Speaker 1: 0:15

Hello everyone, welcome back to the Son of a Blitz podcast. I'm your host, george Blitz, and today I had a wonderful chat with Jason Phelps from Phelps Game Calls. You know Jason has been designing for quite a long time now well over 10 years some of the best game calls in the industry. You know he started out kind of hunting elk and turkey and kind of making those calls. They've gone on to make deer calls there's some waterfowl, you know. I know I use one there. Elk I mean there are owl calls right now. I want to be able to use some elk calls. I haven't jumped into that yet.

Speaker 1: 0:50

He talked about a woodpecker call that they're going to be producing out here this next year. That's going to be able to help kind of locate some turkeys, get some shot gobbles going that way and they've done mouth calls, pot calls, your traditional calls I mean this is one too that they put out last year, the Akron with Clay Newcomb there and designing that for Whitetail. It's kind of got a double ended, you know. Call for different grunts and bleeds man. It is phenomenal. There's so many wonderful things that they put out. Highly suggest you go check out Phelps Game Calls and see which call is going to be right for you and, yeah, I hope you enjoy this.

Speaker 1: 1:22

We had just had a great chat about. You know Jason's passion, kind of how he views making these calls, what he wants to do and making sure he's, you know, putting out something that he's really proud of. It's going to have your name on it. You want to make sure it's great and you know, without a doubt, phelps Game Calls everything I've ever checked out is well deserved to have his stamp of approval and his name on it. Wonderful, wonderful calls. You know, if you guys got any questions for him, please leave in the comments below and I'll make sure that you know we can try to see if he can address those. And if you got any questions, you know the contacts on here. Look in the description below on how you can follow and, you know, get in touch with Jason and the team over there.

Speaker 1: 2:01

Once again, thank you all for listening. If you haven't yet, please like subscribe, share this with all your friends and, without further ado, here is the podcast with Jason Phelps. Enjoy, hey, jason, how you doing today, man, good, good. Thanks for having me, george Dude, you're more than welcome. You're more than welcome. I'm glad you're here. So you know, I figure one thing is best way to start is kind of the genesis of your outdoor experience. Why don't you tell us a little bit about where you grew up, you know your beginning hunting world and kind of how you got into the outdoors?

Speaker 2: 2:33

Yeah, so family generational hunters right as far back as anybody can remember. My dad grew up in a small town of PL, washington, where I now reside. My mom grew up in a small town of Rochester, Washington, about 45 minutes from here, spent the first seven or eight years of my life in Rochester and hunting season was a big deal. You would go out and stay at Grandma and Grandpa's for you know, even over 45 minutes away, like you would stay. You know you'd stay the whole three day weekend or Friday, saturday, sunday out here and it was just a big thing for our family. You know I can remember, like the night before, that feeling of being around the roundtables, what we called. You know all the guys would be scout in different areas and you'd all get back together. What do you see? Well, if somebody didn't see anything like maybe somebody saw more than and you would just like you would, you would and I just I loved it as a little kid, just kind of watching. You know, from two, three, four years old it was just cool to see Grandpa and all my uncles and you know the hunting party sit there and from a very young age, deer hunting, scouting like we, it was as much as I could go or as if there was a seat for me. We were in that seat, you know, out there in the woods. You know, back then I didn't spot a lot but you were always going along and we were out there and I think I passed my hunter's ed in fourth grade or I don't know what age that puts you up. But even before then, like you know, you got grandpa. You'd go out with grandpa and grandma and and I can remember being like seven years old and grandpa like trying to get me to shoot his deer. You know I probably shouldn't say this, but you know grandpa was like I don't care about my tag, like he is once, you know, one of the grandkids to shoot his deer for him. And I can remember like that all trying to happen and it didn't pan out.

Speaker 2: 4:06

But just, guys that were loggers, they're out in the woods already they're. They kind of lived with the animals. It was just something that was very natural, right, I didn't, they didn't have to talk me into hunting. You know it was like I wanted my BB gun as soon as. It was just very natural, very good woodsmen.

Speaker 2: 4:25

So as things got older, you know we started a deer hunt there in fourth grade and you know, out in the West for those that don't know here in South West Washington we have blacktail deer and then we've got Roosevelt elk and that was primarily all we hunted. You know bear, there's a lot of bear here but my family wasn't huge into bear hunt. We would go more as a deer and elk scouting, you know mission. But if there were bear there and somebody had a tag and so that was kind of my upbringing. I was very upset, though that I could deer hunt but I couldn't elk hunt.

Speaker 2: 4:58

When I first got my license it was we're going to buy a deer tag and like, well, why are you guys all?

Speaker 2: 5:04

It was kind of back to that round table, like you'd go back down there Everybody's down there elk season but then I had to sleep in the next day, right, you didn't get the invite on the elk hunt and like, man, there's, this thing must be real cool, or you know, it was reserved for the grownups and it really kind of frustrated me. So there was always a thing about elk hunting, and I think that's probably why it's I've elevated it now, because from a very young age like this, elk hunting is something that you have to. You have to achieve or get to a level or have enough responsibility to not get lost while you're out in the middle of the woods. You know like, yeah, deer hunting was very truck based for us, elk hunting was very like wander for five hours through the woods is what it looked like to me. For me and kid, you know and know your way and have some navigational skills and you know being able to hit a certain pickup spot and all of that.

Speaker 1: 5:48

So what was that looking like? For like why they actually had, you know that, that right of passage. What was it about? Was it a certain age? Was it a criteria that they had? Hey, you got to be able to do this. Like what was that? That kind of they hesitated bringing you in until that point.

Speaker 2: 6:04

So I think it's the way that we hunt elk. You will glass clear cuts here. So I don't know if your audience knows what clear cuts are out. Here in industrial timberland we basically cut timber every 40 to 60 years. The majority of their feeds in the clear cut. So on elk hunts you would check the clear cuts first, but then very quickly, if you've been patterning or scouting elk, you would jump into the timber. Well, I think.

Speaker 2: 6:24

I think they didn't want me to have to take along. Or if I wasn't able to like it in fourth or fifth grade, you know, as a 10 year old, or to like find my own way, or them to have to like deal with you just sitting in the truck for hours, right, they didn't want to think about that. So until you were able to basically get pointed in a direction like hunt down this ridge, go down there, figure it out, come back out, walk out the grade, whatever it may be. So I think it was more of a of a. They didn't want I didn't want to be like a, a bother to them, or they didn't want to have to have the responsibility of dealing with a young kid why they're all out hunting very hard in the timber, kind of chasing elk down the way that we. We hunt elk around here.

Speaker 1: 7:04

So when did that transition happen to where you were brought in with them?

Speaker 2: 7:09

So we started to be able to hunt like freshman, sophomore year of high school. But I was tricked. I didn't realize that you got to hunt opening weekend but then you had football practice for like the rest of season, right. So you, you, you, where they were taking their entire vacations during elk season and that's where they did the majority of of of the killing, you know, of elk was during that week, like opening weekend. We would kill some, but I get to hunt two days and then not get the hunt at all. And so we actually in our area they were all rifle elk hunters to start with. They started buying, like me and my cousin, um muzzle loader tags so that gave them more time, a different season, and then they didn't have to. They still got to let us elk hunt but we didn't have to worry about um, you know, being running around with them.

Speaker 2: 7:53

When a rifle season hit, um, which was a good entry, you know, we got, they got the focus on us. We were in more elk because the entire hunting crews were looking for one or two, you know guys and and and that really kind of gave us a a good um entry to elk hunting. But what it really did was open to my eyes to elk still running at that time. You know, rifle hunting around here is a complete silent spot and stock timber hunt game where I'm like these elk make noise and they will come into calls and you started to watch like the primos truth series back then and like these guys are calling Elkin these things are still big during this muzzle loader season Like maybe I should add the ability to call, and that's really kind of what sparked the fire. So I'm actually glad they threw me in a muzzle loader hunt first because it really exposed me to, you know, the Elkra and the ability to call some of these animals in at a young age.

Speaker 1: 8:43

You, you, I mean I know that you kind of you went to college, you got your civil engineering degree and you kind of had a few different things that you had done as far as uh, you know, working there with the state.

Speaker 1: 8:53

I know you kind of did a bunch of work there with uh you know. I guess you did like some, some bridge inspection, there was a bunch of things in the kind of transportation world, and then you eventually decided to start making your own calls and because I guess you know that was probably the, the uh, you know, the spark of that idea of hey, seeing how they can come in, watching those early primos videos and things. And then you decided that one point in time you were going to go ahead and throw your hat in the ring and give it a try for yourself. Was it a personal thing first, like I want to just have a challenge of being able to make this and do this and see, or was it kind of like a business idea off at the start or kind of, you know, a combination thereof?

Speaker 2: 9:31

No, I was. I still tell people this day I'm a horrible business guy. I've learned like I'm better now, but in the beginning, like I was the worst business guy because I didn't. It was all ran, run on, passion, right. So a business guy would sit down like I need to make this much money. I need to be, you know, in the positive by two or three years. You know I was just. I was going backwards, you know I was.

Speaker 2: 9:51

I was just wanting to get get stuff out there and, and at first it was just like can I build one? Like I didn't start the business with an intent for anything, but like can I build one that makes a sound that sounds like an elk? And then I sold a few, gave a few away to buddy, is like, hey, please give these a try, let me know if they work. I knew they were going to work just from the sound that was coming out of them. You know, got some pretty good response and then it was just it really just cascaded from their no business plan though, bought a lathe, bought some wood, you know, figured out a way to modify some tone boards that were already in existence. You know I came from from very humble beginnings. You know, I traded away like my first two elk sets of elk antlers for the lathe and some of the original wood and the tooling just to get started, you know, and that kind of I would never trade it. But it's like, oh, I wish I could somehow get those horns back. But they've already been turned into calls or dog chews or something by now.

