Pull up a seat and join us at the campfire as we dive deep into the wild world of hunting, fishing, and the art of outdoor cooking with Victoria Tori Loomis - a Beretta ambassador, a gourmet game chef, and the brains behind the Gathering Girl. An adventurous spirit, Tori shares her remarkable transformation journey from a vegetarian to an ardent hunter and fisher after returning from culinary school. Listen to her enthralling stories about hunting and fishing experiences that brought her closer to nature and revitalized her sense of life. You'll get to hear our co-host, Chris Cantrell, and myself reflect on our personal memories of bass fishing, and Tori's triumphant first catch on a fly rod.
We venture into the realm of binoculars and how the right tools can significantly enhance your hunting adventures. Tori's fascinating narrative of transitioning from using regular binoculars to those with range finders offers invaluable insights for both seasoned hunters and novices. Our conversation takes an even more exciting turn as we discuss cooking wild game. Ever wondered about the dangers of consuming too much rabbit or the intricacies of cooking a rabbit pot pie with bone broth and cornbread? Tori's got you covered.
Navigating the complex world of hunting and fishing regulations can be daunting. We highlight the importance of understanding these rules to ensure a safe and enjoyable outdoor experience. Ending on a delicious note, we explore Johnny cakes, the revered southern delicacy, its origin, and the history behind it. The episode takes you through a whirlwind of hunting, fishing, cooking, and the connections they promote with the great outdoors. Wrap yourself in a warm blanket, grab a cup of coffee, and join us on this wild ride.
Find Josh on Instagram or Twitter.
Presented by:
Spoke Hollow Outdoors - find them on Instagram or Facebook.
For more great BunkHaus content, check out:
BunkHausPodcast.com | Youtube | Instagram
Pull up a seat and join us at the campfire as we dive deep into the wild world of hunting, fishing, and the art of outdoor cooking with Victoria Tori Loomis - a Beretta ambassador, a gourmet game chef, and the brains behind the Gathering Girl. An adventurous spirit, Tori shares her remarkable transformation journey from a vegetarian to an ardent hunter and fisher after returning from culinary school. Listen to her enthralling stories about hunting and fishing experiences that brought her closer to nature and revitalized her sense of life. You'll get to hear our co-host, Chris Cantrell, and myself reflect on our personal memories of bass fishing, and Tori's triumphant first catch on a fly rod.
We venture into the realm of binoculars and how the right tools can significantly enhance your hunting adventures. Tori's fascinating narrative of transitioning from using regular binoculars to those with range finders offers invaluable insights for both seasoned hunters and novices. Our conversation takes an even more exciting turn as we discuss cooking wild game. Ever wondered about the dangers of consuming too much rabbit or the intricacies of cooking a rabbit pot pie with bone broth and cornbread? Tori's got you covered.
Navigating the complex world of hunting and fishing regulations can be daunting. We highlight the importance of understanding these rules to ensure a safe and enjoyable outdoor experience. Ending on a delicious note, we explore Johnny cakes, the revered southern delicacy, its origin, and the history behind it. The episode takes you through a whirlwind of hunting, fishing, cooking, and the connections they promote with the great outdoors. Wrap yourself in a warm blanket, grab a cup of coffee, and join us on this wild ride.
Find Josh on Instagram or Twitter.
Presented by:
Spoke Hollow Outdoors - find them on Instagram or Facebook.
For more great BunkHaus content, check out:
BunkHausPodcast.com | Youtube | Instagram
I'm kind of turning red right now because I'm talking about some really first Don't turn red.
Speaker 1:So I retreated to nature for mental, like mental health purposes and then kind of found myself like every time I got into the woods by myself, like I'm a little nervous and you know like it's dark, and like taking brave steps little by little to and then like pulling the trigger, harvesting your first animal and dragging it in yourself and cleaning it yourself, and it just kind of opened me up to like a whole different way of like viewing life and connection and it made me not feel as empty. I was like, even though, like you think you're taking life, so that's death, you think like, oh well, this is heartless, heartless act. You know someone who doesn't hunt or doesn't, isn't a part of that world or doesn't understand it. They kind of look at that as like how do you just kill an animal? But it actually was the opposite for me. It kind of like gave me life and made me really appreciate life.
Speaker 3:Welcome to the Bunkhouse podcast broadcasting from the confluence of outdoor recreation and nature connectivity. I'm your host, josh Crumpton, founder of Spokalo Outdoors and the Losavajay Food Truck. My life as a rancher, guide, foodie and conservationist has provided the opportunity to meet some really great people, and the Bunkhouse is where we get to introduce them to you. In this episode, we talk with my Amiga sister from another mister and professional game chef, victoria Tori Loomis, aka the gathering girl, beretta, ambassador and all around superstar. We're joined by my co-host, the fishy dude himself and our head fishing guide at Spokalo Outdoors, chris Cantrell. We do some jaw waggon. We talk hunting, fishing, cooking and finding interconnections in the outdoors. With all that said, as per the usual, let's get this thing started. Well, it's been a minute. We are here today with my good friend, tori.
Speaker 3:Hi aka the gathering girl.
Speaker 1:No G at the end of gathering.
Speaker 3:Gathering Gathering. I'm sorry I didn't pronounce it right.
Speaker 1:I'm just kidding.
Speaker 3:Tori, the gathering girl.
Speaker 1:That's it.
Speaker 3:Beretta Ambassador.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:All star game chef. She knows all the other game chefs. She's the game, chef, to rule them all.
Speaker 1:Easy, easy.
Speaker 3:And a good old friend of mine. We've known each other a while. Kind of we're getting started on the road of doing this professionally together, sort of around the same time. Well, she'd been cooking game for a while, but um, I was still pretty new to it, though.
