Latest / Wired To Hunt Podcast / Ep. 438: How to Get Your Head in the Whitetail Game, with Tim Kent

Transcript

Ep. 438: How to Get Your Head in the Whitetail Game, with Tim Kent · Wired To Hunt Podcast

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast, home of the
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: modern white tail hunter and now your host Mark Kenyon.
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: Hey everyone, welcome to Wire to Hunt. I'm your guest
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: host Tony Peterson, and today I'm talking with Tim Kent
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: how to become a more efficient and effective deer hunter.
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: Welcome to Wire to Hunt, which is brought to you
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: by First Light. I'm your guest host Tony Peterson. You'll
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: notice that Mark Kenyon is off again, out on another vacation.
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: I think he said he was at the National Hop
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: Scotch Convention down in Tyler, Texas, So feel free to
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: wish him luck down there in that competition. My guest
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: today is Tim Kent. Tim he sells estate for white
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: tail properties. He owns a marketing company in the outdoor space.
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: He is a diehard bow hunter rifle hunter too, i
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: should say, but mostly a bow hunter out in New
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: York State. He makes a track out West at least
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: once a year to hunt elk. The guys ate up
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: with hunting, and he's at a point in his life
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: where he's really figured out how to manage this balance
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: between family and hunting and being super disciplined and kind
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: of freelancing it. Out in the woods. He's got a
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: really neat perspective on white tail hunting and hunting in general,
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: and how you can enjoy it more while also doing
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: a bunch of stuff in the outdoors that helps you
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: level up your woodsmanship. Tim is a great he's a
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: he's a great inspiration, and he really has some nice
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: real world white tail hunting advice. I think you're really
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: going to enjoy this episode, Tim Kenna, how are you doing, Buddy?
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: I am great, Tony. The sun is out. It's like
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: seventy something degrees, low humidity. We can't ask for better
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: weather in New York State. So that always keeps my
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: mood real high. Yeah, after after the heat spell that
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: we just got through earlier in the summer, that's it's
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: like dreamy weather. Yeah, you guys really had it. Man.
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: It sounded like it was like jungle hot out there.
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: It was stupid. I mean, it was just it was
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: the kind of weather where you're like, I don't want
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: to run, I don't want to go scout, I don't
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: want to really do a whole lot outside except being
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: the water. And it's it moved on finally, but it
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: stuck around a long time and it was it was
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: rough man. Yeah, yeah, I don't. I don't do well
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: in those types of conditions, and that I don't mind
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: the heat, but when the humidity kicks up, I just
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: I just don't feel great. My I feel woozy in
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: my head, and I just I could never live down south.
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: I applaud the people that do live down there. It's
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: it's not for me, you know. Take me out to
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: where out west where it's dry. It's it's plenty humid,
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: like in the Lake region where we are, and I'm good.
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: So well, yeah, I'm sure there are Southern bow hunters
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: down in Florida or Louisiana or somewhere that listen to
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: this or like these guys are such pansies, totally, totally. Yeah,
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: I'll put that badge on my shirt, no problem, Right,
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: I'm sure it's got a very special emblem and everything else. Yeah,
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: they can call me whatever they want. Yeah, well, you
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: I wanted to have you on because you know, you're
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: a good friend of mine and we talk white tail
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: hunting a lot. But you and I are kind of
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: both in the same life space, were relatively the same age,
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: and we've gone through a lot of the trophy hunting
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: stuff and we're we're in sort of a different, uh
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: different stage of deer hunting. And I love your perspective
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: on it because you you're one of those people out
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: there who's you're really getting after staying in shape and
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: you really get after the white tails. But you have
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: this like targeted approach and this disciplined approach, and I
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: think it just ties in so well and the and
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: the message with your kind of the way you structure
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: your life is really relevant to everybody who of his
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: white tails, because I think we we see this message
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: out there a lot. And this is this is so
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: prevalent on social media right where you think that people
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: who are in the industry are who are really successful
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: white tail hunters are scouting every day of the year
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: and they're out running cameras and they're out doing something,
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: and it's not You and I both know it's not true.
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: People are taking days off, they're taking weeks off. You know,
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: when you have that three week time period where it's
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: a hundred degrees every day with a hundred percent humidity,
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: you know, not everybody's out there, you know, scouting early
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: June deer. And I think your approach to that is
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: just awesome. Well, and and there are guys that are
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: after it every day because they feel like they have
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: to be. I just I guess for me, I sort
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: of graduated beyond that thought process for me. You know,
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: we were talking a little bit about this before we
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: started recording, and um, you know, I thought to myself,
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: life is really short, and it's about having fun. Right.
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: It's one of the reasons why I've been self employed
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: the vast majority of my career becau as working for
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: somebody else in my mind, isn't all that much fun.
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: I don't have the freedoms that I want and whatever else.
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: So when it comes to comes to the white tail
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: side of things and transitioning to it, it can it
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: can be a lot of work, and I needed to
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: augment that and find other ways to Although white tail
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: hunting is a lot of fun, right and preparing for
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: it and everything else, I needed to find other ways
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: to offset it because I found my degrees of satisfaction,
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: like if we were looking at it from an economics standpoint,
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: we're decreasing with time. Because I was feeling a lot
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: of pressure. I was putting a lot of pressure on
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: myself just that that intra industry thing, Like when you
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: get involved in the industry, you're like, oh, my gosh,
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: I have to perform and do you know, do all
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: these things and be out in the field all the
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: time and kind of be waving the flag constantly. And
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: it just got to the point where I still enjoyed it,
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: but I wasn't enjoying it to the same level, and
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: so I needed to take a step back and then
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: augment what I was doing with my my life. And
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: in a lot of ways, that included getting my family
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: involved in some of my activities or getting me involved
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: in some of their activities. Like you know, my my
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: girls and my wife they all fly fish now, so
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: it's cool that we can go out as a family
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: and and do that, especially at this time of year
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: when the fishing is really good and then we can
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: transition to white stale white tail stuff. My you know,
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: my girls like to come out and help on occasion.
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: I mean, they're not going to be there every week
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: if I'm there every week, but they do like in
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: the spring to go and look for shed antlers. They're
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: good for probably two days and you know, all all
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: four of us will go and we'll go look for
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: some antlers, and you know, I kind of try and
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: make it fun for them and incentivize them. You know,
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: we will pin a twenty dollar bill to the wall.
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: Whoever finds the biggest shed gets twenty bucks, and nobody
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: ever finds any sheds. So so I know my two
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: money is not at risk. But you know it's just
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: it's good. I mean, take the dogs and we just
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: go and have a good time. And it's little, it's
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: little instances like that that are also filling their emotional
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: bank accounts. So when it comes time where I do
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: get crazy about hunting in the fall or in the
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: late summer when there's you know a little bit of
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: extra work to be done, you know they feel whole
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: and they don't feel abandoned by dad or you know,
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: the husband, and go do their thing. And for me,
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: that was just a way of getting myself to feel
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: better and my family to feel better. And you know,
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: I just I just I'm always doing something like you are.
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: I'm just always active, whether it's mentally or physically. And
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: it couldn't be all white tails all the time or
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: all elk all the time. Sort of touching on elk,
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: that was one of the things too that sort of
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: pulled me away from white tail, and I had to
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: I had to operate my hunting or my activities in
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: the same way like I operate my businesses, in that
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: I had to start kind of time blocking. And that's
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: probably the best way to describe this is I started
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: time blocking what I was doing at certain times a year.
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: This time block. The major emphasis is fishing, and the
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: next major emphasis is preparing for elk hunting, and then
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: the third one is whatever. And again that's amidst family
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: and whatever else, because that's my ultimate priority no matter what.
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: They come first before everything. But you know, and then
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: as we transition to later parts of the summer, you know,
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: fishing kind of star starts to transition away, and then
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: it's more being prepared for elk hunting, and then white
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: tail hunting takes the higher priority and fishing slides back,
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: and training is always a cornerstone that I have in
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: my life. But I'm just constantly sort of shifting my
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: time and doing like what everybody else does with certain things,
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: looking at the weather, deciphering opportunities that revolve around that,
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: and then inserting activities into those things. And uh, you know,
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: it's just really worked for me. Yeah, and you've figured
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: out and I'm doing this too, is we with this
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: message out there? Kind of of you know, if you
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: want to be a really successful white tail hunter, you've
• 9:12
  Speaker 1: got to devote so much time and energy to it.
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: And I do think there is like a life space
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: for that, right, I think, like if you're relatively new
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: to it, or you're you know, the twenty four year
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: old with not a lot of other commitments in life, man,
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: go nuts, right, But well, excuse me to interrupt you.
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: I think the other time where you have to devote
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: a lot of stuff is if you're hunting a new property,
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: like or you're developed. Let's say you bought a property
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: or at least the property and you're trying to develop it.
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: That takes a huge investment of time too, So you
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: know that's a different life space as well. Well. Absolutely,
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: And you know that's a I look at that, I
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: I see the I see these two things differently in
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: my head, Like that part of developing a property is
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: really fun, but you know the part of of scouting
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: NonStop and you know, just like diving headlong in there,
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: sometimes that's not fun. And you kind of you kind
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: of mentioned that, like when you got into the hunting industry,
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: there is this like keeping up with the Jones mentality
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: you get and believe me, I get this is like
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: a first world problem, but I did you know, I
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: did the same thing when I when I went freelance,
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: I was like, I've got to kill big Bucks. And
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: that was when I made the decision to do it
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: on public land. And it was the least fun that
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: I've ever had deer hunting. There was there were a
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: few years there was like I don't like this, and
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: it was it was the pressure thing and I just
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: hadn't found that equilibrium of like you don't have to
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: I I personally don't have to go nuts every single
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: day or every single week to be successful out there.
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: And it actually works against me when I when I
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: kind of pushed myself into that, and you mentioned something
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: that I don't think we give nearly enough play too
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: in this in this quest to be like a better
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: white tail hunter is you know, one of the first
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: things you brought up is going fly fishing. And anybody
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: who's paying attend into mark social media right now that
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: dudes out fly fishing like crazy all the time, Like
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: he's not. He's not Yeah, he's not scouting, dear NonStop.
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: He's doing other things. And you know, you mentioned the
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: elk thing, and you're super super passionate about that. And
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: I really think that a life dedicated to lots of
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: cool stuff outdoors just lifts you up in every aspect.
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: And it's hard, it's a hard kind of connection to
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: make with the white tail thing. But when you're out
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: there doing other stuff that makes you happy and you're
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: out in the outdoors, it's going to make you better somehow.
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: You're if if for no other reason, like you said,
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: then you'll just enjoy the time deer hunting more. Yeah,
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: for sure. And like, at the risk of sounding like
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: a total hippie, I mean, you have the opportunity to
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: enjoy like little small aspects of certain things, like I
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: can't tell you how many times, you know. So my
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: mind is on fly fishing a lot right now. It
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: will be through the end of the month because that's
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: when our bugs are really good and whatever. But I'll
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: go out and I'll go to a spot. I mean,
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: they're not spots that I hunt, but I'll see something
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: while i'm fly fishing, or I'll see some animal while
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: I'm fly fishing or whatever, and it it'll trigger me
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: to think about a hunting situation. So strangely because my
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: my world outside of my family is centered around white tails.
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: Like many of us, I mean, the entire outdoor industry
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: is that is centered around white tails. It is the
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: backbone of what we do and our our ability to
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: financially make a living. But like there's just I mean,
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: whether whether it's a little behavior a bird does or
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: or you know, watching a rabbit do something through the
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: brush or whatever, I'll watch that just kind of being
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: a student of nature, and I'll go, oh, that's interesting,
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: and it will make me think of another dot. It
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: it'll make me pull another dot from somewhere else, and
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: then my mind gets pulled into white tails. But I'm
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: not I'm not a percent consumed by it. And you know,
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: I mean I see some of these guys, especially like
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: you said, on social and it's just there their solitary
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: push and I applaud them, but I just I'm not
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: in that headspace. You nailed it twenty you know, And
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: when I was in my twenties, my even my late teens,
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: I mean I was so eight up with deer hunting.
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: I mean I was so excited for deer hunting that
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: I would literally wake up in the morning on a
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: Saturday morning before I go deer hunting and I couldn't
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: eat because I'd throw up. Like I was just so
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: excited about it. And uh, you know, I don't. I
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: still love it, but I don't. I don't have that
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: level of anxiousness about it anymore. And you know, it's
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: just there's just a higher level I don't want to
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: say confidence, but there's just a there's just a different
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: level of enjoyment. It's like, you know, you hear about
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: those those five stages of a hunter, and I'm certainly
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: not to the sportsman stage, but I'm very much in
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: the process stage. And I think that's why I like
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: compartmentalizing these different aspects of deer hunting or these different
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: aspects of my life. I'm just in that process stage.
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: And that's wholesale. It's not just with hunting, it's with
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: everything else. Yeah, it's It's it's weird where you find
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: yourself because you think, you know, you think something so
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: important at one point, right, and then five years later
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: you don't care about it at all and you move
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: on to something else. And I've seen you know, you
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: see it like sometimes with the like you mentioned shed
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: hunting right, Like you're out there in New York not
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: Primo Iowa shed hunting ground. You know, you take the
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: family out, probably yeah, you're probably not gonna find one.
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: I mean, we we have the same thing here in
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: the cities. We but we go a lot and I
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: just find myself like I'm like, I don't care, Like
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: I don't I don't care if I find one or not. Yeah,
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: I love it when we do. I love it when
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: my little girls do especially, But it's just like I
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: just want to go walk in the woods, like that's
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: that's what this is for. And the shed is a bonus,
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: and I this is this is a message I'm trying
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: to get across more and more with some of these
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: podcasts and some of the some of the writing is
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: the big buck thing doesn't matter as much as we
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: think it does, Like it's not that important, and it's
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: so you know, we we get sucked into this in
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: the hunting industry. I mean, trophies have been a part
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: of hunting since you know, we've been hunting, and it's
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: it's never gonna go away. And I'm not saying it's
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: a bad thing, but that emphasis on it and the
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: kind of the laser focus on that, it's not it's
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: just not that important. Yeah, I think it's just more
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: of the holistic experience. You know. I had one of
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: my one of my just top mentors who actually passed
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: away a couple of years ago. I remember talking to
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: him about the land that he owned and that he hunted.
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: And I talked to him after you know, a hunt
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: that he had whatever else, and he tell me he
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: went into a certain spot and he would say, you know,
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: I didn't expect that I was going to have a
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: good night in there. I just I just kind of
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: had this feeling like I wanted to go it was
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: it was, you know, it was a nice day like today,
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: and I wanted to go in there because I know
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: the way the sun comes through the trees in there,
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: and the way the lighting is in the last hours
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: just beautiful, and I wanted to experience that yesterday or whatever.
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: And I remember at the time, you know, again, I
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: was in my late twenties or maybe even mid twenties,
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: thinking of myself, like the hell is he talking about?
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: You know, And I've always I've always had a high
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: level of appreciation for that. You know. One of the
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: things I say to my wife all the time, one
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: of the reasons why I love elk hunting so much,
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: especially going to Colorado, is I get to see the
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: leaves change twice. I get to see him change while
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: I'm out west, and then I come home, and I'm
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: home for like two weeks, and then I get to
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: see him change here again. And I just love that
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: transition of the seasons and and having the opportunity to
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: experience that. And were it not for the fact that
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: we were deer hunters or turkey hunters or fishermen or whatever,
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: we wouldn't we wouldn't I don't think have the same
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: level of appreciation for it and know what's happening with
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: those trees to the same extent and why they're doing
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: what they are. And you know, I mean, how many
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: times have you been sitting in a tree stand and
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: a stiff bleat breeze blows right and a whole bunch
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: of yellow leaves just rained down on you and you're like, man,
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: that was cool, you know, I just it's just one
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: of those things. And again I'm totally sounding like a hippie,
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: but I I dig, I dig all of that, and
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: that's just created such a larger experience for me, and
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: I look forward more to those moments so much that
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: I don't want to steiny them by pushing so hard
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: throughout other times times of year. And I just have
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: so many instances in my life that I can point
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: to or it was like, yeah, you push too hard
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: there and and it burned you out, you know what.
