Ep. 92: Four World-Champ Elk Callers: Team America
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Welcome back to another episode of Cutting the Distance podcast. Tonight we are in beautiful Big Sky, Montana. Montucky as some people call it. And what we're doing here is we just completed the World Elk Calling Championships put on by the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation. And I didn't compete, but we have four world champion elk calling callers, if you will, in the house tonight.

First off, we got Jermaine Hodge. We got Tony Gilbertson and we got Eric Bergland. Last but not least, Dirk Durham. You may or may not know this, I'm a world elk calling champion too. I just don't really like to toot my horn about it. I like to focus on the hunt, and so do these guys. But it's fun to compete. It's fun to get up there, show your stuff, and see where you stack up against the best of the best. And today there were some upsets.

some stuff that we didn't expect. And I always go back to these contests. It's so subjective. It's got the human element. You have a panel of seven judges. They say who they like the best. And if after talking to the judges, you find out they're not all looking for the same thing. They're not like on this even keel board of things that they're looking for. One guy might say, no, I'm really looking for

really well executed calls, very articulate, no fails, sounds good, sounds realistic like an elk, but it's flawless. And another guy says, no, no, no, no, I'm not looking for that. I'm looking for natural, authentic elk sounds. So in the end, it can be anybody's game.

But with that being said, you can't win this without putting in the work. And these three guys I have sitting with me right here, I'd argue they're the best of the best. They are. They're world champions. And not only are they world champion elk callers, they're pretty damn good guys and good elk hunters too. So last fall, we sent these guys on a quest. Now, Jermaine Hodge. Jermaine, what do you think about North Idaho?

Well, first of all, I didn't start hunting elk until 2006. And I hunted all of Colorado, most of all of Colorado. And I will tell you, I had an expectation of thick, but not thick.

I imagined thick, but not as thick as it was. And then I didn't, I was expecting like the heels to kind of gradually go up.

No, no. That was some steep stuff. I think the highest peak where we were was like 5,000 something feet. I mean, shoot. In that mountain range, the highest peak is 7,000 feet. But most of the other peaks around are about 6,000, 6,200. Yeah, they're not as high. And Colorado Springs in Colorado is like 5,700.

My buddy Pat's is like 9,000 feet. And then my house is like 4,800 feet. So we're basically camped out at some of those highest peaks out there. And when we go in Colorado, we're base camping at like 10-3. I took Tony through some of my neck of the woods here a few weeks ago. And we're like 10-3. And we're hunting 11-8.

10-8, 11-8 is where all those... But it's not... It's a gradual climb, right? But the peaks are way higher. It's just a gradual climb. North Idaho, Mean Bush. It was some Avatar stuff. It's a jungle. You know, when Avatar... When that commander came out, he's like, Avatar, Mean Bush. Hey, North Idaho, Mean Bush. Well, Tony...

You come from Western Oregon. Yep. So you're kind of accustomed to brush. What'd you think? So I am accustomed to brush, but it's different. The brush we got back home is, number one, it's thick. So similar to North Idaho. Yeah. But there's a lot of stuff that poke you. I mean, we got all kinds of things that got thorns on them. So...

This brush up there in North Idaho, I don't know what that low-growing shrub you guys have up there that's real woody and got these waxy leaves on it. Oh, that's – Definitely huckleberry. That's – or it's either alder or it's that stuff that's real tight and scratchy.

That's a Cianothus. That stuff. It's well, yeah. That stuff murderous. It'll rip the clothes right off. Yeah. Well, not only that, but you can't just like, there's no trails through it. I mean, they all go through it, but trying to go through there, man, my, my hip flexors after going through that stuff up there, we were chasing that big herd bull that one time. Yeah. Coming back up that mountain through that stuff. It was, it was bad. Yep. And then on top of that,

You got that, was it bear grass? Is that what you call it? Bear grass. Oh my gosh. It's wet or dry. That stuff is slick. Oh, that stuff is slick. So slick. Yeah, when it's wet, it's even worse. Even worse. It was, yeah, I can't count the times I ended up on my butt on that trip. I was on my butt more than I was on my feet. Yeah, that was bad. That was bad. And steep. I mean, we've got some steep country back home too.

But we don't gain the kind of elevation that you guys gain in North Idaho that fast. It was steep. Well, they say if you were to flatten out Idaho, and I don't know who they are, but they say if you flatten out Idaho,

you would have a state larger than Texas because of the terrain and the topography and how high the peaks and how deep the valleys are. Yeah, 100% I believe that. Completely believe that. Yeah. Yeah, it was steep. It was some steep, nasty country. Yes. That one, well, we can get into that later, but that, I'm never chasing bulls with you again, by the way. Close to dark? No. Yes, you were. No, that was crazy.

We almost died. It was nip and tuck. But did you die? No, we didn't. It was almost. Did you die? Yeah. Well, now, Eric, he hunts this place every year. Yep. So you knew what to expect. Yes. And you knew kind of where to go. I kind of gave you guys some spots to go to, to check out. But...

What'd you think of these brush country greenhorns?

It was definitely surprising. I knew Tony was Western Oregon, coastal range, thick. So I thought he'd have some similar feelings towards it. And as far as the elevation, the steepness, I thought Jermaine, I thought we'd do fine. And we did do fine. Yeah. But...

you know, I know, I know Jermaine and his engine and to see him, you know, humbled by the, the Northern Idaho country was, I'm like, man, if Jermaine's like, dude, this is no joke. I wanted to break his kneecaps. Like the first day we were there. And if our, and if our, our listeners don't know, Jermaine is a, an elite athlete, you know, um, all American wrestler, right? This guy, uh,

He's got wheels and he's got lungs to go anywhere. He looks, he looks, he's, he looks unstoppable. Right. But so that makes me feel pretty good that a man like that can get humbled by a place like that. Yeah. Yeah. It's not for the weak of faint of heart. I got ripped up. No, it's physically, mentally and emotionally taxing. Yeah. Especially, you know, when you're out, when you're out in that country,

day in and day out for weeks on end, chasing bulls. You get close and the wind screws you over or what have you. Yeah, all the time. You know, and you drop 1,200 feet in elevation, 1,500 sometimes, and then you climb back out. And sometimes, you know,

Flirting with doing that twice in a day. We got into some sketchy stuff. Yes, we did. It's humbling, man. It'll smoke your Lamberfeeties real quick. Lamberfeeties, I love that. Several legs in your Lamberfeeties. A couple flat tires. I agree. It was tough. No joke. So the reason we sent, the Phelps team sent these guys on this mission was

These guys came together and each one of them devised their own signature elk call. They wanted to, you know, I got a couple of Maverick fans here, you know, the best elk call ever invented, of course, which is my call. But Eric and Tony loved the Maverick. Jermaine, he was more of a white amp guy, but they all, with these guys' knowledge of calling and,

and hunting, we wanted to put together an opportunity for these fellas to get together, hunt together. They'd never hunted together before, throw them in this pot in North Idaho. And I kind of, you know, I'm like, oh, it'll be good. It'll be good. And there's, it can be really good and it can be really bad. So if you're in the wrong drainage, there won't be an elk and there's never, hadn't been an elk there in 10 years, but you get in the right drainage and there's some elk in there.

