Cameron Hanes and Joe Rogan break down Instagram’s live-streaming impact, with viewer spikes from 3.7K to 7.8K, while debating hunting’s ethical role—from deer dodging arrows like "Matrix" bullets to Australia’s invasive species crisis. Hanes’ upcoming Under Armour line and a rushed documentary highlight his conservation-driven approach, contrasting hunting’s ancestral respect with factory farming’s industrialized detachment. They warn of H.R. 621/622’s threat to public land access, framing ethical hunting as a key to wildlife management amid urban disconnection. Rogan’s praise for Hanes’ discipline underscores how modern tech could bridge the gap between hunters and audiences—if privacy concerns are addressed. [Automatically generated summary]
I was for a while, and it was cool, but it's one way to get a lot of new followers, because if you go to Top Live, which I'm sure you are, so who's ever live, it'll have Top Live with the most people who are tuning in, and so that's where you are right now, and so people who don't follow you will see you on Top Live.
The Instagram story, so Cameron Haynes and our buddy Adam Greentree and a few other fellows were up there in the north country of Australia, and you guys took over the Under Armour hunt page, and It was epic, man.
The Under Armour hunt page, like the little Instagram stories.
It was hard hunting up there right now because this is their wet season or the tail end of their wet season.
And so the foliage was really grown up, really thick, so it was very hard to see the buffalo.
Normally, later when we went, it's all burnt up because of summer, and so there's no foliage.
You can see the buffalo from miles, basically, but with this grass, the grass is in some places eight feet tall.
I mean, you'd have to be 50 yards away to see a buffalo, and they're, you know, 1,800 to 2,000 pounds.
So it makes it hard to find them, and then it also makes it dangerous to trail them, you know, if you're blood trailing them, or even if you just surprise one.
You know, you surprise an animal that close, a wild animal like that, and who knows how they're going to react.
Yeah, and with that grass, it just, you know, as you know, Adam and I did a, and the camera guys, we did a podcast up there, and we were kind of talking about the challenges of the hunt, and that was a big part of it, is just not being able to see very much country, and so people never hunt buffalo this time of year.
This is like, people say, why would you go?
You're not gonna, you know, nobody goes this time, and we just...
Yeah, it would be, you know, last time I went is December, which is just before the wet season starts.
This is the tail end of the wet season right now.
So we're thinking about when we want to take you up there would be around November, October, November, because you don't want to get stuck with the wet season hit because that's big rains.
We talked about this recently with Josh Zeps, didn't we?
But they brought in all these animals with no game plan.
They just let them loose, and then they're like, oh, Jesus.
So, in New Zealand, they have these beautiful stags, these incredible animals, and in some places, they have to shoot them out of helicopters just to control the population.
For people in America, it's unheard of.
How could you do that?
That's like an elk, like a majestic animal.
You're going to shoot them out of helicopters and just leave them there to die.
And so I think they told me that, it seems like it was in 1985, they were going to wipe out all the buffalo, and they had some money funded for it, and they were going to try to get rid of them.
Yeah, and they brought in a bunch of other non-native species to control.
It's an exercise in conservation gone totally wrong.
Because they brought in cats to take care of certain animals and they brought in Fox and then the Fox and the cats are out of control and they kill all the ground nesting birds So now it's kind of fucked up to us here in America, but people in Australia hunt cats Yeah.
They hunt them the way, and they hold them up like, look, I got one.
And so finally, I thought, well, maybe it's just...
And it was super calm there.
So, so quiet.
You know, I don't know.
My bows are quiet.
A heavy arrow makes a bow even quieter.
You know, it absorbs that sound.
And the energy.
So your limbs are just...
Like that.
It's more of like...
But it still makes a noise on a super calm, windless day.
Especially when it's cold, you know, I mean, it's just that sounds going to get across there.
So I thought, well, maybe just a fluke, maybe the deer were pick something up, pick up some movement.
So they were just on me and just whatever.
I'm not worried about it.
You know, I'm not used to missing.
I'm used to being very disciplined on my shots and taking high percentage shots at relaxed animals.
If I do do my stock right, my goal is always to shoot an animal That has no idea I'm there, you know, so it's relaxed.
And so that wasn't happening here.
