Latest / Wired To Hunt Podcast / Ep. 336: Scouting, Hunting New States, Gut Pile Farts, and Deer Gear

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Ep. 336: Scouting, Hunting New States, Gut Pile Farts, and Deer Gear · 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,
0:12
Speaker 1: Mark Kenyon. Welcome to the wire to Hunt Podcast. I'm
0:17
Speaker 1: your host Mark Kenyan, and this is episode three thirty six.
0:21
Speaker 1: Today in the show, Dan and I are talking about
0:23
Speaker 1: spring scouting, shed hunting, beginner, dear gear, deer hunting, politics,
0:28
Speaker 1: and a whole lot more. All right, welcome to the
0:34
Speaker 1: Wired to Hunt podcast, brought to you by Onyx. I
0:37
Speaker 1: had a whole planned introduction, uh for the show, but
0:40
Speaker 1: it just has to go out the water because of
0:42
Speaker 1: what just happened. Yeah, I thought I was on my
0:46
Speaker 1: A game today, but and what I texted you today
0:49
Speaker 1: and I said, this is gonna be the greatest podcast
0:51
Speaker 1: we've ever recorded, and like one second into our phone call,
0:56
Speaker 1: it just all went out the window. Yes, somehow Dan
0:59
Speaker 1: Dan calls to start the podcast and he calls I
1:03
Speaker 1: don't know me and other people Andy May. We got
1:06
Speaker 1: any May's voicemail, and then several other people answer the phone.
1:10
Speaker 1: Who who knows who they were? Dan? How did you
1:13
Speaker 1: mar No? I don't know. I just I looked at
1:16
Speaker 1: my computer and I started hitting buttons and the next
1:18
Speaker 1: thing you know there's about five people on the line.
1:21
Speaker 1: I guess that's your typical start to the day. Huh.
1:25
Speaker 1: I I don't even have any kids in the room
1:26
Speaker 1: distracting me. They're they're seeping into every little bit of
1:30
Speaker 1: your life, even your free time. Well, I'm glad we
1:34
Speaker 1: figured it out. I'm glad we're here. Uh, glad we're
1:37
Speaker 1: getting to catch up Dan, because it's been been a
1:39
Speaker 1: little while. Um, here's what I want to do, alright.
1:43
Speaker 1: I want to take some time here to catch up
1:45
Speaker 1: on the front end, as we like to do when
1:47
Speaker 1: we're able to get together BS a little bit, talk
1:50
Speaker 1: about some current events. Uh, I had a kid since
1:54
Speaker 1: we last chatted. There's been some number two number two
1:58
Speaker 1: number two is here. Uh, we gotta talk about that
2:00
Speaker 1: a little bit. Um. We we also though, before we
2:04
Speaker 1: dive into kids, we also have to talk about shed
2:06
Speaker 1: hunting a little bit. We gotta talk a little bit
2:09
Speaker 1: about a dirty deer hunting politics debacle going on in
2:13
Speaker 1: Michigan right now, Dan, loop you in on that, um.
2:17
Speaker 1: And then we got to answer a whole bunch of questions.
2:18
Speaker 1: We've got I don't know how many dozens and dozens
2:22
Speaker 1: hundreds maybe of questions from listeners that have been sent
2:25
Speaker 1: in here recently, sort of talk about spring scouting stands,
2:30
Speaker 1: set up ideas, balancing hunting and family scouting, shit hunting
2:36
Speaker 1: h fart questions. I mean, we've got a whole we
2:41
Speaker 1: got a whole sal little things. So yeah, man, full
2:44
Speaker 1: slate oft stuff to talk about. But um, but yes,
2:48
Speaker 1: number two is here. Uh. He's a little over two
2:52
Speaker 1: weeks old now, healthy, happy. His name is Colton. And uh,
2:58
Speaker 1: I'm I'm two thirds of the understand in your life Dan,
3:01
Speaker 1: two thirds. Yeah, dude, I'll tell you what. Uh. I
3:05
Speaker 1: have a couple of friends and I'm not gonna say
3:07
Speaker 1: any names. They probably know who they are. But every
3:09
Speaker 1: once in a while, they'll they they will catch themselves
3:14
Speaker 1: complaining about having one kid, and I won't even have
3:17
Speaker 1: to say anything, and I'll just look at them and
3:21
Speaker 1: then they'll put their head down in shame because they
3:24
Speaker 1: know they only have one kid. Yeah. I'm getting to
3:28
Speaker 1: understand better and better every day. I just don't know.
3:31
Speaker 1: What I don't understand is how people do it with more? Like,
3:34
Speaker 1: how do people with four kids or five kids survive?
3:37
Speaker 1: You don't you just won one of them always is
3:39
Speaker 1: getting ignored, and that's the one that I don't know,
3:44
Speaker 1: stays inside and loves video games or something I don't like.
3:48
Speaker 1: I don't know. Uh, it's hard to pay attention, even
3:51
Speaker 1: with two adults, to all three of our kids at
3:53
Speaker 1: the same time. Someone's getting ignored. I've I've already wondered,
3:57
Speaker 1: just how is it gonna work this? You know, this
4:00
Speaker 1: bringing summer and especially fall when I have to take
4:02
Speaker 1: off and Kylie is here on her own, Like just
4:04
Speaker 1: something simple. It is like, how do you do a
4:06
Speaker 1: bathtime when you've got a two and a half year old?
4:08
Speaker 1: That's crazy? And then you've got an infant um? How
4:11
Speaker 1: do you do that? I don't even know. Just simple
4:14
Speaker 1: things like that. We're trying to think that, Okay, how
4:16
Speaker 1: do you make this work without one of the how
4:18
Speaker 1: do you do it and both survive? That's well, I'll
4:22
Speaker 1: tell you this right now. When it comes specifically to bathtime, Yeah,
4:26
Speaker 1: there might be a day or two that the kids
4:28
Speaker 1: don't get baths. As long as they're not covered in feces.
4:32
Speaker 1: I think it is a it's a it's a win
4:35
Speaker 1: if you if your kids are still breathing at the
4:37
Speaker 1: end of the day, it's a wind. I think I
4:40
Speaker 1: think you just keyed on. I think you just touched
4:42
Speaker 1: on the key, which is shifting baselines. You've got to
4:44
Speaker 1: change your expectations. More kids, you have the lower standards
4:47
Speaker 1: you have for quality of life. Yes, but healthy, healthy
4:54
Speaker 1: Mom's doing good. She's starting to feel like a regular
4:57
Speaker 1: person again a little bit, which is nice. As you know,
5:00
Speaker 1: those last weeks of pregnancy are tough. Um, so she's
5:04
Speaker 1: feeling good, and UM, we're just figuring stuff out. We're
5:07
Speaker 1: just trying to kind of figure out what the new
5:08
Speaker 1: normal is. And UM, I took a little bit of
5:12
Speaker 1: time sort of away from work. It wasn't doing as
5:15
Speaker 1: much at work and hung out more during the day
5:17
Speaker 1: helping out for the first couple of weeks. And now
5:20
Speaker 1: I'm back in the office full time this week. So
5:22
Speaker 1: now now Kylie is trying to figure out what the
5:24
Speaker 1: full day on her own looks like. So we'll get
5:27
Speaker 1: a we'll get a report card back at the end
5:28
Speaker 1: of the day. We'll see, we'll see how it went.
5:31
Speaker 1: But I think it's going okay. I haven't heard anything
5:34
Speaker 1: like the house is still standing. I haven't heard too
5:36
Speaker 1: much screaming. Uh, Kylie hasn't called me crying yet, so
5:39
Speaker 1: I'd say, so far, so good. Wow. Then then you're
5:42
Speaker 1: just into it, right, there's so much more time for
5:45
Speaker 1: you to fail as a father in husband. Yeah, you
5:48
Speaker 1: can speak from experience, right, every day? Every day? Yeah? Man?
5:53
Speaker 1: So what about you? Anything big new in the world
5:57
Speaker 1: of Dan Johnson? Uh? Since we talked about three four
6:00
Speaker 1: weeks ago. Oh man, you know, just uh, you know,
6:03
Speaker 1: there's some crazy things that happened in my life. My
6:06
Speaker 1: my social media got hacked. So do you think this
6:10
Speaker 1: is because of all that Russian porn? You watch Russian porn? Yeah,
6:13
Speaker 1: I'm assuming that's how the hackers got your stuff, right,
6:18
Speaker 1: the son of a bit. I didn't know it was
6:21
Speaker 1: gonna be this kind of podcast that caught you off
6:23
Speaker 1: guard for the next I know I did. I think
6:25
Speaker 1: I might have to throw you under the bus later.
6:28
Speaker 1: So anyways, continue, you got hacked? Yeah, I straight up
6:32
Speaker 1: got hacked. Uh. And it was Islamic right, So I
6:35
Speaker 1: think that when they when you say that, how do
6:37
Speaker 1: you what do you mean? How do you know you're
6:39
Speaker 1: saying that that's where the attack came from? Well that
6:43
Speaker 1: is what they posted. So I'm not I don't know
6:46
Speaker 1: too much about Islam. Or whatever. But I do know
6:49
Speaker 1: from watching the news and and just having exposure to
6:54
Speaker 1: um like the news and Islamic terrorism and stuff like that,
6:58
Speaker 1: it will It looked like the black isis flag that
7:02
Speaker 1: they posted on my personal page, and they must have
7:06
Speaker 1: tried to do it within nine finger Chronicles named themselves
7:09
Speaker 1: admin of my Instagram pages and basically they made uh
7:16
Speaker 1: several posts and then they tried to boost those posts
7:20
Speaker 1: for like three thousand six dollars. Now is that your
7:24
Speaker 1: money coming off your credit card or their credit card?
7:27
Speaker 1: Well it all got shut down before the boost was made,
7:32
Speaker 1: thank god. Um So, yeah, I had a week without
7:37
Speaker 1: social media and it scared the ship out of me
7:39
Speaker 1: because as you know, you you know, tried doing wired
7:42
Speaker 1: to Hunt or meat Eater without social media. It's important, yeah,
7:46
Speaker 1: very important, and uh so I had I was just
7:49
Speaker 1: was worried about that. Um that that was all last week. Finally,
7:56
Speaker 1: I made a comment on one of my podcasts about,
8:00
Speaker 1: you know, on the nine finger Chronicles podcast about if
8:03
Speaker 1: there's anybody out there, I'm desperate I could use some help.
8:06
Speaker 1: Some guy reached out to me and says, hey, man,
8:08
Speaker 1: I I know a guy. Let me see what I
8:10
Speaker 1: can do. I'm not promising anything. Two hours later, I
8:13
Speaker 1: got an email from Facebook saying, UM, you need to
8:17
Speaker 1: verify yourself. You need to go through this, that this,
8:21
Speaker 1: all these steps took me about thirty minutes, and UH
8:24
Speaker 1: changed my password, changed my email address, changed a whole
8:27
Speaker 1: bunch of different things, and had to go in and
8:30
Speaker 1: delete the posts that they made, delete the admins, and uh,
8:34
Speaker 1: finally late on Friday, I got access back to all
8:37
Speaker 1: my social media, which that's awesome. Yeah, thank god for that. Man. Yeah,
8:41
Speaker 1: I know you were stressing off about that pretty bad
8:44
Speaker 1: and understandably so glad it. Glad it came together. Although
8:48
Speaker 1: I gotta ask, was there a tiny bit of you
8:51
Speaker 1: that liked the fact that you didn't have your social
8:53
Speaker 1: media just because you didn't have to have that constant
8:55
Speaker 1: little tug to be looking at something or posting something
8:59
Speaker 1: or or any of that. You know what I mean, absolutely,
9:01
Speaker 1: and you're correct. I there was a part of me
9:05
Speaker 1: that was like, this sucks because you know, and I'm
9:09
Speaker 1: a firm believer that if I didn't have the nine
9:11
Speaker 1: finger chronicles and I didn't have um, any of what
9:15
Speaker 1: I have going on now, I probably wouldn't have Facebook
9:18
Speaker 1: or Instagram. Yeah, so I I was. I was. It
9:24
Speaker 1: was just something cool. I didn't have to worry about it.
9:27
Speaker 1: I wasn't on my phone flipping through things. And you
9:29
Speaker 1: know how you get into the Instagram black hole. You
9:32
Speaker 1: go on to make a post about wired to Hunt
9:35
Speaker 1: or Sportsman's Nation and next thing you know, you're you've
9:39
Speaker 1: been scrolling there for about thirty minutes and you've done
9:41
Speaker 1: nothing productive. Yeah. Man, I'm constantly trying to fight that.
9:45
Speaker 1: That is just so easy to waste time or to
9:48
Speaker 1: get sucked into something that makes you feeling crappy, like
9:51
Speaker 1: seeing crappy political news or stupid people, something that just
9:55
Speaker 1: gives you all fired up, and all of a sudden
9:57
Speaker 1: you realize that you're all stressed out or upset or
10:00
Speaker 1: and cruddy for something that just didn't have to have
10:02
Speaker 1: part of your life that day, but because you got
10:04
Speaker 1: sucked into the internet. It is. Um, I'm trying to
10:08
Speaker 1: find ways to force myself out of that because it
10:10
Speaker 1: can just be a just just toxic. Yeah, and that's
10:16
Speaker 1: like all television is these days. It's just those really
10:20
Speaker 1: he said, she said, political ads, one side blaming the
10:24
Speaker 1: other side, and it's just it's so gross that even
10:28
Speaker 1: it even has affected my family because my daughter's like, well,
10:31
Speaker 1: I thought Donald Trump was our president. He's supposed to
10:34
Speaker 1: be Like why do people hate him? I'm just like, oh, sweetheart,
10:37
Speaker 1: you know, like and then the same thing was like
10:40
Speaker 1: why is Donald Trump, you know, do this? Or why
10:42
Speaker 1: does the president do this? Or why is this guy
10:44
Speaker 1: not like don't you know it's and so then I
10:46
Speaker 1: have to explain all that crap and I just want
10:49
Speaker 1: to shut the TV off and good lucky, right right.
10:54
Speaker 1: That's the one nice thing about not having cable is
10:57
Speaker 1: we never have to see cable news. That's one thing.
10:59
Speaker 1: I don't have to be involved in it all. I
11:01
Speaker 1: see it online, but um, but at least I don't
11:03
Speaker 1: need to see the talking heads, because that's sometimes half
11:06
Speaker 1: the worst of it. So yeah, and the only time
11:09
Speaker 1: we really watched that is for local news in the
11:11
Speaker 1: morning to try to get the weather right and throw
11:15
Speaker 1: on the local news. And and still every it was
11:18
Speaker 1: real bad during the caucus part of time of eye Yeah, jesus,
11:23
Speaker 1: I mean it was fifteen commercials an hour of different
11:28
Speaker 1: people And that's a debacle for you guys. That's when
11:31
Speaker 1: did you just stop paying attention? M M so Iowa
11:36
Speaker 1: Caucus social media debacle. Um, a lot of bad stuff
11:41
Speaker 1: happening in Iowa these days. Yeah, anything anything good happening
11:45
Speaker 1: in the in the world of Dan Johnson over there.
11:47
Speaker 1: Have you been out shed hunting yet? Yeah? Um. I
11:50
Speaker 1: went out one day and it was probably for about
11:54
Speaker 1: oh our and thirty minutes. Took my brother. I went
11:59
Speaker 1: to go drop my kids off at my mom's so
12:02
Speaker 1: they so she could watch them that night, and me
12:04
Speaker 1: and my brother and my sister in law we went
12:08
Speaker 1: out to you remember that one day I found like
12:11
Speaker 1: eleven sheds and so we walked that No sheds, however,
12:17
Speaker 1: tons of sign. So probably in about two or three
12:22
Speaker 1: two weeks, I'll probably go back there and walk it
12:24
Speaker 1: again to see what I can find. But no, no deer,
12:28
Speaker 1: but a ton of sign and a ton of corn
12:32
Speaker 1: still in the field and not standing. But you know
12:36
Speaker 1: it's been gone. It's gone through or missed through the combine.
12:39
Speaker 1: So I'm really looking forward to getting out and doing
12:41
Speaker 1: some scooping. Man. So here's a question for you. When
12:44
Speaker 1: you find a corn field like that where there's just
12:46
Speaker 1: so much sign and you know there's got to be
12:48
Speaker 1: deer in there. Um, and even especially when you start
12:51
Speaker 1: finding those sheds like you did that one year in
12:53
Speaker 1: those buffer strips. Do you ever devote yourself to checking
12:56
Speaker 1: the corn rows themselves? I had this conversation with some
13:00
Speaker 1: other guys, and I guess I don't have enough time. Two.
13:06
Speaker 1: Because the buffer strips are higher, you know, I feel
13:09
Speaker 1: like you're gonna they're easier to see that. It's a
13:11
Speaker 1: higher success rate as opposed to walking every row in
13:16
Speaker 1: an eighty acre field. It would be I would have
13:20
Speaker 1: to live closer to it in order to do that,
13:23
Speaker 1: or spend an entire day doing it, which for me,
13:26
Speaker 1: it's just not feasible. Yeah. So here's my situation. Why
13:31
Speaker 1: I bring this up is because on on the main
13:33
Speaker 1: my main Michigan spot, Um, there's about I don't know
13:36
Speaker 1: what it is, maybe twenty acres twenty acre corn field,
13:41
Speaker 1: maybe fifteen twenty acres, and it's just getting pounded tons
13:45
Speaker 1: and tons and tons of deer. Um. I saw the
13:48
Speaker 1: brow list eight, which was a mature buck that I was.
13:50
Speaker 1: That was that I was seeing the last month of
13:52
Speaker 1: the season. I saw him out there once missing aside
13:55
Speaker 1: um and then we haven't we haven't got to talk
13:58
Speaker 1: about it. But I didn't mention it um in another
14:00
Speaker 1: episode when you weren't on. But you know, I found
14:03
Speaker 1: trans sheds. Yeah, so the match set was in the cornfield.
