Latest / Wired To Hunt Podcast / Wired To Hunt Podcast #157: The Mystery Package & Listener Q&A (Trailcams, Habitat Work, Predators and more)

Transcript

Wired To Hunt Podcast #157: The Mystery Package & Listener Q&A (Trailcams, Habitat Work, Predators and more) · 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,
0:11
Speaker 1: Mark Kenyon. Welcome to the Wire to Hunt podcast. I'm
0:16
Speaker 1: your host, Mark Kenyan. This episode number one tay the show.
0:21
Speaker 1: We're answering listeners so many questions about trail cams, out
0:24
Speaker 1: of state, hunt's predator management, habitat improvements, and much much more.
0:29
Speaker 1: And on top of that, we're opening the much anticipated
0:32
Speaker 1: mystery package. Welcome to the Wire to Hunt podcast, brought
0:50
Speaker 1: to you by Sick Gear and UH. I think today
0:53
Speaker 1: is going to be a fun episode for a couple
0:56
Speaker 1: of reasons. First off, for most of the show, it's
0:59
Speaker 1: just gonna me and Dan, and we are going to
1:01
Speaker 1: be answering listener questions. As I've said a couple of
1:06
Speaker 1: times on some past episodes, I'm pretty horrible at keeping
1:08
Speaker 1: up on emails and Facebook questions, and I feel awful
1:12
Speaker 1: about that, leaving people hanging without response. So I apologize
1:16
Speaker 1: to any of you out there who are wondering about that.
1:18
Speaker 1: And today, hopefully we can turn through a handful of
1:21
Speaker 1: those emails and questions and get you answers to a
1:24
Speaker 1: number of different interesting deer and hunting really questions, So
1:28
Speaker 1: I think that'll be good. Um. Some of the topics
1:31
Speaker 1: in these questions include planning out of state hunts and
1:35
Speaker 1: application strategies, how to be smart about checking and maintaining
1:38
Speaker 1: trail cameras, UM, finding hunting partners, some stuff about our
1:43
Speaker 1: camouflage and gear, habitat improvements, public land vacation ideas, and
1:49
Speaker 1: a bunch more. So. I think that's gonna be some
1:51
Speaker 1: good stuff, Dan. But before we get to that, we
1:54
Speaker 1: have got the moment that we've all been waiting for,
1:59
Speaker 1: or at least I've really been waiting for. It's it's
2:03
Speaker 1: time to open the mystery package Dan, that you've been
2:05
Speaker 1: building up for weeks now. Um, and for anyone who's
2:10
Speaker 1: who hasn't been listening. A few weeks ago, you know,
2:12
Speaker 1: you told me that you were going to send me something,
2:15
Speaker 1: but I had to open that package on air. So
2:18
Speaker 1: the package arrived yesterday, I think. Um, so we're about
2:23
Speaker 1: to open this thing find out what it is. But
2:26
Speaker 1: before before we get into that, I need to know
2:28
Speaker 1: like a little bit of backstory, like as much as
2:30
Speaker 1: you can tell me without No, that's not how it works.
2:34
Speaker 1: It is. I asked, I ask you what do you
2:38
Speaker 1: think it is? My first guest is one of your children,
2:43
Speaker 1: but too small and it hasn't moved and hasn't made
2:47
Speaker 1: a noise. Um, I don't know. I've had a lot
2:51
Speaker 1: of people ask me. Kylie was asking me. I have
2:53
Speaker 1: no clue at all. I thought I thought maybe I
2:58
Speaker 1: tried to sit down and think through like all of
3:00
Speaker 1: our past conversations were like you've told me like I
3:02
Speaker 1: need to do something. Um, you know, like you should
3:05
Speaker 1: use your trail cameras differently, or you should be more
3:08
Speaker 1: mobile or something like that. So I'm like, Okay, is
3:10
Speaker 1: he gonna give me like a tool that's gonna help
3:12
Speaker 1: me do that? Um? Then I had the idea I
3:16
Speaker 1: was hoping. What I'm hoping is in the box is
3:18
Speaker 1: a plane ticket for you to Michigan in November, and
3:22
Speaker 1: you're gonna tell me they're gonna hunt the rut in Michigan.
3:25
Speaker 1: That's what I'm hoping. So it's a surprise to you
3:29
Speaker 1: for me to come to Michigan. Yeah, Uh, it's not that.
3:39
Speaker 1: Um what else people have Someone guessed it might be
3:42
Speaker 1: your tent finger. Um, I don't think that's it. If
3:46
Speaker 1: I if I knew where it was at these days,
3:48
Speaker 1: I'd put it on my like I'm hanging on my wall.
3:54
Speaker 1: Oh man, someone, this is funny. Um earmuffs to the
3:58
Speaker 1: children out there. Um. Someone told me that they think
4:01
Speaker 1: it might be a set of T shirts and hats
4:03
Speaker 1: that just says Boner City on it. Uh. What of
4:12
Speaker 1: all the names I have ever given deer and anybody's
4:16
Speaker 1: ever given dear, I think that could be the best
4:20
Speaker 1: possible dear name ever ever. I think it. I think
4:25
Speaker 1: it definitely could be. Unfortunately, dear disappeared. I wish that.
4:30
Speaker 1: What would I have done? Though? That became like the
4:32
Speaker 1: deer I hunted for like three or four years, and
4:34
Speaker 1: we had to talk about that every single day. You
4:37
Speaker 1: you know, you're making comments on some of your partners,
4:40
Speaker 1: uh social media, they're like, you know, the big some
4:43
Speaker 1: big time. Hey join us today. As Mark Kenyon discusses
4:48
Speaker 1: his search for a deer he's been hunting for several years,
4:52
Speaker 1: Boner City. I just don't think it go over well.
4:57
Speaker 1: Uh here's another someone else says, a box of eye
5:00
Speaker 1: of preference points. I like that idea. Um. Someone warned
5:05
Speaker 1: me it might be a glitter bomb, but I don't
5:09
Speaker 1: think it would be because for the listeners out there
5:12
Speaker 1: before I did this, he called Dan called me yesterday
5:15
Speaker 1: and said that I should actually have my wife helped
5:17
Speaker 1: me open it first, because there's like some really serious
5:21
Speaker 1: intense packaging that she should like make the process faster
5:24
Speaker 1: for me. Um. So, I don't think you would have
5:26
Speaker 1: told me to have that happen and then have her
5:29
Speaker 1: open the glitter bomb, right, So it's I did this
5:32
Speaker 1: whole build up just to get your wife, you know,
5:37
Speaker 1: Like what a way to ruin any type of connection
5:40
Speaker 1: me and you would ever happen by crapping on your wife.
5:46
Speaker 1: So I don't know, these are none of these seem
5:48
Speaker 1: to be the right answer. I have no idea what
5:51
Speaker 1: it is. Um, I hope I don't let anybody down.
5:54
Speaker 1: I think you're gonna let everybody down. It's probably not
5:57
Speaker 1: as cool as what everybody you know. It's like, oh,
6:00
Speaker 1: I wonder what he's gonna get him. Is he gonna
6:02
Speaker 1: be like a human body part? That would be so cool.
6:05
Speaker 1: It's like, uh, come on, let's be realistic. It's not
6:08
Speaker 1: a human body part. So is this is this what
6:11
Speaker 1: you consider this like a gift? Or is this something
6:14
Speaker 1: that would not be considered a gift, like this is
6:16
Speaker 1: just like a thing. It's a thing. I guess it
6:20
Speaker 1: just I don't know. I'll answer that question after you
6:23
Speaker 1: open it. Okay. Another question for you, is this like Christmas?
6:28
Speaker 1: Where like when I opened the gift, even if I
6:30
Speaker 1: don't like it, I need to pretend like I like
6:32
Speaker 1: it and like I'll be able to tell about your like,
6:36
Speaker 1: oh Dan, thanks, this is awesome. I'm gonna put it
6:40
Speaker 1: in my closet behind all my other ship. I don't uh,
6:46
Speaker 1: well should we just should we get just get over? Okay.
6:50
Speaker 1: So here's the box and there's if you can hear that,
6:53
Speaker 1: it's not very like indicative of anything. There's not rattling parts.
6:58
Speaker 1: It's just like a thud. So I've got my scissors
7:03
Speaker 1: and I got my hunting knife here, and we're gonna
7:06
Speaker 1: do this, all right, all right, all right, you're gonna
7:09
Speaker 1: bear with me because I didn't have my wife help
7:11
Speaker 1: out and get this arny presets. So, and I'm gonna
7:15
Speaker 1: give a little insight real quick while you're opening this up.
7:19
Speaker 1: Just so there's not a lot of dead air. Perfect.
7:21
Speaker 1: But it took me one two three days worth of communication,
7:33
Speaker 1: one reschedule, and one day to get it and then
7:39
Speaker 1: a day of shipping, So there's like a week of
7:41
Speaker 1: work that went into this. This is like the most
7:43
Speaker 1: absurd packaging he's got a there's a brown carbon box, obviously,
7:50
Speaker 1: and then there's bubble wrap, and then inside the bubble
7:56
Speaker 1: wrap is a blanket. And inside the bull there's a
8:02
Speaker 1: blanket tied up in duct tape. Electrical tape. Dude, this
8:10
Speaker 1: is uh like I have some in I have a
8:13
Speaker 1: little bit of an inkling of what might be in
8:15
Speaker 1: here based on some stuff and feeling, and I'm I'm excited.