And I thought, well, maybe it's just because they're high-strung and they were on me.
So the time where I decided, okay, these arrows aren't going to work, was a wild boar was out there.
Big boar, 45 yards.
Okay, this should be slam dunk money.
Okay.
Camera over my shoulder.
He had no idea we were there.
Draw back, shoot, and he was facing his head to the left, and he was heading back to the right, probably a few feet away by the time the arrow got there.
I didn't even have to even...
I shot and went, oh my, are you kidding me?
He's gone that fast.
Spun and just gone.
At that time, I'm like, okay, this is not going to work.
When you think about the size of Australia, the size of North America with the same amount of people as Los Angeles, but the area where you're at, it's like, that is as wild as it gets.
Last time Adam was here, he talked about some of the Aborigines there and explained some stuff.
But when we went back to my house, we had dinner and we sat around talking.
He told me some crazy stories about the horrors that those people faced and how they had been wiped out, like they had been poisoned.
He went to this one cave and he found bones all through this cave.
He's like, this is crazy.
There's human bones.
And he's like, children's bones.
He defined children's bones.
And then he had heard this story from one of the other Aborigines that lived there that someone had brought food to all these people, all the Aborigines there, and just poisoned the food and just killed them all off.
But it seems like when you think about the actual numbers of how much land you're talking about, how few people live out there, and how many of those things are probably there.
And also, one of the things that Adam was telling me that's crazy is you could have the way they refer to themselves, like Aborigines, they call themselves a mob.
Like, you know, instead of a tribe, it's a mob.
And they're like, there could be one mob.
And he said, there could be a mob.
He goes, four kilometers away, and they speak a totally different language.
Well, it is like a tribal society, but it's also like you're...
I mean, right now, there's culture and there's civilization that is linked to who knows how many hundreds, if not thousands of years ago, and it will go away because there won't be people that understand it.
And there's so many different versions of the way they communicate that it's just like you're literally watching history dissolve right in front of you.
It's just so fascinating thinking about that particular continent of Australia that, you know, Europe used it as a prison colony and England brought a bunch of people over there and go, look, you people are assholes.
So that when the engine's getting the air, apparently it mitigates a lot of the dust because a lot of the dust is headlight high when you're driving, and that gets you a little bit more clear air up there.
Yeah, my My goal is to sort of use you because I want hunting to be shown in the light that I know it to be, which is hard work, respect for the country and the animals, and giving back.
So with you involved, more people care about it, right?
And we want to have you involved because we like hanging out with you.
Well, I was explaining this to Adam, too.
When we did my podcast up there in the bush is like ever since I've hunted way back when Roy moved to Alaska and I was left hunting the wilderness on my own.
I loved it so much, I kept wanting to find somebody who would love it as much as I could say, look how awesome this is.
Isn't this awesome?
And I kept taking people there and trying to convince them how awesome it was.
It wasn't awesome for them.
So it was like, but you want to share something that impacts you so much with other people who appreciate it.
So that's why That's what I was saying when Adam and I were talking is that, you know, you love bow hunting.
And so when you are so interested and invested in something and have such a passion for something, there's nothing better than when somebody else shares that passion.
If you try to introduce bow hunting to people, first of all, Just shooting a bow, people think, oh, you pull the string back, you point at the spot, you let it go.
Good luck with all that.
It takes fucking years.
It takes years to get competent with a bow.
And I remember when you first started showing me how to shoot when we first shot in my backyard.
And I immediately recognized, I think, like, after, first of all, you had a 90-pound bow, which I definitely shouldn't have been pulling back.
My shoulder was fucking killing me after the first hour.
I was like, oh!
Like, this takes...
You gotta build up to this goddamn thing.
But then I remember thinking, like, to be accurate with this, like, I just went down a rabbit hole.
Bow hunting and archery itself, to me it seemed like, okay, this is a discipline, it's a worthy pursuit, it's fascinating, and I'm very, very interested in it.
But for a lot of people, I think it's very daunting.
I don't think they realize it.
People think of hunting as Elmer Fudd.
You go out there or they see some hunting scene in a movie where there's a bunch of rednecks and they're fat and they're sitting in a tree stand or something like that, and they think it's easy.
