Latest / Wired To Hunt Podcast / Ep. 653: Parenting a Future Hunter and Angler with Tony Peterson

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Ep. 653: Parenting a Future Hunter and Angler with Tony Peterson · 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 saddler blind, First Light, Go Farther,
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: Stay Longer, and now your host, Mark Kenyon.
• 0:18
  Speaker 2: Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast. I'm your host,
• 0:21
  Speaker 2: Mark Kenyon, and this week on the show, Tony and
• 0:23
  Speaker 2: I are beginning an exploration of the equally fantastic and
• 0:27
  Speaker 2: fraught journey of raising future hunters and anglers. All right,
• 0:42
  Speaker 2: welcome to the wire to Hunt podcast, brought to you
• 0:47
  Speaker 2: by First Light, and today we are kicking off a
• 0:51
  Speaker 2: new topic of conversation, a several episodes series diving into
• 0:58
  Speaker 2: the fraught fascinating, exciting, disturbing, distressing, wonderful, joyful waters of parenting. Tony,
• 1:09
  Speaker 2: can I get the amen on all that?
• 1:11
  Speaker 3: You sure can? Buddy, and you use fraut? How often
• 1:14
  Speaker 3: does that happen on a hunting podcast?
• 1:16
  Speaker 2: You know we're trying to break down barriers.
• 1:20
  Speaker 3: I love it, man.
• 1:22
  Speaker 2: Yeah. So, so we're gonna talk about raising outdoor kids, Tony,
• 1:27
  Speaker 2: and I was hoping you could help me today kind
• 1:29
  Speaker 2: of kick this off. I've got a few different episodes
• 1:33
  Speaker 2: planned with some very interesting different people who come to
• 1:37
  Speaker 2: this with different perspectives. We've got like experts, we've got philosophers,
• 1:44
  Speaker 2: we've got authors, We've got regular old dads who've been
• 1:48
  Speaker 2: there and been in the trenches. And I want to
• 1:52
  Speaker 2: kind of talk about all different things related to you know,
• 1:55
  Speaker 2: introducing your kids to the outdoors, hunting with them, fishing
• 1:59
  Speaker 2: with them, building and interest in the outdoors, teaching them
• 2:03
  Speaker 2: about life and death and conservation, and you know, having
• 2:07
  Speaker 2: fun outside and getting uncomfortable and having fun doing all that,
• 2:13
  Speaker 2: and just telling some stories too, because I think, you know,
• 2:16
  Speaker 2: when I think Tony about folks who listen to this podcast,
• 2:22
  Speaker 2: there's a few things that unite us. Most of us.
• 2:26
  Speaker 2: Most of us are pretty serious deer hunters, most of
• 2:29
  Speaker 2: us really love the outdoors. And not all of us,
• 2:33
  Speaker 2: but eventually many of us, probably most will have kids
• 2:38
  Speaker 2: that you want to get out there with you enjoying
• 2:40
  Speaker 2: these things too. So this is one of those topics
• 2:42
  Speaker 2: that I think is super applicable to a huge proportion
• 2:44
  Speaker 2: of this group of people, but we don't talk about
• 2:47
  Speaker 2: it a whole lot. Do you feel like that is
• 2:52
  Speaker 2: a I mean, when I think about that, it's kind
• 2:54
  Speaker 2: of a mismatch between what's important and what we talk about.
• 2:58
  Speaker 2: Because I think you would agree, Tony. Once you have kids,
• 3:03
  Speaker 2: your priorities with hunting and what you're doing and how
• 3:06
  Speaker 2: you're spending your time, that changes in big way, doesn't it?
• 3:10
  Speaker 3: Oh Man so much? And you know it's we're kind
• 3:14
  Speaker 3: of a product of our life situation, you know. I mean,
• 3:17
  Speaker 3: if you get somebody who's twenty three and ate up
• 3:19
  Speaker 3: with bow hunting and no kids and you know, maybe
• 3:22
  Speaker 3: a little light on life's responsibilities, you know, it might
• 3:26
  Speaker 3: be all big bucks. And then things change. You have
• 3:31
  Speaker 3: some little babies at home, and then all of a sudden,
• 3:33
  Speaker 3: you know, your time is totally different and you become
• 3:36
  Speaker 3: a weekend warrior. And you know, as those kids grow up,
• 3:39
  Speaker 3: and like you're talking about, you want to get them
• 3:41
  Speaker 3: out there. It's like everything that you would want for
• 3:46
  Speaker 3: yourself out of it sort of takes a back seat.
• 3:50
  Speaker 3: How can I get them out there and have a
• 3:52
  Speaker 3: great time. And it's you know, there's like a little
• 3:54
  Speaker 3: bit of a transitional you know, process to it, but man,
• 3:57
  Speaker 3: it's so much fun and it just kind of reframes
• 4:01
  Speaker 3: the value of the outdoors and these you know, how
• 4:04
  Speaker 3: lucky we are to get to do the things we do.
• 4:06
  Speaker 3: When you get to introduce your kids to it, it's
• 4:08
  Speaker 3: so fun.
• 4:10
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's funny. It's it's one of the surprises to
• 4:13
  Speaker 2: me when I, you know, I had all these thoughts
• 4:15
  Speaker 2: and preconceived notions before having kids about what would be good,
• 4:19
  Speaker 2: what would be bad, what wouldn't be tough. But one
• 4:22
  Speaker 2: of the surprises was how it brought new joy to
• 4:27
  Speaker 2: hunting and fishing. For me, I thought it was gonna
• 4:28
  Speaker 2: make hunting and fishing harder and like I wouldn't be
• 4:30
  Speaker 2: all enjoyed as much. And on the flip side, it
• 4:32
  Speaker 2: has actually like shined new light on fun things and
• 4:37
  Speaker 2: stuff that I took for granted or ignored all of
• 4:39
  Speaker 2: a sudden, Like it's those little things that you get
• 4:41
  Speaker 2: to relive through their eyes that makes it so cool.
• 4:46
  Speaker 2: You know.
• 4:48
  Speaker 3: Did you find that first with fishing with the boys,
• 4:52
  Speaker 3: you know? Or not?
• 4:53
  Speaker 2: I the kid the boys had, Fishing was the place
• 4:57
  Speaker 2: where they got to be like personally in evolved the quickest,
• 5:02
  Speaker 2: but like hunting adjacent stuff still like they got like
• 5:06
  Speaker 2: even just like whenever was I guess he would have
• 5:10
  Speaker 2: been like ten months old or something, and he got
• 5:12
  Speaker 2: to see like the first deer I killed when he
• 5:14
  Speaker 2: was alive, and like him just being like in awe
• 5:17
  Speaker 2: by its fuzzy tail. You know, stuff like that. I
• 5:20
  Speaker 2: mean that I totally would never even think about. But
• 5:23
  Speaker 2: when you take a second and you see how excited
• 5:25
  Speaker 2: your kid is about the tail of a deer or
• 5:27
  Speaker 2: its hooves, and then you take a second to be like,
• 5:29
  Speaker 2: you know what, that is cool, and you start looking
• 5:31
  Speaker 2: underneath it and taking a look at the hooves and
• 5:34
  Speaker 2: touching them, and that kind of thing is what I'm
• 5:38
  Speaker 2: talking about, where you just look at things different because
• 5:41
  Speaker 2: they look at things so much different than we do
• 5:43
  Speaker 2: in our jaded old person eyes.
• 5:45
  Speaker 3: Yeah. So I was just curious because I mean, you
• 5:48
  Speaker 3: were at probably a little bit different place. But when
• 5:51
  Speaker 3: what really kind of struck me with my little girls
• 5:54
  Speaker 3: was I didn't realize how much I had burned myself
• 5:58
  Speaker 3: out on fishing when I was young. Like I knew
• 6:00
  Speaker 3: I had, you know, because it was I turned it
• 6:03
  Speaker 3: into my job for a while, and I just wasn't
• 6:06
  Speaker 3: it was a bad spot for me to be in.
• 6:08
  Speaker 3: So I had kind of, you know, not fully stepped
• 6:11
  Speaker 3: away from fishing, but I'd really pumped the brakes pretty
• 6:14
  Speaker 3: hard for a while. And then with them, you know,
• 6:17
  Speaker 3: it was when they were little, You're like, we're going
• 6:19
  Speaker 3: to go out and drawn worms and use live bait
• 6:22
  Speaker 3: and it's all bobber fishing and simple stuff. And when
• 6:25
  Speaker 3: I would take them when they were like three or four,
• 6:28
  Speaker 3: just this wave of like, oh man, you forgot how
• 6:32
  Speaker 3: awesome this was, like how how fun this could be.
• 6:36
  Speaker 3: And it just it that that was like my Like
• 6:38
  Speaker 3: that was like when the door started opening up and
• 6:40
  Speaker 3: I was like, man, I can see this happening with
• 6:44
  Speaker 3: everything I do. Yeah, you know, like it because I
• 6:46
  Speaker 3: just I didn't see that coming. You know, I'm like,
• 6:49
  Speaker 3: I'll take my little girl's fishing, hopefully we catch something.
• 6:51
  Speaker 3: And it just it changed like my mindset over it,
• 6:55
  Speaker 3: and it made me I like, I enjoyed it again
• 6:57
  Speaker 3: and it was so cool.
• 6:59
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's really good point, and it kind of you
• 7:04
  Speaker 2: kind of alluded to this before having kids. I think
• 7:07
  Speaker 2: there's this, I mean, there's there's obviously some excitement, but
• 7:10
  Speaker 2: I think there's also some like apprehension, you know, some
• 7:16
  Speaker 2: some worries about how it's gonna change your time and
• 7:19
  Speaker 2: your passion and so that you know there might be people. Now,
• 7:24
  Speaker 2: there might be all the all the younger people that
• 7:27
  Speaker 2: aren't parents yet. They maybe didn't even click on this podcast,
• 7:29
  Speaker 2: so maybe they're not even listening to this one. But
• 7:32
  Speaker 2: but hopefully there's a few folks out there who are
• 7:36
  Speaker 2: thinking to themselves, Man, I think I want to have
• 7:39
  Speaker 2: kids someday, but this stuff's kind of scary.
• 7:42
  Speaker 4: Uh.
• 7:43
  Speaker 2: I don't know what's gonna what's gonna mean for my
• 7:45
  Speaker 2: hunting and fishing craziness. I mean, for someone, if there's
• 7:47
  Speaker 2: two people out there like that right now, Tony, and
• 7:50
  Speaker 2: if you knew there was like two people listening to
• 7:52
  Speaker 2: this podcast that are not yet parents, that are debating
• 7:56
  Speaker 2: like should I have kids or should I not? And
• 7:57
  Speaker 2: how's it going to change my honey and fishing passion
• 8:01
  Speaker 2: and all that kind of stuff, Like what would you
• 8:02
  Speaker 2: tell those people? Let's let's imagine it's Jill and Jill
• 8:05
  Speaker 2: are listening and they're on the fence and they're thinking, Man,
• 8:09
  Speaker 2: I love hunting and fishing. We travel the country, we
• 8:12
  Speaker 2: do cool stuff. We've got it made. I don't know
• 8:15
  Speaker 2: about this whole kid thing. What would you say to
• 8:18
  Speaker 2: that person? With those people?
• 8:21
  Speaker 3: First, first stuff, I'd pull Joe aside and I'd be like, listen, man,
• 8:24
  Speaker 3: it's not really your choice. I know you think you're
• 8:28
  Speaker 3: like an you have like equals, say in this, but
• 8:30
  Speaker 3: if Jill's if Jill wants this, she's going to figure
• 8:33
  Speaker 3: it out. Like it's probably gonna happen. But honestly, it's
• 8:38
  Speaker 3: so hard some of the stuff so hard to convey
• 8:42
  Speaker 3: if you're not in this space. You know, like when
• 8:44
  Speaker 3: you when we talk about like the phases of you know,
• 8:47
  Speaker 3: being a hunter, and you know, I just want I
• 8:49
  Speaker 3: just want to kill something. I just want to kill
• 8:50
  Speaker 3: this now, I want this trophy or whatever, and you
• 8:53
  Speaker 3: go through them. You can't when you're in the thick
• 8:56
  Speaker 3: of that whatever phase it is, you can't really see
• 8:59
  Speaker 3: the next one, you know what I mean. Like you're
• 9:01
  Speaker 3: just like this is important, and man, I I don't.
• 9:07
  Speaker 3: I'm so lucky. I'm like you, Like, I get to
• 9:09
  Speaker 3: do a lot of outdoor stuff. I hunt and fish
• 9:11
  Speaker 3: a lot, and you know, a lot of different places.
• 9:15
  Speaker 3: My favorite thing to do is to either take my
• 9:18
  Speaker 3: girls turkey hunting or to take them hunting deer. Like
• 9:24
  Speaker 3: I don't. It's better than anything else I get to do.
• 9:28
  Speaker 3: And I'm talking you know, hunting, sweet places during the
• 9:31
  Speaker 3: rut for myself, or going out into the mountains and
• 9:34
  Speaker 3: hunting elk. I enjoy it that much. And you know,
• 9:38
  Speaker 3: so you think like, oh man, I'm gonna have these
• 9:40
  Speaker 3: kids and they're gonna you know, I'm not gonna have
• 9:41
  Speaker 3: any time anymore. And yeah, you'll go through the you
• 9:44
  Speaker 3: know that when they're young, you won't hunt as much
• 9:47
  Speaker 3: as you want, probably, but once they start being able
• 9:52
  Speaker 3: to just even go scout with you in the spring
• 9:54
  Speaker 3: or go on a little shed hunt, it's like it's
• 9:57
  Speaker 3: so worth it. It's so fun. And so you just
• 10:00
  Speaker 3: got to know that, yeah, there's it's going to change
• 10:03
  Speaker 3: for you, but the odds are pretty damn good it's
• 10:05
  Speaker 3: going to change for the better.
• 10:06
  Speaker 2: Yeah, And you're right. It's really hard to say this
• 10:10
  Speaker 2: stuff without sounding like a cliche or to have someone
• 10:15
  Speaker 2: hear it, and unless they're in it themselves, just have
• 10:17
  Speaker 2: them roll your eyes their eyes, you know, Like I
• 10:19
  Speaker 2: think that when my dad was telling me this stuff,
• 10:21
  Speaker 2: or even when you were telling me this stuff, you know,
• 10:24
  Speaker 2: six years ago, before I had kids, I was probably
• 10:26
  Speaker 2: rolling my eyes. So it's so hard to believe it
• 10:30
  Speaker 2: until you feel it. But you're right, like that is
• 10:36
  Speaker 2: the best stuff, and it's the best in ways that
• 10:42
  Speaker 2: you never would have expected. Yeah, I mean, I don't
• 10:45
  Speaker 2: know what's one of the what's one of the awesome
• 10:49
  Speaker 2: things you've done recently with your kids? I mean, is
• 10:51
  Speaker 2: there is there? I know you've been outside with the girls.
• 10:55
  Speaker 2: Tell me a story. Tell me a story. Is something
• 10:56
  Speaker 2: you've done recently with both of them or one of
• 10:59
  Speaker 2: them that is a good example of like this kind
• 11:01
  Speaker 2: of thing.
• 11:03
  Speaker 3: I will, but I want to I want to touch
• 11:04
  Speaker 3: on something you just said, just because I think it's
• 11:07
  Speaker 3: super important. I don't want to gloss over this. I
• 11:10
  Speaker 3: noticed this, you know, I see this in your videos
• 11:12
  Speaker 3: when you're fly fishing with your boys last year, and
• 11:14
  Speaker 3: I know you kind of kept me up to date
• 11:15
  Speaker 3: on your vacation down in Florida this year fishing with them.
• 11:19
  Speaker 3: And one of the things, like maybe the most relatable
• 11:22
  Speaker 3: way to put this is kids. You know, you mentioned
• 11:27
  Speaker 3: it's kind of like these these experiences are so new,
• 11:29
  Speaker 3: and it's like they're awe at every little thing. Is
• 11:32
  Speaker 3: you know, we kind of take it for granted, but
• 11:35
  Speaker 3: like the base level of it is they just have
• 11:40
  Speaker 3: pure fun doing it, and that's like infectious. And I
• 11:44
  Speaker 3: always tell people you know, like and this is like
• 11:46
  Speaker 3: no secret, but the reason that the hunting public is
• 11:48
  Speaker 3: so successful partially is people go those guys are having fun,
• 11:53
  Speaker 3: no question. This doesn't feel like a job. Like it
• 11:56
  Speaker 3: looks like they're enjoying. And that's that's like there's a
• 11:59
  Speaker 3: big time gravity to that. And when you take kids out,
• 12:02
  Speaker 3: you know, your your focus is like, man, i'd really
• 12:04
  Speaker 3: look to catch a tarpin on a fly or something
• 12:07
  Speaker 3: like we have these man goals, right, and the kids
• 12:09
  Speaker 3: are like, I don't care what, you know, I want
• 12:11
  Speaker 3: to catch grunts and whatever else under the dock and watch,
• 12:14
  Speaker 3: you know whatever the little jellyfish swim by and use
• 12:17
  Speaker 3: my little net because everything's pure fun. And if you
• 12:21
  Speaker 3: just if you're exposed to that with your kids, there's
• 12:24
  Speaker 3: like there's no way you're not going to enjoy it,
• 12:27
  Speaker 3: Like it's going to just force you just like reframe
• 12:30
  Speaker 3: your little world. And they bring you in and their
• 12:33
  Speaker 3: enjoyment is just infectious and like that's probably I think
• 12:37
  Speaker 3: that's like one of the coolest things not only about
• 12:39
  Speaker 3: taking kids, but just taking new people out hunting and fishing.