8:23
Speaker 1: I'm excited to better understand it. Can I cut through
8:25
Speaker 1: this blanket? Yes? You can. I don't need it back,
8:30
Speaker 1: not like your child's favorite blanket. He can you keep
8:33
Speaker 1: that tape? See the tape? Dude? What is this? Oh
8:38
Speaker 1: my gosh, you were right? This is some serious packaging.
8:43
Speaker 1: What what? What? What am I looking at here? I'm
8:45
Speaker 1: looking at a set of antlers? Yeah, and I'm trying
8:52
Speaker 1: to better understand. Am I looking at the antlers of
8:54
Speaker 1: a deer? I know? Yeah? How did you get this? Dan? This?
9:03
Speaker 1: This is the match set from Mark Kenyon. That is
9:06
Speaker 1: the match set from Mark Kenyon. Oh my gosh, look
9:16
Speaker 1: up at your look up at your shed that you
9:19
Speaker 1: currently have a him. All right, hold on, I'm still
9:21
Speaker 1: trying to saw this sucker open so I can get
9:23
Speaker 1: it all up. But that's in the other room. Okay,
9:28
Speaker 1: But this is the coolest. Are you gonna let me keep? Yeah,
9:33
Speaker 1: to send him back unless I kill that buck who
9:36
Speaker 1: shows up, you know, three years later. This is insane.
9:40
Speaker 1: I can't even like, thank you. Yeah, no worries, dude,
9:46
Speaker 1: this is awesome. When are this from two thou that
9:52
Speaker 1: was the last year. Well, he was alive in the
9:58
Speaker 1: They found him in the in the spring of two thousand.
10:02
Speaker 1: They were found in the spring of two thousand fifteen
10:05
Speaker 1: March two thousand fifteen or February. Then he grew one
10:09
Speaker 1: more set of antlers, and then he disappeared after that.
10:14
Speaker 1: After that year, I have no inclination of where he went,
10:19
Speaker 1: where he's where he was living. Um. Actually, two thousand
10:23
Speaker 1: and fifteen and two thousand and sixteen, Uh, those those
10:27
Speaker 1: years I put out more trail cameras than I have
10:30
Speaker 1: ever had before. And uh, he's very recognizable. He and
10:34
Speaker 1: if he was on any of the properties that I
10:37
Speaker 1: was hunting, he would have he would have got caught
10:39
Speaker 1: on trail camera, and I think either disease got him
10:43
Speaker 1: or somebody killed him on a different farm, which you
10:46
Speaker 1: would think he blew up even bigger than That's that
10:50
Speaker 1: shed antlers or set of antlers right there. Dude, These
10:53
Speaker 1: are awesome and it's so unbelievably similar to the shut
10:57
Speaker 1: I found m So, so for anyone who's new to
11:00
Speaker 1: the podcast, let's give him the back store here. This
11:04
Speaker 1: is I think, what did we go shed hunting? Did
11:09
Speaker 1: I find the Mark Kenyon shed? Our first shed hunting
11:11
Speaker 1: trip together? Was our second shed hunting trip together, I
11:14
Speaker 1: think it was. It was the first one that was
11:16
Speaker 1: just me and you, and that would have been two
11:18
Speaker 1: thousand and right, Yeah, pretty sure. So that, interestingly enough,
11:27
Speaker 1: was the shed hunting trip. But we discussed you joining
11:30
Speaker 1: me as a co host on this podcast. Absolutely it was.
11:34
Speaker 1: And I found this shed. It was my biggest shed
11:37
Speaker 1: that I had ever found before on your farm, and
11:40
Speaker 1: you let me keep it, and you name that buck
11:43
Speaker 1: Mark Kenyon, And that was a deer like you just said.
11:46
Speaker 1: You followed for for a while after that. Yeah, so
11:50
Speaker 1: there was the set of antlers that you have. I
11:53
Speaker 1: followed him this year, um got him on trail camera
11:57
Speaker 1: a couple of times, only nocturnal in two thousand and
11:59
Speaker 1: fifth teen the second year or two thousand and sixteen,
12:05
Speaker 1: when he when those antlers would have been lost no.
12:09
Speaker 1: Eight two thousand and fall of two thousand and fifteen,
12:12
Speaker 1: he would have grown his biggest set ever. I forget
12:16
Speaker 1: we're one year behind, so um two thousand and Uh
12:20
Speaker 1: it had been fall of two thousand and fifteen would
12:23
Speaker 1: have been when he would have grown his biggest rack
12:25
Speaker 1: that I've ever seen, probably one eighty class dear and
12:29
Speaker 1: uh he that's when he disappeared. But yeah, it was
12:33
Speaker 1: two thousand and fourteen when you found his his shed
12:37
Speaker 1: on the shed hunting trip, that it was just me
12:40
Speaker 1: and you, and that was I freaked out by far.
12:44
Speaker 1: That's still the biggest shed I've ever found, such a
12:47
Speaker 1: nice shed. And so many times I just pick up
12:49
Speaker 1: that antler and like holding my hands and spin it
12:51
Speaker 1: around the circle and I cannot believe I am holding
12:57
Speaker 1: a match set of his I and not This is
13:00
Speaker 1: this is you did not let me down. This is
13:03
Speaker 1: this is way cooler than you're sending me one of
13:05
Speaker 1: your kids, like dead Cat or something like that. Yeah, man,
13:10
Speaker 1: look at the G two on his right side. It
13:13
Speaker 1: is nuts in the mass. Yeah. Wow. Well for everyone listening,
13:19
Speaker 1: I'll obviously post pictures of this so you can take
13:22
Speaker 1: a look at these. But did you have to like
13:25
Speaker 1: sell your soul or do something inappropriate to get these? No? Uh,
13:30
Speaker 1: I went in on a favor, um, and my wife
13:34
Speaker 1: had to make some baby clothing, so there was a
13:38
Speaker 1: little uh they were gonna give them to me anyway,
13:42
Speaker 1: but I gave some baby clothing as well, like it
13:46
Speaker 1: just kind of as a But the people who gave
13:49
Speaker 1: them to me are really really nice individuals. Um, they
13:54
Speaker 1: had no problem giving them up, and uh went over there,
13:58
Speaker 1: had a good conversation with him. They knew it was
14:02
Speaker 1: for a gift, and they just wanted me to pass
14:03
Speaker 1: on them, you know, the message to you as well
14:06
Speaker 1: as hopefully like them. So dude, that's awesome. That is
14:09
Speaker 1: so cool. That was so nice of them to give
14:11
Speaker 1: these up. And oh, I'm just like in shed shock
14:18
Speaker 1: right now, man, so cool. These are such sweet, sweet sheds.
14:22
Speaker 1: I think on the actual antler, there should be a
14:25
Speaker 1: date where when they found him one. I saw that
14:31
Speaker 1: they found this on February two thousand fifteen. Yep. Wow,
14:38
Speaker 1: that is sweet. So now, of all the history that
14:45
Speaker 1: other than other than sightings, I don't think anybody ever
14:50
Speaker 1: saw him from the tree stand other than trail camera pictures. Right,
14:54
Speaker 1: I never saw him. They never the neighbors never saw him,
14:57
Speaker 1: um from from the tree stand. I'm I don't. I
15:01
Speaker 1: didn't hear of any other hunters in the area talking
15:04
Speaker 1: about him. So, as far as history is concerned and
15:08
Speaker 1: shed antlers, unless someone else has something that I don't know,
15:12
Speaker 1: you have all to my knowledge, you have all the
15:15
Speaker 1: history of the mark Kenyan buck. That is pretty freaking cool.
15:20
Speaker 1: That is pretty darn cool, man. I am tickled with this.
15:24
Speaker 1: Thank you dude. So cool. They are awesome sheds. Oh
15:27
Speaker 1: my gosh, so awesome character. Right, yeah, so you describe that,
15:33
Speaker 1: you describe them. So we got both sides. Obviously, the
15:35
Speaker 1: right side has got two big kickers right out of
15:38
Speaker 1: the bases, like three cores of an inch and inch long,
15:41
Speaker 1: and then you come up the brow tign it's like
15:43
Speaker 1: a six inch brow tin with two flyers off. It's
15:46
Speaker 1: kind of a big deep split and then a little
15:48
Speaker 1: flyer off the bottom of the brow time and then
15:51
Speaker 1: the G two is like, oh, I don't know, twelve
15:53
Speaker 1: inches long maybe longer with a kicker off the front
15:58
Speaker 1: and it's kind of bladed. And then the G three
16:00
Speaker 1: is another like eleven inches or something, and then a
16:03
Speaker 1: small G four, but that end of the main beam
16:06
Speaker 1: like kind of blades out, um, which is sweet. And
16:09
Speaker 1: on the left side he's got two stickers out of
16:12
Speaker 1: the base again he's got another deep split in the brow.
16:14
Speaker 1: Time he's got the same tall G two, but it's
16:18
Speaker 1: got a deeper split on it. Awesome, crazy mass on
16:23
Speaker 1: this side, his main beam at the end is like,
16:27
Speaker 1: I don't know, huge mass, and it's broken off to
16:30
Speaker 1: it's broken off, you know. Now, wasn't he broken off
16:34
Speaker 1: on the side I have too? I don't think. I
16:37
Speaker 1: don't think he was broken off on the side you have.
16:39
Speaker 1: I feel like there was a break somewhere. I should
16:41
Speaker 1: go look at the ship. It's in my it's in
16:43
Speaker 1: the room next door. Um man, super duper cool man.
16:48
Speaker 1: So if you were to guess on a score of
16:51
Speaker 1: a gross score of what you're holding in your hands
16:53
Speaker 1: right now, what would you what would you think? Oh,
16:56
Speaker 1: my gosh, this is tough because how much junk he's got.