They think it's a bunch of people that are just killing animals and they don't care and then When you actually go out and do it, especially if you go do it with a person like you, you understand what this thing really is.
And what it really is, is this incredibly difficult pursuit that takes immense amounts of hard work and dedication, and you gotta be in fucking shape for it.
And over the last few years, and all the platforms that you've gone on to tell your story, is that people understand that Big game hunting in the West, in the Western-style hunting, elk and mule deer, the type of stuff that you love to do, is very, very difficult.
It is a combination of athletics, of extreme endurance, of hiking, outdoorsmanship, survival skills, and then the knowledge of hunting, and then you have to be a good shot on top of all that.
Yeah, then you have to be able to keep, you know, when that adrenaline hits, when all of a sudden...
And that's what's hard is people have invested so much into it and they've been thinking about the crunch time for so long that when it happens, it's too much.
And so it's really hard.
When you've been thinking about something for years, potentially, or at least all year, you know, that, oh, here's my chance, here's my chance, and then you get it and you're not ready.
And I was just like, imagine how frustrating this would be for somebody...
A new hunter.
I mean, it's no wonder people try to bow hunt and then just be like, are you kidding me?
This is impossible.
But it's that challenge.
Anyway, it's that whole journey, which is why I want to do that special.
And I want to share all that's positive about hunting.
To as many people as...
And we are reaching new people these days.
Hunting, it's in the crosshairs in some...
I mean, I went to an archery shop up there, Benson's Archery in Sydney, and we just had a few hours notice saying, hey, Adam and I are going to stop by, swing by, and quite a few people came.
I mean, it was surprising how many people showed up, but a lot of them We're vegetarians, you know, six months ago, listened to your show.
A lot of people told me, oh, I found out about you from Joe Rogan, or I didn't hunt, or I didn't even eat meat.
And all these different stories, all these different from all these different areas.
So we are reaching new people.
And I want to make sure our message The one of respect and reverence and appreciation for everything out there and for survival and for just, you know, life outside of the city.
I want that shown in a way that I know we would.
And so that's why I selfishly want this to be a big thing just because I'm sick of hunting, you know, the Elmer Fudd thing.
You know, I was watching a movie the other day And they showed a hunter, and the girl was on there, and she was...
Oh, what was that?
There's three girls that were kidnapped, and one of them had hunted as a younger girl.
And so she was like...
Do you know what movie that is?
Anyway, so she had the upper hand.
She was tougher, and she was more prepared because she had been a hunter.
And I'm like, oh, that's cool.
But then they show her as a little girl hunting, and her perverted uncle had molested her.
So now people are becoming more aware because of the internet, because of information, and they're becoming more aware of where their food comes from.
And you're also seeing a higher number of people that their response to this factory farming thing is, well, hey, I'll go vegetarian or, hey, I'll go vegan.
And then when you actually find out that these animals, the money from hunting tags and even from buying hunting gear, there's a percentage of money that goes towards conservation, and this is all very carefully thought out by people like you and by these people that really respect and care for these animals.
Yeah, and you get deeper and deeper into this and you understand what it really is and then you see this whole community of these people like yourself and Remy Warren and these hardcore hunters that are also like deeply connected to the land and Conservation and deeply appreciate these animals and this is how they get all their meat.
Yeah, this is how they live and like that was Extremely appealing to me.
And I remember he had just something about him that I'm like, okay, this is different.
I've been a hunter myself my whole life, but his...
His portrayal was different than what we'd seen before.
Maybe me and some of the other people you've mentioned and Adam have just carried that on and tried to do a good job of educating people who don't know any better.
I wish everybody I mean that last day we were up in the mountains there after I had killed my deer and we had a back strap so we're picking up camp getting everything away but I had I had a awesome fallow deer back strap which is like the prime for people don't as a prime cut and I cut it all I cleaned it all off every piece of Anything
that was on it, hair, if there's any tree bark, anything that was on there.
It was just a perfect, clean piece of meat.
I sliced it all up.
We got a green stick to put it on.
Skewered it on a green...
Wood.
If it's dry wood, the wood's just going to burn.
You can't cook on that, so it's got to be green.
We put it over the fire there.
We seasoned it.
It was so good.
It was probably some of the best meat I've ever eaten.
