Latest / Wired To Hunt Podcast / Ep. 945: Goals, Hopes, and Hit Lists for 2025 with Dan Johnson

Transcript

Ep. 945: Goals, Hopes, and Hit Lists for 2025 with Dan Johnson · Wired To Hunt Podcast

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: Welcome to the Wired to Hunt Podcast, your guide to
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: the whitetail Woods, presented by First Light, creating proven versatile
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: hunting apparel for the stand, saddle or blind. First Light
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: Go Farther, Stay Longer, and now your host, Mark Kenyon.
• 0:19
  Speaker 2: Welcome to the Wired to Hunt Podcast. This week on
• 0:23
  Speaker 2: the show, I'm joined by my longtime prior co host,
• 0:27
  Speaker 2: Dan Johnson to discuss our goals, hopes, and hit lists
• 0:31
  Speaker 2: for the twenty twenty five Seasonally all right, welcome back
• 0:41
  Speaker 2: to the Wired to Hunt podcast, brought to you by
• 0:44
  Speaker 2: First Light and their Camera for Conservation initiative. And today
• 0:49
  Speaker 2: is a fun one. We're kicking off the twenty twenty
• 0:52
  Speaker 2: five hunting season as we do every year, which is
• 0:55
  Speaker 2: with a review of the upcoming hunting season. And I'm
• 0:59
  Speaker 2: joined by my buddy Dan Johnson. He was my co
• 1:03
  Speaker 2: host on this show for many years early on. Now
• 1:05
  Speaker 2: he's off doing his own wonderful work over with the
• 1:08
  Speaker 2: Nine Finger Chronicles and Sportsman Nation. But today Dan and
• 1:13
  Speaker 2: I are going to talk through our hunting plans for
• 1:16
  Speaker 2: this year. We're going to talk through our goals, dreams
• 1:21
  Speaker 2: and hopes for the hunting season. We're going to talk
• 1:24
  Speaker 2: through any specific bucks we're after, any specific storylines that
• 1:28
  Speaker 2: we're particularly interested in, any changes in our hunting plans
• 1:33
  Speaker 2: or perspectives coming into the year, all that kind of stuff.
• 1:37
  Speaker 2: So if you have historically followed along with our stories,
• 1:39
  Speaker 2: this is definitely one you want to tune into to
• 1:42
  Speaker 2: prepare for what's to come. But even if you haven't,
• 1:46
  Speaker 2: I would encourage you to listen to this episode not
• 1:49
  Speaker 2: just thinking about what me and Dan are going to do,
• 1:51
  Speaker 2: but really thinking about our discussion as a template for
• 1:55
  Speaker 2: some thinking that you can do about your very own
• 1:58
  Speaker 2: hunting season, you know, without getting too nerdy here, I
• 2:02
  Speaker 2: do think that leading into this new phase of the year,
• 2:05
  Speaker 2: it's worth having a little bit of reflection, a little
• 2:08
  Speaker 2: bit of thought put behind what you're about to do.
• 2:11
  Speaker 2: We spend so much time working, preparing, buying our gear,
• 2:16
  Speaker 2: spending our time and energy and our dollars on this
• 2:19
  Speaker 2: pursuit of ours. We owe it to ourselves to really
• 2:23
  Speaker 2: think about why we're doing what we're doing, how we're
• 2:25
  Speaker 2: doing what we're doing, and what exactly it is we're
• 2:28
  Speaker 2: trying to get out of this next few weeks and months.
• 2:31
  Speaker 2: Are our goals simply about acquiring food? Is it about
• 2:34
  Speaker 2: the experience. Is it about the people we're spending time with.
• 2:38
  Speaker 2: Is it about our impact on the landscape and managing
• 2:40
  Speaker 2: the deer herd. Is it about a specific buck we're hunting,
• 2:44
  Speaker 2: or just trying to get better as a deer hunter.
• 2:46
  Speaker 2: Whatever it is, your experience of the season will greatly
• 2:51
  Speaker 2: depend on the expectations you bring into it, the plans
• 2:56
  Speaker 2: and goals you bring into it. That can wildly change
• 3:00
  Speaker 2: your experience. So think about that a little bit. Listen,
• 3:03
  Speaker 2: Dan and I listen. Especially for those of you who
• 3:06
  Speaker 2: have listened to us over the years, I'd encourage you
• 3:08
  Speaker 2: to think about and maybe compare and contrast the discussion
• 3:12
  Speaker 2: that Dan and I have today compared to what we
• 3:14
  Speaker 2: talked about five years ago or ten years ago. I
• 3:17
  Speaker 2: think you'll notice some changes for us with our values
• 3:22
  Speaker 2: and our goals and the way we approach hunting season.
• 3:24
  Speaker 2: Not that that's something that you have to follow along with,
• 3:27
  Speaker 2: not that you have to care about the same things
• 3:29
  Speaker 2: that you need to have the same goals. But I
• 3:31
  Speaker 2: do think you'll see that our thinking has evolved, as
• 3:34
  Speaker 2: I think all of us evolve in our own way,
• 3:36
  Speaker 2: as we get deeper and deeper into this as our
• 3:39
  Speaker 2: lives changed as our goals and values change all that
• 3:43
  Speaker 2: kind of stuff. So that's a long winded, roundabout way
• 3:46
  Speaker 2: of saying I hope you enjoy this one. Dan, as
• 3:49
  Speaker 2: you know, is a good friend. He's a wild character.
• 3:53
  Speaker 2: We have some laughs, we discuss some bizarre things, but
• 3:56
  Speaker 2: we also get into some important conversations that hopefully you
• 4:00
  Speaker 2: can find relevant to yourself as you kind of put
• 4:03
  Speaker 2: yourself into our shoes and consider your own hunts and
• 4:06
  Speaker 2: your own plans. So, without further ado, let's get the
• 4:10
  Speaker 2: twenty twenty five edition of our Goals, Hopes and Hit
• 4:14
  Speaker 2: listens all right here with me now on the line
• 4:24
  Speaker 2: for year don't Infinity twelve maybe your infinity, mister Daniel Johnson,
• 4:31
  Speaker 2: We're back for another one of our Goals, Hopes and
• 4:33
  Speaker 2: Hit Lists check ins, and I appreciate you being here, buddy.
• 4:38
  Speaker 3: Yeah, absolutely, dude, I'm excited to be here. My Every
• 4:45
  Speaker 3: once in a while, I'll have I'll have to do
• 4:48
  Speaker 3: in life, or in a conversation, or in a friendship,
• 4:51
  Speaker 3: or in anything in life, I'll do something called a
• 4:55
  Speaker 3: hard pivot where you just have to go different direction.
• 5:01
  Speaker 3: And so so like I was coach Dad, Coach Dad, family,
• 5:05
  Speaker 3: coach dad, family, coach dad, family, hard pivot deer hunting.
• 5:09
  Speaker 3: And so finally I got a whole bunch of stuff
• 5:12
  Speaker 3: done deer wise in the last two weeks, and that
• 5:16
  Speaker 3: has made me a happy man. I feel more comfortable
• 5:19
  Speaker 3: going into a season, and I'm sure we'll get into
• 5:22
  Speaker 3: that day.
• 5:23
  Speaker 2: That's good, that's good news. I'm glad that you were
• 5:25
  Speaker 2: able to. I feel the same way. It's like all
• 5:30
  Speaker 2: these other life things sometimes put deer on hold or
• 5:34
  Speaker 2: or different things on hold, right, and then you have
• 5:36
  Speaker 2: like seasons of life or seasons of the year where
• 5:38
  Speaker 2: you get these moments where it stepped away and then
• 5:41
  Speaker 2: moments where you go really really hard. And I feel
• 5:43
  Speaker 2: like I'm in the same one as you. So we
• 5:46
  Speaker 2: had a lot to talk about, right. I want to
• 5:48
  Speaker 2: cover what our hunting plans are for this year. I
• 5:51
  Speaker 2: want to cover what our hopes and our goals and
• 5:54
  Speaker 2: how we're thinking about this coming season, how all that
• 5:57
  Speaker 2: stuff is shaping up for twenty twenty five. You teased
• 6:00
  Speaker 2: me with like some interesting news before we start recording
• 6:04
  Speaker 2: that I have zero idea what this is about, right,
• 6:07
  Speaker 2: but coming from you, I'm intrigued, to say the least.
• 6:11
  Speaker 2: So I don't know what is it you want to
• 6:14
  Speaker 2: talk about? This is off topic but of interest.
• 6:16
  Speaker 3: Okay, so this is something that Okay, everybody goes to
• 6:21
  Speaker 3: the bathroom. Every every human being goes to the bathroom. Okay,
• 6:26
  Speaker 3: I can't wait to see what this bunckle your seat
• 6:27
  Speaker 3: belt mark. Okay, everybody goes to the bathroom.
• 6:34
  Speaker 2: Now.
• 6:34
  Speaker 4: One thing that I have been trying to do is.
• 6:39
  Speaker 3: Time my pee and flush times to where I'm not
• 6:46
  Speaker 3: ending my pee too soon or flushing too early, and
• 6:51
  Speaker 3: then I'm still peeing, so I have to eventually flush twice.
• 6:55
  Speaker 4: Okay.
• 6:55
  Speaker 2: Is that that's a thing that happens to you.
• 6:58
  Speaker 3: Well, see, I'm trying to tie right, So I'm it's
• 7:02
  Speaker 3: like a game I play with my with myself. And
• 7:04
  Speaker 3: so as I'm peeing, I am trying to have my
• 7:07
  Speaker 3: thumb on the hand toilet plusher and as i'm I
• 7:13
  Speaker 3: know I'm draining and i'm i'm I'm getting ready to
• 7:15
  Speaker 3: be done peeing, I hit that button so that as
• 7:18
  Speaker 3: the last bit of toilet water goes down, my pea
• 7:21
  Speaker 3: stream is done and it's like a swish into there
• 7:25
  Speaker 3: and it's gone and the new water comes in without
• 7:27
  Speaker 3: any additional p.
• 7:30
  Speaker 4: That's kind of been what's on my mind lately.
• 7:33
  Speaker 2: So so I just gotta wonder, like, what is You've
• 7:36
  Speaker 2: never done that? No, I've never done that? Who well,
• 7:41
  Speaker 2: what is what's missing in your life right now that
• 7:44
  Speaker 2: you are so desperate for entertainment that you have had
• 7:47
  Speaker 2: to develop a game around perfectly timing your pee and
• 7:50
  Speaker 2: your toilet flush. That's maybe the larger question here, Dan, I.
• 7:54
  Speaker 3: Have, Dude, my gut feeling, my gut feeling tells me
• 7:58
  Speaker 3: that you're the weird one here.
• 7:59
  Speaker 4: I don't know why.
• 8:01
  Speaker 3: Okay, okay, maybe.
• 8:07
  Speaker 2: Okay, maybe you're right.
• 8:10
  Speaker 3: Yeah, my gut feeling tells me that of there's thousands
• 8:14
  Speaker 3: of people who listen to this podcast every single week,
• 8:17
  Speaker 3: and please, just please, I want everybody that does the
• 8:23
  Speaker 3: same thing that I do to flood Mark Kenyon's Instagram
• 8:27
  Speaker 3: uh messages or Facebook comments or comments whenever he posts
• 8:31
  Speaker 3: this reel or something like that, to flood the comments
• 8:36
  Speaker 3: and say that he's the weird one and that everybody
• 8:38
  Speaker 3: does what I am doing. The p flush timing is there?
• 8:44
  Speaker 2: Has there has this been like an evolution? Have you
• 8:48
  Speaker 2: seen progress and you're in your skill at being able
• 8:51
  Speaker 2: to time it properly?
• 8:52
  Speaker 3: Well, I'll be honest, Mark, I, I struggled with it
• 8:56
  Speaker 3: early on in my life.
• 8:57
  Speaker 4: I tried to do it, and I gave up on it.
