like a 40 inch bull. I think like that. Imagine finding like whatever the I don't know moose big enough. I feel like people talk about 80 inch bulls, but that doesn't really happen. Yeah.

Maybe I've never seen. But imagine just finding like a 60 or 70 inch set. That'd be cool. Yeah, I mean, that would be like 60 pounds, I imagine. I guess what what condition you find it in, because like, yeah, fresh, obviously, Browns would be the coolest part. like you know, instantly I would be like, forget about the sheep hunt. How do we get these sheds home? because I'm not carrying them on my back for the rest of the week. It would never. And Lex was pissed at me because I like.

the ones that I found I just left there at the camp because they have like a moose shed pile. She's like, why the hell didn't you take those home? Like that would have been awesome. Like, you know. Well, if they're chockers, it's kind of like I'm not going to jump through all these hoops to save a couple torn up chocks. But if I found a fresh set of brown 70 inch paddles, I'd be like, all right, we're dropping a pin here. We're coming back through here on the way out or like have the helicopter meet us here when we fly out. And I'm figuring out how to bring these home. I don't care if I have to ship them UPS ground. They're coming home with me.

Yeah, I'll start keeping them, I guess, going forward. But they've just never they mean a lot more to me when they're still on the head, I guess. Yeah, that's a goofy thing to me. It's very dependent on the antler. Like, yeah, some guys that are like more excited to find them not attached. So I've got a couple bucks here. like, for example, this is a buck I shot 2016.

Brian Krebs (57:20.302)

I just wouldn't probably shoot this buck again. If he walked by me, I, you know, maybe with a bow, cause I don't shoot that many deer with a bow, but we're talking about maybe a hundred and 105 inch eight pointer on our, and we have like, I'm very blessed, like hundreds of acres of private land. I own a 40 myself, my parents own them. So like this buck, I wouldn't shoot him, but I'd be tickled absolutely pink to pick up these sheds. Right. You know what I mean? And so it's just depends on the antler. Now,

You get a buck like this where you have like a 150 class four pointer with the drop time. I would love to have these two still attached on my wall. Sure. Yeah, I guess that makes sense. And if you're in a situation where finding those sheds means like you have a positive deer to go after for the following year, then of course, yeah, you'd rather find it. Even if I can't even hunt the deer, like I still get excited picking up a yearling shed. Like I just.

but i would never shoot that year even on public or even in a different state it's goofy i i lead with saying it's weird i draw some pretty crooked lines to the sand on that topic i just haven't been bitten by that bug yet and it's probably best for me i've been bitten by enough of them that i don't need anymore well you'd have to make up some pretty hard sacrifices because it's going to interfere with your spring bear season the hardest of notes it would also interfere with show season

And then you might be like, hey, I can't come to the eighth show of the season because it's March and that's kind of shed hunting season for me. So then you might be like, hard. Yes. Yeah. But March is still ahead time here. And you do have too many. I've always came up with the rule. I'm curious what your thoughts on it. I was kind of not nearly to the scale and the magnitude of some of the adventures we've talked about today. But I was getting to a point where I had like multiple, multiple things I was trying to do in a season. And so I'd be like,

I'm trying to do food plots. I'm trying to turkey hunt and I'm up all night bowfishing in the same weekend and I have to drive two hours to do all three of those. So it's like get off work, drive two hours, bowfish all night, sleep for a couple hours, go turkey hunting and then food plot all day and then go bowfishing. And I'm like, this just doesn't work. Like I got to limit it to two. And shed hunting, like you mixed shed hunting in with turkey hunting. I don't turkey hunt, I shed hunt now.

Brian Krebs (59:38.158)

But I was like, I got to give some stuff up. And so I gave up turkey hunting. I gave up bow fishing because there was just like four things going on at the same time and it just doesn't work. What would you ever run into that? And like, how do you handle it? Yeah, I'm trying to run into that. So I did. I used to be huge into waterfowl. I mean, I guided for eight, 10 years and was just like into the competition calling and I completely.

all but completely cut that off. I sold my decoy trailer, I sold my duck boat. Now my son was like wanting to get into it more, but the only like waterfall thing that I still have is my dog. So I did cut that portion of it out, largely just because of the commitment that September takes out West. Yeah. And then picking between ducks and whitetail, like we still duck on a little bit, but to answer your question is that yeah, I overbook.