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: And I I've definitely had burnout in all things, whether
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: it's whether it's running or fishing or hunting or you know,
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: even even some family stuff. You know, there's there's just
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: a level of of burnout, and personally I need to
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: offset and that's how I keep from burning out. You know.
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: I was talking to somebody the other day about one
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: of my businesses and and they're they're like, okay, you
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: you you know you burned out feeling burned out? Like
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: hell no, man, I have the highest level of energy
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: for what I'm doing that I've ever had because of
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: exercising different mental muscle and you know, working on new
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: things and doing things that I enjoy. And I make
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: sure that I my mom will always say to like
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: honor yourself with time or honor yourself. Like if you
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: if you want a thing, you know, find a way
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: to get it and honor yourself with that thing. I mean,
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: you know, And and I've found that balance. I'm not
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: saying I'm an equilibrium every day, because there are days
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: where I'm way out, but uh, it seems like at
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: this point, you know, I'm in my forties, and it
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: seems like at this point I can i can keep
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: a lot more balls in the air, and I'm just
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: way happier. And I can think indelibly in my mind
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: back to certain years where I was really really happy
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: and what was going on. I mean, when I was
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: thirty two, I remember being really really happy that year.
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: My one business was just in a really good place,
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: you know, I was, I was my my my first
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: daughter was born, my second daughter was on the way,
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: you know, and we were just in good stages with kids,
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: and like I just remember, I mean distinctly remember being
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: really happy that year, you know. And then uh, you know,
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: two thousand and eighteen, that was another year. Like I
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: just remember I was just really happy. I was working
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: on some awesome projects with some awesome companies. Um, you know,
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: I was doing a lot of running. That year. I
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: was training through very specific goals, and I was following
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: my program very acutely, and I had my probably arguably
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: my best hunting year ever that year, you know, and
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: uh yeah, just just yeah. I can think of several
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: of those throughout the course of my life, and it
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: just seems like when everything is sort of clicking, it's clicking,
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: and it's great. But I was I was also making
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: sure to accurately and acutely manage all of all the
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: aspects of my life. So let's talk about that. Let's
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: talk about that because you so, you and Jason Bosserman
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: are two people I know in my life who make
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: me feel like I don't do anything. You guys make
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: me feel like I'm lazy. And you you know, we
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: don't need to go into it too much, but I
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: started running and lifting and really really chasing the fitness
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: thing about eight years ago when I quit drinking. And Jason,
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: of course was a huge inspiration to me, but so
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: were you, because I was like looking at the trail
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: running you were doing and the way that you operated,
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: not only to to hunt at home, to hunt out west.
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: You know, it's no small it's no small task to
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: go from New York to Colorado to Hunt that's a
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: that's a big deal, and keeping yourself in elk shape
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: all year. And I was just like this is like
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: this is a good example to follow. And when you
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: talk about like those those great years you had, where
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: like you can remember, like I was happy at thirty two.
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: I was happy at this age. Is it? Is it
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: because you just had that discipline dialed in so you
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: were giving the things you needed as much time as
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: they needed. I think, so, yeah, I do. I feel
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: like I think the other day you and I were
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: talking on the phone and I was talking about my
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: white board white board in the background. I operate awful
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: white board. I operate off of spreadsheets and I have
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: you know, this is for business, but like I have,
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: I have three columns like long term, tomorrow, today, and
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: when I operate off that white board and I have
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: a I have a specific goal of what I want
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: to get accomplished every day. Percentage wise, when I operate
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: off that white board, I get more done and I
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: have a higher level of happiness because I can visually
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: see my accomplishments every single day. Right, So you look
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: at things like I was joking with you. I was
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: logging my food right when we came on right, And
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: it's just if if we want to achieve a result,
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: we have to have KPI s right, we have to
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: have these key performance indicators of what what we're doing.
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: So with with logging your food, okay, we're calculating macros
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: or we're calculating calculating calories, and we're calculating activity and
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: how many calories you can eat and all that stuff.
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: And at the end of the day, every day you
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: have a number that you can look at. And at
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: the end of every week, you know you potentially have
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: a number off the scale that shows the results. So
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: you know, um, I I strength trained harder over the winner.
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: So I've put on and I ate differently, not in
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: a good way. Uh. Then I then I normally traditionally
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: do over the over the winter, and I think it
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: was sort of COVID related and whatever else. But like
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: I put on some muscle mass and I put on
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: some fat that came along with that. Now I'm looking
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: at things. I'm going, man, I don't want to be
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: carrying all this around in the elk woods. I want
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: to try and keep what muscle I can, well, the
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: thing that I need to do is I need to
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: control my nutrition in order to do that. And I
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: know what, years where I've had really good results at
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: doing that are the years where I am really diligent
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: about tracking. So that's one example of a place where
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: if I'm managing and I'm tracking something, I see a
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: result and that result creates happiness. And the same thing
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: holds true for hunting. And you and I've talked before
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: on podcasts about like making your decisions off of data
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: rather than making your decisions off of just just out
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: of a whim and your gut is data sometimes. But
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: you know, if you're if you're trying sacking all those
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: things again, you have those metrics to utilize as you're
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: doing it. And you know, I'm not saying, like, go
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: and track stuff when it comes to your kids or
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: any of that, that you'll drive them crazy, right, they
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: don't have the the bandwidth for it. But you know,
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: in my world, when I'm keeping track of my stuff,
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: I find the highest level of satisfaction and happiness because
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: I'm I'm accomplishing and I know it because I'm keeping track.
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: You know, maybe that's a little nerd ish um, but
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: that's okay because that's what works for me. You know,
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: it's I mean, it's relevant because if you see and
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: I'm sure you get these two, but if you see
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: the questions that you get from a lot of the
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: listeners and a lot of the readers, they're kind of
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: the same things over and over and over again, like
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: what do you look for when you travel to you know,
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: X state to hunt public land or you're on a
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: new property, what do you look for or And it's
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: it's kind of these recurring themes over over again. And
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: what it what I find really hard, like the data
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: that gets lost in the messages, like my process, right,
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: Like you have your process for managing your life because
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: you're a busy guy, and you know you're gonna keep
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: yourself in shape and you're gonna do a lot of
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: stuff to make sure you're happy in the white tailed
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: woods and the elk woods. But that's yours. You know,
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: a lot of people listening to this are not tracking
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: their calorie. It's not gonna happen. But next year I
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: probably won't be either. But you you've got this process
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: down and I know for me, like I don't go
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: let's say I just pick a random state and I'm
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: gonna go hunt in public land there. I don't say
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: I have to have, you know, ten way points drop
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: that I think are badass spots, right, But I know
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: inherently if I've done enough East scouting or not, Like,
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: I know if I feel comfortable with the plan that
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: I have in place. And that's where the enjoyment comes in.
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: The enjoyment eroads when you're sitting there second guessing yourself, going, man,
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: I only have two spots. What if there's people in there?
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: Or what if you know, so it's blown out of
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: the south and I can't hunt either spot, and so
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: developing some kind of discipline like that. It's as far
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: as saying like this season, I'm going into it, even
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: if you're staying at home hunting a lease like you
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: might be in New York or you're going somewhere else.
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: Is like are you happy with your plan? Like? Do
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: you have a plan? First? And then do you have
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: enough spots set up? And if you don't, you know,
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: if you can't put up a bunch of ladder stands
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: or hang ons, do you have enough trees that you
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: know you can saddle up in or a couple of
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: ground blinds, like how how comfortable are you with with
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: not just like opening weekend, maybe the rut, but everything
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: in between. Do you feel good about it? And when
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: you start sort of you don't have to get like
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: crazy analytical about it, But when you start looking at
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: it in those ways and going like, am I gonna
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: be satisfied with this? It kind of prompts you to
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: get after it a little more because you know that
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: feeling when you weren't prepared sucks, and you know that
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: you didn't kill deer when you went into it, and going, man,
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: I only have two stands up. This doesn't feel very good.
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: I'll have to get them up later. It's it's not
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: the best way to go about it for a lot
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: of us. Yeah, for sure. I mean for me, there's
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: a point of diminishing return when it comes to planning too,
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: because there's an element of me that really does like
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: to kind of freewheel and free lance and just go
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: and and hit a place that's new or even hunting
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: here at home, Like I couldn't go and tell you
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: like structurally like oh yeah, I'm gonna hit this stand
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: throughout the whole season. I mean there's literally just depends
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: upon how the wind blows right and and but I
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: know that there's certain places on our farms that certain
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: times a year, on certain winds, there's a high likelihood
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: that's going to happen. And that just comes with with
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: a high level of experience and being on the same
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: dirt for a really long time. Obviously when it comes
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: to hunting that you don't have that same transition if
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: you're if you're you know, bopping around on public you know,
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: if you go hunt elk or mildeary white tails in
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: another place. I generally like I I really like a
• 27:59
  Speaker 1: lot of what like Mark Levice has to say. I
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: don't know if you're familiar with him, but you know,
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: heat tree line pursuits. But like Mark talks about having
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: like a hunt plan for LK hunting and then you know,
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: these are your spots and this is you know, looking
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: for certain terrain features and whatever else. I really go
• 28:15
  Speaker 1: into my Western hunts with those those series of things.
• 28:20
  Speaker 1: But what I've what I've learned over the years is
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: a lot of times, like you're saying, like EA, scouting
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: something looks like one thing on the computer, and then
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: you get there and you're like, oh gosh, this isn't
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: this isn't what I had envisioned at all, you know,
• 28:37
  Speaker 1: because you're just I don't care how good you are
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: at East scouting, Like there's just there's just an element
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: of it that there's a separation between digital and reality.
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: And I mean I could speak to that specifically. Two
• 28:49
  Speaker 1: thousand and eighteen, Wyoming, my hunting partner Eric and I
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: went out and we get there and the terrain was
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: totally different it than I had expected, and it would
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: I remember like literally pulling in, I'm like, oh, Eric, my, like,
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: I think a bunch of my hunt spots are gonna
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: be bad, Like we're not gonna be able to go
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: to them at all, you know. And a few of
• 29:13
  Speaker 1: them definitely were, and some of them turned out to
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: be exactly what we had hoped they would be. But um,
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: you know, there's just but but we we did, like
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: we we freewheeled it once we found certain terrain features
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: that the elks seemed to be favoring given that time
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: a year and the level of pressure that there was
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: and whatever else. We'll be driving down the road and
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: you could even see stuff from the road, you know,
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: you can obviously see some topographical features and whatever else.
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: We're like, you know what, let's just for giggles, let's
• 29:45
  Speaker 1: go try that spot tomorrow morning and see what happens.
• 29:49
  Speaker 1: And you know, we hit paid or really well by
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: doing that, and it was it was super fun. And
• 29:55
  Speaker 1: you know, that year we actually got displaced from our
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: original hunt area because there was a really big wildfire
• 30:01
  Speaker 1: and we actually we had to go to another another
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: area in the unit. And uh, I think we only
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: had between the two of us, like two hunt areas
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: planned out in that spot. Everything else was on the
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: other side of the unit. Well, I mean we got
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: in there and it was lights out, I mean just
• 30:21
  Speaker 1: awesome hunting. And we were already experiencing awesome hunting before that. So, uh,
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: you've gotta be flexible. I mean, I think that comes
• 30:30
  Speaker 1: back to the happiness thing. You know, if I get
• 30:33
  Speaker 1: too regimented, like then my like I was saying, my
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: degrees of satisfaction for whatever activity there is, starts to
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: diminish as well, and then it becomes no fun, and
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: you know, then I become like a d D kid. Okay,
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: we're moving on, let's do this. Well, it's I mean,
• 30:49
  Speaker 1: the thing that you brought up there with the east scouting.
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: That that is the reality we don't talk about much
• 30:55
  Speaker 1: where you're gonna get it wrong most of the time,
• 30:58
  Speaker 1: Like I mean, you just do and so you get
• 31:01
  Speaker 1: in there. But what it is is sometimes you get
• 31:03
  Speaker 1: it right, and that's freaking awesome. But most of the
• 31:05
  Speaker 1: time you're gonna get it wrong. But it's getting you
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: in there to look around, and it's gonna get you
• 31:09
  Speaker 1: into these different spots and you go, okay, well, I'm
• 31:12
  Speaker 1: I walked in here and this thing sucks. Okay, well
• 31:14
  Speaker 1: let's knock it off the list. You're you're you're just
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: eliminating dead water like they say when you're fishing, you know.
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: But it's also it gives you this really good lesson
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: and when you talk about elk this is like this
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: gets driven home to you so hard when you all
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: hunt is you know, you might get the east cutting right,
• 31:29
  Speaker 1: you might get it wrong, but when you get in
• 31:31
  Speaker 1: there and you're actually looking around, just trust the sign.
• 31:34
  Speaker 1: Trust all the sign that you see. You know, and
• 31:36
  Speaker 1: we when we talk about sign all the time is
• 31:38
  Speaker 1: rubs and scrapes, but it's it's deer poop and its
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: trails and its tracks, and it's just general deer usage.
• 31:45
  Speaker 1: That stuff doesn't lie and so often and you know
• 31:48
  Speaker 1: this when you go in and you hike into a
• 31:51
  Speaker 1: spot that you're like, this is gonna be the most
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: badass funnel in the world. And you get in there
• 31:55
  Speaker 1: and you look around like they're not there, but yards
• 31:58
  Speaker 1: from the truck you cross four trails that are all
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: hubbed together for some reason. You're like, oh, this is
• 32:03
  Speaker 1: too close. This is not where I need to be,
• 32:05
  Speaker 1: and you realize, like, I should have just listened to that.
• 32:08
  Speaker 1: I mean, if you if you go hunt white tails
• 32:12
  Speaker 1: enough or elk, you just run into so many of
• 32:15
  Speaker 1: those situations where you just doubt it because it's it
• 32:17
  Speaker 1: doesn't fit into the plan you built that you're like, Okay,
• 32:21
  Speaker 1: this sign looks good, but who cares, I'm going to
• 32:23
  Speaker 1: you know, my number one spot, And then you end
• 32:26
  Speaker 1: up circling back to that place that you didn't expect,
• 32:30
  Speaker 1: and it's it was all just written right there plainist day.
• 32:34
  Speaker 1: And you have to you have to have a few
• 32:36
  Speaker 1: of those stinging lessons before you really start to listen
• 32:38
  Speaker 1: to that stuff. I think, well, what you're describing in
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: my mind is like experiential data right, and you can
• 32:45
  Speaker 1: carry those pieces of experience with you into each one
• 32:49
  Speaker 1: of the new experiences that you're trying to create. So
• 32:52
  Speaker 1: you can walk in and I mean, you've proven this
• 32:54
  Speaker 1: better than anyone. You can walk into a piece of
• 32:57
  Speaker 1: new ground, public, private, or whatever and just look at
• 33:01
  Speaker 1: certain things and generally be able to identify within course
• 33:06
  Speaker 1: proximity of where the animals are going to be, right,
• 33:09
  Speaker 1: and it doesn't matter whether it's elk, antelope, white tails,
• 33:11
  Speaker 1: mule deer, like, once you start understanding what makes all
• 33:16
  Speaker 1: of those species tick, like, you can see stuff. My
• 33:20
  Speaker 1: friend Josh turkey hunting, you know, just banned it. The
• 33:25
  Speaker 1: guy's crazy about him, you know, they're just his thing.
• 33:28
  Speaker 1: And I talked to him about the scouting for turkeys,
• 33:31
  Speaker 1: and I think to myself, like, just just listen firm gobbling, like,
• 33:36
  Speaker 1: then go to them. And I don't profess to be
• 33:38
  Speaker 1: the world's you know, most enthusiastic turkey hunter. He's got
• 33:42
  Speaker 1: a whole system and the whole process and certain things
• 33:45
  Speaker 1: that he looks for and distances and everything else. And
• 33:48
  Speaker 1: that that dude can walk onto a piece of ground
• 33:50
  Speaker 1: and within three days, Gilbert, you know what I mean,
• 33:53
  Speaker 1: just done and you know for some people that they're like, well, yeah,
• 33:57
  Speaker 1: of course, but they've got they've got that experience shill data, right.
