KHC 138 - John Barklow

John Barklow - a seasoned outdoorsman and 26-year U. S. Navy veteran. A diver by trade, he spent most of his career supporting Navy Special Warfare, often working with elite SEAL teams. Much of his time was spent in Kodiak, Alaska, training SEALs in cold-weather survival and night movement through technical terrain, known as Cliff Assault. After his service, John joined SITKA Gear, applying his military expertise to develop advanced clothing systems for hunters and outdoorsmen. Join us for a conversation about John’s experiences with helping grow the Sitka brand, the succession of hunting gear and how the gear has changed, some of John’s greatest hunt stories, and more! Follow along: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/cameronrhanes Twitter: https://twitter.com/cameronhanes Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/camhanes/ Website: https://www.cameronhanes.com Follow John Barklow: https://www.instagram.com/jbarklow/ Follow Sitka: https://www.instagram.com/sitkagear/ Thank you to our sponsors: Ketone IQ: https://www.ketone.com/Cam use code CAM for 30% off your first subscription Sig Sauer: https://www.sigsauer.com/ use code CAM10 for 10% off optics Montana Knife Company: https://www.montanaknifecompany.com/ Use code CAM for 10% off Black Rifle Coffee: https://www.blackriflecoffee.com/ Use code KEEPHAMMERING for 20% your first order Hoyt: http://bit.ly/3Zdamyv use code CAM for 10% off MTN OPS Supplements: https://mtnops.com/ Use code KEEPHAMMERING for 20% off and Free Shipping Timestamps: 00:00:00 Montana Knife Company Video Series & a Unique Perspective 00:04:28 John’s Background (the NAVY & Teaching Survival Skills) 00:11:17 Understanding the Concepts in Gear 00:16:12 The Great Equalizers: Testing Guys in the Field 00:22:20 Survival Exercises 00:27:09 Finishing School for BUDS 00:29:07 Peer Reviews 00:31:56 Ad Break (Ketone IQ & Sig Sauer) 00:33:56 Diving & Getting into Hunting 00:36:18 When John got into Hunting 00:38:56 John’s Most Memorable Hunt 00:45:52 Hunting Mountain Goats 00:48:53 John’s Brown Bear Hunt 00:54:59 High Stakes in Hunting & Memories from the Hunt 00:59:31 John’s Buffalo Hunt 01:08:48 Takeaways from John’s Hunting Stories 01:13:10 John’s Best Elk Hunt Story 01:18:35 Hunters John Looked up to 01:22:03 How Much the Hunting Industry has Changed 01:29:03 Failure: The Foundation that Built Cam’s Hunting Career 01:30:51 Celebrating Success in Hunting 01:32:29 Measuring Success in Hunting 01:33:47 The Succession of Hunting Gear & Clothing (Down) 01:37:10 What’s Next for GORE-TEX Gear 01:42:29 Small Adjustments in Gear Make a Big Difference 01:44:44 Nobody Likes Being Cold 01:45:40 QA: F#$k, Marry, Kill: Backcountry Bowhunting, Diving, or Mountaineering? 01:46:48 QA: For Sitka - is Mountaineering a Good Place for Inspiration? 01:50:34 QA: If you had to Choose 1 Material or Textile to Use, What Would You Choose? 01:52:06 QA: How Would You Use High Pressure Situations to Help Develop Your Career Path? 01:54:21 QA: What’s One Non Negotiable for Your Daily Routine? 01:57:06 Outro

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:15Cameron Hanes?

  This is the Keep Hammering Collective with John Barklow. How you doing?

• 0:20Speaker 01

  Good, man. Thanks for having me.

• 0:22Cameron Hanes?

  Are you a big podcaster?

• 0:25Speaker 01

  I've been on a lot of podcasts.

• 0:27Cameron Hanes?

  Have you?

• 0:27Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 0:28Cameron Hanes?

  Like, uh,

• 0:29Speaker 01

  Honestly, probably a hundred if I was to guess. Yeah.

• 0:32Cameron Hanes?

  I've listened to, you talked to Aaron a few times, right?

• 0:35Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 0:35Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah, yeah. I've listened to that one, or I mean, I've heard you on there, but I didn't know how many you've done. I've listened to, anytime I see your name come up, I'm like, I'll listen to that.

• 0:45Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 0:45Cameron Hanes?

  You're legit.

• 0:46Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's been interesting. I mean, but, uh, yeah, I've been on a lot.

• 0:50Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 0:50Speaker 01

  I don't have my own, and I'm glad about that.

• 0:53Cameron Hanes?

  You do, you do your video series, though. Do you still do that? Like, talking about gear?

• 0:57Speaker 01

  Is that? I do. You know, I'm, I'm doing some work with Montana Knife Company. So we're doing, I'm doing, doing a video a week for the next year for them.

• 1:07Cameron Hanes?

  Oh.

• 1:08Speaker 01

  So I got a lot of them filmed already, but, uh, so I haven't done as much on my personal channel. But, you know, the whole intent when I started that was once a week, one video a week about something about outdoor education or hunting.

• 1:23Cameron Hanes?

  Right.

• 1:24Speaker 01

  Just trying to like promote that. It's not about me or my cat, right? But, uh, yeah, so I've kind of slacked off on that because we've been posting all these Montana Knife videos.

• 1:33Cameron Hanes?

  And what's, what, what's the thought of that? Like, what's the angle of those videos?

• 1:39Speaker 01

  Uh, they're calling it the MKC Survival Guide.

• 1:42Cameron Hanes?

  Okay.

• 1:42Speaker 01

  So they really left it up to me and I kind of scripted out 52, trying to make them seasonally relevant. So started, you know, I think the first one or two was like, hey, how do you stay warm on a whitetail stand? You know, here's some considerations. And then we just filmed the whole survival series about, you know, fire making and, uh, building improvised shelters and water purification and just all kinds of stuff. Just, it's a, I think it's going to be a great resource to just go and reference. And then, you know, I've built some courses with outdoor class, like full, you know, beginning to end.

• 2:19Speaker 01

  Courses with Outdoor Class, which is owned by RMEF.

• 2:22Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 2:22Speaker 01

  But, but these are like more easily digestible where you can just go to MKC's YouTube channel and

• 2:28Cameron Hanes?

  Okay.

• 2:28Speaker 01

  You know, watch one a week or just sift through and find the one you want.

• 2:31Cameron Hanes?

  Oh, yeah.

• 2:32Speaker 01

  Yeah. So it's been, it's been fun. I really enjoy that, that educating.

• 2:37Cameron Hanes?

  Got a lot of knowledge to share.

• 2:40Speaker 01

  Yeah, I, I think I have a unique perspective. Um, so like during COVID, I was all upset about something and it doesn't matter what, but I'm, I remember driving home from work and I'm thinking, you know, I got three options. I can just keep bitching about it, which, you know, in the immediacy.

• 3:00Cameron Hanes?

  That's what most people do.

• 3:01Speaker 01

  Yeah. I mean, it feels good, right? To just go home and rant and rave and bitch.

• 3:04Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 3:05Speaker 01

  I said, I could forget about it and do nothing.

• 3:06Cameron Hanes?

  Mm hmm.

• 3:08Speaker 01

  Or I could step up, you know, put some stake in the game and, and provide my opinion. And I thought I had a pretty unique perspective and I'm not here to argue with anybody. It's like, that's the information. If you like it, fine. If not, fine. I really don't care.

• 3:23Cameron Hanes?

  Right.

• 3:24Speaker 01

  Um, you know, based on decades of experience. And so I was, I like to say I'm kind of a, um, I kind of got dragged to the table. It's not something I wanted to do, but I almost felt like, like, like you, like you're kind of, it's kind of what you do, right? And so it's been great for me. Like the last couple of years has been, I feel very fulfilled by it. Um, you know, and it's led to some interesting opportunities, but really it's, it's this resource that people can go to if they're starting out to like, how do I, you know, how do I even, it, there's no reason to go into the back country with a bow to pursue an elk if you can't backpack, if you can't set up a tent. If you, you know, all those, all those things that we take for granted.

• 4:04Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 4:05Speaker 01

  And so it's like, where do people go? So that's basically what I tried to do. Uh, but I kind of am begrudgingly doing it.

• 4:11Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 4:11Speaker 01

  Not like I wanted to be on social media and, and my out psychologically is, I like to say that, uh, because I created it, then I reserved the right to quit at any time.

• 4:22Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah, that's true. Yeah.

• 4:24Speaker 01

  Um, but yeah, I just, it's just been rolling now. So, yeah.

• 4:28Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah, I was wondering how natural that transition was because when I think about, and I want to hear more about your background, but like, you know, when Tanner was in the army, uh, my oldest son, no posting. It's like you're a quiet professional.

• 4:43Speaker 01

  Hundred percent.

• 4:43Cameron Hanes?

  You're not like on social, you know, that's not what you do. That's not your job. Your job is to just be a professional and just, you know, whatever. So you have that. Tell me about your background and maybe that was why the, it was like a begrudgingly type journey to get in front of the camera. So tell me about, you said you have a unique perspective. Where did this get developed?

• 5:05Speaker 01

  Yeah. So let me start by saying, really I'm an introvert. You know, I mean, I could certainly, speak publicly and all that and it doesn't bother me, but really I'm more of an introvert. So, yeah, I was in, I was in the Navy for, you know, total of 26 years and started out as a, as a diver, like a hard hat diver, a deep sea diver. And I, uh, I, I got into the SEAL teams, teaching them combat diving and submarine operations, et cetera. And, you know, like I was saying earlier, I didn't know if I was going to stay in the Navy. So this is like 10 years in. Thank God I had a wife that was smarter than I was and she's like, you're not getting out. But I was, I was starting to train to become a mountain guide,

• 5:48Speaker 01

  like ski mountaineering guide, or like rock climbing guide, or you know, just pursuing some crazy dream there and started acquiring skills and, well, I realized that, that those, those skill sets were also required at the, the SEAL team that I was stationed at. And even though it wasn't my job, people started coming to me and saying, hey, we've got this interesting problem to solve. Like I was telling you, how do we, how do we go from the water up this cliff to get on land, right? Where nobody would expect us. And so, kind of started there, just trying to be an asset, just trying to do more, not, not always just saying, oh, that's enough. I don't need to do anymore.

• 6:28Speaker 01

  It was a very competitive environment. And so what I didn't know was that that was leading me in a direction that when nine 11 happened, and that everything changed overnight, right? Peacetime military to wartime military is, they're two totally different things.

• 6:44Speaker 01

  And so this guy calls me from Alaska who I knew I'd worked with. I'd done some work with the, this little detachment up in Alaska and they're like, hey, man, we need you up here like immediately. And my wife, who was also in the military, she did 28 years in the air force. We don't have kids, like, we never bought a ho- house, like, we were, we crafted our lives to be able to take advantage of opportunities. Right. And so boom, we were up in Alaska and I remember, I remember within six weeks of getting that call, I was laying in a single person bivvy

• 7:22Speaker 01

  in Alaska with a platoon of guys that I happen to know, watching the first Northern Lights I'd ever seen. And, uh, and so that, that started the next half of my career, which was, you know, becoming really a cold weather and winter warfare expert and like passing that on. And then at the end of that, well, I guess in beginning of that, um, we were also tasked with like, hey, we need better gear to get these guys in Afghanistan. They're freezing their ass off wearing cotton BDUs and, and things like that. And so, you know, was able to work with some of the best people in the industry, designers, developers, kind of start to learn the language. But I think the unique part was, to me, it's this,

• 8:06Speaker 01

  it's this full circle approach where I, I knew how the gear was developed. I knew the technology involved. And then we as instructors have got and tried ourselves so that we had that experience. Then you would teach, you'd see how that, you know, all these students, everyone learns different, how they would process, consume the information you're putting out, how they would use it, look at their performance at a different level than you were, right? So they're coming in, you're, and then modify that, that training again. And then this circular feedback loop just continued. And so I like to say, that's really where I became, I mean, I don't, I don't necessarily think of myself as a, as a, as a master, but I certainly have to think of myself as an expert at this point, right? Yeah.

• 8:51Speaker 01

  Trained thousands of guys over all these years. And I learned, you know, oh, you don't, you don't learn that way, or you can't build a fire that way. I'll teach you this way. Oh, you can't do it that way? I'll teach you this way. And so. Having that understanding of training guys to go into the field in an uncompromising environment, in a no fail type of atmosphere, right? They get dropped off, they don't get to come home because they're cold or wet. It's when the mission's over. And so it was, in my opinion, deadly serious, very important. But then what I realized is, what I was teaching and learning, I was then taken in to the mountains of Alaska and applying it to my

• 9:32Speaker 01

  bow hunting. And so when I, you know, eventually retired and was lucky enough to get the job at Sitka, it was the perfect fit for me because my experience, I didn't have business experience, but I had all this other experience in developing the product and actually understanding authentically how to use it. That that just happened to dovetail with what they were doing, right? And so that's a long way of saying, so now here I am at this like fork in the road or crossroads, and I'm like, do I do something? Do I not do something? You know? And I said, you know, that, that experience, that, that authenticity, that ability to teach, because I taught for a long time. So like to, to break down these concepts and digestible kind

• 10:17Speaker 01

  of pieces, right, or parts to like feed them. And then if somebody says, well, what about this? Or what about that? I, I learn from everybody all the time. But I can also say, oh, you don't like to do it that way? Let's do it this way. Oh, you don't live in that environment? We'll do it this way for that environment. And so I, I think that's what I bring to the table that's just a little bit different. Is like, I, I understand it from every aspect and have, you know, at this point, I'm going on, just with all that stuff I just mentioned, you know, two decades of experience, let alone, you know, all my personal experiences prior to that. So.

• 10:54Cameron Hanes?

  Well, it makes sense why you're so good at what you do. And then also why the product that you helped develop or you weigh in on is so, I mean, it's the highest level. It's like, who could compete with that type of experience, that type of teaching, that mindset? You know, it's, so you say unique, definitely unique, pretty amazing.

• 11:16Speaker 01

  Yeah, no, thanks. And, you know, there's so selfishly.

• 11:22Speaker 01

  You know, we developed this great stuff. I certainly feel it's the best. But if, if nobody understands how to use it, then, you know, not taking it to their full potential, then I feel like, I don't feel like I'm fully doing my part. And so that's where being able to step in on my personal channels and, and, you know, now some through Sika, educating that consumer, right? So the analogy I use is, um, you know, one of your sons turns 16 and you've been telling him the whole time. It's like, when you turn 16, I'll let you drive the Porsche, right? And he turns 16, you give him the keys, he jumps in the driver's seat, he grinds the gears up in the third, goes 60 miles an hour,

• 12:06Speaker 01

  fastest he's ever been, hair's blown back, he thinks it's awesome. And then you say, okay, now let me get in. And you smoothly run through the gears in the sixth gear, go 120 miles an hour, fully showing what that thing's capable of. And then all of a sudden he gets it. And he goes, I understand now why this is so valuable. Right? And so just trying to do that, again, selfishly, because I want to continue to push technology, you know, just in what I do at the Sika side. But you can't, you can only go as fast as you can bring the consumer along, or you're gonna, you're just gonna leave them in the dust. Yeah. So that's kind of like what I've been trying to do. And I think it's a, a great kind of blending of the two that I've been able to kind of pull off here.

• 12:49Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah, that's incredible. I mean, it's, um, yeah, I knew that he, you had done some of the training of, was it Kodiak? Yeah. Okay. I knew that, but yeah, I didn't know the, the depth of it, but that is, that's incredible. I mean, I, I can't imagine not only how much you learned, because you already knew it, but like how much you learned from teaching. That's

• 13:09Speaker 01

  That's where I really learned is teaching.

• 13:12Cameron Hanes?

  And that's, so that's why you're so good at what you do and explaining these things. I mean, for, for those, you know, listening on the podcast, we did a whole separate video on the air eight layer system, basically, or the eight component system of Um, just having everything you need from basically you'd say, we talked about Sitka, but it no matter what you're talking about, like to be the best in the mountains, here's what it takes from skin to

• 13:39Speaker 01

  The shell.

