John Dudley recounts UFC crowd chaos, where Khabib’s fans hurled objects at McGregor supporters, and shares his near-miss with a bear in Montana—mistaken for a grizzly but later confirmed as a black bear. He contrasts brutal wilderness hunts (like 100-mile Alberta elk treks) with private ranch ethics, debating hunting’s legitimacy while detailing Traeger-cooked elk neck roast techniques. Rogan and Dudley also dissect McGregor’s grappling flaws, Khabib’s fulcrum choke dominance, and archery doping scandals, before pivoting to wild game cooking as a patriotic, flavorful mission—blending martial arts, survivalism, and culinary innovation. [Automatically generated summary]
I mean, obviously it seemed way worse over on your side, but I was more worried when they made us leave because the further up you got in the bleachers and once you got out into the concession area and in the bathrooms, that's where stuff was going down.
You know guys with Irish flags all obviously were getting trash talk to them and there was a big brawl right yeah right next to me on the other side from where they were sitting oh that's right there was one just to our right I was looking left I believe it was the guy that jumped in in the red shirt on Khabib's team when they were trying to leave when they're getting them out mmm people in the crowd are like ah they start throwing shit at them first like that's how the that's where the first shit was getting thrown down and some people know that it was them We all saw them.
It seemed like it was way worse than it really was because...
In any other situation, it would be way worse than it really was.
Like, if it was a rock concert, and some dudes just from, you know, like, you know, if one band was the opening band, and then there was another band that was in a brawl with them, and they were the main event, and then the fans of one band threw down with the fans, the other band beat the shit out of each other.
That would, for whatever reason, be way worse than when it's at a fight.
Because if it's at a fight, it's just fighters.
Oh, I saw this.
The insane clown.
This was going on.
This insane clown posse guy tried to dropkick Fred Durst.
I think a lot of the thing that's going through people's minds, too, is when you're in a fight like that, there's a lot of people in the crowd that can throw down.
You're carrying all their weight, and you're getting beat up, and you're stressed, and you're trying to move, and you can't breathe well because the person's weight is on top of you, so you're not getting real breaths, and you're constantly resisting their weight, and it's way easier for them than it is for you.
It's way easier to stay on top than it is to be on the bottom.
Well, people that grew up wrestling, you look at Miller, Mendez, Guida, those guys have experienced that forever.
It's ingrained in them.
Most wrestlers don't lose a classic wrestling physique, even as adults.
They still look like they're...
Like, they were guys that were real athletic at one time.
You know, I remember one of the first things my dad taught me, you know, when I was younger in school, he's like, you know, I think it was after the first guy, you know, wanted to fight me on the playground.
He's like, you know, if you don't know if the guy's good at fighting, don't worry about it unless he's a wrestler.
He's like, just if it's a wrestler, try to back down because he's like, you don't know what to do.
He stood up enough to just say, you know, I'm going to sit here and take a few, and I'm going to give a few, but then he went to probably what his game plan was, I would assume.
And it's one of those things where you see that guy, in the beginning, guys fight him off a little bit, and then as the fight wears on, he just gets more and more dominant.
They get more and more exhausted.
Really, this fight just makes Al Iaquinta look like a god.
I mean, that's the most impressive thing about it.
Al Iaquinta went five rounds with him, stood toe-to-toe with him, and gave him at least a struggle.
At least he gave him a bit of adversity.
You know, managed to survive on the ground much better than Conor did.
Managed to get back up to his feet.
Managed to stuff a bunch of takedowns.
And on the feet was a real threat.
You know, I mean, obviously Khabib didn't prepare for Al Iaquinta.
He prepared for Conor.
But Al Iaquinta didn't even prepare for five rounds.
I hope they sit everybody down and they go, look, everybody's alright.
Come on.
The guy who rushed in the cage and punched Conor in the face, that guy should be in the most trouble.
The guy just fought four rounds, got the fuck beaten out of him, got choked.
I heard a lot of people...
There's a lot of silly non-experts out there saying that that wasn't a choke or that wasn't a neck crank.
They don't know what the fuck they're talking about.
That is absolutely a neck crank.
When someone gets their arm around your head like that and then what they do is they grab it like this and they pinch the elbow They put the forearm on his back, like this.
