Latest / Wired To Hunt Podcast / Ep. 923: On Becoming a Middle-Aged Hunter with Dan Johnson

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Ep. 923: On Becoming a Middle-Aged Hunter with Dan Johnson · Wired To Hunt Podcast

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast, your guide to
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: the whitetail woods, presented by first Light, creating proven versatile
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: hunting apparel for the stand, saddle or blind. First Light
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: Go farther, stay Longer, and now your host, Mark Kenyon.
• 0:19
  Speaker 2: Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast. This week on
• 0:22
  Speaker 2: the show, I'm joined by my longtime co host Dan
• 0:26
  Speaker 2: Johnson to discuss the epiphanes, the tactical changes in the
• 0:31
  Speaker 2: philosophical shifts that have occurred for the both of us
• 0:34
  Speaker 2: as we have unexpectedly become middle aged hunters. All right,
• 0:40
  Speaker 2: welcome back to the Wired to Hunt podcast, brought to
• 0:44
  Speaker 2: you by First Light and their Camel for Conservation initiative.
• 0:48
  Speaker 3: A portion of every.
• 0:50
  Speaker 2: Sale of our specter camel pattern, which is the white
• 0:52
  Speaker 2: tail pattern for first Light, goes back to support the
• 0:55
  Speaker 2: National Deer Association. So great stuff. I appreciate first Light
• 0:59
  Speaker 2: doing that. And today's podcast is a fun one. It's
• 1:02
  Speaker 2: a different one in some ways, it's like many others.
• 1:05
  Speaker 2: In some ways it's different. I guess it's like many
• 1:07
  Speaker 2: others because my guest coming up here soon is the
• 1:10
  Speaker 2: one and only Dan Johnson. He co hosted this podcast
• 1:14
  Speaker 2: with me back when I started it in it was
• 1:17
  Speaker 2: either late twenty thirteen or early twenty fourteen. We did many,
• 1:20
  Speaker 2: many episodes together, shared a whole lot of laughs, a
• 1:23
  Speaker 2: whole lot of stories and experiences. So it's always fun
• 1:25
  Speaker 2: to bring Dan back on the show to catch up
• 1:27
  Speaker 2: on our hunting lives and what's going on during our
• 1:30
  Speaker 2: seasons or leading up to the season. So we're gonna
• 1:33
  Speaker 2: do a little bit that We're gonna talk IOWA, our
• 1:35
  Speaker 2: plans this year, some of that catch up, but more importantly,
• 1:38
  Speaker 2: we're gonna talk about an epiphany that I had recently.
• 1:41
  Speaker 2: And I'll explain this to Dan when he gets on,
• 1:43
  Speaker 2: because I am going to surprise Dan with his topic.
• 1:45
  Speaker 3: He doesn't know what he's getting into here.
• 1:47
  Speaker 2: But I recently realized that I started Wired to Hunt
• 1:50
  Speaker 2: back in two thousand and eight, and that is nearly
• 1:53
  Speaker 2: twenty years ago. It's like seventeen years ago, nearly two
• 1:56
  Speaker 2: decades ago. I started this thing. When I started this thing,
• 1:59
  Speaker 2: thee for Wired to Hunt was deer hunting for the
• 2:02
  Speaker 2: next generation. And I recently realized that I am not
• 2:07
  Speaker 2: the next generation anymore. I'm nearly forty years old. I
• 2:12
  Speaker 2: am technically a middle aged man now, a middle aged hunter.
• 2:16
  Speaker 2: What does that mean? What does that mean for you?
• 2:20
  Speaker 4: Know?
• 2:20
  Speaker 2: How I hunt, why I hunt, where I hunt, the
• 2:24
  Speaker 2: many choices that go into my decisions about tactics. There's
• 2:30
  Speaker 2: a lot of things we can unpack here, and I
• 2:32
  Speaker 2: got to think that there is an interesting discussion to
• 2:35
  Speaker 2: be had about these different stages of your hunting life,
• 2:38
  Speaker 2: and where Dan and I are right now is in
• 2:39
  Speaker 2: this kind of middle.
• 2:40
  Speaker 3: Aged hunter phase. It's weird to say.
• 2:43
  Speaker 2: For a long time, you know, I kind of looked
• 2:46
  Speaker 2: at myself as like one of the young guns, one
• 2:47
  Speaker 2: of the kids in this community of this new fangled
• 2:50
  Speaker 2: podcast thing. But now here I am not so much
• 2:53
  Speaker 2: a kid anymore.
• 2:54
  Speaker 3: What does that mean? What have I learned along the way?
• 2:57
  Speaker 2: Is? What has Dan learned along the way? How are
• 3:00
  Speaker 2: decisions changing? How is our approach to hunting changing?
• 3:03
  Speaker 3: How are our goals.
• 3:05
  Speaker 2: And expectations around hunting changing? There's a lot here, And
• 3:10
  Speaker 2: I imagine I'm not the only one who's going through this,
• 3:12
  Speaker 2: because if you began this journey with me at some point,
• 3:15
  Speaker 2: if you've been on this kind of roller coaster as
• 3:18
  Speaker 2: Wired to Hunt has grown and changed over the years,
• 3:21
  Speaker 2: maybe you two find yourself in a new stage as
• 3:24
  Speaker 2: a hunter. So whether you're eighteen years old and wondering
• 3:27
  Speaker 2: what you know it's coming down the line, or maybe
• 3:30
  Speaker 2: you're in your thirties or forties and you're in this
• 3:33
  Speaker 2: phase of life and in this phase of your journey
• 3:36
  Speaker 2: as a hunter in which you're realizing you're not that
• 3:39
  Speaker 2: young gun anymore. You've been around the block of it,
• 3:42
  Speaker 2: You've seen some stuff, you've done some stuff, priorities might
• 3:45
  Speaker 2: be changing. All of that is what Dan and I
• 3:48
  Speaker 2: discussed today. I think it's I think it's a conversation
• 3:52
  Speaker 2: worth having and maybe wrestling with yourself. It was at
• 3:55
  Speaker 2: least healthy for me to do so, So I.
• 3:57
  Speaker 3: Hope you guys enjoyed this one.
• 3:58
  Speaker 2: If it's relevant, I hope it inspires you to do
• 4:01
  Speaker 2: a little bit of thinking and maybe have some chats
• 4:03
  Speaker 2: like this with your own friends who are in a
• 4:05
  Speaker 2: similar vote. So that's the plan for today, and without
• 4:09
  Speaker 2: any further beating around the bush, let's get to my
• 4:12
  Speaker 2: chat with Dan as we discuss the unexpected realization that we.
• 4:16
  Speaker 3: Are now middle aged hunters and what the heck that means.
• 4:26
  Speaker 2: All right here with me on the line is the
• 4:29
  Speaker 2: one and only ten fingers minus one, The man who's
• 4:33
  Speaker 2: been by my side since the beginning the OG mister
• 4:39
  Speaker 2: Daniel Johnson Dan Wells at the show.
• 4:42
  Speaker 4: Thank you.
• 4:42
  Speaker 5: It's crazy being called an OG because in the streets,
• 4:46
  Speaker 5: OG means the original gangster. I don't know if I've
• 4:50
  Speaker 5: ever been a gangster, but I consider myself original.
• 4:55
  Speaker 3: Oh oh no, man, I remember you telling me some
• 4:57
  Speaker 3: of your stories from college. I think the name it fits.
• 5:01
  Speaker 3: I think the name fits.
• 5:02
  Speaker 2: O G.
• 5:03
  Speaker 3: How how the heck are you?
• 5:05
  Speaker 4: I'm good, man, you, I'm doing really good.
• 5:08
  Speaker 2: It's it's that time of year where you know, we're
• 5:10
  Speaker 2: trying to pack in all sorts of fun summer activities
• 5:13
  Speaker 2: of the family. But at the same time, I'm realizing
• 5:15
  Speaker 2: that the approaching deadline for hunting season is quickly showing up.
• 5:21
  Speaker 3: So I've got two levels of anxiety.
• 5:24
  Speaker 2: One anxiety is like, Okay, get as much great family
• 5:26
  Speaker 2: time as possible, and then the other anxiety is like
• 5:28
  Speaker 2: hunting seasons coming closer, hunting seasons coming closer, Get working,
• 5:32
  Speaker 2: get working, get working.
• 5:33
  Speaker 3: So that's my world right now.
• 5:35
  Speaker 5: Yeah, I'm gonna say I'm gonna throw you under the
• 5:38
  Speaker 5: bus instantly on this episode. And so when we when
• 5:42
  Speaker 5: we get on this little platform that we're on, and
• 5:45
  Speaker 5: I'm like, hey, Mark, how's it going. He's just like, oh, man,
• 5:49
  Speaker 5: I'm doing okay, just like, just like a hint of
• 5:52
  Speaker 5: depression in his voice. I'm like, oh my god. He's like, yeah,
• 5:54
  Speaker 5: I'm out here in Idaho, just like, oh God.
• 5:58
  Speaker 4: No.
• 5:58
  Speaker 5: Like I'm like, oh, you're an Idaho, dude, You're an Idaho.
• 6:03
  Speaker 5: Oh I'm just out here hiking beautiful mountain trails all
• 6:06
  Speaker 5: day long. It's so hard doing what I'm doing right now.
• 6:11
  Speaker 5: Now I'm over exaggerating just a little bit.
• 6:14
  Speaker 2: But well, I've only slept in my own bed once
• 6:18
  Speaker 2: in the last seven nights.
• 6:19
  Speaker 3: Dan the rest were on the ground. Tough.
• 6:22
  Speaker 4: Yeah, okay, yeah.
• 6:25
  Speaker 5: Is it because is it because an earthquake destroyed your home?
• 6:29
  Speaker 5: Nose because you chose to do that. You're living the
• 6:31
  Speaker 5: main You're living every man's wildest fantasy.
• 6:34
  Speaker 4: Mark.
• 6:37
  Speaker 2: I'm not gonna I'm not gonna argue that although I
• 6:41
  Speaker 2: had I had an interesting diet or a side path.
• 6:43
  Speaker 2: I was thinking of taking that comment, but I won't.
• 6:47
  Speaker 2: I will just say that I am fortunate got to
• 6:49
  Speaker 2: do a three or two night backpacking trip with the
• 6:51
  Speaker 2: kids over the weekend and three or four more nights
• 6:54
  Speaker 2: of camping before that, and uh that was pretty fun.
• 6:57
  Speaker 3: So no complaints here.
• 6:59
  Speaker 4: I can't. My kids want to go backpacking.
• 7:01
  Speaker 5: They want to go on some overnight stuff, and I
• 7:03
  Speaker 5: think I'm gonna be able to get in some of
• 7:05
  Speaker 5: this stuff once baseball is over. But uh, like my
• 7:10
  Speaker 5: oldest boy, he's like, like, when can we go sleep
• 7:13
  Speaker 5: in your truck somewhere? And I'm like, trucks suck to
• 7:17
  Speaker 5: sleep in. But I got a tent and I got
• 7:20
  Speaker 5: some sleeping bags. We can go do something fun like that.
• 7:23
  Speaker 5: So it's on the it's on the agenda.
• 7:26
  Speaker 3: Good.
• 7:26
  Speaker 2: That's it's it's so much fun, and it's it's the
• 7:31
  Speaker 2: simplicity of it, Like how easy it is to keep
• 7:33
  Speaker 2: the kids entertained when you're just like out of the
• 7:35
  Speaker 2: campground or off in the nature backpacking. It's it's so
• 7:38
  Speaker 2: nice compared to when you're home and you're you know,
• 7:40
  Speaker 2: trying to keep them occupied to do go do this,
• 7:43
  Speaker 2: go try this, do this thing.
• 7:44
  Speaker 3: When you're out there, like you don't need to say
• 7:46
  Speaker 3: a word. They just take off.
• 7:48
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and uh and that's pretty cool. So uh so yeah,
• 7:52
  Speaker 2: I'm I'm doing the Idaho Summer thing. Fishing camp and
• 7:54
  Speaker 2: all that kind of stuff, which is good.
• 7:57
  Speaker 3: But I want to do a couple of things with you.
• 8:00
  Speaker 2: Damn yes, I do want to hear a little bit
• 8:03
  Speaker 2: about your summer white tail prep so far, what things
• 8:07
  Speaker 2: are looking, how things are looking for the summer, kind
• 8:09
  Speaker 2: of catch up on all that I did draw tag
• 8:13
  Speaker 2: this year for your home state. As you know, I
• 8:14
  Speaker 2: saw that, I saw them, so so maybe we can
• 8:17
  Speaker 2: talk a little about that, and then I have a
• 8:20
  Speaker 2: I have a.
• 8:20
  Speaker 3: Surprise topic after that.
• 8:22
  Speaker 4: Oh boy.
• 8:23
  Speaker 2: Yeah, And it's something that's been on my mind recently,
• 8:28
  Speaker 2: and and I just want to see if it resonates
• 8:30
  Speaker 2: with you at all and if you have any thoughts
• 8:32
  Speaker 2: on it, because I feel like had a bit of
• 8:34
  Speaker 2: an epiphany you yes, okay, And frequently when I have
• 8:40
  Speaker 2: epiphanies over the last ten plus years, You've been good
• 8:44
  Speaker 2: at either h jumping onto that epiphany and and riffing
• 8:49
  Speaker 2: on it with me, or bringing back down to earth
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  Speaker 2: and telling me I'm crazy.
