Jimmy John Liau…: So, all right, Robbie, let’s do it.

Robbie Kroger: Let’s put that on your head

Jimmy John Liau…: For sure.

Robbie Kroger: You can put it on the left side or right side, however you feel like you can. And you can make a-

Jimmy John Liau…: How’s it made to go?

Robbie Kroger: It can go either way. You can just-

Jimmy John Liau…: But it’s not designed for a right or left.

Robbie Kroger: It’s up to you. You can just move this left or right, whatever you feel. I like mine on my right.

Jimmy John Liau…: All right, cool.

Robbie Kroger: Does that sound good to you?

Jimmy John Liau…: Yeah, man.

Robbie Kroger: I sound good in your ears?

Jimmy John Liau…: Yep.

Robbie Kroger: All right. Rock and roll.

Jimmy John Liau…: Yeah buddy. Let’s do this.

Robbie Kroger: So, it has been … I don’t know if you like to chase.

Jimmy John Liau…: Yeah, I definitely like the chase.

Robbie Kroger: Because I’ve been chasing you for like three years.

Jimmy John Liau…: That’s funny. That’s funny. Yeah. You have been chasing me about three years. You’ve been me a while. But I’m glad that we took this much time to-

Robbie Kroger: A hundred percent.

Jimmy John Liau…: To get together and have this chat.

Robbie Kroger: Well, look, I’m grateful. Let’s just start by thanking the person who initially introduced you and me.

Jimmy John Liau…: Who was that?

Robbie Kroger: Jim Spiros.

Jimmy John Liau…: Oh, Jimmy Spiros. What a great guy.

Robbie Kroger: Jimmy Spiros is amazing.

Jimmy John Liau…: Yeah. He just sent me a video last night. As a matter of fact. I watched it last night. He is in the Cameroon.

Robbie Kroger: That’s right. Steph killed a beautiful Lord Derby Eland.

Jimmy John Liau…: Yeah. And so did he.

Robbie Kroger: Nice.

Jimmy John Liau…: And he sent me his video and so he tracked it. He said they’re quite easy to hunt. And he said, but he decided to get on the track with the trackers and he shot a monster. And I could see in the video, it was a short clip. I’ll show it to you. He was pretty choked up, so it was a big deal to him.

Robbie Kroger: Well it is. Well one, it’s hot as Hades. Dusty, dry.

Jimmy John Liau…: Yeah.

Robbie Kroger: The Lord Derby Eland isn’t doing as well as it was 20 years ago. It may have been an easy hunt 20 years ago, but today it’s just, you can be four or five days on that one bull track to find that old old bull.

Jimmy John Liau…: Oh, I didn’t know that.

Robbie Kroger: Yeah. So, when you do, but you know hunting, they could have found a big bull one hour out of camp just off the road. And it’s done.

Jimmy John Liau…: It’s amazing. It’s amazing. That’s one of the most fascinating is you go through your journey of hunting and I think it’s just like anything, it’s a journey and it evolves and what you like evolves. So, it’s just like anything. You start drinking coffee, you’re drinking Folgers, and then three years later you’re needing a $5 specialty coffee. It’s an evolution, but it’s amazing how hunting evolves. And I remember when I first started hunting, my friend took me, I had gotten a divorce and my wife dumped me and I was really messed up in the head. My childhood, although it was difficult, it was Americana. It was a small town, mom and dad, people didn’t get divorced. And anyway, my wife dumped me and so my head was way up my ass. And so my friend took me on a sheep hunt. He said, Hey, get a gun and get a backpack.

Robbie Kroger: Have you sheep hunted before?

Jimmy John Liau…: Never hunted in my entire life.

Robbie Kroger: What?

Jimmy John Liau…: Yeah. He says, meet me in Anchorage.

Robbie Kroger: You hadn’t just whitetail hunted as a kid or anything like that?

Jimmy John Liau…: Never, never, never hunted in my life. I shot squirrels with BB guns. Fucked around like that. Yeah. So, anyway, that was my first hunt.

Robbie Kroger: What kind of sheep was it?

Jimmy John Liau…: It was a Dall sheep with Dennis Arms and the Alaska range. So, I was supposed to meet Jay Link up in Anchorage. And so I get to Anchorage and I get to my hotel.

Robbie Kroger: How old are you right now, Jimmy?

Jimmy John Liau…: This was going to be 19. This is 1990, so I’m 60 now. So, that was 30.

Robbie Kroger: Early thirties.

Jimmy John Liau…: Yeah, mid-thirties.

Robbie Kroger: Yeah.

Jimmy John Liau…: Yeah. So, anyway, no, before mid-30. Yeah, 1990. So, it’s 2000. So, 34 years ago. So, yeah, I guess so. I guess I was 30. No, no, this was mid-80s. This was 1985 Because I was mid late twenties and anyway, mid late eighties. Anyway, so Jay says, “Come meet me, get a backpack, rain gear, sleeping bag, seven mag, binoculars. Meet me in Anchorage.” So, I get to Anchorage and I get to my hotel and there’s a note, bad weather coming in, left to camp, somebody will get you tomorrow. And I’m going on a horseback sheep hunt with my friend Jay. So, the next morning at five in the morning, my phone rings, “Hi, I’m here to get you. I’m going to take you to a float plane and take you out to the Alaska range.”

So, I get my shit packed up, we go out and we get in a float plane and we fly and we land. And so I get to this lodge and I’m going to see my buddy Jay and have a beer. And there’s no Jay. He’s gone hunting. And not only has he gone hunting, but there’s no more horses left. I’m going on a backpack hunt. I’m like, oh, okay. So, they take me in a super cub and they take half of my shit out of my suitcase. So, I get to keep half my shit. And they land me on a river bank. And they said, there’s a barrel there, unload the barrel. There’s a tent and stuff in there. We’re going to go get your guy. So, I’m alone on the bank and there next to the barrel is a grizzly bear track as big as my head. And I get my gun and I’m just sitting there.

Robbie Kroger: So, you’ve never had any experience. Well, let me do this. I do a terrible job of introducing people. We just launched into it. Jimmy John’s.

Jimmy John Liau…: Yeah, Jimmy John’s. Sandwich maker.

Robbie Kroger: Sandwich maker. I am not saying your last name purposely because I fucked it up already twice coming into this place.

Jimmy John Liau…: Well, it’s French Creole. It’s Liautaud.

Robbie Kroger: Liautaud.

Jimmy John Liau…: It’s pronounced Liautaud. It’s French. It comes from New Orleans. So, it’s French Creole. So, my family we’re French, my dad’s side French Black Italians from New Orleans. And so 1903, my grandpa was born. There were five boys. 1910, my great-grandpa brought those five boys to Chicago to break the color line, because on their birth certificate they were colored.

Robbie Kroger: Gotcha.

Jimmy John Liau…: And so that was you want to [inaudible 00:06:32]-

Robbie Kroger: Italian.

Jimmy John Liau…: Yeah, well they were Italian, German, Black, but they were colored. They called them octoroons, which was a mulatto.

Robbie Kroger: A mulatto.

Jimmy John Liau…: Half Black, half White. And so anyway, they came to Chicago and then my mother was a Lithuanian immigrant when Russia invaded Lithuania. They escaped and made their way to Germany and made their way to Ellis Island. And so yeah, there’s my upbringing. Again, they met in college and yeah, that’s it.

Robbie Kroger: Well, welcome to the Blood Origins podcast.

Jimmy John Liau…: Yeah, man.

Robbie Kroger: I’m excited to have you.

Jimmy John Liau…: Yeah, so I’m by the barrel, which-

Robbie Kroger: But you’ve never hunted?

Jimmy John Liau…: No.

