Latest / Wired To Hunt Podcast / Ep. 276: Iowa Gobblers and Montana Antlers

Transcript

Ep. 276: Iowa Gobblers and Montana Antlers · Wired To Hunt Podcast

• 0:02
  Speaker 1: Welcome to the wire to Hunt podcast, your home for
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: deer hunting news, stories and strategies, and now your host,
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: Mark Kenyon. Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast. I'm
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: your host, Mark Kenyon in this episode number twohund in
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: seventy six, and today I'm joining the show by my
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: good buddy Dan Johnson for a fun discussion about the
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: Iowa turkey season, by Montana public land scouting and ship
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: hunting trip, and two new deer hunting methodologies of sorts
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: that Dan and I are developing. All right, welcome to
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: another episode of the Wired to Hunt podcast, brought to
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: you by on X, and today we are doing something
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: we haven't done in too long. I think, um a while,
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: it's been a little bit too long, and that is
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: a full blown market Dan catch up the session on
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: all sorts of topics. So, I mean, I don't know
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: if we'll talk about any of these things, Dan, because
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: we tend to go off on tangents. But we have
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: the potential today to talk about career changes, to talk
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: about kids, to talk about turkey hunting, to talk about
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: shed hunting, yes, to talk about scouting public land, UH,
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: to talk about what I'm coining my assumption to truth
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: deer hunting methodology. Oh boy, that sounds complex. I know.
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: We might need to work on the title. Is that
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: gonna go way over my head? It might. We might
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: talk about Disney movies. Oh boy, I got some I
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: could drop some knowledge about Disney movies. I'm starting to
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: learn a lot to um and that that's just like
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: the first ten fifteen minutes. So that's that's that's what
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: we potentially have in store, Dan, or anything else. We'd
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: talk about Game of Thrones. Did you watch the new
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: episode of Game of Thrones? No? I didn't, but it's
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: on my list of things to do. Yeah, I woke
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: up earlier this morning to watch him. Oh boy, don't
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: talk about Okay, we can't talk about it then, So
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: you're all you're all caught up though, Ready for the
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: na Dude? You want to talk about some bench, some binging, right,
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: so it would be like in your college days? Well yeah,
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: different kind of binge. We didn't have Netflix back then, dude.
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: So I'm thinking, you know, let me start this Game
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: of Thrones thing and okay, let's check it out next thing.
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: You know. Um, I'm you know, putting the kids to bed,
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: I do my work, right, and then it's like, I
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: can't go straight to bed, so I need to unwind.
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: It's ten o'clock at night, and this is back when
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: I had a job, and I'm just like, Okay, I
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: can just watch one episode and then uh, you know,
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: one epio sod and then I'll go to bed. Yeah bullshit. Right,
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: It's like it's three am, and I'm just like, oh,
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: Valerian Steel kills the White Walkers, I can't back, like,
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: oh my god, you know, Like, and then I listened
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: to myself talk. I'm just like, oh, dude, you are
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: such a nerd. Yeah, you gotta watch out. You're becoming
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: too much like me. That's yeah, that's that's been my
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: typical calling car And now you're right there with me, dude.
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: It's good stuff. And then guess what else dropped this weekend?
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: Uh the news trailer for Star Wars. Oh you're right, yeah,
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: I saw that. That was pretty good. Yeah. So I
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: don't know, man, we'll see a lot of good nerds
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: stuff in the future. Um, just when people think that
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: they you know, because I'm just like, oh, dude, it'd
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: be awesome if we hang hung out sometime or whatever.
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: On social and then they're like, listen to this and
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: then man, maybe not yeah, seriously question that. Uh you
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: mentioned something in passing there that we have not covered
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: yet public Glee, at least on the Weird Hunt podcast.
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: So people haven't been like following you in other places
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: on your own stuff. They might not know that you
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: are now jobless, living underneath the bridge, eating a steady
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: government diet, their steady diet government cheese. I think is
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: how it goes? Is that? Right? Yeah? Absolutely? My my
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: wife left me and uh, I'm living in a van
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: down by the river, living your dream. In all seriousness, though, um,
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: what is what is going on? Are things going? Well? Yeah, dude,
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: it's it's weird, right. So, like I got laid off,
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: and so they brought me in a handful of people.
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: Like it was like this complete surprise, this complete like
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: like company wide layoff. Right. They went in and they
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: went into certain departments and they said, okay, everybody here
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: is getting laid off, like this amount of people from
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: this department or whatever got laid off. And uh it
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: was funny because I walk in and they tell this
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: news to us, and my brain instantly goes to Okay,
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: I wonder if I can fit a podcast in this
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: afternoon once I got laid off because you know, uh,
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: it's just it's like, I don't know, you know, obviously
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: think about your family and you're like, okay, how financially
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: are going to make this work? But luckily I made
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: some financial moves like a week or two before that,
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: to like to prepare for my my stepping away from
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: the cubical life. But it just happened sooner, and it
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: happened faster, and um so I got a severance package,
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: and I got on top of that severance package. I
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: made that financial adjustment before it happened. So now that
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: made that transition much softer into you know, full time
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: you know, business owner, work from home podcaster, so on
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: that side of things. It's just it's almost like a
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: blessing in disguise, you know, yeah, kind of something you've
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: dreamt off for so long, but kind of you know,
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: there was all these different things you have to get ready,
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: and of course it's a scary thing to do, and
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: this kind of forced the issue, and like you said,
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: almost seemed like a blessing in disguise. I talked to you,
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: I think the day it happened, and you were, you know,
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: I could tell like, yes, it was like a thing
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: that was a surprise and that most people would find
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: to be a negative surprise, but I could already tell
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: it right then You're like, hey, this could be a
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: good thing. So absolutely, that's good that you're that you
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: land on your feet, and I'm sure you have a
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: lot more time now to put into everything with Sports
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: Nation and your projects with that. So that's uh, that's
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: going all. Yeah. So another adjustment that you have to make,
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: you know, is to find ways to save money. Right,
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: So because I don't have a job that I have
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: to go to every day, we pulled the kids out
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: of daycare to save money, right, And so now that
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: means on two days and Thursdays, I'm gonna stay at
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: home dad, and you know, throughout the week. So I
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: don't get anything done on Tuesdays and Thursdays until after
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: my wife gets home or during quiet time when I
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: can give my oldest son the iPad and my youngest
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: son's taking a nap. And it's just like, yeah, it's
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: just crazy because I can't. I can't, you know, I
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: can't do anything else until that happens, and um, so
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: frustrating what's Ava doing to that? She's school already? Yeah,
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: she's she's in kindergarten. She I know, right, she turned six.
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: She's a six year old. I have a six years too,
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: fast man. When did I have Ava when we started this? Right?
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: How long has this podcast been going on? It started
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: the spring of two thousand and fourteen, so five years ago.
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: So I guess you had Yeah, and Mac Mac would
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: have been I don't know if he was born now
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: he would Yeah, he was born in a prole. Yeah,
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: he was born on the podcast. Yeah that's crazy. Yeah,
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: it's not going fast man. So so, yeah, so she's
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: at school, your babysitting the two of them. I don't
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: know how you do that, because I feel like the
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: way me and Kylie workers, since we both work from home,
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: we split the day, so half of the day she's
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: in charge of him, half the day I'm in charge
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: of him, and and then two days a week her
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: mom comes and takes him for the day. So for
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: three days a week, I do that split thing. And
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: it's really hard, like you said, to get anything done
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: with just one, let alone two of them. Yeah, So
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: what I found is I don't even I don't even
• 8:38
  Speaker 1: try to multitask, but I don't. I don't try to
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: do the Sportsman's Nation nine finger stuff while they're here,
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: except during quiet time. I I just grind hard when
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: it's my time, right, I put my headphones on and
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: I just like hyper focus knocked three hours out, you know,
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: I don't even get up from my chair. Knock three
• 8:59
  Speaker 1: hours out out in a row, and I can get
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: a lot of a lot accomplished in that time frame
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: if I'm not interrupted. Right, So, like Mondays and Wednesdays,
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: my wife works from home and uh she has a
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: job where she has to be on a computer. But
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: Monday and Tuesday mornings, my son is at preschool, so
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: she's just watching knocks. And if you put on cartoons
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: and you put on you know, throw some toys on
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: the floor, he entertains himself for a while. Uh you know,
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: give him a bottle and then he'll lay and watch
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: cartoons while he drinks it. And it's, uh, it works,
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: it's it's working, but it's frustrating at the same time. Yeah,
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: I know what you mean. Um. We just recently for
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: a front of the reason we just have not done
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: TV a whole lot with Everett. Um, but we just
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: kind of recently discovered that, you know, it's okay sometimes
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: when you get do something what you're talking, gotta get
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: some work done. Um, Sesame Street on YouTube is like
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: crack cocaine to this kid, buddy, You put Sesame Street
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: on and he is locked in like a zombie for
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: forty five minutes. If you need a forty five minute
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: window to get something done, you just put that on
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: and bam. Yeah, clear sale. It's funny because you can
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: relate crack addiction to children's addiction to cartoons like I
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: will I will purposely put them in withdrawal from like
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: I'll take the iPad away from them for like, you know,
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: many days at a time, right, so they won't get
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: there their quote unquote tablet time or screen time. Um.
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: And then when I really need to do something like
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: oh man, I got I got this deadline. I gotta um,
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: I gotta have this podcast done by the end of
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: the day or this you know, this document done by
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: the end of the day. Okay, kids, it's iPad time.
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: And then they just it's like a black hole. They
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: just get sucked right into it. Yeah, I know. And
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: then and then that's my time to work. So it's like,
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: I'm used. I don't. I don't give it to them
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: every day, but I I do when I really like
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: need them to shut up. So, speaking of speaking of
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: the job stuff, and it sounds like you got your
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: your hands full already. But I ran across a possible
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: job opportunity for you. Are you interested in hearing about it?
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: At least? Is it? Because I think I ran across
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: the same one as it like an adult bookstore. No,
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: it was the wrong one. I'm sorry. I'm sorry, Oho,
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: that might be a better fit for you. I got.
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: I got an email the other day from some Gail
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: who is a talent acquisition coordinator, oh boy, for a
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: commercial bird removal company. And she reached out. She's like, Hi, Mark,
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: I'm a talent acquisition coordinator for such and such bird
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: removal company. Uh. We like to search out hunters with
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: extreme talent to take out problem birds across commercial properties
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: across the country. So she was recruiting me to go
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: out and shoot birds and like on top like a
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: target store or something like that where there's holy cow,
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: oh my god, you're sitting on like just imagine some
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: psychopath on top of a target just blasting pigeons. Right, No,
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: it's exactly what does envisioning during store hours or I
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: think that could be your calling if the if the
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: podcasting thing doesn't work out, that might be your next gig. Man.
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: That's just that would be that would be fun though.
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: I mean I would just but just imagine it in
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: the opposite way. It's like, Okay, you gotta get rid
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: of these birds, but you can't shoot them, right, So
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: just imagine like you throw seeds out with all this
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: poison in it, and then like all these birds, just
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: dead birds all over the parking lot. I think I
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: would try like a netting system of some kind. Criminals yeah, helicopter, yes,
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: oh yeah, that tweet that could. I mean, I'll tell
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: you what they do. Those birds are a real issue.
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: I have issues the birds on my back porch of
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: my barn. I've got like a covered porch and there's
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: like cross beams along the top, and for whatever reason,
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: all these I can't think what they're called. They're called
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: shoot not sparrows, not they're they're black starlings, thank you.
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: I think they're starlings. That's what I think it is.
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: Um And they just flood this porch and sit on
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: the crossbeams and ship all over everything every spring and summer,
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: so everything on this porch gets crapped on and I've
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: not I've I've power washers so many times. I put
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: like a fake owl up on the crossbeams. I heard,
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: maybe that's scared way. That didn't work. I then put
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: these plastic spikes all along the cross beams that are
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: supposedly supposed to keep birds from roosting up there hanging
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: out up there. That didn't work. And the other thing
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: is they also there's like little gaps in between the
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: metal siding and then like the interior of the wall,
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: and so they get inside the walls and nest in there.
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: So they're nesting in there, they're pooping on everything. So
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: I did the plastic spikes. Then I put like a
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: wire mesh I don't know what it is, some kind
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: of like wire mesh thing over all the gaps as
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: best as I could to try to block those. Somehow,
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: they're still warm in there. So yeah, I cat, uh
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: farm cat. I don't have one that's actually mine. There.
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: There is a cat or two that roams the area,
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: but they don't seem to do anything about it. Put
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: some cat food in the barn, dude, and let them
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: come and they'll start to eat the cat food. Then
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: you've got a cat on your property and that might
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: help out. I just don't know if they can. Maybe
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: maybe I need to find someone. Um, if there was
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: like some kind of talent acquisition cordate or the hired
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: commercial hard shooters. That's what I mean. Oh, that's money.
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: I like how you pulled it back around, right, it's
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: always yeah, gotta end with a little with a little
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: throwback to the earlier topic. Uh so, yeah, that's a
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: job opportunity for you. Speaking of job opportunities and birds. Um,
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: my son can yelp at turkeys now, Oh, I'll tell
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: you that. Did I bring that up in the past
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: conversation yet? Is it just? Does he mimic your turkey call? Yeah?