• 9:00
  Speaker 3: And recently I said to myself, you're not getting any younger,
• 9:03
  Speaker 3: and it's time to make a comeback, because I felt
• 9:05
  Speaker 3: like there was a time where I had it mastered,
• 9:07
  Speaker 3: and now the older I get, the more uncertainty my
• 9:11
  Speaker 3: my urinary and bowel movements are that. It's it's been challenging,
• 9:17
  Speaker 3: and I'm trying to get back on my horse and
• 9:19
  Speaker 3: I'm trying to nail it again.
• 9:22
  Speaker 2: Man, I'm proud of you for always trying to appreciate
• 9:24
  Speaker 2: that and improve things that You're like that this maybe
• 9:28
  Speaker 2: isn't the first place I thought you'd apply that kind
• 9:30
  Speaker 2: of growth mindset, but I'm glad to see that it's
• 9:33
  Speaker 2: it's happening in one way or another.
• 9:34
  Speaker 3: Day.
• 9:37
  Speaker 2: I was in Iowa this weekend with my buddies Pete
• 9:41
  Speaker 2: and Ross, as you know, and I realized that we're
• 9:45
  Speaker 2: getting really old. And I realized that we're getting really
• 9:47
  Speaker 2: old because one of them is getting particularly old, so
• 9:51
  Speaker 2: much so that he was calling you Dennis Johnson. Dennis,
• 9:55
  Speaker 2: over the course of an evening He's like, yeah, I
• 9:57
  Speaker 2: was listening to Dennis, and I'm like, who the heck's
• 10:00
  Speaker 2: And then later we realized he was. He was talking
• 10:02
  Speaker 2: about Dan Johnson.
• 10:06
  Speaker 3: Well, I guess the last time. It's Pete. Right, he's
• 10:09
  Speaker 3: the older guy. He's the old one.
• 10:10
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 10:11
  Speaker 3: By the way, I gotta send a shout out to him,
• 10:14
  Speaker 3: one of the best in the woods. Like that time
• 10:18
  Speaker 3: we were all shed hunting together, he gave me that
• 10:21
  Speaker 3: spinal alignment in the at the on the tailgate. Dude,
• 10:26
  Speaker 3: I don't know if I've had a better spinal alignment
• 10:29
  Speaker 3: since then.
• 10:30
  Speaker 2: That's a specialty, is tailgate adjustments when when folks are
• 10:34
  Speaker 2: getting together to hunt or shed hunt, do that kind
• 10:37
  Speaker 2: of thing. So he'll be very excited to hear that. Yeah,
• 10:40
  Speaker 2: Peter Lynch, great chiropractor.
• 10:42
  Speaker 4: Shout out Pete.
• 10:43
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and I'm just kidding giving you a hard time
• 10:46
  Speaker 2: about Dennis Johnson. He listens to all these episodes. He's
• 10:49
  Speaker 2: a he's a faithful, great listener to all of our stuff. Dan,
• 10:52
  Speaker 2: So shout out to Pete. Uh So, other than timing
• 10:57
  Speaker 2: your peas and finally getting into serious white tail stuff,
• 11:02
  Speaker 2: anything major new in the world of Dan or should
• 11:04
  Speaker 2: we hop right into our plans.
• 11:07
  Speaker 3: I mean there's always stuff new from like what I'm
• 11:11
  Speaker 3: doing in the business world. But now school's back in session, right,
• 11:15
  Speaker 3: and so that means school's back. I'm coaching Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday,
• 11:22
  Speaker 3: and then when games start Sundays, so I'll have five
• 11:26
  Speaker 3: days a week I'll be doing something related to football,
• 11:30
  Speaker 3: and then that's gonna wind up. Oh that's gonna be
• 11:34
  Speaker 3: done like the third week of October, and then I
• 11:39
  Speaker 3: just go hard pivot deer hunting, and I leave my
• 11:42
  Speaker 3: family and disappear for a couple of weeks.
• 11:45
  Speaker 2: So I'm like the opposite of you. And then you're
• 11:48
  Speaker 2: entering this really this period of time where you're gonna
• 11:50
  Speaker 2: like no time to focus. And I'm entering a new
• 11:53
  Speaker 2: phase of renewed focus because my youngest is starting kindergarten
• 11:59
  Speaker 2: this year, started last week. Yeah, so for the first
• 12:02
  Speaker 2: time in seven years, I'm going to get a full
• 12:04
  Speaker 2: work days because every single day for seven years now,
• 12:09
  Speaker 2: I've had a kid at home with me for at
• 12:12
  Speaker 2: least a part of the day. And last year he
• 12:14
  Speaker 2: was going to preschool, but we had to take him.
• 12:16
  Speaker 2: All the kids go like outside of the district. So
• 12:18
  Speaker 2: I have to drive them to school. So I have
• 12:20
  Speaker 2: to drive one of them to school for their full day,
• 12:22
  Speaker 2: and then middle of the day, someone has to drive
• 12:24
  Speaker 2: the other one to their different school somewhere else, and
• 12:26
  Speaker 2: so there's all this back and forth and whor there's
• 12:28
  Speaker 2: someone home with you and you're constantly trying to keep
• 12:30
  Speaker 2: them busy. But finally I'm going to get seven hours
• 12:33
  Speaker 2: of quiet time of day.
• 12:35
  Speaker 3: That seems amazing, amazing, that's amazing. So I can remember
• 12:39
  Speaker 3: when that happened. Is when my business, literally when my
• 12:42
  Speaker 3: youngest started going too kindergarten, is when I was able
• 12:45
  Speaker 3: to put more time into my business and I could
• 12:47
  Speaker 3: see it go up.
• 12:48
  Speaker 4: The other thing is what Monday was.
• 12:51
  Speaker 3: Our first day of school and we had I was
• 12:55
  Speaker 3: working this summer till like eleven o'clock at night some nights,
• 13:02
  Speaker 3: just to get everything done for the next day. Now
• 13:05
  Speaker 3: that the kids are out of school, dude, I got
• 13:07
  Speaker 3: done Monday with all of my work at like four
• 13:10
  Speaker 3: o'clock in the afternoon. I was like, now what, yeah,
• 13:13
  Speaker 3: you know, now what? But then you got it, you know,
• 13:15
  Speaker 3: you got an hour little law period and then it's.
• 13:18
  Speaker 4: Boom, it's a beautiful thing. Yeah.
• 13:21
  Speaker 2: So so my youngest. I gotta tell quick story. He uh,
• 13:24
  Speaker 2: you know, he'd been in preschool previously. Now he's starting
• 13:27
  Speaker 2: kindergarten and he's just like a he's like a goofy, fun,
• 13:31
  Speaker 2: wild soul. He's you know, typical second born, has no fear,
• 13:34
  Speaker 2: just kind of like sends it right, yep, just just
• 13:37
  Speaker 2: goes for He'll just leap off into the deep end.
• 13:40
  Speaker 2: So he gets home from school and my wife picked
• 13:43
  Speaker 2: him up from school that day and she asked, you know, Cole,
• 13:46
  Speaker 2: how was how was your first full day of school?
• 13:48
  Speaker 2: And he says, oh, I ate so much food. Like
• 13:53
  Speaker 2: that's the thing that led me. I hate so much food.
• 13:57
  Speaker 2: So what are you talking about. He's like, well, yeah,
• 14:00
  Speaker 2: I ate two dinners. And she's like, you ate two dinners?
• 14:03
  Speaker 2: The first off, he sometimes does this thing where he'll
• 14:05
  Speaker 2: call the wrong meal by the wrong name, so like
• 14:07
  Speaker 2: he'll just I don't know because he's silly. So he
• 14:09
  Speaker 2: was talking about breakfast. But she's like, well, tell what
• 14:12
  Speaker 2: what in the world happened? What do you mean you
• 14:14
  Speaker 2: ate so much food? You ate two Dinners's like, well,
• 14:16
  Speaker 2: I walked into my class and my teacher asked me,
• 14:20
  Speaker 2: you know, who needs to go to breakfast, right, and
• 14:24
  Speaker 2: at our school. I don't know if this is every school,
• 14:26
  Speaker 2: but I think most schools probably have like a like
• 14:28
  Speaker 2: a you know, they have a breakfast program for people
• 14:31
  Speaker 2: who who are in need to have like provided breakfast. Right,
• 14:34
  Speaker 2: our son is not in need of that. But he
• 14:36
  Speaker 2: hears like, hey, who needs to go to breakfast? And
• 14:38
  Speaker 2: he's like, ah, I love breakfast. So he raises his
• 14:40
  Speaker 2: hand and so he goes to this breakfast. He's never
• 14:43
  Speaker 2: been to the cafeteria before. He's never gone through a
• 14:45
  Speaker 2: lunch line before, right, he just had been in preschool.
• 14:48
  Speaker 2: But he somehow goes down to the lunch room. He
• 14:51
  Speaker 2: somehow figures out the lunch line, goes to the caffeteria,
• 14:54
  Speaker 2: loads up on cereal and chocolate, milk and all this
• 14:56
  Speaker 2: other junk sits done by himself, a little five year
• 14:59
  Speaker 2: old dude by himself, eats his food. He gets done,
• 15:02
  Speaker 2: someone asks, hey, do you need you know, help to
• 15:04
  Speaker 2: get to your classroom? Do you know where you're going?
• 15:06
  Speaker 2: He's like, oh no, I'm good. Yeah, But then he
• 15:08
  Speaker 2: walks out and Kylie, well, how did you find your
• 15:11
  Speaker 2: way back to class? Because again he's never been there before.
• 15:13
  Speaker 2: He's like well, I stood in the hallway for a
• 15:17
  Speaker 2: really long time and he's like, and then I just
• 15:22
  Speaker 2: thought I'd go this way, and he went that way
• 15:25
  Speaker 2: mysteriously somehow found his class. But yeah, he's off to
• 15:30
  Speaker 2: a good start, just kind of little crazy colt things
• 15:32
  Speaker 2: and eating double breakfasts and.
• 15:35
  Speaker 4: Well that's the thing.
• 15:36
  Speaker 2: What's gonna happen next?
• 15:37
  Speaker 4: That was the thing with us.
• 15:38
  Speaker 3: My wife would put money into the school account and
• 15:41
  Speaker 3: then like by the end of the week, it's like, geez,
• 15:44
  Speaker 3: I put enough in for like this month.
• 15:46
  Speaker 4: What is going on?
• 15:48
  Speaker 3: And then finally she got an email was like you're
• 15:52
  Speaker 3: you know your your account is low again, and so
• 15:57
  Speaker 3: she was reaching out. She's like, boys, what our lunch
• 16:00
  Speaker 3: is more expensive? She's like, no, we eat breakfast and
• 16:04
  Speaker 3: lunch there. So they were eating breakfast here, going to school,
• 16:07
  Speaker 3: eating breakfast again, and then having lunch and they're still
• 16:10
  Speaker 3: skin and bones.
• 16:11
  Speaker 4: I'm just like, where do you guys put this?
• 16:13
  Speaker 2: Oh crazy? This is crazy? Oh kit man kids they
• 16:18
  Speaker 2: are they are their trips something else. Yeah, so, uh, okay,
• 16:23
  Speaker 2: we should get back on focus. We did pretty good.
• 16:25
  Speaker 2: It only had twelve minutes of crazy goals, hopes, hit lists, hunting,
• 16:32
  Speaker 2: plans the whole nine yards. Let's let's start with you, Dan,
• 16:36
  Speaker 2: what's on the hunt calendar for twenty twenty five.
• 16:40
  Speaker 3: Well, first thing, and this is one hundred percent related
• 16:43
  Speaker 3: to my hunts, is let's say today's Wednesday, right, So, yes, Thursday,
• 16:51
  Speaker 3: I go for a shoulder injection. Uh, Friday, I go
• 16:55
  Speaker 3: for a knee injection. And those in those steroid injections,
• 16:59
  Speaker 3: cortizone inject are going to get me through the hunting season, right,
• 17:03
  Speaker 3: So like you are getting I was talking to one
• 17:06
  Speaker 3: of my buddies, CJ from Montana Decoy today and he's like, Dude,
• 17:11
  Speaker 3: you're like an old bulldozer, just getting greased up before
• 17:15
  Speaker 3: it's time to you know, time to go hunting. And
• 17:20
  Speaker 3: so I got to get looped up because I am
• 17:22
  Speaker 3: literally struggling shooting my bow right now. And I think
• 17:26
  Speaker 3: once I get that in I can start getting back
• 17:30
  Speaker 3: into some heavier reps. Right now, I'm only shooting like
• 17:33
  Speaker 3: maybe fifteen arrows a day, ten fifteen arrows a day.