So as the arm is across the neck, and then they grip it like this, and the forearm goes into the back, and as you're pulling like this, you're pushing with your forearm and yanking with your hand.
It is a terrible neck crank.
Dean Lister actually has a video on it.
He calls it the fulcrum choke.
And it's a nasty choke.
So, you know, I thought he was going under the neck.
Here, you can see it here.
Dean Lister, who's a world champion, Brazilian jiu-jitsu black belt.
And that's my friend Hans.
Hans Molenkamp behind him.
Now watch how he does this.
See how he's grabbing a hold of it.
And what he's going to do is he's going to clamp his hands.
See how he grips his hands?
Yep.
It crushes the esophagus.
No, no, no.
It can go right over your face.
It can go over your neck.
It can go over your face.
It can go over your fucking cheekbones.
It doesn't matter.
It doesn't even have to go under the chin.
If it goes under the chin, that's awesome.
But you see what's going on with his forearm?
See how he's pulling with his arms?
Yeah, or you could do it.
Some guys do it like this, but I think this is probably the best way to do it.
But as you're right here, this part just digs that elbow.
Yeah, perfect.
Perfect example.
See, he's pulling on it with his right arm, and then his left arm is pushing down with his forearm on Connor's shoulder.
It is a nasty, nasty neck crank.
And your head is getting popped off.
And first of all, that guy could squeeze the shit out of you.
There's a bunch of guys who could put you to sleep like that.
Marcelo Garcia is one.
He puts guys to sleep without even getting under the chin.
He just gets your head in there and squeezes.
Eddie Bravo can do that too.
If he gets your head in there, it doesn't even have to be under the chin.
He just really puts you to sleep with your own fucking head.
Just wraps it around your head and squeezes it so tight that no blood is getting to your brain.
Yeah, so there's a lot of armchair quarterbacks out there saying that that wasn't a net crank.
There's very there's parallels in archery for sure because archery it's What's really important is your technique your technique is almost everything like doing everything correctly and that's the same thing with jujitsu same thing with Muay Thai Taekwondo anything it's just technique and doing it over and over again correctly until it's ingrained in your system and Yeah, it's information overload, for sure.
That's one of the hardest parts for me is I'm so new at it that I feel like my cognitive functioning is not at a level to take in.
I mean, there's so much going on.
And several people have told me they're like, there comes a point where all of a sudden it just...
Something clicks and you start to comprehend everything, but until that moment happens, you're going to struggle to remember what you talked about last time or how to do it exactly right, but eventually there comes a time when it clicks and you do start to soak in stuff, and I'm definitely not to that point yet.
Even some of the basic drills.
The one thing I do understand that they were impressed by It's just leverage on joints, you know, because they were talking about some of the different arm bars and stuff.
You know, they were like, well, if the elbow's like this, and I said, yeah, that won't work.
The elbow has to be like this.
And I remember Damien looked at me like, how do you know that?
And I'm like, you know how many arms I've dissected off animals?
You know, if you have to knock four hooves off an elk quarter to pack it out, if you don't know where the joint is and how to bend it and hit it just right to crack that off.
Most people, even if they have like a strong left arm, like if I go, flex your arm, you see a good left bicep, you know, you look like you got good shoulders in your left hand.
And then I bring you to a heavy bag and I say, throw a left hook.
Most people's left hooks are fucking dog shit.
Just straight up dog shit.
I try to get someone to throw it and they're like, it just doesn't work.
I think you might be able to throw, because the concept of throwing seems normal, but the concept of digging in with your toes and turning your body into a hook, and then if you do it and you just do it slowly, just bang and hit a bag, they're like, how are you doing that?
And you just get used to it.
When I was striking all the time, my left bicep was quite a bit larger than my right one.
My left arm was actually stronger than my right because you're always jabbing.
You're always jabbing.
You're always jabbing and hooking and you're throwing less right hands than you are left hands.
And so my left side was bigger.
Like my left arm, I could see it.
Like if I flex the two of them together, my left bicep looked larger.
And that's a normal thing with boxers.
If you're not a person who switches stances and you keep yourself in an orthodox stance with your left leg forward, you'll have a stronger left hand.
I would be able to open things better with my left hand than my right hand.
Yeah, that was probably the biggest UFC of all time.
I mean, it has to be one of them.
You know, they don't know.
I would think.
They won't know for another day or so.
