Latest / Wired To Hunt Podcast / Ep. 337: Chasing Whitetails on the Ground with Tony ­Trietch

Transcript

Ep. 337: Chasing Whitetails on the Ground with Tony ­Trietch · 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,
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: Mark Kenyon. Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast. I'm
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: your host, Mark Kenyan, and this is episode number three
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: thirty seven, and today in the show, we have got
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: a fascinating discussion on the merits of the traveling hunter
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: lifestyle and spot and stock hunting big white tales from
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: the ground. All right, welcome to the wired ton podcast,
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: brought to you by on X. Today, I am joined
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: by Tony Treach for what ends up being or I
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: guess it ended up being a really real cool conversation.
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: I just got done recording this one. And Tony is
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: not a hunting industry guy. He's not working full time
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: in this line of work. Rather, he actually started and
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: built up a construction company up in my neck of
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: the woods of northern Michigan. Um was, I'm going to
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: claim them as my neck of the woods since I
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: love that area. But he has built his career and
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: really his whole lifestyle in such a way that Tony
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: is able to travel the country every single fall in
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: search of deer and elk another big game, and he
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: does it for two three four months a year. And
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: I'm not just saying he goes out there for a
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: week in September and then a week in October and
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: then a week in November. No, he goes out there NonStop,
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: like he'll take off in August and he won't come
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: home until November, that kind of thing. And he's living
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: out of a tent or the back of his truck,
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: and he's hunting all sorts of critters across the West
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: and the Great Plains, and and he used to spend
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: a lot of time in the Midwest. And he's basically
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: he's basically living this dream that a whole lot of
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: us have, and he's doing it with a tremendous amount
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: of success and of particular interest to me and probably
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: to a lot of you. A big part of that
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: success has come in the form of chasing and killing
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: a whole lot of big, mature bucks. And he's doing
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: it uniquely by botting, stalking, decoying, and calling him in
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: on the ground. And I'm pretty sure this is right.
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: Tony's done this without having used a tree stand since
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: two thousand twelve. So today in the show, I'm grilling
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: Tony on these two main topics Number one, How he's
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: able to pull off this traveling vagabond hunting lifestyle for
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: months at a time. What that's like, the good and
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: the bad? You know? How does he balance his travel
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: with family obligations, some d I y camping tips, and
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: a whole bunch of stuff along those lines. And then
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: we get into the nitty gritty of his aggressive approach
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: to hunting big white tails on the ground. And I'm
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: telling you what, this one's fascinating. It just got me
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: really really excited, So I can't wait for you guys
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: to hear it. But the corps there before that, you
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: guys ever had that where words are in your mind
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: and then when they get to your mouth, it's like
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: you get stumbled up on your tongue. Happens to me
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: a whole lot, just unfortunately I do it in front
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: of tens of thousands of people have to hear me
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: sound like an idiot, So sorry for that. But what
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: A trying to say is that before that, I want
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: to give you an update on the shed hunting trash
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: collecting thing that Dan and I were brainstorming last week.
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: Again another example of us sounding like idiots. Um, we've
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: decided on a hashtag for that, and we're gonna call
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: it times in Trash, So the hashtag sign and then
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: times and Trash. I hope you guys will join Dan
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: and I this spring. When you go out shed hunting,
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: just bring along a trash bag and pick up trash
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: throughout your walk, simple as that. And if you want
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: to post a pick with your trash on Instagram, use
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: that times and Trash hashtag, and maybe you know, give
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: a couple of words of encouragement to others out there
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: to do the same. Um. I'll be keeping an eye
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: on the hashtag and just at random pick some folks
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: to send some prizes out to nothing bigger, crazy, But
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: I do want to just give some folks, you know,
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: a little bit of extra incentive to do this and
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: just you know, give you a pat in the back
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: for doing a good thing. Um. So I'm gonna set
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: out some word hunt stickers, maybe some signed copies of
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: that wild Country, maybe a wired hunt yet you rambler
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: stuff like that. So yeah, hopefully, hopefully it's just a
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: fun way to get some room right there, to get
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: see a whole lot of that's happening today. I'm hoping
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: this is a good way to just remind us all
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: to try to keep our wild places clean. And I
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: gotta be honest, I'm I'm not always good about it.
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: I get so focused on the task, as I do
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: in many cases, I get tunnel vision and I just
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: probably walk right by stuff without even thinking about it.
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: And I realized how bad that I typically probably do,
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: because yesterday I went out shed hunting and I brought
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: my trash bag and I was much more focused on
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: looking for trash. And when I started really paying attention
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: to it, man, it was kind of depressing how bad
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: it was that you couldn't walk fifty yards without seeing
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: some more junk out there, And it just it was
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: just a good reminder that I need to be better
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: at this kind of thing, and maybe we, maybe a
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: lot of us, can do a little bit better. I
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: know a lot of people have been doing this a
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: lot in the past, So kudos everyone out there who's
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: been better than me at picking up trash out there
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: in the woods. Thank you for inspiring me to try
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: to get a little bit better. And thanks to the
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: wire hunt fans several of you who suggested this to
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: me over the previous months and which led to us
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: trying this out so times in trash. That's the hashtag hashtag,
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: not the hashtag having a hell of a day here, guys,
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: that is the hashtag poster picks. I'll be keeping an
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: eye out. And that's my final update. And now enough
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: of all that, enough of my rambling, uh Tom tongue tumbling,
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: miss Ques. Let's just get to this chat with Tony Treach.
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: I think you guys really gonna enjoy this one, all
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: right with me? Now on the line is Tony Treach.
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: Welcome to show. Tony, Hey, thanks, Mark, glad to be on.
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: I'm glad to make this happen. You're you're up in
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: my neck of the woods, aren't you? Kind of the
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: northern part of Michigan. Yep, Travis City. Nice sweet. I'm
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: down in the southern part of the state. But my
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: family deer Camp is just about a half hour south
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: you there, so I love that part of the state.
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: It's a great place. We're gonna talk about that later
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: because I grew up about a half mile or a
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: half hour south of here, too, so like pretty close. Nice. Yes,
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: when we get off everyone to talk specifics, that's great.
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: It's it's definitely that whole area, the northern lower kind
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: of form the foundation of my outdoor passions, you know.
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: And it's funny I keep finding and maybe I'm biased here,
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: but it just seems like Michigan, especially West and Northwest Michigan,
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: breeds just really really good sportsmen and women, really passionate
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: hunters and anglers and also writers. I mean, um, you're
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: up there. My buddy Steve Ronelli's from there. Um, you
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: know you've got heavyway that spent time up there. Jim
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: Harrison spent time up there. A whole lot of outdoors
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: people seem to have had that that Michigan influence. Ones. Well,
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: that's a pretty uh prestigious group to have my name
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: in the way. I'm not sure if Well, hey, you're
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: you're from everything. I've senior one hell of a hunter,
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: and uh, you've you've done some different cool projects across
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: the outdoor world too. So I've been kind of distantly
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: aware of you for some time. And then I came
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: across an article in Field and Stream last year I
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: think I wish you were featured, and I got really intrigued,
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: and I put you on my list of like people
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: I really need to talk to eventually, and and somehow
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: I got distracted and never ended up following up with you.
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: But I'm glad we're finally doing it because you do
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: a lot of things uniquely. But there's two things in
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: particular that stand out to me that, um, they really
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: intrigue me. You and any anytime you're jumping here and
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: correct me if I'm if I'm off based on any
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: of these things, I'm seeing about you and reading about
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: you and hearing from you. But it seems like you
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: have built a life for yourself that's pretty unique compared
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: to most people. You've kind of built a world and
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: a yearly schedule and a career that has centered on
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: hunting and allowing yourself to go and hunt and adventure
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: as much as you possibly want. Um Am I right
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: in that you have kind of very thoughtfully crafted your
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: life to create the time and space and freedom to
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: to hunt this way. Is that right? Cool? Yeah, that's uh,
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: that's true. Um. I started a business in my early
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: twenties as a carpenter. Uh realized real fast, if I
• 8:38
  Speaker 1: want to spend time hunting, it was going to have
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: to you know, there was basically that was the only way.
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: It was to be my own boss and U and I,
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: you know, measure that the people that worked for me
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: and the people that I worked with no that you know,
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: it's it's kind of this thing when to fall rolls around,
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: Tony is going to be gone, and it's it's definitely
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: evolved over the years from just being gone maybe a
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: couple of weeks at a time, traveling around the Midwest
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: in Illinois and Iowa, Ohio and Kansas, to now traveling
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: all across the country and the mountains. And the biggest
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: biggest hurdle for me is, you know, with that is
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: is managing the people. And but I've been pretty lucky
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: that I against good people and it's it's it's worked
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: out so far. So you're you're from some of the
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: things I've heard. You're sometimes taken off in July or
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: August and then not coming back till what November or
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: December or something like that. Is that is that accurate? Uh?
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: There has been years yet last year I think you
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: got left or I guess it was. This past year,
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: it was wasn't as bad. Well, if you asked, my
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: wife should probably tell you it was bad, But it
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: wasn't as bad as two those two those nights left
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: July at something like that, you know, and then that
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: range of last two weeks of a wi somewhere here
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: because I had a Nevada tag and early Nevada tag
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: that I wanted to scout for and I've never been
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: in the unit. I was just going off from Smithfold
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: from another friend and uh, and then you know, I
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: just basically had hunts lined up all you know, you know,
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: all across the West right up until well pretty much
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: the end of November. And usually I'll try to get home,
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: you know, sometime in late October before I leave again
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: for the White Tail Rep. That's like a whole other
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: separate thing. But that year I didn't get to and
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: I was gone almost almost four months ago there spent
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: this past year was only I think it was just
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: shy of three months. So so a lot of people,
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: I think a lot of people dream of doing something
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: like that, right, this idea of just hunting NonStop tour
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: in the country, checking off all these bucket list hunts.
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: A lot of people like that idea, um, but not
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: a whole lot of people actually do it. Why why
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: do you do Why do you actually do it? Why? Like,
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: what's at the root of this being like a reality
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: of your life. I realized, like it's really easy to say, well,
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: I just love to hunt, but there's gonna be something
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: deeper that has that has led you to like this
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: very extreme. UM, I think it's fair to say, like
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: an extreme lifestyle choice. What um probably the biggest reasons
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: no one's told me. No. Uh, I just recently got
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: married so that you know, and I've vend her for
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: three seasons before I before I put a ring on
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: her fingers, so she knows what she's influenced. But but
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: we actually joked about putting in the pre nup field agreements,
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: you know that I would we we you know, agreed
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: on three months to a year instead of four. But
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: I've just I've I got really good at what I
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: did for a living. Um Like, so in my area,
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: you know, I'm yeah, basically a KURP free subcontractor, and
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: then I have reputation of being one of the best.
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: So myself, my guys were in high demand and people
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: that wanted us. You know, it came with the with
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: the expectation that you know, I'm not going to be
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: there for these months and they know that, UM, if
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: I wasn't good at what I did, I probably wouldn't
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: have been able to demand that extra clause in the contract,
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: so to speak. But because we were really good, we
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: had a great reputation of getting things done the right
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: way and not taking advantage of situations and you know,
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: you know, treating people right. And because of that, um,
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: everything just kind of fell into place. And and I
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: had great employees too, you know, it's I've had, you know,
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: for the last twenty years, I've had some fantastic men
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: working for me. And um, if it wasn't for that,
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: you know, if I had never found good employees, and
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: you know, you can't do something like that. Um. As
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: far as the maybe in my nature like what makes
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: it possible, it's just it's probably the same reason the
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: mountains are are so intriguing to me now, uh, and
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: I spend more time there than I do in the Midwest.
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: It's just because there's there's there's a little bit of
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: a mispeak to it that like the next what's over
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: the next mountain? You know, what's the next you know,
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: it's it's just there's there's something always calling me to
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: go a little bit further and try something new. Yeah,
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: you definitely can can relate to that. Do you think that?
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: And I gotta believe it's probably something both. But I'm
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: curious how you think about it. Do you look at this.
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: Is it more so the hunting itself? Is it the
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: fact that you just love the hunt? Or is it
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: the adventures side of things and like the whole travel
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: and journey of months at a time living off grid,
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: because that, unless this has changed recently, as I understand it,
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: you're pretty much camping the whole time. I don't think
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: you get hotels and things like that typically. Um, what
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: is it? Is it the combination issue? Is that one
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: of the other that really makes this thing such a thing?
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: Or or just described to me the different facets of
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: this kind of expedition of swords good questions Mark, So
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: that's a yeah, yeah, that's a good that's a good question.
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: I think that there's part. I don't think that because
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: I do it all different types of hunting. So it's backpack.
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: Some of it's you know, I have like I set
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: up a car camp in your right, I don't use
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: the hotel rooms. I think I stayed in the hotel
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: room one time last year, um or last season, I
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: mean the and that was just because I got done
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: super late at night. No, it was covered in elk blood.
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: But the yeah, it was. It was a good day.
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: The I don't think it is necessarily the hunt. Um,
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: I shouldn't say that. It isn't actually the punging of
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: the tag. It's the look. The thing I look forward
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: to the most. And that probably would explain it better
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: is scouting season. Yeah, and and and this also is
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: one of my big secrets that helped me be successful
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: at take and giant animals every years. Get there early,
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: put the time in scouting. I'd much rather have a
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: week of scouting in three days of honey or four
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: days of hunting than you know, one or two days
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: they look around and then ten days of hunting. Um,
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: that scouting is key, and that scouting is also my
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: favorite time of the year. Like you give me ten
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: days you know, just cruising around looking for it doesn't
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: matter if it's Kansas white tails, you know, on the prairie,
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: or if it's Colorado up in the high country in
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: August above timberline, scouting with a camera and trying to
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: find that buck that I want to you know, okay,
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: you know be my target. Like, okay, this is what
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: we're gonna this is the guy we're gonna go after.
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: That's that's my favorite time, the barn hunt. Yeah, man,
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: I can totally relate to that. I love those days
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: proceeding the hunt, when you're watching and looking and and
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: enjoying everything around the hunt. Still you're basically hunting, but
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: it's there's still that anticipation that that's pretty awesome. So okay,
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: so let's let's dig in a little further into what
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: this is actually what's the reality of this kind of thing,
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: because again I'm thinking, I know there's a lot of
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: people out there that's sitting their cubicle and dream of
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: living your life, dream of that lifestyle. Um, I'm sure
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: it's not all rainbows and butterflies though, um So, what
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: is what are some of the best things of of
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: this kind of lifestyle or about this your your two
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: or three or four month voyage. What are the some
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: of the things that stand out is like the best
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: unexpected moments, Like, of course, we know seeing a big
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: box great and we know that, um, you know, getting
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: a deer in the ground is gonna be a great thing.
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: But what are a couple of the little things that
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: just make the inside of you smile. And then on
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: the flip side, what are a couple of the things
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: about this lifestyle, about that two or three or fourth
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: trip that are just like the the the unknown ship
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: that you deal with that most people wouldn't think about.
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: What are a few things on both sides of the
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: coin to stand out? Boy? Um? You know, I think
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: that probably they both revolve around the same thing, and
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: that's people I get to meet, and I have met
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: some amazing people on the side of the mountain that
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: are friends this day. People in every state, Um. And
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: you know, you can see some cool, crazy animal stuff
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: if you're in the woods, you know, whether it be
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: the Midwest or the mountains for hundred and twenty days
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: a year, you're going to see some stuff that not
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: many of the people are seeing. And I've seen some
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: crazy things happen. I've seen animals doing things that maybe
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: you know, most people don't see. So that's that's always cool. Um.
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: The worst things that can happen are back to the
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: people thing. It's you know, I'm away from the people
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: I love for a long time. Um, And every year
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: I make the you know, my wife now and I
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: we've always made the agreement that you know, if I
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: tag out early somewhere and I still have you know,
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: if I have, you know, maybe six days before the
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: next hunt starters, maybe I'll only scout four days and
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: I'll fly literally just parked the truck at a at
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: an airport, fly home for a night or two, and
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: then fly back to that airport and then jump back
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: the truck and start over again. But it just never
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: seems to happen. It's like I'm always running behind, um
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: and I'm literally racing from from from mountain, you know,
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: from state to state, and it's not I mean, sometimes
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: you tag out early and it's like, wow, I got
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: you know, I can leisurely now drive from New Mexico
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: to to Mountana, which if anybody has never done that before,
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: you're basically driving from Canada to Mexico and it's long.
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: It's further than it is from Michigan to Nevada. And
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: I did that trip three times last year. Um. It's
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: it's not always just relaxing and fun and it's uh,
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: it's just go go, go, go go to you know,
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: And it's and it's my fault. I mean I piled
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: too many tags on a lot of times, and um,
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: I'm not I'm not just hunting premium you know, limited
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: entry tags them, I'm a lot of I'm not any
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: tag I can get a lot of times. I'm just
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: trying to throught my schedule. And it sometimes becomes a
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: little bit of aware. You know, wears on a guy
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: and you missed the people at home, you missed your dogs,
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: you even you know, I missed my co workers, the
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: guys that you on the job site. The uh you know,
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: you're with modern technology, you'll we always got everybody readed
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: our fingertips, and we can, you know, chat and text
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: with people and friends. But um, when when I'm out
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: there for that long even I mean when I run
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: into a gas station, you know, I'm I'm chatty catty,
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: which is not my normal personality. Uh. And people probably
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: you know, they don't know me, so they don't think
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: anything of it. But I mean, you just you can
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: only talk to yourself, but without going somewhat crazy for
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: so long before you you need a little bit of
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: And well that's what the things I was curious about
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: is is I've done a lot of these solo trips myself. Um,
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: but they're always they've always been you know, seven to
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: twelve days. Um. And even in that period where I'm
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: all by myself on a hunt of some kind, camping
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: on the back of my truck, even then it starts
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: to I like it a lot, but you still do
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: start to feel a little bit that loneliness or a
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: little bit of that kind of inside your head cabin fever. Um.
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: How do you how do you deal with that when
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: you're doing that for a hundred twenty days? Or is it?
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: Was it simply what you just said. You just talked
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: to folks at the gas station or at the diner
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: and stuff like that. Is there any other things that
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: you're doing to to stay sane? Well, I think I
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: probably started talking to myself on the on the second day.
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: They're second way from home. Um, it's that that starts
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: pretty quick. It's when I start to argue with myself.
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: That's when I know there's a problem. But the the
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: I'm I'm how you say this, Um, I can I
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: can focus on focusing on problems pretty pretty well. And
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: when I have a target animal, if I if you know,
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: if I've found an animal, even if I haven't seen
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: him in a long time, if I as long as
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: I know it's there. It's super easy for me to
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: focus and stay like I mean literally, I wake up
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: in the morning with one thought in my mind the
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: whole day, hunt hard, go to bed, you know, in
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: a tent somewhere on the side of the mountain wherever
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: my day ended, and the next day start over again.
