Latest / Wired To Hunt Podcast / Wired To Hunt Podcast #134: Our 2017 Hunting New Years Resolutions and 2016 Review

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Wired To Hunt Podcast #134: Our 2017 Hunting New Years Resolutions and 2016 Review · Wired To Hunt Podcast

• 0:02
  Speaker 1: Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast, your home for
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: deer hunting news, stories and strategies, and now your host,
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: Mark Kenyon. Welcome to the Wired to Hunt Podcast. I'm
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: your host, Mark Kenyan. In this episode number one hundred
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: and thirty four, Tay the show. With the new year
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: just days away, we're looking back at what we learned
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: in two thousand and sixteen and looking forward to what
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: we hope to accomplish and experience in the White Tail
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: Woods in two thousand seventeen. All right, guys, welcome to
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: the Wired to Hunt Podcast, brought to you by Sitka
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: gear Antona show. As I imagine many of you might
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: be doing at this time of year, we are looking
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: back at two thousand and sixteen and looking forward to
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: two thousand seventeen. Today, Dan and I are gonna be
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: discussing some of the highs and lows of this past year,
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: along with some of our greate lessons learned, and then
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: we're also going to do some thinking about the year
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: to come. You know, what we hope we can change,
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: what we can achieve, what we hope to experience, and
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: all that kind of stuff. So that quite simply, Dan,
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: is the plan does that sound good to you? Sounds
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: good to me, buddy, Well good, I'm good. I'm way
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: better now. Is that my my Christmas was spent in
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: a bed or hovering over a toilet or on a couch.
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: My entire family was sick over Christmas. I heard about that.
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: That's a bummer. Yeah. So so you're recovered though, right?
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: I feel great. I feel good now. Maybe just a
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: little tired. One more night asleep is gonna get me
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: back to normal. But man, I haven't puked that hard
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: since like college. And this was like a fluor. It
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: wasn't like too much egg now right, No, this was
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: straight up flew. It was, oh, man, like it felt
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: like I did a thousand sit ups, which, now that
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: I say that doesn't sound like a lot of sit ups,
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: But my could you do a thousand sit ups straight
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: without stop? Now? Yeah? Oh? Probably not not right now.
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: I don't know if I could either, But thousands a
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: lot of sit ups, I know. But in my prime,
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: you know, in my prime, I could probably do a thousands.
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: I could throw a football over them their mountains. Speaking
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: of damn his prime. Do you know, do you ever
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: watched any of those old Christmas movies? You know, like
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: the kind of like old puppet types. Yes, yeah, well
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: do you remember there's one of them? I can you
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: gon Cornelia's for anybody who knows that this guy looks
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: like everybody. Everybody knows what it looks like. And this
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: is probably the fifteen person this year who's brought that
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: up to me. I'm cool with it. I'm embracing the
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: red beard. Oh it is so it is you in
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: a puppet or whatever it is. If you were plunked
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: down into a TV, that is you, Kylie. My wife
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: actually told me, like last year, she knows that. She's like,
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: oh my gosh, that is Dan. And then someone mentioned
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: on Twitter and I just cracked up. I definitely look
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: like that right now. I look rough, like I haven't.
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: I haven't cut my beard in a long time. It's
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: to the point now where it's not growing it's not
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: kind of growing out, it's laying down on itself. So it's, uh,
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: it's it's really hardy right now. And uh, I haven't
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: cut my hair in a while. So you know, you
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: got the little ear hangover where the hair kind of
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: hangs over the ear just a little bit. And my
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: wife looks at me and instead of like saying, oh,
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: you know, like good night, I love you, she said,
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  Speaker 1: So I know, I know now that it's time to
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: maybe trim it up a bit and uh and uh
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: get a haircut. Well, hey, you did say you didn't
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: want any more than two kids, right, that's right, that's
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: a that's a good So keep the beard and hair
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: look and act disgusting, and then that will get rid
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: of one part of my life, which will lead to well,
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: I uh, I don't have those kinds of beard issues, Dan.
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: But hey, hey Mark Mark Kenyon, a k Rookie of
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: the Year, what how is your how is your gotee
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: game doing these days? The gotee game is rough. It's
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: it's not real good. I actually know. I mean, you know,
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: I can't really grow it. But not only not only
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: is it bad, you know, because I know it's not
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: that great, but now my wife is just fully against it.
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: For a long time, she you know, she what's the word,
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  Speaker 1: she tolerated it, but now she actively is trying to
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: dissuade me of having any facial hair. Okay, And so
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: I shaved it all off. I don't know, a week
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  Speaker 1: ago or something, or we can half ago, and I
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: just hate my face without it, it looks like a
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: little baby. Yeah, it looks I feel so weird without
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: it because I've you know, it's not anything to brag about,
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: but I've had something on my face for a long
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: time now, and when I'm completely clean cut, I just
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: feel like I look like a different person, Like my
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: lips look weird. I don't know. I was like, I
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: literally looked in the mirror. I was like, so check
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: this out. So I from from a fullness standpoint, I
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: rocked a beard for a while, and uh, I needed
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: to have it long so it would cover up some
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: of the patches that weren't you know, grown in all
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: the way. So over the past two years, I've been
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: able to grow a man beard, like a really decent beard.
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  Speaker 1: Now this year, I'm starting to see white hairs start
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  Speaker 1: coming into it. So I'm starting to get that middle
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  Speaker 1: aged old man beard now. Yeah. Yeah, even even in
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: my little Rookie of the Year go tee, I've got
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: some little white hairs coming in. That's peach buzz well yeah,
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: well possibly, but hey, I killed the deer last night.
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: Heck yeah, that's awesome. Yeah, it was getting stayed up.
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: You did that, You did you did the shoot drag
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: process go to bed? Yes, I did. But before we
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: get into that whole story, I think this is probably
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: a good place for us to take a quick break
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: to thank our partners at Sick of Gear. And we
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: got a sick of story today from a Wire to
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: Hunt listener and a fellow Sick of white Tail ambassador,
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: Brennan Nating. And Brennan has just recently had the week
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: of all weeks last week Monday, he killed the buck
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: he called turkey Foot, who he had been watching and
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: hunting for two years. And then on his next hunt,
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: just two days later, he killed the other mature buck
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: he had been after for two years that he called Ronnie.
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: So in three days, you killed your top two bucks
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  Speaker 1: on this property that you've been following for at least
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  Speaker 1: two years each. How do you describe this three days
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: of incredible hunting or this this season? I mean, how
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: do you? How do you process that? It? It took
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: me a while. The best thing that could have happened
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: happened that night. Um. Shortly after I killed Ronni. UM,
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: I sent out a few text messages to buddies and whatnot.
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: And uh, right after that, my phone, my phone crapped
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: out on me, so I had no contact to anybody
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: for about fifteen hours, which I thought was a good thing,
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: and uh, it was unreal. And we've spent the entire
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  Speaker 1: fall chasing these two deer, and uh, to kill him
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  Speaker 1: two days apart in back to back sits essentially just
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  Speaker 1: just unreal. I mean, really opened my eyes up to
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: you just can't ever you can't ever count yourself out
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: until the season is over. Um for it to come together,
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: it was just an unreal feeling to me. And uh,
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: it still hasn't totally sunk in. Went home for the holidays,
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: enjoyed the time with my family, and uh got back
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  Speaker 1: down home here the other day and really just started
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  Speaker 1: thinking about the entire season again and how fortunate it
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  Speaker 1: was to end up the way it did. Happy ending
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  Speaker 1: to an incredible hunting season, and I hope that's something
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  Speaker 1: that a lot of you can relate to it this
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: time of year. That said, this was a sick story,
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: and you can learn more about the gear like what
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: Brennan was wearing during these hunts by visiting Sitka gear
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: dot com. Moving on, we also need to thank our
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: partners at Yetti and that sound you're hearing that's my
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: Yetti Rambler filling up with coffee, and it's one of
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: the best sounds I hear every day. You know, before
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: I started using Yetti's Rambler travel mugs and bottles, I
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: thought there may be a little overkill. I didn't know
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: I needed, you know, this great big stainless steel mug.
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: But I've quickly converted. And that coffee you just heard.
• 8:59
  Speaker 1: You know, if I wan forget about that and come
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: back five hours later, it would still be hot. And
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: my dad, who got one of the Yeti twenty ounce tumblers,
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: he told me over Christmas that he filled his up
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: with ice and water at the end of one day
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: at work, but left it on his desk overnight, and
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: when he got back into the office the next morning
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: there was still ice in there. So long story short,
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: I've really become a fan. And if you like your
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: coffee hot and your water icy, I'd recommend heading over
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: to yeti dot com to learn more. And now let's
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: get back to the show and the story of my
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: dough kill. Oh man, it's a long night. It's a
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: long night. We've got warm temperatures and like wildly fluctuating
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: temperatures so I didn't want to leave it hang. I figured,
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: just we're gonna get it taken care of. So yeah,
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: you know, I oh, gosh, I think it was Tuesday night.
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: I decided to start my kind of dough hunting week.
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: And that first night nothing came within range. And I've
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: been going out in my bow. But last night I
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: went up to the um the same tree stand that
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: I had had a bunch of encounters with holy Field,
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: actually this spot where I drawn back on holy Field. Um,
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: and I hadn't hunted that stand in almost two months,
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: since like November five or something. I hadn't hunted it,
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: and um, I saw tons of deer. But there's kind
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: of a debacle of the night, like I've seen lots
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: and lots of doughs. But at first they were moving
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: really early, but they were all moving away from the
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: food plot, like they're better close, but moving away. And
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: I was like, well, that's not a good sign, tod
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: I you know, spook them or something. They weren't spooked,
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: but there was kind of slowly walking away. And then
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: I saw I could see in my back food plot,
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: I could see a bunch of deer feeding in there.
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: I was like, I picked the wrong place tonight. And
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: then finally a group of doughs came into the plot,
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: but one of them. Now I'm having a hard time remembering.
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: I think I drew back on her, but I can't
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: remember exactly. And the reason I'm having a hard time
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: to remember if I drew back or not because I
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: drew back a lot last night. I the first group
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: of dolls came in. I think it came to full draw,
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: but just as I was doing that, she spotted me
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: and she bolted before he get a shot. So that
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: was a bad situation. So they cleared the field. Then
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: fast forward, like thirty minutes or something, another group of
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: does comes in and I watched him for a long time,
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: and finally the one mature dough slowly works away to
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: thirty yards comes from out behind these branches. I draw back.
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: I'm like, all right, easy, peasy, beautiful shot. And as
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: I'm drawn back, and I can't really remember what happened
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: here either, but one way or the other, I shot
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: and she just dropped. She jumped the string. I could
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: literally I saw it as it was happening. I was like,
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: that's a complete miss. Just went straight over back right
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: where it was, and um she went running off on scathed.
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: So I'm like, all right, that's a great start. So
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: you missed yeah, yeah, I mean she she dropped a foot.
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: It looked like I mean, I've been there, man, Yeah,
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: And it was. It was one of those things like
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: you know, I've had times where I missed a deer
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: that I knew I missed it because I rushed the
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: shot or I pulled the shot or something. This was
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: one of those, like I was shooting a target. I was.
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: It was just super easy, perfect thirty yards shot broadside,
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: and it just didn't have it because the targer moved. Um.
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: So they go running off. Um, so now I'm bummed
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: out again. Um while I look back on the back
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: food plot and there's holy Field. So I got to
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: see holy Field for a little bit feeding a couple
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: hundred yards away, which is cool. And now I see
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: more dose coming my way. Hen long story short, finally
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: a few of them coming to the plot. One of
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: them looks like a shooter. She comes walking in. She
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: gets broadside again around like seven yards or something like that.
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: I draw back, and just as I draw back, she
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: turns and faces me directly on. She's feeding, but she's
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: directly facing me, so now I'm stuck at full draw.
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: She doesn't move for what seems like thirty seconds, forty
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: five seconds, so I'm at full draw, shake and shake
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: and shaken. Finally I'm like, all right, I just need
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: to draw down. And there was another younger deer like
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: closer to me because I was worried they're gonna hear me,
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: but finally draw down. They don't know what's going on.
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: I'm watching them, and finally she turns, she moves, she
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: walks out, and as she's walking across my one opening,
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: I'm getting ready to draw. She sees me and this such,
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: this tree that I'm in is really not a good lace.
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: It's it's okay, I got away with more than I
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: thought I would last night, because it's it's a great
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: spot early in there, when there's leaves on this tree.