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: He mimics my turkey calling. But he's kind of half decent.
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: For one year old and three months he can do
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: like ape, which is pretty good. Let me ask you this,
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: what happens if your son grows up and he has
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: no passion for white tails, but he turns out to
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: have this extreme passion for turkey hunting. Would you be
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: ashamed of him? No? No, it could be much worse
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: than that. I would take the Turkey passion, would be
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: very happy about that. I'm more worried that he's going
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: to have like an extreme, extreme passion for like playing
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: the flute or something. I don't know what we're gonna do. Hey, dad,
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: check out the six solo. I just came up the kid.
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: He's amazing and and I really like music. Um so,
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: like music is always playing in the house, and like
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: I'll dance around just be goofy and stuff. So he
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: really loves music, and he loves like dancing to music,
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: and he's always bobbing his head. Um so. My wife
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: always jokesles, you gotta be careful. Before you know it,
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: he's gonna be like full blown. I don't know what doing.
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: I could see him doing something music. I'm kind of
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: hoping he'll be like a techno DJ or something. I
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: could see that working out. But literally, like what if
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: he gets into show choir right right, which you know
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: whatever a lot of the spirit fingers. My wife was
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: in show choir. She yeah, I can see I could
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: see you and her like a pretty cool little like
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: duo number. Um see, my bad knees just doing some
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: straight gangster breakdance and stuff. I feel like your spirit
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: fingers would be like just a little bit over underwhelming
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: compared to most people. Have to shake my thumb really
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: hard to make uh yeah, um yeah. If he's into
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: that kind of stuff whatever, But but I do hope
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: that he likes something to do with the outdoors. Um.
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: And it is nice to finally get some good weather.
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: I feel like it's been a crappy long winner here.
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: Now finally we've had a few nice days and he's
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: been able to get outside and do some fun outdoor stuff.
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: So I'm gonna I'm gonna force a transition here. We
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: don't mind. And so I see that, you know, I
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: follow you on Instagram, I like a lot of people do.
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: So I'm just like scrolling through and I say, oh, man,
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: Mark is in Montana and he's shed hunting. That's cool.
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: And then I specifically remember you saying, yeah, dude, when
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: I go on my shed hunt, i'll let you know,
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: and then you never let me know, and then I
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: guess I didn't go shed hunting in Montana because I
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: don't have a job anymore and I had to have
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: some free time. That's that's a fair point. I uh,
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: I'm really really horrible when it comes to this stuff
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: because not only did you, apparently um get the shaft
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: on the invite, but I also talked to two other
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: friends of mine about going with me, well and multiple
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: other friends of me, and all of them I completely
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: flaked out on because because my schedule is so funky,
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: um schedule. I know, you could just be that you're
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: a bad friend. It could be them a bad friend.
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: I'm also a bad communicator, so that I can admit
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: to that. Um. But but I've been talking about doing
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: this trip like original is going to do it the
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: last week of March, and then I got first to
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: the first week of April, and then I got pushed
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: the second week April, and I never knew when I
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: was gonna go, so dependent on um, both like family
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: stuff going here and then like meetings that are gonna
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: be happening at Mediator that I was going to be
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: in Montana for. So I literally didn't buy a ticket
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: to go and didn't know for sure when I was
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: gonna go until three days before, about three days before
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: it left, which is when I bought the ticket. So, yeah,
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: one of these days will be funny, gets you and
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: a couple of a couple of the other guys out
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: and do do a big group trip out there in
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: the spring because it is uh, it's pretty sweet. You
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: saw you saw how I did? Yeah, yes, you just
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: like became the scoop master. It looked like it's uh,
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: the area makes makes it easier to do that. It's nuts,
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: it's not. It's not like anything I've ever experienced. It's
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: so much fun. There's no shed hunting as much fun
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: as shed hunting in a Western state like this where
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: there's a lot of deer. Um. So so what did
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: I do. I flew out ah on Tuesday last Tuesday,
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: and I specifically bought my ticket for Tuesday because I
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: thought that Monday night, Michigan State would be playing in
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: the National Championship Game. So I was like, I need
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: to I need to be home to watch the National
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: Championship Game with my wife because we've been watching the
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: games together and enjoying that. And I'll fly out really
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: earlier the next morning, really happy about it. Well, we
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: lost in the first game of the Final four, so
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: we didn't make it so at this pointing but um,
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: but yeah, I flew up Monday, had meetings Monday Tuesday
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: or meetings Tuesday Wednesday, and then Wednesday night scouted out
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: three different pieces of public land that I've never been
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: on before. UM, And so this is like half scouting
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: future deer huns, half shed hunting. And you know, basically
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: everything I've looked at and I've talked to you in
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: the past about this, but basically all the spots I
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: look for, whether it be in Montana or I did
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: some like map looking at Wyoming in North Dakota to UM.
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: I'm always looking for these rivers that run through these
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: western states because there's this great cottonwood cover and Russian
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: olives and alders and different crap down in these river
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: bottoms that provide cover for white tails. So three public
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: spots the first day, UM hiked a bunch. I don't
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: know what the mileage was on that day because I
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: wasn't tracking it, but UM, the first two spots account UM.
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: Everywhere I went, though, there were already boots. So there
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: are people that have walked everything, and that would end
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: up being true everywhere except for the last place I went.
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: So out of the let me think about this, I
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: think five different sections of public land I checked. The
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: first four had already been walked by someone. Yeah. Um,
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: which I guess you know is to be expected, especially
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: since this is kind of late when not late for
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: most people, not necessarily late for out west though, because
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: snow is just coming off, you know, in the last
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: two weeks for a lot of people out there. Um.
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: But kind of man, didn't see quite as much deer
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: sign as I was hoping in the first spot. Second
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: spot was okay, third spot looked really great. Um, but
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: it looked like some a lot of people have been
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: walking and it was kind of close to a decent
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: sized town. Um. So I think that just there's a
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: lot of people have been through there. Um. But I
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: did find one shed on that first day, and that
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: last spot has some potential I think for possibly hunting. Um.
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: Next day I drove down, I was gonna go. Um.
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: My original plan had been to head over to the
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: general area where I've hunted the last two years and
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: scott out some new spots there and then shed hunting
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: the spots. I didn't know, but this big snowstorm pushed
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: through last week. Did that hit you guys in Iowa? Uh?
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: It came. It actually came to the north Uh, northern
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: counties and then it hit uh, Wisconsin pretty hard. Gosha. Well,
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: it was supposedly supposed to be hitting Montana really bad.
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: I'm looking at the weather forecast and they're predicting like
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: ten to fifteen inches of snow and these places I
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: was going to go, and I had already bought the
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: plane tickets. They're nonrefundable something in jeez, Like, what a
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: waste of time. I was pretty upset. Um decided, while
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: I'll just go down to this Wyoming spot. I wanted
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: to scout in shed hunt. So I started driving to
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: Wyoming and then I'm like an hour away from the border,
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: and all of a sudden my head I remember, oh crap,
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: Wyoming has a shed hunting season. Yeah, they don't open
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: until May one. So I'm like, I just drove two
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: hours in one direction to go to Wyoming, and now
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: I realized I can't even pick up sheds there. Um.
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: So fortunately two things Number One, the week before, I
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: had on on Onyx and just like Way pointed, I
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: don't know, fifteen different pieces of public land that looked
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: good around the state. So I had just a whole
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: bunch of potential spots to check out. And one of
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: those spots happened to be just like five miles away
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: from where I was, so at least I could go
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: check that one out. So when I check that one out,
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: and that one looks really good too. But literally, this
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: is like the morning. It's a Wednesday or Wednesday, it's
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: a no, it's a Thursday morning, and like ten o'clock,
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: and there's someone out at this property scouting and shed
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: hunting too, Like, who is out doing that on a
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: Thursday morning except for somebody like me who doesn't have
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: like a normal day job doing this kind of stuff.
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: So this guy had like bow hunter and white tail
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: stickers plaster all over his car. So I'm thinking, well,
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: this isn't gonna go really well. Um, so started walking.
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: But it's it's a really good looking chunk, really super thick,
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: it's a food around it. I really liked it. It's
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: a good spot. I think that could be worth hunting.
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: Um tons of sign but only found one shed. But
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: I think that could be, you know, because this person
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: was out there and maybe a lot of other people
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: have been out there too. So that was another one
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: just good check the box. But the the big point
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: of this is that fate intervened, and I got text
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: message from one of the ranch owners out on my
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: main area who said, hey, we didn't end up getting
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: as much snow as they predicted. Um, we probably have
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: two inches and the sun's out. It's probably be melting
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: off by this evening or tomorrow. You might still want
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: to come out, Okay. So that was a big positive.
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: So I was like, you know what, Okay, this spot
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: not that great. I'm just gonna turn and head back
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: to this other main area. And so I made like
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: the four and a half hour drive across to the
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: original spot that I want to hit, and I had
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: three different pieces of public land there I want to
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: check out, and then some private land that neighbors it
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: that I have permission on as well to walk, and
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: the long story shore, and that is that first night
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: one piece of public I don't want if I talked
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: to you about this one or not last year. Um,
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: but I hunt of this spot one day last year,
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: just snuck in hunting edge to kind of observe and
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: saw a nice box and saw a ton of deer.
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: And the next two days I hunted that main spot
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: and killed that buck. But this area you have to
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: hike a mile and a half across these big, rolling,
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: grassy plains and then dropped down a canyon to get
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: to a river bottom. And so I go across this
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: big plane. I get to the beginning of that canyon
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: and I see some mule their way off the distance,
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: and I'm like, oh, man, that's coolers, some mule he's
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: out here. Um, I wonder if I could find a
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: mule there ship. And I just as I'm thinking that
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: my head, I step over the hill and I can
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: see down this little I don't know what you call it,
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: a little bull in the side of the hill, and
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: right there is sitting a match set of great, big
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: mule deer antlers, and I want to I want to
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: mule there so bad. Dude. Yeah, I feel like this.
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: This gave me like a little more of like an interest,
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: like holding those in my hands. Just seeing that laying
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: there was really really cool. I mean, I don't know
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: how I could measure them, but I haven't measured them,
• 25:59
  Speaker 1: but they're big. Uh. Interesting thing about mule deer antlers
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: is they feel much lighter compared to white tail antlers,
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: so like, these are big sheds. And then I held
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: a smaller white tail shed in one hand, and then
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: this big mule there shed on the other, and the
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: white tail sheds is heftier, and then the mule dere shed.
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: I don't know what that's about. I'm pretty sure it's
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: not in my head. I'm like, it really feels like
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: a dramatic difference to me. Um So, I guess it's
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: the density or something. Um is different. Possibly maybe I'm
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: sure there's somebody out there knows better than me. Um.
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: But I found that pretty interesting. But yeah, match set big?
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: What is it like? I guess would be a four
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: point side but with big deep splits on the G
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: two's um. So, that was awesome. I'm jealous, buddy, it was.
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: It was cool. So let me ask you this was
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: it a You said it was a big set, like
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: a big match set. But like obviously mule deer antlers
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: compared to white tail antlers are always kind of bigger.
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: You know, I should I shouldn't say always bigger, but
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: you know, you know what I mean? Like on average? Um,
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: was it something that would be considered a shooter out there? Oh?
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: I would definitely shoot it out there. Um So I'm
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: not good alright, I've never tried to score mule the anilers,
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: so like just by like looking at them, I don't
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: know what I could tell you as far as like
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: what the score would be. Um. But if I were
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: to look at this set of anilers and I think,
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: what kind of like white tail, if I was scoring
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: as a white tail, um, I don't know, like a
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: one sixty one seventy something like that, so a good one,
• 27:38
  Speaker 1: like a good one like big frames. I didn't see
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: a picture of you like doing the standard double fist, yeah,
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: you know, like the right and your left hand and
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: the right or whatever, you know, holding both andlers and
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: doing the the pose. But I did see the pics, yeah,
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: them on the ground, so how big they were. Yeah.
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: The reason why there's no pictures of me in there
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: with him is because I brought my good camera and
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: tripod out there, and I thought, okay, I could do
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: some like you know, self timer pictures like that, um.
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: And then I went to go try to take a
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: picture and I realized that I forgot to put an
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: SD card in the camera, so I knew SD card
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: out there, So the only pictures I could take with
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: with my cell phone. UM, So that was a little disappointing.
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: But yeah, they're they're big, Like they're the biggest antlers
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: in my house, probably um, bigger than any white tail
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: should I have. So that's pretty sweet. And then I
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: found another shed down that river bottom. Got to scout
• 28:32
  Speaker 1: that whole area out real well, which is nice since
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: the one time I hunted it was just you know,
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: sit on the edge. So I feel like that's a
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: definite future option. And then, uh, then the next day,
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: you know, I got to walk that area that I
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: have hunted in the past and picked up twenty one
• 28:49
  Speaker 1: sheds that day. I found sixteen before noon. Geez. So
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: when you're on a roll like that, did you have
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: to make a pile and then come back to it
• 29:00
  Speaker 1: or were you able to attach them all to your backpack?
• 29:03
  Speaker 1: I was able to fit them on my backpack. Um,
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: but like, this is the first time ever while shed
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: hunting that I actually had like sore shoulders from my backpack.
