#119 Josh Walker - Retired 2 Hunt
Josh Walker - Former NFL Offensive Lineman, Outdoorsman, Conservationist and Host of Retired 2 Hunt Podcast.
From a young age, Josh had a true passion for outdoor life and hunting. After playing football throughout his adolescence, collegiate, and five Years in the National Football League. Josh now spends his time focused on being the best do-it-yourself hunter sharing his experiences with others for inspiration, education, and some laughs along the way. Tune in as Josh Walker joins Bobby Marshall in studio to discuss hunting, professional sports, NFL, wildlife, outdoor life, and much more.
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Josh Walker - Retired 2 Hunt
Our guest for this episode is former NFL Player Josh Walker. Josh is an avid outdoorsman, hunter, and conservationist. He's also the host of his own podcast Retired 2 Hunt. I enjoyed having him in to do this episode. We set some records. This was the longest episode of the show. It was an absolute blast, and I hope you enjoy our conversation.
In 2019, he won the World Elk Calling Championship. He beat Corey Jacobsen and beat all those guys.
Bring him up again.
Jermaine Hodge is a homeboy of mine. I was online somewhere and saw something about Jermaine Hodge. I'm like, “Who is this light-skinned? What's he got going on?” All of a sudden, I hear him call. I'm like, “This dude is next level.” All of a sudden, I get to read about him. It was in 2019 he won the World Elk Calling. The big boy won the world. He's legit, a true predator.
Some of the stuff he was telling me about and some of the nuances and little things that he does in the woods as it pertains to calling elk just blew my mind, the little stuff he does. He's from North Carolina. I have been out here since ’05, ‘06, so he's got years in it. He kills them every year. He and his family are good hunters.
Did you know him before you did the show?
I never met him. I just saw him and hit him up. I was like, “I'd love to have you on the show.” We went to Western Hunt Fest. The Pack Em Out Apparel puts out. Shout-out to them down in American Bowman. We met up there and shot the shit for a little bit. I was like, “He's cool as hell.” I'm like, “Come and let's do a podcast episode.” He is like, “I love too.” I said, “Come to the house.” We whipped up some burgers and all this other stuff after the deal and we recorded.
The reason I mentioned that was we were talking about the recorder. I need to get more directional mics because we were sitting on my patio. It's in May, so it's nice outside. Literally, every creak in the wood as you are in the gazebo gets picked up on the mic, but that's not the recorder's fault. I think it's more on the mic.
It is. These SM75 mics have been the jammers. We started with some smaller mics that were cheap. They were great but they picked up street noise, and we got the street right here. In the summer, it sounds like we are somewhere around sometimes even with this, but these cut them down a lot. I love doing shows outside. We have recorded a couple outside. The cool thing about this is this is battery-powered. We'd recorded video and audio with no power. It was only about an hour long. It was cool. It was during COVID, and we were trying to get somebody in from Parks and Wildlife. We ended up at Denver Mountain Parks. It was a park ranger or some sort, and we went through some shit of people leaving dog shit bags on the trail and all the stupid shit.
We were talking earlier about where I live. I'm out in the sticks, but I'm by a pretty major trailhead. One of the only other things outside of the instance that I told you all about is that my trash can is at the bottom of my driveway. It's about 200 yards long. You all probably know where this is going. I go down there to put my trash in the trash can, and there are three piles of dog shit in a bag on top of my trash can.
That stuff, that's what gives me the red ass. It's like, “I don't even want you throwing your dog shit in my trash can at all, but if you do it, at least throw it inside of it.” I just know I could never do that to somebody. If you are hiking and you got your dog shit in a bag, it's like, “Let me throw it on the top of his trash can. Make him pick it up and put it in.”
I'm glad you brought that up because something we normally ask our guests at the end is like, “What's something that gets under your skin that you are seeing a lot of?” Trash and dog shit bags seem to be at the top of the list. It's like, “Pick up after yourself. Don't leave your dog shit. Pack it with you. Tie it to a leash. You don't have to fucking carry it. Get a separate bag.” They make all the shit at REI like Sea to Summit or something. They make an actual trash bag that I have to throw in my backpack when I'm out elk hunting so I can pack out whatever I have. If it's a biltong wrapper, it doesn't stick up your backpack. They are fucking great.
Pick up after yourself. Don't leave your dog's shit bag.
I'm sure you saw it more than me because I came out here a couple of years ago, but it is atrocious the amount of trash that you will find in the backcountry of Colorado. Even a lot of trash weighs nothing. I want you to use your biltong wrapper, Peak Refuel bag, or something like that. Accidents happen. I understand that, but sometimes you see a stash of trash sitting there. It's like somebody literally just was like, “I'm going to leave this here.” It doesn't take long for the chipmunks, ravens, and all that and this spread out everywhere. I don't understand how people do it. I understand accidents happen, but some people toss it.
You know what else I come across is people that have buried it and then a bear, raccoon, or coyote, comes along. That shit gets dug up. I have come across it where there's a hole and a bunch of trash and they are eating it. It's like, “It's not that fucking hard.”
It's not that hard. Sometimes I'm that guy. Zack, the longhaired guy, every time he sees trash, he picks it up. I'm 75% on that. When I see trash a lot of times, I pick it up. Sometimes I'm like, “This piece of shit should have picked this shit up. I'm not picking it up.” I'm being honest. Sometimes I walk past it, but never do I throw my shit. I don't know. I can't do it.
I tried. It depends on the trip. If I'm going seven days deep and I'm conserving stuff to pack an elk out, I'm not going to carry a fucking mylar balloon all the way across. Have you ever been up spotting and seeing where you are like, “What the hell is that shiny thing way over on a ridge?” You can spot it. It's one of those mylar balloons that you get at the grocery store that says happy birthday on it.
The same thing happens in the ocean. I went on a spearfish trip and we are in the middle of the ocean. It's like, “What is that glimmering?” You pull up on it, and it's a balloon. If you think about it, it's like, “Who knows where this balloon got to let go for it to float up here in Bahamian water?” The ocean scares me. That's why I went down there and did that spearfishing trip number one because it's hunting. It's badass. It's underwater hunting.
Number two, I have a fear of the ocean. I don't know if it's because I'm an old East Tennessee boy. Literally, the first time I got on a plane, I was seventeen years old, a freshman in college. That was the first time I ever got on a plane. The point is I never went anywhere as a kid, none of that stuff. The stuff that's in it scares me. We are in Bahamian water on my buddy's boat. We are deep dropping and pulling up yelloweye snapper 1,200-foot of water.
The way these electric reels counted is per revolution. It's about 10 to 12 inches, and it reads it out. It's like a video game. It's incredible. We are pulling up yelloweye snapper or golden tilefish. All of a sudden, you see your rod going nuts, and it's like, “That’s either a giant goliath grouper or a shark.” All of a sudden, you bring it up and it's an 8-foot silky shark. You see it, and it's like, “I don't stand a chance with this thing.” You might think you are the biggest. You then see a shark in the water, and it's like, “I don't stand a chance down here.” Not even close.
Humans are so out of their element. You might think you're the biggest, but then you see a shark in the water, and it's like, "I don't stand a chance down here with this thing."
Humans are so out of their element. I say it all the time. I grew up here. At 18 or 19, I moved away from here and moved to the beach. I thought that I wanted to surf. It was a fucking tough learning curve. The times that I have been scared in the woods as opposed to in the ocean where I will feel something's about to fucking eat me is all the time. That's the feeling. It's a constant pucker factor.
I took up standup paddle boarding. It was a little bit of a safe barrier because you are not sitting there. A big guy like you or me on a surfboard, you are sunk to your chest. On those big ass paddle boards, you can stand on them and float. We would go out and chase gray whales when they were migrating and stuff. It was the coolest, most gratifying thing, but it puts it in perspective.
That's how I feel going into the woods at night and being a city boy.
You never know what's going to come to smell your tent. I'm out shit in the middle of the night where I'm in an actual camp spot not far off the road and have had a black bear nose sniffing around my tent because I left something in the tent from a biltong wrapper.
I ended up having to slap a moose on the nose. A bull moose, same thing. I was truck camping right off the road. I slapped him on the nose through my tent. Long story short, I get surrounded by three of them. It's 2:00 in the morning. It was the first night I'd got there. I got there in the afternoon, went on a small hunt, walked in there one and a half miles, and sat there.
Later, I'm like, “I will go chase him in the morning.” I come home and go to sleep. At about 2:00 AM, I get woke up to raking. I'm like, “This is awesome. This is something big raking.” It was no mule deer. It sounded dense raking these trees. I'm like, “This is insane. This is an elk or moose.” All of a sudden, it’s a moose. I'm like, “Cool.” I'm lying in there by myself. When I only hear the one, I'm like, “This is awesome,” but then all of a sudden, from the other side, I hear something, and I'm like, “There are two of them.” I don't like that.
You don't want to be in the middle of that shit.
I'm in the middle of them, and I'm like, “There are two of them now.” I slowly reached down and grab my 10-millimeter out of my Bino harness and put it on my chest. I got one ready to rock. I'm lying there, heart beating out of my chest. All of a sudden, from the right-hand side of the tent, I got three bull moose surrounding my tent.
I'm petrified at this point. I'm lying there and looking up at the sky. It was a beautiful moonlit night and you can still see light out of the tent. Through the tent, you can still see the moon and all that. I'm like, “Do I yell at these moose? Do I not do anything? Do I turn my lamp on?” I was stuck in limbo. I laid there with the pistol on my chest and these moose were going nuts. All of a sudden, they stopped, and one of them started getting louder.
I could tell he is right by the tent. I can hear his feet, and he stopped. I didn't hear anything for a while. I felt like ten minutes, and then all of a sudden, I hear him again. I'm looking through my tent. By the moonlight, I see a shadow all of a sudden appear. I'm like, “No. Please don't.” It sounded like the sound of rubbing your finger down the side of the tent
Right above my shoulder. I slapped the shit out of him on the nose with my left hand. I'm pointing a pistol at him, “Fuck you, moose.” I'm screaming at the top of my lungs. All of a sudden, he starts running down the hill. I heard him run for hundreds of yards. I have never heard an animal run for so long. Imagine how terrified he had to be all of a sudden to get popped on the nose. He put his nose on the tent and rubbed it right above my shoulder. I felt like I had no choice, so I slapped him right on the nose and they all dispersed. It was crazy.
Have you seen those two moose going at it in somebody's driveway in a steamboat?
I haven't.
Check this out. Jeremy pulled this up. They are in and out of the back of these brand-new Chevys or Tundras. They are wrecking shit. It turns into busting mirrors off. You can hear them.
That's a smaller moose.
There goes a mirror. Is that guy got a spotlight on?
He does.
That could have been you and your tent.
I was terrified.
You should have been.
He's got an ear tag in too. That's the bigger moose, the one that's in the back.
That's crazy. You don't want to be in between those things.
That's what I was thinking. I was like, “I don't think this is a good situation.” I'm like, “Do I shoot a shot through the top of my tent and scare him off? Do I yell? Do I beat on the top of my lantern?” Eventually, when he stuck his nose into the tent, I felt like it was fight or flight. I saw it and popped the shit out of me. It was crazy. Again, I was up by myself. For 30 minutes, I'm lying there. Every twig, I'm like, “That's a moose stalking in on my tent or something.”
It's crazy because growing up here, I grew up in a bow-hunting family. My uncle is a bow hunter. I'm so lucky that was instilled in me at a super young age. They bought me my first bow. They bought me my first compound and taught me how to shoot. I used to shoot a compound with my fingers.
No rangefinder.
No. It was awesome. When we grew up chasing elk around or bugling an elk, we didn't even have to be hunting them. We enjoyed being out there. Getting in, stocking in on them, or getting in the middle of a herd was so much fun. There might have been 1 or 2 moose here growing up. This was many years ago.
They grew the moose population here because it was reintroduced. I am not used to still seeing them in the woods. Occasionally, I will be out walking the dog or something, and I see this big gigantic black thing coming through the trees. The first thing that pops into my head, and I have never thought about this, is Yeti. They are huge. They are so tall, taller than you or I.
I saw one a few years ago. I was headed this way from my place and saw two bull moose right there at Conifer High School at the rock. They are right down there at the bottom right by the red light crossing the road, just not scared of nothing. People pulled over to take pictures, and they are not scared of nothing. They are walking across the road. I'm like, “These things are not scared of nothing.”
That’s the one thing up where I elk hunt. Coming across them, the trails are so thick that sometimes you can't get off of them. You get into some thick oak brush-type stuff. I have come across a couple of bulls standing on that trail because it's easy for them to move on them. I'm like, “I hope that he goes the other way, I'm going to go the other way or try to get around him without charging me because they do not like anybody in their space.”
1) You don't want to get hurt. 2) You don't have to shoot the damn thing. That's what I think about. When I was in my tent, I'm like, “I probably have every right to blast this moose right now, but I don't want to.” All of a sudden, the morning gets here, and you know that they are not going to let you keep the meat because then it looks like you shot them. The last thing I want to do is shoot this moose, but also the last thing I want to do is get trampled by this moose. You got to flirt that fine line between keeping yourself safe and keeping the moose safe.
The last thing you want to do is shoot a moose, but the last thing you want to be is trampled by it. So flirt with that fine line between keeping yourself safe and keeping the moose safer.
I carry a 10-millimeter for me for bears too and stuff like that, especially if I'm up in Northern Montana or something. My bear spray is 10-millimeter. There's a red tape that you would have to go through even if you did. I have an uncle that lives up in the Kalispell area. He's had a couple of friends that have had to shoot grizzlies that were charging in on him. They were picking huckleberries or whatever.
The red tape that you got to go through is to prove. You might as well be in a murder case at that point. You are going to have to go to court. You are going to have to deal with some stuff. You are going to have to get questions. There's got to be a good chance that you are going to die if you pull the trigger on an animal.
They are going to come in and look at that scene. They are going, “What does it look like? What do these boot tracks look like? Look at the tracks of the bear. Here's the casings. Does that story match up?” If it doesn't match up, they might slap you with some crazy shit. It's a whole big ordeal putting an animal down.
I'm not going to get into the legal side of things, but I know that if I'm in self-defense with a bear, I would hate to have to be getting interrogated and try and tell this story. Maybe it doesn't sound right to the CPW officer, but it's like, “My life was in danger. Maybe it doesn't sound great to you, but this is what happened.” The point being is it's a whole big deal when you have to dispatch an animal. It's not like, “I killed a bear. Come look at it.” They are going to interrogate you just to make sure it happened the way you said it happened.
I think about that when I'm carrying it because I have had to draw down on a couple.
I got a gun pointed at me. It was an opening evening archery season. I got a buddy in town from Tennessee. I left the house.
Is it a handgun?
No, a rifle. The opening morning, I had already been there for four days. I found some elk. They were mules. I didn't see anything open in the morning so we go back to camp we head back out at 1:00 or 2:00. We climbed 3 miles to this water hole. We are sitting on the water hole and we have still got 2.5 or 3 hours until the sun goes down. Finally, about 45 minutes before the sun goes down, you are getting fired up because that's when stuff is going to start coming in, so I'm all fired up.
All of a sudden, there was a crunch. I'm like, “It's about to happen.” Let me paint you a picture. We are in a water hole. You couldn't sit down because there wasn't enough cover. The point being is we found a piece of blowdown. It was a blowdown tree about waist-high for me and my buddy. My buddy is about 6’3”. I'm 6’5”. We were leaning on it for hours, sitting there, leaning against it, and had some cover in front of us and the water hole was in front of us. I hear the crunch from behind us.
I look back and see a man. He's probably mid-70s or late-70s, completely gray hair. Everywhere, his hair was gray, hat on a gray shirt, blue jeans, Carhartt hat, and he was carrying a rifle. I'm like, “What the hell is he hunting?” I was like, “Grouse is open,” but I'm like, “If you hunt with a rifle, don't you have to have orange on?”
He comes in and sits by the water hole. I'm like, “You don't hunt grouse from the water hole.” I'm sitting there, and he leans back. First of all, he stumbles in. We are in there 3 miles. I think this guy came from some private that butted up to it. I don't think this dude is walking in those 3 miles. He sits down and put his arms up. He's leaned back like he's about to pass out.
He didn't even see you guys.
He didn't see us. Where he's sitting, it's like a 45-degree angle the way he has to look toward the water. He's looking past us to the water hole. Point being, he wasn't looking exactly at us, but passed us to see the water hole. Instantly when I saw him, I start cow-calling as loud as I can on my diaphragm as loud as I can. He acts like he doesn't hear it. I'm like, “Either he doesn't give a damn or he's hearing impaired,” because I am screaming cow call. The wind might have been blowing 5 miles an hour.
This is on public land. We will talk about the units afterward. I'm screaming on this thing and he keeps walking up. Like I said, he sits down and I'm screaming on this thing. I'm waving my hand at this point. I get that hindsight is 20/20. Whenever I put this out on my podcast, people are like, “Why didn't you scream at him?” It's like I walked a long way to get to that water hole. I was trying to preserve the hunt.
That's a common thing between hunters to give a little cow call or something if somebody's walking by you so you know where I'm at like, “Don't throw an arrow in my way.” Make your cow call sound a little fucked up so you don't get an arrow thrown your way.
The first cadence I threw out was three very rhythmic calls. It was not sounding like a cow, but it's like this was somebody calling. He never looked my way. I'm waving my arms at him, cow calling at the same time. He's looking past us. I'm getting mad at this point because, at this point, he's like, “I don't give a damn that you are here. I'm going to sit here with my rifle and shoot whatever the hell he was after.”
My buddy, Lance, digs in his pack and pulls out his Kifaru pullout. It's blaze orange. He starts waving that thing, and the guy looks our way finally, and then he waves. I'm like, “He finally sees us.” He gets something and dusts himself off. I'm not even that mad anymore because maybe he legitimately had no clue that we were here.
Anyway, I'm like, “I'm not mad anymore.” At this point, me and Lance are like, “He knows we are here.” He starts to walk off and we are watching him. We are bullshitting about what just happened because we are like, “This old man was about to sit up on top of us.” All of a sudden, I look behind the log to where he had left, and I don't see him. I look where he came from, and all I see is a scope glimmer and the barrel of the gun. I'm like, “Get the fuck down.” We get down. I grab my 10-millimeter out of my Bino harness. I shook one in, and I'm like, “He's pointing that gun right at us.”
Keep in mind, this dude had waved at us and confirmed that we are people because he saw that orange kill kit. You are too old to not understand that you don't do things like that. Maybe if I was to talk to him, he'd probably be like, “I wanted to look through my scope,” because he had no backpack on. No binoculars, but I don't give a shit. You don't do that.
He draws down on it. We are literally on all fours. I got one in the head of my 10-millimeter. I'm ready to return fire. My buddy didn't see it. I told him to get down. He's like, “He wasn't pointing a gun.” I said, “Look for yourself.” He peeks up and looks up, drops right back down. He's like, “He still draws down on us.” I'm like, “I'm telling you.” He's like, “Do we say something?” I'm like, “Hold on. Let's just wait. We came in here long ways.”
I peeked back up, and he was stumbling off. I'm like, “He's leaving.” At that point, we are talking shit about why happened like dudes do, “Fuck that piece of shit.” We were talking shit. All of a sudden, I look back, and he's about 100 yards farther than he was before, but he draws down again. I said, “Lance, get down.” We get down, and I'm like, “I don't know what is wrong with this dude. I'm about to go knock his teeth down his throat.” My buddy Lance is like, “Calm down.” I said, “No, fuck that. This dude is pointing a gun at us. This is bullshit. He's too old. He should know better.”
This is an issue you should get into in an inner city or something, not in the middle of a fucking national forest.
I had a rifle pointed at me. Eventually, he walks off and that was the end of it. I'm going to be honest with you. You know what I did. I used to do it for a living. It takes a certain type of attitude, but it takes quite a bit to get me furious, and I was furious. I told my buddy. I said, “Let's go. I want to talk to him.” I'm not going to say what I had planned, but it was going to be physical because I couldn't believe it happened. There's nothing that he could have said to me if we would have met to make me be like, “I get it. I get why you did that.” There's nothing he could have said to make me be like, “I understand now,” because the guy pointed a gun.