16:59
Speaker 1: But he's the main frame nine. I guess, right, Yeah,
17:04
Speaker 1: I think I think one point was broken off at
17:07
Speaker 1: the end of the best end. So let's say he's
17:09
Speaker 1: a ten mainframe ten with with junk mainframe ten with
17:13
Speaker 1: all sorts of junk. Uh probab boys. I mean, he's
17:20
Speaker 1: not as white as you think. So I'm guessing mid
17:23
Speaker 1: one fifties to low one sixties. Oh I was going
17:26
Speaker 1: to give him more than that. Yeah, yeah, because that
17:29
Speaker 1: his twos and threes are so long, He's got so
17:32
Speaker 1: many splits all the all these extra time. I'm putting
17:35
Speaker 1: him at high one sixties to really, I think. So
17:39
Speaker 1: I also suck at judging deer. So what you should
17:45
Speaker 1: do is, okay, well you measured. We measured that one antler, right,
17:49
Speaker 1: it was like six inches almost exactly right. It was
17:52
Speaker 1: like sixty four and seven eighths or something like that. Yeah,
17:55
Speaker 1: So what you should do is when you post a
17:57
Speaker 1: picture or maybe have a listener or get a guess,
18:01
Speaker 1: so like post the pictures from different angles, uh, and
18:05
Speaker 1: maybe I'll try to find a trail camp pick and
18:07
Speaker 1: you can post there is what posted with that as well,
18:10
Speaker 1: and then we'll get a gas and then you can
18:11
Speaker 1: measure the sheds for us. I think that's a cool idea.
18:14
Speaker 1: I think it's gonna be big. I think it's gonna
18:16
Speaker 1: be a higher score because it's just all that that
18:18
Speaker 1: stuff adds up. He's got such good mass, good time length,
18:22
Speaker 1: what a buck that is super cool? Man, Well, jeez,
18:28
Speaker 1: I owe you now, No, man, that's just uh, I
18:32
Speaker 1: don't know. That's a kind of a hunting buddy thing,
18:34
Speaker 1: you know. It's just something that I that they they
18:39
Speaker 1: could sit on my wall with all my other antlers.
18:43
Speaker 1: But I knew it would mean probably it would probably
18:45
Speaker 1: mean more to you than it would to me. So
18:48
Speaker 1: I figured, Hey, what the hell I'm gonna ask them,
18:51
Speaker 1: uh if you know, if they want to come up,
18:56
Speaker 1: come off of them, and they, you know, generously did,
18:59
Speaker 1: and um, you know that's uh your namesake, So I
19:04
Speaker 1: figured give it to you. Man, I got a I
19:06
Speaker 1: got a wall full of sheds anyway, and um, I
19:09
Speaker 1: just need to go now. If I found those sheds,
19:12
Speaker 1: that might have been a different story, right, definitely, But
19:17
Speaker 1: I don't know. I don't know if my buddy Ryan
19:21
Speaker 1: listens to a lot of podcasts, but one one shed
19:24
Speaker 1: hunt we went on. He found two years of the
19:28
Speaker 1: same match, two match sets of the same exact Buck,
19:34
Speaker 1: Um I called, and then I called that buck Ryan
19:36
Speaker 1: Iberg and I have a match set from that Buck
19:40
Speaker 1: as well, and I think I'm gonna give those antlers
19:43
Speaker 1: or those sheds to him. That's pretty cool. So you're
19:47
Speaker 1: like the shed Santa. You're the best Santa class I've
19:52
Speaker 1: ever met. So yeah, I mean, um, those you know,
20:00
Speaker 1: you'll have to find a good good spot for them,
20:02
Speaker 1: and uh take some pictures and show everybody. Heck, yeah,
20:06
Speaker 1: this is the man. The three biggest sheds in my
20:09
Speaker 1: home now are all from your place. Dance. I appreciate it.
20:14
Speaker 1: That's awesome, man, I'm stoked. I'm just gonna sit here
20:19
Speaker 1: and like roll them around my hands for the next
20:21
Speaker 1: hour probably, But I guess that would make for a
20:24
Speaker 1: very interesting podcast if I just sit here silently look
20:28
Speaker 1: at that. No one can see what you already That's
20:32
Speaker 1: exactly what they're thinging like. God, I wish I could
20:34
Speaker 1: see them. This is the most boring thing. So wow,
20:37
Speaker 1: So what while I while I stare at these antlers
20:40
Speaker 1: for a while more, what's new with you? Have you
20:42
Speaker 1: any anything new in your world? Deer hunting? We got
20:45
Speaker 1: I figured we can talk a little bit and catch
20:47
Speaker 1: up a little bit on what's new with our dear stuff.
20:49
Speaker 1: I have some updates, uh, and then we can get
20:52
Speaker 1: to those questions. Yeah, absolutely, I mean other than gear stuff,
20:56
Speaker 1: right I. Uh the other day I got some newt
21:00
Speaker 1: re stands in. I put those together, um, and UH
21:04
Speaker 1: got those situated for the next hang. Uh. I went
21:08
Speaker 1: through some of my old stuff. I inspected the cables,
21:11
Speaker 1: I inspected the straps, and um. Looking forward to you know,
21:16
Speaker 1: to be honest, Father's Day. This last Sunday was like
21:19
Speaker 1: the highest seventy five in Iowa would have been the
21:22
Speaker 1: absolute perfect day to go hanging stands, but uh, of
21:28
Speaker 1: course I didn't. And so now I gotta wait probably
21:30
Speaker 1: till July when it's gonna be like out. I'm getting
21:34
Speaker 1: ready to pass out. But a gear, you know, just
21:36
Speaker 1: a lot of looking at gear. UM. I actually made
21:39
Speaker 1: a list of you know, running through my equipment, making
21:43
Speaker 1: a list of some of the stuff that I need
21:45
Speaker 1: to pick up before the season starts or actually in
21:47
Speaker 1: the near future. And um, and then ended up you know,
21:52
Speaker 1: just starting to shoot my bow, tweak it, get it
21:54
Speaker 1: where I want. Uh, I want to have it. And uh,
21:59
Speaker 1: it's just you know, one day closer I started really.
22:03
Speaker 1: I haven't done any selfies to prove it yet, but
22:07
Speaker 1: it didn't happen then, yeah, exactly. So I've been I've
22:10
Speaker 1: been focusing on my leg strength, in my leg conditioning,
22:13
Speaker 1: um uh, working out, you know, getting ready for um
22:18
Speaker 1: elk hunt. In this elk hunt that um I'm gonna
22:21
Speaker 1: be going on potentially going on, depending on how the
22:25
Speaker 1: when the kid and what Sarah's feeling like early September,
22:29
Speaker 1: but uh, it's gonna be like two thousand feet higher
22:34
Speaker 1: than what we were in Idaho. Yeah, we're gonna be
22:37
Speaker 1: in some some tall stuff in Colorado. So I need
22:41
Speaker 1: to get my conditioning on point and uh make sure
22:45
Speaker 1: that that is that goes well. I need to make
22:48
Speaker 1: sure I have some gear for that trip as as well.
22:50
Speaker 1: But you know every oh by the way, one of
22:55
Speaker 1: the I'm in no no uh uh way affiliated with
23:01
Speaker 1: this company, but I bought this pack right from a
23:05
Speaker 1: company called Outdoorsman, and there's a weight you can put
23:09
Speaker 1: like a weightlifting plate on it. It has an attachment,
23:12
Speaker 1: So I'm going to use that as my pack. But
23:14
Speaker 1: there's an attachment that comes with with it that you
23:16
Speaker 1: can put weightlifting plates on. And I already had weightlifting plates.
23:19
Speaker 1: So it was kind of an impulse by but it's
23:22
Speaker 1: really cool way to load down a pack with some
23:26
Speaker 1: dead weight um and just go for walks. Yeah, that's
23:29
Speaker 1: kind of nice, rather than have to stuffyr regular pack
23:31
Speaker 1: full of a thousand different things to try to get
23:33
Speaker 1: to that heavy weight right. Right, So you what's up?
23:38
Speaker 1: Food plots done? Oh no, they're kind of in maintenance
23:42
Speaker 1: mode now. There's just so much stuff that's gotta be done.
23:45
Speaker 1: Um later still in the summer. You gotta weight to
23:47
Speaker 1: plant stuff. But I think last time we talked, I
23:51
Speaker 1: had already sprayed everything and I planted the food plus greens,
23:54
Speaker 1: right we talked about that. Um, So now I'm just
23:57
Speaker 1: kind of weight mode. UM. I went out and checked
24:00
Speaker 1: the food plot. Screens aren't coming in as well as
24:02
Speaker 1: I was hoping they would, UM, at least not in
24:05
Speaker 1: the I made like the front food plot. A lot
24:07
Speaker 1: of weak growth um is popping up already, and not
24:11
Speaker 1: a ton of the wheat Egyptian weeder sorghum seems to
24:14
Speaker 1: have germinated. So I'm a little bit concerned. I'm hoping
24:17
Speaker 1: maybe it's just slow going UM, but I'm a little
24:22
Speaker 1: concerned about that. So we'll see that's tbd. UM. But
24:27
Speaker 1: I did, uh, I did finish putting in one of
24:29
Speaker 1: my water holes. So I got a water hole put
24:31
Speaker 1: in there now in the front food plat system. So
24:34
Speaker 1: is that just like a cattle tank buried yep, just
24:37
Speaker 1: a big forty gallon tank that I bought. Buried it
24:40
Speaker 1: up to the top in a low spot, so hopefully
24:42
Speaker 1: when it rains and stuff, it'll catch run off and
24:45
Speaker 1: stay somewhat filled. Um. And then just put a stick
24:48
Speaker 1: in it just in case of mouse or something climbs
24:50
Speaker 1: in there and they can get out. So that's in there,
24:53
Speaker 1: and I put a trail camera over it, so we'll
24:55
Speaker 1: see if it's getting any action. I haven't checked that
24:59
Speaker 1: camera yet, so um maybe soon. UM. So basically that's
25:03
Speaker 1: the latest I didn't Michigan put out a couple of
25:05
Speaker 1: trail cameras put in that water hole. And I put
25:08
Speaker 1: that water hole. You know, like we talked a few
25:09
Speaker 1: weeks ago about how I'm just trying to continue to
25:11
Speaker 1: sweeten the pot as best as I can at some
25:14
Speaker 1: of these best tree stand locations. Um. So you know
25:18
Speaker 1: this has already got a food plot there. I'm already
25:20
Speaker 1: doing things to increase the cover around it. Um, I'm
25:23
Speaker 1: putting this water hole, and then I'm gonna move I
25:26
Speaker 1: put in a fake scrape tree in this plot last year.
