Latest / Wired To Hunt Podcast / Ep. 344: Intangibles for Hunting Success with Tony Peterson

Transcript

Ep. 344: Intangibles for Hunting Success with Tony Peterson · Wired To Hunt Podcast

• 0:02
  Speaker 1: Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast, your home for
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: deer hunting news, stories and strategies, and now your host,
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: Mark Kenyon. All Right, welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast,
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: brought to you by on X, and today we've got
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: Tony Peterson on the show with me and most of you.
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: If you're a longtime listener, at least you should know
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: who Tony is. He's he's been a frequent guest on
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: the show. He's a long time outdoor writer, he's been
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: a Meat Eater contributor, and just a just a downright
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: damn good deer hunter, especially when it comes to public land.
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: D I y deer hunting. There are there are a
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: few people better. And I got him on the show
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: this week to cover a whole variety of topics, but
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: in particular, I mostly wanted to discuss with him some
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: of the less talked about variables, the impact who we
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: are as hunters and the success we have, things like
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: things like mindset and satisfaction and inner drive, toughness, work ethics,
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: stuff like that. It's to be the best we can
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: be at anything, hunting included. I think it requires a
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: certain set of intangibles. I think UH focus on on
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: nurturing and improving these these inner things that help us
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: work towards our goals. And that's what we ended up
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: spending a lot of our time discussing in this episode.
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: You know how mindset has impacted Tony's hunting, the necessity
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: of never losing your joy um, the drive to challenge yourself,
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: even what Tony two point oh might look like if
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: if his plans go is as desired. So that's that's
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: really what we get into. It's it's an interesting and
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: different kind of chat. And then we of course do
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: spend a decent amount of time talking specific hunting plans
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: to we we dive into what Tony has got in
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: store for prepping and scouting this year leading to the
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: deer hunting season. So he'll definitely get some some some
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: tangible takeaways, I guess as well. So that's what is
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: in store. It's a it's a great chat. I think
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: you're gonna enjoy it. I do want to leave you
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: with one quick note though, before we get into the
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: main thing. Because if you're stuck at home like I am,
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: and like most people across the country are, and if
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: you're board and you're wishing you could be out doing things,
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: you've ran out of all the podcasts and all the
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: Netflix episodes you can handle. I've got to offer my
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: shameless recommendation here for my book That Wild Country, an
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: epic journey through the past, present, and future of America's
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: public lands. UM have been seeing a lot of people
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: posting on social media about it recently, because, as I
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: just said, that a lot of people kind of getting
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: into this quarantine reading and people people have been joined
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: the book. UM. I'm super um honored and thankful that's
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: the case. So if you're wishing you could be out
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: traveling to some wild public place but can't because of
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: these current lockdown regulations, I think this book is a
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: perfect way to kind of vicariously explore through your imagination
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: some places like the Bob Marshal Wilderness in Monte in A. Uh,
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: the Arctic tundra of Alaska, the Red Rocket canyons and
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: deserts of southeast Utah, um, the wildlife packed of valleys
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: of Yellowstone. Uh. It's it's I think something that it's
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: at least the book that I would want to read
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: right now. UM, that that kind of book, at least
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: the books I've just been reading. Actually have been like
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: the things where you can go on adventure in your
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: mind even though you're stuck, you know, reading in bed
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: at night. So take it. Take it for what it's worth.
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: My obviously biased recommendation. But here is a bit of news.
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: If you do want to read the book and you
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: want to show your support not just to me, but
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: also to the team over a meat Eater, you can
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: now buy that Wild Country on the meat Eater website.
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: That's it's pretty cool. You can get it now on
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: the meta store. If you just head to the meat
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: eater dot com, go to the store menu and navigate
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: to books, you will see it right there. Um, for
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: some reason, you don't want to do that, you can't
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: do that. The other option I'd encourage you to look
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: into is picking up a copy from your local bookstore. Um.
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: You know, these stores in many cases are struggling right
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: now due to physical store closures, but many of them
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: can still take phone or online orders. So if you
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: enjoy a good bookstore, um, this is this is the
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: time we need to support them to make sure they
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: can still be around once everything goes back to normal.
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: So that is my biased media recommendation for you today. Thanks,
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: for humoring me. There and with that out of the way,
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: without further ado, my chat with Tony Peterson. Enjoy all
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: right with me now on the line? Is Tony Peterson
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: back for I don't know. You've been a pretty frequent
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: guest over the years, so I would have to guess
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: maybe five six. I think we're at least probably too
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: five at this point, and that's not counting RUT radio appearances.
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: You've been on RUT radio quite a bit. Um, you're
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: basically a co host at this point, don't you been
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: in so much? But I'm glad you were able to
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: find some time to do this. How how are you
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: in the family holding up? As as anyone listening knows
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: right now, we're in the middle of the COVID nineteen situation.
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: So what's what's happened in Minnesota with you guys? Man?
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: We are scouting turkeys and shed hunting, and we're gonna
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: go out. I'm taking one of my daughters out tonight
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: after we we wrap this up, just to do some
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: photography and see if we can find some deer turkeys
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: to take pictures of. And we're just we're leveraging the
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: time staring at Netflix with just getting outdoors and taking
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: the dog out and doing some stuff in the wild
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: for our mental health. And I'm sure you know, I'm
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: sure a lot of Wire to Hunt listeners are kind
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: of in the same boat. They're they're finding every excuse
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: in the book to get out in the woods. Right now,
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: it seems like the best, the best possible option, given
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: the fact there's so many things we can't do, getting
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: outside is one of them that at least across most
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: most places, you can still do that. And uh, that's
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: the one silver lining, I guess those of us that
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: are healthy, you can you can get out and spend
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: some quality time out there. Um, although if you've seen
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: that they are closing some national parks, I've seen national
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: force are getting shut down. I saw that recreational fishing
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: has been essentially outlawed in Washington State for the time being. Uh,
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: that's pretty pretty crazy, Yeah, I heard. Uh the reason
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: for that, at least partially was because some of the
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: some of the salmon fishing situations out there. Some of
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: the I don't know if they're the conservation officers or
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: fishing wildlife or somebody has to have contact with anglers
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: on a regular basis. And so that was sort of
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: the impetus behind that. But to just blanket shut down
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: fishing is it's insane. Yeah, I mean I I I
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: have looked at everything that's been going on right now
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: with you. I'm gonna take it seriously, gonna listen to
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: the experts and all that, and I'm not going to
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: try to pretend like I know better than anybody else.
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: But to something like that, Gosh, you would think there
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: could be somewhere around it. But but then again, maybe
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: the decision makers have so little time to spend on
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: something like that that the blanket pronouncement is just the
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: only option given the bigger things that have to do
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: with that might be part of it too, I don't know. Yeah,
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: well I think that's part of it. And I think,
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: you know, we're working on a project for the Fish
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: and Wildlife Service And I was talking to a woman
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: who manages a refuge out in Colorado yesterday and they
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: allow fishing there and it's the only thing that you
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: have to pay for. It's like three bucks for a
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: permit or something per day. And she said they were
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: just weighing, you know, whether they just waived that fee
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: and then have no enforcement or how they addressed that,
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: and that that's one of the things you're seeing is
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: some of these states are going, we don't we don't
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: want our CEOs making contact with these with anyone out there,
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: and so their waving the fishing you know, hey, don't
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: need a fishing license for the next month, or they're
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: they're making it so people can get out, and that
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: that's one you know, obviously I think we'd probably support
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: that over just a blanket shutdown. But there that's what
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: they're working around. So it's not just you know, it
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: seems kind of simple, like, oh, these people are disconnected
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: and they don't understand how important fishing is and how
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: we can keep our distance. But there's you know, like
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: with all issues, I think there's more going on behind
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: the scenes, and they kind of got a factor that
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: and you know, how how do you enforce fishing regulations
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: and game regulations right now if you're if you don't
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: want your CEOs within six ft of somebody, you know.
• 8:38
  Speaker 1: So that brings up something else that I was thinking
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: about the other day, which is and I hope, I
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: hope this won't be the case. I hope that we're
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: gonna stand as sportsmen and women and do the right thing.
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: But I wonder, and I worry if there will be
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: some higher percentage of violators out there, people poaching, people
• 8:59
  Speaker 1: going out about licenses, people you know, doing that kind
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: of thing because they think they can get away with it,
• 9:05
  Speaker 1: or because the state admits they can get away with it.
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: I sure as hell hope that kind of thing doesn't
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: pop up, but I wouldn't be surprised. Yeah, you know,
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: I think that's kind of I think it's possible, but
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: I think it's just opening a door for the people
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: who are going to do that anyway. Like I I
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: really have quite a bit of faith in people. And
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: it's kind of like if you if you look at
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: the national news right now, you can find negative stories NonStop,
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: but there's so much good going on. And I think
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: most people are being pretty nice and respectful and and
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: paying attention to this thing and doing the right stuff.
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: And I kind of feel like the you know, the
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: hunting public is going to be the same way. And yeah,
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: you're gonna just have a certain percentage of people who
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: never cared about the laws anyway, and they're gonna look
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: at this like a gift to them. But those people
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: were probably gonna break laws anyway, and I think I
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: I just don't I hope people don't do that. Let
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: me put it that way. Yeah, I think you'd be
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: a good point. It's it's I'm not to go down
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: a really dangerous rabbit hole, but it's it's when we
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: talk gun control and added gun regulations and stuff, oftentimes
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: you can talk about the fact that the guys are
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: gonna they're gonna do this bad stuff. They aren't gonna
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: follow the gun laws anyways. Um, which is one of
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: those sometimes defenses for whatever. Um. Yeah, I don't know.
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: That's it's not really what I've planned on spend too
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: much time talking about. But it's an interesting thing going
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: on right now. I don't know, man, this whole it's
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: I think it's obvious to anyone right now that this
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: is one of those situations that will be one of
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: those things that you point to you like, oh, I
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: remember where I was when this happened, or everything was
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: kind of different before that happened. Um, it's seeming like
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: this is one of those inflection points that will probably
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: all look back on and hopefully we'll come out of
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: it and it's not gonna be that horrible of a deal.
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: Hopefully it's it's going to be better than people are
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: expecting and and we'll be able to get on with
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: life just fine here in a few weeks or months
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: or whatever it is. But right now it just seems
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: like life is on hold and we're in a weird place.
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: I think you've got the right idea, though, with what
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: you're doing with family. Get out there and take advantage of,
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: like take advantage of the one small silver lining of it,
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: which you've got the family there together. You have more
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: time to get outside and do things. That's that's that's
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: a blessing in in this case a little bit, oh Man,
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: big time. And I think you know, I get into
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: this in my podcast a lot, but you know, guys
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: like you and I we understand, you know how important
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: it is for you mentally just to get outside and
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: recreate a little bit. And you know, I saw this.
