TOPS Bunker: The Original Prepper Survivalist Podcast

222 Hunter Gatherer Part 2 - Mother Nature's Butchers Shop

• Keith Otworth & Rhonda Triggs • Season 8 • Episode 222

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Tonight, we continue our discussion on Hunting for your protein during an SHTF Grid-Down situation. This is a topic seldom discussed within the preparedness world, at least not with any realism or truth.

In other words, reality vs fantasy - facts vs hope and desire. Yes, in a grid-down scenario we will all hope and desire to feed ourselves in the best most efficient way we can. We fantasize about being that hunter gatherer… be it, killing a large game animal or scavenging abandoned stores, warehouses, and homes. Some will even attack and rob other survivors of their stockpiles, sometimes and more often then not, commit murder in that process.

All, are forms of Hunting and Gathering. 

As Preppers, and Survivalists, we must stick to the facts when it comes to survival. We have to set aside the fantasy, disregard those romantic daydreams of being the hero that hunts and kills and provides the much-needed protein to their people. Fun to think about… dangerous to believe.

Consider this. There are seasoned hunters that go out and hunt for large game like deer and elk, spend the entire week, maybe even the entire season, doing all the right things, perfect strategy, scent control, proven location - only to never even see a single target and ultimately come home empty handed. This, is realty. This is truth. It’s happening right now, as we speak, this hunting season.

Oh, maybe we’ll get lucky, and hit a deer with the car on the way out to the woods. Instant meal, pre-tenderized. It could happen right? Ya never know. 

But the probability of a first timer or a rookie game hunter getting a successful kill on day one, week one, during an SHTF Grid-Down situation is very low. We’re more likely to get shot at buy other hunters, then take a shot at a deer.

This is part two of our Hunter Gatherer series where I talk with my co-host Jeremy about raising that probability much higher so that we can all find success as Hunter Gatherers.

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I want to thank y’all for joining us…

We’ve got a great show for ya…

… Tonight, we continue our discussion on Hunting for your protein during an SHTF Grid-Down situation. This is a topic seldom discussed within the preparedness world, at least not with any realism or truth.

Realism… Truth… in other words, reality vs fantasy… facts vs hope and desire. Yes, in a grid-down scenario we will all hope and desire to feed ourselves in the best most efficient way we can. We fantasize about being that hunter gatherer… be it, killing a large game animal or scavenging abandoned stores, warehouses, and homes. Some will even attack and rob other survivors of their stockpiles, sometimes and more often then not, commit murder in that process.

All, are forms of Hunting and Gathering. 

As Preppers, and Survivalists… we must stick to the facts when it comes to survival. We have to set aside the fantasy… disregard those romantic daydreams of being the hero that hunts and kills and provides the much-needed protein to their people. Fun to think about… dangerous to believe.

Consider this… there are seasoned hunters that go out and hunt for large game like deer and elk, spend the entire week, maybe even the entire season, doing all the right things, perfect strategy, scent control, proven location… only to never even see a single target and ultimately come home empty handed. This, is realty… this is truth… it’s happening right now, as we speak, this hunting season.

Oh, maybe we’ll get lucky, and hit a deer with the car on the way out to the woods. Instant meal, pre-tenderized. It could happen right…? Ya never know. 

But the probability of a first timer or a rookie game hunter getting a successful kill on day one, week one… during an SHTF Grid-Down situation, is very low. We’re more likely to get shot at buy other hunters, then take a shot at a deer.

This is part two of our Hunter Gatherer series where I talk with my co-host Jeremy about raising that probability much higher so that we can all find success as Hunter Gatherers.

Let’s get to it.

00:00:00.60
Keith
Man, I tell you what, I i smell like fish right now.

00:00:04.17
Jeremy
Mm.

00:00:05.34
Keith
Yeah, I do.

00:00:05.76
Jeremy
Nice.

00:00:07.20
Keith
You ever use ah fish fertilizer?

00:00:12.18
Jeremy
Well, i don't know about fish fertilizer. i was taught by my great-grandfather about um cutting up fish and then putting it at the base of corn, you know, like they used to do.

00:00:26.79
Jeremy
But I've never used fish fertilizer, I don't think. Yeah, no.

00:00:32.21
Keith
Yeah, it's so it's ah it's ah it's a dark brown gooey liquid and it just stinks to high heaven. But it's basically what you just said, but all broken down to into a liquid and, you know, sort of like that.

00:00:44.21
Jeremy
oh it It sounds like it stinks.

00:00:47.69
Keith
Yeah, it's chum.

00:00:47.83
Jeremy
like Like I'm picturing it. ah um I'm picturing it.

00:00:51.88
Keith
It's like chum for your garden.

00:00:53.54
Jeremy
Yeah, and now it's in my nose. it's ah well You know how can like imagine certain like certain things and all of a sudden you can like taste it and smell it?

00:00:58.02
Keith
ah Oh, yeah.

00:01:03.56
Keith
Yeah.

00:01:03.88
Jeremy
It's kind of like tequila for me. i don't I'm not allowed to have tequila, but just the the thought of the smell of it just makes me... well good

00:01:11.59
Keith
I love tequila. Tequila makes the clothes roll off.

00:01:15.01
Jeremy
No, I turn into the opposite. I'm like a and like a violent hose beast if I have tequila. It's terrible.

00:01:23.02
Keith
um I planted my first round of hardneck garlic today a 16 square foot bed and

00:01:29.16
Jeremy
Mm.

00:01:31.77
Keith
and i

00:01:31.86
Jeremy
Mm-hmm.

00:01:32.80
Keith
I set it all up with a worm castings with compost. The compost came out great this year. I mean, really good. And the dirt, of course, mix it all in. Then I, then I, uh, mixed up that, um, fish fertilizer with some water and, um, sprinkle it all in there and get it all nice and gooey and stuff.

00:01:45.57
Jeremy
Hmm. Hmm. Hmm.

00:01:49.28
Keith
And let it set, soak the, uh, garlic bulbs and then planted, all all of them. There's a ton of them. Let me see. It was six times. It was 36. I got 30, about 38. Actually, I think there was two actual little, little tiny bulbs, but, uh,

00:02:02.65
Keith
So hopefully those will come out good. And I got some more coming in, a Siberian hard neck coming in in about four or five days. I know it's about a week or two late in the season, but we only had our first frost.

00:02:14.62
Keith
So, I mean, yeah I think it'll be just fine because garlic needs a good, hard freezing, ah like ah like several days worth of freezing, uh, to produce like apple tree.

00:02:23.27
Jeremy
I'm alright.

00:02:24.97
Keith
A lot of people don't know this, but apple trees actually need 40, ah freeze hours a year. Now that's not consecutive, but 40, you know, ah built up accumulated freeze hours in order for them to produce fruit the following year.

00:02:39.52
Jeremy
Really?

00:02:39.47
Keith
It's just, yeah, it's crazy. Just some plants do that, but yeah, all the chickens and the turkeys and the guineas and the dogs, they all wanted to come around because can smell that fish. They just want to be over it.

00:02:49.19
Jeremy
ah gosh. Ugh.

00:02:51.53
Keith
So it's done. i got it all composted in and and covered up with hay and I'm sorry, straw and some wire mesh and stuff to keep the yeah ah rascals out.

00:03:03.28
Keith
But our garden is pretty much done now. It's everything is has been kaput. And yeah that freeze, it came. up We had two and a half days of 20 degree weather. So everything, everything's done.

00:03:13.86
Jeremy
e

00:03:16.73
Jeremy
Well, it's chilly outside right now. We had, you know, a big cold come in. um and i think that that might, they were talking about it going back up into the seventy s of which I don't know if it will or not.

00:03:32.13
Jeremy
I mean, i would rather it just go ahead and, you know, stay cool. Yeah.

00:03:37.29
Keith
No, it's going to because we're we're there today.

00:03:40.14
Jeremy
Yeah.

00:03:40.35
Keith
you're definitely It's coming your way.

00:03:42.13
Jeremy
yeah Well, we, um I mean, we prepared, you know, i had brought a, brought a extra wood to the front for the fireplace, put all the faucets to drip, you know, other than that, I mean, there's not, there's not a tremendous amount that,

00:03:58.04
Jeremy
we can do here. The house is electric, unfortunately. So, but we have, you know, everything in place in order to, you know, if we had to cook and, you know, have water and all that kind of stuff, we, we have all that prepared, but, um, I, I actually like the cold coming in cause it'll get the deer moving and stuff like that.

00:04:18.39
Jeremy
So, yep.

00:04:19.23
Keith
oh So I guess that's what we're going to be talking about tonight is part two of the hunter gatherer series.

00:04:21.66
Jeremy
Yeah. Mm-hmm.

00:04:26.00
Keith
And what part of hunting are you interested in tonight?

00:04:30.51
Jeremy
Well, there's ah there's a couple things I want to talk about, and i want to talk about first. um It depends on what you're hunting and where you're hunting, but I want to talk about your weapon selection.

00:04:41.86
Jeremy
um So I've talked about, you know, i love archery, and yes, I do also own a crossbow. Um, but I, and I've said it before, i encourage people who are just getting into hunting, if they're not familiar with it to learn a rifle first.

00:04:59.41
Jeremy
Um, and if they do so inclined to go into archery, to really, really go in depth with archery, to learn that aspect first, before they try to hunt with a bow.

00:05:12.06
Keith
Does ah crossbow ah count as archery?

00:05:16.43
Jeremy
Yeah.

00:05:16.94
Keith
Okay, not not not a firearm.

00:05:17.09
Jeremy
Yeah. Now there are some States, no. So there's some States still that require people who are, infirmed, you know, like if they're handicapped or something or elderly, um to be able to use, uh, a crossbow, but here in North Carolina, you can openly use a crossbow now.

00:05:35.87
Jeremy
And I never saw myself using one. And then I shot one and I was like, dude, that's cool. That's super cool. Um, and they have a lot, they have a lot of punch, um, And it's not to say that my compound bow doesn't, it's just, they're, they're both fun and they both, they both have their place.

00:05:53.85
Jeremy
Um, I like, I like my crossbow for a little bit longer shots. Um, cause it's, it's, it's still a bow technically.

00:06:08.20
Jeremy
Um, and the, but the amount of drop that it has is considerably less than my compound bow. I can confidently make a compound bow myself. Like a shot, I would say.

00:06:20.20
Jeremy
With good confidence, 60 yards.

00:06:24.06
Keith
Oh, wow.

00:06:24.22
Jeremy
um

00:06:24.74
Keith
That's pretty good.

00:06:26.23
Jeremy
Well, input I mean, it's a lot of experience. Not to say that I'm always going to be great, but and i can I can probably feel good about slinging an arrow about 60 yards, but I don't really want to.

00:06:40.00
Jeremy
I try to keep anything with my compound bow um around 40 yards or less. That's me there that's a if I'm going to be able to have supreme confidence that I hit the animal in a good spot and I know it's going to die quickly, i try to keep it 40 yards or less. Mm-hmm.