• 13:40Cameron Hanes?

  Shell to the rain gear. And I think that video is going to be soup. I mean, very valuable, very educational, but it's it that all makes sense why you're so good at explaining all that. So it's a man, it's awesome.

• 13:53Speaker 01

  Well, the, you know, the human's the human.

• 13:56Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 13:56Speaker 01

  Like we, we don't change. And so when you're going out there, you know, our bodies are doing whatever it does. So if you understand that, if you understand that the concepts, then whatever environment you're in, say in a hunting environment and whatever gear you have, you can utilize it to achieve your objectives. So, um, I'll, I'll call him a mentor. I think of him as a mentor, but this guy, Mark Twyce, who's, he's a retired now professional Alpine climber. And he was a big field tester.

• 14:24Cameron Hanes?

  Good rider.

• 14:25Speaker 01

  Yep. For like, you know, the Patagonias and stuff back in the day, but we hired him when I was in Kodiak. Like we hired him to help us, um, understand these concepts and learn how to field test the gear to deliver this to, to the guys, right? And so I remember, I call it the, the trash bag analogy, but, and, and Mark doesn't, I don't even think he remembers telling me this, but I distinctly remember. And he, he said, he goes, cause I'm asking about like, oh, like that jacket and like that specific jacket. And I'm writing like, you know, buy this jacket, buy that pant. And he goes, man, he goes, when you get really good at what you're doing, he goes, I could be given a trash bag.

• 15:08Speaker 01

  And because I understand how my body performs and that trash bag performs, it, yeah, it's not going to be nearly as good as, you know, the system we built for the military, but I can get the most out of that trash bag because I understand the concepts.

• 15:23Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 15:24Speaker 01

  And I'm like, goddamn, like if you boil it, and you hear this all the time, but if you can just boil it down to the basics, and they're not sexy sometimes, but if you understand them intimately, dude, that is the unlock to like true capability.

• 15:37Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 15:38Speaker 01

  So. Yeah, you know, and again, it could be hunting, it could be, you know, being a soldier, it could be trail running, it doesn't matter. But that's like, that's where I think that, you know, my, my perspective comes in because I had to teach it at a basic level. But I also did a lot of advanced training to guys who were super experienced and we had to go in and try to help them solve very unique mission sets.

• 16:02Cameron Hanes?

  Right.

• 16:03Speaker 01

  And we could do that, too. And so that, that feedback loop again is what really I think brought it all together for me.

• 16:09Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah, that's, uh, what, what, if you could ever, I mean, like, looking back on it now, what made people good at like the cold weather, uh, training that you were doing? Is it like, did people excel at that, that were just more like calm in stressful situations? Or like what made, what made people good at what you were teaching them?

• 16:33Speaker 01

  You know what, it's really interesting. The two things that to me have, I call them like, um, the great equalizers are, one is water. So you could take the toughest guy in the world, throw him in even the deep end of a pool and some people just do not perform well in water. Not that they can't learn, but it's just not natural to them.

• 16:55Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 16:55Speaker 01

  And so that's one. But the other is the cold. And I'm not talking just, you know, some, some quick cold exposure, like a cold plunge or, you know, even an overnight. But cold weather can really, um, again, it's a great equalizer. It can really start to separate the wheat from the chaff. Now, most of the guys we got, I mean, they were already proven mentally tough. We would get people, some of which had never seen a snowflake ever in their life. And let's just say that the, the basic course was 30 days and within the first five days, they're spending their first night out in the field. Right? And we normally buddy everybody up so they have a partner.

• 17:36Speaker 01

  That's just the way the military works and it's a great system, um, so they can watch out for each other, but maybe they're equally, you know, at the same level. So they don't have a lot of experience. And it was the guys, so you couldn't judge. Like you can't judge a book by its covers.

• 17:51Cameron Hanes?

  Right.

• 17:52Speaker 01

  Um, but the guys who trusted the information getting put out and just simply applied it as we described it.

• 18:01Cameron Hanes?

  Mm hmm.

• 18:01Speaker 01

  Were the ones that that that got through and it was the people that either thought they knew better. Or uh tried to kind of buck that system buck that experience um then ended up really having a hard time. Because the the thing with, you know, if we're going out on a hunt. And it's like just the most insane egregious weather. We may say, you know what, we're just gonna push 24 hours and go out tomorrow morning.

• 18:26Cameron Hanes?

  Mm hmm.

• 18:27Speaker 01

  Um, but when we were training, again, because of the mission profiles we were we were training for, it's like, it doesn't matter what it's doing. We're going out now. We may modify the mission a little bit when you get out there, but like we're going. So like just the absolute biggest like shit storms like and you're like, I'm even questioning like. And I'm not like questioning, can I survive? But I'm like, I got all these guys to manage.

• 18:52Cameron Hanes?

  Right.

• 18:53Speaker 01

  And like, this is just gonna suck. Like, it's just gonna suck.

• 18:56Cameron Hanes?

  Mm hmm.

• 18:56Speaker 01

  And the guys that trusted you were the ones that that had an easier time and the ones that didn't. Now you're looking at, you know, frostbite and and cold injuries and, you know, altitude injuries like altitude's another one. Um, you know, I've had to carry like physically carry a couple dudes out of the mountains, either their pack or them personally, because they just. Thought they could tough it out and, you know.

• 19:18Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 19:18Speaker 01

  And it's like, no, we told you you can't, but I guess you have to learn sometimes the hard way, you know, which is fine.

• 19:23Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 19:24Speaker 01

  Um, I'd rather them learn those lessons in training than.

• 19:27Cameron Hanes?

  For sure.

• 19:27Speaker 01

  You know, than when it's for real, but yeah.

• 19:30Cameron Hanes?

  How long will you guys stay out?

• 19:32Speaker 01

  Uh, the longest we'd stay out is, I mean, multiple blocks of either four to five days. So like we had a. We had a uh kind of the the the big initial patrol, so to speak. We'd go out in the mountains for four days. But that's the one where when we came back, they think they're getting to, you know, the extraction point, i.e. they're gonna load up. And vehicles drive back, get some hot chow, take a shower kind of thing.

• 19:57Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 19:58Speaker 01

  Um, and that's when we'd put them in the trucks, maybe, and drive them to the ocean, to a frozen lake. Maybe give them some fire axes and make them cut a big hole in the lake and we would do what we call the rewarming drill. So that's where we would take these guys after four days and again, you told them, stay up on hydration, stay up on your nutrition. Make sure that every time you pack your ruck, you're packing as if you're going to stay in the field because you never know, right? In that case. And so we, you know, bring them to that lake. There's a kind of a famous photo that we literally had them cut a hole, like almost dig their own grave in the frozen lake. And then, you know, we had these protocols,

• 20:41Speaker 01

  we had a doctor and everything was kind of managed safely, but we would put them in the water, depending on the water temp, between 10 and 15 minutes up to their neck in all their patrol gear. So what we would call their hiking gear and they'd have their loaded packs with their food, their stove, their fuel, their puffy gear, all that stuff right there. And then what that did, we weren't trying to make anybody quit, but what it did is it lowered their body core temp and that it induced a sense of urgency when they got out. So as soon as they got out, their hands and feet already didn't work. So it's like if you hadn't practiced, if you hadn't listened to us, if you hadn't kept up on, you know, how you loaded your ruck and all that, you were really going to struggle. Yeah.

• 21:25Speaker 01

  And once they got out, there were, you know, time limitations and stuff. And so the idea was in a worst case scenario, again, not going to leave the field because you got cold or wet. We were showing them the capability of their complete system, building confidence in themselves, building confidence in their buddies, that they could manage that situation and re-warm themselves, dry out with body heat and then stay in the field. And so those lessons, you know, if I can, if I can be given credit for anything, it's bringing that rewarming drill into the hunting industry. And I've done it now several times on film. And it, yeah, it kind of looks like a circus act, but it's really trying to

• 22:06Speaker 01

  show the performance of modern technical gear, right? So that was one that we did with those guys. And so, you know, we'd always say, don't tell the next class. Right. And they wouldn't because they want to everybody over, right? And then the next big one was this big survival exercise. So we started teaching survival.

• 22:28Speaker 01

  And it evolved over the years, but we would go out to an island owned by the, one of the native corporations. So we had full access to the island. Uh, we had the ability from the state of Alaska, educational permit, we could harvest, the instructors could kill one deer and any amount of rabbits and fish. Um, and so we would do that, but anyways, the students would swim into the beach wearing dry suits, strip that stuff off, and then we would do a bunch of stuff like escape and evade. They'd build survival shelters. Um, we would, you know, if they did well, we'd give them a fish or a rabbit. Right. We would show them how to process a deer because a lot of these guys, they would get overseas. Maybe they'd be living in a village. You don't want them, you know, killing your goat and processing it for you, right?

• 23:11Speaker 01

  So, but, but they were making themselves sick because they didn't know how to do it. So there's these, these big tough dudes, but like they grew up in the city, they don't know how to process a deer. Yeah. And if, you know, you can process a deer, you can process anything. Yeah. So anyways, um, we would do that for four days. So they'd have no food unless we gave them something. And then at the end of that, um, you know, based on all the, the, the training we'd given them, their, their kind of their, uh, passing grade, so to speak, was no matter what the conditions, no matter what the time of year, each person individually with the kit they had, assuming they maintained it, had to build a fire. Mm hmm.

• 23:52Speaker 01

  And then that fire had to be robust enough to boil 16 ounces of water. And then if they could do that, that was the, the pass. Okay. And then the reward was their first dehydrated meal after four days. So these guys were like super motivated and super hungry, right? And then the last, then the last big exercise was like, it depended on the time of year and what we were doing. But like three to five days where they actually then went out on their own, had a, had a mission profile. Like they were kind of self-sustained and we were just there. You know, kind of.

• 24:23Cameron Hanes?

  Overseen.

• 24:24Speaker 01

  Exactly, if they needed any help. And so you could take a guy in thirty days who had never seen a snowflake, being fairly competent to at least manage himself and his buddy. Now, there's still a lot more learning and growth that had to go on, but you felt pretty good about that.

• 24:39Cameron Hanes?

  Like, what would a mission profile be? Would that just re-get to a certain point back in the interior of the island, or what would it be?

• 24:46Speaker 01

  So, just generally speaking, it was like some kind of reconnaissance. So, you know, because we're in the Navy and these guys are SEALs, we would normally have them swim into the beach. So that adds a lot of complexity. Like, you have to swim in, it's at night, you got to deal with water, et cetera, et cetera. Transition out of that dry suit, keep your gear. So like, sometimes, a perfect example. Guy swims to the beach, so there's a piss zipper on your dry suit, so you can relieve yourself.

• 25:14Speaker 01

  Guy doesn't have it all the way closed, drop moth, he swims, you know, they swim, say, five hundred yards to shore. He's wet from the waist down because his piss zipper leaked.

• 25:24Cameron Hanes?

  Was open, yeah.

• 25:25Speaker 01

  He ain't leaving the field. We just taught you how to deal with this, manage it. Now, if it got to the point, because it is training, like, hey, I'm really, you know, gonna die here, maybe, but it never happened. But, anyway, so then they would get to the beach, they would transition, and now they're doing land navigation through, you know, mountains, they have to deal with snow conditions and avalanches potentially, and all kinds of weather, get to a position to observe a target. Maybe that was the local airport, maybe that was a Coast Guard facility we had there. And then they would do that and try to stay clandestine. And then we, you know, we would do certain things that they would have to make sure they were watching so they could report it. And then they would have to then extract themselves, but in a different direction, get back to the

• 26:09Speaker 01

  water, swim back to the boats. So, you know, it was, it was a big deal. I mean, it was, you know, anytime you have water, it's a real deal. Like, you're not faking that, you can drown in a puddle, right? And then those environmental conditions depended on the time of year.

• 26:23Cameron Hanes?

  Oh, yeah.

• 26:24Speaker 01

  But, but the confidence that they, that they walked away with in themselves, their kit, their buddies, like, that's really, that was. The most important thing, right? We'll, we'll teach them the tactics later on, like when they get a little more experience, but like that was kind of the foundational stuff they needed to walk away with.

• 26:41Cameron Hanes?

  That's, yeah, it sounds intense, but yeah, I could.

• 26:44Speaker 01

  It was, you can see how sometimes, um, you know, I, I, I, they call it my instructor bitch face, but you know, when I start talking about this stuff, I fall back into, into my old ways and it's like, dude, you don't need to be so intense, you know, to hunters. And I'm like, don't I? Like, you know, you could easily die on a hunt.

• 27:04Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 27:04Speaker 01

  And you certainly don't want to, you know, kick your own ass if you don't have to. So.

• 27:08Cameron Hanes?

  For sure. Did, uh, so that wasn't obviously part of Bud's, but could people quit?

• 27:13Speaker 01

  Absolutely. So it was, um,

• 27:18Speaker 01

  I'll, I'll say it's the finishing school for Bud's, right? So Bud's is kind of like the first initial six months. And that's really where you're, you know, vetting people and you're teaching them a little bit. And then there's a secondary component of that before they get to their first team called SEAL qualification training. And so it's kind of changed over the years how they did that. That's really where we were. Uh, most of the people that we, so nobody quit per se, but, but now it's very much based on their performance. So as an example, if you're an officer, like you are, you are absolutely continue to be graded on your leadership, right? Ability to follow orders, ability to manage your guys. If we said, you know, if a guy got hurt in that,

• 28:03Speaker 01

  in that officer squad, you know, or fire team or platoon. Yeah. The guy who, you know, maybe got frostnip on his toes, he certainly got reprimanded, but the officer got his attitude because he wasn't the one keeping up on his guys, right?

• 28:17Cameron Hanes?

  Right.

• 28:17Speaker 01

  And we are asking a lot because they were probably all on the same learning curve, but it's like, God damn it, you signed up to be an officer. We're going to hold you accountable.

• 28:25Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 28:26Speaker 01

  Or like the, you know, if there's a, a more senior enlisted guy, maybe a little older guy, but new to the teams. You know, we held them accountable. And so most of the people that, you know, got kicked out of training, so to speak, or, or failed, it was really based on performance. Most of it was leadership. Some of it was. Their character still always graded, but, but yeah, a lot of it was that. I mean, we're, you know, we're there to teach.

• 28:54Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 28:55Speaker 01

  I mean, it's easy to kick somebody's ass.

• 28:57Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 28:57Speaker 01

  Right? But to actually convey ideas and like get them to, you know, process that and

• 29:03Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 29:04Speaker 01

  make them more capable, that, that's really what we were trying to do.

• 29:07Cameron Hanes?

  I'm curious on the leadership part, cause I know when Tanner went to Ranger School, I'm, I'm pretty sure that there's a peer review part where your peers

• 29:17Speaker 01

  Absolutely.

• 29:17Cameron Hanes?

  Yes. And did you guys have peer reviews also?

• 29:20Speaker 01

  Yeah, absolutely. And, uh, listen, even us as, as instructors had peer reviews. And I can tell you that, um, nothing will, nothing will get you to sit up straight and take something serious is when your, your, your bros, your buddies sit there and go, hey, man, you, you're letting down the team. Hey, man, you, you need to be, you need to do better at this. It's always constructive. It's never destructive.

• 29:45Cameron Hanes?

  Right.

• 29:47Speaker 01

  But, uh, it, it's tough to receive.

• 29:49Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 29:50Speaker 01

  And it's tough to provide.

• 29:51Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 29:51Speaker 01

  Absolutely, that is a component and that wasn't always around, but, but it definitely came in and, um, it, it is definitely something that will hold you accountable. And, and the people that, you know, take that personally and hold themselves accountable, like that's, that's what we were looking for as well.

• 30:07Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 30:08Speaker 01

  It's a, you know, you think you're like, kind of the, the shit and doing your deal and like, man, I'm the best. And then you're confronted by your peers and they're like, hey, bro, like you need to step up and do better. Like, that's humbling.

• 30:20Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 30:21Speaker 01

  And I think that's a, that's a good thing.

