Latest / Wired To Hunt Podcast / Wired To Hunt Podcast #158: Sitka Gear’s Matt McCormick and Garrett Long Talk Whitetail Stories, Photography and Conservation

Transcript

Wired To Hunt Podcast #158: Sitka Gear’s Matt McCormick and Garrett Long Talk Whitetail Stories, Photography and Conservation · Wired To Hunt Podcast

• 0:02
  Speaker 1: Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast, your home for
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: deer hunting news, stories and strategies, and now your host,
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: Mark Kenyon. Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast. I'm
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: your host, Mark Kenyan, and this is episode number one
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: tan the show. We are joined by a couple of
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: my friends out in Montana sit CAD Gears, Garrett Long
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: and Matt McCormick, and we're discussing some of their most
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: memorable white tail hunting stories, photography and conservation. All right, folks,
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast, brought to you
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: by Sitkad Gear. And today in the show, we're gonna
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: be joined by my friends Garrett Long and Matt McCormick
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: from SITKA Gear and Garrett may nages Sick Goes conservation
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: related activities and Matt manages the Sick Ambassador program along
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: with being a professional photographer. And this chat actually was
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: recorded last week while I was in bos in Montana
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: for sit goaes Converge event. And when we get those
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: guys on, they'll give you the full scoop on what
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: that event was all about. But as far as the
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: conversation we had, um, I think you're really gonna enjoy it.
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: We we got into some pretty entertaining white tail hunting
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: stories that that I really enjoyed, and we also taught
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: conservation and photography and a whole lot more. So it's
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: gonna be some good stuff. You're even probably gonna hear
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: some shotgun blass in the background of this one, I think,
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: because we were recording this episode during the range day,
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: which was an outside event, and there's a whole lot
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: of shooting and other activities going on, so made for
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: a pretty unique podcast setting, I guess. But before we
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: get to that, I did want to catch up with
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: that man you heard laughing. He is my good buddy,
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: my co host, and a Yukon Cornelius impersonator, Dan Johnson.
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: You're kind of a butthole sometimes, but uh, you know,
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: you know how I used to talk to you about
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: you having like weak facial hair. Yeah, I saw a
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: picture the other day and you're not so much a
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: rookie picture anymore. You're starting to get past that too.
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: I'm not gonna say a wily veteran yet. He knows
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: how to throw the you know, the wicked sliders. But
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: you know you got it, your your your gotee game
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: is coming up a couple of notches. I appreciate you
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: saying that. Every day I'm just willing it into existence,
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: hoping that please, just one more whisker you do you
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: do any just for man treatments? No, but I've wondered
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: if that would work. Yeah, I got ways to go.
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: But but slowly, but surely, I'm I'm becoming a man, Dan,
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: that's happening. So, yeah, how you've been? You know, you
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: asked me that every week, and it's pretty My life
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: at times is boring. It's uh, it's full bore or
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: it's pretty slow and uh, I don't know. Since the
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: last time we talked, it's been full borre, husband, father duty,
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: and not so much white tail related stuff. But I
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: got a date finally scheduled the weekend, the weekend after
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: the fourth of July. Uh is going to be one
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: of my work weekends where I get to go back
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: down to the farm, set up my tree stands, set up,
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: change my trail cameras and um ah do all you know,
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: just do a lot of work basically that needs to
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: be done. Nice, that's good you got in the calendar.
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: Lockdown definitely gonna happen. So sometimes you have to do,
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: because it's so easy for life just to all of
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: a sudden pop up and you've got this thing about
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: that thing, and then before you know it, all the
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: things you thought you're gonna get done in the month
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: of June, all of a sudden, June's gone. I can
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: even relate to that. I feel like where the time go.
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: There's so much to do still, So I feel like
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: I feel like there's some days when we get on
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: the podcast and like even before we start recording, I'm like,
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: how you doing? And there's those days when you're like pissed,
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: there's like the days, there's like the days where you're
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: really stressed about something they having to work. There's the
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: days when you're like super jacked about deer, and then
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: there's the days like today where you I just feel
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: like you feel like like exasperated, like just like kind
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: of tired. Is that how you're feeling? Am I picking
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: up the right thing, dude? I'll tell you what. Um Yeah,
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: I'm a little tired, but it's a good kind of
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: tired because I got um, I don't know, I had
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: a really fun weekend with a family. We had our
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: annual wild game feed and um, we basically ate all
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: the animals that we killed and caught throughout the two
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: thousand and sixteen year. You know, we caught, we got fish,
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: you know, bluegill, walleye, bass, uh, cropp ease, we ate,
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: we ate deer, we ate turkey, um, and so we
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: ate those Those were the main dishes this year. In
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: the past, we've had turtle. I guess we did have
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: frog legs this year. Um. We've had some pretty unique
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: things over the over the course of some of these
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: wild game feeds. But it's a family tradition now, and
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: it's just an awesome time for the family to get
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: together and just have a good time. Well, I forgot
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: to put the phone on right anyway, but luckie Rookie
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: moved Dan. Yeah, I know. I'm sorry, man, I all
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: the editing that's gonna have to happen now because of that.
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: Oh we're keeping that. I like to embarrass you. Um.
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: How did you guys cook that venicone? Um? It was
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: in a We cooked it real slow and some olive oil.
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: I believe there was some karaoki in it, and uh
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: what else? I think some balsamic vinegar. Kind of a
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: mixture of all that stuff and it turned out really tender.
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: We cooked it for like eight hours, so yeah, it was.
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: It turned out really good, like a roast kind of yep,
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: it was. It was a couple of big roasts and
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: uh some I don't even know what they were really
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: just packaged up through it in there with a whole
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: bunch of them. I even think there was a I
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: know this is a cardinal sin, but I even think
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: there was a backstrap in there. But it was. It
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: was delicious though. Man, it turned out really well, that's cool.
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: That's fly together and enjoy some wild game. Was that you? Yeah?
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: Was it your buck or was it? I think some
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: of it was. Some of it was my buck and
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: some of it was some deer from my from my stepdad.
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: So yeah, it was uh like a hodgepodge of all
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: the deer that we killed throughout the two thousand sixteen.
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: So that's awesome and fry and it was all I
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: love fish. How the fishing go? We had you know,
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: my uh my family owns a pond. It's just maybe
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: one or two acres. It's not huge, but it's enough
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: for everybody to get out there and throw a couple
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: of lines. We caught a lot of a lot of
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: blue gills, and that's something fun where you know, you
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: just throw a line out and let the kids reel
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: it in when the bober goes under. So basically that's
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: what that's all. That all that we did there. It's
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: pretty fun. Kids enjoy that. Oh yeah, yeah, I saw,
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: I saw you had the little man out shooting a bow. Yeah,
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: holding maybe I I was doing it with my daughter
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: and she can there's this bow. If I help her
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: get it past the heaviest part, she can hold it
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: at full draw and then I'll hold the I'll hold
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: the riser grip and her hand will be underneath mine
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: and she'll be able to let it go. And she
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: really liked doing that. Right, there's still some help. She's
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: not only enough to pull it back and knock all
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: that stuff by herself. But uh, it was just kind
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: of like an introduction. We were at about five yards
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: and uh, it was just fun. I saw in her
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: eyes that she really liked it, and she asked about
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: it again last night. So it might be time to
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: get a small kid's bow for my daughter. Heck, yeah,
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: my my niece, I think she's six or seven now,
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: and we got her bow for her birthday last year,
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: I think, like a little um, a little kid's bow. Um.
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: And then she really has gotten it into it. And
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: then for Christmas we got her like a nice like
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: block target and she like whenever I come over, like
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: first thing she does, she runs upstairs, she grabs her
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: quiver and her bow. When she comes out, she's like,
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: can we shoot? Can we shoot? Um? So it's been
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: so cool like seeing her really get into it. And
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: she practices when I'm gone, so when I come back,
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: she's like, I'm better now, Mark, I'm better now. So
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: it's so much fun. It's super cool. Uh. So I'm excited.
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: I think that she's got she's It's interesting. It'll be
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: interesting to see if what kind of interest she has
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: in hunting, because she really loves shooting right now, and
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: she also loves animals, like she's a big animal lover.
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: She's always like finding little birds or a mole or
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: something and like trying to save its life and not
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: kind of thing. Um, So it might be a little
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: bit tough for her, the idea of of hunting an animal,
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: but um, but you know, getting out their shootings to
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: start and I think, you know, I've always tried to
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: talk about what I'm doing and how I'm doing it
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: and helping you understand that. And that definitely her her
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: older brother, who is the one I've been taking up
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: turkey hunting and stuff. He's really, um, I think, showing
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: an interest. So I'm excited to be able to have
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: this opportunity to expose these kids to this. And uh man,
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: I can see, like that's what gets me so excited
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: about being a parent someday is just being able to
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: dabble with this with my nephew and nieces. Um, I
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: can't imagine how cool that's going to be as a
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: as a father. So I envy you in that, Dan,
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: That's gonna be a lot of fun. It's kind of funny.
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: Last night, Um, I walk out and I got half
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: of my garden surrounded in chicken wire where the rabbits
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: can't get into it. And then last night I walk
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: out my back door and there's two rabbits to the
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: part that's not and they chewed some of my beans down,
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: and I go, Ava, that was rabbits eight the green
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: beans you help plant and she's like, Dad, we need
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: to shoot him with your bow. And I'm just like,
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: like a little part of my heart just grew ten
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: times that day. You know, she's learning. I know, I know,
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: and I'm like, well, the neighbors are out, so we
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: can't do it right now. But but oh man, that
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: was just like, you know what, that's cool. That's cool
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: that she said that, and uh, you know, and then
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: I said, well, Eva, if we if we, you know,
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: I had to tell her, you know, if we shoot
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: shoot it with a rabbit, it will be dead. You know,
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: You've got to teach him that part of it too.
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: And she's like, oh, but we'll have green beans, and
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: I'm just like, yeah, we will and rabbit and rabbits
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: do and right amen. So, speaking of your garden, keep
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: that garden looking good, because um I want you to
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: have that garden really doing well for this fall, um
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: and next year. Even because um I posted on Facebook
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: this weekend some bad news. UM. You know the news
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: you saw. UM I very surprisingly um did not draw
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: my Iowa tag. I've been able to get this tag
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: um on this year for now, you know, six years
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: or something like that. I've come to expect being able
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: to get it with this number of points, and me
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: and all my buddies have been able to get it
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: with this number of points every year. Um, but this
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: year we didn't. So I guess a lot more people
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: are applying up there, and that's kind of a bummer.
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: But someone suggested someone on Facebook suggested that I should
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: just move to Iowa and that you, Dan could build
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: an addition on your house and I could live there.
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: So that's kind of my game plan. Now I'm moving
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: to Iowa in Dan's add on. You and me. We
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: could sit on your nice little pretty table on the
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: deck with the privacy fence behind us, and we could
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: record a podcasts and we could share a garden. Um,
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: so you're saying, yeah, yeah, yeah, so that that's a yes.
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: Do you agree to this? Oh no, I've honestly just
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: been ignoring everything you've said. I just stopped listening after
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: move in because that's not cool. Well, I mean, hypothetically,
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: yeah it could be, but let me talk to my Hey, honey, Um,
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: Mark and his wife want to move in, you know,
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: like my wife would say, yep, that's fine, but they
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: gotta help. They gotta help change the diapers, they gotta
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: get up in the middle of the night, they gotta
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: you know, like they gotta go pick the kids up. There.
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: I would love for you to like try to say
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: that with a straight face to your wife, Like try
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: to act like it was a serious thing. Like Mark,
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: like business isn't going well from Mark, Like things have
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: been really tough. They're gonna lose the house. He's wondering
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: if they could move in, like if they could build
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: off the garage. I know this is tough there, but
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: for a good friend, maybe we can make it work.
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: And just see what she does. You know what I
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: should try to do is try to record it. Um,
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: I gotta I got a little recorder that I can't
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: record it, and like kind of said it like I
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: act like I'm playing with it, right, and I'll be like, hey,
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: I need to run something by you. You're gonna think
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: this is crazy, but I offered, you know, I'll see what.
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: I'll see what they what they what she says? That
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: would be pretty hilarious. I betual there's an apt work ball.
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: I was gonna say, we might have some bleeps in there.
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: Oh man, that would be funny. But yeah, man, I
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: didn't get my Eyowa tags, so I am not going
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: to be coming out this year. Well I'm bumplabow deer
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: and Iowa really anyway. Yeah, that's what they say. That's
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: what they say. So I'm kind of I'm kind of
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: figuring out what alternatives that have. If I'm just gonna
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: focus on focus on what I got going on in Michigan,
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: Ohio or you know, because I do have I do
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: have multiple spots in Michigan. I've got you know, two
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: tags here too, yep. So I might just spend more
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: time on the public land stuff and the northern Michigan
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: property um or maybe heck, I don't know, maybe try
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: brand new state. So we'll see. I gotta do some
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: do some thinking about it. But next year yet, yeah,
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: Iowa two thousand eighteen. Yeah. The only thing I really
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: have to plan for in the uh, you know, the
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: next like a year from now, in between in between
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: now and six weeks actually now, in six weeks after
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: my wife gives birth is when I'm going to schedule
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: of a sectomy. Yeah. You gotta get that done, dude. Yeah,
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: You've got slow things down on the whole baby front. Yeah,
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: I need yeah, le Yeah. Is is everything all good
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: on that front? By the way, Absolutely absolutely awesome, awesome.
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: I'm glad to hear, and I want to know about
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: my my ship's boring. Mark. I'm just I'm just a dad, right,
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: I'm just I'm a dad of two with a pregnant wife.
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: You know. It's like we have conversations like this, Um,
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: did you take change Max? But no, I thought you did. Know.
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: I thought I thought you said you were going to
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: No I did, I didn't did Did you want to
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: do it? Well, I'm kind of busy, right, how can
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: you do it? Yeah? I guess, but you know you
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: are just sitting in a chair. Well you're just doing that. Okay,
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: Well I guess I'll do it so we don't argue. Okay,
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: that sounds good. You know, like did you stop and
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: get milk? And I didn't know we're out of milk?
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: Like conversations like that, riveting, riveting stuff, right, right, So
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: what do you want to know? I want to know
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: about your Montana trip, dude. It's pretty awesome. Um, so
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: Sick put on this year for the first time. This
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: is what they called it, converge, Sica converge, And basically
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: this was like, um, and I won't go into too much.
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: I can't even explain it very well. But the guys
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: when we when we get to that interview they explain
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: it better than I could. But in short, basically, this
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: is like an appreciation event, UM for their guides and
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: outfitters that have been working with SICA for a long time.
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: So brought together I don't know several hundred people. I
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: think UM that you know our white tailed guides, waterfowl guides,
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: big game guides, you know Alaska, the Rockies, all over
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: the place, and just had a whole bunch of different
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: events or seminars um. There were like feedback sessions, there
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: was you know, insight in the new products, and then
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: there was a whole bunch of different like kind of
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: um just for fun type things. So there was a
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: range day like I mentioned where you could there was like, um,
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: the guys from Matthews Archery were there and there was
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: a setup to do all sorts of three D shooting.
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: And then there was like one of those foam target shooters.
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: You ever seen one of these? Oh my gosh, that
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: was so much fun. They shoot these foam foam targets
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: and you gotta shoot it with like a little flu
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: flu arrow. UM. So they had those set up. They
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: had UM they had a rifle range set up where
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: you could test out some different guns. There was like
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: a ranging setup where you they had this competition going
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: We had to try to guess the range of things
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: just by looking through binos and spotting scopes, and then
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: guests like how far are these different three D targets are? Um.
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: There was a clay shooting set up. Um, I can't
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: remember what else, whole bunch of stuff like that. So
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: there was that going on, um, and then there was, oh, shoot,
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: what else do we do? There's this whole guide games
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: thing where they had a whole series of different events
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: going on throughout the week, So included some of those
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: things that range day, and then there was like kind
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: of like an Iron Chef type cookoff event with wild
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: game one day. There were um some events that we
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: did on the last day where there was like a
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: waterfowl decoy type competition. We had to set up decoys,
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: tear him down and do all of these different things.
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: There was like a backpack obstacle course. You had to
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: do this whole obstacle course with a forty pound pack
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: on your back and like do all sort of different things. Um.
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: So eventually all the different guides and outfits are a
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: bunch of them participated in this like weeklong series of
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: different challenges, and then there was some like pretty legit
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: prize packages like you like the winner got a new gun,
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: a new bow, um, like a rifle shotgun, a bow,
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: a full sick of gear system. Um like all YETI
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: cooler is like a whole bunch of crazy stuff. It
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: was like thousands and thousands of thousands of dollars of
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: pretty sweet swag um. So yeah, a bunch of stuff
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: like that. There was like events at night, concerts, dinner, um,
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: so just a really cool gathering of super serious hunters
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: all getting together to um kind of celebrate our shared
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: passion and for SIKA to kind of give back to
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: these people, um that have been you know, important parts
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: of their of their community. So it was fun. I
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: got to get some fishing in on the last day
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: all that, yeah, which was awesome. Matt McCormick, who was
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: going to be here with us on the podcast in
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: the second, myself and him, and then Donnie Wilson who
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: was a guest of ours on the podcast last fall.
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: I don't know if you remember that one um from Ohio.
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: We went and we floated the Madison River and it
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: was just just stupid, gorgeous, absolutely beautiful, and um didn't
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: catch a ton of fish, but had fun hooked into
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: a couple of really big ones that I lost, which sucked. Um,
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: But it was just a great day in the water.
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: So it was a busy. It was a busy trip
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: out there, a quick trip, but I thoroughly enjoyed it.
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: And every time I come back from that state, I
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: just wonder why I don't live there. Yeah, A yeah.
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: I had a day last week where I got home
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: and instead of doing like podcast work, I went on
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: Google Maps and just looked at the images in the
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: mountains in random states. Yeah. I can understand why you
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: might do that. It's uh, it's easy to sit in
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: day dream. I got a friend of mine who's out
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: there actually right now with this family touring like Yellowstone
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: and Grand Titon. He went to like Badlands National Park
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: and um in South Dakota, and so he spent like
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: three weeks with his two sons and wife out there,
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: and it sounds that they are just having a blast.