• 34:00
  Speaker 1: And for other people they're like, oh wow, that's pretty impressive,
• 34:04
  Speaker 1: you know. And so I don't know, it's but all
• 34:08
  Speaker 1: of those things, going back to what we keep talking
• 34:11
  Speaker 1: about it or like, those are the things that make
• 34:13
  Speaker 1: you happy. Those are the things that you know, increase
• 34:15
  Speaker 1: those degrees of satisfaction with what you're doing. And you're
• 34:17
  Speaker 1: just you're taking all these elements and and mashing them
• 34:21
  Speaker 1: together towards levels of success. Well that's you know, your
• 34:25
  Speaker 1: buddy who's who's scouting for turkeys that you know, I
• 34:28
  Speaker 1: talk a lot about traveling to public land, running and
• 34:31
  Speaker 1: gunning and and you know, kind of mixing in a
• 34:33
  Speaker 1: deer scouting and a turkey hunting plan or a turkey
• 34:37
  Speaker 1: hunting trip. But you really do see that. You know,
• 34:40
  Speaker 1: if you're heading you're gonna go down to Nebraska and
• 34:43
  Speaker 1: you're gonna go bow hunt turkeys or running down them
• 34:44
  Speaker 1: in the sandhills or whatever you are going to be
• 34:47
  Speaker 1: looking at. You're gonna east got a lot, right, Like,
• 34:49
  Speaker 1: you're gonna be looking for certain things and you're gonna
• 34:51
  Speaker 1: be pouring over that that the available information you have,
• 34:56
  Speaker 1: that doesn't make you a worse deer hunter, you know,
• 34:59
  Speaker 1: and if this is one of the things I always
• 35:01
  Speaker 1: try to nobody listens to me. But I'm gonna say
• 35:03
  Speaker 1: it anyway, like bow hunting turkeys, especially if you travel
• 35:06
  Speaker 1: to public land to bow hunt turkeys, the parallels between
• 35:10
  Speaker 1: that and and finding deer hunting spots are they're way
• 35:14
  Speaker 1: closer than you think. And it's partially just because turkeys
• 35:18
  Speaker 1: like to walk certain places just like deer do, and
• 35:21
  Speaker 1: oftentimes they're the same places. I mean, we have I
• 35:24
  Speaker 1: have hunting here around the Twin Cities where the best
• 35:28
  Speaker 1: turkey spots to bow hunt are. You know, these little
• 35:31
  Speaker 1: spines between two wetlands where they're going from you know,
• 35:35
  Speaker 1: food to roost or whatever. And you know who walks
• 35:38
  Speaker 1: through there too, all the freaking deer. Like there's there's
• 35:41
  Speaker 1: no difference, right, or if there's an open gate or
• 35:44
  Speaker 1: something stupid like that, it's we we kind of have
• 35:47
  Speaker 1: undersold the extra value of turkeys. Besides, they're awesome because
• 35:51
  Speaker 1: they gobbled you can shoot them in the face with
• 35:53
  Speaker 1: a shotgun. But but again, kind of like when you're
• 35:56
  Speaker 1: out there, uh, fly fish in somewhere and you see
• 36:00
  Speaker 1: some little thing happens something, you know, something that levels
• 36:02
  Speaker 1: up your critter sense just a little bit. The same
• 36:04
  Speaker 1: thing happens when you're turkey on and the same thing
• 36:06
  Speaker 1: happens if you go at small game hunting, if you're
• 36:08
  Speaker 1: pheasant hunting with your dog in the late season. All
• 36:11
  Speaker 1: of that stuff close you into these little things in
• 36:13
  Speaker 1: nature that just make you a better hunter. It's woodsmanship.
• 36:15
  Speaker 1: Maybe that that's exactly right. Going back to the anecdote
• 36:19
  Speaker 1: I talked about earlier with the with the watching the
• 36:21
  Speaker 1: rabbit while I'm walking into a fly fishing hole, I
• 36:24
  Speaker 1: mean that is, you know, perfect example of woodsmanship, right.
• 36:28
  Speaker 1: You're paying attention to a thing. You know, how many
• 36:31
  Speaker 1: times have you dropped your boat into a place that
• 36:34
  Speaker 1: you've never fished before and you're just you know, you're
• 36:38
  Speaker 1: you're you're looking at your your your depth finder or whatever,
• 36:42
  Speaker 1: and it's like, oh, okay, well look at that. There's
• 36:44
  Speaker 1: a rock pile right there. Yeah, there's probably gonna be
• 36:46
  Speaker 1: some Smalley's on that rock pile, because everywhere else they're
• 36:50
  Speaker 1: Smally's on rock piles like that. You know, it's just
• 36:52
  Speaker 1: it's the same thing with fly fishing, Like i can
• 36:55
  Speaker 1: go on to a piece of water that I've never
• 36:57
  Speaker 1: fished before, and I'm patient, so I'll just stand and
• 37:00
  Speaker 1: wait and watch. But I'll just watch what the water
• 37:03
  Speaker 1: is doing or you know, obviously the polarized glasses, you
• 37:05
  Speaker 1: can see a lot of the bottom of the and
• 37:08
  Speaker 1: and where depths change and whatever else. And you know,
• 37:10
  Speaker 1: just I look for things that I like, you know,
• 37:13
  Speaker 1: and and and then I feel confident in that spot
• 37:16
  Speaker 1: more than if I see things that I don't like obviously,
• 37:19
  Speaker 1: So you know, then I'll end up wetting the line
• 37:21
  Speaker 1: and sometimes it pans out, and sometimes it it doesn't.
• 37:24
  Speaker 1: But that's that's also what keeps us kind of coming
• 37:27
  Speaker 1: back for more, you know. So um, but you know
• 37:31
  Speaker 1: what to look for. I guess ultimately that's what we're
• 37:33
  Speaker 1: talking about, turkeys, you know everything. Well, I think I
• 37:36
  Speaker 1: think it goes even deeper than that. I had this
• 37:39
  Speaker 1: this kind of light bulb moment probably about I don't know,
• 37:42
  Speaker 1: I think four years ago something like that. I was
• 37:44
  Speaker 1: I went pheasant hunting and it was it was I
• 37:47
  Speaker 1: think probably back half of November. We didn't have snow yet,
• 37:50
  Speaker 1: but anyway, we went out. I was hunting with my
• 37:53
  Speaker 1: wife's uncle. We had this little forty acre chunk that
• 37:56
  Speaker 1: had a cat tail slew and then it had just
• 37:58
  Speaker 1: a bunch of crp grass and then they were they
• 38:00
  Speaker 1: were private egg fields across the fence, you know. And
• 38:03
  Speaker 1: so most people go in and they walk the fence line.
• 38:07
  Speaker 1: You know, they've seen this on they've studied this, this
• 38:10
  Speaker 1: habit in Upland hunters a lot. They've you know, they
• 38:13
  Speaker 1: know we follow the same routes all the time. The
• 38:16
  Speaker 1: pheasants figure that out. And we had gone out, we
• 38:19
  Speaker 1: had hunted the way most people do. Then we cut
• 38:21
  Speaker 1: through the middle and we ended up I think we
• 38:23
  Speaker 1: killed three birds out of there. I don't think we
• 38:25
  Speaker 1: got our limit, but we got close. And I just
• 38:28
  Speaker 1: remember like sitting at the truck, you know, we were
• 38:30
  Speaker 1: watering the dogs and I was like, I think we
• 38:32
  Speaker 1: killed those peasants in a staging area because they were
• 38:35
  Speaker 1: like they were full, their crops were full. They had
• 38:37
  Speaker 1: already gone out and eaten and they'd come back, but
• 38:39
  Speaker 1: they weren't back in the really thick, gnarly stuff. They
• 38:42
  Speaker 1: were kind of in this little transition stone transition zone.
• 38:45
  Speaker 1: And when you when you spend time doing that stuff,
• 38:49
  Speaker 1: or like you mentioned the Smalley's, like they you know,
• 38:52
  Speaker 1: they go up on the bank and they spawn right
• 38:54
  Speaker 1: and then they back off and they recover a little
• 38:56
  Speaker 1: bit and maybe a little bit deeper water, and then
• 38:58
  Speaker 1: they move into their summer pattern where they might be
• 39:00
  Speaker 1: on those deeper rock piles, and everything happens for a reason,
• 39:04
  Speaker 1: Like there isn't a lot of randomness there, you know,
• 39:07
  Speaker 1: And like I think it's easy to look at pheasants
• 39:09
  Speaker 1: or rabbit hunting or something like that and go, well,
• 39:11
  Speaker 1: it's just you know, there's just randomness, like they're just
• 39:13
  Speaker 1: here because they live here. Well they're right here in
• 39:15
  Speaker 1: this specific spot right now for a reason. The same
• 39:18
  Speaker 1: thing happens. You know, if guys go elk hunting, it's like, well,
• 39:21
  Speaker 1: I'm just gonna I'm gonna bugle in a bull because
• 39:23
  Speaker 1: they're out covering ground everywhere and they're gonna somebody's gonna
• 39:26
  Speaker 1: come in. And you know, those elk are hanging around
• 39:29
  Speaker 1: the cows because those cows are living their life to
• 39:32
  Speaker 1: not get shot and not get bumped all around, and
• 39:34
  Speaker 1: they're feeding in these meadows at midnight and they're doing whatever,
• 39:38
  Speaker 1: and there's a there's a total method to the madness,
• 39:40
  Speaker 1: Like it's not random, just like with the white tail rut.
• 39:43
  Speaker 1: The more we study that, there's a lot less randomness
• 39:46
  Speaker 1: to it. And I'm sure there's some randomness to it.
• 39:49
  Speaker 1: But when you start figuring out those trout that are,
• 39:52
  Speaker 1: you know, in the negative feeding pattern, they're just hanging
• 39:54
  Speaker 1: there and you can see him, they're not doing anything,
• 39:55
  Speaker 1: and ell of a sudden, they move down to that
• 39:57
  Speaker 1: seam below that rock. Now he's eating, like all of
• 39:59
  Speaker 1: the stuff feeds this this level of just like, Okay,
• 40:02
  Speaker 1: I have a little more confidence now because I don't
• 40:04
  Speaker 1: I'm not relying on crossing my fingers and hoping that
• 40:07
  Speaker 1: buck comes by. I assume he's here and he wants
• 40:10
  Speaker 1: to be there, and I'm gonna go between yeah, for sure,
• 40:14
  Speaker 1: for sure. I mean we experienced it all the time.
• 40:16
  Speaker 1: I mean, there's there's nothing that happens in nature I think, well, sorry,
• 40:21
  Speaker 1: that's an absolute statement, um, but there's few things that
• 40:24
  Speaker 1: happen in nature just randomly. You know, we want to
• 40:28
  Speaker 1: believe that it happens randomly, But I I struggle with that,
• 40:33
  Speaker 1: you know, I mean that you could take that into
• 40:36
  Speaker 1: so many other conversations, but like you know, it's kind
• 40:40
  Speaker 1: of back to the food thing. There's nothing that happens
• 40:43
  Speaker 1: randomly with food. You know, fuel does certain things for
• 40:46
  Speaker 1: you and it has a direct result, and everybody's a
• 40:49
  Speaker 1: little bit different. But you know, I don't know, you
• 40:53
  Speaker 1: gotta just pay attention to those trends. I guess whether
• 40:56
  Speaker 1: they're personally or other things. Yeah, And I mean I
• 40:59
  Speaker 1: think you could make the case, you know, if you
• 41:01
  Speaker 1: sit there and watch it's so you're you're back in
• 41:04
  Speaker 1: some kind of staging area and you're watching a book,
• 41:06
  Speaker 1: kind of make a few rubs. He's kind of browsing around.
• 41:09
  Speaker 1: He he might randomly walk seventy five yards your way
• 41:14
  Speaker 1: and brow is over there like that. That might just
• 41:16
  Speaker 1: be like a little whim he has, right, But him
• 41:19
  Speaker 1: being there in that spot at that time probably isn't random, right,
• 41:23
  Speaker 1: you know. It's the same thing like you know the
• 41:27
  Speaker 1: elk that the bull that you run into is just
• 41:29
  Speaker 1: screaming his goddamn head off, and he's a gift, you know,
• 41:31
  Speaker 1: like in a place you don't expect, Like yeah, maybe
• 41:35
  Speaker 1: he just maybe he got his ass kicks and he's
• 41:38
  Speaker 1: going to look for somebody else or something, and there
• 41:40
  Speaker 1: might be an element of randomness to it. But there's
• 41:42
  Speaker 1: probably so much going on that we don't understand that
• 41:45
  Speaker 1: it's just like it's easier for us just a default
• 41:47
  Speaker 1: to that explanation because we we will never know. We
• 41:52
  Speaker 1: have an example of the elk thing I'm talking like
• 41:55
  Speaker 1: I have, Like you know, elk are my primary thing,
• 41:57
  Speaker 1: and they're really I mean they're not, but like we were.
• 42:01
  Speaker 1: We were in Colorado in two thousand and seventeen and
• 42:03
  Speaker 1: we're literally in our campsite in a campground and we're
• 42:09
  Speaker 1: just they're having lunch. We had hunted in the morning,
• 42:11
  Speaker 1: and I just so happened to set up my spotting
• 42:14
  Speaker 1: scope and it's it's just sitting there on the tripod.
• 42:18
  Speaker 1: I don't even know why I did it. Maybe it
• 42:19
  Speaker 1: was in preparation for going to glass something that evening
• 42:23
  Speaker 1: or whatever. And we're literally sitting in camp chairs. I
• 42:27
  Speaker 1: got my spotted next to me on the right, and
• 42:30
  Speaker 1: I just see this giant ass bull start walking. This
• 42:35
  Speaker 1: is this is a campsite that's like right off of
• 42:37
  Speaker 1: a major road. There's no there's there's no rhyme or
• 42:41
  Speaker 1: reason in my mind why that bull is out cruising
• 42:45
  Speaker 1: in the mid This is mid day to go and
• 42:48
  Speaker 1: look for cows. I mean, that's exactly just like you
• 42:51
  Speaker 1: see out of a white tail box head down, you know,
• 42:54
  Speaker 1: trying to take in fill those old factory glands. Whatever.
• 42:57
  Speaker 1: That's exactly what he's doing, right, He is just cruising.
• 43:00
  Speaker 1: And I'm like, why would he be up in that spot?
• 43:03
  Speaker 1: That makes no sense to me. Why didn't have any
• 43:06
  Speaker 1: experience with that area? So that evening we decided we're
• 43:11
  Speaker 1: gonna at least go and try. And I'm not not
• 43:13
  Speaker 1: even that evening after we watched him walk off, we
• 43:17
  Speaker 1: thought he went and maybe went to this one little
• 43:18
  Speaker 1: draw and then it went down to a big reservoir. Actually,
• 43:21
  Speaker 1: although I'm hold, when we went over there, they had
• 43:24
  Speaker 1: clear cut the beetle kill was really bad in that area,
• 43:26
  Speaker 1: and they had clear cut this whole area, and it
• 43:28
  Speaker 1: was all these all these young conifer trees that were
• 43:31
  Speaker 1: growing back. And then where that bullet walked was actually
• 43:35
  Speaker 1: like a big spine right, and just before it took
• 43:39
  Speaker 1: a big drop, there was this heavy, thick, brushy area.
• 43:43
  Speaker 1: So that bull was basically going from one big block
• 43:48
  Speaker 1: of timber that we couldn't figure out from our location
• 43:52
  Speaker 1: and then going through those two those two areas essentially
• 43:55
  Speaker 1: that we're likely betting areas, working the wind and the
• 43:58
  Speaker 1: thermals to his advantage, and then going down into this
• 44:01
  Speaker 1: other block of timber to take security. And you know,
• 44:04
  Speaker 1: we never have we never caught up with that bowl
• 44:06
  Speaker 1: obviously never killed them or anything. But it's just one
• 44:10
  Speaker 1: of those things where you think you look at something
• 44:13
  Speaker 1: on the surface and you go, well that like there's
• 44:16
  Speaker 1: nothing there, and that seems so random, But it wasn't
• 44:19
  Speaker 1: random at all, Like he was totally working around the people.