25:28
Speaker 1: I'm gonna move it now over to the the east
25:33
Speaker 1: side of the food plot now a little bit closer
25:35
Speaker 1: to the edge. Um. And then also, like we talked
25:38
Speaker 1: about a month ago, I also UM, when I sprayed
25:42
Speaker 1: the food plots this year, I I kind of shifted
25:43
Speaker 1: the food plot over like we talked about. So now
25:46
Speaker 1: there's like a forty yards strip on the right hand
25:49
Speaker 1: side that used to be food plot, and you know,
25:52
Speaker 1: seven inch tall vegetation that's now growing up in the
25:55
Speaker 1: thick weeds and brambles and stuff like that. Um. So
25:59
Speaker 1: hopefully that's gonna me and these deer are gonna feel
26:01
Speaker 1: a little more comfortable coming over to my side of
26:03
Speaker 1: the line and getting close to where I can shoot them,
26:06
Speaker 1: coming into that scrape tree or to the water hole
26:09
Speaker 1: or to the food I'm just trying to incentivize any
26:11
Speaker 1: way to get these deer where I need them. So
26:15
Speaker 1: I got that stuff kind of ready to rock and
26:16
Speaker 1: roll up front, and then UM, I'm gonna just spray
26:19
Speaker 1: it again here probably in a few weeks because there's
26:22
Speaker 1: new weeds growing already. Um. And then after that it'll
26:25
Speaker 1: be it'll be planning time in August. So that was Michigan.
26:28
Speaker 1: I went to Ohio. Um, I guess it would have
26:32
Speaker 1: been last week Monday. Me and Josh went down there. Um,
26:36
Speaker 1: well it was last weekend, I guess two weeks, a
26:39
Speaker 1: week and a half ago whatever. During the weekend, UM,
26:42
Speaker 1: and we just did a lot of like the little
26:44
Speaker 1: fine tuning type stuff that you know I've been doing
26:47
Speaker 1: a lot of this year. Hit a couple of different
26:49
Speaker 1: tree stands, trimmed out new lanes or just kind of
26:52
Speaker 1: fixed up any spots where we needed it. We added
26:54
Speaker 1: some cover to a couple of tree stands, just cutting limbs,
26:56
Speaker 1: sticking them in, um, like the grid of the tree
27:00
Speaker 1: stand base, different stuff like that, just to add a
27:02
Speaker 1: little bit more um and wet. We put three trial
27:05
Speaker 1: cameras up, put out some mineral forum and now we're
27:08
Speaker 1: just gonna patiently wait on those. So Ohio was kind
27:12
Speaker 1: of done. Josh was gonna go back one more time
27:14
Speaker 1: in the summer while I'm out west, and he's gonna
27:16
Speaker 1: check the cameras and um double check one war or
27:19
Speaker 1: two more tree stands, but now just a waiting game
27:22
Speaker 1: for that spot. Um, so we'll see. That's Ohio, Michigan.
27:26
Speaker 1: I've got a lot more more tree stand prep on
27:28
Speaker 1: some other places. I want to do some more scout
27:30
Speaker 1: in that public land we talked about. I gotta go
27:33
Speaker 1: back up north to do some more work on our
27:35
Speaker 1: food plot and some tree stands up there. Oh and uh,
27:40
Speaker 1: I want to try somehow sneaking a trip to Iowa
27:42
Speaker 1: because I did apply for my Did I tell you
27:44
Speaker 1: that I applied for my Iowa tag this year? Yeah?
27:46
Speaker 1: I don't think you told. You told the listeners, but
27:49
Speaker 1: you told me. Yeah. Yeah, So hopefully gonna draw that
27:53
Speaker 1: and I'm gonna try squeezing some hunts there. So that's
27:56
Speaker 1: kind of my spots. Yeah, busy and then last es
28:00
Speaker 1: go ahead. I was gonna say then last night I
28:02
Speaker 1: was just sitting looking at maps all night at like
28:04
Speaker 1: North Dakota because I'm gonna try to hit Montana first
28:07
Speaker 1: and then go to North Dakota after that if I
28:10
Speaker 1: filed my Montana tag. So looking at a bunch of
28:12
Speaker 1: public land there and brainstorming and thinking through all that,
28:16
Speaker 1: so slowly the pieces are coming together. So you're talking about,
28:21
Speaker 1: So where all are you hunting this year? Montana, possibly
28:25
Speaker 1: North Dakota, possibly Iowa, Ohio, and Michigan. That's correct, Yeah, yeah, wow, buddy. Yeah.
28:33
Speaker 1: But I mean two of those trips Montana North Dakota
28:36
Speaker 1: will be in early September, you know, and I'm just
28:39
Speaker 1: tacking that on to the end of my regular time
28:41
Speaker 1: out there. Um. And so then for the majority of
28:44
Speaker 1: the regular season, you know, October through January or whatever,
28:48
Speaker 1: I'll just be bouncing between Michigan, Ohio, and Iowa. Um.
28:52
Speaker 1: And I'm thinking, Um, I don't I'm not exactly sure
28:55
Speaker 1: how I'm gonna balance that yet, but you know, I'm
28:57
Speaker 1: gonna I'm probably gonna prioritize Michigan d in the time
29:00
Speaker 1: frames that I think holy Field is going to be active. Um.
29:03
Speaker 1: And then only if I've already killed him or if
29:06
Speaker 1: he's gone, then would I travel to Ohio or Iowa
29:09
Speaker 1: for other rut stuff. Um. Usually I prioritize one of
29:12
Speaker 1: them over Michigan, but this year it's going to be
29:16
Speaker 1: you know, right, soly Field. So absolutely, that's crazy, man.
29:21
Speaker 1: That's a lot of a lot of driving. Um, I
29:25
Speaker 1: guess I got my trail cameras out. I got five
29:28
Speaker 1: of them out. That's nice. Um, but I'm still waiting
29:33
Speaker 1: to put my other ones out the next trip I
29:35
Speaker 1: make down. But I don't know, man, it's just like,
29:37
Speaker 1: now that they're out, I want to go check them,
29:39
Speaker 1: which I know I shouldn't. Yeah, are you what's your
29:43
Speaker 1: summer where you're putting these cameras right now? Are you
29:45
Speaker 1: just doing some mineral stuff like usual edge of bean
29:49
Speaker 1: fields that type of thing. Yeah, the my my current
29:54
Speaker 1: set up are, uh, timberlines. Uh, there's there's a couple
30:00
Speaker 1: that are on the edge of of egg fields, some
30:04
Speaker 1: buffer strip type of scenarios. Um, but nowhere close to
30:09
Speaker 1: like my hunting my setups right so kind of out
30:13
Speaker 1: of the way areas where I don't know if anybody
30:16
Speaker 1: does come walking through the property saying okay, well all right,
30:19
Speaker 1: well that tree stand, where's the where's the uh the
30:23
Speaker 1: mineral station or where's the bait pile whatever you know,
30:26
Speaker 1: So I don't want to I don't want to have
30:28
Speaker 1: to deal with that. So they're kind of all out
30:29
Speaker 1: of the way. Um, and I'll I have like five
30:35
Speaker 1: more mineral stations that I need to put trail cameras
30:37
Speaker 1: over yet and then in September is when I transition
30:42
Speaker 1: those to the pinch points, travel corridors and possible scrapes.
30:47
Speaker 1: Nice nice, so Ida love it. I love this time here.
30:52
Speaker 1: Like you said, I'm just itching to look at my
30:54
Speaker 1: stuff too and see what could be out there. And
30:56
Speaker 1: I've done a few drives around around here other Michigan,
31:00
Speaker 1: I haven't seen. I saw one nice buck far from
31:02
Speaker 1: anywhere I can hunt, but um, but one far out there.
31:06
Speaker 1: So yeah, they're growing. Yeah, I gotta. I got tree
31:10
Speaker 1: stands yet to hang, and last year I didn't get
31:13
Speaker 1: it done until like almost the last week in August.
31:17
Speaker 1: And the goal for me is to get that out
31:20
Speaker 1: a little bit sooner this year. Um, and uh, hopefully
31:24
Speaker 1: I can get that taken care of sooner rather than later.
