Latest / Wired To Hunt Podcast / Wired To Hunt Podcast #166: Hunting Mountain Whitetails with Josh Boyd

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Wired To Hunt Podcast #166: Hunting Mountain Whitetails with Josh Boyd · Wired To Hunt Podcast

• 0:02
  Speaker 1: Welcome to the Wire to Hunt podcast, your home for
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: deer hunting news, stories and strategies, and now your host,
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: Mark Kenyon. Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast. I'm
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: your host, Mark Kenyan. This episode number one sixty six
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: and today the show, we're joined by Josh Boyd, an
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: outdoor writer and an avid big game hunter from northern Montana,
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: and we're diving into Josh's experiences and lessons learned hunting
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: big white tails in the hills and mountains of the
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: Rocky Mountain West. Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast,
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: brought to you by sit Ka Gear, and today we
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: are talking about hunting white tails and hilly and mountainous
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: terrain and we're joined by a guy met earlier this
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: year by the name of Josh Boyd. And Josh is
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: a big game hunter from Montana, an outdoor writer, a
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: force service employee, and a guy that knows how to
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: kill really big white tail bucks in areas that most
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: people would probably never think to chase them. And this
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: conversation was actually recorded earlier the summer while it was
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: in Montana for the Sick Gear Converge event, and I
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: just really enjoyed this conversation and I think even if
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: you hunt in an area far far away from the
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: spots to Josh and Sunning and the spots that he
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: talks about, I think you're still gonna be able to
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: garner some new and helpful ideas. So in a minute here,
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: we're gonna toss it over to that interview. But before that,
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: I wanted to share just a few quick updates. And first,
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: we're not going to have a normal new episode next
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: week because I'm going to be in Alaska for my
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: very first caribou hunt, which I'm very very excited about.
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: But we will be back week after that, and our
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: next episode will be recorded from the field in the
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  Speaker 1: middle of my very first white tail hunts of the year.
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: As we've talked about over the past couple of weeks,
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna be on a public land white tail hunt
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: in Monte in A in a public land hunt in
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: North Dakota. So hopefully when we get back, we're gonna
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: have some good stories and lessons learned from all those experiences.
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: Can't wait to share that with you. But in the meantime,
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: I wanted to recommend a couple of our past episodes
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: that you could give a listen to during our off week,
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: especially if you're relatively new to the podcast and haven't
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: gone through all of our old episodes. There's just an
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: absolute huge wealth of information sitting there just waiting to
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: be tapped into. So let me offer a couple for
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: you to get started with, and then feel free to
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: go back start the very beginning and listen in because
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: I think even those old episodes you can learn something from.
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: So first off, I would highly recommend you listen to
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: episode number eighty three with guest Shane Mahoney. And if
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: you're not familiar, Shane is an incredible speaker and conservationist
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: and advocate for wild places and wild animals. And in
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: our episode we go deep into a whole slew of
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: different topics related to the history and future of hunting
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: in America and hunting ethics and our responsibilities as hunters.
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: And it's just a fascinating discus uh and and if
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: you haven't heard it yet, it's it's just a must listen.
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: I think every single person should hear what Shane has
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: to say. I think it's so important, so valuable, So
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: go ahead and get that download right now and queue
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: up for next week. And secondly, if you want a
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: more tactic related podcast. And if somehow you haven't heard
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: this one yet, go back and listen to episode number
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: sixty three. It is one of our very most popular
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: episodes of all time, and it's just jam packed with
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: helpful insights. Everyone talks about how they need to take
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: notes on this one over and over again. And this
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: is the episode with the mad scientist Mark Drury, and
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: in this one we get into all of his theories
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: related to the various factors that he believes influenced deer movement.
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: So we talked about the wind and temperature and barometric
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: pressure and moon phase and all sorts of different things.
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: It's it's just fascinating, one of my favorites too, So
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: there you go. After this episode, make sure to go
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: back and listen to episodes number sixty three and number
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: eighty three, and then we'll get right back into it
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: with new episodes in mid September, hopefully good news from
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: my Alaska hunt and updates on what the heck is
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: happening in Montana and North Dakota. And I'm sure we're
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: gonna hear something new about Dan's kids too, So until then,
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: I hope you enjoyed this one. We're gonna kick it
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: over to our Sickest Story now and then we'll get
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: to my conversation with Josh Boyd. For this week's sick
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: of Story, we're joined by Drake Pollard, who tells us
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: about a special tree on his northern Missouri property. UM.
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: I think for me, UM, the first time I get
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: to north central Missouri for hunting, uh this year and
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: in many years before. UM, I go to my family
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: farm and I visit a stand or a tree that
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: my grandfather UH hunted when he was growing up. And
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: and my family and friends, we've we've used this location
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: many of times, but it's predominantly myself that hunts up
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  Speaker 1: there now. And UM, every time I visit the farm,
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  Speaker 1: I go to that stand, I go and sit there.
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  Speaker 1: My grandfather was an avid hunter. UM. He taught us,
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  Speaker 1: you know, the ethical way of doing the right and
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: wrong and and how things need to be handled. UM
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  Speaker 1: as an outdoorsman and UM as a kid. He passed away,
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: and UM for me to go to that tree, UM
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: to pay my respects figuratively speaking, UM, I just feel
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: a sense of connection when he's still there. UM. I
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: think it's important for hunters to to maybe get back
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: to that a little bit misday and age and maybe
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: figure out, you know, exactly why we do what we do. Um.
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  Speaker 1: Whenever we have an opportunity to visit a special place
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  Speaker 1: such like my farm in northern Missouri. So UM, I
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: know as a white tail hunter, that always gets me
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  Speaker 1: excited every year to visit that section of the farm.
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: UM and just pay my tribute, my respects to him.
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: On Drake's early season haunts. He wears sick As Equinox system.
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: If you'd like to create a sick of story of
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: your own, or to learn more about sit because technical
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: hunting apparel, visit Sitka gear dot com. So we are
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: here at the sick of Gear Converge event. It's technically
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: day three. I guess we are outside. It's range day.
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: You're gonna hear some shotguns going off behind us, and
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: we're here with Josh Boyd, one of the Big Game
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: ambassadors for sick of Gear. Thanks for doing this, Josh, Yeah,
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: you bet. Thanks for the invite. Mark Yeah, I've just
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: met you two nights ago from our friend Matt McCormick,
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: and he got you talking about the white tail stuff
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: you're doing. He's good at that, and that got pretty excited.
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: So I kind of want to pick your brain about
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: what you're doing chasing these white tails out here in
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: the mountains. And you're also obviously having a lot of
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: success getting after Elk and other big games. So be warned.
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna I'm gonna try to dig as much as
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: I can, all right, just just don't make me lie.
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: I won't do that. I won't do that. We won't
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  Speaker 1: ask you for specific locations. Um. So before we get started, though,
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  Speaker 1: can you just give a little bit of your background.
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  Speaker 1: It sounds like you've done some very interesting things leading
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  Speaker 1: up to where you are. Now, what where you're from?
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  Speaker 1: What do you do? So? Yeah, I live in northwest Montana, UM,
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  Speaker 1: right next to Canada, right next to b C. I'm
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: forty miles as the crow flies from British Columbia, and
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  Speaker 1: I'm about twelve miles or so from the Idaho border.
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  Speaker 1: So I'm way up in that kind of remote part
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  Speaker 1: of the state. Not a whole lot of folks make
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: it up there, and even you know people from Montana,
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: they may be passed through it occasionally, but it's just
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: it has to be a destination for you to go there.
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  Speaker 1: Out of the way. Yeah, so that's where I live,
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  Speaker 1: and I worked for the U. S Force Service up there,
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: which is a federal agency. If people don't know, we
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: manage all the US for Service, not to be confused
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  Speaker 1: with the National Park Service or the BLM or fishing
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: game as people call them. Um. So we do mostly
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: land management up they're not We don't necessarily manage game,
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: so we will manage habitat. And so with the Forest Service,
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: I work in the field of hydrology, specifically uh surface water. Yeah.
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  Speaker 1: So can you elaborate on that, because I found that
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  Speaker 1: pretty interesting. We're chat and the other day specifically the
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: kind of stuff you're doing and paying attention to other thing. Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: So I look at and measure runoff. So I'll measure
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: snowpack in the winter to kind of calculate what kind
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: of runof we're gonna get into our streams in the spring. Um.
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  Speaker 1: And then I also you said, then I'll measure that
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  Speaker 1: runoff and the sediment that goes along with it. So
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  Speaker 1: you know, we're really concerned in that part of the
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: world with bull trout and other native salmon. It's trout
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  Speaker 1: species mainly west slope cutthroat and uh so we're we're
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  Speaker 1: measuring sediment, uh, the bed sediment and also the suspended sediment,
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  Speaker 1: because trout have a hard time surviving and laying a
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  Speaker 1: and having those things reach you know, young of the year,
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: hatching out of the out of the gravel. So so
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: we measure a lot of that stuff for our fisheries
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: biology types. And then we also well look at and
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: measure streams to see if they're functioning properly and if not,
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: come up with a plan to fix them or enhance them.
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  Speaker 1: And that can range from anything between just adding a
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: little bit of wood here and there, or planting some
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: stuff on the banks right parian vegetation plantings, or it
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  Speaker 1: can be like full on channel reconstruction. So um, that's
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: like where we'll we'll completely build a whole new channel
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  Speaker 1: and then put the river in it and and hopefully
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: in a natural way. We're not channelizing it. We're actually
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: un channelizing it, so we're sometimes we're putting sinuosity back
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  Speaker 1: into it, and we're putting our pools back into it
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: and riffles and runs and all the features that go
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: along with it. So repairing things that have been damaged
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: in some way through I'm assuming man made actions in
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: the past. Generally, yes, it can you know, it could
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: be from wildfire. But also most of the time we're
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: dealing with historic mining activities like plaster mining, and a
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: lot of it is also riparian vegetation removal. So turn
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: to the last century, there was a lot of logging
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: in that country we did there. You know, the technology
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: just wasn't there to build roads, so they used the
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: most convenient way to get the timber out, which was
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: either build a narrow gage railroad up the valley bottom
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: and cut trees on both sides, which means that they're
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: right next to the creek. Or they just went up
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: the creek and cut trees and skidded them into the
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: into the river stream, damned everything up, let the water
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: back up, and then splash knock that damn over. They
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: call them splash dams, and just do log drives down
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: these rivers. So in order to get there wood down
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: into the main system, they had to cut all the
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: wood out of the stream and then they're drying, then
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: they cut all the wood off the sides of the streams.
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: And you know, it doesn't take a whole lot of
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: imagination to figure out what that's gonna do to your
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: due to your habitat. So where I live, it's it's
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: very moist, we get a lot of rain, we get
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: a lot of snow. Um, it's a very different hydrology
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: up there compared to the rest of Montana. So when
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: people think trout fishing Montana, they think the Gallatin and
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: the Madison and these great, big, meandering cottonwood type deals.