Speaker 2: 10:45

But that was kind of my very and just worked out in the shop and got there's some forums like back then there was Monster Mealy is like hunting Washington, my local forums, and just I was a kid with courage, I guess, yeah, even though I was mid 20s back then. But I wasn't afraid, for somebody just told me no. So like the guy that owned Mountain or Monster Mealy is like hey, man, would you care if I gave away a few of these, knowing that people would get to see the post and maybe ask me on the side to buy some? Same with hunting Washington I reached out to back then the you know I hate the word influencers or guys on that you know that were being paid attention to, like hey, would you be willing if I sent you a call, maybe I'll put your logo on it or whatever, and so I was just building a lot of these, you know, for free, started to take off a little bit within the first three or four years and then got some traction and I knew in my mind at that point like, if I'm going to make a real go at it, you can't just build wood body outcalls, because that's what I started with just external cow calls.

Speaker 2: 11:48

You're going to have to use your engineering skills and start to design some original designs, right New Beagle tubes, diaphragm design, tooling to build the diaphragms in a way that's very consistent, and then it really just cascaded from there. So a lot of I'm very transparent. Anybody that's used an elk diaphragm knows that there's a pallet plate that Primoz had the patent for forever. We knew by doing some research that the patent was coming up in, I believe, 2016. I started to work in about 2014 on stuff like that and that was really kind of the big break. Was that amp diaphragm really performed better than anything else out there, really consistent? And we designed.

Speaker 2: 12:31

We were using, like some old kids, fat bats, you know everybody used to play Wiffleball with those, oh yeah, and so at the time we were just modifying those. It was actually a blessing in disguise when fat bat called and said hey, our mold's no longer good, I can't be able to sell these to you anymore. So it forced me to design a Beagle tube with a little more functionality than just using the bat and everything kind of hit, I would say, in 2016. Everything clicked, everything hit and then that really kind of gave me my I would say legit jump start. So we were six or seven years kind of dabbling and finding good success with the diaphragms and stuff. But when we brought the amp diaphragm and that Unleashed Beagle tube out for the first time, really skyrocketed the company. And then from there we dabbled in Turkey, started to do some custom deer stuff and then, you know, ran really really well and grew exponentially for those four years into about 2020. Started to work with me eater a little bit and then, you know, towards the end of 2020, kind of they made a pitch to see we were going to do a Turkey line together. That was my proposal Just do Turkey call line, we'll collab on it and they were all for it. And as we penciled out numbers and thought what we could do, they're like wait, this might look better if we just own the whole thing.

Speaker 2: 13:48

I was really reluctant at the beginning. Right, it's. This is my baby. I've grown it here for 11 years and it's really close to me. I've employed friends and family like I did it the way I wanted to and started to meet with them and got the impression or understanding that we'd be able to continue on. And it ended up being a good decision for me and my wife. Like, sometimes you don't want to give up ownership or control, but we looked at it in a way like, does this, does this take care of you in life and financially? And one thing for me that it's tough. I, as I mentioned earlier, I had never really thought about the money that was coming from this. It was it was all driven on passion that the whole business side still hadn't really taken over. Yeah, I was better at accounting. I was better at profits and losses.

Speaker 1: 14:41

Right, you just have to, naturally, get better at care, yeah, just from the years of doing it, sure yeah.

Speaker 2: 14:46

But I had never really thought, like, what's this thing worth? What's, how do you value a company? And all of this stuff came to me and I'm like man, I don't, I don't even want to put a number to it, I just love this, I love growing it, I love being able to reach people that maybe weren't good Elk or Tricky callers or deer callers or strategists, and fixing that or helping them or giving them a tidbit that helped and, and you know, building those educational pieces. I love to, just I love to hunt and this was kind of a thing that allowed me to do it a little bit more. Right, I had some, I had some extra money to go hunting and do this or go on more trips or be able to afford to leave work for a couple of extra weeks and not get paid, whatever it may be. But yeah, me either came along and I'm like I don't know what this is worth. I don't even know how this process goes, and that was kind of the point where I had to get serious about the business side and really dig into the books for the last few years. And but yeah, it's been fun like with it, with it and some people don't under, like when your brain works like an engineer, you're always, you're always like spinning ideas, like would that work with this work? And so I just I love being a call designer and I think in my own mind, like we went very far with the calls now, but I've got other ideas, like different spots within you know, as I'm a hunter, like, well, this thing doesn't work exactly like I like it to you and this thing, and so you're, I'm always thinking and wanting to modify or tweak gear to work better for me, and that's just, unfortunately, I can't ever shut it off. So you're, you go to bed like spinning ideas in your head, you know, and that's that. So that's, that's kind of how the calls went through. I mean, there's a lot more to this story, but that's kind of the, the nuts and bolts of it and it's been fun, fun and frustrating.

Speaker 2: 16:31

But you know, like the, the very proud of, like the easy sucker, the amp design, like all these things that were more like they're we didn't reinvent the wheel, like we, we invented the wheel, and some of those cases like things that hadn't been used in those sort of ways and you know those are, those are like some of those things I like to hang my hat on, like that hadn't been done yet to that point in that way or that easy and that was one thing I learned early on is there's some really good colors and and they can make any call sound good. But what I really focused on is be a good enough designer that you can make these things easy enough to use for anybody. Make these things easy enough to use and quality enough Like I can make very easy to use out calls, but sometimes they lack in sound quality or volume or one of these things. So that was really what I set forth to do after about 2016.

Speaker 2: 17:20

If I'm going to do a design, I want it to number one, sound as good as anything else, but be very, very easy for the user. And some people have said we've made it too easy on some things, but it's in the end. I'm just trying to give people the tools to use, and when we brought out the easy bugler, for instance, people that hadn't been able to bugle like to get those emails back like this literally changed my experience or this change the way I hunt or what I'm confident in doing. Like I say it may be a little cliche and people are like oh, it's easy to say that, but like sometimes that meant more to me than any money that you're collecting from this business is like yeah, you made a significant difference.

Speaker 1: 17:58

You made someone else buy an extra freezer.

Speaker 2: 18:01

Yeah, and that honestly meant more to me at that point than any money you could receive off of a product Like I liked. That that was payment enough for anything that I was doing. But building good product. We've tried to bunk the trend as much as possible to bring as much like USA manufactured like very important to me. We haven't been able to do it all, which we're very transparent about, but we've put as much of our money back into the US built products as possible, which has been tough at times because our price sometimes reflects it, but it's something I'm willing to do and we just have to try it, see if people are willing to pay for that, because it seems like people are beating their drum anytime.

Speaker 2: 18:46

You post something like, oh, we'd rather pay more for USA, and then sometimes you bring in a more expensive product and like that's overpriced and I'm like, well, I can't win. So you try to balance it. You try to. I take a very you know an approach where I step back where's everybody else out in the market? Can we do this? Yeah, it's been fun.

Speaker 2: 19:05

I've learned a lot along the way. Very, still very passionate, so it's awesome, right? If you're passionate about something, nothing really ever fizzles out. So it's. I haven't lost my interest. I'm excited today, designing new calls or trying to think of what can come next, as I used to be. I just got a lot more on my plate now.

Speaker 2: 19:24

So I, yeah, I tried to design my design. Times are a lot smaller, but yeah, I love like there are times I wish I could just shut off email, shut off you know my own podcast, whatever it may be, and just like get into the design trench for a week or two, because I think that's where, like, the magic comes from. If, if you don't have time to devote, you know, just like anything in life, right, if you don't have time to devote to a specific product or goal, or let you kind of be able to put all your ideas down on paper and follow them through. Yeah, sometimes I think I'm not doing as good a job designing right now because I am so busy and everything else. But yeah, it's fun, I enjoy it. I love coming to work every day. It's. My house is about 80 feet from from the headquarters here at least, so it's like my commute.

Speaker 2: 20:12

I'm, I'm tired to it all the time. I love getting up, I love going to work and I know it's tough because there's not enough jobs out there, but it's, you find something you love to do. It's so cliche, but everybody says it like I haven't worked a day, you know, for the last five years working here. It's just, it's awesome to get up and just be surrounded by everything you love to do and you want to be involved in. There are times where I remind myself, though, in this business that, first and foremost, I love to hunt, I love being a hunter, I love what it does for the freezer and for my family and the pursuit I'm. I'm very open that I also there's a sporting aspect to it. You know being a, you know an athlete at a certain level through high school and like I challenge myself and I challenge you know. But but yeah, it wraps up as a whole package.

Speaker 2: 21:03

I love I eat deer and elk four or five times a week.

Speaker 2: 21:07

I like to challenge myself out there in the woods.

Speaker 2: 21:10

I love just getting away the adventure, and so mixing business with, like my favorite thing to do was tough, and I I oftentimes step back and remind myself as I'm getting mad at a business decision, or I'm getting mad at a contract, or don't let it like ruin or even impact it, all your passion for hunting and what you're doing.

Speaker 2: 21:35

And so I've been able to draw a pretty hard line and keep things very separated there, which is really, you know, you see a lot of guys get in here and get burnt out on everything going on and I've been able to maintain like, man, I'm not just getting away to hunt with my family, I'm getting away to my family and friends like old school deer and elk camp. And I've been able to maintain a little bit of that which is very important to me to not turn a camera on, not turn a mic on during the hunt and just like, let's just go do this for what it is. And so there's always a balance you have. You have to produce some content to help sell calls, you know, and we've struck a really good balance and been able to really kind of keep that fire lit for why we do it and how we do it. And yeah, it's been a fun ride to this point.

