Engaging with the profound beauty and mysteries of the natural world is a soul-enriching experience that has been intrinsic to humanity for millennia. In all its vastness and intricacy, nature offers both sustenance and shelter and spiritual and emotional nourishment. From the rustling of leaves to the distant call of a wild animal, nature speaks in a language that resonates with the very core of our being.
In episode 13 of the Bunkhouse podcast, host Josh Crumpton and his close companions Chris "Trout Whisperer" Cantrell and Davin "Whiskey T" Topal delve deep into this intrinsic bond between humans and the wild. This is not just a conversation about hunting or fishing; it's a heartfelt exploration of the human soul's yearning to connect, understand, and coexist with nature.
Beyond the adrenaline rush of tracking wild game or the challenge of navigating through rugged terrains, the trio reflects on the transformative power of immersing oneself in the wilderness. They share anecdotes of silent moments spent observing a sunrise, the awe experienced when encountering a majestic bear, or the profound reflections triggered by casting a line in a serene lake. These moments, they emphasize, transcend the act of hunting or fishing and elevate the experience to a spiritual journey, a communion with the universe.
The episode highlights that to truly appreciate nature, one must engage with it deeply and responsibly. It's about more than treading lightly or following conservation principles, although those are essential. It's about immersing oneself fully, with an open heart and mind, into the rhythms and mysteries of the natural world. It's about listening to the stories that the wind, the water, and the wildlife tell and finding one's own story intertwined with them.
Furthermore, the hosts stress the importance of passing this deep love and respect for the outdoors to the next generation. In an era dominated by screens and urbanization, there's a pressing need to introduce young minds to the joys, lessons, and responsibilities of being in the wild. Nature has an unmatched ability to teach patience, resilience, humility, and wonder - increasingly rare virtues in our fast-paced world.
In essence, this episode of the Bunkhouse podcast is a heartfelt ode to nature. It's a call to reconnect with the wild, to find solace in its embrace, and to celebrate the profound bond shared between humanity and the great outdoors. It serves as a reminder that in our pursuit of modern comforts, we must always maintain touch with the primal, beautiful, and essential connection we share with the natural world.
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
Engaging with the profound beauty and mysteries of the natural world is a soul-enriching experience that has been intrinsic to humanity for millennia. In all its vastness and intricacy, nature offers both sustenance and shelter and spiritual and emotional nourishment. From the rustling of leaves to the distant call of a wild animal, nature speaks in a language that resonates with the very core of our being.
In episode 13 of the Bunkhouse podcast, host Josh Crumpton and his close companions Chris "Trout Whisperer" Cantrell and Davin "Whiskey T" Topal delve deep into this intrinsic bond between humans and the wild. This is not just a conversation about hunting or fishing; it's a heartfelt exploration of the human soul's yearning to connect, understand, and coexist with nature.
Beyond the adrenaline rush of tracking wild game or the challenge of navigating through rugged terrains, the trio reflects on the transformative power of immersing oneself in the wilderness. They share anecdotes of silent moments spent observing a sunrise, the awe experienced when encountering a majestic bear, or the profound reflections triggered by casting a line in a serene lake. These moments, they emphasize, transcend the act of hunting or fishing and elevate the experience to a spiritual journey, a communion with the universe.
The episode highlights that to truly appreciate nature, one must engage with it deeply and responsibly. It's about more than treading lightly or following conservation principles, although those are essential. It's about immersing oneself fully, with an open heart and mind, into the rhythms and mysteries of the natural world. It's about listening to the stories that the wind, the water, and the wildlife tell and finding one's own story intertwined with them.
Furthermore, the hosts stress the importance of passing this deep love and respect for the outdoors to the next generation. In an era dominated by screens and urbanization, there's a pressing need to introduce young minds to the joys, lessons, and responsibilities of being in the wild. Nature has an unmatched ability to teach patience, resilience, humility, and wonder - increasingly rare virtues in our fast-paced world.
In essence, this episode of the Bunkhouse podcast is a heartfelt ode to nature. It's a call to reconnect with the wild, to find solace in its embrace, and to celebrate the profound bond shared between humanity and the great outdoors. It serves as a reminder that in our pursuit of modern comforts, we must always maintain touch with the primal, beautiful, and essential connection we share with the natural world.
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've fished around a lot of black bears Colorado, mexico, utah Never really worried about them. I don't know if I was just desensitized or what. And in Idaho came across a very fresh Gris track.
Josh Crumpton:Yeah, and that gris is a whole other, that the gris is the best, yeah.
Chris Cantrell:I'd made it like a hundred yards from my truck and I was like that's well. And then I start staring at it and I see the claws are like two inches from the pads and I'm like that's a grizzly, and I didn't have my bear spray.
Josh Crumpton: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 Los Laaj 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. Welcome to episode 13. It's been a minute.
Josh Crumpton:September 1st is coming gone, hunting season is in full swing and things are busy around the ranch. We dusted off our scatter guns, took the dogs to the field, shot a ton of dove, hunted teal for six days and introduced 26 new people to hunting. Our current focus is on packing up and getting ready to head out to Far West Texas for the opening of blue quail season, but I still found time to catch up with my homies Chris trout, whisperer Cantrell and Daven whiskey tea Topal. It's been a while since the three of us have had the opportunity to sit down and share a bevy, and it's cool. We get to share the experience with you. We talk dove openers, cocktails, paloma Blanco, campo Paloma, shotgun fitting bear, country fishing, wild game, cooking, teaching, learning, wanton waste of game, what makes a good guide? And general adventure shenanigans. I enjoyed making this one. I hope you enjoy it too, and, as always, let's get this thing started. It's been a while since we've all been in here.
Davin Topel:You've been traveling quite a bit. I've been traveling quite a bit.
Chris Cantrell:Can't travel. I was gone all summer.
Davin Topel:You were gone all summer. This is the first time we've all been in the same place at the same time, from more than like 30 cents, I think since last spring.
Josh Crumpton:Man, I don't want to get deep into our summer, that's a whole nother thing, but September one rolled around, Daven, you and I have not shot birds yet, not yet.
Davin Topel:No, this is a very odd feeling. We've all shot birds, tried to Shot at birds. I had a shot at birds.
Josh Crumpton:We've all seen some birds. We've been doing some heavy bird watching.
Chris Cantrell:Lot of catch and release.
Josh Crumpton:But I it's like dove season. So this is. You know, daven, you and I have been doing dove season in Texas for a long time together.
Davin Topel:It's the first year this is the first year In what four years?
Josh Crumpton:that we haven't been together on the opening day.
Davin Topel:Yeah, I had some, had some conflicts with work and I ended up in Colorado the opening weekend during Christmas, texas Christmas Trout fishing Trout fishing. Though I got some trout fishing in, it was a killer concert Red Cheyenne puts on the caveman festival in near Trinidad, colorado, and we did find some creeks out in the area. One of them was in the Basta Oso Canyon, which I later found out Meant bear canyon. I found out the hard way. I wonder if that's a beautiful name.
Davin Topel:Let's go fish down in the canyon of the Basta Oso OK, that's beautiful and get down to the river and like what is that? That's bigger dog track than I, oh God that's a big bear trap. That's got to be like then that's, that's bear shit. There's a bear up in the tree Did you keep fishing.
Josh Crumpton:Yeah, we did Good job, yeah.
Davin Topel:Honestly, we got out the first day and we didn't even realize what was going on. We just let's go find some fish and got out the first day, fish for a good four hours or something like that, and then headed back to the car and that's when we saw our first bear on that first day and realized, oh wow, we were playing with fire.
Josh Crumpton:No, you're playing with bears.
Davin Topel:We were playing with bears, yeah. And the next day we went back and I was decided let's go ahead and carry the gun. And that's when we really started looking down at the ground and seeing tracks like everywhere and bear scat everywhere. Like how did we not notice this the first day it was? It was like kind of set in, like oh gosh, we were really in a dangerous place because we're in tall reeds and the willows that grow up near near the banks of the river.
Chris Cantrell:Yeah.
Josh Crumpton:Yeah, we wouldn't see them.
Davin Topel:No, we would have been just face front.
Josh Crumpton:Yeah, you had a big old bear track. Yeah, cantrell, yeah, like a decent bear track encounter while you're fishing.
Chris Cantrell:I've fished around a lot of black bears Colorado, mexico, utah never really worried about them. I don't know if I was just desensitized or what. Yeah, and in Idaho came across a very fresh Grizz track.
Josh Crumpton:Yeah. Grizzly's a whole other that the Grizz is the best yeah.
Chris Cantrell:I'd made it like a hundred yards from my truck and I was like that's oh. And then I start staring at it and I see the claws are like two inches from the pads and I'm like that's a grizzly. And I didn't have my bear spray and I immediately went to treat my bear spray and I was puckered up.
Josh Crumpton:I kept fishing. You had your bear agitator with you too, though. I did that's. That's any dog.
Chris Cantrell:I have my bait.
Josh Crumpton:I'm just going to tell you, dogs in bear country they don't really mix that well. Yeah, because the dog will like immediate, go look at this big thing I need to bark at. And then it'll bark at it. And then the bears like man, you are a jerk. And he like just takes the dog out. And then he looks over at you and is like do you bring this asshole to the party?
Chris Cantrell:I've been gone Like yeah, I apologize to Bodey the minute I saw it, Like sorry bro, and if you guys that's.
Josh Crumpton:I don't want to get too deep into it, but like Yellowstone, the greater Yellowstone area has had, I think it's been like four bears shot this year.
Davin Topel:Yeah, I saw there's a lot of yeah, there's a lot of action with attacks and they needed to, they needed to deescalate the attacks. Yeah.
Josh Crumpton:And all the attacks, so far none have been found that the hunter was at fault, mm hmm, but these were aggressive bears or in the area, which is that's it.
Davin Topel:You know the thing is we like throwing up the middle finger at bears?
Josh Crumpton:No, no, no, these were all, all of these have been pretty like close range encounters with bears.
Josh Crumpton:The ballistics have shown that they've been close range and so you know the hunters have not been found at fault. But if you're out there, my dudes in the Western States, please take care while you're out in the woods at Anderson talking to you, brother Ben over in Bozeman, while you're out there, you know, be careful. But I don't want to get too deep into that because that's a whole other topic and we're in Texas and fortunately we don't have to worry about grizzlies.
Davin Topel:No, no grizzlies here. Black bear, no, black bear.