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: And uh, I think one of these years you gotta
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: get the family out there to do that too. I
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: think we're gonna try next year. Man, We're gonna trying. Yep,
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: that'll be awesome. Baby's born, and um, we'll see. If
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: we can't do like a quick trip to I don't know,
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: we might have to break it down and drive like
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: eight hours, stop driving another eight hours, you know, like
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: through the night so that the kids are sleep in
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: the car. But we'll figure it out. I think that's
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: the goal. Anyway, that'll be that'll be cool, and then
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: I'll never come back. We'll see out there then yeah, absolutely, absolutely. Well,
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: I don't know, is there was like I'm blanking, there's
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: something else we're gonna talk about, But does there anything
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: else you want to cover before we hoped to this conversation, Well,
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: did you want to talk about current events or did
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: you want to save that for another Did you want
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: to save that for another podcast? You know we can
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: we can touch on this. There was kind of um
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: and you know, I don't think either one of us
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: are really into like other hunter bashing. But at the
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: same time, I think there are examples of bad acts.
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: I am into poacher batching, yeah, and I think this
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: is one of those cases that that's being talked a
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: lot about right now on social media. So I think
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: I think because it's it's all the buzz right now,
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: it's probably worth at least touching on a little bit um.
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: And that's the case of this um uh. This is
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: Bill bus Puss I think is his name, m from
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: a whole bunch of different TV shows, and they run
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: a pretty large hunting company and there he was recently
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: convicted of some pretty serious poaching um allegations that I
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: think is just really disappointing to It's just it's it's
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: egregious the level of what they did. It's disappointed to
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: see from someone in the hunting media, and it gives
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: us all a bad name as hunters, let alone the
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: platform that he had, that this stuff is going out
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: to millions and millions different people. UM So I don't know.
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: I mean, I'm sure you're fiery about this right now,
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: Absolutely absolutely, I am. You know. Uh. This person is,
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: whether or they like it or not, is a is
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: a figurehead in the hunting community. And even those who
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: are outside of the hunting community, UM see something like
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: this and it ruins their impression of what hunting is
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: all about and what you know, being an ethical sportsman is.
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: And this guy ship on that in my opinion, And
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: and by doing that, uh he whether he whether he
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: likes it or not. In in some way, shape or form,
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: a somebody who was maybe thinking about becoming a hunter
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: is not going to become a hunter or be you know,
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: some some kid has to have a talk with his
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: mom or dad and and then that mom and dad
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: is going to have to explain to him that this
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: guy is a lawbreaker. He is not a true hunter,
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: he's not a true sportsman, and um, and that's that's sad. Yeah,
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: And I feel like, you know, there's a lot of
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: instances where someone a well known figure, um, gets convicted
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: of some kind of hunting violation and it seems like,
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: you know, okay, maybe this might have been just a mistake,
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: you know, And I can, I can. I look at
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: these and I try to take it then with a
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: grain of salt and realized, like you know, all of us,
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: like there are some pretty complicated regulations and and lots
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: of it's easy to maybe miss step a little bit here,
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: and they're not I can like give free passes a
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: little bit on and that when it's when it's a
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: sincere mistake and you you take you know, I've made
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: a mistake, and you pay your dues, and you do
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: whatever you have to do to to make up for
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: it and learn from it in the future. But I
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: think this situation was so like, um, so blatant that
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: it's something that that really got me just just so
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: disappointed that somebody would that would do this, that that had,
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: you know, the influence that I'm sure he had with
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: people because of his platform. I mean, as I understand
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: it from what I've read, they're out Elk Cunning on
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: a ranch and he was after this big Bowl and
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: he was shooting multiple times at this bowl and was
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: missing it and then ended up shooting and killing a
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: calf cow Elk. And then while he's on this they
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: had recorded videos. This is very clearly proven. They said, oh,
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: we gotta get rid of that, We gotta get rid
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: of that calf. Make sure to edit that out. And
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: then they ended up shooting that bowl eventually after shooting
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: like four different times and killing this calf, and they
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: dragged the calf into a ditch and hit it there
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: and left it and then took the bowl and just
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: went on their way. Um. And so that's want and
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: waste of game. It's irresponsible, I think, you know, just
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: firing off random shots into a herd of elk where
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: you might where you're killing another animal. Um. I mean
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: it's on a whole slew of things. It's just really, um,
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: a horrible example to be set. And uh man, we
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: just can't have that. We can't have it with any hunter,
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: let alone someone who's doing this and talking about it
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: to millions of people. So I'm and they're they're the
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: Wild Game Nation uh TV show. I don't know if
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: you saw this or not, but the Outdoor Channel put
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: out a statement and he himself and hit the Wild
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: Game Nation uh TV show is has been taken down
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: and will not will no longer air on the Outdoor Channel.
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: I did just see that a second ago. It'll be interesting.
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: I saw the use the word suspended, and it'll be
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: interesting if that's like a temporary suspension and they're in
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: a wait till it blows over and it comes back
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: next year, or if this is done zo um. But
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: I would hope um, and you know, we don't. I
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: don't know. I have one my my my gut instinct
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: on anything. This is always like we don't know the
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: whole story. I want to be like respectful of like
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: guilty until proven but or innocentil proven guilty. But I'm
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: pretty sure in this situation is very very clear. It's
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: very clear that it is guilty. He got busted, busted,
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: it's and it's it's convicted now, and it was an
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: egregious offense, and um, and he did it. He did
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: it previously too. He had other game violations beforehand. You're right,
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: I forgot about that. So so it's not like this
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: guy's some kind of This is not an accident. This
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: is this is a poor sportsman who continues to disobey laws.
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: And uh, as far as I'm concerned, he should never
• 25:59
  Speaker 1: have the right to hunt again. So whatever fine he
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: had to pay in his however many years suspension for
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: not hunting is like compared to what what it should
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: be my opinion, and I agree, it's um, it's just
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: a really disappointing situation. I keep saying that, but it's
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: it's just it's frustrating to see that kind of thing happening.
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: And I think this is just like a this is
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: another wake up call that we all, like people need
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: to be held accountable and we as individual hunters, I think,
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: you know, Okay, in this case, it seems like this
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: is just like bad behavior that keeps repeating. Um, I
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: would say for other people, I would say, just when
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: it comes to just game violations in general, just like
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: a reminder to everyone, like really read that stuff in detail,
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: because there are more and more people like stuff getting
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: posts on social media all the time, and if you
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: are not paying attention to your regulations, you might mistakenly
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: do some small thing wrong and then share it with
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: the world and then all of a sudden you're you know,
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: finding yourself in a world of hurt because of that.
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: So I think we just it is right the responsibilities
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: on us as the individuals to know everything, and um,
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: we got to do that. So I'm just finding myself
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: like more and more every year, like obsessively trying to
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: read every detail because you know it just can't afford
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: to make a mistake. Um. So this is a great
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: reminder again to to to don't be that guy and
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: then also don't make an innocent mistake if you can
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: any way. Um, anyway, not so yeah, so's to come
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: on that topic too. Yeah, Yeah, it's a it's a bummer,
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: see that. It's a bad, bad um And we actually
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: Garrett Matt and myself go on to talk about this
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: at some point within the episode. I think, if I
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: remember this episode correctly, that you know, it's just so
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: important how always hunters represent ourselves and when someone who's
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: supposed to be a representative of us to the to
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: the to the outside world on TV, when they're representing
• 27:59
  Speaker 1: the hunting community so poorly, it's it's bad for everyone.
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: So let's just each of us as individuals try our
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: best to make up for it, I guess, and uh,
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: and not be the bad apple. So that's anything else
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: you want to add, Dan, you score those sheds yet,
• 28:15
  Speaker 1: you know I haven't. I just got back so late
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: the other night. I'm gonna try to do um. I'm
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: gonna try to do that probably tonight or tomorrow and
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: then we'll have that. But man, they are, They're awesome, awesome,
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: Thank you again, my friend. All Right, buddy, Well, let's
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: pause briefly here for our sickst story and then we'll
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: let you go, Dan, and we're gonna hop over to
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: that previously recorded interview, And here with our sickest story
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: is Spencer Newhart. For this week's sites story. We're joined
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: by Dylan Tramp, a public land archery hunter. Who tells
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: us about a sit Gigear helped turn day spent on
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: the prairie into his most memorable hunt and biggest buck
• 29:00
  Speaker 1: all right, one of my most memorable hunts to date.
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: That was a last fall in western South Dakota on
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: public land d I Y Archery mule deer hunt with
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: my dad. Got to spend some good time in the
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: field and had a few rough rough first days UM
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: Day one, Day two, Day three pretty fruitless. Then day four, UM,
• 29:24
  Speaker 1: the last day of our hunt, we bumped into a
• 29:27
  Speaker 1: really nice buck on the way in and about a
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: hundred sixty class mule deer buck. We were getting down
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: on our luck, starting to think it just wasn't wasn't
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: in the cards for us this year, so we pushed
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: back a little further today try to get away from
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: the hunting pressure. And another day striking out well. On
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: the way back to the truck, we decided, well before
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: we head home, let's let's class this one last draw
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: before we call it quits, because the direction that bucks
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: from earlier that morning had run and he might just
• 30:02
  Speaker 1: be bettered in there. And anyways, we go lasted forty
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: five minutes. I was already throwing the cards. My dad
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: whistles and says, hey here he then he gets up
• 30:12
  Speaker 1: and deer rebeds and repositions in the shade ends up.
• 30:17
  Speaker 1: It's about twelve o'clock. Just we know the buck's not
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: going anywhere. We've got them bedded in the perfect ravine
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: with the wind in her face. My dad's up on
• 30:24
  Speaker 1: the hill spotting, pointing me which way to go. He
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: directs me into about twenty yards, and we know this
• 30:30
  Speaker 1: buck's not going anywhere, so I'm just I'm getting cozy, relaxing.
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: About four hours into it, buck finally gets up, goes
• 30:37
  Speaker 1: right through my shoes and lane at twenty yards, right
• 30:39
  Speaker 1: around one big stage bush that gave me some cover
• 30:42
  Speaker 1: and just couldn't have rote it up any sweeter. It's
• 30:45
  Speaker 1: just good, good times done with my dad in the
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: field and hunter. I'll never forget. On Dylan's hunt, which
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: took place in western South Dakota, he was wearing sick
• 30:55
  Speaker 1: is Equinox system. If you'd like to create a sick
• 30:58
  Speaker 1: the story of your own what learn more about Sita's
• 31:01
  Speaker 1: technical hunting apparel, visit sick of gear dot com. I've
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: actually memorized that backwards though. Can you do that. You
• 31:09
  Speaker 1: should start the podcast without him reciting it backwards. Give
• 31:15
  Speaker 1: it to us z x Y alright, that that was three?
• 31:25
  Speaker 1: That was three. Well, we are here and we've been recording.
• 31:29
  Speaker 1: We are here at Sicker's Converge event. We are in
• 31:33
  Speaker 1: Beautiful Paradise Valley, Montana, and I'm here with Matt McCormick
• 31:37
  Speaker 1: and Garrett Long with SICA. Can you guys, let's start
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: with Matt, what do you do with sick of gear?
• 31:45
  Speaker 1: Because you're here. Both of you guys are heavily involved
• 31:47
  Speaker 1: of what this whole event is about. So I want
• 31:48
  Speaker 1: to hear about this event first. But Matt, who are you?
• 31:52
  Speaker 1: What do you do here? UM? So I'm Matt McCormick.
• 31:54
  Speaker 1: I live in Bozeman. I spend a lot of time
• 31:59
  Speaker 1: with the guys over at SICA UM helping with the
• 32:03
  Speaker 1: marketing team and their ambassador teams, managing all three categories
• 32:07
  Speaker 1: of their ambassadors. It's right now, it's at about people
• 32:11
  Speaker 1: UM spread across North America. We have a couple. We
• 32:14
  Speaker 1: have one in New Zealand. We have one in South
• 32:17
  Speaker 1: Africa right now. UM. We have some in Argentina. We
• 32:21
  Speaker 1: have you know, they're spread out kind of everywhere, and
• 32:24
  Speaker 1: so it's about, you know, much like this event, it's
• 32:26
  Speaker 1: about getting influencers involved, getting the people that really truly
• 32:32
  Speaker 1: can influence their communities, guides, outfitters, local people, UM, media,
• 32:37
  Speaker 1: people like yourself, you know, UM, getting them involved in
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: humanizing this brand in a way that can that people
• 32:45
  Speaker 1: can relate to, you know, because I just feel like
• 32:48
  Speaker 1: sometimes people get lost and what a brand portrays themselves
• 32:53
  Speaker 1: to be online and uh, you know, there's a lot
• 32:55
  Speaker 1: that goes into that stuff. And this is a way
• 32:58
  Speaker 1: for for us. A program like this and an event
• 33:01
  Speaker 1: like this is a way for us to really connect
• 33:03
  Speaker 1: with with people we care about most. So, Yeah, something
• 33:08
  Speaker 1: that I that I've always appreciated about SICCA is um
• 33:11
  Speaker 1: it's a brand that personifies something. There's a brand and
• 33:15
  Speaker 1: it's not just an image. It's like a it's a culture.
• 33:18
  Speaker 1: It's a feel. How would you describe that sick something
• 33:25
  Speaker 1: the brand? I don't know, tell me what what What
• 33:27
  Speaker 1: are the feelings or emotions or thoughts that you have
• 33:30
  Speaker 1: about SICKA as a as a community, as a try
• 33:32
  Speaker 1: It's a good one. Yeah, Garrett, we need to introduce Garrett.
• 33:35
  Speaker 1: We'll get Garrett first. I want to finish swing you
• 33:38
  Speaker 1: we're roast man. And then then you know, this is
• 33:41
  Speaker 1: actually a really good question and it's something that we
• 33:44
  Speaker 1: talked about at SICA nearly every day. I mean there's
• 33:47
  Speaker 1: in every aspect of what sick it does, from product
• 33:50
  Speaker 1: to development and design to um, you know, a an
• 33:54
  Speaker 1: Instagram post that you may see and and everything in between.
• 33:58
  Speaker 1: This question is asked, what do we do doing? What
• 34:00
  Speaker 1: is the message? And you know what it all comes
• 34:03
  Speaker 1: down to is it's just you know, it's an overused word,
• 34:08
  Speaker 1: but authenticity is something that we really care about. We're original. Um,
• 34:14
  Speaker 1: we stand for hunters and you know that in every aspect,
• 34:18
  Speaker 1: and it's it's not just about the pursuit, it's about
• 34:22
  Speaker 1: everything else. And and uh yeah, it's sick It really
• 34:26
  Speaker 1: focuses on the experience and that's portrayed through all their
• 34:28
  Speaker 1: content and everything. UM. But there's more than just just
• 34:32
  Speaker 1: the hunting experience. It's it's the lifestyle experience. It's it's
• 34:36
  Speaker 1: you know the way that you you you know from
• 34:41
  Speaker 1: to and from work, you know how you drive to
• 34:44
  Speaker 1: and from work, is you do it because you're a hunter.
• 34:46
  Speaker 1: You may take the long way around, or you want
• 34:48
  Speaker 1: to check a field or you want to you want
• 34:49
  Speaker 1: to go just swing ye all the time. You know,
• 34:53
  Speaker 1: you can always see, especially waterfall season, you can see
• 34:56
  Speaker 1: when when there's a big field of geese, and and
• 35:00
  Speaker 1: you can always tell the hunters because they start swerving
• 35:02
  Speaker 1: all over the road when when there's big fields of geese.
• 35:04
  Speaker 1: Everybody's rubber necking exactly. Yeah, and uh, you know, so Sika,
• 35:10
  Speaker 1: really that's what they're about. They're about everything. It's it's
• 35:16
  Speaker 1: actually very little about the actual harvest and everything, and
• 35:20
  Speaker 1: so much more about everything that goes into it, um
• 35:23
  Speaker 1: and across all three categories um. Today. You know, there's
• 35:28
  Speaker 1: there's just a huge lifestyle um that these hunters are living.
• 35:33
  Speaker 1: That's that is really untold. And those stories and those
• 35:37
  Speaker 1: uh you know why people are hunting and and what
• 35:40
  Speaker 1: they you know, just everybody is a little bit different
• 35:43
  Speaker 1: and and it's about the whole thing. You know, it's
• 35:48
  Speaker 1: not just about hunting. I I think, just to add
• 35:54
  Speaker 1: to matt is and why this event is so great is,
• 35:58
  Speaker 1: you know, Sitka, we're a bunch of outdoor enthusiasts and
• 36:03
  Speaker 1: and a bunch of hunters that you come into the office.
• 36:06
  Speaker 1: That's that's what we're about. Right. And and we love
• 36:09
  Speaker 1: to be in the outdoors, and we love to be
• 36:11
  Speaker 1: out there for a long time. And and so you know,
• 36:15
  Speaker 1: the gear aspect where that all comes into play is
• 36:19
  Speaker 1: the longer you can be out there, it's generally more
• 36:22
  Speaker 1: successful just because you get to experience nature longer. Right.
• 36:26
  Speaker 1: And so I think that that's what makes this so
• 36:29
  Speaker 1: fun is the gear facilitates that. And then when we
• 36:33
  Speaker 1: have an event like this, we can bring in these
• 36:36
  Speaker 1: guides and outfitters that are really at a kind of
• 36:39
  Speaker 1: the spearhead of the industry in a lot of ways.
• 36:42
  Speaker 1: Uh And and and we can just socialize with them
• 36:45
  Speaker 1: in that aspect. You know, we're just we're all hunters
• 36:48
  Speaker 1: and outdoors and we love it. So so what do
• 36:51
  Speaker 1: you do here? So my my position is pretty multifaceted. Uh.
