Latest / Wired To Hunt Podcast / Wired To Hunt Podcast #131: Donnie Vincent, Whitetails, and How We Talk About Hunting

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Wired To Hunt Podcast #131: Donnie Vincent, Whitetails, and How We Talk About Hunting · Wired To Hunt Podcast

0:02
Speaker 1: Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast, your home for
0:06
Speaker 1: deer hunting news, stories and strategies, and now your host,
0:11
Speaker 1: Mark Kenyon. Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast. I'm
0:17
Speaker 1: your host Mark Kenyan. This episode number one thirty one
0:21
Speaker 1: Taylor's show. We're joined by Donnie Vincent, an incredible hunter
0:24
Speaker 1: and filmmaker, and we're discussing everything from his recent whitetail hunts,
0:28
Speaker 1: to how to have conversations about hunting, dealing with opposing viewpoints,
0:31
Speaker 1: and so much more. Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast,
0:51
Speaker 1: brought to you by Sitka Gear and today on the show,
0:55
Speaker 1: we're joined by Donnie Vincent. And way back in two
0:59
Speaker 1: thousand and fourteen had Donnie on the Show of Us.
1:01
Speaker 1: But if you miss that one or somehow don't know
1:03
Speaker 1: who Donnie is, you know he is a super serious
1:06
Speaker 1: hunter and a filmmaker, and that's probably what he's most
1:10
Speaker 1: known for right now. He's produced some of the most
1:12
Speaker 1: impressive hunting films in recent years, such as The Rivers Divide,
1:16
Speaker 1: Terra Nova, and a short film called Who We Are,
1:20
Speaker 1: which kind of spoke to kind of this answering that
1:23
Speaker 1: question of why we hunt, and that video kind of
1:25
Speaker 1: went massively viral across not just the hunting world, but
1:29
Speaker 1: the non hunting world too, and got a lot of
1:31
Speaker 1: non hunters to kind of look at what we do
1:34
Speaker 1: as hunters maybe a little bit differently. So Donnie has
1:36
Speaker 1: been doing some really cool things, and recently he's been
1:39
Speaker 1: doing a lot of white tail hunting too. So we're
1:42
Speaker 1: gonna have him on the show with us today to
1:44
Speaker 1: talk a little bit about how the white tail hunting
1:47
Speaker 1: has been going this year, what he's been doing, what's
1:49
Speaker 1: been working, what he's learned, and then you know, if
1:52
Speaker 1: we have time, we might even dive into some of
1:54
Speaker 1: these bigger picture topics related to some of the themes
1:57
Speaker 1: of some of his work and some of these films,
2:00
Speaker 1: maybe talk about what's next and some interesting stuff like that.
2:03
Speaker 1: So before all that, though, man, Dan, we probably have
2:07
Speaker 1: some updates that are worth sharing. Two. All right, Dan, um,
2:11
Speaker 1: maybe I do you you want you want to hear? Uh?
2:17
Speaker 1: You want to hear kind of a funny story. I'd
2:19
Speaker 1: love to hear a funny story. All right. So the
2:22
Speaker 1: other day, right, this has nothing to do with hunting
2:24
Speaker 1: at all. I'm not surprised. Okay, So the other day, Um,
2:30
Speaker 1: I had to take my wife or my wife. I
2:32
Speaker 1: had to take my daughter to gymnastics because her ride
2:35
Speaker 1: that she usually goes with, UM that lady and her
2:38
Speaker 1: kids were sick. So I had to take my daughter
2:40
Speaker 1: into gymnastics. And gymnastics at eleven o'clock is usually you know,
2:47
Speaker 1: there's a room full of soccer moms, not guys who
2:52
Speaker 1: look like they just gotta done, like chopping down a tree.
2:55
Speaker 1: So right before that they get to go in and
3:00
Speaker 1: play around in this big gymnastic gymnastics equipment, UM jump
3:05
Speaker 1: on trampolines and before they actually class starts. So I
3:08
Speaker 1: let my daughter go in first and I went to
3:10
Speaker 1: the restroom, and then I walked in like maybe five
3:14
Speaker 1: minutes after her, and I kind of walked into this
3:17
Speaker 1: corner where all of the kids were we're at and
3:22
Speaker 1: able was jumping on this trampoline and I wanted to
3:24
Speaker 1: send a picture to my mom and my dad, So
3:26
Speaker 1: I pull out my phone and I start like taking
3:30
Speaker 1: pictures of my daughter, and this lady comes up to
3:33
Speaker 1: me and it's like, uh, who are you? And order
3:39
Speaker 1: you because I I'm wearing like the seed corn had
3:41
Speaker 1: like a dirty hooded sweatshirt. Big old Red Beard looked like,
3:46
Speaker 1: I just just got done, uh, crawling out from under
3:49
Speaker 1: a bridge, so I gotta kick out of that. She's like,
3:53
Speaker 1: that's my daughter. She's like, Okay, I'm sorry. I'm sorry.
3:57
Speaker 1: Oh Dan, you you totally got all out for the
4:00
Speaker 1: creepy old man. Look right right. It's like, if I'm
4:04
Speaker 1: going to steal a kid, it's not gonna be my
4:06
Speaker 1: own daughter. Yeah, h man. It totally wasn't surprised me.
4:12
Speaker 1: Like if if I saw you, like taking pictures of
4:14
Speaker 1: a bunch of kids and my child was in that group,
4:16
Speaker 1: I'd be kind of weirded out too. Yeah, don't blame you.
4:22
Speaker 1: He's got he's got a really gross beard, and he's
4:25
Speaker 1: he's an amputee. So I think you better call the police.
4:29
Speaker 1: It looks like that guy dropped the hammer on his
4:31
Speaker 1: on his face. Maybe I still we still joke about that.
4:35
Speaker 1: Me and Corey still laugh about your dropping the hammer
4:38
Speaker 1: on your drop the hammer, and I haven't dropped the
4:41
Speaker 1: hammer in a long time. It's been like three years.
4:44
Speaker 1: I know you gotta bring that back. Should I drop
4:47
Speaker 1: the hammer for the A T A Show? You absolutely should,
4:49
Speaker 1: Although it might not be good for business, but probably not.
4:53
Speaker 1: But maybe people have respect for just the go NaNs.
4:56
Speaker 1: It takes to rock that. But when have I really
4:59
Speaker 1: made decisions in life? Now? Stay consistent, dude, stay existent.
5:07
Speaker 1: So so what's up with you? Man? I've got one
5:10
Speaker 1: big interesting thing to talk about. Okay, she's fine. You
5:14
Speaker 1: finally got your wife pregnant. No, okay, this is this
5:19
Speaker 1: is hunting related. Um yeah, no baby news yet. Uh.
5:25
Speaker 1: But I got Trailcaren pictures of holy Field day before yesterday. Nice,
5:31
Speaker 1: So he's alive. And for the last I got pictures
5:35
Speaker 1: of him on the twenty six November and then nothing
5:37
Speaker 1: for ten days and then boom, he's back. But I
5:40
Speaker 1: don't know something happened, um in between that period of time.
5:45
Speaker 1: I think it was probably after I didn't get pictures
5:47
Speaker 1: of him on November twenty six, after that period, you know,
5:50
Speaker 1: I said, a week past, eight days, nine days, ten days,
5:53
Speaker 1: and over the period of that time, I kind of
5:55
Speaker 1: came to like, for whatever reason, I just thought he
5:57
Speaker 1: was dead. I just thought I just thought the hunt
5:59
Speaker 1: was on. For whatever reason, I said this feeling that
6:01
Speaker 1: it just felt like it was done. Um. So I
6:04
Speaker 1: kind of like come to terms of that, and it
6:07
Speaker 1: kind of like in some way I don't know why
6:09
Speaker 1: I did this, because you know, there's no reason why
6:13
Speaker 1: he couldn't have disappeared for seven days and then the
6:15
Speaker 1: back of course, but I just had this feeling, so
6:19
Speaker 1: I kind of come in terms of all that blah
6:20
Speaker 1: blah blah. Well, when he shows back up and he's alive,
6:24
Speaker 1: I felt differently about hunting him, and I can't explain it. Um,
6:30
Speaker 1: but I've started asking the question of do I even
6:33
Speaker 1: want to try to kill him now? And I know
6:36
Speaker 1: this is like crazy, And I wrote an article about
6:39
Speaker 1: this yesterday on the website, and I think half of
6:42
Speaker 1: people kind of get where I'm coming from. Half people
6:44
Speaker 1: think I'm crazy and are rolling their eyes, um, and
6:48
Speaker 1: I and I don't know it. I'm like strangely conflicted. Um.
6:52
Speaker 1: But but I guess let me explain kind of my
6:54
Speaker 1: thought process on this, Dan, And I'm curious to hear
6:56
Speaker 1: what you think. So you know, I saw this deer
7:00
Speaker 1: last year, I passed him. Now this year, I've been
7:03
Speaker 1: like obsessively hunting him. He's been like the buck I
7:06
Speaker 1: wanted to kill. I've seen him twenty times, literally twenty
7:09
Speaker 1: times in my own eyes now and so many pictures.
7:13
Speaker 1: And we've talked about him so many times, and I've
7:14
Speaker 1: written so many articles and I have so much video
7:16
Speaker 1: of him. Um. And it's been this incredible hunt and
7:20
Speaker 1: experience and getting to know this deer and chasing this deer,
7:23
Speaker 1: and like I mean to be, my wife has been
7:25
Speaker 1: a little maybe um fed up with how obsessed I've
7:28
Speaker 1: been with hunting this there. And I guess for good reason,
7:31
Speaker 1: because I'm like I'm always talking about it, or I'm
7:33
Speaker 1: going to try to see him, you know, going to scout,
7:35
Speaker 1: because I can do that. Even when I can't hunt,
7:37
Speaker 1: I can get two spots where I can see that
7:39
Speaker 1: areas sometimes. Um. But he made it all the way
7:43
Speaker 1: through October, he made it through the rut, he made
7:47
Speaker 1: it through the firearms season, and now it's like December
7:50
Speaker 1: seventh or sixth or whatever it is now, and now
7:54
Speaker 1: I'm like looking at this and I'm saying, wow, like
7:56
Speaker 1: he really could make it through the end of the year,
7:59
Speaker 1: like now all of this and it seems like it's
8:01
Speaker 1: not guaranteed by any means, but more so than before,
8:04
Speaker 1: it seems possible that he could make it to the
8:07
Speaker 1: new year. Um. And for whatever reason, I just started
8:10
Speaker 1: thinking about like those possibilities, like how cool would it
8:13
Speaker 1: be to know he was still around here and to
8:16
Speaker 1: look for his sheds and to see what he might
8:18
Speaker 1: be as five years old, and to have a third
8:20
Speaker 1: year of this, you know, this journey that I've been on.
8:23
Speaker 1: And I don't know why why I like the switch
8:27
Speaker 1: all of a sudden flipped for me, but I did,
8:29
Speaker 1: And like now I've been thinking about that more, and
8:33
Speaker 1: I like, I don't like for all the weeks and
8:36
Speaker 1: months of September and October November, I had this like
8:41
Speaker 1: all consuming drive to hunt this deer and to try
8:43
Speaker 1: to kill him. Mhm, I just don't feel that way anymore.
8:47
Speaker 1: Like I don't know if I if I was sitting
8:51
Speaker 1: there and I saw him, I don't know what I
8:54
Speaker 1: would do. Like, I'm just I'm really conflicted because one
8:56
Speaker 1: part of me is saying all these things I've just
8:58
Speaker 1: been saying, and the other side of me says, this
9:00
Speaker 1: is your number one goal going into this season. You
9:03
Speaker 1: put so much time, so much energy into all of this,
9:06
Speaker 1: and of course you know I want to hunt and
9:07
Speaker 1: kill this deer um, So you know, why would you
9:12
Speaker 1: turn down the potential chance to do that when it
9:13
Speaker 1: finally if if it. This is no guarantee. But if
9:16
Speaker 1: it were to come, Um, and even if I decided
9:19
Speaker 1: to pass him, there's no guarantee at all that he'll
9:21
Speaker 1: make it to next year. I'd like to think you might,
9:23
Speaker 1: but that's no guarantee. There still could be someone could
9:26
Speaker 1: hunt him. Um, he could die over the winter. He
9:28
Speaker 1: could get hit by a car. I know that all
9:30
Speaker 1: these things are possible. I know there's no guarantees. Um,
9:35
Speaker 1: But I don't know. I just I'm having this weird, strange,
9:39
Speaker 1: conflicting set of feelings now. Um, And I don't know.
9:45
Speaker 1: I don't know. I don't know. That's all I got.
9:48
Speaker 1: What do you think? What am I? Man? I can
9:51
Speaker 1: honestly say that I've been down that same path as
9:54
Speaker 1: far as thought is concerned. Um. You your story with
9:59
Speaker 1: holy Field sounds a little bit like my story with
10:01
Speaker 1: shipwreck in away Right, It's like, what what what am
10:03
Speaker 1: I gonna do if I actually get him in shooting range? Uh?
10:07
Speaker 1: This buck has been an obsession of mine. He's been
10:10
Speaker 1: He's you know, a particular buck that that has changed
10:15
Speaker 1: the way I actually hunt. Right? Who has influenced this
10:19
Speaker 1: animal influenced me as a bow hunter? And you know,
10:23
Speaker 1: it's like you owe that that buck something. But you've
10:26
Speaker 1: also you also mentioned the word journey, right, and you
10:31
Speaker 1: know this, you know, watching this buck grow is like
10:34
Speaker 1: a journey. But just so you know, journeys come to
10:39
Speaker 1: an end. Man, whether you finish the that journey or
10:44
Speaker 1: you turn around and go home, or you just stop,
10:47
Speaker 1: there's an ending point. And I feel that you need
10:53
Speaker 1: to be the person that finishes that journey and not
10:57
Speaker 1: somebody else. You know, you're you're talking about a whole
11:00
Speaker 1: bunch of what ifs at the end of the season, right,
11:03
Speaker 1: he's on your hit list this year and next year.
11:06
Speaker 1: I mean, he could he could get hit by a car,
11:08
Speaker 1: he could get killed yet by another hunter. He could
11:11
Speaker 1: move to another property, he could die at winter. You know,
11:15
Speaker 1: there's so many what if things that happened that you know,
11:19
Speaker 1: as a hunter, you also have to take into consideration
11:22
Speaker 1: what your best odds of harvesting that animal are. And
11:25
Speaker 1: now is better than tomorrow, you know what I mean? Yeah, yeah, no,
11:31
Speaker 1: And I hear you, and I mean all those same
11:33
Speaker 1: things are in my head too. Um. Something you said, though,
11:36
Speaker 1: I wonder if this maybe could be part of what
11:40
Speaker 1: has changed in my feelings, is is you mentioned the
11:42
Speaker 1: fact that all journeys have an end, and I think
11:46
Speaker 1: because I had, for whatever reason, thought the journey had
11:49
Speaker 1: come to an end, I like came to terms of that.
11:52
Speaker 1: I came to terms of the idea of this journey
11:54
Speaker 1: ending and me not being the one to end it,
11:56
Speaker 1: and I was okay with that. And I was like,
11:58
Speaker 1: you know what, this has been such an incredible hunt
12:00
Speaker 1: over the two years getting to know this dear, see
12:02
Speaker 1: this dear, learn from this dear, and I was like,
12:05
Speaker 1: okay with that. And maybe that's why now I'm okay
12:10
Speaker 1: with the idea of trying to extend that journey, still
12:13
Speaker 1: knowing I may not end it. Um, just with the
12:16
Speaker 1: hopes of maybe continuing it. UM. I don't know. I mean,
12:19
Speaker 1: I know I sound crazy. I know there's probably fifty
12:22
Speaker 1: or eight pc of people listening to me that I
12:24
Speaker 1: think I'm an idiot. Um. I can't explain to myself. UM,
12:28
Speaker 1: but I think there's a spiritual there's a spiritual side
12:32
Speaker 1: to things, man, And it's not it doesn't. There's a
12:35
Speaker 1: lot of there's a lot of hunters out there, even
12:38
Speaker 1: some that are listening to this podcast who right now
12:42
Speaker 1: are saying, man, you're FFing crazy if you think I
12:45
Speaker 1: would pass up that buck at you know, there, I'm
12:50
Speaker 1: not gonna You're an animal lover two mark Hunters are
12:55
Speaker 1: not just killers, you know, we could. There's there's for me,
12:58
Speaker 1: there's also a spiritual side. Like there's plenty of times
13:01
Speaker 1: even this season that I went out saying, Okay, well
13:03
Speaker 1: I'm gonna kill a doughe tonight and then sat in
13:05
Speaker 1: a tree and didn't feel like killing a dough you know,
13:09
Speaker 1: I just sat there and watched them, maybe waited for
13:12
Speaker 1: a buck to pop out, or you know, just whatever,
13:14
Speaker 1: or just sit in observe nature, observe the animals that
13:18
Speaker 1: you love. But you know, and the only person you
13:23
Speaker 1: have to answer to is yourself. So what I say
13:25
Speaker 1: and what everybody else say doesn't matter. And that's and
13:29
Speaker 1: in no disrespect to anyone who shared their opinion with me.
13:32
Speaker 1: But I you know, from the get go when I
13:34
Speaker 1: when I decided to kind of share these feelings, I
13:36
Speaker 1: know there'd be I knew there'd be lots of opinions
13:38
Speaker 1: on it, and I just you know, this is a
13:41
Speaker 1: decision and something that has to come down to how
13:43
Speaker 1: I feel about the situation. You know, So I'm This
13:46
Speaker 1: isn't anything. I'm not pulling the audience to see what
13:48
Speaker 1: they think I should do, and then I'm gonna do that.
13:49
Speaker 1: This is like a personal decision, um of course, and uh,
13:55
Speaker 1: you know, I'm gonna just kind of personally work through it.