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: We don't really have a whole lot of that. Ours
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: are like big cedar, big spruce, a lot of larch,
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: some ponderosa, a little bit of cotton wood. But it's
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: like big heavy, it's kind of like temperate rainforest types
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: kind of Yeah. Yeah, it's it's Pacific maritime influenced. Yes,
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: So how long have you been doing that? Um? Since
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: I got out of college. Uh almost twenty years, eighteen
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: years so, so it's been a while. And it's it's
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: a learner, you know. It's it's I didn't just jump
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: right in and start doing it. It's definitely takes years
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: and years and years to learn what you're doing. So
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: when you look at the health of our waterways in
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: right parian areas like that, what direction ever had it
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: since you started? Do you feel that things have been
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: improving or they declining, and you're just feeling like you're
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: patching up the holes as best as you can. Where
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: are we going? That's a good question. Um, I think
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: we're improving overall. Um. You know, there are some systems
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: that I have a keen eye on and they are
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: they're unraveling. You know, every year I see a little
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: bit more, a little bit more, a little bit more.
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: But overall, like on the National Forest up there up
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: to say, they're improving or or or just maintaining. Um.
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: And we've got a lot of watersheds that are in
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: great shape. So um, it's yeah there, but we have
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: a few bad apples and sometimes those influence down you know,
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: the drainage, you know, other other pieces down downstream. So
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: what type of thing would be like you don't need
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: to say specifics, but what would an example of the
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: types of impacts to be that you're seeing in one
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: of these bad apples that are making them that way
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: in your eyes? Well, So, once these rivers sort of
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: become destabilized, they tend to just make they tend to
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: just keep unraveling. So what happens is the vegetation gets
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: removed from the banks, so you have highly erotable banks
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: UM and we have and that's what we have. We
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: have a lot of glacial till up there and it's
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: it's easily erodable. It is input into the system in
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: a in a large manner. I guess, large quantities go in.
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: When we start seeing UM banks coming apart, massive volumes
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: come into the channel. And so when you start filling
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: your channels up with sediment course sediment, usually UM, they
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: fill up, so they lose capacity. So when they lose capacity,
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: they spread out, so they start moving towards a more
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: of a braided condition UM. And there's a lot of
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: channels that are naturally braided, and they usually have a
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: really high sediment supply like that you think of like
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: the out wash of like glaciers in Alaska. They're all
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: braided high sediment, and that's natural. But a lot of
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: these weren't naturally braided. So what you see is just
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: just continuous unraveling and there's just so much sediment put
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: into the system that it just can't move it out
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: because it's losing stream power. So you fill in the channel,
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: you lose capacity. It spreads out into a larger area
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: you lose um energy, so then it and then it's
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: like it sets it back another step. And when you
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: when a shell, when it spreads out like that, I
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: imagine it's getting shell or which I imagine makes it
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: more susceptible to warming temperatures as well. Absolutely, I was
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: just gonna mention that. So, yeah, you get shallow water,
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: you get increased temper chures, and you have you lose habitat.
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: I e. Pools bad for fish, not good for fish.
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: And we have a threatened species up there, the bull trout.
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: And we have some sensitive and species of concern as well,
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: the West Slope cut throat, and we have a native rainbow,
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: the red band rainbow. Um. They all require cold, clean water,
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: so when you start getting shallow, dirty, warm water, it's
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: tough on them, I imagine. So that's that drives a
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: lot of the work that I do. Interesting. Yeah, And
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: so to get back to the original question, some of
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: the stuff I see that's causing impacts are say bridges
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: being undersized or culverts being too small so they can't
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: pass the flow, and so they um, they squeeze the
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: channel down into a real constriction and basically shotgun like
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: they's going through a fire nozzle that squirts out the
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: other sides, and sometimes it will cause a headcut, you know, downstream,
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: or we have a flood event and the pipe can't
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: handle the flow and flush it washes the road out
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: and all that road sentiment gets washed down the channel.
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: So those are some some modern day impacts that we
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: deal with UM, and that can be from private industrial
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: logging company land, or it can even be on Force
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: service land. We have a lot of a lot of
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: pipes that are that were put in in the fifties, sixties, seventies.
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: UM by our standards today, they're they're too small and
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: they're reaching the end of their lifespan. So UM it's
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: time to replace them. But it's expensive to do funding
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: and we have tons of them. We have a we
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: have a big wish list, and we work on them
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: as we get money trickling in. But it's tough. So
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: that's I want to talk about that. I want to
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: talk about funding UM. Being a Force service employee, how
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: what's your perspective on I mean, there's for a long
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: time there's been this kind of talk, but it's been
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: a little bit louder lately as far as bashing on
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: the FEDS saying that they're mismanaging our federal lands and
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: because of that, these federal lands should be going to
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: the states or private interests. So being within that organization,
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: how does that make you feel? What do you think
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: about that from the inside. Yeah, it's it's tough. So
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: I you know, I live locally, spend all my money locally,
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: and I grew up there, so I mean, I consider
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: myself a local. Then it's tough to hear your neighbors
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: and your you know, your fellow citizens in the area
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: kind of bash on the Feds about how we just
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: need to do this or do that, and you know,
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: that's one opinion, but then we also have other opinions
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: that we have to consider. Um, So, yeah, you know
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: that the anti federal government sentiment is fairly high in
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: that neck of the woods that I live. I mean
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: it's I mean, don't quote, it's roughly eight might be more,
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: might be slightly less federal land. So it's a big
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: block of of federal land. And so I thought you're
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: gonna say it's the people are anti federal lands. I
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: was like, WHOA, Oh, well, I don't know what that
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: number is. Very well could be, but sometimes some days
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: it seem right. But you know, we you know, we
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: try to manage it the best we can with the
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: amount of money that we're given. Um and we seem
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: to be given less money every year every budget cycle.
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: It's like declining budgets, cost of livings go up. I mean,
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: everything is on the increase, inflation, you name it. But
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: our budgets are either flat or declining, which means we're
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: getting less money overall. And we're talking about this at
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: breakfast the other day. The politicians that are calling out
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: the four serves and saying that they they're mismanaging the lands,
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: they can't do a good job, they're doing a horrible job. Well,
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: they are the ones that are slashing your budgets, So
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: they are creating your inability to be able to do
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: your job the way you should be. That then pointing
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: it to you and saying it's your fault and making
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: that as a reason for them to be able to
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: say I should sell them, I should get rid of it.
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: That's kind of the way I understand it. Yeah, and
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: that seems like a just a crop job. Yeah, so
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: that the idea is um. So this is I'm speaking
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: as a private citizen now. But the way I see
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: it is, uh, those politicians, they're they're kind of set
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: out to sort of trip us up intentionally so they
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: can turn it over to the state. They might actually,
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: some of them might actually believe the state could do
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: a better job managing all that property, all that land.
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: But the State of Montana doesn't have a budget to
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: fight the fires that we do, um, which is a
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: huge chunk of our budget, by the way. Um. And
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: and let alone try to fix a lot of these
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: you know, undersized pipes and bridges and you know, unraveling
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: roads and rivers, maintaining trails. So road maintenance backlog is enormous,
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: So the State of Montana can't do it. So the
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: theory is, or it's been thought that, well, in order
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: to pay for some of that stuff, they're gonna have
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: to sell some of that land off or develop it,
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: lease it, do whatever, graze it. Who knows what they
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: plant on doing with it. But um, overall, it's not
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: good for the average American sportsman, not at all, or
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: just recreationist. If you hike, bike whatever, yeah, I do
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: all that stuff. I hike bike, fish. I would like
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: the bird watch, I you know, there's all sorts of stuff,
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: and I do it mostly on on public land. It's scary, Yeah,
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: it's hearing those things and then seeing that stuff get
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: momentum right and frustrating. Oh yeah, yeah, it can be
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: very frustrating, but um so working for the Forest Service
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: can be pretty rewarding now at times. So yeah, if
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: you can separate. So I'm pretty much grunt on the
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: ground out in the field all the time, and it
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: allows me to like separate myself from a lot of
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: that stuff. Um So, all the budget and policy and
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: all that stuff gets dealt with at a higher level
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: than me, and I'm thankful for that, and I've made
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: a conscious effort to kind of keep it that way
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: because I really like what I do. I like being outside,
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: like seeing tangible effects. Absolutely, yeah, totally see that fishing.
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: Finishing a project is is really fun and exciting, and
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: even if it doesn't work the way you think it
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: might or or fail for that matter, it's like you
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: learn something and you're gonna go out with more enthusiasm
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: the next time out. It would be cool as a
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: as a hunter and angler too, and just outdoor recreationists
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: in general. I mean, I feel like all of us,
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: at least at least I do, and I think many
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: look at these places and we there's we get so
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: much out of it, so much enjoyment from these wild
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: landscapes that we can hunt and fish, but I can
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: camp and everything. And I feel like if you use
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: these places enough, you enjoy of them enough, eventually we
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: all get to a point where we saying, wow, I
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: should he hope we can leave this here for our
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: kids and our kids kids or leave it better. And
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: it's got to be pretty neat in near position, and
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: into your job, you are active, actually doing tangible things
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: to make that really right. It really is. So I
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: have a I have a daughter that's about to turn four,
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: and she came down last summer. A co worker and
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: I were working on a major, major stream restoration project.
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: It was five years in the planning and implementation. We
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: had a lot of heavy equipment down there, scraping out
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: a new channel, putting wood in, putting rock in, dropping
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: structures in, and and just rebuilding all the features. And
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: my family came down one day middle of the day
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: just to visit to see what it looked like. And
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: she was running around, jumping up on the rocks, and
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: the logs and looking at it um. And so the
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: end goal for that project is to have you know,
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: giant trees growing there on the banks holding it all
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: together at the you know, but I probably won't see it,
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: but it's gonna happen in her lifetime, and I hope
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: she can remember that she was there and what it
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: looked like. I mean, she was three and a half
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: at the time. She probably won't. She's pretty smart, but
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: I don't think she will. But we have photos and
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: we have a ton of video footage of it, um
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: of us doing the work, So it'll be interesting to see, um,
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: see what she thinks later on in your life. Excuse me,
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: I have over from I gotta getting over a cold.
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: It's happens the best of us. So I can see
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: that being incredibly rewarding, which just like a very cool
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: feeling to be able to see that stuff and have
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: your kids someday be able to look back on that. Yeah.
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: So yeah, the the total success of a project probably
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: won't be measured within my career. I'm thinking, Yeah, it's
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: long term stuff. Yeah, for sure, I think think term
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: and it's but in the meantime, we're doing what we
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: can and trying to get good work done out there.
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: So that's good stuff. But you're also doing some good
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: stuff in the woods when you're out chasing some critters.
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: And you were telling me that you, in addition to
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: be an ambassador for second, you also did some writing
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: to right. What was that? What were you doing there
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: for a while? Um? Well, I started writing, uh for
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: some various magazines. I think my very first published article
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: was in bow Hunter, and I I kind of was
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: looking at some of the stuff that was out there
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: and just it wasn't reading anything that I really wanted
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: to read about. I wanted to read about adventure. I
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: wanted to read about sweaty, bloody toil and hard work,
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: and I wasn't seeing that. I mean I would I
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: would see certain certain writers would definitely gravitate towards that stuff.