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: It's an oak tree, lots of leaf cover, lots of
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: branches all around me. It's pretty darn good um. But
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: right now there's no leaves at all, and it's out
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: in the middle of the field. It's a lone tree
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: in the middle of this plot. So because of that,
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: there's not a whole there is a decent amount of cover,
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: but still they could they could see you if they
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: were coming from the right angle, if there's the right
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: perspective for them, My silou would be up there. And
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: so she walked right to that one spot where you
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: know she might see something, and she kind of looked
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: up and it was like, and I'm like, some of
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: a gun, is this gonna happen twice in her own
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: now today? But she didn't. She's just like, I don't
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: know what that is, but I'm okay. And then she
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: walked another five yards opped and this one put the
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: pen on her just like I did the first one,
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: and this dough did not jump the string, and I
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: double under. She ran fifty yards and dropped and that
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: was it, right in the food PLoP. So nice. So
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: that was the night, and um we got her. I
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: got her scutted and hung her up and skinned and
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: took her apart, and then my wife and I worked
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: throughout the evening but her hair and started a package
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: a little bit of it. And it was just a long,
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: long night. But it felt good to have good to
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: been able to do that and put some more meat
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: in the freezer. So I'm happy, hunh you processed it
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: all yourself. We did. Yes? Nice? Cool? Yeah, man, I
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: know how you feel. I came to full draw once
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: on a dough and as I was drawing back my um,
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: I don't know if you ever. You may cut a branch,
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: but you don't cut it all the way and it
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: just kind of hangs on the side of the tree. Well,
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: I drew back my elbow hit the branch that I
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: did like this really halfass cut on it fell out
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: of the tree and like went down in the dough.
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: Was that full alert looking right at me, and she
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: was probably only twenty five yards and I watched her
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: basically her chest hit the ground to avoid the arrow.
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: I mean, that's how that's how. So I've I've been
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: there when you when you when they jumped the string
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: like that. Yeah, it's it's crazy. I've gone back and
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: watch video of some of these shots. A deer that
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: I've seen that have, you know, jumped the string on
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: me and you can. I mean it's crazy how fast
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: they can drop that much. I mean twelve inches easy,
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: in like a split second. So it's hard, too hard
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: to accommodate for you know, I try, I try. When
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: I'm thinking about it, if I think that deer is
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: on alert, I try to aim maybe at the bottom
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: third of the kills of the kill zone, but sometimes
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: that's not even good enough. So nonetheless, clean mess on
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: the first one, which I was happy it wasn't you know,
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: a bad shot, um, and then a quick kill on
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: the on the final one. So I've got two more
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: dotags now, and I'm gonna try to get out here
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: a couple more nights before the end of the year,
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: and uh, put another one in the freezer maybe, And
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: my sister in law would like some venison, so I'm
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: gonna give them to her, and uh, should be a
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: should be a good way to wrap it up, That's right.
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: So now I want to talk about two thousand and
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: sixteen here today, Dan, about some of our lessons learns,
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: some of our you know, what we're happy with, what
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: we weren't. Um. But at the end of our conversation
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: last week, you told me that you had not hunted
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: one since November three, and I was going to give
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: you a hard time about that, and I just want
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: to make sure I did that right now. So now
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: I'm giving you a hard time about that. Okay, good,
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: thank you, thank you. I know, I know I have excuses. No, well,
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: I do have excuses. My kids were vomiting all over
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: the place and I was vomiting, and you know, holiday season,
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: blah blah blah. But I got approval tomorrow night, which
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: is Friday or whatever one. I don't know when you're
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: gonna launch this, but Friday I think it is. I
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: am going out and I'm going hunting good. I'm gonna
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: be in a tree stand close to uh, close to
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: a food plot. It's gonna be warm. Uh. I don't
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: know what kind of movement I'm gonna see, but I'm
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: gonna set up on the first well used trail and
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: just wait for a dough to come by and you know,
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: try to you know, I don't know shooter gets meat.
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: Do you remember? Do you remember what to do in
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: that situation? I don't even know. It's been a long
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: time for in two months. I know, it's like I'm
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: gonna have to teach myself how to sit up my
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: tree stands again and how to set up. But no, man,
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: I'm really looking forward to getting out there. And there's
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: this This food source is kind of the only food
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: source really in the area. You gotta go ways down
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: to get to an actual big egg field. So um,
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: I'm pretty uh, I know I'm gonna see, Dear, I
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: don't know what kind of bucks I'm gonna see, however,
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: I'm not really after any any particular buck. I checked
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: trail camera's last weekend with my buddy and all my
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: buddies piece and there wasn't There was one maybe mature buck,
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: and he could he could be a four year old.
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: He was kind of far away. Got one or two
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: pictures of him, but nothing promising. So I'll go on
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: dough patrol and see if I can't get a little
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: more freezer meat myself. Now, are you is this still
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: muzzled or season for you guys out there? Yes, so
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: I can. I can. I can get another buck tag
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: and uh, I can get another buck tag if I
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: want to um or shoot another buck if I want to,
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: because I can get that late season muzzleoader tag. But
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: I can use a bow for it. So that's that's
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: what I'll be doing. You know, if the big if
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: a big boy or a mature buck does that, by
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: I'll I'll definitely shoot him, but h or take a
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: shot at him. But I'm not holding my breath yeah,
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: what we're gonn Now, late next week there is a
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: big cold front coming through Iowa, So these higher than
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: normal temperatures are going to drop down to below normal temperatures.
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: So we're gonna be in the teens for next weekend
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: and the weekend of like the fifth and sixth or whatever.
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: And I am going to go to a spot where
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: I might where I feel that this buck I call
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: Tupac lives and I hit him in two thousand thirteen,
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: never recovered him fourteen, fifteen sixteen. You know the child
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: this deer is still around. Yeah, I think he was
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: a four year old, so five year old, six year old,
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: seven year old. He's probably a seven year old this year.
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: And uh um, but he's a stud man. I mean,
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: he's just a typical ten point maybe last year, I
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: think he was bigger than he was this year. But
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: he'll be like in the one sixties, I think. So, Uh,
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: what's what's the setup? Why do you think he's gonna
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: be in this area? And what's it looked like? So
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: it's you know, it's one of those things every once
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: in a while you have an Ahama moment about what
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: these deer are doing. Um, maybe as far as a
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: pattern is concerned, and I was always focused on this
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: particular area where I get summer summer, I don't know,
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: summer trail cameras, trail camera pictures of him as his
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: summer range, right, So then there would be a period
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: of time where he would he would disappear, so I'd
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: pull my trail cameras and then the crops would come out,
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: and then you know, and then it's basically a wide open,
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: uh cornfield with a couple of buffer strips and then
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: just like fingers of timber, no real big timber that
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: you would think, Well, this year, I'm like, I'm gonna
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: see what kind of deer work in this field. And
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: Tupac was working this field the entire right, So he's
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: living in this area all year round, or I shouldn't
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: say all year, but he's there summer, and he was
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: there when I when I put my trail cameras back
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: up the first part of November in this area and
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: then I killed my deer. So then I left and
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: I let that set for like three weeks four weeks,
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: and so this entire area he I got him on
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: two of the three trail cameras on this field and
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: I think I know now where he's where he's kind
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: of betting and living. So I'm gonna try to set
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: up on as close as humanly possible to to that
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: without jumping deer out of there. And because I think
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: what happens is during shotgun season, a lot of these
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: lot of deer pile into these fingers just because nobody
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: really thinks to hunt them because there, I don't know,
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: they're just there. They just typically don't hold deer like
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: the farmer dumps old refrigerators and deep freezes in one
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: of these draws, you know what I mean. So it's
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: just not it's not what people would think. But I
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: put the trail cameras up and sure enough I had
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: like three shooters come through there. So I'm gonna I'm
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: gonna pay a little bit more attention to that this
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: late season for maybe one or two hunts and then
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: that's all I'm gonna get. But but then definitely next year,
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: well that's exciting, yeah for sure, you know he yeah,
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: like I'm kind of pumped for you right now. Yah. Yeah.
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: Now I don't have any information because I've taken my
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: trail cameras down since then, but there's you know, there's
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: always a chance that there's something in these in these fingers.
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: You know, it's it's a picked egg field, it is
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: a cattle pasture. And then they're on these low spots
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: where they're The fence runs through to divide the two
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: properties is our trees, and that's where these deer have
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: been betting. I found sheds there over the years. Nothing giant,
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: but um, it's just I'm gonna get as high as
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: I can in a good observation point and see what's up.
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: So I was I was just gonna ask, are you
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: gonna try to push right into the good stuff where
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: you gonna observe that first night and then try to
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: see something in an attack, because that sounds like that's
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: the plan, right, I'm gonna be I'm gonna be aggressive,
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: But I think what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: walk the fence. I'm gonna walk this fence line up
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: to where I find a decent crossing coming out of
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: this real thicket to this small little thicket to the
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: egg fields where they could potentially be betting, and I'm
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: gonna get as high as I can and not necessarily
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: try to conceal myself, but just get as high so
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: I can see um as much land as possible. But
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: put myself in a position where if something does come through,
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: I'll be able to take a shot at it, you know,
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: something some well used path and then uh and then
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: if I see something, I have one day to make
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: an adjustment and then it's it's gonna be you know,
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: go bigger, go home. Yeah. Well, hey, it's fun that
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: there's at least a shot of something happened, right, And
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: I also have two deer tags down there too, dough
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: tags yet to fill, So I'm not gonna be I'm
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: not gonna be picky as far as I'm not gonna
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: be holding out for a mature buck because I'm gonna
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: I want to fill my dough tags too. Cool man, Well,
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: I'm excited to hear how that goes. Hopefully, either you
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: shoot something or you learn something, and like you said,
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: apply it to next year and uh, for next year
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: is going to be here in just a couple of days.
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: Can you believe that? I know I'm already thinking, and
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: I know you are to me. I know a lot
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: of guys are. Yeah, yeah for sure, But I I
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: guess what that said should we should we first look
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: back on this year. That's just wrapping up for both
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: of us. I know you've got a little bit more
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: season left than I do. But in short, you know,
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: in general, most of the most of our seasons are
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: either done or are getting done. Um. So, I don't
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: know about you, but I've definitely been doing some thinking.
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: One w how would you describe your two thousand sixteen
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: season one word or one sentence? One sentence? I don't know. Well,
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: I think about that. I want to. I'm gonna pass
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: it right back to you. Okay, one term or word
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: or sentence to describe your season. Um, I was I
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: was hoping i'd have more time to think about this
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: because because I got it, mine, mine will be satisfying. Satisfying, right,
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: I like it? You know. For me, I killed a
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: buck this year, and I was very happy to do it.
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: But I wasn't But I wasn't like blown away as
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: this is one of the greatest seasons I've ever had.
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: You know, I didn't hunt as much because I I
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: tagged out. So I felt, I'm gonna save my vacation
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: and I'm gonna go home. Um, just I was satisfied.
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: I was happy with the results. It wasn't like the
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: greatest season I've ever had. It wasn't the worst season
• 25:59
  Speaker 1: I've ever had. It was right in the middle. I'm
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: I'm so happy to have hunted it, but I'm really
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: looking you know, I'm really looking forward to the you know,
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: the Shed season and and uh, two thousand seventeen. Nice. Nice, Okay,
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: I got mine good. I opening, I opening, And that's hype.
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: That's hyphenated. So one word that's the writer in me
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: that has to that's the clarify UM. And I say
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: that because I think that there were a lot of
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: things for me this season that we're like, maybe maybe
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: enlightening is the better word, UM, but one of the
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: two UM that kind of like just brought to light
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: something new, Like I feel like I learned a lot
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: of things, Like I made a shift this year as
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: a hunter, UM evolved in a bunch of different ways,
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: UM that I think we could talk about here that
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: we've talked about a little in the past, but in
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: a number of different things I've kind of changed. UM.
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: So I think this season kind of signify I had
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: that move for me, which was interesting, and I learned
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: a lot from it, And UM I can look back
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: on a lot of things from the season, like totally
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: different things and see, like, wow, that was like a
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: really cool new thing I tried, and like that really
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: changed me. And this was something that was a big
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: challenge and I learned something from it and and that changed. Um.
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: And so that definitely was like a different kind of
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: season for me. It wasn't one that like followed the
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: script and I killed a bunch of big bucks and
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: it was like you'd be. It was one that was
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: like punctuated by these different highs and lows, but lots
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: of new stuff that, um, that was really cool. So
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: it was a great hunting season. Um. But but just
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: like you, it just kind of leaves me wanting more,
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: Like I'm ready for the next year to just start
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: right now. So what what was a couple of you know,
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: what were a couple of your highlights for two thousand
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: and sixteen. So I think i'd say probably the highlights
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: of my season, We're three things. Number one for sure
• 27:59
  Speaker 1: was my to Montana. That was like one of my
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: favorite hunting trips ever, maybe my favorite hunting trip ever, um,
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: for a lot of different reasons. Um, I mean, just
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: like being out there in that type of place was
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: just like it's just it's unlike anywhere else ever deer hunted.
• 28:15
  Speaker 1: Just being out in this huge, wide open, beautiful UM
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: landscape with so few people UM and hunting public land,
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: and like, it wasn't the kind of thing where you know,
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: I was hunting and then going hanging out at home
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: or hanging out a hotel. You know. It was like
• 28:29
  Speaker 1: a total experience from all day, every day for seven
• 28:32
  Speaker 1: days or whatever was that I I was out there. I
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: was either hunting or planning about hunting, or sleeping in
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: my truck or cooking food on a little backpacking stove
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: on the tailgate. It was just an awesome experience all
• 28:44
  Speaker 1: the way around. UM. So that was just a huge
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: highlight for sure. UM. I think another highlight was just
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: this hunt for holy Field. UM. Excuse me, just getting
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: to see this buck as much. UM. Like, this was
• 29:01
  Speaker 1: one of those things that definitely stands out and I
• 29:03
  Speaker 1: don't want to, um, you know, belabor the point too much,
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: but getting to learn and observe a deer the way
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: I did, and hunt for a deer the way I
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: did for holy Field, UM, this year was definitely unique
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: in above and beyond anything I've ever experienced before. So UM,
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: that has been a highlight, just getting to see that
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: deer so many times and everything else that went through it. UM.