13:57
Speaker 1: I mean, what a privilege it is to just even
13:59
Speaker 1: have the upper tunity to think about that too. And again,
14:02
Speaker 1: you know, I haven't had the chance to actually pass
14:05
Speaker 1: on him yet, so you know, I might never have
14:07
Speaker 1: that chance, and maybe I won't even you know, get
14:10
Speaker 1: close up to shoot him anyways. But um, but it's
14:13
Speaker 1: something I just started to think about. And can I
14:16
Speaker 1: ask you a question? You sure cant? Is this a
14:19
Speaker 1: subconscious accepting failure? Like subconsciously You're like, well, if I
14:26
Speaker 1: haven't killed him now, I'm not going to kill him.
14:28
Speaker 1: So I'm just gonna come up with some and and
14:30
Speaker 1: don't take this the wrong way, but come up with
14:32
Speaker 1: an excuse. So why not to kill him? You know
14:35
Speaker 1: what I mean? Yeah, so I I had someone else
14:39
Speaker 1: made a comment like that on Facebook two and you know,
14:42
Speaker 1: take this however once, but I I don't view it
14:45
Speaker 1: that way at all, because I think I have my
14:47
Speaker 1: very best chance to kill him right now, I think
14:49
Speaker 1: I can. I I would bet five dollars I put
14:53
Speaker 1: five dollars in the line that I could kill that
14:55
Speaker 1: buck before the end of the season, because he is
14:59
Speaker 1: still he's still using the same area. But I haven't
15:02
Speaker 1: hunted in three weeks. I've left this place completely untouched
15:05
Speaker 1: except for pictures, and the only really good late season
15:09
Speaker 1: food now is right on my property. And I know
15:14
Speaker 1: now the significant portion of other hunters are not hunting
15:18
Speaker 1: I have based on some other things I know. I
15:20
Speaker 1: know there's reduced pressure even more than there was before.
15:24
Speaker 1: Um So, yeah, I can't guarantee anything. Of course, he
15:27
Speaker 1: could still get killed by someone, So there's all these
15:29
Speaker 1: other things. I know that, But I think there's a
15:31
Speaker 1: very very high percentage chance I get a shot at
15:33
Speaker 1: him with a firearm, because I've got our muzzle or
15:36
Speaker 1: season right now, and I could go out there with
15:38
Speaker 1: my muzzleloader and I think I could get I have
15:39
Speaker 1: a very good chance of getting a shot him. I
15:41
Speaker 1: could have killed him with a muzzleloader twice last week
15:44
Speaker 1: or whenever it was November. Um So, So that said,
15:52
Speaker 1: I'm not, I don't, I'm not. That's not what this
15:54
Speaker 1: is at all. Um So, why don't you go out,
15:58
Speaker 1: Why don't you go out and hunt and make make
16:01
Speaker 1: the decision at at the time, Like, go out, do
16:06
Speaker 1: everything like you normally do, get him if he steps out,
16:09
Speaker 1: put him right in your scope, and then ask yourself
16:11
Speaker 1: the question, Man, is this what I want to do?
16:13
Speaker 1: And I think that's that that is what I'm gonna do.
16:15
Speaker 1: I've I've kind of said up, I'm still gonna hunt.
16:17
Speaker 1: I'm still gonna go out there. UM. I think what
16:20
Speaker 1: I am going to do though, and this is at
16:22
Speaker 1: least where I'm kind of that right now, is I
16:24
Speaker 1: think I'm just gonna take the bow out and that's
16:27
Speaker 1: gonna be kind of my little way of of letting
16:29
Speaker 1: fate be the determiner. Um. I'm gonna put myself in
16:32
Speaker 1: a good position, and I'm gonna hunt on the right
16:35
Speaker 1: days and the right spots, and I don't take that
16:37
Speaker 1: bow and if he comes with them bow warrings for
16:40
Speaker 1: the first time this year and I have a chance,
16:42
Speaker 1: I think that's you know, a greater power saying Okay,
16:45
Speaker 1: it's it's time. Um. If not, then you know I've
16:50
Speaker 1: had an incredible hunt for this guy and hopefully it
16:52
Speaker 1: continues next year. Um. But I don't know. I just
16:55
Speaker 1: feel like, if I'm already having these doubts about killing him,
16:58
Speaker 1: shooting him at a hundred and fifty yards and my
17:00
Speaker 1: muzzler seems like a little lackluster, um, if I'm already
17:05
Speaker 1: liked having this. So I don't know, man. I mean,
17:10
Speaker 1: I completely understand that most people probably would not understand
17:14
Speaker 1: why I'm saying these things because I don't want understand it.
17:17
Speaker 1: But that's just kind of where Matt, That's how I'm feeling,
17:19
Speaker 1: and it's my hunt. And when it comes right down
17:21
Speaker 1: to it, whether or not I kill him is okay.
17:23
Speaker 1: If that doesn't happen, that's okay. Um, it's been a
17:27
Speaker 1: heck of a journey, and I just kind of like
17:30
Speaker 1: the idea of thinking that journey might continue. Okay, Yeah,
17:35
Speaker 1: that's okay with me, man. And maybe I'll kill him
17:37
Speaker 1: tomorrow night. Maybe because I'm going back out tomorrow night
17:41
Speaker 1: for the first time to hunt this spot where I
17:43
Speaker 1: got pictures of him. I haven't hunted there in a month,
17:46
Speaker 1: and um, he's been there in daylight twice recently. So
17:51
Speaker 1: we've got a good cold weather. I've got a good chance.
17:53
Speaker 1: I think a decent chance at least, So who knows
17:56
Speaker 1: if he's there at twenty yards and the blood's boiling
18:01
Speaker 1: and and I'm pumped and it feels right, we might
18:04
Speaker 1: bring it into the story now or maybe two months
18:07
Speaker 1: from now, I'll be looking for sheds and we'll be
18:09
Speaker 1: talking about the same dear, and everyone will be rolling
18:11
Speaker 1: their eyes and sick of hearing of the holy field.
18:14
Speaker 1: So who knows, But I appreciate you hearing me out
18:18
Speaker 1: and uh and and not calling me crazy. Well I'm
18:22
Speaker 1: calling I'm calling you a little crazy. Okay, Okay, that's fair.
18:27
Speaker 1: That's fair because I I probably am a little crazy.
18:30
Speaker 1: But we all are. We all are. So I suppose
18:33
Speaker 1: with that we should wrap this up because we're a
18:35
Speaker 1: little bit late and calling Donnie. Um, so let's wrap
18:39
Speaker 1: this part up. Let's take a quick break to thank
18:41
Speaker 1: our partners at Sick of Gear, and then we will
18:43
Speaker 1: give Donny Vincent a call. So, as I mentioned, we
18:48
Speaker 1: need to thank our partners at s Gear for the
18:50
Speaker 1: support of this podcast. And our sickest story today comes
18:54
Speaker 1: from Brock Bolt of Wisconsin, and this year he did
18:57
Speaker 1: something that I've been personally trying to do. As we've
18:59
Speaker 1: just been discuss sing, which is hunting and finally killing
19:02
Speaker 1: a buck he had been after for several years, and
19:05
Speaker 1: after multiple past encounters and tons of pictures, finally this
19:09
Speaker 1: fall a shot presented itself and Brock closed the deal.
19:59
Speaker 1: M m hmm. These incredible memories were made by Brock
20:54
Speaker 1: while wearing his sick gear. And if you'd like to
20:57
Speaker 1: learn more about Sikas Technical Hunting, a pair for white
21:00
Speaker 1: tail hunters, you can visit Sitka gear dot com. And
21:04
Speaker 1: now let's get back to the show. All right with us.
21:08
Speaker 1: Now on the line is Donnie Vincent. Welcome back to
21:11
Speaker 1: the show. Donnie. Thanks man, I appreciate it. Appreciate you
21:15
Speaker 1: guys taking the time to talk with me. Oh, absolutely,
21:18
Speaker 1: same same to you. We we really enjoyed talking with you, man.
21:22
Speaker 1: I think it was almost two years ago now, so
21:24
Speaker 1: it's it's exciting to be able to circle back and
21:27
Speaker 1: catch up on stuff. And you've been pretty busy since then,
21:30
Speaker 1: haven't you. Yeah, yeah, really two years, it's been that long,
21:35
Speaker 1: I think so. I think that was two thousand fourteen.
21:39
Speaker 1: Oh okay, yeah, so yes, things have I think things
21:44
Speaker 1: have progressed quite a bit. Yeah, yeah, so so since
21:47
Speaker 1: that point, I mean, I think when we were talking
21:49
Speaker 1: last you know, the Rivers Divide had been out for
21:52
Speaker 1: a year. I think we talked about that a little bit. Um.
21:55
Speaker 1: But since then, you know, what have you been doing
21:58
Speaker 1: with your films or or otherwise as you know, what's
22:01
Speaker 1: what's new with Dunny vincent Um, there's a lot to
22:06
Speaker 1: be honest with you, and and you know what we're
22:11
Speaker 1: working on film wise, Um, you know, has has not
22:17
Speaker 1: really been done before, not really in the way that
22:21
Speaker 1: we're doing it. So the model of business, the model
22:24
Speaker 1: of how to make this work. There isn't a recipe
22:26
Speaker 1: to follow or somebody to to piggyback off of. So
22:30
Speaker 1: we we you know things, I swear our business plan
22:35
Speaker 1: or mindset probably evolves weekly, if not monthly, certainly annually.
22:40
Speaker 1: So a lot of a lot of things have been
22:42
Speaker 1: going on. And and uh, right now I've been fielding
22:45
Speaker 1: what seems like hundreds of death threats whether I better
22:49
Speaker 1: come out with a new film or else. That's funny. Yeah,
22:55
Speaker 1: oh yes, yes, yes, I'm of course being facetious. But
22:58
Speaker 1: I just had a guy write me a let or
23:00
Speaker 1: uh the other day, and it made me chuckle, and
23:03
Speaker 1: it he wrote in sincere fashion, but he said, hey,
23:06
Speaker 1: we so we can buy T shirts now, that's great,
23:10
Speaker 1: and we can buy um metal prints or poster prints
23:14
Speaker 1: of some of your artwork and photography, and that is great. However,
23:19
Speaker 1: when will there be another film? And I said, I
23:22
Speaker 1: said to my traducer Kyle, I said, it's really funny
23:25
Speaker 1: because I feel like in the in the tone that
23:27
Speaker 1: this gentleman is writing, I feel like he lent me
23:30
Speaker 1: a million dollars to produce five films or something like that,
23:33
Speaker 1: and he's saying, Hey, where's our next installment? But really, um,
23:38
Speaker 1: you know, the work is what I guess. I think
23:43
Speaker 1: people feel owed, you know, and and I don't feel
23:45
Speaker 1: like I owe anyone anything other than I really enjoy
23:49
Speaker 1: putting these films together, and I really enjoy that people
23:52
Speaker 1: have enjoyed them. So it's it's you know, it's all around.
23:56
Speaker 1: It fits. But um yeah, our our our model is indifferent.
24:01
Speaker 1: But we are working on a film right now that
24:06
Speaker 1: is about bear hunting, and we've been working on it
24:08
Speaker 1: now this last year and we're nearing the completion of it,
24:12
Speaker 1: so it's going to be coming out um late winter,
24:15
Speaker 1: early spring, probably late winter. So um yeah, man, it's
24:20
Speaker 1: just been so much going on. I can't even comment
24:22
Speaker 1: on the last two years. Yeah, that's incredible in it's
24:25
Speaker 1: even working on these films for you know, whatever this
24:28
Speaker 1: next installment might be. And then you were doing some
24:32
Speaker 1: stuff with Discovery Channel at one point right with there
24:34
Speaker 1: was it the Secret Network? Um, is that still happening
24:38
Speaker 1: or what's new on that front? Yep, I still do.
24:42
Speaker 1: I still do work with Seeker. Um it has kind of, um,
24:48
Speaker 1: it has kind of backed off a little bit. It's
24:51
Speaker 1: it's basically the balls in my court to produce as
24:54
Speaker 1: much or as little as I want. Originally, I don't think, ah,
25:01
Speaker 1: we draw the audience that Discovery was anticipating. Um, I'm
25:10
Speaker 1: trying to put this in a gentle fashion. Basically, you know,
25:13
Speaker 1: they worked with content teams and and content individuals that
25:18
Speaker 1: are going to deliver work that they can sell advertising around. Right.
25:22
Speaker 1: That's that that's their that's their main mode of operation.
25:25
Speaker 1: And so everyone loved our work. Everyone loved the quality
25:30
Speaker 1: of the work, everyone loved the storytelling. The companies they
25:34
Speaker 1: just have this impossible wall in front of them to
25:38
Speaker 1: get around the fact that we're hunters. It's amazing how
25:43
Speaker 1: quickly the human population has progressed beyond being being hunters
25:51
Speaker 1: in such a short time, and so these companies. That's
25:54
Speaker 1: not that the companies don't support it themselves. They've sat
25:56
Speaker 1: in the room with some of these uh you know
26:00
Speaker 1: people that are driving these companies, and there their directors
26:04
Speaker 1: that are their director of marketing, and and they love it.
26:07
Speaker 1: They love the idea. They're just so nervous about there
26:11
Speaker 1: uh customer that they just kind of stay a lane.
26:14
Speaker 1: So I still work for those guys. I still talk
26:17
Speaker 1: with those guys quite a bit, but it falls falls
26:19
Speaker 1: into however much or however little I want to work
26:23
Speaker 1: towards it. So so something similar to what happened with
26:26
Speaker 1: this whole spear hunting and under armor thing, right, Yeah,
26:31
Speaker 1: I mean, um, yeah, I guess hunters and I want
26:36
Speaker 1: to be careful here because I don't want to split
26:38
Speaker 1: my own throat. But hunters love to uh you know
26:44
Speaker 1: a lot of hunters love to go looking for a fight,
26:47
Speaker 1: and I don't. I don't. I don't want to propel
26:50
Speaker 1: that at all. I'd much rather than go looking for
26:52
Speaker 1: a fight. I'd much rather hunt ethically and hunt with
26:57
Speaker 1: conservation and popular and age dynamics and habitat reconstruction, in
27:03
Speaker 1: my mind, than I would to just go out and
27:07
Speaker 1: spear a bear or do something that is going to
27:10
Speaker 1: ride that line, attract a lot of attention and make
27:14
Speaker 1: people get their dander up, you know what I mean? Right? Definitely?
27:19
Speaker 1: How what kind of I mean when you mentioned the
27:22
Speaker 1: fact that you know, so many people have moved away
27:26
Speaker 1: from hunting, such a significant portion of our population is
27:30
Speaker 1: so very disconnected from nature that then hunting seems even
27:34
Speaker 1: farther beyond that. Um, it's so foreign for so many people.
27:38
Speaker 1: But at the same time, there does seem to be
27:41
Speaker 1: this resurgence in a certain segment of population of interest
27:45
Speaker 1: in kind of going back to our roots in a
27:47
Speaker 1: certain way. And I imagine with some of your work
27:50
Speaker 1: and your films, especially something like Who We Are, UM,
27:53
Speaker 1: which I think speaks to some of these reasons why
27:56
Speaker 1: we hunt that maybe don't seem as apparent to non
27:59
Speaker 1: hunt is when they look at their stereotypical hunter. Um.
28:03
Speaker 1: What kind of reaction did you get from that film
28:06
Speaker 1: and did that change your opinion at all about how
28:08
Speaker 1: the outside world sees hunting? Um? Well, first of all,
28:12
Speaker 1: kind of looking back a little bit at the transition
28:15
Speaker 1: of when most people were hunters and I'm not talking
28:19
Speaker 1: about original human societies where everyone literally all of us,
28:24
Speaker 1: everyone coming from these original thirty one societies UM, where
28:28
Speaker 1: where everyone was hunters and gathers. After that, as people
28:33
Speaker 1: kind of started to mitigate through time and UM, our
28:40
Speaker 1: world started to become recognized UM. People started to have
28:45
Speaker 1: the ability of going to the grocery store to get
28:47
Speaker 1: things for breakfast and lunch and dinner. People didn't have
28:51
Speaker 1: to be responsible with their lands and be responsible with
28:55
Speaker 1: their bowler with their rifle to provide for themselves. As
28:58
Speaker 1: as things started to get divided for us, this laziness,
29:03
Speaker 1: if you will, just kind of perpetuated into some of
29:08
Speaker 1: the modern day people today. They they people have this
29:13
Speaker 1: great disconnect with killing an animal. It's if you, if
29:16
Speaker 1: you take a step back as a hunter, it's not
29:18
Speaker 1: that difficult to see there disdain. Right, You're taking an
29:24
Speaker 1: amazing animals life. You are the executioner. You are taking
29:27
Speaker 1: this animal's life potentially for your saltish gains. You know.
29:31
Speaker 1: Especially some people get confused about quote unquote trophy hunting.
29:34
Speaker 1: They say, oh my god, you are killing that deer.
29:37
Speaker 1: Elecan just cutting that head off and going home with
29:40
Speaker 1: the head. People don't realize that that really doesn't happen anymore,
29:44
Speaker 1: or if it ever even really did happen beyond UM
29:47
Speaker 1: you know, the massacres of Buffalo, if you will. So
29:51
Speaker 1: UM as people, as as our lives became more and
29:54
Speaker 1: more mechanized, as our lives became easier and easier to
29:59
Speaker 1: UM maintain and to get our food and to have
30:03
Speaker 1: a shelter and to provide warmth for ourselves, it just
30:06
Speaker 1: kind of perpetuated. It just human being that now UM
30:11
Speaker 1: has this to stain towards killing because they have the
30:14
Speaker 1: ability to grow to our store and they may stop
30:17
Speaker 1: their foot and say that they're vegetarian or they're vegan.
30:20
Speaker 1: But still, these are very new ideas in the human diet.