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: But I just wanted to write about it. So I'd stuff. Yeah,
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: So I'd get some ideas in my head and I
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: would just kind of put it on paper and then uh,
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: then I would massage a little bit, and then I
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: would eventually I decided to submit some stuff and then
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: just kind of broke into writing. I mean it was
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: like I never got anything turned down that I submitted.
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: But I wasn't like trying to write for a living either.
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: It was a sort of a hobby and so that's
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: kind of how that started. I just just started writing
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: what I wanted to read about, and um, the my
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: process of writings were pretty pretty inefficient because I'm you know,
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: I'm a scientist. I can't I don't write creatively very well,
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: so it takes a while to get those juices going.
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: So you're writing like a report and then you have
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: to p insform that into an enjoyable article. So yeah,
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: so I I started writing about that, and then I
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: did a few gear gear reviews for some various magazines,
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: and then, uh, lately I've been I did I wrote
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: a column for um Corey Jacob's and had an Elk
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: Hunting magazine a few years ago. I wrote the back
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: country hunting column for that because I do most a
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: lot of backpack hunting back country stuff for Elk and
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: Mule Deer Um. And now I'm kind of writing for
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: another website just off and on, mostly product review stuff
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: because that's kind of there. It's a geared website. So
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: so you've written for who who on the Eastman Eastman's
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: Eastman's Bow Hunting, Bow and Arrow when it was still around. Um,
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: bow hunting, bow hunter. And it seems like there's somebody else.
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: Rock Slide is a website I've written for. Mm hmm, yeah,
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: it seems like there's somebody else. But yeah, just a
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: just a handful. So you you have a unique distinction
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: as a Western hunter because you are, as I understand it,
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: you are on the cover of Eastman's at one point
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: with a white tail like the white tail which I
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: don't think a whole lot of guys out here give
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: a crap about them. Unfortunately, No, but you it was,
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: you do, Yeah, it was. It was surprising, and you
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: know it was an animal. Well, I mean, we have
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: nice white tails out west, and I was really surprised
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: that they put it on the cover, um because they
• 27:21
  Speaker 1: have a selection of a lot of a lot of them,
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: just nice beautiful animals they could pick from. But apparently
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: this was an impressive enough white tail. And I had
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: I submitted enough photos that they really liked it. They
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: were going to publish my story no matter what, because
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: they they really liked all the images and it was
• 27:38
  Speaker 1: a decent story. But yeah, they picked it for a cover,
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: which was kind of surprising, but yeah, I was how
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: big um he ended up being like a hundred eighty something.
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: He gross like two I think, but he had a
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: he had a weird sticker kind of a like a
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: weird in line that was sort of weird. It draw
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: his net score netsor for fish that I keep hearing that,
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: But he was still like netted. He netted like one
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: seventies something. That's a giant. Yeah, it's a big western
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: wig white deal anywhere? So can you tell us that story? Yeah?
• 28:15
  Speaker 1: So I killed. It goes back, it starts the previous season.
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: So I shot a really nice mule deer with my
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: bow like September eighth or something, and I didn't have
• 28:29
  Speaker 1: any other tags anywhere, so I killed a now killed
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: now killed a mule deer. So then I didn't have
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: tags in Idaho or anywhere else. So I was just
• 28:37
  Speaker 1: kind of floating around, just sort of felt like a
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: lost child. I didn't have anything to hunt in October November,
• 28:44
  Speaker 1: so I did a ton of scouting in November, just
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: during the general rifle season. And so I started poking
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: around looking for a new couple of new white tail
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: spots because we have we have a lot of white
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: tails in that part of the world. And I did
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: some outing and I found some big rubs and I
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: hadn't seen any big deer, but I decided to go
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: check out this area that I've always kind of want
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: to check out. So I I thought, well, I'm gonna
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: do a little trail run through there, small blogging roads
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: that are kind of grown up, so it's on a
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: trail run. It was the weekend after rifle season ended,
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: and I just like popped over this little tiny rise
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: and there was a giant buck standing there, like at
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: forty yards, dark chocolate antlers, still running still after a dough,
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: and he trotted into the into the timber. He's kind
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: of right on the edge of this little clear cut
• 29:32
  Speaker 1: and he was only yeah, he was close. He trotted
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: into this uh in his patch of trees, and I
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: I saw him and I thought he was kind of
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: going away from me, and like, that thing is a
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: giant deer that had to be hunting seven deer. So
• 29:48
  Speaker 1: I went back to my house and I called my
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: buddy at Homes like, man, I show him I saw
• 29:53
  Speaker 1: monster and he's like yeah, yeah, yeah, right, whatever, how big?
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: How big is he? And I'm like, oh, he's gotta
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: be hunter in seventy in and he's like, okay, cool.
• 30:01
  Speaker 1: So then I just became obsessed with this buck. I thought, man,
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: they're gonna be shedding here. Towards the end of December,
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: first part of January, it was a nice light winter.
• 30:12
  Speaker 1: I knew he was a local buck. I knew he
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: didn't get pushed in there from the snow, because that's
• 30:17
  Speaker 1: part of the issue with where I live. A lot
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: of our white tails get pushed. I mean they'll be
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: there's summer range can be fifteen miles away, but it
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: was still almost summer like conditions. I mean there's no
• 30:30
  Speaker 1: snow in the mountains that year, and then that winter
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: it just basically this was you're chasing these white tails
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: in the mountains. This isn't the river bottoms, no, no, no,
• 30:37
  Speaker 1: this is mountains. Yeah, it's big heavy conifer forests. So
• 30:42
  Speaker 1: so it's so different white tail in it, right, Yeah,
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: I think there's probably similar stuff would be like in
• 30:50
  Speaker 1: the mountains of Virginia, West Virginia and stuff like that.
• 30:53
  Speaker 1: Maybe essentially um never been there, never hunted him, but
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: that's kind of what I guess. So I all this buck.
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: I decided to figure out where he lives, how he's living,
• 31:04
  Speaker 1: and see if I can shoot him the next year.
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: So I found his sheds from the previous year, but
• 31:12
  Speaker 1: I couldn't find the sheds from the year that I
• 31:14
  Speaker 1: spotted him. But I saw a giant rubs all over
• 31:17
  Speaker 1: the place, and I kind of put together this puzzle.
• 31:20
  Speaker 1: I'm like, Okay, I'm gonna put a stand here here here,
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: and I'm gonna hunt it before the rut kicks in.
• 31:27
  Speaker 1: I think I can probably kill this buck if he
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: if he keeps to the same patterns, because these rubs
• 31:36
  Speaker 1: are finding were giant, like they look like elk rubs,
• 31:40
  Speaker 1: but they were definitely white tail. They were way low
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: and their full white tail here. But they have been
• 31:44
  Speaker 1: The key I thought was they were rubbed more than
• 31:47
  Speaker 1: one year. It looked to me like they were rubbed
• 31:50
  Speaker 1: multiple years in a row. So if you don't mind,
• 31:54
  Speaker 1: I want him pause you. I'm gonna try to break
• 31:56
  Speaker 1: all this down as we're going. So you mentioned you
• 31:59
  Speaker 1: found those sheds, So I mean, I first I want
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: to know how you're you know, what kind of places
• 32:02
  Speaker 1: you're looking for these sheds or how are you identifying
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: where you think his bedroom is or's things like that.
• 32:07
  Speaker 1: I mean, with these mountain white tails, do you think
• 32:09
  Speaker 1: they have a consistent place or is are they romano
• 32:12
  Speaker 1: all over the place or how do you how do
• 32:13
  Speaker 1: you scout in that way to find these rubs, to
• 32:16
  Speaker 1: find the bedroom, to find the sheds. Well, I guess
• 32:19
  Speaker 1: it's like anything else, um if you just pay attention
• 32:22
  Speaker 1: to the details. So everything's real subtle. So you're in
• 32:27
  Speaker 1: a you're in a mountainous timber area, but it's not
• 32:32
  Speaker 1: all just like continuous, homogeneous cover. There's patches of openings,
• 32:38
  Speaker 1: there's patches of really dense timber. There's thicker brushier areas, draws, benches,
• 32:45
  Speaker 1: and so they utilize all that stuff differently, and so
• 32:49
  Speaker 1: you can kind of tease out like how they where
• 32:52
  Speaker 1: they feed, where they might travel to, and from where
• 32:55
  Speaker 1: they might be bedding that type of stuff. So I'm
• 32:58
  Speaker 1: looking for that stuff as I'm shed hunting, and when
• 33:00
  Speaker 1: i'm shed handing, I'm just going everywhere trying to learn
• 33:02
  Speaker 1: everything about that area. And so I just travel every trail.
• 33:06
  Speaker 1: It's basically I'm just gritting miles and miles of train
• 33:10
  Speaker 1: and like documenting everything all on the way, and I
• 33:13
  Speaker 1: was also picking up other nice sheds, So I'm like, man,
• 33:16
  Speaker 1: there's more than just this deer in here. I definitely
• 33:19
  Speaker 1: am hunting this no matter what. But I really, I
• 33:22
  Speaker 1: really want to kill this big buck at least see
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: him again to validate the my original sighting. I thought, God,
• 33:29
  Speaker 1: he's got to be a giant. But so anyway, I
• 33:33
  Speaker 1: scouted it, picked up sheds, figured out where I wanted
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: to hunt, hang my stands, and how did you make
• 33:39
  Speaker 1: that decision? I was basically hanging them right where those
• 33:42
  Speaker 1: rubs were, and I could I kind of had a
• 33:45
  Speaker 1: couple like you could figure out that they were definitely
• 33:48
  Speaker 1: in a line. And so of course you have to
• 33:51
  Speaker 1: figure out what your wind patterns are going to do.
• 33:53
  Speaker 1: And they're pretty typical mountain wind patterns, which means down
• 33:59
  Speaker 1: slopes in the mornings and evenings and up the open
• 34:02
  Speaker 1: the day yet mostly thermal um. And so I had
• 34:07
  Speaker 1: sort of some areas picked out and where I wanted
• 34:09
  Speaker 1: to hunt it, where I wanted to hang, and how
• 34:12
  Speaker 1: I wanted to hunt him, Like what time of day
• 34:15
  Speaker 1: was it gonna be an evening site, We're gonna meet
• 34:16
  Speaker 1: in the morning, that type of stuff. So so this
• 34:21
  Speaker 1: this how you're saying, there's a line of rubs indicating
• 34:24
  Speaker 1: some form of travel, travel router corridor. Was there some
• 34:27
  Speaker 1: type of train feature or cover change? Like, why do
• 34:29
  Speaker 1: you think that he was traveling there? Um? What was
• 34:32
  Speaker 1: a little of both? Um? So there was. It was
• 34:35
  Speaker 1: kind of some old logging activity. So that's another thing
• 34:38
  Speaker 1: that we deal with up there, is that the whole
• 34:42
  Speaker 1: forest is in different ages. You know, it's it's some
• 34:45
  Speaker 1: of has been logged and it is now twenty years old.
