Latest / Wired To Hunt Podcast / Wired To Hunt Podcast #144: Lessons Learned Planning DIY Hunting Trips

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Wired To Hunt Podcast #144: Lessons Learned Planning DIY Hunting Trips · 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 wire to Hunt podcast. I'm
0:16
Speaker 1: your host, Mark Kenyan. This is episode number one, Tay.
0:20
Speaker 1: In the show, we're talking about our latest shid hunting exploits,
0:23
Speaker 1: discussing our two thousand seventeen hunting trips, and sharing recommendations
0:27
Speaker 1: and thoughts on planning d I Y hunting trips. All right,
0:47
Speaker 1: welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast, brought to you
0:50
Speaker 1: by Sitka Gear. And today in the show, we're gonna
0:54
Speaker 1: be talking about our two thousand seventeen hunting plans, just
0:57
Speaker 1: me and Damn. And as we talked about some of
0:59
Speaker 1: this stuff, I want to talk more in general too
1:02
Speaker 1: about you know, how we plan our hunting seasons, how
1:05
Speaker 1: we plan specific trips, um some different advice and recommendations
1:09
Speaker 1: and lessons learned on how we've done that in the past,
1:11
Speaker 1: what we're planning on doing the future. You know, how
1:13
Speaker 1: we decide where to go, what geared to bring, how
1:16
Speaker 1: to learn about these different places or different species or
1:19
Speaker 1: stuff like that. Um. So that's kind of the game
1:21
Speaker 1: plan for today, Dan, But before we get into that stuff.
1:24
Speaker 1: We do have a couple of interesting updates from more recently,
1:27
Speaker 1: don't we. Yeah, my my uh wife made a delicious
1:31
Speaker 1: crisp today, A crisp like an apple crisp. Yeah, but
1:35
Speaker 1: it was an apple. It was like raspberry, some kind
1:38
Speaker 1: of mixed berry jam thing and it, uh, I'm gonna
1:41
Speaker 1: tell you right now, it's delicious. I'm a big fan
1:44
Speaker 1: of crisps. I like a good a good berry crisp.
1:48
Speaker 1: B peach cobbler. Does a peach kybler count as a crisp? Yeah?
1:51
Speaker 1: It can? Is the top crispy, I would say. Typically, Well,
1:55
Speaker 1: then I feel it should fall in the crisp category. Okay,
1:59
Speaker 1: good in an apple crisp obviously obviously. Yeah, so good,
2:04
Speaker 1: we're on the same page. I'm hungry though now I know.
2:07
Speaker 1: I had a small little bowl of it with a
2:10
Speaker 1: nice cold glass of milk, and and here I am
2:12
Speaker 1: on a sugar high, ready to uh tackle today's podcast.
2:17
Speaker 1: That's good. I'm onna I'm on a endorphin high. I
2:20
Speaker 1: just did my workout for the day, so I'm a
2:22
Speaker 1: little sweaty, but ready to talk about big hunting trips.
2:25
Speaker 1: That's good. Wait a second, you did a workout. How
2:29
Speaker 1: do we how do we even know if you did
2:31
Speaker 1: a workout you didn't post any selfie? I know, Sorry,
2:35
Speaker 1: I need to I need to get my my selfie
2:37
Speaker 1: game on point here, right, you need to start. Hey,
2:39
Speaker 1: look how many push ups I did today? You know,
2:41
Speaker 1: when we were just talking about this before we started recording.
2:44
Speaker 1: I'm just not the type. Nothing against people who want
2:47
Speaker 1: to post their workout pictures or selfies or whatever, but
2:50
Speaker 1: that's just not my thing. And probably that's because like
2:54
Speaker 1: three push ups isn't very impressive, So I don't think
2:58
Speaker 1: that's gonna get me too much. Yeah, that's uh, that's comedy. Yeah,
3:03
Speaker 1: the old you know, if a tree falls in the
3:05
Speaker 1: wood or woods doesn't make a sound or whatever, that
3:09
Speaker 1: is right. So if no, if no selfie is posted,
3:13
Speaker 1: did a workout actually happen, We'll never know. You never know.
3:17
Speaker 1: We'll never know, never know. So so yeah I did.
3:21
Speaker 1: I did a little prep because I'm taking off here
3:23
Speaker 1: in a few weeks, dude, a few weeks and I'm
3:24
Speaker 1: heading out west, and you're gonna be doing a shed hunt,
3:29
Speaker 1: a bunch of shed hunting, fishing, camping, hiking, and hunting. Okay,
3:36
Speaker 1: so well we'll talk more about that here in a second,
3:39
Speaker 1: because I'm pretty pumped about that. But but you, yes,
3:44
Speaker 1: you and your wife. I don't know if this is
3:47
Speaker 1: what you want to talk about or not, but I
3:48
Speaker 1: want to talk about it. You and your wife cleaned
3:50
Speaker 1: up this past weekend. Yeah, we Uh, we had a
3:54
Speaker 1: very good fun time. And um, you need you need
4:00
Speaker 1: something like that when you're trying to get somebody into
4:03
Speaker 1: the woods, because the first couple of times I've taken
4:05
Speaker 1: her shed hunting, it hasn't resulted in any type of
4:09
Speaker 1: sheds to be found. And uh, like you mentioned, man,
4:13
Speaker 1: we went out uh Saturday, found nine sheds between the
4:19
Speaker 1: two of us in about seven hours. And uh, and
4:26
Speaker 1: it was just awesome because she found, uh, she found three,
4:31
Speaker 1: I found six, but we found. Of those three that
4:36
Speaker 1: she found, she found a big one, a really a
4:40
Speaker 1: really good sized one, and then another little one. Um,
4:43
Speaker 1: which were matching sets to the ones that I also found.
4:48
Speaker 1: So it's kind of a cool, I don't know. To me,
4:51
Speaker 1: it's just kind of a cool connection saying that, you know,
4:53
Speaker 1: my wife found one side and I found the other
4:55
Speaker 1: side to this matching set. So that's sweet. Yeah. Yeah,
5:00
Speaker 1: So so I'm gonna you know, take a red marker
5:03
Speaker 1: and draw hearts all over that shed, and it's gonna
5:06
Speaker 1: be like one of those BF necklaces. Oh that's good. Yeah,
5:09
Speaker 1: I like that. This is gonna be an issue though,
5:11
Speaker 1: because just last weekend you were talking about how special
5:13
Speaker 1: it was that your wife found her first shed, and
5:14
Speaker 1: you were like put it up on a plaque or something,
5:17
Speaker 1: and then like six days later, now you know, she's
5:19
Speaker 1: just racking them up. Are you gonna have to put
5:21
Speaker 1: all of these now up there in a special place? Yeah? Yeah,
5:24
Speaker 1: I did a lot of thinking, so I I just
5:27
Speaker 1: slid found some room and they're going in with the
5:30
Speaker 1: rest of them. There you go. They looked like some
5:32
Speaker 1: good sheds though, something like pretty good sized ones. Yeah. Um.
5:37
Speaker 1: Two things that I'm really impressed with. The biggest one.
5:42
Speaker 1: I'm picking it up right now, tons of mass, a
5:45
Speaker 1: good four point side, but the base is small, which
5:49
Speaker 1: tells me it's probably a young dear. So it could
5:52
Speaker 1: be a going to be a three year older, going
5:56
Speaker 1: to be a four year old. And I'm basing that
5:58
Speaker 1: on the I'm basing that on the pedicle alone, right,
6:03
Speaker 1: So so, but she did find the first big antler
6:09
Speaker 1: to a big matching set that we found and it
6:12
Speaker 1: is it's a stud mass throughout the entire thing, big bases. Um.
6:17
Speaker 1: You know, it probably wouldn't score much, but it was
6:21
Speaker 1: a really good fine for her and that is what
6:23
Speaker 1: got her excited to go and finish out the rest
6:25
Speaker 1: of the day. So do you guys have some future
6:29
Speaker 1: shed hunts on the books? Now? There's this, Uh, I
6:31
Speaker 1: don't know if we're gonna be going this year anymore.
6:34
Speaker 1: I mean, we just got six inches of snow last night,
6:37
Speaker 1: so or two nights ago, so it's kind of I know,
6:41
Speaker 1: Plus I found one that was really chewed up. I
6:43
Speaker 1: still think there's probably some antlers out there somewhere. We
6:47
Speaker 1: just I don't know if I'm going to be doing
6:49
Speaker 1: anything with the wife this upcoming weekend for the quote
6:54
Speaker 1: unquote shed rally. And I feel it feels a little late. Yeah,
6:59
Speaker 1: I know, I know there's still a lot of people
7:02
Speaker 1: talking like deer hole n antlers though, like people are
7:04
Speaker 1: still seeing a lot of bucks holding so and it
7:07
Speaker 1: did seem like, um, just based on some like you know,
7:11
Speaker 1: my buddies there in Iowa that that we've shed hunting
7:13
Speaker 1: with last weekend, um or you know, the previous weekend.
7:18
Speaker 1: You know, we didn't find a whole lot that week
7:19
Speaker 1: and renewer with us and I was out there. But
7:21
Speaker 1: then this past couple of days they were cleaning up,
7:23
Speaker 1: they found a bunch, right, so it seemed that there's
7:25
Speaker 1: a lot of fresh antlers just dropping and um and yeah,
7:29
Speaker 1: so I shoot, you know, there's something that tipped my tongue. Oh,
7:34
Speaker 1: I know, I was gonna ask you these shed you found,
7:36
Speaker 1: did you find any from deer that you know? Yeah?
7:39
Speaker 1: I the other for the most part, the smaller ones,
7:43
Speaker 1: you know, they're kind of hard to tell. But going
7:46
Speaker 1: back and looking at this the one I was talking
7:49
Speaker 1: about having the smaller base that if if it is
7:54
Speaker 1: in fact this uh, this buck that I'm thinking about,
7:58
Speaker 1: it is a buck that I feel as a descendant
8:04
Speaker 1: of another buck that I called Megatron, and I think
8:07
Speaker 1: I gotta yeah, I got a couple of pictures of
8:10
Speaker 1: him on trail camera. So this buck already has the mass,
8:16
Speaker 1: Like it's really really cool, just a clean four point
8:20
Speaker 1: side and uh, the main beam curves back in, but
8:26
Speaker 1: the G three goes straight out. So yeah, it's kind
8:31
Speaker 1: of it's kind of cool. Um, And that's exactly what
8:34
Speaker 1: megatron had and uh um, looking back on trail cams,
8:39
Speaker 1: I think I've identified the buck that it goes to,
8:42
Speaker 1: who was around quite a bit um in this summer,
8:46
Speaker 1: made a couple appearances in uh like the third week
8:51
Speaker 1: of the third or fourth week of November this year,
8:54
Speaker 1: and then kind of disappeared again. But now he's back
8:56
Speaker 1: in the area. Obviously he's dropped. So who knows what
9:00
Speaker 1: this guy turned into. That's awesome, um so so based
9:04
Speaker 1: on trail camera pictures that you had, and I can't
9:06
Speaker 1: remember when you pulled your cameras, I know you didn't
9:08
Speaker 1: hunt much in the late season, But based on any
9:10
Speaker 1: kind of daddy you have, do you know of any
9:13
Speaker 1: bucks that you've you know, watched or tarted in past
9:16
Speaker 1: years that for sure made it through? Do you have
9:18
Speaker 1: any like for sure? Yes, this buck is still around. No, um,
9:24
Speaker 1: not on my main farm. Um the other farm that
9:28
Speaker 1: I hunt closer to home, I have. I didn't have
9:31
Speaker 1: any trail camera pictures of any bucks that I identified
9:35
Speaker 1: as shooters. I'm going into the season, um so. And
9:40
Speaker 1: then you know, when I got my trail camera stolen,
9:42
Speaker 1: I took down all the all the rest of my
9:44
Speaker 1: trail cameras. Um, you know, you don't want to take
9:47
Speaker 1: the risk of losing more. So I took them all down.
9:51
Speaker 1: And unfortunately that means that I can't you know, I'm
9:55
Speaker 1: not doing the surveying that I actually want to. Right. Well,
10:00
Speaker 1: that's always a bummer, but that leaves suspense for the summer. Right,
10:04
Speaker 1: that's right, and it's gonna be for the most part.
10:07
Speaker 1: It's pretty easy to identify the bucks that stick around.
10:11
Speaker 1: My number one target buck for the year. I think
10:12
Speaker 1: I've mentioned this earlier. Got uh got shot on a
10:16
Speaker 1: neighboring farm and uh, yeah, that's it. Uh to a
10:22
Speaker 1: buck I called Tupac, right because I shot him before,
10:25
Speaker 1: didn't kill him, and and uh, the second time he
10:28
Speaker 1: got shot, he died, which is horrible to say. That's crazy.
10:32
Speaker 1: That's crazy. How old somebody's deer around you get like
10:36
Speaker 1: that buck? You shot him like seven years ago or
10:38
Speaker 1: something crazy and now he was got killed. Yeah, it
10:41
Speaker 1: wasn't seven. I think it was two thousand and thirteen
10:43
Speaker 1: when he was a four year old, so plus six
10:46
Speaker 1: years or plus three years, which would have made him
10:49
Speaker 1: a probably a seven a seven year old buck. And
10:53
Speaker 1: he was a stud. So wow, do you know how
10:56
Speaker 1: big he was when he got killed seventy two. Yikes. Yep, yeah, yep,
11:06
Speaker 1: So there's that now. I did talk with some guys
11:09
Speaker 1: on the farm that uh, that I hunt with, and
11:13
Speaker 1: as far as deer concerned, they took their trail cameras
11:17
Speaker 1: down too, because they got three stolen this year and
11:21
Speaker 1: didn't want any more stolen. So it's kind of hard
11:24
Speaker 1: to tell what, uh, you know, what's in the area
11:28
Speaker 1: going into this upcoming year. But just like always, come
11:32
Speaker 1: come June or May or June, I'll be dropping some
11:35
Speaker 1: mineral and get my cameras out over that and the
11:38
Speaker 1: cycle begins all again. That's right, you found a shed though, Yeah, dude,
11:42
Speaker 1: I'm pretty excited about it. That's not it's not holy Field, um,
11:48
Speaker 1: but because this big snowstorm is coming in. Well, you know,
11:52
Speaker 1: last time we talked, I mentioned that I had a
11:56
Speaker 1: good idea that Holy Field is back in the area.
11:58
Speaker 1: He had still been holding his antlers, but I thought
12:01
Speaker 1: he was probably gonna drop him soon. Like I saw
12:03
Speaker 1: him one time and he kept shaking his head and
12:05
Speaker 1: doing weird things and shaking his head, shaking his head
12:07
Speaker 1: and he was just acting weird. And I can't remember
12:11
Speaker 1: if we talked about this last episode or not, but
12:14
Speaker 1: I kept thinking it's gonna happen soon. I just had
12:16
Speaker 1: this feelings. So after the Iowa trip, I went out
12:18
Speaker 1: and I walked what I thought was one of his
12:20
Speaker 1: core areas, um, really hard, like fine, toothed it nothing,
12:25
Speaker 1: And then I went out again. You know I told
12:28
Speaker 1: you that I found Leaner's shed from two thousand and twelve.
12:31
Speaker 1: I went out again, um and kind of worked another
12:34
Speaker 1: section over like really really hard, like just checking every
12:37
Speaker 1: little nook and cranny. Um, nothing, and then um, oh,
12:42
Speaker 1: what was going on? We had? Oh this past weekend,
12:45
Speaker 1: I had to do a bunch of stuff on our
12:47
Speaker 1: camper renovation and so I didn't get to do much
12:50
Speaker 1: shed hunting. But with a snowstorm coming in, I was thinking,
12:52
Speaker 1: like I got to try to get some more time in.