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: We were we were actually down in Florida when this
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: When we flew down, it was kind of like, hey,
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: this thing could get kind of crazy, but it's not
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: there yet. And every day just got progressively worse, and
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: we were there. The last day we were there is
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: when they shut the beaches down down there, and so
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: it had laminated pretty quickly, and we were you know,
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: we kind of knew our schedule anyway, and knew when
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: we were coming home, and so I'm sitting there going, well,
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: I know when we're coming home. We already know we
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: don't want to be close to people. And so we
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: just fished every day and hung out on the beach
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: and I kept my phone shut off and it didn't.
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: It was amazing to me how just fishing and not
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: having the bad news come in it changed how I
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: looked at it. And it really didn't change our life
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: a whole lot. We kind of knew what was going
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: on and what we had to do, and and I
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: see that sort of in a in a broad I
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: don't know, maybe like a broad theme with society right now. Like, man,
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: when you sit down and you're scrolling through your news
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: feeds over and over again, you're not really taking any
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: time to go do something for yourself that feels good
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: and you're getting your body moving and you're out in nature,
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: and that stuff matters a lot. Like I really think
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: that we all benefit, not just us, you know, who
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: kind of hold the secret where we know, yeah, this
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: this is good. We like being outside, but I wish
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: everybody understood what what that would do for them, just
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: just doing something for themselves on a daily basis like that,
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: instead of sitting there worrying so much and focusing on,
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: you know, the potential negativity all the time. What's what's
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: your relationship with your phone? Are you? Are you on
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: it a lot? Do you get sucked into it and
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: social media or email or things like that, or do
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: you have are you pretty well distanced? Uh? That depends
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: what I'm doing. So just just as an example, you know,
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: how you get your like weekly screen time update. I
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: don't know if you get that, but yeah, when I
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: was in Florida, my screen time drop and yeah, dude,
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: it was. And I've started to I really started this
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: last year. Even when I was doing all days sits
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: for white Tails, I was shutting my phone off and
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: like intentionally just putting it away and going just just
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: leave it alone. You gotta sit out here all day anyway,
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: pay attention. And I'm trying to build that into my
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: life more because I'm like, dude, I'm like everybody else.
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: I mean, I'm staring at my phone a lot, and
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: it's to the point where I don't want to be anymore,
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: and so I'm like forcing myself to kind of do
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: a little bit of a digital cleanse and and just
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: just set it aside more often. Yeah, that's that's exactly
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: the same with me. I feel it is so tempting
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: so often to just pull it up and look at it,
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: or to browse through social media or check emails any
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: hour of the day. It's just right there. It's the
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: same thing. We're all dealing with, um. But the only
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: way I've been able to shake it is to do
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: what you just said, physically separate myself from it. I
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: have to put it away, you know. And it's it's
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: it's just as bad when I'm in the tree, like
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: you just said, when when I'm in the tree, versus
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: like when I'm sitting at the computer, I have to
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: get an article done or something. I've got to do
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: some kind of work. And I don't know if you
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: ever like this, but when I was writing my book
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: or when I'm working on an article, I'll write a
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: few sentences and then it gets hard, like I don't
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: know what to say, and then oh, I'll just look
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: at the phone and you don't even think about it.
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: It's just like instantly the body reaches for like some
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: little distraction from the tough next thing, and then I
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: find myself, you know, ten minutes later, looking at something
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: or completely worthless. It's not helping you move forward to
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: any kind of way. And then that same thing happens
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: when when you're in the tree hunting, it slows down,
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: you don't see a deer for a few minutes, and
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: then you're looking at your phone, and then you look
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: around and next you know, you're looking at your phone again. Um,
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: it's so counterproductive, but it's so easy that I don't
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: know the mental, the mental side of of that, the
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: mental implications of technology and having a device when you're
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: hunting and when you're trying to work and all that stuff.
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: I don't. I don't know if we know all the
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: answers right now, but I mean it's changing stuff in
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: a big way, and in a lot of ways negatively.
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: I think I think so too, And I mean I
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: think you just have to you know, like what you
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: mentioned when you're writing your book and grabbing the phone,
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: the instant, the instant, like an iota of writer's block
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: hits you, or you don't have the next sentence, I've
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: I've been there a million times, buddy, And I started
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: leaving my phone upstairs. My office is downstairs, and when
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: I know I'm on deadline or I want to get
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: a chapter written or something, I just leave that sucker
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: up there on silent and it can wait for me.
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: And that's one thing I don't know. I don't know
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: if I'm drawing a conclusion here that I shouldn't be.
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: But for my life personally, I've started to really really
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: enjoy certain kinds of fishing again, Like if I go,
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: you know, brook trout fishing in northern Wisconsin, and I'm
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: I'm out in the woods all day, or if I'm
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: like pheasant hunting all day long. And I think part
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: of it is tied to the fact that I'm just
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: doing something that is not conducive to that that you know, boredom,
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: instant boredom, grab your phone thing, and I just I
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: find myself being drawn in more and more to those
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: kind of activities, and I think part of it is
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: like a self preservation thing where my brain is like, hey,
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: bro go do something like this, so you're not picking
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: this thing up constantly. So which kind of activity do
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: you like more because I see something really cool about
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: the two different types of activities I'm about to describe you.
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: There's there's something like brick trout fishing or like fly fishing,
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: where when I'm fly fishing, at least, it's it's so
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: engaging and that like every second you're doing it, you
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: have to be thinking about what you're doing, and so
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: you're completely enveloped in putting the fly in the right place,
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: watching the fly, figure out where you're going to do
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: your bad cast. Then you're casting, then you're watching again,
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: then you're mending, and you're fully in it, and in
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: hours and hours can pass and I it'll be just
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: like that snap of the fingers and all of a sudden,
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: it's five hours later. I haven't had time to think
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: about anything. And then there's that kind of activity. But
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: then there's the complete opposite kind of activity, like going
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: for a five mile run and you don't have anything
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: going on, with nothing to listen to. You're just in
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: your thoughts or sitting in a tree for a whole
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: day and hopefully not on your phone the whole time,
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: and there's nothing pressing at you, and you're just sitting
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: there with with nothing but what's around you and what's
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: going on in between your ears? Um, which are those
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: two things? Which are those two things? Do you do
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: you prefer? Do you like? Do you find more challenging?
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: I don't know. For me, there's something about both that
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: are great, but they're very very different experiences with like
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: the inside your headset of things. I think the sitting
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: and waiting is way harder. I mean, like you said,
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: you know, with the fly fishing thing, you just you
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: get someone immersed in that activity that it's like it's
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: just time does just disappear on you. You have to
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: focus on it. I feel the same way if I'm
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: if I'm hunting anything upland with my dog, because you know,
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: I'm running a flusher, so I'm paying attention to her constantly,
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: and it's kind of the same deal. Especially if I
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: go by myself. I don't have anybody else there to
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: think about. I just follow my dog wherever, whether we're
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: grouse hunting or pheasant hunting, and it's one of those
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: activities where you're just in it the whole time and
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: there's no like you. You almost don't have to think
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: about anything else. It's like you know, I know, you
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: listen to Rogan, and I've heard him mention that meditation
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: is like when you when you start meditating, it's like
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: when you open up your computer and you have nine
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: thousand browser windows open and you gotta just start clicking them,
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: you know, and shutting some of them down. And I
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: feel like some of those activities, you know, if you're
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: if you're wading up a brook trout stream, or your
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: your pheasantant and behind a flush, or you just so
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: many of those things go away, and so many of
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: those distractions. And you know, when you're sitting on a
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: tree stand all day, or you know, we're coming up
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: on Turkey season here and you're gonna be spending some
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: time in a blind, it's a different kind of activity,
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: and you're in your head a lot more. And so
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: it's just it's easier to reach for distraction, or it's
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: easy to focus on, you know, should I be here,
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: should I be doing something else? Should it be working?
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: And so I think just generally I leaned towards some
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: of those other activities, but that that might also just
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: be because I spend so much time in trees and
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: in blinds, that my my brain is just like, let's
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: go move, let's go do something active. You know. I
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: was reading something the other day and they were talking
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: about how since the advent of smartphones, we now have
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: seen this dramatic decrease in the amount of free space
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: that people's minds have, so almost all the time, if
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: you're in line to get food, or if you are
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: on the bus, or if you are in the car,
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: or if you are taking a job, or if you
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: are if there's a ten second blip in a conversation
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: with someone while you're sitting next to each other, people
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: are pulling up their phones, They're listening to stuff, they're
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: looking at stuff, they're reading stuff. It's it's constant content
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: consumption almost at all times now, unless you know you're
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: not like the average person, or unless you are actively
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: thoughtfully trying to not do that. Um. And they were
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: saying that because of this, because people are constantly filling
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: their head with stuff, that there is this worry or
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: concern around reduced creativity and productiveness through creativity, like people
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: don't have that free mind space anymore to just let
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: the mind wander and have new ideas pop up. I
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: mean that is so often when I have like a
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: new idea, it comes when I'm going on a hike
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: not listening to anything, or when I'm on a run
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: with that without my phone, or when I'm in the
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: shower not thinking, and all of a sudden like that, Oh,
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: that's the answer to this thing. Um. I feel like
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: there's a lot of truth to that, um. And it's
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: kind of true for hunting. I mean, I could see
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: some parallels with without that open space that we're filling
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: now with looking at Facebook called we're sitting in the tree,
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: we're missing other things too. You know, well, yeah, man,
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: I agree with you, and I think it's like so
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: easy to think about, you know, the buck that gets
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: in on you because you're staring at your phone or
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: gets away, or the the encounter you blow because of that.
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: But really, you know, what you're talking about is like
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: I couldn't agree more. I think creativity is directly tied
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: to experience, and you know as well as I do.
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: You can't just sit down and be creative eight hours
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: a day for your job. It just doesn't fly. You
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: have to You have to get out and be doing
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: stuff and that you know that ties to the content
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: creation side of things that we're talking about. But it
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: also ties into being a better hunter, like you're leading to,
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: like you want to you want to solve problems out
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: there in the woods, spend time out there and pay
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: attention and actually actually pay attention. Don't be out there
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: but clicking on hearts on Instagram and stuff like that.
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: I don't know, I I am maybe extra woo woo
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: on some of these things, Like I'm really fascinated by
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: the mental side of things, by what's going on on
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: that next level. I'm constantly trying to read more about
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: philosophy or mental processes are problem solving or I don't know,
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: I'm just I geek out about that stuff. But I
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: just keep seeing more and more and more when it
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: comes to like becoming a really good hunter. If if
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: we go back to the main thing we usually talk
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: about here with where done, there's like this certain set
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: of um basic understandings of animal behavior and habitat and
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: stuff that you've got to figure out and some basic skills.