• 36:56
  Speaker 1: I work with guides and outfitters um on the service
• 36:59
  Speaker 1: side a lot so um, you know, trying to trying
• 37:03
  Speaker 1: to see their needs, what they're seeing, because a lot
• 37:05
  Speaker 1: of their feedback is some most valuable feedback we get,
• 37:08
  Speaker 1: I mean day in and day out right um. And
• 37:11
  Speaker 1: then the other aspect is working directly on our conservation
• 37:14
  Speaker 1: efforts right um. And and just really trying to move
• 37:19
  Speaker 1: move the I don't want to use the compass, but
• 37:24
  Speaker 1: but move us in a direction that that looks at
• 37:27
  Speaker 1: at a conservation and holistic manner. You know, rather a
• 37:31
  Speaker 1: lot of times as hunters we look specifically at a
• 37:34
  Speaker 1: herd management as what we're doing is conservation. Um and
• 37:38
  Speaker 1: and uh so we're looking at how we can tell
• 37:42
  Speaker 1: more of that story beyond just herd management. Right. And
• 37:46
  Speaker 1: so you know here again at Converge, you know we
• 37:49
  Speaker 1: have a Shane Mahoney coming in right. Yeah, you know,
• 37:54
  Speaker 1: I always say is one of the best conservations of
• 37:56
  Speaker 1: our time. It's it's a privilege to be being you know,
• 37:59
  Speaker 1: just talk with him about and listen to him and
• 38:02
  Speaker 1: h you know, right there he's going to give a
• 38:05
  Speaker 1: presentation to guides and outfitters as as to what they're
• 38:09
  Speaker 1: doing and how it has purpose within conservation rather than
• 38:14
  Speaker 1: just simply heard management. But so much more that goes
• 38:16
  Speaker 1: into it. Absolutely um. It's it is nice to see
• 38:23
  Speaker 1: that a company is willing to develop the resources in
• 38:27
  Speaker 1: time of someone like you to focus on something like that.
• 38:29
  Speaker 1: I think that's important for anyone in this industry. That
• 38:33
  Speaker 1: should be a priority. So that's a good thing to
• 38:36
  Speaker 1: see yeah, And I think the awesome thing about it
• 38:40
  Speaker 1: is the brand is willing to support anything that's good
• 38:44
  Speaker 1: for conservation. So when when that's when that's your end goal,
• 38:50
  Speaker 1: it makes my job really easy, you know, because you
• 38:53
  Speaker 1: always have a brand that's going to back it and
• 38:55
  Speaker 1: the people in the office are always going to back it.
• 38:58
  Speaker 1: That was cool, That's a big deal. That's a really
• 39:00
  Speaker 1: good thing. So you mentioned Converge, You mentioned a little
• 39:03
  Speaker 1: bit of what's going on here, but can one of
• 39:04
  Speaker 1: you guys tell me what this event is, what specifically
• 39:09
  Speaker 1: are we doing here and what's it for in more
• 39:11
  Speaker 1: detail maybe if you want to a first step of
• 39:12
  Speaker 1: that and gear you can expand Yeah, yeah, of course.
• 39:16
  Speaker 1: You know, Converge is a you know, it's a it's
• 39:22
  Speaker 1: a gathering of all of our guides and outfitters, you know.
• 39:24
  Speaker 1: It was it was sent out to our entire guide
• 39:27
  Speaker 1: and outfit our program. We worked with w t A,
• 39:29
  Speaker 1: we worked with was a couple of different organizations to
• 39:32
  Speaker 1: help get the word out there. But you know what
• 39:35
  Speaker 1: it what it's all about is showing appreciation to the
• 39:38
  Speaker 1: guides and the outfitters um for everything that they do
• 39:42
  Speaker 1: and help add a little value to their lives, you know,
• 39:45
  Speaker 1: outside of the gear. You know, we all love this gear.
• 39:48
  Speaker 1: We all rather very passionate about this gear, and it's
• 39:51
  Speaker 1: it's changed the way that we live. It's changed the
• 39:53
  Speaker 1: way that we hunt. It's changed the way that we
• 39:54
  Speaker 1: look at hunting. But you know, there's more to it
• 39:58
  Speaker 1: than just that. And it was back to influence and
• 40:01
  Speaker 1: what you know, what we're sick As really trying to
• 40:04
  Speaker 1: do is is spend more time with these guys and
• 40:10
  Speaker 1: again humanize this brand UM. So it's bringing them in,
• 40:15
  Speaker 1: adding value to their lives, their businesses, and and also
• 40:19
  Speaker 1: just having meaningful interactions with UM, the guys and gals
• 40:24
  Speaker 1: at Sick of Gear UM learning a little bit about
• 40:27
  Speaker 1: about the product. Learning UM. We got partner brands in here.
• 40:30
  Speaker 1: You know, we're sitting here and in the paradise and
• 40:33
  Speaker 1: we got Banelli over here setting up a setting up
• 40:36
  Speaker 1: a booth and they're gonna be doing a you know
• 40:38
  Speaker 1: a bunch of new gun shooting. And we got Kimber.
• 40:42
  Speaker 1: They're gonna be shooting you know, new rifles. We got
• 40:44
  Speaker 1: Leaphold here. They're gonna be showing off some of their
• 40:48
  Speaker 1: new cool stuff, their new opt Fate stuff, which is
• 40:50
  Speaker 1: great so we got Yedie, didn't you know, Dennis did
• 40:53
  Speaker 1: a great job yesterday doing a new product UM review
• 40:58
  Speaker 1: for these guys. You know, it's it's just really fun,
• 41:02
  Speaker 1: meaningful interactions UM that we can have UM with these guys,
• 41:07
  Speaker 1: bringing them all here, showing them what Bozeman is showing them,
• 41:10
  Speaker 1: what Montana is showing them, what Sick is, where the
• 41:14
  Speaker 1: roots are, this is where we all are. Meet us
• 41:18
  Speaker 1: and let's go have some fun. And that's why we're
• 41:19
  Speaker 1: out here. You know, we're a little bit early UM
• 41:22
  Speaker 1: and and so we've shot these shotguns and we're getting
• 41:25
  Speaker 1: things set up and having fun the whole time. Me
• 41:27
  Speaker 1: and Josh we're talking earlier. We're like just about to
• 41:30
  Speaker 1: get to a really good point and then stock out
• 41:33
  Speaker 1: of our conversation. Oh sorry at Waterfall Hunters. Yeah, you know. So,
• 41:41
  Speaker 1: so that's why that's that's why we're here. We're here
• 41:43
  Speaker 1: to show appreciation to the guides and outfitters and and
• 41:46
  Speaker 1: they've been some of the most loyal UM consumers of
• 41:51
  Speaker 1: ours for for so long. And I mean this is
• 41:54
  Speaker 1: I know it's a lot of people say this, but
• 41:56
  Speaker 1: it is the least that we can do for what
• 41:58
  Speaker 1: they do for us and you know, as far as
• 42:00
  Speaker 1: providing high quality feedback m on the gear making it better, um,
• 42:05
  Speaker 1: but also kind of showing us the ways of of
• 42:09
  Speaker 1: authenticity and and what really goes on out here. Do
• 42:13
  Speaker 1: do you guys ever see this expanding beyond just guys
• 42:16
  Speaker 1: and outfitters to be more like a rendezvous for the
• 42:19
  Speaker 1: entire sick Of tribe, so even average or other serious
• 42:22
  Speaker 1: hunters that are part of that sick of community. So
• 42:25
  Speaker 1: truthful feeling that would be super cool. Yeah, Um, probably not. No, Um,
• 42:31
  Speaker 1: the this is this particular event is a guide not
• 42:34
  Speaker 1: fit our event. We would like to see this event
• 42:36
  Speaker 1: continue to grow, you know, and the goals for an
• 42:39
  Speaker 1: event like this as the years come is is going
• 42:42
  Speaker 1: to be significant growth. Um. But within the guide out
• 42:46
  Speaker 1: at our community, what I could see happening is a
• 42:49
  Speaker 1: regional converge event that that extends past guys and outfitters.
• 42:54
  Speaker 1: But we do it. This event I believe will will
• 42:57
  Speaker 1: always live as this event. It might change locations every year,
• 43:01
  Speaker 1: we might, you know. I mean, there's been so much
• 43:04
  Speaker 1: that's been talked about in the last day and a half,
• 43:06
  Speaker 1: just you know, after the months of planning this thing,
• 43:10
  Speaker 1: there's there's tons of things that we could do, and
• 43:13
  Speaker 1: we have everybody is thinking of new ideas. UM. But
• 43:17
  Speaker 1: but I would say that we want to continue to
• 43:20
  Speaker 1: show appreciation to these guys on a really really high level,
• 43:24
  Speaker 1: a really personal level, and then UM start hosting UM
• 43:30
  Speaker 1: And is Jason listen to this podcast when which Jason
• 43:35
  Speaker 1: were talking about miclate. I'm not sure how often you
• 43:37
  Speaker 1: might listen. Okay, Well, I would like to, Well, I
• 43:41
  Speaker 1: would like to I would like to say that we
• 43:43
  Speaker 1: start doing start doing regional converges, is what I would
• 43:49
  Speaker 1: like to see, you know, as far as as far
• 43:51
  Speaker 1: as where this is going to go. Now, you know,
• 43:55
  Speaker 1: obviously there's there's more to it than just saying, you know,
• 43:58
  Speaker 1: let's go to Missouri and let's do a regional converge event.
• 44:02
  Speaker 1: You know, that's what we should do. That Well, there's
• 44:04
  Speaker 1: there's a lot more that goes into it. But UM,
• 44:07
  Speaker 1: I could see we're all, like Matt said, we'll always
• 44:11
  Speaker 1: have this for guides and outfitters. UM. But I would
• 44:15
  Speaker 1: say I could see us having a rendezvous for general consumers.
• 44:19
  Speaker 1: But it would just that'd be separate. This is just
• 44:21
  Speaker 1: such a core group of people that make that makes sense,
• 44:24
  Speaker 1: you know, yeah, and you know we do. I mean,
• 44:27
  Speaker 1: we've done events in the past that like at s
• 44:30
  Speaker 1: c I, and we we host events at you know,
• 44:32
  Speaker 1: in in p A at the that's a great great
• 44:36
  Speaker 1: American outdoor Days, and and we've done you know, we
• 44:40
  Speaker 1: do all these events that are that are open to people,
• 44:42
  Speaker 1: you know, and we'll continue to to advance those and
• 44:46
  Speaker 1: get better at those. And we're learning a lot lately.
• 44:48
  Speaker 1: So um, you know, looking at Lyle here, you need
• 44:52
  Speaker 1: to get Lyle on here. He's the mastermind behind it all. Yeah,
• 44:56
  Speaker 1: he's the guy. He's quite the main man, quite the
• 44:59
  Speaker 1: crew with that puts a song on, that's for sure.
• 45:02
  Speaker 1: So I want to talk about a number of different
• 45:05
  Speaker 1: things that you guys, above and beyond just this stuff,
• 45:08
  Speaker 1: because both of you have some interesting white tailed experiences
• 45:11
  Speaker 1: to share. I think, Matt, you were on one of
• 45:14
  Speaker 1: our sickest stories like a year ago, I think, but
• 45:18
  Speaker 1: not even not even a year ago. But we only
• 45:21
  Speaker 1: got to hear like one minute of it. And I
• 45:23
  Speaker 1: know that's a much longer story. So I want to
• 45:25
  Speaker 1: pry that entire story out of you. I want to
• 45:27
  Speaker 1: pry out a mule their hunt story you told me,
• 45:30
  Speaker 1: which is pretty epic. I want to hear about some
• 45:34
  Speaker 1: of the more I don't. I don't know all what
• 45:36
  Speaker 1: kind of juicy might have, Garret, but I'm sure there's
• 45:37
  Speaker 1: something I can embarrass you with. And also, Matt is
• 45:41
  Speaker 1: a pretty darn good photographer, so I want to pick
• 45:45
  Speaker 1: your brain a little bit about that. But first I
• 45:47
  Speaker 1: gotta tell a story of my own, because Matt got
• 45:50
  Speaker 1: me in big trouble once, Garrett. I don't know if
• 45:52
  Speaker 1: you know this, but he he got me in a
• 45:54
  Speaker 1: lot of trouble. I don't. I can't remember if I
• 45:55
  Speaker 1: told this in the podcast or not. I might have
• 45:57
  Speaker 1: briefly covered it, but all right, So I was out
• 46:00
  Speaker 1: here white tail hunting um and I killed my buck,
• 46:03
  Speaker 1: I filled my tag. I came back into town, and
• 46:05
  Speaker 1: it was kind of like a weird thing, like I
• 46:06
  Speaker 1: came back to town, dropped off my buck, and then
• 46:09
  Speaker 1: I realized i'd be fun to just sit out in
• 46:10
  Speaker 1: the woods some more. So then I drove back out
• 46:12
  Speaker 1: like two hours away or wherever it was to go back,
• 46:14
  Speaker 1: and I thought I'd stay out there for a few
• 46:16
  Speaker 1: days and just scout. So I'm doing that, And then
• 46:20
  Speaker 1: on a whim, I always said, and now I want
• 46:23
  Speaker 1: to go fishing. Man, we got some serious wind huh um,
• 46:27
  Speaker 1: So I want to do some fishing. So I had
• 46:29
  Speaker 1: like a whole bunch of a lot of changing plans,
• 46:31
  Speaker 1: changing things around. So I end up going to the
• 46:33
  Speaker 1: Gallopan River there outside of Bozeman, and you don't need
• 46:36
  Speaker 1: where about the wind? Well it'll be okay, Um, I'm
• 46:40
  Speaker 1: gonna go fishing. I show up at the river and
• 46:43
  Speaker 1: the drive from the public land that I hunt there's
• 46:46
  Speaker 1: no service. So I no cell phone service that day
• 46:48
  Speaker 1: in the morning, so I hadn't talked to my wife
• 46:50
  Speaker 1: that day because I was driving that service. I figure
• 46:54
  Speaker 1: I'll talk to at some point today. So I hit
• 46:56
  Speaker 1: to the river. I'm fishing, having a good time. Then
• 46:58
  Speaker 1: Matt calls me. He's like, hey, you wanna go fishing.
• 47:01
  Speaker 1: I'm like, well, sure, I'm already fishing, but where do
• 47:03
  Speaker 1: you want to go? And he's like, well, I got
• 47:04
  Speaker 1: this such and such place you should come. So now
• 47:06
  Speaker 1: all sudden, like all right, I go made up Mattie,
• 47:08
  Speaker 1: Gold me up Matt and we take off. Now it's
• 47:10
  Speaker 1: like noon or something. Usually I talked to my wife,
• 47:14
  Speaker 1: Mamable once to day when I'm a trip like this,
• 47:16
  Speaker 1: when I've got service, I'll check it and just hey,
• 47:17
  Speaker 1: I'm all right, everything's good. Well so far today I
• 47:21
  Speaker 1: have n't but still morning. It's not afternoon, no big deal.
• 47:26
  Speaker 1: But Matt takes me up into the tiniest little backwoods
• 47:30
  Speaker 1: canyon middle of nowhere to fish all day. And then
• 47:34
  Speaker 1: he makes me hike like four miles down this river
• 47:36
  Speaker 1: in the middle of nowhere to go try to find
• 47:39
  Speaker 1: a cutthroat or whatever it was up was cutties. We
• 47:41
  Speaker 1: caught some browns, brown browns, I remember, um. And there
• 47:46
  Speaker 1: was no cell phone service up there, but Montana. You know,
• 47:50
  Speaker 1: we're having so much fun fishing. We're having so much
• 47:54
  Speaker 1: fun fishing. I wasn't thinking about it. So we're fishing.
• 47:56
  Speaker 1: We're fishing like eight hours, nine hours later, we finally
• 47:59
  Speaker 1: get done. We drive out. It's like ten o'clock or
• 48:01
  Speaker 1: something our Montana time. But some good fishing too. It
• 48:04
  Speaker 1: was fun, Yeah, it was. That was one of my
• 48:09
  Speaker 1: favorite little fishing and scurs is because of where we're at,
• 48:11
  Speaker 1: like there's no other people, we're all by ourselves. We'd
• 48:15
  Speaker 1: waited way down this river just kind of little little water,
• 48:18
  Speaker 1: picking little spots. And how about that dragonfly? Yeah, that
• 48:23
  Speaker 1: was that was wild. I haven't seen anything like what
• 48:26
  Speaker 1: was that that was? Explain that that was just a
• 48:29
  Speaker 1: hungry brown trout. That was that came out of the
• 48:33
  Speaker 1: water completely and ate this dragonfly like way out of
• 48:36
  Speaker 1: the water. Yeah, like a foot out of the water.
• 48:39
  Speaker 1: You hand that every day. And then right at this place,
• 48:42
  Speaker 1: so we this dragonfly thing happens, and then Matt's like,
• 48:44
  Speaker 1: all right, right here, we're to catch a fish right
• 48:46
  Speaker 1: here some Matt strip strip oh fish on, pulls this
• 48:50
  Speaker 1: nice fish and then we landed fish. Take some pictures
• 48:53
  Speaker 1: and he's like, all right, this right here, like ten
• 48:55
  Speaker 1: yards over, there'sn't be another one there. Strip tripped way
• 48:58
  Speaker 1: for way for him. Ever another one hoppers right were
• 49:02
  Speaker 1: hoppers And that was awesome, Like writing that little couple
• 49:05
  Speaker 1: of minutes to real nice fish right there and the
• 49:08
  Speaker 1: dragonfly incident. It was good. It was cool. It was
• 49:10
  Speaker 1: really good. Well what about Yeah, I'm yeah, where this
• 49:16
  Speaker 1: is going. We're having a good time. Everything's great. Um,
• 49:24
  Speaker 1: we finally get out of the canyon. We're driving down
• 49:26
  Speaker 1: the road. I'm like, I don't check in with Kylie now,
• 49:28
  Speaker 1: so I'll give her a call. She answered the phone.