myself religiously. if I'm not overbooked, feels unnatural. And that has caused like, just an unhealthy balance. When when I'm by myself, or if I was single, I would still do that, admittedly. But to like, raise a family with that, and have a partner and like, do house projects on top of that, like, there's just no time. And if there if you do make that time, you're not sleeping, and like, not able to enjoy

those good things as much as if you just backed off a little bit on the gas pedal. Yeah, so there's a lot like projects around the house. Like we have a farm and now there's a million projects. It was easy when we rented a house. I didn't have any projects. I just had to keep the grass mode. Yeah, now we own a farm. And so now it's endless projects. So I have to put chains on the tractor so we can snow blow and, you know, do all kinds of stuff. So I feel that. And then I imagine we don't have kids yet, but I imagine like

sports throw a can throw a big wrench in the calendar. Yeah, as well. Baseball. And of course, for whatever reason, he doesn't want to play it in the spring or summer. He only wants to play fall ball, which I'm like, come on, But I'm very blessed in that regard, where both Lexi and Chase are huge outdoorsmen. Yeah. So I don't have to I don't have to talk to them. And that's one thing that she's actually criticizing, you know, is like,

Brian Krebs (01:02:03.746)

I'm not gonna tell you no to going on a hunting trip, even when I know we don't have time for it. So I need you to like, no not to offer it to me when we need to back off in the gas pedal and get stuff done around here because neither one of us have the capability to say no. Yeah. So that's, that's funny. I know what you mean. Cause I did the same thing to my wife once about buying a new bow. She's not very good at, well, she's very good at not spending.

She works really hard, has a great job. I feel like she's not very good at like benefiting and like go out and get something you like. Like, you know, that's why you work so hard this long. And so she was shooting like a 25 year old bear. Not like a beast to shoot, literally a Fred bear bow, but not fun to shoot either. She shoots that after like years of not doing archery because she went to med school. And so she shoots one day, I'm like, hey,

We've been talking about it. I know you don't want to buy a bow right now, but let's just go to the shop and like you can shoot a couple models, see what you like. Knowing full well what's about to happen. Yeah, she's shooting two two by fours with a ratchet strap between them. And then she goes and she's like a brand new flagship point. And she's like, I really like that. But I'm like, do you want to buy it? And she's like, yeah, I kind of do. I'm like, all right, let's buy it. I knew a hundred percent we're coming home with a bow before I even left. What was that? Sorry, I cut you off.

As it sometimes you have to enable them a little bit. Yeah, for 100%. Now she's got a great bow. She's shooting like a 60, 62 pound men's Hoyt. Right. It Yeah, they come a long way. Drilling stuff. Well, she's super strong. Yeah, she's got she's getting pass throughs. Most of the things she shoots with it as a 25 inch draw as a female, she's still getting pass throughs. What part of Minnesota are you guys in? We live.

Are you familiar with you're probably familiar with Duluth, right? Because you just live right at your cabins, like right across from the like the dots. It's up by Escanaba. I know where Duluth is, though. Yeah, everyone does. It's not that was probably a bad question. So we're down 35, probably like an hour and a half from Duluth. I mean, it's closer to the metro, the Twin Cities. We're in Forest Lake. We have a 40 acre farmstead right out of Forest Lake. Gotcha. Yeah. So there's like no good way to get from where we are to where you are, because there's like three great lakes in the way.

Brian Krebs (01:04:26.67)

So it's either like I've done the for work I've had to go to like Zealand for some reason a lot of companies we work with are in Zealand. Is that where you live? Yeah Really? I grew up in Zealand. I'm just south of it in Hamilton now, but that's wild for a while like every company I was every like I work for a company and then every company we work with to like make parts for us It's I don't understand why they're all in Zealand because I've never even heard of it. So like

If you're making parts, it's probably like metal flow or like who are you working with? Metals, plastics, lights, all kinds of stuff. That's the like Plascore and those types of companies. Yeah, that one doesn't ring a bell. But yeah, I was just like. It was like three in a row back to back to back, and I'm like, how are you guys all in Zealand out of all the places in America? Like, this is some to me, don't get offended. I'm like, this is some no name town that no one's ever been to. And now I have to go there three times in a row.