Robbie Kroger: Did you live in outdoor lifestyle? Did you live an adventure lifestyle?

Jimmy John Liau…: Minibike city, weed, beer and girls.

Robbie Kroger: I don’t know if we could class that adventurous. Maybe you could.

Jimmy John Liau…: I mean, I was like every other little kid.

Robbie Kroger: Yeah, twenty-year-old, right?

Jimmy John Liau…: 18. Oh, 15, 16. I mean, I was doing nothing. I was just-

Robbie Kroger: So, what are you thinking when you’re in this wilderness? Because literally you’re in the middle of nowhere, literally you’re six miles east of the middle of nowhere.

Jimmy John Liau…: Yeah, yeah. I’m on a riverbank with a barrel and a grizzly bear track and never been there before. So, anyway, Walt Rowe was my guide. I remember Walt. And then he came in, we set up the tent and I said, “What do we do?” He said, “Well, we sleep here and it doesn’t get light so it doesn’t get dark. It’s 24.” He said, “So, it’s seven o’clock now. Let’s just go to bed and we can get up at one o’clock in the morning.”

And he says, “See way up on the tip of those mountains, you see those little white spots?” He said, “Those are sheep and we’re going to walk up there.” I’m like, “We’re going to walk up there?” He said, “Yeah.” I’m like, “All right.” So, we take a fly, he takes a fly, we leave all of our stuff, we take our rain gear and our stuff, and we proceed to climb the mountain. So, we left at one o’clock in the morning, and I think we got up there. Now you got to go through the heads. What are those heads called? And the water, those swamp heads. So, you go through the water [inaudible 00:08:30]-

Robbie Kroger: [inaudible 00:08:30].

Jimmy John Liau…: Yeah, we have those things and then you get through the shin tangle and the Oaks and all of that shit. And then you finally get up to the rock, and then you get on a ridge line.

Robbie Kroger: You get on the screen and the web kind of stuff.

Jimmy John Liau…: And then you start to go up. And finally we got up there at 10 o’clock at night. We hiked for 18 hours. But we got up there and I shot the sheep and missed. It turned around. He says, “Shoot him straight up the ass.” I was like three or 400 yards. “Just right in the bunghole?” He says, “Right there.” Boom. Sheep goes down, we go up there, we butcher the sheep and he puts it in his backpack. We come down, it’s starting to rain. So, he sets up a fly and we sleep just in our rain gear under a fly. And it’s the first lesson I ever had in hunting with a guide. Never sleep under a fly downstream of the guide because chances are the water’s going to be running on you. So, he slept up high on the dry spot and he put me down low. And of course I woke up and I was really wet.

Robbie Kroger: This is hunt number one.

Jimmy John Liau…: Yeah.

Robbie Kroger: Did you love it or hated it?

Jimmy John Liau…: You know what? That night it was a challenge. Got back down to where our camp was and we stayed down at the river and we stayed there for two days and Dennis Arms flew over. Now there was no communications then. There was nothing. Flew in a float plane and saw that we had our sheep. And so he picked us up and brought us back to camp. And then when I got back to camp and they had the beers and a gunny sack in the lake, and the lake was ice-cold. And Jay was back with his sheep. And we drank ice-cold beer out of a gunny sack in the back of a canoe. And we caught Dolly. I think they were Dolly Vardens fish. And we drank beer and fished, and then we brought the fish and we cooked the fish. And it was life-changing for me.

It literally, it removed all the pent-up pain and whatever I created in my own head, because we all get in our own head and we got to unravel our own heads by ourselves. There’s no pill or person that can unravel your head. So, that was life-changing for me. And from that day forward, I was a sheep hunter and I wanted to get my grand slam, and then I wanted to get my super slam. Because it was just, nobody did that, right? I mean, remember having a super slam, and I remember when they created Ovis magazine, I got a Marco Polo. I’m on the first cover of the first issue of Ovis Magazine is me with a Marco Polo in 1997. And I don’t know how I got that cover, but I got the cover and it was amazing.

It was amazing. And then I went on, then I wanted to hunt an elk. I went into Utah. I would research a little bit where to go. And I found some spots. And then I learned about the White Mountain Apache Indian Reservation and got on the list there. And then I worked my way over time into the right camps there and met people there. And then I made some money. And it was a journey of, I got my super slam, I got my goat slams.

And then after I did that, what changed was I was really excited to send Dennis Campbell my hunt and my picture as it was so exciting to me because I had to work hard, make the money, save the money, set it aside, book the hunt, and go on the hunt and hope I got the specimen. It was a lot to do what I was doing, and I always loved, was so proud of my accomplishment. And then after I got the super slam, and I recognized that that was about the end of need for recognition, because it feels good. It’s fun to win a Superbowl.

Robbie Kroger: And you were in the time of your life that it sounds like, again, it wasn’t like you are now today. It was like, hey man, I want X. Okay, I need to work towards X. Okay, now I can achieve X. Now I’m going to do X. And it feels great to do X.

Jimmy John Liau…: It feels great to do it. And as hard as I was working with opening restaurants and moving around all the time and with restaurants, they’re like cattle. It’s like if you have 10 restaurants in 10 different cities, it would be very analogous to having 10 herds of cattle in 10 different cities. And one of your cows get sick on a Saturday night and you’re in one city and you got to drive to that other city and give the cow a shot and take care of the cow and get it right again before you can leave.

And so that was my world. So, I had to learn how to operate in multiple cities at the same time in order to grow. So, it was very complicated. It took a lot of my head space and a lot of my bandwidth to do it. And the hunting was a total, total absolute, it took me away from that intensity and it put me and a place that did several things. It took me out of my comfort zone. It stretched my, I like being comfortable. I enjoy being comfortable.

Robbie Kroger: Sure, of course.

Jimmy John Liau…: And so it forced me to be out of my comfort zone. It stretched me. When you want cross your frozen glacier river, when you’re hunting sheep, you have two choices. You go with your clothes on and you have wet clothes or stripped down naked and walk across the sun of a bitch and put your dry clothes on. Both suck. But you got to choose which suck you want. And then you got to do it. And then you do it and you put your … And so that’s something I wouldn’t normally choose to do. And so what I realized, especially being a big guy, that when I was-

Robbie Kroger: Have you always been a big guy?

Jimmy John Liau…: I’ve been a big guy my whole life. My whole entire life I battled fat and weight. But what that did for me, it increased my tolerance for discomfort, number one. It increased my thirst and love for adventure. It forced me to learn how to be a marksman and a shooter. And then it also taught me how to survive in an environment that I never, ever would’ve ever experienced had Jay not taken me or there to help me out and to help just straighten my head out from that horrible divorce I went through when I was such a young man. And so in hunting, there was so much more to hunting. There’s so much more to it. And then it just became this glorious retreat and balance. And I’d come back clear-headed and with the ability to focus on my family and focus on my work and just have … A week sheep hunt, it’s amazing what that’ll do for a man.

Robbie Kroger: Hundred percent.

Jimmy John Liau…: It’s life changing. And then you get two or three of those in a year. I think I’ve done 74 sheep hunts now in my lifetime, which to me is a pretty big number.

Robbie Kroger: A hundred percent.

Jimmy John Liau…: I don’t know how many rams I’ve gotten. Not 74, but I’ve been on 74.

Robbie Kroger: So, in those early years, are you going on sheep hunts and not killing?

Jimmy John Liau…: Yes. Yes.

Robbie Kroger: How did that feel?