• 12:43
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so true, very very true.
• 12:46
  Speaker 3: So you want to you want a story.
• 12:48
  Speaker 2: Again, give me an example of one of these if you,
• 12:52
  Speaker 2: I mean, if you can think of a moment recently
• 12:57
  Speaker 2: that kind of illustrates what we're talking about here. I mean,
• 13:00
  Speaker 2: I can, I can give you one example. While you're
• 13:02
  Speaker 2: thinking speaking of those Florida fishing trips. You know, one
• 13:06
  Speaker 2: of the wildest things has happened to me, and one
• 13:09
  Speaker 2: of the coolest things as a dad has been seeing
• 13:13
  Speaker 2: myself reflected back at me, like this bizarre alternate universe
• 13:19
  Speaker 2: where I have been like removed from myself and I'm
• 13:22
  Speaker 2: now watching myself as a kid, like when we were
• 13:26
  Speaker 2: in Florida. And I don't think I've told this story
• 13:29
  Speaker 2: in the podcast, but we went to Florida a couple
• 13:32
  Speaker 2: months ago, and I know I was telling you about this,
• 13:35
  Speaker 2: but we're we had a little place on the coast,
• 13:38
  Speaker 2: and we had a dock and every morning, Everett, five
• 13:42
  Speaker 2: years old, would get up, like before we're even really
• 13:45
  Speaker 2: out of bed and going and he was running out
• 13:47
  Speaker 2: the front door. I'd hear like the porch door open,
• 13:49
  Speaker 2: and I had to run out there. What's he doing.
• 13:51
  Speaker 2: He's got his fishing pole and he's running to the
• 13:53
  Speaker 2: dock and he runs down the dock. He's got his
• 13:55
  Speaker 2: life jacket on, he's got his fishing pole. He'd grab
• 13:58
  Speaker 2: a little bag of of shrimp that we had in
• 14:01
  Speaker 2: the freezer, and he would go out to the end
• 14:03
  Speaker 2: of this dock, and he transformed into little Mark Kenyon
• 14:08
  Speaker 2: at age like seven, eight or nine. When I would
• 14:10
  Speaker 2: sit at the end of the dock, we would go
• 14:12
  Speaker 2: up to my uncle, my great uncle's cabin in the
• 14:15
  Speaker 2: Adirondic Mountains. He had a little place on the lake,
• 14:17
  Speaker 2: and I would go out to the end of that
• 14:18
  Speaker 2: dock and I would dunk worms for five six hours
• 14:22
  Speaker 2: of a time, like I wouldn't come in for breakfast,
• 14:24
  Speaker 2: I wouldn't come in for lunch, Like that's all I
• 14:26
  Speaker 2: want to do. And now I'm watching my five year
• 14:29
  Speaker 2: old do the exact same thing. Like he's out there
• 14:33
  Speaker 2: at the end of this dock, dunk and shrimp, and
• 14:35
  Speaker 2: he doesn't want to come in for anything. He doesn't
• 14:37
  Speaker 2: want to come in for ice cream, he doesn't want
• 14:38
  Speaker 2: to come in for lunch. He doesn't want to He
• 14:41
  Speaker 2: just drops that shrimp. Got one, Dad, pulls it in,
• 14:44
  Speaker 2: pulls off a grunt, drops it back in, pulls up
• 14:47
  Speaker 2: a little yell tel snapper got one. Dad pulls it in.
• 14:49
  Speaker 2: Oh man, it's a puffer fish. Dad. This is the
• 14:51
  Speaker 2: best day ever. I mean, every little thing was the
• 14:55
  Speaker 2: best thing ever. And uh and it just like like
• 14:59
  Speaker 2: you said, it's infectious. All of a sudden in my head,
• 15:01
  Speaker 2: I'm like, man, this is the best thing ever. Like
• 15:03
  Speaker 2: this is this is so fun and so bizarre, seeing
• 15:09
  Speaker 2: like this piece of me, separate of me now coming
• 15:14
  Speaker 2: to life and looking just like I don't know, it
• 15:18
  Speaker 2: must have been I don't know. It's just a wild,
• 15:21
  Speaker 2: wild thing to see come into the world like that.
• 15:25
  Speaker 2: I mean, that was one example for me that's just like, man,
• 15:27
  Speaker 2: this is this is something else.
• 15:31
  Speaker 3: So I gotta ask you. Since he's a mini you
• 15:34
  Speaker 3: and there's nothing that could distract him out there, did
• 15:36
  Speaker 3: you point out any cool pollinators in the yard or
• 15:38
  Speaker 3: anything that might get him.
• 15:40
  Speaker 2: No, pollinators were not on the menu. We were very focused.
• 15:43
  Speaker 2: But what we did do is we pointed out sea life.
• 15:46
  Speaker 2: So we were what was cool about this was not
• 15:48
  Speaker 2: only was there the doc but there's also like tidepools.
• 15:51
  Speaker 2: It was like a rocky shoreline, and so when the
• 15:53
  Speaker 2: tide came out, we were finding all sorts of all
• 15:56
  Speaker 2: sorts of hermit crabs and other things. And I've made
• 15:59
  Speaker 2: a huge, huge mistake. This is a huge daddy blunder.
• 16:04
  Speaker 2: I've never seen these things before. But uh, we got
• 16:07
  Speaker 2: through the first morning and the tide was coming out
• 16:09
  Speaker 2: and I saw these. They looked like a little purple
• 16:11
  Speaker 2: like tide pods. Do you know what you know tidepods are?
• 16:15
  Speaker 3: Right? Oh?
• 16:15
  Speaker 2: Yeah, So I thought to myself, man, this is weird.
• 16:18
  Speaker 2: These look like little tide pods that have washed up
• 16:21
  Speaker 2: on the shore and like got inflated again, like it's
• 16:23
  Speaker 2: kind of clear and blue, kind of filled up, and
• 16:26
  Speaker 2: I'm looking at itellyfish here. Yeah, And my son reached
• 16:31
  Speaker 2: down and touched one, and then I'm like, I don't
• 16:32
  Speaker 2: think we should touch that, but I don't know what
• 16:33
  Speaker 2: that is. And then later I found out it was
• 16:37
  Speaker 2: a freaking man o war which are these if you touch,
• 16:41
  Speaker 2: if you get the tentacles on you like major major
• 16:43
  Speaker 2: painful jellyfish. And so I got very lucky that it
• 16:48
  Speaker 2: wasn't a grab instead of just a poke. So that's
• 16:52
  Speaker 2: another parenting thing, is you gotta really be on top
• 16:54
  Speaker 2: of your game and learn your shit quick. But uh,
• 16:59
  Speaker 2: but yeah, no, pol but we were seeing stingrays. We
• 17:02
  Speaker 2: are seeing all the hermit crabs. There are all sorts
• 17:05
  Speaker 2: of kinds of all sorts of kind of fish, pelicans.
• 17:10
  Speaker 2: I mean, that's the other thing is like you mentioned
• 17:13
  Speaker 2: like getting obsessed with tarpain or something, And that's easy
• 17:15
  Speaker 2: for me to do, is like have the focus and
• 17:17
  Speaker 2: like be obsessed with it. But kids, in this case,
• 17:19
  Speaker 2: Everett was out there and he is not focused on
• 17:22
  Speaker 2: anyone other than wanting to fish. But also like he
• 17:25
  Speaker 2: will get excited by the pelican that lands on the dock,
• 17:28
  Speaker 2: and then he'll remind you to look down at the
• 17:30
  Speaker 2: weird thing floating in the water. And they still do,
• 17:33
  Speaker 2: like notice all the little things that we gloss over,
• 17:36
  Speaker 2: and we're so focused on the single pursuit, and they
• 17:39
  Speaker 2: can enjoy the entire experience maybe a little better than
• 17:42
  Speaker 2: we can sometimes.
• 17:44
  Speaker 3: Yeah, for sure, you want to hear my story now, Yeah,
• 17:47
  Speaker 3: for sure, I'll tell you a turkey hunting story because
• 17:51
  Speaker 3: we have been we have really been in the trenches
• 17:54
  Speaker 3: with the turkeys. We're all tagged out now in Minnesota.
• 17:57
  Speaker 3: But it let me preface this by saying, I take
• 18:01
  Speaker 3: turkey hunting for granted. I'm way too confident in turkey hunting,
• 18:07
  Speaker 3: and I started this year. I started in Iowa, hunting
• 18:10
  Speaker 3: for myself, got my ass handed to me and which
• 18:15
  Speaker 3: which stings because I was like, this will be a
• 18:17
  Speaker 3: you know, even on public land. I'm like, this will
• 18:19
  Speaker 3: be a gimme. And then we came home to Minnesota,
• 18:22
  Speaker 3: and usually in Minnesota I have them scouted out really well,
• 18:25
  Speaker 3: and it's kind of like a first day, first couple
• 18:28
  Speaker 3: of days type of thing asked handed to me. There,
• 18:32
  Speaker 3: we went to Wisconsin hunted the youth season and I
• 18:35
  Speaker 3: was like, at least we'll get one here. No birds,
• 18:39
  Speaker 3: So I hunted, I think the first seven days, either
• 18:44
  Speaker 3: me or mostly with my daughters. Never saw a legal bird,
• 18:48
  Speaker 3: never saw jake, never saw tom. And I'm talking you
• 18:52
  Speaker 3: know this, we're on field edges, like we should see something, right,
• 18:57
  Speaker 3: just brutal. And my one daughter was like, I want
• 19:02
  Speaker 3: a long beard this year so bad because she's killed
• 19:05
  Speaker 3: a couple Jakes, and she's like, I just don't want to.
• 19:08
  Speaker 3: You know, she would have shot one in a heartbeat,
• 19:10
  Speaker 3: but she's like, I just love that long beard. My
• 19:12
  Speaker 3: other one had killed three toms, so she's like I
• 19:14
  Speaker 3: don't care whatever. Well, the one the Jake Shooter. We
• 19:18
  Speaker 3: go out because I had one tom on this farm
• 19:22
  Speaker 3: by my house who's got the thinnest beard, but he's
• 19:25
  Speaker 3: he kind of moved in, so I was like, well, honey,
• 19:28
  Speaker 3: he's kind of the only game in town. Let's go
• 19:30
  Speaker 3: let's go after him. So we go out. I don't know.
• 19:33
  Speaker 3: This is, you know, maybe seven eight days into the season,
• 19:38
  Speaker 3: and I still haven't seen a legal bird yet. And
• 19:41
  Speaker 3: We're sitting there and I'm calling this is an evening
• 19:43
  Speaker 3: setup or an afternoon setup. We went on after school
• 19:46
  Speaker 3: and a bird gobbles at me, and I'm like, oh
• 19:49
  Speaker 3: my god, this is like the first response I've gotten
• 19:52
  Speaker 3: that wasn't off the roost this season, and so call
• 19:55
  Speaker 3: a little bit. I look out. He's standing like two
• 19:58
  Speaker 3: hundred yards away, just kind of eyeballing the decoys. But
• 20:01
  Speaker 3: it's like, you know, six o'clock, so we have like
• 20:03
  Speaker 3: two hours to work him in because you can hunt
• 20:05
  Speaker 3: till sunset. I'm like, this is gonna happen. He's by himself.
• 20:09
  Speaker 3: This bird looks at us, gobbles a few times, turns around,
• 20:12
  Speaker 3: cuts back into the swamp, and disappears. And I'm like, man,
• 20:16
  Speaker 3: that was maybe he had hens or something. But I'm like,
• 20:20
  Speaker 3: of course, you know, like why would he just why
• 20:22
  Speaker 3: wouldn't he just you know, strut right on end. So anyway,
• 20:26
  Speaker 3: we're sitting there and I just I pick him up
• 20:28
  Speaker 3: in the swamp. I see him back there and he's scratching,
• 20:31
  Speaker 3: but he's like two hundred two hundred and twenty five
• 20:33
  Speaker 3: yards away and he won't pick his head up. I call.
• 20:38
  Speaker 3: I'm throwing everything I've got at him, and he's just
• 20:42
  Speaker 3: totally you know, uninterested, not gonna happen, and so I
• 20:47
  Speaker 3: kind of give up on him. He disappears, and I'm
• 20:50
  Speaker 3: looking I look at my phone and I'm like, honey,
• 20:52
  Speaker 3: we have ten minutes left, and it's not gonna happen,
• 20:56
  Speaker 3: you know, but we better ride it out anyway. And
• 21:00
  Speaker 3: in it later, I was just I just happened to
• 21:02
  Speaker 3: be looking at my daughter and that bird gobbled at
• 21:05
  Speaker 3: like one hundred and fifty yards and her eyes like,
• 21:09
  Speaker 3: I mean, she was just like they bugged out of
• 21:11
  Speaker 3: her head. She just like panicked, like I gotta grab
• 21:14
  Speaker 3: the gun. I'm like, let's just let's just settle down here.
• 21:17
  Speaker 3: We got a little ways to go. Yet, We're not
• 21:19
  Speaker 3: sitting here with a high powered rifle shooting them at
• 21:21
  Speaker 3: you know, a football field and a half. We need
• 21:24
  Speaker 3: them in the decoys. And so I'm like, okay, we
• 21:27
  Speaker 3: got nine minutes for this bird to get here. And
• 21:30
  Speaker 3: I start calling and she kind of peeks out the
• 21:34
  Speaker 3: window and she goes, Dad, there's a turkey in the field.
• 21:37
  Speaker 3: And we're sitting on a soybean field that's, you know,
• 21:40
  Speaker 3: just flat dirt, and so I look out. I'm like,
• 21:43
  Speaker 3: I don't see a turkey. And I'm like, I'm not
• 21:45
  Speaker 3: going to miss a turkey in a soybean field. Like
• 21:48
  Speaker 3: and so I'm like, where, honey, And she goes in
• 21:50
  Speaker 3: the field and I go, well, how far away? And
• 21:53
  Speaker 3: she goes, I don't know, fifty yards? And I'm like,
• 21:56
  Speaker 3: you think there's a turkey fifty yards? Like we have
• 21:59
  Speaker 3: this like I'm looking at there's not a turkey with
• 22:01
  Speaker 3: fifty yards. So I look out in this cattail swamp
• 22:04
  Speaker 3: and see this redhead bobbing through at like one hundred
• 22:07
  Speaker 3: and twenty five yards and I'm like, is the turkey
• 22:11
  Speaker 3: and the yellow stuff? And she goes, yeah, it's a hen.
• 22:13
  Speaker 3: And I go, well, hey, it's a tom. And he's like,
• 22:16
  Speaker 3: you know, two hundred times as far as you think,
• 22:20
  Speaker 3: like he's not even anywhere near this. So anyway, he
• 22:23
  Speaker 3: starts coming in and kind of like you know, one
• 22:27
  Speaker 3: of those deals where he'll kind of half strut, kind
• 22:29
  Speaker 3: of give you a look, but then start to turn
• 22:32
  Speaker 3: like he wanted to go down this logging road off
• 22:34
  Speaker 3: the field. So I'd hit him with some calls and
• 22:37
  Speaker 3: he'd start moving in, and I'm looking at my phone
• 22:39
  Speaker 3: and I'm like six minutes, four minutes, and finally he
• 22:44
  Speaker 3: commits and comes in, and I'm like, we are like
• 22:48
  Speaker 3: we're cutting it close, but we've got a little bit
• 22:51
  Speaker 3: of time. But I told her, I was like, when
• 22:53
  Speaker 3: he gets near the decoys, I'm gonna call real loud
• 22:56
  Speaker 3: he'll stop and pick his head up because I didn't
• 22:58
  Speaker 3: want him to start fighting because then they get really
• 23:00
  Speaker 3: distracted if they're working on the jake, you know. And
• 23:03
  Speaker 3: so this happens, I yelp and cut real loud, and
• 23:07
  Speaker 3: he picks his head up and she dumps him, just
• 23:10
  Speaker 3: smokes him, and I look at my phone and we
• 23:12
  Speaker 3: have one minute left. Wow, like that we were down
• 23:15
  Speaker 3: to the wire. And she's like, I got my tom
• 23:18
  Speaker 3: I got my long beard, and then we run out
• 23:21
  Speaker 3: there to look at him, and like three quarters of
• 23:24
  Speaker 3: this little thin eight inch beard is just laying on
• 23:27
  Speaker 3: the ground. She shot, so she's got like an eight strander,
• 23:33
  Speaker 3: you know. But she's like, I don't care, it's a
• 23:35
  Speaker 3: tom And it was so sweet.