30:24
Speaker 1: These are these are are very short lived, UM, I
30:29
Speaker 1: guess you know, dietary decisions or call a philosophy decisions whatever. UM,
30:36
Speaker 1: these things have not been along around very long. However,
30:39
Speaker 1: people stand on them hard and fast, and it's it's uh,
30:43
Speaker 1: it's there is a difficult group to talk to. However,
30:48
Speaker 1: I do think you know, when we came out with
30:50
Speaker 1: who we are UM, much of the population responded by,
30:57
Speaker 1: you know, we're very pro a little short if you like,
31:01
Speaker 1: I don't want to call it a film, but you know,
31:03
Speaker 1: hunters were of course all for it. People who understood
31:08
Speaker 1: factory farming and that there's a better way to get
31:10
Speaker 1: our food and that this is the more of a
31:12
Speaker 1: connected way to get our food, they understood it. People
31:16
Speaker 1: who are undecided, they while they maybe didn't pick a side,
31:22
Speaker 1: which I think is great, they definitely were encouraged to
31:25
Speaker 1: learn more about it or wanted to learn more about it.
31:27
Speaker 1: I received um lots of letters of people that had
31:32
Speaker 1: had questions to UM, ask me about you know, it's
31:35
Speaker 1: hunting sustainable for us? All? We're approaching nine billion people
31:38
Speaker 1: or eight billion people on the earth. Um, can we
31:41
Speaker 1: all go hunting? Is there enough wildlife for us all?
31:43
Speaker 1: And of course there isn't, and and there are issues
31:47
Speaker 1: that lying there with human population. But I do think
31:50
Speaker 1: that the majority of people have, if they're not hunters themselves,
31:55
Speaker 1: have an understanding that this is um who we are,
31:59
Speaker 1: this is where we've come from, and this is having
32:01
Speaker 1: a fantastic connection with your mother Earth. This is us
32:06
Speaker 1: with the greatest barrier of entry, the greatest investment in
32:10
Speaker 1: getting our food and participating. It's not just getting our food,
32:13
Speaker 1: but it's participating with the wilds. It's taking the time
32:16
Speaker 1: to watch small birds, taking the time to watch geese
32:19
Speaker 1: fly over your head. It's it's really enveloping yourself into
32:23
Speaker 1: the habitats that are around your home or that you
32:25
Speaker 1: travel to to be part of. And there's just a
32:28
Speaker 1: very small population that I received letters from that were
32:33
Speaker 1: absolutely against this, And I don't want to judge them
32:38
Speaker 1: at all, but I will say this. Their letters were
32:41
Speaker 1: borderline assinine. Their letters were borderline psychotic, saying very aggressive things, UM,
32:50
Speaker 1: wishing hate and disgust on my family, UM, saying things like, oh, well,
32:57
Speaker 1: I'm I'm I'm gonna just go by a mountain bike
32:59
Speaker 1: to arm and two chainsaws, and I'm gonna ride around
33:03
Speaker 1: the woods with my two chainsaws and I'm gonna cut
33:05
Speaker 1: all the trees down, and I'm gonna call it mountain
33:07
Speaker 1: bike chainsawing. And I'm gonna create a new sport, just
33:10
Speaker 1: like you created the sport of hunting. And if you
33:13
Speaker 1: actually look, it's obviously this. Obviously this gentleman was very
33:17
Speaker 1: passionate about this argument. But obviously if you sit back
33:20
Speaker 1: and look at his argument, it's almost complete nonsense. One
33:25
Speaker 1: has nothing to do with the other he is basically saying,
33:29
Speaker 1: he's equating hunting and fishing too. We go into wild
33:32
Speaker 1: places and just harvest, harvest, harvest, harvest, harvest. We literally,
33:37
Speaker 1: if you, if you if you've seen the if you've
33:39
Speaker 1: read the Dr. Seuss book about the Lower Acts, you
33:44
Speaker 1: know that this one flur is this creature that goes
33:47
Speaker 1: into the woods and creates this this item that he
33:51
Speaker 1: wants to sell to the population. There's so much connection
33:54
Speaker 1: in this story. We have this person who represents a
33:57
Speaker 1: population of people wants to go into the wild to
34:00
Speaker 1: chop everything down to harvest all the water, harvest, harvest
34:03
Speaker 1: all the trees, harvest everything that they can to create
34:06
Speaker 1: a product for the populations, and in doing so, you know,
34:10
Speaker 1: basically create a wasteland of the earth. And so that's
34:14
Speaker 1: what some of this very small population I think that's
34:18
Speaker 1: they're wrapping their heads around. Uh, they're confusing killing of
34:21
Speaker 1: animals with murder. Uh, they're confusing animals. They're they're adding
34:26
Speaker 1: anthropomorphism with animals. Through all of our connections to Walt Disney,
34:31
Speaker 1: um and and they just have went so far down
34:35
Speaker 1: the wrong path that their their argument is witless. And
34:41
Speaker 1: and like I said, borderline nonsense and psychotic, and so
34:46
Speaker 1: it's a very small group. So, again a long winded answer,
34:50
Speaker 1: I think the majority of people either support it or
34:54
Speaker 1: understand why we do it. They might they might not
34:57
Speaker 1: do it themselves, or they might not um you know,
35:00
Speaker 1: beyond the front lines if you will, but they definitely
35:03
Speaker 1: understand why we do it, why we do it. Yeah,
35:06
Speaker 1: it seems like they're like you said, there's that small
35:09
Speaker 1: minority of your extreme anti hunters who are not open
35:13
Speaker 1: to any other way of looking at things that you know,
35:15
Speaker 1: there's nothing we can say or do that's going to
35:17
Speaker 1: make them feel Differently, there's this much broader population of
35:21
Speaker 1: people who are kind of on the fence. They're kind
35:24
Speaker 1: of okay with it. But at the same time, I
35:26
Speaker 1: think they're very easily influenced by some of the things
35:31
Speaker 1: that might pop up in the media by way of
35:33
Speaker 1: the anti hunters or because of mistakes made by hunters
35:37
Speaker 1: that can be then easily used to to h to
35:41
Speaker 1: support some of these arguments by anti hunters about these
35:44
Speaker 1: different crazy theories that of course make no sense when
35:47
Speaker 1: you think about them logically. But when you put a
35:49
Speaker 1: picture of a deadline in front of a headline it
35:52
Speaker 1: seems appalling to people that grew up on the Lion
35:54
Speaker 1: King and Bambi and all this kind of stuff. I
35:57
Speaker 1: think so much though, to unders stand what we do
36:01
Speaker 1: and to understand hunting when you have none of that context,
36:05
Speaker 1: it's a really difficult thing to wrap your head around
36:07
Speaker 1: without thinking about it and without under without meeting people
36:11
Speaker 1: and talking about these types of things and understanding everything
36:14
Speaker 1: that goes into it. So I feel like it's increasingly
36:18
Speaker 1: and I don't know, I rant about this a lot,
36:21
Speaker 1: but I think it's increasingly important for us as hunters
36:23
Speaker 1: to you know, participate in that discussion and to be
36:26
Speaker 1: positive representative representatives of this hunting way of life or
36:30
Speaker 1: our community and what we do, because um more and more,
36:34
Speaker 1: if you if you mess up, or if we do
36:36
Speaker 1: something that you know obviously isn't what we want to
36:39
Speaker 1: be shown, is what hunters are all about. That stuff
36:41
Speaker 1: can now be spread across the internet so quickly or
36:44
Speaker 1: used in propaganda or whatever. I mean, it's it's that,
36:47
Speaker 1: that's that's exactly, That's exactly what I mean. Let's kill
36:51
Speaker 1: the rumors, Let's kill the negativity, Let's kill the hard
36:56
Speaker 1: line of black and white where you're either forward or
36:58
Speaker 1: against it. Let's kill that by hunting ethically, by um
37:03
Speaker 1: speaking clearly about our intentions with the habitat, our intentions
37:08
Speaker 1: with the wild places, our connections with the wild places.
37:10
Speaker 1: Let's if you show them the engagement that you have
37:14
Speaker 1: with in the wild, and you show them why you're there,
37:19
Speaker 1: and you show them what you're doing, and you're completely transparent,
37:22
Speaker 1: you're doing it with great ethics. The arguments just start
37:26
Speaker 1: to fall away. And like I said, then you reduce
37:29
Speaker 1: your population of naysayers down to people who are really
37:32
Speaker 1: never going to listen. And certainly I guess you should
37:36
Speaker 1: still take time to speak with them, but um, you
37:40
Speaker 1: might not wanna. You might not want to be your
37:42
Speaker 1: your head against the wall too bad. And like when
37:44
Speaker 1: people send me, if somebody sends me a letter and says, hey,
37:47
Speaker 1: I'm a vegetarian who I can't really get over that
37:52
Speaker 1: hump of killing an animal. I can't really get over
37:54
Speaker 1: that hump of eating flesh or watching you eat flesh.
37:58
Speaker 1: I just can you maybe explain it to me a
38:02
Speaker 1: little bit more. Absolutely, UM going to engage with him
38:06
Speaker 1: or her. We're going to have a conversation. This is
38:09
Speaker 1: a great opportunity for me to speak with them, not
38:11
Speaker 1: to persuade them, just to enlighten them into what I do.
38:15
Speaker 1: They can make up their own minds. They're an articulate individual.
38:18
Speaker 1: But if if if we're if we're engaging with the
38:23
Speaker 1: wrong audience, Um, you just might you just might FALLIFID
38:27
Speaker 1: on your face. So if somebody sends me a message
38:29
Speaker 1: saying I'm in a mountain like with two chainsaws, I uh,
38:32
Speaker 1: you know, I don't chuckle. It doesn't amuse me. I
38:36
Speaker 1: kind of roll my eyes and move on with my life.
38:38
Speaker 1: And I don't even think anything. You know, I don't.
38:41
Speaker 1: I don't even think twice about it. But in the
38:43
Speaker 1: same regard, um, you know, and I would be interested
38:48
Speaker 1: to hear how you guys feel. But about this gentleman
38:49
Speaker 1: that speared this bear. Uh and then under arm or
38:53
Speaker 1: all these people attacking under armoured because they you know,
38:55
Speaker 1: because they drop them. Um. Was it legal to spear
38:58
Speaker 1: to bear? I get it was. I haven't really listened
39:01
Speaker 1: to it. But let's assume that it was legal to
39:04
Speaker 1: spear the bear. Was it ethical? Well, that's an entirely
39:07
Speaker 1: another question. And um, is that is that the message
39:12
Speaker 1: that we want to send to the people that are
39:14
Speaker 1: kind of on the fence or the people that are
39:15
Speaker 1: looking for more information. Is that is that what we're
39:18
Speaker 1: trying to represent. We now have modern weapons, whether it
39:21
Speaker 1: be even traditional weapons of long bows, recurved bows, compound bows, crossbows,
39:26
Speaker 1: high part rifles, black powder shotguns. All these things are
39:30
Speaker 1: incredibly lethal. Um, why not choose something that is insanely
39:36
Speaker 1: lethal and it's going to make it quick and ethical?
39:39
Speaker 1: Right off to that, then challenging the I wonder if
39:43
Speaker 1: this spear is going to do it. I'm gonna sit
39:46
Speaker 1: on the ground and spear a bear over bait, and
39:49
Speaker 1: I wonder if this spear is gonna do it and
39:51
Speaker 1: and then create some controversy. I just that's that's the
39:54
Speaker 1: realm that I don't quite understand. Yeah, it's to play
39:57
Speaker 1: to play Devil's advocate. Just second, Donnie. If with maybe
40:03
Speaker 1: a thought process like that, then I guess why are
40:06
Speaker 1: we even bow hunting? If there is another weapon like
40:09
Speaker 1: a rifle or a shotgun that is maybe more accurate
40:13
Speaker 1: and more uh potentially deadly than all the things that
40:18
Speaker 1: could possibly go wrong with U with a bow? Well,
40:23
Speaker 1: I guess, um, I guess that is I guess the
40:25
Speaker 1: the bow is definitely uh uh more challenging weapon if
40:31
Speaker 1: you won't because you have to close the distance. But
40:32
Speaker 1: I don't know if I I don't know if you
40:34
Speaker 1: could make the argument on lotality with a bullet versus
40:38
Speaker 1: a broadhead. Um, I think that would be a tough
40:40
Speaker 1: argument too to make for in either case either way.
40:44
Speaker 1: And so, um, I see it is more of a
40:46
Speaker 1: distance thing. And um and uh and I'll hunting tactic
40:52
Speaker 1: things that I that I do, that I do anything again.
40:55
Speaker 1: You know, there are hundreds of animals killed all over
40:59
Speaker 1: the world like sphere every single year by Aboriginal tribes.
41:04
Speaker 1: And um, absolutely, I'm just saying in in I wonder
41:10
Speaker 1: if bringing it to the mainstream and airing it out
41:13
Speaker 1: and challenging people is the best message for us. That's that's,
41:18
Speaker 1: That's all I'm I'm curious about. Yeah, And I think
41:21
Speaker 1: there's I think there's a lot of a lot of
41:24
Speaker 1: things you mentioned there are right for us to be
41:26
Speaker 1: concerned about and thinking about. In my opinion. Um, though,
41:30
Speaker 1: I see what you're saying to Dan, and it's I
41:33
Speaker 1: think something kind of popped into my head kind of
41:35
Speaker 1: related to what you're mentioning earlier donning. With some people
41:38
Speaker 1: you can get engage with some people you just simply can't.
41:41
Speaker 1: I think it's good and necessary that we have conversations
41:44
Speaker 1: like this, both within the hunting community and outside of it. Um.
41:48
Speaker 1: You know, yes something is legal, but is it the
41:51
Speaker 1: right choice for us as a hunting community moving forward?
41:54
Speaker 1: And there's we often talk about this. There's this um,
41:58
Speaker 1: there's two different ways sometimes these touches of is go.
42:00
Speaker 1: There's where we get into a spat about our different
42:04
Speaker 1: opinions on how to hunt or something like that. More
42:06
Speaker 1: one guy says, you know, if you're using a crossbow,
42:10
Speaker 1: your your worst and you're not really a hunter. And
42:12
Speaker 1: then so and so says, well that's the only way
42:13
Speaker 1: to hunt. Blah blah. So there's some people that like
42:16
Speaker 1: to argue about the different semantics of hunting. And then
42:18
Speaker 1: there's the other side that gets that gets mad at
42:20
Speaker 1: you if you have a different opinion, because then they
42:23
Speaker 1: say you're tearing down the hunting community. You should never
42:26
Speaker 1: question anything of its legal support them um. And I
42:30
Speaker 1: think that either one of those two isn't very productive.
42:33
Speaker 1: I wish that more often, whether it be within the
42:36
Speaker 1: hunting type of conversation or just in the world, like
42:39
Speaker 1: when you're talking about politics or differences of opinion or anything.
42:43
Speaker 1: I think there's a serious um deficit of logical, reasonable,
42:50
Speaker 1: open minded conversation UM and being able to have an
42:54
Speaker 1: open mind two different ways of looking at the world.
42:57
Speaker 1: I've just become increasingly frustrated over the this past year, really,
43:01
Speaker 1: I mean, when it comes to all these things with
43:03
Speaker 1: politics lately, and then also when we talk about stuff
43:05
Speaker 1: like this in the hunting world, Um gosh, why can't
43:08
Speaker 1: we just talk about this stuff? And I think more
43:10
Speaker 1: and more so within the hunting world, we need to
43:12
Speaker 1: be willing to talk about these things and examine ourselves
43:15
Speaker 1: as hunters because if we don't, and if things like
43:18
Speaker 1: the under arm or thing happen more often, whether you
43:20
Speaker 1: think it's right or not what he did, If we
43:23
Speaker 1: have those bad pr type things when it comes to hunting,
43:25
Speaker 1: the more and more that happens, the greater chance I
43:28
Speaker 1: think there are for knee jerk reactions to happen by
43:31
Speaker 1: the general public that damage our long term privileges as hunters. UM.
43:37
Speaker 1: So I hope we can at least open ourselves up
43:40
Speaker 1: as a hunting community to talk about this stuff and
43:42
Speaker 1: to at least be open to thinking about these things.
43:46
Speaker 1: Is this the right thing for us moving forward and
43:47
Speaker 1: then being open to the different opinions on it? I agree?
43:52
Speaker 1: I agree. People UM, I think, more often than not
43:55
Speaker 1: love to enter an argument with their mind may up
44:00
Speaker 1: or you know, perception that they are correct. And uh,
44:04
Speaker 1: that's that's exactly what I'm referring to. I don't know.
44:08
Speaker 1: There are so many variables, um, that we don't even
44:12
Speaker 1: know about. Right. Let's like, let's say this gentleman with
44:15
Speaker 1: a with the spear and the bear. There are so
44:17
Speaker 1: many variables that we don't even know about. Yet we
44:19
Speaker 1: see UM one one whip lash. We see under armur
44:24
Speaker 1: making a business decision and reacting to the negativity. I'm
44:29
Speaker 1: guessing the negative comments on probably this gentleman or his
44:33
Speaker 1: wife's video. So you see under armor making a quick,
44:38
Speaker 1: uh decision, and then you see the whole rest of
44:41
Speaker 1: the world. Right, people are sending me videos of them
44:43
Speaker 1: burning their under arm or gear and and then you
44:46
Speaker 1: have that backlash over there. But really, no one is,
44:48
Speaker 1: like you said, no one is talking about you know,
44:52
Speaker 1: the ins and outs of of UM. I guess why
44:57
Speaker 1: he speared the bear or why bear hunt Batman or um.
45:01
Speaker 1: You know, if it's if it's legal and ethical, is
45:05
Speaker 1: it you know, do we do? We just support it regardless.
