216 Hunter Gatherer - Collecting Protien From The Forests During SHTF

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Hunter-Gatherer - TOPS Bunker Original Limited Series.

The world wasn’t always, concrete and steel. Once, a long time ago, the night sky was our ceiling. The forest was our shelter. The hunt, was our heartbeat. Before empires, before machines, before the grid… there was only man, his will, and the wild.

“They” were the first survivors. The Hunter-Gatherers. Men and women who moved like shadows through endless forests. Tracking, foraging, trapping, fighting for every bite of life. They didn’t need electricity. They didn’t need convenience. And Survival, was their language.

Then, came the cities. The noise. The illusion of safety. We forgot what it meant to live by instinct. We traded skills for comfort and electric light and for the glow of our screens. But comfort is fragile and when it crumbles, only the old ways remain.

Imagine, the grid goes down. The world goes dark. The hum of the powerlines and Air Conditioners goes quiet. Civilization stumbles, and somewhere in that silence… something ancient stirs awake inside us. The pulse of the wild. The call of survival. The blood memory, of those who came before us.

The future, now belongs to those who remember the past. Those who can track, and forage, and fight, for life itself. Those who can once again become ,the hunter-gatherer.

Tonight, we dive into that world, as Jeremy, an avid Hunter, brings truth and reality to what it takes to be a Hunter-Gatherer during an SHTF event. If we want to survive, we must learn and master the lessons of our ancestors, and how their way of life may just be the key to surviving the collapse of our own.

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Transcript

Preppers… Survivalists… Off-Gridders… Homesteaders… and the like… 

Welcome… to TOPS Bunker…

A Podcast for Preppers

Our Email is… SHTF@Topsbunker.com

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Don’t forget to check the Show Notes, in your Podcast Player, for a link to help support the show, valuable products and gear, and extra info on this episode.

I want to thank y’all for joining us…

We’ve got a great show for ya…

… The world wasn’t always, concrete and steel. Once, a long time ago, the night sky, was our ceiling… the forest, was our shelter… the hunt, was our heartbeat. Before empires, before machines, before the grid… there was only man… his will… and the wild.

“They” were the first survivors. The Hunter-Gatherers. Men and women who moved like shadows through endless forests… tracking, foraging, trapping, fighting for every bite of life. They didn’t need electricity. They didn’t need convenience. And Survival, was their language.

Then, came the cities. The noise. The illusion of safety. We forgot what it meant to live by instinct. We traded skills for comfort and electric light and for the glow of our screens. But comfort is fragile and when it crumbles, only the old ways remain.

Imagine, the grid goes down. The world goes dark. The hum of the powerlines and Air Conditioners goes quiet. Civilization stumbles, and somewhere in that silence… something ancient stirs awake inside us. The pulse of the wild. The call of survival. The blood memory, of those who came before us.

The future, now belongs to those who remember the past.

Those who can track, and forage, and fight, for life itself.

Those who can once again become ,the hunter-gatherer.

Tonight, we dive into that world, as Jeremy, an avid Hunter, brings truth and reality to what it takes to be a Hunter-Gatherer during an SHTF event. If we want to survive, we must learn and master the lessons of our ancestors, and how their way of life may just be the key to surviving the collapse of our own.

This is Hunter-Gatherer, a TOPS Bunker limited series.

Keith
Well, I made hot sauces last week with habaneros and all kinds of red peppers and just really nice stuff. I made two, one a green sauce and one a red sauce. Rhonda loves the green sauce.

00:09:24.58
Jeremy
Hmm.

00:09:25.86
Keith
and i And I use, on that one, I use cilantro, lime, green jalapenos, and... ah And black pepper, she loves black pepper. So I made the sauce and it came out great.

00:09:36.31
Keith
And I made a red one too. Well, that was like on a, I think that was like on a Saturday morning, Sunday, I'm taking a shower in the morning and, and my eyes start burning. I'm like, what that, why is my eyes burning?

00:09:49.16
Keith
And then I smell my hands and it's the peppers. They were on my hands since the day before. And I had washed my hands dozens of times because i have chickens. I work, you know, with nasty stuff. So I'm constantly washing my hands.

00:09:58.43
Jeremy
yeah

00:09:59.82
Keith
That don't come off, man. That stuff is really hard to come off that oil.

00:10:03.98
Jeremy
yeah oh yeah yeah yeah so we'll uh keep pecking at the garden as long as it's it's producing stuff so so what are we talking about tonight

00:10:12.62
Keith
Right. That's right.

00:10:16.11
Keith
Well, we're doing hunter gatherer and I think it's that time of season now where hunters are really getting excited and it's probably already started. I think that like you said, uh, bow season has already started. And I think, uh, I want to say firearm season.

00:10:30.59
Keith
Actually, i think firearm season has started for youth here in my area. Yeah.

00:10:36.03
Jeremy
Yeah, so um we have our youth areas or youth dates. Right now we are in muzzleloader. um And during the the changes of your season type, so you start with your primitive weapon, which is your bow.

00:10:52.24
Jeremy
Here in North Carolina, we can use crossbows. um It used to be in a lot of states where only people who were handicapped or the elderly could use crossbows, but you know anybody can use them now.

00:11:05.38
Keith
So what you're saying, there's some places that don't let you use a crossbow.

00:11:05.81
Jeremy
um

00:11:08.49
Jeremy
Yeah, yeah, there are conditions.

00:11:09.61
Keith
Really?

00:11:10.21
Jeremy
Yeah, ah yeah. And it's because the way crossbows are designed nowadays, um I mean, they are, they're, they're stupid, powerful.

00:11:18.00
Keith
They're powerful.

00:11:20.71
Jeremy
Mine, my cry, have a crossbow and it's a lot of fun.

00:11:21.03
Keith
Right.

00:11:24.58
Jeremy
um And it's shooting at 450 FPS, which, you know, some people think, you know, that's not a lot.

00:11:29.79
Keith
Wow.

00:11:32.20
Jeremy
You're hurling an arrow.

00:11:33.57
Keith
Yeah.

00:11:34.76
Jeremy
at 450 feet per second. And I use mechanical broadheads.

00:11:38.94
Keith
And that's, and for now, yeah now are those called bolts or are those arrows?

00:11:43.31
Jeremy
Yeah, that's a bolt. It's a bolt.

00:11:45.08
Keith
Yeah. So they're like, it's like a deadly weapon, man.

00:11:45.88
Jeremy
Um, yeah, it is.

00:11:47.63
Keith
It's serious.

00:11:48.48
Jeremy
It's ridiculous. Um, I killed, I killed a deer last year with, uh, with a crossbow and, um she was, you know, it was a doe and it wasn't like a, um ah She wasn't tremendously big and a lot of the does around here are not, but ah the damage that it did when it passed through and it was a clean right through and through.

00:12:13.39
Jeremy
And you can always tell when you get a hit because most deer will buck like they kick their feet back. You know, they react very quickly, but she ran, i want to say not even 50 yards.

00:12:19.37
Keith
Yeah.

00:12:27.22
Jeremy
And you could just see on both sides. It was just a fountain, you know, just a fountain of blood.

00:12:31.60
Keith
Oh, ah you you hit the heart.

00:12:33.71
Jeremy
Yeah, actually. So, and it depends on what, you know, kind of weapon system you're using, but typically on a deer, when you are looking at the broad side of a deer, um, you want to aim just to the right and above the forward, you know, their forward shoulders, basically their front haunches.

00:12:51.90
Jeremy
And you want to, you have to be able to get past like their scapula. So on on a deer and the anatomy wise, when you are looking at it broadside,

00:12:57.26
Keith
Yeah.

00:13:03.60
Jeremy
We are scapula is basically in our back. So theirs extends above what would be their shoulder, that shoulder joint.

00:13:11.07
Keith
yeah

00:13:11.41
Jeremy
And, um, a lot of people make the mistake of one, they think that because the deer's head is down and it's eating, uh, that it's more vulnerable and it's actually not, um, they have an instinctual reaction when they are head down and eating the moment they hear a sound, their body drops and a lot of hunters will miss their shot, um, or pull off a bad, a bad shot, you know, where where the animal suffers, um, because they don't realize one, when they're bent down, their shoulder blades are a little higher and it's actually protecting the heart.

00:13:36.33
Keith
Right, right.

00:13:47.91
Jeremy
Um, but you want to get them broadside. You want to get them when they're standing. And the goal is to have a double lung hit. So it goes through and through both lungs. And if ideally you can actually, ah either penetrate or do damage to the heart.

00:14:05.22
Jeremy
Um, so if you're shooting bow or crossbow, um typically they, a lot of them don't drop instantaneously. Some do just depending on the hit.

00:14:16.22
Jeremy
Um, But you're trying to one, prevent the animal from suffering and two you know, minimize the amount of tracking that you have to do because tracking is really a skill that has to be developed over time.

00:14:29.81
Jeremy
um

00:14:30.18
Keith
Mm-hmm.

00:14:30.76
Jeremy
So anyway, so you you you go from archery into muzzleloader while you're in muzzleloader, you can still shoot archery. And when you go into rifle, you can utilize all three.

00:14:44.15
Jeremy
Um, here in North Carolina, we also have, you can, you can hunt shotgun as well, depending on the area that you're in. And, um, there are requirements for shooting shotgun here. You can't use, anything that you have to use a rifled slug.

00:15:02.07
Jeremy
So you have to have the proper barrel for that, you know? Um, but a lot of hunters ah surprisingly as popular as archery is a lot of hunters will not hunt archery.

00:15:13.35
Jeremy
Um, and they'll just wait until rifle season, but there's so much to be able to get done during, during your, your archery season. I'd say I love archery season.

00:15:23.61
Keith
You mean done meaning out at your, at your place.

00:15:23.75
Jeremy
So

00:15:26.69
Jeremy
yeah So all the, all of your work has to be done beforehand. So setting up your areas, ah you know, scouting, looking for sign, you know, doing the things that need to be done.

00:15:40.72
Jeremy
to ensure that you have success. And of course, a lot of it's luck, but um you want to have success. So you get the work done prior to, um if that means clearing out lanes, if that means putting down food plots earlier in the spring, which, you know, a lot of larger places with open land will do that because it attracts deer.