But I think it's the most important fight of all time because Conor being such a huge superstar and then being out of MMA for two solid years and then Khabib just being so dominant.
26-0.
And then there was also the controversy of how he won the title.
Well, what's awesome is, if there isn't, and kind of the counter-politics are out of that weight class, now some of the fights we'd get to see, like, I'd love to see him in Ferguson would be...
Yeah, people all the time say, why don't you compete?
Can I shoot better than most people at this point?
Yeah, I can answer that without question.
Could I have beat myself when I was shooting on the teams?
No way.
Like, that was a different person.
And when I stepped away for two or three years, even though I contemplated coming back, I'm like, this commitment is going to take a year, two years of really fine-tuning.
Because, I mean, at those levels, people don't miss.
You know, so missing one or two still means it's a burnt weekend.
It's still a burnt tournament.
Like, you have to be flawless.
And if you're not flawless, then all you're doing is donating money.
out of 60 arrows in tournament play, you would have to hit that dime 57 times.
And then when we went out to the longer distances, up to 90 meters, you have to be shooting something a little bit larger than the end of that coffee cup.
You'd have to be deadly accurate with that thing.
I mean, you're going to have to be in the high 90 percentile of being able to hit that.
Even if you're on the game, which there's been times like this past summer, I had an event that I did for a Cabela's experience where some of the Cabela's black signature card members kind of, I guess, bought an experience.
And I did...
Some training at the Easton Center with them, and then we went and shot the Total Archery Challenge in Utah.
I talked through the technicalities of what you would do on each shot.
Total Archery Challenge is a tournament that—or it's not even a tournament.
It's more of a fun event where they set—it's in Snowbird, and they set archery targets like in real— Hunting situations, but with very, very technical shots.
Extreme angles, longer distances, you got crosswinds and canyons.
You take the tram all the way to the top of the mountain and then you literally shoot down.
I think it was about six miles for us to get down.
I think our total walk one day was about six miles.
But I shot it with this group and taught them the technicalities of it.
And because of that, I really wanted to be prepared.
I knew that there was going to be people there watching.
I knew that because I stepped into an actual event where there were a few thousand archers there, I knew that there was going to be a lot of people watching me because I haven't gone out into that realm in a while.
It would be no different than if all of a sudden, you know...
You were out of MMA for a while and then went in there.
There's going to be eyes on you.
So I just wanted to be on my game or as best as I could be.
So I set a goal.
I'm trying to think what it was.
I think I set a goal of like...
I think it was around 10,000 arrows I wanted to shoot prior to that.
I mean, I think the one day I shot around 500 a day, I think I time-lapsed one of those.
I don't know if you remember that.
But once you go there, even if you're totally on your game, if you have to shoot with other guys that are elite-level athletes, there's still a lot that goes into it.
I mean, especially if you're shooting for score, you're Those pressure factors, if you're not acclimated to them, those aren't things that you can just step back into.
When I was my best as a competitor My practice was almost at tournaments every weekend.
It was, I mean, 40-something events a year.
Every three days, you're at a tournament in the heat of the moment with the best five or six people in the world.
And then you go home for a few days, you repack, you retune, and then you're right back in the grind again.
When I competed, so, I mean, yeah, you're, depending on what level you're at, there was, because I shot with the U.S. team, certain tournaments didn't have doping, and then, but when you shot anything that was on a world level, you did.
So I was always in a doping pool.
So, you know, it was no different than, like, when I was with Chad Mendez at a turkey hunt.
The number one thing in archery or any type of finesse sport is low heart rate, keeping your heart rate down, because that's obviously keeping your mind in the game, and stability, very minimal movements.
So, yeah, I remember I had a coach a long time ago.
He talked about alcohol and how alcohol could help shooters.
Because we were talking about a guy that had done well at tournaments several times.
And I said, yeah, he always does good.
And he said, yeah, he's always drunk.
And I'm like, what do you mean?
And he said, well, he goes, if you play alcohol the right way and you're like...
Not sloppy drunk, but he just stays in his zone and he's just kind of sitting there drinking the whole time.
And that was prior to where they were testing for alcohol.
So he actually made us...
He said, alright, well, let's see how you do if you shoot when you have a buzz going.
So we drank and shot.
And don't try this at home, kids.
It wasn't an archery range where they have to buy insurance or whatever.