Standing around the campfire, just pulling that off that stick that we had cooked it over the open flame.
I wish everybody could know what that was like.
To know that that deer, just previous to that, was alive in the woods.
We harvested him, which is aka killed him, and then ate him.
And that circle of life, or whatever you want to call it, or just that moment, I wish everybody could experience it because I just think they'd have a different take on On hunting and hunters and being self-sustaining.
When you're eating an animal that you killed yourself and it's difficult to do, and you were hard hunting for many, many days before you got that deer.
So there's this intense respect and connection that...
I think we all, I mean, we harp on about it so many times that people listen to these podcasts, like, Jesus Christ, you guys stop talking about how awesome hunting is?
It's because it's impacted both of us in a very, very positive way, in a very, there's a primal, genetic, sort of ancestral thing that's happening when you hunt.
My thought process is what you're doing, what I'm doing, what all these people that do that hunt is you're entering into the wild and you're for a small window, a week or whatever it is, you're becoming a part of this crazy cycle of nature.
You're taking something out of that and leaving something as well.
You're spending a ton of money.
That money, whether it's the money for the outfitters, the money for the tags, the money for the gear, all that stuff, percentage of that goes to make sure that the habitat is maintained, make sure that the animal population is maintained, make sure that Department of Fish and Game is well staffed with biologists, with people that are monitoring these animals.
Because guess what?
If that doesn't get done, these animals are not going to be there anymore.
And North America has the best wildlife management program or management system of anywhere.
And that's why almost all the species that we have here, there's more now than there almost ever has been, even with shrinking habitat, because we're encroaching on where they live.
But the numbers still flourish, because hunters aren't just, oh, let's go wipe them all out.
It's managed.
Fishing game is managed.
They're funded by hunters and what we pay with the tax and license.
And so there's a system to it.
But at the end of the day, like there in Australia, we were getting up in the morning out of the sleeping bag, grabbing our bow and taking off.
We're hunters.
That's it.
And that feels, man, it feels, like I said, I wish people could know what it feels like because I see people comment on my social media and they say, this isn't the 19th century anymore.
Yeah, well most of those people have cheeseburgers on their Instagram pages, which is fucking hilarious.
There's so much of that.
This one chick, she posted something mean when I posted a picture of some elk that I was cooking, and I said, hey honey, I go, you got, I like to call girls honey because it makes them feel like I'm a sexist.
You got a fucking BLT on your page, sweetie.
And she's like, well, that was just from four months ago before I was enlightened.
I'm like, oh, you became enlightened.
It's always the most adamant vegans just became one.
The most proselytizing, ruthlessly aggressive ones.
I understand where they're coming from.
And I think that's very important to get our message across.
Is that, like, we're not animal haters.
This is not...
It's hard for people to understand that someone could love animals and love the idea of animals and love wildlife, but still eat them.
I found this place where the deer were coming into this field.
And, like I said, this area had been hunting, but I... I had figured nobody had ever hunted out of a tree there, you know, not like a whitetail back here, you know, in the east or in the south that get trees down and hunted all the time.
So I'm like, well, I think I can get up in this tree.
These deer coming out in this area, I probably have a pretty good chance.
So I was up there in the tree and these does and fawns were out in the field and they were running around chasing each other, playing.
I mean, it was just like speeding all around in circles and bumping into each other.
And, uh, It was cool to see.
And then a doe and a spike, a young buck, came out right under my tree.
The spike was 24, 25 yards away.
Basically a chip shot with a bow.
I had no idea I was there.
And there was a thought that we were getting low on meat in camp.
And I hadn't killed a deer.
So, you know, I had said before, I'm like, any buck that comes out, I'm taking him.
And then I was watching him up there, and I'm just like, I just, you know, for me...
It's got to be the right animal.
It's not just like I'm not some bloodthirsty, you know, I still watch the deer.
I still appreciate their beauty and that, you know, they're frolicking about or whatever you want to call it.
And I still enjoyed that.
This young buck was down and I had said I was going to get meat for camp, but I'm not some bloodthirsty guy.
So I just said, well, no, I'm just going to watch him and, you know, enjoy it.
And he was there.
And then the buck I ended up killing.