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  Speaker 4: Okay, all right, I'm I'm excited about that.
• 8:55
  Speaker 5: I'm I'm I'm I'm a I'm a very blunt person
• 8:59
  Speaker 5: at my with the kids that I have, So it's
• 9:02
  Speaker 5: just like my kids my kids aren't getting the dad
• 9:08
  Speaker 5: that is like, oh, I don't know, the very like.
• 9:11
  Speaker 4: Oh, you can do anything, you can do anything.
• 9:14
  Speaker 5: And then I'm that dad's like, buddy, you're never gonna
• 9:16
  Speaker 5: dunk a basketball because your mom is five foot one.
• 9:20
  Speaker 4: Right, that's I'm not Yeah, let's be realistic.
• 9:23
  Speaker 5: I like, I like to bring the truth followed by
• 9:26
  Speaker 5: but if you work hard enough, anything good way to
• 9:30
  Speaker 5: do it.
• 9:30
  Speaker 4: Yeah, anything can happen.
• 9:33
  Speaker 2: I feel like that's a great way to approach your
• 9:35
  Speaker 2: hunting season, Dan. In most years, yeah, you're probably not
• 9:38
  Speaker 2: going to kill that booner you've had your eyes on
• 9:40
  Speaker 2: for the last four years, but you know, if.
• 9:43
  Speaker 4: You show up, you might just get get an opportunity.
• 9:46
  Speaker 3: Might just happen.
• 9:47
  Speaker 2: So, so speaking of what you know, it's it's July,
• 9:52
  Speaker 2: it's that time of year we're really starting to you know,
• 9:54
  Speaker 2: think trail cameras or summer scoutings beginning all that kind
• 9:57
  Speaker 2: of stuff. Do you are you at a stage yet
• 9:59
  Speaker 2: where you've been to dive into that at home yet?
• 10:02
  Speaker 5: No, you're already regretting having me on as a guest
• 10:06
  Speaker 5: today because because you're like, hey, we're going to talk
• 10:09
  Speaker 5: about summer prep. Dan what's your summer prep And I go,
• 10:12
  Speaker 5: I have zero trail cameras out. I've done zero summer scouting.
• 10:18
  Speaker 5: The last time I was in the woods was in
• 10:20
  Speaker 5: March when I picked up a shed antler.
• 10:22
  Speaker 4: And that's it.
• 10:24
  Speaker 3: This is perfect for the surprise topic.
• 10:25
  Speaker 2: By the way, You're segueing perfectly to what we're going
• 10:28
  Speaker 2: to get to eventually. So this is because family, is
• 10:31
  Speaker 2: that right? Just family life and all other obligations.
• 10:33
  Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean I see wrestling two base kids in baseball,
• 10:39
  Speaker 5: one of them I coach, and then I go to
• 10:41
  Speaker 5: my daughter's wrestling practices as well, and then on top
• 10:44
  Speaker 5: of that, running a business and trying to manage that
• 10:50
  Speaker 5: while creating content, while managing the business, while working from
• 10:55
  Speaker 5: home with kids in the summertime, and then doing all
• 10:58
  Speaker 5: the extra fun stuff with them that I'm afforded the
• 11:02
  Speaker 5: you know, the opportunity to do because I work from home,
• 11:05
  Speaker 5: and then at the same time realizing that I don't
• 11:07
  Speaker 5: have anything done.
• 11:08
  Speaker 4: It's eight o'clock at night, and then I work for
• 11:10
  Speaker 4: three more hours and and then it's like, holy shit,
• 11:14
  Speaker 4: what did I do with my day? You know?
• 11:16
  Speaker 3: Yeah, So it's on that.
• 11:18
  Speaker 5: Yeah, it's in life mode. Right now, But once baseball's
• 11:21
  Speaker 5: over in two weeks, then it's go time.
• 11:25
  Speaker 2: So do you have like anything you're particularly excited about
• 11:29
  Speaker 2: this year? Is there like a buck that made it
• 11:31
  Speaker 2: through last year? Sheds you found, or a.
• 11:33
  Speaker 3: Room or you've heard of?
• 11:34
  Speaker 5: Yeah, So there's just a couple, two really two. The
• 11:39
  Speaker 5: first one is on this new farm that I have
• 11:41
  Speaker 5: access to. I've been hunting it for this will be
• 11:44
  Speaker 5: my fourth year now hunting it.
• 11:46
  Speaker 4: It's in a really good neighborhood there. I had two
• 11:49
  Speaker 4: deer last year that just disappeared, and I'm assuming the
• 11:54
  Speaker 4: neighbors got them. That's what I'm assuming happened.
• 11:57
  Speaker 5: The second thing on that property is there's you know,
• 12:02
  Speaker 5: we talked about power vacuums sometimes and when a big
• 12:05
  Speaker 5: mature buck is killed, what moves in to take its place?
• 12:09
  Speaker 5: And so two big deer got killed, I'm assuming, and
• 12:13
  Speaker 5: so what's going to move in? And so there was
• 12:15
  Speaker 5: a really good three slash four year old that was
• 12:18
  Speaker 5: about one point fifty last year and I he might
• 12:22
  Speaker 5: have been one forty five ish and I decided to
• 12:25
  Speaker 5: pass him. And so I'm excited to see what he
• 12:30
  Speaker 5: kind of pops up into if he's still around or
• 12:34
  Speaker 5: depending on what that power vacuum produces, what's what else could.
• 12:38
  Speaker 4: Potentially move in.
• 12:40
  Speaker 5: But the thing that I am thinking about the most
• 12:43
  Speaker 5: right now in the world of white tails is a buck.
• 12:47
  Speaker 4: That I have been following along with.
• 12:50
  Speaker 5: For the past This will be year number four, I
• 12:54
  Speaker 5: believe so year number one that I saw him.
• 12:58
  Speaker 4: I'm assuming he was a three year old.
• 13:01
  Speaker 5: He just popped out of nowhere and he was sitting
• 13:03
  Speaker 5: at about this this one forty class ten pointer. The
• 13:06
  Speaker 5: next year he explodes into like a booner ten with
• 13:10
  Speaker 5: a like a kicker off of his uh on one
• 13:13
  Speaker 5: of his G two's. I'm I'm almost positive I sent
• 13:15
  Speaker 5: you pictures of him a full of years ago. And
• 13:18
  Speaker 5: then last year he turned into a giant like three
• 13:25
  Speaker 5: by two where I don't know if he was injured
• 13:29
  Speaker 5: or what happened, but his one side was a brow
• 13:32
  Speaker 5: and two like a mainbeam and a G a G two,
• 13:39
  Speaker 5: and then the other side was the same thing but
• 13:41
  Speaker 5: with a big crab claw at the front end.
• 13:47
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 13:47
  Speaker 5: So I rattled him in this past year and he
• 13:50
  Speaker 5: was coming dead eye to me. But I also rattled
• 13:52
  Speaker 5: in a horse that came into and this is no joke. Dude,
• 13:56
  Speaker 5: this horse, remember this horse came into investigate ate the rattle,
• 14:01
  Speaker 5: and so the buck was coming in.
• 14:03
  Speaker 4: He saw the horse, so he stayed.
• 14:05
  Speaker 5: And flanked all the way around me and then came
• 14:08
  Speaker 5: way way not even down win just way far away
• 14:11
  Speaker 5: from me.
• 14:11
  Speaker 4: He hit a scrape.
• 14:13
  Speaker 5: I snort wheezed him back in, but he never came
• 14:15
  Speaker 5: back in, and then he disappeared.
• 14:17
  Speaker 4: And so he's run the same circuit now for the
• 14:22
  Speaker 4: last three years.
• 14:24
  Speaker 5: And then if the guy that I share the property
• 14:27
  Speaker 5: with didn't kill him, then I'm assuming that no one
• 14:31
  Speaker 5: killed him.
• 14:32
  Speaker 4: Yeah, and my.
• 14:34
  Speaker 5: Guess is now we're looking at three four, five six,
• 14:37
  Speaker 5: potentially a seven year old this year, and he has
• 14:42
  Speaker 5: the potential to do something really awesome if he grows
• 14:47
  Speaker 5: out of what he was last year back to what
• 14:50
  Speaker 5: he was like a previous year, plus maybe a couple
• 14:53
  Speaker 5: of inches. I don't know, And so only trail camers
• 14:57
  Speaker 5: will tell me that story. But I know where he's
• 14:59
  Speaker 5: going to be if I as soon as I get
• 15:01
  Speaker 5: some trail cameras out over top of like a mineral site,
• 15:06
  Speaker 5: he's gonna be there.
• 15:07
  Speaker 4: And so all I gotta do is wait.
• 15:09
  Speaker 3: Well, even if he even if he just goes funky again.
• 15:13
  Speaker 3: I've always thought like.
• 15:14
  Speaker 2: A really big bodied, old funky buck like that would
• 15:18
  Speaker 2: be such a cool deer to hunt.
• 15:19
  Speaker 3: Oh yeah, Actually I had a deer two seasons ago.
• 15:21
  Speaker 3: That's kind of like that.
• 15:22
  Speaker 2: I hadn't I was a news of new property, so
• 15:24
  Speaker 2: I didn't know him for years and years, but he
• 15:26
  Speaker 2: showed up kind of very similar, like three points on
• 15:28
  Speaker 2: one side, big fork on.
• 15:30
  Speaker 3: The other, huge like brahma bule body.
• 15:33
  Speaker 2: You could tell like it was he was the guy
• 15:36
  Speaker 2: just you know, funky, funky antler's going on.
• 15:39
  Speaker 3: And that was a cool dear to see a few times.
• 15:41
  Speaker 5: I'll tell you this, man, there's something about a no
• 15:44
  Speaker 5: doubter mature buck, and I don't think a lot of
• 15:48
  Speaker 5: people actually get the opportunity to see them, because yes,
• 15:52
  Speaker 5: there's a big jumping body size between three and four,
• 15:55
  Speaker 5: But when now you start talking about five six seven
• 15:58
  Speaker 5: year old bucks that body size, I don't care where
• 16:01
  Speaker 5: you're at in the country, whether you're down in the
• 16:04
  Speaker 5: Texas heat or up in northern Wisconsin, Canada, the body
• 16:08
  Speaker 5: size jumps so much that you just know by glancing
• 16:14
  Speaker 5: at the body shooter automatically.
• 16:16
  Speaker 4: Yeah, that's that's awesome. To have encounters with those types
• 16:20
  Speaker 4: of animals one.
• 16:21
  Speaker 3: Hundred percent agree.
• 16:22
  Speaker 2: That's the thing now that that gets me the most excited.
• 16:24
  Speaker 2: And so you see that huge, formidable body moving to
• 16:29
  Speaker 2: the timber. It just they act different, they look different,
• 16:32
  Speaker 2: they move different.
• 16:34
  Speaker 5: Patients are greater like they don't they don't make mistakes
• 16:37
  Speaker 5: very often. So I'm excited to see with what this
• 16:40
  Speaker 5: buck does where he's traveling. If he sticks to the
• 16:43
  Speaker 5: same kind of path that I did. The only difference
• 16:48
  Speaker 5: is a little bit of crop rotation strategy that you
• 16:50
  Speaker 5: kind of got to think about where he's going to go.
• 16:53
  Speaker 5: But outside of that, man, man, I think it's going
• 16:56
  Speaker 5: to get I think it's gonna get good really quick
• 16:58
  Speaker 5: this year.
• 17:00
  Speaker 3: That's exciting. I've got, like I said, the Iowa tag myself.
• 17:05
  Speaker 2: And my plan there is doing the opposite of what
• 17:09
  Speaker 2: I did last time I was in Iowa, which we
• 17:12
  Speaker 2: talked about, but this was year.
• 17:13
  Speaker 3: I haven't got to tag there in like four years
• 17:16
  Speaker 3: or something like that.
• 17:17
  Speaker 2: It's been a while, but last time around I was there,
• 17:19
  Speaker 2: I was just so focused on doing what everyone tries
• 17:21
  Speaker 2: to do in Iowa. It's just like, get the really
• 17:24
  Speaker 2: big deer. That the thing that everyone imagines with Iowa.
• 17:27
  Speaker 2: And so I was like hunting my tail off NonStop hour,
• 17:30
  Speaker 2: you know, hour before daylight till all the way to
• 17:33
  Speaker 2: the end of the dark, and didn't do anything with
• 17:35
  Speaker 2: like our buddies there that lived there, and didn't do
• 17:37
  Speaker 2: all the social stuff that all my other pals from
• 17:39
  Speaker 2: Michigan were doing with my local buddies.
• 17:41
  Speaker 3: And yeah, this time I'm not doing that.
• 17:43
  Speaker 2: This time I'm embracing the hunting, like the camaraderie side
• 17:47
  Speaker 2: of things.
• 17:47
  Speaker 3: I'm gonna come in sometimes and do lunch for the guys.
• 17:51
  Speaker 2: I'm gonna stay out and go to dinner afterwards, have
• 17:53
  Speaker 2: a good time. I'm gonna enjoy the whole experience and
• 17:57
  Speaker 2: not be so worried about killing an Iowa giant, you know, yeah, yeah,
• 18:02
  Speaker 2: And I just want to see the stuff, like I
• 18:04
  Speaker 2: want to see the show that Iowa can sometimes show you.