• 34:47
  Speaker 1: Again some of its old growth that could be right
• 34:49
  Speaker 1: next to it, and so they'll use those those brakes
• 34:55
  Speaker 1: to kind of to travel. So it's like an edge
• 34:58
  Speaker 1: within timber. It's a subtle edge. Yeah, And they love
• 35:03
  Speaker 1: the sudge as they do. Yeah, they do, and you'll
• 35:06
  Speaker 1: see it. They'll they'll hang out on the fresh clear
• 35:08
  Speaker 1: cut and they'll hang out on a twenty year old,
• 35:10
  Speaker 1: thirty year old clear cut too. So that's kind of
• 35:14
  Speaker 1: the stuff I was looking at. I was keying in
• 35:16
  Speaker 1: on and I was seeing a pattern there. It's like, oh, yeah,
• 35:18
  Speaker 1: there's a rub here, and there's one here, and I
• 35:20
  Speaker 1: remember seeing one over there, and they're all big, they're
• 35:22
  Speaker 1: all old, definitely from the same buck I found his
• 35:25
  Speaker 1: sheds right there. It's like he's got to be right
• 35:27
  Speaker 1: in here somewhere. But I never laid eyes on that
• 35:30
  Speaker 1: buck again in the whole time that I was in
• 35:34
  Speaker 1: their shed hunting. I saw a big buck that had
• 35:38
  Speaker 1: shed one day I was out hiking and it could
• 35:41
  Speaker 1: have been him me a big floppy years and a
• 35:43
  Speaker 1: giant neck and just a big brisket hanging down. But
• 35:48
  Speaker 1: I never did see him until this. It was the
• 35:51
  Speaker 1: second night that I went into to hunt, and so
• 35:55
  Speaker 1: it was November. I waited till November. I figured I'm
• 35:58
  Speaker 1: gonna wait till November. Our white tails rut a little later,
• 36:04
  Speaker 1: maybe then the Midwest. I'm not sure, but it seems
• 36:07
  Speaker 1: like pre rut kind of kicks in hot and heavy,
• 36:12
  Speaker 1: maybe early November. So I I think I I had
• 36:17
  Speaker 1: three two stands up, and I wanted to hang a
• 36:19
  Speaker 1: third one. So I hunted. I hunted a morning and
• 36:23
  Speaker 1: I hunted one other evening in two different stands, and
• 36:25
  Speaker 1: I'm like, well, I'm gonna just go hunt this last
• 36:27
  Speaker 1: place and get a stand up and then I can
• 36:30
  Speaker 1: really focus on um timing and just putting some effort in.
• 36:36
  Speaker 1: So it was raining. We had like four days of
• 36:39
  Speaker 1: straight rain up there. It was a fair temperature, fairly warm,
• 36:42
  Speaker 1: probably in the fifties, but it's just that Northwest NonStop drizzle.
• 36:49
  Speaker 1: So I crawled in, crawled in up into the brush,
• 36:52
  Speaker 1: hiked in and I'm I mean, I'm hiking in like
• 36:54
  Speaker 1: a mile and a half probably to hang these stands,
• 36:58
  Speaker 1: So it was not like right next to a row.
• 37:00
  Speaker 1: I don't know. Now here's a question relate to that.
• 37:02
  Speaker 1: You know in the Midwest, and we're planning on how
• 37:04
  Speaker 1: to get into hunter places. Your access routes and exit
• 37:07
  Speaker 1: routes are really important because you're always trying to fare out.
• 37:09
  Speaker 1: How can I get to my stand without spooking these deer?
• 37:12
  Speaker 1: Is that I mean? In this type of hatech I
• 37:14
  Speaker 1: feel like that's really tough because there's cover everywhere. There's
• 37:16
  Speaker 1: super tough. How do you do you worry about that? Yes?
• 37:20
  Speaker 1: I did. Um, you just go the extra effort not
• 37:24
  Speaker 1: to go where you think they're living, and that might
• 37:27
  Speaker 1: mean walking across country, through the through the brush timber
• 37:33
  Speaker 1: to get to your stand in the dark. Yeah, So
• 37:35
  Speaker 1: make sure your routes are well marked and you know
• 37:38
  Speaker 1: where your trees at and you can find in the
• 37:40
  Speaker 1: dark type of thing. So you're so you're crawling in there, yep,
• 37:43
  Speaker 1: crawling in there. But this hunt, that the hunt that
• 37:46
  Speaker 1: I killed this deer was an evening hunt, and I
• 37:49
  Speaker 1: had a route picked out going in there, and I
• 37:54
  Speaker 1: hiked in there early afternoon, climbed in the tree and
• 37:58
  Speaker 1: hung my stand. So I'm using like screwing steps and
• 38:01
  Speaker 1: hang on stands, and and I just settled in nice
• 38:07
  Speaker 1: quiet evening. The range just kind of let up, and
• 38:11
  Speaker 1: I started tickling some antlers together a little bit. And
• 38:15
  Speaker 1: then I heard the same thing, like, right out in
• 38:18
  Speaker 1: front of me, there's kind of this old, grown up,
• 38:20
  Speaker 1: clear cut, heavy kind of heavy region. You know, it's
• 38:25
  Speaker 1: probably twenty year old region, so you could see into
• 38:28
  Speaker 1: it a little bit, but not very well. And I
• 38:31
  Speaker 1: had my bow. I was bow hunting, and this was
• 38:33
  Speaker 1: general rifle season, so excuse me again, you're fine, I'll
• 38:40
  Speaker 1: take a little drink. I'm not used to this dry weather.
• 38:46
  Speaker 1: It's nice. Um. So I crawled in starticularly antlers, and
• 38:51
  Speaker 1: out in front of me, I could hear some antlers
• 38:54
  Speaker 1: getting tickled together. Like whoa, there's bucks right in front
• 38:57
  Speaker 1: of me, fifty yards out in that fixed in that
• 39:00
  Speaker 1: thick stuff and you could hear him just kind of
• 39:01
  Speaker 1: clicking and clacking, and then I could kind of see
• 39:04
  Speaker 1: like start of glassing in there, and I could see
• 39:06
  Speaker 1: little body parts and a little antler here, and there
• 39:09
  Speaker 1: ended up being three like small bucks, like three or
• 39:13
  Speaker 1: four point in white tails. That's a six or eight
• 39:17
  Speaker 1: point yea eastern. Sorry about that. That's sorry, I get
• 39:21
  Speaker 1: confused language barriers. A couple of three and fours are
• 39:29
  Speaker 1: hanging out in there, tickling, and so I think my
• 39:31
  Speaker 1: rattling kind of got them all excited, and they're like
• 39:33
  Speaker 1: each other, and they found each other and they started sparring.
• 39:35
  Speaker 1: Then they fed a little bit in front of me,
• 39:37
  Speaker 1: and then they tickled some more. They just kept working
• 39:39
  Speaker 1: past me too, you know, off to my right, and
• 39:41
  Speaker 1: they are, I mean, it never got more than a
• 39:45
  Speaker 1: hundred yards from me, and I could eventually I could
• 39:47
  Speaker 1: see them a little better. They got it in some
• 39:48
  Speaker 1: more open trees and I could see him feeding and
• 39:51
  Speaker 1: then they would spar and then I looked over and
• 39:53
  Speaker 1: I could see another buck showed up about the same size.
• 39:57
  Speaker 1: He just kind of walked out and then they all
• 39:59
  Speaker 1: there's like four him now, just all kind of sparring, tickling,
• 40:02
  Speaker 1: making quite a bit of racket, and I'm like, oh,
• 40:04
  Speaker 1: this is pretty cool. Um, I'm gonna try some Doughe bleats.
• 40:08
  Speaker 1: So I made some. I was using some Doughe bleats
• 40:10
  Speaker 1: just to see what their reaction was, and I thought, man,
• 40:13
  Speaker 1: they're way over here off to my right. I need
• 40:15
  Speaker 1: to be paying attention and what's off to my left?
• 40:17
  Speaker 1: So I just kind of glanced back and out in
• 40:20
  Speaker 1: that region. I could see the top of this large tree,
• 40:24
  Speaker 1: like a fifteen ft large tree, just whipping back and forth,
• 40:27
  Speaker 1: and I'm like, whoas there's a buck rubbing that. I'm
• 40:32
  Speaker 1: pretty sure and uh, and then like it stopped and
• 40:35
  Speaker 1: and out walks this buck. I could see that he
• 40:38
  Speaker 1: was just a big, heavy buck, but I couldn't tell
• 40:41
  Speaker 1: exactly what he was because he kind of disappeared real
• 40:43
  Speaker 1: quick in the trees. But he was coming on a
• 40:45
  Speaker 1: bee line right down that edge that I was sitting on,
• 40:49
  Speaker 1: and he was heading he was gonna go down eventually
• 40:51
  Speaker 1: would have taken him down wind of those small bucks.
• 40:53
  Speaker 1: He's probably gonna go down and sent check them. And
• 40:56
  Speaker 1: am I ready to think that these deer are still
• 40:58
  Speaker 1: like slick from the rain to the real dark foreheads
• 41:01
  Speaker 1: and glistening antlers. Absolutely, it's a good way to paint
• 41:06
  Speaker 1: the picture. Yeah, So yeah, they're very wet. Yeah, the
• 41:09
  Speaker 1: antlers are just sheen, just very shiny, almost red looking. Well,
• 41:14
  Speaker 1: and he was he popped out and I could see
• 41:17
  Speaker 1: he was all kind of puffed up and kind of
• 41:20
  Speaker 1: bristling a little bit, but coming definitely. He's like, well,
• 41:23
  Speaker 1: that is a big buck. I don't know if it's
• 41:25
  Speaker 1: that giant one I was looking for, but I'm going
• 41:27
  Speaker 1: to shoot that one for sure. And and I didn't
• 41:30
  Speaker 1: see him until he popped out fifteen yards in front
• 41:33
  Speaker 1: of me, and I had my bow in my hand,
• 41:35
  Speaker 1: and he was he walked out broadside and I just
• 41:37
  Speaker 1: kind of did a little a little burpen black just
• 41:41
  Speaker 1: nailed them perfect, and he whirled and he ran and
• 41:45
  Speaker 1: I could see him fall over maybe fifty yards away,
• 41:49
  Speaker 1: and I thought, oh, he's a big one. He's really heavy.
• 41:52
  Speaker 1: But he looked like he had short times because looking
• 41:54
  Speaker 1: at him at an angle from my tree stand, and
• 41:58
  Speaker 1: but I could just the only was just webbed. He
• 42:01
  Speaker 1: just seemed webbed out. And I god, he's just really massive.
• 42:04
  Speaker 1: It's like that's a great great deer. So I was
• 42:06
  Speaker 1: all excited, climbed out of my stand, went over there,
• 42:10
  Speaker 1: and his head was kind of down in some brush.
• 42:12
  Speaker 1: When I got there and I pulled his head out
• 42:15
  Speaker 1: of the brush, It's like, oh, this thing is a
• 42:19
  Speaker 1: big one. This is a really big one. So I
• 42:22
  Speaker 1: was just a static and then I started looking at us, like, oh,
• 42:25
  Speaker 1: this is definitely that deer that I was looking for.
