Show Notes
In this episode, Ricky and Hollywood have a chat with former Co-founder and President of Vapor Trail, Inc., Steve Fondie. Get the inside scoop one how Vapor Trail was formed as well as the key players responsible for the success and continuation of the company. Find out how they survived what could have been a crippling situation for the company, and how they persevered.
Ricky and Hollywood recall all of the shenanigans that kept the mood light and created a fun environment to work in, and Steve provides some details regarding his decision to sell the company in 2020. Be sure to tune in! You’re not going to want to miss this one.
Show Transcript
Ricky Brule: [00:00:00] Welcome to the Range Podcast. I'm Ricky Bruley, and with me is Jake Hollywood Iverson, join us at the Archery Range where we'll tell stories from the hunt, discuss technical bow shooting tactics and gear, and pick the brains of some of the most successful people to ever shoot a bow. Whether you're about to shoot that X for the win, or send an arrow at a trophy buck.
This podcast is for you.
The Range Podcast is brought to you by Vapor Trail Archery makers of the Best Bowl strings money can buy. Originators of limb driven arrow rests technology and innovators of Stoker eyes, stabilizer systems. All right folks. Welcome to the Range. I'm Ricky Bruley here with Jake Hollywood. Iverson. Hello.
Thank you for that. Thank you for joining us for our Genesis episode number one, the History of Vapor Trail in the beginning, the Fond. He's created VTX Bull [00:01:00] Strings and Limb Driven Technology. Today we are joined by Steve Fonde. One of the original co-founders of Vapor Trail and together we're gonna break down the history of Vapor Trail, how it started, how it would eventually lead to Steve hanging out on a beach, sipping my ties.
Spying at me already. Yeah, I guess so. How are you, man? Doing good. Doing good.
Steve Fondie: Great to come back here and see you guys. Yeah, just see what's going on. It's exciting. Yeah. Long
Ricky Brule: ways. It's come a long ways. I appreciate you coming down and hanging out with us. We don't see it near as much as I'd like to, but again, I know, I'm sure you're pretty busy.
Lots of my ties to be had sitting on a beach. Yeah. Yep. Sitting in your sauna. Probably a frozen lake
Jake "Hollywood" Iverson: in northern Minnesota.
Ricky Brule: Hopefully stay. Oh yeah. Not staying at that cabin. Hopefully not in the wintertime. Yeah. Not uncle Terry. Yeah. How's the family? How's Cole and Taylor and the kids
Steve Fondie: are doing good.
Taylor, she graduated. [00:02:00] Few years back, and then now she's working, doing social media and stuff. Like some of the stuff you
Ricky Brule: did. Yeah. That's cool. And and then
Steve Fondie: she has some clients on the side and stuff, and then yeah, she works at a. Surgery clinic where they, make women even more beautiful.
Ricky Brule: Oh, wow. All right, Cole, he's
Steve Fondie: done with this first part at Rochester. Now he's just looking to go to his extended stuff, but he's doing some work done at
Ricky Brule: Rochester being humbled. It's crazy being humbled. My brain goes back to like when he was a little kid running around the shop, just terrorizing us all.
And the time when we literally duct taped him to a chair, and we warned him. But anyway, yeah. Hell yeah. And then
Steve Fondie: there's one of, I just remember right now, one room, right where we all worked. He had all those clamshells
Ricky Brule: and stuff. Yeah. With spi,
Steve Fondie: with string bats. Yeah. And then I sat
Ricky Brule: there for two days every time ears walked by.
Oh man, those are some good times. Cole's a good kid.[00:03:00] Just, he was in, he a pretty normal. 10 year old boy, that's how they are. But that was fun. Those are always got a ton of good stories and hopefully we'll get into some of that here. So I'm just gonna start by throwing out some poignant moments in VT history and then we can unpack that information as we go.
There's a lot of information that I wanna make sure I get correct. So some of this I'm gonna be reading for verbatim, so I apologize if it starts to sound a little robotic, but Here we go. We're just gonna jump right into it. Starting from the beginning, Jared Fonde, Steve's brother, started out in his basement in 1993, I believe That's correct.
Yep. And it was mostly Bo Strings, right? That's all. It was just Bo Strings. Okay. Real basic
Steve Fondie: kind of non-motorized jig or anything like that. Hand surgery, there was nothing. I don't even, somebody might had a motorized back then, but I don't remember it. Oh my gosh.
Ricky Brule: I don't even imagine.
Steve Fondie: Oh, when they first came out with, it was pse, I believe on those one cams. I think maybe they had a roller guard. But boy, that big long serving one hand,
Ricky Brule: your forearms. [00:04:00] Really? I was just gonna say your hands are sore with you got good at whipping that jigger on the string. I bet. Yep. Yep. When I look back at older press releases, it says Jared was a target shooter who was frustrated with the technology back then.
Or lack thereof, I don't know. Tell me, can you tell me a little bit more about that? Did you have discussions with Jared about what his idea was or he, did he talk about wanting to make his own material, that kind of stuff?
Steve Fondie: Oh, at that time, no. It was, you, he just the strength was just, It meant to kept the boat together basically.
There was no thought really put much in, into the string cuz it would, they thought stretch was good, which, stretch at a point was good. But, not where it changed the dimensions of the boat and stuff. So for the, target guys, everything's gotta be consistent perfect.
And stuff like that. And for Jared, yeah, he was a perfectionist and that just, he's I could do better. Yeah. And he just, I don't know. There was no YouTube back then. We had to use books
Ricky Brule: or people. Yeah, man that's crazy. And as far as perfectionism goes, or one time you had a I think it was on your [00:05:00] Botox, c p xl, there was a noise coming out of it, and you spent.
Hours trying to figure out what that noise was, and I think you figured it out. But that's just one point. But the same thing goes for even just the product, the limb driver, everything, man we tighten that thing up as best we possibly could. You know what I mean? Heading over to Ted's and taking off a schmid.
I remember Ted always going, what? Oh, chair. I don't know what a smidge is. But again we weren't engineers, we just knew what we needed. Or you knew what you wanted? Yeah, nothing.
Steve Fondie: Nothing was really, there was not a lot of hand drawings back then on things and prints and stuff. It was
Ricky Brule: basic pioneers.
For real. You guys are pioneers. That's cool. I didn't, I just recently found this out. My vapor trail was officially incorporated in July of 2000, naming you the president of the company, Jared's on the. On the contract or on it as vice president and then with Greg Bratner as the secretary. Yep. But tell the story of how you originally got involved.
