Latest / The MeatEater Podcast / Ep. 342: Getting Busted for Touching Air
Transcript
- 0:08Speaker 1: This is Me eat podcast coming at you shirtless, severely,
- 0:13Speaker 1: bug bitten, and in my case, underwear listening podcast. You
- 0:18Speaker 1: can't predict anything presented by First like creating proven versatile
- 0:24Speaker 1: hunting apparel from Marino bass layers to technical outerwear for
- 0:28Speaker 1: every hunt, first Light, Go Farther, Stay Longer. Holy sh
- 0:35Speaker 1: it is the Missouri Corner Crossers in the studio. Dude,
- 0:39Speaker 1: you're famous. Do people come out to the airport and
- 0:42Speaker 1: be like, it's the Missari corner Crosser. No, we're not.
- 0:45Speaker 1: We're unrecognizable. No one knows who you are. No, huh.
- 0:50Speaker 1: This is the first like media thing you've been able
- 0:52Speaker 1: to do pretty much. I've talked about some people on
- 0:55Speaker 1: the phone. Oh yeah, but you haven't been. You haven't
- 0:57Speaker 1: been on one of these here digital radio programs, the first.
- 1:00Speaker 1: It's awesome. Man. We also exclusive and we also have
- 1:03Speaker 1: Brandon Butler here, who's an Arson victim, also a Missourians.
- 1:10Speaker 1: People come up with you in the airport and be like,
- 1:12Speaker 1: are you an Arson victim? You would be surprised how
- 1:14Speaker 1: many people have heard this story. Well, it's a great story.
- 1:17Speaker 1: Is it? Hell? Out of me? Man? Oh god, I'm
- 1:21Speaker 1: depressed After I heard the little summary this morning from Brandon. Yeah,
- 1:27Speaker 1: I shouldn't be it's not a good thing. I mean, no,
- 1:30Speaker 1: it's horrible. And then did you see how nice this
- 1:32Speaker 1: place became, the place that the poachers burned down? How
- 1:34Speaker 1: nice it became after we were there last You think
- 1:37Speaker 1: he would have waited to invite us over when it
- 1:39Speaker 1: was all done up in fancy. I wanted you guys
- 1:42Speaker 1: do experience and when it was raw, rawn cold. Yeah,
- 1:46Speaker 1: it's a it's a tragic story, but there's like a
- 1:48Speaker 1: little bit of justice in the end. There is a first,
- 1:53Speaker 1: a couple of things. Cal you were telling a story
- 1:55Speaker 1: that was so good we wanted you to start over again.
- 1:58Speaker 1: But it's an apropos for this podcast because it is
- 2:02Speaker 1: about government, hyperlocalized government, which is your homeowners association or
- 2:08Speaker 1: in my case, condo owners Association, of which I got
- 2:12Speaker 1: I got a hot tip for listeners. I bought a
- 2:15Speaker 1: house with the h o A, but I didn't really
- 2:17Speaker 1: know what it meant, Like I hadn't I hadn't bought
- 2:19Speaker 1: a bunch of houses. I bought one other house before,
- 2:21Speaker 1: and there wasn't anything like that. And then I heard
- 2:24Speaker 1: that there was one, and I didn't really think about it.
- 2:26Speaker 1: I know now that I would never ever, ever, ever,
- 2:29Speaker 1: ever again by a house with h o A. It's
- 2:33Speaker 1: like a group that makes it that you can't have
- 2:36Speaker 1: your boat, that you like, can't work on your boat
- 2:38Speaker 1: the way you'd like to work on it. Yeah, exactly,
- 2:41Speaker 1: And I think like the seasonal approach, like your friend
- 2:44Speaker 1: was saying it is A is a great one. Right.
- 2:46Speaker 1: It's like, if you want to work on some junkie
- 2:49Speaker 1: old vehicle, that's totally fine. But if it comes to
- 2:55Speaker 1: be that there's four ft of snow on there and
- 2:57Speaker 1: then there's junk everywhere and you're obviously not working on it,
- 3:00Speaker 1: then it becomes not fine. Yeah. I can see that.
- 3:03Speaker 1: That seems reasonable to me. Yeah. It's like if you
- 3:06Speaker 1: have your uh, you know, let's just say, let's say
- 3:12Speaker 1: you're bringing your camper somewhere and the world's washed out
- 3:16Speaker 1: like that, they got to fix the road. I don't know, Yeah,
- 3:21Speaker 1: and you don't want to do Yeah. I can see
- 3:23Speaker 1: where where you're going with that. But here, here's the deal.
- 3:25Speaker 1: What if you're you didn't have let's say you didn't
- 3:27Speaker 1: have an h A and your neighbor and you could
- 3:30Speaker 1: do it where you live and your neighbors like, you
- 3:32Speaker 1: know what, I'm going to open up a burger joint
- 3:34Speaker 1: at running out of my garage so now, and that
- 3:37Speaker 1: wouldn't be an h A issue, that'd be a zoning issue. Well,
- 3:40Speaker 1: I'm saying, let's just say you were outside of the
- 3:42Speaker 1: you're on the other side of that line that's right
- 3:44Speaker 1: behind your house, and you're outside of uh you know,
- 3:48Speaker 1: city limits or whatever, and you were in a place
- 3:50Speaker 1: where you could do it. I understand you don't. You're
- 3:54Speaker 1: saying that I live in a place where it's zoned
- 3:56Speaker 1: for someone from my neighbor to open a burger restaurant.
- 3:58Speaker 1: I'm saying you. I'm saying you, oh, I'm making up
- 4:00Speaker 1: a place where you could do that. There's no rules.
- 4:03Speaker 1: Well I'll give I'll give you a good example and
- 4:07Speaker 1: no zoning. Okay. For for for instance, my h says, because
- 4:10Speaker 1: we are zone, obviously, you can't have a business. You
- 4:13Speaker 1: can't have a burger, you get zero business. I don't
- 4:15Speaker 1: know if it's a burger joint, but you can have
- 4:17Speaker 1: one's going to your house for burgers. You can have
- 4:21Speaker 1: have an auto repair shopdo okay, a welding shop. I'd
- 4:25Speaker 1: like that very much. I wish all my neighbors had
- 4:28Speaker 1: welding shops. Well, I actually I wish it was welding, welding, fabrication, electric, lumberyard, plumbing,
- 4:38Speaker 1: tackle stand. All of a sudden, your neighborhood wasn't nice
- 4:42Speaker 1: and quiet, and there was like five people coming to
- 4:44Speaker 1: visit whatever business it was. You'd be like, Oh cool,
- 4:48Speaker 1: but what's what's having a camper or a boat in
- 4:52Speaker 1: your drive. He's trying to go extreme. He's trying to.
- 4:54Speaker 1: He's trying to because there's yeah, there's the extreme version
- 4:58Speaker 1: of h o A and extreme versions of any neighbors
- 5:01Speaker 1: that h o A s are wish. I wish that
- 5:05Speaker 1: my I wish my house was the only one that
- 5:07Speaker 1: looked nice because people be like, jeez, that's a nice
- 5:09Speaker 1: looking house. But your people got jumped out cards. And
- 5:13Speaker 1: then when I needed a part right now, I need
- 5:15Speaker 1: I need a piece of aluminum. I don't give a
- 5:17Speaker 1: ship two inch four inch wide. I needed a piece
- 5:20Speaker 1: of aluminum bar stock in Alaska, at our fishack in Alaska.
- 5:25Speaker 1: There's sure should know h o A. I could easily
- 5:27Speaker 1: find that by going to my neighbors and looking around
- 5:30Speaker 1: where they keep all their garbage. Here it doesn't work
- 5:34Speaker 1: that way. But if all my neighbors had junk collections,
- 5:36Speaker 1: I'd go like, hey, do you mind if I dig
- 5:38Speaker 1: around like I'm trying to find out you know, you
- 5:39Speaker 1: big whatever. They'd be like, hey, bad, I got all
- 5:41Speaker 1: my junk here, don't cut yourself, tell you man. So yeah,
- 5:47Speaker 1: you know the Latin calvete m tour buyer be aware,
- 5:53Speaker 1: covers it all m It's like, oh yeah, that neighborhood.
- 5:58Speaker 1: So to be realistic, what I would say is this.
- 6:00Speaker 1: I would say that if like, well I start on
- 6:03Speaker 1: my point, I won't do it again. If I did,
- 6:05Speaker 1: I would be like I would have an h like
- 6:07Speaker 1: I would make an h oo that said the h
- 6:09Speaker 1: o A rules are it's cool to have and that
- 6:12Speaker 1: list things I like? Right, campers, boat trailers like stuff
- 6:19Speaker 1: I like? And that was okay, Can someone live in
- 6:24Speaker 1: your camper full time in your yard? Depends what the
- 6:28Speaker 1: groove is and if I like it. So I'm swinging
- 6:33Speaker 1: in to the condo the other day. And it's work
- 6:37Speaker 1: live right. So they are businesses on the bottom level,
- 6:41Speaker 1: residences on top and what do they call them? Living works? Yeah?
- 6:46Speaker 1: Work live, live work yeah. Um, but they're duels owned
- 6:49Speaker 1: and and that doesn't make too much of a difference here.
- 6:52Speaker 1: But uh, buddy across the street works on wind generation,
- 6:59Speaker 1: power generation stuff, and and he's a major tinker. He's
- 7:03Speaker 1: got his garage open all the time. He's got this
- 7:05Speaker 1: little bulldog named Blue Cheese. And uh, what kind of
- 7:10Speaker 1: tinker is he gonna do? Woodworking? Lots of woodworking, lots
- 7:16Speaker 1: of moto stuff, lots of bicycle stuff, um, automotive whatever.
- 7:23Speaker 1: Like he is into it. And that's what's cool about
- 7:26Speaker 1: the neighborhood. Or it's slowly changing. But um weekends especially
- 7:30Speaker 1: like everybody's got their garage open, and and nobody really
- 7:33Speaker 1: wants to go bullshit with each other because they're too
- 7:38Speaker 1: busy tinkering. But you can always walk over and borrow
- 7:41Speaker 1: a tool that you need in between the open garages.
- 7:44Speaker 1: Sounds like a great neighborhood. It's yeah, it's ideal. Well,
- 7:49Speaker 1: we've been getting this infestation of rock doves city pigeons
- 7:54Speaker 1: and they've shown up for the first time. They're crapping
- 7:56Speaker 1: on everything. I'm have been and I don't own an
- 8:01Speaker 1: air rifle anymore, but I was trying to solicit some
- 8:07Speaker 1: work from somebody who does. My boy will do it.
- 8:09Speaker 1: But the problem is we just had to order him
- 8:11Speaker 1: a new magazine for his gammo this morning because according
- 8:18Speaker 1: to him, it broke. Then he lost it, but it
- 8:20Speaker 1: didn't matter because it was broke. We're going to pay
- 8:26Speaker 1: to fix something. This air rifle shooting. Is that okay?
- 8:29Speaker 1: With the h O A. It is? It is because
- 8:31Speaker 1: I'm the de facto president. I was. I was stupid
- 8:35Speaker 1: enough to join the board. You put a clause in there,
- 8:37Speaker 1: and then everybody else moved away. So so there was
- 8:42Speaker 1: one board member right now, right now, which is not
- 8:45Speaker 1: up to the by laws. But here we are, nobody
- 8:47Speaker 1: wants to do it. I get it. Um, So I
- 8:50Speaker 1: come polling in yesterday. Blue Cheese, who's always a potential
- 8:55Speaker 1: speed bump, come strutting out there, and uh, he smashes
- 9:03Speaker 1: this squab, this flightless pigeon on the on the side
- 9:07Speaker 1: of the sidewalk, like he catches it. He catches it,
- 9:10Speaker 1: which is not super likely, right, And so I'm looking
- 9:14Speaker 1: around and determined that the only place that the nest
- 9:17Speaker 1: could be is inside the barbecue of this neighbor who
- 9:22Speaker 1: I got, you know, flightless because of its youth, of
- 9:25Speaker 1: its youth understanding. Yeah, So it's a it's a you know,
- 9:28Speaker 1: city pigeons. So just get out of the nest and
- 9:30Speaker 1: the dog grabs it. And then you know, my dog
- 9:33Speaker 1: takes great interest in that, and she gets it from
- 9:36Speaker 1: the bulldogs who's super piste and there's just a slight
- 9:39Speaker 1: height difference there, and so he's jumping up at her.
- 9:42Speaker 1: They're making all sorts of noise. She's trotting around super
- 9:45Speaker 1: proud with this burdener mouth, looking around. Then the other
- 9:48Speaker 1: neighbors show up, who are from away, will just say,
- 9:52Speaker 1: from Steve's old neighborhood in Seattle, and they're watching all this,
- 9:58Speaker 1: and I'm I'm more concerned with the origination where this
- 10:05Speaker 1: bird came from. You got a hot clue now, so
- 10:08Speaker 1: now I can eliminate the nest. The situation that I
- 10:11Speaker 1: am with the bird that's in hand literally has already
- 10:14Speaker 1: been caught, and uh, my neighbor from behind me goes,
- 10:18Speaker 1: can you just end it quick? And so kind of
- 10:23Speaker 1: without thinking, you know, I like call snort to hell.
- 10:26Speaker 1: I'm looking for the nest. She hands the bird off.
- 10:29Speaker 1: I grab it by the legs. I give it a
- 10:30Speaker 1: quick like like you know, like towel whack, and then
- 10:36Speaker 1: chucking in the dumpster, and you know, I'm still like
- 10:41Speaker 1: focused upwards and I turned around and there's just kind
- 10:44Speaker 1: of a scene, a quiet scene of like it was
- 10:49Speaker 1: too smooth, it was too effortless, right, Yeah, they wanted
- 10:53Speaker 1: more like contemplation and you to come over and be like, hey,
- 11:00Speaker 1: let's wrap our heads around that. Right. Yeah, that was intense,
- 11:04Speaker 1: but uh, it's not now how it works on the
- 11:07Speaker 1: main streets of bos Angeles, you know, Uh, Okay, we
- 11:12Speaker 1: got a lot to cover, so we're gonna go and
- 11:14Speaker 1: talk about why aren't two things here we're making We're
- 11:16Speaker 1: talking about Brax and Hicks. You guys know what you
- 11:18Speaker 1: guys got kids? Oh yeah, two girls, two girls, old
- 11:22Speaker 1: kids and now babies. Yeah, do you guys remember what
- 11:25Speaker 1: a Brax and Hicks contraction was. We're talking about how
- 11:30Speaker 1: there's only two women that listen and and um, I
- 11:34Speaker 1: don't know why we're talking about that, because we do
- 11:36Speaker 1: wonder why we're covering Bracks and Hits contractions. But but
- 11:40Speaker 1: we were wrong because three women wrote in we're off
- 11:46Speaker 1: by a lot, by a wide margin. Uh. They had
- 11:50Speaker 1: things to say about Bras and Hicks, So we're off.
- 11:54Speaker 1: Someone wrote in, if only two women listen to the show,
- 11:57Speaker 1: I'm half of them. She went on to say, as
- 12:01Speaker 1: for Braxton Hicks contractions, they can happen for half of her,
- 12:05Speaker 1: none of a pregnancy, and very in intensity for each person.
- 12:09Speaker 1: And there's no way in hell a woman who's had
- 12:11Speaker 1: a labor contraction could confuse the two. Another person mentioned
- 12:17Speaker 1: that her husband had a cousin whose name was Braxton Hicks,
- 12:23Speaker 1: spelled differently Braxton Hicks. It's a great name. Uh, Karin,
- 12:32Speaker 1: got your talk about your blue belt crin jiu jitsu.
- 12:36Speaker 1: Thanks are putting that in the talking points, Yann not
- 12:39Speaker 1: necessary to talk about, but yeah, I gotta. I've been
- 12:42Speaker 1: doing jiu jitsu for a little bit over a year
- 12:44Speaker 1: with Crown Gracie and very unexpectedly gott a promotion the
- 12:50Speaker 1: other day. So so if I help me understand, let's
- 12:54Speaker 1: say I through a wild haymaker at you. Do you
- 12:58Speaker 1: feel that you would then beat my ass? Is it
- 13:01Speaker 1: useful like that? It's so jiu jitsu is a drunken
- 13:05Speaker 1: wild haymaker. Yeah, I mean it's it's it's a lot
- 13:10Speaker 1: of things, but part of it at his core is
- 13:12Speaker 1: self defense. So it doesn't matter if you're bigger than
- 13:14Speaker 1: me or stronger than me. If I've got technique down,
- 13:18Speaker 1: if I can feel myself in my body and feel
- 13:22Speaker 1: like what and see like what you're doing or about
- 13:26Speaker 1: to do, then I might just be able to get
- 13:28Speaker 1: you in a little pretzel. Okay, So let's say she's
- 13:31Speaker 1: going to subdue you. Yes, exactly. I can't do anything.
- 13:37Speaker 1: That's so so never mind the wild haymaker because it
- 13:41Speaker 1: doesn't work. But like let's say, Um Yanni, I was like, okay, now, Karna,
- 13:47Speaker 1: Yanni will fight right right, and there's no haymakers, just
- 13:50Speaker 1: like you guys square off to fight. Do you feel
- 13:53Speaker 1: that you would beat Yanni's ass? Because you know this
- 13:58Speaker 1: martial art? I would say I have that I did
- 14:04Speaker 1: about six weeks when I was um, and that stuff
- 14:13Speaker 1: sticks with you like a bicycle. So so the first
- 14:17Speaker 1: thing I would try to do is get you to
- 14:19Speaker 1: the ground, just like I'm asking it. It's a yes
- 14:21Speaker 1: or no question, would you be able to beat you?
- 14:25Speaker 1: And he's asking a fight? Really that it works that good?
- 14:30Speaker 1: It's on after this podcast. It's all technique. It's you know,
- 14:34Speaker 1: if you're a smaller person going against a much bigger,
- 14:39Speaker 1: stronger person who doesn't have the level of technique that
- 14:43Speaker 1: you do. You can, you can subdue them, but are
- 14:47Speaker 1: you relying on them also fighting by the same set
- 14:51Speaker 1: of rules like do you know what? Like okay, so
- 14:54Speaker 1: you're not you're not. It doesn't have to be that
- 14:56Speaker 1: that there you're playing checkers, they're playing chess like there
- 15:02Speaker 1: doesn't matter. Oh so many factors come into play, but
- 15:08Speaker 1: there might be things that they don't. You know, someone
- 15:12Speaker 1: might like step to me and be really cocky about
- 15:16Speaker 1: their ability and not defend themselves in places where I
- 15:23Speaker 1: don't know, I might be able to do something. I
- 15:25Speaker 1: watched this play out in high school, like world enough now,
- 15:28Speaker 1: Like we were there when UFC kind of started, and
- 15:31Speaker 1: we had this boddy named Jay who thought he was
- 15:33Speaker 1: like studying it and he was a martial artist. We
- 15:36Speaker 1: had this truck driver named Valente who was like six
- 15:38Speaker 1: four two twenty in high school. And Jay's like, sure
- 15:42Speaker 1: he can take him because he knows all these skills.
- 15:44Speaker 1: So we move all the furniture out of Valente's like
- 15:47Speaker 1: parents upstairs, and there's tile and Jay's like in his
- 15:50Speaker 1: gear or whatever, and Valente's and something like ripped up
- 15:53Speaker 1: a C d C T shirt and Jay comes running
- 15:56Speaker 1: at him. Valente lifts him up as high as he
- 15:58Speaker 1: can and slams him on the tile and the fight
- 16:01Speaker 1: was over. That was the big guy just overpowered him.
- 16:05Speaker 1: A friend x ex girlfriend from a long time ago
- 16:09Speaker 1: studied judo from from like a Judo family and very
- 16:14Speaker 1: very tiny lady and my friend who was Division one
- 16:20Speaker 1: linebacker whose claim to fame was he once tackled Barry
- 16:23Speaker 1: Sanders picked a fight who everybody knows was a very
- 16:29Speaker 1: difficult target to tackle, very difficult um. But he picked
- 16:36Speaker 1: a fight with with her and it was over shockingly fast.
- 16:42Speaker 1: She will up and all she said was, they always
- 16:46Speaker 1: tried to pick you up. I thought you said yeah, No,
- 16:50Speaker 1: there's no I don't think there's a lot of hyahs
- 16:52Speaker 1: and Judo Judo is like, yeah, is getting you to
- 16:56Speaker 1: the ground is very explosive, So that's not surprised. Her
- 16:59Speaker 1: takeaway is big guys always try to pick up smaller
- 17:03Speaker 1: people and throw them down. I don't know, but she's
- 17:07Speaker 1: just like, yeah, they always try to pick you up.
- 17:11Speaker 1: I couldn't really see it because they're kind of wrapped up,
- 17:14Speaker 1: but he was and was like okay, okay, okay, okay.