Jimmy John Liau…: Awesome. Awesome. It was fine. I mean, early on-

Robbie Kroger: Well, the reason I asked that question is that because you get into different mindsets as a hunter, right? Because in that mindset you are thinking, shit, I’ve worked so hard. I’m in that mindset right now. I’ve worked so hard, I’ve worked and saved the money to do this thing that I really want. I’m sacrificing time with my family and my boys that are of age that I’m taking time away from them. And I go and do this thing for 10 days and I don’t accomplish what I set out to do.

Jimmy John Liau…: Early on in my career, like we said, hunting is an evolution and I’m sure it is for everybody. And I am only talking about me. I’m not talking about how you like to do it and how he likes to do it. And all of our hunting is hunting and we’re all brothers and hunting, right? We’re all the same. But early the early days, absolutely. Like when I was up with that Marco Polo in 1997, there was no sat phones. You wanted a Coke? There’s no Coca-Cola. I mean, we flew into Dushanbe, the Civil War was going on. I traded cigarettes and a hundred dollars bills at all these checkpoints to get through.

And when we got to the premier and my blood pressure was high and we had a doctor in camp and I took blood pressure medicine. They wouldn’t let me hunt for three days. And we got my blood pressure low. We had a Gamow Bag in camp for pulmonary and cerebral edema, which happens at base camp over there was 12,000, 13,000 feet. So, anyway, when I killed my ram at 17,000 feet, and that to me, I couldn’t wait to get the hell out of there. I was so glad to get that Marco Polo. And what was interesting is I went back to Tajikistan last December waiting for my import permit now. And I so hope that that’s going to happen. I believe it will happen.

Robbie Kroger: People are working on it.

Jimmy John Liau…: And it’s the right thing. But I went out the first morning, the first day to a particular valley that is far, far. It’s a long ride to get to this particular valley where I was going, where there was some big rams and the first sunlight, the first hour of sunlight, I shot 65 by 65 inch Marco Polo, perfectly symmetrical, the most beautiful Marco Polo I ever saw at 851 yards in the first hour of the hunt. I am in much better shape now, even though I’m a big guy. I have a resting heart rate of 58 and I work out really hard.

And I could have stayed up there for a week. I’m in way better shape than I was in ’97. But circling back to getting an animal, am I disappointed when I don’t get an animal? No. I was in the White Mountain Apache, Indian Reservation hunting there for about 17 years, and I wanted to shoot a 400 bull. And at the White Mountain, if you couldn’t go that year, if you paid and sent somebody in your place, you kept your spot. And I wanted to shoot a 400 bull. And I kept going and kept going and kept going and kept going and kept going and holding and waiting for a 400 bull and hunting the whole seven days waiting for the shot at a 400 bull.

Robbie Kroger: And you didn’t take a sub elk.

Jimmy John Liau…: I took like three or four out of 17 years that I thought were going to be 400, 367, 371, 355, but not the 400 mark. So, the one year I sent my friend Scott Robinson from Illinois to take my spot.

Robbie Kroger: He kills a 400.

Jimmy John Liau…: He goes to the White Mountain, goes out the first morning, sees in a field, steps out the truck on the Reso shoots the 403 six by six. He’s like, “What’s so bullshit about this elk hunting shit?” He said, “I’ll never do that again. I didn’t get it.” So, so much of hunting, we have so much luck and so much randomness and so much of life. It is life 101. You see the sheep on the mountain on the left. You go through the river, you climb through the tangle, you climb through the shale, you get up to the top, the sheep’s not there.

You look there and he’s back over on the mountain you just came from. It’s just life. You know what I mean? And then if you want to go there, it’s going to be very, very difficult. But the reward’s going to be spectacular if you do it and then you climb down and you go across the river and you go up there and son of a gun, if he’s not back where you just were again. And how many times has that happened? So, for me, it so helped me understand and just accept life and the difficulty … But if you’re willing to do the work and you’re willing to put your sticks down and climb the mountain and do it, it’s incredibly rewarding.

And I really believe for me personally, that hunting allowed me and taught me to endure more discomfort and more pain than most in my business world. It gave me a competitive advantage. I certainly didn’t have it in smarts and I certainly didn’t have it in school or degrees, because I didn’t have any of those things, but I’ve been able to endure a lot more pain. And I think that that was one of the great gifts that hunting brought to me. And again, you asked about being disappointed as we go through our evolution of hunting, and I want a particular species, there’s a big price to pay. A quick story was we talked, you had spoken a little bit about that Arizona bull that I shot at 900 yards, that it’s had a half a million views, but 1,200 people that my 1019 yard shot wasn’t true hunting.

Robbie Kroger: Yeah. So, what do you think about that?

Jimmy John Liau…: Well, listen, first of all, to learn how to shoot a thousand yards and to be able to do it consistently is pretty freaking cool. And what I also think about it is that I bought a Utah governor tag or Arizona governor tag three years in a row and didn’t shoot a bull. Okay, now I’m on my fourth tag.

Robbie Kroger: I don’t think anybody knows that.

Jimmy John Liau…: Nobody knows that. Now I’m on my fourth tag, and we are on this particular, what you can shoot, you can go from August 15th to August 14th the next year. So, you can shoot the fall of one year and you can shoot the velvet summer and then you’re done. It’s a year long tag. There was a bull that was a six by six, that was about a 430 six by six, which was, for me, that was the ultimate, it’s like 175 inch, eight point white tail. To me, my most important-

Robbie Kroger: That’s the thing you wanted.

Jimmy John Liau…: That’s the thing I wanted. So, we found this bull and this older man over 70 was both hunting the same bull. And so anyway, we were tracking the bull and then came around that summer before the long shot, and the old man was so tired. He said, look, we stayed in comms with him. We stayed in communication with him. He said, “I’m just going to go sit on a water hole. I’m tired. I got a week left of my tag and I’m going to shoot the first mature bull that walks in and I’m going to be done.” The same day that he told us that he was going to do that, he sits in the water hole and that 430 six by six walks in and he arrows that bull. My guys call me and say, “Jimmy, bad news. The guy shot the bull.” I said, “Are you kidding? Bad news. That’s the greatest news I ever heard. God bless that man. He worked his ass off.”

Robbie Kroger: He got it.

Jimmy John Liau…: He got it and he did it. And they’re like, “What are you talking about?” I said, “I’m talking about exactly what I just told you guys. Bless that man.” And I wrote him a beautiful letter and I said, “Please forward this text to him.” And I sent him the most loving, kind celebratory message for him. I was so happy for this guy.

Robbie Kroger: How much did you spend on that tag?

Jimmy John Liau…: On that tag? Probably 400,000, 300,000?

Robbie Kroger: Yeah. Between 300, 400 probably.

Jimmy John Liau…: Yeah. But I’m out now for a million bucks and haven’t shot anything. Right? I haven’t shot one. So, anyway, on Instagram, one of my guys finds this bull on Instagram, says, oh my God, look, these lion hunters posted pictures of this bull. So, they got a hold of the lion hunter said, “What unit are you in?” Not this guy that apparently claimed to own it was his bull, right? This other guy that did the film that’s on YouTube, this lion hunter told my guys where the bull was. So, my guys went there in three days. They turned up the bull. And so the bull was in velvet. It was in a valley that had burned like 15 years ago. So, the fall over and the mess in the woods was not only fallen over of burnt trees, but then it was all grown up full of oaks.

It was just completely uninhabitable for you and I. But for the bull, he had water, he had a shitload of acorns, he had cover, and the only way you could see him was from a thousand yards away. Once you got down to 600 yards, you couldn’t see him anymore. And there was no access to this bull. So, anyway, the story of that bull goes, and then we’ll talk about how we feel about it. But I sent Willie Hettinger, who’s from Montana, who is my friend, and we hunt together. We’ve been hunting together for-

Robbie Kroger: Oh, that’s who I saw at SCI before I saw you. I’m like, “Willie, shit, I haven’t seen you in years.”