Stepped out and you know an old buck he was you could see his hip bones because he was so run down from the rut and he was getting older I could tell he was an older mature deer and that's that's what I want to take I want to take an animal past its prime that has done his job for spread his genes for the health of the herd and was that's the animals we want to take out and so he was he was just a run down old buck that's what I took Yeah,
The fact that he died, I shot him, and he was dead within seconds is guaranteed, and people always talk shit about this, is the very best way he could go.
So it's just, their life is, I mean, how many guys out here in the street, you know, fight and kill each other and get stuck It doesn't happen, you know, it's life in the wild is I mean unless you're out there and you witness things like that you just live in it's a it's not real I think the real problem is perspective,
you know, I mean I think unless you're there unless you're experiencing the wilderness itself Like, I've talked about my experience on Prince of Wales Island that, you know, Brian Callan and Rinella and I, we were up there for, I guess, I think we camped there for six days.
And your idea of what, like, life is...
It's only based on what your perception is, like what you're seeing on a daily basis.
Well, here, you're seeing Ventura Boulevard, and you're seeing billboards, and oh, new movies coming out, and keeping up with the Kardashians.
There's a new season.
Look at that new Audi.
Wow, that's a sweet-looking car.
Hey, I got the new iPhone.
All right, and this is life.
And then you're out there, and you go, oh, well, this is life, too.
In 22 minutes, you know, they usually build up for the first, you know, 15 minutes.
Well, you know, we came close to them, but we could not get a shot.
And then finally they get a shot.
What you don't see...
Is that it takes days and days and days of 10, 12 hours, up and down mountains, up and down and up and down.
And when I met you, the reason why I got in contact with you and the reason why I met you is because I was so confused as to why someone would need to run ultra marathons in order to get ready for hunting.
I was like, what the fuck is this guy doing?
Why is he lifting weights and doing all this shit for...
I didn't get it.
I was just getting into it, and I was trying to figure out...
I would start to watch things on television, and I was starting to read certain articles and read certain books, and I was like, well, what is this whole fitness connection to hunting?
Why do they need to be in shape?
I'm like, I'm in pretty good shape.
What's the big deal?
Well, I went with Rinella, and when I went with Rinella, one of the things I realized was, boy, I got pretty winded going up these fucking hills.
Hiking tires you out.
Especially high altitude.
And then I see your videos online, and I was like, what the fuck is this guy into?
And then as I go deeper and deeper into it, I realize like, oh, this is like an extreme pursuit.
This is not just like something you just go out and do.
This is something that's really hard to do.
And a lot of people, I've...
Read this one article about this one guy who was unsuccessful 12 years in a row elk hunting before he finally shot an elk.
12 years!
Like, how many times did this guy go out?
How many days did he camp in the forest?
How many days did he try to stalk and get winded or snap on a twig at the last minute or, you know, the elk sees him and bolts?
Until you're out there, you got the bow in your hand, and you're trying to close in on that animal, and you're trying to do everything right from A to Z, and there's so many variables during that whole path, it's just like, it seems impossible sometimes.
And there's a very strange connection that you get with nature, and forget about even the fact that you're pursuing these animals to hunt them and eat them, but there's a very strange connection that you get when you're out there in that total quiet, Woods where they live you're in their world and you lock eyes with them and you meet them and you see them and you're in this place with no cell phone reception with no people anywhere near you from miles and miles.
Yeah, it's a totally different feeling life shows you Another aspect of itself that you didn't know existed.
There's something about cities and this existence.
I mean, don't get me wrong, I like it.
I like a lot of it.
I like the fact that you can go to a restaurant.
I like going to the movies.
I like the fact that if, you know, if your phone breaks, you go to the fucking mall and get a new cell phone.
All that stuff's wonderful.
It's not bad, but the other stuff is fantastic, too.
And we're disconnected.
A giant percentage of our population lives in these urban environments that have a complete and total disconnect from the actual life on Earth.
Life on Earth is not just urban environments.
Life on Earth has this broad spectrum of different ways it manifests itself.
And to experience all these different ones, to be in Alberta and see black bears in the wild, to be in Colorado and see mule deer and be in the woods and the mountains and to be around these different animals...