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: Once you have this, I don't know, we'll say we'll
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: just call this top level set of skills. Then I
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: feel like the way to take those next steps, it's
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: almost all these mental things. Mental toughness meant problem solving, learning,
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: how to calm your nerves, how to adjust on the fly,
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: learning learning, how to learn from things. I mean, all
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: that mental stuff I keep thinking is what's gonna help
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: me and helpably hopefully people listening. That's how you go
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: from just an average I get out there and I
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: do okay ever once in a while, to be in
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: like a very consistent successful hunter. Um, do you feel
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: like embarking with their own tree on that kind of
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: thing or is there something to that. I agree with you,
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: and I think the missing component there that you haven't
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: mentioned yet is when you when you start getting your
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: head right as far as you know, enjoying the work
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: and understanding the decision making process and being more comfortable
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: with the mental side of things, you're just gonna be
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: happier with your hunting. All that stuff ties into more
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: enjoyment and less worry, less second guessing. And I'll tell
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: you what, man, I'm I've gone through lots of different
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: phases of deer hunting. I've loved it, hated it, been
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: everywhere in between. And what I realized that probably one
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: of the biggest things that ever happened to me is
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: I just I just kind of got to a place
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: where I'm like, I just enjoy the scouting parts so
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: much and in the work parts of it, and it
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: didn't it didn't bother me to fail anymore as much.
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: I mean, I still didn't enjoy it the same way.
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: But what it kind of like all tied into is
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: I just got happier with my self as a hunter.
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: I stopped caring about the big buck thing as much,
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: and I stopped caring about you know, kind of the
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: bs that surrounds the job when you when you do
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: what we do and just realize, like I just want
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: to go out there and enjoy it. And it changed
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: everything for me, like decision making process and the amount
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: of time I hunted and sticking to my you know,
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: if I had a plan and went, okay, this is
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: this is how I think this is gonna shake out,
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: Like to what level I kind of had some discipline
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: to stick to it or being opened, you know, some
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: some kind of encounter changes what you think about your
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: plan and just being in the right mental head space
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: is It's a It's a weird thing to preach because
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: people want to like, you know, what kind of call
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: should I use? What kind of scent should I use.
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: They want some kind of answer that way. And when
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: you sit here and go, hey, you gotta be happier,
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: they go, uh, can I just buy a call? Like
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: is there a decoy that will do that for me?
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: And that's not how it works. Man. Did you have
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: like a breaking point or some kind of event or
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: a season in particular where you had this Okay, I
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: need to look at this differently. That was there something
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: some time period or ventu you can point to when
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: that shift happened for you or that forced that shift? Yoh, yeah,
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: I've I've had so the first time I had an
• 26:19
  Speaker 1: absolute deer hunting breakdown, I was I think fifteen, and
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: so I started bow hunting when I was twelve, and
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: I didn't come from a gun hunting family or anything,
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: So it was it was just bows or nothing for us,
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: for my dad and I and I. You know, I
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: loved it, That's all I wanted to do. But I
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: could not hit him. I would. I was missing dear
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: a lot. And you know, we've talked about this on
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: past podcast. And I ended up hitting a point when
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: I was like still a teenager where I gave I
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: told my dad, I said, I'm done, Like I can't.
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: I can't keep going sit in the woods. And I
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: remember him he said, well, you want to get a
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: slug gun, we can go gun hunt. And I thought
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: about it and I took off like I don't know,
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: a week or ten days or something, and I just
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: missed it so much. I went back at the end
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: of the year, I killed my first deer with a bowl,
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: and it was like a It was a good lesson
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: for me because I needed it later in my life
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: when I got into the hunting industry and my you know,
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: some of my income was tied to being a guy
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: who could kill big bucks and that pressure. I just
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: didn't see that coming. And so I had another breakdown
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: where my buck fever came back real bad and I
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: had to reinvent myself. And so I've had two times
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: in my life where I was like, I'm not enjoying this.
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: I was almost you know, I don't have you ever
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: hunted with a traditional bowl? You probably haven't haven Okay,
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: there's there's a weird thing when you do that where
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: if you haven't practiced enough and got confident enough, you
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: don't want to see a deer walking in Like you're
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: sitting up there and you're like, please don't come any closer,
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: because I'm you have no confidence in your abilities. You know,
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: It's it's a weird thing, and I'm sure it happens
• 27:59
  Speaker 1: with other weapons, but when you when you're in that place,
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: it takes some work to dig out of it. And
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: I've had to do that twice in my life, and
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: the last one was a long one, and when I
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: got through it, I just felt like, you know, part
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: of it was probably growing up a little bit, but
• 28:15
  Speaker 1: I just felt like I got to just so much
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: of a better place. And it's, you know, it was
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: it was a stinging lesson both times, but it's it's stuck.
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: You know. Is there anything you learned coming out of that, um,
• 28:29
  Speaker 1: not just tactically like how to be able to shoot
• 28:32
  Speaker 1: things better, but I mean more so if we were
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: to take one like step up the hierarchy of of
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: what's going on there, and did you learn anything about
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: how to recover from failure? Because I feel like that
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: is one of these big things that we encounters hunters
• 28:49
  Speaker 1: a lot, because there's all these different types of failures
• 28:51
  Speaker 1: that you can encounter as a hunter, and it happens
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: more times than not, right we we we have ultimate
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: success only handful of times on any given year, even
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: the very best of us. And most of the time
• 29:01
  Speaker 1: you go out there and something doesn't go quite the
• 29:03
  Speaker 1: way you wanted to. Either nothing shows up, or the
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: wrong deer shows up, or you shooting miss or you're
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: shooting wounded deer, or you spook a deer, or a
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: hunter comes on the property and spooks all the deer
• 29:13
  Speaker 1: out and ruins your hunt. I mean, there's all these
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: potential failures that happened during a given season, and and
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: I I gotta I mean, as we're talking about this,
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: probably one of the very most important skills you can
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: have as a deer hunter is is learning how to
• 29:27
  Speaker 1: deal with failure and bounce back from it, because that
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: happens almost every hunt. I mean, what did you learn
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: about that that you just accept it? I mean, that's
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: that's the thing that you know. There, there's when you
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: get into that topic, you're kind of getting into the
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: danger of the social media and the you know, the
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: comparison issue, because it looks like everybody's killing giant bucks.
• 29:48
  Speaker 1: I mean, I was thinking about this. I was talking
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: to a buddy the other day. I'm like, I feel
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: like I'm the only person in the world who's not
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: consistently finding shed antlers right now. And it, Believe me, man,
• 29:57
  Speaker 1: it's not for a lack of try, and we are
• 29:59
  Speaker 1: cover ring some miles, but it's such a skewed view
• 30:02
  Speaker 1: of things. And so yeah, I mean, I got real
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: comfortable with failure and and not letting it get me down, because,
• 30:09
  Speaker 1: like you said, you know, if you look at bow
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: hunting success rates state to state, you're talking typically right
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: around there. And so generally of us are failing in
• 30:21
  Speaker 1: any given year to kill a deer. And on any
• 30:24
  Speaker 1: given day you go sit in a tree stand, it's
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: almost a certainty that you won't kill something, you know,
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: let alone the misses and whatever else that that are
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: almost seemed like worse failures. And so you kind of
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: just do have to get past that, and that's that's
• 30:38
  Speaker 1: that's what's going to happen. But for me, what kind
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: of what I realized about it, uh, sort of on
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: that note, it's sort of a parallel was I didn't
• 30:48
  Speaker 1: need to worry about the success as much because I
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: learned that if I put in enough scouting and enough time,
• 30:55
  Speaker 1: you know, looking at the aerial photography and burning some
• 30:58
  Speaker 1: boot leather and getting out there all year round. It
• 31:01
  Speaker 1: was like a given that the opportunities would come. Like
• 31:04
  Speaker 1: you know, if you hunt enough states and you put
• 31:07
  Speaker 1: in enough time on the front end, you've just set
• 31:09
  Speaker 1: yourself up where those encounters will come to some extent
• 31:13
  Speaker 1: name but you know they vary from year to year
• 31:14
  Speaker 1: and and state to state. But you get a lot
• 31:17
  Speaker 1: of confidence and you get real comfortable with yourself if
• 31:20
  Speaker 1: you can, if you believe, that's what's going to happen.
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: So I think you you kind of answer this question
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: for me with the example you just shared for the examples,
• 31:30
  Speaker 1: But if if I forced you to tell me right
• 31:34
  Speaker 1: now what the single greatest intangible trait that you have
• 31:40
  Speaker 1: that helps you to be as successful as you are
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: as a hunter, what would that be? What's your superpower?
• 31:48
  Speaker 1: I love scouting. I I think that that you know,
• 31:51
  Speaker 1: you've interviewed a lot of deer hunters, and I have
• 31:54
  Speaker 1: interviewed a lot of deer hunters. When you when you
• 31:58
  Speaker 1: get somebody and I know you've seen a before where
• 32:00
  Speaker 1: you get somebody on here like this person has a
• 32:02
  Speaker 1: lot of experience, Like you can tell they're speaking from
• 32:06
  Speaker 1: you know, pretty deep well there's almost always this love
• 32:12
  Speaker 1: of scouting built in there, even if you know they
• 32:14
  Speaker 1: have a different you know, even if they hunt beds
• 32:16
  Speaker 1: or their core area masters or they have some kind
• 32:19
  Speaker 1: of specialty, there's always almost always like intrinsically linked to that.
• 32:25
  Speaker 1: It's just a sheer love of scouting year round. So
• 32:28
  Speaker 1: what do you think that? Is that? Like, like, back
• 32:30
  Speaker 1: it up, So you love scouting, But is that because
• 32:33
  Speaker 1: you're really curious? Or is that because you are so
• 32:36
  Speaker 1: damn determined? Or is that because you will hate yourself
• 32:42
  Speaker 1: if you don't do every possible bit of work you can. Like,
• 32:44
  Speaker 1: what's the thing in your mind that's making you scout?
• 32:48
  Speaker 1: Know what I mean? Yeah, totally. I love being in
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: the woods man, Like I just like, it's not a
• 32:55
  Speaker 1: it's not like a terminator drive to kill big Bucks.
• 32:59
  Speaker 1: It's not like that for me. I just it's this
• 33:02
  Speaker 1: is one of the reasons I hunt everything. I just
• 33:05
  Speaker 1: love being in the woods. And so, you know, tonight
• 33:08
  Speaker 1: it's the end of March. I'm gonna be sitting in
• 33:10
  Speaker 1: this Buddies box blind shooting photos of deer I hope,
• 33:15
  Speaker 1: with my little girls. And I'm super excited. And you know,
• 33:19
  Speaker 1: there's gonna be no antlers out there. It's just gonna
• 33:21
  Speaker 1: be you know, where we're going. It's probably gonna be
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: dose and funds if they do come by. But I
• 33:26
  Speaker 1: just love being in the woods. And so yeah, you know,
• 33:29
  Speaker 1: if you're if you're talking winter scouting or summer glassing,
• 33:34
  Speaker 1: running into check a trail camera, all of that stuff.
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: I just enjoy being there and that's a that's a
• 33:40
  Speaker 1: big part of it. Yeah, that's that's a good if.