Speaker 1: 22:18

That's great, man. Well, I'm glad you're able to manage that and compartmentalize those things too, because I've definitely seen some folks with burnout and things are feeling like you're always having new content. It's great to be able to sometimes just shut it off and spend that time with your family and your friends in the outdoors and be able to kind of create that balance so that you can go back and be able to go full tilt whenever you need to. I wonder, rewind back. I mean there's a few things we're going to get into. I want to talk about your podcast.

Speaker 1: 22:42

You know definitely the transition, some of the things you got coming up too with with Phelps Game Calls, but when you were talking about, when you know, meteor came in and you kind of established that relationship and to where you know they, they kind of bought in to the company there and what was it like for you in your role? Was the? What was the change there too? Because I mean also and maybe this is a good time to talk about the podcast you know you kind of came in, you know, very soon after that, that acquisition or merger, however you call it that that you then became, you know, put on the headset and starting to record and talk about everything and kind of you know, doing the cutting the distance podcast.

Speaker 1: 23:21

But I was kind of curious what your role was like then. Did that allow you more flexibility? Did you were you able to hone in and just create, you know, new calls and new designs, or did that also bring other responsibilities, such as the podcast? Or maybe you know producing content more than maybe you did before? What did that look like and how are you creating that balance? How do you feel about that? Once that has you know those, those two mergers came into play.

Speaker 2: 23:45

Yeah. So you know, the thing I liked with the legacy move was was the main reason we went to Meteor. Like I feel like this brand can get my name and my products to a different level, so that was kind of the main reason we went into it. And so, talking with the two individuals at Meteor is this process was going on Like what do your duties look like? Who handles what? And they came to me with this idea that we have a lot of support, right, if you don't like ordering everything, you just want to do design. Like we'll have an operations team that will help you and we'll have a finance team that will make sure you know bills are paid. And so it all sounded very good on paper. We have an accounting team that will pay your bills, collect your bill, you know all the money. And it sounded good.

Speaker 2: 24:29

But in reality, everything for Phelps Game Calls was in between my ears, right, like I knew it all and it was not easier. Not saying that it's a bad idea, but it didn't look as good as it did on paper. I had to be very involved in all of those for a very long time, more so, to the point where I'm like, well, now I'm not only just able to do it, I've got to teach somebody who our vendor is, what these part numbers are, how we order this, what our specs are, and so there was actually a lot more work at the beginning, which kind of caught me off guard. I was you don't go into it expecting like easy street, but you go in like, oh, this should be, my life should be a lot easier. It wasn't, it was. It was more difficult for a while, went into there, was more involved for at least the first year, probably into the second year.

Speaker 2: 25:18

And then the one thing MeatEater had a lot of changes from 21 to 24, both administratively, matter of fact, as I was. My company was getting bought from MeatEater. We had a new CEO that wasn't really involved in it and so like. And then shortly thereafter, the VP of finance and the VP of hunt fish left MeatEater like six months in, and that's the only two people I knew so like revolving chairs and almost unsupervised or on which which I didn't need a lot of supervision, I made good, sound business decisions. We were always in the black, like didn't need any help there, but like, yeah, we want to put a PO in. That's pretty big chunk of money like I need approval. Can I just sign off on that? You know, and and there were some unknowns. So we've we just recently changed teams again from that and and so there's been some, there's been some adjustments.

Speaker 2: 26:07

I think everything's been for the better. But just like anything when there's change, there's I got to learn a new system, I've got to learn a new procedure. So I would say to this day, like I haven't been able to just like settle into routine. Yet there's always changing ideas or changing processes, which is fine If we're getting better, I'm fine with it. It's just I haven't been able to.

Speaker 2: 26:27

Just, you know I always and I apologize to anybody that begs groceries but like, I've always wanted my job to just be to the point where it's like begging groceries right, where it's like I don't have to. You know my engineering days, like designing a new bridge, it was never the same. You always had to show up and, like man, just you would feel exhaust at the end of the day because you're designing bridges and guardrails for this. Where, like towards the end of my engineering career, when, before I left the state, like I was able to just show up, do my work, I didn't have to think that hard. It was the same stuff over and over, where.

Speaker 2: 26:59

You know, now with a meat eater like I just have it. I think once we get into like a steady, you know year to rut, and it's the same stuff just year after year, just new designs, I'll be a lot more comfortable. We just haven't got there yet, but yeah, the transition was nice. I like not having to pay bills. You know, on the other side, like one thing for people people might not realize is like it You're doing the same work but you don't get like the profit at the end which I knew, but you don't really think. You know it doesn't come, it doesn't become a reality until they're like I'm doing all the same work and the company's cranking along, but like you're already, you know it on paper it makes a lot of sense. But like one thing that kind of hit me like oh, don't get paid for that anymore. You know you don't get any. Yeah, that process was actually pretty, pretty smooth.

Speaker 2: 27:46

I love working with the meat eater team like very, very talented people.

Speaker 2: 27:51

You know, looking at a lot of guys or a lot of people might not know exactly, but this is going to sound really pretentious, as it's not meant to be.

Speaker 2: 27:59

Like before, when I like I feel like at times, especially when it comes to calls or engineering, or like I'm a pretty smart guy in the room, right, I feel like I'm at a high level and I went to a lot of these meat eater meetings, I'm like, right, I think I'm maybe the dumbest guy in this room, you know, maybe from a, from a very educated, very smart, very good at their job, which I love being around because it's challenged me to get better. So that's one thing on the meat eater team Like if you got a guy doing social media, he's very, very good at it. If you got somebody you know editing a film, like they're very, very good at their job and I love having that support because you're you're dealing with with, you know, doers, people that are good at their job, and it's been fun to be able to like leverage their ideas off of them and execute and that's been a real, real fun, fun time to have to have that group that support.

Speaker 1: 28:52

Well, it just seems to be a growing team of just great professionals all around, and anytime there's new acquisition whether it's, you know, I mean Dave Smith, decoys and different, like it's just they're continues to expand. I'm always curious to see what's going to happen each next year. You know, obviously FHF gear there's been a first light. There's that meat eater is just growing and with with great people, great companies, and so it's a wonderful thing to see moving into that idea of, you know, being in another space within meat eater, having the cutting the distance. You know, remy Warren ran that before the podcast and then you kind of came in.

Speaker 1: 29:26

I know the first one was quite a fun episode too. Whenever you guys kind of launched that you guys talked about. You know, Steven, you were on there and you introduced the line one call. You know let's before we kind of get too much into the podcast and kind of what that was like, I'd like to just spend a few minutes talking about the line one call and what that was, because I think that was a pretty special call that you guys kind of did and produced in all the video and everything that's around it as well, that people should definitely tune into.

Speaker 2: 29:51

Yeah, yeah. So the line one call was actually a idea that we wanted to do a one off call, and Steve had the idea let's go, I want to kill a turkey on the stump of a tree I cut down and built a call out of. And so we actually floated the idea for a year, like trying to find the right property man, I just don't know who or where and we mentioned it on the podcast and had some people kind of throw some ideas at us and nothing really penciled out. And then in the meantime we started hunting with a good buddy and Randy Milligan in Kansas and he had some good property. And I'm not a tree guy.

Speaker 2: 30:27

But there's these fancy apps on your phone that let you like snap pictures of the bark or leaves and it'll tell me I'm like, oh, these are hedge trees, or you know, boydiac or Osage, orange or whatever you want to call them. Maybe Osage I'm probably going to get. I'm probably going to get tore apart by people that pronounce them Right, oh, these are Osage. And I'm like, well, that's Hickory, I can make strikers out of those. Or hey, that's a big black walnut, randy. Until we got home I didn't want to like bug him during the hunt. But we pick up the phone and call my buddy, randy, like would you ever be willing to? He's like man, he's like black walnuts. Don't produce an acorn, you can cut it, you know. Like they're there. Like, if it's, if it doesn't produce deer food. Like get that thing out of here.

Speaker 1: 31:08

Take a little space yeah.

Speaker 2: 31:09

Yeah. So he's like I just seem to have, you know, oak trees. Let's, let's get this black walnut out, it'll open up. And so he went out and pre scouted his property, went and found us a pretty good black walnut and some some good, you know good sections of Osage or Boyd Yark or whatever you want to call it, head. Yeah, so we went out there and we me and Steve flew out to his property, went and actually got some some Sawyer lesson, you know some.

Speaker 2: 31:37

We had some guys there that had the logging equipment but they kind of they cut trees down way different than us back there. Like it's a different. You know they're cutting it down flush. We cut all of our trees with the stump. That's about two feet off the ground and we do. You know we notch the tree and we do. We do it different than everything I've seen there and but they they get an extra two feet of the best wood on the tree. So they kind of taught us their their way.

Speaker 2: 32:01

Steve cut down the black walnut, I cut down the Osage. We then followed the loggers to their mill and went and got it all slabbed up and can it up, which in a can is basically just in like manageable sizes to let it dry and then for us to process it into the calls. We shipped it back to Washington semi dried on pallets, took it to a kiln because we need to get our wood that we're going to use in turkey calls, you know, down into the single digits we like to be, you know, six to eight percent got it dried down in a kiln and then took it to our, our, our, manufacturing facility where we then took those raw blanks, ripped them down into striker sizes and then got the, the black walnut, ready for the, the router table, and built those calls. And then we did it, you know. So there was a lot of extra that went into that. Normally you just call up your lumber store like I want the black walnut, and we tried to just educate on on the. You know what these trees are good for, why they exist, and all the way through the mill, like you know, the Osage is hard on blades. You know it's super hard. It's got like the second highest you know thermal unit. It's very dense, you know went through all of that and then documented it and then went back and ultimately I was in the shop and helped build all of those calls and you know, just something that we had our hands in more, more, start to finish.