- 17:20Speaker 1: So it turned turned the conversation around real fast. Okay,
- 17:23Speaker 1: last thing Yanni wanted to plug. I haven't downloaded yet,
- 17:28Speaker 1: but Bogaine loves it. Oh, it's so cool. Everything in
- 17:31Speaker 1: this room should get it. It's free. It's called the
- 17:38Speaker 1: Merlin Bird. I D by the corn L Lab. Everything
- 17:42Speaker 1: about everything good about birds is from the Cornell or
- 17:45Speaker 1: not absolutely. Yeah. Oh I just opened it and says
- 17:50Speaker 1: your five day grace period is over. Worth paying whatever
- 17:59Speaker 1: they're going to charge. What do they want to listen?
- 18:01Speaker 1: I don't know. I'm not gonna go in and figure
- 18:03Speaker 1: that out right now. What you're gonna pay it? Yeah,
- 18:05Speaker 1: because all my recent bear hunt you can. They have
- 18:09Speaker 1: a sound I D so you can just hit the
- 18:11Speaker 1: microphone button while you're sitting there at first light and
- 18:14Speaker 1: all the birds are going off, and it just starts running.
- 18:17Speaker 1: It just starts showing up every bird. There's a whole
- 18:21Speaker 1: it'll be like the whole list will be like ten birds,
- 18:24Speaker 1: and then as each one's going off, it'll highlight it.
- 18:27Speaker 1: So you're just sitting there watching it, and all of
- 18:29Speaker 1: a sudden, the robin highlights it goes away, Then the
- 18:31Speaker 1: chipping sparrow highlights it goes away. Then the Mountain chickadee highlights,
- 18:35Speaker 1: then the Redbreast of Nuthatch highlights. Do you gotta have
- 18:39Speaker 1: service for it to work? You pre download like sections
- 18:43Speaker 1: of the United States and see. Man, you know that's
- 18:47Speaker 1: good to know, because what's daunting is we're gonna, um,
- 18:50Speaker 1: we keep a good list at our house, but we're
- 18:53Speaker 1: gonna start doing a list at our little property. And
- 18:57Speaker 1: it's just daunting because it's like starting from scratch. And
- 19:00Speaker 1: this is so easy because it's not all these not
- 19:03Speaker 1: all the normal ones that you're accustomed to because your
- 19:05Speaker 1: higher elevation to kind of habitat time. So I was
- 19:08Speaker 1: actually doing in reverse now. I was sitting there listening
- 19:11Speaker 1: to him, going oh, that's that bird, and I could
- 19:13Speaker 1: see the picture on my app and then I could
- 19:15Speaker 1: glass around and look at the little birds flooding around
- 19:18Speaker 1: and find them and go, oh, there is the redbreast
- 19:20Speaker 1: and Nuthatch's great. Okay, do your last little promotion. I
- 19:24Speaker 1: want everybody go and watch the brand new six episodes
- 19:29Speaker 1: of my show called On the Hunt on me meters
- 19:32Speaker 1: YouTube channel. Brodie, have you washed them all? How many
- 19:36Speaker 1: have you watched? Still catching up? Who's watching? Who's watched?
- 19:40Speaker 1: One in this room. I watched one nice. Would you
- 19:44Speaker 1: think Turkey's with room app it's fun like that. Yeah,
- 19:48Speaker 1: I'd say watch more based off of that. Okay, good,
- 19:51Speaker 1: thank you, cal Sorry, we gotta tech. We got an
- 19:55Speaker 1: email today said that that was the finest thing that
- 19:58Speaker 1: this company has ever produced. Did you see that? You know,
- 20:00Speaker 1: I did see that. It's very nice to that person
- 20:02Speaker 1: to say that. Is that an email peer reviewed? It
- 20:07Speaker 1: was my mother. She's been a great supporter over the years. Okay,
- 20:13Speaker 1: we're gonna get into Law and Justice. Que the song Philip,
- 20:15Speaker 1: now here's the thing to make this legal. Everybody needs
- 20:18Speaker 1: to comment on it because it's criticism hit it gentire
- 20:25Speaker 1: is a little twangy. My opinion, it's a great too.
- 20:30Speaker 1: That's my comment. I've never watched this show. No, it's
- 20:34Speaker 1: not a show. Oh there he's singing, singing. He just said,
- 20:49Speaker 1: law me all right, turn off. It's the Law and
- 20:52Speaker 1: Justice episode. Who's sang that? It's this dude from He's
- 20:56Speaker 1: kind of like a He was just kind of fixture
- 20:59Speaker 1: around Austin, Texas. Had a lot of mental problems, had
- 21:02Speaker 1: a lot of substance abuse problems. But now and then
- 21:04Speaker 1: pull it together and do these albums and um. He
- 21:08Speaker 1: then later did an album with an outfit called Okerville
- 21:11Speaker 1: rigor Ockerville River out of Austin and they kind of
- 21:15Speaker 1: brought a lot of his music to life. But he's
- 21:17Speaker 1: had a lot of uh, he was troubled individual. Is
- 21:21Speaker 1: that how you say it? Okkerville Okerville? Yeah, it's from
- 21:24Speaker 1: a Russian novel. No ways, God, that didn't stick as
- 21:29Speaker 1: a kid. All right, Brandon, Ready, Okay, we got two
- 21:32Speaker 1: major things to cover because we're gonna we're gonna do
- 21:34Speaker 1: a big follow up. Well, these are both stories, the
- 21:37Speaker 1: Missouri Corner Crossers I guess felt called Wyoming corner Crossers
- 21:41Speaker 1: whatever the hell the Wyoming corner Crosses from Missouri we've
- 21:44Speaker 1: reported on quite heavily, and then we reported on Brandon
- 21:48Speaker 1: Butler's justice saga quite heavily. And now we're gonna do
- 21:52Speaker 1: a recap on both with everybody in the room. So
- 21:56Speaker 1: if you can give us a, um, where we last
- 21:59Speaker 1: left off. I think where we last left off was
- 22:02Speaker 1: the suspect was in custody. No, no, no, no recap
- 22:06Speaker 1: the story or recap the whole thing. Are you sitting
- 22:08Speaker 1: there you hear a bunch of gunshots? Yeah? So I
- 22:11Speaker 1: gotta go back a little bit further than that and
- 22:13Speaker 1: talk about how I even got there. Um, there was
- 22:16Speaker 1: a camp called Camp Zoe that fluent girls from St.
- 22:20Speaker 1: Louis would go to in the Ozarks. Fluent or affluent, affluent,
- 22:25Speaker 1: and uh. The governor at the time of Missouri was
- 22:28Speaker 1: Jay Nixon, and his mom had been a camper at
- 22:31Speaker 1: this camp and then she went on to become a
- 22:34Speaker 1: counselor at this camp. This is in Shannon County, Missouri,
- 22:38Speaker 1: just north of Eminence, maybe fifteen twenty miles at most.
- 22:43Speaker 1: And the governor always had, you know, he had affinity
- 22:48Speaker 1: for this property. It was beautiful sinking creek. You guys
- 22:51Speaker 1: saw sinking creek flows through it. And eventually it got
- 22:54Speaker 1: bought and turned into a music venue and it was
- 22:56Speaker 1: called schwag Stock. That was a music It became, you
- 23:00Speaker 1: know a place where hippies would gather and swim naked
- 23:03Speaker 1: in the creed. Was it bigger or this is just
- 23:05Speaker 1: on year. This is just down the road where the
- 23:08Speaker 1: state park is where we went and the general the
- 23:12Speaker 1: general area and hippies in the creek. Then it became
- 23:16Speaker 1: worse than that, you know, the weed turned into heavier
- 23:18Speaker 1: drugs and ultimately the d e A raided this property.
- 23:21Speaker 1: In two thousand and ten, it went up for auction
- 23:25Speaker 1: and the state bought it. The governor had, you're into
- 23:28Speaker 1: the distinction now between hippies crazy as hippies. Yeah, I
- 23:33Speaker 1: don't have hippies and meth heads in the same category.
- 23:36Speaker 1: Like it went was that kind of transition, not even crazy.
- 23:40Speaker 1: It went from like you know, smoking weed in the
- 23:42Speaker 1: creek to too hard drugs. And at that point the
- 23:45Speaker 1: d A guess had enough and they came in raided
- 23:48Speaker 1: the property, confiscated it for like back taxes and others,
- 23:52Speaker 1: and then the state bought it in an open auction.
- 23:55Speaker 1: They ended up paying six dollars it's a little over
- 23:58Speaker 1: three d That's how the state park came into be there,
- 24:00Speaker 1: and it was the governor's vision. He had like a
- 24:02Speaker 1: year left and he just went all out on building
- 24:06Speaker 1: this property, and it's the premier state park in the
- 24:09Speaker 1: state of Missouri. Now. They put like sixty one million
- 24:11Speaker 1: dollars into it. Have you guys been to Echo Bluff.
- 24:16Speaker 1: I was just gonna ask you if that's what it
- 24:17Speaker 1: was it is, if you was trying to look up
- 24:18Speaker 1: I've been buy it It's pretty, isn't it. It's a
- 24:22Speaker 1: beautiful state park and absolute point of pride for the
- 24:25Speaker 1: state of Missouri. But because of this kind of contingent
- 24:30Speaker 1: of folks, a very small contingent, I have to be
- 24:33Speaker 1: careful because I guess last time I got in trouble
- 24:35Speaker 1: because I got generalized and saying like it's the whole area.
- 24:38Speaker 1: A guy getting a lot of trouble. He's from England. Yeah, man,
- 24:41Speaker 1: he got a lot of heat. I'm talking about very
- 24:44Speaker 1: a very small group of people that lived like back
- 24:47Speaker 1: in the woods, like in these hollers, that like this
- 24:51Speaker 1: outlaw way of life that they've been conducting for generations,
- 24:54Speaker 1: where like rules and law simply don't matter. But the
- 24:57Speaker 1: majority of people down there are incredible people, Like they're
- 25:00Speaker 1: just salt of the earth, hard working, love the outdoors.
- 25:04Speaker 1: But it's like they got a hide from just like
- 25:07Speaker 1: bully mentality. They can't speak up for good, they can't
- 25:10Speaker 1: speak up for like justice, because if they do, then
- 25:14Speaker 1: they're gonna face like ramifications. But back to the park.
- 25:17Speaker 1: So the governor puts all this money into the park.
- 25:19Speaker 1: At the time, I'm running the Conservation Federation, which is
- 25:22Speaker 1: like the state's largest conservation nonprofit. It's affiliated to the
- 25:26Speaker 1: National Wildlife Federation, and the governor asks me to kind
- 25:31Speaker 1: of help lead pr issues, like make people see the
- 25:35Speaker 1: benefits of this part coming into this part of the state.
- 25:39Speaker 1: So I'm doing that, and while I'm there, like exploring
- 25:42Speaker 1: this property, I finally decide, this is it. Like I've
- 25:45Speaker 1: been waiting my whole life to have a place like
- 25:47Speaker 1: my own property, in my own camp. You know, my
- 25:50Speaker 1: first camp was like a g I Joe sleeping bag
- 25:52Speaker 1: under the stairs of my parents basement. And then in
- 25:54Speaker 1: college you became a camper, and like the dream of
- 25:56Speaker 1: just having a cabin like that was always the dream.
- 26:00Speaker 1: So now I'm like, this is it. I'm gonna buy
- 26:02Speaker 1: a place down here. Through a series of like fortunate events,
- 26:05Speaker 1: I find this forty acres real close to the park
- 26:08Speaker 1: on the creek, surrounded by public land, and I get
- 26:12Speaker 1: it bought, and now I show up in my conservation
- 26:16Speaker 1: truck like wrapped with like conservation on it. I mean, man,
- 26:20Speaker 1: I grew up not too far down the road from
- 26:23Speaker 1: you in northwest Indiana, did a lot of working like
- 26:25Speaker 1: Gary and and some really rough places as a kid.
- 26:29Speaker 1: And now I think about it in a sense, like
- 26:31Speaker 1: like when I reflect on the decision I made, it
- 26:33Speaker 1: would be like going into Gary and building a mansion
- 26:36Speaker 1: and expecting like you're just gonna be friends with all
- 26:38Speaker 1: your neighbors. You know, like everything's gonna be fine, you know,
- 26:41Speaker 1: even if you're not trying to change them. You just
- 26:45Speaker 1: being there somehow like shifts this mentality you conservation, following
- 26:53Speaker 1: the rules, and uh so I go about it, and
- 26:57Speaker 1: you know, but I tried to, you know, immediately do well.
- 27:02Speaker 1: I went to Sam's Club and bought those tins of
- 27:04Speaker 1: popcorn and I took him to everybody's house on the
- 27:07Speaker 1: road for Christmas into three you got like cheese and
- 27:11Speaker 1: caramel and all that. So like I'm I took those
- 27:13Speaker 1: out and now I'm thinking, you know, now these people
- 27:15Speaker 1: are like, who is this dude, Like that's coming to
- 27:17Speaker 1: our house with a tin of popcorn to like introduce himself.
- 27:20Speaker 1: But ultimately that was like my introduction to these folks
- 27:23Speaker 1: and my like please don't burn my house down, like offering,
- 27:27Speaker 1: and things were good for a while. I hired all
- 27:30Speaker 1: local contractors. Uh you know, it was just a real
- 27:33Speaker 1: rough piece of ground. I brought in a guy with
- 27:35Speaker 1: a bulldozer, he cleaned up a couple of acres. There
- 27:38Speaker 1: was an old cabin there. I took it apart, piece
- 27:40Speaker 1: by piece so I could repurpose the materials, Like the
- 27:43Speaker 1: old roof became the ceiling in the new cabin, the
- 27:45Speaker 1: rafters became bookshelves, just a lot of that. I took
- 27:49Speaker 1: this old potato sack that was insulation in the old cabin,
- 27:53Speaker 1: and I framed it because it was, you know, a
- 27:55Speaker 1: hundred years old installation. It was cool, so ship like
- 27:57Speaker 1: that was just what made that place spout show. And
- 28:01Speaker 1: then we started hunting there, and I guess maybe they
- 28:03Speaker 1: had a few a few people kind of had felt
- 28:06Speaker 1: that I was encroaching on their public land. You know
- 28:09Speaker 1: how that goes, Right, they've been hunting there for a while,
- 28:12Speaker 1: somebody else comes in, start hunting the same public land,
- 28:14Speaker 1: and I'm bringing guys down because you got a parcel,
- 28:17Speaker 1: but your parcels by public land. And my parcel was
- 28:20Speaker 1: surrounded on three sides by a parcel of public land
- 28:23Speaker 1: that's like sixty contiguous acres. And there was probably about
- 28:27Speaker 1: three or four thousand acres behind my house before you
- 28:30Speaker 1: got to a road. Uh that I really started getting
- 28:33Speaker 1: to know. It's where yeh, it's killed his turkey. Well
- 28:36Speaker 1: you too, you killed yours there too, well, And I
- 28:39Speaker 1: found a crippled up turkey that I killed. I actually
- 28:42Speaker 1: jumped it. That was a good story. That's one of
- 28:48Speaker 1: my proudest most So it's going well, it's going well
- 28:51Speaker 1: for a while. That park comes in. The locals start
- 28:55Speaker 1: working at the park. You know, there's jobs now, like
- 28:58Speaker 1: a hundred people are employed there, and and like the
- 29:02Speaker 1: local sentiment starts getting better for the park, but it
- 29:05Speaker 1: is bringing a lot of people in there. And and
- 29:07Speaker 1: then there's that group that has like the frustration for
- 29:10Speaker 1: the fact that this area is becoming more exposed, like
- 29:14Speaker 1: more people know about it, more people are visiting, and
- 29:17Speaker 1: I assume there's just like a deep seated resentment towards that.
- 29:22Speaker 1: And if you go back a step further, there's just
- 29:23Speaker 1: a really deep seated resentment towards government by a lot
- 29:26Speaker 1: of these people in general. Because the national park there,
- 29:29Speaker 1: which is called the Ozark National Scenic Riverways, it's a
- 29:32Speaker 1: hundred and thirty five miles of river corridor consisting of
- 29:35Speaker 1: the Current River and the Jack's Fork River, with acres
- 29:38Speaker 1: of public land along those rivers. Now a lot of
- 29:42Speaker 1: it was taken by imminent domain back in like the
- 29:44Speaker 1: fifties and sixties to become that park. Everybody was paid,
- 29:48Speaker 1: everybody was you know, nobody's land was stolen. But that's
- 29:53Speaker 1: the sentiment by a few people is you know, the
- 29:56Speaker 1: land was stolen from us. Well no, you know, a
- 29:59Speaker 1: check has past. But there's like but I mean, yeah,
- 30:03Speaker 1: there's people that held out and and that that's a
- 30:06Speaker 1: common story. And like it's like there's resentment for sure,
- 30:10Speaker 1: and you have your farm being taken by eminent domain
- 30:13Speaker 1: for a park. You cannot expect to be like, oh,
- 30:15Speaker 1: you have no right to be mad. We gave you
- 30:17Speaker 1: the money. And it's different. Way I think about it
- 30:19Speaker 1: is like if my grandpa said something, it was gospel,
- 30:23Speaker 1: you know. And now you've got this generational anger that
- 30:25Speaker 1: comes from like the people who actually lost the property
- 30:29Speaker 1: to the two or three generations after that are now
- 30:32Speaker 1: like carrying that flame that are like, you know, I'm
- 30:35Speaker 1: gonna find some way to right this wrong because it's
- 30:38Speaker 1: like our families heritage. So there there is like this
- 30:51Speaker 1: real deep resentment towards government in that area. And and
- 30:56Speaker 1: now they come in and put this park in and
- 30:58Speaker 1: start bringing people and then people like me show up
- 31:01Speaker 1: by property and you know, want rules to be followed,
- 31:04Speaker 1: like don't shoot here at night with spotlights. Uh, don't
- 31:08Speaker 1: run your dogs illegally on my property. Things that are
- 31:11Speaker 1: just pretty basic. But we're getting along fine until maybe
- 31:16Speaker 1: three years in and my friend Eric is hunting a
- 31:21Speaker 1: tree stand along the creek and there's this little seven
- 31:24Speaker 1: point book out in the field in front of them,
- 31:27Speaker 1: and a truck pulls up at the opening to this field,
- 31:32Speaker 1: jumps out, two guys jump out, and they start firing
- 31:35Speaker 1: on this book. They wound it not guns season, it
- 31:38Speaker 1: was guns season. They do most of their potent. I'll
- 31:41Speaker 1: give them that. Most of the poaching actually does take
- 31:43Speaker 1: place during the rifle season. So they wound this book.
- 31:47Speaker 1: It runs up onto my property, beds up, they go
- 31:51Speaker 1: switch vehicles. I guess they got like a shooting vehicle
- 31:53Speaker 1: and a hauling vehicle, so they had to go get
- 31:55Speaker 1: the pick up. Yeah, multifaceted poaching operation. So then they
- 32:01Speaker 1: come barreling across the field in the hall and rig
- 32:05Speaker 1: jumped the buck up and it runs right at my
- 32:08Speaker 1: buddy who's sitting on a power line cut at the creek,
- 32:12Speaker 1: full blaze orange and they just start unloading on it again.
- 32:15Speaker 1: Now bullets are like whizzing past my buddy's tree stand
- 32:19Speaker 1: and he's screaming at him, and they're now they're like,
- 32:22Speaker 1: oh ship, you know, they're scared that they they're shooting
- 32:24Speaker 1: at this guy. So they come up and then they
- 32:25Speaker 1: explained to him that it's his fault because he didn't
- 32:29Speaker 1: put a blaze orange marker at the opening of the
- 32:32Speaker 1: field so they would know not to shoot from the road.
- 32:36Speaker 1: So at that point, like, I don't call the law.
- 32:38Speaker 1: I'm still like the executive director of this organization constantly
- 32:42Speaker 1: promoting like anti poaching campaigns and doing the right thing,
- 32:45Speaker 1: and in that instance, I didn't, you know, and that
- 32:50Speaker 1: never sat right with me. I wanted to keep the peace,
- 32:52Speaker 1: so I went and talked to the people and tried
- 32:54Speaker 1: to like smooth it over like good, like neighborly. And
- 32:59Speaker 1: it did get smoothed over with some of the like
- 33:01Speaker 1: powers that be, some of the more like patriarchal type
- 33:05Speaker 1: in that area. But the guy who did it, he
- 33:07Speaker 1: just went around telling stories and making up lies and
- 33:10Speaker 1: and that started breeding this kind of like anti sentiment
- 33:14Speaker 1: towards me in a small like contingent crowd. But we
- 33:17Speaker 1: lived with it for years until we got to gun
- 33:22Speaker 1: season of two thousand and it was Sunday night and
- 33:28Speaker 1: me and my buddy Nathan, everybody calls him Shags, My
- 33:31Speaker 1: cousin Derek, and my buddy paddled down like we're sitting
- 33:34Speaker 1: around this campfire and a truck comes across. Remember how
- 33:39Speaker 1: we couldn't come across the creek, so to get into
- 33:41Speaker 1: this property you had to like drive on a an
- 33:43Speaker 1: underwater bridge, like we call him Arkansas bridges because they
- 33:46Speaker 1: actually build them underwater. And uh, you come across this
- 33:50Speaker 1: Arkansas bridge and when it's flooded, you've got to come
- 33:53Speaker 1: through the forest. And I took you guys in through
- 33:55Speaker 1: the forest. The bridge is all flooded out, but somebody
- 33:59Speaker 1: comes across any ways, we couldn't believe that they were
- 34:01Speaker 1: crossing it. This truck pulls in and this is like
- 34:05Speaker 1: eight thirty, so it's three hours, three hours after dark.