Speaker 1:Um, I was probably a year into it when we met, so, yeah, yeah, we were both babies yeah, and now look at us, we're all grown up.
Speaker 3:We're all grown up and uh, I've got a co-host, special co-host in the world here, chris Cantrell. Okay, the man on the oars are all star in the water. That's yeah yeah, I am. You guys went out fishing this morning. We did.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we did.
Speaker 3:How was it?
Speaker 1:I caught my first fish on the fly. Oh, that's badass. Yeah, it felt really cool. Um, I definitely think that I can now go fly fishing if anybody wants to invite me.
Speaker 3:Will invite you.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, so before when people would talk about fly fishing and stuff, I was just always like, wow, that seems like a lot. I couldn't really chime in on those conversations because I didn't know what it was or how to go about doing it, but did you call it fly flinging. Y'all gonna go fly flinging. I have been saying that I'm a fly fisher woman and I'm trying to remember that I'm. It's an angler.
Speaker 3:Fly angler A fly angler. A fly angler. It's an angler.
Speaker 2:I feel like angler is just easier to say, like fly fisher woman.
Speaker 1:It's a girl, it's a mouthful, it is it, is it is Well a fly fisher, just sounds weird.
Speaker 2:And it's yeah, is that a cat?
Speaker 3:Yeah and you really could just say I'm an angler, I'm an angler.
Speaker 1:It covers all bases and I know how to fly fish. There you go. That's it, yeah.
Speaker 3:You've been fishing for.
Speaker 1:All my days. Yeah, I've been fishing since I was a little girl.
Speaker 3:What's your earliest fishing memory?
Speaker 1:Oh, um. So I have a really good fishing memory. When I was about nine years old, my grandfather and I were fishing for bull redfish in Grand Isle of Louisiana and I remember like pulling some of those in and how much fun it was and he loved fishing. So, yeah, and we craved a lot. We would go to Grand Isle and run crabs uh, run like crab, I guess trot lines with like chicken nicks.
Speaker 3:Oh, oh, like not, not crab traps where they crawl.
Speaker 1:Oh no, we. We ran like lines with chicken nicks and then we'd go scooping up.
Speaker 3:I used to do that for for crawfish or crayfish, how do you say it? Crawlfish, crawlfish.
Speaker 1:Crawlfish Is there a?
Speaker 3:little ellen crawlfish.
Speaker 1:It could be. It could be.
Speaker 3:Chris, what's your earliest fishing memory?
Speaker 2:Uh, I was some lake in Colorado and my brother and I were trying to hook a dead fish. Yeah, we couldn't catch anything. Uh, my dad would just like give me and my brother a snoopy pole and send us out and ignore us. And there was this like dead, rotten fish at the bottom of this lake we were fishing into, my brother and I were trying to snag it with like a, like a blue devil, and nothing's changed.
Speaker 3:Snagging, still snagging them today.
Speaker 2:I loved snagging a dead fish. I still remember the first fish I ever caught on a fly rod, though, tell me, we were in Estes Park, and then it was a probably 10 inch brown trout and I foul hooked it in the side. Oh, unlike a size, probably 12 gold ribbed hares here.
Speaker 3:Well, probably felt like a 20 inch brown trout Felt huge.
Speaker 2:It was fantastic, and I was, I don't know. I was probably 10 years old. I still remember it. So now, tori, you can remember your first fish on the fly.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I do. I remember my first fish on the fly was today.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I think we established it's a reddier.
Speaker 3:A reddier sunfish you guys were on the same, marcus, yeah it was really cool.
Speaker 1:It's pretty, I just was really worried that I wasn't going to be able to. I don't know, I just didn't think I was going to be good at it, but I did it. It was fine. You were fantastic. You're good. I heard you were good. I heard it went well, I was bummed that I wasn't there.
Speaker 3:Did it rain on you guys? Nope.
Speaker 1:Didn't start raining until after we were finished.
Speaker 3:Well, my first fish that I remember was a photo of it. I think I was like maybe six or seven in this photo, like Buchanan I don't even know what I was, what kind I was using some sort of spin gear pole a family reunion at like Buchanan. This is my, my mom's ex-husband, my adoptive father Crumpton, and it was the Crumpton family reunion, which is a ho down, throw down because the Crumptons are country, and so I had this. I caught. I caught like a six pound bass. The thing was huge. I mean, I've got this photo of me in some 70s white like short shorts the ones that everybody wore back then and a striped like polo shirt holding this fish and I'm like six years old and the fish is like almost like as long as like like a body. I only remember it because of photo, because of childhood trauma. I think I blocked the rest of it out, but I always have that photo.
Speaker 2:We were talking about bass today while we were fishing, we saw a huge bass.
Speaker 1:But we also listened to Robert Earl King five pound bass. Have you ever heard that song?
Speaker 3:Yes, I have actually.
Speaker 1:Telling you, can we play it now. It's so good, did you guys play?
Speaker 2:it. Yeah, we did. We played it loud Shortly after we saw A five pound bass. That might have been seven, that thing was huge, didn't? Want anything to do with us. But we saw a massive bucket mouth shortly after we played the song. Did you cast it? Yes, she did.
Speaker 3:Yeah, he didn't like me, he didn't want your stuff.
Speaker 2:But it was still.
Speaker 3:That's how it goes sometimes Did you, did you play, did you use the turtle box? How was the new turtle box?
Speaker 2:Fantastic. Yeah, it was awesome. I did use the turtle box, yeah.
Speaker 3:Well, when the fish and slow, you can have a dance party. If you got a turtle box on the boat, you can just do that the dogs were definitely having a dance party. Oh, that's right, you had both, both dogs, two dogs, two dogs, like a four week old lab, five week old lab.
