The Rich Outdoors

Man, this one’s special. Doug Champion is back on the show for round two, and honestly, this is exactly why I love doing this podcast — you meet someone, you have a great conversation, and a year later you’re picking right back up like no time passed at all.

If you don’t know Doug, he’s the guy behind Champion Living, building the first real athlete development system for rodeo — fitness, nutrition, mental training, the whole thing — because for way too long rodeo has been behind the curve compared to sports like motocross when it comes to taking care of its athletes. His brother Richie Champion is a legend in bareback riding, nine-time NFR qualifier, and Doug just watched him ride his last horses ever at the Calgary Stampede. That story alone is worth the price of admission — chills, dude.

But this conversation goes so much deeper than rodeo. We get into the real stuff: what it actually costs to build a business that’s bigger than you, the guilt of missing time with your kids while you’re out chasing elk or building something for your family’s future, losing a dog that raised you into adulthood, and the discipline it takes to stop lying to yourself about why things keep going sideways.

We also get into hunting — my brutal 2024 season, tracking a bull nine miles after he got up and walked off, Doug’s buddy Travis and the giant mule deer that got away (and then didn’t), and why I’m changing my whole approach this year to actually see more animals instead of just walking more miles.

This is one of those episodes where we start talking about rodeo and end up talking about life. Grab your coffee, settle in, and let’s get after it.

Sponsors

onX Hunt Big shoutout to onX for this episode. They just rolled out a new Share feature inside the Go Track section of the app — think old-school Garmin Rino “see your buddy on the map” tech, but done right for 2024. You and your hunting partner can now share your live location with each other right in the app (works when you’re in service, so keep that in mind). It’s a small feature but a genuinely useful one if you hunt with a crew. Check it out at onxmaps.com and use code TRO for a discount on your membership.

Bridger Watch This one’s personal — I’ve been building this thing for a long time and I’m proud of what it’s become. Bridger Watch is a smartwatch built specifically for hunters. It does everything a normal smartwatch does (health tracking, fitness, texts) but the mapping is where it separates itself — best-in-class offline maps on a wearable, and a direct integration with onX so you can send waypoints, tracks, and markups straight to your watch. Park your truck, drop a waypoint in onX, send it to your wrist — now if your phone dies or you lose it, you’ve still got your way back. It’s not trying to replace your phone maps, it’s the backup you didn’t know you needed. Go check it out at bridgerwatch.com

Timestamps

00:00 – Sponsors: onX Hunt’s new Share feature & Bridger Watch’s smartwatch/onX integration

03:30 – Welcome back, Doug! Catching up a year later

05:00 – Doug’s all-in on hunting now — the struggle of finding time to scout with a growing business

10:00 – Burnout, growing a “lifestyle business” into a real company, and redefining what leveling up looks like

14:00 – The guilt of stepping away from the kids, and why the newborn years might actually be easier

18:00 – The 40th birthday Baldy lap story — missing fireworks, and what your kids actually see when you chase big goals

21:00 – What’s driving the business boom — investing in mentorship and the Alex Hormozi workshop

24:00 – Richie Champion’s final rodeo at the Calgary Stampede — the 90-point ride, the old horse, and an ending you couldn’t script

30:00 – Losing a 16-year-old dog, leaning into faith, and the journaling/affirmation practice that changed everything

36:00 – Business wins piling up — the Hooey collab, PBR partnership talks, and the new Montana State rodeo development program

39:00 – Why rodeo culture is behind other sports on fitness (and the motocross parallel)

44:00 – What actually separates great athletes at 22 — fearlessness, trainability, and coming to terms with risk

47:00 – Doug’s comeback from a broken back — seven years off, CrossFit, and the best ride of his life

50:00 – Cody’s rough 2024 season — a release malfunction, and tracking a bull nine miles after a bad shot

53:00 – 2024 plans: Utah spike hunt, general tags, Travis’s giant mule deer story, and using LandTrust to find new ground

56:00 – Closing thoughts on staying present, choosing positivity, and where to find the Champion Living x Hooey collab

Three Key Takeaways

Discipline beats intensity, every time. Both Doug and Cody hammer the same point from two totally different worlds (rodeo and elk hunting): the guys who succeed aren’t the ones grinding 80 hours a week or hiking 20 miles a day — they’re the ones being methodical, controlling what they can control, and getting a little better every single day. Effort without direction just burns you out.