14:07
Speaker 1: Just by accident. I got just super lucky and was
14:10
Speaker 1: walking with the family and we ran across the match
14:13
Speaker 1: that right by the road. But so I found those
14:15
Speaker 1: two antlers in the in the corn And then last
14:18
Speaker 1: weekend I took Everett out for a walk and we
14:20
Speaker 1: found one side off the brawls eight um, maybe a
14:25
Speaker 1: hundred yards off the cornfield in a bedding area. And
14:28
Speaker 1: then we found another two year old buck one of
14:30
Speaker 1: his sides, maybe sixty seventy yards off the corn field
14:35
Speaker 1: in a little bedding area. Um. So there's four antlers
14:38
Speaker 1: all within you know, hundred yards of this corn field.
14:41
Speaker 1: And that's more antlers than I've ever found on this
14:44
Speaker 1: property ever before. Um So the whole bunch of deer
14:48
Speaker 1: in this area hit in this cornfield. So I keep
14:49
Speaker 1: on thinking, like, is this the year I finally just
14:52
Speaker 1: walk every row because there's been so much activity. It's
14:55
Speaker 1: obviously the best food source around here. There's antlers already
14:59
Speaker 1: in and around it. Um. But it's such an investment
15:02
Speaker 1: of time, like you said, to do that, So I'm
15:05
Speaker 1: I'm contemplating doing it, though, because I don't know. If
15:08
Speaker 1: there's four antlers already right around there, that means there's
15:11
Speaker 1: at least four somewhere else, um, if not more, probably
15:15
Speaker 1: are more because I've seen other bucks that I haven't
15:16
Speaker 1: found any of their antlers yet. So it's very tempting,
15:19
Speaker 1: But it would be a daunting thing to just walk
15:21
Speaker 1: every row staring at stocks. But I don't know. Maybe
15:25
Speaker 1: who knows, maybe you'd find a whole bunch of sheds
15:27
Speaker 1: that way, if you'd be willing to just do the
15:30
Speaker 1: the drudgery. Yeah, and I think if I could find
15:32
Speaker 1: one of those perfect days. I don't know about you,
15:35
Speaker 1: but I seem to find more sheds on cloudy days
15:40
Speaker 1: when maybe there's uh it's a little missed in the
15:42
Speaker 1: air or something like that, because a the contrast of
15:46
Speaker 1: the shed is different than the grass and the surrounding
15:49
Speaker 1: uh you know, landscape, so it sticks out just a
15:51
Speaker 1: little bit more as opposed to walking a stubble corn
15:54
Speaker 1: field looking for something that it looks exactly like a
15:57
Speaker 1: stubble corn field in the bright sun with all the
16:00
Speaker 1: shadows and everything. So you know what else I found
16:03
Speaker 1: because I have started walking in those roads already, and
16:06
Speaker 1: one of the things I noticed is I actually think
16:09
Speaker 1: that it helps when you're trying to see sheds in
16:11
Speaker 1: the corn if there's a little bit of snow on
16:13
Speaker 1: the ground. Most of the time you want to be
16:16
Speaker 1: snowless or close to snow at least, Like that's my
16:18
Speaker 1: preferred shed dating conditions when you're back in the woods
16:20
Speaker 1: or looking at grass and stuff. But it seems like
16:22
Speaker 1: with the corn field it actually helps a little bit
16:25
Speaker 1: because you do have more contrast versus when everything looks
16:28
Speaker 1: like a shed. Um, at least with a little bit
16:30
Speaker 1: of snow, you'll see something sticking out that looks a
16:33
Speaker 1: little bit unique, and you've got the like I'm looking
16:35
Speaker 1: at the cornfield right now, and I can see with
16:37
Speaker 1: the snow, it's a nice snowy path down the middle.
16:41
Speaker 1: Um that if there's a nice antler and there, you
16:43
Speaker 1: definitely see it, but you wouldn't have it blend in
16:47
Speaker 1: with everything like it normally would. So it's actually not
16:50
Speaker 1: a bad time if you've got an inch of snow
16:51
Speaker 1: out there or something like that. Yeah, that's why, that's
16:54
Speaker 1: that's why I wanted to go. A couple of weeks ago,
16:57
Speaker 1: or was it this last week, because it was the
17:00
Speaker 1: perfect conditions, right if they We had had snow on
17:03
Speaker 1: the ground for about a week a week and a half,
17:06
Speaker 1: and if something was gonna fall, it was it was
17:08
Speaker 1: gonna be right on top of the snow. So that's
17:12
Speaker 1: why I wanted to get out. And well, I think
17:14
Speaker 1: I got out there a little too early. Speaking to
17:17
Speaker 1: shed hunting, something that um that came to minded me
17:20
Speaker 1: someone some someone on Instagram or somewhere had messaged me
17:24
Speaker 1: with this idea, and I thought, man, that's a really
17:26
Speaker 1: good idea. And then I also remembered you did something
17:29
Speaker 1: like this. I don't remember if it was during shed season,
17:31
Speaker 1: but at some point you were going out with your
17:33
Speaker 1: kids to scout or shed hunt or something, and you
17:35
Speaker 1: guys were collecting trash too, And I thought we should
17:39
Speaker 1: do like a shed hunting challenge to everybody listening. If
17:41
Speaker 1: you're gonna go out shed hunting this year, bring along
17:44
Speaker 1: a plastic bag with you, bring along some kind of
17:46
Speaker 1: bag and collect trash. And I don't know, I don't don't.
17:50
Speaker 1: I haven't fully thought this out, Dan, But what do
17:52
Speaker 1: you think about having some kind of shed hunting hashtag
17:54
Speaker 1: or something related? To trash and then we give some
17:57
Speaker 1: kind of prize away to whoever has like the most
17:59
Speaker 1: trash did in one of their pictures, some some kind
18:02
Speaker 1: of ideal like that. I mean, we should have something
18:04
Speaker 1: good coming coming out of all of us walking around
18:07
Speaker 1: looking for antlers, you know. Um I like the idea.
18:11
Speaker 1: I like the idea. We have to kind of think
18:12
Speaker 1: it through a little bit. But what would be a
18:14
Speaker 1: catchy shed hunting related trash hashtag that we could use
18:19
Speaker 1: to track this? Um? So you know when we talk
18:24
Speaker 1: about a buck that has a non typical point and
18:28
Speaker 1: we call it trash, you know. So I'm thinking out
18:32
Speaker 1: loud here and help me out. Trashy sheds, trash, trash
18:37
Speaker 1: shed trash, garbage. Uh uh people, people now get to
18:44
Speaker 1: see what idiots we are in real time. I don't know, Well,
18:51
Speaker 1: we'll figure it out. Sheds with uh scooping for scooping
18:57
Speaker 1: for trash sheds and just sheds and trash, trash, trash
19:03
Speaker 1: and sheds. Um ah. Yeah, Well I really should have
19:12
Speaker 1: came with this better prepared. By the end of By
19:14
Speaker 1: the end of we should not even finish the Q
19:17
Speaker 1: and A part of this. Let's just talk out loud
19:20
Speaker 1: about what we think we should be doing, calling it
19:22
Speaker 1: for the next hour and a half. I think a
19:24
Speaker 1: lot of people love that, right, That's that's riveting listening.
19:27
Speaker 1: Right by the end of this whole thing, we have
19:30
Speaker 1: to have some kind of idea because I want to
19:31
Speaker 1: try to give folks an incentive to pick up some
19:35
Speaker 1: crap out there while you're out walking for ammers. I
19:36
Speaker 1: think it's such a simple thing that I should be
19:39
Speaker 1: doing a better job of that. All of this could
19:40
Speaker 1: probably do a little bit better job of. Um. So
19:44
Speaker 1: I'm thinking what kind of giveaway. Um, I'll figure out
19:49
Speaker 1: something cool. I'll give away a copy of my book
19:51
Speaker 1: to someone. I've got some extra still that and I
19:55
Speaker 1: bet you I've got oh, well, get back. We'll get
20:01
Speaker 1: back on all these things. Uh shaddowning trash challenge. We
20:04
Speaker 1: will do something along those lines that we will announce
20:07
Speaker 1: it at some point here as soon as we figured
20:08
Speaker 1: it out. Um cool cool. You know one of the
20:13
Speaker 1: piece of current events that I gotta just vent to
20:15
Speaker 1: you about alright, And I got one more thing to
20:18
Speaker 1: say before after that, then we can go good news
20:21
Speaker 1: or bad news. It's good. I think it's good news. Yes, Okay,
20:24
Speaker 1: I think I noticed is then let's say the good
20:26
Speaker 1: news for the end. Okay, So my bad news story
20:30
Speaker 1: of deer hunting politics gone bad? Oh geez, yeah, I know.
20:36
Speaker 1: So I have to just talk about what's going on
20:38
Speaker 1: here in Michigan and share my frustration and explain what's
20:43
Speaker 1: what's happening and where we're at, and maybe encouraged my
20:46
Speaker 1: Michigan listeners to do a little something. Um, here's a
20:49
Speaker 1: situation here in Michigan. We have something called the Natural
20:53
Speaker 1: Resources Commission, and this is a I believe seven member
20:56
Speaker 1: commission that is appointed by the governor to take recommendations
21:02
Speaker 1: from our DNR and essentially confirm the regulations for hunting
21:07
Speaker 1: and fishing in Michigan, Okay. And they have frequent meetings,
21:12
Speaker 1: I think monthly NRC meetings where they talk through different
21:15
Speaker 1: proposals and the things they're looking at, and the public
21:18
Speaker 1: can come and comment on it. And there's all sorts
21:20
Speaker 1: of different things going on. But it's a way to
21:22
Speaker 1: make the process public. It's a way to take in
21:25
Speaker 1: public feedback, and it's a way for these commissioners to
21:27
Speaker 1: look at all sides of the issue as well as
21:29
Speaker 1: the science and everything to make the decisions about you know,
21:32
Speaker 1: are we gonna ban baiting or not, Are we gonna
21:34
Speaker 1: change the season dates or not, etcetera, etcetera. So the
21:38
Speaker 1: people that get assigned to this commission are really important.
21:41
Speaker 1: They have, you know, significant influence on hunting here in Michigan.
21:46
Speaker 1: And over the years, all sorts of different people have
21:48
Speaker 1: been assigned to the Commission. But just recently, our governor
21:53
Speaker 1: back in December, I think, appointed someone named Anna Middling.
21:58
Speaker 1: I don't know if you remember this, Dan, but we
21:59
Speaker 1: have had and on the podcast like four years ago.
22:03
Speaker 1: Does the name ring ballat all? No, it doesn't. Okay. Well,
22:06
Speaker 1: Anna middlings from Michigan and she was a co op
22:11
Speaker 1: coordinator here in Michigan, so she had a job for
22:13
Speaker 1: a while. She came out of school with a degree
22:17
Speaker 1: in fisheries and wildlife and science and ecology and all
22:21
Speaker 1: sorts of things like that. She came with this background.
22:24
Speaker 1: She then took a job working with the QT May
22:27
Speaker 1: and Pheasants Forever and MUCC which is a Michigan conservation
22:31
Speaker 1: organization and a whole bunch of different partner organizations here
22:35
Speaker 1: to help manage wildlife cooperatives and to help work with
22:40
Speaker 1: various stakeholders to conserve wildlife, to hunt, to improve the land,
22:44
Speaker 1: and to find ways to um work together to improve
22:47
Speaker 1: hunter satisfaction, do all this really good stuff. So she
22:50
Speaker 1: helped coordinate these things, work with hunters and mostly hunters
22:53
Speaker 1: all across the state doing this. And that's what she
22:55
Speaker 1: came on the podcast to talk about was what she
22:57
Speaker 1: was learning, what she was doing, um, the studies, they
23:00
Speaker 1: were doing really really good stuff. So she did that.
23:03
Speaker 1: She came out of the Fishers and Wildlife degree. She
23:06
Speaker 1: then is now a professor of I think it's environmental
23:10
Speaker 1: silence biology, something on those lines at a school here
23:13
Speaker 1: in Michigan. She is a hunter. She is very involved
23:18
Speaker 1: in volunteer work related conservation, volunteering at deer check stations.
23:21
Speaker 1: She's working, She's worked with c w D check stations,
23:24
Speaker 1: so she's on top of all these issues that impact hunters.
23:28
Speaker 1: She gets assigned and she gets nominated to the commission,
23:31
Speaker 1: and I'm thinking, Wow, this is a great person. This
23:34
Speaker 1: is actually someone who lives this stuff, who has an
23:37
Speaker 1: educational background in this stuff, who has worked professionally within
23:41
Speaker 1: this world, and has worked with all the different stakeholders.
23:45
Speaker 1: Not only does she do is personally, but she actually
23:47
Speaker 1: has had to be in a position that has forced
23:49
Speaker 1: her to listen to all sides of the deer hunting issues,
23:52
Speaker 1: to actively work to bring people together. I don't know
23:55
Speaker 1: any better person or better type of experience to have
23:59
Speaker 1: when you're gonna be taking a leadership role with managing
24:02
Speaker 1: our regulations, right, A big part of that is listening
24:04
Speaker 1: to all the different people, looking at the science, looking
24:07
Speaker 1: at the different perspectives, and trying to come to some
24:09
Speaker 1: kind of consensus. Yes, Anna gets a sign of the Commission.
24:13
Speaker 1: It's great news. One of the best um folks I've
24:16
Speaker 1: seen as far as a resume assigned to the Commission,
24:19
Speaker 1: And interestingly enough, as far as everything I've seen, she's
24:22
Speaker 1: the only person to have been nominated for the Commission
24:26
Speaker 1: to have an educational background in this stuff, to have
24:28
Speaker 1: a wildlife management degree, so she's probably the most qualifying that.
24:32
Speaker 1: But several days ago, I think it was Thursday, out
24:36
Speaker 1: of nowhere, all of a sudden, find out that one
24:40
Speaker 1: side of the political aisle has decided that they are
24:42
Speaker 1: going to have a vote to disapprove her and remove
24:45
Speaker 1: her from the Commission. The Senate has As I understand,
24:49
Speaker 1: I might get the details wrong. I'm I'm not living
24:51
Speaker 1: and breathing this every second of the day. But as
24:53
Speaker 1: I understand that there's a sixty day window where the
24:56
Speaker 1: Senate can approve or disapprove of a nomination to the NRC.
25:00
Speaker 1: On the last day before that sixty day window closes,
25:04
Speaker 1: they out of nowhere decided to have this new vote
25:07
Speaker 1: to remove her at the end and ends up. The
25:12
Speaker 1: day it comes out, I got a text from Josh
25:14
Speaker 1: in the morning and say, hey, man, this thing is happening.
25:17
Speaker 1: It seems like some weird political stuff going on, and
25:20
Speaker 1: they're trying to vote and off the NRC. Make sure
25:22
Speaker 1: to call your senator, make sure to spread the word,
25:25
Speaker 1: talk about so all of our buddies get together. We
25:27
Speaker 1: sent emails. But that afternoon, the Senate majority, which is
25:32
Speaker 1: a Republican here in Michigan, votes on a party line
25:35
Speaker 1: to disapprove and a mendling off the NRC. So someone
25:40
Speaker 1: who's incredibly qualified just got knocked off the Natural Resource
25:44
Speaker 1: Commission here in Michigan. Why did that happen? I still
25:48
Speaker 1: don't have a clear answer, But here's what we are
25:52
Speaker 1: being told. We are being told at least the story
25:57
Speaker 1: is that there has been an another nominee to the
26:01
Speaker 1: commission from our governor who's a Democrat, and the Senate
26:05
Speaker 1: is not happy about that one. So, as the story goes,
26:08
Speaker 1: this is hearsay. I can't vouch for this. This is
26:10
Speaker 1: just hearsay. What they're saying is that the Senate went
26:15
Speaker 1: and said to the governor, Hey, if you get rid
26:17
Speaker 1: of this first guy, George hartwell we'll let you keep Anna,
26:21
Speaker 1: but if you don't, we're going to vote Anna off
26:23
Speaker 1: before our says today window comes out. And she said
26:27
Speaker 1: she wasn't going to compromise on it. She wasn't gonna
26:29
Speaker 1: she wasn't gonna remove George, and so they voted an Now,
26:31
Speaker 1: so someone who's incredibly qualified just got knocked off the
26:35
Speaker 1: NFC because of another person they didn't like. So very frustrating.
26:40
Speaker 1: All the hunting organizations I know about within Michigan or
26:43
Speaker 1: up in Arms, all the members I'm sitting online are
26:46
Speaker 1: sending emails, making phone calls. I placed a phone call
26:49
Speaker 1: to my senator. Um, I will give him credit. He
26:53
Speaker 1: he voted to disprove or to to remove Anna. So
26:57
Speaker 1: I'm not happy about that at all, But to his credit,
26:59
Speaker 1: he did get I can touch on me is willing
27:01
Speaker 1: to talk to me about it game a call today.
27:03
Speaker 1: He hasn't returned my voicemail. UM, but I'm hoping to
27:06
Speaker 1: hear from him directly to to see if there's something
27:09
Speaker 1: else to this. Um. But it's very frustrating. It is
27:12
Speaker 1: very disconcerting to see some political bullshit taking someone who's
27:17
Speaker 1: very qualified, who was a great representative hunters and anglers,
27:20
Speaker 1: taking them off of this commission. UM. I'm I'm. I
27:25
Speaker 1: was very fired up about it, very upset. You should be.
