Mountain Men : $8000 isn't chicken feed

To open last week's episode (Nemesis) the narrator stated, "Today Tom and his brother Jack return to another day's work on their twelve mile-long river line which has, so far, produced $8000 worth of fur."

Fast forward to this week's episode (The Sting of Defeat) and Tom is moaning about his meager haul after trapping for a month in Idaho and the narrator states Oar is trying to break even.

Script writers screwed up unless $8000 in one month is considered break even money. If that is true, Oar needs to review his business plan.

My opinion is that breaking even for Tom is paying everything including taxes, gas, insurance, utilities, etc. whether it is to do with the trapping business or the household in general. I doubt that 8,000 dollars is a lot of money for somebody living off the grid when figuring the aforementioned expenses never mind a vehicle payment or expenditure. 5,000 dollars does not buy much of a pickup truck and most of these guys no doubt have one of those whether shown or not. I doubt Rich takes Wilbur everyplace and would suspect he has additional transportation. These guys do what they do because the love doing it versus getting an economic return that includes money to live a secure retirement. Some have a better situation than others when you consider Marty most likely will get retirement benefits from the State of Alaska for his "day" job and Eustace cashes in his upland property.

You're right, the cast all have outside employment or are retired. Beasley and Hawk earn their living by appearing on "survivor" reality TV shows. Conway runs a non-profit education center. Oar supplements his retirement income by attending rendezvous events to sell buckskin clothing, knives, primitive bows, and furs. Meierotto is a smoke jumper. I'm guessing Lewis' main occupation is renting his dogs out for big game hunting with the occasional job performing wild animal control for the state.

Which makes the endless refrains of "woe is me" and "danger around every corner" particularly annoying.