Ep. 27: High Ground Beef Chips – Always Take the High Ground

00:00:00
Speaker 1: Protein powder and water bottles are platoon chief at the time. You would take plastic water bottles and five point fifty quarter to the outside of the outside of his kid and sill and you know, hey, he might see this one day, so like he’s a he’s a great man. He is a great man. But we would all make fun of him because on nots you could you could always see where he was because they would just be they were just bouncing on his kids. But it was like it was like for ease of access, and we’re like, dude, we can’t we do it. Yeah, anything else. We’re trying to find lightweight and you finish in basically, you know. And then and then it’s been ever since then, and I’ll open it up to Josh Hues, I’m talking forever. Ever since then, it’s just been the relentless pursuit of not letting like people in the supply chain, the market, yeah, like, hey, we can do it for cheaper if we put this in there this way. It’s been a real battle to like keep it. It’s that simple, you know, which is crazy out here.

00:00:59
Speaker 2: The steaks are real effective preparations starts with fitness, but it requires so much more This show explores the tools, knowledge, resilience, and skills needed to be ready when it matters the most. Join me Rich Browning as we apply the decades of wisdom I’ve gained through training and competition to hunting in the back country. This is In Pursuit, brought to you by Mount Knumps.

00:01:29
Speaker 1: In collaboration with Mayhem Hunt.

00:01:31
Speaker 3: Obviously, we have some high ground ships right here. We have the guys from high Ground here with us. Yeah, I’ll let you guys kind of keep off and really, I don’t know, let’s talk about it. I guess high ground to start and then we can kind of see where it rolls from there.

00:01:42
Speaker 4: So I think it’s cool. I think better and own company.

00:01:45
Speaker 2: Yeah, introduce yourselves.

00:01:48
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah. Angela is a terrible host. Yeah yeah, yeah, that’s what I said. No, so yeah, Dylan Larson made the company in twenty twenty three while I was still in YEPM is the word on that wall. I guess I’m out of the Navy now, so I can.

00:02:03
Speaker 5: It’s gonna say prison like in prison, right, Yeah, but made it, I guess two and a half years ago something like that did fourteen years in the seal teams joined right, out of high school the day I turned seventeen, Yeah, seventeen.

00:02:17
Speaker 1: Just straight off out the boot camp and then got a whole bunch of stories that actually, you know, we were talking about last night, like kind of revisiting those things that were great, and then did a couple deployments it was awesome, and then twenty twenty three, on my most recent deployment, it was like the most remote one by far, and so there wasn’t much to do, Like Wi Fi was horrible there all you just run around the airfield and stuff. So then got really into business and that’s kind of where I started the company. Yeah, so yeah, that’s me.

00:02:45
Speaker 5: And then yeah, Josh mecanless. I also did just about fourteen years in the Navy UD bomb squad. Got out in twenty twenty two, right like in the COVID stuff, got into like start working, started working in tech, and did that for about a year and a half.

00:03:03
Speaker 1: That’s horrible. It was. It was terrible, about a one eighty of life hanging out with the boys doing the stuff and then tech and you had like ended up with thirty direct reports or something like that.

00:03:14
Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, well I had a lot of folks that were reporting to me, and then it just became the guy where if people got in trouble they had to come to me, and that was that was kind of my job until I left the fixer. Yeah, it was not very fun. Then Dylan talked about this idea. I think it was like right when he got home, and I was looking for an exit for sure, so took that offer app immediately I do the operations and stuff.

00:03:37
Speaker 3: It’s where I hear that a lot from like like guys transitioning back to like civilian life, like having a normal job.

00:03:45
Speaker 6: I guess I like know most people would say like coming back and it’s.

00:03:48
Speaker 3: Just like so weird and it’s just like the culture because you just said it, like you’re hanging out with the boys, you’re like doing like pretty cool stuff, pretty fun stuff, like really fulfilling stuff, especially for guys, and then you are in tach So like, yeah, how is a shift?

00:04:04
Speaker 6: How is the shift? Like mindset wise?

00:04:07
Speaker 3: We can just like go ahead and jump right into it, like mindset wise, Like that’s like that’s like the hardest thing. And the one other thing one of the things I always hear about like PTSD is like you they expect you just transition right back to normal life. And it’s just not it’s just not like that. It’s just not simple. Yeah, Like there’s no there’s no good transition.

00:04:25
Speaker 1: So yeah, I mean, I don’t know is that.

00:04:26
Speaker 3: That affect you at all or if you or at least being in that position. Was that was that something that you could like start to empathize with people like, Okay, I can start to understand like why it’s difficult for people to transition back to this because these are very different lives.

00:04:40
Speaker 1: Yeah, just so much to impact with all that.

00:04:42
Speaker 6: There is a lot, I know, there’s a lot.

00:04:44
Speaker 5: Yeah, for sure. It was h it was. It was difficult, yeah, to say the least. It was going from working with a bunch of dudes all the time like a high bay garage yep, deploying to now I’ve got four female direct reports and I’ve never worked really with female I was before that.

00:05:01
Speaker 1: Yeah, it was a challenge.

00:05:03
Speaker 5: I’m born and raised in southern California, and my wife and I packed up and moved. It was like the month after I got out to Florida, which is Florida’s great where she’s from. But then the job was remote. I’m very thankful for the job.

00:05:14
Speaker 1: Yeah, say, yeah, yeah, absolutely super. Yeah.

00:05:17
Speaker 5: Then I was in a cave in my office, you know, working west coast and East coast hours because I just I felt like if I wasn’t working, I was failing now, and uh it was just unsustainable. So yeah, I fully understand it’s more of just like the being secluded away from everybody. It was by design, but I ended up making it a lot harder on us.

00:05:38
Speaker 1: Yeah.

00:05:38
Speaker 2: Yeah, we we were talking to Matt Johnson yesterday and that was the main thing that he said. Matt was National Guard but deployed a couple of times and was you know, he was talking about how, yeah, you’re always with somebody in the military literally, you like, you don’t do anything by yourself almost ever, you know, and then to go into you know, every day life where you’re you know, not necessarily by yourself, but like you’re saying.

00:06:03
Speaker 4: You’re in a in a dungeon and in you know, yeah.

00:06:07
Speaker 2: Fixed on one thing, and you are working remote and so I mean I think that’s a that’s a product of COVID. You know, we talk about a lot about like even at Mayhem, I’m like, I don’t like remote work, Like, oh my gosh.

00:06:17
Speaker 1: We just talk about that him and I were sorry, we were going to go for this, yeah, thirty minutes last night, and he was talking about when we’re growing the team in these hires and he’s like, there will be none of them remote, you know, so so just anyway, keep going.