• 49:30
  Speaker 1: It's like where are you. I'm like, oh, we just
• 49:33
  Speaker 1: had fishing. We had a great time, and shuts cameras,
• 49:36
  Speaker 1: the phone down and hangs up on me. I'm like,
• 49:37
  Speaker 1: what was that? What was that about? And then I
• 49:41
  Speaker 1: text her and she's like, I haven't been I haven't
• 49:43
  Speaker 1: heard from you in like over twenty four hours. Um
• 49:47
  Speaker 1: like your stuff, Like you didn't check in with this.
• 49:50
  Speaker 1: She her mom had kind of I think gotten her
• 49:52
  Speaker 1: all work because she called I couldn't get ahold of
• 49:54
  Speaker 1: me forever, my buddies ever meeting me, the elk hunt
• 49:57
  Speaker 1: soon couldn't get a hold of me. No one was
• 49:59
  Speaker 1: able to get aho to me. Kylie was freaking out.
• 50:01
  Speaker 1: Her mom, I think, got her even more freaked out,
• 50:03
  Speaker 1: told her she should call the police to check on me.
• 50:05
  Speaker 1: So she called the cops. The cops went to where
• 50:07
  Speaker 1: I was supposed to be. I wasn't where I was
• 50:10
  Speaker 1: supposed to be. So now she's worried. I'm lost in
• 50:12
  Speaker 1: the middle of Montana, not picking up my phone for
• 50:15
  Speaker 1: a day and a half. She was so mad at
• 50:17
  Speaker 1: Migha she was imagined. And what was even worse. What
• 50:21
  Speaker 1: was even worse than how mad my wife was was
• 50:23
  Speaker 1: the fact that the whole time we're driving back and
• 50:26
  Speaker 1: this is happening, Mats just saying that. I mean, he
• 50:29
  Speaker 1: just laughed because it wasn't him. I'm like, I am
• 50:35
  Speaker 1: in such deep crap right now. Match, just that was brutal.
• 50:41
  Speaker 1: That was awesome. I've never had an experience like that
• 50:44
  Speaker 1: before that the fishing, or a wife mad like that,
• 50:47
  Speaker 1: girlfriend wife, Matt like that. You know, well, being in Montana,
• 50:51
  Speaker 1: I mean, it's expected that you're not going to have service,
• 50:54
  Speaker 1: you know, living the lifestyles that we live out here,
• 50:56
  Speaker 1: you know, there's very little, sir. I'm actually incredibly surprised
• 50:59
  Speaker 1: that we have service here, you know, and where we're
• 51:03
  Speaker 1: at right now. And yeah, it's just kind of one
• 51:06
  Speaker 1: of those thing, was like an expectation thing, like lots
• 51:08
  Speaker 1: of times she knows on many places where I'm not
• 51:10
  Speaker 1: going to myself were won't have service, and she's finally,
• 51:12
  Speaker 1: I'll be out elk hunting for seven ten days and
• 51:14
  Speaker 1: she doesn't hear from me. It's fine, but I think
• 51:16
  Speaker 1: I had set the precedent right that I'm checking in
• 51:20
  Speaker 1: basic general time every day, and then you didn't know,
• 51:22
  Speaker 1: and then it didn't and then it was longer and
• 51:25
  Speaker 1: longer and dark, and you know, I'm up, I'm all
• 51:28
  Speaker 1: by myself, um, climbing up in a tree. She's always
• 51:32
  Speaker 1: worrying me falling on a tree or something like that.
• 51:33
  Speaker 1: So that's always in her mind. I think, like one
• 51:35
  Speaker 1: thing someone says, oh, well, this could happen, that could
• 51:38
  Speaker 1: have happened. That that makes her worry more, and then
• 51:40
  Speaker 1: it was the whole thing. Well, my my wife would
• 51:43
  Speaker 1: laugh at that because at our house it's the other
• 51:46
  Speaker 1: way around. So when I go out for long periods
• 51:49
  Speaker 1: of time, my wife says, well he's out of service, right,
• 51:54
  Speaker 1: or even if that precedent is set, she can't. She's
• 51:56
  Speaker 1: very optimistic, so she's never worried that I'm hurt. Where
• 52:00
  Speaker 1: when she leaves, I'm the guy that if you know,
• 52:03
  Speaker 1: I said, call me at ten o'clock. By ten o'clock
• 52:05
  Speaker 1: at night, and it's and she hasn't called yet. Yeah,
• 52:09
  Speaker 1: people are I started driving to Bozeman from have her
• 52:13
  Speaker 1: one time because I couldn't get hold of her. Yeah,
• 52:16
  Speaker 1: and then you know, it turns out she was just
• 52:18
  Speaker 1: on a trail run. That doesn't surprise me. At just
• 52:27
  Speaker 1: call me, I mean, is it that hard? Yeah, So
• 52:32
  Speaker 1: it goes. I learned that you have to get to
• 52:35
  Speaker 1: get to set the expectations, yes, and communicate when possible. Yeah,
• 52:40
  Speaker 1: I think for me, it's just Camille does a lot
• 52:43
  Speaker 1: of it, does a lot of traveling too, Sorr. You know,
• 52:46
  Speaker 1: we we are just hoping that we're we're good to go.
• 52:49
  Speaker 1: You know, do you ever do you ever worry about
• 52:51
  Speaker 1: Camille being more of a badass than you, Matt, because
• 52:54
  Speaker 1: I feel like that might be possible. No, I think
• 52:55
  Speaker 1: it is true, actually not possible. Matt's girlfriend, she's as
• 53:02
  Speaker 1: just a pretty much pro fly fishing superstar, isn't she. Yeah,
• 53:06
  Speaker 1: she is, She's exactly that she Uh yeah, she works
• 53:09
  Speaker 1: for Yellow Dog, does a lot of travel, um, kind
• 53:12
  Speaker 1: of does a lot of projects with SIMS, does a
• 53:14
  Speaker 1: lot of projects, you know, with Yeddie Um awesome Yeddi Films.
• 53:18
  Speaker 1: She was in this year. Yeah, Yeah, it's been great.
• 53:21
  Speaker 1: I mean it's it's on the website now, it's kind
• 53:23
  Speaker 1: of it's yeah. History Channel released it um in December
• 53:29
  Speaker 1: last December, and now yeah, eventually yet I'll officially released it.
• 53:35
  Speaker 1: Probably wait for Alaska to kind of pick up here.
• 53:37
  Speaker 1: You know, Alaska is just getting going Alaska fish and
• 53:39
  Speaker 1: just can't going so um just stay relevant. I would
• 53:42
  Speaker 1: say that probably wait another couple of weeks a month
• 53:44
  Speaker 1: or so, and probably released that you can go see
• 53:47
  Speaker 1: that along with a recent trip we did a Christmas Island. Yeah,
• 53:50
  Speaker 1: you know there's some just some fun stuff. I walked
• 53:52
  Speaker 1: into their house this spring and I'm like, man, look
• 53:56
  Speaker 1: at that buck on the wall. Well, that's Camille's like,
• 53:58
  Speaker 1: oh Man, look at like grizzly are on the wall.
• 54:00
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah, that's camals that. There's a lot of that. Okay,
• 54:07
  Speaker 1: real quick, before we move on, we need to pause
• 54:09
  Speaker 1: one more time for a big thanks to our partners
• 54:12
  Speaker 1: at White Tailed Properties. And as I mentioned last week,
• 54:15
  Speaker 1: over the past few years, we've had a number of
• 54:17
  Speaker 1: White Tailed Properties land specialists on this podcast and they
• 54:21
  Speaker 1: were terrific episodes. Today, I just wanted to give one
• 54:24
  Speaker 1: more plug for those interviews because they are so jam
• 54:27
  Speaker 1: packed with helpful White Tail knowledge. So when you're done
• 54:31
  Speaker 1: listening to this, if you haven't yet heard him, check
• 54:32
  Speaker 1: out episode number forty six with Dan Perez for some
• 54:35
  Speaker 1: ship hunting talk number ninety two with Ben Harshine, where
• 54:39
  Speaker 1: we talk about maps and using them to scout and
• 54:42
  Speaker 1: figure out your property number. Again with Perez, when we
• 54:45
  Speaker 1: talk about how you know, regular people like you and
• 54:48
  Speaker 1: me can go about trying to buy their first piece
• 54:50
  Speaker 1: of hunting ground. Episode number one eleven with Jake Elinger
• 54:53
  Speaker 1: when we talk about small property hunting and habitat improvement tips,
• 54:57
  Speaker 1: and an episode one nineteen with Tony Hansen we talked
• 55:01
  Speaker 1: about hunting in heavily pressured states like Michigan, Pennsylvania, etcetera.
• 55:05
  Speaker 1: So great episodes, I think I think you will really
• 55:09
  Speaker 1: enjoy them. And next week we will be back with
• 55:11
  Speaker 1: our little short white tail wisdom segments from white tail Properties.
• 55:14
  Speaker 1: But until then, if you want to learn more about
• 55:16
  Speaker 1: white tail properties, you can visit white tail properties dot com.
• 55:21
  Speaker 1: And now back to the show. So okay, tell us
• 55:25
  Speaker 1: your glory white tail story though, Matt, you went on
• 55:28
  Speaker 1: your first big Midwest white tail hunt this past fall,
• 55:32
  Speaker 1: and UM, I was headed to uh, you know. For
• 55:36
  Speaker 1: for those that have heard you know, I'll start from
• 55:38
  Speaker 1: the beginning. I kind of have you heard this Garret
• 55:41
  Speaker 1: I haven't met. You're in for a treat. Yeah, I'm excited.
• 55:45
  Speaker 1: So I met Donnie Wilson, who has been on here
• 55:48
  Speaker 1: um from Ohio. I met him a few years back
• 55:52
  Speaker 1: when we started the Master program. Um, you know Donnie
• 55:55
  Speaker 1: great guy. You know if you follow him on Instagram,
• 55:59
  Speaker 1: they you know, to shoot some big deer down there
• 56:01
  Speaker 1: in Adams County, YEP. And h you know it's ah.
• 56:07
  Speaker 1: It was one of those things where he's like, you know,
• 56:09
  Speaker 1: I got Dennis coming out from Eddie. I got Derek
• 56:12
  Speaker 1: coming out from Dennis is Zuck. He was on the
• 56:16
  Speaker 1: podcast every week for like a year, giving us their
• 56:19
  Speaker 1: little sick of tips and insight into the new product
• 56:22
  Speaker 1: and everything. Like, so Zuck is like a friend to
• 56:25
  Speaker 1: our audience. Of course. Yeah, so Zuck was there, um
• 56:31
  Speaker 1: from Yedie who he works for Yeddie. Now Zuck was there, Um, Derek,
• 56:37
  Speaker 1: I was there for Matthews, and then Brad was there.
• 56:39
  Speaker 1: You know he was newly sick of guy and uh
• 56:44
  Speaker 1: and he's like, you know, we got the whole place
• 56:46
  Speaker 1: shut down. We're gonna have these three guys come in.
• 56:48
  Speaker 1: If you want to come, just get a plane ticket
• 56:50
  Speaker 1: and come hang out. You know, it would be great
• 56:52
  Speaker 1: to have you in camp and and just come spend
• 56:55
  Speaker 1: some time. And you know, at the time, I had
• 56:57
  Speaker 1: nothing really going on on that particular week, and so
• 57:00
  Speaker 1: I'm like, you know what, sure, let's get this ticket
• 57:02
  Speaker 1: book to do it, and uh, you know side note,
• 57:05
  Speaker 1: it was the first time I'd ever hung out with
• 57:07
  Speaker 1: Brad Christian, who's for those of you who may or
• 57:11
  Speaker 1: may not know Brad, He's he can be He's extremely stoic,
• 57:17
  Speaker 1: so he can be quite intimidating if you don't know him.
• 57:21
  Speaker 1: He's a new you know, new guy. It's sick of
• 57:23
  Speaker 1: um me being in my role. You know, you need
• 57:25
  Speaker 1: to you need to maintain relationships and stuff like that.
• 57:28
  Speaker 1: And so I was a little bit nervous to go
• 57:29
  Speaker 1: on this trip, not only because it was a white
• 57:31
  Speaker 1: tailed trip. You know, in your background waterfall like you're
• 57:34
  Speaker 1: a super crazy hardcore or water waterfall hunter. You know.
• 57:37
  Speaker 1: Last year was the first year I'd ever even started
• 57:40
  Speaker 1: our tree hunting and um sambo shambo. You know. We
• 57:44
  Speaker 1: ended up getting lucky and and and stumbled into an
• 57:47
  Speaker 1: antelope early on, Yeah, in antelope early on, and in August,
• 57:52
  Speaker 1: and then in September we ended up you know making
• 57:55
  Speaker 1: that meal dear happen with the boat. It was really cool,
• 57:57
  Speaker 1: So I had the streak going. That was probably the
• 58:00
  Speaker 1: worst thing that could have happened. Who actually pulled the
• 58:03
  Speaker 1: trigger on those animals? My good buddy Jordan Gill, I
• 58:07
  Speaker 1: got to say, Um, so back to the white tail,
• 58:11
  Speaker 1: it was. It was a trip that that I wanted
• 58:14
  Speaker 1: to do, and I really wanted to scout it out
• 58:16
  Speaker 1: for you know, potentially my dad and I go out
• 58:18
  Speaker 1: there one day and spend some time in Ohio with
• 58:21
  Speaker 1: Donnie and and spend some time with the industry guys
• 58:24
  Speaker 1: and and just go white tail hunting for a week.
• 58:27
  Speaker 1: And it's the last week in October. Well last year,
• 58:31
  Speaker 1: it was really warm and a big white oak here,
• 58:34
  Speaker 1: so there's acorns everywhere, so there, I mean, the patterning
• 58:37
  Speaker 1: was early on, it just wasn't happening. You know. There's
• 58:40
  Speaker 1: so much food, and the deer were kind of all
• 58:43
  Speaker 1: over the place, and it was so warm, and um,
• 58:46
  Speaker 1: you know, I don't I don't pretend to know really
• 58:48
  Speaker 1: much of anything about white tail hunting outside of the
• 58:50
  Speaker 1: fact that I was going to Ohio and I'm going
• 58:52
  Speaker 1: with a guy that seems to have something figured out,
• 58:55
  Speaker 1: and uh, you know, I was looking forward to learning.
• 58:59
  Speaker 1: And my week was filled with a lot of deer activity.
• 59:04
  Speaker 1: You know, I saw, I saw a pre road activity.
• 59:07
  Speaker 1: I passed on a three year old that was uh,
• 59:11
  Speaker 1: Donnie said that he would have been okay if I
• 59:13
  Speaker 1: would have shot it like it was. It was a
• 59:14
  Speaker 1: good deer, but it was definitely a three year old
• 59:16
  Speaker 1: um and uh I passed on there, they're superstar two
• 59:21
  Speaker 1: year old. I had him at yards for I mean,
• 59:27
  Speaker 1: oh yeah, just a beautiful, beautiful tan and but he
• 59:32
  Speaker 1: was tune a half. And there was one deer on
• 59:34
  Speaker 1: the wall that they're like, this is the only dear
• 59:36
  Speaker 1: that you come here. You shoot any deer you're happy with.
• 59:39
  Speaker 1: There's no there's no score limit or anything like that.
• 59:43
  Speaker 1: There's no fee. It's just like shoot a trophy for you,
• 59:47
  Speaker 1: except for this one. And it was just, you know,
• 59:50
  Speaker 1: just a beautiful um two year old. And he ended
• 59:53
  Speaker 1: up coming right under me eating acorns for you know,
• 59:57
  Speaker 1: thirty minutes or so with another deer, and and that
• 1:00:01
  Speaker 1: was really cool. I got some really cool video of him.
• 1:00:02
  Speaker 1: I don't know if I've ever showed you little um.
• 1:00:05
  Speaker 1: So I had a lot of deer movement, um, but
• 1:00:08
  Speaker 1: there was a couple of really big deer that we're
• 1:00:10
  Speaker 1: on camera that we they had kind of kind of pattern.
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 1: But it was like right in that transition period, you know,
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 1: it's and of October starting to cool down at night. Um,
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 1: there's definitely some movement happening and uh and we were
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 1: trying to get you know, Brad was hunting this one
• 1:00:27
  Speaker 1: specific deer the whole time. Dennis Zuck tagged out. First day, Yeah,
• 1:00:32
  Speaker 1: shot that really nice nine Yeah, like one six or
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 1: something really nice, dear. First day, Um, yeah, yeah, it
• 1:00:41
  Speaker 1: was really cool and so um, you know, we we
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 1: never had another encounter with with what any of us
• 1:00:49
  Speaker 1: considered as shooters for the for the remainder of that trip.
• 1:00:53
  Speaker 1: And so on the last day, um, you know we're
• 1:00:55
  Speaker 1: seeing deer movement and stuff. But on the last day
• 1:00:57
  Speaker 1: it's just you know, we're looking at our know, they
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 1: got one of those big hunter maps on the wall,
• 1:01:02
  Speaker 1: just like where do we want to go? What do
• 1:01:04
  Speaker 1: we want to do? It's last day, you know, what
• 1:01:06
  Speaker 1: do we want to do? And you know Donni mentioned
• 1:01:11
  Speaker 1: something about in the back forty you know it's yeah,
• 1:01:15
  Speaker 1: it's it's like just over nine acre farm. Um, it's
• 1:01:18
  Speaker 1: like this back forty that they never go in. He's like,
• 1:01:21
  Speaker 1: I've only been in there once to hang this stand
• 1:01:24
  Speaker 1: and nobody's been in there yet this year. You know,
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 1: it's just really really untouched as we got two looking
• 1:01:30
  Speaker 1: at it. You know, it's just just up the hill
• 1:01:31
  Speaker 1: from where Brad. Brad was hunting. This deer was by
• 1:01:35
  Speaker 1: himself hanging out, and I think, you know, potentially car
• 1:01:39
  Speaker 1: checking or you know, you know, there's some bait that
• 1:01:42
  Speaker 1: gets dumped in that those areas. You know, I think
• 1:01:45
  Speaker 1: there was some potentially some movement that was happening, you know,
• 1:01:48
  Speaker 1: from from human interaction. And we're like, you know, they
• 1:01:53
  Speaker 1: could have just popped up the hill and be going
• 1:01:55
  Speaker 1: to a different food source. And this stand was located
• 1:01:58
  Speaker 1: right in the middle of that, and so it was
• 1:02:02
  Speaker 1: about a two and a half mile hike from where
• 1:02:05
  Speaker 1: we were at. And they don't they didn't want to
• 1:02:07
  Speaker 1: run a they didn't want to run a four wheeler
• 1:02:11
  Speaker 1: out for me in the morning, Like, I'll just hike it.