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: Never in my life as I happened. But I literally
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: had like really heavy backpack, which is a really nice
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: problem to have. Um, it was crazy. It was just
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: a situation where you know, and you heard about I mean,
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: we've talked about how these hunts won. This area has
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: a lot of deer and there's a good food source there,
• 29:27
  Speaker 1: so there's a ton of deer betted around there. Um.
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: And I don't think anyone the private land that this
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: is kind of checkerboarded with that landowner had picked up
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: a handful of out in his fields. Um. But that's
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: basically it. So I had pretty much first DIBs on
• 29:45
  Speaker 1: the on that private stuff there, and then the public
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: is really hard to get to. UM. So I I
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: doubt if anybody else tried to get in there. Um.
• 29:53
  Speaker 1: And I what sucks is that because of just the
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: time constraints, I only had one day in this area.
• 29:59
  Speaker 1: Um that that first night I checked out the piece
• 30:01
  Speaker 1: of public, but I had one day to hit this
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: little section and then I had to leave Brighton earlier
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: then the next morning cats a flight home, so I
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: didn't even get to help cover it. There's a whole
• 30:12
  Speaker 1: another section across the river that I didn't get to
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: go to, and that's where me and Josh found most
• 30:17
  Speaker 1: of our sheds last year. Last year, So there was
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: probably as many or more sheds sitting over on this
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: other side that that I was gonna sit there. So
• 30:28
  Speaker 1: in the back of my mind it's like a little
• 30:30
  Speaker 1: sad realization that there could be some just giant bone
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: over there that's untouched. Because I talked to both this
• 30:37
  Speaker 1: landowner and then another rancher, both said that they seemed
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: to think that the bigger deer are on the other
• 30:43
  Speaker 1: side of the river, and that kind of seemed to
• 30:45
  Speaker 1: be the case because last year we found bigger sheds
• 30:48
  Speaker 1: on that other side, and this year, since I didn't
• 30:50
  Speaker 1: go to the other side, I didn't find as many
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: of the bigger sheds. And then this neighbor also showed
• 30:55
  Speaker 1: me some trail camera pictures that he had down that
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: way of some much bigger deer than I've ever seen
• 31:01
  Speaker 1: out there. Um Like, I don't know, high one forties,
• 31:05
  Speaker 1: one fifty class and that's good for Montana, right, Yeah,
• 31:08
  Speaker 1: that's really good for Montana. Um Like, out there you
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: see like tons of like one thirty bucks, and then
• 31:15
  Speaker 1: I think, you know, there are forties, fifties, sixties, etcetera.
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: But but I haven't seen anything over one probably, But
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: it's just it's just so much fun because you see,
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: at least for a guy like me in Michigan who
• 31:27
  Speaker 1: sees like one buck over a year, to see five
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: of them in one night is just an absolute blast. Um.
• 31:36
  Speaker 1: So that's why I really like it out there. But
• 31:38
  Speaker 1: I feel like this year, uh, if I still hunt
• 31:41
  Speaker 1: this area, which for a while I was thinking, yeah,
• 31:43
  Speaker 1: you know, I'll try somewhere new, just for a new challenge,
• 31:45
  Speaker 1: but this reinvigorated me to hunt there again. Um. But
• 31:49
  Speaker 1: I think I want to be more picky. So I
• 31:52
  Speaker 1: think this year I want to try hunting it and
• 31:54
  Speaker 1: like just try to find one of these really big
• 31:56
  Speaker 1: old ones. Um because the buck I killed last year
• 32:00
  Speaker 1: was a nice one, definitely nice buck, but they were
• 32:02
  Speaker 1: definitely older deer there. Um. I think I think I
• 32:06
  Speaker 1: want to like be okay with like Okay, I'm not
• 32:08
  Speaker 1: gonna try to get it done in four days and
• 32:09
  Speaker 1: move on to the next state. I'm gonna plan on
• 32:11
  Speaker 1: like seven days here and just like see what's out here,
• 32:15
  Speaker 1: really see what's out here. Maybe run cameras. I've never
• 32:17
  Speaker 1: run cameras out there before. UM, take it to the
• 32:20
  Speaker 1: next level. Maybe try to hunt the other side of
• 32:21
  Speaker 1: the river, which I've never done, um because I was
• 32:25
  Speaker 1: worried about getting too close to the main betting rors
• 32:27
  Speaker 1: over there. But maybe you can get away with it
• 32:29
  Speaker 1: if I get smart about it. Um, So I'm intrigued
• 32:32
  Speaker 1: by the by the options, and uh, let me let
• 32:36
  Speaker 1: me ask you this question because it's just popped in
• 32:38
  Speaker 1: my head. I've never hunted white tails in multiple states before, right,
• 32:43
  Speaker 1: so in Iowa, I'm selective, you know. I like last
• 32:47
  Speaker 1: year I shot my biggest buck ever, right so from
• 32:50
  Speaker 1: an angler perspective, not from an age class. But when
• 32:55
  Speaker 1: you're hunting multiple states, right and let's say, ob Slee,
• 33:00
  Speaker 1: your standards for I will may be different than Michigan
• 33:03
  Speaker 1: or Illinois or Ohio or in Montana or whatever you
• 33:08
  Speaker 1: just talked about. You know, maybe going for a different
• 33:11
  Speaker 1: higher class or guess you know, whether that's antlers or
• 33:15
  Speaker 1: age class in Montana. Have you come to the point
• 33:19
  Speaker 1: now where you feel okay with eating your tag in
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: a state like Montana that does have so many deer
• 33:29
  Speaker 1: and an average you're a good representation of that Montana.
• 33:33
  Speaker 1: I guess age class and or antler size? Is that class? Buck? Yeah?
• 33:39
  Speaker 1: I think I think that. Um. You know, the goal
• 33:43
  Speaker 1: is definitely changed from me each year as I get
• 33:45
  Speaker 1: you know, like the first year I went out there
• 33:47
  Speaker 1: in Montana, it was like, I just want to see
• 33:48
  Speaker 1: if I can kill Uh, a three and a half
• 33:51
  Speaker 1: year old like representative buck on public land out here.
• 33:55
  Speaker 1: And I was able to do that in day three
• 33:56
  Speaker 1: and like when the first opportunity came, I took it.
• 33:59
  Speaker 1: And then and the next year I did try to
• 34:02
  Speaker 1: be a little bit pickier um and didn't end up
• 34:06
  Speaker 1: seeing anything that really was what I was looking for,
• 34:08
  Speaker 1: so passed on some decent bucks. And then last year
• 34:11
  Speaker 1: I kind of had I kind of went back to
• 34:14
  Speaker 1: the the year one goal, which is our let's just
• 34:17
  Speaker 1: get let's just get a nice buck out here, had
• 34:19
  Speaker 1: that experience, try this because this is um a spot
• 34:22
  Speaker 1: I hadn't killed one. Yeah, I was able to do
• 34:25
  Speaker 1: that last year. But now I've got two years in
• 34:26
  Speaker 1: this area. I have two years with the shed hunting
• 34:29
  Speaker 1: and scouting. I know a lot about I know the area,
• 34:31
  Speaker 1: I know what I know what's out there. Like at
• 34:33
  Speaker 1: first you didn't really know what was out there. So
• 34:35
  Speaker 1: he kind of thought, Okay, it looks like a three
• 34:37
  Speaker 1: or four year old you know one twenties uh, you
• 34:41
  Speaker 1: know one ties one thirty tip buck, Like that's probably
• 34:43
  Speaker 1: like a good Like that's one of the good bucks here.
• 34:46
  Speaker 1: That's a great buck to take. It would think used
• 34:49
  Speaker 1: to be representative of an upper age class buck. But
• 34:52
  Speaker 1: now that I know that there actually are older and
• 34:54
  Speaker 1: bigger deer there, I kind of like the idea of
• 34:57
  Speaker 1: just like seeing what could happen. So yeah, I would
• 34:59
  Speaker 1: be okay eating my tag um because I kind of
• 35:04
  Speaker 1: like the idea of just the mystery of what I
• 35:06
  Speaker 1: might be able to possibly find. And I'd like to
• 35:09
  Speaker 1: hunt seven days straight there and see it and try
• 35:12
  Speaker 1: it out and figure some stuff out. I think, I
• 35:14
  Speaker 1: like I Originally the first year I hunted there, I thought, well,
• 35:16
  Speaker 1: I might be good with like one or two or
• 35:18
  Speaker 1: three hunts in this little spot, and then I'll probably
• 35:20
  Speaker 1: be blown out. Now I know because of some access
• 35:23
  Speaker 1: with some ways I can get in and out that
• 35:25
  Speaker 1: I can hunt it more than that without spooking the deer.
• 35:27
  Speaker 1: So I'm just figuring stuff out a little bit more
• 35:29
  Speaker 1: each year. So now between that and now also having
• 35:33
  Speaker 1: seen some of the antlers that we picked up that
• 35:35
  Speaker 1: tell me that there are actually some much bigger, older
• 35:38
  Speaker 1: deer out here, and then you know, seeing pictures of
• 35:40
  Speaker 1: pictures from the neighbor that also give me indicators like hey,
• 35:43
  Speaker 1: there's this whole other class that you haven't seen yet. Um,
• 35:48
  Speaker 1: and I'd like to kind of push myself to try
• 35:50
  Speaker 1: to find that deer. That's just like a fun next
• 35:53
  Speaker 1: step for me as I'm trying to you know, we
• 35:56
  Speaker 1: always talk about how like we'd like that next challenge,
• 35:59
  Speaker 1: and so I really enjoyed the challenge of figuring out
• 36:01
  Speaker 1: a new property, which I did for a couple of years.
• 36:04
  Speaker 1: Now I'm thinking if I'm going to hunt the same
• 36:06
  Speaker 1: little section again, I want to push myself in a
• 36:09
  Speaker 1: different way, and I think that different way will be
• 36:11
  Speaker 1: trying to find that next step up the ladder as
• 36:14
  Speaker 1: far as challenge and and the deer I'm after. So
• 36:19
  Speaker 1: I think that's what I'm gonna try. Um, And I
• 36:21
  Speaker 1: think it's possible, it'd be it'd be fun to give
• 36:24
  Speaker 1: it a shot. So that's from my head that at
• 36:26
  Speaker 1: least we'll see, Yeah, that's awesome, due but yeah, I mean,
• 36:30
  Speaker 1: my my goals are definitely different for each state. You know,
• 36:32
  Speaker 1: we've we've talked, you know, my Michigan goals for for
• 36:35
  Speaker 1: a long time. We're like to kill three and a
• 36:37
  Speaker 1: half year old here in Michigan because those are really
• 36:39
  Speaker 1: hard to come by in spots I hunt. And then
• 36:41
  Speaker 1: the last couple of years is like, Okay, you know
• 36:43
  Speaker 1: you've killed some of those. Let's try to kill a
• 36:45
  Speaker 1: four year old or older. And that's still where I'm
• 36:47
  Speaker 1: at here. But then when I hunted Ohio different, when
• 36:49
  Speaker 1: I hunted an Iowa different, Montana was different, and I
• 36:52
  Speaker 1: was changing. Um, you know, I think when you come
• 36:55
  Speaker 1: and hunt in Michigan, I think it'll be the same way.
• 36:57
  Speaker 1: It'll have one set of goals and that might change
• 36:59
  Speaker 1: one two hunt in Michigan three or four years in
• 37:01
  Speaker 1: a row. Right now, Hey, I think I think we're
• 37:06
  Speaker 1: gonna have to look back at that verbal contract because
• 37:12
  Speaker 1: when I get when I quit, right when I quit
• 37:15
  Speaker 1: my job, I'll come in hunt Michigan. But I got
• 37:17
  Speaker 1: laid off, So you're really we're gonna have to get
• 37:21
  Speaker 1: some lawyers involved here. I feel, oh my god, you're
• 37:23
  Speaker 1: getting tangled loving the semantics. Then right right, well here,
• 37:27
  Speaker 1: let me let me tell you. Let me just ask
• 37:28
  Speaker 1: you this, Mark, and I have to play that card
• 37:32
  Speaker 1: because I'm going on at ELK hunt this year. I'm
• 37:34
  Speaker 1: going on like like if all things go right, like
• 37:37
  Speaker 1: there is a chance I don't go on any honest
• 37:39
  Speaker 1: state hunts, depending on uh, you know, the finance and
• 37:43
  Speaker 1: the finances now, right, But there's a chance I go
• 37:48
  Speaker 1: on a elk hunt. There's a chance I go on
• 37:51
  Speaker 1: a mule deer hunt, which is all the only way
• 37:55
  Speaker 1: I'm not going on these hunts is fine. The finances, right,
• 38:00
  Speaker 1: I got approval from the wife, right, It's it's game
• 38:03
  Speaker 1: on for both. And adding a another trip at this
• 38:08
  Speaker 1: point would be I think detrimental to my relationship. But
• 38:15
  Speaker 1: let's talk about one thing. Let's talk about integrity. Let's
• 38:19
  Speaker 1: talk about let's talk about it. Well, just know that
• 38:26
  Speaker 1: the offers open maybe next year. Um, when you got
• 38:30
  Speaker 1: things lined up, we can try to work on trying
• 38:32
  Speaker 1: to find you a spot out here to hunt. And uh,
• 38:35
  Speaker 1: it's not you know, it's not Iowa. But you're gonna
• 38:39
  Speaker 1: have a good time. Still, I don't care like obviously
• 38:44
  Speaker 1: Iowa has a special place in my heart, but I
• 38:47
  Speaker 1: don't care like I don't care about antlers, right, So
• 38:53
  Speaker 1: I'm I'm all about the experience. So, yes, I live
• 38:56
  Speaker 1: in Iowa. I have the luxury of potentially shooting a
• 38:59
  Speaker 1: deer with big ant or it's an older age class.