Jimmy John Liau…: Yes.

Robbie Kroger: Yeah. Yeah.

Jimmy John Liau…: So, I was working, obviously working. And so I said, “Willie, you go take Ryan Carter, the two of you guys, and go with the Arizona team and go get on that bowl. And I’ll come the night of the 14th and camp out and we’ll see what happens on the 15th. He was on his velvet, he had his velvet on. And when a bull busts his velvet, that’s when his testosterone kicks in and it’s life changing. And so Thursday, August 14th, I get a call, he busted his velvet today. We’ve got about a 48-hour window, and this bull is going, because he was known to rut like 18 miles away from there.

That’s apparently, that was the deal because that’s where sheds were found or whatever it was. So, anyway, I got there and we went in the next morning. And the next morning I had Willie and [inaudible 00:25:35] Ryan Carter, and then I had Chad from A3 and two other guys from Arizona. You have to have a licensed Arizona guy. Ryan Carter’s an elk guy, and he’s a friend. Willie’s my hunting buddy. So, we got our guide and our friend. So, anyway, as we’re hiking down, we hear on the radio that the guys are on the mountain, that they’ve got him and that they got the bull and the glasses. And as we’re walking in, I told the guys, I said, just so you know, I’m going attempt the thousand-yard shot. I’m not even going to mess around with this, because I’ve been watching this bull for two weeks now with the video and pictures. And I said, this is a bull I’ve never seen an existence. This is a freak.

Robbie Kroger: Yeah, yeah.

Jimmy John Liau…: That’s why we called him the freak. So, anyway, I saw him, I looked at him through the lenses and much to the dismay of Chad at A3 and my crew, they were like, you’re going to what?

Robbie Kroger: They didn’t want you to do it.

Jimmy John Liau…: Well, no, they just didn’t know. They didn’t understand it. So, I laid down and got my pack ready and got it all ready and got it dialed in. And I said, okay, let’s go. And I shot him four times, and every time I hit him, and 160 grain, seven mag bullet is a small bullet. And that was the old TSX bullet. And they had a hard time opening up if they didn’t hit bone. So, anyway, I shot the bull and the bull went down. And for me, I couldn’t go straight down the mountain through the bottom and up to the bull. I walked across the top of the saddle and around and down. And finally when I get down to the bottom and the bull was up 300 yards, they brought mules in from the other side to haul the bull out. They brought a mule down to carry me up the last 300 yards.

Robbie Kroger: Were you having issues? Were you having health issues and whatnot on the hunt?

Jimmy John Liau…: No brother. But walking through logs that are four feet off the ground and weighing 300 pounds, you go up and over 75 of those, and you’ve got to do 500 of them to get to the bull. These young kids all ran. And then from the side where the bull was, you could park your car and come straight down, but for me, it would’ve been a 40-mile drive to get to where other people. So, by the time I got to the bull, it was already out on the internet and there were 50 people from the town down there at my bull. And I come the last 300 yards up on the mule and I’m fucking tired. So, anyway, that was the story of the bull. It was amazing. I gave grace and thanks to the team.

Robbie Kroger: A hundred percent you did.

Jimmy John Liau…: And it was an amazing thing. I made copies for everybody. I made replicas for the guy that made the YouTube video who claimed that was his bull. We found it from a lion hunter.

Robbie Kroger: What do you say to people who say two things and you probably will address them exactly the same way, one, it’s not really hunting shooting something from 800 plus yards away and two, Jimmy, you’re only on the ground for 24, 48 hours. You really didn’t put the mahi, the hard work into finding the bull, hunting the bull.

Jimmy John Liau…: Well, first of all, I had two Utah governor tags and Arizona governor tags, let’s just say they’re 250,000 bucks apiece. That’s 750,000 bucks. So, to make 750,000 bucks, I had to make 1.5 million bucks, because the government gets half for all the Democrats so that they can live their lifestyle and tell us how bad we are with our own money. We suck. Our half sucks, their half as good. So, I had to make a million and a half bucks. Well, if you make sandwiches 50 cents at a time, that’s 3 million sandwiches that I had to make.

And every sandwich is 40 strokes on the meat slicer. So, you want to take 3 million sandwiches times 40. It’s 120 million strokes on the meat slicer for those elk tags. Okay, so where does the hunt begin for Jimmy John? On the fucking meat slicer. Okay. So, when you look at it that way, and then to put the team together and to be able to fund it and pay for it and be aware of it, the hunt doesn’t begin when you put your boots on and hit the ground, the hunt begins in your mind when you dream up where it is you want to go and how you want to go about doing it.

I’d already shot elk before. I had never shot a cracker. I had never shot a giant. And I was willing to sacrifice and not pull the trigger and continue focusing on the process for years until it all happened. But the common man, the common individual, the guy that listens to what the Democrats tell them, and the liberals tell them in their speeches, is that I’m an evil lard-ass. And I wait for a phone call and show up in my carriage, and they put rose petals down and they put pillows up and set my gun up for me. And I just show up and press the button and then I walk away and it’s delivered to my trophy room and hung in my place of choice where I … it’s just a perception.

I just overdid it a little bit. But you know what? Listen, it’s a naivety and being … if it was easy to do what I have done in the business world, I don’t know how many billionaires there are in the world that are self-made from nothing but who care, whatever. I was born with some talent. I put some grit to it. I probably got a little bit lucky, but I worked my ass off, that’s for sure. But I’m in a very few elite group of people, or not elite group, a different segment of people that have accomplished this. And then on the hunting side, it takes a lot of planning and preparation to figure out where you want to go. Because once you get to, as the hunting game evolves, it’s so much fun to figure out where the best genetics are, who’s the guide that knows the area, develop the relationship with the guide that knows the area, befriend the people in the area, go there and hunt a few times with the people in the area.

Let them know you’re not going to squeeze the trigger. Let them know you’re happy to pay the bill and leave and tip everybody and go away. Say, let’s try it again next year. Takes three or four times to do that. Took me nine times in Mongolia before Gala really realized Gala, the guide. He just died last year on the mountain looking at sheep. He died in his chair with his iPhone on the scope, sitting in the chair. Exactly, his kids had the pin of where he was, and that’s where his kids found him in his chair.

Robbie Kroger: Unbelievable.

Jimmy John Liau…: What a great way to go? But I went nine times with Gala to Mongolia, and he says, “You’re serious?” I said, “I’m serious.”

Robbie Kroger: So, you went nine times to Mongolia for what?

Jimmy John Liau…: I wanted to kill a giant Hangai or a giant high Altai argali ram, either one. I just wanted a big giant fat specimen.

Robbie Kroger: And every time that Gala put a specimen in front of you, you were like, “No, not good enough.”

Jimmy John Liau…: Yeah, yeah. It’s not what I was looking for. Thank you, but not what I was looking for.

Robbie Kroger: And you didn’t shoot it.

Jimmy John Liau…: Didn’t shoot it. Yeah. And now-

Robbie Kroger: Let me ask this, because I’m curious in this scenario.

Jimmy John Liau…: Yeah, I’ve shot five, not nine, but five times I took rams.

Robbie Kroger: In the nine times you went with Gala, you took one ram or five rams?

Jimmy John Liau…: With Gala, three.

Robbie Kroger: Three rams.

Jimmy John Liau…: I went with other people before.

Robbie Kroger: So, let’s just take an example of the year you went with Gala, you didn’t shoot a ram. He put a ram in front of you. You’re like, no, not going to shoot it. Seven days go by, whatever it is, and you say, thank you, but no thanks, I’m out.

Jimmy John Liau…: Yeah.