Speaker 2: 33:23

And then, yeah, packaging on a level that tricky calls haven't seen, that you know, velvety magneted boxes, all the stuff that we wanted these things to be in a different level.

Speaker 2: 33:33

So you know, cost wise, it didn't pencil out is great. You know, one of the things we did get knocked on a little bit was the price. But by time you had everything involved, like that would, was a whole lot more expensive than that, and even the box that we put them in, like it cost us more than it cost to build a typical turkey call, you know. So that was one thing, like, man, I wish there was a way we could have, you know, and I just calculated it on its, on our normal calculations, but that was the one thing like I wish maybe it was more available to people because it was a special product. But, yeah, the price, I still cringe a little bit and I shouldn't like that, saying that I believe we didn't price it right, like we priced it right by business, but I guess I wish it was more accessible to people or we could have did it on a cheaper, cheaper way.

Speaker 1: 34:19

But it ran like I think it's like $300, right, but that's like, that's like a if you go and you buy a handmade piece of art that is, you know, a limited edition, the people who are collecting wonderful things like that, not even to say something that is usable in the field, I mean, it's, it's I think it's a collector's item you know it's something that's going to be a legacy item.

Speaker 1: 34:43

You can pass that down generational, you know, and this is not it right here. But just kind of show folks what you're talking about when you talk about the striker and you know, here's it because it was very, you know, similar in your design, right I mean, but obviously different materials.

Speaker 2: 34:55

This is one of your other ones here, this the Morgensen, or is it Is that Teacon, I would say yeah, yeah, teacon, green slate, one of my favorite. Call yeah, dude.

Speaker 1: 35:03

I love this. I called up last year looking for one and that was the one that was suggested to me. You know great, great staff there and always answer questions too. I've got some other calls that I'll pull out a minute, but just kind of give people an idea. You, when you have something like that and you have the story around it, I mean I understand it was a higher priced item than more people. It's not like the layman's going to come through and just buy that. They're going to buy something maybe like this that you know was, you know less, but and these are on sale right now too as well with your Christmas, you know a special going on, but that's something that I thought it was. You know very. You know it's a very limited number. I mean, how many of those did you guys make we?

Speaker 2: 35:40

1500 and we allowed all of our employees to buy them, so you take those out. Yeah, it was limited and they did really well and we just the call sounds great too, like it's it can be set on a shelf, but I don't design anything or intend for anything to ever be set on a shelf. Like I grabbed my line one call which I have sitting right here at my desk that I'm holding right now, but it is still the call.

Speaker 2: 36:03

It sounds so good, it's a call that I, like all my new strikers, go on this call like as I'm testing them, like I want to see what it sounds like this because and that's just one of those testaments you know we and I don't know if it was that expensive Like we put that brass plug on the back with me and Steve's. You know signatures and and and some of the you know the cans at Union Town cans, that's like where the call came from. We just wanted to be a special call and they turned out pretty dang good. They sound pretty good. It was. It was a cool project to and to follow that start to finish. And we I shouldn't even say this, but like we check some of our competitor calls like standard calls in the lineup, like there's competitors out there with two hundred twenty, two hundred thirty dollar calls that don't have any of this backstory, right, so I'm, I don't want to use it for justification, but that was kind of my idea. And like I say, I think you get this thing and if you, if you want to hunt with it, it's going to hunt, awesome, and if you want to keep it on your shelf, then I'll be it. But yeah, it's a good call and it was a fun project.

Speaker 2: 36:59

And and Steve went with line one and I'm going to I'm going to butcher the reason why if we went back to episode one and cutting the distance. I would know more about the story. But there's a line of beef where they every year or every like when they change up the bull, I don't know, but it's basically like line one beef and then like line two beef and line three beef. It continues on. So if we ever do this again with a different wood or a different striker, a different combinations of material, we can call it the line two tricky call, and I don't want to make it too much, but like, if you know, some guys might end up collecting them all or getting them all, and so that was kind of our idea, maybe in the future.

Speaker 2: 37:35

But we got to find a different wood source, different project, and then you know, see what we can. I even wanted to go like the call you're just showing has green slate. Well, it's only available in like one mine in the country. You can only get that in one place, and so it's like I even want to go to like the mine and go see because that that green slate is very baby, like it's got to be wrapped in a wet burlap sack all the way until it's manufactured. It's got to be like manufactured very green before it starts to dry, and I don't even want to follow that process because I think You're just being a guy that loves the outdoors like being attached to where this call comes from and what it takes is like it's just a cool part to know what all's going into it.

Speaker 1: 38:13

Absolutely. You know the history of that and being able to kind of see how things are manufactured, I think it's fascinating and for people who use some type of tool like this in the woods, it's like to know where it came from and see the history and see you guys and your passion and kind of. You know A to Z, nuts to soup. It's like man, it's really cool to see that process. So I was very fascinated with that and you know just kind of so in the very first. You know, I think if folks want to hear more about it, definitely tune in. It's episode one of the cutting distance with you guys and you and Steve there.

Speaker 1: 38:46

But you know, whenever you were approached with that idea, had you ever seen yourself as wanting to do a podcast? Was this something that, like you? I mean, because obviously you'd done a lot of interviews, you know, I know kind of you said, like 2016, western Hang Expo, you guys kind of things just took off to another level and you kind of I'm sure have been in part of so many hundreds I don't even know thousands at this point in time interviews, but being on that other flip side of that table, what was that like for you, and is that something that you know? Steve approached you with the idea and then you decided okay, was there some hesitancy? What was that like for you to get in that driver's seat?

Speaker 2: 39:23

Yeah, so I'd been on a lot of podcasts leading up. It seems like at times I was on one a week, one every other week there for a while when podcasting really kind of blew up 16, 17, 18, whenever that happened and I was a little concerned of like I'm maybe a good guest, maybe as long as people are feeding it and keeping it moving.

Speaker 2: 39:42

But I was a little nervous, like, can I host this thing? And Steve had recommended it when I and it was big shoes, I feel right, remy, and whatever the contract was or whatever he wanted to do he was leaving and they wanted to keep that there because it was a meat eater on podcast. And Steve recommended and I'm like, well, remy's was very technical and that's gonna be what. I'm not the most entertaining, I'm not the most you know, comedic, I'm not those things. But if I can keep it technical and tactical which was kind of what I had been doing with my education and reason that I had been on the other podcasts I was gonna be okay with it. So I said, as long as we are okay with very maybe I don't want to use the word drive but just like very straightforward, I'm gonna bring guys that are experts in their field but really they are good hunters, they've got good tactics and if I can make you know the podcast around, that would that be okay. And they were completely fine with it. Like let's have a very technical, tactical podcast. And I was able to carry that on. And one thing for me that helps out, which I hate sometimes is like building treatments. I don't script the whole entire conversation, but I've got a very clear path of how I'm gonna get from you know the first minute to the 50th minute on a pretty clear direction which helps me steer and navigate and sometimes you go a little bit off, but very clear and concise technique. Whoever my guess is, I know what. I'm gonna ask them what they excel at, what they're good at, maybe what they do different, and I've kind of already got everything lined up and it's been awesome.

Speaker 2: 41:18

At first there was a little frustration. You know a lot of people were Remy fans and it's like, oh, jason, you know not as good, and it's like it's fine. But just recently we're about a year and a half into it now and I've finally seen it turn the corner I feel like it's a lot of emails coming in, like at first we wrote you off and, you know, stuck with you and it's been awesome. So and that's once again more so than maybe when we were selling calls to people I get more just like, hey, man, the information's great, Like love that episode, that was something I never would have thought to do.

Speaker 2: 41:51

Or, and then the nice thing is and I'm completely transparent, like being an adult onset whitetail hunter, I did all the Western stuff. Like I get to go whitetail like with a very naive intro, and I get to ask a lot of those questions and it's, you know, I do a lot of research and it's still hunting, so I get a lot of it. But it's cool to go at a different topic is kind of the new guy and not know. And so I go to a lot of biologists, a lot of good whitetail hunters, and just ask my personal questions that I might not know the answers to or to see if it matches up with, like Chris Parrish and Randy Milligan, the guys that I have in whitetail hunting like does this jive with what they've been telling me? You know, and it's not to question them, it's just to see if people have differing opinions. And so it's been awesome to like use the podcast as like a route to some very knowledgeable whitetail guys that I have no business interviewing, I feel like.

Speaker 1: 42:42

But yeah, well, I kind of understand that same way where you know I've had different you know wild game chefs. You know Jesse Griffiths, you know, is one that I interviewed and gonna interview again soon and I'm asking him certain questions as far as like, hey, this is in my freezer, what would you do with it? Or you know, daniel Pruitts of the world are different people that we're sitting down with and interviewing and getting some of the best of the best to get their perspective, and sometimes it's self-serving to just my buddy and I trying to figure out what it is we wanna try next. But really it's also kind of having that one-on-one question hey, what is the most typical thing that you know people are doing wrong? And I mean I guess that's a good transition to ask too.

Speaker 1: 43:25

It's like what are some of the things when people are buying your calls that you've seen? Maybe some mistakes that people make you know, maybe it's not drying out, you know their mouth calls or different things that. Or is there some kind of one-on-one things that you might give to people or say, hey, you guys gotta make sure you're doing this with your call for it to last longer. You know, maybe chalk on the box, call Different things that maybe some people might not recognize as a necessity right off the bat.