00:06:59.58
Keith
So the ah crossbow, the bolt that used in a crossbow, I'm assuming because of the power of this thing, they must be a firmer, that they must be more firm than an actual bow from ah I mean, an arrow from a bow and arrow.

00:07:12.51
Jeremy
Yeah, well, there's, I mean, for for for for regular compound bows and recurve bows, there's a bunch of different types of arrows. them The most widely used one now, they're made out of fiberglass.

00:07:25.37
Jeremy
um And your ones that are coming out of a compound bow, um they have a little bit of flexibility. If you ever look at ah a shot made from a compound bow in slow motion...

00:07:36.26
Jeremy
When it exits, you can see, you know, you can't see it with your naked eye, you know, really. But when you're looking at it in extreme slow motion, there is a lot of movement going on in the actual arrow.

00:07:47.99
Jeremy
um On a comp...

00:07:49.75
Keith
And it's the same with that with a a recurve bow, because we have two recurve bows and they definitely, those arrows will bend like a banana.

00:07:53.07
Jeremy
Yeah. Oh, yeah.

00:07:57.39
Jeremy
Yeah. Yeah. And that's just...

00:07:58.14
Keith
I can't, but I can't believe they actually get to their target. They're bent so bad. mean, honestly, I don't, I don't know how the physics works. It's crazy.

00:08:06.21
Jeremy
Well, I mean, they're going so fast, honestly, that, again, the amount of the amount of movement that you're seeing in the aero and slow motion as compared to with the naked eye, and honestly, it's just the physics of it.

00:08:22.65
Jeremy
So as it actually leaves a stable platform and enters into its actual motion, the inertia that's driving it is that basically a piece of string.

00:08:34.16
Jeremy
The string itself has movement in it. So when you watch the string come forward and actually go to the string stop, which is on a compound bow, it looks like I don't know, like almost like a rubber boot sticking back.

00:08:48.56
Jeremy
The string looks, as you're holding it back, it looks like it's rigid. That's because there's a an extreme amount of tension on it. And when you release it, same thing with a regular recurve bow, it shoots forward and it's actually driving the arrow forward.

00:09:05.91
Jeremy
And then as it's there's that point of release and there's still just the smallest part holding on to the knock, it's there's movement in the string. You can actually in slow motion, you can see the string go into like a wobble.

00:09:19.53
Jeremy
We can't see it because it's so quick, but as it's actually leaving and you have for compound bows. And i think I have not shot recurve more than 30 years. I would say that.

00:09:33.60
Jeremy
um But for

00:09:37.41
Keith
I can't hit the broad side of a barn with one.

00:09:37.53
Jeremy
for

00:09:39.82
Keith
I mean, ah honestly, I'm 50 yards out and I'm just trying to aim because these, ah they don't have all the special, you know, we call them sights on them and all. I'm just pointing it in a direction and firing it.

00:09:52.50
Keith
And I usually lose about half my arrows when I go out.

00:09:52.78
Jeremy
Yeah.

00:09:56.39
Keith
Now that I'm at a private property, I can usually find them again. But wait when you're out in the woods and you're, you lose arrows left and right, man.

00:09:59.38
Jeremy
Yeah.

00:10:02.18
Jeremy
Yeah. I will say that ah for a lot of people who, and I tell this to people who are also learning compound bows, one I think the number one problem that most people have is they spend too much time aiming.

00:10:15.93
Jeremy
So, For me personally, when I'm hunting with a compound bow and let's just say a deer comes out and I, you know, I say, you know what, I'm going to shoot that particular deer.

00:10:27.43
Jeremy
Um, first of all, you can't be seeing the movement again is what draws a deer's attention. So number one, I've got 70 pounds. My, my bow is set at 70 pounds.

00:10:39.49
Jeremy
So I have a draw weight of 70 pounds. So I have to be able to quietly and firmly with very little motion muscle 70 pounds back to full draw length, right?

00:10:57.00
Jeremy
And then when I am ready to do that, I quickly put my pin that I need on the actual deer and I do a quick breath and I release. I do not spend a significant amount of time in the draw.

00:11:14.34
Jeremy
If you spend too much time in the draw, then you start to get the shakes and you start to get movement and you start to kind of, you you kind of start to doubt yourself on your, on your draw, on your shot.

00:11:25.60
Jeremy
So I try to spend as little time in the draw as I can. And for a lot of people who are having issues aiming with a recurve, a lot of people tell you, don't aim.

00:11:37.52
Jeremy
And what I mean by that is, is there's a couple of different ways to shoot your recurve because, you know, some people use the two finger method and that's not necessarily preferred when it comes to hunting.

00:11:50.83
Jeremy
From what I understand about hunting with a recurve, the preferred method in this, again, I imagine it's the person is two fingers under and one finger above their knock. The one finger above the knock is your stabilization.

00:12:04.74
Jeremy
Your two fingers to three fingers below the knock are your draw power. So as you're pulling back, I've seen some people that actually use their index finger to actually point where they want to go.

00:12:16.84
Jeremy
And they pull back, and it's a quick pullback, aim, and then release. So i would like to get into recurves, but i just, I don't know. i'm I'm not supremely confident in it yet, so i don't know how i don't know how deep I want to try to get and into it.

00:12:40.52
Jeremy
You know, I could...

00:12:40.86
Keith
Well, and that's what they, you know, I used to watch and I still do the meat eater show and they did a lot on that bow hunting on several different types of bow hunting.

00:12:44.97
Jeremy
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

00:12:47.94
Jeremy
Yeah. Mm-hmm.

00:12:49.87
Keith
And they pushed over and over and over again that you can't take long shots. You've got to be a hundred percent confident in your, uh, your gear and your shot, because if you maim the animal and you don't find it, you're not a hunter.

00:12:58.90
Jeremy
Mm-hmm. Nope.

00:13:04.59
Jeremy
no

00:13:04.82
Keith
It ain't right. What you just did.

00:13:06.77
Jeremy
Yeah. Yeah. And that's why, that's why I say over and over and over again, if you are inclined to get into archery hunting, which I definitely encourage you to, you got to learn archery first.

00:13:19.39
Jeremy
And archery hunting is so much more technical and so much more challenging than regular rifle hunting. Not to say that rifle hunting is not, you know, a challenge in itself. But hunting with a bow, it's just, man, it yeah it brings you back, you know, because I know for me personally, it probably sounds dorky, but I like to actually get out there and I've stalked down on deer before, you know, bow in hand.

00:13:43.46
Jeremy
And I'm sitting there thinking, you know, if I could go and stand in one spot and go backwards in time and see, you know, one of my ancestors doing that, how cool would that be?

00:13:53.03
Keith
Right.

00:13:53.67
Jeremy
You know?

00:13:53.74
Keith
Yeah, that's right.

00:13:55.65
Jeremy
so um, yeah. but

00:13:57.75
Keith
So as it pertains to, to preppers, you started this conversation by saying you want to start out with a rifle rather than with a bow because of the, uh, the more accurate that it can be.

00:14:06.16
Jeremy
Yeah.

00:14:08.93
Jeremy
Yeah. And it's in the accuracy. Yes, but the assuredness of it. So if you learn your rifle, if you learn your weapon system, regardless of what that weapon system may be, it gives you more confidence going into your shot placement on an actual animal.

00:14:23.85
Jeremy
So we'll start with, say, deer. Right. So deer, common hunted animal, lots of meat, you know, lots of uses. for a rifle hunter.

00:14:35.48
Jeremy
um And this goes, like, this is definitely something that would have to be practiced before, you know, something happens, you know, tragically or whatever in the world.

00:14:46.80
Jeremy
You know, we talk a lot about going into the collapse and all those different things. Knowing the information first and having practiced it and actually executed it a few times before becomes necessity will put you light years ahead of somebody just winging it, you know, because they thought that it was gonna be cool when the world collapses and they go hide out in the woods.

00:15:09.78
Jeremy
So if you're looking at a deer, a typical deer, say white tail deer,

00:15:10.58
Keith
That's right. Yeah. yeah

00:15:15.18
Jeremy
Um, as the deer is standing, you know, and you have that broadside shot. So what that means is you are looking at the profile of the animal and you can see from one side is its butt and you can see all the way to the tip of its nose. It's standing sideways.

00:15:31.09
Jeremy
the best shot placement for male and females is if you look at the front quarter or the front legs at the top of those legs, and you look just to the left where you can actually kind of see the curve of their, their, yeah, their front scapula.

00:15:45.96
Keith
talking like the shoulder.

00:15:48.58
Jeremy
If you look and you put your shot placement directly behind that, typically in line with the top of their shoulder, that's almost a guaranteed kill shot.

00:15:48.88
Keith
Okay.

00:16:00.91
Jeremy
So once it enters into the intercostal space of the ribs and travels through right there where that bullet's going to enter, hopefully is the heart.

00:16:12.86
Jeremy
And what you're trying to do is you're either trying to, ah damage the heart and go through the heart and then out the other side. So, Um, you hit them in the heart, you stop the animal.

00:16:27.26
Jeremy
Usually, not always, but usually where it stands. Um, what you're definitely trying to get is a double lung shot. So you have an opening or an entrance wound, and then you have a trauma cavity, and then you have an exit wound on the other side.

00:16:45.17
Jeremy
And if you ever watch hunting videos, especially when it comes to deer hunting, um a lot of times you can see the shot and you see the arrow go in and then you just basically see a fountain of blood on both sides.

00:17:00.54
Keith
I think we all saw that recently on television at a yeah better a protest or not a protest, and protest but I mean, ah it's, you know, too soon.

00:17:04.76
Jeremy
Oh.

00:17:09.49
Keith
I mean, I'm not making a joke, but that's exactly what we saw.

00:17:10.83
Jeremy
No, no, no, no.

00:17:12.97
Keith
And it was absolutely grotesque.

00:17:15.08
Jeremy
Yeah, it is. Now, on a human, yes, absolutely.

00:17:18.68
Keith
Yeah. Yeah.

00:17:19.40
Jeremy
I've seen, I've actually seen it in real life and it is, ah it's not awesome.

00:17:22.33
Keith
No, no. Mm hmm. no no

00:17:24.46
Jeremy
It's definitely not awesome. I can, um I can recall an instance in Iraq, very specifically, soldier, one of my soldiers had gotten shot and it actually went, it actually went through like his bicep area into his armpit.

00:17:43.79
Jeremy
and went underneath his plate carrier and went through you know his lungs.

00:17:46.27
Keith
Oh.

00:17:49.52
Jeremy
And he didn't actually realize you know adrenaline. he He didn't realize um that he had been shot, got back up, kept fighting, and then all a sudden collapsed. um Both of his lungs had collapsed. you know It came down to giving him needle decompression and all these different things. but I say that to say that when a deer gets shot, um either by a rifle or arrow, you'll see it buck. you'll It'll kick back.

00:18:17.55
Keith
Mm-hmm.