• 42:28
  Speaker 1: Is this that one that looks almost like it was
• 42:30
  Speaker 1: related to a moose? That's the wu Yeah, that thing
• 42:35
  Speaker 1: is just an absolute monster. So yeah, he he was.
• 42:39
  Speaker 1: I mean, it's super rewarding. I put a ton of
• 42:41
  Speaker 1: time and effort into it. Um. I have to say
• 42:45
  Speaker 1: that when I was doing most of my scouting, my
• 42:49
  Speaker 1: wife was in grad school and wasn't living in uh
• 42:55
  Speaker 1: in the area. She was over in northern California. No wait,
• 42:58
  Speaker 1: she's in Washington doing a re search stuff. So I
• 43:01
  Speaker 1: was living on my own. So I was just a bachelor,
• 43:04
  Speaker 1: just cruising around, just yeah, doing whatever I wanted. Yeah,
• 43:08
  Speaker 1: it was nice. And my wife if gosh, you just
• 43:11
  Speaker 1: thought I wasn't complete, It's like, what are you doing?
• 43:13
  Speaker 1: You're going to go shed hunting again after work till
• 43:16
  Speaker 1: dark in the rain. Okay, I think our wives would
• 43:21
  Speaker 1: have a lot to relate to, but they she definitely
• 43:24
  Speaker 1: knows it's a passion and she was super excited for
• 43:28
  Speaker 1: me when I when I killed that deer and she
• 43:31
  Speaker 1: came in the next day with me and helped me
• 43:34
  Speaker 1: butcher it up and pack it out and stuff like that.
• 43:37
  Speaker 1: That's cool. Yeah, so she's been you know, that's so
• 43:40
  Speaker 1: nice to supportive super sparer in that way. That's so
• 43:44
  Speaker 1: good off the sit there's oh yeah, good lord. We'll
• 43:47
  Speaker 1: have to post this picture if you don't mind, because
• 43:49
  Speaker 1: the left side of this deer is nuts. It's so
• 43:54
  Speaker 1: widely palmmated. Then the G three has got this deep,
• 43:57
  Speaker 1: deep split on the left side. That is a buck. Yeah,
• 44:02
  Speaker 1: and so that's a public land ere. That's it's a
• 44:06
  Speaker 1: public land buck. And um yeah, anybody can go hunt
• 44:11
  Speaker 1: that spot. It's not easy, but um and I haven't
• 44:16
  Speaker 1: hunted that I've killed. I kill a couple more deer
• 44:18
  Speaker 1: in there after that, and they were all pretty nice.
• 44:23
  Speaker 1: All right. We are going to take a real quick
• 44:25
  Speaker 1: pause here for a word from our partners at White
• 44:28
  Speaker 1: Tailed Properties and our producer Spencer new Hearth is going
• 44:31
  Speaker 1: to take it from here this week with White Tailed Properties,
• 44:36
  Speaker 1: we are joined by Rich ba, a land specialist out
• 44:39
  Speaker 1: of southeastern Iowa, and Rich is going to be telling
• 44:42
  Speaker 1: us about what factors are most important for a property
• 44:45
  Speaker 1: to hold high numbers of big bucks. Okay, I think
• 44:50
  Speaker 1: that mature bucks are are always gonna want to be
• 44:54
  Speaker 1: in areas where they have a good thick cover and
• 44:57
  Speaker 1: get escape routes, so that buy a hunter or something
• 45:01
  Speaker 1: they have a way to escape about going across wide
• 45:04
  Speaker 1: open country. So I look for properties with lots of
• 45:07
  Speaker 1: thick cover um. And you know, one of the things
• 45:11
  Speaker 1: you can do to improve that is you can you
• 45:13
  Speaker 1: can play native grasses, you know in open fields or
• 45:16
  Speaker 1: people that don't have a lot of cover. And then
• 45:17
  Speaker 1: you can also do timber scan improvement work within your
• 45:20
  Speaker 1: timber to to make it thicker and more enticing for
• 45:25
  Speaker 1: for big dear to live in it. Another thing in
• 45:27
  Speaker 1: the Midwest where it gets really cold and the ladder
• 45:30
  Speaker 1: parts of the years is having property with self facing
• 45:33
  Speaker 1: slopes on them. South aising slopes catch a lot more
• 45:36
  Speaker 1: sun and are a lot warmer, and it's where almost
• 45:38
  Speaker 1: all the deer you end up wanting the bed, you know,
• 45:40
  Speaker 1: when it gets really cold. So those are some of
• 45:42
  Speaker 1: the things that I would look for. If you'd like
• 45:46
  Speaker 1: to learn more or to see the properties that Rich
• 45:49
  Speaker 1: currently has listed for sale, visit white Tail properties dot
• 45:52
  Speaker 1: com backslash ball. That's b A U G H. So
• 45:58
  Speaker 1: that I mean, guys when they think about heading out west,
• 46:01
  Speaker 1: they usually are thinking about mule deer or elk or
• 46:04
  Speaker 1: something like that. But there are some serious white Til
• 46:06
  Speaker 1: opportunities out here. And there there are yeah, um, there's
• 46:10
  Speaker 1: stuff in the river bottoms um and that's a lot
• 46:13
  Speaker 1: of the stuff you see on out like outdoor television.
• 46:16
  Speaker 1: There's a lot of least properties and outfitters like up
• 46:19
  Speaker 1: on the Milk River or even like right here down
• 46:24
  Speaker 1: here and Yellowstone Valley. So um on your floehead. Yea,
• 46:31
  Speaker 1: the breeze dies down and those things come out. What
• 46:34
  Speaker 1: we're dealing with all sorts of stuff. We got wind,
• 46:36
  Speaker 1: we have mosquitoes, we had shotguns. It is it is
• 46:39
  Speaker 1: rough outdoor podcast. We can't complain. Look at this we've got. Oh,
• 46:43
  Speaker 1: it's incredible beautiful mountains all around us. I've never recorded
• 46:47
  Speaker 1: a podcast in such a pretty place, so this is
• 46:50
  Speaker 1: this is pretty good. Yeah, yeah, I'm not going to
• 46:52
  Speaker 1: complain at all. So so Mountain whitetail hunting. Yes, I
• 46:56
  Speaker 1: kind of pride a little bit of how you're doing
• 46:58
  Speaker 1: stuff there. But talk to me a little bit more
• 47:01
  Speaker 1: about the habitat that you're looking for. Is it? Is it?
• 47:03
  Speaker 1: Are you totally keying in on these logged out areas?
• 47:05
  Speaker 1: Is that like if I were a new guy hunting
• 47:07
  Speaker 1: in a forested mountainous region, whether it's West Virginia or
• 47:11
  Speaker 1: one of these western states, I guess tell me more
• 47:13
  Speaker 1: about finding them first. Um, in my neck of the woods,
• 47:18
  Speaker 1: white tails can be anywhere, which is kind of confusing
• 47:23
  Speaker 1: to a lot of people because everybody thinks they're they're
• 47:25
  Speaker 1: hanging around egg or farm fields, which we have a
• 47:28
  Speaker 1: little out in the valley that there's some hay fields
• 47:31
  Speaker 1: on the old down in the private stuff, but um,
• 47:33
  Speaker 1: most of it is timbered and our white tails they
• 47:39
  Speaker 1: live down in the valley bottom. But I've seen them
• 47:41
  Speaker 1: up at like seven thousand feet. Um, it's it's crazy.
• 47:46
  Speaker 1: The biggest buck I've ever seen in my life was
• 47:51
  Speaker 1: late August. I've got dropped off in a helicopter to
• 47:56
  Speaker 1: go on the fight of fire put out a small
• 47:58
  Speaker 1: fire on the ridge that was probably four miles from
• 48:02
  Speaker 1: any road and it had to be six over six
• 48:06
  Speaker 1: thousand feet. And I was walking down this ridge and
• 48:11
  Speaker 1: up and right in front of me, twenty yards out
• 48:13
  Speaker 1: of his bed stands a that was over. He was
• 48:17
  Speaker 1: well over two typical. This is the white tail. White tail.
• 48:21
  Speaker 1: Giant stood there, looked at me, and it just kind
• 48:23
  Speaker 1: of sauntered off the ridge. But I, honestly I wanted
• 48:29
  Speaker 1: to go back and hunt that gear. But I don't
• 48:32
  Speaker 1: know how you do it. Honestly. There's no trail there.
• 48:36
  Speaker 1: You've got this huge, immense ridge. It's like, what are
• 48:40
  Speaker 1: you gonna do. You're gonna go just sit on that.
• 48:41
  Speaker 1: You're gonna go hike four miles in and sit on
• 48:44
  Speaker 1: this ridge all day and wait for him to maybe
• 48:46
  Speaker 1: walk by you. It's really tough in any anywhere you go.