It's a different it's a different understanding of the actual existence that living things have here on earth that living things that share the air you breathe and the water you drink and the earth itself that was that was the best part of that trip because we would split up Adam would go one way.
Well, you know, it's like we were talking before this when we were on the way over here about a show that wanted me to come on and talk about guns.
But there's going to be like a large audience and there's going to be a bunch of people on the panel and you talk for seven minutes and you go to commercial break and I'm like, I'm not interested.
I'm not interested in doing that because I think that it's a long conversation that you have to have with someone and it takes a while for you to understand their point of view.
It takes a while for them to understand your point of view.
It takes a while to establish the fact that you're a very reasonable person and this is a very nuanced conversation.
Much like when that guy in France ran over a bunch of people with his truck, I don't think the truck should be outlawed.
I think the real issue is human beings that are capable of doing horrible shit.
They're going to get mad at you for sure, but they would get mad anyway.
Yeah.
There's a lot of people that listen to these conversations, and they get a perspective that they would have never had.
There's a lot of people right now that are listening, that are in their car, that are on the bus or whatever, and they've got their headphones on, and they're thinking about this in a way that they never thought about it before, because in their mind, because of the fact they live in these urban environments, and they've never been exposed to hunting, and they get all their meat from a store, or from a supermarket, or from a restaurant, they just never heard anybody talk about it.
And it's a weird part of our life.
It's a dangerous disconnect, I think, with life and death.
The dangerous disconnect of restaurants and supermarkets.
Well, what you're saying makes a whole lot of sense is that people do, they find these communities with like-minded people and it becomes an echo chamber.
And that goes all the way back to like a million hours ago, it feels like, since we've been talking about why that Netflix thing is so appealing to me and having you involved.
It's just because we've reached so many new people and hunting is so important to me and I think...
People can understand what motivates us and why it's important.
Well, they feel like they're doing a good thing, and they are in many ways.
Look, if you're eschewing factory farming, you're avoiding factory farming and eating more salads and eating farm-to-table vegetables instead, you are definitely contributing to less death and suffering, 100%.
Yeah, it's because they want to kill these animals that are trying to eat the crops kill these little bugs Well, and I don't know I just keep going back to this recent trip just because I think about it It's just like here's another example.
So those the brown snakes up there are Second most deadly and we saw a number of brown snakes in the road while we were driving Adam swerves around them and To try to not kill him.
Are more adaptable to different kinds of diets and some people just don't do well on an all plant-based diet and Maybe they're not as disciplined as some folks.
Maybe they're not doing it, right?
Yeah, I don't know.
Yeah, it's hard to say but everybody's everybody's different, but I don't think there's anything wrong With going out and killing animals and eating them.
And I think that's where we differ from a lot of people that think that you should not be allowed to do that.
You should not be allowed because it's barbaric.
I don't think it's barbaric.
I think it's spiritual.
And that's what freaks people out.
They get very angry if you say that.
But they wouldn't get angry if you talked about Native Americans doing it.
And the thing is, the big difference is, I don't care if they don't eat meat.
I don't judge them for not eating meat, but they judge us for killing.
You know what I mean?
So it's pretty one-sided as far as they won't accept being a hunter and being self-sufficient while any hunter I know isn't going on vegan pages and talking shit.
You know what I mean?
So it's just weird how they're so hateful and so...
But one of the things is about what we were talking about earlier, that we were saying that people sort of find their area and it becomes like an echo chamber.
And I think that's one of the issues with, whether it's veganism or even hunting, is that I think that people, they need to be, have these dialogues with people that don't necessarily agree with them so they can find out how the other person thinks.
And, you know, if you do, if you are talking to a person who's a hunter and you find out that they're actually just a cruel psychopath, like, fuck man, I wouldn't want to hang out with that guy.
I mean, I haven't experienced that, but I know they must be out there.
And you were having a conversation with someone like that, I mean, it would be disturbing.
But I think that most people that are, especially people like yourself or a guy like Remy Warren, Or Steve Rinella, very well-spoken, who's also an advocate for conservation, loves wildlife.
If they sat down and had a long-form conversation like this with someone who's a reasonable person, who's a vegan for all the right reasons, who's a vegan because they care about life and because they want to be cruelty-free and they want to live life with as little footprint as possible, I think they'd be surprised at how much common ground they find.