00:18:17.76
Jeremy
And females do the same thing. And they usually, they jump up and they do this kind of kick motion. If you see that kick motion, you you know pretty much that you've gotten a good shot on the animal.

00:18:30.33
Jeremy
Um, and then because their adrenaline also kicks in and their adrenal glands are much, much bigger than ours, they'll take off running. Um, mom, I, yeah I have tracked deer hundreds of, of yards and it's not to say that it was a bad shot. It's to say that that particular animal just would not let go.

00:18:53.82
Keith
It was fighting.

00:18:54.86
Jeremy
It was fight and it's instinct, you know, we'll do the same thing.

00:18:55.91
Keith
Yeah. Mm-hmm.

00:18:57.99
Jeremy
Um, but you know, I'm, I'm sitting there in my, my stand and I, I knew 100% that I hit that animal. get waited several minutes to hear the crash and I'm like, i don't hear a crash yet.

00:19:11.05
Jeremy
What the heck is going on? So I got down, picked up my arrow. It's covered in bubbly blood. And when you see bubbly blood on an arrow, um or you see bubbly blood on the ground from where it got hit, that means you have definitely hit the lungs.

00:19:25.50
Jeremy
So it's when the blood comes out and it's oxygenated,

00:19:25.62
Keith
Uh-huh. Uh-huh.

00:19:30.90
Jeremy
It turns bright, bright red, and you start to see these like kind of bubbles in it, and that's from ah the the oxygen that was just ah it being inside of the actual lung cavity, and then it exited very quickly, and it still had those bubbles from being oxygenated.

00:19:52.01
Keith
huh

00:19:52.25
Jeremy
So found the arrow and saw the trail, you know, and ah again, I've talked about it's a skill to follow blood. There are a couple of things that you can do, um especially if it's getting late and it's getting dark.

00:20:06.43
Jeremy
I always have a small pump bottle or pump spray bottle of hydrogen peroxide and a blacklight. And what it does is if you see a spot that you suspect of having blood, you spray it with the hydrogen peroxide and it'll start bubbling up and you hit it with the black light and you can actually see it glowing.

00:20:25.99
Jeremy
So, and there are sprays out there. but kind it's It's basically luminol for deer blood.

00:20:30.58
Keith
Yeah. Luminal. Yeah.

00:20:32.31
Jeremy
Yeah, but i mean, hydrogen, yeah, but hydrogen peroxide is cheap and and getting ah getting an easy black light is...

00:20:33.72
Keith
They use that for crime, crime scenes.

00:20:38.43
Keith
Right. Right. 79 cents at Walmart.

00:20:43.48
Jeremy
Yeah. And I have a little small spray bottle. I just fill it up and take it out there with me. And um I've had to use that a couple of times when the tracks get, you know, getting sparing because at first the blood will just flow and just rush.

00:20:57.62
Jeremy
But as the adrenaline kicks in and that animal is really moving, the body goes into into defense mode and it kind of restricts that blood flow because the body is trying to repair itself. So,

00:21:08.79
Jeremy
I did finally find that particular one. That was one of my harder ones. That was probably 300 yards or more. um And the only reason I finally heard the crash is this particular buck tried to jump a fence and was too weak and didn't make it over. So that's where I found him.

00:21:27.74
Jeremy
um

00:21:27.75
Keith
Well,

00:21:29.28
Jeremy
um But I've also shot deer um that have gone less than 15 feet and dropped. I've had some that have just dropped. um It just really depends on the animal. And um i know that I've said it before also, but a lot of people think that when a deer is eating and its head is down, that's, you know, it's distracted or whatever. It's actually one of the worst times to actually shoot a deer.

00:21:55.43
Keith
it moves the position of the heart, doesn't it?

00:21:57.32
Jeremy
Yeah, and it's also protects the heart by the deer's forward, you know, front, its front scapula on its front legs. So it's actually that, that scapula as the animal bends down, it extends back a little bit and it actually protects the heart.

00:22:12.54
Jeremy
And also when a deer's head is down, it's at it it's at its most alert. So it's actually, it's constantly on alert, but as its head is down and it's taken a bite of whatever, um they are like hyper, hyper, alert.

00:22:19.67
Keith
Mm-hmm.

00:22:28.71
Jeremy
And when you, a lot of times when you watch the videos, you shoot an arrow and the, the deer's natural instinct is to drop to the ground. And I have seen arrows completely overpass a deer because it dropped two inches to get to the ground. And then it launches itself with its hindquarters.

00:22:49.20
Keith
Damn.

00:22:49.50
Jeremy
So, yeah. Yep. So.

00:22:52.37
Keith
And they got, they have like 3d spatial hearing to you.

00:22:52.68
Jeremy
Mm-hmm.

00:22:54.97
Keith
Like they hear separately through each year and it's, it's like different directional and it's crazy.

00:22:57.22
Jeremy
Yeah, it's...

00:22:59.82
Jeremy
Yeah, they they will smell you before they see you, and they will hear you before they smell you. I know that for a fact, because the smallest sounds sometimes will, you know, just scare the piss out of them.

00:23:13.20
Keith
You know, you say that, and I don't want to get into the weeds, but i but Rund and I did a ah woods walk this weekend, and ah right now it's fall, so the the the the leaf litter is literally leaf litter.

00:23:23.33
Keith
I mean, and we're talking a foot deep.

00:23:23.97
Jeremy
Yeah. Yeah.

00:23:25.55
Keith
You can't walk through that without making... so You see these movies of military guys, and they're going heel to toe, you know walking gently and and super quiet through the woods. I don't see it i don't see it happening. I don't see it possible.

00:23:36.67
Keith
There's no way. we We tried it. We laughed at each other going, let's do it. Heel toe. Heel to toe. We were trying it, and it was like...

00:23:41.65
Jeremy
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

00:23:44.83
Keith
And you can hear it for, you know, like a hundred yards out. You can hear it echoing.

00:23:49.22
Jeremy
Trust me, i I definitely know. The best time to conduct an an attack is after it's rained because the ground is soft, the leaves are soft, you know, they're wet, so they're quieter.

00:23:58.12
Keith
Right. Mushy. Yeah.

00:23:59.93
Jeremy
But, you know, we make it, we sound like a herd of elephants going through the woods. and ah A deer, unless that deer is just like not on his game that day, you ain't hearing those things.

00:24:12.18
Keith
I don't know how they do it, man.

00:24:12.42
Jeremy
They... Mm-hmm.

00:24:13.24
Keith
Cause you can just be going through the woods and, and you'll see one and it's right there. And it's like, well, how did he even get there? I never heard it

00:24:19.51
Jeremy
Yep. Yeah. They are so quiet. It's irritating. It's because I can, I know for me, I'll be sitting in a blind or sitting in the stand and doing whatever. And I'm just, you know, really watching for movement.

00:24:32.04
Jeremy
Yeah. And I start to hear crunching and I start to hear these sounds and I'm like, yes, here comes. And I look down and it's literally a meth head squirrel dancing in circles.

00:24:44.65
Jeremy
Like, I'm like, how, how does that stupid squirrel make so much sound? I'm gonna tell you. I've burned a few arrows, taken out stupid squirrels just out of anger.

00:24:55.39
Keith
Let's square up a dinner.

00:24:56.36
Jeremy
Oh man. So, um, weapon type.

00:25:00.98
Keith
yeah Yeah, go ahead.

00:25:01.69
Jeremy
Yeah. So, um, again, yeah.

00:25:05.15
Keith
I'll try to keep you on track. Go ahead.

00:25:06.92
Jeremy
So for a rifle, um I have not found a single deer between North Carolina to Mississippi that I have not been able to kill with a five, five, six or a two, two, three net.

00:25:20.50
Keith
Oh, to tell, because you're you must be lying, because all the hunters out there say you cannot hunt with an AR, which shoots a.223 or a.556.

00:25:23.96
Jeremy
no

00:25:30.07
Jeremy
No. Now, have hunted with my AR, but my particular weapon that I use for hunting primarily is a bolt action, chambered in 5.56. Yeah. Mm-hmm.

00:25:40.28
Keith
Okay, so you got a longer, ah okay, so you got a a much better shot with it.

00:25:42.05
Jeremy
yeah

00:25:45.60
Keith
Actually, yep you have more power with it, because your barrel is longer.

00:25:49.00
Jeremy
Actually, well, I mean, have've you've seen pictures of mine. My barrel is not tremendously long. um

00:25:54.62
Keith
16.5. Okay. Okay.

00:25:56.49
Jeremy
Ish. It's threaded.

00:25:57.30
Keith
okay

00:25:57.69
Jeremy
It's actually threaded to receive a suppressor. um my My particular rifle is the it's made by Mossberg, and the concept of it is sort of a scout rifle concept.

00:26:01.55
Keith
okay

00:26:12.91
Jeremy
um With that being said, i have made some adjustments to it. I have a vortex scope on top, a second field of point your field of view ah scope.

00:26:23.68
Keith
Very reliable.

00:26:24.33
Jeremy
um you know I've got bipod on it, you know but I set it up similar to some of the rifles that I used in the Army, and I am supremely confident in my shots.

00:26:35.33
Jeremy
So um ah before I talk about 5.56223,

00:26:40.89
Jeremy
I will say that it depends on where you're hunting and how far east to west you are. If I was to go into the mountains of North Carolina to hunt, I would not use 5.56 or 223. size

00:26:57.85
Keith
Is altitude change it?

00:26:59.64
Jeremy
no the animal size changes

00:27:01.93
Keith
oh Oh, no kidding.

00:27:03.29
Jeremy
Yeah. so the deer and elk that are out in the mountains of North Carolina are larger than the deer and that we have here. We don't net we don't have elk.

00:27:11.52
Keith
They're bigger, they're tougher.

00:27:13.06
Jeremy
Yeah. We don't have elk over here, but if you go a few hours to the west, they do have elk. um And then Tennessee, the the Tennessee line is kind of like where you start to get bigger deer.

00:27:27.63
Jeremy
Um, and I say that I can't, I haven't found a deer yet that I haven't been able to kill from here to Mississippi. Um, but that also goes back to shot placement.

00:27:39.16
Jeremy
Um,

00:27:39.32
Keith
And you're still talking about 22355 station, which is basically a 22, but it's it's running kinetic energy. It's running a lot harder. but But let me ask you this, though.

00:27:48.51
Jeremy
yep.

00:27:50.45
Keith
Most prepper survivalists are carrying ARs. Most of them aren't carrying hunting rifles.

00:27:53.57
Jeremy
Yep.

00:27:54.95
Keith
So can you hunt with an AR?

00:27:56.93
Jeremy
You can. Now, technically, yes. In some states, this is some states, I don't know about every state, but I know here in North Carolina doesn't make a difference. You can hunt with an AR in North Carolina.

00:28:08.86
Jeremy
I think, and I'm not 100% sure, yeah, there are some states I think that you cannot hunt with an AR.