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: And then ten days can go by before I realize like,
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: oh crap, I'm out of food and I gotta hike
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: back the truck or whatever. So it's it's only when
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: I don't have that I would just say that point
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: of focus. Yes, So you go somewhere and you scout
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: for five days, you don't find anything. I don't find
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: anything I want to hunt. That's when things start turning
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: and get weird. Or if I've had I've had literally
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: had you know, my buckshot out from nderneath me. I've
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: I've literally had uh judy scoping pictures of a of
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: a of a book that I found a couple days
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: before I was on my way to another because I
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: stopped in that state to just scout for like four
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: or five days. I was leaving that state go to
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: another state to scout and then hunt, and I'm having
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: dinner at a little restaurant and I look at my
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: phone on Instagram and I saw the same book, but
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: I just took pictures of an hour or two ago
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: in the same bed. Someone else literally just found him.
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: That's that's I mean, he hadn't even moved yet, like
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: he was still there. And you know, your heart thinks.
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: It's at times like that, it's where it's really hard
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: to just to keep it together. And but if I guess,
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: if there's if that carrots out in front of me,
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: if I can, you know, if I can see the end,
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: then it's really easy for me to just buckle down,
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: focus on what I gotta do and get it done,
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: and they move on to the next day. It's funny
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: you mentioned that, Um, you know, when you're so focused
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: on something I found personally, when I'm hunting or fishing
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: in particular for me, fly fishing in in particular, bow hunting. Um,
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: when I'm involved in one of those two things, almost
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: nothing else can get in my head. Like for for
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: that five hours or that ten hours or that seven days,
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: I'm fully enveloped and consumed by this thing, and I
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: don't think about politics, and I don't think about the crap.
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: That's going on at home or some weird tiff with
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: a friend or something going on with work. Um, I
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: can just be wholly consumed by this one thing. And
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: that's always been something that I think is is really
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: unique that I don't know if I can find that
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: anywhere else in the world in my life. Um, that's
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: something that's always drawn me to these things. I think.
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: Is that something that's true for you too? I means
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: that's part of what pulls you out doing these things
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: for so long? Is it too? I don't want to
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: say it's an escape, um, but maybe maybe there's a
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: little bit of that to what I like about it.
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: I'm not sure how exactly I would explain it, But
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: does anything that resonate with you? Yeah, No, that there's
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: definitely a different feeling. I get what I mean Literally
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: when I'm when I'm pulling up to a trailhead and
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: there's a big mountain in front of me, and there's
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: you're not thinking about anything else, Like it's just I've
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: got a big task in front of me. And maybe
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: it's somewhere you've been, maybe it's somewhere you haven't been,
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: but either way, it's there's a gigantic puzzle in front
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: of that you've got to figure out and it's gonna
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: take everything, you know, if you want to do it,
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: you know, get the most out of It's gonna take
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: everything you've got to get it done. And it's the
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: same thing in the Midwest too. I mean, um, you know,
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: the problems are different, but it's it's uh, it's well
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: with any trip, no matter where you're going. I guess
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: as far as your on that same line of thought,
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: you have to have everything settled and good at home
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: before you can go on a trip and be away
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: from home doing you know, doing a hunt like that
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: for that for any length of time. Otherwise when you
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: do get them out and you're still gonna be worrying
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: about the problems you left at home. Everything has to
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: be buckled up and tied, you know, tidy at home
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: before you can really enjoy anything you know, out there.
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: So it's but that's a great point speaking along those lines.
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: One of the things that that you know, I've talked
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: about for years and years here on the podcast with
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: with my buddy Dan, We've always talked about the challenges
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: of of how you can balance your love for hunting
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: with your obligations at home and with your relationships? Um,
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: how what does that look like for you? Um? With
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: your now wife? Um how? I think one of the
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: biggest things that a lot of people have a hard
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: time with is trying to explain to their significant other.
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: And maybe it's maybe it's a wife, or maybe it's
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: maybe the hunters of female and she's got a husband
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: who doesn't get it, whatever it is, explaining like why
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: this matters so much? Explaining why you have to go
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: off for a seven day trip or a seven week trip. Um,
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: how have you gone about trying to explain that to
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: your girlfriend and now your wife and and haven't makes
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: sense to her? Or or is the reason she's your
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: wife now because she just innately got it? Yeah? That there,
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: there's probably a little bit of both there she uh
• 26:19
  Speaker 1: literally like on our first date, I'm you know, I
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: learned real quick. You better explain it to him up
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: front kind of what you do with your life because
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: if or there's going to be a big surprise later
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: for one of you. And so she knew exactly what
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: she was getting into. And you know, I think they
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: all would, uh, Like when when you tell someone that
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: you you know, like when I tell somebody I hunt
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: a lot. You know, You're like, oh, yeah, how much
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: like woll usually, you know, three or four months. We're like,
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: oh yeah, we you know, we hunt birds in September
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: and then all the different scenes. I'm like, no, no no,
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: I mean I'm gone for three or four months straight.
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: And so literally I remember telling Jody that over the phone, um,
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: and she, uh, She's like, what do you mean? And
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: I think we were facetimeing, and I literally like I
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: took my phone and I just kind of like I
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: was in my living room and I just kind of
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: like made a little three sixty spin so she could
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: see all because I've got a there's I don't even
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: know how many heads in the house. And she's like, oh,
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: that's a different type of art than I was thinking
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: would be on the walls in the house. But so
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: she knew she was getting into um, and she's seen
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: the passion, ah, that I have for it, and she
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: knows I'm a pretty passionate guy about everything. And I remember,
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: you know, after she knew me for a while, and
• 27:38
  Speaker 1: she looked at some of the pictures that I'd take these,
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: you know, I say, after I got something on the ground, Um,
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: and she could see the type of smile that I had.
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: She's like, she's like, she's remember her saying like, I
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: don't I've never seen a smile like this, Like I
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: don't like, I don't, I don't know that. I've never
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: seen you that happy before. Um. And a couple of
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: years ago I got a chance to take her with me.
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: She was able to get some time off from her
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: work to go on a scouting trip up in Colorado
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: the high country and late July, mid July, and you know,
• 28:15
  Speaker 1: hike Upbove Timberly and is just beautiful, big green basins,
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: and she got to see all kinds of animals, and um,
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: I think she I think she kind of fell in
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: love with it too. And I think she understood. I mean,
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: she she gets whites it means so much to me,
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: and um, she realizes that that's just it's part of
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: who I am. Yeah, that's great to find a partner
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: like that, who can you know, appreciate that and and
• 28:42
  Speaker 1: support you in that way. So this raises an interesting
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: question though, because you have someone who understands why you
• 28:49
  Speaker 1: love this and who's been out there with you and
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: and has found joy in it too. Um, why do
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: you choose to do most of this stuff solo? Though? Um,
• 29:00
  Speaker 1: I know I've got friends that wonder why I like
• 29:01
  Speaker 1: to take off for these trips on my own. Um My,
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: my wife thinks, you know why, it's got to be
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: lonely or boring or dangerous or something. Um. And I
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: certainly do like doing some trips with friends. There's a
• 29:13
  Speaker 1: certain different kind of fun with that. But there's something
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: special about taking off on your own and just being
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: with yourself and the mission in front of you. Um,
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: what's what's that for you? Why is that an important
• 29:24
  Speaker 1: part of what you do? Or maybe I'm wrong, maybe
• 29:27
  Speaker 1: it's not an important part. Well, I think it started
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: out it's just a matter of I was I was
• 29:32
  Speaker 1: more effective, it was more lethal alone. Um. When I
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: realized that when I was hunting in the Midwest, but
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: with buddies who weren't as careful about how they got
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: to their true stands or got out at night, or
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: they weren't as careful about you know, Uh, they're sent
• 29:48
  Speaker 1: setups or playing the win and it's like I just
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: got sick of dealing with And I love the guys
• 29:53
  Speaker 1: are that they're you know, they're they're great guys, and
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: I just got to the point where I'm like, I
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: don't want to have to deal with everybody else's mistakes.
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: I've got enough of my own. And I started hunting
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: on my own, and I started killing bigger, better animals.
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: And so when I went to the mountains and started
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: doing out there, I just it was natural to be alone.
• 30:12
  Speaker 1: And even though I didn't know what I was doing.
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: Thank God for a couple of great websites out there
• 30:17
  Speaker 1: that you know, you know, you're you can really learn
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: a lot about that. But I it's and and and honestly,
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: I have hunted with somebody. I think that this is
• 30:30
  Speaker 1: two years in a row now. I've hunted with a
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: with a guy that I met on the side of
• 30:33
  Speaker 1: the mountain in Wyoming. We've we became friends when we met,
• 30:38
  Speaker 1: and then he invited me to hunt with him and
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: just a general dreary and Wyoming the last couple of years.
• 30:42
  Speaker 1: And I spent a week with him the last two years.
• 30:45
  Speaker 1: But it's it's, uh, it's not it's not hard for
• 30:50
  Speaker 1: me to be alone. I think that, Okay, I'm very
• 30:53
  Speaker 1: comfortable and I don't like, you know, I don't get scared.
• 30:58
  Speaker 1: I don't get lonely. I mean, since I don't get lonely.
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: I missed my family and friends. But it's not I
• 31:05
  Speaker 1: don't need There's no nothing in me that just says I,
• 31:08
  Speaker 1: you know, I need to have people around all the time.
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: That's and that's probably my my true you know, that's
• 31:14
  Speaker 1: that's kind of why I am. I've always just been
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: a little bit of a loner in Um. If the
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: friends are around, great, If not, that's great too. But
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: it definitely has his challenges, especially in the mountains when
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: you get something down. But it's the I actually look
• 31:33
  Speaker 1: forward to hunting now probably with people. Those are like
• 31:36
  Speaker 1: almost my you know hunt woman that I was talking
• 31:40
  Speaker 1: about about my buddy Derek. Um, we didn't shoot deer
• 31:43
  Speaker 1: last year, neither of us here, and it was one
• 31:47
  Speaker 1: of my most memorable hunts of the year. There's a
• 31:50
  Speaker 1: lot of fun, but so it's one of the hunts
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: down that I look forward to. And uh, I'm sure
• 31:56
  Speaker 1: there'll be more in the future where I'm not alone.
• 31:58
  Speaker 1: But suspending so much time on the road doing this
• 32:02
  Speaker 1: kind of thing. Um, I gotta believe you've you've put
• 32:06
  Speaker 1: your gear through the ringer, you've put your whole camp
• 32:09
  Speaker 1: life process through the ringer, you figure some stuff out
• 32:13
  Speaker 1: by Now, Um, what are a few of the most
• 32:18
  Speaker 1: crucial pieces of gear that you've come across that just
• 32:21
  Speaker 1: make living on the road or living you know, pull
• 32:23
  Speaker 1: off on National forest land or somewhere. What are a
• 32:26
  Speaker 1: couple of things that stand out? Is, man, this thing
• 32:29
  Speaker 1: is the ticket, or maybe it's a customized piece of
• 32:31
  Speaker 1: year or something is Is there a couple of things
• 32:32
  Speaker 1: that stand out? Is something that jee has just changed
• 32:35
  Speaker 1: your life in some small way. Oh, this is funny.
• 32:38
  Speaker 1: It has really not much to do with hunting. But
• 32:40
  Speaker 1: it's one of those little little pump showers that I
• 32:43
  Speaker 1: think it's made by Nemo, and it's just this little
• 32:45
  Speaker 1: teeny You put a couple of gallons of water in
• 32:48
  Speaker 1: it and step by it with your foot and it's
• 32:49
  Speaker 1: just got like a six ft hose on the end
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: of it, and it is a game changer. Like I Yeah,
• 32:56
  Speaker 1: without that thing, there are a lot of hunts that
• 32:58
  Speaker 1: I'd be I'd be running a hundred miles back every
• 33:00
  Speaker 1: couple of days for a shour because there's no other
• 33:02
  Speaker 1: good sources of water, no cricks to jump in, and um,
• 33:06
  Speaker 1: that thing is save me a lot of few on time. UM,
• 33:11
  Speaker 1: good food, Um, when you're gone that like, so when
• 33:15
  Speaker 1: I leave, my whole truck is packed for you know,
• 33:18
  Speaker 1: for that entire time. I've got a little trailer I
• 33:20
  Speaker 1: pull behind me with freezers and coolers and uh, the
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: last couple of years, I've taken a quad literally a
• 33:26
  Speaker 1: small the smallest format for a TV I could find,
• 33:28
  Speaker 1: just because I beat my truck up so much over
• 33:30
  Speaker 1: the years. And the whole back of the trucks just
• 33:33
  Speaker 1: full of gear but but very organized, and all of
• 33:38
  Speaker 1: those things in there, Like there's nothing in the truck
• 33:40
  Speaker 1: I don't need, and there's a bunch of things that
• 33:43
  Speaker 1: I have spears of. But one of the most important
• 33:45
  Speaker 1: things that that's so something I ever looked for a
• 33:47
  Speaker 1: few years is food because when you're living off from
• 33:52
  Speaker 1: dehydrated freeze, dried food for that long um, and snack
• 33:56
  Speaker 1: bars and jerky and you know just you know, you know,
• 34:00
  Speaker 1: the lightweight things that we take up the mountains with us,
• 34:02
  Speaker 1: or the things that we have a tent somewhere. It
• 34:06
  Speaker 1: is just it it gets old real fast. Your body
• 34:11
  Speaker 1: doesn't doesn't do well with it. And I would say
• 34:14
  Speaker 1: food is one of the like good like good good
• 34:17
  Speaker 1: freeze dried food and there are some really good options
• 34:20
  Speaker 1: out there now. Um, and good bars like you have
• 34:24
  Speaker 1: to be really careful with that stuff. You know, you're
• 34:26
  Speaker 1: you're average, and I think they're getting better. But the
• 34:30
  Speaker 1: old stand by, like you know what they called power
• 34:32
  Speaker 1: bars or whatever. Those things are just pullsh sugar and
• 34:35
  Speaker 1: a bunch of them work. And there's a bunch of
• 34:37
  Speaker 1: healthy ones now. But yeah, a shower and good food
• 34:41
  Speaker 1: basically as the key things that that people wouldn't think
• 34:44
  Speaker 1: of that are pretty key of the truck. Yeah, So
• 34:47
  Speaker 1: what's what's the food of choice? What's your favorite brands
• 34:50
  Speaker 1: or meals or bars? Um? What ends up in your
• 34:53
  Speaker 1: truck when you head out for these things? Well, the
• 34:56
  Speaker 1: bars and oh there's so many new ones out there.
• 34:58
  Speaker 1: It's almost like I think there's three a far different
• 35:00
  Speaker 1: brands in my in my hometown now. Um, so I'm
• 35:03
  Speaker 1: always trying to do bars and that and that's I
• 35:06
  Speaker 1: really haven't settled down one. Um. As far as freeze
• 35:10
  Speaker 1: ride food food, Um, there's a small company called Off
• 35:15
  Speaker 1: Grid Food Company and they make absolutely fantastic freeze drig
• 35:19
  Speaker 1: food and it's uh, I want to say, it's all organic.
• 35:24
  Speaker 1: All they're like, there's no like if you if anyone's
• 35:27
  Speaker 1: ever eaten Mountain House for a long time, you know
• 35:29
  Speaker 1: it's just pactful of SODI and the I think that's
• 35:31
  Speaker 1: part part of it. I think it's just part of
• 35:33
  Speaker 1: the way to keep it keep its shelf life. But
• 35:36
  Speaker 1: I want to say off Gride only uses sea salt,
• 35:39
  Speaker 1: so it's it's it's got a lot of sea salt
• 35:42
  Speaker 1: in it, but it's it's naturally healthy salt um. So
• 35:46
  Speaker 1: the difference the way I feel after eating Avery five
• 35:48
  Speaker 1: days first or fifty versus H Mountain House is substantial.
• 35:54
  Speaker 1: And H and they're He's good. They're good people too.
• 35:57
  Speaker 1: There's nothing better than finding a product you love and
• 35:59
  Speaker 1: then getting to me the people that the they're behind
• 36:01
  Speaker 1: it and there they're great dudes. So that's awesome. I
• 36:08
  Speaker 1: when I talked to someone like you and hear about
• 36:11
  Speaker 1: the things that you're doing out there, it gives me
• 36:13
  Speaker 1: this itch to get out and do something like that too.
• 36:17
  Speaker 1: It gives me I already had that that it's right
• 36:19
  Speaker 1: now this time of year, I've got crazy cabin fever.
• 36:21
  Speaker 1: I just want to get out doing some something different
• 36:24
  Speaker 1: and take off on a road trip and head off
• 36:26
  Speaker 1: in the mountains or whatever might be. Um, but I'm
• 36:29
  Speaker 1: definitely getting that again just hearing you describing, you know,
• 36:32
  Speaker 1: the trips that you're going on, and I'm getting inspired.
• 36:36
  Speaker 1: Who has inspired you when it comes to this stuff?
• 36:39
  Speaker 1: Is there Is there a a person or is there
• 36:42
  Speaker 1: a book or a writer or a movie or anything
• 36:45
  Speaker 1: out there that has kind of inspired this wander lust
• 36:48
  Speaker 1: or sense of adventure in you. Boy, that's a good one. Um.
• 36:55
  Speaker 1: Oh my god. My dad was the guy that had
• 36:58
  Speaker 1: me in a tree stam when I was eight years old,
• 37:00
  Speaker 1: you know, tell me to be quiet, uh for you know,
• 37:05
  Speaker 1: But he never I don't think he ever hung out
• 37:08
  Speaker 1: of the state until I was out of high school. Um.
• 37:11
  Speaker 1: And I'm taking him back to Kansas this year with
• 37:14
  Speaker 1: me for the first time and who knows how long. Um.
• 37:17
  Speaker 1: He's definitely been my biggest inspiration in the hunting side
• 37:21
  Speaker 1: of my life. But as far as inspiration for getting
• 37:27
  Speaker 1: and doing doing the you know, the hunting away from home,
• 37:32
  Speaker 1: there wasn't. When I started doing around the Midwest, I
• 37:36
  Speaker 1: really didn't know if anybody else that was doing it. Um,
• 37:39
  Speaker 1: I'm sure there was, it just was prior to the
• 37:41
  Speaker 1: internet or what maybe Internet but social media, and there
• 37:44
  Speaker 1: wasn't there just wasn't anybody that I knew of doing it. Um.
• 37:50
  Speaker 1: When I started transition to the mountains and the plains
• 37:53
  Speaker 1: from the Midwest, Aaron Snyder, the now president of Kafaro,
• 37:59
  Speaker 1: was one of guys that, you know, it was one
• 38:02
  Speaker 1: of the guys that back in the days on the
• 38:05
  Speaker 1: forums and stuff, he was willing to help guys and ah,
• 38:09
  Speaker 1: he helped me um a lot. So you know, I
• 38:13
  Speaker 1: reached out to him at it out of a necessity.