Cause I know you were doing [00:06:00] some construction stuff and delivering pizzas and all that, but how did that all, do you remember how that came about? There's like almost two
Steve Fondie: stages cuz when we started the net, Jared started in 93 and he did most of the stuff himself. I'd go over there, see what he was doing and stuff.
Cuz we both had these bear. Cow Palm bows. I can't remember the name of 'em, but they were just real basic and Right. And Jared was perfecting things, working with different materials, cuz even back then they had, I don't remember exactly what materials they had. 4 52 x, no, I don't think 4 52 x even, maybe a 4 52 that a four 50 or something like that.
Oh, okay. Yep. And then He was monkeying with those. It was I guess the test them, there was no other than just using them. So you had to shoot 'em. We didn't have any machines or anything like that to see what kind of stretch or anything like that. And you'd have to look at your peeps cycle.
Cuz back then everybody had that rubber cord on their peeps, nobody even thought about peep twist because the record was there. Yeah. But yeah. [00:07:00] Basically had the, basement and he did that, once he started getting serious and stuff and he's Hey, we could get some accounts.
And then I got on board and Bratner was not involved back then. This was right. We dealt with Capra's and there was a couple other small shops around this area that we, we dealt with. Sure. Okay. And then it was funny, the strings back then, it was like, I swear we were like selling 'em for six or $8 and me and Jared were having an argument that we weren't gonna make money doing that.
And he swore that we had, because there was another guy making his name was God, I can't remember his name, but it was Sticks and Strings I think. And he was selling 'em for $3. Geez, this. Yeah. Oh
Ricky Brule: my goodness. We can't pay somebody that much to build one.
Steve Fondie: When we were doing that and stuff, finally, winter's Choice came along and they were asking like $50.
And I'm like, no way. But that was the best thing that could happen because it brought that price into a range. It could be profitable for [00:08:00] Okay,
Ricky Brule: somebody doing it. That's cool. Yeah, that, that makes a ton of sense. So what, so again, did, Jared was just like, man, I'm getting overwhelmed. I need some help.
Or how
Steve Fondie: did you we, I think we had three accounts back then. Okay. One was like in Wisconsin, might have been littlejohns shop. I
Ricky Brule: don't remember. Compound doctor, the
Steve Fondie: compound doctor was one of 'em. And then I don't know if you had archery experts back then and I think they were coming in just a little bit later after that.
Oh, st. Croix, I believe out there was a shop. Okay. But then we went from that transition and then I got out of it cuz it wasn't really doing anything. And then it was later on in 2000 when between Brent, Larson and Jared, they, they got the Motech Okay. A little bit of Botec
Ricky Brule: stuff.
Okay. And then he needed
Steve Fondie: help. And I was doing construction and I'd go in my basement and he'd put a there. Yeah. And, Do so many hours. And then Bratner got involved and he was doing it in his basement. We'd be on headsets, at home. Back [00:09:00] then we had those wired ones, like Walkmans, and we were like, timer how long it would take to do something and we'd be like, okay, I shaved two seconds off Bratner.
He was really detailed.
Ricky Brule: Yeah. I just remember when I first met you guys and I came up to pick up a set of strings and cables for Sportsman's Warehouse. And I just remember, man, you guys were just swamped. Like Jared was, his favorite phrase was, I'm getting a one-legged man in a backing contest, like being a one end.
One leg
Steve Fondie: man in a butt kicking
Ricky Brule: contest. Yeah. And so that always cracked me up, but I was like, Hey, do you need some help? And then, so I just watched him build a string and I think you actually taught me eventually. But that was in the ham Lake, the first Ham Lake location by Dairy Queen.
Yep. And so when did, when was that the operation moved from the basement to. That first location hoof. Because I think I, that had to be right around
Steve Fondie: 2003, [00:10:00]
Ricky Brule: four, right around there. Okay. Okay. Because I, it was like maybe five at the most, oh six or oh seven I think is when I first met you guys. I first moved down here in June of oh six, so because we
Steve Fondie: were doing that was the bot tech.
Days and Oh yeah. Running all over the place. We had people up in, that's when we had the people up in the Iron Range up there Building, yeah. Building strings. And we'd have to pick 'em up and they, we'd bring 'em back and then we'd run the servings on 'em and
Ricky Brule: all they did was tie. Yeah. Wow. And those were, that was family, right?
Cousins or something that there's
Steve Fondie: quite a few different people up there cuz there's some people in Cloquet and then the other cousins. And then some other cousins.
Ricky Brule: Yeah. And then just all over the place and that, now, correct me if I'm wrong here, but I thought I had heard the story of Jared at ATA sitting at the bar wearing the Vapor Trail hat with the.
The red hat with the black flames on it. And Paul Goty came over. Yeah. Paul Gossie came over and said, [00:11:00] man, I really like your hat. And then they sat down and started talking. And is that kind of how that Botec came? I wasn't there. Okay.
Steve Fondie: Jared, because. Jared just tagged along with Double Bowl
Ricky Brule: that year.
Oh, okay. Yeah.
Steve Fondie: Yeah, he ran into the Gazi at the bar and I think, I don't know if he gave him that hat or what, but yeah, the
Ricky Brule: Paul Gazi, I remember that story. Yeah, it was
Steve Fondie: funny. He's I still remember when I met your brother in the bar. You guys were nobody.
Ricky Brule: I love that story. That's great. And Paul, his shop is still up, but he sold Double G. Double Geo Tree. Yep. Sold to ironically another guy by the name of Paul. So every time he calls it's confusing, but I think Paul. Consulted for them for a year now. I think he's out. But anyway, we still work.
We still deal with them too, so that's pretty cool. Yep. Great guys. And I guess you already touched on how you adapted to that rapid growth, cuz the Botec thing just took off fast, right? Yes, immediately.
Steve Fondie: Yeah. And it was small at first, it was just it was like one or two bows that we were doing it for.
I think it was like the [00:12:00] Patriot and something else we were building strings for. And that's where we got into the. Different string fibers and stuff. That's where VTX became, because there was a material kind of shortage at the time. I think it was a spectra fiber was being used in like bulletproof vests and stuff like that.
Yeah. And
Ricky Brule: was that TS ones and stuff?
Steve Fondie: Yeah. And it just got absorbed into, so we started running low and There was TS one is what BoTech was using. Okay. And then all of a sudden they had to change it cuz of that material shortage. And they, because TS one was like Tim Strickland one, and then they came out with the TS one plus I think it was, or something like that.