• 1:02:14
  Speaker 1: I'll just a legit. Two and a half a mile
• 1:02:16
  Speaker 1: hike in the morning. Yeah, that's that's a white tail
• 1:02:19
  Speaker 1: hiker right there. That's a serious hie for Because I
• 1:02:21
  Speaker 1: had to go down big hike for a waterfowl guy. Yeah, yeah,
• 1:02:25
  Speaker 1: for what especially in overweight yeah, you know, and so
• 1:02:32
  Speaker 1: but it was because I had to go down I
• 1:02:34
  Speaker 1: had to like work my way through and around to
• 1:02:37
  Speaker 1: get because of the way that the deer were moving
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 1: at night, I couldn't walk through. There was a shorter route,
• 1:02:43
  Speaker 1: but I couldn't walk it because of the because kind
• 1:02:46
  Speaker 1: of the feeding different different feedings and stuff like that
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 1: big food source as well. Yeah, yeah, and even though
• 1:02:51
  Speaker 1: we didn't figure that this particular deer was using any
• 1:02:53
  Speaker 1: of them, you just from what I understand, you don't
• 1:02:56
  Speaker 1: want to risk anything, you know, if if you can
• 1:02:58
  Speaker 1: get in unnoticed and touched, So if we do it.
• 1:03:02
  Speaker 1: Actually learned a lot about layering um in that, which
• 1:03:05
  Speaker 1: is I mean a whole another deal. But you know,
• 1:03:07
  Speaker 1: so I had a long hike um and I was
• 1:03:11
  Speaker 1: pretty well stripped down for the hike, made it in.
• 1:03:16
  Speaker 1: Donnie did a absolutely horrible job of marking the trail
• 1:03:20
  Speaker 1: and ended up getting lost on the way, so I
• 1:03:22
  Speaker 1: had to backtrack through come back around. There was only
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 1: he uses those little clothes pins with the like the
• 1:03:30
  Speaker 1: tech type of thing. But it's like one every just
• 1:03:35
  Speaker 1: out of reach, you know, with the light, and I
• 1:03:38
  Speaker 1: know them close obviously there's gonna be deer round. I
• 1:03:41
  Speaker 1: don't like the idea of just like shining your light
• 1:03:44
  Speaker 1: all over crashing through there I actually made so much
• 1:03:47
  Speaker 1: noise going in there that it was just ridiculous. I mean,
• 1:03:50
  Speaker 1: there was there was down timber, there was brush. I
• 1:03:54
  Speaker 1: went right through a briar patch, like a big, bad one.
• 1:03:57
  Speaker 1: It was. It was just it. That's the worst. And
• 1:03:59
  Speaker 1: I get to the stand and I'm sweating up. What
• 1:04:02
  Speaker 1: did what did you have on? A lot too much? Well?
• 1:04:06
  Speaker 1: Not really, I mean, I so I always wear a
• 1:04:09
  Speaker 1: Marino bass and then um, I had my fanatic hoodie
• 1:04:13
  Speaker 1: on and I had it all on zip, thinking that like,
• 1:04:15
  Speaker 1: I'm just gonna take my time. I left super early.
• 1:04:17
  Speaker 1: Nobody was even awake when I left. It's like last day.
• 1:04:20
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna sit all day, made some sandwich, was like
• 1:04:23
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna going and uh and that worked out. I
• 1:04:27
  Speaker 1: thought it was gonna work out great, but I kind
• 1:04:28
  Speaker 1: of got lost, so I got in a hurry. And
• 1:04:30
  Speaker 1: then I had to climb this hill that I wasn't
• 1:04:32
  Speaker 1: really sure how big it was going to be. It
• 1:04:34
  Speaker 1: turned out it was really big and and I'm just
• 1:04:36
  Speaker 1: kind of filled with those big hills. It's rugged country,
• 1:04:39
  Speaker 1: it's rugged white and uh. And finally make it to
• 1:04:44
  Speaker 1: the stand, find find it and uh, sweating, I rip
• 1:04:50
  Speaker 1: off a layer, get up in the tree. I thread
• 1:04:54
  Speaker 1: everything onto the to the harness. You know, I had
• 1:04:58
  Speaker 1: Celsias fanatic best. That's what I'd like. I like going
• 1:05:02
  Speaker 1: Celsius jacket fanatic best. Um. I have everything on at
• 1:05:07
  Speaker 1: this point because I got cold, so I got everything on.
• 1:05:11
  Speaker 1: Starts getting light. I can hear some deer kind of
• 1:05:14
  Speaker 1: moving around, and I have this dough walk. I can
• 1:05:20
  Speaker 1: hear the neighbors running a four wheeler first thing in
• 1:05:22
  Speaker 1: the morning. He must have been I don't know if
• 1:05:23
  Speaker 1: he's dropping clients or something like. I can hear him
• 1:05:26
  Speaker 1: running like I need to. We knew that I would
• 1:05:29
  Speaker 1: need to be in before that happened. And so I
• 1:05:32
  Speaker 1: get this dough. I start seeing like movements coming from
• 1:05:34
  Speaker 1: mountain front, which is the additional food source that we
• 1:05:37
  Speaker 1: were thinking. And here comes this dough and she's coming
• 1:05:41
  Speaker 1: right across in front of me, and I hear ah
• 1:05:47
  Speaker 1: and just walking real slow bleating, just like coming right
• 1:05:54
  Speaker 1: underneath me. I'm thinking, I'm new to white till henty
• 1:05:58
  Speaker 1: when I first heard it oft in the disc since
• 1:06:00
  Speaker 1: I'm like, that's got to be a buck. But it's weird.
• 1:06:03
  Speaker 1: It's like a weird noise. Why would have. I mean,
• 1:06:05
  Speaker 1: it sounds weird, but hey, deer's coming and it sounds
• 1:06:07
  Speaker 1: like it's getting closer. And so she walked right under me. Um.
• 1:06:12
  Speaker 1: The best part about this was thermals were coming up
• 1:06:15
  Speaker 1: with like no wind, and so I was just I mean,
• 1:06:18
  Speaker 1: it had sprinkled brained a little bit, and there was
• 1:06:21
  Speaker 1: some there's some water on the ground, and so it
• 1:06:24
  Speaker 1: was all coming up. So there was no way that
• 1:06:27
  Speaker 1: anything can smell me any direction around me, which is
• 1:06:30
  Speaker 1: really cool. And so she comes out in front and
• 1:06:33
  Speaker 1: we're you saying that she's making that like bleeding noise.
• 1:06:36
  Speaker 1: She's making that noise. Okay, well I follow you. Interesting,
• 1:06:40
  Speaker 1: So she's she's making just like just like a yeah bleat,
• 1:06:44
  Speaker 1: a little bleat. Okay. So this is happening, and now
• 1:06:47
  Speaker 1: you're thinking, okay, it's something gonna be following her. Something's
• 1:06:48
  Speaker 1: probably following her, um, you know, but maybe maybe not.
• 1:06:52
  Speaker 1: And then I have this buck he walks by, um,
• 1:06:54
  Speaker 1: just like just in sight to my right, and he's
• 1:06:57
  Speaker 1: going down the hill. I'm right on the edge, um
• 1:07:01
  Speaker 1: of just like open and thick. I'm right on the edge.
• 1:07:05
  Speaker 1: So it's so my stand location is fairly thick. Um,
• 1:07:09
  Speaker 1: Donnie hadn't cut any lanes lanes in it or anything.
• 1:07:11
  Speaker 1: There was nothing. It was just just thick, just a
• 1:07:14
  Speaker 1: tree stand lock on. So she comes through, buck walks
• 1:07:21
  Speaker 1: by far right, and then I hear a grunt and
• 1:07:24
  Speaker 1: then it's it's like, noticeably, this is like a deeper,
• 1:07:29
  Speaker 1: darker grunt. I can hear, you know, I had heard
• 1:07:32
  Speaker 1: grunts all all week from these younger, younger bucks pushing
• 1:07:35
  Speaker 1: deer run. Definitely something coming. And then I see off
• 1:07:39
  Speaker 1: to my front left coming at me, um, one single
• 1:07:43
  Speaker 1: dough and then another single dough, and then I hear
• 1:07:47
  Speaker 1: it again and it's back behind, and they're coming down
• 1:07:50
  Speaker 1: a trail right at me. They're gonna kind of quartering
• 1:07:52
  Speaker 1: to me. And then this buck stands into this little
• 1:07:56
  Speaker 1: opening at about sixty yards or so from me, and
• 1:08:00
  Speaker 1: he stops and he just stands there for like ten minutes,
• 1:08:05
  Speaker 1: and your thoughts and horror doing what at this point?
• 1:08:09
  Speaker 1: I immediately so I saw this buck, and I so
• 1:08:13
  Speaker 1: I'm trying to so so these these two deer a
• 1:08:19
  Speaker 1: coming down this trail and he steps into this opening
• 1:08:22
  Speaker 1: and all I see is just from the front shoulder forward.
• 1:08:24
  Speaker 1: So he's got a big neck he's standing very, very tall,
• 1:08:28
  Speaker 1: and he's perpendicular to me. So I just see the
• 1:08:32
  Speaker 1: side and I instantly knew that it was the buck
• 1:08:35
  Speaker 1: that we had seen on the trail cameras. It was
• 1:08:36
  Speaker 1: the buck that we were chasing, Like it was the buck,
• 1:08:40
  Speaker 1: like that was him, there was no question, I mean
• 1:08:42
  Speaker 1: it was. He's beautiful, big deer and he had very
• 1:08:46
  Speaker 1: uh he had very unique color to his rack that
• 1:08:49
  Speaker 1: really stuck out. And he sat there for I swear
• 1:08:54
  Speaker 1: it was ten minutes. They made it almost all the
• 1:08:56
  Speaker 1: way to me from sixty yards on a trail, just
• 1:08:58
  Speaker 1: you know, walking be or he even took another step,
• 1:09:02
  Speaker 1: and he's just watching doing buck things like whatever he's doing.
• 1:09:06
  Speaker 1: And then finally he starts coming down the trail and
• 1:09:11
  Speaker 1: he's coming down the same trail that they're coming down.
• 1:09:13
  Speaker 1: At this point, they're about twenty yards, but they're behind me,
• 1:09:16
  Speaker 1: and I have this spruce tree that blocks me, so
• 1:09:19
  Speaker 1: I can't shoot to the left of me, um like
• 1:09:23
  Speaker 1: back left of me, and this trail comes out back
• 1:09:26
  Speaker 1: left of me. So they come down and they're sitting
• 1:09:29
  Speaker 1: right here behind the spruce tree at about and he
• 1:09:32
  Speaker 1: comes down and there's one opening that I already. UM
• 1:09:37
  Speaker 1: pretty much ranged every little opening that I had, so
• 1:09:41
  Speaker 1: I had a really good understanding of what everything was at,
• 1:09:45
  Speaker 1: where everything was. My best angles were out to the front, front, right.
• 1:09:49
  Speaker 1: He was coming. There was only two spots that I
• 1:09:50
  Speaker 1: could shoot on the left, UM and he was coming
• 1:09:53
  Speaker 1: through it and he started walking through. I'm again, I'm
• 1:09:58
  Speaker 1: gonna say, rookie, white tail. He's coming down the trail
• 1:10:02
  Speaker 1: and I think I'm going to draw and like shoot,
• 1:10:04
  Speaker 1: like he's gonna stop in one of these holes on
• 1:10:06
  Speaker 1: the way in. And so I go and I go
• 1:10:09
  Speaker 1: to draw, and I can't draw. Like I go to
• 1:10:11
  Speaker 1: pull back, I can't pull it back when he walks through,
• 1:10:14
  Speaker 1: like like I'm gonna go, Like, I couldn't physically pull
• 1:10:18
  Speaker 1: the bow back. I went. He was walking and he's
• 1:10:21
  Speaker 1: going to enter into this hole. And I'm like, well,
• 1:10:23
  Speaker 1: if he's gonna stop, if he stops in that hole,
• 1:10:25
  Speaker 1: I need to be. I need to be. I need
• 1:10:29
  Speaker 1: you have to be a full drawn. So I had draw,
• 1:10:31
  Speaker 1: and I could not make it happen. Now were you
• 1:10:34
  Speaker 1: just were you shaking like crazy? I wasn't. No, I wasn't.
• 1:10:37
  Speaker 1: I wasn't shaking really at all. I was just weak. Well, okay,
• 1:10:43
  Speaker 1: I was just the entirely overweight water exactly. No, that's right.
• 1:10:55
  Speaker 1: And so he walks through the hole and I'm just like, okay,
• 1:11:01
  Speaker 1: not thinking that I totally missed my opportunity because he
• 1:11:03
  Speaker 1: walked right through, so it wouldn't went it mattered. Um,
• 1:11:08
  Speaker 1: So he gets he caught up to those two doughs.
• 1:11:11
  Speaker 1: Those does are just feeding behind me at this point.
• 1:11:13
  Speaker 1: Um they're at about fifteen. And he comes up and
• 1:11:17
  Speaker 1: he starts pushing him around, and he's grunting at him
• 1:11:19
  Speaker 1: and pushing him around, and he runs him back down
• 1:11:22
  Speaker 1: the hill behind me, and uh, he's they're like feeding
• 1:11:26
  Speaker 1: back there, and I'm thinking, wow, what a really cool encounter.
• 1:11:28
  Speaker 1: They're gone, but that was a really cool encounter. Even
• 1:11:32
  Speaker 1: if I would have been able to pull my bow back,
• 1:11:33
  Speaker 1: like I didn't have a shot. There's no shot. And
• 1:11:36
  Speaker 1: then I hear him messing around on the hill behind me,
• 1:11:39
  Speaker 1: and then I hear grunt and then I and then
• 1:11:42
  Speaker 1: all of a sudden, they're running and they're running right
• 1:11:45
  Speaker 1: at me, both the Does and he's behind him and
• 1:11:47
  Speaker 1: he's got his head down and he's pushing him, pushing him,
• 1:11:50
  Speaker 1: pushing him, and I'm like brinker calling me, and I'm like,
• 1:11:58
  Speaker 1: this is gonna happen right now. He is wishing them
• 1:12:00
  Speaker 1: as quickly as he can, and they're coming, coming, coming,
• 1:12:04
  Speaker 1: and they split and one goes to one side of
• 1:12:06
  Speaker 1: the tree and one goes to the other side of
• 1:12:07
  Speaker 1: the tree. And he's behind him and he follows the
• 1:12:12
  Speaker 1: one coming out on my left. And so I draw
• 1:12:15
  Speaker 1: and she runs out into the into the opening, and
• 1:12:17
  Speaker 1: you got your bow back this time? This time I
• 1:12:20
  Speaker 1: had it back. Yep, yep. It's a good steps. It's
• 1:12:24
  Speaker 1: a good step. One step. So I draw back, and
• 1:12:29
  Speaker 1: this is she's on a trail that's almost right under
• 1:12:32
  Speaker 1: the stand, about ten yards or whatever, it's like that,
• 1:12:36
  Speaker 1: and she comes running out. I drew. She runs out,
• 1:12:40
  Speaker 1: and he's right behind her, and like here we go.
• 1:12:43
  Speaker 1: And then he stops right behind the spruce tree, right
• 1:12:46
  Speaker 1: on the edge. And I can see his face in
• 1:12:51
  Speaker 1: the opening at ten yards, but I cannot see anything else,
• 1:12:55
  Speaker 1: like I can't there's no shot. And he stops. She stops.
• 1:12:59
  Speaker 1: So now she's at ten yards kind of front left
• 1:13:02
  Speaker 1: to me. He's just right there and he kind of
• 1:13:05
  Speaker 1: is looking around. He's kind of licking and he like
• 1:13:08
  Speaker 1: messing around on the ground and he's rubbing his antlers
• 1:13:12
  Speaker 1: on things like he was just doing buck things like
• 1:13:14
  Speaker 1: right next to me. And I'm still at full draw,
• 1:13:18
  Speaker 1: and she's here and she kind of works out in
• 1:13:21
  Speaker 1: front of me, and I'm bare bones right in front,
• 1:13:24
  Speaker 1: wide open, and and at the corner of my I'm
• 1:13:28
  Speaker 1: just pretty fixated on him, And out of the corner
• 1:13:30
  Speaker 1: of my eye, I see her doing the head bob.
• 1:13:34
  Speaker 1: So she's she's doing dope things. Now, got me like
• 1:13:38
  Speaker 1: she knows something's going on, right, She's she's looking at me,
• 1:13:41
  Speaker 1: head bobbing at me. And this is I mean, I
• 1:13:44
  Speaker 1: feel like it was a couple of minutes, you know
• 1:13:46
  Speaker 1: that that this is like over the course of the
• 1:13:48
  Speaker 1: you know, these events, and she's doing this thing, and
• 1:13:52
  Speaker 1: he looks up and notices are doing this thing, and
• 1:13:55
  Speaker 1: so he knows something's going on. So the whole thing is,
• 1:13:58
  Speaker 1: the whole thing is a mess going downhill very quickly,
• 1:14:02
  Speaker 1: you know, we've reached the climax leaving. So he starts
• 1:14:07
  Speaker 1: walking back where he takes like three steps back where
• 1:14:10
  Speaker 1: it turns around, gets back to the trail he came
• 1:14:13
  Speaker 1: in on, and starts heading back out the trail. The
• 1:14:16
  Speaker 1: exact way that he came in. And are you still
• 1:14:21
  Speaker 1: drawn back at this? Still drawn back at this point,
• 1:14:24
  Speaker 1: I don't know what else to do. What else do
• 1:14:26
  Speaker 1: you do? Down? Yeah? Usually let down, But that's not smart.