27:28
Speaker 1: You should be, and so should everybody else, not only
27:30
Speaker 1: throughout the nation, but throughout Michigan. This is exactly what
27:37
Speaker 1: hurts everything in life. It's do you think the people
27:41
Speaker 1: who voted to have so and so removed? I was
27:44
Speaker 1: thinking about our natural resource. No, they were not. They were.
27:48
Speaker 1: It was all political and it was all based off
27:51
Speaker 1: bullshit or somebody else's game. Well, the thing is is
27:55
Speaker 1: that it's a party line vote. So when you see
27:57
Speaker 1: that everyone on one side of the health voted one
27:59
Speaker 1: way and every one on the other end, I'll vote
28:02
Speaker 1: it otherwise, that screams partisan to me. There was one
28:06
Speaker 1: There was one Republican And I'm not trying to pant
28:07
Speaker 1: the Republican Party all in one way. I'm just saying
28:09
Speaker 1: this one instance, there was one. There's one Republican who
28:13
Speaker 1: did not vote with the party and said, hey, Anna
28:15
Speaker 1: is obviously qualified. I can't with good conscience vote against her.
28:19
Speaker 1: So I appreciate that person. But everybody else, I just
28:22
Speaker 1: can't understand it. The comments from my senator, and he's
28:26
Speaker 1: the Senate Majority leader. Um. And again not saying he's
28:29
Speaker 1: a bad person. I'm not saying maybe he's got some
28:32
Speaker 1: good reason for it, but his comment that I saw
28:35
Speaker 1: to the media was that he didn't think that she
28:38
Speaker 1: based on her testimony because she had to go up
28:40
Speaker 1: to the in front of the Senate panel and answer
28:42
Speaker 1: a bunch of questions when she was first appointed, Um
28:45
Speaker 1: claimed that she didn't seem to be able to make
28:47
Speaker 1: the big decisions or something like that. And so I
28:49
Speaker 1: actually went and I listened to the whole hour and
28:51
Speaker 1: ten minutes of her being up there in front of
28:54
Speaker 1: the panel, answering questions and whatnot, and UM, and there
28:58
Speaker 1: just there just wasn't any substance to that criticism. Was she,
29:02
Speaker 1: you know, the most unbelievably strong and eloquent public speaker,
29:08
Speaker 1: and did she answer every single question perfectly and with
29:13
Speaker 1: full knowledge of each issue. No. But what she did
29:16
Speaker 1: do is when there was something that she didn't know
29:17
Speaker 1: everything about, she said, you know what, I can't speak
29:21
Speaker 1: to that right now. But what I would do is
29:22
Speaker 1: I would go look at the science. I would go
29:24
Speaker 1: look at the social science. We talked to all stakeholders
29:26
Speaker 1: and come to a consensus, We come to a decision.
29:28
Speaker 1: I'm not going to jump to assumptions or I'm not
29:31
Speaker 1: going to pretend to know something. I'm not going to
29:33
Speaker 1: come to this with a with a preformed opinion um
29:36
Speaker 1: which which I thought was perfect. I thought that that
29:39
Speaker 1: that's what we need from someone on this commission, not
29:41
Speaker 1: someone who's gonna come to this with these ideological I
29:47
Speaker 1: don't know, I'm getting frustrated just even talking to dat
29:50
Speaker 1: right now. But man, I feel you, dude, I feel you.
29:54
Speaker 1: I've done the same thing in in Iowa, where I've
29:57
Speaker 1: reached out to senators, house represent lives and talk to
30:00
Speaker 1: them about public land. And of course Iowa is very low,
30:05
Speaker 1: UH has very low public lands. It's an agriculture state.
30:09
Speaker 1: We have you know, thou hundreds of thousands of landowners
30:12
Speaker 1: and UH, it's all egg based and so public land
30:16
Speaker 1: kind of takes a back seat in our state. And
30:19
Speaker 1: when you voice your opinion about that in this state,
30:23
Speaker 1: especially to UM, the politicians, they could care less because
30:28
Speaker 1: it doesn't involve who is UM supporting them, and who's
30:33
Speaker 1: supporting them are people in the agriculture industry. So I
30:39
Speaker 1: feel you, dude, I think coming out of it it
30:43
Speaker 1: it just reminds me of how important it is for
30:46
Speaker 1: us to speak up on these things, because if we
30:47
Speaker 1: don't speak up at all, then this stuff will just
30:49
Speaker 1: keep happening. Maybe if more of us knew about this
30:51
Speaker 1: ahead of time. Like what sucks is that this thing
30:54
Speaker 1: came out like the night before and then the next
30:57
Speaker 1: morning they did the vote right away, so people didn't
30:59
Speaker 1: have a chance to to reach out to the representative.
31:02
Speaker 1: There was like two hours in the morning before you
31:04
Speaker 1: could even try to get your opinion known. UM. So
31:07
Speaker 1: we need to try to make our voices her when
31:09
Speaker 1: we can. And I will say again, to my senator's credit,
31:14
Speaker 1: he did respond to my message. He texted me actually
31:17
Speaker 1: instead he'd be willing to chat. So I appreciate that, UM,
31:21
Speaker 1: But I do think that we all could could continue
31:25
Speaker 1: to try to push the envelope and make sure that
31:27
Speaker 1: our senators and representatives know that we are a constituency
31:31
Speaker 1: that matters, and that we care about these resources and
31:34
Speaker 1: these opportunities and the privilege to hunt and to have
31:37
Speaker 1: well managed resources, and and if we don't stand up
31:41
Speaker 1: and stick up for it, nobody else will, I guess
31:43
Speaker 1: is the big point in this case. Not enough people
31:45
Speaker 1: stuck up soon enough, and it led to someone who's
31:48
Speaker 1: incredibly well qualified to help guide the regulations of honey
31:52
Speaker 1: and fishing in Michigan. She got knocked off and now
31:55
Speaker 1: instead there's a couple of lawyers, uh, and a few
31:58
Speaker 1: other people who I'm not sure about their credentials and
32:00
Speaker 1: any kind of waken stack up to Anna's. So they're disappointing. Uh.
32:03
Speaker 1: If you're in Michigan, send send you take a look
32:06
Speaker 1: and see how your center voted, and send him an email,
32:08
Speaker 1: give him a call if you are similarly frustrated as
32:11
Speaker 1: I am. Let them know about it. I don't know
32:13
Speaker 1: if there's anything that'd be done about it now, um,
32:15
Speaker 1: but if nothing else, we need to make sure that
32:18
Speaker 1: they know we're listening and paying attention. So that's my
32:21
Speaker 1: political ranch for today. Yep. There you go hold on
32:24
Speaker 1: one second here before we move on. Uh, this is
32:28
Speaker 1: future Mark. I want to jump in here, uh the
32:31
Speaker 1: day after we record this conversation with Dan and just
32:33
Speaker 1: share a couple more final thoughts. Number one, I want
32:36
Speaker 1: to make it really clear here that there's blame to
32:39
Speaker 1: be placed on both sides. The more have looked into it,
32:42
Speaker 1: the more it does appear that there is some kind
32:44
Speaker 1: of politicization of this crap coming from the Democratic side.
32:48
Speaker 1: The Democratic side as well, that might have been part
32:52
Speaker 1: what pushed the Republicans to do what they did. So
32:55
Speaker 1: the more of the story here is that there were
32:57
Speaker 1: some knuckleheaded moves on both sides of the mostly related
33:01
Speaker 1: to political blogning that's unrelated to Anna, that's unrelated to
33:05
Speaker 1: our wildlife resources, and that political crap from both sides
33:08
Speaker 1: of the aisle led to a bad outcome for hunters, anglers,
33:12
Speaker 1: and our natural resources. So this politicization of our wildlife
33:17
Speaker 1: management is a big issue, and it's something that's not
33:19
Speaker 1: just happening here in Michigan. It's happening all across the country.
33:23
Speaker 1: So we need to be watching out for it and
33:25
Speaker 1: we need to be speaking up against it, Which brings
33:27
Speaker 1: me to point number two, which is the fact that
33:31
Speaker 1: today I did get to chat with my state center,
33:34
Speaker 1: and I want to give him credit for that that
33:35
Speaker 1: he respectfully listened to my feedback, affirmed that it wasn't
33:38
Speaker 1: falling on deaf ears, and and promised that he'd take
33:40
Speaker 1: this into account moving forward into the future. And so
33:43
Speaker 1: for that, I am appreciative. And I think what I
33:46
Speaker 1: came away from all of this with is that we
33:49
Speaker 1: do still have a voice. We do still have the
33:52
Speaker 1: ability to make a difference, especially here on the local level,
33:54
Speaker 1: with your state reps, your state senators. We do have
33:58
Speaker 1: a disproportionate opportunity to get in contact with these people
34:01
Speaker 1: and actually talk to them. You know, we can't talk
34:04
Speaker 1: to a president, we probably maybe can't even talk to
34:07
Speaker 1: a senator, a national Center United States senator, excuse me,
34:11
Speaker 1: but our state senators they're a lot more available. So
34:14
Speaker 1: give these people a call, talk to them, let them
34:17
Speaker 1: know that we care about these things. And I do
34:19
Speaker 1: think that if enough of us have the kind of
34:21
Speaker 1: conversations that I was fortunate enough to have today, I
34:23
Speaker 1: think we can make a difference. So that's all I
34:26
Speaker 1: got on that. Let's flip it back to past Mark
34:30
Speaker 1: in my conversation with Dan. Now tell me some good
34:33
Speaker 1: news Dan. Well, let's see. It's about a month ago.
34:37
Speaker 1: I got a call from Jared uh from two Percent
34:40
Speaker 1: for Conservation and Jared Fraser Jared Fraser, yep, And he
34:44
Speaker 1: says to me, Dan, Uh, are you busy man? I
34:48
Speaker 1: said yes, I'm very busy. And he said, well, do
34:51
Speaker 1: you have enough time for conservation? I said I always
34:53
Speaker 1: have time for conservation. And he said, do you mind
34:56
Speaker 1: if we put your name in the hat to become
35:01
Speaker 1: a board member of two Percent for Conservation? And I
35:05
Speaker 1: said absolutely I would. Will you know I would love
35:08
Speaker 1: to because I'll tell you what I made a commitment
35:11
Speaker 1: in before this, even how it happened, that I was
35:16
Speaker 1: going to try to give back a little bit more
35:18
Speaker 1: than previous years, find a way to do something more
35:21
Speaker 1: to give back to any conservation effort that I possibly could,
35:26
Speaker 1: um helping out, volunteering, you know, potentially donating more money.
35:31
Speaker 1: I'm already a two Percent for Conservation UM business certified
35:35
Speaker 1: member through the Sportsman's Nation Sportsman's Nations certified and Uh.
35:40
Speaker 1: I got a call last week or as actually the
35:42
Speaker 1: week before from Jared saying, hey, dude, um, you made
35:47
Speaker 1: the cut and we would like you to offer you
35:50
Speaker 1: a board of director seat within two percent for Conservation,
35:53
Speaker 1: and I accepted it. So yeah, so I am on
35:58
Speaker 1: as of today today is Monday. They made the announcement
36:00
Speaker 1: just like literally as we're speaking, I I hit my
36:05
Speaker 1: phone in a message popped up. So, um, I'm on
36:08
Speaker 1: the two percent for Conservation board of Directors and this
36:12
Speaker 1: is my way of giving back to Conservation in any
36:16
Speaker 1: way I possibly can. Oh, man, congratulations, that is uh,
36:20
Speaker 1: that's great man. I think you're spot on that. You know.
36:24
Speaker 1: I think all of us to look at twenty and
36:26
Speaker 1: east New Year to trying to figure out what can
36:27
Speaker 1: we do more? Yeah, so what does that mean? Uh?
36:32
Speaker 1: What are you gonna be doing? You're gonna be on
36:34
Speaker 1: meetings talking about the direction of the organization and that
36:36
Speaker 1: kind of stuff, right yep. And I think specifically, um
36:40
Speaker 1: I might you know, just because of my expertise in podcasting,
36:44
Speaker 1: there is a potential that uh and I don't wanna
36:47
Speaker 1: you know, this is only thirty minutes really into my
36:51
Speaker 1: task right now as we speak, or you know, as
36:54
Speaker 1: my rule as board of director, So I don't want
36:55
Speaker 1: to uh step outside of any lines. But if you
36:59
Speaker 1: get fired thirty. It's the best stuff. I didn't know
37:05
Speaker 1: you did that, but well, they heard Russian porn already,
37:09
Speaker 1: so I'm sure that might be Hey, hey, Mark and
37:12
Speaker 1: grat Hey, thanks a lot, buddy. I just got axed
37:15
Speaker 1: out of two percent for Yeah, but I think, um,
37:22
Speaker 1: you know, the direction of helping assist them in the
37:25
Speaker 1: direction of their message. Who their message is going to,
37:29
Speaker 1: UM basically using my platform as a sounding board for
37:34
Speaker 1: two percent for conservation method or for their message, and
37:37
Speaker 1: um basically just refining that to reach as many people
37:43
Speaker 1: as humanly possible and attain as many members as humanly possible.
37:48
Speaker 1: So um, and you know, there's the good word and
37:52
Speaker 1: it just needs to be spread. And I think, uh,
37:54
Speaker 1: you know, there's a probably start a podcast maybe, I
37:57
Speaker 1: don't know, we'll see, sweet man. That's awesome. Well, good
38:00
Speaker 1: for you. Good for two percent for conservation to have
38:03
Speaker 1: someone like you on their team. And uh, I just
38:06
Speaker 1: can't cry every now now I'm a representative. I can't cry.
38:11
Speaker 1: I know you gotta get your ship together. Uh well,
38:15
Speaker 1: good man, keep us posted and definitely let myself and
38:19
Speaker 1: the word hunt world know when you need our support.
38:22
Speaker 1: Absolutely you will be on my press release list. Hit
38:26
Speaker 1: me up, Hit me up. Um. Okay, so we've talked
38:29
Speaker 1: about kids who talked about good news, we talked about
38:31
Speaker 1: bad news. Should we answer questions? Should we finally get
38:34
Speaker 1: to the main event? Mark? All right, let's talk hunting.
38:37
Speaker 1: I have I don't know where you're at on this,
38:40
Speaker 1: but the last as we do every year, we kind
38:43
Speaker 1: of go through, at least I do, and I think
38:44
Speaker 1: you do to degree kind of go up and down
38:47
Speaker 1: a little bit with the various seasons and what we're
38:49
Speaker 1: interested in or what we're obsessing over. Um. I'll get
38:53
Speaker 1: into a mode where I'm out West, I'm really in
38:55
Speaker 1: fly fishing, and then I get back and I'm really
38:57
Speaker 1: pumped about want to go in elk hunt. And then
38:59
Speaker 1: September I was like, oh my gosh, I just want
39:01
Speaker 1: to be prepping for white tails. I have all these
39:02
Speaker 1: different you know, ups and downs there. My deer hunting
39:07
Speaker 1: excitement button just got pushed really hard, like a week
39:10
Speaker 1: and a half ago. Um. I don't know. I think
39:13
Speaker 1: maybe just because like I'm starting to get serious about
39:14
Speaker 1: shed hunting. But all of a sudden I started thinking, Man,
39:17
Speaker 1: I gotta get really serious about planning some of the
39:20
Speaker 1: projects on the back forty and where am I gonna
39:22
Speaker 1: go hunting this year? And I've got all my magazines
39:25
Speaker 1: out and my books out, and I'm working on my
39:26
Speaker 1: deer hunting to do list and stacking up ten thousand
39:29
Speaker 1: things I gotta get done in the next six months.
39:30
Speaker 1: And I'm fully I'm fully amped, and it's only February.
39:33
Speaker 1: Dam So, yeah, dude. I my daughter came up to
39:37
Speaker 1: me and said, Dad, can we watch a hunting video?
39:39
Speaker 1: So before I came up and recorded this episode with you,
39:42
Speaker 1: We're sitting in the recliner. She hops on my lap
39:45
Speaker 1: and we were watching um high country mule deer huts
39:48
Speaker 1: and she was, oh, dude, this guy he put on
39:50
Speaker 1: a shot and it went over this It went over
39:53
Speaker 1: this buck's back, and she was she was like, oh no,
39:57
Speaker 1: he missed him. She's like, you can't do that. He's
40:00
Speaker 1: standing right there. You gotta shoot him. Like so, she's
40:04
Speaker 1: she's heard me talk too much about deer hunting. I
40:06
Speaker 1: was gonna say, though you haven't told her, you know,
40:09
Speaker 1: to be a little bit more understanding of those poor
40:11
Speaker 1: hunters and they missed the deal. Well, you know, daddy
40:13
Speaker 1: sometimes does that, Honey, you gotta give him got to
40:15
Speaker 1: give him a break. Yeah, yeah, Um, you can't have
40:20
Speaker 1: her watching that western stuff that you gotta start on
40:22
Speaker 1: something good and wholesome, like the Back forty. That's what
40:25
Speaker 1: she should be watching that. Okay, Okay, Eva, he's gonna
40:29
Speaker 1: talk about pollinators for thirty minutes. I need you to
40:32
Speaker 1: pay close attention. It's like four minutes. Man, she could
40:36
Speaker 1: have a four minute times fan. Okay. Uh. Deer hunting.
40:41
Speaker 1: Deer hunting questions, Uh, we got a question. We got
40:45
Speaker 1: a ton of questions. So I'm just gonna kind of
40:47
Speaker 1: go through these and pick random ones off this list
40:49
Speaker 1: I've kind of put together and we'll see where it
40:51
Speaker 1: takes us. Um. This kind of relates to our excitement level.
40:54
Speaker 1: We got a question from Jack who just simply said,
40:57
Speaker 1: are you more excited for shed season or turkeys? Reason why? Uh?
41:04
Speaker 1: I mean turkey season because I get to go do
41:06
Speaker 1: it with my family and this year will be the
41:08
Speaker 1: first year that I think I'm gonna be taking about.