45:09
Speaker 1: And there's many many tactics of hunting that I have
45:13
Speaker 1: no interest in participating in myself. But um, I either
45:19
Speaker 1: I'm not going to denounce them if they're legal, but
45:22
Speaker 1: I'm probably not going to talk about them if I'm
45:24
Speaker 1: not in in support of them, because I'm certainly not
45:27
Speaker 1: the type that just blindly supports. If it's for hunting
45:31
Speaker 1: and it's pro hunting, then I'm going to support it
45:33
Speaker 1: no matter what. I'd much rather have the most information
45:37
Speaker 1: possible and make up my own mind. Yeah. Right, there
45:42
Speaker 1: was actually kind of interesting to bring this up. There's
45:45
Speaker 1: a kind of situation like this on Facebook right now
45:47
Speaker 1: which I think I should just shut down Facebook and
45:49
Speaker 1: not look at stuff on there anymore. Is it just
45:52
Speaker 1: endlessly frustrates me. Um. But somebody posted a picture of
45:56
Speaker 1: a deer they'd shot to some group message board or whatever,
46:00
Speaker 1: and they had shot this deer in the head and
46:02
Speaker 1: blew off blew off its mouth. Um, and this hunter
46:07
Speaker 1: killed it and killed it up, killed it. So he
46:10
Speaker 1: had the picture of him holding the deer with his
46:11
Speaker 1: face blown off, and he was a super happy hunter
46:14
Speaker 1: about it. And then you had, you know, you had
46:16
Speaker 1: the two sides of the argument, and then just go
46:19
Speaker 1: off in the thread here where you've got one side
46:22
Speaker 1: that says, congrats, you know it was a legal kill
46:25
Speaker 1: and nothing wrong with it, and then he had one
46:27
Speaker 1: side that said, how unethical or how you know this
46:31
Speaker 1: is you know, there's some serious concerns with this type
46:33
Speaker 1: of thing, thinking that's okay, and then you've got these
46:35
Speaker 1: people saying, well, and he shots a good shot, and
46:38
Speaker 1: just all the different things that might come up within
46:40
Speaker 1: that type of topic. I just read through this and
46:43
Speaker 1: it just it just saddened me. I think, just seeing
46:47
Speaker 1: the a, the vitriol, and then also then the unwillingness
46:51
Speaker 1: to think about the ethics of something like this or
46:54
Speaker 1: to think about the ramifications of that kind of thing. Um,
46:57
Speaker 1: I don't know, the whole thing just kind of put
46:59
Speaker 1: me in a bummer of a mood. Food and um,
47:02
Speaker 1: I worry about that stuff a lot, just the ram Yeah,
47:06
Speaker 1: it's going to be, yeah, it's going to be uh
47:11
Speaker 1: if if there is a downfall beyond the complete implosion
47:17
Speaker 1: of Earth through overpopulation and and just uh habitat destruction.
47:25
Speaker 1: If there's if if if it doesn't go that route. Um,
47:29
Speaker 1: and we have to make decisions on hunting in the
47:32
Speaker 1: in the future. I mean, it's it's things like social
47:35
Speaker 1: media and uh, it's going to be our our our downfall.
47:40
Speaker 1: You know, it's going to be are it's you know,
47:45
Speaker 1: it spreads, It spreads the negative message, and it gives
47:48
Speaker 1: anyone with a keyboard a voice. And anything can be
47:52
Speaker 1: toted as a fact. Anyone can give their anyone can
47:55
Speaker 1: spin it however they want. Uh, and and photos like that.
48:00
Speaker 1: You know, who knows you know that's uh. You know,
48:04
Speaker 1: I I myself guard my comments. I mean, listen to
48:07
Speaker 1: me even speaking, I myself guard my comments because I
48:09
Speaker 1: don't want to feel ten thousand emails tomorrow is saying
48:14
Speaker 1: it's my god given right to shoot a deer in
48:16
Speaker 1: the head when I I, you know, I may have
48:19
Speaker 1: my own opinions of it, you know, and and and
48:22
Speaker 1: we you know it it's everything is spun. Everything is spun,
48:26
Speaker 1: and and it's really tough to make h It's really
48:29
Speaker 1: tough to make a decision. And you know, back in
48:31
Speaker 1: the day, UM, let's call it nine if you will,
48:35
Speaker 1: and you and I are. Um, you know, you drive
48:38
Speaker 1: your car over to my farm and and we're gonna
48:40
Speaker 1: you and I are gonna still hunt my farm. And
48:42
Speaker 1: then we're gonna go over it's still hunt your farm.
48:45
Speaker 1: And you and I are still hunting along our field
48:47
Speaker 1: edge and uh, you know, a big door big buck
48:50
Speaker 1: jumps up and starts running, and you and I pull up.
48:52
Speaker 1: We take a running shot, and one of us is
48:55
Speaker 1: off and hits the animal on the head and drops
48:57
Speaker 1: in these tracks or uh, you know, something along that fashion.
49:01
Speaker 1: We you know, we go up there, we walk up
49:03
Speaker 1: to it. If it's not dead, we dispatch it as
49:06
Speaker 1: quickly as possible. If it is dead, um, you know,
49:09
Speaker 1: we we probably shake hands, grab the front leg, dragged
49:12
Speaker 1: it back to the barn and skin it out with
49:14
Speaker 1: not even thinking twice about it. And obviously that wasn't
49:17
Speaker 1: the intended bowl to shoot it in the head, but
49:20
Speaker 1: you know, it's it's what happened when we were hunting together,
49:23
Speaker 1: and we skin it out and split the meat, and
49:25
Speaker 1: you know, and and we go on our merry way.
49:27
Speaker 1: Well that that completely changes when you post a photo
49:32
Speaker 1: to the world of this deer. That is um, you know,
49:36
Speaker 1: that is that is destroyed in such a way or
49:40
Speaker 1: has been hit in such a way. It's just shocking
49:42
Speaker 1: for people. If anyone has any preparation about it, there there,
49:48
Speaker 1: their argument can really quickly be pushed the other direction
49:51
Speaker 1: when they see a deer that's been shot in the head,
49:53
Speaker 1: really really quickly. And uh, and so the times have changed,
49:58
Speaker 1: you know, and and it's we have to be I
50:01
Speaker 1: don't want to say we have to be careful because
50:02
Speaker 1: I don't want people to center their opinions and the
50:05
Speaker 1: things that they do. I just want to be honest
50:07
Speaker 1: with themselves and honestly, the way they go about thinks
50:10
Speaker 1: that this guy went hunting and he wanted dear me,
50:13
Speaker 1: and you know, I think needed dear me. It's probably
50:16
Speaker 1: a very select few people, but wanted dear me, and
50:19
Speaker 1: this dear presented a shot of its head. And this
50:21
Speaker 1: gentleman felt like he could make that shot, and that
50:23
Speaker 1: was a shot he want to take. I don't know.
50:26
Speaker 1: It's not a shot that I would take. I'll tell
50:28
Speaker 1: you that. And I'm not passing judgment on on what
50:33
Speaker 1: he did. It would because to your point, I would
50:36
Speaker 1: have done something different. But you know, you don't know
50:40
Speaker 1: the circumstances you don't know, and I don't know all
50:42
Speaker 1: the details either, but I think it just raised looking
50:46
Speaker 1: at all the various comments and opinions and there's just
50:49
Speaker 1: all there were all sorts of things mixed in there
50:52
Speaker 1: that make you kind of just I don't know, I
50:56
Speaker 1: don't know, just frustrates you a little bit. Sorry, Damn,
50:58
Speaker 1: what were you saying? I was just gonna say, Donnie,
51:01
Speaker 1: you know, throughout my entire life, I've been taught that.
51:05
Speaker 1: You know, communication is a two way street. You know,
51:08
Speaker 1: we have to do our best to try to communicate
51:10
Speaker 1: with them, and they have to try to do their
51:13
Speaker 1: best to try to communicate with us. How important is it,
51:18
Speaker 1: you know? And seeing what you do, you are doing
51:21
Speaker 1: your best to try to put hunting in a positive
51:25
Speaker 1: light and maybe showcase how it's supposed to be done.
51:29
Speaker 1: How you do it there, you know, the kind of
51:31
Speaker 1: the right way to explain to maybe people who are
51:34
Speaker 1: not pro hunting or maybe do or don't support it
51:37
Speaker 1: but are non hunters, um kind of that light. How
51:40
Speaker 1: important is it for us as hunters too then see
51:44
Speaker 1: things from their point of view if we're asking them
51:47
Speaker 1: to see things from our point of view. Yeah, and
51:51
Speaker 1: Dan just so you know, like when I put together
51:53
Speaker 1: my films are our films, I should say I'm obviously
51:57
Speaker 1: on the camera, but there's a lot of guys working
51:59
Speaker 1: on the things together. But when we put together our films,
52:02
Speaker 1: it's not to show I'm not showing hunters how it
52:06
Speaker 1: should be done. I'm not showing hunters the correct way
52:09
Speaker 1: that it should be done. I'm not showing hunters that
52:11
Speaker 1: I think I'm a better or more successful hunters than
52:14
Speaker 1: they are. I'm showing the way that I enjoy hunting.
52:18
Speaker 1: This is how I enjoy hunting. These are the things
52:20
Speaker 1: that I enjoy to see and talk about. And so
52:24
Speaker 1: I'm just putting forth, um, what what how I feel
52:29
Speaker 1: about hunting, and then people are open to interpret it
52:33
Speaker 1: themselves and and literally, uh, you know, the first time
52:37
Speaker 1: I wrote The Rivers Divide, I was writing, um, the
52:41
Speaker 1: script if you will the voiceovers, and I wrote it
52:44
Speaker 1: and handed at the Kyle and he's like, no, you're
52:46
Speaker 1: writing it for TV. And I said, well, you know,
52:49
Speaker 1: I'm kind of trying to tread lightly, Like don't let's
52:52
Speaker 1: not tread lightly. Just be honest. Let's just talk about
52:57
Speaker 1: let's talk about how you are sad, and will you
53:00
Speaker 1: can when you kill an animal. And so I thought,
53:02
Speaker 1: screw it, all right, whatever I'm doing it, I have
53:05
Speaker 1: nothing to lose from this. I'm putting it out there
53:08
Speaker 1: and just started hunting. I just started portraying hunting and
53:12
Speaker 1: hunting on film, the way that I hunt when I'm
53:15
Speaker 1: not on film, and the way I act and speak
53:17
Speaker 1: when when I'm not on film. And so I just
53:19
Speaker 1: try to do it honest to myself, and everything else
53:22
Speaker 1: can fall by the wayside. Like this. This new film
53:24
Speaker 1: that we're coming out with is about my journey as
53:28
Speaker 1: a bear hunter, because I have evolved as a bear
53:32
Speaker 1: hunter and and and we can talk more about that later,
53:36
Speaker 1: but I do think it's important that we sit down
53:41
Speaker 1: and listen to their viewpoints and um, try to look
53:45
Speaker 1: at things through through their lenses, if you will, and
53:49
Speaker 1: understand that's that's what I'm saying. Like it, if you
53:51
Speaker 1: actually take a step back, it is not that difficult
53:55
Speaker 1: to think about, um, how violent and how upsetting it
54:00
Speaker 1: can be to shoot a deer and maybe a little
54:03
Speaker 1: bit less of it's a doctor or something like that,
54:05
Speaker 1: because um, it just seems like the larger the animal,
54:10
Speaker 1: the bigger the brain. It seems like it has the
54:12
Speaker 1: more impact on us the more we relate to it.
54:14
Speaker 1: So I definitely, I definitely think it and I feel
54:18
Speaker 1: it myself when when I'm sitting in a tree and
54:21
Speaker 1: I see a big, mature dough headed my way and
54:24
Speaker 1: she's walking right down the past. You're gonna come within
54:26
Speaker 1: the distance of my bowl or my gun. Uh. One
54:29
Speaker 1: of the reasons my heart starts beating out of my chest. Um,
54:35
Speaker 1: is this, this decision that I'm about to make is
54:39
Speaker 1: a one way street. She if she walks past me
54:43
Speaker 1: and I make the decision, she dies today. Right now.
54:47
Speaker 1: She doesn't know she's going to die. She's just walking
54:49
Speaker 1: down this trail. I know she's going to die. And
54:51
Speaker 1: that is overwhelming. It's very very heavy for me. And
54:55
Speaker 1: it's a really big decision when I move forward with
54:59
Speaker 1: pulling the trigger or releasing my arrow, and so, um,
55:03
Speaker 1: I feel like I already I feel like I already
55:06
Speaker 1: understand the other side a little bit. The only thing
55:09
Speaker 1: that I don't understand is this big these There's many
55:14
Speaker 1: things that I don't understand with their argument. Um. If
55:17
Speaker 1: if we're describing them as side, but one of the
55:20
Speaker 1: biggest of some of the elements of their argument that
55:23
Speaker 1: I failed to see and when people are making what
55:27
Speaker 1: I believe to be really silly decisions with you know,
55:31
Speaker 1: um um, you know, having having birth control amongst deer,
55:37
Speaker 1: or or protecting deer from hunters, because people think, if
55:41
Speaker 1: we don't kill them, if we don't kill some of
55:44
Speaker 1: these animals, this population, then this population, this habitat, this
55:48
Speaker 1: wild area is going to perpetuate into a perfect balance.
55:52
Speaker 1: Right if we leave this forty acre woods alone, it
55:56
Speaker 1: is going to perpetuate into Walt Disney is going to
55:58
Speaker 1: perpetuate into the perfect forty acres. Nothing could be further
56:03
Speaker 1: from the truth. All of these animals, whether it be
56:06
Speaker 1: a gray squirrel, whether it be the non indigenous buckfiorn,
56:10
Speaker 1: whether it be the white tailed deer, all these animals
56:12
Speaker 1: are aggressively going to go after their habitat to go
56:17
Speaker 1: through their differential reproductive success. They want to reproduce. They
56:22
Speaker 1: want to be the biggest, strongest, most successful they can
56:25
Speaker 1: be so that they can have sex and produce offspring.
56:28
Speaker 1: Whether it's a plant, whether it's an animal, they are
56:31
Speaker 1: going to go after the resource with absolute Now, when
56:34
Speaker 1: we weren't here or we had limited numbers, these animals
56:37
Speaker 1: kind of kept each other in check and balances. Those
56:40
Speaker 1: days are long gone. Now we have to participate both
56:43
Speaker 1: in habitat reconstruction. We have to participate in selective hardness.
56:48
Speaker 1: We have to participate in bringing money into different economies
56:51
Speaker 1: so that animals have um a worth to them, to
56:56
Speaker 1: to ward off poachers, to employ people, to keep eyes
57:00
Speaker 1: on these populations, to try to to try to control
57:04
Speaker 1: this shrinking. Right, this is shrinking, no way, no other
57:07
Speaker 1: way to look at it, unless we have a catastrophic
57:10
Speaker 1: die off of the human population. There's one thing that's
57:15
Speaker 1: that's we cannot argue is that we are burning through
57:19
Speaker 1: our habitat. We are burning through our earth faster than
57:21
Speaker 1: any other species. That is the only thing that you
57:24
Speaker 1: can't argue. Yeah, and that's something that keeps me up
57:28
Speaker 1: a lot thinking about that kind of stuff. Yeah. Man,
57:32
Speaker 1: There's there's a lot of things here, kind of within
57:34
Speaker 1: this whole larger topic that keep me up at night. Um.
57:40
Speaker 1: And And to to interrupt you quick, Mark, that's why.
57:43
Speaker 1: And as silly as the sounds, that's why when I'm hunting,
57:48
Speaker 1: I'm talking into the camera or whatever it is. I
57:51
Speaker 1: just want to appreciate this moment right now. I have
57:54
Speaker 1: no idea what the next time is going to be
57:57
Speaker 1: like when I'm sitting in a tree, or sneaking up
58:00
Speaker 1: on a mule deer, or sitting in a ground blind
58:02
Speaker 1: or sneaking up on a water buffalo or whatever. I
58:05
Speaker 1: just want to be super present when I'm hunting, when
58:08
Speaker 1: I'm fishing, when I'm even just outdoors scouting or just
58:11
Speaker 1: taking a walk with a friend, I want to be
58:14
Speaker 1: super present and I wanna appreciate the blue jay, the
58:20
Speaker 1: connecticate warbler, the brook trout, the garter snake. I just
58:25
Speaker 1: I just really really really reduce my interactions. I really
58:30
Speaker 1: reduce my mind down to just really appreciating all these
58:33
Speaker 1: simple things that are right in front of my face
58:36
Speaker 1: and try not to get caught up in the you know,
58:39
Speaker 1: this fit that we have to be successful. Yeah, that's
58:44
Speaker 1: definitely one of my biggest um oh qualms of myself.
58:50
Speaker 1: I guess is I am definitely guilty of sometimes getting
58:53
Speaker 1: so caught up in the you know I don't want to.
58:58
Speaker 1: I don't know what it is that the hunt so
59:00
Speaker 1: consumed with trying to get that quote unquote success that
59:03
Speaker 1: sometimes I forget to pay attention to the simple things
59:06
Speaker 1: and everything in the in the greater why. Um, I
59:10
Speaker 1: constantly need to remind myself to kind of step away
59:13
Speaker 1: from myself for a moment or from the actual task
59:16
Speaker 1: at hand, and just remember why it is we're out
59:19
Speaker 1: here in the first place. UM. And I think when
59:22
Speaker 1: you if you can do that, a lot of things
59:24
Speaker 1: kind of fall into place naturally. But it's easy these
59:28
Speaker 1: days with and I think we're as guilty as anyone
59:30
Speaker 1: sometimes just being in the media. You know, it's so
59:33
Speaker 1: easy to get consumed with trying to kill the next
59:36
Speaker 1: big deer, or to do this or that and post
59:39
Speaker 1: a picture, and I mean all these things. Is easy
59:42
Speaker 1: to get worked up and caught up in that kind
59:43
Speaker 1: of stuff. But get this, get this ego food. I
59:46
Speaker 1: couldn't agree more. I was just talking to Tile today,
59:51
Speaker 1: Colin Nick, and I thought, imagine if next year in
59:55
Speaker 1: the United States, And not that I'm against them at all,
59:57
Speaker 1: I absolutely love them in fact, but what if in
1:00:00
Speaker 1: the United States next year for a year, we just
1:00:03
Speaker 1: said absolutely no trail cameras, none. You have to just
1:00:08
Speaker 1: go to the woods, climbing your tree, stand, climbing your groundline,
1:00:11
Speaker 1: or go sit behind your binoculars and glass the water hole.
