Latest / Wired To Hunt Podcast / Ep. 267: Bowhunting Urban Deer with Taylor Chamberlin

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Ep. 267: Bowhunting Urban Deer with Taylor Chamberlin · Wired To Hunt Podcast

• 0:02
  Speaker 1: Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast, your home for
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: deer hunting news, stories and strategies, and now your host,
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: Mark Kenyon. Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast. I'm
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: your host Mark Kenyan in this episode number two and
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: sixties seven, and today on the show, I'm joined by
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: Taylor Chamberlain to discuss his incredibly unique experiences bow hunting
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: white tales in the urban areas surrounding Washington, d C.
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: And the tactics that led him to be so successful
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: doing that. All right, welcome to the Wired Hunt podcast,
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: brought to you by Onyx, and today we're talking urban
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: bow hunting for white tales and joining us as Taylor Chamberlain.
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: And Taylor is a guy who kind of popped up
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: on a lot of folks radars last year when he
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: was featured in a short film put together by First Let.
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: It was called In City Limits and essentially documented how
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: Taylor hunts white tails in Washington, d C. And it's
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: it's pretty crazy. Yeah, check it out. It's a great film.
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: He's hunting these deer in town with an astonishing rate
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: of success. He's doing some really interesting things to get
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: it done, and he's he's just I'll let him talk
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: about this in more detail. But he's killing a lot
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: of deer every year and some really nice bucks to
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: and he's doing it right in people's backyard, sometimes just
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: within miles of the White House. Um So it's pretty
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: it's pretty wild stuff. Yeah, did you did you get
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: to see the film? Dan? I watched. I wasn't able
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: to watch it, um all, but it just reminded me.
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: I had a conversation with another guy who does a
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: lot of shed hunting, and I'm almost positive it was
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: in the suburbs and parks and surrounding areas of Washington,
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: d C. And he was telling me that one time
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: he was shed hunting and he found a I think
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: it was either one or two skeletons like like people
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: like people like people, and one of them had a
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: bullet hole in its head. Yikes. So he got he
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: had and I know this is off subject, but same area, right,
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: So he was shed hunting. Cops came in and they
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: had to ask him all these questions. And the cops said,
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: to this guy, you're not the first shed hunter who's
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: found uh human remains. Can you imagine, like you know
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: that that burst of excitement you get like your heart
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: starts beating fast, your stomach kind of clenches up when
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: you see that white time, like, yeah, I got one
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: of your run over there. Can you imagine having that
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: excitement and then getting over there and singing as a person,
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: Oh my god, that would freak me out. Oh wow, Yeah,
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: that's uh, don't know what I would do. Oh I
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: hope I never have to experience that. Yeah, man. But
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: but it seems like there's probably some good ship hunting
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: in these places because they're probably not getting hunted a lot, right. Um.
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: I mean you always hear about different areas where they
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: allow urban bow hunting. Lots of times you're seeing some
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: incredible deer because these are relatively unpressured, they're used to
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: some kind of human presence. These deer can get old
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: and so lots of antlers, lots of lots of mature deer.
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: I mean, that's that's a cool situation, and it seems
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: like it seems like it's an important thing to write.
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: I know, Uh, in an Arbor, Michigan used to live there.
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: They have had all sorts of issues, just too many
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: deer in town and they didn't want to allow hunting.
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: And so now they started doing such a crazy things
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: like sterilizing deer. Um just nuts. It's happening across the
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: country when there's you know, it just seems so backwards
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: when bow hunters can help manage this problem and instead
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: of the city and taxpayers have to pay for something
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: like a sharpshooter or sterilization, we hunters will pay for
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: tags go do it ourselves. Um. Absolutely. I was out
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: in a valley forge out in Pennsylvania. This was a
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: while ago, and there were so many deer in that park.
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: You could tell where they couldn't reach on there. You know,
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: all the food from a certain level was bare, and
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: you could look into the woods and see all of
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: the brows had been up to a certain level had
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: been cleared out by these deer. It was nuts. And they're, well,
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: they're doing the same thing out in Long Island, New
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: York too. They say that they're trying to sterilize these deer,
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: and and there's like a bow hunting association out there
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: that's like, hey, we'll do it, we'll take care of it.
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: It's it's yeah, it's that's it's so much a better
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: option for hunters to be doing it. And it seems
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: like Taylor's kind of figured out the secret sauce to
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: being able to do it. Especially, I think so much
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: of it is not just understanding Dear, but understanding people
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: and how to get that permission and get people's confidence
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: that's okay um to have a hunter back there and
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: that they can trust him. Um. So yeah, I think
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: it's gonna be an interesting conversation. Um. He he definitely
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: seems to know know what he's doing, and on top of
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: the urban bow hunting stuff, I do want to pick
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: his brain a little bit about one of the tactics
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: which he's using, which is saddle hunting. He seems to
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: be utilizing a saddle for for almost or all of
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: his hunts and uh as you know, that's something I've
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: been doing this past year too, So I'm gonna pick
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: his brand on that front. But but before we get
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: Taylor on, since you are with us here for a
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: little bit, Dan, I did want to get our weekly
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: pregame showing um. And it's kind of nice because we've
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: got a good follow up conversation to have, I think
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: from last week's episode, because you said that you were
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: going to head out on your first shed scooping trip
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: of the year and uh, and now we all want
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: to hear how it went. It went pretty good. Um,
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: I'll tell you this. I've never I made the mistake
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: of asking someone who lives in a very small world
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: about whether or not there was snow on the ground
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: out in the fields and in the woods and stuff
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: like that. In a very small world. Well, I mean,
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: they get up, they go to work, they live in environment.
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: They're not like us right where were at night? We'll
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: go into the woods, or we'll go drive around out
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: in the country, or we have a broader scope of
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: what our environment is like, if that makes sense, right.
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: So I love my mom to death, but yeah, yeah,
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: I said, Hey, how much snow is there on the
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: ground out there? Oh, there's none in our yard. Uh.
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: And it looks like there's just somewhere they you know,
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: they stack it up where the plows have gone. Well,
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: I get out to my hunting farm and there's still
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: a lot of snow. Uh, the fields and buffer strips
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: where you know I would tend to find antlers. And
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: in the woods there's still four inch or five inches
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: of snow on the ground. So I thought down south
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: it was warmer for a longer period of time, but
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: it didn't touch as much of the snow melt as
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: I thought that I thought it was going to. So
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: the antler that I did find, um, I was just
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: you know, walking in some thermal cover and stumbled upon
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: all these beds that were in there. You know, so
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: the snow you can tell time out. Sorry when you
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: say thermal cover for those who maybe don't know, are
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: you're talking about like pine trees, cedars something like that. Maybe, Yeah,
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: thermal cover like thickness, right, something that's going to block
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: the wind, but it might allow yeah, might allow a
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: little sunlight in there. Um. And this was on a
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: actually on a little bit of a north facing slope,
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: but there was pint like these small pines with all
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: these small, smaller trees all in there. It was it's
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: really thick and nasty and it's just a it's a
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: perfect spot for him this time of year because they're
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: still getting sun and it's uh, you know, it's still
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: blocking some of the wind. Um. It's not necessarily close
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: to any food source, which surprised me. But the food
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: sources only like, I don't know, five yards away, so
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: really it's not too much of a travel for them.
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: So so you were in this thermal cover. And yeah,
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: I think historically I have found antlers in this area before.
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: Um nothing, you know, nothing like the one that I found,
• 8:38
  Speaker 1: but it was it was in some bedding. And like
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: it's over the past five years, this area has really
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: thickened up. And so now every shed season I go
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: walk through it once, walk around and walk through it,
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: and I've noticed more bed more beds. I've noticed more
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: um deer sign in this area throughout the last five years,
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: and so it's something I always want to walk through
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: a couple of times during shed season. And sure enough,
• 9:05
  Speaker 1: there there was this buckshed laying right there. Um, beautiful
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: color on it, you know, not a lot of sunlights
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: hid it yet. And I feel it's one of those
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: things where, uh, it probably dropped within a day or
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: two of me picking it up real fresh. Yet when
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: you when you saw that time and you started walking over,
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: did any part of you wonder like, am I going
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: to get up to this thing and realize it's a
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: human skeleton? No? No, I didn't at that point, but
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: I'm glad it wasn't. It was a hammer of a
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: shed though. Dude, that's a nice antler. That's something I
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: want to talk to you about Mark. Yeah, and that
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: is I want to implement a rule called the ninety
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: degree rule. The ninety degree rule. Now on the picture
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: that I'm sure you saw on social media, right, the
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: ninety degree rule. Um, I had my arm out just
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: a little bit past ninety degrees, right, A lot of
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: what do you what do you mean by that? How?
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: How like the bend of your arm, the bend of
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: your arm when you're holding you to take pictures of it? Okay,
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: I think I see if you're doing that right now,
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: everybody's like, oh, that's a hammer shed. That's a hammer shed,
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: And yes it's a good shed, but it's not as
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: big as the picture makes it look, all right now,
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: I on social media, you'll see a lot of guys
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: almost straight arm in the shed antler pictures or their
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: straight arm in their their trophy shots. You know, let's
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: I like to be as realistic as possible. Hold it
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: a little tighter to the body, try to get you know,
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: because although uh, you know, that's a big difference if
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: you got your arms straight versus bent a little bit. Obviously,
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: you want to make everything look as big as possible,
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: but that particular shed Um, although it's got six points,
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: it's not as I mean, it's it's not huge by
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: any means. Really, Like I was thinking it was a
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: seventy plus side, isn't it not. It's not seventy's if any.
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: It's probably somewhere in between sixty somewhere around sixty six,
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: probably closer to sixty. Wow, it looks yeah, it looks
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: a lot bigger than I mean. Still, still, that's a
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: really nice antler. But and what's really cool though this
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: is this is a buck you've got some history with,
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: right right, It's that buck that we talked about earlier
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: that's new heart. And this is kind of this is
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: kind of cool because finding this shed energized me, like
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: it energized me on this past year, because my first
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: shed hunting trip of the year last year, I found
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: the deer that I eventually killed this past season. Right, So,
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: and I'm if I mark a straight line from where
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: I found last year's shed to where I found this buck,
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: it's probably a half a mile, right so, relatively relatively
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: close and good food source. And in in the line
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: from where I found this shed and where I found
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: the other shed, if you put if you measure it
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: almost straight in the middle is where I killed my
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: buck this past year. So it's gotten me kind of
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: excited because I feel like maybe this buck is now killable. Interesting. Yeah,
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: and Callie, he was was he twelve? Twelve poyer last year? Um?
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: I think he was. I think he was eleven. Either way, though,
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: it seems like he's got great potential for this year
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: and how old. So that's the thing. Remember, I remember
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: we talked about this and I said I found a
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: matching set of sheds in two thousand and thirteen. Yeah,
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: this is the last year, this past summer. You were
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: talking about this, right right now. I showed you the
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: trail camera pictures and it's his gut is huge, big
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: bodied buck. Right. But like I'm looking at the characteristics
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: of the antler. The one that I just found has
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: bigger pedicles, but well, I would say about the same
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: sized pedicles as the one that I found in two thousand, right,
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: exact same characteristics. However, the there's things on both antlers
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: that tell me this could be a mature buck as
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: opposed to this could be you know, the same buck
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: or same genetics, you know what I mean. So, so
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: on the matching set that I found in two thousand
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: thirteen good sized pedicles, but the times were spindle like
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: you would get in a younger deer. Right, Okay, Okay,
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: Now this antler that I found has the same sized pedicles,
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: maybe a little bit bigger, but the mask comes out
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: of the antlers a little bit more right, which which
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: tells me that this could be a buck that has
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: gone downhill. Do you think it's is it like? So
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: it's hard to tell what I'm trying to get at.
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: Is I verily I really doubt that it's the same buck,
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: just because that would be meaning this dear is like
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: an eight year old year eight year old, eight year
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: old buck, which honestly isn't out of the norm because
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: last year I had a nine year old an eight
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: and nine year old deer on trail camera. That buck
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: I called dork right wow, who shows up every single year.
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: I got another eight year old buck that shows up
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: every single year, but you know, they disappear come come
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: the hunting season. So and from where I found this
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: shed compared to where I found the matching set of
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: the in two thousand third teen, is only probably a
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: half a mile at straight line, so definitely within the
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: realm of possibility, right, right, So it's hard to tell. Like,
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: his head doesn't doesn't make me think he's a big
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: mature buck or he's mature, but his body does. His
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: body is huge. Yeah, I guess we'll find out this year. Huh.
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: That's right. We're more intel to come. But at least
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: I'm getting a better idea of where these bucks are
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: betted now that that thickness is growing in. And that's
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: that's probably what I'm most excited about. Man, that's that's
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: very exciting. Do you have Do you have high hopes
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: to find the other side somewhere around there? Well, like
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: I said, we just got another eight inches of snow. So, um,
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: what I will do though, is between the trail camera
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: that I got this buck on, um pictures of this
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: buck and where I found a shed, I'm gonna be
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: scouring that area, right, So I'll be. And I didn't.
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: I didn't shed very hard, only about three hours and
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: a lot of it was walking to take down three
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: different trail cameras, So um, I didn't. I didn't go
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: as hard as I normally do. But um, we'll see
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: what happens in the next couple of weeks. Hopefully the
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: snow starts melting off by late Um. I actually want
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: the snow to stick around for about two more weeks
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: and then that's as soon as it does melt. Everything's
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: on the ground, right, nothing's been shaded. Yeah, And um,
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: so I did walk that field last year where I
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: walked you know, where I had um found those nine sheds.
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: So if the snow stays on the ground, they're going
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: to congregate in that area. So if they can, if
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: that snow stays on for about two more weeks and
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: then just melts over, you know, over a two week period,
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: I feel like that that field will be a jackpot again. Um. However,
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: I don't know other people shed hunted too, so see, yeah,
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: well certainly lots to be excited about the potential wise,
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: at least knowing that he's around there and probably the
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: bucks to your buddy or our buddy, Ross Hossman man,
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: that dude scoop and ship big sheds already and he's
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: just a shed hunting fiend. He's always out there, him
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: and his wife and now their son. And yeah, I
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: think they already found a good handful this weekend, and
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: I think they got the snow though, like you did too,
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: So they'll probably be on a load of a hiatus.
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: But they always they always make it happen and always
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: send pictures and make me jealous. But I got out.
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: I got out for a little walk um on the
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: Michigan farm. Yeah, on the Michigan farm and Sunday, I think,
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: um with my with my son. So it's just like
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: an hour walk. Um. Didn't go into anywhere really thick,
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: just kind of walked the edges of some fields and
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: bopped around, which is just fun to get out there.
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: Didn't find anything, but but I really want to find
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: the sheds from that buck tram that I was seeing
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: last year. Um, because he's like the only deer that
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: I think made it through to this year on that property,
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: and he'll be four and a half this year, so
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: he's probably the the only shooter that I know of
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: for this year. So until the next Michigan booner pops up, right, yeah,
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: I'm not counting on that. Um Yeah unlikely. If it happens,
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: I certainly won't complain. It's people keep on saying, like,
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: send me messages, just white Man holy Field is gonna
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: show back up this year? What a story if that
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: If that happened, that would be nuts. Comes in, pushes
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: him out, holy Field comes back now that he's gone,
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: that would be that would be nuts. And that's definitely
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: not happening. If he if he did somehow, if he
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: was still alive, and he shows back up, I put
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: my money on him looking almost exactly like he always has,
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: just that standard date, but probably just grizzled, maybe a
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: couple of new scars, maybe more chunks out of his
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: ears missing. Um, i'd be pretty sweet. That would be
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: pretty sweet. So we'll see. I'll be getting out there
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: the next kind of next couple of weeks as soon
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: as we lose some snow and really good looking so
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: setting times, So when are you going to start making
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: your trip to Iowa and out west hunting. I think
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: that Iowa shed hunting trip is going to be that,
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: like somewhere between that late in the first week of
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: March too early in the second week, um, give or take.
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: Somewhere in that time period. I think is going to
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: do the IOA one and then the Western shed hunting
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: trip I think will be late March. Um says, there's
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: snow usually holds on a little longer, so I kind
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: of want to try to play the snow game just
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: like you said time and to try to be out
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: there just as it melts and uh hopefully find some
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: some sitting down there. So that's all I got in
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: my future radar. Otherwise, just trying to do a little
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: more prep. Gonna start doing my tree stand prep and
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: trimming and stuff earlier this year. I always wait till
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: too late. This year, I'm gonna try to be better
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: than usual. But but that'll probably be like an April
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: May thing for me. I'm still focused on sheds now.
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: So yeah, that's one thing I've been thinking about lately.
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: And I know this is we're getting towards the end
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: of the intro. But as much as I move around,
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: m I wonder if I'm doing more harm than good
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: when it comes to prepping out my tree stands right
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: getting in there and trimming out to stand just in case,
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: as opposed to you know, all I do is running
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: gun anyway. So yeah, it's nice to have them, but
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: I hardly use them. Mhm. So you're saying, like, the
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: what are you doing? That are you doing in August? Yeah?
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: August mostly sometimes in late July. Yeah, Yeah, I don't know.
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: I mean, I guess I've one of the same thing.
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: I've always kind of felt like, what you're doing in
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: the summer, it's it's far enough ahead of time that
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: you're probably not screwing it up. But then again, you know,
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: if we are screwing it up, we probably just never
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: know it because we just don't see the deer. Then
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: that maybe maybe there's some tricky old buck who was
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: hanging out in there and he's like, yeah, I'm gonna
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna move along. But then again, on the other hand,
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: you know, I always come back to the fact that
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: I sometimes wonder maybe we give these bucks too much credit.
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: And lots of times, like if they're hanging out in
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: the core area, if they're old and they're hanging out
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: in that core area, they're there for a reason, you know,
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: like they've found a safe spot, they found an area,
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: they feel comfortable, they know their escape routes, they've got
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: a good betting area. And the more I learned and
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: the more I talk to people and you've heard the
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: same things. We've talked all these things ourselves with other
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: people too, that lots of times it takes a lot
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: to push them out of there because they've been there
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: for a specific reason, and in your presence there once
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: or twice, might you know, might change their daylight activity
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: for a little bit, But I don't know if it
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: really pushes them out. So it's an interesting question. I
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: have wanted the same thing. Yep. On that note, uh,
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: should we should we avoid going too far down the
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: rabbit hole because it should just turned into a another podcast. Yeah,
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: so we'll have to have a just you and me
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: talking to you us nineteen Questions and plans here soon
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: but this one we'll wrap up the pregame show. We'll
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: get Taylor on the line here talk urban deer hunting.
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: But let's first take a quick break. So we want
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: to thank our friends at Morton Buildings for their support
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: of this podcast. And morn Buildings are the builders of
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: would frame steel covered buildings that can be used for
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: all sorts of different things related to what I think
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: you and I probably want to do with a hunting
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: property or a home or a storage facility. They can
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: they can build pull barns, they can build garages actually
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: Paul barn houses, all sorts of different types of storage facilities.
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: Lots of options out there, very customizable and as I've
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: mentioned over the past couple episodes, I've kind of been
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: dreaming about having a Paul Barn house of my own someday.
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: I imagine one where you've got maybe a quarter of
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: it is a large open garage area, and then the
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: other three cores of the building are this really open space.
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: I imagine like vault ceilings, very high ceilings, with a
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: big open area that includes like your living room, your kitchen,
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: your dining area. That's all kind of one big opening,
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: and then there's gonna be aloft where a couple of
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: bedrooms are gonna be. That's kind of like my dream
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: little home that maybe if I someday can can afford
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: to get a little hunting property or by a little
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: spot maybe out in Montana, someday I want to put
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: that pol Barn house on it. And Morton Buildings they
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: seem to be the ones to do this kind of job.
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: They have several things that make them particularly an interesting option.
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: They've got some exclusive energy performer installation which is gonna
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: help make for more efficient heating and cooling. They have
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: high ribs steel that requires almost no maintenance at all,
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: and now through February two nineteen, there are some special
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: promotional prices for Morton Buildings, so you can learn more
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: about that at Morton Buildings dot com. Alright with me
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: now is Taylor Chamberlain. Welcome to the show. Taylor. Hey,
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: thanks for having me. Yeah, I appreciate I appreciate you
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: carving out the time because because as you just told
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: me two seconds ago on the phone before we start recording,
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: there's a buck outside your window right now that you're
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: itching to shoot and you're not because I'm talking to you.
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: So thanks, And there's a big, juicy year and a
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: half old dough that would be on my trigger and
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: about seventeen minutes after So this is this must mean
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: that you really do appreciate a good white tailed chat
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: if you're willing to sacrifice a white tail backstrap. Yeah,
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: it's one of the few things I'll enjoy as much
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: as hunting. Because I'm just sitting here salivating at the
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: mouth watching these dear feet around. That's awesome. Well, I uh,
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: I'm excited for this chat though, because I was up
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: at my family deer camp in northern Michigan this past
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: December with a couple mutual friends of ours. Ford from
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: First Light in Jordan from capture creative and we're just
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: kind of bs and talking about past hunts and different
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: people we knew and blah blah blah blah blah. And
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: they brought you up and said that you are an
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: interesting character, you are a deadly deer hunter, and here's
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: someone who I absolutely have to get on the podcast.
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: So we're making it happen today. Well, I'm I'm glad
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: I paid them all the money to say that stuff.
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: Funny well spent, I would say, So, yeah you got
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: here's your return on that investment, the deer in my backyard. Yeah,
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: you might be regretting it now. So so, Taylor, you
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: hunt in the city just outside of Washington, d C.
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: As I understand. I've heard that you hunt sometimes like
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: a hundred fifty two hundred days a year. I've heard
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: that you hunt every season of the year. Um. I
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: hear that you do some some interesting wild things that
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: most deer hunters don't do. I've heard there's a whole
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: bunch of stuff we gotta cover. But before all those things,
• 25:59
  Speaker 1: I want to know about one very important issue or question.