41:12
Speaker 1: But you know how I am about shed hunting, Dude,
41:16
Speaker 1: love our sheds, you know it. I know how passionate
41:19
Speaker 1: about and fired up you get. So I love my daughter,
41:23
Speaker 1: but I might lean towards sid hunt. It's crazy to say, um,
41:29
Speaker 1: because shed hunting isn't really hunting, and that's the weird thing.
41:34
Speaker 1: But for some reason, damn it, I do get so excited.
41:37
Speaker 1: I just love being out there hiking, looking, the anticipation,
41:43
Speaker 1: that burst of excitement when you finally see one unexpected. Yeah,
41:48
Speaker 1: I don't know. I and maybe because it stretches for
41:51
Speaker 1: so long for for us, while like turkey hunting, you
41:55
Speaker 1: could be done in one day, you cut me out.
41:57
Speaker 1: At least I know some guys were girls go all
41:59
Speaker 1: over the county free in Turkey hunt for weeks and
42:01
Speaker 1: weeks and weeks, and I guess in that case. Um,
42:03
Speaker 1: but for me, usually the one state thing, so I'm
42:06
Speaker 1: probably gonna vote for for sheds too. But our buddy
42:10
Speaker 1: Ross Hossman, I hate that dude. I hate him. I
42:13
Speaker 1: hate his guts and I hope he hears me say
42:15
Speaker 1: that because and I've even mentioned him and told him
42:17
Speaker 1: how much I hate him posting those damn pictures of
42:21
Speaker 1: his dog. Oh dude, big sheds too, not just little ones,
42:26
Speaker 1: but big sheds. Yeah, you already found a seven intern Jesus. Yeah,
42:30
Speaker 1: I think he's a I think he said fifteen. I
42:32
Speaker 1: think is what he's at so far. Um, and he
42:35
Speaker 1: has only been out a few days, so yeah, he
42:38
Speaker 1: stacks him up. But what can you do? Um? Okay,
42:43
Speaker 1: So that's where we're at with sheds versus turkeys. Um.
42:47
Speaker 1: Kyle asks, what age do you plan to take your
42:50
Speaker 1: kids hunting for the first time? You just kind of
42:52
Speaker 1: answered that how old? Eva? She's gonna be turning seven
42:55
Speaker 1: in next week, and is that that's gonna be their
42:59
Speaker 1: very first hunt? Right? This will be her very first
43:01
Speaker 1: turkey high. She's she stepped into the woods with me
43:05
Speaker 1: before while I, uh, did you know some turkey calls.
43:08
Speaker 1: She's been mushroom hunting, she's been shed hunting, but she
43:11
Speaker 1: has not been officially hunting where I'll be carrying a gun.
43:16
Speaker 1: So this is gonna be you know, this is gonna
43:20
Speaker 1: be interesting. Do you feel like they're Do you have
43:22
Speaker 1: any anxiety about how she's going to feel about the
43:25
Speaker 1: the shooting and the killing of a bird. Is that
43:28
Speaker 1: something that you feels she's ready for or is it
43:30
Speaker 1: kind of unknown? Yeah? So that's and that's a really
43:33
Speaker 1: good question because she is a very emotional, she's very sensitive.
43:38
Speaker 1: She loves I can already tell you she loves natures, butterflies, birds. Um.
43:43
Speaker 1: The last year when Sarah shot her turkey, we brought
43:47
Speaker 1: it home and she was playing with its feet and
43:50
Speaker 1: playing with the fan and and the beard, and she
43:54
Speaker 1: she's like, Daddy, why did you know? Like why did
43:56
Speaker 1: mommy kill this? And you know you gotta explain to her, Well,
44:00
Speaker 1: we killed this bird not only for fun, because it's
44:03
Speaker 1: fun to go hunting, but we then we eat its
44:05
Speaker 1: meat and then we can make you know, food out
44:08
Speaker 1: of it for you and the family. Okay, well, I
44:10
Speaker 1: don't like it when an animal dies. And uh well
44:13
Speaker 1: I was like, you know, I don't either, And and
44:16
Speaker 1: you know, you try to explain in the most sensitive
44:20
Speaker 1: way you possibly can to you know, not necessarily not
44:24
Speaker 1: rubb her the wrong way to the point where she's
44:26
Speaker 1: just like a hunting's girls. I don't ever want to
44:27
Speaker 1: do it. But throughout all of this twenty nineteen year
44:32
Speaker 1: leading up to today, when you know, when I said
44:35
Speaker 1: she we were, she was basically cheering on the guy
44:38
Speaker 1: in the you know, and then and then trashing him
44:41
Speaker 1: for missing the shot. You know, so, um, I think
44:44
Speaker 1: she's to the and you know, she saw the blood,
44:46
Speaker 1: she sees the deer go down, she sees them cape
44:48
Speaker 1: it out, and so I think exposure, second hand exposure
44:52
Speaker 1: like watching through videos is great that way, it's not
44:57
Speaker 1: real life right off the bat, you know what I mean.
44:59
Speaker 1: And she seen dead deer hanging from a rafter, she's
45:02
Speaker 1: seen the meat after we've cut it out, but she's
45:06
Speaker 1: never actually seen a kill other than on TV. So
45:09
Speaker 1: I think I think that is going to help to
45:12
Speaker 1: the point where we're starting off with an ugly animal
45:15
Speaker 1: like a turkey that doesn't look cute, and I think
45:20
Speaker 1: that's gonna be a great introduction for her to I
45:24
Speaker 1: don't know what the hunt and and like the whole
45:26
Speaker 1: audio experience of turkeys just is so like exciting even
45:30
Speaker 1: before you see anything that I feel like that's just
45:33
Speaker 1: such a good one for people to start with. Yeah,
45:36
Speaker 1: I can't wait. I mean, I've I've gotten I remember
45:40
Speaker 1: I told you about the turkey hunt I took ever
45:42
Speaker 1: done last spring, right when he was like, I don't know,
45:45
Speaker 1: just over a year. Um. I mean, I don't know
45:49
Speaker 1: if you really call it a hunt because we didn't
45:50
Speaker 1: have a gun, but I took him out there and
45:52
Speaker 1: we called in turkey. The forty yards on the ground
45:54
Speaker 1: that was pretty sweet. So I'm gonna I'm gonna keep
45:56
Speaker 1: on doing that kind of thing with him. Um, just
45:58
Speaker 1: kind of take him out. I think this is the
45:59
Speaker 1: first I'm gonna try to take him out during deer season. Um,
46:03
Speaker 1: I've got a box blind that you can sit up
46:04
Speaker 1: in and it's really comfortable. It's it's super luxury hunting. Um,
46:09
Speaker 1: which is good I think for a kid. So he'll
46:11
Speaker 1: be almost three, I think, you know, December, late season,
46:15
Speaker 1: take him out at the very end of the night
46:17
Speaker 1: and try to slip in there for the last half
46:19
Speaker 1: hour forty five minutes and just see if a bunch
46:21
Speaker 1: of deer can come out. Um. I think he'd get
46:23
Speaker 1: a kick out of that, because he's already through the
46:25
Speaker 1: same things that you're talking about, just by having like
46:28
Speaker 1: we watch hunting shows. He sees all my deer run
46:30
Speaker 1: to bring him home, we kind of take him out
46:33
Speaker 1: and do all sorts of we go shut outing together.
46:34
Speaker 1: Already he's right with me and shed hunting. We look
46:36
Speaker 1: at deer tracks, we point out deer beds where he's
46:39
Speaker 1: really into deer rubs right now. And so now he
46:42
Speaker 1: goes around the house trying to rub on couches and
46:44
Speaker 1: stuff with his fake anglers. And two days yesterday or
46:47
Speaker 1: two days ago, we went out and we saw a
46:49
Speaker 1: bunch of rubs, and I don't know, a week before
46:52
Speaker 1: I was teaching him what rubs were, and so he
46:54
Speaker 1: was going and pointing at him. But this time he
46:56
Speaker 1: got so excited when we saw him. He was running
46:58
Speaker 1: up to rub trees and hug them and saying, dear ruh,
47:02
Speaker 1: dear ruh. So that's, uh, that's pretty cool. But I
47:08
Speaker 1: don't know. I think that probably I don't know someone
47:10
Speaker 1: of that, like five six seven year old ranges probably
47:12
Speaker 1: when I would actually take a gun, because I do
47:14
Speaker 1: think that like that, just the sound even is one
47:18
Speaker 1: of the big questions, Like, well, that scare the crap
47:19
Speaker 1: on him. I guess you have to kind of practice
47:22
Speaker 1: that ahead of time too. Yeah, And I want to
47:24
Speaker 1: have to get some kind of ear covers for her,
47:26
Speaker 1: you know, like maybe some of those um a man,
47:29
Speaker 1: what's the what's the brand? That you can throw over
47:31
Speaker 1: your head? But you can hear about Walker's game here. Yeah,
47:35
Speaker 1: but when they pull the trigger, it cancels out the
47:37
Speaker 1: the the big bang. Yeah, I think that's I think
47:39
Speaker 1: that's what it is. I've never used him. I'll have
47:42
Speaker 1: to look into that. Um, it's gonna be fun, though, Man,
47:46
Speaker 1: I think that's gonna be the coolest. I can already
47:48
Speaker 1: see just the things I'm doing to this point. It's
47:51
Speaker 1: so much fun to see him get excited about these
47:53
Speaker 1: things that I can see how that's self fulfilling. And
47:58
Speaker 1: I'll tell you, I used to think I I used
48:01
Speaker 1: to have this this preconceived notion of me going out
48:06
Speaker 1: and hunting with my Son's just you know, it's just
48:11
Speaker 1: I it's not like I didn't want to hunt with
48:13
Speaker 1: my daughter. I just you know, you have this. I'm
48:16
Speaker 1: a man and I have a son, and I'm gonna
48:19
Speaker 1: go out and I'm gonna have these hunting adventures with him.
48:22
Speaker 1: But what I'm finding out is my daughter it seems
48:27
Speaker 1: to be more excited about hunting than right now my
48:31
Speaker 1: son does. And I know that there's there's two years
48:33
Speaker 1: difference there, two and a half years difference, But right
48:37
Speaker 1: now my son is showing more interest in other things
48:40
Speaker 1: than hunting than my daughter is. So I think, uh,
48:44
Speaker 1: it might be one of these dotty dad or daddy
48:48
Speaker 1: daughter hunting type clubs. So yeah, there's there's room for everybody.
48:54
Speaker 1: But right now my daughter is showing the most uh,
48:56
Speaker 1: the most excitement. Very cool. For some reason. If I
48:59
Speaker 1: had to guess what Mac is into, my first guesses
49:02
Speaker 1: were monster trucks and mud wrestling. That's not that's just
49:06
Speaker 1: where we're It's racing, racing, kind of racing like Nascar.
49:12
Speaker 1: He likes watching, uh, he likes playing Mario Kart on
49:16
Speaker 1: the Wii. But then the other day he sat down
49:19
Speaker 1: and watched these truck races with my father in law.
49:24
Speaker 1: So he's kind of into racing car racing right now. Well,
49:28
Speaker 1: there you go, might have the next Jeff Gordon. Yeah,
49:33
Speaker 1: all right, Paul, This is a good question. This is
49:36
Speaker 1: something that that I sometimes think about. Paul asks do
49:40
Speaker 1: you treat standing corn as a betting area or a
49:44
Speaker 1: food source when you're thinking of how you approach your
49:46
Speaker 1: stands or wind direction and stuff like that. M that's
49:50
Speaker 1: a great question. I want you to start it off. Honestly,
49:54
Speaker 1: I tend to look at it more of as a
50:00
Speaker 1: as like an open area. I guess even though it's
50:02
Speaker 1: not even those full cover I you have to blow
50:07
Speaker 1: your winds somewhere, and I know that dear dew bedding
50:10
Speaker 1: corn fields, UM, I do know that deer absolutely feed
50:15
Speaker 1: into corn fields, but I probably look at it more
50:18
Speaker 1: as an evening food source than a betting year. I'm
50:22
Speaker 1: making assumptions here, but my guess is that more dear
50:26
Speaker 1: feed in the corn fields around me than bed in them,
50:29
Speaker 1: because there's a lot of good quality betting around UM.
50:32
Speaker 1: So if I had to lean one way, I would
50:34
Speaker 1: go that route. UM. At the same time, though, I
50:38
Speaker 1: will look at standing corn as like a way to
50:40
Speaker 1: enter an area when you have to get into a
50:42
Speaker 1: spot where you can't walk through the timber and you
50:45
Speaker 1: wanna you know, access to Accessing through a standing corn
50:48
Speaker 1: field is not a bad way to do it. And
50:50
Speaker 1: so maybe even though there are some dear beded in there,
50:53
Speaker 1: it's probably fewer. And because of how thick it is,
50:56
Speaker 1: and because of just the the density, I think can
51:00
Speaker 1: get away with a little bit more. You can walk
51:02
Speaker 1: down a single row and there might be a bunch
51:04
Speaker 1: of deer bed at a hundred yards away, but you
51:06
Speaker 1: could get away with it, while if you were walking
51:08
Speaker 1: through the forest a hundred yards from bed to deer,
51:11
Speaker 1: you would likely blow them out. That's kind of how
51:15
Speaker 1: I would lean. Yeah, what do you think it's tough? Um,
51:21
Speaker 1: I've never I read this article several years ago in
51:26
Speaker 1: North American White Tail, and there was this guy who
51:29
Speaker 1: killed all these monsters just through spotting stock in corn fields. Right.
51:35
Speaker 1: That was his go to strategy, was spotting stocking giant
51:39
Speaker 1: bucks in corn fields. Um. But for me, I look
51:44
Speaker 1: at standing corn as in two different ways. Early season
51:49
Speaker 1: and that includes rutt and then the late season. So
51:52
Speaker 1: late season obviously it's a food source. Early season rutt,
51:56
Speaker 1: I look at it as a problem because it's just
51:59
Speaker 1: a whole big area of cover that that I can't access,
52:03
Speaker 1: I can't set up in. I have a hard time
52:05
Speaker 1: knowing are the deer in there? Uh. This year it
52:08
Speaker 1: was a perfect example of that. So to piggyback off
52:11
Speaker 1: what you said, other than an access route like walking
52:15
Speaker 1: through a standing cornfield to back door, um a draw
52:19
Speaker 1: leading up to it, or having good cover going into
52:22
Speaker 1: a tree stand, I kind of don't like standing corn
52:26
Speaker 1: throughout the season other than if it makes it all
52:29
Speaker 1: the way through the season into that late season time frame. Yeah,
52:33
Speaker 1: so you're you're basically saying that you would rather have
52:37
Speaker 1: your wind blowing over a standing cornfield than into some timber. Yeah. See,
52:43
Speaker 1: but then that goes again goes back into my hunting
52:47
Speaker 1: strategy overall of not hunting a lot of field edges.
52:52
Speaker 1: Now you can't really count that as a field edges. Well,
52:54
Speaker 1: I might just let me take that back. I personally
52:57
Speaker 1: would not count the edge of a standing corn field
53:01
Speaker 1: as a field edge when the corn is standing, because
53:03
Speaker 1: that's basically a jungle. You're in the middle of cover then, right.
53:07
Speaker 1: But I still feel that like for me, it I
53:13
Speaker 1: still kind of look at it as uh, I guess
53:15
Speaker 1: as a as a field edge because it's a huge
53:20
Speaker 1: or I guess we could just say edge in general,
53:22
Speaker 1: because it's a huge transition in vegetation, especially if it
53:25
Speaker 1: goes from open timber to standing corn. But if there
53:28
Speaker 1: is this this real thick you know how sometimes we
53:32
Speaker 1: have a from a field edge ten yards inside the
53:36
Speaker 1: timber it's thick because the sun hits it, then I
53:40
Speaker 1: don't think the stand the quote unquote field edge is
53:43
Speaker 1: near as good and they work the inside of the
53:45
Speaker 1: timber on that thick edge. Um. This that's kind of
53:48
Speaker 1: my experience. But I just I guess I haven't seen
53:53
Speaker 1: the um I haven't seen in the past where it's
53:58
Speaker 1: worked either way. So that's why I'm in the timber
54:02
Speaker 1: or in more cover. You know, another thing just came
54:05
Speaker 1: to my mind as you were talking about how you
54:07
Speaker 1: think about standing corn differently throughout the year, is that
54:11
Speaker 1: it is important to think about how deer use corn
54:14
Speaker 1: differently throughout the year. So in the summer and early season,
54:18
Speaker 1: they're not really feeding on that corn too much. It's
54:21
Speaker 1: not until later in the year that the corn becomes
54:23
Speaker 1: like very, very attractive. So if you've got a season
54:27
Speaker 1: open in September even early October, that's probably not top
54:30
Speaker 1: food source. So it really is just a betting area
54:34
Speaker 1: or a transition area. Um at that point you don't
54:37
Speaker 1: need to think about much feeding going on at all,
54:39
Speaker 1: because it's probably better things. But once you get into
54:41
Speaker 1: late October obviously than November and December, once it gets
54:44
Speaker 1: colder and that corn is really dried down, then it
54:47
Speaker 1: becomes a major food source. So that's another thing to
54:49
Speaker 1: think about as well. I wouldn't when if I'm coming
54:52
Speaker 1: out in the evening and I've got a standing corn field,
54:56
Speaker 1: I would not want to be walking through a standing
54:58
Speaker 1: corn field after dark in the because that thing is
55:00
Speaker 1: probably full of deer. So yeah, it depends on on
55:06
Speaker 1: what other food sources are in the area. If you
55:09
Speaker 1: have a lot of green foliage on the ground, then
55:12
Speaker 1: I would be less um, I would be more apt.