00:06:31
Speaker 2: But yeah, yeah, no, I mean that’s you know, that’s one of our things here at Mayhem. And when everything kind of went COVID, we had some you know, like Darren, my cousin, he moved back to Michigan because his wife’s dad’s like, you know, early eighties and he’s getting older and so.

00:06:44
Speaker 4: They wanted to be closer to home.

00:06:45
Speaker 2: And then Dre moved off for a little bit, and then you know, we would hire some people and it was remote, and man, I just I’m not I’m really bad at relationships through this. You know, I’m probably not as good at relationships even in person. But you know, yeah, but I you know, I value face to face interaction being you know, like, even when I competed as an individual, like it just wasn’t as fulfilling even winning as it was on a team. And so being a part of a team, sharing suffering with others, I think that’s what makes cross fit great. I think that’s what one of the major draws of it of like, you know, we’re in this together type thing, and I think, man, it’s just it’s something we’re trying to everybody’s trying to come back from from COVID, right, you know, like what’s the balance of hey, giving some people some freedom to like, hey, you can get your work done.

00:07:32
Speaker 4: Because I’m not one of those guys either.

00:07:33
Speaker 2: That’s like you have to work forty hours a week, you have to do this, and you’re like it, just get your job done.

00:07:37
Speaker 1: You know, get your job done. I don’t care.

00:07:38
Speaker 2: But there is something to be said about face to face interaction.

00:07:45
Speaker 3: It’s almost like the opposite was for me for the fire department is like you’re in it for twenty four hours and then you’re out of the forty eight so you have to turn it on and turn it off and on and turn it off, and so yeah, it’s just like it is just so different. It’s the eggs exact opposite, but the same struggle almost where you’re like I have to like be totally turned on and I’m with the crew and like we’re having a good time and like we may be up at three am at a fire where someone dies at you know, something like that, and then the next morning, you know, you just go home and your wife is like sitting there, like drinking coffee, and it’s just like a weird transition. You’re like, I don’t know how to like handle this, and a lot of people do struggle with handling that. But it’s like there’s a time to compartmentalize it a little bit and not to like make it other people’s issue.

00:08:30
Speaker 6: But there’s also another time.

00:08:31
Speaker 3: Where like, hey, having those guys around you and being able to talk through that stuff, and then you know, of course you get to look forward to like in two days, you just you to see him and you kind of debrief everything a little bit. Yeah, and that helps. That definitely helps. So having being able to go back to those guys obviously helped.

00:08:48
Speaker 6: But like it is just.

00:08:48
Speaker 3: Weird turning it on and turning it off every couple of days. Yeah, So it’s just it’s kind of the exact opposite, but just it’s similar in a way, I guess.

00:08:55
Speaker 5: Yeah, for sure, it seems very similar. Needless to say, my wife is the same. She’s been helping me unpack that for the past three years, since getting out and yeah, I mean being alone with me for three.

00:09:07
Speaker 1: Years and after all.

00:09:09
Speaker 5: Of that, Yeah, she was going through deployment, deployment, deployment, and we get out and I’m a asshole.

00:09:14
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, well, you know that’s where I feel like a lot of guys find not relief but fine, just kind of I don’t know, maybe purpose even in hunting in the style that we do. You know, we I talk a lot about you know, there’s those guys that love to go out solo and just be out there by themselves.

00:09:31
Speaker 4: I’m not that guy.

00:09:32
Speaker 2: I’ve never have been. Even white tail hunting. At times it gets a little bit like boring, not boring even it’s.

00:09:38
Speaker 3: Just like the part the part about white til hunting that is nice is like if you have a group of guys on the same land.

00:09:43
Speaker 6: Yeah, and you’re like, hey, what do you see?

00:09:44
Speaker 4: Yeah, back and forth a little bit.

00:09:46
Speaker 1: That’s a little bit more fun.

00:09:48
Speaker 2: But like Western hunting, the style hunting we do, Man, you’re just going out in teams, right, you know. We just got off of a hunt about what three weeks ago, Scott that you know, we were working in groups, groups of three or four, and man, it was so much fun. You know, like we got back and you know, we were out there for five days and you’re just like, you’re so hyper focused.

00:10:08
Speaker 1: This doesn’t work most.

00:10:09
Speaker 2: Of the place it’s perfect, and so it’s literally it’s just awesome. You’re you’re Scott always talks about your relationship grows as lame as that sounds talking about dudes, but like your relationship grows so much more in those moments because you don’t have those distractions. And then you like, you know, we were in there for five days and that’s all you’re thinking about. Yeah, and then we came back home, literally got home at midnight.

00:10:31
Speaker 4: Next morning was you know, take the kids to school.

00:10:33
Speaker 1: You’re back in the grind.

00:10:34
Speaker 2: And then we flew to Scotland and we were in like the whole Rogue Fitness Rogue Invitational thing and dude man Nike on a crazy you know, it’s been fifteen years since I was at the fire department, so I experienced that. But like even just those five days and then having to jump back into real life. I can’t imagine, you know, being on a deployment for six to eight months and then coming back home and you know, you all that noise that creeps in and so you know, on a way different level, Like I can’t imagine you know, like what you guys are saying where you’re like, that was your life transition back to ten fifteen years Yeah, and then you’re like, oh, you’re supposed to just plug back into the you know, into the system, right, Yeah, I do think it has I mean, you guys for sure would know better. But has it like has the mindset around that and people talk about that because I feel like I hear it more because like I mean, maybe I just wasn’t listening before, but like now I hear it more, like people saying, hey, it is just weird transition back to civilian life, Like you don’t you know, it’s not the same. So is there more people talking about that now or is it still just kind of like super weird. Like for sure, in the Fire Service, like the old PTSD thing is like talked about and we don’t mind it, talk about it like we had a buddy who killed himself who worked with the fire department who struggled with PTSD, and but it’s just like we don’t really there’s not a there’s not this.

00:11:53
Speaker 6: Big stigma stigma around it anymore, Like we just talked about it like.

00:11:56
Speaker 3: Freely, like like here, if something’s bothering you, we just talk about it like it’s not really a big deal.

00:12:00
Speaker 6: We joke about it, we do whatever.

00:12:02
Speaker 3: I mean, I’m sure you guys are the same, like we make those horrible dark jokes.