But yeah, that was part of it because at the time, this was in the mid-90s, Another archer that had won a bunch of titles also tested positive for beta blockers and had some titles stripped.
But then for the longest time, that was one of my complaints was once I was shooting at a level with the teams and we had to go through testing or be like if, for example, at an event when I meddled, if you're in the top three, immediately you get tested. at an event when I meddled, if you're in the I mean, so that's how it is.
So, you know, everyone there is level.
They're all level.
But then you go to other events, like, for example, some of the biggest money events were the 3D shoots.
And that was a big reason why I left those shoots because at those tournaments, there was no testing.
There was no testing.
There was clearly guys there that were shooting that were kind of just out of it.
There could be $50,000 on the line, and there was just not a sweat cracked.
Because some of that stuff, obviously, it is a performance enhancer because of the fact they're not having to deal with adrenaline spikes and accelerated heart rate.
Yeah, and the other thing was, I didn't like the fact that at that time, when you scored, it was just based off, if there's four guys in a group, whatever the majority voted, that's how it scored.
And when there's a lot of money on the line...
So, like, say you shot and I shot, Jamie shot, and Sharon shot.
We'd walk up and, you know, they're foam rings, so the arrow could look like it's in, it could look like it's out, but it's not a clear line.
And we would just, if me, you, and Jamie said that's out, then even if Sharon's was close, it'd be out.
So I was in some groups where things got a little shady.
People were wanting to make money.
And it got apparent that it wasn't, you know, there wasn't a judge there calling every score, which on a world level, there's judges there.
I was one row behind you guys, and I was next to this kid who had never ridden a roller coaster, and he was terrified.
Like, he was terrified.
And I thought, have I just not been on one of these for that long to where this feels like it could possibly shake off and we could launch onto, like...
But there's something about that kind of experience.
Like, that's one of the weirder things about Texas is that they have these enormous fenced-in properties where they have all these African animals running around.
Yeah, there's, because even with like, animals that they, you know, where they want to score and then put into like record books, you know, to keep track of scores.
So you know, there's certain score scoring clubs that don't recognize anything with a high fence.
But then at the same time, there's like members within those organizations that are like, well, wait a minute, you know, if a ranch is 15,000 acres, that's They kind of have this same argument, and they said, well, is that?
And it's like, well, yeah, I mean, if there is.
And as a hunter, it's one of the things that there's kind of a continual debate.
Some hunters absolutely refuse to hunt anything that has any sort of containment.
Other people have their own threshold of, well, if it's 5,000 or more, then I'm kind of okay with it.
It's hard.
I mean, it's no different than some people in the hunting community.
Some people only want to hunt animals that are on public land.
And then some people like to hunt animals.
Areas where it's, you know, it's managed properties, it's privately owned properties that have really good management and you know that, you know, you're shooting, you know, a certain age limit, you're kind of culling out, you know, the older animals maybe that aren't breeding anymore.
So yeah, there's continual differences of what people feel like, you know, they want to accept.
Some people Some people just like hunting like Nugent.
Look, if you're a meat eater and you want to get meat from a free-range cattle ranch, you only want grass-fed, grass-finished beef that's free-range, that roams around.
Are you hunting because you want to kill your own meat?
Are you hunting because you want to eat wild game?
Are you hunting because it's fun?
Or are you hunting for all the reasons, all the above?
And if it's an all the above...
Some people feel like the only kind of hunting they want to do is backpacking public land, go into the wilderness, and they don't want to have anything to do with raising those animals, helping those animals.
They want those animals to be straight up wild.
And they feel like that is the most ethical way.
There's a lot of weird debates about public land, too.
Here's one that really gets me.
There's a lot of people that are really into public land, and public land is super important to them.
They only want to hunt public land, but they have secret spots on public land, and they don't want anybody to know about them.
And if you tell someone about their spot on public land, they'll get mad at you.
Like if you take someone to a spot, I've heard Ranella talk about this on his show, like he's a big public land guy, but he'll talk on his show about what A betrayal it is, if you tell a person about a spot and they tell someone else about that spot, or they go to that spot without you, like, what the fuck are you talking about?
Is this public land or is it not?
And if it's not, if it is public land, if you're telling someone about a spot, you're telling me that this public land spot you don't want them going to without you?