• 18:09
  Speaker 2: I want to see the you know, bucks being bucks,
• 18:12
  Speaker 2: you know, hopefully see some mature bucks and you know
• 18:14
  Speaker 2: rattling actually maybe working or decoying maybe actually working, or
• 18:17
  Speaker 2: maybe see you know, some cool interactions between different deer
• 18:21
  Speaker 2: and different bucks stuff. But you know, in Michigan's relatively
• 18:24
  Speaker 2: rare to see that I know I could see there
• 18:27
  Speaker 2: in your not killed the woods. So I'm going to
• 18:28
  Speaker 2: be less worried about tagging a giant and more just
• 18:31
  Speaker 2: like having fun experiencing it fully. And yeah, I if
• 18:36
  Speaker 2: I could tag a mature buck, whatever size I would be,
• 18:40
  Speaker 2: I'd be thrilled.
• 18:41
  Speaker 3: Yeah, that's my plan.
• 18:42
  Speaker 5: Yeah, I think Mark, once you learn that deer do
• 18:45
  Speaker 5: not move in the rut between eleven and three or
• 18:48
  Speaker 5: two or three in the after in the midday, just
• 18:52
  Speaker 5: don't even hunt it, and then you can just kill
• 18:54
  Speaker 5: in the morning and kill in the afternoon.
• 18:56
  Speaker 4: That's just what I.
• 18:56
  Speaker 3: Do, dude.
• 18:57
  Speaker 2: You know, I I know there's a lot of like
• 19:01
  Speaker 2: a lot of a lot of data and people would
• 19:04
  Speaker 2: tell you the middle of the day is a pretty
• 19:05
  Speaker 2: good time during the road, and I know I've seen
• 19:08
  Speaker 2: it sometimes myself, but it's also a good time to
• 19:11
  Speaker 2: have fun with your friends and recuperate a little bit.
• 19:14
  Speaker 2: So I'm starting to see your way of looking at
• 19:17
  Speaker 2: this a little bit.
• 19:17
  Speaker 4: It just tells me you're getting old. That's all it
• 19:20
  Speaker 4: tells me is you're gaining age in your body.
• 19:23
  Speaker 2: So I think this is a perfect segue to what
• 19:25
  Speaker 2: I want to ask you about, Dan, because I was
• 19:28
  Speaker 2: thinking the other day that I started Wired to Hunt
• 19:33
  Speaker 2: in two thousand and eight, yep, so that was like
• 19:38
  Speaker 2: seventeen or eighteen years ago, almost two decades ago I
• 19:42
  Speaker 2: started Wired to Hunt. And when I started Wired to Hunt,
• 19:45
  Speaker 2: the catchphrase, like the tagline was deer hunting for the
• 19:50
  Speaker 2: next generation, right, that was what wired Hunt was. And
• 19:55
  Speaker 2: the other day I was thinking about that, and then
• 19:57
  Speaker 2: I thought about the fact that that was almost twenty
• 19:59
  Speaker 2: years ago. And then I realized that I'm knocking on
• 20:02
  Speaker 2: the door of forty years old myself. And I realized
• 20:07
  Speaker 2: I am not the next generation.
• 20:09
  Speaker 4: Not anymore.
• 20:10
  Speaker 3: I am a middle aged hunter yep.
• 20:15
  Speaker 2: And that was a little bit of a slap in
• 20:18
  Speaker 2: the face and an epiphany, and I realized, whoa I am,
• 20:23
  Speaker 2: not who I used to be is, nor is what
• 20:27
  Speaker 2: I make what I used to make. Yeah, And that
• 20:30
  Speaker 2: has a whole lot of like ramifications on my hunting.
• 20:35
  Speaker 2: How I do it, why I do it, when I
• 20:36
  Speaker 2: do it, all that kind of stuff. And so it
• 20:39
  Speaker 2: got me thinking about all this kind of stuff and
• 20:40
  Speaker 2: this idea of like being a middle aged.
• 20:43
  Speaker 3: Hunter or I think we've talked about back in the day.
• 20:46
  Speaker 2: You know, there's these different stages of hunting, like there's
• 20:48
  Speaker 2: like kind of a typical pathway that people kind of follow.
• 20:51
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and I was kind of thinking about that and
• 20:54
  Speaker 3: all of.
• 20:54
  Speaker 2: It was making me feel really old. And so have
• 20:58
  Speaker 2: you or did you ever have an epiphany where you
• 21:00
  Speaker 2: realize that you are now like a middle aged hunter.
• 21:03
  Speaker 2: You are not one of the kids anymore. You are
• 21:05
  Speaker 2: not like the wild chide child on White Knuckle Productions
• 21:09
  Speaker 2: saying silly things like you are an old man now
• 21:13
  Speaker 2: in this hunting community that we resided.
• 21:17
  Speaker 3: I ever have you thought about that?
• 21:19
  Speaker 5: It's crazy because I still talk to the majority of
• 21:22
  Speaker 5: the old timers. I guess you'd call them now. They like,
• 21:26
  Speaker 5: I'm not quite old timer material. But I think about it, dude,
• 21:31
  Speaker 5: it's I. I I can remember when I was first
• 21:37
  Speaker 5: hunting hardcore. That would have been like when I was
• 21:40
  Speaker 5: twenty six. Is that's when I two thousand and six
• 21:43
  Speaker 5: is when I opened up my mobile hunting style and
• 21:46
  Speaker 5: I went bananas. And I was at the time I
• 21:50
  Speaker 5: was working in a like part of my time was
• 21:54
  Speaker 5: in a factory in my late twenties. The other part
• 21:58
  Speaker 5: was I'm always a landscaper and maybe a bounced around
• 22:01
  Speaker 5: between a couple jobs at that point, and deer hunting
• 22:06
  Speaker 5: was my priority. So I was hunting like forty days
• 22:10
  Speaker 5: of the year, right, just I was in every afternoon.
• 22:14
  Speaker 5: I was trying to be in every morning. Every weekend
• 22:17
  Speaker 5: was morning and afternoon Sunday.
• 22:20
  Speaker 4: Same thing.
• 22:21
  Speaker 5: Like I was in the woods all the time. And
• 22:26
  Speaker 5: now I just envisioned me doing that makes me tired,
• 22:33
  Speaker 5: and so I'm just like, uh, nope, Like it's too hot, Okay,
• 22:40
  Speaker 5: I'm not gonna hunt up, it's too windy, Okay, well
• 22:43
  Speaker 5: I'm not gonna hunt. I just I I have way
• 22:48
  Speaker 5: different priorities now than I did twenty years ago. Right, My,
• 22:54
  Speaker 5: My my priority now is family is coaching? Is like
• 23:00
  Speaker 5: I the thing that I realize going through on this
• 23:03
  Speaker 5: middle aged journey that I'm in right now, there's positive
• 23:06
  Speaker 5: thoughts and there's negative thoughts that come with like being
• 23:09
  Speaker 5: going through your midlife crisis.
• 23:11
  Speaker 4: Do you feel like you're in the midlife crisis mode
• 23:13
  Speaker 4: right now?
• 23:14
  Speaker 2: I'm not in midlife crisis, but I'm in the oh
• 23:17
  Speaker 2: my gosh, Okay, it doesn't feel like a crisis, but
• 23:19
  Speaker 2: it feels like, holy shit, how did I get here?
• 23:21
  Speaker 2: Like this went so fast? Right, So this is like
• 23:24
  Speaker 2: the realization phase.
• 23:25
  Speaker 5: Exactly exactly, And I think I hit that a couple
• 23:29
  Speaker 5: of years ago where I'm just like, like, I just
• 23:34
  Speaker 5: don't care as much as I used to, and I'm
• 23:36
  Speaker 5: talking about like, I still get fired up about deer hunting.
• 23:40
  Speaker 5: Now it's less about me going out and trying to
• 23:44
  Speaker 5: kill a big buck and more about who I'm actually
• 23:47
  Speaker 5: with that I care about. And if my boy, let's
• 23:51
  Speaker 5: say it's late October, temp drop comes through and I'm like, dude,
• 23:57
  Speaker 5: this is the best day, and my son goes, hey, Dad,
• 24:00
  Speaker 5: can we go fishing. I'm going fishing, dude, Like I
• 24:04
  Speaker 5: just I love I love everything so much. And as
• 24:07
  Speaker 5: someone in my this in our space, I think we're
• 24:11
  Speaker 5: supposed to be really extremely fired up about it all
• 24:14
  Speaker 5: the time. But that is for that younger generation to
• 24:17
  Speaker 5: do now. For me, the focus is balance and expansion
• 24:23
  Speaker 5: of what it means to be an outdoorsman and my
• 24:27
  Speaker 5: job right now, and what I mean expanding is expanding
• 24:31
  Speaker 5: my kids passion for the outdoors through hunting and fishing,
• 24:36
  Speaker 5: and then also me doing things that I normally don't
• 24:40
  Speaker 5: get to do here in Iowa, and that would be
• 24:42
  Speaker 5: like additional species, like really focusing on mule deer and
• 24:46
  Speaker 5: elk and antelope as of right now, and then hopefully
• 24:49
  Speaker 5: in a handful of years I can expand into my
• 24:52
  Speaker 5: dream hunts like moose and caribou and things like that.
• 24:55
  Speaker 5: So it's just a different it's different ways of spending
• 25:01
  Speaker 5: the time that I have, yeah, has changed.
• 25:15
  Speaker 2: So I've wrestled with all those exact same things, and
• 25:18
  Speaker 2: and you know, changing priorities and wanting to balance more
• 25:22
  Speaker 2: with the family, and the growing obligations and desires that
• 25:25
  Speaker 2: you have on that side too, So all of that
• 25:28
  Speaker 2: might take you out of the field or have you
• 25:30
  Speaker 2: doing less of like the extreme stuff, right, And so
• 25:33
  Speaker 2: I've felt that desire sometimes. But then also on the
• 25:36
  Speaker 2: flip side, I was talking with someone earlier this spring,
• 25:39
  Speaker 2: and they brought up an interesting thing that they keep
• 25:41
  Speaker 2: in mind a lot, and that I hadn't really thought about,
• 25:43
  Speaker 2: but all of a sudden like hit me. They said, like,
• 25:47
  Speaker 2: when it comes to some of these like extreme things,
• 25:49
  Speaker 2: or like the big lifeless trips, or like the more
• 25:52
  Speaker 2: physically challenging things like going up and doing a mountain,
• 25:56
  Speaker 2: you know, black tail hunt in Alaska, or a caribou hunt,
• 26:00
  Speaker 2: or el conn in Colorado or whatever.
• 26:02
  Speaker 3: Yeah, they said that.
• 26:04
  Speaker 2: You know, if you have the physical ability and and
• 26:09
  Speaker 2: and the resources to do it right now, you should
• 26:11
  Speaker 2: feel obligated to do it because that might not be
• 26:15
  Speaker 2: available in ten years, that might not be possible in
• 26:18
  Speaker 2: fifteen years. So if you if you've been given the
• 26:20
  Speaker 2: grace of God to physically be able to do that
• 26:22
  Speaker 2: right now, to have that opportunity right now, it would
• 26:25
  Speaker 2: almost be a disservice to your kids if you didn't
• 26:28
  Speaker 2: do those some of those things when you could and
• 26:31
  Speaker 2: showcase that and have those experiences and bring those stories
• 26:34
  Speaker 2: back and you know, again kind of getting to the Yeah,
• 26:38
  Speaker 2: you never know what's going to come down the line,
• 26:40
  Speaker 2: and you know, one day you're forty and the next
• 26:42
  Speaker 2: day you're fifteen and you got a bad knee or
• 26:43
  Speaker 2: whatever it is.
• 26:45
  Speaker 3: So I thought about that too. Does that ever cross
• 26:48
  Speaker 3: your mind?
• 26:50
  Speaker 5: Man, I'll just I'll be completely honest with you about
• 26:55
  Speaker 5: where I'm at. Yes, I think about those things. But
• 26:58
  Speaker 5: if you're asking me as an average joe, right, and
• 27:04
  Speaker 5: I consider myself an average joe from maybe the amount
• 27:07
  Speaker 5: of money that I make in a given year, and
• 27:10
  Speaker 5: so if you're asking me to go do a once
• 27:12
  Speaker 5: in a lifetime trip where I am spending ten grand
• 27:18
  Speaker 5: on like a big hunt, like I don't know, and
• 27:21
  Speaker 5: some of these hunts are not even close to ten grand,
• 27:23
  Speaker 5: but a big hunt like that, and I have to
• 27:26
  Speaker 5: take money away from the family to do that because
• 27:30
  Speaker 5: ultimately that's what I'm doing and maybe which would open
• 27:33
  Speaker 5: up some different opportunities for them. Then I have to think,
• 27:37
  Speaker 5: like what is more important At that point, I have
• 27:41
  Speaker 5: to weigh some things. And I'm into the stage of
• 27:43
  Speaker 5: my life where the teeter totter is always tilted towards
• 27:48
  Speaker 5: my kids right now, Like literally, they are my favorite
• 27:53
  Speaker 5: people to hang out with. I just I mean, they
• 27:56
  Speaker 5: fight all the time, and they piss me off almost
• 27:58
  Speaker 5: on a daily basis. But when we can have when
• 28:01
  Speaker 5: we sit there and we go fishing or just hanging
• 28:04
  Speaker 5: out doing like throwing rocks in a river like that
• 28:08
  Speaker 5: is where I want to be right now. I don't
• 28:12
  Speaker 5: want to miss I mean, because what happens is you
• 28:16
  Speaker 5: get these little Facebook memories that pop up and it's
• 28:19
  Speaker 5: you and your baby daughter and you're holding your and
• 28:23
  Speaker 5: you're just like, holy shit, I have three kids now
• 28:27
  Speaker 5: and she's twelve, Like I blinked, and I have grown
• 28:32
  Speaker 5: up kids. Now and well, I mean seven is my youngest,
• 28:35
  Speaker 5: but you know what I mean, They're not babies and
• 28:36
  Speaker 5: toddlers anymore, and so I feel like I just want
• 28:40
  Speaker 5: to stay with them and do this and then take
• 28:45
  Speaker 5: care of my body so that long term, when they're
• 28:48
  Speaker 5: out of the house or they don't want to be
• 28:49
  Speaker 5: around dad anymore, then I can go and I can
• 28:52
  Speaker 5: be like, yeah, I'm fifty five when I'm doing in
• 28:55
  Speaker 5: ten years, Let's say I'm fifty five years old. Now
• 29:00
  Speaker 5: I can focus on the checking the boxes, and yes,
• 29:03
  Speaker 5: it might be more money then, but also I'm spending
• 29:06
  Speaker 5: less money because I have three less kids.