00:12:05
Speaker 1: But like, dude, that’s that’s the thing too, that you know, it’s like it’s do you make those jokes and then you gotta like understand when those jokes go too far with someone so you can be on the LOOKO definitely feel that it’s the distigma’s loosening with that a little bit. I think just because like unfortunately over you know, the Iraq War and everything, and you know, from the early two thousands until now, you’ve seen the damage over time and even the you know, the army guys that did eighteen month deployments, like my god, going through I’ve only done six months right at a time, yea, And by the up to four months, you’re like you’re good, right at that fifth month you’re like okay, I’m you know, and then at number six you’re like, yeah, so I can’t imagine you tackle another year to that. But to your point about the the transition thing, It’s really interesting to like objectively observe yourself because I’m right in the middle of it, getting out in g Anyuary, and then now it’s what November, like eleven months later, and leading up to it, I got medically retired cause I got asthma in Moses in twenty sixteen. Kept that under wraps as long as I could. Yeah, yeah, because as soon as they find out, yeah yeah out. I was just I was just I was just bootlegging this albut role and Hayler for six years, and then eventually I was like, ah, probably should probably should take care of my but uh so like understanding that it was, you know, I got out in January. I knew I was going to get out for like six months before, so I made a diligent effort in staying ahead of the you know, the transition issues and also hyper aware, and it was all good up until like probably two months ago or something, and then I just you just miss it. Yeah yeah, Like my wife has a family cabin in Oregon. Yeah, and I remember I was a ton Josh, like a month ago, just going outside at night, yeah, and just standing there like alone. Yeah, And I was like, oh my gosh, I just seem to be need to be doing. I need to be like I need to feel like that stuff again. Purpose. It’s interesting to like observe yourself going through it, but you know, doing that, you can like knock it down and keep it.

00:14:10
Speaker 2: About to say, like what’s the you know, have you guys talked about the difference from like you having to go to into like a desk job versus you having this kind of like mission of high ground chips and having that purpose to start was there? Is it different or do you feel like you guys had similar, very similar you know experiences.

00:14:30
Speaker 1: I would say, thanks Josh because I got to watch him do it. Yeah, mess it up, don’t do it. Yeah, as he was the pilot, I was just watching with my you know pirate scope, like okay, cool, do that, don’t do that? Yes, So that was nice. You know, I couldn’t really tell you I think the I think the purpose thing is huge right for me, and so I feel definitely blessed in that aspect where I can’t speak for Josh, but maybe you know that wasn’t such a overlap, but for me it was. I was able to fall right into that, so I was able to direct all of the energy and the passion and stuff towards that, which is just funny because it was you know, prosecuting targets and doing clearance and sniping and all that stuff. And I’m like, I’m gonna take that passion and now I’m gonna do a consumer packaged goods company. Right, So you’re like, now you’re like, yeah, this makes sense, but there really is like some overlap and the fulfillment and stuff, and like we grow the team and then when things work and then when they don’t work and you make mistakes, but you know in it’s oh man, so cool. Just two days ago he and I were in the office and we were drawn up on the whiteboard and kudos to him, he brought it up. You know, we were trying to figure out like OPS versus like marketing and like and so if.

00:15:45
Speaker 4: You figure it out, let me know.

00:15:46
Speaker 1: Yeah, and so, well, you know what you do in the teams is you know, you have like the base in the maneuver. And again this was this was his idea, and we drew up on the board and it was like, hey, like the kind of the nucleus of the business being like OPS, the internals, inventory data, all of that stuff, nurture all all those things we have clients or partners and stuff like that, Like we can get that going and then it frees up the maneuver to go around and continue to get you more accounts or know more retail, more partners and stuff like that.

00:16:16
Speaker 4: Now, how’d you guys pass across?

00:16:19
Speaker 1: Did we meet at a rave?

00:16:21
Speaker 5: No surprising, right, Yeah, that.

00:16:25
Speaker 1: Was twenty seventeen. It was it was after Moses, so I was in I was in mosl and Iraq in twenty sixteen and then yeah, he was undeployment, so we weren’t in the same platoon or on the same team, but there was some some crossover. Hey hey you I know this guy and all these different things and then linked up and yeah, that feels like it’s crazy to think that was like eight years ago. If I’m doing the math right, Yeah, it sounds right. Yeah, and then we’re just in touch with buddies like that, and then deploying another deployment and on the rest and then got out and stayed in touch. So I think it was nice seeing him because him and Dana and you know, you’re with uh. I hope this goes across well with everybody. Else, I know, ye yeah, yeah. But when you when you’re in the Navy and like you know, yeah, you’re you’re a couple. You’re looking for a normal other couple the same age. Yeah, and then you know, like Josh and Dana and we’re like too nice. Yeah you guys have kids. Yeah we just got one and I got the same age. Sure, uh yeah close, Okay, So that always helps.

00:17:22
Speaker 2: Like that’s what I’m learning as the older I get, like, you know, you find friends that have kids the same age, because then they kind of like babysit each other type deal, you know. And so yeah, that one hundred, So that twenty seventeen, you guys just kind of keep you know, keep calms open and say friends throughout that eight years, I guess, or I guess you said you start high Ground.

00:17:42
Speaker 1: Win twenty three, twenty three, yeah, yeah.

00:17:45
Speaker 2: So you know, six years at that point. And then how does this all come to fruition? I mean, I’m what, what’s so cool about this? As you look and there’s just beef, garlic, salt, red pepper flakes and it’s just dried beef basically, So where’s that idea come from? Where’s you know, how does this come to fruition, how do you guys link back up?

00:18:04
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean it’s you know, how do you get from where we started to where we are today? I would say, like the number one thing is just doing the same thing over and over and over, And that wasn’t kind of good question. But that’s like been the biggest thing I’ve extracted from the business is you have like the underlying assumptions the customer demands there. It’s a good product. So it’s my job to just do the same thing, keep trying, keep trying, consistency. But I was on deployment in sent Comms to the Middle East again, there was that super remote deployment and basically, you know, you do these patrols to target eight mile patrols helo offset in Phil eight mile in phil trying to find ways to have like lightweight nutrition, it’s like true nutrition, that’s to not just junk protein. Powder and water bottles are platoon chief at the time. He would take plastic water bottles and five point fifty quarter to the outside of the outside of his kit and show and you know, hey, he might see this one day, so like he’s a he’s a great man. He is a great man, but we would all make fun of him because on nods you could you could always see where he was because they would just be they were just bouncing on his kids. But it was like it was like for ease of access, and we’re like, dude, we can’t do it. Yeah, anything else trying to find light weight nutrition basically, you know, And then and then it’s been ever since then, and I’ll open it up to Josh Hues, I’m talking forever. Ever since then, it’s just been the relentless pursuit of not letting like people in the supply chain in the market. Yeah, like hey, we can do it for cheaper if we put this in there, if we do it this way. It’s been a real battle to keep it that simple, yeah, which is crazy.

00:19:40
Speaker 5: Which I think we have CrossFit to think for a lot of that, because that was when we entered the market that the purpose was like what would a professional CrossFit athlete.

00:19:50
Speaker 1: Want to eat?

00:19:51
Speaker 5: It was like the whole model and if we know that if they hate it, we’re going to fill very quickly. So that’s kind of why we wanted to jump into that. It was like, all right, so this these macros are can insane.