Presence is a practice, not a personality trait. Doug’s shift toward journaling, writing daily affirmations, and consciously catching negative thought patterns didn’t happen overnight — it took months before he noticed a real shift. The takeaway: rewiring how you show up for your business, your family, and yourself is trainable, even if it feels slow and unglamorous at first.

The guilt of chasing your goals doesn’t mean you’re doing it wrong. Whether it’s missing a birthday for a training run or being gone during hunting season, both guys wrestle with feeling like they’re stealing time from their families. But as Doug’s own kid showed him — sometimes what looks like absence to you looks like inspiration to them.

Dude, this episode hit different. I sat down with Jacob Albaugh Tenet, founder of Tenet Products, and what started as a guy from Ohio racing four-wheelers turned into one of the wildest entrepreneurial grinds I’ve heard on this podcast — and that’s saying something.

Jacob was a national champion ATV racer before he ever picked up a rifle. Then he had a kid, watched his buddy crash at 45 mph, and walked away from racing cold. He poured that same obsessive, pro-level mentality into western hunting — and that’s where this story really takes off. After blowing out his eardrums on a mule deer at 32 yards, losing an animal off a cliff because he couldn’t spot his own shot, and surviving a blizzard SOS situation in Idaho that he says changed his life, Jacob became convinced there had to be a better way to hunt suppressed without sacrificing accuracy.

So he built one. In his garage. With a grinder and a welder.

Five years, 87 iterations, seven pending patents, and a lot of 20-hour days later, Tenet Products exists — suppressors that combine brake-level recoil control with real suppression, at weights (5.1–5.9 ounces) that sound made up until you see the data. We talk about the midnight idea that led to the patented Horizon Brake System, why he thinks outsiders solve problems industry veterans can’t, the torture testing that’s put over 1,400 rounds through a single can, and what happened when Tenet showed up to Joseph Ewing’s massive 145-suppressor shootout in Montana against every serious competitor in the space.

This one’s part origin story, part engineering deep-dive, part conversation about grit, faith, and what it actually takes to build something from scratch when nobody in the industry believes you. If you’ve ever thought about running suppressed in the backcountry, or you just love a good underdog build story — this is a must listen.

This Episode Is Brought to You By:

onX Hunt

Remember the old Garmin Rino days when you could see your buddy’s location on the map out in the field? onX just brought that idea into the modern era — and made it way better. Head into the onX Hunt app, go to the new GoTrack section, and hit “Share Your Location” to see exactly where your hunting partner is on the map in real time. It only works while you’re in service, but for the hunts where it applies, it’s a total game-changer for staying coordinated with your crew.

 Check it out and get outfitted for your next hunt at onxmaps.com

Use code TRO for a discount at checkout

Bridger Watch

Full disclosure — this one’s mine. Bridger Watch is a full-feature smartwatch built by hunters, for hunters, made for the entire hunting lifestyle, not just the hunt itself. No compromise, no fluff. It handles your training, your mapping (the big one), your text messages, and it’s built with the kind of battery life that actually survives the backcountry — because we know battery life matters when you’re days deep with no outlet in sight.