Right. I don't know what started that either, but yeah, there is a lot of manufacturing. Yeah. Yeah. So it is strange. It's like cornfield, cornfield, cornfield, multi-billion dollar manufacturing facility, cornfield, cornfield, cornfield. Yeah. So one time I drove over the lake to get there on the way and then under the lake on the way home and over the lake was like four hours longer, but I would do it again and I got stuck in Chicago traffic on a Friday coming home. was disastrous.

If you ever have to do it again, can pay, I think it's 250 bucks and park your truck on the ferry and just drive the ferry across the lake. Somebody mentioned that and they said you should do that. And I looked into it and I was like, I don't know if I can justify it it would have been more money. Yeah, it is more money, but it is kind of cool to do once if you're doing that trip all the time. I should do it once. I haven't done it in a while. Dang it. I wish we would have this podcast three years ago. I would have been like, hey, I'm in Zealand today. Want to get dinner?

Right? That's crazy. Yeah. Yeah. I've never done a podcast with someone. But like, I used to go to Zealand all the time. Like if you blink through downtown, you've gone through it. Yeah. Right. And I would have thought like, because Grand Rapids is like the major town nearby. Right. Grand Rapids or Holland. Yeah. Yeah. I did a podcast with someone that made an archery site and I said the same thing. And they're like, are you shitting me? We live in Zealand. That's crazy. It is crazy because every time I talk to it about someone, they

Brian Krebs (01:06:55.842)

I it was a. So that red dot one. Yeah. Red dot archery. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know those guys, but I know they were somewhere around here. I'm pretty sure it's like Zealand adjustable red dot or something. Yeah. Adjustable red dot, which I never really. I them on the podcast. I think I was interested from the tech and just anyone that I have another show called The Two Bucks. It's like all outdoor entrepreneurship. And so I thought it was really cool to make a site. Very competitive market. I like the tech. I'm an electrical engineer. So that was interesting.

I just never really got the full concept of applying it to...

Yeah, it's been years since I've looked at it, so I don't want to like bag on it, but I still just like the idea of pins, I guess. Yeah, I like a three pin slider. That's my go to right now. I'm doing a two pin right now and it's like a 20 and a 35. I was just going to say like 20 and 35 then. Yeah. And it makes sense because like 20 to 30 on a new bow, like if you're shooting a 70 pound bow and if you're tall.

Like I'm 31 inch draw, 30 inch draw, 72 pounds. And like the last time shooting my elk arrow at 600 grains, like those suckers are zipping. Yeah, my elk arrow and my deer arrow are the same. I use the same for everything just to keep the constant and it's 550. But I'm drawing 84 with a 31. So it's still pretty flat. you're screaming. So there it's like.

You know, you probably just like, okay, go from like a heart shot to a lung shot and you can use your 20 yard pin all the way out to 30. You know what I mean? Like it wouldn't make sense to do 20. Like 2030 doesn't make sense for a lot of large frame archers anymore. The biggest reason that I did it was I had a weird like target panic with my 30 yard pin. I don't know why, but 20 I was great, 40 I was great. But if I had a pin at 30,

Brian Krebs (01:08:54.702)

I always backstrap the damn thing. So I just got rid of it and floated it. Think it was just because it was so tight in there and there's so much going on? I think it's because it was red. I always make my 40 yard pin red because it's the first one to disappear at low light. So it kind of walks your like ethical range in as it gets darker. Yeah, I should just switch them all to green and have tried that. But I just got rid of the pin and floated the two and it's been better. so if he's that like.

29 which is probably like 28 29 is like worst case like smack dab in the middle you just like you put your 20 a little high and your 35 a little low and drill them Pretty much if I have time I would just dial for it Yeah, but if I don't then yeah, would do just that it depends on where your whitetail hunting like whitetails I can be like on a scrape tree and you have all the time in the world to dial and sometimes they're like coming through on a trail and you have no time to even draw back right and there's some times where they're completely crack headed out and

If he's at 28, you better use your 20 because he's gonna duck. So yeah, we have a huge problem with that. Do you raise their head before you shoot them? I wish that I had that much control like. I wish I had like some sequence of things that I go through, but it's just like I completely black out when I shoot something to this day. And that's funny. It's all muscle memory. So I'm kind of in the same way.

Most the time I draw back and when that pins there, the bow just goes off. Yeah. But the last book I shot, I was like, well, I needed to stop them. So I had to I had to give them the old. But I want to get better at doing that for like does in a food plot, because I've had such bad luck if their head is down, they can throw that head up and throw those shoulders down and I'll shoot. I watched my wife with her old bow, which isn't saying as much because it was a little slower. Fifteen yards. I had it on film.