This is my buddy's first time ever elk hunting, ever coming out to Colorado, and here we are sitting on a water hole. You can imagine for a first-timer how hard it was for him to hike into that water hole. We had already hiked in for the morning hunt, hiked out, and hiked back in for the evening hunt. I'm like, “I don't want to yell because our night's over if we yell.” He pointed a gun at us and ended up walking off. That was day one of archery elk. We had a gun pointed at us. I have never been a part of anything like that. It's one of those things where it's like, “You know better than to do that.”
We don't have to get into the game, but was it Front Range or Western still?
It was up North Central.
I have never had anything happen like that. We have had hunters shoot in our direction because they heard something or they heard a bugle. People are stupid. I ran into some guys that shot an elk through the Achilles because that was the only thing that they could see through the oak brush. I'm not going to say where they were from or anything, but I gave them a fucking piece of my mind. Luckily, they found the bull, a nice 6X6, but the thing ran 3 miles. Now, it’s like, “What are you thinking? What if that was my fucking Achilles?”
If all you got is the Achilles, you don't shoot at all. Live to hunt another day.
People are just dumb. The success rate of elk hunting is so fucking low. People are out there for days. They want to be successful. You don't want to come home and tell your wife. “I spent eight days out there and didn't do shit.” They have no idea, but there's some of that pressure, too, especially if you are over the counter.
The success rate of elk hunting is so low. People are out there for days, and they want to be successful.
If you are in a position like you or I where we have a platform and your platform specifically is about hunting, you want to produce something every year. The guys that have it rough are a boy like Derek Wolfe that's got a hunting show. This is a whole other level. Now you got to get it on camera, and you might miss a shot because you are trying to get it.
It's hard enough to even make a shot when you are not trying to film it or something. That's a whole other level. I get why people get that little bit of bloodthirst, but it's still no fucking excuse to be doing stupid shit like that. It's not humane to the animal. It gives hunters a bad name. It's bad for everybody. It's not bad for just them or the animal. It's bad for everyone collectively. Josh, we fucking get into this shit, but it's nice to meet you. Shout-out to my buddy, Scott Enderich.
He's the man, American Bowman.
I'm honored to have you on. I went shooting with Scott. You have been on my shortlist. I haven't had time to reach out. It's been crazy. We have been going like crazy with a show and everything, but Scott was like, “Have you heard of Josh Walker? He's got a show.” We were out shooting me, him, and his son and my son up at American Bowman. I was like, “No.” I then found your show, so Retired 2 Hunt. I am so grateful because we are not a hunting show. We are outdoors. It’s more about showcasing individuals.
It encompasses everything outdoors.
We have had professional rock climbers, ultra-marathon runners, and a lot of UFC fighters. We have had people that are living in the mountains to appreciate it in general. That wasn't my intent when I started this show, but because I'm a bow hunter, we have a lot of bow hunters on. We have had a lot of hunting in the past.
I talk about it all the time because something that I try to do on a daily basis is shooting my bow. I'm passionate about it. I love hunting. I'm also about it being portrayed the right way, and there are so many people out there that are in social media now and in this space that are building themselves up as hunters. It's great because 99% of them are doing it the right way.
I want to commend you and especially have you in because it's much more than the grip and grand photo. It's telling the story so people can understand what goes behind it and why you might be so happy that you are taking that photo. I want to commend you on that. You are doing it the right way. I love Retired 2 Hunt. Let's talk about that a little bit. That's something that started.
It just started. I retired from the NFL in 2018. I came out to Colorado. The only thing out West that I'd ever hunted up until that point was pheasants. In 2017 in January, I was playing for the Jags. We had a long run that year. We almost went to the Super Bowl that year. Maybe it was 2016. Point being is one year, we got put out fairly early, whoever the hell I was playing for, and I was able to get back here and do some pheasant hunting with my girlfriend's father, who's a big-time pheasant hunter. The only thing I'd hunted out here up until that point was upland birds, and I was completely enamored with hunting upland birds out here. It was awesome.
I did it a little bit way back, and it was honestly some of the most funnest hunting I have ever done with a gun. I'm not a big gun hunter. I didn't grow up gun hunting. I'd kill a few big game animals with a rifle. It wasn't for me. Archery was always a much more ethical thing for me. One of the things that I had the most fun doing with a gun, rifle, or shotgun was upland hunting. Upland, is that just pheasants? Does that include ducks or would that be waterfowl?
Ducks would be waterfowl. Upland is your quail, pheasants, and chukars. I would assume tern is probably considered upland.
I had a lot of fun shooting doves.
Dove, grouse, upland, and then your ducks and geese. That's going to be all waterfowl. I'm a huge waterfowl hunter and had been for a long time. I used to do a bunch of traveling around to hunt. I have killed ducks in seventeen different states in the country. I love it. When I moved out here and realized the thrill of the Western big game, I will never again. It's hard to say never. If I have a big game tag, there's a very low chance that I will be hunting birds anywhere.
That's a whole other level. That's probably why I don't upland hunt and duck hunt because some of the most fun times I have had has been freezing my ass off a duck and blind shooting the shit with some of my best friends, having a dog there, and calling in ducks. There's nothing like it. It's like bugling elk.
It is something to be said about going out. I'm a big public land guy. I'm not going to say I don't hunt on private. If I had to put a number on it, I would say I'm 90/10 public to private. If there's something about going on public land and competing with all these other guys and calling in ducks and geese. It's so hard to do.
When you are calling and you are looking at those birds and you have done it for long enough, you can literally read their body language. It's like, “He likes that. He doesn't like that. I probably better do this again. Maybe I should get louder. Maybe I should get softer.” Learning to read birds is huge and being able to break them down and get them your decoys because you can overcall, under-call, over-decoy, and under-decoy.
I was so fortunate when I was going because I was going with my buddy's dad and him. They were like a generation deep in duck hunting. They had special blinds and special spots. Some of it was on private land and they had dogs. It was like a full-on experience. These guys knew how to fucking call and set out the decoys. I was blasting.
My dad got me into hunting, but he was nowhere near what I'm trying to get to. He was like, “There's a deer in the garden. Let's shoot him.” Let me put it to you like this. The earliest days growing up hunting like when I got my hunter safety. I grew up on 34 acres of land in the middle of bumfuck Tennessee. My dad ran a machine shop out of his garage for a while. I had one employee a guy named Dick. He was a cool old man. He’s awesome. He would come over every Saturday morning and bring all kinds of biscuits. There was one gas station in my town and he'd stop at the gas station, get some biscuits and he'd get there about 25 minutes before shooting.
We'd eat biscuits, we'd shoot the shit and we'd go out there and we had an old decrepit fire pit. One wheel was missing. It’s just been there for years. We'd start a fire and stand by the fire and overlook this field. It was literally not a plot, just Johnson grass. It was a field, and it was mowed down. The deer would use it to cross.
The older I got, the more I was like, “Can I put a food plot in here?” I made my own disc one year for the four-wheeler. I have an old engine block which is obviously heavy as shit, and an old disc. I MIG it up. I put it behind the four-wheeler and planted corn. That was my first plow. I was twelve years old in MIG welding. I used to weld my own square tubing ladder stands.
I remember hearing that on your podcast. I thought that was so badass because I grew up poor too. We didn't have a whole lot of money. We didn't have toys. Pine cones were grenades and sticks were guns. It was like that type of stuff.
We had an old 1960s sawmill on our land that my dad got for free. He drove up to get it to a place called Byrdstown, Tennessee which, is far East Tennessee, Northeast Tennessee, up by Kentucky. I went up there and brought the sawmill home. Keep in mind, this is an old-school round blade PTO driven by the tractor, your back tractor, and put the PTO in it. It was an old school round blade sawmill.
You might die if you don't use it right.
You know what I'm talking about. We still have it. My dad still has it. It still runs good. It's a 1964 Massey Ferguson 150, old school tractor. I was bush-hogging fields when I was ten years old. I hold my Sony Walkman in my hand trying to keep it from Skipper. Going back to how I got into it, we have got deer on the property. There were no turkeys. Now, there are turkeys everywhere.
I got into Turkey hunting a few years ago. We will talk about that later, but talking about my early hunting. We had some deer that would cross through the property and, like I said, Dick would come over, and we'd eat biscuits and overlook this field. Eventually, I started planting a food plot way up top and stuff like that.
I would make my own blinds out of the scabs from the logs. When you cut a log, like when you cut it four times and cut the top, there's a scab. Cut the side, there's a scab side. In the middle, you got a perfect beam, and you can either use a beam or you can make lumber out of it. I'd take those scabs, put them on the four-wheeler, and I'd make a blind out of it.
How old were you?
Young, before I could drive. I'd go out there and do that. I'm sure there were rangefinders back in those days, but I didn't have one. I would take a small scab. From my tree stand that I had welded together, I'd put a scab at 10, 20, 30, 40, and 50. When a deer come in, it's like, “That's 30.” Like you said, no release. I was shooting a High Country with my fingers that I had gotten from a yard sale.
It didn't have a stabilizer hole. I drilled and tapped my own stabilizer hole like twelve years old. I drilled and tapped my own hole. Do you remember those tiny limb savers that were yay big, those squishy ones? I had to put my little LimbSavers in there. I’d been doing it for a long time. I can remember shooting my first deer with a bow again.
You put out the scabs at 10, 20, and 30. I did the same thing, but I would pace it off. If I was going to sit someplace, like sit on some elk or sit on a wallow or something, I would do the same thing and pace it off because that was back before rangefinders were even around. Now, even to this day, I think that that's helped me because if I'm sitting in on something like maybe it's a wallow or something, I will shoot a few trees around. I know that tree is 20, this one is 30, that one is 35, and that rock over there is 45. I don't have to fuck with that rangefinder.
The last thing you want to be doing when something's coming in is reaching down to your harness and grabbing the rangefinder. That’s the last thing you want to be doing.
That could blow them out just by drawing your bow. We are jumping all over the place here.
Going back to my first deer with a bow, I was 12 to 13 years old. Like I said, I got the scab sitting out. I'd freshly bush hog the field because I thought with the field bush hog, I will be able to see anything that comes in the field. I had to feel bush hog and I'm sitting out there with my High Country as a young kid. All of a sudden, here comes this big old cow horn spike. I'm like, “I am busting his ass when he comes in.” I remember I was shooting one of the first vertical pin sites that Trophy Rich had put out.
Was it adjustable?
As far as a slider, no. It was four pins, 20, 30, 40. My buddy gave it to me, so I put it on my bow and side it in. When I was growing up, my targets were either a couch cushion or a bag from a 55-pound burlap sack of corn that I stuffed with grass clippings. I would shoot at it. That first deer that came in, big cow horn spike, and I remember drawing back on this thing. I'm in my homemade ladder stand. I remember the shaking that was going on.
Is this a whitetail?
It's a whitetail. It's all we got down there. I'm drawn back on this thing and he's like 35 or 37. I remember shaking. In my head, my conscience told me, “You probably shouldn't shoot at this thing.” I'm like, “I'm in bow range,” and I'm shooting this High Country with my fingers. I'm like, “I'm in bow range.”
He starts looking around, and something wasn't right. Let me hold my thought here. Think about when you were young. I don't know about you, but I didn't think anything about the win. When I had a chance, I'm sitting in a tree. Some nights were good, and some nights were bad. I look back at it, and it's like, “I wonder what the wind was doing on those nights when nothing came out. It's probably blowing right towards the field.”
I was super fortunate.
Your family was hunting.
I didn't grow up with a dad. I still don't know my dad to this day very well at all.
I was adopted.
I didn't have that father figure in the house. I was it. My uncles worked their asses off. They all worked in construction, excavation, or something like that. They didn't have a whole lot of time off. Where I spent time with them was on the job site, whether it was drilling holes in rock to blow it up with dynamite. I learned work ethic there.
During the time that they had off, they were gracious enough to take me out fishing because of what they liked to do or go hunting. Even if it was a small game or camping, I was always brought along. I'm so fortunate that they were good people like that because I don't know that I'd be the same person that I am now without learning that work ethic. I probably would be in prison or dead maybe even. That kept me out of so much trouble.
It aligned me even in high school with some good friends that were into the same thing because if you are totally hungover, you can go out and shoot coyotes, but it's not the same. You can't get up and go elk hunt archery. It kept me on a straight and narrow. Those guys, a couple of them have some Pope and Young records and stuff like that.
This was way before social media or anything like that so they have never done it for that. Some of them have been in some magazines and stuff like that with some write-ups and all that. They are three times the bow hunters that I am still to this day because it is their passion, but that's what they did. It was work and bow hunt. That was it, fish, raft, or whatever it was. It was living in the outdoors. As my family homesteaded here and it goes so many generations deep, I have one uncle that still hasn't seen the ocean. He does not fucking care to. He's like, “Why would I ever go to California?”
This is a great little segue you are going into because I'm from BFE Southeastern Tennessee. There are so many people that have the mindset of, “If it's not in this county, why do I need it?” If you want to get down to it, you are probably right from the standpoint of necessity. You are probably right. Do you need it? To live a life and only stay in one spot for that entire life, I cannot imagine. There are so many places in this country that are worth going to see.
To live a life and only stay in one spot for that entire life is unimaginable. There are so many places in this country that are worth seeing.
He's been to BC. He's been all over the Rockies, but he hasn't left the Rockies.
You got to see the ocean. The smell.
I just tell him like, “Go one time,” but he probably wouldn't have a good time. That's that mindset. He is blue-collar. This guy works six days a week and spends one day a week fishing or torturing himself in the backcountry. That's what he does. He has a good life.
You got to go see the ocean.
I agree. I was the black sheep of the family because I grew up and went all over the world.
You want to see rock bands. You want to see it all.
They thought I was fucking crazy for moving to Hermosa Beach, California, and working for punk bands. Eventually, I got on some bigger tours and went to China and fucking all these places that they would not have ever been there yet.
“What do I need in China?” It's there. Why would you not want to go see China?
“I can't believe you went to Russia. Why'd you go to the Middle East or spots like that?” There was no correlation there. On the contrary, I have another uncle that's traveled the world. He's done all that. He's a bow hunter and stuff too. It's to each his own. Back to wind and that stuff, those guys taught me that right out of the gate, like if you want to stalk in. That's what I was doing for fun. There's not a whole lot to do growing up here as a kid or there wasn't when I was. There was always elk around and stuff, so it was like, “We are going to go stalking elk for fun. Not even hunting.”
That's the thing. I hope people understand who wants to come out here from out East or farther West, is hunting elk very accessible here? For the most part, it is every single year. Keep in mind that you could come out here and not even find a fresh pile of shit. When just to get that close to those things, it's an awesome feat.
That's why I'm more of a public land hunter because when I go out, I have put in so many months, sometimes years of logistics that it's not going to take a 360 bull to get me to shoot. I see a respectable bull that gets me fired up. I'm going to shoot him and eat the meat. It's going to be an incredible story to tell, but once you get into paying $20,000 to hunt an elk, it's like, “If I pay $20,000, I'm not leaving here without a 360. I don't want that feeling.”
It’s not worth it to me. I don't want that pressure. I don't have the fucking money, too, first off. If you are not a hunter, being around these animals is majestic. There are some amazing places that you can go to that are wilder than the national forest. You go into Rocky Mountain National Park or something like that and there are people that bring their camp chairs up from Denver because I photograph animals too. It’s one of my favorite things to do. I feel like the animals are wilder and more natural in that state because they don't have the pressure of being in a natural state where they can view or even right here. The elk are just running.
Even if you're not a hunter, just being around elk is majestic.
They are all the time in town right here.
We are talking 400 class bulls that are monsters. Do you know what's funny about them? They are so fucking smart. I shit you not. Two days before the opening day of archery, the same bull has been coming back for eight years. I know exactly who he is. I photograph him every year. Each year he is bigger, and some years he is a little bit smaller. It depends on how much rain we get, but he knows what's up. He's like, “I'm golfing for the next month and a half or two months.”
It's like the bears. Where I'm at, the bears are bad. If you leave a bag of trash out, probably here, it's going to start in about a month.
This is Jeremy's video. This isn't even the big guy. That's a satellite.
That's 330 bull.
That's not a satellite. That's a bigger herd bull running around, but that's not even the big guy. There's one that's bigger.
Look at that thing.
It's right in my driveway. It's fucking incredible.
Look at it. Was that a seven?
I think he was 9 on one side and 12 on the other. I have seen some crazy elk come in here just for a day. There was this one that I was calling. I name him all and shit because we are out photographing them and stuff all the time. There was this one that came in with a blind eye and a fucking arrow hole or bullet hole high on his back. I nicknamed him the Terminator. It was wild, at least a 350. There are so many elk that come in and out of here. It's crazy trying to get at these cows.
Between here and 285 going towards the gym, you are usually going to see some elk. You got to look in places you wouldn't think like the McGillycuddy’s backyard. There is 85 head of elk laying in their backyard right there off the highway.
The caution signs aren't even the jumping deer. It's an actual elk. That's how many elk are here, but it's wild. It's a special spot because I love being around it. There are times at night when we don't have air conditioning in our house. It's a mountain home. We open up the windows, and at 2:30 in the morning, the next thing you know, it sounds like there's a velociraptor outside your window.
The same with my house. We don't get the elk there at the time of year that it's nice and when you are opening the windows. Typically, they winter down in my place. Usually, the windows are up. Number two, they are not making a whole lot of noise. I got wild turkeys that are close, and I remember having a window down in late April. An early morning, like the high thirties, is just beautiful. You wake up, and there are wild turkeys.
There's a lot down by you.
There's a lot, everything you could want. There's moose down there. There are bighorn sheep down there. It's insane.
I love it down there. There are some big cats down there too.
The one I shot was like 20. As the crow flies, it was 9 miles from my house where I killed that cat.
I know some people that have killed some big cats, and your cat was a good size.
It was very big. Without the guts and without the blood and all that stuff, he was probably 185 pounds.
What is you Instagram? Is it @OutdoorJWalk?
That wolf shot, I skimmed that thing out for him. That was a big old cat. That cat was about 8X6 nose to tail. Mine was 8X3. He probably had 15 pounds on mine. His cat was a younger cat. It was in the prime of his life, 45 years old on a fresh kill. It swole up. That thing reeked of high hell too, by the way. My cat stunk, but that thing was disgusting. It was a big old nasty joker. He had 3 inches on that one nose to tail. It was probably about 15 pounds on him, but that's a big old cat.
You walk in the door and there are not many people that walk in the door that make me feel small, and Derek is one of them. Derek came in here and was like, “Holy shit.” Derek's got those blue eyes and that Viking look. He looks through your soul. He looks past your skull when he is talking to you. I'm like, “I can't make contact with this dude,” and it was the first time that we had met. I went in straight into the interview like we are here.
I love that guy. He's another guy that I want to come in because of the way that he handled that pressure and that he took it on and went on national news. He took the time to get educated. I was trying to send him some facts here or there too from what I know. We do a lot with Colorado Parks and Wildlife on this show.
I have been educated in that. We have talked to a lot of wildlife biologists and stuff like that. I was trying to send him some facts here and there. He did such a good fucking job with that. The amount of post and positive reinforcement for predator control, which is super fucking important in my mind, to any hunter, conservationist, and anybody that understands wildlife, is a super important part of it. It's probably part of hunting that gets the most criticism because it's the furry and cuddly animals that you can see.
To any hunter, conservationist, or anybody that understands wildlife, predator control is super important, but it’s probably the part of hunting that gets the most criticism.
Wolfs, bobcats, bears, and all that stuff.
I totally get it. It's the amount of buzz that he got not only on that and for him to keep his composure. We both know Derek. He's not a bullshitter. He will tell you what he's thinking while he's thinking it, and he fucking kept it together. All the people that were prodding at him, he did a fucking great job. Not only that, it created this little buzz in the community, and it's because maybe I didn't notice it as much, but I feel like there was a lot more posting about lines that had been taken and taken ethically. There was a ton of people that came out of their shell and were willing to do it because he was at the forefront of that.
I agree. That cat calls a huge buzz. For instance, like from my page, I have never had anything negative said. I don't know if this is what caused it, but all of a sudden, I get tied in with wolf and all this stuff, and I start getting the people. I put up a picture.