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: And then another highlight was getting to be there when
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: my dad killed a buck this year, UM during gun
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: season of Michigan. That was really cool to get to
• 29:32
  Speaker 1: share that with him. UM. And and that was super exciting.
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: So I say those are my three highlights. UM. You know,
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: I also killed the doll last night, which was great.
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: I killed a buck in Ohio, which was great. UM.
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: Lots lots of great moments, but I think those three
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: UM stand out above everything else, at least at first glance.
• 29:49
  Speaker 1: What about you, oh man, Um, Well, the first thing
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: that comes to mind is the actual kill I had
• 29:57
  Speaker 1: this year. It felt good to get you know. I
• 30:02
  Speaker 1: I've always been kind of picking what I kill. I'm
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: not gonna settle as far as bucks are concerned. I'm
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: not settling for anything really than what I kind of
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: put my mind out to. So I've eaten tag soup
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: quite a few a few times over the last ten years,
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: so it felt good to actually seal the deal, put
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: the period at the end of the sense, you know,
• 30:21
  Speaker 1: the cherry on top and um, come through with a kill,
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: and and and and do it kind of the way
• 30:30
  Speaker 1: I always have tried to do it, and that recon
• 30:33
  Speaker 1: with trail cameras, check the trail cameras, make sure that
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: the deer in there, and then use what I've learned
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: over the years as a bow hunter to put together
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: a game plan to move in in this area and
• 30:48
  Speaker 1: hunt it without you know, go into this box living
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: space basically and kill him without him noticing me or
• 30:54
  Speaker 1: busting me. So, um, I got to do that. And uh,
• 30:59
  Speaker 1: you know that that strategy that we have that we
• 31:02
  Speaker 1: all try to to to put together to you know,
• 31:05
  Speaker 1: to accomplish our goals worked for me. So that was
• 31:09
  Speaker 1: That's kind of like the second thing. But you know,
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: all of everything, everything come coming together finally and working.
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: That was that just that made me happy. That chess game,
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: you know, winning that chess game on a mature buck
• 31:25
  Speaker 1: definitely made me happy. And like I said, the kill
• 31:29
  Speaker 1: was just uh, the kill was just extra. Yeah, it's
• 31:36
  Speaker 1: the whole chess match is awesome, but you gotta win
• 31:39
  Speaker 1: every once in a while too exactly to feel to
• 31:41
  Speaker 1: feel okay about the fact that you're making progress on it, right, right,
• 31:46
  Speaker 1: so other than that, I think two thousand and sixteen
• 31:49
  Speaker 1: was one of those seasons. And I'm sure a lot
• 31:51
  Speaker 1: of guys go through that once you've been hunting, like
• 31:54
  Speaker 1: and just to reiterate, man, it wasn't my best season.
• 31:57
  Speaker 1: Most memorable. I mean it will be because I'm gonna
• 32:00
  Speaker 1: have the mount on my wall to always say, hey, look, man,
• 32:02
  Speaker 1: I shot this deer I didn't see. I didn't get
• 32:05
  Speaker 1: the opportunity to hunt the rut where I'm seeing, you know,
• 32:09
  Speaker 1: tons of deer chasing and all that stuff. It was
• 32:11
  Speaker 1: for me, it was in and out type of season.
• 32:14
  Speaker 1: And uh so, I'm I'm just blessed that I got
• 32:18
  Speaker 1: to do that. I'm I'm blessed that I got to
• 32:22
  Speaker 1: spend some additional time with my family that time of
• 32:24
  Speaker 1: year and do some you know, different things outside while
• 32:27
  Speaker 1: the weather was good. And um, you know, blessed that
• 32:30
  Speaker 1: my wife puts up with my crap and allows me
• 32:34
  Speaker 1: to do what I what I love to do. And
• 32:37
  Speaker 1: uh yeah, man, just happy that happy that I have
• 32:42
  Speaker 1: mature deer to hunt. Yeah, for sure. Do you is
• 32:47
  Speaker 1: there anything you wish you'd done differently? Well, looking back
• 32:54
  Speaker 1: looking back on it, maybe, but not being the person
• 33:01
  Speaker 1: who regrets things. I've only had a very small handful
• 33:05
  Speaker 1: of regrets in my life. Um, but you know, there's
• 33:11
  Speaker 1: there's the small little voice inside of me that wishes
• 33:15
  Speaker 1: I would have maybe pass this buck and allowed myself
• 33:20
  Speaker 1: more time in the timber during the But I think
• 33:22
  Speaker 1: that's the guy who likes to sit in the tree stand, right,
• 33:26
  Speaker 1: that's his voice, the guy who is a nature lover,
• 33:28
  Speaker 1: who just likes to be outside and who loves that grind. Right.
• 33:32
  Speaker 1: But then there's the killer part of me who was like, hey, man,
• 33:36
  Speaker 1: you gotta shoot this buck. It's your goal. You said,
• 33:38
  Speaker 1: you said, four year old or older, you gotta shoot
• 33:42
  Speaker 1: this buck. And that's that's what I did. And I
• 33:45
  Speaker 1: was happy with that. Do I wish I could have
• 33:48
  Speaker 1: hunted more? Yes? But there there might be talk to
• 33:53
  Speaker 1: me about what I'm talking about now when we start
• 33:55
  Speaker 1: talking about two thousand and seventeen, because I got there's
• 33:59
  Speaker 1: there's a transition there. But I don't want to go
• 34:01
  Speaker 1: there yet. So let me let me make sure I
• 34:04
  Speaker 1: get this right. You asked me to talk to you
• 34:06
  Speaker 1: about what you're talking about when we start talking about right,
• 34:12
  Speaker 1: nailed it. There we go right now, people are slowly, uh,
• 34:18
  Speaker 1: clicking the X button on their computers and going, God,
• 34:21
  Speaker 1: this podcast? Do I need to know? Math? I think
• 34:25
  Speaker 1: that happened way earlier than that. No, but like, um,
• 34:30
  Speaker 1: just being able to extend my hunting season, so to speak.
• 34:34
  Speaker 1: What about tactic wise? Now, not necessarily did you do anything?
• 34:37
  Speaker 1: Would you do anything differently? But did anything you see
• 34:40
  Speaker 1: this year or that you tried and maybe it worked
• 34:43
  Speaker 1: or didn't work? Um, did you learn anything? I stayed out, man,
• 34:48
  Speaker 1: This year was one of the very first years where
• 34:51
  Speaker 1: if I wanted to hunt, I had I had locations
• 34:56
  Speaker 1: where I didn't touch until it was time. Like some
• 35:02
  Speaker 1: of my best stands, I didn't even hunt at all
• 35:04
  Speaker 1: this year because I wasn't going to go in until
• 35:06
  Speaker 1: the time was right. And um uh, so I didn't
• 35:11
  Speaker 1: hunt those areas at all. And I and I you know,
• 35:18
  Speaker 1: did that outside in, you know, set up the observation stands,
• 35:22
  Speaker 1: move in. Um I did that. I did that two times,
• 35:26
  Speaker 1: and I killed my buck this year. So I set
• 35:27
  Speaker 1: up my observation stand adjusted once and killed the buck.
• 35:31
  Speaker 1: So that's that's what I that that was this year.
• 35:36
  Speaker 1: But I mean, I if I wanted to go hunt
• 35:38
  Speaker 1: a dough, I went to a different, completely different location. Yeah,
• 35:43
  Speaker 1: so I stayed out of what I considered my my
• 35:46
  Speaker 1: hot spots for the for the rut. Yeah, I think. Uh.
• 35:50
  Speaker 1: I mean that's the kind of stuff that we talked
• 35:52
  Speaker 1: about all the time. So it's cool they see that
• 35:54
  Speaker 1: you were able to put that into play and it
• 35:56
  Speaker 1: paid off. Yep. And you know there's a chance that
• 36:00
  Speaker 1: next year I hunt I hunt less, even less than
• 36:07
  Speaker 1: um because it just I'm finding And you know, some
• 36:10
  Speaker 1: of these guys who talk about, man, I don't even
• 36:12
  Speaker 1: hit the woods until the fifth of November. That to
• 36:17
  Speaker 1: me sounds absolutely crazy, but they're right there. I feel
• 36:21
  Speaker 1: they are so right. Yeah, I mean hunting smart over
• 36:25
  Speaker 1: hunting hard, although the perfect scenario is to do both,
• 36:28
  Speaker 1: to have enough places that you can hunt hard, you
• 36:32
  Speaker 1: can hunt other places where you won't impact the spots
• 36:36
  Speaker 1: you want to hold off on. Um. That's that's what
• 36:38
  Speaker 1: for me. One of my big things that I continue
• 36:41
  Speaker 1: to learn and continue to be reminded of is the
• 36:43
  Speaker 1: importance of just having more and more places because you know, options, options. Yeah,
• 36:48
  Speaker 1: because just like you said, I put such a huge
• 36:52
  Speaker 1: premium on keeping my best spots untouched until the right time.
• 36:56
  Speaker 1: You know, timing. I mean we talked about almost every episode,
• 36:59
  Speaker 1: every guest we talked about in some different way. They
• 37:01
  Speaker 1: are focusing on keeping pressure low until the time is right.
• 37:04
  Speaker 1: I mean that right there is like the biggest thing
• 37:06
  Speaker 1: when it comes to hunting mature box. I think like
• 37:08
  Speaker 1: if you get that into your head and all these
• 37:10
  Speaker 1: you know, there's obviously lots of other things that fall
• 37:12
  Speaker 1: underneath it. But if you can figure out how to
• 37:14
  Speaker 1: keep pressure low until the right time, and then even
• 37:17
  Speaker 1: have pressure low while you're actually they're hunting on those
• 37:19
  Speaker 1: right times, that that's a huge game changer. And I
• 37:24
  Speaker 1: think you can take that one of two ways. You
• 37:27
  Speaker 1: could take it, as you just said, where you just
• 37:29
  Speaker 1: don't hunt very much, which is okay if you're okay
• 37:32
  Speaker 1: with you having a few hunts but being successful on
• 37:34
  Speaker 1: the few hunts. But then if you're somebody who wants
• 37:37
  Speaker 1: to just still be able to go out and hunt, Um,
• 37:39
  Speaker 1: you want to have places you can go on those
• 37:41
  Speaker 1: subpar days. And you know, I found even on you know,
• 37:46
  Speaker 1: this year, I picked up permission on a new place
• 37:48
  Speaker 1: and I went and hunted there on the weekends and
• 37:50
  Speaker 1: the days when I didn't want to hunt. My best
• 37:52
  Speaker 1: spots because the conditions weren't right. It was warm weather,
• 37:55
  Speaker 1: the wind wasn't gonna be good or whatever. All these
• 37:57
  Speaker 1: different things didn't line up. So I was like, I'll
• 38:00
  Speaker 1: go there and I'll still get to hunt and lo
• 38:03
  Speaker 1: and behold, even though the conditions weren't great, I was
• 38:06
  Speaker 1: hunting some of these spots for the first time ever,
• 38:08
  Speaker 1: and I had I had, let me think about this,
• 38:10
  Speaker 1: I had encounters with shooters three times in a row
• 38:16
  Speaker 1: on subpar days that I wouldn't hunt my best spots
• 38:19
  Speaker 1: because I didn't think the conditions were were't great. But
• 38:21
  Speaker 1: I was like, I'm gonna try somewhere brand new, and
• 38:23
  Speaker 1: I snuck into some spots and just kind of observation
• 38:26
  Speaker 1: sits in this new property, and you know, sometimes you
• 38:30
  Speaker 1: do get lucky. And that was one of the situations
• 38:32
  Speaker 1: where you're not gonna get lucky if you're not out there.
• 38:34
  Speaker 1: So I'd like to I play a really smart, conservative
• 38:38
  Speaker 1: and strategic on my best spots, but then I have
• 38:41
  Speaker 1: the opportunity to get lucky on the subpar days in
• 38:45
  Speaker 1: my you know spots c D E f UM. If
• 38:48
  Speaker 1: you don't have those spots, you're not gonna kill anything
• 38:51
  Speaker 1: on the couch on those subpar days. Now, let's elaborate
• 38:54
  Speaker 1: on that a little bit, if you don't mind. What
• 38:56
  Speaker 1: you did there and kind of what I did there
• 38:59
  Speaker 1: as well, was you were aggressive on other areas. Right,
• 39:04
  Speaker 1: So what you've done is you've moved into some of
• 39:07
  Speaker 1: these better you know, some of these better locations on
• 39:11
  Speaker 1: different farms, which you didn't really know if what you
• 39:15
  Speaker 1: were going to see what was there. I really didn't
• 39:17
  Speaker 1: know what was hanging out in these areas. I just
• 39:20
  Speaker 1: knew that my my good stands were getting rest. Right.