1:00:15
Speaker 1: If you're in Arizona. You have to sit there and
1:00:17
Speaker 1: glass the water hole in morning and night to see
1:00:20
Speaker 1: if a giant muley is is coming to take a drink,
1:00:23
Speaker 1: or a desert big horns coming to take a drink.
1:00:26
Speaker 1: No trail cremors whatsoever. You just I would be astounded
1:00:34
Speaker 1: if sportsmen and women didn't go to the woods with uh,
1:00:41
Speaker 1: with a heart that was a lot more full of
1:00:43
Speaker 1: the experience than when they go there with looking for
1:00:48
Speaker 1: this dear to do this and get it on film
1:00:51
Speaker 1: and to get a picture of it, put it on Facebook,
1:00:55
Speaker 1: put it on Instagram, whatever. We're all guilty of it.
1:00:58
Speaker 1: I just wonder, um, if the enjoyment factor would go
1:01:02
Speaker 1: off the charts. Yeah, that's interesting question. I mean it's
1:01:06
Speaker 1: so true. I mean I'm I'm guilty of it too.
1:01:09
Speaker 1: I've become so all consumed of that kind of stuff.
1:01:11
Speaker 1: And I would be very interesting to see because part
1:01:14
Speaker 1: of what I personally love about hunting, or one piece
1:01:17
Speaker 1: of it is that journey, sometimes you know, tarding one
1:01:20
Speaker 1: specific buck like I am this year. Um, But then
1:01:23
Speaker 1: it's also like sometimes that it you lose something because
1:01:27
Speaker 1: of that, you lose all that. It's almost like I
1:01:29
Speaker 1: found myself, you know, over the course of October and November,
1:01:32
Speaker 1: every hunt that didn't you know, get me one step
1:01:35
Speaker 1: closer to killing this one buck. I it was I
1:01:37
Speaker 1: wasn't enjoying or I found myself like upset, and I'm like,
1:01:40
Speaker 1: why I shouldn't be upset about that, or frustrated by this,
1:01:43
Speaker 1: or not enjoying seeing a beautiful deer having that experience,
1:01:47
Speaker 1: or being out in nature and stuff. There definitely is
1:01:50
Speaker 1: that risk of um of losing some of those things
1:01:53
Speaker 1: that there's there's some great things about trail cameras and
1:01:56
Speaker 1: management and all that kind of stuff, but there's definitely
1:01:59
Speaker 1: risks that if you let that get out of hand,
1:02:01
Speaker 1: it can you can lose sight of some of the
1:02:03
Speaker 1: bigger things. So almost like having a certain expectation going
1:02:08
Speaker 1: into the woods is ruining the overall experience of hunting. Yeah,
1:02:15
Speaker 1: you're looking past the things that are just before you.
1:02:17
Speaker 1: You're looking past them. You're looking through the chain lying
1:02:20
Speaker 1: sense instead of looking at it. And and it's it's
1:02:23
Speaker 1: something that I'm challenging myself with because we all slip
1:02:26
Speaker 1: into it, and in creating films is my job now
1:02:30
Speaker 1: and uh, and so you know, I slipped into it too.
1:02:33
Speaker 1: But I I have come through this evolution like a
1:02:36
Speaker 1: lot of people are, you know, like we started our
1:02:38
Speaker 1: conversation out with a lot of people are saying, hey, man,
1:02:40
Speaker 1: when's the next film gonna come out? We need the
1:02:42
Speaker 1: next film, and and uh, you know, I I feel
1:02:46
Speaker 1: like I don't owe anything to anyone, and I just
1:02:49
Speaker 1: want to produce the next film when it's honestly done,
1:02:52
Speaker 1: and when it's honest to who I am and and
1:02:55
Speaker 1: what I am, and then I'll release it them. And
1:02:58
Speaker 1: and my point is, I'm just trying to pull myself
1:03:03
Speaker 1: real myself back in from the from the you know,
1:03:06
Speaker 1: slipping into the exact same rat race. And I've actually
1:03:08
Speaker 1: been contemplating lately, um doing quite a bit of hunting
1:03:13
Speaker 1: in the in the future here where I pull my
1:03:17
Speaker 1: trail cameras back um and still do the management. I
1:03:20
Speaker 1: still want to manage the land. I really enjoy adding
1:03:24
Speaker 1: the much needed betting cover and food to the properties
1:03:28
Speaker 1: that I hunt for the deer, squirrels, pheasants, turkeys, snakes, turtles, everything.
1:03:33
Speaker 1: I really enjoy improving the habitats. So I would still
1:03:36
Speaker 1: do that. But then when I go hunting, um, you know,
1:03:40
Speaker 1: take a recurve. Uh, and uh, pull on my woolends
1:03:45
Speaker 1: and go take a recurve and and and just take
1:03:49
Speaker 1: a step back and empty the backpack out and get
1:03:52
Speaker 1: rid of all the gadgets and this, that and the
1:03:53
Speaker 1: other thing, and and uh just try to clear my
1:03:57
Speaker 1: mind and enjoy the experience a little bit more. When
1:04:03
Speaker 1: when you kind of watch these surfing films you listen
1:04:05
Speaker 1: to these people talk about, uh, you know, find trying
1:04:10
Speaker 1: to find the perfect ride or you know, find the
1:04:12
Speaker 1: perfect wave and be caught in that quote unquote perfect moment.
1:04:17
Speaker 1: Are you kind of a purest when it comes to
1:04:19
Speaker 1: hunting and trying to find like the search for that
1:04:23
Speaker 1: perfect moment? Yes, yes, I I yes, I've um. Yes,
1:04:34
Speaker 1: it falls in lines with with like what what you said, Um,
1:04:38
Speaker 1: that gentleman shooting that deer in the head. I wouldn't
1:04:40
Speaker 1: do that. Why wouldn't I do that? And that doesn't
1:04:43
Speaker 1: that doesn't fit my bill of being a hunter that
1:04:46
Speaker 1: doesn't mind not not a person that that as soon
1:04:51
Speaker 1: as that took place, um, that that interaction would be
1:04:55
Speaker 1: tainted for me. And uh, and that's not what I'm
1:04:58
Speaker 1: looking for. I actually had a friend of mine and
1:05:00
Speaker 1: this is when I first started hunting. Um, I was
1:05:03
Speaker 1: calling in a turkey, a big tom turkey, and he
1:05:05
Speaker 1: was gobbling his head off, and he was full strout
1:05:07
Speaker 1: and he was coming and uh, something wasn't right. He
1:05:11
Speaker 1: didn't like something, and he wasn't really spooked. But he
1:05:14
Speaker 1: came out of full strout and just kind of skirted
1:05:16
Speaker 1: the edge of the field and went down in the timber.
1:05:19
Speaker 1: And I had a shotgun with me, and I jumped
1:05:22
Speaker 1: up when I ran down the ridge, and I stuck
1:05:24
Speaker 1: around this oak tree. And here he comes walking on
1:05:26
Speaker 1: this logging road, maybe like picken yards away from me,
1:05:31
Speaker 1: and I just let him walk on by. And later
1:05:34
Speaker 1: on I met up with my friend and said, yeah,
1:05:36
Speaker 1: how was your morning? I said, oh, man, I had
1:05:37
Speaker 1: this big tom coming to me. I'll never forget it.
1:05:40
Speaker 1: It was a picked corn field. He was gobbling every
1:05:43
Speaker 1: staff or every second step. I could see his big
1:05:46
Speaker 1: beard was just slapping against his chest. And Um, I
1:05:49
Speaker 1: was sitting with my back to the east, and so
1:05:52
Speaker 1: the sun was just firing up his feathers, and I
1:05:54
Speaker 1: can I can see this as though I'm still sitting
1:05:56
Speaker 1: against that I was sitting against a wood aisle. I
1:06:00
Speaker 1: can still see this as though. I was sitting against
1:06:02
Speaker 1: a wood pile, and he came down and then I
1:06:05
Speaker 1: told him the story as just as I had just
1:06:07
Speaker 1: told you. Uh And he said, why did you shoot him?
1:06:10
Speaker 1: And I said, he didn't do the deal. And he said, man,
1:06:14
Speaker 1: you you read too many books and you watched too
1:06:17
Speaker 1: much TV. That's what he said. He said, you read
1:06:19
Speaker 1: too many books, you watched you watched too much TV.
1:06:21
Speaker 1: I said, no, that's that's not at all. I just
1:06:23
Speaker 1: wanted him to do the deal. I wanted to trip
1:06:26
Speaker 1: him with my call to my decoy. I wanted the
1:06:29
Speaker 1: trout to build up and eat the fly. I just
1:06:33
Speaker 1: you know, if if if the trout goes up to
1:06:35
Speaker 1: eat the fly and it turns out the last second
1:06:37
Speaker 1: and I hooked hooked the trout and the caudle fin,
1:06:39
Speaker 1: and I real admit, it's not the same for me.
1:06:41
Speaker 1: It just isn't. And um, you know I don't live
1:06:45
Speaker 1: in a cabin in northern Alaska five miles from a
1:06:50
Speaker 1: grocery store. If I if I did, and I needed
1:06:53
Speaker 1: a moose to make it through the winter for me
1:06:55
Speaker 1: and my family, and a cow moose presented only her
1:06:58
Speaker 1: head to me. Uh on in a in a late
1:07:01
Speaker 1: October hunt. You bet your ass I would shoot her
1:07:04
Speaker 1: in the head. But that's not where I am right now.
1:07:06
Speaker 1: And so my my personal degree of hunting success and
1:07:10
Speaker 1: my enjoyment comes with a set of standards, both ethical
1:07:14
Speaker 1: and and heavy with conservation. It's just who I am. Yeah,
1:07:19
Speaker 1: I think it's interesting, and I think a lot of
1:07:21
Speaker 1: us go through an evolution. We each have our own
1:07:24
Speaker 1: individual evolution as a hunter. I think, um, and I
1:07:27
Speaker 1: think I'm I'm getting to the point where I feel
1:07:29
Speaker 1: more and more like you do in those types of moments, Donnie,
1:07:32
Speaker 1: where you know, for a long time as I just
1:07:33
Speaker 1: want to kill a deer, and then I finally was
1:07:35
Speaker 1: able to do that consistently, and then I was like,
1:07:37
Speaker 1: all right, I want to kill a mature deer or
1:07:39
Speaker 1: a bigger deer. And then I feel like I've proven
1:07:41
Speaker 1: I can do that. And now now I'm like in
1:07:43
Speaker 1: this weird place where all of a sudden getting to
1:07:45
Speaker 1: kill I don't know, I'm in a weird place where
1:07:48
Speaker 1: we were just talking before you joined us, Donny, about
1:07:50
Speaker 1: how I've been after one buck this year. Um, it's
1:07:53
Speaker 1: been for two years. I've been after him, and I've
1:07:55
Speaker 1: been hunting him and I've seen him twenty times and
1:07:58
Speaker 1: now I just found out he's still live and I
1:08:00
Speaker 1: could take a muzzleloader out there, and I actually just
1:08:03
Speaker 1: saw him recently in daylight, and I think I could
1:08:05
Speaker 1: probably kill him with a gun. And now I'm thinking,
1:08:08
Speaker 1: I don't know if I want to, Like, I don't
1:08:10
Speaker 1: know if I even if I even want that hunt
1:08:12
Speaker 1: to come to an end this way. Um. And it's yeah, yeah,
1:08:16
Speaker 1: and I it's just really interesting to have all these
1:08:19
Speaker 1: different feelings about the how and the why. Um. And
1:08:25
Speaker 1: if anything, I guess it just reminds me and brings
1:08:28
Speaker 1: home the fact that hunting is a very complicated, complex thing. Um.
1:08:34
Speaker 1: And see, maybe that gentleman Mark, maybe that gentleman with
1:08:37
Speaker 1: the spear, maybe that maybe that was the next step
1:08:42
Speaker 1: for him, Right, That's that's those are the elements that
1:08:45
Speaker 1: we don't know. That's that's what I'm talking about. Maybe
1:08:47
Speaker 1: that was the next step for him. Yeah, yeah, which
1:08:52
Speaker 1: which goes back to original point of the importance of
1:08:54
Speaker 1: of being open to talking about these things and open
1:08:58
Speaker 1: to other people's perspectives on these kinds of things. And hey, yeah,
1:09:02
Speaker 1: it's man, there there's so many different takes and I
1:09:06
Speaker 1: think The issue is when we get so hard line
1:09:08
Speaker 1: on this is the one right way to do it,
1:09:09
Speaker 1: and if you don't do it the way I do it,
1:09:11
Speaker 1: or look at it the way I look at it,
1:09:12
Speaker 1: then you're an idiot. And I you know, I'm gonna
1:09:14
Speaker 1: lambast you. That's I think where we're get into trouble. Um.
1:09:18
Speaker 1: But but man, we've been talking about all sorts of
1:09:20
Speaker 1: these these deeper parts of hunting. I'd be I'd have
1:09:24
Speaker 1: some angry listeners if I didn't at least ask you
1:09:27
Speaker 1: about the more surface level aspects of hunting too. Being
1:09:31
Speaker 1: your deer hunting this year, I know you've been doing
1:09:33
Speaker 1: a little more deer hunting um recently, and I want
1:09:37
Speaker 1: to know how that's been going for you. But real quick,
1:09:41
Speaker 1: before we get to that, we need to pause for
1:09:43
Speaker 1: word from our sponsors of this episode, Redneck Blinds and
1:09:47
Speaker 1: Redneck Blinds is offering a few special deals this month
1:09:49
Speaker 1: for Wired hunting listeners. But first, I recently spoke with
1:09:53
Speaker 1: Bill Winkie of Midwest Whitetail about how he's been having
1:09:56
Speaker 1: success with these blinds, in particular, how he used one
1:09:59
Speaker 1: of these to kill a this year he called Lefty,
1:10:02
Speaker 1: and I wanted to share that with you. One of
1:10:04
Speaker 1: the things that I've had the most success with over
1:10:06
Speaker 1: the years is hunting um corn fields right after the
1:10:09
Speaker 1: farmer combines those, and that can be really challenging because
1:10:15
Speaker 1: the deer come from all different directions, so it's pretty
1:10:18
Speaker 1: tough to hunt those spots from a tree stand. But
1:10:20
Speaker 1: they're so attractive that you want to find some way
1:10:23
Speaker 1: to hunt it um. You know, you get the weird
1:10:26
Speaker 1: wind directions that may not coincide with the day that
1:10:28
Speaker 1: you want to be in there, and and that sort
1:10:31
Speaker 1: of thing. So what I've started doing now is putting
1:10:33
Speaker 1: these rednecklines on trailers and pulling them into the fields
1:10:37
Speaker 1: while the farmer is pulling out with the combined So
1:10:40
Speaker 1: basically he's finishing up while I'm pulling in. And the
1:10:44
Speaker 1: deer have gotten so used to farm equipment over the
1:10:46
Speaker 1: years in the Midwest that it's no big deal to them.
1:10:49
Speaker 1: I mean, uh, a wagon sitting in a field or
1:10:52
Speaker 1: something like that is nothing to a deer, so they
1:10:55
Speaker 1: don't know that that blind is anything other than a
1:10:56
Speaker 1: piece of farm equipment. So that's the I it on
1:11:00
Speaker 1: this hunt for this buck that I had nicknamed Lefty.
1:11:03
Speaker 1: It was the same day that the farmer combined that
1:11:05
Speaker 1: I drove. I drove the wagon or the trailer in
1:11:08
Speaker 1: there with the blind on it and set it up.
1:11:11
Speaker 1: Two days later, I was finally able to get back
1:11:14
Speaker 1: there and hunt that spot, and uh, the buck came
1:11:17
Speaker 1: out at thirty yards fifteen minutes left in legal shooting time,
1:11:22
Speaker 1: never even looked at the blind. Um, he stepped out
1:11:25
Speaker 1: of the brush and really kind of caught us by surprise.
