The Hunting Collective

This week we’re coming to you from the YETI booth on the floor of the Wild Sheep Convention in Reno, Nev., with Tim Burnett and Remi Warren. If you’ve never been to the Sheep Show, you’re missing out. It’s one hell of an event that brings together the best mountain hunters in the world and raises a pile of money for conservation.

In between entering raffles to win sheep hunts, live shows and fancy banquets I caught up with Warren and Burnett to talk tag draw strategies, Nevada living, sheep hunts and test out some new segments for the show. Enjoy.

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This week Ryan Callaghan and I are hanging out in Las Vegas, Nev., for the 2019 SHOT Show and we just so happened to run into our good buddy Iain Harrison. 

Harrison is the editor of RECOIL magazine and the first ever champion of History Channel's reality shooting competition Top Shot. He's also an all-around stand up human being and one of my oldest friends in the industry. 

We caught up with him halfway through the grueling marathon that is SHOT to talk about his upbringing, his service in the British military, what brought him to the States and a whole lot more. Enjoy.

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Donnie Vincent has spent a ton of time in wild places and in doing so has gathered a bunch of interesting stories and perspectives.

With his company, Sicmanta, he’s created three feature-length hunting films including his newest release entitled “The Other Side” and “The River’s Divide” which followed his hunt for a buck named "Steve" in the Badlands of North Dakota. In challenging the typical 30-minute TV show format, he’s creating hunting content in a different way and focusing on compelling visual story-telling.

We caught up in Las Vegas during SHOT Show for a conversation around the origins of his interest in wildlife biology, tracking tigers in Nepal, his longing for adventure and how modern hunters can benefit from critical thinking.

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For this week’s podcast, I’m joined by MeatEater’s Steven Rinella and Ryan Callaghan for a fireside chat in Sonora, Mexico. As most late-night conversations go, this one went in a few unexpected directions—most notably stories about our first cars, rifles and favorite beer. We also covered whether or not we are overthinking the why of hunting, the great American writer Jim Harrison, hunting animals you don’t intend to eat and the joys of hunting Coues deer.

Get your tickets to the MeatEater Podcast LIVE here: https://www.themeateater.com/event

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Biologist, historian, author and renowned conservationist, Jim Posewitz is among the foremost experts on Theodore Roosevelt, conservation history and fair chase philosophy.

For this podcast, my colleague Sam Lungren and I traveled to Jim’s home in Helena, Montana. He took us along on the history of his life, which closely mirrors the history of conservation—from making fake deer tracks in the mud at a deer-less summer camp in his native Wisconsin; to traveling West to play football at Montana State University and see robust wildlife populations; to a 40-year career at Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks on the front lines of conserving wild places and waterways; and a prolific “retirement” in which he founded Orion–The Hunter’s Institute and wrote five books: Beyond Fair Chase, Inherit the Hunt, Rifle in Hand, Taking a Bullet for Conservation and My Best Shot.

Jim’s work Beyond Fair Chase has been printed more than 800,000 times and has become a standard text for hunter safety courses nationwide. We ended the recording with a thoughtful discussion of fair chase and the considerations hunters should make afield to abide by this valuable mindset. I hope you learn as much as I did!

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Mark Kenyon is a whitetail hunter. I'm not breaking any news here of course, but that doesn't mean it's not important to note. 

Kenyon lives for hunting deer and his dedication to the pursuit is absolute. That makes him one hell of a resource for the rest of us, and his thoughtful approach to the subject makes him all the more valuable. 

Even though I grew up focused primarily on hunting whitetails, it's experts like Kenyon that can help take my skills to the next level. That's why it's great to have him on our team at MeatEater, Inc., and to have the Wired to Hunt media empire he's building as part of our company. 

I caught up with Kenyon at our offices in Bozeman, Mont., to recap the MeatEater Christmas party, talk about ethics in whitetail hunting and challenge some of the accepted norms in the community. It was a great conversation and one of many more to come. Enjoy.

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Afognak Island is a small land mass about 20 miles long and 40 miles wide off the coast of Alaska in the Kodiak archipelago. There aren't many reasons to visit this place and even fewer motivations for someone to take up residence on the island. In fact, there are only 39 permanent human residents today, most of which are workers at a state-run salmon hatchery. There are no roads, bars, grocery stores or shopping malls on Afognak, but there is a large population of Kodiak brown bears and a few healthy herds of Roosevelt elk. 

It's a harsh place that defines the environment of coastal Alaska. Wild swings in weather produce a climate that can feel like a rainforest in the summer and a despotic tundra when winter arrives. This place is no tourist destination, and it doesn't suffer fools. It's an unpredictable domain that calls for preparedness and as such, attracts some of the most dedicated hunters to its shores. 

Brad Jameson is one of those hunters. He's an experienced outdoorsman well-versed in wilderness medicine and survival. He'd hunted the island before without a hint of trouble, bringing home hundreds of pounds of venison and avoiding even a casual run-in with a brown bear. 

On Oct. 23, he boarded a boat with four hunting buddies to head back to Afognak. It was a normal trip for the Alaska residents, and they were looking forward to a tough-as-hell hunt.

Three days later everything would change. Brad suddenly found himself five yards from an old sow with nowhere to run and only a moment to prepare himself for what was to come next.

Be sure to listen to my entire podcast with Brad to hear his jarring story of grit and survival and how he made it out alive.

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At just 33, Chad Mendes has enjoyed a lot of success and fame. He was an All-American wrestler in college and quickly rose through the ranks of the UFC to be a top contender in his weight class. With a record of 18-4 and an already storied career, he's been called the most underrated MMA fighter of all time. 

I met Chad two years ago in turkey camp with John Dudley and immediately found him to be a thoughtful hunter, a damn good wild game cook, and the life of the party. 

Chad is in a unique position thanks to the notoriety he's gained as a fighter. Hundreds of thousands of folks who have never hunted are exposed to the pursuit through his content. 

In this podcast we discussed his upcoming fight against Alexander Volkanovski at UFC 232, the future of his career, what he hopes to achieve in the hunting world, and his "why" on many subjects. Enjoy.

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Randy Newberg is quite simply one of my favorite people. His podcasts, television shows and digital media efforts have always stood out to me as good, honest work on behalf of all hunters.

Randy is a champion for public lands, access and doing the right thing. Newberg once wrote: “Hunting is the truest form of participating in the natural world, probably because it is the oldest and most instinctive way of participating. Participation makes me more alive, more accountable and more engaged in the natural world.”

It’s this call for accountability that made me think that Randy would be the perfect guest to join myself and Janis Putelis from the Meateater crew to tackle some of your toughest ethical ponderings. From hunting crows to feeding wild game to your dog to ending the suffering of previously wounded game, we tackled it all.

Thanks to every single person who sent in a question or an ethical conundrum, we received many more than I ever thought possible. Enjoy this conversation and keep sending in your thoughts, they are appreciated.

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On a fairly normal Wednesday afternoon in Bozeman, I sat in Dusan Smetana’s living room sipping brandy and enjoying a damn nice fire. It was slow and calm, the perfect setting to learn about the life of a man with a novel’s worth of stories to tell. Dusan, a renowned outdoor photographer, has a great life on his Montana homestead with his family, dogs, Icelandic sheep, chickens, pigs and a rather athletic flock of homing pigeons.

It’s not unusual on a cold winter day to find Dusan doing exactly what we did that day—enjoying life. It’s a stark contrast to his upbringing in communist Czechoslovakia and his immigration to the United States. We talked about that journey, how his community handled hunting during his childhood and where hunting is headed today. Please enjoy this conversation with a one-of-a-kind man.

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