Cam is great too. Cam commented on there. Great job. What a good dude.
If you look at the top of that, you can see all the cheese and the back strap that's right above the height of J Walk there. That's the back strap of my cat. What's the last comment on that one right there? That's my cat's back strap that I stuffed. Look right there. I hope someone does the same to you. Look at what I told her, “Thank you.” You are going to take the time to come to my page. It doesn't take long to see that I hunt. There's going to be a lot of hunting stuff on my page, a little bit of football, but mainly hunting stuff. To have the time to go on my page and say something like that blew my mind. Number one, I hate politics.
Some organizations purposely seek out certain hashtags. I believe in that, covering some of the wolf stuff and some of the stuff that's happened to us on social media. I hired some super smart people to help me with the show and get us up and running. They are smart in social media. They are smart in the backend of Google SEO.
They are smart when it comes to doing the backend stuff like transcribing the entire episode, that whole thing. They told me straight up, “You are shadowbanned as fuck on Instagram because the amount of downloads that you are getting from the actual show does not correlate to social media.” We have a lot of former military people on. A lot of those people tend to be right-wing. I have never made a political statement on this show.
The only politics that we have ever gotten into is biology. I will voice my opinion about the whole cultural thing. Even though that's been dubbed politics, I don't believe that it is. To me, that's morals and bending over backward for somebody no matter who they are to cater to their needs. Like this woman that said this to you, that's some horrible shit. She's wishing death on you and that somebody would skin you.
Straight up. It was somebody I have never met that I don't know.
This is also somebody that probably subscribes to like, “We have to protect human rights and all this stuff.” You have to identify as this or you have to call somebody by their pronouns. I'm sorry, but it is so backward. These are the same people that will turn around. I have gotten death threats over some stuff. We weren't even a year into the show when I was covering some of the wolf stuff, the wolf reintegration before the voting. I got death threats saying that I should be hunted and all kinds of crazy shit. I was like, “Motherfuckers, you know where I'm at.”
Not one of those people has shown up and said that to my face, and the same with Derek. The same things happened to him. I have had my buddy coach Marc Montoya on here. We talked about that last time. He is like, “I doubt anybody would knock on Derek Wolfe's door.” That lady wouldn't come to your house and say that.
Absolutely not. To your point, everything you said, I want to echo that. Those same people will go and turn around and eat a burger for lunch. As I want to be a part of the process of procuring my food, that makes me a piece of shit and that makes you want me dead and you want me skinned alive and all that because I want to be a part of procuring my own food. What are a lot of those people? Who are those people? Like you said, I hate politics so I don't want to put anybody in this, but those people are the people that are constantly anti-hunting and never can back up their facts. They speak with a lot more emotion than logic.
You get a lot of people that emote more than use facts. It blows my mind. I hate politics, but I always tell people this. There are two things that would solve a lot of problems in this country. All politics aside, 1) Mind your own fucking business. 2) Use critical thinking. Think about issues that we have and what issue could one of those things, if not a conjunction of both of them solve, a lot of it.
Mind your own fucking business and use critical thinking. Don't emote. The chick that told me, “I want somebody to skin you.” That's emotional. I'm consuming this mountain lion that I took. I don't understand where the negativity comes from. You should be like, “You are eating your cat. Great.” I don't know.
I don't want to make these things out. They are majestic animals. There's beauty around that. They are incredible. I have been on a couple of lion hunts, which are wild. You know firsthand that it is an undertaking. You won't even believe even with dogs. I don't think people realize how dense the population is here and how much that population is thriving.
These are also the same things, and I don't want to paint a bad picture of these predators because they are amazing. They are just as amazing as they are scary to me. My biggest fear in the woods is a mountain lion because they are so fucking stealthy. They come into stuff like cow calls. You barely ever see them, but you know that they are there. I have seen way more tracks than I have ever seen actual lions. If I have, it's been a glimpse out of my peripheral vision and it's gone. All I know is it was a 6-foot tail, and I'm like, “What else has a 6-foot tail up here?”
Their noses are very fast. If her kid was that kid that was taken off of a trampoline a few years ago, now how do you feel about them? Protect the sharks until somebody gets eaten. The next thing you know, it’s that whole mentality. It’s so hypocritical. What I like to preach is to listen to biologists. These are scientific facts. These are people that study the facts.
They are not studying anything else. In Colorado Parks and Wildlife, each one of their wildlife agents had to go to school for biology, whether it was aquatic or wildlife biology. They are biologists too. These are the people that determine how many animals in that certain species need to be removed from that to coexist with people, their environment, highways, and all. They are balancing the scale, and when you start putting a normal person that doesn't know what they are talking about at the ballot box, checking a box yes or no, you are not letting these people do their job.
We have seen it firsthand in Colorado and California. You take away spring bear hunting. What are we trying to do now? They are trying like hell to manage the bear population. They will goddamn give you a bear tag to any game unit that you draw an elk or a deer tag in for a reasonable price. No questions asked because bears are super hard to hunt. Do you know how much harder they are to hunt in the fall? They start hibernating in the fall. You have maybe 1 to 2 weeks. That spring bear hunting was there for a reason. It was to help manage that population. Now, the bear population is running rampant here firsthand.
I think we are the only state around this way. I'm not sure about New Mexico, but I know Montana, Wyoming, and Idaho has got a spring season. I'm not a biologist so I can't speak to our numbers. I'm not even going to go into that because I don't have enough information to talk about it. It would be cool to have a spring season here, but maybe we don't have enough. I don't know enough. I'm not one of those guys.
We used to. It was several years ago, and look at what's happened to the bear population.
They are bad at my house. It is bad. To your point about the predator population, a lot of people are maybe under the assumption that mountain lion is like OTC elk. You can get a tag and anybody can come over here and blast them. It's not that way. It's on a quota system so you have got to call every day. It's like, “How many cats have been killed in this area?” It's superficial.
You have to take a class before you even get your tag. Even though the tag costs $25, it's not like buying a small game license where you can go out and follow the rules and regulations. Not to mention if you do harvest one, correct me if I'm wrong on this because I'm not a lion hunter, but I believe a CPW officer, for everyone that's been taken, they come and look at it before you skin it. I think that you can field dress it.
When you go to check it in, you need all the meat and the hide with you. You need both of those things. You need everything with you.
The other importance behind that is it is a Colorado State Law that if you waste the meat or waste any part of that other than the bowels, it's against the law. You can fucking get your hunting privileges taken away for life. If you went and took that meat and threw it in your trash can and somebody found out or maybe you posted on social, “This mountain lion tastes like garbage,” and pitched it in your trash can, CPW would be on your ass. You wouldn't be hunting anymore.
Retired 2 Hunt: It is a Colorado state law that if you waste the meat or any part of the animal other than the bowels, it’s against the law. You can get your hunting privileges taken away for life.
No kidding. That's a fact. Rightfully so because the meat on that cat is very good.
I was going to ask you. I have been eating it a couple of times and I can't remember. It didn't taste bad to me. It was different.
To me, it's like wild pork.
I have never had wild pigs, so I can't attest to that.
You got to make sure just like with a pig or with a bear, anything that eats meat, you got to cook it to 165 because of the risk of trichinosis. That's like a parasite. You will be shitting in puking worms for a long time. It's a pretty serious deal.
I love bear meat if it's the right bear meat. I have eaten some trash bears. Not that good, but bears primarily acorns and apricots. Some of those Western slope bears are fucking amazing, some of the best meat I have ever had. That's awesome. I would imagine these cats, upward of you and Derek have harvested yours. They are primarily eating deer, so I would imagine that's probably some of the best that you can get.
Deer and elk.
Back to portraying it the right way, and I appreciate Cam and what he's done. He opened up a little bit more to fucking shock some people. Back in the day, I stuck with some of these principles. I'm not a gripping-and-grin type of guy. I will take some photos and share them with family members or close friends, but I don't post the social media because it's a personal preference.
I don't look down on anybody that does. I love seeing this shit. I honestly don't want to fucking deal with the shit. I will post some photos to let people know that I'm out hunting, but I won't post a photo of the animal that I harvest. At the same time, I'm not a trophy hunter. That doesn't mean that if a foreign-class bull doesn't come by me during archery season at 40 yards, then I'm not going to put an arrow in him. You are goddamn right, as long as I have that tag, but I'm more of a meat hunter. To me, posting a picture of a cow holding up her ears doesn't do it for me.
It's not what I do. I'm out there for me. That's me time. I have embraced hunting like that for myself that it's about me and about what I'm doing like I have embraced this show. At one point, I was chasing guests and that thing, but now it's just I want to have cool ass motherfuckers in drink a Patron with them. Here are some of their experiences.
Same for me. The grip and grin thing unfortunately is a part of it, especially if you are wanting to build a hunting business. People want to see, “Do you kill shit or not?” That is part of the business, but I was the biggest Instagram hater. I played in the NFL. People would show me shit on IG and I'm like, “Is this all you care about is IG?” That's why you see me with 1,500 followers because I just got on IG.
None of that shit matters. That's my thing. None of that matters.
I agree with that. People do like to see that you are out there and you are capable of doing what you are talking about on your show. That means, “I killed a Turkey here. Let me post it. Okay. Cool. Look at this.”
I guarantee you those 1,500 people that are following you are real motherfuckers because knowing you, knowing your persona, who you are, and the way that you handle yourself, there are people that go out and buy their 10,000 people. I get that all the time like, “You want 10,000 followers? Pay me X amount of money,” and you are buying bots or fucking people that live in China that have no idea what you are doing. There's no engagement.
That's the thing. That's what fires me up. When people ask, “What's your IG?” I tell them and I'm like, “I just got on here. You are going to see I got 1,500 followers,” but look at the engagement. I'm not saying I have a ton of it, but what I will say is when I compare my stuff to somebody that has more than me, it's like, “People are at least engaging on my post.”
To what you said, it's like the way I carry myself and the way I portray the hunt. Let's put it to you like this. If I go out and I don't feel a tag, it's a failure. At the same time, have one hell of a time and I promise you I will learn some shit. I can guarantee you I will learn some shit that will be applicable to the next hunt.
I don't kill a 350 bull like if you scroll down to that mule deer like 2.5-year-old mule deer. When I tell you I was fired up, why? It’s because I hiked in there. It took me six days to get on him. There he is. I hiked in there and I got him killed in the backcountry, badass hunt, and outstanding eating. It's not going to take a 200-inch buck to get me to shoot just because of the work that it took to get on this thing.
People like me and real hunters can appreciate that. Wouldn't you rather have them be your audience or somebody that's aspiring to be a hunter? I have had a ton of people reach out to me that are aspiring podcasters or maybe they want to get into hunting and they haven't. I have helped some friends. I'd rather show them the truth that it's the same thing as there are some fucking, crazy ass women out there on Instagram, but they are not your everyday women.
A lot of that shit is fake. It goes with the hunting world too. Not everybody's going to be Cameron Hanes. That's a special type of human. That is the goat of bow hunting, in my opinion. That's the Tom Brady of bow hunting. That guy lives, breathes it, has suffered, and has sacrificed. I don't know if you read his book, Endure.
I don't read books. I listen to audiobooks. He did the whole narration on it. He was real with it. He talks about how much he sacrificed because this was such a big goal for him. I'm sure you have being an NFL player. He sacrificed so much of his family time that he missed birthdays and kids’ soccer games, time with his wife, or all that stuff because he was out scouting. He built his own success. He built his own empire and he worked hard to do it, but with being the greatest comes a sacrifice.
Being the greatest comes with a sacrifice.
A lot of people talk shit about Cam saying, “He hunts ranches,” this and that. Do you know how many years Cam put into grinding it out when he was a younger guy? Just grind it out. People look down on him like, “He's something private ranches.” Cam deserves to hunt private ranches. Cam has put his time in on the public and all that other stuff.
Not to mention the way that he wants to do it. He's killing 5 or 6 bulls a year. I have had some interactions with him and he has been nothing but gracious with time sharing whatever we are doing here. He's a good fucking human. I don't know if you have checked out his new podcast. It's setting the bar, the production quality, him as a person and the people that he's having on. I'm so pumped for him. He's setting the bar production-wise, even above Rogan and those guys.
Anybody that's followed him to any level expected that from him.
I'm only going to do this one way.
There's more way. That dude is different. I saw him post something. He did eleven summits on Mount Pisgah, and it was 12,000-foot, 30-something miles. It took hours. His whole day was spent suffering. His whole day was spent climbing with a rock over his shoulders, and he will drop, climb, and drop. I don't think people understand what type of mentality that takes to put yourself through something like that.
The one-minute reel that he posts a day of him doing that doesn't show the fucking thirteen hours that he was out there doing it, or however long it took, whatever it takes to run an ultramarathon. 50 miles or whatever he did that day, there's some grind in it. That's one reason why I love his podcast. One thing that I have tried to follow on here is not anybody is welcome on this show. I don't care who you are. It's people that are inspiring to me, people that are good, people that I want to talk to, and people that are doing something outside of the norm. That's interesting.
It's probably going to come off as brash. I'm just getting into this game, but people that are in your inbox are like, “Let me come on the show.” It's like, “I don't even know if I want to have you on if you are begging me to be on the show.” I'm looking for those dudes like, “Do you want to mind hopping on?” I get a lot of people that are like, “Can I come on and talk?” It's like, “I don't care to have you on,” to be honest with you.
There's a polite way to do it, too, because that's something that I have struggled with big time now that we have gotten a little bit of momentum. You are 119, so we are 100 and some episodes deep. I have invested a lot of time into this and have been duped on some too. It's vetting your guest and getting to know who they are before you even reach out to them.
Vet your guests and get to know who they are before you even reach out to them.
I reached out to you and didn't want to reach out to you too early. Honestly, I have a list of people that I want to talk to and I haven't even contacted them. It's like I want it to be as real as possible. I don't want to hit you up and be like, “Do you want to come on?” Then six months later like, “I finally got a spot.” I'd love to do 6, 7, or 8 a week if I could, but it's not in the budget. I'm paying other people. That would be awesome if I could do this every day, but I can't have a life outside of this without that. If we could get to where we are doing, 3 or 4 would be awesome. That would be ideal, then I could fish and hunt the rest of the time.
Even three a week. I don't think people understand. That's a little bit of an undertaking.
Are you editing all your own stuff and doing all that? That's a whole other undertaking. What I have done with our sponsor money is I have put it right back into it. I haven't put a dime in my pocket that has been paid to post-production. Other people have helped me out on the back end of stuff, like transcription. That's freed me up to be able to where I can do a bit more, but that also comes at a price.
It costs me some money to put out one episode now because these people are relying on it and we have contracts signed. That's why I'm still on one a week. It's this double-edged sword of back and forth like now I got this free time. It's nice to come in here and hit record, but at the end of it, it's like, “I got to pay somebody to do that.”
That's exactly what Luke said, Luke from GU. He's been doing this for quite a few years. Shout-out to Luke.
We have done some cool shit together.
He was saying the same thing. He's been a great resource for me because I'm just getting into this shit. Hearing the interactions that he has with the readers and the things he has with the sponsors, having somebody that has experience in sports, if you got somebody that's a veteran that's played the game and you can pick his brain, I don't know how that can end up bad to hear whether it's a good story or bad. You hear like, “This happened to you seriously.” That's what Luke's meant for me. Luke has been able to tell me how. Number one, he is been able to hook me up with some of the sponsors and stuff like that, which is awesome. It goes down to almost every profession. It's all about who you know.
He's a great dude that's gracious like that. That's who I want to surround my people with or with people like that around me because you are only as strong as the people that are holding you up and he's a guy that gets that. He shared stuff with me. I have hit him up before. He's like, “I want to have Gaethje on the show.” He's like, “Here's his email. Hit him up.”
You're only as strong as the people who are holding you up.
He's the reason why I'm at American Bowman now because I hit him up and he is like, “Let me reach out to Scott,” because I was trying to take my son out there to shoot because we couldn't make the Father's Day shoot. It was something that we did every year, and we had something coming up where he had soccer, football, or some shit.
It was conflicting but he wanted to do that, and I was like, “Let me see if we can get us on American Bowman because I wasn't a member.” I reached out to Luke and Luke set it up right away. He's been on my show. I have been on his. I'm happy for any success that he has and he's been the same way with me. Rogan shares our podcast. Rogan did that with Coach Marc Montoya, which I'm super grateful for. As much as I have wished for that to happen, I have put it behind me where it's like, “I don't care about it.” People were like, “Why aren't you freaking out?” I was like, “I'm so grateful for that, but that's not what I'm striving for.”
For him to appreciate that and not be like, “Fuck these guys.” It's very easy to compare yourself to somebody else. I think it's bad for you. I view us all as a community, especially up here. It's been awesome. There are so many podcasts around. I'd love to help you with yours if you ever want any of our guests or any advice. I have learned all on my own, but I'd be glad to share whatever I got. I have helped a ton of people start their podcasts too, or help them out with theirs or sponsorship questions. I'm an open book when it comes to that.
I sure appreciate it. To your point, it's crazy that there are some people out there that their thing is hating on other people. Number one, maybe they know them, maybe they don't, but to hate on somebody, especially somebody you don't know, blows my mind. There are people around who do that. It's like they want to see you fail which blows my mind and going to your point about Luke.
It's like a competition.
It's like a TV show. You watch mine, you watch yours, and you watch Luke's.
If you have hung out with Luke, everything is a competition. You put some money on some shit. When it genuinely comes to helping you, he's the first guy that will be.
I literally live twenty minutes from Luke.
He's twenty minutes from us so we are 40 minutes from everybody. It's crazy. I had no idea before I started this that he was around the corner. Aaron was right down the road. I had no idea that Aron Snyder even lived here until I got into it and it opened my eyes. I was like, “All these dudes are right here, and there's a little podcast community of people putting down.”
I had no clue. I then saw Luke's and I'm like, “Podcast, there's no way in hell this shit.”
I love his slogan too. Shout-out to GU. If you are not listening to them and you want your belly to hurt one night or something, check them out. The cool part is he does it live. It's like a morning radio show or something on Friday at 11:00 PM. If I don't have something going on with the kids, I just go out. I got a little gym out in the garage and fucking throw that on and listen to his dumb ass.
I love the format. You literally sit there, you drink, and you talk shit. He doesn't act like he's Jim Shockey or something like he knows everything. He's very transparent, and I think people appreciate that. That's why he is having success he's having.
He's genuinely himself. I love having that guy in here. I can't wait to have him back anytime that he's in. It's a good time. I have had a good time hanging out with him on his too. It's a cool little setup he's got up there. We haven't even dived into anything I want to dive into with you. Let's go back to your background because we were talking about you plowing your own field so you could whitetail hunt, and I have never whitetail hunted in my life.
I like my uncle that doesn't desire to see the ocean. I don't get a whole lot of time to hunt elk, and the Rocky Mountains are my sanctuary when it comes to that. That's where I spend all my time. I haven't done much hunting outside of the state of Colorado. Let's dive back into your background. Your dad didn't hunt, was he an opportunist like if there was something in the yard?
Like I said, during my first days of hunting, whitetail deer was standing by the fire pit looking at a field. Hoping the deer was going to ease through, I'd get a quick chance to get a pop shot off. I can remember the first time going out by myself. I was eleven years old and was using a hexagonal barrel CVA Youth model, loose powder, 50 caliber, muzzleloader 209 primer. I'm talking about old school. Barrel was all rusted out.
I go in the woods and I'm 11 or 12 years old and in the woods, it gets darker quicker than in the field. It's an evening hunt and I'm in the woods. I'm like, “It's getting dark. I'm all scared of the dark. I want to come out to the field.” I come out to this field and it was lighter out there. I shimmy my fat ass up in this cedar tree all the way to the base of the tree. I got limbs in my face.
Were you a big kid?
In eighth grade going into high school, I was 6’4” and 290 pounds wearing a size 15. I shimmy up in that cedar tree and I'm like, “I probably got twenty more minutes left.” Sure enough, I hear a crunch. Outs sticks of deer. I didn't look and see what it was. It was a juvenile hunt so I could shoot whatever. Smoke everywhere. Finally, the smoke cleared. I'm waving the smoke out of the way and there's a deer laying there kicking. I'm like, “I shot him.” The rule was I had to take a walkie-talkie with me when I went out in the woods. Like I said, I grew up on 34 acres and I got a walkie-talkie.