Josh Crumpton:But on the wing shooting front, this we've all been in different places. You were at Paloma Blanco. Yep, how'd that go this year? That went fantastic.
Davin Topel:It was a super blast, as usual.
Josh Crumpton:Always a good time.
Davin Topel:The Pachanga of the year. Yeah, when it comes to dove and good times, good people, it was a lot of fun.
Josh Crumpton:Well, we kicked off two dub events this year Campo Paloma, here in central Texas, and the one in South Texas which you'll be at next year both of them going to wrangle you into both, because you, you were gone for the first and then you were just getting back into and family stuff. But, chris, you, you were at both.
Chris Cantrell:Kind of.
Josh Crumpton:Yeah, yeah. Well, I guess the first one not really.
Chris Cantrell:The first one. I was present and then my truck fell apart. It's a whole different thing, but I was. We hunted the San Marcos fields opening day. It was awesome. And then I was here for the very end of Campo Paloma kind of the wrap up evening, both nights and it was awesome yeah. It was great.
Josh Crumpton:We had 270 hunters over the first three days of opening season and we estimate that we shot somewhere around 2400 to 2500. I heard there's a lot of birds here.
Davin Topel:There's a lot more than I had expected for first year, you know you got it. You got it set up earlier this year. You were getting stuff set up but, yeah, it exceeded the expectations of what I thought was going to happen.
Josh Crumpton:Yeah, it was a banner.
Chris Cantrell:I saw a lot of birds leave, leave the property on social media.
Josh Crumpton:It was good, it looked awesome. Our dude, mason Lively, came out and played.
Davin Topel:Yeah.
Josh Crumpton:That was fun. Evan Leroy was cooking, and did you get some of the barbecue? I did, it was delicious it was fantastic yeah. He's, he's, masterful. Did you get to because I know you were down at PB on work Did you get to shoot a little bit?
Davin Topel:I got to shoot a little bit. I did a lot of cocktailing and stuff like that, getting set up with all hands and I put together, you know, the Belomablanca is John Dunawes words a circus. So if you're not bringing the heat, you know you may as well not show up. So of course I brought the heat. I put together kind of a cocktail where I took the top off the all hands, added ice, then I threw on a cup that had fruit, gummy bears, chamois, chili, lime salt and then topped it off with the rest of the cocktail and added a straw so that you could drink out of the top of it. And so I did a lot of. It was a fiesta, that's a party.
Josh Crumpton:Yeah, that is a serious party, yeah.
Davin Topel:But no, so I did get. I did get a little bit of shooting in between, not a lot. It was hot, it was hot, hot, hot, as you know. Like it was. Yeah, I made the mistake of walking a field once and then realized I have to walk back. Yeah, yeah, like, oh OK, I made it back, made it back to some shade and took a break. I got a few birds out of the weekend. It was, it was. I mean, you can't beat it.
Josh Crumpton:How was your shooting? We were down there. So we were down there the days like five or six days ahead of PB and we were hunting and at the camp. And how was your shooting? Because you were kind of off down another area. How did they go for you down in Brownsville?
Chris Cantrell:I had a blast. I shot horribly. I was a little bit of a dover, my nemesis.
Josh Crumpton:But they're tough.
Chris Cantrell:There was a lot of opportunity. It was great. I had a ball yeah.
Davin Topel:I had one day. One day of that as well. I had, I had multiple like it was.
Chris Cantrell:The 12 gauge Did not do me well. I switched to the 28 and had a great time, and then I went back to the 12 and shot poorly.
Josh Crumpton:And you were hitting them with the 20 instead of the 20. The 28. Yeah that 20.
Chris Cantrell:The 20 28 was doing great with it, and then I went back to because we ran out of shells, and then went back to the 12 where I had more and it did not just like shooting him in the eye.
Davin Topel:That's all Well what was the choke difference.
Josh Crumpton:Did you know what chokes you were running? I?
Chris Cantrell:was running. I looked back on it. I had modified choke in my 12 and then the 28 had an improved up top and a modified blow.
Josh Crumpton:Were you hitting them on the first shot? Did they improve the more open choke?
Chris Cantrell:It's kind of 50 50. I think, after talking to some people that know a lot more about shotguns, that I do Like my length of pull matched a lot better on that fronky.
Josh Crumpton:Oh is the length of pull off. Yeah, it was longer on this, on the.
Chris Cantrell:Yeah, I got short arms for my height, so yeah, I mean it's, and that's the thing.
Josh Crumpton:Really, having a gun that fits makes a big difference it was tough shouldering the 12 gauge compared to the 28.
Chris Cantrell:Like just getting it up and in place and then tracking with it was a lot smoother with this, with the 28, with that fronky specifically. Then I was using my, my good old 870, and then Caleb's wonderful Stoker and they were. His gun was like a full inch longer than my 870. And then that 28 was a little bit smaller and I shouldered that 28 just a lot faster. Yeah, I could keep my eye down the barrel a lot easier. I shot better with it, and then I'm just terrible at shooting.
Josh Crumpton:So well, here's shooting Dove is hard, it's not no, in general it's not easy.
Chris Cantrell:I feel like track like a duck or a quail, you don't know, you can't anticipate their motion Now and they make it's past shooting.
Davin Topel:Yeah they make quick, quick movements, you know, like no other bird does like Barry.
Chris Cantrell:Sanders trying to right yeah, they're juke and they're juke all over the place.
Josh Crumpton:They're smaller, but the thing is is, when you hit them, they go down.
Davin Topel:They die.
Josh Crumpton:And so I think that's one of the biggest challenges getting the lead on them. But you know, it's the length of pull is an interesting thing because it is. I think probably one of the most important things in the shotgun is getting the right length of pull. And I have a lot of people who ask like, oh, I'm going to get a custom shotgun, they're going to spend a lot of money on a shotgun, and there's there's two things that happen right, so you can get a gun that is the proper length of pull and fitted to you, and that that can be really important.
Josh Crumpton:Or sometimes people get a gun that doesn't have the proper length of pull and is not fitted to them and they adjust to the gun. So you have a lot of shooters who will adjust to the gun or you can have the gun adjust you. But the biggest thing in being successful in shotgunning is practice, practice, practice, because the most important thing is having a consistent mount, and I get people who ask me should I get a custom shotgun? My answer is always do not get a custom shotgun until your mount is consistent, because until you're mounting the gun the same way every time, you get a custom gun, it won't matter.
Davin Topel:It's not going to match your mouth.
Josh Crumpton:No, it's not going to, because your mouth is changing all the time, so it's good that you've dialed in on the length of pull. So more importantly than getting a custom fitted stock is to get in the right length of pull and then continue to mount that gun. And clay shooters my buddies who competitively shoot, they like leave their gun in a place they can get to it easily, which I don't recommend. You should probably lock your guns up at all times, but they continually come out and mount their gun several times a day at their house Like they're not shooting.
Josh Crumpton:they're not shooting clays, they just throw that mount up over and over and over so they get that muscle memory going.
Davin Topel:It's gotta be super intimidating your neighbor. Yeah for sure, like I, you know it's getting his gun out again. Is it for us?
Josh Crumpton:See, I mean I've been peeping in his window at night all the time and now he's mounting a gun.
Davin Topel:He's getting his gun. He knows we're watching him. He knows, no, he doesn't.
Chris Cantrell:He gets his gun every time.
Davin Topel:We're watching him. You're watching him all the time.
Chris Cantrell:Who's really at fault, Mr Chief? Who's the?
Josh Crumpton:creep, but Dove have you cooked any or any Dove that?
Davin Topel:you've shot? No, I have not yet.
Josh Crumpton:How about you? Oh man, I figured out.
Chris Cantrell:I've had him a few different ways. No, the poppers. I know that's the classic, but it's a lot of work to not taste a.
Davin Topel:Dove yeah it's a texture thing.
Chris Cantrell:at this point, let me do everything I can to, just like I'm gonna eat these Dove with that fully respect, hide the flavor of that sweet sweet. I fully respect that, like you are eating what you shot?
Josh Crumpton:Did you call it sweet meat? Sweet, sweet meat? I just wanted to rewind and play that back.
Chris Cantrell:But to me it's like it's a lot of work to not taste a Dove and I like to taste a wild game. So I've had it just like you know pan, seared and eating like that, cut up and put on some eggs or something. But I recently just deep fried them like chicken nuggets.
Josh Crumpton:You did that for your folks, right I?
Chris Cantrell:did that for my folks, who are not the most adventurous eaters all the time Did they enjoy it, loved it. Yeah, loved it. And just a simple you know panko and flour and egg and you know 45, 60 seconds.
Davin Topel:Did you tell them?
Chris Cantrell:what it was I did. They were well aware they were watching me clean them up and like it was great. It wasn't like the, the breading wasn't overpowering, it wasn't too much, it wasn't, and you could taste the Dove and I liked the taste of it. Yeah, and they're easy to eat.
Davin Topel:It's one of the best meat. It is Like I said, it's almost sweet, it is and you like if people aren't as into it.
Chris Cantrell:You can give them a dipping sauce, break them into it. It's an easy way to do it. Poppers are like, messy and like. Are they delicious? No, there's nothing against them, but it's like a lot of work to not cover up the Dove. It's like liver. People do everything they can to eat liver and not taste Quite love.
Davin Topel:I like liver. I still haven't done liver, that's one.
Josh Crumpton:Yeah, what you do is you Like a medium rare liver with onion Just?
Davin Topel:organ meat in general I need to. I haven't really done a lot, I've had some.
Chris Cantrell:I've had some foul liver in my day, but I've had really good stuff. That was just simply.
Josh Crumpton:I guess it was like duck liver, Not duck like Foul liver.
Chris Cantrell:Elk liver and it was like boo-hoo.
Josh Crumpton:I like foul liver. Sandoff foul liver, F-O-W-L liver is good. I've had duck liver. I've had goose liver.
Chris Cantrell:I haven't eaten cranler. It's like one of the dad jokes Cran liver is good.
Josh Crumpton:What I think is it's like the whole fried dove approach Super simple, easy way to showcase the bird. But I mean like you would put yours down for like 45 seconds 45 seconds to 60 seconds.
Chris Cantrell:If it goes past that it's a little, it's tough.
Josh Crumpton:And that immediately becomes really like, really liver tasting, like, strong and like, and not in a good way, like taste, but bad.
Chris Cantrell:It's similar. It was very similar to duck in that matter. Like if you over cook it it changes not just the texture but the flavor of the meat in a not pleasant way, but like that sweet spot which is right around 45 to 60 seconds in 350 to 360 degree Pea, just peanut oil.