31:27
Speaker 1: But I don't know. I don't know how when you
31:31
Speaker 1: hang your tree stands, let's say, like you hang them
31:36
Speaker 1: now or you hang them in July, do you ever
31:38
Speaker 1: have to you know, when the hunting season comes, do
31:41
Speaker 1: you ever run into having to go and trim out
31:45
Speaker 1: again on your first hunt? Because there was some movement
31:48
Speaker 1: in the timber, like whether a branch blown down or
31:50
Speaker 1: there was some additional growth in some trees that kind
31:52
Speaker 1: of blocked your shooting lanes. I have had that happen. Um.
31:56
Speaker 1: I'd say usually it's like nineties seven five, Um, But
32:01
Speaker 1: I usually still bring with just handsaw with me, you know,
32:03
Speaker 1: into that first hunt in just in case. It's usually
32:05
Speaker 1: like the little new growth that starts popping off of
32:08
Speaker 1: one of the bigger limbs, you know that slightly covers
32:11
Speaker 1: up one of your holes or something. U But yeah,
32:14
Speaker 1: I mean that is one of the inherent risks of
32:16
Speaker 1: doing your stuff earlier. Right right, Well, I guess there's
32:20
Speaker 1: one thing that I'm I'm excited to do, and I'm
32:24
Speaker 1: excited to do it now. When I go and check
32:27
Speaker 1: my trail cameras for the first time, probably next month,
32:31
Speaker 1: some of my far ones, I'm going to be setting
32:36
Speaker 1: my tree stands up on some of these. You know
32:39
Speaker 1: I talked earlier about access. Yeah right, I'm going to
32:43
Speaker 1: be walking those cricks uh in and just giving it
32:47
Speaker 1: a feel of what I need to do and get
32:50
Speaker 1: kind of a test run with a stand on my
32:52
Speaker 1: back to see what I actually need to do to look, um,
32:58
Speaker 1: get to some of these locations on the farm without
33:00
Speaker 1: disturbing the deer. On some of these morning hunts. So
33:03
Speaker 1: it's a good idea to test that out. Yeah, I've
33:05
Speaker 1: had I've had some situations like that where I thought
33:07
Speaker 1: I could walk creek or something but never really tried
33:10
Speaker 1: it and then like there's down trees all over it
33:13
Speaker 1: or way too good water, different things like that. So
33:16
Speaker 1: that's that's very smart. Yeah, So what's up man? What
33:21
Speaker 1: we got some questions or what? Yeah, we got some
33:23
Speaker 1: listener questions, um on a whole bunch of different things
33:26
Speaker 1: that I haven't got to get to yet. So I
33:28
Speaker 1: thought this would be a good opportunity to do that.
33:31
Speaker 1: And I think there's a wide and variety of topics
33:33
Speaker 1: that I think a lot of people will find this
33:35
Speaker 1: stuff interesting. So um, so let's do it. Let's take
33:38
Speaker 1: a quick break for a word from our partners at SIC,
33:42
Speaker 1: and then let's tackle these questions. Alright. So this week,
33:48
Speaker 1: rather than share sick of story, I want to give
33:49
Speaker 1: you a heads up on something that's going on right
33:52
Speaker 1: now if you're listening to this just after we published it.
33:55
Speaker 1: So today Thursday, June two through Saturday June twe four,
34:00
Speaker 1: two seventeen, Sitka is hosting their first SITA Gear Converge event,
34:06
Speaker 1: in which They've brought together the top hunting guides and
34:08
Speaker 1: outfits from across the country, all here for a few
34:11
Speaker 1: days in Bozeman, Montana, here at Sitka HQ for a
34:14
Speaker 1: whole slew of different seminars and events and feedback sessions
34:18
Speaker 1: and all sorts of cool stuff. And I'm actually here
34:20
Speaker 1: in Bozeman helping out and covering the event. So if
34:24
Speaker 1: you're interested in seeing what's going on here, converge and
34:26
Speaker 1: if you want to hear from some of the guides
34:28
Speaker 1: and outfitters and influencers that are here, head over to
34:31
Speaker 1: the Wired to Hunt social media accounts over these next
34:33
Speaker 1: few days, because I'm gonna be posting a lot of
34:35
Speaker 1: pictures and videos on Instagram and Facebook and Twitter and
34:39
Speaker 1: all that good stuff. So you might even get a
34:40
Speaker 1: Facebook Live video or two going as well. We're also
34:43
Speaker 1: going to be recording some podcasts, so look for those
34:46
Speaker 1: in the future. And with that said, if in the
34:49
Speaker 1: meantime you want to learn more about sitkas product offerings
34:52
Speaker 1: and get a better idea of why so many of
34:54
Speaker 1: these top guides and outfitters use their gear, you can
34:57
Speaker 1: visit sitka gear dot com. And now let's get back
35:00
Speaker 1: to the show. And r Q and A. All right,
35:04
Speaker 1: so want me to uh just pick one of these
35:08
Speaker 1: randomly rate off to Dan and then see what you think. Yeah,
35:12
Speaker 1: go for it, all right. I'm not gonna name last
35:15
Speaker 1: names here just I don't know for whatever reason. So
35:18
Speaker 1: Tom W has our first question here, and I'll give
35:22
Speaker 1: a little bit of the context here that he added
35:24
Speaker 1: an email. He said, after reading my review on the
35:26
Speaker 1: Bush and a wireless cameras, I took the plunge and
35:29
Speaker 1: bought one for one of my close private hunting spots.
35:32
Speaker 1: I'm coordinating the buck picks with a history function on
35:34
Speaker 1: Weather Underground, and it's super cool to see the bucks
35:37
Speaker 1: working the wind coming into my Trophy Rock mineral site.
35:40
Speaker 1: I have it on Ditch Creek Draw that runs beneath
35:43
Speaker 1: an open field with a lot of white oaks border
35:46
Speaker 1: in the field. It's a great pinch point and I've
35:48
Speaker 1: observed many deer work through here in the past. I
35:51
Speaker 1: think this will allow me to go in only when
35:53
Speaker 1: I have daylight movement. Our season opens September two, and
35:56
Speaker 1: I have one three or four year old bucks showing
35:59
Speaker 1: up rightly. My hope is that he won't change his
36:01
Speaker 1: range before the opener, but My question is this, what
36:04
Speaker 1: time would be the latest you'd feel comfortable going in
36:07
Speaker 1: to change the batteries and add minerals to that trail
36:09
Speaker 1: camera site. So he's got a camera out to wireless
36:13
Speaker 1: camera so he doesn't need to go check SD cards
36:15
Speaker 1: and stuff. But he wants to hunt here, so he
36:19
Speaker 1: doesn't want to go in there too often or too
36:21
Speaker 1: late and spook any deer that might be coming into
36:23
Speaker 1: the mineral or to his camera. Um, so what do
36:27
Speaker 1: you think he's got September two opener? So would you state?
36:31
Speaker 1: I don't think he mentioned or I didn't include that
36:34
Speaker 1: in my common paste portion. But it must be one
36:36
Speaker 1: of the Western states. I guess September two. I mean
36:39
Speaker 1: maybe Kentucky, North Dakota, Uh, Montana. Well, I don't think
36:43
Speaker 1: my Maintaine can't use cameras during the season, so it
36:45
Speaker 1: can't be that. Um, I don't know who else has
36:49
Speaker 1: that early of a season. Yeah, maybe it was Kentucky,
36:52
Speaker 1: just on gas because you can't have mineral stations in
36:55
Speaker 1: Illinois or Iowa or you know, anywhere close to where
36:59
Speaker 1: your stand. So if he's if he's hunting, I'm guessing
37:02
Speaker 1: it was probably Kentucky that you know if you mentioned
37:04
Speaker 1: it or any other state, maybe even Ohio, But I
37:10
Speaker 1: would just I mean that minerals in the ground there
37:12
Speaker 1: for a good period of time. So maybe if his openers,
37:20
Speaker 1: you know, the first and September or whatever, maybe August
37:24
Speaker 1: feet and then let it let it sit completely for
37:27
Speaker 1: thirty days. Yeah, and then and then yeah, and what
37:32
Speaker 1: is you what he's using is then he he can
37:33
Speaker 1: check those cameras and see if they if the guys
37:36
Speaker 1: coming through on daylight, he can head in there and
37:39
Speaker 1: hunt him. I lean towards what you're saying too, because
37:42
Speaker 1: I'm in the same way, like I always like to
37:45
Speaker 1: have everything on my main properties set at least a
37:48
Speaker 1: month before the opening day, and I don't go in
37:49
Speaker 1: there at all if if I can help it. Um.
37:52
Speaker 1: The only caveat I would add, though, just give him
37:55
Speaker 1: my experience with wireless cameras. I don't know. I know
37:57
Speaker 1: you've you have one. I don't know how much you
37:59
Speaker 1: use it, right, Yeah, it acts as just a regular
38:02
Speaker 1: trail camera these days because I can't get signaled down there.