But with Eric's experience and some of the places I knew where to send them, they could kind of find some of those places elk. So they got on some elk, but they wanted to put these calls to the test. So each guy devised their own elk call. They have a certain thickness of latex, a certain stretch of latex. And elk calls are so, so they're so personal. Each person

has a preference. And a lot of times we get people that say, oh, which is the easiest one for me to use? It's very, that's kind of a loaded question because everybody's so different on how their mouth is shaped and how they blow the call and everything else. So it's very user specific. So these guys wanted to build a call that was user specific for them. And they

I, in my mind, I thought, great, we're going to get three Mavericks, three more Mavericks come out, but they were anything but Mavericks. So we sent them on this, like, what was your, Tony, what was your anticipation? What was your, what was your thoughts of this hunt? What, what did you think was going to happen when you got there? What, you had some things that going through your mind, what, what was this going to be like? Well, I think, you know, for me,

I've known Eric and I've known Jermaine for a few years now, but I've never hunted with them. And when you hunt with somebody, you develop a different kind of relationship. I mean, you go through a hunting season and you really put the effort in. You develop a relationship that's unlike most relationships or friendships that you have with other people. I mean, you really, you have to support each other. It's a lot of teamwork.

You know, you don't really know what to expect. And I didn't either. I mean, I knew they were great guys, but going into this, I was thinking, well, this could be either really bad or it could be really good. Because you get the kind of personalities that come together and they have their own hunting styles. And if they are the type of people that say, you know, I think my style is the best, then

You can have conflict. And we didn't have any of that. I think all three of us have the kind of personality that's just like, let's just give each other a chance to see. Open ideas. Yeah. Just see how things go. Open ideas. So that was the first thing. I knew that North Idaho was steep. I knew it was thick. I didn't really know what to expect. I mean, I've seen some...

videos on on YouTube and other places about North Idaho and hunting and and and it definitely looks steep and thick and and I was used to the thickness but like I said it's it's it's it's a different kind of thickness but you know at the end of the day when when we got there we set up camp and uh you know it just we gelled we gelled we we went out and found some elk and

We've got different styles. We've got Jermaine that's got, you know, he's just super intense and aggressive. We've got Eric that maybe isn't quite that much. And then, and I think I'm somewhere in between, you know, we just, if Jermaine went after it, we went right after it with him. And then if it didn't work out, we'd kind of come together and talk about it and say, you know,

Rinse, repeat. Maybe we should have done something a little bit different. But, you know, overall, it was a fun experience. And I've developed a friendship with these guys that I didn't have before. You know, it's different. Yeah. Did you have any expectations going into this? Like, I really want X out of this trip.

Eric? Yeah, you know, I mean, obviously, you know, we all had tags. You know, my expectation was, you know, set the bar high. I want us all to punch tags. I want it to be a good time. I would like everybody to get along and, you know,

you know, everything just a mess, just, you know, just a gel. You know, Jermaine was successful. You know, we had some close, really close opportunities where we almost got shots off, you know, Tony and myself. But yeah, my, my expectations, I think it, I think it met, met my expectations. Definitely. Just like Tony was saying, you know, when,

When we see each other at Worlds or some of these different events, and we get a brief amount of time to talk to each other, to hang out, to visit. But when you're sharing, you know, OutKamp to me is pretty personal. And even if it's a close friend, like if you just ain't working, it's like, sorry, dude, love you, but...

you got, you gots to go. And so, I mean, you know, we made it through it. You know, it's, it's maybe, maybe I'm, I am very selfish in that aspect when it comes to my time in September in the woods and, you know, with the guys I'm with and my buddies that have taken me under their wing and have shown me, you know, how, you know, how to archery hunt and got into calling. But,

It definitely met my expectations. We all got along real well. Something didn't work, we'd huddle up. We would try something different, but we

We all, we always had each other's backs. You know, sometimes it's, it's easy to get discouraged when things are going tough or not going your way. You know, we pick each other up. Yeah. And it was, it was, it was very, it was very, you know, refreshing. And I remember the last day we were on top of this mountain and we,

we were hiking back down to the trucks and I was standing next to Tony and I'll admit it, I teared up a little bit. - We all did. - It's the struggle, it's the grind, it's that limited amount of time you have each year to break away from work and go spend that time that we all cherish so deeply in the woods together.

And just how much of a good time we had, all the laughs that we had, the ups and the downs. It was just, it was definitely experience that I will never forget. It was, you're exactly right. But I got to tell you, man, you, I mean, you and I spent a lot of time in the truck together going to and from because we kind of split up. Yep.

You put way too much pressure on yourself. I told you that. You did tell me that. So because Eric had hunted that area. Eric had hunted that area. He was like, I got to – he felt additional pressure to get us on bulls. And when it didn't happen, he was like super bummed. So, yeah. And that wasn't – I mean, that wasn't your job.

You know, we had a place to go. We've all got experience. We've all got different levels of experience, different types of experience.

Sometimes it works out. Sometimes it doesn't. I mean, that's elk hunting. They dare or they're not. They want to play. They don't want to play. It's just the way it is. But you did put a lot of pressure on yourself. You put way too much pressure on yourself. But it's okay because you still. Yeah, I just wanted it to. I think there's different aspects of successful or to a successful hunt, you know, but I just wanted it to be successful for everybody. I wanted everybody to have a good time. Yeah.

Try to put as much effort as I could. Mission accomplished, man. Yeah, it was mission accomplished. We had a great time. Yeah, and I did too, and...