• 1:14:30
  Speaker 1: She still doesn't know what's going on. She's she hasn't
• 1:14:34
  Speaker 1: she's stomping her fully busted. You're not fully busted yet,
• 1:14:37
  Speaker 1: So you don't want to. But I did. But I
• 1:14:41
  Speaker 1: did level out, and she watched me level out, you know,
• 1:14:43
  Speaker 1: because he's going back out on this on this trail,
• 1:14:46
  Speaker 1: and I know that there's one two spots. If he
• 1:14:49
  Speaker 1: stops in any one of those spots, like I know
• 1:14:51
  Speaker 1: the range, it's thirty yards, it was like seven to one,
• 1:14:54
  Speaker 1: thirty to the other. He's gonna walk through him. If
• 1:14:57
  Speaker 1: he stops, I'm still gonna have a chance at it.
• 1:15:00
  Speaker 1: And he's walking without moving his head or neck or anything.
• 1:15:03
  Speaker 1: It's like just his legs are moving and he's just
• 1:15:05
  Speaker 1: perfectly still walking very very slowly. And so he's retreating.
• 1:15:12
  Speaker 1: She's still here um stomping her foot, and he's not
• 1:15:15
  Speaker 1: looking at it or anything. He's just looking straightforward, just going.
• 1:15:18
  Speaker 1: And he once, you guess it, stops right in the
• 1:15:24
  Speaker 1: thirty yard whole stops right in it and just not
• 1:15:28
  Speaker 1: arranged for you then right, and he turns and looks
• 1:15:37
  Speaker 1: back at her, and so I settle in. Everything looks right.
• 1:15:42
  Speaker 1: I'm a little weak right now. We've been I've been
• 1:15:45
  Speaker 1: holding the whole time, so I was definitely a little
• 1:15:47
  Speaker 1: shaky um. But this was the opportunity that I had.
• 1:15:51
  Speaker 1: I remember settling in bubble. Everything's good. I knew it
• 1:15:55
  Speaker 1: was dirty. Let it go, and it looks it looks
• 1:16:00
  Speaker 1: right like it's going. It looks extremely true. I have
• 1:16:04
  Speaker 1: white fledging to watch it all. It's going extremely true.
• 1:16:08
  Speaker 1: And then I hear this huge whack and all I
• 1:16:12
  Speaker 1: can think of. The immediate thing that took over my
• 1:16:15
  Speaker 1: took over my, my entire thoughts everything was that I
• 1:16:18
  Speaker 1: hit him in the shoulder. I thought I hit him
• 1:16:20
  Speaker 1: in the shoulder, which really gave me this overwhelming feeling
• 1:16:25
  Speaker 1: of regret for taking the shot. You know, I just
• 1:16:28
  Speaker 1: felt really bad about taking that shot. But it was
• 1:16:32
  Speaker 1: the only shot I had, and it's but it sounded
• 1:16:34
  Speaker 1: like bone breaking, you know, That's what it sounded like.
• 1:16:38
  Speaker 1: And uh, he didn't flinch or anything, and he kind
• 1:16:41
  Speaker 1: of took a couple of bounds like everything happened. And
• 1:16:44
  Speaker 1: then looking back, there was a split second where he
• 1:16:47
  Speaker 1: didn't move after I heard that noise, so he didn't
• 1:16:50
  Speaker 1: really know what happened. Bounds off, and now he's stopped
• 1:16:55
  Speaker 1: broadside at about fifty I got trees. He looks like
• 1:16:59
  Speaker 1: a truck handing there, like he's huge, like the body
• 1:17:02
  Speaker 1: of him was really big out in this little clearing.
• 1:17:05
  Speaker 1: I can't shoot. I got too much stuff. But I
• 1:17:07
  Speaker 1: can see his side that I shot at, and it's
• 1:17:09
  Speaker 1: perfectly clean, perfectly clear, and and I realized that I
• 1:17:16
  Speaker 1: must have missed, like I must not hit him. And
• 1:17:18
  Speaker 1: I'm looking at him and looking at him, looking at him.
• 1:17:20
  Speaker 1: He's looking under me, but he's looking in my direction,
• 1:17:24
  Speaker 1: and and he's perfectly clean. There's no blood, there's no arrow,
• 1:17:28
  Speaker 1: there's no nothing, and he seems to be doing just fine.
• 1:17:32
  Speaker 1: So she watches me shoot. She bounds off, gets to
• 1:17:34
  Speaker 1: right next to him, and then she blows one time,
• 1:17:38
  Speaker 1: and then he does this blow that was It was
• 1:17:42
  Speaker 1: like a freight train. It was so loud, like so
• 1:17:46
  Speaker 1: much louder than any dough I've ever heard blow before
• 1:17:50
  Speaker 1: in my life. It was so loud. And then he
• 1:17:53
  Speaker 1: jumped up did like a ninety degree turn in the
• 1:17:57
  Speaker 1: air and was gone. And all I saw I was,
• 1:18:01
  Speaker 1: I just saw his flag and flag and and he
• 1:18:04
  Speaker 1: was just like bounding away like all four He looked
• 1:18:08
  Speaker 1: like a meal deer bounding away. It was crazy. So
• 1:18:11
  Speaker 1: how did you feel after all that, I mean, your
• 1:18:13
  Speaker 1: first serious close encounter almost get to kill a giant
• 1:18:19
  Speaker 1: wild imagine extremely bad bad, Yes, that sounds likely. Describe
• 1:18:24
  Speaker 1: all describe all the thoughts of because at this point,
• 1:18:27
  Speaker 1: you know, take us and do your misery. And what
• 1:18:29
  Speaker 1: I should have done is I should have I should
• 1:18:31
  Speaker 1: have watched. So I snapchatted this entire experience that I
• 1:18:34
  Speaker 1: had afterwards, I don't remember. I don't remember if I
• 1:18:37
  Speaker 1: did or not after this entire So I what I
• 1:18:40
  Speaker 1: did was I actually documented the entire experience via snapchat
• 1:18:44
  Speaker 1: from day one, and so all of those bucks's I
• 1:18:49
  Speaker 1: think it's Matt McCormick o five. Just like my Instagram account.
• 1:18:52
  Speaker 1: It's pretty easy and so little plug for you. I
• 1:18:56
  Speaker 1: snapchat at that entire experience, and so I had a
• 1:18:59
  Speaker 1: lot of a lot of here. Anyways, Um it was
• 1:19:04
  Speaker 1: I didn't start to shake until after he was gone. Um,
• 1:19:08
  Speaker 1: but I started to shake really bad. Then UM, I
• 1:19:11
  Speaker 1: was feeling like I questioned a lot of things like
• 1:19:14
  Speaker 1: what did I do wrong? What it started out with? What?
• 1:19:18
  Speaker 1: What did I do wrong? Um? You know, should I
• 1:19:21
  Speaker 1: have should I have waited to draw? Sh it? I've
• 1:19:23
  Speaker 1: what should I have done? Like? And uh, what happened
• 1:19:27
  Speaker 1: with the arrow? I couldn't figure couldn't really figure it out. Um.
• 1:19:33
  Speaker 1: And but what a cool experience, right, And so I'm
• 1:19:37
  Speaker 1: sitting there and I'm I'm having this like kind of
• 1:19:41
  Speaker 1: it was kind of emotional, but it wasn't. It was
• 1:19:44
  Speaker 1: just a really really cool experience, except for I felt
• 1:19:47
  Speaker 1: like I let the group down a little bit. I
• 1:19:50
  Speaker 1: definitely felt that at some point during that whole thing
• 1:19:52
  Speaker 1: that that like, we all came down here as this group,
• 1:19:56
  Speaker 1: and and over the course of the week, we became
• 1:19:59
  Speaker 1: more of a team than a group of of random guys.
• 1:20:02
  Speaker 1: We were we became really good friends over the course
• 1:20:05
  Speaker 1: of that week, and I felt like I may have
• 1:20:08
  Speaker 1: let them down a little bit. So I was pretty
• 1:20:10
  Speaker 1: bummed out about that. UM just kind of it's kind
• 1:20:14
  Speaker 1: of not feeling real great about the whole situation and
• 1:20:16
  Speaker 1: shaking UM. That lasted for quite a while, like an
• 1:20:23
  Speaker 1: hour or so, and I didn't see any deer um
• 1:20:27
  Speaker 1: for for a while, and then I had some deer
• 1:20:30
  Speaker 1: comes through I actually saw. Um. I ended up seeing
• 1:20:32
  Speaker 1: like three or four more bucks that day. UM. I
• 1:20:35
  Speaker 1: did sit there the whole the whole day. UM. But
• 1:20:41
  Speaker 1: after and now and even that day, even by the
• 1:20:44
  Speaker 1: time I got over this, you know, this feeling of
• 1:20:49
  Speaker 1: whatever what, I don't know what that feeling is. I'm
• 1:20:51
  Speaker 1: sure you have a word, sure, yea. I think I
• 1:21:00
  Speaker 1: think that I started to realize that that was a
• 1:21:03
  Speaker 1: really incredible experience. UM. You know, for me personally, I
• 1:21:08
  Speaker 1: didn't have a whole lot invested in I had a
• 1:21:10
  Speaker 1: week invested into that property. I didn't have a whole
• 1:21:13
  Speaker 1: lot invested into that deer. Um. You know, it was
• 1:21:18
  Speaker 1: it was virtually a guided kind of like a guided
• 1:21:22
  Speaker 1: type hunt. Um. Donnie had some some something invested into
• 1:21:28
  Speaker 1: that deer. So I felt kind of maybe like I
• 1:21:30
  Speaker 1: let him down a little bit. But but I personally
• 1:21:32
  Speaker 1: had an experience with a deer on a property that that,
• 1:21:36
  Speaker 1: you know, I may never have an experience like that again.
• 1:21:39
  Speaker 1: And um, to have him in and around me for
• 1:21:41
  Speaker 1: that long and watching him just interact at a you
• 1:21:45
  Speaker 1: know kind of I've never I grew up in Wisconsin.
• 1:21:48
  Speaker 1: I I've never seen a deer that's not running all right,
• 1:21:53
  Speaker 1: you know, it's just it looks like converge out there
• 1:21:55
  Speaker 1: on the on the deer woods out there sometimes. And yeah,
• 1:22:02
  Speaker 1: and you know, it was it was really cool just
• 1:22:06
  Speaker 1: to see it not just a you know, not just
• 1:22:09
  Speaker 1: a really big deer, but any buck that's having that
• 1:22:13
  Speaker 1: type of interaction with the does at that time of
• 1:22:15
  Speaker 1: the year, and it's kind of ending the trip, it's
• 1:22:18
  Speaker 1: ending that week, and and it just kind of was
• 1:22:20
  Speaker 1: a really good rap on the whole thing. And so
• 1:22:22
  Speaker 1: thankfully I got the entire day. This happened within the
• 1:22:25
  Speaker 1: first hour. I had the entire day to sit and
• 1:22:28
  Speaker 1: think about it, decompressed, and I had, you know, go
• 1:22:31
  Speaker 1: through the roller coaster, and and yeah, it was. It
• 1:22:35
  Speaker 1: was a really cool experience. Man. I couldn't have I
• 1:22:38
  Speaker 1: couldn't have. I couldn't have painted a better picture. And
• 1:22:41
  Speaker 1: and that image of that buck when he first stepped
• 1:22:44
  Speaker 1: into that that opening was I'll never forget that. I
• 1:22:48
  Speaker 1: had him closer than that. I remember the basses and
• 1:22:51
  Speaker 1: I remember that That's what I remember seeing, you know,
• 1:22:54
  Speaker 1: everything else I was fairly focused on just the body
• 1:22:57
  Speaker 1: of the deer and you know his movements, but that
• 1:23:01
  Speaker 1: him and I shared a really cool moment when he
• 1:23:05
  Speaker 1: stepped into my set and it's like he sent something
• 1:23:11
  Speaker 1: because he stood there for so long, but he went
• 1:23:14
  Speaker 1: ahead and moved on anyways and came in and that
• 1:23:17
  Speaker 1: was really cool. That is cool. It's awesome, And I
• 1:23:20
  Speaker 1: think that's one of the cool things about white tail
• 1:23:22
  Speaker 1: hunting is like you can have I mean, obviously have
• 1:23:25
  Speaker 1: incredible experiences of animals when you're stock and mule, deer,
• 1:23:28
  Speaker 1: elk or something like that. But with white tails, it's
• 1:23:30
  Speaker 1: a little bit different because usually you are a silent
• 1:23:34
  Speaker 1: observer of their world and you're in it, but you're
• 1:23:37
  Speaker 1: not You're not like changing it. You're just observing and
• 1:23:41
  Speaker 1: got to be the right place, and then they enter
• 1:23:43
  Speaker 1: that and then you have a strangely kind of intimate,
• 1:23:47
  Speaker 1: like he said, some these weird little moments with deer
• 1:23:49
  Speaker 1: that are very very cool, very powerful. Um, So, how
• 1:23:56
  Speaker 1: how do you feel at white tailing? Are you gonna
• 1:23:57
  Speaker 1: do it again? You have the bug? I would say
• 1:24:00
  Speaker 1: that I do have the bug, and that's why I'm
• 1:24:01
  Speaker 1: not gonna hunt meal deer in Montana, but probably the
• 1:24:04
  Speaker 1: range maybe. Yeah. Yeah, if you go to the range,
• 1:24:08
  Speaker 1: you spend more time at thirty. You know, one thing,
• 1:24:12
  Speaker 1: one thing that I do and one thing that I
• 1:24:14
  Speaker 1: do need to do is uh, you know, when I
• 1:24:17
  Speaker 1: did shoot my meal deer last year, it was it
• 1:24:19
  Speaker 1: was at a really steep angle. But in Montana, we
• 1:24:21
  Speaker 1: don't have at our ranges, we don't have elevated, um,
• 1:24:25
  Speaker 1: elevated shooting spots. Right much like in the Midwest you
• 1:24:29
  Speaker 1: have a lot of elevated shoot spots you can practice
• 1:24:31
  Speaker 1: that way. We don't have that here. Um, So we
• 1:24:33
  Speaker 1: have to do makeshift ones off of rocks and stuff
• 1:24:35
  Speaker 1: like that. So yeah, and the trees, yep, perspective is
• 1:24:40
  Speaker 1: is different. Yep, it's definitely different. And uh no, it was.
• 1:24:45
  Speaker 1: It was great. And I've always I've always I thought
• 1:24:49
  Speaker 1: I would like whitetail hunting, especially archery, but that was
• 1:24:52
  Speaker 1: a really cool experience. It definitely pushed me over the
• 1:24:54
  Speaker 1: edge on on that because I feel like that was
• 1:24:59
  Speaker 1: such a unique experien ants and I know that some
• 1:25:01
  Speaker 1: people have experiences and encounters like that with big deer.
• 1:25:04
  Speaker 1: You'll have to put the pictures of deer up or something. Yeah,
• 1:25:06
  Speaker 1: we definitely Yeah, well a neighbor end up shooting it
• 1:25:10
  Speaker 1: right and ended up being a It was a booner,
• 1:25:12
  Speaker 1: wasn't it. Yeah, it was like just over one seventy. Yeah,
• 1:25:18
  Speaker 1: we'll put a picture up. Yes, hey, you've been there too. Kids.
• 1:25:25
  Speaker 1: I don't really have any unsuccessful stories. No, okay, Well
• 1:25:30
  Speaker 1: that was because it was Matt's only white tail experience.
• 1:25:33
  Speaker 1: That was probably his best white tail experience. What's your
• 1:25:36
  Speaker 1: most memorable white tail experience? So I've been hunting white
• 1:25:41
  Speaker 1: tails for just over ten years, and so yeah, I
• 1:25:45
  Speaker 1: have a lot of experiences. One that stands out the
• 1:25:47
  Speaker 1: most though, is hunting with my wife just just this
• 1:25:53
  Speaker 1: last year, and uh, you know, we got to sit
• 1:25:57
  Speaker 1: in a double stand. Um, it's a beautiful area right
• 1:26:00
  Speaker 1: on the river bottom. Uh, and we had we knew
• 1:26:03
  Speaker 1: all the trails right when when a deer came to
• 1:26:06
  Speaker 1: where their trails split, if it went in a certain direction,
• 1:26:08
  Speaker 1: we knew where they were going to be going. And
• 1:26:11
  Speaker 1: so we get set up in the stand and it's
• 1:26:14
  Speaker 1: her first year bow hunting, and so I'm sitting there
• 1:26:18
  Speaker 1: next to her, and these deer come down this trail
• 1:26:23
  Speaker 1: and they get to that split, you know, and they
• 1:26:25
  Speaker 1: once they hit that split, they're coming. They're coming right
• 1:26:28
  Speaker 1: at us, right, and you know if if they take
• 1:26:30
  Speaker 1: that trail, they're coming, understand. And I'm an emotional hunter,
• 1:26:36
  Speaker 1: so I've I've I've been fortunate enough to hunt, like
• 1:26:38
  Speaker 1: I said, white tails for a long time. Every year,
• 1:26:41
  Speaker 1: the first though that comes down the trail, I shake.
• 1:26:44
  Speaker 1: I sit there and you know, shaking everything. And and
• 1:26:47
  Speaker 1: so I'm I'm not even the one hunting, right, but
• 1:26:49
  Speaker 1: I'm you know, I'm starting to shaking, and uh you
• 1:26:52
  Speaker 1: know I mentioned jan I'm like here, it's coming, you know,
• 1:26:56
  Speaker 1: and I can't even really talk. I guess like for me,
• 1:26:58
  Speaker 1: like with me, like was with my wife, I'd be
• 1:27:01
  Speaker 1: the one like freaking out. And then I look at
• 1:27:02
  Speaker 1: her like thinking she's breaking out that she's like stone cold.