• 39:25
  Speaker 1: So now what you've done is you've educated yourself that, hey,
• 39:29
  Speaker 1: maybe next year this area could be my new A,
• 39:32
  Speaker 1: B or C stand, you know what I mean. So
• 39:35
  Speaker 1: you've you've educated yourself on, I know, improving your odds
• 39:41
  Speaker 1: of killing them at your buck for sure. Yeah. And
• 39:44
  Speaker 1: I think what's kind of nice about those types of
• 39:46
  Speaker 1: like um extra properties, Like you know, I've got my
• 39:49
  Speaker 1: properties them depending on UM that I'm like, Okay, this
• 39:52
  Speaker 1: is where I'm probably gonna get it done, where I
• 39:54
  Speaker 1: have confidence in it, and where I'm going to play
• 39:56
  Speaker 1: all the cards just right, um. And so I don't
• 40:00
  Speaker 1: take higher risks there because I know if I play
• 40:02
  Speaker 1: it smart, I can succeed. But then having those extra
• 40:05
  Speaker 1: properties where the risk isn't as high because you don't
• 40:08
  Speaker 1: you're not really depending on it. Having those spots not
• 40:11
  Speaker 1: only is it nice because you can hunt more, but
• 40:13
  Speaker 1: just like you said, it's a testing ground. It's where
• 40:16
  Speaker 1: you can go out there and try new demands or
• 40:18
  Speaker 1: push it or get a little more aggressive, and you
• 40:21
  Speaker 1: don't need to be worried about screw up your whole
• 40:23
  Speaker 1: hunting season because you can still you've got your old dependables,
• 40:26
  Speaker 1: but here's where you can push the line a little
• 40:28
  Speaker 1: bit and maybe you get lucky, maybe you don't, but
• 40:30
  Speaker 1: you you're definitely gonna learn from that. Take those principles,
• 40:33
  Speaker 1: those aggressive principles, and apply them to your A, B
• 40:36
  Speaker 1: and C stands yes, and then that's where that's when
• 40:39
  Speaker 1: you become successful. Yeah, that that's That's a huge thing
• 40:42
  Speaker 1: for me this year was was just having more options
• 40:46
  Speaker 1: to to push into try new things and to get
• 40:49
  Speaker 1: aggressive but not be screwing up my good spots. That
• 40:52
  Speaker 1: was a big thing for me this year. Um, whether
• 40:54
  Speaker 1: that be when I was hunting public land you know,
• 40:56
  Speaker 1: early this year, that was totally new and because as
• 41:00
  Speaker 1: the fact that it was a quick trip in public,
• 41:02
  Speaker 1: I knew I was just gonna have to push it
• 41:03
  Speaker 1: and try and I tried to play it smart at
• 41:05
  Speaker 1: first observe and then push um and I did that
• 41:08
  Speaker 1: and that was awesome. I learned stuff from that. And
• 41:10
  Speaker 1: then here in Michigan, I had my dependable couple of
• 41:12
  Speaker 1: properties that I want to play safe on, and then
• 41:14
  Speaker 1: I had a couple of new spots where I was like,
• 41:16
  Speaker 1: you know what, I'm gonna try stuff and I did.
• 41:19
  Speaker 1: And I think because of that, now, like you're saying,
• 41:21
  Speaker 1: next year, I'm gonna go into the scenario with some
• 41:24
  Speaker 1: new dependable spots or some new ideas that I think, Okay,
• 41:26
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna play it smart here because I think I
• 41:28
  Speaker 1: can get it done based on what I learned. And
• 41:30
  Speaker 1: so what that means is, now, you know I want
• 41:32
  Speaker 1: I want to keep on trying to find additional new
• 41:34
  Speaker 1: places to just keep on building up that portfolio of
• 41:37
  Speaker 1: spots that I can either depend on or try out
• 41:41
  Speaker 1: new or at least you have places to hunt um,
• 41:43
  Speaker 1: whether it be private or public. But you know, without
• 41:46
  Speaker 1: getting ahead of ourselves in two thousand and seventeen too much,
• 41:49
  Speaker 1: that's definitely another lesson learned for me is you can
• 41:51
  Speaker 1: never have enough places to hunt, right and then and
• 41:55
  Speaker 1: then what you have here is over the years you
• 41:58
  Speaker 1: generate all these different property is where you have access
• 42:00
  Speaker 1: to hunt, whether they're two acres or their two acres.
• 42:04
  Speaker 1: Now what you have is options, Like we talked about
• 42:07
  Speaker 1: its options and options not about land, but about the
• 42:10
  Speaker 1: quality of bucks that you're chasing to. So you know,
• 42:13
  Speaker 1: for for two or three years, you're shooting a three
• 42:16
  Speaker 1: year old. Then you say to yourself, man, okay, my
• 42:18
  Speaker 1: goal is going to be a four year old. Well,
• 42:20
  Speaker 1: you have the property, you've put out the trail cameras,
• 42:23
  Speaker 1: or or you've done your homework or however however you
• 42:26
  Speaker 1: do your preseason scouting to determine what you know, what
• 42:29
  Speaker 1: your goal is. Then you can just leave other properties alone.
• 42:33
  Speaker 1: And like me, over the years, the properties that I
• 42:36
  Speaker 1: thought were good, I don't even There's properties that I
• 42:39
  Speaker 1: have access to that I don't even. I don't even
• 42:41
  Speaker 1: hunt anymore, right, yeah, and I think I think this
• 42:47
  Speaker 1: this applies. Uh. You know also the public land, which
• 42:51
  Speaker 1: was another big thing for me this year, you know,
• 42:52
  Speaker 1: going on that trip to Montana and totally spending my
• 42:55
  Speaker 1: time in public land out there was was it was
• 42:57
  Speaker 1: something I wanted to do going into this year. I
• 43:00
  Speaker 1: was kind of inspired last spring to to take more
• 43:03
  Speaker 1: of an effort to hunt public land. And I had
• 43:06
  Speaker 1: so much fun with that, and just the idea of it,
• 43:09
  Speaker 1: um kind of like captivated me that that's something that
• 43:11
  Speaker 1: moving forward, I'm going to try to continue doing because
• 43:14
  Speaker 1: it's it's a playground for trying new things, and it's it's,
• 43:18
  Speaker 1: you know, an inherently different challenge to um and I
• 43:21
  Speaker 1: think because of that, you can have a level of
• 43:24
  Speaker 1: satisfaction in that challenge at least taking on that challenge.
• 43:28
  Speaker 1: You know, that might be different than hunting a totally
• 43:30
  Speaker 1: managed farm, you know, hunting my manicured managed you know,
• 43:34
  Speaker 1: only me hunting a property. I might be disappointed if
• 43:37
  Speaker 1: I don't shoot the four year old or whatever it
• 43:39
  Speaker 1: might be, but hunting public land, you know, just having
• 43:42
  Speaker 1: an encounter with the three year old would be like, oh,
• 43:44
  Speaker 1: that was awesome. UM. So I think that was a
• 43:47
  Speaker 1: big thing that I learned is just that public land
• 43:50
  Speaker 1: is available and it's a lot of fun. Um. So
• 43:53
  Speaker 1: I plan on doing more of that. UM, I don't know,
• 43:57
  Speaker 1: you know, another thing, this is totally unrelated um, but
• 44:01
  Speaker 1: another thing, and well, let me take a step back.
• 44:07
  Speaker 1: Do you have anything more on that? Because I was
• 44:08
  Speaker 1: about to totally move on to something totally different than
• 44:11
  Speaker 1: just popped up head. Let's move on to something totally different,
• 44:13
  Speaker 1: because I think I've said all I needed to say,
• 44:15
  Speaker 1: so I was just going to continue moving on to
• 44:18
  Speaker 1: the other like lessons that I kind of picked up
• 44:20
  Speaker 1: or was reminded of this year. And I talked about
• 44:23
  Speaker 1: this a lot throughout the season, Like I mentioned that
• 44:25
  Speaker 1: I was doing this a lot, but it was just
• 44:26
  Speaker 1: like it was a change I made this year that
• 44:29
  Speaker 1: made one of the biggest differences in my season compared
• 44:32
  Speaker 1: to past and that was my exit strategy out of
• 44:35
  Speaker 1: tree stands. And I know that my situation was unique
• 44:38
  Speaker 1: because not everybody has a wife who would be willing
• 44:40
  Speaker 1: to pick them up. But by having my wife drive
• 44:44
  Speaker 1: my a TV out and pick me up from these
• 44:47
  Speaker 1: evening sits made a night and day difference in the
• 44:50
  Speaker 1: type of activity I have continued to see throughout the season.
• 44:54
  Speaker 1: So I would just I'm gonna do everything I can
• 44:56
  Speaker 1: to stay in the good graces of that woman so
• 44:58
  Speaker 1: that she will do this for me the future. And
• 45:01
  Speaker 1: if you don't have a wife who might be able
• 45:02
  Speaker 1: to do that, you know, pay a friend or buy
• 45:05
  Speaker 1: a buddy some beer, or save his life. So he owes.
• 45:08
  Speaker 1: You find out some way if you can, if you
• 45:11
  Speaker 1: hunt a property that's conducive to this, find a way
• 45:14
  Speaker 1: to get those places cleared out in the evening and
• 45:17
  Speaker 1: get yourself picked up so you're not spooking deer on
• 45:20
  Speaker 1: the way out. Because at least now, this isn't the
• 45:22
  Speaker 1: case for all properties, because some properties you can sneak
• 45:25
  Speaker 1: out of the timber where there's no deer at all,
• 45:26
  Speaker 1: and it's it's fine. I've got some spots I hunt
• 45:29
  Speaker 1: like that too, But this Michigan property, to get out
• 45:32
  Speaker 1: of that property you have to go through food sources
• 45:35
  Speaker 1: or near food sources. And so for years and years
• 45:37
  Speaker 1: and years, I was spooking dear every single night when
• 45:40
  Speaker 1: I came out, and I tried to change my exit route.
• 45:43
  Speaker 1: I cut a path through some tall grass. I thought,
• 45:46
  Speaker 1: might still, you know, save me. But I was still
• 45:48
  Speaker 1: spooking deer, and you would you would just see it.
• 45:51
  Speaker 1: You would see the activity decline every hunt, even though
• 45:54
  Speaker 1: I did everything else right. And this year, with the
• 45:58
  Speaker 1: a t V thing, I'm we talked about it. I
• 46:02
  Speaker 1: just do not think I would be seeing holy Field
• 46:04
  Speaker 1: as daylight active as he is over and over and
• 46:07
  Speaker 1: over and over if he had seen me walking out,
• 46:09
  Speaker 1: and then I know he would have if I was
• 46:11
  Speaker 1: walking out some of these nights, um or at least
• 46:14
  Speaker 1: all these does would and um and that just hasn't
• 46:17
  Speaker 1: been the case. I've been able to avoid that. I
• 46:18
  Speaker 1: don't I don't think I've spooked Dear physically with my
• 46:23
  Speaker 1: own you know, me walking out or stepping up, climbing
• 46:26
  Speaker 1: out of a tree stand more than maybe once this season,
• 46:29
  Speaker 1: as I'm trying to think of this off the top
• 46:30
  Speaker 1: of my head, compared to you know, I'm sure many
• 46:32
  Speaker 1: other times in the past. So that's something that you know,
• 46:36
  Speaker 1: we know what we talked about all the time. Entry next,
• 46:38
  Speaker 1: it's important. But this was like one of those eye
• 46:40
  Speaker 1: opening examples where I made a significant change and it
• 46:44
  Speaker 1: made a significant difference than what I saw and that
• 46:46
  Speaker 1: was just like a big aha for me. And you know,
• 46:48
  Speaker 1: it's not possible for everybody to have that, but man,
• 46:51
  Speaker 1: it sure was worthwhile if if you can try to
• 46:54
  Speaker 1: finangle something like that, right right, hey man? Uh, this
• 46:58
  Speaker 1: year I watched abetted to two year old, maybe a
• 47:02
  Speaker 1: three year old just not even move when a guy
• 47:07
  Speaker 1: started combining in his corn so and he was probably, oh,
• 47:12
  Speaker 1: i'd say, a hundred yards off the cornfield. We're sitting
• 47:16
  Speaker 1: at a triangle. Let's just put it. Use triangle as
• 47:19
  Speaker 1: an example. One point was the combine guy one or
• 47:22
  Speaker 1: the combined one point was me, and another point was
• 47:24
  Speaker 1: the betted buck. And they didn't He didn't even move.
• 47:28
  Speaker 1: He didn't even look like he was paying attention to it.
• 47:31
  Speaker 1: So that tells you right there that they're not. Depending
• 47:36
  Speaker 1: on where you are in the in the country, uh,
• 47:40
  Speaker 1: they're not. They're not going to be spooked by that
• 47:42
  Speaker 1: at all. Now in Kansas, where my uncle hunts any car,
• 47:48
  Speaker 1: any truck, they're gone because so many people shoot out
• 47:51
  Speaker 1: of their windows down down in his area. But um,
• 47:55
  Speaker 1: but for me, I've noticed that you know, what you're
• 47:58
  Speaker 1: saying is is true? Done tree case. Yeah, and and
• 48:02
  Speaker 1: and even in these cases, you are spooking the deer.