That was your communication back to the parents.
No cell phone. Just walkie-talkie. My folks are sitting out on the porch, which is the thing to do down the south. Before the sun goes down, sit down on the porch, drink a sweet tea, and hang out. They are on the porch. I'm out hunting all of a sudden, and I'm on the walkie-talkie. I thought I was hitting the button to say I got one.
There's nothing more old school than shooting a muzzleloader too. The smoke and the fire coming out of the barrel. It’s pretty cool.
I'm talking about a 209 primer old school. You would pull the trigger and I had to practice this.
It feels like you got kicked in the teeth by a mule.
Brass butt on it. You pull the trigger and you got to wait for a good solid second. You got to practice staying on that deer. Finally, I get one down.
There’s no trigger press on that.
There's not. I'm going nuts and I'm like, “I got one.” I thought I was hitting the button on the walkie-talkie. Come to find out I was going so nuts. They heard me from hundreds of yards away.
This was your first year.
This is my first one alone like by myself that I went in the woods at 11 or 12 years old with my muzzleloader. They heard me from the porch saying, “I got one.” I wasn't even hitting the button. I didn't even turn the power on, but they heard me going nuts all the way from the porch. I smoked this button buck as a young kid.
That was the first thing I ever took by myself, and I was like, “That was awesome.” Young kid, I was in the woods, and I'm getting all scared because it was getting dark in the woods, and I was like, “I'm going to go sit on the field.” I had to wherewithal to come out, and get in a cedar tree, which had me perfect. Thank God the wind was correct because I wasn't paying any attention to it.
Like I said, my dad's an opportunist. He did not tell me anything about the wind. I'm going to be frank about it. I'm sitting there. I don't know what the wind is doing. I don't care. I'm hoping a deer comes out in this field. Sure enough, it did. Frontal shot 50 yards right in the chest with the muzzleloader, but that was my first deer by myself.
That's so amazing that your parents let you go do that on your own with a gun. My first gun was at, I want to say I was 8 or 9. It was a little 22 Martin something. It was a rabbit hunting gun and it was mine. I had to take care of it. I had to lock it up myself. I had to clean it myself. I was responsible for it and it was a big responsibility. There's something about that.
They didn't trust me enough to let me get the 22 until I was 14.
But a 50-caliber muzzleloader.
Here was their thought process was, a 22-bullet, you shoot that thing in the air or something, it's going to still travel a long way. That muzzleloader thing is going to drop.
You might as well be throwing a rock.
Exactly. On my first day, I had a single shot 410. That was what I was getting after the birds, squirrels, rabbits, and stuff, but I wanted a 22 so bad. You shoot a 22, and even with open sight 80 yards, it still hit a fairly good size target.
Even with open sight.
That's what I always wanted because my first weapon was a grizzly pump BB gun. I was going to town on the birds with that thing. The book would say to crank it 5 to 10 times. I'd pump that thing 30 times.
I had the old Daisy 880 Powerline. You might as well have a 22. You didn't get BB Gun Wars with it because you were penetrating motherfuckers.
That's funny you brought that up to BB Gun Wars. I'm from Hillbilly Tennessee. We would do the craziest stuff. I remember for several years we got big into paintball. I go, “I want to play paintball.” We were like, “I want to play speedball.” We would go into a course with big blow-up barricades, and we'd play paintball.
I stopped that. I remember one day I had my knee exposed and I didn't know it. My right knee, and I remember I was cranking that rocker trigger firing on somebody. I wasn't hitting him, but I was shooting right on this barricade. All of a sudden, I feel pain in my knee so bad and I look and the paintball had hit me in the kneecap and didn't explode. I'm a kid and I'm in so much pain and I'm like, “Screw that. I took that paintball.” I slapped it on my leg. I was like, “I'm out. You all got me.”
Blast me right in my kneecap and then I come and try it again on the speedball course. I have got my mask on everything. I have got my pods around the waist and everything. All of a sudden, I get hit in the ear. I will never forget the yellow paintball, it exploded. When I tell you, I heard and I have been hitting the head a ton. I was a kid then, but all I heard was a beep for about 30 minutes. I'm like, “I don't think I want to do this shit.” It hit me right in the ear.
I never played it. We used to play it in the woods. A few kids had guns or something, but I never had one. It was like a loaner thing. It would be like a 3-on-3 or something. We had six guns total, but those fucking things would leave welts. These guys, if you used to go to a range, they'd make you test like your gun would have to be set at a certain PSI. These things were turned all the way up. You ended up with more welts than you did paint on you. That's for damn sure.
Some of those kids would freeze those paintballs to say fuck you. Let me freeze these paintballs. This is about to hurt like shit.
It's crazy. You and I grew up the same way. Did you ever have a potato gun?
I had a potato gun.
They are made of PVC with a fucking Coleman lantern fuse.
They call it the flea market. It was 30 minutes away. It was in a town called Sweetwater. You all are familiar with Tennessee, you will know about it. Every Saturday and Sunday, they had a flea market all year round. I'm from BFE Tennessee, so they would have funnel cakes, rebel flag salesman, and all this crazy shit. Sugar glider and little pets. You could find everything in this flea market.
A lot of times, that's where I would go get my square tubing for the stands. Potato guns, marshmallow guns, paintball guns, knives, and swords. I used to collect swords. I'd have all these swords and knives, and I'd get them from the flea market every. Saturday I'd be like, “Please, can we go to the flea market for an hour?” I'd get a funnel cake and I'd walk my fat ass around. At one point, I thought I wanted a bird because there was this guy that had all these birds like all these parrots and shit. I'm like, “I want a bird.” My folks are like, “Hell no.” Now, it's like, “That makes a lot of sense.”
You’d still have that bird.
The birds, sugar gliders, and dogs. All weird shit, but the flea market was a place to be in my hometown on a Saturday.
Back to my uncle's. They built me my first potato gun. It was like, “We made it ourselves.” There was something fun about that like putting ether in the chamber and fucking having to screw the cap on. Blow a little oxygen in there and they were so much fun to shoot. You would just hold the damn thing and flick the thing.
You could kill somebody with a fucking potato.
That's cool shit. You are talking $15 worth of shit from the hardware store back then. Good shit. Were you playing sports in school and stuff? You were an outdoors kid and you were doing all that. Was sports a pastime then? How young did you start playing sports and where did football come into the picture for you?
I was playing baseball, like as soon as you could play baseball. 4 or 5 something like that. When you are that young, there's not a pitcher, you are hitting off a tee. As soon as it was pitchers, I was a pitcher. I was throwing that heat.
Baseball was always the main sport then.
Back in the day when it was Sammy Sosa, Mark McGwire, Andrew Jones, Greg Maddux, Andres Galarraga, Barry Bonds, and Cal Ripken Jr.
That’s when I got introduced to baseball because of the Rockies that were an expansion team at that point. It was cool.
What were we talking about? I lost my train of thought.
We were talking about you and your youth. I wanted to know where sports come in because I have had a few friends that have made it to the NFL and haven't had long careers, or maybe they have. Some of them have been to a Super Bowl and have been super fortunate. Talking to some of these guys like Derek and stuff, it's like some of them grew up playing Pee-Wee football. Some of them never even thought about playing football. I'm curious because I know how much time goes into it and how much their lives change even when they made that commitment from high school to college was huge.
It was like, “I can't hang out anymore.” I got to go to the weight room, I got to sleep, I got to eat, or I got to fucking play football. This brings me to one of my questions later on down the road that I don't want to forget. Make sure you remind me of hunting in the football because the seasons are crazy. That was one reason why I didn't play football my senior year, honestly, 100%. I had some other shit going on in my life, but one of the big factors was that I wanted to elk hunting. I was sick of playing fucking football.
You don't have a fall when you play ball. Thanks for getting me back on track, and that's where football started. Let me make a side note here. I had a guy reach out to me from one of the best high schools in the state of Colorado, which is a private school. He reached out to me, wanting me to meet with him and talk football, and see what opportunity was there for me.
He wanted you to coach.
I told him before I met him, I said, “The only thing I would ever agree to would be on some consultation type of a deal,” because of the schedule to do it right. You don't have a fall. I don't care if you are coaching high school or college. You don't have a fall for doing it. I met with this guy and it didn't work out, but the point is the reason that I was skeptical about meeting him is even if they come in with some crazy figure amount of money, I'm not giving up that amount of time because I have spent so many years of my life without a fall. Now that I have it, I can't imagine not having it anymore.
Going back to what you were saying about how I got started into it, baseball player as soon as I could. Finally, in the eighth grade, I'm the eighth grade and my gym teacher so happened to be the football coach. We got to walk twenty laps around the basketball gym before we start playing dodgeball or kickball.
I'm walking laps and all of a sudden, I look to the side of me and a guy named Jerry Cook, who's the coach. Great guy. I still talk to him to this day. He's like, “Start working out for me.” I'm like, “What do you mean?” He's like, “For football.” I'm like, “I'm not playing football. I never watched a football game. I don't know shit about it. I'm not doing that. I play baseball. That's what I'm going to do.” He's like, “Come on just try it. You are a big kid.” In the eighth grade, like I said, I was 6’4 285. Big kid wearing size 15 shoes.
Coach sees you walking down the hallway.
He's like, “Please do it,” and I'm like, “Bet.” I started doing it and started working out and I hated it. I hated working out. I never worked out in my life until that point.
Lo and behold, you are in the NFL.
My folks, they weren't the type of folks to be like, “No, you have got to stay and do this. You start it.” They weren't like that. They are like, “Whatever you want to do.” I'm like, “I do not like it, but I'm going to keep doing it.” Eighth grade year was my first year playing. I was playing the defensive line. I was bigger, meaner, and maybe faster.
Here's the deal. I got a different outlook than most people on football. I look at my high school career and I'm like, “That shit was all.” Most people look at it and be like, “You are killing people.” What I know about technique from an offensive lineman standpoint, I'm like, “You got to use your hands better.” In eighth grade, I start working out with the team.
Going back to it the position that you play, it was one of the positions that I played in Pee-Wee football coming up. There's no fucking comparison so I have no room to talk. Being on the line is, in my opinion, it's the fucking trenches. It is a fistfight every fucking down. Especially in the NFL. You see what these guys go through. It's crazy.
It doesn't get any more physical in that position. In eighth grade, I start playing D-line. I'm alright. We almost went to what's called the SVC Championship, which is our level of middle school football. We almost won the best of the best. We lost in the game to get us to that game. Anyway, going to high school and I'm trying out for the high school team for baseball. I want to play baseball. The best thing ever happened to me was I got my ass cut.
Being on the D-line is like being in the trenches, especially in the NFL. It doesn't get any more physical than that position.
Were you a catcher?
No. I'm a pitcher at first. I used to throw that thing.
I played a little baseball too, even in high school. I was always the catcher because I was the fat guy that couldn’t run.
You must have had good knees because that’s serious now. Anyway, I try out as a pitcher and a first basement. I have got the link to play first. Looking back at it, I was not good enough and I got cut. I'm like, “It's football or bust.” I'm playing football and in freshman year I was on the freshman team. I'd love to be able to sit here and say, “My freshman year I was on the varsity.” It was not. I was on the freshman team my freshman year. I don't know how good I was because I haven't looked back at how I was playing. I played a lot of football since then, but I don't think I was that fucking good, to be honest with you.
Is there any film or anything we can watch?
I need to hit my coach up and see if I can find something.
You should. He'd probably love to hear from you.
That's a great point. Nowadays, films are huge. Everybody watches films. When I was playing, we would watch a film. A couple of times a year, they'd roll out. Do you remember the roller that the teachers would roll out with the big fatback TV with the strap on the top and they'd push it out? You already know. They would roll that out and, in a couple of weeks, we'd have film and they'd look all grainy. You know how the VHS look. You already know.
You are watching a film. You got 25 dudes that smell like fucking ass because we got done practicing and you are all trying to huddle around a fucking 20X20 TV. This is a 55 in here. You would have killed that. The quality was shit. Even my kids' football Pee-Wee. This was his first year of playing Pee-Wee football. They recorded every fucking game with a camcorder from a deer stand that I would bring in the back of my truck, and we'd set up these deer stand. It was like one of those portable ones.
You got the above angle.
The above angle and we could go back and watch a film, and he fucking loved it. He ate it up. We are still watching films to this day and football is long over like.
In the eighth grade, we watched literally nil-zero films, and they literally wouldn't even give us Gatorade at the games. Before the games, they had on a table in the little Gatorade cups, pickle juice. They are like, “Drink the pickle juice because it's an electrolyte.” It keeps you from cramping. No Gatorade. This is back in the days when you used to take your belt. Do you remember when you used to have to thread your pads through your pants with the belt? That's backing up. Those days.
Your pads would be falling out.
You used to have to wear an ass pad.
The tailbone pads. The equipment has become so much more advanced. It is unbelievable now. It's wild. It's funny. When I played Pee-Wee football and shout-out to my Pee-Wee team and my boys like cable roll off. He went on to play at the NFL wow for a little bit, but he played for the Saints for a minute. We used to practice in a graveyard right down the street. It was the only green grass that we had. We were dodging headstones. It was a field right next to the graveyard, but it was cool. We used to have to run our lap around all these graves is what the coach would make us do.
Going back to the eighth grade. We were drinking pickle juice and did not have a whole lot of funds for the team. Our field was overgrown and stuff like that. Sprinkler heads sticking up higher than they should have been, stuff like that. Going to high school, I'm on the freshman team grade. I finish out the year on the freshman team sophomore year.
I love to sit here and say, “Sophomore year I started.” I did not. I was on the JV team and then literally I started my junior year and my senior year. Junior year had a good campaign and I'm like, “I don't lose a whole lot.” This is cool. Going into that next year, you think you are this badass because you are in school, you are a senior, and third period you would get somebody come over the intercom saying, “Hello, Mrs. Peterson. Is Josh Walker there? We have got Middle Tennessee down on the fieldhouse. He needs to come down here and talk to him?” You walk out with your Letterman jacket on thinking you are the shit and all this.
I never got that experience.
That was sweet. It was cool. We walk out and go down to the field house and talk to all these teams. Long story short, I ended up committing to Middle Tennessee. That's where I played for five years. I ended up redshirting.
Were you still playing the D-line at that point?
I'm playing O-line. My only year of playing D-line was that first year in eighth grade. From that point forward they were like, “You play O-line,” and I was like, “All right.”
How hard was that transition for you? I always played D-line and I fucking loved it. The one year that they put me at the center, I was like I don't like football anymore.
To answer your question, I was so new to the sport that it was so easy. That year was so easy. I was like, “This is what I do now.” It wasn't like, “For the last six years I have been doing this. Now I got to change to this.” It was more of, “I started playing this game last year. This is what I did last year, but now this is what I do.” It wasn't seamless because I wasn't starting my sophomore year, but it wasn't as hard as you would imagine.
That was a hard transition for me because I never played O-line for a lot of years, and then all of a sudden, they were like, “You are going to be the right guard because we are pulling and you are fast.” I was fucking getting destroyed. I did play varsity football during my freshman year. I was playing against some grown-ass men and I was still a young boy. There were a few times I got snotted big time by some linebackers coming through the hole.
I started playing my junior year and I start every game from there forward. I go to Middle Tennessee. I redshirted the first year, which goes to show you I wasn't ready to play. I'm still learning the game. When I look back, even at my college tape, the thing I was missing was pad leverage. I was so much bigger than everybody in my redneck little town that I could grab somebody, but with one hand and be standing straight up and holding him at the line of scrimmage. You get into the National Football League. If you get in the D1 football, you are going to get your head ripped off trying stuff like that. Number one, the playbook took a little bit to learn. It was a little bit tougher of a playbook than high school. Where are we on?
We were talking about football leverage. You were talking about going to the NFL and having to learn leverage, which is a whole other ballgame.
Middle Tennessee's division one football, don't get me wrong. When I first got there, it was Sunbelt, and then my last year or two, it was Conference USA. It was division one football. It’s a big football, but it's not Alabama. It's not the University of Tennessee. It's not anything like that. Let me give you the gritty details. My first year I redshirted which was one of the coolest years of my life because all I had to do was practice and party. My first year being away from my parents, my first year being in the city of Murfreesboro, I'm going nuts. This is awesome. I got my freedom.
There's something about that. I will say this. During my first year, my redshirt year, I was so homesick. All I wanted to do my first year, I had a good buddy in mine, shout-out to Tyler Watson, but he was from Chattanooga. I'm from 45 minutes northeast of Chattanooga. We would go home every chance we got because I know myself and I'm sure he would say this too. I was homesick as hell. I wanted to get back to the country and hang out. After that first year, it was bad. What'd you get used to living in a dorm and living with these other dudes?
There's something about that camaraderie too like being around your boys. Not to mention the different opportunities, flavors, and women that you have out there if you are into that or even young men, whatever your flavor is. There's a reason why people that don't even go to college go to college and party.
That's a great point. As a freshman at Middle Tennessee, it doesn't matter who you are. You have got to stay at what's called the Scarlett Commons your first year, which is the athlete dorm. There's volleyball, basketball, tennis, and soccer. It's all the athletes and this dorm is a circle with apartment buildings that were four stories high sprinkled in an oval. You have got laundry right in the middle and there's like a grassy knoll to go throw a Frisbee. I remember going to the laundry room one night at 11:00 PM school night, and I'm like, “I have nothing clean to wear.” I know my folks would be like, “You better not put on that shirt you have been wearing for three days.”
I remember going into the laundry room at 11:00 PM and I'm paying for the laundry with quarters and putting this stuff in and I'm like, “I'm by myself. I am doing this on my own.” You are seventeen years old, you are like, “I'm a grown man.” That first year happened and it was cool as hell. You learn a lot about yourself. You are still a kid. All throughout college, you are still a kid.
Was that a full ride?
Yes. The main reason I went there was I got a good buddy. Shout-out to Brandon McElroy. Me and McElroy, he was a year older than me, but he was an offensive lineman at Rhea County High School, where I'm from East Tennessee. He was the right guard. I'm pretty sure I played left guard and left tackle. To be honest with you, I don't remember where I played in high school.
The point is, he was one of the five starters with me. He lived five minutes away and he ended up going to Middle Tennessee. The year before I committed there, I was going there to watch spring games. They were inviting me out to come on my visit and all that. McElroy who I have known my entire life showed me a hell of a time at Middle Tennessee. He was one year older than me. He got to experience the whole year and he thought he was, had it figured out and got to show me the ropes, which he did, and it was incredible.
I committed there and I did not regret it one bit. My second year, which was my first year not being a redshirt. They had a guy that came in, he transferred from the University of Tennessee at Knoxville UT. The orange UT. The SEC. At Middle Tennessee, you already know he's getting penciled in as a starter. Everybody thought like, “Walk's been getting better,” this and that. “He's going to start,” but then they bring in a guy. I'm not going to say his name, but good guy. He's from Tennessee as well, but farther west than me. Transferred from the University of Tennessee to Middle Tennessee instantly.
His name is number one at right guard. I'm like, “There's no way I can ever get his back.” I come to find out he's got IBS some stomach deal. Here's the deal, impression is tough, but how do I put this in palatable terms? You can't miss practice when you are playing football, especially at the Division 1 college level moving forward.
You know what's up. It doesn't matter if you are limping or you are leaking, or vomiting, you better be at practice. He's missing a lot of practice. I was number two. They are getting to see a lot of 77 like Josh Walker. I don't know what was going through their heads, but I'd imagine they are like, “Here's Josh sophomore year. Here's Preston coming into college, here's what he looks like.” All of a sudden, I went to that starting job in week two of my second year ripping off 43 straight starts. How I got my start is beating out this guy that transferred from the University of Tennessee.
That's most football coaches, and that's why I love fucking football is because there's no bullshit. This culture that we are living in now, where my kid plays soccer and then goes to football. It is totally different. The coaches are cursing, and calling the kids out when they don't make a play. Soccer is like, “It's okay. We didn't win the game.” Here's a little pat on the back. It's accepted, but if you lose a football, you better watch out because the coach is going to be fucking hot.