00:28:09.71
Keith
Yeah, Texas too. Yeah. yeah

00:28:15.13
Jeremy
I think. I'd have to do some research on that, but I think that's that's the case. Now, let's talk ammo. Not every 5.56 round is the same. If you have a weapon that is chambered for.223, you cannot shoot.556.

00:28:31.61
Jeremy
The overpressure would destroy the chamber. If you have a weapon that is chambered in 5.56, you can shoot.223. um And the difference in the two is literally micrometer. It's the tiniest bit of difference, but it's a pressure issue.

00:28:47.81
Jeremy
So the.223 rounds that I use are what are called orange tip nozzlers. um And when I say nozzler, that is type round. of ah round The round itself has a polymer tip on the end of it.

00:29:05.73
Jeremy
And it's, you know, it's orange. And it is a hunting round. And I'm going to tell you, the entrance wound on that last deer that I killed in that video last year, and I had pointed it out, the entrance wound was tiny, tiny.

00:29:24.37
Jeremy
And it almost to the point where it's sealed itself. The exit wound, however, is devastating. It freaking devastating.

00:29:34.45
Keith
Tell us why.

00:29:36.20
Jeremy
Expansion. So these orange tip nozzlers, the polymer point, it breaks away and it caves in on itself and it takes the tip of the round and it mushrooms out into a star pattern.

00:29:49.92
Jeremy
And as it passes through and it's expanded into that star pattern, ah it's traveling where the dimension of the actual round, you know, the actual bullet portion has basically doubled in size.

00:30:05.31
Jeremy
And it's got these edges and it's traveling through the deer at, you know, supersonic you know speeds. But it's the the cavitation that it creates, which is the wound channel is, I mean, it's kind of hard to describe.

00:30:21.61
Keith
I've seen it in slow motion with with the what way they call that the ballistics gel.

00:30:23.09
Jeremy
Yeah. The ballistics gels. Yeah.

00:30:26.82
Keith
Yeah, it's it is so wild.

00:30:26.98
Jeremy
So.

00:30:28.20
Keith
What happens is tiny little bullet goes in and in like the size of like a ah ah volleyball area inside the gel is just boom, like explodes outward.

00:30:37.74
Jeremy
Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah, that's actually a really good way to put it. um And I'm looking at one right now, and, you know, it's just a normal-looking 2-2-3 round. You wouldn't really, really think, you know, too much of it, but that...

00:30:53.90
Jeremy
That polymer tip, I'm telling you, um a lot of people discount me when I tell them that's what I hunt with. And again, a lot of that does actually go back to shot placement. um

00:31:07.07
Keith
And the polymer tip is designed to give you a ah ah piercing point.

00:31:07.23
Jeremy
If.

00:31:12.59
Jeremy
Yes.

00:31:12.51
Keith
So that's really, really straight and and and accurate.

00:31:16.85
Jeremy
It is, but.

00:31:16.96
Keith
you could You could also use a a hollow point or something to that effect, but you're getting a ah ah much better spin rate and and straightness on your trajectory with that.

00:31:19.98
Jeremy
hmm.

00:31:27.97
Jeremy
Yeah.

00:31:28.60
Keith
Okay, with that too. Because I use the, I don't use them for a practice, obviously, but I i do have the green tips.

00:31:32.78
Jeremy
yeah

00:31:34.34
Keith
I believe those are also polymer They might be ceramic.

00:31:37.15
Jeremy
No. So green tip, you're talking, so M855 is what you're referring, yeah, those are definitely, I mean, to can they be used for hunting?

00:31:42.21
Keith
MA55. They're

00:31:46.20
Jeremy
No. Yes, they can. I guess technically you'd have to check your local laws on that. M855, they're penetrating, so they're armor-piercing.

00:31:52.60
Keith
not armored piercing, are they?

00:31:56.82
Jeremy
so they're not they're not armor piercing

00:31:56.82
Keith
Penetrating.

00:31:59.55
Jeremy
Penetrating means that they're designed to punch in. um If they were armor-piercing, which I may or may not have a couple of those, um the armor-piercing have a tungsten carbide penetrator.

00:32:13.33
Keith
Oh.

00:32:16.11
Jeremy
um

00:32:17.05
Keith
It doesn't deform at all.

00:32:17.28
Jeremy
I mean... ah No, no, no, no.

00:32:19.88
Keith
Not much.

00:32:21.80
Jeremy
The tungsten carbide penetrator is actually designed to go into body armor. um Now, if you take and you translate that into hunting, one of two things I imagine would happen.

00:32:37.28
Jeremy
One is you would get complete pass-through without a massive amount of cavitation. The other one would be is it would enter...

00:32:48.48
Jeremy
and you would have so much cavitation and such a traumatic exit wound, you might lose a large portion of usable meat.

00:32:59.57
Keith
So what are the green chips, to the what did you say the word, the M855, yeah.

00:33:05.65
Jeremy
M855.

00:33:06.37
Keith
and a five five yeah

00:33:07.80
Jeremy
Yeah, so M855 Green Tips, um that's actually, you know, it's a NATO round. That's what people call it. You know, they they think that it um they think that it's something super, I don't know, super duper fancy, but it's copper jacketed with a steel penetrator.

00:33:28.95
Jeremy
um

00:33:29.23
Keith
Ah, okay.

00:33:29.84
Jeremy
Steel, while hard, is, i mean, copper is soft, right?

00:33:30.05
Keith
Right.

00:33:36.78
Jeremy
Right.

00:33:37.43
Keith
right

00:33:37.85
Jeremy
um Steel is hard, but it's not like the hardest, if they have if that makes sense. um it's not classified as armor piercing, but it does have a steel penetrator behind it, you know?

00:33:52.62
Jeremy
So it's, it's supposed to aid in penetration, but again, and it can also, it can affect your, your accuracy as well, you know, cause even though it's a tiny round, it's, it's heavy for a tiny round, if that makes sense.

00:34:08.94
Jeremy
So that's what we used in the army.

00:34:09.18
Keith
Yeah, yeah.

00:34:10.80
Jeremy
um And it was very rare that we ever got the actual, what what some people call armor penetrators. um So, well, yeah.

00:34:23.99
Keith
they're expensive.

00:34:25.97
Jeremy
Yeah. Tungsten carbide penetrator is ah is definitely a lot more expensive. And I'm looking at one, may or maybe not. I don't know. um And it's...

00:34:34.74
Keith
they're They're not illegal to have armor-piercing. Some states...

00:34:38.77
Jeremy
Some states. So it's got a grayish tip. And um when you're looking at a, say, a, you know, your M855 green tip, it actually looks like you can, it almost looks like the green is painted on.

00:34:52.29
Jeremy
You know what i mean?

00:34:52.57
Keith
Yeah, because because sometimes it'll it'll discolor, rub off a little bit or get scraped up.

00:34:52.77
Jeremy
Like,

00:34:56.11
Jeremy
mm-hmm.

00:34:56.80
Keith
Yeah.

00:34:57.42
Jeremy
Yeah, but when you're looking at a tonguesty tungsten carbide penetrator, it's actually, the tip of it is actually a separate a separate piece.

00:35:07.26
Keith
Oh.

00:35:08.75
Jeremy
So the penetrator on an actual... um ah armor piercing round it travels in and it's pushed even harder by the kinetic energy of the round the rest of the round will deform while the tungsten carbide penetrator continues forward mm-hmm

00:35:28.53
Keith
o Okay, so back to hunting. ah you You really do like the orange-tibed nozzler.

00:35:31.99
Jeremy
mm-hmm

00:35:35.09
Jeremy
Yeah, I do. Um, that, like that, the video that I put out last year of that buck that I killed, um, I killed that deer on Fort Bragg and, um, um, shot it right where I needed to shoot it.

00:35:49.32
Jeremy
Um, and probably traveled, I don't know, 50, 75 yards, maybe. Um, and when I heard it crash, um, um it kind of, it almost sounded like he was standing there. Like, did I just get shot dead?

00:36:05.58
Jeremy
Like, like, like the, like the deer was trying to figure out what had just happened.

00:36:06.90
Keith
Right. Right. Yeah.

00:36:11.65
Jeremy
Um, and all of the blood was coming out one side. So that entrance wound wasn't huge, but the exit wound was absolutely devastating. So I took off the top of his heart.

00:36:24.54
Jeremy
Um, and because of the amount of trauma on the other side, I did lose a portion of the back strap, not much, but a little bit because there was so much cavitation from that round splintering off.

00:36:37.96
Jeremy
So,

00:36:38.70
Keith
And that's what you want as a hunter. You want a nice, clean kill, fast, ah humane, as as little trauma and emotional trauma as well to the animal as possible because you're not hunting out of hatred.

00:36:42.53
Jeremy
Mm-hmm. Yep.

00:36:48.72
Jeremy
Yeah.

00:36:53.11
Keith
You're hunting for food gathering.

00:36:55.19
Jeremy
Yeah, it's out necessity. And that's, yeah, and that's how i so I treat hunting even now when times are normal somewhat normal, but I treat deer hunting and hunting and fishing in general as a necessity.

00:36:56.63
Keith
Yeah, you're harvesting.

00:37:10.55
Jeremy
So when I treat it like that, it becomes more than just a sport. So now I was taught that many, many years ago as ah as a kid and all of my kids, they, they understand the importance of it.

00:37:26.77
Jeremy
So. i I don't fault you know trophy hunters. you know that it it has their you know that They have their place. they These guys that go out and spend multiple thousands of dollars to get huge rack deer or whatever.

00:37:41.37
Jeremy
Cool. um I don't mind killing does. I don't. And if you told me I could only hunt one day, one day, And get a trophy buck.

00:37:52.99
Jeremy
Or i could hunt four days and take four doe. I would hunt four days and take four does. Any day of the week. Any day of the week.

00:38:02.80
Keith
It doesn't interest me. and I mean, I think it's cool that they got antlers and all that, but it doesn't interest me because I'm not looking for a trophy and I'm not looking, I'm not going to spend the extra money, you know, processing it and get putting it on the wall.

00:38:13.65
Keith
It doesn't matter to me. If I'm going to kill a deer, I'm going to eat it every bit as every bit of as I possibly can.

00:38:15.07
Jeremy
Yeah. Mm-hmm. Yeah. And that's honestly, you know, and again, i think part of it goes back to the spiritual aspect, not to get too deep into that.

00:38:27.61
Jeremy
But in the Bible, it says that we hold dominion over all creatures of the earth. And i do firmly believe that they were here, put here for us to consume. That is why they're here. And we have to be able to control those populations like I've talked about before.

00:38:40.05
Keith
That's right. That's right.

00:38:41.75
Jeremy
So.

00:38:42.03
Keith
I watched a video of of some people that were culling chickens and he brings them over in this, he's been doing an older guy, he's been doing it for many, many decades and he brings them all over in cage and the the one of the people that were filming this lady, because she was, you know, a YouTuber, she said, do you do you mind the other chickens being here watching as you're as you're putting them in the cones and slitting their throats and letting them bleed out and killing them basically?