I'm kind of my own worst advocate in multiple aspects of life. I'm hard on myself that way. We all judge ourselves harder than everybody else. Yeah, I think we all find ourselves a little guilty of that. I'm like my biggest critic and my worst critic. Yeah. And, you know, but that's how, that's what I think that's what makes us go. You know, we want to achieve. We want to do good things. We don't want to do great things. And the people around us, we have...

We set a pretty high bar so they can have a good experience too. I'm pretty hard on myself. I want my friends or hunting partners to have a good experience too. And it bugs me if we didn't. Yeah. Because I know how much I love it and how much I enjoy it. And I want to share that same special thing with them. Yeah. Yeah, but your great time might be bugling elk everywhere. We getting into mad bulls. Maybe we didn't kill them.

But their experience might be down here to bring them up to the high point. So your experience might be like, I'm going to put them on all kinds of bulls. And it don't happen. And it only hurt two bugles. And they're like, heck yeah, guys. Heck yeah, this is the best experience ever. Yeah. Yeah, which...

Like, picking out hunting partners is super important to have these conversations long before you get to the woods. And I don't know if you guys did any of that, but, like, vet your hunting partners and ask them, what are your expectations? What are you looking to do, man? Are you wanting to kill 350-inch bulls? Or are you wanting to just have a good time, have some encounters? Because I'm

A successful hunt to one person is a bummer hunt to somebody else like, oh man, we failed. But somebody that's new to elk hunting might say, I just want to hear an elk bugle this year. Yeah.

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That's what we kind of did, Dirk. We were on weekly or bi-weekly conversations for a while. Calls, yeah. We had everything and we weren't double dipping on stuff. So we made sure what we were carrying together. Then we talked about expectations. And dude, I think that's really... I wouldn't say that's the only reason. By no means. The reason why we jailed is because...

First, you can laugh, have a joke and not be offended. Rag somebody's butt because you lagging a little bit and not be offended and take it like, yo, they're trying to pick me up kind of thing. And then it was a bunch of different combinations. But I'll tell you this.

The whole crew there pretty much was gelling. We were all on the same page. Yeah. We came together every freaking day. Every day. Every day. And everybody shared the whole workload. And that's the most important thing because if you got partners that ain't going to share some of their workload and you do it,

You'll carry that burden. It'd be way worse than what you're talking about because I've been there. And it creates friction. It creates friction. It creates friction. And that was never there in that camp. And I'm so glad it wasn't because I don't think this whole group would have even allowed that to happen. Yeah.

Honestly, because we all chipped in, you know, at the end of the day, we lick our wounds. We might have a beer or two and drink some water and pass the heck out and rinse and repeat. My point is, is that the group was gelling. And I think your point being is that vetting your partners is

It wasn't the point that we had been together before. It was a point that we already had been, we hung out many times, but then we were vetting each other over the phone and getting, all right, Tony's like this, Eric's like this, boom, all right, let's gel this together. And it worked out. I think, you know, honestly, if we had to go back and do it again,

It might be some different changes, but you might get into those questions. We learned a lot, though. We learned a lot. Yeah, we did. We learned a ton. And regardless, it was a successful hunt. I mean, we had a good time. Yeah. We chased bulls. We chased a lot of bulls. A lot of bulls. You killed a bull. Mm-hmm.

I mean, I know a lot of guys that don't have that kind of success on a hunt. Yeah. Especially in a new area. Yeah, in a new area. You talk about like expectations and like, you know, when I was actually coming into the hunt, I said, Dirk, you already kind of said it, you know, I've been competing for a number of years and I don't take losing very well. And I internalize it, right?

I bottled it up, but it hurts. It hurts deep. And so my expectations out of three tags, 10 days, I was thinking two, two is like, bro, that's like 90%. That's like right there at the top. Right. That's outrageous. But reality is, is that you got 10 days, three tags. You're,

We'll be lucky to get one of these tags filled. That is reality when you're talking about Elkhorn. In a lot of different places. In different places that we're not even used to with Deception of One. But for me, I got to say, I got to set the bar up high. Hey, it's going to be two. And I was looking for two in it.

It possibly could have happened. It almost happened. It almost happened. Plenty of times. With that setup with me and you two were calling behind me. Plenty of times, yes. I couldn't, I had to keep, I was watching that bull and I kept pausing like, man, those two guys sound so good back there. I'm like, you know.

This is great. And that bull came down. He did. And the only open lane, which I thought he was eventually going to come into, he just happened to go to my left. And that wind was blowing to my 10 o'clock. And he came right down through all that thick stuff and stopped, got a whiff, turned around, tried to back up. Speaking of the wind, what is with the wind in that country?

Oh, I mean... It's not predictable? No, no, no. I mean, we'd be at the top of the ridge and you're thinking, okay, it's that time of day. Thermals are coming up in our face. We've got bulls down here bugling. We're set up. We're having a cow party. We're throwing out a few bugles here and then. And pretty soon you hear crunch, crunch, crunch. You hear bulls coming from multiple different directions. Thermals, like I said, right directly in our face. And all of a sudden...

at the back of your neck oh hard all the time hard and the woods would just erupt and those right now some of that country that's so broken like that just has such unpredictable thermals you know do you think do you think it's because of the timber cut that they do

I don't know about that. I feel like if you look at the grand scheme of things, you look at the main ridgeline, the watershed divide, and then you watch the fingers and the ridges that come off the watershed divide, and then you see how it breaks up. It's like a convoluted, I mean, you picture the air going up it or going down it, and every one of those little ridges and fingers divide.

create disturbance and turbulence. And so you're going to get these weird winds. And then if you get some days where you have those big clouds that go over and cool the ground, well, then as soon as those clouds go over and you get like a little thermal cool right there, right where you're standing, but 300 yards away, it's still bright, hot sun, that just screws the wind all up again. So-

Um, man, it's tough in some of that country. Not to mention that it's so thick too. So some of that, that tree growth is blocking some of that sun and then you get like a little swirl going on. Oh yeah. Well, it's like, yeah, we, you know, we dropped, you know, we dropped multiple times, you know, in the afternoon, you know, when's coming up and we maybe dropped down into a bowl.