• 44:23
  Speaker 1: I mean, it was It was a real eye opener
• 44:25
  Speaker 1: for me, to be honest with you, just just just
• 44:27
  Speaker 1: showed that there's always purpose, you know what I mean,
• 44:31
  Speaker 1: or something that's happening with those animals, there's always purpose.
• 44:36
  Speaker 1: I think that that's I mean that that's part of
• 44:37
  Speaker 1: the reason winter scouting so popular for white tails right
• 44:40
  Speaker 1: now is you know, you you hunt all season on
• 44:43
  Speaker 1: the property and then you know you kill something, you
• 44:46
  Speaker 1: don't whatever. But in March, you go in there and
• 44:49
  Speaker 1: you just walk through everything. You don't have those reservations
• 44:51
  Speaker 1: like I don't want to go into what I think
• 44:52
  Speaker 1: is the better. You just look at everything and you go, man,
• 44:55
  Speaker 1: they were using this like crazy, or with the woods
• 44:57
  Speaker 1: being as wide open as it is, You're like, I
• 44:59
  Speaker 1: see this perfect little subtle ridge that I never paid
• 45:02
  Speaker 1: attention to before. And I'll tell you what, man, I've
• 45:05
  Speaker 1: started when I have the opportunity. Uh, and it's it's
• 45:09
  Speaker 1: totally random. But if I kill a buck somewhere and
• 45:12
  Speaker 1: I have a few days, like if I'm hunting with
• 45:14
  Speaker 1: my buddies, and my favorite thing is if I kill
• 45:17
  Speaker 1: something early and all I can, all I have to
• 45:19
  Speaker 1: do is scout and help everybody else out and take
• 45:21
  Speaker 1: some pictures. I love going into the places that I
• 45:25
  Speaker 1: either killed one or I had a good encounter and
• 45:28
  Speaker 1: really sniffing around right after, just to see why, why
• 45:31
  Speaker 1: did he come down this hill? Where where was he going?
• 45:35
  Speaker 1: Or what? What was really like, what's the bigger picture here?
• 45:38
  Speaker 1: Besides I saw this deer come down and do this thing,
• 45:40
  Speaker 1: and it's so valuable, man, like I and and and
• 45:44
  Speaker 1: then you can keep kind of going back to it,
• 45:45
  Speaker 1: you know. Like the example that I like to use,
• 45:48
  Speaker 1: I ran across this this really big buck in northern
• 45:51
  Speaker 1: Wisconsin a couple of years ago, like a one sixty,
• 45:55
  Speaker 1: just a just a killer book. Public Land, Big Woods
• 45:58
  Speaker 1: Deer you know, and what he did caught me so
• 46:01
  Speaker 1: offt guard, and I ended up killing a different buck
• 46:04
  Speaker 1: that night. And so the next day, I'm like, I'm
• 46:07
  Speaker 1: going back in there. I just want to look around,
• 46:08
  Speaker 1: Like I wanted to see this rugby mad just because
• 46:10
  Speaker 1: I kind of wanted to go look at it. But
• 46:11
  Speaker 1: I was like, it was just it was like such
• 46:13
  Speaker 1: a cool thing to see in such a big deer
• 46:16
  Speaker 1: in such a weird place. I'm like, I just gotta
• 46:17
  Speaker 1: go in there, like I want to just know. And
• 46:20
  Speaker 1: I went back in there, and it was it was
• 46:22
  Speaker 1: like so much more benchy, Like it felt like an
• 46:25
  Speaker 1: elk spot, right, like when you walk in there and
• 46:27
  Speaker 1: you're like, okay, there's halfway down this hill or these bluffs,
• 46:29
  Speaker 1: there's like this perfect bench. And it was like like
• 46:33
  Speaker 1: the picture became so much more clear. And I went
• 46:36
  Speaker 1: back in there last winter and walked around again and
• 46:39
  Speaker 1: went up there and went went farther back into this
• 46:41
  Speaker 1: property and found just a few more things, like this
• 46:44
  Speaker 1: really interesting edge between it must be between like a
• 46:49
  Speaker 1: I don't know, twenty years ago they must have logged it,
• 46:51
  Speaker 1: and then ten years ago they must have logged it.
• 46:53
  Speaker 1: There's an edge in there you know, and it's not
• 46:54
  Speaker 1: like a it's it's it's a soft edge, but it's
• 46:58
  Speaker 1: like obvious. You know, he was tucked in. There was
• 47:01
  Speaker 1: a big bed tucked in back there, fifty yards beyond that,
• 47:04
  Speaker 1: and it just it made me that one sighting and
• 47:08
  Speaker 1: that one really cool night sitting on standing, like I
• 47:10
  Speaker 1: feel like I got lucky with that. Even though I
• 47:13
  Speaker 1: had scouted quite a bit to get in there, I
• 47:15
  Speaker 1: didn't even have a I didn't know two percent of
• 47:17
  Speaker 1: what was going on in there, and I still feel
• 47:19
  Speaker 1: like I know about nine but that I feel like
• 47:23
  Speaker 1: that's still valuable because it starts to explain like, Okay,
• 47:26
  Speaker 1: you know, I don't you'll never know why he was
• 47:28
  Speaker 1: actually there, but it sure looks like he was using
• 47:30
  Speaker 1: those benches a lot and he had a lot of
• 47:32
  Speaker 1: advantages being in there. Yeah, definitely. Yeah, that exploration and
• 47:38
  Speaker 1: that um opportunity to learn something new is is so
• 47:43
  Speaker 1: much fun. But it's again, it's the same stuff that
• 47:46
  Speaker 1: you've learned in other places, just applied to a new spot.
• 47:49
  Speaker 1: And now you've got that cash cashed out in your
• 47:52
  Speaker 1: mind and okay, ready for the next time you go
• 47:55
  Speaker 1: back there, which is cool. Yeah, do you know where
• 47:57
  Speaker 1: I think the most most valued what could be the
• 48:01
  Speaker 1: most valuable time you could spend in the woods, like
• 48:04
  Speaker 1: aw along this vein is is going in after a
• 48:08
  Speaker 1: gun season and go after go in after the general
• 48:10
  Speaker 1: gun season ends, like a day later, and walk through
• 48:13
  Speaker 1: everything and figure out where you jumped the deer because
• 48:18
  Speaker 1: it's like, I'm sure you've done this out in New York.
• 48:20
  Speaker 1: Like it's such a freaking eye opener sometimes where they
• 48:24
  Speaker 1: hold up and how many deer can hold up in
• 48:26
  Speaker 1: a spot that you just don't go into because you
• 48:29
  Speaker 1: can't shoot far, and it's it's a it's it's such
• 48:34
  Speaker 1: I think it would be the best strategy for being
• 48:37
  Speaker 1: a rifle hunter in a place that gets a lot
• 48:38
  Speaker 1: of pressure. Yes, definitely. Yeah, we experienced plenty of that here.
• 48:42
  Speaker 1: And you know, sometimes people talk about I remember reading
• 48:46
  Speaker 1: a Jim Shocky article way way way back when when
• 48:49
  Speaker 1: he used to write for North American Hunting Club. He
• 48:51
  Speaker 1: talked how I believe it was Jim shock He said
• 48:54
  Speaker 1: that he didn't believe that deer went nocturnal. He believed
• 48:57
  Speaker 1: they went bush turnal. And that's kind of actually what
• 49:00
  Speaker 1: you're talking about, right, So they just we take that
• 49:02
  Speaker 1: core area and shrink it, shrink it way down. You
• 49:06
  Speaker 1: can probably still experience some pretty good activity, but you
• 49:09
  Speaker 1: have to you have to kind of be like right
• 49:11
  Speaker 1: in that spot or right adjacent to that little spot
• 49:15
  Speaker 1: where they're taking refuge, especially during those higher pressure seasons
• 49:18
  Speaker 1: like we experience here Wisconsin, gets and Pennsylvania and Michigan.
• 49:23
  Speaker 1: You know, they don't just up and disappear, and they
• 49:25
  Speaker 1: don't crawl underground like squirrels or rabbits, So they gotta
• 49:28
  Speaker 1: be they gotta be somewhere. So but I'm always blown
• 49:32
  Speaker 1: away by how many dear will congregate together that time
• 49:35
  Speaker 1: of year. I mean, it's just unbelievable, you know, because
• 49:39
  Speaker 1: they again, they're all going to take refuge in small areas. Yeah,
• 49:44
  Speaker 1: it's I had had such a cool lesson on this
• 49:48
  Speaker 1: when I was like probably thirteen or fourteen years old.
• 49:52
  Speaker 1: We used to hunt this this area in southeastern Minnesota
• 49:56
  Speaker 1: that we had permission on a bunch of different properties.
• 49:58
  Speaker 1: There was a lot of land and it was kind
• 50:00
  Speaker 1: of like this giant peninsula looking piece of land that
• 50:03
  Speaker 1: was framed in by the Root River. So it was
• 50:05
  Speaker 1: a lot of bluffy, you know, bluff country type stuff,
• 50:09
  Speaker 1: and there was a cabin that we stayed in. It
• 50:10
  Speaker 1: was one of my dad's friends, and so we would,
• 50:13
  Speaker 1: you know, we'd we'd stay there and then you'd go
• 50:15
  Speaker 1: out walk or you know, drive down the road and
• 50:17
  Speaker 1: park or whatever. But we always originated from there, and
• 50:21
  Speaker 1: then during the gun season, the places we could hunt
• 50:24
  Speaker 1: would kind of shrink because some of those landowners only
• 50:26
  Speaker 1: gone hunting, you know, and we were bow hunting. And
• 50:29
  Speaker 1: my dad one time, I wanted to just keep hunting
• 50:32
  Speaker 1: during the gun season, so he said, well, I'm just
• 50:34
  Speaker 1: gonna drop over the hill behind the cabin down that
• 50:37
  Speaker 1: just went straight down to the river where we never
• 50:39
  Speaker 1: ever ever went because there's nothing there. And he went
• 50:43
  Speaker 1: down there and was covered in deer and he's like,
• 50:44
  Speaker 1: you gotta go down there, and there was an old
• 50:46
  Speaker 1: permanent stand like four ft off the ground on this hillside,
• 50:49
  Speaker 1: you know. And I will never forget because you know,
• 50:52
  Speaker 1: for us at that time, when the Minnesota gun season started,
• 50:55
  Speaker 1: our our bow season was kind of functionally over, like
• 50:58
  Speaker 1: we would get back into it a little bit in
• 50:59
  Speaker 1: the late season, but we had weeks where I was
• 51:02
  Speaker 1: like we could we we usually couldn't hunt or wouldn't hunt,
• 51:05
  Speaker 1: and then you know, you got that hangover period after
• 51:07
  Speaker 1: the gun season where it's just tough if you're on
• 51:10
  Speaker 1: if you're on pressure ground. And I remember walking over
• 51:13
  Speaker 1: that hill and seeing a buck stand up and just like,
• 51:17
  Speaker 1: holy shit, I've never seen that in my life, you know,
• 51:19
  Speaker 1: And he was like a two year old, which to
• 51:21
  Speaker 1: us then is like a one seventy now, and he
• 51:24
  Speaker 1: took off and I just went and got into that
• 51:27
  Speaker 1: standing almost immediately. I can't remember how many deer I
• 51:29
  Speaker 1: missed that night. I think I missed three times. I
• 51:32
  Speaker 1: can't remember exactly, but I had does come from and
• 51:35
  Speaker 1: I missed only does. But it was like I saw
• 51:38
  Speaker 1: like eleven deer that night, and it was one of
• 51:40
  Speaker 1: the most amazing times I've ever had on stand. And
• 51:42
  Speaker 1: I just remember hearing gunshots and and going into it
• 51:46
  Speaker 1: thinking this is gonna be a total waste of time,
• 51:49
  Speaker 1: because all I've ever thought in my life is when
• 51:51
  Speaker 1: gun season starts, it's over. And all those deer did
• 51:54
  Speaker 1: was just congregating this one bluff side, you know, over
• 51:58
  Speaker 1: the river where people didn't go, and you know, we
• 52:01
  Speaker 1: we burned it right out after a couple of days,
• 52:04
  Speaker 1: but it was it's stuck with me to this day. Yeah, yeah,
• 52:08
  Speaker 1: there was nothing in there right by your description except
• 52:11
  Speaker 1: all of the deer. Yeah, more deer than I've ever
• 52:14
  Speaker 1: seen in one sit in my life, you know. Yeah,
• 52:17
  Speaker 1: But I think I think that we I I could
• 52:21
  Speaker 1: point to so many times in my life, hunting life
• 52:23
  Speaker 1: where that's happened, and I just love it. I love
• 52:27
  Speaker 1: it in the same way I love these people out
• 52:29
  Speaker 1: there like Alex Hanold who climbed l Cap, you know,
• 52:32
  Speaker 1: the free solo dude. And I love people who show
• 52:35
  Speaker 1: us what can't be done. And I love seeing those
• 52:39
  Speaker 1: things where you're like, I know for a fact this
• 52:42
  Speaker 1: is not gonna work, and then it works. I think
• 52:45
  Speaker 1: we need that stuff in life, and I think that's
• 52:47
  Speaker 1: part of like a sneaky reason why we're so drawn
• 52:49
  Speaker 1: to hunting. Absolutely, I mean again, kind of going back
• 52:54
  Speaker 1: to an earlier part of the conversation, I think that's
• 52:56
  Speaker 1: why some of us are self employed. Do you know
• 52:59
  Speaker 1: we just uh, we just look at it and we go, yeah,
• 53:03
  Speaker 1: I just I gotta I gotta try and figure out
• 53:05
  Speaker 1: how to do it on my own. I need to
• 53:06
  Speaker 1: find that edge of failure and if I crossed it, whoop,
• 53:09
  Speaker 1: I know that I gotta step back hopefully it's not
• 53:11
  Speaker 1: catastrophic failure. But I mean, you know, we're just telling
• 53:15
  Speaker 1: that line all the time, and that's that's okay with me.
• 53:19
  Speaker 1: I wouldn't have it any other way. I mean, you know,
• 53:22
  Speaker 1: it's nice to have support without a doubt when there's opportunities.
• 53:25
  Speaker 1: But um, you know, I just I personally just I
• 53:30
  Speaker 1: like taking that risk. I mean, it's the same thing
• 53:32
  Speaker 1: like why we do these challenging activities physically too. It's
• 53:36
  Speaker 1: just just kind of taking that risk and challenging yourself
• 53:40
  Speaker 1: and seeing where where the edge is for you. And
• 53:42
  Speaker 1: everybody's edge is different, you know, but I like to
• 53:46
  Speaker 1: test that test that boundary, even to the point where
• 53:48
  Speaker 1: some days this morning is a perfect example, Like I
• 53:52
  Speaker 1: found myself at the gym and I was like, ah,
• 53:55
  Speaker 1: you know, yeah, that's pretty rough. Um, I'm gonna I'm
• 53:59
  Speaker 1: gonna stop at this many reps or whatever. And I
• 54:02
  Speaker 1: was like, no, you know, kind of check yourself. No,
• 54:06
  Speaker 1: You're gonna experience growth when you when you challenge yourself
• 54:10
  Speaker 1: and challenge that boundary. And you know, some days I'm
• 54:13
  Speaker 1: more motivated to do it than others too. Yeah, Well,
• 54:17
  Speaker 1: motivation motivations like happiness, it's a moving target many way,
• 54:21
  Speaker 1: that's true. So we had a conversation the other day
• 54:36
  Speaker 1: and we got kind of got on this topic and
• 54:38
  Speaker 1: I didn't want to talk about it anymore because I
• 54:39
  Speaker 1: wanted to talk about it on this podcast. But what
• 54:42
  Speaker 1: do you say to people who say they don't have time?