Josh Crumpton:Peanut oil.
Chris Cantrell:And they were like like fork tender delicious.
Josh Crumpton:Yeah, it's like the chicken nugget brought to you by the wild.
Chris Cantrell:Like it's what.
Josh Crumpton:I love about dove. It's just really so like duck. Wild duck is obviously different than store bought duck, but like dove, the only way you're eating dove is you gotta go out there and work.
Davin Topel:You gotta go get that.
Josh Crumpton:And that's what makes it so. To me it's so special.
Davin Topel:It kicks off hunting season. Doesn't have that game. Gamey like what people think of gamey flavor right, exactly, if you cook it properly like it's, it's mild is all get out.
Josh Crumpton:Well, if you take care of, it properly because, let's be honest, like a lot of things like that. People are like, oh, I had venison one time and it was real gamey. And I'm like, well, that's because your grandfather like through the venison, through the dead deer on top of the hood of his car and like did a parade around the town with it a few times before he drove an hour and a half to the process.
Davin Topel:Yeah, exactly.
Josh Crumpton:After he gut shot it and didn't properly clean it in the field. And yeah, it doesn't. It doesn't taste good, Let me go take that prime rib and, like you know, let me take your rib eye, your prime, your prime grade rib eye, and drag it around the ranch in the dirt a few times and then cook it for you and see if you think it tastes good it's boiling.
Chris Cantrell:Maybe leave it out. This rib eye tastes gamey.
Josh Crumpton:Yeah, it tastes real gamey. That's cause.
Davin Topel:I drug it through the cow pasture. No, I did that on purpose. It's like dry aging, but not I just drove it around aging yeah.
Josh Crumpton:I mean, there is definitely and there is some sentiment. There is a little bit of truth to that, like you know, as Michael Polin points out, like people get attached to the taste of corn.
Davin Topel:Yeah.
Josh Crumpton:And these are not corn fed animals, so they're not going to have that corn flavor to them. But the reality is game, handled properly and prepared properly, should have an amazing taste to it.
Davin Topel:You can add corn to it, you can.
Josh Crumpton:You can, I suppose If you're in the cooking process.
Davin Topel:I suppose Corn, add corn to it.
Josh Crumpton:Add cornmeal on the outside of it.
Davin Topel:Add cornmeal on the outside, use a corn tortilla.
Josh Crumpton:So you've done some cool stuff with Dove. Did you do like a ramen with Dove last year or something Devin?
Davin Topel:Yeah, I did a ramen last year, cooked a medium rare and then just sliced them and used those as that protein. With the ramen Did boil down the bones too for the broth.
Josh Crumpton:The stock.
Davin Topel:Yeah, the stock yeah. And then added just a couple of basic kind of more on it. It was more along the lines of like a foe or a foe.
Josh Crumpton:Fuh, wherever you're coming from. Fuh, is it foe, it's foe, it's foe, it's foe. I wanted to open a truck Like this, fair game to anybody listening to this. I wanted to open a foe and barbecue truck and call it fuck you.
Davin Topel:But fuck you with a queue, fuck you with a queue Like fuck barbecue.
Josh Crumpton:Anybody can have that, it's free.
Davin Topel:It's. You're welcome, brisket, on search ground. I didn't you put brisket on foe Like oh my god.
Josh Crumpton:Well, that's a classic.
Davin Topel:Yeah, exactly, I mean it is, it's, it's already there. So like how is somebody not doing?
Josh Crumpton:fuck you yeah for seriously, but yeah so.
Davin Topel:I did that. All it all really to make the broth is star. Niece, is like the big kicker for, like for broth, coriander, fennel, just boil all that down with the bones and a little bit of salt, a bit of a miso.
Josh Crumpton:Yeah, it looked delicious.
Davin Topel:It was pretty good. I definitely would do it again. I probably do that for these ones too, because I don't have a lot of birds.
Josh Crumpton:So yeah, you stretch them. Yeah, gotta make them, make them make them Stretch.
Davin Topel:That's right, or?
Josh Crumpton:come get some more. I could, I could come get some more, you know for me, if you're not making stock with your dove carcass then I think you're totally missing, which I love spatch, cocking them and cooking them skin on. But I also really like breasting them out, taking the breast off and being able to have that extra meat to make that stock. And I just do it with celery, onion, carrot, just a standard stock and it is like one of the most delicate, fine.
Josh Crumpton:I'll put a little like miso in it and just have it just that way, or sometimes I'll just add a little salt and just drink the broth.
Davin Topel:Yeah, I mean, that's the one thing I will do this year Though I didn't do last year and I don't know if you do it but I want to roast the bones a little bit before I boil them.
Josh Crumpton:I want to get the meat off and then roast it and then I leave the meat on for flavor and I brown them in the pot.
Davin Topel:You brown them in the pot.
Josh Crumpton:That's the key. So you don't really have to roast them because it's too deli, I think.
Davin Topel:I think I'll take the meat off and what the plan is is to take the meat off, sear the meat to medium rare and then roast. Just throw them in the in the oven, throw the bones in the oven for.
Josh Crumpton:So if you take them a little oil in the pot and then just like brown them in the pot, that'll straight like put some of it and like not all, you leave a little meat on, there's like whatever, the yeah, yeah and you brown them off in the pot.
Davin Topel:It'll be a similar sort of thing too. Right, Because you can over roast it like yeah, I'll put it in there, for the bones are like this.
Josh Crumpton:They're very delicate bones that can burn pretty fast, so I really like to just sear them at the bottom of the pot and then, just like, then I'll take those out of the pot and I'll leave that oil and then I'll put my carrot and celery and onion in saute that off and when that's translucent and I put those bones similar you would do with like shrimp or shellfish.
Davin Topel:Yeah, like a shrimp bisque, got it Like you wouldn't roast those because it's more delicate like a shrimp. You're not going to put it in the oven, yeah, yeah.
Josh Crumpton:So that's, that's my, and plus you get the benefit of like having all the drippings off the browning like straight into the space.
Davin Topel:No, that's a good idea. Okay that's what I'm going to do this year, then.
Josh Crumpton:I want to. I'm I'm going to come over for it.
Davin Topel:It's happening.
Josh Crumpton:How many doves did you shoot? Three, okay, so I have more than that I'll bring some over for dinner.
Davin Topel:I need a few more.
Chris Cantrell:So, yesterday.
Josh Crumpton:So we, we have. We missed you at Teal Camp. It was, it was terrible. Actually, you didn't miss shit, it was. It was the worst. No, we, we opened, we kicked off Wing shooting season with September 1st. We did Camp Apolloma, we had a bunch of great hunts and then I guess it was, teal opener was like 14th or something like that we're on it. And we went down to Garwood in that area and we shot with Tobin and Andy and those boys down there and we had a really good Teal opener.
Josh Crumpton:Yeah it was. It was kick butt. It tapered off pretty fast at the end, like the the tail end of Teal season this year, because it just don't think this birds are migrating down. It's been a hot, hot year.
Davin Topel:No reason for them to move. No, it's like they're hung up, yeah.
Josh Crumpton:Like I've been hearing about people in Lubbock having great shoots.
Davin Topel:Well, I'll shoot in the Midwest.
Josh Crumpton:Well, they're still shooting dove, but like right now, those stuff shouldn't be up there anymore. Yeah they should be down here and I'm hoping this last storm that we just had.
Davin Topel:There's a killer storm. Yeah, out of water, I think it pushed in.
Josh Crumpton:I think it's probably pushed birds. This cold front is going to knock down the birds. I bet you there's going to be Teal everywhere. But we did have a great few opening days. We shot with Amber from McKinnokin, her group.
Davin Topel:Yeah, it looked like a lot of fun.
Josh Crumpton:Yeah, that was those ladies were amazing talented shooters and we knocked out a bunch of Teal, which was a lot of fun, and we made. One of the things that made it camp this year is we made a deconstructed gumbo, which turned out.
Chris Cantrell:Did you have some of that? I looked at it. I saw the picture Looks good man.
Josh Crumpton:It was like. So I took Teal breast and we made, we made a roux. We made a gumbo base, vegetable gumbo base right. And then I took the Teal breast. We breaded the Teal breast buttermilk, buttermilk soaked, breaded them with panko and I fried the Teal breast, which I don't fry, teal breast a lot of time, but man it's amazing. And then slice that and we put rice down, put the Teal breast on top of the rice and then on a plate put the gumbo roux around it and then just like, and then we had a little bit of like.
Josh Crumpton:I think there was a little sausage involved.
Davin Topel:That's going to say anything.
Josh Crumpton:Yeah, there was like a little sausage involved in the roux, but not too much, though parsley on top of that and then serve that with both fried okra and then a sauteed, blistered tomato okra with onions like a salad. It was freaking good, ok, ok. I ate it like three times because we had three camps.
Davin Topel:So I made it three times and I like each time and you cooked at each camp.
Josh Crumpton:Yeah, oh yeah, I was in the kitchen.
Davin Topel:Breakfast, lunch, dinner.
Josh Crumpton:Yeah, we did it all it was and then Matthew, I'm sure, was involved with the.
Davin Topel:He didn't help it all the time. The truth is like no, he just sat back taking photos the whole time.
Josh Crumpton:I was sweating. No Matthew worked his ass off. Yeah, yeah, he did it.
Davin Topel:It's a lot of work, though. I mean that's the thing. That's one thing about your hunts and things that when you do like your hands on, you know your recipes, your cooking you're doing the thing, and you and I both love doing that. It's like if we're not doing that, we are constantly looking in the kitchen. Can we help? I'm not going to help. We go and do things at other lodges like I want to. I want to do something, yeah.
Josh Crumpton:Cantrell got to taste that this year. Yeah, he came and helped a little bit at Campo Paloma and got to taste it being in the kitchen some. But then also I was like you need to go, just go sit down and eat.
Davin Topel:He's like I don't want to.
Chris Cantrell:Yeah, I don't want to, it's hard.
Josh Crumpton:Like you struggled with that.
Chris Cantrell:No. I don't, I'm not comfortable. No, it's a guide. It's a guide thing. It's a guide thing.
Davin Topel:I can't sit and let other people do. I'm used to.
Chris Cantrell:I did a lot of like overnight river trips floating. So like I know, I know my place and it is not with the clients Like I'm the help and I'm OK with that.