12:54
Speaker 1: So I went out late Sunday night for kind of
12:58
Speaker 1: a last minute, like two hour walk, and at the
13:01
Speaker 1: last second, instead of going to this main spot I've
13:03
Speaker 1: been focusing on, I thought I'd check another farm across
13:06
Speaker 1: the road where there had been a little bit more food,
13:08
Speaker 1: and I thought was another spot holy Field could be
13:10
Speaker 1: and I'd seen some bucks out holding there and uh,
13:14
Speaker 1: long story short walked. This is the second time I
13:16
Speaker 1: walked this farm, and um, you know, I've kept walking
13:20
Speaker 1: all these edges of these fields and then these adjacent
13:22
Speaker 1: betting areas and finally this is um. There was kind
13:25
Speaker 1: of a finger of timber that came out in between
13:28
Speaker 1: a cut bean field on one side and a cut
13:30
Speaker 1: corn field on the other side, and there was a
13:33
Speaker 1: grassy strip along the side of that timber. And you know,
13:36
Speaker 1: it's one of those spots that just screams sheds and
13:39
Speaker 1: you always think, oh, this is where I should find
13:41
Speaker 1: some sheds, um, but you knowcent of the time you don't.
13:45
Speaker 1: But still I was like, gotta check it. Walk it
13:47
Speaker 1: really good, and I'm walking down the strip and I
13:51
Speaker 1: just see this big white circle that like immediately caught
13:56
Speaker 1: my eye and it's like you know that feeling when
13:58
Speaker 1: you're like, oh shed, Like you get that you see
14:01
Speaker 1: that thing that triggers the response in your mind. But
14:04
Speaker 1: so many times this year I've seen like that thing
14:06
Speaker 1: where I'm like, oh shed And then I pulled my
14:07
Speaker 1: big ocultors and it's you know, it's a stick um
14:11
Speaker 1: or something. So I remember at the during there are
14:15
Speaker 1: little gathering the shed gathering that we had, and there
14:19
Speaker 1: was literally five of us all looking at the same thing, going, no,
14:22
Speaker 1: that's not a remember that down by this little grassy bottom,
14:25
Speaker 1: and we're like, no, it's not a shed. Yeah, it's
14:27
Speaker 1: a shed. No, it's not a shed. And finally, uh,
14:30
Speaker 1: someone actually went over to it and grabbed it because
14:33
Speaker 1: it looked like a shed up until two ft and
14:36
Speaker 1: then it was just a branch a branchler, right, yeah,
14:41
Speaker 1: Well this one I was worried was gonna be a
14:43
Speaker 1: branch leer. But I pulled up those binos and it
14:45
Speaker 1: was a sweet, sweet pedicle and I was pumped because
14:49
Speaker 1: it was big. You could just tell the way it
14:50
Speaker 1: was laying. It was laying times up, but not like
14:54
Speaker 1: normal times up. Its kind of like tipped over on
14:56
Speaker 1: its side, so the pedicle was sticking up. And then
14:59
Speaker 1: the cur of the main beam was in the grass
15:01
Speaker 1: and then you could just see tips hanging out of
15:03
Speaker 1: the grass and um, I ran over there thinking it
15:07
Speaker 1: was could be holy field and it wasn't. But it's
15:10
Speaker 1: a big five point side. It's the biggest antler I've
15:13
Speaker 1: ever found in Michigan, um and one of my biggest
15:17
Speaker 1: sheds in general. I've ever found. I think it's probably
15:20
Speaker 1: like a top three shed or top four shed of
15:22
Speaker 1: all time for me. Um, and it's a deer that
15:26
Speaker 1: I got pictures of one time. Um the buck came
15:30
Speaker 1: into one of my food plots in December and then um,
15:35
Speaker 1: and then that was it. But he's a really nice deer.
15:38
Speaker 1: He was probably like a a one thirties ten point
15:42
Speaker 1: this past year, which is like an awesome deer in Michigan,
15:44
Speaker 1: like a really nice deer in Michigan. So he made
15:47
Speaker 1: it next year, you know, he's gonna be a jumbo
15:50
Speaker 1: buck for Michigan. So that's pretty exciting. He'll be this
15:54
Speaker 1: I would guess he was a three year old this
15:56
Speaker 1: past year. Um, so at least a four year old
15:59
Speaker 1: in two thousand and seven teen, and uh, you never know,
16:02
Speaker 1: maybe he'll hang out more on my farm more if if,
16:04
Speaker 1: if holy Field disappears. This will be a surely nice
16:08
Speaker 1: what's the word, um, consolation. So so that's pretty sweet, man,
16:15
Speaker 1: I was I was pumped. Well, I'm happy for you, Mark,
16:20
Speaker 1: thank you. Now we've just gotta get rid of the snow.
16:22
Speaker 1: And then as soon as I get to the snow,
16:23
Speaker 1: then I'm gonna just hit everything really really really hard again.
16:26
Speaker 1: I've never I've never shed hunt in these Michigan areas
16:29
Speaker 1: so hard. And I'm planning and putting a bunch more
16:32
Speaker 1: time in because I really badly want to find Holy
16:34
Speaker 1: Field sheds. So I'm gonna keep at it, and um,
16:38
Speaker 1: I don't know, we'll see. I'm running out of I'm
16:40
Speaker 1: running out of spots. The best spots I thought they
16:42
Speaker 1: might be they weren't there. But um, we'll keep at it.
16:47
Speaker 1: Good luck, buddy, Thank you, sir. So, uh, do you
16:51
Speaker 1: want to talk two thousand seventeen. Let's talk two thousand seventeen.
16:54
Speaker 1: All right, Well, let's let's take a really quick break
16:57
Speaker 1: for our sickest story and then start talking two thousand
17:01
Speaker 1: and seventeen hunting plans and some of our thoughts on
17:03
Speaker 1: how to plan this kind of stuff. So for our
17:06
Speaker 1: sickest story today, we are joined by Stephen Caproletti, a
17:09
Speaker 1: sick of white tail ambassador from Pennsylvania. And Stephen has
17:13
Speaker 1: a very cool story about a honey he shared with
17:15
Speaker 1: his brother. Yeah, so this is the rifle season, the
17:19
Speaker 1: two thousand and thirteen here in p a Um, you know,
17:22
Speaker 1: coming off this is the first rifle season where my
17:25
Speaker 1: grandpa could actually get out yet at heart surgery. Um.
17:28
Speaker 1: So you know, we were trying to you know, relay
17:30
Speaker 1: the stories from opening day on to my grandpa and uh.
17:34
Speaker 1: At the time, you know Ben, my brother, he was
17:37
Speaker 1: down at the University of Central Florida for his freshman
17:40
Speaker 1: year of college. And it was going on the second
17:43
Speaker 1: week of rifle season where Ben called us up and said, hey,
17:47
Speaker 1: I'm I'm flying home for the last weekend. So you know,
17:49
Speaker 1: we got one day, let's try to get it done.
17:52
Speaker 1: So the last Saturday rolls around, Um, We're all pumped
17:56
Speaker 1: ready to go. So we were out for the whole day,
17:59
Speaker 1: you know, walking around. We were still hunting that day. Um,
18:02
Speaker 1: and we were getting into the last hour of you know,
18:04
Speaker 1: the last day of season, and I said, Ben up,
18:08
Speaker 1: um in a good spot and I just said, Hey,
18:10
Speaker 1: I'm gonna walk out to the end here of the ridge, um,
18:12
Speaker 1: and I'm just gonna still hunt my way back um
18:15
Speaker 1: to you, you know here by the end of the day,
18:17
Speaker 1: so we'll see what happens. And I get out to
18:21
Speaker 1: the end of the ridge, start to make my my
18:23
Speaker 1: you turn around to head back to Ben, and probably
18:25
Speaker 1: got forty five minutes now and I'm creeping along and
18:30
Speaker 1: up to my left pops up the dough and right
18:33
Speaker 1: behind her is bedded nice nine pointer. Um. I had
18:37
Speaker 1: seen him once in archery season, just didn't get him in,
18:39
Speaker 1: you know, shooting range. He pops up and take one
18:44
Speaker 1: shot and I drop him, and I'm as excited as
18:47
Speaker 1: can be. But uh, I you know, Ben still out there,
18:50
Speaker 1: so I let him know what happened. But I said, hey,
18:53
Speaker 1: I'm still working towards you. Just keep your eyes posted.
18:56
Speaker 1: And another three four five minutes, I'm walking and I
19:01
Speaker 1: hear his rifle go off and he just calls me
19:04
Speaker 1: all excited. He does, just dropped a nice seven pointer.
19:08
Speaker 1: And you know, from then on it was it was
19:10
Speaker 1: a wild night, festivities and a little celebration, you know,
19:14
Speaker 1: getting both dear drug out back to the truck. Um
19:17
Speaker 1: Our family you know, met us at the one parking
19:20
Speaker 1: lot and uh, it's just an experience in memory that
19:24
Speaker 1: I'll never forget. Um. We were able to take both
19:27
Speaker 1: buck to my grandpa's house, you know, because he wasn't
19:29
Speaker 1: able to get out that year. Um, and just to
19:31
Speaker 1: be able to share that memory and experience with him too.
19:33
Speaker 1: He was he was just so tickled and excited for
19:36
Speaker 1: both of us. You know, he said to us. You
19:38
Speaker 1: know this is better than me shooting a buck just
19:40
Speaker 1: to see you guys both be able to tag a
19:42
Speaker 1: good buck. You know, here on the same day, and
19:45
Speaker 1: that right there is a sick story. If you'd like
19:48
Speaker 1: to create a story of your own while wearing sick
19:50
Speaker 1: of gear, you can head over to sitka gear dot com.
19:53
Speaker 1: And now I've got one more quick update for you.
19:56
Speaker 1: Very soon here we're going to be adding a new
19:58
Speaker 1: segment on the show with our partners at White Tailed Properties,
20:02
Speaker 1: in which we'll be hearing each week very briefly from
20:04
Speaker 1: one of their land specialists about different topics related to
20:07
Speaker 1: hunting strategies, habitat improvements, or buying selling land. So look
20:11
Speaker 1: for that soon and in the meantime, just want to
20:14
Speaker 1: let you know that if you're not already aware, this
20:16
Speaker 1: coming weekend March eighteenth and nineteen is shed Rally. That's
20:21
Speaker 1: the nation's largest group shed hunt, in which hunters from
20:24
Speaker 1: across the entire nation are encouraged to all go out
20:26
Speaker 1: looking for anglers on the same days and then to
20:28
Speaker 1: share their best pictures and videos on social media with
20:32
Speaker 1: the shed rally hashtag. So if you're not already planning
20:35
Speaker 1: on doing that, get on out there this weekend, look
20:37
Speaker 1: for some sheds and you could be eligible to win
20:39
Speaker 1: some great prizes too. With that, we are now set
20:43
Speaker 1: to move on with our conversation about two thousand and
20:45
Speaker 1: seventeen and our thoughts and lessons learned on planning hunting trips.
20:51
Speaker 1: All right, so last night, Dan, I was like my
20:57
Speaker 1: wife and I didn't have any kind of big plans
20:59
Speaker 1: or anything. So We're kind of sitting on the couch
21:01
Speaker 1: and I was talking about we gotta plan this. I
21:04
Speaker 1: do this, guy do that, And I kind of realized
21:05
Speaker 1: I need to like just sit down and like map
21:07
Speaker 1: out our year. So I made like a list. I
21:11
Speaker 1: started breaking up our list. We we did this for
21:13
Speaker 1: our non hunting plans because, as you know, we do
21:15
Speaker 1: a bunch of traveling um me and her for non
21:18
Speaker 1: hunting stuff. Um. But on top of that, we've got
21:21
Speaker 1: a bunch of different hunting plans too. So I listed
21:23
Speaker 1: out each different hunt I'm going to go on trip,
21:26
Speaker 1: each species, and then I started like writing all these
21:28
Speaker 1: notes like Okay, did I get my license yet? Do
21:30
Speaker 1: I know which location I'm hunting? Yet do I need
21:32
Speaker 1: to apply for anything yet? And I just started breaking
21:35
Speaker 1: all this down because I'm starting to get confused. And
21:37
Speaker 1: it got me thinking about this topic of like our
21:39
Speaker 1: two thousand seventeen plans and how both of us go
21:42
Speaker 1: about doing this kind of thing, um, whether it be
21:45
Speaker 1: for our you know, our local hunts or are traveling
21:49
Speaker 1: trips and stuff like that. Um, So that's kind of
21:52
Speaker 1: what I thought we could talk about for the rest
21:54
Speaker 1: of the episode. And we haven't really gone into this
21:56
Speaker 1: yet on Wired Hunt. We we talked a little bit
21:58
Speaker 1: about some of my trips planned on your podcast. Actually, um,
22:03
Speaker 1: but I haven't really shared anything here. So what do
22:08
Speaker 1: you what do you were things standing for you for
22:11
Speaker 1: two thousand seventeen right now? So as of right now,
22:14
Speaker 1: and let's me knocking on wood because as just everybody
22:18
Speaker 1: knows now, I have a kid do September, and I'm
22:21
Speaker 1: guessing it's gonna come probably four or five days early.
22:25
Speaker 1: Let me pull a calendar up real quick. Um, it's
22:27
Speaker 1: gonna come four or five days early. And that means
22:31
Speaker 1: that if okay, five week ahead, that it's gonna come
22:36
Speaker 1: somewhere on the week of the eighteen September, all right,
22:40
Speaker 1: so I my plan is to go elk hunting in
22:43
Speaker 1: Colorado the first through the like, I'll leave the first
22:49
Speaker 1: and then I'll come. I'll be back home on the
22:52
Speaker 1: tenth of September. So that means that the baby better
22:59
Speaker 1: not come any earlier than that, or I could be
23:03
Speaker 1: screwed and then my wife would be permanently mad at
23:05
Speaker 1: me for the rest of her life. And I can't
23:06
Speaker 1: have that. You can't have that, That's true. I can't
23:08
Speaker 1: have that. So that's that's my really only trip planned
23:14
Speaker 1: other than you know, the November rut trip I usually take,
23:17
Speaker 1: uh and that's only an hour away. So so what
23:20
Speaker 1: what what's your now? I know it's all up in
23:23
Speaker 1: the air with baby and work and all that kind
23:24
Speaker 1: of stuff, But how do you have your white tail
23:27
Speaker 1: stuff kind of planned right now? I mean, are you
23:30
Speaker 1: just gonna try to go out on some weekends before
23:32
Speaker 1: the November or have you ever already thought through that
23:35
Speaker 1: you know you're gonna tried to a long weekend or
23:37
Speaker 1: a specific section of October anything that have you thought
23:40
Speaker 1: through things that far yet? You know, knowing that the
23:43
Speaker 1: baby will be there already? Um, I might just say
23:50
Speaker 1: audios to October. This year, just so I can save
23:54
Speaker 1: Brownie points and time and dedicate it towards the absolute
23:58
Speaker 1: best time of the year, and that's going to probably
24:01
Speaker 1: be November six through. So I won't even hunt the
24:06
Speaker 1: first three days unless I you know, I might take
24:09
Speaker 1: a trip down um with the kids, just to go
24:12
Speaker 1: check trail cameras and you know, see what's moving and
24:16
Speaker 1: what's up and you know, up and around, and then
24:19
Speaker 1: I probably won't do anything until I take my vacation.
24:24
Speaker 1: You know, I may get a hunt in closer to
24:27
Speaker 1: home on some different property, but as far as my
24:30
Speaker 1: big vacation and who knows even what's that, what that's
24:33
Speaker 1: going to be like, and you're thinking of trying to
24:36
Speaker 1: stay on it the whole time that ten days or whatever. Um,
24:40
Speaker 1: there may be a trip or two back home. But
24:43
Speaker 1: you know, a lot of it is up in the
24:44
Speaker 1: air right now as far as when it, trust me
24:48
Speaker 1: when as soon as I heard that the baby was
24:52
Speaker 1: due October or September, I pulled my phone out and
24:57
Speaker 1: I started looking at dates of you know, when to
25:01
Speaker 1: play it safe when you go in for the kill.