• 54:47
  Speaker 1: Because this this happens all the time with the workout stuff,
• 54:50
  Speaker 1: this happens with the hunting, Like, well, yeah, if I
• 54:52
  Speaker 1: had the time to scout that you do. Oh if
• 54:54
  Speaker 1: I had the time to run that you do. What
• 54:56
  Speaker 1: do you say to people because you you're a busy
• 54:57
  Speaker 1: guy and you make the time. Uh, my feeling is
• 55:03
  Speaker 1: and it's okay that this is the case. My feeling
• 55:06
  Speaker 1: is that you don't have the priority. If if you
• 55:10
  Speaker 1: if you don't have the time, then you don't have
• 55:12
  Speaker 1: the priority. And that's all right if that's your answer.
• 55:15
  Speaker 1: But I think we need to be a little bit
• 55:17
  Speaker 1: more honest with ourselves in that capacity. So, like, I
• 55:21
  Speaker 1: had a conversation not all that long ago and someone
• 55:24
  Speaker 1: was asking me if I if I had done something
• 55:27
  Speaker 1: or gone and seen something or whatever. And I was
• 55:31
  Speaker 1: literally just about to like have the words I haven't
• 55:34
  Speaker 1: had time crossed my lips and I was like, whoa
• 55:37
  Speaker 1: hold on? And I stopped myself and I said, you know,
• 55:41
  Speaker 1: it just hasn't been on my priority list just yet.
• 55:44
  Speaker 1: It's kind of it was higher and it sort of
• 55:46
  Speaker 1: fell down in lieu of other things. So, um, you know,
• 55:50
  Speaker 1: that's the thing. For the things that we really want,
• 55:53
  Speaker 1: we make time, you know. And and if that's you know,
• 55:57
  Speaker 1: if that's l hunting, we make time. If it's training,
• 56:00
  Speaker 1: we make time. If it's family, we make time. And
• 56:03
  Speaker 1: people ask me all the time, they're like, man, how
• 56:05
  Speaker 1: do you how do you run businesses and and do this?
• 56:08
  Speaker 1: And do you ever see your family? Yeah? Man, you know,
• 56:10
  Speaker 1: I have dinner with my family five nights a week.
• 56:13
  Speaker 1: I cook. I cook the majority of those meals. I
• 56:16
  Speaker 1: but it kind of back to my thing about time
• 56:18
  Speaker 1: management earlier by time block for that. And some nights
• 56:22
  Speaker 1: are really basic, you know, breakfast for dinner, we're having
• 56:25
  Speaker 1: eggs or pancakes or whatever, you know, simple things. But um,
• 56:29
  Speaker 1: you know, because that's what we've that's what we've been
• 56:32
  Speaker 1: able to earmark. But you know, and then and then
• 56:35
  Speaker 1: other things are a little bit more extravaging. In a
• 56:37
  Speaker 1: four hour Hankshaw recipe that I'm checking on midday as
• 56:41
  Speaker 1: I'm doing everything else in my office at home, I'm
• 56:44
  Speaker 1: I'm fortunate and then I work from home. But I think,
• 56:46
  Speaker 1: you know, in the wake of the pandemic, a lot
• 56:50
  Speaker 1: of people are fortunate that they work from home. And
• 56:53
  Speaker 1: you know, I'm just not one of these types of
• 56:55
  Speaker 1: people who gets distracted by by things. You know. I
• 56:59
  Speaker 1: don't get distracted by the refrigerator. I don't get distracted
• 57:02
  Speaker 1: by the television. I rarely get sucked into the YouTube
• 57:06
  Speaker 1: vortex that often anymore. It happens on occasion, but it's
• 57:11
  Speaker 1: but it's rare because that white board tells me the
• 57:14
  Speaker 1: stuff that I have to get done every day for business,
• 57:17
  Speaker 1: and if that doesn't get done, then that spills over
• 57:20
  Speaker 1: into into personal things. You know. My kids will always
• 57:23
  Speaker 1: joke with me. They're like, Dad, how come your phone
• 57:26
  Speaker 1: gets to use the charger in the truck more when
• 57:30
  Speaker 1: we need it? You know, we we got to do
• 57:31
  Speaker 1: our games. And I'm like, because this is the one
• 57:33
  Speaker 1: that makes the money. This, this is the one that
• 57:36
  Speaker 1: makes it so we can go and do whatever. You know,
• 57:39
  Speaker 1: And but that's the same thing. If you transition that
• 57:42
  Speaker 1: it's it's a matter of of priority and and for me,
• 57:46
  Speaker 1: you know, kind of where we started. There are certain
• 57:49
  Speaker 1: times where you know, white tail scouting falls down my
• 57:54
  Speaker 1: priority list or going to trematory stand or you know,
• 57:57
  Speaker 1: maybe I couldn't do it during daylight hour, so you
• 58:01
  Speaker 1: know I have to I have to do it after
• 58:03
  Speaker 1: dark and people are like, what, how the hell do
• 58:04
  Speaker 1: you do that? It's like, man, you got to get
• 58:06
  Speaker 1: a really good head lamp, and you know, you just
• 58:09
  Speaker 1: you go in and you you start, especially when you
• 58:12
  Speaker 1: know your ground, but you just you make it happen.
• 58:14
  Speaker 1: And um, you know, instead of lane in bed and
• 58:18
  Speaker 1: scrolling Instagram, I'll be I'll be doing that. And I'm
• 58:21
  Speaker 1: not trying to paint myself as like I'm working or
• 58:24
  Speaker 1: grinding or doing whatever all the time. I mean, I
• 58:26
  Speaker 1: take plenty of time to to sit down and have
• 58:29
  Speaker 1: a camp fire with my kids or um, you know,
• 58:32
  Speaker 1: I walk my I walk my dogs with my wife
• 58:35
  Speaker 1: just about every night and that's that's about a forty
• 58:37
  Speaker 1: minute walk and that's time for her and I to
• 58:40
  Speaker 1: catch up, and um, and I love that time. I
• 58:43
  Speaker 1: don't always I have a g SP, as you know, Tony,
• 58:45
  Speaker 1: and I don't always love walking that GSP. But because
• 58:50
  Speaker 1: she she she struggles to be a lady sometimes, but
• 58:53
  Speaker 1: like you know, but but I love that time with
• 58:55
  Speaker 1: with my my wife, and I think she enjoys the
• 58:59
  Speaker 1: time with me too, And we always talk about things
• 59:01
  Speaker 1: and and we get a lot accomplished. And that's something
• 59:03
  Speaker 1: that I I set time aside for. And then we
• 59:06
  Speaker 1: usually come home and we have a tour or two
• 59:08
  Speaker 1: to do, and we do that and we get the
• 59:10
  Speaker 1: girls ready for bed, and I might have to grab
• 59:12
  Speaker 1: a few more minutes for work or up on a
• 59:17
  Speaker 1: phone call call or maybe that's my or whatever. But
• 59:21
  Speaker 1: um yeah, it's just a it's just a matter of
• 59:24
  Speaker 1: of priority. If you want something, you you make it.
• 59:27
  Speaker 1: And that for me, that's that's led through with business too.
• 59:30
  Speaker 1: I mean, if if if I want to make a
• 59:34
  Speaker 1: deal happen or I want to, um, you know, I
• 59:38
  Speaker 1: don't know. I just I have to invest the time
• 59:41
  Speaker 1: into it, and there's just and if I don't, then
• 59:44
  Speaker 1: it wasn't that important to me. And again that's my choice,
• 59:49
  Speaker 1: and that's okay. If that's somebody's choice, I don't judge
• 59:51
  Speaker 1: them for that, But I I just really struggle with
• 59:55
  Speaker 1: that excuse my my one buddy can send me like
• 59:57
  Speaker 1: twenty podcasts, right, And they'll be like, yeah, listen to
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 1: these podcasts, and I'm like, uhm, I that I'll say
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 1: I don't have time for because it's not a priority
• 1:00:07
  Speaker 1: for me, because, like we've talked about, I don't really
• 1:00:10
  Speaker 1: listen to music when I run or train, I don't
• 1:00:12
  Speaker 1: really listen to podcasts. I'm solely focused on that. And
• 1:00:15
  Speaker 1: I'm not trying to paint myself as being this like
• 1:00:17
  Speaker 1: really staunch disciplinarian on myself. I'm just that's just how
• 1:00:22
  Speaker 1: I operate best. And I know if I kind of
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 1: put in the deliberate practice on on something, it works
• 1:00:29
  Speaker 1: best for me. And uh, you know, I'll grab a
• 1:00:32
  Speaker 1: podcast in the truck when I'm driving somewhere, or you know,
• 1:00:35
  Speaker 1: I go to the post office a couple of days
• 1:00:37
  Speaker 1: a week, and you know, I'll go to the podcast.
• 1:00:39
  Speaker 1: I go to the post office, listen to half a
• 1:00:41
  Speaker 1: podcast on the way there, the other half on the
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 1: way home, and you know that works. Or I'll take
• 1:00:45
  Speaker 1: a little detour to go check out one of my
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 1: running spots or phishing spot or you know whatever and
• 1:00:52
  Speaker 1: gives me a few extra minutes and that type of thing.
• 1:00:54
  Speaker 1: But those are those are my priorities and that's what's
• 1:00:58
  Speaker 1: meaningful to me. So I invest in them well. And
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 1: you you know when you talk about you know, making
• 1:01:06
  Speaker 1: the time to go cut shooting lanes or or doing
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 1: it when you can, I think I think that message.
• 1:01:12
  Speaker 1: You know this when this really became something I had
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 1: to do. You know, when you when you have two
• 1:01:18
  Speaker 1: babies at the same time, your free time goes, So
• 1:01:21
  Speaker 1: it doesn't I don't. I don't give a shop what
• 1:01:23
  Speaker 1: anybody says. Like you all of a sudden, your world changes, right,
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 1: And so that was when that happened. It was like, Okay,
• 1:01:31
  Speaker 1: now you're gonna have instead of seven or ten days
• 1:01:34
  Speaker 1: to hunt, you're gonna have four days for this trip.
• 1:01:37
  Speaker 1: Or instead of making four or five trips to southeastern
• 1:01:40
  Speaker 1: Minnesota or over to Wisconsin to hang stands and put
• 1:01:43
  Speaker 1: up cameras and do all this stuff, you're gonna have
• 1:01:45
  Speaker 1: two days this summer or four days this summer. It
• 1:01:48
  Speaker 1: really made me go, man, I I was taking sort
• 1:01:52
  Speaker 1: of the easy way out a lot of times, where
• 1:01:53
  Speaker 1: I go, you know, I get a stand up. Okay,
• 1:01:55
  Speaker 1: that was good enough for today. Let's go catch some
• 1:01:56
  Speaker 1: trout or something like that. And now or you know
• 1:01:59
  Speaker 1: when it when something like it happens in your life,
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 1: you have those moments where it's like, Okay, you know,
• 1:02:04
  Speaker 1: you got to get this stuff done. You know you're
• 1:02:06
  Speaker 1: gonna have enough time if you really bust your ass,
• 1:02:10
  Speaker 1: So do that and and get it done, and you
• 1:02:13
  Speaker 1: realize you start to realize like how efficient you can
• 1:02:16
  Speaker 1: be with some of this stuff. And it's kind of like,
• 1:02:17
  Speaker 1: you know, you talk about the work from home thing
• 1:02:19
  Speaker 1: versus going into the office. You know, like when you
• 1:02:22
  Speaker 1: go from an office job that's a nine to five
• 1:02:24
  Speaker 1: or to working from home, You're like, man, I used
• 1:02:27
  Speaker 1: to waste a lot of time in that cubicle, you know,
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 1: because I had to be there for eight hours and
• 1:02:32
  Speaker 1: I had three hours of work that day. And so
• 1:02:34
  Speaker 1: you make the rounds and you talk to people, and
• 1:02:36
  Speaker 1: you drink a bunch of coffee, and you go out
• 1:02:37
  Speaker 1: for a long lunch and you just you realize. It
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 1: makes you a little bit more aware of time. And
• 1:02:42
  Speaker 1: it's the same thing when you have those moments in
• 1:02:44
  Speaker 1: your life, like, uh, you know, when we had the girls,
• 1:02:47
  Speaker 1: I'm like, okay, now my time I took it for
• 1:02:49
  Speaker 1: granted before how much time I had. I don't have
• 1:02:51
  Speaker 1: that anymore, So I better use it much more wisely.
• 1:02:55
  Speaker 1: I know. I know you've had a few moments in
• 1:02:57
  Speaker 1: your life where I'm sure that's happening one of them,
• 1:02:59
  Speaker 1: you know, for the listeners, you know your wife had
• 1:03:02
  Speaker 1: a battle cancer not that long ago. I'm sure that
• 1:03:05
  Speaker 1: was one of those moments in your life where you're like, Okay,
• 1:03:08
  Speaker 1: this this time, time is the commodity that I'm worried about. Now,
• 1:03:12
  Speaker 1: this is important. Yeah, for sure, that was. I would
• 1:03:15
  Speaker 1: say that was the biggest perspective changer for me. Um,
• 1:03:18
  Speaker 1: there was no more room for procrastination because I'm I'm human, right,
• 1:03:22
  Speaker 1: so procrastination still creeps into my life. And you know
• 1:03:25
  Speaker 1: I would procrastinate before. I mean not miserably because I
• 1:03:28
  Speaker 1: was always a get shipped done kind of guy. But um,
• 1:03:32
  Speaker 1: but it was just different. And when when when she
• 1:03:34
  Speaker 1: was sick, I mean, it just obviously takes takes everything
• 1:03:37
  Speaker 1: and kind of turns it on its ear. And you know,
• 1:03:39
  Speaker 1: she she know, she had chemo, you know, every other week,
• 1:03:43
  Speaker 1: and then it was just you know, balancing things around
• 1:03:45
  Speaker 1: that schedule. So that was that was like the center
• 1:03:48
  Speaker 1: of everything. Every Wednesday she had treatment for these hours
• 1:03:51
  Speaker 1: and then you know, generally she would feel good and
• 1:03:53
  Speaker 1: I went. I went with her to every single treatment
• 1:03:56
  Speaker 1: and um, you know, and then by Friday was when
• 1:03:58
  Speaker 1: she would start to not feel well well thursty. You know,
• 1:04:01
  Speaker 1: Thursday evening into Friday she starts to chemo would catch
• 1:04:04
  Speaker 1: up there, she starting out to feel well, and so
• 1:04:07
  Speaker 1: we made a plan and we had we were fortunate
• 1:04:09
  Speaker 1: and then we had really good support with our with
• 1:04:11
  Speaker 1: our families. You know, both our moms and dads were
• 1:04:14
  Speaker 1: really supportive and helped us out a lot. But like
• 1:04:17
  Speaker 1: we built out of structure. But like back to the
• 1:04:20
  Speaker 1: doing stuff at night thing, I mean, that's candidly where
• 1:04:22
  Speaker 1: all that came from. You know, like as soon as
• 1:04:26
  Speaker 1: she would fall asleep on on on Friday evening usually early,
• 1:04:30
  Speaker 1: I was out the door to go do work. And
• 1:04:32
  Speaker 1: I mean I did it the entire time that she
• 1:04:35
  Speaker 1: was sick, because I wasn't taking anything away from her,
• 1:04:38
  Speaker 1: and we had already sort of vetted out that she
• 1:04:40
  Speaker 1: generally wouldn't need me. She just needed to sleep, you know,
• 1:04:43
  Speaker 1: she wanted to be you need to be without disruption.