• 38:15
  Speaker 1: I bought a backpack that was just killing me, UM,
• 38:20
  Speaker 1: and I reached out to him. And it wasn't even
• 38:22
  Speaker 1: the backpack that that he sold, but he helped me,
• 38:26
  Speaker 1: you know, figure out how to get fit to me
• 38:28
  Speaker 1: and then he gave me some advice on my next
• 38:30
  Speaker 1: backpack purchase, which was one of theirs. And oh my god. Yeah,
• 38:35
  Speaker 1: so he was he was a big help. But that
• 38:37
  Speaker 1: I mean, I don't I've never really really been someone
• 38:42
  Speaker 1: too like idolize anybody. So it's just been there's been
• 38:48
  Speaker 1: some people that have helped me along the way. But um,
• 38:52
  Speaker 1: discourage men. Yeah. Yeah. The rock slide was like I
• 38:57
  Speaker 1: said before that if it wasn't for you know, like
• 39:01
  Speaker 1: the information is on the internet, uh, like in place
• 39:04
  Speaker 1: with like rock Slabry, you know, I write for sometimes
• 39:07
  Speaker 1: they that helps guys like I didn't know anything. You know,
• 39:10
  Speaker 1: it helps guys that you want. You're in the Midwest
• 39:12
  Speaker 1: and you want to come out of the mountains and
• 39:14
  Speaker 1: do a d I y hunt, you can literally, Yeah,
• 39:17
  Speaker 1: there's guys in there that will help you, and there's
• 39:19
  Speaker 1: information that will help you with whatever you want. I
• 39:22
  Speaker 1: didn't it really. It takes a lot of pain on
• 39:27
  Speaker 1: alerting to it, for sure. And that's that's basically all.
• 39:29
  Speaker 1: I did a lot of great resources out there. So
• 39:33
  Speaker 1: so as I understand it was somewhere around two thousand
• 39:36
  Speaker 1: and eleven. Oh, I guess maybe I'm totally wrong on that. Um.
• 39:39
  Speaker 1: But at some point, as you start heading out west,
• 39:43
  Speaker 1: more and more often started doing the whole mountain thing,
• 39:46
  Speaker 1: the prairie hunting. UM. I think I read somewhere that
• 39:50
  Speaker 1: somewhere around two thousand eleven you realize that when it
• 39:53
  Speaker 1: came to white tails, you didn't want to use a
• 39:56
  Speaker 1: tree stand anymore. You decided to ditch the standard game
• 39:59
  Speaker 1: that you been doing forever and stay on the ground. Um.
• 40:04
  Speaker 1: First off, is that correct? And then secondly, how did
• 40:07
  Speaker 1: you come to this epiphany that you were going to
• 40:09
  Speaker 1: be a more lethal hunter on the ground than in
• 40:12
  Speaker 1: a tree. That is that there's a lot there there.
• 40:16
  Speaker 1: That's a whole podcast. The So I grew up like
• 40:20
  Speaker 1: like I said, I was in the tree stand and
• 40:22
  Speaker 1: my dad was kind of one of those guys, was
• 40:23
  Speaker 1: not afraid of heights, and none of his hunting buddies
• 40:26
  Speaker 1: would climb his tree stands, and I was up there
• 40:28
  Speaker 1: at eight years old with them, And so my tree
• 40:32
  Speaker 1: stands became the same way. When I was hut in
• 40:33
  Speaker 1: the Midwest, none of my buddies would use my stands
• 40:35
  Speaker 1: because it was not uncommon for me to be a
• 40:37
  Speaker 1: thirty plus near And I saw it once. Um. Not
• 40:45
  Speaker 1: not that they had any effect on me, not want
• 40:47
  Speaker 1: to hunting them anymore. But I've lived the whole you know,
• 40:51
  Speaker 1: sitting a tree stand all day, all of November, every
• 40:54
  Speaker 1: single day of the month. I've done that the whole program.
• 40:59
  Speaker 1: So I understand all how effective it can can be
• 41:03
  Speaker 1: when you're in the right places. Um. It wasn't until
• 41:07
  Speaker 1: I was in Kansas, um, my very first year there,
• 41:11
  Speaker 1: and the guys that invited me to come with them.
• 41:14
  Speaker 1: They were actually rifle hunters. And so my first year,
• 41:17
  Speaker 1: the first three years in Kansas where you're actually hlping
• 41:19
  Speaker 1: my the rifle. Um, we got there and the one
• 41:24
  Speaker 1: you know, they had hunted previously. They're just bird hunting.
• 41:26
  Speaker 1: And the rancher always told me, hey, you guys were
• 41:28
  Speaker 1: never shoot shoot some of these brown you know rats
• 41:32
  Speaker 1: as he called them. Just come on out here and
• 41:34
  Speaker 1: anytime you want. And like, I mean, he's a rancher
• 41:38
  Speaker 1: that has just who knows how much property and knows
• 41:40
  Speaker 1: everybody else. And so he met us that we met
• 41:42
  Speaker 1: him at this this four corner out the middle of
• 41:45
  Speaker 1: nowhere when it's just flat as a pancake. I can't
• 41:49
  Speaker 1: I can't see a treaty. We pull over on side
• 41:52
  Speaker 1: of road there is this truck and me to the reductions.
• 41:54
  Speaker 1: He was like, well, I wanted to meet here because
• 41:57
  Speaker 1: we've got the northwest section to us here and then
• 42:00
  Speaker 1: across the road, I've got the first half of this section.
• 42:04
  Speaker 1: And then you know, we got and he's and he's
• 42:06
  Speaker 1: pointing all the you know, and he's talking in all
• 42:08
  Speaker 1: this different stuff. I'm looking around, like, where the hell
• 42:10
  Speaker 1: are we gonna kill a deer here there's not a
• 42:12
  Speaker 1: single tree, there's not a bush. And then we we
• 42:17
  Speaker 1: drove from the spot to spot and he showed us
• 42:18
  Speaker 1: probably fifteen spots that afternoon, and there was one property
• 42:22
  Speaker 1: that had some like a little river about, you know,
• 42:24
  Speaker 1: something like a choke thick little river bottom section, and
• 42:30
  Speaker 1: all of us just our I just lit up on that,
• 42:32
  Speaker 1: like that's what we're gonna be hunting. And uh, that
• 42:36
  Speaker 1: first opening day came and we were all kind of
• 42:38
  Speaker 1: covering different corners of that little Brushing Creek brot on
• 42:41
  Speaker 1: that we had phone and we saw some bucks, nothing,
• 42:45
  Speaker 1: nothing good. But all of us when we got back,
• 42:48
  Speaker 1: we're like, oh, yeah, I was seeing but I was
• 42:49
  Speaker 1: glassing up deer like way out in the middle of
• 42:52
  Speaker 1: the grass, just betted there. They were walking around and
• 42:54
  Speaker 1: they bed in the grass and they just disappeared. And
• 42:58
  Speaker 1: it took us a while to realize it. The deer
• 43:01
  Speaker 1: there weren't They weren't. They weren't living where there was trees.
• 43:05
  Speaker 1: They weren't staying when they were trees. They weren't. I mean,
• 43:08
  Speaker 1: they go through there, they've moved through there, but they
• 43:10
  Speaker 1: weren't using it for betting. They weren't using it for
• 43:14
  Speaker 1: it was just a travel corridor. It was all. It
• 43:15
  Speaker 1: wasn't It wasn't even one that they used often. Um.
• 43:18
  Speaker 1: And that's obviously gonna change in different areas where there's
• 43:20
  Speaker 1: more trees or whenever. But for us it became a
• 43:23
  Speaker 1: out of necessity. It's like, well, there's no sense in
• 43:27
  Speaker 1: having a tree stand or even a ground blind at
• 43:29
  Speaker 1: this point. We just gotta stay mobile and use our
• 43:33
  Speaker 1: glass and then find them and then put a plan together. Um.
• 43:37
  Speaker 1: And that's how that's how it started. I think that
• 43:39
  Speaker 1: same year that I went down there, um at eleven
• 43:42
  Speaker 1: or twelve, wanted two uh in I guess what was
• 43:46
  Speaker 1: before that? Actually that that year in Kansas, but a
• 43:49
  Speaker 1: couple years later was my last year in Illinois that
• 43:52
  Speaker 1: I hung out of a tree standing. Um. I haven't
• 43:56
  Speaker 1: went back. I always keep one. I was keeping a
• 43:58
  Speaker 1: little more from the back of the truck, just in
• 44:00
  Speaker 1: case I find that one spot where whatever. I know,
• 44:03
  Speaker 1: there's there's situations I've came across from, like dang it,
• 44:07
  Speaker 1: if I just if if I just sit on this
• 44:09
  Speaker 1: water hole, that bowl is gonna come in and that
• 44:12
  Speaker 1: buck's gonna he's using it every day. It's dry, So
• 44:14
  Speaker 1: there's I'm not ignorant to the fact that I'm missing
• 44:18
  Speaker 1: some opportunities by sticking to the ground only. UM and
• 44:22
  Speaker 1: I and I'm not counted out. But I'm having so
• 44:27
  Speaker 1: much more fun on the ground. It's um, you know,
• 44:31
  Speaker 1: rack rattling him in, decoined him in, calling him um,
• 44:35
  Speaker 1: just spotting stock, sneaking, you know, crawling up on a
• 44:37
  Speaker 1: bed a bettered buck is It's just so much more
• 44:41
  Speaker 1: fun than sitting there freasing your tail off. UM. And
• 44:45
  Speaker 1: I think that I was one us had more fun too.
• 44:49
  Speaker 1: I was killing bigger, better bucks every year doing it.
• 44:53
  Speaker 1: And three I I mean, I was just sick of
• 44:58
  Speaker 1: sitting in the tree stands, the the the it just
• 45:03
  Speaker 1: it just became something that I just didn't a tool
• 45:06
  Speaker 1: that I just don't use anymore. So I want to
• 45:10
  Speaker 1: get I want to get into the nitty gritty of
• 45:12
  Speaker 1: of how you actually pull off a hunt like this.
• 45:15
  Speaker 1: So I want to get into the actual step by
• 45:17
  Speaker 1: step process of finding deer and stalking them down on
• 45:21
  Speaker 1: the ground. But before before we get into how you
• 45:23
  Speaker 1: actually do that, I've heard you talk about pulling this
• 45:26
  Speaker 1: off in places like Kansas or Montana. UM, different planes
• 45:32
  Speaker 1: kind of open prairie type habitat doing this ground pound
• 45:35
  Speaker 1: for white tails. But do you think that anything you've
• 45:38
  Speaker 1: done there and had success, could that be replicated or
• 45:42
  Speaker 1: could some of that translate to trying to hunt on
• 45:44
  Speaker 1: the ground in somewhere like Iowa or Michigan or Pennsylvania
• 45:49
  Speaker 1: in certain circumstances like is there any way that this
• 45:51
  Speaker 1: could work somewhere else? Or does this strategies this prairie only. Uh,
• 45:56
  Speaker 1: it's a good question. I am not hunted Pennsylvania. I've
• 46:01
  Speaker 1: I've killed Michigan deer on the ground, my best Michigan
• 46:03
  Speaker 1: buck I killed on the ground. Um, it's very terrained,
• 46:09
  Speaker 1: it's it's it's a percent terrain dependent. Um. If it's
• 46:12
  Speaker 1: open enough where you can see them and either see
• 46:16
  Speaker 1: where they're going to or coming from, have them patterned,
• 46:19
  Speaker 1: or see them bed, then it's doable. Um. All you
• 46:24
  Speaker 1: need is a lack of other eyes from other deer
• 46:27
  Speaker 1: to pick you off and to know where their location is.
• 46:30
  Speaker 1: And then it's just a manner of putting in you know,
• 46:31
  Speaker 1: the variables, lining everything up and in your favor, and
• 46:36
  Speaker 1: you know, don't let them see a smelly herriot and
• 46:38
  Speaker 1: slide in and get an arrow on them. I mean
• 46:40
  Speaker 1: it's I think a lot of guys over think it sometimes. Um,
• 46:44
  Speaker 1: But I know I've hunted in Illinois and Iowa and
• 46:47
  Speaker 1: a lot of spots where there's the deer just don't
• 46:49
  Speaker 1: bed where you are gonna be able to see them.
• 46:52
  Speaker 1: So it's in those spots where I've hunted in the
• 46:54
  Speaker 1: Midwest most of them it's probably not work. Um. Maybe
• 46:59
  Speaker 1: there are some spot out to western I would it
• 47:01
  Speaker 1: be better. But where I hunted there, it was you
• 47:03
  Speaker 1: know those two were they were you know, buried in
• 47:07
  Speaker 1: like a tick where they were sleeping. So um, terrain
• 47:12
  Speaker 1: and cover dependent. Yeah, yeah, Okay, So then let's reverb
• 47:16
  Speaker 1: though back to what sounds like is your favorite kind
• 47:19
  Speaker 1: of area for this kind of thing, which is that
• 47:21
  Speaker 1: open ground kind of country? Um? First off, I have
• 47:26
  Speaker 1: started hunting some of these states of hunting Nebraska, North Dakota,
• 47:29
  Speaker 1: Montana for white tails, and I've fallen in love with
• 47:33
  Speaker 1: that great plains habitat and and just everything about it. Um,
• 47:38
  Speaker 1: and have loved now taking my favorite game animal and
• 47:41
  Speaker 1: chasing it in this different kind of setting. Why is
• 47:44
  Speaker 1: it for you that it's so much fun or so
• 47:47
  Speaker 1: different or so compelling that from what it sounds like.
• 47:50
  Speaker 1: It seems like almost all of your white tail hunting
• 47:52
  Speaker 1: now is is out in those kinds of place, or
• 47:54
  Speaker 1: at least a good part of it. Why is that
• 47:57
  Speaker 1: so it means it just the ability to track them
• 48:00
  Speaker 1: on the ground, or is there something more to it?
• 48:03
  Speaker 1: I think, Uh, well, I mean you grew in Michigan,
• 48:05
  Speaker 1: you know what it's like there. I mean, we have
• 48:08
  Speaker 1: how many hunters in the field and opening Dave, I mean,
• 48:11
  Speaker 1: it's a whole lot name on gas right, Like everybody
• 48:15
  Speaker 1: meets and outdoors here and we kill a couple hundred
• 48:18
  Speaker 1: thousand year a here. Um. You go to Kansas and
• 48:21
  Speaker 1: they look at their numbers. They killed fifty thousand and
• 48:24
  Speaker 1: sixty thousand a year. That's it. Um. You go out
• 48:28
  Speaker 1: there during riful season, you'll see people driving around, you'll
• 48:31
  Speaker 1: see orange in the trucks, and you'll see people hunting.
• 48:33
  Speaker 1: You go out there and during both season, I know
• 48:37
  Speaker 1: exactly who I'm going to see. It's the same guys
• 48:39
  Speaker 1: I see every single year down there. They don't know
• 48:40
  Speaker 1: what they're doing. They're really great guys. They try to
• 48:43
  Speaker 1: help them out. They don't listen to me. They think
• 48:44
  Speaker 1: I'm crazy for not for you know, for not hunting
• 48:46
  Speaker 1: in my tree stand on the one tree on my
• 48:48
  Speaker 1: property that you know that we hand down there. It's
• 48:50
  Speaker 1: like and so part of it is that I've got
• 48:56
  Speaker 1: I mean, it's crazy. I knock on doors and I
• 48:59
  Speaker 1: don't get told no during both seating down there. People
• 49:02
  Speaker 1: Just it's so that that's a wonderful part of it. Um.
• 49:09
  Speaker 1: The the way that the white tails act in those
• 49:14
  Speaker 1: open prairie areas to whether it be uh Nebraska, Eastern Montana, Kansas,
• 49:21
  Speaker 1: they are very, very very aggressive. And I think it's
• 49:24
  Speaker 1: just because this is also my theory on why they
• 49:27
  Speaker 1: have so many more broken times like I've I don't
• 49:29
  Speaker 1: remember last Kansas shot that doesn't have didn't have broken times.
• 49:33
  Speaker 1: Now the one I got this year, he broke one
• 49:35
  Speaker 1: overnight in the night when I first found him to
• 49:37
  Speaker 1: when I found him the next morning and killed him. Um,
• 49:42
  Speaker 1: I think that you take two big, aggressive mature bucks
• 49:46
  Speaker 1: in the rud in Iowa, there are five yards away
• 49:49
  Speaker 1: from each other on the same property, walking in opposite directions,
• 49:53
  Speaker 1: parallel with each other. They aren't gonna see each other.
• 49:56
  Speaker 1: Most likely, there's too many terrain changes, there's too many
• 49:59
  Speaker 1: you know, tricks streams, trees, whatever, it's thick. They can't
• 50:02
  Speaker 1: see each other. They're not gonna fight today. You take
• 50:05
  Speaker 1: the same two bucks in Kansas, same distance apart. There,
• 50:08
  Speaker 1: they see each other and they're gonna close that five
• 50:10
  Speaker 1: hund yards and they're gonna square off. And I see
• 50:13
  Speaker 1: it happen all the time. I think they fight way
• 50:16
  Speaker 1: more out there, and it makes them way more susceptible
• 50:19
  Speaker 1: to decoy, more susceptible to rattling and calling. And I mean,
• 50:26
  Speaker 1: you you want to talk about excitement. Uh. I think
• 50:29
  Speaker 1: it's four years now. I've been using the little heads
• 50:33
  Speaker 1: up decoy thing. I stick on the pipe bow and
• 50:36
  Speaker 1: there's a little mountain in front of my behind my stabilizer.
• 50:39
  Speaker 1: I stick to decoy on that thing. And every single
• 50:44
  Speaker 1: year since I started using it in Kansas, it's part
• 50:46
  Speaker 1: of the it's part of why and how I killed
• 50:50
  Speaker 1: the box. I mean, they see that and they just
• 50:52
  Speaker 1: pin their ears back and they don't look at you again.
• 50:55
  Speaker 1: They're coming in there and they're gonna come kick your ass.