• 17:37
  Speaker 4: Then I'm setting it down.
• 17:39
  Speaker 3: And so the good news is is I think I
• 17:43
  Speaker 3: told you this earlier in the summer. I was thinking
• 17:45
  Speaker 3: about getting a new bow. I did not get a
• 17:48
  Speaker 3: new bow, and so everything for the most part is
• 17:51
  Speaker 3: still in place. I'm only shooting at Yeah, I'm only
• 17:55
  Speaker 3: shooting at like twenty yards right now. That's my max
• 17:59
  Speaker 3: right now. But I'm just trying to get reps in
• 18:01
  Speaker 3: building the muscles up. Once I get lubed up in
• 18:05
  Speaker 3: Greece s up, then I can start shooting some more
• 18:08
  Speaker 3: more higher reps. I'm increasing right now my workouts so
• 18:14
  Speaker 3: that I am I have roughly thirty days. I think
• 18:18
  Speaker 3: it's like October second or third. I think it's one
• 18:22
  Speaker 3: of those days I leave for South Dakota. So I
• 18:26
  Speaker 3: got to get the heart rate up, I got to
• 18:27
  Speaker 3: get the lead legs more conditioned. I got to probably
• 18:30
  Speaker 3: drop you know, ten pounds. I can do that in
• 18:32
  Speaker 3: a week and get ready for a hopefully pack out.
• 18:37
  Speaker 4: That's that's step number one.
• 18:40
  Speaker 2: Same general area you've hunted there in the past.
• 18:42
  Speaker 4: Yeah, same place I killed my mule there last year. Yep, yep.
• 18:47
  Speaker 2: And week long? Do you have like a set time
• 18:50
  Speaker 2: or does it stay as long as you need.
• 18:51
  Speaker 3: Or what's your Yeah, I mean I'm coaching, so I
• 18:55
  Speaker 3: have assistant coaches taken over for me that week with
• 18:59
  Speaker 3: and then I try I had to schedule a bye
• 19:02
  Speaker 3: week for football that week.
• 19:04
  Speaker 4: With that said, usually it's eight days. Two of those
• 19:08
  Speaker 4: are drive days.
• 19:09
  Speaker 3: So what I've been doing is I've been leaving on
• 19:13
  Speaker 3: like a Friday at about noon, driving driving halfway maybe
• 19:19
  Speaker 3: at six maybe six hours, and then getting a hotel room,
• 19:23
  Speaker 3: doing some work, some final work for the trip, and
• 19:27
  Speaker 3: then driving the rest of the time, putting me there
• 19:31
  Speaker 3: somewhere about noon the next day and so, and then
• 19:36
  Speaker 3: get set up, maybe go glass that night, and then
• 19:40
  Speaker 3: that's the deal. The other thing is is what I'm
• 19:43
  Speaker 3: also thinking about doing is potentially leaving the last day
• 19:47
  Speaker 3: of September and getting there for the opener and just
• 19:52
  Speaker 3: doing a ton of glassing and moving around until the
• 19:56
  Speaker 3: guy I'm hunting with gets there to try to get on,
• 19:59
  Speaker 3: you know, find where these these deer are located, and
• 20:02
  Speaker 3: then make a move. And that way I can go, Hey,
• 20:04
  Speaker 3: you go here, I'll go here, or vice versa, or
• 20:08
  Speaker 3: maybe we don't find anybody anything, and then we go
• 20:11
  Speaker 3: to you know, we team up and cover more ground
• 20:15
  Speaker 3: on a single you know, in a single area.
• 20:18
  Speaker 2: So yeah, so you've been you've been working the South
• 20:21
  Speaker 2: Dakota or Nebraska thing for ten years maybe now give
• 20:25
  Speaker 2: or take with a few years off.
• 20:26
  Speaker 4: But off and on.
• 20:27
  Speaker 3: Yeah about that, right, seven, This will be my seventh
• 20:30
  Speaker 3: year in a row going to South Dakota.
• 20:32
  Speaker 2: Okay, and you kill the white tail out there in
• 20:35
  Speaker 2: twenty twenty one.
• 20:37
  Speaker 4: I think so, I think so, yes, yeah.
• 20:40
  Speaker 2: And then last year you got your first mule there, right,
• 20:43
  Speaker 2: that's correct? Yeah, okay, So this has been like this
• 20:48
  Speaker 2: quest that I feel like you have been on for
• 20:50
  Speaker 2: so many years, and you kill the white tail, but
• 20:53
  Speaker 2: I still felt like after that year, were still like, wow,
• 20:55
  Speaker 2: I really want y Yeah, I didn't quite count, but
• 20:58
  Speaker 2: now you finally killed this mule deer. Where is your
• 21:02
  Speaker 2: head going into this year? Do you have is it like, oh,
• 21:04
  Speaker 2: pressures off whatever? Or do you now have this hope
• 21:08
  Speaker 2: to Okay, now I want to get like a really
• 21:10
  Speaker 2: big one or something different. Yeah, what's what's the goal? Now?
• 21:14
  Speaker 3: The cool thing about this is I've been within shooting
• 21:18
  Speaker 3: range of a lot of mule deer over the course
• 21:20
  Speaker 3: of the seven years. This time I sealed the deal
• 21:24
  Speaker 3: and so I've been there. Yeah that makes sense, Like
• 21:26
  Speaker 3: you've been there, and so now I am. I've been there.
• 21:31
  Speaker 3: I'm just trying to repeat, you know, what I mean,
• 21:33
  Speaker 3: my goal is still any legal buck. I'm not waiting
• 21:37
  Speaker 3: for anything. I'm lucky enough to where I would say
• 21:41
  Speaker 3: what I shot was great for a first mule deer,
• 21:44
  Speaker 3: and I'm looking to repeat that same thing. I'll go
• 21:47
  Speaker 3: smaller than that, I'll go bigger than that, but I'm
• 21:49
  Speaker 3: going for the most opportunities that i can possibly get
• 21:54
  Speaker 3: in that six day window. And then once I'm there,
• 21:57
  Speaker 3: then and I get just play it slow, play it, calm,
• 22:03
  Speaker 3: and then make a good shot.
• 22:05
  Speaker 4: Man. That's all. That's all you can really ask for.
• 22:08
  Speaker 2: How would you compare like this experience that you that
• 22:11
  Speaker 2: you have out there with your Iowa whitetail stuff? Is it?
• 22:15
  Speaker 2: Sometimes when I hear you talk about it, I almost
• 22:17
  Speaker 2: think you like it more.
• 22:19
  Speaker 3: You're probably right, I mean, I mean, I wouldn't say
• 22:24
  Speaker 3: I like it more. I like it different, right. I
• 22:29
  Speaker 3: can't say that I got that. I had this idea
• 22:32
  Speaker 3: pop in my head, and I'm just like I've been
• 22:34
  Speaker 3: edited on this podcast before.
• 22:36
  Speaker 4: I probably should, but.
• 22:39
  Speaker 2: I think we can all guess where you thought it.
• 22:42
  Speaker 4: Exactly. What I'm getting at is like it's different, it's exciting.
• 22:49
  Speaker 3: It's because it's something that I can't do every weekend
• 22:53
  Speaker 3: during the hunting season.
• 22:54
  Speaker 4: I can't drive.
• 22:55
  Speaker 3: It's like I can drive an hour and go do
• 22:57
  Speaker 3: something white tail related if I really really want to.
• 23:00
  Speaker 3: I can hop on some public you know, ten minutes
• 23:03
  Speaker 3: away from my house if I really really really wanted to.
• 23:06
  Speaker 3: But the excitement of this is because it's completely different, right,
• 23:12
  Speaker 3: I Mean, the terrain is different, the animals are different,
• 23:16
  Speaker 3: the way they move through the terrain is kind of
• 23:19
  Speaker 3: the same, but where they bed in the shade, just
• 23:22
  Speaker 3: like all of this stuff is completely different than sitting
• 23:26
  Speaker 3: in a tree stand and waiting for a white tail.
• 23:29
  Speaker 3: And I love it. I just absolutely love the challenge.
• 23:34
  Speaker 3: I love the different aspects of it. I love the potentially.
• 23:37
  Speaker 3: You know, it's like, all right, well I'm gonna move.
• 23:40
  Speaker 3: I'm gonna move forty miles from here. I'm gonna sleep
• 23:42
  Speaker 3: in my truck tonight, and then I'm gonna go hit
• 23:44
  Speaker 3: this piece of a walk in or public or something
• 23:46
  Speaker 3: like that, and really mark what it is about. It
• 23:51
  Speaker 3: is about the freedom of so much public land out
• 23:55
  Speaker 3: there that you can do whatever you want to do,
• 23:59
  Speaker 3: whenever you want to do it. In Iowa, that is
• 24:02
  Speaker 3: that is almost an impossibility. Yeah, right, it's that that
• 24:07
  Speaker 3: is taken away in Iowa because you have to have
• 24:10
  Speaker 3: private access or you you're or you're gonna be bumping
• 24:14
  Speaker 3: into somebody on pride right out there, dude, you want
• 24:17
  Speaker 3: to you bump into somebody on public out and in
• 24:21
  Speaker 3: some of these.
• 24:21
  Speaker 4: States, well guess what I'm doing.
• 24:23
  Speaker 3: I'm just going to take a couple of backwards steps,
• 24:25
  Speaker 3: go in a different direction, walk one mile and then
• 24:28
  Speaker 3: there's more public land to hunt. And so I don't know,
• 24:32
  Speaker 3: it's it's it's exciting because it's different.
• 24:35
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I totally get that, totally get that. Well, I'm
• 24:49
  Speaker 2: excited for you. Now you kind of have like you've
• 24:52
  Speaker 2: got a system. You know, you say you've been there,
• 24:54
  Speaker 2: you know what you're doing. So what about you? Well,
• 25:00
  Speaker 2: my first hunt of the year comes up even sooner.
• 25:03
  Speaker 2: I'm leaving in six days, okay for my first hunt
• 25:10
  Speaker 2: of the year.
• 25:10
  Speaker 4: And where you got.
• 25:12
  Speaker 2: Western white tail hunt public land. I'm keeping location kind
• 25:18
  Speaker 2: of like quiet, trying not to spot burn, but yeah,
• 25:23
  Speaker 2: western white tail public land hunt. Trying to get the
• 25:27
  Speaker 2: monkey off my back. I have I've not killed a
• 25:30
  Speaker 2: western white tail and like seven years now while but
• 25:35
  Speaker 2: I've had like three or four trips where I've been
• 25:37
  Speaker 2: like close calls or something goes wrong, and so going
• 25:41
  Speaker 2: back again after I took a year or two off,
• 25:44
  Speaker 2: so excited about that, but doing it a little bit
• 25:47
  Speaker 2: different this year. I'm you know, this is kind of
• 25:50
  Speaker 2: a theme that we've talked about over the last year
• 25:52
  Speaker 2: or two, but just trying to like find ways to
• 25:54
  Speaker 2: inject kind of like you said, inject diversity or or
• 25:58
  Speaker 2: or just a different kind of fun. And so this
• 26:00
  Speaker 2: I decided with this trip, like when I've done the
• 26:02
  Speaker 2: Western white tail hunts in the past, sometimes it's been
• 26:04
  Speaker 2: like just white tails and just like trying to kill
• 26:06
  Speaker 2: a good buck. And then a few years it was like,
• 26:08
  Speaker 2: all right, let's do a couple of different things, like
• 26:11
  Speaker 2: let's we'll do a little bit of fishing but mostly hunting,
• 26:14
  Speaker 2: and then I feel guilty about like the times I
• 26:16
  Speaker 2: was fishing, and then I wouldn't really enjoy it because
• 26:20
  Speaker 2: of that. This year, we're going into it one hundred percent.