55:16
Speaker 1: Or you had a good acorn crap, I'd be more
55:18
Speaker 1: apt to walking through the corn field on the way
55:22
Speaker 1: back to the truck as opposed to, uh, finding a
55:25
Speaker 1: different way and a lot of it. I mean, there's
55:27
Speaker 1: so many very variables that you know, and each scenario
55:32
Speaker 1: is different. Right If you have one of those places
55:34
Speaker 1: where dear just pile out of the timber because I
55:37
Speaker 1: don't know, they don't have that's that's the only food
55:40
Speaker 1: source in the area. I don't I don't have that.
55:43
Speaker 1: There's so much other food in the area that they
55:45
Speaker 1: don't necessarily need to eat the corn. Interesting. Yeah, well
55:50
Speaker 1: you said a lot of different factors to play. Yeah. Um.
55:54
Speaker 1: How about this question from Alex what do you look
55:57
Speaker 1: for when scouting at this time of year? So it's
56:01
Speaker 1: February March time frame, we're looking forward to the next
56:04
Speaker 1: hunting season this months away. Is there anything you can
56:07
Speaker 1: be looking at right now that will help you scout
56:10
Speaker 1: for next fall? Where's your my head is terrain period?
56:16
Speaker 1: I really love this time of year getting out especially
56:21
Speaker 1: with with snow on the ground. And this is more
56:24
Speaker 1: of a Midwestern type strategy, but you can still go
56:27
Speaker 1: out and do this in a southern state with no terrain,
56:31
Speaker 1: uh like no snow on the ground. Look for subtleties
56:35
Speaker 1: in terrain, look for the low spots, look for um
56:39
Speaker 1: right now, A big thing that I'm looking for on
56:41
Speaker 1: on X and UM when I do my my scouting
56:45
Speaker 1: is these things I call spur ridges where it's just
56:50
Speaker 1: a it's a terrain feature coming off of a main
56:52
Speaker 1: ridge that leads down into the drainage or um, another
56:57
Speaker 1: slight depression in a ridge where that, dear you, is
57:00
Speaker 1: just so they're taking the lowest spot up into whatever
57:04
Speaker 1: it is they're trying to access, um little dips or
57:09
Speaker 1: you know. And and then and then scout look for
57:11
Speaker 1: sign around those areas. And then the only other thing
57:14
Speaker 1: left to do really is is hunt those areas in
57:19
Speaker 1: the seat during the season to see if in fact
57:22
Speaker 1: that terrain feature is worth hunting. Market off your list
57:25
Speaker 1: and move on. Yeah, And I think I think your
57:28
Speaker 1: focus on terrain is is a good one at this
57:30
Speaker 1: time of year, because that's something that's the same no
57:32
Speaker 1: matter what time of year it is the terrain, the ridges,
57:35
Speaker 1: the slopes, the hills, the valleys, etcetera. Cover obviously changes
57:40
Speaker 1: a lot, so veil cover right now in February is
57:43
Speaker 1: a lot different than it will be in September. So
57:46
Speaker 1: dear behavior relating to cover will be different, but how
57:50
Speaker 1: they move along a ridge will be very similar. Might
57:53
Speaker 1: adjust a little bit if it was more leafy cover
57:55
Speaker 1: at some point. But yeah, that's a big thing to
57:57
Speaker 1: look for, and I really like having that just allows
58:00
Speaker 1: you to confirm things so much better than any other
58:03
Speaker 1: time of year. If if if only to tell you
58:06
Speaker 1: what to think about in late November and December, that's
58:08
Speaker 1: still helpful. Um, But you can see, oh yeah, all
58:11
Speaker 1: these tracks do walk down the bottom third of you know,
58:14
Speaker 1: one third of the way down the ridge, or they
58:16
Speaker 1: do use a little spur, or you do see that
58:18
Speaker 1: there's a whole bunch of deer betting on this point,
58:21
Speaker 1: just like you thought there would have been. You you
58:22
Speaker 1: always assume there was, and now you can actually see
58:25
Speaker 1: it laid out in the snow, no questions asked. Um,
58:29
Speaker 1: you know, I was out on the back forty last week,
58:31
Speaker 1: took a little scouting run because I always I would
58:33
Speaker 1: like to get at least one snowy day scouting session
58:36
Speaker 1: on every farm just to see that stuff laid out there. Um.
58:41
Speaker 1: And I discovered a little knob that extended out into
58:45
Speaker 1: the swamp that I never walked through last year for
58:47
Speaker 1: some reason, and there was like twenty beds on it.
58:50
Speaker 1: There was all sorts of deer in there right now,
58:52
Speaker 1: and I'm not saying they're all going to be there
58:53
Speaker 1: in October, but it's still good to know that that
58:56
Speaker 1: was a major late season betting year that I never
58:58
Speaker 1: would have thought about in the past. Um. Another thing
59:01
Speaker 1: I did is I went and I was trying to
59:02
Speaker 1: pay attention to any buck tracks, and if I found
59:05
Speaker 1: a big set of buck tracks, I would backtrack it
59:07
Speaker 1: and follow the path that buck took. So you know,
59:10
Speaker 1: there's no time of year you can do that when
59:12
Speaker 1: you can actually see exactly how buck moves across the landscape.
59:16
Speaker 1: So this is really cool. I went and I was
59:19
Speaker 1: walking down along the edge of the swamp and I
59:22
Speaker 1: cut a big track and I thought, this is definitely
59:24
Speaker 1: looks like a buck track, really wide splayed big dew clause. Um.
59:28
Speaker 1: So I start following this buck track and it takes
59:30
Speaker 1: me into the middle of the swamp right into the
59:32
Speaker 1: middle of it, and then it starts heading due south,
59:35
Speaker 1: straight down the middle of the swamp, down towards the
59:38
Speaker 1: bottom of I've kind of described this swamps is like
59:41
Speaker 1: a gourd, So at the top, the north end is
59:43
Speaker 1: like the handle of the gore, the narrow end, and
59:45
Speaker 1: then it widens out into a big glob at the bottom.
59:49
Speaker 1: And so it's taking me straight down into the glob
59:51
Speaker 1: of the bottom, heading towards the neighbors, where it opens
59:54
Speaker 1: up into like a very watery um cattail area. And
59:59
Speaker 1: I'm following this track, and then all of a sudden,
1:00:01
Speaker 1: a bunch of other bucks all merge with this bucks.
1:00:03
Speaker 1: So now there's a group of three or four what
1:00:05
Speaker 1: looks like bucks, all in the same little area that
1:00:09
Speaker 1: I never got into last year because it's so gnarly
1:00:11
Speaker 1: in there. And of course that's where these bucks are going,
1:00:14
Speaker 1: and they head straight out to the edge of this
1:00:16
Speaker 1: really watery stuff. And then right then as I'm looking,
1:00:19
Speaker 1: I'm like, oh, this is, of course, this is where
1:00:21
Speaker 1: these bucks are heading to go. There's these little points
1:00:24
Speaker 1: of just a little bit of high ground with a
1:00:26
Speaker 1: bunch of I don't know if it's red oce or
1:00:28
Speaker 1: dogwood or some autumnle of stuff, just really thick, shrubby
1:00:32
Speaker 1: stuff that extends little points extending out into the marshy stuff.
1:00:35
Speaker 1: And it's like picture perfect obvious betting. But it's in
1:00:39
Speaker 1: the nastiest, thickest farthest away from anywhere you can get spot.
1:00:43
Speaker 1: And I'm sneaking out to them, like, yeah, of course
1:00:45
Speaker 1: this is where those bucks are going. And I'm looking
1:00:46
Speaker 1: at them, seeing there's one tree actually hunting here. If
1:00:49
Speaker 1: I ever want to get in there, like you know,
1:00:51
Speaker 1: November five or something, all day sit in the swamp,
1:00:53
Speaker 1: this would be such a sweet spot. And I'm sitting
1:00:55
Speaker 1: here looking around thinking about it, and then I hear slash,
1:00:58
Speaker 1: slash slash, and then out from this point yards in
1:01:03
Speaker 1: front of me, a big bodied buck steps out into
1:01:06
Speaker 1: the open and just looks at me. He's already shed
1:01:09
Speaker 1: his antlers, so I can just see these big knobs
1:01:11
Speaker 1: on his head, but a big body and just stands
1:01:14
Speaker 1: there and staring at me, and I'm staring at him, like, man,
1:01:16
Speaker 1: this is awesome. I followed this buck right to where
1:01:19
Speaker 1: he's bet and he walks out right in front of me. Um,
1:01:21
Speaker 1: just a really cool little scouting encounter that confirms, you know,
1:01:25
Speaker 1: things I wondered about and you know, gave me something
1:01:28
Speaker 1: to think about this coming season. So definitely you can
1:01:31
Speaker 1: you can learn stuff during this time of year. Um,
1:01:35
Speaker 1: you know, you can't see scrapes because they're covering snow possibly,
1:01:38
Speaker 1: but if you don't have snow cover, you can see scrapes,
1:01:41
Speaker 1: you can see running activity from last year. That can
1:01:43
Speaker 1: be helpful if you can see rubs and stuff. Um,
1:01:46
Speaker 1: so yeah, there's a lot. You know, I wouldn't put
1:01:50
Speaker 1: too much into exact trails and things like that that
1:01:52
Speaker 1: could be different when covers different, but there's certainly his
1:01:55
Speaker 1: value to be had this time of year. Right. And
1:01:57
Speaker 1: but the the whole, the whole point, and we both
1:02:00
Speaker 1: agree on this, is that it's all about data collection
1:02:03
Speaker 1: and data points and and adding all these data points together.
1:02:06
Speaker 1: Let's say you scout in the in the uh winter
1:02:09
Speaker 1: and you see the terrain feature, you identify the terraine feature.
1:02:13
Speaker 1: You come back in in the summer, and now what
1:02:16
Speaker 1: you've seen is the sickness, right, all the vegetation is there,
1:02:20
Speaker 1: and maybe what you didn't see in the winter you
1:02:24
Speaker 1: see in the summer, which is edge, right, Now what
1:02:29
Speaker 1: we're doing basically is we have a checkbox check box. Okay,
1:02:34
Speaker 1: we got terrain, a good train feature check. Oh, now
1:02:37
Speaker 1: we got edge check. Hey check this out. It's this
1:02:40
Speaker 1: draw leads to a food source check. So now all
1:02:43
Speaker 1: we're doing is is checking this box to identify good locations,
1:02:48
Speaker 1: to put a tree standard, a ground blind, to ambush
1:02:51
Speaker 1: these animals. Right, So the more checks you have in
1:02:55
Speaker 1: that in in the check box, the better the area
1:02:57
Speaker 1: I feel will be. Yeah, I think it's war earth getting.
1:03:01
Speaker 1: I think it's helpful to do some form scouting during
1:03:04
Speaker 1: each different season of the year, just so you get
1:03:07
Speaker 1: that full suite of data across the board. Get the winter,
1:03:11
Speaker 1: get the spring, get a little summer, and then of
1:03:13
Speaker 1: course when you're hunting, thinking about scouting every time you
1:03:17
Speaker 1: go out there. Um, and then you have that full
1:03:20
Speaker 1: set that you can pull from. Yeah. Absolutely, Uh what
1:03:26
Speaker 1: about this? This question comes from Daniel, and then Garrett
1:03:30
Speaker 1: has kind of a related question. Basically, Daniel says, hey,
1:03:33
Speaker 1: I'm a new hunter. Um no, sorry this one. Daniel,
1:03:37
Speaker 1: he's starting a group trying to help educate some of
1:03:41
Speaker 1: his neighbors on how to hunt, and he's wondering about
1:03:44
Speaker 1: low budget starter kits for a new hunter. Excuse me
1:03:47
Speaker 1: the hiccups. I get hiccups a lot when I'm on
1:03:50
Speaker 1: this podcast for some reason. I think because I'm always
1:03:52
Speaker 1: I drink coffee, and I think once I get towards
1:03:54
Speaker 1: the end of the coffee, you have swallowed so much
1:03:56
Speaker 1: air as I'm talking and drinking coffee that end up
1:03:59
Speaker 1: getting But what I'm trying to say is the question
1:04:02
Speaker 1: is some kind of recommended cheap way to get started,
1:04:07
Speaker 1: Like what's the bare essentials that you need to start hunting? Um?
1:04:11
Speaker 1: I think I would tell you that you know, just
1:04:15
Speaker 1: and again let's just say you've got the bare bones buttet.
1:04:18
Speaker 1: I would just get some basic decent clothing. They can
1:04:21
Speaker 1: get you out and there were with some basic camouflage. Um,
1:04:25
Speaker 1: something that's gonna keep you warm and keep you dry
1:04:29
Speaker 1: so you're not soaking wet. So try to get some
1:04:31
Speaker 1: half decent bass layers so you're not drenched. But you
1:04:34
Speaker 1: don't need to spend thousands of dollars on the best camel,
1:04:36
Speaker 1: which you know, we'd like to have good stuff, but
1:04:38
Speaker 1: you don't have to have it. Read away. UM, I
1:04:40
Speaker 1: would tell you to not feel bad about getting one
1:04:44
Speaker 1: of those starter kit bows. I think that those are
1:04:47
Speaker 1: all pretty decent these days. That's what I started with.
1:04:49
Speaker 1: My first compound was one of those pre set up
1:04:51
Speaker 1: compounds from Cabela's. I bet she was like three hundred
1:04:54
Speaker 1: bucks or two fifty or something. It came with all
1:04:57
Speaker 1: the accessories, and you know, it's not top of the line,
1:04:59
Speaker 1: but it is plenty good enough to get out there
1:05:01
Speaker 1: shooting and to be able to get a deer. Um.
1:05:06
Speaker 1: I would set a very high level. That's a good
1:05:08
Speaker 1: route to go from the boat if you're gonna go
1:05:09
Speaker 1: bow hunting. UM, gun hunting. I mean, there's a lot
1:05:12
Speaker 1: of very effective begin to arrange rifles or shotguns. You
1:05:17
Speaker 1: don't need. None of the fancy stuff is absolutely necessary.
1:05:21
Speaker 1: It's just if you want to get really really serious,
1:05:23
Speaker 1: really really detailed with things. Um, But to get started,
1:05:26
Speaker 1: don't stress over that stuff. Don't be afraid to borrow.
1:05:30
Speaker 1: That's a good point. There is a lot I mean,
1:05:32
Speaker 1: for a bow that might be hard to do because
1:05:34
Speaker 1: you have to have the same exact schematics as the
1:05:38
Speaker 1: guy who you're borrowing from. But if you're a gun hunter,
1:05:41
Speaker 1: you know, I know a lot of people who would
1:05:45
Speaker 1: just be willing to give you a gun to let
1:05:49
Speaker 1: you borrow it for a season, because they have plenty
1:05:52
Speaker 1: of guns that they that they have access to, so
1:05:56
Speaker 1: even borrow stuff from friends family. I think that's a
1:06:00
Speaker 1: that's a really good point. And another option to UM
1:06:04
Speaker 1: is a new hunter. I know some people are just
1:06:07
Speaker 1: fundamentally opposed to them, But if you are interested in
1:06:10
Speaker 1: bow hunting but you aren't yet fully comfortable, the compound
1:06:13
Speaker 1: crossbows are very very good for new hunters as far
1:06:17
Speaker 1: as you can pick it up and be very competent
1:06:19
Speaker 1: with it quickly. Hate them or love them, They're a
1:06:21
Speaker 1: good thing for new hunters as far as I'm concerned.
1:06:23
Speaker 1: So that's something to keep in mind. Yeah. Absolutely. UM So, okay,
1:06:28
Speaker 1: you need some kind of basic clothing, you need a
1:06:30
Speaker 1: basic entry level weapon. UM. As far as other gear,
1:06:36
Speaker 1: I think that if someone was starting out, I wouldn't
1:06:39
Speaker 1: even try to get them confused or intimidated with some
1:06:43
Speaker 1: kind of elevated hunting gear. I think that maybe just
1:06:46
Speaker 1: figure out how to hunt from the ground to start
1:06:49
Speaker 1: might be a a safe, more comfortable route for someone new,
1:06:54
Speaker 1: you know, because I feel like that's one of the
1:06:55
Speaker 1: major intimidating factors for new people is the idea of
1:06:58
Speaker 1: climbing into a tree for some people. Um, so I
1:07:01
Speaker 1: might say, hey, get a ground blind or you know,
1:07:04
Speaker 1: get a little something, an idea of how to set
1:07:06
Speaker 1: up behind a tree trunk or something. Just get out
1:07:08
Speaker 1: there and learn to look for deer sign and learn
1:07:10
Speaker 1: to see deer and have some encounters, um before you
1:07:13
Speaker 1: go about trying to take that next step of how
1:07:15
Speaker 1: to set up a tree stand or how to climb
1:07:17
Speaker 1: up with sticks in the saddle or whatever. Um. That
1:07:21
Speaker 1: that's the thought I have on there. Um And then
1:07:25
Speaker 1: what else? I mean, maybe binoculars, some basic binoculars. Yeah,
1:07:30
Speaker 1: but even even even that, your eyes are good enough
1:07:33
Speaker 1: to see that it's a deer. And if you're a
1:07:35
Speaker 1: new hunter, you really shouldn't be focusing on unless there's
1:07:39
Speaker 1: rules and regulations that prevents you from shooting one sex
1:07:42
Speaker 1: or the other. Uh, you should you shouldn't even be
1:07:45
Speaker 1: worrying about antlers. You should just shoot the first deer
1:07:48
Speaker 1: that comes. By my opinion, Phil, Phil the freezer, have
1:07:51
Speaker 1: that experience. Um, see what that's all like? So knife, yeah, yeah,
1:07:56
Speaker 1: so you need you need a good field dressing knife.