• 50:58
  Speaker 1: I swear to God. The big older bucks see that,
• 51:00
  Speaker 1: and they don't. You could you could move around, you
• 51:03
  Speaker 1: can shuffle. It's like they don't even they don't even
• 51:06
  Speaker 1: look again. Their eyes roll back like a moose like
• 51:08
  Speaker 1: you see in the movies, and their head starts wobbling
• 51:11
  Speaker 1: back and forth, and they just put on a show
• 51:13
  Speaker 1: and walk great to you. Um, it's and that that
• 51:17
  Speaker 1: stuff happens more often than than not. It's that's probably
• 51:22
  Speaker 1: because I'm turning the biggest ould simature bucks. The younger
• 51:25
  Speaker 1: ones would neck that way and the but um, there's
• 51:29
  Speaker 1: nothing more exciting than that. So it's it's easy for
• 51:32
  Speaker 1: me not you know what, My time is valuable, right,
• 51:35
  Speaker 1: and so I've got all these different states in tags
• 51:38
  Speaker 1: lined up, you know, for me to take time out
• 51:42
  Speaker 1: of remember to go hunting Illinois. It's tough anymore because
• 51:48
  Speaker 1: going on sitting a tree stand and hope something comes by,
• 51:50
  Speaker 1: or you don't want to go to Kansas or you know,
• 51:52
  Speaker 1: Nebraska and make something happen. Yeah, I get that. I
• 51:56
  Speaker 1: can see the appeal to that for sure. Um, So
• 51:59
  Speaker 1: I want to I want to talk a lot more
• 52:01
  Speaker 1: about that whole decoy thing you're doing. But before that,
• 52:03
  Speaker 1: I want to I want to rewind a little bit
• 52:06
  Speaker 1: and and try to walk through the entire process, and
• 52:10
  Speaker 1: then we'll get to the decoin part. When we get
• 52:12
  Speaker 1: to that in your hunt. But let's let's say we're
• 52:14
  Speaker 1: heading out for a hypothetical trip like this, um, or
• 52:18
  Speaker 1: how about this. I want to go out and do
• 52:20
  Speaker 1: a hunt like this myself this year and for the
• 52:22
  Speaker 1: last like five years, I've been heading out west at
• 52:25
  Speaker 1: the beginning of September to do a western whitetail hunt
• 52:28
  Speaker 1: and um. And I've got a certain way I have
• 52:30
  Speaker 1: gone gone about it. But I've always focused on the
• 52:32
  Speaker 1: river bottoms. I've never focused on the open country like
• 52:35
  Speaker 1: you have. I've I've found a I would always look
• 52:38
  Speaker 1: for a piece of public land that has a river
• 52:40
  Speaker 1: running through it with a bunch of cotton woods and
• 52:42
  Speaker 1: you know, Russian olive cover and stuff like that, something
• 52:45
  Speaker 1: that's gonna get those deer down into that tight space.
• 52:47
  Speaker 1: And then I would observe and then hang tree stands
• 52:50
  Speaker 1: based off what I saw bed defeed patterns and an
• 52:53
  Speaker 1: ambush from in that kind of way. UM. But you
• 52:56
  Speaker 1: seem like you've got a very different way to do it.
• 52:58
  Speaker 1: How do you go about is finding the starting point?
• 53:01
  Speaker 1: Because for me, it's looking online and finding those river
• 53:04
  Speaker 1: bottoms that intercept with public land and that's my starting point.
• 53:07
  Speaker 1: But when you're looking for the kind of place that
• 53:10
  Speaker 1: has your kind of hunting in that kind of white
• 53:12
  Speaker 1: tail experience, what are you looking for to just like
• 53:14
  Speaker 1: figure out where to start when you're scouting maps or whatever. Well, basically,
• 53:20
  Speaker 1: you know, it's it's I look for God, you know,
• 53:26
  Speaker 1: it's most of most of my I do a lot
• 53:29
  Speaker 1: of East scouting. I guess you could say, like you're
• 53:31
  Speaker 1: talking there in the mountains, but as far as the
• 53:33
  Speaker 1: Midwest or you know, the plains and stuff. All my
• 53:37
  Speaker 1: all my hunting spots that I hunt now and I
• 53:39
  Speaker 1: used now have came from firsthand being there, being in
• 53:44
  Speaker 1: the area and just looking on with my you know,
• 53:46
  Speaker 1: boots on the ground um or you know, more often
• 53:50
  Speaker 1: in that area you're sitting up behind the wheel, um
• 53:54
  Speaker 1: and just covering ground and looking and then knocking on doors.
• 54:00
  Speaker 1: I think that you know, obviously they need they need food,
• 54:04
  Speaker 1: and you know, there's never a problem with you food.
• 54:08
  Speaker 1: There's usually not a problem with water. The most of
• 54:13
  Speaker 1: the good luck that I have this type of hunting
• 54:17
  Speaker 1: is in November, so at that point the bucks aren't
• 54:20
  Speaker 1: thinking about food anyways. Um So, if you can find
• 54:24
  Speaker 1: the doors, there's most likely going to be bucks around. Um,
• 54:28
  Speaker 1: and that's and that's basically it. And then it's just
• 54:31
  Speaker 1: a matter of you know, you all listen seeing in
• 54:35
  Speaker 1: Kansas knocking on doors to me getting as much acquiring
• 54:39
  Speaker 1: as much permission as possible. And a lot of that
• 54:41
  Speaker 1: land that I have permission to hunt on is open
• 54:44
  Speaker 1: to anybody that asks. I mean, it's not it's not
• 54:46
  Speaker 1: like I have sole permission on it. Um. They'll say
• 54:49
  Speaker 1: yes to just about anybody, as long as you know
• 54:51
  Speaker 1: you promised to close gates and don't leave any trash
• 54:54
  Speaker 1: and don't drive over their fields. It's there's just it's
• 54:59
  Speaker 1: just as quite as much as you can look for
• 55:02
  Speaker 1: those and keep watching those groups, and eventually a buck
• 55:05
  Speaker 1: will show up. And it's it's really it's a lot
• 55:10
  Speaker 1: simpler to me, it's a lot simpler than than uh.
• 55:15
  Speaker 1: And then there's less variables than them when you're hunting
• 55:17
  Speaker 1: in the mountains. Um, it's just a matter of, uh,
• 55:23
  Speaker 1: just gotta just gotta find the doves. Okay, that that
• 55:27
  Speaker 1: makes sense. I like that. Let's say then that we
• 55:32
  Speaker 1: or I I'm gonna keep my hypothetical me into this. Um,
• 55:35
  Speaker 1: I decided that I'm going to try this kind of hunting.
• 55:37
  Speaker 1: I found an area in eastern Montana or North Dakota
• 55:42
  Speaker 1: or South Dakota, or Kansas or Nebraska. I found some stuff.
• 55:45
  Speaker 1: It's got some big, open grassy hills. There's some river bottom.
• 55:49
  Speaker 1: There's a few little ponds there, a little bit of everything.
• 55:51
  Speaker 1: It looks kind of good. And either I've got a
• 55:53
  Speaker 1: bunch of free permission, or there's public land and a
• 55:56
  Speaker 1: bunch of it that I can roam. Now I'm heading
• 55:59
  Speaker 1: out there, and I arrive, and you're with me, and
• 56:02
  Speaker 1: you're my You're my guide telling me what we should do,
• 56:05
  Speaker 1: how we should start hunting, or how we start scouting.
• 56:07
  Speaker 1: We just arrive, walk me through what we're doing next.
• 56:10
  Speaker 1: Are we gonna spend the first morning, first night scouting,
• 56:14
  Speaker 1: or or just just walk me through what you're gonna say.
• 56:16
  Speaker 1: Let's let's do this. Let's imagine it's mid day, uh,
• 56:19
  Speaker 1: and what would what we do is drive around and
• 56:21
  Speaker 1: find all the high points and whether it be the
• 56:25
  Speaker 1: farmer's burn, if he has a ladder that goes up
• 56:27
  Speaker 1: the side of it, or a silo, or maybe an
• 56:31
  Speaker 1: oil well or an oil retainer retainer um or maybe
• 56:36
  Speaker 1: just a hill, and those could be all the spots
• 56:39
  Speaker 1: that we're gonna cover the last two hours in the
• 56:42
  Speaker 1: first two hours of every day, and we're gonna sit
• 56:44
  Speaker 1: up there and we're gonna glass and we're gonna we're
• 56:46
  Speaker 1: gonna rush from one spot the next we're gonna be
• 56:49
  Speaker 1: at one of them. Uh. You know, if there's one
• 56:51
  Speaker 1: of those spots, maybe there's maybe there's one of those
• 56:53
  Speaker 1: that you there's a potential for bucks for dear to
• 56:57
  Speaker 1: be all the way around at three year and sixty degrees.
• 56:59
  Speaker 1: We're not I try to get to that one first
• 57:01
  Speaker 1: thing in the morning because we're gonna be bumping deer.
• 57:03
  Speaker 1: We're gonna save that one until it is after it's
• 57:05
  Speaker 1: daylight and we can kind of slide in from one
• 57:06
  Speaker 1: way or the other. But um, we'll want to be
• 57:09
  Speaker 1: at one of them at first at daylight, and then
• 57:12
  Speaker 1: it's just a matter of covering ground and find them. Uh.
• 57:16
  Speaker 1: One of the things that we realized we were doing
• 57:18
  Speaker 1: wrong in Kansas, uh right away. It took us a
• 57:24
  Speaker 1: year to figured out, but we were doing it wrong
• 57:26
  Speaker 1: right away. And what has what I mean was the
• 57:28
  Speaker 1: old mentality of get into your trees, stand or you're
• 57:32
  Speaker 1: blind or whatever, you know, a half hour sometimes an
• 57:35
  Speaker 1: hour before be like heck. I remember sleeping in a
• 57:39
  Speaker 1: stand in Illinois all night long because I couldn't figure out.
• 57:43
  Speaker 1: I couldn't figure out how to get into the stand
• 57:45
  Speaker 1: at night or in the morning. And I literally took
• 57:48
  Speaker 1: a sleeping bag and I went in at night in
• 57:50
  Speaker 1: the afternoon and hunted it and then I stayed up
• 57:52
  Speaker 1: there and because I didn't know how to get in
• 57:53
  Speaker 1: there in in the morning, and did you kill kill
• 57:57
  Speaker 1: About the next day with that devotion, I pushed him
• 58:00
  Speaker 1: of the next guy and he the next property over
• 58:02
  Speaker 1: and he killed him. That was part of my young
• 58:04
  Speaker 1: and dumb They haired ears. But so we were literally
• 58:10
  Speaker 1: I mean bumping deer, just moving to our you know,
• 58:12
  Speaker 1: our spots and unless you have and I think that's
• 58:14
  Speaker 1: one of the I think that's one of the biggest
• 58:16
  Speaker 1: mistakes that are the hardest things to overcome for Midwestern hunters,
• 58:20
  Speaker 1: getting too in from your stands without being seen. And
• 58:23
  Speaker 1: I think it's one of the most broken you know,
• 58:25
  Speaker 1: like rules of like you can't let that happen, and
• 58:29
  Speaker 1: guys do every single time. But that was what we
• 58:32
  Speaker 1: were doing out there. We were moving in in the
• 58:34
  Speaker 1: dark and then we'd see dear you know, prequeerters a
• 58:38
  Speaker 1: mile off whatever looking back at us when one daylight
• 58:41
  Speaker 1: finally broke. I think that once we realized that and
• 58:45
  Speaker 1: we started waiting. I mean, there's there's mornings I'm sitting
• 58:48
  Speaker 1: in my truck until it's daylight, trucks off and just
• 58:51
  Speaker 1: sitting there waiting, and and then I'll move up to
• 58:54
  Speaker 1: my glass knob because there could be something in between.
• 58:57
  Speaker 1: And as there is, he might bound over, Your might
• 59:00
  Speaker 1: bound over and then blow the ones out that you
• 59:02
  Speaker 1: know that I'd be seen once I get up to
• 59:03
  Speaker 1: the glass job. It's just not it's not worth the
• 59:08
  Speaker 1: risk you gotta, you know, taking care of all the
• 59:12
  Speaker 1: variables and getting all that, all the little things squared away.
• 59:16
  Speaker 1: That's not not one I'm willing to compromise on. It's
• 59:21
  Speaker 1: how how much? So so back to the getting your
• 59:26
  Speaker 1: glass and knobs? How much time will you spend in
• 59:29
  Speaker 1: each spot before you say, okay, it's time to move
• 59:32
  Speaker 1: on to the next one if you haven't found a
• 59:33
  Speaker 1: buck you're interested in. So that's question number one, And
• 59:35
  Speaker 1: then question number two is how many chances will you
• 59:39
  Speaker 1: give a spot? Because I've debated this a lot myself, right,
• 59:41
  Speaker 1: I've got a handful of different locations, and I I'll
• 59:44
  Speaker 1: go the one night and check nothing. I'll go back
• 59:46
  Speaker 1: the next morning. Nothing that I'm thinking, do I just
• 59:48
  Speaker 1: cross it off or do I have to keep coming back? Um?
• 59:52
  Speaker 1: How much time per and then how many different times
• 59:54
  Speaker 1: will you go back and look? Well, this is if
• 59:58
  Speaker 1: we're doing it in November, I think you're gonna you're
• 1:00:01
  Speaker 1: gonna have already a handle on or you're if you don't,
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 1: you're going to figure out real quick how how the
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 1: ruts are doing in your area. And you're gonna know
• 1:00:10
  Speaker 1: pretty quick when you get their few see does and
• 1:00:12
  Speaker 1: they're up feeding. There's no buck with him. He's not there.
• 1:00:15
  Speaker 1: I mean maybe it's maybe he's just tired, dead tired,
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 1: and he's you know, laying over and cut stubble. You
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 1: just can't haven't picked him out yet. But I don't
• 1:00:23
  Speaker 1: give it too long. I mean, as soon as I
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 1: have everything, you know, tree and sixty degree you know,
• 1:00:28
  Speaker 1: sweep of what I can see. If I've covered everything,
• 1:00:32
  Speaker 1: I'm moving to the next spot because I've got a
• 1:00:33
  Speaker 1: bunch of spots to glass and I've got a lot
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 1: of you know, you know, if I can if I
• 1:00:38
  Speaker 1: can glass ten less more, that's better than five. It's
• 1:00:41
  Speaker 1: better than I think I should. I say that it's
• 1:00:44
  Speaker 1: better to quickly yet thoroughly glass ten spots. Then is
• 1:00:50
  Speaker 1: really just pick apart five? Um? Now that's only I'm
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 1: always saying that because it's during the run. Now, if
• 1:00:58
  Speaker 1: this was October, be a completely different game. If it
• 1:01:01
  Speaker 1: were in the mountains where you know you're picking apart, uh,
• 1:01:04
  Speaker 1: you know, and in thicker terrain, it's when they're gonna
• 1:01:07
  Speaker 1: be betted. It's completely different game. But right, you know,
• 1:01:10
  Speaker 1: in November active. You know, sometimes I don't think those guys,
• 1:01:14
  Speaker 1: those bucks don't don't lay down for days on end.
• 1:01:17
  Speaker 1: All they're doing is you know, keep trying to keep
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 1: his dough or get a new one or whatever. And
• 1:01:22
  Speaker 1: I think it, you know, if you're in the right spot,
• 1:01:24
  Speaker 1: you're gonna know it. Now how many times I keep
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 1: coming back, uh boy? And definitely I've literally there's there's
• 1:01:35
  Speaker 1: spots that I stopped in glass just because it's I
• 1:01:38
  Speaker 1: can see so much from it. Uh And I've probably
• 1:01:40
  Speaker 1: never made a stop from that spot. And they've probably
• 1:01:44
  Speaker 1: got dozens of those spots. Um, but every year one
• 1:01:48
  Speaker 1: of them, you know, like one new spot of like, oh,
• 1:01:50
  Speaker 1: we got something here, and then you know, and then
• 1:01:52
  Speaker 1: you have you moved to a different spot where you
• 1:01:53
  Speaker 1: got a better angle on them, and you know, you
• 1:01:55
  Speaker 1: just try to keep your eyes on them until until
• 1:01:57
  Speaker 1: they either you know, bed or start feeding or whatever.
• 1:02:02
  Speaker 1: Slowdown once once once say how you know? How would
• 1:02:06
  Speaker 1: you say it make themselves vulnerable, vulnerable to a play
• 1:02:10
  Speaker 1: of some sort. But I heard you once talking about
• 1:02:15
  Speaker 1: how one of the biggest challenges of this part of
• 1:02:18
  Speaker 1: your strategy is just trying to get elevated enough to
• 1:02:20
  Speaker 1: be able to get hanggled down. And and you kind
• 1:02:23
  Speaker 1: of jokingly said that you wanted to someday mount a
• 1:02:26
  Speaker 1: ladder to the top of your truck topper you can
• 1:02:29
  Speaker 1: get up there and look, have you ever did you
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 1: ever actually do that? Or do you ever have any
• 1:02:32
  Speaker 1: other good tricks for getting a better advantage? Uh? I
• 1:02:37
  Speaker 1: have not mountled the ladder. Um. I've stood on the
• 1:02:39
  Speaker 1: top of my truck a lot. Um. Anybody that buys
• 1:02:41
  Speaker 1: used truck for me, Uh, hopefully hasn't looked up on
• 1:02:44
  Speaker 1: top because there's probably some scratches on top of the
• 1:02:47
  Speaker 1: cab the cab. But um, and sometimes that's all you need.
• 1:02:52
  Speaker 1: I mean, but when I'm saying in these high points
• 1:02:54
  Speaker 1: and stuff, I mean a lot of them erely you know,
• 1:02:57
  Speaker 1: twenty difference, but just a gentle rolling hill if you
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 1: and you might have be two miles away from where
• 1:03:03
  Speaker 1: you think that you are going to be, but it
• 1:03:05
  Speaker 1: would be two miles away to the high point. So
• 1:03:07
  Speaker 1: it's it's not always close proximity either. So you've gotta
• 1:03:10
  Speaker 1: have good glass. But I think that just getting creative
• 1:03:15
  Speaker 1: with your with your advantage points. Um. I haven't went
• 1:03:20
  Speaker 1: as far as to knock on a door, not for
• 1:03:23
  Speaker 1: permission to hunt their property, but just maybe to climb
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 1: their burn but I've thought about it. There are a
• 1:03:29
  Speaker 1: couple of spots where that I know that you know
• 1:03:30
  Speaker 1: without X, you can tell they don't know much property.
• 1:03:32
  Speaker 1: They they only got five ten acres. There's there's really
• 1:03:35
  Speaker 1: no no honey on there. There there's no good there's
• 1:03:37
  Speaker 1: not gonna be any good honey on their property. But
• 1:03:40
  Speaker 1: they've got a gorgeous burns thirty ft high in the
• 1:03:42
  Speaker 1: back behind their house. And if I could get on
• 1:03:44
  Speaker 1: top of that thing and I'd be able to see everything.