• 1:04:45
  Speaker 1: And it wasn't like I was super far away. Was
• 1:04:47
  Speaker 1: twenty five minutes away, so she did need me, I
• 1:04:49
  Speaker 1: could get home quick, but I knew I had things
• 1:04:53
  Speaker 1: that I needed to do or you know, um, I
• 1:04:57
  Speaker 1: didn't elk hunt that year. I drew a really a
• 1:05:00
  Speaker 1: tag that I surrendered. Um, but you know we I
• 1:05:06
  Speaker 1: still I still need time to train. I just I
• 1:05:08
  Speaker 1: just swapped my schedule around getting up a little bit earlier,
• 1:05:11
  Speaker 1: or or doing it at night after she would go
• 1:05:14
  Speaker 1: to bed and whatever else, because I was just again
• 1:05:17
  Speaker 1: managing my priorities. But like you said, what really changed
• 1:05:20
  Speaker 1: there is my daughters. At the time, I have two
• 1:05:23
  Speaker 1: girls and they were four. I remember this, right, Yeah,
• 1:05:27
  Speaker 1: they were four and eight. So as you can imagine,
• 1:05:32
  Speaker 1: as you know kids at that age, they're independent to
• 1:05:36
  Speaker 1: a certain extent, but they still aren't independent enough where
• 1:05:40
  Speaker 1: they can just run rough shot or fully take care
• 1:05:42
  Speaker 1: of themselves. I mean, shoot right now. I mean they
• 1:05:45
  Speaker 1: would live on Cereal if we'd let them, so, I
• 1:05:48
  Speaker 1: mean that's just one small example. But you know, they
• 1:05:52
  Speaker 1: required a lot of stuff, and Mom wasn't always able
• 1:05:55
  Speaker 1: to step into that role. She did an amazing job,
• 1:05:58
  Speaker 1: and she was incredibly strong, far stronger than I could
• 1:06:00
  Speaker 1: ever be. Uh, and I could, you know, I could
• 1:06:03
  Speaker 1: ever sort of imagine being. But um, you know, I
• 1:06:08
  Speaker 1: had a step into places where kendidly I wasn't used
• 1:06:11
  Speaker 1: to to to being, you know, because she for a
• 1:06:14
  Speaker 1: long time she couldn't lift anything, and she you know,
• 1:06:17
  Speaker 1: there's just there's just all sorts of things that I
• 1:06:21
  Speaker 1: took for granted, is the best way that I can
• 1:06:23
  Speaker 1: describe it. And one of those things that I took
• 1:06:26
  Speaker 1: for granted was the freedom that she allowed me by
• 1:06:29
  Speaker 1: the time that she gave me to go do my
• 1:06:31
  Speaker 1: own things. And that was the priority. Shift was Okay, uh,
• 1:06:36
  Speaker 1: she you know, she's given up a lot of her
• 1:06:38
  Speaker 1: life and a lot of her time so I can
• 1:06:40
  Speaker 1: have it. And you know, the the real eye opener
• 1:06:44
  Speaker 1: was there was a lot of things that I was
• 1:06:45
  Speaker 1: doing in my life at that point that I had
• 1:06:49
  Speaker 1: tricked myself into thinking I was doing for my family
• 1:06:52
  Speaker 1: or for you know, for whatever, and it was not.
• 1:06:55
  Speaker 1: It was just for me. You know. I was trying
• 1:06:57
  Speaker 1: to at work, I was trying to even earn at
• 1:07:00
  Speaker 1: a high level, and I was saying, like, oh, I
• 1:07:03
  Speaker 1: want to do this to support my family. It wasn't.
• 1:07:05
  Speaker 1: It was to fuel my ego. It was to fuel
• 1:07:07
  Speaker 1: a part of me that was missing or whatever, and like,
• 1:07:10
  Speaker 1: you know, and so when that all happened, I realized,
• 1:07:13
  Speaker 1: like what mattered, what didn't matter, and you know, re
• 1:07:18
  Speaker 1: again realigned and re centered my entire life. And I
• 1:07:22
  Speaker 1: do find myself on occasion, like drifting out. The other day,
• 1:07:25
  Speaker 1: I was like, Okay, this year, I drew up a
• 1:07:28
  Speaker 1: Montana ELK tag and I was like, okay, you know,
• 1:07:31
  Speaker 1: the Montana's dates are a little bit later. And the
• 1:07:34
  Speaker 1: person that I'm hunting with this saying like, come later
• 1:07:36
  Speaker 1: in the month. I'm like, hmmm, can I maybe squeeze in,
• 1:07:40
  Speaker 1: can I you know, can I buy a landowner tag
• 1:07:43
  Speaker 1: in Colorado or New Mexico and squeeze in a little
• 1:07:46
  Speaker 1: extra time or whatever? And I'm like, hey, man, no,
• 1:07:48
  Speaker 1: too much time away from family, too much time away
• 1:07:51
  Speaker 1: from from business. Like no, just just come to the
• 1:07:55
  Speaker 1: resolve that you've got a really good tag, focus your
• 1:07:57
  Speaker 1: energy on that, make that your priority. Don't fragment yourself.
• 1:08:01
  Speaker 1: And you know, that's That's been one of the big
• 1:08:04
  Speaker 1: lessons for me, and it is a really big capstone
• 1:08:06
  Speaker 1: in my in my life with all of this stuff. Yeah,
• 1:08:09
  Speaker 1: when you um, I have to imagine like that experience,
• 1:08:17
  Speaker 1: it makes you just hyper cognizant of how lucky you
• 1:08:20
  Speaker 1: are to still get to do this stuff. And and
• 1:08:23
  Speaker 1: probably I don't know about you, so so correct me
• 1:08:25
  Speaker 1: if I if I'm wrong here, But I get into
• 1:08:28
  Speaker 1: this weird space where I I can't wait to leave,
• 1:08:32
  Speaker 1: you know, like I'm like, oh my god, I can't
• 1:08:34
  Speaker 1: wait to go on this hunting trip. And then you
• 1:08:35
  Speaker 1: get out there for a few days and it's like, God,
• 1:08:37
  Speaker 1: I really missed my kids, Like I really missed my family.
• 1:08:40
  Speaker 1: But if you have, and this this is a missing
• 1:08:42
  Speaker 1: component of great trips for most people, is if things
• 1:08:47
  Speaker 1: are good at home, if everybody's happy, works good, they're
• 1:08:51
  Speaker 1: not calling you, your your spouse is happy, your kids
• 1:08:53
  Speaker 1: are happy. That's Those are the trips that you go
• 1:08:56
  Speaker 1: out and you come back and whether you kill something
• 1:08:58
  Speaker 1: or not, you're like, that was freaking worth it. That's
• 1:09:01
  Speaker 1: why I do it. And I'm sure I'm sure you've
• 1:09:03
  Speaker 1: seen this with your hunting partners, especially doing a bigger,
• 1:09:07
  Speaker 1: you know, Western hunt, which is a big commitment for
• 1:09:09
  Speaker 1: you guys out there in the Northeast. Like you get
• 1:09:11
  Speaker 1: you get out there, you get on the road, you
• 1:09:13
  Speaker 1: got two days on the road, and then you get
• 1:09:14
  Speaker 1: out there and you're two three days in the back
• 1:09:16
  Speaker 1: country and all of a sudden, you're hunting partners like
• 1:09:18
  Speaker 1: not having it anymore and thinking about getting back, or
• 1:09:21
  Speaker 1: the wife's calling all the time, and it changes the
• 1:09:23
  Speaker 1: whole dynamic, and it's it's a hard thing to get
• 1:09:27
  Speaker 1: through until you've you've done a few of these trips
• 1:09:29
  Speaker 1: and have that you know, like yeah, that homeostasis, right,
• 1:09:32
  Speaker 1: like you know how to make sure everything's gonna be
• 1:09:34
  Speaker 1: good at home so you can go do this thing
• 1:09:36
  Speaker 1: and really appreciate it, not feel guilty, not worry about
• 1:09:39
  Speaker 1: getting back home. And just that's like we we don't
• 1:09:42
  Speaker 1: talk about that that we kind of we kind of
• 1:09:44
  Speaker 1: glorify this traveling hunting stuff because you know, we we've
• 1:09:48
  Speaker 1: figured out how to really enjoy it. But we figured
• 1:09:50
  Speaker 1: out how to enjoy it because we've been through a
• 1:09:51
  Speaker 1: lot of the bullshit that can that can happen and
• 1:09:53
  Speaker 1: make it not fun. And that's that doesn't get talked
• 1:09:56
  Speaker 1: about a whole lot. It's funny for me, it takes
• 1:09:59
  Speaker 1: a few days to sink in before I can actually
• 1:10:03
  Speaker 1: enjoy it. I'm I'm usually sort of stressed out during
• 1:10:08
  Speaker 1: the travel process because we we pretty much drive everywhere,
• 1:10:11
  Speaker 1: so we have control over our gear and stuff. But like,
• 1:10:13
  Speaker 1: you know, so if we go to Idaho, that's like
• 1:10:15
  Speaker 1: a thirty two hour drive for us from here. And
• 1:10:18
  Speaker 1: you know, so I'm spending thirty two hours like biting
• 1:10:21
  Speaker 1: my nails, catching up on all my emails. And then
• 1:10:24
  Speaker 1: the next two days of three days, while I'm transitioning
• 1:10:28
  Speaker 1: and sort of letting myself unwind and get focused on
• 1:10:31
  Speaker 1: the hunting and whatever, I'm just not on my game.
• 1:10:35
  Speaker 1: And then and then I'll get in the zone and
• 1:10:37
  Speaker 1: then I'm I'm I just really m recognize my own faults,
• 1:10:43
  Speaker 1: are starting to recognize mental faults. Then I'm good for
• 1:10:45
  Speaker 1: a few days, and then I kind of pop out
• 1:10:49
  Speaker 1: and I'm not good again. I get anxious about what's
• 1:10:51
  Speaker 1: going on at home. I get anxious about business and
• 1:10:54
  Speaker 1: and other things. And if if I have enough time,
• 1:10:58
  Speaker 1: I'll drift back in and then feel comfortable. But you know,
• 1:11:01
  Speaker 1: when I used to do stuff again, when I back
• 1:11:03
  Speaker 1: in my twenties and when the kids were young, I'd
• 1:11:05
  Speaker 1: just be like, man, if I had one or two
• 1:11:06
  Speaker 1: more days, if I had one or two more days.
• 1:11:08
  Speaker 1: And now I find myself I get to the end
• 1:11:10
  Speaker 1: of the trip, and I'm cutting a trip a day
• 1:11:12
  Speaker 1: short or half a day short or whatever, because I'm like,
• 1:11:16
  Speaker 1: I just I gotta call it quits at this point,
• 1:11:20
  Speaker 1: like I'm done. My mind is not here, it's here.
• 1:11:24
  Speaker 1: And uh. I was talking to a friend of mine
• 1:11:26
  Speaker 1: the other day about this too, and I was saying, like,
• 1:11:30
  Speaker 1: when I get to that point, what I really need
• 1:11:32
  Speaker 1: to do is go to town, catch up on all
• 1:11:35
  Speaker 1: my emails, and spend an hour on the phone with
• 1:11:38
  Speaker 1: my wife, getting a full data dump, you know, talk
• 1:11:41
  Speaker 1: to all the people that I need to talk to,
• 1:11:43
  Speaker 1: get comfortable again. Maybe go fish for an afternoon, wet
• 1:11:47
  Speaker 1: a line or an evening or whatever, get my mind
• 1:11:50
  Speaker 1: off of elk hunting or deer hunting or whatever. And
• 1:11:53
  Speaker 1: then the next day kind of dive back into it,
• 1:11:56
  Speaker 1: knowing that I have however many days left, or we
• 1:11:58
  Speaker 1: have however many days left, and you know, have that
• 1:12:01
  Speaker 1: full immersion and that full commitment, and uh, it's taking me.
• 1:12:05
  Speaker 1: It's taken me a you know again, that's a newer
• 1:12:08
  Speaker 1: phenomenon for me, Like I would say, within the last
• 1:12:10
  Speaker 1: five years, but it's taken me a few a few
• 1:12:14
  Speaker 1: years to really identify that fault in myself. You know,
• 1:12:17
  Speaker 1: I just you know, I because I because the way
• 1:12:22
  Speaker 1: my mind works, I just get anxiety about things. It's
• 1:12:25
  Speaker 1: one of the reasons why I've trained so much and
• 1:12:26
  Speaker 1: and everything else. And it's just when I'm away from
• 1:12:29
  Speaker 1: those things. Again, especially being a business owner, there's there's
• 1:12:34
  Speaker 1: you know, yeah, I don't have a huge business. I
• 1:12:38
  Speaker 1: don't have like a bunch of employees. I don't have
• 1:12:40
  Speaker 1: a bunch of people that I can delegate things too.
• 1:12:43
  Speaker 1: So if I'm not doing things, things are falling. Because
• 1:12:46
  Speaker 1: they're my responsibilities, they're falling. I can't I can't scale
• 1:12:50
  Speaker 1: them into something else, you know, or someone else. And
• 1:12:54
  Speaker 1: you know, I have to pay attention to those and
• 1:12:57
  Speaker 1: you know, I've just identified that about myself and I've
• 1:13:00
  Speaker 1: had to change how I operate. I mean case in
• 1:13:02
  Speaker 1: point two weekends ago, I went down to the cat
• 1:13:06
  Speaker 1: Skills in New York. Here we have a camper. I
• 1:13:09
  Speaker 1: pulled my camper down there and I left Friday night,
• 1:13:14
  Speaker 1: so I didn't take any time off Friday. I left
• 1:13:16
  Speaker 1: after normal work hours, drove down, got my rigs set up,
• 1:13:20
  Speaker 1: went out and did an hour of fishing. But where
• 1:13:23
  Speaker 1: I was camping no cell phone service at all, and
• 1:13:27
  Speaker 1: so which is awesome because no film phone service at all,
• 1:13:30
  Speaker 1: but tolerable because no cell phone service at all. I
• 1:13:34
  Speaker 1: was like freaking out, you know. For two days. I
• 1:13:36
  Speaker 1: was just like, oh gosh, you know, and I'd run
• 1:13:38
  Speaker 1: into town and call home and check in or whatever.
• 1:13:41
  Speaker 1: But it just stressed me out. And then finally on Sunday,
• 1:13:45
  Speaker 1: I was coming home Monday morning. Finally on Sunday, I
• 1:13:47
  Speaker 1: kind of dipped into the groove just in time to
• 1:13:50
  Speaker 1: go home, you know. And I said to my wife
• 1:13:53
  Speaker 1: as I was driving home, and like, I finally kind
• 1:13:55
  Speaker 1: of get into the points to the point excuse me,
• 1:13:58
  Speaker 1: where I'm fully starting to relow acts and then I
• 1:14:00
  Speaker 1: have to come home. I was fortunate and that we
• 1:14:03
  Speaker 1: were going back to the same place the following weekend.
• 1:14:06
  Speaker 1: I just left the camper down there and whatever else,
• 1:14:09
  Speaker 1: so I knew I had some more days to earmark
• 1:14:11
  Speaker 1: and whatever. But you know, that's just that's just the
• 1:14:15
  Speaker 1: way that my mind works, and I have to I
• 1:14:17
  Speaker 1: have to acknowledge that and not try and fight certain
• 1:14:21
  Speaker 1: things or or or figure out ways to hack it
• 1:14:23
  Speaker 1: or improvement. And I just haven't gotten to that point yet.
• 1:14:27
  Speaker 1: So it's a weird thing when you when you realize that,
• 1:14:31
  Speaker 1: you know, we we talked about hunting as something that
• 1:14:34
  Speaker 1: we just love and we're obsessed with and we can't
• 1:14:36
  Speaker 1: wait to go do. But there are times when you
• 1:14:37
  Speaker 1: go on a trip or there's times where you go
• 1:14:39
  Speaker 1: hunting where you're like, I shouldn't be here, I shouldn't
• 1:14:41
  Speaker 1: be doing this, I don't want to be here, And
• 1:14:44
  Speaker 1: it's a weird that's a weird thing to talk about.
• 1:14:46
  Speaker 1: I mean, I talked about this a lot with like excuses, right,
• 1:14:48
  Speaker 1: people say, Oh, I'm not gonna sit because it's too hot.