1:11:27
Speaker 1: I mean we were about ready to pack up and
1:11:29
Speaker 1: leave because we just felt like there was just one
1:11:31
Speaker 1: of those nights, you know, where nothing was going to
1:11:32
Speaker 1: show up, And the only day that came out was
1:11:35
Speaker 1: the buck that I was hunting. So it was kind
1:11:37
Speaker 1: of a kind of a cool little uh twist of
1:11:40
Speaker 1: that hunt. But the point is he paid absolutely no
1:11:44
Speaker 1: attention to that blind and it'd only been there for
1:11:46
Speaker 1: two days. Uh. To him, it was a piece of
1:11:49
Speaker 1: farm equipment. And having the flexibility to be able to
1:11:52
Speaker 1: do that, um, it's super important. And the redneck blinds,
1:11:57
Speaker 1: I mean are are overall their grape blinds and hunt
1:11:59
Speaker 1: out because you have so many shooting window options. So
1:12:02
Speaker 1: when you move into a field like that, uh, you
1:12:05
Speaker 1: know you've got so many different places where you can shoot,
1:12:07
Speaker 1: and the deer I always going to cooperate and you
1:12:09
Speaker 1: walk right past the front of the blind. So it's
1:12:11
Speaker 1: nice to have all the corner windows that you can
1:12:13
Speaker 1: swing open real quick and easy and get shots wherever
1:12:16
Speaker 1: you need them. M The other thing too, is, like
1:12:18
Speaker 1: I said, the wind direction can be pretty variable for you,
1:12:21
Speaker 1: and these blinds are really good because you can you
1:12:24
Speaker 1: can shut all the windows um and that bottles your
1:12:27
Speaker 1: sent up inside and then at the last second you
1:12:30
Speaker 1: can swing them on the corner windows open and make
1:12:32
Speaker 1: your shot. So that's kind of the quick summary of
1:12:37
Speaker 1: how that hunt was successful for that buck named Lefty,
1:12:40
Speaker 1: but we've done it on many other deer too, under
1:12:42
Speaker 1: almost identical situations. So if you are interested in trying
1:12:46
Speaker 1: something out from Redneck Blinds through the end of the year,
1:12:49
Speaker 1: you can use the promo code wired that's w I
1:12:53
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1:12:56
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1:13:10
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1:13:13
Speaker 1: or te post feeder. You can go to Redneck Blinds
1:13:16
Speaker 1: dot com to see all of those. And now back
1:13:19
Speaker 1: to the show, and Donnie was just about to tell
1:13:21
Speaker 1: us about how his recent white tail hunts have been going. Uh,
1:13:27
Speaker 1: it's been going. I mean, uh that the conversation I
1:13:33
Speaker 1: just told you about that I had with Kyle where
1:13:35
Speaker 1: I said that would be fantastic to take a step
1:13:40
Speaker 1: back from show cameras, take a step back from all
1:13:43
Speaker 1: the gadgets with you either on the ground or in
1:13:45
Speaker 1: the tree, and and just you know, a good bowl,
1:13:49
Speaker 1: good parapin oculars, good set of wool, and just enjoy
1:13:53
Speaker 1: your time in the tree or on the ground, wherever
1:13:55
Speaker 1: it may be. Um. That stemmed from my dear hunting
1:14:00
Speaker 1: in North Dakota this year because I basically, quote unquote,
1:14:05
Speaker 1: I don't even like to say it this way, but
1:14:07
Speaker 1: I basically know of all the books that live on
1:14:09
Speaker 1: this ranch, right, I've gotten all of their pictures a
1:14:12
Speaker 1: thousand times and um, and through that process I know
1:14:17
Speaker 1: who was the oldest, not the biggest, the oldest um,
1:14:22
Speaker 1: And so I started fixating on this deer this year
1:14:26
Speaker 1: that I call Beefcake. And I call him Beefcake because uh,
1:14:32
Speaker 1: he's just has a massive body. He has you know,
1:14:36
Speaker 1: not not nothing to write home about frailers. So he
1:14:40
Speaker 1: would probably score if you're a score guy. He'd probably
1:14:42
Speaker 1: met in the upper one thirties as an eight pointer.
1:14:45
Speaker 1: Maybe if he's bigger than I think, he might met
1:14:47
Speaker 1: in the low and forties as an eight pointer. Um.
1:14:50
Speaker 1: But his body was just so huge and he's so tough.
1:14:54
Speaker 1: I've watched him chase a couple of other big box
1:14:57
Speaker 1: off of dose and and fight and win and saw
1:15:00
Speaker 1: it was like, you know, he just I just liked
1:15:02
Speaker 1: who he was and and knew he would be difficult
1:15:05
Speaker 1: to hunt. So I picked him, but in inadvertently I
1:15:09
Speaker 1: ended up passing every other box that lives on the ranch.
1:15:13
Speaker 1: I saw them all. There's only one other one that
1:15:16
Speaker 1: I didn't have a chance to shoot, and um, and
1:15:20
Speaker 1: I saw him twice, he just was too far away.
1:15:23
Speaker 1: And that was that was a deer who I know
1:15:24
Speaker 1: was five and a half years older night, and selfishly
1:15:27
Speaker 1: I wanted to see when he's six and a half
1:15:28
Speaker 1: years old, but to answer your question. Like, I went
1:15:32
Speaker 1: out to North Dakota early in September just to kind
1:15:36
Speaker 1: of scout, and I knew I was going to have
1:15:38
Speaker 1: access to this branch for the rut, so I didn't
1:15:41
Speaker 1: want to kill a deer early, even though it was
1:15:42
Speaker 1: deer season. I just want to watch him check everyone out,
1:15:46
Speaker 1: kind of learn their behaviors and really started to gain
1:15:49
Speaker 1: this connection with them just personally and uh. And I
1:15:53
Speaker 1: went out there and did that and it was incredible,
1:15:55
Speaker 1: and I went back during the rut two weeks to
1:15:58
Speaker 1: do it. The first was ten days of the two
1:16:01
Speaker 1: weeks where somewhere in between sixty and seventy degrees during
1:16:06
Speaker 1: daytime highs, so the mornings were non existent. But I
1:16:12
Speaker 1: never barely saw a deer in the morning. In fact,
1:16:15
Speaker 1: I was seeing all of my movement morchs throughout the
1:16:18
Speaker 1: rut the first two weeks. I was there November five
1:16:22
Speaker 1: and so November seven eleven, I was seeing almost all
1:16:28
Speaker 1: of my movement between ten am and noon, and then
1:16:32
Speaker 1: I wouldn't see anything essentially in the morning or in
1:16:36
Speaker 1: the evening. There was just a movement in the middle
1:16:38
Speaker 1: of the day. And I came very very close killing beefcake. Um.
1:16:44
Speaker 1: I set up. I set up, and this is this
1:16:47
Speaker 1: is kind of the cool part about doing your homework.
1:16:50
Speaker 1: And and I talked a lot with Mark Durry. I
1:16:54
Speaker 1: know you guys have interviewed Mark before talking market floor.
1:16:57
Speaker 1: Is that right? Yes? Mark a good friend of mine. UM,
1:17:03
Speaker 1: and he's the one I go to for advice because
1:17:05
Speaker 1: I think he is the greatest deer hunter in the world.
1:17:08
Speaker 1: And and you know him or him or Leelakoski or whatever,
1:17:12
Speaker 1: both friends of mine, both um a hundred times better
1:17:15
Speaker 1: deer hunters than I will ever be. And so I
1:17:18
Speaker 1: talked to more often when I'm stumped or when I
1:17:20
Speaker 1: need some reassurance, and and and so I I ended
1:17:26
Speaker 1: up kind of doing a Mark like set up. I
1:17:30
Speaker 1: set up a stand on the south side of this
1:17:35
Speaker 1: wood lot, and I thought, okay, if we have a
1:17:38
Speaker 1: northwest wind, Um, beefcake. I've watched him here before, from
1:17:42
Speaker 1: way up on the in the hills. I've watched him
1:17:45
Speaker 1: skirt this edge, and I think he you know, this
1:17:48
Speaker 1: is all in my head. I think he's sent checking
1:17:51
Speaker 1: this whole betting area for doze. And then he does
1:17:54
Speaker 1: this big loop, crosses the river and goes around this
1:17:56
Speaker 1: whole big other loop and then and I'm I'm judging
1:17:59
Speaker 1: this off of my actual visual sightings from the hill,
1:18:02
Speaker 1: using my my binos and spawning scipe and also my
1:18:06
Speaker 1: trail cameras, right because then I'm like, okay, I lost
1:18:09
Speaker 1: sight of him here, and then I got a picture
1:18:10
Speaker 1: of him here at noon, you know, so I'm starting
1:18:12
Speaker 1: to put this stuff together. Well, he came down the
1:18:14
Speaker 1: trail just like the doctor ordered. Perfect. William Altman, my photographer,
1:18:20
Speaker 1: saw him first, and he's like, hey, Donnie, Beefcake is
1:18:22
Speaker 1: coming right here, perfect, just like we want. And he
1:18:25
Speaker 1: was already at like thirty yards when we first saw him,
1:18:28
Speaker 1: because he kind of has to come through this little
1:18:30
Speaker 1: s curve. So he just turned to me and said, hey,
1:18:32
Speaker 1: Beefcake right here, just you know, exactly like we wanted.
1:18:36
Speaker 1: And I grabbed my ball. Isn't isn't that even funny?
1:18:39
Speaker 1: My sentence structure there exactly how he wanted. It's so repecurous.
1:18:42
Speaker 1: And so I spin around and I worked myself around
1:18:46
Speaker 1: and he's coming. I range everything, the wind is perfect,
1:18:51
Speaker 1: and um, there must just have been a little swirl
1:18:56
Speaker 1: right when it's just like hunters sometimes I think, aren't
1:19:00
Speaker 1: wrapping their heads around this. But air is just like water,
1:19:03
Speaker 1: so it's very fluid, and so there's little eddies and
1:19:05
Speaker 1: little currents here and there. And so as much as
1:19:08
Speaker 1: we like to think we have our wind right at
1:19:10
Speaker 1: the base of our tree or in a little ravine um,
1:19:14
Speaker 1: it might not be perfect. And so he just came
1:19:17
Speaker 1: and that he needed to take thirteen more steps to
1:19:19
Speaker 1: be in my shooting. And he just stopped, stayed very
1:19:23
Speaker 1: still for five seconds, turned around in his tracks, had
1:19:28
Speaker 1: his tail talk between his legs, and he walked out
1:19:31
Speaker 1: of there with absolute purpose. And I loved hated watching
1:19:35
Speaker 1: him walk away, loved watching how he walked away. He
1:19:38
Speaker 1: just walked away angry. He was upset that something had
1:19:43
Speaker 1: disrupted his path. I could see his muscles are all
1:19:47
Speaker 1: flexed and as he walked away, this was really cool
1:19:50
Speaker 1: for me. He kept his one ear, he kept his
1:19:55
Speaker 1: left ear um facing like quartering backle for his body
1:20:00
Speaker 1: to catch anything that might be off his left side.
1:20:02
Speaker 1: He kept his right ear talked straight back to see
1:20:05
Speaker 1: if something was directly on his tail. So he was
1:20:08
Speaker 1: protecting his left side quarter and his straight back. And
1:20:12
Speaker 1: then as he walked and as he started to go
1:20:14
Speaker 1: through that es curve. He pulled his left ear in
1:20:18
Speaker 1: um and and quartered his right ear out to do
1:20:21
Speaker 1: just the opposite because he was going to be turning
1:20:23
Speaker 1: to that blind side. And and of course I didn't
1:20:26
Speaker 1: notice on the need of this sinceil I watched it
1:20:27
Speaker 1: frame by frame from the camera afterwards. But I was
1:20:31
Speaker 1: just breath taking to see him and and when he
1:20:33
Speaker 1: walked away, and you know, there's I didn't curse it
1:20:36
Speaker 1: or curse the experience with all. I just thought, you know,
1:20:38
Speaker 1: that son of a gun gets to be a deer
1:20:40
Speaker 1: for another day, and excuse me, and he gets to
1:20:43
Speaker 1: enjoy you know, he gets to enjoy the stars tonight,
1:20:47
Speaker 1: and and you know, he just gets to enjoy being
1:20:51
Speaker 1: him a little bit more. And and uh, you know,
1:20:53
Speaker 1: he got me. He he just had my number that day.
1:20:57
Speaker 1: So beyond that, after that, it just went downhill. It
1:21:01
Speaker 1: just I started getting This is embarrassing to admit, but
1:21:05
Speaker 1: I just started getting frustrated. And um, I literally would
1:21:10
Speaker 1: sit in Spot A. He showed up and stopped Spot B.
1:21:13
Speaker 1: I'd show up and I should spot be. He showed
1:21:15
Speaker 1: up Spot A. UM, so then I'd show up. I'd
1:21:20
Speaker 1: sit Spot B, like three days in a row, because
1:21:23
Speaker 1: I was like, he's toggling back and forth. So I'm
1:21:25
Speaker 1: gonna fit Spot B three days in a row and
1:21:28
Speaker 1: he'll he'll make an appearance. And then um, and then
1:21:32
Speaker 1: he didn't show up at all anywhere, just completely disappeared.
1:21:35
Speaker 1: Obviously obviously got with a dough, right. So then I'm
1:21:39
Speaker 1: sitting over the only a couple of days left, and
1:21:41
Speaker 1: I'm like, oh, he's gone. He's he's hunkered up with
1:21:44
Speaker 1: a little SUSI que guess today I'm gonna hunt Spot A.
1:21:48
Speaker 1: So I hunt Spot A. Showed up at Spot B
1:21:50
Speaker 1: out of the blue. So then the last day I'm like, oh,
1:21:53
Speaker 1: I'm gonna hunt Spot BE. Showed up a spot when
1:21:55
Speaker 1: I came home. That's a mature buck, right, it's hard.
1:22:00
Speaker 1: He's seven, he's seven years old. Wow. They they they've
1:22:06
Speaker 1: got a way of avoiding the script. They definitely. And
1:22:10
Speaker 1: that's why we do it though, right, I mean that
1:22:13
Speaker 1: is why we do it. Yeah, I I could have
1:22:16
Speaker 1: shot everyone else other than this other deer that um
1:22:21
Speaker 1: William named Roger. Don't ask me why I named Roger.
1:22:23
Speaker 1: He just did one day and it's stuck and and
1:22:26
Speaker 1: uh and yeah, it's just is what it is you know,
1:22:30
Speaker 1: it just I could have shot every other deer there.
1:22:34
Speaker 1: And that's that's why I kind of thought like, if
1:22:37
Speaker 1: I didn't have a turtle camera, if I didn't spend
1:22:40
Speaker 1: so much time watching the deer, which I don't regret,
1:22:42
Speaker 1: I would always even if I got rid of all
1:22:45
Speaker 1: my turial cameras, um, I would still glass my face
1:22:49
Speaker 1: off because it's my absolute favorite thing to do it.
1:22:51
Speaker 1: But I'll be honest with you, I use I use
1:22:53
Speaker 1: Reconics cameras when I can afford them. I have some
1:22:56
Speaker 1: other branded cameras also, but I buy Recall X when
1:23:00
Speaker 1: I can afford them and when I can pick up
1:23:05
Speaker 1: that little card. And I watched the video because I've
1:23:07
Speaker 1: been putting them on a video a lot. I see
1:23:09
Speaker 1: the video, it's just like, not only do you get information,
1:23:13
Speaker 1: you just get to see how they move, how they
1:23:16
Speaker 1: interact with each other, and are they bullying each other?
1:23:19
Speaker 1: You know? Is there a fight? Are they dogging a dough?
1:23:21
Speaker 1: You know? How are they going under this fence over
1:23:24
Speaker 1: this spence? I just I'm just I love it. I
1:23:28
Speaker 1: love watching them fascinating animals. So okay, so what scenario
1:23:33
Speaker 1: do you think you enjoy more? Would it be the
1:23:36
Speaker 1: scenario where you go to a brand new property and
1:23:38
Speaker 1: un you know nothing and it's just pure surprise and
1:23:40
Speaker 1: happenstance and you shoot something. UM or the scenario where
1:23:45
Speaker 1: you do know everything, You've managed it, you've scouted, you
1:23:49
Speaker 1: know what's out there, you have one deer in your mind.
1:23:52
Speaker 1: I mean, it's interesting because there's a certain level of
1:23:54
Speaker 1: unique amount of satisfaction that you can get out of
1:23:58
Speaker 1: either or UM. I don't even know what I'm enjoy
1:24:01
Speaker 1: more because I've done both now and there's something really
1:24:03
Speaker 1: cool and special about both different scenarios. Yeah, and I
1:24:08
Speaker 1: don't know whether in fact I'm leaving UM. I leave
1:24:11
Speaker 1: on Tuesday to go to Illinois for a week, and
1:24:14
Speaker 1: I'm hunting a property that I know nothing about. I'm
1:24:17
Speaker 1: going there for a fundraiser to UH. Essentially, ten guys
1:24:22
Speaker 1: are going in to hunt this place, and a lot
1:24:24
Speaker 1: of the money, a lot of proceeds from us paying
1:24:26
Speaker 1: the hunt there go to this group of special needs children. UM.
1:24:31
Speaker 1: And And so I know, talking about the property, I
1:24:34
Speaker 1: don't want to know anything about the property. Like the
1:24:37
Speaker 1: guy that runs the property has messaged me a couple
1:24:39
Speaker 1: of times, say oh, let me send you some trail photos,
1:24:41
Speaker 1: and I said, don't don't send me any trail photos.
1:24:43
Speaker 1: I don't even care what's there. I'm just coming. There's
1:24:47
Speaker 1: I'm not hunting with a camera. I'm just coming to hunt.
1:24:51
Speaker 1: And the first mature boss that walks past me is
1:24:54
Speaker 1: getting an arrow. And until that happens, or if it
1:24:58
Speaker 1: does happen at all, I'll just shoot my dough or does.
1:25:01
Speaker 1: I don't know what's legal this year in Illinois, but
1:25:03
Speaker 1: I'll either shoot a mature dough or I'll shoot mature
1:25:05
Speaker 1: does until I get an opportunity at a five year
1:25:08
Speaker 1: old or plus older box. And if I don't, who cares?
1:25:12
Speaker 1: If I do super And the first one that comes
1:25:15
Speaker 1: by doing it, I don't care. If he's got pictures
1:25:17
Speaker 1: of a two double drop time kickers stickers, I don't care.
1:25:21
Speaker 1: I don't want to know. The first big boy to
1:25:24
Speaker 1: watch past me is getting a narrow. Yeah, yeah, there's
1:25:27
Speaker 1: something kind of I don't know what. I honestly don't know.
1:25:31
Speaker 1: I'm just like you. I could I've done both, I don't.
1:25:34
Speaker 1: I don't know. I don't know. Yeah, yeah, there's there's something. Yeah,
1:25:39
Speaker 1: I don't know either. There's something cool about the idea
1:25:41
Speaker 1: of you just never knowing what might pop out, because
1:25:43
Speaker 1: I think a sense of mystery has been lost a
1:25:45
Speaker 1: little bit when we have these hypermanaged properties. Um, which
1:25:49
Speaker 1: is so cool. I mean, like we've been talking about,
1:25:51
Speaker 1: but there's a little bit of something that did you
1:25:54
Speaker 1: lose maybe a little bit. So I don't know. Um, Yes, yes,
1:25:59
Speaker 1: I was gonna, I was gonna kind of pivot a
1:26:01
Speaker 1: little bit. Um. I was just curious, what do you
1:26:05
Speaker 1: think you learned from that two weeks stint in North
1:26:08
Speaker 1: Dakota and having those close encounters. Um, is there anything
1:26:12
Speaker 1: you do? And I think for a lot of us
1:26:13
Speaker 1: every year, at least for me, I kind of sit
1:26:15
Speaker 1: back and look at the season and say, what what
1:26:17
Speaker 1: big new thing did I can I take away from this?