Speaker 1:Four months old, but he is still. I mean, that's what I meant.
Speaker 3:Four months, that's what I meant. 16 weeks Wrong. I got a drink, some more coffee. Hold on, where's my coffee?
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's what. That was his first time. Like I was not his first time on a boat, but that was his first time on a. What did I on a raft?
Speaker 2:It's a raft, or is he?
Speaker 1:called it a blow up boat. I was like well, I've never been in a blow up boat.
Speaker 3:He's like, he's like, he's like a blow up boat.
Speaker 1:It's like a floaty. It's a raft. Please don't say that.
Speaker 2:It's a floaty, I just I appreciate the blow up boat phrase, but it's I mean it's a raft.
Speaker 1:Well, so really, though, because I'm just so green to fly the fly fishing world, and so this whole these past two days have been like a huge eye opener for me. Listen to like all the lingo and there's a lot of lingo, by the way. I don't know if you guys realize that because you're in that world, but it's the same way with you know, in the hunting world. There's all this lingo and you have someone who's like really green to it. You're talking all the talk and doing all the things. It's like whoa, what is this? So I kind of got to be in that new space again through learning fly fishing. It's been a while since I've been so new to something.
Speaker 3:The first time was when you were here, like five years ago.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I just didn't even touch. I don't even think I tried.
Speaker 3:I was like I think you tried for like a second.
Speaker 1:We were like yeah, this is not I'm going to go cook food.
Speaker 3:Yeah, we're doing a weird photo shoot. It was a collaborative photo shoot with collective retreats and that was the photo shoot for our website. And to give everybody some context of how Tori and I met, it was through Amber McKenna Quinn Amber Haynes, McKenna Quinn, who's a stud. I love her.
Speaker 1:She's amazing, she's awesome. Yeah, she is, she's great.
Speaker 3:And she put out a casting call because we were looking to make sure we included women in all of our imagery that we were shooting for the website. And Tori sent in like the most of every. You know. A lot of people sent like I'd like to be part of this shoot, like a email message.
Speaker 1:I don't even know what you're about to say I'm nervous Tori sent, I think I said a media kit.
Speaker 3:You did. She sent a media kit and it was good and it was professional and so you've been pro from the beginning and it made it so easy.
Speaker 1:Wow, thank you. So what's funny is I taught myself how to do all that stuff. I have a lot of fun doing that. It's like something I really like to do on the side.
Speaker 3:We used to play on Canva.
Speaker 1:We just like to play on Canva and build things.
Speaker 3:Is that how you made? That was in Canva, that was early Canva then.
Speaker 1:It was in Canva. Yeah, I used to just get on there and build menus and build like restaurant concepts and pitch decks and so weird, people don't know that part of me.
Speaker 3:Well, you're super creative, and that was like one of the coolest things is when you showed up the shoot was weird. We won't get into that. If anybody wants to hear about that, you can just like send enough emails and then we'll tell you about the weird photo shoot, but otherwise we're not going to go down that rabbit hole. But what was cool is part of the food that we shot on that. You know, tori was there to model and then she was like I'll jump in and get on this food.
Speaker 1:Like, y'all don't need me to model, I'm going to do food we totally needed you to model but like.
Speaker 3:but she just got into, like, the food thing, and so a lot of the photos you see on our website. There's some photos of a board with some quail wings on it and stuff. And that was all all driven by you and we like rift back and forth.
Speaker 1:We were like oh, this is so cool yeah it's fun.
Speaker 3:I love riffing. We didn't get to riff enough this weekend.
Speaker 1:We needed we had a really good weekend. I would say, this weekend was really successful.
Speaker 3:We did and I've kind of watched from the distance of in stocking lurking on the stalker.
Speaker 1:Do I get?
Speaker 3:that and have sort of just watched you do more and more stuff. I started to get super jealous because you're in Texas so much and I didn't see you any of the times you were in Texas and I was like, hey, you need to already be booked, or like it just didn't. It just didn't work, and so I had to wait till hunting season was over to call you to get to meet up. I've got some things open for next season, though, so we'll have to do some stuff.
Speaker 1:I still have some time blocks open, so I'm excited.
Speaker 3:Yeah, we should I love Texas.
Speaker 1:Though Texas is special to me, I always I swear, if I ever move like out of state, out of like Mississippi, louisiana, I will probably end up in Texas.
Speaker 3:You could just be a seasonal.
Speaker 1:Texas.
Speaker 3:So it was really neat when I had this Hill Country Hoedown come up and I was like you know what I'm going to call? I would call the couple chefs. I was like you know what? I haven't tried colontory in a while. I'm going to see if it will work out.
Speaker 2:And I was super stoked when you were like this this will work.
Speaker 3:And so this weekend, you know, much like the last time that we met. It was the last time we were together.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 3:And the first time we met was a meeting of a bunch of people who didn't know each other, and that's really what this weekend was to. It was another sort of curated community of great people, and it really I mean tell me your thoughts on the weekend. What were your highlights?
Speaker 1:Oh man. Well, first of all, coming into driving in, I'm just like, okay, I'm kind of nervous about doing some well-gamed demos just because I get a little nervous about demoing stuff in front of people, even after doing it, like I've done it from then to now. I've done it so many times, but I still get like nervy about it. And then I'm like, oh, who are all these new people I'm gonna meet? Because that is a part of it. It's like, okay, these are the people you're gonna work with and hang out with for the next three to four days. Like it is a gamble. I mean, I've showed up to jobs or showed up to be around people, and you're like these are not my people and I'm here. This was polar opposite from that, though. It was a really beautiful experience. I think we all like really blended well together and we had a really good time working, which is you know it's beautiful.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I thought you and Kayla were gonna like burn the whole place down or something.