• 39:01
  Speaker 1: But if I walked into a Michigan public, a piece
• 39:05
  Speaker 1: of public on Michigan and had the opportunity at you know,
• 39:09
  Speaker 1: hunter and ten five inch deer that I that gave
• 39:13
  Speaker 1: me a perfect shot at during a running gun. That's
• 39:16
  Speaker 1: an awesome experience as well, right, and uh, I think
• 39:20
  Speaker 1: I would you know, I would you know? I don't know.
• 39:24
  Speaker 1: I find the experience of everything more than the end result, right,
• 39:30
  Speaker 1: which is you know, potentially hanging in an awesome deer
• 39:32
  Speaker 1: on your wall or whatever. I'm glad that that's where
• 39:35
  Speaker 1: your head's at because that is a very important quality
• 39:38
  Speaker 1: to foster. As a Michigan deer hunter had told be
• 39:41
  Speaker 1: very focused on the experience because the big ones will
• 39:45
  Speaker 1: occasionally they show up, it's not too often, so I
• 39:48
  Speaker 1: gotta you gotta just enjoy the grind. That's uh, that's
• 39:53
  Speaker 1: what's all about in Michigan. So, speaking of experiences, I
• 39:58
  Speaker 1: want to talk about turkey hunting because I saw that
• 40:01
  Speaker 1: you had a hell of experience this past weekend too.
• 40:03
  Speaker 1: Huh yeah, So I'm gonna do a little bit of
• 40:05
  Speaker 1: self promotion here, all right, and well, and that is
• 40:10
  Speaker 1: so we I ended up bringing a camera guy along
• 40:14
  Speaker 1: with me. I know you took a very uh seductive
• 40:17
  Speaker 1: shot of you fondling a beer bottle in your mouth,
• 40:21
  Speaker 1: and that's this picture, and I really want to do
• 40:24
  Speaker 1: some photoshop work on it. I can send him back
• 40:26
  Speaker 1: to but that's neither here nor there. Continue get your
• 40:31
  Speaker 1: mind out of the gut. Or do you think I'm
• 40:32
  Speaker 1: the dirty one. You're You're just as dirty dude, professional photographer.
• 40:37
  Speaker 1: You took him out there with you? Why did you
• 40:40
  Speaker 1: do that? So anyway, like I'm making this short film, right,
• 40:46
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna make a film. Uh well, well he is, actually,
• 40:49
  Speaker 1: but I hired him to do it, and uh, it's
• 40:51
  Speaker 1: gonna It's about this tradition that we have every year.
• 40:54
  Speaker 1: Right April is Dirty Hunting season, but it's kind of
• 40:58
  Speaker 1: more than that because it's basically a family gathering. So yeah,
• 41:03
  Speaker 1: we do go turkey hunting, but we also play cards,
• 41:07
  Speaker 1: we eat a lot of food, we go fishing, we
• 41:09
  Speaker 1: play outside when the weather's nights, and it's just it's
• 41:12
  Speaker 1: just an awesome tradition that we've started. And as every year,
• 41:17
  Speaker 1: I feel like more and more people are coming over
• 41:20
  Speaker 1: to my mom's house, mom and stepdad's house, and it's
• 41:22
  Speaker 1: become something bigger than just turkey hunting. It's like it's
• 41:28
  Speaker 1: a tradition now, and that's what this short film is
• 41:31
  Speaker 1: gonna showcase and uh uh, it's gonna be coming out.
• 41:35
  Speaker 1: I don't know when, probably May, June sometime or whatever.
• 41:38
  Speaker 1: But it's it's like a representation of what you know,
• 41:42
  Speaker 1: Like hunting is awesome, killing a turkey or a deer
• 41:46
  Speaker 1: is awesome, but there's more to it than just that, right,
• 41:49
  Speaker 1: And I wanted to have this film showcase that. But
• 41:52
  Speaker 1: I'm telling you the first day Friday, it was a
• 41:56
  Speaker 1: little windy and uh, we went out to us spot
• 42:00
  Speaker 1: that usually produce and I'm telling you, man, and this
• 42:03
  Speaker 1: is you and your wife meeting my wife and a
• 42:05
  Speaker 1: camera guy. Uh, we get up there the sun, you know,
• 42:08
  Speaker 1: we this was the first year we didn't use a blind.
• 42:11
  Speaker 1: Was straight off the ground, just for better you know,
• 42:14
  Speaker 1: filming purposes get a lot more because it's difficult to
• 42:18
  Speaker 1: hunting a blind, I feel like or filming a blind,
• 42:20
  Speaker 1: I feel like you'll lose something. And so anyway, we
• 42:25
  Speaker 1: walking through the cattle pasture. The first thing we noticed
• 42:28
  Speaker 1: there's no cattle in it, and I'm like, okay, this
• 42:30
  Speaker 1: is awesome because typically the turkeys, if there's cattle in
• 42:33
  Speaker 1: that pasture, they are deeper in the timber. Right, Well,
• 42:37
  Speaker 1: this time, there was no there was no cattle, right,
• 42:41
  Speaker 1: So okay, awesome. We walked through the pasture. We get
• 42:44
  Speaker 1: to this fence line. It's starting to get to the
• 42:47
  Speaker 1: point where, you know, I look at my wife. I say, hey,
• 42:49
  Speaker 1: they're gonna start gobbling. In about five ten minutes, we hear,
• 42:53
  Speaker 1: you know, five ten minutes later, we hear a couple
• 42:55
  Speaker 1: of gobbles in the distance. I pulled out the slate,
• 42:58
  Speaker 1: call you know, stuff gobble like next ridge over and
• 43:05
  Speaker 1: it was like a real small like a smaller ridge
• 43:08
  Speaker 1: to where they could easily pitch down onto this ridge,
• 43:11
  Speaker 1: the ridge that we were at, and uh, you know,
• 43:14
  Speaker 1: he gobbled three times. I'm like, okay, here's where we're
• 43:17
  Speaker 1: gonna set up. Set up. I get down and uh,
• 43:22
  Speaker 1: you know, the camera guys behind me. I got my
• 43:25
  Speaker 1: wife sitting to the left of me. I'm sitting next
• 43:27
  Speaker 1: to her. Put the decoys out. You know, we're situated.
• 43:32
  Speaker 1: He gobbles, uh two more times, and I'm like, okay,
• 43:36
  Speaker 1: this sucks. We gotta move because there's all this all
• 43:40
  Speaker 1: this thickness, and I think he was gonna come to
• 43:43
  Speaker 1: the extreme left of us. That's like he's still on
• 43:46
  Speaker 1: the tree at this point, so I don't know, but
• 43:48
  Speaker 1: we had we had a quick move. So I loft
• 43:50
  Speaker 1: the decoys where they were at. I moved us all
• 43:54
  Speaker 1: I don't know, twenty yards to the left, a little
• 43:57
  Speaker 1: bit more to where the timber was a little bit,
• 43:59
  Speaker 1: opened up, and sat down. You know. I started hitting
• 44:05
  Speaker 1: the slate decoy again and uh, this the slate call again. Yeah,
• 44:11
  Speaker 1: it's heavy. It's a heavy decoy. Hit the slate call
• 44:15
  Speaker 1: again and uh, the next gobbilie did. He was on
• 44:19
  Speaker 1: the ground. And then I started really making the slate
• 44:23
  Speaker 1: call go quiet again and h his head popped up.
• 44:27
  Speaker 1: He walked to one of the the yards. My wife shot him.
• 44:29
  Speaker 1: I mean it was the one of the easiest fastest
• 44:33
  Speaker 1: turkey kills I've ever been a part of. Like I've
• 44:37
  Speaker 1: killed some birds that have flown in and they've strutted
• 44:40
  Speaker 1: out and then they worked their way in. But this
• 44:41
  Speaker 1: bird flew down, walked up and got shot. I mean,
• 44:46
  Speaker 1: it would happen so fast. I think I think she
• 44:48
  Speaker 1: killed this bird at six ten or is this her?
• 44:54
  Speaker 1: This is her second bird, right, No, this just like
• 44:57
  Speaker 1: her fifth six geez up. Because she started turkey hunting
• 45:02
  Speaker 1: in two thousand and eleven. That was the first year.
• 45:07
  Speaker 1: The first two years were just horrible weather. Then in
• 45:13
  Speaker 1: two thousand and thirteen that was her first ever turkey,
• 45:16
  Speaker 1: and then she went on her role for like three years.
• 45:18
  Speaker 1: She killed you know, three turkeys in a row. Then
• 45:22
  Speaker 1: the one year she was oh man, nine months pregnant
• 45:26
  Speaker 1: in the blind, it didn't work out. The next year
• 45:29
  Speaker 1: was bad weather again and she had something she had
• 45:33
  Speaker 1: to do, so I got my bird, and then she
• 45:36
  Speaker 1: killed another one last year, and another and then one
• 45:41
  Speaker 1: this year. So yeah, I think she's sitting at five
• 45:44
  Speaker 1: five birds since two thousand and eleven, so that's a
• 45:46
  Speaker 1: that's a pretty good success rate. Yeah, that's pretty good.
• 45:49
  Speaker 1: So what did she think about? She had a good
• 45:51
  Speaker 1: time or was it too fast? No, she loves it.
• 45:55
  Speaker 1: She loves the fact that we can go, we can
• 45:59
  Speaker 1: slam a turkey, and then we can go to this
• 46:01
  Speaker 1: local diner, we can drink coffee and eat breakfast, and
• 46:04
  Speaker 1: then she doesn't have to get up early anymore for
• 46:06
  Speaker 1: the trip. And then it's just like me, right. And
• 46:09
  Speaker 1: then later that afternoon, my stepdad killed one on the
• 46:13
  Speaker 1: farm he was hunting, and uh, and then and then
• 46:17
  Speaker 1: it's just really relaxing from there, because yes, I wanted
• 46:20
  Speaker 1: to kill a turkey on camera for you know, for
• 46:24
  Speaker 1: the film, but I don't care like when it comes
• 46:27
  Speaker 1: to turkey, and I think me and you have discussed
• 46:29
  Speaker 1: this before. It's just it's secondary hunting, right, I don't
• 46:33
  Speaker 1: care pressure pressure exactly. I want to be successful, but
• 46:37
  Speaker 1: if it doesn't, if it doesn't happen, it doesn't happen.
• 46:40
  Speaker 1: And so we went out the rest of the day.
• 46:44
  Speaker 1: Nothing not one gobble on the entire farm. The rest
• 46:48
  Speaker 1: of the day. Um. Day two was more of the same.
• 46:53
  Speaker 1: Heard some gobbles initially off the roost, and it was
• 46:56
  Speaker 1: one of those days where it was brilliant out right,
• 46:59
  Speaker 1: no cloud and typically that gets the you know, get
• 47:03
  Speaker 1: some hammering throughout the you know, throughout this valley that
• 47:06
  Speaker 1: I hunt. And man, we didn't hear. We didn't hear
• 47:09
  Speaker 1: what we thought I was gonna hear. And uh the
• 47:13
  Speaker 1: then the entire day just bouncing around left and right,
• 47:16
  Speaker 1: bouncing around and uh, no gobbles, no encounters. And then
• 47:20
  Speaker 1: it was Sunday morning. We ended up going back to
• 47:25
  Speaker 1: one of the original spots and uh, all you know,
• 47:30
  Speaker 1: got these birds goblin really close into the Uh these
• 47:34
  Speaker 1: birds goblin really close. We got set up and they
• 47:37
  Speaker 1: were roosted on another farm, but typically they worked their
• 47:40
  Speaker 1: way up into the property that I could that, you know,
• 47:44
  Speaker 1: I can hunt, and uh man, this tom pops up
• 47:48
  Speaker 1: his tail fan. His tail fan pops up, and I'm like,
• 47:51
  Speaker 1: that's on. He's coming. He's gonna come towards us. And
• 47:54
  Speaker 1: he's at about sixty yards. And I hunt with a
• 47:57
  Speaker 1: twenty gauge, so I'm not gonna take a real long shot.
• 48:01
  Speaker 1: I think my max would probably be thirty five forty
• 48:05
  Speaker 1: yards with a twenty gauge, no choke on it, nothing right,
• 48:08
  Speaker 1: just a regular gun. And uh uh then I see
• 48:13
  Speaker 1: a handhead pop up, and then I see another hand
• 48:16
  Speaker 1: head pop up, and he lost interest in me really fast,
• 48:21
  Speaker 1: and uh he was, you know, held up at about
• 48:24
  Speaker 1: sixty yards. I kept calling, and it felt like the
• 48:27
  Speaker 1: more I kept calling it annoyed the hints, and they're
• 48:31
  Speaker 1: just like, oh God, let's get out of here, you know.