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: And this kind of can of mind me because just
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: before I got you on, I was in a conversation
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: with my co host Dan about another urban deer hunter,
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: uh that he that he talked to and he had
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: discovered a weird thing in the woods. And so I
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: got to know from you, Taylor, what is the strangest, weirdest,
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: most shocking thing you've ever seen from a suburban tree.
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: Because I gotta believe, when you're sitting in people's backyards,
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: you see some weird ship the top bizarre stuff. Um,
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: all of them involve other humans for the most point,
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: So people don't know that that you're there. I think
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: humans are the only critters that don't look up so
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: uh and and rightfully so, I mean, we don't expect
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: another person to be in in the bourbs. So um. Yeah,
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: I have a handful of them all around people. So um.
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: You know, one morning, while hunting, I heard what sounded
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: like a deer running towards me, and I turned around
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: to see one of the gardeners running from one of
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: the other properties holding his butt um making quite the
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: green apple two step and uh. He ended up about
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: twenty ft away from my tree, pulling his pants down,
• 27:21
  Speaker 1: and I was yelling at him like no, no, no,
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: no no, and uh, I was not able to stop
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: him from from relieving his uh seven eleven takeitos from
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: that morning. That was pretty gnarly. Um I had you know,
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: we can get into kind of where I hunt and
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: why I hunt there, but um, I had had a
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: tree that was like perfect. And one Saturday morning, I
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: go into this floodplain area and climb up the tree
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: and you know, it's pitch black, and as the sun
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: comes up, I'm hearing this weird kind of like wheezing sound.
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: And once the gray light came up, there was a
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: high school uh frat boy looking football player guy and
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: his letter jacket passed out and about thirty natty light
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: cans around him. Uh So it was pretty obvious that
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: the high school kids had been in there drinking the
• 28:18
  Speaker 1: night before, and um, and he was just songed out.
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: And I end up shooting a deer that morning. Um
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: that that kind of woke him up. And that was
• 28:29
  Speaker 1: a really fun, exciting hunt. That's amazing. I was actually
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: gonna get out of the tree. I was just fuming
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: and texting some buddy's about you know, Brad the jock
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: football stud snoozing about forty yards from me, and I
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: looked her to my left and here came some doze
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: and the does had stopped looking at him, kind of
• 28:51
  Speaker 1: trying to figure out what was going on, And it
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: gave me all the time in the world to grab
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: my bow and uh put a good shot on the
• 28:57
  Speaker 1: lead dough. So that was pretty cool. But yeah, outside
• 29:01
  Speaker 1: of that, I mean, you know, just seeing people are,
• 29:03
  Speaker 1: seeing how the animals are, kind of how they're interacting
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: with their surroundings, being super close to people, and how
• 29:13
  Speaker 1: attentive they are. Two you know, where that human interaction
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: is coming from and not letting it bother them is
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: It's probably the coolest thing you get to see from
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: the tree, almost on a daily basis. Um. But definitely
• 29:27
  Speaker 1: seeing people kind of doing whatever um is also pretty fun.
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: The last kind of thing that comes to mind you
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: talk about weird experiences in the tree. I had this
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: huge property I was hunting on. Huge for me. It's
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: like eighty acres, which is really big. And so sitting
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: there and I see some movement kind of coming down
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: the horizon, throw my binoculars up and I see two
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: like hippie looking dudes kind of dancing through the woods.
• 29:55
  Speaker 1: They're clearly just tripping daisies, man, and they're wearing these
• 30:01
  Speaker 1: grateful dead, tight eyed shirts and they got their arms out,
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: kind of like dancing through the woods. And when they
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: got to about thirty yards from me, I said hey,
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: and one of the guys just hit the ground like
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: I yelled incoming mortar fire, you know, and the other
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: guy just squats down with his arms out. He's looking around.
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: He's in like a full defensive posture zone. And I'm like,
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: I'm like, yo, hey, get out of here. And you know,
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: they thought the trees were talking to him. And one
• 30:28
  Speaker 1: guy took off running and the other guys just holding
• 30:30
  Speaker 1: his head screaming. So I think we're having a pretty
• 30:33
  Speaker 1: bad trip from what it looked like. But yeah, I
• 30:37
  Speaker 1: mean just seeing people is always interesting when you're elevated
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: off the ground. Wow. I don't even know if we
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: need to talk about deer anymore. We could just talk
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: through the rest of your your human observations, talking about
• 30:49
  Speaker 1: hippies and high school kids trying to hook up and
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: everything in between. Yeah, exactly, man, Yeah, that is that
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: is some golden content right there. I filmed all my
• 31:01
  Speaker 1: hunts now and at the time, um, I wasn't filming,
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: and I wish I was, because all that stuff. I mean,
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: you imagine if I had had the you know, frat
• 31:13
  Speaker 1: boy Chad passed out on the ground when when I
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: was able to shoot that down. I mean, that would
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: just be like the best content ever. Or you know,
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: there's two hippies dancing through the woods. I don't think
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: I could get the landscaper guy, you know, almost taking
• 31:28
  Speaker 1: a thumbper his pants. Probably wouldn't go over well on YouTube,
• 31:31
  Speaker 1: but everything else would be killer content. Now that's that's
• 31:33
  Speaker 1: a viral gold right there. Man. Yeah, So, so you
• 31:38
  Speaker 1: you actually alluded to my next question right at the top,
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: which was, then, how did you end up hunting like this? Why?
• 31:46
  Speaker 1: Why is it that you're hunting in people's backyards? Why
• 31:48
  Speaker 1: is it that you're sitting in a tree next to
• 31:51
  Speaker 1: a passed out dude underneath the deck? How did this
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: all thin? How does this all begin for you? Taylor?
• 31:55
  Speaker 1: It's strictly out of necessity? Man. So, um, you know,
• 32:00
  Speaker 1: I I didn't grow up in a hunting family. I
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: went to school out on the Virginia West Virginia border,
• 32:07
  Speaker 1: and when I was at college, I fell in love
• 32:10
  Speaker 1: with deer hunting. I'd always kind of wanted to be
• 32:12
  Speaker 1: outside and My grandfather was was big into bow hunting
• 32:18
  Speaker 1: growing up. Um, but he was a smoker, and so
• 32:21
  Speaker 1: by the time I was like twelve or thirteen, he
• 32:24
  Speaker 1: was in nowhere close to good enough health health wise
• 32:29
  Speaker 1: shape to be able to be out in the woods.
• 32:30
  Speaker 1: So um, he taught me how to shoot a bow
• 32:33
  Speaker 1: in his backyard. But me, being the dummy that I am,
• 32:36
  Speaker 1: I didn't put two and two together with me liking
• 32:38
  Speaker 1: to be outside and me liking to shoot a bow
• 32:40
  Speaker 1: and being like, hey, I could hunt critters with this thing.
• 32:44
  Speaker 1: So um. You know, when I got to school, I
• 32:47
  Speaker 1: just had this drive to want to learn how to hunt,
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: and um, I just basically started teaching myself how to
• 32:54
  Speaker 1: hunt through trial and error, which was a lot of
• 32:57
  Speaker 1: error and not a lot of success. Um. And by
• 33:00
  Speaker 1: the time I graduated from college and moved back home,
• 33:03
  Speaker 1: which is here in northern Virginia, right outside of d C.
• 33:08
  Speaker 1: You know, I didn't have any options for hunting. So
• 33:11
  Speaker 1: there was a military installation that I started hunting. I
• 33:15
  Speaker 1: had a has still has a great hunting program and
• 33:18
  Speaker 1: it was about fifteen minutes from my house, and so
• 33:22
  Speaker 1: that was great. I was out there all the time,
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: and um, I moved away from that area that that's
• 33:28
  Speaker 1: some kind of southern uh, northern Virginia, South Arlington, and
• 33:33
  Speaker 1: I moved up to North Arlington, which made that about
• 33:35
  Speaker 1: a forty five minute drive, but in traffic times here
• 33:40
  Speaker 1: outside of d C, that little bit of a move
• 33:43
  Speaker 1: made that drive sometimes like an hour and a half
• 33:46
  Speaker 1: or two hours, and that was just too much too
• 33:48
  Speaker 1: to try and do on a hunting you know, daily
• 33:52
  Speaker 1: basis while still going to work. So, um, I just
• 33:56
  Speaker 1: had to figure out a different way to hunt. And
• 33:58
  Speaker 1: I kept driving to these you know, public land type
• 34:02
  Speaker 1: areas and seeing deer in people's yards, and um, you know,
• 34:07
  Speaker 1: one thing led to another with a buddy that I had,
• 34:09
  Speaker 1: and he recommended urban hunting. Um, and so I got
• 34:14
  Speaker 1: kind of used my grandmother's influences through her Bridge Club
• 34:18
  Speaker 1: and got a couple of really nice old ladies that
• 34:21
  Speaker 1: let me hunt on their property and started whacking a
• 34:25
  Speaker 1: lot of deer. And then I realized, you know, this
• 34:28
  Speaker 1: is awesome. I can go uh five minutes from my
• 34:32
  Speaker 1: house and hunt any day I want to. And you know,
• 34:37
  Speaker 1: our our seasons here run year round, so it allows
• 34:40
  Speaker 1: me to hunt year round. And we have a huge
• 34:42
  Speaker 1: overabundance of white tailed deer. Um. So it really kind
• 34:46
  Speaker 1: of works. You know, I'm able to do what I
• 34:49
  Speaker 1: want to do, what I'm super passionate about, which is
• 34:51
  Speaker 1: killing deer with a bow, and I'm able to help
• 34:54
  Speaker 1: reduce the deer population and help all these little old
• 34:58
  Speaker 1: ladies which happened to me, my mother's buddies, and now
• 35:01
  Speaker 1: you know, hundreds of other people. UM help them, you know,
• 35:06
  Speaker 1: try and reduce the dear herd to where they can
• 35:10
  Speaker 1: have plants again at their house. So wow, it's a
• 35:13
  Speaker 1: win win um. Yeah. So so I gotta imagine you
• 35:19
  Speaker 1: if you're hunting on hundreds of different people's properties. Now
• 35:22
  Speaker 1: you've asked a lot of people permission. You've kind of
• 35:24
  Speaker 1: fine tuned a system. I'm sure, But what about that,
• 35:28
  Speaker 1: like first time and the first couple of times, do
• 35:30
  Speaker 1: you remember after you got through the bridge club connections
• 35:33
  Speaker 1: and then you had to start asking a random person
• 35:36
  Speaker 1: for hunting permission? Was that tough? Do you remember what
• 35:38
  Speaker 1: that was like for you? It's terrifying. I mean, I
• 35:40
  Speaker 1: think about it like the first girl you walked up
• 35:43
  Speaker 1: to at a bar. It's it's like that without alcohol. Okay, yeah,
• 35:48
  Speaker 1: I'm terrified, which is not a good combination because that
• 35:52
  Speaker 1: the whole reason you're at the bar in the first
• 35:53
  Speaker 1: place is for the alcohol to help calm your nerves. Yeah, exactly, So, Yeah,
• 35:59
  Speaker 1: I mean it's a it's a terrifying thing because if
• 36:01
  Speaker 1: you think about, you know, when you're out in the
• 36:04
  Speaker 1: middle of Iowa or any type of place where hunting
• 36:07
  Speaker 1: is a tradition, people get it there. They've been asked
• 36:11
  Speaker 1: the question before, they probably have people hunting there. They
• 36:16
  Speaker 1: understand why you're knocking on their door. Most of the
• 36:21
  Speaker 1: people that I'm talking to, I'm the first hunter they've
• 36:24
  Speaker 1: ever met. And I quite often get people that look
• 36:27
  Speaker 1: at me like I have a third eyeball or horns
• 36:30
  Speaker 1: growing out of my head, and they're like, you want
• 36:31
  Speaker 1: to do what here? You know, why would you want
• 36:35
  Speaker 1: to do that? Um? And so that kind of works
• 36:39
  Speaker 1: out in my favor sometimes and also works against me um,
• 36:44
  Speaker 1: just because a lot of these people that I'm talking
• 36:47
  Speaker 1: to you haven't been exposed to hunting. I do get
• 36:49
  Speaker 1: a lot of homeowners that are adamantly opposed to hunting.
• 36:53
  Speaker 1: They love the deer, they love seeing the deer. Some
• 36:56
  Speaker 1: of them feed the deer um that is always tough
• 37:01
  Speaker 1: to deal with. But on the opposite side of that,
• 37:04
  Speaker 1: you know, I have people that understand that they shouldn't
• 37:08
  Speaker 1: be seeing the number of deer that they do. They
• 37:10
  Speaker 1: see how emaciated the dr are, and they know they
• 37:13
  Speaker 1: need to be reduced. And those are people that you know,
• 37:16
  Speaker 1: are all for it. So for the most part, when
• 37:18
  Speaker 1: I knock on the door, I either get the door
• 37:20
  Speaker 1: slammed in my face and I get yelled at, or
• 37:22
  Speaker 1: I get guys that shrug their shoulder and they're like, yeah, whatever,
• 37:25
  Speaker 1: and some of them are all for it, and everyone
• 37:29
  Speaker 1: in between. So so, so what do you do or
• 37:32
  Speaker 1: how do you answer that question when you when you
• 37:35
  Speaker 1: get a landowner who says, why in the world would
• 37:38
  Speaker 1: you do this? You know, have you ever had like
• 37:40
  Speaker 1: a of uh, someone who really wants to get in
• 37:44
  Speaker 1: like the philosophy have it? Like why do you hunt?
• 37:46
  Speaker 1: Have you ever had to answer that question to a
• 37:48
  Speaker 1: landowner who was genuinely curious? And if so, what do
• 37:51
  Speaker 1: you say? Yeah? I have, And and even more so,
• 37:54
  Speaker 1: I've had landowners that, once I've talked to them about
• 37:59
  Speaker 1: why I'm doing what I'm doing and how I go
• 38:01
  Speaker 1: about what I'm doing, I want to learn how to hunt.
• 38:05
  Speaker 1: I'm I'm now on the third homeowner that has I've
• 38:09
  Speaker 1: kind of gone through a similar progression with where I'm
• 38:12
  Speaker 1: teaching them how to hunt, which is pretty cool. Um,
• 38:16
  Speaker 1: So you know, kind of a high level overview, the
• 38:19
  Speaker 1: carrying capacity of our area here of northern Virginia is
• 38:25
  Speaker 1: in the twelve to fourteen maybe fifteen deer per square mile,
• 38:29
  Speaker 1: depending on who you ask. In certain pockets, they can't
• 38:35
  Speaker 1: even get an estimate because the deer are so overpopulated.
• 38:40
  Speaker 1: When you look at them with the thermal imaging, it
• 38:43
  Speaker 1: just looked like you kicked the ant hill over. Um,
• 38:47
  Speaker 1: they're their best guests. It's in the four d and
• 38:50
  Speaker 1: thirty four hundred and fifty deer per square mile. So
• 38:54
  Speaker 1: like if you walk into the parks or any type
• 38:58
  Speaker 1: of larger uncle land around here and you get down
• 39:02
  Speaker 1: to about three and a half four ft that that
• 39:04
  Speaker 1: deer brows line, you can see as far as your
• 39:08
  Speaker 1: eye as as the topo will let you see. Because
• 39:12
  Speaker 1: the deer have eaten everything, and I mean it's gotten
• 39:16
  Speaker 1: to the point where, um, where the age of our forests,
• 39:21
  Speaker 1: you know, as the deer destroy that underlying brows, all
• 39:25
  Speaker 1: the animals that rely on that underlying browse to survive
• 39:29
  Speaker 1: and thrive and you know, live off of there, they
• 39:32
  Speaker 1: get wiped out. Um and along with that go all
• 39:36
  Speaker 1: the new tree shoots and the younger sapling trees. So
• 39:40
  Speaker 1: the age of our forests have gotten to the point
• 39:42
  Speaker 1: around here where, um, you know, they're they're really worried
• 39:46
  Speaker 1: about how the forest is going to survive. I mean
• 39:49
  Speaker 1: the deer have literally wiped it out. Jeez. Yeah, that's incredible.
• 39:55
  Speaker 1: That's I can't imagine deer deer populations like that. I
• 39:59
  Speaker 1: feel like there's a lot of deer eye hunt it's insane. Uh.
• 40:02
  Speaker 1: And and you know with that also comes we get
• 40:05
  Speaker 1: a lot of cases of limes disease. And I mean,
• 40:09
  Speaker 1: I would be willing to bet at least in my experience,
• 40:13
  Speaker 1: every homeowner that I've talked to either has somebody in
• 40:17
  Speaker 1: their house that has been affected by limes disease or
• 40:22
  Speaker 1: one person removed from them they know who has had
• 40:26
  Speaker 1: limes disease. So it's not like the six degrees of
• 40:28
  Speaker 1: separation type thing that either they've had it or their
• 40:31
  Speaker 1: kid has had it, or they're like, oh, the neighbor
• 40:34
  Speaker 1: they had it. I mean they understand that the deer
• 40:38
  Speaker 1: are contributing to that and you know, really want them gone. Yeah,
• 40:43
  Speaker 1: well that will definitely uh incentivize people to see the
• 40:46
  Speaker 1: deer herd trimmed down a little bit. When that kind
• 40:48
  Speaker 1: of thing is knocking on the door, definitely changes their
• 40:50
  Speaker 1: perspective on when you whacking them with a with an arrow.
• 40:54
  Speaker 1: And then you know, I have a lot of procedures
• 40:57
  Speaker 1: that I take into account when I'm hunting deer. You know,
• 41:01
  Speaker 1: I really try to be out of sight, out of mind,
• 41:03
  Speaker 1: and I carry insurance, um, you know, liability insurance for
• 41:09
  Speaker 1: myself for anything that happens. And then I very rarely,
• 41:13
  Speaker 1: if ever take a shot over twenty yards. I limit
• 41:18
  Speaker 1: myself to a twenty yard shot, and I'd be willing
• 41:21
  Speaker 1: to guess about nine percent of the deer that I've
• 41:23
  Speaker 1: harvested or in that twelve to fourteen yard range, um.
• 41:28
  Speaker 1: And the reason for that is I can't take the
• 41:31
  Speaker 1: risk of having a deer leave that property or be wounded.
• 41:36
  Speaker 1: I mean the difference in a deer running forty yards
• 41:39
  Speaker 1: and piling up from a perfect double long hit and
• 41:42
  Speaker 1: a deer running a hundred yards and crashing into the
• 41:46
  Speaker 1: attorney's pool three doors down. Um is a big, big difference.
• 41:54
  Speaker 1: Have you had a awkward recovery of that kind yet
• 41:59
  Speaker 1: anything like that? Oh yeah, I've had a multitude of
• 42:02
  Speaker 1: of interesting recoveries. UM. Probably the most notable one was
• 42:08
  Speaker 1: I had a dear cross a property line and end
• 42:12
  Speaker 1: up about three doors down, so across the creek. Died
• 42:16
  Speaker 1: three doors down. So I go on my you know,
• 42:19
  Speaker 1: on X map, pull up whose house it is? And
• 42:22
  Speaker 1: around here it's pretty common for the homeowner's name just
• 42:25
  Speaker 1: say withheld by request. UM, just kind of the nature
• 42:28
  Speaker 1: of where I'm living and who these A lot of
• 42:31
  Speaker 1: people are that live in these houses, right. Uh? So
• 42:35
  Speaker 1: I go around. You know, it was only about three
• 42:38
  Speaker 1: yards as as a deer would run, but for me
• 42:41
  Speaker 1: it's like a three mile drive to go around this
• 42:43
  Speaker 1: creek bottom over to the house. I get over there
• 42:47
  Speaker 1: and they're about forty Secret Service agents out front, and
• 42:50
  Speaker 1: I'm like, oh no, And so I keep checking the map.
• 42:53
  Speaker 1: I'm like, there's no way this is the right house.
• 42:54
  Speaker 1: There's no way this is the right house. And I'm like, ship,
• 42:57
  Speaker 1: this is totally where the deer is. And so I
• 43:00
  Speaker 1: had to go up explain my situation to the first
• 43:03
  Speaker 1: secret service station to roll his window down, who was
• 43:06
  Speaker 1: not stoked at all at my presence. And you know,
• 43:10
  Speaker 1: still I have to get home owner landowner permission. So
• 43:15
  Speaker 1: eventually the lovely uh Supreme Court Justice and his wife
• 43:21
  Speaker 1: gave me permission to recover the deer. And the justice
• 43:25
  Speaker 1: was a great guy, strong supporter of hunting, but told
• 43:29
  Speaker 1: me I couldn't he couldn't give me permission to hunt
• 43:31
  Speaker 1: there because it wouldn't look like look right politically. But
• 43:34
  Speaker 1: he was all for what I was doing, which was
• 43:36
  Speaker 1: pretty cool. So yeah, but it could have been a nightmare. So,
• 43:41
  Speaker 1: I mean, you know, I deal with a lot of
• 43:43
  Speaker 1: high profile people, a lot of um, you know, very
• 43:49
  Speaker 1: powerful attorneys and the like, and it's just better to
• 43:52
  Speaker 1: be out of sight, out of mind and not have
• 43:55
  Speaker 1: to knock on their door than than the opposite of that.
• 43:58
  Speaker 1: So yeah. So so before we get too much into
• 44:02
  Speaker 1: the actual hunting, you mentioned the insurance you carry for
• 44:05
  Speaker 1: someone who's going to try urban deer hunting. Um, can
• 44:09
  Speaker 1: you can you explain it's a little bit more about
• 44:11
  Speaker 1: what what exactly you're talking about there, how you go
• 44:13
  Speaker 1: about doing that, why that's something that an urban deer
• 44:16
  Speaker 1: hunter might want to what might have Yeah, So I
• 44:19
  Speaker 1: mean in the same vein of the clientele the people
• 44:23
  Speaker 1: that I'm hunting on properties with. UM, a lot of
• 44:26
  Speaker 1: them want to understand that they don't have any liability
• 44:29
  Speaker 1: towards my actions or anything that might come of from
• 44:33
  Speaker 1: my actions. UM. Let's say, worst case scenario, you shoot
• 44:37
  Speaker 1: a deer and it runs out into the neighbors house
• 44:41
  Speaker 1: and smashes into their parked car. Right, Well, I'm responsible
• 44:44
  Speaker 1: for that because I created that for happening. So UM,
• 44:49
  Speaker 1: most states, Virginia is one of them. You know, the
• 44:52
  Speaker 1: landowner has no liability for the hunter's actions. It's just
• 44:56
  Speaker 1: that's already in place. UM. I also hunt on some
• 45:01
  Speaker 1: homeowners associations property so communal property. A lot of those
• 45:06
  Speaker 1: homeowners associations require me to carry insurance or or really
• 45:11
  Speaker 1: their insurance provider for for the h o A piece
• 45:15
  Speaker 1: will require me to have insurance, So I have insurance.