00:16:01.40
Jeremy
it It creates a ah semi-permanent feeding structure for deer So a lot of, you know, farmers who that hunt their property, they'll have a smaller area set aside to um basically provide the nutrition to the deer year round. And they watch those areas and they scout it. and And, you know, it's not necessarily guaranteed success, but it improves your success.

00:16:26.74
Keith
Yeah.

00:16:27.00
Jeremy
And if you're someone like me, i all of my All of my days of really looking for that big buck with you know a great antlers and all that stuff, my those those days are done for me.

00:16:40.21
Jeremy
If I happen to see one, great. If not, my intent is to fill our freezer with meat. So our entire family hunts. And... um and it's And it's really great because our kids have a a really rooted structure that they need to hunt to provide. It's not just a sport. It's not just that it's exciting, which it is.

00:17:03.12
Jeremy
But there's a purpose behind it. And if you looked at beef prices, over they're like especially during the last administration, beef prices were completely outrageous.

00:17:14.88
Jeremy
So, yeah.

00:17:15.23
Keith
Ridiculous.

00:17:17.15
Jeremy
So, you know, we've got we've got meat in our freezer. We've got probably, I don't know, probably a year to a year and a half's worth of meat still in our freezer. And that's from the last two seasons.

00:17:28.39
Jeremy
So, yeah, you know, and that also comes down to your storage, you know, because I did put out a video on the Facebook page.

00:17:28.99
Keith
Wow. Wow.

00:17:35.71
Jeremy
how I was taking apart that one deer, separating the different muscle groups and, you know, cutting up different parts.

00:17:38.68
Keith
Mm-hmm.

00:17:42.00
Jeremy
If you get it sealed up properly, because air is the death of meat in a freezer. So vacuum sealing, removing all the air, creating an enclosed environment, putting it in the freezer that helps prevent a lot of that, you know, freezer burn.

00:17:57.83
Jeremy
um

00:17:58.19
Keith
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

00:17:59.06
Jeremy
But I mean, as far as meat goes, venison and ah the deer family are is some of the most healthy meat that you can consume.

00:18:09.80
Jeremy
It really is. The only problem is is that they're not fatty, unless you're shooting like a moose or an elk, you know, or something like that. Regular white-tailed deer, they are definitely not fatty.

00:18:21.35
Jeremy
um

00:18:22.96
Keith
And there's elk shoot there's elk hunting actually here in Missouri.

00:18:23.08
Jeremy
So,

00:18:25.68
Keith
They brought elk in years ago, i think back in the 80s or 90s or something like that.

00:18:29.13
Jeremy
yeah, yeah.

00:18:30.22
Keith
And they've been building up the, you know, building them up.

00:18:33.48
Jeremy
Yeah. And a lot of the elk herds that were there're there, it's a reintroduction plan. So elk, unfortunately, sort of like, you know, the Buffalo sort of like a lot of the the animals that we have here in North Carolina, settlers, you know, going west, um they decimated, you know, populations of animals. A lot of it, not necessarily for consumption, but for sport and for their hides.

00:19:02.02
Jeremy
And it's an unfortunate reality that ah many ah herds of elk and moose and animals like that were almost hunted out of extinction in some areas.

00:19:13.98
Jeremy
um But kind of like with a yellowstone the elk population had become so overgrown, the herd health was bad. the The health of the environment itself was bad because there was no hunting allowed.

00:19:30.13
Jeremy
at that time and over yeah and that's that's the thing about it hunting is also needed and a lot of people who you know the peta folks are out there and i and i get it but but they don't realize or take into account that as if deer type animals in that family your white tails your muleys your elk your moose caribou all of those animals

00:19:31.13
Keith
So you're talking about overpopulation.

00:19:56.96
Jeremy
They will populate themselves out. They will die if the herd health is not is not adhered to. And that's where hunters come in. Hunting is needed to control the population of game animals.

00:20:11.80
Jeremy
So we have a ton of deer here, right? And there's always going to, well, I say that, and we'll get into that in a little bit, but there should technically be always a bunch of deer here.

00:20:23.58
Jeremy
um But the thing is, is that if there's too many, they're competing for resources, they're competing for food, they're competing for the same things that people compete for. And during certain times of the year, deer are super dumb, especially your males. They go absolutely buck wild.

00:20:44.53
Jeremy
And that's what we call the rut. And during the rut, they will attack each other. They'll attack us. They'll attack a car. Why do you think people have pictures out there of a deer that impaled itself on a car, you know, 60 miles an hour because Sometimes bucks, they just can't control themselves.

00:21:04.04
Jeremy
um But hunting, it is.

00:21:05.66
Keith
That's that's crazy.

00:21:07.26
Jeremy
Yeah, just Google that and you'll see like an entire deer that attacked a vehicle while it was moving. And it's just ridiculous. um But the hunting of deer animals and game animals is necessary to control the size of those herds.

00:21:27.16
Jeremy
And by controlling the size of the herd, you increase the health of the herd. So if you wean out some of the females, like we like here I can take four does and two bucks, or what we're actually they're called antlered or non-antlered deer.

00:21:43.77
Jeremy
um And you have to take out some of the does. I know people disagree with that. I know that they they're like, well, what about you know the babies? And I've said this before, hunting season is designed where the by the time hunting season starts, those fawns that were born in the spring are now able to take care of themselves and wean off of mother's milk by the time hunting season starts.

00:22:10.42
Jeremy
So... As long as you have hunters out there that are ethical, right, and they're actually doing the right thing, they can definitely spot the difference between mature doe, a young doe, and a fawn.

00:22:23.41
Jeremy
So you take out some of those older does, which pushes the younger does into estrus and allows them to breed. And by allowing them to breed, you're introducing new stock into those herds.

00:22:38.95
Jeremy
And by taking out your older males, you know, and culling them, you're allowing the opportunity for other bucks to come in and actually breed because not every, not every buck gets to breed.

00:22:51.37
Jeremy
Not, not of all, you know, nobody, nobody is guaranteeing that those guys are out there doing their thing. They're going to try and they're going to fight. But in reality, the female controls the breeding cycle.

00:23:05.26
Jeremy
They control who's going to actually get to breed with them. um And that is why you see videos and pictures of bucks fighting. That's why they lock up.

00:23:16.59
Jeremy
That's why they do the thing that they do because they are competing for the, for the dominance of the herd. But they're also ensuring that the strongest one usually is going to be able to breed with that female and create a really strong, healthy deer for the next generation and so on and so forth.

00:23:36.11
Keith
that's That's nature. mean

00:23:37.65
Jeremy
Yeah.

00:23:38.14
Keith
you know we We look at it as being like, you know in in the human society, we look at it as women being like, oh, the gold diggers or this and that. But it is in it's inbred that the women look for the a man that will will provide the best provider for their their children, you know that sort of thing.

00:23:46.88
Jeremy
Yeah.

00:23:54.38
Keith
it's it's it's in It's in our nature. And then, of course, with men, it's in our nature to... sorry to say this, but to spread your seed, you know, and, and yeah and that's, that's where the buck wild comes into, you know, comes into play, you know, in in a normal, and normal society, we know what to do.

00:24:02.52
Jeremy
Yeah. Yeah.

00:24:07.59
Jeremy
yeah

00:24:09.91
Keith
The deer don't, but I could say you this from living out in the woods.

00:24:11.45
Jeremy
yeah

00:24:14.12
Keith
ah I see the animals now. And my first year living here was a learning experience. And the second year I'm starting to understand it now. And I can see like the population, like after hunting season, they're gone, man, you don't see them.

00:24:29.07
Jeremy
Yeah.

00:24:29.13
Keith
They're like, they just disappear. And then the closer and closer you get, like today on my way to way to town, you know, I'm 20 minutes in the woods before I get to the main highway. I must've seen 20, 25 different, you know, ah deer, animals out there.

00:24:42.48
Jeremy
Yeah.

00:24:42.61
Keith
You don't see that, you know, six, eight months ago. You don't see that.

00:24:46.42
Jeremy
um And it again, it does depend on your area. You guys have some healthy size deer out there. um Our deer out here, typically, i mean, they're not enormous, but they're not tiny.

00:24:59.14
Jeremy
You know, when I was stationed in Georgia, the deer are a lot smaller. You have your random, you know, large, large ones, depending on the area of Georgia. Um, but when I was stationed there, I mean, I could literally, i could fill my whole tag in one, one day if I wanted to, that's how many deer are there.

00:25:17.13
Jeremy
Um, but the,

00:25:17.99
Keith
so yeah So talk about that, though, in a minute when you can. Talk about that the tag part and and how and how that works.

00:25:21.55
Jeremy
yeah.

00:25:24.07
Jeremy
So each state is different. um Here in North Carolina, like I said, you can take four antlerless and two antlered. And the reason they started referring to them as antlered and antlerless is every once in a while, genetic mutation, you will find a female deer with antlers.

00:25:44.24
Jeremy
And sometimes you will find a male deer with none. um or you will find where their antlers grow wonky.

00:25:54.89
Jeremy
A lot of it has to do with genetics and unfortunately inbreeding and stuff like that. And that's another reason why you try to eliminate some of those older bucks to remove them from the area to get new bucks to come in.

00:26:10.27
Jeremy
what that does is that kind of cleans up that gene pool because there there is inbreeding in the animal kingdom. happens. Um, but the thing is, is that, and again, every state is different.

00:26:23.08
Jeremy
And like, even here, if you want to go help hunt elk up in the mountains, it is a draw. You actually register. It's basically playing the lottery. Um, that is the way it is in a lot of States like Colorado, Wyoming and stuff like that. They're hunting for larger game animals is controlled from a draw.

00:26:41.20
Jeremy
You actually enter a lottery, um But their population is completely different.

00:26:47.09
Keith
So does that mean that there are more hunters than there are animals?

00:26:50.23
Jeremy
Yes. Yeah.

00:26:51.23
Keith
Ah, okay.

00:26:51.48
Jeremy
Yeah. But here, when you get your tags for, you know, for what then they consider a big game here is deer are big game here, which not every state considers, you know, deer to be a big game animal.

00:27:02.42
Keith
Yeah.

00:27:06.32
Keith
Right, right.