And just was not the same material. It was inconsistent and stuff. And it was really bad and Botec was having problems with it. Okay. So then we started monkeying around. But they, Ronnell got 'em on something else or I think at that time. Okay. But we decided, cuz we were using ts one for our material too, and it was a real [00:13:00] great material but couldn't get anymore. So that's when Vtx
Ricky Brule: was born. Yeah. And so that, that kind of come, comes into play with Veran then, or had it already been, I think Beran was
Steve Fondie: already out there. It was just that plane with. The composition of those
Ricky Brule: right materials. Okay. And then so I I remember, so I took a little bit of a break.
I moved to Woodbury and I, so I wasn't building for a little while there. I was out for a year or so. And then when I came back, now you're in a new building. So just down the road, coup maybe, I don't know. Wasn't more bigger building. Yep. Bigger building. And so then that's when I really got started.
Doing customs. I love doing Cam and a halfs man, like Hoyt stock ones where you didn't have to back then, we didn't even have to have a chart. No,
Jake "Hollywood" Iverson: there's probably no string stops because
Steve Fondie: the one serving was always consistent. Nope. And then you just adjusted the other two servings, the center in the right
Ricky Brule: side.
Yeah. The only oddball thing that we would have to build from time to time would be like a [00:14:00] darton with a CPS cam where you'd have a longer surfing on one side, otherwise. That was it. Everything was in your head, you could build it, and then we had to start making little drawings. Yeah. So everybody would have their own drawing.
And I'm gonna bring on the video, I'll bring up, I'll, I still have a stack of those, the cards. I'll bring up a couple of those so everybody can see the transition from what you went to go to Matthew's chart. Yeah. Here it, it's, yeah, exactly. Exactly. It was wild. There's no way we could survive it, no, it would be impossible. You would've a lot of paper all over the. Place only smokes. We have tens of thousands of spec sheets now. It's nuts. It's insane. And to the point where stock is just getting phased out because there's nothing stock anymore, but yeah, it's crazy that shop.
Lot of good memories in that shop. I remember a lot of shenanigans rubber bands and door traps. We, all of us in that shop so mess. All of us were snipers with rubber bands. Oh yeah. Especially after David Fry came and showed us how to shoot a ru. Like we, [00:15:00] we never knew there was a way to shoot a rubber band sniper, the vapor cell sniper.
Yeah. Like you can, folks, you can literally rifle. A rubber band, you can shoot it in a special way where it just shoots like a second way farther
Steve Fondie: accurate. Yeah. ATA shows people hid when they were by, they're near the paper
Ricky Brule: trouble. We got so good at it. We could float rubber bands and drop 'em on people's heads.
Heads are talking to Yeah. They'd be sitting there talking all of a sudden doing rubber band comes down and he'd be so far away that you didn't even know where it came from. Looking around all crazy. Yeah, we did some cool pranks. I've got one in mind that I think is crazy, but I want to ask you like what is one of the ones that stands out in your mind?
Like what's one of the favorite pranks? Like elaborate ones that we did?
Steve Fondie: We did the water ones in the shop all the time, and I just, You know the people who come through the door, and this is, remember Sunny?
Ricky Brule: Oh yeah. Oh yeah. Ah, like he got shot or something. Whoa.
Steve Fondie: And it was all on [00:16:00] video too, so we got to replay it and enjoy it once.
Ricky Brule: One of my favorites was, so we had this young gal working up front. Her name was Amber, and she had a a key fob or whatever and was saying, I don't remember. She was saying something to Jared there's no way anybody stealing my car, cuz cars were being. Stolen or something. Yep. The only way they can steal a car is if they got this fob or whatever.
So we're like, all we had these little jacks, right? That you could put one on each tire. Yeah. Jack the car. This was elaborate. We had eight people involved. Jared was the distraction. We got it on camera where Jared's talking to her, and you can see in the background. Her
Steve Fondie: car's within like sight
Ricky Brule: that she could see, yep. And the way the video worked out was perfect too cuz so she's distracted. We got a couple guys out there jacking up her car on these jacks. We got Steve parked his truck down at the other end of the driveway or the parking lot so we could. Hide it on the other side so we could hide it on the other side.
Meanwhile, Jared's talking to her and you can see in the [00:17:00] reflection of one of the pictures, you can see us pushing the car. If I gotta see if I can find that video, but, and we got her car on the other side. She really thought her car got stolen. Yeah, she did. She's like, where's my car? Oh my God, my car's stolen.
They don't have this, how could they
Steve Fondie: take my car? You're keeping
Ricky Brule: they got it. Oh man, we had some good times there. All the crazy stuff. David Fry your brother Tony. Oh, yep. He is just everything. Just hilarious. Yep. Good times there. Made the days easier though. Yeah, it did eventually get to a point where I remember Jared just lost it.
He was like, that's it.
Steve Fondie: No more and no more rubber band. No more. Yeah, I remember that one story, the water bottle, but we won't go into that.
Ricky Brule: Matt Dry, he's outta line. Oh yeah. He'd fart in my water bottle all the time. I'd come in and I'd try to take a sip of my water and there'd be a bunch of nuts, hazel nuts in there.
And then he'd go, how my nuts taste. Oof. I threw [00:18:00] that bottle in the trash. I was like, just the thought of, yeah, only one piece of fabric of Matt separating the mouth of my water bottle from his. Anyway. No, thanks. All right. Hey. Oh, and one other thing too. We talked about this in our first, this is our first official episode, but we also have an intro one that Hollywood and I did, and so we wanted to talk a little bit about how your name was coined, and that's the building that you got your name.
Why don't you tell everybody about that?
Jake "Hollywood" Iverson: Yeah. I have a hard time remembering it myself, but I think it was Jared. Jared was me. Jared was always the one-liner
Ricky Brule: and the nickname giver. I had 20 nicknames for the record. You got one? Yeah.
Jake "Hollywood" Iverson: Yours might not be air appropriate, but Yeah.
Ricky Brule: Mine were all not, there ain't no superhero
Steve Fondie: ones like yours calling.
Yeah, no. Figured Superman. I think
Jake "Hollywood" Iverson: the the biggest way my name came about was when these guys hired me I was in high school and I'd come in, fresh from school. Big pimping. Yeah. I had all my, [00:19:00]
Ricky Brule: all dressed up. Yeah. All
Jake "Hollywood" Iverson: dressed up, looking good for school. And yeah, I'd come in and, everyone else is just like how I am now.
Just blue jeans, sweatshirt, whatever. Who cares? And I would be there with, the khaki pants, pink shorts, if you got, you guys remember those?