• 33:44
  Speaker 1: If that kind of stuff comes from that place of
• 33:47
  Speaker 1: just love for it, that's that's hard to beat. That's
• 33:51
  Speaker 1: hard to beat. It's an intangible man Like some people,
• 33:54
  Speaker 1: I know, some people don't like it as much as
• 33:57
  Speaker 1: I do. And it's not their fault, but it's that's
• 33:59
  Speaker 1: just I just feel lucky that I have that sort
• 34:02
  Speaker 1: of bend towards being in the woods like that. You
• 34:05
  Speaker 1: said you don't have that terminator drive though, do you, like,
• 34:10
  Speaker 1: are you at a place right now where you are
• 34:11
  Speaker 1: really satisfied with you're out there and you're enjoying it
• 34:15
  Speaker 1: because you love it, You're satisfied with what's happening with
• 34:18
  Speaker 1: the types of hunting seasons are happening having or do
• 34:21
  Speaker 1: you still have a terminator drive of any kind to like,
• 34:24
  Speaker 1: is there a next level for you? Or is there
• 34:25
  Speaker 1: the next mountain you want to scale? Or do you
• 34:28
  Speaker 1: want to is there is there is there a quote
• 34:31
  Speaker 1: unquote better or next for you in any kind of way?
• 34:33
  Speaker 1: Or are you in that happy place where he wants
• 34:35
  Speaker 1: to No, there's always next, man. I you know, I
• 34:38
  Speaker 1: get bored with stuff pretty quick, and I was. I
• 34:41
  Speaker 1: was talking to Zach from the hunting public about this
• 34:44
  Speaker 1: at the Deer Classic at the Minnesota Deer Classic recently,
• 34:48
  Speaker 1: and he and I are kind of weired similarly where
• 34:50
  Speaker 1: he's you know, he's one of those guys. He lives
• 34:52
  Speaker 1: in Iowa and he's sick of Iowa. He's like, I
• 34:54
  Speaker 1: want to move somewhere else because the hunting is too easy.
• 34:57
  Speaker 1: And you know, we started talking about that. You know,
• 35:00
  Speaker 1: you and I have hunted some of the same spots
• 35:02
  Speaker 1: and in different places, and I love those spots. But
• 35:07
  Speaker 1: every time I get one where I get like a
• 35:09
  Speaker 1: public land area where I'm like, this place is going
• 35:11
  Speaker 1: to be good year to year and it's I could
• 35:14
  Speaker 1: go back there and probably kill big bucks or at
• 35:16
  Speaker 1: least have encounters. I find myself looking for new places
• 35:21
  Speaker 1: and and you know, it's a weird. It's it's kind
• 35:24
  Speaker 1: of counter to a lot of what boat or a
• 35:26
  Speaker 1: lot of what deer hunting is about right now, where
• 35:28
  Speaker 1: it's you know, kind of get your amazing spot, build
• 35:31
  Speaker 1: it up and and you know, kind of raised the
• 35:34
  Speaker 1: deer and have that experience. And I'm just not I'm
• 35:37
  Speaker 1: not wired for that very well. I like new stuff,
• 35:40
  Speaker 1: And you know, I always talk about it like I
• 35:42
  Speaker 1: have a really good buddy who I hunt with quite
• 35:44
  Speaker 1: a bit, especially bird hunt with a lot, and he's
• 35:47
  Speaker 1: the kind of guy who, you know, if you were
• 35:50
  Speaker 1: talking fishing, he would park at the bridge walk below
• 35:54
  Speaker 1: the bridge and drown a nightcrawler in the biggest hole
• 35:56
  Speaker 1: under the bridge for an entire day. And if I
• 35:59
  Speaker 1: got down there, I would I would start walking up
• 36:02
  Speaker 1: stream and all of a sudden I would realize it's sunset.
• 36:04
  Speaker 1: I'm seven miles from my truck, you know what I mean.
• 36:07
  Speaker 1: It's just it's just a difference and how we're wired,
• 36:11
  Speaker 1: know what you mean? That's that's me right there too.
• 36:13
  Speaker 1: I always wonder what's over the next hill, What's what's
• 36:16
  Speaker 1: around the corner, what next thing? Could I try to
• 36:18
  Speaker 1: figure out that that's the thing for me. That's what
• 36:23
  Speaker 1: I love about this stuff. It's that problem solving, that's
• 36:26
  Speaker 1: an exploration. Uh I can't beat it. So okay, so
• 36:34
  Speaker 1: what about the next So there's like the next adventure,
• 36:37
  Speaker 1: Like you want to figure out these new things, you
• 36:39
  Speaker 1: want to see these new places. But if I were
• 36:41
  Speaker 1: to say, what is the thing like you need to
• 36:46
  Speaker 1: not go to, not the thing you'd go do, but
• 36:48
  Speaker 1: the next thing you have to get better at or
• 36:50
  Speaker 1: something like if if Tony Peterson the Hunter were to
• 36:54
  Speaker 1: become Tony Peterson the Hunter two point oh, what if
• 36:59
  Speaker 1: you had to elf diagnose like your weak spot or
• 37:03
  Speaker 1: the thing you had to work on next? What do
• 37:05
  Speaker 1: you think that would be? Probably Western critters. I just
• 37:09
  Speaker 1: you know, I've really only recently started elk hunting, and
• 37:14
  Speaker 1: that's kind of you know, that's an activity I do
• 37:17
  Speaker 1: where I feel like there's a big knowledge gap for me,
• 37:21
  Speaker 1: you know, for for white tails. I don't know, I
• 37:24
  Speaker 1: don't know what's left for me other than new states
• 37:26
  Speaker 1: and new places, you know, new challenges, and just keep
• 37:28
  Speaker 1: pushing the public land thing and going to new areas
• 37:31
  Speaker 1: because that, you know, kind of like what you talked
• 37:34
  Speaker 1: about would be in weired similar to me with the
• 37:36
  Speaker 1: what's around the bend and over the hill. You can
• 37:39
  Speaker 1: keep you know, stoke in that fire, even in the
• 37:42
  Speaker 1: deer world, even in states close to where you live
• 37:44
  Speaker 1: or in state by just going to new places and
• 37:48
  Speaker 1: the mystery is there, and the chess game is there
• 37:51
  Speaker 1: and the whole thing. And so I don't know if
• 37:53
  Speaker 1: if I don't know how I would classify what I
• 37:56
  Speaker 1: need to do to be the two point o version.
• 37:59
  Speaker 1: I'm not I'm not sure where to go with that.
• 38:01
  Speaker 1: Uh so are you plan do more Western stuff? Are
• 38:04
  Speaker 1: you doing more this year? Yeah? Well hopefully. Um I've
• 38:08
  Speaker 1: got I'm hoping to have a mule deer tag and
• 38:12
  Speaker 1: I'm I'm I've got another ten days blocked off in
• 38:15
  Speaker 1: September to go elk hunting. So yeah, I'm gonna mix
• 38:17
  Speaker 1: in some you know, I try to do at least
• 38:20
  Speaker 1: one Western trip of year, just because you know how
• 38:22
  Speaker 1: it is. You got to get it into the mountains.
• 38:24
  Speaker 1: I gotta. If you live at eight feet like I do,
• 38:27
  Speaker 1: when you're surrounded by cattail swamps, you want to see
• 38:29
  Speaker 1: some some elevation, want to see something. You want to
• 38:33
  Speaker 1: see farther than a hundred yards. Yep, Yeah, I can
• 38:36
  Speaker 1: totally relate to that. Um. So, um, you talked about scouting.
• 38:41
  Speaker 1: Let's I have no plan with this conversation, so it's
• 38:44
  Speaker 1: been going wherever wherever it takes me. But you mentioned
• 38:47
  Speaker 1: how much you love scouting. Uh, it's that time of
• 38:50
  Speaker 1: year and so much of what makes you you seems
• 38:53
  Speaker 1: to be just that next level scouting that you are
• 38:57
  Speaker 1: able to undertake. We've talked in past years about a
• 39:01
  Speaker 1: whole bunch of different tactics. We talked about some of
• 39:03
  Speaker 1: the different hunts you've been on, but I don't know
• 39:05
  Speaker 1: if we've ever dove deep into like what a spring
• 39:08
  Speaker 1: and summer of scouting looks like for you. Um, can
• 39:11
  Speaker 1: you walk me through what's to come this year? I mean,
• 39:16
  Speaker 1: are you scout? Do you have trips planned to some
• 39:18
  Speaker 1: of the other states to scout, or you just hitting
• 39:21
  Speaker 1: local stuff a lot? What's your actual scouting schedule look like?
• 39:24
  Speaker 1: If you can describe that at all? Um. I actually
• 39:27
  Speaker 1: got asked this by a a guest or one of
• 39:31
  Speaker 1: the guys at my seminar at the Deer Classic. He said, well,
• 39:34
  Speaker 1: how many days a year do you spend scouting? And
• 39:36
  Speaker 1: I said, well, if you talk e scouting and boots
• 39:38
  Speaker 1: on the ground. It's kind of haunted me since then
• 39:41
  Speaker 1: because I couldn't really answer it. I'm like, I don't know,
• 39:43
  Speaker 1: it's a lot um and it's it's still like something
• 39:46
  Speaker 1: I think about and really, right now, man, a lot.
• 39:51
  Speaker 1: I'm doing a lot of in state boots on the
• 39:54
  Speaker 1: ground stuff. We're we're One of the things I've really
• 39:58
  Speaker 1: been doing a lot this year that it's a little
• 40:00
  Speaker 1: bit different than in the past. Is I spent some
• 40:03
  Speaker 1: time in southeastern Minnesota on this farm that I have
• 40:05
  Speaker 1: permission to hunt, really trying to figure out core areas
• 40:09
  Speaker 1: because the farm is getting the timber is getting really mature,
• 40:14
  Speaker 1: and you know, we lost antler point restrictions last year
• 40:16
  Speaker 1: and and party hunting is back on. So the kind
• 40:20
  Speaker 1: of hunting that's occurring on that farm, especially during shotgun season,
• 40:23
  Speaker 1: is changing. It's getting easier for them to kill a
• 40:25
  Speaker 1: bunch of deer, and so finding those little core areas
• 40:29
  Speaker 1: that are thick and out of the way and hard
• 40:30
  Speaker 1: to approach is it's gonna be real important for me
• 40:34
  Speaker 1: from now on. And so I spent quite a bit
• 40:38
  Speaker 1: of time and probably January through a week or two
• 40:43
  Speaker 1: ago driving down there and just looking for these areas
• 40:47
  Speaker 1: and going, Okay, last year, somebody really big spent a
• 40:52
  Speaker 1: lot of time on this ridge or this point, and
• 40:54
  Speaker 1: I know some of those bucks got killed, But I
• 40:57
  Speaker 1: also know that when you find an area like that
• 41:00
  Speaker 1: through through winter scouting, it'll get filled in by somebody else,
• 41:03
  Speaker 1: so there'll be another mature buck in there. And I'm
• 41:06
  Speaker 1: really thinking that what I found. I found two areas
• 41:10
  Speaker 1: that just really got me excited, like little tight spots
• 41:14
  Speaker 1: that it was clear, you know, big big deer, we're
• 41:17
  Speaker 1: using them. And so I kind of want to do
• 41:20
  Speaker 1: a sort of a dual strategy this summer to figure out,
• 41:24
  Speaker 1: you know, if if they're living there in the summer,
• 41:26
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna run some cameras around there and leave them
• 41:29
  Speaker 1: for a couple of months, and then I'll do some
• 41:31
  Speaker 1: long range glassing to see who's in the area and
• 41:34
  Speaker 1: kind of sort of take a headcount and just get
• 41:36
  Speaker 1: a feel for all. Right, you know, you can kind
• 41:39
  Speaker 1: of watch those bucks in the summer and go, Okay,
• 41:41
  Speaker 1: that's the oldest one. He's probably going to take over
• 41:44
  Speaker 1: that spot, or you can see some of those her
• 41:47
  Speaker 1: dynamics play out a little bit on who's probably the
• 41:49
  Speaker 1: top dog, and it might not be the biggest buck,
• 41:51
  Speaker 1: but you kind of see how they act. And so
• 41:54
  Speaker 1: give me an idea of how to tie in that
• 41:57
  Speaker 1: stuff to what I found this winter, and I'm I'm
• 42:01
  Speaker 1: pretty excited about that. When you look for those those
• 42:04
  Speaker 1: core areas, you said you're looking for these tight little spots.