• 45:20
  Speaker 1: The q d m A and n r A are
• 45:22
  Speaker 1: both phenomenal resources for sportsmen, and I believe the India
• 45:26
  Speaker 1: does as well. UM. Actually, Mark, you might know more
• 45:29
  Speaker 1: about that than me, but um, you're able to get
• 45:33
  Speaker 1: insurance through all those organizations. The q d M A
• 45:35
  Speaker 1: is is where I have mine through excellent. That's uh,
• 45:39
  Speaker 1: that's something I actually haven't personally had to look into
• 45:41
  Speaker 1: myself before. So that's that's what you're You're lucky. Yeah,
• 45:45
  Speaker 1: I mean the you know, and that's great that we
• 45:48
  Speaker 1: have as hunters these resources like the q dum a
• 45:52
  Speaker 1: um you know, a t A, the you know, all
• 45:55
  Speaker 1: these big um you know entities that are willing to
• 46:00
  Speaker 1: help the common guy. Because if I just had to
• 46:02
  Speaker 1: go around to you know, all state and try and
• 46:05
  Speaker 1: get insurance, I'm sure I'd get looked at again like
• 46:07
  Speaker 1: I have a third eye and have to pay out
• 46:10
  Speaker 1: of the butt. And this is stuff that, up to
• 46:13
  Speaker 1: certain limits, is covered with your membership. So you know,
• 46:17
  Speaker 1: not that we need any other reasons to join these
• 46:20
  Speaker 1: big groups, but that's definitely a certain plus that you
• 46:25
  Speaker 1: get by being a member. Yeah, that's fantastic and a
• 46:27
  Speaker 1: really a really good point that that I wouldn't have
• 46:29
  Speaker 1: thought of. Um. So you kind of outlined a bunch
• 46:34
  Speaker 1: of things here about the types of hunting that you
• 46:36
  Speaker 1: do that make it a little bit uh scary. Maybe
• 46:42
  Speaker 1: it's like, oh man, I gotta worry about my dear
• 46:45
  Speaker 1: running into some guys pool I gotta worry about, you know,
• 46:48
  Speaker 1: high profile landowners or maybe just any landowner who might
• 46:51
  Speaker 1: get mad about what I'm doing. I have to worry
• 46:52
  Speaker 1: about knocking on doors and dealing with that uncomfortable situation.
• 46:55
  Speaker 1: I have to worry about making sure I've got really
• 46:57
  Speaker 1: close shot opportunities. I need to worry about being out
• 47:00
  Speaker 1: of sight, out of mind. All these things make it
• 47:03
  Speaker 1: sound challenging to me. Can you now pitch me on
• 47:06
  Speaker 1: why I should want to go and hunt in an
• 47:09
  Speaker 1: urban area or why someone who's considering this type of
• 47:11
  Speaker 1: hunt actually would would enjoy it? What's the what's the
• 47:14
  Speaker 1: plus of all this? Well, it's pretty simple. You get
• 47:17
  Speaker 1: to hunt year round, you have pretty much open bag
• 47:21
  Speaker 1: limits and a target rich environment, uh to to be
• 47:26
  Speaker 1: able to help go reduce the deer herding. And on
• 47:29
  Speaker 1: top of all that, I'm able to donate all of
• 47:33
  Speaker 1: the meat that I get from harvest to the Hunters
• 47:37
  Speaker 1: for the Hungry program, which here in Virginia. UM, you know,
• 47:41
  Speaker 1: all that meat is going to food shelters, food banks
• 47:44
  Speaker 1: and home of shelters. So it's really kind of a
• 47:48
  Speaker 1: win win to be able to use an overabundant resource
• 47:51
  Speaker 1: that we have to help feed people in need in
• 47:56
  Speaker 1: in a way by thinning them out. So I mean,
• 47:59
  Speaker 1: if you're looking for the elevator pitch on wide to
• 48:01
  Speaker 1: urban hunt, I would ask you, do you want to
• 48:03
  Speaker 1: hunt your around? And do you want to kill over
• 48:06
  Speaker 1: a hundred your year. I'm sure you'd be like, yeah,
• 48:09
  Speaker 1: it's all right here you go right, Yeah, that that's wild.
• 48:14
  Speaker 1: That that was kind. I just can't even like wrap
• 48:16
  Speaker 1: my head around those two things right there. So can
• 48:19
  Speaker 1: you can you help us understand? Because I'm sure there's
• 48:21
  Speaker 1: some people listening there, like how in the world there
• 48:24
  Speaker 1: is there a bag limit like that? And how in
• 48:26
  Speaker 1: the world can you hunt you around? Can you just elaborate? Yeah,
• 48:30
  Speaker 1: so we'll Hunting you around is much less enjoyable than
• 48:34
  Speaker 1: it sounds like to some degree, because I mean I
• 48:36
  Speaker 1: remember when I when I first um was talking with
• 48:39
  Speaker 1: the guys at first light. I'm like, you know, I
• 48:42
  Speaker 1: hunt when it's a hundred and ten degrees out, and
• 48:45
  Speaker 1: I hunt when it's negative out with a windshell and
• 48:48
  Speaker 1: every day in between. So I mean, as far as
• 48:51
  Speaker 1: you know putting gear to the test, there's it's pretty
• 48:56
  Speaker 1: pretty easy to do that here. So I mean, how
• 48:59
  Speaker 1: do you hunt your round. Well, I mean you just
• 49:02
  Speaker 1: kind of suck it up and do it there. Uh.
• 49:05
  Speaker 1: In the different seasons, you really need to kind of
• 49:07
  Speaker 1: think about what the deer doing that time of year
• 49:11
  Speaker 1: and and kind of use tactics related to that time
• 49:15
  Speaker 1: of year that time of the season. Um, how how
• 49:19
  Speaker 1: are their open bag limits? Well, it's because of that
• 49:21
  Speaker 1: four fifty deer for square mile type population that we
• 49:25
  Speaker 1: have here where I mean, the Department of Game is
• 49:29
  Speaker 1: trying to do everything possible to help reduce the deer
• 49:33
  Speaker 1: and there's just so much damage done by the deer.
• 49:37
  Speaker 1: So um. And just to kind of clarify, you know,
• 49:41
  Speaker 1: the Department of Game doesn't have just an open season.
• 49:43
  Speaker 1: It's not like, hey, the deer problem kilmall. You know,
• 49:46
  Speaker 1: we're not gonna do anything about it. Uh. So we
• 49:49
  Speaker 1: have different kind of seasons within this season. So most
• 49:54
  Speaker 1: of our hunting is analysts only. Um. The traditional quote
• 49:59
  Speaker 1: unquote season comes in the first weekend in September for
• 50:03
  Speaker 1: for antler lists only deer, and then the first weekend
• 50:06
  Speaker 1: in October you can start harvesting antlers or antler list Dear.
• 50:11
  Speaker 1: This is all for the urban hunting. Um, it's different.
• 50:14
  Speaker 1: You know when you can harvest each in the different
• 50:18
  Speaker 1: kind of counties of Virginia, but just for the urban areas.
• 50:22
  Speaker 1: To simplify things, you can shoot antlerd or antler list
• 50:25
  Speaker 1: dear from the first weekend in October all the way
• 50:28
  Speaker 1: through the end of December. Then it goes back to
• 50:31
  Speaker 1: antler lists only deer from January through. They changed it
• 50:36
  Speaker 1: on me this year. I think it's the end of May.
• 50:40
  Speaker 1: Then when May comes around, each homeowner is able to
• 50:44
  Speaker 1: request what's called a kill permit, which is basically a
• 50:48
  Speaker 1: crop damage permit where the state will come out and
• 50:51
  Speaker 1: verify that the deer have destroyed their landscaping or destroyed
• 50:56
  Speaker 1: the the forests. Then you're able to hunt on that
• 51:00
  Speaker 1: what's called a kill permit from you know, let's call
• 51:03
  Speaker 1: it April one through uh through that first opening weekend
• 51:08
  Speaker 1: in September again, so you know, you really have to
• 51:12
  Speaker 1: kind of have your your p's and ques dotted or
• 51:15
  Speaker 1: understand what season it's in for that urban hunting. But
• 51:19
  Speaker 1: I mean the opportunities that affords you is really pretty cool.
• 51:23
  Speaker 1: I mean, the fact that that you can hunt on
• 51:27
  Speaker 1: all these properties. You really don't have a ton of competition.
• 51:30
  Speaker 1: Although the words getting out Um, you know, I get
• 51:33
  Speaker 1: a little more competition here than I used to, you know,
• 51:37
  Speaker 1: five years ago, six years ago. But you know, you
• 51:40
  Speaker 1: can hunt year round and have an unlimited number of
• 51:43
  Speaker 1: anilists year that you can harvest. I mean, my wife
• 51:45
  Speaker 1: and I basically live off venison um and other stuff
• 51:50
  Speaker 1: that that I kill. So UM, I mean that that's
• 51:54
  Speaker 1: pretty cool to be able to have the self sustained
• 51:57
  Speaker 1: organic diet and be able to so helped feed a
• 52:00
  Speaker 1: lot of other people while you're doing it. Um, you
• 52:04
  Speaker 1: know it makes you feel good. Yeah. Yeah, like you said,
• 52:07
  Speaker 1: that's a good way to fill the freezer, no doubt
• 52:09
  Speaker 1: about it. Um. I have a couple of them, yeah, freezers.
• 52:15
  Speaker 1: But that kind of that kind of schedule throughout the year,
• 52:18
  Speaker 1: I gotta imagine. Um, so that kind of I got. Well,
• 52:23
  Speaker 1: I guess what am I trying to say here? Number one?
• 52:26
  Speaker 1: What I'm trying to say is I do not know
• 52:29
  Speaker 1: about all the other cities across the country, um, as
• 52:33
  Speaker 1: far as they're kinds of seasons. But but I have
• 52:35
  Speaker 1: heard of a number of different urban areas that do
• 52:38
  Speaker 1: have these unique urban deer hunting seasons or bag limits.
• 52:42
  Speaker 1: So if you live somewhere near up their city or
• 52:45
  Speaker 1: some major metro area. Definitely do some digging into it,
• 52:48
  Speaker 1: because there might be some unique opportunities, just like you
• 52:51
  Speaker 1: know what you mentioned their tailor, UM to get in
• 52:54
  Speaker 1: and hunt longer periods of the year. There's a lot
• 52:56
  Speaker 1: of urban seasons that start earlier in the season maybe
• 52:59
  Speaker 1: UM or I think you know in spots like Iowa
• 53:01
  Speaker 1: you can get an extra buck tag. I think I
• 53:03
  Speaker 1: remember hearing that right UM to hunt some of these
• 53:05
  Speaker 1: special urban bo zones. So UM, you know, it definitely
• 53:08
  Speaker 1: opens up these new windows of opportunity. Even if you
• 53:11
  Speaker 1: still have some other places you hunt and you don't
• 53:14
  Speaker 1: want to hunt just urban deer hunting, this might be
• 53:16
  Speaker 1: a way just to add to your season, expand your season. UM.
• 53:20
  Speaker 1: So I think it's I think it's helpful to know
• 53:22
  Speaker 1: that and that that first step in the process tailor
• 53:25
  Speaker 1: for someone new um you've started with bridge, but for
• 53:29
  Speaker 1: other people when they're beginning, UM to look for properties
• 53:33
  Speaker 1: to hunt and then asking permission to hunt in those places. UM.
• 53:38
  Speaker 1: Can you walk as through your process for doing that,
• 53:40
  Speaker 1: because now after doing it what sounds like hundreds of times,
• 53:43
  Speaker 1: I'm sure you've got quite the system in place. What
• 53:45
  Speaker 1: is that. Yeah, so I kind of a twofold system. Um.
• 53:50
  Speaker 1: Any time that I have someone who gives me permission
• 53:54
  Speaker 1: to hunt on their property, I'm trying to maximize that
• 53:58
  Speaker 1: relationship as much as possible. So I want to do
• 54:01
  Speaker 1: the best job I possibly can for that person to
• 54:05
  Speaker 1: help reduce the dear herd be professional and not causing
• 54:09
  Speaker 1: any problems for them. Once I've done a decent job
• 54:13
  Speaker 1: doing that starting off, what I'm then gonna do is
• 54:17
  Speaker 1: just remind them like, hey, you know, if you ever
• 54:20
  Speaker 1: talk to anybody that that wants some deer services or
• 54:24
  Speaker 1: is complaining about the deer, please feel free to pass
• 54:27
  Speaker 1: my contact information along. So you're kind of working by
• 54:30
  Speaker 1: referral in some regard. Um. So that has served me
• 54:34
  Speaker 1: great over the years. It's kind of funny because normally,
• 54:38
  Speaker 1: as a hunter, you're so used to like, oh man,
• 54:41
  Speaker 1: I hope I can go knock on that door and
• 54:42
  Speaker 1: ask for permission. I mean, I've gotten to the point
• 54:44
  Speaker 1: now where I get, you know, one or two phone
• 54:47
  Speaker 1: calls a week from someone that had, you know, talked
• 54:51
  Speaker 1: to their buddy at the grocery store or talk to
• 54:53
  Speaker 1: their buddy somewhere, and they're asking me, can you please
• 54:56
  Speaker 1: come shoot the deer of my property. I'm seeing fifteen
• 54:59
  Speaker 1: twenty of them my dad, you know. And and it's
• 55:01
  Speaker 1: kind of really interesting to switch it on its head
• 55:04
  Speaker 1: and be the guy that everyone's calling for the deer removal.
• 55:07
  Speaker 1: I mean, I probably have more properties now then I
• 55:12
  Speaker 1: could possibly hunt in a year. Uh And and I
• 55:15
  Speaker 1: just spend most of my time kind of chasing my
• 55:18
  Speaker 1: tail around trying to help these people out. And you know,
• 55:23
  Speaker 1: the downside to that is when you get to kind
• 55:26
  Speaker 1: of the number of properties that I have, you know,
• 55:29
  Speaker 1: I'm like, oh, I have a buddy that could come
• 55:30
  Speaker 1: help you out, and most of them like, well, I
• 55:32
  Speaker 1: don't want your buddy to hunt here. I want you
• 55:34
  Speaker 1: to hunt here because you're the one that that you know,
• 55:37
  Speaker 1: Mrs Smith told us all these great things about and
• 55:39
  Speaker 1: how you helped her do this and that, and so
• 55:42
  Speaker 1: that's kind of a hurdle to get over. Um, if
• 55:45
  Speaker 1: you're starting completely from scratch and you don't have the
• 55:48
  Speaker 1: first person to start asking for a referral basis from
• 55:53
  Speaker 1: you know, what I do is I look at an
• 55:54
  Speaker 1: aerial map and I guess what I did. Um. I
• 55:58
  Speaker 1: still do this to some degree when I go out
• 56:00
  Speaker 1: and just cold knock on doors. I mean, first of all,
• 56:03
  Speaker 1: be prepared to have somebody tell you no. That's fine.
• 56:06
  Speaker 1: I mean you know the answer is always going to
• 56:08
  Speaker 1: be no unless you ask, So you might as well ask,
• 56:11
  Speaker 1: and then then you at least know what the answer is. Um.
• 56:15
  Speaker 1: So kind of get that fear of rejection out of
• 56:17
  Speaker 1: the way early. And you know where I'm hunting in
• 56:21
  Speaker 1: these metropolitan areas or suburban areas. Any area that could
• 56:25
  Speaker 1: have been developed most likely has, so you're not going
• 56:28
  Speaker 1: to end up with these giant chunk September. Like, you
• 56:32
  Speaker 1: might have a property that somebody owns fifteen acres, but
• 56:36
  Speaker 1: for the most part, you know that parcel has been
• 56:39
  Speaker 1: divided out, are subdivided into the maximum density it can be,
• 56:45
  Speaker 1: so all the subdivisions are there, right. So what isn't
• 56:48
  Speaker 1: developed are your floodplains or areas that you can't build
• 56:53
  Speaker 1: in creek beds, things like that. Well those turn into
• 56:56
  Speaker 1: these dear super highways. So if you look on an
• 57:01
  Speaker 1: aerial map and you look at all the green space
• 57:04
  Speaker 1: between the houses, well that's like a mega highway for
• 57:07
  Speaker 1: white tail. So that's the first place that I start
• 57:09
  Speaker 1: is all all identify those properties, and I'll go knock
• 57:12
  Speaker 1: on doors. Eventually, through persistence, uh you, you will get
• 57:17
  Speaker 1: somebody that says yes. Once they say yes, I asked them,
• 57:22
  Speaker 1: you know, how well do you know your neighbors, because
• 57:24
  Speaker 1: there's a big difference in your neighbor of five twenty
• 57:29
  Speaker 1: years coming over and saying, hey, I'm gonna let this
• 57:31
  Speaker 1: guy Taylor hunt here. Then there is when you knock
• 57:35
  Speaker 1: on the door and somebody's like, what does this CEO
• 57:36
  Speaker 1: head want? You know? Um? And the other thing is
• 57:40
  Speaker 1: when you are knocking on the doors. I try to
• 57:42
  Speaker 1: look presentable, so think of it as kind of office casual.
• 57:46
  Speaker 1: I'm not showing up looking like I'm selling vacuum cleaners.
• 57:50
  Speaker 1: I'm not looking up like looking like I'm selling bibles.
• 57:53
  Speaker 1: I just want to look like, you know, the dude
• 57:56
  Speaker 1: next door who is clean and presentable. And I always
• 58:00
  Speaker 1: make a point to point out that I live in
• 58:02
  Speaker 1: the area, so that seems to put people at ease
• 58:06
  Speaker 1: right away. Another thing that I really like to do
• 58:08
  Speaker 1: is I'm a really tall guy. I'm I'm like six
• 58:11
  Speaker 1: two six three, and I'm a big dude. So I
• 58:14
  Speaker 1: think that I'm really intimidating to people when they open
• 58:17
  Speaker 1: their door. So what I'll do is I'll ring the
• 58:19
  Speaker 1: doorbell and I'll step completely off their front porch so
• 58:23
  Speaker 1: that they're you know, looking down on me as opposed
• 58:26
  Speaker 1: to looking up at me, which I think is just
• 58:28
  Speaker 1: kind of a psychological thing. But every little bit helps
• 58:32
  Speaker 1: when you're asking to do something that to these people
• 58:35
  Speaker 1: is super taboo, which you shoot deer with a bow
• 58:38
  Speaker 1: in their backyard. Um, you know. But for the most part,
• 58:42
  Speaker 1: people are there. They're receptive to it. They've seen a
• 58:46
  Speaker 1: lot of the deer. They know that they're a giant problem.
• 58:49
  Speaker 1: They understand that the thirty worth of landscaping they planted
• 58:53
  Speaker 1: is now just dirt, and uh, they want them all gone.
• 58:57
  Speaker 1: So so what I want to know next is what
• 59:00
  Speaker 1: you're like, what your first words are your elevator pitch
• 59:03
  Speaker 1: at the door, Because I when I knock on the door,
• 59:06
  Speaker 1: I do the same thing you just mentioned. I kind
• 59:08
  Speaker 1: of step back and give the people some space. I
• 59:10
  Speaker 1: try to be presentable, and then I kind of get
• 59:13
  Speaker 1: right into it, you know. I introduced myself, I mentioned
• 59:15
  Speaker 1: if I'm in the area from the area, and then
• 59:17
  Speaker 1: I kind of just say, hey, curious if X, y
• 59:20
  Speaker 1: Z or whatever. I get right into it. But Dan,
• 59:23
  Speaker 1: you know co host Dan, he likes to go the
• 59:25
  Speaker 1: opposite way. He likes to just like bs, like, talk
• 59:27
  Speaker 1: about random stuff for a while and then kind of
• 59:30
  Speaker 1: mosey his way to what he wants to do. I
• 59:33
  Speaker 1: remember the two of us had this conversation years ago,
• 59:35
  Speaker 1: and I remember thinking, what a strangely different way we
• 59:38
  Speaker 1: go about it. What's your tact? How do you approach
• 59:40
  Speaker 1: those first moments after the person opens the door? Yeah,
• 59:44
  Speaker 1: I try to be um as charming as possible without
• 59:48
  Speaker 1: seeming like a total scumbag, because I think that can
• 59:51
  Speaker 1: kind of you quickly flip around into not being a
• 59:55
  Speaker 1: positive thing. So I'll I ring the doorbell, I'll back off,
• 59:58
  Speaker 1: and then as soon as I I see them, I
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 1: smile and I introduced myself, so I'll make eye contact.
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 1: I introduced myself. I say, hey, my name's Taylor Chamberlain.
• 1:00:07
  Speaker 1: I'm not selling anything, because around here we get a
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 1: lot of door to door salesman and so I think
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 1: most people's first reaction is like, great, what is this
• 1:00:17
  Speaker 1: guy doing? What does he want? Why is he interrupting me?