• 26:25
  Speaker 2: Let's just have this incredible like cast and blast fun
• 26:29
  Speaker 2: trip split fifty to fifty. So the first half of
• 26:33
  Speaker 2: the day we're gonna go and fish the coolest places
• 26:36
  Speaker 2: we can find, like hike into these back country spots,
• 26:39
  Speaker 2: go on an adventure and these really cool public land
• 26:41
  Speaker 2: places where you can find great trout, great fish and
• 26:45
  Speaker 2: and see this stuff, like do the things I've never
• 26:47
  Speaker 2: had time to do. Was never willing to like put
• 26:49
  Speaker 2: the time towards because I felt like I have to
• 26:51
  Speaker 2: be you know, you got to do everything you possibly
• 26:54
  Speaker 2: can do to kill a big deer. I'm allowing myself,
• 26:58
  Speaker 2: We're allowing ourselves to have a great different kind of
• 27:00
  Speaker 2: experience for the first half, and the second half of
• 27:03
  Speaker 2: the day will be like do everything you can in
• 27:04
  Speaker 2: that half of the day to have a great deer
• 27:06
  Speaker 2: hunt in these spots. And so it's going to be
• 27:10
  Speaker 2: a white tail and trout cast and blast fifty to
• 27:13
  Speaker 2: fifty and just you know, having a really fun, cool experience,
• 27:19
  Speaker 2: not being super picky with you know, what deer I
• 27:21
  Speaker 2: would shoot. I'd like to kill it. You know, a
• 27:24
  Speaker 2: somewhat mature deer, like a three year old or older
• 27:27
  Speaker 2: would be my hope. But we're just gonna find out
• 27:31
  Speaker 2: what we can find and just explore, explore new spots,
• 27:35
  Speaker 2: explore new areas, and have some fun kind of like
• 27:38
  Speaker 2: you said, just uh, there's a lot of freedom to
• 27:41
  Speaker 2: roam out in these states, and I'm excited to do
• 27:45
  Speaker 2: that and do it like guilt free on both sides,
• 27:49
  Speaker 2: which I think will be a nice change.
• 27:51
  Speaker 4: And you're going with a group like a couple other dudes.
• 27:54
  Speaker 2: Just further just Josh, just coming mm hmm. So we
• 28:00
  Speaker 2: haven't done we haven't done trip together in several years.
• 28:03
  Speaker 2: So that'll be fun for sure. That's the that's the
• 28:05
  Speaker 2: first time in the year. Looking forward to that. Is
• 28:08
  Speaker 2: that a film hunt No got filmed, so also fun.
• 28:13
  Speaker 4: Yeah, that's I I'd prefer that. Yeah.
• 28:17
  Speaker 2: I think we'll be you know, I'll be capturing some stuff,
• 28:19
  Speaker 2: you know, just solo, you know, cell phone, social media.
• 28:23
  Speaker 2: We're gonna do a podcast. We'll share the full story,
• 28:27
  Speaker 2: but able to do something a little different. So very
• 28:30
  Speaker 2: much looking forward to that. I'm racing to get all
• 28:33
  Speaker 2: my final tea's crossed and dots or I's dotted, trying
• 28:38
  Speaker 2: to wrap up everything back home to be ready to
• 28:40
  Speaker 2: leave for that, because once I leave for that, then
• 28:42
  Speaker 2: I'm gone for you know, ten days or something between
• 28:45
  Speaker 2: travel and the hunt and I come back and then
• 28:48
  Speaker 2: I've got an event in Wisconsin the following week. We're
• 28:52
  Speaker 2: opening a store in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Meetia there is on
• 28:58
  Speaker 2: August September nineteenth if you are in Wisconsin. Store opening
• 29:02
  Speaker 2: in Milwaukee August September, sorry, September nineteenth, So I'm going
• 29:07
  Speaker 2: to be there doing a meet and great with folks
• 29:09
  Speaker 2: on the nineteenth. And then on the twentieth, September twentieth,
• 29:13
  Speaker 2: mediators doing this tailgate tour across the country and there
• 29:17
  Speaker 2: is there'll be a bunch of us from Meat there
• 29:20
  Speaker 2: at the Wisconsin Badgers Maryland football game, oh Okay on
• 29:27
  Speaker 2: September twentieth, So I'm going to be there for that
• 29:30
  Speaker 2: hanging out. So if people are going to that game,
• 29:32
  Speaker 2: they should look for us as well. And then after that,
• 29:35
  Speaker 2: I'm going to go to the Boundary Waters for a
• 29:37
  Speaker 2: few days to do maybe some grouse hunting, but definitely
• 29:41
  Speaker 2: some fishing. So that'll be cool. There's been a never
• 29:46
  Speaker 2: ending array of craziness going on with that place. They're
• 29:49
  Speaker 2: trying to open it back up to the mine and
• 29:51
  Speaker 2: removing the protections that we recently got there that you know,
• 29:54
  Speaker 2: I'd been talking about for years when I did my
• 29:56
  Speaker 2: first trips. So going back there and continue to talk
• 30:00
  Speaker 2: about what's happening. So that's my September schedule. Yeah, is
• 30:05
  Speaker 2: those two trips.
• 30:07
  Speaker 4: That'll be fun.
• 30:08
  Speaker 3: I would say, Hey, maybe I'll come up to Madison
• 30:11
  Speaker 3: and uh and hang out and say hi. But I
• 30:14
  Speaker 3: don't know if I'd walk across the street to watch
• 30:16
  Speaker 3: the Badgers play football.
• 30:17
  Speaker 2: Man, Well, it's it's all about the pageantry and the
• 30:22
  Speaker 2: experience and the tailgate fun. I'm gonna wear my I'm
• 30:25
  Speaker 2: gona wear a Michigan State hat.
• 30:27
  Speaker 4: Okay, so we'll see.
• 30:29
  Speaker 3: I would make front of you if you were wearing
• 30:32
  Speaker 3: some Wisconsin shit.
• 30:33
  Speaker 4: No, I can't do it.
• 30:34
  Speaker 2: I'm not gonna I'm not gonna cave. Yeah, my son,
• 30:37
  Speaker 2: my son's teacher in kindergarten is a huge Michigan fan,
• 30:42
  Speaker 2: and obviously we're Michigan State fans, and like her whole
• 30:44
  Speaker 2: classroom is like covered in uh in like U of
• 30:48
  Speaker 2: M Maze and blue colors and stuff like Tom Brady posters,
• 30:51
  Speaker 2: like the entire door of the bathroom. So my kids,
• 30:55
  Speaker 2: I guess they said, like if you're I can't remember,
• 30:57
  Speaker 2: what if you do something right, if you answer quest right,
• 31:00
  Speaker 2: I can't. There's something that you do and the reward
• 31:03
  Speaker 2: is you get to wear a Michigan jersey to school,
• 31:07
  Speaker 2: Like why the hell when I want that happening. So
• 31:10
  Speaker 2: we're trying to figure out like our family resistance plan
• 31:13
  Speaker 2: to this indoctrination to his teacher is trying to have
• 31:18
  Speaker 2: He's gonna start wearing Michigan Steak you every day there
• 31:21
  Speaker 2: or something. But I digress. Yeah, yes, September. Yeah, if
• 31:25
  Speaker 2: you want to come over and have a beer, I'll
• 31:27
  Speaker 2: head on over to Madison.
• 31:28
  Speaker 4: I quit drinking, Mark, Did you really?
• 31:31
  Speaker 3: I'm done? Really really, I'm really serious. It's been over
• 31:35
  Speaker 3: one hundred days since I've had my last drop alcohol.
• 31:38
  Speaker 2: Good for you?
• 31:39
  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, weird. It's weird because I used to crush
• 31:43
  Speaker 3: bush Lights. Dude, Oh I know, I mean not in Berg.
• 31:46
  Speaker 3: And then I was like, one morning I woke up
• 31:48
  Speaker 3: and my knees didn't really work out.
• 31:50
  Speaker 4: Well.
• 31:50
  Speaker 3: I was like, holy shit, maybe I should quit drinking. Anyway,
• 31:54
  Speaker 3: I digress. Right, let's talk about have you tried athletic beers?
• 31:59
  Speaker 4: Yes? I have.
• 32:00
  Speaker 2: I still Yeah, athletics pretty good like it. It tastes
• 32:04
  Speaker 2: like a beer.
• 32:05
  Speaker 4: My my new kick is Corona Light. Nay, all right?
• 32:10
  Speaker 2: Uh so that's our September.
• 32:13
  Speaker 4: September, October, October.
• 32:15
  Speaker 2: Are you kicking off some Iowa on October. Are you
• 32:17
  Speaker 2: waiting till November?
• 32:19
  Speaker 3: So, like I've said, uh, October, the first week of
• 32:23
  Speaker 3: October first eighth is the muleer hunt.
• 32:26
  Speaker 2: Yes, sorry, I was saying Secember, but I know you're October.
• 32:29
  Speaker 3: But so, one thing that I have noticed about this
• 32:33
  Speaker 3: newer farm that I've picked up.
• 32:34
  Speaker 4: This will be my.
• 32:37
  Speaker 3: Fourth year there, fourth year, this will be my fourth
• 32:40
  Speaker 3: season hunting it. And one thing that I have noticed
• 32:45
  Speaker 3: is there is this one pinch point on the farm,
• 32:47
  Speaker 3: only one, and it's actually on a west wind, which
• 32:52
  Speaker 3: makes everything real easy for me. That they start to
• 32:58
  Speaker 3: daylight at about four three to four right in this
• 33:02
  Speaker 3: little pinch point they stand there. It's I wouldn't it's
• 33:07
  Speaker 3: like a staging area, but it's just a chill out
• 33:09
  Speaker 3: spot like the bucks will take.
• 33:11
  Speaker 2: A pond about that pond spot. I feel like I
• 33:15
  Speaker 2: remember you talk, am I right, that's that property right,
• 33:18
  Speaker 2: there's a pond like a big levee yep.
• 33:20
  Speaker 3: But it's further it's further down the creek then where
• 33:25
  Speaker 3: the pond's at. But so you know, I've I've had
• 33:29
  Speaker 3: a trail camera there for what three years now going
• 33:31
  Speaker 3: on four, and there are our deer in this pinch
• 33:34
  Speaker 3: point every single day all year round, somewhere about eight
• 33:39
  Speaker 3: to nine in the morning, and also about you know,
• 33:42
  Speaker 3: from four you know, somewhere around that three four five
• 33:45
  Speaker 3: timeframe too, as they're kind of moving through and they
• 33:48
  Speaker 3: just kind of hold up right on this little crick crossing.
• 33:51
  Speaker 3: What happened is there was there's a big bend in
• 33:55
  Speaker 3: the creek and it floods.
• 33:57
  Speaker 4: It's it's like a flash flood zone.
• 33:59
  Speaker 3: So when it range real hard, it comes up and
• 34:01
  Speaker 3: it deposits sand and then the grass grows up a
• 34:03
  Speaker 3: little bit in it, and then it deposits sand and
• 34:06
  Speaker 3: it grows, you know whatever. And now it's created this
• 34:08
  Speaker 3: little flat area with all this like knee high vegetation.
• 34:12
  Speaker 3: So I put a camera there, and I'm going to
• 34:15
  Speaker 3: hang a tree stand there and I'm going to hunt
• 34:17
  Speaker 3: probably one or two nights, hopefully like pair it up
• 34:20
  Speaker 3: with some kind of cold front.
• 34:22
  Speaker 4: Maybe that works, maybe it doesn't.
• 34:23
  Speaker 3: I'm I'm not a huge believer in like mid October
• 34:27
  Speaker 3: cold fronts, but i am a believer in.
• 34:30
  Speaker 4: Trail camera data.
• 34:31
  Speaker 3: So I'm going to try to set a stand up
• 34:35
  Speaker 3: in there some way wait for a southwest west north
• 34:38
  Speaker 3: probably not northwest, but southwest west wind and see what
• 34:42
  Speaker 3: I can do that's exciting.