That goes to show you, you got a guy that was committed to Tennessee, was at Tennessee playing football. You got me coming from BFE, Tennessee, didn't have a whole ton of offers. If you look at that on paper, here's the answer, “This guy, the Tennessee guy. The guy that's been playing at Tennessee. We are putting him in. Tennessee thought enough of him to offer him, we are going to put this guy in.”
He got penciled into that spot and he started playing. He was a good player. When he played, it's like, “He's pretty good.” In the NFL and in division one football, probably in all realms of football. A lot of times your availability is your best ability. That's your best ability. When they found out that this guy was missing practices and all this stuff, they are like, “We got a guy that probably about the same talent level, but he's always there. Sickness or whatever. He's always at practice.”
They are like, “Let's give him a try.” I start one game and they are like, “He looks pretty good in there.” You are a redshirt freshman year. The next year after redshirting. They put me in, I will never forget it. At FAU, I'm all nervous and shit. It was my first time on a plane going to Florida Atlantic down in Boca Raton and getting off the plane.
That was your first time traveling on a plane.
Let me walk that back. The year before that. 2009, which is my first year, I was a redshirt and we got into the New Orleans Bowl and that was my first time getting on a plane was 2009 going to New Orleans. You probably can imagine just how that went.
Please tell me you were on Bourbon Street.
Right on Bourbon. Anyway, I get my start and rip off 43 straight starts. It was cool. If I was to tell you like, “What the hell were you known for?” It wasn't a technique. It was that fucker plays every game and he's trying to beat the shit out of who's in front of him. It wasn't, “He's a technician.” It was, “This dude is vicious.” Number one, he's winning the most improved offensive lineman year in the weight room every single year. Number two, you cut the tape on this guy who is coming off the balls with reckless abandon.
If I would have been able to say that I was coming off with reckless abandon with great pad leverage, maybe my story would have been different. Maybe it would have been the drafts and all this stuff. I go back and look at it and I played so high. I look back at it and I'm like, “You have got to get your ass down.” I don't know if I can sit here and say that it was playing down to my opponents. When you play the Louisiana Monroe, you play the Detroit, you played the worst Kentucky. All due respect to them. They were always dogfights.
Let me ask you this. How much of that comes back to coaching? As of the show and some of my good fortune here, I have been able to get my kids some real coaching. When he came to me and was like, “I want to play football.” I was like, “Let me start working with you because me and you going and throwing the football down at the high school football field. When you don't have a helmet on or shoulder pads and it's a fucking breezy day. You are catching these fucking amazing passes and I know you love watching the NFL is totally different.”
“Let's go out in July. Let's put some shoulder pads and a helmet on you. Let me make you run some sprints. You are going to do Oklahoma against me. I'm going to throw you the football and let's see if you still like it,” because I wanted him to show up. To me, football, if you go into it with that pussy-foot mentality like they have in soccer now, you are going to get your ass eaten up. It's either hit or be hit. Survival of fitness, in my opinion, from the little bit of experience I have. Do you feel the same way?
It's either hit or be hit. It's the survival of the fittest.
Let me fast forward a little bit. It's not fast-forwarding. This is the first team that I was on. I'm on it. I go to the Indianapolis Colts in the 2014 draft. I was undrafted, I go to the Indianapolis Colts, which I was fine with because I had a good rapport with the offensive line coach because he came to my school and worked me out. I talked to Andy Reid in the fourth round in 2014, and he's like, “This might be you coming up.” All of a sudden, they pick up DB or whatever it is.
Did you get drafted?
Undrafted.
That was badass. I think that's so fucking cool, but how heartbreaking is that? I'm sorry. I don't mean to interrupt you, but I got to ask you that. Think about all those guys that sit there and they got their families there and they are all dressed as nice as they could fucking be. It's the nicest I have ever seen Derek Wolfe dressed. He even cut his hair or some shit.
He looks like a Bible salesman or something. That's my dog.
Think about all the heartbreak that you don't see and nobody showcases that. It's all about winning.
I'm going to give you the gritty details. My redshirt senior year, I have been there for five years. I signed an agent my last year there. Let me walk this back. If you were to ask me, when did you think you had the talent to go to the NFL? At the end of my redshirt junior year, I wasn't thinking shit about it until then.
This wasn't my childhood dream or anything?
Like I said, I was a baseball player. All of a sudden, I signed my agent and I'm like, “This dude flew in from Baltimore, Maryland to watch me play.” He's got a lot of big-name guys and I signed him and I'm like, “He believes in me.” He was incredible. As a matter of fact, I signed him early that year maybe during my redshirt senior year. Going back at it, my 1st, 2nd, and 3rd years, I wasn't thinking about the NFL.
If there's anybody reading that plays smaller-time football, all I want to do was get better my first couple of years. I wasn't thinking about the NFL. I wasn't like, “I'm 6’5” 330, I can play in the NFL.” It was more of, “How good can I be to help out my teammates?” I'm not just saying that shit from a cliché standpoint.
I wasn't thinking anything about the NFL because maybe it was because I had so little experience with a ball from the standpoint of I swear to God before eighth grade and started working out. I did not watch a football game. I had never watched a football game until then. Never a whole football game. Maybe it was where like, I was only 5 to 6 years into being a football guy, but I wasn't thinking anything about the league until that last year. I see a lot of guys in smaller-town football that are like, “I'm coming here to make it to the league.” Good luck with that. I'm telling you it is difficult.
That's all those guys got and that's what I grew up like. The Denver Broncos were a big fucking deal here growing up, but I feel like kids have it so differently. You can learn football from a video game. Those games like Madden and shit are fucking unbelievable and reading plays. The way that they keep up with the injury reports and everything. It is wild.
The fact of what you said about Pee-Wee football getting taped says it all.
It's a whole different level.
In the eighth grade, our games weren't taped that I can recall.
I have tape one of me. I got some pictures of me holding number 50 holding my helmet like a baseball or a football trading card and that's it.
That is badass. Getting into the league. I go undrafted to the Indianapolis Colts in 2014. Like I told you, I had a good rapport with the O-line coach. He'd come in. What they will do is they will come in and put you through an individual workout, which is like O-line specific bag drive and stuff. You got to show them like you are an O-lineman.
I don't think people realize what it takes to be an o-lineman. You got to have a screw loose. I'm not trying to gratify it. To line up against a 350-pound man, that is that athletic, that's getting paid millions of dollars to whoop your ass every single play. You come off the ball and you try to move him against his will, you got to have a screw loose.
They are trying to murder you to get past you.
They are trying to take your head off because they get bonuses against Sachs.
Did you ever play against Derek?
We played the Broncos here in 2015. I got into the league in 2014, 2015 was my second year in the league my first year making the active roster. All I did in that game was PAT, so I didn't play against him, but we played there in 2015. It's like I don't think people realize what type of dudes are obviously on the offensive line, but the guys you play against like, say, you are a tackle. You are not playing against the 350-pound but you are playing against a 260-pound guy with abs that are running a 44 that gets paid millions of bucks to whoop that ass every play.
You got 80 plays a game, give or take to win or lose. There's a lot on the line. 2014 I go undrafted to the Colts and I'm cool about it because I had met the O-line coach. He came to work me out. I thought I possibly could get drafted by him. I get up there and come cut down time. There are 2 or 3 days of it. Cut down is the worst time for an undrafted free agent because you come into the building. You know it's cut day, you are undrafted, and you know you are the first guys. Every time you hear something a pin drop, you are like, “You look behind you.” We call them reapers.
You were a walk-on at that point.
Essentially an undrafted guy is a walk-on. I was undrafted.
Do you guys get invited to that?
Some guys get a mini-camp invite or a training camp invite. I will say this, I got to sign a bonus and all that. I was at the front of the line.
You were undrafted.
You were paid X amount to come to practice. That makes a lot of sense and I don't think there are a lot of people that understand that. There's a whole level below that.
I will be frank about it. I got a $10,000 signing bonus. Here I am fresh out of college. I'm like, “I got $6,800 put into my account,” because after taxes it's $6,800. I'm like, “This is awesome. I'm rich. I got $6,800.” You talk to the draft pick and you are like, “I got X amount of million.” It's a whole other level. 2014, I'm there in April. After the draft ends, after about two days, you are there. When the draft's over, undrafted or not, you are at where whoever picked you up. That's where you are at. I'm there and I last until a week. Final cutdown day in camp, they cut me. I was there when it was Chuck Pagano, Andrew Luck, and Ryan Grigson.
Was Manning there at the time?
No, he had left. It was Andrew Luck who had been there maybe two years. Ryan Grigson who was a GM, he's like, “We love your style of play. You are a brawler and you are vicious this and that. Coming from Middle Tennessee, maybe you need to learn some more.” Essentially, he's like, “Sit behind the guys we got on the practice squad and I bet you next year you will be,” and so on.
I'm like, “Cool.” I signed a practice squad contract. I'm like, “There's no way they are going to cut me from the practice squad.” I signed that right out of training camp before week one. Week one comes around. We play in week one. I'm going to practice squad. I don't even go to the game because I'm going to practice squad. You don't go to away games at all the places I have been. You don't even go to away games at the places I went. In some places they do, but in the places I have been, you don't even go.
You'd be a third-stringer if they went going tackle.
As a practice squad guy, you cannot play in a game until they deem you on the active roster. They have got to move you to the active roster to be able to play in the game. In week one, I'm on the practice squad, and we lose the game. I'm pretty sure we lost the game. In week two, we had the Eagles. This is the 2014 Indianapolis Colts we lose. After the game, they are like, “They make moves when we lose. They start making moves.” I'm like, “It isn't going to be me. There's no way.” Five days before that in Brownsburg, Indiana, I signed a lease on a house. The house had to sit for a couple of months because it sat there waiting for somebody to either buy it or rent it.
My point being is I went in the garage, there were spiders in that shit, and I'm like, “I need spider spray.” I go to Home Depot and walk back to the cash register. I have got spider spray on my left hand. I will never forget this. My girlfriend Kendall was with me. I get a call from an unknown 314 number, which is Indianapolis, and I'm like, “Hello?”
They are like, “Is Josh there?” I'm like, “This is him.” “Mr. Grigson is going to want to see. You probably want to bring your iPad with you. I'm not sure what it's about, but you are going to have to meet him up here at his office at the facility.” This is on an off day, so I'm not thinking anything about even going up there, and I'm like, “Am I getting cut?”
I bring my iPad which is the playbook. I bring the iPad up there. Long story short, it was cool because he was a super realistic guy and very real. We talked for 30 minutes. I got my ass cut that day on an off day after we got beat by the Eagles in Home Depot. I was all happy. I got a new badass, two-story, beautiful place to live.
You just signed the lease.
Days ago. The house wasn't a mansion, but it was a two-story beautiful crib in Indianapolis. On the practice squad, I was supposed to make $130,000 that year which is good money.
This is the part where people don't see what you are going through. They just think like, “It's so cool to play in the NFL or to be at that level.”
I'm on the practice squad. I get signed to the practice squad and I'm supposed to make $115,000 or $130,000. I'm like, “I'm rich.” My folks never made anything like that. I signed a lease to the place. Me and my girlfriend live in this house on an air mattress with the TV on Yeezy shoebox for four days. All of a sudden, we are at Home Depot, and I answer the phone.
I go up there to get my ass cut. Two days later, here's the deal. There are two ways you can go about it. You can say, “Fuck you, Colts. I know I can play. What's next?” or you could say, “I guess I'm not good enough. I'm done.” That was my first team. I took the first route. I'm like, “Fuck you. I'm not losing. I'm good at this shit. I'm going to keep playing.”
Your brain will naturally go to that other spot whether you are shooting on an elk or whatever.
That's a great point you just made. I wanted to be like, “Poor me. I just got cut. Should I make a Facebook post about, ‘I got cut?’” It was more of, “I know I can play this game because I have been at the practice since April. By now it's September. I don't lose much. I can play this game.” I tell my agent. He's like, “No shit, they cut you.” I'm like, “Yes.” He's like, “Give me a minute.” The next day he's like, “Can you be on the 4:15 flight to Green Bay? They want to sign you to the practice squad.” I was like, “I can be on the 4:15.” I'm leaving out of a leather bag.
Did you get to go to the home games? Did you get to walk into Lucas Stadium?
Yes.
That is one of my favorite stadiums that I have ever been in because I have done some rock shows there.
It was a beautiful stadium. It's the rollback top and how you can roll the top back and it can be outside. It's incredible. Lucas Oil is incredible. You got to go to the home games. Like I said, my agent called me the next day. He's like, “Can you be on the 4:15?” I'm like, “Hell, yes.” He's like, “I'm going to be honest with you. They are going to sign you to the practice squad. They didn't say anything about the active.” I was like, “Whatever.”
I finished out that year on the practice squad. What I did that year on the practice squad is I just wanted to show the starters on defense. Let me take a second to go through them. You got Julius Peppers, Letroy Guion, AJ Hawk, BJ Raji, Mike Neal, and Clay Matthews. The list goes on and on, but the point is I wanted to flirt that line between who's this piece of shit practice squad that's doing too much in practice, and who's this practice squad that should probably be on active.
Something happens for a reason type of thing. I don't know if you believe in karma. I don’t but I do to an extent. Compared to the starters and people that are going to make it to the postseason, that's a team with some real fucking stars and talent, and it had already been to the postseason a couple of times at that point. To me, that's a one-up going down to Green Bay.
In 2014, we had a chance to make a Super Bowl run. I don't know if you remember this. We got beat by the Seahawks at the Seahawks on a muffed onside kick.
I got to ask you something. Don't let me forget this. I'm going to let you go.
We lose the game. We should have won. We had the game in control. We were on a hands team, so on sidekick return, we had a guy. I'm not going to say his name, but he muffed the kick even though all we could practice were like, “There's no reason you should touch it.” Jordy Nelson. We are like, “Jordy is going to catch this.” Something crossed his mind where he thought, “I'm going to catch this.” He muffed the kick on onside and they recover. That was my first year in Green Bay. We end up losing that. Like I said, all year I was flirting the line between.
That was also the season that I didn't want to forget. I will never fucking forget this game. It was Detroit Lions and Green Bay Packers. I believe it was 2015. There was Aaron Rodgers.
Let me stop you really quick. Are you talking about the tight end in the end zone for the win Hail Mary?
Yes.
That's 2015. Let me get to that. This is the year before that. Richard Rodgers is a good friend of mine. This is 2014. I know all about that.
Were you there for that?
Yes. I was active on that. Aaron Rodgers was at his best. I was there.
I'm jumping ahead here. Let's keep going.
In 2014, the onside kick muff happens or whatever that happens. The guy took it hard. To be frank, you should take it hard because it was the coach that, “You are not touching the ball. You get out of the way, let Jordy catch a ball, and you get down.” Am I saying the guys should have tried to commit suicide or something? Absolutely not, but all I'm saying is all week of practice. That happens.
That was my first year in Green Bay. I was on the practice squad. I'm at the playoff game, which was the NFC Championship game, the game before the Super Bowl. I'm on practice squad hanging out watching this game. This shit is loud as hell. I have played pretty much everywhere. It comes down between Arrowhead Stadium, which is the Chiefs and Seattle as far as being loud. We could not have a conversation. If I was to look at you, you would be moving. It was the reverberation of what was going on.
Marshon was in Seattle. They show him eating some Skittles on the sideline or some shit, and then he broke every lineman. They were playing the Saints. He broke every lineman on the line and ran 75 yards, beast mode.
That sounds like him, a freaking nature.
The stadium went so crazy. Because they were on the West Coast, they were getting seismic activity because of fucking earthquake. That’s how loud stadiums can get. To put it in perspective, I have been to a ton of football stadiums, whether it was rock and roll or action sports. I used to do a lot with Supercross. We would always go into these football stadiums, and there would be a motocross track in there, which was super awesome. To put it in perspective, Arrowhead is 110,000 people. Mile High is only 80,000 or something like that. Seattle is not that big, but Arrowhead is fucking massive.
Let me hold my thought and go back to my first experience with Arrowhead. I was a swing lineman my whole time in the National Football League. Meaning they would take the five starters, they would take a backup center, and they would take me into a game. I could play everything but center. Now, I came into the league at 340 pounds. I was a road grading guard knocking the fire at everything. As I got older, I was growing into my body.
Did they expect you to be that weight all the time too?
Absolutely not. The older I got, the more they realized, 1) I have some of the longest arms on the team, which goes a long way. 2) I got good feet. 3) I'm coming into the league at 338 pounds to 323 pounds. That might not sound like a whole shit term, but that's a lot of weight loss. I felt good. I had super long arms and started like, “Fuck you. He probably played tackle.” I had never played tackle up until that point in my entire life.
Retired 2 Hunt: The older I got, the more they realized that, number one, I had some of the longest arms on the team, which goes a long way. Number two, I have good feet. Number three, I've gone from coming into the league at 338 pounds to 323 pounds.
Going into my first experience at Arrowhead, my buddy Josh Wells who is still playing in the NFL is a backup tackle at Tampa Bay. He played with Tom Brady. He is a great guy. He's just a dog. He is the swing tackle. Josh Wells is starting that game. What does that mean? That means me as the swing and everything. I have got to be ready to play left tackle if need be. Whereas normally, he's the swing tackle. If Cam Robinson who's the starting left tackle or Jeremy Parnell who's the starting right tackle goes down, Josh Wells fills one of those voids, but Cam Robinson had an injury, so he's completely out of the game going in.
Josh Wells is the starting left tackle. Me going into that week, I have got to realize, there's a good chance I could be playing left tackle, which isn't a great chance, probably not. Left tackle is a different deal. I'm just telling you. I go into that game, and I'm like, “What are the odds to be playing left tackle? It isn't very good.” In the second quarter, I look at Josh Wells, and he's limping. I'm like, “He's a warrior. He's not coming out.” I look at him again, he's getting up out of a pot, and there he is, 72.
Anybody says you guys are the fucking most athletic.
He's 320 pounds.
This is a modern-day gladiator. I don't give a shit what anybody says.
He is a good buddy of mine, Josh Wells. He's in there at left tackle.
That guy is fast too.
We are talking about left tackle here in the National Football League. I look out there at him, and he's halfway limping. I get on the sideline. I take Sha. Sha is Tyler Shatley. If you look Tyler Shatley up, he is the most tenured player now in that Jacksonville Jaguars football game.
Give these guys a follow too.
Tyler Shatley is the most tenured player on that football team. This is my dog, one of the greatest human beings you will ever meet. I told Sha like, “I'm about to have to go in and left tackle. Let's take some sets.” He looked at me with concern like, “I know what that means. You might have left tackle.”
He's an outdoorsman too.
He's a big-time fisherman from North Carolina. Do you see his redfish? It's my dog. We get some sets. I'm setting and punching him as hard as I can in his chest. This goes to show you the difference. It takes a different type of dude. I'm literally setting three sets and I'm punching him in the chest as hard as I can. He's like, “Good punch.” I'm punching him as hard as I can in his chest. All of a sudden, we called him flats. Flats was my offensive line coach in 2018. His name's Patrick Flaherty, one of the longest-tenured duties, like 70 years old. He is one of the longest-tenured offensive line coaches in the National Football League.
He comes up to me and puts his hand on my shoulder. He's like, “Are you ready?” To me, as a type of dude I am, I took that as, “Are you a pussy or not?” I'm like, “You are damn right. I'm ready.” He’s a left tackle. He grabs me by the shoulder, and he's like, “Go get him.” About the time I took a step, he's like, “No, wait.” He's like, “Go get him.” I said, “I'm going to be honest with you. I got a lot of respect for you, but I'm not doing this shit. Do you want me to get him or not?” He goes, “Go get him,” so I run in there. I don't give him the chance to be like, “No, I'm good,” because he's hurt. The cameras are right above your head.
I will be damned if I see him go, “No, you are good.” I ran into the huddle. I said, “Josh Wells, they want you out.” He's like, “All right.” He limps off the field and I get in there. It's the end of the 2nd quarter going into the 3rd. The Chiefs are 3 in 0 and the Jaguars are 3 in 0, and this is the year after we damn near went to the Super Bowl. This is a huge game. We are both 3 in 0 and the score is still tight. I go in the game. It’s cool because I got such a great rapport.