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 1: You know? So, Hey, how you doing it? I'm Taylor,
• 1:00:23
  Speaker 1: I live right down the street, or I live I
• 1:00:26
  Speaker 1: live around here. I'm I'm your neighbor. We're in the
• 1:00:28
  Speaker 1: same community, right, is what I'm trying to express to
• 1:00:32
  Speaker 1: them to kind of help get them at ease. And
• 1:00:35
  Speaker 1: then I'll just ask him, how do you feel about
• 1:00:37
  Speaker 1: the deer? Do you notice a lot of deer? And
• 1:00:41
  Speaker 1: you can tell within fifteen seconds of the answer to
• 1:00:44
  Speaker 1: that question how it's gonna go. If they go like, oh,
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 1: we love the dear my wife named them all. You know,
• 1:00:51
  Speaker 1: we feed him every night, I'm like, great, thanks, just
• 1:00:54
  Speaker 1: checking in. You know, that's the end of it. I
• 1:00:57
  Speaker 1: know you're not gonna let me shoot your pet deer.
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 1: But the neighbor might be like, oh my god, they
• 1:01:02
  Speaker 1: feed the deer. These people are crazy, please come shoot them, right,
• 1:01:05
  Speaker 1: And so obviously that would be a scenario I probably
• 1:01:07
  Speaker 1: wouldn't get myself into. But um, you know I find
• 1:01:11
  Speaker 1: that being personable, pretty straightforward and honest and asking that
• 1:01:15
  Speaker 1: question of how do you feel about the deer to
• 1:01:18
  Speaker 1: let them kind of start talking um really helps and
• 1:01:21
  Speaker 1: it puts them at ease, and that that's the number
• 1:01:23
  Speaker 1: one thing you want. I think when you're opening up
• 1:01:26
  Speaker 1: that dialogue with somebody is like you know, I'm not
• 1:01:29
  Speaker 1: trying to sell you vacuum cleaners. I'm just popping in.
• 1:01:33
  Speaker 1: I lived down the street. I'm a local, local guy,
• 1:01:36
  Speaker 1: and you know, I'm trying to do a service for
• 1:01:38
  Speaker 1: our community. And when it's phrase like that, I mean
• 1:01:43
  Speaker 1: a lot of the people that I deal with who
• 1:01:45
  Speaker 1: have never talked to a hunter before, they don't know
• 1:01:48
  Speaker 1: anything about hunting. They'll be on the fence about it
• 1:01:51
  Speaker 1: while I'm kind of giving them the elevator pitch. And
• 1:01:53
  Speaker 1: when they find out that, you know, I've done this
• 1:01:56
  Speaker 1: on on hundreds and hundreds of properties and that a
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 1: lot of the food is going to feed the homeless,
• 1:02:04
  Speaker 1: that's when they're like, all right, yeah, that's cool. And
• 1:02:07
  Speaker 1: it's amazing to watch that kind of change their mind,
• 1:02:12
  Speaker 1: when it's like, Okay, this guy is not some bloodthirsty dude.
• 1:02:15
  Speaker 1: He's actually just trying to help out and he's not
• 1:02:19
  Speaker 1: even keeping all the meat. Um. That tends to really
• 1:02:22
  Speaker 1: kind of persuade people, which has always been interesting to me. Yeah,
• 1:02:25
  Speaker 1: that is, that is an interesting shift. I'm sure to
• 1:02:29
  Speaker 1: see happen. Um, what what happens when you get that
• 1:02:38
  Speaker 1: permission they say yep, let's go go ahead and hunt. Um,
• 1:02:43
  Speaker 1: when I get permission on a new piece of property,
• 1:02:45
  Speaker 1: let's say in Iowa or Michigan or Ohio, you know,
• 1:02:49
  Speaker 1: as soon as I can, I'm gonna be out on
• 1:02:50
  Speaker 1: that property, walking all over the place on it, whether
• 1:02:53
  Speaker 1: that be shed hunting or scouting in the summer, hanging
• 1:02:56
  Speaker 1: trail cameras, checking for scrapes and rubs and trails. I mean,
• 1:02:59
  Speaker 1: I'm covering every square inch of that property that I
• 1:03:01
  Speaker 1: possibly can, hopefully multiple times. I am guessing that you
• 1:03:07
  Speaker 1: maybe don't do that or can do that, because I'm
• 1:03:11
  Speaker 1: thinking about that out of sight, out of mind thing
• 1:03:13
  Speaker 1: that you talked about, and the fact that if you're
• 1:03:15
  Speaker 1: walking all over the place in the middle of the day,
• 1:03:17
  Speaker 1: people might start to ask questions, Um, is that something
• 1:03:21
  Speaker 1: you have to do? Is that something you think about?
• 1:03:22
  Speaker 1: Or do you do you scout it the way I
• 1:03:23
  Speaker 1: would scout it? Or what do you do? So what
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 1: I what I would do is, let's say I ring
• 1:03:29
  Speaker 1: the doorbell on Mr. And Mrs Smith's house. We just
• 1:03:31
  Speaker 1: go through the process that you and I discussed. Now
• 1:03:35
  Speaker 1: I have permission, I said, great, can you show me
• 1:03:38
  Speaker 1: where you want me to park? Right? Because first step,
• 1:03:41
  Speaker 1: I don't want to piss off the homeowner because I
• 1:03:43
  Speaker 1: don't want to lose the permission that I just got.
• 1:03:46
  Speaker 1: Then my next question is do you want me to
• 1:03:48
  Speaker 1: contact you before I'm coming out here to hunt? You know,
• 1:03:51
  Speaker 1: how how am I going to tread lightly to where
• 1:03:54
  Speaker 1: I'm not offending this person? I'm doing them as service. Um,
• 1:03:58
  Speaker 1: So I figure out where you want me to are.
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 1: How do you want me to you know, shoot your texts,
• 1:04:02
  Speaker 1: give an email. How are we going to communicate between us?
• 1:04:05
  Speaker 1: And then I say, do you mind showing me your
• 1:04:07
  Speaker 1: property boundaries and showing me where you see the deer
• 1:04:10
  Speaker 1: most often? And what a lot of people will do
• 1:04:14
  Speaker 1: is they're like, yeah, sure, you know, let me throw
• 1:04:16
  Speaker 1: my jacket on and we'll go walk around the backyard
• 1:04:19
  Speaker 1: and they'll show me where they think their property line is,
• 1:04:21
  Speaker 1: which is amazing to me. How many property owners don't
• 1:04:24
  Speaker 1: know where their property line is, which is why you
• 1:04:27
  Speaker 1: know a lot of these uh smartphone based you know
• 1:04:31
  Speaker 1: applications are just so helpful, especially for me. Um. And
• 1:04:36
  Speaker 1: then I'll have them show me where they're seeing the deer.
• 1:04:38
  Speaker 1: And you know, I run probably anywhere between forty and
• 1:04:42
  Speaker 1: fifty trail cameras a year, not a single one of
• 1:04:45
  Speaker 1: those cameras is more valuable than the homeowner. Because I'm
• 1:04:48
  Speaker 1: hunting on quarter acre, half acre, maybe an acre lot.
• 1:04:53
  Speaker 1: They can see their whole property. They know where the
• 1:04:55
  Speaker 1: deer are, they know when and where they're seeing them.
• 1:04:59
  Speaker 1: And I can't tell you how many times I've walked
• 1:05:01
  Speaker 1: to property and I'm like, oh, this little corner right
• 1:05:04
  Speaker 1: here is definitely the right spot and they're like, nope,
• 1:05:07
  Speaker 1: did you actually come out over here all the time?
• 1:05:10
  Speaker 1: And for whatever reason, that's where the deer coming from.
• 1:05:12
  Speaker 1: And I'll set up in that one lone tree and
• 1:05:16
  Speaker 1: just start smashing them. And the homeowners are always correct.
• 1:05:21
  Speaker 1: So if if you're looking at getting into urban hunting
• 1:05:25
  Speaker 1: and you've gone down the pipeline thus far into our
• 1:05:30
  Speaker 1: kind of little hypothetical scenario here, do not go set
• 1:05:33
  Speaker 1: up where you think is a deery spot, set up
• 1:05:36
  Speaker 1: where the homeowner is telling you, because they're not lying
• 1:05:39
  Speaker 1: to you. They don't care. You know. It's not like
• 1:05:41
  Speaker 1: they're like, oh, yeah, I go hunt over there because
• 1:05:44
  Speaker 1: there's a giant one fort you over here. You know, like,
• 1:05:47
  Speaker 1: they do not care. And the last thing that I
• 1:05:49
  Speaker 1: tell them is, um, I say, look, you know, thank
• 1:05:54
  Speaker 1: you very much. Please please let me know when you're
• 1:05:57
  Speaker 1: seeing when and where you're seeing deer because helps me
• 1:06:00
  Speaker 1: be more efficient. And you know, that's really helpful to
• 1:06:05
  Speaker 1: me because the deer around here kind of are almost
• 1:06:09
  Speaker 1: like nomadic. It's not like in the Midwest where on
• 1:06:13
  Speaker 1: a particular farm you have your betting, you have your
• 1:06:15
  Speaker 1: food source, and then you can kind of ambush them
• 1:06:18
  Speaker 1: between betting and food. I think because there's so little
• 1:06:21
  Speaker 1: browsed around here, and there's so many external factors like
• 1:06:25
  Speaker 1: the neighbor's dog or the past out frat boy or whatever,
• 1:06:29
  Speaker 1: uh kind of pushing these deer around that they kind
• 1:06:32
  Speaker 1: of run this circuit and the matriarch, Dough is really
• 1:06:35
  Speaker 1: in charge of that circuit. And so they'll be in
• 1:06:38
  Speaker 1: an area for a couple of days and then they'll
• 1:06:40
  Speaker 1: kind of, you know, have Phido chase them around. They'll
• 1:06:42
  Speaker 1: go to the next spot that they're kind of comfortable with,
• 1:06:45
  Speaker 1: and then they'll go to the next spot. And so
• 1:06:47
  Speaker 1: I want to make sure that I'm not wasting my
• 1:06:49
  Speaker 1: time when I am out hunting. I want to be
• 1:06:52
  Speaker 1: as efficient as I can possibly try and be. And
• 1:06:55
  Speaker 1: so by having the home owners texting me and calling
• 1:06:58
  Speaker 1: me and being like, hey, they're here, you know, come
• 1:07:01
  Speaker 1: on out and get them. Uh, that's super helpful. I'm
• 1:07:07
  Speaker 1: I'm struggling here between if I want to jump to
• 1:07:09
  Speaker 1: the question that just can my mind if I want
• 1:07:11
  Speaker 1: to stick with our scenario. But I'm gonna jump to
• 1:07:13
  Speaker 1: the next question, um that you just raise there, which
• 1:07:16
  Speaker 1: is you get a call from a landowner saying, hey,
• 1:07:19
  Speaker 1: they're here, come get them. What kind of like turnaround
• 1:07:22
  Speaker 1: time do you have to have on that kind of
• 1:07:24
  Speaker 1: data and and with this kind of unique uh circuit
• 1:07:27
  Speaker 1: behavior that these urban deer are demonstrating. Can if you
• 1:07:31
  Speaker 1: get there the next day, is that soon enough? Do
• 1:07:33
  Speaker 1: these dear stay out for a while? Yeah? So, I
• 1:07:35
  Speaker 1: mean the turnaround time is really anywhere in that twenty
• 1:07:39
  Speaker 1: four hour time windows seems to be pretty ideal. Um.
• 1:07:44
  Speaker 1: You know, sometimes you can get there same day. That's
• 1:07:47
  Speaker 1: really good, But you know it's not a surefire, guaranteed
• 1:07:51
  Speaker 1: thing that Hey, I can get there tomorrow and that's perfect.
• 1:07:55
  Speaker 1: I know I'm gonna see deer. Um. Sometimes the deer
• 1:08:00
  Speaker 1: are already gone. But for the most part, the biggest
• 1:08:02
  Speaker 1: problem I have is having two or three homeowners texting
• 1:08:06
  Speaker 1: me at the same time and trying to figure out
• 1:08:08
  Speaker 1: which property I'm gonna go to. And what gets even
• 1:08:12
  Speaker 1: harder for me is during the rut when they're like,
• 1:08:15
  Speaker 1: there's a giant buck here, right, Well, giant buck to
• 1:08:19
  Speaker 1: you and I is way different than a giant buck
• 1:08:21
  Speaker 1: to the homeowner who might think the little hundred four
• 1:08:26
  Speaker 1: pointer is a monster. Right, So you've got to kind
• 1:08:30
  Speaker 1: of balance your data that you're getting on on that
• 1:08:34
  Speaker 1: end as to its accuracy. But as far as from
• 1:08:38
  Speaker 1: a dough hunting perspective, if I get out within twenty
• 1:08:41
  Speaker 1: four hours, that seems to be ideal. And also maybe
• 1:08:45
  Speaker 1: it was you know, oh the deer here every morning,
• 1:08:49
  Speaker 1: and I'll go back the next morning, but I really
• 1:08:51
  Speaker 1: find a ton more activity in the afternoons for whatever
• 1:08:54
  Speaker 1: reason than than in the morning. Kind Of overall, something
• 1:08:58
  Speaker 1: you mentioned, they're brought up a question that I completely
• 1:09:01
  Speaker 1: forgot to ask, which is you talked a lot about
• 1:09:03
  Speaker 1: how many deer there are, like at the target rich
• 1:09:05
  Speaker 1: environment that you're hunting in. What about the quality of
• 1:09:08
  Speaker 1: deer and an age structure of deer? Do you see
• 1:09:12
  Speaker 1: old bucks, do you see big bucks? What's that like?
• 1:09:15
  Speaker 1: So we we do see the occasional giant. Um. You know,
• 1:09:20
  Speaker 1: there are a couple of deer that I have on
• 1:09:22
  Speaker 1: trail camera that are you know, every bit of what
• 1:09:25
  Speaker 1: you would expect to see in Kansas, like high one
• 1:09:28
  Speaker 1: sixties type just slobs. Right. The problem that we have
• 1:09:33
  Speaker 1: is kind of twofold one. There just isn't a ton
• 1:09:37
  Speaker 1: of protein here for them to allow them to get
• 1:09:40
  Speaker 1: to to where their antlers are just huge. Right, So
• 1:09:45
  Speaker 1: if you wanted to kill a one, like a four
• 1:09:48
  Speaker 1: year old one forty, you could do that every year.
• 1:09:50
  Speaker 1: Um if yeah, and that's not a shabby deer, but
• 1:09:54
  Speaker 1: means right, like I'm not like, oh there goes there
• 1:09:57
  Speaker 1: goes a mid one werena like that walk? You know,
• 1:10:00
  Speaker 1: like that dear is getting shot every time it comes
• 1:10:02
  Speaker 1: by my tree. Um. The problem that that I run
• 1:10:06
  Speaker 1: into is you don't have enough access to continuous property
• 1:10:12
  Speaker 1: to where you're like, yep, that dear's betting right over there,
• 1:10:15
  Speaker 1: and I'm gonna slide in on him and I'm gonna
• 1:10:17
  Speaker 1: kill him tomorrow in his bet right. So what you
• 1:10:19
  Speaker 1: really end up getting are you'll get a lot of
• 1:10:23
  Speaker 1: really high quality dear cruising during the rut or pre
• 1:10:27
  Speaker 1: rut um. But outside of that, your chances of killing
• 1:10:31
  Speaker 1: them are are pretty slim if they're not betting on
• 1:10:34
  Speaker 1: your property and so and and But I mean, we're
• 1:10:39
  Speaker 1: the only thing that's killing them are cars and other
• 1:10:43
  Speaker 1: hunters around here. There are on a ton, there's not
• 1:10:46
  Speaker 1: a ton of hunting pressure. So you do get a
• 1:10:48
  Speaker 1: nice age class of of bucks. Uh. And there are
• 1:10:53
  Speaker 1: definitely some great opportunities for killing some good ones. Um.
• 1:10:57
  Speaker 1: I mean, every year on trail camera, I'll get two
• 1:11:00
  Speaker 1: or three deer that you'd be like, no question, would
• 1:11:03
  Speaker 1: shoot with the rifle and put on your wall on
• 1:11:05
  Speaker 1: a heartbeat. When you said that they've got nothing to
• 1:11:09
  Speaker 1: worry about other than cars and hunters, the first thing
• 1:11:12
  Speaker 1: I thought in my mind was was maybe like some
• 1:11:15
  Speaker 1: deer talking to his young ones saying, oh, you gotta
• 1:11:17
  Speaker 1: watch out for those big black trucks rolling down the
• 1:11:20
  Speaker 1: road and Taylor, Yeah, and that big old tund squirrel
• 1:11:25
  Speaker 1: that's hanging up there, that weird diaper looking thing with
• 1:11:28
  Speaker 1: a really sharp stick. He took out a hundred of
• 1:11:30
  Speaker 1: your uncles and ants last year, clear jod on really bad. Um. So,
• 1:11:39
  Speaker 1: so you mentioned though, it's kind of interesting that you
• 1:11:41
  Speaker 1: can't necessarily pattern a mature buck like maybe doing the Midwest,
• 1:11:45
  Speaker 1: figure out where they bed and transitioning to food. That's
• 1:11:49
  Speaker 1: not the kind of behavior you're seeing. How do you
• 1:11:52
  Speaker 1: go about prepping a property? Then you get you get
• 1:11:55
  Speaker 1: permission on a property, or in your situation, you get
• 1:11:57
  Speaker 1: permission on dozens of properties. Do you do any actual
• 1:12:01
  Speaker 1: prepping in the preseason or do you just run a
• 1:12:03
  Speaker 1: gun in season? So I do a lot of tree prepping.
• 1:12:08
  Speaker 1: I Um, I'm kind of an efficiency nut, and with
• 1:12:13
  Speaker 1: the amount of hunting that I'm able to do on
• 1:12:15
  Speaker 1: a year round basis, I've been able to hone in
• 1:12:18
  Speaker 1: on my kit pretty uh pretty well. But um, you know,
• 1:12:24
  Speaker 1: I have probably within a fifteen minute drive in my house,
• 1:12:28
  Speaker 1: I probably have well over a thousand trees prepped and
• 1:12:31
  Speaker 1: ready to hunt from, um, all marked on an on X.
• 1:12:35
  Speaker 1: So like, if you look at my aerial view of
• 1:12:37
  Speaker 1: my on X map, it looks like it has chicken pox.
• 1:12:40
  Speaker 1: Like it just looks like some kid with nuts with
• 1:12:42
  Speaker 1: a with the mouse and just clicked everywhere, uh, dropping
• 1:12:46
  Speaker 1: pins and so I kind of have this weird hybrid
• 1:12:48
  Speaker 1: system as far as you know what level of prep
• 1:12:53
  Speaker 1: work that tree has had to it. So, um, some
• 1:12:57
  Speaker 1: I hunt from a tree saddle. I've just found that
• 1:13:00
  Speaker 1: the saddle is way more efficient for me for for
• 1:13:03
  Speaker 1: having that multitude of trees prepped. Um, frankly, my wife
• 1:13:07
  Speaker 1: would have divorced me a long time ago if I
• 1:13:09
  Speaker 1: had a thousand tree stands just chilling in the garage somewhere. Um,
• 1:13:15
  Speaker 1: she probably divorced me now she knew what half that
• 1:13:17
  Speaker 1: crap cost. But yeah, I mean, so I have a
• 1:13:21
  Speaker 1: lot of trees that I have prepped with the kind
• 1:13:25
  Speaker 1: of metal ladder sections, and then you know, I can
• 1:13:28
  Speaker 1: just climb up those and hunt. But what I've found
• 1:13:31
  Speaker 1: is that the deer are are really good at figuring out.
• 1:13:35
  Speaker 1: After you, you know, smash a couple of them out
• 1:13:37
  Speaker 1: of their group, They're like, hey, every time we walk
• 1:13:40
  Speaker 1: past that tree, a couple of us don't make it,
• 1:13:43
  Speaker 1: so we're gonna walk by other trees now. So what
• 1:13:46
  Speaker 1: I've really kind of evolved in the last couple of
• 1:13:48
  Speaker 1: years into pretty strictly run and gun. So I'll climb
• 1:13:53
  Speaker 1: a tree, make sure it's prepped and ready to go.
• 1:13:55
  Speaker 1: And when you say started, interrupt, But when you say
• 1:13:58
  Speaker 1: that a tree is prepped and ready to go, what
• 1:14:00
  Speaker 1: specifically are you doing to have a tree prepped. Okay,
• 1:14:03
  Speaker 1: So what I'll do is I'll I'll figure out where
• 1:14:05
  Speaker 1: the deer trails are, which are pretty easy to identify
• 1:14:08
  Speaker 1: in our area because they look like cow pass So
• 1:14:11
  Speaker 1: I'll climb up those trees. I look for a tree
• 1:14:14
  Speaker 1: that's got a ton of cover. Again, I'm big dude,
• 1:14:16
  Speaker 1: so I'm a lot of man to hide in the tree. Um.
• 1:14:21
  Speaker 1: You know, I definitely wish I was terry dreary, but
• 1:14:25
  Speaker 1: I'm not. So um. So I need trees to have
• 1:14:29
  Speaker 1: a lot of cover otherwise they're like, why is the
• 1:14:31
  Speaker 1: other half of that tree moving? You know. Um. So
• 1:14:34
  Speaker 1: I'll get up and I'll trim out my my shooting lanes.
• 1:14:38
  Speaker 1: I'll try to have two or three kind of good
• 1:14:40
  Speaker 1: shooting lanes to those little kill spots, if you call
• 1:14:44
  Speaker 1: it that, and then I leave everything else as as
• 1:14:47
  Speaker 1: bushy as possible for around me. Um. And then I'll
• 1:14:51
  Speaker 1: prep different trees for what I anticipate being different times
• 1:14:54
  Speaker 1: of the year for the different properties that that I'm on.
• 1:14:58
  Speaker 1: So some properties, maybe it's a white oak flat and
• 1:15:02
  Speaker 1: I know that the deer are gonna be pounding through
• 1:15:04
  Speaker 1: there in the early season and then also in the
• 1:15:07
  Speaker 1: late season while they're looking for food. So I'll prep
• 1:15:10
  Speaker 1: a couple of different trees. Maybe I'll prep a holly
• 1:15:12
  Speaker 1: tree or a tree that's right next to a holly tree.