• 48:52
  Speaker 1: He could have dropped into these big canyons that No,
• 48:56
  Speaker 1: there's no trail, there's nothing. There's not even a logging
• 48:59
  Speaker 1: road anywhere. There's a crick bottom in the down in
• 49:03
  Speaker 1: the very bottom, and that's it. And so I don't
• 49:06
  Speaker 1: that buck probably died from a lion or something, you know,
• 49:09
  Speaker 1: or old age, but so we have they can be anywhere,
• 49:13
  Speaker 1: and they can be any size. You never know what's
• 49:16
  Speaker 1: going to step out. That's probably not going to happen
• 49:20
  Speaker 1: for most people. But there there we have the genetics
• 49:26
  Speaker 1: sounds like it, yeah, and they can reach an old
• 49:28
  Speaker 1: age class because they have that cover to survive in
• 49:31
  Speaker 1: pressure pressure places people are whited on. It's got to
• 49:36
  Speaker 1: be minuscule, right. We have a long season, and there's
• 49:40
  Speaker 1: a reason we have long season because we have very
• 49:43
  Speaker 1: low pressure. So they can be anywhere. But if I'm
• 49:46
  Speaker 1: like trying to narrow things down, probably burn areas, logging areas,
• 49:51
  Speaker 1: said you said it earlier. Edges, yeah, ye, anything that
• 49:55
  Speaker 1: creates an edge. So a lot of that is logging
• 49:59
  Speaker 1: in our part of the world, or fires if it's
• 50:03
  Speaker 1: in the right spot, definitely, um or even like you know,
• 50:09
  Speaker 1: if you can find like some hay meadow or something
• 50:12
  Speaker 1: I was gonna ask, you know, or naturally occurring meadows,
• 50:15
  Speaker 1: but they generally tend to like they stick to two
• 50:19
  Speaker 1: areas that aren't grassy. They like brows like the Forbes,
• 50:24
  Speaker 1: other different things like that. So, so is there any
• 50:27
  Speaker 1: So it sounds like you just covered it, But one
• 50:29
  Speaker 1: of the things I was going to ask is where
• 50:30
  Speaker 1: are we finding the feed, Like what's the preferred feed,
• 50:33
  Speaker 1: So it's just random openings and these areas of region
• 50:36
  Speaker 1: mostly yeah, pretty much. Yeah, they like um yeah, burn
• 50:40
  Speaker 1: areas and logging areas. And they don't have to be
• 50:44
  Speaker 1: clear cuts either. They can be like a selective cut,
• 50:47
  Speaker 1: just like a partial thinning, young gole. Let some sunlight
• 50:50
  Speaker 1: in and let that release the the forbes, the vege
• 50:56
  Speaker 1: on the ground. You talked, You talked about how rubs
• 51:00
  Speaker 1: played apart in that one hunt. What about scrapes? Do
• 51:02
  Speaker 1: you pay attention to scrapes at all? You know? I
• 51:04
  Speaker 1: see scrapes all over the place and they might mean something,
• 51:09
  Speaker 1: but I haven't figured it out. It doesn't play a
• 51:11
  Speaker 1: part in what you're doing. Not not for me. I
• 51:13
  Speaker 1: haven't really utilized it. I'll definitely take note and be like, WHOA,
• 51:17
  Speaker 1: there's scrapes here, and there's a bunch of them and
• 51:20
  Speaker 1: they're in a row. But I've never really seen a
• 51:22
  Speaker 1: deer traveling a scrape line. I just yeah, it just
• 51:26
  Speaker 1: hasn't happened for me. Speaking of scrapes, do you ever
• 51:31
  Speaker 1: in trail cameras for white tails? Is that a thing
• 51:32
  Speaker 1: you've ever done before? Too busy with all the other
• 51:35
  Speaker 1: things too. I have I own one trail camera and
• 51:37
  Speaker 1: I set it up one time and it got bit
• 51:40
  Speaker 1: in half by grizzly bear. That is something that I
• 51:44
  Speaker 1: don't think anyone on my podcast has ever had an
• 51:46
  Speaker 1: issue with. Yeah, I was like, well, I'm not doing
• 51:52
  Speaker 1: this and even want Yeah, I don't know. They're neat
• 51:54
  Speaker 1: and all. But I mean I like looking at people's
• 51:57
  Speaker 1: trail camp phones. They're pretty cool. But I just I
• 52:01
  Speaker 1: have no interest in it. I just don't care. I
• 52:04
  Speaker 1: liked I guess I like to be surprised and what's
• 52:07
  Speaker 1: out there. I understand that. Yeah, I've one I've been
• 52:09
  Speaker 1: conflicted on that, Like there's a lot of fun and
• 52:11
  Speaker 1: seeing what's out there and then getting excited about that
• 52:13
  Speaker 1: and going after that buck or whatever. But then there's
• 52:16
  Speaker 1: also something really cool about when all of a sudden
• 52:18
  Speaker 1: you hear that crack crack, and then you turn over
• 52:22
  Speaker 1: your head and then something giant steps that you never
• 52:25
  Speaker 1: saw this comfort What is it gonna be here? Yeah?
• 52:28
  Speaker 1: That's cool. Yeah, And that is neat about that area too,
• 52:32
  Speaker 1: is you just never know what you're gonna see. You
• 52:33
  Speaker 1: know me. You can have sheds from all these deer
• 52:38
  Speaker 1: and you can have trail camera photos. I have buddies
• 52:40
  Speaker 1: of put trail cameras up and you know, they think
• 52:43
  Speaker 1: they know what's living there, and they do for the
• 52:44
  Speaker 1: most part, but you just never know what's gonna step
• 52:50
  Speaker 1: out and just show up. Like that buck living on
• 52:54
  Speaker 1: that ridge. Who knows he might have traveled fifteen miles
• 52:57
  Speaker 1: down valley to go rut in his pocketed dose somewhere. Yeah,
• 53:04
  Speaker 1: but I never heard about him getting killed. I think
• 53:06
  Speaker 1: he made made some some splash, I'd say, so, taking
• 53:10
  Speaker 1: a buck out of that early country. Yeah. So the
• 53:13
  Speaker 1: the neighboring forest a Flathead National Forest. Ah it it
• 53:18
  Speaker 1: is uh, it has quite a rep reputation for producing
• 53:22
  Speaker 1: giant white tails, mainly you know, from the eighties and nineties,
• 53:27
  Speaker 1: so it was back a lot of those deer. There's
• 53:30
  Speaker 1: like a bunch that are plus. Yeah, there's some giant
• 53:34
  Speaker 1: ones from the from Flathead. I never really knew. But
• 53:37
  Speaker 1: this has got me thinking, like what a cool just
• 53:40
  Speaker 1: doing a mountain white tail hunt and like do it
• 53:43
  Speaker 1: like an like a spike camp like backpack in set
• 53:46
  Speaker 1: up a spike camp deep in there and then chase
• 53:48
  Speaker 1: white tails in that kind of way. You got a
• 53:50
  Speaker 1: backpack full all your gear. Then you throw a tree
• 53:52
  Speaker 1: stand on top of that, I maybe you have a
• 53:53
  Speaker 1: very heavy load, but what an adventure of a white tail,
• 53:56
  Speaker 1: Oh for sure. So there's areas like that are pretty
• 53:58
  Speaker 1: famous in in certain circles of the white tail any world,
• 54:02
  Speaker 1: like the Swan River Country, Swan Valley on a white tails,
• 54:07
  Speaker 1: there's there's been some giants killing in there, so not
• 54:11
  Speaker 1: as many though in recent years. And I think a
• 54:13
  Speaker 1: lot of it has to do with changes in habitat
• 54:17
  Speaker 1: um fairly print a dance predator populations at the full
• 54:22
  Speaker 1: suite of predators, grizzly bears, black bears, mountain lions, and wolves.
• 54:28
  Speaker 1: We've had some hard winters, some back to back hard winters,
• 54:32
  Speaker 1: and it's just kind of adds up to a complex problem.
• 54:36
  Speaker 1: And also vegetation management is probably part of it, you know,
• 54:39
  Speaker 1: the four service isn't isn't cutting as much timber. They're
• 54:42
  Speaker 1: not creating as much brows and openings and whatnot. And
• 54:45
  Speaker 1: I think maybe our winter range is becoming more dense,
• 54:49
  Speaker 1: densely grown or something I don't know that might have
• 54:51
  Speaker 1: an effect. Interesting, So there's a whole bunch of aspects
• 54:55
  Speaker 1: to it. It's complex. Back to something you're talking about
• 54:59
  Speaker 1: a little earlier with that again, um, do you do
• 55:03
  Speaker 1: you find that calling and rattling works pretty well? I'm
• 55:07
  Speaker 1: I'm assuming as an outsider, I would think, Hey, I
• 55:10
  Speaker 1: could see rattling and calling working pretty good in these
• 55:13
  Speaker 1: areas because there's not as much pressure, and it seems like,
• 55:17
  Speaker 1: at least from my experience out in the West, there's
• 55:19
  Speaker 1: more balanced age structure of these dear like comparedly in Michigan.
• 55:23
  Speaker 1: It's like like gray Hunt, I'm seeing like eight percent
• 55:26
  Speaker 1: of the bucks I see our year and a half
• 55:27
  Speaker 1: olds and then one three and a half yearld or
• 55:29
  Speaker 1: maybe one four and a half yearld. I mean, it's crazy.
• 55:31
  Speaker 1: When I came out here, I'm seeing very nice balanced
• 55:35
  Speaker 1: one two, three, four, I mean a lot of older
• 55:37
  Speaker 1: bucks and um, the buck door ratio seems somewhat decent
• 55:41
  Speaker 1: compared to some of the places I'm at. Is that accurate?
• 55:44
  Speaker 1: I guess? Is my assumption accurate there? And then be
• 55:46
  Speaker 1: does that lead to pretty good reactions to calling? Do
• 55:49
  Speaker 1: you think yes? And yes? So yeah we have are
• 55:53
  Speaker 1: it seems like our age a structure is healthy. We
• 55:56
  Speaker 1: have a lot of mature deer and they can live
• 55:59
  Speaker 1: to be fairly old. Um, which creates competition. Um, so yeah,
• 56:06
  Speaker 1: I've had great success. Oh man, I'm sorry about that. Man,
• 56:12
  Speaker 1: it's dry and my throat back, my throat dry. Um.
• 56:16
  Speaker 1: I would say pre rut rattling works really well. The
• 56:24
  Speaker 1: it seems like once those those big bucks start cruising though,
• 56:27
  Speaker 1: there's nothing going to bring him in. I mean, you
• 56:30
  Speaker 1: might have that anomaly where it will happen and it works,
• 56:33
  Speaker 1: but I don't go for it. After I start seeing
• 56:36
  Speaker 1: him chasing really hard, they're going to be on those doughs, yeah,
• 56:40
  Speaker 1: and they'll push them into these little secluded pockets and
• 56:42
  Speaker 1: you might not see him for a few days. There'll
• 56:45
  Speaker 1: be times when I'll be out whitetail hunting and I'll see,
• 56:49
  Speaker 1: you know, forty dos and not one buck, and like,
• 56:53
  Speaker 1: what is going on? Well, that means that that's like
• 56:55
  Speaker 1: the the peak interesting because they're locked down. They're locked down,
• 56:59
  Speaker 1: just disappear and then three days later, everywhere you look
• 57:02
  Speaker 1: there's a buck running somewhere across the hillside through a
• 57:05
  Speaker 1: clear cut, or you know, jumps across the road in
• 57:07
  Speaker 1: front of you. So yeah, I need to get out
• 57:09
  Speaker 1: of here there on the rut because when I was sitting,
• 57:10
  Speaker 1: I like with all the bucks I'm seeing. I cannot
• 57:13
  Speaker 1: imagine what the rut must be like out here, because
• 57:15
  Speaker 1: the competition must be just intense. Yeah, I don't. I
• 57:18
  Speaker 1: wouldn't compare it to Texas. It's nothing like that. But
• 57:22
  Speaker 1: it's definitely i'd say it's healthy, yeah, yeah, and it's
• 57:25
  Speaker 1: it's definitely fun for a white tailed people. They get
• 57:28
  Speaker 1: pretty excited about it when they come out and hunt. Yeah.
• 57:31
  Speaker 1: And we get a fair bit of pressure from like
• 57:34
  Speaker 1: we get a lot of Washington and Idaho guys coming
• 57:37
  Speaker 1: over um and we'll see you know, places from We've
• 57:40
  Speaker 1: I've seen Michigan guys, Wisconsin guys coming out here. So
• 57:44
  Speaker 1: it's not unknown. It's just not super popular. And it's
• 57:48
  Speaker 1: it's tough hunting, you know, it's not it's not easy easy.
• 57:52
  Speaker 1: You gotta be prepared to move to hike, to struggle
• 57:56
  Speaker 1: a little bit, right, Yeah. It's not like what walking
• 57:58
  Speaker 1: fifty yards the tree stand in the backyard and sitting
• 58:01
  Speaker 1: there right. Yeah. And it can be intimidating because it's
• 58:03
  Speaker 1: you're hunting in big mountains and it's it's hard to
• 58:07
  Speaker 1: figure out where to start. So if you have the basics,
• 58:10
  Speaker 1: start thinking about edges and think about where they like
• 58:17
  Speaker 1: to bed just those little weird, subtle key components that
• 58:20
  Speaker 1: they all need and you'll you'll have it figured out.