00:39:08.34
Keith
And he said, you know, The way that I look at this, all the animals that we eat and we consume, we have a symbiotic relationship. we they they To me, he said, they almost have an understanding that we're going to give them ah healthy, happy life, and they're going to give us nutrition in the end.

00:39:27.93
Keith
is there there's There doesn't need to be a meanness to it or or a negative side of it.

00:39:32.92
Jeremy
Yeah. Yeah, no, i I think that, you know, I don't know how to word it rightly, but I think that there's probably some animals that understand their place ah in the food chain.

00:39:46.13
Keith
That's exactly what he said. He said the exact same thing.

00:39:47.73
Jeremy
Yeah.

00:39:48.53
Keith
He said, I believe in my heart. This is what God tells me that that, you know, the animals know this in the end, that this is what their purpose is.

00:39:54.29
Jeremy
Yeah. Yeah. Now, I i mean, they'll fight you. Chickens are, you know, I've seen some chickens who are like, no, you're not getting me today. Not going to happen.

00:40:07.34
Keith
Dude, I have no idea how I'm going to harvest these turkeys, man. ah The one that's one turk yesterday, there was really late before I can get them up on their roost and Turkeys can't see very good in the dark.

00:40:17.07
Jeremy
Mm hmm.

00:40:17.24
Keith
So I actually went over and picked up the big Tom I got. He's big. I, you know, pick, pick him up. He lets me pick him up. He's a big giant. He's so freaking heavy. ah can barely even lift him up onto the roost. That's like five feet in the air.

00:40:29.63
Jeremy
Yeah.

00:40:30.03
Keith
mean, he's really, really heavy. I don't know how how I'm going to get him up into a cone, you know, to, to harvest them. I i just don't know how I'm going to it. I might just shoot him.

00:40:38.28
Jeremy
I mean, you can um for a time that big, um i would use 22. um But I'll just tell you, one of my one of my grandmas was she taught me with chickens and the same thing with turkeys.

00:40:51.71
Jeremy
If you have a, you know what's the right word, but working relationship with your turkey, um she would call them over, every working relationship.

00:40:59.16
Keith
a working relationship, meaning you're good terms.

00:41:02.53
Jeremy
Yeah.

00:41:02.91
Keith
Okay.

00:41:04.20
Jeremy
Yeah. Um, I mean, i think he probably understands here at the staff meeting coming up that, you know, you're going to start talking about Thanksgiving, but, um, she would call these and she was so nice to her animals, but she would call the chicken over and chicken would literally just crawl up in her lap and she's sitting there petting it and cuddling it and stroking its head.

00:41:04.78
Keith
okay

00:41:26.51
Jeremy
And she had this finger technique and And she would start at the beak and just kind of bring her finger back and bring her finger back. And while the chicken was sort of mesmerized by that, you know, great massage, she was reaching up with her other hand and under the back of the neck.

00:41:43.20
Jeremy
And as soon as it started to look a little bit sleepy, she'd grab that chicken and literally start swinging it in circles, just swinging its whole body.

00:41:51.82
Keith
Oh, break in the neck. I've heard of that.

00:41:53.92
Jeremy
Yep. And then she'd give it,

00:41:54.68
Keith
there's There are some countries that don't allow that.

00:41:57.11
Jeremy
Yeah, well, this was super fast.

00:41:58.51
Keith
Yeah.

00:41:59.98
Jeremy
She'd give it a couple of twirls against one tree on one side, against a tree on the other side. And she'd bring it over to the log and whop off its head and let it run around and do its thing. And then she'd do that for a couple of chickens.

00:42:09.86
Keith
Right.

00:42:12.45
Jeremy
and all she did really was um she had a big pot of boiling water going and she'd give it a couple of dunks and start pulling feathers, a couple of dunks, pulling feathers.

00:42:24.20
Jeremy
And once it was clean, she'd open it up and start you know cleaning it out and give it a couple of washes. And that was it.

00:42:30.61
Keith
That's it. Yeah.

00:42:31.56
Jeremy
Chicken for dinner. And it's the same thing with turkeys. Turkeys are just oversized, you know, chickens. So.

00:42:37.65
Keith
Well, we're going to be harvesting or calling. We're going to be harvesting, uh, half of our guineas, uh, and two of the turkeys in about two or three weeks. So we're, it's going to be a big operation.

00:42:45.61
Jeremy
Nice.

00:42:47.30
Keith
It's going to be like an assembly line kind of a thing.

00:42:49.23
Jeremy
Mm-hmm. I want to, I actually kind of want to see you guys chasing down those guineas. I'd like to see that. I think, because they're smart.

00:42:56.36
Keith
I'm still trying to figure out. ah No, actually, they're really stupid, but they're but they are they're probably one of the dumbest animals out there, but they have incredibly good instincts. like you cant you You start to go a tiny bit right, and they're already going left.

00:43:09.88
Keith
You go a tiny bit left, and they're they're three feet going right. like they like They can see the future, I think, these things. It's crazy.

00:43:18.25
Jeremy
That's interesting. Maybe they're just playing dumb. You know? Mm-hmm.

00:43:22.80
Keith
They, they, in, in the, in Australia, they call them dodo birds because it just, they'll just walk up to a wall and stand there staring at it. Like, what, what do I do? What do I do now?

00:43:32.75
Jeremy
Nah, man, that's calling a portal from another dimension.

00:43:36.47
Keith
So anyway, I got you off track again.

00:43:36.64
Jeremy
so

00:43:37.80
Keith
Where are we at?

00:43:38.81
Jeremy
Um, so that was deer, um, rifle shot again, just behind the front hind quarter of the deer. um and it, you know, depending on your angle, I always also for, for deer when it comes to rifle and especially bow, I do not encourage anyone to shoot when an animal is quartering away from you, meaning they have slightly turned at an angle.

00:44:09.04
Jeremy
Sorry, you're going have to delete that. So, courting away. um

00:44:15.34
Keith
Grab a drink. I'm going to go get a bottle of water, so hold on.

00:44:17.04
Jeremy
the

00:44:50.01
Keith
take

00:44:52.93
Keith
on There you go. You're in here with me.

00:45:01.03
Keith
All right.

00:45:02.65
Jeremy
Yeah, you never know how much snot you can produce unless your grandkids get you sick. It's ridiculous. It's like mountains and buckets of snot. It's disgusting.

00:45:13.69
Jeremy
So... um The shot placement that you want for a rifle on a deer is generally the same as you want for your for your your bow or your crossbow.

00:45:26.41
Jeremy
um And i again, back to quartering away. Quartering away means that the animal has turned slightly angled to you. And that can be either your rear facing or front facing.

00:45:38.60
Jeremy
Now, if you are, and this is only if you are an extremely good shot and you are extremely confident in your shot, I know some hunters that will line up their shot and between the bottom of the chin and the bottom of the front facing sternum of the deer, and they'll put a shot dead center into the deer.

00:46:03.69
Jeremy
Um, it's an almost, if you're shooting with a rifle, it's an almost instant kill. However, um, it's not encouraged because your target area has diminished significantly in size.

00:46:16.61
Jeremy
And if you're doing it with a bow, I don't tell, I encourage no one to do this with a bow. Um, because there is too much of a risk of having a bad shot and just injuring the animal.

00:46:31.23
Jeremy
um versus killing it. And there, I mean, my son killed deer last year on Bragg. And when he we started butchering, we actually found an old broadhead inside of it.

00:46:44.25
Jeremy
So...

00:46:45.05
Keith
Whoa, really?

00:46:46.34
Jeremy
Yeah, very common.

00:46:46.97
Keith
Wow.

00:46:48.33
Jeremy
Yeah, I've seen videos of deer that a guy culled just because the deer looked, I mean, it looked awful. um It wasn't diseased when he opened it up. There was like four or five broadheads in this deer's body.

00:47:00.93
Keith
Man, unbelievable.

00:47:02.95
Jeremy
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:47:03.78
Keith
People, man, they need to be better. Hunters need to be better.

00:47:07.88
Jeremy
You know, and, and again, ah that's why I was, you gotta know archery before you hunt archery. um Because I mean, just one bad shot that, I mean, I have seen pictures of here on Fort Bragg of deer walking around seemingly normal acting that literally have an arrow sticking out of its ass. and over time, the wound has closed over itself, but it starts to fester.

00:47:33.48
Jeremy
And it's just, it's just bad for, it's bad for everybody. I mean, it's not.

00:47:38.80
Keith
Yeah, it's not humane at all.

00:47:40.74
Jeremy
and And you can end up making that animal suffer even more through disease from a festering wound. So it's just, yeah.

00:47:50.82
Keith
So so as so as a as a prepper, are we looking at deer and turkey and maybe squirrel as our main food source out in the woods?

00:48:00.29
Jeremy
For a lot of people, i think that I think that they're going to automatically go for what they they know they can do, which is deer. um Now, let's talk about squirrel and smaller animals real quick.

00:48:12.20
Jeremy
um Squirrel is a fine meal. I like squirrel. um You can use a pellet gun, a strong enough pellet gun, ah for a Yeah. forest squirrel um Not a BB gun, but an actual high-powered air rifle pellet gun.

00:48:29.76
Jeremy
um And you can use.177 caliber you know for an actual pellet. They have hunting pellets. It would be a little bit easier with a twenty two caliber pellet gun.

00:48:43.33
Jeremy
you can also use a.22 caliber bullet. You can actually use regular.22 long rifle or short ah for squirrel hunting and small game hunting. It's extremely effective.

00:48:54.60
Jeremy
um I don't encourage anything over a 22 because you're going to lose, you know, the majority of the animal just to, you know, trauma from your bullet. So, um but.

00:49:07.55
Keith
We have a.177 high-powered pellet gun. It is awesome.

00:49:15.07
Jeremy
Yeah.

00:49:15.13
Keith
you can I mean, you can hit shots, man, almost near 100 yards of at perfect accuracy with this thing.

00:49:21.00
Jeremy
Yeah, actually, um we got Christmas coming up and we're the cool grandkids, grandparents. um Each, well, not each of, but we have, let's see, one, two, three of our granddaughters are getting a pink Red Ryder BB gun and two grandsons are getting the classic old school,

00:49:42.44
Jeremy
i Red Ryder BB gun. And we also got a couple of actual pellet pistols and some other stuff, and we're going to start teaching them the fundamentals. So i I got my first gun about that age, but it was an actual gun.

00:49:53.36
Keith
Nice.

00:49:57.98
Jeremy
i didn't... I started out with a pellet gun. It was one of the, the ah like, you got to pump it multiple times. I never had a Red Rider.

00:50:06.51
Keith
right

00:50:07.32
Jeremy
I was jealous of the Red Riders, but then I had that multi-pump one, and I was like, I can i can kill a lot of things with this thing. So, um i let's see. um They're ranging between six and ten.

00:50:20.74
Jeremy
So, the youngest one is six. That's about, yeah, I think I was like maybe seven or eight when I got my first gun. So, um but yeah, we're starting them off with those.