00:20:00
Speaker 1: You can keep it basic. Yeah, it’s really good and it tastes good. It tastes great. Yeah, we think that people will like it.

00:20:07
Speaker 5: Let’s go test it out with CrossFit folks.

00:20:09
Speaker 1: Yeah.

00:20:10
Speaker 3: The macros that he’s talking about, so her serving, there’s two servings in this bag.

00:20:15
Speaker 1: CROs are carbs, fat, protein.

00:20:17
Speaker 6: Yeah, those are the macros. Those are macros.

00:20:19
Speaker 4: I’m just go ahead and tell you so people aren’t like.

00:20:22
Speaker 3: Yeah, sorry, sorry, yeah, I was, well, I was gonna say this. So there’s there’s two servings in this pack. Each serving is one hundred and twenty calories. There is three grams of fat, there is three grams of carbs, and twenty grams of protein. So there’s forty grams of protein in this bag. There’s also four hundred milligrams of sodium, which.

00:20:39
Speaker 1: You might need.

00:20:39
Speaker 4: Yeah, none of that’s great.

00:20:40
Speaker 3: That’s great, especially like I mean, just if you if you are on the move, like we’re saying, like we’re hunting.

00:20:46
Speaker 4: Hunting, I’m thinking from even the hunting perspective.

00:20:48
Speaker 3: Man, this is so like easy, so hard to get protein and good good protein, Like you say, basically do the same thing you were just saying, like we may do protein bars a good a bunch of junk in.

00:21:01
Speaker 6: Them, but you’re just like sticks.

00:21:02
Speaker 3: Yeah, you’re just finding the only things that have some protein because everything else is just carbs and fat, which you do need a lot of, but there’s just it’s very hard to get good protein, and especially when you’re moving, and probably because it is just you can’t bring.

00:21:15
Speaker 1: A steak with you.

00:21:16
Speaker 6: Well, yeah, you can’t bring you can’t keep a protein shake cold.

00:21:18
Speaker 2: A lot of the proteins plant based, which whatever, and then even the meat sticks, the like volume of like how much I don’t know, filler and the other drunk.

00:21:30
Speaker 1: You can tell, you can tell, yeah, yeah, yeah, and we actually some good news. We just got lab tested and it’s actually forty four grams of protein. There you go. Yeah, So like all the things there, like the integrity of us not to allow to oversell it, and then it pays off because then you can come on shows like this yeah and say, hey, good news, it’s actually better than we thought, and then you know, rich to your point. There’s also there’s also like it’s whole food, whole food, yeah, you know, so there’s micronutrients and the each each one of those bags is an eight out stick.

00:22:00
Speaker 2: So where’d the idea come from for to make a chip versus a stick, versus a jerky or whatever?

00:22:05
Speaker 6: Very different from anything I’ve ever had. I had no idea.

00:22:08
Speaker 1: You guys gonna try it with three kyogurt?

00:22:12
Speaker 2: Yeah, No, I s straight with salt. I did it with Jack Salsa. I forget the actual company, but it’s Jack SAUCEA It’s like, you know, a fresh cut salsa with it’s got a yellow lid on it.

00:22:26
Speaker 4: But man, yeah with salsas.

00:22:27
Speaker 1: Yeah, behavior replacement.

00:22:29
Speaker 3: It’s not jerky really chip Like I don’t I guess I didn’t really think about it, think about it first time I tried it.

00:22:35
Speaker 6: This is actually a chip.

00:22:36
Speaker 1: It is I got.

00:22:37
Speaker 3: I don’t know how to get that across to people other than when you try it. But it’s like it literally is just a meat chip.

00:22:43
Speaker 1: Yeah.

00:22:43
Speaker 3: So yeah, what was how do you come up with the design of having a chip over like just another jerky product?

00:22:50
Speaker 1: Yeah, it’s perfect. So I got back from that deployment, bought a little machine, and I was like, I’m gonna do this. I’m gonna you know, I want to solve this nutrition problem. I think I could really be a little bit different and so I made the first batcher and dehydrator. Dehydrator, Yeah, dehydrator as high as it could go, as long as it could go, and it just went and it was terrible. And then you know, reiterated and iterated, and that was yeah, twenty twenty three, and uh, you know, we all ended up a group of friends on a trip and it was I was passing these out at the time because I could see kind of the vision, right, and it’s meat chips, right, so you’re like the vision, but really I was like I could see this. It wasn’t really the time of the place for people to kind of appreciate it. But the idea of staying with the chip was like the behavior replacement for us. It was really big on staying clean. But on the business side, it was like what is your competitive moat? You know, so like trying to find a way to be you know, different category of one and not compete because with jerky it’s compete. You’re competing on flavor in price, you know, and so we can’t win those battles.

00:23:54
Speaker 4: Yeah, not if you’re trying to do whole food.

00:23:56
Speaker 3: It is very easy for me to explain this to people and say like, well, dude, you’re gonna go buy beef jerky. I’m telling you, just try this. It’s cleaner, it has more protein. The macros are a lot better. It’s just it’s and in my opinion, it actually tastes better too. So I don’t know why you would want I don’t know why you’d go with anything else. And you can actually read the stuff that’s in it, Like, that’s pretty nice.

00:24:16
Speaker 6: I can read the ingredients. Yeah, I mean it’s yeah, that’s super cool.

00:24:23
Speaker 1: Yeah. The the one thing that we’re noticing, or at least I’m noticing, and I think Josh feels the same kind of the whole team, is that the macro. It’s a bunch of big words like the macro social palate going back towards like real stuff. So like the blue ras blast, it’s no longer in.

00:24:43
Speaker 2: We had this discussion like what is a blue raspberry? You know, there’s no such thing. How do we know that that’s the flavor?

00:24:48
Speaker 1: Right?

00:24:49
Speaker 3: When you have something that’s great flavored, like it doesn’t taste anything like.

00:24:52
Speaker 2: Delicious, It doesn’t taste like great, You’re like, how do I asswitch this with grape at all?

00:24:59
Speaker 3: It’s just like a purple dying.

00:25:03
Speaker 6: I do love it is not delicious, but it just is so different.

00:25:09
Speaker 3: When we were at were we initially really met and talked at Crash CRUCID. What we were talking about, you going on those hunting trips with Sam McKinney’s dad, Oh yeah, and about the stuff that he does, like on oh yeah yeah.

00:25:23
Speaker 4: So so he’s got a fifteen acres you know.

00:25:27
Speaker 2: It’s not high fence nothing like that, but it is built to hold deer and so they they’ve got it all set up and he does hunts for critically ill kids and then vets and so man, there’s he’s just talked about how many how much healing goes on there. Uh, you know, it’s obviously a group setting. You’re sitting in a blind or like a you know, a buddy stand, and you just get to spend time with with kids obviously, but with the dudes, and you know, he’s got a couple other guys that are ex military that will go.