Are you playing for Green Bay at this point?
Jacksonville.
This is later in your career. We jumped ahead a little bit.
This is my last year. He come duped. All my teammates are so fired up to see me. It made me like, “Let's go.” You don't want to get to where you look at your teammates like, “Shit. He's in here.” Everybody looked me in the eye and like, “J. Walk.” I used to have this little attitude.
I can see it in your eyes now. It's a little bit different. You are making me nervous.
I used to do this thing like no matter what time it is. When I see my dog in the hallway coming back and forth for a meeting, I'd be like, “Morning.” No matter what time it is like, we are just now getting up. It's just now getting started. I came in the huddle, and everybody was like, “Morning. What's happening?” I'm like, “I'm ready to go.”
I get in the game. Long story short, no sacks, no any of that. They have got an amplitude monitor on the jumbotron, and it's for the home fans. It's basically saying, “Get louder.” I'm in the huddle. I'm essentially the third left tackle because the backup was already starting the game, but I have got to come in and relieve him because he's hurt. I'm sure on whatever NFL network, they are like, “Here comes a third-string left tackle.” The camera is 6 feet over my head.
I was the type of player who would be in a trance, and in all due honesty, I wanted to inflict pain on whoever I'm playing against. I took it as a challenge because I knew who I was playing in front of, who was Chris Jones, Frank Clark, Tamba Hali, and Justin Houston. I know they are like, “There’s the third-string tackle. I'm about to whoop his ass.” My big thing was I'm going to do everything in my power to make these fuckers. I don't care about what the viewers say, what any of that. I'm going to make these defenders be like, “This dude is knocking the shit out of me.”
A lot of that is in the trenches like it's putting somebody in check. That's where all the shit-talking goes on. That's where all the, “I'm going to eat your mama and fuck your baby's kids,” and all those comments that come out. Not to mention what goes on that you don't even see because your eyes are on the ball and everybody's watching something else, including the referees.
I have sat down and thought about this. I'm like, “What is the most physical position in football?” Safety is in there very close because they are always around the ball, but every play as an offensive lineman, you are striking somebody. Let's say we have a three-man front. What's a three-man front? You got five offensive linemen. You got one guy over the center and you got a guy over each tackle. What does that mean? The guards are uncovered. You are taught. If you got a little extra space when I set and I don't have any work, you find work. The center that might be struggling a little bit, I'm coming over there and I'm hoping his elbows are out of the way, but I'm trying to knock his ribs out of place.
You are trying to make him remember something so they don't come back for more. That's the whole mentality. It's fucking wild. I can't imagine what you have been through and what you have done.
Being an undrafted guy, you look at it as, “These dudes probably don't think shit of me.” You are like, “Motherfucker, I'm going to make you realize who the fuck 73 is.” I'm not saying it's right or wrong because if there are any young offensive linemen reading. Every play is not about coming off the ball with everything you have and trying to knock the shit out of somebody. You got to be controlled and aggressive.
Every play is not about coming off the ball with everything you have and trying to knock the shit out of somebody. You've got to be controlled but aggressive.
Again, I'm not saying it's right or wrong. I wanted to show the Frank Clarks. I wanted to show the Aaron Donalds of the world. Speaking of Aaron Donald, here's my first time ever playing in a game ever in my entire life outside of PAT and Jumbo tied in. My first time ever playing guard in a regular season game was against the St. Louis Rams against Aaron Donald in 2015.
That was the Super Bowl year.
That was 2015. That was the next year, but they might have won it that year. The Rams might have. Anyway, my girlfriend's mom is in town, so I'm like, “I got to hype. My lady’s mom is in town. I'm going to show out.” The guys I was backing up were TJ Lang and Josh Sitton. If you were to ask me, I would tell you that both of those guys deserve to be in the Hall Of Fame. After every game, you get a grade sheet. Were you 50%? Were you 100%? You don't see me 100%.
In the NFL, you look at stuff under a fine-tooth comb. These two guys were guards. They were consistently 90s, which is unbelievable for an offensive lineman. Both of these guys, TJ Lang and Josh Sitton, I talked to both of them to this day. They were outstanding guys to play behind, but they were warriors. I hardly ever saw a field because they are always on the field.
In 2015, which was my first year on the active roster, I saw the field was PAT and Jumbo tied in. All of a sudden, we are at home in Lambeau. We are playing against the St. Louis Rams. I look out there at TJ Lang. He's running off the field with his cleat in his hand. I'm like, “Maybe he lost his shoe.” His ankles are fucked up. I'm like, “Holy shit.”
In St. Louis Rams, there are Aaron Donald, Brockers, Quinn, and Sean Lee, you go down the list. I'm at right guard and my first play is a pass play. I'm at right guard, I have got a 2I. What's 2I? That means I'm at right guard which means I'm at the next guy closest to the center to the right. I have got a defensive lineman that is loosely shaded on the center almost touching me. You start flirting to find a line between, “Is this a shade or is this 2I? Is he touching the center more or me?” Point being is, I had to go to him. I have got to set down on the left.
I'm thinking this is my first play in the game. I'm about to come down there because there weren't a whole lot of guys bigger than him. I was 6’5” and 335 pounds. I wasn't scared of shit, still not to this day, but back then didn't nobody make me be like, “Who is this?” I set down and go to punch him, he swims to the outside. He swims me and I take my right shoulder and jump horizontally, pushing him out of the way.
Aaron Rodgers runs for 12 yards. The crowd's going nuts like it was a good play. To me, I'm like, “That's pressure. That's not good enough.” I kick myself in the head. I'm like, “Let's go.” From that point forward, I calmed down and got everything right. It was me and Aaron Donald, a little bit of Fairley and Quinn. From that play forward, I was like, “You got to get it right.” Kendall is my girlfriend. Kendall is here and her mom is here. I will be damned if you get embarrassed in front of these people. Calm down and play pretty well.
There are fucking 80,000 people in the stands, and you are worried about your mother-in-law.
You are thinking about two people. I don't give a shit about any of these other people. It's like, “I can't let my lady’s mom think I'm weak.”
There's something about being accountable. It’s so big. One thing that's helped me with the show is accountability. If I say I'm going to do something, if I say I'm going to sit here and drink two bottles of tequila with Josh, I'm going to fucking sit here and drink two bottles of tequila with Josh.
That goes a long damn way.
Cheers to that. Before I forget about it, and I don't want to interrupt you, we got to get back to 2015. This was in fourth.
Here's the bottom line. This is the Green Bay Packers versus the Detroit Lions. This is a giant game.
This is huge. It's a rivalry shit. I'm going to read the commentary here. Aaron is scrambling. It’s not looking good into the game, 21, 23.
Richard Rodgers is in the end zone. Watch him rush the field. We rushed to the field. You can see me here in a second.
Is that 79 right there?
That's me going nuts.
In a couple of plays before this, it didn't look good. There’s a lousy yard aid. There were all kinds of shit.
It was looking terrible.
There was a flag that was plant throwing with zero seconds left in the game, and Aaron comes out and pulls this out of his ass.
We got one play left to try to get ourselves in it.
I will never forget this shit.
Here's what's crazy about this game. This is 2015, the first year on the active roster. There's me right there.
Get the fuck out of the way. You got the game ball. Was that you with the game ball?
No. Here's the thing. That year is this exact game, so this is 2015, the first year in the league.
That's so dope. What is it like to experience something like that?
We are playing the Lions. We hate the Lions. We hate the Bears, Lions, and Vikings. Anybody in the NFC North, we hate them all. Those weeks are different. Green Bay was my favorite stop. Why? It’s because life in the building was so nonchalant. The coaches weren't super arrogant. We laughed so fucking much. It was incredible. When you got weeks like this, that shit is done. We have got the Lions and Bears. The haha shit, we can do that next week, but this week we got to win.
You don’t even get time to celebrate
No.
There are moments like this that are fucking unbelievable. This is a highlight reel that still makes the top ten, all of the highlight reels, and all of the NFL. This was on Peyton's places at some point when he was talking about quarterbacks and fucking comebacks and all this shit. This is a historical moment in NFL history. There might not be another one of these. That was super cool. You were a part of this. That's super incredible. Is this the moment or do you have a moment that's like, “This was the best thing that ever happened to me in the NFL?” Does it all go by just week by week because you are focused on what's ahead of you? You can't sulk in a moment.
You can't because, first of all, we meet on Monday. After we flew back from this at 8:00 in the morning, we are back into the building. You got that night to maybe have a whiskey drink and get rolling again, but Monday morning we are working out again. A lot of people don't understand that. After the game on Mondays, we work out. It's miserable, but that's part of it.
A lot of people don't understand that on Mondays, athletes work out after the game. It can be miserable, but that's part of it.
Here's the deal. To answer that question, that was an incredible moment, that Hail Mary. The most incredible moment probably for me as a player was my first year in 2015 on a cut day, a lot of the cuts happen in the building. There are two days of it at the end. If you are going to get cut, you usually get cut in the building on the last day.
I made it home. I'm like, “I might get cut tonight,” but I'm the last of the few. I'm driving home, and my phone rings. “It's James Campen,” who's the offensive line coach. I'm like, “Coach, what's up?” He answers it with this somber ass voice. He's like, “J dog, what's going on?” I'm like, “I'm driving home. This is a shitty day.” He's like, “Hell, yes.”
He played in the NFL. He knows what's up about that day. He's like, “No shit.” He's like, “I wanted to call you. Thank you for everything you have done for us.” I'm like, “Here we go. Same old deal. I appreciate it, coach.” He's like, “You got better.” I'm like, “Thank you.” He's like, “I'm shitting you. You did it.” I started bawling while I'm driving. I start crying worse than I have ever cried in my life because I'm like, “I made the Packers roster,” as a second-year undrafted player. You got your lineman, and you got Aaron Rodgers. They are very particular about who they keep on the team.
To make that team was incredible. I have never cried like that in my adult life. I cried so hard. He was crying because he knows me. I'm a very unemotional type of motherfucker, but then all of a sudden, he tells me that and I'm sobbing. He's crying. I'm like, “Camp, thank you so much. I can't wait to get to work.” Probably the coolest moment of my career was in 2015 when I finally made the next roster because, from that point forward, it was nothing but active. I don't think people realize how hard it is to make an active roster in the National Football League.
It's nothing but work.
You got 32 teams and you got 53 guys on the active of each team in the world. It's the best football in the world. Making one of those teams is a hell of a deal.
That must have been when you feel like you made it to the NFL. I know a lot of former SEALs and Green Berets and stuff like that, but there's a select few that are dev group or whatever that next level is. It is until you have gotten that check mark on your bedpost or the body of your gun.
The practice squad is great, but it's an active roster you are going.
That's when you felt like you made it.
When he called me and told me that, that galvanized my thought process of you can play in this game because I know how hard it is to make a roster with a quarterback like that because they don't just trust anybody.
Especially on the O-line.
That's what I'm saying. To be frank, I played the game as long as I wanted to. I played for five years and I was like, “I'm good.” I was full on it. This is great and all, but I'm just good.
That becomes a point where you guys sacrificed so much of your life, and that's what I was talking about at the beginning of the show. People don't realize that. They think it's great to be a professional athlete or to be in the limelight whether you are a rockstar. I have seen firsthand what those people go through and experienced people like you talking about it and stuff. It’s fucking lifelong commitment.
People think it's great to be a professional athlete or to be in the limelight, but there’s a lot that these people go through and experience. It’s a lifelong commitment.
It's a year-round deal. Like I said in the fall, especially, you start the season in early September. If you are lucky you end it in Super Bowl, but if not, it is mid-January or late January. I get it. People are like, “You get all this off time in the off-season.” You cannot play padded football in the National Football League year-round, but it doesn't make sense biologically like you are not doing it.
I think you made a good choice. I think some people stay too long and then they can't experience anything else in life. You got a few years ahead of you. I feel like you did it right. Cheers to that.
I appreciate that.
Playing around with some of these people that are superstars. What is your interaction with Aaron Rodgers? I'm sure, all these people are different. They are all people at the end of it. Some people are better than others, but these guys are like Aaron Rodgers, Clay Matthews, and Pat McAfee. Did you play with Pat?
Yes. I played with Pat and Andy.
Was he a character? Was it the guy you hated in the locker?
He's exactly who you see on The Pat McAfee Show. Super cool.
Pat, I love your show. You got to have Josh on.
Pat knew his fucking role so well. What that is as a special teamer, meaning a kicker, punter, and long snapper, you got a voice. You are a special teamer. You are snapping and kicking the ball.
You are WWE.
Pat did his job very well, but he was also very personable. Funny as shit. Same Pat you see on the deal. He's hilarious. He was the perfect mix of doing your job as a special teamer and also being a man like Pat wasn't scared of shit. You could probably tell by his deal. He is not fucking sharing nobody. Being a special team where you got to realize you are probably not going to be the guy calling up the team saying, “Let's break it down.”
I think Pat would probably.
Pat, he's good. I'm so happy to see the success he's having. He's crushing it.
It's good content too. Go check out The Pat McAfee Show, especially if you are in his sports or NFL. He's a good follow. He's a funny ass dude. He should be a standup comedian. He should give up that wrestling shit. I did like seeing him in Stone Cold go at it. Slamming beers and shit. That was pretty cool. That was a moment in history for sure. Aaron Rodgers, those guys, good relationships, or is it like being an O-lineman? There's got to be some camaraderie there.
Twelve is cool as shit. Even as a practice squad player, we literally had a different locker room than the active rosters. In Green Bay, the active rosters, and the locker room is built like a football. Off to one side, there's a little cubby hole like a little box, and that's where all the practice squad players played. That's where we all chat right in the fucking little different locker room.
You get the Kevin Hart locker room.
It’s not even like a real locker room.
I remember Christmas, my first year there, my first year in the league in 2014. I come in there on Christmas and I look in my locker. There are a 55-inch Samsung curve and red Beats headphones like a red Samsung Galaxy tab. You look and it's like from Aaron. The dude is just a dude. The next year, he flew us to the Kentucky Derby Private on a G5. We rented out two private estates. We went to the Derby for three days partying at night. He just took care of us as an offensive line. The next year, it was a custom-made Titleist club brought by a guy custom fitted for us. Did a hitting lesson. We got the clubs and all that.
Take care of the guys that are taking care of you. I don't think that people put in perspective the salary difference too. From an O-lineman to a top-ten quarterback. You are talking tens of millions of dollars. That's pretty cool. If you get somebody that shares the wealth like that, they understand it.
He's just a dude. Just straight up. I will be honest with you, I played briefly for the Colts and then two years with Green Bay, a year with Houston, and two years with Jacksonville. I haven't met a quarterback that it was like, “Fuck this dude.” I haven't met that dude yet.
He's a rock and roll attitude.
It was like us versus everybody straight up. We are the Packers. It's us versus fucking everybody. The media and the people. It was a cool feeling.
On the other side of the ball are other teams. I'm sure that you had college relationships outside of that. Do you still have some good friends or were there some relationships that you were playing against other players that you made in the NFL at that point? Do you have some camaraderie there? Like you and Derek. You guys have a friendship. You never played against each other. You were on opposite sides of the ball when it came down to it, but you have that camaraderie of being an outdoorsman and being in the NFL.
Honestly, it's more of like a brotherhood from the standpoint of, “You played this long. You did this and that.”
You truly understand it.
For instance, me and Wolfe were going to the Colorado Bow Hunters Association banquet in Loveland. We talked the whole time like some ball shit. It’s because he played for the Broncos and Ravens. I never played for those teams, but to hear stories about how they were run. I played for my fair share of teams to hear how that place was run. It's badass. It's a huge mutual respect of, “You played for ten years.” It is nothing but respect.
It's somebody that can't understand from a story. That's awesome. That's incredible. We are crushing through time. If you don't have any talk constraints, I'm going to keep hanging out with you. You have this NFL career. You played in it for five years. You played college ball. You had this passion for hunting at a super young age. You don't get to experience any of that when you are in the NFL. We briefly talked about seasons. Almost all hunting seasons take place in the fall. There's a very few that do in the spring. How do you manage that?
A lot of times I could get out in duck season.
There are some later seasons like February and even March.
For snow geese, yes, but, for instance in Green Bay, they are big ducks, which is the reason why I specify big duck. A lot of states have got an early wood duck and teal, and then you roll into the big duck. In a lot of states, especially where I'm from down south, their big duck doesn't open until late November. In Green Bay, a big duck opened up in late September or something crazy like that. We got Tuesday as our “day off” but they still took attendance in the weight room.
It's your day off but you better show up.
In my first year, I wasn't taking any time off. That way, if they are sitting up there doing paperwork like, “Josh Walker 79, he was here on Tuesday.”
That’s something that Derek talked about when he was here. He is like, “The stress of there's always somebody that's going to fill your spot.” I took a long break from hunting too. It's funny. Maybe it's the movies I watched as a kid or something. Being a pro football player was in the back of my mind for a long time, and then I experienced skateboarding, punk rock music, and heavy metal, and it fucked everything up in the movie roadhouse.
From then on, I wanted to be a bouncer or a roadie, and I went and did that, a tour with rock bands when I went all over the world. That was my career and it took me out of it, and there were a lot of sacrifices. Not to the level of you guys athletically or anything, but there are a lot of sacrifices that come with no matter what your career is.
If you are trying to make it at fucking Apple is one of the top executives. That’s why you live in San Francisco and step over to human shit every time you go to work living in heroin needles and all that other stuff that's on the street. You are trying to make it in Silicon Valley or whatever that is. I understand that sacrifice. I took a twenty-year break from hunting and it was until I started having kids that made me realize like, “Where do I want them to grow up? I don't want to live in Southern California anymore. I love riding my beach cruiser down on the beach and being able to buy whatever drug I want on the way.”
Not that I participated in all those, and I love going to the bar and I love seeing girls in bikinis, but is this the best place for a kid to grow up? What values do I want my kid to have? It came back to my roots of like, “I want them to grow up in the woods.” That’s something that made me appreciate and understand life was hunting. Seeing a huge animal bleed out in front of you. I still get emotional. I'm a grown-ass man that's 255 pounds now. There's no joke.
Number one, going back to what you said about playing football and how were you able to get out? Like I was saying earlier about Tuesdays. Tuesdays that was your off day, but they still took attendance in the weight room. As a young guy, it's like, “I should probably be here on Tuesdays regardless of what I want to do.”
In my first year, I was there every Tuesday. Regardless of what was going on, I was in there. Maybe I will go duck hunting in the evening, but I was always in there. As I got older, it was like, “Tuesday is my off day.” Number one, I'm going to go to the strength coach. I'm going to explain to him how I feel about the outdoors and what the outdoors does for me if that makes sense.
Tuesday is your day to get your shit back together and get right for Wednesday because Wednesday is a tough day. It's a tough practice. Long meetings every week. Wednesday is like, “That's the day.” On Tuesdays, I want to get my shit together and get some peace before I go into this shit. The older you get, the more you have the reigns.
Milo was a great guy. He played the offensive line in the NFL in Jacksonville. I told him, I'm like, “This is how I feel about the outdoors.” I had never saltwater fished pretty much in my life when I got to Jacksonville. As soon as I got down there, I bought a 22-foot Skeeter with a 250 on the back. I was living on the intercoastal with a boat right outside my back.
I have never done it. I want to do that so badly.
In the evenings I would get home when it was daylight savings time. I'd get home and have some light left. I get right on the boat. On the way home, I'd stop and get either live shrimp or mud minnows. Get on the boat. I'm going straight out for redfish right after work. There's something about being out there on the water. Being out there in the woods centers you because you understand what week you got up until next Monday.
There's no in-between. It's going to be a rough week from the standpoint of what you are going to be asked to do from the standpoint of the walkthroughs, the practice, and the meetings. It's a lot. To be able to get out on Tuesdays, do some fishing, especially with a good buddy of mine, Brandon Linder who I'm going down there April 3rd, hopefully, to kill two Osceolas and some hogs and stuff like that. A good buddy of mine. He was the first gold star captain in Jacksonville Jaguars' history. If you look at a jersey when you see a captain, it's a sea on the jersey. A lot of times it's white with the stars underneath it.