• 42:06
  Speaker 1: How tight are we talking? Like? Are you saying I
• 42:09
  Speaker 1: want to find the one acre two acre thicket that
• 42:12
  Speaker 1: I think they're in, or is it this forty acre
• 42:14
  Speaker 1: swamp um down there? It's it's pretty small man, couple
• 42:19
  Speaker 1: acres tops and it's all related to ridges and how
• 42:24
  Speaker 1: they can bed with you know, prevailing wind blowing down
• 42:27
  Speaker 1: the ridge and what they can see trying to sneak
• 42:29
  Speaker 1: up hill to them, and it's it's it's always a
• 42:33
  Speaker 1: good lesson to me, and that kind of because that's
• 42:35
  Speaker 1: bluffy close to the Mississippi River type of stuff. So
• 42:38
  Speaker 1: it's pretty up and down for Minnesota. But what it
• 42:41
  Speaker 1: always reminds me of is when I find that and
• 42:43
  Speaker 1: I stand there, I feel like I'm thinking about Western
• 42:47
  Speaker 1: hunting and and you know, when you watch a meal
• 42:50
  Speaker 1: deer bed in a mountain basin or in the in
• 42:53
  Speaker 1: some breaky territory. You just look at it and go,
• 42:56
  Speaker 1: you know, it wasn't by accident, Like there's always a reason.
• 42:59
  Speaker 1: You know, the wind is in their faver they can
• 43:00
  Speaker 1: see a whole bunch of stuff. The approaches aren't so
• 43:02
  Speaker 1: great for predators, and we don't watch that in white Tail.
• 43:06
  Speaker 1: So we have to piece that together by what we
• 43:09
  Speaker 1: find in the sign we find and so sometimes and
• 43:12
  Speaker 1: you know, depending on if I'm hunt in Wisconsin or
• 43:14
  Speaker 1: some other state, in bigwood stuff, it's a different kind
• 43:16
  Speaker 1: of core area that like you're talking about with the
• 43:19
  Speaker 1: swamps and the it might be a bigger area just generally.
• 43:23
  Speaker 1: But this stuff that I'm talking about is pretty egg
• 43:25
  Speaker 1: dense and it's deciduous forests, and so there isn't a
• 43:28
  Speaker 1: ton of super thick cover, and so it's tied to
• 43:32
  Speaker 1: the terrain features and where they can where they can
• 43:35
  Speaker 1: really bed down on, you know, at least throughout the fall.
• 43:39
  Speaker 1: That's what they were doing and and have a lot
• 43:41
  Speaker 1: of things working in their favor. How are you gonna
• 43:44
  Speaker 1: act on that? Then? So you're gonna you found a
• 43:46
  Speaker 1: couple of those spots, You're gonna go back in the
• 43:48
  Speaker 1: summer and glass the nearby crop fields to try to
• 43:50
  Speaker 1: figure out who's there and who's probably inherited that that zone.
• 43:56
  Speaker 1: Are you gonna have some preset stuff on the edges
• 43:59
  Speaker 1: of that that you're like planning? Okay for sure, now
• 44:03
  Speaker 1: that I know this core areas here, I want to
• 44:05
  Speaker 1: have a couple of options right around it. Or how
• 44:07
  Speaker 1: do you foresee building hunting strategy around each of these spots?
• 44:11
  Speaker 1: Um one of them? One of them, I think I'm
• 44:15
  Speaker 1: gonna have to just go in and hang and hunt
• 44:17
  Speaker 1: close to the rut because just because of the way
• 44:20
  Speaker 1: it's located, it's just to approach it is really tough,
• 44:23
  Speaker 1: and so I think you kind of need the advantage
• 44:25
  Speaker 1: of having having the rut and and maybe some some
• 44:29
  Speaker 1: daylight movement in there. The other one, you could you
• 44:32
  Speaker 1: could follow one of the most prominent rub lines out
• 44:35
  Speaker 1: of it towards some fields and he could stick to
• 44:39
  Speaker 1: a a wooded ridge for probably I don't know, a
• 44:43
  Speaker 1: couple of hundred yards and when he was leaving in
• 44:46
  Speaker 1: certain directions, and it will allow for a couple of
• 44:48
  Speaker 1: different wins, and it's it sets up a little easier
• 44:51
  Speaker 1: to maybe try to kill that deer either opening weekend
• 44:55
  Speaker 1: or staging sometime in October, and so for that deer
• 44:59
  Speaker 1: I'll probably go in and hang a standard two and
• 45:01
  Speaker 1: tack a trail for the other spot with with a
• 45:04
  Speaker 1: difficult approach. I don't, I don't. I haven't figured it
• 45:06
  Speaker 1: out yet. I'm not sure. Now, what about your out
• 45:10
  Speaker 1: of state scouting. I know you've talked past about doing
• 45:13
  Speaker 1: these turkey hunt slash scouting trips. Do you have any
• 45:17
  Speaker 1: of that plans here? Yeah, I'm I'm heading down to
• 45:21
  Speaker 1: Iowa the end of April, third week April. At some point,
• 45:25
  Speaker 1: I drew a tag down there to go scout. You know,
• 45:27
  Speaker 1: I'll running gun for turkeys like I did last spring
• 45:30
  Speaker 1: in this spot, but I'm I'm mostly scouting for deer
• 45:33
  Speaker 1: um on the idea that I'm going to draw the
• 45:36
  Speaker 1: Iowa tag this year because I have enough points. I've
• 45:38
  Speaker 1: just been waiting to find some public land that I
• 45:41
  Speaker 1: felt like burning them on. And it's been a little
• 45:43
  Speaker 1: bit of a process for me, and I finally I
• 45:46
  Speaker 1: think I hit on it last year. And so if
• 45:48
  Speaker 1: I if I get down there and I turkey out
• 45:50
  Speaker 1: for a few days and I go, yep, this is
• 45:51
  Speaker 1: as good as I remember it, then I'm gonna draw
• 45:54
  Speaker 1: that tag, and if you know, if that goes well,
• 45:56
  Speaker 1: I might skip over to some of that stuff in
• 45:58
  Speaker 1: Nebraska that I found at the end of the year
• 46:00
  Speaker 1: and and look at that. And I'm actually heading over
• 46:03
  Speaker 1: next week to scout some public land in Wisconsin that
• 46:07
  Speaker 1: I hunted last year and killed a buck on and
• 46:10
  Speaker 1: just just to figure it out more. So, Yeah, I guess.
• 46:12
  Speaker 1: I guess you could say I got a few plans
• 46:13
  Speaker 1: left to scout yet. Yeah, do you do anything different
• 46:19
  Speaker 1: from a scouting perspective now than ten years ago, Like,
• 46:22
  Speaker 1: has there been any major advancements in what you look for?
• 46:27
  Speaker 1: Or I don't know. I mean, I'm just kind of
• 46:29
  Speaker 1: curious about breaking your scouting process down more because a
• 46:32
  Speaker 1: lot of people meet myself. For a lot of years,
• 46:35
  Speaker 1: I would just walk around and look at stuff and
• 46:36
  Speaker 1: they go, Okay, cool, there's that, and there's that, and
• 46:39
  Speaker 1: and I've been recently trying to be more thoughtful I
• 46:43
  Speaker 1: guess about how I scout and making sure that I'm
• 46:46
  Speaker 1: not just noticing things or just I'm not just seeing things,
• 46:49
  Speaker 1: but that I'm somehow seeing them, noticing them and then
• 46:54
  Speaker 1: processing it into this like bigger picture that I can
• 46:56
  Speaker 1: actually act on um. I don't know if any of that,
• 47:01
  Speaker 1: if any of that resonates with you, But is there
• 47:04
  Speaker 1: anything that you're doing different now or at least that's
• 47:06
  Speaker 1: taking your scout into the next level and that kind
• 47:08
  Speaker 1: of way, um kinda. I mean I did the same thing,
• 47:12
  Speaker 1: you know, for a long time. I just walked through
• 47:13
  Speaker 1: and look for rubs and scrapes and go, Okay, well
• 47:15
  Speaker 1: this spot looks good, and then by the time the
• 47:18
  Speaker 1: season open, I'd forget most of it. And so I'm
• 47:20
  Speaker 1: trying to if I find a spot, I really try
• 47:24
  Speaker 1: to figure out how is it huntable or how is
• 47:26
  Speaker 1: it accessible? And how you know, when would I do that?
• 47:30
  Speaker 1: And so you know, it's because there's different things, right
• 47:33
  Speaker 1: you know. You you find you find a place with
• 47:36
  Speaker 1: a bunch of scrapes from last year, that's that's gonna
• 47:38
  Speaker 1: be a different timing thing than maybe that core area
• 47:41
  Speaker 1: with a bunch of rubs or that pinch point you
• 47:43
  Speaker 1: find along the river. And so just just trying to,
• 47:48
  Speaker 1: you know, gather as much good information and make as
• 47:51
  Speaker 1: many decisions as possible before I go try to hunt it.
• 47:55
  Speaker 1: So go you know, when you look at the woods
• 47:56
  Speaker 1: right now, you go, Man, if you want to sit here.
• 47:59
  Speaker 1: That's your true and this is how you probably want
• 48:01
  Speaker 1: to walk in. And then if you walked in there
• 48:04
  Speaker 1: in July, you all of that stuff would be erased
• 48:07
  Speaker 1: because it's just just the way things change, and it's
• 48:09
  Speaker 1: so easy to forget. And so you know, I started
• 48:12
  Speaker 1: marketing stuff on on X and and taking notes and
• 48:15
  Speaker 1: saying come in from the east, or don't hunt this
• 48:17
  Speaker 1: when the winds out of the north, and just trying
• 48:19
  Speaker 1: to like circumvent my own forgetfulness, I guess, and and
• 48:25
  Speaker 1: lay out as much of the plan as you can
• 48:28
  Speaker 1: as early as possible. Yeah. So, then is there anything
• 48:32
  Speaker 1: in the summer that you do find particularly helpful other
• 48:35
  Speaker 1: than just glass and fields to see what's in the area? Um?