• 1:15:15
  Speaker 1: I'll know that will be my, you know, late season spot.
• 1:15:19
  Speaker 1: Then I'll prep a tree right over by the white
• 1:15:21
  Speaker 1: oak that's dropping for the early season spot when I
• 1:15:24
  Speaker 1: know there's a bunch of cover um. And so what
• 1:15:26
  Speaker 1: I would do is I climb. I'll mark that tree
• 1:15:29
  Speaker 1: with a little bright eye, and I'll drop a pin
• 1:15:32
  Speaker 1: on my on X of how to get there. And
• 1:15:34
  Speaker 1: then what I like to do is I'll clear a
• 1:15:37
  Speaker 1: trail out from my truck to that tree. So maybe
• 1:15:40
  Speaker 1: that's like forty yards, which is kind of embarrassing that
• 1:15:44
  Speaker 1: somehow that's how far I have to walk. Sometimes it's
• 1:15:46
  Speaker 1: like fifteen yards. I actually have one tree that I
• 1:15:49
  Speaker 1: hunt at where the parking spot is right in line
• 1:15:53
  Speaker 1: with one of the trees that I hunt, and I
• 1:15:55
  Speaker 1: have to make sure that the deer has cleared my
• 1:15:57
  Speaker 1: truck before I shoot them, because I thought I shot
• 1:16:01
  Speaker 1: my truck one night when I shot a deer and
• 1:16:03
  Speaker 1: the arrow deflected and thank god, it went over my truck,
• 1:16:07
  Speaker 1: but the knock came out of the back and smacked
• 1:16:10
  Speaker 1: into the side of my truck and I almost fell
• 1:16:12
  Speaker 1: out of the tree. I thought, I just shot a
• 1:16:14
  Speaker 1: hole through my passenger door. So, um So I'll put
• 1:16:18
  Speaker 1: a bright eye in it. I'll clear a trail to
• 1:16:21
  Speaker 1: it so I know I can get to that tree
• 1:16:23
  Speaker 1: as silently as possible, because a lot of the time
• 1:16:26
  Speaker 1: the deer are not bedded far away of where I'm hunting,
• 1:16:30
  Speaker 1: so I really need to kind of, you know, do
• 1:16:33
  Speaker 1: the damn infult and slip in as quietly as possible,
• 1:16:37
  Speaker 1: um to to get up into hunting positions. So put
• 1:16:41
  Speaker 1: the bright eye in it, market climb up, cut my
• 1:16:44
  Speaker 1: shooting lanes out into where I think they're the deer
• 1:16:47
  Speaker 1: are gonna be coming, or where I know they're coming
• 1:16:49
  Speaker 1: based on previous years hunting there, and then you know,
• 1:16:53
  Speaker 1: get out of there. And then I try to have
• 1:16:56
  Speaker 1: as many trees as possible hunting to hunt from on
• 1:17:00
  Speaker 1: a property. And again that's kind of why I hunt
• 1:17:03
  Speaker 1: from a saddle, because you know, I can hunt from
• 1:17:05
  Speaker 1: any tree as opposed to only a couple of trees.
• 1:17:08
  Speaker 1: And when you're hunting a quarter acre, you might only
• 1:17:12
  Speaker 1: have two trees on the property, So it's important to
• 1:17:16
  Speaker 1: be able to maximize those and then lastly, I don't
• 1:17:20
  Speaker 1: want to burn the tree out. So when I'm when
• 1:17:23
  Speaker 1: I go in on a hunt, I'm trying to be
• 1:17:25
  Speaker 1: as deadly as possible. I'm not just prospecting. I'm I'm
• 1:17:29
  Speaker 1: there to kill um. And I think that's something that's
• 1:17:32
  Speaker 1: important because I mean people think they're like, oh, man,
• 1:17:35
  Speaker 1: you're just hunting does in the suburbs, Like that's super easy. No, man,
• 1:17:40
  Speaker 1: I mean you're hunting an animal that wants to live
• 1:17:44
  Speaker 1: and you're you're killing it, and it's trying to do
• 1:17:47
  Speaker 1: everything and it's power to figure out how to not die.
• 1:17:50
  Speaker 1: And so as soon as they realize like, hey, there's
• 1:17:54
  Speaker 1: something going on around here that's causing us to you know,
• 1:17:57
  Speaker 1: get dragged out and go into the back of that
• 1:17:59
  Speaker 1: really as truck. Um, you know, they're they're figuring out
• 1:18:03
  Speaker 1: how to avoid that. So it's kind of always on
• 1:18:06
  Speaker 1: you to to figure out how to keep being as
• 1:18:09
  Speaker 1: efficient and as deadly as possible. Yeah. So you've got
• 1:18:14
  Speaker 1: a thousand trees prepped in in one way or another.
• 1:18:17
  Speaker 1: You've got them all lined up on your maps. Um,
• 1:18:20
  Speaker 1: you mentioned you talk to these landowners. You're figuring out
• 1:18:23
  Speaker 1: what they're seeing, all the stuff's going on. But you
• 1:18:25
  Speaker 1: also said you run forty to fifty trail cameras across
• 1:18:27
  Speaker 1: all those places, um to to what? Um? And are
• 1:18:33
  Speaker 1: you using them for? Like? Are you just trying to
• 1:18:35
  Speaker 1: see where the you are active or are you looking
• 1:18:38
  Speaker 1: for mature bus or any kind of buck or anything
• 1:18:40
  Speaker 1: like that? And UM, I guess that's question number one.
• 1:18:42
  Speaker 1: Question number two is how do you manage that many cameras? Yeah? So,
• 1:18:46
  Speaker 1: um well, I managed that many cameras, much to Amazon's
• 1:18:49
  Speaker 1: pleasure because I'm com buying a shipload of batteries all
• 1:18:52
  Speaker 1: year long. Um So, I mean I run those cameras
• 1:18:56
  Speaker 1: to try and figure out any type of trends that
• 1:19:00
  Speaker 1: I can figure out, if that makes sense. I mean
• 1:19:03
  Speaker 1: I want to be as efficient as humanly possible. I
• 1:19:07
  Speaker 1: would love to get to where every hunt I'm harvesting
• 1:19:10
  Speaker 1: a deer. Uh. Now, granted, you know it's hunting and
• 1:19:14
  Speaker 1: you're never gonna get to that. But that's the kind
• 1:19:16
  Speaker 1: of perfection that I'm striving for in in knowing how
• 1:19:20
  Speaker 1: to be as deadly as possible. So there's some places
• 1:19:25
  Speaker 1: that the property owners just can't see. And maybe I
• 1:19:28
  Speaker 1: want to put a camera on that trail and see
• 1:19:31
  Speaker 1: when the deer are using it or how many of
• 1:19:33
  Speaker 1: them are there are, you know, maybe looking at that
• 1:19:36
  Speaker 1: quality of bucks that are living on that property. I
• 1:19:38
  Speaker 1: mean there, you know, you can get lucky, I guess
• 1:19:42
  Speaker 1: if you want to call it that, or you know,
• 1:19:43
  Speaker 1: maybe whatever, there's a maybe there's a giant one sixty
• 1:19:47
  Speaker 1: that's coming in and eating acorns on October five. You know,
• 1:19:49
  Speaker 1: I'm I'm not gonna not shoot that deer. Um, even
• 1:19:53
  Speaker 1: though I'm not specifically a buck hunter. I'm more of
• 1:19:57
  Speaker 1: hunting to reduce the population. But who doesn't like shooting
• 1:20:01
  Speaker 1: a big mature white tail, right? Um? So I mean
• 1:20:05
  Speaker 1: I'm really trying to use the cameras to find try
• 1:20:08
  Speaker 1: and develop trends, figure out when, where, and why the
• 1:20:11
  Speaker 1: deer are using certain areas that maybe the homeowners aren't
• 1:20:16
  Speaker 1: as detailed on. So, you know, I find a lot
• 1:20:19
  Speaker 1: of the deer as I'm sure you've heard a lot
• 1:20:22
  Speaker 1: of your other guests talk about, you know, dear move
• 1:20:26
  Speaker 1: specifically because of the wind right and so I'm trying
• 1:20:29
  Speaker 1: to figure out which wind direction creates deer movement on
• 1:20:34
  Speaker 1: this specific parcel. What when are they betting here when
• 1:20:37
  Speaker 1: are they using it? Um, and kind of you know
• 1:20:42
  Speaker 1: what thermal conditions will will create that environment, so then
• 1:20:46
  Speaker 1: I can try and predict ahead of time. Okay, Mr
• 1:20:50
  Speaker 1: Jones is texting me saying, you see in twelve deer.
• 1:20:53
  Speaker 1: I know on this property that the landscapers come on Thursday,
• 1:20:58
  Speaker 1: today's Friday, and so the deer are gonna be there
• 1:21:01
  Speaker 1: trying to eat the fresh grass they just blew all
• 1:21:04
  Speaker 1: the leaves off of and we have a northeast wind,
• 1:21:08
  Speaker 1: so the deer definitely gonna be there. Like, Okay, I'm
• 1:21:11
  Speaker 1: pretty much bet in the farm and I'm gonna kill
• 1:21:13
  Speaker 1: a couple tonight, right. That's I love it. I love
• 1:21:17
  Speaker 1: I love a hunting A hunting sit revolving around the lawnmower,
• 1:21:22
  Speaker 1: you would be surprised. So I have this giant whiteboard
• 1:21:25
  Speaker 1: down here in my my little bow cave, and um,
• 1:21:29
  Speaker 1: I have all the neighborhoods rotations for school bus pickup times,
• 1:21:34
  Speaker 1: the when the trash trucks come and recycling trucks, and
• 1:21:38
  Speaker 1: then um, when the landscapers are are there, because a
• 1:21:42
  Speaker 1: lot of these people will use the same landscaping crews
• 1:21:45
  Speaker 1: and the deer love the fresh blown off grass when
• 1:21:49
  Speaker 1: the leaves are falling, and so they will wait until
• 1:21:52
  Speaker 1: the landscapers are done hitting that spot and they will
• 1:21:55
  Speaker 1: pound that yard the next day. So I try and
• 1:21:59
  Speaker 1: kind of, yeah, it's kind of a food plot to
• 1:22:01
  Speaker 1: some extent, I guess it is a food plot. Really,
• 1:22:04
  Speaker 1: it's just man made or you know, unintentionally there as
• 1:22:08
  Speaker 1: opposed to you know, what you or I would plant
• 1:22:11
  Speaker 1: um in traditional hunting country. Okay, So that that brings
• 1:22:15
  Speaker 1: up an interesting question. Then, So you know, certain food
• 1:22:19
  Speaker 1: plots or crops out in like egg Land, depending on
• 1:22:22
  Speaker 1: the soil quality, depending on how much fertilizer and things
• 1:22:25
  Speaker 1: like that, all that can influence how productive and nutritious
• 1:22:28
  Speaker 1: that food is for deer and how palatable it is
• 1:22:31
  Speaker 1: to deer. So have you ever noticed, I don't know
• 1:22:33
  Speaker 1: if you thought about this, but have you ever noticed
• 1:22:34
  Speaker 1: like certain lawns are more attractive to deer? And I
• 1:22:38
  Speaker 1: wonder like if people that really fertilize the yards a lot,
• 1:22:41
  Speaker 1: if that attracts a lot of deer or if anything
• 1:22:43
  Speaker 1: like that. Have you've been able to target deer based
• 1:22:45
  Speaker 1: off of some kind of food preference with lawn or landscapes.
• 1:22:50
  Speaker 1: I've found that deer will flock in the wintertime to
• 1:22:55
  Speaker 1: those the septic fields around here. So let's go a
• 1:23:00
  Speaker 1: little more high level. So a lot of the yards
• 1:23:03
  Speaker 1: around here, a lot of the houses are on septic systems,
• 1:23:06
  Speaker 1: is based on where we're living. So with that comes
• 1:23:10
  Speaker 1: like a little I don't know, maybe three hundred or
• 1:23:13
  Speaker 1: not even hundred and fifty yard or actually take that back.
• 1:23:16
  Speaker 1: It's like a forty yard by forty yard square patch
• 1:23:19
  Speaker 1: of grass right on the northern facing septic fields. Those
• 1:23:25
  Speaker 1: are the first ones that the snow will melt off
• 1:23:28
  Speaker 1: of in the wintertime. The deer pound that. So I
• 1:23:32
  Speaker 1: have a property that I went to actually with Ford
• 1:23:35
  Speaker 1: and some of the guys from first light. It is
• 1:23:38
  Speaker 1: that exact area. It's this little point of a grassy
• 1:23:42
  Speaker 1: septic field that's about forty yards long by about twenty
• 1:23:47
  Speaker 1: five yards wide. And I could go there and see
• 1:23:51
  Speaker 1: thirty deer right now, I bet, just based on the
• 1:23:54
  Speaker 1: weather that we're having lately. Um actually went there the
• 1:23:58
  Speaker 1: other night to hunt, and instead of seeing any deer,
• 1:24:00
  Speaker 1: the neighbor pulled his law ferrari out of the garage,
• 1:24:03
  Speaker 1: which was so loud. I think it's scared everything away.
• 1:24:06
  Speaker 1: And three counties here. Um, But yeah, I mean so
• 1:24:13
  Speaker 1: specific soil types, not exactly, but land orientation that allows
• 1:24:18
  Speaker 1: for different sunlight. Yes. And I've actually been looking at
• 1:24:25
  Speaker 1: this product that this guy showed me at the A
• 1:24:28
  Speaker 1: T A show two years ago. And you it's a
• 1:24:31
  Speaker 1: spray application for current vegetation that makes it way more
• 1:24:38
  Speaker 1: palatable for deer. And what he said was that the
• 1:24:43
  Speaker 1: deer will flock to this stuff and and you know
• 1:24:47
  Speaker 1: they'll seek it out over other stuff. Now, we're not
• 1:24:51
  Speaker 1: allowed to bait deer in Virginia, but this is he
• 1:24:56
  Speaker 1: has some agricultural license that makes it a food plot
• 1:24:59
  Speaker 1: as opposed to baiting, so it's not illegal in the
• 1:25:03
  Speaker 1: state of Virginia. So I'm looking forward to trying that
• 1:25:06
  Speaker 1: this year and seeing kind of if it works or not. Um.
• 1:25:10
  Speaker 1: Although I did not get it out in time this year.
• 1:25:13
  Speaker 1: It needs to be applied um when the plant is
• 1:25:17
  Speaker 1: is recessing back into their root, their roots structure, so um.
• 1:25:23
  Speaker 1: And that's obviously the beginning of the fall. This year,
• 1:25:25
  Speaker 1: I had a my my wife, and I had a child,
• 1:25:28
  Speaker 1: so that kind of negated my spraying activity on on
• 1:25:33
  Speaker 1: a couple hundred properties. So looking forward to trying it
• 1:25:36
  Speaker 1: this year. Um, wow, that is that is the next
• 1:25:41
  Speaker 1: level stuff they're keying in on septic systems and landscaping
• 1:25:44
  Speaker 1: and all that. Really uh interesting when it comes to
• 1:25:50
  Speaker 1: trail cameras. Um, you know, something we hear from a
• 1:25:53
  Speaker 1: lot of folks, you know in in egg Land and stuff,
• 1:25:56
  Speaker 1: is an annual pattern. So a buck coming back and
• 1:25:59
  Speaker 1: doing the same kind of thing year after year. Um. Yeah,
• 1:26:03
  Speaker 1: I know the patterns are a little funky by where
• 1:26:05
  Speaker 1: you're at because of all the different influencers. But do
• 1:26:08
  Speaker 1: you do you have have you ever seen something like
• 1:26:09
  Speaker 1: that that you know, late October every year we're gonna
• 1:26:12
  Speaker 1: start seeing mature bucks in the spot, or every year
• 1:26:14
  Speaker 1: this one buck for three years came back on November
• 1:26:16
  Speaker 1: eighth and tenth or anything along those lines. Yes. And
• 1:26:22
  Speaker 1: I actually first started looking at that listening to a
• 1:26:26
  Speaker 1: podcast that you did, and you guys were talking about
• 1:26:31
  Speaker 1: how you know, the deer are going to be back
• 1:26:34
  Speaker 1: on the same day every year, and I forget who
• 1:26:37
  Speaker 1: your guest was, but I mean he went through like
• 1:26:41
  Speaker 1: five or six years of trail camera data with different
• 1:26:43
  Speaker 1: bucks and how they would just be back in that
• 1:26:45
  Speaker 1: same spot, you know, within a day or two every year,
• 1:26:50
  Speaker 1: and so I started looking at some of my trail
• 1:26:52
  Speaker 1: camera data and realized, holy smokes, that's correct. Um. You know,
• 1:26:57
  Speaker 1: I think these deer are a lot smart er than
• 1:27:00
  Speaker 1: we give them credit for. And with the different you know,
• 1:27:03
  Speaker 1: lunar cycle or whatever, you know, they're they're looking for
• 1:27:07
  Speaker 1: those relatively the same time of year. I have a
• 1:27:10
  Speaker 1: couple of spots on some properties that are just natural
• 1:27:13
  Speaker 1: pinch points, and I mean every year, on a couple
• 1:27:18
  Speaker 1: of these on certain days in November, you're gonna see
• 1:27:21
  Speaker 1: a shooter um, which is really kind of interesting. Definitely,
• 1:27:26
  Speaker 1: it's for me. You talked about those podcast when I
• 1:27:30
  Speaker 1: started chatting with folks like that, I think I think
• 1:27:32
  Speaker 1: Mark Drury has talked about it a lot. Don Higgins
• 1:27:34
  Speaker 1: has talked about it a lot. Um that was big
• 1:27:36
  Speaker 1: eye opened it for me. I certainly started looking back
• 1:27:39
  Speaker 1: at my pictures and sightings and I saw the same thing.
• 1:27:42
  Speaker 1: So yeah, and for me, it's what's hard is figuring
• 1:27:45
  Speaker 1: out what buck is what, because I mean I might
• 1:27:47
  Speaker 1: have twenty five different bucks come through a property that
• 1:27:50
  Speaker 1: are all, you know, hundred and fifteen h pointers and
• 1:27:53
  Speaker 1: I'm like, okay, which which one is the one that's
• 1:27:56
  Speaker 1: now a hundred forty h pointer which one of these
• 1:27:59
  Speaker 1: was he? What day was it here? Um? And And
• 1:28:02
  Speaker 1: what's even harder to do is not burn that spot
• 1:28:06
  Speaker 1: out with the anticipation of it being a quote unquote
• 1:28:09
  Speaker 1: like good buck spot, right, because in reality it's not
• 1:28:14
  Speaker 1: that great of a spot. They're just coming through there
• 1:28:17
  Speaker 1: when the timing is right within the season, And you know,
• 1:28:21
  Speaker 1: you really have to have that kind of that resolved
• 1:28:24
  Speaker 1: to not go into certain spots like that until the
• 1:28:27
  Speaker 1: timing is right, because otherwise you're just leaving a bunch
• 1:28:30
  Speaker 1: of cents around and doing nothing other than educating the
• 1:28:33
  Speaker 1: deer that that you're there. So how much are you
• 1:28:36
  Speaker 1: worried about that kind of thing pressuring these deer or
• 1:28:38
  Speaker 1: what kinds of pressure do you feel like you have
• 1:28:40
  Speaker 1: to worry about, because I, you know, I gotta imagine
• 1:28:43
  Speaker 1: they're used to some level of human intrusion all around them. Um,
• 1:28:47
  Speaker 1: So what like, how is your brain thinking through that
• 1:28:49
  Speaker 1: whole balancing act? Yeah, So what's really kind of interesting
• 1:28:54
  Speaker 1: is I try to not let the deer know that
• 1:28:56
  Speaker 1: I'm a predator. And I know that sounds kind of funny,
• 1:28:59
  Speaker 1: but it So let's take a hypothetical property for example, Right,
• 1:29:03
  Speaker 1: and let's say they have uh, it's it's an acre,
• 1:29:07
  Speaker 1: and they have Timmy and Tommy's old tree for it
• 1:29:09
  Speaker 1: in the backyard, right, and and mom and Dad go
• 1:29:13
  Speaker 1: out back and you know, smoke a cigar or whatever
• 1:29:16
  Speaker 1: on the back deck a couple of times a week.
• 1:29:19
  Speaker 1: Those deer could not care less if you're in the
• 1:29:22
  Speaker 1: tree for it, if you're walking in the grass, if
• 1:29:25
  Speaker 1: you're out there doing whatever, right, they could care less
• 1:29:29
  Speaker 1: the second that you crossed the threshold from what their
• 1:29:33
  Speaker 1: normal routine that they're used to seeing on that property
• 1:29:36
  Speaker 1: is into an abnormal routine. Now they're taking notice. So
• 1:29:40
  Speaker 1: I could literally have street clothes on and walk past
• 1:29:45
  Speaker 1: a couple of deer that are bedded forty yards into
• 1:29:48
  Speaker 1: the woods, and they're gonna be looking at me with
• 1:29:50
  Speaker 1: their full attention. They might not even stand up on
• 1:29:53
  Speaker 1: their feet, right, They're just I'm just another schmo. The
• 1:29:57
  Speaker 1: second that I have some camouflage on and I'm walking
• 1:30:00
  Speaker 1: directly towards them or climbing a tree, now they're taking
• 1:30:05
  Speaker 1: notice and they're starting to figure out, Okay. You know,
• 1:30:08
  Speaker 1: first of all, I think the camera really throws them off,
• 1:30:10
  Speaker 1: because when they're used to seeing you know, humans, they
• 1:30:13
  Speaker 1: can make up make out our entire outline, and so
• 1:30:17
  Speaker 1: they know, okay, that's a human. That's fine. So I've
• 1:30:20
  Speaker 1: actually gone as far as walking to the tree and
• 1:30:24
  Speaker 1: normal street clothes, throwing on my camo and climbing up
• 1:30:28
  Speaker 1: and and had really good success in areas like that.