And a lot of times, even if that wind's coming up, as soon as you hit those trees where you get close to the water, that wind will start pulling down like a funnel down through that hole and suck down through the bottom. And so it's like there was a couple of times where we would drop down with the wind coming up and then we'd start to get into the trees and we would try to locate the elk and try to make a big loop around and try to get below them thinking that the wind's going to pull down

that bowl like a, you know, like a funnel kind of. And then you get into a patch of trees with this open sunlight. Now all of a sudden, boom, thermal switch and it's coming back up and it's just really unpredictable. Yeah. It's a tough country. It does remind me a little bit back home in that respect too, because like you said, Dirk, we, we've got the same, I mean, again, not, not as big a country in most places, but you talk about finger ridges. They're like everywhere, man. When you're hunting Roosevelt's on the coast, it's,

you got to bugle like every few hundred yards because... Because one ridge can block that whole sound. The ridge, the trees, the foliage, all the brush, it just deadens that sound. But the wind, we have the same problem. It's just unpredictable. You can't really depend on it. Yeah. We don't have that problem in Colorado. We do have a lot of wind. Don't get me wrong. But it's more consistent. Yeah.

It's more consistent. You always get those swirly winds, but it's just a little bit more consistent, I believe, versus Idaho where we were. And y'all might be right. There's just those fingers, and it just – it can whip in and through that stuff. It's really weird. It just doesn't run straight lines. Now, if you can get a big, high ridge with not a lot of fingers –

It's a big, you know, you got a thousand foot elevation change, but it's a big, clean ridge, almost like a hogback ridge. Man, you can get some pretty consistent winds a lot of times on those kind of places. But I found those places that are broken with finger ridge after finger ridge after finger ridge, that finger again, that split again as they go. Man, it is terrible.

It's super tough. And I don't know how many times I've been fouled on really giant bowls. As they're coming in, they need to just show themselves. There's almost showing themselves and then the wind switches. And it's a game over. You say that, Dirk, but

But you and everybody else knows that probably the biggest reason why some of those bulls are there is food, water, and hey, man, they can pay attention to their back. Yep. Yep. They ain't got to worry about that because they can smell it on the quickness. And that's why they're in there. Yeah. Exactly. That's why they're in there. But I'll tell you what, those calls. They know. Oh, yeah. But those calls worked. They did. They worked. Yeah. Yeah. They were awesome. Hey.

In the field, tested and approved. So I have a question. All right. Okay, this is going to be one that might ruffle feathers. Who in the group would you say was the pickiest guy on the call development? Who spent the most time...

being a butt picker and like, no, can we change this? No, no, it ain't quite right. Can we change this? I know who it is, but I want to see who. I'll admit it. I think I was pretty picky. No. No.

You don't think so? No, it was me. Nope. Because there was one time it was me. It was Tony. It was you? Was it you? It was Tony. Absolutely. It was Tony. I felt bad because we were like, okay, you know, you guys happy with everything? Yeah, we're good. And then Jason's like, okay. And then, you know, a month or two later, it was like, okay, you guys sure you're happy? You know, because we're about to make these things final. It's like, well, I'll be that jerk. I'm like, actually, can we do this? You know? No, Tony was at Jason's house.

Yeah, he was picky. I'm sorry, dude. I couldn't help it. My OCD, when I put a call on my mouth and it doesn't sound just right, like I got an ear for this stuff. And if it doesn't sound just right, but the thing is, is I get some, I put one on my mouth and I blow it for the first few times. Sounds so good. And I blow on it a little bit longer and I'm like, ooh, that top end's cutting out on me.

So what I found was what I had hoped to get out of these calls. No, I love the Maverick. Um, and I can make, bet your ass you do. Here's the thing. I won, I won the men's division with them, with the Maverick. I'd hunted with it for years and years and years. Um,

That call, I had to kind of back off on my style of calling to get it to work. Because you blow hard. I blow hard. Now, I can make any of them work. But when I'm hunting or if I'm competing, I don't want to think about it. I don't want to have to think about toning down the amount of air pressure or volume that I use to make that call work when I'm on the stage especially. But when I'm in the woods, you know, I want to –

When the time comes when you need to challenge that bull, I need a call that's going to hold up to as much air pressure and volume that I can put against that call to absolutely challenge that bull and just punch him right in the face. And I'd get to that point. I think I'd get it. And then, again, it would loosen up on me. I need a call that's going to stand up, not only duration-wise for maybe a week. Mm-hmm.

I was going through calls. I go through a call a day. If I got into a good, a good batch of bulls and I was doing a lot of calling and I did almost all the calling and over, over the years with my hunt partners. So I go through a lot of calls, but yeah, I would get it to where I was thinking, think it was right. And, and I, and I was like, ah, Jason, gosh, I got to call this guy. I got to call Jason again.

He's going to be pissed. There's no way that you were pickier than me. That's what he said. Really? That's exactly what he said. And that's what I told you guys. I'm like, hey, I'm the pickiest guy on planet Earth. So please pick these things apart. Make sure you love them. They're everything you want for you, period. Be selfish. Build it for exactly what you want.

Well, all of our styles are so different. Yeah. Well, and you were used to that white amp. Right. I mean, and that call worked for you. I mean, you made that call work according to your style really well. Right. But I was getting to the point where, for me, I was in between, I don't even want to toot your horn right now.

I was in between... My horn? No. Whose horn are you going to take? Just wait. Okay. I got to say it. I got to say it. I don't even want to say it. Matter. But... But you just quit. But you just look at it. Well, I was in between... Like... Like, I called in a number of bulls. Shoot, I think 21 was like 32 bulls with this white amp. And...

But I was blowing it out way more now because of my style of blowing. Blow hard, aggressive.

I'm on it all the time. And I was blowing them out. And then I grabbed the Maverick because I was good at the Maverick anyways. Not toot his horn or anything, but I was good at that. Are you seriously going to do that right now? I was just waiting for him to put his fingers on my lip and I was going to bite it. So anyways, no, I was right in there between it. But his was lasting longer for me.

So once I threw a couple of bugles through the Maverick, I was like, are you kidding me? And then I wanted something that was just like that, but right there in between the two of them. So if I actually blew the white amp in the Maverick, I feel like it's really close. I think the white amp is going to break in a little bit faster than that Maverick.

that maverick might take me a few few bone bugles to get it to sound right especially for my cow sounds and then boom as soon as you did that with the maverick it was like dude that thing is money but that white hand was right there but i was just blowing out the white end so i wanted something in between the two for myself so basically if the the white amp and the maverick had a baby

That'd be me. It would be the Hodge. Yes, it's the Hodge. It fits right there. I believe it fits right there in between because I can blow the Maverick right now and then blow my call. And it's a difference, definitely a difference. But it wasn't so dramatic that it wasn't like overkill. It was the baby. It was the baby. Baby on him.