25:02
Speaker 1: You know, Um, I don't know, it's gonna be a
25:06
Speaker 1: lot of play it by year this year? Yeah, so
25:09
Speaker 1: how do you how do you and your wife kind
25:12
Speaker 1: of work through or maybe I don't know how this
25:14
Speaker 1: works for you, but how do you go about planning
25:16
Speaker 1: that kind of stuff? Like? Is that is that you
25:19
Speaker 1: guys sit down and say, Okay, I want to do
25:21
Speaker 1: an oltcom this year, I want to do my white
25:22
Speaker 1: tail rut hunt and then you guys kind of toss
25:24
Speaker 1: around or do you how does that work for you? Well,
25:29
Speaker 1: it's it's it's difficult because for me because she's not
25:34
Speaker 1: a hunter, so she doesn't understand specific times of year
25:38
Speaker 1: quite yet. I can do my best. I do my
25:39
Speaker 1: best to try to educate her on that. But you know,
25:43
Speaker 1: when I say, hey, I want to go to Colorado
25:45
Speaker 1: for a week? What a whole week? Why can't you
25:48
Speaker 1: just go for a four day weekend? Like okay, it
25:51
Speaker 1: takes a day to get out there, a day to
25:52
Speaker 1: drive back, which leaves me with two days. Did she
25:56
Speaker 1: really say that? Why can't I hunt on a weekend weekend?
26:00
Speaker 1: Why couldn't you do a long weekend in Colorado? Well not,
26:04
Speaker 1: she didn't really say that, but that's kind of you know,
26:08
Speaker 1: But then again, I mean I'm in a tight spot
26:11
Speaker 1: where you know, I have a family, so you know,
26:14
Speaker 1: it's difficult for for me to try to explain that, Um, hey,
26:22
Speaker 1: I'm going to go and go to Colorado for a
26:25
Speaker 1: week and I'm gonna be spending this much money. And
26:29
Speaker 1: she's like, what do you mean You're gonna be spending
26:31
Speaker 1: that much money? That's like, what about the family? Is that? Why?
26:35
Speaker 1: Why doesn't that money go to the family? And that's
26:38
Speaker 1: kind of a hard conversation to have, um sometimes, So
26:44
Speaker 1: it's just one of those things that I think it's
26:47
Speaker 1: just I let her know and she understands and we
26:51
Speaker 1: try to avoid fights. So this is like year four
26:56
Speaker 1: of having kids, right right, right, So is there anything
26:59
Speaker 1: you've learned about that process, like since you know, since
27:02
Speaker 1: Ava was born and now you've been doing a few
27:05
Speaker 1: hunting seasons now, is there anything that you know to
27:07
Speaker 1: do differently now than you did back then? Um as
27:10
Speaker 1: far as proposing hunts or planning hunts or anything like that, Like,
27:14
Speaker 1: how has that changed to make it less painful? You
27:17
Speaker 1: just have to be able to sacrifice in other areas,
27:20
Speaker 1: right or you know, make up for it by maybe
27:24
Speaker 1: doing another trip or going on another family adventure to
27:28
Speaker 1: someplace else you know, maybe going to a theme park
27:30
Speaker 1: or going to some museums or you know. I am
27:35
Speaker 1: I was planning on taking my wife to Napa Valley
27:40
Speaker 1: this year for a small trip, but that's not gonna
27:44
Speaker 1: happen now that she's pregnant, so I'm saving that for
27:47
Speaker 1: another another year. Um. But you know, balancing it out
27:52
Speaker 1: so it's not so self centered when I when I
27:56
Speaker 1: do take these trips or go on a you know,
27:58
Speaker 1: um a five or a two week vacation down south,
28:01
Speaker 1: and she's left with the kids and there's all this
28:04
Speaker 1: other stuff that happened. So um, because my kids are maniacs,
28:09
Speaker 1: and being alone with them for ten days without any
28:13
Speaker 1: you know, as a single mother, so to speak, is difficult. Yeah. Yeah,
28:18
Speaker 1: as everyone knows, my situation is different than yours. I
28:21
Speaker 1: don't have kids, but um, but I found the same thing,
28:24
Speaker 1: Like especially even when I used to work my old
28:27
Speaker 1: day job and I had a certain number of vacation
28:29
Speaker 1: days a week a year. Like the first year, um,
28:32
Speaker 1: where I started traveling to hunt, I was just like,
28:35
Speaker 1: all right, I'm gonna use all two and a half
28:36
Speaker 1: weeks or whatever it was to go on these deer
28:38
Speaker 1: hunting trips. And then like Kylie was like, okay, well,
28:43
Speaker 1: uh what about us, Like, how are we gonna do
28:45
Speaker 1: a tripper? And I learned very quickly that it wasn't
28:48
Speaker 1: gonna be okay to have a percent of my free
28:50
Speaker 1: time vacation time going to hunt. I had to balance
28:53
Speaker 1: it out, and so, you know, so I had to
28:55
Speaker 1: kind of start splitting. It's like, okay, so we're gonna
28:57
Speaker 1: do a week here together for something you want to do,
28:59
Speaker 1: and then I will take my week to do my thing. UM.
29:03
Speaker 1: And then a little thing I started doing sometimes two
29:05
Speaker 1: is even during hunting season, trying to take a week
29:08
Speaker 1: off of hunting or a weekend or something like that
29:10
Speaker 1: and do something special with her UM like that seemed
29:14
Speaker 1: to help to UM. But yeah, I mean I think,
29:17
Speaker 1: you know, whether you be, I get way more. I
29:20
Speaker 1: get way more vacation time than my wife does. So
29:24
Speaker 1: I think I get like twenty five days total throughout
29:30
Speaker 1: the year, which is five, you know, five weeks of vacation, um,
29:35
Speaker 1: and you know, a week and a half of that
29:36
Speaker 1: usually goes to the family. And then I got a
29:39
Speaker 1: week for a Western trip and then two weeks for
29:43
Speaker 1: White Tails, and then everything else kind of goes to
29:46
Speaker 1: the goes to the family. So that's a pretty good
29:49
Speaker 1: vacation time there. Yeah, that's awesome. Yeah, and that's what
29:53
Speaker 1: that's the corporate world, man. I mean, you live in
29:56
Speaker 1: a cuban, and I think the only reason they have
29:57
Speaker 1: to do that is so people don't commit suicide in
30:00
Speaker 1: their cubicles because it's definitely, uh it's you know obviously,
30:06
Speaker 1: like you know, that drives you crazy. So they they're like, Okay,
30:09
Speaker 1: well we can't afford to pay a ton, but we
30:12
Speaker 1: will give you vacation time. And uh yeah, So that's
30:17
Speaker 1: where I'm lucky. Plus, I hit my five years a
30:19
Speaker 1: couple of years ago, and I got a boost in
30:21
Speaker 1: my vacation time. So that's uh so I got more. Yeah,
30:26
Speaker 1: I remember back in the day. I I think I
30:28
Speaker 1: started with two weeks a year, and then I got
30:30
Speaker 1: pumped to three weeks a year, and I was always like,
30:33
Speaker 1: I forget it, raised, I just want more vacation. Give
30:35
Speaker 1: me another week, that's right, I just want to I
30:38
Speaker 1: just want to have time to do stuff, you know, right.
30:40
Speaker 1: So if you I mean, if you were to take
30:42
Speaker 1: out all of my if my wife used all of
30:45
Speaker 1: her vacation and you know, uh, did all that did
30:51
Speaker 1: all those things, then I still come out on top
30:55
Speaker 1: as far as vacation days are concerned. And you know,
30:57
Speaker 1: I don't know what. I'm sure a lot of the
31:00
Speaker 1: listeners are going through the same exact thing that that
31:03
Speaker 1: I have to go through, you know, where the wife
31:05
Speaker 1: saying something along the lines of, well, you know, how
31:08
Speaker 1: would it feel. How do you feel if I took
31:11
Speaker 1: a trip with you know, by myself? For um, I
31:13
Speaker 1: took a trip. I'm like, well, if you have the money,
31:16
Speaker 1: do it, And she's like, even watch watching the kids.
31:20
Speaker 1: I'm like, yeah, watch the kids. But again she has
31:23
Speaker 1: way less, you know, she has way less a vacation
31:27
Speaker 1: time than I do, which means that I don't know,
31:30
Speaker 1: maybe she'll do it, maybe she won't. And passed how
31:33
Speaker 1: the same thing. I was like, go go on a
31:35
Speaker 1: trip on your your friends, go do something. Um, but
31:40
Speaker 1: like you said, it's different. And I think also, you know,
31:43
Speaker 1: in our situation, like we have such strong passions for
31:47
Speaker 1: our hobby or our thing, and sometimes our significant others
31:50
Speaker 1: don't have a similar type of thing in their own life. Um. Right,
31:53
Speaker 1: And you know this isn't necessarily just like a wife thing.
31:55
Speaker 1: This could be there could be female hunters out there,
31:57
Speaker 1: but their husbands or boyfriends or something maybe they don't hunt.
32:00
Speaker 1: And so it's you know, this just kind of goes
32:02
Speaker 1: like that significant other, whatever it is, UM, you have
32:05
Speaker 1: to life partner or whatever it might be. You got
32:07
Speaker 1: to kind of figure out ways to balance UM. And
32:10
Speaker 1: you know, there's a bunch of other things I want
32:12
Speaker 1: to talk about before we there were other things I
32:14
Speaker 1: want to talk about before we get to this, but
32:16
Speaker 1: now that we're talking about it, But now that we're
32:18
Speaker 1: talking about it, UM, A couple of the things that
32:22
Speaker 1: have helped me. We're you know, the things we just
32:25
Speaker 1: talked about, and then like having these discussions way ahead
32:28
Speaker 1: of time, So planning trips out, you know, at this
32:31
Speaker 1: time of year and not like in August and all
32:34
Speaker 1: of a sudden say hey, I really want to go
32:35
Speaker 1: on a trip next month, um, and then springing that
32:37
Speaker 1: on them that's an issue. UM. Another idea that kind
32:41
Speaker 1: of has worked for me is I always try to
32:44
Speaker 1: plan like a little care package or something for my
32:46
Speaker 1: wife when I'm gone. So like before I take off,
32:49
Speaker 1: like the day or two or week before, I'll have
32:51
Speaker 1: like a bunch of different things for her while I'm gone.
32:54
Speaker 1: So called bottles of wine and a movie and some
32:57
Speaker 1: chocolates and like a couple of things to life easier
33:00
Speaker 1: for while she's gone. My what kydlie? Actually a good idea, um,
33:04
Speaker 1: for people who have kids, a good idea would be
33:07
Speaker 1: to surprise your wife with like a night of daycare
33:11
Speaker 1: while you're gone, so she can go off and do
33:13
Speaker 1: her own thing one night. Like you'll pay for and
33:15
Speaker 1: handle someone to come and watch the kids one night
33:18
Speaker 1: when we're gone, And then you know, your wife can
33:19
Speaker 1: go watch a movie or go hang out with friends
33:21
Speaker 1: or do something, so it's not all kids the whole time,
33:24
Speaker 1: all right. But you know, another important thing that I
33:26
Speaker 1: learned the hard way is the importance of communication when
33:30
Speaker 1: you're on a trip. Um. I don't think I ever
33:34
Speaker 1: told you the story of what happened in Montana? Did I? Um?
33:39
Speaker 1: I don't think so. If you did, I don't remember,
33:41
Speaker 1: all right, So tell me if I already told the story.
33:44
Speaker 1: But I don't think I did. When I was in
33:47
Speaker 1: Montana this pasture around my deer hunt. Um, you know,
33:50
Speaker 1: I killed my buck and brought back into town, brought
33:54
Speaker 1: to the processor, and then I hung out in town
33:58
Speaker 1: for a day or something, and then I realized, you
33:59
Speaker 1: know what, I just want to go back out and
34:01
Speaker 1: scout and film and watch these deer back where I
34:03
Speaker 1: was hunting originally, because I was having so much fun,
34:05
Speaker 1: and I had a few more days until my buddies
34:07
Speaker 1: came uh to meet me for our outcount. So I
34:10
Speaker 1: went back out to my campsite, went up to public land,
34:12
Speaker 1: and just decided to spend a couple of days watching.
34:16
Speaker 1: So I told my wife that when we were in service,
34:18
Speaker 1: I had called her and told her, you know, hey,
34:20
Speaker 1: I'm gonna go back to that spot scout blah blah blah.
34:23
Speaker 1: And we had good enough. We had good enough service
34:27
Speaker 1: there that I was able to I was able to
34:29
Speaker 1: check in just about every day, pretty much every day.
34:31
Speaker 1: We'd either text or I give her phone call or
34:33
Speaker 1: something like that. But day six or seven or something
34:38
Speaker 1: like that, Um, the deer stop moving. I wasn't seeing
34:43
Speaker 1: him anymore. I mucked up the area or something like that,
34:46
Speaker 1: and I was like, you know what, I want to
34:47
Speaker 1: change things up. I'm gonna go fishing. So I think
34:51
Speaker 1: I talked to my wife the night before, like texted
34:54
Speaker 1: or something, and then the next well, let me try.
34:57
Speaker 1: Let make sure to get this story, right. I think
34:59
Speaker 1: it was like midway through the day. Let's say it's
35:00
Speaker 1: on a Thursday. Um. I texted her kind of back
35:04
Speaker 1: and forth, and then that night I went out sat
35:07
Speaker 1: didn't see a lot, and then that night I was like,
35:09
Speaker 1: you know what, tarm warn't, I'm moving. So in the morning,
35:12
Speaker 1: I got up early and it was just like go,
35:14
Speaker 1: go go. It was packing up camp, popping in the truck, driving,
35:18
Speaker 1: and then part way on my drive back to towns like, okay,
35:21
Speaker 1: I think I want to go fish in this river.
35:22
Speaker 1: So then I drove over to this river and started
35:25
Speaker 1: fly fishing, having a good time, just on my own.
35:27
Speaker 1: And then I got a phone call from a friend
35:29
Speaker 1: in the area who said, hey, do you want to
35:30
Speaker 1: meet me to go fish this other place. So again
35:34
Speaker 1: I'm like busy. I haven't been thinking about other people
35:36
Speaker 1: other than myself, just because it's been go to this place, now,
35:39
Speaker 1: go to this place. So I meet my friend and
35:41
Speaker 1: we go driving up into this canyon and we're gonna
35:45
Speaker 1: go fish there for the day. In this canyon, there's
35:48
Speaker 1: no cell phone service, and you know, now I'm just
35:51
Speaker 1: hanging out my friend, we're talking, we're fishing, and before
35:55
Speaker 1: you know what. The whole day has gone by, and
35:57
Speaker 1: it's now like eight o'clock. It's about dark. I didn't
36:00
Speaker 1: really realized I didn't have cell phone services the whole time.
36:02
Speaker 1: We were just doing stuff, so I hadn't looked at
36:03
Speaker 1: my phone at all. So it's like eight o'clock Western
36:06
Speaker 1: times on Mountain time zone. We get to the truck,
36:09
Speaker 1: we drive out of this canyon, and now it's like
36:12
Speaker 1: eight thirty and I'm thinking, oh, you know, I should
36:14
Speaker 1: probably checking with Kylie. So I'm like, hey, man, I'm
36:16
Speaker 1: gonna give my I'm gonna give my wife a call.
36:18
Speaker 1: So I call her and she picks up the phone
36:22
Speaker 1: and she's like, what are you doing? And I'm like, hey,
36:27
Speaker 1: I just got un fishing. How you doing? And she's like,
36:31
Speaker 1: well how. I can't remember exactly what she just said.
36:33
Speaker 1: She just said, I'm so mad at you, and she
36:36
Speaker 1: slams the phone down, and I'm like, holy crap, what
36:39
Speaker 1: is going on? And then when she canceled the phone,
36:43
Speaker 1: now all of a sudden, my phone starts blowing up
36:45
Speaker 1: with voicemails and text messages and all this stuff that
36:49
Speaker 1: had been happening while I had been out of service.