• 30:23Cameron Hanes?

  It is. It's like, I've, I've heard it said before too, that, you know, men, if you, men, if they could choose between love and respect, they want respect.

• 30:32Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 30:33Cameron Hanes?

  Men don't need love.

• 30:34Speaker 01

  I agree.

• 30:35Cameron Hanes?

  They want respect. So when the guys aren't respecting their leadership or their ability, that hurt, that means something. That, as you said, that gets people to pay attention.

• 30:44Speaker 01

  It, it means something and in the military, it becomes a real issue because that can kill people.

• 30:48Cameron Hanes?

  Right.

• 30:48Speaker 01

  Right? So on the hunting side, it might not kill you, but it might just be, you know, Lack of success on a hunt could be a once in a lifetime hunt. But when the stakes are higher, like it could be my life or death. And so that's why we took it so serious.

• 31:02Cameron Hanes?

  Right.

• 31:02Speaker 01

  So that's, I don't know, I, I, I fall, I fall back into that. And, and honestly, I try to, I, I don't get that peer review necessarily so much, but I try to hold myself accountable. Like, and try to just be brutally honest because to do anything else is just so you just blow and smoke up your own ass.

• 31:18Cameron Hanes?

  Right. So. It's a, no, I love it. It's like, that's, you know, to get respect, it's hard. It's hard to have to earn respect.

• 31:28Speaker 01

  It is.

• 31:29Cameron Hanes?

  And it's quick to lose. Yeah. And it's like, you know, as we've said through life, you know, positions don't really mean much. It's like, you can be a leader and not be whatever.

• 31:40Speaker 01

  And not be the leader.

• 31:41Cameron Hanes?

  Not be the leader. Right. So, um, yeah, super interesting. I just was curious because I know that like I, I was over in Hawaii doing a ruck. And I know there's a jungle school there. So this is kind of like the cold weather school is what you, yeah. Super interesting. How often did you hunt up in Alaska?

• 32:00Speaker 01

  I mean, really every chance I got.

• 32:02Cameron Hanes?

  Okay.

• 32:02Speaker 01

  So I, you know, I, I, I started out my military career, living in the Philippines, believe it or not. And, uh, which was amazing for a lot of reasons, but I, I essentially lived underwater. Like I cannot, it's kind of crazy to think back on it, but like just six, eight hours a day for, you know, six days a week.

• 32:22Cameron Hanes?

  Diving, huh?

• 32:23Speaker 01

  Yeah. Just like doing all kinds of stuff, picking up bodies, picking up helicopters, like swimming. Every time a submarine would come into port, you'd have to check it and like before and after, and like all this stuff. And so, um, just, I mean, I got so comfortable underwater, probably too comfortable, but like so comfortable underwater. We do these, uh, they're called requalification dives. You'd have to do like requalification dives or like you have to do them with jumping and demo and all this stuff, shooting. And so anyways, nobody wanted to do it because you're already in the water all the time.

• 32:56Cameron Hanes?

  Right.

• 32:57Speaker 01

  They're like, yeah, just go down for 60 minutes and we'll count. And I would just fall off the boat. And I remember one time I, I, we were in the Philippines, fell off the boat, crystal clear water, sank to the bottom. I don't know. It's like 60 feet or something. I'm laying on the, on the bottom. It's this white sandy bottom beach, you know, kind of bottom. And I just lay on my back and I went to sleep. And then underwater and then they just like, you know, hit the, hit the buzzer, the alarm. And I woke up and I came to the surface and, you know, called it good and, and, uh, yeah. So probably not the safest, smartest thing to do, but, uh, nonetheless I did that.

• 33:32Cameron Hanes?

  But, um, I forget what, what, well, I, I got distracted there. I was thinking too much about that. I know. I was just asking like, how often you got a chance to hunt there?

• 33:43Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah. So, um, so I didn't get a chance to hunt much in, in the Philippines, a little bit in Virginia Beach. When I was living in Virginia Beach, I got to go hunt some whitetail deer and stuff, you know? Uh, but I was still pretty busy. And then once I got to San Diego, um, California was a tough state to hunt.

• 34:03Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 34:03Speaker 01

  And honestly, I just didn't have much time. So I didn't hunt much in San Diego. As soon as I got to Alaska, man, I was like, ready, like, you know, bought, bought a new Hoyt and just jumped right back into it. And, uh, it's always been my passion. I have no idea why. It's just like, ever since a little kid.

• 34:20Cameron Hanes?

  But you didn't grow up hunting or did you say your dad?

• 34:22Speaker 01

  I, I did grow up. Well, my dad hunted some birds.

• 34:26Cameron Hanes?

  Okay.

• 34:26Speaker 01

  Right. But like, nobody big game hunted. So for whatever reason.

• 34:29Cameron Hanes?

  And where was that at?

• 34:30Speaker 01

  Cleveland, Ohio.

• 34:31Cameron Hanes?

  Okay.

• 34:32Speaker 01

  Yeah. I don't admit that too often, but, uh, you know, great whitetail state, but no, I'm a self-taught archery deer hunter. And I, I was miserable at it. I mean, I had a wonderful time, best probably hunting memories of my life, but I wasn't successful. Um, and so it's, you know, it's been a long journey to kind of become, yeah, it's a tough thing to hunt whitetail deer with a bow on public land. It's not, not easy. Um, so I had hunted when I could.

• 34:59Cameron Hanes?

  Do you know who MGK is?

• 35:02Cameron Hanes?

  He's from Cleveland. He's a rapper.

• 35:05Speaker 01

  No, I don't.

• 35:07Cameron Hanes?

  He's got a song called From the Land, I think. So you can look it up at some point.

• 35:11Speaker 01

  No. Uh, but when I got to, when I got to Alaska, I was like, this is my, like, I like to say, ever since I left home, like I've been living my childhood dreams and just trying to be true to my heart, follow my passions. And so when I got there, I'm like, I cannot believe I'm this lucky. To like, not only be in Alaska, but like Kodiak Island has a lore to it. Like there's a mystique to it. As you know, you've been there, right? And well deserved.

• 35:37Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 35:38Speaker 01

  And uh,

• 35:38Cameron Hanes?

  Giant bear.

• 35:39Speaker 01

  Giant bear, but like the mountain goat was amazing. Like I got to do a lot of um, mountain goat hunting. Specifically, you would get winter tags that were over the counter.

• 35:50Cameron Hanes?

  Like October or when?

• 35:51Speaker 01

  Uh, it's no, November 15th it would start.

• 35:53Cameron Hanes?

  Okay.

• 35:54Speaker 01

  And so most, I mean, I've been on, I don't know, 30, probably plus successful mountain goat hunts with everybody. But you know, I've, the ones I've killed, so I've killed five with a bow, they're all been in winter. Great hair and stuff, but it's like, so now all of a sudden, it was like this melding of, you know, what I'm teaching in the military. What I learned, kind of going through that process of maybe becoming a mountain guide, right? And then, or uh, yeah, mountain guide, rock climbing guide. And then with my hunting experience, that's where everything started to come together.

• 36:24Cameron Hanes?

  Right.

• 36:25Speaker 01

  And so, you know, Dole's uh, solo Dole sheep hunts in the Brooks and, you know, in the Chugotch and, you know, and then the brown bear, the black bear and Prince Will. Like all of it. And I'm just like, I cannot believe.

• 36:36Cameron Hanes?

  That's awesome.

• 36:37Speaker 01

  And you know, I mean, the state's huge.

• 36:39Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 36:39Speaker 01

  So it doesn't matter where you live.

• 36:41Cameron Hanes?

  A lot of adventure.

• 36:42Speaker 01

  Still like a lot of logistics to get around too.

• 36:45Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah, that's the biggest thing up there. It's like, yeah, logistics.

• 36:48Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 36:49Cameron Hanes?

  It takes some planning.

• 36:50Speaker 01

  It takes some planning. It's a little, even though you live in the state, it can still be costly.

• 36:54Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 36:55Speaker 01

  You know?

• 36:55Cameron Hanes?

  For sure. What was the, like, tell me about the most memorable hunt you had up there?

• 37:01Speaker 01

  Uh, so it's gotta be, I mean, to me, it's gotta be this mountain goat hunt. The, the last one I killed, the biggest, the biggest billy I'd ended up killing, but uh, you know, went out, I think it was middle of December. Uh, days are short, as you know, and so I go out by myself, which I like to do a lot of, and I knew, I knew these uh, I, I knew this group of goats, cause my buddy had been in there, I don't know, a week or 10 days prior. He said, there's some big billys. He wasn't able to get on them.

• 37:31Cameron Hanes?

  Hmm.

• 37:32Speaker 01

  And so I went in kind of with the mindset of um, I'm gonna bring the tools to like get around the train. So I brought crampons. I brought some ice axes.

• 37:42Cameron Hanes?

  How high were they during that time of year?

• 37:45Speaker 01

  So they were, they were post rut. So they were, they were going back up into the cliffs.

• 37:49Cameron Hanes?

  Oh, okay.

• 37:50Speaker 01

  Yeah. So.

• 37:51Cameron Hanes?

  And the winds would blow them off? Or was there snow there?

• 37:54Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah, there's snow, but you know, that, that wind would come in. Anything that it was, it actually benefited us because one in the rut, if you find, if you find a nanny, you find a billys, right? But also when there's snow on the ground, not only can you track them, but if there's any wind exposed

• 38:12Speaker 01

  meadows and stuff or like little hangings.

• 38:14Cameron Hanes?

  Where they'll be.

• 38:15Speaker 01

  That's where they're gonna be. Or they're gonna be close.

• 38:17Cameron Hanes?

  Right.

• 38:18Speaker 01

  But anyways, I went in there and sure enough, I got right on the goats and I'm waiting, I'm waiting, I'm waiting, I'm waiting. And two, the two biggest billys, you know, big nasty piss stained, like rotten. One, I thought one had been shot. Cause he was bleeding on his, on his like right rear.

• 38:42Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah. Quarter.

• 38:43Speaker 01

  Yeah. Well, what it was is they, they had been fighting and so the one got gored.

• 38:49Cameron Hanes?

  Oh, I see.

• 38:50Speaker 01

  Right? But they're both okay. So anyways,

• 38:51Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 38:52Speaker 01

  I eventually got a shot at, at the biggest billy and as soon as I shot everything, like everything just blew up in a cloud of snow.

• 39:00Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 39:01Speaker 01

  And just disappeared. So, you know, waited, waited, waited, watching the time. Um, and now I start blood trailing while I'm blood trailing downhill and

• 39:13Speaker 01

  I get down to where it's starting to get steep now where I'm almost thinking about like, I need to turn in and face the mountain to down climb.

• 39:20Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 39:21Speaker 01

  And I look across this gully and there's the herd of goats.

• 39:26Speaker 01

  And I'm looking real quick, you know, and I'm counting and one's missing and I don't see blood on any of them except that one, you know, they had that. And, uh, and I realized that when they went across this gully to get to the other side, that they had caused an avalanche. And so this gully had, had slid. So I'm like, all right, be careful, right? But I'm like, my goat's gotta be down there. And I'm thinking, maybe my goat even caused the avalanche, which I think in hindsight happened. So I'm down climbing, down climbing, I'm turning into the hill and I'm, I'm like, you know, you know, shit's going south when like you're so nervous, you're breaking out in cold sweats.

• 40:04Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 40:04Speaker 01

  And it's cold out.

• 40:05Cameron Hanes?

  Did you have, you had crampons on and ice axe?

• 40:09Speaker 01

  Absolutely.

• 40:09Cameron Hanes?

  And that's how you're backing down the hill?

• 40:11Speaker 01

  Cause I just, I just knew. Now, I was smart in one respect, but I'll, I'll tell you in a minute how I wasn't smart, right? Um, so I kept going and like a couple of times, I'm like, ah, maybe I should like go back up. And then it was going to be this huge, like I'd had to come in the next morning, like up from the bottom in this drainage.

• 40:29Cameron Hanes?

  Right.

• 40:31Speaker 01

  And so I just keep going and going and just talking myself through it. And finally, I'm, I'm like maybe 50, so this is probably 400 feet down. I've done this. And I'm just about to the bottom, maybe 50 feet from the bottom and the avalanche now had slid off to my right. I'm looking over my shoulder like this and I can see this giant pile of frozen avalanche debris. And there's this little like black thing in the center of the cone, like right at the top. And they have these little ermine weasel things and they turn white and they got like little black eyes. So I thought it was one of those.

• 41:03Cameron Hanes?

  Okay.

• 41:04Speaker 01

  So I'm like concentrating, I'm okay, finally I'm down, like I'm safe. And I look at this pile of avalanche debris that's at least as tall as me and dude, no shit. Right at the top, this much, like an inch of a mountain goat horn is sticking right out of the center of it. And I'm like, you gotta be kidding me. So avalanche debris sets up like concrete.

• 41:25Cameron Hanes?

  Okay.

• 41:26Speaker 01

  I've got, I've got no, I've got no shovel. I've got no like avalanche shovel or nothing. I've got nothing to dig this goat out. I got a cell phone. I have no reception. I was able to get out and I wish in hindsight, I shouldn't have done this, but I tried to call my wife to tell her, to tell my buddy, Aaron, to bring some shovels and snowshoes. Cause I didn't have snowshoes either.

• 41:49Cameron Hanes?

  Right.

• 41:50Speaker 01

  And you know, told them where to come and, and meet me.

• 41:53Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 41:53Speaker 01

  Well, all she heard was, uh, goat dead, Aaron help.

• 41:58Cameron Hanes?

  Okay.

• 41:59Speaker 01

  And I'm like, that didn't help me at all. Right? Soon as long story short, hands and ice axes and everything, I, I dig a hole. So now I got a hole. I got the, the goat exposed. He's dead, but I can't deadlift him out of the hole.

• 42:16Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 42:16Speaker 01

  And then I'm like, well, okay, dumbass. How about just digging a little trench? And so I end up pulling them out, setting them up, got great trophy photos, right?

• 42:27Speaker 01

  Uh, skinned them out, you know, caped them out, quartered them up, got to take all the meat.

• 42:32Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 42:32Speaker 01

  I got this giant pack. It's dark now.

• 42:35Cameron Hanes?

  Oh, man.

• 42:36Speaker 01

  And I still got a long way to go. I got no headlamp. I didn't bring a headlamp. I mean, I'm an idiot. Like I never said I was, and I don't think to this point I've said, uh, didn't have a headlamp, didn't have a shovel, didn't have snowshoes.

• 42:47Cameron Hanes?

  You said you had a unique perspective. So this is part of how you developed that.

• 42:51Speaker 01

  This is, this is a trial by fire. Yeah. Uh, and just as I got it on my back and I'm like, all right, this is going to suck, but it's mostly downhill.

• 43:01Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 43:01Speaker 01

  Uh, don't, don't like blow a knee out or something.

• 43:04Cameron Hanes?

  Right.

• 43:04Speaker 01

  I can see this, I can see this light coming up the drainage and it's my buddy, Aaron.

• 43:10Cameron Hanes?

  Oh, man.

• 43:11Speaker 01

  And, uh, I started walking downhill.

• 43:14Cameron Hanes?

  Like, were you off the road system or?

• 43:16Speaker 01

  Uh, yeah.

• 43:17Cameron Hanes?

  Okay.

• 43:17Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 43:17Cameron Hanes?

  Gotcha.

• 43:18Speaker 01

  So he had just, he had, so he, my wife didn't exactly know what I'd said, but she knew enough to call Aaron.

• 43:24Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 43:25Speaker 01

  Aaron just kind of guessed where I was. He found my truck.

• 43:29Cameron Hanes?

  Okay.

• 43:29Speaker 01

  And then he just, I, I don't know. I mean, he was, he's a smart guy.

• 43:34Cameron Hanes?

  Figured it out.

• 43:35Speaker 01

  So he finally comes up and he's like, hey, bro, like, uh, you know, I got the snowshoes and this and that. And he goes, you know, let me take some of the meat. And I'm like, you know, F that. Like, I'll take the snowshoes. You take my bow. I'm not unloading this pack, you know? I'm carrying this. At this point, I'm carrying it out on my own. So yeah, those, those hunts, uh, I think mountain goats are like.