00:50:29.78
Keith
Yeah, that's good.

00:50:32.91
Jeremy
um And then let's talk, you know, we talk squirrels. Squirrels are semi, there' I won't say they're easy, easy, but they're semi-easy. um they're chatty little pecker heads is what they are. And they'll sit in a tree and bark at you and wave their tail.

00:50:49.07
Jeremy
It's a great time to pull off a shot because they're going I mean, they're going to let you shoot them. um You can hunt with a four 10. I do need to include that. You can hunt them with a four 10. You just got to find all the pellets before you start cooking.

00:51:02.47
Jeremy
Hmm.

00:51:03.15
Keith
Now, what about if you use ah a 410, like a 410, and you hit the bowels or anything inside the animal?

00:51:08.38
Jeremy
Hmm.

00:51:09.03
Keith
Is that, can that taint the meat?

00:51:11.17
Jeremy
Um, it can. And the same thing with a deer, um, gut shotting a deer, which just happened recently to know. Um, uh, he sent me a picture of the deer hanging up next to him and it was hanging upside down, of course. And I was like, what in the world is coming out of its nose and mouth? And it was stomach matter.

00:51:29.75
Jeremy
And he had gut shot that deer. And I'm like, oh, dude, that's horrible.

00:51:32.43
Keith
Wow.

00:51:33.16
Jeremy
So um gut shotting it. and There's a couple of things that can happen. There's gastric juices that come out of the stomach. um Bile. ah If you end up accidentally hitting the colon or the bladder or things like that, all of that explodes, you know.

00:51:52.50
Jeremy
for a lack of a better term, and seeps into the actual meat. If you can get it quickly, get it opened up, get it cleaned out, you can save the meat. um But if you go a significant amount of time before you recover that animal and clean it, um it can taint a significant amount of the meat depending on how the animal is lying, like on the ground.

00:52:15.89
Jeremy
If you've ever seen a deer um that is on its back and its legs are up, that deer is already in rigor mortis. Um, and you can kind of typically tell if an animal has been gut shot, it's, it looks, its belly area looks distended and bloated.

00:52:33.72
Keith
Oh, your gases and stuff.

00:52:35.38
Jeremy
Yeah. Yeah. So, and that's, i mean, and that's the same thing, even if you have a clean shot, you know, you recover that animal and get those guts out quickly because as soon as as, soon as the blood stops flowing and the animal is actually deceased, the gases inside of the stomach don't have anywhere to go.

00:52:52.98
Jeremy
So rather than an animal being, because animals fart, you know, we do too. But rather than being able to expel that gas, the actual stomach starts to expand and get bigger and same thing with the intestines and stuff like that. So when I clean a deer, one of the very first things that I do is I have this thing and it's called a butt out.

00:53:13.61
Jeremy
It literally, this is probably going to sound funky, but it looks like a jagged butt plug. So, i mean, it is what it is

00:53:22.09
Keith
ah torture device.

00:53:23.86
Jeremy
um You literally insert it into the rectum. You give it a couple of twists and you start to pull out the actual lower portion of the the the colon and the bowels. And you pull it off out and you pinch it off. And it makes it easier to when you actually open up that deer, any fecal matter that may have been trapped in those intestines is actually outside already.

00:53:46.89
Jeremy
And it just makes it a little bit ah little bit easier to clean up. Mm-hmm.

00:53:51.72
Keith
Right. and it has to be It has to be said because we're talking to preppers who might be out in the woods doing this for the first time because they need to feed their family ah in a grid down type of situation or off grid type of situation or something like that.

00:54:04.45
Keith
And they're going to need to know that that gu gutting and cleaning an animal is dirty. It's I've done rabbits out in the field and it's it's quite nasty, man.

00:54:10.05
Jeremy
Mm-hmm.

00:54:14.05
Keith
i mean, it's stink.

00:54:14.35
Jeremy
Yeah.

00:54:14.88
Keith
It smells. It's stinky.

00:54:16.19
Jeremy
Mm-hmm.

00:54:16.30
Keith
You know, it's it's it's not fun.

00:54:18.23
Jeremy
No, um it's an art. And I'll just tell you that if you are one of those people who are just getting into this, or you have this imagination that you're going to run into the woods and you're going to be able to just do this because you've seen a movie.

00:54:32.93
Jeremy
No, man, you need to learn now. You need to learn right now. And if you don't know how you can start with YouTube. And that's great. Or you can find someone who's actually experienced. go in and Go hunt with someone.

00:54:48.16
Jeremy
Just tell them, hey, can you take me? I want eat i don't even want i like shoot an animal right now. I want to watch you. I want to watch what you do. And I want to watch this whole process. And find out, you know can't a can I do it?

00:55:01.85
Jeremy
And B, is it is it for me? um

00:55:05.88
Keith
right Yeah,

00:55:06.01
Jeremy
Because I'm going to tell you, when I was a little kid and I killed my first deer, I bawled. And for someone who thinks that they're going to go and live out this fantasy in the woods and they kill their first animal and they don't know how to handle it emotionally.

00:55:20.17
Jeremy
ah it It might break them off because watching a deer die is, it's kind of freaking sad. like and yeah And like watching a rabbit pass, you know, i remember being, oh my gosh, I didn't care how young I was, shoot a rabbit.

00:55:29.28
Keith
yeah, it is.

00:55:37.97
Jeremy
And it's still kind of like trying to fight and you can see the life leave its eyes. That's, that's hardcore living, you know, and a lot of people, I think, especially in this day and age, they don't, they don't get it, you know?

00:55:46.26
Keith
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

00:55:53.98
Jeremy
Um, it, and we'll, we'll go into rabbits here and for just, in just a moment, but so we talked about squirrels. So squirrels are super easy to clean, but they're tougher than you think they are.

00:56:06.78
Jeremy
You got to make a small incision up in the way, the way I do it. I make a small incision starting up by the chin. And i make an incision going all the way down towards the intestinal cavity.

00:56:18.51
Jeremy
I actually take my scissors, usually a pair scissors, and I actually cut the feet off. I cut the feet off on both sides. And then I make an incision starting from my first incision and I go out to where each paw used to be.

00:56:33.32
Jeremy
um I take that same pair of scissors and I cut off the tail. And it's literally just you're opening up a book or you've basically taken off a sock. You find a starting point and you just start peeling back.

00:56:46.77
Jeremy
Um, I, I take the feet and I give them to my dogs. I just feed it to them. It's a crunchy snack for them. Um, but the, the hide on a squirrel, you know, gray squirrels typically, um, it's actually quite tough.

00:56:59.22
Jeremy
It's a lot tougher than you might think it is. Um, and it's literally, you open it up, you find the abdominal crease, you just open it up and you just clean it out. You just scoop it out.

00:57:09.80
Jeremy
And if you want, you can give that to the dogs or whatever, you know, you can just set it to the side. um And you just, you're you're not getting a tremendous amount of meat, but the entire animal is covered in muscle.

00:57:25.55
Jeremy
So what I do is I actually collect several squirrels before I you know actually prepare a meal. And i put them into a stew pot and just put it on low and simmer because you really got to get that gaminess out of there.

00:57:38.44
Jeremy
And some people will actually change the water you know a couple of times while they're doing that.

00:57:42.38
Keith
Is that right?

00:57:43.56
Jeremy
yeah Yeah, they're very gamey.

00:57:44.13
Keith
Wow.

00:57:45.88
Jeremy
I mean, i won't say that they're as gamey as, like say, a Wild Rabbit, but but they they can be very gamey. Yeah.

00:57:55.53
Keith
The rabbit that the rabbits I had were very gamey and I have had squirrel, but I didn't, I didn't kill him or clean him and I didn't find to be gamey at all. So whoever killed them and there's a long time ago, they must have processed, processed them very, very well.

00:58:05.37
Jeremy
Yeah.

00:58:08.31
Jeremy
Yeah, I've known some people to soak them in buttermilk or, you know, you put them in that stew pot and water and you just put it on low and it just sort of, you know, it starts to break away the muscle and everything. But you you change the water a couple times and it takes away that gameness.

00:58:25.30
Keith
Nice.

00:58:26.05
Jeremy
ah For dove and other similar birds, um It's a super, super, super duper easy. um If you do get a dove, um you start just up underneath where the beak is on on a dove. And a lot of people don't know this directly underneath their beak. They have a pouch and that pouch expands and that's actually where they store food.

00:58:50.13
Jeremy
um The first time I saw it, if i it freaked me out. I was like, oh my God, this thing's diseased. And I looked and I was like, wait a minute, that looks like seed. That's what that is. And I just kind of like, you know, I took it apart just to look at it.

00:59:02.90
Jeremy
And that's literally where they pack food into. They store it in this little this little pouch up underneath their beak area.

00:59:09.93
Keith
A lot of foul do that.

00:59:11.31
Jeremy
Yeah. So, but dove are super easy. If you go and you follow just up underneath that pouch, you can actually just put your fingers on both sides of the breast line and you just tear it open like ah piece of paper. That's how thin these things are with their actual like skin.

00:59:27.06
Jeremy
You just tear it open like a piece of paper and you just kind of work your way back and And you open up and then you separate the wing portion from the rest of the, uh, body cavity and you just scoop out the bad stuff and you take out and it's literally, it's not even, i mean, i think my wallet's bigger than what you're going to get. Yes.

00:59:51.07
Keith
You're going to need a lot of dub if you're going to feed your family during an SHGF situation.

00:59:52.98
Jeremy
yes

00:59:55.59
Jeremy
Yeah, you definitely do need a lot of them. um Some people will eat pigeons. ah I would not eat a pigeon unless I absolutely had to. Now, if I had to, okay, fine.

01:00:06.39
Jeremy
They basically look like overgrown doves, but um they are they are the rats of the air, kind of like crow. Some people i actually eat crow, and I'm like, crow to me is kind of like...

01:00:22.91
Jeremy
I don't know, carp, because carp eat everything and anything that comes their way.

01:00:27.01
Keith
They eat the old trash.

01:00:28.49
Jeremy
Yeah, crow are scavengers. They eat the dead. They eat the living. They are, well, I mean, I'm good. Thanks. But um most birds are very, very easy to kill.

01:00:42.44
Jeremy
And most birds are very, very easy to clean, except for turkeys. Turkeys are extremely... Elusive. um I love hunting turkeys.

01:00:55.43
Jeremy
Mm-hmm.

01:00:55.80
Keith
ah Okay, so wait, hold on, stop. So you did you did squirrels with a.22 or a pellet, a.177, or a.4-ton shotgun, if that's what you have.

01:00:59.10
Jeremy
Mm-hmm.

01:01:01.90
Jeremy
Mm-hmm.

01:01:05.65
Keith
I think that's very reasonable for proper survivors because pellet guns are very inexpensive, and so is a.22 rifle.

01:01:08.78
Jeremy
Yeah.

01:01:12.21
Jeremy
Mm-hmm.