And Jermaine will say he's coming after the king, right? Everyone knows the Maverick is the king of diaphragms. And I don't make this up. The statistics, you know, speak for themselves. Phelps wishes his pink diaphragm could live up to the Maverick, but it's still the king on top of the heap. But

Hodge is always saying, I'm coming for the maverick. I'm coming for the king. Well, I can't even say that now. The king is sitting to my left right here. Tony's the king right now. Yeah. Especially on the world stage. He is the reigning world champion professional elk caller. I know. Can you believe that? Hey, can we... He got crowned today. Can we... Yes, he did. Can we give him a round of applause? Because that ain't that easy to defeat. I'm telling you, dude. I was...

I'm still really, I'm having a hard time like wrapping my head around it because of the caliber of the callers that I had to go up against. You had a perfect day, man. I did. I sat right there. I watched the whole thing. You called against the best of the best and eliminated each one of them. And for the end, you had to eliminate. Didn't you have to bugle against both twice? No, just once. But you beat them all. You beat the best of the best.

I listened to your routine, and every time it was just like money. It was money. It was money. And how do you do that? Practice. Practice. How much practice do you put in a week? Oh, man. I wish my wife was here. She could tell you better than I could. Well, I could tell you right now.

You probably practice way more than me and Eric. I know I've backed off a little bit myself. Yeah. So people ask me that a lot. How do you get to the point where you can make the sounds that you make and call as well as you do? And I'll tell you, so I've got about a 40, 45-minute commute every morning. And I'd grab my calls. I'd grab my bugle tube. And...

The whole time between the time I leave my house and the time I get to work, I've got a diaphragm in my mouth. And then when I get home in the evenings, I'm out in the garage or out in the backyard this time of year. Leading up to the contest especially, I can't... Countless hours, Dirk. I mean, it was... I got to say, I don't know that...

The year that I won the men's division, I practiced way more than I did this year. But that was the first year that I had started competing again after a long time and didn't really know what to expect. But every day, every day, even if it was 15, 20 minutes, I'd go through my routine. And that's what it takes. I mean, if you want to be competitive...

on that stage against those kind of callers, you have to. The field is so deep. Compared to what it used to be. Oh, my goodness. You and I competed against each other way back in the early 2000s. Compared to what I remember those contests to be, compared to what they are now,

It's crazy. It is crazy. Yeah. The skill, the talent that these people have. I mean, it almost starts at a younger age too. Yeah, for sure. You see the peewee, you see the youth. Yeah. Like...

All these young Thundercats are coming up and they're good cats. Oh my goodness. They're coming after us. Oh my goodness. Like, please take my spot. I'll go kill the elk. You just call them in. Yeah. Kind of thing. And those, those kids are amazing. Well, and I will say this,

It's primarily because of, you know, someone like Dirk and us, you know, sharing photos and videos of stuff that we do that encourages those kids. Yeah, for sure. It really does. Yeah. And they want to get on one of those big stage too. Yeah. And they're just as good. Yep. Yep.

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you know, how I could be as consistent as I was in the cow calls that I were making. If it hadn't been for me being as picky as I was through this process of developing these calls, I don't think I could have done what I did today because I didn't, I left nothing on the table. I mean, I went through my routine that I've been practicing for months now and I put as much

air pressure and volume behind that call is that call would take and it it didn't break on me no it was no it was it was freaking perfect you know another another kudos that i'd like to give to you too tony is you know we're all preparing for you know the worlds or any calling competition for that you know matter of fact um

You know, we're going through our daily lives. We're going to work in the morning. I also have about a 40-minute commute to work, you know, so I'll practice a little bit in the morning and then on my way home, usually hit it, you know, the whole way, hit it hard. And for you...

We're listening to ourselves day in and day out. We don't have anybody else to critique us on our routine or the cow calls that we're making or the different types of bugles that we're making. I mean, we're going off YouTube videos or hunts or elk being recorded in the field, us trying to mimic them, you know,

Us practicing our own calls and hoping they're authentic enough, the quality is there. So to be able to do what you did today with you being your own, you know, your own critic in a sense is amazing.

That's amazing to me because when you get on stage and you may have a different panel of judges or the judges might be the same, that'd be maybe one or two different. You don't know exactly what they're looking for. So you come into these competitions hoping with the routine or the calls or whatever that you've

put together that that's going to contend. That's going to be good enough. Yeah, because you don't know. You have no idea. It's not like they come out before the contest and say, okay, contestants, we're looking on authenticity, consistency, something that Oxford socks off.

and whatever else. Yeah, you know, you're exactly right. Yeah, we all prepare and you just hope they're buying what we're selling. Exactly. And I've said it a hundred times because I've competed in this thing. I didn't compete today. I haven't competed for a while, but I've competed a lot over the years. And...

It is anybody's game. Oh, absolutely. Because it don't matter how good you sound to you or good how good you sound to your buddies or how good do you sound to the people in the room? If the judges don't like it,

they're going to pick somebody else. But if they do like it, they're going to pick it. Which makes it tough. It makes it tough. It's hard to study. It's almost like studying for exam. And then they change the questions at the end, right? You just don't know. You said it earlier, Derek, that, you know, it is, it's, it's subjective. Yeah. You know, I mean, you, you don't know the experience each one of those judges have had, you know, throughout their careers, but,

And I made this analogy today, you know, I mean, how many people do you know that think they're a really good singer, but they're not? They've all seen American Idol, right? Yeah. You know, I mean, it's kind of like that. They experience that.

And you just don't ever know. I would hate to be a judge. I mean, those guys have got the hardest job of any of us sitting back there all day long, listening to all of us toot on our horns, and then trying to pick the best out of the two that went. I would say this. It's very hard when you get to the top eight. Top eight in men's division, women's division, basketball.

If women had eight this year, I'm just saying hypothetical reasons. If all of them had top eight, once you get to the top eight, it's tough, man. And then you narrow it down to the last four. You narrow it down to the last two. Like...

I'm talking to some of the judges. They all take notes, right? As you go through your performance and they take notes. And if your read breaks just a little bit, they're going to write that down. And if you make something that's just that they don't like, they write it down. And if it's that so close, well, they look at the notes like, well...

Tit for tat. This guy had fewer marks by their name, so I'm going to pick them. Well, I mean, yeah. I mean, prime example. Like, I knew when I broke over on that lip ball, I was like, it's done. I said, I'm listening to this dude. This dude's just as good as me. I said, I said, I'm done.