• 1:03:47
  Speaker 1: So maybe one of these years I'm gonna stop that
• 1:03:48
  Speaker 1: place and ask him. But that's that's the way my
• 1:03:52
  Speaker 1: mind works on him. Out there, I'm looking for for anything,
• 1:03:54
  Speaker 1: and I've climbed silos. Um. But I'm also someone that's
• 1:03:58
  Speaker 1: not afraid to hide, you know, with my to work. Um. Um,
• 1:04:02
  Speaker 1: you know that's uncomfortable up there, So it's yeah, that's
• 1:04:07
  Speaker 1: it's everything down there because it's pretty flat. It all
• 1:04:12
  Speaker 1: comes down to getting eyes on them. Now. One of
• 1:04:15
  Speaker 1: the things that I a big paradigm shift, I guess
• 1:04:21
  Speaker 1: for me when it came to glassing and finding game
• 1:04:24
  Speaker 1: was realizing how much it helps to use a tripod
• 1:04:27
  Speaker 1: with your binos. I never used to do that, and um,
• 1:04:30
  Speaker 1: a friend finally just showed me what a difference it made,
• 1:04:34
  Speaker 1: And now I'll never go out in this kind of
• 1:04:36
  Speaker 1: hunt without that. Um. Is that something that helps you?
• 1:04:40
  Speaker 1: Is there are there any other tips or piece of
• 1:04:42
  Speaker 1: gear or anything else that's led you to become a
• 1:04:45
  Speaker 1: more effective scouting with the glass kind of guy? No,
• 1:04:51
  Speaker 1: that you nailed it right there. Good glass, good tripod,
• 1:04:57
  Speaker 1: A tripod that can like for the type of honey
• 1:05:02
  Speaker 1: that we're talking about. I like a full hight one
• 1:05:04
  Speaker 1: so I don't have to I don't have to sit
• 1:05:05
  Speaker 1: down on the ground like you know, there's no sense
• 1:05:06
  Speaker 1: to find the high spot and then sitting down. Um,
• 1:05:09
  Speaker 1: So I literally will run to these these high spots
• 1:05:11
  Speaker 1: and then most of the time I'm not I'm not
• 1:05:14
  Speaker 1: even taking time to sit, and I'm you know, I'm
• 1:05:16
  Speaker 1: standing up and I'm you know, I've got a full
• 1:05:19
  Speaker 1: you know, six ft tall tripod or whatever, you know,
• 1:05:21
  Speaker 1: and it's I want something that I can the binals on.
• 1:05:27
  Speaker 1: And that is uh. Yeah. People who haven't done it
• 1:05:31
  Speaker 1: don't understand. Maybe they've kind of take for grantum overseeing
• 1:05:34
  Speaker 1: like is like how I just over talking that because
• 1:05:37
  Speaker 1: I'm trying to still a product or something. It is huge.
• 1:05:40
  Speaker 1: The difference between handling the paramin aculars and looking through
• 1:05:43
  Speaker 1: them sitting on a drypod is huge. You will find
• 1:05:46
  Speaker 1: so many more animals, um, but get as good as
• 1:05:50
  Speaker 1: glass as you can. Um, And uh, it's you know,
• 1:05:56
  Speaker 1: the good good glass isn't isn't cheap, so it's it's investment.
• 1:06:00
  Speaker 1: But that that is as far as we're finding animals. Yeah,
• 1:06:06
  Speaker 1: ONEX on your phone is a must, or your similar
• 1:06:09
  Speaker 1: product for land mapping software, good glass, good boots, good
• 1:06:14
  Speaker 1: tires on your truck. Um, I don't know how many
• 1:06:16
  Speaker 1: flats I've had over the years, and uh, yeah, there's
• 1:06:22
  Speaker 1: it's it's all simple stuff that goes wrong. But usually
• 1:06:25
  Speaker 1: but it's the it's the that's simple stuff that will
• 1:06:29
  Speaker 1: screw up everything when it's you don't have it either.
• 1:06:32
  Speaker 1: All right, So we've been here on the ground and
• 1:06:36
  Speaker 1: wherever we're at. We're in Nebraska, we'll say, and we've
• 1:06:39
  Speaker 1: been looking and maybe evening number two we finally spot well, actually,
• 1:06:44
  Speaker 1: before we even say that, tell me this, do you
• 1:06:50
  Speaker 1: And I think I already know the answer. But if
• 1:06:53
  Speaker 1: you spot a shooter whatever that is for you on
• 1:06:56
  Speaker 1: this given hunt, Um, are you gonna go and and
• 1:07:00
  Speaker 1: change your position or try to make a move or
• 1:07:03
  Speaker 1: will you see a shooter? But think to yourself, Man,
• 1:07:06
  Speaker 1: I don't know how I can make a plan on
• 1:07:08
  Speaker 1: him right now. So instead of keeping eyes on him,
• 1:07:11
  Speaker 1: I'm going to move to this other area and check
• 1:07:13
  Speaker 1: and see if there's a hontable buck there or is
• 1:07:16
  Speaker 1: it Once you see a shooter buck like, you're staying
• 1:07:18
  Speaker 1: on him until it's dark or until he makes a mistake.
• 1:07:21
  Speaker 1: What's your thought process there? When I see something that
• 1:07:27
  Speaker 1: is in the terms of you know, gets my blood
• 1:07:31
  Speaker 1: going and it's something that my my brain says, this
• 1:07:34
  Speaker 1: is when we be very very happy with all my
• 1:07:38
  Speaker 1: focuses on him. Um, And things happen when you put
• 1:07:44
  Speaker 1: yourself in the best available Uh what's what's we're looking
• 1:07:51
  Speaker 1: for the best available proximity. So say he's out in
• 1:07:58
  Speaker 1: a big, wide open flat. He's got you know, two
• 1:08:01
  Speaker 1: or three doors with him, and there's another a couple
• 1:08:03
  Speaker 1: of satellite bucks you're trying to move in, and they're
• 1:08:05
  Speaker 1: all kind of spread out around him, and there's just
• 1:08:06
  Speaker 1: no way in. Um, and you're half mile away on
• 1:08:11
  Speaker 1: you know a little bit of a rise where you
• 1:08:13
  Speaker 1: can just see over and there. Well, maybe you can't
• 1:08:15
  Speaker 1: get all the way to him, but maybe you can
• 1:08:18
  Speaker 1: circle down and get the wind where it's quartering. Uh.
• 1:08:22
  Speaker 1: Maybe not right straight down wind, because that's I can't
• 1:08:25
  Speaker 1: stand being right straight down one of them, because that's
• 1:08:27
  Speaker 1: where they always expecting her to come from. But maybe
• 1:08:31
  Speaker 1: get on that quartering side of them and then just
• 1:08:33
  Speaker 1: get as close as you can and then see what happens. Um,
• 1:08:37
  Speaker 1: Maybe they'll move, Maybe they'll move right to you. I've
• 1:08:39
  Speaker 1: literally had him as walked up to me like I'm
• 1:08:40
  Speaker 1: just dumb lucked Um, maybe one of those little bucks
• 1:08:43
  Speaker 1: will come in there and challenge them, and he'll run
• 1:08:46
  Speaker 1: and chase him off, and they'll run right past. Yet, um,
• 1:08:49
  Speaker 1: so I get as close as I can without being detected.
• 1:08:53
  Speaker 1: And sometimes it doesn't work. Sometimes you get stark and
• 1:08:56
  Speaker 1: you gotta sneak back out and start over the next day.
• 1:08:59
  Speaker 1: But I yeah, if I find something I want to
• 1:09:02
  Speaker 1: that I'm gonna be happy with, I put my arrow
• 1:09:05
  Speaker 1: through or both through. It's my focus is on him,
• 1:09:08
  Speaker 1: and um, even even if it's not a like slam
• 1:09:13
  Speaker 1: dunk opportunity, like oh my god, he's bedded right there,
• 1:09:16
  Speaker 1: and so I can just walk up that little crick bottom,
• 1:09:19
  Speaker 1: pop out of the top, sneak over there and just
• 1:09:21
  Speaker 1: slam dunk shot. I will still get his you know,
• 1:09:25
  Speaker 1: put his meat variables in my favor, get as close
• 1:09:28
  Speaker 1: as I can, or at least in the position the
• 1:09:31
  Speaker 1: best position I think I can be in, and then
• 1:09:33
  Speaker 1: just wait him out. So you're saying, even if even
• 1:09:37
  Speaker 1: if he's moving, even if he's covering ground, you're not
• 1:09:40
  Speaker 1: gonna stay in your spot and watching watch and watch
• 1:09:42
  Speaker 1: to see where he beds or ends up. You'd rather
• 1:09:44
  Speaker 1: just get after him. Once you spot him and if
• 1:09:48
  Speaker 1: he's moving, if he's moving, I'm gonna try to keep
• 1:09:50
  Speaker 1: my eyes on him. Um no, I'm sorry, I was
• 1:09:55
  Speaker 1: thinking I was seen in my head like you're kind
• 1:09:57
  Speaker 1: of just feed in an area, or if they're moving,
• 1:10:00
  Speaker 1: he's moving, and if it's morning, I'm expecting him to
• 1:10:03
  Speaker 1: to bed soon, I'm gonna I'm gonna keep my eyes
• 1:10:06
  Speaker 1: on that. That's how I killed my bot this last year.
• 1:10:08
  Speaker 1: I mean I found him ready at daylight and he
• 1:10:10
  Speaker 1: moved and I had I had to take my eyes
• 1:10:12
  Speaker 1: off me because he went over the you know, I
• 1:10:14
  Speaker 1: just could not see him from from the side of
• 1:10:16
  Speaker 1: the country mile you know, square section that was on.
• 1:10:19
  Speaker 1: I had to drive all the way around the other
• 1:10:20
  Speaker 1: side and find a new high spot and then we
• 1:10:23
  Speaker 1: pick him up and thank god, he was still on
• 1:10:24
  Speaker 1: his speed. But yeah, it's it's do whatever you can
• 1:10:29
  Speaker 1: to keep your eyes on him too, to find find
• 1:10:32
  Speaker 1: ready beds. Okay, so watch them until he stops for
• 1:10:35
  Speaker 1: a long time or beds, and then you make your move.
• 1:10:38
  Speaker 1: Um what then, like what is going? And I know
• 1:10:42
  Speaker 1: this is very situation dependent. Every situation is a little different,
• 1:10:45
  Speaker 1: but just kind of generically, what are the what's the
• 1:10:49
  Speaker 1: checklist of things or the handful of things that are
• 1:10:51
  Speaker 1: going through your mind as you you packed up your
• 1:10:54
  Speaker 1: tripod and your buy nose or your spot and scope
• 1:10:56
  Speaker 1: and say, okay, I'm going for it. What are the
• 1:10:58
  Speaker 1: next steps? The next thing you're thinking in your mind
• 1:11:00
  Speaker 1: as you figure out how you're gonna get closer, how
• 1:11:03
  Speaker 1: are you going to make your stock? So on a
• 1:11:07
  Speaker 1: white tail in this situation, if I if I've watched him,
• 1:11:11
  Speaker 1: I'm he's betted student, he's betted, and he's got a
• 1:11:15
  Speaker 1: doll with him. Most likely, um, not very often you're
• 1:11:18
  Speaker 1: gonna find a mature about Uh. He's not one that
• 1:11:22
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna want to kill in this area you're in,
• 1:11:26
  Speaker 1: you know, in the Midwest in November alone. So he's
• 1:11:29
  Speaker 1: gonna have a dough with them. They're gonna they're gonna
• 1:11:31
  Speaker 1: bed somewhere where they think they have the advantage of
• 1:11:35
  Speaker 1: the wind and their site. Um, in these areas where
• 1:11:41
  Speaker 1: it's a little more open, the wind is your friend. Uh,
• 1:11:44
  Speaker 1: not just from keeping your scent away, but for noise too.
• 1:11:48
  Speaker 1: They don't really, they don't rely on their ears nearly
• 1:11:50
  Speaker 1: as much as uh, you know, a more of a Midwest,
• 1:11:56
  Speaker 1: a thicker traditional Midwest white tail. That's uh soys wind
• 1:12:00
  Speaker 1: you're there and lots of dry brush, always just clanking together.
• 1:12:06
  Speaker 1: But they'll bed somewhere where they can see. They rely
• 1:12:09
  Speaker 1: on their eyes more and then obviously they use their
• 1:12:12
  Speaker 1: nose just as much as any way till uh so.
• 1:12:16
  Speaker 1: So I say I've got them bedded uh you on
• 1:12:18
  Speaker 1: a fence line or something, whereas tumbled the Tumbleweedsy're all
• 1:12:20
  Speaker 1: piled up, and those those things will get like ten
• 1:12:22
  Speaker 1: ft high piles of tumbleweeds and they will bed RADI
• 1:12:24
  Speaker 1: inside them sometimes um but wind break two. But so
• 1:12:32
  Speaker 1: find out where they're betted move in and at that
• 1:12:35
  Speaker 1: point I'm not I'm gonna I'm gonna ditch the dry
• 1:12:37
  Speaker 1: the tripod in the glass. All I'm moving in with
• 1:12:41
  Speaker 1: is a range finder, binoculars or a range finder, my
• 1:12:44
  Speaker 1: bow in her gun, mostly most times as a bow hunt, though,
• 1:12:49
  Speaker 1: and I'll probably take my railian handlers and I'll have
• 1:12:52
  Speaker 1: that decoy am out of the front of my bow.
• 1:12:54
  Speaker 1: I'll also take a little steak for that decoy too,
• 1:12:57
  Speaker 1: so I can stick it out by itself in the ground,
• 1:13:01
  Speaker 1: but it mounts to my bow and I can shoot
• 1:13:03
  Speaker 1: the bow with it on there and it doesn't hinder
• 1:13:05
  Speaker 1: it at all unless it's windy. Um, And I'll move
• 1:13:08
  Speaker 1: in from a quartering angle. I don't want to be
• 1:13:11
  Speaker 1: straight now wind. I don't want to be you know
• 1:13:13
  Speaker 1: they're gonna they're gonna be looking down wind, so I
• 1:13:16
  Speaker 1: want to be I want to be to the point
• 1:13:18
  Speaker 1: where the wind is almost wrong. Um. Another thing you
• 1:13:22
  Speaker 1: tend to get out in the planes is more consistent winds.
• 1:13:27
  Speaker 1: You don't have is made. You know, you don't have
• 1:13:29
  Speaker 1: his made trees or you know, all these things that
• 1:13:32
  Speaker 1: black wind and makes swirling winds just aren't there. No,
• 1:13:36
  Speaker 1: you still get ridges and bottoms and stuff that you know,
• 1:13:38
  Speaker 1: like low low and high spots that create uh eddies
• 1:13:42
  Speaker 1: and the air currents, and that can mess up your wind.
• 1:13:44
  Speaker 1: But most of the time you get a much more
• 1:13:47
  Speaker 1: consistent wind you would in other places. So you can
• 1:13:51
  Speaker 1: risk that, you can put yourself in a risk your
• 1:13:54
  Speaker 1: position than you could in other areas because you know
• 1:13:57
  Speaker 1: that you know your winds only twenty degrees awesome offered him,
• 1:14:02
  Speaker 1: which might only be like twenty yards if he stood
• 1:14:04
  Speaker 1: up in twenty yards are right, he smells, but he's
• 1:14:07
  Speaker 1: not going to and if he doesn't get up, you're
• 1:14:09
  Speaker 1: gonna shoot him because you're gonna be inside his own
• 1:14:12
  Speaker 1: by that point. And then I'll just move in as
• 1:14:15
  Speaker 1: quickly as I can before they get up, because as
• 1:14:18
  Speaker 1: you know, as I said, they fight so much more
• 1:14:20
  Speaker 1: down there. If you've got a hot dog, which if
• 1:14:23
  Speaker 1: you find him a tour buck, he's probably gonna you know,
• 1:14:26
  Speaker 1: he's almost always got a hot dog, because he's he's
• 1:14:28
  Speaker 1: the man, right, He's the one that's out there kicking
• 1:14:31
  Speaker 1: all the ard years asked, and he's the one that's like,
• 1:14:33
  Speaker 1: all right, he's that still is mine. But he's always
• 1:14:36
  Speaker 1: gonna have challengers around, and they're gonna come up and
• 1:14:38
  Speaker 1: they're gonna constantly be bugging him. So it's not uncommon
• 1:14:41
  Speaker 1: for him to be getting up every minutes and having
• 1:14:44
  Speaker 1: to run off a little buck, which is a great
• 1:14:46
  Speaker 1: time for for you. Or two, if you're hopefully already
• 1:14:49
  Speaker 1: in position within your you know, effective lethal range with
• 1:14:53
  Speaker 1: your weapon. Two, show him your decoy and that usually
• 1:15:00
  Speaker 1: doesn't take much and just flashing that deep, you know,
• 1:15:03
  Speaker 1: holding your bow up. He sees it and his he'll
• 1:15:07
  Speaker 1: usually look at you, look at the r buck, pin
• 1:15:09
  Speaker 1: his ears back and just come over like almost like
• 1:15:13
  Speaker 1: he's trying to make you know, loud racket with his
• 1:15:16
  Speaker 1: with his front paws as he slams him in the dirt,
• 1:15:18
  Speaker 1: you know, just clanking his way over to you. Um,
• 1:15:22
  Speaker 1: if there's no other bucks to keep keep getting them up,
• 1:15:24
  Speaker 1: you can. I've stayed out you yards and tickle the anlers,
• 1:15:28
  Speaker 1: you know, railon anilers together to kind of like pique
• 1:15:31
  Speaker 1: his interest. And then as soon as you know, he
• 1:15:33
  Speaker 1: picks his head up, you know, he sees the decoy,
• 1:15:34
  Speaker 1: and you know again they come in. Um. It doesn't
• 1:15:38
  Speaker 1: always work that way, but with the older monitor box, yeah,
• 1:15:43
  Speaker 1: if they see that decoy, they're coming in. And yeah,
• 1:15:48
  Speaker 1: and I'll be honest with you, in a perfect world,
• 1:15:50
  Speaker 1: I don't care if he sees that decoy. I just
• 1:15:52
  Speaker 1: want to get him killed, right, So the decoy is
• 1:15:55
  Speaker 1: kind of my out if I can, if I can,
• 1:15:58
  Speaker 1: if he beds the spot where I can sneak up
• 1:16:00
  Speaker 1: and shoot them without ever seeing me or me ever
• 1:16:02
  Speaker 1: making a noise, that's that's the main goal. But that
• 1:16:05
  Speaker 1: hardly ever happens. Um without without varying how would you say,
• 1:16:12
  Speaker 1: elevation changes in the terrain, It's hard to do a
• 1:16:17
  Speaker 1: traditional spot and stock where you literally can get you know,
• 1:16:21
  Speaker 1: a height advantage where you can shoot them in their
• 1:16:23
  Speaker 1: beds most time in these in these plain states, you
• 1:16:27
  Speaker 1: need them to stand up and make the next move,
• 1:16:31
  Speaker 1: I should say the last move, um for it to happen.