• 58:23
  Speaker 1: Speaking of betting, have you found mountain of if you've
• 58:25
  Speaker 1: had just maybe haven't needed to go to this level
• 58:27
  Speaker 1: of detail, But do you find that they're betting with
• 58:30
  Speaker 1: any certain types of train features in mind, Like in
• 58:32
  Speaker 1: the East and the Midwest, and like the sledder hill country,
• 58:35
  Speaker 1: we see these bucks lots of times betted on ridge,
• 58:37
  Speaker 1: little knobs off of ridges and stuff where they can
• 58:40
  Speaker 1: have the wind coming down their backs and they can
• 58:41
  Speaker 1: look out on ahead of us. Do you see anything
• 58:43
  Speaker 1: like that happened with these white tails mountain country too.
• 58:45
  Speaker 1: It's a little more random. It seems to be pretty random,
• 58:49
  Speaker 1: but they will, I guess they do prefer places like that.
• 58:54
  Speaker 1: They're kind of like and that's kind of like what
• 58:56
  Speaker 1: a meal or elk they'll bed where they can see
• 58:59
  Speaker 1: below them and smell what's coming from behind him, and
• 59:03
  Speaker 1: that happens to be a lot of these little benches
• 59:06
  Speaker 1: and key features. But yeah, that we're talking features though.
• 59:10
  Speaker 1: One of the things that I like to key in
• 59:11
  Speaker 1: on in that country are like like little dips in
• 59:15
  Speaker 1: a ridgeline like a saddle type like that little saddle,
• 59:19
  Speaker 1: sometimes subtle, sometimes very distinct that those deer will they'll,
• 59:23
  Speaker 1: you know, they'll traverse the side of that thing and
• 59:26
  Speaker 1: then drop into the saddle to cross over the other
• 59:29
  Speaker 1: side to see what's see what's back there. So they
• 59:32
  Speaker 1: generally don't travel our ridge tops like you think that's
• 59:36
  Speaker 1: just to avoid being skylined or just I think it's
• 59:39
  Speaker 1: this laziness to be honest with. It's just the most
• 59:41
  Speaker 1: efficient way, not laziness. But yeah, I mean every everybody
• 59:45
  Speaker 1: wants conserve energy at least resistance, So I think that's
• 59:49
  Speaker 1: what it is. That makes sense. Yeah, And humans seem
• 59:53
  Speaker 1: to travel ridge tops a lot, a lot of trails
• 59:56
  Speaker 1: and stuff. Bro Yeah, just yeah, it's this easy walking
• 59:58
  Speaker 1: for us so side owen's hard for us, and deer
• 1:00:02
  Speaker 1: are a little better at it. So yeah, it seems
• 1:00:05
  Speaker 1: like that maybe they'll do it to avoid maybe predators
• 1:00:07
  Speaker 1: to I don't know, there's cats cruise ridge lines or not.
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 1: I would assume they would, do you see have you
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 1: ever seen a cat while any type of big game
• 1:00:15
  Speaker 1: on out western Oh? Yeah, I see mountlines all the time. Yeah,
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 1: we have tons of them, and uh yeah, I see
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 1: them I feel like they're kind of the ghosts of
• 1:00:26
  Speaker 1: the woods. It's pretty crazy when you do see one.
• 1:00:29
  Speaker 1: Trying to think when the last time I saw them was.
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 1: It was seeming like it was just a couple of
• 1:00:32
  Speaker 1: years ago. But yeah, I would say a maybe about
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 1: every three or four years, I'll see a lion that
• 1:00:39
  Speaker 1: hasn't been trigued by rounds. Um, We've got a lot
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 1: of guys that chase cats in that part of the
• 1:00:45
  Speaker 1: world out there. It is really neat. I read a
• 1:00:49
  Speaker 1: close call, see one up clothes are they always offer
• 1:00:51
  Speaker 1: them the distance kind of slinking away. They usually just
• 1:00:53
  Speaker 1: slink away. Yeah. Yeah, I have seen a few that, um,
• 1:00:57
  Speaker 1: I didn't know I was there, But most of the
• 1:00:58
  Speaker 1: time they do school and they're heading away. Yeah, it's
• 1:01:02
  Speaker 1: pretty cool they are. They're amazing. That tail is just immense.
• 1:01:06
  Speaker 1: When you see it hanging off the back of it
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 1: was like it's kind of shocking, like how big it is?
• 1:01:12
  Speaker 1: A big Yeah, they're really neat. And then when you
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 1: walk up, like I've been on some hound hunts before
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 1: and you walk up to one in a tree, you'll
• 1:01:23
  Speaker 1: have four, three, four or five dogs at the bottom
• 1:01:26
  Speaker 1: of the tree just barking like crazy. But when you
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 1: walk up, that lion is just looking at you and
• 1:01:32
  Speaker 1: and only you. It's just like watching you walk around,
• 1:01:35
  Speaker 1: and it doesn't even care about the dogs. It's it's
• 1:01:38
  Speaker 1: kind of eerie. Yeah. Yeah, I think you'd get used
• 1:01:41
  Speaker 1: to it as a as a houndsman, but I'm not.
• 1:01:44
  Speaker 1: I'm not a houndsman, and maybe I'm maybe I'm weird
• 1:01:49
  Speaker 1: like this, but there is like a certain something I
• 1:01:53
  Speaker 1: enjoy the idea of knowing I'm not the only predator
• 1:01:55
  Speaker 1: out there, and knowing that I'm maybe not the top
• 1:01:57
  Speaker 1: of the food chain. It's humbling and it's there's little
• 1:02:00
  Speaker 1: more electricity in the air. I feel like when you
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 1: know there's some other critters out there that are, you know,
• 1:02:05
  Speaker 1: above above you on that chain and doing the same
• 1:02:08
  Speaker 1: thing you're trying to do the too. I agree, No,
• 1:02:11
  Speaker 1: it's uh, it adds a different feel knowing that you're
• 1:02:15
  Speaker 1: in an intact ecosystem. I think if they weren't there,
• 1:02:20
  Speaker 1: it just you know something's missing. Yeah, So it's nice
• 1:02:25
  Speaker 1: to have predators. I like them, I mean, and I
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 1: think they need to be managed as well. But um, yeah,
• 1:02:34
  Speaker 1: I have no issues with sharing the world with those things.
• 1:02:38
  Speaker 1: I mean, they're they're making a they're trying to make
• 1:02:41
  Speaker 1: a living out there, right, and it's a tough place.
• 1:02:44
  Speaker 1: I can't imagine respect for that. Yeah. Yeah, if I
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 1: get tired and hungry, I'm just going to go home. Yeah,
• 1:02:52
  Speaker 1: grab some n eat, snuggle up by the fire with
• 1:02:55
  Speaker 1: a cup of coffee. They're out there in the rain
• 1:02:58
  Speaker 1: and that easy, trying to eat some then every day. Yeah,
• 1:03:01
  Speaker 1: it's an existence. It is. It's amazing and uh yeah,
• 1:03:04
  Speaker 1: they're amazing creatures. So I don't I've seen a few
• 1:03:07
  Speaker 1: wolves out and about, um, but it's so thick, you
• 1:03:11
  Speaker 1: just it's tough to get a good view of things.
• 1:03:13
  Speaker 1: You know. You just see maybe a glimpse of them
• 1:03:15
  Speaker 1: going across the road because you're you know, I'm out
• 1:03:17
  Speaker 1: in the woods lot driving around at work, so I
• 1:03:20
  Speaker 1: see a lot of stuff at work, but usually it's
• 1:03:23
  Speaker 1: just a streak. I was like, well it was a
• 1:03:25
  Speaker 1: big black dog with a collar. That was definitely a wolf. Yeah,
• 1:03:31
  Speaker 1: grizzly encounters had many of those, Um seeing a bunch Yeah,
• 1:03:36
  Speaker 1: no real, I wouldn't say encounters. Um, they usually just
• 1:03:41
  Speaker 1: turn around and get the heck out of there. Want
• 1:03:43
  Speaker 1: to do the thing. Yeah, yeah, they up where I
• 1:03:48
  Speaker 1: live there pretty uh, there's not very many. I mean
• 1:03:52
  Speaker 1: there's like the they estimate the population to be like
• 1:03:55
  Speaker 1: fifty five or something, and that's for the entire eco
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 1: system there, so it's pretty rare. Yeah, they think there
• 1:04:04
  Speaker 1: should be roughly about a hundred living there, but so
• 1:04:06
  Speaker 1: they're roughly halfway there for Recovery interesting. But yeah, you'll
• 1:04:10
  Speaker 1: see him every once in a while. Saw look to
• 1:04:13
  Speaker 1: me like kind of a younger male grizzly this year
• 1:04:17
  Speaker 1: when I was out spring bear hunting. Um he was
• 1:04:20
  Speaker 1: standing on the road just kind of look warder what
• 1:04:23
  Speaker 1: that guy was. But yeah, it was pretty neat to see. Yeah,
• 1:04:26
  Speaker 1: you see him every once in a while. I don't
• 1:04:27
  Speaker 1: see him every year, but I mean a guy probably
• 1:04:30
  Speaker 1: could if you wanted to go find him, look for
• 1:04:32
  Speaker 1: him and find some grizz every year this spring when
• 1:04:35
  Speaker 1: we're out, we're down this neck of the woods this
• 1:04:37
  Speaker 1: spring earlier, and we saw right around here that's insane
• 1:04:43
  Speaker 1: over the course of like a week. That is awesome. Yeah,
• 1:04:48
  Speaker 1: they're a whole different beast when you see him. They
• 1:04:50
  Speaker 1: just have a whole different demeanor. Yes, it seems like
• 1:04:55
  Speaker 1: in the the temperature in the room rises when they're
• 1:04:59
  Speaker 1: somewhere there. When you're looking at one of those, everything
• 1:05:02
  Speaker 1: is a little bit more yeah something. Yeah, yeah, this
• 1:05:05
  Speaker 1: this part of the state is it's dance with grizz
• 1:05:09
  Speaker 1: You know. It sounds like it sounds like they're working
• 1:05:12
  Speaker 1: on delisting. So I heard it happened, didn't get announced
• 1:05:15
  Speaker 1: like yesterday towards it. Yeah, that's interesting. It's a whole
• 1:05:20
  Speaker 1: another conversation, absolutely, and one I don't know much about. Yeah,
• 1:05:25
  Speaker 1: so you can read the paper get more information, and
• 1:05:27
  Speaker 1: there's lots of talk about that. So we've been talking
• 1:05:31
  Speaker 1: about western white tail stuff. But there's also a whole
• 1:05:33
  Speaker 1: lot of guys in Michigan or Ohio or New York
• 1:05:36
  Speaker 1: or Alabama, all these guys that dream of coming out
• 1:05:39
  Speaker 1: here someday to chase elk or mule deer, antelope or
• 1:05:41
  Speaker 1: something like that. Do you have any advice for someone
• 1:05:43
  Speaker 1: who wants come and try hunt like that? And you've
• 1:05:45
  Speaker 1: been living this and doing this whole life, but if
• 1:05:47
  Speaker 1: you were new, um, what do you wish that you
• 1:05:50
  Speaker 1: knew at the beginning that maybe these guys could pick
• 1:05:52
  Speaker 1: up from you now? M I would say, guys that
• 1:05:55
  Speaker 1: want to come out and just experience a western hunt.