• 43:56Speaker 01

  A little bit underappreciated, you know, I mean, big, big ram, big headgear, but like mountain goats are amazing, where they live and they're tough as nails and

• 44:04Cameron Hanes?

  I've never had a chance to hunt one, but I want

• 44:06Speaker 01

  Oh dude, you've got to do it. Like, they're, they're amazing.

• 44:10Cameron Hanes?

  I put in for Oregon every year, never get, you know, it's like one in a million chance of getting

• 44:14Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 44:15Cameron Hanes?

  Here, but um, yeah, Roy and I had plans because he used to hunt them a lot in October on Kodiak.

• 44:20Speaker 01

  Mm hmm.

• 44:21Cameron Hanes?

  Where it's, it'd be like, let me think, I guess right before our deer hunt, because we'd always do like

• 44:27Speaker 01

  Halloween, yeah.

• 44:28Cameron Hanes?

  First week of November, but he killed a bunch, or I don't know, about a bunch, but yeah. I mean, I remember his videos and stuff. I never got a chance to, to go, but it looked awesome.

• 44:39Speaker 01

  Yeah, those, those um, regulations kind of changed. So as a resident, I think as a resident, you could, maybe not at first, it was always a draw, but then it was, they, there were, there weren't enough people going down to the South End.

• 44:53Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 44:53Speaker 01

  To kill these goats.

• 44:54Cameron Hanes?

  Mm hmm.

• 44:55Speaker 01

  Is it, you know, a little bit of money, it takes some commitment.

• 44:58Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 44:58Speaker 01

  Everybody wants to hunt deer.

• 45:00Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 45:00Speaker 01

  Um, so then they opened it up as a resident, you could, you could just go down there and hunt over the counter. Um, and then, you know, that, that later season archery hunt always opened if they hadn't filled their quota. But now I think unless something changed recently, like residents and non-residents can go down to the South End and hunt mountain goats. I think you can even kill two and it's, and it's over the counter even for non-residents. Now you have to have a guide.

• 45:27Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 45:28Speaker 01

  Right. But it's like, where does that opportunity exist anywhere in the world, you know?

• 45:32Cameron Hanes?

  I know. I need to get ahold of Cole Kramer.

• 45:34Speaker 01

  But it was, it was cool because I'd be up there on some of these hunts and of course the brown bears, you know, they're looking for dens and stuff. But I mean, I'm up on these ridge tops that I had to climb to and I'm stalking these goats and in the snow, I mean, they weren't like fresh, like imminently. I was going to run into one, but like there's brown bear tracks walking these ridges. And I'm like, are they stalking the goats? Are they just looking for a place to, to like den up? Like I, I never did quite figure that out, but.

• 46:00Cameron Hanes?

  I know where we'd hunt the brown bear up high in the mountains, like in the Alaska range, we'd be on snow machines, but oh yeah, I heard some of those crazy stories. They, they would, I mean, it would be like. A steep hill or mountain, actually on the mountain.

• 46:16Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 46:17Cameron Hanes?

  Way up there dug in. And I don't know, it's, and I think, you know, Roy would, he actually went in some dens, but it would go, go in and then.

• 46:25Speaker 01

  Of course he did.

• 46:26Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah. And then like a button hook.

• 46:28Speaker 01

  Oh, really?

• 46:29Cameron Hanes?

  Cause the wind would come in otherwise. So they'd kind of make a little like right turn, left turn.

• 46:35Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 46:36Cameron Hanes?

  And just be back in there.

• 46:37Speaker 01

  Fascinating.

• 46:38Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah. For, for whatever reason, remember he would say, he like had a shovel one time and he had to like, cut these footholds just to get up to this den. He wanted to check it out. So yeah, they like those steep hills. But I don't know, maybe they're hunting too.

• 46:50Speaker 01

  Yeah. I mean, maybe they're trying to find like the last.

• 46:53Cameron Hanes?

  Did you ever have a brown bear tag either?

• 46:55Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 46:56Cameron Hanes?

  Okay. Yeah. How'd that go?

• 46:58Speaker 01

  Um, awesome. Yeah. I,

• 47:03Speaker 01

  I mean, I loved it. Uh, I won't remember the, the name of the bay, but, uh, yeah, I took a boat over. And, uh, I had a spring tag.

• 47:11Cameron Hanes?

  Okay.

• 47:12Speaker 01

  And so, you know, you go get your tag and, and as you know, like you get 15 days to hunt. So it's like, I pick my tag up and you tell fishing game, it's like, okay, it starts tomorrow.

• 47:21Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 47:21Speaker 01

  Boom. The clock starts.

• 47:23Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 47:24Speaker 01

  So, um, spring can be a good time to hunt them. It can also be a bad time. Like they can be rubbed.

• 47:31Cameron Hanes?

  Right.

• 47:31Speaker 01

  You know, we, we were finding some really good bears, but they were, to your point, like they were up high. Which that in and of itself wasn't the issue. It was trying to get in on them quietly to get an arrow on them. Like some of these big, big slops would come out of these dens and just lay there for a couple of days.

• 47:47Cameron Hanes?

  Right.

• 47:47Speaker 01

  Like kind of come back and forth, but really not go anywhere.

• 47:50Cameron Hanes?

  Yep.

• 47:51Speaker 01

  Trying to get their system going.

• 47:52Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 47:53Speaker 01

  And, uh, but so anyways, it was like, I knew a big storm was coming in. It was going to cut my hunt short. We needed to try to get it done. We were cruising in a boat, just kind of glassing hills in the evening. And I saw this bear coming down, ran the boat into shore, had the wind in our face. I got out and just started jogging. I mean, I just started jogging. I just trying to cut distance and I ended up, uh, the bear was just above the high tide line in like this grass and this big willow bottom. And with the little bit of a breeze, the waves breaking and uh, you know, it just being like quiet grass. I, I got him behind the bear and he's just, he's just walking and feeding and you know,

• 48:37Speaker 01

  I'm probably, you know, give it, give or take like probably a hundred ish yards behind him just kind of shadowing.

• 48:42Cameron Hanes?

  He's just eating grass at this time?

• 48:43Speaker 01

  He's just walking, just walking and feeding and stopping and uh, you know, I'm not worried about daylight, lots of daylight. And when he would stop, I would stop and he would walk, I would walk. And he eventually, um, yeah, he eventually just bedded down and took a nap. And then at this point, my buddies, uh, were able to, to come up behind me. And so we were behind a knob. We came up over the top. He's, I don't know, maybe 60 yards away. And that was, maybe not today, it wouldn't be too far of a shot on a, on a dangerous animal like that. But I had a self-imposed limit of 40 yards. I was like, if I can't get the 40, I don't want to shoot. Took off my shoes, went down

• 49:25Speaker 01

  a, went down a, a trail, uh, probably a deer trail, right? And it's going right at him, the direction I want to go, but then it veered directly off. And I was like, well, that's not going to work. And then I come back and like, I'm sitting on the hill again. And then I'm like, well, I just got to go right at him. And so in that process, cause this is now, I mean, dude, we've been there at least 30 minutes, probably 45 minutes by the time I shot him.

• 49:49Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 49:50Speaker 01

  And you know, I can't believe he didn't know something was up, but maybe at some point he did. And so he's kind of, he's kind of almost bedded directly away from me. And he sits up on his haunches like a dog and still facing directly away from me. And then he turns to his left.

• 50:12Speaker 01

  And as he goes up, I just, you know, based on instinct, right?

• 50:15Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 50:16Speaker 01

  Drew the bow and I didn't think he'd see it and shot. And I don't remember this, but my buddies do because it freaked them out.

• 50:24Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 50:24Speaker 01

  But the bear stands straight up on his hind legs, arms in the air, spins towards me.

• 50:30Cameron Hanes?

  Hmm.

• 50:30Speaker 01

  But I don't remember any of that. And then the next thing I know, he's just running straight away through the cottonwood bottom. And I've heard, and obviously you know this, but like the last thing I want to do is go track up

• 50:42Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 50:42Speaker 01

  A brown bear, let alone, you know, because you don't know.

• 50:45Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 50:45Speaker 01

  Especially with the bow, like, is he wounded or not?

• 50:46Cameron Hanes?

  Right.

• 50:47Speaker 01

  I don't want to go into a shitstorm. And Cole, you know, Cole's got lots of stories about them button hooking back and you do too. Anyways, long story short, he died in this like open grassy area in the cottonwood bottom. So it, and it was maybe, uh, so come to find out, we're maybe 250 yards, 300 yards from the ocean. So my buddies went back, got the boat, came in and then, you know, we were able to skin the bear out. Um, and carry it, you know, just 300 yards, which that's a heavy hide. But because it was a spring tag, right before I, I left, the biologist says, hey, because you got a spring tag. He says, you should consider taking some of the meat.

• 51:26Cameron Hanes?

  Mm hmm.

• 51:27Speaker 01

  And I was like, you know what? I, I'd never, I never considered that before.

• 51:31Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 51:31Speaker 01

  So, you know, I don't know about you, but my experience is like every bear is like some bears don't smell at all. And like, they're like this and some are just like really bad. And I'm, I'm, uh, I'm, you know, we're cutting up this bear and skinning him out. I'm like, this bear doesn't smell like he smells great.

• 51:48Cameron Hanes?

  Meat looked good.

• 51:49Speaker 01

  Meat looked amazing. So we took, we took the hams off each hind quarter, backstraps and tenderloins. And, uh, whatever, a week later, Cinco de Mayo, I was at, but same buddy was with me. We're at his house, he had a bunch of people over and I'm cooking up some brown bear. I don't tell anybody what it is.

• 52:07Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 52:08Speaker 01

  And I just served it, you know, kind of like in cubes. And everybody was like, oh my God, this is amazing. What is it? I'm like, oh, it's brown bear.

• 52:13Cameron Hanes?

  Mm hmm.

• 52:13Speaker 01

  And they'd never had it before. And, uh, since then I've eaten, you know, a couple more.

• 52:17Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 52:18Speaker 01

  But, uh, yeah, so it's

• 52:20Cameron Hanes?

  Can be hit or miss.

• 52:21Speaker 01

  It, it can be. Very hit or miss. Bears kind of that way. Especially, I don't know if any of, I don't even know if the natives eat them in the fall, like once they're on fish. I don't know, but spring, you know, I've had some good spring bears for sure.

• 52:33Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah, meets, yeah. Oh, that's, that's interesting. Awesome story though. God dang. You gotta love those brown bear stories.

• 52:40Speaker 01

  Oh dude, they are such an amazing animal.

• 52:43Cameron Hanes?

  Bow hunting, that species is unlike anything else. I mean, it might be like similar, I could have, I've tried African lion one time. I didn't kill one, but those two gotta be the pinnacle, it feels like, for dangerous game.

• 52:59Speaker 01

  Yeah, so, uh, I'll tell you how I approach it. So, the brown bear and then, you know, last, this last August, I, I went and hunted Cape buffalo. And so, you know, I, I enjoy the preparation and the training for whatever the hunt is, as much as the hunt, right? Cause it extends a hunt, it makes it longer, because the hunt's too short.

• 53:21Cameron Hanes?

  And more intentional.

• 53:22Speaker 01

  Absolutely. You know, and I just, I, I want to make sure that I've done everything I can, control all the variables I can. And then you gotta leave the kind of the rest of fate, you know, but anyways, I go into those hunts. I distinctly remember on that brown bear, because it was the first, like, I had hunted black bear, but like, this is really like the pinnacle for me, at the point.

• 53:44Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 53:45Speaker 01

  And I remember thinking, I'm like, I'm going in to kill this bear. And there's only two outcomes. I kill the bear, or the bear kills me. Full stop. That's it. You have to go in with that, with that mentality, right? Because you're going, you are walking into the bar.

• 54:00Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 54:00Speaker 01

  You're going up to the biggest dude, and you're gonna fricking punch him and start the fight. And like, and then, you know, because you initiated it, like, you have to own the outcome.

• 54:12Cameron Hanes?

  I love stakes like that.

• 54:14Speaker 01

  I do too.

• 54:15Cameron Hanes?

  Because when, when in life, I mean, maybe you go punch some guy in the bar on the balls, but when else is that, those highest stakes out there, right?

• 54:25Cameron Hanes?

  That's, to me, that's living.

• 54:26Speaker 01

  It, it is. And, and the bar, chances are the cops or your buddies are gonna pull you off. Like, this is for reals.

• 54:32Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 54:33Speaker 01

  You know?

• 54:33Cameron Hanes?

  And how long ago was that?

• 54:35Speaker 01

  Oh, man, that's, uh...

• 54:38Speaker 01

  At least 15 years ago.

• 54:40Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah, and you still remember it.

• 54:41Speaker 01

  Oh, distinctly.

• 54:42Cameron Hanes?

  Every detail, but and I think that's what people maybe who don't hunt, because a lot of people who don't hunt, listen to this, and they don't realize this is more than just, oh, you're a hunter, you kill animals. No, this is like everything. I mean, these memories, this is so ingrained in our psyche.

• 55:01Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 55:02Cameron Hanes?

  Forever. It's so powerful, these experiences that we have out there. And yeah, so just, I love hearing a good hunting story. And that's a great hunting story.

• 55:11Speaker 01

  But these are such, like, all these interactions we have with animals, especially bow hunting, right? They're so visceral, they're so primal. You know, you can remember, you know, we just talked about the smell of the animal, right? Or like, what color's the meat? Or like, what does the meat taste like? And all these things are like, how are these animals put together?

• 55:28Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 55:28Speaker 01

  Yeah. And it's like, you don't ever get to experience that unless you put yourself in those positions. Or like, you know, having those, we were talking about, you know, elk coming in and like, head back and like, steam coming out of their nose and like, drool, and they're coming to fight.

• 55:43Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 55:44Speaker 01

  And like, that's, I mean, that's a super intense experience.

• 55:47Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 55:48Speaker 01

  But hunting a dangerous animal, because the elk's gonna run away as soon as you, you know, make a mistake, chances are, that animal's gonna kill you. Like, he ain't messing around. And so I love that. And it's not for everybody. It's not where you start your career, but I think at a certain point, it's a place where you want to get to. You want to test yourself.

• 56:07Cameron Hanes?

  Some people, still, there are some people who still never, even lifelong hunters, who aren't interested in that, you know? But there's a certain sector of people who, yeah, I mean, I'm like fascinated with, did you ever read the book Silver Tip?

• 56:22Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 56:22Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah, so it's like those stories. And that, your story reminds me of those stories, Paul Schaefer, Bart Shiler.

• 56:29Speaker 01

  Oh, man, those guys are.

• 56:31Cameron Hanes?

  Those guys are just legends, and living life on the edge. And it's like, yes, they all died, you know, but that's a risk.

• 56:41Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 56:41Cameron Hanes?

  You know, and it's.

• 56:44Cameron Hanes?

  I don't know. I'm just fascinated by it. I could read and hear stories like that all day, every day. It's, I don't know.

• 56:51Speaker 01

  Yeah, those guys are absolute legends and you know, we just don't, we don't have to put ourselves in those positions anymore. Uh, you know, life, life is getting easier.

• 56:59Cameron Hanes?

  It is.

• 57:00Speaker 01

  We're getting more coddled, not left. And so to make that conscious decision to, you know, do whatever, run, run a three day race, right? Or, or go pursue a bull or a dangerous animal where the outcome is completely uncertain.

• 57:13Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 57:13Speaker 01

  And all you can control is like your mental, you know, your mindset and your, and your preparation. It's like, I live for that. Like if not, like I'm just, what is it? Don't, don't give in to habitual comfort.

• 57:27Cameron Hanes?

  That's right.

• 57:28Speaker 01

  And you're like, I'm not giving in to habitual comfort. Like I just can't do it.

• 57:32Cameron Hanes?

  Well, tell me about your buffalo hunt.