00:27:07.73
Jeremy
um But we get four antlerless and two antlered. And again, that population or that ratio is what I talked about by removing some of those those does and you're older your older males in order to you know increase the herd health by introducing allowing a new animal to come in.

00:27:28.00
Jeremy
So like and in the property that I've been hunting for years, I've got two main bucks right now. um One of them looks to me to be about maybe three, three and a half years old.

00:27:40.88
Jeremy
um He's what we call a tall six. So he's got a good body, but his aunt...

00:27:45.93
Keith
Hold ah hold on one second. i'm getting We're getting that dog.

00:27:49.52
Jeremy
Oh yeah, that's their...

00:27:51.03
Keith
It's loud it's like louder than your voice, so I'm going to have to cut all that anyway. so we Not all of it, but some of the last couple sentences.

00:27:57.83
Jeremy
Hold on a sec. Okay. So we stopped. So what I was saying is um you're your deer population by you know males and females, they do have to be controlled.

00:28:10.67
Jeremy
Hold on a sec. Give me 30 seconds. I'm going to close the door. Hold on.

00:28:14.07
Keith
Yep, go ahead.

00:28:14.70
Jeremy
This damn dog.

00:28:36.06
Jeremy
I'm going to be glad when that puppy is not a puppy. So, okay. And three, two, one. So the population, again, it's got to be controlled and deer do compete over resources.

00:28:52.34
Jeremy
Just like we do, like I mentioned earlier. So right now on the property that I've been hunting for years, I've got two main bucks. And one of them I call a small six. So he's probably about like two.

00:29:05.30
Jeremy
um maybe two and a half, and then I have what's called tall six. He's still a six-point buck, meaning that he has his main tines, and he has a total of six points that are coming off of those his actual antlers.

00:29:22.86
Jeremy
um The tall six, probably about three and a half. I mean, i don't know if he's quite four. I don't think he's four. um He's nocturnal right now.

00:29:34.49
Jeremy
And year your buck population is funny because for the majority of the year, um they're actually in what's called bachelor groups. So they hang out together, they're buddies.

00:29:46.57
Jeremy
um And they drop their antlers and then they're buddies again. But during the rut, like they you can see this change in them. They start to thicken up, their neck gets bigger.

00:29:58.10
Jeremy
um And they start eating a lot because going into the rut, they actually don't eat a lot. And the reason being is they're chasing down females. They're looking for females. They want to breed. They've gone completely out of their mind.

00:30:11.88
Jeremy
And that. is the most exciting time because bucks who are in the rut are willing to do stupid things. They come out at stupid times because their brain isn't quite wired right anymore.

00:30:27.70
Jeremy
The caution that they've had kind of goes away and they're willing to come out during odd times to look for does to be able to mate with them. um And that's what we call lockdown.

00:30:40.48
Jeremy
Once they've found a doe, right, or a couple of does, they are in the process of mating and they mate like a lot. And um that's what we call the lockdown phase. Right now we are in what we call pre-lockdown.

00:30:57.63
Jeremy
So they're still eating. They're still out. The smaller six right now, he he is starting to thicken up. Like he's getting big in the neck, I can tell. But hit the back of the legs, what you start looking for is this black, oily substance. It's disgusting. It smells awful.

00:31:15.75
Jeremy
But it starts to develop out of these glands on the back of their legs. And that musky smell is what they use to mark areas, to communicate, you know, kind of like a lot of animals do.

00:31:27.69
Jeremy
um But that bigger one, When I start to see him come out during the day, ah then I definitely know the rut is about to be on.

00:31:40.49
Jeremy
um And that's an exciting time.

00:31:41.09
Keith
Because normally they are like dusk and dawn type animals, right?

00:31:44.45
Jeremy
Yes, yes.

00:31:44.97
Keith
In the middle of the they just disappear.

00:31:47.05
Jeremy
Yeah, yeah. During the day, during the heat of the day, you're not going to find deer. I mean, and if you do, if you do find a deer out there in the middle of the day during the heat,

00:31:53.59
Keith
Could be something wrong with it.

00:31:55.29
Jeremy
Well, it could be, um or it could be that it's just hungry. you know Maybe he got up from a nap and he's like, oh my God, I need to eat you know and just start going and looking for food. And that's you know that's why a lot of us use you know food plots or where we use, like I use corn.

00:32:10.51
Jeremy
not going lie, I use corn. I use it on private property though. I don't you know go out to you know public game lands and use corn or anything like that. um But you can use attractants, you can use smells, you can use scents, you can do those kinds of things.

00:32:26.19
Jeremy
um My grandfather taught me when I was a kid, keep a rock ah bunch of rocks in your pocket, small rocks, and you actually chuck them from your stand. And it sounds like acorns hitting the ground.

00:32:36.66
Jeremy
So, you know, deer love acorns because they're fatty. and that's one of their biggest meals that they're looking for. And you you actually trick them into thinking that there's acorns falling on the ground.

00:32:48.25
Jeremy
And you bring them in that way.

00:32:48.38
Keith
You know, it's, it's, it's acorn season right now, man. And we have, you know, met we have metal roofs, you know, and on all of our buildings and you just hear them all day.

00:32:51.59
Jeremy
Yeah. Yeah. Oh, yeah.

00:32:56.12
Keith
Bang, boom, bang, you know

00:32:59.35
Jeremy
Yeah. um But again, there's there's a million and one ways to do it. But it's the excitement of it for me, personally. um I've got game cameras out right now. you know I'm watching these guys building patterns. um I have not been successful the past couple of times ah that I've been out, but there were extenuating circumstances. like I've got these guys that like to cause problems every time they know I'm out there hunting. That's one thing.

00:33:27.56
Jeremy
that's one thing but Um, there's, there's the, the, the necessity of hunting now, now for us preppers and people who are, you know, into preparedness and, you know, know that something is going to happen in the future, there's going to be a completely different reality.

00:33:46.59
Jeremy
i think, um, I think that the, again, I've talked about the romanticized idea of, you know, disappearing in the woods and, you know, living off the land and all these things. And the, you know, I, I, I try to tell people that's not realistic thinking.

00:34:03.06
Jeremy
Um, everybody, you know, who watched red dawn coming up like me, you you know, thinking the same thing that they're just going disappear in the woods and build themselves their own little cabin and all this mess.

00:34:16.69
Jeremy
um They're going to live off the land and hunt animals. And that's how they're going to live for the rest of your life. Everybody else who thinks that they're going to go into the woods and hunt the animals is going to be doing exactly the same thing.

00:34:30.28
Jeremy
And When stuff does hit the fan, if if there, let's just say, for instance, the collapse that we always talk about without rule of law, nobody's going to be paying attention to seasons anymore.

00:34:43.43
Jeremy
Nobody's going to be paying attention to regulations anymore. And they're just trying to feed themselves and their families. So what are they going to do? Any opportunity that they can to kill an animal that they know that they can consume, that's what they're going to do.

00:34:58.97
Jeremy
And I've talked about the book One Second After, and it kind of hits on that, where theyre they they have a group of individuals who and their whole intent is to go and do some hunting and bring the meat back.

00:35:14.37
Jeremy
Well, in the book, it talks about everything's almost hunted out of existence. And I think that that's a reality. I think that given enough people who are not prepared, but they do hunt, or let's just say they get ahold of a gun and they've got this notion, i can kill an animal and I can eat said animal, they're gonna be in the woods trying to do that.

00:35:35.30
Jeremy
And they're going to kill off deer and bear and all the major game animals in a rather rapid fashion.

00:35:46.39
Jeremy
And I think that people really don't think about and just how quickly that can happen. um And again, I go back to settlers that were traveling west back in the eighteen hundreds They slaughtered millions upon millions upon millions of buffalo, and they almost died out completely, almost went extinct.

00:36:07.02
Jeremy
And that same thing of hunting um in excess, I think, is a reality that most people don't think about.

00:36:18.62
Jeremy
um That's why we store what we eat or what we kill. we And I have a strict policy in our house, at least, that we will consume or utilize as much of that animal that we possibly can.

00:36:35.23
Jeremy
Because one, to do anything less than that is a disrespect to the animal itself.

00:36:40.06
Keith
Agreed.

00:36:40.22
Jeremy
um But two, you've got to be able to utilize that whole animal. you know In the old days, the entirety of the animal was used. The skin, the tendons, the bones, the antlers, the blood, everything that was inside of that animal was utilized by the natives and by other early people that came here.

00:37:03.86
Jeremy
um And a lot of people don't really think about that. The stomach, you know, the stomach was the head.

00:37:09.30
Keith
The head. They would cook the whole head and you can eat everything in it.

00:37:11.67
Jeremy
Yeah. Yeah. You can eat the brain. Now, personally, I don't want to eat deer brain. I mean, <unk>s it's, it doesn't sound, I've had pig's brain, not appealing. It's not great.

00:37:22.51
Jeremy
um But everything inside of that animal and on the outside was cleaned up and used. They used to use the the stomach to actually carry water and carry other stuff.

00:37:32.62
Keith
Right. That's right.

00:37:33.48
Jeremy
They would clean it.

00:37:34.01
Keith
Yeah.

00:37:34.36
Jeremy
They would wash it. They would remove the membrane. And it's an elastic bag. That's right. It's really what it is. um The liver inside of a deer, when you pull out the liver and you look at it, and I think I showed that in that video from from last year, um but what you're looking for is it's a deep, dark red.

00:37:54.26
Jeremy
And again, when you start talking about foods that correlate with you know what you're trying to energize in your own body, I do not like liver, but the liver is one of the most prized pieces inside of a lot of game animals, especially for predatory animals.

00:38:10.60
Jeremy
That's one of the first things they go for is the livers.

00:38:12.42
Keith
i I like liver.

00:38:14.54
Jeremy
I mean, it's not my not my top. I will eat it if I have to, um but you got to dress it up for me.

00:38:18.70
Keith
um

00:38:23.88
Keith
Of course.

00:38:24.60
Jeremy
um

00:38:24.64
Keith
Yeah.

00:38:25.04
Jeremy
But that's like that's like the heart. A lot of people will not eat heart. I've eaten heart. It's just another muscle group inside of there.

00:38:32.38
Keith
Well, the only heart that I've eaten is from from turkeys and I guess chickens, but but turkeys and I love it.