She shot, wasn't even a big deer, was like a dauphin. It was gonna be her first deer ever. She shot at 15 yards, it ducked her arrow by four inches and I backed the footage up and she would have drilled it. Maybe not a heart shot, but for sure, bottom third of the chest cavity. And I'm like, that is wild. You would have thought 15 yards is not enough time to duck an arrow and they still did it.

Brian Krebs (01:11:20.098)

they're wild and for whatever reason like for elk they don't move well they don't move but I can also like slow down and really go through my whole process of elk but for some reason sitting in a tree and having something come into you just turns me inside out I don't know why would you ever sit in a tree for elk then?

No. So I sat a wallow this year with Lexi because we had a red hot wallow. Yeah. And the whole time I'm like, I am bastardizing this elk hunt. This isn't how we're supposed to do this. I, the reason I love elk is because I get to go run around and make something happen and call. like, I don't compare them to turkey hunting like a lot of people do, but I do like to pursue when I elk hunt. I can't sit there.

Most of the people that I hear compare it to turkey hunting have an L.

I do get the similarities as far as like, like I like it's that's why I say like on paper it's close, but you haven't heard a bull bugle at 20 yards if you think it's the same as turkey hunting. Right. Yeah. I do get the similarities because it's like an all day. Yeah. Like once the ending back and forth, the communication of with the animal is like it's the same. And I'm like, on paper.

But it's different when you have a mountain horse with swords growing out of his head, screaming his lungs off in your face versus a bird you could buy from Genio. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's I always get a little bit like softly offended when people compare it to turkey hunting isn't like that. No, it's not. Yeah. Passively defensive. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I hear you there. No, I think of it as kind of like fusion. Like, have you ever had like

Brian Krebs (01:13:09.452)

I don't know, Asian fusion food where like they mix like two different types of food. And it's like, wow, this is delicious. Right. I view like saddle hunting elk. I've never done it, but I kind of view it as like I love saddle hunting whitetails and I love elk. I kind of want to try seeing what a giant bull looks like walking underneath me and just assassin them from the sky. So I know quite a few guys that hunt water.

in tree stands and they're like, dude, you can do jumping jacks in a tree. They do not look up for elk. Yeah, I've heard that. I think the problem is for me in Minnesota, you just it's harder to find those spots like you don't live out there. You can't go find them in July. Very easy unless you make a trip out there. But I do try it. I don't. I'm on the same page with you. If they're ripping, I'm going to climb out of my tree and go chase one. But if it's like early season, Rutt's not really going yet. Super hot like.

We've had those days you walk around 12 miles and you can't buy an Elk bugle. Right. That's when I'm like, all right, let's go sit in a tree. Yeah. And now that saddles have gotten so much smaller and lighter and like the platforms are next to nothing now, it's still just big enough that I wouldn't want to carry it around in a pack. Like knowing that I'm probably not going to use it, but it's definitely possible now to have that along. Yeah. A lot of people.

are like the micro saddle hunters. not even bringing a platform. They're just standing on the top of like a double-sided stick. So you know. If you can find a juniper, like a pine or something, you can just quick climb up the branches. I did that a couple times this year. White tail hunting, I found like the perfect tree that I could climb up. Didn't have to cut anything. Standing on where...

this tree goes into, it's not even a fork in the tree. It's like it comes out into four different trunks and like, come on, this is perfect. Stand right. Make like a little bird's nest in there. There was raccoon shit everywhere. They were like, it was the perfect spot to sit. Yeah, that would be cool. That would be cool. I've thought about it for moose hunting too. Not actively hunting out of the saddle, but bringing a saddle just to get up in a tree and see more. Cause everyone I talked to, they're like, you can't see shit out there. And call too.

Brian Krebs (01:15:24.118)

amplify that sound more. haven't moose hunted yet. was gonna ask you if that's on the list because it seems like you've done a lot of Alaska stuff. Yeah, so I three years ago, I bought two and a half acres in Alaska that we're gonna be building a cabin on and it's in a really good moose area. So that was one of those things that I honestly didn't want to do as a film or like a guided thing. I wanted to my first Alaskan moose to be like a little dinky

Mickey Mouse bowl, but I went and did it by myself and like that was like my thing. Kind like I did with a caribou. Nice. So is it on the water? Nope, it's in Fairbanks. Okay, so it's going to be like an inland cabin. It's not going to be like a boat to cabin. Right? Yeah. Honestly, dude, it is a 11 minute Uber ride from the airport. Like it's not. in Alaska? They do. Yeah. That's wild. Not very many, but fair.