 Learn more and grab yours at bridgerwatch.com

Episode Chapters

Time
Segment

00:00
Cold open — onX Hunt’s new GoTrack share feature

01:47
Bridger Watch — full-feature smartwatch for hunters

03:15
Welcome Jacob Albaugh — intro to Tenet Products

05:30
From national champion ATV racer to walking away cold

09:40
Discovering western hunting in college

13:20
The frustration that started it all: muzzle devices & long-range shots

17:00
The mule deer that blew out his ears — the tinnitus wake-up call

20:15
Going suppressed… and losing accuracy in the process

24:00
The Idaho blizzard, the lost animal, and finding faith

28:30
Building the first prototype — “redneck engineering” with a welder

33:00
Pitching suppressor companies the idea for free — and getting rejected

37:15
The midnight idea: birth of the Horizon Brake System

42:00
Why an outsider could solve what 100 years of experts couldn’t

47:00
87 iterations — the last 10% that takes 5x the work

52:00
Solving the weight problem with additive manufacturing (5.1–5.9 oz cans)

57:00
Torture testing: 1,400 rounds, melted titanium, and mag dumps into water

1:02:00
Launch pride and building the Tenet team

1:05:30
Inside Joseph Ewing’s 145-suppressor shootout in Montana

1:12:00
The slow-mo footage that shows five years of shot-control focus

1:16:00
Jacob’s 7-300 wildcat build and the sub-8-pound rifle

1:19:00
Where to buy, inventory plans, and what’s next for Tenet

Three Key Takeaways

You don’t have to choose between quiet, light, and controllable anymore. For decades, suppressor design has forced a trade-off — get recoil control from a brake, or get hearing protection from a suppressor, but rarely both without adding serious weight. Tenet’s approach of engineering the suppressor itself (not just the brake) for shot control is what let them break that curve.

Passion-driven problem solving can outperform decades of industry expertise. Jacob had no suppressor background and no entrepreneurial ambition when he started — he was just trying to fix his own hunting setup. His point that someone solving their own problem out of obsession will often out-innovate someone doing it as a job is a great reminder for anyone building something in any industry.

Recoil management matters more than caliber size for accuracy in the field. The current trend toward smaller cartridges (6.5s, 6mm) exists because lower recoil equals better shot placement. Jacob’s insight — that you can get that same manageability out of a 7 PRC or 300 PRC with the right muzzle system — means hunters don’t have to give up knockdown power to get accuracy anymore.

There’s a certain type of person who can’t half-ass anything. The kind of guy who decides to climb the Grand Teton on a whim, rappels off a sheer face having never rappelled before, canyoneers into some of the most remote slot canyons in the American Southwest, and packs mules solo through the dark at midnight to make the opener. Justin Helvik is that guy — and somehow, impossibly, he’s also a 20-year educator who coached high school football and showed up Monday morning with a collapsed lung and six broken ribs, insisting everything was fine.

Justin and I go way back. He was with me on one of my early bear hunts. I helped him build the pole barn that would eventually house the mules he didn’t own yet. Life moves fast when you’re the kind of person who’s always got the next adventure already on the calendar.

In this episode, Justin breaks down his unconventional path from desk jockey to legitimate mountain mule skinner — and I mean that in the best possible way. We talk about what drove a guy with zero ranch background to go all in on mule packing, the gnarly wreck on a Montana mountain goat hunt that left him with a punctured lung and broken ribs (and how his mule, Bella, somehow knew he was hurt and carried him out of the backcountry gently), and what it actually feels like to go from being intimidated by stock animals to packing 80 miles through the Yellowstone Thoroughfare.

But this conversation goes deeper than mules. We get into the philosophy of adventure — what it means to chase that feeling of uncomfortable, why comfort might actually be the most dangerous thing you can do to yourself, and how stacking experiences over a lifetime is the only real way to build confidence that transfers everywhere. Justin talks about identity, ego, legacy, and what Lonesome Dove’s Augustus McCrae got right about living versus dying.

He’s also got a Substack — From Desk Jockey to Mule Skinner — that I’d encourage every one of you to go read. He’s a great writer, and the stories are even better on the page.

If you’ve ever thought about getting into pack stock, or you’re someone who’s wired to always be pushing the next limit, this one’s for you.

Episode Sponsors

Bridger Watch

This episode is brought to you by Bridger Watch — the smartwatch built specifically for hunters, by a hunter. Cody set out to build something better after getting tired of pulling his phone out 100 times a day just to check his OnX map in the field. The solution? Put the maps on the watch.