Yeah, but if someone takes you to a sweet little spot where they just rip lips constantly on a lake, and then next thing you know, they go out there on a weekend and you're sitting there in your boat with a bunch of buddies.
Well, could you imagine if you, say you were going elk hunting, you left camp an hour and a half before daylight, and you pack all the way out there, and there's someone sitting on your glassing rock in that basin.
So if someone takes you to a place, and it's this really good mule deer spot, and you hike in seven miles, and it's this beautiful basin, and you go there, and it's just always deer there.
You don't go there without that person's permission?
I mean, I've heard it, so it's not a new concept to me, but I'm trying to compare it to something else.
Like if it was a basketball hoop I found somewhere, and I don't tell somebody to go to that playground because it's my hoop, and I show up and people are there playing.
That you have, especially in today's day and age, because today people use like Onyx Maps and they use Google Earth and you could find these beautiful spots and you just go out to them.
Like if you find a beautiful spot on Google Earth and you go out to it and you go, hey man, this is a spot I found.
It seems ridiculous, but it seems understandable that someone would be upset if they're looking forward to going to a place, and they told you about it a year ago, and they go to that place, they hike in, takes them nine miles, and then you're there.
One of the questions, or I guess arguments, too, is I don't understand it when people, they don't have any tolerance for hunting private land, so to speak, or they don't have tolerance for...
I don't mind people that hunt exotic ranches or hunt hindfence.
That's just not what I personally like.
But I also understand that people do.
But I also don't like it when people are super negative to that, but yet they'll have...
A bull in a pen.
Or they'll have chickens in a cage.
Or they'll have a goat and they're raising a goat to slaughter.
Because it shows that there's a different thing in the pursuit of a wild animal.
There's a different thing to that.
Like, here's the thing.
Say if you, there's a ranch, and the ranch is 5,000 acres, which is big, but not the biggest.
And on that 5,000 acre ranch, someone shoots a giant buck.
Like a huge 240 inch mule deer.
Epic deer.
And people are like, wow.
But it's a private ranch, and you kind of know that there wasn't a lot of pressure there, so they probably knew where this deer was, and people that worked in this ranch told people about this deer, and they kind of kept their eye on it, and they knew where to go to find him.
But what I'm saying is, like, hunters versus non-hunters, people that are non-hunting that really look down on, like, what we're talking about as hunters, but yet they'll raise a goat to slaughter.
But if you're in a 400-acre fenced-in property with a bunch of exotics running around, you're sitting in a tree stand, there's a pile of corn down there, and you're waiting for an animal to walk over to that corn and you whack it, that is very different than, say, what you did this year in Alberta when you were telling me that you were hiking hundreds of...
And then there's like the intermediary, which is like a really nice ranch that's not a high fence, but it's a private ranch like the place we went to in Utah.
It's private.
Not everybody can go there, but those are just wild animals roaming around.
I really like the balance of having really tough hunts, especially because I knew my Utah hunt wouldn't quite be the same.
That was kind of a very different experience for me.
I haven't ever had an opportunity like that, so that was quite a difference for me, whereas Between the other states that I hunted, I think I was right at just over 200 miles before we got our first bull.
Between there and then hunting some private land, but also some public land in Montana before finally getting that first elk.
So a grizzly, they will bury something that they find, and I think they do it for a couple reasons.
One of the reasons is...
They don't want prey birds, like crows and stuff, to be able to see it because they'll start talking and then other predators in the area listen for those birds and then it's kind of a magnet.
It starts to draw, so they like to conceal it.
So they'll literally kind of pivot on a circle around that kill and actually claw the ground and bury them.
I've seen where grizzlies bury a full moose and it is...
Ridiculous.
The type of dirt they can move.
I'm talking, it looks like a skid loader came in there and buried these things and they can do, they can do that kind of work fairly quick.
But they'll pile up everything around it and then they kind of normally will create one small little hole at the end of that mound where they'll kind of crawl in there and they literally like eat.
From one side to the other side, you know, and it's normally the back end first.
So yeah, I felt like we had just got there when this bear had just discovered the carcass and had just started the burial process because, you know, he hadn't pulled anything out of the trees.
He had only started to cover the carcass, which normally they'll cover that seal first, then they'll clean up the scraps around, and then they go to their pile and kind of consume that last.
But I was certain that we had seen one.