Speaker 1:I mean I'm like yeah, like I'll teach, let's go hunting and you can take me fishing.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and you went to a couple shows.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we did. On a whim decided to go see Zach Bryan. Then we saw Tyler Childer.
Speaker 3:And, more importantly, like you saw, you saw an icon, a legend.
Speaker 1:Oh, we saw Winona Judd too. That was the. That was a weird thing to see so many young people not know who she was, and I was just like how do you people not realize like you're in the presence of a goddess?
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:But she would just like get on the microphone and be like hey, I know y'all don't know me, but people used to.
Speaker 3:I used to be. I used to be a really big deal, and she is still a big deal.
Speaker 1:Yeah, she had on three belts. What?
Speaker 3:That was the weirdest thing. How do you?
Speaker 1:wear three belts. I don't know she had on three belts and they were big Wow.
Speaker 3:I might need to look a photo of this.
Speaker 1:Oh, three belts I could be into that.
Speaker 3:You know what to get me for Christmas now, Chris? At least one belt. At least one. Find two other people and I want big, big like world champion rodeo belts.
Speaker 1:Well, I know I was definitely doing that.
Speaker 3:One of the things that has stood out sort of after us initially meeting and then watching your path, your journey is your connection to food, your connection to community, how you use wild game as a vehicle to tell your personal story and carry that out, and you're very open with that.
Speaker 2:Tell me a little bit about.
Speaker 3:You're very open with that Wild game, your story. You know how that plays out for you.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean, yeah, I am very open about it and sometimes I think it kind of like shocks people a little bit, but that also kind of keeps I don't know keeps some people away, which probably does me some good. So I my connection to I used to not be very connected to food and nature and all those things and I was just kind of running this crazy rat race. And when I went to culinary school, like being so close to food and wanting to, I wanted to be a good chef. But you really can't, you're not really good at anything if you don't want to be connected to it. So was vegetarian for a little while in culinary school and then transition.
Speaker 3:Wait a minute. I know I like to throw that in there. Hold on, you were vegetarian.
Speaker 1:Yeah, for a little while in culinary school when I learned kind of some of the things with factory farming and how different practices and stuff. My way of combating that was me and my children were just going to eat, you know, vegetables and da, da da. So I would like I was just really trying to figure things out. I did that too for a while. It worked in that rouge.
Speaker 3:I'll admit that I was a vegetarian when I was younger for a little while.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I was just trying to like I didn't want to have take part those things. That was my way of being, like I'm not going to be a part of that. But we grow and we learn and that's kind of this has really evolved in come full circle. But I lived in Baton Rouge so I had access like a whole foods and you know places where I could go and spend a lot of money on organic vegetables. But when I moved back home after school I didn't have that.
Speaker 1:I mean, the town that I moved I moved back in with my parents when I moved back home and the town that they lived in had like a gas station and a dollar general but there's unlimited access to like wild game land. They lived on a lake so there was just so much you could do. And I mean my dad was a hunter, my brother was a hunter, so I grew up around hunting and fishing and all that Knew I could fish and started gardening and doing all that stuff. But really you know few bad relationships and found myself like needing to kind of be more connected to everything that I loved and I found myself just like retreating to nature.
Speaker 3:I'm kind of turning red right now because I'm talking about some really personal stuff. Don't turn red, don't turn red.
Speaker 1:So I retreated to nature for mental, like mental health purposes and then kind of found myself like every time I got into the woods by myself, like I'm a little nervous and you know like it's dark and like taking brave steps little by little to, and then, like pulling the trigger, harvesting your first animal and dragging it in yourself and cleaning it yourself, and it just kind of opened me up to like a whole different way of like viewing life and connection and it made me not feel as empty. I was like, even though, like you think you're taking life, so that's death, you think like, oh well, this is heartless, heartless act. You know someone who doesn't hunt or doesn't, isn't a part of that world or doesn't understand it. They kind of look at that as like how do you just kill an animal?
Speaker 1:But it actually was the opposite for me. It kind of like gave me life and made me really appreciate life, whereas before I didn't have much appreciation for life. I've had, like I've totaled like nine cars, had a lot of crazy experiences and things that where I just didn't really appreciate my life and realized, like what a gift it is to be here. So then I went down the path of like, oh, what I put into my body matters, and how can I communicate that to people without, like, being overbearing and pouring all the trauma on them?
Speaker 2:So I'll just make these beautiful.
Speaker 1:I'll just make these beautiful dishes and try to tell a little story here and there.
Speaker 3:So, and you do it really well.
Speaker 1:I probably do it better writing than talking. I don't know.
Speaker 3:I think you know also. You know, if people don't know this about you you're an amazing singer. Oh God, you were singing last night in in.
Speaker 1:That was tequila, really good.
Speaker 3:I don't know that the tequila was singing but you were doing a great job Thanks. You should sing more often.
Speaker 2:It was wonderful.
Speaker 3:Really.
Speaker 1:Oh, I enjoyed it so much yeah, really, oh, yeah, well dang Dang.
Speaker 3:That could be in a whole another facet to you too.
Speaker 1:Wow, so I can start. I'll start singing while I'm cooking. That's what I should definitely do.
Speaker 3:I sing and cook, but but I do that so that my cooking tastes better, because my singing is so freaking. God awful, like man you can't sing. But this food's not that bad.
Speaker 2:It's not as bad as you're singing, it changes the metric for you.
Speaker 3:Also, he stopped singing when he served us the food. It's just like conditioning them.
Speaker 1:It's just like it can't be that bad I don't believe you.
Speaker 3:No, I think it's really bad, but people have heard it on. Who have watched or listened to the show, they will have heard it in several episodes and they.
Speaker 1:I'm excited, I'm excited, would fully say oh my God, it's.