• 23:39
  Speaker 2: That's so great, that's awesome. So you bring something can
• 23:43
  Speaker 2: mind when you're talking about this, like calling the bird
• 23:45
  Speaker 2: and her getting all excited and ready. I have. I've
• 23:49
  Speaker 2: taken my son actually both of them now out for turkeys,
• 23:53
  Speaker 2: but not on like actual hunts, Like we just go
• 23:56
  Speaker 2: and like we're acting like we're hunting and trying to
• 23:58
  Speaker 2: get him in range. Yeah, but whenever I do that,
• 24:02
  Speaker 2: they always want to use the calls, like they always
• 24:05
  Speaker 2: want to try the calls, And in my head, I'm like, yeah,
• 24:07
  Speaker 2: I want them to have fun. But the same time,
• 24:08
  Speaker 2: as soon as I give this call to my son, ever,
• 24:10
  Speaker 2: it's like crazy insane things and every animal that might
• 24:15
  Speaker 2: be within sound range is now long gone. So two
• 24:20
  Speaker 2: questions Number one is do you let the kids call
• 24:23
  Speaker 2: when you're turkey hunting? Number two, and this is the
• 24:26
  Speaker 2: bigger picture question, what's your thought process been, Tony when
• 24:32
  Speaker 2: it comes to like this balancing act when we take
• 24:35
  Speaker 2: our kids hunting between getting the animal, which seems like
• 24:40
  Speaker 2: would be an amazing moment with our kids, versus letting
• 24:43
  Speaker 2: the kids just do what's fun for them in the moment.
• 24:46
  Speaker 2: So Part A, Part B.
• 24:49
  Speaker 3: I do let my girls call some I mean, the
• 24:53
  Speaker 3: best thing to do with kids is to get one
• 24:55
  Speaker 3: of those spring loaded push button calls and then you
• 24:59
  Speaker 3: know what I mean, and teach them, Okay, we do
• 25:02
  Speaker 3: a three yelp or a five yelp or a seven
• 25:05
  Speaker 3: yelp sequence, and then I always have a mouth call
• 25:07
  Speaker 3: in to kind of drown them out if it's you know,
• 25:11
  Speaker 3: if it starts to go a little haywire, which it will.
• 25:14
  Speaker 3: But you know what, I what I tell my girls,
• 25:18
  Speaker 3: and you know, they're in a different stage now than
• 25:19
  Speaker 3: your boys are a lot older. But is you can
• 25:22
  Speaker 3: tell me when to call, Like if you think we
• 25:25
  Speaker 3: need a live in something up, should we should we
• 25:27
  Speaker 3: go a little knots with a slate and the mouth
• 25:29
  Speaker 3: call and really get after it. What should we do?
• 25:32
  Speaker 3: You know? Like? And so I kind of I'm trying
• 25:35
  Speaker 3: to get them to own a little bit more of
• 25:37
  Speaker 3: the process, and it's hard. And this kind of leads
• 25:39
  Speaker 3: into your second half. I want them to succeed so
• 25:45
  Speaker 3: much that sometimes it's I'm I'm too much, Like I
• 25:50
  Speaker 3: need to back off and realize they're they don't need
• 25:56
  Speaker 3: that kill as much as I want them to have it.
• 25:59
  Speaker 3: And it takes time. Man, It's it's tough because you know,
• 26:02
  Speaker 3: this is like the number one problem, and maybe not
• 26:06
  Speaker 3: the number one, but it's it's way up there. It's
• 26:08
  Speaker 3: ranked on what we have when we take new people out.
• 26:12
  Speaker 3: This is why it's so hard. If you're you know,
• 26:16
  Speaker 3: if you're some the random hunting dude and you take
• 26:18
  Speaker 3: your wife or your girlfriend out on her first hunt,
• 26:20
  Speaker 3: you're gonna almost get divorced every time because you want
• 26:24
  Speaker 3: it so bad and you're gonna be a prick about
• 26:26
  Speaker 3: it and you're gonna be too serious and she doesn't care,
• 26:29
  Speaker 3: you know, like she's not that newbie, isn't invested in
• 26:33
  Speaker 3: this the way that you are. And that's something that
• 26:36
  Speaker 3: my little girls in my when I take them, I'm like,
• 26:38
  Speaker 3: I have to I have to put us in a
• 26:41
  Speaker 3: cool setting where we have a chance, but more importantly,
• 26:47
  Speaker 3: like we just have the opportunity to see some animals
• 26:51
  Speaker 3: or hear some animals, or think we will and you know,
• 26:55
  Speaker 3: it's like kind of back to when we were talking
• 26:57
  Speaker 3: about fishing. It's like, you know, you might be sitting
• 27:00
  Speaker 3: on the dock and not care about catching little grunts
• 27:02
  Speaker 3: all day long, but your kid thinks it's the coolest
• 27:04
  Speaker 3: thing in the world. You know, when I take my
• 27:06
  Speaker 3: daughters out in northern Wisconsin, if a grouse walks through,
• 27:10
  Speaker 3: or a you know, affiliated woodpecker or something starts working
• 27:13
  Speaker 3: on a tree next to you, you might not even
• 27:15
  Speaker 3: pick your head up from your phone sometimes for something
• 27:17
  Speaker 3: like that, and they're like, oh my god, look at
• 27:20
  Speaker 3: the size of that woodpecker, you know, Like, and so
• 27:23
  Speaker 3: you just kind of got to reframe it and try
• 27:26
  Speaker 3: to find that balance. But it's hard, man, because you
• 27:29
  Speaker 3: just want it for them so bad.
• 27:31
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, it's a constant struggle because and this might
• 27:37
  Speaker 2: be wrong, but like the assumption or and I think
• 27:41
  Speaker 2: a lot of people feel this way. As the mentor
• 27:43
  Speaker 2: or the parent, you feel like, man, if they just experience,
• 27:48
  Speaker 2: what's the best thing for me? And we think, like
• 27:52
  Speaker 2: lots of times wrongly, but lots of times we think
• 27:54
  Speaker 2: that the best thing is like getting the deer get
• 27:56
  Speaker 2: in the turkey, Like we are aiming for that thing
• 28:00
  Speaker 2: and I find my sometimes think like, man, if if
• 28:02
  Speaker 2: he could just be with me when we get a turkey,
• 28:05
  Speaker 2: if he's there for the first time we get a deer,
• 28:06
  Speaker 2: that's gonna be the best thing ever, that'll have him hooked.
• 28:10
  Speaker 2: And so, like you said, that leads us to being,
• 28:13
  Speaker 2: you know, way too serious about it. But I think
• 28:18
  Speaker 2: that's probably a mistake. I think because if you if
• 28:21
  Speaker 2: you go too far that direction and the process itself
• 28:24
  Speaker 2: along the way isn't fun, then I don't think that
• 28:26
  Speaker 2: end result probably matters that much for him because they
• 28:29
  Speaker 2: don't enjoy any of it. So at least that's why
• 28:31
  Speaker 2: I keep on trying to remind myself. But it's it's hard.
• 28:34
  Speaker 2: It's hard.
• 28:35
  Speaker 3: Well, but you're right, man, Like, there's there's such value
• 28:39
  Speaker 3: in in like some level of struggle. You know, you
• 28:43
  Speaker 3: don't want him to go out and have it super easy,
• 28:46
  Speaker 3: but you also want to really kind of manage that struggle.
• 28:52
  Speaker 3: You know, if they're super cold and uncomfortable, or you know,
• 28:56
  Speaker 3: if there's if they're real tired or something, if if
• 28:58
  Speaker 3: there's like impounding effects of like the misery in addition
• 29:03
  Speaker 3: to just not having success right away, then things go
• 29:08
  Speaker 3: solve right then then you're at risk of just making
• 29:12
  Speaker 3: it too much of a bad thing. And so I
• 29:15
  Speaker 3: kind of look at it like that's why I like
• 29:16
  Speaker 3: turkey hunting so much. You know, if you pick and
• 29:19
  Speaker 3: choose decent days and they've got handwarmers or whatever, and
• 29:22
  Speaker 3: you're you know, they're eating candy and the blind the
• 29:26
  Speaker 3: discomfort levels can be managed real well, you know, and
• 29:30
  Speaker 3: so then it's like even if the turkeys don't show
• 29:32
  Speaker 3: up too much or they're not cooperating, at least they're
• 29:35
  Speaker 3: not like I hate this, you know, because I'm not.
• 29:39
  Speaker 3: And we you know, we just don't. It's hard to
• 29:42
  Speaker 3: relate to that because you know, we're we have good
• 29:45
  Speaker 3: gear and we're used to going out and sitting in
• 29:46
  Speaker 3: a tree stand from dark to dark, and like, this
• 29:48
  Speaker 3: is what we do. This is our driver for them.
• 29:51
  Speaker 3: We're just trying to get them to a place of
• 29:54
  Speaker 3: like you start loving it a little bit and then
• 29:56
  Speaker 3: we'll we'll start, you know, we'll be okay, being a
• 29:59
  Speaker 3: little colder or a little more hungry or tired or whatever.
• 30:02
  Speaker 3: But right now that it's so important to manage that.
• 30:18
  Speaker 2: What about for you the next thing about like trying
• 30:22
  Speaker 2: to balance that fun versus the hunt itself for me
• 30:26
  Speaker 2: is like doing things the right way. So I guess
• 30:29
  Speaker 2: this kind of ties back to the calling thing. So
• 30:31
  Speaker 2: I find myself constantly struggling out there between the trying
• 30:37
  Speaker 2: to get my boys to do the right thing. So
• 30:41
  Speaker 2: don't like I'm constant whisper, you gotta whisper, Yeah, talk quiet,
• 30:44
  Speaker 2: you gotta whisper, you gotta whisper, and catching myself like
• 30:48
  Speaker 2: just harping on them over and over, and I'm like, Okay,
• 30:49
  Speaker 2: you get to ease up, or you know, moving too fast,
• 30:53
  Speaker 2: moving too much, standing up when they should be sitting down,
• 30:56
  Speaker 2: like all those things. And I know that if you
• 31:02
  Speaker 2: harp on them too much on that stuff, it's not
• 31:04
  Speaker 2: fun anymore. But if you don't harp on them some,
• 31:07
  Speaker 2: they're not gonna learn, they're not gonna get better, and
• 31:09
  Speaker 2: we're never gonna see a damn thing. So like trying
• 31:13
  Speaker 2: to do that, Like I find myself constantly when I'm
• 31:16
  Speaker 2: out there, like having this internal dialogue with myself, like
• 31:19
  Speaker 2: having to hold myself back from my instinctual like stop, stop,
• 31:22
  Speaker 2: shut up, be quiet, whisper constantly in my head, like
• 31:25
  Speaker 2: stopping myself, but also trying to figure how do I
• 31:28
  Speaker 2: and I guess this is a general parenting thing. How
• 31:30
  Speaker 2: do you teach them or get them to do something
• 31:33
  Speaker 2: without being a total ahole?
• 31:37
  Speaker 3: Uh? You know what? You Well, I'll address that in
• 31:42
  Speaker 3: a second. But don't you think you get enough practice
• 31:44
  Speaker 3: being patient in that situation when you hunt with a
• 31:46
  Speaker 3: cameraman over your shoulder?
• 31:48
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's good training for you.
• 31:50
  Speaker 3: Right are you? Are you literally eating another handful of
• 31:53
  Speaker 3: starburst in my ear right now at twenty minutes before
• 31:56
  Speaker 3: dark wild?
• 31:57
  Speaker 2: Yeah, while this buck is approaching? Come on people?
• 32:02
  Speaker 3: Yeah? Are you are you going to clank that metal
• 32:04
  Speaker 3: uh yetti against something one more time while we're out here? Yeah?
• 32:08
  Speaker 2: Did you bring a metal YETI again, dude?
• 32:13
  Speaker 3: Uh? With kids, I think you gotta I think what
• 32:19
  Speaker 3: and listen? I maybe am a poor example of this
• 32:21
  Speaker 3: because I can lose my cool pretty fast sometimes. But
• 32:25
  Speaker 3: like my first my first year Turkey with the girls,
• 32:27
  Speaker 3: they were eight and the one who just killed that
• 32:31
  Speaker 3: little thin Tom she's a lunatic, Like, she is not
• 32:37
  Speaker 3: a patient child, she is not a she's not a
• 32:41
  Speaker 3: child who takes direction well, she's she's like a little
• 32:46
  Speaker 3: Tasmanian devil. And we had when she started Turkey hunting.
• 32:52
  Speaker 3: I called in so many birds and she spooked so
• 32:57
  Speaker 3: many birds, and it was one of those things where
• 33:00
  Speaker 3: I'm like, I can't lose my shit over it, because
• 33:04
  Speaker 3: it's going to happen, and I just need her to understand, like,
• 33:08
  Speaker 3: if those birds are ten yards away in the decoys
• 33:11
  Speaker 3: and you're moving your head all around or your hands
• 33:13
  Speaker 3: all around, they're gonna get us. And they did. And
• 33:17
  Speaker 3: so you kind of just have to accept some of that.
• 33:20
  Speaker 3: It's like, you know, you got to learn how to move, like,
• 33:24
  Speaker 3: and you do that by making mistakes, right, Like the
• 33:27
  Speaker 3: best deer hunters out there make They've made thousands of mistakes.
• 33:32
  Speaker 3: I mean, you might make a thousand mistakes a season, yeah,
• 33:35
  Speaker 3: you know, And so some of that you just like
• 33:38
  Speaker 3: that's acceptable, Like you're like, Okay, you're just gonna have
• 33:42
  Speaker 3: to learn to do this the right way. Some of it,
• 33:45
  Speaker 3: when they're making noise or they're you know, they're being
• 33:47
  Speaker 3: squirrely or whatever, like you you can tamp that down
• 33:50
  Speaker 3: a little bit and be like, listen, you know, if
• 33:52
  Speaker 3: you're going to open a package of pop tarts, let's
• 33:54
  Speaker 3: just get this. Let's rip this band aid off, Let's
• 33:56
  Speaker 3: not crinkle it around for five minutes, you know, stuff
• 33:59
  Speaker 3: like that. But it's just a learning process. I was
• 34:04
  Speaker 3: I was going to ask you, I don't know enough
• 34:06
  Speaker 3: about Michigan. Uh, what what's the minimum age out there?
• 34:10
  Speaker 3: Like when will you be able to take your boys
• 34:13
  Speaker 3: actually hunting.
• 34:14
  Speaker 2: So they can go with me, you know, from the
• 34:16
  Speaker 2: get go? And I think the latest if I remember right,
• 34:19
  Speaker 2: I think this it's a mentor kind of situation here
• 34:22
  Speaker 2: in Michigan where as soon as they're ready to go,
• 34:24
  Speaker 2: they've got a few years before having hunter safety that
• 34:27
  Speaker 2: they can go with a parent or mentor at any age.
• 34:32
  Speaker 3: And is that Turkey's and dear yes, dude, So how
• 34:36
  Speaker 3: how old is your oldest boy?
• 34:37
  Speaker 2: He's five?
• 34:38
  Speaker 3: But what are what are you anticipating? Like when are you? Like,
• 34:42
  Speaker 3: I think this is going to be we'll be able
• 34:44
  Speaker 3: to do this when he's what age?
• 34:47
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's the thing I'm thinking a lot about. He's
• 34:49
  Speaker 2: ready to go right now. He wants to he wants
• 34:52
  Speaker 2: to do it right now. He got a BB gun
• 34:53
  Speaker 2: for his birthday and so he's like he's shooting a
• 34:56
  Speaker 2: BB gun. He's very effective, he he is. He wanted
• 35:01
  Speaker 2: to shoot a deer this year too, and all these things.
• 35:04
  Speaker 2: I think he's he's too young for all of it. Still,
• 35:08
  Speaker 2: I don't know exactly when that right age will be,
• 35:12
  Speaker 2: But I if you had to, if you're going to
• 35:15
  Speaker 2: put a you know, if you're going to force me
• 35:17
  Speaker 2: to put a number out there, maybe i'd say a
• 35:21
  Speaker 2: couple more years. Yeah, I don't know exactly when. He's
• 35:26
  Speaker 2: very excited about it. He's pretty darn good for a
• 35:29
  Speaker 2: five year old. Like he can he can hold pretty
• 35:32
  Speaker 2: darn still, he can, he can do everything pretty well.
• 35:34
  Speaker 2: He's he's going to be the easy one, the younger one,
• 35:38
  Speaker 2: kind of like you mentioned, is gonna be my Tasmanian devil.