Yeah, I mean, if anybody spent a day in the woods with Remy or Adam, they'd be shocked at how much, not hunting they know, just how much they know about...
The environment, about where they're hunting, about different species, about the animals and tendencies and foliage.
Yeah, and I think that almost like what we're talking about with the Aborigines, we're kind of losing their culture.
We're losing out on an understanding of how these people lived.
There's a little bit of that could be said about the culture of hunting.
Is that if it goes away, and if it...
There was a trend about 10, maybe 15, 20 years ago, where, from what I've read at least, obviously I'm pretty new to it, I've only been hunting for five years, but they were considerably worried, they were really worried, there was a real thought that the next few generations,
that hunting was going to dwindle down to such a low number that hunters would not have the same sort of impact In terms of politically, where they could affect the retaining of public lands.
And you're seeing it with this Trump administration where you're seeing the erosion of the Environmental Protection Agency and the erosion of the status, the protected status that some national monuments have and perhaps public lands have.
People are super nervous.
And you had a conversation, a long conversation with Jason Chavitz.
Well, that was H.R. 621, and then there's H.R. 622 also.
So there's two of them kind of back-to-back different.
622 just took away the law enforcement on public lands, and they wanted to take it from the federal government and give it to the state, which people think that's just a way...
Where the states can say, well, we can't afford it, so we're going to have to sell this public land.
Because it's a resource, and the states have to balance their budget every year.
Federal government doesn't.
So if the state has to balance its budget, and it's not penciling out, and they can sell X amount of acres, and that's going to help, they're going to do that.
I haven't asked him, you know, what's going on or whatever, but yeah, I mean, I liked the fact that he at least took time out to talk about it, you know, instead of just, I'm not sure why he did, but I appreciated the fact that he did.
But Ranella has a very bad opinion of him based on his record with defending public land.
And Ranella thinks that he does not understand the significance of these decisions.
These decisions are a step in the wrong direction that will snowball out of control and will eventually lead to privatizing of public lands and the loss of the access to them by the American people that was all set aside by Teddy Roosevelt and all those people that had such great insight and foresight back in the day.
Yeah, and that's, you know, that was the worry with, he says, well, no, I'm just taking the law enforcement away from these lands, or not taking it away, but giving it to the state.
And like I said, with the whole budget thing, so people were thinking that when they don't have enough money, not just for the law enforcement, but for...
Enforcing illegal timber harvests and dumping trash.
And so when all that happens, that lessens the value of the land.
So when the value of the land is lessened, then it's just like, okay, whatever.
This is a garbage dump anyway.
So it makes it easier.
So they thought that was just a step in the transition of taking that away from Public land and privatizing it.
Jason seemed like a very nice guy when you were interviewing him.
I don't know enough about that particular issue.
But when you talk to a guy like Ranella, who is deeply invested in it and very well read on it, He is of the opinion 100% that it's an incredibly negative idea.
Both HR 621, which is gone, and 622, which he thinks is equally negative, and he thinks it's essentially like a Trojan horse.
People think that peanut butter and jelly is racist.
This is how deep it gets, because white people eat peanut butter and jelly, whereas black people don't necessarily eat peanut butter and jelly, so to have peanut butter and jelly as a food choice in school for kids is racist.
Because other ethnic groups don't necessarily eat peanut butter and jelly.
Yeah, there's a lot of folks out there that are just looking for something to get ticked off at.
It's...
It's too easy.
It's too easy to get by.
You know, and I think that's also something that happens when life is too fucking easy.
There's not enough struggle.
We were talking about kids and about putting your kids through difficult things so they understand accomplishing goals and they understand how things aren't easy.
You have to struggle through stuff and how it's hard today because You know, you're doing well.
I'm doing well.
Our kids are fine.
They don't have to worry about where food's coming from.
It's going to be there.
You open the fridge.
There's the food.
So you have to figure out, like, okay, how do you get this kid to understand and appreciate the value of a difficult task, overcoming that difficult task, and feeling that good feeling that you have of building character and knowing, yeah, I can push through something like you had to do during that tough hunt.
Very difficult.
Questioning yourself.
Then finally, success.