• 48:40
  Speaker 1: Any summer scouting other than that kind of thing and
• 48:43
  Speaker 1: trail cameras I suppose, Um not really. I mean, I
• 48:48
  Speaker 1: think the glassing thing, I think that's just an enjoyable thing.
• 48:52
  Speaker 1: And I think that's one of the ways that we
• 48:53
  Speaker 1: get you know, we have the best chance to see
• 48:56
  Speaker 1: mature bucks then, and I think it does something for
• 48:59
  Speaker 1: us mentally to it there and watch them and take
• 49:01
  Speaker 1: some of the mystery away. And you know, I like,
• 49:04
  Speaker 1: I like doing the trail camera thing now where I'm
• 49:09
  Speaker 1: I'm always trying to answer questions with them. I don't
• 49:11
  Speaker 1: I don't hang trail cameras on field edges anymore. It's
• 49:15
  Speaker 1: you know, I know where dear like to eat. It
• 49:17
  Speaker 1: just doesn't. It's cool to get the pictures, but it
• 49:19
  Speaker 1: doesn't really matter to me, And so I do a
• 49:22
  Speaker 1: lot of you know, kind of kind of staging area research.
• 49:26
  Speaker 1: I could, I guess you could call it with my
• 49:28
  Speaker 1: trail cameras now where I'm like, okay, I can't see
• 49:30
  Speaker 1: into the cover here. I don't know what these deer
• 49:34
  Speaker 1: doing in some of the thick stuff and how they're
• 49:37
  Speaker 1: traveling through it and using it, And so I like
• 49:40
  Speaker 1: to use trail cameras for that. You know, you get
• 49:42
  Speaker 1: some duds where you hang it in places where you're like, oh,
• 49:44
  Speaker 1: I think it's gonna be really good, and you know,
• 49:46
  Speaker 1: it just isn't for whatever reason. And it might be
• 49:48
  Speaker 1: a timing thing, or it might be the spot, but
• 49:51
  Speaker 1: I just I try to force myself and I don't know,
• 49:53
  Speaker 1: I've talked about this a million times, but just just
• 49:55
  Speaker 1: to use them to actually answer questions instead of telling
• 49:58
  Speaker 1: me what I already know what are some of the
• 50:00
  Speaker 1: spots that you're putting them back in those staging areas
• 50:02
  Speaker 1: so they aren't done? Is it like a scrape location
• 50:05
  Speaker 1: is going to get you a little more activity? Or
• 50:08
  Speaker 1: I mean, how do you because it's really easy to
• 50:10
  Speaker 1: pick field locations where you're probably gonna come out or
• 50:13
  Speaker 1: people put out bait or something like that to get
• 50:15
  Speaker 1: these pictures. But if you're setting back there to get
• 50:18
  Speaker 1: a question answered, that's probably a slightly lower trafficed area
• 50:22
  Speaker 1: not quite as obvious. How do you find the spot
• 50:24
  Speaker 1: within that spot to actually hang it? Trails typically, you know,
• 50:29
  Speaker 1: I mean, because you're not gonna see if you're walking
• 50:31
  Speaker 1: in in June or July, you're not gonna see much
• 50:35
  Speaker 1: from last year's sign, And so it's like, okay, you know,
• 50:38
  Speaker 1: here's here's a trail coming off of this knob that
• 50:41
  Speaker 1: I know they were betting on last year, and hang
• 50:43
  Speaker 1: it and give it a month and see if that's
• 50:45
  Speaker 1: what they're using, or you know there there is one
• 50:48
  Speaker 1: thing I do with trail cameras a lot is you know,
• 50:52
  Speaker 1: if you get out there right now and find those
• 50:54
  Speaker 1: pinch points in those funnels. We always think of them
• 50:56
  Speaker 1: from a rut perspective, but so so many of those
• 50:59
  Speaker 1: spots or use them all year round. I mean just
• 51:02
  Speaker 1: because they're the easiest place to go or one of
• 51:04
  Speaker 1: the few limited options for they for their travel from
• 51:07
  Speaker 1: point A to B, and so I like to I
• 51:10
  Speaker 1: like to hang cameras on those spots a lot too,
• 51:13
  Speaker 1: because those can tie in really nicely to staging deer.
• 51:16
  Speaker 1: If you have a pinch point that's you know, between
• 51:20
  Speaker 1: betting and food, and they you know they might stage
• 51:24
  Speaker 1: there in September, you can they may be using that
• 51:27
  Speaker 1: in June, July, August, September, right on through. And so
• 51:31
  Speaker 1: again it's just it's hanging them in places like that
• 51:34
  Speaker 1: with trails, some kind of train feature maybe that'll push
• 51:36
  Speaker 1: them through and just answer those questions do you do
• 51:41
  Speaker 1: do you ever set cameras? This is something that not
• 51:44
  Speaker 1: done as much as I want to do, but I
• 51:45
  Speaker 1: want to do more of it. Where you place a
• 51:47
  Speaker 1: camera somewhere that's really hard to get to, that you
• 51:50
  Speaker 1: probably won't be able to get to it all during
• 51:52
  Speaker 1: the season, but you set it there prior to and
• 51:55
  Speaker 1: then you check it after the season to get those
• 51:58
  Speaker 1: questions answered, Like you couldn't get it snuck gonna help
• 52:00
  Speaker 1: you that year, but it'll tell you something for next year.
• 52:03
  Speaker 1: Do you do that kind of thing. I've started to
• 52:06
  Speaker 1: the last couple of years mostly because of how much
• 52:10
  Speaker 1: I was getting my butt kicked in the big woods
• 52:11
  Speaker 1: in northern Wisconsin. And it's it's beneficial to me anyway.
• 52:19
  Speaker 1: From my experience. It's beneficial that I get to see
• 52:22
  Speaker 1: all the deer that were they're moving in daylight that
• 52:24
  Speaker 1: I didn't think we're there. But it's a conference booster. Yeah,
• 52:27
  Speaker 1: just just like you know, if you're gonna go over
• 52:29
  Speaker 1: there and you have one of those all day sis,
• 52:31
  Speaker 1: you don't see a deer, you know, you can think, well,
• 52:33
  Speaker 1: two years ago, you left four cameras up here, and
• 52:35
  Speaker 1: there were three days during the second week of November,
• 52:39
  Speaker 1: third week of November where mature Box moved through you know, whatever,
• 52:44
  Speaker 1: you know, And so it does work that way. But
• 52:47
  Speaker 1: it also kind of gives me fits because it just
• 52:49
  Speaker 1: it's one of those reminders that there's a lot of
• 52:51
  Speaker 1: stuff going on out there that we don't know about,
• 52:54
  Speaker 1: and when you get a glimpse into it, you go, man,
• 52:56
  Speaker 1: there's there's you know, you might think you have this
• 52:58
  Speaker 1: spot totally nailed, right, and then you do that and
• 53:02
  Speaker 1: you check out, you know, three months of trail camera
• 53:04
  Speaker 1: images in one of those areas, you go, man, there's
• 53:08
  Speaker 1: a lot I didn't know about this, and so what
• 53:10
  Speaker 1: what else are you missing? So you killed one of
• 53:14
  Speaker 1: those big woods bucks out there last year? Right? Did
• 53:16
  Speaker 1: you kill one the year before? It was last year?
• 53:18
  Speaker 1: The first year in this general area. Um, I killed
• 53:21
  Speaker 1: one last year and I killed one on that in
• 53:24
  Speaker 1: that area in I think, so there there was a
• 53:30
  Speaker 1: little gap there, but yeah, I've killed a couple. Do
• 53:33
  Speaker 1: you feel like you've now that you've had a couple
• 53:36
  Speaker 1: of glimpses like that? Has a light switched moment happened
• 53:39
  Speaker 1: for you on that kind of in that kind of spot,
• 53:41
  Speaker 1: Because when you said that, it just resonated with me
• 53:44
  Speaker 1: with my big wood stuff up in northern Michigan, where
• 53:46
  Speaker 1: I felt the exact same way, frustrated, wondering what's happening
• 53:50
  Speaker 1: where they at? And then I put these cameras out
• 53:52
  Speaker 1: last year and some of these deeper in the timber spots,
• 53:54
  Speaker 1: and I had that exact experience where oh wow, there
• 53:59
  Speaker 1: are these moving through here. There were a few days
• 54:01
  Speaker 1: where it was really happening. So a new confidence booster.
• 54:04
  Speaker 1: But then also okay, now how do I how do
• 54:07
  Speaker 1: I adjust with this new stuff? Like have you had
• 54:09
  Speaker 1: a light switched moment with the Big Woods hunting yet? Um?
• 54:13
  Speaker 1: Anything there? Because I know we've talked on previous previous
• 54:16
  Speaker 1: chats and a couple of years ago we broke down
• 54:18
  Speaker 1: one of your seasons really trying to make it happen
• 54:21
  Speaker 1: there in Wisconsin. And I'm just curious where you're right now.
• 54:24
  Speaker 1: Um well, you know, just just as a side note,
• 54:26
  Speaker 1: that where I killed the buck last year, UM, I'm
• 54:30
  Speaker 1: not running cameras in there. That's public, and so the
• 54:33
  Speaker 1: cameras that I ran over there were on private, and
• 54:36
  Speaker 1: so they're kind of different. But the the thing that
• 54:40
  Speaker 1: I think I've figured out out there over there to
• 54:42
  Speaker 1: some extent is there are really good bucks on in
• 54:48
  Speaker 1: that area, even though the density of deer's pretty low.
• 54:51
  Speaker 1: You know, a lot of predators, bad winners, all that stuff,
• 54:55
  Speaker 1: But it keeps me, it keeps me really interesting and
• 55:00
  Speaker 1: scouting over there and covering a lot of ground, and
• 55:03
  Speaker 1: that I feel like it's kind of your ticket to
• 55:06
  Speaker 1: refinding those deer. And I don't I don't know if
• 55:08
  Speaker 1: this makes sense or not, but where I killed the
• 55:10
  Speaker 1: buck a few years ago. There was on this creek
• 55:13
  Speaker 1: bottom thing that I had found. It was on a
• 55:15
  Speaker 1: crossing and it was I thought all my questions were answered.