Fairbanks has them, Wasilla has them, Anchorage has them. That's cool. Yeah. What do do then? You have to rent to, you have to rent something or you're just going to buy like a pickup and leave it there? I'm going to buy a pickup and leave it there. Honestly, I might buy a pickup and drive it up there because you can buy a pickup down here for a quarter of what you can up there. Like an 85 F 250 up there is worth a lot more than it is here.

How about a 2017 F-150 with 200,000 miles on it? I just sold that truck, actually. Can I drive it to Alaska and sell it for three times what I paid for it and then fly home and buy a new pickup? I know guys that buy some welded aluminum boats here and bring them up every year. And it pays for the amount of money that they make on it.

pays for their next two week vacation in Alaska. I just want a new truck. Like I don't want one. I get into the point where I need you know as well as I do. can't and 200,000 miles is a lot like. I had my last two F-150s. I had a 2013 and 2017 both 5 liter coyotes with the six speed. And I ran them both to 260. And then they started having issues and then I bought a new truck.

Brian Krebs (01:17:49.4)

for the first time in my life. And I've put 71,000 miles on it in a year. did you have another 150? No, I actually, so being from Michigan, like big automotive, my whole family worked for GM and my grandpa was like, if you're looking for a truck, like I have this like employee discount thing. And I've never thought of that before. And I'm like, this is actually like, I think it was like 8,500 bucks off or something like that.

Okay, so I went Chevy for the first time in like 15 years. Yeah, they're all great. Now it doesn't, I don't think make too much difference. Maybe if you get into diesels and you're pulling a lot, like everyone picks that, but I have an F-150 with the EcoBoost and a 10 speed transmission. And so I'm like, I don't know, man, if I blow a turbo, this whole thing is worthless. Yeah. But some of those, like, is it the three five? Yeah. It's a three five. It's the one that like it's nine to one.

Right. And yeah, like for every 10 vehicles that this engines and nine of them that they build. Right. So yeah, those are pretty safe and they just make so much stupid power. Yeah, I've never even used it all. It's got more. It's got about the same power as my dad's. He's got like a 21 gas 250. And on paper, our trucks are like equal. Right. He gets worse mileage. Yeah. His truck looks cooler. And he can break better, like he can.

tow more just because of the brakes. Right. But everything else, it's like logistically, it doesn't make any sense. You got it for snow plowing. You can't put a big V plow on a half ton. No, they have it last long. Well, you just can't. don't until now. They make small V plows now, but he's got a massive V plow. gotcha. Yeah. OK. Yeah. Yeah. Man, I did not foresee us getting into the truck talk, but makes sense from Zealand.

It's a big component. I you probably have one. So I have a friend that's a photographer from Wisconsin and he was rocking the suburban life. Because he's a he has so much gear and he doesn't usually shoot the like he's not usually the one shooting and like putting meat in his vehicle, even if you are, though, like. You can.

Brian Krebs (01:20:12.11)

put all the meat in a sled and be completely clean or get one of those big weather tech things when you rip the seats out like Suburbans or honestly that would be probably like the perfect Alaskan vehicle to have up there would be like to find a 95 Chevy Suburban. Yeah. Up there. Or like a hitch carrier. What's that? Or a hitch carrier like put all your meat on the hitch carrier. Right. Yeah. He camped out of it too. He's like it works great to camp out of if I'm somewhere on a shoot where there's like no lodging.

or I need like 24 hours to get to the next shoot. I don't want to like spend 150 bucks on a hotel just to get to work. Yeah. Yeah. We put a rooftop tent on the last two trucks that I had and that's a game changer for if like you're doing any sort of hunting where you're not packing in all the way, even on like, even if you want to take a break day or something like that and come back out to the truck where you have a cooler with actual food, not dehydrated stuff and lay in a bed. It's pretty nice where you don't have to drive.

an hour out of the mountains into town and get food and sleep in a bed for a day for refresher. I really wanted a roof rack for the longest time and I just wish they were cheaper because it like to get a good one and you're spending like over a thousand dollars like usually like brand new it's like two thousand bucks by the time you get everything. Yeah I've got mine is on a bed system where it's like a an external frame. Yep. And then I've got like all my gear on the sides of it and then the tent sits on top and then I

I do have the roof rack up here, but I'm switching that now. Smart cap makes a topper that's all metal that you can put all your gear on and then put the tent on top of that and have everything be enclosed. Yeah, that would be good. I've thought about doing the topper bed like eight foot box with a topper and just sleep in there. I thought about that eight foot trucks. I don't think I could park it in my garage is the problem. That sucks.