• 1:16:36
  Speaker 1: And that's that's the usually way it goes down. Can
• 1:16:39
  Speaker 1: you can you describe a little bit for people that
• 1:16:41
  Speaker 1: aren't familiar, um, this heads up decoy that you're using,
• 1:16:45
  Speaker 1: and how exactly that works? And then and then once
• 1:16:48
  Speaker 1: you describe on the basics, you know, I'm curious about
• 1:16:52
  Speaker 1: a little more detail of how you're using it, Like
• 1:16:54
  Speaker 1: if you have to cover a hundred yards or maybe
• 1:16:57
  Speaker 1: it's a fifty yard stretch of open ground to the
• 1:16:59
  Speaker 1: next pat to cover, you could hunker down and and
• 1:17:01
  Speaker 1: this the deer going to see you. Will you consider
• 1:17:04
  Speaker 1: sprinting across that with the decoy in front of you? Um?
• 1:17:08
  Speaker 1: Or or is it much more conservative uses? I'm guessing
• 1:17:11
  Speaker 1: give me the give me the basis of what it is,
• 1:17:13
  Speaker 1: and then describe some situations where you will use it
• 1:17:15
  Speaker 1: and how Yeah, what's It's not a full deer silhouette.
• 1:17:20
  Speaker 1: It is just a basically like a you know, like
• 1:17:23
  Speaker 1: like the old school neck mounts, Like everybody gets shoulder
• 1:17:25
  Speaker 1: mount now of a deer on the wall, but you remember,
• 1:17:28
  Speaker 1: like seeing months before it was just like a neck mount.
• 1:17:30
  Speaker 1: Telling like that was kind of weird that half the
• 1:17:32
  Speaker 1: mounts gone. That's about all it is. So it's like
• 1:17:35
  Speaker 1: it's not real tall, it's not real big. I mean
• 1:17:38
  Speaker 1: usually I'm in a kneeling, crouched position. When when when
• 1:17:42
  Speaker 1: I'm you know, ready for the deer to be when
• 1:17:46
  Speaker 1: I should say when I'm ready to the deer to
• 1:17:48
  Speaker 1: see me, you know, so they technically they can see
• 1:17:52
  Speaker 1: part of my legs, my shoulders, but they just seem
• 1:17:56
  Speaker 1: to look right through me. Um. I wouldn't go as
• 1:18:00
  Speaker 1: ours to say i'd feel safe, you know, just stand
• 1:18:02
  Speaker 1: up covering ground. I have used it, uh As I
• 1:18:06
  Speaker 1: was sneaking up on a buck face in the opposite way,
• 1:18:09
  Speaker 1: and as soon as he'd like start moving his head
• 1:18:10
  Speaker 1: and I just I just hunger down, told it in
• 1:18:13
  Speaker 1: front of me, and he would just kind of like
• 1:18:15
  Speaker 1: look over and look away. But he never did catch
• 1:18:18
  Speaker 1: me moving. Um. But I was also being very careful.
• 1:18:23
  Speaker 1: I wasn't uh you know, And that was the last
• 1:18:26
  Speaker 1: that was moving him for a second shot after a
• 1:18:28
  Speaker 1: bad first shot, So that was there situation. But I
• 1:18:33
  Speaker 1: wouldn't say I routinely trusted to cover my my motion.
• 1:18:38
  Speaker 1: It's not real big but that. But the heads up
• 1:18:40
  Speaker 1: decoy is pretty pretty awesome. It's got a and it's
• 1:18:43
  Speaker 1: not just white to lay off for him for all
• 1:18:45
  Speaker 1: different animals. Um, the meal every one works great too. Um.
• 1:18:49
  Speaker 1: The turkey one works amazing. But excuse me. It has
• 1:18:53
  Speaker 1: a carbon rod in the bottom of it that slides
• 1:18:56
  Speaker 1: into a sleeve that amounts right in front of your
• 1:18:58
  Speaker 1: stabilizer pole. And it doesn't weigh hardly anything. Um. The
• 1:19:04
  Speaker 1: antlers are foam and they can you can take them
• 1:19:07
  Speaker 1: off and they slybrate inside the body of the decoy,
• 1:19:09
  Speaker 1: which is like a thin clock material. Um, it doesn't wait.
• 1:19:13
  Speaker 1: You can toss right in your backpack. You can hold it,
• 1:19:16
  Speaker 1: you know, if you're hunt with a buddy, he can
• 1:19:17
  Speaker 1: literally just hold him with his hand. Um. And then
• 1:19:20
  Speaker 1: so there's a ground steak to the It's it's pretty simple.
• 1:19:24
  Speaker 1: It's pretty ingenious. Um. You know you're basically shooting. Uh,
• 1:19:30
  Speaker 1: it's just to the side of your bow. The only
• 1:19:34
  Speaker 1: downside to it is the wind if it's if it's windy. Uh,
• 1:19:40
  Speaker 1: I would. That's when I keep that little ground steak,
• 1:19:42
  Speaker 1: which I think they you know, they made it for
• 1:19:44
  Speaker 1: tricky hunting, so you get pick that thing out in
• 1:19:46
  Speaker 1: front of you with the turkey silhouette there. But I
• 1:19:51
  Speaker 1: use it for white tails and Meally's too, because it's
• 1:19:53
  Speaker 1: when it's windy. It's just if it's really windy. You know,
• 1:19:56
  Speaker 1: you don't want that. It's like having a sail on
• 1:19:58
  Speaker 1: your bow. So you've got this, You've got a mount
• 1:20:03
  Speaker 1: into your boat and you can use it in the
• 1:20:05
  Speaker 1: scenario like you describe where you'll flash it once and
• 1:20:08
  Speaker 1: then the deal will come in. Um Uh, will you
• 1:20:13
  Speaker 1: I think maybe you mentioned this or maybe I heard
• 1:20:15
  Speaker 1: you say it before, but will you also use it
• 1:20:17
  Speaker 1: as you know, just like someone might use a big
• 1:20:19
  Speaker 1: decoy when sitting in a tree stand. You'll have it
• 1:20:22
  Speaker 1: and you'll see a deer way off from the distance,
• 1:20:24
  Speaker 1: and then you'll start rattling or calling, and then once
• 1:20:26
  Speaker 1: he looks in your direction, then you flash it and
• 1:20:28
  Speaker 1: then he sees the second part of the equation that
• 1:20:31
  Speaker 1: makes him think, Okay, yeah, there's definitely something going on there.
• 1:20:34
  Speaker 1: Um and do you keep it up the whole way
• 1:20:37
  Speaker 1: until they come in? Or will you flash it and
• 1:20:39
  Speaker 1: put it down and then prepare for the shot. Um,
• 1:20:42
  Speaker 1: it sounds like you can shoot with it mount into
• 1:20:43
  Speaker 1: your boat, right, Oh absolutely, yep. You know it's uh
• 1:20:47
  Speaker 1: most of the time is attached to the boat or
• 1:20:49
  Speaker 1: in a ground stake. I'm not I'm not really going
• 1:20:54
  Speaker 1: back and forth with that up and down. I will.
• 1:20:59
  Speaker 1: I think just that having a little bit of move movement. Um.
• 1:21:02
  Speaker 1: You know, it's it's weird. You think that they would
• 1:21:04
  Speaker 1: see the bow attatched to it, but they just look
• 1:21:07
  Speaker 1: right through you and the bow and you can just
• 1:21:10
  Speaker 1: you know, I've had I've rattled and Bucks said he
• 1:21:12
  Speaker 1: had no interest in killing m hm. And they're ys
• 1:21:17
  Speaker 1: from me, staring at the decoy. There's I'm like kneeling
• 1:21:20
  Speaker 1: in grass. It's like, you know, a foottop foot high.
• 1:21:23
  Speaker 1: They came in from behind me, so I'm completely you know,
• 1:21:26
  Speaker 1: there's nothing I don't even hide behind. And he's looked
• 1:21:29
  Speaker 1: at that thing, and I just rocked the bow back
• 1:21:31
  Speaker 1: and forth in the decoy and he just you could
• 1:21:33
  Speaker 1: just see the hair pop up on there on the
• 1:21:34
  Speaker 1: back of his neck and he just comes a little closer.
• 1:21:37
  Speaker 1: It's like, but this thing is only you know, three
• 1:21:41
  Speaker 1: ft tall, and the decoy and here I am, you know, hunter,
• 1:21:45
  Speaker 1: an a pound guy with a backpack and the bows
• 1:21:48
  Speaker 1: and he they can't even They just for bucks on
• 1:21:51
  Speaker 1: the rut. I mean they just look right through you. Yeah.
• 1:21:54
  Speaker 1: And that's and the and and and that's why I
• 1:21:57
  Speaker 1: don't hunt try stands anymore. That's gonna be pretty intense.
• 1:22:03
  Speaker 1: I I'm tempted to jump right to how you handle
• 1:22:07
  Speaker 1: the next moment, but I want to rewind just a
• 1:22:09
  Speaker 1: little bit because I want to dive a little bit
• 1:22:11
  Speaker 1: further into the stock um. Is there anything else that
• 1:22:16
  Speaker 1: you do or that you're thinking about two uh, to
• 1:22:20
  Speaker 1: have a more successful stock into that range? Any tips
• 1:22:23
  Speaker 1: for being quiet or or things other than we talked
• 1:22:26
  Speaker 1: about the wind um, But are there any other little
• 1:22:29
  Speaker 1: things that you do to help close the distance or
• 1:22:31
  Speaker 1: to get that final ten yards closer for the shot,
• 1:22:35
  Speaker 1: or anything else is on your mind when it comes
• 1:22:37
  Speaker 1: to pulling that part off without the decoy involved. There's
• 1:22:42
  Speaker 1: probably things that I'm just taking for granted that everybody knows.
• 1:22:46
  Speaker 1: But it's you know, one thing about the planes, they're
• 1:22:52
  Speaker 1: they're a little cactus and birds everywhere. Make sure you
• 1:22:55
  Speaker 1: have some good um you know, pants with protective knee
• 1:22:59
  Speaker 1: protective knee kneepads are not a bad idea. Um. The
• 1:23:04
  Speaker 1: you're gonna get, you're gonna get just filthy crawling and
• 1:23:08
  Speaker 1: through this, you know. I mean, if you've got our
• 1:23:12
  Speaker 1: handheld the release or wrist or wrist release, I would
• 1:23:16
  Speaker 1: suggest tucking that thing inside your sleeves, having make sure
• 1:23:19
  Speaker 1: you have sleeves that you can typen up around your wrists,
• 1:23:21
  Speaker 1: because like crawling across the dry, dusty or or muddy
• 1:23:25
  Speaker 1: wet field you are, I mean, the last thing you
• 1:23:29
  Speaker 1: want is to get up there and you finally you
• 1:23:31
  Speaker 1: got within range. He stands up and you go to
• 1:23:33
  Speaker 1: you know, clip your release on your loop, and it's
• 1:23:36
  Speaker 1: just cape full of dust and rocks and it won't
• 1:23:39
  Speaker 1: you won't function, Um the terrain. It's funny. I bet
• 1:23:44
  Speaker 1: I put my equipment for there is a much abuse
• 1:23:48
  Speaker 1: hunting that way as I do hunt in the mountains. Um,
• 1:23:52
  Speaker 1: it's just crawling around and that stuff is can ters.
• 1:24:00
  Speaker 1: Are you up? But um yeah, I think that you
• 1:24:04
  Speaker 1: really would make this make or break the stock um
• 1:24:08
  Speaker 1: copal shoes that you know I stopped using maybe the
• 1:24:13
  Speaker 1: traditional hunting boots a long time ago. Um, back when
• 1:24:17
  Speaker 1: I was just hunting the Midwest. You know, I lived
• 1:24:18
  Speaker 1: in a parallel across uh rubber boots all year long,
• 1:24:22
  Speaker 1: and I still love them. I still have them, but
• 1:24:24
  Speaker 1: I don't get to use them as much anymore. You know,
• 1:24:26
  Speaker 1: I'm I'm using you know, whether I'm into mountains or
• 1:24:30
  Speaker 1: on the plains, I'm usually using a almost like a
• 1:24:34
  Speaker 1: light hiker or a light mountaineering boot nowadays. And that's
• 1:24:38
  Speaker 1: kind of my go to. You know, it's nimble, it's
• 1:24:40
  Speaker 1: it's yeah, I can, I can move through just about
• 1:24:45
  Speaker 1: anything without having no worry about thorns or you know, rocks,
• 1:24:50
  Speaker 1: brush whatever, um. And yet the same time it's protecting
• 1:24:55
  Speaker 1: my ankles and you know, from rolling over in the mountains.
• 1:24:59
  Speaker 1: But all so you don't need the you don't hunt
• 1:25:03
  Speaker 1: the scenes bid every day, so you don't need that
• 1:25:05
  Speaker 1: that rubber boot for send protection like like you wouldn't
• 1:25:09
  Speaker 1: stand hunting. But so yeah, there's probably it's it's mostly
• 1:25:13
  Speaker 1: just common sense on the stock. Then, you know, mister,
• 1:25:16
  Speaker 1: I don't see you here, your smell you there you go. Okay,
• 1:25:22
  Speaker 1: let's let's touch a little bit more on one other
• 1:25:25
  Speaker 1: thing you mentioned there, which was maybe tickling the times
• 1:25:28
  Speaker 1: together or calling. Um, from everything I've heard and seen
• 1:25:32
  Speaker 1: and some things you've mentioned too, it sounds like ratley
• 1:25:35
  Speaker 1: and calling is particularly effective in your mind in some
• 1:25:39
  Speaker 1: of these places. Would you agree with that? And then okay?
• 1:25:42
  Speaker 1: Then secondly, talk to me a little bit more about
• 1:25:45
  Speaker 1: how specifically you are using those two tools. Are you
• 1:25:49
  Speaker 1: I'm interested in your call sequence or your rattling sequence,
• 1:25:51
  Speaker 1: or when's the right time to do it, when's not
• 1:25:53
  Speaker 1: the right time to do it? Um, walk me through
• 1:25:57
  Speaker 1: the Tony treat one on one on rattling and calling. Well,
• 1:26:04
  Speaker 1: in a perfect world, they don't have to, you know,
• 1:26:06
  Speaker 1: a perfect world. My morning's gonna start with me at
• 1:26:08
  Speaker 1: at a high point glassing and I'm gonna see him
• 1:26:11
  Speaker 1: bed and then I'm just gonna walk up to him
• 1:26:13
  Speaker 1: and shoot him. Uh that's the perfect world. How it
• 1:26:17
  Speaker 1: usually happens is maybe I do find him, but now
• 1:26:20
  Speaker 1: he's better in a spot where uh, you know, I
• 1:26:24
  Speaker 1: can maybe sneak in get close. But now he's gotta
• 1:26:27
  Speaker 1: doe with them. They could stand up and feed or way,
• 1:26:30
  Speaker 1: maybe I want him to. I want to draw his
• 1:26:32
  Speaker 1: attention over here. In that case, I'm going to use
• 1:26:34
  Speaker 1: him more of just kind of a curiosity thing. And
• 1:26:36
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna make a light of as sound as I can.
• 1:26:39
  Speaker 1: I don't even want him to really know for sure
• 1:26:41
  Speaker 1: what he hurt. I want him to think, you know,
• 1:26:44
  Speaker 1: what did I just hear? What? What is that? A?
• 1:26:47
  Speaker 1: You know? Isn't that two bucks? Burn? Um? That's probably
• 1:26:51
  Speaker 1: the more often the way I end up using him. Um.
• 1:26:55
  Speaker 1: But let's say I don't find anything, you know, for
• 1:26:57
  Speaker 1: the first hour or two glass and and it's it
• 1:27:02
  Speaker 1: gets to be nine o'clock in the morning, and now
• 1:27:05
  Speaker 1: at this point everything's betted up. Uh. That's when I
• 1:27:09
  Speaker 1: will make my and and this only only really I
• 1:27:14
  Speaker 1: shouldn't say don't like works in certain areas. I've only
• 1:27:17
  Speaker 1: had luck with it in certain areas. Um. And it's
• 1:27:20
  Speaker 1: this is when I'll go to the you know, the
• 1:27:22
  Speaker 1: spots that might have a little bit thickier, thicker brushire
• 1:27:25
  Speaker 1: areas where I can I can get close to where
• 1:27:29
  Speaker 1: they're betting out in these these open grassier areas or
• 1:27:31
  Speaker 1: brushy brushing areas without them seeing me, and set up
• 1:27:36
  Speaker 1: set up a decoy out in front of me a
• 1:27:38
  Speaker 1: little ways. Maybe I'll have another one right by my side.
• 1:27:42
  Speaker 1: And that's when I mean I carry it. My set
• 1:27:46
  Speaker 1: of rain amblers are like you know, it's a one
• 1:27:47
  Speaker 1: sixty class buck. It's these are big solid amblers that
• 1:27:50
  Speaker 1: I found a long time ago, and they make great sound.
• 1:27:53
  Speaker 1: I mean I used to do a lot of shut
• 1:27:54
  Speaker 1: on and I've got a lot of sheds. It takes
• 1:27:56
  Speaker 1: the right set of antlers to make the right sound.
• 1:28:00
  Speaker 1: Oh my god, I absolutely I always wonderful. Yeah, I
• 1:28:03
  Speaker 1: cannot stand all those fake plastic ones out there. I
• 1:28:05
  Speaker 1: think I actually heard Stephen talking about Ronella on one
• 1:28:08
  Speaker 1: of his podcasts, about one of those little pack racks
• 1:28:10
  Speaker 1: or whatever you like, and I was just shaking my
• 1:28:12
  Speaker 1: head and like, oh my god, what are you doing.
• 1:28:15
  Speaker 1: I just have the bulk of carrying a big set antlers.
• 1:28:18
  Speaker 1: That's the thing that always to tears me. Well do
• 1:28:20
  Speaker 1: you like the bulk of carrying the big antlers out?
• 1:28:24
  Speaker 1: Might you might have to carry him in? The sound
• 1:28:27
  Speaker 1: they make is so different. And I mean I could
• 1:28:30
  Speaker 1: go out in my house welcover and I've got like
• 1:28:32
  Speaker 1: ten match sets and there's two of them over there
• 1:28:34
  Speaker 1: that are magical, and I mean they just have a
• 1:28:37
  Speaker 1: sound to them and I am not bashl with them.
• 1:28:40
  Speaker 1: I've just about broke my phones before. I'm too proud
• 1:28:43
  Speaker 1: to cut off the brow points. But I should cut
• 1:28:45
  Speaker 1: off the brow points. But it's hard to cut the
• 1:28:48
  Speaker 1: brow points off a nice set of sheds. But um,
• 1:28:51
  Speaker 1: but I just once I get set up in a
• 1:28:53
  Speaker 1: spot like that, I I just let it rip. I
• 1:28:56
  Speaker 1: mean I don't, I don't do it. There's nothing general,
• 1:28:59
  Speaker 1: there's nothing particularly ab out it, and I want to
• 1:29:01
  Speaker 1: make as much noise. I want them to think that
• 1:29:05
  Speaker 1: all hell is breaking loose. There's a hot dough or two,
• 1:29:07
  Speaker 1: and there's two bucks over here trying to kill each
• 1:29:10
  Speaker 1: other for and man, I it's it's worked very very well. Um.