• 48:06
  Speaker 1: You know, it's better to spook the deer in a
• 48:08
  Speaker 1: vehicle than as a person because they're used to a vehicle.
• 48:12
  Speaker 1: That's something like okay that I don't want to be
• 48:14
  Speaker 1: near it. But it's not going to scare the crap
• 48:16
  Speaker 1: out of me. I'll come back out in twenty minutes,
• 48:18
  Speaker 1: versus a human being walking by that's not supposed to
• 48:22
  Speaker 1: be there. Um right, So I think even getting spooked
• 48:24
  Speaker 1: by vehicle or an a TV is a better spook
• 48:26
  Speaker 1: than seeing a human being out there. So it's a
• 48:29
  Speaker 1: simple thing. But um, that one made a big difference.
• 48:32
  Speaker 1: But anything else this year, anything else in two thousand
• 48:36
  Speaker 1: and sixteen that you think we should talk about for
• 48:38
  Speaker 1: a year season or my season or anything. Well, you
• 48:41
  Speaker 1: know how last year, Uh, they logged that property and
• 48:44
  Speaker 1: I was very disappointed with you know, they were in
• 48:47
  Speaker 1: there in October and then the ruts sucked because all
• 48:50
  Speaker 1: the deer were pushed out by the time they were
• 48:52
  Speaker 1: done logging. Um, this year it recovered and I've noticed
• 48:57
  Speaker 1: some serious even in this one this eight month period,
• 49:02
  Speaker 1: really good growth hit that forest floor or sunlight hit
• 49:06
  Speaker 1: that forest floor. Some of these weeds started growing up
• 49:08
  Speaker 1: thick and nasty. So I just I'm really excited for
• 49:13
  Speaker 1: even next year where some of the area areas are
• 49:16
  Speaker 1: even more thick and nasty. So, um, I can see
• 49:21
  Speaker 1: where some of this uh, this timber stained improvement you know,
• 49:25
  Speaker 1: letting some of these dropping some trees and letting some
• 49:28
  Speaker 1: some light get to the forest floor could improve improve
• 49:32
  Speaker 1: your deer herd numbers. Heck yeah, I improves the cover
• 49:35
  Speaker 1: and food. Um man, that kind of stuff is is
• 49:39
  Speaker 1: great And that actually kind of leads me to some
• 49:42
  Speaker 1: of my thoughts for two sev um, because there's a
• 49:45
  Speaker 1: lot of stuff I've already been thinking about, like all
• 49:47
  Speaker 1: the different changes I want to make, whether it be
• 49:49
  Speaker 1: with my strategy or two properties um because two Seen
• 49:54
  Speaker 1: is gonna be a big year. But you know what,
• 49:56
  Speaker 1: do you realize that we have just about finished up
• 49:58
  Speaker 1: our third hunting season together as co host on this podcast.
• 50:03
  Speaker 1: I know, man, I was, I was thinking about that
• 50:05
  Speaker 1: the other day. That's it. I don't know. I just
• 50:09
  Speaker 1: I love I love talking about this. It doesn't even
• 50:11
  Speaker 1: seem like we've been doing it this long because I
• 50:14
  Speaker 1: just have. I have so much fun doing it. Yeah,
• 50:17
  Speaker 1: we've We've told a lot of stories, we've talked, We've
• 50:21
  Speaker 1: you know, I've had a lot of hunting buddies. But
• 50:22
  Speaker 1: I think given this podcast, I don't think anybody has
• 50:25
  Speaker 1: has I don't think I've talked to anybody about my
• 50:28
  Speaker 1: hunting season more than you. Well, remember we have thousands
• 50:33
  Speaker 1: and thousands of listeners who listen to this podcast, so
• 50:35
  Speaker 1: you're not just talking to me. That's a good point.
• 50:39
  Speaker 1: I didn't think about that. But you're the only one
• 50:43
  Speaker 1: who talks back at least at least nicely, right, So
• 50:49
  Speaker 1: two thousand and seventeen man excited. Actually don't answer that, Dan.
• 50:54
  Speaker 1: Let's take a second for a last break today to
• 50:56
  Speaker 1: thank our partners at Maven Optics. And Maven is a
• 51:00
  Speaker 1: small high end optics company that not only produces the
• 51:02
  Speaker 1: best set of binoculars I've ever owned, but it's also
• 51:05
  Speaker 1: a company that is a story that I just love.
• 51:08
  Speaker 1: And one of Maven's co founders, Brendan Weaver, chatted me
• 51:11
  Speaker 1: earlier this year about what it felt like to have
• 51:14
  Speaker 1: this dream of creating and selling better binoculars and optics
• 51:17
  Speaker 1: in a in a just widely different way and actually
• 51:20
  Speaker 1: see that dream come to fruition. That's crazy, you know,
• 51:25
  Speaker 1: it's you know, having worked for a big corporation, it's
• 51:33
  Speaker 1: like it never feels personal, even though if you're you know,
• 51:36
  Speaker 1: you make something, you draw it up and that's you know,
• 51:39
  Speaker 1: that's what I do. The design where you draw something
• 51:41
  Speaker 1: up and then you see it on the shelf. There
• 51:43
  Speaker 1: were always so many more, you know, opinions that would
• 51:48
  Speaker 1: end at all, we can't use that color because such
• 51:50
  Speaker 1: and such store doesn't like that color. But when it's
• 51:54
  Speaker 1: completely yours and you see it go from like you
• 51:57
  Speaker 1: said that, that conversation around the campfire, two, that first order,
• 52:03
  Speaker 1: you know, it's it's it was pretty special. You know.
• 52:08
  Speaker 1: You hope, you hope a ton of sales followed, but
• 52:12
  Speaker 1: it's like, hey man, we sold going it works, you know,
• 52:15
  Speaker 1: it's hype five. Luckily for us, it didn't just end it.
• 52:20
  Speaker 1: You know, it's selling our first binocular. But yeah, it
• 52:22
  Speaker 1: was pretty you know, and we we live in a
• 52:24
  Speaker 1: tiny town in Wyoming, and so it's it's pretty cool
• 52:28
  Speaker 1: to compete against these these big players in the optics
• 52:32
  Speaker 1: world and we're you know, right now, we're four guys.
• 52:36
  Speaker 1: We just hired our first employee in January, so it
• 52:39
  Speaker 1: was just three of them working here in Lander, and
• 52:43
  Speaker 1: that's a pretty pretty big deal here. It was, it was,
• 52:47
  Speaker 1: it was special when that happened. That's awesome. And I
• 52:50
  Speaker 1: gotta say, if you're in the market for a new
• 52:52
  Speaker 1: set of binos or spotting scope, maybe is an option
• 52:56
  Speaker 1: that you just got to check out. So if you're interested,
• 52:59
  Speaker 1: you can fully customize them by directly from Maven by
• 53:02
  Speaker 1: visiting maven built dot com. And with that, let's get
• 53:06
  Speaker 1: back to the show and dance. Thoughts on two thousand seventeen.
• 53:10
  Speaker 1: You have no idea, Like, I'm excited on so many
• 53:15
  Speaker 1: different levels. Um, I'm so excited for it that it's
• 53:21
  Speaker 1: hard for me to you know, Okay, so check this out.
• 53:25
  Speaker 1: You know they say that at the average guy thinks
• 53:28
  Speaker 1: about sex like once everything every seconds or whatever that whatever,
• 53:32
  Speaker 1: that that number is. Okay, So now add deer hunting
• 53:39
  Speaker 1: and hunting and plans for two thousand and seventeen into that. Like,
• 53:44
  Speaker 1: so all I'm doing about now, I feel like it's
• 53:46
  Speaker 1: thinking about sex and like I'm not even thinking about
• 53:50
  Speaker 1: anything else. Don't forget to take a crap and eat
• 53:54
  Speaker 1: some food every once while though, two right, right, right,
• 53:57
  Speaker 1: But you've got the important stuff covered, so you're gonna
• 53:59
  Speaker 1: be okay this year. Here we are, right, I'm I'm
• 54:03
  Speaker 1: pumped too. I'm super pumped too. It's uh, you have
• 54:07
  Speaker 1: it's the decision you made to pass holy Field and
• 54:11
  Speaker 1: not to go after him anymore. It's just it's just
• 54:16
  Speaker 1: a trail leading right into two thousand and seventeen. Oh
• 54:19
  Speaker 1: I know, and uh, it's it's got me see. And
• 54:23
  Speaker 1: I don't want to talk about this too much because
• 54:25
  Speaker 1: I think we've talked about so much. But um, but
• 54:28
  Speaker 1: I felt so good just making that decision because of
• 54:31
  Speaker 1: this excitement I knew I was going to have for seventeen.
• 54:33
  Speaker 1: And I think if I had shot holy Field it
• 54:35
  Speaker 1: would have been great. But I would have entered this
• 54:37
  Speaker 1: new year, you know, with not with Harley as much
• 54:41
  Speaker 1: to be excited about. There's no other bocks on this
• 54:44
  Speaker 1: property that I would be interested in hunting that I've seen.
• 54:46
  Speaker 1: There's nothing I have history with left. Um, there wouldn't
• 54:49
  Speaker 1: be this history that I've come to find. Is so,
• 54:52
  Speaker 1: you know, interesting and fun to add to a hunt. Um,
• 54:58
  Speaker 1: And now you know, now I don't know last night
• 55:02
  Speaker 1: this is I'm being I'm being overly paranoid here. But
• 55:06
  Speaker 1: last night, like I told you, I saw him, and um,
• 55:10
  Speaker 1: it's it's both season only for bucks right now, but
• 55:12
  Speaker 1: there is a late dough season going on with firearms,
• 55:15
  Speaker 1: so you could shoot a dough with a gun, but
• 55:17
  Speaker 1: you can only shoot a buck with a bow. Well,
• 55:20
  Speaker 1: last night, I'm watching holy Field a couple of hundred
• 55:22
  Speaker 1: yards away, and then eventually, I don't know, like five
• 55:25
  Speaker 1: o'clock or something, he goes feeding off two into the timber,
• 55:29
  Speaker 1: but heading towards the south, kind of towards a neighboring property.
• 55:33
  Speaker 1: And maybe half hour later or something, I heard a
• 55:38
  Speaker 1: huge old gun shot. They had to be next door, um,
• 55:42
  Speaker 1: very nearby one of the neighboring properties. Somebody shot a
• 55:44
  Speaker 1: deer over there, and I would like to think that, um,
• 55:49
  Speaker 1: you know, they just shot a dough But the fact
• 55:51
  Speaker 1: that I had seen holy Field walk in that direction,
• 55:54
  Speaker 1: now this is he's still he would still have been,
• 55:56
  Speaker 1: you know, hundreds of yards away from that property or
• 55:58
  Speaker 1: farther away. So I know it's unlikely someone's gonna illegally
• 56:02
  Speaker 1: shoot this buck. It's it's unlikely he even made it
• 56:05
  Speaker 1: over there. But it's still like I got concerned. But um,
• 56:10
  Speaker 1: but assuming that didn't happen, he makes it through these
• 56:13
  Speaker 1: next couple of nights, you know it happened. You know,
• 56:16
  Speaker 1: I've got three more days left of the season, and uh,
• 56:20
  Speaker 1: you know the fact that he made this far I
• 56:21
  Speaker 1: think it just was proof again to me myself, just
• 56:24
  Speaker 1: that I made the right decision, and man, I'm so
• 56:28
  Speaker 1: pumped to get out there and look for sheds. Um
• 56:31
  Speaker 1: it's gonna be like the shed hunting super Bowl for me.
• 56:35
  Speaker 1: There there's never been a buck. I think to this
• 56:37
  Speaker 1: point that I would have wanted to find his sheds
• 56:39
  Speaker 1: as much as this one. So super stoked about that.
• 56:43
  Speaker 1: And then you know, I'm already I've already been thinking
• 56:45
  Speaker 1: through all sorts of ideas about what I want to
• 56:47
  Speaker 1: do differently hunting him next year. You know what I
• 56:49
  Speaker 1: learned from this year and what's been kind of cool
• 56:51
  Speaker 1: about this deer is because I've had so many encounters,
• 56:54
  Speaker 1: so many pictures, just the number of data points I
• 56:58
  Speaker 1: have that I can kind of plug in to this
• 57:00
  Speaker 1: whole like formula of trying to figure out, like I
• 57:02
  Speaker 1: have an immense amount of data. So I just love,
• 57:05
  Speaker 1: you know, like you and I both we love looking
• 57:07
  Speaker 1: at all this stuff and thinking about, Okay, what's the
• 57:09
  Speaker 1: pattern here, what's the why did he go here? Then?
• 57:13
  Speaker 1: Why did he move this way? Then I've got so
• 57:15
  Speaker 1: many different pieces I can look at now that I
• 57:19
  Speaker 1: can't tell you if I'll figure anything out, but at
• 57:20
  Speaker 1: least have fun trying to which which I think is
• 57:24
  Speaker 1: half of it or more than that half of it.