We ended up seeing a wildlife biologist later on, and I told him, you know, I thought I saw a grizz, and he told me, he said, well, It's pretty important if you did because there hasn't been one naturally on this hill in, I think he said, 100 years.
So he's like, you know, would you be willing to go back in there to put a camera up?
Which is not smart.
If it was a grizzly, it's, I mean, obviously they're going to be, depending on their demeanor, they can be very protective of that.
But we did end up going back in there just to put the camera up.
And then after the camera was there a few weeks, he sent a picture and said, you were close to being right.
It's just a perfectly colored black bear that looks like it would be a grizzly.
The head is going to be narrower, and it took several pictures.
Some of the pictures, it looked more like a grizz, just because of the coloration.
Some of the pictures, it didn't.
So, you know, and keep in mind, you know, mountain grizzlies look a little bit different than, like, a coastal bear or, you know, an inland grizzly, but...
Either way, it was a bear that came in and covered the whole carcass and went to eat it.
Now, when you were in Alberta, you went back to that place that you were talking about on the first podcast we ever did, where you had that encounter where you shot that elk that was just outside of that wolf den, and the wolves tried to claim the elk.
It's funny how many people are like, that is not porcupine quills.
It's like, listen, people, I'm in the outdoors 200 days, probably a year, and if there's porcupine quills coming out of a pile of shit, I'm pretty sure I know what it is.
The more you're in the outdoors and you experience things, demeanors and...
Their ability to survive.
You look at an old grizzly that's been in those woods for 20 years.
Think of the experience level that thing has surviving every single day.
I mean, every day just...
Maybe making a slight mistake, slipping up a little bit, almost getting jacked by another grizzly, and then you're like, oh, yep, I know not to do this, I know not to do that.
I mean, their intelligence level and their ability to function is extremely high.
And wolves are, I mean, arguably wolves probably get shot less than probably any of the other animals.
I mean, they are incredibly smart.
So, yeah, I wouldn't doubt it, you know.
And they were very, after that, they were very intent in that area for people to, they put up some pretty big bounties on the wolves, and they really went after them and knocked those herds down quite a bit because there was very few mule deer, like very few mule deer.
You'd hardly see a doe and a fawn.
They had to cut the number of tags way down.
So elk, as soon as wolves like howl at night, if a pack moves into an area and they howl, like calling elk is just non-existent.
They just, everything's just like, don't say nothing because, you know, they're here.
So yeah, I think them thinning them down was very rewarding.
And since then, which was quite a while ago, the numbers of like elk and moose, like this past year, I saw way more moose than I've seen.
I think they're really hard on moose fawns.
And yeah, I mean, moose, muleys, whitetails, I saw way more animals this year than in the past up there.
And I think it's just because that The wolf number was just much lower.
But there was, like I said, there was still sign that there was some in the area, just nothing like several years ago when I was there.
It was, you know, it was, even I would say as much as I appreciate balance in nature, it was excessive.
And it's getting that way now, like even in Wisconsin.
I remember I was talking to a friend of mine up in an area I used to live up by, kind of in the La Crosse area, actually lived a little northeast of La Crosse by a small town called Cataract.
And there was...
A few times where there were some wolf spottings, there's a big military base there called Fort McCoy, and I lived up on the northern side of the base, what was called the impact area.
They kind of shot test rounds over and they kind of went off there or whatever, but There was an incredible number of like deer and things that were in there so you know kind of the rumor was that they had introduced wolves into their timber wolves to let to kind of thin down some of those numbers well now it's to the point where the amount of people I know in Wisconsin that see wolves It's just rapidly increasing and obviously when that happens, you know, they eat stuff.
I mean, wolves don't mess around.
They take stuff down and sometimes it's just strange.
You don't understand the balance of why there's an introduction to something that, you know, has the possibility to just take over.
Well, it is, but it's also there needs to be some sort of balance.
You don't want the animals...
Overpopulating, and you do want some sort of a balance between predator and prey, but the real problem becomes when people don't want to manage the predators.
And so we seared that whole neck and then seasoned it really well.
I seasoned it with like a Traeger Prime rib rub and then a coffee rub.
And then I put some of the Black Rifle Nocton loaded coffee in there.
And then put in, I think, about...