Underneath the sea, there are four stars. When you get voted captain, one star turns gold. The next year, the next one turns to gold. When you get all four of them turned to gold, your sea turns to gold. Gold star captain. He's the first one in the history of the Jaguars. To be a gold star captain. A good buddy of mine just retired. A very serious outdoorsman. Shout-out Brandon.
Look at him up. Look up @BrandonLinder65. Look at his offshore fishing stuff. This dude does the offshore stuff like nobody I have ever come across. Here we go. This is my dog. This dude goes out. You see turkey. That’s a wahoo. That's high-speed wahooing. He just got back from that trip. If you scroll up, this guy with this tuna right here was our chiropractor at Jacksonville.
Great dude and you go through all his stuff. The yellowfin tuna right off the coast. That was a big amberjack that got bit by his shark. I talked to him for two hours. He told me a story about all this stuff. This is the dog, Chum. Outstanding dog. This is Louis who shot the buck off the bulldozer. Anyway, this is my dog. It's crazy. The first time we started talking to each other. That's his dad right there. That's a good buck. This is Florida. That's a great buck in Florida.
We are in meetings and I had got my boat shipped to Jacksonville to the stadium. After the meeting, he's like, “Is that your boat?” I'm like, “You are damn right. That's my boat.” He's like, “What do you do?” I was like, “I fish and I hunt.” He's like, “Really?” He's like, “I live on the water.” He'd never duck hunted. I was like, “Why shipped my boat?” Look at that grouper.
I shipped my boat. I was like, “What's up with the duck?” He's like, “I don't know. I deer hunt. I hog and turkey hunt.” I was like, “I traveling duck hunt. Where's a boat ramp where I could put this boat in and go hunt?” Five minutes from his house, I'm hunting outside his house before he ever has. I'm outside his house in the spartina grass by myself in my 16.5-foot ranger duck boat. Decoys out. I didn't want to get out because there were gators all in that thing.
Gators and sharks, no thanks.
I'm sitting in my boat. This is in Colorado. This is First Bull. He killed a nice bull. This is on private land down in Southern Colorado. You out to hit him up to see if he wants to get on because when I tell you he could talk hunting for hours.
If he's a friend of yours and he wants to come on, he’s welcome anytime.
Look at all this stuff. This is Marty's bull. It’s like a 360. This is a giant. The guy to the left of his head, that's Marty. He's the guy that killed. Long story short, first rifle, they are on their bellies, stalking at them, and they walk to them. 30 yards this big 360 bull's looking at him and Linder is like, “Marty, you got him.” He's like, “Hold on. That big one.” He's like, “Shoot him.” He pulls up 30 yards with a rifle. First rifle 360 bull.
How do you see through your scope at 30 yards?
Shout-out to Marty Williams. There's a place, do you guys remember and this may be a southern thing. Winn-Dixie, the grocery store.
I have spent some time in the south, so I know it's up. There's also the Piggly Wiggly, Wawas, and Publix. Jeremy knows what's up. He's from Philly. Not quite the south but almost.
Do you see what I said? “Fine job, young man.” That’s my dog. Marty is the predator control guy at this ranch. It's a lot of acres, like 20,000 to 30,000 acres. The guy is the CEO.
What this is in Colorado?
This is in North Florida in Jacksonville. A lot of people don't understand. Jacksonville is the largest city in the country land mass-wise. There's one piece of wild land left and the guy is the CEO of Winn-Dixie. He got a ton of money. He got 30,000 acres there. Marty is a predator control guy/game manager of these 30,000 acres because they run turkey hunts, deer hunts, quail shoots, and stuff like that off of it. How I met Marty, one day he was like, “Do you want to go hunt?” I'm like, “Hell yes I want to go hunt.” This is on a Tuesday. He's like, “We can shoot some hogs.”
I'd never shot a hog. I'm fired up now. Now, I'm like, “Who gives a shit about a hog?” But back then I'm like, “I want a hog.” He's like, “Let's go down there.” We meet with Marty and we ride around on the back of his Silverado. When we would see a hog, we bam on the cab. We are like, “Marty, there's a hog X amount of far away, this and that.”
We would stop, check the wind and get rolling. You can imagine how fun that is riding around, shooting shit with your buddy in the back of the cab with your bow on the cab of the truck. You see a hog. He asked you, “What's going on?” “It's like 200 yards.” Cut the engine. Let's get the wind right and let's go hunt this hog. We started hunting. I met the dude a couple of months. You know how it is when you find somebody obsessed with the woods and water like that. Literally, within a week it's like, “Is this your best friend?” You think you have been best friends for a week.
There’s the camaraderie and community there. I think that that's why a lot of former military guys or guys that have played professional sports can appreciate the outdoors because there's an amount of suffering that comes along with it. Whether you are getting into CrossFit or ultramarathoning, this is what I found.
A lot of former military guys are guys that have played professional sports and can appreciate the outdoors because of the amount of suffering that comes along with it.
From all these different walks of life, whether they are pro athletes or extraordinary people, or maybe they are not. Maybe they are archery coaches, maybe they are whatever. There's a certain amount of discipline that comes with it and there's a certain amount of people that have faced some adversity in their life, whether it was through their childhood, outdoors, or whatever profession they are in. There's some connection. There's some appreciation for it on the other side. I think that that's the biggest connection that we have.
You understand this. There are levels to this shit. If you go hunting three times a year, all three of those hunts are guided hunts. You could probably still be a decent hunter, but you are not the guy that goes on eight hunts a year, and all those hunts are public land, DIY. You put the logistics in. When Linder asked me if that boat was mine, I was like, “You damn right. That boat was mine.” He's like, “Where all you hunted?” I hunted sixteen states in 2017. I had hunted my seventeenth state in 2018 with him and Logan Cook in Arkansas.
The day that boat sinks, you are going to cry. I get it. You already have a bond with that. It's like a rifle or a knife. I went back at some of mine. Half Face Blades that I have that my friend Andy Arrabito custom made for me. They are handcrafted, and the amount of adversity that I have faced in the mountains with that particular. I have spent more time with that knife than I have with my bow, my gun, or whatever because that's where the work comes in. Hunter spends more time with their knife or a boning knife than they'd ever do with a weapon. Those little things like that. If I lost it or that boat sunk, you are going to be pissed off. It's going to hurt.
That boat has been to 6 or 7 different states of killing birds with me. That sixteen-and-a-half-foot, 40 horsepower. It's no crazy shit, but I bought it off the showroom floor in Green Bay, and that's my boat. It's been all over the place.
Do you still got it?
I still got it here in Buffalo Creek. Going back to what I was saying about Linder. When I told him, when he asked me, he is like, “Do you do any fishing or hunting?” I was like, “I fish quite a bit, but I duck hunt a lot.” He's like, “What's a lot?” I told him and he was mesmerized. I'm like, “Fuck yes.” I told him to go watch some videos and shit, and then I shit you not. Two weeks later, have you ever heard of Prodigy duck boats?
I have no idea.
There's nothing wrong with that. This dude is a very highly paid guy. All of a sudden, he got a Prodigy duck boat two weeks later. This is a 16-foot boat.
Is this like those badass wakeboard boats that cost $130,000? This is a Kid Rock boat.
I gave him my whole spiel about what I do and after the season what I'm doing and shit. All of a sudden, he looks up Prodigy bass boats and I go to his house. First of all, I don't know if anybody's done this in NFL history. I used to go to offensive line dinner which was every week on Thursdays. Every week on Thursdays, we'd meet as the offensive line, quarterbacks, and a couple of receivers here and there, but Linder lived on the water.
I lived on the water. We were about fifteen minutes apart. I would either drive my 22-foot Skeeter or my jet ski to his house. O-line dinner on the waterway. I drive to his house. That's when we got galvanized and like, “That dude is my brother.” There's the Prodigy. There we go. These things are incredible boats.
That seems stressful to me though. This is why I would drive a 2004 Tundra because you pull into a parking lot and get dinged. I can drive down any Colorado trail that a raptor will not fit on as much as I'd love to have a Ford Raptor. I don't care that it's pinstriped with fucking tree branches and shit. That's wild. That’s a duck-hunting machine.
It's for poles. This thing, it's got an outboard motor on it and it's probably got a jet motor. It's called a hydraulic jet plate.
How much is that boat? $80,000?
Probably about $40,000.
That's not horrible.
For a boat that's only given you duck hunting though. This is shallow water. The only thing you are doing on this boat is crappie fishing and hunting ducks.
You are not water skiing on this thing?
Then you are the asshole that shows up with a Prodigy boat. You better be successful if you got that.
In 2018, which was my last year in the National Football League. Me, Brandon Linder, and Logan Cook who was the punter, still is the punter on the Jacksonville Jaguars football team. Great punter. I call him ten gauge because he kicked his shit out of the ball. He's a big-time turkey, duck, and deer hunter. I was like, “I'm going back to Colorado. I bought my place. That's where I'm going.”
You bought your place here before you retired?
Yes. It's like January and we leave and we come out here and I was like, “We are not here in Arkansas. Let's stop in Arkansas and let's hunt ducks.” I hit a guy up that had some private. I'm like, “I got some private and I have also got a bunch of pins.” When we get off here, I will have to show you my onX. I have got a sickness.
I love public land. I have got like 4,000 weight points on onX. It's disgusting. I have never hunted here, but let's try this. Long story short, we go up there and hunt. My buddy Logan Cook brings his boat, which is like an 18-foot G3 center console. Nice boat outboard motor. I have got my boat, which has got the 37 horse shallow water and mud motor, all that on it.
We were there to hunt ducks and we were there for four days. We never pounded them. We stayed in the Airbnb and right behind the Airbnb was a cut cornfield full of birds. I'm talking about snow geese, specs, and ducks. It was incredible. I hit the guy up who I got the Airbnb from. As soon as I call him, he's like, “You probably see those birds.”
I was like, “What's up with that?” He's like, “It's all leased out.” I'm like, “Holy shit.” Right behind the house when I tell you there were birds everywhere. We are trying to sleep at night and we hear geese. Snow geese, specs, and ducks. Incredible. We hunt privately for the first two days. We killed 2 teals between the 3 of us in 2 days on private land in Arkansas, in the middle of where it's supposed to be the best.
Were we seeing thousands? Absolutely. We got to go out there in January, which is late in the season. The way Arkansas does it, they open up mid to late November for about a week, close down, and then open up for the second split, which lasts on into the end of January. We were there in late January. Those birds have been whacked at. I'm not using it as an excuse, so I'm being honest. Those birds have been whacked at. They were terrified.
They are like elk. When elk stopped talking or stop bugling or whatever they do, it's a whole different ballgame then. Good fucking luck.
We are out there. Like I told you earlier, I'm a public land guy for the most part. I love to see shit and experience shit. We are in Arkansas hunting ducks. That's where everybody wants to go hunt ducks. It's in Arkansas in the flooded timber.
Is that the mecca for duck hunting? I don't know.
If you pull in to Stuttgart, Arkansas, the sign says the duck and rice capital of the world. That's what the attraction is. You see it on the signs. Look in the sky and I can almost guarantee you that before you get out of Stuttgart, you will see some waterfowl in the sky.
That's like the duck is unlimited, headquarters, and all that bullshit.
Have you ever heard of Mack’s Prairie Wings? The only storefront of Mack’s Prairie Wings is in Stuttgart, Arkansas.
How about access? Have you been to it?
It's incredible. I have been there two different times. They have a little bit of turkey stuff and a little bit of whitetail deer stuff, but for the most part, it's for waterfowl hunters.
I lived in Dallas for a year, but I was super busy with work. I kicked myself in the ass. It was Northeast Dallas. I was super close to Arkansas and wished I would have spent a little more time out there hunting.
There are so many birds up there.
Are there a lot of public lands in Arkansas? There's zero in Texas. Everything is private. It's fucking pain in the ass.
I want to say the number is like 5% in Texas, which is something ridiculous.
Do you know Colorado is 43% of some shit?
I think we have over millions plural of acres of public land. Arkansas is not the same way, and the reason I say that is you will be driving back to the Airbnb from where we hunted. You will see these fields full of snow geese. There will be 5,000 snow geese out there eating. You can imagine how many people have saw that feeds and been up to that house and been like, “What do you think about me going out?”
A lot of times, we would drive past it, go home, and hunt public land the next morning. It’s a weird thing. They have what's called Greentree Reservoirs. What that means is, in the summer, it's dry. In early summer, it's still dry. You can archery hunt whitetail there. It's still dry, but in duck season late November, it's flooded. It's waist-high water. It's called a Greentree Reservoir. You go in there and you can hunt until noon. The rules in Arkansas say you got to be out. At about 11:30, ducks start coming in because they know around 12:00 or 1:00, people start shooting.
People take animals for granted.
Straight up. You are walking in at 3:00 or 4:00 in the morning. It's dark as hell. You are walking in flooded timber. The water is black. You could take your hand and hold it under the water and put a light on it, but you won't see your hand.
I don't like water like that. I grew up in clear water streams. There are gators there too.
There are gators in Arkansas, 100%. You are walking into the spot. Look it up.
There are gators in Texas too.
There are gators in Arkansas, 100% no questions asked.
Even those alligator gars are scary.
I don't want to mess with one of those.
Some of those gars get big.
Long story short, a fun thing for us to do in high school was we'd set out however many dozen jugs to catch the catfish. While they were soaking, we'd go into shallows and blast carp and gar and let those jugs fish.
Jeremy, look up the world record alligator gar.
It's probably 240 pounds.
These things look worse than a barracuda. They look like a crocodile with fins or a gator with fins. They are fucking ridiculous. Has anybody ever been attacked by a gar?
I don't know the answer, but I'd be hard-pressed.
They are predatory fish.
Look at this fish. It's a 300-pound alligator gar outside of Houston. What's that, the Trinity River?
I couldn't do Texas.
I was there for a year, and I was good at it.
I couldn't do it. I love the politics in Texas. I love what they stand for. I love that it's not the state of Texas. It's the Republic of Texas. Your ass better be ready. That's all I got to say. If you are going to get knock on somebody's door just to meet your neighbor, you better be ready. I love that mentality. That's super cool.
They take a lot of pride in their state.
Not having public land to go to was a big factor for me. The other factor was that we had this huge lake there. It was Lake Wylie Hubbard or some shit like that. It's a huge reservoir outside of Dallas. We lived on the other side of it from Dallas. It was like the barrier between us and Dallas. You would literally have to drive across a bridge for twenty minutes to get to Dallas where we lived in Rockwall.
Awesome spot. Great people. Definitely the Bible belt. I'm not religious, but I can appreciate it. I understand why people are, so that didn't bother me. I like those ethics. I like those people. I thought I'd go out and paddleboard and shit. The first time I went out on my paddleboard, I had to fucking beat a couple of water moccasins off the board. Do you want to talk about what scares me worse than alligator gar? Water moccasins.
They are aggressive as fuck. This thing was trying to get on my board then it wouldn't let me to shore to get to my truck. It was fucked up. I found out there's some parasite that can get in your brain or some shit if you get in the water. You couldn't go and swim off the shore. You had to be out in the middle of the lake. I was like, “I got to check out of this motherfucker. I'm going back to Colorado.”
There's a lot going on out there in that water. I remember in 2016 I was in Houston living in a little town called Rosharon. Have you ever heard of that? It's down around Pearland, Texas. I was 50 minutes from work, but I got to live in the country. I'm good on the city shit. It just was crazy to see the wildlife that exists in Texas.
I got to ask. What brought you to Colorado? Is your girlfriend from here?
She's from Franktown. I'd been coming out here since 2010 to visit with her family and stuff like that.
Were you into Western hunting at that point?
I had watched it, but I was still of the belief, East Tennessee boy that it's going to take twenty years of applying your $20,000 to go hunt an elk. I had no idea. You go to Walmart. It took me realizing that to be like, “I'm going to hunt elk every single year.” Keep in mind, mule deer isn't over-the-counter, but there are several mule deer units that you can go and you can get in with, number one, either your second choice or first choice with zero points. You can hunt mule deer, but there is no over-the-counter. Point being is I had no clue about the accessibility of these different species.
Colorado is the best state for that. That’s we have so many out-of-state hunters here.
There's not another state that offers OTC like we do. It used to be Idaho, but now, it's not the same anymore. We are the last state. I don't know if you saw this, but I think they are going to make some amendments too on how we hunt elk here.
I'm already heartbroken. The place I have been going since I was a kid is now OTC but it's private land only OTC. It's a big chunk of the state. It is an elk fucking haven. I'm so heartbroken over this. I don't want to get emotional. I don't want to bash Colorado, but I feel like I have to on this one. It pisses me off.
We have had Colorado Parks and Wildlife in here, and I'm a big proponent of the actual biologist and the people that do the actual work. This isn't blue-collar or anything, but the people that are at the top running it are not running it smart. I'm going to put them on blast right now. I hope this doesn't ruin our relationship with them because I love having their game warden in here. I love having the boots on the ground people. I love having people like Perry Will who's now a state senator that understands it and was a game warden. The commission is made up of a bunch of people that have never hunted.
You understand this. I don't think a lot of people do. Not to put our governor on blast or anything, but I'm going to. This is somebody that's anti-hunting and anti-outdoor sports and, I hate to say it, outdoor recreation because if you are anti-hunting, you are anti-outdoor recreation. The dollars and money that come for outdoor recreation and public lands and some of the spots that we have, over 70% of it is all bought and paid for by hunters.
70% of the dollars and money that come for outdoor recreation on public lands are bought and paid for by hunters.
Hold your thought, but non-resonant OTC hunters make up a gigantic portion of the pie. Like you said, 60% to 70%.
There's not a lot of hope there for me, and I'm hoping on platforms like mine and yours, this is something that we can convey and educate hunters to have a voice. I don't want to go down this road because we have had such a good time. I don't want to end on this note, but pay attention to what's going on in your area.
There are some awesome organizations out there like Howl For Wildlife that put it all on paper and print for you and they will even write the email for you. You got to advocate for the shit if you want it to be around. As your duty is much of an outdoorsman in doing the ethical thing, this is an even a little bit bigger part of my book and paying attention to it.
I'm just as guilty as that. I'd love to enjoy it. I don't want to spend all the time fucking not. The reason that got me back into hunting and made me move back to Colorado was my kids. I want them to have those same experiences. It worries me. When we started talking about the dream stream earlier, we were talking about this as a place where I grew up as a kid, catching an awesome trout on a fly rod, doing amazing things, and now I won't even go and fish there. I won't even take my kid there. Places like that are getting hammered.
We need to manage those spots a little bit better. We need to put some different regulations. I understand why there are different regulations. I think that that's what's going on with the OTC. We are the last state that offers all this OTC, which is an over-the-counter tag, which means that if you live out of state and you are reading this show now, and you want to hunt elk, all you have to do is drive here, catch a flight here, bring your equipment, go to Walmart the day before the season opens and purchase a tag and you can walk onto almost half the damn state and hunt elk. If you are a resident, you should be doing that.
That's one thing that's cool about you too. This brings me to my next question, and I want to change the subject because I don't want to start going down doom and gloom. We have already drained two bottles of tequila, so we can't go down that road. Let's have a good time. Moving to Colorado, we talked about that. You wanted him to get into western hunting. How do you even start there?
I had those influences as a kid with uncles and stuff and growing up here and understanding animal behavior. There are so many different platforms where you can get information now, whether it's from Cameron Hanes, Derek Wolfe, your show, or Luke's podcast. Who are some of your mentors? Who are some people that took you under your wing and showed you? Was it something you learned on your own?
I'd say that I learned it mostly on my own, but I will say the number one guy that I started watching before I even came out here, the guy that I would watch him be like, “I want to do that,” is Randy Newberg. Randy Newberg goes out. The guy goes out on public land, the same place where anybody else can go hunt. It does not take a 360 bull to get him to pull the trigger. What Randy does is he goes out. He sets up camp, whether it's with one of his childhood buddies or maybe one of his cameramen. They set up camp in a public area and they hunt. That's what it is.
They show the good and the bad.