• 1:29:17
  Speaker 1: And even when it doesn't work well to the point
• 1:29:19
  Speaker 1: where you're you know, you find a buck that you
• 1:29:22
  Speaker 1: want to you know, like, holy crap, here comes on hunteer,
• 1:29:26
  Speaker 1: you're still having fun because little bucks are running over
• 1:29:29
  Speaker 1: top of you, and sometimes they're running the absolite way
• 1:29:32
  Speaker 1: because they're scared. But um, it's yeah, good, good things
• 1:29:37
  Speaker 1: happen when you're allowed out there. But but that's a
• 1:29:40
  Speaker 1: totally different situation than you know, sneaking up as close
• 1:29:43
  Speaker 1: as you can to them and then being quiet. And
• 1:29:45
  Speaker 1: that's that's pretty much the only ways I use them,
• 1:29:47
  Speaker 1: and you know it's it's either a late morning set
• 1:29:50
  Speaker 1: up early or late afternoon and early evening set up
• 1:29:53
  Speaker 1: where I don't have a play, I don't know one's
• 1:29:56
  Speaker 1: at and it's just almost like a cool and call
• 1:29:57
  Speaker 1: set up, um, where I'm allowed and aggressive, or it's
• 1:30:02
  Speaker 1: a last minute Uh you know, I've got a book located,
• 1:30:06
  Speaker 1: I'm in tight and I'm tickling them to get him up.
• 1:30:11
  Speaker 1: I gotta believe that, Um, I gotta believe that the
• 1:30:15
  Speaker 1: shot experience, the whole process is different for those two scenarios.
• 1:30:20
  Speaker 1: There's gotta be the there's the situation where you sneak
• 1:30:24
  Speaker 1: up on one and maybe you don't need to use
• 1:30:26
  Speaker 1: a call at all. You just slip right in and
• 1:30:27
  Speaker 1: then you get a shot with that dear being unaware
• 1:30:30
  Speaker 1: of your presence at all, versus the shot where you
• 1:30:34
  Speaker 1: rattle one in, it sees your decoy and it comes
• 1:30:36
  Speaker 1: in righty to kick your ass. Um, Can you walk
• 1:30:40
  Speaker 1: me through how you handle the shot, those moments of truth,
• 1:30:44
  Speaker 1: the shot process itself, and anything unique to either one
• 1:30:47
  Speaker 1: of those scenarios. I just black out and wake up.
• 1:30:51
  Speaker 1: There's dead animals laid around when I was younger, actually
• 1:30:55
  Speaker 1: that is what happened. But um, I think it's easier
• 1:30:58
  Speaker 1: for me now with the deco way when because they've
• 1:31:02
  Speaker 1: made the last move and you know, they've penn their
• 1:31:04
  Speaker 1: ears back or whatever, and they're coming and I'm being
• 1:31:07
  Speaker 1: forced into a situation, uh, you know, he's coming, he's coming,
• 1:31:11
  Speaker 1: he's you know, he's okay. So now he's at like
• 1:31:13
  Speaker 1: point blank range because a lot of times they'll just
• 1:31:16
  Speaker 1: keep walking to you. I mean, eventually they're gonna get
• 1:31:18
  Speaker 1: to a point when their ten yards or ten feet
• 1:31:20
  Speaker 1: and they're gonna like there's some moment hopefully they're going
• 1:31:23
  Speaker 1: to realize you're not a buck. So you've got to
• 1:31:25
  Speaker 1: shoot him before that. You're you're in this. You know,
• 1:31:30
  Speaker 1: the m or media, how was you call it? Ethics? Ethics,
• 1:31:34
  Speaker 1: police might not like this, but you are forced with
• 1:31:36
  Speaker 1: a lot of frontal and quartering two shots. Um because
• 1:31:40
  Speaker 1: of that with the decoy, because they're coming to kick
• 1:31:43
  Speaker 1: your ass. They're not trying to move around you, They're
• 1:31:46
  Speaker 1: coming right to you. Whereas with you know, if I'm
• 1:31:50
  Speaker 1: finding a better and I'm sneaking up there and he's
• 1:31:52
  Speaker 1: just laying there, I'm not being forced to make the shot.
• 1:31:57
  Speaker 1: He's not moving in I don't have you know, the
• 1:31:58
  Speaker 1: clock's not ticking and that way it's Then then I
• 1:32:02
  Speaker 1: have questions, Should I wait? Just should away from the stand?
• 1:32:05
  Speaker 1: Do I have a window to his vitals? Um? Is this?
• 1:32:11
  Speaker 1: You know? What is the best situation? And then I
• 1:32:12
  Speaker 1: still have questions? Um. The young younger me was just
• 1:32:17
  Speaker 1: as soon as I could see his chest, I'm in
• 1:32:19
  Speaker 1: a zip and arrow. Threat. Older me gets asked more
• 1:32:24
  Speaker 1: questions of myself now and gets gets me in troublesometimes. Um.
• 1:32:29
  Speaker 1: I had both situations this year, Uh, my first book
• 1:32:33
  Speaker 1: in Colorado this year. I was able to sneak up
• 1:32:35
  Speaker 1: to him and he never knew I was there. Um,
• 1:32:39
  Speaker 1: And I decided to wait. That could have went horribly wrong. Um,
• 1:32:43
  Speaker 1: because he eventually he did stand up and just you know,
• 1:32:47
  Speaker 1: spin around like a dog in his bed three times,
• 1:32:49
  Speaker 1: and before he lay back down, I shot him. But
• 1:32:54
  Speaker 1: fifteen minutes later, the wind took a dramatic hundred e
• 1:32:58
  Speaker 1: degree change because of front came in a big storm
• 1:33:01
  Speaker 1: and the thermals were going straight down the hill hill
• 1:33:03
  Speaker 1: at that point. If he had waited until that happened,
• 1:33:06
  Speaker 1: he would have winned me. So I got really lucky there,
• 1:33:09
  Speaker 1: whereas maybe I should have taken the shot earlier. I
• 1:33:11
  Speaker 1: mean I could see his chest, but he was you know,
• 1:33:15
  Speaker 1: obviously you have more of a room for you know,
• 1:33:20
  Speaker 1: room for errors when they stand up. And I just
• 1:33:23
  Speaker 1: waited for that and it worked out. And then in Kansas,
• 1:33:27
  Speaker 1: you know that buck maybe he was this year, he
• 1:33:30
  Speaker 1: was bettered with a dough and I could just see
• 1:33:33
  Speaker 1: the tips of his antlers. I knew he was there,
• 1:33:35
  Speaker 1: but I had no shot, and I was about fifty
• 1:33:37
  Speaker 1: yards from him. I tickled the antlers together. Um. And
• 1:33:43
  Speaker 1: actually I don't even know if it was that necessarily,
• 1:33:45
  Speaker 1: because another buck came into, Um, a little little buck
• 1:33:48
  Speaker 1: was coming in, and they got up to kind of
• 1:33:50
  Speaker 1: think more more or less deal with him than the
• 1:33:53
  Speaker 1: noise I was making. But the second he saw that
• 1:33:56
  Speaker 1: that decoy, he just pinned his ears back and started
• 1:33:58
  Speaker 1: walking to me. And then at that point it's like, well,
• 1:34:02
  Speaker 1: I've got an arrow on the string. This is what
• 1:34:04
  Speaker 1: I wanted. He's coming and he's making them, he's making
• 1:34:06
  Speaker 1: decision for me. I'm going to be shooting here soon,
• 1:34:09
  Speaker 1: so I think it's it's easier for me when when
• 1:34:15
  Speaker 1: they make the last move. Either way, anything you've learned
• 1:34:19
  Speaker 1: about taking that quartering two or frontal shot. Um as
• 1:34:23
  Speaker 1: far as making that as as lethal as possible, do
• 1:34:26
  Speaker 1: you have a range, like, hey, they gotta be within
• 1:34:28
  Speaker 1: this range for me to take that shot. Or where
• 1:34:31
  Speaker 1: exactly are you placing it? Um? Any any details on
• 1:34:34
  Speaker 1: on pulling that kind of thing off. Well, Number one,
• 1:34:39
  Speaker 1: I shoot a heavy arrow. That's uh, you know, it's
• 1:34:42
  Speaker 1: think it's around five five or fifteen grains seventy pounds.
• 1:34:46
  Speaker 1: You know, I've got a whoy turbo that's spitting them
• 1:34:49
  Speaker 1: out there pretty fast, even for a heavy bow, So
• 1:34:52
  Speaker 1: it's got a lot of thump to it. If you're
• 1:34:55
  Speaker 1: shooting a three fifty grain arrow and pounds have drawed,
• 1:34:59
  Speaker 1: you know, maybe an older bow that isn't so fast,
• 1:35:01
  Speaker 1: this might not be the right play for you. UM.
• 1:35:05
  Speaker 1: I mean, if I hit the scapula, I'm probably going
• 1:35:07
  Speaker 1: through it. If I hit the where the where the
• 1:35:10
  Speaker 1: leg bone thickens out below the scapula, I don't think
• 1:35:13
  Speaker 1: anyone's getting through that. UM. I have hit that before,
• 1:35:16
  Speaker 1: you know, it's been over a dozen years ago. But uh,
• 1:35:20
  Speaker 1: that that's a thick bone down there. However, the ribs
• 1:35:23
  Speaker 1: in front of the shoulder are not much different than
• 1:35:26
  Speaker 1: the ribs behind them the shoulder. Um. With that being said,
• 1:35:30
  Speaker 1: if you can a quartering too with you know, it's
• 1:35:34
  Speaker 1: just like when they're walking. You know, if you if
• 1:35:36
  Speaker 1: you with a corter in a way, when that leg
• 1:35:38
  Speaker 1: goes forward, you want to slip the girl in front
• 1:35:41
  Speaker 1: behind it. Well, when they're walking to you, when the
• 1:35:43
  Speaker 1: leg goes back, you want to slip that girl in
• 1:35:45
  Speaker 1: front of it. Um. I've had great luck. I mean
• 1:35:49
  Speaker 1: I've literally had full uh pastors when I you know,
• 1:35:54
  Speaker 1: on a quarter and two shots that went in front
• 1:35:57
  Speaker 1: of the front shoulder and exited out back through the
• 1:35:59
  Speaker 1: rear um and zipped across the wheat field. I mean
• 1:36:02
  Speaker 1: lots of them, uh with white tails. You know, I
• 1:36:06
  Speaker 1: use a cut on contact brought at an iron. Will
• 1:36:09
  Speaker 1: you know it's a fixed head. I don't use mechanicals.
• 1:36:12
  Speaker 1: And and that's one of the reasons I don't want,
• 1:36:15
  Speaker 1: you know, I've I've heard horror stories of mechanicals on
• 1:36:18
  Speaker 1: you know, a hard quartering shot. You know, catch a
• 1:36:21
  Speaker 1: rib and and uh plants along you know, your skim
• 1:36:25
  Speaker 1: along the outside. And it's the last thing I want.
• 1:36:28
  Speaker 1: So you know, it's it's not like an elk. With
• 1:36:30
  Speaker 1: an elk, you've got to be really careful. Those ribs
• 1:36:32
  Speaker 1: are way thicker, you know, and you've got to aim
• 1:36:34
  Speaker 1: for that hole in the thoracic area, you know. But
• 1:36:37
  Speaker 1: the base of their throat. The white tail basically I
• 1:36:41
  Speaker 1: think of, you know, just putting the arrow to the
• 1:36:43
  Speaker 1: center h point of their chest from whatever angle I'm at,
• 1:36:48
  Speaker 1: and it's never never failed me. But tell me, tell
• 1:36:54
  Speaker 1: tell me this. I feel like this would be a
• 1:36:57
  Speaker 1: good way to wrap this up because we're I've been
• 1:36:59
  Speaker 1: hanging ivan holding here for a long time, and I'm
• 1:37:01
  Speaker 1: having fun with this one. So I'm selfishly getting as
• 1:37:06
  Speaker 1: much as I can, um, because I love hunting these
• 1:37:09
  Speaker 1: kinds of places, So I really want to I want
• 1:37:11
  Speaker 1: to add this to my repertoire um. But is there
• 1:37:14
  Speaker 1: is there any one example from all your years of
• 1:37:16
  Speaker 1: this style of white tail hunting that comes to mind
• 1:37:19
  Speaker 1: to you is like the perfect, the perfect encapsulation of
• 1:37:23
  Speaker 1: this whole way of hunting. Um. Is there a story
• 1:37:27
  Speaker 1: like that, a single hunt that just kind of wraps
• 1:37:29
  Speaker 1: a bow on this whole thing, that you could walk
• 1:37:30
  Speaker 1: us through how you did this and that that illustrates
• 1:37:33
  Speaker 1: this whole thing. Nicely. Uh you want one that went
• 1:37:36
  Speaker 1: uh like almost perfect, but took a like actually I
• 1:37:41
  Speaker 1: see that, Like I can tell you about this last year,
• 1:37:44
  Speaker 1: I guess, But in the end I got my dear.
• 1:37:47
  Speaker 1: But it was I had two different arrows hit a offense.
• 1:37:52
  Speaker 1: Um it sounds like how of a story? Oh my god? Yeah,
• 1:37:56
  Speaker 1: it was so this book I got just this last year. Um,
• 1:38:00
  Speaker 1: I was down there for probably a week and I
• 1:38:02
  Speaker 1: didn't Um, I just was not seeing what I was Uh,
• 1:38:07
  Speaker 1: you know we used to see and uh in Kansas,
• 1:38:10
  Speaker 1: you you get the opportunity to draw, you know, in
• 1:38:12
  Speaker 1: either either species tag so and I did not draw
• 1:38:15
  Speaker 1: this year. I only had the wait till only so
• 1:38:17
  Speaker 1: kind of you know, cuts you right there and and
• 1:38:19
  Speaker 1: half of what bucks you looking for? And then I
• 1:38:21
  Speaker 1: just I mean I had seen bucks probably as high
• 1:38:23
  Speaker 1: as one sixty, but I just wasn't. I wasn't willing
• 1:38:27
  Speaker 1: to cut my tang on one nowadays, you know, you know,
• 1:38:32
  Speaker 1: basically I had I had a guy tell me a
• 1:38:34
  Speaker 1: long time ago. Ah, if you don't when you first
• 1:38:38
  Speaker 1: see that buck, if it's not a no brainer, if
• 1:38:41
  Speaker 1: it's not a holy crap, I gotta that's that's the
• 1:38:44
  Speaker 1: one if that, if that feeling isn't there, you gotta pass.
• 1:38:48
  Speaker 1: If you have to, if there's a second of doubt
• 1:38:51
  Speaker 1: in your head, if you have to tell, if you
• 1:38:53
  Speaker 1: have to argue with or negotiate with yourself, whether or
• 1:38:56
  Speaker 1: not it's a shooter, it's not. Yeah, And I learned
• 1:39:00
  Speaker 1: the hard way is right, and I don't you know,
• 1:39:02
  Speaker 1: it's so nowadays I'm pretty pretty picky. And I just
• 1:39:06
  Speaker 1: wasn't seeing when I was, like, you know, I wanted
• 1:39:08
  Speaker 1: to see and the pheasant hunting was good, so I
• 1:39:11
  Speaker 1: was killing some pheasants. Um, but you know, I just
• 1:39:14
  Speaker 1: wasn't seeing any bucks. And then I h I wanted
• 1:39:19
  Speaker 1: to see. It was like the third day of pheasants season.
• 1:39:21
  Speaker 1: Maybe um, I just used that as a time refens
• 1:39:25
  Speaker 1: don't really the actual date. But I was coming back
• 1:39:27
  Speaker 1: from this class and it was already to the point
• 1:39:30
  Speaker 1: where now I wasn't even I was. I was leaving
• 1:39:32
  Speaker 1: my last classing point and I was heading back to
• 1:39:34
  Speaker 1: the ranch to get a nice rest, and a buck
• 1:39:38
  Speaker 1: across the road in front of me, and it was
• 1:39:39
  Speaker 1: the first really old mature buy I had seen last year,
• 1:39:44
  Speaker 1: and you know, I stopped the truck and jumped out
• 1:39:47
  Speaker 1: with the binoculars and he, you know, was a couple
• 1:39:50
  Speaker 1: hundred yards outside road with some dos and I got
• 1:39:53
  Speaker 1: to watch him a little bit. Um. The next morning,
• 1:39:58
  Speaker 1: I was on a different high spot, you know, maybe
• 1:40:00
  Speaker 1: about a mile from there, where I could cover that
• 1:40:02
  Speaker 1: whole area and for a lot of it. And just
• 1:40:06
  Speaker 1: luckily he was the very first year I saw, and
• 1:40:11
  Speaker 1: he had a dope. He had a couple of hour
• 1:40:13
  Speaker 1: bucks that were shadowing him and he kept running them off.
• 1:40:16
  Speaker 1: He had broken off the brow one of his brow
• 1:40:18
  Speaker 1: points already, which they're both really big brow points, they're
• 1:40:22
  Speaker 1: like six seven inches um. So he'd done that overnight,
• 1:40:26
  Speaker 1: and I just waited him out. He he probably took
• 1:40:31
  Speaker 1: man it. It took longer than thirty or nine o'clock
• 1:40:34
  Speaker 1: before he finally betted. But in that time, you know,
• 1:40:37
  Speaker 1: he'd went, you know, almost in the middle of the section,
• 1:40:41
  Speaker 1: so you know, a half mile from each county road
• 1:40:44
  Speaker 1: and over the edge where I couldn't see him. That
• 1:40:46
  Speaker 1: was the one I was telling you earlier. I had
• 1:40:47
  Speaker 1: to drive all the way around find lar high point
• 1:40:49
  Speaker 1: over there, and luckily I picked him up again before
• 1:40:52
  Speaker 1: he laid down. And I mean the whole the whole section.
• 1:40:56
  Speaker 1: I have permission to hunt on um from three different landowners. UM.
• 1:41:00
  Speaker 1: Certain you have to worry about the fences as far
• 1:41:03
  Speaker 1: as uh, you know, property lines go. I just had
• 1:41:05
  Speaker 1: to worry about the fences. The fact that he was
• 1:41:08
  Speaker 1: bed in a long one. Um, it was super easy.
• 1:41:10
  Speaker 1: I mean there was no stock. I just grabbed my
• 1:41:12
  Speaker 1: boat and the decoy and walked because he was on
• 1:41:15
  Speaker 1: the other side of a littleknoll. And once I got
• 1:41:19
  Speaker 1: I wasn't even with it going to be within sight
• 1:41:20
  Speaker 1: of him until I was like forty or fifty yards,
• 1:41:23
  Speaker 1: So I basically just got to where I could see
• 1:41:25
  Speaker 1: the sailor tips knelt down in the cut Milo. Um.