• 1:30:32
  Speaker 1: If I'm hunting in a park, for example, we we
• 1:30:35
  Speaker 1: have some parks around here that you can put your
• 1:30:38
  Speaker 1: name in a lottery and hunt on. I could just
• 1:30:43
  Speaker 1: smashed your all the time doing that, because they're used
• 1:30:46
  Speaker 1: to seeing people in there jogging. So I would just
• 1:30:48
  Speaker 1: go in and like a track suit, looking like dude
• 1:30:51
  Speaker 1: from Jersey Shore, and under my track suit, I'd have
• 1:30:55
  Speaker 1: my camo and I would just get to the tree unzipped,
• 1:30:58
  Speaker 1: click my saddle on, climb up, And I killed a
• 1:31:02
  Speaker 1: lot of deer doing that. Um, you know, so kind
• 1:31:07
  Speaker 1: of a long winded answer to your question. I mean, yeah,
• 1:31:10
  Speaker 1: I'm worried about educating the deer, but the only way
• 1:31:13
  Speaker 1: they're getting educated is if I'm interacting with them in
• 1:31:16
  Speaker 1: some ways. So if I'm in the woods, I climb up,
• 1:31:20
  Speaker 1: I shoot a couple of does the other ones run off.
• 1:31:22
  Speaker 1: I get down, recover those does. Those other ones don't
• 1:31:25
  Speaker 1: really know what happened. They might come back in a
• 1:31:27
  Speaker 1: couple of days, they might even be back there the
• 1:31:29
  Speaker 1: next day. Um. But if you get in there and
• 1:31:32
  Speaker 1: like Booker up a hunting situation where maybe you know,
• 1:31:36
  Speaker 1: you bring your buddy out and your buddy misses a deer,
• 1:31:38
  Speaker 1: wounds a dear God forbid, you know, that is really
• 1:31:42
  Speaker 1: what's going to educate those deer. So I'm not super
• 1:31:46
  Speaker 1: worried about it per se, but it's definitely something I'm
• 1:31:49
  Speaker 1: taking into account to try and minimize as much human
• 1:31:53
  Speaker 1: impact as possible while I'm in there. And that's why
• 1:31:55
  Speaker 1: I'm trying to do everything i can that when I
• 1:31:59
  Speaker 1: go in, I'm trying to hill um and and so
• 1:32:02
  Speaker 1: I'm I'm looking at the wind, I'm looking at you know,
• 1:32:05
  Speaker 1: when and where they're seeing deer, and I'm trying to
• 1:32:08
  Speaker 1: hunt with everything in the deer's favor, thinking that I
• 1:32:13
  Speaker 1: can use just a little bit of it to my advantage.
• 1:32:16
  Speaker 1: So I want the wind to be just off for
• 1:32:18
  Speaker 1: that deer um or for me really in order to
• 1:32:22
  Speaker 1: go in and hunt that spot. And in doing so,
• 1:32:24
  Speaker 1: I've been able to really you know, knock on wood
• 1:32:27
  Speaker 1: not booker up too many of my hunting spots to
• 1:32:31
  Speaker 1: where that's an issue. Yeah, So what about, um, the exit?
• 1:32:35
  Speaker 1: So you talked about sometimes getting in there you could
• 1:32:37
  Speaker 1: wear your street clothes and they see you coming in,
• 1:32:40
  Speaker 1: and then I think that's no big deal. But what
• 1:32:42
  Speaker 1: about like the exits off of an evening sit Now
• 1:32:45
  Speaker 1: it's after dark. Um, you know, this is one of
• 1:32:48
  Speaker 1: those situations that I deal with a lot in agricultural land,
• 1:32:51
  Speaker 1: worrying about blowing deer off of food sources and things
• 1:32:53
  Speaker 1: like that because all these deer on their feet. Now,
• 1:32:56
  Speaker 1: do you worry as much as maybe I do about
• 1:32:59
  Speaker 1: spooking above or deer off of off their feet in
• 1:33:01
  Speaker 1: the evening or what's that scenario? Like, Yeah, that's a
• 1:33:05
  Speaker 1: nightmare for me. I mean I there have been some
• 1:33:07
  Speaker 1: nights where I've been in the tree for a couple
• 1:33:10
  Speaker 1: of hours after dark because there are a bunch of
• 1:33:12
  Speaker 1: does feeding around me and I don't want to blow
• 1:33:16
  Speaker 1: that tree out. Um. So what I'll do is I'll
• 1:33:19
  Speaker 1: just sit there, unfortunately until until they're gone. Um, or
• 1:33:24
  Speaker 1: I'll have, you know, maybe one of the other guys
• 1:33:27
  Speaker 1: that I hunt with come through and blow them out
• 1:33:29
  Speaker 1: on foot, so that they think it was just some
• 1:33:31
  Speaker 1: guy coming through the the yard and not me climbing
• 1:33:36
  Speaker 1: down out of the tree. So I mean, I'm constantly
• 1:33:39
  Speaker 1: worried about bumping deer or letting them know that I'm
• 1:33:45
  Speaker 1: in the area. And I think it's something that you
• 1:33:48
  Speaker 1: have to take into account, and you have to try
• 1:33:50
  Speaker 1: and be as as intelligent as possible with what you're
• 1:33:54
  Speaker 1: doing as far as areas of access. That's why I
• 1:33:58
  Speaker 1: take the time to really clear out lots of trails
• 1:34:00
  Speaker 1: to the trees that I'm hunting, is because you know,
• 1:34:03
  Speaker 1: if I can get in and out of there silently,
• 1:34:06
  Speaker 1: that's way better than like bumbling through, breaking sticks, crunching
• 1:34:09
  Speaker 1: on leaves on your way in and on your way out. Yeah,
• 1:34:14
  Speaker 1: for sure, speaking of um, you know, making noise when
• 1:34:18
  Speaker 1: you're bumbling out or bumbling in and stuff like that. Um.
• 1:34:21
  Speaker 1: Another one of those things that I gotta imagine a
• 1:34:24
  Speaker 1: lot of people might struggle with in your kind of
• 1:34:26
  Speaker 1: scenario is the setup for each individual hunt, especially you know,
• 1:34:31
  Speaker 1: with what you're doing, setting up a new spot every
• 1:34:34
  Speaker 1: time you hunt, because you're hunting with a saddle and
• 1:34:36
  Speaker 1: sometimes sticks. Um, that's gotta be a process that you've
• 1:34:39
  Speaker 1: got pretty dialed in, UM, and shoot hunting a hundred
• 1:34:42
  Speaker 1: fifty days, two hundred days a year, you might have
• 1:34:45
  Speaker 1: the most dialed in or I gotta believe you've gotta
• 1:34:49
  Speaker 1: have something pretty well dialed in as far as your
• 1:34:51
  Speaker 1: gear for this kind of mobile hunting to more than
• 1:34:53
  Speaker 1: maybe anyone else, because there's not a lot of folks
• 1:34:55
  Speaker 1: hunting that many days a year in a mobile kind
• 1:34:57
  Speaker 1: of running gun situation. Yeah, I'm super anal about my gear.
• 1:35:03
  Speaker 1: I mean so, and I think being able to hunt
• 1:35:07
  Speaker 1: as often as I do and as much as I
• 1:35:09
  Speaker 1: do it really kind of affords me the opportunity to
• 1:35:14
  Speaker 1: to tinker with stuff and and try to get it
• 1:35:16
  Speaker 1: get it right. So, I mean my kit, um, there's
• 1:35:22
  Speaker 1: nothing that I take with me to the tree that
• 1:35:24
  Speaker 1: doesn't have a specific purpose that it's needed for. So,
• 1:35:29
  Speaker 1: and I'm really anal about even like how I pack
• 1:35:32
  Speaker 1: my pull up rope or where I put it, because
• 1:35:35
  Speaker 1: you know, the more efficient I can be in getting
• 1:35:37
  Speaker 1: to the tree and up it, you know, the faster
• 1:35:40
  Speaker 1: it goes, the choieter it is, and the more kind
• 1:35:43
  Speaker 1: of mindlessly you can climb a tree. Not that I
• 1:35:46
  Speaker 1: want to climb a tree mindlessly, but uh, you know,
• 1:35:49
  Speaker 1: the more kind of automatic it is as opposed to
• 1:35:52
  Speaker 1: to like, you know, you got crap everywhere. It's hanging off,
• 1:35:55
  Speaker 1: you know, your pull ropes kind of tied up. You know,
• 1:35:58
  Speaker 1: you gotta not your bows hanging I feed off the ground.
• 1:36:00
  Speaker 1: It's just you know, you don't want to to do that.
• 1:36:03
  Speaker 1: And also, you know, on some of these really tight properties,
• 1:36:07
  Speaker 1: when I'm leaving, I don't want to use a headlamp
• 1:36:11
  Speaker 1: because this time of year there are no leaves on
• 1:36:13
  Speaker 1: the trees and I might have eight, you know, three
• 1:36:17
  Speaker 1: million dollar houses They're looking down on the floodplane that
• 1:36:20
  Speaker 1: I'm hunting in, and I don't want to have this
• 1:36:22
  Speaker 1: giant white torch like coming through the tree and now
• 1:36:26
  Speaker 1: having all these houses be like, hey, what the hell
• 1:36:28
  Speaker 1: is that? Oh, there's a guy hunting back there. You know,
• 1:36:32
  Speaker 1: let's give him a problem. So sometimes I have to
• 1:36:35
  Speaker 1: climb down in the dark or with a very muted
• 1:36:39
  Speaker 1: kind of green light. So I want to be as
• 1:36:41
  Speaker 1: proficient in my system as possible for my own safety.
• 1:36:44
  Speaker 1: But um so, I mean, do you we're gonna ask
• 1:36:48
  Speaker 1: me to walk you cut off? Ever, I want to
• 1:36:51
  Speaker 1: know exactly everything you're bringing, all your essentials exactly. How
• 1:36:55
  Speaker 1: do you have it packed all the details. I'm really
• 1:36:58
  Speaker 1: curious about what your kid is, how you have it
• 1:37:00
  Speaker 1: all set up for this kind of scenario. Okay, So
• 1:37:03
  Speaker 1: in an incredibly kind of like micro view of my kit, uh,
• 1:37:08
  Speaker 1: it starts in the basement of my house. So my
• 1:37:12
  Speaker 1: my basement is kind of my my bow cave, man
• 1:37:14
  Speaker 1: cave whatever. UM. With all my analness uh anal retentiveness,
• 1:37:20
  Speaker 1: I also really big into tuning my own gear and
• 1:37:23
  Speaker 1: making sure it's absolutely perfect. And I think a lot
• 1:37:26
  Speaker 1: of that comes back to I don't want to track
• 1:37:28
  Speaker 1: a deer a yard further than I have to, UM,
• 1:37:32
  Speaker 1: and so I want to deliver the arrow as efficiently
• 1:37:35
  Speaker 1: as possible. So I have all of my gear kind
• 1:37:37
  Speaker 1: of organized down here between, you know. So I have
• 1:37:42
  Speaker 1: like a bin full of socks that have all of
• 1:37:44
  Speaker 1: the different thickness of socks, and then I have all
• 1:37:46
  Speaker 1: of my um basse layers, mid layers, you know, jackets, etcetera.
• 1:37:52
  Speaker 1: So I'll come down and get what I need for
• 1:37:54
  Speaker 1: my hunt. And I have kind of a airtight tote
• 1:37:58
  Speaker 1: that that I keep all that in. UM. I used
• 1:38:02
  Speaker 1: to wear street clothes out when I hunted, and I
• 1:38:07
  Speaker 1: still do that a lot, but in some of the
• 1:38:09
  Speaker 1: neighborhoods and I'm going to if I can park off
• 1:38:12
  Speaker 1: the street, then I will wear my camo in the
• 1:38:16
  Speaker 1: truck on my way out there. But if I if
• 1:38:18
  Speaker 1: I'm going to a newer area, or if I'm going
• 1:38:21
  Speaker 1: to an area that I might not be having like
• 1:38:25
  Speaker 1: a really good out of sight kind of parking spot,
• 1:38:28
  Speaker 1: then I'll wear like like a golf shirt and some
• 1:38:31
  Speaker 1: khakis or um. I've actually been wearing the first light.
• 1:38:36
  Speaker 1: I think it's a catalyst pant in the brown because
• 1:38:39
  Speaker 1: they look like khakis, but there they feel like sweatpants.
• 1:38:42
  Speaker 1: So it's easier for me. So I'll pack my gear
• 1:38:45
  Speaker 1: up in my house, take it out to my truck,
• 1:38:48
  Speaker 1: uh throwing the truck, drive to the property, and I'll
• 1:38:51
  Speaker 1: get dressed at the properties. So I'll have two toads
• 1:38:54
  Speaker 1: in the back of my truck. One will be all
• 1:38:56
  Speaker 1: my camo, which is one of these like Eagle Creek
• 1:39:00
  Speaker 1: dry bags, so it's it's airtight with all my gear
• 1:39:03
  Speaker 1: in it. And then I have a rubber made tote
• 1:39:05
  Speaker 1: that has all of my stuff and it's like my saddle,
• 1:39:09
  Speaker 1: my backpack, my camera arm uh and all that stuff
• 1:39:12
  Speaker 1: is layered in my tote as to when I need
• 1:39:16
  Speaker 1: it to put it on. So you know, it starts
• 1:39:19
  Speaker 1: with the saddle on top, then my backpack, then my
• 1:39:22
  Speaker 1: bino harness camera arm all that. So the order that
• 1:39:26
  Speaker 1: it that it's gonna go on my body is how
• 1:39:29
  Speaker 1: it comes out next. So get to the property park,
• 1:39:32
  Speaker 1: put my camera on, open my toe, start putting my
• 1:39:35
  Speaker 1: stuff on. I use the wild edge steps. Are you
• 1:39:39
  Speaker 1: familiar with those? You know, I haven't used them, but
• 1:39:41
  Speaker 1: I have heard of him. But can you describe them
• 1:39:43
  Speaker 1: for folks? Yeah, So it's. Um, it's a little metal
• 1:39:47
  Speaker 1: step that's maybe like five inches wide and maybe three
• 1:39:52
  Speaker 1: inches tall. It's got a little point. They packs into
• 1:39:54
  Speaker 1: a little green bag. Okay, And so I'll throw those on,
• 1:39:58
  Speaker 1: grab my bow, and I'm I'm walking off to the tree. Um,
• 1:40:04
  Speaker 1: is this a morning hunter or afternoon hunt? Let's say
• 1:40:06
  Speaker 1: it's an afternoon hunt. But let me pause you still
• 1:40:09
  Speaker 1: further and tell me. So you got your camera and
• 1:40:12
  Speaker 1: you're wearing your saddle, What about your tether? What about
• 1:40:15
  Speaker 1: your your belt? Yes? All that all that I daisy
• 1:40:21
  Speaker 1: chain up and it's clipped on on either side of
• 1:40:23
  Speaker 1: my hip. So my lineman's belt is always on my
• 1:40:25
  Speaker 1: left lineman's left Keep it simple, right, um, And that
• 1:40:29
  Speaker 1: what that does is I have my lineman's belt kind
• 1:40:32
  Speaker 1: of looped through on the left hand side, girth hitched
• 1:40:35
  Speaker 1: onto the lineman's loops, so there's only one um carabine
• 1:40:40
  Speaker 1: er that's needed. That's what's on my ropeman. So I'm
• 1:40:44
  Speaker 1: right handed. It just helps for me to take it
• 1:40:46
  Speaker 1: around the tree, clip it into the right lineman's belt
• 1:40:49
  Speaker 1: and tighten it down with my right hand. Both of
• 1:40:52
  Speaker 1: those are on on my hip. I don't I don't
• 1:40:55
  Speaker 1: want it in a baggy. I just kind of have them.
• 1:40:57
  Speaker 1: Daisy chain there, Are you familiar with with how to
• 1:41:00
  Speaker 1: do a daisy chain? Yeah, but you should probably walk
• 1:41:03
  Speaker 1: folks through it. Okay. So daisy chain is where you
• 1:41:06
  Speaker 1: take the rope and you create like a little half
• 1:41:08
  Speaker 1: hitch by twisting the rope over and then pulling the
• 1:41:14
  Speaker 1: I guess it would be the mail end through the
• 1:41:16
  Speaker 1: female in and kind of creating a loop with that
• 1:41:20
  Speaker 1: and then create pulling it down. So what it does
• 1:41:22
  Speaker 1: is you're doubling the rope up on itself over and
• 1:41:25
  Speaker 1: over again under a little bit of tension. Um, and
• 1:41:29
  Speaker 1: then you can clip it in, and so I'm able
• 1:41:31
  Speaker 1: to get a you know, seven foot rope down to
• 1:41:35
  Speaker 1: about the size of a basketball or excuse me, a football,
• 1:41:38
  Speaker 1: maybe a little smaller with that daisy chain, and then
• 1:41:41
  Speaker 1: the carabineers on the top, which is what's holding the
• 1:41:45
  Speaker 1: daisy chain together, and I can clip that onto my saddle.
• 1:41:49
  Speaker 1: So what I've created is this tiny little little thing
• 1:41:52
  Speaker 1: of rope that's that's no bigger than half of my thigh,
• 1:41:56
  Speaker 1: that's compact and hanging off of me on either side
• 1:42:00
  Speaker 1: of my body. So those are there and the carabineers
• 1:42:04
  Speaker 1: or what's clipping it onto yourself. So there's no real
• 1:42:06
  Speaker 1: metal exposure to hit anything. So you got your you
• 1:42:10
  Speaker 1: get your saddle on, You've got your daisy chained tether
• 1:42:13
  Speaker 1: in your lineman's belt on your hips um, you got
• 1:42:16
  Speaker 1: a backpack on, and do you have your steps inside
• 1:42:20
  Speaker 1: the backpack or they strapped to the outside of it.
• 1:42:22
  Speaker 1: So my steps are in this little green bag which
• 1:42:25
  Speaker 1: is part of the part of the wild Edge system,
• 1:42:28
  Speaker 1: and it's slung over my shoulder kind of over my
• 1:42:30
  Speaker 1: head on a forty five degree on my body. Those
• 1:42:33
  Speaker 1: are resting on my right hip and my backpacks on.
• 1:42:37
  Speaker 1: I have my bino harness on my chest. My bino
• 1:42:41
  Speaker 1: harness has my binoculars and my range finder in it,
• 1:42:44
  Speaker 1: and then I have my I use a thumb release
• 1:42:47
  Speaker 1: for hunting because I don't want to clanking around while
• 1:42:50
  Speaker 1: I'm climbing up the tree. Um, So I have that
• 1:42:53
  Speaker 1: in my either cargo pocket or or tucked into a pocket.
• 1:42:58
  Speaker 1: But I will put it into a pocket and make
• 1:43:00
  Speaker 1: sure it is zipped shut. The last thing I want
• 1:43:02
  Speaker 1: to do is climb all the way up a tree
• 1:43:04
  Speaker 1: and go where's that? Right? So, and I keep keep
• 1:43:10
  Speaker 1: an extra one in my backpack always because one is none? Right?
• 1:43:15
  Speaker 1: Who is one? One is none? So? Uh so I'm
• 1:43:18
  Speaker 1: walking in I have all that stuff kind of on me,
• 1:43:21
  Speaker 1: and it sounds like a lot, but it's really kind
• 1:43:23
  Speaker 1: of a very compact system, very seamless. I have my
• 1:43:25
  Speaker 1: bow in my left hand. I have my Predator platform
• 1:43:29
  Speaker 1: on my green bag, so that that's the little platform
• 1:43:34
  Speaker 1: from my feet for the saddle. On a lot of
• 1:43:36
  Speaker 1: my older preset trees, I used to have screw in steps,
• 1:43:40
  Speaker 1: but that was before the platform came out and really
• 1:43:44
  Speaker 1: saved every saddle hunter's life. Um that thing is a
• 1:43:48
  Speaker 1: game changer for everyone. It's really pretty sweet. So I
• 1:43:56
  Speaker 1: have that kind of clipped onto my green baggie using
• 1:43:59
  Speaker 1: one of the giant gear ties that come from guessing
• 1:44:03
  Speaker 1: gun from Home Depot or Amazon. But it's about uh
• 1:44:06
  Speaker 1: fifteen inches long and minds Blaze orange, so I can
• 1:44:09
  Speaker 1: see it easier, and I kind of wrap it around
• 1:44:12
  Speaker 1: the the standoff, through the through the platform base so
• 1:44:18
  Speaker 1: it doesn't move around at all. One of those like
• 1:44:21
  Speaker 1: bendy like night eyes things that we're talking about exactly. Yeah,
• 1:44:25
  Speaker 1: one of the giant ones. I think it's made for
• 1:44:27
  Speaker 1: like hanging stuff up in your garage. Um. And so
• 1:44:30
  Speaker 1: it's about you know, I think it's sixteen or eighteen
• 1:44:33
  Speaker 1: inches long. They come in different lengths and thicknesses. So, um,
• 1:44:38
  Speaker 1: that's what's kind of clipped on. And a lot of
• 1:44:40
  Speaker 1: my gear. You know, every time I use some gear,
• 1:44:43
  Speaker 1: I'm always thinking, Okay, how can I improve that? How
• 1:44:46
  Speaker 1: can that get better? What what can I do to
• 1:44:48
  Speaker 1: make that faster or more efficient or and and sometimes
• 1:44:52
  Speaker 1: that might be buying a different item, or sometimes that's
• 1:44:55
  Speaker 1: kind of making adjustments to that particular item. Um. So
• 1:45:00
  Speaker 1: all my stuff is kind of moded to some degree
• 1:45:04
  Speaker 1: for the most part if it needs it. Some of
• 1:45:07
  Speaker 1: the newer saddle stuff, though, doesn't need any modifications, which
• 1:45:11
  Speaker 1: is really pretty sweet. So so I walked to the tree.
