6 Ranch Podcast

Bob Bennett just turned 103. He is one of the last living veterans of WWII. He’s still driving a pickup around the mountains of eastern Oregon. Here’s a bit of his story. Incredible guy. 

Austin Smith is a USMC veteran and is an enrolled member of the Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs. He is the natural and cultural resources manager of the 640,000 acre Warm Springs Indian Reservation. In this episode we talk about tribal warrior culture and history, the treaty hunting rights of tribal members, and the natural resources and wildlife management strategies and challenges on and off the reservation. I learned a lot during this fascinating conversation— you’ve never heard a podcast like this one before. 

It’s 3:30 in the morning, you clamber out of your bedroll, pull on cold cowboy boots and amble over to the chuck wagon where whisps of steam curl off biscuits in a Dutch oven. You wash it down with a cup of coffee then saddle your horse and ride out with the rest of the cowboys in the dark— three or four hours later as the sun crests the ridge you find the cattle, gather them up, sort off the calves and start branding. But this isn’t the 1800’s, it’s right now. That’s the type of cowboying Mark Lundy has done all over the west. In this episode we talk about the history, present, and future of cowboying and range management. 

And, as per usual, I dedicated a bit of time to ridiculing the ongoing buckaroo fashion show and those who participate. Keep those flat brims, pastel wild rags, silver studded chaps and just-rope-it attitudes the hell out of the north, thanks. 

This episode is recorded with Ramzy Hattar, a first generation American who has become a successful entrepreneur across multiple industries, states and countries. His next venture is creating a spearfishing charter in Mexico, which is where I travelled to record this episode. Ramzy has lived 10 lifetimes already and his sense of adventure and determinism have become a great source of inspiration for me. 

The lottery systems that hunters have been forced into participating in are complex and difficult to understand. The question I ask is whether we should buy into the hype or not. Here to offer a different perspective is JR Dabey from HuntSource. Enjoy!

While sailing back to land at the end of a two week spearfishing expedition, Tony Dooley and I sat down to record this episode detailing the strange and wonderful experience we’d just had in this incredible country. Tony absolutely roasts me in this one too, so hang in there for that. 

Juan grew up in Venezuela and after the political turmoil in his country where he was held at gunpoint multiple times he left and has since taken up work running an old steel sailboat for expeditions of many kinds around Central America. In this episode we discuss the science that’s being conducted on the reef through his boat, sailing stories, and what it means to live on the sea. Check out more of what he does by searching gents de mar. 

This episode was previously uploaded in an incomplete format which is my fault and you have my apologies. It’s a good episode and worth the full listen if you are interested in the logistics and planning considerations of doing an out of state hunt. In particular we are talking about an Alaskan moose hunt but the lessons can be applied in many places. 

Nate Illingsworth is a breath of fresh air. He seriously enjoys hunting but doesn’t take himself seriously. Thanks to a sedentary lifestyle and close proximity to a Buckeyes Nate found himself on the scary side of 300lbs. Now he runs marathons and is prepping for his first full Ironman. We talk about the reality of fitness for backcountry hunting and you don’t want to miss the story of his absolutely chaotic debacle of a failed elk hunt. 

The two most successful wildlife conservation models in the world are the North American and African models, both of which rely upon hunting. However, hunting North America is increasing in cost and is more and more reliant upon lottery systems with many hunts requiring decades of applications to get the state’s permission to hunt. Cliff Gray is a professional hunter and guide with a lifetime of hunting experience and recently returned from his first trip to Africa. This is the most honest and frank conversation you’ve ever heard about African hunting and we spend time discussing the differences between that and the western hunting experience.