• 34:45
  Speaker 2: Do you have a deer out there yet that you're
• 34:48
  Speaker 2: excited about?
• 34:49
  Speaker 4: Dude? Only one, only only one.
• 34:55
  Speaker 3: Picture. Now here's what happened. I put out some cameras
• 34:58
  Speaker 3: on my main farm and put a little fresh you know,
• 35:02
  Speaker 3: fresh in the mineral sights out and uh, a tree
• 35:06
  Speaker 3: branch came down in front of one in blue and
• 35:08
  Speaker 3: blue and blue. Thousands of pictures of that, right, batteries
• 35:11
  Speaker 3: are now dead.
• 35:13
  Speaker 4: One.
• 35:14
  Speaker 3: I put a block like this mineral block out in
• 35:18
  Speaker 3: this pasture. The only horse that's left came up and
• 35:22
  Speaker 3: in twenty four hours ate the whole mineral block and
• 35:25
  Speaker 3: stood in front of my camera for three days straight
• 35:29
  Speaker 3: and took all these pictures of horses. There were deer
• 35:33
  Speaker 3: involved in that time frame, but like nothing, nothing that's shocking, right,
• 35:39
  Speaker 3: But I just was it yesterday or the day before.
• 35:42
  Speaker 3: Let's see if I can pull this. This is just
• 35:46
  Speaker 3: a good picture. Here, I'll pull it up. See what
• 35:50
  Speaker 3: I got here? Yeah, I'll show you here.
• 35:55
  Speaker 2: Yeah, let's see it.
• 35:58
  Speaker 3: That's it.
• 35:59
  Speaker 4: I'm saying, one fifties.
• 36:01
  Speaker 3: I don't know if you can see right here, he's
• 36:04
  Speaker 3: got a like a big frontel of an elk type
• 36:08
  Speaker 3: of deal coming up.
• 36:10
  Speaker 4: And I think he's a I think he's a ten.
• 36:12
  Speaker 2: I think that's on the.
• 36:14
  Speaker 4: Main or the new that's on the new farm, new farm,
• 36:17
  Speaker 4: new farm.
• 36:18
  Speaker 3: And that's it. That that deer. There's one other deer
• 36:22
  Speaker 3: who looks like he could before. This guy's definitely mature.
• 36:26
  Speaker 3: I don't know other than that, I haven't seen anything.
• 36:31
  Speaker 3: But here's the other kicker, is that since I have
• 36:34
  Speaker 3: hung trail cameras up, was it last week today? One
• 36:38
  Speaker 3: week could go today, maybe even a little later. Anyway,
• 36:44
  Speaker 3: they have mowed it, they have raked it, they have
• 36:47
  Speaker 3: turned the hay or the grass, and then they put
• 36:50
  Speaker 3: it in big bales and then they came in and
• 36:52
  Speaker 3: got it out. So all summer long I procrastinated and
• 36:56
  Speaker 3: then they come in and start to work right after
• 37:00
  Speaker 3: I do all my stuff there.
• 37:02
  Speaker 4: And I'm sure there's a disruption in the deer movie.
• 37:05
  Speaker 3: Yeah, now that they got those bails, the big bails out,
• 37:08
  Speaker 3: there should be a period of time where there's nothing
• 37:11
  Speaker 3: going on in September at all on this farm.
• 37:13
  Speaker 4: So I'm hoping there's a rebound.
• 37:16
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm sure there will be now back back to
• 37:18
  Speaker 2: your main farm. Historically, you had a neighbor that like
• 37:25
  Speaker 2: hyper managed. They had like incredible, incredible food, incredibly managed property,
• 37:30
  Speaker 2: and there was always a bit of your You had
• 37:32
  Speaker 2: always thought like, ah, they're sucking a lot of deer
• 37:34
  Speaker 2: away from me for big parts of the year. Am
• 37:37
  Speaker 2: I right that those people are not there anymore?
• 37:40
  Speaker 3: No, they they're not. But there is the new owner
• 37:44
  Speaker 3: of that property. I'm I'm almost sure he's picking up
• 37:47
  Speaker 3: right where they left off. Okay, it's from a from
• 37:50
  Speaker 3: a management standpoint, maybe not as high of management, from
• 37:54
  Speaker 3: a trigger control standpoint, but from a food plot, from
• 37:58
  Speaker 3: a timber management. I mean, they pretty much handed this
• 38:03
  Speaker 3: guy after he bought it the.
• 38:05
  Speaker 4: Keys to the Royals Royce, you know what I mean.
• 38:07
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 38:08
  Speaker 3: And so however, there's multiple farms in between the one
• 38:13
  Speaker 3: that I hunt and their farm. But it's not necessarily
• 38:17
  Speaker 3: a it's not a long distance at all. It's just
• 38:21
  Speaker 3: there is some separation. But I will say this that
• 38:24
  Speaker 3: there there there's one good farm, or there's one good
• 38:29
  Speaker 3: deer in the.
• 38:30
  Speaker 4: River bottoms that showed up the last two years.
• 38:32
  Speaker 3: Other than that man, that the farm is just not
• 38:39
  Speaker 3: the same as as it has been in previous years,
• 38:42
  Speaker 3: so I don't know what it is. I know that
• 38:44
  Speaker 3: they're rotating cattle into some of these pastures now, which
• 38:48
  Speaker 3: could play a little bit of a role in it.
• 38:51
  Speaker 3: I know that there's a shotgun crew that comes through
• 38:53
  Speaker 3: and crushes it multiple times, like a first season and
• 38:58
  Speaker 3: second season, and that's always been a thing, but from
• 39:01
  Speaker 3: a deer size now. The other thing is it's corn
• 39:05
  Speaker 3: up top and beans on the bottom. So I don't
• 39:08
  Speaker 3: I don't have any cell cameras down there because I
• 39:10
  Speaker 3: sell cams don't work in the bottoms, So I don't
• 39:13
  Speaker 3: know really what's going on down there.
• 39:16
  Speaker 2: So what do you think? What's the goal this year
• 39:19
  Speaker 2: for Iowa then, given limited limited inventory?
• 39:23
  Speaker 3: Yeah, the goal is to go out, have as much
• 39:25
  Speaker 3: fun as possible and shoot a deer.
• 39:27
  Speaker 4: That makes me happy.
• 39:29
  Speaker 3: Ye, that makes me go oh yes, And so Dan
• 39:33
  Speaker 3: Jackson trademark right, And if I get excited about it,
• 39:37
  Speaker 3: I'm shooting it.
• 39:38
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 39:38
  Speaker 3: If that's a that's a five year old one hundred
• 39:41
  Speaker 3: and twenty inch er, you'll get an arrow. If that's
• 39:44
  Speaker 3: a one hundred and sixty five inch three year old,
• 39:47
  Speaker 3: he's getting an arrow. Like ude, I just want to
• 39:50
  Speaker 3: go out and fill some tags, have some fun and
• 39:55
  Speaker 3: go after the top tier deer on any farm I have.
• 39:59
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so it's funny. You know, I've spend some time
• 40:03
  Speaker 2: in Iowa, as I have over the years, and got
• 40:05
  Speaker 2: to know a good number of people there. You meet
• 40:07
  Speaker 2: a certain segment of the Iowa deer hunting population who
• 40:12
  Speaker 2: starts to get like jaded by the situation there, Like
• 40:17
  Speaker 2: they become so used to seeing one forties and one
• 40:20
  Speaker 2: fifties and one sixties and even one seventies. They're not
• 40:23
  Speaker 2: even excited about like one hundred and sixty five inch
• 40:26
  Speaker 2: five year old you know, it's got to be booner
• 40:29
  Speaker 2: or they're like, mah whatever, or they're you know, I've
• 40:32
  Speaker 2: met people who like, man, if it's not one seventy
• 40:36
  Speaker 2: five or something, they just kind of no big deal.
• 40:38
  Speaker 2: They're not They're they're disappointed, they're bummed out. They say
• 40:42
  Speaker 2: Iowa sucks now because there's not as many two hundred
• 40:44
  Speaker 2: inches as they used to be, you know, fifteen years
• 40:46
  Speaker 2: ago or whatever. Yeah, have you, and you're a little
• 40:51
  Speaker 2: bit different than that. I feel like you, at a time,
• 40:53
  Speaker 2: like maybe ten years ago, you were more obsessed with
• 40:56
  Speaker 2: like a booner, and now you're kind of back to
• 40:58
  Speaker 2: like ow, you know whatever. I know, that's a little
• 41:01
  Speaker 2: bit with your own family life where you are as
• 41:03
  Speaker 2: a as a dad and everything. But talk about that
• 41:06
  Speaker 2: a little bit and have you seen that with your
• 41:08
  Speaker 2: friends or anyone else around you?
• 41:11
  Speaker 4: Mark?
• 41:11
  Speaker 3: As you know, for all species of all animals and
• 41:15
  Speaker 3: all calibers of deer, access is everything. Access is everything, right,
• 41:22
  Speaker 3: And so if you have access to a large acreage
• 41:25
  Speaker 3: and you're one of the only people hunting it, and
• 41:29
  Speaker 3: you are have the ability to pass four and five
• 41:32
  Speaker 3: year old deer to get to the point where a
• 41:35
  Speaker 3: deer can reach one seventy or the fact that you know,
• 41:40
  Speaker 3: don't get me wrong, I have a two year old
• 41:43
  Speaker 3: three year old on one of these farms who's going
• 41:45
  Speaker 3: to be a genetic break right, he's probably a one
• 41:47
  Speaker 3: forty eight pointer this year, and he's probably walking around
• 41:52
  Speaker 3: one as probably a two year old.
• 41:54
  Speaker 4: Okay, small body, Like I put my thumb over his antlers,
• 41:57
  Speaker 4: and you're just like.
• 41:57
  Speaker 3: That's a dough type of deal, right, the people and
• 42:02
  Speaker 3: this might get me in trouble or this whole concept
• 42:07
  Speaker 3: of Iowa is what the whole concept of Pike County
• 42:11
  Speaker 3: used to be, like Pike County, Illinois was the spot
• 42:19
  Speaker 3: in the late nineties and early too.
• 42:20
  Speaker 4: Oh dude, Pike County. I got a farm in Pike County.
• 42:22
  Speaker 4: I got at least in Pike County.
• 42:24
  Speaker 3: You know, I know guys who hunt Pike County, right,
• 42:27
  Speaker 3: And what has happened is there are the people who
• 42:30
  Speaker 3: are don't get excited about one fifties and sixties or
• 42:33
  Speaker 3: seventies anymore. Are the people who have the access. They
• 42:37
  Speaker 3: are the people who are able to control the environment basically, right,
• 42:43
  Speaker 3: whether that's three hundred acres and their neighbor has one
• 42:47
  Speaker 3: hundred acres, that's just one person hunting and another person hunting.
• 42:51
  Speaker 3: You will see that when you talk to the people
• 42:54
  Speaker 3: in Iowa who are don't have that availability and don't
• 42:58
  Speaker 3: have that access to those farms, their life really hasn't
• 43:02
  Speaker 3: changed much. Right, They're still like one forties. They're shooting
• 43:07
  Speaker 3: one forties all all year.
• 43:09
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 43:10
  Speaker 3: It's the people that you're talking to, and I'm just
• 43:14
  Speaker 3: I'm just guessing here. They are in it in the
• 43:18
  Speaker 3: industry some way, shape or form. Maybe it's through that
• 43:24
  Speaker 3: they're they're actually in the industry, or maybe it's second hand.
• 43:28
  Speaker 3: But I will tell you this that I know guys
• 43:32
  Speaker 3: who are passing two hundred inch three and four year olds.
• 43:36
  Speaker 3: I know guys who are passing and this is this
• 43:39
  Speaker 3: is you know, like once a deer gets to two hundred.
• 43:43
  Speaker 4: I know guys.