00:25:57
Speaker 4: And guide some of these hunts. But man, it’s just a way to like heal, you know.

00:26:01
Speaker 2: And there is such a cool crossover between hunting I think and then what you guys came from the background, You came from. Obviously it’s not the same like when you know nothing’s trying to kill you in return, but there is still that purpose in that mission and we think, you know, hunting in a group is better, or hunting in a pair is better or whatever, and so man, it’s just so cool that you know he does that with what they do up there.

00:26:26
Speaker 6: I was telling the story about the guy that he sat with and.

00:26:29
Speaker 4: Was like, oh, yeah, yeah, he was ready to end it all.

00:26:32
Speaker 3: Yeah, He’s like, dude, if he said when I left here, I’d already made decision I’m gonna go kill myself.

00:26:36
Speaker 2: Before he had come. He was like, hey, this was the last thing I was gonna do. I was gonna come up here hunt and then when I got home that was it. Yeah, and him coming up there changed one, right, you know. And what do they say, twenty two a day or something like that, And I forgot the organization they actually work with, but man, he was just saying, you know, if they can save a couple, then that’s huge, And.

00:26:58
Speaker 4: There’s just such a cool over I think between.

00:27:01
Speaker 2: Outdoor Space what you guys have done in the past, but I think, you know, this obviously fits well into that too.

00:27:06
Speaker 4: You know, like you could carry that easy and it’s not not super.

00:27:10
Speaker 1: Heavy or anything. Yeah.

00:27:13
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, I know he talked about that because I was just like, I mean, he had just told me that story, and I was like, and we were talking, so I just thought it was super cool and wanted to share that with you.

00:27:21
Speaker 1: Yeah.

00:27:21
Speaker 6: That and he’s a he’s a Baptist preacher yea.

00:27:25
Speaker 1: The gospel. Oh yeah, of course. Yeah.

00:27:27
Speaker 2: I think you know, obviously, you know, getting guys in their head on Jesus, then that’s going to help all that as well. And so that’s their main mission is you know, getting guys, girls, kids, uh, families connected to Jesus. But they do that through hunting and so yeah, and it’s it’s just really cool and cool to be a part of that. So what’s what’s next for you guys? What’s what’s the game plan? Just keep doing what you’re doing and scale it or.

00:27:52
Speaker 1: Yeah that’s actually I mean, I was just thinking about wanting to kind of touch on some of that stuff as as you’re talking about, you know, healing through hunting and how the crossover and the then diagram between like our backgrounds and it is very real that somebody doesn’t have to be trying to kill you back. Oh but but it’s a really good crossover and that really went.

00:28:12
Speaker 6: Yeah.

00:28:15
Speaker 1: Uh, it’s really what kind of fueled the brand image. Right, So when you’re you know, sitting over there and you know the you make the big business plan and then like what am I gonna call it? You know, and you spend forever like nothing hits, nothing hits, nothing hits, and trying to find something that was that.

00:28:29
Speaker 4: Had the sense from a tactical standpoin.

00:28:31
Speaker 1: Yeah, but yeah, I mean it wasn’t too overtly ridiculous chips. Yeah, like tried dear lord, no overplayed a little bit. Yeah, too bad.

00:28:44
Speaker 6: So this is yeah, go aheads, but it is it is.

00:28:47
Speaker 3: I I thought I didn’t understand it right at first because I’m an idiot. But I was like because I didn’t understand the slogan. Afterwards, I was like, dude, that makes so much sense. It’s so cool high Ground always take it. And I was like, I thought it was really cool. I want to hear why call that? Because it is really cool?

00:29:01
Speaker 1: Yeah. So I think high Ground is a is a great cross over there because you have it was three applications when I kind of made like the brand map for it, right. It was like you have the military application, right, which you always take the high ground. I was a sniper on the teams yep, so you know knew that. And then you have the social thing, right, so if you’re engaging with somebody that might sound silly, but it’s like relationships, partnerships everything, the like way that we run the business. If we say we’re going to do something, we do it. I say that’s taking the high ground. Yeah. And then the third one, which is like more on the consumer side, is you know you see a back of high ground, you always take it. Yeah. Right, so you see a high ground and the military always take it. Yeah. Working with somebody always take it. And if you see you know, a back of the stuff, you always take it.

00:29:43
Speaker 3: See my my dummy consumer mine is that’s the only thing I thought of it first, and then I thought and then I thought, like from the tactical perspective, I go, and then that is like it makes sense, and it’s like it’s like catchy, I’m just an.

00:29:55
Speaker 1: Idiot, You’re a good company right now.

00:30:00
Speaker 6: No, I was like, no, that’s that is really cool.

00:30:02
Speaker 3: Uh And I was just watching It’s funny while I was coming down his driveway.

00:30:05
Speaker 6: I was just watching a clip of a sermon.

00:30:13
Speaker 1: On that driveway.

00:30:15
Speaker 3: He was talking about, you said the high ground like social situations.

00:30:21
Speaker 1: He was saying, if.

00:30:22
Speaker 3: You are married, you can either be right or be married.

00:30:27
Speaker 6: Yeah, Like there’s he goes, I know a lot of guys have been right.

00:30:31
Speaker 1: And he goes, they aren’t married.

00:30:33
Speaker 6: Yeah, so it’s the same thing.

00:30:35
Speaker 3: Like it feels like the wrong thing to do in the in the time, but as soon as you look back and you had taken the high ground on the whatever the situation was, you feel better walking away from it. You don’t feel better about like, oh I made Especially your wife, You’re like, oh, I made her know that I was right. It’s like, what did you prove? You know? You made Yeah, you made yourself. You really made yourself look like an idiot.

00:30:58
Speaker 1: And you know right away, yeah I know right away for that one. Yeah, we crusheduff quick. You know, it’s like, do whatever. I think it’s the one thing that we do exceptionally well as if there’s a tiff or anything. It’s you can count it on like thirty seconds. It’s like, hey, regroup, Yeah, this, this, this and this, because and Once you do that, then you’re like, yeah, so much better. Yea.

00:31:19
Speaker 5: For me, it’s really easy because I’m actually never right.

00:31:22
Speaker 3: Yeah, you just go ahead to assume you’re not right and just go into an argument knowing, Okay, well I’m probably wrong about this, So like, how can I ease my way out? I’m sorry, You’re not really sorry.

00:31:37
Speaker 4: Now are you still in Florida or did you go back to California?

00:31:40
Speaker 1: Moved back?

00:31:41
Speaker 5: We got back to San Diego on Friday?

00:31:43
Speaker 3: Yeah, okay, okare you go like bought a house firsture for good? Because that’s what we said, you guys came from California.