Speaker 2: 43:50

Yeah, that's the number one issue that we get and it's actually pretty low. But storage of your diaphragms. The latex gets wet, some moisture can get between the tape and the latex or the frame. You've gotta let those dry out, especially before they go back into a sealed container. I don't mind them, it's not an issue if they go back to a container after they've sat on your counter for a day. Now when you sit them on your counter, make sure they're not in front of a window, because heat and direct like UV light is what breaks that latex down. So these calls, especially turkey calls, will last a long, long time if they're kept clean, dry and in a cool, dark place, you know. So the refrigerator freezer is even better, like you've got some space in there, if not a drawer, fine, just a dark drawer Inside. Your car is very, very tough, especially in the months, because you've got extreme heat. If it's on a dash or in a cup holder or something where the sun can hit, it's gonna break that call down very, very quickly. But back to the moisture. You will get some nasty molds and mildews if you do not allow that call to breathe and dry out. So number one issue we've got like hey, your call molded or got mildew on it or hey, my latex is really wavy, like your call like lacks and like you never insult a customer, right? I learned that early on. I'm like, can you just send me a picture of it? And I'm like that call was stored wet like let it sit and dry and it'll probably tighten itself back up.

Speaker 2: 45:21

So latex and so drying it, cleaning it. Some people ask about cleaning it with like mouthwash. I don't like those. Water is fine. Like just run some water, especially on a turkey call. Run it through the different layers. Some people use toothpicks. Well, once again, I would caution anybody that puts toothpicks between the layers. Like do not puncture the latex. In certain spots that really does matter. Certain spots you might puncture it and get away with it, but make sure you're not gonna stab that. Let them dry out, put them away. And turkey calls aren't as durable because we're only using the single piece of latex. You know those ones will wear a little bit more, so that's even more important. Like make sure they stay out of the sun, make sure they stay out of the.

Speaker 2: 46:02

Aside from that, the majority of issues we have on open read are people that just aren't protecting. The call will crease. Some people will crease a read, you know, and they need a replacement Mylar which is very, very cheap. We can do it, but one of the tips or tricks a lot of times people get it fixed. If you use like a clothes iron on that Mylar, you can usually flatten it back out. So you can literally just iron it on a low heat and it'll get that crease back out and flatten it'll lose its memory to that crease. If not, we can replace it like it's a 15 cent, 20 cent piece of Mylar. And then just people tinkering as much as I hate it, like I love people to tinker with their call and think they got some ownership, but like the tinkers are usually who we get like there's no way you could do that without pulling the guts out of the call or the wedge and like messing with it. Right, there's no way that could have happened because it's a protected read.

Speaker 1: 46:51

So we're fine with that. You used a file punch there, right?

Speaker 2: 46:53

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then some of our stuff I designed so that it's very, very tight, like on a deer call, for instance, like the read assembly is very tight and I just want you to move the rubber band around to get your bleeds or your butt grunts. Some of these guys like that you might have trouble pulling out just with your. They'll put a wrench on it or they'll put a vice grip on it and it tears the tone board up. So it's like we fight that a little bit on people wanting to like yank that assembly out when it's.

Speaker 2: 47:25

I don't know if that one's tight or not, but yeah, tinkers, and then, other than that, a lot of our stuff really can't be. It's meant to last forever, last lifetime, a generational call. You know a few things where our diaphragms unfortunately are consumable, that we can't build one that lasts forever. But yeah, that's kind of the three biggest things you know drying out your calls, storage away from sunlight, and then the tinkers. But, like I said, I don't. I was a tinker too, that's, I mess with every call I've had before I ever got it right, so I don't blame them either.

Speaker 1: 48:03

Yeah, well, those are very important aspects there too. You know, I've definitely seen very early on whenever I'd cause I'm not a huge mouth caller, but I went ahead and got. You know I think it was the very first one you guys did. It's like got the Giannis and Steve. I forgot there was one more, the Jake Brake and, let's say, the Loud and Clear, and there was like a three part set and just to try it out and kind of.

Speaker 1: 48:25

I've always been a box caller before, but then I realized a few different things. One is having a few different calls in your arsenal. A couple of turkey hunters I've talked to that. They were saying it's like, yeah, you know, I bring this one and this one and this one too, kind of having different sounds, out there and trying to see what works, because this one is the one that brought them all in last year. I mean it was better than anything else. I might, you know, get a shot gobble whenever I was using the box call way at a distance, you know, just to kind of see what was around there. You know the other folks, you know, if you don't know too, there's Al calls. You guys have a really nice one out there too, that what's that one called? It starts at an H, maybe.

Speaker 2: 49:04

The Harrison pro We've teamed up with, yeah, we teamed up, well, the Harrison Hooter or the Harrison pro. We teamed up with James Harrison on that one and you know there's, there's he's more Al than most of the Al's out there in the woods. So that guy was a great, a great matchup there on that. But yeah, you know, turkey call is funny because I love locating with the box and I usually like to switch to a pot, like minimal, minimize the movement, right, like, if I could do it with a pot, I'd prefer to do it with a diaphragm. But, like last year, we keep all these calls on us here in Washington, our Marriams. I had to.

Speaker 2: 49:36

We finished over half the birds with the box. So I'm sitting there like it's quietly and motionless. It's just what they wanted, right, you would test them with the other calls and they weren't as interested. You go back to the box, they're hammering and so, yeah, that's. I love diaphragms. I think it's the most, the most useful call, hands-free, everything that you need, as motionless as you can be. But there are times where the pot is what works, or a pot with a different like. We've even went to a the extent of, well, this pot with this striker is not working, but this pot with that striker is working, like just the tone difference. And then having a box or all of these different things is just having them in your toolbox is great, but yeah, that's why we've got such a wide range of calls.

Speaker 1: 50:18

Yeah, Well and kind of with your, all the calls that you've made, and I want to talk about what you got going on in the future too. But I kind of wanted to get back to kind of nerdden out a little bit of the idea of, like, when you're creating, these are what are you? What kind of setup do you have to wear your tests and the frequencies? And you're doing different things to kind of get the science aspect of it too. I mean, sometimes you might hit a call and you're like, oh man, that sounds really good, that sounds natural. But as far as like, are you in a sound booth with any of these recording things and kind of taking down these metrics to figure out, hey, this one produces this volume, it hits this frequency a little bit more just kind of curious. As far as like the kind of audiologist side of things like that, Like what are you looking? That is it. Do you have a space for that? Is that something that you just send out? What does that look like?

Speaker 2: 51:07

So we do a few things. We do it on some of our design programs we can, like on the aluminum bugle tubes. The best example that was the one where we were. It was a patented idea. We went and got the patent and so we had to have things pretty dialed in. So we used both solid works, a vibration module with in solid works not very cheap, to like this aluminum tube at this wall thickness will resonate at this frequency. So on paper it should do this Out in the real world.

Speaker 2: 51:42

We use some audio analyzers just outside. We'll do it inside of a room, we'll do it outside, we'll do it from 100 yards away. Make sure that they're fairly consistent. And so we will say like, all right, the aluminum tube hits a frequency that is this, compared to our plastic tube hits a frequency that's this, and so we do that as well. I like to go there's two ways. Then we also just do comparisons, the real animals, and sometimes that comes from YouTube, sometimes that comes from, and you always have to be a little bit, you have to recognize that sometimes the audio speakers in my computer aren't as good as real life or my iPhone can't capture stuff as good. But we do a lot of testing on that side, like working on a Piliated Woodpecker call right now and and Something like a woodpecker. When I'm just using it for shot gobbles, it's not as important that I hit like a certain frequency. I'm going more for volume within like a frequency range, like all right, as long as it sounds like a woodpecker, I don't care if it's louder, I don't care if it's exactly right Like I just want this tricky to gobble right. And so it just depends on what project you're undertaking.

Speaker 2: 52:49

Where we went with the owl, we wanted that thing to be identical. So we listen, james knows owls very well. He's one umpteen championships on owl calling Like the guy knows owls. But then we still wanted to compare it to a lot of real um, you know sounds. And then on the pro, it's the first adjustable outhooter. So why, when it's cranked down and it's constricted, it's very, very alley, right, like a very good sound. But for hunting we want this thing to be as loud as possible. So we're willing to give up a little bit of back pressure and a little bit of sound quality to crank out and get a gobble, and so we're always checking these things, but then we're also giving ourselves a little bit of leadway, where it doesn't have to sound perfect all the time.

Speaker 2: 53:30

Um, you know deer, a lot of times we'll go to our experts. You know whether it's Mark or Tony Peterson or Clay, like you guys are in the woods a lot Like yeah, this is what this call sounds like, or this was what this mass produced call sounds like. But hey, everything I've watched or heard in the woods, like the dope bleeds, are a little different than you know. Some of those cans you can not saying that they're. They don't work. Maybe the, the Primoz can is killed, probably more deer than my calls have yet, or maybe ever will. But when every like mature doe I hear bleat doesn't sound like that. Here it's shorter, and so you know I was in Mexico with Clay and Steve Coos deer hunting and we had some white tail calls because Steve was dead set on calling in a Coos deer and we're just talking about, like what Clay wants.

Speaker 2: 54:15

He's like, well, if we could, he's like I want it to be real soft and subtle. And so we're sitting there tinkering on a call and I'm like I know exactly what you want, clay, like I'll go home, cut a different read, I'll have this dialed for you. And then that's where, like the a current, came from. So it's a little bit of a balance. But yeah, as far as like sound analyzing, we do use a lot, but we're not using professional equipment all the time. We're using apps on our phone, apps on our computers, or we'll record a sound and then send it to like a third party, like where did this hit? How accurate is it? And so I wouldn't claim that I'm an audio engineer. We're just paying attention to like what, what we have.