• 1:14:50
  Speaker 1: I'm not gonna sit because it's too winning, Like don't
• 1:14:52
  Speaker 1: you want to hunt? Like why are you making excuses
• 1:14:54
  Speaker 1: to go? And yet I'll go on trips where I've
• 1:14:57
  Speaker 1: done the same thing. There's there's been times when I'm
• 1:14:59
  Speaker 1: like I don't ever want this to end, like I
• 1:15:01
  Speaker 1: want to just keep going. And then there's times where
• 1:15:03
  Speaker 1: I'm like I'm considering going home three days early, like
• 1:15:06
  Speaker 1: I am I'm out, my I'm in, I'm in the
• 1:15:09
  Speaker 1: wrong headspace, or just something. It's it's hard to manage.
• 1:15:14
  Speaker 1: It's it's it's and even even if you get to
• 1:15:15
  Speaker 1: do it a lot, like you and I are both
• 1:15:17
  Speaker 1: pretty lucky. We've We've done a lot of hunting trips
• 1:15:20
  Speaker 1: and spent a lot of time out there solo, spent
• 1:15:22
  Speaker 1: a lot of time out there with buddies, and you
• 1:15:24
  Speaker 1: just never know when that's gonna that's gonna hit you,
• 1:15:27
  Speaker 1: and it's just it just is the reality of the game.
• 1:15:30
  Speaker 1: And I'll never forget. Like, you know, we talk about
• 1:15:33
  Speaker 1: having a good support system at home. I think it
• 1:15:35
  Speaker 1: was I think it was three years ago. I was
• 1:15:38
  Speaker 1: out in North Dakota in the middle of October and
• 1:15:41
  Speaker 1: my buddy who was with me, he had to go
• 1:15:43
  Speaker 1: home early. So I had a couple of I think
• 1:15:45
  Speaker 1: I had. I think I had five days to hunt
• 1:15:48
  Speaker 1: and he had to leave after like day three or something.
• 1:15:50
  Speaker 1: We had kind of you know, like we had he
• 1:15:52
  Speaker 1: had got there earlier, and then he had to go,
• 1:15:53
  Speaker 1: and then I got there little later and could stay
• 1:15:55
  Speaker 1: late or whatever, and I had I kind of got
• 1:15:58
  Speaker 1: my ass kicked. And then I had these bucks dialed,
• 1:16:01
  Speaker 1: had three of them coming in. It was like a
• 1:16:05
  Speaker 1: or three of them browsing their way in. They had
• 1:16:07
  Speaker 1: like forty five minutes to cover sixty yards. I'm like,
• 1:16:09
  Speaker 1: this is over. Whichever one gives me the best shot
• 1:16:12
  Speaker 1: that you could just see it like this is working,
• 1:16:15
  Speaker 1: this is everything's right. And then I had some dude
• 1:16:19
  Speaker 1: drive in down this two track where they're not supposed
• 1:16:21
  Speaker 1: to be driving, blew the whole goddamn river bottom out,
• 1:16:24
  Speaker 1: and I just remember thinking, oh my god, it took
• 1:16:26
  Speaker 1: me days to get on these deer and and and
• 1:16:29
  Speaker 1: it was just the worst part about it was they
• 1:16:33
  Speaker 1: the river bottom exploded. There was dear freaking running everywhere,
• 1:16:37
  Speaker 1: and I saw those headlights, God damn it. And so
• 1:16:40
  Speaker 1: I was watching him, and I knew the bucks in
• 1:16:43
  Speaker 1: front of me had taken off, and so I'm just
• 1:16:46
  Speaker 1: like in my stand, I'm like, I guess, you know,
• 1:16:49
  Speaker 1: I'll ride it out or whatever, but you know, done, mentally,
• 1:16:52
  Speaker 1: I'm gone. And I moved and I looked down. One
• 1:16:55
  Speaker 1: of those bucks hadn't spooked, and he was still in
• 1:16:57
  Speaker 1: the willows right by the river, and he was looking
• 1:16:59
  Speaker 1: right at me in a way, and I was just like,
• 1:17:01
  Speaker 1: you can't freaking win man. And I went back to
• 1:17:04
  Speaker 1: camp that night, and I think I was supposed to
• 1:17:07
  Speaker 1: leave the next day or two days later, and I
• 1:17:09
  Speaker 1: had also been on there. There were there was another
• 1:17:13
  Speaker 1: spot that was really tricky to hunt with the wind,
• 1:17:15
  Speaker 1: but there were big ones on it and I just
• 1:17:18
  Speaker 1: couldn't get in there. I kept trying to talk myself
• 1:17:20
  Speaker 1: into it, and anyway I went, I went home, or
• 1:17:22
  Speaker 1: I went up on the hill. Called my wife. I'm like,
• 1:17:24
  Speaker 1: I'm I'm coming home, and she's like, why aren't you
• 1:17:26
  Speaker 1: on those big ones in that other spot? And I
• 1:17:28
  Speaker 1: was like, yeah, but it's it's a freaking lost cause, like,
• 1:17:31
  Speaker 1: and she just talked me in and she's like, just stay,
• 1:17:33
  Speaker 1: everything's fine here. You've got nothing else going on, Just
• 1:17:36
  Speaker 1: just stay and ride it out. And I ended up
• 1:17:39
  Speaker 1: not being able to hunt that spot but my secondary spot,
• 1:17:43
  Speaker 1: and as soon as I walked in there, I killed
• 1:17:44
  Speaker 1: a great buck like a couple of minutes on stand
• 1:17:47
  Speaker 1: and it was just one of those things where like
• 1:17:49
  Speaker 1: I was ready to go. My wife was like, you know,
• 1:17:51
  Speaker 1: you're just just ride this out, and like that doesn't
• 1:17:55
  Speaker 1: happen very often. Like that's a nice thing to have happened,
• 1:17:57
  Speaker 1: you know that. The the thing that you have to
• 1:18:01
  Speaker 1: realize is when you're there, you're there, You're already you
• 1:18:05
  Speaker 1: know what I mean, You're already here. And if you
• 1:18:07
  Speaker 1: pull the plug early and again, I am guilty of
• 1:18:09
  Speaker 1: pulling the plug earlier. If you pull the plug early,
• 1:18:11
  Speaker 1: then it's then it's and it's over. Like you know,
• 1:18:15
  Speaker 1: in sales, I say all the time, like, Okay, well,
• 1:18:18
  Speaker 1: if I never asked the person, I've already determined that
• 1:18:21
  Speaker 1: the answer is no. So I have to at least
• 1:18:25
  Speaker 1: have them give me the no or the maybe or whatever, right,
• 1:18:29
  Speaker 1: you know, so I could totally transition that into a
• 1:18:31
  Speaker 1: different conversation. But uh, you know, like that's the thing.
• 1:18:35
  Speaker 1: You're You're already there. And I can think back to
• 1:18:37
  Speaker 1: so many hunts, especially when we used to hunt Colorado
• 1:18:40
  Speaker 1: a lot where we just we bailed out a little
• 1:18:42
  Speaker 1: bit early because we were afraid that the spot that
• 1:18:45
  Speaker 1: we were getting into the elk that we were going
• 1:18:47
  Speaker 1: to kill an elk and then you know, we were
• 1:18:49
  Speaker 1: gonna have to pack it out and it was gonna
• 1:18:50
  Speaker 1: take us over our time limit. And you know, I
• 1:18:53
  Speaker 1: I used to hunt with these two guys there at
• 1:18:55
  Speaker 1: the same time, and yeah, I think back, and you
• 1:18:58
  Speaker 1: know again, I was self employed at that time, and
• 1:19:00
  Speaker 1: they both work for other people, and I look back
• 1:19:02
  Speaker 1: at it, I'm like, man, you know, from my perspective,
• 1:19:06
  Speaker 1: we just had to ask for permission to come back
• 1:19:09
  Speaker 1: half a day later or a day later from work.
• 1:19:13
  Speaker 1: I don't know that it would have been that big
• 1:19:14
  Speaker 1: of a deal. Um you know. I know, like these days,
• 1:19:17
  Speaker 1: my one buddy, his his schedule is like really regimented
• 1:19:21
  Speaker 1: with his employer. But um, you know, but it's it's
• 1:19:25
  Speaker 1: just one of those things that we I just I
• 1:19:29
  Speaker 1: find myself just getting up against the the the end
• 1:19:32
  Speaker 1: of things, and there are times where I'll say to myself, like,
• 1:19:36
  Speaker 1: eke this out until the very last second, because it
• 1:19:39
  Speaker 1: can happen at the very last second. You know, so
• 1:19:42
  Speaker 1: many instances where that has happened, and then there's plenty
• 1:19:46
  Speaker 1: of more that it didn't happen, you know, but you
• 1:19:49
  Speaker 1: don't know unless you stick it out. And that's again,
• 1:19:52
  Speaker 1: personally one of those things that I'm working on. But
• 1:19:56
  Speaker 1: at the same time, as I've sort of aged my
• 1:20:00
  Speaker 1: I d g A A factor has gone up quite
• 1:20:02
  Speaker 1: a bit. So you know, if a hunt doesn't come together,
• 1:20:05
  Speaker 1: there's there's less ego that's bruised, you know, when something happens.
• 1:20:09
  Speaker 1: The only one that still really hurts is you know
• 1:20:13
  Speaker 1: when you when you've waited to draw an elk tag
• 1:20:17
  Speaker 1: or a mule deer tag, or analope tag for a
• 1:20:20
  Speaker 1: long time and then it doesn't come together like those ones,
• 1:20:24
  Speaker 1: those one sting a bit, you know, and um, but
• 1:20:29
  Speaker 1: I have to figure out a better process for myself
• 1:20:32
  Speaker 1: in order to facilitate, you know, being able to stay
• 1:20:35
  Speaker 1: and and a lot of that for me is just
• 1:20:37
  Speaker 1: finding connectivity so I can feel level set on making
• 1:20:42
  Speaker 1: sure that things are okay in my absence. And and
• 1:20:46
  Speaker 1: then and literally one of the things I'm working through
• 1:20:48
  Speaker 1: because you know, last few years have just been there's
• 1:20:51
  Speaker 1: been so much anguish for me with with regard to that.
• 1:20:54
  Speaker 1: So you know, I'll get there eventually. It's just a
• 1:20:57
  Speaker 1: it's a matter of everything else in my life. It's
• 1:21:00
  Speaker 1: it's a I need to process create a process for it. Yeah,
• 1:21:03
  Speaker 1: well you you bring up those those you know, when
• 1:21:06
  Speaker 1: you pull a really really good tag for something, and
• 1:21:09
  Speaker 1: that's a weird experience, you know, in the white tailed world,
• 1:21:12
  Speaker 1: I'm sure the probably the easiest to understand is that
• 1:21:15
  Speaker 1: IOWA tag. Right, anybody who's ever played the points game
• 1:21:18
  Speaker 1: and give an eyewall your money for years and years
• 1:21:20
  Speaker 1: and years and finally got that tag. There's a weird
• 1:21:23
  Speaker 1: feeling with it, like it's it It immediately. It has
• 1:21:28
  Speaker 1: the immediate possibility of putting you right in a trophy
• 1:21:32
  Speaker 1: hunter mindset where that's what matters the most, and it's
• 1:21:35
  Speaker 1: not like, well, I really had this driven home to
• 1:21:38
  Speaker 1: me last year when I drew my Iowa tag and
• 1:21:40
  Speaker 1: I hunted down there on that public land because it
• 1:21:43
  Speaker 1: was so fun. It wasn't I mean, it was it
• 1:21:46
  Speaker 1: was I had I had the goal of killing a
• 1:21:48
  Speaker 1: good one, but I just knew from scouting and stuff
• 1:21:52
  Speaker 1: that I was gonna see tons of deer and probably
• 1:21:54
  Speaker 1: beyond lots of them, and it was just so fun,
• 1:21:57
  Speaker 1: and it made me realize, like, man, when you draw
• 1:21:59
  Speaker 1: that Iowa to egg or you draw that you know,
• 1:22:01
  Speaker 1: a good elk tag out west, it's so easy to
• 1:22:03
  Speaker 1: just be like, I gotta kill a three thirty plus
• 1:22:06
  Speaker 1: bull or I gotta kill a hundred and fifty plus
• 1:22:08
  Speaker 1: white tail because I have this tag and I got
• 1:22:10
  Speaker 1: X amount invested in and you're supposed to kill big
• 1:22:12
  Speaker 1: animals when you get those tags. But really, a lot
• 1:22:16
  Speaker 1: of what that premium prices and that that luck built
• 1:22:20
  Speaker 1: into drawn it is tied to a quality experience. You know,
• 1:22:24
  Speaker 1: like if you go on an elk hunt and you
• 1:22:26
  Speaker 1: go to Colorado and you're in an over the counter
• 1:22:28
  Speaker 1: unit and it's eight days of bumping into other hunters
• 1:22:30
  Speaker 1: and you only hear one real bull bugle and you
• 1:22:32
  Speaker 1: only see three cows. That's a tough deal. That's a
• 1:22:35
  Speaker 1: low quality experience out there generally in a lot of ways.
• 1:22:40
  Speaker 1: And then that other tag in the unit where they're
• 1:22:43
  Speaker 1: only giving out X amount of tags and it's you know,
• 1:22:45
  Speaker 1: takes eight years to draw it. What what you're getting there? Yeah,
• 1:22:48
  Speaker 1: you have a better chance of killing one, but you
• 1:22:50
  Speaker 1: have a way better chance of just having that immersive
• 1:22:53
  Speaker 1: elk experience that everybody wants. And it's the same thing
• 1:22:56
  Speaker 1: in the white tail world. If you if you go,
• 1:22:59
  Speaker 1: if you get one of the those tags at Iowa Tag,
• 1:23:02
  Speaker 1: it's still not a guarantee you're gonna you know, like
• 1:23:04
  Speaker 1: you're gonna have a taxidermy bill at the end of it,
• 1:23:06
  Speaker 1: but you have a hell of a lot better chance
• 1:23:09
  Speaker 1: of going and seeing really cool buck activity and always
• 1:23:13
  Speaker 1: feeling like you're in the game and and just having
• 1:23:16
  Speaker 1: a super fun hunt. That's what keeps you I think
• 1:23:21
  Speaker 1: for me, that's what keeps me motivated more through the
• 1:23:23
  Speaker 1: end when you're continuing to have you know, It's always
• 1:23:27
  Speaker 1: easier when you're not struggling, right, you know. I mean,
• 1:23:32
  Speaker 1: if you're going out and you're and you're getting into
• 1:23:35
  Speaker 1: a lot of deer every day and you're having sightings
• 1:23:38
  Speaker 1: of good, good deer in an Iowa or in Illinois
• 1:23:41
  Speaker 1: or even at home or whatever, it makes it so
• 1:23:44
  Speaker 1: the process is that much easier if you're just if
• 1:23:46
  Speaker 1: you feel like you're getting beat up every day and
• 1:23:48
  Speaker 1: you're grinding and whatever else, it's hard to keep your
• 1:23:51
  Speaker 1: head in the game. I mean it's really really difficult.
• 1:23:53
  Speaker 1: And uh, you know, I mean last year I drew
• 1:23:56
  Speaker 1: an Iowa tag too, and I got there just in
• 1:24:00
  Speaker 1: time for the heat wave. And you know, the dude,
• 1:24:04
  Speaker 1: I think it was I think I did eight or
• 1:24:06
  Speaker 1: nine all day six, you know, in seventy to eighty
• 1:24:10
  Speaker 1: degree temperatures. Just not conventional conventional weather for that time
• 1:24:18
  Speaker 1: of year, you know, for second week in November or whatever.
• 1:24:20
  Speaker 1: It was, um and you know, it is what it is.
• 1:24:24
  Speaker 1: But you know, I ended up I was fortunately, I
• 1:24:27
  Speaker 1: ended up shooting a buck on like the last after
• 1:24:30
  Speaker 1: last afternoon. I had the next morning to hunt, and
• 1:24:32
  Speaker 1: then I had to I just had to get home
• 1:24:34
  Speaker 1: because I had stuff going on with my kids and
• 1:24:37
  Speaker 1: I was out of time. Um, and it ultimately wasn't
• 1:24:41
  Speaker 1: wasn't the deer that I really went to Iowa four,
• 1:24:44
  Speaker 1: you know what I mean. It was like it was
• 1:24:45
  Speaker 1: just like you said, you know, I went there to
• 1:24:47
  Speaker 1: shoot a hundred and fifty year or or greater and
• 1:24:49
  Speaker 1: this this deer didn't measure up to that, you know.