• 48:34
  Speaker 1: And they left and the tom went with him, and then, uh,
• 48:39
  Speaker 1: you know, we bounced around a little bit more and
• 48:42
  Speaker 1: we're walking up this fence line and there was this
• 48:45
  Speaker 1: strutter pops up right and right in the screen pasture,
• 48:48
  Speaker 1: right on this fence line. We were walking up and uh,
• 48:52
  Speaker 1: so I instantly dropped to the ground, crawled over to
• 48:55
  Speaker 1: this tree, put the decoys out, crawled back to the
• 48:58
  Speaker 1: fence line, and you can just barely see his fan.
• 49:01
  Speaker 1: And I started calling and he starts gobbling, and uh again,
• 49:05
  Speaker 1: I think he was with a hen. And as I
• 49:07
  Speaker 1: started to call, he worked his way in and then
• 49:11
  Speaker 1: he was gobblin goblin, responding to everything. And then he
• 49:14
  Speaker 1: just worked his way away, which tells me he was
• 49:16
  Speaker 1: with hands. Right. Um made a couple more attempts and
• 49:23
  Speaker 1: that's all she wrote. Dude, So I ended up, you know,
• 49:25
  Speaker 1: I ended up not harvesting a turkey this turkey season.
• 49:29
  Speaker 1: And but I'll tell you what it was fun, man.
• 49:32
  Speaker 1: I love I love those days just where they're you know,
• 49:36
  Speaker 1: where you're in the action, they're talking, they're coming your way,
• 49:40
  Speaker 1: like you were mentioning off off the roofs. There's nothing
• 49:42
  Speaker 1: I like better than hearing that first bird off the
• 49:45
  Speaker 1: roofs in the morning. Um, now, did you get to
• 49:48
  Speaker 1: hear your favorite sound in the turkey? Was? Because you
• 49:50
  Speaker 1: told us in the past years what your favorite sound
• 49:53
  Speaker 1: is in the turkey? Was that favorite moment? Um? Well,
• 49:56
  Speaker 1: you will you do Hey, do you know what I'm
• 49:58
  Speaker 1: talking about? And p will you demonstrate again my favorite
• 50:01
  Speaker 1: moment in the Turkey woods? Yeah? You Every year I
• 50:04
  Speaker 1: asked you bring this up, your favorite thing that happens. Well,
• 50:08
  Speaker 1: it's a sound, it's not a come on really, Oh
• 50:16
  Speaker 1: my god, I'm I'm dropping the ball here. I can't
• 50:20
  Speaker 1: do it nearly as good as you, but I'll give you.
• 50:23
  Speaker 1: Like the first sound I got it, Yeah, it was
• 50:27
  Speaker 1: too windy. We couldn't. We didn't hear it, you know.
• 50:31
  Speaker 1: So and that Tom, only that Tom that came up
• 50:34
  Speaker 1: from Uh for my wife to shoot. He just came in.
• 50:38
  Speaker 1: He came in to a full strut one time and
• 50:41
  Speaker 1: then came out of it, and it was windy, so
• 50:44
  Speaker 1: we we couldn't hear it, right, Um. And then the
• 50:48
  Speaker 1: other times, you know, throughout the weekend, we didn't get
• 50:51
  Speaker 1: close enough to hear it. But yeah, I do love
• 50:54
  Speaker 1: that sound. I do love it. Let me hear your
• 50:56
  Speaker 1: But there you go. There's probably some really serious turkey
• 51:02
  Speaker 1: hunters out there listening to this going. That guy is
• 51:04
  Speaker 1: such a dip shit. So when I was in Montana
• 51:08
  Speaker 1: last week, um, there was a turkey calling contest at
• 51:13
  Speaker 1: a bar one night, that I went to, and that
• 51:16
  Speaker 1: was pretty funds to hear everyone do their different things.
• 51:19
  Speaker 1: Each contestant had to do a yelp, they had to
• 51:22
  Speaker 1: do per they had to do like a series of
• 51:26
  Speaker 1: different calls, um like kind of like demonstrate a whole
• 51:29
  Speaker 1: run of how they would try to call in a
• 51:31
  Speaker 1: hen and then they had to do a gobble yeah. Um,
• 51:36
  Speaker 1: and there were some there was a couple people were
• 51:38
  Speaker 1: really good, and then there's a few folks that it
• 51:42
  Speaker 1: made me feel okay about my calling. Um, I can't
• 51:45
  Speaker 1: use the mouth call period, you know. I couldn't until
• 51:48
  Speaker 1: last year. And last year I was like, you know what,
• 51:50
  Speaker 1: I just need to figure it out, um, and I'm
• 51:53
  Speaker 1: so glad I did. I would recommend trying to trying
• 51:57
  Speaker 1: to figure because it it is way I think the
• 52:01
  Speaker 1: sounds you can make are way nicer. And then the
• 52:04
  Speaker 1: biggest thing is just like if you're hunting solo, you know,
• 52:07
  Speaker 1: it was I always it was always a challenge trying
• 52:09
  Speaker 1: to work the slate call and then hold the gun.
• 52:11
  Speaker 1: You know, sometimes you just want to make a couple
• 52:13
  Speaker 1: of final calls, but you can't do that while you're
• 52:15
  Speaker 1: in position to get a shot, because if you move
• 52:17
  Speaker 1: you're busted. So the fact that I can make those
• 52:20
  Speaker 1: final couple of calls while you know, holding the gun
• 52:23
  Speaker 1: and not moving that, uh, that makes a big difference.
• 52:26
  Speaker 1: So you should pick us pick up a diaphragm, give
• 52:28
  Speaker 1: a shot. Yeah, I have one. I just don't use it.
• 52:32
  Speaker 1: I don't. I don't know. You're right, I need to
• 52:34
  Speaker 1: try because last year I was uh trying to call
• 52:40
  Speaker 1: a turkey and and it it came in, it read
• 52:43
  Speaker 1: the script and then I set my I guess what
• 52:46
  Speaker 1: they call it, the striker down and it slid off
• 52:49
  Speaker 1: my pants and it landed on the slate and it
• 52:53
  Speaker 1: made like a click noise, and then the tom went
• 52:56
  Speaker 1: and then he with the other direction. You yeah, those
• 53:00
  Speaker 1: little things. It's funny, you know, when it comes to
• 53:02
  Speaker 1: that diaphragm. I remember I had one and I kept trying.
• 53:05
  Speaker 1: It just sounded like crap and I couldn't get it
• 53:07
  Speaker 1: to sound right. Um. But then like every couple of years,
• 53:10
  Speaker 1: I buy a couple more and like fill with them
• 53:12
  Speaker 1: and just never could quite get it. But last year,
• 53:15
  Speaker 1: I just remember I had a bunch of different versions
• 53:17
  Speaker 1: of last year. I was like, I'll just keep on
• 53:19
  Speaker 1: trying all these different ones until I find one that
• 53:21
  Speaker 1: sounds good and then just kept messing with the positioning
• 53:24
  Speaker 1: of it in my mouth. Um, do you use Do
• 53:27
  Speaker 1: you use a diaphragm call when you're el cutting who?
• 53:30
  Speaker 1: You figured out how to use one of those? Yet?
• 53:31
  Speaker 1: Uh No, I don't. I personally don't use a diaphragm.
• 53:34
  Speaker 1: I use handheld Okay, So with any of these diaphragm
• 53:38
  Speaker 1: mouth calls, it's like it's really hard to figure it
• 53:41
  Speaker 1: out by taking like what someone tells you, Like they'll
• 53:45
  Speaker 1: tell you how to do it, or you'll watch a video,
• 53:47
  Speaker 1: and it's like it's really hard to translate that to
• 53:50
  Speaker 1: what it actually feels like in your mouth, until like
• 53:53
  Speaker 1: you just mistakenly happened upon the right feeling, and then
• 53:57
  Speaker 1: once you get the right feeling one time, then it's like,
• 53:59
  Speaker 1: oh yeah, it's easy, now I get it. But it's
• 54:01
  Speaker 1: just something you kind of have to stumble upon yourself.
• 54:03
  Speaker 1: So the way I finally did it is I just
• 54:06
  Speaker 1: had him in my truck and whenever I was driving,
• 54:08
  Speaker 1: I would just toss one in my mouth and just
• 54:09
  Speaker 1: like screw with it and try to make different noises
• 54:11
  Speaker 1: and move it in different and forward and backward of
• 54:14
  Speaker 1: my mouth in different positions until it finally like clicked,
• 54:18
  Speaker 1: and that would be kind of my best advice is
• 54:20
  Speaker 1: to just try that. Like I think most of us
• 54:22
  Speaker 1: know what it's supposed to sound like, if you've heard turkeys,
• 54:24
  Speaker 1: if you've watched the turkey and calling videos, that kind
• 54:26
  Speaker 1: of stuff. It's just a matter of figuring out the
• 54:29
  Speaker 1: right way to have it in your mouth and to
• 54:30
  Speaker 1: to make that motion and draw the air through your
• 54:34
  Speaker 1: mouth to figure it out. So just screw it, and
• 54:37
  Speaker 1: I think you'll figure it out eventually. But it's it's
• 54:39
  Speaker 1: cool once you can do it, sounds good. I need
• 54:42
  Speaker 1: to I just needed straight up practice. Yeah, it's uh,
• 54:46
  Speaker 1: it's it takes a little bit of practice, but it's
• 54:48
  Speaker 1: fun once you do. We're Um. Last weekend, I had
• 54:52
  Speaker 1: my family down for dinner. Um came down the business
• 54:55
  Speaker 1: for the day and we're sitting on the deck behind
• 54:57
  Speaker 1: my house and there's a bunch of woods and stuff
• 54:59
  Speaker 1: behind how and we're sitting there eating hamburgers and stuff,
• 55:02
  Speaker 1: and then all of a sudden, I heard of Gobel
• 55:03
  Speaker 1: was the first gobble I heard the spring all spring,
• 55:07
  Speaker 1: and I was like so pumped. It's like, oh my gosh,
• 55:08
  Speaker 1: there's a gobbler up there, like, hold on one second, guy.
• 55:11
  Speaker 1: So while everybody's eating dinner, I ran into the house,
• 55:14
  Speaker 1: grabbed my call, ran back out to the deck and
• 55:17
  Speaker 1: started trying to yelp it in. Um didn't bring the burden,
• 55:20
  Speaker 1: but it got me really excited. So our season opens
• 55:23
  Speaker 1: one week from today, so I'm excited to get out there.
• 55:28
  Speaker 1: And uh, I'm also gonna hunt um South Dakota this
• 55:32
  Speaker 1: year for turkeys. Yeah. Um, I got invited on a
• 55:37
  Speaker 1: group hunt with um Ben O'Brien from the Hunting Collective
• 55:42
  Speaker 1: and Spencer you know, Spencer Spencer new Heart for media there. Um.
• 55:46
  Speaker 1: And then it sounds like I don't know if it's
• 55:48
  Speaker 1: all official, but from what I hear, supposedly Randy Newburgh
• 55:52
  Speaker 1: is coming down with his group and the folks in
• 55:54
  Speaker 1: the hunting public and suppose it was gonna be like
• 55:56
  Speaker 1: a seventeen person group out there all turkey hunting. Wow.
• 56:01
  Speaker 1: So yeah, I kind of just putting that on. I
• 56:04
  Speaker 1: don't know who's organized kind of expenses organizing it. And
• 56:07
  Speaker 1: Sam sohold you know Sam, yeah him yea. So Sam's
• 56:11
  Speaker 1: gonna be out there too. So those are the two
• 56:13
  Speaker 1: residents South Dakota's so they're at least helping organize like
• 56:16
  Speaker 1: where we should camp and the general areas that we
• 56:19
  Speaker 1: should explore. I guess, um, So I just got kind
• 56:23
  Speaker 1: of I just got pulled in and Ben's doing like
• 56:26
  Speaker 1: a turkey tour, going to like a bunch of different states.
• 56:28
  Speaker 1: So I'm gonna come along with him for a few
• 56:30
  Speaker 1: days in South Dakota and maybe Nebraska and then do
• 56:33
  Speaker 1: some meetings in Montana. So that'll be, Yeah, that'll be fun,
• 56:37
  Speaker 1: little extra turkey hunting for me. So hey, if you
• 56:40
  Speaker 1: see any big mule there or well big body mule there,
• 56:44
  Speaker 1: you let me know where the exact location that you
• 56:47
  Speaker 1: see them at, and then I'm gonna go like scout
• 56:50
  Speaker 1: that I'm gonna try to talk my wife into a
• 56:54
  Speaker 1: two or three day summer you know, maybe early mid lay,
• 56:58
  Speaker 1: I don't know when. Summer tour tour, yavacation trip little yeah,
• 57:04
  Speaker 1: MANI vacation where it's just me and her. We go
• 57:06
  Speaker 1: out like, hey, baby, I got I got this awesome idea.
• 57:10
  Speaker 1: We're gonna go out to South Dakota and I'm gonna
• 57:13
  Speaker 1: scout some mule deer and you can come with me.