36:51
Speaker 1: So what had happened. Is I checked within her around
36:56
Speaker 1: noon or something the day before, and then, as I mentioned,
36:59
Speaker 1: I got really busy. The next day was out of service. Well,
37:02
Speaker 1: she started texting me like, hey, what's going on? It
37:04
Speaker 1: was about you know, it was the next day. We
37:06
Speaker 1: hadn't talked, what's going on? Nothing checks me again. A
37:09
Speaker 1: few hours later, nothing, calls me, a few hours later. Nothing.
37:14
Speaker 1: Now it's like dinner time on the Eastern time zone
37:16
Speaker 1: and she realized she hasn't heard from me in over
37:18
Speaker 1: twenty four hours. She starts getting a little like worried
37:21
Speaker 1: because I'm out there in the middle of nowhere by myself,
37:23
Speaker 1: sitting in a tree doing all this kind of stuff.
37:25
Speaker 1: She starts talking to her mom, and her mom, you know,
37:27
Speaker 1: worries about that kind of stuff. She starts being worried,
37:29
Speaker 1: which makes Kylie Moore worried. She checks in with my
37:32
Speaker 1: buddies who are going to meet me out there. They
37:33
Speaker 1: haven't heard from me in a while. This makes her
37:36
Speaker 1: more worried. Long story short, all this kind of builds
37:40
Speaker 1: up and she ends up freaking out worried that she
37:44
Speaker 1: hasn't heard from me in so long, and calls like
37:49
Speaker 1: the local authorities and asked someone to come check the
37:53
Speaker 1: camp site where I'm supposed to be. They come check,
37:55
Speaker 1: My truck's not there. I'm nowhere to be found. H M.
38:02
Speaker 1: And she's breaking out, crying, calling my friends, calling her mom.
38:08
Speaker 1: And then all of a sudden I call her, you know,
38:10
Speaker 1: thirty hours later or something, Hey, what's up. And that
38:14
Speaker 1: didn't go over real while. So I think my big
38:17
Speaker 1: lesson learned from that whole thing was to set expectations
38:22
Speaker 1: I did not have. We had not set a clear
38:25
Speaker 1: expectation of like, if you don't hear from me in
38:28
Speaker 1: twenty four hours, it's okay to be worried, or or
38:31
Speaker 1: on the other hand, it's likely I'm not gonna have
38:33
Speaker 1: service a lot, so don't worry if you don't hear
38:35
Speaker 1: from me for two days or something like that. We
38:36
Speaker 1: didn't have that conversation before, and so because I had
38:40
Speaker 1: been checking with her every day and then all of
38:41
Speaker 1: a sudden I didn't, that really freaked her out and
38:45
Speaker 1: it led to a whole bunch of all sorts of
38:47
Speaker 1: mess and an angry wife. So figure out your communication plans,
38:53
Speaker 1: set expectations, and stay in good communication if she's expecting that.
38:57
Speaker 1: That was my big hot from all that. Um, there
39:00
Speaker 1: was a there's a very good chance when I guess
39:04
Speaker 1: this was in regards to our Idaho hunt that we
39:06
Speaker 1: went on, there's a very good chance that I'm not
39:11
Speaker 1: going to have service, So I may not I may
39:14
Speaker 1: not be able to communicate with you for up to
39:16
Speaker 1: four or five days. Um. Luckily there was and that
39:19
Speaker 1: made her happy. But you know, when we especially this
39:23
Speaker 1: trip that I'm going on in Colorado of this upcoming year,
39:27
Speaker 1: there's a very good chance I'm not going to have
39:29
Speaker 1: any type of communications. So, um, those expectations, Just with
39:34
Speaker 1: anything in life, expectations have to be set up front,
39:37
Speaker 1: or you know, you don't want to be like, oh, yeah,
39:39
Speaker 1: I'm I'm in Denver. Uh, this is the last you're
39:43
Speaker 1: gonna hear from me for seven days? Yeah, exactly. So, yeah,
39:48
Speaker 1: I learned that one the hard way. It's that one
39:53
Speaker 1: was a painful one. Got it got that was my fault,
39:55
Speaker 1: I guess. So I think I think we're using for
39:58
Speaker 1: me with kids. As soon as I would have shot
40:01
Speaker 1: my dear, drop it off the process or wait until
40:05
Speaker 1: whatever it was that needed to get done got done,
40:08
Speaker 1: and then I'm back in my truck and I'm heading
40:10
Speaker 1: to I'm heading back to Iowa. Now that's my circumstances, right,
40:14
Speaker 1: If I would have tagged out just like in uh
40:17
Speaker 1: uh when I was in Nebraska a couple of years ago. Um,
40:21
Speaker 1: the last day was really rainy and windy and wet, um,
40:26
Speaker 1: And instead of staying one more night and fighting the elements,
40:29
Speaker 1: I decided to get back into you know, go home
40:32
Speaker 1: a day early, just to you know, make the wife happy,
40:38
Speaker 1: you know, basically balance, you know, choosing, you know, choosing
40:41
Speaker 1: the the unlikelihood that I was going to tag out
40:45
Speaker 1: versus going home and you know, making my wife somewhat
40:49
Speaker 1: happy that I, you know, I was out there or
40:53
Speaker 1: came home early, made the quote unquote right decision, or
40:58
Speaker 1: gave up early. How every one look at it? Dane, No,
41:03
Speaker 1: you know, I I've done that before. To Speaking of communication, UM,
41:07
Speaker 1: we left one of our I can't remember FROs. They
41:09
Speaker 1: all count with you or they all count before, but
41:11
Speaker 1: we left you like half day earlier, day earli or
41:13
Speaker 1: something like that, and I thought it'd be cool to
41:15
Speaker 1: surprise my wife. Yeah, don't do that if you have
41:19
Speaker 1: a wife, If you have a wife who is armed
41:22
Speaker 1: and ready to defend herself because I did not tell
41:26
Speaker 1: her I was gonna get home. And I pulled into
41:28
Speaker 1: the house at like midnight or something, and the dogs
41:32
Speaker 1: started barking and I'm fiddling with the door, and she
41:35
Speaker 1: grabbed the gun and came walking out. I walked in
41:40
Speaker 1: and I was like, hey, it's just me. But I
41:42
Speaker 1: gave her a little bit of a scare and she
41:44
Speaker 1: told me, don't ever do that again. Got killed. So yeah,
41:51
Speaker 1: But so you're doing this ill khunt and you're white
41:55
Speaker 1: to hunts um for me. This year, I've got kind
41:58
Speaker 1: of a crazy year plan because you know, we're we're
42:02
Speaker 1: gonna be going out west, like I alluded to a
42:04
Speaker 1: second ago, We're gonna be doing two Western trips this year. Um.
42:08
Speaker 1: You know, we just were very fortunate and blessed to
42:11
Speaker 1: have really flexible work schedules and we don't have kids yet,
42:13
Speaker 1: so we're kind of taking advantage of that. And this spring,
42:16
Speaker 1: in a few weeks, we're gonna be heading out west
42:18
Speaker 1: for a little over a month, probably five weeks um,
42:22
Speaker 1: and part of the time out there on gonna gonna
42:24
Speaker 1: fit in a couple of hunts. Um. I think I'm
42:27
Speaker 1: gonna do a turkey hunt out there and I'm marrying. Yeah,
42:31
Speaker 1: I guess that's what that what would be out there,
42:34
Speaker 1: and then um I'm gonna do a spot in stock
42:37
Speaker 1: black bear hunt. Um So I'm really excited both about
42:42
Speaker 1: both of those some different stuff out there out west,
42:44
Speaker 1: and then I'm gonna try to do a little bit
42:45
Speaker 1: scouting for a Montana deer hunt again. I'm gonna do
42:49
Speaker 1: that again in September, and then um so yeah, so
42:52
Speaker 1: that's gonna be like April and early May. Then I'm
42:54
Speaker 1: gonna come back for part of May and June, and
42:57
Speaker 1: then sometime in July we're in head back out and
43:00
Speaker 1: spend July in August out there, and then like I said,
43:03
Speaker 1: I gonna do the September white tail hunt in Montana,
43:07
Speaker 1: and then, tentatively, assuming nothing goes wrong with the plans
43:12
Speaker 1: that I'm kind of working out right now, I'm gonna
43:14
Speaker 1: go to Alaska for a d i y caribou hunt
43:18
Speaker 1: that bananas, which is bananas. Yeah. So so those would
43:22
Speaker 1: be my western trips, and then when I get back
43:25
Speaker 1: from that, I'm gonna still try to do my Ohio
43:28
Speaker 1: deer hunts, my Michigan home deer hunts, and then I
43:32
Speaker 1: gotta figure out if I'm gonna build do Iowa like
43:35
Speaker 1: I do every other year, this is my year to
43:37
Speaker 1: draw in Iowa. Tag Um. I just don't know if
43:40
Speaker 1: I'm gonna Bill pull it off given how much I'm
43:43
Speaker 1: gonna be gone in September, and then you know, I
43:46
Speaker 1: don't know if I can be gone for two weeks
43:48
Speaker 1: in November two So that again for me, is I
43:51
Speaker 1: gotta figure out that balance with her, But definitely Michigan, Ohio,
43:54
Speaker 1: maybe Iowa and um another crazy idea I had and
43:58
Speaker 1: this probably shouldn't do this, but I started thing. Okay,
44:00
Speaker 1: if I'm not gonna do like a rut hunt in Iowa,
44:02
Speaker 1: maybe I can do a late season trip somewhere, you know,
44:06
Speaker 1: because I would have been home for a couple of months.
44:08
Speaker 1: Maybe in December she'll be ready to get rid of
44:10
Speaker 1: me and I can go maybe do an Iowa Muzzloer
44:13
Speaker 1: hunt or just bow hunt in late season. Or I've
44:15
Speaker 1: also thought about somewhere like South Dakota, which is just
44:18
Speaker 1: some super cool spots out there in that state to
44:20
Speaker 1: do some months and all public land stuff. I want
44:23
Speaker 1: to do some more public land like we talked about. UM.
44:25
Speaker 1: So i'veen looking at some stuff like that. But point
44:30
Speaker 1: for Iowa and and collect skip out for two more years,
44:36
Speaker 1: get those points, and then you can start hunting in
44:40
Speaker 1: the best zone in Iowa. Yeah. I don't know, man,
44:46
Speaker 1: I just don't know if it's that much different than
44:47
Speaker 1: where a hunt right now. I know that that's you know,
44:50
Speaker 1: where the famous people like Dan Johnson hunt, But I
44:55
Speaker 1: just don't I don't know if more there's just the
44:58
Speaker 1: entire south southern part of this eight is there's just
45:01
Speaker 1: more to choose, choose from. There's more timber, there's more egg.
45:05
Speaker 1: I mean, you get up to where we went shed
45:07
Speaker 1: hunting into your neck of the woods, Yeah, there there's
45:11
Speaker 1: pockets and spots, but you know where we went shed hunting.
45:14
Speaker 1: It's good. It's a really good deer hunting. However, everything
45:18
Speaker 1: around that is egg, which means you're not going to
45:21
Speaker 1: find the you know more. I guess there's just more
45:27
Speaker 1: down in the southern units. Yeah, I don't know. I
45:30
Speaker 1: gotta I gotta think about it, because just think about it.
45:33
Speaker 1: I'm thinking about it. But it's not like I mean,
45:35
Speaker 1: if I go in to shoot shoot a big buck
45:37
Speaker 1: on the property next to your since I go in
45:39
Speaker 1: there and lease it out, from under your or something
45:41
Speaker 1: like that. You're not gonna be happy with me so
45:44
Speaker 1: I slash your tires. Yeah, you probably would, But I
45:49
Speaker 1: don't know. I just like the idea of being to
45:51
Speaker 1: hunt there more often, and it's hard to wait four
45:53
Speaker 1: years um and what? Okay? So I think where I
45:57
Speaker 1: hunt in Iowa, there's a great chance on any given
46:00
Speaker 1: year that I could kill a four year old um,
46:03
Speaker 1: you know, fifty class um or bigger. And every time
46:07
Speaker 1: I've hunted there, I've seen at least one sixties um
46:11
Speaker 1: and numerous four or five plus year old bucks. So okay,
46:15
Speaker 1: if that's what my like assumption would be for this
46:17
Speaker 1: general region I hunt. Now, do I really think I
46:20
Speaker 1: could do that much better down by you? I mean,
46:23
Speaker 1: I don't know. Do you think that there's a substantially
46:25
Speaker 1: better chance for me to see or kill one seven?
46:30
Speaker 1: I mean, sure there's probably some more, but I don't.
46:32
Speaker 1: I just don't know if it's quantifiably that much different, right,
46:36
Speaker 1: I guess it depends on what you're what your goal is.
46:39
Speaker 1: I mean, if you're looking for big racks and big anglers,
46:43
Speaker 1: then yes, but if you're looking to kill a mature
46:45
Speaker 1: buck four year old or older, than you know, anywhere
46:49
Speaker 1: in the state of Iowa or any other states for
46:52
Speaker 1: that matter, is going to give you that opportunity, you know,
46:54
Speaker 1: what I think what I think the thing is is
46:56
Speaker 1: that when I look at the difference between where hunting
46:59
Speaker 1: now in Michigan, so like that difference between Michigan hunting
47:02
Speaker 1: and where I go to Iowa is huge, So I'm
47:05
Speaker 1: already like, whoa, this is so awesome. And then the
47:08
Speaker 1: incremental difference though between where I hunt in Iowa and
47:11
Speaker 1: where you hunt in Iowa, that's like a small difference
47:14
Speaker 1: that it's like, either way, it's gonna be way better
47:17
Speaker 1: than what used to now. So I'm just pretty happy
47:18
Speaker 1: with either one. I guess makes sense. But but yeah,
47:22
Speaker 1: we'll see. So that that all is like where we're
47:26
Speaker 1: where I'm thinking about going this year, where you're thinking
47:29
Speaker 1: about going this year, your Iowa hunts and your family stuff,
47:32
Speaker 1: your elk hunt. What I do want to talk about
47:34
Speaker 1: that now we've grambled for forty five minutes, Um, I
47:37
Speaker 1: want to talk about kind of how we think through
47:39
Speaker 1: this stuff, Like what are some of the important things.
47:41
Speaker 1: So if people out there wanted to plan some trips
47:43
Speaker 1: to their own what are the things they need to
47:45
Speaker 1: think about. And you know, both of us have now
47:48
Speaker 1: either planned and been on some of these different out
47:50
Speaker 1: of state trips. I've done some more, um. But you
47:54
Speaker 1: you know, you went through a planning process for meal
47:56
Speaker 1: deer hunt that we never actually went on, but you
47:58
Speaker 1: did a bunch of planning for and then we did
48:00
Speaker 1: go on that elk hunt together, and now you're planning
48:02
Speaker 1: for a new elk hunt. And I've planned four or
48:05
Speaker 1: five elk hunts now and numerous out of state deer hunts,
48:08
Speaker 1: and now I'm planning and out of state bear hunt,
48:10
Speaker 1: out of state elk or caribou hunt. UM. So I
48:15
Speaker 1: want to talk about how we've done that and some
48:17
Speaker 1: of the things we've learned, um. And I think there's
48:21
Speaker 1: a few, like just right off the bat easy things
48:25
Speaker 1: you got to kind of figure out for yourself. You know,
48:26
Speaker 1: you gotta figure out where you want to go, like
48:29
Speaker 1: general region and what species you want to hunt. And
48:32
Speaker 1: I think a lot of that kind of comes down
48:33
Speaker 1: to like just your personal preference. Like I don't know
48:36
Speaker 1: about you, but for me, it's like, Okay, I love
48:38
Speaker 1: the Rocky Mountains, I want to hunt something there. And
48:41
Speaker 1: then I look at like Okay, what's the bright species there? Um?
48:44
Speaker 1: But for me, it was like, I want to hunt
48:45
Speaker 1: in a certain region. I want to be in the
48:47
Speaker 1: mountains and I want to be in the west. Um.
48:50
Speaker 1: So I think some people maybe go about that way,
48:52
Speaker 1: and then some other people say, I've always been fascinated
48:54
Speaker 1: with mule deer or I've always been fascinated by a moose.