01:01:12.22
Keith
you know You can get expensive.22 rifle, but you don't need to, is the point.

01:01:12.64
Jeremy
Yeah.

01:01:17.04
Jeremy
Yeah, you don't need to. No.

01:01:18.28
Keith
So you're you're you're going to spend $200 for a.22 rifle, and you're going to eat.

01:01:23.09
Jeremy
Yeah.

01:01:23.26
Keith
Simple as that.

01:01:24.33
Jeremy
Yeah.

01:01:24.47
Keith
so what so

01:01:24.61
Jeremy
I mean, and and again, it also depends on your setup, but I've talked about it before. I actually have, so my 1022 is a backpacker model. um It's actually a takedown. It stores in itself and you can literally put it in a backpack and yeah, the rigor 1022.

01:01:39.80
Keith
Right, you're talking about the Ruger 10-22, which is a very ver so versatile shot ah rifle that lots of people have.

01:01:42.55
Jeremy
Yeah.

01:01:45.31
Jeremy
yeah

01:01:46.53
Keith
It's probably the most popular one in the world.

01:01:46.74
Jeremy
i And I think you should. i think every prepper, kind of going back to the episode when you guys did, you know, these are the guns that you should have. Everyone should have a Ruger 10-22.

01:01:58.73
Jeremy
Everyone should.

01:01:59.72
Keith
Yep.

01:02:00.29
Jeremy
um But the.22 itself, again, it can be used for a lot of different things. I have known people who have killed turkeys with a twenty two Um, but that's just because that's what, that's how they rolled.

01:02:14.22
Jeremy
Um, legally in some States, you cannot, you cannot hunt hunt certain animals with less than a particular type of load. So you cannot hunt Turkey with anything less than four 10.

01:02:30.17
Jeremy
So can you hunt turkeys with a four 10? Yes. Is it advisable? Not necessarily. It's better with 12 gauge. Um,

01:02:37.32
Keith
So you're hunting with a with ah a baby shot from 12-gauge shotgun. Where's your shot placement on a turkey?

01:02:44.98
Jeremy
um That depends. If you are hunting with a shotgun, you're wanting to actually shoot for the main portion between the where the actual gobble-gobble part, the red flappy flap, you're wanting to aim in that general area to hit it in the head, and you're wanting to hit it in the front-facing torso.

01:03:05.79
Jeremy
i do I do know people and I have hunted turkey with archery and you're wanting to actually put that arrow into the main body, like actually the main portion of the the the turkey to get it over with quickly.

01:03:23.04
Jeremy
But I do know some people who intentionally in these particular broadheads are made for this. um But they're skilled enough to actually cut the head off of the turkey.

01:03:35.45
Jeremy
So they're, yes, yes it is.

01:03:35.68
Keith
That's a hell of a shot, man.

01:03:38.67
Jeremy
Yeah,

01:03:38.68
Keith
That's a hell of a shot. Now, know turkey necks are big and thick, but wow, that's a small, tiny little target, man.

01:03:45.23
Jeremy
e yeah. yeah And I mean...

01:03:46.88
Keith
i mean, with a shotgun, you're pretty much guaranteed to blow its head right off if you get if you're close enough.

01:03:50.90
Jeremy
Yeah. Yeah. But the problem with, with all birds and this is all birds, but especially turkeys, turkeys can hear pretty well. Turkeys can see. I mean, their definition of seeing the is, and we can't even imagine it.

01:04:06.81
Jeremy
They could probably watch two fleas getting it on, on the back of like a farting squirrel 500 meters away

01:04:15.07
Keith
I think i I actually think I have a sound. I got a but bunch of sound bites that I have here. I think I actually have one, but it's going hard. I should have wrote. know No, no, no, not that one. Hold on.

01:04:27.03
Keith
Yeah. OK, right here. There we go.

01:04:38.42
Jeremy
you

01:05:13.88
Keith
He

01:05:24.01
Jeremy
Dude, Theo Vaughn is so funny without even trying to be funny.

01:05:27.18
Keith
is. Yep.

01:05:29.71
Jeremy
Oh, man.

01:05:29.88
Keith
Yeah.

01:05:31.62
Jeremy
Anyway.

01:05:31.70
Keith
So, yeah. So it was it was a nice little soundbite for a chart, but I was really, let me hear one more. Hold on. Nope.

01:05:41.24
Keith
Nope.

01:05:43.59
Keith
Nope. Hold on. where Where is it?

01:05:51.95
Keith
Oh my God. What happened?

01:05:55.24
Jeremy
it's an attack of the

01:06:00.34
Keith
oh my God.

01:06:07.30
Keith
ah Okay. I don't know. was clicking them. There's no on and off button on these damn things. I just, I got them all set up, but I put them as meat eater one, meat eater two, instead of putting the actual topic of them, I was going to throw them, throw them in as we were talking as little meat eater moments.

01:06:22.21
Jeremy
nice

01:06:22.36
Keith
So let's, let's have one more meat eater moment before you, before you carry on. Let's,

01:06:37.57
Keith
and They're talking about bear meat.

01:06:38.95
Jeremy
Mm-hmm.

01:06:50.90
Keith
Yeah. So they were, they've they killed the ah ah ah bear and they didn't clean it. They didn't cook it ah long enough. So it's another thing.

01:06:57.23
Jeremy
Mm-hmm.

01:06:57.61
Keith
If you're going to be out there hunting and cooking, you better know what you're doing.

01:06:57.95
Jeremy
Yeah.

01:07:00.54
Jeremy
Yeah, so ah not only does that go back to shot placement and accidentally or you know or unintentionally gut shotting an animal. um Animals carry different diseases than we do.

01:07:13.55
Jeremy
Most of them, not all but most of them are not transferable to us. um But the same kind of parasites that we can get in our gut, they may already have.

01:07:26.59
Jeremy
Like, for instance, wild pigs. Wild pigs and regular pigs on a farm are literally no different. Most feral pigs that you see out there are actually pigs that used to be on a farm.

01:07:37.92
Jeremy
And no matter where they're from, all pigs have worms. Every single one of them. Even the ones that are on the farm that you eat for breakfast, all of them have worms. um And a lot of animals, you know...

01:07:52.64
Jeremy
there's ah i think there's probably a misconception that these animals in the wild are pristine and healthy and all those things. The majority of them are, yes, but they get diseases too. you know they They do get diseased and you got to pay attention to what you're doing.

01:08:07.92
Jeremy
So like I've talked about before, if I'm opening up a deer, a lot of people don't mess with the guts. The majority of what I do, i actually do intentionally open up the actual the cavity itself.

01:08:22.41
Jeremy
I pull the stomach out. I want to see what they've been eating. And I want to see if they have you know if they have ah way too stomach acid going on I want to look at the liver.

01:08:33.12
Jeremy
I'm going to actually cut the liver open and I'm going look at it. um If you're looking at a deer's liver, kind of look it kind of looks like it has these like porous cavities, not a tremendous amount.

01:08:46.46
Jeremy
But if you do see a tremendous amount of porous cavities inside of a deer's liver, there's probably a good chance that that that animal has a disease. um I'm also looking for worms inside of the liver.

01:08:59.75
Jeremy
And then I check the heart. I'm going cut the heart in half and I'm going check it and I'm going to look for worms. I'm going look for any disease sort of markings. I'm going look for significant damage.

01:09:11.84
Jeremy
um And again, that's to just for me to verify that the animal itself is generally healthy. you know I want to make sure that it actually looks healthy from my own eyes.

01:09:25.81
Keith
Yeah, but you have enough experience to know what you're looking for. The you the average prepper survivalist out there in the SHGF is not going to know jack shit.

01:09:28.20
Jeremy
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

01:09:33.76
Jeremy
No, but if you're only going to be able to do two things, I always say check the liver and check the heart. Those are the two things minimum that you need to check. And...

01:09:43.07
Keith
You're looking for something anomalous, something not looking right.

01:09:44.77
Jeremy
Yes.

01:09:45.44
Keith
Okay.

01:09:45.66
Jeremy
Yeah. Yeah. And you're, you're looking for something that might, you know, if you're, if it stands out to you and you're like, Oh my God, what the hell is that? There might be a good chance that something's going on.

01:09:56.73
Jeremy
Um, but the same thing with any squirrels that I kill, I actually make sure I look at them. I make sure that they look healthy you know um and Doves, same thing. Doves can get parasites.

01:10:09.34
Jeremy
Doves can get diseases too. um you know Most animals that we consume can can have a whole lot of issues that we don't really think about because you're picking it up at a supermarket.

01:10:21.52
Jeremy
When you're hunting for your own food, um you really got to start to learn how to check these things. You know what i mean? So, um and and that also goes back to a deer's feet.

01:10:32.89
Jeremy
um I actually check the bottom of their feet and make sure their hooves are still firm, still look healthy. And to make sure that there's no, because know if you've ever heard of hookworm.

01:10:43.79
Jeremy
There's a bunch of different types of worms that they can actually get into their body through stepping on them. Same thing with us. So, There's a lot of different things that kind of, it comes with time and experience.

01:10:56.73
Jeremy
And that's why I say for preppers and for people who are trying to prepare for the future, the time to learn those things is not after it happened. The time to learn those things is now.

01:11:07.81
Keith
Or for for those wanting to live off grid.

01:11:08.08
Jeremy
And

01:11:11.79
Jeremy
Yeah. Yeah. I would tell anybody who's wanting to live off grid, get a few reps in first before you're forced, yeah before you put yourself into that lifestyle.

01:11:23.69
Keith
Yeah.

01:11:24.04
Jeremy
Because if all of a sudden you're forced to you know start providing for yourself in that manner, you've got to learn how to do it before and before you do that.

01:11:34.35
Keith
yeah

01:11:35.57
Jeremy
So one of the last things I want to get into is storage. I touched it lightly on it last time. And this goes for all any kind of meat, any kind of food that you're consuming that you're go wanting to put away, especially anything biological.

01:11:52.55
Jeremy
So air is the enemy of meat and food going into a freezer. You need to, you need to, you need to have a an actual vacuum sealer.

01:12:06.64
Jeremy
You need to have a vacuum sealer. um It's one of the easiest, simplest, but most effective ways to store large amounts of meat. Now, if you want to go true old school and you want to hang your meat and you actually want to cure it, you can do that.

01:12:25.32
Jeremy
It takes time. It takes patience. It takes a tremendous amount of salt and it takes an actual setup where you can have low level persistent heat and you hang your meat to dry out.

01:12:41.49
Jeremy
That's how they used to actually cure meat in the old days. So,

01:12:45.85
Keith
You're not talking about a smokehouse, are you?

01:12:47.57
Jeremy
You are. i am.

01:12:48.48
Keith
Okay, okay, okay.

01:12:49.13
Jeremy
So yeah i now me personally, i actually don't like smoked meats. I don't know why that is, but it's just something about the taste of the smoke. um But in the old days, they also used to brine their meat, and they would salt it, and they would actually hang it to dry.