00:31:49
Speaker 5: Yeah, we’re gonna rent for a little bit. But yeah, back back with the boys, back with the dudes.

00:31:54
Speaker 1: Yeah cool.

00:31:54
Speaker 3: I my wife, my wife’s family is almost all from San Diego, and most of.

00:31:59
Speaker 6: Them still live there.

00:32:00
Speaker 3: I’ve been We’ve only been there one time for a wedding, but she like every six months, she’s like, let’s just go visit my family.

00:32:06
Speaker 1: Yeah, it’s just I don’t know.

00:32:08
Speaker 3: I mean we I guess we are going to go back and visit them, but it’s just like a long trip. I don’t particularly love California.

00:32:15
Speaker 1: It’s fair so I try to avoid it if I can. California is great, the politics and everything.

00:32:21
Speaker 6: Yeah, yeah, no, no, the tack California is great.

00:32:23
Speaker 5: We’ve had a few governors it’s like they’re actively trying.

00:32:25
Speaker 1: To destroy it. Yeah, I know, I know.

00:32:28
Speaker 2: That’s a whole nother podcast. All right, So what’s you know? You guys got headquarters out there.

00:32:34
Speaker 1: You Yeah, so the whole team is is you know, we just talked about not being remote, right, Yeah, but you gotta work with what you gotta work with, because you.

00:32:42
Speaker 2: Know, I said all that to say we still have probably what three four old people and part of what we do you almost need some remote people. But man, the more and more we’ve slowly brought people back into the fold, it’s way better. So yeah, so sorry, and I mean it’s still here, but go ahead, what do you Yeah, I was about to say, how many how many people you have actually in house doing stuff?

00:33:03
Speaker 1: Yeah? Yeah, So the disc will inform the team thing. You know, we just it was this this month. You know, it’s been two years, two and a half years of just like I said before, is hitting your face into the wall. In this last month, we had just this huge break of forty five hundred maybe five thousand retail doors nice do mid mid twenty six. Yeah, it takes gray Ramp to get there. I mean that’s one hundred and twenty thousand bags a month. Well, you know, and that’s just with that that one flavor. Right, we have bad we have like line extensions, and we have different product categories, you know, the the we when we’ve kept the aperture on the brand wide enough with you know, the domain that we have in our quiver, and then all the nomenclature for the brand and how we’ve positioned it so we can really fill that better for you nutrition for the wilderness athlete. Yeah, so like you know eventually mountain house and stuff like that, but finding ways to be deliberately unique about that. Yeah, we had all of those big orders.

00:34:00
Speaker 4: What other products? Is this the only product you have right now currently?

00:34:02
Speaker 1: Yeah, we have right now and by design again we were talking about Yeah, for sure. No, I agree with sorry real quick.

00:34:09
Speaker 3: I agree with that that like, find something, do it really well, and then start a diverse If I don’t like, start doing a bunch of crap right away and just we’ll play yourself.

00:34:19
Speaker 1: Go ahead. Yeah, it’s the relentless you know, positioning of you go to these retailers and like how many skews and you’re like one, you’re like investors and they’re like oh, and you’re like no, that’s like that’s deliberately yeah, yeah, for sure. And then they what’s your head count? You know, I think right now we have six or seven and you know, like for our size at this moment, that that’s a little much. Yeah. But again for like an investor, I’m like, no, it’s perfect, perfect, perfect, because we’re now we’re hiring, you know, we just brought on you know, Lambert, who’s been fantastic. Yeah, we’re hiring from a place of like we can pick and choose who we want, like when we want right, so you see somebody you.

00:34:56
Speaker 2: Like, he can you can make a move. You know, when you get too big, it’s you’re trying to your big ship. We’re starting to your small ship right now.

00:35:02
Speaker 1: Yeah, and you see a good deal that you want to have on the team, you can then pick them rather than getting all these retail orders and these pos and then you’re stuck and you got to bring three people on. I need four interviews a day for three weeks, and we’re gonna try to figure this out. Yeah, that’s the thing when you picked the bad apples.

00:35:16
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, so sure, I feel like, I mean, I feel like that’s very similar to Mayhem too, but like, for sure, we’ve definitely slimming you. I guess have picked like people that fit the culture really well, and it ends up just like helping you know, everyone wants to.

00:35:29
Speaker 6: Work towards the same goal.

00:35:31
Speaker 3: When you have the right people, when you have time to get those right people in the right positions, you don’t have to worry about like a culture shift or a culture breakdown because like everyone’s bought into the same mission.

00:35:43
Speaker 1: You have any.

00:35:45
Speaker 2: Any secrets you want to put out about, like any new flavors or any new or anything, or is that.

00:35:50
Speaker 1: Completely off the table? I think the flavors vision, I guess I think the flavors. Yeah, the flavors are an easy lift. Right now, it’s gonna say it say you can’t even say how many, but oh, I want to hear your guys kind of initial reactions. Right, So beef chips with salt and vinegar, Oh, I mean, oh wow, like a good salt so good. I’ll tell you it’s really good. Fifteen out of ten ridiculous.

00:36:15
Speaker 4: That’s good behind that for sure.

00:36:19
Speaker 1: It’s apple cider vinegar too. So we’re just so we’re staying like again, ye, choosing because we can’t do barbecue right because it might be good, but that doesn’t fit pretty much of sugar you gotta put you know.

00:36:30
Speaker 4: Nope, you know everybody, Oh, sugar free barbecue sauce.

00:36:33
Speaker 1: It’s terrible.

00:36:35
Speaker 2: You have, like sweet Baby. If you’re going with like a non homemade sweet Baby rays, you just can’t beat Yeah, can’t beat it. But then you know, any good even homemade barbecue sauce that’s got a lot of sugar. Yeah, but it has its place place I’m not saying. I don’t you know, Yeah, beef ribs with some barbecues, man, I can’t you know. That’s my my jam is beef ribs.

00:36:59
Speaker 4: Yeah, those are good.

00:37:00
Speaker 1: Yeah, we have we have we have one product that’s that’s Q three Q four, and uh, I could not like my gut instinct, which, by the way, like gut instinct stuff in business is really interesting. Yeah, for sure, like as you mature, right, and obviously we’re still very early, but my gut instinct with that was you know, pretty strong, right, which is why I stuck with it for so long. Yeah, but when this this other product kind of came into fruition in like the mind waves, you know. And I made it when I was up in Oregon at my wife’s cabin. Again, it felt so good if I had the flannel on, I was like, you know, grinding stuff up and doing these different things. Yeah, it was an organ drinking coffee scientists. Yeah, and I made it, And She’s gonna be really really good. And I’m not in a place to be on the podcast for the Wilderness Athletes stuff. I mean it is going to be like exactly what you got want.

00:37:58
Speaker 4: That’s so cool.