Ricky Brule: Oh yeah. The pink. The pink flamingo shorts. So
Jake "Hollywood" Iverson: I just had the wackiest colors, everything, and this was about the time when, if anyone remembers the Hollywood hunter, he was around and I think it was between Jared and Steve going, man, you're just Hollywood. Just so dressed up, just looking so clean, so fly for here, whatever. And so it was just Hollywood. Yeah. From there is, I don't know, it, and it just took off. And then I had a Hollywood star that
Ricky Brule: I remember Keenan made me, I still have it.
Jake "Hollywood" Iverson: Yeah. And it just stuck from there
Ricky Brule: and. I remember when he like switched it over a little bit too and he started calling you Holly. Weird. Oh yeah, that's right.
Jake "Hollywood" Iverson: If people know me, I can make some fun comments too.
Steve Fondie: Hey, this is the pink [00:20:00] shorts.
Ricky Brule: Yeah. We should probably circle on that one.
Wait, here's a really good memory with that one.
Jake "Hollywood" Iverson: Yeah, your desk.
Steve Fondie: I think, I
Ricky Brule: don't know if it was Kelly or Amber or who worked there at that time. It was
Steve Fondie: Cass. Oh. And he had to do that.
Ricky Brule: The printer, the cartridge, you got the inker the toner, all the ink bomb on
Steve Fondie: his big shorts.
Jake "Hollywood" Iverson: So I was originally customer service for about a year and a half, and that was part of it.
We, print labels and the old cartridge on the printer with start dying out. So you had to shake it a little bit? Yeah.
Ricky Brule: Oh yeah. We'd get every bit of toner out. Those we could.
Jake "Hollywood" Iverson: The one day I had my pink shorts on Heat of Busy Season. I shake it and that thing explodes right in front of Steve.
All over, right on my pink shorts. They were black and pink forever. Forever. We,
Steve Fondie: I'm glad to see that
Jake "Hollywood" Iverson: gone. Were the pink shorts.
Steve Fondie: Yep.
Ricky Brule: I just always think too, where it'd be like, Steve, man, we're, we need a new cartridge. He's did you shake it? Yep. How many times? 10 [00:21:00] Do it. 10 more. Hey man. That's all for the environment.
It's business, man. You gotta, yeah, you gotta drop. You gotta keep the bottom line down. I get that go. There's so many more
Steve Fondie: stories when you, but we don't wanna get too caught into that cuz people will think we never worked.
Ricky Brule: It's like how it is here now with fryer's. I don't know if you've seen some of 'em, but we, yeah, all I was hearing, like in church, I'd go to church and people would be like, oh man, those Fridays are hilarious.
Do you guys even do any work? It's all you do is drink. And I was like, boy, we might have to rethink what we're doing here. Oh yeah, there you go. Where'd you find that old? There's the hat man. That looks like
Steve Fondie: the gazi one. That is the Sha
Ricky Brule: Bake hat. That's the Talladega Knights redneck like
Steve Fondie: flames.
There's there.
Ricky Brule: Yeah, that is, the hats still have one that guy goes way back, man. That
Steve Fondie: is the hat. I do have some other hats that are on top of my thing that I've had through the days, who knows what to see
Ricky Brule: and shirts. Yeah. You've got a classic one on there that [00:22:00] was, that's a custom, probably one of a kind.
Why is one of one? Yeah. After I
Steve Fondie: got it, everybody's oh, I want that. I want that
Ricky Brule: dude. It was a special order. It's a thousand dollars and I'll make you one. So we already talked about the VTX blend. What about limb Dr, limb driven technology? I know you played more of a critical role in the design of that.
Tell me a little bit about how that kind of came to fruition.
Steve Fondie: I can't remember exactly what brought it on, cuz that was when, back in that time, trophy taker, I think it was trophy taker was the big, the first one. And everybody thought it was real good that the rest, got outta the way real quick.
So it dropped, it pulled her down that, it'd be holding it up in that spring, immediately would pull that thing down as soon as the bow freaking was let off. I don't know if we were trying to adjust some bows or what, but. I think that's when the screws started turning into Jared's Bri brain, he's I got something. And if you remember right when we first started doing that, it was based off of [00:23:00] Tiger Tough was the name of the rest. Yep. The flipper. And we used like their bracket and stuff and we just added a couple pieces on, changed some stuff, and we are actually asked them if they wanted to be involved with us.
And they
Ricky Brule: turned us down and the rest. Yeah. Isn't that amazing? Wow. And to think about what it's become now, and the first time I ever saw one was when I was working at Sportsman's in, in Fargo. Eric Dun Rud was the first one to introduce me to that. And yeah, it just and I was still, I was just really starting to get into bow hunting then.
I've been shooting a bow since I was 16, but it wasn't until then that I really got into it, so I didn't. I have never really, other than a Tiger Tuff that I had in Min Nova, I've only had limb drivers aside from, of course all the other arrow rests that we would tune, whether it was through Vapor Trail or through Sportsmans.
But man yeah and then. Just to think how other companies started to pick up on it and now it's become a staple. You've got cable driven or limb driven, and so it's pretty cool that we [00:24:00] take a lot of pride in telling everybody we originated that, oh, by far, like the limb driver is like the vice grip of the vice grips.
Yep. There's a lot of locking pliers out there, but there's only one vice grip. And it's still such a huge part of our company. And so fast forwarding a little bit, we're gonna, I'm gonna blaze through some of the history here. Again, 2011, I believe this is the year Jared Ears Meyer was hired as the general manager.
Position that was proceeded by Mike Anderson and then Cody Andrews before him, correct? Yep. I worked with Mike Anderson at Sportsman's Warehouse for a number of years prior to him. Coming to Vapor Trail and then Cody I only knew
Steve Fondie: him through Yeah. You you and Cody danced at the ADA show.
We did
Ricky Brule: Little Doy dough. I think he twirled me. He did. There's probably some people out there right now that are going, that's who those two guys were. They probably tell stories still about these two guys that were dancing. It's kinda funny, there's
Steve Fondie: been several dancing videos of you, [00:25:00] with What's her
Ricky Brule: name?
Oh, Judy? Yep. Judy Buffalo. Judy from Buffalo Jump. Yep. She still says hi.
Jake "Hollywood" Iverson: Yeah,
Steve Fondie: there. Rick was dancing.
Ricky Brule: She's such a sweet lady. I had, Hey man, I had to do everything I could to get that lady to buy a limb driver. Okay. Yeah,
Steve Fondie: she was a tough cookie man.