• 29:07
  Speaker 4: In the house. So you know, like I don't know,
• 29:11
  Speaker 4: there's multiple ways to look at it.
• 29:12
  Speaker 3: I guess, yeah, oh for sure.
• 29:14
  Speaker 2: I camera if I had talked about this, this like
• 29:17
  Speaker 2: little statistic I discovered with you when we did our
• 29:20
  Speaker 2: last kind of like raising Outdoor Kids podcast a year
• 29:23
  Speaker 2: or two ago. But when I heard this, and I'll
• 29:25
  Speaker 2: just I'll stay it again just in case I didn't.
• 29:28
  Speaker 2: The average American supposedly eighty percent of the time they
• 29:33
  Speaker 2: get with their kids over the course of their entire
• 29:36
  Speaker 2: life happens before their child is eighteen. So for most
• 29:41
  Speaker 2: of us we have between now and when our kid
• 29:43
  Speaker 2: turns eighteen to have experienced eighty percent of all the
• 29:47
  Speaker 2: time we're going to get with them. Like when I
• 29:48
  Speaker 2: heard that, it just blew my mind and realized, like,
• 29:51
  Speaker 2: oh no, like so much of the life experience I'm
• 29:55
  Speaker 2: going to have with this child is going to happen,
• 29:58
  Speaker 2: you know, right now and over the next eight years
• 30:01
  Speaker 2: or next ten years. That just, for some reason made
• 30:05
  Speaker 2: it so much more concrete and so much more real
• 30:08
  Speaker 2: the importance of what you just just said, Like soak
• 30:11
  Speaker 2: in every moment of these short years, because they do
• 30:14
  Speaker 2: go so fast.
• 30:15
  Speaker 3: It it's so cliche.
• 30:16
  Speaker 2: And if I'm like a twenty I don't think a
• 30:19
  Speaker 2: twenty two year old is going to listen to this
• 30:20
  Speaker 2: podcast today because of the title.
• 30:22
  Speaker 3: I'm gonna put on it.
• 30:23
  Speaker 2: But if for some reason the twenty two year old,
• 30:25
  Speaker 2: it's very forward thinking, decided to listen to this podcast,
• 30:28
  Speaker 2: they're probably rolling their eyes about how cliche this is,
• 30:32
  Speaker 2: and YadA, YadA, YadA, because that's exactly what I.
• 30:34
  Speaker 3: Thought when I was twenty two.
• 30:35
  Speaker 2: Yep, but it's all true. All the stuff they told
• 30:39
  Speaker 2: us back then is true. It goes by so quick
• 30:42
  Speaker 2: it's a blink. I mean I remember coming on the podcast.
• 30:45
  Speaker 2: I was sitting in my truck next to the Yellowstone
• 30:48
  Speaker 2: River recording a podcast with you. I'm sitting in the
• 30:51
  Speaker 2: front seat, computers on like the center console, and I
• 30:54
  Speaker 2: was like, Dan, I gotta tell you something.
• 30:55
  Speaker 3: We're having a kid.
• 30:57
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and now my son is is you know, approaching
• 31:01
  Speaker 2: eight years old?
• 31:02
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and it seems like that was yesterday.
• 31:05
  Speaker 4: Yeah, dude, yeah, yep, yep.
• 31:08
  Speaker 5: Thank thank God for some of these memories, like the
• 31:11
  Speaker 5: pictures and the Facebook memories that pop up and things
• 31:15
  Speaker 5: like that.
• 31:15
  Speaker 4: It does allow me to slow down and just be like, ah,
• 31:20
  Speaker 4: lady man, it's like you don't get time only goes
• 31:23
  Speaker 4: in one direction, and you have to I just want
• 31:26
  Speaker 4: to be there. I want to be there with them
• 31:29
  Speaker 4: all the time for everything.
• 31:31
  Speaker 5: And I say that with an asterisk, because they got
• 31:33
  Speaker 5: to go experience some stuff on their own at some point.
• 31:35
  Speaker 5: But like for me selfishly, I want to be there
• 31:40
  Speaker 5: with them because Dad is only cool right now and
• 31:44
  Speaker 5: here in you know, five five years, for my youngest
• 31:49
  Speaker 5: then dad's not as cool. Right my daughter, she's already
• 31:53
  Speaker 5: branching out into this different life as a young Yair
• 32:00
  Speaker 5: she's not even a woman yet, but I mean she
• 32:02
  Speaker 5: acts like it, and so you see this, But she
• 32:07
  Speaker 5: still wants to go turkey hunting with me, and she
• 32:09
  Speaker 5: wants to go deer hunting with me. And so as
• 32:11
  Speaker 5: long as I have that, I am going to hang
• 32:14
  Speaker 5: on to that as long as I possibly can, and
• 32:16
  Speaker 5: I will sacrifice any once in a lifetime.
• 32:19
  Speaker 3: Trip for that.
• 32:20
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 32:21
  Speaker 2: So so so where I want to kind of spend
• 32:25
  Speaker 2: the rest of our time was exploring this kind of thing,
• 32:28
  Speaker 2: all the different ways that this like stage of our lives,
• 32:31
  Speaker 2: like becoming a middle aged hunter, how that impacts our
• 32:33
  Speaker 2: hunting life, our choices, the way we look at things,
• 32:36
  Speaker 2: the way we do things. And I think, you know,
• 32:38
  Speaker 2: one of the things for me is exactly what you've
• 32:40
  Speaker 2: been talking about and that I've been talking about, which
• 32:42
  Speaker 2: is like the people you're around matter so much more
• 32:46
  Speaker 2: than the other things used to be. Like you, you know,
• 32:48
  Speaker 2: back in twenty fourteen when we started the podcast, you
• 32:51
  Speaker 2: and I were just talking about this big buck and
• 32:52
  Speaker 2: that big buck and this booner and all that, and
• 32:56
  Speaker 2: and you know what do we talk about when we're
• 32:58
  Speaker 2: talking about our upcoming season?
• 32:59
  Speaker 3: It was much more this time.
• 33:00
  Speaker 2: Around or you know who we're going to be around,
• 33:02
  Speaker 2: and you know they're hunting buddies and you know, experience
• 33:06
  Speaker 2: versus antlers and ninches, right right, I want to make
• 33:10
  Speaker 2: sure I'm prioritizing more time, you know, hunting with my
• 33:12
  Speaker 2: dad or getting my sons with my dad. Those kinds
• 33:16
  Speaker 2: of things matter so much more now. Yeah, and I think,
• 33:21
  Speaker 2: you know, again back to cliches, but you go with
• 33:24
  Speaker 2: the standard stages that everyone talks about. Right there was
• 33:28
  Speaker 2: like the stage when you're just getting start and you're
• 33:30
  Speaker 2: trying to figure out, how do I get anything, how
• 33:31
  Speaker 2: do I hunt at all?
• 33:32
  Speaker 3: How do I kill anything?
• 33:34
  Speaker 2: And then you figure it out and then you want
• 33:35
  Speaker 2: to shoot a bunch of stuff, and then you then
• 33:37
  Speaker 2: move to the next one. We're like, okay, now I
• 33:38
  Speaker 2: want to get a big one maybe or a bigger one.
• 33:40
  Speaker 2: And then you got I'm gonna be like a trophy
• 33:42
  Speaker 2: on around only get like the big giant, the.
• 33:44
  Speaker 3: One single whatever.
• 33:45
  Speaker 2: And then you slowly start kind of coming down the
• 33:47
  Speaker 2: bell curve, which is I guess where we are now,
• 33:49
  Speaker 2: where it's much more about, Hey, I want to be
• 33:52
  Speaker 2: around people I care about, have you know, experiences that
• 33:55
  Speaker 2: matter for bigger reasons. Than just a tag of antlers
• 33:59
  Speaker 2: on the wall. And then I think what also, I've
• 34:01
  Speaker 2: been thinking a lot more about too, And this is
• 34:03
  Speaker 2: maybe a slight transition, but and maybe I'm not old
• 34:07
  Speaker 2: enough to be thinking about this, but I am.
• 34:08
  Speaker 3: I'm an old soul maybe.
• 34:10
  Speaker 2: But already thinking about like legacy, Like what am I
• 34:12
  Speaker 2: passing out to the kids? What am I teaching the
• 34:14
  Speaker 2: kids are what are my kids or people i'm around
• 34:17
  Speaker 2: going to remember about how we did things or you know,
• 34:19
  Speaker 2: stuff like that. Just thinking more about the future, Like
• 34:21
  Speaker 2: my I think kids force this, force you to do this.
• 34:24
  Speaker 3: Your Yeah, your.
• 34:26
  Speaker 2: View changes, like the aperture you looked at the world
• 34:30
  Speaker 2: that like when it was just me, it was just like,
• 34:31
  Speaker 2: well what am I doing tomorrow or next week or
• 34:33
  Speaker 2: next month? And now it's like I care about what's
• 34:35
  Speaker 2: going to happen in forty years. Yeah, I'm not gonna
• 34:38
  Speaker 2: be around, probably, but I know my kids will be.
• 34:41
  Speaker 2: And so you're thinking about like the future of hunting
• 34:43
  Speaker 2: or the future of deer or the future of public
• 34:46
  Speaker 2: lands so much more now. Yeah, that's been a big
• 34:49
  Speaker 2: thing for me lately.
• 34:50
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 34:51
  Speaker 5: Yeah, let's table that public land talk for just a second.
• 34:55
  Speaker 4: Well, I sort of explore this one.
• 34:58
  Speaker 5: Like the outdoors to me, me is just a vessel
• 35:03
  Speaker 5: really for the kids, like my legacy, I want to
• 35:08
  Speaker 5: be like I want my kids to tell their kids,
• 35:12
  Speaker 5: or my grandkids to tell their kids who will probably
• 35:16
  Speaker 5: never meet, right and just be like, dude, my grandpa
• 35:20
  Speaker 5: was an awesome son of a gun, right, or or
• 35:23
  Speaker 5: I want my kids to tell their kids like the
• 35:25
  Speaker 5: way that I talk about my grandparents, like dude, I
• 35:29
  Speaker 5: loved them, they were awesome, Like my dad is a
• 35:32
  Speaker 5: great guy.
• 35:33
  Speaker 4: My mom is a big heart. She's very caring, Like
• 35:36
  Speaker 4: I want my.
• 35:37
  Speaker 5: Kids to talk about to other people about me, Like ultimately,
• 35:43
  Speaker 5: that's really what it is. And it's like, never lose
• 35:45
  Speaker 5: the memory of Dad, or never lose the memory of grandpa, right.
• 35:51
  Speaker 4: Because that's true legacy. It's just that the outdoors is
• 35:55
  Speaker 4: a delivery for people to be the best versions of
• 35:58
  Speaker 4: themselves so that legacies can be made at that point.
• 36:03
  Speaker 4: And so that's where I spend a lot of time
• 36:06
  Speaker 4: with my kids, is the fishing and the hunting and
• 36:08
  Speaker 4: the outdoors and stuff. And even if it's.
• 36:10
  Speaker 5: Just outside, right, or just in the treehouse in the
• 36:14
  Speaker 5: backyard or whatever, it's just it's a place where the
• 36:18
  Speaker 5: true me gets to come out and the kids are
• 36:21
  Speaker 5: able to see, Like, dude, the outdoors is where it's that. Man,
• 36:25
  Speaker 5: my dad's so happy in outdoors. I'm so happy in
• 36:27
  Speaker 5: the outdoors. And once you like find a true happiness
• 36:31
  Speaker 5: in this state of nature whatever, that that's different for everybody.
• 36:36
  Speaker 5: I really do think that that's that's where legacies are made, dude.
• 36:41
  Speaker 4: And if you're able to accomplish.
• 36:43
  Speaker 5: Some some extra things fighting for public land or teaching
• 36:50
  Speaker 5: someone who's maybe less fortunate than you or doesn't have
• 36:53
  Speaker 5: a dad or something like that to also hunt and fish, man,
• 36:56
  Speaker 5: that's the cherry on top.
• 36:58
  Speaker 2: Thank yeah, kind of expanding on something you brought up there.
• 37:02
  Speaker 2: You know, the outdoors is a vessel for many different things,
• 37:07
  Speaker 2: and it's also aus a tremendous u training ground for life.