Robbie Kroger: Do you pay the full tag price?

Jimmy John Liau…: Oh yeah.

Robbie Kroger: For everything as if you shot the ram.

Jimmy John Liau…: Oh yeah, for sure. Yeah, a hundred percent. But at that point in time, I enjoy the journey. I enjoy the chase. I enjoy getting one step closer to perhaps maybe, or maybe not having the opportunity of a giant ram. You know what I mean? It’s just an evolution. It’s just what you like and it’s fine. And I enjoy being out there, and I enjoy the wild. I enjoy the Mongolian people, and I enjoy getting back to town and taking the shower at the beautiful hotel and eating some Mongolian dumplings and getting on my plane and flying home.

Robbie Kroger: So, do you think, is that the mindset of Jimmy John’s today when it comes to hunting, that you’ve got these things that it’s the search for this thing that is a rarity. That’s my goal. That’s my pinnacle. That’s my mountain.

Jimmy John Liau…: Yeah. That is what it is. And I have so much respect and so much admiration for beautiful symmetrical, age, mass, done past their prime. I bought two sheep tags this year. I bought a Colorado-

Robbie Kroger: Stop, we’re going to talk about that-

Jimmy John Liau…: Talk about that later. But when I see something that is so beautiful like that, for me, it’s just to be able to have the option to be able to buy that tag is just one of the greatest gifts that come from having extraordinary wealth, because wealth is not money. Wealth is options. Wealth is options. Time is our only limited factor in life when we have more than we can use. And so yeah, man, I like having those options. And the animals are so beautiful and what it takes to get a specimen like that, it’s like what it takes to make a Patrick Mahomes or a Tom Brady. They’re just every once in so many years, these specimens that are just amazing, Michael Jordan, the most incredible of all time. And so these things to me are beautiful.

Robbie Kroger: And so it’s still just sheep, right? That’s your deal. That’s where the rarities occur. Or you looking at other things?

Jimmy John Liau…: White-tailed deer like a lot. I want-

Robbie Kroger: You just like good symmetrical, classic white tails or you into that whole big a bunch of funk and whatnot?

Jimmy John Liau…: Well, I did a bunch of funk. I spent a lot of time in high fence operations just blowing off steam when I was working really hard and opening 30 restaurants a month. I opened 30 restaurants a month for about 10 years. I had three jets and 18 pilots. And we were flying 2,000 hours a year. This is before iPhones. We had to go physically locate every store pre and post-construction, walk through. I mean, everything was physical. We just outworked everybody. So, I was darting into these different high fence operations and doing a bunch of that.

But I’m done with all that. It’s entertainment for me. And they’re art pieces. I don’t have emotion with these high fence analysts, you know what I mean? But it’s okay. It’s like playing a game of pool. It’s fun. You have a beer with your buddies, you go out, take an animal, the high fence operator makes some money. You have beers with your buddies, you walk out. Everything’s cool. But again, that I had to go through. I’ve given all that stuff is gone. For deer now I would love to shoot 170 inch eight point deer. I’d love to. I’ve shot a 165, a 167.

Robbie Kroger: Let’s talk through that scenario. Does that scenario, I would think the pinnacle of that would be free-range.

Jimmy John Liau…: Oh, for sure.

Robbie Kroger: Not high fence.

Jimmy John Liau…: Oh yeah. No way. High fence. Not at all for me, no.

Robbie Kroger: And again, you’re not against high fence, it’s just that again, it’s a rarity scenario that you’re after.

Jimmy John Liau…: Yeah, absolutely. And once I shot a 200-inch whitetail in the wild, I have operations in Iowa, Kansas and Illinois, and I’ve shot 200-inch whitetails in all three states. And I don’t share what I do privately because where I hunt and what I do, especially in Illinois, is very, very close to town. And I built my entire hunt operation close to town because it allowed me to go from work straight to the deer blind. And my kids were young.

Robbie Kroger: And that was the hub of operations for you, right? Was it Illinois?

Jimmy John Liau…: Yeah, Champaign, Illinois. Anyway, I’ve got 10,000 acres of some of the greatest farm ground in the world in Illinois, but I’ve got about a thousand of it is hardwood and river bottom. And as a matter of fact, now cats out of the bag, I’ve shot on my property in Illinois a 202, and this year I think I’m going to shoot another 200 inch whitetail. You’ve got to pass a lot of 180s-

Robbie Kroger: A hundred percent.

Jimmy John Liau…: To shoot a 200. That’s the hardest thing in the world. So, last year we passed nine book deer, 170 or bigger, and our best year that we passed was a 187, beautiful symmetrical, 187. That was like 160 the year before we passed him at 187. And then the year that we passed him at 187 last-

Robbie Kroger: Do you know he’s 187 because of his [inaudible 00:38:31]?

Jimmy John Liau…: Yeah, just because, well, let’s just call him 180 from our best ability to score with my team. Well, anyway, the deer then during the rut, broke off right above his first point, and we’re like, oh, fantastic. The neighbors aren’t going to shoot this deer. And so we were so relieved in that particular farm, because we lose half of our deer to neighbors. And I’ve spent a million bucks a year on my deer operation with food and thinning and all the things that it takes to run the operation. It’s a very, very, very, very deliberate and specific operation. My neighbor shot the deer with one horn, and I’m like, you know what? You’re a real … I don’t even want to go there. That’s his issue, right? He wanted shoot the deer. It was on his property. It’s his deer.

Robbie Kroger: Of course. Yeah.

Jimmy John Liau…: Was I upset? Yeah. Did I raise that deer from a fawn? Yes, I did. During the rut. Was it stupid? Yeah, but what’s he going to do with a one horn deer? That deer was a 180s whitetail deer that we were passing, and we told all the neighbors, here’s our list of the deer we’re passing just so you know. So, anyway, but we lose half. I get my half. It’s just like my money. Somebody else gets half, I get my half. And so I take my half and I do it. And Kansas, I’ve shot some really beautiful deer. And in Iowa, just a really beautiful deer.

Robbie Kroger: So, before you talked about wealth and wealth giving you options.

Jimmy John Liau…: Yeah.

Robbie Kroger: Okay, so I want to transition to this year, Wild Sheep Foundation show, Reno Nevada. You’re not there. You’re on the phone because I’m looking at the table, literally three tables away from me that is buying sheep tag after sheep tag after sheep tag. I’m like, who the hell is that? And Gray’s like, “I think that’s Jimmy on the phone over there.” So, here’s my question to you, Jimmy. You have the option potentially in Colorado to find a private land tag that would probably cost you 85 to one 150 for a sheep tag. Yet, as I understand it, and you can confirm this. You bought the state of Colorado sheep tag for $600,000.

Jimmy John Liau…: Exactly.

Robbie Kroger: Why?

Jimmy John Liau…: Because I got, Jeff Tomaski brought me a private landowner that the state opened up his land for hunting, and he’s got five or six sheep on there that are the biggest Rocky Mountain Bighorns I’ve ever seen in my entire life.

Robbie Kroger: So, why wouldn’t you just go to the landowner and say, what do you want for your sheep?

Jimmy John Liau…: Because you have to have a state tag to go along with the landowner tag, the landowner’s access. He’s got the access. The state can’t access. So, what the state said is say, “Look, we will allow hunting on your land privately, but we want you to give us one public also donation tag.”

Robbie Kroger: Correct.