You also have to go to a super duty and if you're going to get like a one ton, you might as well get a diesel. So everything starts getting more expensive as you go. But one thing that might work out for you, especially if you're solo, doesn't work worth a damn if you've got more people. But I found an air mattress on Amazon that fits in the back seat of my F-150. And so you put the seat down, it has like one pouch that goes like where the feet.

Brian Krebs (01:22:37.098)

area is and it fills up that space and then it goes across both sides and it basically turns your back seat into a twin bed and I'm 6'2 and I can lay flat if I just move like one seat in the front all the way forward. Just angle it forward? Yeah. Yeah. So I usually put like I'll shed hunt a lot and my dog will sleep on the passenger side and then I'll put like my pack and my clothes bag on my driver's seat and then I just reach around from the back seat and I just go all the way forward and all the way tilted and then I'll just put

Actually, I'll put like my soft, like I have a soft bag for my clothes. I just put it in that gap in the floor that it makes, because there'll be like a little two foot weird space that's not full. I just put it in there and like your feet kind of dangle off the edge a little bit. But if you get the if you had the right size thing, it'd be like just an extension and you can lay flat so much better than sleeping on the backseat. Yeah, there was another one I saw, too, that was like base for the guys that have

the topper system. Yeah. But the quick inflating and it packed into like a little guy like this big that goes in your bed that you plug in and it just fills up the bed cavity with a really comfortable bed. The only problem is like your bed's never empty when you're doing that kind of stuff. So you'd have to unload everything out. That's the bummer about the that's why I haven't really committed to the topper camping. Because it's like every hunt I've ever gone on I have filled

the box of my truck and if I'm alone, I don't unfill it. The whole point of that is I want to be mobile. I don't want to set up a fixed tent on the ground because I don't know where I want to be. And so it's like, I don't want to unload everything in my truck to sleep. And then the first thing I got to do is load a bunch of coolers. That's where the backseat thing to me was like that. Yeah, usually I have stuff in my backseat, but it's not that critical. And you can put it on the bed.

Like my sleeping bag, my clothes, my bow, my rifle, whatever it is, I just lay it on there for the day. Right. And when I sleep, just, hang my bow actually from the clothes hangers usually. yeah. There's like a little clip for a coat hangers. I just put my string right on that. Hang it up. Yeah. I that works. Yeah. There's a bunch of different ways to skin that cat and none of them are perfect, but like I do agree. I hate having to do something in the morning rather than just get up and go.

Brian Krebs (01:25:01.87)

Yeah. And that, and that atmosphere, like even the tent that I have on the roof folds out with a mattress and stuff on it. It's kind of like an ice shaning how it folds out and opens. And even to take that three minutes to pack that thing up to go, I'm just like, I don't want to do this shit in the morning. I just want to go. You know what you'd love then is that backseat bed because you, I've done it down to 13 below. and you gotta do a couple of things to stay warm at 13 below, but I didn't run the heater at all.

I bring Arctic Shield boot covers that like people wear in white to hunting to put over your boots and I put them in the bottom of my sleeping bag and I just put my feet in those socks and that keeps your feet like toasty all night. And then that pretty much solves getting cold in your sleeping bag. You wear sweatpants and a puffy and I put a blanket over the top or whatever. But then when you wake up, you can auto start your truck. You just leave your key fob like in your pocket and you can auto start your truck. And it's like.

very fast to warm up. Like it's crazy. When you're cold and you leave for work, it seems like it takes forever for your truck to wake up. But when you're in your sleeping bag and you're already warm and you hit that and you just roll over, all of sudden you like wake up five minutes later sweating. All right, time to get up. Yep, I can get out of this comfortably now. Well, then if you park your truck where you're going to glass from the next morning, you can wake up like two seconds before first light and you can be glassing elk. That's living right there.