00:38:32.50
Jeremy
um

00:38:36.69
Jeremy
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, that's, but those, those are, you know, the size of a, what?

00:38:42.17
Keith
They're tiny.

00:38:42.92
Jeremy
Yeah. They're tiny. A deer heart.

00:38:44.42
Keith
and i In my household, as a kid growing up, I i was the i always got the heart. air Everybody's like, save the heart for Keith.

00:38:48.55
Jeremy
Yeah.

00:38:49.70
Keith
And I'm like, hell yeah. yeah

00:38:50.58
Jeremy
Yeah. A deer heart is not tiny. It is. It's a large piece of meat.

00:38:54.61
Keith
and but he But it's the same thing.

00:38:54.66
Jeremy
Yeah.

00:38:55.85
Keith
You can cook it and eat it.

00:38:57.12
Jeremy
Yeah. Yeah. You gotta, to you gotta, you gotta do some stuff to it.

00:38:57.89
Keith
Nice.

00:39:00.73
Jeremy
You gotta, to it has connective tissue in there as well. Um, but once you get it cleaned up and you actually start slicing across, it's just another, it's just another muscle, you know? um but I, I have a strict policy about utilizing as much of the the deer that we possibly can.

00:39:19.58
Jeremy
Um, and you, I want to maximize, uh, as much meat as we can get out of that one animal. So you've got your larger pieces of meat, you got your roast, you got your steaks. And of course, everybody wants the backstrap.

00:39:32.84
Jeremy
um I actually chastised a young man because it's the only thing he wanted. He's like, oh, I just want the backstrap. I'm going to throw the rest away. I was like, you're out of your damn mind.

00:39:42.16
Keith
Everybody talks about the backstrap. What's the big deal? Is it like the most tender meat or something?

00:39:46.87
Jeremy
um Some people think it is That's the tenderloin. So it's, you know, it's the back of the animal.

00:39:50.55
Keith
Okay.

00:39:53.62
Jeremy
So as you travel along the spine, um there's one on each side, but there's actually technically two more on the inside.

00:39:56.24
Keith
There's one on each side, right?

00:40:02.63
Jeremy
So if you were looking in the reverse angle through looking at the rib cage opened up and you go down towards the hind quarters, there's two, some people call them the scallops, but there's two more tenderloins on the inside that you can get. And they're extremely tender.

00:40:19.03
Jeremy
um So um again, the reality of hunting during SHTF or without rule of law or the you know the collapse, I think that it'll go good for a very short amount of time.

00:40:32.70
Jeremy
And when I say short, my guess, and this is just an opinion, within, i would say, two to three years maximum. And that's ah that's being generous. Most game animals that people would go looking for are not going to be available and they're going to be so pressured by so many people who have the same idea they're going to become almost reclusive to the point of being completely nocturnal um and deer very much nocturnal animals sometimes um they are driven

00:41:03.83
Keith
i think I think what's going to happen, i didn't mean to cut you off, sorry, but I think in a grid down situation, soon as you get into a long-term, like as soon as we know it's this is a problem and we need to start hunting, I have a feeling that you're going to see communities put out security and and on the edge of their areas, their hunting areas, to keep people out.

00:41:24.92
Jeremy
Yeah. yeah

00:41:27.23
Keith
And I'm pretty sure when there's no rule of law, that is a shoot-to-kill situation.

00:41:32.39
Jeremy
Yeah.

00:41:33.36
Keith
You know, just it's just going to be that way.

00:41:33.39
Jeremy
Yeah. And yeah.

00:41:35.12
Keith
They're going to protect their food.

00:41:37.41
Jeremy
And, and, you know, some, some individuals who were lucky and like, say you have an, ah an expansive piece that you have fenced and you've created gaps, you know, for animals to come in and out.

00:41:50.79
Jeremy
those individuals might be lucky enough to be able to sustain herds inside of their property as long as those herds have the resources that they need.

00:42:01.61
Jeremy
um But yes, that's the other, that's the big part.

00:42:02.52
Keith
And as long as they can protect their property.

00:42:06.12
Jeremy
And again, this kind of goes back to how dangerous a lone, you know, quote unquote lone wolf mentality can be because, One person cannot pull security 24 hours a day and do all of the work necessary.

00:42:20.29
Keith
That's right. That's right.

00:42:20.89
Jeremy
You just, it can't be done. um That's why at groups, you know, mutual assistant groups, the things that we always talk about, that's why it's so important because you're not just trying to protect your land, like your castle.

00:42:34.47
Jeremy
You're also trying to protect the resources that are on that land and the animals that you hunt and consume are part of those resources. um And again, this also goes to, you know, what people think they wouldn't consume now as compared to what they're going to want to consume like anything they can get a hold of and this is where we start talking about squirrels and birds and stuff like that squirrels let's talk about that i actually like squirrel it's uh-oh did i mute did i ah

00:43:05.52
Keith
So you didn't mute yourself, but I definitely do not hear you right now. There you go. There you go

00:43:12.81
Jeremy
do i get the thing

00:43:14.91
Keith
go. I don't know because I was, I was watching and the mute didn't come on. So you must have maybe muted your mic or something like your actual microphone.

00:43:20.01
Jeremy
And now i think the screen went dark and it's sometimes it just, I don't know.

00:43:24.64
Keith
Oh, okay.

00:43:26.04
Jeremy
That's weird.

00:43:26.81
Keith
That was a, that was a glitch.

00:43:27.16
Jeremy
Um, yeah, the matrix, it has us. Um, but, um, squirrels are, I think very tasty. I like them.

00:43:37.67
Jeremy
Um, they're a lot tougher than people think that they are. Um, there's not a lot of meat on them, but the meat that you do get off of them is quite tasty in my opinion.

00:43:48.68
Jeremy
um And even though it can be gamey and it can be tough, if you slow cook them and you do it over a period of time, you get a better taste. That's what I think.

00:44:00.55
Jeremy
um You know, birds like doves. We've talked about doves before. You don't get a lot of meat from a dove. But if you have 20 or 30 doves, then you've got a good meal.

00:44:12.12
Jeremy
um One of the things that I do is i will actually in my backyard,

00:44:16.19
Keith
if you If you have potatoes and tomatoes and peppers to go along with it, you got a meal.

00:44:18.45
Jeremy
Oh, dude. Well, that's what ah yeah that's what I was about to say. So I do what's called wild stew. um I will take, say, like eight squirrels. And if I can get enough doves, say 15 to 20 doves, I'll get them all cleaned up and do all that.

00:44:34.49
Jeremy
And then I'll put them in either a crock or a large pot, and I will just put it on low and I will simmer them over many, many hours. um put some seasoning in there, just kind of just do it that way. And after a couple of hours, that meat just falls right off the bones.

00:44:50.00
Jeremy
um And a lot of people also, they, they have this idea in their head that, you know, you're just going to put a whole animal in there and you're going to get a bunch of bones. That's, you separate the bones, but the connective tissue and the tendons and those things over time and heat, they actually break down.

00:45:07.70
Jeremy
um And that's why, you know, when you start to like, when you set meat some like a meal aside and it gets cooled off and you see that gelatinous jelly, That was at one point in time, that was the connective tissue and the tendons and the sinew that were binding all of that stuff together that broke down.

00:45:27.70
Jeremy
So that gelatinous like jelly from some meats that you set aside, that's what that was and fat and stuff like that.

00:45:31.22
Keith
Right.

00:45:34.56
Jeremy
But like squirrels don't have a lot of fat on them.

00:45:37.66
Keith
Right.

00:45:37.72
Jeremy
They're tree, they're tree rats, you know, um, doves don't have a lot of fat on them. They're, they're birds.

00:45:43.47
Keith
The thing is, they're they're healthy. I mean, the squirrels don't eat meat.

00:45:45.70
Jeremy
Yeah.

00:45:47.62
Keith
they're They're healthy. They eat nuts and you know stuff and and insects and things like that.

00:45:49.65
Jeremy
they Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But the thing is, is that now, and and this is where we have to kind of delve into that part and we'll start like, you know, historically, um you know, Columbus days has passed, you know, when those guys came over here and even the Spaniards, when they got here, 1490, you know, 1492, they're in that timeframe.

00:46:10.12
Jeremy
um They saw the the rabbits running around and they were killing rabbits left and right because there were so many of them and that tasted good. The problem is they were still starving to death. And there are some animals that have almost no nutritional value whatsoever because they have absolutely no fat on their body.

00:46:28.27
Jeremy
um Deer are not fatty animals. You have to introduce a fat source into them into your cooking with them or you're just going to get dry meat. You can still eat you can still eat it

00:46:42.33
Keith
Okay, so how does a how does a prepper prep for that? i mean, what what what would you add to, let's say ah let's say, because I have heard that too, where you you could actually you could actually be unhealthy and and and eating rabbit, nothing but rabbit.

00:46:50.50
Jeremy
Mm-hmm.

00:46:54.64
Jeremy
You could be, yeah, you could be eating well and still starve to death. And here's why. As a prepper, there's a lot of things that people set aside. You know, we we set aside these emergency rations or we can or we, you know, do all the things.

00:47:11.42
Jeremy
problem is not a lot of people store fat because some people, because up for over the years, you know people have been told fat's bad for you. That's a lie. and that's great You need fat in your body. You need it.

00:47:25.64
Jeremy
And especially when you when you're waking up during the day, fats and proteins in the morning are super duper important. And a lot of people, they set fat aside and they just get rid of it or they give it to their dogs.

00:47:41.46
Jeremy
Instead, you should be rendering rendering your own tallow. And you can do that on your own. Or you can go to a butcher shop because, you know, a lot of people, they buy a steak. They don't want a bunch of fat on it.

00:47:52.95
Jeremy
So you go to a butcher shop and you say, hey, yeah I want to buy x amount of pounds of fat. And that just gives you x amount of pounds of cow fat.

00:48:01.70
Keith
Is that right?

00:48:01.77
Jeremy
you wreck Yeah, you render your own tallow. Tallow, natural tallow.

00:48:05.87
Keith
Which means boiling it down.

00:48:08.01
Jeremy
Yes, you boil it down and then it's ah it's just a process.

00:48:08.86
Keith
Okay.