• 35:41
  Speaker 2: But Everett could probably do it. I actually think, like
• 35:45
  Speaker 2: I would give better than fifty to fifty odds he
• 35:47
  Speaker 2: could pull it off well this year even. But I
• 35:50
  Speaker 2: just want to make sure he's a little more mentally,
• 35:53
  Speaker 2: you know, mature. I think maturity is the thing I
• 35:56
  Speaker 2: want to keep working on with him so that he
• 35:58
  Speaker 2: are you worried?
• 36:00
  Speaker 3: Sorry, but are you? Are you worried there on the
• 36:02
  Speaker 3: maturity level about having like an ugly death, like you know, yeah,
• 36:08
  Speaker 3: I mean, is that kind of the concerns.
• 36:10
  Speaker 2: It's that so part of it is that, like, I
• 36:12
  Speaker 2: want to make sure he's he's more proficient and more
• 36:15
  Speaker 2: mature to avoid that kind of mishap. And then number
• 36:19
  Speaker 2: two just like to get it, like I see there's
• 36:23
  Speaker 2: kids out there now, Like I'm seeing videos on YouTube
• 36:26
  Speaker 2: on social like in these states where there's no minimum
• 36:28
  Speaker 2: age where dads are taking their sons out or sons
• 36:30
  Speaker 2: or daughters and they're they're killing a deer at five
• 36:33
  Speaker 2: years old or six years old. And like, kids can
• 36:35
  Speaker 2: do that. I know they can do that. There's kids
• 36:36
  Speaker 2: that can effectively shoot in and and nothing against that.
• 36:41
  Speaker 2: I just for my children, I'm trying to figure out
• 36:46
  Speaker 2: when that age is when they can understand at least
• 36:50
  Speaker 2: to some degree, the gravity of what they're doing. And
• 36:53
  Speaker 2: I don't know what that right age is yet for
• 36:55
  Speaker 2: my kids. And that's what I'm trying to figure out.
• 36:57
  Speaker 2: But but I want to make sure if we are
• 37:00
  Speaker 2: And this is like a big, big overarching thing, Tony
• 37:02
  Speaker 2: that I have a lot I don't know the answer
• 37:03
  Speaker 2: to yet, between like fostering the fun and this experience
• 37:08
  Speaker 2: versus also providing them or helping them understand the gravity
• 37:13
  Speaker 2: of it or the importance of it, you know, Like
• 37:16
  Speaker 2: that's the thing I'm trying to figure out with with
• 37:17
  Speaker 2: the BB gun, Like my son is a BB gun
• 37:19
  Speaker 2: now and he wants to, you know, hunt every little
• 37:22
  Speaker 2: critter out there right, chasing birds and chipmunks and everything.
• 37:26
  Speaker 2: And I did that when I was a kid, and
• 37:27
  Speaker 2: it was fun and I think that was part of
• 37:28
  Speaker 2: what was one of the things that you know, helped
• 37:31
  Speaker 2: me become a hunter. So I want him to have
• 37:34
  Speaker 2: this little miniature version of his own hunt and feel
• 37:36
  Speaker 2: like he's really doing it. But I'm trying to figure out, like,
• 37:39
  Speaker 2: how do I also teach him about like the importance
• 37:43
  Speaker 2: of it and if you are going to shoot an
• 37:44
  Speaker 2: animal what that means, and how do I do that
• 37:46
  Speaker 2: in a way that isn't over his head at five
• 37:49
  Speaker 2: years old, that doesn't like crush his soul in the
• 37:52
  Speaker 2: fun of it, but also somehow still like in a
• 37:55
  Speaker 2: child friendly way, teaches him that this isn't you know,
• 37:59
  Speaker 2: just to game, that this is actually a serious thing too.
• 38:02
  Speaker 2: I don't I don't have the answer to that. I'm
• 38:03
  Speaker 2: trying to figure it out. But those are the questions
• 38:06
  Speaker 2: I've got when it comes to figure out when he's
• 38:08
  Speaker 2: gonna hunt for a turkey and zone and a deer
• 38:10
  Speaker 2: with me and all that kind of stuff.
• 38:13
  Speaker 3: Yeah, man, that that part's tough. That was that was
• 38:19
  Speaker 3: my primary concern with taking the girls deer hunting, because
• 38:25
  Speaker 3: you know, turkey's I don't know, they're just there is
• 38:29
  Speaker 3: not that connection to a turkey the way that you know,
• 38:33
  Speaker 3: kids can feel with a deer. It's a different thing.
• 38:36
  Speaker 3: And I was terrified of a spine shot. Yeah, you know,
• 38:41
  Speaker 3: And it's I think, you know, people might disagree with
• 38:44
  Speaker 3: me on this, but you know, you're raising two little boys.
• 38:47
  Speaker 3: I'm raising two girls. I've got hunting buddies who have
• 38:51
  Speaker 3: boys who are the girl's age and they hunt like crazy.
• 38:54
  Speaker 3: There's a there's it's there's a difference. I mean, you
• 38:58
  Speaker 3: know when you talk about your little boy running around
• 39:00
  Speaker 3: the BB gun trying to shoot every sparrow and chipmunk
• 39:02
  Speaker 3: and everything he can. I mean that was a lot
• 39:04
  Speaker 3: of us, right, I mean when we were you know,
• 39:07
  Speaker 3: when I was younger, we I have murdered so many
• 39:12
  Speaker 3: little sparrows and pigeons and starlings and stuff in my
• 39:15
  Speaker 3: life with BB guns and pellet guns growing up, and
• 39:17
  Speaker 3: that was what we lived for. And there's like a
• 39:20
  Speaker 3: you know, I see this in some of my buddies
• 39:22
  Speaker 3: little boys. There's like a bloodthirst there that I don't
• 39:26
  Speaker 3: see in the girls. You know, like they don't they
• 39:29
  Speaker 3: have animals. They're like, no way, not shooting that, not
• 39:32
  Speaker 3: doing that, And they don't they don't have this desire
• 39:35
  Speaker 3: to just go out and kill whatever. And so I
• 39:40
  Speaker 3: always felt with them, like, man, one bad death and
• 39:45
  Speaker 3: we we this might end. Like it always felt sort
• 39:49
  Speaker 3: of like a house of cards. So I'm just curious
• 39:52
  Speaker 3: about that with the age thing, because as they get
• 39:54
  Speaker 3: more mature, you know, they understand what they're doing, you know,
• 39:58
  Speaker 3: like they start to learn, yeah, I'm taking a life
• 40:01
  Speaker 3: and it you know, like it's there's some weight to this.
• 40:04
  Speaker 3: But man, that initial stage where you take them out,
• 40:08
  Speaker 3: you're just like, I I know, if they stick with us,
• 40:11
  Speaker 3: they'll have an ugly one. They'll they'll spine one or
• 40:14
  Speaker 3: you know, something's gonna happen. But I hope it's not now,
• 40:19
  Speaker 3: Like I hope it's down the road when they've done
• 40:22
  Speaker 3: this and they've been a part of the you know,
• 40:24
  Speaker 3: the scouting process and the work involved, and then they've
• 40:27
  Speaker 3: helped you butcher one and they love to eat it
• 40:29
  Speaker 3: and they go okay, yeah, that that thing sucked. I
• 40:33
  Speaker 3: don't want to do that again, but the overall process
• 40:37
  Speaker 3: is worth it. Yeah.
• 40:39
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's uh, it's a doozy like all all that.
• 40:44
  Speaker 2: There's there's so many of those things that I'm I'm
• 40:47
  Speaker 2: finding these these uh tricky lines you have to walk between,
• 40:51
  Speaker 2: like you know, like you said, like trying to minimize
• 40:54
  Speaker 2: the risk of something bad happening while also still letting
• 40:57
  Speaker 2: them have fun, or like how do you encourage the
• 41:00
  Speaker 2: fun while also introducing and helping them understand the importance
• 41:04
  Speaker 2: of it, or you know, like with my boys and
• 41:07
  Speaker 2: Everet especially, he's you know, he's developing a love for
• 41:12
  Speaker 2: animals while also he has this love for hunting, and
• 41:16
  Speaker 2: you know, he's learning about you know, school stuff and
• 41:21
  Speaker 2: the like wildlife videos and shows and stuff we're learning.
• 41:24
  Speaker 2: He's starting to hear about how hunters nearly sent this
• 41:27
  Speaker 2: animal to extinction and how this animal is struggling in
• 41:31
  Speaker 2: the rainforest or something, and so I'm trying to help
• 41:34
  Speaker 2: him already. It's crazy at five, you know, he's being
• 41:37
  Speaker 2: introduced to this like serious stuff and I'm trying to
• 41:39
  Speaker 2: understand how do you how do you make this make
• 41:42
  Speaker 2: sense to a five year old in a way that
• 41:45
  Speaker 2: he can enjoy hunting and love the outdoors and understand
• 41:50
  Speaker 2: like it's okay to do it, but also know that
• 41:53
  Speaker 2: this comes with like an obligation to also take care
• 41:55
  Speaker 2: of nature. And so I'm trying to think of like
• 41:59
  Speaker 2: how do you do that and the kit appropriate way
• 42:01
  Speaker 2: that doesn't like make it not fun and doesn't become overwhelming,
• 42:06
  Speaker 2: but like in some kind of five year old brain
• 42:09
  Speaker 2: way makes sense. I don't know, those are those are
• 42:14
  Speaker 2: the things that I'm dude.
• 42:15
  Speaker 3: If you figure that out with a five year old,
• 42:16
  Speaker 3: you let me know, because I know forty five year
• 42:18
  Speaker 3: olds who don't get it. Yeah, you know. I mean
• 42:22
  Speaker 3: it's that's a tough thing. But I think it's just
• 42:25
  Speaker 3: I think it's just get them in a position to
• 42:28
  Speaker 3: develop a love for the outdoors. I know it's like
• 42:31
  Speaker 3: so cliched, but you know, if you if if you're
• 42:35
  Speaker 3: waking up at five and you're running out the door
• 42:37
  Speaker 3: to go fishing, like you're getting there already, like you
• 42:42
  Speaker 3: you're gonna love it so much that you don't want
• 42:43
  Speaker 3: to see it go away. Yeah, And I just I
• 42:46
  Speaker 3: think that's important, you know. And I think it's just
• 42:48
  Speaker 3: exposure to a lot of different things in the outdoors.
• 42:52
  Speaker 3: You know, it's not just seeing a big buck. It's
• 42:53
  Speaker 3: like seeing all the animals that live in the big woods,
• 42:56
  Speaker 3: you know. Like it's I think that it's just a
• 43:00
  Speaker 3: it's so important to get them out there to experience
• 43:03
  Speaker 3: a lot of different stuff. And then I think that
• 43:06
  Speaker 3: will come eventually. Yeah, he's not going to get it
• 43:08
  Speaker 3: when he's in you know, kindergarten, but the like the
• 43:13
  Speaker 3: framework can start to be built already.
• 43:15
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and it's just it's yeah, I think that's a
• 43:19
  Speaker 2: great point. You're building a foundation now. And the foundation
• 43:23
  Speaker 2: doesn't need to be over complicated, but it's you build
• 43:26
  Speaker 2: it a little bit by little bit. But the key
• 43:29
  Speaker 2: thing that has to be there from the get go
• 43:32
  Speaker 2: is the fun, the love, the enjoyment, and then you
• 43:36
  Speaker 2: give I think if you just kind of every once
• 43:38
  Speaker 2: in a while you add a little something more, you
• 43:40
  Speaker 2: satiate a little bit curiosity, you answer a question, you
• 43:43
  Speaker 2: show you know, bring them up to be a part
• 43:46
  Speaker 2: of like what you're doing. Like so perfect example this,
• 43:48
  Speaker 2: uh was walleye fishing the other day with the dad
• 43:52
  Speaker 2: of one of my son's friends at school. And so
• 43:56
  Speaker 2: we went fishing in the morning and then we went
• 43:58
  Speaker 2: to go pick up the kids from cool and uh,
• 44:02
  Speaker 2: we had not cleaned the fish yet, So we were
• 44:05
  Speaker 2: gonna filay the fish on the tailgate of the truck
• 44:07
  Speaker 2: at school and then save a couple so when the
• 44:10
  Speaker 2: kids came out we could show them. And so picked
• 44:14
  Speaker 2: up the kids after school, came out to the trucks,
• 44:18
  Speaker 2: and then the two of them were just so so
• 44:21
  Speaker 2: excited to get to seize a couple of fish in
• 44:24
  Speaker 2: the cool or pick them up, look at them together,
• 44:26
  Speaker 2: and then watch us, you know, fillaying them and showing
• 44:29
  Speaker 2: them what we were doing. They got to touch everything
• 44:31
  Speaker 2: and look at everything and spin it around and play
• 44:34
  Speaker 2: with in a kid way. But then, you know, I mean,
• 44:36
  Speaker 2: anytime you can get them involved in like the whole process,
• 44:40
  Speaker 2: I think that builds like an appreciation itself, even without
• 44:42
  Speaker 2: talking about it. Just like, not only did we have
• 44:45
  Speaker 2: fun hunting or hunt have fun fishing, but we also
• 44:48
  Speaker 2: had fun in the process of turning this into a
• 44:50
  Speaker 2: thing that we are appreciating and using. And so they
• 44:53
  Speaker 2: got to see the fish getting cut up and then
• 44:56
  Speaker 2: tonight they're gonna help me fry it up and we're
• 44:58
  Speaker 2: gonna eat it tonight together. And that helps, you know,
• 45:01
  Speaker 2: without even saying a thing, I think you're teaching that
• 45:05
  Speaker 2: some of those lessons and maybe that's the best thing,
• 45:08
  Speaker 2: that's the easiest way maybe to treat to help teach
• 45:11
  Speaker 2: those kinds of things is just show it with your
• 45:13
  Speaker 2: actions and have them in a part of it.
• 45:16
  Speaker 3: I totally agree. I mean, I think the more parts
• 45:19
  Speaker 3: of this that you can involve them in, the better,
• 45:22
  Speaker 3: you know, Like, and I think that's a mistake that
• 45:26
  Speaker 3: in the hunting industry we've made, partially due to the
• 45:30
  Speaker 3: constraints of the kind of content we make. But you
• 45:33
  Speaker 3: see so often like oh, you know, we're taking my
• 45:37
  Speaker 3: buddy's kid out on his first hunt, and you know,
• 45:39
  Speaker 3: it's like you go sit in a box bind over
• 45:42
  Speaker 3: a food plot and seventeen deer walk out and one
• 45:45
  Speaker 3: of them get shot, and there there's like it feels
• 45:49
  Speaker 3: very surface level, you know. And it may be it
• 45:52
  Speaker 3: may not be you're only getting the twenty two minutes
• 45:55
  Speaker 3: to show or whatever, but we've kind of like presented
• 45:57
  Speaker 3: that image that you just bring them into this, you know,
• 46:00
  Speaker 3: kind of babysat situation they killed or done. And when
• 46:04
  Speaker 3: you're doing it yourself with kids, your kids or you know, whatever,
• 46:08
  Speaker 3: if you're bringing newbies out or whatever, you're just like, Okay,
• 46:11
  Speaker 3: there are so many opportunities like you're talking about with
• 46:15
  Speaker 3: those walleyes and the little boys that are not that's
• 46:18
  Speaker 3: not like a part of a fishing trip. Really, like
• 46:20
  Speaker 3: that's not something we focus on. You don't think about it,
• 46:23
  Speaker 3: but it's important. It's so important for developing like a
• 46:27
  Speaker 3: greater just curiosity and love of the game, you know.
• 46:30
  Speaker 3: I mean, I my my other the one, my one daughter.
• 46:35
  Speaker 3: Two nights ago, I was turkey hunting with her. She
• 46:38
  Speaker 3: still had a tag left, and we called in three
• 46:40
  Speaker 3: jakes and she killed her bird. And when we when
• 46:43
  Speaker 3: we got back to clean it, she's like, Dad, I
• 46:46
  Speaker 3: want to I want to see you know this, this,
• 46:49
  Speaker 3: this and this. You know, She's like, can you take
• 46:51
  Speaker 3: his heart out? Can you show me his lungs? I'm like,
• 46:53
  Speaker 3: let's chill here a dexter, like you'll, we'll get there.
• 46:56
  Speaker 3: But then she's like, I want to know what he
• 46:59
  Speaker 3: was eating. And so we cut his crop open and
• 47:02
  Speaker 3: it was grass and I think they were I think
• 47:04
  Speaker 3: there were foxtail seeds. I'm not sure, but these little
• 47:07
  Speaker 3: seeds in there, and she was like, can I touch that,
• 47:11
  Speaker 3: and I was like, you go nuts, like I don't,
• 47:14
  Speaker 3: I don't really care what you touch her. And she's like,
• 47:15
  Speaker 3: I can't believe I'm holding turkey food that a turkey
• 47:20
  Speaker 3: found and ate and then it was in him, like
• 47:23
  Speaker 3: you know, And I'm like, I just want to get
• 47:25
  Speaker 3: this thing cut up because this is the fourth turkey
• 47:27
  Speaker 3: I've cleaned in like five days. I'm like, I'm over this.