48:57
Speaker 1: I really want to hunt a moose. What's the best
49:00
Speaker 1: place to kill moose? Um. I think that's like two
49:02
Speaker 1: different ways to look at it, But it probably comes
49:05
Speaker 1: down to like your goals, right, like do you want
49:07
Speaker 1: a certain experience or do you want to kill a
49:10
Speaker 1: big animal of X species? Rum. So maybe that's the
49:13
Speaker 1: first thing that I think about, is what's your goal
49:15
Speaker 1: going to be? And then you choose which of those
49:17
Speaker 1: two different things you know right? Right? For me, being
49:20
Speaker 1: new to hunting the West, you know, I've only gone
49:22
Speaker 1: on one elk hunt and one mule deer slash antelope hunt.
49:28
Speaker 1: I think the most I did that based off of
49:32
Speaker 1: species first and foremost. Um, I wanted to kill an elk,
49:37
Speaker 1: so you know, that's what we That's what we did. However,
49:40
Speaker 1: I want to talk about the the hunt that I'm
49:43
Speaker 1: planning in the background of some of these other hunts
49:46
Speaker 1: that I'll be going on because my Colorado hunt. I'll
49:49
Speaker 1: be completely honest with you, I got a friend out
49:51
Speaker 1: there who is letting me tag along on some spots
49:55
Speaker 1: that he has been had successful, you know, in the past.
50:00
Speaker 1: So I'm not really doing too much except planning the
50:04
Speaker 1: gear portion of it. Um. I am looking on maps
50:07
Speaker 1: and giving advice when and if needed. But for this
50:12
Speaker 1: particular hunt, I'm you know, it's gonna be d I y,
50:16
Speaker 1: it's gonna be all public ground, um, but that I
50:20
Speaker 1: have some inside information, and that's kind of how I'm
50:24
Speaker 1: I'm going. I got invited and I'm like, sure, why not?
50:27
Speaker 1: That is a great way to get your start out there.
50:29
Speaker 1: I mean, that's my first Western hunt was with a
50:32
Speaker 1: couple of buddies who had been out there before. And
50:35
Speaker 1: you know that's a because it was a little bit
50:36
Speaker 1: intimidating if you've never done something like that to try to.
50:40
Speaker 1: For me, I think the hardest part, at least before
50:41
Speaker 1: you've done it before, is like just where do I go?
50:45
Speaker 1: You know, because there's so many places you could go,
50:47
Speaker 1: and I always have the worry of if I just
50:49
Speaker 1: pick a place on a map, and then I get there,
50:51
Speaker 1: there's gonna be like seventy cars. It's not gonna be
50:52
Speaker 1: dealing with those other people. My biggest fear when it
50:55
Speaker 1: comes to any kind of hunt, whether it be a
50:57
Speaker 1: white tail hunt or a elk or big game so
51:00
Speaker 1: other sort, it's like, I just don't want to be
51:02
Speaker 1: with a bunch of other people and dealing with that. UM. So,
51:06
Speaker 1: if you've got some friends you have a little bit
51:07
Speaker 1: of information, that's a great way to go about it.
51:10
Speaker 1: Or even you know, if you don't have friends, you
51:11
Speaker 1: can already hunt with. I think one of the things
51:13
Speaker 1: that helped both of us the most has been like
51:15
Speaker 1: just trying to get somebody on the ground. They can
51:18
Speaker 1: offer you some type of insight. I mean, I remember
51:20
Speaker 1: when we were planning our mule deer hunt. You were
51:23
Speaker 1: calling biologists out there and talking to some biologist and
51:25
Speaker 1: they had some great intel. UM. I think that's probably
51:28
Speaker 1: something that a lot of people don't take advantage of. UM.
51:32
Speaker 1: Or connecting with someone on a forum that you happen
51:35
Speaker 1: to bounce around or that you see on Twitter a lot,
51:38
Speaker 1: and that you know that they live in such and
51:39
Speaker 1: such state, and if you just say, hey, I'm just
51:42
Speaker 1: trying to learn some things about this area. Do you
51:44
Speaker 1: happen to know anybody who might be willing to talk
51:46
Speaker 1: to me? And who knows? If you start mining your
51:48
Speaker 1: personal network like that, you might eventually end up with
51:50
Speaker 1: a friend who is willing to share that they had
51:53
Speaker 1: been to this region and know that this drainage is great.
51:57
Speaker 1: This strange has a lot of other hunters. I mean,
51:59
Speaker 1: I think that putting in your footwork in that way
52:02
Speaker 1: can pay a big game. Right. So one thing I
52:07
Speaker 1: learned about the West is it's just like the Midwest
52:10
Speaker 1: when it comes to um hunting property. I'm not going
52:13
Speaker 1: to share my hunting property information or the area, the
52:17
Speaker 1: specific area where I hunt uh with anybody who asks, right.
52:22
Speaker 1: So I've learned that if you're going to communicate, for example, UM,
52:28
Speaker 1: I I used to go on some forums and I said, hey, UM,
52:31
Speaker 1: not looking to kill a giant uh mule there, but
52:35
Speaker 1: I want to kill um a buck? Looking for good numbers?
52:38
Speaker 1: What zone would you recommend? Someone points you in the
52:42
Speaker 1: direction of a zone maybe, or but not specific portions
52:47
Speaker 1: of that zone, because that's given away too much information. UM.
52:52
Speaker 1: You know, I'm I'm a bow hunter. And typically you
52:55
Speaker 1: know out west, some of these rifle hunts, you're talking
52:59
Speaker 1: ten years to draw some of these tags because um
53:03
Speaker 1: and and that's that's another thing to consider is is
53:06
Speaker 1: the unit that you want to hunt over the counter?
53:10
Speaker 1: Is it going to take you one year points to
53:12
Speaker 1: draw to your points? Is it a a is it
53:15
Speaker 1: a lottery where you put your name in every year
53:18
Speaker 1: and if you draw, you draw, If you don't, you don't.
53:21
Speaker 1: There's there's a lot of other things to consider. So
53:24
Speaker 1: definitely you have to put in the keyboard time um
53:30
Speaker 1: behind that hunt as well. Yeah. Uh. To your point
53:34
Speaker 1: about how people might not want to share specific spots, um,
53:38
Speaker 1: very true, and I would never like press someone for that.
53:40
Speaker 1: But at the same time, you know, you might come
53:43
Speaker 1: into or you might run into a person who moved
53:46
Speaker 1: or they just know they're not gonna be hunting that
53:48
Speaker 1: region again, and they don't care. They're like, hey, yeah,
53:51
Speaker 1: I hunted at this in this specific trailhead or this
53:54
Speaker 1: is where I went out of him. I'm not gonna
53:55
Speaker 1: be there next year for the next two years. But
53:57
Speaker 1: you know, so it doesn't hurt to just try to conversations,
54:00
Speaker 1: don't be pushy about it, but you make a great
54:03
Speaker 1: point there, because I got into communication with a guy
54:07
Speaker 1: who moved from Colorado back home either to I think
54:12
Speaker 1: maybe it was Ohio or Michigan or Pennsylvania or somewhere
54:15
Speaker 1: like that for a job. And he shared he shared
54:20
Speaker 1: a ton of information with me about some spots in
54:24
Speaker 1: Colorado to look for um elk because of his past experience.
54:29
Speaker 1: And and I met him through Facebook or yeah, I
54:33
Speaker 1: think it was Facebook. So he shared some He's just like,
54:37
Speaker 1: check out this lake in the northwest part of it.
54:40
Speaker 1: Check out this, uh, this river and this you know,
54:45
Speaker 1: trail head here and uh, he didn't really say walk
54:49
Speaker 1: a hundred yards up, take a left, follow the tree line,
54:52
Speaker 1: go up, you know, follow it up another thousand feet.
54:55
Speaker 1: It was just like, check out this area, check out
54:57
Speaker 1: this area, check out this area, and you're gonna fight people,
55:01
Speaker 1: but it's there for you. Yeah. No, I mean that's
55:05
Speaker 1: and the same thing even can go for white tail stuff.
55:08
Speaker 1: You know, there's gonna be guys that moved or people
55:11
Speaker 1: that hunt in a peace of public land, but aren't
55:13
Speaker 1: gonna be going back to that same state. Um. You know,
55:16
Speaker 1: if you're trying to plan on a state white tail hunt,
55:17
Speaker 1: it does not hurt to try to make some connections,
55:20
Speaker 1: to try to chat with some people and at least
55:22
Speaker 1: get some kind of direction. Because even though there's a
55:25
Speaker 1: lot of resources available online right now, official resources articles
55:29
Speaker 1: and the state DNR website and stuff like that. UM,
55:33
Speaker 1: you can only go so far with that stuff. You
55:35
Speaker 1: really do need to try to make some type of connection. UM.
55:39
Speaker 1: I will say one resource that I have found super helpful. UM,
55:43
Speaker 1: and I'm kind of plugging a competitor, I guess in
55:45
Speaker 1: some way, um a little bit. But their Western focused.
55:48
Speaker 1: So the website called go hunt dot com. UM. I
55:51
Speaker 1: think I know you've been on there too. I got
55:54
Speaker 1: a subscription to them. Yeah did Ooh if you're if
55:57
Speaker 1: you're going for a Western hunt, that is a very
56:01
Speaker 1: handy tool, their insider tool. UM. It breaks down each state.
56:05
Speaker 1: You can go to the state and get some general
56:07
Speaker 1: information about like like you said, like how do you apply,
56:10
Speaker 1: what's the lottery? What are the odds? Like what? Um
56:12
Speaker 1: when you need to apply where? What species are there?
56:15
Speaker 1: All that kind of stuff. It breaks down all that
56:16
Speaker 1: stuff by state every Yeah, and then when you break
56:20
Speaker 1: it down by species, like you say, Okay, I want
56:22
Speaker 1: to hunt Elkin Montana or elk in Wyoming or whatever.
56:25
Speaker 1: You pick that species, you pick the area, and then
56:28
Speaker 1: you can drill down by unit and they give you
56:31
Speaker 1: information even down to the unit level, like Okay, this
56:35
Speaker 1: unit is six public land, UM, so lots of public
56:40
Speaker 1: access and with this many points, this is your likelihood
56:43
Speaker 1: of drawing. And this is what like the weather has
56:46
Speaker 1: been likely like over the last ten years, and all
56:48
Speaker 1: sorts of stuff like it's it's very very helpful, UM.
56:51
Speaker 1: And it you know, it costs them. There's a yearly
56:53
Speaker 1: subscription fee, but UM, I have found it's probably worth
56:57
Speaker 1: it if you're going to plan a few things like this. UM.
57:00
Speaker 1: And then also like they have the information about like
57:02
Speaker 1: you know, it's tough for these Western hunts trying to
57:04
Speaker 1: figure out when you need to apply and how many
57:06
Speaker 1: times you gotta apply and how do I get points
57:08
Speaker 1: versus how do I get into the lottery versus all
57:11
Speaker 1: that kind of stuff. So breaking all that stuff down
57:13
Speaker 1: so you know the tag situation. See, you know, you
57:15
Speaker 1: know the regulations that are. You know, you really should
57:18
Speaker 1: just go to the State dn r's website and read
57:21
Speaker 1: through the whole regulation booklet too, because that stuff is
57:24
Speaker 1: is a nightmare. If you if you don't UM, but
57:27
Speaker 1: there are some online resources like that that are that
57:29
Speaker 1: are worth checking out to get just your basics figured out. UM.
57:33
Speaker 1: And I actually was just watching a video from Randy
57:36
Speaker 1: newburg Um, our friend Randy, and he was talking about
57:40
Speaker 1: this exact topic how he goes and he utilizes some
57:42
Speaker 1: stuff like that, and then he goes and utilize some
57:45
Speaker 1: of these different online services where you can get um,
57:48
Speaker 1: you know, plat maps and see property ownership and see
57:50
Speaker 1: public land versus private land and stuff. And in some
57:54
Speaker 1: of these places where you UM. Some of these places
57:57
Speaker 1: where like if there's a unit that doesn't have a
57:59
Speaker 1: lot of book land access, lots of times that will
58:02
Speaker 1: just turn people away, so they'll see that a unit
58:05
Speaker 1: is like, you know, there's only ten percent public land.
58:08
Speaker 1: So let's say we'll forget that. That's too difficult. But
58:11
Speaker 1: if you go and find those spots that don't have
58:13
Speaker 1: a lot of public land, but if you have the
58:15
Speaker 1: resources that show you where those little honey hooles of
58:17
Speaker 1: public are, you can actually get into some relatively low
58:20
Speaker 1: pressure hunting situations because of that. UM. So that was
58:24
Speaker 1: kind of a good trick that you know, maybe we
58:26
Speaker 1: we just ruined for people. But it's, uh, that's something
58:29
Speaker 1: to look for. And then once you have that kind
58:31
Speaker 1: of stuff, you can you can go in there on
58:33
Speaker 1: the ground when you hunt, and or look on whatever
58:36
Speaker 1: mapping tools you use online and figure out what the
58:39
Speaker 1: train looks like. How can you access these spots and
58:43
Speaker 1: get in there? But um, and you mentioned it before
58:46
Speaker 1: you go into the next thing. You mentioned it just
58:49
Speaker 1: a hair is when I was, when I was, you know,
58:54
Speaker 1: doing research on this mule deer hunt, I called up
58:57
Speaker 1: the guy who does the wildlife biologist in that area,
59:02
Speaker 1: and it is their job to share information like that.
59:06
Speaker 1: So un you know, I doubt they're going to tell you, hey,
59:10
Speaker 1: I saw one seventy in this draw, right, But what
59:14
Speaker 1: they will do is they'll provide you with statistics, you know,
59:17
Speaker 1: like hey, um, we had this success rate, you know,
59:21
Speaker 1: we had the fond birth rate was good. We did
59:24
Speaker 1: a study and we showed that there was this popular
59:27
Speaker 1: you know, this percent of population or whatever. Um. And
59:31
Speaker 1: I don't think those guys, if I had to guess,
59:33
Speaker 1: I don't think that those guys get used like hunters should. Yeah,
59:39
Speaker 1: to your point, I mean, you've got some pretty good
59:40
Speaker 1: intel from those guys when you call the past couple
59:43
Speaker 1: years right, And they gave me. They gave me pretty
59:46
Speaker 1: specific details of where I can find mule deer um.
59:51
Speaker 1: And another thing that I did was this is this
59:55
Speaker 1: was just because I was curious if it would work.
59:59
Speaker 1: I start to calling local businesses and I straight up said, Hey,
1:00:03
Speaker 1: my name is Dan, I'm from Iowa, and I'm gonna
1:00:07
Speaker 1: come out there and I'm gonna do a a deer
1:00:10
Speaker 1: hunt or an elk hunt, and I want some inside.
1:00:13
Speaker 1: I'm looking for, you know, a little bit more information
1:00:16
Speaker 1: than what I could get online. And I call it
1:00:18
Speaker 1: gas station and this lady asked, and there must have
1:00:23
Speaker 1: been a guy she knew standing right there, uh, buying something,
1:00:27
Speaker 1: a mountain deer or something. It was just like, Hey,
1:00:30
Speaker 1: this guy's from Io. He wants to come elk hunting.
1:00:32
Speaker 1: And I talked to this guy on the gas station
1:00:34
Speaker 1: phone for about fifteen twenty minutes about um. He wasn't
1:00:39
Speaker 1: big into mule deer hunting, but he wasn'to elk hunting.