Yeah, I had a game warden stop and check on me. He's like, are you sure you want to sleep here tonight? I'm like, yeah, because I'm going to glass that in the morning. He's like, dude, it's going to be 13 below tonight. I'm like, I'm pretty sure I can make it. And he's like, if you don't, you're going to die on my mountain. And I'm like, well, I don't think I'm going to die. He's like, well, if you get up and you get cold, I am telling you to go get a hotel. like, you have a weird level of concern for my safety. Like, I'm not even a resident of your state, sir.

Looking out for you? Yeah, no, he was like really concerned. Obviously it would have been just an absolute headache if I would have died in his unit. It sounds like he had something happen in his professional career at some point. Yeah, well, you know the average like if you don't have gear you can't survive 13 below. Yeah, the one thing that I've done and I've done this both in like cold weather like late season elk hunting, but I've also done it just cashing in a truck somewhere for the night.

Brian Krebs (01:27:24.096)

is I'll take my stove, I got that little MSR reactor, and I'll boil water and then put that in my Nalgene piping hot and I'll just put a full hot Nalgene in the bottom of my sleeping bag. Yeah. That's a hack. just heard of that actually this season for the first time. I'm like, genius. That works insanely well. Imagine if you had just had like four of them. Yeah, you you'd die, it'd kill you.

I'm a hot sleeper to begin with so I don't need a whole lot but when like you said negative 13 those kind of days come up you need something. Yeah I haven't thought of that I do that I thought you were gonna literally say I just put it on like the center console and I just reach over and adjust the heat. That's wild. Yeah I flop too much in my sleep. Yeah yeah I don't think I would do that either or like with the truck one if you get cold just start your truck.

Assuming your truck starts, if your truck doesn't start, it's really cold, which also means you probably don't have the right gas for your stove. That might not work or elevation. They usually work if you're low elevation, but if you're high elevation, you need different gas. But as long as you use truck starts, like just start your truck, it'll warm up to 80 degrees. Right. Yeah. That MSR though, I've never had any problems with that one. I've had some weird stove issues with some other stoves, but that one just...

I have an MSR, I two Jetboils. I've never had an issue with any of them. But I talked to John Barclow, who is the guy behind Knowledge from Storms. He's the big game manager for Sitka. And he's a 20-year veteran training back country survival for tier one operators. he said it's mostly about, yeah, he's a badass dude. He said it's mostly about elevation and oxygen level.

like if you have to switch to white gas or the other things. And you see that with your boiling time too. If you're at really high elevation, you're trying to boil water like we had when we were goat hunting, we ran into a bad water situation. So we were drinking out of a moose pond. And like I can literally see the little microbiomes swimming around in there. we I was in reaching my buddy I'm like, how long do we have to boil this to make it safe? And he's like, well, what elevation are you at? So I

Brian Krebs (01:29:46.434)

looked up and sent it to me is like, it's this many minutes to kill everything in there because your boil is less effective at higher elevations. So if you're like north of 8,000, you have to boil for five minutes if you're less than eight. Because it's the temperature water boil, everyone thinks water boils at 212, but that's only at sea level. The higher up you go, the lower temperature water will boil because of like the amount of pressure that's on the water less.

I'll show the split and boil. So I don't think I don't know if it splits, but it's just like the top pressure like pots will boil faster if you put a lid on them because the pressure builds up and that heat can't escape. But higher up you go, the less pressure it is. So the faster it'll boil and turn to a gas because the gap, the pressure of the gap is fears and pushing down on that gas. But it can be like 180. Right. Like it's a huge swing if you're way up. And so that's probably like if you hit two twelve, they're dead instantly, but you'll never hit two twelve up that high.