Speaker 2: 54:50

And then the other thing that we try to do is usually we're testing calls a year or two ahead of time and is rudimentary or like old school, as it is like did this call work in the woods? It's real simple, like I don't care what it hits Like, it couldn't even sound like it, but maybe there's a reason why if you didn't sound exactly like an owl, you'll get more responses. Or if it is louder than a real woodpecker sounds like you're going to get more sound, you know, more responses. Or hey, this pot call is really really high pitched and shrill, but gosh dang, turkeys were attracted to it because it was different, you know, and so. So there's like the accuracy side that I'm very concerned about.

Speaker 2: 55:25

But then there's like the result side that we that's why we like to get out and test everything a year ahead of time and if I need to change sound boards or change the plot dimension, like we can make that change, but if not, we can leave something there. And that's what I love. I love proofing things on the ground, because not saying that we need to sound exactly like a crow or we need to sound exactly like a bugling bull, maybe a higher pitched, shrill bugle will actually get more responses. That's why I love when that metal tube came out, I felt like the ring and the pitch, like in my ears was different to me and in my opinion I feel like the elk respond to it a little bit better. So at times it's like well, I think that was a good design because, yeah, it may be more high pitched and shrill, but we're getting better responses.

Speaker 2: 56:08

So that's kind of that's kind of the full circle of a design. We do try to be as accurate as we can here, but there are times that we're going to go 20% off of the norm to see if it hunts better than just accuracy.

Speaker 1: 56:21

No, that's. I mean, the proof is in the results, right, and that's. It's great that you have a group and a team to kind of bounce things off of yourself in the woods and being able to see what works where the best you know. I think I saw something about. You were talking about doing a moose call and there's some other ones. You got the woodpecker, like what are some things that are coming out, you know, as we're on here on the brink of 20 and 24. What are some things that you know? Maybe, if you can, you know, talk about some of the things that are in the works or some of the ideas you may have or things you want to test out.

Speaker 2: 56:52

Yeah. So the moose tube we were hand forming all of those and we realized that from a production standpoint it might not be good because you can build one a day, Like we were literally hand laying the one that Steve and Clay used in Alaska. Fiberglass I got a big, heavy, like a 80 pound aluminum mold to build these things. It's just a pain in the neck. So we're looking at a glass infused plastic which is a little more expensive than normal plastic. So we're looking at ways that we can actually produce. These have good products I love the idea of a hand handmade product but the things fiberglass isn't quite as durable for, like raking a tree if you wanted to use your moose tube. So we've got a moose tube coming. We're working on a woodpecker call that has a little bit of I can't talk about the other side of it because it's going to be the first so this call will double as a woodpecker or a something. We're working on getting that out this year.

Speaker 2: 57:45

For a new locator, We've got some new elk calls coming out. We teamed up with the three past well, I guess three past world champions, and then the other guy works with us on the elk call side. So we went to these guys and like, hey, this is an opportunity to design the exact call that you want to use. So we just try to be a little different, like create these projects that like, yeah, maybe the normal elk hunter won't like them, Maybe they will, but these are the three calls that these three world champions all like to use and then put them in a three pack together. We've got something real similar and I think we've real similar to the Acron coming, but in a solid acrylic version. So I love the technology of putting the Acron. I love the inhale, exhale. If it's cold, you can inhale both sides, you can go back and forth. It really kind of turned out and we kept it in a small form factor.

Speaker 2: 58:38

My concern was to get those two calls to bypass each other.

Speaker 2: 58:41

That middle tendon was going to have to get real big and we were able to like be very, very streamlined and keep that down to a manageable deer call. And you know, a lot of our deer calls, like the beta and alpha, have these big, long rubber hoses, which does add to the accuracy of this sound. But what we back to, what we've talked about, that Acron or the alpha hunts really, really well for a small, hard-bodied call. So, yeah, it might not have that deep guttural tone of some of those grunts, you know, but it's 95% of the way there and it hunts just fine. And it gives you the added ability If you're hunting pre-rot or during the rut, you can have two different grunt set up.

Speaker 2: 59:15

If it's early season you want to have a bleat and a medium-sized buck grunt, you can do that, and so I love the ability to, without having to pull your call apart, being able to have two different sounds, and when it's cold you'll be able to inhale either way as well, and the inhale and exhale are different. So it just opens up all of these great options within one call.

Speaker 1: 59:35

No, I love that one man. I've been taking that out in the field this year. I got it when you guys first released it, used it out in Central Texas and then recently in South Texas. You know, definitely stopped quite a few buck when we're just hitting that grunt and they're walking through and you know, kind of coming in to investigate. Did Clay know that you were going to have it be his signature? You know one. When you all put that out it seemed surprised.

Speaker 2: 59:58

On one of the videos I saw, yeah, I think you were surprised on how well it turned out. We had been talking. I wanted to do the two-way call and he wanted to be involved in it as things started going down the path. Like you know, he wanted to pick a white oak, which, from a woodworking perspective, I'm like oh no, clay, like can we find something that looks like white oak? Because white oak is such a pain to finish, it's very porous. So I mean, on the call, it's very tough to get finished. And so, like Clay wanted to be the white oak call and we came up with the graphics, we worked with our graphic guy, clay was stoked and then I'm like you know Clay's not a big timer, I'm like Clay, you mind if I add your signature. He's like, I guess, jason, you know. So he's like he was. You know he's trying to be humble, but I think the call turned out, like appearance-wise, very, very good. Yeah, it's beautiful, it's an awesome call.

Speaker 2: 1:00:47

It did give us a little fits. We've had a little issue with some o-rings, like the call shrinking or, and I think it might have been some. It's been a pretty low number, yep, but that's that comes back to and maybe it's on me. We didn't hunt that call the year before. We just produced it knowing that it had everything that we needed. It was o-ring fit. We thought we're going to be good.

Speaker 2: 1:01:08

We've built a lot of duck calls out of wood and it gave us a little. You know it's still under 1% of the ones we sold but we've had a little bit of issues. But yeah, I think the acrylic version of that. We've got a deer call coming out that has a snort weasel incorporated. So just trying to like iron out and finish out that deer call line, which has been a great line for us. You know, use that me either white tail team to really kind of help promote it for us. We don't have a huge following in the Midwest and the South. So, yeah, I love like I think it's because whitetails new to me, I'm addicted and so like I'm very passionate, like right now in that whitetail deer call lane. You know we do a lot of black tail calling out here as well, but it's it's definitely you don't have near the people that hunt black tails, you do whitetails. So we're really trying to like focus in on on what whitetails.

Speaker 2: 1:01:56

And then we looked at everything else out there. This is one of those ones I talked earlier. Like can we demand that price range? But we're literally building a full acrylic call that has twice as much acrylic as it in it as a duck call, yet we're still selling it for 80 bucks, you know, on like the beta. And so that's some of the like, the hard debates I have. Like I know that we're building and all the other call companies might hate me for this Like you're selling the duck call for 150 bucks. It has a half of that acrylic in it in the same processes, right. And so that's where I don't sit. I don't have to sit and justify our pricing. But like dang, I know we're not making near as much on this deer call, but I want it to be a generational call.

Speaker 2: 1:02:36

That beta calls 100% acrylic, the tone boards machined into the exhaust, like just high quality, that in a way that others aren't. You know, aside from the custom call builders, right now nobody's building calls to that level. And I just want to. I want to Build it to that level, like, if it's got my name on it, yeah, build it to a certain level, and that's that's what I've been most excited about. Like hey, I know why people haven't did it. It's too expensive, but that's no reason why we shouldn't do it. And I think people it's funny you go through and I shouldn't read the reviews. But you go through and read the reviews of the beta, which is all five star in very, very Skeptical people when they first bought it, and then it kind of turns a page like I see why this call is as this price. So I'm like, alright, whoo, you know, I dodged that bullet of another high price call because people get it and they, oh, shoot, it's got a, it's got an integrated tone board into the exhaust and it had to go from the lathe to the mill and then polished and you know, you got to put a cork wedge in it.

Speaker 2: 1:03:33

Like the old-school duck calls like, yeah, so we're just, we're trying to do everything just at a level that, hey, if I could build this call for me and this is a call I'd like to use, like let's offer that as a production option. And, yeah, what else is coming next? We got it's a fairly light year on releases, it's, it's more of a balance everything out. And then we got some pretty cool stuff coming for 25 26. So see, that's what I've got, stuff kind of penciled in all the way for the next couple years and it's just like making sure I can get through all those ideas and get improved. It's easy to say this is what I'm gonna do, and then it's a different thing to like, make that call function how you, how you hope it does yeah, well, and that's.

Speaker 1: 1:04:14

I talked to Paul Paul Lewis, FHF gear and when I had him on, we were talking about like the ideas, like sometimes there, that is that production cues two years out. You've designed something and sometimes like I want to put this out now, but it's like there's a process and everything and you're gonna get it out there. Test you got to get the video, the different things that come apart with having, you know, being a part of the larger group here and that marketing arm and all the different things that go in to that, and also just the production side of things finding maybe even the machining, the tooling, the things you got to do to be able to produce this and a repeatable, precision-based format, something that someone's gonna be able to pull out and know that this one over here is gonna be the same as this one over here. And I know you've talked about how you've gone and taken some things off the line and tested it to make sure they are getting something that. And there's been times you've, you know, even mentioned to a hey early on me had something and maybe the latex Wasn't the right, you know, thickness or whatever and you're like this is 95% of the way there. But maybe that ends up going to maybe an organization, a kids thing, where they can learn to call from it or something like that, where it's not out on the same market, when that's few and far between as you kind of go forward.