The pot was so massive, but I put in about six cups of bone broth and then covered it with a cast iron lid, wrapped it all up in foil, and then cooked it at 225, I think for about 18 hours because of how big it was.
And then we knew it was about ready to be done, so we grilled some peppers and Is that all we put in there?
they were caramelized but then open that up and more or less just took two forks and it just fell apart yeah I mean just fell apart and kind of did it all it looked like it looked like a pulled pork butt is what it looked like and then we went ahead and put in all the the grilled peppers and stuff in there put a little bit of sauce in there some Texas spicing a little bit of sriracha covered it back up and just let it
We actually took it out and set it in the Yeti and then let it just kind of sit in that Yeti for about...
Well, we went out on the evening hunt and then we came back.
And then we ate it for dinner.
So it just sat in that Yeti and just kind of maintained temperature and just let all the juices and everything...
You know, redistribute back through that shredded meat after we shredded it.
And then people just went crazy.
The amount of people that were coming up to me saying, what was that?
And I'm like, neck.
And they couldn't believe it.
They couldn't believe that a giant bull with this neck that practically dulled knives trying to cut through was just that awesome.
But it really is.
Like, low and slow is the name of the game on some of that stuff.
Well, those Traeger grills, any sort of pellet grill is such a great way to cook something like that, too, because you can maintain the exact temperature for long periods of time.
And the thing about, if you've never used a pellet grill, folks, they use these pellets that are made out of wood.
So like this table, if you're going to make this table, they would use a saw to make the table, and they would take the actual sawdust and compress it.
And the natural sugars in the wood make this compressed pellet.
So it's basically the rib and where the rib goes up to the top of the back and the back that meat that goes along the top of the spine is what most people like best out of elk.
When Andy shot his bull on 9-11, we still had, I think, five days left of hunting.
So we ate elk three meals a day.
One of the things I always do is I'll always take a Traeger with me, or, you know, honestly, it sounds weird, but it's an investment to, even if it's one of the portable ones, just to get one there.
You know, if you lived in the city, like I've got a...
I bring him up a lot just because I think what he does is cool, but I've got a buddy that lives in New York, and I found him on Instagram working out in Central Park all the time.
And one time I was in...
I was close to Central Park in the morning, and I knew he always worked out early, so I text him at like 5 in the morning.
I said, hey, dude...
I said, are you up?
And he texted back and said, yeah, his name is Joseph.
And I said, I want to do one of these Central Park workouts with you.
And he just carries some supplies in a big backpack and he rucks in.
And then he literally just like has certain rocks and stuff.
Yeah, the buckets are good, but keep in your pallet, you know, if you're in a high humidity place like Florida, don't keep...
Don't keep your pellets outside.
If they're in the grill and you're using the grill, that's one thing, but don't keep the bags of them out there all the time.
And then as you use it, there's the little, it's called a, I think they call it a burning pot.
Essentially, your pellets are burning in a small pot.
Think of that just the same as you would a campfire pit.
As you're burning wood all the time, there's going to be ash left.
And if that pot fills up with ash, there's not going to be the ability for as much pellets to go in there.
So it's not going to burn as hot.
So, you know, if you get to the point where you're not able to get to your higher temperatures, it's probably because you have too much ash in your pot.
So, yeah.
Yeah, clean it out, and then it'll, pretty much from there, be as easy as flipping it to on and turning it to the temperature that you want, and it's done.
Well, it's definitely a better way to do it if you're using propane.
I remember once I bought some ribeyes, and this was back when I didn't have the money to buy good steaks, but I had some people over and I thought, I'm going to buy some good steaks.
Went out and spit quite a bit, getting some good ribeyes and everything.
And because there's so much marbling, I remember I came inside.
I had those on the grill.
I didn't even have them that high for temperature.
I came inside and I started working on vegetables or pouring drinks for people.
And all of a sudden I look out and there's just smoke rolling out of my Weber.
And I go out there and lift it up.
And my ribeyes, all that marbling, it was just a big burning mess.
It looked like I took a flamethrower to one half of my ribeyes.
I shot that whitetail in South Dakota, and I took both of the front quarters and then did slow cooks with those, and they're awesome.
The key for any of that stuff that normally has a lot of tendons and stuff that's a tougher section of the meat, a lot of people try to cook them too fast and you don't break down that cartilage.