Josh Crumpton:Yeah, you were the client, though. No, you were in it, you were in.
Chris Cantrell:you were a tweener, I was a tweener and I know like I'm going to I'm always going to like lean towards the non-client side of things.
Josh Crumpton:Yeah. But you know, the biggest thing about that is like you're in there, you're jamming your deal and it's sometimes it's like man, I want the help, but like I can't stop to tell you how to help me yeah like I just got to keep this train rolling and you go tell stories Go tell funny stories. And then that's when and that's when I realized I made a mistake, because Cantrell was like so one time I was in Vegas.
Davin Topel:The only person talking is Cantrell.
Chris Cantrell:I'm not very good. You're laughing Never a good thing. Wait a minute. What's going on out there? People start leaving. They leave the mail. It's five o'clock.
Davin Topel:I'm going to bed.
Josh Crumpton:It's like these things. These stories work great on the boat.
Chris Cantrell:Let me tell you about what you want. Oh man, but what's hard when your friends are like doing the work. You want to hang out with your friends too. Yeah, it's like a comfort zone. Yeah it is.
Josh Crumpton:It is You're like I want to be throwing in with my friends the other day. We have two birds that I need to, that I need to clean. They're on on ice in the fridge right now. But, like the other day, I went out, chris came out and I invited Johnny, my 10 year old, out and I was like, hey, man, you want to, you want to go shoot some dub? And he was like, no, not really.
Josh Crumpton:I was like OK, are you sure? He's like OK? Well, I guess so. And I'd already. I'd asked Josie, my three year old hey, you want to go dub? And she's like no, and like then Johnny was like I want to go, and then Josie was like I want to come to dad from like the other side.
Chris Cantrell:And.
Josh Crumpton:I was like, oh OK, this is. There's not going to be any dub shot today. And so I loaded everybody up in the ranger, we went out, we took rowdy and and so my three year old this is Josie's three year old hung out and Jeannie came out and Johnny came out and there were so many birds at the beginning. There's a lot of birds. There were a lot of birds. There was a lot of birds, but we were trying to get all of our poop in a group.
Davin Topel:Yeah.
Josh Crumpton:And so the three year olds kind of run around. The birds are like what kind of coyote?
Davin Topel:is that as they?
Josh Crumpton:flew away, so we managed to shoot a couple birds at the. At the point that we were able to shoot these birds, what was really cool about that is that I was able my daughter was like able to see the process.
Davin Topel:Yeah.
Josh Crumpton:Of actually killing an animal, and now we're going to be able to step through the process of harvesting that meat and then we're going to cook it, and that I'm just sharing because I'm so stoked about that.
Chris Cantrell:Yeah, no, it's super exciting. It was interesting when she did say I'm waiting for her to wake up. She did say that that was part of the process. Yeah, it's part of the process I'm waiting for her to wake up Very important part of the process.
Josh Crumpton:It is, and so we had a conversation that was like it's not gonna wake up, it's dead, and now-.
Davin Topel:The flavors will awaken Now. It will awaken with flavor. It will awaken with flavor.
Josh Crumpton:But now it's gonna be a process of, like you know, show that animal now becoming food and removing the feathers and actually cooking the and you're gonna have her, yeah, there.
Davin Topel:Oh yeah, she's gonna help me clean the bird and she's gonna help me cook the bird.
Josh Crumpton:Very cool, making sure, and then she's gonna help me, I'll have her up at the stove while we're cooking the bird, and it's just gonna be this like, this experience that I wish I had had as a kid. This whole like here's an understanding of this understanding of life and death, the understanding of the price that has to be paid for us to eat meat, you know, and just this organic acknowledgement of the, the circle of life. I submit my I don't know how or what does that thing go?
Josh Crumpton:Who couldn't have my tata something like that Did you guys have that at that age, cause I didn't have that at that age.
Chris Cantrell:No, I'm like my family's from the West. We're from Colorado, new Mexico, and my dad grew up hunting deer and elk and my mom grew up kind of fishing but I moved to Kansas when I was like nine or 10 years old.
Josh Crumpton:That's a hunting mecca, by the way.
Chris Cantrell:We didn't but we didn't understand. We're Western hunters. We didn't understand. My dad didn't understand really the how you go about hunting all the private land or like what has Kansas is like 2% public land.
Josh Crumpton:So he didn't hunt. Did he quit hunting?
Chris Cantrell:He went, yeah, he went pheasant hunting like one time and he brought home the pheasant but it had already been breasted and dressed. You know it had already been taken care of. So we never like. We we had a fishing. We used to go fishing a lot but it wasn't like. Thumping a trout is a completely different process than like shooting a bird on the wing or a large game animal. It's very it's a lot more removed from the whole circle of life process. In my opinion it's a lot easier. People you view this like fish. As a fish. It's like Solus, solus, pretty much.
Davin Topel:You know it's not viewed the same as, like it's, a flying or walking animal.
Chris Cantrell:It's viewed very differently and so I didn't have that at all growing up Like I was aware of it, but I didn't have that connection. I didn't start hunting until I was an adult, really, and didn't have that you know moment until I was older, with friends instead of you know my folks, but I think it's awesome that you're having it with your kids.
Davin Topel:Yeah, I wish I. I wish I had that opportunity. When I was growing up, we, we did not hunt. My grandfather hunted, but that was way before, you know, I was even born. I think he was done hunting by the time I was born. But we did a lot of fishing. Coming from Minnesota, we did a lot of fishing and, yeah, saw and we ate a lot of fish. So saw how harvesting something and then killing it, killing it, filling it, cooking it and that whole process. But, like Contrell said, like it's not the same, it's not at all.
Chris Cantrell:Yeah, it's not the same.
Davin Topel:Cause then when you do finally come to that, that time of like I've taken an animal's life, whether it be a bird or a furry creature. Squirrel that was. I think that was probably my first. Well, no, I think it was like a bird. Dad had like a blow dart gun and that was our. Yeah, I would hunt as a. I guess I did hunt birds as a what kind of birds? Game birds yeah.
Chris Cantrell:What's a statute of limitations on that? What is a statute of limitations I?
Josh Crumpton:mean fair enough. Gamey birds, sporty birds I was.
Davin Topel:I think I was, yeah, I don't know. I think I was probably like seven or something like that, and then, but yeah, killing a squirrel for the first time, it is different.
Josh Crumpton:Did you kill the squirrel with a blow dart?
Davin Topel:I killed a chipmunk with a blow dart the squirrel was with a slingshot. Oh nice, yeah, did you eat it no.
Chris Cantrell:This is the terrible thing, that's the thing.
Davin Topel:I didn't grow up Like I grew up. I was just a boy with a shot or with like a slingshot in a blow dart gun.
Josh Crumpton:Out on your own, rolling around, right, not knowing what's going on, causing chaos, right, but living. But the interesting thing is, like you were living, your predator. You were going to your roots. You're going to being a predator, yeah, but didn't fully understand what to do with it.
Davin Topel:And then I think I ate my first squirrel. When I was probably 12 or something, my buddy of mine shot a squirrel and like we're going to skin it and eat it and I was really excited and yeah. So we did that. But yeah, didn't really start hunting until I moved to Utah and started with ducks. Started duck hunting real heavy out there and then didn't take my first big game animal until I moved to Texas. Yeah, we've talked about that on the show before.
Josh Crumpton:Cantrell's bit with a duck bug lately.
Chris Cantrell:I love ducks. I always have it's been re-bitten with a duck bug, I get reinfected every now and again With duck hunting. Oh yeah, he's like.
Josh Crumpton:I see him looking at like things for the boat decoys. He's like we could hunt the Colorado with this kind of spread. Just get some fast grass, just sometimes wire. I've been such a gypsy for so long.
Chris Cantrell:it's like hard to like duck hunting's an involved. I used to jump shoot a lot Like cast and blast, going up rivers with a fly rod and a shotgun and shoot things when I could, and if I couldn't I'd go fishing and it was fun, but then-.
Josh Crumpton:That's opportunistic duck hunting it is.
Chris Cantrell:That's different than duck hunting and then I went on. A couple years ago I went on a guided duck hunt with my brother in Oklahoma and that ruined me.
Davin Topel:It was like saltwater fly fishing.
Chris Cantrell:for the first time, when you come from a freshwater background, you're like now Talking to the ducks.
Davin Topel:Are you kidding me?
Chris Cantrell:You can talk to the ducks and tell them to come to you, and he's like really experienced awesome guides and like having the whole day we're in layout blinds, like coffin blinds, and there's decoys on the ponds where we shot a peanut field one afternoon and like watching these guys that just knew what they were doing and they're like there's seven gadwall coming in. I'm like I can tell you there's more than four birds in the sky and you're telling me those are gadwall and they come in. We shoot them.
Josh Crumpton:They're gadwall and I'm like this is the coolest shit in the world.
Chris Cantrell:Like I wanna do this and get good at this and then, like now I have a boat that can function as this, I have like time and like a little more resources to be able to get into it and yeah, it's gotten bad. I love duck hunting, calling them in like, oh yeah, and then they're delicious. They are delicious, they're delicious.
Josh Crumpton:So on my duck hunting journey I got to I'm a sat on a pond this season in early teal season with Rowdy with my black lab and a call and no guides and I shot ducks and it was. It's a feeling man, it's like that whole duck hunting without a guide.
Josh Crumpton:I mean I shoot upland and I'm a proficient. Maybe I'm proficient upland hunter, maybe more than proficient, some would say. But like ducks have always been this thing that I have tried to, not because I just don't have the bandwidth or the time, so I've tried to like I'm not gonna do it.
Davin Topel:Well, you do it, we're gonna do it. We're gonna do it this year. Yeah, it's all in, it's inevitable.
Josh Crumpton:Ray Ray, penny, g and H decoys. You hear that we're gonna do it, so we need to figure out some decoys down here in Texas.
Chris Cantrell:So Well, it's the whole process. It's like the getting up early, the setting up.
Davin Topel:It's the ritual of everything. It's a very ritualistic process.
Chris Cantrell:You know dove hunting, it's like we're gonna go sit out in the field, throw up a couple of modules still a hoot and you sit there and you're like I'm gonna leave it. Like duck hunting is like this intensive process, Like when I was jump shooting a lot, just still killing birds and having fun, but like when I did that hunt with my brother a few years ago in Oklahoma, like I'm with a bunch of people that I don't have a lot in common with. They're good dudes. I just don't. And I'm like talking to this young guy and I'm like, can I go help? He's like what? And I'm like, yeah, can I go?