Speaker 1: 1:05:20

But those are things that come up and you have to test and you have to check it out and you might have an idea now that might be end up being two years down the line when it's produced, you know, because of those types of form and formats of time.

Speaker 1: 1:05:32

So that's, um, and you know kind of I know you've kind of started out with doing you know elk, and then kind of turkey and some things that you, you know, maybe hunted more often and kind of moving into the whitetail world as far as, like you know, some duck calls and stuff. Do you see something it you know more of a, an advancement of something that you want to do in that world, without giving maybe anything away that maybe coming down? Is that, I mean, there's so many different avenues of calls. Is it like, do you want, is there that that idea of, like you know, kind of vertical verse? You know horizontal scaling? Is there something that you see yourself like one day I want to be able to do this, or do you maybe have some ideas that, without giving away, you know, yeah.

Speaker 2: 1:06:09

Yeah, no, we, I can talk about that. So we, we wanted to, really we wanted to maintain the brand and my passions where I'm not. I love waterfowl, I love shooting them, but I'm not the greatest waterfowl caller, and so we've kind of elected, at least in the immediate future, to kind of have a very limited waterfowl line, something that works, but not go crazy on it, not a full line. So that's kind of where we're at on the waterfowl side. I feel like I need to hunt them for five to ten years and become a very proficient caller, like I feel like I am on the on the Elk and turkey and deer. Deer calling is easy compared to elk and turkey there's not as much user skill, but I want to become a very good waterfowl caller and know the ins and outs before we really dive deep in. So I feel like we've got a good hunting call, but we're going to kind of leave it at that.

Speaker 2: 1:06:55

Yeah, yeah right on, not not a huge deep dive into that until we've either got the right players or until we've we've got the passion and then know how to do it. You know kind of the way we've did the other lines. Yeah well, it sounds like you've teamed up, you know.

Speaker 1: 1:07:09

I mean, when you have people have won so many national competitions and they're known for that and they're the ones that you're collaborating with and working with, you know the end results are going to be great and obviously you have this skill set and you know the team to be able to put that together. What does your team look like nowadays? How many folks are there working on a day to day? It helps so.

Speaker 2: 1:07:30

We got Dirk, who kind of runs our marketing side, and then I've got my wife and and Corey kind of run the business and the operation side internally, and then I think we've got Seven call builders. And now I have to count real quick, yeah, but I think seven call builders show up every day. I think seven call builders show up every day Um, assembling calls, um, packaging calls, uh, and that's that's really. They don't get enough credit because they, they are an awesome group. You know, I, I design these things the first time. Kind of give them a one hour court crash course on how to assemble them, what matters, what you're checking for, and they, uh, they'll come to me like, hey, this lot of tone boards isn't right because of this, and so we can't just slap things together because you could have 10,000 of somethings on the market that isn't right. And so our crew is is awesome from, you know, the people putting the o-rings on to the people you know polish and barrels, whatever they may be doing, like, our crew is awesome and uh, yeah, so I think we've got about 11 in-house employees, counting myself, and then we've got a few my, my good buddy, charlie smith, and his company and his employees actually build the majority of our diaphragms?

Speaker 2: 1:08:35

Um, we use a third-party builder for some of our turkey calls Um with, with strict oversight by myself, and in some of our diaphragm builders and, um, you know, chris parish Great, one of the greatest turkey callers of all time like he has some oversight and qa? Qc responsibilities on our tricky calls um, so it's just teaming up with the right guys, right and and, uh, you know, making sure that everything you know elk calls when they still roll through my shop, even though my buddy, charlie's building them and he's responsible for his own qa qc is a he's a great elk caller Um, I still check. So we're like double checking everything. Like I don't want to batch them through with bad latex or maybe a bad frame. Yeah, I trust you can build this call over and over and over, but I want to make sure that we don't have any slip-ups.

Speaker 2: 1:09:19

Um, you know, I think in the the 12 years of building diaphragms, I've had like one law of a certain diaphragm get out that it squeaked through. But other than that, like, I think we've had a almost Almost flawless record of people saying, like, man, at the call I bought from you back in 2016, when you release this amp is the same Exactly call I get right now, and that's really what I love. Um, there's no guesswork, there's no quality Inconsistencies, it's all just very dialed process.

Speaker 1: 1:09:46

That's awesome. I mean that Precision is a word that comes to mind when I think about your, your products and, um, you know, and that repeatability of knowing you're going to be able to get something shipped to you or on the store rack or whatever it is, and you can pick it up and this is going to be a high quality item, so that that's something that uh tipp ma hat to you. On that, um, before we kind of sign off, I had Kind of a question too. You know we just wrapped up you know, hunting season for the most part, and there's, you know, turkey coming up here too in the spring. But, um, I was kind of curious what are some big hunts that you went on? What do you have in your freezer and what is your favorite? I know you said you'd cook a lot of wild games, so, like, what is kind of one of your go-to if someone sits down at a dinner at the phelps house, and what are you preparing? What are some of the things that are your favorites?

Speaker 2: 1:10:32

Oh man, I know I'm gonna get this wrong. Um, so 23 was was awesome I've got. I went on the koo's deer hunt early. The koo's deer eat amazing, like maybe one of the best eating critters. Um, I Ended up with a archery elk out of Oregon, a Washington muzzleloader bull, and then a montana meal deer and then a kansas whitetail. So I've got, I've got a pretty good selection. Um, they all eat great. You know, everybody's like oh, the montana meal deer in the rut. But, man, I tell you I haven't got a bad one yet, it's good. Uh, I'm gonna probably really disappoint with this answer because we're we're very I grew up eating this way like we don't do a lot of roasts on deer elk.

Speaker 2: 1:11:10

It just everything gets turned into steak. Everything gets turned into steak like cleaned up Um. And so, man, our go to is just like pan fried. Um, I'm trying to eat healthier like no fly. So it's like just straight up salt pepper, a little bit of garlic powder, like pan fried elk steak. Uh, maybe a little bit of sweet potatoes on the side. Um, I eat very, very boring because I'm a. I'm a big guy, and so I'm trying to Trying to stay in this like 230 range and not go back the other way. So it's like pan fried, no breading, elk steak, deer steak Um, we eat a lot of burger.

Speaker 2: 1:11:41

Um, whether we turn it into like you know, taco, spaghetti meat, whatever it may be, but um, yeah, I, we try.

Speaker 2: 1:11:48

My other favorite way is if we, if we keep it, or, like this time this year, from my organ bowl I kept all my back straps, my tenderloins and some of the roast intact, like I. I absolutely love like marinating um, in like a, and people are gonna laugh at it, but it's just kind of our old standard brine, like a little bit of coca-cola, some tender quick and some black pepper and and garlic powder and then just putting it on the, the green mountain grill or the traeger or the smoker and, uh, letting it go to medium rare and like my kids don't believe me that it's, it's not beef and you know, wild game and that's that's my favorite way. It's just a little more time intensive. I mean that's more of a weekend meal, but during the week when we're running and going everywhere to I mean, my kids got sports Every night of the week and every weekend it's usually like as fast as I can, like cook some steaks or get some burger thrown into the, into the pan Like we're. We're in and out real quick.

Speaker 1: 1:12:36

Yeah, no, I hear you just being the kids, and I know you you've coached some sports too with your kiddos. Are you still able to find that time to do that, or are they Moving up in that level?

Speaker 2: 1:12:46

I'm two days in to uh coaching junior high now I was. I said I I've coached every sport my kids have ever played, whether it's baseball, basketball, football, um Wrestling I can't do my boy wrestles now, which I love. I love the sport and I love that. I don't know anything about it because I don't have to coach it that way but, um, yeah, basketball, baseball, football, like I've coached everything they've ever did, um and it.

Speaker 2: 1:13:10

I don't like saying this, but it forces me to like spend that extra time. Like I'm very involved with my kids all the time, but it it makes sure that that times with them. Yeah, I'm, I'm the coach and my kids are old enough now, or I'm not the nice coach anymore. I'm not. I'm not a jerk, but I'm no longer like oh, you know, I want you to pay attention, I want you to get after it, um, so, yeah, I, I'm all coach, uh, our junior high basketball team. My boy's an eighth grader, so I'll be done this year.

Speaker 2: 1:13:34

I don't know if the opportunity will be there to like jump over and help my daughter like through her last Little bit of junior high, but I'm hoping, with my crazy work schedule and my inability to High schools, a lot longer season. I feel like I have to be at every practice. Of course, every game like it may just interrupt hunting schedule about middle of November, um, so I hope I don't have to do high school, but if, if I need to, or if nobody's there, we'll see. But yeah, very, grow up with a very competitive family. Um, dads and uncles were all very involved. They coached us all the way through Um and yeah, so it's, you know. Right now it's basketball and baseball. My boy doesn't play football anymore, which thank god because it's in the fall, and I don't know anything about volleyball, but baseball and, uh, basketball, I I usually jump in and coach everything they do.

Speaker 1: 1:14:21

Yeah, fall seasons can be tough for hunters when their kids get involved and vice versa. I was in competitive soccer playing around the country all over and you know, fall was the time and then I realized, like After I kind of got into college and finally hung up the the, the soccer cleats as far as competitive play, I was like man, there's a lot more time for for hunting now, you know, yeah, yeah, yeah it's a blast, I love it.

Speaker 2: 1:14:44

And and I remember I wanted to hunt and not play football. When I was younger, in high school, my dad, like, hey, you can hunt the rest of your life. And so I kind of use that same thing. You know, like, yeah, I can hunt the rest of my life. I need to get, you know, spend as much time with my kids. And sure, and, uh, you know, get, get them through sports. And uh, I'm not gonna lie, do you miss some volleyball games? I miss some wrestling matches due to hunting. But, um, I'm there. If I'm home and can make it work, I'm, I'm here as much as possible. And uh, yeah, it's, it's, it's been a lot of fun.