• 43:44
  Speaker 3: You've had them on your podcast, right, I know guys
• 43:47
  Speaker 3: who have passed one ninety inch four year olds. And
• 43:50
  Speaker 3: he told me I should have shot the doe he
• 43:51
  Speaker 3: was following. So he didn't that that he didn't go
• 43:54
  Speaker 3: on the neighbor's farm and then get shot, right, So
• 43:58
  Speaker 3: is that realistic to anybody other than the one percenters
• 44:02
  Speaker 3: who are actually doing this? No, they're not right. And
• 44:05
  Speaker 3: I'm not sitting here trying to bet like shit on that.
• 44:09
  Speaker 3: But I think that there is this huge gap in
• 44:13
  Speaker 3: between what is a quality deer, right, Like, what is
• 44:19
  Speaker 3: a quality deer? To me, a quality deer is something
• 44:21
  Speaker 3: completely different than the people who have access to hundreds
• 44:26
  Speaker 3: and hundreds and potentially thousands and thousands of acres managed farm,
• 44:31
  Speaker 3: putting money into these farms and things like that, right,
• 44:35
  Speaker 3: And it's just a do they live in a different
• 44:38
  Speaker 3: world than what the average joe lives in? And so
• 44:43
  Speaker 3: to say that now, I will say this, Iowa is
• 44:47
  Speaker 3: not the same in their defense, it's not the same.
• 44:50
  Speaker 3: But at the same time, it's not the same to
• 44:55
  Speaker 3: them because I'm guessing their surrounding neighborhoods are shooting more
• 45:01
  Speaker 3: of the higher caliber bucks. You add trail cameras into
• 45:04
  Speaker 3: some things, you know, the whole back in the day
• 45:07
  Speaker 3: when less people were running cell cams and trail cameras.
• 45:12
  Speaker 3: You're taking the biggest buck that walks by your tree,
• 45:15
  Speaker 3: not the biggest buck that's on your trail camera. Those
• 45:17
  Speaker 3: are two completely different things. And so when you have
• 45:33
  Speaker 3: two let's say you own or you manage, or whatever
• 45:37
  Speaker 3: the case is, two hundred acres three hundred acres, and
• 45:41
  Speaker 3: you have a one sixty class or a one to
• 45:44
  Speaker 3: seventy class on camera, he's your top top tier deer.
• 45:46
  Speaker 3: You're not going to shoot those one forties because you
• 45:49
  Speaker 3: know you have time to try to make the rest happen. Right,
• 45:53
  Speaker 3: A guy who has five days of PTO, he's going
• 45:57
  Speaker 3: to take any opportunity to shoot any deer he can.
• 46:00
  Speaker 3: But if you're in the industry, you obviously, like both
• 46:04
  Speaker 3: of us, we have the ability to hunt way more
• 46:07
  Speaker 3: daisy year than the average guy. And so to the
• 46:09
  Speaker 3: average guy, I doubt that they they have seen much
• 46:13
  Speaker 3: of a change.
• 46:14
  Speaker 4: But to the bigger guys who are running way.
• 46:18
  Speaker 3: More trail cameras and sell cams and have a really
• 46:22
  Speaker 3: good dot on their property, they're seeing, they're seeing maybe
• 46:27
  Speaker 3: less deer over one seventy but I'll tell you this,
• 46:30
  Speaker 3: they're still passing the top ten percent of deer to
• 46:34
  Speaker 3: get them to the next stage. And a lot of
• 46:36
  Speaker 3: people just are still not doing that.
• 46:38
  Speaker 4: They've never done that.
• 46:40
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I would guess there's a lot of truth to
• 46:42
  Speaker 2: what you're saying. Yeah, but you know, it's interesting some
• 46:46
  Speaker 2: of the people that I've heard talk like this are
• 46:48
  Speaker 2: you know, they're not industry at all, just just you know,
• 46:52
  Speaker 2: regular hunters who just grew up in the Promised Land
• 46:55
  Speaker 2: and have never known anything else, you know, And I
• 46:58
  Speaker 2: think when you only have known that, you know, it's
• 47:01
  Speaker 2: like that their baseline is this, and so.
• 47:06
  Speaker 4: Yeah, very interesting.
• 47:07
  Speaker 3: I will say that, yes, it has changed, like I mean,
• 47:10
  Speaker 3: because I think, you know, in the early days Wired
• 47:13
  Speaker 3: to Hunt, I would tell you about some of the
• 47:14
  Speaker 3: stuff I saw, or some of like the glory days
• 47:18
  Speaker 3: of the late nineties, first seven years of the two thousands,
• 47:24
  Speaker 3: like just the ridiculous amount of deer that I have seen.
• 47:29
  Speaker 3: Now you have all these changes that have happened. There
• 47:32
  Speaker 3: are way more bow hunters in the woods now than
• 47:35
  Speaker 3: there ever has been. Not necessarily more hunters, but there's
• 47:39
  Speaker 3: way more bow hunters now. The people who Here's what
• 47:43
  Speaker 3: I'm I'm saying is that there is the gap is widening.
• 47:48
  Speaker 3: You know, like you hear about the wage disparity gap
• 47:51
  Speaker 3: in this country, Yeah, there is a buck dispared disparity
• 47:55
  Speaker 3: gap too, because as this gap widens, there's more people
• 48:00
  Speaker 3: coming on the bottom end of this scale. There's more
• 48:03
  Speaker 3: people coming into the smaller acreages that are already being
• 48:06
  Speaker 3: hunted where the landowner gives everybody permission or more people permission,
• 48:10
  Speaker 3: while meanwhile, while the guys on the top are getting
• 48:14
  Speaker 3: more land and more land and more land for less
• 48:16
  Speaker 3: number of hunters. So the hunter per acre disparity is
• 48:21
  Speaker 3: real in my opinion.
• 48:23
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's hard to hard to deny that. Yeah, Well,
• 48:28
  Speaker 2: with the better that said, for better or for worse,
• 48:32
  Speaker 2: I am hunting Iowa this year myself, yep. And I
• 48:36
  Speaker 2: don't care if it's like it is now or like
• 48:37
  Speaker 2: it was fifteen years ago. It's still pretty darn good
• 48:40
  Speaker 2: as far as I'm concerned.
• 48:41
  Speaker 3: I've seen some of those trail campicks. Dude, you got
• 48:43
  Speaker 3: some decent deer.
• 48:45
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I got some decent deer got and some more
• 48:47
  Speaker 2: new pictures. I went up last week for two quick
• 48:49
  Speaker 2: days just kind of like whirlwind scouting, trail cam, hanging
• 48:55
  Speaker 2: stand prep, glassing fields at night, you know, the whole
• 48:59
  Speaker 2: nine years, and got a bunch of stuff done and
• 49:05
  Speaker 2: super fun evenings like the deer were out on one
• 49:10
  Speaker 2: of the properties that I've got permission on. We had
• 49:13
  Speaker 2: had some pictures of like three bucks that were probably
• 49:16
  Speaker 2: mature and a fourth it was like a maybe. And
• 49:19
  Speaker 2: the first beanfield we drove by, like well before dark.
• 49:23
  Speaker 2: We stopped on this little knoll and you can see
• 49:26
  Speaker 2: down to this little dark corner and bam, there's one
• 49:28
  Speaker 2: of them, and then they look more left, Oh there's
• 49:30
  Speaker 2: another one, and then a little like, oh, there's the
• 49:32
  Speaker 2: other one. All four of the bucks we've been getting
• 49:35
  Speaker 2: pictures of over the summer, we're all out in this
• 49:37
  Speaker 2: one field. So it was very cool to get to
• 49:38
  Speaker 2: see him and you know, in real life and get
• 49:40
  Speaker 2: some footage of them and stuff. And then we went
• 49:43
  Speaker 2: to another zone kind of on the other side of
• 49:44
  Speaker 2: the block with this on the other side of this property,
• 49:47
  Speaker 2: and there was another beanfield that had three different bucks
• 49:50
  Speaker 2: that all I would shoot any one of them. So
• 49:53
  Speaker 2: I saw like six, you know, at least four year
• 49:56
  Speaker 2: old bucks surrounding one of these pieces that I can hunt,
• 50:01
  Speaker 2: you know, in like a half hour period. So that
• 50:02
  Speaker 2: was very exciting, all you know, just super nice maturity
• 50:07
  Speaker 2: or you know one you know, one thirty to one
• 50:10
  Speaker 2: sixty type bucks. Yeah, so exciting there. And then the
• 50:16
  Speaker 2: other farm I can hunt is I don't know, maybe
• 50:20
  Speaker 2: like five miles away, and we didn't see any driving around,
• 50:26
  Speaker 2: but put some cameras up and already we've gotten pictures
• 50:28
  Speaker 2: of oh another probably two bucks that I would shoot
• 50:34
  Speaker 2: down there. And then a neighbor, a buddy of ours
• 50:37
  Speaker 2: who's who's got cameras on his farm nearby, has another
• 50:40
  Speaker 2: like probably three different other really good bucks again like
• 50:43
  Speaker 2: all like four year old plus again like one forty
• 50:47
  Speaker 2: to one sixty type deer. So no shorge of deer.
• 50:51
  Speaker 2: I'd be excited to get a crack out.
• 50:52
  Speaker 3: And this is all on like permission that you've gathered
• 50:55
  Speaker 3: from people. Are you going into public at all or
• 50:57
  Speaker 3: just a private permission?
• 50:59
  Speaker 4: This year?
• 50:59
  Speaker 2: Yes, so this year private permission and my permissions have
• 51:03
  Speaker 2: gotten easier to get because my buddies who we used
• 51:07
  Speaker 2: to all be just getting knocking on doors getting permissioned,
• 51:10
  Speaker 2: and then two of my good friends now have slowly
• 51:12
  Speaker 2: over time. First it was permissions, and then we had
• 51:15
  Speaker 2: a couple of leases that we chipped in on, and
• 51:18
  Speaker 2: now both of them actually have bought a farm. So
• 51:20
  Speaker 2: I've got permission through friends now, which is very nice.
• 51:25
  Speaker 2: So gives you just you know, the added benefit of
• 51:29
  Speaker 2: not just like a place to hunt, but also one
• 51:31
  Speaker 2: of my buddies there's like an old house on the
• 51:32
  Speaker 2: property they've been slowly trying to fix up and improve
• 51:35
  Speaker 2: and so that it's a place we can all stay at.
• 51:38
  Speaker 2: So we've got like a deer camp, which is uh
• 51:40
  Speaker 2: which is super fun. And you know when I hunted
• 51:43
  Speaker 2: there last time, last time I hunted Iowa was three
• 51:48
  Speaker 2: years ago, four years ago, and I think I told
• 51:50
  Speaker 2: you guys about I think we talked about this this
• 51:51
  Speaker 2: spring a little bit, but you know, all my buddies
• 51:54
  Speaker 2: were down there. A bunch of folks from Michigan have
• 51:56
  Speaker 2: drawn that year two and the guys from Iowa are there,
• 51:59
  Speaker 2: and you know, they were you know, going out to
• 52:01
  Speaker 2: lunch in the middle of the day together, having a
• 52:03
  Speaker 2: fun late breakfast, so they'd go out to dinner and
• 52:05
  Speaker 2: night and they enjoying deer camp together and doing the thing.
• 52:10
  Speaker 2: And I was so obsessed with, like, I have to
• 52:12
  Speaker 2: kill a big giant buck. And I never left the woods.
• 52:14
  Speaker 2: I was out there form you know, two hours before
• 52:16
  Speaker 2: daylight till hour after daylight, you know, hiking in, hiking out,
• 52:20
  Speaker 2: and just you know, being a crazy person. And I
• 52:22
  Speaker 2: missed out on like all of the social side of it.
• 52:24
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 52:25
  Speaker 2: And and this year, I'm not going to do that.
• 52:27
  Speaker 2: This year, I'm going to enjoy the full experience. And
• 52:30
  Speaker 2: uh and you know, see the thing, do the you know,
• 52:33
  Speaker 2: I want to see. I want to experience Iowa. I
• 52:36
  Speaker 2: don't want to like try to conquer Iowa, you know
• 52:39
  Speaker 2: what I mean.
