You were a journalist and then are you like an adult onset hunter? Is that correct? Or did you grow up hunting and fishing?

Yeah, I've been fishing since, you know, I could walk or talk and I've been, you know, gathering wild plants and all that kind of thing since I was a little kid as well.

But but hunting was the thing that came much later in life.

And our mutual colleague, Chris Niskanen, who used to be the St. Paul Pioneer Press' outdoor writer, he's the one who kind of got me into hunting 25 years ago now.

So it doesn't feel like I'm an adult onset hunter, but I guess you live long enough and even things that you pick up 25 years ago seem like old hat.

I was a chef first.

I worked in professional kitchens, usually just as a line cook or a sous chef.

Great, great venue.

a whole book about that experience.

Then people eat it, won't they? I think the answer to the question are like things that I have a hard time with sometimes.

are really, really old animals.

Um, so like the trophy, you know, trophy animals, for example.

Um, you know, I once cooked meat off of a, a literal Boone and Crockett moops.

They think it was like 12 years old.

Wow.

There we go.

Oh,

sure.

Okay, yeah, so.

What happens is they will cook, they will cook like their backstrap.

And I've seen this done by chefs, by actual chefs who should know better.

They'll cook like elk backstrap for 20 hours or even six hours.

And it's insane because what happens is I think people forget that once it's in the water and it hits that temperature that you've set it at, which is 130, let's say, for backstraps, maybe 125, it's going to still cook.

But deer, you say otherwise.