• 47:30
  Speaker 3: But those parts, like you, you don't know what they're
• 47:36
  Speaker 3: going to think about that as you move on, you know,
• 47:39
  Speaker 3: like some somehow that's going to be a little core memory.
• 47:41
  Speaker 3: When I'm turkey hunting with her next year, She's going
• 47:43
  Speaker 3: to be like, I wonder what those turkeys are eating,
• 47:46
  Speaker 3: you know, Like your little boy is going to be like,
• 47:48
  Speaker 3: I can't wait to catch my own walleyes so we
• 47:51
  Speaker 3: can cook them up for the family or whatever like that.
• 47:53
  Speaker 3: I think that stuff just matters so much.
• 47:55
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so so so much. So your story with your
• 47:59
  Speaker 2: daughter just reminded me of another big moment in our family.
• 48:04
  Speaker 2: I don't know, a couple of months ago, so I
• 48:06
  Speaker 2: mentioned the BB gun and I've got I've got some
• 48:08
  Speaker 2: questions for you about this too. But so Everett got
• 48:12
  Speaker 2: a bb gun for his birthday. Great opportunity to a
• 48:15
  Speaker 2: whole lot of you know, firearms safety discussions and lots
• 48:19
  Speaker 2: of practice and a lot he's obsessed with it, loves
• 48:21
  Speaker 2: it doing all that stuff. It's been a really fun
• 48:23
  Speaker 2: thing for us. But eventually it was like, okay, you know,
• 48:26
  Speaker 2: you can, you know, I'm goin to let him do
• 48:30
  Speaker 2: some of that stuff that you talked about doing as
• 48:32
  Speaker 2: these little boys they want to go out and be
• 48:34
  Speaker 2: a hunter finally for the for the first time. And
• 48:38
  Speaker 2: so he got his first bird. H a few weeks
• 48:42
  Speaker 2: ago or a monthly or something, got a little bird.
• 48:45
  Speaker 2: And I actually wasn't even around for My wife was
• 48:48
  Speaker 2: out with him and I was recording a podcast, and
• 48:50
  Speaker 2: I came back out and my wife's eyes are just big,
• 48:53
  Speaker 2: and she's like, he actually got one. And I was like,
• 48:58
  Speaker 2: oh man, we weren't really expecting him to this effective
• 49:00
  Speaker 2: so quickly, and so, you know, right away and saying, okay,
• 49:06
  Speaker 2: you know, how do we handle this, What do I
• 49:08
  Speaker 2: want to teach him? What do we get out of
• 49:09
  Speaker 2: this moment? And so he just wanted to see everything,
• 49:14
  Speaker 2: kind of like your daughter did. And and so we
• 49:17
  Speaker 2: broke the end. We broke it down. We opened up
• 49:20
  Speaker 2: this bird, we breasted it out. We looked at the
• 49:23
  Speaker 2: pieces and parts and talked about it, and he wanted
• 49:25
  Speaker 2: to save the feathers and save the wings and all
• 49:27
  Speaker 2: these different stuff. But then we were left with the
• 49:28
  Speaker 2: little carcass. And then we decided. You know what, he
• 49:32
  Speaker 2: asked me, He's like, well, I wonder, you know, what
• 49:33
  Speaker 2: are we gonna do this? What's gonna happen to this?
• 49:35
  Speaker 2: And I said, well, you know, something's probably gonna eat it,
• 49:37
  Speaker 2: you know, with the leftovers. And then I thought, you
• 49:40
  Speaker 2: know what, why don't we learn Why don't we find
• 49:42
  Speaker 2: out what's going to eat this? So we went and
• 49:43
  Speaker 2: set up a trail camera, put the carcass in front
• 49:46
  Speaker 2: of the trail camera, and let it run overnight and
• 49:50
  Speaker 2: turn on video mode, and we got this really cool
• 49:53
  Speaker 2: little lesson that tied the whole hunt together. When we
• 49:59
  Speaker 2: got to the next next day, watch video of a
• 50:02
  Speaker 2: possum come out, come up and check it out, and
• 50:05
  Speaker 2: then a raccoon come up and start eating it, and
• 50:07
  Speaker 2: then a second raccoon come and nibble on it. And
• 50:10
  Speaker 2: so we got to kind of see this whole circle
• 50:13
  Speaker 2: of life kind of thing. And I had this opportunity
• 50:16
  Speaker 2: to teach this tiny little you know, ecology lesson I
• 50:20
  Speaker 2: guess about how well and something does die in nature,
• 50:22
  Speaker 2: other animals will come and feed on it, and so
• 50:24
  Speaker 2: it kind of just kind of goes around. Everything's got
• 50:27
  Speaker 2: to eat. And it made what was what could have
• 50:30
  Speaker 2: been just like a kid shooting something, turn into an
• 50:33
  Speaker 2: opportunity to learn about you know, well, if you shoot something,
• 50:36
  Speaker 2: we're gonna break it down, we're gonna try to eat it,
• 50:37
  Speaker 2: or we're gonna try to use it. And also this
• 50:40
  Speaker 2: is what happens afterwards, and this is how other animals
• 50:43
  Speaker 2: will benefit from it. And they thought, my kids thought
• 50:46
  Speaker 2: it was the coolest thing in the world. They were
• 50:48
  Speaker 2: so obsessed with watching that video and they want to
• 50:50
  Speaker 2: show everyone the video and they want to tell everyone
• 50:52
  Speaker 2: the story. And it wasn't a story just about how
• 50:53
  Speaker 2: eever it shot its first bird, but now is the
• 50:55
  Speaker 2: story about how we got to see it, we got
• 50:57
  Speaker 2: to touch it, we got to see a raccoon eat it,
• 51:00
  Speaker 2: and all that kind of stuff. So it was it
• 51:03
  Speaker 2: was it was a fun, interesting example of maybe how
• 51:06
  Speaker 2: how to do that kind of stuff?
• 51:08
  Speaker 3: That is it that is cool.
• 51:10
  Speaker 2: So that leads me to my question about shooting. I
• 51:14
  Speaker 2: was curious what you have learned as you have been
• 51:16
  Speaker 2: trying to teach your girls to to shoot, whether it
• 51:20
  Speaker 2: be a firearm or archery. I've been, you know, just
• 51:25
  Speaker 2: starting with the BB gun with Everett, and both of
• 51:28
  Speaker 2: the boys have been you know, learning to shoot little bows.
• 51:31
  Speaker 2: So that's been a process. What what's worked for you
• 51:36
  Speaker 2: guys as you've gone through that process? And when did
• 51:38
  Speaker 2: you start?
• 51:38
  Speaker 3: Should I tell you what didn't work?
• 51:40
  Speaker 2: Sure?
• 51:42
  Speaker 3: Man? So when it hasn't been that long in Minnesota
• 51:46
  Speaker 3: where we've had no minimum age for turkeys, I don't
• 51:49
  Speaker 3: remember when they changed it, but it wasn't it wasn't
• 51:51
  Speaker 3: super long ago. But when they did, you know, I
• 51:55
  Speaker 3: was like, oh, thank god, I can take my girls hunting.
• 51:58
  Speaker 3: So I impulsively went out and bought a little Youth
• 52:03
  Speaker 3: Model twenty gauge, and I thought this will be perfect,
• 52:08
  Speaker 3: you know, like they will start on the I mean,
• 52:10
  Speaker 3: we started with a BB gun and then we shot
• 52:12
  Speaker 3: at twenty two and I was like, but this will
• 52:13
  Speaker 3: be their first like turkey gun. And I took the
• 52:17
  Speaker 3: girls out, and you know, I bought one of those
• 52:20
  Speaker 3: bog pods that the Death Grip deals that you can
• 52:23
  Speaker 3: lock a gun in there, you know, and that kicks
• 52:25
  Speaker 3: that that that holds down the recoil a little bit
• 52:28
  Speaker 3: because it's pretty heavy. And anyway, my my one daughter,
• 52:33
  Speaker 3: my lunatic daughter, she squares up to it to shoot,
• 52:37
  Speaker 3: and I had a you know, it was like a
• 52:38
  Speaker 3: little trapload in there, like seven and a half two
• 52:40
  Speaker 3: and three quarter or whatever, and so I'm like, this
• 52:42
  Speaker 3: will be no big deal. And I'm watching her take
• 52:45
  Speaker 3: her first shot. And she picked her head up then
• 52:51
  Speaker 3: pulled the trigger, so now there was like two inches
• 52:55
  Speaker 3: of space between her face and this gun. And this
• 52:58
  Speaker 3: gun kicks a lot because it's so small, and she
• 53:03
  Speaker 3: got a bloody lip, fat lip, and I just like
• 53:07
  Speaker 3: it was like a car wreck in slow motion. I'm like, oh,
• 53:11
  Speaker 3: you have you have screwed up so bad, and I
• 53:15
  Speaker 3: knew it. And she was like, well, I'm not shooting
• 53:18
  Speaker 3: that gun anymore. And I was. My other daughter was
• 53:22
  Speaker 3: okay with it, but she didn't like it. And I'm like,
• 53:25
  Speaker 3: this was so dumb, so dumb, and I had to
• 53:30
  Speaker 3: I just happened to have a little four ten twenty
• 53:35
  Speaker 3: two little savage that I bought when I was in
• 53:37
  Speaker 3: high school to hunt, you know, squirrels and rabbits and whatever.
• 53:41
  Speaker 3: And I was like, well, honey, I have a smaller
• 53:44
  Speaker 3: gun we could try. And I had to. I had
• 53:47
  Speaker 3: to back up the process and start with a BB
• 53:49
  Speaker 3: gun again because she was like understandably flinching like crazy,
• 53:54
  Speaker 3: and I'm like, I can't take her hunting because she's
• 53:56
  Speaker 3: gonna it's it's going to be a train wreck. And
• 53:59
  Speaker 3: so I had to go all the way through the
• 54:01
  Speaker 3: process of shooting at twenty two again and then finally
• 54:05
  Speaker 3: shooting that four ten. But it took until this year
• 54:09
  Speaker 3: when they're eleven to get her to shoot a different gun.
• 54:11
  Speaker 3: She's like, I like that four ten because it doesn't
• 54:13
  Speaker 3: I always want to shoot that. But that's like a
• 54:16
  Speaker 3: base level turkey gun, you know, like if you can
• 54:19
  Speaker 3: find the turkey loads for it. And I'm like, we
• 54:22
  Speaker 3: need to, you know, we need to like jump up
• 54:24
  Speaker 3: a level here at some point. But it was it
• 54:27
  Speaker 3: was a dumb thing on my part, and it was like,
• 54:31
  Speaker 3: you know, we've been dealing it with it for three years,
• 54:35
  Speaker 3: just that one mistake, you know, and I feel like
• 54:38
  Speaker 3: we're kind of over it. But it was just you
• 54:41
  Speaker 3: gotta be so careful with that stuff, like you can't.
• 54:44
  Speaker 3: I think when you're talking about introducing kids to guns,
• 54:48
  Speaker 3: you can't take it too slow. There is no such
• 54:50
  Speaker 3: thing as too slow, but there is too fast.
• 54:53
  Speaker 2: Yeah. You have they shot any kind of small rifle
• 54:58
  Speaker 2: or anything, Yeah, like a twenty two or anything.
• 55:01
  Speaker 3: Well, they've shot twenty twos a lot. And that was
• 55:04
  Speaker 3: kind of our bridge, right, because that's it. That's a
• 55:06
  Speaker 3: gun with no kick, but it has a loud enough bang. Yeah,
• 55:10
  Speaker 3: where you know, and obviously they're using hearing protection and stuff.
• 55:13
  Speaker 3: But it's weird. You know, we kind of take it
• 55:16
  Speaker 3: for granted. We're like we throw on hearing protection and
• 55:18
  Speaker 3: shoot a muzzle or shud rifle whatever. They're just loud,
• 55:21
  Speaker 3: but you're using protection. But they they just view it differently.
• 55:26
  Speaker 3: Like they'll ask me, you know, if we if we
• 55:28
  Speaker 3: go to shoot a new gun, they'll be like, how
• 55:30
  Speaker 3: loud is it? I'm like, it's as loud as every
• 55:31
  Speaker 3: other gun. Like they're all out, they're breaking the sound barrier.
• 55:35
  Speaker 2: I don't know, but it's it's a post do you
• 55:38
  Speaker 2: do that annoying thing where like you say, like it's
• 55:41
  Speaker 2: breaking the sound barrier? And speaking of which, did you
• 55:43
  Speaker 2: know the latest rocket can reach the next planet and
• 55:45
  Speaker 2: this speed and based on the propulsion power of this rocket.
• 55:48
  Speaker 2: Did you know that, Elon, Is that the kind of
• 55:50
  Speaker 2: dad you are? Uh? Probably so okay, So now.
• 55:57
  Speaker 3: We use such an angry, condescending voice to describe it.
• 56:00
  Speaker 3: But yeah, maybe.
• 56:01
  Speaker 2: I'm like that, so sorry, continue, But anyway.
• 56:06
  Speaker 3: You gotta be careful with it. And you know, that's
• 56:09
  Speaker 3: one of the things that I don't know if we've
• 56:11
  Speaker 3: really talked about this or not, but they have. I
• 56:14
  Speaker 3: bought them a youth vertical bow. They're they're kind of
• 56:17
  Speaker 3: getting used to that a little bit, but they've been
• 56:18
  Speaker 3: hunting with a crossbow for deer, and you know, I'm
• 56:23
  Speaker 3: I'm not interested in crossbows. They're not fun for me.
• 56:27
  Speaker 3: You're just not my thing. But for kids, you know,
• 56:31
  Speaker 3: they're not loud, they don't kick, they're insanely accurate, so
• 56:37
  Speaker 3: that makes them fun to shoot it. And that was
• 56:39
  Speaker 3: kind of another bridge for me, was they're like, I
• 56:42
  Speaker 3: love shooting this. You know, you don't. You don't have
• 56:46
  Speaker 3: to worry about the bang, you don't have to worry
• 56:48
  Speaker 3: about the recoil. And so that was kind of another
• 56:51
  Speaker 3: thing I did not see coming, you know, partially because
• 56:53
  Speaker 3: I had almost no experience with them when I bought
• 56:56
  Speaker 3: one for them, you know, but you just you find
• 56:58
  Speaker 3: different ways to just like make this process happen. But
• 57:01
  Speaker 3: it's a slow one. I mean it can be and
• 57:04
  Speaker 3: probably should be. You know.
• 57:05
  Speaker 2: Yeah, what age did you get him start with a crossbow?
• 57:08
  Speaker 2: Crossbows kind of freaked me out for some reason, Like
• 57:11
  Speaker 2: there's just a lot of power packed into that pullback string,
• 57:15
  Speaker 2: and even when I've shot them in the past, like
• 57:17
  Speaker 2: I'm just like, keep those fingers down, keep those fingers down. Yeah, yeah,
• 57:21
  Speaker 2: when did you When did that start with them? And
• 57:23
  Speaker 2: what was that like early on?
• 57:25
  Speaker 3: I started with him when so I bought them this
• 57:28
  Speaker 3: youth cross bow when they were like eight, and you know,
• 57:31
  Speaker 3: they would come out and target shoot with me some
• 57:34
  Speaker 3: you know. And I'm the same way, man, I when
• 57:39
  Speaker 3: I shoot a crossbow or I handle a cross bow,
• 57:41
  Speaker 3: I feel like I'm trying to ride a unicycle. Yeah,
• 57:43
  Speaker 3: it is an awkward thing that I just I'm not
• 57:47
  Speaker 3: comfortable with kind of like you know, when we were
• 57:49
  Speaker 3: out in Montana last month and the uh doing that
• 57:53
  Speaker 3: long range rifle shoot we did, Yeah, I was so uncomfortable,
• 57:59
  Speaker 3: you know, like that was so unnatural for men, you know,
• 58:02
  Speaker 3: I don't shoot rifles that way. That that whole thing.