• 37:12
  Speaker 2: And so now now now as a father, you know,
• 37:15
  Speaker 2: I'm seeing like so many opportunities for passing on really
• 37:19
  Speaker 2: important life lessons in this like microcosm of the world
• 37:22
  Speaker 2: which is the outdoors. So going back to where we started,
• 37:26
  Speaker 2: we're backpacking this weekend, and I knew this was going
• 37:30
  Speaker 2: to be a challenge. It was like their most challenging
• 37:32
  Speaker 2: you know, outdoor expedition we've done with the two boys yet,
• 37:34
  Speaker 2: they're five and seven. They've backpacked for a number of
• 37:37
  Speaker 2: years now, but it's always relatively relatively you know, flat,
• 37:41
  Speaker 2: not too long. We've carried most of the weight for him.
• 37:45
  Speaker 2: This year, this weekend we did it was going to
• 37:47
  Speaker 2: be a three day, fifteen mile, two thousand plus feet
• 37:50
  Speaker 2: of elevation game trip, and both the boys got new backpacks.
• 37:53
  Speaker 2: So my seven year old has like a legit backpacking backpack.
• 37:56
  Speaker 3: That can carry some weight.
• 37:58
  Speaker 2: My five year old has a big day path that
• 38:00
  Speaker 2: he was going to carry some food and clothes and
• 38:02
  Speaker 2: the camel back and stuff. So like they were going
• 38:05
  Speaker 2: to be carrying more of the burdens. So coming into
• 38:06
  Speaker 2: I was like, hey, just so you know, this is
• 38:09
  Speaker 2: going to be challenging. This is going to be tough.
• 38:11
  Speaker 2: And so I was like mentally preparing them for like
• 38:13
  Speaker 2: this is going to be some type too fun and
• 38:14
  Speaker 2: we're going to work through it together and it's gonna
• 38:17
  Speaker 2: be amazing. But we're going to come into this knowing
• 38:19
  Speaker 2: like we're gonna have to we're gona have to push
• 38:21
  Speaker 2: through some hurdles and and what was so cool is
• 38:24
  Speaker 2: like all that absolutely happened, and at one point on
• 38:27
  Speaker 2: the last day that first off, they did amazing throughout
• 38:30
  Speaker 2: all that. We get to the last day and you know,
• 38:33
  Speaker 2: we've hiked fourteen miles so far, and everything's wearing on
• 38:36
  Speaker 2: the kids and they're definitely exhausted. And I remember thinking
• 38:41
  Speaker 2: to myself, like, you just got to keep like their
• 38:43
  Speaker 2: mind on some other thing, right, So I brought this
• 38:46
  Speaker 2: idea of the pain cave.
• 38:47
  Speaker 3: Have you ever heard of the pain cave?
• 38:48
  Speaker 4: I have not.
• 38:49
  Speaker 2: It's it's like a thing in like the running world,
• 38:52
  Speaker 2: or like the ultra marathon or long distance hiking, all
• 38:55
  Speaker 2: that kind of stuff, like where you're you know, physically
• 38:58
  Speaker 2: exerting yourself for hours, an hour and hours, you know,
• 39:01
  Speaker 2: dozens and dozens of miles and eventually you can get
• 39:03
  Speaker 2: to a point where you enter the pain cave and
• 39:05
  Speaker 2: you are just like everything hurts, you know, It's like
• 39:08
  Speaker 2: where you're at your lowest point and you think you
• 39:10
  Speaker 2: want to quit. And the kind of one of the
• 39:14
  Speaker 2: secrets to making it through the pain cave is not
• 39:16
  Speaker 2: to like bemoan the pain cave. It's not to you know,
• 39:19
  Speaker 2: feel sorry about yourself because you're in the pain cave.
• 39:21
  Speaker 2: It's to embrace it and recognize, all right, man, like
• 39:24
  Speaker 2: we're here. This is the moment when you like prove
• 39:27
  Speaker 2: your metal. This is what you push through and you
• 39:29
  Speaker 2: can kind of like embrace it, talk some smack to it,
• 39:33
  Speaker 2: work through it, whatever. And so I explain all this
• 39:35
  Speaker 2: to the boys as we're hiking, and so I kind
• 39:37
  Speaker 2: of this is the idea of the pain cave. And
• 39:39
  Speaker 2: so we might be in the pain cave right now,
• 39:40
  Speaker 2: but you know what do we always talk about? Why
• 39:42
  Speaker 2: do we do hard things that make you stronger? They
• 39:44
  Speaker 2: help you in the longer and you're going to grow
• 39:45
  Speaker 2: from it. Were in the pain cave right now, but
• 39:47
  Speaker 2: let's start start talking smack to the pan cave. So
• 39:50
  Speaker 2: my boys as we're hiking down the trail, they're carrying
• 39:52
  Speaker 2: heavy packs. They've been hiking fifteen miles in the mountains,
• 39:55
  Speaker 2: and my boys are, you know, going back.
• 39:57
  Speaker 3: Hey, you know what, pain cave.
• 39:59
  Speaker 2: You're not going to stop because we're the Kenyans and
• 40:01
  Speaker 2: we don't give up and we're going to keep on working.
• 40:03
  Speaker 2: And so like my five year old and seven year
• 40:05
  Speaker 2: old are saying all this stuff like having fun with it,
• 40:07
  Speaker 2: talking smack. You know, there's physically exhausted.
• 40:10
  Speaker 3: Problem as they've ever been.
• 40:12
  Speaker 2: But they learned a little something and then by the
• 40:15
  Speaker 2: time they got we finished the hike, they're having fun.
• 40:18
  Speaker 2: They're like, oh man, that really works dead And I
• 40:21
  Speaker 2: just thought to it was what a great thing for
• 40:24
  Speaker 2: a seven year old or yeah, great lesson, a great
• 40:28
  Speaker 2: moment to realize how much stronger you are, how much
• 40:30
  Speaker 2: more capable you are, how much more resilient you are.
• 40:34
  Speaker 2: And I could never replicate that at home. I can
• 40:37
  Speaker 2: never replicate that with a reading them a story or
• 40:42
  Speaker 2: anything they would get in school. Yeah, and so many
• 40:44
  Speaker 2: things like in hunting or fishing, you know, can do
• 40:47
  Speaker 2: that kind of thing too. Yeah, creating, like fostering those
• 40:52
  Speaker 2: kinds of moments now are what matters so much more
• 40:55
  Speaker 2: to me now, whether it is with my kids or
• 40:57
  Speaker 2: you know, as you mentioned, introducing other people to these
• 41:00
  Speaker 2: pursuits that they can someday experience that.
• 41:02
  Speaker 3: Yeah, that's that's the stuff that I'm really more and
• 41:07
  Speaker 3: more interested in.
• 41:08
  Speaker 5: How How far are you going to take the pain
• 41:10
  Speaker 5: cave on your kids? Like are you gonna be like
• 41:12
  Speaker 5: you're gonna let them go with Clay on a dog
• 41:14
  Speaker 5: on a black bear hunt where they're chasing bears into
• 41:18
  Speaker 5: caves and then have your son go in with a
• 41:20
  Speaker 5: knife and try to kill a bear with a knife.
• 41:24
  Speaker 2: There's definitely a fine there's a fine line you gotta
• 41:27
  Speaker 2: walk for sure.
• 41:29
  Speaker 4: Maybe maybe we'll ease into that.
• 41:31
  Speaker 2: Yes, we will ease into the Yeah. But but yeah, man,
• 41:35
  Speaker 2: I mean it's it's been. It's been such a wonderful thing,
• 41:38
  Speaker 2: wonderful thing for our family to be able to kind
• 41:41
  Speaker 2: of and when you see your kids grow like that,
• 41:43
  Speaker 2: like you grow too, and your kids teach you so
• 41:47
  Speaker 2: much about life in these moments, and so yeah, as
• 41:50
  Speaker 2: a middle aged hunter now, I'm seeking out opportunities like that. Yeah,
• 41:54
  Speaker 2: when I'm looking at my calendar for this coming year,
• 41:57
  Speaker 2: it's much less about killing a target buck and much
• 42:00
  Speaker 2: more about, Okay, how do I maximize time with the
• 42:04
  Speaker 2: kids and the family. How do I if I'm doing
• 42:06
  Speaker 2: something outside of that, how do I make sure it's
• 42:08
  Speaker 2: like just a general experience that's really special or place
• 42:12
  Speaker 2: that's really special. Because in the end, you know, like
• 42:18
  Speaker 2: the moment, like if you're targeting some big giant buck,
• 42:21
  Speaker 2: the moments that you actually have with that big giant
• 42:23
  Speaker 2: buck are like fleeting, Yep, you kill this big giant buck.
• 42:27
  Speaker 2: You feel great for a couple of minutes, and then
• 42:29
  Speaker 2: he got to get this done, get this done, get
• 42:31
  Speaker 2: this done, get this done. And then before you know what,
• 42:32
  Speaker 2: the buck's cut up, and then the freezer and the
• 42:35
  Speaker 2: antlers are at the taxi ermist and you're sitting there thinking, Man,
• 42:37
  Speaker 2: this thing I obsessed about for twelve months or whatever happened, Like,
• 42:42
  Speaker 2: now what? And I'm not saying that that's not still
• 42:44
  Speaker 2: fun to pursue and cool to have tough goals, but
• 42:48
  Speaker 2: I am realizing now like there's so much more than that.
• 42:54
  Speaker 5: Well, I think the other way to look at that
• 42:56
  Speaker 5: is the amount of work it takes for those types
• 43:00
  Speaker 5: of moments. Right, those moments are special because they are rare.
• 43:04
  Speaker 5: And I don't mean just moments with big bucks and
• 43:07
  Speaker 5: killing a deer. I'm talking about moments with the family,
• 43:10
  Speaker 5: the true moments where you've worked all year round. Now
• 43:16
  Speaker 5: it's time to go do something special with them. And
• 43:18
  Speaker 5: whether that's a vacation or maybe just a weekend fishing
• 43:22
  Speaker 5: trip or whatever it is.
• 43:24
  Speaker 4: Right, it's the moment.
• 43:26
  Speaker 5: The moments like that are so special because they're rare,
• 43:30
  Speaker 5: because if you lived your life like that, you'd be
• 43:33
  Speaker 5: extremely lucky and probably wealthy to be able to afford
• 43:37
  Speaker 5: to do those types of things. But it's all the
• 43:39
  Speaker 5: hard work that goes into the kill or the moment
• 43:44
  Speaker 5: where you're like the other day, I'm gonna try not
• 43:48
  Speaker 5: to get emotional here, but this is something my oldest
• 43:52
  Speaker 5: boy said to me. And he goes, we were fishing,
• 43:56
  Speaker 5: we just got done fishing for the night, so it's
• 43:58
  Speaker 5: getting dark, or drive through the countryside coming back from
• 44:01
  Speaker 5: the pond of the house and he goes, Dad, do you.
• 44:06
  Speaker 4: Wish you were older or do you wish you were younger?
• 44:10
  Speaker 5: And I said, buddy, I just wish I'm just happy
• 44:12
  Speaker 5: that I'm this age right now.
• 44:14
  Speaker 4: I'm happy.
• 44:15
  Speaker 5: And he goes, Dad, I wish you were younger so
• 44:18
  Speaker 5: I could spend more time with you. And I'm just like,
• 44:21
  Speaker 5: holy shit, right like it it's those types of things,
• 44:27
  Speaker 5: and I'm just like blown away that my kid had
• 44:32
  Speaker 5: the brain power to think of something like that first
• 44:34
  Speaker 5: and foremost. But then that also tells me that he
• 44:38
  Speaker 5: that he loves me and that he loves doing these
• 44:41
  Speaker 5: things with me. So when I get that dopamine hit
• 44:45
  Speaker 5: of my kid telling me that I don't want to
• 44:47
  Speaker 5: do that shit, as much as I possibly can with him,
• 44:50
  Speaker 5: you know what I mean? And so I don't know. Man,
• 44:53
  Speaker 5: that's that's that's kind of where I'm at.
• 44:56
  Speaker 3: That's the good stuff. That's the good, the good stuff.
• 44:58
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 44:59
  Speaker 2: So being a middle aged hunter I think has changed
• 45:02
  Speaker 2: our goals. I think it's changed the way we plan
• 45:04
  Speaker 2: our year. I think it's changed how we spend our time.
• 45:07
  Speaker 2: I'm curious though, kind of shifting gears a little bit here.
• 45:13
  Speaker 2: Has it changed how you hunt more like tactically or philosophically.
• 45:20
  Speaker 2: Has your approach to hunting changed if you were just
• 45:22
  Speaker 2: if you were to look at you know, Dan Johnson
• 45:25
  Speaker 2: at twenty six, twenty eight thirty, when you were balls
• 45:28
  Speaker 2: to the wall versus Dan Johnson, middle aged old man
• 45:32
  Speaker 2: hunter that we are today, how has that affect you strategically?