• 57:15
  Speaker 1: And She'll be like that's dumb. I don't want to
• 57:18
  Speaker 1: do that. Bad Lands National Park is right there. That
• 57:24
  Speaker 1: is beautiful. And then the Black Hills. You can see
• 57:27
  Speaker 1: Mount Rushmore. That's like a nicon. You gotta go see
• 57:29
  Speaker 1: Rount Rushmore so you can say this is like a
• 57:32
  Speaker 1: sightseeing trip. Black Hills are beautiful. Um, you gotta do
• 57:37
  Speaker 1: oh gosh, the Needles Highway or the Needles Scenic Byway
• 57:42
  Speaker 1: or something like that. It's like a scenic drive through
• 57:46
  Speaker 1: the Black Hills. Um. I actually haven't done it, but
• 57:49
  Speaker 1: several of my friends and my wife did it. And
• 57:52
  Speaker 1: there's mountain goats. I think there's big horn sheep um,
• 57:55
  Speaker 1: beautiful terrain, a lot of critters that would be a
• 57:58
  Speaker 1: good little spy. Have to go check out with her too.
• 58:01
  Speaker 1: And then uh, That's tower isn't too far past that right,
• 58:04
  Speaker 1: that's not too far away yet, it's a little further west.
• 58:06
  Speaker 1: I would get us like an hour hour and a
• 58:08
  Speaker 1: half west maybe. Um, And yeah, that looks amazing too,
• 58:12
  Speaker 1: So you could you could hit all that stuff right
• 58:14
  Speaker 1: in that little area. That's absolute quality family trip. Have
• 58:18
  Speaker 1: you ever been to Death Valley? Uh? No, I'm not.
• 58:24
  Speaker 1: I don't think I don't think that's a quality family trip.
• 58:27
  Speaker 1: Pretty hot, pretty hot, and desolate? Um, why do you
• 58:31
  Speaker 1: want to go there? I don't know. It's uh, it's
• 58:33
  Speaker 1: a it's a landmark in the United States that I
• 58:36
  Speaker 1: want to visit. Yeah it is. It is hot, and
• 58:40
  Speaker 1: it is a landmark, so I'll give you that. Um.
• 58:45
  Speaker 1: But yeah, I think it'd be a good idea if
• 58:46
  Speaker 1: you to try to get some scouting time out there,
• 58:48
  Speaker 1: and if I do see any good sign or anything,
• 58:49
  Speaker 1: because we will be all in that area, then I
• 58:52
  Speaker 1: know you want to go. Um. I'll be keeping you posted,
• 58:56
  Speaker 1: sweet buddy, Sweet Um, can I run my deer hunting
• 59:00
  Speaker 1: methodology by you? Yeah? I want to hear this because
• 59:03
  Speaker 1: it sounds like a crossword puzzle, like you're gonna say
• 59:08
  Speaker 1: something and I'm gonna have to figure out something else,
• 59:11
  Speaker 1: like a little clue that I need to find another
• 59:14
  Speaker 1: word for. Or it could just be really simple and
• 59:16
  Speaker 1: you're just trying to sound smarter than what you really are.
• 59:19
  Speaker 1: So that's typically all I've ever done is just trying
• 59:21
  Speaker 1: to sound smarter than I than I really am. So yeah,
• 59:23
  Speaker 1: that's what I'm doing here. No, but I was, I
• 59:27
  Speaker 1: don't know when I like coined this idea in my head, um,
• 59:30
  Speaker 1: But I'm trying to like flesh it out into like
• 59:33
  Speaker 1: a a deer hunting I'm calling I'm calling a methodology.
• 59:36
  Speaker 1: I don't know if it's a methodology or a theory
• 59:38
  Speaker 1: or like a strategy, um, but a way to kind
• 59:41
  Speaker 1: of simplify the decision making process around choosing when and
• 59:45
  Speaker 1: where to hunt. And so I've been kind of doing
• 59:47
  Speaker 1: this in my head and I started to like realize
• 59:51
  Speaker 1: it's kind of like a thing. And I tried to
• 59:53
  Speaker 1: explain this to Cody to Quisto like a month or
• 59:55
  Speaker 1: two ago, and I don't know if I made any sense.
• 59:59
  Speaker 1: So I wanted to like rethink it, explain to you
• 1:00:03
  Speaker 1: and try to get your thoughts, like does this make sense?
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 1: Is this a way to help people understand this stuff?
• 1:00:08
  Speaker 1: And this is this a good way to think about stuff? Um?
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 1: Because if so, it might be like a good way
• 1:00:14
  Speaker 1: especially for like new folks that are trying to get
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 1: into deer hunting, especially if they're trying to kill mature bucks,
• 1:00:19
  Speaker 1: if that's like the step that they're at now, this
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 1: might be a helpful way to approach it. So I'll
• 1:00:26
  Speaker 1: explain this to you and then I want your feedback, Okay,
• 1:00:29
  Speaker 1: And This is something that I started kind of doing
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 1: this past year. I started like more and more the
• 1:00:33
  Speaker 1: way hunted was this assumption to truth methodology. So basically
• 1:00:39
  Speaker 1: what I do before each hunt now is I have
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 1: all the information that we've collected, you know, through scouting,
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 1: through trial cameras, through past years observation, like, there's all
• 1:00:49
  Speaker 1: these different data points, right, and all that data will
• 1:00:54
  Speaker 1: lead you towards what you think is maybe like the
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 1: most likely scenario to play out. Let's say it's an
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 1: evening hunt. We'll have a most likely scenario, so we'll
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 1: make an assumption. So the assumption, let's say, on this
• 1:01:06
  Speaker 1: hypothetical night is given with this one direction, given this
• 1:01:10
  Speaker 1: October one, and there's a good food source here, and
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 1: I know there's a good betting area there, and um,
• 1:01:18
  Speaker 1: you know I know this thing and that thing. I'm
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 1: going to assume that the deer, based on this previous knowledge,
• 1:01:23
  Speaker 1: is better in Spot X, and I'm gonna assume that
• 1:01:26
  Speaker 1: he's going to go to Spot why. And I'm gonna
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 1: assume this specific path I think he's gonna take. Now,
• 1:01:32
  Speaker 1: in past years, I would think through that as like
• 1:01:35
  Speaker 1: one possibility, and then I would think, well, then there's
• 1:01:37
  Speaker 1: this other possibility he might do this other thing, and
• 1:01:39
  Speaker 1: then there's another possibility he might do this third different thing,
• 1:01:43
  Speaker 1: And then you would like try to set up in
• 1:01:45
  Speaker 1: some spot or you would head in kind of hoping
• 1:01:48
  Speaker 1: that one of these things would work. Um. But what
• 1:01:51
  Speaker 1: I found is that when you go with all these
• 1:01:54
  Speaker 1: different hypotheticals, you don't set up as well, and you
• 1:01:58
  Speaker 1: don't think through things as well, and you don't execute
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 1: as well as if you were to believe all those
• 1:02:04
  Speaker 1: things were truth. So let me rephrase the scenario then
• 1:02:09
  Speaker 1: in this other way. So instead of being assumption, you
• 1:02:12
  Speaker 1: believe that, you change that assumption to a truth. So
• 1:02:16
  Speaker 1: now you say, okay, if I thought the very most
• 1:02:18
  Speaker 1: likely scenario was that the buck was bed in spot X,
• 1:02:21
  Speaker 1: and then he's gonna go to Spot why, I'm gonna
• 1:02:23
  Speaker 1: flip the script of my mind. And now let's just
• 1:02:25
  Speaker 1: say it's true he is bad at in spot X,
• 1:02:28
  Speaker 1: he is going to Spot why. If I'm going to
• 1:02:31
  Speaker 1: assume that to be true, what am I gonna do? So?
• 1:02:35
  Speaker 1: If I know that's true, I have to make sure
• 1:02:38
  Speaker 1: that I access in this very specific way, because if
• 1:02:42
  Speaker 1: my wind blows in that one very specific place I'm
• 1:02:44
  Speaker 1: screwed up. I'm gonna set up just this very particular
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 1: perfect spot for that one single scenario because I know
• 1:02:51
  Speaker 1: he's X, and I know he's going to Why I'm
• 1:02:55
  Speaker 1: going to have to be perfectly crawling up in my
• 1:02:57
  Speaker 1: tree stand because I know he's here. I know he's
• 1:02:59
  Speaker 1: an X, I know he's only eight yards away. If
• 1:03:01
  Speaker 1: I screw up, if I make one noise, I'm gonna
• 1:03:04
  Speaker 1: spook that dear. If I was just thinking, well, that's
• 1:03:08
  Speaker 1: one of the possibilities that he might be there, maybe
• 1:03:11
  Speaker 1: I would have gotten little bit lax with my access route,
• 1:03:14
  Speaker 1: or maybe I would have been like, well, I can
• 1:03:16
  Speaker 1: screw up the tree and if I make a little noise,
• 1:03:18
  Speaker 1: that's not that big of a deal, because yeah, he
• 1:03:19
  Speaker 1: might be in Spot X, but he might also be
• 1:03:21
  Speaker 1: in spot why, he might also be in spots he
• 1:03:23
  Speaker 1: might be blah blah blah. The point of this all
• 1:03:27
  Speaker 1: being that when I've tried to set up a hunting
• 1:03:31
  Speaker 1: scenario with a whole bunch of different possibilities in mind,
• 1:03:36
  Speaker 1: I set up in a spot where it's not perfect
• 1:03:39
  Speaker 1: or I'm not doing the perfect thing for any one
• 1:03:40
  Speaker 1: of those possibilities. It's just kind of like an okay,
• 1:03:43
  Speaker 1: set up for all these different possibilities, but when I
• 1:03:46
  Speaker 1: go to switch my assumption to a truth, I set
• 1:03:49
  Speaker 1: up for that one possibility. But I'm perfectly set up
• 1:03:53
  Speaker 1: for that one possibility. And I think that when you're
• 1:03:58
  Speaker 1: targeting mature bucks, you are going to be more likely
• 1:04:03
  Speaker 1: to have success when you're set up for the one
• 1:04:06
  Speaker 1: possibility perfectly, because when those few opportunities come about to
• 1:04:11
  Speaker 1: get a shot of a chure buck, you kind of
• 1:04:13
  Speaker 1: needed all to be perfect for that thing to work out.
• 1:04:15
  Speaker 1: So I started operating this past season where before the
• 1:04:19
  Speaker 1: hunt would go out, before the day, I would think, okay,
• 1:04:23
  Speaker 1: Like for example, when I was hunting Frank, this is
• 1:04:25
  Speaker 1: what I started doing. There was those days in early
• 1:04:27
  Speaker 1: November where I'd seen him the night before with the
• 1:04:30
  Speaker 1: dough and I thought, well, he might be still with
• 1:04:32
  Speaker 1: that dough in this thicket. Um. In past years, I
• 1:04:35
  Speaker 1: would have thought, well, he might be there, but he
• 1:04:37
  Speaker 1: could be anywhere. And it's a real pain in the
• 1:04:40
  Speaker 1: butt to to not go through that little thicket because
• 1:04:42
  Speaker 1: that's usually what I have to walk by to get
• 1:04:44
  Speaker 1: to most of my other spots. UM. So I mean,
• 1:04:47
  Speaker 1: the odds are he could be anywhere. So in the
• 1:04:49
  Speaker 1: past I might have said it, I'm just gonna get
• 1:04:51
  Speaker 1: to my stand fast, only go past that thicket, because yeah,
• 1:04:54
  Speaker 1: he might be there, but there's an eighty percent chance
• 1:04:55
  Speaker 1: he could be somewhere else. I just gotta get to
• 1:04:57
  Speaker 1: my stand fast, get up, and then whatever happened happens.