38:05
Speaker 1: So the only thing I've seen is that the batteries
38:07
Speaker 1: die a little faster on those. Um. Now, I think
38:11
Speaker 1: on average I've gotten more than thirty days. I've gotten
38:14
Speaker 1: like six weeks, seven weeks, something like that. Um. But
38:18
Speaker 1: I guess if I'm being like particularly if I'm not
38:20
Speaker 1: used to using it for long periods of time, and
38:22
Speaker 1: if I didn't know that for sure, and if I'm
38:23
Speaker 1: depending on this to make my you know, my decision
38:27
Speaker 1: on going in there, I might like push it one
38:28
Speaker 1: more week and like maybe August six or seventh or
38:31
Speaker 1: something that going there, set the camera, make sure it's perfect,
38:35
Speaker 1: make sure those batter is good, um, and then be
38:38
Speaker 1: good to go or you know, actually the better idea
38:40
Speaker 1: would be simply to have that camera out going right
38:42
Speaker 1: now and just monitor how long how long he keeps
38:46
Speaker 1: a charge on those you know, because with the phone
38:49
Speaker 1: app on these wireless cameras, you can track the battery
38:51
Speaker 1: level so you can see when that battery dies. So
38:55
Speaker 1: just pay attention when you put the batteries in the
38:57
Speaker 1: last see how long those batteries give you see if
38:59
Speaker 1: it's six weeks or eight weeks or whatever, um, and
39:02
Speaker 1: then go in there. And I agree, I think four
39:05
Speaker 1: weeks would be at least, you know, if you can
39:08
Speaker 1: leave it for four weeks and then you've got an
39:10
Speaker 1: undisturbed area. You can sneak in there the first time
39:13
Speaker 1: when you know he's moving or some type of conditions change,
39:16
Speaker 1: that should get him moving and he'll have no idea
39:19
Speaker 1: there and that that makes for great opening day set.
39:22
Speaker 1: And if you can drive a vehicle right up to it, yeah, yep,
39:26
Speaker 1: definitely four with or two that will work. UM. I
39:29
Speaker 1: was bringing some kind of set elimination spray with me
39:32
Speaker 1: to spray anything that I touched. Try wear gloves when
39:35
Speaker 1: you're handling it. UM. I bring nose GM or two
39:38
Speaker 1: and just put a sprit to that on the ground,
39:40
Speaker 1: just one more thing to throw off any human scent
39:42
Speaker 1: that might drop off of me. Um. And then also
39:46
Speaker 1: when you're checking that camera, i'd recommend you try to
39:48
Speaker 1: make sure you're doing that when the wind is not
39:51
Speaker 1: blowing right to where you think those deer would be betted. Um,
39:54
Speaker 1: and do it at midday ideally, So go on there
39:57
Speaker 1: when deer aren't gonna be moving, make sure winds not
39:59
Speaker 1: blow into that spot. And if you keep all that
40:02
Speaker 1: stuff good and careful, um. And then you'll let three
40:05
Speaker 1: or four weeks passed by, he should be feeling super
40:07
Speaker 1: comfortable and um man, you'll have a chance. Maybe hopefully
40:12
Speaker 1: there's you know, we've talked about before, there's always the
40:14
Speaker 1: chance that these deer going to shift ranges in early September.
40:18
Speaker 1: But if he doesn't, this could be a pretty sweet
40:21
Speaker 1: set up. Yeah, it sounds like he's got a good
40:23
Speaker 1: pinch point anyway with some good food around it. Yeah. Yeah,
40:26
Speaker 1: I mean it sounds like he's got those white oaks
40:30
Speaker 1: that are all along there, so that could be there
40:31
Speaker 1: could be some acorn start and drop by then that
40:34
Speaker 1: maybe they're hitting and maybe there's some some crop fields
40:37
Speaker 1: out in front that they'd be touching off. So good luck,
40:42
Speaker 1: good luck, and send us picks. Good luck Tom, hopefully
40:44
Speaker 1: this works out. We've got another question here from Dan H.
40:49
Speaker 1: Dan H is hunting in southwestern Wisconsin, and in the
40:54
Speaker 1: past two years he's been getting a lot of trail
40:56
Speaker 1: camera pictures of black bears and bobcats. Uh hell has
41:00
Speaker 1: been seeing some coyotes. Um. He says it's fun getting
41:03
Speaker 1: those pictures, but it also has some concerned about fawn survival.
41:07
Speaker 1: He mentioned that there's a lot of material valuable out
41:09
Speaker 1: there you print online that talks about managing land to
41:12
Speaker 1: improve food or travel routes are betting areas, but he
41:15
Speaker 1: hasn't seen much advice on managing a property to provide
41:18
Speaker 1: pregnant does a nursery, you know, somewhere where these fawns
41:21
Speaker 1: can survive predation? So he asked, are to do that?
41:25
Speaker 1: Are we looking for a specific type of cover or topography?
41:28
Speaker 1: Do they prefer an area with numerous escape routes or
41:30
Speaker 1: an area devoid of any trails and traffic? Should I
41:33
Speaker 1: keep mowing my hayfield to maintain the grassland cover or
41:35
Speaker 1: should let it go follow and encourage tree establishment um?
41:40
Speaker 1: So that's that is what he's wondering. What can he
41:43
Speaker 1: do on his property to improve fawning habitat um and
41:46
Speaker 1: hope help some of those fawn survive predators. Have you
41:50
Speaker 1: heard anything about this stuff? Dan, any thoughts on that
41:52
Speaker 1: anything you've read or heard? Based based off his question,
41:57
Speaker 1: here's what I'm gonna say. Anywhere that it year can go,
42:02
Speaker 1: so can a coyote, and so can a bear. Right,
42:05
Speaker 1: So here's and yes, habitat does play a role. And
42:10
Speaker 1: I'll probably let you get to that because you know
42:12
Speaker 1: more about habitat than I do. But it sounds to
42:15
Speaker 1: me that you need to do some kind of predator
42:18
Speaker 1: work yourself. Um. Either you know, if it's legal to
42:22
Speaker 1: kill bobcats in your state, trap, Uh, you can start
42:27
Speaker 1: up a trapping regiment for coyotes and uh for bobcats
42:31
Speaker 1: if there's a lot of bears. And I don't know
42:34
Speaker 1: what state was he in Wisconsin? Wisconsin? Um, does Wisconsin
42:39
Speaker 1: have a bear season? I would assume so, but I
42:43
Speaker 1: guess yeah, if there is a bear season, bear hunt, right.
42:48
Speaker 1: So habitat is only part of the issue. And I
42:51
Speaker 1: feel that predator control, if there's a lot on your farm,
42:56
Speaker 1: that has to be part of your management strategy as well. Yeah, definitely,
43:00
Speaker 1: it's all. It's all part of it. Um. I just
43:03
Speaker 1: actually was listening to um, oh gosh, I don't know,
43:08
Speaker 1: a podcast with Pat Durkin, who's an outdoor writer in Wisconsin.
43:11
Speaker 1: He was actually talking about some of the predator issues
43:14
Speaker 1: they've had there and just how some recent studies have
43:16
Speaker 1: shown that the majority of the predation there, the fond
43:18
Speaker 1: predation is actually coming from black bears, even though most
43:22
Speaker 1: people kind of point the finger at coyotes or wolves. Um,
43:25
Speaker 1: something like up to the predation they found was from
43:29
Speaker 1: black bears and then like only six percent was coyotes. UM.
43:33
Speaker 1: So so yeah, I mean predators can definitely have an impact. UM.
43:37
Speaker 1: I do know that when it comes to coyotes the
43:39
Speaker 1: best time to to try to manage them is in
43:43
Speaker 1: spring when they're um you know, pops are dropping and
43:46
Speaker 1: stuff like that, and you can trap them at that
43:49
Speaker 1: time period. That's the best time to trap them. From
43:51
Speaker 1: what I understand. I've never done it, but I just
43:53
Speaker 1: heard that a lot um. And I've also just heard
43:55
Speaker 1: that it's really difficult to manage coyote pop pulations with
44:00
Speaker 1: just kind of random hunting and like you know, if
44:04
Speaker 1: you're out deer hunting and you see a coyote, shoot
44:07
Speaker 1: that coyote, that really doesn't make an impact at all.
44:09
Speaker 1: I've even heard that even hunting with a gun and
44:12
Speaker 1: you know, going out there in the winter and trying
44:14
Speaker 1: to call him and stuff, even making a concerned effort
44:16
Speaker 1: like that still doesn't make a difference on coyote populations,
44:19
Speaker 1: just because of their the fact that if you take
44:22
Speaker 1: one out, two more move in. Um. You know, they
44:25
Speaker 1: just ave, they reproduce rapidly, they move around a lot um.
44:30
Speaker 1: There's some really interesting things um in a book that
44:33
Speaker 1: I talked about before the American Serengetti um and then
44:37
Speaker 1: also another book called Coyote America, both of them by
44:39
Speaker 1: Dan Flores. Um. He talks about just some of the
44:44
Speaker 1: unique adaptations that coyotes have had that allow them to
44:48
Speaker 1: kind of survive a lot of the different things than
44:50
Speaker 1: pressures that we've been putting on them and that you know,
44:53
Speaker 1: other pritors put on them. Um. So, like for a
44:55
Speaker 1: long time, coyotes where like the little brother two wolves.
44:59
Speaker 1: Uh So, they had to develop different adaptations to survive
45:02
Speaker 1: and and kind of carve out a niche in the ecosystem.
45:05
Speaker 1: So for example, um, we've never talked about this before,
45:09
Speaker 1: m okay um. So one of the things I remember
45:12
Speaker 1: reading about was that one coyotes a just how quickly
45:19
Speaker 1: they're they they you know, this isn't something they think
45:22
Speaker 1: about obviously, But whatever biological mechanism is within these coyotes
45:27
Speaker 1: adjust the reproductive rate, the litter size of coyotes based
45:32
Speaker 1: on the density of coyotes in the area. And as
45:36
Speaker 1: I understand it, somehow there's like almost like a sensus taking.