- 34:09Speaker 1: It pulls into this field, like right at the base
- 34:11Speaker 1: of my property where the old man who had owned
- 34:14Speaker 1: it died like two weeks before. And I've been over
- 34:16Speaker 1: there that day and the power line people were there,
- 34:20Speaker 1: and I thought that the power line people had recognized
- 34:23Speaker 1: that this was now a vacant property and they were
- 34:26Speaker 1: coming in there to poach at night. So when his
- 34:30Speaker 1: truck pulls into the field, they throw on like an
- 34:32Speaker 1: led light bar and we can see the muzzle flashes
- 34:35Speaker 1: before we can hear the shots. And at that point
- 34:38Speaker 1: I just jump in my side by side and take
- 34:41Speaker 1: off to try to confront them. My buddies come running
- 34:44Speaker 1: after me. The truck evades and gets out of the holler,
- 34:49Speaker 1: and that I was like, that's it. I'm this is
- 34:53Speaker 1: this is the line in the sand. So I call
- 34:55Speaker 1: the game wardens who I know, we call him conservation
- 34:58Speaker 1: officers and and m hurry and they come out. But
- 35:01Speaker 1: that morning we went looking for the truck and we
- 35:03Speaker 1: found it before the agent got there, and I knew
- 35:06Speaker 1: who had belonged to at that point, and it it
- 35:08Speaker 1: was like, this is gonna be serious if I crossed
- 35:12Speaker 1: this line. So they actually come out and they they
- 35:15Speaker 1: reiterate that to me. They're like, you know who this
- 35:17Speaker 1: belongs to, and I'm like yeah, and they're like, what
- 35:19Speaker 1: are you gonna do? I was like, I can't not
- 35:21Speaker 1: do it, Like it's never sat right with me that
- 35:24Speaker 1: I didn't in the first time, like I'm the guy
- 35:26Speaker 1: telling other people to do this, Like I gotta do
- 35:28Speaker 1: it at this point. So I turned him in and
- 35:31Speaker 1: it ended up being three women. There was a younger
- 35:34Speaker 1: lady who I guess had come down to hunt and
- 35:37Speaker 1: didn't get a deer, and they were like, oh, well,
- 35:39Speaker 1: we'll get you a deer. They went out to get
- 35:41Speaker 1: a deer and they all three. I was in the courtroom.
- 35:43Speaker 1: They all ended up pleading guilty. You know, there's no
- 35:47Speaker 1: reason to say their names at this point or anything,
- 35:49Speaker 1: but they you know, they got multiple violations and each
- 35:52Speaker 1: about a thousand dollars and fines and and pled guilty
- 35:55Speaker 1: to that. But the suspect uh in burning down my cabin.
- 36:02Speaker 1: It's like one of those women's boyfriend's son who's been
- 36:06Speaker 1: like in and out of prison all this time, and
- 36:09Speaker 1: now he's back in prison. So that was like November,
- 36:13Speaker 1: and it was January four when this dude came and
- 36:16Speaker 1: burned your What was the date he burned on your place?
- 36:19Speaker 1: It was at like ten o'clock at night on January four.
- 36:22Speaker 1: Got trio cam. Yeah, so I set out and I
- 36:25Speaker 1: told that before too, you know, I I thought I'll
- 36:27Speaker 1: set some trail cameras out where they'll think these are
- 36:29Speaker 1: the cameras that I'm using to protect the property. And
- 36:33Speaker 1: then I took the real cameras and hit them much
- 36:35Speaker 1: further back in the woods and had like good shots
- 36:38Speaker 1: of them. So I got pictures of the dude like
- 36:40Speaker 1: on the porch, walking up to the cabin carrying a
- 36:43Speaker 1: rifle and a bottle and that's obviously like a bottle
- 36:45Speaker 1: of accelerant. And then I've got a picture of him leaving, uh,
- 36:50Speaker 1: leaving the property with fire coming out of the far
- 36:53Speaker 1: back window. And then I got a thirty second time
- 36:56Speaker 1: lapse of it burning for the next hour until the
- 36:59Speaker 1: fierty part gets there. And then there's actually a picture
- 37:02Speaker 1: in me like when I approach that the trail cam caught.
- 37:05Speaker 1: But yeah, they actually pulled the chips on the dummy cameras,
- 37:09Speaker 1: thinking like this idiot, you put these cameras right where
- 37:13Speaker 1: we can see him, you know. So the trap worked,
- 37:16Speaker 1: and uh so I got I got the photos, and
- 37:19Speaker 1: I went I went to court like multiple times, and
- 37:22Speaker 1: it was a very interesting experience, you know. And you
- 37:26Speaker 1: can show the photos of this dude from his Facebook
- 37:28Speaker 1: and he's wearing like the same mossy oak sweatshirt and
- 37:33Speaker 1: that the pictures to me are very clear, like I
- 37:36Speaker 1: know who it is. But in a court of law
- 37:39Speaker 1: in a county of eight thousand people, where four thousand
- 37:42Speaker 1: of them are probably related, like, is it enough evidence
- 37:46Speaker 1: is demonstrate some doubt? Right? So they get a lawyer
- 37:48Speaker 1: for this guy and they're talking about this sweatshirt in
- 37:52Speaker 1: this court case and Shags is there with me in
- 37:54Speaker 1: the courtroom and the sweatshirt that everybody in that county has.
- 37:58Speaker 1: So that's the lawyer's point, right, And he goes to
- 38:01Speaker 1: the to the the deputy that's on the stand at
- 38:04Speaker 1: the time, they're like, what about the sweatshirt and he's like, well, yeah,
- 38:08Speaker 1: it's very clear sweatshirt. And he goes, could that be
- 38:11Speaker 1: a sweatshirt that everybody in this county has? Do you
- 38:14Speaker 1: yourself phone that sweatshirt? No? I do not, says says
- 38:18Speaker 1: the uh county policeman. No I do not, because you
- 38:23Speaker 1: do not? Well, do you have a massio cat? No
- 38:27Speaker 1: I do not. He goes, well, do you know people
- 38:31Speaker 1: in your family that do? No? I do not. He says,
- 38:35Speaker 1: well what do you do? He goes, we're that other?
- 38:39Speaker 1: What's that other? One, and somebody in the back of
- 38:41Speaker 1: the courtroom yells real Tree court. Yes, in court, and
- 38:48Speaker 1: the whole like now the courtrooms laughing like we're a
- 38:51Speaker 1: real Tree family, which makes total saying oh yeah. Like
- 38:56Speaker 1: so it's a long story short. We've been going through
- 38:59Speaker 1: the and if you would have wanted to take that logic,
- 39:02Speaker 1: you could have been like they sold eleven thousand units
- 39:05Speaker 1: of that, so you know, to me, it's it's very clear.
- 39:09Speaker 1: But what had happened is three other cabins and I'm
- 39:15Speaker 1: aware of were burned down within twelve months of mine,
- 39:19Speaker 1: prior to mine, and one sense mine and a United
- 39:23Speaker 1: States federal property, the Round Spring Rangers Station, which we'll
- 39:27Speaker 1: get to, but nobody had been told was torched, and
- 39:31Speaker 1: that's in retaliate. The story just keeps going, man like,
- 39:34Speaker 1: so I start making a stink about it, like most
- 39:38Speaker 1: people just took it like there's nothing they can do.
- 39:39Speaker 1: They show up their cabins burned down, there's no evidence,
- 39:42Speaker 1: there's no cameras, there's no nothing. Well, I know who
- 39:44Speaker 1: did it, and I go to the Lieutenant governor, sit
- 39:47Speaker 1: right down in his office. I called my congresswoman, like
- 39:50Speaker 1: I just immediately communicating with the head of the Department
- 39:54Speaker 1: of Conservation Law Enforcement, and talking to the director, I
- 39:58Speaker 1: get one person removed from the FBI. Like, I just
- 40:01Speaker 1: went as deep as I could go, as fast as
- 40:03Speaker 1: I could do it. And the cabin was burned on
- 40:06Speaker 1: January five, and that dude was rested on January fifteenth,
- 40:09Speaker 1: and he hasn't been out of jail a day since
- 40:12Speaker 1: and he's still still not been charged with mine. The
- 40:16Speaker 1: beauty is is when he had broken into another cabin,
- 40:20Speaker 1: he left his parole papers behind. I had to keep
- 40:24Speaker 1: him someplace dry, right, and he wanted to keep those safe, uh,
- 40:28Speaker 1: and and had committed back that sending explain it to
- 40:31Speaker 1: me again. So he was squatting in some dudes cabin
- 40:34Speaker 1: and was you know, I had his parole papers and
- 40:37Speaker 1: left him on the table. So that's how they knew
- 40:40Speaker 1: he was there. And ultimately he's pled guilty to this charge.
- 40:43Speaker 1: Like I'm trying to understand, Like, well, when you think
- 40:47Speaker 1: a point just not like he just forgot his possessions.
- 40:52Speaker 1: Would usually a place you probably take a picture of
- 40:54Speaker 1: your kids, right, you know, you gotta have some documentation
- 40:58Speaker 1: to get around in the world. So he had stolen
- 41:02Speaker 1: some stuff like a four wheeler and a generator. And
- 41:05Speaker 1: but the real, like the part that like is crazy
- 41:09Speaker 1: is like he had these outstanding felonies hanging over him
- 41:12Speaker 1: since two thousand and sixteen, and nobody triggered him. Like
- 41:16Speaker 1: he was going to like probation meetings and they're like, oh, yeah,
- 41:19Speaker 1: like you've got two felonies that we could ring you
- 41:21Speaker 1: up on, but you know, keep your nose clean and
- 41:23Speaker 1: what sorts of felonies. It was a Class CY felony
- 41:26Speaker 1: for like theft, and I don't I don't know exactly,
- 41:30Speaker 1: I don't have to go into that case net and
- 41:32Speaker 1: look it up. But but ultimately stealing that four wheeler
- 41:36Speaker 1: and and uh generator or whatever that constitutes a Class
- 41:40Speaker 1: C felony, and burning my entire house down is a
- 41:44Speaker 1: Class D felony. So the way like burning your house, everything,
- 41:48Speaker 1: everything into the ground with an accelerant because there was
- 41:51Speaker 1: no yeah, like no potential for physical harm to a
- 41:55Speaker 1: human supposedly is what dropped the charge. But the dude
- 41:58Speaker 1: carrying a rifle and how does he know your buddy's
- 42:01Speaker 1: not staying, My kids weren't sleeping in a room upstairs.
- 42:04Speaker 1: You understand, like what like what does that go by
- 42:06Speaker 1: I don't know. I don't like two guys go to
- 42:08Speaker 1: stay in your cabin, one of them runs into town
- 42:10Speaker 1: to get a couple of cool ones. There's no car there, right,
- 42:13Speaker 1: I don't get like what it doesn't make sense to me.
- 42:16Speaker 1: I don't either. If you burn a large structure with
- 42:18Speaker 1: multiple bedrooms down, I don't think you could have should
- 42:21Speaker 1: be allowed to be like I knew no one was there.
- 42:23Speaker 1: How did you know when no one was there? I agree?
- 42:26Speaker 1: But anyways, the charges of stealing the fore wheeler and
- 42:29Speaker 1: the generator were higher, and he's since pled guilty to those.
- 42:36Speaker 1: It's worse to steal the generator and a quad runner
- 42:39Speaker 1: than it is to burn someone's house to the ground,
- 42:42Speaker 1: must be, at least in this case. But if he
- 42:46Speaker 1: would have gotten charged on both, I was told that
- 42:48Speaker 1: those sentences could be run concurrently. So honestly, you know,
- 42:52Speaker 1: other than me being able to have the satisfaction of
- 42:54Speaker 1: saying that like he did it for sure, you know,
- 42:58Speaker 1: legally I could say that right now, I have to say, like,
- 43:00Speaker 1: he's a suspect, but he's in prison. It's a five
- 43:05Speaker 1: year stints. Yeah, when he's out, can you get him
- 43:09Speaker 1: after for Bernard cavan down, there's like three years. I
- 43:12Speaker 1: think we have three years, and and that's why, you know,
- 43:15Speaker 1: like there's still an ongoing case. I actually called the
- 43:18Speaker 1: prosecutor and I got a call back from the agent
- 43:21Speaker 1: and he was like, this is what you shouldn't say,
- 43:23Speaker 1: this is what you you know you can say, but
- 43:26Speaker 1: be very clear that he's a suspect because it's an
- 43:29Speaker 1: ongoing investigation. So are you are you breaking any rules
- 43:31Speaker 1: right now by talking to us and saying what you're saying.
- 43:33Speaker 1: I don't know. I don't think so, like that's all
- 43:36Speaker 1: out there. But aren't there multiple suspects because things just
- 43:39Speaker 1: keep getting burned down? Or is this you're just saying,
- 43:41Speaker 1: we're just talking like about my place. So so then
- 43:44Speaker 1: what I did is I went, you know, I'm very
- 43:47Speaker 1: friendly with the Department of Conservation. You know Sarah Parker
- 43:50Speaker 1: Pauli our directors, like a personal mentor of mine. I
- 43:54Speaker 1: think she's one of the most outstanding conservationists in the country.
- 43:57Speaker 1: And but I went to and I said, look, you
- 43:59Speaker 1: got a for two acres of public land in this county.
- 44:02Speaker 1: It's obviously known as one of these places where like
- 44:06Speaker 1: infringements happened, but we divide up our agents essentially two
- 44:10Speaker 1: by two by two. We don't need the same number
- 44:13Speaker 1: of conservation agents in downtown St. Louis as we need
- 44:16Speaker 1: in Shannon County. So at what point are we gonna
- 44:19Speaker 1: like ramp up enforcement down here? And boy, ramp it
- 44:22Speaker 1: up they did. They were flying helicopters over these camps
- 44:26Speaker 1: and it was hilarious, you know, like they started a
- 44:28Speaker 1: Facebook like page to fight back, to get a petition
- 44:32Speaker 1: so they would be left alone. They're gonna get a
- 44:34Speaker 1: petition done that they were going to give to the
- 44:36Speaker 1: sheriff so law enforcement would leave them alone while they
- 44:39Speaker 1: were conducting their poaching. I don't know, it went it
- 44:43Speaker 1: went away after a while, but they were like so
- 44:45Speaker 1: mad that like helicopters were like coming and sitting over
- 44:47Speaker 1: the top of them while they were running their dogs illegally.
- 44:50Speaker 1: So what they do is that they released these dogs.
- 44:53Speaker 1: And you know, I'm the first one to sit here
- 44:56Speaker 1: and say, like what you're doing with mingus is awesome,
- 44:58Speaker 1: like having hounds and with hounds and all of it,
- 45:01Speaker 1: you know, I love it all, but in this sense,
- 45:04Speaker 1: in this instance, it's illegal, and it's illegal because they're
- 45:07Speaker 1: running them on everybody else's private property. They're shooting every
- 45:10Speaker 1: day that they can shoot. It's taken this property that
- 45:13Speaker 1: I developed in my dream and essentially ruining it. As
- 45:16Speaker 1: like hound after hound after hound comes through my forty
- 45:19Speaker 1: acres on opening day of deer season. And the worst
- 45:23Speaker 1: part of it is is they'll run the dogs towards
- 45:25Speaker 1: the river, and the deer will get in the river,
- 45:29Speaker 1: and then they'll they'll watch on their GPS as to
- 45:31Speaker 1: where these deer are gonna cross or where the dogs
- 45:33Speaker 1: are gonna cross the deer, and they'll run a jetboat
- 45:36Speaker 1: up there and and shoot the deer like as it's
- 45:38Speaker 1: trying to get across the river. So it's you know,
- 45:42Speaker 1: it's just this ongoing battle, and they like they make
- 45:44Speaker 1: t shirts for it, like it's our tradition or whatever.
- 45:47Speaker 1: And the hound hunting is illegal there. Yeah, how long
- 45:49Speaker 1: has it been illegal for forever? Hunting the deer's illegal, Yeah,
- 45:58Speaker 1: I mean coyote hunt you can yeah by saying how,
- 46:02Speaker 1: I mean like how running and it's a it's a
- 46:06Speaker 1: just an ongoing battle. That's even more evidence than Missouri
- 46:09Speaker 1: is the North. That's a good point. Remember I sent
- 46:13Speaker 1: you that quote that one time about Missouri. You know
- 46:16Speaker 1: that it's just kind of its own place. Um, so
- 46:20Speaker 1: you know that that was a big issue. Was like
- 46:24Speaker 1: the hounds that just continuously run through and and then
- 46:29Speaker 1: they get this like uh effort to try to curb
- 46:32Speaker 1: it this year, and and some dude in retaliation goes
- 46:36Speaker 1: and burns down the Round Spring Ranger Station, like this
- 46:39Speaker 1: very historic building that had all the records of you know,
- 46:44Speaker 1: the area and the river ways. And and they got
- 46:47Speaker 1: him too, like he's in jail now, and was he
- 46:50Speaker 1: a local? Yeah? Yeah yeah? Was he a foulon? Yeah?
- 46:55Speaker 1: I mean, dude, we should have you should have a
- 46:56Speaker 1: poster of him in here. It would fit with your motif,
- 46:59Speaker 1: like have a picture, yeah, creek, we get that picture.
- 47:03Speaker 1: Yeah he was. He was quickly apprehended and brought to justice.
- 47:07Speaker 1: That was a guy that has that distinctly, Matthew looked
- 47:10Speaker 1: to him. He's messed up, man, that's him. Yeah, burned
- 47:16Speaker 1: down the station there. They stole a truck too, and
- 47:18Speaker 1: that was like outside of their m O. Like it's
- 47:20Speaker 1: normally not theft normally, it's just like because you don't
- 47:24Speaker 1: get in that much trouble as long as you don't
- 47:26Speaker 1: steal a generator. Uh, And then right after that, some
- 47:31Speaker 1: other guy came in out of a small town like
- 47:33Speaker 1: kind of in between where I live and this, and
- 47:36Speaker 1: and bought like a big chunk of property, like a
- 47:38Speaker 1: five hundred acre chunk of property. And there's all these
- 47:41Speaker 1: like unincorporated roads, old logging roads that are still used
- 47:45Speaker 1: for transportation. And the people who had owned this property
- 47:48Speaker 1: before left this gate open, and he came in and
- 47:52Speaker 1: locked it. So they ripped the gate out, burned his
- 47:55Speaker 1: house down, burned his tractors everything. He's like a he's
- 47:59Speaker 1: like a farm, but insurance agents. So I found his
- 48:01Speaker 1: office and went and talked to him. Its like, was
- 48:03Speaker 1: he well insured? Yeah? Yeah, I mean he's a but
- 48:06Speaker 1: you can always use more because it's more. But you know,
- 48:10Speaker 1: it's like welcome to the area, man, you know. And
- 48:12Speaker 1: again like, have they apprehended who burnt his place down? No? No,
- 48:16Speaker 1: But it was a blue pickup truck because it left
- 48:17Speaker 1: blue paint on, left blue paint on the gate on
- 48:20Speaker 1: the getaway, smashed through the gate. They never call who
- 48:25Speaker 1: burned that place down? And there's your whatever happened to
- 48:28Speaker 1: going over to talk? I like that, man, I gotta
- 48:31Speaker 1: go over and burn that house down, right, so damn.
- 48:37Speaker 1: So the battle continues. I suppose and I sold the property.
