Joe Rogan Experience #2489 - Ryan Bingham

TL;DR

Joe Rogan and Ryan Bingham bond over wilderness survival, ranching life, hunting adventures, and wildlife reintroduction controversies across the American West.

Key Points

• 1.Ryan Bingham played a beloved smaller role on Yellowstone. He worked only one or two days a week on set, spending the rest of his time fly fishing and exploring the Montana wilderness near the West Fork area.
• 2.Bingham attended a six-week hunting guide school in Montana called Royal Tine Outfitters. Only six students enrolled, covering wilderness first aid, leather work, horse shoeing, fly fishing, entomology, and fire-building in backcountry conditions.
• 3.A fire-building drill at the guide school became a defining moment. A student from Alaska instantly ignited dead pine needles with a lighter in seconds, while others from drier climates struggled — highlighting how regional knowledge matters.
• 4.Rogan recounts a grueling six-day hunting trip in Alaska with Steve Rinella and others. It rained every day, they couldn't find deer, and the moisture was inescapable even inside tents — but they started a fire using Fritos as kindling.
• 5.Fritos work remarkably well as emergency fire-starting kindling. Their high oil content causes them to burn like candles, staying lit long enough to ignite wet wood — a trick Rogan used successfully in rainy Alaska.
• 6.Both men grew up doing hard manual labor that shaped their work ethic. Bingham stacked hundreds of hay bales in 110-degree barns during college, while Rogan spent a summer installing fiberglass attic insulation with no safety equipment.
• 7.Bingham credits the Austin and Hill Country community for sustaining his music career. He says he wouldn't have the career he has without their support of songwriters, and he's in the process of moving back to Texas from Topanga Canyon, LA.
• 8.Yellowstone's popularity caused horse prices to skyrocket. Trail horses that once sold for around $5,000 now fetch $50,000, reflecting the show's massive cultural influence on interest in cowboy and ranch life.
• 9.Remy Warren, Bingham's neighbor during Yellowstone filming, is an elite mountain hunter. Warren ran back to camp from a Hawaii axis deer hunt on foot — carrying his pack — and beat the truck there by half an hour as part of his workout.
• 10.Axis deer on Lanai, Hawaii, were a gift to King Kamehameha from India in the 1800s. There are now 30,000 deer on the island versus only 3,000 people, hunted 365 days a year with no season, yet the population still can't be controlled.
• 11.Axis deer are extraordinarily fast due to co-evolution with tigers. Rogan has slow-motion video of an axis deer at 80 yards hearing an arrow traveling 275 feet per second and fully evading it — the arrow landed a foot behind the animal.
• 12.California approved a controversial plan to eradicate 2,000 non-native mule deer from Santa Catalina Island. Introduced in the 1930s for hunting, they are now considered invasive by the Catalina Island Conservancy for disrupting native plants and spreading fire-prone grasses.
• 13.Wild pigs are a growing ecological crisis in Texas. They breed at six months old, produce up to six piglets per litter with multiple litters per year, and have overtaken most of rural Texas — originally introduced by European settlers arriving by boat.
• 14.A wolf born in Plumas County was detected in Los Angeles County for the first time in over a century. It traveled more than 370 miles, and wildlife officials now estimate at least 60 wolves live in California after one crossed from Oregon in 2011.
• 15.Colorado's wolf reintroduction program drew sharp criticism from Rogan and Bingham. Wolves captured in Oregon specifically for killing livestock were relocated to Colorado ranches — including one belonging to Rogan's friend — where they immediately began killing cattle again.