1:07:59
Speaker 1: You need um, I mean a grunt tube or something's nice,
1:08:02
Speaker 1: but not need to have, um, some kind of backpack
1:08:06
Speaker 1: or fanny pack or something's a nice thing. I guess
1:08:08
Speaker 1: if you want to bring a knife and your tag
1:08:10
Speaker 1: and uh, you know a few other little things like that,
1:08:13
Speaker 1: but you don't need a ton to get out there.
1:08:16
Speaker 1: Um boots to keep you dry, clothing and keep you comfy,
1:08:19
Speaker 1: and entry level weapon and just get out there and start.
1:08:23
Speaker 1: And that doesn't have to cost my mormental leg um.
1:08:28
Speaker 1: I hate to see gear being something that keeps somebody
1:08:30
Speaker 1: from hunting, you know, absolutely, yeah, you don't need you know,
1:08:34
Speaker 1: Mark and I sit here and we talk about stuff
1:08:37
Speaker 1: because we rely on our gear. So we're spending more
1:08:41
Speaker 1: money on it because we use it more and we're seasoned.
1:08:44
Speaker 1: You know. I don't want to sound arrogant, but that's
1:08:47
Speaker 1: just there. That's just you know, we want to be
1:08:49
Speaker 1: in the tree stand as long as possible throughout the
1:08:52
Speaker 1: or out west or whatever, so we're gonna we take
1:08:55
Speaker 1: into consideration our gear a lot more than a novice would.
1:08:59
Speaker 1: So if you novice, I mean even even solid color
1:09:03
Speaker 1: khakis and dickies, you don't even really need camel. Just
1:09:06
Speaker 1: be still, you know, you can get away with a
1:09:09
Speaker 1: lot more than you think. Um. So a couple of
1:09:11
Speaker 1: follow up questions that a couple other people have questions
1:09:13
Speaker 1: related to mobile hunting gear. Um. Someone asked if we
1:09:17
Speaker 1: would prefer for our running gun sets or for saddle
1:09:20
Speaker 1: hunting or something like that. Do you prefer steps or sticks?
1:09:24
Speaker 1: There are some mobile steps that you can like strap
1:09:27
Speaker 1: on steps. Um. Other people like to put screwing pegs
1:09:30
Speaker 1: up and have a bunch of trees prepped with screwing pegs,
1:09:32
Speaker 1: but they don't put a standard saddle. So the standard
1:09:35
Speaker 1: saddle is mobile. But they have steps in a whole
1:09:37
Speaker 1: bunch of places. Um, what are your thoughts on that?
1:09:41
Speaker 1: I'm pretty sure I know what it is. But man,
1:09:44
Speaker 1: I'll tell you what. Um, those guys that tethered are
1:09:49
Speaker 1: damn your pure pressuring me into I don't know the
1:09:52
Speaker 1: first time that you ever drank alcohol. I was. I
1:09:55
Speaker 1: was hanging out with a whole bunch of like one
1:09:57
Speaker 1: of my best friends older brothers and his friends are like,
1:10:00
Speaker 1: come on, Johnson, you gotta do it. Man, take the
1:10:02
Speaker 1: sip of this beer. Come on, man, you gotta do it.
1:10:05
Speaker 1: So I did it right. Peer pressure, I feel like
1:10:08
Speaker 1: I'm getting I'm getting pure pressured into sitting in the saddle. Well, dude,
1:10:13
Speaker 1: I've been They must be more effective than me, because
1:10:16
Speaker 1: I've been trying to get you to to do it for
1:10:17
Speaker 1: two years and you haven't showed any sign of breaking.
1:10:19
Speaker 1: So now finally it's you. I'd never listened to you, Okay,
1:10:24
Speaker 1: fair enough. Yeah, man, I'm telling you, and I know
1:10:29
Speaker 1: they're telling you, and it's it's it's funny. It's almost
1:10:32
Speaker 1: it's probably annoying to hear all the people that are
1:10:35
Speaker 1: It's like, it's definitely a bandwagon thing now, it's very trendy.
1:10:38
Speaker 1: It's talked about a ton, it's quote unquote kind of cool.
1:10:41
Speaker 1: It's a cool new thing. So it's gonna be really
1:10:43
Speaker 1: annoying for people to keep hearing about all time. But
1:10:47
Speaker 1: I just, honest to God truth for me, at least,
1:10:50
Speaker 1: I'm not saying everyone's gonna feel the same way. But
1:10:52
Speaker 1: for me, it was like it was a total new world.
1:10:55
Speaker 1: I was like, wow, this is I'm never going back
1:10:58
Speaker 1: after trying to So, I don't know, I'd be very
1:11:01
Speaker 1: interested to see what you think after you try It's
1:11:04
Speaker 1: it is. I don't know, you are like a big
1:11:06
Speaker 1: bodied person, so maybe it won't be as comfortable for
1:11:08
Speaker 1: you as it is for me. I don't know, Um,
1:11:11
Speaker 1: but you should try it. Yeah, I don't know. We'll
1:11:14
Speaker 1: give it a shot. I did. I just I've I'm
1:11:17
Speaker 1: really in my zone right now with my gear and
1:11:22
Speaker 1: like to the point where I feel like I'm really efficient.
1:11:25
Speaker 1: And you know, from a process standpoint, you should be
1:11:28
Speaker 1: open to other processes. Um. But I just I'm in
1:11:32
Speaker 1: love with what I have and it it treats me right,
1:11:35
Speaker 1: I understand if it if it ain't broke, don't fix it. Um.
1:11:38
Speaker 1: Someone did ask though, for a starter kit for saddle hunting.
1:11:41
Speaker 1: That was one of the questions. So I will tell
1:11:43
Speaker 1: you that the basics. Oh, we never answered that other
1:11:46
Speaker 1: question too, which was sticks or steps? Um, your sticks right? Sticks? Yeah,
1:11:51
Speaker 1: and I'm sticks too. And I will tell you that
1:11:53
Speaker 1: I I did on a couple of places set up
1:11:57
Speaker 1: screwing pegs um on the back forty and my other
1:12:01
Speaker 1: farm where in the past I would have wanted to
1:12:03
Speaker 1: put up a new tree stand, but instead this year,
1:12:05
Speaker 1: I just I did put screwing pegs up the tree,
1:12:08
Speaker 1: with the notion that if I decided I want to hunt,
1:12:10
Speaker 1: that I'll just go on my saddle and set up.
1:12:11
Speaker 1: Then and it was nice to have those preset like that,
1:12:14
Speaker 1: um because it does cut you know, the five minutes
1:12:16
Speaker 1: of putting sticks up. But if I'm you know, going
1:12:19
Speaker 1: into a new place and I don't have anything preset um,
1:12:22
Speaker 1: I definitely prefer sticks over the strap on steps or anything. Yes,
1:12:26
Speaker 1: now you're running lone wolf sticks? Right? Have you made
1:12:29
Speaker 1: any modifications? Do you have? You've probably seen a lot
1:12:32
Speaker 1: of these different things people are doing. Have you thought
1:12:34
Speaker 1: about up, you know, customizing or changing or getting different
1:12:37
Speaker 1: sticks or trying anything different or where's your head out there? Yeah?
1:12:40
Speaker 1: Not really. I Mean the only thing I really do
1:12:43
Speaker 1: is I take um hockey tape black or green hockey tape,
1:12:48
Speaker 1: and I wrap the stick itself to deaden the noise
1:12:52
Speaker 1: and to make it more comfortable and holding when you know,
1:12:55
Speaker 1: doing the running gun. But I don't know. I all
1:13:00
Speaker 1: these people, it's great what they're doing, uh, you know,
1:13:03
Speaker 1: making sound, dampening, making um uh eight ers and all
1:13:08
Speaker 1: this stuff. I guess I'm I don't hunt these black
1:13:14
Speaker 1: holes of public ground where you're walking in eight miles right,
1:13:18
Speaker 1: I'm walking in at most. At most I have one
1:13:23
Speaker 1: stand and it's all wind dependent that I it will
1:13:26
Speaker 1: take me three quarters of a mile to walk into, right,
1:13:29
Speaker 1: I'm not walking miles and miles and miles to get back,
1:13:32
Speaker 1: so I'm not concerned about weight. Uh. The only thing
1:13:35
Speaker 1: I really do was wrap my uh sticks with the
1:13:39
Speaker 1: hockey tape and I take my time climbing up and
1:13:43
Speaker 1: down into the tree setting up. So noise for me
1:13:48
Speaker 1: is really not an issue. Um, you know, and unless
1:13:53
Speaker 1: I'm sitting right on top of a bed where I
1:13:55
Speaker 1: have to be alter quiet because I know a buck
1:13:58
Speaker 1: is in there, do sound. It may seem loud to you,
1:14:02
Speaker 1: but you know eighty, you know, fifty eight yards away.
1:14:08
Speaker 1: Unless it's dead quiet and it's a high pressure day,
1:14:12
Speaker 1: you're not that sound isn't gonna travel very far. Again,
1:14:15
Speaker 1: all my all my opinions, I'm gonna push on you
1:14:18
Speaker 1: a little bit there because I do think that, right, dear,
1:14:22
Speaker 1: do have much bigger, much more accurate ears than we do.
1:14:26
Speaker 1: So what we hear, it's hard to imagine what their
1:14:29
Speaker 1: experience might be, and it's likely much greater more tuned
1:14:33
Speaker 1: than than ours are. So I would just say that
1:14:36
Speaker 1: if I was going to recommend you do anything, if
1:14:38
Speaker 1: if you were, if I if I had the luxury
1:14:41
Speaker 1: of telling you to make one change, Dan, I would
1:14:43
Speaker 1: tell you to consider at least getting rid of the
1:14:46
Speaker 1: buckles on your straps on your sticks, because those things
1:14:50
Speaker 1: just seem to be you make one little miss que
1:14:53
Speaker 1: with your hand, and if one strap goes sliding down
1:14:57
Speaker 1: or swinging down and smacks against another thing, even if
1:15:00
Speaker 1: you've got a hockey stick, it's gonna make some noise.
1:15:03
Speaker 1: And then especially if you ding against the step or
1:15:06
Speaker 1: any kind of metal and metal contact, that stuff is
1:15:09
Speaker 1: just I don't know. I always worry about that. So
1:15:12
Speaker 1: one thing I did, that's a very simple thing. Um
1:15:15
Speaker 1: is I got and you can do a d I
1:15:17
Speaker 1: y work around this. But there's something that's from Tethered two.
1:15:21
Speaker 1: It's called the Versus strap. You've seeing these. It's just
1:15:25
Speaker 1: basically a daisy chain. So it's it's like a strap
1:15:27
Speaker 1: with a bunch of loops in it. And so you
1:15:29
Speaker 1: just take off the regular strap with a buckle from
1:15:32
Speaker 1: your sticks and you put this on. You put one
1:15:34
Speaker 1: loop over the Versa button, and then you've got another
1:15:36
Speaker 1: loop that you wrap it on the tree and they
1:15:38
Speaker 1: just loop it over. You just pick the right hole
1:15:40
Speaker 1: that gets the tightness you need. So now I've got
1:15:42
Speaker 1: a strap with no buckles, with nothing that can make noise,
1:15:46
Speaker 1: and um, just it makes it much easier and quieter
1:15:50
Speaker 1: for me to set up. So that's one little update
1:15:52
Speaker 1: I made to my sticks that I like. But but yeah,
1:15:55
Speaker 1: either way, I like sticks too. I'm thinking about buying
1:15:58
Speaker 1: new sticks. This yere um still on the side on
1:16:01
Speaker 1: which brand I'm gonna go with. But um, so you
1:16:05
Speaker 1: want to know why I don't really like think sound
1:16:08
Speaker 1: is as big of an issue unless a deer may
1:16:11
Speaker 1: already be spooked, is I was? It was late October
1:16:16
Speaker 1: one year, and I'm sitting here perfect night, you know
1:16:20
Speaker 1: those late October evenings where you just feel like you're
1:16:24
Speaker 1: in the right position. You know, there's got to be
1:16:27
Speaker 1: a mature bucket here somewhere or whatever. And out of
1:16:31
Speaker 1: the you know, I'm glassing this. Uh there's still like
1:16:33
Speaker 1: a standing cornfield on the opposite side of this little
1:16:37
Speaker 1: not really a marsh, but a wet spot in between
1:16:40
Speaker 1: a timber and an egg field. So I was hunting
1:16:42
Speaker 1: this crp field with a wet spot in it, and
1:16:46
Speaker 1: I see some movement and there he is. It's one
1:16:48
Speaker 1: of my target bucks, and he's probably he's in this tree.
1:16:51
Speaker 1: Line strip of trees, and then probably fifty yards was
1:16:57
Speaker 1: a um was the cornfield. And then all of a sudden,
1:17:01
Speaker 1: I see or I hear the combine startup and it
1:17:05
Speaker 1: starts to combine that field, and that combine goes fifty
1:17:12
Speaker 1: yards away from this buck, and his body language does
1:17:15
Speaker 1: not even change. He's just sitting there eating his cut
1:17:19
Speaker 1: and two three four laps around the field, and that
1:17:22
Speaker 1: buck is just standing there. So I feel like if
1:17:27
Speaker 1: a if a buck isn't gonna move with a combine
1:17:32
Speaker 1: fifty yards away from him, then my my small little
1:17:36
Speaker 1: clank on a on my tree stand isn't going to
1:17:40
Speaker 1: affect him either. I don't know. See. I feel like
1:17:43
Speaker 1: that's all context though, and that I agree that dear
1:17:47
Speaker 1: knows that that combine is you know, that's a sound
1:17:50
Speaker 1: that they're used to. But the sound of like a
1:17:53
Speaker 1: single little ding ding ding, that's a that's that's a
1:17:56
Speaker 1: weird thing out of place in here. Um. I think
1:17:59
Speaker 1: you can get away. I think you could do it.
1:18:01
Speaker 1: You could probably get away with better access to your
1:18:04
Speaker 1: tree stand by taking a chainsaw. Here's my new X idea.
1:18:09
Speaker 1: When you're going into hunt your stands, if you've got
1:18:11
Speaker 1: a hard to get to place. Go in there with
1:18:13
Speaker 1: a chainsaw, idling dun walk all the way to your
1:18:17
Speaker 1: tree stand with an idling chainsaw, and then get set up.
1:18:20
Speaker 1: That's the kind of thing where I feel like you
1:18:21
Speaker 1: can get away with like farm work and that kind
1:18:24
Speaker 1: of stuff. It's like the sneaky quiet sounds, the ones
1:18:28
Speaker 1: that dear like that's that's not supposed to be here. Um.
1:18:33
Speaker 1: I don't know, but for for everything I've said and
1:18:37
Speaker 1: believe in, I can contradict myself with another thing that
1:18:41
Speaker 1: I've seen from the tree stand as well, you know
1:18:45
Speaker 1: what I mean. So whatever, Yeah, that's that's what keeps
1:18:49
Speaker 1: us going right because we don't have it all figured out.
1:18:52
Speaker 1: Um okay, so yes, sticks, sticks through the way to
1:18:55
Speaker 1: go from mobile hunting, I think. Um. To Garrett's question
1:18:58
Speaker 1: about the starter kit for saddle hunting, UM, I would
1:19:01
Speaker 1: say get sticks. I would say, um, again, if you're
1:19:05
Speaker 1: trying to be as like as budget tight as possible,
1:19:08
Speaker 1: get the saddle of whatever choice, whatever brand you like.
1:19:11
Speaker 1: I like the tether one. Um. The platform is really
1:19:15
Speaker 1: really nice. I love having one. But if you have
1:19:17
Speaker 1: to skimp somewhere, you could probably probably get away with
1:19:21
Speaker 1: just a couple of screwing pegs. If you don't want
1:19:23
Speaker 1: to spend a couple hundred bucks on the platform, excuse me,
1:19:26
Speaker 1: just throwing a couple of pegs and that works. I've
1:19:28
Speaker 1: done that. It's fine. Um, So that saves you some money.
1:19:32
Speaker 1: You need alignment's belt and you need to tether, um.
1:19:36
Speaker 1: But that's it. That's all you absolutely have to have.
1:19:39
Speaker 1: You can get all these different recliner straps, you can
1:19:42
Speaker 1: get little baggies, the whole things. You can get um,
1:19:46
Speaker 1: you know, the fancy insulators and stuff. It's nice to have,
1:19:50
Speaker 1: but you don't have to have it. So get a tether,
1:19:52
Speaker 1: get alignment's belt, get some sticks, get some pegs, and
1:19:56
Speaker 1: you can be up in the tree and going without
1:19:59
Speaker 1: spending a bun to money on fifteen different trees, stands
1:20:01
Speaker 1: and stuff. So that is the starter kit for saddle hunting. Um.
1:20:08
Speaker 1: What else? If you have to pick one week to
1:20:10
Speaker 1: shed hunt, Dan, what would your best week of shed hunting? Bee? Man?
1:20:16
Speaker 1: This is such a how do I put this? It's
1:20:20
Speaker 1: only me question? Right, It's like, so, what's your favorite
1:20:25
Speaker 1: thing to do? Right? So my favorite is different than
1:20:27
Speaker 1: everybody else's. But I dude, I have found that the
1:20:30
Speaker 1: late last week in February. Probably probably the last week
1:20:34
Speaker 1: in February or the first week in March, or in
1:20:37
Speaker 1: my actually, in my experiences, the where I find found
1:20:41
Speaker 1: the most sheds consistently. Yeah, yeah, I'd say somewhere right
1:20:46
Speaker 1: in that sand ballpark. I would probably pick the I
1:20:52
Speaker 1: don't know. I'm torn between those two as well, because
1:20:54
Speaker 1: I would. I used to think the first week in
1:20:55
Speaker 1: March all the time, but there's so many more people
1:20:58
Speaker 1: out there shed hunting these days. I hate getting chewed
1:21:01
Speaker 1: up antlers. Um, So yeah, late February, early March. It's
1:21:07
Speaker 1: hard to go wrong with those dates. And you certainly
1:21:10
Speaker 1: can find him sooner, and you can certainly find him later.