00:37:58
Speaker 3: Yeah, what do you guys, like you have to have any major goals in mind, like or you just kind of like just grow and see what happens. Or do you have like like we want to be in Walmart in two years or something like that. Do you have any tangible goals or something like that or no.

00:38:11
Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean not on the retail side.

00:38:14
Speaker 1: We could talk about like the gold Star initiaive a little bit. Yeah, yeah, yeah, coolrever you got right, yeah yeah.

00:38:19
Speaker 5: So one of the pillars of our mission being valor and taking care of taking care of like gold Star Families super important to us. When we started this, we it was horrible execution on on being able to do that. We want to be able to give directly to gold Star Families, and so what we realized is that we we actually have to make like the product, we have to establish the foundation first, or you can’t money, you don’t have aggressive exactly, like we’ll just give a like a massive portion of the prophets of gold Star Families and we’ll be fine.

00:38:51
Speaker 6: Nope, nope, We’re not going to do that.

00:38:55
Speaker 1: It’s like we went out of business. Okay.

00:38:57
Speaker 5: So that’s that is a massive target for us to be able to tell the stories of the folks that died, you know, sacrificing it all for us, but not just focusing on like the special operation side, because there’s a lot of that that’s huge. Yeah, there’s a lot of that we want to we want to know about like the truck drivers and the dudes that were out there every day sucks starting IDs throughout the you know, the entire war. I want to talk to their friends and and kind of help their stories live on and then also.

00:39:29
Speaker 4: Tell people who don’t know what gold Star is.

00:39:31
Speaker 5: Old Star Families are the families of the folks that died specifically for us in the Global War on Terror.

00:39:37
Speaker 1: That’s our Michelle. Yeah, that’s awesome.

00:39:39
Speaker 4: Yeah, that’s great. Yeah.

00:39:40
Speaker 2: I think you know, with us at Mayhem, service is a huge part of that, and you know, we try to try to give back. So, man, I think there’s a way to we get all work together on that. It’d be awesome cool.

00:39:50
Speaker 3: Where can they find high ground chips? Where can people who are watching this who’ve never seen it?

00:39:55
Speaker 1: Yeah, so right now high ground chips dot com. Yeah, so super simple. Again, we’re working the we’re going a different domain right now. Okay, it’s going to kind of help help the brand long term, but right there, right now, that’s where they can find us. And I think just you know, quickly on the gold Star thing, I think Josh highlighted it well. I think that the big thing is the the stories because there was I’m gonna mess the number up now, there’s over seven thousand people that passed away in the Global War on Terror, which is essentially from two thousand and one so just recently when we got so going on. But yeah, yeah, yeah, so basically it ended when you know, yeah, right, right, that’s the other podcast.

00:40:31
Speaker 4: Yeah, sorry, but yeah.

00:40:36
Speaker 1: So what did that twenty call it twenty four years or something like that, all those people that passed away. Of course, people know Murph, right, they know you know.

00:40:43
Speaker 4: Yeah, they know the CrossFit for the most part of the Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:40:48
Speaker 1: Even for us who’ve got Mark Lee and you got JJ and all that stuff. But we want to revive those stories and dig a little bit deeper. And there’s seven thousand. Yeah, and then in the stories, finding a way to go direct to and be transparent about it. It’s like, hey, it’s not like no, however, my goodness, however we work that out. Being able to just do that direct was a huge piece for us. Yeah, that man.

00:41:11
Speaker 5: Yeah, there’s just a lot there’s a lot of like five oh one c three’s out there that are a little questionable.

00:41:15
Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure.

00:41:16
Speaker 5: And so we want to be open like, hey, we are a for profit company, but we’re going to give a tone back to this.

00:41:21
Speaker 1: Yeah that’s good.

00:41:22
Speaker 3: I feel like there is a like a revival on like just wanting like serious, like true knowledge, like people want to hear that, like yeah, we’re trying to make money, of course, but we want to be able to give back whatever we can, Like people don’t want to hear this like fairy tale story of we’re giving all our money away and when you know, then they look at it and they’re spending.

00:41:44
Speaker 5: How are you spending and a half of your two million on administrative.

00:41:50
Speaker 3: I think I think there’s a huge push at least in the last few years of people who just like you can see the bullshit lately and like, people want to hear like real stuff.

00:41:59
Speaker 6: They don’t want to hear like they don’t want to hear a fairy tale anymore.

00:42:02
Speaker 1: I’m kicking your mic.

00:42:02
Speaker 3: They don’t hear a fairy tale anymore. They want to hear like the truth. And I feel like I feel like you guys are doing that, which is cool.

00:42:09
Speaker 1: We got a long way to go.

00:42:10
Speaker 2: Thank you well, appreciate you guys coming out sweet, Thank you guys, grounds dot com, ye be on social media, high ground chips, pretty much everyone on social media.

00:42:19
Speaker 6: Yeah, yeah, let’s let’s do it.

00:42:21
Speaker 1: For sure. It’s been too long, it was, it’s been fifteen years. I grew up Montana, Yeah, you know, so, I grew up my whole whole life hunting ever since I could, you know, go out at six all the way up.

00:42:32
Speaker 4: Okay, all right, so yeah we can get into that too.

00:42:34
Speaker 1: Heck yeah, so you’ve.

00:42:37
Speaker 4: Oh you were gonna do an outro, got some connection?

00:42:39
Speaker 1: This is what I’m what I’m hearing.

00:42:40
Speaker 4: Yeah, it is my Montana connection. I’m just kidding, but it’s just so rare. Yeah, we’re exactly. No, so you grew up in a hunting family.

00:42:47
Speaker 1: Then for sure? Okay, yeah, so three hundred win bag Yeah yeah, there you go, twelve years old, you know, grew up shooting the twenty two and then it was time to go, you know, siding the rifles. And you know, my stepdad gave me the three hundreds. No clue, yeah, just boom and were just mentally you know, and then he would do the thing yeah where he would look loaded, but it would be like, you know, spent brass, so he loaded and then I would and it’s like grow up.

00:43:16
Speaker 2: Grow up man, I know, there’s so many memories there. You’re like, no, I’m not going to do that to my kids. Yeah, I said it on a daily basis.

00:43:25
Speaker 1: Grow up, what are you doing? Yeah? Sometimes of that stuff, like I look back, his name is Todd, right, so my stepfather, I have my my real father, but right, and you say that story like that and you think it might be a little rough, but now me like, I wouldn’t be a tea guy. I wouldn’t be a I wouldn’t done all that stuff if I didn’t have a little bit of that salt.

00:43:44
Speaker 2: And you know there’s a balance to right, like you learned that quick as a parent is you know, there’s these swings right where probably when we were growing how old.

00:43:54
Speaker 1: Are you guys?