Speaker 3:don't let him sing. So it's going to have friends who know how to sing White tail hunting was that your primary?
Speaker 1:That was my first love, yeah. Was white tail hunting, so it was a big game, first love.
Speaker 3:But lately I see you out like so many ducks yeah.
Speaker 1:It's been a fun transition. So I fell in love with white tail hunting. Let's see, that was kind of you know when I was first getting into hunting and what it was. It was the meditative part of that to go out and to be by myself. I mean I was like packing. I was such a freaking weirdo.
Speaker 1:I still like to do this though, like packing a little lunch or like whole family knows like okay, so it's white tail season, tori's unavailable for like eight hours a day, like this is, and to go out there and like not talk to anyone, not have any phone service, and just be completely by myself in the woods.
Speaker 1:People are like what did you see? And I'm like I saw a squirrel, I saw a raccoon, I saw 16 birds and there was a doe and a yearling and a buck, and like watching animal patterns, watching how deer move, I really fell in love with that. Even during hunting seasons I would take my dog and work her and let her like retrieve ducks and stuff for people, but I never. I was never really even comfortable with a shotgun until just recently. Honestly, like I'm comfortable with a rifle and I'm comfortable with my bow, but it's taken a long time for me to just say, okay, I'm gonna go shoot some ducks. I mean I've gone out hunting and stuff. But I had and I'd gone on a few duck hunts and this and that, but not anything like what this year's been like.
Speaker 3:Did you learn to call this year? Did you do some calling?
Speaker 1:I have not learned to call, and I would like to. I'm not there yet, though. Yeah, I'm not very good at it, I'm baby stepping.
Speaker 3:Mine is like hey.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'm baby stepping, for sure.
Speaker 3:Duck over here, food looks good.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I have no shame in saying like I think that there are a lot. I usually end up with some people who are pretty good at it and, like y'all do that.
Speaker 3:That's the problem is, every time I go duck hunting there's somebody who's better at that than me.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:And so I just kick back. But this year I'm calling and throwing spreads and like running my dog and doing the whole thing.
Speaker 1:I'm gonna have to call them for some of that.
Speaker 3:Yeah, oh yeah for sure you should come for teal season, absolutely. I'm doing three different dates of teal with Amber from McKenna Quinn.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 3:We should do that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I would love to. That'd be great.
Speaker 3:September 8th through the 14th, and then there's dove right before that, and you're gonna have to.
Speaker 1:you should probably just come to Texas for September.
Speaker 3:Just be here for September I think so I might plan to do that. I would like that. Yeah, Do you have gigs lined up in Texas?
Speaker 1:I'm kind of waiting to get the exact dates, but I think that's gonna be more of like the late November December thing. It's weird, though last season things didn't I didn't really know exactly where I was gonna be and what I was gonna be doing, until it was finally like mid September when I looked up and I was on the road for 27 days straight and I was like, oh, I'm gonna be busy, Cause, like I just kept taking things. I'd be like, oh, I have this slot, I have the. I'm like, yeah, I can come to Tennessee in between the 9th and the 11th and then fly to Michigan and then drive to Florida. And then I was like, okay, I think I'm good.
Speaker 1:Like I got home just in time for Christmas a little two weeks before Christmas, but no, it was a week before Christmas. So. But yeah, I will. There's a plan. I can't think of the name of the place that I'm gonna be in in Texas this year, but a friend of mine started managing this ranch and I think I'll be there at least two or three weekends.
Speaker 3:What area is it?
Speaker 1:I don't even know. I want to say Creek is in the name of the place something. There's a lot of Creek that doesn't help.
Speaker 3:West Cibolo.
Speaker 1:No, I really don't. I'll have to look.
Speaker 3:We'll figure it out. I'll be there, I'll show up, okay.
Speaker 1:They'll be like did you come here? No, I came here to eat.
Speaker 3:Can I just get the eating?
Speaker 2:package. I don't really want to shoot anything.
Speaker 3:Let's talk about Beretta, because that's cool, that's exciting.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's really exciting for me.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so I started, I did a few hunts with them and shoot like a girl.
Speaker 1:Where I was actually, I hunted, but I was also the wild game chef and did some demos, for it was like a group of women, a turkey hunt and they did a duck hunt also in Texas, and each one of those I prepared a wild game dish with something that the girls had harvested. The cool thing about those were, like I said, I was able to hunt too. So it was a little extra work on me because you know, you're like okay, I have to have all this stuff prepped out and ready to like teach people how to cook, but I'm also gonna go stalk this turkey every time I can. So it's like squeeze four hunts in and do all the cooking. So after the turkey hunt with shoot like a girl and Beretta, beretta reached out to me and we did a little film piece duck hunt in Frogmore, louisiana, my brother got to come on a hunt with me and that will be. I think that's gonna come out in the next few months, so I'm thinking end of August, september, that'll be released and oh cool.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so it's been really cool. They're a great company. I like their guns. I'm comfortable with a shotgun now, so Nice, and I love my gun.
Speaker 3:What are you?
Speaker 1:shooting. It is a A400 Extreme so and I wish I could think of the pattern that cause I love the way it looks too, the camera pattern that's on it. Yeah, I love the way it looks too, oh nice. It's OptiFade pattern, so there you go. Yeah.
Speaker 3:But you also shoot. You shoot a rifle. What kind of rifle are you shooting?
Speaker 1:Yeah, so I have a Tika. Just got a Tika 6.5 Creedmoor. It's a Rough Tech Ember.
Speaker 3:Nice.
Speaker 1:It's got like the. It's black with like the orange splatter.
Speaker 3:What kind of optics you have on it.
Speaker 1:I have a Leopold scope on there. Oh nice yeah.