Bridger Watch is the best smartwatch for hunters, period. If you’re a watch guy and a hunter, this is built for you.

Website: https://www.bridgerwatch.com?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss

Coupon Code: TRO

onX Hunt

onX Hunt is the gold standard for hunting maps, and they just dropped a feature that’s going to change how you hunt with a buddy. The new Share Location feature inside the Go Track section lets you and your hunting partner see each other’s real-time position right on the map — like a modern-day Garmin Rino, but actually good.

Fair warning: this only works in cell service, so it won’t help you in the deep dark. But for those in-service hunts? This is seriously cool tech that a lot of hunters have been asking for for years.

Website: https://www.onxmaps.com?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss

Coupon Code: TRO

Timestamp Chapters

0:00 Intro & Sponsor — Bridger Watch

2:15 Sponsor — onX Hunt: New Share Location Feature

4:30 Welcoming Justin Helvik / Catching Up After Years

6:00 Justin’s Background: 20 Years in Education, Small Town Roots

9:30 The Path to Mules — Pack Goats, Failed HOAs & Bighorn Disease Concerns

15:00 Justin’s Adventure DNA: Ultra Races, the Grand Teton & Canyoneering

22:00 Olo Canyon & Going Where Few Have Been

26:30 The Moment That Made Him Go All-In on Mules (Elk Down, No Help)

31:00 First Experiences with Pack Stock — Intimidation, Trust & Mule Personalities

36:00 Horses vs. Mules: Self-Preservation, Bells & the Classic ‘Brakes Are Broken’

40:30 The Mountain Goat Hunt Wreck — A Collapsed Lung, Six Broken Ribs & Bella

48:00 What the Wreck Taught Him About Ego & Risk

51:00 How Adventure Changes When You Have a Family

53:30 Experience Stacking: The Philosophy of Going All-In Incrementally

56:00 Planning the Lee Metcalf Solo Ride & Why You Need the Next Trip on the Calendar

58:00 Wrap Up — Justin’s Substack: From Desk Jockey to Mule Skinner

3 Key Takeaways

1. Comfort is the real killer — not the mountains.

Justin makes the point that denying yourself the adventures you’re wired for is a slow death from the inside. It’s not just a mindset cliché — he’s seen it play out in his own life. When he’s not planning something that makes him a little nervous, he loses motivation everywhere else: at work, at home, as a father. The takeaway for listeners isn’t to go do something reckless. It’s to identify your version of “uncomfortable” and book it. Put it in the calendar. Then don’t cancel.

2. Stack experiences, not just kills.

One of the most practical threads in this whole conversation is the concept of experience stacking — the idea that every micro-adventure you complete is compounding interest on your confidence. Justin didn’t go from zero to packing 80 miles through the Yellowstone Thoroughfare overnight. He stacked years of backcountry hunting, mule rides with friends, short overnighters, and hard lessons (including that ER visit) until the big trips felt like a natural next step. If you’re waiting until you’re “ready” to do the hunt of a lifetime, you’ll wait forever. Start smaller, go often, and let the experiences compound.

3. The anticipation is half the experience — book the trip.

Justin and Cody dig into something that doesn’t get talked about enough in the hunting world: the happiness that comes from having something on the calendar to look forward to. Science backs this up — humans are wired to find joy in anticipation. The planning, the e-scouting, the gear lists, the late-night what-ifs with your buddy — that’s not just prep, that’s part of the experience itself. Don’t wait for the perfect conditions or the perfect budget. Book it now, figure it out along the way, and let yourself enjoy the countdown.

Man, I don’t know how else to say this — this one got me. I sat down with Christian Zeron, the guy behind the Theo N. Harris Instagram, and what started as a watch-world conversation turned into one of the most honest, wide-open talks about hunting, identity, manhood, and what it means to find something that actually moves you. That’s the kind of episode this is.