And it was a 4-3 match. That was an example. Hey, man, his lip ball broke over. And when you do that, you're like, man, I hope they didn't catch that. Please, please. Were they sleeping? So I don't know if our listeners know what actually goes into building a call, a custom call or a signature call. So whenever I did it, and you guys probably had a similar experience, Jason Phelps built

I don't know how many 20, 30 calls. He made mine with all these different latexes.

because he knew i kind of knew what i wanted but i didn't really know what i wanted so he built like thin latex he built thick latex he built medium latex then he did put different colors of those same thicknesses of latex then he had different stretches of this different stretches within each of those categories yours might have been worse than my experience toners might have been the same as yours it was it was hard and i would i'd

I just sit down at a table and I'd pick one up and I'd blow it. And I had a yes pile and a no pile. Me too. Yep. Nope. Yep. Nope. And I go back through it. Then I'm like, oh, I'm going to go all the way through all the yeses. And when I get through the yeses to where I can whittle it down, now I have some very specific things I have to get out of this call.

There's a few little different nuance bugles I like, and it has to make the right sound at the right time during the bugle. Whether it's the drop off, like you hit that high note and then you drop off back to the low. Some of those...

They'll cut out or buzz on you or, you know, so, and then some latex is different colors of latex at the same thickness would, would not be as articulate as others. And as some would be too articulate, I'm like, ah, it's way too much, too much articulation. I want the one that's just, just right. Like you said, I don't want to have to think about it. I want to put this in here and blow it like I blow it. And it's going to do everything. And after, I don't know,

I went through that first round and I'm like, all right, this is kind of what I like. So then he had to send me a whole bunch more of those similar until we landed on the Maverick. It's not just, you know, oh, it's just latex and aluminum pallet plate. It's like, no, it's way more than that. Well, and the thing that I learned through this process, because I was so picky, you can get a batch of latex that's at a certain thickness, supposedly.

And it can vary in that batch. Yeah, it can be plus or minus. Exactly. So I think that's where, you know, the yes and no pile comes from is that you – and there's also the human element, right? I mean, you've got a device that will measure, you know, the stretch, the side stretch. But, you know, each of us, I think, have a little bit of, you know –

different nuances or back tension that we like based on our style. And you can't measure that. So it's, it's like all by feel or by sight. And it's hard to replicate that perfectly every time. Right. You know, so it, there was, I mean, I learned a lot through this process. I'm still learning as a result of it, but you know, it, it's you're right. I mean, it, it really does take a lot of

effort and time to go through all those calls and find the one that is just, it's perfect for you. And Dirk, I mean, the Maverick, nobody blows a Maverick like you do. And there's a reason for that. Oh, I don't know. I've heard a couple guys in this room that blow pretty damn good. Oh, me too. Well, I will say this. I will say this. You know, you get a group of

like-minded people like like ourselves that love to hunt elk we love to hunt elk more than we'd love to be on stage i mean that's my personal opinion but i think you know i would share that with the rest of the group here but what i will say is this is uh when we build these calls we we build these calls to perform not on stage really you know my my

That's like the back end. That's the fun end part of it. During the summertime when we kind of getting ready for a hunting season, we build these calls to call an elk and perform when you need to perform. And I know that's what Dirk did when he was building the Maverick. But I will say this is that they would no longer call him King because

Because when I built mine, I built mine a little bit better than Dirk's. Is that right? Well, you know what? The people will decide. All jokes to the side, though, is he's got way more buys and kills and stuff with his. So I really shouldn't, I should dial down a little bit. But I do think if you're looking for a new change, the All-American Series,

It's right in the house. Blue House. Yeah. Because you might be one of us that fit in between the original Signature Series. Because Phelps is a great call. Dierks is a great call. And Charlie's is a great call. And I think we kind of – I think us three are like in between some of all of those. Yeah. Well, I think, you know, I've blown –

probably every call that's been on the market and even some currently. The thing that steered me towards the Phelps calls was the consistency that I was getting out of those calls. And

And so I think anybody that picks up these calls, whether it's a Maverick or one of these new All-American series, when they find the call that fits their style of calling, they can be pretty sure that they're going to get a call every time. And the life that you'll get out of the read. When I first, I'm newer to the archery scene. I've been doing it, this will be my fifth season.

And, you know, calling for about, you know, four or five years or so, started using, you know, the Phelps Reeds at the beginning. You know, and I tried some other calls and I'd blow them out, I mean, real, real quick. But with the consistency and the life that I got and how easy the Reeds were for me as a newer caller to use, I mean, have...

haven't gone with any other calls since. That's what made me stay with Phelps and love those calls so much. Even the design that's gone into the tubes. I cannot put my diaphragm on my mouth and use another tube and make the same sounds that I get out of the Phelps tubes. We're talking a lot about the diaphragms, but

That's just one tool that you need. Right. And those tubes, I mean, the back pressure you get out of them, I can articulate these calls with those tubes so much better than I can any other tube that I've ever tried. Right. Yeah, I totally agree. You know, we sit here and we're talking about the consistency of our –

our calls and you know how you guys did today and honestly it's you know it's all development and it comes from like-minded people working together

to develop some of these calls, right? To come up with some of these calls because what we're ultimately, and, you know, if I'm wrong, I'm wrong. Ultimately, at the very end of the day, you got a tag in your pocket and you're trying to fill your tag. And what we're trying to do is cut that learning curve down for you guys. We're sitting here blowing at world championships. Tony, successful. Pat Latrelle, successful. His son Hunter is successful. But,

What was consistent today on stage was, I don't know why. Yeah, we did great today. There's a like-minded people that hunt and get out there and hear these animals. And they can make these same sounds with these same calls. And yeah, it takes practice.

No doubt about it. It takes practice. You have to hammer down and you have to practice. And with consistent practice comes consistent results. If you're going to archery hunt, it's going to take, whether you're shooting your bow, whether you're calling, it takes practice. And you got to put the time in. Absolutely. That's like I say, it's like everybody else is like, hey, have you shot your bow today? Have you shot your bow today? You know what I've been saying? You got to be called today.

Have you called today? I'm shooting my bow pretty good. Right, right. But I can't call a squirrel. You got 50% of it done. You know, you're missing a huge element to it, right? Yeah, man. You don't have to be the best caller, but it's like, you know, get some basic calls, you know, some location bug or whatever, some cow calls.