Speaker 3:They make a good scope no-transcript. We'll have to drag you to Swarovski, drag you to the dark side.
Speaker 1:I'm a fan of Swarovski, no, so my mentor when I first started Whitetail Hunting. I was really fortunate when I first started hunting because I had a mentor that really took me under his wings and showed me all the tricks of the trade and let me use his gear and all those things. And the Swarovski binoculars were always, which is kind of funny, because now I pick up a regular pair of binoculars and I'm like I'm like you know, I really don't need those.
Speaker 3:It's funny because when I had my first really nice pair of binoculars the Swarovski when I picked up those Swarovskis and I looked through them because I hated binoculars, it just was like I just man, I always looked through them it was never good. I picked them up and I was like oh my goodness.
Speaker 1:I can see clearly. Now I understand why people use these things.
Speaker 3:You can actually see. Also, I learned to hold them the right way.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:You don't look through the big end. Oh man, I don't know. It's this thing I learned. Wait what?
Speaker 2:Yeah, you don't look through the big end. I've been doing it wrong. You've been doing it all wrong. It's been so long.
Speaker 3:But my, you know so long. What is it called Macrophotography, microphotography? I feel like it should be micro, but I think it's called macro. When you're taking photos of small things, is that, matthew? Can we get a fact check on that?
Speaker 1:Do we need to phone a friend?
Speaker 3:Do we need to? You're supposed to get a thing.
Speaker 2:My best guess is because it's a. The final product is a macro image. You're taking something very small.
Speaker 3:Oh, you're taking something big.
Speaker 2:And you're taking something small and you're making it very big.
Speaker 3:It's a macro Been doing it my whole life yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know what I liked about the Swarovski binoculars I used to use to. While we're still on that, yeah. This is how much I loved them, by the way, is they had the range finder on them, so that was another thing that's fooled me, because that's pretty sick.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So I was like hunting on this great property and everything's good, I've got the great binoculars. But it's like, okay, spread your wings, girl, Go hunt on your own. And I'm like I can't. Do you use regular binoculars and I have to have a range finder separate. Do people do that? But I didn't even realize at the time that that was really a thing.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I didn't even realize this is not convenient.
Speaker 1:I didn't realize how fortunate I was until I had to get out there and like, oh my God, like, what are people doing?
Speaker 3:Yeah, this is not as easy, no, but you know what it's really great to be blessed to get an entry point with a good mentor with somebody who really brought you in and spoiled the crap out of you. Well, so the thing is to like.
Speaker 1:Well, yeah but, it's also like set the tone for how I want to help others and how, like, if I can like I don't think I can let it. I don't have any of those binoculars to share with anyone, but, like you know how I would like I wanna say like, yeah, come with me. Like, yeah, use my gun, use my things. Like let's do this the right way so that you cause it really did make hunting easier for me to learn.
Speaker 3:Like I had all the tools and things I needed and the support to we talked about that, the when I was on the, I was podcasting with Kayla and Eureka Jones, who you met the other day and. I was talking about that and it's you know, for me.
Speaker 3:I entered the world of hunting and was very spoiled too, was very fortunate you know, to be able to use and have good gear, and it took me a while longer to come to a place where I had to strip down and take things away and say, okay, you can do this without all of this stuff.
Speaker 1:Right, yeah.
Speaker 3:You know you don't need a bunch of stuff to go do things, and I think that there's. You know, I feel a little bit robbed actually, because I kind of wish that I'd started with like hey kid, here's a, here's your. Actually I did start with an 1100 shotgun, or I mean to an 1100 with a full choke hunting dove. That was fricking hard that was. I was like I'm missing these birds all the time. Wait, if I shoot them at 60 yards I could hit them. That's like I had to shoot these. But I do think that there's something to you know growing up, did you grow up hunting, or was that later on? You grew up fishing, but did you grow up hunting?
Speaker 1:So I grew up around hunting. I mean, every weekend of duck season it was like a known thing that my dad and my brother were gonna be at duck camp. They actually had a camp called Camp no Ducks. D was it? D, e, a, u, x, no Ducks.
Speaker 3:No Ducks oh.
Speaker 1:So yeah, I grew up knowing that like that was a part, like a part of our family, like lifestyle. But I did not, I didn't kill my first deer until I was 23, 24, something like that.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so I grew up around it.
Speaker 1:My grandfather did. It was a part of like everyone around me's life, but I wasn't hunting.
Speaker 3:Was it? Was that because you were a woman?
Speaker 1:No well, yeah, I mean and like not to knock my dad or anything, but that was like their place, that's where the guys went. They went to duck camp. Now I went out there a few times and like I would shoot beer cans and go out there in the summer and I hung out with the dudes. I was a tomboy.
Speaker 3:You don't say I would never. I would never guess yeah.
Speaker 1:I was a tomboy. I tried to not be a tomboy sometimes, but it just.
Speaker 3:I was always a tomboy, you like to go do the stuff?
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:I like to do the stuff. Cantrell, you grew up hunting, no no, you didn't.
Speaker 2:I'm an adult onset hunter. You are, I am. When did you first start hunting? Probably like mid twenties, okay, and I started with an 870 Express 20 gauge. Oh, nice Walmart special that my brother had. What were you hunting for, rabbits?
Speaker 1:Rabbits. I freaking love rabbits, so yummy.
Speaker 2:We were chasing rabbits and occasionally dove because that's all we had. Rabbits are so good. Rabbits are delicious. I killed a lot of rabbits that year and we ate a lot of rabbits that year and it was delicious. But yeah, I grew up fishing.
Speaker 3:Did you know that rabbit is the only thing that you can go crazy from? You can be Rabbititis, Protein poisoned. The whole saying like crazy as a March Hare or wild as a March Hare or whatever it is, is because I mean you would have to only eat rabbit Strictly rabbit you have to only strictly.