• 57:25
  Speaker 1: So I know that I'm going to be, you know,
• 57:29
  Speaker 1: just studying like my deer lab and my little notebook
• 57:33
  Speaker 1: I have with every single encounter I have with him,
• 57:36
  Speaker 1: where he was the wind direction, I'm gonna start pulling
• 57:39
  Speaker 1: in the moon phase and very much of pressure into
• 57:41
  Speaker 1: that log. And and then I have just trying to
• 57:43
  Speaker 1: extrapolate some type of learning from this. And like you know,
• 57:47
  Speaker 1: I thought i'd learned some things about him from last
• 57:49
  Speaker 1: year to this year. UM, and I made some changes
• 57:52
  Speaker 1: and still you know, I had some close calls. I
• 57:54
  Speaker 1: was definitely seeing him, but I never quite was able
• 57:57
  Speaker 1: to close the deal. So now in seventeen and I'm like, okay,
• 58:00
  Speaker 1: now I want to tweak this. I'm gonna pull back
• 58:02
  Speaker 1: here on a push here. UM, I want to I
• 58:05
  Speaker 1: want to try to make some property improvements. UM. You know,
• 58:09
  Speaker 1: one of the things on this property is that he
• 58:11
  Speaker 1: doesn't seem to bet on the farming hunt a lot.
• 58:13
  Speaker 1: He seems that there's one little spot that he beds occasionally,
• 58:15
  Speaker 1: but it seems like he's betting on neighboring properties a
• 58:18
  Speaker 1: little bit more. UM. I think the one reason why
• 58:20
  Speaker 1: I was getting the potential to get shots, you know,
• 58:22
  Speaker 1: the one chance I could have shot H with the
• 58:24
  Speaker 1: muzload the other day. And now in the late season,
• 58:26
  Speaker 1: a lot has been because of the food sources I
• 58:28
  Speaker 1: put in. So the food has been very, very very important.
• 58:31
  Speaker 1: So I want to make sure what can I do
• 58:32
  Speaker 1: to improve those food sources even more and to change
• 58:35
  Speaker 1: the times of year he's in there or improve the
• 58:38
  Speaker 1: amount of time he's in there. Um, And I'm thinking like,
• 58:41
  Speaker 1: where can I improve cover? How can I get him
• 58:43
  Speaker 1: to bed on my property more often? How can I
• 58:45
  Speaker 1: get him to come over the property line a little
• 58:47
  Speaker 1: bit further so he might be in range and feel
• 58:49
  Speaker 1: more comfortable. So I'm thinking about how can I extend
• 58:51
  Speaker 1: cover onto my side of the line, maybe push my
• 58:54
  Speaker 1: food plots deeper into my property instead of closer to
• 58:57
  Speaker 1: property borders. I don't know, There's a whole bunch of
• 58:59
  Speaker 1: stuff like that that I'm starting to just like brainstorm
• 59:01
  Speaker 1: about that. You know, what can I how can I
• 59:05
  Speaker 1: just slim the odds a little bit more? In my
• 59:07
  Speaker 1: favorite I'm just gonna kind of in two thousand and seventeen,
• 59:11
  Speaker 1: my goal on this property where he is is to
• 59:14
  Speaker 1: take everything I've been doing and just crank up the
• 59:18
  Speaker 1: level of detail even more. So I'm gonna go back
• 59:20
  Speaker 1: to every one of my tree stands that I've hunted
• 59:22
  Speaker 1: this year, and I'm going to add cover to all
• 59:24
  Speaker 1: of them. I'm going to if I need to shift
• 59:27
  Speaker 1: four feet over, I'm going to do it this year.
• 59:29
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna just because there's I've invested so much in
• 59:35
  Speaker 1: this hunt and I'm so excited to hopefully Bill hunt
• 59:37
  Speaker 1: him in two thousand and seventeen. I don't want to
• 59:39
  Speaker 1: leave any stone unturned. So I'm just going to I'm
• 59:42
  Speaker 1: gonna go into this and it's all gonna be spring.
• 59:43
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna have everything done by like April. My goal
• 59:46
  Speaker 1: is this year. So I think he said that last
• 59:51
  Speaker 1: year too, well I did I did better last year.
• 59:54
  Speaker 1: But this year I'm gonna do really good. Okay, this
• 59:57
  Speaker 1: year is gonna be much better. Um But you're right.
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 1: Every year in the winter we have these grand ideas.
• 1:00:03
  Speaker 1: But um but I have to I have to follow
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 1: through this year even more completely. Um So I'm just
• 1:00:10
  Speaker 1: I know I'm gonna be going in the next year,
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 1: assuming assuming I get pictures of here in the next
• 1:00:14
  Speaker 1: couple of days. He's still alive. Hopefully it's gonna be
• 1:00:17
  Speaker 1: a new level of excitement that I don't think I've
• 1:00:19
  Speaker 1: had on this specific place before, which, um, which I'm
• 1:00:23
  Speaker 1: really pumped about. So so I don't know, Yeah, property adjustments,
• 1:00:28
  Speaker 1: you know, the one other thing when it comes to
• 1:00:29
  Speaker 1: that hunt. Um. And I'm skipping ahead maybe and how
• 1:00:34
  Speaker 1: I thought we were going to talk about this stuff,
• 1:00:35
  Speaker 1: but I'm kind of getting into some of the things
• 1:00:37
  Speaker 1: I want to change for next year and some of
• 1:00:39
  Speaker 1: like my New Year's resolutions. Um. And so one of
• 1:00:41
  Speaker 1: my big resolutions is just to take like I just said,
• 1:00:44
  Speaker 1: I'm taking everything up a notch on this property. Um.
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 1: But not only with you know, tweaking stands and food
• 1:00:52
  Speaker 1: plots and adding more cover and all that kind of stuff,
• 1:00:55
  Speaker 1: but also with my timing. Um. And you know, I'm
• 1:00:59
  Speaker 1: obsessive about my I'm and we talked about this all
• 1:01:01
  Speaker 1: the time. I try to be really careful. But this year,
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 1: you know, and we talked about this a touch, but
• 1:01:07
  Speaker 1: I think you know, I went in with the original
• 1:01:09
  Speaker 1: goal of hunting him the first couple of nights of
• 1:01:11
  Speaker 1: the season and then staying out until like the beginning
• 1:01:15
  Speaker 1: of the pre run. So staying out until late October. Right,
• 1:01:19
  Speaker 1: But because of these cold friends that were coming through,
• 1:01:24
  Speaker 1: and because of one sighting and a couple of trail
• 1:01:26
  Speaker 1: care pictures, I go out of him that indicated that
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 1: he was moving in daylight a little bit. I kept
• 1:01:31
  Speaker 1: hunting throughout October. So I hunted the first weekend, and
• 1:01:34
  Speaker 1: then I hunted the second weekend, and then I hunted
• 1:01:36
  Speaker 1: the third weekend. Um, And I kept doing it and
• 1:01:39
  Speaker 1: telling myself, well, you're doing it because he was daylight
• 1:01:42
  Speaker 1: active a couple yards from here, or you saw him
• 1:01:45
  Speaker 1: one night, and um, and all that. You know, I think,
• 1:01:48
  Speaker 1: in most instances usually is a good sign and reason
• 1:01:52
  Speaker 1: to go hunt. But on the other hand, I think
• 1:01:56
  Speaker 1: to myself, if I had not, if I had just
• 1:01:58
  Speaker 1: let him let it. Even though I got a picture
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 1: of him on the fifteenth in daylight, even though I
• 1:02:03
  Speaker 1: saw him in daylight on the eighth way off in
• 1:02:06
  Speaker 1: the distance, um, he wasn't moving a ton during daylight
• 1:02:10
  Speaker 1: at that time of year. If I had waited until
• 1:02:12
  Speaker 1: October twenty to hunt there again, I bet you he
• 1:02:15
  Speaker 1: would have been much more likely to be within range
• 1:02:18
  Speaker 1: when I finally did going to hunt him on or
• 1:02:22
  Speaker 1: or the third rather than what the situation was, which
• 1:02:25
  Speaker 1: was when I went and hunted him on the twenty,
• 1:02:27
  Speaker 1: you know, after I had hunt him the eighth, ninth
• 1:02:29
  Speaker 1: and the sixteen and the sette. I saw him some
• 1:02:37
  Speaker 1: of those times, but he was always out of range.
• 1:02:38
  Speaker 1: He was always back in the cover. And I think
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 1: if I had been a little bit more careful and
• 1:02:43
  Speaker 1: resisted the urge to hunt, I think maybe he would
• 1:02:45
  Speaker 1: have been within range on my side of the line
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 1: a couple of those times. Um. So this year, I
• 1:02:51
  Speaker 1: think I'm gonna attack early like I planned, but then
• 1:02:55
  Speaker 1: resist the temptation to go full bore until he you know,
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 1: who knows. Things might change, but I'm gonna try, and
• 1:03:03
  Speaker 1: at least I'm gonna be going into the season thinking
• 1:03:05
  Speaker 1: about the idea of laying off him completely again until
• 1:03:08
  Speaker 1: he gets ready. Because when he got ready, he was
• 1:03:11
  Speaker 1: very vulnerable. I think he was just vulnerable in the
• 1:03:14
  Speaker 1: wrong places for me. Um, And if I had been
• 1:03:18
  Speaker 1: a little bit careful, I think he maybe would have
• 1:03:20
  Speaker 1: been a little bit, a little bit more within my reach.
• 1:03:23
  Speaker 1: And then secondly, you know, the other thing is that
• 1:03:25
  Speaker 1: once he did get ready, and once he was really
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 1: active and I was seeing him every day. There was
• 1:03:29
  Speaker 1: a couple of times there where I saw him move
• 1:03:31
  Speaker 1: somewhere and I could have hunted it, and I didn't
• 1:03:33
  Speaker 1: move to hunt there because I thought the spot looks
• 1:03:35
  Speaker 1: stupid and I was like, that seems like a dumb place.
• 1:03:37
  Speaker 1: I don't think I'll ever go there again. But if
• 1:03:39
  Speaker 1: I had moved, I would have killed him the next day.
• 1:03:42
  Speaker 1: And then I was like, well, and I didn't move,
• 1:03:45
  Speaker 1: and then he he scooted out there one more time.
• 1:03:48
  Speaker 1: And so there was two times where I could have
• 1:03:51
  Speaker 1: believed my eyes and made the adjustment, but it didn't. Um.
• 1:03:54
  Speaker 1: So next year, I'm going to have a stand in
• 1:03:56
  Speaker 1: this spot where I wish I would have. And then
• 1:03:59
  Speaker 1: I'm also not going to be afraid to make you know.
• 1:04:02
  Speaker 1: And I think every year we talked about this, and
• 1:04:03
  Speaker 1: every year I get a little better, Like I was
• 1:04:05
  Speaker 1: definitely more aggressive in different places this year in certain ways. UM,
• 1:04:09
  Speaker 1: But I think there's you know, It's it's constantly figuring
• 1:04:12
  Speaker 1: out where's the line. There's always that balance beam you
• 1:04:15
  Speaker 1: have to walk in between being conservative and being careful
• 1:04:18
  Speaker 1: and not putting pressure unduly versus knowing when to take
• 1:04:22
  Speaker 1: the jump. And I'm constantly getting better at that, but
• 1:04:24
  Speaker 1: I think this year, I know I can take one
• 1:04:27
  Speaker 1: more step now, right, Yeah, that's gonna I feel. I
• 1:04:33
  Speaker 1: almost feel that same way. However, I think for for
• 1:04:38
  Speaker 1: a guy like me and you who look at the
• 1:04:42
  Speaker 1: data that you had, and what I mean by data
• 1:04:44
  Speaker 1: is true camer pictures and sidings, I I don't think
• 1:04:48
  Speaker 1: you really made a mistake on holy Field to the
• 1:04:52
  Speaker 1: point where I feel that you m that because he
• 1:04:58
  Speaker 1: was out of range isn't necessarily because you screwed it
• 1:05:03
  Speaker 1: up fair enough. I mean, I always had a good
• 1:05:09
  Speaker 1: reason to go hunt. I will say that, like every
• 1:05:12
  Speaker 1: night that I went in there, I could justify it
• 1:05:14
  Speaker 1: to myself, which is why I kept doing it. Like
• 1:05:16
  Speaker 1: I was okay the second weekend, I'm only gonna hunt
• 1:05:19
  Speaker 1: now because there's a fifteen gree temperature drop and I
• 1:05:22
  Speaker 1: saw him in daylight, you know, on camera three days
• 1:05:24
  Speaker 1: ago and the bare match, so I was like, Okay,
• 1:05:27
  Speaker 1: I know I didn't want to do this, this wasn't
• 1:05:28
  Speaker 1: the plan, but X, Y and Z are really making
• 1:05:31
  Speaker 1: me think you should, and so I went, um, so,
• 1:05:36
  Speaker 1: so yeah, I don't know. I thought I had a
• 1:05:38
  Speaker 1: good reason to do it whenever I did. But you know, it,
• 1:05:42
  Speaker 1: I never did have him been arranged except for that
• 1:05:44
  Speaker 1: one time. Um so, so yeah, I mean it could
• 1:05:47
  Speaker 1: have been unlucky. And I did everything that I could
• 1:05:50
  Speaker 1: have done right, and I just did the opportunities to
• 1:05:53
  Speaker 1: present itself or and I don't mean to you know,
• 1:05:56
  Speaker 1: it is what it is. But my property just is
• 1:05:59
  Speaker 1: not you know, it's it's a secondary property compared to
• 1:06:02
  Speaker 1: where he's hanging out most of the time. Um so
• 1:06:06
  Speaker 1: he if I could hunt this other property a couple
• 1:06:08
  Speaker 1: of well really another property and a half, like holy smokes,
• 1:06:12
  Speaker 1: Like I feel like this would have a big game
• 1:06:14
  Speaker 1: over but I'm kind of stuck hunting the edge and
• 1:06:18
  Speaker 1: I'm making sure probably not the best idea. But yeah,
• 1:06:25
  Speaker 1: don't listen to me. No, I typically don't. But but
• 1:06:30
  Speaker 1: but yeah, you know, it's you know, making the most
• 1:06:33
  Speaker 1: of what I got. Um but I definitely, I definitely
• 1:06:38
  Speaker 1: have wrestled with what you just said, like and I
• 1:06:41
  Speaker 1: didn't make a mistake, did not make a mistake. I
• 1:06:43
  Speaker 1: don't know, but I don't know what it's all said
• 1:06:47
  Speaker 1: and done. I will have learned something from this. I
• 1:06:50
  Speaker 1: can't quit put my finger on exactly what the lesson is.