1:00:41
Speaker 1: And he told me, He's like, yeah, you go up
1:00:43
Speaker 1: this road and all throughout there you're gonna find uh,
1:00:47
Speaker 1: you know, good hunting. But you want to stay away
1:00:49
Speaker 1: from this area because it's easy to get too and
1:00:51
Speaker 1: there's gonna be a lot of guys there. I typically
1:00:53
Speaker 1: go here, and so it was random. But if you
1:00:58
Speaker 1: if you put in the time and cover all those things,
1:01:02
Speaker 1: people will you know, you're you're bound to hit something
1:01:06
Speaker 1: or somebody. That's such a Dan johnsonthing to do. Oh
1:01:11
Speaker 1: heck yeah, man, why not if you're gonna, if you're
1:01:14
Speaker 1: gonna spend two dollars on a hunt, you know, whether
1:01:18
Speaker 1: that's the travel out there you want to. You know,
1:01:21
Speaker 1: everybody wants to go out and kill let's say, a
1:01:23
Speaker 1: big bowl or a big mule there. So why not
1:01:27
Speaker 1: try to get as much information on those places as possible,
1:01:32
Speaker 1: whether it's big or uh bowl or uh you know
1:01:38
Speaker 1: mule there. It doesn't have to be a big one.
1:01:39
Speaker 1: Because I'm a first timer, I'll shoot just about anything,
1:01:42
Speaker 1: even a dog going out there. I just want for me,
1:01:44
Speaker 1: I just want numbers. So um, I just and you know,
1:01:48
Speaker 1: just seeing an animal that I'm not used to on
1:01:51
Speaker 1: the hoof is a win win for me. So you know,
1:01:54
Speaker 1: use use every everything as a resource. I called a
1:01:57
Speaker 1: hotel and the guys like, you know what, I'm I'm
1:02:02
Speaker 1: not a hunter, but my brother in law is, let
1:02:05
Speaker 1: me take down your information. And this guy called me
1:02:09
Speaker 1: and we talked for a while, and he was a
1:02:12
Speaker 1: rifle hunter and he would basically just go up into
1:02:15
Speaker 1: certain areas shoot shoot the first cow for me. But
1:02:19
Speaker 1: he's like, I can show you where there's numbers at.
1:02:21
Speaker 1: I don't concentrate on hunting bowls. I just shoot the
1:02:24
Speaker 1: first elk that walks out every year. So I think
1:02:28
Speaker 1: that I think we underestimate how helpful sometimes people are
1:02:31
Speaker 1: willing to be. It all goes back to knocking on doors,
1:02:34
Speaker 1: you know, for for white tails. Don't be a pussy,
1:02:39
Speaker 1: just go do it. Everybody everybody is, you know, complains
1:02:42
Speaker 1: about oh, I don't know if I'm that kind of guy.
1:02:45
Speaker 1: I don't know if I'm that kind of guy. All right, well,
1:02:47
Speaker 1: good more for me. Yeah. Yeah, I think those are
1:02:51
Speaker 1: willing to put themselves out there, like you said, whether
1:02:53
Speaker 1: it be trying to find a white tail spot or
1:02:55
Speaker 1: trying to find an elk spot or a bear spot
1:02:57
Speaker 1: or anything like that, if you go out there and
1:02:59
Speaker 1: talk to people, try I get out there. You know,
1:03:01
Speaker 1: too many people I think make excuses not to do
1:03:03
Speaker 1: this stuff. You know, they always say, oh, I'd love
1:03:06
Speaker 1: to go out of state on a deer hunt or
1:03:07
Speaker 1: out of stay on a moose on or whatever. Um,
1:03:10
Speaker 1: but uh, you know, not this year, next year, or
1:03:13
Speaker 1: some other year because they don't know how to find
1:03:14
Speaker 1: a spot to hunt, or they're worried it's gonna cost
1:03:16
Speaker 1: too much money, or it's gonna you know, they don't
1:03:18
Speaker 1: know how to hunt moose or something. But I think
1:03:21
Speaker 1: one of the big things I've learned is that all
1:03:24
Speaker 1: of this stuff can be done more forwardably than most
1:03:27
Speaker 1: people assume. It can be done more easily than most
1:03:30
Speaker 1: people assume, and it's just it's not as scary as
1:03:33
Speaker 1: most people assume, you know. I think anyway, if if
1:03:36
Speaker 1: you want to go hunt a moose or a white
1:03:38
Speaker 1: tail in a big buck state, or a bear or
1:03:42
Speaker 1: an elk, the resources out there are there, Like there's
1:03:45
Speaker 1: enough stuff now where you can either talk to people
1:03:48
Speaker 1: or go online and learn stuff. You can learn enough
1:03:50
Speaker 1: about the animal to be dangerous out there. There's enough
1:03:52
Speaker 1: public land or if you're willing to knock on doors,
1:03:54
Speaker 1: there are places you can find a hunt in private
1:03:57
Speaker 1: on private property, and you can you can do it
1:04:00
Speaker 1: cheap if you plan it out, if you camp if
1:04:03
Speaker 1: you bring your own food, if you don't buy extravagant
1:04:06
Speaker 1: things like you can do this stuff for way less
1:04:09
Speaker 1: money than a normal family vacation. Or if you just
1:04:12
Speaker 1: decide not to buy a new big screen TV this
1:04:14
Speaker 1: year and stop buying Starbucks for a few months, you
1:04:17
Speaker 1: can go do these dream trips. It's just a matter
1:04:19
Speaker 1: of making that choice and prioritizing it, you know, sacrifice
1:04:23
Speaker 1: a little bit to make this thing happen. So, so
1:04:28
Speaker 1: what are we talking. We talked about you got to
1:04:30
Speaker 1: such your goals, You got to figure out the regulations
1:04:32
Speaker 1: and tag situations. There's lots of online resources. Uh, finding
1:04:36
Speaker 1: a place to hunt, of course, we talked about some
1:04:38
Speaker 1: ways to do that. You gotta do some digital scouting.
1:04:41
Speaker 1: So if you don't know specifically where you're gonna hunt yet,
1:04:43
Speaker 1: you need to look at some maps, look at terrain. Um,
1:04:47
Speaker 1: it's important to understand whatever kind of species is you're hunting.
1:04:50
Speaker 1: You gotta understand, like just like deer hunting. You know,
1:04:53
Speaker 1: we we know that you can look at a map
1:04:56
Speaker 1: and say, Okay, this is a likely spot that deer
1:04:58
Speaker 1: might be feeding, this is a likely spot the deer
1:05:00
Speaker 1: might be betted, and this is a likely way they're
1:05:02
Speaker 1: traveling between those two things. UM, if you learn enough
1:05:06
Speaker 1: about the animal like we have with white tails, you
1:05:08
Speaker 1: can see that on a map. The same thing can
1:05:10
Speaker 1: go for elk or mule deer or whatever else. You
1:05:13
Speaker 1: just need to go and learn that stuff. So if
1:05:16
Speaker 1: you're hunting elk, read a bunch of stuff about how
1:05:18
Speaker 1: elk behave, what types of terrain do they feed in,
1:05:22
Speaker 1: what types of terrain do they bet in? And then
1:05:24
Speaker 1: you know there's there's there's great stuff online now, like
1:05:26
Speaker 1: if you're trying to get an elk hunting Randy Newberg
1:05:28
Speaker 1: has some great videos about this stuff. UM Corey Jacobson's
1:05:32
Speaker 1: Elk University I think it's called Elk one oh one
1:05:34
Speaker 1: or something like that. UM has a bunch of videos
1:05:38
Speaker 1: and resources about understanding this type of stuff. How do
1:05:41
Speaker 1: you digitally scout for elk? I'm sure there's something out
1:05:44
Speaker 1: there for mule deer and these different things, UM where
1:05:47
Speaker 1: you can learn how to look at maps and learn
1:05:48
Speaker 1: this stuff for for these different species. So go out
1:05:51
Speaker 1: there and do that stuff, take your time, figure that
1:05:53
Speaker 1: out digitally scout, and then have a game plan, you know,
1:05:57
Speaker 1: like with you and me Dan, whether it be for
1:05:59
Speaker 1: our mule there hunting we're planning, and then the elk
1:06:01
Speaker 1: hunt that we actually went on. Going into both of those,
1:06:04
Speaker 1: we said, okay, we know a general region we want
1:06:06
Speaker 1: to go hunt. Um, when we get there, you know,
1:06:09
Speaker 1: here's we've got a plan A and a plan B.
1:06:11
Speaker 1: And if there's too many people here, we'll try to
1:06:13
Speaker 1: shift over there. But you have a game plan and
1:06:14
Speaker 1: then you you've got to go into it flexible. Um.
1:06:17
Speaker 1: Same thing for a white tail trip. When I showed up,
1:06:20
Speaker 1: you know, in Iowa on a piece of property that
1:06:22
Speaker 1: knocked on doors and got permission a few years ago.
1:06:24
Speaker 1: I went in there beforehand. I said, Okay, I think
1:06:26
Speaker 1: I want to hunt in these two spots during the
1:06:28
Speaker 1: other season and during the rut. These are my couple
1:06:30
Speaker 1: of core places. And then you get there on the
1:06:32
Speaker 1: ground and you you then get temperature on it. See, okay,
1:06:36
Speaker 1: is it what I thought it was going to be
1:06:38
Speaker 1: from the digital scouting? And then you start hunting. Um,
1:06:42
Speaker 1: and then he kind of learn as you go, and
1:06:44
Speaker 1: that's an adventure on its own. But UM, I don't
1:06:48
Speaker 1: think we need necessarily talk about how to do the
1:06:50
Speaker 1: actual hunting. That's something you gotta figure out. Learn yourself.
1:06:53
Speaker 1: But I think having at least a basic game plan
1:06:56
Speaker 1: to get started is a is a good, um, A
1:06:59
Speaker 1: good way to get that off and rolling. So gear gear, Yeah, UM,
1:07:06
Speaker 1: I did want to talk about gear for these types
1:07:08
Speaker 1: of trips because again, when it comes to costs for
1:07:12
Speaker 1: any kind of deal by hunting trip, trying to keep
1:07:15
Speaker 1: it as affordable as possible is great, and I think
1:07:18
Speaker 1: the best way to do that is either get a
1:07:19
Speaker 1: bunch of guys crammed into a really cheap hotel room
1:07:22
Speaker 1: or camp. Um. So we haven't really talked about camping
1:07:27
Speaker 1: gear all. I don't think have we talked about some
1:07:29
Speaker 1: of the stuff that I use on those trips or
1:07:30
Speaker 1: what we used on our ol clunting trip or anything
1:07:32
Speaker 1: like that. Um, I don't. We may have mentioned it,
1:07:36
Speaker 1: but not into detail. I will say that for me
1:07:41
Speaker 1: because I didn't have any type of quote unquote Western
1:07:45
Speaker 1: d I Y back country style hunting equipment. Um, my
1:07:52
Speaker 1: first year in the initial cost was greater than this
1:07:56
Speaker 1: upcoming year when now I have all that stuff, and
1:08:00
Speaker 1: now you know, I you know, I may need to
1:08:04
Speaker 1: just buy some freeze dried meals and other than that,
1:08:08
Speaker 1: I'm good to go. Yeah, that's true. If you're gonna
1:08:11
Speaker 1: start doing something like that, the the upfront costs are
1:08:14
Speaker 1: going to be a little bit more. But if you
1:08:15
Speaker 1: think about, Okay, I want to continue to go on
1:08:16
Speaker 1: trips like this over the next ten years or something, UM,
1:08:20
Speaker 1: that cost goes down significantly when you don't need to
1:08:23
Speaker 1: buy all those things to get you started. UM. And
1:08:25
Speaker 1: there really are actually a lot of places you can
1:08:27
Speaker 1: get this kind of camping gear. It's significant discounts now,
1:08:31
Speaker 1: I mean, UM, whether it be hunting gear like camel
1:08:33
Speaker 1: Fire dot com is a website I've used in the
1:08:36
Speaker 1: past to get great deals on even like sick of gear,
1:08:39
Speaker 1: hunting clothing or camping gear or other hunting stuff. Um,
1:08:43
Speaker 1: there's a website. I think it's Hunting Gear deals dot Com. Yeah, yeah,
1:08:49
Speaker 1: that's another one. You're right. Um. Hunt of the Day
1:08:51
Speaker 1: is another one I just recently found out about. UM.
1:08:54
Speaker 1: And then also just regular retailers like Cabela's or Arii
1:09:00
Speaker 1: or Amazon, eBay, steep and cheep yep. That's the good
1:09:03
Speaker 1: one I forgot about. UM. Another one called the Climb
1:09:06
Speaker 1: but spelled c l y MB not c l I. UM.
1:09:10
Speaker 1: That's another one that discounts back Country dot com. Um,
1:09:15
Speaker 1: there's a website called DeVore d v o R dot
1:09:18
Speaker 1: com that if you become a member, it doesn't cost anything.
1:09:21
Speaker 1: But if you just like kind of like Groupon used
1:09:23
Speaker 1: to be, like if you remember whatever, you had access
1:09:25
Speaker 1: to all their special deals. That's another one that has
1:09:28
Speaker 1: some of this kind of stuff. UM. Sierra Trading Post
1:09:33
Speaker 1: dot com is online retailer that specializes in like selling
1:09:37
Speaker 1: like overstocked and out of season type gear like that,
1:09:41
Speaker 1: but lots of camping stuff you can get for big
1:09:43
Speaker 1: time discounts there. Um, So if you shop around and
1:09:47
Speaker 1: look at some of these places, you can get the
1:09:48
Speaker 1: stuff you need. You know, you don't need that year's
1:09:51
Speaker 1: newest fancist gear to go out and have a good hunt,
1:09:54
Speaker 1: you know, yep, unless you get ahold of your cat
1:09:57
Speaker 1: well and then in that case then you buy the very,
1:10:03
Speaker 1: very most expensive She fleeced you, dude, she absolutely fleeced you.
1:10:09
Speaker 1: They My wife still talks about that. Theay a lot
1:10:16
Speaker 1: of money in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, which is obviously the
1:10:19
Speaker 1: one of the most expensive towns in the whole United
1:10:22
Speaker 1: States to live in. Uh, going and buying a tent
1:10:25
Speaker 1: that I probably could have bought for three dollars less
1:10:28
Speaker 1: online somewhere else. But you know, when you need it,
1:10:32
Speaker 1: you need it, and it is a nice tent. It
1:10:35
Speaker 1: is a very nice tent. So at least at least
1:10:37
Speaker 1: you're set for the future. That's right. Um. But let's
1:10:40
Speaker 1: let's talk camping gear a little bit, um, because if
1:10:43
Speaker 1: you know, for people, whether it be a white tail
1:10:45
Speaker 1: hunter and elkhin or whatever, if you're at a camp, um,
1:10:48
Speaker 1: I guess I can walk through this stuff that's worked
1:10:50
Speaker 1: for me, um, because I've done a lot of this,
1:10:52
Speaker 1: not only just for the hunting, but then also a
1:10:54
Speaker 1: lot of camping backpacking just you know, my wife and
1:10:56
Speaker 1: I UM so for the backpacking stuff and we backpacked
1:11:02
Speaker 1: in for for our elk cons and or anything like that.
1:11:05
Speaker 1: I think some of the most important things are your
1:11:07
Speaker 1: your essentials of a sleeping pad mhm, a good sleeping
1:11:12
Speaker 1: bag that's rated to the temperature that you need. Cheese.
1:11:16
Speaker 1: My Alexei unit is talking to me. Um. Have you
1:11:20
Speaker 1: ever seen one of those things, dan Alexa? That word
1:11:24
Speaker 1: is that where you say Alexa, um, buy dog food
1:11:28
Speaker 1: and it buys dog food or it send you uh
1:11:31
Speaker 1: it plays porno. Yes, that's that's this, Okay, I got
1:11:36
Speaker 1: one of those for Christmas, and she she talks to
1:11:38
Speaker 1: me every once in a while randomly. Um, what the
1:11:41
Speaker 1: heck was I talking about? Oh? Sleeping bag, make sure
1:11:44
Speaker 1: you get one that compresses, like a backpacking sleeping bag
1:11:47
Speaker 1: that's small, packs down small, um, and that's rated to
1:11:51
Speaker 1: cold enough temperatures you don't want to take like the
1:11:53
Speaker 1: sleeping bag that rolls up. It's like two ft by
1:11:58
Speaker 1: three ft or something. Yeah. Um, I think it's worth
1:12:01
Speaker 1: investing a little bit of money in a decent sleeping
1:12:03
Speaker 1: bag that's going to get into your backpack. Okay. Um.