00:48:11.43
Jeremy
So you take this fat, you cut it up, put it in a large pot and you boil it and you you're not like, not like a hard boil, but a simmery boil, you know, like a low boil.

00:48:21.16
Keith
Right, right.

00:48:21.32
Jeremy
And you do that and you stir it and you know, those, this is where you get your cracklings, you know, that's where you get that stuff from. And then you set it aside, let it cool and harden. You flip that over and you'll see what looks like dirtier fat on the bottom.

00:48:35.63
Jeremy
You scrape that off. You melt that fat back down with a little bit of water and you go through this process a couple of times and you'll end up with pure lard.

00:48:47.32
Jeremy
Tallow is lard, lard is tallow. And for many, many years, people bought you know large things of lard and you know that that's when they started telling telling you everything fatty is bad.

00:48:58.87
Jeremy
That's not the case. You have to have fat and in your cooking. You have to have some kind of fat source.

00:49:05.69
Keith
There's an old time prepper I saw come on on a commercial one time. He's like some famous guy. He said that lard is like your is like a prepper's superfood.

00:49:13.98
Jeremy
Yeah.

00:49:14.44
Keith
Like you need to have it.

00:49:14.74
Jeremy
Yeah.

00:49:15.56
Keith
Like you should you should be storing it.

00:49:17.43
Jeremy
Yeah. And it lasts for a very, very long time. I don't know, um you know, the reality of the shelf life, but I do know it's quite some time. um You know, good old Crisco lard. i don't, you know, commercialized lard.

00:49:31.08
Jeremy
I'm always a little bit they weary of, you know. Yeah.

00:49:34.75
Keith
Well, it has preservatives in it, I think.

00:49:36.64
Jeremy
yeah But yeah, rendering

00:49:37.46
Keith
The store-bought one.

00:49:39.80
Jeremy
your own homemade tallow, you know, your own lard is one of the best ways to go. um And learning how to make your own butter. You know, if, if you have access to the cream, when the, when you, a lot of people don't realize if you set milk aside and it separates and you have the, the, the way in the, in the, in the cream and the cream comes at the top, you get, take that. And that's where, when you see those, you know, in the old times and they're churning the butter.

00:50:06.00
Jeremy
What they're doing is they just took the cream portion of the milk. They put it in that churn and literally butter is just, it's, it's, it's, it's the cream that was beat into submission. That's where butter comes from.

00:50:20.09
Jeremy
Natural butter, like homemade natural butter is fricking amazing. And you can season it any way you want.

00:50:26.24
Keith
And it's really good for you to

00:50:27.51
Jeremy
Yes. It's extremely good for you. And it's so easy. i have, I got to learn how to do it. I haven't done it yet. I want to learn how, But from what I have gathered is is you can literally season your butter that you've made any way you want.

00:50:43.46
Jeremy
If you've got herbs from the garden that you want to dress that butter up with, you can do that. You know, if you just want regular...

00:50:49.93
Keith
you're say that but ron Rhonda did that this week with with the herbs from the from the garden and it was amazing.

00:50:53.89
Jeremy
ah really?

00:50:54.89
Keith
Yes.

00:50:55.37
Jeremy
Nice. Well, that's like...

00:50:56.52
Keith
So I made home homemade bread and we smeared it on there and some toast. And it was like, whoa, that's that's like, you can't get that in a grocery store, man.

00:51:03.15
Jeremy
No. and And some people will, you know they spend a lot of money on it, but like there's a brand, Kerry, they make what's called Kreuter butter. you know it's It's from Germany and it's seasoned butter. you know they they They put you know natural herbs and whatnot in there.

00:51:19.79
Jeremy
um But if you can make your own butter, if you have the ability to do that during you know a collapse kind of situation, um just do that.

00:51:30.53
Jeremy
But if not, you're going to have to learn how to render fat. And rendering fat is is is going to be very, very important. And it's going to carry its weight in gold. um

00:51:41.43
Keith
So I heard that, you know, rendering fat down could also be used for like oil lanterns or or or candle wicks or stuff like that.

00:51:47.73
Jeremy
Oh, my gosh. dude Natural tallow can be used for so many things. It is one of the best skincare products out there.

00:51:54.62
Keith
Preservative for your your leather, like your boots, your gloves, things like that.

00:51:56.83
Jeremy
Yeah.

00:51:59.11
Jeremy
Yeah. A little bit of tallow goes a whole long way. um But you got to have, when it comes to deer animals or, you know, those kind of larger game animals, you have to have, you got to have some fat or else it's just going to be dry, dry, dry.

00:52:13.66
Jeremy
and And again, yeah.

00:52:13.94
Keith
So yeah yeah, and you add that in when you're cooking?

00:52:16.26
Jeremy
Yeah. So what I do like right now, for instance,

00:52:16.60
Keith
Okay.

00:52:19.84
Jeremy
um when i cut away my when i cut away my bigger portions of meat and i set that aside my scrap is what i call my burger pile so i'm going to ground that up into either what we call burger or you know so sausage or whatever when i go through the process of grinding that meat i actually grind in pork sausage with it so

00:52:41.69
Keith
oh

00:52:42.43
Jeremy
Yeah, because pork sausage is very fatty already.

00:52:42.79
Keith
Oh... is fatty. Yeah.

00:52:45.75
Jeremy
So one, it adds a ah nice sort of layer of of flavor to it.

00:52:46.61
Keith
Mm-hmm.

00:52:51.95
Jeremy
um But two, it's it's you're you're not having having to add any extra fat because your fat is coming from the pork sausage. So that's a great way to do it. And you know i i tried my hand at making sausage. It didn't, I don't know, it just didn't look right.

00:53:09.22
Jeremy
Like, I don't know how to explain it, but it looked, I don't know, lumpy. It was, I have the casings. Like, I tried the natural casings and then the, I think it's called cellulose casings or whatever.

00:53:23.87
Jeremy
And I got the grinder thing and I got the, you know, it looks like a, I don't know, a tube.

00:53:23.86
Keith
right

00:53:29.10
Jeremy
And you put it in the casing and it just starts shooting the meat in there. And I'm like, holy crap. And I don't know, like, where to stop it and crimp it. And i don't know it looked great.

00:53:37.45
Keith
like does does Does it come out deaf?

00:53:37.61
Jeremy
It, I,

00:53:38.85
Keith
I mean, I've seen it on like industrial stuff, you know like in kitchens and it comes out really fast.

00:53:41.18
Jeremy
Yes.

00:53:43.98
Jeremy
Yeah. So because it's going from a large portion to a narrow, and as soon as it hits the narrow portion, it starts coming out quickly. And I'm like, damn, when do where where do I stop this thing? Like, I don't know what to um I got to perfect that.

00:53:59.90
Jeremy
But um it's, I don't know how to tell people this, but because they've got these these notions in their head.

00:54:08.25
Keith
to butter it

00:54:09.90
Jeremy
Of what's good and what's not. And a lot of people think you can just take a slab of, you know, deer slap it on a grill it's going to be great. No, it's not. It's going to be the driest steak you ever had in your life.

00:54:20.65
Jeremy
If you don't, you got, you got to do something, you know, to them.

00:54:20.99
Keith
got butter it up

00:54:25.42
Jeremy
Now elk is a little bit different. Elk are fatty. Moose are very, very fatty. um Caribou are extremely fatty. You know, people, you know, bear, if you hunt bear, bear meat, in my opinion, is delicious.

00:54:38.15
Jeremy
um It's got kind of like ah if you've ever had grizzly, it's got kind of a natural sort of peppery taste to it. um But they're ridiculously fatty animals. Yeah,

00:54:47.81
Keith
i've so I've seen hunters like on like i used to watch the yeah ah meat eater. I think it was the man or meat eater.

00:54:53.32
Jeremy
a

00:54:53.72
Keith
i think it was called.

00:54:54.16
Jeremy
yeah.

00:54:54.39
Keith
I used to watch that program and that they would not hunt.

00:54:54.68
Jeremy
Yeah.

00:54:57.42
Keith
They would actually cut it up and eat steaks right there over the fires. I don't know if they mix stuff into it. I think sometime they brought bacon fat with them. Maybe they cook that in with it or, you know, something like that.

00:55:05.91
Jeremy
Yeah.

00:55:07.77
Keith
and They may grease the pan with it and threw it in there.

00:55:08.20
Jeremy
Yeah. Yeah. I use bacon grease quite a bit too. um And bacon grease is extremely easy to render um to get clean grease.

00:55:19.46
Jeremy
I've got a couple of jars of solid white bacon grease and then I use it for, you know, almost anything that requires.

00:55:25.41
Keith
but we We did that growing up too. We we would see if it save it in a cup.

00:55:27.45
Jeremy
Yeah.

00:55:28.57
Keith
But I think what you're talking about, it's like you sieve it out, you filter it, and then you put it in the refrigerator and cool it off, right?

00:55:31.61
Jeremy
Mm hmm. Yeah. Yeah.

00:55:34.46
Keith
Yeah.

00:55:34.71
Jeremy
Yeah. While it's hot, I run it through a strainer and then I also run it through a coffee filter and that removes you know your your stuff.

00:55:40.36
Keith
Oh, yeah. Yeah, the little bits and pieces.

00:55:43.39
Jeremy
and then if it yeah and then if if it's still kind of you know dark, dark, I'll put it in a a different pan and I'll reheat it and I'll go through that process again. And what you put in the in the in the jar, like we have jars of it in the fridge.

00:55:58.19
Jeremy
It's just pure white bacon grease. And again, go back to what it is. It's lard. um

00:56:03.68
Keith
Right, right.

00:56:04.01
Jeremy
And the great thing about bacon grease is it's already salty. So you've got salty fat, which you need salts. So you got salty fat that's set aside and you start, you know, um the the best example I can think of Lord of the Rings, you know, when he's sitting around and he's looking at the, the hobbits and they're talking about, they're eating salted pork.

00:56:24.91
Keith
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:56:25.07
Jeremy
Well, But the thing is, is that that salted pork was from an animal that was salted, which is how a lot of people, you know, they they preserve the meat.

00:56:36.03
Keith
Preservative. Yeah.