To answer your question, Randy Newberg is probably the one who showed me that there is accessibility to elk cunning out here. Number two, it showed me that it's doable. You don't have to have whatever it is that you may think as an Easterner or maybe way out West that you think you need to do elk hunting. I will be honest with you. I'm going to be transparent. I'm not saying this to attract more people to hunting. When I pull up to the trailhead and I see twenty trucks, it pisses me off. I don't like that shit.
It's like when you met any people that want to come on the show. It's like, “I don't need any more friends. I already got enough.” I hate to be that way. I'm nothing special, but you get it.
I used to watch Randy Newberg, and I would see that he would have guys on that he has known for all these amount of years and they want to come hunt with him like, “Randy, let me know when you have got space.” Guys would come and set up camp. They would hunt and they'd take us 275 6-point, whatever it is.
They are going to school.
To watch Randy Newberg, a guy that has killed numerous elk to still be perfectly satisfied with taking that 5X5 or whatever it is on public land, I was like, “I like this guy.” I have never been a guy to be like, “If he isn't 360, I am not shooting him.” Let's go to the whitetail world, “If he isn't 200, I am not shooting him.” I have never been like that.
When I first started watching him, he was probably 52 years old. He killed a lot of stuff. To watch him still, the love that he has for going out to public land and for those animals, he's an advocate now. He goes to Montana and does all this advocating and lobbying for the animals and stuff like that. I haven't gotten to that point. I will be frank with you. To watch a guy that cares that much to be like, “I will go to hell and fight for this or lobby for that,” is awesome.
It’s their own money.
That's what I'm getting at. This dude lives and breathes outdoors.
The biggest problem with the hunting community and advocating is a lot of these people are blue-collar, myself included. I still got to work. I'm fortunate that I have the career that I have and the show and all these different avenues, but it's hard to find the time to go to a commission meeting.
That dude was making the time to go up there and fight for what he thought was right. Why I think so highly of him is he's got a belief. That belief is, “I'm a public landowner. I love my right. The privilege that I have to hunt these animals every year on this public land, I'm going to fight for it,” which is badass, to be honest with you, to go out there, own your own dime, and fight for everybody.
That's huge. That's one thing that I appreciate about you, Derek, Cameron Hanes, and some of these other people. Have you ever heard of Donnie Vincent? I love the way that he portrays it too because he tells the story behind it. That's key in our world, in our hunting community, and that type of thing. He’s telling the story behind it. That's fucking super awesome. What a great mentor to have. Do you know him personally? Have you had him on the show?
I don't know him personally, but I have a guy on my side that's named John Snow. I don't know if you remember Gun Talk back in the day.
I'm not sure that I do. I had a hard time watching hunting shows because a lot of them are fake.
No shit. Even to this day, they are still the same way.
I have had some of those people hit me up too. “Do you want to come on?”
John Snow is an OG outdoor life writer. Back on outdoor life was coming out, he's a gun writer. He knows all the small nuances, the finite details of shooting guns and stuff. He wasn't a military guy or anything like that to my knowledge, but he's a gun guy. He loves guns, he loves killing stuff with guns and stuff like that.
I met this guy in the third rifle with a good buddy of mine named Cody Arnold. We were hunting third rifle mule deer. I met this guy like what we are doing now. We started shooting the shit, and I was like, “Randy Newberg is the reason.” It turns out he lives in Bozeman. He said, “I know Randy. Let me get you in touch with him.”
Hopefully, that's coming up for Retired 2 Hunt getting Randy on. I'd love to pick his mind because that dude hunts public land. He’s an ex-accountant. Does he have the means to probably hunt some private stuff? I'm sure he does, but the dude still goes on public land. He gets it done almost every time, which is to me, that's badass.
I'm not knocking anybody that hunts private either. I'm fortunate enough to hunt some private because of some family connections that I have and being in this area so long like super fortunate. I feel like the time that I spend in public land, those animals aren't in their natural state because of the pressure. I feel like you are getting the natural state of the animal. If you can afford that and can go do that, do it. I encourage anybody.
Here's what I would say. If you are on private, you are getting to see elk probably be more elky as opposed to cutting a unit that gets pounded. For instance, I hunted 26 days of OTC archery. I drew back once and missed and I drew back once and wanted one. Point being, I was in the woods a lot. Let's go back to what you were saying about the elk in public and the difference between public and private.
I'm on public land, and I'm at 11,800-foot way up high by myself spiked in. I come across this group of elk. I was literally headed toward them, and I saw an ear flicker. I'm like, “What the fuck is that?” I pull binos up. I'm like, “That's a cow.” All of a sudden, twenty of them materialized with about two satellites and a shooter. I'm like, “This is awesome.” My wind was marginal at best, but I watched them. For probably 30 minutes, those things didn't make a sound. I'm talking about not a sound.
They know what's up.
I don't know the answer but you got to think. If they are in some private meadow, they are probably muling, cow calling, and all that, but all these elk, which would probably the whole herd was probably 30 to 35 elk didn't make a sound the whole time.
It's still the same challenge. Yes, you are going to have more success. Sometimes hunting in public, I hate to say it but I use other hunters to my advantage. I think there's going to be a lot of people in this drainage and I'm going to try to get up and spike above them so they drive the elk to me. Some of that comes into play too.
You can use the pressure to your advantage on public. I have been out here since 2019. My first year hunting elk with a tag was in 2021. We will use the first ride as an example.
I won't even go.
It's disgusting.
That's why I'm an archery hunter. Even the amount of people that I see in archery and some of these units, I'm like, “Goddamn. That’s crazy.”
No orange, straight camo, and you will see a couple of people a day and it's like, “There is a lot of public here. How did I see five people there?”
It's the pressure. I see why Colorado is fleeing away not only from a biological standpoint but also from a politics standpoint about why OTC is going away. The writing's on the wall. That feels like they are easing us into it. You then have the whole wolf element. You want to start talking about elk talking and that thing. That's a whole other ballgame.
Talk to a guy from Idaho. Talk to somebody from Montana who deals with shit like that. They will be there one day, and all of a sudden, they start running into a bunch of wolf tracks and it's like, “There are wolfs in this basin. Wolf's in that basin.” Animals are not sticking around for that.
They are not going to start calling. I don't know how many predators I have called in, bears and lions to my cow call. That's the only time I see predators, honestly, unless I'm genuinely out looking for them.
That's a great point, even a spring bear season or something like that. I don't know if people think that you can walk in the woods and there's going to be a black bear. Good luck.
Some of the spots where I hunt is on private. It's in acorns. The bears are habituated towards people because they don't have that pressure. You see them a lot, but to hear them coming, good luck. It's hard for me to go in there and not make a noise. You can't even hear those things coming. The next thing you know, there's a bear behind you. I'm talking about a 400-pound animal, not a little bear either. We are talking about Yogi the bear, not Boo-Boo.
To that point, there are people that hate hound hunting like, “You are hunting with dogs.” Here's the deal. Do people kill cats sitting up and calling or overlooking a basin? I'm sure a handful get killed every year. To have dogs and you run that cat up a tree and you can get under that cat, and you can say, “This is a female. This is a male.” You got the time to look see if it's female or a male.
Which you have to identify.
I will say this. You can kill either one, female or a male. From a management standpoint, you want to shoot the old males. Here's why. Mountain lions can go into heat at any time of the year. There are tomcats that literally are wandering around. This is why they are territory so big. They wander around and try to see if there are any female cats that are in heat because they can pop up in heat at any time of the year. It's like an African lion. If all of a sudden, they run across a group of a female in two cubs and that tom wants to breed that female, he will kill both of those cubs. Why? He didn't desire them. He will kill them. Why? To put that female cat back in heat.
Same as bears. Bears do the same thing.
Back to the hound hunting, it's super cool because it allows you to be selective. You can get under that tree and you look up and it's like, “I see that black spot underneath his butt hole. That's his nuts. That's a male cat. He growled at me. I saw his teeth. They are super white,” which means he's a younger cat. I'm going to let him be. I'm going to pull the dogs. You come across a tree, and all of a sudden, you look. “He's got the black spot under his butt hole. That's a male. He growls at you. He's got yellow teeth.” I'm about to bust this cat. It allows you to be selective. From a management standpoint, there's a lot of merit in that.
I don't knock it at all. The baiting even is another subject that, if you want to have a success rate and be able to manage that, those species, you have to have that extra element to do it.
You look at states like Wyoming. They have a spring bear season. This is North of us. Even as a non-resident, you can go in and bait. Do you have to report your bait site? Who gives a shit? You get to bait for bear, go in, and kill your black bear. You killed one bear. That's incredible 1) From a predator management control standpoint. 2) It's awesome. Maybe you set out, “I want to kill a bear this year.” You killed a bear over bait, who gives a shit? I'm not a biologist, so I don't know our numbers from the standpoint of bears, but if we got enough bears, let's open the spring bear season. Again, I'm not advocating for it because I don't know the hard numbers, but I see a lot of bears in the summer, so I don't know.
You are seeing a lot more. You are seeing a lot more attacks. You are seeing a lot more human interaction. People are running into them more, and it's becoming a problem. I hope that it does come back, but unfortunately from a legislative standpoint, it can't. Back to the show, what are you trying to convey in the show? I love what you are doing now. Is there a certain purpose or something behind that?
I'm going to be completely transparent. There's not a purpose. The reason I did this whole show number one is just to share shit and show people what it's like to be in the backcountry. I'm not always in the backcountry. For instance, like the antelope I killed with a muzzleloader, I was in a backcountry, but it's cool to be able to share stories like that.
Like I said, I was a huge IG hater. It's not, “Look at me. I want the fame.” I could give a shit. I live in the middle of bumfuck. There's a reason for that. I could give a fuck about all of that. It's cool for people to see it. I don't know. I want people to see it from a standpoint of a guy that comes from out East, come out here trying to figure out this Western game. I'm doing a lot of it on public land like everybody else.
Like I have said multiple times, it doesn't take a 350 bull or a 200-inch mule deer or buck to get me to pull the trigger. It's cool because nowadays, people are like, “That's a 340.” I will never pass up a 340. Not that everybody is not real. It comes from a guy that loves to eat organic meat. I love elk meat. This is off-topic. I had a guy that I met. His name is Doug Arnold. He used to be in the hunting industry. He gave me a couple of bags of moose meat. It's so good. He is outstanding.
Going back to the elk, when I shot that elk by myself, which was 330 bull, I'm like, “This is incredible.” When I shot him, I finally get up to him and FaceTime Brandon Linder. I'm like, “Look at this shit.” I'm up high enough. I had a signal. He's in on the training room table getting his ankles taped and getting ready for practice. This is a year before he retired. All of a sudden, I hear everybody surround him because he's like, “Look at Walk.” I'm standing by this elk holding him by the horns, “Look at this thing.”
I have only killed one of them. The feeling of gratitude and satisfaction, compared to a whitetail, was multiplied by I don't know how many. Seeing that elk dead in front of me, and I did it, and it was my logistics that went into doing it, it had me fired up. For anybody that's trying to come out of here trying to come to hunt OTC or any limited tag, understand that you are probably not about to stand there and take inventory of a bunch of elk and be like, “I want this one.” You are going to be lucky to bump into an elk.
You might want to shoot the first thing you see because you might not see it again.
It's straight up exactly what you just said.
I love that you are telling the story that way. I like the podcast. I have listened to every one of your podcasts. I like the ones where you are by yourself and you are telling those stories. I think it takes a special type of person to sit here on the mic by themselves and tell a story. That’s a whole other level. I commend you on that.
Go and subscribe to Retired 2 Hunt. It's good stuff. Josh, we got to wrap this up. We set a record. Two bottles of tequila, 3 hours and 40 minutes already, and I'm sure we are going to go a little bit longer. Go subscribe to that. Anything that we can do to help you here, I'm all about it. It's a community. I want to have you back. We could go for six hours. No problem. You got a life outside of this. I do too. I appreciate you being on. Before we jump off, what do you got coming up next? You got some podcasts coming out, you got some people lined up, and you got some hunts lined up I'm sure.
We are March by now, so you got a lot of turkey hunts coming up. I got some spring bear hunts. On April 3rd, I leave for Florida for Osceola. I will be down there with my good buddy Brandon Linder, who I have been sitting here raving about. He's got some property down there, so hopefully, kill me two more Osceolas. I killed two the last time I'm down there. Hopefully, some hogs and do some high-speed wahoo fishing.
Is an Osceola a bird?
In North America, there are a bunch of different slang. Number one being the Grand Slam, which means an Eastern turkey, which is all Southeast all the way to Kansas, middle of Texas type deal. Eastern Osceola, Rio, and Merriam's.
They are a turkey.
A couple of different species of turkeys.
I don't know. I'm not a big turkey hunter. It's about the closest thing that you can get to elk. My kid has been hitting me up. He's like, “I want to hunt elk.” I'm like, “Maybe we should go turkey hunting.”
I would start with the turkey. To get a Grand Slam, you get those four species. To get what's called a Super Slam, you add in a species called the Gould’s. The Gould’s Turkeys are only found in Extreme Southern Arizona and Extreme Southern New Mexico. That's the only place you can hunt them. That's your Super Slam.
If you want to get what's called a World Slam, which is all the Turkey species, you go to the Yucatan Peninsula, Central America, and you hunt what's called the ocellated turkey. That's the other turkey species that exist. For me, I'm chasing the Grand Slam, and what I'm missing is the Eastern. I need to get out to either Tennessee first base and second base.
I'm going out far Southeastern Kansas to hopefully fill my Eastern to get a Grand Slam. I don't know if I will ever hunt Gould’s. I don't give a shit. It's cool. I get a cool species. I certainly wouldn't pay $5,000 to go hunt them. If somebody hits me up like, “I got a bunch of Gould’s,” I'd be like, “Let's roll.” I'm going to go down to Florida and start with Osceola. Florida's already open. It's the first place in the country that opens up for turkey. I'm going to go down there the third, hopefully kill a couple of Osceolas, kill a couple of hogs, and catch a couple of fish.
I'm supposed to be black bear hunting in Wyoming, spring Black Bear with Kristy Titus and her husband. I'm supposed to be going out there hunting with them. I have also got Wyoming on the docket for turkey, South Dakota. I'm guiding in Nebraska for a couple of days. Long story short, I hunt a good piece of private land. It's a layup for turkeys. Anyway, the guy is like, “I don't ask you for anything, but I'd love it if you'd let me auction off a hunt with you for 2 guys, 4 turkeys on this piece.”
I was like, “All day. Let's do it.” Somebody paid $3,800 to come out there and hunt Nebraska, turkeys with me. I'm going to fly out there the first week of shotgun and hopefully guide them on at least one bird of piece and then hopefully shoot my one Nebraska bird. They changed the way they allocate the tags because so many new people are trying to get in and hunt Nebraska. They had to put a cap on it.
It's 10,000 or 30,000, I can't remember the amount of non-resident tags. Once that amount was bought, that was over. You can't get a non-resident tag right now for Nebraska. It's been sold out since weekend to being allowed to buy the tags. I got to go up there and hopefully kill my bird. Wyoming opens up on the 20th. I have got a cool guy. His name is Sean Madden. He's with Cattle Country Video who were the pioneers of video cattle auctioning.
It was worth a lot of money and has done very well for themselves. They know all the landowners from Torrington, Wyoming, to Echo Lake of Montana. I'm going to be going up there and hopefully killing. It's a Rio turkey. It's in Torrington, Wyoming, which is a river-bottom country. Most of Wyoming is Merriam's, but in this river bottom country, there are some Rios. That's what I'm going to be hunting up there. I got an invite to Idaho for Spring Bear. I don't think I got time to get out to him.
I also got another guy in New York that wants to get me out to shoot at Eastern. I will be honest, if I shoot my Eastern in Kansas, I will be full on it. I probably won't get out there, but it's one of those things if I don't kill in Kansas, and then like a week later, he's like, “I got birds,” I will fly out there and hopefully shoot my Eastern.
I got a bunch of hunts coming up. I got a bunch of podcasts coming out. I will just break it. Brandon Linder was back, who was my first repeat offender, the first guy I have ever had back on again. I'm sure you know this. You have been doing this for a long time. I was doing it remotely, and there is a lot of shit in the audio. It sucks.
I have to do it sometimes because I want to have these people on so badly. I always try to wait for the opportunity to do it in person, but we don't live in a major city. We are out in the sticks. We are close to Denver, but still, it's a feat. I can put you onto some stuff that helps with that too. I struggled with that for a long time. I have a system down now where it comes out pretty decent. It's not 100%. The part that I struggle with is the human connection because I'm big about that. That's my favorite thing about podcasting. I feel like we almost lose it. If I'm meeting somebody for the first time, it's hard. I try not to do it too much.
We did one with Jason Loftus. He is the most amazing wildlife photographer I know firsthand. He's a mentor for me in that space. As much as I enjoy hunting, I enjoy picking up my camera and going out and photographing animals too. He's amazing. He is @UntamedImages on Instagram. Look at some of these bulls that he shot. If you go to my page or if you go to Home, I posted a photo or reposted a photo of him, one of his bulls that he shot here in Rocky Mountain National Park. I think that they are as much of an advocate for showcasing wildlife and its beauty and that thing as hunters are. They truly care about the animals as well, and he's a bow hunter himself. Look at some of these photos.
I have seen that photo to the right with the bull and the dart.
It's so dope. Look at that ram. This was that bull Brutus that was running outside of Marine Park that died a couple of years ago, and I'm kicking myself in the ass. From a photography standpoint and him being a mentor, there's his reel. He posted our Mountainside reel on his page, which is super dope. I'm so fortunate to have him on. It was like you having Randy Newberg on. He is somebody I followed and looked up to for a long time. When that opportunity comes up, I'm going to do it virtually no matter what, whoever it is. I can point you in the right direction on some platforms that we use and stuff. They are inexpensive and work well. As long as you have the right interfaces and stuff set up, it works pretty good.
How crazy is that?
He's a big duck guy too. He loves shooting waterfowl. He's a duck hunter himself. We should connect with you two. You should have him on your podcast. He's got a podcast. It's Wild And Exposed. It's all wildlife photographers, documentaries, and videography guys. He's an incredible dude and good salt-of-the-earth person too. He spends a ton of time in the wilderness. It's more time than hunters do behind the lens chasing these big bulls and stuff like that.
For instance, like I was telling you, Kifaru has been very good to me. That means Aron Snyder has been very good to me. I know him. He's a great guy. He's gotten into wildlife photography up in Wyoming. Some of the pictures he's taken of the bison and stuff like that. It's like, “I'd rather have this picture than shoot this damn thing.” This is incredible.
I'd love to show you some of my photos. I'd love to come out and photograph some of your stuff. Let's get up to American Bowman. Let's shoot sometime. You are a member up there.
I'm twenty minutes from American Bowman.
Let's fucking go. We are going to bring Jeremy too.
I will take pictures.
Josh, this has been a lot of fun. I appreciate you coming on. You are right down the road. You are welcome here anytime. If you need any help podcasting-wise, I'm always here for you. I'm glad to have you in. I'm glad we finally got you in here.
We shot the shit for a long time. It was fun as hell.
We set some records.
It was almost four hours.
Anything you want to close with?
That's it. If you guys want to check me out, look me up on IG, @HighCountry_JWalk.
Go give him a follow.
Check me out. If you don't want to see dead stuff and stuff like that, you probably shouldn't check in because it's a lot more of that than even football. Check out the show at Retired 2 Hunt. It's pretty much anywhere you can get the podcast and stuff like that. I take a lot of pride in it. It's a super cool thing for me to be able to put stuff out. Like I said, I'm typically a DIY guy. People appreciate the fact of you are going to get to see the little stuff of going to the gas station and getting my coffee in the morning, all that little stuff. It's a cool little deal. I'm enjoying it.
I do. I appreciate that myself personally. Thank you. This has been fun. Nice to meet you. Let’s wrap this thing up. Everybody, thank you for reading. Go follow @HighCountry_JWalk and subscribe to the podcast as well, Retired 2 Hunt on Spotify, and all that.
Important Links
Derek Wolfe - Past episode
Scott Enderich - Past episode
Marc Montoya - Past episode
Luke Caudillo - Past episode
@BrandonLinder65 – Instagram
Jason Loftus - Past episode
@UntamedImages - Instagram
@HighCountry_JWalk - Instagram
Spotify - Retired 2 Hunt