• 1:24:52
  Speaker 1: And uh, and I didn't shoot it because it was
• 1:24:54
  Speaker 1: the last minute. I just kind of had some ground shrinkage.
• 1:24:58
  Speaker 1: But you know, I still had a good experience. I
• 1:25:02
  Speaker 1: still had I still had fun because, like like you said,
• 1:25:05
  Speaker 1: I was just seeing tons of deer every day. I
• 1:25:08
  Speaker 1: mean there was not a single sit where I didn't
• 1:25:12
  Speaker 1: get into the stand and wait, man, I mean I've
• 1:25:17
  Speaker 1: had just thirty forty five minutes. And then you know,
• 1:25:20
  Speaker 1: at that time of year, I mean there were times
• 1:25:22
  Speaker 1: where it was just I mean, it was just a
• 1:25:23
  Speaker 1: constant flow of deer. You know that there may not
• 1:25:26
  Speaker 1: have been the bucks that I wanted to shoot or whatever,
• 1:25:28
  Speaker 1: but at least keeps you entertained and engaged. I would
• 1:25:31
  Speaker 1: have stayed longer because I mean literally two days, no
• 1:25:35
  Speaker 1: right before I left, the day that I actually shot
• 1:25:38
  Speaker 1: that buck. We had a good weather shift, but I
• 1:25:40
  Speaker 1: was out of time, but I was I was engaged,
• 1:25:43
  Speaker 1: and I was still excited and whatever else. And that's
• 1:25:45
  Speaker 1: a very coveted tag. So your spot on with that
• 1:25:48
  Speaker 1: experience thing, and and that's what's I think that's what's
• 1:25:51
  Speaker 1: worthwhile for for waiting for tags like that, or go
• 1:25:56
  Speaker 1: or or paying the expense to go to you know,
• 1:26:00
  Speaker 1: an out of state place for whatever species it is,
• 1:26:04
  Speaker 1: even turkeys, because you can you can just have a
• 1:26:07
  Speaker 1: better experience than potentially you can. You know, in other places.
• 1:26:12
  Speaker 1: We have fantastic hunting where I am in New York.
• 1:26:15
  Speaker 1: It's it's very very good, but I can unequivocally tell
• 1:26:19
  Speaker 1: you it pales in comparison to you know a few
• 1:26:23
  Speaker 1: other places that I've punted. Um, you know, and I
• 1:26:26
  Speaker 1: have a blast here, I mean just an absolute blast.
• 1:26:29
  Speaker 1: But you know, and plus it's cool to just go
• 1:26:31
  Speaker 1: and adventure. I mean, there's so much of this country
• 1:26:35
  Speaker 1: to see and using the vehicle of hunting to do it,
• 1:26:38
  Speaker 1: I think is really it is really kind of a blessing.
• 1:26:41
  Speaker 1: And I'm I'm glad that I've been able to do that.
• 1:26:43
  Speaker 1: I mean, you know, through the things that I've done
• 1:26:46
  Speaker 1: in my career. I mean, I've been all over the
• 1:26:48
  Speaker 1: world because of this stuff. And you know, if I
• 1:26:52
  Speaker 1: were I, I don't know, just doing whatever. I don't
• 1:26:55
  Speaker 1: know that I would have been afforded those opportunities or
• 1:26:57
  Speaker 1: been as enthusiastic about how they came together and whatever else.
• 1:27:02
  Speaker 1: And I've also had to do some trips where I
• 1:27:03
  Speaker 1: was like, oh gosh, I got to do that again,
• 1:27:05
  Speaker 1: you know, but it's I think we've been on a
• 1:27:09
  Speaker 1: few of those together. It happens, but yeah, and it
• 1:27:14
  Speaker 1: is you know that again. This is kind of like, uh,
• 1:27:17
  Speaker 1: just find your own way type of stuff, right, Like
• 1:27:22
  Speaker 1: some people don't really like to travel to hunt. They
• 1:27:25
  Speaker 1: want to stay and and hunt their farm at home.
• 1:27:28
  Speaker 1: I've got a buddy like that, who's he He'll hunt
• 1:27:31
  Speaker 1: the same redneck blind over the same food plot every
• 1:27:34
  Speaker 1: single year till he's dead and be super happy. And
• 1:27:37
  Speaker 1: it's like, Okay, that's that. That's your thing. But when
• 1:27:40
  Speaker 1: you when you go out and do a little bit
• 1:27:42
  Speaker 1: this travel, like, you don't have to go you don't
• 1:27:44
  Speaker 1: have to play the points game in Iowa. But if
• 1:27:46
  Speaker 1: you love hunting, one of the coolest things you can
• 1:27:49
  Speaker 1: do is just go hunt somewhere else, go have that
• 1:27:51
  Speaker 1: new experience somewhere else. And sometimes it's not about that
• 1:27:56
  Speaker 1: quality that you know, the the Iowa quality hunt. Sometimes
• 1:27:59
  Speaker 1: it's just about different, and different can be pretty fun.
• 1:28:03
  Speaker 1: You know. You kind of realize how you default too
• 1:28:06
  Speaker 1: easy stuff when you've got especially if you've got like
• 1:28:08
  Speaker 1: a private place set up, it's so easy to go
• 1:28:11
  Speaker 1: sit the same stands you've you've always sat, and kind
• 1:28:13
  Speaker 1: of go sit and there's nothing wrong with that, but
• 1:28:16
  Speaker 1: it's cool when you if you've kind of slid into
• 1:28:19
  Speaker 1: that routine to go somewhere where you don't have the option,
• 1:28:22
  Speaker 1: then you realize, man, I gotta start looking for sign,
• 1:28:24
  Speaker 1: I gotta go mobile, and I gotta I gotta be
• 1:28:26
  Speaker 1: watching more and it just changes, it changes the hunt
• 1:28:30
  Speaker 1: for you. And you know, some people don't like it,
• 1:28:32
  Speaker 1: but a lot of people do that and they go, oh,
• 1:28:34
  Speaker 1: this is I needed this, This is really cool. Well,
• 1:28:38
  Speaker 1: and you're figuring out something different, right, and that's that's
• 1:28:41
  Speaker 1: what the the element that of attraction is, right, It's
• 1:28:45
  Speaker 1: just I don't know I personally, I like walking onto
• 1:28:49
  Speaker 1: a new piece of ground and go like, oh, I've
• 1:28:51
  Speaker 1: never seen I don't have any experience with any place
• 1:28:56
  Speaker 1: that I've ever sat here or ever any place that
• 1:28:58
  Speaker 1: I've ever walked here, Like this is virgin and it's
• 1:29:01
  Speaker 1: the first time I'm ever garnering any experiences. I mean,
• 1:29:04
  Speaker 1: you know, I remember. It feels like all my memories
• 1:29:09
  Speaker 1: that are like the strongest and the most positive are
• 1:29:11
  Speaker 1: the first time that I hunted a species or the
• 1:29:14
  Speaker 1: first time I hunted a species in a certain place
• 1:29:17
  Speaker 1: or with a certain outfitter. I mean, I don't do
• 1:29:19
  Speaker 1: a ton of outfitted hunts, but like all of those
• 1:29:22
  Speaker 1: that are the most stand out in my memory are yeah,
• 1:29:26
  Speaker 1: again those first those first timers. I mean, you know,
• 1:29:29
  Speaker 1: I used to hunt with this one um, this one
• 1:29:32
  Speaker 1: hog outfitter, And remember my first experience there was like whoa,
• 1:29:37
  Speaker 1: you know what I mean, blew my mind so so awesome.
• 1:29:40
  Speaker 1: And then I went back to second time it was
• 1:29:42
  Speaker 1: still really good. Every time I've been there it was
• 1:29:44
  Speaker 1: really good, but it was a it was a different
• 1:29:46
  Speaker 1: experience each time. And um, you know, I kind of
• 1:29:49
  Speaker 1: I use that economics term those degrees of satisfaction. My
• 1:29:53
  Speaker 1: degrees of satisfaction just diminished a little bit and diminished
• 1:29:56
  Speaker 1: a little bit, and I went from feeling like wow,
• 1:29:59
  Speaker 1: I got to try and figure out a way to
• 1:30:00
  Speaker 1: do this every year. Two Wow, I'll come back to
• 1:30:05
  Speaker 1: so and so is place whenever I get the chance.
• 1:30:08
  Speaker 1: And you know, and that I was talking to my
• 1:30:10
  Speaker 1: dad actually about that one place the other day and
• 1:30:12
  Speaker 1: he's like, hey, would you go back there? I'm like, yeah,
• 1:30:14
  Speaker 1: you know, I'd like to try somewhere else. And that
• 1:30:17
  Speaker 1: happens for most people. I mean, if you talk to
• 1:30:19
  Speaker 1: most outfitters, their repeat customers, the vast majority of them
• 1:30:24
  Speaker 1: are three times. They'll get them three times, and then
• 1:30:26
  Speaker 1: they're moving on to someone else. And that's just I
• 1:30:29
  Speaker 1: think that's just the kind of the postelione in us, right.
• 1:30:32
  Speaker 1: The explorer is falling out and we want to we're
• 1:30:35
  Speaker 1: coming out rather like we want to go and check
• 1:30:37
  Speaker 1: out new stuff and and and and look for something
• 1:30:42
  Speaker 1: that gets us more fulfilled. Yeah. Well, I think I
• 1:30:45
  Speaker 1: think when you bring that that topic up, you're you're
• 1:30:48
  Speaker 1: kind of touching on that. We love the novelty and
• 1:30:52
  Speaker 1: the idea of some stuff, but we also love the
• 1:30:54
  Speaker 1: process of hunting. And you know, like hogs are a
• 1:30:58
  Speaker 1: big one, right, So many people want to go I
• 1:31:00
  Speaker 1: want to go on a hog on. I want to
• 1:31:01
  Speaker 1: go shoot hogs and you go do it and it's
• 1:31:03
  Speaker 1: freaking fun, you know, like it's sit on that feeder
• 1:31:06
  Speaker 1: and they start coming in and then you're like, I
• 1:31:08
  Speaker 1: kind of want to spot in stock hogs, like I
• 1:31:10
  Speaker 1: know what it's like to shoot them when they're you know,
• 1:31:12
  Speaker 1: vacuuming up corn underneath the feeder. And then it just
• 1:31:15
  Speaker 1: it just kind of changes. You're like, Okay, I know
• 1:31:16
  Speaker 1: what this is and it's still a blast. But if
• 1:31:19
  Speaker 1: you go if you go on a couple of those
• 1:31:21
  Speaker 1: hunts that are outfit, you're like, Okay, I don't own
• 1:31:23
  Speaker 1: really own that process. I show up and you know,
• 1:31:26
  Speaker 1: and I think we I think we're drawn to that
• 1:31:29
  Speaker 1: part of it a lot more than we think sometimes.
• 1:31:31
  Speaker 1: And that's why that's why white tail hunting, I really think,
• 1:31:35
  Speaker 1: is so there's there's just magnetism to it that we
• 1:31:40
  Speaker 1: can't really explain very well, but it is. There is
• 1:31:44
  Speaker 1: such a year round process to it. Even if you
• 1:31:47
  Speaker 1: don't do anything for the next three weeks you're thinking
• 1:31:49
  Speaker 1: about it, or you might have eastcut did not really
• 1:31:51
  Speaker 1: paid attention, there's there's something always to be done and
• 1:31:55
  Speaker 1: something always to learn, and you can make it into
• 1:31:59
  Speaker 1: you can find something to do every week or every
• 1:32:01
  Speaker 1: month that that just kind of brings you a little
• 1:32:04
  Speaker 1: bit closer to what you think is going to be success.
• 1:32:05
  Speaker 1: But it's kind of like I kind of look at
• 1:32:07
  Speaker 1: it like training a bird dog. Right, People will always say, well,
• 1:32:10
  Speaker 1: I want that finished bird dog, Like there's no such thing.
• 1:32:15
  Speaker 1: I've I work with the best trainers in the world.
• 1:32:17
  Speaker 1: There's no such thing as a finished bird There's badass
• 1:32:20
  Speaker 1: dogs that are really good. They're not a compliant, you know,
• 1:32:25
  Speaker 1: they're not. It's not like they you know, anybody who
• 1:32:27
  Speaker 1: tells you that my dog has never lost a bird
• 1:32:30
  Speaker 1: or you know, we every duck we've ever shot that
• 1:32:33
  Speaker 1: sailed off into the distance and hit the water has
• 1:32:35
  Speaker 1: come back and my my dog's mouth. That's bullshit. Like
• 1:32:37
  Speaker 1: there's there's not perfection out there, but you can keep
• 1:32:40
  Speaker 1: working toward it, just like in the white tail world. Hey,
• 1:32:43
  Speaker 1: if you find that per that trainer that makes finished
• 1:32:48
  Speaker 1: bird dogs, let me know, because yeah, I have one
• 1:32:51
  Speaker 1: that could use that. Well, let me tell you if
• 1:32:54
  Speaker 1: you find a trainer that tells you they can do
• 1:32:56
  Speaker 1: that the run away gosh, yeah, because they're not going
• 1:33:02
  Speaker 1: to get you there. Tim uh so much fun as
• 1:33:04
  Speaker 1: always buddy, I really appreciate you coming on and sharing
• 1:33:08
  Speaker 1: your stories and your wisdom. Uh, you're you're out there selling,
• 1:33:11
  Speaker 1: You're selling some land, you're doing a little bit of writing.
• 1:33:13
  Speaker 1: Where where can people find you out there? Yeah? So, um,
• 1:33:17
  Speaker 1: I'm on Facebook and Instagram, so I have Uh, you
• 1:33:21
  Speaker 1: can find me on either one of those, just on
• 1:33:23
  Speaker 1: my kind of personal stuff, which is just Timothy G. Kent.
• 1:33:27
  Speaker 1: There might be some underscores or dots in there, but
• 1:33:29
  Speaker 1: I'm sure if you find me, just look for the
• 1:33:31
  Speaker 1: funny guys with a kid or a wife, and that's me,
• 1:33:34
  Speaker 1: big smile. That's a And then uh, my I work
• 1:33:38
  Speaker 1: for white Tail Properties real Estate. I'm a land specialist,
• 1:33:41
  Speaker 1: and my my white Tail Properties handle is just Tim
• 1:33:45
  Speaker 1: Kent WP. And that's again on Instagram and and Facebook
• 1:33:50
  Speaker 1: and um yeah, and then I I do some writing
• 1:33:53
  Speaker 1: for bon Hunter Magazine and a few other places, so
• 1:33:57
  Speaker 1: you know you can check out some stories there too. Awesome,
• 1:34:00
  Speaker 1: Thanks buddy, Yeah man. Thanks. That's it for this week
• 1:34:04
  Speaker 1: on Wired to Hunt. I have been your guest host
• 1:34:07
  Speaker 1: Tony Peterson, and I cannot thank you enough for listening.
• 1:34:11
  Speaker 1: Please check in every single week. We're gonna have more
• 1:34:14
  Speaker 1: good White tail hunting information coming your way on this podcast,
• 1:34:17
  Speaker 1: on my wire to Hunt Foundations podcasts, at our wire
• 1:34:20
  Speaker 1: to Hunt website that is full of videos and articles
• 1:34:25
  Speaker 1: on white tail hunting. We've got a ton of new
• 1:34:27
  Speaker 1: YouTube stuff coming out if you if you look anywhere
• 1:34:30
  Speaker 1: in the wire to Hunt world, you're gonna find some
• 1:34:32
  Speaker 1: really good white tail hunting content, so please check that out.
• 1:34:35
  Speaker 1: As always, again, thank you so much for listening.