So now you've got to cook them long enough. It's the same as cooking a brisket or a steak, anyone's ever made pulled pork or a brisket. You could get that meat up to 212 really fast in the microwave, but it's not enough time for it to actually break down and get soft and shreddable. You've got to dwell it at that temperature. That's why takes so long to smoke this stuff. Yeah. But yeah, that's interesting. Man, I'd have a hard time drinking water that I saw worms wiggling in. Yeah.

brought flashbacks to me too, because I got Giardia really bad one time and spent like three weeks and a half from it. Got all kinds of, from it was bad, bad. So I was like really not wanting to do that, but we had kind of need a router. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's a good way to lose a lot of weight. I lost 70 pounds. And I didn't have, that was like skin and bone for, that was, that was the only

in my entire existence that is the only opening day of gun season I've missed in my life was that day. So or that that year, because I just I couldn't get out of bed. It was awful. Yeah. Was that from drinking Colorado water? No, it was Michigan, believe it or not. really? I was like 19, probably. And I was going on a bear hunt of all things. And

Brian Krebs (01:32:10.664)

Western UP. So it wasn't very far from a road, but like I was 19 and I didn't, this is like before mapping apps and stuff really got big. And I got lost and turned around and didn't have any water and went a few hours without it and was kind of like getting a little bit dehydrated. It was just honestly, it was just youthful ignorance. I'm like, I need to drink some water. And I found this creek and like, this looks clean. I'm going to drink some water. And I think looking back at it, it was almost just as much like

it'd be cool to drink some fresh river water. That's a great example of like the best of intentions gone horribly wrong. Like like good advice. Like, yeah, if you're lost, you need like if you dehydrate, you need water. Like water is critical to life. And like thinking like, OK, I'm going to find a clean stream. And, know, obviously it looks the water looks clear. All right, we're good to go. And then just instantly backfires. But then like looking back at the whole situation and like I've hunted that same area since.

looked at it on the map. I'm like I was like at the most 800 yards from my truck. Like at the most 800 yards from my truck. This is silly. How did you get, how did you finally get out? Just wandering until I hit the road and then I was like a mile and a quarter loop back to my truck. I honestly only remember it that vividly was stupid. I was like bringing bear bait into a commercial forest land that we had permission to hunt. I just got turned around and I was like I might have been younger.

Maybe I was like 18, but I was just a dumb kid. So happens. Yeah. But yeah, water is important. Yeah. It's good advice. We'll end the podcast on that drink good water. Yep. Boil it. Make sure it's boiled if you, if you don't know where it came from. But yeah, man. Well, I really appreciate you coming on the podcast today. I hope the family heals up and gets back on their two feet for you. that's cool. That's gonna fun. Yeah.

I don't think we've ever met before, I enjoyed chatting with you. Yeah, stand up. Hopefully sometime we will get a chance to meet in the future. I always want to go to more shows, but then it's like ice fishing or shed hunting or a million other things. It's like, do I really want to spend a thousand dollars to fly to Utah or do I want to go ice fishing? If you're going to pick one, the Utah one is pretty cool. Yeah. What I need to do is find a little hookup like you've got where a brand I'm working for is paying me to go and I help them out the whole time.

Brian Krebs (01:34:39.768)

There you go. Yeah. Got to figure that one. But yeah, no, thanks for showing joining the show, sharing a bunch of stories, just a nice, fun BS session about hunting. But before we break, give folks a chance where they can see more of your content. I will say for anyone listening, you post a lot of really high quality pictures on your social media pages. So it's worth the follow. Definitely worth the follow. Yeah. So I'm not a photographer at all myself. Like I don't own a camera, but

Most of the high end stuff is gonna live on the Fair Chase on their Instagram page. then honestly, most of my YouTube videos are going on worldwide trophy adventures. My page is, it's just my name, Joe Griffin, but most of my high end stuff is gonna live somewhere else. Yeah, you just have a lot of good stills probably from those hunts that you get a copy of, but just some awesome pictures.

of your adventures and different things that you're doing. So it's a little envious of like being able to hunt and get good pictures of yourself. Because if you have a camera, you're always the one behind it. So you don't ever have any good pictures of yourself. And so, yeah, you got lucky there. I did. Yeah. And I didn't really appreciate that at first because I was I've never been a big like want to have professional photos or anything. But Lexi's made me a couple of books from

Because we'll get a Google Drive full of stills from these different hunts and she'll make like really cool scrapbooks out of those high end photos. And we have a little book on our coffee table for each one of these hunts. And looking back, like that is actually invaluable. Yeah. Because social media goes away or all these projects just stop happening. We have like this really cool stack of books of memories, awesome experiences, like really cool photos from it. So cool. Yeah.

I've learned to appreciate that a lot. Awesome. Well, we'll put links to all of those places that you mentioned in the show notes for anyone wanting to go check them out. But awesome to be here. Thanks for coming on once again, Joe. And thank you for listening, folks.

‍