• 1:27:06
  Speaker 1: So my wife just she's kind of looking at me
• 1:27:07
  Speaker 1: actually like I'm insane, right, and why she's telling me
• 1:27:12
  Speaker 1: to calm down, you know, she's like, your inexperienced hunter,
• 1:27:15
  Speaker 1: calmed down, you shouldn't be doing this. And uh so
• 1:27:19
  Speaker 1: this deer comes in and and we had just decided,
• 1:27:22
  Speaker 1: because of the way we had patterned these deer, twenty
• 1:27:25
  Speaker 1: yards was going to be max and and you know
• 1:27:29
  Speaker 1: that wasn't gonna be a problem. They come right underneath
• 1:27:31
  Speaker 1: your stand in the spot. And so sure enough, here
• 1:27:34
  Speaker 1: comes this dough and she puts her head down and
• 1:27:37
  Speaker 1: I told you, and I said, okay, drawback right, and
• 1:27:41
  Speaker 1: Jenny goes, I can't, and you know, and like I said,
• 1:27:45
  Speaker 1: I'm emotional. So I'm sitting there and I go, what
• 1:27:47
  Speaker 1: do you what do you mean you can't? Why can't
• 1:27:49
  Speaker 1: you dry? And she goes, there's this limb behind my arm.
• 1:27:51
  Speaker 1: I can't draw back. And so I see what's going on. Well,
• 1:27:55
  Speaker 1: where I'm sitting, I could draw back really easily, but
• 1:27:59
  Speaker 1: you know, my my bows hung up. Song like, I'm
• 1:28:02
  Speaker 1: not gonna go down that route. Not gonna be that
• 1:28:04
  Speaker 1: guy again. Um again, there's another study, like I said,
• 1:28:10
  Speaker 1: an emotional hunter. Okay. Uh, so she's she's trying to
• 1:28:17
  Speaker 1: draw back. She can't, she can't in this dough at
• 1:28:20
  Speaker 1: fifteen yards beds down. Wow, was hanging up right in
• 1:28:25
  Speaker 1: front of us. So now not only can Janna draw back,
• 1:28:28
  Speaker 1: but we can't. We can't pull the switch right, We're
• 1:28:30
  Speaker 1: just gonna be stuck. So as this dough is bedded down,
• 1:28:33
  Speaker 1: we have I mean, it was no less than a
• 1:28:35
  Speaker 1: dozen other doughs walk by and we can't. We're just
• 1:28:40
  Speaker 1: sitting and watching, which was really fun um and it
• 1:28:44
  Speaker 1: allowed me to calm down. She was already fine. So
• 1:28:48
  Speaker 1: finally they all kind of clear off and we'd pull
• 1:28:50
  Speaker 1: the switch and I get on the other side of
• 1:28:52
  Speaker 1: the stand and and and she now can draw, and
• 1:28:54
  Speaker 1: we're we're testing it and everything like that. And uh
• 1:28:59
  Speaker 1: so the next dough is coming down and hits that
• 1:29:02
  Speaker 1: that's that mark and I go, okay, you're you're good,
• 1:29:05
  Speaker 1: You're ready, you know, and I start doing the shake
• 1:29:08
  Speaker 1: thing again, you know, and I'm like and I'm telling
• 1:29:09
  Speaker 1: I'm like, Jenny, you're ready, you know. And she's like, yeah,
• 1:29:11
  Speaker 1: I see you come on like you this one it's
• 1:29:13
  Speaker 1: gonna come in, you know. And she goes, yeah, I
• 1:29:15
  Speaker 1: get it. It's it's gonna come in. And it's at
• 1:29:18
  Speaker 1: about twenty five yards and I'm I'm just like at
• 1:29:22
  Speaker 1: this um extreme intensity level, you know, I'm just so excited,
• 1:29:27
  Speaker 1: and she goes, Garrett, you what, She goes, do you
• 1:29:31
  Speaker 1: think I should get my dog a different vest? At
• 1:29:37
  Speaker 1: that moment, I just started to laugh because she was
• 1:29:40
  Speaker 1: so calm. And this dough comes in and uh, you know,
• 1:29:45
  Speaker 1: twenty yards, stands broadside janit draws back, perfect shot, you
• 1:29:49
  Speaker 1: know it? Uh? I think it ran like forty yards
• 1:29:52
  Speaker 1: maybe after that, right. But what was amazing to me
• 1:29:57
  Speaker 1: with that was I was so intense. And when you
• 1:30:00
  Speaker 1: when you hear of her say something like that, you know,
• 1:30:02
  Speaker 1: you think to yourself, was she was she there experience earlier?
• 1:30:07
  Speaker 1: But she wasn't. She was. She was calm enough where
• 1:30:10
  Speaker 1: she was just thinking as clearly as as we are
• 1:30:12
  Speaker 1: right here, you know. And and as she thinks back
• 1:30:15
  Speaker 1: to that hunt, she she talks about watching that dough
• 1:30:19
  Speaker 1: and where it hit the splint and how she thought, wow,
• 1:30:21
  Speaker 1: this this might happen. And and then you know, there's
• 1:30:24
  Speaker 1: not a person in this world that's more appreciative. But
• 1:30:27
  Speaker 1: it was so interesting for me because I'm used to
• 1:30:29
  Speaker 1: being on this level of you know, like I said,
• 1:30:33
  Speaker 1: I shake every single dough, you know, and yet she
• 1:30:37
  Speaker 1: was so calm, and that's her first year, and that's amazing.
• 1:30:42
  Speaker 1: I felt like I was with a professional hunter. That's
• 1:30:45
  Speaker 1: just you know, yeah, this is this is beautiful. And
• 1:30:48
  Speaker 1: so I'm I'm inspired to try to reach the level
• 1:30:50
  Speaker 1: where I can be like your wife daily. How How
• 1:30:55
  Speaker 1: was she afterwards? That, you know. So that was what
• 1:30:58
  Speaker 1: was interesting is when we got out to the stand,
• 1:31:01
  Speaker 1: that was when all those emotions started to hit UM.
• 1:31:05
  Speaker 1: And I've actually heard I can't remember what hunter I
• 1:31:08
  Speaker 1: was watching UM, but he talked about how he worked
• 1:31:12
  Speaker 1: very hard on harnessing his emotions until after you don't
• 1:31:17
  Speaker 1: do you know, make sure you do everything the right
• 1:31:19
  Speaker 1: way and then you can be emotional. And so that
• 1:31:23
  Speaker 1: I guess what was even more inspirational was watching that
• 1:31:26
  Speaker 1: to a t happen, you know, just very stoic, poised.
• 1:31:30
  Speaker 1: And then yeah, we got out and all the emotions
• 1:31:32
  Speaker 1: rushed and and uh, you know it was a beautiful
• 1:31:36
  Speaker 1: dough walked up and uh, you know, she was just
• 1:31:39
  Speaker 1: so appreciative, you know, you walk you have different hunters
• 1:31:43
  Speaker 1: out there, you know, and and watching her and how
• 1:31:46
  Speaker 1: much she appreciated this animal unbelievable for me. How did
• 1:31:50
  Speaker 1: it feeling for you to see your wife and what
• 1:31:53
  Speaker 1: was the emotional experience like for you? Well for her,
• 1:31:56
  Speaker 1: as I said, yeah, as I said, leading into it,
• 1:31:59
  Speaker 1: you know, I don't think you could have got a
• 1:32:01
  Speaker 1: pulse on me. It was going that fast, you know.
• 1:32:03
  Speaker 1: And uh and then yeah, when I watched UM, her
• 1:32:07
  Speaker 1: makes such a great shot. First, I have to say
• 1:32:11
  Speaker 1: that was surprising, you know, just you know, you know,
• 1:32:15
  Speaker 1: you never should be surprised, but first animal, you know,
• 1:32:19
  Speaker 1: you're watching this and you're like, right serious, Wow, that's amazing. Um.
• 1:32:25
  Speaker 1: And then that's I guess for my So we we
• 1:32:28
  Speaker 1: were kind of like on opposite tracks there, you know,
• 1:32:31
  Speaker 1: And so when that happened, I all of a sudden
• 1:32:34
  Speaker 1: really came down to base level and just watching it.
• 1:32:38
  Speaker 1: For me, I that's where I was a lot more
• 1:32:42
  Speaker 1: calm than she was, but just kind of marveled. Honestly.
• 1:32:46
  Speaker 1: You know, you can't do anything else than that when
• 1:32:48
  Speaker 1: you see somebody take their first animally right next to
• 1:32:51
  Speaker 1: him with the bow and the level of poise that
• 1:32:55
  Speaker 1: was demonstrated, but then the appreciation afterwards, you know, I
• 1:33:00
  Speaker 1: just I literally I you know, I kind of stood
• 1:33:02
  Speaker 1: back about twenty yards so she could walk up, you know,
• 1:33:05
  Speaker 1: and have that experience by yourself and just watching her. Um,
• 1:33:10
  Speaker 1: that was really inspirational. Honestly, it really was cool. UM.
• 1:33:13
  Speaker 1: And she didn't miss like you know, some other people
• 1:33:15
  Speaker 1: out there, so she did. Well you might you might
• 1:33:21
  Speaker 1: be served Matt to hang out with her a little bit. Yeah, yeah,
• 1:33:25
  Speaker 1: I guess so, man, that's good stuff. That's always cool.
• 1:33:29
  Speaker 1: I mean both of these stories are perfect examples of
• 1:33:31
  Speaker 1: of of why any kind of hunting is just such
• 1:33:35
  Speaker 1: a powerful experience. Yeah. Um, whether it be a solo
• 1:33:39
  Speaker 1: encounter with an animal or sharing a special moment like
• 1:33:42
  Speaker 1: that with a loved one. Um and with an animal.
• 1:33:45
  Speaker 1: I mean, that's that's a pretty profound and we're just
• 1:33:48
  Speaker 1: very luck people to it. We're very fortunate, different than
• 1:33:51
  Speaker 1: anyone else, anyone hiking or bird watching or camping. We
• 1:33:55
  Speaker 1: get to not only observe, but we get to participate
• 1:33:58
  Speaker 1: in that process. That's pretty special. It's cool. Yeah. So
• 1:34:03
  Speaker 1: I like being a hunter. I love being a hunter,
• 1:34:05
  Speaker 1: and you guys, um, yes it does so. Garrett Conservation professional,
• 1:34:15
  Speaker 1: Matt photography professional. I want a little bit of advice
• 1:34:20
  Speaker 1: from both of you on those two topics. Um, So
• 1:34:24
  Speaker 1: for our listeners if they are looking to take their
• 1:34:26
  Speaker 1: photo game to the next level a little bit, Matt
• 1:34:30
  Speaker 1: uh any basic gear recommendations, and then any basically technique
• 1:34:35
  Speaker 1: or things to think about when taking shots, whether it
• 1:34:37
  Speaker 1: be just like senior shots or maybe a harvest photo. Um,
• 1:34:41
  Speaker 1: I guess, gear, any any gear thoughts and things to
• 1:34:43
  Speaker 1: think about Yeah. You know, the biggest thing is is
• 1:34:46
  Speaker 1: to ask yourself what do you want out of it?
• 1:34:49
  Speaker 1: You know, what do you want to get out of
• 1:34:51
  Speaker 1: the photos that you're taking? Do you want to remember experiences? Um?
• 1:34:56
  Speaker 1: Do you want it to be really beautiful? Do you
• 1:34:58
  Speaker 1: want to share those experience? Says? How are you going to?
• 1:35:01
  Speaker 1: You know, what are you gonna do with the imagery?
• 1:35:04
  Speaker 1: Is it just gonna go up on Instagram? Or you're
• 1:35:06
  Speaker 1: gonna print some photos or you're gonna you know, build
• 1:35:10
  Speaker 1: calendars for your for your mom's and grandma's for their
• 1:35:14
  Speaker 1: for Christmas? You know, what are you gonna do with
• 1:35:16
  Speaker 1: the imagery? Um? And kind of work backwards from there?
• 1:35:20
  Speaker 1: In my in my opinion, you know, you can spend
• 1:35:22
  Speaker 1: as much or as little as you want on photography here.
• 1:35:25
  Speaker 1: You know there's it is a never ending investment. And UM,
• 1:35:31
  Speaker 1: what I will say is that you know there are
• 1:35:33
  Speaker 1: some basic things that you need and what you need
• 1:35:37
  Speaker 1: to decide if you want to a mirror list or
• 1:35:39
  Speaker 1: a DSLR, so you you'd start there. You know there's
• 1:35:42
  Speaker 1: pros and cons to both, and you can read lost
• 1:35:47
  Speaker 1: and lots of articles about them. Is there is there
• 1:35:50
  Speaker 1: a five second summer. You can give of each as
• 1:35:53
  Speaker 1: two pro cons at a very very hi level. Uh.
• 1:35:57
  Speaker 1: I means it gets into you know, you get into
• 1:36:01
  Speaker 1: a lot of technical stuff. It's pretty cool. We've got
• 1:36:03
  Speaker 1: people showing up here, so everybody knows. UM. You know,
• 1:36:09
  Speaker 1: the the really quick rundown of it is going to
• 1:36:13
  Speaker 1: be weight. Um is a big thing. So when you're
• 1:36:18
  Speaker 1: looking at pro photographers, if they're using it based on weight, um, uh,
• 1:36:23
  Speaker 1: image quality is actually really close to the same. Um.
• 1:36:26
  Speaker 1: But they have their own lenses. UM. Mirrorless has their
• 1:36:29
  Speaker 1: own lenses. Um. You know, DSLRs have their own lenses. UM.
• 1:36:33
  Speaker 1: Dslars are, in my opinion, faster. Um. There. You know,
• 1:36:38
  Speaker 1: you can argue it. You can put photos next to
• 1:36:40
  Speaker 1: each other and they look almost the same. It's really
• 1:36:43
  Speaker 1: tough to tell. There is some cons um but really
• 1:36:49
  Speaker 1: you need I don't like to get into the into
• 1:36:52
  Speaker 1: them because it's like it's it's like, really you're saying's
• 1:36:55
  Speaker 1: people it's jumping on you. It's sensitive, Well what do
• 1:36:58
  Speaker 1: you shoot mirror lists? People are really pensitive because it's
• 1:37:00
  Speaker 1: the new thing, you know, and it's fairly new. It's
• 1:37:04
  Speaker 1: fairly new to this game. So what I'll say is
• 1:37:09
  Speaker 1: that you need to just choose what's right for you, um,
• 1:37:12
  Speaker 1: and then kind of go from there. Um so picking
• 1:37:14
  Speaker 1: picking a good solid body, but really focusing on, in
• 1:37:18
  Speaker 1: my opinion on the lenses. The lenses are what make
• 1:37:22
  Speaker 1: the difference, what truly make the difference. If you buy
• 1:37:25
  Speaker 1: a six camera body and you put a two thousand
• 1:37:28
  Speaker 1: dollar lens on it, it's gonna look really it's gonna
• 1:37:31
  Speaker 1: look really good. Is it gonna look better if you
• 1:37:34
  Speaker 1: put a three thousand dollar body on it? Of course
• 1:37:36
  Speaker 1: it is, But it's gonna look really good because the
• 1:37:40
  Speaker 1: glass is really good. Um So, UM investing in glass
• 1:37:46
  Speaker 1: is what I would say. You know, you can get,
• 1:37:50
  Speaker 1: you can spend. You can buy really good lenses for
• 1:37:53
  Speaker 1: five I shoot cannon DSLRs and I shoot cannon lenses,
• 1:37:59
  Speaker 1: and um, you can get some really good stuff up there.
• 1:38:02
  Speaker 1: All of their l series lens are great, Um, are
• 1:38:05
  Speaker 1: really great. All around lens is seventeen forty UM L
• 1:38:08
  Speaker 1: Series four point. Oh, it's affordable, it's a workhorse, and
• 1:38:12
  Speaker 1: it takes really beautiful photos. Awesome. UM, if you wanted to,
• 1:38:18
  Speaker 1: you know, step up your game and and start taking
• 1:38:21
  Speaker 1: just more beautiful images. In general, outside of the you know,
• 1:38:25
  Speaker 1: outside of the shooting at the first hour, in the
• 1:38:28
  Speaker 1: last hour of the day, which you know, for we've
• 1:38:31
  Speaker 1: talked about this doesn't happen. You know, all the moments
• 1:38:34
  Speaker 1: in the world don't happen in the first or last
• 1:38:36
  Speaker 1: hour of the day. So you gotta figure out how
• 1:38:37
  Speaker 1: to take photos at every other time of the day.
• 1:38:40
  Speaker 1: UM is really just changing the perspective. UM. You know,
• 1:38:46
  Speaker 1: what are you trying to capture. Um, if you're trying
• 1:38:49
  Speaker 1: to capture a kill shot, or you're trying to capture
• 1:38:51
  Speaker 1: a wildlife shot, or or whatever it may be, just
• 1:38:55
  Speaker 1: just change the perspective, look at the frame as a whole,
• 1:38:59
  Speaker 1: and really try to figure out what you're what you
• 1:39:03
  Speaker 1: want to do with it. Oftentimes you have a little
• 1:39:06
  Speaker 1: bit of time too to figure out and frame it up.
• 1:39:09
  Speaker 1: And you know, one big thing, making sure the horizon
• 1:39:12
  Speaker 1: is straight. Everything bugs me more than seeing photos or
• 1:39:15
  Speaker 1: the rise. It's not straight. You know, your lines, lines
• 1:39:19
  Speaker 1: matter the matter, UM, and the horizon is is for
• 1:39:23
  Speaker 1: the most part always straight, so in our everyday life.