You know, just get those under your belt and that'll make a huge, you know, huge world of difference. But it does take some calling and not just shooting narrow. You're right. You're right. Now, earlier I asked a question and who was the pickiest? And it's funny because Eric pointed at himself and you felt like you were pretty picky on your call. Now, your call, I was pleasantly surprised. It was...

different, way different. Um, it's a little bit lighter latex than a Maverick and a little tight, a little tight stretch, but man, you blow that thing. Great. Yeah. Yeah. It's, it's, it's a, it's a great, it's a great call. I, I wanted a call that would be as universal as possible for anybody who would pick it up and use it along with myself. You know, I want to be able to put a diaphragm in and almost have it be, um,

effortless in a sense, you know, because sometimes, you know, you can have 10 different calls or, you know, before I had my own call, you maybe, you know, grab 10 calls a season or whatever, you know, and you try the different calls or whatever. And

You know, you had the human element into it, but you might have four or five. I'm like, ooh, that's a good one. Ooh, that's another good one. You start stacking them, you know, in your holder, like one, two, three, four, five, you know. And so I wanted something that was going to be as effortless as possible and easy to use, not just for myself, but anybody who were to pick it up and.

and use it as well. But no, it, it, it turned out great. I huge fan of the Maverick. And so, um, I, you know, wanted something very, you know, similar, similar to the Maverick, but just with a little bit of a tighter stretch on it. Cause you know, I move quite a bit of air, you know, across, you know, across the diaphragm too. So I thought that would be a good combination for. It's hard as you blow after blowing your, your reed.

as hard as you blow, I'm like, how does he not crack that over? It fits his style of calling. It's just perfect for him. It's perfect for him. Because if I blew as hard as I think you blow over that call, it would break over for me. Well, I think part of what makes that call break over sometimes, too, in addition to...

the amount of air that you put across that call is where you've got that diaphragm in your mouth. Yeah. You know, because for me, I probably run my call back further than most people do. And, you know, if I had that call further forward, uh,

it wouldn't work for me. So again, it's just, everybody's so different. Their palates are different. Their style of calling is different. You have to find that one call. And Eric, you did that, man. You make that call sound really good. Shoot, man. Thank you. I throw that call in my mouth and I sound, I almost sound like a nilk too. Well, when Phelps asked me, he's like, what are we going to call these calls? And I'm like, Team America.

F yeah. You know, I'm like, well, we can't go down that road. I'm like, team America. I'm like, how about the all American three pack? All American. Cause you look at, I look, look at these three men. I'm, I'm pleasure to spend some time with tonight and this weekend. Um, you guys are, you guys, they're pinning epitome of America. You know, we got Eric. Um, if you guys haven't seen Eric, how tall are you? Six, six, six, six, six. He's a large American. Um,

He played football at University of Washington. He works for the Army Corps of Engineers at a dam. He, you know, America. We got Tony Gilbertson. Tony has worked for Public Works getting the water to us, right? Water and sewage. That's right. For a long time. For how long? Over 30 years. 30 years.

30 years. This man's been getting clean water and getting rid of our sewage for 30 years, doing things right. You got Hodge. He's been coaching Olympic wrestlers in the army for how long? 21. 21 years. I'm like,

I just looked at you guys. I'm like, you guys are just, you're just all American guys. So if you look at the packaging, you're going to see the packaging. It completely looks nothing like the rest of our Phelps packaging other than you'll see our Phelps logo on it, but you see stars and stripes. Each diaphragm has stars and stripes on it. Um, why I couldn't be prouder of the calls you guys built. Um,

And I've been editing this video, working on it, you know. I've been working on it for a while. The hard to edit video. You know, I've been working my tail off putting this thing together. I'm trying to build this story out and to best express what you guys did. And you guys talked a little bit about how you guys connected and you gelled and you worked together and you –

As I'm combing through this, all this content, we've got like 16 or 17 days and two cameras and I got so much content I'm combing through, but all of it is like you guys respectfully listening to each other, making game plans. Like, what do you think? What do you think? Yeah. Yeah. You know, making these, these game plans as a team, it was really, it was really cool to see. You don't always see that. It's not easy. Like I've always said,

You can spend 10 days in the mountains with somebody you consider a friend, and you may hate them at the end of that 10 days. It will expose personalities. It will expose desires. It will expose expectations. It will expose the truth. It will drag that truth out of people, good or bad.

And you guys were out there for more than that. You guys were out there for a while. 15, 16, 15 days. And at the end, how do you feel about it? Do you guys, are you guys like, I don't know, Jermaine, he's okay. And Eric, he's all right, but I don't know if I'd hunt with him again. Tell me, coming out of this, what do you guys think?

No, it was good. I definitely enjoyed my time with these guys. I really, really enjoyed it because, like I said, I got to spend quality time with them out in the woods, you know, not just at the different events or, you know, competitions. But, you know, got to share a campfire with these guys, you know, got up at 4 a.m. in the morning, you know, with these guys, made breakfast, you know.

uh, drop, you know, in and out of canyons, you know, with these guys. And, uh, we learned, we learned a lot, you know, a lot of new country that I had never seen or never hunted. Um, so there was a lot of good lessons taken away, uh,

maybe some things that we would change and do differently. But, I mean, overall, it was a fantastic experience. I really enjoyed myself. Yeah. I agree 100%. I would definitely hunt with either one of you guys again. Hopefully both. Either one or both, absolutely. It's, you know, you said it, Dirk, when you said that, you know, you can be friends, but you go out and spend time

10 days or more or whatever, even a week in the woods with people. And if you, if you can't come together and agree on things and, and give each other, cut, cut each other some slack, give each, you know, give it, give each other some grace and just say, you know what? I know this is how I'm used to hunting, but I'm going to hunt the way Jermaine wants to hunt today, or I'm going to hunt the way that Eric wants to hunt today. And, you know, I'm, I'm the kind of guy that I just love being out there.

I don't, you know, I enjoy being in the elk woods. I enjoy hearing elk bugles. I enjoy the camaraderie. Yes, I enjoy it when we're successful, but I'll tell you, you know, a lot of people put way too much weight on notching that tag to consider the hunt to be successful. And, I mean, like I said, I knew you guys for a couple of years, and

And that couple of years was just meeting each other at the world's, you know, spending a couple of days with you guys. You know, you learn more about people when you're out in the woods and you're working together as a team to accomplish a goal. And, you know, we did that and we did it well. And yes, there's probably some things that looking back on it, we'd probably do different.