• 1:06:52
  Speaker 1: I'm trying to like kind of figure it out still,
• 1:06:55
  Speaker 1: but um, it's been an interesting experience, that's for sure.
• 1:07:00
  Speaker 1: I hope it all works out. Man, Yeah, me too.
• 1:07:02
  Speaker 1: What about you? What uh that? That's one of the
• 1:07:05
  Speaker 1: things I'm going to two thousand sevent wanting to do.
• 1:07:08
  Speaker 1: And there's a couple more things. But what what do
• 1:07:10
  Speaker 1: you got any any big resolutions? Any big changes? I got?
• 1:07:15
  Speaker 1: I got a handful of things, right. Um. This first
• 1:07:20
  Speaker 1: one sounds really cliche, but I mean all the you know,
• 1:07:27
  Speaker 1: you see those guys on Instagram and they're they're lifting
• 1:07:30
  Speaker 1: weights and they're you know, like, oh, I'm a I'm
• 1:07:33
  Speaker 1: an athletic hunter. I I do cross fit and I
• 1:07:36
  Speaker 1: do all these things and it helps me hunt. Well,
• 1:07:40
  Speaker 1: this sounds cliche, but I'm going on in Elk Hunt
• 1:07:44
  Speaker 1: in Colorado this next year, and I want to be
• 1:07:49
  Speaker 1: in the best possible shape that I can be in.
• 1:07:53
  Speaker 1: So that means I'm gonna have to change my diet
• 1:07:55
  Speaker 1: and I'm gonna have to work out really hard the
• 1:07:58
  Speaker 1: spring this summer leading up into September. So that's that's
• 1:08:03
  Speaker 1: the first kind of New Year's resolution. And now I
• 1:08:06
  Speaker 1: trained hard. I I thought I trained pretty hard going
• 1:08:11
  Speaker 1: into our Idaho trip that one year and it's still
• 1:08:15
  Speaker 1: kicked my butt. So granted, there's not a lot you
• 1:08:19
  Speaker 1: can do when I live at four sea level and
• 1:08:24
  Speaker 1: I'm trying to hunt in nine thou feet, right, there's
• 1:08:28
  Speaker 1: nothing you can do. There's no way to really simulate
• 1:08:30
  Speaker 1: that or train that. But I felt that there was
• 1:08:33
  Speaker 1: more things I could do for my cardio, there was
• 1:08:35
  Speaker 1: more things I could do for the way that I trained.
• 1:08:38
  Speaker 1: My diet had a real shitty diet. So I'm going
• 1:08:41
  Speaker 1: to really focus and train to basically train to hunt
• 1:08:47
  Speaker 1: that that that kind of scenario. So I like that,
• 1:08:50
  Speaker 1: Can I can I offer a piece of advice? Yes?
• 1:08:54
  Speaker 1: And this was this is something I've always thought, but
• 1:08:56
  Speaker 1: it was um. It was reiterated by Steve Ronnella and
• 1:09:01
  Speaker 1: Remy Warren on the Meat Eater podcast a few weeks back.
• 1:09:05
  Speaker 1: They were talking about this. They were answering listener questions
• 1:09:07
  Speaker 1: on their podcast, Steve's Podcast, and um, somebody had asked,
• 1:09:11
  Speaker 1: you know, how do you go from being a Midwesterner
• 1:09:13
  Speaker 1: to physically prepare for your first mountain hunt? And they
• 1:09:17
  Speaker 1: were talking about the fact that you see all these
• 1:09:18
  Speaker 1: people like you just said on Instagram who are lifting
• 1:09:21
  Speaker 1: weights and try and get ripped. And they're talking about
• 1:09:24
  Speaker 1: how you know, you know, whatever it is. You know,
• 1:09:26
  Speaker 1: the people I'm talking about, they're just their necks are
• 1:09:29
  Speaker 1: bigger than their net goes out past their ears and
• 1:09:31
  Speaker 1: all this kind of stuff. Um. And they were talking
• 1:09:33
  Speaker 1: about the fact that you don't need to do that.
• 1:09:36
  Speaker 1: That's not the kind of thing that's really gonna help
• 1:09:38
  Speaker 1: you on an elk hunt or something. Um. A lot
• 1:09:41
  Speaker 1: of that stuff way overkill. You're wasting your time on
• 1:09:43
  Speaker 1: certain things and kind of your the the oom muscle
• 1:09:47
  Speaker 1: groups and stuff that make you look good in the
• 1:09:48
  Speaker 1: beach aren't really gonna be what's gonna matter in the
• 1:09:51
  Speaker 1: mountains when you're hunting elk. And they said the most
• 1:09:54
  Speaker 1: important thing you can do. And these are guys that
• 1:09:56
  Speaker 1: have hunted and done about West a Ton and now myself,
• 1:10:00
  Speaker 1: I've done a ton of backpacking and hiking out there,
• 1:10:02
  Speaker 1: and I've hunted now four or five years out there. Um,
• 1:10:04
  Speaker 1: I think the very most important thing to do. And
• 1:10:06
  Speaker 1: what they said to was just put a pack on
• 1:10:10
  Speaker 1: your back and walk a ship ton. Yeah, and just
• 1:10:14
  Speaker 1: do that a lot leading up to it. Where are
• 1:10:16
  Speaker 1: your hiking boots? Put a heavy pack on your back
• 1:10:19
  Speaker 1: and just walk, whether it be on a treadmill incline,
• 1:10:22
  Speaker 1: or whether it be up and down the twenty hill
• 1:10:24
  Speaker 1: behind your house or whatever it is. Nothing can simulate
• 1:10:28
  Speaker 1: that type of thing and prepare you for that type
• 1:10:30
  Speaker 1: of thing than just actually doing it over and over
• 1:10:32
  Speaker 1: doing a bunch of squads or leg lifts or whatever.
• 1:10:36
  Speaker 1: That's help. But just walk, walk where a pack and
• 1:10:42
  Speaker 1: uh and and don't get too focused on making your
• 1:10:46
  Speaker 1: packs look good. Dan, Right, Well, I was going more
• 1:10:50
  Speaker 1: for the glutes. Selfies in my glutes and uh, my
• 1:10:54
  Speaker 1: lower abs, I need my lower abs needs some work,
• 1:10:57
  Speaker 1: so I I don't know to say that, but it
• 1:11:04
  Speaker 1: doesn't matter, but that's that's my goal. I just need
• 1:11:06
  Speaker 1: to get in better shape. And you know, and yeah,
• 1:11:12
  Speaker 1: you know, doing that is right, but I need to
• 1:11:14
  Speaker 1: lose weight to and because pounds our pounds, right, and
• 1:11:20
  Speaker 1: pounds on my gut or pounds on my knees and
• 1:11:22
  Speaker 1: and and pounds on my legs that I don't necessarily
• 1:11:25
  Speaker 1: need to be carrying, you know, while I'm up in
• 1:11:27
  Speaker 1: the mountains, so I need to drop some LB's too. Yeah, man,
• 1:11:32
  Speaker 1: I think so many people, you know, plan this whole
• 1:11:35
  Speaker 1: hunt going out west or whatever it is, and they
• 1:11:38
  Speaker 1: put so much money and time and everything, but if
• 1:11:41
  Speaker 1: you don't physically prepare for it, you know what in
• 1:11:44
  Speaker 1: the world to do? Prepare with the money and the
• 1:11:46
  Speaker 1: time and the gear and all that kind of stuff,
• 1:11:48
  Speaker 1: because you know, as you saw, that's going to be
• 1:11:51
  Speaker 1: a limiting factor for most people. Can you just hoof
• 1:11:53
  Speaker 1: it up the next hill? Can you survive it? It's
• 1:11:56
  Speaker 1: not easy? Nope. Other than that. Man like, so, I
• 1:12:03
  Speaker 1: got this little idea in my head, and uh, my goal,
• 1:12:08
  Speaker 1: and this might be a two thou seventeen eighteen type deal,
• 1:12:12
  Speaker 1: is to find and buy enough property to be to
• 1:12:19
  Speaker 1: get my second Iowa landowner's tag. That's exciting. Yes, sorry ahead,
• 1:12:27
  Speaker 1: I was gonna say, can you can you adjust that
• 1:12:29
  Speaker 1: just a little bit? What do you mean adjusted? Adjust
• 1:12:33
  Speaker 1: that goal just a little bit? So find and buy
• 1:12:37
  Speaker 1: enough property so you can get a landowner's tag and
• 1:12:40
  Speaker 1: have enough room for your friend Mark to hunt. I'll
• 1:12:45
  Speaker 1: tell you what if I could, If I could, I
• 1:12:47
  Speaker 1: would The cool thing that the cool thing is is
• 1:12:50
  Speaker 1: I'm literally right now, over the past couple of months,
• 1:12:54
  Speaker 1: I've been kind of looking at different little parcels here
• 1:12:57
  Speaker 1: and there that or or certain areas that I've hunted
• 1:13:02
  Speaker 1: in the past that maybe just odd parcels where I
• 1:13:06
  Speaker 1: could break it off make sure that that parcel gets
• 1:13:09
  Speaker 1: an easement right, you know, through apart property and only
• 1:13:13
  Speaker 1: by like four acres, but they're the right four acres,
• 1:13:18
  Speaker 1: you know what I mean. So, um, so i'd have
• 1:13:22
  Speaker 1: permission on one acre, you'd have permission on the four acres,
• 1:13:25
  Speaker 1: but you might be we might be two trees apart,
• 1:13:29
  Speaker 1: you know what I mean. I like talking, Yeah, t
• 1:13:33
  Speaker 1: a buck comes by and two people shoot it at
• 1:13:35
  Speaker 1: the same time. Hey, Dann, you see that buck over there.
• 1:13:40
  Speaker 1: That's exciting though, man, that's really exciting. Yeah. So you know,
• 1:13:44
  Speaker 1: and when I was talking about hey, remind me to
• 1:13:46
  Speaker 1: talk about what we were talking about later so we
• 1:13:49
  Speaker 1: can talk about it. Oh, when we were talking about
• 1:13:51
  Speaker 1: what you were going to talk about? Yeah that Yeah,
• 1:13:55
  Speaker 1: So like leading into that would be you know, you know,
• 1:14:01
  Speaker 1: chopping down some trees, getting it real thick and nasty
• 1:14:04
  Speaker 1: and doing you know, some timber stand improvement for those areas,
• 1:14:07
  Speaker 1: to just increase turn that four acres into basically a
• 1:14:11
  Speaker 1: sanctuary for for deer, and then just let it set
• 1:14:16
  Speaker 1: until it's the times right, you know. So that that
• 1:14:22
  Speaker 1: is kind of it's nothing really too much to elaborate on.
• 1:14:25
  Speaker 1: It's just financial planning on my part from from here
• 1:14:28
  Speaker 1: on out. And then the other thing that the last
• 1:14:34
  Speaker 1: thing that I really want to focus on in two
• 1:14:36
  Speaker 1: thousand and seventeen is focus on being a killer, right.
• 1:14:47
  Speaker 1: And I'm I don't want to get drop crazy, out
• 1:14:52
  Speaker 1: of control nervous when a big buck comes comes by.
• 1:14:57
  Speaker 1: I don't want to get that buck fever. I want
• 1:14:59
  Speaker 1: to get excited um and I don't want to lose
• 1:15:02
  Speaker 1: that whole quote unquote spiritual side that I feel I
• 1:15:05
  Speaker 1: have to hunting, you know, the enjoying the nature and
• 1:15:09
  Speaker 1: and going after a big buck. But I think part
• 1:15:12
  Speaker 1: of hunting is being a predator and being a killer.