• 45:37
  Speaker 5: The most thing, I'll say this, and I don't mean
• 45:39
  Speaker 5: this to be arrogant, but because I've made you know,
• 45:43
  Speaker 5: I make mistakes every year, just like everybody does. But
• 45:46
  Speaker 5: if I find you and you're a big buck dude
• 45:51
  Speaker 5: like I'm, I am taking all of my experience, I'm
• 45:56
  Speaker 5: taking all of my knowledge and I'm pointing it in
• 45:59
  Speaker 5: one and that's your vitals right, And so I would
• 46:03
  Speaker 5: say that I am more dangerous now as a hunter
• 46:08
  Speaker 5: than I was ten years ago, you know, when I
• 46:12
  Speaker 5: was thirty five, and even more now than I was
• 46:16
  Speaker 5: at twenty five, and I was able to have as
• 46:18
  Speaker 5: much freedom because knowledge is power, experiences power, and I'm
• 46:24
  Speaker 5: just doubling down on all of the things that have
• 46:27
  Speaker 5: worked for me throughout the course of my life. And
• 46:31
  Speaker 5: I'm telling you right now like I'm I don't want
• 46:35
  Speaker 5: to say like I'm not the best, because I don't
• 46:38
  Speaker 5: know how you quantify that, but I'm really good at
• 46:42
  Speaker 5: getting in close to big deer and that has taken
• 46:46
  Speaker 5: me several years to get to that point. But now
• 46:50
  Speaker 5: with an attitude where Okay, I'm weighing being here in
• 46:55
  Speaker 5: this tree stand against what all the things that we
• 46:58
  Speaker 5: just talked about. So I have to be much more
• 47:01
  Speaker 5: intentional in my drive, in my decision making on where
• 47:05
  Speaker 5: I'm going to be, how I'm going to get that
• 47:07
  Speaker 5: because I'm hunting less now than I ever have before.
• 47:10
  Speaker 5: And so now I'm kit when I go into kill mode,
• 47:15
  Speaker 5: it's kill mode, it's blinders on, it's I'm going in
• 47:18
  Speaker 5: to the best stands. I'm not waiting around I'm using
• 47:22
  Speaker 5: all of the knowledge I have on terrain features, access routes,
• 47:25
  Speaker 5: wind direction, and I'm putting it to use immediately now
• 47:29
  Speaker 5: as opposed to you know, all those years ago.
• 47:32
  Speaker 2: What's like the most high impact lever you have to
• 47:35
  Speaker 2: allow you to do that? Like, like you mentioned, a
• 47:37
  Speaker 2: bunch of different things, a bunch of different types of
• 47:39
  Speaker 2: knowledge or approaches that allow you to be more effective
• 47:43
  Speaker 2: with less time.
• 47:45
  Speaker 3: But like, what's that highest leverage point.
• 47:46
  Speaker 2: What's the thing that because you now understand like more
• 47:49
  Speaker 2: than you did fifteen twenty years ago, that allows you
• 47:51
  Speaker 2: to do that? Could you put your finger on the
• 47:54
  Speaker 2: the most important of those shifts?
• 47:57
  Speaker 5: I think that we and you all the old like
• 48:01
  Speaker 5: the older guys talk about it, we give them too
• 48:04
  Speaker 5: much credit.
• 48:05
  Speaker 4: Right, they are in there for a reason.
• 48:08
  Speaker 5: And unless you jump out of a bush and scare
• 48:10
  Speaker 5: the ship out of them and they run to the
• 48:12
  Speaker 5: next county, they're not gonna go. They're not disappearing, right,
• 48:18
  Speaker 5: They're gonna go somewhere else that's relatively close. And I
• 48:21
  Speaker 5: will I will go back to a quote that Jim
• 48:25
  Speaker 5: Shockey it might have even been on this podcast several
• 48:27
  Speaker 5: years ago, where he talks about a body of water
• 48:30
  Speaker 5: like a pond, as.
• 48:33
  Speaker 3: Like did he did?
• 48:34
  Speaker 4: He did not rake the pond. He did not rake
• 48:38
  Speaker 4: the pond.
• 48:39
  Speaker 3: Sorry to derail.
• 48:41
  Speaker 4: You, oh man. That was a that was a good
• 48:44
  Speaker 4: episode anybody.
• 48:46
  Speaker 3: Speaking of a great wired un episodes.
• 48:50
  Speaker 5: But Jim Shockey goes, hey, I got this pond, and
• 48:53
  Speaker 5: when I throw a big rock into this pond, it
• 48:56
  Speaker 5: creates ripples. And sometimes the ripples get big and they
• 48:59
  Speaker 5: cry the shore and then over time those ripples go
• 49:04
  Speaker 5: away and the pond comes back to calm again. Right,
• 49:09
  Speaker 5: And so that has kind of stuck with me about pressure.
• 49:14
  Speaker 5: If you are a small pebble going into a farm
• 49:17
  Speaker 5: or a body of water, and you just have so
• 49:20
  Speaker 5: like you have your access routes planned out, you have
• 49:23
  Speaker 5: your exit routes planned out. You know what you're doing
• 49:26
  Speaker 5: on the wind directions, the thermals, how do you behave
• 49:29
  Speaker 5: in certain types of year, like how they traverse the landscape,
• 49:35
  Speaker 5: all that stuff, and you know these things, then your
• 49:40
  Speaker 5: impact on that farm is way less and you can
• 49:42
  Speaker 5: hunt specific stand locations way more times than you can
• 49:46
  Speaker 5: if you just walk straight line through a field, right
• 49:49
  Speaker 5: through a bedding area to get to a stand that's
• 49:51
  Speaker 5: in a good terrain feature like it has clicked for
• 49:55
  Speaker 5: me so long ago now that I'm able to know,
• 50:00
  Speaker 5: all right, well, it's cloudy outside, but I have a
• 50:05
  Speaker 5: south wind. It's cloudy outside, so my thermals aren't gonna rise,
• 50:08
  Speaker 5: They're gonna sink because of the clouds.
• 50:10
  Speaker 4: So I don't want to be in this stand. I
• 50:12
  Speaker 4: want to be in this stand. And so now all
• 50:14
  Speaker 4: of these things that I've learned throughout the years from
• 50:17
  Speaker 4: a strategic standpoint, it like I think, honestly, what it
• 50:21
  Speaker 4: comes down to, mark is the decision making process is
• 50:23
  Speaker 4: so much faster now than it was then. I just
• 50:29
  Speaker 4: skip to the I do way less thinking about it,
• 50:32
  Speaker 4: and I skip to the yes or no. Yes I'm
• 50:34
  Speaker 4: gonna hunt this, No I'm not.
• 50:36
  Speaker 5: Gonna hunt this. Yes I am gonna hunt today. No
• 50:38
  Speaker 5: I'm not gonna hunt today. And when when it becomes.
• 50:40
  Speaker 4: Binary, then it's so much easier to think and make
• 50:45
  Speaker 4: decisions on on where you hunt and what strategies you
• 50:48
  Speaker 4: should or should not implement.
• 51:00
  Speaker 2: What comes to mind is you're saying that, and something
• 51:02
  Speaker 2: I think is true for me too, is that old
• 51:07
  Speaker 2: line when it comes to like carpentry or something, is
• 51:09
  Speaker 2: you know, measure twice, cut once. Yep, there's something to
• 51:13
  Speaker 2: be said about you know, a lot of this is
• 51:15
  Speaker 2: hunting smarter, not necessarily harder. You know, I used to
• 51:18
  Speaker 2: take the brute force approach, and now it's much more
• 51:21
  Speaker 2: of this. You know, you've we have so much experience
• 51:24
  Speaker 2: in data points and you know, past experiences to look
• 51:28
  Speaker 2: back on that will allow you to be you know,
• 51:31
  Speaker 2: sometimes you know, don't give the deer too much credit,
• 51:34
  Speaker 2: punch right in there, be aggressive, but you're doing it
• 51:36
  Speaker 2: in a smart way. And then other times, just knowing
• 51:38
  Speaker 2: it's this isn't the time to do it. I could
• 51:40
  Speaker 2: hunt seven days straight and just make things worse. Maybe
• 51:44
  Speaker 2: I should just hunt four days or three days on
• 51:46
  Speaker 2: the right moments or in the right places or in
• 51:48
  Speaker 2: the right ways or whatever. It is, so much more
• 51:51
  Speaker 2: of that is how I approach hunting now too. And
• 51:54
  Speaker 2: then and then all of that then balancing back to
• 51:57
  Speaker 2: what we talked about, because because we're focusing on other
• 51:59
  Speaker 2: things than just this is not only making us more
• 52:02
  Speaker 2: effective as hunters, but it's making us better husbands or
• 52:06
  Speaker 2: fathers or people, which is a big part of all
• 52:10
  Speaker 2: that too. Now, the flip set of all that, a
• 52:13
  Speaker 2: lot of what you said resonates with me. But I've
• 52:15
  Speaker 2: also had another kind of epiphany as I've gotten up
• 52:18
  Speaker 2: there an age, which is I've also discovered.
• 52:23
  Speaker 3: A new found humility.
• 52:25
  Speaker 2: Maybe or I'm alleviating expectations I placed on myself a
• 52:29
  Speaker 2: little bit, because I got to a point, maybe in
• 52:32
  Speaker 2: my early thirties, where I thought, like, I know what
• 52:34
  Speaker 2: I'm doing, Like I've got this shit figured out. I've
• 52:37
  Speaker 2: got I know what I should be doing, I know
• 52:38
  Speaker 2: the right move, I know what to do, when to
• 52:40
  Speaker 2: do it, where to be, and then the deer don't cooperate,
• 52:45
  Speaker 2: or something crazy happens, or you know, the neighbor does something,
• 52:48
  Speaker 2: and then you you know, I would be beating myself
• 52:50
  Speaker 2: up or upset about it or stressing about And what
• 52:53
  Speaker 2: I've kind of gotten to now is realizing that you
• 52:55
  Speaker 2: can do everything right all the time and it still
• 52:58
  Speaker 2: doesn't happen right because there's so many outside so many
• 53:01
  Speaker 2: outside variables. These are wild animals, we're in wild places
• 53:06
  Speaker 2: or or not so wild places, with invariables like people
• 53:09
  Speaker 2: and all.
• 53:10
  Speaker 3: Sorts of crazy things.
• 53:10
  Speaker 2: So I've also gotten to a point now where I
• 53:13
  Speaker 2: hunt smarter, maybe not harder, I have more confidence, but
• 53:16
  Speaker 2: at the same time, I'm also much more quick or
• 53:20
  Speaker 2: much faster to forgive myself or to say ah, oh
• 53:24
  Speaker 2: well than I used to be, because I've kind of
• 53:26
  Speaker 2: gotten to the point now where I've I've i haven't
• 53:28
  Speaker 2: seen it all, but I've seen a lot.
• 53:30
  Speaker 3: I've seen things go sideways in so many.
• 53:32
  Speaker 2: Different ways that I that I've had to learn to
• 53:35
  Speaker 2: like this is you know, some of like the cheesy
• 53:38
  Speaker 2: self help stuff these days they talk about self compassion.
• 53:41
  Speaker 3: I don't.
• 53:42
  Speaker 2: I don't this is I'm not talking about self compassion,
• 53:43
  Speaker 2: but whatever. The hunting version of that would be just
• 53:46
  Speaker 2: like a little bit of like cutting yourself a little
• 53:48
  Speaker 2: bit of slack, because like stuff just goes wrong sometimes too.
• 53:52
  Speaker 2: And and I've found that that sometimes mentally as a hunter,
• 53:57
  Speaker 2: is really important is to is to get yourself like
• 54:01
  Speaker 2: give yourself a get out of jail free card every
• 54:03
  Speaker 2: once in a while, because like, stuff's not always going
• 54:05
  Speaker 2: to go the way you write it up. Stuff's not
• 54:06
  Speaker 2: always gonna they're not gonna follow the script most of
• 54:08
  Speaker 2: the time.
• 54:09
  Speaker 3: They don't follow the script ninety nine percent of the time.
• 54:11
  Speaker 2: Even for the absolute single best hunter in the world, whoever,
• 54:14
  Speaker 2: that is ninety nine percent of the time. It's not
• 54:16
  Speaker 2: going right for them, right, yeah, so why should it
• 54:19
  Speaker 2: be different for us?
• 54:20
  Speaker 4: Yeah? Here's what I think.
• 54:28
  Speaker 5: The stuff that I think about is, or a big
• 54:30
  Speaker 5: realization that I've kind of had, is you're not in control.
• 54:34
  Speaker 4: And when you're talking with mother nature, you're never in control.
• 54:36
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 54:37
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 54:37
  Speaker 5: You can do all of these things like our friends
• 54:40
  Speaker 5: who manage thousands of acres and plant the food plots
• 54:43
  Speaker 5: and do the hinge cutting, and they basically are growing
• 54:47
  Speaker 5: deer on their property. Then you start getting closer to
• 54:52
  Speaker 5: this this where you are in control, and sometimes it works.
• 54:56
  Speaker 5: Most of the time it works, but there's still some
• 54:58
  Speaker 5: times where it doesn't work. But for me, knowing that
• 55:02
  Speaker 5: I'm not in control is part of the allure of
• 55:06
  Speaker 5: what makes hunting so awesome because you go into an
• 55:10
  Speaker 5: environment that you don't live in, right, that you haven't like.
• 55:14
  Speaker 5: For me, I don't do any I did some hinge
• 55:16
  Speaker 5: cutting this year for the first time ever. I don't
• 55:20
  Speaker 5: have any food plots planted, and so when I go
• 55:23
  Speaker 5: into an environment like that, it's me versus them. So
• 55:26
  Speaker 5: there is a little bit of this challenge where I
• 55:29
  Speaker 5: need to beat them. I need to get within thirty
• 55:32
  Speaker 5: yards or so of them twenty yards would be awesome
• 55:35
  Speaker 5: and get as close to them as humanly possible and
• 55:39
  Speaker 5: play a game. It's like it's a game, but when
• 55:42
  Speaker 5: after the game is over, whether you win or lose,
• 55:45
  Speaker 5: you can't go home and pout about it. You just
• 55:48
  Speaker 5: get back out there the next time and you learn
• 55:51
  Speaker 5: from whatever it is you did. Like I'm not like,
• 55:53
  Speaker 5: I'm way past Like why didn't this dear come in?