• 1:05:00
  Speaker 1: But this year I said, no, I'm gonna say that
• 1:05:04
  Speaker 1: that's the truth. He is in that thicket. That's the
• 1:05:06
  Speaker 1: most likely option. Even though maybe it's twenty chance he's there,
• 1:05:09
  Speaker 1: it's still the very most likely option. I'm gonna assume
• 1:05:11
  Speaker 1: he's in there. And since I know he's in there
• 1:05:14
  Speaker 1: right now at five in the morning, I have to
• 1:05:17
  Speaker 1: go the extra mile around the entire property to access
• 1:05:20
  Speaker 1: the other way because I know I'll spook him if
• 1:05:22
  Speaker 1: I go through the easy way. And that's what I
• 1:05:25
  Speaker 1: did all this season was this, take the assumption, change
• 1:05:30
  Speaker 1: it to a truth, and then plan everything around that truth. Now, yeah,
• 1:05:33
  Speaker 1: it's not gonna end up being true most of the time,
• 1:05:36
  Speaker 1: but that one or two times a year when your
• 1:05:39
  Speaker 1: assumption is truth and you plan perfectly for that truth,
• 1:05:43
  Speaker 1: it's perfect and you get the kill. That is like
• 1:05:46
  Speaker 1: this theory bons around my head I don't know if
• 1:05:49
  Speaker 1: I'm articulating it clearly or not, But what are your
• 1:05:51
  Speaker 1: thoughts about everything that just explained there? I'm following you
• 1:05:54
  Speaker 1: first and foremost, I'm following you. However, I think that
• 1:05:58
  Speaker 1: is it's a good early season methodology, But when you
• 1:06:04
  Speaker 1: come into the rut and you throw chaos into everything,
• 1:06:10
  Speaker 1: I don't think that would necessarily work as well. This
• 1:06:13
  Speaker 1: is just me, you know, in my opinion, but from
• 1:06:16
  Speaker 1: an early season, pre rut type of UM, I don't
• 1:06:21
  Speaker 1: know methodology. I really do think that, uh, that that
• 1:06:27
  Speaker 1: would work. I mean, you know, if you if if
• 1:06:30
  Speaker 1: you're confident in your decision making and your confident in
• 1:06:32
  Speaker 1: your access and your confident in a Buck's core range,
• 1:06:37
  Speaker 1: I feel that that would work and and and and
• 1:06:41
  Speaker 1: I think it can be applied to the rut too,
• 1:06:43
  Speaker 1: because because obviously, like the one single thing you believe
• 1:06:46
  Speaker 1: isn't going to be the truth all the time, but
• 1:06:48
  Speaker 1: it's more so like you have to you have to
• 1:06:52
  Speaker 1: look at all your data and you have to pick
• 1:06:53
  Speaker 1: the highest possibility because if you if you it's just
• 1:06:58
  Speaker 1: like a job or or just like a hobby, like
• 1:07:01
  Speaker 1: if you try to do anything, if you try to
• 1:07:03
  Speaker 1: do like fifteen different things, you're not gonna do any
• 1:07:05
  Speaker 1: one of them really good. So you can be a
• 1:07:07
  Speaker 1: jack of all trades and be like decent at a
• 1:07:09
  Speaker 1: bunch of stuff, or you can decide, I'm going to
• 1:07:11
  Speaker 1: focus on this one thing and be the best damn
• 1:07:14
  Speaker 1: person in the world at him. And I think that
• 1:07:18
  Speaker 1: if you start focusing on like being the best damn
• 1:07:21
  Speaker 1: thing at this one specific option during a hunt, and
• 1:07:25
  Speaker 1: it could even be November one, obviously stuff is not
• 1:07:29
  Speaker 1: going to go exactly that way. But you've got to say,
• 1:07:31
  Speaker 1: what's the most likely scenario, and so let's say during
• 1:07:35
  Speaker 1: the rut it is I believe the most likely scenario
• 1:07:38
  Speaker 1: is that there's gonna be a buck coming in to
• 1:07:41
  Speaker 1: check this deal betting area. And I think the very
• 1:07:43
  Speaker 1: most likely thing is that he will come down wind
• 1:07:45
  Speaker 1: of this specific betting area. So that's gonna be my truth,
• 1:07:48
  Speaker 1: and I'm gonna set up perfectly for that one scenario. Um.
• 1:07:52
  Speaker 1: I think that puts you in a better position to
• 1:07:55
  Speaker 1: get shots. And and of course there's other things that
• 1:07:58
  Speaker 1: dear that these deer might do. It might not work
• 1:08:00
  Speaker 1: up just the way you imagine it. But my theory
• 1:08:03
  Speaker 1: is just that if you set up and think about
• 1:08:05
  Speaker 1: those things like it just seems like if you go
• 1:08:07
  Speaker 1: into it thinking, well, he might be here, he might not,
• 1:08:10
  Speaker 1: you start hedging and you start getting lazy, and you
• 1:08:12
  Speaker 1: start doing things because you think like, well, yeah, my
• 1:08:15
  Speaker 1: my wind might blow into this area for a little bit,
• 1:08:18
  Speaker 1: but I don't know if he's there, might be, might not,
• 1:08:21
  Speaker 1: I don't know. Um, But if you go into it
• 1:08:23
  Speaker 1: thinking I'm going to assume it to be truth that
• 1:08:26
  Speaker 1: he is there, so I cannot screw this ship up,
• 1:08:29
  Speaker 1: I think that at least at least for me as
• 1:08:31
  Speaker 1: this is like it's really helped me. I think I
• 1:08:33
  Speaker 1: think the whole point of this is this something that
• 1:08:34
  Speaker 1: I've started doing in my head. It's helped me to
• 1:08:37
  Speaker 1: like to do what we always talk about, which is
• 1:08:40
  Speaker 1: like pay attention to the details, don't cut corners, focus
• 1:08:43
  Speaker 1: on those small little things. When I start changing these
• 1:08:45
  Speaker 1: maybes to like it's true in my mind and saying, hey,
• 1:08:49
  Speaker 1: you gotta operate as if he's right there. You've got
• 1:08:52
  Speaker 1: to operate as if this is gonna happen, just like
• 1:08:54
  Speaker 1: that scenario you're you're hoping happens. You gotta think it's
• 1:08:58
  Speaker 1: it's gonna happen, and so do everything just right for
• 1:09:01
  Speaker 1: that scenario. I think by doing that, it's like kind
• 1:09:05
  Speaker 1: of flipped another switch for me. Um, and so that
• 1:09:09
  Speaker 1: that this is this new thing going on in my head.
• 1:09:11
  Speaker 1: I'm curious to hear, curious to hear if that makes
• 1:09:14
  Speaker 1: sense to other people too, um, And it might be
• 1:09:17
  Speaker 1: something that I'll continue to like talk about through this
• 1:09:19
  Speaker 1: year as I apply it, and maybe we'll see maybe
• 1:09:22
  Speaker 1: now that I'm starting to like articulate it, like put
• 1:09:24
  Speaker 1: this thing. It used to be just what I was doing,
• 1:09:26
  Speaker 1: but now I'm trying to like explain it, and maybe
• 1:09:29
  Speaker 1: as we go into this season, maybe as we try
• 1:09:32
  Speaker 1: to like look at different hunts throughout the year, I
• 1:09:34
  Speaker 1: will talk through this and it might not make sense
• 1:09:36
  Speaker 1: maybe as we get into the rut this coming year
• 1:09:38
  Speaker 1: or whatever. But I'm kind of curious. I'm kind of
• 1:09:40
  Speaker 1: just curious to see what how this actually works, if
• 1:09:44
  Speaker 1: it's something that you know, other people could replicate, if
• 1:09:47
  Speaker 1: it's useful to think about. I think the reason why
• 1:09:51
  Speaker 1: the only reason why I pick a bright up. I'm
• 1:09:53
  Speaker 1: sure you get this too. We get tons of questions
• 1:09:55
  Speaker 1: from people, like tons of questions, like giving you a
• 1:09:58
  Speaker 1: scenario and then asking you what should I do? Where
• 1:10:01
  Speaker 1: should I hunt? Or how should I get into this spot?
• 1:10:04
  Speaker 1: Or you know, what should I do in this scenario?
• 1:10:06
  Speaker 1: Everyone's always wondering what should I do in this scenario?
• 1:10:09
  Speaker 1: What should I do this Saturday when I go in
• 1:10:11
  Speaker 1: for this hunt? And so like, how can we help
• 1:10:14
  Speaker 1: simplify that decision making process or or help like, UM
• 1:10:19
  Speaker 1: put a framework around. There's there's no like decision making
• 1:10:23
  Speaker 1: framework out there for people to help understand how to
• 1:10:26
  Speaker 1: make these decisions. UM. It's always kind of like, well,
• 1:10:29
  Speaker 1: think about all these different things and trust your gut
• 1:10:32
  Speaker 1: and then go do something. UM. I'm just kind of
• 1:10:35
  Speaker 1: curious to myself if there's a way we could like
• 1:10:38
  Speaker 1: put a set of steps in place to help new
• 1:10:40
  Speaker 1: people do it, and this might be this might be
• 1:10:43
  Speaker 1: a way to start doing this. So I don't know,
• 1:10:45
  Speaker 1: I might be I might be sparking up crazy tree here,
• 1:10:49
  Speaker 1: but well, if you got time, I have been thinking
• 1:10:53
  Speaker 1: about somewhat of a methodology. It's a little bit different
• 1:10:57
  Speaker 1: through this year as well. Okay, let's hear do you
• 1:10:59
  Speaker 1: have a long, fancy name for uh It's called the
• 1:11:05
  Speaker 1: Dan Johnson look at dots on a map and play
• 1:11:09
  Speaker 1: connect the dots method to killing big deer that has
• 1:11:12
  Speaker 1: a certain ring to it as well. Now I just
• 1:11:16
  Speaker 1: made that up. I just made that up. Is that
• 1:11:19
  Speaker 1: like a name that has some meaning behind it? Or
• 1:11:21
  Speaker 1: is this just to make you sound dumber than you
• 1:11:23
  Speaker 1: actually are? You know, no, it has meeting. Okay, So
• 1:11:28
  Speaker 1: I always am looking at trail camera data, right, but
• 1:11:32
  Speaker 1: I'm never looking at I'm always looking at a micro
• 1:11:36
  Speaker 1: level like, Okay, this deer showed up at this point,
• 1:11:39
  Speaker 1: but I'm never comparing that to where let's say, and
• 1:11:44
  Speaker 1: I'm just gonna use my buck for example from this year,
• 1:11:47
  Speaker 1: because what made the decision for me to hunt where
• 1:11:52
  Speaker 1: I hunt on that night is because I have trail
• 1:11:55
  Speaker 1: camera data and historical data where I found his shed,
• 1:11:59
  Speaker 1: where I got trail camera pictures of him, and I
• 1:12:01
  Speaker 1: literally hunted right in the middle of that on a
• 1:12:05
  Speaker 1: on a really good terrain feature, and that is where
• 1:12:08
  Speaker 1: I killed this deer. Right, So that opened my mind
• 1:12:12
  Speaker 1: up too. Man, I'm only I'm looking at this almost
• 1:12:15
  Speaker 1: two macro, right, I'm looking at it where only where
• 1:12:20
  Speaker 1: a specific trail camera is and it's the latest intel.
• 1:12:24
  Speaker 1: But what I need to be doing, So what I
• 1:12:26
  Speaker 1: did was I took that information and I transferred it
• 1:12:32
  Speaker 1: over to Gnarly Charlie this year, right and and last year.
• 1:12:38
  Speaker 1: So every trail camera picture I had of Gnarly Charlie
• 1:12:42
  Speaker 1: throughout the entire farm, on this map, I put a dot.
• 1:12:46
  Speaker 1: I put a dot where he was in the summer.
• 1:12:49
  Speaker 1: I put a dot where he was late season, during
• 1:12:52
  Speaker 1: the rut, October, whatever. So I have this these dots.
• 1:12:56
  Speaker 1: Then what I did was I took a line for
• 1:13:00
  Speaker 1: every dot, and I collect I I connected it to
• 1:13:03
  Speaker 1: another line. Right. So now what you have is this shape, right,
• 1:13:09
  Speaker 1: and inside of the shape you have where all these
• 1:13:12
  Speaker 1: lines cross. Right. So it's kind of like when you're
• 1:13:15
  Speaker 1: flying on a plane and there's like the map that
• 1:13:17
  Speaker 1: shows you all the different connecting like from one airport
• 1:13:20
  Speaker 1: to a different airport, you know what I'm talking about.
• 1:13:23
  Speaker 1: So it's kind like that something like that. So now
• 1:13:26
  Speaker 1: you imagine you have like I'm I'm looking at one, two, three, four, five, six,
• 1:13:31
  Speaker 1: I'm looking at six dots on a map. Okay, all
• 1:13:36
  Speaker 1: these lines are connected, there's no there's no shape. Right. Then,
• 1:13:41
  Speaker 1: what I'm doing is where all these lines cross in
• 1:13:44
  Speaker 1: the center. It's kind of like a core area, right,
• 1:13:48
  Speaker 1: and that doesn't mean he's living in that core area
• 1:13:51
  Speaker 1: because but what I'm looking at is I'm looking in
• 1:13:55
  Speaker 1: this area. I'm looking for the main terrain features that
• 1:14:00
  Speaker 1: I feel are conducive to deer movement. Right, So when
• 1:14:05
  Speaker 1: the time comes for me to hunt this deer, I'm
• 1:14:08
  Speaker 1: not going to focus on anything outside of that shape, right,
• 1:14:13
  Speaker 1: because he hasn't shown up. He hasn't shown up ever
• 1:14:16
  Speaker 1: throughout the entire year outside of that on any other
• 1:14:19
  Speaker 1: trail cameras that I have. So I'm gonna now I'm
• 1:14:23
  Speaker 1: bringing it back to a macro level, after I've collected
• 1:14:26
  Speaker 1: all this data over the years, I'm saying that the
• 1:14:30
  Speaker 1: odds of him outside of this area are lower than
• 1:14:34
  Speaker 1: what they are inside of this area. And as you
• 1:14:37
  Speaker 1: get down to where more lines start to cross in theory,
• 1:14:41
  Speaker 1: he's going to be in that area more than the
• 1:14:45
  Speaker 1: other areas. Right. So now I'm looking at the topographic
• 1:14:49
  Speaker 1: map and I'm saying, here is terrain features, here are
• 1:14:53
  Speaker 1: betting areas. Inside of this shape is where I need
• 1:14:58
  Speaker 1: to be focusing on killing. And the this is only
• 1:15:00
  Speaker 1: this only really works for when you're targeting specific bucks. Right,
• 1:15:06
  Speaker 1: You're using this trail camera data to and and applying
• 1:15:09
  Speaker 1: it to the terrain features on a map, and you're
• 1:15:12
  Speaker 1: saying I have the best odds hunting this particular spot.