00:56:38.34
Jeremy
So salt and stuff like sugar in the old days, that was commodities. Those were those were actual like currency. um And a lot of people don't think about that going, you know, nowadays, you you know, they don't think that they're going to need a lot of salt when, you know, stuff collapses or, you know, hits the fan.

00:56:58.09
Jeremy
You got to have salt, man. I mean,

00:56:59.67
Keith
I believe that there was a time when salt was actually worth more than gold back in the day.

00:57:04.05
Jeremy
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And ah again, we'll go back and we'll talk about salt a little bit. Salt, there's bunch of different types of salt. The reason that we have iodized salt, like actual just regular iodized table salt, is they introduced iodine into salt a long time ago.

00:57:24.38
Jeremy
Because people were getting goiters in their neck. That's a big, nasty infection that you get right in your, right in your neck, right around, like underneath your chin, around your, your, yeah, it, but it's all underneath.

00:57:37.28
Keith
Yeah, like like a boil or something.

00:57:40.66
Jeremy
It's disgusting looking. And they realized that not enough people were getting enough iodine.

00:57:42.54
Keith
right

00:57:46.80
Jeremy
into their system, which the iodine prevents um goiters. But there's another thing about iodine, and especially when you start talking about nuclear, um what do we use for prevention of you know nuclear poisoning, or at least lessening It's potassium iodine.

00:58:05.79
Jeremy
And um you know you got to have iodine, you got to have the salt. So if you've got table salt,

00:58:11.25
Keith
But you can get that in your ah vegetables, can't you? Can't you get iodine?

00:58:15.70
Jeremy
I mean, you would have to consume a lot of it. Now, iodine is also found in a lot of shellfish, especially shrimp, which is why some people who don't eat a lot of shrimp, if they eat shrimp, they have kind of a reaction and they think that, you know all of a sudden that they're allergic to it.

00:58:34.41
Jeremy
They're not, mostly. It's because they haven't consumed and a lot of iodine from a shellfish animal like that.

00:58:41.16
Keith
Yep.

00:58:42.71
Jeremy
um And that also goes back to, you know, cleaning properly, you know, cleaning a shrimp or a, you know, ah a fish animal properly. um Like we just had this crawfish boil.

00:58:55.06
Jeremy
um We purchased the crawfish, they're whole animals. And if you know how to peel your crawfish correctly, you're taking away that we call it the vein, you know, you're deveining them.

00:59:04.99
Keith
yep

00:59:05.25
Jeremy
um you're taking that away so you're not consuming that you know nasty poop chute. um But the same thing with a shrimp. You got clean them. And if you don't, that's where you get a lot of iodine from. It's from that it's from that animal.

00:59:20.31
Jeremy
So having salt, but specifically iodized salt, you have to have that in the future and it's tradable.

00:59:26.15
Keith
So are you saying that iodized salt right now is pretty much the only way that people get iodine?

00:59:33.71
Jeremy
I won't say that. You know, you get your iodine, which you do need, um through a lot of different sources. But iodized salt is the most common. Like, they people don't even realize, they probably never took the time to be like, oh i don't even know what this means, iodized, but it's salty, you know. I'm going to use this.

00:59:51.89
Jeremy
But that's also why people who have the Jewish faith, they don't consume iodized salt.

00:59:52.16
Keith
Yeah.

00:59:57.43
Jeremy
They have to have kosher salt. Because iodine that comes from certain animals from the sea, they consider to be unclean, so they cannot consume them.

01:00:04.34
Keith
Yeah, I'm clean.

01:00:06.99
Jeremy
um So they have to get iodine in other ways. But that also...

01:00:10.58
Keith
But there's also a mental part of this too, right? I think people were actually are actually smarter since... I think it has something to do with the brain.

01:00:19.58
Jeremy
i mean, it's possible.

01:00:19.70
Keith
thought it was something...

01:00:21.70
Jeremy
I mean...

01:00:24.54
Keith
like Like people's capacity to learn, I think, was was diminished by not having iodine, which is one other reasons why they added it to the salt. And they added it to the salt because everybody uses salt, basically.

01:00:34.29
Jeremy
Yeah. I mean, that's a possibility. um But I think people are getting smarter anyways. But I don't think that the smartest brain in the room has got what it takes to survive.

01:00:44.60
Keith
those Smart asses.

01:00:44.67
Jeremy
I don't.

01:00:45.72
Keith
don't about smarter.

01:00:45.94
Jeremy
Yeah.

01:00:46.72
Keith
Talk to any teenager.

01:00:48.67
Jeremy
Wisdom and smarts.

01:00:49.04
Keith
Yeah. talk to any teenager

01:00:50.34
Jeremy
Wisdom and smarts are two. Oh my gosh. That's a language I don't even understand. I mean, my my youngest, she was telling me something and then I said something in response and she said, no cap.

01:01:02.09
Jeremy
And I looked at her and I was like, what? I'm not wearing a cap.

01:01:05.16
Keith
they They have a language right now, man, that is so weird.

01:01:07.03
Jeremy
It's a, it's, it is so ridiculous.

01:01:08.68
Keith
it is so weird.

01:01:10.21
Jeremy
And I'm sitting here, I'm listening to it. And I'm like, one of two things has to happen. Either you're going to have to translate or you're going to have to shut all the way up. Like if I can't understand, it's like when people are speaking other languages that I can't understand, I'll automatically assume they're talking bad about me.

01:01:27.86
Jeremy
So I'm like, I'm like, yo, speak English or don't like go away.

01:01:31.50
Keith
Well, teenagers are generally talking bad about you if you're old, and just the way it is.

01:01:34.57
Jeremy
Oh, yeah, absolutely. Yeah. that's Yeah. Even my younger soldiers used to talk, like, even when I was in my early thirty s they were like, damn, you're old. Like, oh, dude, I'm only 30. Like, what?

01:01:45.57
Keith
No, it's progressive because when you're 20, 30-year-olds are old.

01:01:45.60
Jeremy
And now I'm almost.

01:01:50.17
Keith
When you're 30, 40-year-olds are old. When you're 40, you're like, oh I'll never be 50. When you're 50, you're like, dude, I'm still young. and They're like, nope.

01:01:56.43
Jeremy
Yeah.

01:01:57.16
Keith
No, you're not. Yeah.

01:01:57.92
Jeremy
Yeah, no, no, your mental capacity may still be young, but your ligament capacity is definitely diminished. um But yeah, so, I mean, there's so many.

01:02:09.60
Keith
What else do you have as far for the prepper for hunter gatherer? What do you have and for the prepper survivalist?

01:02:16.44
Jeremy
I would encourage anyone who has never been hunting or has never really considered it to start learning about it. Even if it's going to YouTube university and watching, you know, the, the the hunting videos, there's millions of them out there.

01:02:31.90
Keith
Okay, well, I'm a perfect example of that because I've never hunted deer. i've I've trapped, i've I've caught rabbit and I've killed them and eaten them. And obviously i have chickens and and all that.

01:02:39.32
Jeremy
Yeah. Right.

01:02:41.42
Keith
And I'm not, i'm not look, i I get the whole respect for the animal thing. And and when I see my herd outside, my my my flock, let's call them, I see food.

01:02:50.16
Jeremy
Mm hmm.

01:02:52.53
Jeremy
Yeah.

01:02:52.62
Keith
When Rhonda sees them, she sees deer. Joette and Sylvia.

01:02:57.68
Jeremy
Yeah.

01:02:59.52
Keith
These are the names.

01:03:01.12
Jeremy
yeah

01:03:01.34
Keith
For me, i um um every time I look at that big giant tom turkey I got, I'm like, oh my God. I was sitting with him the other day and he jumped up on my my leg. I'm like, dude, you're going to be so freaking tasty. no just you know It's just how I actually say it out loud.

01:03:16.28
Keith
Rhonda looks over me like, you you're just you're so wrong. I'm like, no, i'm not I'm not.

01:03:19.97
Jeremy
that

01:03:20.01
Keith
He's got to be tasty. Look at the size of his legs, man.

01:03:22.32
Jeremy
That's why you don't name your meat. Don't name your food. That's what I say. But...

01:03:27.26
Keith
But i don' i I don't, I haven't, and I'm going to take a deer this year ah because it's going my first time around.

01:03:31.29
Jeremy
Yeah.

01:03:32.91
Keith
But for the year, what you're saying is that if you're a prepper survivor, this is another skill that you should probably learn. So how do you, how do you have to go get a tag?

01:03:40.29
Jeremy
Absolutely.

01:03:42.36
Keith
I mean how does that work?

01:03:43.76
Jeremy
Yeah, so... um To be legal, of course, you...

01:03:47.35
Keith
Like if you, if you don't know any hunters, you got yourself a gun, you got a couple of buddies and you're like, look, I want to go try this. What do I do?

01:03:53.49
Jeremy
Well, the first thing you do need to do is you got to have a license for now. You know, I mean, if you want to be legal, you got to have a license. And then the second thing you need to do is you need to have a place to go.

01:04:05.54
Jeremy
If you don't have a place to go, you have to be willing to hunt public land. Now, there are more people hunting public land than have private property to go hunt. So, you know, you're competing.

01:04:17.07
Keith
So you're competing.

01:04:18.69
Jeremy
Yeah. And again, this goes back to the reality of competing for resources. um And then once you've gotten out there and you're and you're waiting, this is actually the time where, you know, the sitting and the waiting part, that's just, that for me is just, that's the benign part, you know?

01:04:39.14
Jeremy
um When you actually do see a deer, that is worth taking, that is legal to take and is ethical to take. That's when this kind of goes back to our conversation about defending your home, controlling your nerves.

01:04:53.55
Jeremy
So a lot of people don't realize this. When... A deer enters the area and you're in range and you know you can take them. This sort of, and people call it buck fever.

01:05:04.99
Jeremy
And you i don't know if you've experienced it yet, but it's an almost, especially for newcomers, and I still get it. And even if it's a doe, it's this weird sensation that sets in and your body starts to shake uncontrollably and your breath becomes, you know, heavy.

01:05:26.28
Jeremy
And it's this moment like you have to control your nerves and the shakes in that moment to be successful.

01:05:32.81
Keith
Is that right?

01:05:34.34
Jeremy
It is, and it's the way I can and just go on YouTube and look for young kids hunting buck fever. And it looks like they're shivering.