• 52:39
  Speaker 3: Yeah, do you have dates in mind of when you're coming.
• 52:45
  Speaker 3: Are you going to pop in for like an October
• 52:47
  Speaker 3: hunt or are you just going straight rut.
• 52:49
  Speaker 2: I think I've got the first week of October blocked
• 52:52
  Speaker 2: off from my big trip. But then I think I
• 52:54
  Speaker 2: might pop in for an October weekend hopefully, yeah, again,
• 52:59
  Speaker 2: just to kind of like have more time out there.
• 53:01
  Speaker 2: I think if I come in October, I would I
• 53:03
  Speaker 2: would be picky. I would, you know, not want to
• 53:06
  Speaker 2: end it in October unless it was just like a
• 53:09
  Speaker 2: unbelievable deer that you can't not shoot. But I would
• 53:12
  Speaker 2: love to just like experience and just hunt these areas
• 53:15
  Speaker 2: and have a chance to see deer that I usually
• 53:18
  Speaker 2: don't get to see, and see stuff that usually don't
• 53:20
  Speaker 2: get to see. So so hopefully can get out from
• 53:21
  Speaker 2: October for a little bit, get out there for a
• 53:23
  Speaker 2: fun week in November and see what happens. I've had,
• 53:29
  Speaker 2: you know, three times of hunted Iowa. I killed a
• 53:31
  Speaker 2: buck my first year, I missed a buck the second trip,
• 53:34
  Speaker 2: and I missed a buck the third trip.
• 53:36
  Speaker 3: So you forgot to add the word giant into one
• 53:39
  Speaker 3: of those as well, a giant missed a giant buck.
• 53:43
  Speaker 2: Yes, I missed a giant buck. So I've got a
• 53:47
  Speaker 2: little bit of a curse that I needed to shake off.
• 53:49
  Speaker 4: Here this year. That's right, you'll get her done, You'll
• 53:51
  Speaker 4: get her so.
• 53:53
  Speaker 2: Uh So that's my Iowa trip. The goal there is
• 53:57
  Speaker 2: to kill a mature buck and and but not rush it.
• 54:02
  Speaker 2: So I want to just I'd love to be there
• 54:05
  Speaker 2: a bunch and see a bunch. But I'm not gonna
• 54:08
  Speaker 2: be crazy picky either. I just want the full Iowa thing,
• 54:12
  Speaker 2: So something gets excited. No specifics that I did, Like
• 54:17
  Speaker 2: I saw, like the biggest buck we had seen on
• 54:20
  Speaker 2: trail camera on one of those farms was in that
• 54:25
  Speaker 2: field that I mentioned to you where I saw all
• 54:26
  Speaker 2: four of them together. And the next day we went
• 54:29
  Speaker 2: back and checked out that field and he was out
• 54:31
  Speaker 2: there again, And so I decided, you know, I'm gonna
• 54:33
  Speaker 2: sneak in on the back side of the property and
• 54:35
  Speaker 2: see if I can sneak up close, get behind him
• 54:38
  Speaker 2: and maybe be able to get some up close I
• 54:39
  Speaker 2: can get up close to you of him. And I
• 54:41
  Speaker 2: was able to do that, and I snuck up and
• 54:43
  Speaker 2: I got within one hundred yards of him and got
• 54:45
  Speaker 2: to watch him for the last half hour of daylight
• 54:47
  Speaker 2: and got like just gorgeous pictures and video, like really
• 54:50
  Speaker 2: really cool to like see a buck that big, you know,
• 54:53
  Speaker 2: pretty darn close just doing his thing. Yeah, so I'm
• 54:57
  Speaker 2: definitely a little smitten by him after like that encounter
• 55:00
  Speaker 2: and getting to watch him, But anyone of this deer
• 55:03
  Speaker 2: would be cool to see again.
• 55:04
  Speaker 3: That's awesome. Man, you're gonna try to shoot a dough
• 55:06
  Speaker 3: while you're here too.
• 55:07
  Speaker 2: I should, Yeah, I should.
• 55:09
  Speaker 4: Yeah. So yeah, that's one thing that's on my list.
• 55:11
  Speaker 3: I don't know if I told you this, but I
• 55:14
  Speaker 3: ended up having so this summer. My kids or a
• 55:20
  Speaker 3: neighbor boy or somebody went into my garage got some
• 55:23
  Speaker 3: popsicles out of my freezer. Well, when they took the
• 55:26
  Speaker 3: popsicles out of the freezer, the popsicle box blocked the
• 55:30
  Speaker 3: door and it didn't shut the freezer all the way,
• 55:34
  Speaker 3: and so I lost. So I walk out there two days,
• 55:41
  Speaker 3: like a day and a half later, because I think
• 55:42
  Speaker 3: it was on the weekend, so I didn't come up
• 55:44
  Speaker 3: here to the office, and I'm seeing this pool of
• 55:46
  Speaker 3: water on the ground. I'm like, what the hell did
• 55:49
  Speaker 3: they spill something? I come outside, I look around the
• 55:52
  Speaker 3: corner where my freezer's at. Doors tried to open probly
• 55:54
  Speaker 3: six inches and the whole freezer was Everything in there
• 56:01
  Speaker 3: was soft but still cool, right, So I pulled all
• 56:07
  Speaker 3: That night we had a huge fish fry for the
• 56:09
  Speaker 3: entire neighborhood.
• 56:11
  Speaker 4: I probably had to give away.
• 56:15
  Speaker 3: It was either cook it now because I don't really
• 56:17
  Speaker 3: know what the rules are per se of if something
• 56:19
  Speaker 3: gets thought out, should you freeze it again?
• 56:21
  Speaker 4: Whatever?
• 56:22
  Speaker 3: So I got on my golf cart. We live in
• 56:24
  Speaker 3: a golf cart community. Got in my golf cart and
• 56:27
  Speaker 3: I drove around to everybody I know in the UH
• 56:30
  Speaker 3: in my community who answered their door, and I handed
• 56:33
  Speaker 3: them two or three packs of sausages or salami sticks
• 56:39
  Speaker 3: or big chunks of ring balogne, and and just it
• 56:43
  Speaker 3: was like meat Santa coming up to your door and
• 56:46
  Speaker 3: hand like.
• 56:47
  Speaker 4: I handed a whole bunch of stuff.
• 56:48
  Speaker 3: Out, said hey, you got to cook this this week
• 56:50
  Speaker 3: and h and so now I have an empty freezer
• 56:55
  Speaker 3: and so that to me is a blank canvas and
• 56:57
  Speaker 3: I'm gonna shoot.
• 56:57
  Speaker 4: I want to shoot a lot of beer this year.
• 56:59
  Speaker 2: And de freezers make good hunters.
• 57:02
  Speaker 4: Yes, that's what fast they do.
• 57:05
  Speaker 2: Are you hunting Kansas again this year?
• 57:07
  Speaker 4: Nope? A lot of preference point? Okay. So I bought
• 57:11
  Speaker 4: my preference point for Kansas.
• 57:12
  Speaker 3: I bought my I bought my eleventh Wyoming elk point,
• 57:19
  Speaker 3: my eleventh antelope point, and my ninth deer point for Wyoming.
• 57:23
  Speaker 3: So here, pretty soon I'm going to start cashing some
• 57:27
  Speaker 3: of that stuff in.
• 57:29
  Speaker 2: That's exciting.
• 57:30
  Speaker 4: Yep.
• 57:31
  Speaker 2: Uh Are any of your kids getting a deer tag
• 57:33
  Speaker 2: this year?
• 57:34
  Speaker 3: Yes, And that's one thing I was going to talk
• 57:37
  Speaker 3: about real quick before we shut her down or whatever.
• 57:40
  Speaker 3: But like, I have two kids who are now what
• 57:44
  Speaker 3: I feel, old enough to go on a youth hunt
• 57:48
  Speaker 3: out their their youth hunt. My daughter went last year.
• 57:51
  Speaker 3: I think she had a little bit of panic or
• 57:55
  Speaker 3: some sort of something happened. The deer were right in
• 57:59
  Speaker 3: front of She said she couldn't see him. I didn't
• 58:02
  Speaker 3: know what the deal was. Long story short, we ended
• 58:05
  Speaker 3: up she didn't get thee any deer. They were literally
• 58:09
  Speaker 3: twenty yards in front of them. That blew out. She
• 58:12
  Speaker 3: didn't want to go back the next night, But now
• 58:14
  Speaker 3: I guess she had some time to think and she's
• 58:16
  Speaker 3: ready to go again.
• 58:17
  Speaker 4: My youngest boy, he wants to go again too.
• 58:20
  Speaker 3: So now I got to try to find a grandpa
• 58:24
  Speaker 3: my stepdad take one of them, or find a spot
• 58:29
  Speaker 3: close to here to get some kids out on a
• 58:31
  Speaker 3: dough or something.
• 58:32
  Speaker 4: I gotta find.
• 58:33
  Speaker 3: I got to go into because all of my stuff
• 58:37
  Speaker 3: is set up for bow hunting in November, all the
• 58:43
  Speaker 3: crops are still in, so that makes it a little
• 58:45
  Speaker 3: more difficult to kind of find a way like to
• 58:51
  Speaker 3: just sit on the ground and do stuff in Blaze
• 58:53
  Speaker 3: Orange in late September, early November or October. But the
• 58:57
  Speaker 3: cool thing about what has happened in Iowa is they
• 59:00
  Speaker 3: have changed the law that allows if you buy a
• 59:04
  Speaker 3: youth tag, you can use it in youth season, but
• 59:06
  Speaker 3: you can also use it in any season that is
• 59:09
  Speaker 3: currently open. Meaning if my daughter and my son, if
• 59:13
  Speaker 3: I felt comfortable then with bows and arrows, they could
• 59:17
  Speaker 3: use that during the archer season. I can use that
• 59:19
  Speaker 3: during shotgun season with a shotgun. That's going to be
• 59:21
  Speaker 3: an option. That's great late season muzzle loader, so there
• 59:25
  Speaker 3: are options if we don't get the job done in September.
• 59:29
  Speaker 2: That's exciting. Yeah, that's going to be so fun.
• 59:31
  Speaker 4: Yeah, so I'm looking forward to that. Your oldest boy,
• 59:33
  Speaker 4: you ready to go.
• 59:35
  Speaker 2: He says he is. He probably could be, yeah, but
• 59:40
  Speaker 2: I want him to wait a little bit longer. Yeah.
• 59:44
  Speaker 2: He's a great shot with a rifle. He killed his
• 59:48
  Speaker 2: first turkey this spring. He's pretty die hard, so he's like, yeah,
• 59:52
  Speaker 2: I'm ready to shoot it dear dead for sure. But
• 59:54
  Speaker 2: I think he needs to be a little bit more
• 59:56
  Speaker 2: like emotionally mature or something. I'm looking for a little
• 59:59
  Speaker 2: bit more maturity from him before I let him take
• 1:00:02
  Speaker 2: that next step, so he'll definitely be going out there
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 2: with me. My youngest has been expressing more and more interest.
• 1:00:09
  Speaker 2: He's hunting with me the last two years, you know,
• 1:00:10
  Speaker 2: handful of times every year, and he's getting more and
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 2: more excited about it. So that's a big goal this
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 2: year is just to get both the boys out there
• 1:00:19
  Speaker 2: more often. And you know, that kind of segues beautifully
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 2: into my Michigan plans because I want to make sure
• 1:00:28
  Speaker 2: they get up to our deer camp a couple of
• 1:00:30
  Speaker 2: times this year. For sure. I had an awesome hunt
• 1:00:33
  Speaker 2: last year, and Josh killed a buck at our deer
• 1:00:35
  Speaker 2: camp last year when both of my boys were there
• 1:00:37
  Speaker 2: and his son was there, so like, that was really
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 2: fun with the kids. Would love to repeat. So I
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 2: was actually just up there yesterday doing work up there,
• 1:00:45
  Speaker 2: prepping blinds and making sure everything's ready for the kids
• 1:00:49
  Speaker 2: and ready for my dad and good for the family
• 1:00:51
  Speaker 2: the family trips. So that's looking good. There was an
• 1:00:55
  Speaker 2: absolutely enormous deer there last year.