Ricky Brule: She's awesome. So ears is credited for many of the limb driver modifications and the development of the Gen seven series of arrow rests.
On top of being the face of the company for nearly a decade. He eventually moved on to become a very successful a l c realtor in southeast Colorado. So if anybody's looking for land, Southeast Colorado, look up ears. Just wanted to give him a little plug. You get a commission or something.
Steve Fondie: Must
Ricky Brule: be something there.
We'll see. No here to buy property. We'll see Ears. Make sure you let ears know that I, you heard that you heard it here on the Vapor Trail, the range podcast. So that I can get my cut. Use promo code Ricky. Ricky.[00:26:00]
Okay, fast forward a couple more years, November, 2014, an unforeseen tragedy. Change the course of Vapor Trail. We're gonna take a quick break and when we come back, we'll get into the weeds with that, spring is here and Turkey hunting is in full swinging successfully. Killing a Turkey with a bow is extremely challenging.
So after you notch that tag, be sure to give your bow some love by installing a brand new set of Vapor Trail VTX bow strings, our proprietary VTX material with sci-fi technology. Set it and forget it. Is proven to hold up better in varying weather conditions. Includes a lifetime service guarantee against manufacturer of defects, and are available in thousands of color combinations to match your custom archery setup.
With our three day ship guarantee, you can be back up and running a no time flat. Contact your local dealer or give us a call at eight eighty eight bo stringing. That's 8 88 B w s t r n g. Quit your crying and have confidence in your equipment with Vapor Trail Vtx bow strings. [00:27:00] Steve, in November of 2014, I remember getting a phone call from you and you said Jared died and the impact was felt throughout the archery industry.
Tell us a little bit about that time.
Steve Fondie: That just, that was one of those things that was so unexpected, cuz he is young, so Yeah. You don't, maybe a car accident or something like that, but yeah, when. I got the call from, I don't even remember who it was from.
Jared's girlfriend or one of the kids or whatever. But yeah. Lost my brother, lost my partner. So it was just, I spent more time with him almost than I did with Monica. Yeah. And the kids, for a long time there. And then just wondering about Vapor Trail's future, it was like, and.
You and ears stepped up.
Ricky Brule: Could have done it. Yeah. Yeah, we had to. That was a tough time. Yeah, it was. That was crazy. Yep. For sure. So what I thought would be fun would, was to go around the table a little bit [00:28:00] and just talk about one of our favorite memories with Jared, and I want to start with Steve.
One or two or 10 or however many you want to talk about.
Steve Fondie: If you're just talking like memorable things, gosh. Yeah. I think about, when he was doing motocross and all that stuff and Oh yeah. And then I think, back to the shop and stuff and when my brother Tony. And Jared kind of got into it.
Oh yeah, I'm
Jake "Hollywood" Iverson: the president.
Steve Fondie: I was like, wow. My brother just really freaking us strung as, oh, because Jared never got worked up. It was always me. Very rare. It was always me like having to
Ricky Brule: try to lay the law down. Yeah. Yeah. And
Steve Fondie: I was just sitting back smiling, talk to me. I didn't have to do it.
Ricky Brule: Talk to me like that. I'm the president. He said, oh yeah. But other times when we were in Africa,
Steve Fondie: or, I remember when we were in Missouri hunting at I don't know if it was Tomb, tombstone Ranch at that time or not, but with [00:29:00] Danny. Yeah. And we were Turkey hunting. And I just remember Jared getting up was like four o'clock we're in like these bunk beds and I look over and he grabs his tin.
He's not even outta bed yet.
Ricky Brule: Throws a chew in four, I think the night before. He is left one in there when he goes to the bed all night. Oh my gosh. Yeah. Oh, that's funny. Since you got it fresh on the tip of your tongue there, Hollywood, what's your favorite memory?
Jake "Hollywood" Iverson: I don't know. He obviously you guys, I think all hired me, but it was just good times, I was getting, shooting the crap with him and just getting I don't know what you wanna call it, tease whatever, yeah. Tossing crap back and forth at each other.
Ricky Brule: But
Steve Fondie: Were you getting bullied?
Ricky Brule: Maybe a little bit. No, it was good
Jake "Hollywood" Iverson: though, cuz I, I came in, I don't know if anyone else really was a target shooter there.
But Jared, he shot at Vegas and, so that was huge for me to pick his brain on target shooting. Yeah. And he gave me a lot of pointers, but one of the biggest things that [00:30:00] I still, like when I meet him again, I'm just gonna, punch him in the shoulder like we used to do, is just I left him when I went to college that year, 2014.
I'm coming back to kick your butt. Yeah. I'm gonna kick your butt. And he's oh, yeah, we'll see. Yeah. We had all his teased who's gonna win? Against who, but his back was messed up at the time, and I remember telling him that. And then Kyle actually called me that night. I was working at Shields in Mankato, and that happened and I was just like, man, that was crazy.
Yeah. You don't expect it. And I'm like, to this day, he still probably could kick my butt, but I'm just like, dang it.
Ricky Brule: I never got to shoot against.
Steve Fondie: It was
Jake "Hollywood" Iverson: just like, that's my last thing I left him with. I'm like, God dang it. Never got that chance. He
Ricky Brule: would
Steve Fondie: always
Ricky Brule: show up for those things and he would show up when he, oh yeah, it was time to.
Yeah,
Steve Fondie: we had, cuz we had at the old shop. Yeah, the old shop. Yeah. Remember that thing we had, we, did you ever shoot it? It was that little target and you'd do a golf on it? Oh yeah.
Ricky Brule: We had all kinds of stuff. We still have those. We still do. We have 'em here, actually. We moved him from there. Yeah, I could never beat him either.
He wouldn't [00:31:00] pick up a bow for months and I would just, my nerves would get me and i'd, she was just too steady. Yeah. And then that when we started the, when we. I think we did the Vapor Trail ProAm one year, and then the next year we turned it into the Jared Fonde memorial shoot. And I shot it and I took first place in Bo Hunter division and it was like one of the first competitive paper shoots I'd ever done.
And I swear to this day, Jared was guiding that arrow. Cause I have no idea how that happened. I beat out Jake Orbitz and. Wow. I think he took second place. So I gotta attribute some of that. I'd like to say it was luck, but I like to proclaim That was Jared guiding those arrows. Cause that was information.