• 57:34Speaker 01

  Uh, so, um, yeah, I, I've been wanting to do it. So I was turning 55. I'm like, you know, it's on my list. I gotta check it off. I know. I gotta check it off. And so, you know, again, that the, the preparation and the planning and all that is like just as enjoying, enjoyable to me as anything. Yeah. So that was the process is like building that up. And so, you know, it was FMJ Dangerous Game.

• 58:03Speaker 01

  Two blade, um, grizzly stick, uh, Masai, you know, single bevel kind of thing. So I had eight, basically just shy of an 800 grain arrow.

• 58:12Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 58:12Speaker 01

  But, but, uh, you know, I don't mind telling you like, I don't shoot a heavy bow really for my size. I shoot like 70, 72 pounds.

• 58:19Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 58:20Speaker 01

  But I wanted to be able to shoot 80 pounds at a minimum. So, you know, um, Evan, you know, got me a bow from Hoyt, set it up and then it took me a couple of months to just get to the point where I felt comfortable. Not drawing the bow, but drawing the bow smoothly.

• 58:38Cameron Hanes?

  Right.

• 58:39Speaker 01

  Calmly in any position because I don't know what I'm going to encounter. Am I going to be on my knees? Am I going to be twisted? Am I going to be standing? I don't know. Like, am I going to have to hold a full draw for, you know, and risk my life if I let down? Like, I don't know what I'm getting into. So it took me a couple of months and then just shooting. I went so far, and I've done this a lot, but I'm, you know, you hear athletes all the time talk about visualization. And so I'm huge on visualization. And I think just like, even just, you know, as you're going into a hunt, like thinking through that, that shot, like thinking through that, that positive outcome. And like, your arrow hitting exactly where it goes, the bull running and falling over. Right? Like, and just that visualization.

• 59:20Speaker 01

  So I think the way we practice is, you know, so to speak, the way we fight, right? Or the way we hunt. And so I, I did this a lot for my brown bear. I built a full-size brown bear target out of a sheet of plywood. You know, and just, you know, as artistically as I could, painted it up and then cut out the kill zone. So it gave me not only the visualization of the bear and, you know, the size, the general size of the animal, but then just a little bit of intention that if I didn't hit, you know, I'd put a whatever, a, you know, block target or whatever behind the kill zone. But like, if you don't hit the kill zone, like, there's a good chance you're...

• 59:59Cameron Hanes?

  Fucking up your arrow.

• 59:59Speaker 01

  Yeah, there goes 20 bucks, right?

• 1:00:01Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 1:00:01Speaker 01

  And so it gives you just a little bit of, of...

• 1:00:05Cameron Hanes?

  There's some stakes there.

• 1:00:06Speaker 01

  Exactly, right? So I did the same with, with the Cape Buffalo. So put the Cape Buffalo target. I bought a poster, like a full-size, like people would shoot a gun at.

• 1:00:17Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 1:00:18Speaker 01

  And I took it and I traced it out. And then I built this Cape Buffalo target. And I started shooting it, got the arrow dialed, you know, worked up the broadhead, found out what I wanted, penetration, et cetera. And then I took that Buffalo target and I started putting it in my yard, like down in a ravine, shooting uphill. And like, I went in with as much confidence as you possibly could have.

• 1:00:38Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 1:00:39Speaker 01

  But at the end of the day, there's still this lingering doubt. Am I going to perform? And I'd never shot and killed anything with this setup. So like, I have to trust people like, that this is going to work, you know? So long story short, you know, we got a tracker on the front of the vehicle. We're driving towards a water hole. We're going to sit water.

• 1:00:58Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 1:00:59Speaker 01

  And... Uh, it's in the evening and the guy picks up tracks and they're headed towards the water hole. Well, when we get there, the wind's all wrong, like for the blind, so it's not going to work. And the guy's like, well, um, I think what we should do is hunt into the wind. And, and see if they're around here and then we'll do a big loop and we'll end up back at the water at, at dusk. And maybe the wind will have either calmed down or, you know, whatever. So I'm like, yeah, bro, I don't, you know, I don't know shit from shit. Yeah. And, uh, and sure enough, as we're going into the wind, so we've got the advantage, they're coming to us.

• 1:01:40Speaker 01

  Perfect setup. So, you know, you don't have to, you know, it's just like my best success with elk has been, yeah, I can stalk in, I've killed a few like that, but the best opportunity is like me setting up and letting them come past me. Right? So like I try to control again, this many variables. And so that's what happened, but now they get 70 yards away and we'd already talked, me and the PH, he's got his gun, four 16, whatever. And, uh, he's like, don't worry about shooting through like your, your, your cape and like wounded another like probably not going to happen. You know, told him what I was shooting. He's like, you know, once you shoot, don't move, et cetera, et cetera. So we go through all this.

• 1:02:22Speaker 01

  Well, they're coming. And so we, we stop, we get, you know, we don't really have any cover, but now they stop and they're just milling around and they, a couple of them bed. Because they're just going to wait till dark to head to water. Right?

• 1:02:36Cameron Hanes?

  Are they still 70 about?

• 1:02:37Speaker 01

  Yeah. And so now like you're in the presence and like you can feel the aura, like this is what I, this is what I signed up for. Like I don't want it to be quick and like done. Like I want to experience this. And so, you know, I, I have a, I, I don't know why, but I, maybe because of the preparation.

• 1:02:59Speaker 01

  Whatever mindset I have, but like I, I, I am not, I don't get nervous in these situations. Cause the way I look at it is I haven't done anything yet.

• 1:03:07Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 1:03:08Speaker 01

  Like I'll get happy and nervous after I kill the animal.

• 1:03:10Cameron Hanes?

  Right.

• 1:03:10Speaker 01

  But until then.

• 1:03:11Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 1:03:11Speaker 01

  Wh- why, you know, why, why go there? But it was awesome to have them there, but I'm like, don't this up.

• 1:03:17Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 1:03:18Speaker 01

  Like these things aren't going to run away. They could chance, it could stampede us, right? And, and

• 1:03:22Cameron Hanes?

  They're called black death.

• 1:03:23Speaker 01

  Trackers had already told me like one guy had a scar like up his ribs and he said that they weren't even tracking a buffalo. They were tracking an eland and this buff just runs out of nowhere. And like damn near gore's this guy to death, right? And they all had these stories. So like this is real.

• 1:03:39Cameron Hanes?

  They're aggressive.

• 1:03:40Speaker 01

  I'm like, cool. That's what anyways. Um, so just by luck, they, they start standing up. Well, we had already seen one of the, there were a couple of good bulls in there, but one bull was bigger than the rest. He was grayer than the rest and he was broomed on his right side. And they're like, the guy's like, that is an old dug a boy.

• 1:04:00Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 1:04:00Speaker 01

  Like an old dug a boy.

• 1:04:02Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 1:04:02Speaker 01

  And like, he's not going to win any beauty contests, right?

• 1:04:06Cameron Hanes?

  Perfect.

• 1:04:07Speaker 01

  So just, so they get up, they start milling and, and just by luck, this old bull is, you know, they're kind of in a, in a herd, right? And there's maybe, I don't know, 13 or 15 or something like that. He just happens to be closer to me. And I just wait. And I'm like, you know what? If it, if it, if he doesn't give me the shot, don't shoot. Like you'll find another one.

• 1:04:33Speaker 01

  It's either meant to be or it's not, you know? And sure enough, I was super patient. He comes by broadside and he moved that leg forward. And as he moved that leg forward, you know, it starts to like, I'm thinking like obscure his vision. I'm not worried about the others. I come to full draw. I settle in 26 yards.

• 1:04:51Cameron Hanes?

  Oh, 26.

• 1:04:52Speaker 01

  And I had a orange veins, a rap and a knock, right? And I just, right now I can still see that orange arrow going exactly where I wanted to, right? And so I shoot and I didn't move. Normally I'd reload. I didn't move. And I just remember hearing the PH say, dead bull.

• 1:05:12Cameron Hanes?

  Oh, man.

• 1:05:13Speaker 01

  And so they run off like this and they loop around and you can see them kind of running through that scrub country. And all I can see is like this big black mass going in like a cloud of dust.

• 1:05:25Speaker 01

  And one little black blob is whole falling back from the rest. And then that blob disappears and the herd thunders off.

• 1:05:36Speaker 01

  I got the African sunset. I got a bow in my hand.

• 1:05:43Speaker 01

  My Cape buff is dead right there and as that's happening, I hear the death bellow. And I remember like right now, I'm like, bro, I'm like, be present.

• 1:05:56Speaker 01

  And just take all this in and remember it because this, this is what you live for. And dude, he ran a hundred yards and fell over dead. Now we still waited till dark and still waited for the trackers and still did the whole thing and played it up. But I was like,

• 1:06:13Cameron Hanes?

  How amazing is that?

• 1:06:15Speaker 01

  And, and even they're like, and you've said this a lot and I, I always agree with it, but it's like, that was the honorable death that that old bull deserved and the best death he was ever going to get. Like it was literally over in seconds.

• 1:06:29Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 1:06:29Speaker 01

  You know?

• 1:06:30Cameron Hanes?

  We've seen what happens in the wild in Africa.

• 1:06:32Speaker 01

  Oh dude, it's brutal.

• 1:06:33Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah. To, to even healthy animals, let alone old animals.

• 1:06:37Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:06:38Cameron Hanes?

  But yeah, that was a perfect death for him, but what a,

• 1:06:42Speaker 01

  I would do that every year.

• 1:06:44Cameron Hanes?

  Dude, what a visual, what a visual. It's like, I can just see it. I, the takeaways I have from, from those stories about your brown bear and your K buffalo is the intentionality in your preparation. And I think people can learn a lot from that because I, it, this is serious.

• 1:07:02Speaker 01

  It is dead serious.

• 1:07:03Cameron Hanes?

  But it's not, you can be serious and like, oh yeah, I shot my bow every day. Okay. But to what level? I mean, there's different levels of shooting your bow every day.

• 1:07:13Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 1:07:13Cameron Hanes?

  Your level is the highest level, you know, you, you know, had that where you wanted that image in your head. You wanted that buffalo silhouette or whatever, and you wanted the stakes if you hit the plywood or whatever on the brown bear. And it's like, um, that's what it takes. That's what it takes to be infallible in moments where a lot of people would crumble.

• 1:07:34Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:07:35Cameron Hanes?

  You know, a lot of people in those situations, because the emotions are so high and there's so much pressure and you're in another country or in Alaska. A lot of people fail.

• 1:07:45Speaker 01

  And there's other people, in that case, there were other people's lives on the line, I felt.

• 1:07:49Cameron Hanes?

  Right.

• 1:07:49Speaker 01

  Like I had, I felt that responsibility. Like if I wound this Cape buffalo, like I'm not going to track it. They're going to track it. And they've already shown me that they've almost been killed, you know?

• 1:07:59Cameron Hanes?

  Wow.

• 1:08:00Speaker 01

  I mean, listen, I'm not going to shoot my bow through the, my truck windows, like you, like you, right? But, but it's the same thing, right? You're trying to, you're, you know, yeah, you can't simulate that, but you're trying to like, add some, some pressure.

• 1:08:14Cameron Hanes?

  Right.

• 1:08:15Speaker 01

  To test yourself prior to the ultimate test.

• 1:08:18Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 1:08:18Speaker 01

  You know, and I, I really enjoy that process. And I don't think enough people, and I don't think enough of us talk about that for people to understand. Like this is how you, this is how these things, this is how you're consistently successful. Anybody can be randomly successful.

• 1:08:33Cameron Hanes?

  For sure.

• 1:08:34Speaker 01

  But it's like, you want to be consistently successful. And, and that's, I think, to the level it takes.

• 1:08:40Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah. I mean, you know, the truck window thing, that's a little bit trolling people because people get so loose their shit.

• 1:08:47Speaker 01

  Like I said, I'm not going to do it, but yeah.

• 1:08:49Cameron Hanes?

  You know, it's my truck. I don't know why that's so worked out. But, uh, um, it does, it, there's a point to it. There's a point.

• 1:08:57Speaker 01

  There's absolutely a point.

• 1:08:58Cameron Hanes?

  Everything that I do. Some people get distracted by stupid shit, but whatever. And some people, it's sometimes it's intentional on my part. But, um, yeah, I, I love those stories and I, you know, just hearing you just share that, that experience. It's just like, one, I'm jealous of that moment because it seems like incredible. Um, but yeah, I love, man, I love it, dude. That's so badass. Uh, I can't imagine how that felt. Cause yeah, there is a, when you said there's other people relying on you to make a good shot. There's, you know, Peter Capstick wrote a book called Death in the Long Grass. And a lot of times those buffaloes, they'll go in, you know, the grass can be 10 foot tall, as tall as a ceiling.

• 1:09:40Cameron Hanes?

  And they'll go in there and they'll button hook back and then you'll be blood trailing and they're waiting for you.

• 1:09:45Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:09:45Cameron Hanes?

  To stop your ass.

• 1:09:46Speaker 01

  Just like those brown bears. I mean, they are smart.

• 1:09:48Cameron Hanes?

  Yes. They, they know what's going, they're used to surviving amongst predators. I mean, brown bears are the top of the food chain there, but you know, in Africa, there's lions.

• 1:09:59Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:09:59Cameron Hanes?

  There's plenty of other things. And it's, uh, yeah, it's, it's tough living over there. Those animals are so tough. The people are tough.

• 1:10:08Cameron Hanes?

  I'm over the guy speaking in Swahili. Did you ever, did you communicate with the?

• 1:10:13Speaker 01

  I just went through the PA.

• 1:10:15Cameron Hanes?

  I mean, the one guy, Patrick, I think his name was the head tracker, like he spoke some English. Yeah.

• 1:10:20Speaker 01

  He's pretty good.

• 1:10:21Cameron Hanes?

  Okay.

• 1:10:21Speaker 01

  Like he was the one that told me about like, and showed me the scar about, you know, getting his shirt ripped off. He dove into some, you know, thorn bushes to sing Rage by him and.

• 1:10:30Cameron Hanes?

  Brutal.

• 1:10:30Speaker 01

  I'm like, okay, thanks, bro. Like.

• 1:10:32Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah, that's.

• 1:10:34Speaker 01

  Yeah, you know?

• 1:10:35Cameron Hanes?

  I don't know, but how lucky are we to be able to experience other cultures and other, you know, countries and other, hunt other animals and like, and work with other types of people. It's like, God, we're lucky.

• 1:10:50Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:10:50Cameron Hanes?

  To do this.

• 1:10:51Speaker 01

  You know, I think that the animal absolutely deserves it. And I think people who don't hunt don't understand that, but it's like, we love those animals. Like, I don't want to see that any animal suffer.

• 1:11:00Cameron Hanes?

  No.

• 1:11:00Speaker 01

  You know?

• 1:11:02Speaker 01

  And so you can't hunt without having killed, but you know, you want to make sure that you do your part. So it's as quick and clean as possible.

• 1:11:08Cameron Hanes?

  Definitely. Um, so we've, we've shared elk camp before. Tell me, um, tell me your best elk hunting story.

• 1:11:17Speaker 01

  Oh, my best elk hunting story.

• 1:11:19Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah. I remember, I remember being there and it's like, it seemed like we were hunting kind of the same country a little bit.

• 1:11:27Speaker 01

  Oh yeah, that one night, we absolutely were.

• 1:11:29Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 1:11:30Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:11:30Cameron Hanes?

  And did you kill a bull that night or?

• 1:11:33Speaker 01

  No, you did.

• 1:11:34Cameron Hanes?

  Okay.

• 1:11:35Speaker 01

  I don't, I don't think I, I went back there. I don't know if it was the next night or the night before we bailed off the other side of that, that ridge. And ended up killing a bull.

• 1:11:45Cameron Hanes?

  It might've been, yeah, I don't want to say, cause then everybody will want to go there and I'm always trying to go there. It's really good.

• 1:11:50Speaker 01

  I don't know. I gotta tell you, like I was hiking, well, no, we weren't hiking. I was hiking back in the dark, of course, but like driving back and I'd heard you killed and I just, I shook my head and they just smiled. I'm like, I don't know how he does it, man, but. Um, cause Truitt was with you that.

