Jim Miller Hunts More Than Just Wins

“My grandfather was a butcher in the Navy, so I was able to learn a little bit from him,” Miller said. “But my brothers and I didn't have an early start in hunting. My father, they were pretty much dirt floor poor, so it was hunting to feed the family, and he grew up with it. My brothers and I grew up with the stories of it. We were enthralled with it. And once my oldest brother got his driver's license, that's when we got our hunting licenses because we had to go and take the course. I shot my first deer when I was 17 years old.”

Since then, it’s become a bigger part of his life, and while he’s self-effacing in terms of his skills in the kitchen, check out some of the meals on his Instagram account, and they could make the pickiest eater get on board.

“Food has always been a big part of my life and my family life,” he said. “I come from a family of really great cooks, and I consider myself the worst in the family when it comes right down to it. (Laughs) I think that I'm probably the most well-rounded. It's one of those jack of all trades, master of none type things. Both of my brothers - Daniel and Michael - they're really, really good. But it's always been one of those things - there's always food, it's always around food, it's always around cooking and preparing, and everybody says the kitchen's always the place for parties and stuff like that, and that's totally the way it's always been in my family.”

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What Miller will admit is that while he’s not the best cook in the family, he’s probably the best – or as he puts it, “most successful” hunter in the Miller clan, which makes him quite popular in November.

“Thanksgiving is always my favorite holiday because it means that everybody's cooking,” he said. “And it's centered around preparing and sharing. I happen to be the most successful hunter out of the family, so that's my contribution usually that I bring wild game to the mix. This last Thanksgiving, I brought a wild game gumbo with andouille sausage that I made from black bear that I shot, I put in some pheasants that I had shot, and my son and I did a little squirrel hunting, and we threw some squirrel in there just for s**ts and giggles.”

Yes, squirrel.

“They're a little tough,” said Miller, who admits a little switch in preparation might have changed that result. So yeah, this might not be for everybody, but Miller isn’t interested in arguing over it. If you want to have a conversation, that’s a different matter, and when you do talk to him about it, it’s a fascinating chat. Why else would we be talking about food when Miller is looking to take the momentum from his back-to-back knockouts of Erick Gonzalez and Nikolas Motta into a fight where he can not only even the score with Cerrone – who beat him in 2014 – but break his tie with “Cowboy” and Andrei Arlovski for most wins in UFC history?

Because it’s an interesting topic, especially in this day and age of overly processed foods and meat prices shooting through the roof. And while Miller is no preacher, he is generous with his knowledge on the matter.

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“We sacrifice our health for convenience,” he said. “If we're traveling, I fall victim to it. I eat stuff that I know that I shouldn't eat and I know that's gonna make me feel gross. And then when I get home, we cook primarily from whole foods. It's a very simple way of cooking in my house - a basic protein, if I have some wild game, we'll have that, and then a majority of the time, it's some broccoli, roasted bell peppers or asparagus, and we'll throw in a starch of some sort. It's very clean stuff, I know that it helped me get over Lyme disease, and I feel like it's helped me continue my career as well.”

But what about the big question…how do the four Miller kids feel about this whole thing?

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“My kids are great,” he said. “They have their picky moments. My 10-year-old son, Wyatt, he will eat anything, and he will out eat most adults. (Laughs) As a four-year-old, he would eat anything; there was never an issue. The other three, you get some pushback and stuff like that here and there. There are things that they don't like, but they know that I'm a hunter and that I spend time doing it and I enjoy doing it. They know it's part of our lifestyle.”

I may even try venison now, though that comes with a disclaimer from Miller.

“When I was a kid, I didn't like it, either.”