Speaker 3:I mean, just a regular diet of a couple rabbits a week is not going to get you there. You would have to eat just rabbit, but you would get protein poisoning, which I don't want to try to talk about what that is, because I have no idea. It's like hyper ketosis or something I have no idea what it means.
Speaker 2:I called it rabbititis back in the day.
Speaker 1:Wait. So does that have anything to do with the? Because I know like you shouldn't eat rabbits when it's a hot month or whatever, like you're only supposed to really technically eat.
Speaker 2:If it ends in R Right, it has an R in it that's more like but worms and stuff like that.
Speaker 1:So that doesn't have anything to do with the crazy stuff.
Speaker 3:The crazy thing is just the protein. Like, if you have too much protein, they have no fact. You can go insane. Yeah, so if I were to bring you a rabbit like if Chris were to run out right now and shoot a rabbit- yeah. What would you do? How would you?
Speaker 1:cook it. Oh, I would do like a rabbit sauce, pickle probably.
Speaker 3:What does that mean? Can you explain that to those of us? I don't know what you just said.
Speaker 1:Sauce pickle.
Speaker 3:Oh.
Speaker 1:So, that I guess like cooked down in a tomato base sauce with, like you know, like the Trinity, celery, onion, bell pepper, but dredge it in flour and then cook it down with all that yummy stuff and make like a red gravy.
Speaker 3:Oh yeah, a little better rice, a little red gravy Is that. Is that like?
Speaker 1:It's a South Louisiana thing. Yeah, it's a red gravy.
Speaker 3:Is that like pasta sauce? No, get a bonus? No, not like a chef where I do.
Speaker 1:Not like the in the is like Italian, not with like the Italian seasonings and stuff.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, no, no.
Speaker 1:Like tomato base cook down, brew type tomato.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so like no you can't say Italian no, it is not Italian, french Okay.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Inspired French.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Well, yeah, cause French Cajun is that's kind of like. You know, the nature of South Louisiana cuisine is a lot of French influence, so yeah, chris, how would you prepare a rabbit if I gave you a rabbit?
Speaker 2:We did it, man. We made this one rabbit dish one time and it was kind of like a chicken pot pie when we we spatch cocked a rabbit Kind of kind of. I guess it was a cottontail, and we did like the not the holy trinity of Louisiana but the mirepoix, sort of vegetables.
Speaker 1:The other trinity.
Speaker 2:The other trinity. Carrots, carrots, onion, celery, sorry, yeah, and then added some bone broth that we had cooked down from some deer, some white tail, and then we made Like a cornbread. It was cornbread and we like, put it on like the cornbread um the batter, cornbread batter, and like, cover the top of everything with it and put it in a Dutch oven.
Speaker 1:This sounds really amazing.
Speaker 2:That sounds really good. I love that, it really explained that well. It was so good, uh, and like we've through, because you know green chili as a. So I'm new mexican-ish but I love my green chili and cornbread, so, yeah, like cornbread topped. Yum sort of sort of Rabbit pot pie kind of thing. I would do that any day.
Speaker 1:Cornbread is so good.
Speaker 3:I love cornbread, I mean cornbread is with butter and honey, with not butter and honey in my chili yes.
Speaker 1:Cornbread with mustard greens.
Speaker 3:How about hoe cakes? No, johnny cakes johnny cakes.
Speaker 1:Johnny cakes are a thing. Do you, you know about johnny cakes?
Speaker 3:Yeah, cornbread, cornbread, pancake base.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so freaking good. It's poor man's food.
Speaker 3:Let's make some johnny cakes with A with like rabbit.
Speaker 1:I so would.
Speaker 3:I put those on a menu one time.
Speaker 1:At a restaurant I was at. They were. I was actually I think a local magazine did an article about it because I was so excited about them.
Speaker 3:About the johnny cakes.
Speaker 1:Yeah, my dad used to make them when I was little. What he what he would do, though, is he would he? He did not like, doesn't like leftovers, so he would take like anything from the night before and like recreate it, and one of his things was like, if we had cornbread the night before, he would wake up the next morning and like remake the freaking cornbread and Douse it and like steen syrup. And like johnny cakes, his name is johnny too, so you always, I, always.
Speaker 3:I grew up thinking like he was the creator of johnny cakes.
Speaker 1:But then I had to do like I did when I put it on a menu. I um did this full-on like Research of like the origins of johnny cakes, and you know, soldiers used to use them because they could carry them in their pockets when they. I learned a lot about them, though.
Speaker 3:But it sounds like you, you have a history of johnny cakes you know, it's funny, I just got so excited when he yells like oh my god I had um. My mom's name is johnny. People would say joney spell j o and I so it was joney or johnny. Anyways, her name is johnny johnny, oh, and I'm joshua david.
Speaker 2:Johnny leon christopher, earl christopher victoria leon victoria, say it again Victoria leon, I love it. I could. Yeah, I say mine. Like I'm country, I'm like christopher earl, but like I don't talk like that, I'm like that's christopher earl, but because victoria is in the room, tory, I everybody has to use their twig. I just sort of mirror.
Speaker 3:That so my mom's a johnny leigh johnny.
Speaker 1:Johnny, you know, I like that.
Speaker 3:So uh, one of my early restaurants when I was younger called trios. Um, we put, I put johnny cakes and I spelled them j, o and I. I love that on the menu yeah, wow, we just bonded over johnny cakes.
Speaker 1:Wow, yeah, I know my heart.
Speaker 3:Okay, we're gonna make A rabbit. How about a squirrel? How about we do a squirrel?
Speaker 1:Yeah, because I don't. I'm not trying to take chance, I'm going crazy. I love rabbit, but yeah.