- 48:44Speaker 1: Story sold the property. I did. Honestly, I don't feel
- 48:48Speaker 1: safe going down there. I mean there's been things said
- 48:51Speaker 1: and and uh and messages given. I didn't know you
- 48:54Speaker 1: sold it. Did nearly quadrupled my money on it, So
- 48:58Speaker 1: it wasn't all bad. Did you have did you put
- 49:00Speaker 1: a little disclosure in there? It ended up going to
- 49:02Speaker 1: a guy. What's really nice is it went to a
- 49:04Speaker 1: guy who's related to some really good people down there,
- 49:07Speaker 1: and he called me recently and he got my email
- 49:09Speaker 1: and emailed me, and I called him back and he
- 49:11Speaker 1: wanted to know about like the plumbing system, and I
- 49:13Speaker 1: think it's in good hands. I'm happy for him, and
- 49:15Speaker 1: I feel like a few years from now I could
- 49:17Speaker 1: go down there and like have a beer on the
- 49:18Speaker 1: porch with him, Like he was a good dude. I'm
- 49:20Speaker 1: glad it went to him. No ship think you like
- 49:23Speaker 1: so you rolled away? Yeah? Man, Like I it's like
- 49:26Speaker 1: Hatfield and McCoy's, I can't go down there. Like there's
- 49:29Speaker 1: families down there that are like on my side, and
- 49:32Speaker 1: they got to like secretly be on my side, you know,
- 49:35Speaker 1: like they turned into this thing. And there's two little
- 49:39Speaker 1: boys that live down in that road that are you know,
- 49:41Speaker 1: very special to me, Like I really really care about
- 49:44Speaker 1: him and uh and their parents are my gonna be
- 49:48Speaker 1: lifelong friends. And there's an old guy, but they gotta
- 49:50Speaker 1: flip you off when you're in town. I just don't
- 49:52Speaker 1: go down there. They come up and see me, you know.
- 49:54Speaker 1: And I don't remember if you met that old man
- 49:56Speaker 1: I called the mayor, Darryl Tucker like I called him.
- 49:59Speaker 1: I don't want to drove around spoken cigarettes, drinking bush.
- 50:04Speaker 1: He weighs like a ten pounds and drinks. Mayor. Yeah,
- 50:08Speaker 1: so he's still down there, but he's selling his place
- 50:10Speaker 1: and getting out too. At this point he's going back
- 50:13Speaker 1: back north little ways and for the same reason. Yeah,
- 50:15Speaker 1: it just became like uncomfortable. It just it just became uncomfortable.
- 50:20Speaker 1: So but there's people down there, man that I care about. Like, no, no,
- 50:26Speaker 1: they're not winning. They're not winning. It's like their way
- 50:30Speaker 1: life is changing. Like and if I can affect it
- 50:33Speaker 1: from the outside by bringing in you know, heat, justice
- 50:38Speaker 1: or whatever and and making sure that you know, they
- 50:41Speaker 1: don't do it to the next guy, then then I win. Wow.
- 50:47Speaker 1: I had no idea. Yeah, we're gonna set up shops
- 50:50Speaker 1: somewhere else. I don't know, not yet. I did, you know,
- 50:54Speaker 1: pick up a small forty acre chunk in North Missouri.
- 50:57Speaker 1: It's like a forty acre bean field where he killed
- 50:59Speaker 1: giant ball Bucks killed some really good ones there. But
- 51:02Speaker 1: it's not the dream, you know that I might join
- 51:05Speaker 1: Yanni up in Wisconsin. I've been looking up around Hayward,
- 51:08Speaker 1: like when when I was growing up, you know, it
- 51:10Speaker 1: was like that whole Chicago land area. Every how do
- 51:11Speaker 1: you feel about that? You honest outside moving in, you know,
- 51:16Speaker 1: y burnt Yanni and the mother Lavian's will burn. The
- 51:19Speaker 1: story will be even better when it's against Lavian. I'm
- 51:21Speaker 1: building my next house out of concrete blocks, big box. Yeah,
- 51:27Speaker 1: so no, man, I you know, growing up, it was
- 51:30Speaker 1: we'd go to Michigan, we'd go to Wisconsin. Like that's
- 51:32Speaker 1: what we did. We just went north. I'm sure you
- 51:34Speaker 1: guys went north all the time to even though you're
- 51:36Speaker 1: already kind of up then all some one day you
- 51:38Speaker 1: wake up and all the big bucks or southea. Yeah, yeah,
- 51:41Speaker 1: there weren't big bucks up there when you were a kid.
- 51:44Speaker 1: It was like everybody knew the good deer hunting. Wherever
- 51:47Speaker 1: you lived, you went a little bit north and then
- 51:49Speaker 1: one day, like I said in the nine early nineties,
- 51:52Speaker 1: also was like you were leaving Big Box to go
- 51:56Speaker 1: up in the woods and to go up north and
- 51:58Speaker 1: hunt for keys. Yeah, in the in the swamps. So
- 52:02Speaker 1: I don't know where I'll build another place. I mean
- 52:04Speaker 1: I lived out here for four years walking down Main
- 52:07Speaker 1: Street today, you know, I lived in Bozeman in two
- 52:10Speaker 1: thousand and six, and it looks a lot different. You
- 52:13Speaker 1: keep hearing the stories the Bos Angeles is, as Cal
- 52:16Speaker 1: said earlier, and you've been in Los Angeles, yeah, quite
- 52:18Speaker 1: a few times. Not quite there yet, not enough stut
- 52:21Speaker 1: started out like sleeping little bird, just like this place. However,
- 52:25Speaker 1: rodeo team I heard, you know, I don't I've never
- 52:28Speaker 1: been anywhere I like more in Montana, that whole area
- 52:32Speaker 1: up and there. I think that's still kind of unspoiled.
- 52:35Speaker 1: So that might be a place that I look at
- 52:37Speaker 1: you not anymore that out Yeah, bleep it out just
- 52:42Speaker 1: like we did last ball, and they're like, yeah, they
- 52:47Speaker 1: don't like outsiders. Everybody in that towns and outside not everybody,
- 52:52Speaker 1: but it's like whatever, we'll call that don't get me started. So, um,
- 53:00Speaker 1: what you end up doing with the money people raised
- 53:02Speaker 1: after you burned the cabin after they burned the cabin down.
- 53:05Speaker 1: Thanks for asking. I did want to address that. You know,
- 53:07Speaker 1: you guys helped push this go fund me, which was
- 53:10Speaker 1: a strange feeling, you know, like I'm I'm not in
- 53:13Speaker 1: a situation where like where I needed financial help, but
- 53:17Speaker 1: it was very very comforting to have that and what
- 53:22Speaker 1: you guys did, and and Pat Durkin and and so
- 53:25Speaker 1: many other people and kind of helping tell that story
- 53:28Speaker 1: and push it. Like the feeling of like camaraderie from
- 53:32Speaker 1: the industry was so much greater than the money that
- 53:35Speaker 1: came into that account. But I went up to Michigan
- 53:39Speaker 1: and bought a stealth Craft drift boat out of Baldwin
- 53:42Speaker 1: and a brand new six horse four stroke motor. Um
- 53:46Speaker 1: and I've still got a little bit left and going
- 53:49Speaker 1: to figure out what to do with it. Um. But yeah,
- 53:53Speaker 1: the industry man like it was so good. Camp chef
- 53:58Speaker 1: sent a they sent so much stuff at truck showed
- 54:00Speaker 1: up with like a palette. Yeah. And sadly, Tim Anderson
- 54:06Speaker 1: was a longtime mossioa guy, and you know he passed
- 54:09Speaker 1: away unexpectedly, but he sent me like a note and said, hey,
- 54:12Speaker 1: our mutual friend Pat Dirk, and I was telling me
- 54:15Speaker 1: your story. I hope this helps. And he sent me
- 54:17Speaker 1: like all this Mossio clothes and um, yet he sent
- 54:21Speaker 1: me a new cooler. I mean, like people just really
- 54:25Speaker 1: really stepped up, and you guys had a lot to
- 54:27Speaker 1: do with that. And and I'll tell you, you you know,
- 54:29Speaker 1: like I expected to have these emotions of like vengeance
- 54:35Speaker 1: and like real deep seated anger, and it never happened.
- 54:41Speaker 1: It still hasn't happened. Like it's just acceptance. And like
- 54:45Speaker 1: stranger showed up. We did a clean up day and
- 54:48Speaker 1: like people I had never met showed up to help
- 54:51Speaker 1: me clean it up, and like run trailers up to
- 54:53Speaker 1: the scrapyard and we scrapped it all. The guy brought
- 54:55Speaker 1: a tractor and you know, we all went out for
- 54:58Speaker 1: dinner and you know, we cleaned. It took five years
- 55:01Speaker 1: to build that place, an hour for it to burn down,
- 55:04Speaker 1: in four hours to take everything to the scrap yard.
- 55:08Speaker 1: But like, dude, the you know, for lack of a
- 55:10Speaker 1: better word, just like the love from people, like I've
- 55:14Speaker 1: never really felt anything like that before, Like it was
- 55:16Speaker 1: incredibly humbling and comforting, and the positives that came out
- 55:22Speaker 1: of the experience have like outweighed the negatives. And it's
- 55:26Speaker 1: it's hard to listen to my kids talk about like
- 55:28Speaker 1: missing it, you know, because I truly did build like
- 55:31Speaker 1: it was like my Willie Wonka chocolate factory, you know,
- 55:33Speaker 1: like it was my dream place that I wanted when
- 55:36Speaker 1: I was a kid. So my kids could have what
- 55:38Speaker 1: I had manifested in my head so many years ago.
- 55:41Speaker 1: And they would bring their friends down and these are
- 55:43Speaker 1: like mostly girls that had never been on a river before,
- 55:46Speaker 1: so they were kayaking and rafting and jumping off cliffs
- 55:49Speaker 1: and catching crawdads and fishing, and like that was the
- 55:53Speaker 1: best part of it all. I was like sharing that
- 55:55Speaker 1: and getting them to put their phones down, Like for
- 55:57Speaker 1: the longest time, I didn't even have the internet, so
- 55:59Speaker 1: they were forced to like play cards, read books, you know.
- 56:03Speaker 1: And and that's the part that I missed so much,
- 56:07Speaker 1: is because like my girls are going to be a sophomore,
- 56:09Speaker 1: going to be a senior, and they're in this position
- 56:11Speaker 1: like now where it would have been even as they're
- 56:13Speaker 1: getting older, it would have been even more fun, you know,
- 56:16Speaker 1: to have them down there on the rivers and doing that.
- 56:19Speaker 1: So so yeah, I'm looking for like a comeback spot,
- 56:23Speaker 1: you know, because I want to be able to provide that.
- 56:26Speaker 1: But you know, they're gonna be going to college soon.
- 56:28Speaker 1: The older one she wants to come here. She was
- 56:30Speaker 1: born in Montana, so she has like a big spot
- 56:34Speaker 1: in her heart from Montana. The younger one wants to
- 56:36Speaker 1: go to Florida and be a marine biologist. So they're
- 56:40Speaker 1: gonna split which after that, I don't I don't know
- 56:42Speaker 1: where I'm gonna build a place. But I've always loved
- 56:45Speaker 1: the north Woods, always loved the North Country. So I'll
- 56:49Speaker 1: keep us posted. Man. Yeah, maybe I'll invite you once
- 56:51Speaker 1: it's all finished this time, please, But with all all
- 56:55Speaker 1: the poachers around, I don't know if I'll be able
- 56:56Speaker 1: to find a crippled up Turkey that's someone that shouting
- 56:58Speaker 1: with twenty two. Yeah, well, I don't know. I mean,
- 57:04Speaker 1: I assume a lot of listeners probably know that you
- 57:07Speaker 1: guys came and Turkey hunted there. But that was a
- 57:09Speaker 1: lot of fun. And you know, Clay Nucom was there
- 57:12Speaker 1: and we fried Crappy and Bear Grease. Hal Herring came
- 57:17Speaker 1: down there, Hal who lives in Augusta, Montana said the
- 57:19Speaker 1: coldest night he's ever had in his life was in
- 57:21Speaker 1: that cabin and the governor. Damn, it became a really
- 57:27Speaker 1: special place. Was it was a place to like highlight
- 57:30Speaker 1: the beauty of this region and like all the natural
- 57:33Speaker 1: um serenity that can and does exist in pockets. But
- 57:37Speaker 1: it's just curbing that that mentality of like this few,
- 57:42Speaker 1: these few people against the world. All right, I'm gonna
- 57:55Speaker 1: jump into the corner cross the situation. Ready, yeah, let me.
- 57:59Speaker 1: I want to do a quick because we've we've talked
- 58:01Speaker 1: about so I'm gonna do a quick recap for people,
- 58:04Speaker 1: and then you can we can get into details that
- 58:06Speaker 1: you guys, because I got a bunch of questions. Um,
- 58:09Speaker 1: as we've explained, Yanni explained corner crossing. You've done enough.
- 58:14Speaker 1: You're probably good at it. For the for the thirtieth
- 58:16Speaker 1: time on this show. If you look at Yanni's in scene,
- 58:23Speaker 1: he can he can straddle a corner like no other. Uh.
- 58:28Speaker 1: And a lot of Western states when uh they became states,
- 58:35Speaker 1: they were given land um from the railroads. Correct me
- 58:42Speaker 1: if I'm wrong here, I'm sitting still hitting down the
- 58:44Speaker 1: right pathcal and Uh, they ended up being public and
- 58:49Speaker 1: private land that was literally put out in a checkerboard fashion,
- 58:55Speaker 1: So you can imagine a chackerboard, all the red of
- 58:58Speaker 1: being public and all the lack being private or vice versa,
- 59:03Speaker 1: doesn't matter anyways, I can't what was the reasoning for
- 59:07Speaker 1: that in the original. It's so the railroads were given
- 59:14Speaker 1: a ton of land in order to open up the West,
- 59:18Speaker 1: basically for taxpayer base, right, the railroads were the most
- 59:21Speaker 1: efficient vehicle to get a bunch of people seeded out
- 59:25Speaker 1: into the Great Unknown in order to start bringing in
- 59:29Speaker 1: more cash for for the government. And they were being
- 59:32Speaker 1: they were being compensated for the track building with land
- 59:34Speaker 1: grants exactly exactly. So, um, it's funny that you bring
- 59:39Speaker 1: up hal Herring because he had this great quote and
- 59:42Speaker 1: he calls it an unholy union between government and industry.
- 59:49Speaker 1: And uh so, yeah, they got all this land. They
- 59:54Speaker 1: could sell it, they could lease it, they could do
- 59:56Speaker 1: whatever they want with it. And then there's also like
- 59:59Speaker 1: the state house sections, which when a state became a
- 1:00:02Speaker 1: state from a territory, they were also granted sections of
- 1:00:07Speaker 1: lands set aside for the purpose of raising funds for
- 1:00:13Speaker 1: public education, um or just raising raising funds in general.
- 1:00:18Speaker 1: So do you know the reason for the actual checkerboard pattern?
- 1:00:22Speaker 1: You know what? It all came out of the jefferson
- 1:00:25Speaker 1: Ian grid system, which is how we came up with
- 1:00:28Speaker 1: this marker system, right, the monument markers that that show
- 1:00:33Speaker 1: the checkerboard deal. But it's this idea that that Thomas
- 1:00:38Speaker 1: Jefferson came up with to literally make sense out of
- 1:00:42Speaker 1: something like that doesn't make any sense to people. Right, Like,
- 1:00:46Speaker 1: I'm staring at what could be described as the Hell's
- 1:00:50Speaker 1: Canyon landscape behind Steve right now, and that's it's like
- 1:00:55Speaker 1: trying to make nice even grids that can be divvied up,
- 1:00:59Speaker 1: soul old and accounted for with our tax system and
- 1:01:04Speaker 1: revenue system that we have even in a place where
- 1:01:07Speaker 1: little grids don't always work. So corner crossing being yeah,
- 1:01:11Speaker 1: so it ends up being that there's all this public
- 1:01:14Speaker 1: land that is um again either the blue or the
- 1:01:18Speaker 1: or the sorry, the black or the red on a checkerboard,
- 1:01:21Speaker 1: and it's inaccessible because most believe that you cannot go
- 1:01:27Speaker 1: from one corner of public to another corner of public
- 1:01:32Speaker 1: because you violate the person's airspace as your shoulders and
- 1:01:37Speaker 1: hips pass over their land. You're doing them harm. Well, technically,
- 1:01:41Speaker 1: it's not just your whole shoulders and hips. I mean
- 1:01:43Speaker 1: it's your body. Whatever the hell. Yeah, no, I mean, yeah,
- 1:01:47Speaker 1: it's your whole it's your whole body, because that that
- 1:01:50Speaker 1: corner isn't defined. It's infinite and all. It's infinitely finite. Yeah,
- 1:01:56Speaker 1: the narrowest line. But the philosopher and you could say
- 1:02:00Speaker 1: that I am equitably in all four places. Sorry, man,
- 1:02:05Speaker 1: equal parts public as to private. It's only half of
- 1:02:08Speaker 1: me is doing only half of me is problematic. It's
- 1:02:11Speaker 1: infinitely fine, but it's still a problem. So a lot
- 1:02:16Speaker 1: of states have this is a a giant question mark
- 1:02:20Speaker 1: looms over the issue of corner crossing where states, like
- 1:02:23Speaker 1: the state of Montana, they basically recommend against it. Right.
- 1:02:30Speaker 1: In some places it's not it's like not specifically clear,
- 1:02:33Speaker 1: like people might recommend against it. There might be sort
- 1:02:35Speaker 1: of a question mark lingering over whether it's okay or not.
- 1:02:39Speaker 1: Um Our guests here got a little bit, i'll see,
- 1:02:46Speaker 1: got famous in the in the in the in the
- 1:02:48Speaker 1: access world, in the public access world, got famous for
- 1:02:52Speaker 1: going into, going in and hunting an area where they
- 1:02:56Speaker 1: had corner crossed. Okay, in Wyoming, in Wyoming. Now, can
- 1:03:03Speaker 1: you guys lay out what you were trying to act? Like?
- 1:03:06Speaker 1: How much ground were you trying to access through the
- 1:03:08Speaker 1: corner hopping of? How many corners can you can you?
- 1:03:11Speaker 1: Would you mind to introduce to do that first? My
- 1:03:14Speaker 1: name is Brad Brad Cape. We're from Missouri. Uh my
- 1:03:17Speaker 1: buddy Phil sitting over here. Go ahead, Phil, Philly yeomans
- 1:03:22Speaker 1: from Missouri. From Missouri. So, so to back up a
- 1:03:27Speaker 1: little bit, be in Missouri Ozarkins? Did you burn his
- 1:03:33Speaker 1: place down? I know she has clear the area. We're
- 1:03:38Speaker 1: only an hour or so from that area. We're like
- 1:03:41Speaker 1: the north of the Ozarks. He's deep in the Ozarks.
- 1:03:45Speaker 1: So to be sitting in Missouri and thinking about corner
- 1:03:50Speaker 1: crossing is non existent. It's not a thought process, you know,
- 1:03:54Speaker 1: it's unheard of. Um So, because the land is not
- 1:03:58Speaker 1: laid out like that wrecked I cannot explain our story
- 1:04:03Speaker 1: if I'm not standing on a sidewalk or a tile floor,
- 1:04:08Speaker 1: it's it's unexplainable, which typically front in Missouri. So when
- 1:04:17Speaker 1: we found this place that we wanted to look at
- 1:04:20Speaker 1: and was looking for access in there, it was an
- 1:04:24Speaker 1: it was a no brainer. You know, I can park
- 1:04:26Speaker 1: right here on the corner on the County road and
- 1:04:30Speaker 1: walk right into this thing. That's what I wanted to
- 1:04:32Speaker 1: ask you, guys, like you picked that spot based on
- 1:04:36Speaker 1: what that little corner would then give you access to
- 1:04:40Speaker 1: potentially one of the reasons that's okay, we're getting into
- 1:04:44Speaker 1: one of my main question, Bonds can hit it right
- 1:04:45Speaker 1: now because you're kind of answering it. You weren't looking
- 1:04:48Speaker 1: to do like a Rosa Parks asked civil disobedience. You
- 1:04:53Speaker 1: were looking to get some hunting in. Absolutely, We're just hunters.
- 1:04:56Speaker 1: You were there because they were out, absolutely, and we
- 1:04:59Speaker 1: could draw up permit, you know, just like that. Because
- 1:05:03Speaker 1: I think there's the impression from a lot of people
- 1:05:05Speaker 1: that it was like all these are the guys that
- 1:05:07Speaker 1: we're gonna push it until something happened, just to clear
- 1:05:11Speaker 1: things up, like you're gonna go and get in trouble
- 1:05:13Speaker 1: on purpose. Yeah, it was never a thought process. I mean,
- 1:05:17Speaker 1: it never entered our mind. We never dreamed in a
- 1:05:20Speaker 1: million years that I'd be sitting here right now because
- 1:05:23Speaker 1: I stepped through air. You know, our bank accounts wouldn't
- 1:05:27Speaker 1: be big enough or something like that. And uh, you
- 1:05:30Speaker 1: know I've been talking about public lands for a long
- 1:05:33Speaker 1: long time. And I'll be real honest that the great
- 1:05:36Speaker 1: public land battles of Missouri don't come into into play
- 1:05:42Speaker 1: real often, so advocates from Missouri is kind of uh stretch,
- 1:05:47Speaker 1: I guess. Yeah. Yeah. So we we looked at draw
- 1:05:53Speaker 1: statistics and kill statistics and we're looking for a place
- 1:05:55Speaker 1: to hunt. You know, it is all that was. And
- 1:05:59Speaker 1: so when I'm like, hey, we can get a tag
- 1:06:01Speaker 1: right here, you know, then we actually went there first
- 1:06:05Speaker 1: and went two thousand nineteen, leaving from a antelope hunt,
- 1:06:10Speaker 1: I'm like, hey, let's go drive around this. So we
- 1:06:13Speaker 1: go and drive around this mountain and this is the
- 1:06:16Speaker 1: first week of rifle season for ELK and there's no camps,
- 1:06:22Speaker 1: there's nobody there, there's not a track. We pull off
- 1:06:25Speaker 1: and work on our trailer lights, there's no vehicles go by.