Speaker 2: 1:15:11

I, I love, um, you know, the, I love being around all the kids. Um, we, I've kind of got that, that perfect relationship with all my players. Like we can goof around and we can give each other crap, but yet they know when like, too far is too far. And so it's like I've built this and and I'm excited to see what this group of boys, you know, somewhere down the road does, because it's just, it's been fun like all the way from kindergarten to here and it's just something I love to do and um it. When you got that competitive spirit like I've got it in business, I've got it in everything I do it's nice to, even though you can't compete anymore. You're like you got it from a coach's perspective. So I love to just go out and get the best out of kids and compete and, um, I probably have too much fun competing, but uh, it's, it's all good.

Speaker 1: 1:15:55

No man. That's. It's great. It's great it helps make the kids, you know, it helps shape them in such a way and having someone who's positive and who's been there and, you know, encouraging them and being someone who they can look up to in another setting too, and your Professional avenue as well and kind of turning into that. You know, I was kind of gonna ask you as well, what is it that you Want your legacy to be? And I, I know you're not an old man sitting on the porch and in your last few rocks on a Rockin chair, but so I know it's kind of a weird kind of question, is it in some ways? But you know, I think you've kind of made some substantial marks and, and you know, with your game calls, with you know, obviously, with some of the kids and things too, and your community and things like that as well. So you know, maybe in a personal and a professional setting, what is some of the things that you kind of view and when you're thinking about your legacy?

Speaker 2: 1:16:43

Yeah, I had a lot of time to think about this when we sold the company. Like I've had this, this conversation many times and From a from a career or a game call perspective. Um, I want to be known as a company, a very high quality game call company, that that I could almost go to our philps game calls mission statement because that was the legacy I wanted to leave was like a call company, buy hunters that cut no corners, basically like always high end, which then ties into like the content, which I think is really how people know me or get to see me or from. I want to be known as and this is weird but it's important to me like a guy that never Screwed over anybody in business, a guy that's always been very honest in business, very transparent, and then once you get through like that, uh, like I want to be an educator, like somebody that somebody's gained a piece of knowledge from, or that you know 20 or 30 years down the road, like man, I remember when you know Jason was doing you know this education, or he brought on this project, or hey, he went over. Like Jason's a guy that will go and speak at the Fish and Wildlife Commission and made a difference, aside from just collecting money. He was the guy that went over with the biologists and captured calves for two or three days. Yeah, I get the the the flexibility in my schedule to maybe do that sometimes where maybe other people don't.

Speaker 2: 1:18:05

But I want to be more than just a guy that made money off of a hunting industry or a group of hunters. I want to. I want to help with conservation, I want to help with studies, I want to help make people better hunters. I want to make you know I want to be the guy and I'll never take credit. I I don't hate it, I just I always turn it back like, hey, without Phelps game calls like I would never would have done this, or without your help, I never would have killed this bull. I'm like no, I just gave you the little piece you needed. Everything else you had to do, I wasn't there with you. I wasn't Um, like I want. Yeah, I want all of those things. I want to be positive. I want to leave a good mark on hunting and, uh, I want to make hunting better than like leave it off, better than where I got it.

Speaker 2: 1:18:47

Now, we got a lot of stuff working against us. I'm not gonna lie. That's gonna be very tough to to be able to say that. But I also battle a lot of what we do and maybe some of the the impact and stuff we put on public land. Like I I'm not, I would be lying to say that it doesn't.

Speaker 2: 1:19:08

I have some internal battles like should I even have a Videoed hunt in this area because of the pressure it already receives? Or you know, it's like I struggle with that and so I'm trying to balance all of this from a Business side versus like what's right for the animals or what's right for the area or the people that have hunted that before, and so just trying to be very, very I Don't know, I don't know what word encompasses that all just very respectful to hunting and what it means, versus I hate to use the word, but you have to use it like the commercialization of what some of what we've did and and strike a good balance, and so I like to respect that. I like to always think about that and that's really kind of where I want to be. I People throw the word influence around. I hate it, but I would love to be able to help people educate, become better hunters. Maybe, you know, find different ways to do stuff.

Speaker 2: 1:20:01

And from a career side, from a personal side, like man I would love for people to say like family man, like very good to his family, like you Know and and helped other very involved in the community, which I am, and so that's my biggest fear is, like it's weird to think about, like when you die, like who's all shown up at your funeral, like you want that place that you want to have an impact, you want you want to be the guy that had it, had touched a lot of lives and been a lot of people's lives and and all for the good. So, from a personal standpoint, like that's, that's my number. You know what's high on the list is being a good family guy, good dad, good, good husband to my wife, and then, you know, a good, good community member for everybody.

Speaker 1: 1:20:44

Great answer, man. Those are all very important things and I like your idea, like the to the awareness of those kinds of, you know, conflicting things. As far as you know the when, that encroachment of like okay, you know the public lands and like, maybe putting too much attention on this, but it, I think you, you bring it out in a balance and wanting, you're in the right place, you're your heart and your mind is in the right spot and I think those things all balance out. Looking at all the conservational, you know approaches and the things where, even that, knowing that there's a internal Confliction, you know some people don't even think about those things. They just take, take, take. But what can we leave behind for those future generations, for our kids, grandkids and seven, you know generations down the line and wanting to improve it and, like you said, there are some things working against this. So it is important.

Speaker 2: 1:21:29

Yeah, I mean I've ruined some of my own hunting spots with some of our videos and like, all right, yeah, if I did that to myself, like I could do that to other people. And it's just that realization where it's like wait, we maybe need to rethink our approach or do we really need to film this, or you know anything that's recognizable? So it's, it's tough and I battle with it all the time. You know, I ask myself all the time like why are you taking this picture? And I maybe I shouldn't like, why are you? Why are you building this content? Like, what's the purpose? Does it have a real meaning? Or is it to get, you know, this many likes and this many comments?

Speaker 2: 1:22:01

And so I'm very, very aware, and maybe I shouldn't be, but the more I move through and get spots ruined, or you know, like I was on a deer hunt with my family this year in Montana, nobody will ever see the pictures of it or anything, because I met too many people in the area that, and so all it takes Is me to post a picture, that guy to comment that like, hey, I seen you when we were there.

Speaker 2: 1:22:22

He, you know, somebody looks up where he's from and it's like well, that's not fair to the people that Are around. There were that, I seen hunting, and so it's just. It's a weird. It's a weird thing that I'm trying to navigate right now and but yeah, legacy wise, like, but I've got to produce that educational content, like if I can show somebody how I glass for milder or how I approach like a morning In the Elkwoods when I've got something located, how I'm gonna approach you. So it's that balance of liking to see people find their own success through education but then not overdoing it or doing it in a respectful way.

Speaker 1: 1:22:53

Yeah, no, no, it's. It's a balance man. Totally, I hear you and it's. It's new for us in the social media before, like Now, anyone can find out where you are very easily. You know it's. It's definitely a different world than it was, you know, for us growing up. So, yeah, no, there's some challenges there as far as you know People wanting to follow your journey and maybe see some of these videos and things too. I know you got a YouTube. You know you got your website and you got your own personal. You know pages you can follow.

Speaker 2: 1:23:19

If you can just go ahead and lay out the socials and any websites people can go ahead and follow, yeah, so Instagram, we're on there at Phelps game calls I Finally they talked me into starting my own personal one, so it's at Jason Glenn Phelps is my personal Instagram. We've got Facebook, like my personal Facebook. I I'm pretty attentive. You know I'm on. We've got the Phelps game calls Facebook page. We were on tick tock.

Speaker 2: 1:23:44

We're not real active because everything always gets flagged for policy violations. You can't have Anything in there. So we're on tick tock, we're not super active. And then, yeah, our YouTube channels at the Phelps game calls YouTube channel and then a lot of our stuff, like me and Steve's L cut me and Steve's Idaho Mildear hunt is on the meat eater YouTube channel as well. So we're kind of all over. Super easy to get access to our email. I'll give you a cutting the distance, like if you ever have any questions or want somebody to ask questions, for our podcast would be CTD at Phelps game calls. Calm, I'm gonna. I'm gonna reserve my personal email.

Speaker 1: 1:24:22

That's fair.

Speaker 2: 1:24:23

I don't get overloaded there, but the CTD one gets filtered a little differently. So, yeah, easy to get a hold of. We try to me and Dirk or as active on our own accounts as possible. We were usually the ones answering them. So, yeah, and the nice thing about messaging and stuff is a is you know, just we can get to him when we can and we usually address you, so it's easier sometimes to get messages than you know or email. So, yeah, yeah, super available.

Speaker 1: 1:24:49

That's great man. No, it's, it's, it's very important. Well, thank you so much for coming out and kind of sharing part of your journey and you know you, I love your calls, man. I'm excited to see all the things you got coming out in the years to come and you know all the best with that. And yeah, man, thanks again. Really appreciate it.

Speaker 2: 1:25:09

Yeah, thanks for having me. I really appreciate it. George and we'll we'll have to stay in touch and maybe do it again. Maybe I'll have you on our podcast.

Speaker 1: 1:25:16

Hey, I'd love that. And next time you want to come out and hunt in Texas man, I know you got that whitetail bugs to come on out to one of the ranches I've run in and you can come and check it out out here.

Speaker 2: 1:25:25

We'll do take care.

Speaker 1: 1:25:26

All right, you do.

Speaker 2: 1:25:27

Yeah, bye.