1:26:20
Speaker 1: What did you take away from your from your two
1:26:22
Speaker 1: weeks there? Um, well this is obvious, but there is
1:26:33
Speaker 1: nothing that fools they're sent sense of smell, nothing, period,
1:26:40
Speaker 1: end of story. Nothing. There isn't a product, there isn't
1:26:45
Speaker 1: a machine, There isn't a spray, there isn't a wash,
1:26:48
Speaker 1: There isn't anything that can I've done it all, I've
1:26:54
Speaker 1: attempted it all. It's I don't believe in any of it.
1:26:59
Speaker 1: So UM that that in and of itself was yet
1:27:03
Speaker 1: another learning experience um to to have happened to me. Um.
1:27:10
Speaker 1: I'm not a gadget guy at all, but I know, UM,
1:27:16
Speaker 1: I know, UM I've used Um have you guys ever
1:27:18
Speaker 1: used ozonics machines? Yep? And I've used osonics in the past,
1:27:24
Speaker 1: and UM, I know osonics does exactly what they say
1:27:28
Speaker 1: it does. And UM if you use osonics in a
1:27:32
Speaker 1: ground blind excuse me, UM, I think it is terribly effective. UM.
1:27:38
Speaker 1: But uh, you know, we used a couple of units
1:27:41
Speaker 1: in the tree stand there this year for the first
1:27:44
Speaker 1: time ever, and when the wind was bad, the wind
1:27:48
Speaker 1: was bad just the way, it was like nothing saved us.
1:27:52
Speaker 1: And so I think I seem to continue to learn
1:27:55
Speaker 1: that exact same um circumstances, that you just can't beat
1:28:01
Speaker 1: their nose when when the wind is in their favor.
1:28:03
Speaker 1: And UM. So that's one Number two is even though
1:28:07
Speaker 1: I've been on this property for four years, UM, I
1:28:13
Speaker 1: felt like I should have scouted This year. I poked
1:28:18
Speaker 1: around in new areas more than I ever have before,
1:28:23
Speaker 1: and I really wish I would have made it out
1:28:26
Speaker 1: to this property in the spring and scouted it just
1:28:29
Speaker 1: a little bit more in finding out different travel corridors
1:28:34
Speaker 1: and different bedrooms, because I think I could have been
1:28:37
Speaker 1: a better deer hunter in the fall had I done
1:28:40
Speaker 1: my homework in the early spring before green up. And uh,
1:28:45
Speaker 1: and I just felt like I was a tiny bit
1:28:48
Speaker 1: out of position on a few things that I really
1:28:51
Speaker 1: feel like now having spent two weeks there, I could
1:28:54
Speaker 1: have dialed things in a little bit more on out
1:28:56
Speaker 1: I looked around a little bit more. But um, you know,
1:29:00
Speaker 1: that's basically it. That's that's I still, I still and
1:29:06
Speaker 1: I relied too heavily. Um, this is the other thing
1:29:10
Speaker 1: that I learned in this. I don't just place every
1:29:12
Speaker 1: one or not, but I just learned again that I
1:29:15
Speaker 1: relied too heavily on cameras, you know what I mean,
1:29:18
Speaker 1: just just kind of like what we're talking about. I
1:29:19
Speaker 1: relied too much on that information and not just being present,
1:29:26
Speaker 1: and I ended up chasing my tail and then just
1:29:30
Speaker 1: rather than sitting back and looking at the conditions and
1:29:34
Speaker 1: looking at what might be going on this present day,
1:29:38
Speaker 1: oftentimes I used old information and and thus was always
1:29:44
Speaker 1: just a little bit behind, whereas if I would have
1:29:46
Speaker 1: if I didn't have the old information and I would
1:29:49
Speaker 1: have sat back and just analyzed things face value. I
1:29:53
Speaker 1: just wonder if, if um, if I would have been
1:29:59
Speaker 1: had another opportunity or would have had a different experience,
1:30:05
Speaker 1: If that makes sense. Yeah, you know, do you ever
1:30:07
Speaker 1: find yourself It sounds like maybe you do where you
1:30:09
Speaker 1: you find yourself in this internal battle between like a
1:30:11
Speaker 1: gut instinct and then like overthinking and like over analyzing
1:30:15
Speaker 1: the situation based on all the data. I find myself
1:30:17
Speaker 1: in a constant battle between like what all this a lot? Yeah? Yeah,
1:30:22
Speaker 1: it's a constant chess match. But sometimes they feel like
1:30:25
Speaker 1: we go too far. Yeah, and that's that's that's what
1:30:29
Speaker 1: I'm talking about. I wonder, I wonder if um, I
1:30:37
Speaker 1: wonder if we just if it's just too much information,
1:30:41
Speaker 1: Like for instance, Mark jury genius deer hunter. What has
1:30:47
Speaker 1: made Mark a genius? Isn't that he goes out in
1:30:53
Speaker 1: the yard and grabs a handful of dirt on a
1:30:56
Speaker 1: September twelfth morning and tossed it in the air and said,
1:31:00
Speaker 1: you know it has this connection where he says, yes,
1:31:03
Speaker 1: hunt the acorn stand. I really feel like, you know, no,
1:31:07
Speaker 1: that's not it at all. The reason Mark is a
1:31:10
Speaker 1: fantastic deer hunter. And some people say, oh, it's because
1:31:12
Speaker 1: he has these great properties. No, it's not the reason
1:31:16
Speaker 1: he's a fantastic deer hunter is because he has taken
1:31:19
Speaker 1: data that he knows. He has used trail cameras, not
1:31:25
Speaker 1: in the manner that we're talking, but he has then
1:31:27
Speaker 1: since went back and looked at variables that are changing
1:31:32
Speaker 1: to cause such behavior, whether it be a dope, a
1:31:35
Speaker 1: young buck, or a mature buck. And in doing that,
1:31:37
Speaker 1: in organizing these findings, he's been able to see trends
1:31:43
Speaker 1: to where now I know, some people think, like, you know,
1:31:47
Speaker 1: he's he's able to kind of, you know, make make
1:31:50
Speaker 1: guesses or decisions on where a deer is going to
1:31:52
Speaker 1: move that are kind of almost hauntingly accurate. But all
1:31:55
Speaker 1: he's doing is he has a really great set of
1:31:59
Speaker 1: clean data, either in his office or in his brain
1:32:02
Speaker 1: probably vote where he extrapulates, um, the best laid plan
1:32:07
Speaker 1: over a huge amount of area, a huge amount of data. Rather,
1:32:11
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, um. Whereas like, for instance, what I was
1:32:14
Speaker 1: doing in North Dakota, I was looking at a single
1:32:17
Speaker 1: data set. I was looking at Oh my god, Mark
1:32:20
Speaker 1: came down here this morning at nine am and got
1:32:23
Speaker 1: coffee I'm going to sit here and kill Mark tomorrow
1:32:25
Speaker 1: morning at nine am when he goes to get coffee.
1:32:27
Speaker 1: But but you only freaking get coffee on Wednesday, and
1:32:30
Speaker 1: it's day. It's not o'clock. Where's Mark, you know? And
1:32:34
Speaker 1: whereas where it's where's Mark? Jury has looked at these
1:32:37
Speaker 1: he he just has more data that he's extra extrapolated from.
1:32:41
Speaker 1: And that's you know, that's uh, that was the pitfall
1:32:46
Speaker 1: that I saw him to this year. That I just
1:32:48
Speaker 1: think that we second guess ourselves. We sit there and
1:32:52
Speaker 1: go stand a or stand or grown blind air b
1:32:55
Speaker 1: or or you know, even guys that, even guys that
1:33:00
Speaker 1: on stock Hunt, you know, I do a lot of
1:33:01
Speaker 1: spawn Stockholm, even those guys. You know, you get up
1:33:04
Speaker 1: in the morning you're looking for sheep. Oh do we
1:33:06
Speaker 1: go down drain and Jane already go down drainage B.
1:33:08
Speaker 1: Last year I saw a couple of good rams and
1:33:10
Speaker 1: drain and j But I've never even really looked down
1:33:13
Speaker 1: drain as B. Which one you want to go down tonight? Today? Uh? Uh?
1:33:17
Speaker 1: You know you start to you can talk to yourself
1:33:20
Speaker 1: into a circle. Yeah, that is the truth. The the
1:33:24
Speaker 1: analysis and the data and all that stuff. It's fascinating
1:33:27
Speaker 1: and I love it and I obsess over. But sometimes yeah,
1:33:30
Speaker 1: it can definitely get you chasing your tail too. I want,
1:33:36
Speaker 1: I wanna. I want to jump back to something you
1:33:39
Speaker 1: said a while ago, totally off topic here but didn't
1:33:43
Speaker 1: offend you. No, no, not at all. Um. You told
1:33:48
Speaker 1: you mentioned that your buddy says that you read too
1:33:50
Speaker 1: many books and watch too many movies that maybe influenced
1:33:56
Speaker 1: why you approach hunting the way you do or something
1:33:58
Speaker 1: on those lines. What what kind of stuff do you read?
1:34:01
Speaker 1: What kind of stuff do you watch? Um? Lots of
1:34:06
Speaker 1: different stuff. I don't watch much. Um. I don't even
1:34:08
Speaker 1: really have TV at my house. I actually have actually
1:34:12
Speaker 1: have rabbit ears at my house TV. Um. Yeah, so, UM,
1:34:17
Speaker 1: I do take some time to watch football a little
1:34:19
Speaker 1: bit here and there. I do like football, but yeah,
1:34:21
Speaker 1: like I I don't have the Outdoor Channel of Sportsmans
1:34:23
Speaker 1: Channel and any of that stuff. I don't watch any hunting.
1:34:26
Speaker 1: Mark Drury sends me his films and I sit down
1:34:31
Speaker 1: and watch those and and uh so I watched that
1:34:34
Speaker 1: stuff in regard to hunting, but it's in regards to reading.
1:34:36
Speaker 1: Like right now, I'm reading two books I'm reading actually
1:34:41
Speaker 1: right here in my office, I'm rereading for probably the
1:34:43
Speaker 1: fourth or fifth time. Uh, Sand County Almanac by Aldo Leopold.
1:34:48
Speaker 1: You guys, Yeah, I think. I I think literally all
1:34:55
Speaker 1: hunters should be required to read this book in hunter
1:34:58
Speaker 1: safety or do you know, I don't know. I don't
1:35:02
Speaker 1: know how you prove somebody read a book, take a test,
1:35:04
Speaker 1: write a book report. I don't know. But I think
1:35:06
Speaker 1: all hunters, fisherman, anyone that wants to spend their time
1:35:09
Speaker 1: outdoors and engage in in while there's a wildlife, I
1:35:12
Speaker 1: think need to read this book. Like I said, I
1:35:15
Speaker 1: read this thing constantly. It's I carry this book with
1:35:19
Speaker 1: me even on cheap hunts. That's that tells you how
1:35:21
Speaker 1: much I actually on that book. And I'm reading a
1:35:23
Speaker 1: book right now called wild Ones. Uh. And it says
1:35:28
Speaker 1: that sometimes this smaying weirdly reassuring story about looking at
1:35:32
Speaker 1: people looking at animals in America. More album. Maybe there's
1:35:40
Speaker 1: a poor bear on the cover. It's New York in
1:35:42
Speaker 1: New York Times one Notable Books, New York Times Book Review. Yea,
1:35:47
Speaker 1: So I'm reading this because, uh this I say so
1:35:52
Speaker 1: many things that I think hunters are going to take
1:35:54
Speaker 1: offense too but so I'm reading this. I had a
1:35:57
Speaker 1: conversation with a guy this year that wants me to go.
1:36:00
Speaker 1: He wants me he wants to book a polar bear
1:36:02
Speaker 1: hunt for me. He wants me to book a poor
1:36:05
Speaker 1: bear hunt through him. And I said, I, I don't
1:36:08
Speaker 1: know how I feel about or bear hunting. I said,
1:36:11
Speaker 1: I would love to go polver hunting. I would love
1:36:13
Speaker 1: to see a polar bear. I would love to see
1:36:16
Speaker 1: the wilderness that that polar bear calls home. I just
1:36:20
Speaker 1: don't know much about what's going on with the polar bear.
1:36:24
Speaker 1: And he said, well, what do you mean, I said,
1:36:25
Speaker 1: I I don't know. You'd hear from different news outlets
1:36:29
Speaker 1: that their habitat and their numbers could possibly threatened. He goes, oh,
1:36:34
Speaker 1: that's hogwashed. I said, well, very well, could be very
1:36:38
Speaker 1: well to be. And he said I went on a
1:36:41
Speaker 1: poorlar hunt last year and I saw eight bears. And
1:36:44
Speaker 1: I was like it made me chuckle because I was like, Okay, great,
1:36:47
Speaker 1: he saw eight bears. Devil's advocate, what if you saw
1:36:50
Speaker 1: the only eight bears in five hundred thousand square a mile.
1:36:55
Speaker 1: I have no idea if you did or didn't. I'm
1:36:56
Speaker 1: just saying what if for some reason there was a
1:36:59
Speaker 1: sal and heat and you saw all eight bears that
1:37:01
Speaker 1: live in the entire area. Whatever. So I just said,
1:37:04
Speaker 1: you know, all I said to him was, if you
1:37:06
Speaker 1: talk to hunters, there's tons of pollar bears. If you
1:37:10
Speaker 1: talk to biologists that are studying the polar bear, um,
1:37:15
Speaker 1: the data is inconclusive, I think probably right now. And
1:37:18
Speaker 1: if you talk to quote unquote environmentalists, the polar bear
1:37:21
Speaker 1: are incredibly threatened and we may see them extinct or extirpated,
1:37:25
Speaker 1: if you will, in our lifetime. And so I don't
1:37:28
Speaker 1: know if any of that is true. But I saw
1:37:30
Speaker 1: the pullar around the cover of this book. I was
1:37:32
Speaker 1: actually at Discovery Channel uh speaking to a group when
1:37:36
Speaker 1: I saw this uh in in Manhattan, New York, and
1:37:41
Speaker 1: I saw this book and I just thought, huh, that's
1:37:44
Speaker 1: quite interesting. So I thought that title that sometimes just
1:37:47
Speaker 1: being weirdly reassuring story about looking at people looking at
1:37:49
Speaker 1: animals in America taught my eye. So I just started
1:37:52
Speaker 1: reading it. So, um, those are the two things I'm
1:37:54
Speaker 1: reading right now, and and there's a host of other things.
1:37:59
Speaker 1: I also read a lot of older books too, from
1:38:04
Speaker 1: you know, like Jack O'Connor and and those boys, because
1:38:07
Speaker 1: they it inspires me, like Fred Barrett just inspires me
1:38:10
Speaker 1: that these guys went out and hunted. You know, they're
1:38:13
Speaker 1: big expeditions. They went out not knowing really where they
1:38:17
Speaker 1: were going or what they want to accomplished. But they
1:38:19
Speaker 1: went out to seek adventure and to find the story,
1:38:23
Speaker 1: and and and they came back to fantastic stories and memories,
1:38:26
Speaker 1: and it's really inspiring to me. I wish I was
1:38:30
Speaker 1: born in a different era. I wasn't, but I think
1:38:33
Speaker 1: if I can still if I think, if I can
1:38:35
Speaker 1: still find a story worth telling, I think hopefully we
1:38:39
Speaker 1: tell it in such a manner that people will still
1:38:41
Speaker 1: want us to keep bringing them films. Yeah, I feel
1:38:48
Speaker 1: the same way. I read a lot about the eighteen hundreds,
1:38:51
Speaker 1: and I'm just fascinated with that time period and just
1:38:54
Speaker 1: I'm always wondering what it would have been like to
1:38:56
Speaker 1: come over a hill and see a herd of a
1:38:58
Speaker 1: thousand buffalo, or to to be on the Great planes
1:39:02
Speaker 1: and to have Grizzly walking along a river bank, you
1:39:04
Speaker 1: know in Nebraska, um or all these different things like
1:39:08
Speaker 1: like you said, there's um I don't know, there's some
1:39:11
Speaker 1: fascinating things that have been running around and happening in
1:39:15
Speaker 1: this on this continent, and hopefully we as hunters can
1:39:19
Speaker 1: maybe contribute to to keeping some of these wild places
1:39:21
Speaker 1: and animals around longer for us to keep creating some
1:39:24
Speaker 1: of those stories. Yeah, and honestly, that's so that's kind
1:39:30
Speaker 1: of the appreciation, right Mark dance, Like what if this is?
1:39:34
Speaker 1: What if this is the wild West? Right now? What if?
1:39:39
Speaker 1: What if on your deathbed or your son's deathbed or
1:39:43
Speaker 1: daughter's death beds, what if you get to say, yeah,
1:39:46
Speaker 1: we used to get this. We used to pack our bags,
1:39:51
Speaker 1: a pack our bows on our guns, and we used
1:39:53
Speaker 1: to your grandpa and I. We used to hop on
1:39:55
Speaker 1: an airplane. We fly up to uh, you know, white
1:39:59
Speaker 1: Horse and the Yukon and from there we'd hop on
1:40:02
Speaker 1: a little float plane. We'd fly into a lake, we
1:40:04
Speaker 1: climb up in the mountains and we'd hunt all sheet.
1:40:06
Speaker 1: Can you believe that? Like, what if this is the
1:40:09
Speaker 1: wild West for your children? What if this is really
1:40:13
Speaker 1: silly to think about, but what if your children are
1:40:16
Speaker 1: eating you know, can group meal replacement stuff, because literally
1:40:22
Speaker 1: we have eaten ourselves out of house and home and
1:40:25
Speaker 1: everything is a tarmac or everything is covered in concrete
1:40:28
Speaker 1: or tar, and really the wild places have have gone away?