• 55:58
  Speaker 4: What happened these probably with the dough dude, Like he's
• 56:01
  Speaker 4: probably eating acorns and laying on his fat belly somewhere.
• 56:05
  Speaker 4: There are so many things that we we are not
• 56:08
  Speaker 4: in control of, and because we're greedy humans, we want
• 56:11
  Speaker 4: to be in control of everything.
• 56:13
  Speaker 5: Yeah, and like this is nature, dude, we're not. And
• 56:17
  Speaker 5: so like it's the hardest, it's the hardest thing to
• 56:20
  Speaker 5: give up.
• 56:21
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 56:22
  Speaker 2: I think that's like a thing that I have always
• 56:24
  Speaker 2: struggled with because of my like innate personality traits. But
• 56:27
  Speaker 2: I think the more I lean into like embracing that
• 56:30
  Speaker 2: very thing that you just mentioned, embracing the fact that
• 56:33
  Speaker 2: most nights it's not going to go they want to go, Yeah,
• 56:35
  Speaker 2: and most hunts aren't going to end the way you
• 56:38
  Speaker 2: wanted to. But but it all goes back to something
• 56:40
  Speaker 2: we've talked about for years and years, Dan, But I
• 56:42
  Speaker 2: feel like every year we're relearning it in some way.
• 56:44
  Speaker 2: It's it's embracing the process, embracing the journey and being
• 56:48
  Speaker 2: less worried about the end outcome. Like I can never
• 56:51
  Speaker 2: remind myself of that enough, and I feel like I'm
• 56:53
  Speaker 2: slowly and slowly getting there. But that's like one of
• 56:57
  Speaker 2: the most important things. And like, as I'm reaching this
• 56:59
  Speaker 2: new stag, like that's becoming ever more clear that again,
• 57:06
  Speaker 2: percent of the time you spent you spend as a
• 57:07
  Speaker 2: hunter is in the process. It's not actually in that
• 57:10
  Speaker 2: final amazing moment. And so that that kind of brings
• 57:13
  Speaker 2: back to another thing that I have found has become
• 57:16
  Speaker 2: more and more important for me at this middle aged stage,
• 57:19
  Speaker 2: which is that the how or the way I do
• 57:23
  Speaker 2: it or the how I do it is more important
• 57:26
  Speaker 2: than having done it or like having filled the tag
• 57:29
  Speaker 2: or killed. So I'm I'm much more interested now, and
• 57:33
  Speaker 2: you know, not saying I wouldn't. You know, Sometimes you
• 57:36
  Speaker 2: just get a gift, like day one, a big deer
• 57:38
  Speaker 2: shows up on a trip and you get it and.
• 57:40
  Speaker 4: It's awesome, it's cool.
• 57:40
  Speaker 2: Yeah, But like I'm much more interested in going on
• 57:44
  Speaker 2: a trip that is going to involve me, like doing
• 57:47
  Speaker 2: something in a specific way that's really cool. Like I
• 57:49
  Speaker 2: want to go to this place because I'm gonna have
• 57:51
  Speaker 2: to float this river and hunt deer along the way,
• 57:53
  Speaker 2: or I know I'm going to camp out on this
• 57:55
  Speaker 2: grassy bluff for seven days and get to glass and
• 57:58
  Speaker 2: get to wash deer from a long distance and get
• 58:00
  Speaker 2: to spot and stalk or whatever the thing is. Or yeah,
• 58:03
  Speaker 2: I'm more interested in getting dear close, like like my
• 58:07
  Speaker 2: archery journey has been example of this. Like, yeah, I
• 58:10
  Speaker 2: used to be like I want more opportunities. I want
• 58:12
  Speaker 2: to be able to shoot farther. I want to just
• 58:13
  Speaker 2: gives many chances of big buck as I possibly could.
• 58:16
  Speaker 2: And that led to you know, bad outcomes or less
• 58:18
  Speaker 2: than a deal outcomes, and YadA, YadA, YadA. It's led
• 58:20
  Speaker 2: to me now where I'm like, man, I want to
• 58:22
  Speaker 2: get close to animals. I want to have as few
• 58:24
  Speaker 2: bad things happen as possible. So I've actually had my
• 58:26
  Speaker 2: rain shrink.
• 58:27
  Speaker 3: Every year because I would rather have a.
• 58:30
  Speaker 2: Few great experiences, perfect shots at thirty yards and in
• 58:36
  Speaker 2: and and have great views and see cool things happen
• 58:40
  Speaker 2: that they don't get a shot at, yep, versus flinging
• 58:42
  Speaker 2: arrows at a distance and on a wish in a
• 58:44
  Speaker 2: prayer and then having.
• 58:46
  Speaker 3: Horrible weeks or days because of it.
• 58:48
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 58:49
  Speaker 2: Yeah, Or I want to you know, I want to
• 58:51
  Speaker 2: bowl hunt more than I want to do like seven
• 58:53
  Speaker 2: hundred yard long distance gun shots or yeah.
• 58:56
  Speaker 3: Whatever.
• 58:56
  Speaker 2: It is, like my my decisions around, like the gear
• 58:59
  Speaker 2: I use and the ways I hunt or the wear
• 59:02
  Speaker 2: I hunt, all of that is becoming more important than
• 59:05
  Speaker 2: like how many deer I kill it here.
• 59:07
  Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, I'm I'm in a little bit different more
• 59:11
  Speaker 5: of a different boat. Like I really do feel that
• 59:15
  Speaker 5: the number of deer I kill is the what I
• 59:20
  Speaker 5: am what I quantify success as now in a way,
• 59:25
  Speaker 5: in a weird way though, because I was talking to
• 59:28
  Speaker 5: this with another guy a while ago, and I think,
• 59:30
  Speaker 5: I go, you know, what's badass is opening up your
• 59:34
  Speaker 5: freezer door and having it be filled with animals that
• 59:39
  Speaker 5: you shot with a bow and arrow that feed fame.
• 59:43
  Speaker 5: So I'm not talking about antlers at all at this point.
• 59:46
  Speaker 5: I'm talking about shooting a dough this fall for one
• 59:50
  Speaker 5: reason only, and that's to turn her into breakfast sausage
• 59:54
  Speaker 5: because my kids love breakfast sausage, right, and with it like.
• 59:58
  Speaker 4: Yeah, and so I am.
• 1:00:01
  Speaker 5: I am looking for a little bit of quantity at
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 5: this point, because filling tags is awesome, right, But there's
• 1:00:08
  Speaker 5: also the other side of me that wants to be
• 1:00:10
  Speaker 5: that calculated guy who's like, all right, big buck time, right,
• 1:00:15
  Speaker 5: big buck time. But I think it's how you handle
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 5: the big buck approach and when things go wrong that.
• 1:00:22
  Speaker 4: Tell you where you're at.
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 5: Because for me, I had this deer show up, or
• 1:00:27
  Speaker 5: the two deer that we talked about at the beginning
• 1:00:29
  Speaker 5: of the episode that didn't show up, they just disappeared.
• 1:00:33
  Speaker 4: Then I had this other deer show up.
• 1:00:35
  Speaker 5: It was the biggest buck on the farm at the time, right,
• 1:00:39
  Speaker 5: And because of the trail cameras, I got to everything
• 1:00:42
  Speaker 5: moving around from the tree stand the last four days.
• 1:00:45
  Speaker 5: Finally shows up and I pass him because at this
• 1:00:49
  Speaker 5: point it's not about the antlers anymore. It's about something else, right,
• 1:00:53
  Speaker 5: And I didn't necessarily pass him because he was young.
• 1:00:57
  Speaker 4: I didn't pass him. I mean, he would have been
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 4: maybe the top three or four deer that I've ever
• 1:01:02
  Speaker 4: shot from a score standpoint.
• 1:01:05
  Speaker 5: That didn't matter to me. It was just the fact
• 1:01:07
  Speaker 5: that I didn't feel it was the right time for.
• 1:01:10
  Speaker 4: That buck to die for me anyway, and I was
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 4: looking for something different and I couldn't. I can't tell
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 4: you what it is.
• 1:01:17
  Speaker 5: It's just I wasn't ready, and that deer got a
• 1:01:22
  Speaker 5: pass because of that, and so that deer walked. Who
• 1:01:25
  Speaker 5: knows if he's alive today or someone else shot him,
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 5: I don't know. But I wasn't in the mood for
• 1:01:31
  Speaker 5: that particular buck at that particular time, and so I
• 1:01:36
  Speaker 5: don't know. That's a very hard thing to describe passing deer,
• 1:01:42
  Speaker 5: not because of age, not because of antler size, because
• 1:01:45
  Speaker 5: he had a decent body and he did have a
• 1:01:47
  Speaker 5: decent rack, and if it was an out of state hunt,
• 1:01:50
  Speaker 5: I definitely would have shot him.
• 1:01:52
  Speaker 4: But at that point in Iowa, it was a no
• 1:01:55
  Speaker 4: go for me.
• 1:01:56
  Speaker 3: Dude. It goes back.
• 1:01:57
  Speaker 2: It all comes back to what a wise man wants
• 1:02:00
  Speaker 2: and said a long time ago. Now he's an old
• 1:02:03
  Speaker 2: man now, but once long ago he.
• 1:02:04
  Speaker 4: Was exactly what you're gonna say, you son of a bitch.
• 1:02:08
  Speaker 3: He said. That buck made me go.
• 1:02:12
  Speaker 4: So you know, there's a state park where I live
• 1:02:18
  Speaker 4: and it's got some fancy quote by uh was Aldo Leopold. Yeah,
• 1:02:25
  Speaker 4: it's like this beautiful quote.
• 1:02:26
  Speaker 5: And then there's this statue of me with this like
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 5: mangled face and mangled hand.
• 1:02:32
  Speaker 4: It's like past him because he did make me go.
• 1:02:35
  Speaker 4: Uh you know, it's just like the most like behemoth thing, just.
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 3: Like cave man man.
• 1:02:42
  Speaker 4: Yeah, this cave man. So I'm glad you brought that up.
• 1:02:46
  Speaker 2: Oh yeah, we'll never forget. But but it's true, right,
• 1:02:50
  Speaker 2: I mean it comes I feel the exact same way.
• 1:02:52
  Speaker 3: Uh. Number one on the love and have meat in
• 1:02:55
  Speaker 3: the freezer.
• 1:02:56
  Speaker 2: Yeah, for sure, love hunting doze and making sure you
• 1:02:59
  Speaker 2: get a full freezer. But then when it comes to
• 1:03:01
  Speaker 2: like what you're gonna do with your buck tags, I
• 1:03:03
  Speaker 2: feel much much less. I think there was a phase
• 1:03:07
  Speaker 2: in my life where I felt a certain pressure, like
• 1:03:09
  Speaker 2: outside pressure, like oh man, you shouldn't pass that buck.
• 1:03:12
  Speaker 2: That's like all your buddies would be giving you a
• 1:03:13
  Speaker 2: hard time like that you got to shoot that buck,
• 1:03:15
  Speaker 2: or or you felt you should be passing other bucks
• 1:03:17
  Speaker 2: because you should be trying to shoot a big buck
• 1:03:19
  Speaker 2: because everybody else was or whatever was yep, And I
• 1:03:22
  Speaker 2: just I've gotten to the point finally that I just
• 1:03:24
  Speaker 2: don't care anymore, and that when it comes down to
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 2: is it's got to be the right moment and decision
• 1:03:29
  Speaker 2: and thing for you, and no one else is gonna
• 1:03:31
  Speaker 2: understand that nobody else will be going through the same
• 1:03:34
  Speaker 2: things as you or or want the same experience that
• 1:03:36
  Speaker 2: you do.
• 1:03:37
  Speaker 3: But but you know, removing.
• 1:03:40
  Speaker 2: All outside expectations, removing all outside opinions from that decision
• 1:03:44
  Speaker 2: has really helped me just enjoy those, you know, experiences
• 1:03:48
  Speaker 2: and decisions more. Like I had a similar thing last
• 1:03:50
  Speaker 2: year where, you know, on one of the places that
• 1:03:53
  Speaker 2: I hunt, I was after two bucks, and like, those
• 1:03:56
  Speaker 2: are the two oldest bucks, those are the bucks that
• 1:03:58
  Speaker 2: I want to get after, and then they disappear. And
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 2: then this new buck showed up in late October, I
• 1:04:03
  Speaker 2: guess it was, and he was like a really nice buck.
• 1:04:05
  Speaker 2: In most years, I probably would have targeted him.
• 1:04:09
  Speaker 3: I was like kind of on the fence, is he
• 1:04:10
  Speaker 3: fully mature? Is he not fully mature?
• 1:04:12
  Speaker 2: But man, he was a nice deer and I just
• 1:04:15
  Speaker 2: kind of felt like, I just people would probably think
• 1:04:18
  Speaker 2: I'm crazy not to try to kill this deer in Michigan,
• 1:04:19
  Speaker 2: but I just he's not.
• 1:04:21
  Speaker 3: He's just not the one I'm after right now. And
• 1:04:23
  Speaker 3: I just didn't.