1:21:12
Speaker 1: There's no doubt about that too. There's obviously vary ability.
1:21:15
Speaker 1: I found trans to sheds January match set. So it's
1:21:20
Speaker 1: never the earliest you've ever found a shed angler, m Um,
1:21:29
Speaker 1: that might be it. That actually might be my earliest
1:21:32
Speaker 1: sheds trying. No, let me take that back. There's one time,
1:21:34
Speaker 1: and I didn't actually find it, but a guy, a
1:21:37
Speaker 1: neighbor was tracking a buck through the farm I can hunt,
1:21:41
Speaker 1: and I was out there helping him track it, and
1:21:43
Speaker 1: he found a shed in late December, so from that year.
1:21:47
Speaker 1: From that year, yep, it was a fresh might just
1:21:48
Speaker 1: just dropped in late December, so I didn't technically find it,
1:21:51
Speaker 1: but that's the earliest when I've been around. Yeah, so
1:21:55
Speaker 1: I would say late December. I found one January or
1:22:00
Speaker 1: excuse me, December, so it was it was a real
1:22:04
Speaker 1: fresh one too. And then the next one, the next
1:22:07
Speaker 1: earliest was January seven. They're definitely out there, yep. Um
1:22:15
Speaker 1: Derek asked us if we've ever heard of gut pile farts. Danny,
1:22:20
Speaker 1: you heard of gut pile farts? I mean, I've heard
1:22:22
Speaker 1: of them, but I don't think I've ever had them.
1:22:25
Speaker 1: So okay, I'll try to explain this. Um, So, isn't
1:22:31
Speaker 1: the deal that after you gut a deer, supposedly your
1:22:36
Speaker 1: farts will smelling a gut pile. Yeah, so if you
1:22:39
Speaker 1: breathe in the smell of a gut pile, somehow that
1:22:43
Speaker 1: makes it through your entire system that when you fart,
1:22:47
Speaker 1: it smells like a gut pile of a deer. So
1:22:52
Speaker 1: you don't think there's any truth to that? Come on,
1:22:58
Speaker 1: it sounds perfectly reasonable of me, right right. I mean,
1:23:01
Speaker 1: I don't know how long it takes some people to
1:23:03
Speaker 1: gut a deer. But it takes me, maybe, let's just
1:23:07
Speaker 1: say at most to get in there get everything ripped out.
1:23:11
Speaker 1: I would say ten minutes, right, I mean, really it
1:23:15
Speaker 1: doesn't take you know, I don't know unless something else
1:23:19
Speaker 1: is happening there about ten minutes it takes to get
1:23:22
Speaker 1: a deer. How Like, just imagine how much gut pile
1:23:27
Speaker 1: odor you would have to breathe in your system in
1:23:31
Speaker 1: order for you too then farted out your back. That's
1:23:39
Speaker 1: a lot of gut pile odor. But there are supposedly
1:23:42
Speaker 1: like tons of people that talk about this and believe
1:23:45
Speaker 1: in it. Have you ever farted before? Really? My son?
1:23:53
Speaker 1: My son is just to discovering farts down And it's
1:23:55
Speaker 1: pretty funny to see, is like his eyes like when
1:23:58
Speaker 1: we toots, he who to his head, his eyes get
1:24:02
Speaker 1: really big. It's pretty funny. Anyways, did you but like, uh,
1:24:10
Speaker 1: have you ever farted? And it smelled exactly like a
1:24:13
Speaker 1: beef burger? And it was smelled delicious? No, yes, you
1:24:19
Speaker 1: have come on, you had never won? No, I never
1:24:22
Speaker 1: had a delicious smelling fart. Oh damn, Now I'm hungry
1:24:26
Speaker 1: for beef burgers. You've never had he never. I want
1:24:31
Speaker 1: to make two points. Number One, I've never found a
1:24:33
Speaker 1: fart to be appetized and the fact that you have
1:24:35
Speaker 1: is seriously concerning. Number two, you do know that you're
1:24:39
Speaker 1: now the board director of a serious conservation organization and
1:24:42
Speaker 1: you are now talking about farts on the podcast. They
1:24:46
Speaker 1: knew what they were getting when they hired me. Oh yeah,
1:24:51
Speaker 1: just credibility going down the pipe so fast. Hey, this
1:24:55
Speaker 1: is launching on your podcast by so so. Our buddy
1:25:01
Speaker 1: Spencer actually wrote an article about this over on the
1:25:05
Speaker 1: Mediator website and he talked to some different scientists about it,
1:25:09
Speaker 1: and supposedly the experts on the topic is that number one,
1:25:14
Speaker 1: this is absolutely an old lives tale. This is not
1:25:17
Speaker 1: actually something that happens. Your farts will not smell like
1:25:20
Speaker 1: gut piles and any kind of objective way. Um. But
1:25:24
Speaker 1: they did talk about the fact that there are um
1:25:28
Speaker 1: serious like smell and memories are strongly tied together. So
1:25:34
Speaker 1: there might be like some funky psychological thing going on
1:25:37
Speaker 1: if if those farts bring back the memory of the
1:25:41
Speaker 1: cup pile, if you're eating something maybe that's tied to
1:25:44
Speaker 1: if you have some kind of que it might bring
1:25:46
Speaker 1: that memory back up. Um. But but no, it seems
1:25:50
Speaker 1: like that's one of those crazy rumors that doesn't have
1:25:52
Speaker 1: any science to back it up. Yeah, well, there you go,
1:25:56
Speaker 1: there go. Um Kay is a Michigan hunter. He's been
1:26:02
Speaker 1: hunting for five years. He's killed three doughs so far,
1:26:05
Speaker 1: but now he's really trying to get his first buck.
1:26:08
Speaker 1: What's the best piece of advice to take that step
1:26:11
Speaker 1: from having killed does to now wanting to finally get
1:26:14
Speaker 1: a buck? Man, I honestly think it's just a I mean,
1:26:20
Speaker 1: first off, if you ask me, three does in five
1:26:23
Speaker 1: years is really good for a beginner hunter? What do
1:26:27
Speaker 1: you think is that a good I'd agree it's a
1:26:29
Speaker 1: great start. Um. So what I would say is, m
1:26:34
Speaker 1: you know, don't go out looking if you want to
1:26:37
Speaker 1: kill a buck, kill a buck, but don't go out
1:26:40
Speaker 1: looking for some kind of unrealistic, unattainable goal. If you
1:26:46
Speaker 1: just be patient in the same tree stands that you're
1:26:49
Speaker 1: sitting in and just pass up, pass up those doughs,
1:26:53
Speaker 1: I feel like young bucks will be right behind him
1:26:56
Speaker 1: at some point. I think that's a pretty good point.
1:26:59
Speaker 1: I think you're pretty much absolutely right that is true.
1:27:03
Speaker 1: The one thing I would add to that, I was
1:27:04
Speaker 1: just piggyback on that would be that you do need
1:27:09
Speaker 1: to take things. I would just say, if you want to,
1:27:12
Speaker 1: on average have a better chance with a buck, you
1:27:15
Speaker 1: have to kind of take your attention to detail up
1:27:17
Speaker 1: a couple of notches simply from the fact that they're
1:27:19
Speaker 1: just almost everywhere there are more doughs than bucks. There's
1:27:23
Speaker 1: gonna be a ratio of a larger number of females
1:27:27
Speaker 1: to males, just based on hunting implications in most states.
1:27:30
Speaker 1: So there's just gonna be fewer targets out there. And
1:27:32
Speaker 1: so because of that, you have to get past more dear.
1:27:35
Speaker 1: You have to avoid more mistakes in order for that
1:27:38
Speaker 1: rare dear to come by. And like you just said, Dan,
1:27:40
Speaker 1: step number one is starting to pass on those doughs.
1:27:43
Speaker 1: So but once you start passing doughs, once you have
1:27:46
Speaker 1: a door or two walking close to you and then
1:27:49
Speaker 1: walking past you, you open yourself up for more possible mistakes.
1:27:53
Speaker 1: So is your send control good enough? Did you are
1:27:56
Speaker 1: you being quiet enough? Did you set up in a
1:27:58
Speaker 1: way that your wind isn't gonna blow where those deer are?
1:28:01
Speaker 1: All those little things that maybe didn't matter when you're
1:28:03
Speaker 1: just trying to kill the first deer that walked by.
1:28:06
Speaker 1: They matter now, Um, so I would just start, you
1:28:09
Speaker 1: know it, just a little bit more ramping it up.
1:28:12
Speaker 1: If you were thinking about, okay, maybe the way you
1:28:16
Speaker 1: learned to kill your first dear was find a place
1:28:19
Speaker 1: where there's a lot of deer tracks, find food source.
1:28:21
Speaker 1: There was a bunch of deer tracks, and sit close
1:28:23
Speaker 1: to that. And that's not a bad way. If you're
1:28:24
Speaker 1: just trying to simply get around some deer and shoot
1:28:27
Speaker 1: some doughs, that might be able to get you a
1:28:28
Speaker 1: couple of dolls. Now, the next step might be thinking
1:28:31
Speaker 1: about your wind direction, So thinking about, okay, where's my
1:28:34
Speaker 1: wind blowing, so that as I'm sitting here, there's not
1:28:38
Speaker 1: gonna be deer smelling me as they come towards me.
1:28:40
Speaker 1: But also so the deer that get past me won't
1:28:42
Speaker 1: win me too. Maybe that's another thing that will help. Um.
1:28:46
Speaker 1: So all the little bits and pieces start to matter
1:28:49
Speaker 1: a little bit more once you're looking for a buck,
1:28:51
Speaker 1: even a year and a half old buck. The just
1:28:53
Speaker 1: because of that rarity, um, it comes a little bit
1:28:56
Speaker 1: more of a question. Yeah. And also then I mean,
1:28:59
Speaker 1: depending on where you're at two like a year and
1:29:01
Speaker 1: a half old buck in Michigan is a lot harder
1:29:03
Speaker 1: to see than a year and a half old buck
1:29:05
Speaker 1: in Montana or probably Asle or someone UM, So that
1:29:10
Speaker 1: challenge level is going to be different as well. UM.
1:29:13
Speaker 1: But you know one other thing I just mentioned that
1:29:15
Speaker 1: if you're starting to hunt bucks other than does UM
1:29:19
Speaker 1: during most parts of the year, the same basic strategy
1:29:22
Speaker 1: works UM early season, late season. You know, it's a
1:29:26
Speaker 1: betting defeating type of movement. But the one time it's
1:29:28
Speaker 1: different is during the rut. So if you're focused on
1:29:31
Speaker 1: bucks during the rut, the biggest difference, and this is
1:29:34
Speaker 1: one on one stuff that everyone most everyone listening knows already,
1:29:37
Speaker 1: but i'll just say it for new folks, that during
1:29:39
Speaker 1: the rut, so that's for most parts of the country,
1:29:41
Speaker 1: that's in November late October, that's when the bucks are
1:29:45
Speaker 1: trying to breed dose. So at that point your bucks
1:29:48
Speaker 1: are more often going to be trying to travel in
1:29:51
Speaker 1: between dough betting areas. So finding those thick places that
1:29:54
Speaker 1: does are betting and learning how bucks moved between the two.
1:29:57
Speaker 1: That's a spot like a funnel or pinch point you'll
1:29:58
Speaker 1: hear's call it. That's a place to look, or getting
1:30:02
Speaker 1: downwind of dope betting years or dope feeding years, which
1:30:05
Speaker 1: is where these bucks will crews to try to smell
1:30:07
Speaker 1: the doughs. So that's one other small tactical difference that
1:30:10
Speaker 1: can help you be in a better position for a
1:30:12
Speaker 1: buck versus a dough Yeah, yep, I agree, uh, Doc asked,
1:30:22
Speaker 1: by the way, yes, uh, he said he's moving to Iowa.
1:30:25
Speaker 1: How do you go about shrinking the learning curve when
1:30:28
Speaker 1: hunting a new state? You find it more states than me, Um,
1:30:33
Speaker 1: I would tell you do your e scouting. So before
1:30:37
Speaker 1: we go to a new place, whether that's for one
1:30:39
Speaker 1: week trip or if you're gonna spend a bunch of
1:30:41
Speaker 1: time hunting, I mean, definitely study the maps. Learn the maps. Um.
1:30:45
Speaker 1: In most I mean I've hunted I don't know fifteen
1:30:48
Speaker 1: different states for white tails something like that. They're basically
1:30:51
Speaker 1: the same animal everywhere. They've got their little differences here
1:30:54
Speaker 1: and there. Definitely, the level of UM can earn that
1:31:01
Speaker 1: they demonstrate for hunters or for mistakes and stuff is different.
1:31:04
Speaker 1: So from one state to another, from a heavily pressure
1:31:06
Speaker 1: state to a lesser pressure state, you can get away
1:31:08
Speaker 1: with more or less, but basically like they do the
1:31:11
Speaker 1: things we just talked about. They go from betting airs
1:31:13
Speaker 1: defeating years. They cruise during the rut um they want cover,
1:31:18
Speaker 1: they will walk through, you know, the path at least
1:31:21
Speaker 1: resistance when they're trying to move from point A to
1:31:23
Speaker 1: point B as long as they feel safe. Those basic
1:31:26
Speaker 1: things are the same no matter what. But look at
1:31:28
Speaker 1: your maps first before you get there, pick out the
1:31:31
Speaker 1: best places based off of your knowledge of terrain and
1:31:35
Speaker 1: cover on the maps. So pick out the places that
1:31:37
Speaker 1: look like pinch points, pick out the places that look
1:31:39
Speaker 1: like betting airs, pick out the places that look like
1:31:41
Speaker 1: food food sources. Um. And then as soon as you
1:31:45
Speaker 1: get there, if you're moving there, it's different. You've got
1:31:47
Speaker 1: a whole bunch of time. But once you get there
1:31:49
Speaker 1: on the ground, then at least you've shortened your learning
1:31:52
Speaker 1: curve a little bit because now you just go focus
1:31:54
Speaker 1: on those top spots first. Scout those high probability areas first,
1:31:59
Speaker 1: especially if you're on week trip or something and you've
1:32:01
Speaker 1: got very minimal time, you know, hit those things and
1:32:03
Speaker 1: ground truth them. Um. That's a way to be a
1:32:06
Speaker 1: little bit more efficient. UM. But I would secondly just
1:32:09
Speaker 1: say spend as much time watching as you possibly can.
1:32:12
Speaker 1: So if you're moving there, get out there and watch
1:32:15
Speaker 1: places in the summer, just watch them, see him, observe.
1:32:18
Speaker 1: I don't think anything can help you better than just
1:32:20
Speaker 1: simply observing an area, and then once you're in hunting
1:32:24
Speaker 1: season two, do the same thing. Use observation stands for
1:32:26
Speaker 1: a while once you're getting started. Don't feel like you
1:32:29
Speaker 1: have to strike right away, step back and watch, and
1:32:33
Speaker 1: then push closer and closer as you learn more. I
1:32:35
Speaker 1: think that is a It's not like revolutionary advice at all,
1:32:40
Speaker 1: but I think that is kind of how I've approached
1:32:43
Speaker 1: most of my new states. As I first scout, then
1:32:46
Speaker 1: I ground truth, and then I observe and a just
1:32:48
Speaker 1: observe and adjust. And that's kind of what I've done
1:32:51
Speaker 1: every different state. You just figure it out as you go. Yep.
1:32:55
Speaker 1: So he's moving to Iowa, right, Yeah, yep. So I
1:32:59
Speaker 1: think move ing to a state and learning how to
1:33:02
Speaker 1: hunt it and visiting it for a five day window
1:33:06
Speaker 1: or however long your trip is are there's gonna be
1:33:08
Speaker 1: some of the same things. But at least now when
1:33:11
Speaker 1: you move to a new state, you're able to if
1:33:16
Speaker 1: you do make a mistake, you have more time to
1:33:19
Speaker 1: recover from it as opposed to a five day window.
1:33:22
Speaker 1: Let's say you make a mistake, You're you could be
1:33:24
Speaker 1: screwed right Um, and especially Iowa or any states, get
1:33:30
Speaker 1: to know people in the surrounding area. Find a local
1:33:35
Speaker 1: group of hunters and and chit chat with him, become
1:33:39
Speaker 1: friends with him, uh, talk to him, ask them you know,
1:33:43
Speaker 1: you know, hey, where's good public or and and that's
1:33:46
Speaker 1: gonna be hard to find in a state like Iowa.
1:33:48
Speaker 1: But and when people find it, they're pretty closed lips
1:33:52
Speaker 1: about it. But knock on doors, talk to people. If
1:33:57
Speaker 1: you're moving to a new state, you got to know
1:34:00
Speaker 1: the area and the people who live in that area.
1:34:03
Speaker 1: And that is your inn to uh a farm, whether
1:34:08
Speaker 1: it's an IO or whether whether it's in a different state.
1:34:10
Speaker 1: If you want to hunt on a piece of property, uh,
1:34:13
Speaker 1: you got to know the landowner. Knock on their door,
1:34:15
Speaker 1: start a relationship with them, and they may tell you
1:34:18
Speaker 1: know the first year or two, but then who knows.
1:34:20
Speaker 1: Your three four, five might be your opportunity to prove yourself. Yeah,
1:34:25
Speaker 1: I like your idea about just getting to know people.