• 1:15:18
  Speaker 1: You know, does a mountain lion or a bobcat or
• 1:15:22
  Speaker 1: an eagle get nervous when they go after their prey? No,
• 1:15:25
  Speaker 1: they don't. They would not survive as as a species
• 1:15:30
  Speaker 1: if they got nervous when they were attacking their food,
• 1:15:34
  Speaker 1: you know what I mean. So I feel that I
• 1:15:36
  Speaker 1: need to get a little bit more of an animal
• 1:15:39
  Speaker 1: instinct and just for for for that period of time
• 1:15:44
  Speaker 1: when they're in shooting range to become a killer. Yeah,
• 1:15:48
  Speaker 1: to focused, and you know, you know it's like, hey,
• 1:15:53
  Speaker 1: this like almost like my life depends on it. Yeah,
• 1:15:58
  Speaker 1: that moment of truth man, that's uh yeah, it's no
• 1:16:03
  Speaker 1: easy way to figure it out. It just whether it's
• 1:16:05
  Speaker 1: experience or practice or whatever. But yeah, yeah, I agree
• 1:16:11
  Speaker 1: with you there. I think we can all continue to
• 1:16:13
  Speaker 1: get better there and then that's it for me. Man,
• 1:16:16
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna do some tweaks to my gear this year.
• 1:16:18
  Speaker 1: But you know, like I said, this year was satisfactory
• 1:16:23
  Speaker 1: for me. I had a blast doing what I do
• 1:16:26
  Speaker 1: and it never really stops. You know, the summer stuff,
• 1:16:29
  Speaker 1: the the you know, setting up tree stands, the hunting.
• 1:16:32
  Speaker 1: You know, I got shut hunting season. Look forward to
• 1:16:35
  Speaker 1: two thousand and sixteen was an awesome year. You know,
• 1:16:38
  Speaker 1: Turkey hunting is coming up, then that's going to transition
• 1:16:42
  Speaker 1: into the summer stuff, and then I got an elk
• 1:16:45
  Speaker 1: hunt and then the next thing you know, man, I'm
• 1:16:47
  Speaker 1: sitting in a tree stand in uh In, Iowa. Again.
• 1:16:51
  Speaker 1: So three years ago, Yeah, you were filming all your
• 1:16:55
  Speaker 1: hunts and you filmed your buddy Ryan iberg Ye. Last
• 1:16:59
  Speaker 1: year I think you filmed a little bit correct. Um. Yeah,
• 1:17:03
  Speaker 1: last year, I filmed myself shoot a dough Really I
• 1:17:07
  Speaker 1: think that, and uh, I filmed myself a couple of
• 1:17:13
  Speaker 1: buck encounters. Yet. Yeah, so this year, though you didn't
• 1:17:15
  Speaker 1: film anything, I didn't even I didn't even bring a
• 1:17:18
  Speaker 1: camera with me. So let's talk about that. How did
• 1:17:20
  Speaker 1: it feel this year for the first time in a
• 1:17:22
  Speaker 1: long time not filming your hunts were You're glad you
• 1:17:25
  Speaker 1: did it? Do you miss it? Don't miss Nope? Man,
• 1:17:33
  Speaker 1: it takes for me, it takes away. Yeah, yeah I could.
• 1:17:38
  Speaker 1: I could have that some of that stuff on film
• 1:17:40
  Speaker 1: to share with my friends, but it's in my head.
• 1:17:43
  Speaker 1: I don't hunt for anybody. I'm not a hunter because
• 1:17:46
  Speaker 1: I need to be a hunter. I'm I'm a I'm
• 1:17:48
  Speaker 1: a hunter because I subconsciously maybe need But man, I
• 1:17:54
  Speaker 1: I do it for me. I'm not the podcast. Yeah,
• 1:17:58
  Speaker 1: that's for other people. Um the I think for a
• 1:18:01
  Speaker 1: while there, when I was doing a lot of filming,
• 1:18:04
  Speaker 1: it became less fun and more work, and I kind
• 1:18:07
  Speaker 1: of was like getting turned off by it. But now
• 1:18:10
  Speaker 1: I've put that camera down now for two years, and
• 1:18:15
  Speaker 1: it's it's awesome. We'll like now, Well, if someday I
• 1:18:19
  Speaker 1: get a cameraman and you know, start documenting my stories again,
• 1:18:23
  Speaker 1: my my season again. Hell yeah, that's okay, But I'm
• 1:18:26
  Speaker 1: never going to probably film myself again. Interesting, I can understand.
• 1:18:32
  Speaker 1: I can understand why you feel that way. I certainly
• 1:18:34
  Speaker 1: have had times where I thought that too. Yeah, And
• 1:18:37
  Speaker 1: it's it's interesting to hear how you feel after, you know,
• 1:18:40
  Speaker 1: I've always thought, after beginning to film on my hunts
• 1:18:43
  Speaker 1: and everything, that it would be a major bummer, not
• 1:18:47
  Speaker 1: you know, now that I'm so used to having this
• 1:18:49
  Speaker 1: stuff to look back on, Like my favorite thing is
• 1:18:51
  Speaker 1: just being able to look at the film again and
• 1:18:54
  Speaker 1: see that encounter again, or show my buddy this deer
• 1:18:58
  Speaker 1: or whatever. I think that's what I would be the most.
• 1:19:00
  Speaker 1: I've always wondered, you know, if I would miss that
• 1:19:03
  Speaker 1: too much if I gave it up, Because there's certainly
• 1:19:05
  Speaker 1: times when I just what I dislike about it is
• 1:19:07
  Speaker 1: having all the gear and just having to deal with
• 1:19:09
  Speaker 1: that when you're out there, instead of being able to
• 1:19:11
  Speaker 1: just climb into a tree, sit down and relax and
• 1:19:14
  Speaker 1: hunt um and be focus on the shot when it comes,
• 1:19:18
  Speaker 1: instead of being focused on turning on the stupid camera,
• 1:19:21
  Speaker 1: adjusting that, making sure the DearS in the frame. Then
• 1:19:23
  Speaker 1: get your bolt, then all this other stuff. I mean,
• 1:19:26
  Speaker 1: there's a lot of reasons not to film. Um, so
• 1:19:29
  Speaker 1: it's interesting to hear that your you know, your experience there.
• 1:19:33
  Speaker 1: So you mentioned you had one more thing you wanted
• 1:19:35
  Speaker 1: to talk about for two seventeen. Oh yeah, so you know,
• 1:19:40
  Speaker 1: I talked about the changes I want to make with
• 1:19:42
  Speaker 1: the whole holy Field hunt. I talked a little bit
• 1:19:44
  Speaker 1: about the fact I want to have more places to
• 1:19:47
  Speaker 1: hunt in general, um, you know, just having more options.
• 1:19:49
  Speaker 1: All that. I think the one other thing in two
• 1:19:51
  Speaker 1: thousand seventeen um and something I want to continue to
• 1:19:55
  Speaker 1: do more of in the future. And I kind of
• 1:19:56
  Speaker 1: touch touched on this a little bit in the past
• 1:19:58
  Speaker 1: two but publicly, I want to hunt public land more
• 1:20:03
  Speaker 1: and and a bigger picture, I want to focus more
• 1:20:09
  Speaker 1: of what I'm doing in my career um around public
• 1:20:14
  Speaker 1: land because in addition to being a deer hunter, as
• 1:20:17
  Speaker 1: you know and many of our listeners know, my other
• 1:20:20
  Speaker 1: passion in life is just wilderness and being out in
• 1:20:25
  Speaker 1: the mountains or the prairies or river valleys or whatever,
• 1:20:28
  Speaker 1: being out in these big, wide open public places. I mean,
• 1:20:31
  Speaker 1: I I live and die for that stuff. And we've
• 1:20:35
  Speaker 1: talked about there's increasingly more and more threats to these places. Yep.
• 1:20:42
  Speaker 1: And I'm kind of transitioning a little bit in um
• 1:20:45
  Speaker 1: in just like what my goals are personally. And so
• 1:20:48
  Speaker 1: while I want to continue doing what I'm doing now,
• 1:20:50
  Speaker 1: I also want to find more ways to try to
• 1:20:53
  Speaker 1: lend a hand if I can to making sure that
• 1:20:56
  Speaker 1: these places are there in the future for people like
• 1:20:57
  Speaker 1: you and made hunt or for our kids, um, whether
• 1:21:01
  Speaker 1: it be the hunt or hike or fish or whatever
• 1:21:03
  Speaker 1: it is. So I want to hunt in these types
• 1:21:05
  Speaker 1: of places more often because it's a challenge. It's very different,
• 1:21:08
  Speaker 1: it's new, and I'm the type that I enjoy hunting
• 1:21:12
  Speaker 1: some of the places over and over again, Like I
• 1:21:14
  Speaker 1: have places I've hunted over and over and I enjoy that,
• 1:21:16
  Speaker 1: but I also constantly need a new challenge. I love
• 1:21:19
  Speaker 1: the figuring out part of things. So like in Ohio,
• 1:21:23
  Speaker 1: for example, I like hunting our spot down Ohio, but
• 1:21:26
  Speaker 1: I figured it out. There's nothing to figure out anymore,
• 1:21:29
  Speaker 1: um just because of how big it's. It's not very big,
• 1:21:32
  Speaker 1: so there's only a couple options really when it comes
• 1:21:35
  Speaker 1: right down to it, UM, And I know if I
• 1:21:37
  Speaker 1: hunt it during the rut if you put in enough
• 1:21:39
  Speaker 1: time and like one of two locations, and if you
• 1:21:41
  Speaker 1: do it in the right wind and stuff, either either
• 1:21:44
  Speaker 1: a buck's gonna come through that you're gonna get a shot,
• 1:21:45
  Speaker 1: or it's just not gonna happen because they're not there. Um,
• 1:21:48
  Speaker 1: there's not a whole lot of figuring out left to
• 1:21:50
  Speaker 1: do there. What I've enjoyed about the public land and
• 1:21:52
  Speaker 1: hunting new places is the going into something from ground
• 1:21:56
  Speaker 1: zero and and trying to wrap your head around it
• 1:21:58
  Speaker 1: and adjusting and scheming and all that stuff. So public
• 1:22:01
  Speaker 1: land is a lot of fun and it's really important,
• 1:22:04
  Speaker 1: and I think, um, in two thousand seventeen, I've got
• 1:22:07
  Speaker 1: some stuff I'm working on that I think hopefully will
• 1:22:10
  Speaker 1: be interesting and helpful on both of those fronts. So
• 1:22:14
  Speaker 1: so that's kind of what I'm looking forward to next year,
• 1:22:16
  Speaker 1: is doing some cool stuff to get holy Field and
• 1:22:19
  Speaker 1: exploring this whole public land thing in a lot of
• 1:22:21
  Speaker 1: different ways. So that's where it's at. We got some
• 1:22:25
  Speaker 1: work to do. We do, we do, but it's gonna
• 1:22:28
  Speaker 1: be good. It's gonna be good. Dear dude, I'm excited
• 1:22:30
  Speaker 1: for you and for me. Did ooh well, uh, this
• 1:22:34
  Speaker 1: is our last. This is our last podcast, two thousand sixteen,
• 1:22:37
  Speaker 1: So audios, two thousand sixteen. It's been real. It's been real.
• 1:22:41
  Speaker 1: It's been real good. And uh, thank you Dan for
• 1:22:44
  Speaker 1: sticking around with me for another year. And for everyone
• 1:22:46
  Speaker 1: listening to It's not always easy. I don't think. Yeah,
• 1:22:50
  Speaker 1: I'll tell you what, man, we Uh there's a lot
• 1:22:54
  Speaker 1: of work. First off, to the listeners, there's a lot
• 1:22:56
  Speaker 1: of work that goes into this podcast. So you know,
• 1:23:00
  Speaker 1: if for anything, Mark, thank you very much for organizing it,
• 1:23:04
  Speaker 1: for putting it together, you know, for the opportunity to
• 1:23:07
  Speaker 1: be your co host, and as a listener of the podcast,
• 1:23:10
  Speaker 1: I just want to say thank you for the content.
• 1:23:12
  Speaker 1: And uh, thanks to all the listeners out there who
• 1:23:16
  Speaker 1: email us and ask us questions. Now we may not
• 1:23:19
  Speaker 1: always answer them, but thank you for guys for the support.
• 1:23:22
  Speaker 1: Because without you know, I don't know if I'm stealing
• 1:23:25
  Speaker 1: your thunder. But because of you guys, Wired to Hunt
• 1:23:30
  Speaker 1: podcast is possible. So whatever, I echo everything you said
• 1:23:34
  Speaker 1: one and uh. With that, I'd say, let's shut this
• 1:23:40
  Speaker 1: thing down for two thousand sixteen. So big thank you
• 1:23:44
  Speaker 1: to our partners who helped keep this show on the air,
• 1:23:47
  Speaker 1: who have been with us here in two thousand and sixteen.
• 1:23:49
  Speaker 1: Thank you to sit Gear, Redneck Blinds, Hunter Maps, Yetie Coolers, Osonics,
• 1:23:54
  Speaker 1: Carbon Express, MAYBN Optics in the White Tail Institute of
• 1:23:58
  Speaker 1: North America. And finally, as Dan said, thank you all
• 1:24:01
  Speaker 1: for listening today and all of this year. We appreciate
• 1:24:05
  Speaker 1: you being a part of this community so so so
• 1:24:08
  Speaker 1: so much so until two thousand and seventeen. Had a
• 1:24:11
  Speaker 1: very happy New Year, and stay wired to hunt h