Huh? That was cool. But I would, my, one of my favorite memories or a lot of the, my favorite memories were just up at his cabin. Across from bummer place, yep. We had a lot of good times up there. And then even up in Big Lake, bear hunting, man, one of the, one of the things that comes to mind immediately is when I filmed him, shoot [00:32:00] that bear that big one that we never found and the big fat round one.
Yeah. Got it. On video and everything. I'll see if I can drag it up for the for the YouTube YouTubers, but Yeah. And then we, I don't know, we went back in to try to find it and we came. That
Steve Fondie: was the worst tracking ever for a bear because we had that pack of wolves. Pack of wolves. Yeah. Real close. They must have crossed the path.
We
Ricky Brule: figured. Yep. And it was real
Steve Fondie: tangled crap. You couldn't what? You know you were crawling. So you're really compromised if something happened, you were dead. And I had a gun and Pand had a gun and everybody else nothing
Ricky Brule: to flashlight. I remember too I was like working my way through the woods and everything and I don't know if it was you or Pounds that were like, Hey, let me get ahead of ya cuz, and I was like I got my bear spray, both of you guys.
I thought the guys with the guns in the front. So I was like, okay, I guess I don't need this then. But yeah, those were some really good times. So fast forward 2016. John Beckert joins the team as a sales and marketing director. Many of you may know him as our beer drinking wears Waldo [00:33:00] slash Santa Claus slash weatherman slash Olympic medalist from some of our best Fridays.
Johnny's been a critical part of our operation, and his contributions to this company are too many to list. Fast forward to 2020. Vapor Trail Inc. Is acquired by Royal Auckland and his brother Patrick. So I, I wanted to get a little bit into that too. What, what made you decide to sell the company and how did it, like how did that feel?
Was it, did you have any. I dunno if you'd call it seller's remorse shortly thereafter. Or was there, or was it just oh man, just don't gotta deal with Rick and Ears anymore. Yeah, I was to,
Steve Fondie: no, we had been, we had looked at it a few times even when Jared was still alive. Yeah.
Cause we went out to Redmond Minerals, I remember Redmond. Yeah. And cuz you know, they were thinking about, trophy rock was looking at it. And that just didn't fit. And then Jared ended up passing away like probably, I don't know, six, eight months [00:34:00] later I think. Yeah. And we had been contacted all the time.
There's letters coming and, people saying, okay, acquisition, blah, blah, blah. Yeah. I think it was in 2015 or 16, something like that. I looked at, Plaino synergy, I think as it was. Okay. And That deal. Two weeks to the day, before it was supposed to happen, there was some things that we just couldn't get, they threw something at me and I didn't like it, so Okay. Walked away from it. Because, and then there was another individual that was looking at it too, but didn't feel the fit was good there. And that was at the same time as plain of synergy. And then There was another group after that, before Rory, but they wanted, the, one group wanted me to terminate the top three.
Yeah. And I was like the day before. And I'm like, that's not happening. And each one of those deals you took, five, six months to put paperwork. You probably see time,
Ricky Brule: money, oh yeah.
Steve Fondie: Waste there and stuff. And wasn't that you wanted to [00:35:00] be secretive, if you always worried about your guys like I'm outta here.
Ricky Brule: Get out. Yeah, totally Get that,
Steve Fondie: that the company becomes worth less, cause you need people to run it after, the guy leaves it, he's doing it,
Ricky Brule: yeah. And super grateful for that, to, just knowing that you guys were advocating for us.
The entire time and here I am still, yeah. And again, so super grateful about that. That's one of the reasons why I stuck with you guys for as long as I did. It was just, I got myself in a few financial ruts and you guys helped me out and. I've stayed good on my promise and got you back and, so we, we gained a lot of trust and so again I've always really appreciated that and ever since, it's just, I've always tried to, anytime there's any sort of struggle or anything like that, when it comes to being employed with Vapor Trail, which it, you know, it just, that's how it is with any job you have.
But I always think about that. It's I want to continue the legacy, I want to keep it going. I want you guys to be proud of what we're doing.
Steve Fondie: And I still remember back, when you guys [00:36:00] stuck with me too, after Jared, Hey, you guys could have lost hope or whatever and Right.
Who knows what, what it had to do and stuff. I think
Jake "Hollywood" Iverson: that next year, that 2015 week. Absolutely kicked ass on strings. I think it was just a whole different meaning at that point. It was just like, like as far as a builder's standpoint is nah we're not letting this down.
This is for you guys.
Steve Fondie: And it wasn't just the three top guys either. Cuz I don't even know if Johnny was quite on board for the first time, but it was like the whole crew, it was like, cuz there was a lot of guys, Murphy and Jake and all 'em guys that had been a long time, been with us a long time and I'm like, Yeah. If they wanna move on, they can do that, but, I ain't gonna, I don't wanna steal the alert, sell their job. Have it move somewhere else.
Jake "Hollywood" Iverson: It's crazy too, cuz it's like hearing that from another company, they might think, it's just another company we're getting that can't be that hard to continue it if they're trying to continue strings, but, There's a whole different aspect to it.
Like you can't just hire anyone off the street. We know no
Ricky Brule: shit. We
Steve Fondie: know you can't.
Jake "Hollywood" Iverson: The training process is, it's just you can't get rid of those top guys and know things,[00:37:00] yeah. It's just not
Ricky Brule: feasible. Yeah. Murphy and some guys who are knowledgeable, there's gonna be a strict learning curve there, but Yeah.
It would've, it definitely would've put a damper on the product
Steve Fondie: would've suffered, yeah. And that you probably see that with other companies, that something similar happens. Yep,
Ricky Brule: for sure. Fortunate. What are your thoughts about where we are now? Could you have imagined back in 2000 when you guys signed that thing, would you have imagined be sitting here right now talking to us, this big, huge building?
Steve Fondie: Like I wouldn't be able to sleep at night.
Ricky Brule: I'd be like, no,
Steve Fondie: they shut the doors. Heat's going. No, Rick left it
Ricky Brule: here on. You can follow. Birthday annual for sure. Oh. But
Steve Fondie: yeah, this is amazing. And the pro shop me and Jared struggled with that a little bit, cause we had conversations about that and I know he really wanted to do it.
And I'm like, dude, there's just dealers around here. They're gonna walk right away, and they're gonna say I ain't competing with the guy that I'm buying 'em from. Yeah. Just ain't gonna work. Yeah. And yeah. It was, that was probably
Ricky Brule: the main concern, right? [00:38:00] Yeah. And going into this whole thing too, I had concerns about burning some bridges and, it's a 50 50 split.