- 1:06:29Speaker 1: So we're like, we're onto something here. We got our
- 1:06:31Speaker 1: own little oasis. We just gotta figure out where to
- 1:06:34Speaker 1: park and how to get in there and hunt. Got it.
- 1:06:38Speaker 1: So that was the gist of of the whole deal.
- 1:06:42Speaker 1: But how when you lined out the property you wanted
- 1:06:45Speaker 1: to get into and where you could park, how are
- 1:06:48Speaker 1: you certain that you were going to be able to
- 1:06:53Speaker 1: do that step where where there's you have a foot
- 1:06:58Speaker 1: on public and you're placing your their foot on public
- 1:07:01Speaker 1: even though you just stepped from a red checker spot
- 1:07:04Speaker 1: to a red checker spot. You know, because there's the
- 1:07:08Speaker 1: question where fences aren't accurately laid down? You you know,
- 1:07:13Speaker 1: you gotta be pretty good right to know that one
- 1:07:15Speaker 1: ft and one and one fts in the other. Was
- 1:07:18Speaker 1: this the thing you thought about? Is were you thinking
- 1:07:20Speaker 1: about precision at all? I'm a fence builder by trade,
- 1:07:24Speaker 1: so I've been around property corners, property lines, researched all
- 1:07:29Speaker 1: of this. That's what I've done for thirty three years,
- 1:07:32Speaker 1: you know. So somebody had a question looks like I
- 1:07:36Speaker 1: know how to find the survey steak um. So that's
- 1:07:40Speaker 1: what we did. But but did it even the first
- 1:07:43Speaker 1: time you did it? Where was it even in your
- 1:07:46Speaker 1: head that, look, we're going to corner cross or where
- 1:07:49Speaker 1: you were you just like we're just gonna go from
- 1:07:51Speaker 1: here to here to hunt like you like a corner
- 1:07:53Speaker 1: crossing thing. Was it even an issue? Did you know
- 1:07:56Speaker 1: you weren't really supposed to do it? No, it was
- 1:08:00Speaker 1: a laughable thought that we couldn't step from here to here,
- 1:08:04Speaker 1: and I think, like not even to the point where
- 1:08:06Speaker 1: you wanted to call and clarify, just like why not.
- 1:08:09Speaker 1: It was laughable, honestly laughable to us that and everybody
- 1:08:12Speaker 1: we talked to that you can't step from one to
- 1:08:15Speaker 1: the other. But why the latter, because this is my
- 1:08:18Speaker 1: other big question you brought a later kay ah, yeah,
- 1:08:23Speaker 1: that's later. Um. So we're still in the two thousand
- 1:08:26Speaker 1: nineteen season right now. Well, we didn't hunt nineteen. We
- 1:08:29Speaker 1: just looked at it and said, yeah, that's a place
- 1:08:31Speaker 1: we want to go. So back home through the next year,
- 1:08:34Speaker 1: studying maps of where public is and roads and how
- 1:08:39Speaker 1: to get in there. We do that. We go in
- 1:08:42Speaker 1: there and hunt. It was easy, it was fun. We
- 1:08:44Speaker 1: didn't have any problems until we haven't. Elpdown. Um ended up.
- 1:08:50Speaker 1: Deputy comes out, landowner. This is not a conservation officer.
- 1:08:58Speaker 1: Deputy well, a sheriff's deputy. If we roll back a
- 1:09:02Speaker 1: little bit, the landowner calls deputy. I call the game warden.
- 1:09:10Speaker 1: Game warden says, we don't even come out and investigate
- 1:09:15Speaker 1: these sort of things. You're corner crossing. It's nothing to
- 1:09:17Speaker 1: hear for us to do. The deputy. No, the game warden. Okay.
- 1:09:22Speaker 1: The game warden says, I don't do I don't take
- 1:09:24Speaker 1: corner cross and calls correct. And we had read the
- 1:09:28Speaker 1: Attorney General's Peace. You know that everybody's read and Game
- 1:09:33Speaker 1: and Fish site. We're we had this conversation even we're hunters.
- 1:09:38Speaker 1: So where do you research when you're an out of
- 1:09:40Speaker 1: state hunter? You the website for the Game and Fish Commission.
- 1:09:44Speaker 1: You know, it's where we got our information. Um, we
- 1:09:47Speaker 1: call the game warden from up on the mountain because
- 1:09:49Speaker 1: I can see the deputy down in the valley and say,
- 1:09:54Speaker 1: I gotta make sure I'm getting this right. And this
- 1:09:56Speaker 1: is you cross the corner correct, And then you're hunting
- 1:10:00Speaker 1: the land you got into correct. And you look and
- 1:10:04Speaker 1: lo and behold you see a deputy correct down at
- 1:10:07Speaker 1: the corner at your truck. No, not at the corner
- 1:10:10Speaker 1: in the in a canyon there, and we were up
- 1:10:14Speaker 1: on the mountain and you feel as always looking for
- 1:10:16Speaker 1: you correct. You just feel this. So you know we
- 1:10:19Speaker 1: knew the game word or not? The game warden, UH,
- 1:10:22Speaker 1: help me outfill the landowner the ranch manager says, he
- 1:10:26Speaker 1: comes and sees us and says, hey, you're not supposed
- 1:10:30Speaker 1: to be here. We say we're on public land. He says, okay,
- 1:10:34Speaker 1: I'll go call the deputy. I got you. We say great, Um,
- 1:10:38Speaker 1: so we go on. When the deputy shows up, we
- 1:10:43Speaker 1: are up on the mountain and so then we don't
- 1:10:46Speaker 1: know whether we have to turn around and go back
- 1:10:48Speaker 1: down to see the deputy or carry on. And so
- 1:10:51Speaker 1: I called the game warden and said, what's my obligation here?
- 1:10:55Speaker 1: What do I do? And he says, your obligation is
- 1:10:58Speaker 1: to go to the elk that you have down. You know,
- 1:11:00Speaker 1: if the deputy doesn't have his lights on and isn't
- 1:11:04Speaker 1: hollering for you over the speaker, your obligation is to
- 1:11:07Speaker 1: your down elk, which is a legal obligation. Correct. So
- 1:11:11Speaker 1: that's what we've done. Fast forward today. I believe deputy
- 1:11:17Speaker 1: had came to our camp and left a note on
- 1:11:20Speaker 1: my truck window said call me. So we call him.
- 1:11:24Speaker 1: He comes, We have a meeting, a pow wow. He says,
- 1:11:29Speaker 1: you guys aren't doing anything wrong. The deputy, the deputy,
- 1:11:33Speaker 1: why is he there then? Because he was called there
- 1:11:37Speaker 1: so he had to call and investigate, you know. So
- 1:11:40Speaker 1: he comes, he's like, I'll go out and take a
- 1:11:42Speaker 1: look at my own two eyes. Yeah, he come out
- 1:11:44Speaker 1: and talk to us, and his investigation determined that you're
- 1:11:47Speaker 1: not doing anything wrong. He says, go hunt. You know.
- 1:11:52Speaker 1: Phil even said, so we're good to go. You know
- 1:11:55Speaker 1: this is in two thousand twenties. Says, yeah, you're good
- 1:11:58Speaker 1: to go. We told him how we crossed the corner.
- 1:12:02Speaker 1: You're good to go, and I'm gonna go tell the landowner.
- 1:12:05Speaker 1: There's nothing he can do about it. So that was
- 1:12:11Speaker 1: what what are you thinking now, Phil? What are you thinking? Yeah?
- 1:12:15Speaker 1: Thinking we're we're good to go. You know how else?
- 1:12:21Speaker 1: I thought about it long and harder. All right, you
- 1:12:25Speaker 1: guys thinking, you guys got a pretty good hunting spot.
- 1:12:27Speaker 1: You spend a few more days hunting there, and we
- 1:12:30Speaker 1: were actually tagged out and we're backing animals. We took
- 1:12:35Speaker 1: two days to tag out. So there was no no
- 1:12:40Speaker 1: altercation with the law on that trip. No no no
- 1:12:45Speaker 1: citations issued, nothing, nothing nothing. All the combusion that he
- 1:12:51Speaker 1: came to though, is you got a darned good helk
- 1:12:53Speaker 1: hunting spot. Absolutely so, now how could you not think that? Right?
- 1:12:57Speaker 1: It's two thousand twenty one. So what it happened was
- 1:13:02Speaker 1: landowner takes two tea posts and signs in a chain
- 1:13:07Speaker 1: and goes over the top of that corner. But why
- 1:13:09Speaker 1: are his tea posts on public land his tea post
- 1:13:11Speaker 1: around private land private? How is he not violating like
- 1:13:17Speaker 1: or does he do it in such a way that
- 1:13:19Speaker 1: he's never his chain or nothing is on the You
- 1:13:23Speaker 1: can't because I'm saying, maybe he blocked only his corner,
- 1:13:28Speaker 1: so you can't like enter his corner. What did he block?
- 1:13:32Speaker 1: So the tea posts were one on each side of
- 1:13:34Speaker 1: the corner on private on private property, and the chain
- 1:13:37Speaker 1: was stretching across chain between him with with signage. Okay,
- 1:13:41Speaker 1: and since these corners are infinitely finite, his chain is
- 1:13:43Speaker 1: on public land, that's the way we see it. When
- 1:13:46Speaker 1: he used the signs. Yeah, he put one sign low
- 1:13:49Speaker 1: on the post and one signed high on the post
- 1:13:51Speaker 1: and overlapped him to try and block the whole corner.
- 1:13:55Speaker 1: And you're seeing this for the first time. When you
- 1:13:57Speaker 1: get there, you can see it. You can see it
- 1:14:01Speaker 1: from the county road. So you so his positioning of
- 1:14:05Speaker 1: the signs was like meant to be not informing someone
- 1:14:09Speaker 1: was also meant to be preventing passage. Well, he testified
- 1:14:15Speaker 1: in court that he took the chain down. Okay, and
- 1:14:19Speaker 1: what was his reason for that? If we want to
- 1:14:21Speaker 1: go there right now? But well, he was asked if
- 1:14:23Speaker 1: that change served he said, it served no purpose. That's
- 1:14:25Speaker 1: why he took it down. Why did you take the
- 1:14:28Speaker 1: Chiant chain down? It served no purpose? Did? He wouldn't answer. Man,
- 1:14:37Speaker 1: I need to go more of these court cases, man,
- 1:14:39Speaker 1: just like conversation, the chain conversation. Okay. So yeah, go on,
- 1:14:46Speaker 1: you're on the ground and you see this for the
- 1:14:49Speaker 1: first time. We know the signs in the poster there
- 1:14:51Speaker 1: because you see him when you show up. We knew
- 1:14:54Speaker 1: previously that they were there. We threw the latter in Missouri.
- 1:14:58Speaker 1: Do it through like through the grape vine. I don't
- 1:15:00Speaker 1: need I don't need other details. But yeah, pretty much okay, okay, okay,
- 1:15:05Speaker 1: So you became aware and so too, just out of
- 1:15:10Speaker 1: respect for the landow like like, I'm not doing my
- 1:15:14Speaker 1: job if I don't dig in a little bit here.
- 1:15:16Speaker 1: I don't need to know specifics. But you leave in
- 1:15:19Speaker 1: twenty no sign, no arrest, no sign, no nothing. Signs
- 1:15:25Speaker 1: were there in saying what no trespassing? Okay on this
- 1:15:31Speaker 1: section in this section, got it? And then you be
- 1:15:36Speaker 1: you're made aware that this person has taken additional steps
- 1:15:40Speaker 1: and has tried to obstruct the corner even though you
- 1:15:43Speaker 1: were told by law enforcement that you're doing nothing wrong.
- 1:15:47Speaker 1: That's how we took it. So rather than going and
- 1:15:49Speaker 1: haggling about, well he needs to remove that and doing that,
- 1:15:56Speaker 1: you're like, okay, we'll just bypass the obstruction since we've
- 1:15:59Speaker 1: been told we're okay, correct, We just made it easy.
- 1:16:02Speaker 1: And in that interview, in the year between those two
- 1:16:06Speaker 1: hunting seasons, had you learned more about what an issue
- 1:16:12Speaker 1: corner crossing was in the West, Like, you know, you
- 1:16:16Speaker 1: weren't really aware of how crazy it was in in
- 1:16:20Speaker 1: the next year, did you learn that it was a
- 1:16:24Speaker 1: big deal out here? And I don't think anything changed. No, No,
- 1:16:27Speaker 1: our minds weren't. But you didn't just casually start researching
- 1:16:31Speaker 1: the issue in history of corn to the corner crossing
- 1:16:34Speaker 1: debate some yeah, but yeah, not enough for you to
- 1:16:40Speaker 1: not enough to change your mind. There's so it was
- 1:16:43Speaker 1: very simple for us. There's no law against corner crossing. Yeah,
- 1:16:48Speaker 1: you know, if you get on the message boards, if
- 1:16:50Speaker 1: you get on talking to whoever you want to talk to,
- 1:16:54Speaker 1: it's all fluff, it's all horseshit. You know, there is
- 1:16:57Speaker 1: no law against corner crossing to deput He met and said, yes,
- 1:17:02Speaker 1: go ahead, you know, game ward and won't even come out,
- 1:17:06Speaker 1: you know, and and investigate it or even help us
- 1:17:08Speaker 1: do it. In a state that's very, very friendly to landowners,
- 1:17:13Speaker 1: like you know very well. We don't know this well no, no,
- 1:17:18Speaker 1: I'm just saying, like Montana is known as a state
- 1:17:20Speaker 1: that's like they don't have a lot against it, in
- 1:17:23Speaker 1: a state that's very i would say friendly towards private landowners. Yeah,
- 1:17:28Speaker 1: we're assuming, you know, we don't know. We just know
- 1:17:31Speaker 1: there's no law against. That's that's our thought process. So
- 1:17:34Speaker 1: this so you're thinking, this guy can do whatever you want.
- 1:17:37Speaker 1: I'm not gonna go bang on his door and ask
- 1:17:39Speaker 1: him to move it. I'm just gonna go around it. Correct,
- 1:17:42Speaker 1: you know, up and over? Who makes a good ladder
- 1:17:45Speaker 1: for going over corners? A fence builders all type fence perfect. Yeah, yeah,
- 1:17:55Speaker 1: it's made out of fence pipe. It's really serendipitous as
- 1:17:58Speaker 1: you man. Yeah, there were some strange things of how
- 1:18:02Speaker 1: this all worked out. Can we have that fence for
- 1:18:04Speaker 1: the for we have a thing called the auction House
- 1:18:06Speaker 1: of Bodity. The ladder can we get that ladder that
- 1:18:09Speaker 1: I think we already offered it maybe to uh that
- 1:18:12Speaker 1: country hunters and anglers like a like a like a
- 1:18:17Speaker 1: like Adam see Him exhibit or something. We talked about.
- 1:18:20Speaker 1: We talked about it donating it to the Carbon County Museum. No,
- 1:18:24Speaker 1: that's a great idea, man. Is it lightweight? Is light
- 1:18:27Speaker 1: enough to carry up there? You know I built it
- 1:18:29Speaker 1: as light as I could. Only had to go a
- 1:18:30Speaker 1: couple hundred yards, you know, and still get over the corner.
- 1:18:32Speaker 1: He trumped it out here on a trailer. Yeah, you'd
- 1:18:35Speaker 1: get a little side business going. Man had to be
- 1:18:39Speaker 1: very tall ladder, right, I know how tall teposts was,
- 1:18:43Speaker 1: so we just made it six inches taller than that.
- 1:18:47Speaker 1: It really seemed yeah, like a simple go together plan. Sure,
- 1:18:53Speaker 1: and you're not just destroying or defacing private property because
- 1:18:57Speaker 1: you're not doing anything to alter the t posts which
- 1:19:01Speaker 1: are on private property. And we are private landowners back
- 1:19:04Speaker 1: in Missouri. You know, we've got public rivers go right
- 1:19:07Speaker 1: through the middle of our place. You know, there's all
- 1:19:09Speaker 1: kinds of people using the public waterways, you know, through
- 1:19:13Speaker 1: our land. So we we know how that game, you
- 1:19:16Speaker 1: know it's played. You just tolerate some things and established
- 1:19:21Speaker 1: boundaries and just be respectful of people. You know, we
- 1:19:25Speaker 1: never thought for once that we were disrespecting anybody. Were
- 1:19:30Speaker 1: somebody said we touched air. You know, that was just
- 1:19:33Speaker 1: crazy to us to think of such a thing. Okay,
- 1:19:38Speaker 1: so you show up, Um, do you want to take overfield?
- 1:19:48Speaker 1: Want to talk about the whole hunt or what? Yeah?
- 1:19:50Speaker 1: We no, not just friends. He has in high school
- 1:19:55Speaker 1: with my wife somewhere a long time five six se
- 1:19:59Speaker 1: I don't know, and six handful of years you went
- 1:20:01Speaker 1: to high school with his wife? Did you day hurt?
- 1:20:05Speaker 1: Did you guys have a lot of like Western hunting
- 1:20:07Speaker 1: experience or was it just I hunted Colorado for like
- 1:20:12Speaker 1: through the nineties? Okay, so yeah, you know, but then
- 1:20:16Speaker 1: a hiatus of raising a family and doing you know
- 1:20:18Speaker 1: what everybody does, building fence, building fence, trying to make
- 1:20:21Speaker 1: a living. Uh, me and Phil get to be buddies
- 1:20:24Speaker 1: and say hey let's go west. Got it? You know?
- 1:20:26Speaker 1: So that's what we did. So we've been doing it
- 1:20:28Speaker 1: handful of years. You are you fill your fifty? I
- 1:20:39Speaker 1: got a birthday about I was gonna say six seven days?
- 1:20:41Speaker 1: You guys neck and neck? You have you because you
- 1:20:46Speaker 1: have built the fence. You I'm sorry, I'm sorry you
- 1:20:52Speaker 1: built the ladder, UH to cross across the corner without
- 1:20:56Speaker 1: touching these private tea posts letter on private land? Have
- 1:21:00Speaker 1: you reached out to UH conservation officers? Are law enforcement
- 1:21:05Speaker 1: prior to your trip to in addition to your preparation
- 1:21:10Speaker 1: of how you're going to cross these teapots? No, we
- 1:21:14Speaker 1: had talked to law enforcement, you know, that said we
- 1:21:17Speaker 1: were doing nothing wrong. Um. And so the latter's kind
- 1:21:22Speaker 1: of an extra, just just because you don't want to
- 1:21:29Speaker 1: bend his ship out of the way, it's a it's
- 1:21:33Speaker 1: an extra to be ultimately clear as to our intent, um.
- 1:21:39Speaker 1: And even in one we rely on our intent. You
- 1:21:44Speaker 1: know our intent, we think or we think we're decent guys.
- 1:21:47Speaker 1: We're just trying to do things the right way, and
- 1:21:49Speaker 1: our intent is to hunt public land. So I got
- 1:21:52Speaker 1: a level of you on something, and I'm glad it
- 1:21:54Speaker 1: turned out the way it is. I in my mind
- 1:21:56Speaker 1: leading into this day when I would meet you in
- 1:21:59Speaker 1: my mind and I I thought that there was more
- 1:22:03Speaker 1: of a like um, like a like fixing, like trying
- 1:22:08Speaker 1: to stick it to someone, screw him. Yeah, I didn't know,
- 1:22:13Speaker 1: like like I thought that there was like a cuteness
- 1:22:16Speaker 1: to the ladder, but the ladder is more like, no,
- 1:22:18Speaker 1: I don't want to It's absolutely a tool, you know.
- 1:22:24Speaker 1: Yeah where you you know, you like had a legal
- 1:22:26Speaker 1: scholar and be like, wow, let's try a ladder. No, no,
- 1:22:30Speaker 1: we we've had our share of attorneys through this whole thing.
- 1:22:33Speaker 1: You know. We're just a matter of what do we
- 1:22:36Speaker 1: have to do to do it correctly to where nobody
- 1:22:40Speaker 1: can question us. And we have a mentality of we
- 1:22:44Speaker 1: will walk a mile further than the next guy. We
- 1:22:47Speaker 1: will do whatever we have to do, you know, to
- 1:22:51Speaker 1: to hunt, you know, to pursue our game, you know,
- 1:22:55Speaker 1: to be successful. We're gonna do what we have to do.