• 1:05:58
  Speaker 1: Just just dip their toe in the in the stream,
• 1:06:01
  Speaker 1: so to speak. Um, I would say, come out and
• 1:06:05
  Speaker 1: try an antalope punt, trying a rifle, analope punt slash
• 1:06:09
  Speaker 1: mule deer, combo hunt or something rifle. Um, because you
• 1:06:12
  Speaker 1: can do that out on the prairie. The logistics are
• 1:06:15
  Speaker 1: fairly easy. You see a lot of animals. You kind
• 1:06:18
  Speaker 1: of figure out what it's like to drive out this
• 1:06:21
  Speaker 1: way because it could be a long drive and that
• 1:06:23
  Speaker 1: can be logistically kind of a nightmare and costly. So
• 1:06:26
  Speaker 1: you kind of get that worked out of the system
• 1:06:29
  Speaker 1: and figured out and maybe how to do things a
• 1:06:31
  Speaker 1: little more efficiently. UM I would I would say start
• 1:06:34
  Speaker 1: out with that. But if you're just dying the hunt
• 1:06:39
  Speaker 1: mule deer or elk in the back country or even
• 1:06:42
  Speaker 1: the front country, just go with low expectations trophy size.
• 1:06:49
  Speaker 1: Everybody comes out with a number in their head. It
• 1:06:51
  Speaker 1: seems like I want a hundred and seventy in mule
• 1:06:53
  Speaker 1: deer and I want a three twenty inch bowl. Come
• 1:06:57
  Speaker 1: out here and try it, and then shoot an elk wherever,
• 1:07:04
  Speaker 1: shoot any elk and pack it out and just see
• 1:07:08
  Speaker 1: what you think of experience it. Yeah, and you might
• 1:07:12
  Speaker 1: think this is the worst thing have ever done. I
• 1:07:15
  Speaker 1: am never doing that ever again. So, I mean, everybody
• 1:07:20
  Speaker 1: likes to research gear and they like to think about
• 1:07:24
  Speaker 1: the glory of success. But I just say to the
• 1:07:29
  Speaker 1: guys that want to come out, try it and just
• 1:07:33
  Speaker 1: go small. Think small, and and and simple at first. Guys.
• 1:07:39
  Speaker 1: I you read about all the time on on rock Slide,
• 1:07:44
  Speaker 1: guys that were coming out for the first trip and
• 1:07:46
  Speaker 1: they want to go do a ten day backpacking trip
• 1:07:48
  Speaker 1: for elk solo, Like, are you kidding me? He that
• 1:07:52
  Speaker 1: is gonna be a nightmare of a trip. Unless you
• 1:07:56
  Speaker 1: are a person of just another world. That's a tough hunt.
• 1:08:02
  Speaker 1: I mean, yeah, right, I live. I live in some
• 1:08:06
  Speaker 1: rugged country and I hunt solo all the time, and
• 1:08:10
  Speaker 1: I backcountry hunt solo quite a bit, and just getting
• 1:08:13
  Speaker 1: an elk out of the mountains is unbelievably hard by yourself,
• 1:08:20
  Speaker 1: and to do it in the back country, it's it's crazy. So,
• 1:08:25
  Speaker 1: um yeah, i'd see, just set realistic goals and um yeah,
• 1:08:31
  Speaker 1: take some baby steps. Don't just dive head right on.
• 1:08:34
  Speaker 1: Just you know you're not gonna just dive straight into
• 1:08:37
  Speaker 1: a stream and think you're gonna come out looking great.
• 1:08:41
  Speaker 1: It's gonna be tough. You might it might happen, but
• 1:08:44
  Speaker 1: boy it's gonna be rare. So do some research. Get
• 1:08:48
  Speaker 1: the right here. Do you do research on here? But
• 1:08:50
  Speaker 1: also just yeah, do research on what you think you
• 1:08:53
  Speaker 1: might be able to handle, which is tough to do.
• 1:08:56
  Speaker 1: And that's why I say take baby steps when you
• 1:08:58
  Speaker 1: come out. And I like your advice too, to shoot
• 1:09:03
  Speaker 1: the first thing you have an opportunity or do something,
• 1:09:05
  Speaker 1: because that is a big part of that experience. And
• 1:09:08
  Speaker 1: and and for me, it was like in the moment,
• 1:09:10
  Speaker 1: it might feel like the worst, but it's it's the best.
• 1:09:12
  Speaker 1: It is, it's all said and done. You did that
• 1:09:14
  Speaker 1: like the after I packed my first alcohol and after
• 1:09:19
  Speaker 1: what was I don't know. We think like sixteen miles
• 1:09:21
  Speaker 1: that day, up and down, up and down, and we
• 1:09:23
  Speaker 1: dropped that pack. It was like I shot my bowl
• 1:09:25
  Speaker 1: at eight in the morning. By nine o'clock at night,
• 1:09:28
  Speaker 1: we finally made it to back to the minivan. We
• 1:09:30
  Speaker 1: took a minivan out of ice, made it back to
• 1:09:32
  Speaker 1: the minivan after eleven thirteen hours of whatever this was,
• 1:09:36
  Speaker 1: and dropped that pack, collapse on the ground and laid
• 1:09:38
  Speaker 1: there for thirty minutes, just trying to breathe, and I
• 1:09:41
  Speaker 1: was like, oh am, I still alive. But looking back
• 1:09:43
  Speaker 1: on that as like the coolest thing I've ever done. Yeah,
• 1:09:46
  Speaker 1: you were more. Yeah, You're probably never more alive at
• 1:09:49
  Speaker 1: that point. Absolutely, and have to get that opportunity is
• 1:09:54
  Speaker 1: even if it was a year and a half old
• 1:09:57
  Speaker 1: cow or great big bowl no matter what, or mule
• 1:09:59
  Speaker 1: there mean experience that. Yeah, No, absolutely, and then you
• 1:10:05
  Speaker 1: can move on to bigger and better and greater hunts. Yeah.
• 1:10:10
  Speaker 1: And you you you kind of learned. It takes a
• 1:10:12
  Speaker 1: while to learn an area. We're talking about this earlier.
• 1:10:15
  Speaker 1: It's just nice to go someplace new and put boots
• 1:10:20
  Speaker 1: on the ground and just learn it, explore. Have an adventure.
• 1:10:25
  Speaker 1: Doesn't have to be a back country kill yourself adventure,
• 1:10:29
  Speaker 1: just but have an adventure. Keep an open mind, be
• 1:10:32
  Speaker 1: curious and coositive and and figure stuff out. That's it's
• 1:10:37
  Speaker 1: super fun. Guys that want to come out and hunt,
• 1:10:40
  Speaker 1: they'll most of them love it. I feel like in
• 1:10:42
  Speaker 1: the white tailed world, it's easy to get hung up
• 1:10:45
  Speaker 1: on two things. It's easy to get hung up on
• 1:10:47
  Speaker 1: hunt in the same place all the time. A lot
• 1:10:48
  Speaker 1: of guys just hunt their little piece of property that
• 1:10:50
  Speaker 1: they grew up on or that they have access to it,
• 1:10:52
  Speaker 1: and so they always do that. Or it's easy to
• 1:10:55
  Speaker 1: get hung up on the big buck mentality because the
• 1:10:58
  Speaker 1: media pushes giant antlers. All right, there's those two things.
• 1:11:00
  Speaker 1: That's so easy to get stuck in that kind of rut.
• 1:11:03
  Speaker 1: And I just I've been fortunate to have some opportunities
• 1:11:06
  Speaker 1: to go some new places, and man, it is so
• 1:11:09
  Speaker 1: worth just trying to get out of that rut. Don't
• 1:11:11
  Speaker 1: worry about the antlers. Don't worry about going on outside
• 1:11:14
  Speaker 1: your comfort zone, because when you do, you find some
• 1:11:17
  Speaker 1: pretty incredible places, some incredible experiences, and and that's what
• 1:11:21
  Speaker 1: it's all about in the long run. Ye. And you
• 1:11:23
  Speaker 1: make some great you meet great people too when you
• 1:11:26
  Speaker 1: do it, it seems like and then by trying this
• 1:11:28
  Speaker 1: new thing, you become a better hunter and that can
• 1:11:30
  Speaker 1: translate back to everything else you're doing back home too. Um,
• 1:11:33
  Speaker 1: you're gonna learn things about yourself, about these animals, um,
• 1:11:37
  Speaker 1: and that all helps in the long run. So get
• 1:11:40
  Speaker 1: out there, do this stuff. Absolutely awesome. Well, I think
• 1:11:43
  Speaker 1: we kept a long enough. Josh, this is fun. Yeah,
• 1:11:46
  Speaker 1: thanks for having me, Mark, I appreciate it. Any any final,
• 1:11:50
  Speaker 1: any final words of wisdom. We want to leave our
• 1:11:51
  Speaker 1: listeners with to say, if you want to come out
• 1:11:56
  Speaker 1: and hunt Western white tails, do it. Don't think I don't.
• 1:12:02
  Speaker 1: Don't think that they're the same creature that they are
• 1:12:06
  Speaker 1: back East, because they're slightly different, and keep an open
• 1:12:10
  Speaker 1: mind and you just might be really surprised at what
• 1:12:14
  Speaker 1: you're gonna find out there. So yeah, awesome, But all
• 1:12:19
  Speaker 1: I gotta say, well, I can't wait to get back
• 1:12:22
  Speaker 1: out here. Yeah, all right, thank you, Josh, you bat Mark,
• 1:12:26
  Speaker 1: And that is it. Like I just mentioned a little
• 1:12:28
  Speaker 1: earlier at the beginning, well at the beginning of the show,
• 1:12:31
  Speaker 1: we are off next week, like I mentioned, so I'd
• 1:12:34
  Speaker 1: highly recommend you checking out episodes number sixty three with
• 1:12:37
  Speaker 1: Mark Drury and episode eighty three with Shane Mahoney to
• 1:12:41
  Speaker 1: get you through that that week gap. Although although there
• 1:12:44
  Speaker 1: might be a little bonus episode coming, I'll give a
• 1:12:46
  Speaker 1: little teaser here if you're if you're still listening, there
• 1:12:49
  Speaker 1: is something worth checking back for next week. But other
• 1:12:51
  Speaker 1: than that, check out these other two. And before we go,
• 1:12:54
  Speaker 1: I want to give a big thank you to our
• 1:12:56
  Speaker 1: partners at SI Gear. YETI Cooler's Matthew's Archery, may of
• 1:13:00
  Speaker 1: an Optics, Whitetail Institute of North America, Trophy Ridge and
• 1:13:03
  Speaker 1: Hunter a Maps, And finally, of course, thank you all
• 1:13:07
  Speaker 1: for listening. I hope you enjoyed this one, and if
• 1:13:09
  Speaker 1: you're hunting seasons opening up soon, good luck out there,
• 1:13:12
  Speaker 1: and until next time, stay Wired to Hunt,