45:40
Speaker 1: Part of what coyotes are doing when they howl at
45:42
Speaker 1: night is that they're kind of in some way keeping
45:45
Speaker 1: track of the what other what other animals in the area,
45:48
Speaker 1: what other coyotes in the area? Um, And somehow this
45:53
Speaker 1: kind of fills in the gaps. And when there's a
45:56
Speaker 1: coyote in an area. Let's say there's a mating pair
45:59
Speaker 1: in an area and there's no other coyotes around, then
46:03
Speaker 1: that female is going to have a much larger litter size.
46:06
Speaker 1: And I'm going to get the numbers wrong. I don't
46:08
Speaker 1: remember what the numbers are, but it was like substantially
46:09
Speaker 1: larger litter size, like a litter size up to like
46:11
Speaker 1: ten or something. Let's hypothemtically say, but if that coyote
46:15
Speaker 1: and if that mating pair is in the area with
46:17
Speaker 1: the dense population of coyotes, it's litter size will be
46:21
Speaker 1: much smaller, three or four or five something like that.
46:24
Speaker 1: So what you end up having is if I go
46:26
Speaker 1: into a place and I shoot a bunch of coyotes,
46:28
Speaker 1: but I left one mating pair or something, or the
46:31
Speaker 1: mating pair from a mile over moves into the area.
46:34
Speaker 1: Because now they're in an area of lower density, their
46:36
Speaker 1: litter sizes increase, and that just it just makes up
46:39
Speaker 1: for So this has been a big part of how
46:41
Speaker 1: coyote populations have moved so quickly and grown so quickly
46:45
Speaker 1: because I keep filling in the gaps wherever there's an opening.
46:48
Speaker 1: Lots you get these young males and eventually females that
46:51
Speaker 1: move out into these new areas, and then they increase
46:52
Speaker 1: the reproductive right. Um. So it's it's a difficult thing
46:56
Speaker 1: to to manage in that way. So a lot of
46:59
Speaker 1: people said, unless you're gonna do some really really intense trapping,
47:04
Speaker 1: they're almost there's almost nothing you can do. The best
47:07
Speaker 1: thing you can do is try to provide habitat cover
47:10
Speaker 1: that can help those fawns survive it. Um. And so
47:13
Speaker 1: that goes to Dan's question, and so as I understand it,
47:18
Speaker 1: the best cover four fawnds is going to be early
47:22
Speaker 1: successional habitat, so that you know, overgrown fields or you know,
47:27
Speaker 1: thick interior like in the timber when there's cutover. You know,
47:31
Speaker 1: let's do a bunch of hinge cutting or something, and
47:32
Speaker 1: now you get all this new growth brush and forbes
47:34
Speaker 1: and bushes and grasses and all that kind of stuff.
47:37
Speaker 1: That good fawn level cover is what's going to allow
47:41
Speaker 1: these fawnds to survive and have somewhere to hide. Um.
47:45
Speaker 1: Another interesting thing I saw when I was actually doing
47:47
Speaker 1: a little reading on this recently. I just pulled this
47:50
Speaker 1: up before we did the podcast. There was a study
47:53
Speaker 1: conducted by John Kilga, who was a research wildif biologist
47:57
Speaker 1: with the Force Service. UM did the study in South Carolina,
48:00
Speaker 1: and UM, I don't have I don't remember all the
48:03
Speaker 1: details of how the study was conducted, but what they
48:06
Speaker 1: found was that the most important factor they were seeing
48:10
Speaker 1: to increase fond survival was having lots of edge cover
48:14
Speaker 1: and a lot of different types of habitat cover in air. So,
48:17
Speaker 1: this is a quote from the study. Fawns with the
48:19
Speaker 1: least amount of edge in their home range were more
48:22
Speaker 1: than twice as likely to be killed by coyotes as
48:24
Speaker 1: those with the most edge. Um. It goes on to
48:27
Speaker 1: say that fawns whose home range had many small patches
48:29
Speaker 1: of different cover types had the best chances of survival.
48:32
Speaker 1: The researchers were uncertain whether this was because the edge
48:34
Speaker 1: areas provided better hiding spots, or whether there were simply
48:37
Speaker 1: too many areas for the coyotes to search. UM. So,
48:41
Speaker 1: I found that pretty interesting. So, from what I understand,
48:44
Speaker 1: early sessional habit had so great low to the ground
48:47
Speaker 1: habitat thick and then lots of edge, lots of different places.
48:51
Speaker 1: You know, Um, you don't want just one little two
48:54
Speaker 1: acre area of cover. You want to have lots of
48:56
Speaker 1: different types of cover all around so that there's many
48:59
Speaker 1: different plays these funds can be born. Um. And then
49:02
Speaker 1: so that when these coyotes are out there looking for
49:04
Speaker 1: them in the spring, they know that all the farms
49:07
Speaker 1: aren't just going to be in this one two acre spot.
49:09
Speaker 1: They're going to be all over the place. UM. So
49:12
Speaker 1: from a habitat standpoint, that's uh, that's something to look at. Um.
49:18
Speaker 1: There's one other thing I was going to mention on
49:20
Speaker 1: this front. Um. I'm blanking on what it was. But
49:23
Speaker 1: you know this is a little bit outside of most
49:26
Speaker 1: deer hunters control. Um. But here's something to keep in
49:30
Speaker 1: mind too. When you have a deer herd that is
49:37
Speaker 1: off kilter, if you've got a deer herd that does
49:39
Speaker 1: not have a even distribution of age structure. Um. So
49:44
Speaker 1: let's say you've got a deer herd in Iowa that
49:46
Speaker 1: you've got a relatively even number of year and a
49:48
Speaker 1: half old bucks, two and a half year old bucks,
49:50
Speaker 1: three and a half year old bucks, for et cetera.
49:52
Speaker 1: And you have a decent um ratio between bucks and
49:55
Speaker 1: does that's like a good, normal natural deer herd. When
49:59
Speaker 1: you have that, you're typically going to have a more
50:01
Speaker 1: a tighter rut. You're gonna have a more aggressive rut,
50:04
Speaker 1: and a more consistent rut that's going to be in
50:05
Speaker 1: in a shorter time frame. When you have a deer
50:08
Speaker 1: herd that is out of whack where there's not many
50:11
Speaker 1: mature bucks, you've got tons and tons of does and
50:14
Speaker 1: not as many bucks in the mostly year and a
50:15
Speaker 1: half of bucks um. There's been a number of studies
50:18
Speaker 1: that tend to show that that ends up leading to
50:20
Speaker 1: a more drawn out rut, is not as not as
50:22
Speaker 1: intensive a rut and more drawn out. There is a
50:26
Speaker 1: benefit to having the short, intense rut because what happens
50:31
Speaker 1: in that situation when you have the majority of the
50:33
Speaker 1: breeding more so done in a small time period. That
50:37
Speaker 1: means that the majority of all those fawns in the
50:40
Speaker 1: spring will drop at the same time, and basically you
50:43
Speaker 1: overload the predator population with fawns because if all let's
50:47
Speaker 1: say there's gonna be twenty fawns born in a in
50:50
Speaker 1: a in a block those twenty faons, if they're all
50:53
Speaker 1: dropped within a week and a half or a week
50:55
Speaker 1: or something like that, and there's ten coyotes, they may
50:59
Speaker 1: not have enough time too randomly come across those all
51:02
Speaker 1: those twenty fonds and kill them. But if you took
51:05
Speaker 1: that same twenty fonds and you had them born over
51:08
Speaker 1: the course of four weeks, all of a sudden, now
51:10
Speaker 1: it's much easier for that same number of coyotes to
51:14
Speaker 1: eventually kill all those fonds. So in a perfect world,
51:18
Speaker 1: you want a great habitat, and then you want to
51:19
Speaker 1: have an even aide structure, well balanced deer herd that
51:24
Speaker 1: allows for that tight rut that allows for that consistent
51:28
Speaker 1: drop of fonds all around the same time, so that
51:30
Speaker 1: a greater percentage survive. Makes sense. Yeah, so that's my
51:35
Speaker 1: long biology rant. I had to get the science in today.
51:40
Speaker 1: A little bit of science in there. Yeah, interesting stuff.
51:43
Speaker 1: Um So, hopefully that's helpful. I think as far as
51:46
Speaker 1: you know, Dan, if you're if you're trying to do this,
51:48
Speaker 1: um so, if you want to increase that successional habitat,
51:50
Speaker 1: early successional habitat, if you want to add more edge,
51:54
Speaker 1: I mean doing some cutting in your timber, doing some
51:57
Speaker 1: hinge cutting or some selective cutting to open up the camp.
52:00
Speaker 1: That's a good way to do it. UM. I think
52:02
Speaker 1: when it comes to like mowing your hay field and stuff, UM,
52:06
Speaker 1: I would try not to maintain just a consistent grassland
52:10
Speaker 1: as I've as I've read, it's better to have, you know,
52:13
Speaker 1: a natural variety of cover, not just like one single grass.
52:18
Speaker 1: Um it'd be It would be better if it's a
52:20
Speaker 1: bunch of different things. So you might want to burn
52:23
Speaker 1: that grass and let it grow like whatever the natural
52:25
Speaker 1: seedbed components are. Let them grow up, um. Or you
52:28
Speaker 1: can do some selective spring and knock out some things
52:32
Speaker 1: and provide openings for new things to start growing. UM.
52:35
Speaker 1: I don't know if you remember this, Dan, but last
52:37
Speaker 1: year I think it was in our interview with Craig Harper.