- 1:22:57Speaker 1: Got um American noble agree. Yeah. Yeah, it's just kind
- 1:23:01Speaker 1: of how we roll, you know. So we get there,
- 1:23:06Speaker 1: we take off up the mountain, you know, our very
- 1:23:08Speaker 1: first evening. Um, we spend the night up on the mountain,
- 1:23:13Speaker 1: you know, with the base camp done at our truck,
- 1:23:16Speaker 1: and at daylight the next morning, here's the ranch manager
- 1:23:19Speaker 1: guys driving up and down you know, through bll ground.
- 1:23:25Speaker 1: But they're they're hunting us. They're looking for us from
- 1:23:27Speaker 1: the from the get go. Um, so they don't find
- 1:23:32Speaker 1: us because we're up on the mountain overlooking them, and
- 1:23:35Speaker 1: we take off and we spend four nights, four nights
- 1:23:41Speaker 1: to evade them or take off up the mountain on
- 1:23:45Speaker 1: our hunt, just like your camping. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Um
- 1:23:51Speaker 1: So we spend four days, four nights hunting off our back.
- 1:23:55Speaker 1: Uh Phil kills will they fourth day? Um so we're
- 1:24:02Speaker 1: archery hunting the first four days. Rifle season starts October one,
- 1:24:09Speaker 1: so we have to go back to our truck camp
- 1:24:12Speaker 1: switch out bows for rifles. And of course everybody knows,
- 1:24:16Speaker 1: you know, that archery seasons over rifle season starting. So
- 1:24:20Speaker 1: they all, when I say, they all the ranch law
- 1:24:23Speaker 1: enforcement whoever, they just set up and waited for us,
- 1:24:26Speaker 1: you know, to come in that evening. And so we
- 1:24:29Speaker 1: get that they know both seasons over correct, you know.
- 1:24:31Speaker 1: So it's a logical time we're gonna come back to
- 1:24:33Speaker 1: our camp. So we get to the corner, we take
- 1:24:38Speaker 1: our ladder, we go up and over the corner. We
- 1:24:40Speaker 1: see trucks parked over here on the county road, and
- 1:24:43Speaker 1: trucks parked over there on the county road with our
- 1:24:45Speaker 1: camp in the middle. We know these trucks you know,
- 1:24:48Speaker 1: we've seen them their ranch employees like you guys are
- 1:24:52Speaker 1: gonna quick pack up all that stuff and all house.
- 1:24:55Speaker 1: You know, I don't know what they're thinking. They just
- 1:24:56Speaker 1: don't like us there. And then the landowner is a
- 1:24:59Speaker 1: is a far parmaceutical feller, right where is he from?
- 1:25:04Speaker 1: North Carolina? North Carolina. He made a bunch of money
- 1:25:07Speaker 1: in pharmaceuticals and bought that ranch. Huh, that's the way
- 1:25:11Speaker 1: we understand it. Do you know they don't do any
- 1:25:14Speaker 1: outfit in or guiding on that, not that I know
- 1:25:17Speaker 1: of the research I'd done on the ranch is the
- 1:25:20Speaker 1: previous owner had some outfitting. But this guy I think
- 1:25:24Speaker 1: just uses it as his private hunting oasis. You know.
- 1:25:28Speaker 1: Don't blame him. Yeah, awesome, good for him. Whatever. So
- 1:25:36Speaker 1: we crossed the corner. We're walking to our truck. I
- 1:25:39Speaker 1: just happened to turn and look up and I see
- 1:25:42Speaker 1: dark green trucks sitting up on the up on the mountain.
- 1:25:45Speaker 1: Assume it's a conservation agent, you know by his truck.
- 1:25:48Speaker 1: Tell the guys, hey, conservation agents is watching us, you know,
- 1:25:51Speaker 1: And we talked about that's we we wanted them there.
- 1:25:54Speaker 1: That's good because we can see these other guys staking
- 1:25:57Speaker 1: us out. We're wanting helped for a confrontation. That was
- 1:26:01Speaker 1: one of the mouse to UM. We get to our camp.
- 1:26:05Speaker 1: It went in five minutes. Conservation guy pulls in, UM
- 1:26:12Speaker 1: and he's just smiling and laughing. He's like, I cannot
- 1:26:16Speaker 1: believe you guys built the ladder. You know. He's like,
- 1:26:21Speaker 1: I even called my neighbor and said, you're not gonna
- 1:26:24Speaker 1: believe these guys built a freaking ladder, you know, to
- 1:26:27Speaker 1: go over this corner. And we're like, yeah, we knew
- 1:26:30Speaker 1: what we had to do. He's like, well, I'm calling
- 1:26:34Speaker 1: in deputies the ranch. We're all gonna have a meeting,
- 1:26:39Speaker 1: and we're all gonna get on the same page, you know,
- 1:26:41Speaker 1: with what's going on here. Um. So we're like great, so,
- 1:26:46Speaker 1: and this was all we we We were in our tent.
- 1:26:48Speaker 1: We maybe even ask him be on supper or something
- 1:26:51Speaker 1: and supper drinks whatever. The deputy showed up, he goes
- 1:26:56Speaker 1: outside the tent. We stayed in our tent. They go
- 1:27:00Speaker 1: out have a meeting. However, along with that CEO and
- 1:27:03Speaker 1: the deputy. Yeah, yeah, two deputies. I picked that one.
- 1:27:08Speaker 1: All the law enforcements getting there and the speed on
- 1:27:11Speaker 1: what's going on, and the ranch manager, Oh so he's
- 1:27:14Speaker 1: got their ear then is there? Which is the famous
- 1:27:17Speaker 1: body cam video of him making an idiot of himself.
- 1:27:22Speaker 1: But and he was the one kind of threatening law
- 1:27:24Speaker 1: enforcement with do you know who my correct you know
- 1:27:27Speaker 1: who my boss is? You know how much land he
- 1:27:30Speaker 1: owns he has? I mean, it's but we don't know
- 1:27:38Speaker 1: any of that's going on. It's a brutal deal too,
- 1:27:41Speaker 1: like it's it's it is an important part of the picture,
- 1:27:45Speaker 1: but it also has nothing to do with the picture.
- 1:27:47Speaker 1: But it's about fifty square miles of private land. It's
- 1:27:51Speaker 1: a lot. And how much uh, how much did you
- 1:27:55Speaker 1: guys figure you hunted of public land during your the
- 1:28:02Speaker 1: season of confrontation will call it like eight sections something
- 1:28:07Speaker 1: like that. You can't have eight sections within eight sections
- 1:28:10Speaker 1: of public that he has the fifty thou of privates.
- 1:28:15Speaker 1: I'd have to look on a map. But that's that's
- 1:28:17Speaker 1: pretty maybe something like that which you stepped foot in, right,
- 1:28:22Speaker 1: You didn't grid eight sections, which would be eight square
- 1:28:27Speaker 1: miles were calling and hunting camping, Yeah, and we didn't.
- 1:28:31Speaker 1: We didn't grid it, but we covered that many sections,
- 1:28:35Speaker 1: you know, from top to bottom basically made a horse
- 1:28:39Speaker 1: shoe up the mountain and back down as one does
- 1:28:45Speaker 1: picture you were hunting. So we're sitting there in our
- 1:28:59Speaker 1: tent after they have their meeting and they say we're
- 1:29:02Speaker 1: gonna go have it. We're gonna go confer and then
- 1:29:05Speaker 1: we'll come visit with you. That was the initial conversation
- 1:29:09Speaker 1: that we had. We never talked to the deputies. They
- 1:29:13Speaker 1: never came and spoke one word to us. Do you
- 1:29:16Speaker 1: guys still have meat on the mountain from yes, yes,
- 1:29:20Speaker 1: because as as at this point, we only had the
- 1:29:22Speaker 1: one bull down, correct, and you pack some of it out,
- 1:29:26Speaker 1: but not the rest. We hung it all. It was
- 1:29:29Speaker 1: we we hung that whole bull. Yeah, we didn't bring
- 1:29:32Speaker 1: out because we had our all of our baby and
- 1:29:34Speaker 1: all of our everyone. He was skinned Cordon and hunter Tree.
- 1:29:41Speaker 1: Game Warden walks back into our tent and says, okay,
- 1:29:44Speaker 1: we've had a meeting. Um, he says, guys, it's public land,
- 1:29:48Speaker 1: it's your land. Go hunt again. Yeah, this is a
- 1:29:52Speaker 1: different game Warden. They switched game Wardens from two one
- 1:29:58Speaker 1: and then and he comes to the same thing losing. Yeah,
- 1:30:00Speaker 1: he just the deputies. Deputies never came and talk to us.
- 1:30:05Speaker 1: But if you watch that video there pointing there they're
- 1:30:08Speaker 1: crossed pointing to fingers at each other. Uh, you know
- 1:30:10Speaker 1: it's my instruction that you handle this. No, it's it's
- 1:30:12Speaker 1: our instructor you handle this. So with the ranch manager
- 1:30:17Speaker 1: right there right, you know, to do something right. But
- 1:30:21Speaker 1: at the time, we didn't know any of this, you know,
- 1:30:23Speaker 1: we're just sitting in our you know, because the body came,
- 1:30:25Speaker 1: which is which is public all later and got to
- 1:30:29Speaker 1: be a part of this meeting with the CEO and
- 1:30:32Speaker 1: the correct and he's saying do something, to do something
- 1:30:34Speaker 1: correct because somebody's behind him being like, you better do something.
- 1:30:38Speaker 1: That's your job correct. And then and then he wants
- 1:30:40Speaker 1: to he wants to play like he's safety ranger because
- 1:30:43Speaker 1: you know, it's my concern that these we got hunters
- 1:30:46Speaker 1: coming in tomorrow, they're gonna shoot anything they see. You know,
- 1:30:51Speaker 1: we wanted over these guys right right, kind of paints
- 1:30:56Speaker 1: North Carolina hunters in a bad, bad light, and North
- 1:31:00Speaker 1: Carolina they come out here to win and shoot anything
- 1:31:02Speaker 1: they see. So the gist of it was though, because
- 1:31:08Speaker 1: we had had a conversation with the law enforcement the
- 1:31:12Speaker 1: year before, you know, we were really trying to get
- 1:31:15Speaker 1: it clear and down to not have a conversation when
- 1:31:20Speaker 1: you're out there trying so we could hunt, because that's
- 1:31:22Speaker 1: really all we care about. And so I questioned the
- 1:31:27Speaker 1: game ward and I said, did you tell the ranch
- 1:31:29Speaker 1: this I wanted to question, And he says yes. I
- 1:31:35Speaker 1: told him it's public land. You guys are going right
- 1:31:37Speaker 1: back in there. And that's when he asked us, the
- 1:31:42Speaker 1: ranch wants to know where you're going to be, really
- 1:31:47Speaker 1: and for safety, for safety, which you could say, it's
- 1:31:52Speaker 1: really none of their business, and that's pretty much what
- 1:31:55Speaker 1: I said. I said, we're gonna be on all the
- 1:31:57Speaker 1: public sections on the mountain south of where we were,
- 1:32:01Speaker 1: and I said we will work our way south and
- 1:32:04Speaker 1: west in the morning, which is a lot of information
- 1:32:08Speaker 1: more than I wanted to give, you know, but that's
- 1:32:11Speaker 1: what I did, and that's what we've done. Next morning
- 1:32:15Speaker 1: we get up and I can't remember if that next morning,
- 1:32:18Speaker 1: I believe we had those same two trucks sitting on
- 1:32:22Speaker 1: the county road watching us still the next morning, after
- 1:32:26Speaker 1: they were told by the game warden that we were
- 1:32:30Speaker 1: public land hunters going and hunting public land, to leave
- 1:32:32Speaker 1: us alone. And so we go up the mountain, we
- 1:32:37Speaker 1: spot mule deer. Zach our hunting buddy has a mule
- 1:32:41Speaker 1: deer tag. A side by side comes driving up there
- 1:32:45Speaker 1: on private land. But they come driving up within a
- 1:32:50Speaker 1: couple hundred feet of us on the public They are no.
- 1:32:53Speaker 1: They stayed on. You know, we're following a line east
- 1:32:57Speaker 1: and west. Um, we're watching the mule deer. They pull up,
- 1:33:02Speaker 1: let's say, beside us a couple feet and just shut
- 1:33:05Speaker 1: the side beside off and just stand there and watch us. Um.
- 1:33:09Speaker 1: We're wearing orange, you know, we're not trying to wear
- 1:33:11Speaker 1: on a wide open hillside behind a big rock. Hard
- 1:33:14Speaker 1: to find, you not hard to find at all. Um.
- 1:33:17Speaker 1: We don't know if they've even seen the deer, you know.
- 1:33:20Speaker 1: But eventually they started the machine and took off. We
- 1:33:25Speaker 1: go on up over the deer, go over the lip.
- 1:33:29Speaker 1: We presume we end up zach Kills. You know that
- 1:33:32Speaker 1: mule deer. We haul it back to camp that day.
- 1:33:36Speaker 1: So we get back to camp mid afternoon, early afternoon.
- 1:33:42Speaker 1: Not time to go back up the mountain again. So
- 1:33:45Speaker 1: we stay at our truck camp that day. Um. They
- 1:33:50Speaker 1: next morning, I don't believe anything happened. The next morning,
- 1:33:55Speaker 1: nobody's there watching us and we go back up the
- 1:33:59Speaker 1: mountain again, get in on some elk. I killed a
- 1:34:02Speaker 1: bull that morning. Um, we packed your elk, hung my elk.
- 1:34:09Speaker 1: Long day, huge day because we crossed multiple canyons. We
- 1:34:15Speaker 1: were tuckered out when we got back that night. When
- 1:34:18Speaker 1: you're doing it right, you don't take the yeah, the
- 1:34:21Speaker 1: ridge road. Um, yeah, you guys, because you guys are
- 1:34:25Speaker 1: prevented from taking a straight line of travel because you
- 1:34:28Speaker 1: got to adhere to the public section. And we laugh
- 1:34:31Speaker 1: about we have pictures of all those corners. Every time
- 1:34:33Speaker 1: we come to New corn we take a picture of it,
- 1:34:35Speaker 1: just proved we've been there. Because I bet you we
- 1:34:38Speaker 1: laughed about this. There's nobody been in a lot of
- 1:34:41Speaker 1: in the corners since the surveyor put that stake there,
- 1:34:43Speaker 1: because I mean they are in some hellish, hellish places,
- 1:34:48Speaker 1: wild wild the places you find them. Yeah, And we
- 1:34:51Speaker 1: brought full elk out on our backs across those corners.
- 1:34:55Speaker 1: So pack your elk out, have and part of line,
- 1:35:00Speaker 1: I believe, yeah, and come back down the mountain. We
- 1:35:05Speaker 1: rest the next day. We don't do nothing, and we
- 1:35:09Speaker 1: have ranch vehicles stake us out and basically watch us
- 1:35:14Speaker 1: in our camp all day. The hell are these people
- 1:35:17Speaker 1: supposed to be doing. Ranch's killing me this whole time? Right,
- 1:35:24Speaker 1: You think of the enormity of the property, and I
- 1:35:28Speaker 1: just can't help but wonder what the hell else is
- 1:35:30Speaker 1: going on? God animal wise, like the elk and deer
- 1:35:35Speaker 1: and antelope playing on the other you know, forty two
- 1:35:40Speaker 1: sections of landed, right, So where are we at. They're
- 1:35:49Speaker 1: surveying camp they're watching us camping, they're counting your cards. Yeah,
- 1:35:53Speaker 1: we're not doing anything but laying around being lazy, recouping
- 1:35:57Speaker 1: um the ext What do we have? We have a
- 1:36:01Speaker 1: partial elk to go pack out right, the rest of
- 1:36:03Speaker 1: the remaining euro olk. Yeah, so we're going back up
- 1:36:06Speaker 1: the mountain. These guys one truck that believe that morning, right,
- 1:36:12Speaker 1: we could back up a little bit. We did have
- 1:36:14Speaker 1: a confrontation with them, if you want to tell well,
- 1:36:20Speaker 1: it was that it was that day, right, so we
- 1:36:23Speaker 1: we couldn't go to the bathroom. We got We got
- 1:36:25Speaker 1: a truck on one end watching us, and a guy
- 1:36:27Speaker 1: right above our tent watching us. You can't even go
- 1:36:29Speaker 1: and relieve yourself, Yeah, without exposing yourself. He got his
- 1:36:38Speaker 1: penis out and waving it around. I was staring at
- 1:36:42Speaker 1: him through my ten by fifties. So we head to
- 1:36:46Speaker 1: the local convenience store to to let our buddy John
- 1:36:49Speaker 1: use the restroom and get a little ice cream and
- 1:36:52Speaker 1: and whatnot. Um, but the white truck that's watching us
- 1:36:56Speaker 1: as we drive away. He starts driving away, but we're
- 1:37:00Speaker 1: we're gonna pass each other. Brad stops him pretty pretty.
- 1:37:05Speaker 1: Brentley just said, ask him, are you watching us? Guys like, no,
- 1:37:09Speaker 1: I'm watching. Well, what are you doing? I'm scouting? Brad's
- 1:37:13Speaker 1: a little clear on this. Uh. I asked him if
- 1:37:17Speaker 1: he had permission, you know, is if you're scouting, you
- 1:37:22Speaker 1: must have permission. Hunt. Do you have permission? He says no,
- 1:37:25Speaker 1: and said what are you scouting for? He's like, well, well,
- 1:37:28Speaker 1: first he said he was scouting for the next week,
- 1:37:32Speaker 1: and I said, do you have permission? He says no.
- 1:37:35Speaker 1: I said what are you scouting for? He says, well,
- 1:37:38Speaker 1: across the road is a public cow area and um,
- 1:37:43Speaker 1: I said, well that season is not till December in January,
- 1:37:48Speaker 1: and he's like, we'll have a good day and took off.
- 1:37:52Speaker 1: And so that was kind of He's on the radio
- 1:37:55Speaker 1: going now if they ask you this, right, but you
- 1:37:58Speaker 1: can tell that they had a little bit story. Hey,
- 1:38:00Speaker 1: if they talk to you, just say you're scouting. You know,
- 1:38:03Speaker 1: they're supposed to be just making your stay miserable. Yeah, exactly.
- 1:38:07Speaker 1: They're just pestering us, is what they're doing. And so
- 1:38:12Speaker 1: that was that. The next morning, we still have this
- 1:38:15Speaker 1: elp to get out, but we're feeling good. We're heading
- 1:38:18Speaker 1: up the mountain. I gotta ask you a question. I'll
- 1:38:21Speaker 1: forget later, but I should. I should ask it later,
- 1:38:23Speaker 1: but i'll forget. Have you guys thought about doing anything
- 1:38:27Speaker 1: civil against the people who are ruining your time and
- 1:38:31Speaker 1: obstructing your ability to hunt like a hunter? Harassment ahead? Alright?
- 1:38:36Speaker 1: We we wrote statements, but that's not up to us
- 1:38:39Speaker 1: to whether charges are brought us. But but I mean,
- 1:38:41Speaker 1: are you will like there? Have you considered taking legal
- 1:38:45Speaker 1: action against someone who's intimidating you know, we had a
- 1:38:51Speaker 1: discussion civilly whether to do something civil. I don't know
- 1:38:56Speaker 1: that it's worth it, simply because the way we hunt,
- 1:38:59Speaker 1: we don't spend that much money. I mean, that's the
- 1:39:02Speaker 1: honest to God's truth. We don't have guides, you know,
- 1:39:04Speaker 1: we don't have big expenses. We and so I believe
- 1:39:08Speaker 1: the Wyoming law tells you what you can recoup, which
- 1:39:12Speaker 1: is your tag Um, if someone's intimidating you, does it
- 1:39:20Speaker 1: have to be that you suffered financially. There's not like
- 1:39:22Speaker 1: a thing like just general intimidation. So there is a
- 1:39:25Speaker 1: law of hunter harassment. That doesn't need to be that
- 1:39:28Speaker 1: you lost money. Correct, But to do it civilly, for
- 1:39:31Speaker 1: us to push something, we would have to do it
- 1:39:33Speaker 1: in a civil manner. Otherwise it's a criminal thing. And
- 1:39:38Speaker 1: so what we've done, like you're saying, the criminal thing
- 1:39:40Speaker 1: isn't up to you. Correct. The criminal thing would be
- 1:39:42Speaker 1: someone would determine, a prosecutor in that county would determine,
- 1:39:47Speaker 1: I'm going to go after the people who are harassing
- 1:39:49Speaker 1: these individuals criminally exactly, and so that's up to them.