Chris Cantrell:I wanna learn this man Like we went out and we're hunting a peanut field and we set up like 200 decoys, Layout blinds and, like, going over the process, and I'm next to him just harassing the piss out of this guy while the ducks are flying Like what are you using that call for? What's this all about? I wanna learn. And he's like he was totally cool with it. He's like nobody asks me this ever.
Josh Crumpton:They all just like get my birds and go they just wanna shoot and like.
Chris Cantrell:I hear all these stories about like you're out of the blind at nine in the morning and like, but these guys are out there the day before. They're out there at three o'clock in the morning.
Josh Crumpton:They're out there the weeks before, weeks before they're working 20 hour days.
Chris Cantrell:That's another thing to think about.
Davin Topel:Yeah, Is how people approach their hunting. You know experienced, some people have grown up hunting and that's how they know hunting is just like. I just show up to a field, everything is done, we get our birds and we go.
Davin Topel:And that person can also say I started hunting really early but did you get the experience that? You know, a lot of us are like coming into hunting in a later time in life and like appreciating what we're getting. So you have several different kind of aspects of people coming into hunting with different you know outlooks.
Josh Crumpton:Well, I think in Texas specifically, it's. One of the challenges that you get in Texas is because of so much private land, because so much of it is guided, so much of the experiences you have here are guided in the state, that people show up as just shooters. I'm just here to pull a trigger as you move out West for those Westies that think they're better than everybody. But whatever, that's another conversation for a whole nother show.
Josh Crumpton:But, like for those guys, it's like when you hunt public land, typically you're doing it all yourself, so you get a deeper level of engagement, and I think that there is a good place here in Texas where you can have both, where we in the industry can make the concerted effort to make that connection to nature, and that's ultimately what you're talking about. The difference here is getting a deep understanding of the nature that surrounds the species that we're hunting. Like why do you use this call? How do the ducks respond to that? Why do you set up this spread? Why did we set up near this field? Why is the wind in this direction? And all those answers are like well, the ducks are gonna come in this way because the wind is this way and we use this call because they think this and we're on the smart weed because of this and if you show up to just be a shooter, you're gonna miss all that. And, to be honest, for me that's hunting, it's not pulling the trigger.
Chris Cantrell:They're shooting and hunting.
Josh Crumpton:Yeah, there is shooting and there's hunting and I think that we here in Texas, the fishing industry and the hunting industry, can push ourselves to be better. And in the fishing industry the equivalent of what we're talking about with duck hunting is like indicator rig fishing off of a boat with a nymph rig, with no understanding, but other than the guy telling you set, set, set, set, set, set.
Josh Crumpton:I might be turning the tables on you here a little bit hands off, but I mean at one point in time a guided fishing trip meant I got in a boat and somebody taught me how to fish like, not just try to produce results.
Chris Cantrell:I try and do that I'm sure Daven does with your trips too Like you're an educational guy, and it's like I asked people at the beginning of the day like what do you want to get out?
Davin Topel:of this trip.
Chris Cantrell:And they're like I just want to catch fish. I'm like, all right, I'm going to instruct you as best I can, because if I can make you a better angler, you're going to have more fun out here.
Chris Cantrell:Some people and it's a very small percentage don't want to listen to you when they do their thing, and that's fine. The majority of people want to learn and so I try, and you know I'm not going to go through knots. I'm sorry that's like there's a but I'll tell you where to go. I'll tell you. Give you the resources.
Davin Topel:Yeah, I'm like.
Chris Cantrell:YouTube is phenomenal for knots On the boat is not the place to do that, Not the place. But I'm gonna say One of our fly fishing 101s.
Josh Crumpton:that's the place to do it.
Chris Cantrell:That's the place to do it here on the ranch you can learn everything and you know in those 101s to make you proficient to go out on your own or like improve your skills on a guided trip from there on. But I try and make it as an educational experience as possible because I think that's how you're gonna have the most fun. And I think fishing it's a little easier to do that than maybe hunting, because hunting it's like on and off, it's like and you never know when it's gonna happen.
Davin Topel:Like you can pull a boat over.
Chris Cantrell:I mean like well, you know, sit around here for a minute, but like birds, can come at any minute, a deer, an elk or whatever can come at any second you gotta be Can you see about that time that you start packing up or start messing with knots, but a lot of it's the downtime in between.
Josh Crumpton:Right, I mean. So a lot of it is like just not even the knots, because, like here's the thing, is that still like skill base, skill level stuff. So what I think is cool is like tell me about the plants I just rolled by, tell me about the birds I just saw oh well, that's a kingfisher, and like that's an osprey and blah, blah, blah.
Chris Cantrell:You have to be, because those down times on a boat get real quietly awkward sometimes.
Josh Crumpton:Oh yeah, you do and that's a turn point is being able to educate people on the nature that they're in, and I think that I feel like Instagram has worked against us a lot and like I mean, I know some guide companies in the space that, like every photo on their feed is of somebody holding a fish.
Josh Crumpton:It's a misrepresentation of the activity and it produces, like the worst, false expectations of what the whole trip is about Absolutely, because it's not why you go out there, and what happens is it sets up guides to be in this space where it's like I gotta produce a fish in this person's hand because they need a fish for their Instagram, because I saw so-and-so who's a big popular person and all of their feed is holding fish and like. So I'm gonna throw a call out, you know, on the five people who listened to this show.
Josh Crumpton:I'm throwing a call out that like you challenge everybody else that you know in the fishing and hunting space to show more of the story. Tell more of the story, like I mean just tell more of the story, because it's not the fish, it's not the bird. You went out there. Look at that dog getting pet by Davino.
Davin Topel:I'm telling you like what is his dog's name B? He's a muppet, Sawyer. Right yeah, sawyer.
Josh Crumpton:Sawyer. This is a freaking Sawyer. The muppet Hunt him up, Sawyer.
Davin Topel:Go get him, sawyer. Where's the birds?
Josh Crumpton:It's like all I hunt is love the challenge is like challenge somebody to show more and our friends in the industry challenge them to show more.
Davin Topel:Like show me something cool. Yeah, enough gripping grins, yeah.
Josh Crumpton:Over it, over it, and it's promoting the wrong thing. It promotes the wrong it promotes.
Chris Cantrell:It's the worst. I it's gonna be a whole entire podcast about it, but I think it's been a huge. Instagram is great for a number of things. I think it's been a huge deferment to the outdoor industry, because people's expectations are only seeing the most beautiful places in the world, only shooting the biggest animals in the world or the most you know birds or the biggest fish. And that's like a lot of times on my trips I'll stop in a pretty spot and I'm like don't forget to look around, like look where you're at right now, look what we're doing. Like it's not just about this. It's a big part of it, but it's not the entire, especially when you're paying for a trip. Yeah, you're paying to catch fish or shoot birds. It's not gonna always happen, but like appreciate like the fact that you're just out doing this.
Josh Crumpton:Well, let's just be honest. Let's just go back to the internet's roots. It started with pornography, so unrealistic expectations have been at the baseline of the internet since the beginning. Very.
Chris Cantrell:I'm not gonna disagree.
Davin Topel:Hey, look at this.
Josh Crumpton:Oh, I can't stop looking at it, oh man, okay. So I got a thing I wanna read. This is at a TPWD Game Warden, blotter, an employee with a mobile home park, contacted Harrison County Game Wardens to report 18 duck carcasses in the park dumpster. Following a lead from the property manager, warden's identified and located the suspect. The suspect confessed that he attended a guided duck hunt and accepted duck hunt ducks from two other hunters without a wildlife resource document. Following the hunt, the suspect threw the ducks in the bed of his truck and traveled elsewhere for another hunt the next day. Back at home, the suspect said he no longer felt like cleaning the ducks and threw them in the park dumpster. Multiple citations and warnings were issued for failing to keep ducks in edible condition, possession of ducks without a wildlife resource document, violation of daily bag limit and over the limit possession. Civil restitution pending. This is the Game Warden Blotter. On this I wanna like. There's a few layers here of like that I wanna dive into. But first of all like what do you guys think about that situation?
Chris Cantrell:I've not seen it, but I've been. I've known hunters well that I was on a hunt with and we shot ducks and they didn't want them and they're like take them. And like one hunt I took them. This was very early in my hunting days and I didn't know that I was well in excess of you know, we all shot our limit and I was in excess. I was traveling home with an excess of my limit. I didn't shoot over, but my friends gave me their ducks and we ate them all. They didn't go to wanton waste or anything. But I was on a different hunt and the guys were like I don't want anything to do with these and the guides, to their credit, were like you have to take these, like it is against the law for you to not take these and I'm guaranteed those guys chucked them in dumpsters, unfortunately. But like they didn't want anything to do with them and I don't know. I guess there's a document where some could somebody give you their birds.
Josh Crumpton:There is, and so that's the first. But what if?
Chris Cantrell:it puts you over a bag limit, even if they're from somebody else's hunt.
Josh Crumpton:You're okay as long as you're not over legal possession limit. So that's the first step. Is like A there is a document. I'm gonna post it on our Instagram on the Bonk House Instagram. There'll be a link to it so you can fill out an affidavit of document to transfer your birds to a person. They can carry them. Now they cannot go over their possession limit, but they can hold those birds.
Chris Cantrell:So I know it's a different place. So what do you know? What the bag like? What's the bag limit versus possession, limit versus species in Texas? Just we'll go specific.
Josh Crumpton:So possession limit teal is six, regular ducks is six, but it's five mallards. Only two can be hens, three wood ducks, two redheads, two canvas backs, one pentel, one dusky. All other species outside of that gadwalls, whige and all that is six, that's one day's limit.
Josh Crumpton:That's one day's limit and you can have three times a bag, three bags you get 18 ducks total with you, but no more than aggregate to those specific ducks. So you can't have more than 15 mallards with you and you can have only six hens with you. So I mean that's where ducks get crazy, because you get into those different like species bag limits. But that possession limit I believe includes ducks that have been given to you in transit.
Josh Crumpton:Yeah, now I'm not gonna rule in and like don't call your attorney. I'm not an attorney and what I will say is that I definitely have seen duck processing places or like taxidermy. So like possibly, if you're processing, you can have a higher number than that, because I definitely know that taxidermy houses have more birds and I definitely know that duck processing places have more birds and I definitely know that, like game processors for deer have more. So I think we should get a game warden on the show and like really go through that, because that's where this stuff isn't super clear. You can dig through and I've dug through the code and it still doesn't leave you in a place. That is super clear, you know.