Jimmy John Liau…: But I get to hunt earlier than them. So, I said, “For sure I’m going to do it.” I’m 60 years old, and the last sheep that I saw that was that beautiful was Gwen Krausen’s sheep from Alberta back in the 1980s when I would save up my money and go on a hunt. And I remember when Gwen Krausen shot that 208 Bighorn, and I saw that Bighorn and it looked like a sheep’s head with two Super Cub tires hanging off the side of his head. In 1980, whenever that was with Gwen Krausen, and I saw Gwen at SCI. He was there this year, and I saw Gwen. I just said, “That is the most beautiful thing that I’ll never be able to attain that in my entire life.” When Domasky showed me those sheep, he said, “It’s a $300,000 trespass fee”, and the 600,000 is a charitable donation, but the 300 is, so it cost a million bucks.

Robbie Kroger: So, you’re actually 600 was the tag.

Jimmy John Liau…: Yeah.

Robbie Kroger: There’s an additional.

Jimmy John Liau…: 300,000.

Robbie Kroger: 300,000 to the private landowner.

Jimmy John Liau…: And God bless him. God bless him. He’s got the property, he’s got the sheep. That’s his price. God bless him. Who’s to say? Is it a lot? Yeah, but you know what? At the end of the day, God bless that guy. It’s his, it’s America, man. It’s a free market. That’s the beautiful thing about the free market. Let it ride. Let it ride. You want to play the game? Come play.

Robbie Kroger: Jimmy, how much did you spend at the Wild Sheep Show this year on sheep tags?

Jimmy John Liau…: It’s 1.2 million. 600 and 600. I bought 600 for the New Mexico tag.

Robbie Kroger: You bought the New Mexico tag as well?

Jimmy John Liau…: Yeah. Yeah.

Robbie Kroger: Do you have an idea on sheep tags, elk tags, antelope tags, whatever, how much you’ve spent over the last 10 years in the governor tag scenario? Could you estimate it?

Jimmy John Liau…: I would say if we just go through my lifetime of starting to be able to have this luxury and this option, I probably am in the world of 10 to 15 million.

Robbie Kroger: 10 to 15 million, of which when you look at the tags, depending on the tag in the state, 85% of it goes back to the state. Some of it a hundred percent, like the Arizona strip tag. Have you bought the Arizona strip tag before?

Jimmy John Liau…: I have. I have.

Robbie Kroger: That tag would’ve gone a hundred percent back to the state of Arizona in terms of money.

Jimmy John Liau…: You’re right, Arizona strip mule deer. Yeah. And I had it two years in a row and didn’t ever shot one.

Robbie Kroger: You did? Whoa, what?

Jimmy John Liau…: Two years in a row, never shot one.

Robbie Kroger: Did you buy it last year?

Jimmy John Liau…: No. No. This was a long time ago, and I bought it two years in a row and never shot one. And the second year was there I did the loop. I was shooting the velvet deer I had until August 14th. And so we had the deer, and every time we got on the deer, the guide for the August 15th tag would come with his side by side and chase the deer away from us on our stock. And so we called the fish and game five or six times and said, there’s nothing we can do. And I am not a violent guy. It was just so horrific what he was doing to me that anyway, we didn’t shoot the deer. He shot the deer on opening day on the 15th, the same deer. And so then I was just disgusted with it, and I stayed away from that for a while.

But anyway, I’ve given a lot of money to it all and very, very, very, very happy to do it. I bought the Montana tag four years in a row, and I had such a great relationship with Shane, who runs the area where the sheep are in the Missouri breaks and Shane’s a good friend of my friend Willie and Shane came to us and said, “There’s a farmer here that’s got some goats and domestic sheep, and he’s a legit operation, but he’s about a mile off the base of the sheep habitat. We want to make him an offer possibly of replacing his herd with cattle. And would you be interested in”-

Robbie Kroger: Just to avoid the transmission between sheep-

Jimmy John Liau…: To avoid the transmission. Yeah, to avoid between the domestic sheep and the wild sheep.

Robbie Kroger: Wild sheep, yep, yep.

Jimmy John Liau…: So, I said absolutely. And Shane handled the entire transaction with Willie, and I bought the goats and the lambs from him and bought them a herd of cattle, because do you know how long that would’ve taken Shane to do to take it through the bureaucracy of the government [inaudible 00:46:04]-

Robbie Kroger: This is a very basic question, but it’s worth asking.

Jimmy John Liau…: Why? Why’d you do that?

Jimmy John Liau…: Because if not me? Who? If not us, when? Who’s going to do this? The bureaucracies can’t run. Look how they run schools, let alone run wildlife.

Robbie Kroger: You saw that as an opportunity to benefit wildlife in the state of Montana.

Jimmy John Liau…: Completely. Just like the fence that I built along the highway for the Taos Pueblo, Indians.

Robbie Kroger: Jimmy, Jimmy. Hold on, hold on. How many of these other projects have you done?

Jimmy John Liau…: Oh my God. How many schools I’ve built in South Africa? How many from nothing in the middle of nowhere with Charles Price. I was the first school I ever built in South Africa for the kids. I mean, buddy, I would have to go back and look at my … to see how many different things that I have done. Now look, this is just, I mean, I wasn’t planning on talking about this, but I mean, it’s not just about the tags. The tags are one thing, but the Taos Pueblo guys, their sheep proliferated so well. They went from the mountain down into the gorge and from the gorge across the valley and then across an I-80 and in the rut.

And I built these two and a half mile fence on both sides of the highway. And then we bore holes through underneath the highway and put in a big six-foot drainage ditches. And we put alfalfa in there to entice the animals to go through during the rut, and it stopped all the killing of the animals. I had an opportunity to stop that now. Right now, today, no more sheep are going to get killed. Can we get the fences going now?

Robbie Kroger: And you said yes.

Jimmy John Liau…: 100%. Just did it. Yeah, it’s a joy for me to do that. For me, that is the greatest charity for me. I don’t judge charity. We all season our steak differently. And for me, I just do it because I enjoy the animals so much. And my son, Fred, who I’ve gotten to learn, we never had anything in common, my son Fred and I. I was a working dad. My kids had a tough go. Because I was gone.

Robbie Kroger: All the time.

Jimmy John Liau…: I was present, but I wasn’t present. And now that there are adult men and my front son, Freddy’s a chef, classically trained chef, and the one thing that he and I do together is hunt together. And we discovered this four years ago, five years ago. He loves to hunt with his bow. He loves, his favorite thing is taking out an old, he has no care about points. He wants to shoot the oldest, nastiest old animal. My son, Freddy, that’s just what he loves to do. And he’s going on his first sheep hunt this August. And to have the future for the future, for the kids to have the option in the future, I want them to have the option in the future. I’ve been gone from Botswana for they shut elephant hunting down and then they brought it back again. So, I was gone from Botswana for, what, 12 years? How long was it closed, Robbie?

Robbie Kroger: It was closed for 6, 2014 through 2020.

Jimmy John Liau…: Okay. I’m going to say the last time I was there was eight, just for all intents and purposes, eight. Then last year I went again. So, in ’23 or ’22, I went again for Elephant, and I’m flying in the helicopter to get to my camp, and I’m looking down on the terroir, and I’m seeing in the middle of the desert and of the flora are all these squares. I said, “What are all these squares?” “Well, these are all domestic animal squares.” I said, “Well, when did this all happen?” “Well, when they shut down hunting, there was no more money. So, they put domestic animals here in these squares.”

Robbie Kroger: Had to do something.

Jimmy John Liau…: And then they’re poisoning all the wildlife because the wildlife are eating their domestics or eating their crops. Could you imagine?

Robbie Kroger: No.

Jimmy John Liau…: Could you imagine? They’re poisoning the wildlife so they could grow cows in the desert where these people have been surviving cohabitating with these animals for thousands of years. So, that was just devastating to see that in the middle of Botswana.