• 58:04
  Speaker 3: It was cool. But that kind of stuff's a good
• 58:07
  Speaker 3: reminder to us because you know, we're so comfortable picking
• 58:11
  Speaker 3: up a bow or you know, like I'm so comfortable
• 58:13
  Speaker 3: handing only a shotgun in my life, and so you
• 58:16
  Speaker 3: take it for granted. But with a kid, all that
• 58:18
  Speaker 3: stuff's new, and so you kind of just gotta like,
• 58:20
  Speaker 3: you gotta slowly get them into there. But the crossbow
• 58:23
  Speaker 3: thing was an easy transition, and it was it was
• 58:27
  Speaker 3: fun because those things are so stupid accurate. If they're
• 58:32
  Speaker 3: shooting at a deer target at like twenty yards, they
• 58:35
  Speaker 3: don't hardly ever screw up. Yeah, you know what I mean,
• 58:40
  Speaker 3: it's like it's a different thing. I mean when people
• 58:42
  Speaker 3: are like, oh, they're the same thing as a vertical bow,
• 58:44
  Speaker 3: I'm like, uh uh, You're like they're just not. Like,
• 58:49
  Speaker 3: let's not pretend they are. But I'm happy that we
• 58:55
  Speaker 3: got to go through that there. Like if you would
• 58:57
  Speaker 3: have asked me ten years ago if I want crossbows
• 58:59
  Speaker 3: in Wisconsin, have said absolutely not. But then when I've
• 59:03
  Speaker 3: got little girls and they want to shoot something and
• 59:05
  Speaker 3: I could deer hunt with them, I'm like, I think
• 59:07
  Speaker 3: I'll change my stance on this a little bit, you know.
• 59:09
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I can see that.
• 59:13
  Speaker 3: Hold on, They're they're legal in Michigan too, right, Yeah.
• 59:16
  Speaker 3: How do you feel about it? Like, how do you
• 59:18
  Speaker 3: feel about it with the boys? Uh?
• 59:22
  Speaker 2: I don't know. I guess I haven't thought terribly hard
• 59:27
  Speaker 2: about it, but I think I guess I don't know.
• 59:33
  Speaker 3: You're not you're kind of agnostic on it. You're like,
• 59:35
  Speaker 3: I might take him with it. I might not.
• 59:36
  Speaker 2: Yes, I would, I would say I'm agnostic. I know
• 59:39
  Speaker 2: that Everett has an interest in shooting a vertical bow.
• 59:42
  Speaker 2: He's already shooting, you know, a little wheelbow. Probably this
• 59:46
  Speaker 2: year gonna get him one of those tiny compounds. They
• 59:49
  Speaker 2: are super adjustable, and I think he's pretty jacked about that,
• 59:53
  Speaker 2: and we'll want to go that route. But at the
• 59:56
  Speaker 2: same time, if I told him he could go out
• 59:58
  Speaker 2: there and use a crossbow sooner, you know, he would
• 1:00:01
  Speaker 2: probably like, yeah, whatever, I'll use whatever I can do
• 1:00:03
  Speaker 2: to be out there and hunt. So in that case,
• 1:00:08
  Speaker 2: I mean, to your point, they're super I don't have
• 1:00:10
  Speaker 2: any fundamental issue with crossbows personally. It's not my jam,
• 1:00:14
  Speaker 2: it's not what I want to use. And there's been
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 2: from everything. I've seen a lot of studies out there
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 2: that have shown that it's not changing the actual harvest.
• 1:00:23
  Speaker 2: Even it might be changing the percentage it's killed in
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 2: archery versus gun season, but it's you know, it's not
• 1:00:30
  Speaker 2: decimating deer herds anywhere, it's not ruining age structure anywhere,
• 1:00:33
  Speaker 2: it's not actually messing up the resource. So if it's
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 2: if it's helping people have a good time out there
• 1:00:38
  Speaker 2: and keeping people hunting longer or getting them started sooner,
• 1:00:42
  Speaker 2: I guess I don't see a whole lot of reasons
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 2: to hate on it, other than like it might not
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 2: be the experience we want personally or for some people.
• 1:00:50
  Speaker 2: So in that case, like if my kids were like, man,
• 1:00:52
  Speaker 2: I really want to get after it, and they're not
• 1:00:53
  Speaker 2: quite ready with a vertical bow, but I think they
• 1:00:55
  Speaker 2: could do it with the crossbow, I guess that would
• 1:00:57
  Speaker 2: probably be on board with it, as long as it
• 1:01:02
  Speaker 2: doesn't keep them from you know, pursuing the practice and
• 1:01:07
  Speaker 2: the you know work necessary to become proficient with a
• 1:01:10
  Speaker 2: vertical bow, because I know that's such a great experience,
• 1:01:14
  Speaker 2: that's such a great thing to to work on to
• 1:01:17
  Speaker 2: get good at. That is so much fun, and the
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 2: the work necessary to get good with it, I think
• 1:01:23
  Speaker 2: is a big part of why it's so good, you
• 1:01:25
  Speaker 2: know what I mean? Sure, Like I think a downside
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 2: to crossbows is that they're so easy that it does
• 1:01:32
  Speaker 2: not require the dedication. So I think, you know, there's
• 1:01:36
  Speaker 2: an argument to be made, like vertical bow hunters have
• 1:01:41
  Speaker 2: to dedicate themselves to their pursuit so much more than
• 1:01:45
  Speaker 2: a crossbow hunter, because it's just just to become proficient
• 1:01:49
  Speaker 2: at it, and to stay proficient requires an attention to
• 1:01:51
  Speaker 2: detail and a certain amount of work in practice. That like,
• 1:01:55
  Speaker 2: there's value in that. I think. I don't know how
• 1:01:57
  Speaker 2: much value. I don't know, you know, I'm not going
• 1:01:59
  Speaker 2: to say that they're better than the other. It's just
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 2: a different thing that I find valuable, and so I
• 1:02:03
  Speaker 2: would I would want that for my kids eventually. But
• 1:02:07
  Speaker 2: I don't think there's anything wrong you know, doing a
• 1:02:09
  Speaker 2: little bit of both to get.
• 1:02:10
  Speaker 3: Started, I suppose, Yeah, you know, I'm I feel like
• 1:02:14
  Speaker 3: you Obviously, I'm in a little different place because my
• 1:02:18
  Speaker 3: girls have actually hunted with a crossbow. But my one
• 1:02:20
  Speaker 3: daughter is really geeked up to hunt with a vertical bow.
• 1:02:23
  Speaker 3: The other one's kind of so so on it. And
• 1:02:27
  Speaker 3: you know, I have mixed feelings about that, because I
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 3: want them to hunt the way I hunt, you know,
• 1:02:32
  Speaker 3: like I want I want them to appreciate the process
• 1:02:35
  Speaker 3: you're talking about, a learning how to become proficient with
• 1:02:37
  Speaker 3: a vertical bow. But I also loved I mean, I
• 1:02:41
  Speaker 3: really love the fact that, you know, I was like,
• 1:02:44
  Speaker 3: if I can get a deer within twenty yards, they're
• 1:02:46
  Speaker 3: probably going to make a good shot, yeah, you know,
• 1:02:49
  Speaker 3: and that because again, and it might be it's different
• 1:02:53
  Speaker 3: with different kids, but I was like, it's so easy
• 1:02:57
  Speaker 3: to make a big mistake with a vertical bowt you know,
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 3: and if you're if you're in a ground blind at
• 1:03:02
  Speaker 3: twenty yards on you know, pressure deer and they got
• 1:03:06
  Speaker 3: to draw. I'm like, there's a good chance of a
• 1:03:09
  Speaker 3: deer duck in the string a little bit or something.
• 1:03:11
  Speaker 3: And just and maybe I'm just justifying taking them out
• 1:03:14
  Speaker 3: with a crossbow early, but I feel like we're working
• 1:03:19
  Speaker 3: into that stage you're talking about with a vertical bow,
• 1:03:22
  Speaker 3: and so I don't necessarily feel like starting them on
• 1:03:25
  Speaker 3: a crossbow took them like change the arc of their
• 1:03:29
  Speaker 3: you know, their hunting career. But at the same time.
• 1:03:31
  Speaker 3: I'm not there yet, Like they're not hunting with a
• 1:03:34
  Speaker 3: vertical bow, and I don't I worry because they'll have
• 1:03:38
  Speaker 3: that crutch. Right if we go out and they miss
• 1:03:40
  Speaker 3: a deer or something bad happens with a vertical bow,
• 1:03:43
  Speaker 3: they'll know they can go back to that easier weapon.
• 1:03:47
  Speaker 3: And you know, maybe that really doesn't matter. Maybe this
• 1:03:50
  Speaker 3: is something like I'm bringing to the table, but it
• 1:03:53
  Speaker 3: it is something that I devote some of my mental
• 1:03:56
  Speaker 3: horsepower too, because I think about it a lot, and
• 1:03:58
  Speaker 3: I don't I just don't. No, I don't know where
• 1:04:01
  Speaker 3: that shakes out.
• 1:04:02
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I mean I think you make a lot
• 1:04:04
  Speaker 2: of good points there, and probably the most important thing
• 1:04:08
  Speaker 2: is to make get fun and get them out there
• 1:04:14
  Speaker 2: and ease them into this situation with as little risk
• 1:04:18
  Speaker 2: for a catastrophic instant as possible. And you know they'll
• 1:04:22
  Speaker 2: get there when they get there with this other stuff.
• 1:04:26
  Speaker 2: But I mean, if you were to compare, like, what's
• 1:04:28
  Speaker 2: the worst case scenario with each the worst case scenario
• 1:04:31
  Speaker 2: with the crossbow, let's say is like, well, they end
• 1:04:33
  Speaker 2: up looking at it as a crutch and they just
• 1:04:34
  Speaker 2: use that all the time and they don't develop a
• 1:04:36
  Speaker 2: love of shooting a vertical bowl like you do. Okay,
• 1:04:38
  Speaker 2: that's a bummer, but they're still hunting. They still like
• 1:04:42
  Speaker 2: to get out there. While like the worst case scenario
• 1:04:44
  Speaker 2: with a vertical ball might be man, they spined one.
• 1:04:47
  Speaker 2: It was a really devastating thing to see and experience,
• 1:04:50
  Speaker 2: and they never want to do it again. They're done hunting,
• 1:04:52
  Speaker 2: you know, So you make a I mean, that's hard
• 1:04:55
  Speaker 2: to argue against, right there.
• 1:04:58
  Speaker 3: Yeah, any you know, it's weird too because we the
• 1:05:01
  Speaker 3: way we feel about vertical bows and crossbows, we bring
• 1:05:05
  Speaker 3: like so much personal baggage with it. Yeah, but I wouldn't.
• 1:05:10
  Speaker 3: I wouldn't feel that way if my little girls are like, hey,
• 1:05:13
  Speaker 3: can we rifle hunt deer? Even though I'm almost as
• 1:05:17
  Speaker 3: unfamiliar with deer rifles as I am with crossbows, Like,
• 1:05:21
  Speaker 3: I mean, not quite. You know, I've filled a few
• 1:05:23
  Speaker 3: deer with a rifle, and I'm you know what, it's
• 1:05:25
  Speaker 3: a little different. But it wouldn't even I wouldn't feel
• 1:05:28
  Speaker 3: like that took away from the archery experience I want
• 1:05:32
  Speaker 3: them to have, right you know. It's just like sometimes
• 1:05:35
  Speaker 3: you just like bring a little bit too much bullshit
• 1:05:38
  Speaker 3: to the table, I think, and it maybe doesn't matter.
• 1:05:40
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I think you're probably right. We're just bringing our
• 1:05:43
  Speaker 2: own stuff.
• 1:05:43
  Speaker 3: So hey, can I make a prediction here? Yeah, I'm
• 1:05:47
  Speaker 3: going to go I'm going to say that Mark Kenyon's
• 1:05:50
  Speaker 3: sons will start with a cross bow because they'll be
• 1:05:54
  Speaker 3: able to hunt earlier with that than they will with
• 1:05:56
  Speaker 3: a vertical bow. So I'm I'm looking at my crystal
• 1:05:58
  Speaker 3: ball and I'm going to say that those Kenyan boys
• 1:06:00
  Speaker 3: are gonna kill their first year with the crossbow.
• 1:06:03
  Speaker 2: You probably aren't too far off. Uh yeah, I mean
• 1:06:07
  Speaker 2: Effort would be out there this year right at your
• 1:06:09
  Speaker 2: rock and roll if I told him he could be
• 1:06:11
  Speaker 2: using one of those crossbowts and he could do it.
• 1:06:13
  Speaker 2: He's uh, he's a fiend. I Uh. I told the story.
• 1:06:18
  Speaker 2: I think it was last week on the podcast, but
• 1:06:20
  Speaker 2: I'll just give you the ten second version. I was
• 1:06:22
  Speaker 2: gonna take him out the other day just to go
• 1:06:24
  Speaker 2: with me on a turkey hunt quote unquote, like just
• 1:06:27
  Speaker 2: to go call him in like we've done the past,
• 1:06:29
  Speaker 2: and he just started crying like devastate. I'm like, why
• 1:06:32
  Speaker 2: are you upset? He's like, I want us to kill
• 1:06:34
  Speaker 2: a real bird, Dad. We gotta get a real bird.
• 1:06:37
  Speaker 2: We gotta get him. It's like I don't have my license, yeat,
• 1:06:41
  Speaker 2: Like I wasn't playing and actually going for a week.
• 1:06:45
  Speaker 2: But he just wants to hunt, like really hunt, so
• 1:06:48
  Speaker 2: so so bad and if if he can't be shooting,
• 1:06:51
  Speaker 2: he wants me to be really really bad. So uh
• 1:06:55
  Speaker 2: so yeah, he's uh, he's ready to rock and roll.
• 1:07:10
  Speaker 2: Is there any big thing you've learned when it comes
• 1:07:12
  Speaker 2: to the deer hunting side of things with all this?
• 1:07:16
  Speaker 2: I mean, we've talked about balancing the fun, We've talked
• 1:07:19
  Speaker 2: about balancing the discomfort. We've talked about balancing the risk
• 1:07:23
  Speaker 2: of something bad happening. I think all that kind of
• 1:07:26
  Speaker 2: all comes to it's like greatest highest point with like
• 1:07:29
  Speaker 2: the big creature like a deer and all that. What
• 1:07:35
  Speaker 2: are some of the things you've learned about just handling
• 1:07:39
  Speaker 2: that full experience the right way? Anythings have gone wrong
• 1:07:43
  Speaker 2: or have gone really right as you've gone down that
• 1:07:45
  Speaker 2: path further and further, I would.
• 1:07:48
  Speaker 3: Say a couple of the things that I've learned is,
• 1:07:53
  Speaker 3: you know, the more that I can get them involved,
• 1:07:57
  Speaker 3: like we talked about, in any part of the process,
• 1:07:59
  Speaker 3: so I you know, we hunt on the ground lines,
• 1:08:03
  Speaker 3: we run trail cameras, and I want them to help
• 1:08:06
  Speaker 3: me set that stuff up. So I guess a different
• 1:08:09
  Speaker 3: way to look at this is we view this as parents.
• 1:08:13
  Speaker 3: We go, we're we're the guides, we're taking them out,
• 1:08:17
  Speaker 3: we control the situation. And that's largely true, but not
• 1:08:22
  Speaker 3: to the extent that it seems you end up kind
• 1:08:24
  Speaker 3: of realizing that you have to treat this like a partnership.
• 1:08:28
  Speaker 3: And so, yeah, I need them to go help me
• 1:08:32
  Speaker 3: set up so they appreciate what it's like to be
• 1:08:34
  Speaker 3: out there and get bit by a few deer flies
• 1:08:36
  Speaker 3: and you know, do a little work. But then I
• 1:08:39
  Speaker 3: also need to just back off and really listen to
• 1:08:43
  Speaker 3: them when you know, we're hunting, if they're super tired
• 1:08:46
  Speaker 3: and they don't want to get up like tomorrow, if
• 1:08:49
  Speaker 3: they're like it's been three days in a row, I
• 1:08:51
  Speaker 3: have to respect that because because I've pushed it too far,
• 1:08:55
  Speaker 3: or if we're out there and I can just I'm
• 1:08:58
  Speaker 3: getting the vibe that they're done for this sit you know,
• 1:09:01
  Speaker 3: if it's you know, eight thirty in the morning, and
• 1:09:04
  Speaker 3: you know, I'm like, man, we should stick this out
• 1:09:06
  Speaker 3: for a while. But if they're if the signals are
• 1:09:08
  Speaker 3: going up and they're done. I have to respect that
• 1:09:12
  Speaker 3: because it's not my hunt. And that's a hard thing, man,
• 1:09:16
  Speaker 3: because it's like there's sometimes they're just not feeling it
• 1:09:20
  Speaker 3: quite the same way, or something changes and they're they're done,
• 1:09:24
  Speaker 3: or you know, kind of like one of the things
• 1:09:29
  Speaker 3: that has happened that actually broke in my favor was,
• 1:09:33
  Speaker 3: you know, the girls are like, I'm not shooting a phone,
• 1:09:35
  Speaker 3: I'm not shooting a dough with a fon. I want,
• 1:09:39
  Speaker 3: you know, this kind of buck or this kind of
• 1:09:40
  Speaker 3: dough or whatever. And I'm like, great, let's do that.
• 1:09:43
  Speaker 3: But when deer get in front of them, they're like,
• 1:09:47
  Speaker 3: I want to shoot that deer. And so you just
• 1:09:50
  Speaker 3: like you just realize, You're like, I gotta let this
• 1:09:52
  Speaker 3: happen for them, Like I got to set it up.