• 55:19
  Speaker 1: When I killed that buck. I saw another big one
• 55:21
  Speaker 1: in there. Um, I was like, okay, this is I
• 55:24
  Speaker 1: got the spot. Well last year, I should I guess
• 55:27
  Speaker 1: I should say two years ago. You know, the secret
• 55:30
  Speaker 1: got out on that spot and there were people putting
• 55:32
  Speaker 1: ladder stands in there, and the county that I hunt
• 55:35
  Speaker 1: in you can bait, and so there were several people
• 55:39
  Speaker 1: hunting around there that could drive a four wheeler close
• 55:41
  Speaker 1: enough to it, that were running bait piles. And I'm
• 55:44
  Speaker 1: trying to operate off a natural movement, and so that
• 55:47
  Speaker 1: whole creek bottom thing blew up on me. It was gone,
• 55:49
  Speaker 1: Like I couldn't find a deer in there anymore. And
• 55:51
  Speaker 1: so I started, I had a kind of reset and
• 55:55
  Speaker 1: start winner scouting in there again. And I found the
• 55:59
  Speaker 1: spot that I killed this buck on last year scouting
• 56:02
  Speaker 1: the winter before. And it's the same deer that probably
• 56:05
  Speaker 1: we're using the other area. They just moved to a
• 56:08
  Speaker 1: little bit of a different spot. And so I don't
• 56:12
  Speaker 1: would I say that I have this stuff figured out
• 56:14
  Speaker 1: in the big woods. No, like, not even close. I'm
• 56:17
  Speaker 1: better than I was five years ago. But I'm telling you, man,
• 56:20
  Speaker 1: and I know you've seen this in Michigan. I don't
• 56:23
  Speaker 1: I don't think there's anything more difficult than hunting big
• 56:27
  Speaker 1: woods deer in low density situations where you've got a
• 56:31
  Speaker 1: lot of predators and a lot of winter mortality. It's
• 56:34
  Speaker 1: just tough. Man. What of all the hunting you do, then,
• 56:40
  Speaker 1: is the herd or not the hardest? That was the hardest.
• 56:43
  Speaker 1: What's the easiest situation? Uh? Well, some of the some
• 56:50
  Speaker 1: of those Western White tales are awful, awful friendly as
• 56:54
  Speaker 1: far as allowing for some mistakes and and for real,
• 56:58
  Speaker 1: you know, long distance patterning and sticking to their their trails.
• 57:02
  Speaker 1: But I think for for me, the easiest is the
• 57:06
  Speaker 1: places I hunt in Minnesota where I can do a
• 57:09
  Speaker 1: bunch of work, where I can you know, hang stands
• 57:12
  Speaker 1: and trim shooting lanes and and you know, put it
• 57:16
  Speaker 1: piece together the whole year, and you know, because it's
• 57:19
  Speaker 1: so close to home, and you can do all the scouting,
• 57:21
  Speaker 1: you know that. But that's private land. As far as
• 57:23
  Speaker 1: public land, you know, the easiest stuff is just getting
• 57:26
  Speaker 1: to where there's a decent amount of deer and not
• 57:29
  Speaker 1: very many people, which is probably not gonna surprise anyone, right,
• 57:32
  Speaker 1: but a good foundational truth to keep in the back
• 57:35
  Speaker 1: of your mind when making plans for future hunts. Right, yep,
• 57:38
  Speaker 1: big time. So I think we chatted in late September
• 57:46
  Speaker 1: or early October last year. I think was the last
• 57:49
  Speaker 1: time we had during the show, and you've already killed
• 57:52
  Speaker 1: three bucks maybe, is that right at that point? And
• 57:54
  Speaker 1: I think you tagged a couple more by the end
• 57:56
  Speaker 1: of the year. Uh five five buck text field last year?
• 58:01
  Speaker 1: Is that possible? Four I killed four bucks to doing
• 58:05
  Speaker 1: a bull ELK. So I think when we talked, I
• 58:08
  Speaker 1: was actually I think I was driving to Colorado. It
• 58:10
  Speaker 1: could be. So that's a good season. It was. That's
• 58:17
  Speaker 1: probably understatement of the day there, but that was a
• 58:19
  Speaker 1: good season. Do you think there was any theme to
• 58:28
  Speaker 1: your twenty nineteen year or what or could you point
• 58:32
  Speaker 1: to any like underlying thing that was consistent across all
• 58:36
  Speaker 1: that success that led to it being such a good
• 58:39
  Speaker 1: year other than I'm going to take away one option,
• 58:41
  Speaker 1: which is gonna be you can't say because you scout
• 58:43
  Speaker 1: it so much to talk about that a lot. Is
• 58:47
  Speaker 1: there anything else do you think could have been like
• 58:49
  Speaker 1: your key to success if we wanted to give that
• 58:52
  Speaker 1: cliche title to it. Um, you know, it's probably tied
• 58:56
  Speaker 1: back to the what we talked about earlier about shrug
• 58:59
  Speaker 1: and off the bad stuff, you know. I mean, it's
• 59:03
  Speaker 1: it's so easy when you when you have a year
• 59:06
  Speaker 1: like that too, it's easy to boil it down and
• 59:08
  Speaker 1: just be like, wow, that's that's a lot of success.
• 59:12
  Speaker 1: But you know, there were a pile of times that
• 59:16
  Speaker 1: I had somebody else come in, or I bumped a deer,
• 59:19
  Speaker 1: I got busted, or you know, I had three weeks
• 59:22
  Speaker 1: last year. You know, I didn't hunt every day, but
• 59:24
  Speaker 1: I hunted a lot where I never saw a deer.
• 59:27
  Speaker 1: I mean, I had three weeks in a row where
• 59:29
  Speaker 1: I didn't lay eyes on anything other than squirrels and songbirds.
• 59:32
  Speaker 1: And so it's kind of like just keeping at it
• 59:35
  Speaker 1: and and and relying on that plan and the strategy
• 59:39
  Speaker 1: and and just being comfortable with that kind of stuff
• 59:42
  Speaker 1: to just keep going. And you know, it's kind of
• 59:45
  Speaker 1: you know, you know how it is like you can
• 59:47
  Speaker 1: have an amazing year and just not close very well,
• 59:51
  Speaker 1: and so you just you have those encounters and you're
• 59:54
  Speaker 1: seeing deer all the time and it's just fun to hunt,
• 59:57
  Speaker 1: but you don't, you know, like in the in the
• 59:58
  Speaker 1: Body Count Ellie, it's just not that great. Or you
• 1:00:02
  Speaker 1: can have those years where you're not like you're not
• 1:00:03
  Speaker 1: bumping into tons of deer, but when the right one
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 1: shows up, you make it happen. I kind of had
• 1:00:09
  Speaker 1: that last year, like I didn't have I just wasn't.
• 1:00:12
  Speaker 1: I wasn't having like bang up hunts where it was
• 1:00:14
  Speaker 1: like amazing deer encounters constantly, but it was like when
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 1: one of them did make a mistake, it worked out
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 1: pretty well for me. Do you ever do you ever
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 1: feel do you what am I trying to stay here?
• 1:00:29
  Speaker 1: What are your thoughts then? For so do you come
• 1:00:32
  Speaker 1: into being like I'm gonna roll, I've got things rolling,
• 1:00:35
  Speaker 1: I've got momentum. Uh, this is gonna be a great year.
• 1:00:38
  Speaker 1: Or do you ever have this? Uh worry about the
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 1: pendulum effect where the lucky rabbits foot paid off last year?
• 1:00:45
  Speaker 1: This year, probably those little things that did go your way,
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 1: the tiny you know, one percent in details that sometimes
• 1:00:51
  Speaker 1: make all the difference. Now, maybe just the odds this
• 1:00:54
  Speaker 1: year might slip the other way. Well, buddy, I live
• 1:00:58
  Speaker 1: in terror of that because it's it's gonna happen for
• 1:01:01
  Speaker 1: me eventually. I mean, I've had I've been on a
• 1:01:04
  Speaker 1: good run for a while, and I just, you know,
• 1:01:07
  Speaker 1: like my buddies keep reminding me, like, man, you're going
• 1:01:10
  Speaker 1: to have just a clunker at one of these years,
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 1: and you know, it's just it'll happen, and it's it's okay,
• 1:01:18
  Speaker 1: you know. I mean, I don't I know, I know,
• 1:01:22
  Speaker 1: no matter what, I'm gonna probably fill my freezer up
• 1:01:24
  Speaker 1: one way or the other. And so that's that's kind
• 1:01:26
  Speaker 1: of a relief, you know. I mean, I don't anticipate
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 1: a year where I can at least put a couple
• 1:01:30
  Speaker 1: of dolls in the freezer, and so as far as
• 1:01:32
  Speaker 1: you killing a bunch of public Land bucks every year,
• 1:01:34
  Speaker 1: like yeah, it's I know it's coming. I don't know
• 1:01:37
  Speaker 1: if it'll be this year or not. I mean, I'm
• 1:01:38
  Speaker 1: gonna I got some pretty good hunts planned this year,
• 1:01:41
  Speaker 1: and I've I've got some high hopes. But I do
• 1:01:44
  Speaker 1: know that, you know, Murphy's lack and step in, I
• 1:01:47
  Speaker 1: know that eventually I could just flame out over and
• 1:01:51
  Speaker 1: over again. And so I'm I'm trying to I'm trying
• 1:01:54
  Speaker 1: to like, uh, find some peace with that knowledge because
• 1:01:57
  Speaker 1: it is probably coming. It's uh. It goes back to
• 1:02:02
  Speaker 1: the idea that one of the best things you can
• 1:02:03
  Speaker 1: do if your mental health is is learned to know
• 1:02:06
  Speaker 1: what you can control and what you can't control and
• 1:02:09
  Speaker 1: just come to peace with those two things. Because like
• 1:02:12
  Speaker 1: you said, there's there's certain things are out of your hands,
• 1:02:14
  Speaker 1: and the clunker might might be on his way. I
• 1:02:17
  Speaker 1: don't I don't think it will happen though for it
• 1:02:19
  Speaker 1: don't think you'll you'll find a way around it. Well,
• 1:02:22
  Speaker 1: I appreciate the vote of confidence there, Mark, What do
• 1:02:24
  Speaker 1: you what do you think that of all the things
• 1:02:27
  Speaker 1: you got planned? Um, what's your number one goal? And
• 1:02:34
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna I'm gonna I'm gonna force you to be
• 1:02:38
  Speaker 1: pretty specific with it. If if let's say, you can
• 1:02:41
  Speaker 1: have one thing go right next year. I know you've
• 1:02:44
  Speaker 1: got a lot of hunts planned, You've got a lot
• 1:02:46
  Speaker 1: of things you'd love to go right. But if I'm
• 1:02:47
  Speaker 1: gonna tell you that everything's gonna go wrong except for
• 1:02:50
  Speaker 1: one hunt or one specific thing, and if that one
• 1:02:54
  Speaker 1: thing went right for you or you filled this one
• 1:02:57
  Speaker 1: tag or you've got this whatever you'd say, damn it,
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 1: that was a really good season. If if you can
• 1:03:02
  Speaker 1: pick one success, what would it be? Man, I I
• 1:03:08
  Speaker 1: got one buddy who I hunt with a lot. He's
• 1:03:11
  Speaker 1: we're both hoping we draw the any deer tags in
• 1:03:14
  Speaker 1: North Dakota and he'll get an then he can hunt
• 1:03:16
  Speaker 1: a mule here because he's never killed a mule deer
• 1:03:18
  Speaker 1: there and he's hunted there quite a bit. And I
• 1:03:20
  Speaker 1: really think I got a spot that he can do it,
• 1:03:23
  Speaker 1: and so i'd like to if if that could go right,
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 1: that would make me very happy. Um. I'd also really
• 1:03:30
  Speaker 1: really like it if I could call in an elk
• 1:03:32
  Speaker 1: for somebody. I'd love to. I'd love to be on
• 1:03:35
  Speaker 1: the on the that side of it because I'm not
• 1:03:39
  Speaker 1: a good out caller, and the buddies that I hunt
• 1:03:41
  Speaker 1: with are always calling because they're better than me. So
• 1:03:43
  Speaker 1: I'd like to flip that script because it's so fun,
• 1:03:46
  Speaker 1: you know, in the Turkey world, taking somebody out and
• 1:03:49
  Speaker 1: and kind of kind of directing that situation and being
• 1:03:52
  Speaker 1: the one who calls him in. So I'd like that
• 1:03:54
  Speaker 1: to happen a lot. I'd like to just call and
• 1:03:57
  Speaker 1: call an elkin for somebody, Um, as far as you
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 1: know what, I'm what, I'm hoping to get out of
• 1:04:03
  Speaker 1: the season, like you know, with the Iowa tag or
• 1:04:05
  Speaker 1: something like that. I'm like, I'm kind of wide open, man.