Davin Topel:So it's yeah. Is it just blind eye? No actual special licensing for these special organizations, or is it just blind eye?
Josh Crumpton:I don't know, I'm not gonna give the definitive.
Davin Topel:I default back to a possession limit personally, but I as a civilian that is not a taxidermist or is not a game processor. I think that's where you're gonna get in trouble.
Josh Crumpton:That's gonna be the place.
Davin Topel:I mean, just play it safe and do not accept ducks. Do not give your ducks away if you like that person Without an affidavit.
Josh Crumpton:First you gotta use the affidavit which you can get on the. We'll put it on the IG for Bonkowski over there and grab that. One of the things that I thought was interesting in this is the waste of game Like, which is what you were hinting at is. The guy was like dude, you gotta take your ducks and you need to eat your ducks. Those are your ducks, they belong to you and there's a lot of ethics involved with that. Like I can't see giving away game that I shot. I'm like I came out here, I spent money to be here.
Josh Crumpton:These ducks are I mean by the time you're finished. If you're on a guided hunt, it's some expensive meat.
Davin Topel:And, honestly, by the time you're finished on a DIY, this is an expensive meat.
Josh Crumpton:If you take the amount of time of scouting into account and ammo and camo and gas and that meat is gonna be pretty expensive, particularly with birds. With an elk you might get on a better per pound basis, you know maybe, but like with birds, they're expensive.
Chris Cantrell:It was an interesting situation Like the guys were. Like one guy was stoked because we had you know it was a group hunt there's a lot of. We had different species of birds, you know. We were having a look and see, you know, making sure nobody was outside of certain limits and I, you know I, took one guy and decided I was like I want the six best eaten ducks in there. And he was like the six best eaten ducks in there.
Josh Crumpton:He just picked a.
Chris Cantrell:Gadwall and Widgen Lesser, canada. I think that's what I went home with, but some of the guys wanted to taxidermy birds, which you know no problem there, I love a taxidermy bird but you know there were some people that didn't want anything to do with them.
Chris Cantrell:But I was like because we shot so many different species that day, it was incredible, it was awesome. But like I was like I want the six best eaten birds and the guys were like nobody ever asks these questions, they just like take them home and deal with them. Like no, I love eating game, like I want this to matter. And they, like you know, this dude picked out and nobody else in the party cared, like they were fine with me taking the best.
Josh Crumpton:Yeah, right, right.
Chris Cantrell:I wasn't like screw you guys. I'm getting the best ones. But, like I was. You know, it was a weird experience being like the one of the only people there Like really there was a couple, like two or three of the eight of us were like really, really interested in eating the ducks.
Josh Crumpton:I would have had some affidavits and been like I'll take yours, I'll take yours.
Chris Cantrell:Well, I'd say also be careful on those possession limits. You can't have a possession limit on an opening day.
Josh Crumpton:No, yeah, you can If you have an affidavit, you can. You have an affidavit If you collect somebody else's birds? Yeah, absolutely If you're by yourself.
Chris Cantrell:You can't have a three day limit on opening day.
Davin Topel:No, you busted your bag at that point. That's what he's saying. But what?
Josh Crumpton:I thought was interesting about this was the citation for the violation for failing to keep ducks and edible.
Davin Topel:That's a fantastic, yeah, yeah.
Josh Crumpton:That's a great. I mean because there's a lot. We could break that down in a lot of ways.
Chris Cantrell:Like I mean like.
Josh Crumpton:For me, edible condition is man. You let those ducks sit out for seven hours. They're not edible anymore. But I threw back to the code. I want to read the code from Texas on waste of game and get into that a little bit because, like so, as you start to peel the onion on this stuff and I'm gonna fall back to none of us or attorneys and you, can't hold us accountable for anything we say.
Josh Crumpton:This is strictly our opinion as we read these things. We are outfitters, we do take people out to these things, but we're gonna get into a little bit more esoteric questioning of the code, like there's definitely ways to live that you know that you're on the right side of the code. But I've got some questions that arose off of this waste of game I just want to talk through with you guys. It's an offense, classy misdemeanor, if a person, while hunting, kills or wounds a game bird or a game animal and intentionally or knowingly fails to make reasonable effort to retrieve the animal or bird and include it this is the key and include it in the person's daily or seasonal bag limit.
Josh Crumpton:It isn't. It is an offense if a person intentionally takes or possesses a game bird or game animal or fish and intentionally, knowingly or recklessly, or with criminal negligence, fails to keep the edible portions of the bird, animal or fish in an edible condition. Is a class A misdemeanor to fail to retrieve or keep an edible condition on a white tail or mule deer, pronghorn, antelope or desert big horn sheep hunted with outland owner consent from a vehicle, boat or aircraft on a public road at night or with the aid of a light. Oh yeah, let's unpack this whole thing.
Davin Topel:I want to start with the back end of this right. Yeah, let's go from the back forward.
Josh Crumpton:Okay, so the back forward is Shooting light is for a reason it's a class A misdemeanor. I'm gonna read that again Is a class A misdemeanor to fail to retrieve or keep an in an edible condition of a white tail or mule deer, pronghorn antelope or desert big horn sheep hunted without landowner consent from a vehicle, boat or aircraft on a public road at night or with the aid of a light, so you're out poaching. Yeah, you're gonna get slapped with a misdemeanor if you don't go in and try to get the animal. So you're doubling down here like you're poaching, so you're already F'd. It's crazy that there's like there's code that deals with a poacher and says if you're poaching, it's worse if you don't try to go get the game, yeah, you're getting a misdemeanor on top of, like whatever the poacher.
Chris Cantrell:I think that's great, yeah, yeah, it's like, if you're gonna shoot it, if you're gonna shoot it, you better go get it.
Josh Crumpton:So you can avoid your class a misdemeanor on poaching charges if you go get it. Some of these laws are it's pretty wild, right Like, but it's clear.
Chris Cantrell:That took me, like you, reading it three times to understand.
Josh Crumpton:Yeah, it took me three times to reading it to understand what I was reading to. That was basically like if you're a poacher and you shoot something and then like you know you just like, you're like oh, I don't want to go get it. Then we're gonna slap you with a class in, I think it should be bigger than a class.
Davin Topel:That's what I was wondering. It's like well, if you don't go get it like a misdemeanor, if you do it, and if you don't go get it like we're talking, yeah, offense, yeah, I mean that's as it, as it should be, now granted, all of those animals listed, you'll notice, in the Texas code, is this class a misdemeanor?
Josh Crumpton:It is a class a misdemeanor to fail to retrieve or keep, and in an edible condition, a white tail or mule deer, pronghorn, antelope or desert bighorn hunted without landowner consent from a vehicle. But yeah, that's all correct. So we read that correctly If you are poaching, you're going to get hit with a class a misdemeanor but what's interesting to note about this poaching and misdemeanor charge is none of that is on migratory species.
Josh Crumpton:So this isn't a federal law. This is state law. These are state managed game resources that the state of Texas has decided. We're going to throw a misdemeanor on top of things if you're poaching, if you don't try to get it Shouldn't be poaching to begin with.
Chris Cantrell:No, no, I think most states have a warrant and waste law.
Josh Crumpton:Which is what, that's what this that's what this was to gain. So backing up into this a little bit more, getting into the waste of game a little bit more, it's this is what. This is what I really want to talk about. If a person, while hunting, kills or wounds a game bird or game animal and intentionally or knowingly fails to make a reasonable effort to retrieve the animal or bird and there's two parts of this and include it in the person's daily or seasonal bag, how do you guys read that?
Chris Cantrell:So that means if I say I'm dove hunting and my limits 15 I think this might have gone further into that so I shoot, I kill 15 birds, I only recover 10. I made a good effort to recover those five, though I didn't find them.
Josh Crumpton:I still can't. You know you need a dog.
Chris Cantrell:Yeah, I can't shoot 20. I can't. I can't kill 20 because I lost five and bring home 15.
Josh Crumpton:Yeah, so what's interesting about this? How do you read that?
Davin Topel:Yeah, it's basically you have to at least go out, make that reasonable effort to go out and find the birds. If you cannot find the birds, then they still count against your bag. They still count against your bag limit.
Josh Crumpton:Yeah, so that's the way I, that's the way I perceive and hunt. But I'm going to read this again. So and like there's a lot of gray here, like what is a reasonable effort? Like we're using terms like reasonable effort that is very subjective. Like what is a reasonable effort? Is it reasonable for me to walk 600 yards across a pond to retrieve a bird on the other side of the pond If I'm 20 years old or if I'm 80 years old? Reasonable effort is now the sliding scale based upon physics. I'm just, I'm not a lawyer, but I'm just going to point out what I think are some.
Josh Crumpton:Like a you should always try to retrieve all the game that you should be. I always count it towards my bag. That's my personal, but reading this code reasonable is weird.
Davin Topel:That's like what's reasonable. Like what's reasonable, you can spin it however you want. If you're you know if, if you feel that, like you made a reasonable effort by putting the gun down, putting the safety on putting a gun down and standing up and looking and saying can't get it, I mean, is that reasonable? I don't know if that's reasonable or not In your mind like well, that's what's weird about this law. It's a weird thing about the law According to who.
Chris Cantrell:Yeah, you know. And so the game warden looking at you through the binoculars.
Josh Crumpton:Well, that's what that's. What it comes down to is a lot of his situation, a lot of it's at the discretion discretion of the game warden and it's going to be if it goes to court, it's going to be at the discretion of the said judge. Like well, and the game warden is probably going to weigh in.
Davin Topel:Yeah the game warden story, your story. As a judge, I'm ruling that. You didn't right like that. I'm in ruling of whatever the game warden said. You just stood up and looked and just sat back down and started shooting again. Yeah, that's not okay. We're going to slap you, you know. Yeah, it may come down to that to find out what reasonable is.
Josh Crumpton:Well, here's the weird thing about this, but this is why. So, at the end of this, like I've kind of got my cautionary telling, what I would default on all this is that reasonable effort to retrieve the animal and include it in the person's daily or seasonal bag limit. That's not an or included.
Davin Topel:No, that's an and.
Josh Crumpton:So that implies to me almost that you have to retrieve it. You have to get it and then include it, so a non retrieval is not counted towards your bag limit is the way that I could very easily interpret this, because it's make a reasonable effort to retrieve the animal or bird and include it. Include it as in the as it is the retrieved.