Robbie Kroger: We did 16 days in Botswana last year. We’ve got a big Botswana documentary coming out this June, this July. And what amazed me is we really went to see what is the impact of hunting? Essentially what you’ve just been saying, you’ve enlightened me to the things that you do, but your tag money, let’s just call it tag money in Botswana. When you buy an elephant tag, what is that money actually doing? And we went and saw teachers getting a prize-giving ceremony to celebrate how good a job they’re doing. And when we watched that, we saw water infrastructure projects. We saw sewer infrastructure projects. We saw campsite projects, we saw elderly disbursement projects. We saw everything. We were like, Jeepers Creepers. Okay, nobody knows about this. Just like you’ve just been talking to me about the things that nobody knows about that you’ve done.

And we came out of a primary school in Nata, and I got in the vehicle with the guys in the primary school. I was sitting there with an old school principal. He’s been working for 34 years in old Zimbabwe. And he’s got suit and tie and it’s fucking hot as Hades. Behind him on his wall. They’re like sayings. Laziness is the first step to corruption is behind his wall in the principal’s office. And he’s talking about this prize giving ceremony. He’s got this huge trophy on his table that he’s super proud of, that the Nata primary school, that he’s in charge of, won the best primary school of the four primary schools, that this conservation trust is over.

And this conservation trust gets money from elephant hunting. He’s telling me how proud he is and how one of his teachers, who’s going to win the best teacher award. And he keeps track percentage wise of every single one of his teachers. In my brain. I’m like, man, what better way to uplift a community than to invest in the education of the kids through the teachers, to give them the teachers an incentive to say, I want to do better. And they’ll get a trophy. And I said to them, I said, “What’s another good incentive is money.”

And I said, “How much would you give for a teacher to win the best teacher award every year? What would you give?” And when I asked the question, probably just as you would ask the question, it didn’t matter what he said back to me, I was going to say yes. And he looked at me very sternly and he was like, “5,000 Pula”, which is 350 bucks. And I said, “Done.” And so we got in the vehicle and I said, “You know guys, we need to, number one, raise the money, but not just for that.” I said, “We need to do it for every single teacher in each school. So, make a best teacher of each school. So, four times that, and let’s do it for two or three years. So, let’s just raise a bunch of money.”

Well, we raised the money, and so we’re going to do a big press release this week about us raising the money. It’s done to incentivize. But what I’m saying is the perception of hunters is typically not a good one. The perception of Jimmy John’s, as you know already is this guy that doesn’t care about people, doesn’t care about animals. He just flies in. He’s going to shoot the animal, he’s going to get back on his jet and he’s going to jet out. He doesn’t really care. But you just said, “Hey, there’s a bunch of wildlife, bunch of sheep being killed in New Mexico and Taos Pueblo, we need to fix it. I’ll fix it. There’s going to be potentially transmission issues between domestic sheep and wild sheep in Montana. I can fix it. I’ll fix it. I need to build a school in South Africa. Well, who’s going to do that? Well, I can do it. I’ll do it.”

Jimmy John Liau…: Yeah.

Robbie Kroger: And I’m sure those are three examples of dozens probably.

Jimmy John Liau…: Yeah, probably. For sure. For sure. I mean it just goes on and on and on. I work with Jim Shockey in Somaliland, and nobody even knows about Somaliland. I don’t even know about Somaliland.

Robbie Kroger: Have you been there?

Jimmy John Liau…: Yeah, I’ve never been there. And I was advised by my team of security advisors that it’s not my place to go.

Robbie Kroger: That’s probably correct.

Jimmy John Liau…: But I worked with Jim Shockey.

Robbie Kroger: There was an opportunity,

Jimmy John Liau…: There was an opportunity.

Robbie Kroger: To conserve an area.

Jimmy John Liau…: And I brought 10 people over from Somaliland to the University of Colorado. They studied under Dr. Evangelista at University of Colorado, taught them about sustainable wildlife, flew them back to … did two trips them twice, paid for them to come back two different times. I bought Jeeps, I bought computers, I bought radios. I bought all kinds of stuff to set up the first and also help them fund when the Somali government, there were some Arabs, I think I got it right, an Arabic country that the kings of some country had the exclusive hunting rights, the entire country of Somaliland.

And we helped them break that in a lawsuit and finally won and beat them in the World court and got that family out and took back control of the hunting rights in Somaliland and taught them how to have sustainable hunting. And I provided all kinds of money and all kinds of equipment for them to do this. And to the point where the last desert lions were in a zoo in the city. And from the last that I heard they were going to build an enclosure inside this area, this million acre hunting area that they designated for hunting and released them into there from the zoo. And apparently it was the largest trafficking area of cheetahs in the world for some reason. People like cheetahs. And anyway, I worked with Jim Shockey on that, and we ended that one. I don’t know why, but I know Jim got to go hunt there because of the donations that I had made. And then I think his wife started to get really sick and his energy went to focus on his wife, and now she has now since passed. So, anyway, there’s just-

Robbie Kroger: Jimmy, why? Can you break down why you do it? From your heart, why do you do it?

Jimmy John Liau…: Because if not me, who? If not now, when? When there’s an opportunity, that’s what’s one of the greatest things about having the ability to do stuff. Like that Rhino project. Was it Hume that had the Rhino Project?

Robbie Kroger: Yep.

Jimmy John Liau…: I was going to take that whole thing on and do it, but what I needed to have is I needed a place to offload those rhinos.

Robbie Kroger: Correct.

Jimmy John Liau…: I would pay and I would do it and I would breed them, but if I was going to give away three bulls that were done with their breeding and they were past their prime, I would also want to give somebody eight females and eight babies along with the bulls. And I would just give them away and let them go to a hunting concession and let that person make the income from those bulls so that he could then support and sustain the females and the babies, and let’s keep this perpetuation going. But there’s no place for the bulls, because they don’t want to hunt them. That’s the craziest stuff. It was just so crazy to me. It was so crazy that, I mean, they’ve got to open it again. If they don’t open it again, the Rhino is going to be gone. It’s going to be gone.

And I just dropped the project and I don’t know where they ended up with it, but I just dropped the project. Just, no. So, I’m able to move quickly and do stuff now, and I like to make it count. And it’s such a joy that mother nature to me, whether it’s stocking lakes, and going through the process. They’re public lakes that I might be familiar with or I might have something, a vested interest, but I’ve stocked lakes with proper permission and added back to in a massive way.

And in the lakes that I fish on. I don’t keep the fish to eat. I’m near the Canadian border and I can buy an 11 pound box of frozen walleye fillets from Canada for 30 bucks. So, I buy my fresh frozen walleye fillets from a distributor in Duluth, Minnesota. And in my lake I do it all for the other people in the lake so that the lake can have a sustainable harvestable operation. I do it with planting trees. I love planting trees. I love planting trees. I love removing old trees and planting millions and millions of trees. I just love to do it, if not me, who?

Robbie Kroger: Jimmy, last thing to touch on.

Jimmy John Liau…: Yeah.

Robbie Kroger: When you started, when you had your kids, in your mind, did you want them to hunt with you? How did that come about?

Jimmy John Liau…: So, when they were really young, I took them to Africa the first time. I think Freddy was eight years old and Lucy was nine and Spencer was 14.

Robbie Kroger: Was Freddy the guy that I met at SCI?

Jimmy John Liau…: Yeah.

Robbie Kroger: Okay, cool.

Jimmy John Liau…: Freddy was the guy who met at SCI. And so I took him to Africa and they shot Kudu and Impala. We took him to Botswana, hunted with Johan Calitz on a proper safari, and they were maybe a little bit too young. I took Freddy deer hunting, kids muzzleloader season. He’s a good rifle shooter. Shot 22, 22 mag with a scope, and then I put them with a musket, because that’s what you can shoot in Illinois. Instead of three pellets I put two pellets in the musket to try to mellow it out a little bit. I didn’t tell him anything, but he just knew, put the crosshairs on it and shoot.