Christian grew up in New Jersey selling vintage Rolexes in college and built a marketing company around it. He’s sharp, he’s articulate, and — up until about six months ago — he had zero connection to the hunting world. Then a client invited him on a hunt in Kentucky and, well, here we are. He killed his first turkey this spring, he’s already got hog hunts lined up in Texas and a dove trip to Argentina on the books, and the guy is all in. Completely, unapologetically, joyfully all in.

What I love about Christian is that he brings this fresh set of eyes to our world. He’s not pretending to be someone he’s not. He’s a Ralph Lauren, vintage shotgun, lever-action rifle kind of guy who gets genuinely emotional talking about his late grandfather while butchering his first bird. That’s real. That’s the stuff hunting is actually made of, and it’s the stuff that’s really hard to explain to people who haven’t lived it.

We go deep on the watch world and what Rolex figured out about aspiration and identity that most brands never do.

We talk camo as identity, Sitka vs. First Lite, Yeti coolers, LVMH, Omega, Casio — and somehow it all connects back to hunting, brand building, and what it means to be a man who collects experiences instead of just stuff. Plus, we dig into what I’m trying to build with Bridger Watch and Christian gives me some real, unfiltered marketing advice on how to position it against Garmin and Apple.

This is the kind of conversation that makes you want to call your old man, fire up a steak, and go outside. Strap in.

Episode Sponsors

onX Hunt

If you’re serious about hunting out west, onX isn’t optional — it’s foundational. We’re talking land ownership, access layers, terrain intel, and a full suite of tools built for every phase of the hunt: planning, preparation, and execution. The difference onX makes is simple. It’s confidence. Confidence that you’re in the right spot. Confidence that you’re legal. Confidence that you can find your way back to the truck when the day goes long and the country gets weird. Download the onX Hunt app and become an Elite member today.

Use code TRO for 20% off your membership.

Website: onxmaps.com

Bridger Watch

I set out to build a better smartwatch for the hunting community — plain and simple. I was frustrated. I kept pulling my phone out 100 times a day to check onX in the field and thought, why can’t we just have the map on our wrist? So we went down the rabbit hole and built what I genuinely believe is the best smartwatch ever made for hunters. If you’re a watch guy and a hunter, this was built for you.

Use code TRO at checkout.

Website: bridgerwatch.com

Timestamp Chapters

0:00  —  Intro & Sponsor — onX Hunt

1:45  —  Sponsor — Bridger Watch

3:00  —  Welcome Christian Zeron | Who Is This Guy?

5:30  —  From Jersey to the Deer Woods — How a Watch Guy Found Hunting

9:00  —  Building a Marketing Company on the Back of Rolex

12:30  —  Christian’s First Turkey: Buck Fever, Clown Makeup, and Grandfather Moments

17:00  —  Why Hunting Hits Different — The Emotional Depth Non-Hunters Don’t Understand

20:30  —  Serving Elk Steak & The Pride of the Harvest

23:00  —  Where Does Christian’s Hunting Journey Go From Here? Argentina, Texas, Bear Hunts

26:30  —  Identity in the Hunting World — Camo Brands, Sitka, First Lite & the Yeti Effect

30:00  —  Decor, Taxidermy, and Why Rural Men Are More Aesthetic Than Manhattan Bankers

33:30  —  The Smartwatch Debate — Where Does a Luxury Watch Guy Land on Wearables?

37:00  —  Marketing Advice for Bridger Watch — What Rolex Got Right & What We Should Learn

40:30  —  The Watch World Deep Dive — Omega, Tag Heuer, LVMH, Casio & Vintage Markets

44:00  —  Lever Guns, Grandfather’s .35 Remington, and Planning Future Hunts

46:00  —  Wrap Up — Follow Christian & Final Thoughts

3 Key Takeaways

1. Hunting Connects You to Something Bigger Than the Kill

Christian’s story about his late grandfather flooding back while he was butchering his first turkey is one of the most honest descriptions of why hunters hunt that I’ve heard in a long time. The harvest, the meat, the field dressing — it all becomes this vessel for memory and emotion and people you’ve lost. And it’s something you genuinely cannot explain to someone who hasn’t felt it. If you’ve ever felt your dad or your grandfather or someone you loved in a duck blind or a wall tent, you know exactly what Christian is talking about. That feeling doesn’t go away. It doesn’t get old. That’s why we keep going back.