• 1:12:04Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 1:12:04Speaker 01

  That night.

• 1:12:05Cameron Hanes?

  He's been going with me the last few years. Yeah.

• 1:12:07Speaker 01

  Yeah. I mean.

• 1:12:10Speaker 01

  Probably similar to you, like I, I live to Elkhorn. I think for the most, for most of us, like it's as close as we're going to get to, you know, cavemen hunting dinosaurs. Like when they're in the rut, they're fired up. Like it's such a primal thing. When they're bugling, you can hear that. It's just like, it ignites something in your soul, right? I think if you're like really into it and uh, you know, they're, they're not easy to kill. They, they demand your best. Like they're not going to give you anything, you know? But I've had so many, I'm trying to think of like, um, well, so I'll just talk, tell you the, the um,

• 1:12:48Speaker 01

  the, the night or two after, you know, you had killed, um, you know, we hear these bugles. And of course it's all the way at the bottom. I mean, it's, it's big country, you know? I mean, right? So, but we're just, you know, you gotta chase bugles because you know that, that there's bulls.

• 1:13:03Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 1:13:04Speaker 01

  And so I'd, I'd gotten aggressive and uh, you know, where I think mule deer is a little bit more surgical with the bow. Like they don't give you much. Like you gotta be really precise and like sometimes you just can't go in and get them. But when they're, when they're bulls rutting, like I just, I tend to be more aggressive, right? And I kind of get in there and kind of assault them, so to speak. And, and so I'd done a little bit of that, but I, there weren't like, there wasn't anything mature, but there was a lot of like younger ones just kind of going off and it was turning into a kind of a rut fest.

• 1:13:37Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 1:13:38Speaker 01

  And um, but so I'm slipping down and I got a guy with me uh, from Sika. He's not, he wasn't a hunter, but he was learning to hunt. So he's pretty inexperienced and I'd been on some hunts with them before. So I wasn't concerned with him, but dude, it's just like going off and going off. And he tapped me on the shoulder and like, you know, 70, 80 yards to our right is like, I don't know, maybe a five or six robo, but like, and he's, he's just uh, wallowing, you know? And then he gets up and he bugles and like, but it, but I know these bugles in front of me. Like I know that, I know that's gotta be where the, where my destiny is, right? And then you can hear a couple clashes, like where they're locking up and you're just like, I'm like,

• 1:14:24Speaker 01

  yes, like this is what I live for.

• 1:14:26Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 1:14:26Speaker 01

  And um,

• 1:14:29Speaker 01

  So anyways, I got an arrow knocked and I hear these antlers clash. And then I look and I can like just see antler tips coming and it's that it's that hunting off instinct. That that's where the, you know, I think experience comes into play where you're not thinking. You're now you're now reacting to the situation. You're not thinking about like shooting your bow like it just is happening. And at least for me, that's where I've like had my best success. So anyways, I see antler tips. I don't know if he's a shooter yet, but I come to full draw. I anchor in and here he comes and I don't have to think I'm like, yes, absolute shooter. And I don't have time to range. I didn't have time to range or anything.

• 1:15:13Speaker 01

  Again, that's where time on the on the range and like seeing a target at 20 yards or 30 yards. And like you're just your mind, your computer's just like running.

• 1:15:20Cameron Hanes?

  Always.

• 1:15:21Speaker 01

  And now this was a fairly easy one. So he comes up this trail and I'm my mind, I'm like 20 yards. Like he's within, you know, margin of error.

• 1:15:30Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 1:15:32Speaker 01

  And I just stop him and he stops right where he needs to. Right up over the top and piles up.

• 1:15:40Cameron Hanes?

  Nice.

• 1:15:41Speaker 01

  And I'm just like, did that just happen? Cause you know, you live all year for these things. And then when it happens, you almost like, did that really, did that really just happen?

• 1:15:50Cameron Hanes?

  Right.

• 1:15:50Speaker 01

  And you know, leading up to that point, it can be frustrating sometimes. You're like, man, I blew that, man, I'm not good enough. Is this ever going to happen? Like, will I ever kill another elk in my life? And then it happens like that. And I think I take like, I feel proud of myself at that point that like, okay, I put the work in. I earned that.

• 1:16:08Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 1:16:09Speaker 01

  It wasn't luck. I mean, there's always some luck, but like I did my part, you know?

• 1:16:13Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 1:16:13Speaker 01

  And, uh, but yeah, so that's what happened like a night or two later.

• 1:16:17Cameron Hanes?

  Can't be.

• 1:16:17Speaker 01

  And, uh, it was, it was awesome.

• 1:16:19Cameron Hanes?

  Never gets old.

• 1:16:20Speaker 01

  And the thing is every the chaos is still going on.

• 1:16:22Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 1:16:23Speaker 01

  You know, cause that just the party just moves up or down the drainage.

• 1:16:26Cameron Hanes?

  Nothing else changes. That's it.

• 1:16:28Speaker 01

  No.

• 1:16:28Cameron Hanes?

  That's the thing about the mountains is yeah, there's life and death every day and nothing changes.

• 1:16:32Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:16:33Cameron Hanes?

  It's, it's. Yeah, it's, uh, I was, uh, I was curious as you were coming up as a hunter. Like I have people that I looked up to as young Larry Jones used to live right here or still does live in town. But he had. A video called Elk Fever, him and Dwight Schu. But I had these people who I looked up to as like a young bow hunter. Who did you look up to coming up as a hunter? Like, who were your heroes?

• 1:17:00Speaker 01

  You know, I mean, when I was, I mean, we're similar age, right? But so Fred Bear was kind of like still around, but but older.

• 1:17:07Cameron Hanes?

  Getting older.

• 1:17:08Speaker 01

  He was the old guy.

• 1:17:09Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 1:17:10Speaker 01

  Really, probably Chuck Adams is the one that that stood out at the time. There were some other whitetail guys, I think Miles Keller and some guys like that who are, you know, more whitetail focused. But the thing with Chuck Adams that I appreciated at the time is like, you know, he was pursuing the 29.

• 1:17:28Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 1:17:28Speaker 01

  He had all this diverse experience. This is where I first heard about Kodiak, you know, and stuff like that. And like, I remember that.

• 1:17:34Cameron Hanes?

  That big bear he killed is kind of like in the creek a little bit, but it just, I think they said it was like a 1,400 pound bear or something. I remember.

• 1:17:42Speaker 01

  Yeah, because I think it was a fall bear.

• 1:17:43Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah, because he was sitting there and he had, I just remember that picture, his beanie and in the alders. And it's just like incredible photo, but I can just see it still.

• 1:17:53Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:17:53Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah, so.

• 1:17:54Speaker 01

  And, you know, and I, again, I'm just trying to, I mean, I'm just trying to kill

• 1:18:01Speaker 01

  a doe if I could, you know, and I'm, and I'm looking at this and, and so, yeah, so those guys were some of them, you know, Fred, but again, if I couldn't read it in a magazine when I was growing up, like it didn't exist kind of thing, you know, and there was a lot more. I mean, really, I don't know if, maybe, you know, or have an opinion of this. Like, I don't know if bow hunting was kind of a fringe thing back then, but it wasn't as prominent as, say, rifle hunting. You pick up Field and Stream and like Jim Zumbo and, and all these guys. It's like, it's all rifle stuff, which is fine.

• 1:18:32Cameron Hanes?

  Jack O'Connor.

• 1:18:32Speaker 01

  It was, yeah, Jack O'Connor, but it was hard to find the archery specific stuff. I mean, I still have the very first book I bought. It was like, you know, Hunting Whitetails or something.

• 1:18:44Speaker 01

  I still have the book, but I was like, you had to buy a

• 1:18:47Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 1:18:47Speaker 01

  book and read it and try to, you couldn't ask questions to anybody and and just try to figure it out on your own, you know?

• 1:18:53Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah, no, for sure. It was definitely a different time, but man, so addicting. It's like all I thought about, all I wanted to do, all I wanted to read about.

• 1:19:02Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:19:03Cameron Hanes?

  There wasn't anything on, you had to do a VHS at Mohawk Video over here.

• 1:19:07Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:19:07Cameron Hanes?

  Rent those and that's what I did.

• 1:19:09Speaker 01

  Yo, I did, I did a lot of that, but you know Dwight Schu is definitely somebody I looked up to. I never, I never got to meet him and then, uh, actually was, was real privileged to hunt one year uh, in Montana with, with Larry D. Jones.

• 1:19:23Cameron Hanes?

  Okay.

• 1:19:23Speaker 01

  And I mean, that guy is just.

• 1:19:25Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 1:19:25Speaker 01

  I mean, he's an icon, right?

• 1:19:27Cameron Hanes?

  For sure.

• 1:19:27Speaker 01

  But he's a machine.

• 1:19:28Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah, he is.

• 1:19:29Speaker 01

  I, I saw him at Pope and Young a couple of months ago.

• 1:19:31Cameron Hanes?

  Okay.

• 1:19:32Speaker 01

  You know, he still is passionate about bow hunting as he's ever been.

• 1:19:37Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 1:19:37Speaker 01

  You know, and I think that, that's somebody to emulate and look up to and like, he just always enjoys himself and.

• 1:19:43Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah, I, he was just walking on the bike path, like not far from here.

• 1:19:46Speaker 01

  Oh, he lives around here?

• 1:19:47Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 1:19:48Speaker 01

  Oh, okay.

• 1:19:48Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah, no, but yeah, that was, those guys, I, I remembered every word from Elk Fever, the VHS. And it's like, I don't know, um, what an awesome time to come up as a bow hunter.

• 1:20:02Speaker 01

  I think so.

• 1:20:03Cameron Hanes?

  What, how do you think that it's like the industry has changed from back then to now? What would you say?

• 1:20:09Speaker 01

  Um, well, to try to not be too demeaning.

• 1:20:16Cameron Hanes?

  We don't want to be the crotchety old guys.

• 1:20:18Speaker 01

  No.

• 1:20:18Cameron Hanes?

  I always say.

• 1:20:19Speaker 01

  No, well, I might have to join you here, but.

• 1:20:22Cameron Hanes?

  Cause I'm older than you.

• 1:20:24Speaker 01

  Yeah, but I don't know, by less than a year, but nonetheless, you are, so you are the oldest guy here. Um, I, I'm not bashing on social media, but I'll just say there's so much out there now.

• 1:20:36Cameron Hanes?

  Hmm.

• 1:20:37Speaker 01

  Right? That, so here's a mistake, I think, um, maybe I'll start here. Here's a mistake, I think. Younger hunters make is they see you or they see me or hear these stories and rightly so. Just like I did and you did, they're like, I want to, I want to be him.

• 1:20:54Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 1:20:54Speaker 01

  I want to pick up the bow and I want to go kill a bull elk.

• 1:20:56Cameron Hanes?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:20:57Speaker 01

  And I'm like, great, but that's not where you start your journey. That's not where I started my journey and I certainly didn't go out there on my first elk hunt with the expectation of, and I'm going to kill, you know, a six by six or like, put a number on it. Like, who gives a shit about that? Like, that shouldn't be what you focus on, but of course, we talk about it and so that becomes the exception. And so I think a lot of hunters are, are let down when they realize it's harder than it looks. And then if they don't, let's say they, they shoot the spike bull, like I think you said that was your first, right?

• 1:21:32Cameron Hanes?

  I see the tags for it sitting right there on the wall. So that broadhead holding that tag, that's from 1989.

• 1:21:38Speaker 01

  But, but, but that shows you how much that meant to you.

• 1:21:41Cameron Hanes?

  Oh, yes. Spike bull. We, nobody called it a trophy.

• 1:21:44Speaker 01

  Correct. But nowadays, I think the disappointing thing is, because I get it a lot, like on Instagram, somebody, and I always know how the, how the, how the, the story's going to go. And they're like, hey, you know, thanks for this information or this information helped me do this and that. And I'm like, oh, cool. All right. Cause I know there's a picture, but there's always the dot, dot, dot, but it's just a spike.

• 1:22:05Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 1:22:05Speaker 01

  But it's my first bow kill, but it's a doe. And I, and I always like, tell them, never apologize for what you kill. Because you, you get to make that decision.

• 1:22:14Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 1:22:14Speaker 01

  And, and forget what social media thinks, like this to you at your experience level, and I don't care what age you are.

• 1:22:22Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 1:22:22Speaker 01

  Like, that's a big deal.

• 1:22:23Cameron Hanes?

  Right.

• 1:22:24Speaker 01

  And you should, you should embrace it as a big deal.

• 1:22:27Cameron Hanes?

  Well, the animal deserves, I mean,

• 1:22:29Speaker 01

  Absolutely.

• 1:22:30Cameron Hanes?

  deserves the respect. You killed it, be proud of it.

• 1:22:32Speaker 01

  And the meat's going to be amazing, right? And it's going to feed you and your family. It's like, there's nothing to be ashamed of and it's, none of it's easy.

• 1:22:39Cameron Hanes?

  It's like, I don't care what animal it is. If you killed it with an arrow, that's a trophy.

• 1:22:43Speaker 01

  Absolutely.

• 1:22:44Cameron Hanes?

  That is so hard.

• 1:22:45Speaker 01

  Absolutely. And so I think that, I think that people are not, I think they're, they're missing out on some of the biggest impact that, that bow hunting can have on them.

• 1:22:54Cameron Hanes?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:22:55Speaker 01

  Because they're nowadays focused on, you know, the success you have in this room came after 40, you know, came over 40 years.

• 1:23:02Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 1:23:03Speaker 01

  It, it didn't come your first year or maybe even your, your 10th. I think the average, I think the stat says the average. I don't know if it's out west or just in Montana or whatever, but it's like the average success is like to kill your first bull takes seven years.

• 1:23:16Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 1:23:16Speaker 01

  Right? And that's not a six by six or a three fifty. It's like to kill your, your first bull.

• 1:23:21Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 1:23:22Speaker 01

  It's like seven years.

• 1:23:23Cameron Hanes?

  Seven years.

• 1:23:24Speaker 01

  I'm afraid that people aren't going to invest this, you know, now that's on average. Maybe it comes quicker, but it's like, are you going to wait those years to achieve that?

• 1:23:33Cameron Hanes?

  People are taking longer than that, dude.

• 1:23:35Speaker 01

  I, I absolutely know people who have not killed one in 10 years.

• 1:23:38Cameron Hanes?

  Right.

• 1:23:40Speaker 01

  And so if you're not, you know, doing it for all these other reasons, like, man, it, you know, I'm out in nature.

• 1:23:46Cameron Hanes?

  Self fulfillment.

• 1:23:47Speaker 01

  It's, it's, it's motivating for me to stay in shape all year and train and do all these things. And like, you know, and then, yeah, maybe you kill the, you know, maybe you kill the, the, the forky mule deer on your elk hunt. It's like, dude, you should, you should embrace that and see. But people won't talk about it because I think the industry, and I'm not blaming anybody, but it just comes across as like, if you, like, everybody's killing big, big animals. And if you're not, like, you're somehow a failure, not part of the club, not part of the community. And it's like, no, it should be the opposite. Like, you're absolutely part of this community and we're all on it. I like to say, we're all on a different part of our journey, right? If we're all climbing the mountain, we're all at different parts, but we're all climbing the mountain, right? And I can't, the one

• 1:24:31Speaker 01

  thing about bow hunting, hunting specifically, it's like, it, it's, it's a, it's not a, it's not an organized sport. There's not a, there's not a, a field where we can measure my effort against your effort equally.

• 1:24:47Cameron Hanes?

  Right.

• 1:24:47Speaker 01

  Right?

• 1:24:48Cameron Hanes?

  Yep.

• 1:24:48Speaker 01

  And so to try to do that, which most people understand team sports, like, you can't do it that way. Hunting is like this, your own personal journey.

• 1:24:58Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 1:24:59Speaker 01

  And, you know, because I've been here or been there when I was younger and like trying to compare myself to so and so. And maybe it's like, maybe it was Chuck Adams, you know, or maybe it was you or whatever. A matter of fact, I, I read your, uh, before I moved to Kodiak, I think anyways, your blacktail book.