Davin Topel:Yeah, that you reasonably retrieved, or is?
Josh Crumpton:it and or is it and include? I mean I default on including. I think everybody should default on. I shot, I killed that animal.
Chris Cantrell:I know it went down. I'm going to notch that off.
Josh Crumpton:That is a tag. So I have five deer tags and I didn't recover my deer. That's a tag that's gone. I think that that's the ethical thing to do. Now. We could split the law down any way you want, but I think the ethical the the intention of the law is to make it that's only so many animals are killed. So if you killed the animal, you should count it. But to me, after reading all of this and looking at it and and the biggest thing is like you should have a relationship with your local game warden and these are questions that you should like ask your local game warden and like I know that a lot of people are like, oh, mr Greenjeans is on the property. You know, mr Greenjeans, I've never had a bad encounter witha game no.
Josh Crumpton:Have either of you ever had a bad?
Davin Topel:encounter with a game warden. Oh, here comes.
Josh Crumpton:Tijuana.
Chris Cantrell:I can see him. No, what can I?
Davin Topel:What can I? I'm trying to think.
Chris Cantrell:I've encountered a lot of game wardens. I don't think I've ever really had a negative. No, every game warden I've come across, if you're and you hear this a lot on you know other platforms like, if you're honest with them, then they're usually like great, that's like I've had game words approach me and like I had a license, I didn't have it on me and now everything's digital. It's a different deal. But you know, I was like I don't have it on me and they're like give me your driver's license and they write all the information down and like if you hear from me, it's not good.
Josh Crumpton:That means, you missed out, yeah right.
Chris Cantrell:But if you don't like cool, you're good, that's that's about. But, like I, also try and abide by all the all the state and local and federal laws and things they put in place. I know people that have. You know I've seen people get tickets that you know tried, tried to sneak by the system. But I've you know we had him come out to the Dove field opening weekend and they are all very cordial and, you know, very pleasant and with me especially as kind of a steward of the field at that point and I've never run into like some hot headed, you know, looking for a score, kind of game warden. They're just there to enforce the laws that are on the books and I feel, I feel I feel bad for those guys because I know there's, I've known some that, no, I have, I have had a bad interaction with a game warden.
Josh Crumpton:Oh no, here we go, we go. This is starting off, so good, hold on, hold on. I love my game wardens and I've never had any problems.
Chris Cantrell:Ok, maybe it wasn't, maybe it was I had either was one game warden in a different state where I was guiding, fly fishing guiding, and he, just he's, he's, the. He was the rare breed that just he checked my, me and my clients licenses three times in one day, oh wow.
Josh Crumpton:Maybe he was suffering from a little loss of time. He's a young guy early on, early on, early on, and he did this.
Chris Cantrell:He did this to me and other guys multiple times. We were getting complaints at the fly shop I worked at, where he his interpretation. There was a particular stream that was single, single hook. Barbless restrictions on fly fishing. He interpreted that as single fly, single, single dry dropper no dry dropper, that was his interpretation and he was threatening fishermen guides that he was going to write them tickets. Taken to jail.
Chris Cantrell:I ended up on the phone for like two hours with the with the game and fish department getting a straight now getting a straight, and that's where I got and I got you know to a person where I could say this is a Like, this is what it is, this is the ruling on this particular situation, and it was. You could technically fish 25 flies if you wanted to, because that was.
Josh Crumpton:It's a single hook. Barbless fly Means that you can have as many single hook barbless flies online as you would like. You may not have a Trouble hook. Yeah, you may not have a fly with a barb. Oh okay, but you may have a dry dropper, you may have a nymph rig, you can fish and that's pretty.
Chris Cantrell:But this is a good Like 25 was the limit, because that's a trot line.
Josh Crumpton:But this is the thing is it's like that's where, like this gray Interpretation and the rubber meets the road, and like that's where having a relationship with a game warden, if you have a misunderstanding, clearing it up and saying this is my interpretation of the law, if you, if we have a discrepancy, let's get to the bottom of it, let's figure all of this out. You know, I mean, that's the that's. I think the bottom line is most, and game wardens are people too.
Chris Cantrell:Yeah.
Josh Crumpton:So they're gonna be subject to all of the things that anybody is bias and those sort of stuff, but to me the game wardens in Texas. Their title is conservation officers.
Josh Crumpton:Yeah so their primary function and goal is not to come out and Bust people who are trying to adhere to the law, but their goal is to try to use the laws that have been in place To manage the resources in a way that promotes conservation of our resources. And that's our primary function, and you know it's not to take you down when you're you know, you know or adhere and I might.
Josh Crumpton:my only run in with some game wardens was in West Texas. I had some game wardens that showed up one time like I Mean there's a new game warden, we're out near Marathon and this game warden showed up at like Primetime, like quail, like this is the quail or moving.
Josh Crumpton:This is the power hour and I've got clients and they've paid a lot of money to be out there, and I'm like, and we're, we're on a caveat. Oh my god, this is a good story. So, like, we're on a caveat birds and like, and. And my clients are like man, hey, we're on this, cubby birds. I'm like, yeah, like, well, the game wardens just did the thing where they poke their head in the gate and they parked way down there where they know I can see them.
Davin Topel:So we're gonna go down and visit with them.
Josh Crumpton:And we got a hunt these birds. Now, man, we can't hunt these birds. So, like, we're in, these guys pay a bunch of money, they're here and I feel bad. So we turn off the birds and we come down and we're rolling down to where the game wardens are and they're hanging out and they're standing in front of their truck and we pull up and as we get, about 20 yards away, the biggest frickin cubby flushes right in between the two of us. There's a bunch of birds everywhere. It's so you know.
Josh Crumpton:I went over and talked to him. I was like, hey, welcome to the neighborhood, glad to have you guys out here. I'm like here that my guests arrive typically on these days. I've got three more groups coming in. They're gonna be here here and here.
Josh Crumpton:If you want to check licenses and do those things, I would invite you to come to the camp, come up there ahead of time, check all the licenses, do all the stuff. But if we could avoid prime time like you know, these folks have paid a lot of money to be out here if we could not disrupt hunting and you come out and get this knocked out At a time, I'll do anything I can do to acquiesce for you getting your job done. And they were like cool, yeah, no problem, we'll do that. And then I never saw them again. So I mean like they were. I mean what they did is they came out and assessed that like here is a law abiding, yeah, who's trying to do the right thing. They met me with like open arms and said, here, check my cooler, do whatever. And that was the end of the story. I think that's the way it rolls.
Josh Crumpton:Yeah you know, ultimately I Got another thing on this. We've this been along on these ducks and a dumpster, dumpster, ducks. So, and this one is good. I'm glad that I have both of you guys here because this is cool, because we're talking about how you can transfer items, how you can transfer game. You know, we've covered a little bit of like the idea of trying to not waste game and a lot of these laws all came out of Early on when we had market hunters, and it came from the idea that market hunters literally almost killed all the game.
Josh Crumpton:Yeah man there's killed everything like just shooting ducks on the water, and mass quantities, like these guys were. No doubt, I will tell you, market hunters were some of the most efficient lethal hunters that North America has ever seen. These guys were using guns and going out and shooting massive quantities of game to the point of almost extincting ducks, whitetail and turkey. And it was a sporting hunter, the hunter who did the thing for all the things we've been talking about earlier, that connection to the land that stepped in, acquiesced and said we're willing to pay attacks on our, on the ammunition and the firearms that we buy, we're willing to contribute to conservation, we're willing to accept bag limits, we're willing to accept a tag system, we're willing to. We, we, we, the hunters, the sporting hunters, accepted all these laws ourselves in order to conserve the population and protect the wild spaces. That was before Greenpeace, that was before the Sierra Club, that was before any of those things existed. And what is so cool about that is that initial sporting Person. The spirit is still what's driving conservation today and that's why we have all these limits.
Josh Crumpton:But Talking about the sale of animals, here is the law on the sale of Inedible wildlife parts. The following Inedible wildlife. Parts may be purchased or sold, if lawfully taken or possessed hide, hair, antlers, bones, horns, skulls, hooves or sinew of the following game animals mule deer, white tail deer, pronghorn desert, big horn desert big horn sheep, gray or cat squirrels, fox squirrels or red squirrels. Have a lina, aka the colored peckery. Feathered bones or feet of game birds, turkey, pheasant, quail and cha cha la ca. Other migratory birds may be used or purchased or sold for making Flies, pillows, mattresses or other similar commercial uses. Feathers from migratory birds May not be purchased or sold for hats or ornamental purposes. Nor may a person possess or sell Mounted migratory game bird species or their parts taken by hunting.
Chris Cantrell:Whoa. First of all, what's a chocolate?
Davin Topel:Okay, right right, chocolate is another.
Josh Crumpton:Psychiatrist.
Davin Topel:Yeah, it's like it's no cheap, a cabra of the of the bird.
Josh Crumpton:It's an upland bird that lives on the border.
Chris Cantrell:Okay, I think it's the greatest name for a bird ever.
Josh Crumpton:It's one of the last upland bird species for most people to hunt, but the key element here is, like so, migratory bird session not just sale but but possession.
Davin Topel:So you're not allowed to possess Feathers of migratory birds.
Josh Crumpton:No, you can. Feathers from migratory birds may not be purchased purchased or sold, or sold hats or ornamental purposes. Nor may a person sell a mounted migratory bird. So my birds, my ducks, which I love, like I have the king of the ducks on the wall over here, a spoonbell, of course. Duh that If I were to pass away, and my children, yeah, and I know you're listening to this.
Davin Topel:They're not listening to this, but maybe one day they will, you can't sell that duck.
Josh Crumpton:You got to keep that duck or give it away. But you cannot sell my ducks, my hard-earned spoon now.
Davin Topel:And that goes for and also mounts like oh yeah dove well, no, but I'm saying like dear, dear, no. That was yeah cuz there, but there was a Giratory bird but there was, there was, it was also reading the same thing with that right. No, no, no, no what was that one?
Josh Crumpton:No, no, you may Hare, hide, antlers, bones, horn, skull, hooves or sinew. From the following game animals mule deer, white tail deer, prong horn, desert big horn, sheep, gray or cat squirrels, fox squirrels, red squirrels and Havilina, aka collared peckery. Those you may sell.
Davin Topel:Okay, okay, those can be purchased. So your deer mounts, your white tail mounts you can sell your white tail mounts. You see those at antique stores and things like that you may not sell your duck mounts.