And then you have that good feeling, the good feeling of success and of accomplishment and of realizing that you will fight those demons in your mind and that you will stay the course and keep hammering, as it were, and get through on the other end with success.
And you've done it before.
And even though you've been doing it for fucking decades, those questions still come to your mind.
For me personally, that's why I work as hard as I do, just because You get wake-up calls like that and you're just like, okay, I gotta be on my A-game.
I didn't kickbox for a couple of weeks because I'd been too busy doing other stuff, and I wanted to keep with the running because I was getting some progress out of it.
I was seeing progress.
And then I started going back into some of my other workouts.
It didn't affect my weightlifting at all, my kettlebell workouts at all.
Man kickboxing it really affected it.
Yeah, it affected it a real positive way cuz I'm doing all hills Yeah, so I'm basically sprinting a lot.
Yeah, and so when I was I was doing rounds in the bag the other day I was like Jesus I got a lot of wind.
Yeah, it's kind of crazy.
That's awesome Yeah, I was like deep into like the third and fourth round and I was still slamming the bag and I was like this is weird Like I've got like an extra gear here did have you dropped any weight?
Yeah, I've dropped a few pounds.
I'm probably like somewhere between 194 and 196 where I was hovering around 200. But I've dropped down before just by my diet, which got shitty again.
I just I'm definitely going to keep doing it and keep getting in better shape and then if Something if I decide okay, I need something to strive for yeah, then here's my goal Okay, I'm gonna do the keep hammering 5k next year and fucking kick ass at it There you go instead of this year when I did it where I was like, oh Jesus, this is hard zero running.
How about this guy?
Oh Almost 25 seconds short of the two-hour marathon barrier.
But what's going to be interesting is you can be in a place like where you were, and you could...
You know, call people from your phone, you could film things, you could stream live, and all that stuff would be available, and you would have real internet access in the bush.
And that's what people, people like that, I mean, they're already asking, when's the film coming out?
You know, we filmed this, Mark Womack, his company, Sub-7, filmed it for Under Armour, and we're like, we gotta turn this thing around fast, and I saw Under Armour put up that's gonna come out in the fall, and I'm like, fall?
I really do think that it's made a big impact and I think you and Rinella and Remy Warren and Adam and the people that I've had on and Jim Shockey and you know, real representatives of the noble pursuit.
The real Hardcore enthusiasts that truly have a deep love of nature.
And they're giving these people this platform and giving these people this way to communicate these ideas.
I think the millions and millions of people that have listened to you guys, it's changed perception.
And I think that perception, there's a ripple effect.
And that perception is going to lead people to maybe read your book or read maybe Rinella's book, Meat Eater, or maybe listen to some of these books on tape or maybe look into Aldo Leopold or look into some of these people that have really been...
These huge figures in conservation and the love of wildlife and hunting, and they'll get a different understanding of it than people have had because of movies like that split movie where the hunters are portrayed as a child molester.
Well, it's like right now, you know, you said hunting was dying or, you know, that was the fear.
And now, like, in my Instagram page, it's 20-year-old guys, you know, that are into it and are buying bows and the bow rack back home is packed and, you know...
Eva Shockey and I will do appearances and we have a line that goes for hours, you know, young girls waiting for her because she's a hunter, you know, and her book coming out, Taking Aim, is about that lifestyle.
So, I mean, I feel like we're sort of turning the corner maybe a little bit and so we just keep that momentum going.
Where ideally they had more than one place, you know, where people could go and you would get fitted, they would find out what's your proper draw length, you know, what weight should you start at, what weight arrows should you start at, someone could teach you what the proper form is, how to release an arrow correctly, and really understand, I mean, even if someone never wants to hunt.
Just understand the meditative and beautiful effect of just launching an arrow at a target and have it hit that X. The Witchery of Archery.
Not that anybody knows, but I remember we had the radio on down there, and there was some rap on there that I had no idea what it was, so it has to be from there.
Well, that's one of the coolest things about elk hunting.
There's nothing like the rut.
When you hear elk screaming, like if the people have never experienced that before, even if you have no desire to hunt, please go to a place where elk live during the rut just to hear it.
Because it is so wild.
They're so loud.
And the sound sounds like something from the Lord of the Rings.