- 1:39:52Speaker 1: We we wrote our statements all individually of our experience
- 1:39:56Speaker 1: of being harassed by this ranch anywhere one. Whether that
- 1:40:00Speaker 1: prosecutor is going to pursue that, no, what's your what's
- 1:40:04Speaker 1: your gut instinct? No, we turned it in. Um, we
- 1:40:10Speaker 1: turned it into the game warden. Game Warden told me
- 1:40:13Speaker 1: that he turned it into the prosecutor. Prosecutor told game
- 1:40:16Speaker 1: Warden that we'll wait and see how the criminal thing
- 1:40:21Speaker 1: pans out, Well, the criminal thing is panned out, you know,
- 1:40:25Speaker 1: not guilty. But we haven't heard anymore on the civil
- 1:40:30Speaker 1: on the harassment issue. That's really interesting. Man, if he
- 1:40:34Speaker 1: can if that and I don't know him from anybody,
- 1:40:38Speaker 1: but it's interesting if that prosecutor can just decide that
- 1:40:43Speaker 1: he doesn't want to do anything about hunter harassment in
- 1:40:46Speaker 1: his county. It's a but I think they have that
- 1:40:52Speaker 1: soul power. That's interesting. Are you cool with hunter harassment
- 1:40:57Speaker 1: in your county or are you not cool with it?
- 1:41:00Speaker 1: Maybe it comes down to what that harassment is, Like
- 1:41:03Speaker 1: it's impeding there. It's a fair documentation, but is it
- 1:41:09Speaker 1: impeding their ability to hunt? I mean, who knows how
- 1:41:11Speaker 1: they define it. It gets a little better, it gets
- 1:41:13Speaker 1: a little better. Well just at this point, right, like
- 1:41:18Speaker 1: just that is more than a lot of people would
- 1:41:22Speaker 1: stand like sure, you know, because just like you said,
- 1:41:25Speaker 1: like what you guys want to do is hunt. Dealing
- 1:41:28Speaker 1: with people in these confrontational manners is not hunting, right,
- 1:41:32Speaker 1: That's not like Okay, when I go out to hunt,
- 1:41:35Speaker 1: I know there's going to be this big confrontation and
- 1:41:38Speaker 1: then I'm gonna go do go have a nice walk
- 1:41:43Speaker 1: alone and next year I need to bring my ladder
- 1:41:45Speaker 1: and my little outhouse shelter. I could pee in private,
- 1:41:51Speaker 1: get a lawyer on retainer. Yeah, okay, not exactly the goal. No,
- 1:41:57Speaker 1: you know, so we're going up the mountain to reach
- 1:42:00Speaker 1: you the last of this elk, and we knew we
- 1:42:03Speaker 1: were being watched from the same guy in the same truck.
- 1:42:06Speaker 1: And you go straight up a mountain and you peek
- 1:42:09Speaker 1: and you hit a road. It's on the BLM that
- 1:42:12Speaker 1: goes across the middle that they used this road a lot.
- 1:42:14Speaker 1: It's a ranch road, and we see the ball of
- 1:42:17Speaker 1: dust coming, you know, from the ranch. Manager comes flying
- 1:42:21Speaker 1: across the ranch and he drives right up to us
- 1:42:25Speaker 1: and goes, what the fuck m But he just had
- 1:42:30Speaker 1: enough at this point. That's the first words out of
- 1:42:32Speaker 1: his mouth. You know, what are you guys doing here? Um?
- 1:42:37Speaker 1: And I simply tell him we were told we could
- 1:42:42Speaker 1: be here, you know, three days ago the game warden
- 1:42:46Speaker 1: told us it was public land. He told you the
- 1:42:48Speaker 1: same thing, it's publicly and we're going to hunt. We
- 1:42:51Speaker 1: got a bull we're gonna go get. We're standing in
- 1:42:54Speaker 1: the middle of a BLM section. Because he actually he
- 1:42:57Speaker 1: ordered us back to camp get back to camp. The landowner,
- 1:43:02Speaker 1: the landowner manager, the ranch managed, the representative of and
- 1:43:06Speaker 1: you were like, you were you guys were on public land.
- 1:43:09Speaker 1: He was on, yeah, we're in the middle of you know.
- 1:43:16Speaker 1: And he's like, you get back to your camp and no,
- 1:43:20Speaker 1: you know or what right? He just said no? And
- 1:43:24Speaker 1: I said, where you got a note to go get
- 1:43:27Speaker 1: I'm done talking to you. We're going. And so we did.
- 1:43:32Speaker 1: And so this this road, you know, kind of makes
- 1:43:36Speaker 1: a makes a big bend that goes I measured it's
- 1:43:39Speaker 1: like seven hundred yards, I believe. And he followed. He
- 1:43:43Speaker 1: turns around and follows us within twenty yards of us
- 1:43:49Speaker 1: in his truck, creeping, creeping down the road and walking
- 1:43:51Speaker 1: in f um. So we cut a corner. Good way
- 1:43:57Speaker 1: to get you guys out of there. Would be gonna
- 1:43:58Speaker 1: pick up that elk and help you back to camp.
- 1:44:01Speaker 1: You would, wouldn't that be a neighborly thing and you'd
- 1:44:04Speaker 1: be out of there gone, Yeah, right, that's your last tag.
- 1:44:08Speaker 1: Well see you next year. We had asked him to
- 1:44:11Speaker 1: do that the year prior, and he kindly declined. I
- 1:44:15Speaker 1: did ask him a year before, Hey, you want to
- 1:44:17Speaker 1: help us all this out? And He's like, no, I
- 1:44:18Speaker 1: can't do that. So finally we have enough, right, and
- 1:44:24Speaker 1: so we stopped. I waved him forward, you know, and go, dude,
- 1:44:29Speaker 1: you're harassing us. You know, you can't follow us in
- 1:44:32Speaker 1: your truck across the middle of public land. We're trying
- 1:44:35Speaker 1: to hunt. Get out of here, leave us alone. Um,
- 1:44:40Speaker 1: And he's go ahead, Phil, you tell this part of
- 1:44:42Speaker 1: it better than I do. Oh gosh, you questioned him. Yeah,
- 1:44:49Speaker 1: I just he said. He he said, well, I'm hunting. Well,
- 1:44:53Speaker 1: where's your orange? He kind of looks behind us, you know,
- 1:44:57Speaker 1: does a head whip, you know, and uh, Zack says, uh,
- 1:45:02Speaker 1: it's not legal to hunt from your truck either, is it?
- 1:45:06Speaker 1: And he can say he says, I can do whatever
- 1:45:09Speaker 1: the I I want? Right, is exactly what he said. Really,
- 1:45:14Speaker 1: do you guys we're reading film any of this stuff
- 1:45:18Speaker 1: with your phones or anything? No, no, no, it was
- 1:45:23Speaker 1: you don't think of that crap. And you're just a
- 1:45:27Speaker 1: little bit you're just wanting to get You don't know
- 1:45:29Speaker 1: what's legal either, you know, probably do that stuff. But
- 1:45:33Speaker 1: we actually read him the attorney general's opinion. We did, right.
- 1:45:38Speaker 1: I forgot about that. John did. Yeah, And he had
- 1:45:42Speaker 1: never seen that before, or he acted like he had
- 1:45:44Speaker 1: never seen that before, and he just did a lot
- 1:45:46Speaker 1: of head nodding and okay, yeah, but I can do
- 1:45:49Speaker 1: whatever the right. Yeah. So after that confrontation, we take
- 1:45:55Speaker 1: off again. I don't know, did we get a half
- 1:45:57Speaker 1: mile maybe phone rings it's the warden. Yeah, he says, Hey,
- 1:46:04Speaker 1: I hate to do this, but I gotta ask you
- 1:46:06Speaker 1: guys to get back to camp. He's the phones are
- 1:46:09Speaker 1: blowing up all over the place, press quterer's offices. You know,
- 1:46:13Speaker 1: there'll be a deputy. Uh, go to your camp till
- 1:46:17Speaker 1: you till you hear from me. But meat on the mountain,
- 1:46:22Speaker 1: we should trump everything. And he knows this. The game
- 1:46:25Speaker 1: wardened us and he was super nice to us, very professional,
- 1:46:29Speaker 1: pleasant through everything, everything kind of we had with him. Um,
- 1:46:35Speaker 1: so we do we turn around and go back to
- 1:46:37Speaker 1: our camp. It wasn't too long. A deputy shows up,
- 1:46:41Speaker 1: you know, and he's getting super nice and it's kind
- 1:46:45Speaker 1: of lighthearted about it and says, hey, I got called
- 1:46:49Speaker 1: on this trespassing thing on this corner deal. But you
- 1:46:51Speaker 1: guys are just corner crossing, right, And we're like, yeah,
- 1:46:56Speaker 1: we're those guys. He's like, that's what I thought when
- 1:46:58Speaker 1: I got the call, I thought it was the same guys.
- 1:47:00Speaker 1: We it was you guys you know that we've got
- 1:47:02Speaker 1: called on before and you're just corner crossing. So he's like,
- 1:47:05Speaker 1: go hunt again again. They wanted to go back down
- 1:47:10Speaker 1: to your camp. His exact words is go hunt. And
- 1:47:13Speaker 1: I'm like, well, game Warden told us to come hang
- 1:47:16Speaker 1: out here, So we're gonna hang out here, you know,
- 1:47:19Speaker 1: because that's what he's like, Yeah, that's probably smart. You know,
- 1:47:22Speaker 1: that's what the game warn't asked you to do. So
- 1:47:24Speaker 1: that's what we've done until that evening. Um another deputy show.
- 1:47:29Speaker 1: The deputy shows up and says, he instructed to ask
- 1:47:33Speaker 1: you guys citations. But he instructed who by his boss?
- 1:47:38Speaker 1: His boss who take that for? Whoever you want to
- 1:47:42Speaker 1: take that for. Whether that's the sheriff, for the prosecutor,
- 1:47:46Speaker 1: I don't know, but he was ordered to come give us.
- 1:47:49Speaker 1: In the background, someone's working political lines here, a lot
- 1:47:53Speaker 1: of phone calls the governor. No one would assume you know,
- 1:47:57Speaker 1: we know what we know, you know the rest of it.
- 1:47:59Speaker 1: We're assumed, man, you know. So I questioned him, you know,
- 1:48:04Speaker 1: how did we trespass? And he wouldn't answer any questions.
- 1:48:08Speaker 1: He just said, you gotta tell the judge, asked the judge,
- 1:48:11Speaker 1: and in the end it was that you're you went
- 1:48:15Speaker 1: through the air of that person's land. In the end,
- 1:48:19Speaker 1: that's apparently with the argument, because no one that that's
- 1:48:24Speaker 1: the thing I think it is. It's so obvious I
- 1:48:26Speaker 1: hesitate to bring it up. But what we're talking about
- 1:48:28Speaker 1: here is it's like it's funny because we're talking about
- 1:48:32Speaker 1: h it's about one thing, but we're talking about another thing.
- 1:48:36Speaker 1: What it's about is that you have a bunch of
- 1:48:40Speaker 1: private land to yourself because it's land locked. Yeah, I'm sorry,
- 1:48:45Speaker 1: you have a bunch of public land that only you
- 1:48:47Speaker 1: can hunt. That's what this is about. You want to
- 1:48:49Speaker 1: keep it that way because it's sweet. But what you
- 1:48:52Speaker 1: got to talk about instead is this issue of that
- 1:48:54Speaker 1: your body is crossing when you do that that one step,
- 1:49:00Speaker 1: you're violating their airspace. And they're acting like they're they're
- 1:49:03Speaker 1: sort of saying like, no I care about the airspace.
- 1:49:05Speaker 1: They never go like I'm trying to preserve private hunting. Yeah,
- 1:49:08Speaker 1: that's just smoke, you know. It's it's like one of
- 1:49:10Speaker 1: those weird things where but then you get to go
- 1:49:12Speaker 1: to court, and in court they can't say, well, I'm
- 1:49:16Speaker 1: trying to have this kind of sweet deal that I
- 1:49:18Speaker 1: don't really pay for, but it's sweet, so I just
- 1:49:20Speaker 1: want to keep it that way. They gotta like focusing
- 1:49:23Speaker 1: on his airspace on airspace saying well, and all of
- 1:49:26Speaker 1: our encounters with law enforcement were always on our side,
- 1:49:30Speaker 1: you know, but you could tell that they were being
- 1:49:33Speaker 1: pushed from other directions. What's confusing to me is like
- 1:49:37Speaker 1: I've always known that you're not supposed to do that,
- 1:49:40Speaker 1: at least by rule, but it doesn't sound like the
- 1:49:43Speaker 1: conservation officers approached at that with state by state keep
- 1:49:47Speaker 1: in mind, right so, and even within the state of
- 1:49:49Speaker 1: Montana that on paper has a stricter view of what
- 1:49:53Speaker 1: corner crossing is, there are counties that will not prosecute
- 1:49:58Speaker 1: corner crossing like it is too much of a quagmire,
- 1:50:02Speaker 1: it's not defined well enough. Yeah, the time of the
- 1:50:06Speaker 1: court is too valuable to have to wade through this,
- 1:50:09Speaker 1: and they want to punt it to a higher court,
- 1:50:12Speaker 1: which is interesting England enough. One way that can be
- 1:50:17Speaker 1: seen how this case is is going here with the
- 1:50:19Speaker 1: civil suit has been punted up or grabbed however, you
- 1:50:24Speaker 1: want to see it by the federal magistrate. So when
- 1:50:30Speaker 1: when agents are going through the academy, this isn't an
- 1:50:33Speaker 1: issue that they're being schooled on. I'm sure that, like
- 1:50:38Speaker 1: do they look like they have a bunch of drugs
- 1:50:40Speaker 1: in their truck? If so, this corner crossing thing would
- 1:50:43Speaker 1: probably be something you'd want to pay attention to. I
- 1:50:46Speaker 1: think game wardens are like, this is a this is
- 1:50:49Speaker 1: not our we don't we don't oversee this. This is
- 1:50:53Speaker 1: for the county sheriff. Their trespassed to hunt man. I
- 1:50:57Speaker 1: missed out on some good hunting over the years. Well,
- 1:51:00Speaker 1: the the way we understand it, the game and phishes
- 1:51:03Speaker 1: right on their website. You know, Attorney general's opinion is
- 1:51:06Speaker 1: it's not illegal. So when you tell me you just
- 1:51:10Speaker 1: always knew you weren't supposed to do that. How did
- 1:51:12Speaker 1: you know that? What did you read that said I can't.
- 1:51:16Speaker 1: That's a great question. In this state, they they recommend
- 1:51:19Speaker 1: against it. Yeah, that's I think. Even on wyomings it
- 1:51:22Speaker 1: says we recommend you don't, but it's not codified as illegal.
- 1:51:26Speaker 1: It doesn't say they don't recommend. Most of my Western
- 1:51:30Speaker 1: hunting was in the Eastern part of Montana and out there.
- 1:51:33Speaker 1: I mean, you just know not to because it's recommended
- 1:51:36Speaker 1: against it. So I had a conversation with a BLM
- 1:51:40Speaker 1: law enforcement officer about an area that we were going
- 1:51:45Speaker 1: to take a helicopter into, and he flat out said,
- 1:51:49Speaker 1: well why would you do that? Guys walk into that
- 1:51:51Speaker 1: all the time from this road. Well that's a good point.
- 1:51:54Speaker 1: When you asked where I learned it from. Randy Newburgh
- 1:51:57Speaker 1: did that with that helicopter and like blew that big
- 1:51:59Speaker 1: issue up. So that was one place that I had
- 1:52:02Speaker 1: heard that I suppose. Yeah, my opinion, just being an
- 1:52:06Speaker 1: out of state or and trying to read some information
- 1:52:10Speaker 1: you know, on this is the powers that be, the
- 1:52:14Speaker 1: people that don't want you to corn across, have done
- 1:52:17Speaker 1: a great job of feeding propaganda bullshit to the public,
- 1:52:23Speaker 1: you know. So and what got me pointed down that
- 1:52:26Speaker 1: is I found the real estate ad for this ranch
- 1:52:31Speaker 1: when it went when it went up for sale back
- 1:52:35Speaker 1: in the earlier mid two thousand's, and I read it
- 1:52:38Speaker 1: and it said that the public this is a real
- 1:52:41Speaker 1: estate add says that the public ground around this ranch
- 1:52:46Speaker 1: has been litigated through it. It may have, I can't remember.
- 1:52:51Speaker 1: It said a district court or a a court system,
- 1:52:56Speaker 1: and that it was deemed that the public couldn't go there.
- 1:53:01Speaker 1: So I didn't believe it. That's in the listing, that
- 1:53:03Speaker 1: was in the real estate listing. I think I even
- 1:53:06Speaker 1: may have that printed off somewhere. Wow, that's great, man.
- 1:53:09Speaker 1: And so I I tried to look up these court
- 1:53:11Speaker 1: cases has and found out there was no such court
- 1:53:14Speaker 1: cases to tell me that a realtorn. So, I mean,
- 1:53:19Speaker 1: here's here's just just to show our side of the
- 1:53:22Speaker 1: fence here in Montana. And I started collecting a file
- 1:53:24Speaker 1: on these because I had It's some one of those
- 1:53:28Speaker 1: things that when I'm having a bad day, I like
- 1:53:30Speaker 1: to make it even worse by fuming about this horseship
- 1:53:33Speaker 1: as you called it, cute almost new two bedroom, one
- 1:53:36Speaker 1: bath cabin on six plus acres with the two car
- 1:53:38Speaker 1: garage being sold, fully furnished with all appliances, blah blah blah,
- 1:53:43Speaker 1: ready to be a rental full time or part time residents.
- 1:53:45Speaker 1: The subdivision boast private trout stock ponds and access to
- 1:53:50Speaker 1: public land behind a locked gate. Uh So this is
- 1:53:54Speaker 1: comes right back full circle to our h O A,
- 1:53:56Speaker 1: our evil h O, A discussion that we started this
- 1:53:59Speaker 1: thing with, And then it goes on to talk about
- 1:54:03Speaker 1: just a short drive off the county maintained, which means
- 1:54:07Speaker 1: everybody county taxes you're playing paying to maintain the road, uh,
- 1:54:11Speaker 1: and school bus route taxes around the land only it's
- 1:54:16Speaker 1: a commodity anyway, Sorry, just got a curiosity. Were you
- 1:54:21Speaker 1: guys access in state or BLM? Both? All right? So
- 1:54:26Speaker 1: there you are. He gives you your citation, and the
- 1:54:28Speaker 1: citation carries with it. Can you do is it mandatory? Court?
- 1:54:32Speaker 1: Could you just pay it with the whole thing? Right?
- 1:54:37Speaker 1: Unless you set the date for November eight? That's right,
- 1:54:41Speaker 1: good job, so you guys would already be out there hunting.
- 1:54:44Speaker 1: That's perfect, a good deal. Uh, you get a lawyer. Well,
- 1:54:54Speaker 1: so it's it's a seven fine if I remember right,
- 1:54:58Speaker 1: we know we didn't do anything wrong. We're in a
- 1:55:01Speaker 1: conundrumal what do we what do we do here? You know?
- 1:55:03Speaker 1: How do you fight this? We all kind of wanted
- 1:55:04Speaker 1: to fight it, um, but it's still it's seven fifty bucks.
- 1:55:08Speaker 1: We could just be done done with it and you
- 1:55:12Speaker 1: can go down and be like all right, right right,
- 1:55:17Speaker 1: and you went and paid it, then, were you just
- 1:55:19Speaker 1: gonna come back next year? And pay it again. Well,
- 1:55:21Speaker 1: we hadn't thought that through all, you know, but me
- 1:55:27Speaker 1: you know that, Hey we just double the cost of
- 1:55:29Speaker 1: our ELK tag and pay the fine and go you
- 1:55:32Speaker 1: know type thought. But that's as far as that went. Um.
- 1:55:37Speaker 1: But we've met some local guys and they're like, hey,
- 1:55:40Speaker 1: this is ridiculous. We know an organization I want to
- 1:55:44Speaker 1: try and hook you guys. Put you guys together. And
- 1:55:48Speaker 1: so this b h a group, this back Country Hunters
- 1:55:51Speaker 1: and Anglers Wyoming, Wyoming, the Wyoming chapter, Um, I can't remember.
- 1:55:59Speaker 1: We get connected it and there they want to know
- 1:56:02Speaker 1: our story. And so we write them you know what
- 1:56:05Speaker 1: happened a statement and send it to them, and they
- 1:56:10Speaker 1: see it as an opportunity, as a legit. You know,
- 1:56:13Speaker 1: you guys haven't done anything wrong. We want to back
- 1:56:15Speaker 1: you on this. And so they set up the go
- 1:56:19Speaker 1: fund me thing and get that ball rolling. Um. They
- 1:56:25Speaker 1: find attorneys. You know, hey, I know this attorney. That attorney,
- 1:56:28Speaker 1: you know, contact these guys and so we just got
- 1:56:31Speaker 1: on the phone and got representation and it's snowballed. You know,
- 1:56:37Speaker 1: it went to what it is now. They've done a
- 1:56:39Speaker 1: phenomenal job of getting that money going. It raised what
- 1:56:45Speaker 1: thirty some thousand dollars fast fast ultimately, you know, right
- 1:56:50Speaker 1: around seventy and then it kind of flatlined a little bit.