01:05:45.63
Jeremy
It looks like they're freezing to death, even when it's warm.

01:05:47.76
Keith
Well, I've seen it on like movies and I'm um'm ah like, why are they, are they acting like that?

01:05:49.77
Jeremy
Yes.

01:05:51.76
Keith
I didn't realize that was a thing.

01:05:52.00
Jeremy
Yes. That is a very much a thing. And I remember when I was a kid and I took my first year, And almost every deer ever since I get that same sensation. It's this excitedness. It's this moment.

01:06:05.66
Jeremy
You got to learn how to control that. um And for new hunters with a right, I always encourage new hunters to start with a rifle.

01:06:16.39
Jeremy
That's what I encourage because one, you your your success ah probability goes up much, much more, right? And you can learn how to shoot a rifle pretty easily, you know, pretty quickly.

01:06:28.53
Jeremy
If you're delving into archery and you got to really learn archery before you even think that you're going to go out and hunt with a bow.

01:06:39.47
Jeremy
um But if you have the opportunity to and you have the inclination to archery hunt, I encourage everybody to try it. Because taking an animal with a with a bow versus taking an animal with a rifle, while both are wonderful, the taking an animal with a bow is, in my opinion, like so much better.

01:07:02.24
Jeremy
Because one, it's more difficult. Two, there's so many nuances that you have to pay attention to. Sitting still, being quiet, and not getting seen while you're pulling back this bow.

01:07:17.52
Jeremy
like Because that's what deer are looking for. Deer don't look for you. They're looking for movement. And they'll smell you before they see you, and they'll see you way before you see them. um But in the same aspect, they're looking for movement.

01:07:33.37
Jeremy
We should not be looking for a deer. You're looking for movement. That's what you're looking for. because the ears can deceive you, but when you're looking and you actually see that that tail up and you see the movement of the deer, that's when the shakes start. And it's it's incredible. It's kind of kind of hard to describe to somebody who hasn't you know like like actually felt that, but when you do, you will definitely know. you'll start you're start You're going to start rattling.

01:08:00.72
Jeremy
like You're going to be shivering even though you're not cold. And it might be cold you know because it's that time of year, but it's crazy and

01:08:04.06
Keith
Hmm. Interesting.

01:08:09.23
Jeremy
You know, like I i can remember the first because I used to bow hunt a lot. And then I went through my second divorce um because I actually used to competition shoot and I was sponsored and all that stuff. And I used to hunt um a lot with a bow and ended up having to sell majority of everything I owned. And when I got back into it, um I started with a lower level, you know, and fairly inexpensive bow.

01:08:38.60
Jeremy
And I told myself I was not allowed to go any more advanced in bow until I killed a deer with that particular bow. Killed a deer with that bow. And I was like shaking like a leaf inside of my blind. It was it was insane.

01:08:53.58
Jeremy
um And then I ended up giving that bow to one of my sons. And I said, you can't switch up until you've already killed a deer with this bow.

01:09:04.78
Jeremy
And then you have to give that bow to somebody else. So it kind of, one, it keeps thee the tradition going. But two, it gets somebody who doesn't have the ability to go out and just buy a thing, ah get them started. you know So that's what I tell everybody.

01:09:20.57
Keith
Nice. Yeah.

01:09:22.09
Jeremy
Get started somewhere, somehow.

01:09:24.63
Keith
Where do you get your license and where do you get your tags?

01:09:24.87
Jeremy
Yeah.

01:09:28.06
Jeremy
So a tag and a license is the same is the same thing. So yeah, um for almost every state, i't you know I don't know every state, but for most states like here in North Carolina and in Texas, you have what's called either you can just get straight deer tags um or you can get your your what we call a combo license, which is your hunting and your fishing all in one.

01:09:32.48
Keith
Oh, okay. Okay.

01:09:54.14
Jeremy
Um, that's what I tell everybody to do. Cause if you fish and you hunt, just go ahead and get both. It takes care of, just takes care both of them at the same time. So here in North Carolina, I have what's called the the super combo package or whatever funny name, but it covers my inland and out, um, and saltwater fishing.

01:10:13.60
Jeremy
And it also covers all of my big game hunting. Some states like here, you also have to get a certain certification to be able to hunt dove. And then you have to have another certification to be able to hunt migratory birds like ducks and geese and stuff like that.

01:10:31.24
Jeremy
So, yeah.

01:10:31.45
Keith
Hmm. Interesting.

01:10:33.37
Jeremy
um

01:10:34.19
Keith
How do they know how many deer you've taken?

01:10:34.32
Jeremy
If you're,

01:10:36.87
Keith
Why can't you just go back out and, you know, not tell them?

01:10:40.50
Jeremy
Well, that's where the ethics come in. So there's a lot of non-ethical hunters out there.

01:10:43.51
Keith
Okay.

01:10:46.64
Jeremy
you know There's some dudes that will kill an antler deer and report it as doe. um

01:10:52.39
Keith
And that's considered poaching, right?

01:10:55.87
Jeremy
I guess that could be considered yeah that could begin considered a form of poaching, I imagine.

01:10:57.12
Keith
Illegally hunting.

01:11:01.62
Jeremy
um But some individuals will do that in order to you know get more, I guess. But many states, and I don't know about all states, but many states have switched to a digital reporting system.

01:11:13.47
Jeremy
um I know here in North Carolina, we have we have an app um and it's the fishing and wild Fish and Game ah app for North Carolina.

01:11:25.16
Jeremy
And you go in there, you harvestve it you get your deer, make sure you get hold of it and you track it down and all those things first, and then you report it through the app. And it's it's super simple. um In some states, you still actually have to have a physical tag, and you have to take that physical tag off of your card. It's like a perforated you know you know cutaway thing.

01:11:47.47
Jeremy
You've got to wrap you got to wrap that around the antlers or the that the like the down by the foot of the doe, and then you actually have to take that that animal and check it in at a game station, and they have to...

01:11:47.46
Keith
Oh,

01:12:02.19
Keith
oh wow.

01:12:03.44
Jeremy
Yeah, yeah. And um a lot of states, of course, dealing with CWD, um they have mandatory, yeah.

01:12:09.28
Keith
That's, I was going to ask you about that. So how do you know, let's say I go out and I do take a deer this year. How do I know if it's safe to eat?

01:12:17.25
Jeremy
um You can have it checked. You can take it to any state or, yeah well, you um you can, it's preferred that you take the whole animal.

01:12:21.17
Keith
a piece of it.

01:12:26.10
Jeremy
And the reason they say that is not only are they going to test like a sample of that animal, they're going to take a small piece of, you know, tissue or something. You can just test it that way.

01:12:36.83
Jeremy
um But what they also want to do is they want to look inside of the mouth and they want to take a small, very small section of the jaw towards the molars on the deer.

01:12:48.10
Jeremy
And that way they can check for age. And by doing that, and they build, you know, they build that data at the state level.

01:12:53.78
Keith
Database, yeah.

01:12:55.39
Jeremy
That's how they track the health of your herd, you know, how, you know, the mean um or average age that, you know, these different deer are being taken. um There's a lot of data that goes into it.

01:13:07.36
Jeremy
It's it's it's extremely scientific at when you get to the state and federal level.

01:13:11.05
Keith
yeah you've You've done this?

01:13:13.01
Jeremy
i have I have taken my animals in to get checked only because there's mandatory testing during certain times of the year.

01:13:20.73
Keith
Yeah, right.

01:13:20.88
Jeremy
Now, CWD and some of the other you know bovine diseases that are affecting deer now, um it's terrible for them. If you didn't get your deer checked and you ah froze and then thoroughly cooked and ate that animal, you are not going to get CWD.

01:13:40.06
Jeremy
you're You're not. that A lot of people think that they are, but you're not, um especially when the disease is early onset in the animal. if a deer was like, no kidding, like dying of CWD, it's very sad, but you're going to be able to look at that animal and be like, i and know that that animal.

01:13:54.42
Keith
It's very sad. Yeah, it's very sad.

01:14:01.47
Keith
you'll You'll know.

01:14:02.21
Jeremy
Yeah.

01:14:02.52
Keith
You'll know.

01:14:03.47
Jeremy
And here, and

01:14:04.15
Keith
It's like it's drunk. It's like it's walking around and stumbling, and it's horrible, man.

01:14:06.06
Jeremy
Yes. it's It's horrible to see. um and I know that here in North Carolina, if you cull animal that you believe has c the beauty or a bovine and you know bovine disease and it's dying,

01:14:21.49
Jeremy
And you report it immediately to Fish and Game and they check the animal. If the animal is indeed sick and or you know or has that disease, it will not count against your limits.

01:14:33.75
Jeremy
But if you report the animal and you bring it in and they test it and it is clean, then it does count towards your your your limits.

01:14:33.81
Keith
Oh. Gotcha.

01:14:45.63
Jeremy
um

01:14:45.85
Keith
gotcha

01:14:46.47
Jeremy
so And we also hunt here on Fort Bragg. Fort Bragg has different rules. That's also federal. So if you, um if you take an animal on Fort Bragg property, you still got to report it through, you know, the North Carolina fishing game, but you have to physically take that deer into the Fort Bragg check system.

01:15:07.58
Jeremy
They have a couple of different stations um because they do all of their statistics at the federal level. So they still check

01:15:13.74
Keith
What's that process like? Do they come out to your truck and or whatever? or do you have to bring the carcass in?

01:15:17.46
Jeremy
No, no, I just, you just, um, you just pull up, um, they come out, make sure that you actually have a deer.

01:15:17.82
Keith
i mean, how do you, what's the process?

01:15:25.08
Jeremy
Um, the now, but the thing is, is like that any deer that's,

01:15:25.64
Keith
Yeah.

01:15:29.12
Keith
Yeah. You don't come out and be like, that's not a deer. That's your ex-wife.

01:15:31.95
Jeremy
yeah

01:15:32.30
Keith
Yeah.

01:15:33.06
Jeremy
but Yeah, i just wanted to pass her in there in the the gut pile. um But... um

01:15:42.72
Jeremy
That's not a terrible idea, actually. oh No, so... um But you take the animal to their check station and, like, say, on main base. um They've got a nice facility, but you...