You need that cartilage to really cook slow to the point where it gels and it breaks down and it almost turns into marbling and then it'll turn into flavoring, which is kind of what happened with the neck.
Once it cooks slow enough, even all those harder tendons that are in there, they just slowly start decomposing.
They become like more of a marbling that's mixed in.
And it's really, really good.
I mean, it's awesome.
And I'm a big advocate on the simpler you keep things cooking-wise.
For me, the better the flavors are that I get.
I'm a very simple cook.
And when people ask me to do...
People see pictures that I post cooking and they're like, well, you need to do a cookbook.
No, I'm not.
My cookbook would be boring because it would be olive oil, probably I would have coffee for rub, I'd have a prime rib rub.
Probably a decent rock salt.
But other than that, grass-fed butters, olive oils, or a couple basic rubs, that's all I use, period.
And a bone broth if I cook something slow to break down.
But I just literally stay with those staple things.
And from there, I'll cook according to the directions.
One of the things I learned to do was rest my meat.
When you do it, do you get it to a certain temperature?
Say if you want your meat to hit an internal temperature like 130. Do you get it to like 120 and then put it in the cooler and then let it rise to like 130 while it's in there?
Normally, it depends how long you're going to rest it.
Normally, I plan on about six degrees it'll go up.
But as you're resting it in the cooler, you can still check it.
You can let it sit for 10 or 15 minutes and then check it.
Normally, for me, five degrees is a really good number.
I'll stop five degrees less than where I want to eat it.
Because when I put it in there and wrap it up, most vegetables for me take 20 minutes.
Like as soon as I pull that off my Traeger, I'll turn it up to high.
And then take vegetables that I just like toss in olive oil and I'll season with a basic rub, put them in there.
But anything like broccoli, asparagus, peppers, cauliflower, anything like that that I cook on there is going to take 20 minutes roughly on high.
And the meat is just resting at that point.
And then I can literally pull the meat off.
If I want to do reverse here, I can do it just long enough to where that temperature hits the exact number if it hadn't reached that yet.
Otherwise, I can just slice it and according to, you know, the color throughout that, I'll serve it out to everybody according to whether they want it.
If you want something a little more done, you give them one of the end pieces.
If people want it less done, you give them the piece in the middle.
But typically, if I'm going to let it rest for 20 minutes, I'll pull it at about, you know, 129 degrees.
Because I like mine at like 135 or so.
You like yours a little less, you like yours a little, you know, redder than me.
I think you like yours at more like 130 finish, don't you?
Besides keeping, you know, the basics for seasoning is those thermopens, right?
I mean, if you have a probe, that's the one thing that I learned from our buddy Chad Ward is, you know, when he travels, he travels with a good knife and he travels with a probe.
And mine's from ThermaWorks.
It's one I got as a gift someone gave me, and I can tell you that that was one of the best things to get.
Yeah, I have a regular internal thermometer that's really cool because I can keep it in the kitchen, and it's got one probe, and then it registers to a second unit, which you can keep as a remote.
You can keep it far away from the grill.
It tells you what's going on.
It's like Bluetooth or something, or wireless.
Yep.
Steve Rinella actually has a really good cookbook that just came out.
I should say that.
I was going to have it in here today.
He sent it to my house, and it's at my house right now.
Yeah, if you want to take things to the next level.
I mean, he's one of those rare guys that has a television show, a hunting television show, where literally most of the episodes he's cooking something.
That's it right now.
Meat-eater fishing game cookbook.
Okay, it's available November 20th.
It's not available to you fucks yet.
I already have it Sorry folks, but it's really good though.
It's excellent He sent me a you know publishers version that had like just black and white photos But I just got the full version a couple of days ago and it's it's really excellent and but he's got really really cool recipes and Interesting stuff.
And if you don't have any wild game, you could always buy bison from supermarkets.
Some supermarkets have that and you could cook that and cook it in the same way.
But yeah, the entire brand or, you know, like the social media stuff is all just, it's based around people that, you know, just tag us with the hashtag DoAwesomeShit and they show us what they're doing as free-ranging Americans.
And, you know, it's anything.
It's not just what Andy and I like.
I mean, you know, some guys are, you know, firemen that just do crazy stuff.
There's people that have some, you know, there's been some motor, some MX guys that just post some crazy-ass pictures, like Shane Dorian, some of the waves he's on.