1:40:32
Speaker 1: What if? You know? So that's you know, trying even
1:40:36
Speaker 1: though we're not in the eighteen hundreds right now, I'm
1:40:38
Speaker 1: the same as you. I I look at those days
1:40:40
Speaker 1: longingly or read about those days longingly. But you know
1:40:43
Speaker 1: what if right now is our wild West? Yeah, I
1:40:48
Speaker 1: hope not. I hope we can hold onto some of
1:40:51
Speaker 1: these places. But I know what you're saying, that stuff
1:40:55
Speaker 1: keep cranking out population, Yeah, sure do. I've been in
1:40:59
Speaker 1: a weird and I don't want to take us in
1:41:01
Speaker 1: a weird direction, but I've been in a weird kind
1:41:03
Speaker 1: of funk the last few weeks where like I just
1:41:07
Speaker 1: haven't been interested in writing about how to kill deer
1:41:11
Speaker 1: or talking about like tactics or you know, all the
1:41:13
Speaker 1: stuff that I usually do on this podcast on my
1:41:15
Speaker 1: website usually it's usually strategy focus and all that kind
1:41:18
Speaker 1: of stuff. I can't stop thinking, and I don't know,
1:41:22
Speaker 1: my mind is completely consumed with the future of this
1:41:28
Speaker 1: country and continent, and like the wild life and wild places,
1:41:31
Speaker 1: like I'm just becoming So I don't know if this
1:41:34
Speaker 1: stuff I love so much, I feel like there's so
1:41:37
Speaker 1: many forces against it. There's so many different people and
1:41:41
Speaker 1: things and just forces of civilization stuff that are just
1:41:45
Speaker 1: chipping away at it, chipping away, and it chipping away,
1:41:47
Speaker 1: and it has been for a long time, and it's
1:41:48
Speaker 1: just getting so much stronger every day. And I'm just
1:41:51
Speaker 1: like more and more feeling like I need I want
1:41:54
Speaker 1: to do something. I want to I just somehow want
1:41:56
Speaker 1: to feel like I'm somehow keeping that from happening, contributing,
1:42:00
Speaker 1: and and uh, it's just it's all I can think about,
1:42:03
Speaker 1: all I can read about, It's all I can like.
1:42:05
Speaker 1: I don't know. I just I've just become more and
1:42:09
Speaker 1: more and I think I think many of us you
1:42:11
Speaker 1: just want to somehow give back to this thing that
1:42:14
Speaker 1: has given us so much. Um M, in the same way,
1:42:19
Speaker 1: I'm the exact way, and I don't I don't even
1:42:20
Speaker 1: get I don't even get consumed with the tactics and
1:42:25
Speaker 1: the strategies, and I try not to anyway. I mean,
1:42:29
Speaker 1: obviously I do my very best to be successful, but
1:42:32
Speaker 1: um I'm much more want to engage in the experience
1:42:36
Speaker 1: and I'm much more want to be present in in
1:42:38
Speaker 1: in the wild places than than anything else. Yeah, what
1:42:43
Speaker 1: were younna say Dan, I just said, it's it's levels.
1:42:47
Speaker 1: It's just for me, like I have goals in the
1:42:53
Speaker 1: white tail woods, but for for turkey. Man, I've killed
1:42:56
Speaker 1: a hunt, I've killed fifty times turkeys, it feels like,
1:43:00
Speaker 1: and I don't even care if I kill another tom
1:43:01
Speaker 1: turkey in my life. But I do want to take
1:43:05
Speaker 1: my buddies out who have never hunted before and introduced
1:43:07
Speaker 1: them into hunting through turkeys. I want to. I want
1:43:10
Speaker 1: to introduce my kids to turkey hunting and get them.
1:43:13
Speaker 1: Last year was one of the best hunting seasons hunting
1:43:16
Speaker 1: turkey hunting seasons I've ever had. Where uh, the first
1:43:20
Speaker 1: day we got skunked. The second day I called in
1:43:23
Speaker 1: a bird for my wife. She killed one. The next
1:43:26
Speaker 1: morning I called in a bird for my stepdad and
1:43:28
Speaker 1: he killed one. I didn't even fill a tag, but
1:43:31
Speaker 1: it was it was so awesome to be there and
1:43:34
Speaker 1: to enjoy that with other people, where you know, that's
1:43:39
Speaker 1: the level that I'm on right now, and that's to
1:43:41
Speaker 1: try to, you know, be there for others, if that
1:43:44
Speaker 1: makes sense. Definitely, Yeah, that's very rewarding. I do the
1:43:52
Speaker 1: exact same thing. I love it. In fact, like when
1:43:56
Speaker 1: I find a I have a hunting lease here in Wisconsin.
1:44:00
Speaker 1: I find a mature box. Um nine phront of the time.
1:44:05
Speaker 1: I started calling my buddies that have never arrowed a
1:44:07
Speaker 1: big mature box and trying my very best to put
1:44:10
Speaker 1: them on it because it's just I just absolutely love it.
1:44:15
Speaker 1: Love love seeing them shaking in their boots. Love, it's
1:44:18
Speaker 1: just incredible. I'm not quite there yet that I'm sending
1:44:22
Speaker 1: my buddies to shoot the mature bucks on my farm,
1:44:23
Speaker 1: but hopefully one day, one day I'll get Yeah, I know,
1:44:27
Speaker 1: I I hear you, but I I kind of keep this.
1:44:30
Speaker 1: I keep this property to myself. And actually I think
1:44:33
Speaker 1: I'm gonna start filming on it next year because it's
1:44:35
Speaker 1: it's a hundred and fifty three acres and it's just
1:44:38
Speaker 1: your average little farm or average little hunting least, and
1:44:41
Speaker 1: so I just kind of want to start filming on
1:44:43
Speaker 1: it to see what kind of crazy cool stuff we
1:44:46
Speaker 1: can capture and then just you know, release some small
1:44:50
Speaker 1: shorts to show people like this is look within your backyard?
1:44:55
Speaker 1: Is that is that the farm that that Ben Harshin
1:44:58
Speaker 1: from HUNTERA was over helping you with some stuff on
1:45:01
Speaker 1: m Yeah, Ben, and I have done quite a bit
1:45:03
Speaker 1: of work on it and and that's going to continue
1:45:06
Speaker 1: this year and and um, we haven't had a chance
1:45:08
Speaker 1: to film on it deer hunting this year, but um,
1:45:13
Speaker 1: but you know, everything's just becoming more mature, and from
1:45:18
Speaker 1: the plants and the cuts that we've done and the
1:45:22
Speaker 1: deer themselves, everything is just kind of uh maturing, and
1:45:25
Speaker 1: so you know it'll be it'll be, it'll be right
1:45:28
Speaker 1: for the for the experience. When we finally get some
1:45:30
Speaker 1: time to spend out there, can you give us a
1:45:33
Speaker 1: really quick and then we're running that time here, but
1:45:36
Speaker 1: can you use a quick rundown of what you guys
1:45:38
Speaker 1: did this year to try to improve the habitat there. Yeah,
1:45:42
Speaker 1: so it is. It was um a twenty seven acre
1:45:46
Speaker 1: field in the middle of the property and it kind
1:45:49
Speaker 1: of has a big U shaped chunk of woods that
1:45:51
Speaker 1: goes all the way around it. Um. All of the woods,
1:45:55
Speaker 1: aside from some pine trees, all of the woods are
1:45:58
Speaker 1: late stage secondary girl, so a lot of maples, a
1:46:01
Speaker 1: lot of poplars, a lot of things that are UM.
1:46:03
Speaker 1: Twelve of the eight inches around with this big field
1:46:06
Speaker 1: in the middle of that was that did go back
1:46:08
Speaker 1: into um rogue saw it if you will, But a
1:46:12
Speaker 1: farmer came in three years ago and turned it into
1:46:14
Speaker 1: road crops beans and corn, and so um I leased
1:46:18
Speaker 1: the hunting rights three years ago. This year I leased
1:46:21
Speaker 1: the full land rights and the hunting rights. So I
1:46:24
Speaker 1: took that twenty seven acre field, planted like fifteen acres
1:46:30
Speaker 1: of different species of warm season grasses, switch grasses, different
1:46:35
Speaker 1: um cultures and and varieties, and then planted uh some
1:46:41
Speaker 1: food uh for the dearest that they would have a
1:46:44
Speaker 1: late winter food source and um and something that could
1:46:48
Speaker 1: hopefully keep them from starving to death throughout January, recovery March.
1:46:52
Speaker 1: And then we actually went into the forest where some
1:46:55
Speaker 1: of these you know, just the trees were kind of
1:46:59
Speaker 1: competing against each other, just choking each other out and
1:47:01
Speaker 1: keeping everything just a really small diameter. And really, uh,
1:47:05
Speaker 1: we just did some small cuts knock the trees down. Um,
1:47:09
Speaker 1: not so much a hinge cutting, but we did some
1:47:11
Speaker 1: hinge cutting, but more we just dropped everything to the ground,
1:47:14
Speaker 1: broke it up, and dragged it away so the fun
1:47:15
Speaker 1: I could get in there to create little pockets of
1:47:18
Speaker 1: true um succession, right, get get things like raspberries growing
1:47:22
Speaker 1: in there, and get things um smaller, younger trees growing
1:47:25
Speaker 1: in there and create these little thickets throughout these kind
1:47:28
Speaker 1: of monoculture or kind of um, you know, lifeless woods
1:47:34
Speaker 1: if you will. And and so that's that. That was
1:47:37
Speaker 1: this year. That was basically like Phase one. Nice. Yes,
1:47:41
Speaker 1: I think, um, did you guys do like a short
1:47:44
Speaker 1: video or maybe Bend did a short video about some
1:47:46
Speaker 1: of the stuff you guys are doing? And I think
1:47:47
Speaker 1: with Eric longs with you guys too, is that right? Yep? Yep?
1:47:51
Speaker 1: Eric Long from Drumming Long Wildlife Management. It's a friend
1:47:55
Speaker 1: of a friend of Bends and of course a friend
1:47:57
Speaker 1: of mine now and and so he's been coming out
1:48:00
Speaker 1: from Ohio and we've been doing the work as a trio.
1:48:02
Speaker 1: And it was really funny because last year I had
1:48:04
Speaker 1: a bunch of bucks on the property, uh, two really
1:48:08
Speaker 1: nice six year old and several up and comers, and
1:48:11
Speaker 1: we did all this work this year and they are
1:48:13
Speaker 1: basically all gone. I don't know. It was just kind
1:48:17
Speaker 1: of funny because we're all giggling about it and I
1:48:20
Speaker 1: don't it doesn't consume me at all. I know, I
1:48:24
Speaker 1: surmise what's going on. You know, there's just a little
1:48:26
Speaker 1: lag or maybe a bunch of them got shot. I
1:48:28
Speaker 1: don't know, but um, I actually just went out there
1:48:31
Speaker 1: yesterday and did some scouting around and found some really
1:48:34
Speaker 1: fantastic big buck signs, So I know there's some there's
1:48:37
Speaker 1: a couple of boys that are hanging out there that
1:48:39
Speaker 1: I don't know of yet, but but yeah, it was
1:48:41
Speaker 1: just funny how we did all this work, most work
1:48:43
Speaker 1: we've ever done, and it is the least amount of
1:48:46
Speaker 1: box I've ever seen. But I know there's there's some
1:48:48
Speaker 1: lag there, and I know as we create it, you know,
1:48:51
Speaker 1: they'll really start to flourish there. Yeah, that that is
1:48:54
Speaker 1: a really cool thing, Like you mentioned um a little earlier,
1:48:57
Speaker 1: being able to improve the habitat and give back to
1:48:59
Speaker 1: a place like that and then see the impact it makes.
1:49:02
Speaker 1: See the deer using that cover and using that food
1:49:04
Speaker 1: and that that's pretty cool. It's very cool to see.
1:49:07
Speaker 1: And you know it's cool. I told Eric, I said, man,
1:49:10
Speaker 1: I've been on this property for three years now. I've
1:49:12
Speaker 1: never seen a snake ever. I've never seen a turtle
1:49:16
Speaker 1: cross in the field, seen very few frogs, never seen
1:49:18
Speaker 1: a snake. I said, I want to see these things
1:49:20
Speaker 1: when I'm coming out to spend time here at a hunt,
1:49:23
Speaker 1: and so I sent him several videos this year. I
1:49:26
Speaker 1: saw several snakes this year, um, and I would I
1:49:30
Speaker 1: would send him some videos of them in my hand
1:49:32
Speaker 1: or whatever. And then, um, I never really had seen
1:49:35
Speaker 1: any rough grouse out there before, And now when I
1:49:38
Speaker 1: go out there, almost every time I'm flushing four or
1:49:41
Speaker 1: five rough grouse in the woods or on the or
1:49:44
Speaker 1: on the field edge. And and yeah, it's just I'm
1:49:47
Speaker 1: just starting to see some different species of birds utilizing
1:49:50
Speaker 1: some of the grains that I planted for the deer.
1:49:53
Speaker 1: And so it's cool. It's gonna be really cool to
1:49:56
Speaker 1: see the thing kind of perpetuate away from a sterile
1:49:58
Speaker 1: farm field to actually having grasses um and and food
1:50:04
Speaker 1: being available in them. So yeah, that's awesome, very cool
1:50:08
Speaker 1: to see. Well, that's that's where it's got to start,
1:50:12
Speaker 1: one step at a time. Well, we've used up a
1:50:15
Speaker 1: lot of your time, Donnie, Um, so I guess we
1:50:17
Speaker 1: should probably wrap it up. But Dan, do you have
1:50:20
Speaker 1: any final thoughts or anything you want to wrap things
1:50:22
Speaker 1: up with on your end? No, man, Hey, thanks for
1:50:25
Speaker 1: coming on. I appreciate the conversation. It's always nice talking
1:50:29
Speaker 1: to someone who who loves adventure. Yeah. Yeah, I appreciate
1:50:34
Speaker 1: you guys, I really do. I really appreciate taking the
1:50:36
Speaker 1: time to reach out to me and and UH and
1:50:39
Speaker 1: have the conversation and and U and I appreciate the openness.
1:50:44
Speaker 1: I know I have some different views or extreme views
1:50:48
Speaker 1: of how we're doing things, so I appreciate the openness
1:50:52
Speaker 1: and the candidness. Yeah. Yeah, of course we I think
1:50:56
Speaker 1: we see things very similarly. So it's nice to have
1:51:00
Speaker 1: someone to speak to about some of these things that
1:51:02
Speaker 1: kind of you know, gets gets some of the interesting
1:51:05
Speaker 1: things made from where we're coming from too. But I
1:51:07
Speaker 1: guess that said, Donny, is there anything that you want
1:51:09
Speaker 1: to end on any final thoughts on any of these
1:51:12
Speaker 1: things we've we've been chatting about that you want to
1:51:14
Speaker 1: leave with our with our listeners to kind of wrap
1:51:16
Speaker 1: things up. No, I just appreciate I'm taking the time
1:51:19
Speaker 1: to listen to it, and and if they have any questions,
1:51:23
Speaker 1: reach out to me, and and I'm very much looking
1:51:26
Speaker 1: forward to releasing our next film. It's going to be
1:51:29
Speaker 1: here shortly. And Uh, I think people really really dig it,
1:51:33
Speaker 1: so definitely keep an eye out for it. Yeah, So,
1:51:35
Speaker 1: where can people go right now to pick up a
1:51:37
Speaker 1: copy of your past films or learn more Donny Vincent
1:51:42
Speaker 1: dot com or search Donny Vincon on Facebook, Instagram, things
1:51:46
Speaker 1: like that perfect. We'll make sure to link to all
1:51:49
Speaker 1: that and um and I definitely recommend if anyone listening
1:51:52
Speaker 1: right now if you haven't seen any of his work,
1:51:55
Speaker 1: The Rivers Divide, Terra Nova, who we are, any of
1:51:58
Speaker 1: that kind of stuff, you really need to go check
1:52:00
Speaker 1: it out. Donnie, You're doing great work, and uh and
1:52:02
Speaker 1: keep it up. Appreciate it, guys, thank you so much,
1:52:06
Speaker 1: thank you, and that will do it for us today.
1:52:10
Speaker 1: But before we go, a couple of quick things. First,
1:52:13
Speaker 1: if you haven't yet left a rating or review of
1:52:15
Speaker 1: this podcast on iTunes, if you could just take a
1:52:17
Speaker 1: minute to do that, it would be hugely, hugely helpful.
1:52:21
Speaker 1: You just go over to iTunes, you choose how many
1:52:23
Speaker 1: stars you'd rate us, leave a couple honest thoughts on
1:52:26
Speaker 1: what you think, and I take a look at those
1:52:28
Speaker 1: and I really take that stuff to heart. So thank
1:52:29
Speaker 1: you in advance for letting us know what you think. Secondly,
1:52:33
Speaker 1: I want to throw back to something that Donnie mentioned
1:52:35
Speaker 1: earlier in our interview and encourage you all to pick
1:52:37
Speaker 1: up a copy of the Sand County Almanac. This is
1:52:40
Speaker 1: just a tremendous book. It's one of really the cornerstones
1:52:44
Speaker 1: of of what we do as hunters and conservationists, and
1:52:47
Speaker 1: I think it's one that all of us hunters should
1:52:49
Speaker 1: be reading. So check out the Sand County Almanac. And finally,
1:52:52
Speaker 1: we need to thank our partners who helped keep this
1:52:54
Speaker 1: show on the air. So thank you too, Sick Gear,
1:52:57
Speaker 1: Redneck Blinds, Hunter a Maps, Yetie Coolers, Ozonics, Carbon Express,
1:53:02
Speaker 1: Maven Optics, and the White Tailed Institute of North America.
1:53:05
Speaker 1: And of course thank you all for listening today. I
1:53:08
Speaker 1: hope you enjoyed our conversation with Donnie, and I hope
1:53:11
Speaker 1: you'll stay wired to hunt