2. Identity Is at the Core of Every Purchase Decision — Hunting Included

Christian has been living inside luxury brand psychology for over a decade, and watching him apply that lens to the hunting world is genuinely eye-opening. Whether it’s Sitka gear, a Yeti cooler, or a vintage duck camo jacket — we are all making identity statements with every piece of kit we buy. And what’s fascinating is that hunters, who largely pride themselves on being no-nonsense, practical people, are actually some of the most identity-driven consumers out there. The trophy room, the curated camp setup, the brand of camo you wear — it all means something. Knowing that isn’t a bad thing. It’s human nature.

3. Lead With the Tool — Let the Lifestyle Follow

Christian’s marketing insight for Bridger Watch — and honestly for any product in the outdoor space — is worth writing down. The temptation is to lead with the vibe, the lifestyle, the beautiful photos. But for a product that has genuine technical superiority in a specific use case, the smarter play is to lead with education and product proof first, and let the lifestyle layer build behind it. Rolex works because it’s 90% signal and 10% tool. A hunting watch should be the opposite: 90% tool, 10% signal. Prove what the product does for real people doing real things, and the identity follows naturally.

Look, I’m not gonna sugarcoat it — life got in the way and we missed a week. But we’re back, and this one was worth the wait.

Joe Epple is one of those guys who doesn’t fit neatly into a box. Retired professional football player. CFL veteran. Director of Business Development for Wild TV — Canada’s largest hunt and fish TV network. Co-host of The Edge, now in its 17th season. Father of two boys. Columbia blacktail hunter. Stone sheep chaser. A 6’8″ giant of a man who grew up in Squamish, British Columbia, hunting for meat and mushrooming in the rain just to make ends meet — and who somewhere along the way figured out that all those lessons in the wet coastal bush were actually building the foundation for everything that came after.

This episode goes deep on what it really means to make the transition from professional athlete to serious hunter, and why the skills that make you elite in sports — goal-setting, resilience, the ability to learn from getting your ass kicked — translate directly to the mountains. Joe talks about growing up in a logging family that hunted out of necessity, not recreation. About being the fat, knock-kneed kid who nobody bet on, who started going to a rusty prison gym at 13 and never looked back. About how hunting blacktails in the miserable, soaking wet coastal bluffs of BC taught him to push through discomfort long before any football field did.

We get into the mental game of hunting — specifically what it looks like when you’ve got 14-day fly-in stone sheep hunts on one end of the spectrum and a four-year-old who snaps every branch and asks to go back to the truck every five minutes on the other. How do you stay present? How do you keep the long game in mind when you’re sitting in the gutter on day 10 of a backcountry hunt wondering why you’re not home with your family? Joe’s got a framework for that, and it’s worth hearing.

We talk about Kristen’s bear — a giant boar that’ll likely crack the top 15 all-time in the province. About Joe’s most-prized blacktail taken at 12 yards with a bow. About why archery hunting teaches you more about your weaknesses as a hunter than anything else. About what it’s like to hunt stone sheep as a resident in BC for a fraction of what nonresidents pay, and why he still hasn’t punched an archery tag on one. And about the pressure social media puts on new hunters to skip the learning curve entirely and shoot a 200-inch muley on their first trip out.

Joe’s a straight shooter (pun intended), genuinely humble, and packed with perspective from both sides of the fence — the elite athlete world and the deep wilderness backcountry. This one’s got range. Turn it up.

Episode Sponsors

onX Hunt

If you’re hunting out west and you’re not running onX, I don’t know what to tell you — it’s not optional at this point, it’s foundational. Land ownership, access layers, terrain intel, route planning — onX does it all. The difference it makes isn’t just convenience. It’s confidence. Confidence that you’re in the right spot. Confidence that you’re legal. Confidence that you can find your way back to the truck when things go sideways. That’s what elite membership gets you.