I think, we've got some that are not particularly happy and it's not our goal to really put anybody out of business at all. But it's just it's part of growth and getting to where we want to be and why not? Starting a pro shop, it's such a dealer rich area around here that.
You, we've seen a lot of shops come and go. It's really hard to do, but with us having the back of the manufacturing facility and all that, it just makes sense, and everybody loves it. And it's part of why we wanted to start this podcast and why we've called it The Range, cuz we're Hollywood and I are trying to bring back that wolf track feel.
You know where you'd go and you had a key to get in the building and you could go 24 7 pizza up and Exactly. Yeah. The funny thing is,
Steve Fondie: I used to work at the pizza back then and I'd delivered pizza to these guys at Wolf Track. Yeah. Really? Shoot
Ricky Brule: bone arrows. Yep. Yep. We'd go me and Ben and Randy Hermann and we'd go shoot our league and then we'd go to the [00:39:00] old Piper Inn before it.
Burned and is now, new now, but back before and have a couple beers and it was just a blast. And I, remember seeing so many people there that I still see around in the area, in the art train industry. So we just want br try to bring that back, I think it's a good
Steve Fondie: idea.
I don't think it's really Vapor Trail. Never looked at, competing with their dealers and we were always really accommodated to that, call them and say, Hey, we got an order, we're gonna run it through you, and stuff like that even. Yep. So I think we were always real considerate of the dealer, but you never know how they're gonna react,
Ricky Brule: cause Yep. And we still try to do that. Yeah. You know what I mean? Sometimes we have, we'll have a guy in the pro shop that's wants to buy a set of bo bow strings, but then they're gonna bring them down to wan and it's Okay, we can, we'll just take your order. And then we just run it through Duana, and then we just say, just go down there and you can pick it up there and they can do it all, so we still try to do that when we can. Yeah. But yeah, but
Steve Fondie: the range is a great idea, especially 40 yards indoor. I hear [00:40:00] a lot of guys that come in here and I'm like, oh, I didn't know you, he. Oh, I love it. Yeah. I met a few different guys that come in right around the
Ricky Brule: area.
Yeah. And I think we've got almost, we've got a little over 40 members now, closer.
Jake "Hollywood" Iverson: We're closing in on 60 and that's just Wow. The single card holders. And that's not including the, families with. Five or whatever. So now that, we're getting to spraying. Yeah. We'll see what happens.
A lot more guys start turning into outdoors, but yeah, it'll get a little, yeah, we were doing really well there,
Ricky Brule: so it works out perfect that way too, cuz you know, p traffic is gonna increase simply because people are gonna want to shoot more. Even though it's outside. But yeah, and it's been fun too. Like it's cool to be able to go shoot on your break and you don't have to go, Hey, Jake, go have a cig. Kick the guy off, Jake. Yeah, cuz So for the people that don't know, we had a range, we could shoot 20 yards in the old shop, but there was a couple of string jigs right down there, down the hallway.
And then there was two, not when we left, there was four. Yep. And so then we'd have to kick four people out so that we could [00:41:00] shoot. And then the loft ended up turning into a workspace as well. So it didn't really Deer stand loft. Exactly. Yep. That got expanded. And man, we were just bursting at the seams.
It was, we had to go vertical. And then it got to the point where it's just like we brought in stoker eyes and. I was like, where are we gonna put all this stuff? And shockingly, when I came back from my leave, after my daughter was born they somehow made it work and fitted in there.
But so yeah. So that kind of brings us up to speed as far as your involvement, Steve. We're gonna, we're gonna have, in a future episode, we're gonna have a an interview with the current ceo and president of Vapor Trail Rio Locklin. We'll continue the story from there on a different episode.
But let's that being said what else is going on with you right now? Are you going to, you've always been really big into Turkey hunting. I know you're gonna gimme a hard time, but last year I shot a Turkey with a shotgun every disappointing. I know. I know. You, I know you so many years.
I was like, I'm going to shotgun. He would be like, [00:42:00] Don't do it, man. That's taking the easy way out. That's never the way to go about it. So there I'd go drag my bow out there and get disappointed. I still
Steve Fondie: wear a deer hunt, I'm the only guy archery, everybody else's
Ricky Brule: thunders stick. And yeah. I'm like,
Steve Fondie: boy, just go shoot a pop can out
Ricky Brule: there.
Yeah. A hundred yards. Yeah, dude, you remember that spot You used to hunt right by my house. That field. Now it's all homes now. Remember that? Oh yes. Off the Turkey Eyelight. Yeah. Yep. All homes now. Yep. And I see that's how it is everywhere. And I see turkeys in there all the time, more than I did before, hanging out by the houses.
30 of them we were just
Steve Fondie: at, me and Monica were at the Coon Rapids Dam yesterday, taking still for a walk. And I saw some deer out there. Yeah, buck's still at his antlers.
Ricky Brule: What? Oh really? Wow.
Jake "Hollywood" Iverson: Holy cow. That's surprising with how much snow know snow you've grown. I feel like this winter is pretty rough.
I think usually they drop 'em
Ricky Brule: earlier if it's a rough winter. Is it true what they say that younger bucks hang onto 'em a little longer? [00:43:00] Or am I thinking of that wrong? Were they or were they bigger deer? No. The one deer was like
Steve Fondie: probably six or eight pointer
Ricky Brule: basket. Yeah.
Okay. Yeah. That's crazy. Just like the
Steve Fondie: ones you like to shoot.
Ricky Brule: Yeah. All day long, baby. All day long. Hey, when at first Ricky
Steve Fondie: Fricking didn't have a big one until you got that one. The, on the metro hunts. The metro hunt, you were putting your hours in the
Ricky Brule: turkeys. Everything was just my gosh, pounding you.
Yeah. I had the one good year, I think it was 2011. I shot a whitetail, a mule deer, a Turkey, a bear. Geez, I had, and then ever since then I'm like the worst hunter there is, but no. Yeah, 2017 I, I got my Boer and then the year after that, then I got my second biggest whitetail again, metro hunts.
But Yeah. A lot of time spent in the woods, and passing on A lot of, passing on a lot of deer, man, because I've always tried to, I'm never picky in the beginning, but I always want to try to, one up every time as best I can. But now with the, with [00:44:00] that whitetail that I have, it's like, all right, I may never shoot, I may never shoot another deer again.
Yeah. Yeah. Good luck on that one. Yeah. So you gotta, you lower the standards a little bit,
Steve Fondie: but you can always shoot a dove unless you're looking for a trophy, if you're anything, pop and young and stuff like that.