• 1:45:15
  Speaker 1: In the wild edge bag, I only have, you know,
• 1:45:17
  Speaker 1: five or six wild edge steps. What's in there also
• 1:45:21
  Speaker 1: is an aider, a little five step climbing aid. So
• 1:45:26
  Speaker 1: what I'll do is I'll hang one at head height
• 1:45:28
  Speaker 1: and one at belly height or so, which is about
• 1:45:31
  Speaker 1: four ft four and a half feet. I'll clip the
• 1:45:33
  Speaker 1: aider onto the wild edge step that's above my head,
• 1:45:38
  Speaker 1: and then I will pull my bow rope out of
• 1:45:42
  Speaker 1: my left pocket of my backpack. So the backpack has
• 1:45:47
  Speaker 1: the waistband on it. On that waistband there multiple pockets,
• 1:45:52
  Speaker 1: so I have it. I have my poll rope on there.
• 1:45:54
  Speaker 1: The way that I carry my poll rope, it's pretty simple.
• 1:45:57
  Speaker 1: I have one end that has a little tiny locking
• 1:46:05
  Speaker 1: I guess um clip for a lack of a better
• 1:46:10
  Speaker 1: term than I picked up at a hardware store. I
• 1:46:12
  Speaker 1: think it's for a flag. But you press on a
• 1:46:14
  Speaker 1: little button and instead of it being like a keychain clip,
• 1:46:17
  Speaker 1: it opens up like an alligator mouth with two two
• 1:46:21
  Speaker 1: hooks on the other side. So I have that in
• 1:46:25
  Speaker 1: and I tie it in a figure eight not around
• 1:46:27
  Speaker 1: my thumb and my pinky when I'm done with it.
• 1:46:29
  Speaker 1: And what that does is I can clip the metal
• 1:46:31
  Speaker 1: part to wherever I want it, and I can pull
• 1:46:35
  Speaker 1: just enough out of this figure eight para cord to
• 1:46:38
  Speaker 1: tie onto my bow, and as I'm climbing, it'll just
• 1:46:41
  Speaker 1: pull itself out, so you don't have just twenty five
• 1:46:44
  Speaker 1: ft of rope just dangling around waiting for you know,
• 1:46:50
  Speaker 1: whatever rare influence to to screen up. It's just pulling out.
• 1:46:54
  Speaker 1: And then by the time you get up to your
• 1:46:55
  Speaker 1: hunting height, it's just ready to go. You just pull
• 1:46:58
  Speaker 1: it right back up. So, um, first two wild age
• 1:47:02
  Speaker 1: steps on the tree, clip that onto the bow. Then
• 1:47:05
  Speaker 1: I start walking up the eight ers so I can
• 1:47:07
  Speaker 1: I will put my alignement's belt on obviously. Can you
• 1:47:09
  Speaker 1: can you describe what you mean by native Yeah, So,
• 1:47:12
  Speaker 1: an eider is a nylon it's a system of nylon
• 1:47:15
  Speaker 1: runners with a carabean or on top. And so that
• 1:47:18
  Speaker 1: carabineers clipped onto the wild edge step and these aids
• 1:47:22
  Speaker 1: are these giant um, well, they're they're large nylon footholes basically,
• 1:47:28
  Speaker 1: so it's like a like a ladder made out of
• 1:47:31
  Speaker 1: nylon that you can walk up. It's what rock climbers use.
• 1:47:36
  Speaker 1: And this one in particular is rated to like killing
• 1:47:40
  Speaker 1: Newton's or something insanely more than I way. So, um,
• 1:47:46
  Speaker 1: what that allows me to do is get a lot
• 1:47:49
  Speaker 1: of space between my wild edge steps instead of having
• 1:47:53
  Speaker 1: to have one every two ft. You know, two of
• 1:47:56
  Speaker 1: them get me about eight ft, so I can you
• 1:48:00
  Speaker 1: six and be at no problem. And it's incredibly fast
• 1:48:05
  Speaker 1: and secure to climb up these things. So even if
• 1:48:10
  Speaker 1: you know you're climbing a sideways tree, I can lean
• 1:48:14
  Speaker 1: back into my alignment's belt and have the tension on
• 1:48:17
  Speaker 1: my feet and it's just like walking up, walking up
• 1:48:20
  Speaker 1: a ladder. Um, So you just kind of step up,
• 1:48:24
  Speaker 1: climb up the eight er to where you get to
• 1:48:26
  Speaker 1: your the first step that you hung. Now you're a
• 1:48:30
  Speaker 1: carabineer with the eights. You know, maybe at that chess
• 1:48:34
  Speaker 1: level you hang another one at eight feet, which is
• 1:48:37
  Speaker 1: as high as I can reach with my hand, and
• 1:48:40
  Speaker 1: I clip the eight on that and repeat the process. Um.
• 1:48:44
  Speaker 1: It's a really slick way to ascend quickly and quietly,
• 1:48:51
  Speaker 1: very very easily, in the way that the wild edge
• 1:48:55
  Speaker 1: bag kind of sits on your hip. All those little
• 1:48:58
  Speaker 1: steps are right there. There's no need to be clanking
• 1:49:02
  Speaker 1: around anything. They're held totally securely there. Uh. And they
• 1:49:05
  Speaker 1: connect by by using a rope. So you you you
• 1:49:09
  Speaker 1: put the rope around the tree and then you tie.
• 1:49:11
  Speaker 1: It's not even a knot. It's just a loop that
• 1:49:14
  Speaker 1: goes under, then back down and over, so it pulls
• 1:49:17
  Speaker 1: tension on itself to where it keeps you totally secure
• 1:49:22
  Speaker 1: on the step. Um. Sorry, do you keep an eight
• 1:49:27
  Speaker 1: on each step? So you bring so so when you
• 1:49:30
  Speaker 1: step up to the eight or so, so you have
• 1:49:33
  Speaker 1: two steps. If you're a ground level, you have one
• 1:49:36
  Speaker 1: step at you know, let's call it belly button height
• 1:49:38
  Speaker 1: or bottom of your bino harness height. You have another
• 1:49:41
  Speaker 1: step at as about as high as your hand can reach,
• 1:49:45
  Speaker 1: which for me is a little over eight ft. So
• 1:49:47
  Speaker 1: my aider goes on my top one at eight ft.
• 1:49:51
  Speaker 1: Then I walk up it and my feet go onto
• 1:49:54
  Speaker 1: now the step that was at bino harness heights, so
• 1:49:58
  Speaker 1: about four and a half feet off the ground from me.
• 1:50:00
  Speaker 1: I then hang another step at at the new eight
• 1:50:04
  Speaker 1: foot level, so you know, twelve and a half feet
• 1:50:07
  Speaker 1: in this scenario, which is the eight feet on top
• 1:50:10
  Speaker 1: of the four and a half feet that I'm currently
• 1:50:12
  Speaker 1: off the ground, and then take my eider off of
• 1:50:16
  Speaker 1: what was originally the eight foot one when I was
• 1:50:18
  Speaker 1: on the ground and move it up and then I
• 1:50:20
  Speaker 1: walk up that AID or to the next middle level.
• 1:50:24
  Speaker 1: So so the way the AID works is the AID
• 1:50:26
  Speaker 1: is always going to be on your highest step. So
• 1:50:31
  Speaker 1: so since you're not going all the way up to
• 1:50:34
  Speaker 1: that top step, you're able to just move it from
• 1:50:39
  Speaker 1: what was the highest step to the new highest step
• 1:50:42
  Speaker 1: that you've hung. Does that make sense. Yes, here's bending
• 1:50:45
  Speaker 1: out on clipping it and then standing back up and
• 1:50:47
  Speaker 1: clipping on the next one, right, And so really when
• 1:50:49
  Speaker 1: you're climbing though it, you'll never have to bend down
• 1:50:53
  Speaker 1: because it's starting at eight ft above your head. You're
• 1:50:56
  Speaker 1: walking up to to whatever is at four and a
• 1:50:58
  Speaker 1: half feet and then so once you're there, that eight
• 1:51:02
  Speaker 1: is only the eights rate at belly button level or
• 1:51:05
  Speaker 1: maybe a little higher, so you can just clip it off,
• 1:51:08
  Speaker 1: you know, pull the cariban or off, click it to
• 1:51:10
  Speaker 1: the next one. So what what this eliminates is it
• 1:51:15
  Speaker 1: eliminates having you know, four lone wolf sticks dangling behind you. Um,
• 1:51:22
  Speaker 1: you know, clanking around on everything. Then you got the
• 1:51:25
  Speaker 1: metal buckles and all that. It's really pretty a slick system.
• 1:51:29
  Speaker 1: And you just kind of pull the rope around the
• 1:51:30
  Speaker 1: tree tie this little um it's not even a knot,
• 1:51:34
  Speaker 1: you know, you come under the step and then you
• 1:51:36
  Speaker 1: come around it and down and so it sentches on
• 1:51:39
  Speaker 1: itself to where it can't move at all, and um,
• 1:51:45
  Speaker 1: it really works well. It takes a little while to
• 1:51:47
  Speaker 1: kind of get used to how to flip the the
• 1:51:50
  Speaker 1: while that's stepped down to where it's super tight. But
• 1:51:54
  Speaker 1: I mean, I'm two forty pounds and I could do
• 1:51:57
  Speaker 1: jumping jacks on these things without fear. They're they're really
• 1:52:01
  Speaker 1: pretty impressive. It's that flipping down to that's what really
• 1:52:04
  Speaker 1: gets the tension right. It kind of calms down correct,
• 1:52:06
  Speaker 1: because what you're doing is you have these two little
• 1:52:09
  Speaker 1: standoffs is what they're called. It's what what pushes the
• 1:52:12
  Speaker 1: actual crossbar off of the tree that's flushed to the
• 1:52:16
  Speaker 1: tree when you're tying the the the not, if you'll
• 1:52:19
  Speaker 1: call it that. And so when you cam it down,
• 1:52:22
  Speaker 1: you're you're now creating another four inches of tension or
• 1:52:25
  Speaker 1: however far it's standing off the tree. Maybe it's like
• 1:52:28
  Speaker 1: three and a half inches and really pushing it out
• 1:52:31
  Speaker 1: to where um it, it's not going anywhere. I mean
• 1:52:35
  Speaker 1: that sucker bites into the tree a pretty good bit. Interesting. Okay,
• 1:52:40
  Speaker 1: So so walk us through the rest of the year. Yeah, yeah,
• 1:52:45
  Speaker 1: So halfway up, we'll get all the way up to
• 1:52:47
  Speaker 1: hunting height. Now we're about you know, three and a
• 1:52:49
  Speaker 1: half to five minutes in. I'll hang my platform on
• 1:52:52
  Speaker 1: the side of the tree that I'm gonna be hunting from. Uh,
• 1:52:57
  Speaker 1: step up onto that platform, and then I'll take my tether,
• 1:53:01
  Speaker 1: tie my tether off, and clip in. Okay. Now, once
• 1:53:04
  Speaker 1: I'm clipped in, I have a ropeman as center on
• 1:53:07
  Speaker 1: my tether. I have also have a prussic knot above
• 1:53:12
  Speaker 1: my ropeman And what I use that for is I
• 1:53:15
  Speaker 1: take my backpack off and I clip my backpack onto
• 1:53:20
  Speaker 1: that prusse ictnot. Then I opened up my backpack. In
• 1:53:24
  Speaker 1: the top of my backpack, I have what a climber
• 1:53:28
  Speaker 1: would call a daisy chain, which is just like a
• 1:53:32
  Speaker 1: you know, five ft six ft long piece of nylon
• 1:53:36
  Speaker 1: that's doubled back on itself in every inch and a
• 1:53:40
  Speaker 1: half or two inches. It's a son loop and on
• 1:53:44
  Speaker 1: the end of that. I have a carabineer and so
• 1:53:46
  Speaker 1: I put that around the tree and clip it on
• 1:53:48
  Speaker 1: whatever loop I need to to make it tight. And
• 1:53:52
  Speaker 1: I have one of these night eyes. It's an S hook.
• 1:53:57
  Speaker 1: It's a plastic S hook. I think it's a size
• 1:54:00
  Speaker 1: five or size six, and I've taken the wire gate
• 1:54:04
  Speaker 1: out of the bottom one. So I don't know if
• 1:54:07
  Speaker 1: you're familiar with what I'm talking about, but it's kind
• 1:54:09
  Speaker 1: of like a large plastic holder that people use in
• 1:54:11
  Speaker 1: their garage. So I clip that on whatever whatever clip
• 1:54:15
  Speaker 1: I need it for to be right on the left
• 1:54:18
  Speaker 1: hand side of the tree, and then I'll pull my
• 1:54:21
  Speaker 1: bow up and put my bow on the open hook
• 1:54:24
  Speaker 1: portion of the bottom part. The reason I do this
• 1:54:27
  Speaker 1: is it's way faster to throw this this little nylon
• 1:54:31
  Speaker 1: runner around the tree and and use it for a
• 1:54:34
  Speaker 1: bow holder in my backpack holder. And then it is
• 1:54:37
  Speaker 1: to sit there and screw in a little thingy on
• 1:54:41
  Speaker 1: two sides of the tree. Uh. So, now that that's up,
• 1:54:45
  Speaker 1: I'll take my backpack off. I'll clip my backpack onto
• 1:54:48
  Speaker 1: the lower, you know, the right hand side portion of
• 1:54:51
  Speaker 1: that that's about at waist height. So now my bows up.
• 1:54:55
  Speaker 1: My bows on the tree. I haven't taken my cam
• 1:54:59
  Speaker 1: cover or knocked arrow or anything. The bows just come
• 1:55:02
  Speaker 1: up the tree. It's hanging there. I got my backpack
• 1:55:04
  Speaker 1: on the tree. Now I pulled my camera arm off,
• 1:55:07
  Speaker 1: set my camera arm up, take the bow around. I'll
• 1:55:10
  Speaker 1: knock an arrow, you know, take the uh quiver and
• 1:55:14
  Speaker 1: take my little bow cam cover and hang that on
• 1:55:17
  Speaker 1: the back side of my backpack to where they're not
• 1:55:19
  Speaker 1: flopping around on the wind. And then pull my camera out,
• 1:55:23
  Speaker 1: set my camera up, and uh, take my lineman's belt off.
• 1:55:27
  Speaker 1: Now I'm hunting and um. That whole process, going slow
• 1:55:34
  Speaker 1: and smooth, takes me about ten to twelve minutes from ground.
• 1:55:38
  Speaker 1: Two arrow knocked, releases, clipped on the d loop, ready
• 1:55:42
  Speaker 1: to go. Um, I could do it as like, if
• 1:55:45
  Speaker 1: I wasn't worried about the noise that I'm making, I
• 1:55:47
  Speaker 1: could probably do it in five minutes. But I try
• 1:55:49
  Speaker 1: to go pretty slow and uh and be as quiet
• 1:55:54
  Speaker 1: as as humanly possible. But it's amazing how fast you
• 1:55:57
  Speaker 1: can fly up the tree once you're comfortable with one
• 1:55:59
  Speaker 1: of the saddles and comfortable with whatever climbing method you choose. Yeah,
• 1:56:04
  Speaker 1: and would you agree that, especially if you're just getting
• 1:56:07
  Speaker 1: started with this. A key thing to do is practice
• 1:56:10
  Speaker 1: before the season and develop that system and get comfortable
• 1:56:13
  Speaker 1: with it. Yes, and and you know, the cool thing
• 1:56:16
  Speaker 1: about saddles is also what is is kind of hard
• 1:56:19
  Speaker 1: for some people to kind of figure out. So first off,
• 1:56:23
  Speaker 1: you know, a saddle is is totally customizable. You know, Mark,
• 1:56:29
  Speaker 1: you you started hunting with a saddle this year, and
• 1:56:31
  Speaker 1: I bet your saddle is probably completely differently set up
• 1:56:34
  Speaker 1: than my saddle. If we got fifty saddle hunters in
• 1:56:37
  Speaker 1: a room, we probably all have it set up a
• 1:56:41
  Speaker 1: little bit different. And that's because you know, the saddle
• 1:56:44
  Speaker 1: is totally modular and it allows you to kind of
• 1:56:46
  Speaker 1: cater to your wants and needs. Whereas if you look
• 1:56:51
  Speaker 1: at the old lone Wolf system that I used to use,
• 1:56:53
  Speaker 1: like that's all you get. You have sticks, you have
• 1:56:57
  Speaker 1: a stand, like, you don't have many options to kind
• 1:56:59
  Speaker 1: of play around with within that medium. Really, so um,
• 1:57:05
  Speaker 1: you need to play around with the saddle at at
• 1:57:07
  Speaker 1: ground height. You need to shoot from one, you know,
• 1:57:10
  Speaker 1: figure out what's comfortable, figure out what's not, and figure
• 1:57:13
  Speaker 1: out what kind of climbing method you're gonna use to
• 1:57:17
  Speaker 1: go from on the ground to whatever your desired hunting
• 1:57:21
  Speaker 1: height is and and hunting. And you also need to
• 1:57:25
  Speaker 1: practice different shot opportunities from the saddle. Um. You know,
• 1:57:31
  Speaker 1: it's great to be able to hunt with the tree
• 1:57:33
  Speaker 1: directly in front of your face, but you need to
• 1:57:36
  Speaker 1: practice for a right handed shooter, how you're gonna shoot
• 1:57:40
  Speaker 1: to your to your right hand side. And that has
• 1:57:44
  Speaker 1: gotten many guys in trouble for their first couple of
• 1:57:47
  Speaker 1: saddle huts. I can't tell you how many guys are like, oh, dude,
• 1:57:50
  Speaker 1: I try to saddle and I had to shoot her it,
• 1:57:54
  Speaker 1: you know, twenty yards right off my right hip, and
• 1:57:56
  Speaker 1: I couldn't figure out how to get them. Um. You know,
• 1:57:59
  Speaker 1: with the platform, that's really helped out a lot because
• 1:58:02
  Speaker 1: you can just literally you can just stand up and
• 1:58:04
  Speaker 1: spin around and shoot if you wanted to. UM, And
• 1:58:08
  Speaker 1: you can kind of develop what's comfortable and what's not.
• 1:58:10
  Speaker 1: But but really what you want to develop is that
• 1:58:13
  Speaker 1: confidence in your equipment. Because when you're just hanging there
• 1:58:17
  Speaker 1: with your butt hiked out over the ground with nothing
• 1:58:21
  Speaker 1: between your button the ground, UM, it's a little scary
• 1:58:26
  Speaker 1: at first to kind of get that confidence in your system.
• 1:58:29
  Speaker 1: I'm at the point now where like I sleep in
• 1:58:31
  Speaker 1: my saddle. If I get up early and I'm like
• 1:58:34
  Speaker 1: in there an hour before daylight, I'll just you know,
• 1:58:37
  Speaker 1: put my head kind of down on my hands and
• 1:58:39
  Speaker 1: get it all wrapped up into my bridge and I'll
• 1:58:42
  Speaker 1: take a full on nap. I mean it's I'm super
• 1:58:45
  Speaker 1: comfortable on one, but I've also spent the last ten
• 1:58:47
  Speaker 1: years hunting out of one, uh and and hunting a
• 1:58:51
  Speaker 1: lot out of one. Yeah, yeah, I can. I can
• 1:58:53
  Speaker 1: attest to that. It does take a take a minute
• 1:58:55
  Speaker 1: to get used to it, but very quickly I came
• 1:58:59
  Speaker 1: to realize that, uh, that this is going to be
• 1:59:01
  Speaker 1: my new thing that I'd be using all the time.
• 1:59:03
  Speaker 1: I mean, it really is nice. Everything you mentioned is true.
• 1:59:07
  Speaker 1: But do you have any specific examples of of things
• 1:59:10
  Speaker 1: you've learned over the years as far as how to
• 1:59:12
  Speaker 1: make a saddle more comfortable or more usable, or anything
• 1:59:16
  Speaker 1: that people should be trying them out in the tree
• 1:59:17
  Speaker 1: when they first first get one. Yeah, I mean I
• 1:59:21
  Speaker 1: really the first thing is what am I going to
• 1:59:24
  Speaker 1: do with my feet? Right? Because, um, whether you're going
• 1:59:28
  Speaker 1: to use a ring of steps or or use the platform.
• 1:59:32
  Speaker 1: I mean, I find the platform to be way better
• 1:59:35
  Speaker 1: for my feet because of the fact that instead of
• 1:59:38
  Speaker 1: just having one point of contact on your foot, you're
• 1:59:41
  Speaker 1: able to have your whole foot kind of balanced out um,
• 1:59:45
  Speaker 1: which I think is a big deal. After that, you know,
• 1:59:48
  Speaker 1: you really have to get comfortable with your tether height
• 1:59:52
  Speaker 1: and also where you're connecting to that tether. So tether
• 1:59:58
  Speaker 1: height is where are on the tree are you throwing
• 2:00:01
  Speaker 1: that rope around the tree in relation to your head.
• 2:00:05
  Speaker 1: I used to throw literally could not get the rope
• 2:00:09
  Speaker 1: high enough up the tree for me to be where
• 2:00:12
  Speaker 1: I wanted it to be. I mean, I I just
• 2:00:15
  Speaker 1: wanted it as high as possible. And with that, you know,
• 2:00:18
  Speaker 1: you're kind of it pulls you more into the tree.
• 2:00:21
  Speaker 1: So if you're a sitter, you know, if you find
• 2:00:24
  Speaker 1: it more comfortable to be sitting into the saddle with
• 2:00:26
  Speaker 1: your knee and the tree, that might be more comfortable.