1:34:27
Speaker 1: That's that's such a it's a non technical thing. But
1:34:30
Speaker 1: it probably makes as much of a difference as any
1:34:33
Speaker 1: because you get some buddies. You meet some people through
1:34:37
Speaker 1: a conservation organization or something, and they can very quickly
1:34:40
Speaker 1: start telling you about the local unique things. They might
1:34:43
Speaker 1: be able to point to to some areas to check out,
1:34:45
Speaker 1: some public land to check out, or some people you
1:34:46
Speaker 1: should knock on their doors, or you know, hey, we've
1:34:49
Speaker 1: got a lot of ridges around you. These bucks always
1:34:50
Speaker 1: cruise this thing, or they always check out this kind
1:34:53
Speaker 1: of spot. You know, that kind of local intel is
1:34:56
Speaker 1: isn't valuable to help you get jump started? Um, and
1:34:59
Speaker 1: I'll tell you you're moving to Iowa. A guy you
1:35:01
Speaker 1: should seek out. He is, uh he looks a little
1:35:05
Speaker 1: bit like a character from the Rudolph films, you know,
1:35:08
Speaker 1: um Claymation, Yukon Cornelius. He was funny. Dan. I haven't
1:35:11
Speaker 1: mentioned this to you yet, but my son is really
1:35:14
Speaker 1: really big into the Rudolph movie, Like he's obsessed with Rudolph.
1:35:18
Speaker 1: So he got him these little figurines from the movie,
1:35:21
Speaker 1: and so he has a little Dan Johnson figuring that
1:35:23
Speaker 1: he has carrying around with him every once in a while,
1:35:26
Speaker 1: which is kind of weird. Um, But yeah, seek out
1:35:30
Speaker 1: Dan Johnson for some local intel. You'll put him in
1:35:33
Speaker 1: the good spots, right Dan Oh, Yeah, the best. Brooke asks,
1:35:39
Speaker 1: And this is an interesting way. I've kind of wondered
1:35:41
Speaker 1: about this. At first. I was like, yeah, then I
1:35:44
Speaker 1: kind of wonder do you think that e bikes are
1:35:47
Speaker 1: worth the investment? Do you see any value with the
1:35:50
Speaker 1: whole e bike thing? Dan Oh, I would love to
1:35:53
Speaker 1: have at e bike. Yeah. I think it would be awesome.
1:35:56
Speaker 1: Um well, just actually, I mean, especially through driving through
1:36:01
Speaker 1: a farm. I would love to unload my truck um
1:36:05
Speaker 1: or unloaded at you know, at the entrance of the
1:36:07
Speaker 1: farm and not have to drive my truck, you know,
1:36:11
Speaker 1: all the way back through the farm. This ebike is quiet,
1:36:15
Speaker 1: It's I don't think it would be very threatening. I
1:36:18
Speaker 1: think the deer would look at it more of a
1:36:20
Speaker 1: hey what is that than opposed to running away from it. Uh.
1:36:24
Speaker 1: And then at the same time, uh, like I said,
1:36:28
Speaker 1: it's it would just be awesome to to have one
1:36:31
Speaker 1: of those things. They're fun, not cheap. And from a
1:36:35
Speaker 1: public land standpoint, there are a lot of public places
1:36:40
Speaker 1: throughout the United States that don't allow any motorized vehicles,
1:36:44
Speaker 1: and an ebike is considered a motorized vehicle in most states. Yeah, man, there, Um,
1:36:51
Speaker 1: I feel like you look kind of dorky rolling around
1:36:53
Speaker 1: on an e bike. Um for some reason, or maybe
1:36:56
Speaker 1: I do you care what people think about you? Right?
1:36:58
Speaker 1: Or maybe it's like maybe I just feel like guilty
1:37:01
Speaker 1: about the idea of not peddling. Maybe that's my issue
1:37:04
Speaker 1: with it. I just feel like you can, you can
1:37:06
Speaker 1: set it up to one of these settings to where
1:37:08
Speaker 1: you in order for the motor to go, you actually
1:37:10
Speaker 1: have to peddle. So that might give me past my
1:37:12
Speaker 1: psychological underpinning of my issue. But I do agree with
1:37:18
Speaker 1: what you're saying, and the reason why they are intriguing
1:37:20
Speaker 1: is that I do think that it is a safer
1:37:23
Speaker 1: way to access spots, Like they're not deer, aren't gonna
1:37:26
Speaker 1: be bothered. You're not leaving a bunch of bootprints. It's
1:37:29
Speaker 1: a different sound than bootsteps, you know that is a
1:37:32
Speaker 1: very human sound of rolling bike is not getting the
1:37:35
Speaker 1: same kind of stuff. I think you probably get away
1:37:37
Speaker 1: with a lot more whether you're accessing a spot or
1:37:39
Speaker 1: checking trail cameras or something. So I'm I'm definitely intrigued
1:37:43
Speaker 1: for that reason. Um, but you're right they're expensive. Um,
1:37:49
Speaker 1: so I don't know. I've yet to try one, but
1:37:51
Speaker 1: there are they are interesting. So my buddy Adam Party,
1:37:54
Speaker 1: you know him, he works for Quiet Cat. How come
1:37:57
Speaker 1: you don't have one? Then? Man? Right, Cadabra like, hey, dude,
1:38:01
Speaker 1: just give me, give me a give me an e bike,
1:38:03
Speaker 1: give me three thou dollars. Make sure he listens. Make
1:38:05
Speaker 1: sure you listen to this podcast, and he'll hear how
1:38:08
Speaker 1: intrigued we are yet yet reticent to really try one
1:38:12
Speaker 1: and see what happens. Going to send them just you know,
1:38:15
Speaker 1: that's how that's how influential we are marked. They're just
1:38:18
Speaker 1: gonna send us whatever we ask for. Come on, man,
1:38:22
Speaker 1: you got a Russian hacker to give you back your
1:38:24
Speaker 1: social media credentials, can't you can't? You a weasel? Quiet? Right?
1:38:30
Speaker 1: But you look at it. It's expensive, right, but same time,
1:38:35
Speaker 1: it'll it should last you a long time. Yeah, I
1:38:38
Speaker 1: mean you hope. So, yeah, it's intriguing. I could afford one.
1:38:42
Speaker 1: I'd probably have one. Okay, Um, Taylor asks to improve
1:38:50
Speaker 1: and this is more of a question for me than
1:38:51
Speaker 1: you didn't. But maybe you've heard from someone who gave
1:38:54
Speaker 1: you some ideas on this Taylor asked to improve deer hunting,
1:38:57
Speaker 1: is it more important to plant food plots or improved
1:39:00
Speaker 1: betting areas? So it's a habitat management question. Our food
1:39:03
Speaker 1: plots are betting air is more important? And my answer
1:39:05
Speaker 1: is pretty simple. It depends, and it just simply depends
1:39:09
Speaker 1: on what is available in your area. So there's no
1:39:13
Speaker 1: one sezz fits all that's always gonna be the most
1:39:14
Speaker 1: important thing. You have to look at what's available on
1:39:16
Speaker 1: your property and what's available in the surrounding properties and
1:39:20
Speaker 1: then figure out where the area of most need is.
1:39:22
Speaker 1: So what's missing. So if you're in an area that's
1:39:24
Speaker 1: a bunch of big timber and there's tons of trees
1:39:26
Speaker 1: and tons of cover, but there's no good food, then hey,
1:39:30
Speaker 1: if you put some good food in all of a sudden,
1:39:32
Speaker 1: you're offering that rare commodity that deer want and they'll
1:39:35
Speaker 1: that will be very valuable. On the flip side, if
1:39:38
Speaker 1: you're in an area with tons of egg around doing
1:39:40
Speaker 1: tons of food, or everyone around he's got tons of
1:39:42
Speaker 1: food plots, but wide open, there's no good cover. If
1:39:45
Speaker 1: you all of a sudden put in a ton of
1:39:46
Speaker 1: good cover, you have the rare commodity, the thing that
1:39:49
Speaker 1: dear need. They're gonna come to be with you. So
1:39:52
Speaker 1: just look at the surrounding area. Provide what's not there,
1:39:55
Speaker 1: provides something unique, feel that most those common denot of
1:39:59
Speaker 1: the lowest com a nominator and um that will be
1:40:02
Speaker 1: the first place to start at least. Uh. How can
1:40:07
Speaker 1: you tell the difference between buck beds and doughbeds or
1:40:10
Speaker 1: buckbetting areas and dough betting areas? Dan, you got any
1:40:14
Speaker 1: thoughts on that? Man? You know? So, I think I'll
1:40:19
Speaker 1: be honest, I think there's a misconception with this whole
1:40:22
Speaker 1: bedding or hunting a specific bed ideology. Right, So we
1:40:29
Speaker 1: know Dan Infalt, and we know that this guy is
1:40:32
Speaker 1: a master of locating a specific bed through scouting and
1:40:36
Speaker 1: accessing it and hunting it and killing deer coming back
1:40:39
Speaker 1: to it. Right, would you agree that that is that
1:40:42
Speaker 1: that's that principle. Definitely, Yes, him and his disciples have
1:40:46
Speaker 1: gotten very good at that. Yes. For me, I understand
1:40:50
Speaker 1: the principles, but where I hunt, I don't feel like
1:40:55
Speaker 1: the deer bed in the same bed every single time,
1:40:59
Speaker 1: So for me it's hard every single day. Right, they're
1:41:03
Speaker 1: not going back to a specific bed every single day.
1:41:07
Speaker 1: I think it's a lot more wind dependent where where
1:41:10
Speaker 1: I hunt based off of the wind UH and how
1:41:14
Speaker 1: the wind us how the UH terrain affects the wind.
1:41:18
Speaker 1: So they have a little bit different bedding area every
1:41:20
Speaker 1: single day or every single wind direction. But knowing whether
1:41:27
Speaker 1: something is a bed, a buck bed, or a dough
1:41:29
Speaker 1: bed can be very difficult, uh if especially if let's
1:41:34
Speaker 1: say a dough is using the same bed multiple times,
1:41:38
Speaker 1: it could just get worked to a point where it's bigger.
1:41:42
Speaker 1: Or a buck bed, you know, you may be able
1:41:45
Speaker 1: to tell for the tracks that are in it, or
1:41:48
Speaker 1: maybe it's around a whole bunch of rubs. It could be.
1:41:51
Speaker 1: But I don't feel that there is a one hundred
1:41:54
Speaker 1: percent you know, there's no I don't know, there's not
1:41:59
Speaker 1: There's not any fact that you can look at a
1:42:02
Speaker 1: bed and go I guarantee you that as a buck bed,
1:42:05
Speaker 1: I know it. Unless you saw a buck stand up
1:42:08
Speaker 1: out of it, that's a buck bed, you know what
1:42:10
Speaker 1: I mean? Yeah, I think that's true. UM. What I
1:42:13
Speaker 1: would add to it, though, is that I do think
1:42:15
Speaker 1: there are things that can give you confidence to say
1:42:19
Speaker 1: this is likely a buck beed versus a dope bed
1:42:22
Speaker 1: I think there are things that can clue you into it.
1:42:23
Speaker 1: Probably is um, And I'll add one more thing before
1:42:27
Speaker 1: I've mentioned that. I'd say, as I understand, you know
1:42:30
Speaker 1: what folks like Dan are doing what I'm in Annie
1:42:33
Speaker 1: May or different folks like that, and that I use
1:42:36
Speaker 1: sometimes is that you're not necessarily They're not necessarily saying
1:42:40
Speaker 1: that a buck's betting in the same place every single time,
1:42:42
Speaker 1: but they're saying that he's going to have a handful
1:42:45
Speaker 1: of places that are the most commonly used. So let's
1:42:48
Speaker 1: call him buck the Big eight. He might have like
1:42:51
Speaker 1: five locations based on wind direction and time of year
1:42:55
Speaker 1: that these general regions are where he's typically rotating throughout,
1:42:58
Speaker 1: and if you happen to know those are, then you
1:43:01
Speaker 1: can cycle through them based off of intel and have
1:43:03
Speaker 1: a chance at least I think that's usually what they're doing. UM.
1:43:07
Speaker 1: But as far as figuring out what those things are,
1:43:09
Speaker 1: what I look for to tell the difference is oftentimes
1:43:13
Speaker 1: almost always does are bedded and family groups. So you've
1:43:16
Speaker 1: got a dough and her fawns, and then usually that
1:43:19
Speaker 1: fond that that does two year ago fawn. So there's
1:43:21
Speaker 1: gonna be groups, family groups of you know, three to
1:43:25
Speaker 1: six to nine doughs, big groups of deer usually, so
1:43:28
Speaker 1: you're never almost never unless they never, but most often
1:43:32
Speaker 1: you won't see a big group of deer beds that
1:43:36
Speaker 1: is bucks. Usually that's gonna mean Okay, these are a
1:43:39
Speaker 1: bunch of doughs, these are dozen fons. So if I
1:43:41
Speaker 1: find a bed and then there's another one right next
1:43:44
Speaker 1: to it, and two more over here and three more
1:43:45
Speaker 1: over there, then I can say pretty confidently, okay, this
1:43:48
Speaker 1: is a doughe bedding group. On the flip side, if
1:43:51
Speaker 1: I see an individual look one single bed by itself.
1:43:54
Speaker 1: It's if there's one single big bed and you look
1:43:57
Speaker 1: around it and there's no others, and you walk a
1:43:58
Speaker 1: ten yards circle around, and a twenty yards circle around it,
1:44:01
Speaker 1: and a third yards circle around, there's still no other beds,
1:44:03
Speaker 1: just this one big bed. That's a pretty strong indication
1:44:07
Speaker 1: that's a buck bed um. If you find a bunch
1:44:10
Speaker 1: of rubs right around it, that's another indicator. It's probably
1:44:12
Speaker 1: a buck bed um. If that bed is in like
1:44:16
Speaker 1: the best possible location, that's another thing. Oftentimes the bucks
1:44:20
Speaker 1: will get DIBs on those just picture perfect bedding spots,
1:44:24
Speaker 1: So like a little knob off of a ridge with
1:44:27
Speaker 1: some cover on it, you know, two thirds of the
1:44:30
Speaker 1: way up the ridge. That kind of spot that's like,
1:44:31
Speaker 1: oh yeah, this is money. This buck can sit here
1:44:35
Speaker 1: and see everything ahead of him and can smell what's
1:44:36
Speaker 1: behind him. That's the kind of spot that Okay, yes,
1:44:39
Speaker 1: this makes sense, we're about to be here. Or if
1:44:41
Speaker 1: there's a little point that extends into a swamp or
1:44:44
Speaker 1: an island in the swamp and there's some high ground
1:44:46
Speaker 1: there and there's one bed on it, that can be like, okay, yes,
1:44:49
Speaker 1: that's probably a buck. Those are the things that kind
1:44:51
Speaker 1: of clue me in on probably a buck versus probably
1:44:54
Speaker 1: dough Again, no sure things, but those are clues at
1:44:58
Speaker 1: least to give you some something to work with. You know. Um,
1:45:03
Speaker 1: you gotta go dam though right here pretty soon. Okay,
1:45:06
Speaker 1: so let's wrap it up then. Any we've got a
1:45:09
Speaker 1: bunch of more questions that will we'll just keep on
1:45:12
Speaker 1: doing these. I feel like once a month almost we
1:45:14
Speaker 1: need to do these Q and A podcasts because people
1:45:16
Speaker 1: have got a lot of questions, and I think it's
1:45:19
Speaker 1: the best way to cover a lot of different things.
1:45:23
Speaker 1: It's fun, at least for me. I enjoy going through these.
1:45:26
Speaker 1: I'll really quickly answer one question here. I got a
1:45:29
Speaker 1: question someone said, what can people do to take action
1:45:31
Speaker 1: to protect the Boundary Waters. If you heard me last
1:45:34
Speaker 1: year talking about my Boundary Waters trip, um, you know
1:45:37
Speaker 1: about what's going on there. I will just tell you
1:45:40
Speaker 1: that recently a bill was proposed that will protect the
1:45:44
Speaker 1: area around the Boundary Waters from the minds that they're
1:45:47
Speaker 1: trying to put in there. It's called the Boundary Waters
1:45:50
Speaker 1: Wilderness Protection and Pollution Prevention Act. That's a lot, so
1:45:54
Speaker 1: don't remember that. Just remember to google boundary Waters and
1:45:59
Speaker 1: you will see the new bill. It's called HRVE nine eight.
1:46:03
Speaker 1: Maybe that's easy. Remember h R five five eight. Email
1:46:07
Speaker 1: your representatives tell them to support that that will protect
1:46:11
Speaker 1: the boundary Waters. So that's all I got, Dan. Any
1:46:14
Speaker 1: final thoughts from you, No, sir. It's a pleasure as
1:46:18
Speaker 1: always talking to you, Mark Kenyan. It was fun. I
1:46:22
Speaker 1: enjoyed it, my friend. Let's do it again soon and
1:46:24
Speaker 1: that is gonna do it. So thank you all for listening.
1:46:27
Speaker 1: Hope you enjoyed this one. Um, if you haven't yet
1:46:31
Speaker 1: left to review for the Wired Hunt podcast, that's a
1:46:33
Speaker 1: pretty cool thing that definitely helps out what we're doing here.
1:46:36
Speaker 1: I appreciate that if you haven't left a review for
1:46:39
Speaker 1: my book That Wild Country on Amazon, that's a really
1:46:42
Speaker 1: cool thing that helps a ton, And for both of
1:46:45
Speaker 1: these things, I will thank you in advance. UM, I
1:46:48
Speaker 1: hope you've been enjoying this free podcast over the years,
1:46:51
Speaker 1: and your support with reviews, your support and purchasing the book,
1:46:54
Speaker 1: all of that is incredibly um helpful, incredibly appreciate it,
1:47:00
Speaker 1: so thank you. Stick around. We've got a lot more
1:47:03
Speaker 1: fun stuff to come, and until next time, stay wired
1:47:08
Speaker 1: to Hunt. H