- 1:56:52Speaker 1: And then Steve hears about it, you know, and throws
- 1:56:55Speaker 1: an Instagram thing out there. Me and Phils checking game
- 1:57:00Speaker 1: ameras or something out in the woods one day and
- 1:57:02Speaker 1: my brother in law John text and says, have you
- 1:57:05Speaker 1: looked at the go fund me? I'm like no, and
- 1:57:08Speaker 1: He's like, look at it. And it was just it
- 1:57:10Speaker 1: was clicking after you threw the Instagram message out there,
- 1:57:14Speaker 1: and it like doubles in money overnight and here we are.
- 1:57:20Speaker 1: You know, the whole thing just grew. How long was that? So?
- 1:57:24Speaker 1: How many of you guys had to show up for
- 1:57:26Speaker 1: the trial? Four of us? How many days was the trial?
- 1:57:30Speaker 1: Are you serious? Now? Who did three days for a misdemeanor?
- 1:57:35Speaker 1: Did the actual landowners show up? No? Did the ranch manager?
- 1:57:39Speaker 1: Was he was? Was he wilf? Was he wanting to
- 1:57:42Speaker 1: be there? Was he called to the stand? I assume
- 1:57:46Speaker 1: he was called. Actually he was called by the prosecutor.
- 1:57:49Speaker 1: He was prosecutor's witness. And this is this is like
- 1:57:51Speaker 1: there's a jury, this is a jury thing or not?
- 1:57:53Speaker 1: Because it's a misdemean is not a jury it is
- 1:57:56Speaker 1: a jury trial for him. I didn't know this because
- 1:57:59Speaker 1: you had to plead you pled not guilty, which makes
- 1:58:01Speaker 1: it a jury thing. Well you still didn't you have
- 1:58:04Speaker 1: to request a jury trial. I believe the whole legal
- 1:58:07Speaker 1: side of I didn't know this A misdemeanors only six jurors.
- 1:58:10Speaker 1: I don't know that either. Yeah, so learned that through
- 1:58:13Speaker 1: this less expensive Yeah, I guess um three days of
- 1:58:17Speaker 1: three days of looking at different maps that were the
- 1:58:22Speaker 1: same map just in a different color, you know, and legos.
- 1:58:29Speaker 1: Did you guys have to outline like everywhere you went
- 1:58:32Speaker 1: and things? No, Well we're defendants, you know, so they
- 1:58:36Speaker 1: have to prove us guilty. Did you did you have
- 1:58:38Speaker 1: the ladder? There? No, the ladder they come into play.
- 1:58:41Speaker 1: There's pictures of the ladder. We weren't going to haul
- 1:58:44Speaker 1: the ladder back. How are did the jury deliberate lunch?
- 1:58:49Speaker 1: The lunch? Yeah, they ate lunch and was out and
- 1:58:55Speaker 1: so they deliberated for an hour and a half which
- 1:58:57Speaker 1: included lunch. Correct, and they come back and what not? Guilty?
- 1:59:03Speaker 1: Is that easy? It's nervous. That's pretty nervous deal standing up,
- 1:59:07Speaker 1: you know, whether jury is gonna guilty. Would you have
- 1:59:11Speaker 1: had to pay court costs? I don't know, I wonder
- 1:59:14Speaker 1: at the same time, you know, yeah, I don't. I
- 1:59:18Speaker 1: don't know how that guy played out suits or nothing. Now,
- 1:59:23Speaker 1: when we teased my my brother in law John, there's
- 1:59:26Speaker 1: what we're hunting, buddies. He's the nervous one, you know,
- 1:59:28Speaker 1: it's just scared to death somebody. What's gonna think he
- 1:59:32Speaker 1: was a criminal, you know, because he touched air and
- 1:59:35Speaker 1: so we teased him about getting his own jump suit,
- 1:59:38Speaker 1: you know, don't pick up the soap type thing. Be
- 1:59:41Speaker 1: a good Christmas present. And there's there's stands right now. Um,
- 1:59:48Speaker 1: and I don't know to what degree. You can't really
- 1:59:50Speaker 1: get into it. They're revisiting this through a civil suit.
- 1:59:55Speaker 1: We have been sued civilly by the landowner. Do you
- 1:59:59Speaker 1: know what can you disclose how much you're being sued for?
- 2:00:01Speaker 1: There is no amount right because you have to prove
- 2:00:05Speaker 1: the damage. I believe it reads. The amount is to
- 2:00:09Speaker 1: be determined to buy the jury. Sure, so the jury
- 2:00:13Speaker 1: would have the serious weight on their shoulders of determining
- 2:00:18Speaker 1: how bruised the airspace is and what that bruising would
- 2:00:25Speaker 1: amount to in a dollar figure of air that moves
- 2:00:30Speaker 1: what that surgery is gonna when you go to settle
- 2:00:35Speaker 1: up with the air, it's different air, and it's different air. Yeah,
- 2:00:38Speaker 1: I read this thing one time that was saying that, um,
- 2:00:42Speaker 1: you breathe. When you breathe, you're breathing in air molecules
- 2:00:45Speaker 1: that had been breathed by Jesus. The air molecules are
- 2:00:50Speaker 1: just like, how so who lord knows where those things
- 2:00:52Speaker 1: are now? And what was the value he assigned him?
- 2:00:55Speaker 1: You know, terous if you could ask him what do
- 2:01:00Speaker 1: you think about this whole corner crossing thing that's going
- 2:01:03Speaker 1: back to It's not much, I imagine, going back to
- 2:01:06Speaker 1: what Steve said, My favorite part of this is that
- 2:01:08Speaker 1: they can't say the quiet part out loud, which is
- 2:01:10Speaker 1: that we just want to protect our suite that's ours.
- 2:01:14Speaker 1: Are quotes, but so like when you're sitting in the
- 2:01:16Speaker 1: courtroom and there this the phrase touching air. I know
- 2:01:20Speaker 1: that's not how they framed it in the courtroom, but
- 2:01:22Speaker 1: just like, did it sound did their defense sound preposterous?
- 2:01:25Speaker 1: Like that's exactly what it boiled down to. So he
- 2:01:28Speaker 1: never returned to the drudge Judge was like it was
- 2:01:31Speaker 1: a man or a woman. A woman judge okay, never
- 2:01:33Speaker 1: turned to her and said, uh, your honor, let me
- 2:01:37Speaker 1: leavel with you. Um. I bought this because I thought
- 2:01:41Speaker 1: I could hunt all this public ground and no one
- 2:01:43Speaker 1: else could. And this is kind of sucking that whole
- 2:01:45Speaker 1: deal up. Well, he was never there, hired hand in there.
- 2:01:54Speaker 1: Did the lawyer, did the lawyer for the other side
- 2:01:57Speaker 1: that they seem pretty committed? Or were they kind of
- 2:01:58Speaker 1: I rolly the prosecutor, Yeah, they were very committed. He
- 2:02:03Speaker 1: wanted to see you guys get in the fire under
- 2:02:07Speaker 1: his ass I was a woman was a female actually,
- 2:02:11Speaker 1: but I don't know. We never understood what why she
- 2:02:17Speaker 1: had a horse in this race? Well, you know what
- 2:02:20Speaker 1: was the judge's demeanor about the whole thing? Did she
- 2:02:22Speaker 1: seemed to be there but time was being wasted? Or
- 2:02:24Speaker 1: professional professional? You know. I was on a jury one
- 2:02:28Speaker 1: time and we convicted a guy on It was a
- 2:02:32Speaker 1: crack cocaine deal and we convicted and then the judge
- 2:02:40Speaker 1: says that, Jerry, I want you to hang around for
- 2:02:42Speaker 1: a minute, okay, And then all this stuff happens every
- 2:02:45Speaker 1: leaves and the judge says, I'm gonna tell you some
- 2:02:48Speaker 1: things that if there's any amount of guilt that you
- 2:02:52Speaker 1: might feel, I want to put that guilt at rest
- 2:02:55Speaker 1: and tell you about some non submissible evidence which he
- 2:02:59Speaker 1: then aid out all this ship that they couldn't tell
- 2:03:03Speaker 1: you about, and you're like, dude, why are they not
- 2:03:06Speaker 1: have told us about that? Right? Like shooting people strangling people?
- 2:03:13Speaker 1: It made you feel good about putting the difer the
- 2:03:15Speaker 1: like they couldn't be because it was like he already
- 2:03:17Speaker 1: had been in, you know what I mean, And then
- 2:03:18Speaker 1: you get done today like damn, i's knowing that all along, Man,
- 2:03:21Speaker 1: I would have been sitting there out what I would
- 2:03:24Speaker 1: have done? What what they try to get you to
- 2:03:25Speaker 1: not do, which is getting to make them pay all
- 2:03:28Speaker 1: over again for he done earlier. Right, And we used
- 2:03:31Speaker 1: to hope going through this whole process that people look
- 2:03:34Speaker 1: at us and go, I think they're pretty decent guys
- 2:03:36Speaker 1: that were just going hunting, you know, because we've read
- 2:03:39Speaker 1: the stuff where people thought we were trying to get
- 2:03:42Speaker 1: arrested on purpose, and that's insane. You know, when you
- 2:03:47Speaker 1: guys were camped there over like both times, did you
- 2:03:50Speaker 1: have any groups of hunters drive by and me like, m,
- 2:03:52Speaker 1: what are they up to? There. We had a we
- 2:03:56Speaker 1: had a couple of guys stop and say, hey, you know,
- 2:03:58Speaker 1: trying just trying to feel hunting situation. And so I
- 2:04:02Speaker 1: used to fish a lot competitively and stuff. So I've
- 2:04:05Speaker 1: learned how to your competitive bass fisherman. Yeah, a little bit.
- 2:04:08Speaker 1: So you learn how to have those conversations and and
- 2:04:11Speaker 1: talking not without yeah, you know, so that's the same
- 2:04:14Speaker 1: thing you're do in the hunting world. A few now, Steve,
- 2:04:20Speaker 1: just out of curiosity, how did you jump to the
- 2:04:23Speaker 1: conclusion that he was competitive bass fisherman because he's from Missouri.
- 2:04:26Speaker 1: I didn't think he's a competitive trout fisherman. Well, no,
- 2:04:29Speaker 1: they probably got some good trout fishing because like if
- 2:04:32Speaker 1: you tallied up how many competitive fishermen are in the world,
- 2:04:36Speaker 1: wouldn't be competitive bass fisherman. If I was talking to
- 2:04:41Speaker 1: a Bahamian and he says a competitive fisherman, I would
- 2:04:44Speaker 1: think he's in like the tuna caw cutters being from
- 2:04:47Speaker 1: the Bahamas and all good conclusion. So the do we
- 2:04:54Speaker 1: want to talk about the unlawful enclosures I Act, which
- 2:04:57Speaker 1: was I want to save that, okay, because that that's
- 2:05:00Speaker 1: a super interesting where this is headed. But that's one
- 2:05:04Speaker 1: of the things without without bringing you into without Oh
- 2:05:07Speaker 1: you did hang your hat on it. We hung our
- 2:05:09Speaker 1: hat on that Unlawful Enclosures Act. Well, so that held,
- 2:05:12Speaker 1: that came up in court, that came up in our
- 2:05:15Speaker 1: personal conversations of building a ladder and them trying to
- 2:05:19Speaker 1: block us all that. Well, cal I haven't been keeping
- 2:05:22Speaker 1: you up speed because it's it's brand speakay new, but
- 2:05:25Speaker 1: I'm working lead on a guest that could get into
- 2:05:32Speaker 1: the subject matter expert perfect awesome. So I was trying
- 2:05:35Speaker 1: to just to milk this out more, you know, the
- 2:05:38Speaker 1: um but sorry that it is relevant for this because
- 2:05:43Speaker 1: that was the argument that allowed it to be kind
- 2:05:46Speaker 1: of plucked into federal court, the civil civil trial, because
- 2:05:52Speaker 1: so it is, it is emerging already like that conversation.
- 2:05:55Speaker 1: I thought that was like a conversation that will come eventually. No,
- 2:05:59Speaker 1: there is an art human made on behalf of all
- 2:06:03Speaker 1: four of our corner crossers that said, um, this civil
- 2:06:10Speaker 1: suit has no basis because of and I'm very very
- 2:06:15Speaker 1: much simplifying and uh anyway, well, the reason I'm going
- 2:06:23Speaker 1: easy on this is I have been I'm not trying
- 2:06:25Speaker 1: to be like cryptic. Well am I I don't know
- 2:06:27Speaker 1: enough about it. I've had I've had off the com
- 2:06:30Speaker 1: I've had off the record conversations with individuals who have
- 2:06:37Speaker 1: they've off the record explained issues around the enclosures thing
- 2:06:46Speaker 1: um that I would like to get into in the
- 2:06:51Speaker 1: future because it's very interesting, and do it in a
- 2:06:55Speaker 1: way that doesn't lead people in a lot of bad
- 2:06:58Speaker 1: directions and assumptions. That and as and and and as
- 2:07:05Speaker 1: in the studio, Dave Wilms, who doesn't have a no
- 2:07:11Speaker 1: horse in the race right just as a bystander pointed
- 2:07:15Speaker 1: out that the Enclosures Act has been used around like
- 2:07:20Speaker 1: commercial travel. I think if I remember correct, it's on
- 2:07:25Speaker 1: public records. It is on this episode. Uh, around this show.
- 2:07:29Speaker 1: It's been used around shipping, it's been used around trucking commerce,
- 2:07:34Speaker 1: but it hasn't been It's never been applied to pedestrian traffic.
- 2:07:40Speaker 1: And in his pondering um, his pondering is was in
- 2:07:46Speaker 1: on the on the episode previous episode, his pondering was
- 2:07:49Speaker 1: what would happen were one to take pedestrian traffic and
- 2:07:53Speaker 1: look at it through the lens of the Enclosures act um,
- 2:07:57Speaker 1: And to date that hadn't been done. And he could
- 2:08:00Speaker 1: and he I can't remember exactly, but he brought up
- 2:08:02Speaker 1: ways in which it would be an interesting conversation and
- 2:08:06Speaker 1: he could see this, and he could see that, but
- 2:08:08Speaker 1: but it hasn't been applied to foot traffic. Interesting. Did
- 2:08:13Speaker 1: I kind of roughly summarize that correctly? On on the
- 2:08:18Speaker 1: civil suit? Yeah, it's part of the argument, I believe. Um,
- 2:08:23Speaker 1: we haven't had great in depth conversations. We've had small conversations,
- 2:08:28Speaker 1: you know, with attorneys, and we let those kind of
- 2:08:31Speaker 1: the legal thing. I just sit here and keep thinking
- 2:08:34Speaker 1: of as as an out of state hunter, and there's
- 2:08:37Speaker 1: thousands of us that go west to go hunting. Why
- 2:08:41Speaker 1: can't it not be simple as what you can and cannot?
- 2:08:43Speaker 1: Do you know? Have you shouldn't have these conversations. Do
- 2:08:47Speaker 1: you guys still have a little jingle in your legal
- 2:08:49Speaker 1: defense fund? No? Really? Now it's short and I've got
- 2:08:53Speaker 1: one more attorney bill I need to pay, So we're
- 2:08:55Speaker 1: gonna have to have some conversations and get some more
- 2:08:59Speaker 1: money rolling. I don't think we need much. What when
- 2:09:01Speaker 1: will the civil thing become more clear? Like what you
- 2:09:04Speaker 1: gotta do and all that? We don't know yet. Um,
- 2:09:08Speaker 1: there's some judgments, some it depends on that federal court. Right, Well,
- 2:09:13Speaker 1: the federal courts keeping the case, and so then there's
- 2:09:16Speaker 1: a there's some emotions out there that they have to
- 2:09:19Speaker 1: rule on first, maybe just a motion to dismiss. I
- 2:09:23Speaker 1: don't remember exactly attorney jobs. Yeah. One of the problems,
- 2:09:26Speaker 1: and I've learned this watching different Supreme Court cases, in
- 2:09:31Speaker 1: federal cases. At oftentimes you want it to be like
- 2:09:34Speaker 1: this um like final decision, right, But a lot of
- 2:09:39Speaker 1: times it's like what happened? No, it's so like the
- 2:09:41Speaker 1: findings are so obscure. Would be that our ruling is
- 2:09:46Speaker 1: that the state should go in better define part of this,
- 2:09:53Speaker 1: better define a term at play here. That was it
- 2:09:57Speaker 1: that guys are gonna have to define air, right or
- 2:10:00Speaker 1: like you know, you're like like, oh, also would it
- 2:10:03Speaker 1: be like and just like it just winds up being
- 2:10:06Speaker 1: like another sort of they punted, right. That was part
- 2:10:09Speaker 1: of the argument in court was they argued over the
- 2:10:15Speaker 1: definition of public land and private land. And so the
- 2:10:19Speaker 1: prosecutor wanted to use the definition of private land, and
- 2:10:23Speaker 1: so our attorneys argued the definition, Well, in that case,
- 2:10:26Speaker 1: we must have the definition of public land. M And
- 2:10:31Speaker 1: but if one would have been you know, he wasted
- 2:10:36Speaker 1: a lot of time in court? Were you following everything
- 2:10:38Speaker 1: in court? It was easy to follow if just someone
- 2:10:41Speaker 1: who had been sitting in there, and we're sitting in
- 2:10:43Speaker 1: a room. The courtroom was about twice this size. So yeah,
- 2:10:46Speaker 1: there's no getting away from any of it. You're righting
- 2:10:48Speaker 1: amongst the middle of I Did it ever get to
- 2:10:51Speaker 1: where they were arguing over obscure stuff you hadn't thought
- 2:10:54Speaker 1: about before? Were you? Were you tracking the arguments like
- 2:10:57Speaker 1: you knew what was going on? Oh yeah, there's a
- 2:10:59Speaker 1: lot of stuff you don't think about that they brought up.
- 2:11:02Speaker 1: The surprise, you did come up lot of that before
- 2:11:05Speaker 1: we actually went to court to all the different motions
- 2:11:08Speaker 1: and arguments were right forever, I thought we already did this,
- 2:11:13Speaker 1: you know, word it a different way. Right, So where
- 2:11:17Speaker 1: things are at now? Did it screw up your hunting plans?
- 2:11:19Speaker 1: For that's what I want to know. Where are you hunting?
- 2:11:21Speaker 1: This ball place might be a little blown up now, Well,
- 2:11:25Speaker 1: we're probably gonna draw tags this year for don't say
- 2:11:28Speaker 1: too much, Phil, You don't have that kind of information. Remember,
- 2:11:31Speaker 1: I'm an old We've got we've got other planes. We'll
- 2:11:35Speaker 1: hut somewhere the landoord he probably just invited you out
- 2:11:39Speaker 1: by this point, didn't he My phone hasn't ranked gys
- 2:11:43Speaker 1: his guides out there, right he should? Well, maybe you
- 2:11:46Speaker 1: read a letter that says come on out to our
- 2:11:47Speaker 1: place in Missouri. You know, Yeah, he can't come there
- 2:11:52Speaker 1: you go. I'll take him hunt there you go? Yeah,
- 2:11:57Speaker 1: swap right. Um, we're gonna wrap it up first first,
- 2:12:02Speaker 1: to raise some money for your legal fund. You need
- 2:12:05Speaker 1: to develop like packable, lightweight, like carbon fiber version of
- 2:12:10Speaker 1: that uh that ladder. Well, when you guys do find
- 2:12:13Speaker 1: out what's up ahead, please let us know and we'll
- 2:12:15Speaker 1: help get some more will help get a little more
- 2:12:17Speaker 1: jingle rolling for you. Yeah, when we know that street
- 2:12:20Speaker 1: turn for money, Johnnie John, He's like, we're they gonna
- 2:12:23Speaker 1: some jingles. He's trying to think of a jam. Uh yeah,
- 2:12:28Speaker 1: thank you. It's very very much for great. I want
- 2:12:32Speaker 1: to take a picture of you guys. Here's here's some evil.
- 2:12:38Speaker 1: Oh yeah, this brings me all way back to the
- 2:12:40Speaker 1: outlaw of Josie wales Man. You don't mess with the
- 2:12:42Speaker 1: Missourian's Missouri boat rad. Alright, guys, you guys sticking around
- 2:12:47Speaker 1: for trivia. I guess if we're supposed to be better.
- 2:12:52Speaker 1: That'd be great. I'll probably beat you guys. Asses. We're
- 2:12:55Speaker 1: counting on it. Fills the trivia the tall right. Thanks, Thanks,
- 2:13:00Speaker 1: I really appreciate Please come back. Don't do any other
- 2:13:02Speaker 1: podcast right,