• 1:25:16Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 1:25:16Speaker 01

  Right?

• 1:25:17Cameron Hanes?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:25:17Speaker 01

  And like, when I was on Kodiak, it was either during, right when I got there, right before, and I'm like, reading that book and I'm like, okay, all right, yeah, cause I don't know the animal behavior.

• 1:25:28Cameron Hanes?

  Right.

• 1:25:29Speaker 01

  Right? And then, let's say I'm successful with sick of blacktails, and now I wanna go hunting out and go, it's now I need to learn that behavior.

• 1:25:35Cameron Hanes?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:25:35Speaker 01

  And see what their, uh, environment is, right? And so this is kinda like lifelong journey.

• 1:25:40Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 1:25:41Speaker 01

  But I can't compare myself to anybody else. And I think we're just, with young hunters, I think they do a lot of that, and I think they're missing out on some of the, the, you know, that, that, that great reward you get from that.

• 1:25:54Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah, I, I do too, you know, I mean, I know young girls struggle with this on social media with the comparison thing, but hunters, because we put so much into this, and it means so much, you, you are comparing yourself to basically the world now.

• 1:26:09Speaker 01

  You are.

• 1:26:09Cameron Hanes?

  You know, where, when I grew up, it was a little small town, nobody's hardly killing anything. So I killed a spiked bull, I was actually getting shit talked about me, because what, people were jealous. Now, you're gonna be like, probably criticized if you put up a spiked bull picture, which is,

• 1:26:27Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:26:27Cameron Hanes?

  which we would both agree is terrible. I mean, and that's not how,

• 1:26:34Cameron Hanes?

  as a community, we should be, but the point is, is we were, for bucking the odds in this small group of people, we were celebrated for our success or our accomplishments, where nowadays, we're looking at, you know, a 250 inch mule deer, or a 400 and whatever inch bull, and all of a sudden, that's the standard.

• 1:26:56Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:26:56Cameron Hanes?

  It's like, it's not the standard, that's not real. That, that's not real, that's, who knows what that person had to go through, cause if I think about, So my journey, um, you know, um, in the wilderness, like being getting my ass kicked for day after day after day, coming home, not eight hour drive home, thinking about how I screwed up, eight hour drive back, pack all the way into the, that was all for failure. That was all me not being successful. So if I'm just obsessed with only success, I wouldn't have done any of those things. Those things, those long journeys, those long drives, those long packs, that made me who I am.

• 1:27:41Speaker 01

  Mm hmm.

• 1:27:41Cameron Hanes?

  It was the failure and the struggles that put this edge on me or put a chip on my shoulder or had me testing myself. And if I tested myself and failed, I'm like, I need to get better. But that's all part of it, right?

• 1:27:56Speaker 01

  So it has to be.

• 1:27:57Cameron Hanes?

  That failing is what gets this. We can't, we can't have one without the other.

• 1:28:04Speaker 01

  Yep, exactly.

• 1:28:05Cameron Hanes?

  And that's what I want people to, you know, and I think that's what you're talking about is like, it's the whole thing. It's the whole journey. It's yes, we, we're trying to be successful. We want to be intentional in our practice. We want to think about this. We want to visualize everything. And I, just like you, I visualize that perfect moment. I visualize that leg coming forward, picking that spot, arrow disappearing, a perfectly tuned arrow flying like it should out of my bow. And it's like, that, I mean, that is just part of the life of a bow hunter. And then yes, if that all works out, then you're successful and then you have blood on your hands and you're hanging quarters in the tree and his life is great, but it's the whole, it's all encompassing.

• 1:28:47Speaker 01

  Yeah, I, I think it has to be. And I think that's the most rewarding part of it.

• 1:28:51Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 1:28:51Speaker 01

  You know, we used to have to walk into like the bow rack, right? And they'd have the cork board and you know, everybody posts their picture, whatever they killed. You know, there's always at least one guy who's like, you know, better than everybody else, so to speak. And like, and you're always like, I want to be that guy or I want to, you know, I emulate to like have that, you know, have the same success.

• 1:29:10Cameron Hanes?

  My eyes get, would get poked out. People hated my face on there.

• 1:29:16Speaker 01

  But to your point now, we're comparing ourselves to the world.

• 1:29:19Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 1:29:19Speaker 01

  And it's just, so it's, it's, uh, it's really like

• 1:29:22Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah, it's

• 1:29:22Speaker 01

  lopsided.

• 1:29:23Cameron Hanes?

  It's a slippery slope for sure because it's, we're almost sabotaging ourselves by that. Because yes, we want to celebrate our success and I'm as guilty of it as anybody. I try to share everything, my appreciation for everything, the people, the country, the land, the animals, all that. But still, if I'm successful, there's that picture going up and that gets, gonna get the most focus generally, but yeah, so I mean, it's, it is a slippery slope.

• 1:29:52Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:29:53Cameron Hanes?

  It's like, we want to celebrate what we do and the people that we look up to are heroes. They, they celebrated what they did. So it's, it's just at a different, it's in different context now because of social media, but it's still, we're still proud to be hunters. We're still, we still worked our ass off for this success and we want to share that.

• 1:30:12Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:30:12Cameron Hanes?

  But yeah, it's, it can be tough.

• 1:30:14Speaker 01

  I, I, I think people are, they're, they're, they're kind of missing out on, on the best parts of hunting. Now killing the animal, like being successful, quick, clean, ethical kill, a hundred percent. That's, you know, probably the best part. That's why we're out there.

• 1:30:29Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 1:30:29Speaker 01

  But you know, going back to, you know, my training, you know, uh, training guys in the military, it's like, you know, my training's a little, I talk about training a little bit different context than you do. Um, but it still is the same thing. It's like this, this objective of going out, say in September, is making every other aspect of my life, or you know, we espouse other people's lives. It should make every other aspect of your life better, right? You have motivation. You have a reason to get out of bed. Um, you have a reason to stay in shape, um, to be disciplined, all these things. And so if you just measure it on either the kill, be it a spike, or you know, maybe you

• 1:31:10Speaker 01

  didn't kill, it's like, are you telling me that the last year of preparation and training was wasted?

• 1:31:16Cameron Hanes?

  No.

• 1:31:16Speaker 01

  No, but the time that you have to put in to get that gratification is just delayed. And so you just gotta keep going.

• 1:31:23Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 1:31:24Speaker 01

  And so there's so much. There that enhances your life that I just hope people aren't dismissing because they don't get the reward right away.

• 1:31:33Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 1:31:33Speaker 01

  You know, we talked about that. It's like, there's gonna be a lot of people playing golf. You know, if they expect to go kill a bull within a year or two, and like a big bull, like it just doesn't happen very often.

• 1:31:44Cameron Hanes?

  No, it's so hard.

• 1:31:48Cameron Hanes?

  In regard to like your position with Sidka, like where do you see? To me, it's like, I think we see it with the bows. You're like, how can this bow get better?

• 1:31:58Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:31:58Cameron Hanes?

  This is like incredible, but every year it's like something happens, makes it more forgiving, more accurate, something. Where do you see clothing progressing to? Or do you think that like we're at the pinnacle of what we can do with clothing?

• 1:32:15Speaker 01

  Man, it's such a great question.

• 1:32:20Speaker 01

  I, every time I think we've gotten to kind of the pinnacle, like there's something else that maybe becomes available.

• 1:32:29Cameron Hanes?

  The gold in the down or whatever that was?

• 1:32:31Speaker 01

  Yeah, the gold, the gold dust on the down.

• 1:32:33Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah. That seems next level.

• 1:32:35Speaker 01

  Which is a real thing. But, but just to kind of speak broadly, it's, it's, people can wear less to still stay warm and comfortable in the field. So that, that is technology just kind of moving things along. So, you know, you talked about putting on nine layers or 12 layers or whatever it was. It's like, you can get away with four or five now.

• 1:32:57Speaker 01

  But, you know, with technology comes price. And so I think what's important is not just to build great product, but we have to bring the community along to understand the value it provides them, right? And why there's a cost associated and what the benefit it's going to be for them in the field. But I would tell you that insulation is one of the things that has continued to evolve and like in a meaningful way. So like the gold dust down. You know, even five years ago, I would have told you, people have accused me of like being anti-down. And I'm like, no, I'm not, I'm not anti-down, I'm pro synthetic insulation. Well, why? Well, because I don't have to think about it.

• 1:33:37Speaker 01

  And most people, like if they get it wet or get in a situation like they're going to be fine. But with down, with the treatments, like to your point, like you could lose the loft and all of a sudden you have nothing. It doesn't keep you warm and maybe you become hypothermic, right? Need to get rescued or whatever.

• 1:33:53Cameron Hanes?

  Right.

• 1:33:54Speaker 01

  And so, um, you know, nobody likes to be cold and wet. So if you can keep them warm and dry, like that's a benefit, but it's also a very easy benefit to measure. It's like, I put it on, I stayed dry, I stayed warm, this is great. And so being able to move in that direction, I think tech, uh, uh, insulation technology has definitely continued to improve, like that ambient you like so much, right? I love that piece, but like that was something where if you like, you don't have to dig into the details, but if you dig into the details and you realize that like there's different, there's different diameter fibers and different lengths, kind of mimicking animal fur

• 1:34:34Speaker 01

  to like help trap a little body heat, but also the face is breathable enough to like let heat escape. Like you don't need to know that stuff.

• 1:34:41Cameron Hanes?

  Right.

• 1:34:42Speaker 01

  But that's where it's going, right? And so like part of my job, our job is like to just communicate that at a digestible level to, to let people know, you can dig in if you want, or you can take our word for it.

• 1:34:55Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 1:34:56Speaker 01

  But when you're in the field, you should be able to experience the benefits of that. But, um, so there's, there's that, there's wearing less layers. And then I think, um, so that, that keeps you warm. And then the dry part is, uh, like Gore-Tex, right? And like where Gore-Tex is going. And so the ability to make things, you know, that dew point system I showed you was a pound and a half.

• 1:35:19Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 1:35:19Speaker 01

  I'm, I'm working on a system and now I'm not making any guarantees, but I'm feeling pretty confident. Like we're going to potentially be able to deliver a system. It's not going to be for everybody or everything that maybe is one pound or less, right? So like you go down to, you know, wherever San Carlos, like you probably don't use rain gear, but. Um, it's not what I would say you should take on a brown bear hunt in Alaska, but like for that insurance policy for the for the ounce counting sheep hunter. Like that might be what they need. And so taking weight out of your pack, which makes you perform better in the field. And then the things you take, even though they're less than ever,

• 1:35:58Speaker 01

  have greater performance than ever. And so you can take less to get more. And that's really where things are going. Sometimes they come with a really high cost and the value proposition isn't there to like, ah, maybe it's a little ahead of its time. Um, and so we have lots of things in the hopper. So just to give you an example, you know, this is summer of 2025.

• 1:36:25Speaker 01

  Fall 2026 is done. We're working on fall 27 and thinking about fall 28.

• 1:36:33Cameron Hanes?

  This is amazing.

• 1:36:34Speaker 01

  That's what it takes. And you know, on average, it's two years, maybe from ideation to commercialization of a product. That's, you know, on average, in best case scenario, sometimes it's three years. I've worked on projects four and five years. And just kind of had to shelve them at a certain point because either it was going to be too expensive. Uh, or the technology just wasn't there, or it was going to be so hard to communicate. It was more just like kind of a niche thing that wasn't really gonna, you know, improve anybody's life. But you gotta, you gotta be given the reins to do that stuff and try some things. And then not all of it works, right?

• 1:37:13Cameron Hanes?

  Some hit, some miss, but you're still always shooting for the stars.

• 1:37:16Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, we, you know, we want our batting average to be, you know, above average, but that's what it takes.

• 1:37:21Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 1:37:21Speaker 01

  So, um, but I think that the the, the building of it's one thing, but the educating of the consumer to like truly get that, drive that Porsche like as best you can, like that's when they actually really understand. And then, you know, if, if they ever do end up, you know, in a You know, I talk about survival a lot and, and I'm kind of known, you know, for teaching survival, but it's like, and it's a broad term, but you know, everybody's definition of survival is different. So as an example, uh, you know, you break your leg, you're in the middle of nowhere and you gotta in reach your buddy. Okay. And it's going to take him 24, 36 hours to get to you. And you've got to crawl under a tree, put on your clothing,

• 1:38:05Speaker 01

  make a fire and ride it out. Like, that's a survival situation.

• 1:38:08Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 1:38:09Speaker 01

  It could also be, I got a mule there on my back and you and I are packing back to camp. We get stuck in the cliffs. It's a moonless night and the best thing for us to do is sit down, wait till dark, or wait till dawn and then either go back up or like, find our way safely down through the cliffs.

• 1:38:25Cameron Hanes?

  Right.

• 1:38:26Speaker 01

  And then if I'm not experienced, if I don't have the right stuff, maybe it's a little wet. I start to panic and I'm like, you know what? F it, I'm going down. And then you fall and break your hip.

• 1:38:36Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 1:38:36Speaker 01

  Right? And so, exactly. And so, the better prepared you are, the better decisions you can make.

• 1:38:42Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 1:38:42Speaker 01

  Uh, the better in shape you are, the better decisions you make cognitively and all this stuff. And so, what I want is not just to build the best product, but I want people to know what they've got, the capability they have. So when they find themselves, you know, sitting on the bull, wait until daylight with the fire going to keep the grizzly bears away, or in the cliffs, or whatever, um, that they understand, just like that rewarming drill, like, you've got the capability on your back to survive this. You're not a victim. You're just going to have an uncomfortable situation, not necessarily life and death.

• 1:39:17Cameron Hanes?

  Right.

• 1:39:17Speaker 01

  Right? And so, all this is what this modern stuff does. Whereas, you know, I, I give this, uh, you know, I give this seminar called Survival for the Modern Hunter. I actually got a course on, on that as well. But, uh, but really I use a picture of Fred Bear and he's standing there looking at the mountains. He's got his recurve, he's got probably a, a canvas, you know, duck camo jacket on. And I'm like, If that guy gets wet and you get wet, I don't care if it's Fred Bear or not, that guy's in a world of hurt compared to you now. And like he either has to leave the mountains, he has to try to start a fire, he has to go back to the wall tent. You can stay there and take advantage of that one hour window and maybe a week where you said the weather

• 1:40:00Speaker 01

  breaks and that's when the elk, you know, steps out into the meadow.

• 1:40:03Cameron Hanes?

  Right.

• 1:40:04Speaker 01

  And so that's a capability you have. And so all those things are what we have at our disposal now. I mean, we got it better than ever. We could actually say like, you know, we talked about it already, but the gear's amazing. Like you don't have to be as tough as you used to be. Like in one regard, in another regard, you've got to be real tough because maybe there's not as many animals or there's more people or more competition for sure, you know?

• 1:40:28Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah. It's a, where I noticed too is like, we've talked about big examples, but to me, it's a lot of little decisions you make on the hunt, little shortcuts people make when they get fatigued or they get tired, their pack gets too heavy. Whereas this stuff, because it is lighter and more effective and allows you to maybe perform at a higher level. I think back to, like I use poles when I'm doing some of these ultras.

• 1:40:50Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:40:51Cameron Hanes?

  And the poles that I use, they're carbon, of course, but they're also not adjustable. When they're adjustable, they weigh a little more because you have to have that extra sleeve in there to, to change the height. So I get them exactly the right height so they're lighter. When they're lighter, I'm using less energy. So I, I say all that to say that when you're hunting and your pack and your system is just so dialed in, you don't have this extra fabric. The fabric you do have is higher quality or performing higher allows you to, to operate at a higher level. When you're on that stock and it actually matters, or you're having to go and the, the bulls are across a canyon, you got to get over there before the sun falls or goes down or before the, when the wind switches or you're taking

• 1:41:36Cameron Hanes?

  advantage of time essentially. You can do that, you're more likely to do that when you're more efficient. This gear helps you be more efficient. It allows people, you know, because you can always justify shortcuts in your head like, I don't have time to get all the way around that ridge. Maybe if I just go up the bottom, well, wind's going up to them.