• 1:04:08
  Speaker 1: You know, We've talked about this a whole bunch. I
• 1:04:10
  Speaker 1: got a hell of a range. When it comes to
• 1:04:11
  Speaker 1: the size of buck I'll shoot and I'm just not
• 1:04:15
  Speaker 1: you know, I like a full freezer. I like, I
• 1:04:17
  Speaker 1: like a lot of stuff out of it. So I'm
• 1:04:19
  Speaker 1: just I'm just hoping we we all get to go hunting,
• 1:04:23
  Speaker 1: and we're not We're not looking at shutdown seasons or anything.
• 1:04:26
  Speaker 1: And I think if we do get to go, then
• 1:04:27
  Speaker 1: there'll be lots of good stuff that happens. That's a
• 1:04:29
  Speaker 1: good point. I gotta ask, though, when it comes to Iowa.
• 1:04:33
  Speaker 1: You've waited, you've got you've stacked up points, you've waited
• 1:04:36
  Speaker 1: for the right spot to look good. Are you gonna
• 1:04:39
  Speaker 1: be pickier in Iowa this year than you might be
• 1:04:42
  Speaker 1: in other states? Or you pretty loosely goosy with it.
• 1:04:47
  Speaker 1: I think I'll be I think I'll be somewhat picky,
• 1:04:53
  Speaker 1: provided that I'm right about the amount of pressure in
• 1:04:57
  Speaker 1: the area. I'm at if I get in there, you know,
• 1:05:00
  Speaker 1: I'm kind of putting all my eggs in one basket.
• 1:05:02
  Speaker 1: And if I get in there and there's a lot
• 1:05:03
  Speaker 1: more pressure than I thought, I might drop those standards
• 1:05:06
  Speaker 1: a little bit. But it kind of all depends, you know,
• 1:05:09
  Speaker 1: it will depend on how much time I have. I'm
• 1:05:11
  Speaker 1: hoping to I'm hoping to be down there camping for
• 1:05:14
  Speaker 1: like ten days during the rut, which you know that
• 1:05:17
  Speaker 1: really gives you some some leeway. So you know, I
• 1:05:21
  Speaker 1: I don't want to burn it on a scrapper, but
• 1:05:24
  Speaker 1: well we'll see, you know, I don't. I don't want
• 1:05:26
  Speaker 1: to commit myself to anything. I'm gonna use a bunch
• 1:05:28
  Speaker 1: of weasel words here for you because I don't know
• 1:05:30
  Speaker 1: how it's gonna play out. But you know, it's a
• 1:05:33
  Speaker 1: highway tag. I mean, I'm gonna try to use it
• 1:05:35
  Speaker 1: and kill a decent one. Do you worry at all?
• 1:05:38
  Speaker 1: This is totally off topic? You know, we're not totally
• 1:05:40
  Speaker 1: off topic, but it wasn't. Well, I don't know what
• 1:05:43
  Speaker 1: I'm saying. What I'm trying to say is that do
• 1:05:46
  Speaker 1: you worried of all about the attention that public land
• 1:05:50
  Speaker 1: hunting in Iowa? Has gotten Over the last couple of years.
• 1:05:53
  Speaker 1: There's been a lot of attention to public land hunting
• 1:05:54
  Speaker 1: in Iowa. Lately, a lot of people have realized how
• 1:05:57
  Speaker 1: good it can be. Now maybe more they always do.
• 1:06:00
  Speaker 1: I was great, but maybe it was Okay, you gotta
• 1:06:01
  Speaker 1: have a big lease, so you gotta have a private farm,
• 1:06:05
  Speaker 1: and you've gotta you know, all that kind of stuff.
• 1:06:09
  Speaker 1: Now that's oh yeah, there is great public land even
• 1:06:11
  Speaker 1: though even though there's not a ton of it, there's
• 1:06:14
  Speaker 1: some of it. Do you have any worries that you
• 1:06:17
  Speaker 1: might get to this year it's flooded? Uh No. And
• 1:06:21
  Speaker 1: here's why I've been thinking about this a lot. We
• 1:06:27
  Speaker 1: one of the biggest barriers to public land hunting success
• 1:06:31
  Speaker 1: is believing that kind of stuff is gonna like really
• 1:06:34
  Speaker 1: affect your hunt. And so you know, I kind of
• 1:06:37
  Speaker 1: say that with an asterix, right, Like, if you get
• 1:06:39
  Speaker 1: into a place that is overloaded with people, it sucks.
• 1:06:42
  Speaker 1: And I've been there a few times in my life,
• 1:06:44
  Speaker 1: but almost always I find that even places that are
• 1:06:50
  Speaker 1: seemed to have a fair amount of hunting pressure, like
• 1:06:52
  Speaker 1: you're really dealing with people, there's always deer in there
• 1:06:55
  Speaker 1: that would make me happy and I'm I'm seeing this
• 1:06:59
  Speaker 1: just to it everywhere I go, you know, Oklahoma, the Dakotas,
• 1:07:02
  Speaker 1: wherever if I put in some work, I can, I can,
• 1:07:06
  Speaker 1: even if I don't kill them. I'm seeing bucks that
• 1:07:08
  Speaker 1: are awesome. And it's it's one of those things where
• 1:07:11
  Speaker 1: it's like we we we are really kind of drawn
• 1:07:16
  Speaker 1: to the excuse or the you know, like the way
• 1:07:20
  Speaker 1: out if we're not successful. So if you you know,
• 1:07:22
  Speaker 1: sit here and say, well there's there's too many people
• 1:07:24
  Speaker 1: on public land in Iowa, like that's a relative thing, man,
• 1:07:27
  Speaker 1: And and really you still get to bow hunt the
• 1:07:30
  Speaker 1: entire rut in a place with very few predators, um,
• 1:07:34
  Speaker 1: no winner mortality to speak of for the most you know,
• 1:07:37
  Speaker 1: you might have some HD areas, not probably not where
• 1:07:41
  Speaker 1: I'm going, but generally you're hunting a pretty good place
• 1:07:44
  Speaker 1: no matter what, whether there's a lot of pressure or not.
• 1:07:46
  Speaker 1: And so it's sort of all relative. And I'm I'm
• 1:07:49
  Speaker 1: really not concerned. I mean, you're seeing this too. I'm
• 1:07:52
  Speaker 1: sure there's just there's a lot of people out on
• 1:07:54
  Speaker 1: public land all over now. It's it's freaking popular, and
• 1:07:58
  Speaker 1: so why I would be any different. It's just not
• 1:08:01
  Speaker 1: gonna be Yeah, that's a good point, and it's kind
• 1:08:04
  Speaker 1: of a good way to wrap it up to when
• 1:08:08
  Speaker 1: it comes to just maybe that's your superpower. It's your superpower, Tony.
• 1:08:15
  Speaker 1: Isn't that you love scouting so much. It's not that
• 1:08:21
  Speaker 1: it's not that you gotta lucky rabbit's foot. I think
• 1:08:23
  Speaker 1: it's that you are able to find the best in
• 1:08:27
  Speaker 1: anything and not except the first door that might be
• 1:08:31
  Speaker 1: blocked as the only door. It seems like you tend
• 1:08:34
  Speaker 1: to be really good at opening the first one seeing
• 1:08:37
  Speaker 1: that there's a cement block in the way, but then
• 1:08:39
  Speaker 1: going to the next one, and if that one leads
• 1:08:42
  Speaker 1: off a cliff, you go to the next door. And
• 1:08:43
  Speaker 1: maybe if that third door has got a dog chain
• 1:08:47
  Speaker 1: to a fence post and he's barking, and barking is
• 1:08:50
  Speaker 1: a dangerous situation, you go find the window and you
• 1:08:52
  Speaker 1: crawl through when you make it happen. That might be
• 1:08:54
  Speaker 1: the Tony Peterson superpower. And I think that's a good
• 1:08:58
  Speaker 1: place to end it. Uh, it was an odd analogy,
• 1:09:03
  Speaker 1: but I stuck with you the whole time. Man. That's
• 1:09:05
  Speaker 1: kind of in the story of anyone who's ever listened
• 1:09:07
  Speaker 1: to this podcast. If you can, you can stick with it.
• 1:09:09
  Speaker 1: There might be something there, definitely, Uh, Tony, I appreciate it. Uh,
• 1:09:15
  Speaker 1: it's always fun to catch up. I wish we could
• 1:09:17
  Speaker 1: do it even more and and I'm excited to hopefully,
• 1:09:20
  Speaker 1: hopefully our plans work out. Hopefully we can share a
• 1:09:23
  Speaker 1: hunting camp together this year too and do a lot
• 1:09:25
  Speaker 1: more of this. Let's do it, buddy, Alright, folks, that
• 1:09:28
  Speaker 1: is a rap. I hope you enjoyed that, UM, hopefully
• 1:09:31
  Speaker 1: for for an hour or so you were able to
• 1:09:33
  Speaker 1: take your mind off of some of the events, the
• 1:09:36
  Speaker 1: current events of the day that can be a little
• 1:09:39
  Speaker 1: less enjoyable. Uh. And with that in mind too, if
• 1:09:42
  Speaker 1: you're listening to this in the current time here in
• 1:09:44
  Speaker 1: April two thousand twenty, UM, I'm just wishing you all
• 1:09:48
  Speaker 1: the best. I just want you to know that I
• 1:09:49
  Speaker 1: I'm thinking and praying and uh hoping for all the
• 1:09:54
  Speaker 1: best health for all of you. Please stay safe, please
• 1:09:57
  Speaker 1: stay well, um, and I hope we'll get to chat
• 1:10:00
  Speaker 1: again soon. Thanks for listening, and until next time, stay
• 1:10:04
  Speaker 1: wired to hunt. H