• 1:09:56
  Speaker 3: I gotta help, you know, help put them into the position.
• 1:09:58
  Speaker 3: But I don't want to influence so much that they're
• 1:10:03
  Speaker 3: worried like, oh if I shoot this, like what's he
• 1:10:06
  Speaker 3: gonna think? Or that, Like I want to leave that
• 1:10:08
  Speaker 3: wide open for them. You know, if they don't want
• 1:10:11
  Speaker 3: to shoot it, great, If they want to, great, And
• 1:10:13
  Speaker 3: then you know the process of like okay, if you
• 1:10:16
  Speaker 3: take that shot. We have to work through every part
• 1:10:20
  Speaker 3: of this now and just they just how you have
• 1:10:24
  Speaker 3: to just do that. And it's it's hard because you
• 1:10:27
  Speaker 3: want to control so much of every aspect of it,
• 1:10:31
  Speaker 3: but it's not your hunt, you know, like it's literally
• 1:10:35
  Speaker 3: not your hunt, and you that's a hard thing to
• 1:10:38
  Speaker 3: just kind of reconcile.
• 1:10:39
  Speaker 2: But it's true, man, and it's it's it's so true,
• 1:10:45
  Speaker 2: and it can be painful sometimes when it goes back
• 1:10:48
  Speaker 2: to what we talked about earlier, with like how bad
• 1:10:49
  Speaker 2: we want it versus how bad they want it to happen.
• 1:10:51
  Speaker 2: You know, I had like two different great examples of
• 1:10:55
  Speaker 2: this last year. Last year I got to take Everet
• 1:10:58
  Speaker 2: hunting with me a lot. It was like the best
• 1:11:00
  Speaker 2: thing I did last season was you know, prioritizing hunting
• 1:11:03
  Speaker 2: time with him, and so, I mean, you know, in
• 1:11:06
  Speaker 2: past years, I would have been so obsessed with like
• 1:11:08
  Speaker 2: I need to maximize every single moment I have to
• 1:11:10
  Speaker 2: kill a big deer, blah blah blah. And last year
• 1:11:14
  Speaker 2: I was like, no, we're gonna have fun. And so
• 1:11:16
  Speaker 2: I think like seven or eight hunts, you know, during
• 1:11:18
  Speaker 2: pretty good times of the year, I was hunting with
• 1:11:20
  Speaker 2: Everett and a couple times that like that cost us
• 1:11:26
  Speaker 2: because I was hunting his hunt and like listening to
• 1:11:29
  Speaker 2: his signals. But I mean, like like one perfect examples,
• 1:11:33
  Speaker 2: we went like, we're gonna get a deal. He was
• 1:11:34
  Speaker 2: so excited, he said, I want us to get a
• 1:11:36
  Speaker 2: dough together. We're gonna do It's gonna be a great time.
• 1:11:38
  Speaker 2: So we went out. I had all the stuff, you know,
• 1:11:40
  Speaker 2: we had. You know, I kind of figured out the
• 1:11:43
  Speaker 2: things he needs to make it through a sit He's
• 1:11:44
  Speaker 2: pretty good. What we can get like a several hour
• 1:11:47
  Speaker 2: sit in with him. He was four at the time
• 1:11:50
  Speaker 2: this past season. But you know, he needs some reading material,
• 1:11:54
  Speaker 2: he needs a lot of snacks, he needs uh, you know,
• 1:11:58
  Speaker 2: his binocular so he can look at stuff. He's a
• 1:12:00
  Speaker 2: few things along the way to get him through it.
• 1:12:03
  Speaker 2: But we got to the end of the night. It's
• 1:12:05
  Speaker 2: like the last fifteen minutes and like I'm seeing deer
• 1:12:08
  Speaker 2: moving coming our way, and he's also like, Dad, gotta
• 1:12:12
  Speaker 2: go to the bathroom. I'm like, all right, well, there's
• 1:12:14
  Speaker 2: only fifteen minutes left. He's like, Okay, you're right, I
• 1:12:16
  Speaker 2: can just hold him. Ten minutes later, the dose are
• 1:12:19
  Speaker 2: getting closer and closer, I'm like, all right, man, get ready,
• 1:12:21
  Speaker 2: and he's like I really think I got a poop, Dad,
• 1:12:24
  Speaker 2: And I'm like, well, can't you hold It's only like
• 1:12:27
  Speaker 2: eight more minutes and this deer coming, We're about to
• 1:12:28
  Speaker 2: get him. He's like okay, yes, sure, And like a
• 1:12:31
  Speaker 2: minute later, they're like approaching range, say Dad, yeah, get
• 1:12:34
  Speaker 2: a poop. We gotta go, Like, well, dang it, they're
• 1:12:38
  Speaker 2: right here, like can't you just we could get a deer?
• 1:12:40
  Speaker 2: And I want it so bad and I want to
• 1:12:42
  Speaker 2: fight him on this because I know he can hold it.
• 1:12:44
  Speaker 2: He's he's a big kid. But you get to see
• 1:12:47
  Speaker 2: he's like he's like, nah, I'm ready to go now.
• 1:12:49
  Speaker 2: I'm ready to go back home. And like, okay, all right,
• 1:12:51
  Speaker 2: I'm not gonna fight it, not gonna We just gotta go.
• 1:12:56
  Speaker 2: Or another time I took him up to our cabin
• 1:12:58
  Speaker 2: up north and the last day of the hunt, and
• 1:13:00
  Speaker 2: there was a lot of fresh snow from overnight, and
• 1:13:03
  Speaker 2: we walk out to our blind that we'd set up
• 1:13:05
  Speaker 2: and there are there are fresh tracks from a deer
• 1:13:09
  Speaker 2: that had not a deer, like a buck, like pretty
• 1:13:11
  Speaker 2: darn obvious buck. Tracks that a calm come and walked
• 1:13:15
  Speaker 2: right past the blind relatively recently, and you know, I
• 1:13:21
  Speaker 2: thought to myself, man, that's great, we got fresh tracks.
• 1:13:23
  Speaker 2: This buck come walking through. You know, he very well
• 1:13:26
  Speaker 2: might come back through. There might be some other deer
• 1:13:28
  Speaker 2: passing through. Conditions are great. But at the same time,
• 1:13:31
  Speaker 2: like we might want to just follow this and he
• 1:13:33
  Speaker 2: might have fun just following this track. So I'm like, hey, buddy,
• 1:13:35
  Speaker 2: what do you want to do. We could sit in
• 1:13:37
  Speaker 2: the blind. We got a good chance that, you know,
• 1:13:39
  Speaker 2: these deer might come circling back through. We might see
• 1:13:41
  Speaker 2: something else. Or if you want, we could just go
• 1:13:45
  Speaker 2: walk that track and see what happens. He's like, let's
• 1:13:47
  Speaker 2: walk the track, Dad, we gotta go walk the track.
• 1:13:50
  Speaker 2: And of course that's what he wants to do. So
• 1:13:52
  Speaker 2: we go and we walked that track and he's, you know,
• 1:13:55
  Speaker 2: making noise. He's having a blast, like he was having
• 1:13:57
  Speaker 2: a lot of fun with it and like trying to
• 1:14:00
  Speaker 2: to find what he was doing and where he was
• 1:14:01
  Speaker 2: going and what was going on. But you know, long
• 1:14:06
  Speaker 2: story short, we follow the track for like an hour
• 1:14:07
  Speaker 2: and then he's tired. He's like, I'm done for the day.
• 1:14:09
  Speaker 3: Dad.
• 1:14:09
  Speaker 2: That was great, but you know, I'm done, And so
• 1:14:11
  Speaker 2: we go back to the cabin and I had to
• 1:14:13
  Speaker 2: go back to the blind though, to break it down
• 1:14:15
  Speaker 2: and take it home with us. So he goes back
• 1:14:18
  Speaker 2: to the cabin with my dad and I go walk
• 1:14:20
  Speaker 2: back to the blind and I see in the snow
• 1:14:24
  Speaker 2: that Buck had circled back and walked in front of
• 1:14:27
  Speaker 2: the blind, like twenty yards from the blind within the
• 1:14:30
  Speaker 2: last hour. So while we were walking his track, he
• 1:14:33
  Speaker 2: came circling back and walked right past there. And I thought, Man,
• 1:14:37
  Speaker 2: if we just sat in the dang thing, then you
• 1:14:40
  Speaker 2: know that Buck might have circled back because we were
• 1:14:42
  Speaker 2: on his track, So maybe not, but if we would
• 1:14:44
  Speaker 2: just sat, we would have had a chance at a
• 1:14:47
  Speaker 2: deer at deer camp up there together for the first time.
• 1:14:50
  Speaker 2: And you know, you're just like, man, you never know.
• 1:14:52
  Speaker 2: But we did the thing that he wanted to do,
• 1:14:53
  Speaker 2: and you know, that's great. I think he had a
• 1:14:55
  Speaker 2: great time and it was fun. But there's so many
• 1:14:57
  Speaker 2: examples like this where I have to pull myself back
• 1:15:02
  Speaker 2: from doing the thing that I think is best for
• 1:15:03
  Speaker 2: the hunt or And this is something that I think
• 1:15:07
  Speaker 2: I talked to you, maybe off air about but sometimes
• 1:15:13
  Speaker 2: not putting them at least at this age that he's in,
• 1:15:16
  Speaker 2: I'm maybe not rushing him into a high stakes situation, yeah,
• 1:15:23
  Speaker 2: because they're just not quite ready, or maybe they are,
• 1:15:26
  Speaker 2: but you know, it forces me to be more serious.
• 1:15:29
  Speaker 2: So the thing I had happened last year is, at
• 1:15:33
  Speaker 2: one point during our firearm season, I saw I scouted
• 1:15:37
  Speaker 2: a mature buck using an area several days in a
• 1:15:41
  Speaker 2: row that I had a couple blinds set up, like
• 1:15:46
  Speaker 2: I had a child friendly hunting situation set up, and
• 1:15:49
  Speaker 2: there was a four year old buck that I knew
• 1:15:53
  Speaker 2: that I knew of and kind of knew his jam,
• 1:15:55
  Speaker 2: but I wasn't actively hunting. But now here he's showing
• 1:15:58
  Speaker 2: up and he's going past these couple of blinds I've
• 1:16:02
  Speaker 2: set up in a place where like I could actually
• 1:16:04
  Speaker 2: have a chance to kill this year with my five
• 1:16:06
  Speaker 2: or four year old with me. And so I wasn't
• 1:16:09
  Speaker 2: playing hunting this year. I was gonna give h another year.
• 1:16:11
  Speaker 2: But I thought, man, this could be pretty sweet, and
• 1:16:14
  Speaker 2: so I asked ever, I'm like, man, do you want
• 1:16:16
  Speaker 2: to go after the wide nine? Like he's he's around,
• 1:16:19
  Speaker 2: he's for some reason like active in this zone. We
• 1:16:22
  Speaker 2: could actually get a crack at him, and of course, like, yeah,
• 1:16:24
  Speaker 2: we're gonna go kill the wide nine. Let's do it.
• 1:16:27
  Speaker 2: So I take him out that first night and get
• 1:16:31
  Speaker 2: set up and like it's a pretty good situation. And
• 1:16:33
  Speaker 2: sure enough, like we see him. He comes out. He
• 1:16:36
  Speaker 2: comes out farther out of range than I really wanted
• 1:16:38
  Speaker 2: him to be at and I decided not to take
• 1:16:40
  Speaker 2: the shot because I just didn't want anything. I wanted
• 1:16:43
  Speaker 2: to be perfect, Like I did not want to ruin
• 1:16:45
  Speaker 2: a great season by you know, hitting a deer bad
• 1:16:48
  Speaker 2: with my son watching it. And I'm not a long
• 1:16:50
  Speaker 2: range shooter, as you know, Tony. So I was like, man,
• 1:16:53
  Speaker 2: I want this deer within one hundred and fifty yards
• 1:16:55
  Speaker 2: dead broadside, standing still, like I want everything to be perfect.
• 1:16:59
  Speaker 2: But throughout the night, like I kept catching myself do
• 1:17:01
  Speaker 2: the thing I mentioned earlier where I'm like, because I
• 1:17:05
  Speaker 2: was so amped up to like get a shot at
• 1:17:08
  Speaker 2: a mature buck with my son and have him get
• 1:17:10
  Speaker 2: to be there for it. I wanted everything to go
• 1:17:12
  Speaker 2: just right, you know. So I was snapping at him
• 1:17:15
  Speaker 2: to you gotta whisp, you gotta whisp, You just gotta
• 1:17:17
  Speaker 2: stop moving, you gotta if you're in a movie, you
• 1:17:19
  Speaker 2: gotta be lower than the blind. You can't do that,
• 1:17:20
  Speaker 2: can't do this, can't do that. You gotta do this right.
• 1:17:22
  Speaker 2: And I kept catching myself and then that whole thing happened.
• 1:17:26
  Speaker 2: Didn't take the shot. The next day, the wind shifted,
• 1:17:29
  Speaker 2: but I could hunt this ground blind that I had
• 1:17:31
  Speaker 2: out there about one hundred yards away that would still
• 1:17:33
  Speaker 2: have us in the ballgame. And then the same thing.
• 1:17:35
  Speaker 2: Now I'm even more on edge because first we are
• 1:17:37
  Speaker 2: in like a more fully enclosed blind, but now we're
• 1:17:39
  Speaker 2: in like a kind of really creddy old heybale blind
• 1:17:44
  Speaker 2: that you know, just is kind of more exposed. And
• 1:17:46
  Speaker 2: I just knew, like, man, if we do anything wrong
• 1:17:49
  Speaker 2: where at eye level? Uh? Just I was even more
• 1:17:53
  Speaker 2: on edge now that day and so kept finding myself,
• 1:17:56
  Speaker 2: you know, just being on him about whispering, about moving
• 1:18:00
  Speaker 2: about everything. And after that hunt, we actually saw that
• 1:18:04
  Speaker 2: buck again that night at last light. But it was
• 1:18:07
  Speaker 2: a similar thing, like just it was like right like
• 1:18:09
  Speaker 2: literally like seconds until the end of shooting light. It
• 1:18:13
  Speaker 2: was not like a comfortable good position for me to
• 1:18:15
  Speaker 2: be shooting. I'm like, man, I just don't feel great
• 1:18:17
  Speaker 2: about this. I don't want to mess anything up. But
• 1:18:21
  Speaker 2: like that night that the kind of moral of my
• 1:18:23
  Speaker 2: whole story is that night I thought to myself, man,
• 1:18:26
  Speaker 2: we could keep going after this deer. Like he did
• 1:18:28
  Speaker 2: not nowhere around. We were able to slip in and out,
• 1:18:31
  Speaker 2: and he you know, had moved off at the right times,
• 1:18:34
  Speaker 2: and so like we were not educating this deer. To
• 1:18:36
  Speaker 2: my knowledge, the situation could allow us to get a
• 1:18:40
  Speaker 2: shot at this deer. But do I really want to
• 1:18:42
  Speaker 2: keep like putting my son in this high pressure situation
• 1:18:44
  Speaker 2: that I'm creating for him and like making it so
• 1:18:47
  Speaker 2: intense when he was perfectly happy just being out there
• 1:18:50
  Speaker 2: having a good old time, regardless of whether it's a
• 1:18:53
  Speaker 2: mature buck or not, you know. And so we eventually decided, like,
• 1:18:56
  Speaker 2: let's just chill out. Let's just let's just relax, get
• 1:19:00
  Speaker 2: back out after a dough again, Let's not make this
• 1:19:02
  Speaker 2: more than it has to be. Because he was enjoying
• 1:19:05
  Speaker 2: the simple thing of it. He doesn't need the big
• 1:19:07
  Speaker 2: giant buck for his dad to shoot for this still
• 1:19:10
  Speaker 2: to be fun. And why like risk making this a
• 1:19:14
  Speaker 2: non fun thing because dad's on edge? You know?
• 1:19:17
  Speaker 3: Yeah, well, I mean, yeah, that's I think that's a
• 1:19:22
  Speaker 3: mistake that a lot of people make with you know,
• 1:19:26
  Speaker 3: newbies and kids. Is when you bring some level of
• 1:19:30
  Speaker 3: trophy hunt to it, it changes everything and it's just
• 1:19:35
  Speaker 3: you know. That was one of the things that I
• 1:19:37
  Speaker 3: noticed with my girls when I took them was it
• 1:19:41
  Speaker 3: was so fun to not care. I mean, we were
• 1:19:44
  Speaker 3: hunting in a place where you weren't going to see
• 1:19:45
  Speaker 3: a big one anyway, probably, but you know, a spike
• 1:19:49
  Speaker 3: to them was like, oh my god, you know, like
• 1:19:53
  Speaker 3: that that part's pretty fun and you have to be
• 1:19:57
  Speaker 3: aware of that. Like even that that that you're like, oh,
• 1:20:00
  Speaker 3: I'd give him another year, whatever, is cool, he's around.