01:15:55.13
Jeremy
bring your animal in. The first thing they do is weigh it. And then the second thing they do is they check the teeth, you know, that jaw, that thing that I was telling you about where they actually go in and they check that jawline and the actual jawbone.

01:16:03.55
Keith
Right.

01:16:07.58
Jeremy
They take a small core sample of it and probably the back molar and just take it and just look, you know, make sure what the age is. And now some areas we have what's called a qualitative management program. So in certain areas, you it's one of them, it's like say but on that particular day, it's buck only.

01:16:25.77
Jeremy
Like you can only kill bucks. That buck has to have a certain size, dimension and points on the antlers to be able to legally kill it.

01:16:37.24
Jeremy
And that is,

01:16:37.67
Keith
oh you got to see that before you shoot.

01:16:39.05
Jeremy
yeah

01:16:41.52
Jeremy
Yeah.

01:16:42.16
Keith
o

01:16:42.30
Jeremy
Yeah. um And that's, again, that goes back to the, quality you know, managing a quality deer herd. um And, you know, if you take one that's got just, you know, two little spikes, which, you know, God bless it, kill the spike, just like Ted Nugent said.

01:17:00.90
Jeremy
But what they want is you to be able to go ahead and thin out those older bucks, which give those younger bucks an opportunity to grow up unpressured by those those older guys.

01:17:11.97
Keith
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

01:17:12.32
Jeremy
You know they start to that you grow a better quality animal over time

01:17:12.31
Keith
Yeah. yeah

01:17:18.62
Jeremy
by culling those older males So, because, you know, again, it comes down to their fighting. it comes down to when they go into the rut. You have a deer that's had dominance over an area.

01:17:30.91
Jeremy
and Nobody else has the opportunity to come in there and actually introduce a new DNA line into that herd. So you get rid of that.

01:17:40.42
Keith
You know, there's so many people that are that are so against, you know, hunting and they're they're saying it's just it's it's cruelty to animals and stuff like that. but But I can say this. First of all, they haven't done their homework because it's just it's a lot like people that are like save the trees. Well, I have a forester coming out in two weeks to my property.

01:17:58.99
Keith
it's um it's it's a It's a service that the that the the state gives you. It's free.

01:18:03.85
Jeremy
Yeah. Yeah.

01:18:04.04
Keith
and there's And I've been talking to him. And the reason why is because I'm going to cut, I'm going to have my timber my timber cut for and sell it for some for some money.

01:18:14.17
Jeremy
yeah

01:18:14.22
Keith
But the forester comes out and shows you how to do that in a way that helps the forest. And the in the process of learning this, I learned that by cutting certain trees down and leaving other trees up,

01:18:26.67
Keith
You're actually making the forest healthier by doing that.

01:18:28.99
Jeremy
Yeah.

01:18:29.87
Keith
You're not killing trees and killing the environment. You're actually helping the environment by doing that. It's the same thing with hunting.

01:18:35.91
Jeremy
Yeah. and And again, I'll go back to the communist state of California and most of the West Coast. Those areas, one of the reasons why they have wildfires the way that they do is because they don't manage their forests.

01:18:48.78
Jeremy
They allow the undergrowth to take over. They allow like all those all those leaves that fall every year.

01:18:52.23
Keith
Right.

01:18:55.57
Jeremy
You got to get rid of that crap. Yes, it is good for, you know, the undergrowth, but you got to burn away that undergrowth. Every, you know, every so often you've got to do that.

01:19:06.27
Jeremy
One, puts all those nutrients back to indirectly into the ground, but you're choking out the forest floor. And, you know, like they've got the giant redwoods and all those things.

01:19:17.65
Jeremy
Well, out here, our conifers are pines, you know, um and they grow huge and they grow tall.

01:19:24.60
Keith
yep

01:19:26.84
Jeremy
But everything that those needles and those pine cones touch, eventually nothing will grow around it. That's why we have forests of nothing but pine, you know, it's ah it's yeah.

01:19:34.35
Keith
No. No.

01:19:38.02
Keith
Right. I've been in in Pine Force. It's crazy. there There's no, there's no, like, rush.

01:19:42.06
Jeremy
Yeah. No, no. And now you, what the, the stuff that you do get is you get those briar bushes, which suck in those vines that have like 40 inch long dagger, you know, things coming out of them.

01:19:50.82
Keith
Yep. Mm-hmm.

01:19:56.76
Jeremy
That's what you get. But if you don't clear your forest every so often and allow the sun to come on in and allow, you know, the, the, the thinning of the herd, basically, that's what you're doing is you're thinning the herd, and but it's the trees are the herd.

01:20:12.34
Jeremy
Um,

01:20:12.83
Keith
Yeah, it's and I believe it's the same' the same thing with the animals.

01:20:15.59
Jeremy
Yeah, it is.

01:20:15.67
Keith
It really is.

01:20:17.35
Jeremy
You know, and once a tree is diseased, the diseased tree to spread across other trees is just so fast, you know. um Down to Mississippi, I forget when it was, but they had a, they had a a mole or some kind of disease that started spreading to all the pines.

01:20:36.14
Jeremy
And,

01:20:36.79
Keith
Oh, I heard about that. Yeah, it was pretty bad. They turned brown, like reddish brown.

01:20:39.68
Jeremy
Yeah.

01:20:40.35
Keith
and Yeah.

01:20:40.68
Jeremy
Yeah. Yeah. And just, so they killed whole forests ah with this disease. Um, the same thing with, you know, around here and a lot of people think that they're very pretty, which, you know, in the spring that they are, but we have what's called a Bradford pear and a Bradford pear is not a natural plant.

01:20:59.10
Jeremy
It is a parasitic tree. And if you have a Bradford pear, which does not produce pears, it will go and seek out other hardwood trees. It will infect that hardwood tree and that hardwood tree will eventually become a Bradford pear.

01:21:19.26
Jeremy
And then South Carolina, they've actually gone through the process over these many years. They're they're eradicating the Bradford pine because they spread to natural ah hardwood trees that are native to the state and they're killing them. and not killing them, but they're changing their identity.

01:21:38.34
Jeremy
They become Bradford pears, a non-fruit producing tree that smells like cat piss, but it's very pretty. It's a

01:21:47.12
Keith
Yeah, and in Texas, they people people grow ah plant them for ornamental trees.

01:21:47.29
Jeremy
that

01:21:51.57
Keith
They're everywhere.

01:21:52.18
Jeremy
Oh no, it's such a bad idea. and that's they're they're a parasitic they're so They're a parasitic plant. And just like your peppers, peppers don't need insects to pollinate.

01:22:03.31
Jeremy
They just take the wind. Same thing with a Bradford pear. But the the bugs that they attract are not good bugs. And Bradford pear, in my opinion, they smell horrible.

01:22:13.66
Jeremy
the it's I call it a cat piss tree. I just can't stand the smell of them. um um But a lot of areas are going into neighborhoods and they're requiring ah Bradford Paris to be eradicated.

01:22:27.21
Jeremy
And they should. It's not supposed to be here, just like almost everything else we have nowadays. um

01:22:33.59
Keith
right So all the anti-hunters, just shut up.

01:22:34.10
Jeremy
But yeah.

01:22:35.99
Keith
Shut up your face. Okay?

01:22:37.47
Jeremy
Yeah, and it's it's because they don't understand. If we didn't have hunters, the population and health of the you know hunted animals would go out of control and they would all die of disease or they would die of of killing each other.

01:22:40.63
Keith
Right. That's right.

01:22:52.96
Jeremy
um And if there's not enough predation from predatory animals to cull these herds down, um what happened in the Yellowstone before they reintroduced the wolf is what will happen everywhere.

01:22:57.98
Keith
Mm-hmm.

01:23:07.48
Keith
Right. In areas like mine, there was there was lots and lots of bears and bears eighth ate the deer and that's how it worked and it was natural. But then people moved in and all the bears were gone. But the deer weren't and then all of a sudden you have an explosion of deer. are going do? Well, let's hunt the deer. it's it's

01:23:21.51
Jeremy
Yep.

01:23:21.55
Keith
you know it's it's We affect stuff so we have to fix the stuff.

01:23:25.28
Jeremy
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And, um and again, and and I guess in closing, i would just tell, tell everybody, you know, hunting, hunting may not be for you. It may not be your thing. And I get that.

01:23:38.39
Jeremy
But what you're learning now to do by hunting and and really controlling those those populations and the health of the population of those game animals is ensuring that if something were to happen,

01:23:54.03
Jeremy
If you know the S does truly hit the fan and you're able to hunt in the future, you have a better opportunity then to be able to get and preserve and to save that meat for your family by learning to do it now. You cannot just go out in the woods and you cannot just go kill a thing.

01:24:14.55
Jeremy
Now, could you have an air rifle and go kill a couple of squirrels and probably have a semi-decent meal? Yes. Um, but that is just a one-time thing, you know, and eventually squirrels will diminish.

01:24:29.08
Jeremy
mean, eventually all these different things will diminish. If you don't get out there and learn how to do it now, you're not going to be able to do it in the future.

My Prepper Brothers and Sisters…

The fire’s down to embers now. The air is thick with woodsmoke and memory. Out there, beyond the tree line, the night is alive again. The whisper of leaves, the distant call of something hunting, something surviving. It’s the same sound our ancestors heard as they crouched beside their fires, clutching spears instead of rifles, wearing hides instead of Kevlar. And somehow, it feels like we’ve come full circle.

If we experience a collapse, we may find ourselves standing right where they once stood… at the edge of the unknown. Hungry. Determined. Stripped of every comfort we thought we couldn’t live without. That’s when instinct takes over. That’s when the pulse of the hunter-gatherer begins thumping in our veins.

It won’t be easy. It never was. But survival was never meant to be easy. It was meant to be earned. Through grit, and patience, and the will to see another sunrise.

So, as you step away from this fire tonight, remember… what’s coming won’t favor the comfortable. It will favor the capable. The observant. The prepared. The ones who can hear the land speak… and answer it with steady hands.

The spirit of the hunter-gatherer isn’t gone… It’s just been waiting for the world to get quiet enough to hear it again. 

Stay Prepped… Stay Happy….

Thanks for Listening… And, Goodnight…