Well, he was a little boy and I think it really thumped him. And I think I took him out in the cold a little bit too much. I was a little more eager, and I thought they would like it way more than I did. So, then I just really lightened up my pressure on the hunting with the kids and I just let them do it at their speed. And now they’ve slowly, my son Spencer and son Freddy are coming back into the fold naturally, and I’m letting them do it at their speed. And it’s the greatest hunting buddy in the world to have your son in camp.

Robbie Kroger: For sure.

Jimmy John Liau…: Yeah.

Robbie Kroger: Yeah. I’m in the same boat as you. I think I’ve said this on the podcast before. Obviously the world that I live in today, I don’t get to hunt very much for myself, let alone do I get to hunt with my kids anymore. So, they did the whole BB rider kind of scenario. So, I was like, right now I’m going to take them onto a 22. And I had a 22 pistol and I put a suppressor on it and it had a red dot. And my boys were, I think six and four at the time. And I was like, all right, we’re going out to a little farm that we could go to. And I sat them between my legs and I said, “All right, this is what it’s going to look like. There’s going to be a red dot, and you just got to look for it and it’s just going to squeeze the trigger and you’ll be fine.”

Well, little did I know, again, I didn’t explain on the red ride, obviously they’re putting their heads right up against the back and to get the sights. So, Leo just started moving his head closer and closer and closer and closer and closer to the pistol. And then he pulled the trigger, and as soon as he pulled the trigger, he shook, he threw his head back. And I was like, what happened? Did the projectile, because semi-automatic little 22, did it hit him in his eye?

And I looked at him and he turned back to me like this, and I could see this red ring on his nose, and then all of a sudden blood just started gushing out of his nose.

Jimmy John Liau…: Oh shit.

Robbie Kroger: And I’m just like, oh my God. And my wife’s in my brain, my ears going, how could you do this with the guns and your boys? And I’m like, oh man, I’m sorry. I’m sorry. Are you okay? Okay. Okay. And as I’m doing this with my six-year-old, I turned to my four-year-old who’s sitting next to us, and he’s like, I don’t want to shoot.

Jimmy John Liau…: Poor guy.

Robbie Kroger: And I’d built up this whole, to this moment in time for me as a dad, introducing my boys to this thing that I love, and I messed it up. I completely failed as a dad. And I cleaned it all up and I explained, look, this was dad’s issue because the slide hit him in the nose. And I said, look, this is what it looks like. We need to do this again. You have to get back on this horse. And they’re okay now, but almost similar. It’s like now I’m like, if you show a little bit more interest like Leo’s into scouts and outdoors and camping, which is awesome, we’ll go. But I’m not going to force it on you. I’m not really, really, really going to push it on you.

Jimmy John Liau…: Yeah, right on. Right on, man. What was very interesting, watching my son Freddy this year for Christmas, I bought a Gunwerks long shooter, and it’s in a beautiful case. It’s that beautiful gun with that beautiful scope. That’s a machine. I mean that machine, that is a machine, the Gunwerks. And he really liked it. And then he went to the hunting show, and then we were here with Willie and we were here talking, and we were actually here right in this room.

And Zach Brown came over, Zach was at the show, and Zach came over here and Zach brought his guitar and he sang us some tunes right here on the couch. And we were hanging out and Zach left. It was so sweet of him to come over and do that. And he just lives right up right here close by, and we were hanging out and just having a brandy or having a whiskey and just kind of romancing. And Freddy says to Willie, Willie, do you think you could take me on a sheep hunt sometime?

Robbie Kroger: Really just out the blue?

Jimmy John Liau…: Dude, when that happened, I just welled up with, I contained myself, but I’m feeling it right now. I mean, my son Freddy is a big guy like his dad, and he is going voluntarily go on a sheep hunt.

Robbie Kroger: You haven’t been implementing seeds in his brain to like, hey, you need to come do this. Why don’t we do this?

Jimmy John Liau…: I didn’t want to mess with him. I want it to be his deal and I want it to be his speed and he’s a man and I want it to be his choices. I came from quite a tough father and God bless my father. And so he wanted to do it. So, him and Willie, I carved out the time. I’m not going, that’s him and Willie, they’re going to do it. They’re going to go backpacking and back when I first started with Willie 15 years ago, I wasn’t in the shape that I’m in right now. I thought that I would never hunt sheep again.

And I think Willie and I have been on 35 or 40 trips together in the time that we’ve been together in the last 15 years. And so Willie has changed my life. And Willie, when I first went on a stone sheep hunt with Willie way back in the day, one of the hardest in the world, Willie literally said, “You grab the back of my belt and I’m going to go one step at a time and we’re going to get up this thing here, Jimmy. We go one step at a time.” And you know what’s amazing thing about Willie is he’s got a severely handicapped child. So, he has so much patience, he has so much patience and so much resolve for people that struggle that he’s just such a beautiful human being. And for it not Willie, I wouldn’t be able to be doing what I’m doing right now. So, I’m so grateful to this man who’s changed my life and encourage me that I can do it. Isn’t that amazing?

Robbie Kroger: No, that’s amazing.

Jimmy John Liau…: A little farmer from Montana that’s changed my life and now he’s taking my son.

Robbie Kroger: Well, it’s amazing what people that you come across in your life and what they mean to you and how they change the trajectory of who you become. And I’ll say this, I think you are a private individual, but just through this conversation, I think you’ve opened up a little bit to some of the things that you do, the emotional part of you. You are a hardcore, dare I say, cutthroat businessman, but you are a softy, okay? You are softy. You’ve got a tear rolling down your face right now. You love beautiful people. You love doing the right thing.

Jimmy John Liau…: I do.

Robbie Kroger: And you’ve been so private about it, nobody knows that you love doing the right thing. They just see this guy who’s loud, who’s out there.

Jimmy John Liau…: Semi-public.

Robbie Kroger: Semi-public.

Jimmy John Liau…: A D- celebrity. I’m a [inaudible 01:06:47] of salami. I’m not even Papa John, a pizza guy.

Robbie Kroger: But I thank you. It’s taken us, again, three years to get to this point, but it needed that, because I don’t think you would’ve had this conversation with me allowing me to open up. And that’s what I do best. I peel onion layers very purposely, and I appreciate you and I’m humbled and grateful to have been able to have this kind of conversation with you, because I don’t think you’ve had this kind of conversation with anyone around the thing that you love the most, which is hunting, is your family, your sons, your kids, good people, beautiful people. And also this beyond hunting is all the things that hunting touches that you can see and go, man, I want to help with this education project. I want to help with this land project. I want to help with reducing wildlife killings. Continue, continue, continue.

Jimmy John Liau…: Amen. Yeah. Well, I do it for me, I don’t do it for recognition, just like the big animals that I take. I enjoy, it is very competitive when you get it at a high level. But I do it for me. I don’t do it for anybody else. I do it for me. And when I go and I leave, I want to be able to die and be done with whenever God takes me. I just want to say I did my best, genuinely not virtuously. I genuinely tried to do my fucking best and I gave and I shared and I brought people with me. And I don’t know any other way for me to have a better life. So, I’ve been very, very fortunate and I don’t know where or what it comes from, but it is what it is. So, thank you for the love and thanks for the chat.

Robbie Kroger: Yeah, thank you buddy.

Jimmy John Liau…: I hope I see you on the trail.

Robbie Kroger: Yes, sir.

Jimmy John Liau…: Yeah, man.

Robbie Kroger: Thank you, boss.

Jimmy John Liau…: Yep.