But that's, you know, that's hunting. Yep. That's how you grow, right? Absolutely. Yep. Absolutely. What do you think, Jermaine? Well, these guys, you don't really know. You don't know until you go. I always keep this motto. Is it elk over that hill? Well, you ain't going to know unless you go. And you got to try it out, right? And it's like any food, right?

that don't look that good and then you taste it and you're like, that was amazing. My point is, is that I already knew these guys for a couple years. My philosophy was, is I'm not going to force them to hunt like me. Let's work together. Let's kind of figure this all out. And it started gelling right away. It was like, let's go here, let's go here, let's split up, let's do this, let's

And we had countless of encounters, some for the best, some for the worst. Who cares? But at the same time, you're learning each other. And, dude, it was eye-opener because my style, you guys, both of y'all got it now. My style is super aggressive. Super aggressive, go down, I don't care. But then when you get up there in North Idaho country and like,

Tony told me one day, he was like, man, I ain't going down there. And they were bugling me down there, and I was like, I ain't going down there either. Well, it was because... I was like, no. You're learning. It was because it was getting on into the evening. Yeah, it's perfect. We were back in their ways. It's perfect. And what happened? We started chasing bugles. Yep. I'm thinking, okay, we'll do it. Jermaine wants to go after these bulls, we'll do it. We get down this mountain...

The trail on Onyx disappears. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. We continue down, and pretty soon we're looking down over this cliff.

After we slid down on our butts for I don't know how many. Over a cliff. Yeah. I mean, that was the sketchy part that Jermaine was talking about earlier. There was no hiking. It was sliding and grabbing. Oh, my gosh. And it's like, okay, I'm going to slide on my butt another 20 yards this next tree and hope I catch it. And then Jermaine's like, I'm going to go. He's like, you guys hang out here.

We're like, okay, I'm going to go down and check and see what we got. Because you can kind of tell it cliffed out. Don't come down this way. Jermaine crawls down there. He goes, I'm going to go down there. I'm going to see what it looks like. Okay, we'll hang out here. And you see Jermaine looking over like this, left, right.

And you hear him turn his head and he goes, don't go left. I go, okay, copy that. Don't go left. Go right. Push right. So we, you know, we pushed right and we got down to where we were cliffed out. And so I told the guys, you know, hang out here. I'm going to see if we can get down, you know, right here. And so I went down to the right and I'd found kind of, I mean, a path. I mean, the easiest way down, but.

We basically slid on our butts the rest of the way down to the creek. That was brutal. It was sketchy, yeah. And going up the other side. Oh, man, yeah. That was the worst 200 yards of my life. Digging your toes into the hillside. Grabbing on trees. Grabbing on branches just to pull yourself up. It was nasty. It was not fun. Pulling each other back onto the trail. Got back to the trail right at about dark. Yep. We sure did. Wolves howling in the background. Yep.

Now, I will say, after you guys got back and kind of the dust had settled and maybe some of the pain had gone away, Jermaine texted me. He's like, hey, listen. Next time, I'll pick the state and the area to hunt and shit. I did. I did. I believe it. I believe it. I did. I did. Do you like the spot I picked out for you guys? I said, hey, yeah, I texted exactly that.

Hey, how about I pick the state in the spot we hunt? You know how many people said to me when they asked where I went hunting in Idaho? I told them up in North Idaho. You know what their answer was? Their response? Why'd you do that? Well, those are the only tags available. So I'm going to tell you this. I left there. We got done with our hunt.

Me and Tony had gassed up at the last, the gas station. And we kind of went down maybe four or five hours and then kind of split parts. You was going down to do Heroes. No, Hunt of a Lifetime. Hunt of a Lifetime with Elk 101 and stuff like that. So I was like, all right. I'm thinking the whole way home. I'm like, man. I said, what went wrong? What went right? Kind of thing. And I'm like, man.

Really? Nothing really went wrong. We probably could have stayed up in the higher country after some of those other bulls that we were after. And that might have been like, like the icing on the cake. But to be honest, like you really don't know. You really don't know. It's like calling. Right. And, and going back on some of the stuff that, that we've kind of talked about earlier is yeah. Yeah.

You don't have to be a Tony or Eric or Jermaine Hines or Dirk Durham to call them bulls because there's been many stories where you can sit down and talk with me. I'll tell you stories that I had bulls I called in that didn't sound like bulls. And just because, you know, we've been through the trials and tributes of, you know, our

our first hunt together, not the last hunt, our first hunt together, it's growing pains. And you really have to, you know, hash out some of this with your hunting partners. But what I will tell you is this, cow call, can you at least cow call? So if you've got a partner that helps you cow call or something to contribute, your success rate goes way up.

Well, it's dramatic. That's right. There's a difference between calling, you know, calling in competitions, you know, trying to figure out what the judge is like and calling out. Cause I mean, there's been times where I messed up bugles and I've had bulls just eat that up. Like, Oh man, who is this guy? I like that. Yeah. I had a couple of conversations today about the same stuff. I'm like,

He was telling me his story. I'm like, hey, you was hunting by yourself, weren't you? This is what you did kind of wrong. So, you know, honestly, we went through this hunt in Idaho and it was fantastic. Honestly, the only thing that I would probably do different is I'd probably have an e-bike, which I got now, but I didn't have the end. I might have had a dirt bike with me.

Because them jokers, man, they travel some, you know, you got to hike in three miles or something like that. So stuff like that. Well, guys, I can't tell you how much I appreciate you coming on the podcast tonight. I've had a great time catching up this weekend. I can't wait to release this film.

um, and share it with everybody. Um, I don't know what I'm going to call it. We're going to call it America. We're going to call it, um, all American film, like super, super friends. I don't know. I'm thinking about like, maybe you guys could like put on some like a superhero outfits and we'll get some, do some photography done. Maybe at least Photoshop it. And like, you just got to figure out who, what superhero you want to be. Jermaine could be the flash, uh,

Oh, Jesus. Eric could be the Hulk. What would you want to be? Batman? Captain America. Captain America. Captain America. Yeah. Anyway, I don't know. Captain America. I don't know what the thumbnail is going to be. I don't know what the title is going to be, but...

I can't wait to share it with you guys. And I can't wait to share these calls with you guys. I think you're going to like them. I think they're going to be a big hit. And yeah, who knows? But thanks. Thanks a lot for coming on tonight. Well, thank you, Dirk. Thanks for having us. Yeah, thanks, Kent.

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