• 2:00:30
  Speaker 1: If you like leaning more, the lower on the tree
• 2:00:33
  Speaker 1: it is, it's probably the better. And what you're really
• 2:00:35
  Speaker 1: doing is you're you're changing around that triangle. If you're
• 2:00:38
  Speaker 1: looking at a saddle hunter from the side profile, there's
• 2:00:42
  Speaker 1: kind of a triangle there as to how the weights
• 2:00:44
  Speaker 1: being distributed between the rope around the tree. Your butt
• 2:00:48
  Speaker 1: and then kind of your knees connecting or your feet
• 2:00:51
  Speaker 1: connecting wherever that lower point of contact is. I find
• 2:00:55
  Speaker 1: it most comfortable for me personally. I used to be
• 2:00:58
  Speaker 1: a sitter. I used to always sit with my knees
• 2:01:00
  Speaker 1: in the tree. Now with the platform, I lean back,
• 2:01:05
  Speaker 1: so I tie the rope around the tree almost at
• 2:01:09
  Speaker 1: forehead height, maybe at like eyebrow height, and then I'm
• 2:01:12
  Speaker 1: clipping into the saddle and tightening it up to where
• 2:01:16
  Speaker 1: I'm almost standing like totally vertically. And what what I
• 2:01:21
  Speaker 1: end up at is my knees or maybe slightly bent,
• 2:01:25
  Speaker 1: and I'm leaning back almost as if you know, I'm
• 2:01:29
  Speaker 1: I'm almost standing there. Uh you know, maybe the way
• 2:01:32
  Speaker 1: it's probably se in my butt on my feet, and
• 2:01:38
  Speaker 1: I'm more comfortable in that position then I am in
• 2:01:42
  Speaker 1: the leather recliner in my in my bow cave. I mean,
• 2:01:46
  Speaker 1: it is super comfortable. But what what guys need to
• 2:01:50
  Speaker 1: do is you have to put the time in in
• 2:01:53
  Speaker 1: the saddle in your yard until you get to that
• 2:01:56
  Speaker 1: one hour point, because what will happen is you'll sit
• 2:01:59
  Speaker 1: in it. You're like, oh man, this is the bee's knees,
• 2:02:02
  Speaker 1: this is the ticket. I'm super comfortable, and then you'll
• 2:02:04
  Speaker 1: go hunt in it and by hour or two you're like,
• 2:02:06
  Speaker 1: oh my god, I'm f and miserable. This is brutal,
• 2:02:09
  Speaker 1: Like it's pinching here and here, and you just need
• 2:02:12
  Speaker 1: to kind of fine tune it and literally changing where
• 2:02:16
  Speaker 1: that where that connection point is between the bridge of
• 2:02:20
  Speaker 1: the saddle and the and the tether rope by a
• 2:02:24
  Speaker 1: quarter of an inch or by a half inch, that
• 2:02:26
  Speaker 1: can make all the difference in the world as far
• 2:02:29
  Speaker 1: as the comfort of a hunt in the same with
• 2:02:32
  Speaker 1: where that tether is tied around the tree. I mean,
• 2:02:35
  Speaker 1: to go from let's say three inches or a fist
• 2:02:37
  Speaker 1: above head height too nose level is a world of
• 2:02:42
  Speaker 1: difference in comfort. And that's because you know, you're changing
• 2:02:46
  Speaker 1: the way that you're pulling on your body with the
• 2:02:49
  Speaker 1: gravity of of how the tree is, and that changes
• 2:02:52
  Speaker 1: a little when the tree is you know, angled to
• 2:02:56
  Speaker 1: some direction as well. So you really just need to
• 2:02:59
  Speaker 1: get in it and put the time in it, uh
• 2:03:02
  Speaker 1: to figure it out. I mean, did you find that
• 2:03:05
  Speaker 1: in your saddle hunting kind of endeavor this season? How
• 2:03:09
  Speaker 1: how changing an inch could really make the difference in
• 2:03:12
  Speaker 1: a in a comfort level, huge, huge difference that was.
• 2:03:16
  Speaker 1: It was all those little tiny micro tweaks that would
• 2:03:18
  Speaker 1: change things up. Now, I still I still found myself.
• 2:03:22
  Speaker 1: I definitely had a handful of things, Like I knew
• 2:03:24
  Speaker 1: where I wanted my tether at. I knew I liked
• 2:03:26
  Speaker 1: it pretty tight. I was more of a standard um.
• 2:03:29
  Speaker 1: But I would sometimes, especially like all days sits during
• 2:03:32
  Speaker 1: the rut, those long sits, I would find myself sometimes
• 2:03:34
  Speaker 1: just changing things up so that the tension was in
• 2:03:37
  Speaker 1: different places. So after sitting in one kind of certain
• 2:03:40
  Speaker 1: way for four hours, then I would lower the tether,
• 2:03:42
  Speaker 1: I bring my ropeman down the tether um and then
• 2:03:45
  Speaker 1: I'd be more of a sitter for a while. UM.
• 2:03:48
  Speaker 1: Sometimes I would kind of turn and put both my
• 2:03:50
  Speaker 1: legs to the left side of the trunk and kind
• 2:03:52
  Speaker 1: of do that side saddle move, and then I would reposition.
• 2:03:55
  Speaker 1: And having the platform is really nice because sometimes you
• 2:03:58
  Speaker 1: could just stand for a while, and I think, you know,
• 2:04:02
  Speaker 1: playing around with different things, switching things up every once
• 2:04:04
  Speaker 1: in a while does help make it more comfortable, because
• 2:04:06
  Speaker 1: I do think that if you stayed in one specific
• 2:04:10
  Speaker 1: position the entire time, you know, at least for me,
• 2:04:13
  Speaker 1: there were times that you, like you said, you get
• 2:04:15
  Speaker 1: those pinches, different things on those lines, but the the
• 2:04:19
  Speaker 1: versatility allowed with the saddle makes it makes it as
• 2:04:24
  Speaker 1: comfortable as it can be. Like, if you're willing to
• 2:04:26
  Speaker 1: tweak things and ad just as needed as you figure
• 2:04:29
  Speaker 1: it out, that's how you're gonna make it comfortable. If
• 2:04:30
  Speaker 1: you just take it out of the box when you
• 2:04:33
  Speaker 1: bought it, or take it out of the bag and
• 2:04:34
  Speaker 1: slap it on and head up into a tree and
• 2:04:36
  Speaker 1: just sit there, you might be miserable because you didn't
• 2:04:40
  Speaker 1: tweak and adjust and find out what's right for your
• 2:04:43
  Speaker 1: comfort level. So I think your spot on, I think
• 2:04:45
  Speaker 1: those um that learning experience is really important. Yeah. I
• 2:04:50
  Speaker 1: couldn't agree more. You really need to take the time
• 2:04:53
  Speaker 1: to to play with it. I've had a lot of
• 2:04:55
  Speaker 1: guys they're like, how do you come from the sing?
• 2:04:57
  Speaker 1: This thing is miserable and it felt like a some
• 2:05:00
  Speaker 1: archaic torture device. While I was I was hunting in
• 2:05:02
  Speaker 1: it and like, well, dude, you need to need to
• 2:05:05
  Speaker 1: figure out. I mean, I was talking to one guy
• 2:05:06
  Speaker 1: at a t A and he was explaining where he
• 2:05:09
  Speaker 1: was wearing the saddle and it was basically around his armpits,
• 2:05:12
  Speaker 1: and I was like, yeah, you just I don't know
• 2:05:17
  Speaker 1: how you guys draw in this thing. I mean it's miserable,
• 2:05:20
  Speaker 1: you know, Like, well, dude, you know, of course you're
• 2:05:22
  Speaker 1: wearing it like a bra instead of like like under
• 2:05:25
  Speaker 1: your butt. Man, what do you expect? Man? Yeah, But
• 2:05:30
  Speaker 1: but as long as you tinker around with it and
• 2:05:33
  Speaker 1: try to figure out the um, what's comfortable for you
• 2:05:37
  Speaker 1: and and again what's comfortable for me might not be
• 2:05:39
  Speaker 1: comfortable for you and and everybody else because we all
• 2:05:42
  Speaker 1: have different kind of builds and in different ways that
• 2:05:47
  Speaker 1: we feel comfortable. So really kind of messing around with
• 2:05:50
  Speaker 1: different different stuff is what really gets you there. I
• 2:05:53
  Speaker 1: find that I end up kind of with like one
• 2:05:55
  Speaker 1: foot on the platform, one on the tree, and kind
• 2:05:59
  Speaker 1: of like changing that around. Um, just changing that that
• 2:06:03
  Speaker 1: pressure point and really help with comfort, especially on long
• 2:06:06
  Speaker 1: day sits. But you're right, the versatility is is the
• 2:06:10
  Speaker 1: reason that I hunt from one. I mean I can
• 2:06:12
  Speaker 1: hunt any tree in the woods, not just you know,
• 2:06:16
  Speaker 1: you get to a spot and you're like, Okay, here's
• 2:06:18
  Speaker 1: where I want to hunt. But I can't use that one,
• 2:06:20
  Speaker 1: can't use that one. I can't use that one. I
• 2:06:23
  Speaker 1: mean I've been in some trees that are smaller around
• 2:06:26
  Speaker 1: than my thigh and and had no issue with it
• 2:06:30
  Speaker 1: other than when the wind's blowing, I'm like, this thing
• 2:06:32
  Speaker 1: might snap in half. But what I mean, um, you
• 2:06:36
  Speaker 1: have to hunt where you where you need to in
• 2:06:39
  Speaker 1: order to kill the deer. Yeah, I really, Um, I
• 2:06:43
  Speaker 1: was converted. I've been intrigued by it for a long time,
• 2:06:46
  Speaker 1: finally took the diet this year, and the saddle hunting
• 2:06:50
  Speaker 1: community now has my heart. I've fallen for it, and
• 2:06:53
  Speaker 1: uh it's It's something I'll be using for a long time,
• 2:06:56
  Speaker 1: I think. So it's interesting to hear how you're using
• 2:06:59
  Speaker 1: it though, in this kind of urban scenario where you
• 2:07:01
  Speaker 1: have to hunt so many different places, and this seems
• 2:07:04
  Speaker 1: to be the perfect tool for the job. So um,
• 2:07:08
  Speaker 1: well we are. We're only like halfway through the various
• 2:07:12
  Speaker 1: things I was wanting to talk about, but we've covered
• 2:07:15
  Speaker 1: a lot of interesting grounds, so I think we probably
• 2:07:18
  Speaker 1: should wrap it up before we get to uh a
• 2:07:20
  Speaker 1: seven hour podcast. Um um, if you want, if you
• 2:07:24
  Speaker 1: have any other like pressing things on your list or whatever,
• 2:07:27
  Speaker 1: I'm happy to like rapid fire some of them. Well
• 2:07:29
  Speaker 1: we might we might just need to circle back again
• 2:07:31
  Speaker 1: another time too, But let's let's do this. Is there
• 2:07:38
  Speaker 1: any one thing that that is like a burning topic
• 2:07:41
  Speaker 1: in your mind that you always like to leave folks
• 2:07:44
  Speaker 1: with when you're talking about this whole urban hunting deal
• 2:07:46
  Speaker 1: or saddle hunting for that matter, Since we kind of
• 2:07:48
  Speaker 1: touched on both, is there anything we've missed that people
• 2:07:51
  Speaker 1: really need to know about before they take the dive
• 2:07:53
  Speaker 1: into either one of these types of going going about it? No, man,
• 2:07:57
  Speaker 1: I mean, um, and we really covered a lot of it.
• 2:08:01
  Speaker 1: The you know, I don't want to scare guys off
• 2:08:03
  Speaker 1: from from urban hunting. I mean, there's there's an incredible
• 2:08:07
  Speaker 1: opportunity out there no matter where you live to try
• 2:08:11
  Speaker 1: and you know, more likely than not, there's a deer
• 2:08:15
  Speaker 1: problem in those urban or suburban areas, and um, you know,
• 2:08:20
  Speaker 1: it only takes a little bit of research or just
• 2:08:23
  Speaker 1: reaching out to your local you know, legislation enforcement, you know,
• 2:08:30
  Speaker 1: whether that's game wardens or police officers or whatever, and
• 2:08:32
  Speaker 1: kind of looking at, um if you're able to discharge
• 2:08:36
  Speaker 1: a bow there and hunt the deer, and if you can,
• 2:08:39
  Speaker 1: you know, get out there and try it, because it's
• 2:08:43
  Speaker 1: a great fun way to hunt. I mean, I'm able
• 2:08:45
  Speaker 1: to go out and hunt any day of the year.
• 2:08:48
  Speaker 1: When I found out that my wife was pregnant last year,
• 2:08:50
  Speaker 1: I kind of had a little worries. I'm freak out
• 2:08:53
  Speaker 1: where I'm like, oh my god, I'm never gonna be
• 2:08:55
  Speaker 1: able to hunt over again. And I literally hunted every
• 2:08:58
  Speaker 1: day that the weather wasn't completely miss your bowl. I
• 2:09:01
  Speaker 1: think I hunted like two d thirty five, two hundred
• 2:09:03
  Speaker 1: forty days last year. And I mean I'm doing that
• 2:09:06
  Speaker 1: within a fifteen minute driving my house or ten minute drive.
• 2:09:10
  Speaker 1: I mean some some places I'm driving to, I mean
• 2:09:13
  Speaker 1: it's literally five minutes. I could walk there if I
• 2:09:16
  Speaker 1: really needed to. And you know, you have this incredible
• 2:09:19
  Speaker 1: opportunity where you know, it's funny that when I moved
• 2:09:23
  Speaker 1: back to this area from college, I'm like, man, this sucks.
• 2:09:27
  Speaker 1: You know, I'm not gonna be able to do all
• 2:09:29
  Speaker 1: this outdoor stuff that I used to love so much.
• 2:09:32
  Speaker 1: And I ended up in this like amazing little deer
• 2:09:34
  Speaker 1: hunting nirvana that I didn't even know about or think
• 2:09:37
  Speaker 1: about at the time. So if you can keep an
• 2:09:40
  Speaker 1: open mind, you you might realize that some of the
• 2:09:43
  Speaker 1: best hunting is where you least expect it. And you know,
• 2:09:47
  Speaker 1: is this Iowa is in Kansas. No, it's far from it.
• 2:09:50
  Speaker 1: But you know, once you kind of get into the
• 2:09:53
  Speaker 1: urban hunting and realize the opportunity that's there. I mean,
• 2:09:57
  Speaker 1: I'm a member of a hunt club that's like US Acres,
• 2:10:01
  Speaker 1: about forty minutes from my house, and it's you know,
• 2:10:04
  Speaker 1: qt May Managed. It's phenomenal hunting ground. It's just awesome.
• 2:10:09
  Speaker 1: And I hunted there one time this year because I
• 2:10:12
  Speaker 1: like the urban hunts. You know, it feels weird to
• 2:10:15
  Speaker 1: me when I'm not in somebody's backyard or in the
• 2:10:18
  Speaker 1: floodplane behind the houses. You know, it's just you get
• 2:10:21
  Speaker 1: to see so many deer and see so much activity,
• 2:10:25
  Speaker 1: and you have just an unbelievable amount of of targets. Um,
• 2:10:31
  Speaker 1: it's hard to pass that up. Yeah, I can understand
• 2:10:33
  Speaker 1: that for sure. So two last really quick things. Number one,
• 2:10:38
  Speaker 1: can you tell folks really quick about Hunters for the
• 2:10:40
  Speaker 1: Hungry because I know that's a program that you contribute
• 2:10:43
  Speaker 1: to a lot. And then after that, can you just
• 2:10:45
  Speaker 1: give us a quick idea of where we can follow
• 2:10:49
  Speaker 1: you online or see what you're up to. Yeah? Sure,
• 2:10:51
  Speaker 1: So Hunters for the Hungry is this phenomenal program. Uh,
• 2:10:55
  Speaker 1: it's actually a private organization that's partnered up with UM
• 2:10:59
  Speaker 1: all of the butchers in Virginia. Right, it's kind of
• 2:11:02
  Speaker 1: a blanket, blanketly open UH program that that the butchers
• 2:11:08
  Speaker 1: are able to participate in. And what they do is
• 2:11:12
  Speaker 1: they pay the butcher to process the deer, so they
• 2:11:15
  Speaker 1: have a deal with the butcher. So as a hunter,
• 2:11:18
  Speaker 1: you're able to just take your animal fuel dressed to
• 2:11:21
  Speaker 1: any butcher that's participating in the program, drop it off,
• 2:11:26
  Speaker 1: not a penny out of your pocket. You just say, hey, thanks,
• 2:11:28
  Speaker 1: have a good one, and they will process that deer
• 2:11:32
  Speaker 1: and and take all of the meat from that deer
• 2:11:36
  Speaker 1: along with all the other deer that have been donated
• 2:11:39
  Speaker 1: to hunters from the Hungary and they will provide it
• 2:11:41
  Speaker 1: to various homeless shelters and UH food banks for people
• 2:11:46
  Speaker 1: in need or people that are less fortunate. So UM
• 2:11:49
  Speaker 1: absolutely phenomenal program to be able to take, you know,
• 2:11:54
  Speaker 1: all these deer that people are harvesting and and use
• 2:11:58
  Speaker 1: them for good because I'm mean, what am I gonna
• 2:12:00
  Speaker 1: do with seventy plus white tail here? Yeah, And I
• 2:12:04
  Speaker 1: think especially in a situation like you're in in a
• 2:12:08
  Speaker 1: large metro area where you know there's a lot of
• 2:12:11
  Speaker 1: people in need. I think you're you're doing something pretty
• 2:12:14
  Speaker 1: special in that area. Absolutely, yeah, and and I mean, um,
• 2:12:18
  Speaker 1: it's not just me, it's every hunter around here to
• 2:12:21
  Speaker 1: to be able to to help all of those people
• 2:12:23
  Speaker 1: in need. I mean, we have a large homeless population
• 2:12:27
  Speaker 1: in d C obviously and also throughout in northern Virginia.
• 2:12:31
  Speaker 1: And you don't just have to be homeless to need food.
• 2:12:33
  Speaker 1: You know, there are a lot of people that are just, uh,
• 2:12:36
  Speaker 1: for whatever reason, in need of of some assistance. And
• 2:12:39
  Speaker 1: to be able to help that is, um is priceless.
• 2:12:41
  Speaker 1: So that's awesome. So then, uh, all that said, where
• 2:12:45
  Speaker 1: can we see what you're up to on the web? Yeah,
• 2:12:48
  Speaker 1: so on Instagram on both hunt at Hunt Urban and
• 2:12:52
  Speaker 1: also at Urban Bowman are are my two little feeds
• 2:12:57
  Speaker 1: on there. And then on YouTube we have a channel
• 2:13:00
  Speaker 1: called um Hunts Urban that putting a lot of vog
• 2:13:04
  Speaker 1: style urban hunts out on that are pretty cool, as
• 2:13:07
  Speaker 1: well as some tips and tricks and things you pick
• 2:13:09
  Speaker 1: up on when you hunt and fifty plus days a year.
• 2:13:13
  Speaker 1: And I checked out your YouTube channel saw your most
• 2:13:15
  Speaker 1: recent videos. I really like them. So anyone out there
• 2:13:18
  Speaker 1: who's intrigued by what Taylor is talking about check that
• 2:13:21
  Speaker 1: out for sure. So Taylor, thank you so much for
• 2:13:24
  Speaker 1: taking the time to do this. Uh. If I lived
• 2:13:27
  Speaker 1: closer to an urban area, I would be trying it
• 2:13:29
  Speaker 1: out for sure. This sounds a lot of fun. Hey man,
• 2:13:31
  Speaker 1: come on down. I got plenty of open bedrooms and
• 2:13:34
  Speaker 1: plenty of plenty of critters to Flynn carbon at, so
• 2:13:38
  Speaker 1: I might take you up on that. The the d
• 2:13:39
  Speaker 1: C Hunt is very intriguing. It's it's a unique one,
• 2:13:43
  Speaker 1: to say the least awesome. Alright, Taylor, good luck the
• 2:13:46
  Speaker 1: rest of this year. Thank you, thanks for having and
• 2:13:49
  Speaker 1: that is going to be it. I hope you enjoyed
• 2:13:51
  Speaker 1: that one. I'm gonna leave you guys with one quick
• 2:13:54
  Speaker 1: heads up or announcement. Uh, if you're listening to this
• 2:13:57
  Speaker 1: when it just came out Thursday, Valentine's Day, February four,
• 2:14:01
  Speaker 1: next week Friday, So that's February twenty second, I believe
• 2:14:07
  Speaker 1: is the Live Meat Eater podcast in Kalamazoo, Michigan. I'm
• 2:14:11
  Speaker 1: gonna be at that one speaking there, and there's going
• 2:14:14
  Speaker 1: to be an event before the podcast put on by
• 2:14:18
  Speaker 1: a couple of my favorite organizations, the back Country Hunters
• 2:14:20
  Speaker 1: and Anglers and the Equality Deer Management Association. This is
• 2:14:24
  Speaker 1: like a live pre party or meat Eator podcast or
• 2:14:27
  Speaker 1: live pre party, uh for folks that are gonna go
• 2:14:30
  Speaker 1: to the show, or folks who couldn't get tickets to
• 2:14:32
  Speaker 1: the show which want to come and hang out. There's
• 2:14:33
  Speaker 1: gonna be food, there's gonna be raffle prizes, there's gonna
• 2:14:36
  Speaker 1: be all sorts of cool stuff. They're giving away a rifle,
• 2:14:39
  Speaker 1: they're giving away some optics, They're giving away gift cards,
• 2:14:42
  Speaker 1: some weird hunt swag, all sorts of stuff like that.
• 2:14:45
  Speaker 1: So this is at let's see here five to seven
• 2:14:48
  Speaker 1: thirty pm on the twenty two at Harvey's on the Mall.
• 2:14:52
  Speaker 1: And that's supposedly right next to the venue where the
• 2:14:55
  Speaker 1: show is going to be, so check that out February
• 2:14:57
  Speaker 1: twenty two before the Mediator Live podcast. Should be a
• 2:15:01
  Speaker 1: good time. And with that little announcement out of the way,
• 2:15:04
  Speaker 1: I just want to thank you all for being here
• 2:15:06
  Speaker 1: with me. I want to wish all of your luck.
• 2:15:08
  Speaker 1: If you're out there looking for antlers or hanging tree stands,
• 2:15:11
  Speaker 1: or doing some kind of work on your hunting property
• 2:15:13
  Speaker 1: of choice, I hope you're having a good time. And
• 2:15:15
  Speaker 1: until next time, stay Wired, Don