1:12:07
Speaker 1: And a inflatable sleeping pad. I've used ones from therm
1:12:11
Speaker 1: Arrest and ri I. Both have been really good. Um.
1:12:15
Speaker 1: You can get those for not too much money. Um.
1:12:18
Speaker 1: And then of course tent, make sure you've got a
1:12:21
Speaker 1: a rainproof tent, a good three season tent that again,
1:12:26
Speaker 1: all these things if you're going to backpack with it,
1:12:28
Speaker 1: weight as a consideration, so you try to get as
1:12:30
Speaker 1: as light as you can get but without blowing your budget.
1:12:33
Speaker 1: And lots of times the more lightweight stuff, the more
1:12:36
Speaker 1: ultra light stuff, the more expensive it is. So you've
1:12:37
Speaker 1: got to find that balance point for um. But you
1:12:42
Speaker 1: can find some pretty good deals out there for all
1:12:44
Speaker 1: these things. So what tend you end up getting an
1:12:47
Speaker 1: MSR tent? Right? Uh? Yes, MSR. I think it's actually
1:12:51
Speaker 1: a three man I thought it was a two man,
1:12:53
Speaker 1: but I think about the three main version. Uh, for
1:12:56
Speaker 1: like seven hundred bucks, had I had to have it
1:13:01
Speaker 1: and you didn't have to have it. Um. A tent
1:13:03
Speaker 1: that's worked really well for me and for a lot
1:13:05
Speaker 1: of people I know is the ri I Half Dome tent.
1:13:08
Speaker 1: It's a two person tent and it's one of the
1:13:10
Speaker 1: most popular long running backpacking tents out there. And um,
1:13:15
Speaker 1: it's it's really pretty good for the price I think
1:13:17
Speaker 1: it was. I can't remember exactly what it was, less
1:13:19
Speaker 1: than two hundred bucks, I'm pretty sure. And we've put
1:13:21
Speaker 1: that thing through the ringer. UM. So that's a really
1:13:24
Speaker 1: good kind of beginner backpacking tent. Um. You gotta have
1:13:29
Speaker 1: a water filter if you're gonna be backpacking in there,
1:13:32
Speaker 1: and I've always used um either a Katahdin k a
1:13:36
Speaker 1: T a d y N which is like one of
1:13:37
Speaker 1: those pump filters. UM. And I think you had an
1:13:40
Speaker 1: MSR as well for your water filter, you know, an
1:13:43
Speaker 1: MSR pump water filter that can connect directly into your
1:13:48
Speaker 1: um camel back or your your water bladder that goes
1:13:51
Speaker 1: into your backpack. You know, those are nice um if
1:13:54
Speaker 1: you don't want the pump which is kind of like
1:13:57
Speaker 1: most people have a pump um where you just put
1:13:59
Speaker 1: the little tube in the water and another tube comes
1:14:02
Speaker 1: out of the filter and goes into your water bottle
1:14:03
Speaker 1: or whatever and you pump it out. But another option,
1:14:06
Speaker 1: if you want to go with a lighter option is
1:14:08
Speaker 1: actually less expensive, is uh a squeeze filter. And this
1:14:12
Speaker 1: is what I've used the past probably three years now,
1:14:15
Speaker 1: and I kind of love hate relationship with it. It's
1:14:17
Speaker 1: a little bit slower to use, but it is way
1:14:19
Speaker 1: it takes a lot less space and weight um and
1:14:23
Speaker 1: it's a Sawyer is the brand. And basically it's just
1:14:25
Speaker 1: a bag and you put the bag in the stream
1:14:28
Speaker 1: or the river and you kind of just move it
1:14:29
Speaker 1: around until it fills up with water, and then you
1:14:31
Speaker 1: just screw on the little bottle top and then you
1:14:34
Speaker 1: squeeze the water out of that bag through the bottle
1:14:37
Speaker 1: top and then it just comes out filter on the
1:14:39
Speaker 1: other side. And that was that's pretty handing. Like forty
1:14:42
Speaker 1: bucks or something like that um from a water standpoint.
1:14:46
Speaker 1: That was an option that worked well for me. And
1:14:49
Speaker 1: then what else cook set and stove. I use these
1:14:54
Speaker 1: actually not only just for my backpacking hunts, but also
1:14:56
Speaker 1: on my regular deer hunting camp camping trips. Uh Um.
1:15:00
Speaker 1: I've used an MSR Pocket Rocket stove. So it's just
1:15:04
Speaker 1: the same. Yeah, so you get the same one. It's
1:15:05
Speaker 1: just a little metal thing that screws onto a little
1:15:08
Speaker 1: fuel canister and it's basically just a burner, a little
1:15:13
Speaker 1: fuel burner, and you light it and you can then
1:15:15
Speaker 1: put your little pot on it and boil water or
1:15:17
Speaker 1: make whatever kind of food you want. So I use
1:15:20
Speaker 1: the MSR Pocket Rocket a little canister when these MSR
1:15:23
Speaker 1: fuel canisters. And then this cook set that I absolutely
1:15:27
Speaker 1: love is from a brand called g s I. It's
1:15:32
Speaker 1: the g s I Hell You Light solo ist Um,
1:15:36
Speaker 1: so that's hell You Light. That's h A l U
1:15:39
Speaker 1: l I t E and that's the soloist. So it's
1:15:41
Speaker 1: like a little pot set first solo for one person.
1:15:44
Speaker 1: So with this little pot, I can't do you have
1:15:46
Speaker 1: this one day or do you have something different? I
1:15:49
Speaker 1: have a different version of the same one because it
1:15:52
Speaker 1: comes in like it has different options, but I think
1:15:55
Speaker 1: I had either the step It might have been the
1:15:58
Speaker 1: step above yours offered some more extra things. Yeah, I
1:16:02
Speaker 1: can't remember which it was, but but the one I
1:16:04
Speaker 1: have it it's got this little pot. It's probably a
1:16:07
Speaker 1: four inch diameter bottom of the pot about five inches tall,
1:16:13
Speaker 1: and inside of it is a little fork, little spork,
1:16:17
Speaker 1: kind of expandable spork, and a little pot gripper, and
1:16:20
Speaker 1: then you can actually put your stove inside of that,
1:16:23
Speaker 1: and then there's a lid, and you know, you've got
1:16:26
Speaker 1: basically everything you need right there, so your pot so
1:16:28
Speaker 1: you can make water and then you put that in
1:16:30
Speaker 1: your freeze drying meal, or you can heat up water
1:16:31
Speaker 1: for coffee or heat up whatever food you want. You've
1:16:34
Speaker 1: got your little eating utensil, you've got your stove in there,
1:16:36
Speaker 1: and it's all in one little tiny kind of compartment.
1:16:39
Speaker 1: Um So I really like that. And then there's a
1:16:42
Speaker 1: maybe this is the one you have. There's also a
1:16:43
Speaker 1: version called the Duellist d U A L I S T.
1:16:47
Speaker 1: And that's like the two person version of that. So
1:16:49
Speaker 1: it's got two kind of mug slash bowls. It's got
1:16:53
Speaker 1: the big pot, everything else you need Um, we've got
1:16:56
Speaker 1: one of those that we use when my wife and
1:16:57
Speaker 1: I backpack together. Um. So that's kind of the setup
1:17:02
Speaker 1: for the backpack hunts. The stove, the water sleeping system,
1:17:06
Speaker 1: you need a head lamp, um, your basic hunting gear. Um.
1:17:12
Speaker 1: And that's basically. I mean, there's a handful of other items.
1:17:14
Speaker 1: Maybe you need survival kits, some first aid type stuff, knife,
1:17:18
Speaker 1: et cetera. But it's it's not crazy. It's there's not
1:17:21
Speaker 1: a crazy amount of stuff. And then when I when
1:17:23
Speaker 1: I'm camping out of my truck or just car camping
1:17:26
Speaker 1: with a tent um, you know, the only things I
1:17:28
Speaker 1: would change is I would then add, you know, like
1:17:30
Speaker 1: a camp chair and I've got a Coleman stove that
1:17:32
Speaker 1: I used to make things when I'm car camping like that. Um,
1:17:36
Speaker 1: so you can grill burgers or steaks or whatever. And
1:17:39
Speaker 1: then on my like my Montana hunt, what I did
1:17:41
Speaker 1: is I brought my big cooler with a bunch of
1:17:45
Speaker 1: frozen meals. So I pre made dinners back home frozen,
1:17:49
Speaker 1: put them in the cooler, and then I ate that
1:17:51
Speaker 1: throughout my time while I was deer hunting there, so
1:17:53
Speaker 1: I didn't have to buy stuff all time. So I
1:17:55
Speaker 1: just heated stuff up with my little stove or I
1:17:59
Speaker 1: I think when I had like lasagna soup one night,
1:18:02
Speaker 1: I had chili. One night, I had some kind of stew. Um.
1:18:06
Speaker 1: I can't remember whatever else, but I mean right there,
1:18:08
Speaker 1: I was able to caught my cut. My cut my
1:18:10
Speaker 1: costs exponentially, just because I kind of planned that out,
1:18:13
Speaker 1: and um, it's kind of fun. I slept in my back.
1:18:16
Speaker 1: I slept in the back of my truck most of
1:18:17
Speaker 1: the nights. Um. If you've got a top around your truck,
1:18:20
Speaker 1: that works really good. Um, I really like that. And
1:18:23
Speaker 1: then I brought the tent for one night when I
1:18:24
Speaker 1: killed my buck, I you know, put the buck in
1:18:26
Speaker 1: the truck and then slept out in the tent. Um.
1:18:30
Speaker 1: I don't know whatever what other things that we talked about.
1:18:33
Speaker 1: It comes to gear man. I can't tell you how
1:18:36
Speaker 1: important it is to have a good pair of boots. Um.
1:18:40
Speaker 1: And I don't mean, you know, just go to Cabella's
1:18:44
Speaker 1: and buy a pair of boots. I mean do some research.
1:18:48
Speaker 1: Because and and part of this was my own fault
1:18:51
Speaker 1: because I didn't go take the proper steps too, because
1:18:55
Speaker 1: I I know, I knew I was going on this elkint.
1:18:58
Speaker 1: I bought a pair of boots, I broke them in,
1:19:00
Speaker 1: I wore them through mm hmm, like turkey hunting and
1:19:04
Speaker 1: stuff like that. Um, but I didn't take the proper
1:19:08
Speaker 1: steps to take care of them like I should have.
1:19:11
Speaker 1: And what I mean by that is make sure they
1:19:13
Speaker 1: were waterproofed properly. Um. And and my feet got wet,
1:19:19
Speaker 1: and they were wet the entire My boots were wet
1:19:22
Speaker 1: almost the entire trip. So so I didn't have any
1:19:27
Speaker 1: blisters because they were well broken in, but my feet
1:19:29
Speaker 1: were wet, and from a mental standpoint, which kind of
1:19:35
Speaker 1: it kind of screwed with me a little bit. Yeah,
1:19:37
Speaker 1: for sure, that's glad you mentioned that, because if you're
1:19:40
Speaker 1: doing a Western hunt, that is almost the most important thing, right.
1:19:45
Speaker 1: I mean, if your feet go, you go. That's my opinion.
1:19:49
Speaker 1: To your point, it's, uh, it's an easy way to
1:19:51
Speaker 1: lose your mental edge if you don't have that covered. UM.
1:19:55
Speaker 1: I have worn Danner boots out there elk cutting and
1:19:59
Speaker 1: I've worn Oslo hiking boots, and I've been really happy
1:20:02
Speaker 1: with both of them. UM. I would just say something waterproof,
1:20:06
Speaker 1: something that's broken in, and something that has a lot
1:20:08
Speaker 1: of support especially if you're backpacking in um or if
1:20:12
Speaker 1: you're hoping to pack out a deer and elk or
1:20:14
Speaker 1: some kind of animal, you need to have that support
1:20:17
Speaker 1: on your ankles and stuff. Otherwise you know, you can
1:20:19
Speaker 1: easily hurt yourself. So let's clutch. Um. Speaking of that
1:20:24
Speaker 1: kind of stuff, packs, you gotta make sure you've got
1:20:26
Speaker 1: a good pack if you're gonna do even even for
1:20:28
Speaker 1: deer hunt, I had to have a good pack when
1:20:29
Speaker 1: I'm packing in you know, your stand, your tree stand,
1:20:31
Speaker 1: your sticks, all that kind of stuff. I mean, having
1:20:33
Speaker 1: a good hunting backpack is really important. And I think, um,
1:20:38
Speaker 1: one thing I've learned is that there really is something
1:20:43
Speaker 1: we said about like finding the right fit for your
1:20:44
Speaker 1: body right. So like I've had some packs with certain
1:20:49
Speaker 1: brands that I really liked, but they just didn't fit
1:20:51
Speaker 1: my body type right, So I've had to try different things. Um.
1:20:54
Speaker 1: So for example, for all my white to hunts, I
1:20:56
Speaker 1: use a sick toolbox backpack. I think it's too it
1:21:00
Speaker 1: might be the tool Bucket, and that's an awesome pack
1:21:02
Speaker 1: for my white tail hunts. Um. But when I use
1:21:05
Speaker 1: the sick of pack for my elk hunt, um, not
1:21:08
Speaker 1: that one, but a different one there, like BABT. It
1:21:10
Speaker 1: just didn't fit my torso type right. So when I
1:21:13
Speaker 1: when I was out there with a lighter load, it
1:21:15
Speaker 1: was great. But when I had a really really heavy load,
1:21:18
Speaker 1: it just didn't work right with I've got a really
1:21:20
Speaker 1: short torso long legs, so I had to try some
1:21:23
Speaker 1: different packs to find something that would handle the really
1:21:25
Speaker 1: heavy weights. While I've had other people that use that
1:21:27
Speaker 1: same pack and loved it. Um, it really comes down
1:21:30
Speaker 1: to if you're doing a backpacking type hunt, I think
1:21:33
Speaker 1: it's a really good idea to go into a store,
1:21:36
Speaker 1: try these different packs on, try to find a way
1:21:38
Speaker 1: to load them down with a lot of weight and
1:21:40
Speaker 1: see where it pulls on you, see how your body
1:21:42
Speaker 1: fits into it, um, Because that's another thing that I
1:21:44
Speaker 1: think you'll be really miserable if you don't have a
1:21:47
Speaker 1: good fit for your body. I mean, have you found
1:21:51
Speaker 1: anything like that when you went out there out one time?
1:21:53
Speaker 1: Damn well, I'll be honest. I got lucky in that aspect.
1:21:56
Speaker 1: I think I had a Tensing four thousand UM that
1:22:00
Speaker 1: I bought for whitetail hunting. But it has a meat
1:22:04
Speaker 1: compartment and it's four thousand cubic inches so it it
1:22:09
Speaker 1: did exactly what I needed to do. If I, you know,
1:22:12
Speaker 1: shot a shot at Elk, I probably would have been
1:22:16
Speaker 1: able to put a quarter into it. But it fit
1:22:21
Speaker 1: me well. I didn't have any issues with having to
1:22:25
Speaker 1: continually adjusted or anything. I made sure that that pack
1:22:29
Speaker 1: was going to fit. Of course, when I was doing
1:22:32
Speaker 1: my exercises in the summertime, you know, I loaded it
1:22:34
Speaker 1: down with a lot of weight. I went on hikes
1:22:36
Speaker 1: with it, looked for problem spots, and then I adjusted
1:22:40
Speaker 1: where I needed to. But it was good enough where
1:22:43
Speaker 1: I didn't need to go buy a new pack. Yeah
1:22:46
Speaker 1: that's nice. I think one of those One of the
1:22:48
Speaker 1: key things with that type of situation is that a
1:22:52
Speaker 1: lot of packs feel pretty good when you've got thirty
1:22:54
Speaker 1: pounds in it, or if you're backpacking into camp with
1:22:56
Speaker 1: forty five pounds or something, they feel pretty good. But
1:22:59
Speaker 1: when you're packing out Elk or something like that and
1:23:01
Speaker 1: you've got a hundred pound load, that's when you really
1:23:03
Speaker 1: tell if it's the right fit or not. Um Like
1:23:05
Speaker 1: that was when I figured it out. I was like, Okay,
1:23:07
Speaker 1: this just isn't working for me with pounds on here.