• 1:04:24
  Speaker 2: Have the drive to go chase that deer, even though
• 1:04:27
  Speaker 2: like really nice buck, but I wanted to hold out
• 1:04:30
  Speaker 2: to see if one of these other deer would show
• 1:04:31
  Speaker 2: up eventually. And I knew i'd feel bad that if
• 1:04:34
  Speaker 2: I if I did, if I shot this deer, because
• 1:04:37
  Speaker 2: I knew I should, I should shoot that deer, I
• 1:04:40
  Speaker 2: would feel guilty about that forever, Like I feel like
• 1:04:42
  Speaker 2: that would like be doing like that deer a disservice,
• 1:04:46
  Speaker 2: that'd be doing it myself a disservice. So so yeah,
• 1:04:50
  Speaker 2: I think a lot of this comes down to just
• 1:04:54
  Speaker 2: we're doing things for different reasons.
• 1:04:55
  Speaker 4: Now.
• 1:04:56
  Speaker 2: We're more comfortable in our own skin and our decisions
• 1:04:58
  Speaker 2: and our values and the whys and hows of what
• 1:05:02
  Speaker 2: we do and in a certain way that's not a certain way.
• 1:05:05
  Speaker 2: In a lot of ways like that, that's pretty freeing.
• 1:05:08
  Speaker 2: The more I think you remove other people from your
• 1:05:10
  Speaker 2: hunting decisions and how you enjoy it, I think the better,
• 1:05:14
  Speaker 2: because it's hard to do these days with like our
• 1:05:17
  Speaker 2: internet world. I think that's one of the biggest things
• 1:05:20
  Speaker 2: that it as an old man, as an old middle
• 1:05:22
  Speaker 2: aged man speaking to the next generation, which is not
• 1:05:26
  Speaker 2: me anymore. That's that's like one of the biggest things
• 1:05:29
  Speaker 2: I gotta believe that these kids are growing up with
• 1:05:31
  Speaker 2: now is like everything is media, Everything is broadcast to
• 1:05:35
  Speaker 2: the world, everything is looking for likes and clicks and
• 1:05:39
  Speaker 2: dms and whatevers. But the more you can remove yourself
• 1:05:43
  Speaker 2: from that, I think the better. And I think we
• 1:05:46
  Speaker 2: both probably learned that the hard way because we've both
• 1:05:48
  Speaker 2: gone through that ourselves. Yeah, and now in this new phase,
• 1:05:52
  Speaker 2: hopefully we're kind of finding a more sustainable middle ground.
• 1:05:56
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 1:05:56
  Speaker 5: Absolutely, Man, I hate social media. It's you got it,
• 1:06:01
  Speaker 5: Like I just have to be on it every once
• 1:06:02
  Speaker 5: in a while and and do it and I don't know.
• 1:06:06
  Speaker 2: It's It's amazing though, Like how like when I was
• 1:06:09
  Speaker 2: gone for the last six seven days and I wasn't
• 1:06:11
  Speaker 2: able to check in, It's amazing, Like how much bandwidth
• 1:06:14
  Speaker 2: that opens up in your mind when you just never
• 1:06:17
  Speaker 2: are thinking about that and you never feel like the
• 1:06:20
  Speaker 2: instinctual like you just pull up your phone and pull
• 1:06:22
  Speaker 2: up Instagram just without even thinking about just happens, and
• 1:06:24
  Speaker 2: then all of a sudden you're looking at some stupid
• 1:06:26
  Speaker 2: thing you don't care about.
• 1:06:27
  Speaker 3: It at all.
• 1:06:28
  Speaker 2: When that when that is not a possibility at all,
• 1:06:30
  Speaker 2: it is so like rejuvenating for your mind and body. Yeah,
• 1:06:35
  Speaker 2: so that's another thing that I that I'm not good at.
• 1:06:38
  Speaker 3: Still. I've been preaching it for years.
• 1:06:40
  Speaker 2: I try to do it, but I'm never as good
• 1:06:42
  Speaker 2: as it I should be. But man, keeping the phone
• 1:06:45
  Speaker 2: tucked away when you're hunting. The more I can keep
• 1:06:47
  Speaker 2: that thing away and not get sucked into the phone
• 1:06:49
  Speaker 2: when you're hunting, the better to enjoy the whole fact,
• 1:06:52
  Speaker 2: to the enjoying the experience, you know.
• 1:06:53
  Speaker 5: Yeah, absolutely, I forgot I forgot my phone in the
• 1:06:58
  Speaker 5: truck this past year. And the first like thirty minutes
• 1:07:02
  Speaker 5: of the hunt, after I got set up and I
• 1:07:04
  Speaker 5: was sitting and just kind of chilling, I was like,
• 1:07:09
  Speaker 5: oh my god, this sucks.
• 1:07:10
  Speaker 4: I need my phone. I gotta check emails. I gotta
• 1:07:12
  Speaker 4: do this.
• 1:07:13
  Speaker 5: But then like after the the addiction part of it
• 1:07:16
  Speaker 5: wore off, it was awesome.
• 1:07:19
  Speaker 4: I was relaxed, I was watching birds. I was just
• 1:07:22
  Speaker 4: like just like kind of remembering what it was like
• 1:07:27
  Speaker 4: to go back to a time before cell phones and
• 1:07:31
  Speaker 4: just sitting in a tree for hours with nothing other
• 1:07:34
  Speaker 4: than a bottle of water or some snacks or something
• 1:07:37
  Speaker 4: like that, and that's it, dude. And it's like like,
• 1:07:42
  Speaker 4: imagine a time where you don't know what time it is,
• 1:07:46
  Speaker 4: Like remember going hunting. I can remember going hunting.
• 1:07:49
  Speaker 5: When I first started hunting, there was no time unless
• 1:07:52
  Speaker 5: I wore a watch, there's no time. And so you're
• 1:07:56
  Speaker 5: sitting there, sons come up and you're like, oh my god,
• 1:08:00
  Speaker 5: I've been here forever, and you get back to the
• 1:08:01
  Speaker 5: truck it's like eight o'clock or you're like, god, you know,
• 1:08:06
  Speaker 5: like I'm getting hungry, it can't be eight o'clock yet.
• 1:08:09
  Speaker 5: And then you get back to the truck and it's eleven, right,
• 1:08:12
  Speaker 5: And so when you lose track of time, that's when
• 1:08:14
  Speaker 5: you really, in my opinion, you kind of like experience,
• 1:08:18
  Speaker 5: like the experience is purified and you just I don't know,
• 1:08:23
  Speaker 5: but you don't get that anymore because you're like I'm in,
• 1:08:25
  Speaker 5: I'm in at this time and I'm out at this time,
• 1:08:28
  Speaker 5: or I got to be here because you know when
• 1:08:30
  Speaker 5: the wind is going to shift, and then you're not
• 1:08:32
  Speaker 5: actually experiencing the wind shift. You're preparing for the wind shift,
• 1:08:36
  Speaker 5: and it's just everything's different than what it used to be.
• 1:08:40
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and that's the truth.
• 1:08:43
  Speaker 2: I think so much of what we've talked about has
• 1:08:45
  Speaker 2: has come back to like fully embracing the here, the now,
• 1:08:50
  Speaker 2: the people, the place, and worrying less and less about
• 1:08:55
  Speaker 2: all the stuff that's not in your control.
• 1:08:57
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 1:08:57
  Speaker 2: Yeah, And that's you know, ultimately not that important. So
• 1:09:02
  Speaker 2: I think that might be a good place to wrap
• 1:09:03
  Speaker 2: it up, Dan.
• 1:09:05
  Speaker 3: What's new? What's new in your world? With content?
• 1:09:08
  Speaker 2: With podcasts, with projects, what some folks know about? Where
• 1:09:13
  Speaker 2: can they listen? Where can they connect with you?
• 1:09:15
  Speaker 4: Yeah?
• 1:09:16
  Speaker 5: Same place as always, Man, I would say that the
• 1:09:19
  Speaker 5: best place to look for content is the Sportsman's Empire.
• 1:09:24
  Speaker 4: And that's just.
• 1:09:25
  Speaker 5: Not my stuff, but that's the network that we've created
• 1:09:30
  Speaker 5: over here with just I mean, like whether you live
• 1:09:33
  Speaker 5: in the Northeast or you hunt the West, everything kind
• 1:09:36
  Speaker 5: of in between, we have a podcast for you, you know,
• 1:09:40
  Speaker 5: like whether it's hound hunting, whether it's fishing, whether it's
• 1:09:44
  Speaker 5: turkey hunting, so forth and so on. I mean, we
• 1:09:47
  Speaker 5: cover a little bit of everything, and we have some
• 1:09:49
  Speaker 5: really good podcast hosts. And that's where I would I
• 1:09:52
  Speaker 5: would send everybody is the Sportsman's Empire and you can
• 1:09:57
  Speaker 5: have your pick of what you want to listen to.
• 1:10:00
  Speaker 2: What is one episode of the Nine Finger Chronicles that
• 1:10:05
  Speaker 2: you would send people to listen to if they haven't,
• 1:10:07
  Speaker 2: if they haven't heard in recent weeks or months, what's
• 1:10:10
  Speaker 2: the one favorite of years that they should go listen
• 1:10:11
  Speaker 2: to right now?
• 1:10:12
  Speaker 4: Okay, so this is a great talk talking point.
• 1:10:15
  Speaker 5: Right So, I do have to tell you that every
• 1:10:18
  Speaker 5: time I have Tony Peterson on the podcast.
• 1:10:21
  Speaker 4: He cheap shots you, dude, I believe it. He throws
• 1:10:24
  Speaker 4: some jabs at you.
• 1:10:25
  Speaker 5: Okay, and so yeah, and so I feel like, on
• 1:10:31
  Speaker 5: this podcast, or maybe you just come on my podcast
• 1:10:34
  Speaker 5: and you talk shit on Tony Peterson for a whole hour,
• 1:10:37
  Speaker 5: I would allow it just because he takes like, he
• 1:10:41
  Speaker 5: takes advantage.
• 1:10:41
  Speaker 4: Of your kindness. I feel like, and you might be right.
• 1:10:45
  Speaker 5: So any any episode with Tony Peterson's a good one.
• 1:10:48
  Speaker 5: But at the same time, you probably shouldn't listen to
• 1:10:51
  Speaker 5: those because he takes a jab at you every once
• 1:10:55
  Speaker 5: in a while.
• 1:10:55
  Speaker 3: My feelings hurt.
• 1:10:56
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 1:10:56
  Speaker 2: I love your idea. We we talked about this over text.
• 1:10:59
  Speaker 2: We just need to do it now. You need to
• 1:11:00
  Speaker 2: have a podcast that's nothing but talking smack about Tony
• 1:11:04
  Speaker 2: and uncovering all the skeletons in his closet for the
• 1:11:07
  Speaker 2: rest of the world. Yep, So let's just make that happen,
• 1:11:09
  Speaker 2: expose him for what exactly what he is. And I
• 1:11:12
  Speaker 2: don't know what he is, but he likes heavy metal music. Like,
• 1:11:18
  Speaker 2: have you talked to Tony about the kind of music
• 1:11:20
  Speaker 2: that he likes?
• 1:11:21
  Speaker 3: Oh? Yeah, he likes uh dark yeah dark that Oh
• 1:11:28
  Speaker 3: the tea tool, Yes, loves tool, loves tool tool.
• 1:11:32
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 1:11:32
  Speaker 2: I mean he's got like a dark dark yeah, brooding mind.
• 1:11:37
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I'll say this. Tony's a great guy.
• 1:11:40
  Speaker 5: But I would not be surprised if I see him
• 1:11:43
  Speaker 5: on an episode of Dateline where the FBI is like, hey,
• 1:11:46
  Speaker 5: we found seventeen bodies under this dude's house. He's been
• 1:11:49
  Speaker 5: collecting them for like ten years, and he takes it
• 1:11:54
  Speaker 5: to that. But I just would be like, I can
• 1:11:57
  Speaker 5: see that.
• 1:11:59
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, he's uh, there's a lot under the
• 1:12:03
  Speaker 2: surface there, Dan, there's a lot out of the surface exactly. Well,
• 1:12:07
  Speaker 2: hey man, this has been fun. Yeah, glad we could
• 1:12:10
  Speaker 2: do it. I appreciate you and stood against him absolutely.
• 1:12:14
  Speaker 4: Mark kill a big buck this year, you too.
• 1:12:20
  Speaker 3: All right, And that's going to do it for us today.
• 1:12:22
  Speaker 2: I appreciate you joining me and Dan as we kind
• 1:12:25
  Speaker 2: of ramble and pontificate and self examine what this new
• 1:12:32
  Speaker 2: stage of our hunting life is all about, what we've learned,
• 1:12:35
  Speaker 2: and what it means for the future. So thank you
• 1:12:38
  Speaker 2: for being here. I appreciate you being a part of
• 1:12:40
  Speaker 2: this community. And if you've been with us since the beginning,
• 1:12:43
  Speaker 2: if you have been here since two thousand and eight,
• 1:12:45
  Speaker 2: God bless you. Thank you for being on this ride.
• 1:12:48
  Speaker 2: If you've been tuning into the podcast since we started
• 1:12:50
  Speaker 2: in thirteen or fourteen, thank you.
• 1:12:52
  Speaker 3: We appreciate your support so much. I appreciate your.
• 1:12:55
  Speaker 2: Attention, your time, and being a part of this community.
• 1:12:59
  Speaker 2: So thank you, and until next time, stay wired to hunt.
• 1:13:08
  Speaker 2: Mm hmm.