• 1:39:26
  Speaker 1: So keeping it very simple, UM. You know, creating your
• 1:39:31
  Speaker 1: own style, whether that be low angles or whether that
• 1:39:33
  Speaker 1: be you know, wide angles or telephoto you know, really
• 1:39:36
  Speaker 1: compressed it angles. It's kind of up to you. You know,
• 1:39:40
  Speaker 1: what do you like, what is your what do you
• 1:39:42
  Speaker 1: feel most comfortable with. You know, if you look at
• 1:39:45
  Speaker 1: a lot of my photos, a lot of my photos,
• 1:39:48
  Speaker 1: my subject is on the left side of the frame,
• 1:39:51
  Speaker 1: so I shoot my right eye, I look across. My
• 1:39:54
  Speaker 1: subject is almost always on the left side of the
• 1:39:57
  Speaker 1: frame because it's the most comfortable for me. So I
• 1:39:59
  Speaker 1: frame it that way because I'm looking across. If I
• 1:40:02
  Speaker 1: try to look to the right with my right eye,
• 1:40:05
  Speaker 1: it's harder than looking light. And so, you know, figuring
• 1:40:09
  Speaker 1: out what works best for you and then just rolling
• 1:40:12
  Speaker 1: with it. Ummm use tripod is definitely something that people
• 1:40:19
  Speaker 1: always they always try to hand held everything. Now as
• 1:40:23
  Speaker 1: you create a steady hand, you can start hand holding
• 1:40:25
  Speaker 1: more and more. Don't be afraid to use a tripod
• 1:40:28
  Speaker 1: or monopod or whatever just to add stability. Um. Learning
• 1:40:32
  Speaker 1: I s O and its effects on the image, and
• 1:40:35
  Speaker 1: how you can manipulate basically artificial light, how you can
• 1:40:39
  Speaker 1: use artificial light to to make the camera think there's
• 1:40:43
  Speaker 1: something going on it's not. Um understanding that and uh,
• 1:40:49
  Speaker 1: and then the last thing that I would say is
• 1:40:52
  Speaker 1: is photo editing and understanding the basics for photo editing
• 1:40:59
  Speaker 1: is going to take your images to a whole new level. Um.
• 1:41:04
  Speaker 1: You know, you look at any of these pro photographers,
• 1:41:08
  Speaker 1: anybody anybody on Instagram that you follow, that is that
• 1:41:11
  Speaker 1: is you that you're considering as a pro. They're not
• 1:41:15
  Speaker 1: taking photos directly from their camera and putting them on Instagram.
• 1:41:19
  Speaker 1: I don't care what they tell you. They're not doing it.
• 1:41:21
  Speaker 1: They're editing photos. They're at least flattening them, or they're
• 1:41:25
  Speaker 1: adding a little bit of something, whether it's sharpness, or
• 1:41:28
  Speaker 1: they're they're de hazing it, or they're you know, bringing
• 1:41:31
  Speaker 1: up the shadows a little bit so that adds a
• 1:41:33
  Speaker 1: little detail, or you know, whatever the case may be.
• 1:41:36
  Speaker 1: You know, these images you can buy the best cameras
• 1:41:40
  Speaker 1: out there, and they they don't look like that coming
• 1:41:44
  Speaker 1: out of the camera. Only they do, but only very
• 1:41:49
  Speaker 1: very rarely do so. UM for photography, I would say
• 1:41:54
  Speaker 1: that's you know, those are some main some main tips,
• 1:41:57
  Speaker 1: some main pointers, UM for stuff. I hope. So there's
• 1:42:02
  Speaker 1: so much to it, right, There's so much to it,
• 1:42:05
  Speaker 1: And really it's a matter of shooting and never stop
• 1:42:08
  Speaker 1: learning because and never stopped practicing with stuff. And and
• 1:42:12
  Speaker 1: so if you want to take a really cool if
• 1:42:15
  Speaker 1: you want to take a really too cool kill photo,
• 1:42:17
  Speaker 1: um try some different stuff. I mean, you have time, right,
• 1:42:22
  Speaker 1: don't do the same old, same old, and just leave
• 1:42:24
  Speaker 1: with that. Try some different stuff. Put on a on
• 1:42:26
  Speaker 1: a wide angle or something like that, and and kind
• 1:42:29
  Speaker 1: of mess around with it. Put on telephoto and step
• 1:42:31
  Speaker 1: back and just see what it's like and and just
• 1:42:33
  Speaker 1: mess around and and know that you're not in a hurry.
• 1:42:36
  Speaker 1: And and photography is meant to be fun and and
• 1:42:38
  Speaker 1: you know, platforms like Instagram have made it really fun
• 1:42:42
  Speaker 1: and and you know, don't be afraid to share the
• 1:42:45
  Speaker 1: photos that you're taking and and get feedback from people.
• 1:42:49
  Speaker 1: You know, the people definitely definitely aren't afraid to give feedback.
• 1:42:54
  Speaker 1: So so where can people see some of your photography
• 1:43:00
  Speaker 1: right now? The truth is the best place to see
• 1:43:02
  Speaker 1: my photography is on is on my Instagram account. Um
• 1:43:06
  Speaker 1: or you know, troll the sick accounts. You know, yeah,
• 1:43:09
  Speaker 1: let's do that, um or you know yet he does
• 1:43:13
  Speaker 1: some stuff, but for the most part where you can see,
• 1:43:16
  Speaker 1: you know, kind of updated stuff. Minus is on my
• 1:43:18
  Speaker 1: Instagram a count which is Matt McCormick zero five. There
• 1:43:22
  Speaker 1: you go, yep, or pick up a copy of a
• 1:43:24
  Speaker 1: recent magazine. Yeah, there's been a couple of magazines, you know,
• 1:43:28
  Speaker 1: the last two Wild Follow magazines have had had a
• 1:43:32
  Speaker 1: cover shot this last month, there's a white Tail. I
• 1:43:36
  Speaker 1: actually have a white Tail photo essay coming out in
• 1:43:39
  Speaker 1: Gray Sporting Journal next month. Um. Yeah, there's there's a
• 1:43:44
  Speaker 1: little bit, a little bit everywhere right now, which has
• 1:43:47
  Speaker 1: been I've been really fortunate to meet a lot of
• 1:43:50
  Speaker 1: the right people at the right time and and they're
• 1:43:53
  Speaker 1: helping me get the content out there. So that's awesome. Yeah. Man,
• 1:43:56
  Speaker 1: Well what about you, Garrett? From a conservation standpoint, do
• 1:43:59
  Speaker 1: you either have some advice as far as how people
• 1:44:02
  Speaker 1: can get evolved or do you want to leave anyone
• 1:44:04
  Speaker 1: with some I think you know, involvement is pretty easy
• 1:44:10
  Speaker 1: to find, and we have gateways through wild cheap things
• 1:44:14
  Speaker 1: like that where there's experts that can really help you
• 1:44:18
  Speaker 1: get involved. Um. I think the big thing for hunters
• 1:44:23
  Speaker 1: to really recognize is that every public interaction you have
• 1:44:30
  Speaker 1: could potentially be the first time a non hunter is
• 1:44:34
  Speaker 1: introduced to hunting, not an anti hunter, obviously, because that
• 1:44:37
  Speaker 1: wouldn't imply that they've already had some kind of interaction
• 1:44:41
  Speaker 1: with hunting. But a non hunter, so you are either
• 1:44:44
  Speaker 1: potentially swaying them one way or another on this idea
• 1:44:47
  Speaker 1: of hunting. And with that, you know, we see things
• 1:44:51
  Speaker 1: because of us being so close to it. The acculmination
• 1:44:54
  Speaker 1: is always going to be, you know, kill shots, right, um.
• 1:44:59
  Speaker 1: But there's so much more than that. Uh. And if
• 1:45:03
  Speaker 1: you are a non hunter and you want to know
• 1:45:05
  Speaker 1: what this hunting things about, and and that's what you
• 1:45:08
  Speaker 1: see on a highlight reel or that's all anybody talks about,
• 1:45:12
  Speaker 1: that's their that's their perspective, that's their entire perspective of hunting. Um.
• 1:45:18
  Speaker 1: And what I like to think about a lot And
• 1:45:21
  Speaker 1: actually Mr Mahoney was talking to me about this is
• 1:45:26
  Speaker 1: nobody questions how a shepherd loves his sheep, um, but
• 1:45:32
  Speaker 1: why does he raise his sheep? Well, eventually they're gonna
• 1:45:35
  Speaker 1: be food, uh, much in the way that we do
• 1:45:39
  Speaker 1: for hunting. And we care for those animals much in
• 1:45:43
  Speaker 1: the same way. You might not stand there and and
• 1:45:46
  Speaker 1: move them from pasture to pasture, but our compassion and
• 1:45:49
  Speaker 1: passion for those animals is just as high. And why
• 1:45:53
  Speaker 1: is hunters have we not painted that is the picture.
• 1:45:57
  Speaker 1: And and it's because of of highlight reels of kill shots,
• 1:46:02
  Speaker 1: you know, I mean, really, it really comes down to that.
• 1:46:05
  Speaker 1: And so I would say, if I was a hunter
• 1:46:07
  Speaker 1: listening to this, just take it from a perspective. You
• 1:46:11
  Speaker 1: don't have to take it from a perspective of an
• 1:46:12
  Speaker 1: anti hunter, because sometimes it could be pretty difficult. We're
• 1:46:17
  Speaker 1: too close to it. But take it from the perspective
• 1:46:19
  Speaker 1: if you have never seen this before, and what that means,
• 1:46:23
  Speaker 1: what does this communicate to that person? Yeah? And and uh,
• 1:46:27
  Speaker 1: you know, there's a lot of people I think, on
• 1:46:30
  Speaker 1: all sides of life that that say, well, you know what,
• 1:46:33
  Speaker 1: I don't really care what they think. Um, but the
• 1:46:36
  Speaker 1: reality is you have to start. Um, we all have
• 1:46:41
  Speaker 1: to start because the majority of other people in this
• 1:46:45
  Speaker 1: country that don't hunt, they have the voting power and
• 1:46:49
  Speaker 1: all that that will determine the future of what we
• 1:46:51
  Speaker 1: can or cannot do, whether you like it or not.
• 1:46:54
  Speaker 1: Like you said, I mean, you don't have to like it,
• 1:46:56
  Speaker 1: but from a pragmatic standpoint, realize that's just a reality.
• 1:47:00
  Speaker 1: If we want to be able to keep doing this, um,
• 1:47:02
  Speaker 1: we need we need to listen to what you just said. Yeah,
• 1:47:05
  Speaker 1: and so yeah, that would be my my, my biggest,
• 1:47:09
  Speaker 1: my biggest thing you know, at moving forward for hunters.
• 1:47:12
  Speaker 1: We all have to work at that. Um, TV has
• 1:47:15
  Speaker 1: to work at that. Unfortunately, in the last twenty five years,
• 1:47:19
  Speaker 1: you know, TV kind of did a terrible job of
• 1:47:22
  Speaker 1: depicting what we do out here. They don't they they
• 1:47:26
  Speaker 1: don't show Matt's experience the way he described it. Um.
• 1:47:31
  Speaker 1: They just show the end. And that's important, but it's
• 1:47:35
  Speaker 1: it's not what it's all about. And I think it depicts,
• 1:47:39
  Speaker 1: um it doesn't clearly depict our lifestyle as well. You know,
• 1:47:45
  Speaker 1: being a hunter isn't going out and killing things. Being
• 1:47:50
  Speaker 1: a hunter we always say it. I don't want to
• 1:47:51
  Speaker 1: it's a cliche, but that kind of defines you, you know,
• 1:47:56
  Speaker 1: for how you live your life. UM. And I think
• 1:47:59
  Speaker 1: that we need to start telling that story rather than
• 1:48:03
  Speaker 1: just the end of it. And I think in addition
• 1:48:06
  Speaker 1: to that, back to your job, is that not only
• 1:48:11
  Speaker 1: we need to tell that story, and a big part
• 1:48:12
  Speaker 1: of that story should be what we're doing is conservationists.
• 1:48:15
  Speaker 1: Because we always like to tout a hunters are the
• 1:48:18
  Speaker 1: greatest conservationists. You know, all of our tax dollars go
• 1:48:21
  Speaker 1: to pay for all this stuff, which is true and
• 1:48:23
  Speaker 1: it's all great and good, but if you're not actually
• 1:48:26
  Speaker 1: walking the talk to and actually doing more than just
• 1:48:30
  Speaker 1: buying your AMMO and saying that's conservation, we need to
• 1:48:33
  Speaker 1: do more than that. It goes beyond punching a tank.
• 1:48:36
  Speaker 1: We need to do more than that, and we and
• 1:48:37
  Speaker 1: then communicate that UM as well, because I think action
• 1:48:41
  Speaker 1: speaks speaks very loudly. And if I think non hunters
• 1:48:43
  Speaker 1: see not only are we doing things with respect, but
• 1:48:47
  Speaker 1: then they also understand that we are also compassionate. We
• 1:48:50
  Speaker 1: are all also working to protect these things, not just
• 1:48:53
  Speaker 1: saying and not just pointing at our taxes blah blah,
• 1:48:56
  Speaker 1: but actually doing things that show that care. And then
• 1:49:00
  Speaker 1: that speaks loudly. You know one thing that really works
• 1:49:03
  Speaker 1: for me, and I would do it if I had
• 1:49:05
  Speaker 1: a pen and paper. Here in every interaction I have
• 1:49:08
  Speaker 1: that involves conservation, I drop a little ven diagram um,
• 1:49:13
  Speaker 1: because in order for it to work, it has to
• 1:49:16
  Speaker 1: have three basic components. And you have access, a sense
• 1:49:20
  Speaker 1: of ownership, which would be hunting um, and then fiscal
• 1:49:24
  Speaker 1: fund slash political will. Usually they kind of go hand
• 1:49:27
  Speaker 1: in hand, right, UM. And if you take away any
• 1:49:30
  Speaker 1: of those three nearly every time, it won't work on
• 1:49:35
  Speaker 1: on a grand scale. You can have a you can
• 1:49:37
  Speaker 1: maybe have a park on a very micro scale, um,
• 1:49:40
  Speaker 1: but on the grand scale, it won't work. Uh. And
• 1:49:43
  Speaker 1: because if you take away somebody's access to that enjoyment.
• 1:49:47
  Speaker 1: We like to think as human beings were all great
• 1:49:49
  Speaker 1: human beings, but you usually don't care about it as much.
• 1:49:52
  Speaker 1: Right if you can't access it, a sense of ownership
• 1:49:55
  Speaker 1: goes to hunting. We like to say hunt hunters are
• 1:49:58
  Speaker 1: the best conservationists. Why is that we're willing to invest
• 1:50:02
  Speaker 1: in that animal far beyond what the general public is
• 1:50:05
  Speaker 1: willing to do. You go to a Wild Sheep Foundation
• 1:50:07
  Speaker 1: banquet and ask who all there has been able to
• 1:50:10
  Speaker 1: harvest the sheep. Usually it's people there have not well,
• 1:50:16
  Speaker 1: but yet they're spending thousands of dollars on sheep habitat
• 1:50:20
  Speaker 1: and that. So that connection you have is extremely valuable.
• 1:50:23
  Speaker 1: And then obviously you have to have the funding, but
• 1:50:26
  Speaker 1: usually it comes hand in hand with that, with that
• 1:50:29
  Speaker 1: connection and the access. So if if I was to
• 1:50:34
  Speaker 1: give advice for anybody that's wanting to get involved or
• 1:50:38
  Speaker 1: help make decisions out there, I would say, you know,
• 1:50:43
  Speaker 1: jot down that little ven diagram and if it falls
• 1:50:46
  Speaker 1: into those, it's generally going to work out. But if
• 1:50:49
  Speaker 1: you're missing any one of those, it's not it's just
• 1:50:52
  Speaker 1: not well. I think we've got some some good stuff
• 1:50:57
  Speaker 1: here to that, gentlemen, this is great. I enjoyed it.
• 1:51:00
  Speaker 1: Thank you of course. Thanks taking the time to do this.
• 1:51:02
  Speaker 1: Thank you a lot of fun. It's been really great.
• 1:51:05
  Speaker 1: Matt you got to plug your Instagram account snapchat. Is
• 1:51:08
  Speaker 1: there anything you want to mention, Garrett, whether it be
• 1:51:11
  Speaker 1: from a personal standpoint or sick at standpoint? You know,
• 1:51:15
  Speaker 1: I I don't. I think this is just a blast
• 1:51:18
  Speaker 1: for me. I get to talk to Matt way too
• 1:51:21
  Speaker 1: much anyways, but having somebody else around it's really nice.
• 1:51:28
  Speaker 1: I'm glad I can break up the mona for you. Alright, guys, Well,
• 1:51:33
  Speaker 1: thank you for this has been a lot of fun.
• 1:51:35
  Speaker 1: And on to the rest of the Converge event. Thank you,
• 1:51:39
  Speaker 1: and that is it, folks. As usual, you've heard me
• 1:51:43
  Speaker 1: stayed a million times, but I'm gonna keep at it.
• 1:51:45
  Speaker 1: If you can leave a rating or review for this
• 1:51:47
  Speaker 1: podcast on iTunes, it's a huge help, um And if
• 1:51:51
  Speaker 1: you enjoy the show another way, you can support the
• 1:51:53
  Speaker 1: podcast is to send a message or a tweet or
• 1:51:57
  Speaker 1: an email to our sponsors and let them know that
• 1:51:59
  Speaker 1: you pre ship and supporting the podcast. That would be awesome.
• 1:52:03
  Speaker 1: And speaking of big thanks to sit Ka Gear, Yeti Cooler's,
• 1:52:07
  Speaker 1: Matthew's Archery, Maven Optics, white Tail Institute of North America,
• 1:52:11
  Speaker 1: Trophy Ridge and hunt Terra Maps, and of course thank
• 1:52:14
  Speaker 1: you all for listening. Have an awesome rest of your day,
• 1:52:17
  Speaker 1: get to work on those white tailed projects and stay
• 1:52:21
  Speaker 1: wired to hunt