Josh Crumpton:That's going to be an illegal transaction. That's crazy. Feathers, feathers, bones or feet of game birds, turkey, pheasant, quail and chachalaca.
Davin Topel:Other than.
Josh Crumpton:I'm sorry I left a key word out here. Other than migratory birds may be used but purchased or sold for making flies, pillows, mattresses and other similar commercial uses. So you cannot use duck feathers for or you cannot sell duck feathers, so like in the case where where Chris made the hat pin for Holly. You can make that, but you cannot sell that to her.
Davin Topel:You can possess it, that's right.
Josh Crumpton:You just cannot sell that on our Shopify when we start selling our feathered hat pins hint, hint to both of you guys that make hat pins here. When we start selling those from our pheasant and our quail and things like that here.
Davin Topel:that is legal. Yeah, that's totally legal, right, yeah, but no, but I did not know that you couldn't sell, yeah, migratory duck mounts feathers, and I'm assuming that there's probably special licensing because you can get wood duck. You want wood duck feathers for some flies? Yeah, let's rewind this back.
Josh Crumpton:I mean it's like you cannot, may not be purchased or sold for hats or other ornamental purposes.
Davin Topel:Okay.
Josh Crumpton:Or mounts, so you can. They can be integrated into flies, but they cannot be sold as jewelry or hats and like. So when you start digging into these codes, you start really understanding what the impact of market hunting was.
Chris Cantrell:Well, yeah, the hat, the ornamental feather hats was like that just made, like Papua New Guinea and Africa, like all of these phenomenal birds.
Davin Topel:And you guys did read the feather.
Chris Cantrell:Oh, feather.
Davin Topel:Such a good book, Like just like learning about, like why and how and what's going like. Oh, and that's why they're they're, but flies are included.
Josh Crumpton:Extinct, you can do, you can do. Flies, you can do flies.
Davin Topel:Right, I like to get a lot of.
Chris Cantrell:I've got Spencer Sein, who's a phenomenal like old school Sam and Tyre in New Mexico. That's how he gets his feathers for tying these old school flies, Old hats, Old hats and like, or like estate sales where they have mounted birds that are like from the past and stuff.
Josh Crumpton:Well wait, no, you can't buy mounted birds.
Chris Cantrell:But I think, because it has to like, the Providence has to be prior to this passage, because he's bought polar bear fur and things like that. But it has to be like there's a chain there's a chain of like a what's it called.
Josh Crumpton:Chain of Providence? Yeah, no, there's, yeah, something like that. I don't know.
Davin Topel:I'm not a lawyer, I'm not getting in on this.
Josh Crumpton:A certain age, it's a statutory, so you have to season them, so you have to bury them in your lawn. It has to be before a certain For at least a hundred years and you have to come back and sell them Chain of custody, chain of custody, so, like.
Chris Cantrell:So, if you can, if you can say like this hat is from like 1924, before a lot of these laws were passed.
Josh Crumpton:Oh yeah, then you can sell that, you can sell the hat.
Chris Cantrell:Or the mounted birds yes so you can sell it at a certain date, like you can still, and that's how, like a lot of these guys get, but like that's what, that's what decimated the birds.
Davin Topel:Yeah, yeah, decorative. Oh, hats, hats. That was in the book. It was hats Getting fancy. No, it's getting fancy.
Chris Cantrell:Yeah, and that's what that's what linked it to the flies.
Davin Topel:Well, and so the interesting thing is like the hat industry killed and extinct birds.
Josh Crumpton:Yeah. So let's talk about, let's like, can we like? Let's just scratch a little further on that.
Josh Crumpton:So like hats. So just here is a thing that was being worn strictly vanity, beautification, no connection with nature, and I I don't know if I'm going to like, maybe question that that these laws should be revisited a little bit like mounts, things like that, like the general purpose, could promote conservation. I feel like fashion in fashion and taxidermy mount are different things Like a taxidermy mount is something that's going to be sold to somebody who appreciates the species and probably has hopefully bought into the idea of continuing the species, whereas like somebody on the runway wearing a hat they don't even care.
Josh Crumpton:They, and the problem is, the problem with this is that, like these groups, like a pita, those sort of things, they've just lumped everybody in to one thing Hunters, fashionistas, the whole deal. And I just, you know, I would encourage everybody out there to differentiate ourselves. Like I have mounted birds, not as a fashion state, but but is a reminder of the beauty that that nature is, and I, coming to this late in life at a hard time, I looked at taxidermy and was like that's terrible. There's, there's a dead thing on your wall. That's gross. But I my perspective has changed so much that when I look at amount, it's something that allows me to look close at a species that I highly respect and I want to make sure exists.
Josh Crumpton:On this planet for in perpetuity, beyond the human race, hopefully even I don't know. I mean like I want to make sure these species are.
Davin Topel:Well, that one will.
Josh Crumpton:That one's that spoonie.
Chris Cantrell:Again the king of the ducks, the king of the ducks. The best way to preserve a species is to assign it value, and so like by assigning it, to assign it value, like either hunting or whatever that gives that animal value, and then that will like hunters, as we all know, as hunters and fishermen know, like contribute more to conservation than any, any group.
Josh Crumpton:I look at that like beyond assigning value, like like before assigning value is giving it a name.
Josh Crumpton:And that goes back to sort of what you were talking about with like hey, these guys could see like there's seven gadwalls coming in, Like I think the primary, the baseline for respecting and conserving is when you start naming things. When you're like that is a we sash, that is a mesquite, that is a cedar, that's an oak, not just a wall of green. When you're like that's a teal, that's a whidgen, that's a mallard, is you give things names and that goes down for like everybody Like when you're like, when you're like oh, those are just whatever people, when you're like that's Bob or Frank or Bill or Ann or you know whatever their name is. Like when you give something a name and it assigns a value in your mind and I think that's where it comes back to us as the guides, as the mentors in the space, as the people who people looked at to take them out, to do things to provide people with at the base level, when we're rolling down the river, that's an osprey.
Davin Topel:That's you know. Look at these cypress trees are amazing.
Josh Crumpton:I love them because people you get on the river, you know everything is great, everything is great.
Davin Topel:Everything is great. To them, that's a ball cypress.
Josh Crumpton:What and that's what you were doing as a guide out on a duck hunting trip is. You were driving those questions and you were being met with duck hunting guides. He said people don't ask us this thing. So our responsibility, I think, is to understand that at the, at the, at the base level, most people don't ask those questions, and it may not be because they don't want to know them. It may be because they're afraid to ask them, because they're afraid to appear ignorant. So our job, and everybody's job.
Chris Cantrell:I get a lot of that, especially on the river. People like this might sound like a dumb question.
Davin Topel:Stop saying that I'm like, it's not, I'm like. Oh, I tell them, it's like after a while, you're like it might be, this one might be.
Josh Crumpton:I'm going to answer it.
Chris Cantrell:I'll answer it regardless of what you say, but most of the time it's a very like what is that bird Like? What is that tree Like? There's a lot of those like naturalist questions that you know and when I first started coming down to Texas it took me. I'm like I have no idea.
Chris Cantrell:Like I just started learning, I can tell you every type of tree you know and encounter in Colorado, new Mexico, utah, where I spent, you know, 20 years, and but like, then I came to Texas and I had to learn and I was fascinated by it. I'm like, oh, that's a car car, one of my favorite birds, even though they're weird, but like I love car cars See, one of those was like I thought that was the coolest thing in the world.
Davin Topel:I remember seeing mine for the first time. I was like that's a pretty cool bird and I remember my first time too guys, your first car car.
Josh Crumpton:Yeah, that's what it was.
Chris Cantrell:Like. The one of the coolest ones was the uh uh. What are those giant herons on the coast?
Josh Crumpton:The great blue herons Whooping, whooping cranes. Oh the whippers. Oh see, one of those was like that's magic, yeah they're super, that's as big as me.
Davin Topel:Yeah, you know who does it really well, as a buddy of mine guides grand Canyon, the company that he works with. They've been doing it for so long. Riverguides are phenomenal. Oh man, yeah, I loved, I did it, for I did it for a spell in my life Like I loved it, but you do it so often that you learn so much and you get this appreciation of teaching the whole time. And again you get that as guides. We know people are wondering like you get that look like they want to ask something but they're not going to. So what you should do is again just like divulge the information before they even have it Absolutely.
Davin Topel:And these guides on uh, it's Colorado River trail guide service. But my buddy Dewey, he knows everything and he is not a geologist, he is not, uh, an astra like Dewey decimal.
Davin Topel:Yes, like Dewey decimal, yes, um, but uh he, when you're going down a river trip with this crew, like they are just talking the whole time, because that whole journey down the river, it is just that it's a journey through time and space that you don't even. You just look at it like rocks, like no, no, no, you are going a mile deep into the earth and history and what what created these layers, and they take it upon themselves to teach you all these things the whole way down. And I didn't, I didn't know that when I first started working with them and just to get that was just like wow, this is. It was pretty amazing, just like all the history and all the geology. And again it goes into astronomy and like looking at the stars, because that's, he's just surrounded by that constantly. So we're just going to teach you about this without you even asking.
Chris Cantrell:Like I had no idea. I'm going to spend video. Yeah yeah, that makes people comfortable to start asking questions too, and then it's just like dominoes into like wonderful conversations and experiences for people to have.
Davin Topel:Yeah, that's what we should all, as guides, strive to do and strive to be is make sure that people know that it's okay to ask questions, and if you don't have questions, I'm just going to spout off some, some random.
Chris Cantrell:I'm going to fill space with facts, right? Yeah, well, I mean, here's the thing.
Josh Crumpton:I'm going to fill the awkwardness in the book.
Chris Cantrell:Just kidding.
Josh Crumpton:Honestly, I'm going to take a minute. You said your buddy, dewey Decimal, in the Grand Canyon. I'm going to take a moment to brag on you guys and, like the reason why, the reason why I work with you guys, the reason why we're friends, the reason why we're all here, is that we all do that is. It is ingrained in our DNA and if you haven't picked up in this conversation with these guys, it's who we are. It is not gripping grins. The reality is what we're doing at Spokalo and what everything here is about is connecting you at a deep level to nature and changing the way you perceive the world, and you guys do that so well. And that's not where this podcast started, but that's where it's going to end and I just want to thank you guys for doing it and thank everybody for listening and sign off on that one Chakalaka, chakalaka.
Chris Cantrell:Chakalaka, chakalaka.