01:13:06.43
Jeremy
And that salt is what's curing the meat on the inside. And then when it would come time to utilize that, and they have these they'd have whole shacks that were hit for hanging, right?

01:13:18.73
Jeremy
Um, and if you didn't want the smokiness, you still had your fire going, but you would create it a very, very low, but persistent amount of heat throughout the curing process.

01:13:31.33
Jeremy
And the meat would dry and the outside of it may look a little funky, but all they would do is they would just take a knife and they would trim away those dark parts, feed it to their dogs. And the meat that's underneath is already salted and cured and ready to cook.

01:13:46.27
Keith
Right. It's kind of like a, it's like creating its own shell around the meat.

01:13:49.66
Jeremy
yeah Yep.

01:13:50.85
Keith
Yeah. I've seen it before.

01:13:51.22
Jeremy
Yeah. Yeah. And if you ever, why you would do this, I don't know, but if you ever spend the money on a restaurant dry aged steak, that is exactly what they've done.

01:13:52.35
Keith
Yeah.

01:14:01.02
Jeremy
So they will usually coat it in seasoning and typically a fat source, and then they would encase it in that fat source and then they would put that into a refrigerated environment.

01:14:01.36
Keith
Right. That's right.

01:14:16.19
Keith
Yeah, I actually saw a video where they were taking, ah i i want to say that it was deer, but it could have been elk.

01:14:23.27
Jeremy
Mm hmm.

01:14:23.43
Keith
And they were actually coating it with tallow, like a heavy layer of fat, white pure white, crystal clean, you like purified tallow.

01:14:25.54
Jeremy
Yeah.

01:14:27.68
Jeremy
Yep.

01:14:31.60
Keith
It's been processed and in in rendered. And then they would just, and I was thinking to myself, okay, so what are they going to do? i put it in a bag. Oh no, they just hang it up. and the And the tallow just sort of encrusts it after some time.

01:14:45.71
Jeremy
Yeah, so I've seen it to where they they have a hook, they insert it into the meat, and then they dunk it in the tallow and let it cool. And kind of like making a candle, they would dunk it in the tallow, let it cool, and it builds up one layer.

01:14:58.55
Jeremy
They dunk it back into the tallow, let it cool, and they just do that over and over.

01:15:01.31
Keith
Oh, that's a great idea. Great Yeah.

01:15:03.22
Jeremy
Yep, yeah. yeah so

01:15:04.77
Keith
yeah

01:15:05.86
Jeremy
you're creating, in a like you said, a shell, but it's almost artificial marbling. So you're creating the marbling from the tallow that's been rendered. um And all your seasoning is actually up underneath that or salt, you know, if that's what your intent is, is to actually cure the meat.

01:15:23.24
Jeremy
um I've actually got a backstrap downstairs in the fridge with some olive oil um mixed with tallow right now.

01:15:33.96
Jeremy
That's actually the meat's been soaking in that. They're just kind of like sealed up in it for two days. So. Mm

01:15:39.97
Keith
and so And as long as you get that, as long as the air is not touching it, it's not going to go bad.

01:15:43.63
Jeremy
hmm.

01:15:45.23
Keith
it's that's the That's what you were saying before. The air is the enemy.

01:15:48.14
Jeremy
Well, it it will go bad eventually, but by removing all of the air out of the environment, when you put it in the freezer, it reduces the risk of freezer burn.

01:15:59.18
Jeremy
So yeah, now.

01:15:59.61
Keith
That's right. That's right. Yeah. Which is something I'm worried about with my peppers that I vacuum sealed.

01:16:05.19
Jeremy
Mm-hmm.

01:16:05.31
Keith
Because i noticed that a lot of, because, you know, it's a vegetable and there they have water in them.

01:16:09.67
Jeremy
Mm-hmm.

01:16:10.02
Keith
And or fruit. And, um you know, the vacuum sealer got the air out, but I can see pockets where, you know, there might be some air. And I i have a feeling that I'm going to get some freezer burn on a lot of those peppers.

01:16:18.20
Jeremy
Yeah.

01:16:21.65
Jeremy
I mean some of that, i mean, some of that is, is you can't help it, you know?

01:16:27.61
Keith
You can't help it. Yeah, because because they're odd shaped peppers and then, you know, there's going to be little little tiny areas where I think the air came out, but I can still see a little ah little pocket.

01:16:30.54
Jeremy
Yeah.

01:16:35.73
Keith
I don't know. This is this is a first year learning experience for us.

01:16:39.31
Jeremy
Yeah, I mean, but peppers, like all vegetable matter, is made up mostly of water. So that water is inside of that pepper.

01:16:44.65
Keith
Right.

01:16:46.95
Jeremy
And as it starts to freeze and, you know, water expands when it freezes, it can create its own air pockets. So I will, what I'll do is I'll fill up, and one of the ways to prevent that is, one, make sure you cut down the stem to the lowest portion that you can.

01:17:05.58
Jeremy
um But You put them in the bag, you shake them really good and get them evened out. You put them in your, your, uh, uh, in your vacuum sealer. And as it's starting to suck out the air, try to move those peppers around a little bit.

01:17:19.41
Jeremy
Kind i of trying to move them before it actually goes into it's the hard vacuum stage just to kind of work out any other, any other air that might be in there. So that's what I do is I've got, I don't know, 15, 20 bags of peppers in the freezer right now.

01:17:34.23
Keith
Right, right. Yeah.

01:17:35.65
Jeremy
um Those lemon drop peppers that Buddy had recommended, I think it was last year. Holy crap, in the morning, those things produced hundreds of peppers.

01:17:46.60
Jeremy
I mean hundreds. um And they're a bushing type. And i was like, man, these things are like, we're we're picking these peppers every day.

01:17:57.38
Jeremy
um And yeah, those things probably, they outproduced pretty much every pepper that we had this year.

01:18:01.03
Keith
That's awesome.

01:18:06.07
Jeremy
Yeah, we got more lemon drops than anything else. so um But yeah, we have multiple, multiple bags of peppers set aside. And same thing with tomatoes. You can freeze tomatoes.

01:18:19.78
Jeremy
And once they're they come out of the – oh, yeah.

01:18:20.81
Keith
Can you really?

01:18:22.25
Jeremy
You freeze them, and once they come out of the freezer, you you just hit them with a steaming blanch real quick, and the skin just comes right on off. So, yeah. um So for preppers and for hunting, again, it's it's something that you got to do now.

01:18:40.16
Jeremy
If you're going to do it, learn it now. Because once things happen that that go into motion that can't be reversed and you find yourself having to produce for your family, you need ah you need to already know how to do it.

01:18:56.10
Jeremy
And that's why I encourage you to find somebody that you know that hunts. And if you can't find somebody, get onto YouTube first. you know Just kind of watch it. Just watch how it happens, the process of it.

01:19:09.08
Jeremy
And there are people in there that will go step by step. This is where I go for my license. This is where I go to find land. This is public land. This is where I aim. This is how I shoot. This is what I do. This is how what I do after I find the animal. This is how I track.

01:19:25.03
Jeremy
You know, there's thousands of videos out there.

01:19:29.39
Keith
and know I went to a shooting range, and i know you're on your on finishing touches here, but I went to a shooting range in Texas. I believe, it I want to say it was Duck Creek or devre Dove Creek?

01:19:40.85
Keith
Outdoor shooting range. Okay. but And I loved shooting for, you know, for many reasons and for for years before I even went to this place. ah But it was all indoor ranges where I was mostly just shooting my pistols.

01:19:53.76
Keith
Okay. I think I shot my shotgun and a rifle one time in an indoor range. But when I got out to the outdoor range, man, and you're you're in the you're outside, but you're you know you're covered, you're you know there's trees and there's nature and there's breeze and there's wind, and you're starting to shoot rifle, you're going to get hooked.

01:20:13.18
Jeremy
Mm-hmm.

01:20:14.06
Keith
Get a rifle. I don't care. You can you can go to these places with a.22. You might even be able to go with high-powered pellet gun. But you can go to the rifle ranges and you will have fun and you'll learn quickly and you'll get an itch and then you're going to want more.

01:20:29.10
Keith
So I suggest anybody who's interested in, in you know, really taking their prepper you so survivalist ah to the next degree and get into harvesting their own food, get a rifle, a cheap one and go to the range and have fun.

01:20:44.31
Keith
Have fun first. Learn it all, you know.

01:20:47.79
Jeremy
Yeah, once you once you start down that path, ah it is hard to give it up. It is. um I started down the hunting path when I was a little kid, but it was ingrained into our family.

01:21:04.35
Jeremy
you know I come from a military family. That's great and all, but I also come from a family who had been living the lifestyle for generations. Yeah. um Going back to ah at least on my mother's side, going back to the early to mid 1600s. And on my grandfather's side, from her, um the Native Americans that they eventually ran into actually here in North Carolina.

01:21:35.45
Jeremy
On my dad's side, the Tainos in Puerto Rico, the natives that lived there before, it's ingrained into my DNA. Unfortunately, um and it's it's not to say that it's anyone's fault versus not fault or whatever, um that kind of lifestyle is not necessarily like as as normal as it was in the old days.

01:22:00.52
Jeremy
um you know When we were in high school, it was not uncommon to see somebody with a you know a shotgun or a rifle in their back window. Um, that's because as soon as school was over, they were going out in the woods and they were going to hunt, you know, i mean, it's, it's, it's normal for us and our family, but it's not necessarily normal nowadays in a lot of families.

01:22:23.68
Jeremy
And I think it should be because i have a feeling that it's going to be extremely necessary in our future.

My Prepper Brothers and Sisters…

… Go ahead and brush away Hollywood and fantasy from our conversations. Start with a clean slate and face the truth head-on. Here’s the part I want you to hold onto—the part that too often gets overlooked in the darker conversations about SHTF and grid-down survival:

Reality doesn’t have to suck.

Yes, hunting in a collapse won’t be easy. Success rates will plummet. And yes, the hard truth is that many will come home empty-handed. But the hopeful side of that truth—the side we sometimes forget—is that skill can be learned. Strategies can be practiced. And resilience… resilience is something every one of us already carries.

You don’t need to be born into this lifestyle. You don’t need to be a seasoned backcountry hunter with decades of experience. What you do need is the willingness to learn, adapt, and grow. And if you’re listening to this show… you already have it within you.

Every step you take today, every skill you sharpen, every moment you spend understanding the land around you… all of it moves you from ‘hoping to survive’ to ‘planning to thrive.’

Hunter-Gatherers are not defined by how many animals they harvest or how much they found to scavenge. They’re defined by their persistence, their patience, and their ability to adapt when everything around them changed. Sound familiar? It should. Because that’s exactly who we are as Preppers and Survivalists. 

Stay Prepped… Stay Happy….

Thanks for Listening… And Goodnight…

Head Shot

Keith Otworth

Host
Head Shot

Rhonda Triggs

Host
Contributor

Buddy

Co-host
Contributor

Jeremy

Co-host