Welcome to the backcountry hunting podcast. I'm Joseph von Benedict, your host.

And today I've got a guest with me that I'm really excited about. This is Joe Kennedy, my longtime hunting buddy.

We've been in some major scrapes together. We've had some good times together.

What we want to talk about today is this.

Sometimes if you're not careful, what you love can kill you. And El-Kunning definitely falls into that category.

Sometimes you find yourself in some rough country, gnarly circumstances and if you

don't react right you don't have the right equipment and the right skills and the right mindset

You can find yourself in a pickle so

Joe Kennedy I grew up hunting with him and his brothers. My dad was a big gun guy, but he didn't hunt.

And I owe a lot of the skills and experience I gained during my teenage years to Joe and his dad, Jeff Kennedy,

who is one of the best backcountry hunters I know. Joe at one point got himself into a pickle down in New Mexico.

He was hunting with another good buddy of ours and they were hunting an area they didn't know real well and

Joe made a mistake going in. Tell us about what you expected when you went

into that hunt Joe. Well that was a good hunt.

I look back at that as an opportunity

and also a near-death experience.

Let me tell you what happened. and also a near death experience.

Let me tell you what happened.

My good buddy Derek and I, he's an elk enthusiast.

They don't get more enthusiastic about Elk than Derek.

And I'm pretty enthusiastic about Elk.

We'd drew some New Mexico tags and we were down there stomping around and we couldn't find

...