• 1:00:57
  Speaker 4: Dan.
• 1:00:58
  Speaker 2: I don't know if we ever talked about it, but.
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 3: You mentioned you meant I think you might have even
• 1:01:02
  Speaker 3: sent me a picture of him, Okay, and he was
• 1:01:05
  Speaker 3: you're like, for northern Michigan.
• 1:01:06
  Speaker 4: This is a great great, great great great here.
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 2: Oh yeah it was. It was one seventy plus in
• 1:01:12
  Speaker 2: northern Michigan. Yeah, our neighbor killed him. Okay, but we
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 2: saw him. Me and my dad saw him. I was
• 1:01:18
  Speaker 2: hunting with my dad in early November, and uh, he
• 1:01:22
  Speaker 2: came in following a dough and installed at like seventy
• 1:01:25
  Speaker 2: five yards something like that. But but just insane to
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 2: see a buck like that in freaking northern Michigan, big
• 1:01:31
  Speaker 2: woods swamp habitat and here is a giant you know,
• 1:01:34
  Speaker 2: Iowa buck. Yeah, so cool. But then yeah, he got
• 1:01:39
  Speaker 2: killed opening morning. But all that's to say, you know,
• 1:01:43
  Speaker 2: anything's possible there, So that's that's kind of that was
• 1:01:45
  Speaker 2: an exciting thing to see. Yeah, to kind of change
• 1:01:49
  Speaker 2: the expectations just a little, of course, not counting that
• 1:01:53
  Speaker 2: happening again. But it's fun and when I have the
• 1:01:57
  Speaker 2: kids out with me more hunting down southern Michigan. I
• 1:02:00
  Speaker 2: have picked up a couple of new permissions this year
• 1:02:03
  Speaker 2: in Michigan, so continuing to diversify. Last year I had
• 1:02:07
  Speaker 2: a piece I've got permission from the same landowner and
• 1:02:10
  Speaker 2: a couple other spots. They're not like, they don't look amazing.
• 1:02:13
  Speaker 2: There's spots where you're you're hunting, like a couple acres
• 1:02:15
  Speaker 2: of cover on the edge of the field. But I'm gonna,
• 1:02:18
  Speaker 2: you know, keep tabs in all these places just in
• 1:02:20
  Speaker 2: case something pops up. I killed my buck in Michigan
• 1:02:24
  Speaker 2: last year on one of those spots, like two three
• 1:02:26
  Speaker 2: acres of cover, so it's possible. I picked up permission
• 1:02:32
  Speaker 2: on a piece this year with a buddy of the
• 1:02:34
  Speaker 2: buddy picked up permission invited me to hunt with him.
• 1:02:38
  Speaker 2: It's like a campground. It's a private campground that also
• 1:02:43
  Speaker 2: has a bunch of kind of open ground and and
• 1:02:46
  Speaker 2: the owner of this campground wants someone hunting it, and
• 1:02:50
  Speaker 2: so there's human activity a lot. There's a lot of
• 1:02:52
  Speaker 2: activity right now around it. I think it's the fall
• 1:02:55
  Speaker 2: progress is that activity would probably go down. So it's
• 1:02:57
  Speaker 2: gonna be very interesting to see how de you use it.
• 1:02:59
  Speaker 2: There's a deer out there, but mostly does right now.
• 1:03:03
  Speaker 2: So hopefully during the run some bucks start moving through.
• 1:03:05
  Speaker 2: So that's going to be an interesting new thing to
• 1:03:08
  Speaker 2: learn and figure out. And then the old faithful properties.
• 1:03:12
  Speaker 2: My longtime standbys that have hunted forever are in a
• 1:03:15
  Speaker 2: weird spot right now.
• 1:03:16
  Speaker 4: OK.
• 1:03:18
  Speaker 2: Last year two I had two bucks last year who
• 1:03:21
  Speaker 2: were like deer I'd known for multiple years. I was
• 1:03:24
  Speaker 2: very excited. One was definitely five, one was four or
• 1:03:27
  Speaker 2: five big, And they both disappeared at the beginning of
• 1:03:32
  Speaker 2: the season, and one of them turns out got killed
• 1:03:35
  Speaker 2: down the road. One of them, I still don't know
• 1:03:37
  Speaker 2: what happened. Talked to one of the neighbors the other
• 1:03:40
  Speaker 2: day and his grand killed his grandkids killed two ten pointers.
• 1:03:45
  Speaker 2: I don't know any more details other than that. And
• 1:03:48
  Speaker 2: then he also told me that he killed three dos
• 1:03:51
  Speaker 2: during late season that ended up being shed bucks.
• 1:03:55
  Speaker 4: All of them were shed bucks.
• 1:03:57
  Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, I was like, oh my gosh, that is brutal.
• 1:04:06
  Speaker 2: So all that's to say that I think a lot
• 1:04:09
  Speaker 2: of stuff got got mowed down last year. I don't
• 1:04:12
  Speaker 2: have a single buck that I've seen yet this summer
• 1:04:14
  Speaker 2: that I'm you know, excited about. Necessarily. There's two bucks
• 1:04:20
  Speaker 2: that I've gotten one picture of each that are maybe
• 1:04:25
  Speaker 2: three maybe four. I saw them last year when they
• 1:04:28
  Speaker 2: were like two or three. This year they're three or four.
• 1:04:32
  Speaker 2: I don't know. I'll have to get a better look
• 1:04:34
  Speaker 2: at them and get a better sense if they're four
• 1:04:36
  Speaker 2: and they're big and big bodied, you know, in the fall,
• 1:04:39
  Speaker 2: maybe well let's see what the situation is like. But
• 1:04:41
  Speaker 2: as of right now, I'm like, I don't know. It
• 1:04:43
  Speaker 2: might just be the year that I shoot a bunch
• 1:04:45
  Speaker 2: of doughs and take the kids out a lot and
• 1:04:48
  Speaker 2: do that kind of thing. Yeah, so yeah, that's Michigan,
• 1:04:53
  Speaker 2: and the one other hunt I've got this year after
• 1:04:57
  Speaker 2: that would be It's kind of up in the air
• 1:04:59
  Speaker 2: exactly where, but we are I'm gonna tease something to
• 1:05:02
  Speaker 2: the folks listening who watch our hunts. We should be
• 1:05:08
  Speaker 2: it's almost signed dot actually happening. I think we're going
• 1:05:11
  Speaker 2: to be doing a new season of One Week in
• 1:05:14
  Speaker 2: November this year, which is that show we did in
• 1:05:16
  Speaker 2: the past, but it's gonna be in January, so it's
• 1:05:19
  Speaker 2: gonna be one week in January. It's going to be
• 1:05:22
  Speaker 2: down south, so we're gonna be hunting the southern rout
• 1:05:24
  Speaker 2: somewhere maybe like Alabama or Mississippi or something. And on
• 1:05:29
  Speaker 2: the past seasons, like the whole gist, the format of
• 1:05:32
  Speaker 2: the show is, it was like five of us all
• 1:05:34
  Speaker 2: hunting a different place around the country for the same
• 1:05:36
  Speaker 2: seven days of November, right, and so it was like
• 1:05:39
  Speaker 2: balancing from me and Iowa to Tony in Wisconsin to
• 1:05:43
  Speaker 2: Clay in Arkansas or whatever. Yep, this season three, we're
• 1:05:47
  Speaker 2: gonna make the two change. One change was we're all
• 1:05:49
  Speaker 2: gonna be hunting. Well, sorry, it's gonna be in the
• 1:05:51
  Speaker 2: South and we're all gonna hunt together for this one.
• 1:05:54
  Speaker 2: So we're we're all gonna hunt. We're gonna have like
• 1:05:56
  Speaker 2: a deer camp somewhere. We're all gonna hunt the same
• 1:05:58
  Speaker 2: property and then going to be following us all in
• 1:06:01
  Speaker 2: our different spots on that property, hunting in our own
• 1:06:04
  Speaker 2: unique styles and ways, but in the same area. So,
• 1:06:08
  Speaker 2: barring some kind of unforeseen change, the plan is to
• 1:06:11
  Speaker 2: film that sometime in January, So that will be fun
• 1:06:15
  Speaker 2: and something kind of different doing the whole Southern rout thing.
• 1:06:17
  Speaker 2: But that's that's my year.
• 1:06:19
  Speaker 3: Yeah, dude, it's always. It's always that you take some
• 1:06:26
  Speaker 3: of this stuff for granted, I think a lot of
• 1:06:28
  Speaker 3: us do, where You're just I don't think I understand
• 1:06:37
  Speaker 3: even how important this hunting stuff is for me at
• 1:06:40
  Speaker 3: times where like I love I love it so much,
• 1:06:46
  Speaker 3: Like the hunting aspect of it, not the point last
• 1:06:49
  Speaker 3: week where I was stomping through chest tied grass with
• 1:06:53
  Speaker 3: chiggers and mosquitoes biting me all over the place, not
• 1:06:55
  Speaker 3: that far, but like the sitting in the cool October
• 1:06:59
  Speaker 3: and November air, you know, stepping outside, sipping a cup
• 1:07:03
  Speaker 3: of coffee in the October weather checking like ooh, new
• 1:07:07
  Speaker 3: buck on camera, All right, how am I going to
• 1:07:09
  Speaker 3: get this son of a gun?
• 1:07:10
  Speaker 2: You know, like excessively checking the weather report.
• 1:07:12
  Speaker 3: Exactly like sorry, hey, no, no, give me my phone back
• 1:07:16
  Speaker 3: or let me see the iPad. I got to check
• 1:07:18
  Speaker 3: out the weather forecast.
• 1:07:19
  Speaker 4: Boom. I don't know. There's something about this time of
• 1:07:22
  Speaker 4: year it is.
• 1:07:22
  Speaker 3: Fall is my favorite time from a college football standpoint
• 1:07:26
  Speaker 3: to the hunting standpoint to the weather and.
• 1:07:30
  Speaker 4: Family aspects of all of it.
• 1:07:32
  Speaker 3: It's like when I die and go someplace, it's going
• 1:07:35
  Speaker 3: to be fall every day.
• 1:07:36
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm with you on that, man. It's a beautiful
• 1:07:39
  Speaker 2: time of year, best time of year. And uh sounds
• 1:07:43
  Speaker 2: like both of us have got some exciting adventures to
• 1:07:45
  Speaker 2: look forward to.
• 1:07:46
  Speaker 3: That's pull, man. I'm looking forward to hearing the ends
• 1:07:49
  Speaker 3: of these stories.
• 1:07:50
  Speaker 2: Yes, dittoh, let's uh, let's touch base again in season.
• 1:07:53
  Speaker 2: Get some updates up there. I always appreciate catching up
• 1:07:57
  Speaker 2: with you, seeing what you're up to. So best luck,
• 1:08:00
  Speaker 2: my friend, best of back at you, all right, And
• 1:08:05
  Speaker 2: that's a wrap for another one of our episodes here today.
• 1:08:08
  Speaker 2: I appreciate you joining me. You might be hunting as
• 1:08:13
  Speaker 2: we speak. Hunting seasons are kicking off across the country,
• 1:08:16
  Speaker 2: so I want to wish you luck if that's the case.
• 1:08:18
  Speaker 2: I want to encourage you to stay safe, to keep
• 1:08:22
  Speaker 2: it fun, to share time with your friends and family,
• 1:08:25
  Speaker 2: to do your part as a steward of our wild
• 1:08:29
  Speaker 2: life and our wild places. And I just will tell
• 1:08:33
  Speaker 2: you that I appreciate you. I appreciate you tuning in.
• 1:08:35
  Speaker 2: I appreciate you being a part of this community. It's
• 1:08:37
  Speaker 2: gonna be a wild hunting season. I can't wait to
• 1:08:40
  Speaker 2: share it with you. I can't wait to hear from you.
• 1:08:42
  Speaker 2: And until next week, stay wired to hunt.