Ricky Brule: Oh, there's not a dove. So you can have your
Steve Fondie: 22 fricking Pope and Youngs like to
Ricky Brule: at age 19.
19 three of 'em roadkill. Yeah.
Oh man. I hope he doesn't hear this. Yeah. Shots fired. Yeah. Yeah, there's not a dough that's safe walking by me. I won't hesitate to lace a dough ever unless it's two of them right in a row. Although I have done that, it's I can only eat so much meat. And again I I'm part of, I.
I don't have a problem donating deer. I don't want to donate it to a food shelf or something. I want to give it to a family that I know is gonna use it, cuz I know where it's going. So if I have, usually Weiss is a guy that I can call up and he'll take one or I got a few people, but I always want to have it lined up.
[00:45:00] But yeah I'll never let a dough go by if I can help it. Listen little one. No, I'll let him have it. I was trying to give him some. Nope. I'll let him have it spots. Little meat spots are not baby. I do
Steve Fondie: remember your raccoon hunt when you were bear hunting.
Ricky Brule: That didn't happen. I know you didn't get
Steve Fondie: anything.
They're a nuisance raccoon man there
Ricky Brule: eating. Oh, they'd take all the bait. So it was legal. They'd take all the bait, man. And, oh, and speaking of that, so you and I gotta have a conversation about my bear hunt, but when I was bear hunting in the boundary waters, I shot a couple of ducks and then I was using the carcasses as my bare bait.
And I had a, it was either a Pine Martin or a Fisher coming in and stealing him. Oh. Sitting there in the tree, just waiting for a bear to come along and a pine Martin would come through crap. And I can't do nothing cause you can't shoot 'em. You can only trap em. And I was just like, you gotta be kidding me.
Steve Fondie: Too bad you can't shoot 'em. That'd be a nice little skin to have. Cause you got that skin in
Ricky Brule: board. Yeah. That you gotta [00:46:00] use. Certainly would've been nice, no doubt about that. But, so now I'm gonna get really heavy into trapping. Yeah. So are you still getting out shooting the bow at all, or?
Steve Fondie: Since the fall, I always lay off through the winter.
I haven't even been swinging, like by golf clubs. I haven't been swinging that one. Really? Take some lessons or something at a bunker or something. Get better at golf.
Ricky Brule: I saw you were coaching Taylor and she made some pretty big improvements.
Steve Fondie: Then she met her boyfriend and that's usually how
Ricky Brule: it goes.
Now she doesn't, now she doesn't work. She's yeah, like we were, yeah. Yeah. She's got a good teacher and
Steve Fondie: she's got her own little company on the side that and she's oh girl, I got a lot of clients. I'm turning down all the time, and I'm like, It's a good problem someday.
Yeah. Someday you'll make a company or something
Ricky Brule: on it. Bring someone in to help out. What about what about Big Lake? What about the cabin life up there? I know you don't go up there in the winter, but you looking forward to getting up there and doing some fishing or, oh, yeah.
Steve Fondie: Won't be as much just this springtime, maybe a little bit, but, I'm going with some buddies up in June, [00:47:00] first part of June.
We're gonna go up to his place. And then then I'm going to Italy. Oh. So it's gonna take a chunk from June to July up
Ricky Brule: and lots of beaches in Italy to sit in my place topless. Dude, that's awesome. That'll be a blast. And Jerry and Vicky, they doing okay. Yeah.
Steve Fondie: Little man. He's sleeping all the time now.
He's like
Ricky Brule: a dog. He used to, he's
Steve Fondie: not moving. He's sleeping and he's not moving much, but no. Yeah,
Ricky Brule: they're doing good. Oh
Jake "Hollywood" Iverson: my gosh. He's not stealing the aluminum cans out of the
Ricky Brule: shop anymore. That's right. He hasn't been around. Leaves,
Steve Fondie: boy if he finds out where this place is. Oh, I know.
Ricky Brule: Oh my God. They come rolling in.
There's gonna be a pile of leaves in the middle, the parking lot. Doesn't you say hi or anything. Dump dumps his
Steve Fondie: trash and
Ricky Brule: leaves. I've been looking for the
Steve Fondie: white
Jake "Hollywood" Iverson: Dakota to come rolling through
Steve Fondie: one of
Ricky Brule: these days.
Steve Fondie: He still has that. Him and my mom were coming back from up north and they were driving that and the back window [00:48:00] literally just fell off and went right in the box.
Didn't break or any, didn't break or anything, but I'm like,
Ricky Brule: Oh my God,
Steve Fondie: just get rid of that thing. It should have been 10 years ago.
Ricky Brule: Oh wow. But that's funny, huh? No man, this has been great. I appreciate you coming down, hanging out. Love to have you on again, if you ever have any interest just coming, shooting the shit, ma'am.
Yeah. Again, just really cool to fill some of those gaps, where. I was a little unsure, where things, fit in and stuff like that. With, as long as I've been with this company, it's so funny that I'm just like, man, I can't believe we've never really had many of those conversations.
And it's one of those things too with Jared, all the things that I wish I could. Could have, chatted with him about, we had a lot of good times up at his cabin and stuff like that too. So I'll always treasure those moments and treasure the times that I had with you guys at the old shop.
And you're welcome to come up here anytime and shoot man in the winter, whatever, you know that I and I don't know, maybe Rory would disagree, but I'll let you in, man. No, no matter how much he doesn't like you[00:49:00]
Steve Fondie: we'll get him out there. Maybe I'll wreck some his
zero.
Ricky Brule: So there you go.
That's a good idea. We, that's what we need to do. We need to have a next podcast, just a,
Jake "Hollywood" Iverson: a. CEO over ceo, shoot out. Shoot. There we
Ricky Brule: go. Sounds like some kind of Trump show. You're fired. Thanks everybody for joining us on the podcast. If you have any questions or any suggestions or concerns, make sure you feel free to reach out to us.
You can find me on Instagram at Ricky dot Wayne 80 on Facebook at Ricky w Bruley Hollywood. As you can find him at Jake
Jake "Hollywood" Iverson: Ivy three on Instagram and. Jake Iverson on Facebook with Hollywood, of course, following
Ricky Brule: it. And if you wanna find Steve, where can they find you, bud? Oh boy. It's a ghost.
Nope, no. Rely guy on TikTok. Yep, there you go. All right, thanks bud. All right, thanks. Appreciate it. Take it night time. We'll see ya. Thanks You. And with that, we are going to pack our [00:50:00] bows up into our cases and we are gonna leave the range. Have a good day everybody.