• 1:41:56Speaker 01

  That's always when I get burned.

• 1:41:57Cameron Hanes?

  Should have went around the top, but people, you know, even if it's subconscious, it's because they're fatigued. Because maybe their pack's a little heavier than it needs to be. Because maybe they don't have the, the best top end sick gear, whatever gear they're using. And all that makes a difference. It's, yes, it's the big things, but oftentimes it's the little things and it's a bunch of little things that add up to who's successful and who's not.

• 1:42:24Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:42:24Cameron Hanes?

  So I just think that, yeah, it's, it's a, it's a great time to be a mountain bow hunter. And you're doing a good job of making people like, uh, putting more odds, like, I don't know, just, I don't know, getting the odds in their favor.

• 1:42:42Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, as much as possible.

• 1:42:44Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 1:42:44Speaker 01

  You know, I mean, going back to, you know, training in Kodiak and nobody likes being cold. If you can keep them warm, then they stay engaged, right?

• 1:42:52Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 1:42:53Speaker 01

  Maybe if you're, if you're not freezing your ass off, you're like, okay, I need to hydrate. I need to fuel up, whatever, I stay focused. You're making good decisions and you know, oftentimes it's like, if, if you make one bad decision, it tends to lead to a series of others. And so you have to break that cycle immediately. But if all of a sudden you're cold, you're wet, you're losing focus, you make one bad decision, you take the next shortcut, which leads to the next bad decision. These are when things spiral out of control, right?

• 1:43:21Cameron Hanes?

  Right.

• 1:43:22Speaker 01

  And, um, and, and so all this just helps you stay engaged in the hunt. And so it's, it's an awesome time. I mean, in one regard, it's an awesome time. In another regard, I, I wish I was able to bow hunt a hundred years ago, right?

• 1:43:35Cameron Hanes?

  Me too. I want it all.

• 1:43:37Speaker 01

  I, I do.

• 1:43:38Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah, why not?

• 1:43:41Cameron Hanes?

  The peanut gallery has a question for you.

• 1:43:43Speaker 01

  Oh, wow.

• 1:43:44Cameron Hanes?

  This is you.

• 1:43:45Speaker 02

  You're on. Have you, uh, listened to this part of any of the other podcasts?

• 1:43:50Speaker 01

  Uh, apparently not, because I was gonna ask you.

• 1:43:55Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah, we have. I just forgot.

• 1:43:56Speaker 02

  Yeah. Okay. So.

• 1:43:59Speaker 01

  Is this question from you?

• 1:44:01Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 1:44:01Speaker 01

  Okay. God only knows what it's gonna be.

• 1:44:07Speaker 02

  Mary kill. Backcountry bow hunting, diving, or mountaineering?

• 1:44:16Cameron Hanes?

  You have to, you have to marry kill all three of those. Which ones which?

• 1:44:19Speaker 01

  Oh, oh.

• 1:44:20Cameron Hanes?

  So here's how it works. Kill something you don't care about.

• 1:44:24Speaker 01

  Diving or kill diving.

• 1:44:26Cameron Hanes?

  Okay, kill.

• 1:44:27Speaker 01

  I don't ever want to dive again.

• 1:44:28Cameron Hanes?

  Mary is what you love the most.

• 1:44:30Speaker 01

  Bow hunting.

• 1:44:31Cameron Hanes?

  And what you're, so you're.

• 1:44:33Speaker 02

  Mountaineering?

• 1:44:34Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah. That means just, just for fun every once in a while.

• 1:44:37Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah. No, that's perfect. That's exactly, that's my answer.

• 1:44:40Cameron Hanes?

  So the mountains, buddy.

• 1:44:44Speaker 01

  And I never want to dive again, but I want to bow hunt forever.

• 1:44:47Cameron Hanes?

  Perfect. That's it. Do you have a?

• 1:44:49Speaker 02

  I got, I got another good one.

• 1:44:51Cameron Hanes?

  Okay.

• 1:44:52Speaker 02

  You talked about earlier where you were wanting to be a mountain guide.

• 1:44:56Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:44:56Speaker 02

  Do you believe that the mountaineering industry is a good place to draw inspiration from for Sitka? Um, as their kind of technical gear has maybe been a little bit ahead of the hunting industry?

• 1:45:06Speaker 01

  Uh, that's an awesome question. So really, Sitka was born from, you know, the two founders hunting in mountaineering clothing. Cause at the time it was the only like technical stuff.

• 1:45:19Cameron Hanes?

  Right.

• 1:45:19Speaker 01

  Problem was it wasn't quiet. It wasn't built for what we do, didn't have camouflage. A lot of times you're buying it from brands who, you know, were anti-hunting.

• 1:45:27Cameron Hanes?

  REI.

• 1:45:28Speaker 01

  Yeah. Um, so that's where the inspiration came from. And I think that at the time, so Sitka's 19 years old right now, be 20 years old in 26. Um, that, that the hunting industry writ large was, I'll bet you 20 years behind the outdoor industry. So.

• 1:45:49Cameron Hanes?

  Or the mountaineering industry.

• 1:45:50Speaker 01

  Yeah, the mountaineering industry like, and, and in some regard, you can understand why, because you know, they're going out in very harsh climates. They're, they're, you know, they're climbing, they're, they're taking a lot of risk. And hunting just hadn't caught up. It was the same thing with the military. The military, when we built that first clothing system, was at least 20 years behind the outdoor industry, the mountaineering industry. Um, I would tell you now that we're at least on par with, and I would even argue, and I could give you, you know, I could give specific examples if people wanted, but I would even argue that we are ahead of most of the mountaineering industry, at least at Sitka. But I think that, that holistically speaking, the hunting industry, at least the top brands.

• 1:46:34Speaker 01

  Are on par and I would say we've even led that and the reason I could say that is, you know, we talked in our video about the system like we're creating textiles to solve problems. We're using insulations that have never been used before. We're, we're building insulations with, you know, we built an insulation with Prima Loft. Like very few brands anywhere in the world are able to do that. So yes, I, I think that we got inspiration from them, but I think now that, you know, we're, we're all on an even playing field. Sorry, I don't give short answers.

• 1:47:05Speaker 02

  No, that's good.

• 1:47:05Cameron Hanes?

  That was good. Yeah, that's in, that is interesting because that's been pretty much what like the common thought is that we're always behind. You know, we're hunting is always behind mountaineering because everybody point to our, our Terics or

• 1:47:20Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 1:47:20Cameron Hanes?

  Like even, you know, the Rangers, they used to use a lot of Patagonia because they, they had a little more leeway on what they could use and where

• 1:47:28Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:47:28Cameron Hanes?

  as opposed to the big army.

• 1:47:30Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:47:30Cameron Hanes?

  But yeah.

• 1:47:32Speaker 01

  Yeah, I'm very familiar with the Patagonia system, Arc Terics, you know, when we, when we initially started that work, I don't know, back in oh three or whatever, uh, you know, all those, all those brands like reached out and like said, hey, we're here to help. And so that's, you know, that was kind of where my, the beginning of my pedigree came from. Um, but dude, they were so far ahead, like light years ahead.

• 1:47:53Cameron Hanes?

  Right.

• 1:47:54Speaker 01

  And it's just been fascinating to watch what's happened with hunting and, and us being able to get up to speed. And then like I said, it's kind of neck and neck, but sometimes we'll surpass them here and then sometimes we'll surpass this area, but we're learning from each other and, and we definitely, I think we're definitely, um, looking at each, each community is looking at each other to try to learn something.

• 1:48:17Cameron Hanes?

  Well, you're a great resource for Sitka because you're definitely pushing the envelope on that and the results speak for themselves. So I don't know if the other brands have somebody like you, but if they don't, they're behind.

• 1:48:32Speaker 01

  Did you guys have any more?

• 1:48:33Speaker 02

  I got one more.

• 1:48:33Speaker 01

  Uh oh.

• 1:48:35Speaker 02

  If you had to choose one material or textile to design with for the, for the rest of your time, what would you choose?

• 1:48:42Speaker 01

  One material or textile? So I'm a huge, I'm a huge fan of Windstopper. And I can't give everything away, but like, so lots of reasons. One, Windstopper's the name implies, like blocks wind, right? Why is that important? Because if I can cut the wind without the penalty of bulk, and you know, you talked about like you can layer it under, you can layer it over. We talked about that. Um, if I can cut that wind and convective heat loss, then I can stay mobile. I can stay active. I can draw my bow. I can climb the mountain. I can crawl in, you know? People ask me a lot, what do I wear, you know, crawling on that mountain goat when it's like inclement weather? Cause rain gear is going to be too loud. And I'm like, man, Windstopper is it.

• 1:49:26Speaker 01

  And there's so many, there's so many ways to like manipulate it and apply it and, and pattern it in, or, you know, we have a, a Jetstream jacket that's, you know, one of the OGs of Sitka, been around forever. We've got a lighter weight version.

• 1:49:43Speaker 01

  I, I can, I can do so many things with that, um, that, that that's, that, that's what I would, that's what I would use. And, and, and there's, you know, I can't give, give it away, but like, you know, you talked about the future, like there's iterations of that, that I'm really excited to try to like bring to market, um, cause I think there's a lot of upside. So yeah, Windstopper.

• 1:50:03Cameron Hanes?

  Awesome. Good stuff. Is that it?

• 1:50:07Speaker 02

  Um, I mean, we could choose another one. It might get.

• 1:50:09Speaker 01

  All right. I'm going to give you, let's see, I'm going to hold myself to a three word answer.

• 1:50:13Speaker 02

  A three word answer?

• 1:50:14Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 1:50:15Speaker 02

  Okay. You've lived.

• 1:50:20Speaker 02

  This is, I'm going to challenge you now.

• 1:50:21Speaker 01

  I, I, I myself.

• 1:50:24Speaker 02

  You've lived multiple high performance lives from the Navy, uh, backcountry hunting, now designing, uh, clothing gear.

• 1:50:34Speaker 02

  How would you say that, or how would you use those high pressure situations to help kind of develop your career path, uh, as a leader and someone who, who's a voice for, for men?

• 1:50:46Cameron Hanes?

  Three words?

• 1:50:48Speaker 01

  Be an asset.

• 1:50:50Cameron Hanes?

  There you go.

• 1:50:50Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:50:51Cameron Hanes?

  Right.

• 1:50:52Speaker 01

  Always, always, yeah. So all those things can help make the rest of your life easy. Cause I always like try to, perspective is a beautiful thing, right? Because you control your perspective. Like it could be the worst hunt and you're just like getting your ass kicked. But if you change your perspective, you can be like, okay, this is a learning experience. It's going to happen. Maybe I gotta drive eight hours home and come back, but like that perspective changes things. But, um, so that, that's one thing, but like it helps you in your daily life, but it's like always trying to be an asset somewhere to someone. And it's like, man, maybe it's not my hump and I'm going to help my buddy, whatever. Like that, that's what I would tell you.

• 1:51:32Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah. I'd always, whenever we'd have a meeting over at work, I'd always just say, make a difference.

• 1:51:38Speaker 01

  There you go.

• 1:51:39Cameron Hanes?

  And just, cause people sit in meetings, they don't say shit. Can make a difference in there. But yeah, so it goes right along those lines, but yeah, we're just trying to make a positive impact and.

• 1:51:49Speaker 01

  Dude, there's a lot worse things in life to do than help people. Right? And, and that's one thing you've done. I've, I've talked about that other place, but like the, the inspiration you provide to such a diverse group of people, the motivation that we all need, you know, dependent, maybe I don't need as much as the other person, but like we all need it at some point. Like that is a wonderful mission in life to have, like there's a lot worse things you could be doing.

• 1:52:14Cameron Hanes?

  I agree. Yeah. Good stuff, man. What a great discussion. I, I really enjoyed it, John. Are we good guys? Or you got another one?

• 1:52:23Speaker 01

  I got, I got another one.

• 1:52:25Cameron Hanes?

  All right. I'm not, I'm not holding myself to any.

• 1:52:27Speaker 01

  Oh, this one should be.

• 1:52:28Cameron Hanes?

  Word count here.

• 1:52:28Speaker 01

  Okay. What's one non-negotiable for your daily routine?

• 1:52:36Cameron Hanes?

  Oh, man.

• 1:52:37Speaker 01

  To, to not be too specific, I would say that every day I try to do something that I don't necessarily want to do. I'll give you an example and I'm going to hold myself to a word count.

• 1:52:49Cameron Hanes?

  Out of your comfort zone.

• 1:52:50Speaker 01

  But, but yeah. So I'll give you an example. It's like, I decided one year, a couple of years ago, I'm like, I am going to take away

• 1:53:00Speaker 01

  the comfort of a hot shower.

• 1:53:05Speaker 01

  Until I kill a bull, which was nine months away. And so for nine months, I did never took a, I always took an ice cold shower.

• 1:53:15Cameron Hanes?

  Whoa.

• 1:53:15Speaker 01

  Like, didn't count, like,

• 1:53:17Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 1:53:17Speaker 01

  cold plunge, like, I denied myself that gratification.

• 1:53:21Cameron Hanes?

  So did it?

• 1:53:22Speaker 01

  Because it helped me build just some mental resiliency. When you, and I listened to Huberman talk about this, it's like, sometimes it's like, the shower, the cold plunge is one thing, but it's, it's that mindset leading up to actually doing it that maybe is even more beneficial. Right? And so it's like, I'm gonna, I'm gonna do something sucky every day, whatever it is, just to be disciplined, to force myself to do something that I don't necessarily want to. And it can be the simplest thing, right? It's like, you know what? I'm not gonna have coffee this morning. I'm not gonna have coffee till 10 a.m. I'm gonna take a cold shower, whatever it is. But it's like, I'm going to hold myself accountable to that because I don't want to do it.

• 1:54:03Cameron Hanes?

  What I like about that example is you had it tied to a specific

• 1:54:07Speaker 01

  Goal.

• 1:54:08Cameron Hanes?

  result, and the goal. It's like, so every day you did that, you were thinking about why you're doing it. Why are you doing it? It's because you need to kill a bull.

• 1:54:14Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:54:14Cameron Hanes?

  So when you're thinking about killing a bull every single day, which maybe you would have without it, but for sure, it's like driven, I mean, it's, it's getting driven home every day. It's like, I'm doing this till I kill a bull. And it's like, that is a focus of everything, man.

• 1:54:28Speaker 01

  And what a beautiful thing to have this, you know, this passion in our lives, which, you know,

• 1:54:32Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 1:54:32Speaker 01

  is bow hunting, that makes the rest of our lives better. So like, just that thought of, you know, that motivation to get to September and, and make that perfect shot. And it's like, every day I'm gonna think about that. And it's gonna make my, my life leading up to that better because I'm gonna build that discipline in and make myself, you know, do difficult things.

• 1:54:52Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah. And then when you kill that bull, all that confidence you gain from that whole exercise, I mean,

• 1:54:58Speaker 01

  And, and that's where, it just rolls from there.

• 1:55:01Cameron Hanes?

  For sure.

• 1:55:01Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:55:02Cameron Hanes?

  I love it. Anything else?

• 1:55:05Cameron Hanes?

  We're good?

• 1:55:06Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:55:06Cameron Hanes?

  Okay. Well, John, this has been, man, just an incredible, incredible day. I mean, I loved going through all the gear and I think that video is really going to help people. But I also love this discussion and just talking bow hunting.

• 1:55:18Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:55:18Cameron Hanes?

  Um, and that, this has been, I don't know, one of my favorite podcasts, just because I just like hearing good stories.

• 1:55:26Speaker 01

  I just love talking bow hunting, man. I appreciate you having me on.

• 1:55:29Cameron Hanes?

  Oh, it's been, been amazing. Well, thank you. Um, I'm glad you made it out. I'm glad we had this opportunity and it's, it's definitely an honor to sit here and talk bow hunting.

• 1:55:37Speaker 01

  Yeah, thanks, Cam.

• 1:55:38Cameron Hanes?

  All right, thanks, brother.