1:23:10
Speaker 1: Um So I tried one year. I tried an external
1:23:14
Speaker 1: frame backpack. So there's two different types. You know, there's
1:23:16
Speaker 1: the internal frame where it just looks like when these
1:23:19
Speaker 1: a cloth exterior backpack, and then the supports are inside
1:23:23
Speaker 1: of it, like the metal or plastic supports to give
1:23:25
Speaker 1: that pack some have to it to hold weight. Those
1:23:28
Speaker 1: are inside. And then there's the external frame backpacks. Those
1:23:31
Speaker 1: are the ones that you see like big metal piping
1:23:33
Speaker 1: outside of it kind of. So I've tried an internal
1:23:36
Speaker 1: frame that didn't fit my body right. So I tried
1:23:39
Speaker 1: an external frame the next year, and that probably would
1:23:43
Speaker 1: have handled the heavier weight better, but it was bulky
1:23:45
Speaker 1: and cumbersome when I was just trying to like hunt
1:23:48
Speaker 1: during the day. Um, that was the pack I used,
1:23:50
Speaker 1: I think when I hunted with you. Um, it just
1:23:53
Speaker 1: wasn't great for the day to day hunts. And so
1:23:56
Speaker 1: this past year I use an XO Mountain gear pack
1:23:59
Speaker 1: and that I found fit my body right and was
1:24:03
Speaker 1: a good mix between the two. Had more support so
1:24:06
Speaker 1: that when I pad, we packed out a cow elk
1:24:09
Speaker 1: and you know, I probably had a sixty five or
1:24:12
Speaker 1: seventy pound load maybe maybe more, and um, they handled
1:24:15
Speaker 1: that extreme weight much better. But then because it was
1:24:18
Speaker 1: still an internal frame pack. It handled the day to
1:24:21
Speaker 1: day hunts when I didn't have a lot of weight,
1:24:23
Speaker 1: and they're more comfortably and it just wasn't wasn't a cumbersome.
1:24:25
Speaker 1: So that was like the right fit for me. Um,
1:24:27
Speaker 1: I found that sweet spot between the two. So I think,
1:24:30
Speaker 1: I think that's an important decision. If you're gonna do
1:24:32
Speaker 1: one of these hunts, when you're gonna be packing out heavyweights,
1:24:35
Speaker 1: packing in camp, do you due diligence, try some different things, UM,
1:24:40
Speaker 1: figure out what fits you a So packs, we've talked
1:24:45
Speaker 1: camping gear, UM, you know, we've talked about different ways
1:24:49
Speaker 1: to fare all this stuff out. Trying to think one
1:24:51
Speaker 1: of the things you need to think about when going
1:24:52
Speaker 1: about any of these types of hunts, I think you
1:24:54
Speaker 1: know an important thing and again this this applies to
1:24:57
Speaker 1: any type of hunt trip is figure out what you're
1:25:00
Speaker 1: gonna do with the meat and what you're gonna do
1:25:02
Speaker 1: with the animal, the cape or the antlers, taxidermy, all
1:25:06
Speaker 1: that kind of stuff. Every different state has different regulations,
1:25:09
Speaker 1: there's different challenges with it. Um. What I've always tried
1:25:12
Speaker 1: to do is I've always tried to figure out where
1:25:15
Speaker 1: a processor is locally beforehand, so that you know when
1:25:20
Speaker 1: you're dealing with it. In the moment you do, you're
1:25:21
Speaker 1: not stressed about it because you know how it is.
1:25:25
Speaker 1: If you if you kill something, it always takes longer
1:25:27
Speaker 1: than you think to get it taken care of and
1:25:29
Speaker 1: get it back up to the truck and to take
1:25:30
Speaker 1: it wherever you go, And then if you have hot
1:25:32
Speaker 1: weather or something, then you're stressing about that. Um. So
1:25:36
Speaker 1: that's that's important. Figure out a process or if you're
1:25:38
Speaker 1: gonna get processed, or if you're gonna do it yourself,
1:25:40
Speaker 1: make sure you get the right equipment. Figure all that out. Um.
1:25:44
Speaker 1: I'll make a list and check it twice. Yeah. Another
1:25:47
Speaker 1: important thing I think we've mentioned in the past, but
1:25:50
Speaker 1: if you're going to be driving home with that animal
1:25:53
Speaker 1: or parts of that animal, make sure you know the
1:25:55
Speaker 1: laws about transporting carcasses, transporting antlers and meat. There's a
1:26:01
Speaker 1: lot of states now that don't allow you to transport
1:26:03
Speaker 1: meat across state lines. Not meat, sorry, but certain parts
1:26:07
Speaker 1: of a deer or elp because of disease issues. So
1:26:11
Speaker 1: for examples, out of the head, yeah, bringing it yeah, yeah,
1:26:16
Speaker 1: you got a debone the meat and you can't bring
1:26:18
Speaker 1: back like a full deer carcass, for example, from a
1:26:21
Speaker 1: c W deposit state back into Michigan or back into
1:26:24
Speaker 1: a different state. Um, you have to the meat's gotta
1:26:27
Speaker 1: be debone and take care of. And then you can
1:26:29
Speaker 1: only bring the cleaned skull cap so the antlers and
1:26:35
Speaker 1: then bone. But everything's got to be off of it.
1:26:37
Speaker 1: The brain tissue, all that kind of stuff has gotta
1:26:39
Speaker 1: be gone. Um. There's a lot of people right now
1:26:41
Speaker 1: that I think are shooting a deer in Iowa or
1:26:43
Speaker 1: Illinois or something, throwing in the back of the truck
1:26:46
Speaker 1: and then driving six hours back into Michigan or back
1:26:48
Speaker 1: to their home state, not knowing that what they're doing
1:26:50
Speaker 1: is legal. And if you get pulled over, you're you're
1:26:52
Speaker 1: in some trouble. Um. So make sure you know those
1:26:55
Speaker 1: regulations when you're doing anything like this. And the same
1:26:58
Speaker 1: types of things probably apply to elk and mule deer
1:27:00
Speaker 1: and different things on those lines. So what else stand
1:27:05
Speaker 1: have we not talked about when it comes to doing
1:27:07
Speaker 1: these types of trips or what else with your trip?
1:27:09
Speaker 1: Is there any other planning you've done for your Colorado
1:27:11
Speaker 1: trip that we haven't I mean, I haven't got into
1:27:15
Speaker 1: it yet. But the only thing that I have that
1:27:17
Speaker 1: I'm gonna do is like I said, as far as
1:27:20
Speaker 1: the location itself, that's pretty much taken care of through
1:27:23
Speaker 1: my friend. Um. The only thing that I need to
1:27:27
Speaker 1: do is double check all my gear and go through it.
1:27:31
Speaker 1: Make sure it's not heavily worn, make sure it works.
1:27:34
Speaker 1: You know, sent my tent up. Check my straps on
1:27:37
Speaker 1: my backpack. Um, you know, make sure you gave me
1:27:42
Speaker 1: a checklist several years ago or when we before we
1:27:46
Speaker 1: went out on this that Idaho trip that we went on. Um,
1:27:49
Speaker 1: look through that again. Make sure I I you know,
1:27:51
Speaker 1: my knife, my knife is sharp and working good. Make
1:27:54
Speaker 1: sure I have the proper amount of you know, rope.
1:27:56
Speaker 1: Make sure I have my batteries and my head lamp work,
1:27:59
Speaker 1: you know, make sure I have my my boots are
1:28:02
Speaker 1: up to par and and won't get you know, wet again.
1:28:07
Speaker 1: And and just make sure that everything is in working order.
1:28:10
Speaker 1: And if I need to purchase something new or whatever
1:28:14
Speaker 1: for the trip I need to, I do that. Yeah,
1:28:17
Speaker 1: my wife and I actually just did that for our
1:28:19
Speaker 1: just general camping gear for this April trip or going on.
1:28:22
Speaker 1: We just we've got everything in these big totes. We
1:28:24
Speaker 1: took all the totes out, took everything out of the
1:28:26
Speaker 1: totes and just laid it out, like, here's all the
1:28:28
Speaker 1: camping stuff, here's all the kitchen and food stuff, here's
1:28:31
Speaker 1: all the backpack and stuff. Here's all the fishing and
1:28:33
Speaker 1: just went through every piece and just said, okay, do
1:28:35
Speaker 1: we need to replace the batteries in this? Or do
1:28:37
Speaker 1: we need to fix the waterproofing on that? I mean,
1:28:40
Speaker 1: doing that stuff ahead of time is always going to
1:28:43
Speaker 1: pay off. You don't want to realize you have a
1:28:45
Speaker 1: leaky tent when you're sleeping in the rain, you know, right,
1:28:48
Speaker 1: that's a fact. That is if and then you have
1:28:51
Speaker 1: to go and bring your sleeping bag in and snuggle
1:28:54
Speaker 1: up next to another grown man. Do you remember that
1:28:57
Speaker 1: very first night we ever camped together, we were spooning
1:29:01
Speaker 1: in Idaho? Like, you know, I just didn't think that
1:29:04
Speaker 1: was how I was gonna go. Did did you really
1:29:06
Speaker 1: try to get into my sleeping bag with me? I
1:29:09
Speaker 1: thought that was established, Okay. I just will never forget
1:29:15
Speaker 1: just my eyes opening in the middle of the night
1:29:18
Speaker 1: and all of a sudden, rain is like coming into
1:29:20
Speaker 1: my tent, and like what is going on? And then
1:29:22
Speaker 1: like this big bearded man sticks his head and says, hey, Mark,
1:29:25
Speaker 1: I gotta come in here with you. You were so
1:29:29
Speaker 1: miserable to Yep, it was not fun. I mean I
1:29:32
Speaker 1: can remember taking I was a little bit hot and
1:29:35
Speaker 1: I knew it was raining, but I was a little
1:29:37
Speaker 1: bit warm. So I unzipped my sleeping bag a little
1:29:40
Speaker 1: bit and put my one of my arms out and
1:29:42
Speaker 1: kind of when I rolled over on my side, my
1:29:43
Speaker 1: finger tips touched the bottom of the tent and it
1:29:47
Speaker 1: was just like running water. Well, long story short, my buddy, uh,
1:29:52
Speaker 1: that tent got put away still damp on one of
1:29:57
Speaker 1: his trips, and then he took it out when he
1:30:01
Speaker 1: got home and dried it off. But in that meantime
1:30:03
Speaker 1: that all the waterproofing got ruined off that tent, so
1:30:10
Speaker 1: it was just basically absorbed. It was like a sponge
1:30:14
Speaker 1: and absorbed everything in it. It all leak through. So
1:30:17
Speaker 1: but now I got a good kick ass tent and
1:30:20
Speaker 1: that should last me for several more hunts. Yeah, it's
1:30:24
Speaker 1: funny stuff like that. Like in the moment, right, you
1:30:26
Speaker 1: were miserable, But now like two years later, we can
1:30:30
Speaker 1: look back and say, oh man, that was awesome. That
1:30:32
Speaker 1: was funny. That's one of the other things about any
1:30:36
Speaker 1: kind of trip like this is like when you go
1:30:38
Speaker 1: out there, it's gonna be challenging, Stuf's not gonna go
1:30:40
Speaker 1: as planned Um, but it's always a lot of fun
1:30:43
Speaker 1: to look back on. And it's actually a guy I
1:30:47
Speaker 1: met at Um at an event here relatively recently. It
1:30:50
Speaker 1: listens to the wire Dunk podcast, and he talked about
1:30:53
Speaker 1: how hearing some of our stories and some of the
1:30:55
Speaker 1: different things we've been talking about when it comes to
1:30:57
Speaker 1: doing a Western trip, it kind of inspired him to
1:31:00
Speaker 1: try to do something that himself. And now he's planning
1:31:02
Speaker 1: his first elk hunt too. He's gonna go out to Colorado,
1:31:04
Speaker 1: and he was talking how that helped motivate him to
1:31:08
Speaker 1: get through the end of college because he just knew
1:31:10
Speaker 1: when he got done with that, he was going to
1:31:11
Speaker 1: go on his first big Western hunting trip. And I
1:31:15
Speaker 1: think having a trip like this, planning something that, whether
1:31:18
Speaker 1: it be any of these things we talked about, planning something,
1:31:22
Speaker 1: getting out and trying something new, is a great way
1:31:25
Speaker 1: to just kind of get you through the year. To
1:31:27
Speaker 1: have something to look forward to, to push you to
1:31:29
Speaker 1: to learn new things makes you a better hunter. You know,
1:31:31
Speaker 1: whether you're hunting elk or mule deer or white tails.
1:31:33
Speaker 1: When you try something new, it's gonna make you a
1:31:35
Speaker 1: better general hunter. And you might not kill anything. Things
1:31:40
Speaker 1: might go wrong, but gosh, it's gonna be pretty awesome
1:31:43
Speaker 1: if you go into it with the right attitude and
1:31:47
Speaker 1: just lifelong memories. I'm just I'm all about trying these
1:31:50
Speaker 1: different new things. And you know, I'm probably not gonna
1:31:52
Speaker 1: kill bear. I might not kill caribou. Um. I don't
1:31:55
Speaker 1: know what I'm doing. I'm all the things we just
1:31:57
Speaker 1: talked about. I'm in the process of trying to figure
1:31:59
Speaker 1: all this stuff out out. UM. But just like the
1:32:02
Speaker 1: act of trying just being out there looking for bears
1:32:05
Speaker 1: and just the act of being in territory where cariboo
1:32:08
Speaker 1: might be, UM, is gonna be such a cool experience
1:32:12
Speaker 1: and I know I'm going to grow a ton from it,
1:32:14
Speaker 1: and UM, I'm pretty pumped for that. And it's like,
1:32:17
Speaker 1: you know, as a hunter, I think a lot of
1:32:19
Speaker 1: our are a lot of our life kind of revolves
1:32:22
Speaker 1: around the next season, over the next trip, um, And
1:32:25
Speaker 1: it's a way to kind of get you through the
1:32:27
Speaker 1: dull drums of the daily cubicle life or whatever it
1:32:30
Speaker 1: might be. UM. So I'm man, I'm all about these trips,
1:32:35
Speaker 1: planning them out, giving new things to try, and it's
1:32:38
Speaker 1: gonna give us if nothing else, is gonna give us
1:32:39
Speaker 1: some good stories until down. You know. Amen, Amen, I'm
1:32:43
Speaker 1: pretty pumped. I'm I'm I'm getting excited. I'm getting excited.
1:32:47
Speaker 1: I'm getting hungry too, So I think we should probably
1:32:50
Speaker 1: wrap this one up. Any any final thoughts down, Make
1:32:54
Speaker 1: the wife happy, make the wife happy, get your brownie points,
1:32:59
Speaker 1: balance things, and then don't be afraid to try this stuff.
1:33:04
Speaker 1: I think that's a fact. That's a fact. Awesome man. Well,
1:33:08
Speaker 1: with that said, I think we should wrap this one
1:33:10
Speaker 1: up before we go, though, we do need to thank
1:33:13
Speaker 1: our current partners who have helped make this podcast possible
1:33:17
Speaker 1: so big. Thanks to sit Good Gear, YETI Cooler's Ozonics,
1:33:20
Speaker 1: Matthew's Archery, may Haven Optics, Whitetail, Institute of North America,
1:33:25
Speaker 1: Carbon Express and hunt Terra Maps. And finally, thank you
1:33:29
Speaker 1: all for tuning in today. I hope you enjoyed our chat.
1:33:31
Speaker 1: Hopefully some of you will be heading out on some
1:33:33
Speaker 1: new hunting trips this year too, and of course I
1:33:36
Speaker 1: hope you'll stay wired to hunt