00:43:55
Speaker 4: Okay, so yeah, thirty eight?

00:43:57
Speaker 2: Like at times you’re like, maybe I wouldn’t have done it that way to my parents, but then now I’m like, okay, I can see where that happened, right, And you’re like there’s that shift of like way too hard on him sometimes and then way too easy on him, you know, for a while, and then now we’re kind of swinging back to the like, all right, can.

00:44:13
Speaker 1: We find some middle ground here?

00:44:15
Speaker 2: You know, like there’s and I’m gonna be honest, there’s days where you know, I find that balance, and then there’s days where I’m probably way too hard on him, but you know, like and I’m I’m you know, I am that way with my son way more than my girls for sure too. But you know, the rest of his life. That’s the way the.

00:44:29
Speaker 1: World is gonna be to him, right, I mean, yeah.

00:44:31
Speaker 4: So if we we don’t toughen him up, the world will.

00:44:34
Speaker 1: Yeah, my son will be tough. Yeah, I promise you that. Yeah. Maybe dumb, but he’s gonna be tough, strong driver.

00:44:41
Speaker 4: So did you grow up in hunting family or yeah?

00:44:44
Speaker 5: Yeah we did, birthing southern California, Okay, so yeah, yeah, my dad took me hunting quite a bit in Kansas.

00:44:53
Speaker 1: Pheasant hunting is it’s it’s so fun.

00:44:56
Speaker 4: It’s so fun just walking and hunting.

00:44:57
Speaker 5: Completely unsafe, like oh yeah, weapons safe.

00:45:00
Speaker 4: He was not a thing.

00:45:01
Speaker 2: I’ve been shot. Me and Scott we joked shot not like not you know, bb or pelted like full on shot from you know, it didn’t hurt really, but you know, it was like the trajectory of the the bebes were way way too low.

00:45:17
Speaker 1: You know.

00:45:18
Speaker 2: Uh you hear low bird firsts.

00:45:23
Speaker 4: You’re like, oh, yep, we just got shot.

00:45:25
Speaker 1: That’s great, it’ll be good. Yeah, we’re good, We’re good.

00:45:27
Speaker 5: Okay, Yeah, my dad still has bebes in his head.

00:45:32
Speaker 1: Really shot. That is a true story. Well, yeah, we.

00:45:37
Speaker 2: Were, you know, and this is one hundred percent unsafe. But we’re first time I went past hunting. We’re just walking through the field, right, and you got your your pushers, you got the two guys up on the wing, and then you got your blockers.

00:45:47
Speaker 1: And everyone facing each other.

00:45:49
Speaker 2: Yeah, and you’re like, those guys shooting so quick, you know, getting the safe off whatever. And then look over and my best friend in the world, no safe finger on the trigger, and you’re just yepo. And then me and Scott were blockers one time, and you hear, you know, they’re getting probably what probably thirty forty yards maybe more than that, they were not much and you hear rooster, rooster, boom, and then you hear the guy go low bird. All of a sudden, you just feel it felt like somebody took the pellets and threw them right at your face. And it was one of those that you’re like, oh man, I looked at Scout. I’m like, did we just get shot? And sure enough it was Marlin. But yeah, I’m like, are these guys shooting so quick?

00:46:31
Speaker 1: You know? Want to throw up a little bit? Yeah, a little bit?

00:46:33
Speaker 4: Yeah, but you know, so yeah pheasant hunting. So did you so you killed elk, you’ve killed deer out there?

00:46:40
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, So it was uh yeah. I used to work on a horse ranch, so horse and cattle ranch. The guy that owned the horse ranch it was a big like you know, European style horse stuff, right, so a big rich guy owned that. They would put on these competitions for that stuff. Anyways, he owned a much larger ranch in Great Falls, so a little eastern Montana. And so we go out there into uh spotting stocks, which was just awesome, my first time going out solo, you know, without my dad. Like all right, He’s like all right, you know for years to go and I’m like whoa. And of course of that morning, you know, every other morning and hunting, you know, he has to wake me up.

00:47:17
Speaker 4: I’m up.

00:47:19
Speaker 1: Yeah, you’re a man now. Yeah. And so it was probably shoot five am. I don’t know when this it was well before sunrise. Hop on the four wheel. Their head out is a bit. It’s called Wilson Butte, Big beautiful Butte, Big beautiful but I love Big but And you got there at the base of the butte, it was, you know, super dark. Still it was a big ominous to you know, figure or train. Anyways, get up to the top, beautiful sun came up, you know, all the birds coming across the way, you know, the deer going back into the thickets out of the field, and then kind of did the spoting stock from there. So that’s what a lot of like the big game stuff was. It’s cool every year, six year a year. It was great.

00:47:57
Speaker 4: That’s also awesome.

00:47:58
Speaker 2: Yeah, I’ve been to Montana time hunting and uh as your first West with a guy, first Western hunt.

00:48:04
Speaker 1: Didn’t see, didn’t hear, but I had a blast. It was awesome.

00:48:08
Speaker 4: We were near Heron, Montana, oh, Heron Harron, so it’s more western.

00:48:13
Speaker 1: It was west.

00:48:13
Speaker 2: Yeah, West, it’s almost by almost too Idaho right there.

00:48:17
Speaker 1: Like, how do that’s crazy? I mean I’m from right right in that area. Yeah. So it’s always embarrassing they’re call you from Montana and then but it’s a big stake and then they say the wall towns.

00:48:27
Speaker 2: Yeah, They’re like it’s I don’t even know, I don’t even know if it was a town, you know, like they just call.

00:48:33
Speaker 4: Yeah it was tiny.

00:48:34
Speaker 1: So but man, it was awesome.

00:48:35
Speaker 2: It was terrible awes Uh No, it’s like seventeen oh really sixteen seven, seventeen out yep. So well, awesome boys, Yeah, okay, man, appreciate you guys coming out, and yeah, let’s get on a hunt.

00:48:48
Speaker 1: Let’s do it. Let’s do it.

00:48:49
Speaker 4: Take some beef chips back in the back country.

00:48:53
Speaker 1: You can make some fresh out of some venicon. There we go ahead, let’s do it.

00:48:55
Speaker 4: Elk, I’ve got venison out there.

00:48:57
Speaker 1: We can do it. We got out to backtrap.

00:48:58
Speaker 4: What what cut do you guys usually use?

00:49:01
Speaker 1: Yes, right now, use right now, We use inside round. Okay, it’s just it’s because it’s expensive, dude. Everything.

00:49:06
Speaker 2: Yeah, this is a prime or more prime cut of meat than you are, like with a jerky, right yeah, and so definitely yeah, ok yeah, man, they’re delicious.

00:49:14
Speaker 1: So they’re so good, They’re so good. Awesome, appreciate, I appreciate you guys. Thank you,