• 1:41:29
  Speaker 1: You know there's a lot of times in those areas
• 1:41:31
  Speaker 1: they will the mile will be like a terraced off
• 1:41:34
  Speaker 1: on the hills where they have like little flat spot
• 1:41:36
  Speaker 1: and then it drops down the flat spot and it
• 1:41:38
  Speaker 1: drops down. I think it just makes it easier for
• 1:41:40
  Speaker 1: them to harvest it and maybe helps with erosion. But
• 1:41:46
  Speaker 1: it makes for great little spots to kneel behind um
• 1:41:49
  Speaker 1: and cover you maybe your lower half when you're showing
• 1:41:52
  Speaker 1: the decoy. And there was a little buck that kept
• 1:41:54
  Speaker 1: coming up and I tried tick on the ailers to
• 1:41:57
  Speaker 1: him to get him a stand up, and I could
• 1:41:59
  Speaker 1: see his years twitch. He'd turned his head a little bit,
• 1:42:01
  Speaker 1: but he wouldn't stand up. And so I think in
• 1:42:04
  Speaker 1: the end it was thenar buck that got him and
• 1:42:06
  Speaker 1: his dope on his feet. And she saw me and
• 1:42:09
  Speaker 1: walked her over to me. And she saw me first.
• 1:42:12
  Speaker 1: I mean she was probably twenty yards from me. But
• 1:42:15
  Speaker 1: so when he saw me the decoy, now he sees
• 1:42:19
  Speaker 1: not only has his dough walked away from him a
• 1:42:21
  Speaker 1: little bit while he was preoccupied with this little buck.
• 1:42:24
  Speaker 1: There's not a little buck over there in the cut
• 1:42:26
  Speaker 1: milo which is me and has has dough was walking
• 1:42:29
  Speaker 1: over there towards it. She's just curious what I am,
• 1:42:31
  Speaker 1: because she's they're obviously the does are a little more
• 1:42:35
  Speaker 1: but they don't have testosterone wrong and at that time
• 1:42:37
  Speaker 1: of the year, so they're a little more curious as
• 1:42:39
  Speaker 1: to what you are and white til doose are. Actually,
• 1:42:44
  Speaker 1: I usially don't like him to get that close because
• 1:42:45
  Speaker 1: a lot of times they will blow out and script
• 1:42:47
  Speaker 1: the whole thing. But she didn't. He saw me and
• 1:42:50
  Speaker 1: just pinned his years back in just third, you know,
• 1:42:55
  Speaker 1: doing that moose walk where this kind of tipped their
• 1:42:57
  Speaker 1: head left and right back, and he's just coming. And
• 1:43:01
  Speaker 1: it's to the point where I I drew my bow
• 1:43:03
  Speaker 1: bag and I'm thinking he's gonna stop. He's at thirties,
• 1:43:06
  Speaker 1: okay that I know that fence post is thirty, and
• 1:43:09
  Speaker 1: he just keeps coming, like I gotta let down. And
• 1:43:11
  Speaker 1: now I gotta shift a little bit because if you know,
• 1:43:12
  Speaker 1: the stocks are telling off, I can't really swing my
• 1:43:15
  Speaker 1: my bow through. I've kind of gotta go up and around.
• 1:43:17
  Speaker 1: And the door was looking at me like, I don't
• 1:43:19
  Speaker 1: this this buck doesn't look right. But the but the
• 1:43:23
  Speaker 1: I swear to cathless older bucks, once they get in
• 1:43:25
  Speaker 1: their head that they're gonna scare you off and run
• 1:43:27
  Speaker 1: you off, they just they get the googly eye thing
• 1:43:31
  Speaker 1: and they roll their eyes back, their ears are pin back,
• 1:43:33
  Speaker 1: and they're just they're coming, and you well, there's a
• 1:43:38
  Speaker 1: Bucks that I was kind of just messed around with
• 1:43:40
  Speaker 1: in the past, like I had no intention of shooting
• 1:43:45
  Speaker 1: up and yell at them to get him to leave. Um,
• 1:43:48
  Speaker 1: but this guy's coming and he's coming, and he finally
• 1:43:50
  Speaker 1: gets to the point where you know he's gotta he's
• 1:43:54
  Speaker 1: either got to jump the fence to me or now
• 1:43:57
  Speaker 1: he's gonna be going further away, and and he just
• 1:44:00
  Speaker 1: stops and he's just standing there is that moving his head.
• 1:44:03
  Speaker 1: I'm like, all right, I'm just gonna shoot it right
• 1:44:04
  Speaker 1: through the the fence. I mean it's barbedware fence. There's
• 1:44:08
  Speaker 1: four strands of it. I mean, there's only two of
• 1:44:09
  Speaker 1: them that are in play. And it's really I mean,
• 1:44:12
  Speaker 1: this is this is the closest shot I've had in
• 1:44:13
  Speaker 1: a long time. What are the odds of it hitting it?
• 1:44:17
  Speaker 1: And it hits it and the arrow instantly goes down
• 1:44:20
  Speaker 1: and back and oh no, and you could you could
• 1:44:24
  Speaker 1: see by the you know the way you could hear
• 1:44:26
  Speaker 1: it too. The it wasn't the standard like you know,
• 1:44:31
  Speaker 1: thumb sound. It was more of a a smack because
• 1:44:34
  Speaker 1: you know that the arrow was also coming at him
• 1:44:36
  Speaker 1: kind of sideways. You know, it didn't it wasn't good
• 1:44:40
  Speaker 1: And aside throwing our arroline, you know, he had instantly
• 1:44:45
  Speaker 1: made a jump. So now he's up five yards further,
• 1:44:48
  Speaker 1: which is you know, no change in pin and one
• 1:44:51
  Speaker 1: of the odds of it hitting the fence again apparently
• 1:44:55
  Speaker 1: pretty good because it hit again and it went britween
• 1:44:57
  Speaker 1: to speak, but he got getting this time, he only
• 1:45:01
  Speaker 1: walks a little further. Um and by this time, you
• 1:45:05
  Speaker 1: know, and and I'll admit, I'm I'm for azzing, like I'm like,
• 1:45:08
  Speaker 1: I cannot believe. What are the odds this happening. I've
• 1:45:10
  Speaker 1: put all this work in this now and and now
• 1:45:13
  Speaker 1: it's I'm shooting like a you know, a jackass. I
• 1:45:17
  Speaker 1: you know, and you feel bad, right because you know
• 1:45:19
  Speaker 1: it's supposed to be quick, you know, clean kill and
• 1:45:22
  Speaker 1: I so so long story short, I am out of
• 1:45:30
  Speaker 1: arrows very quickly here and I've got two arrows in them,
• 1:45:36
  Speaker 1: and you know, this is one of those days that
• 1:45:40
  Speaker 1: ends well. But um, there was moments in it where
• 1:45:44
  Speaker 1: I like this. You know, there's a moment where I'm like,
• 1:45:47
  Speaker 1: I need more arrows. I absolutely this. I did everything
• 1:45:52
  Speaker 1: right up until when I didn't. And now you did
• 1:45:56
  Speaker 1: hit him. It hit the barrow and then him. Okay,
• 1:45:58
  Speaker 1: for some reason I thought it ricochet off and you
• 1:46:00
  Speaker 1: missed both. But okay, so you hit him. He's still
• 1:46:02
  Speaker 1: got him. First yarrow hit him, and it was a
• 1:46:05
  Speaker 1: legal shot, like it's low it's maybe diaphraghim, maybe liver,
• 1:46:09
  Speaker 1: but maybe on the other side of the diaphraghim. I
• 1:46:11
  Speaker 1: would later find out what it was it was behind it, um,
• 1:46:14
  Speaker 1: but he's just so hopped up on kicking your boot.
• 1:46:16
  Speaker 1: He doesn't even care that he just got hit. Did
• 1:46:19
  Speaker 1: not care. Second arrow hit the hit the wire when
• 1:46:22
  Speaker 1: when low between his legs, he didn't even acknowledge it. Um.
• 1:46:27
  Speaker 1: He moved out a little further. I want to say
• 1:46:29
  Speaker 1: the third arrow connected, um, but he was walking away
• 1:46:33
  Speaker 1: at that point and it wasn't you know, it was
• 1:46:37
  Speaker 1: basically replay the first shot. Um. And then he laid
• 1:46:40
  Speaker 1: down and I tried to speak in and get another
• 1:46:43
  Speaker 1: one in him, and I couldn't get any closer than
• 1:46:46
  Speaker 1: that fence because climbing the fence he would have picked
• 1:46:48
  Speaker 1: me off and him. You know, I know it was
• 1:46:51
  Speaker 1: and he's still at that point, I didn't think any
• 1:46:53
  Speaker 1: clue what I was. I mean, he's he can still
• 1:46:55
  Speaker 1: see him, so um, and I was last two shots
• 1:47:00
  Speaker 1: just caught. You know, he's laying down in brush and
• 1:47:02
  Speaker 1: I tried to squeeze him through there and he just didn't.
• 1:47:04
  Speaker 1: It didn't connect. And eventually I'm sitting there along that
• 1:47:08
  Speaker 1: fence line. Now he's moved opia. We basically moved up
• 1:47:11
  Speaker 1: fifty yards forward because those laid back down. He's laid
• 1:47:14
  Speaker 1: back down. He's not doing good. I'm like just expecting
• 1:47:17
  Speaker 1: from him, you know, his head will go down and
• 1:47:18
  Speaker 1: I'm thinking he's going to die. And the other buck
• 1:47:22
  Speaker 1: comes back, literally scoops up that dough hops the fence
• 1:47:25
  Speaker 1: with her and they take off, and that buck watches him,
• 1:47:29
  Speaker 1: and I'm just like, they can just stay there, buddy,
• 1:47:32
  Speaker 1: it's time, you know, just stay there. He got up
• 1:47:36
  Speaker 1: and he walked over that fence and m hmm. I
• 1:47:40
  Speaker 1: didn't think he was gonna be able to do it,
• 1:47:41
  Speaker 1: and he kind of like high sighted himself for a bit,
• 1:47:44
  Speaker 1: you know, he tried to jump it and he then
• 1:47:46
  Speaker 1: he slipped over and he made it and he started
• 1:47:48
  Speaker 1: walking after him, and I, yeah, I know. So I
• 1:47:52
  Speaker 1: ran back the truck as fast as I could. I
• 1:47:54
  Speaker 1: got more, you know, load of the boat with arrows,
• 1:47:56
  Speaker 1: drove her up, and now I gotta drive back around
• 1:47:58
  Speaker 1: the other side of the block again where I have
• 1:48:00
  Speaker 1: a view of that side where I originally spot him
• 1:48:02
  Speaker 1: in the morning. Got over there. They're all three laying
• 1:48:05
  Speaker 1: down the field and um, you know, basically never left
• 1:48:10
  Speaker 1: that field. Um, but it involved me waiting waiting. Uh,
• 1:48:17
  Speaker 1: probably not as long as I should have, because if
• 1:48:19
  Speaker 1: I had just never moved in on him to get
• 1:48:21
  Speaker 1: another air on him, he would have just died right
• 1:48:23
  Speaker 1: there and for a couple of hours. But I tried
• 1:48:24
  Speaker 1: to slide in and ended sooner and I actually had
• 1:48:30
  Speaker 1: the decoy on the boat. That was one of those
• 1:48:33
  Speaker 1: times when I'm crossing that little opening area just hoping
• 1:48:36
  Speaker 1: if he does turn over here and see because there's
• 1:48:39
  Speaker 1: nothing really in between us, um that he will see decoy.
• 1:48:42
  Speaker 1: And I was able to getting our arrow on him again,
• 1:48:47
  Speaker 1: but the wind caught that decoy and it wasn't a
• 1:48:49
  Speaker 1: good shot, and it was I've had This conversation was
• 1:48:56
  Speaker 1: a one of the worst and best days I've had
• 1:48:59
  Speaker 1: in a long time, because you know, in the end,
• 1:49:02
  Speaker 1: I got the buck I wanted, but there was there
• 1:49:05
  Speaker 1: were tears from it, and uh, you know, I felt
• 1:49:09
  Speaker 1: like ship because I you know, what started off as
• 1:49:12
  Speaker 1: a simple mistake and a barbed wire moved on to
• 1:49:15
  Speaker 1: me rushing things, not uh not taking my time and
• 1:49:20
  Speaker 1: just letting him rest and stiffing up and die pushing it, um,
• 1:49:25
  Speaker 1: you know, not thinking you know ahead of time about
• 1:49:27
  Speaker 1: what the wind's gonna do. With with this decoy on there,
• 1:49:30
  Speaker 1: just you know, I didn't a time came when my
• 1:49:35
  Speaker 1: good judgment kind and how I should move along with
• 1:49:38
  Speaker 1: it kind of went out the window and I was
• 1:49:41
  Speaker 1: I just had one thing in mind, and I was
• 1:49:43
  Speaker 1: getting the dead as soon as possible, and in the
• 1:49:46
  Speaker 1: end it worked out. But um, yeah, it's that that
• 1:49:51
  Speaker 1: might not be the type of story you were thinking
• 1:49:53
  Speaker 1: about to inter wrap it up with, but that was
• 1:49:55
  Speaker 1: the the one that's most pressing in my mind because
• 1:49:58
  Speaker 1: of may maybe for not the reasons of grand or
• 1:50:02
  Speaker 1: but reasons of it taught me a lesson. So yeah, no,
• 1:50:04
  Speaker 1: I think that's that's an important I think that kind
• 1:50:07
  Speaker 1: of story makes me think of a few things. Number one,
• 1:50:10
  Speaker 1: it it reminds us all that you can do everything
• 1:50:13
  Speaker 1: right and still every once in a while those nightmare
• 1:50:15
  Speaker 1: scenarios will happen, um, because we are chasing a wild
• 1:50:19
  Speaker 1: animal and just stuff happens, um, So you better be
• 1:50:23
  Speaker 1: prepared for it as best as possible. And you know,
• 1:50:26
  Speaker 1: like like you did, even though it didn't turn out
• 1:50:28
  Speaker 1: as didn't turn out the way you wanted to you,
• 1:50:31
  Speaker 1: you know, you tried to end it as quickly as possible.
• 1:50:33
  Speaker 1: You tried to do the most ethical possible next thing. Um.
• 1:50:38
  Speaker 1: And then it also just for me when you hear
• 1:50:41
  Speaker 1: those kinds of stories, you just can't help but have
• 1:50:44
  Speaker 1: this admiration for an animal that can just keep on living.
• 1:50:50
  Speaker 1: And it's just unbelievable that the toughness and the will
• 1:50:53
  Speaker 1: to live that these critters have. I mean, they are
• 1:50:56
  Speaker 1: survival machines. Um, that's for sure. Oh, I uh, I
• 1:51:02
  Speaker 1: don't know, man, I'm fired up. I am just after
• 1:51:04
  Speaker 1: hearing this. I just I'm ready to get out there
• 1:51:06
  Speaker 1: is what I'm ready to do. This is uh, this
• 1:51:09
  Speaker 1: is fun stuff. Yeah, Tag season is upon us. I'm
• 1:51:14
  Speaker 1: before we started podcast, I was going through my my
• 1:51:17
  Speaker 1: Utah app that's going in this afternoon, and one by
• 1:51:22
  Speaker 1: one the state's applications will all be in and then
• 1:51:25
  Speaker 1: for you know, it will be scouting time and then
• 1:51:27
  Speaker 1: right back into it all the never ending cycle continues, hopefully. Yes.
• 1:51:32
  Speaker 1: Is there is there any place that if folks, if
• 1:51:35
  Speaker 1: folks listen to this and we're really interested in treat
• 1:51:38
  Speaker 1: and wanted to either see some of your writing or
• 1:51:40
  Speaker 1: fall along with your hunts or anything, is there anywhere
• 1:51:42
  Speaker 1: that you would tell people to go for them to
• 1:51:44
  Speaker 1: connect with you or to to learn more. My Instagram
• 1:51:48
  Speaker 1: is probably the best place to follow along. And that's
• 1:51:51
  Speaker 1: just Tony treats. I guess there's an underscore between the
• 1:51:54
  Speaker 1: names on Instagram. Um, I don't really. I mean I
• 1:51:58
  Speaker 1: write for Rod Slide uh and I'm on their staff,
• 1:52:03
  Speaker 1: but I don't. I'm not exclusive. So my articles pop
• 1:52:06
  Speaker 1: up in do magazines. Cool, awesome, Well, Tony, I I
• 1:52:11
  Speaker 1: really enjoyed this one. This is something that's kind of
• 1:52:14
  Speaker 1: near and dear to my heart, these kinds of areas.
• 1:52:15
  Speaker 1: So I am I'm making a plan to try to
• 1:52:18
  Speaker 1: add this kind of hunting to to my repertoire. And
• 1:52:22
  Speaker 1: it was awesome to be able to pick your brain
• 1:52:23
  Speaker 1: about it. So thanks for taking so much time to
• 1:52:25
  Speaker 1: do that. Well, thank you, Mark. It's that pleasure being
• 1:52:31
  Speaker 1: at And get some water man, you're struggle. I got
• 1:52:38
  Speaker 1: fraud right here to last second. It happens. I've had
• 1:52:40
  Speaker 1: to happen a time or two myself. So yeah, it's
• 1:52:43
  Speaker 1: getting over a cold, so it's been tough. That's no fun. Well,
• 1:52:46
  Speaker 1: thank you Tony again, and let's stay in touch. Sounds good.
• 1:52:50
  Speaker 1: Thanks and that's a rap, my friends. Thank you for
• 1:52:54
  Speaker 1: tuning in. Thanks for being a part of one hell
• 1:52:56
  Speaker 1: of a great community. Um, the wire Dunk listeners, all
• 1:53:00
  Speaker 1: of you guys out there that are avid hunters and
• 1:53:03
  Speaker 1: new hunters and mentors and conservationists and just lovers of
• 1:53:08
  Speaker 1: wildlife and wild places and the folks that walk the
• 1:53:10
  Speaker 1: walk just don't talk to talk. Um nam, I think
• 1:53:14
  Speaker 1: you guys are awesome. I'm proud to be chatting with
• 1:53:17
  Speaker 1: you weekly and proud to call you guys my friends, colleagues, community,
• 1:53:23
  Speaker 1: and UM, I think I'm gonna stop talking now and
• 1:53:25
  Speaker 1: just let you get outside. Hopefully you're shed hunting, picking
• 1:53:28
  Speaker 1: up trash, scouting, having a good time. Hopefully that's some
• 1:53:31
  Speaker 1: sunshine here soon. So until next time, thank you, and
• 1:53:35
  Speaker 1: stay wired to Hunt.