Speaker 3:Squirrel yeah we could shoot a squirrel. We'll shoot a squirrel and we'll make a squirrel. Johnny cake Thing yeah like the next time you're here.
Speaker 1:We could do fried squirrel and johnny cakes and steens and then like some pork belly.
Speaker 3:Who's a steen?
Speaker 1:Steen, is that a family?
Speaker 3:Is that? Is that a family?
Speaker 1:You don't know what steens. You do know what steens is.
Speaker 3:But not everybody does I don't see cantral doesn't know what steens is.
Speaker 1:I don't believe you right now.
Speaker 2:I'm like I. My ties to the south don't exist. I'm from the west.
Speaker 1:Well, you've already learned about grits polenta. We're not doing any polenta.
Speaker 3:That was harsh. They're grits, grits and grill odds. That's good stuff. That is good stuff.
Speaker 2:I love grits.
Speaker 3:What do we got coming up next when you're gonna be in texas next?
Speaker 1:For with me in september, september, is it gonna be all the?
Speaker 3:way till then.
Speaker 1:Can you come back in arkansas?
Speaker 3:Yeah, hell yeah brother, can you finish the white river, white river with us in arkansas.
Speaker 1:Yes, I'll cook, she can, she. Okay, I should we're gonna leave.
Speaker 3:We're gonna leave here on may 6th.
Speaker 1:Okay, and we're gonna wait, that's. Yeah are you serious?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I'm so excited.
Speaker 1:What if I cry right now?
Speaker 3:Yeah, we're leaving. We're gonna go to the white river. We're gonna be there for I don't know, like 10 days. And we're gonna fish, and you can come for as little or as much of it as you want.
Speaker 1:So I'll just call you and be like hey, I'm gonna come meet y'all.
Speaker 3:Yeah, we're camping. You know, I don't have a camp on camper. Yeah, okay.
Speaker 1:I'm a camper too. Chris is a camper.
Speaker 3:And that's gonna be like the beginning of, like our summer, our whole summer tour. Do you have stuff planned in the summer? What are you doing?
Speaker 1:So I was thinking about getting a like a real job for a little bit, just because this is like my downtime, but like if I can have things like that do, then I'm definitely.
Speaker 3:Stack that cash for the hunting season or yeah, well, I do okay.
Speaker 1:Wait, I do have some things.
Speaker 3:I always forget.
Speaker 1:I got really excited about that. Just my brain.
Speaker 2:I was like I just Just envision myself.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I just envisioned myself with the open fire and we're all hanging out and all the things, and yeah.
Speaker 2:So that got exciting. You singing, you singing.
Speaker 3:Mason actually might come.
Speaker 2:Mason needs to come you two sang together last night a little bit and it was magical, it was y'all, I really I just can't Think.
Speaker 1:that's so kind.
Speaker 3:Yeah and I and actually here's the thing Chris had been drinking. I actually hadn't been drinking.
Speaker 1:So this is. I only had a couple drinks. This is not impaired judgment.
Speaker 2:You weren't drinking, but you only had a couple drinks.
Speaker 3:I might have a problem. It's fine, this is, that's another. That's another podcast about how you consider drinking? That's what I mean anything over like six or seven drinks is probably drinking, and I wasn't drinking.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but I Tori wasn't drinking.
Speaker 2:I was but we were like three deep.
Speaker 1:That was the one I was brave enough to sing, but I like to sing my. My great aunt was a in a show band and she traveled like the country she said she was in a show band.
Speaker 3:What is a show? I don't know.
Speaker 1:Well, she's like 70 something now. So whatever they, I guess she was like in a band that traveled everywhere.
Speaker 3:That's pretty cool. Would pop up and do gigs and so, but okay, so we're gonna get you in a show band.
Speaker 1:No, no, you're not Okay. So back to the schedule. So end of may I'm gonna be in california, um, at the ranch that's the name of the place. Um, we're doing a women's warrior hunt retreat. That's a bow hunting retreat. It's a group of probably 10 of us kind of put this thing on and I'll be cooking and Other people will be teaching Women how to use their bow and they'll do like a 3d archery shoot. It's like a four to five day event. Um, I'll be doing some open fire cooking and feed everybody. That's really cool, really excited about that.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that sounds really fun. Can I come? No, I can't.
Speaker 1:You, really you could, you're quite good.
Speaker 3:I don't, I don't. I have a dress, but I do not pass as a woman.
Speaker 1:Okay, we've been talking about those things a lot too lately.
Speaker 2:That's a hard giveaway, josh.
Speaker 3:Um, I'm stoked. I'm really glad you came here. This has been fun.
Speaker 1:I'm glad I came to you.
Speaker 3:Let this go this long.
Speaker 1:No, well, I'm showing up to the camp trip, and yeah, so I'm so because we can record a podcast there and we should video.
Speaker 3:We're gonna make let's make this squirrel or rabbit, or I have some rabbits. So, okay, we have some non-R month chart. This is this is april, but may doesn't have an R in it, so there's always a as we can, as my, I don't understand what you just said to me, because may does not have an R in it is clear hotter, and that's not mayor than april mayor as well as my mentor and guiding taught me about august, august. August. I was like you, shot rabbit.
Speaker 2:It's august, he's like august. I was like, all right, you're still around, so may.
Speaker 3:Wait, wait. You can only shoot them in months with ours, with an hour, oh so we could shoot them. We could, we could take care of it now now, yeah, right now, august, in april. What month is it? Can we talk?
Speaker 1:like this April.
Speaker 2:You're actually adding an R to the other way. Either way or in it, er er.
Speaker 3:April. God bless anyone who stuck in this long into this conversation. I love you both. Thanks for being here.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'm glad to be here. It's been great.