• 1:15:17
  Speaker 1: And then you go a step further similar to what
• 1:15:19
  Speaker 1: you said. Now you start breaking it down into individual
• 1:15:22
  Speaker 1: scenarios and you say, Okay, on a west wind, I
• 1:15:25
  Speaker 1: need to hunt here. On the east wind, here, south, north, whatever, right,
• 1:15:29
  Speaker 1: or if you're saying that, okay, here here is the
• 1:15:33
  Speaker 1: highest likelihood of where this deer is living, where he's
• 1:15:37
  Speaker 1: traveling throughout the year, I need to find access into
• 1:15:43
  Speaker 1: this particular location for every single wind direction. Right. Sometimes
• 1:15:49
  Speaker 1: it's gonna be harder, sometimes it's gonna be easier. But
• 1:15:53
  Speaker 1: I feel that if you really look at a core area,
• 1:15:57
  Speaker 1: you're gonna know a lot more about this deer. And
• 1:16:00
  Speaker 1: then you start, you know, you start getting into that
• 1:16:03
  Speaker 1: area and hell, maybe he's there, maybe he's not. But
• 1:16:07
  Speaker 1: guess what you hunt in this and your access you
• 1:16:10
  Speaker 1: hunt in that specific area on those specific terrain features
• 1:16:14
  Speaker 1: where deer like to move, you're gonna run into them
• 1:16:17
  Speaker 1: over a period of time. That's that's my thought process.
• 1:16:21
  Speaker 1: I like it, um, I like that, and I love
• 1:16:26
  Speaker 1: this just kind of stuff, these kind of conversations and
• 1:16:30
  Speaker 1: this strategy is I mean, this is why white tails
• 1:16:35
  Speaker 1: just it never gets old from me. Absolutely love this stuff,
• 1:16:39
  Speaker 1: Like I wish you were over here right now. I
• 1:16:41
  Speaker 1: wish we could be looking at a map together, like
• 1:16:42
  Speaker 1: I want to, like I want to see your dots
• 1:16:44
  Speaker 1: on the map and like think through this strategy with you. Yeah.
• 1:16:47
  Speaker 1: The crazy part is is I'm looking at a I'm
• 1:16:52
  Speaker 1: looking at a specific ridge right now on this map
• 1:16:55
  Speaker 1: that I have that I my mouth is literally watering
• 1:17:00
  Speaker 1: to get a stand in it. And I've never thought
• 1:17:02
  Speaker 1: of it before until I started thinking about how do
• 1:17:05
  Speaker 1: you use ridges to bed, how they use you know,
• 1:17:09
  Speaker 1: how they're traveling through this property to food sources. And
• 1:17:13
  Speaker 1: it's one of those things where dude, I'm gonna be
• 1:17:17
  Speaker 1: like if I if I apply, I'm gonna apply this
• 1:17:19
  Speaker 1: method this year to hunt, you know, this year if
• 1:17:23
  Speaker 1: he if he survives, right, if if he shows up
• 1:17:25
  Speaker 1: on trail cameras this year, I have enough data now
• 1:17:27
  Speaker 1: to where I'm just going like, all right here he is,
• 1:17:31
  Speaker 1: let's let's give this a try. I'm looking at this
• 1:17:33
  Speaker 1: one specific ridge where I feel, man, this just like
• 1:17:37
  Speaker 1: I want to get in there right now, you know,
• 1:17:39
  Speaker 1: what I mean, Um, now, what time of year do
• 1:17:42
  Speaker 1: you think about when you think you're gonna start getting
• 1:17:45
  Speaker 1: after him? Because last year I think if I remember,
• 1:17:47
  Speaker 1: you took your first stab at him in like mid
• 1:17:49
  Speaker 1: to late October, is that right? Yes? It was mid
• 1:17:52
  Speaker 1: October UM based off some historical you know it was.
• 1:17:56
  Speaker 1: It was based off one trail cameras historical data. So
• 1:17:59
  Speaker 1: I it back there to that one particular spot, which
• 1:18:04
  Speaker 1: after after I look at that particular spot, right, it's
• 1:18:07
  Speaker 1: outside of that the shape, right, So um, you know,
• 1:18:15
  Speaker 1: maybe he was coming off of a ridge, but maybe
• 1:18:17
  Speaker 1: he wasn't, because that was outside of all the places
• 1:18:21
  Speaker 1: that I got trail camera pictures of him. Right, So
• 1:18:23
  Speaker 1: I went in and if I'm gonna if I'm using
• 1:18:26
  Speaker 1: the new method, I would have never hunt there, hunted there?
• 1:18:29
  Speaker 1: So what are you So you're gonna focus within your
• 1:18:32
  Speaker 1: your core shape that you're building, But what about when
• 1:18:35
  Speaker 1: do you think? Have you have you thought through like
• 1:18:37
  Speaker 1: already the scenario you you envision as as how you're
• 1:18:40
  Speaker 1: gonna take that first StEB Are you gonna look at
• 1:18:42
  Speaker 1: that same date range again? Are you gonna wait for
• 1:18:44
  Speaker 1: weather or are you gonna go just rut focus on him.
• 1:18:48
  Speaker 1: What where's your head at right now? Yeah, it's probably
• 1:18:50
  Speaker 1: gonna be late October this year, just because I'm gonna
• 1:18:53
  Speaker 1: be going on this If if I do go on
• 1:18:56
  Speaker 1: this mule deer hunt, it's gonna be first to one
• 1:18:59
  Speaker 1: of the first weeks of October. So I won't even
• 1:19:03
  Speaker 1: probably step foot on this farm until the third or
• 1:19:07
  Speaker 1: fourth week in October. It's not a bad time to start,
• 1:19:11
  Speaker 1: that's uh, right, when they're getting a little lancy. Yeah, absolutely,
• 1:19:15
  Speaker 1: And uh, I don't know, like you've been thinking about
• 1:19:18
  Speaker 1: your style and it's like I can't get it's isn't
• 1:19:22
  Speaker 1: it crazy that we're trying to You know, a lot
• 1:19:25
  Speaker 1: of guys don't think of hunting as the like in
• 1:19:29
  Speaker 1: depth strategy where you're using, you know, like a scientific
• 1:19:33
  Speaker 1: method to break down like animals, movements and thought processes.
• 1:19:38
  Speaker 1: But you look at you look at all the trails
• 1:19:41
  Speaker 1: that are on your farm. There there for a reason.
• 1:19:44
  Speaker 1: Every footprint is there because that dear feels safe in
• 1:19:49
  Speaker 1: that particular moment, right and that now is great because
• 1:19:54
  Speaker 1: it's wet in the timber and I was out there
• 1:19:57
  Speaker 1: turkey hunting and all I was doing was looking at
• 1:19:59
  Speaker 1: these trails and seeing how they intersect. I would love
• 1:20:03
  Speaker 1: someday if I had some extra time to put on
• 1:20:06
  Speaker 1: my GPS map on on X right and just walk
• 1:20:10
  Speaker 1: these trails through the timber, you know, only going where
• 1:20:14
  Speaker 1: there was a deer trail and looking at that data
• 1:20:18
  Speaker 1: and imagine that data on top of a map of
• 1:20:22
  Speaker 1: what I just said. Holy cow, now you're looking at
• 1:20:26
  Speaker 1: like pitch points. Now you're looking at um like can
• 1:20:30
  Speaker 1: like I would assume that a uh trail down to
• 1:20:33
  Speaker 1: the mud is just a more traveled trail, and then
• 1:20:35
  Speaker 1: you add that to where you found shed antlers and
• 1:20:37
  Speaker 1: you add that to where it kind of gives you
• 1:20:40
  Speaker 1: a heat map of deer activity. Yeah. What you can
• 1:20:43
  Speaker 1: do is you go out there with your dots on
• 1:20:45
  Speaker 1: your map for your where your trailcamera pictures have been
• 1:20:48
  Speaker 1: and either have do this on your map or even better,
• 1:20:51
  Speaker 1: do in person look at those points in the map
• 1:20:54
  Speaker 1: and then try to find on when you're actually there
• 1:20:57
  Speaker 1: on the ground, try to find the trail or the
• 1:20:59
  Speaker 1: best to feature, like how they would how a deer
• 1:21:02
  Speaker 1: would actually get from dot number one to dot number two,
• 1:21:06
  Speaker 1: see the actual find the actual trail or the ridge
• 1:21:09
  Speaker 1: or the pinch point that he would have to go
• 1:21:10
  Speaker 1: through to get between those two and then map that
• 1:21:13
  Speaker 1: so then you have, Okay, here's all the dots where
• 1:21:16
  Speaker 1: I know he actually was. And then here, based on
• 1:21:18
  Speaker 1: what I saw on the ground, are the actual trails
• 1:21:21
  Speaker 1: that get between A and B. Or here's the actual
• 1:21:24
  Speaker 1: pinch points between A and B. And then having all
• 1:21:26
  Speaker 1: that would be then like that next level, we should
• 1:21:29
  Speaker 1: be pretty sweet. I think if we apply. If we
• 1:21:34
  Speaker 1: took that, and then you then, like you described, go
• 1:21:39
  Speaker 1: in there one day, have that perfect scenare in your head,
• 1:21:41
  Speaker 1: take the assumption of what you believe to be true
• 1:21:43
  Speaker 1: based off of all that data, make it a truth
• 1:21:45
  Speaker 1: in your mind. You now have the Dan Johnson dots
• 1:21:48
  Speaker 1: on a map, connecting them to kill a deer, assumption
• 1:21:51
  Speaker 1: to truth deer hunting methodology for two. And there you go.
• 1:21:57
  Speaker 1: You're all set for the year. Man, I feel a
• 1:21:59
  Speaker 1: second coming on Mark. Yeah, that might be the plan.
• 1:22:03
  Speaker 1: It's just it's like, we go so deep. It's like
• 1:22:06
  Speaker 1: a thousand pages. It's like data that people are just like, Okay, man,
• 1:22:11
  Speaker 1: you've literally taken the fun out of deer hunt and
• 1:22:13
  Speaker 1: no one has read it but you and man, oh
• 1:22:16
  Speaker 1: but I would be fun. Um I think that's probably
• 1:22:19
  Speaker 1: good place for us to wrap it up. Man, Um,
• 1:22:22
  Speaker 1: I know you've got stuff to get to, and I
• 1:22:24
  Speaker 1: do want to bring up one email I got um
• 1:22:27
  Speaker 1: really quick before we go. This is just like a
• 1:22:29
  Speaker 1: really nice thing for me to make me feel okay
• 1:22:32
  Speaker 1: about my life and my choices and the way I
• 1:22:34
  Speaker 1: decided to to move forward as a as a young adult. Um.
• 1:22:40
  Speaker 1: This I'm not even gonna name the guy, will just
• 1:22:41
  Speaker 1: call him R. He emailed and he had a whole
• 1:22:44
  Speaker 1: long email about different things he did and how he's
• 1:22:47
  Speaker 1: appreciated the stories we've shared in the podcast and how
• 1:22:49
  Speaker 1: he's learned things and so on and so forth, and
• 1:22:52
  Speaker 1: he ended it by saying, quote, I also had a
• 1:22:55
  Speaker 1: Poopa tech this year in the stand and I had
• 1:22:57
  Speaker 1: a good chuckle with your stories as I can relate
• 1:22:59
  Speaker 1: how over comma mine did not end as cleanly as yours.
• 1:23:07
  Speaker 1: I hope that. I hope he puts that out. If
• 1:23:09
  Speaker 1: he's listening, please go to itune and leave that as
• 1:23:11
  Speaker 1: a reveal. Oh yeah, so with that, my buddy, Uh,
• 1:23:18
  Speaker 1: let's uh, let's wrap it up. Thanks for thanks for
• 1:23:20
  Speaker 1: jumping on. Man. Absolutely talk to there and that will
• 1:23:25
  Speaker 1: do it for to his episode. Appreciate your listening. Hope
• 1:23:27
  Speaker 1: you enjoyed our little BS session here. It is good
• 1:23:30
  Speaker 1: for Danna to get to catch up and hopefully feel
• 1:23:32
  Speaker 1: you guys in a little bit on what is going
• 1:23:34
  Speaker 1: on in our lives as we head into the summer,
• 1:23:38
  Speaker 1: hopefully someday here soon. It feels like we just went
• 1:23:40
  Speaker 1: from winter straight into the end of spring, but I'm
• 1:23:44
  Speaker 1: ready for all the great things that late spring and
• 1:23:46
  Speaker 1: summer and tail. Obviously, from what you just first discussed,
• 1:23:49
  Speaker 1: you know that we're already thinking a whole lot about
• 1:23:51
  Speaker 1: deer hunting season and everything that comes with that too.
• 1:23:54
  Speaker 1: So thanks again and until next time, stay wired to
• 1:23:59
  Speaker 1: hunt to dat out of Gun.