Website: https://www.onxmaps.com?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss  |  Use code: TRO — Save 20% on Elite Membership

Bridger Watch

This one’s personal — I built Bridger Watch because I was frustrated. I was pulling my phone out 100 times a day just to check my onX, and I thought there had to be a better way. So we went down the rabbit hole and set out to build the best smartwatch for hunters. Maps on your wrist. Built for the field. If you’re a watch guy and a hunter, this is the one you’ve been waiting for.

Website: https://www.bridgerwatch.com?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss  |  Use code: TRO — Exclusive discount

Timestamp Chapters

0:00 — Intro & Sponsor: onX Hunt

1:30 — Sponsor: Bridger Watch

3:00 — Welcome & catching up — the missed week, quick intros

5:30 — Joe’s roots: growing up in Squamish, BC — logging family, pine mushrooms, coastal blacktails

10:00 — Why Joe pursued athletics instead of the outdoors — the unlikely path to pro football

14:30 — The transition: retiring from pro sports and returning to his outdoor roots

17:00 — Joe’s current life — Director of Business Development at Wild TV, The Edge TV show

20:00 — Raising kids in the outdoors — Walker and Wyatt, making it fun vs. making it serious

26:30 — Cody’s excavator story — how to build positive associations with hunting for young kids

30:00 — Spring bear hunting as a family — dance parties in the mountains and Kristen’s record-book bear

36:00 — The fat kid with a doctor’s note — Joe’s aha moment at 13, the rusty gym, and building self-confidence

42:00 — Growing up with zero sports culture in the house — how a 6’8″ kid ended up at Washington State on a full ride

47:00 — Blacktail hunting as the foundation — why the gray ghost builds hunters who can do anything

51:00 — Joe’s most prized blacktail — the 12-yard bow shot, the branch deflection, and the bluff recovery

54:00 — The mental game of backcountry hunting — learning lessons on every trip, reframing failure

57:30 — Archery vs. rifle — why Joe hunts with a bow even when he doesn’t have to, and what it’s cost him

60:00 — Dream archery hunts, stone sheep with a bow, and where to find The Edge on Wild TV

3 Key Takeaways

1. The Outdoors Builds the Foundation — Not the Other Way Around

Joe flipped the typical narrative. Most people assume athletic success leads to outdoor opportunity. For Joe, it was the blacktail hunts in the BC rain — the cold hands, the wet wool pants, the days you saw nothing and came back a prune — that built the grit that eventually carried him to pro football. The outdoors taught him to show up when it sucks, because the lesson is in the discomfort. If you’ve ever wondered why some people can push through brutal hunting conditions while others fold, this conversation gives you the answer: it’s not a hunting skill, it’s a life skill — and you build it long before you ever draw a tag.

2. Play the Long Game With Your Kids

Joe and Cody both land in the same place on this one: the goal isn’t to turn your four-year-old into a stealthy, branch-free hunting machine. The goal is to make sure they ask to go again. Unlimited bubbly water. Bring the toy excavator. Let them jump on every frozen puddle. Have a dance party in the mountains before you sneak over the ridge. The association you build right now — “hunting is fun, hunting is where we laugh and eat good snacks and do dumb stuff together” — is worth more than any lesson you could drill into them about staying quiet. The discipline will come. The desire to be out there has to come first.

3. Stop Writing the Story Before It’s Over

Two or three days without seeing an animal and most hunters start mentally packing it in. Joe’s been there on 14-day fly-in hunts when the wheels come off and you start questioning every decision. His counterintuitive advice: that’s the point. That’s the adventure. The highs wouldn’t mean what they mean without the lows, and things change in a moment — a bull materializes, a bear steps into the open, the hunt you’ve been grinding finally breaks your way. The story isn’t finished until you’re back in the truck. Stay in the field. Stay sharp. The last two days have a funny way of making up for everything that came before.