• 1:20:03
  Speaker 3: Once you turn into the guy hunting that deer, then
• 1:20:06
  Speaker 3: you care a lot. Yeah, you know, I mean it
• 1:20:08
  Speaker 3: just changes.
• 1:20:09
  Speaker 2: It's funny how quick that flip can switch.
• 1:20:11
  Speaker 3: Oh dude, it it just it's different. It makes it different,
• 1:20:16
  Speaker 3: and it's I don't know. I mean, we had this
• 1:20:18
  Speaker 3: situation a little bit when I, like the very first
• 1:20:22
  Speaker 3: night I ever took one of my daughters hunting. We
• 1:20:26
  Speaker 3: were just snowed in with deer. It was the best
• 1:20:30
  Speaker 3: Northern Wisconsin hunt I've ever had in my life, and
• 1:20:33
  Speaker 3: we had like seven bucks come out, including a nine
• 1:20:37
  Speaker 3: pointer that was like one hundred and fifty inches. Whoa
• 1:20:40
  Speaker 3: I mean like a once in a decade encounter and
• 1:20:44
  Speaker 3: that deer is at like forty yards and I just
• 1:20:48
  Speaker 3: I was so torn because I'm like, she can't shoot
• 1:20:51
  Speaker 3: that far and she doesn't really grasp what this is.
• 1:20:57
  Speaker 3: And she ended up and we ended up having some
• 1:20:59
  Speaker 3: does come in late. But it's man, it's just changes thing.
• 1:21:02
  Speaker 3: The big buck thing changes things so much. It's a
• 1:21:05
  Speaker 3: it's almost better to just take them hunting, like you said,
• 1:21:08
  Speaker 3: only for doze or just in a situation where you're like,
• 1:21:12
  Speaker 3: this is just an easy field edge setup or something,
• 1:21:14
  Speaker 3: and you know, like you're you're probably not gonna see
• 1:21:16
  Speaker 3: that big buck, and it's way more important just to
• 1:21:20
  Speaker 3: get animals close, yeah, you know, just whatever they are.
• 1:21:26
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you know. Even even another thing I've started to
• 1:21:29
  Speaker 2: do is even just take them out to hunt quote
• 1:21:33
  Speaker 2: unquote hunt out of season, so we're not taking weapons,
• 1:21:36
  Speaker 2: Like we're just gonna go sit in the blind and
• 1:21:38
  Speaker 2: just watch, dear. We're just gonna go out and call
• 1:21:41
  Speaker 2: the turkeys. We're not actually trying to shoot them. But
• 1:21:43
  Speaker 2: like that way, like the pressure is removed, but we
• 1:21:46
  Speaker 2: can still have fun, you know, learning about the critter,
• 1:21:50
  Speaker 2: watching the critter, practicing the things you need to do
• 1:21:53
  Speaker 2: while you're hunting, but without me being so manic because
• 1:21:57
  Speaker 2: there's no real repercussions for screw ups, you know. Like
• 1:22:00
  Speaker 2: that's the way I've built in a way to like
• 1:22:03
  Speaker 2: have fun out there with them practicing the hunting thing
• 1:22:06
  Speaker 2: and just removing the thing that I know I will
• 1:22:09
  Speaker 2: naturally like like fighting against my instincts, I'll just remove
• 1:22:13
  Speaker 2: part of it. And that has been a fun thing
• 1:22:15
  Speaker 2: to do. Like postseason after deer season, will still go
• 1:22:19
  Speaker 2: out and like watch deer or pre season turkeys, will
• 1:22:22
  Speaker 2: go out and call in spots where I'm not going
• 1:22:24
  Speaker 2: to actually try to hunt, and like that's lots of
• 1:22:27
  Speaker 2: times just as much fun for them. Like they're they
• 1:22:30
  Speaker 2: don't know the difference. They're having a blast.
• 1:22:34
  Speaker 3: Yeah, dude, we do that too, And not only is
• 1:22:37
  Speaker 3: it fun, but it's so beneficial. Yeah, getting just getting
• 1:22:42
  Speaker 3: to watch animals. I think I think that's one of
• 1:22:44
  Speaker 3: the biggest problems a lot of hunters have today is
• 1:22:47
  Speaker 3: it's so easy to put out some trail cameras and
• 1:22:50
  Speaker 3: not you know, like long range scout. I'm not not
• 1:22:54
  Speaker 3: observed deer or turkeys or whatever in their natural environment
• 1:23:00
  Speaker 3: when you're not hunting them, because when you do that,
• 1:23:04
  Speaker 3: you learn how they move and what they do, and
• 1:23:07
  Speaker 3: you know how they get from this point to that
• 1:23:08
  Speaker 3: point and how relaxed they are a lot of times,
• 1:23:12
  Speaker 3: and it just is a is an education you can't
• 1:23:15
  Speaker 3: get any other way, and it gives you so much
• 1:23:18
  Speaker 3: confidence and it's fun to take kids doing that. But
• 1:23:21
  Speaker 3: I think just generally for hunters, and I know this
• 1:23:24
  Speaker 3: sounds dumb, but the more you watch those critters when
• 1:23:27
  Speaker 3: you're not actively trying to kill them, the better you'll
• 1:23:30
  Speaker 3: get it killing them.
• 1:23:32
  Speaker 2: Yeah, very true. You know, something came to mind that's
• 1:23:37
  Speaker 2: not directly tied to that, but it is a thing.
• 1:23:40
  Speaker 2: It is one of the interesting ways that my kids
• 1:23:45
  Speaker 2: have helped teach me something and it's related to watching wildlife.
• 1:23:51
  Speaker 2: And what we did is we it's very simple. I mean,
• 1:23:55
  Speaker 2: I know lots of people do this, but we didn't
• 1:23:56
  Speaker 2: have any bird feeders or birdhouses or anything like that
• 1:23:59
  Speaker 2: up up until this past winter. We put out a
• 1:24:03
  Speaker 2: couple bird houses and like a little suet thing and
• 1:24:06
  Speaker 2: our bird feeders and stuff like that right by the
• 1:24:10
  Speaker 2: window to our bedroom in this like little area that
• 1:24:12
  Speaker 2: we've kind of let turn into like a little uh
• 1:24:15
  Speaker 2: wildlife zone, I don't know, like a red We kind
• 1:24:18
  Speaker 2: of rewilded a little power of our yard and we're like,
• 1:24:21
  Speaker 2: let the girl get grass, grow up, put a little
• 1:24:22
  Speaker 2: brush pile, got a couple of apple trees, putting the
• 1:24:25
  Speaker 2: bird feeders, playing some wildflowers, stuff like that. And my
• 1:24:31
  Speaker 2: son especially, but both of them, well my oldest son especially,
• 1:24:34
  Speaker 2: but now both of them, in a way that I
• 1:24:37
  Speaker 2: never would have expected, and in a way like I
• 1:24:38
  Speaker 2: never have been fascinated by have become like completely enthralled
• 1:24:43
  Speaker 2: with these birds that come in, and I mean like
• 1:24:47
  Speaker 2: they're obsessed, Like they get up in the morning on
• 1:24:49
  Speaker 2: run to the bedroom to go see what birds are out.
• 1:24:51
  Speaker 2: And we got a little spotting scope and then we
• 1:24:53
  Speaker 2: got a bird identification book. And now all of a sudden,
• 1:24:55
  Speaker 2: my son like this is something that I have not
• 1:24:58
  Speaker 2: pushed at all, Like I have no interest in and
• 1:25:00
  Speaker 2: songbirds in that kind of stuff historically. But he's like,
• 1:25:04
  Speaker 2: now he's identifying every different species. And then he wanted
• 1:25:06
  Speaker 2: to make a list of every different species we've ide'd
• 1:25:09
  Speaker 2: and now he can tell me how to tell the
• 1:25:11
  Speaker 2: difference between a tough to tipmouse and a black hatch
• 1:25:14
  Speaker 2: chickadee and a red belly woodpecker versus a downy woodpecker
• 1:25:17
  Speaker 2: versus affiliated woodpecker. And he's got this list of all
• 1:25:21
  Speaker 2: the different birds we've seen, and he's got the book
• 1:25:24
  Speaker 2: and can point them all out, and he's learning the
• 1:25:25
  Speaker 2: calls and this kind of stuff that I just gloss over,
• 1:25:29
  Speaker 2: like I get so focused on like the big, big, charismatic,
• 1:25:34
  Speaker 2: megapaonic kind of stuff. And he's giving me this new
• 1:25:39
  Speaker 2: appreciation for the little things. And so, for the first
• 1:25:42
  Speaker 2: time in years, probably, I was driving down the road
• 1:25:47
  Speaker 2: just past the house and I noticed a bird that
• 1:25:50
  Speaker 2: we had not seen before, and I thought, that's a
• 1:25:52
  Speaker 2: new bird species. I gotta look that up. And I
• 1:25:55
  Speaker 2: never would have done that before, And I thought, like,
• 1:25:57
  Speaker 2: how cool is that? Like my son is bringing his
• 1:26:01
  Speaker 2: passion to me and teaching me something and helping open
• 1:26:04
  Speaker 2: my eyes to something in the natural world. And I
• 1:26:07
  Speaker 2: think that's one of the coolest things about introducing your
• 1:26:11
  Speaker 2: kids to the outdoors is that they can introduce you
• 1:26:13
  Speaker 2: right back into it too.
• 1:26:15
  Speaker 3: Do you know what that story tells me, Mark.
• 1:26:18
  Speaker 4: What's that you don't need to do a paternity test,
• 1:26:21
  Speaker 4: that one's yours? Yeah, Yeah, I think everybody listening to
• 1:26:26
  Speaker 4: this is like, yeah, I'm not surprised at all as
• 1:26:29
  Speaker 4: the l Kenyan junior is dorking out on songbirds like this.
• 1:26:32
  Speaker 3: This sounds about right, man.
• 1:26:34
  Speaker 2: Yeah we saw that coming. Oh yeah man. So h
• 1:26:40
  Speaker 2: so we got to wrap this one up. I've got
• 1:26:41
  Speaker 2: to take my son to school, speaking of But I
• 1:26:46
  Speaker 2: guess to maybe set the stage for where this is
• 1:26:49
  Speaker 2: going to go next. And we're pulling some folks with
• 1:26:52
  Speaker 2: more expertise than you and I, Tony to share some
• 1:26:55
  Speaker 2: different ideas. But I guess a point I want to
• 1:26:58
  Speaker 2: make here, And I think this came through a conversation,
• 1:27:00
  Speaker 2: but I want to kind of explicitly make it. And
• 1:27:04
  Speaker 2: I guess I'll say this for myself and you tell
• 1:27:05
  Speaker 2: me whether this is if you think this is true
• 1:27:07
  Speaker 2: or not. But I constantly feel like I still don't
• 1:27:11
  Speaker 2: have it figured out, Like there's so much I still
• 1:27:13
  Speaker 2: don't know yet. I still have so many questions about
• 1:27:16
  Speaker 2: the right way to handle this stuff with my kids,
• 1:27:19
  Speaker 2: the right way to bring them into these traditions and
• 1:27:21
  Speaker 2: these pursuits, the right way to teach them. Like I
• 1:27:25
  Speaker 2: constantly feel like I don't know what I'm doing, and
• 1:27:27
  Speaker 2: I'm like walking around with the lights off and I'm
• 1:27:30
  Speaker 2: feeling my way around and just trying to figure it
• 1:27:32
  Speaker 2: out one step at a time. And and I guess
• 1:27:34
  Speaker 2: I want to explicitly say that that's how I feel
• 1:27:38
  Speaker 2: a lot, and it's okay if you feel that way too.
• 1:27:43
  Speaker 2: Does that resonate with you, Tony?
• 1:27:44
  Speaker 3: Oh man, are you kidding me? Wait? Dude, when they
• 1:27:48
  Speaker 3: handed me two babies when I was I was like,
• 1:27:52
  Speaker 3: I don't this is not this should not be like
• 1:27:56
  Speaker 3: this is a mistake. I can't do this. And you
• 1:27:59
  Speaker 3: feel that way all the time, and I'm you know,
• 1:28:02
  Speaker 3: I always joke like with my wife, I'm like, I'm
• 1:28:04
  Speaker 3: so freaking manly, how come I have two girls? You know?
• 1:28:09
  Speaker 3: Like I'm like I don't know how to raise girls,
• 1:28:11
  Speaker 3: Like I don't know what I'm doing, and you just
• 1:28:13
  Speaker 3: figure it out. I mean, you just do. And I
• 1:28:17
  Speaker 3: want to say something on this beyond that, Like if
• 1:28:21
  Speaker 3: you're listening to this and you're like not at a
• 1:28:23
  Speaker 3: stage where you're like I'm not having kids or for
• 1:28:25
  Speaker 3: whatever reason, and you're like this this doesn't value me,
• 1:28:30
  Speaker 3: or like doesn't bring value to me very much. Taking
• 1:28:34
  Speaker 3: people who don't know what they're doing out there will
• 1:28:37
  Speaker 3: make you better. Like whether it's your own five year
• 1:28:40
  Speaker 3: old or eight year old or whatever, or if you're
• 1:28:42
  Speaker 3: just taking that coworker who express an interest or whatever.
• 1:28:45
  Speaker 3: When you have to think through how to get somebody
• 1:28:48
  Speaker 3: who has no experience or very little experience into something
• 1:28:51
  Speaker 3: good out there in the outdoors hunting white tails or whatever,
• 1:28:55
  Speaker 3: you will get better. So, at the very least, if
• 1:28:58
  Speaker 3: there's if this is like I'm not this doesn't resonate
• 1:29:01
  Speaker 3: with me at all, Like there's like a selfish, beneficial
• 1:29:05
  Speaker 3: reason to doing this, which is just you. You will
• 1:29:09
  Speaker 3: become a better hunter by having to think through somebody
• 1:29:13
  Speaker 3: else's process that doesn't know what they're doing.
• 1:29:15
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's not even just opinion. There's like there's a
• 1:29:20
  Speaker 2: lot of studies about the teaching effect in which they
• 1:29:24
  Speaker 2: have They've measured the ability to like remember something, or
• 1:29:28
  Speaker 2: the ability to understand a concept, the ability to perform
• 1:29:31
  Speaker 2: at a high level. Is every one of those things
• 1:29:35
  Speaker 2: is improved if you have to teach it to someone else. So,
• 1:29:40
  Speaker 2: if you want to try to remember your ABC's or something,
• 1:29:43
  Speaker 2: one of the best ways to get better at remembering
• 1:29:45
  Speaker 2: your abcs is to have to not only learn them yourself,
• 1:29:49
  Speaker 2: but teach them to somebody else, same thing. If you
• 1:29:51
  Speaker 2: want to get better at you know, like you just
• 1:29:52
  Speaker 2: mentioned hunting, one of the ways to get better at
• 1:29:55
  Speaker 2: it is to have to teach someone like that is
• 1:29:57
  Speaker 2: a proven thing. So yeah, absolutely, you're gonna get better
• 1:30:02
  Speaker 2: because of it. I think you're gonna enjoy all this
• 1:30:05
  Speaker 2: more because of it. You're gonna see new things come
• 1:30:08
  Speaker 2: to light, and you're gonna appreciate things in a different
• 1:30:10
  Speaker 2: kind of way. And we haven't mentioned this once, but
• 1:30:13
  Speaker 2: it's also worth noting that, man, if we want to
• 1:30:16
  Speaker 2: keep this thing going, if we want to keep this
• 1:30:18
  Speaker 2: lifestyle going, we need to keep introducing people to it
• 1:30:21
  Speaker 2: and passing on our love for it and our experiences
• 1:30:24
  Speaker 2: and our lessons so that we're not a dying breed,
• 1:30:27
  Speaker 2: so that there are folks fifty years from now who's
• 1:30:29
  Speaker 2: still hunting fish and appreciate what we're doing and care
• 1:30:32
  Speaker 2: enough about the critters and the wild places to keep
• 1:30:35
  Speaker 2: them around. Two. So yeah, there's that man too, All right,
• 1:30:40
  Speaker 2: my friend, tune in next week for more insights. We're
• 1:30:45
  Speaker 2: gonna bring in, like I said, some interesting characters, some authors,
• 1:30:49
  Speaker 2: some deep thinkers to give us some expert points of view.
• 1:30:54
  Speaker 2: On all these things that will help us be better
• 1:30:57
  Speaker 2: moms or dads, mentors and folks that can hopefully help
• 1:31:03
  Speaker 2: foster a love for the outdoors and hunting and fishing.
• 1:31:06
  Speaker 2: So thank you for listening, thanks for being a part
• 1:31:09
  Speaker 2: of this one. I guess until next time, we'll just
• 1:31:13
  Speaker 2: wrap it up there and keep on keeping on and
• 1:31:17
  Speaker 2: stay wired to hunt.