52:40
Speaker 1: He talked a lot about this, about how you can
52:42
Speaker 1: use some selective spraying of herbicide to increase and improve
52:46
Speaker 1: your old field type stuff. And that's exactly what I'm
52:48
Speaker 1: talking about here. So that's what i'd recommend go listen
52:51
Speaker 1: to Craig Harper's episode where he talks about that, because
52:55
Speaker 1: that's a great way to improve this type of cover UM,
52:58
Speaker 1: and that's that's good for funds, but also good for
53:00
Speaker 1: for all the deer provides good, high quality cover most
53:04
Speaker 1: of the season, most of the year that um Bucks
53:06
Speaker 1: does the whole the whole cruel benefit from. So that's
53:11
Speaker 1: all I got on fun Habitat for the book, Look
53:18
Speaker 1: for the book. I'm definitely not the guy to write
53:19
Speaker 1: that book, but I've read enough to at least say things. Um.
53:26
Speaker 1: How about this question from John I. Dan. He says
53:29
Speaker 1: that he's gonna be going out of state for the
53:30
Speaker 1: first time this year to do a d I Y
53:32
Speaker 1: public plan hunt. UM. He's gonna be using a lot
53:36
Speaker 1: of the tips from some of our d I Y
53:37
Speaker 1: posts and his planning. So he's wondering if we know
53:40
Speaker 1: of any resources or ideas to help him link up
53:43
Speaker 1: with other guys who might be interested in doing the
53:45
Speaker 1: same type of hunt. UM. He says that most of
53:47
Speaker 1: his bow hunting buddies at home aren't really into the
53:50
Speaker 1: style of hunting that he wants to do that kind
53:52
Speaker 1: of d I Y mobile um campaign, that kind of thing, UM,
53:56
Speaker 1: So his current hunting buddies are kind of out of
53:58
Speaker 1: the question. What would you do to Dan? How do
54:01
Speaker 1: you go about finding some new buddies to take a
54:03
Speaker 1: trip like this. I mean, you can go to the forums, right,
54:06
Speaker 1: I'm sure there's guys out there like that, you know,
54:09
Speaker 1: start a thread or whatever. But to be honest with you,
54:12
Speaker 1: just be active on social media, like the Wired to
54:18
Speaker 1: Hunt Facebook page. I'm sure there's guys out there that
54:24
Speaker 1: are looking for the same thing that you're looking for. Um,
54:28
Speaker 1: go to you know, look through social media, and anytime
54:31
Speaker 1: someone starts, uh posting questions about um, you know, posting
54:39
Speaker 1: questions about taking some d i y trips, chime in
54:43
Speaker 1: and say, you know, hey, I'm I'm looking to do
54:45
Speaker 1: something like that, but I'm looking for a couple of
54:47
Speaker 1: guys to go with me. Uh. And social media, I mean,
54:51
Speaker 1: Facebook in general is just a great place for that.
54:54
Speaker 1: And I don't know about you, but Mark, but on
54:58
Speaker 1: my Facebook page, there is a majority of the guys
55:03
Speaker 1: who post the most are they like there. There's a
55:08
Speaker 1: core group of guys that do a lot of the
55:09
Speaker 1: same posting. Right, I almost know him by name. And
55:14
Speaker 1: those guys. You don't want to look for those guys too,
55:16
Speaker 1: because if they they're not just active on the nine
55:19
Speaker 1: Finger chronicles or the Wired to Hunt Facebook page. They're
55:23
Speaker 1: active on a lot of social media pages, so keep
55:27
Speaker 1: an eye out for those guys. See if you can
55:29
Speaker 1: make some matches there. Um and just I guess it's
55:34
Speaker 1: just comes down to keep your eyes open and uh,
55:37
Speaker 1: you know, don't be afraid to strike up conversations with random,
55:41
Speaker 1: random guys. I guess I wanted best friend. You ever
55:47
Speaker 1: see that that movie I Love You MANH Yeah, I
55:50
Speaker 1: have kind of like that exactly, the funny movie. Um No,
55:53
Speaker 1: I think that's a that's good advice. UM. I'll add
55:56
Speaker 1: one thing. If on the off chance you are listening
56:01
Speaker 1: to this right now and you two want to do
56:03
Speaker 1: a d I Y public land hunt in Ohio, comment
56:07
Speaker 1: on the Facebook post for this podcast. When I post
56:11
Speaker 1: it on the wire dun facebook page, comment on this
56:14
Speaker 1: and maybe they I don't know, maybe there's no one
56:16
Speaker 1: who wants to do that, but maybe there's three guys
56:20
Speaker 1: out there, handful of people out there that actually have
56:22
Speaker 1: been wanting to do a trip to Ohio and have
56:24
Speaker 1: just been wondering about who they could go with. Maybe
56:26
Speaker 1: we can be the matchmaker. So if you're listening, comment
56:29
Speaker 1: on this post mentioned that you want to do a
56:32
Speaker 1: trip like this and who knows. Maybe that will be
56:34
Speaker 1: a way to connect a few people to try something. Um,
56:36
Speaker 1: that'd be pretty sweet. We can have like a wired
56:38
Speaker 1: hunt public Land, Ohio hunt for wired dount listeners. I
56:42
Speaker 1: think it would be cool to have a what are
56:45
Speaker 1: some of those matchmaking sites like the Harmony but for
56:49
Speaker 1: but for deer hunters. You know, I've heard like people,
56:53
Speaker 1: I don't think there's actually maybe there's something like that
56:55
Speaker 1: out there. Um, that would be an interesting idea. UM.
56:58
Speaker 1: I know there's a hunt swap type things on forums
57:01
Speaker 1: where people yeah where you know, hey you can come
57:04
Speaker 1: hunt my you can bass fish on my farm pond,
57:07
Speaker 1: if I can come deer hunt in your spot in
57:09
Speaker 1: Iowa or whatever. Um, so maybe there'll be a way
57:12
Speaker 1: to do that. That'd be cool. Um. You know another
57:15
Speaker 1: idea other than forums and social media, you know, look
57:19
Speaker 1: into conservation groups around you. Um, like the Quality Deer
57:24
Speaker 1: Management Association has got branches all over the country, local
57:28
Speaker 1: branches where you know people in your area get together
57:31
Speaker 1: and have banquets and meetings and habitat days and different things.
57:34
Speaker 1: Or um I'm involved in that with QUT may or
57:37
Speaker 1: like back country hunters and anglers, we have a Michigan chapter,
57:39
Speaker 1: and there's chapters all across the country now where you
57:41
Speaker 1: can get involved, and those are great ways to to
57:43
Speaker 1: find like minded people. And while you go out there
57:46
Speaker 1: and go to some of these events, get to know
57:47
Speaker 1: some people. All of a sudden, you know there's ten
57:50
Speaker 1: other hardcore hunters that maybe have the same interest you have,
57:53
Speaker 1: and uh, you know there might be someone that's a
57:55
Speaker 1: good fit there too. So I'd say try to get
57:57
Speaker 1: involved with local groups too, in person and see where
58:00
Speaker 1: that might lead you. Absolutely, that's a great idea. Yeah.
58:04
Speaker 1: I occasionally get one of those good luck, Yeah, good luck.
58:08
Speaker 1: If it's a really good hunt, make sure you reach
58:10
Speaker 1: out to me and Mark first. Yeah, if it's the
58:14
Speaker 1: right spot exactly. All right, Dan, you want to talk
58:18
Speaker 1: about gear for a second. Let's talk about gear, all right.
58:22
Speaker 1: We got a questions from emmett A and he said,
58:25
Speaker 1: if you have got a minute or could answer this
58:28
Speaker 1: on a podcast at some point, what is your Sicko wardrobe.
58:31
Speaker 1: I've heard you talk about the shacket and a few
58:33
Speaker 1: other pieces, but I don't know what your collection all entails,
58:37
Speaker 1: or if you were to start over buying SICKA, what
58:39
Speaker 1: would your first purchases be um. He mentions that he
58:42
Speaker 1: has basically bought early in mid season stuff so far. Um,
58:45
Speaker 1: but he's trying to figure out what to buy next. So, Dan,
58:48
Speaker 1: both you and I have got sick gear in our
58:51
Speaker 1: wardrobes for hunting. Uh, you want to walk through which
58:54
Speaker 1: pieces you like or what ones you've used so far?
58:56
Speaker 1: And I can kind of run through my stuff too. Yeah.
58:59
Speaker 1: First of home, let's say, dude, the name Emmett is
59:03
Speaker 1: a badass name, Like, like, I feel like a guy
59:09
Speaker 1: named Emmett just is real chill, real laid back, but
59:13
Speaker 1: if you talk ship to him, you're gonna get beat up.
59:15
Speaker 1: Well that's that's just that's just my first impression guy
59:19
Speaker 1: with a name Emmett. I always you've got You've got
59:23
Speaker 1: such interesting like first impressions based on names. Wasn't there
59:26
Speaker 1: someone else we had in the podcast where like you
59:28
Speaker 1: heard the name of like, oh, this guy he's legit. Yeah,
59:32
Speaker 1: probably Bronson, Well yeah, Bronson Strickland yea yeah, just and
59:37
Speaker 1: it kind of reminded me of Charles Bronson, Like you know,
59:41
Speaker 1: a cop who doesn't play by the rules, but it's
59:44
Speaker 1: for a good cause, type of type of person that
59:46
Speaker 1: show before. Yeah, right, Yeah, what was the question. Yeah,
59:52
Speaker 1: gear right, I'll tell you. I know, I know what
59:55
Speaker 1: Mark gonna say, so I'll let him take that. But
59:58
Speaker 1: hands down, one of my favorite pieces of sick Of
1:00:02
Speaker 1: gear is the Kelvin light vest. And it does an
1:00:10
Speaker 1: amazing job. And it's I don't even think it's in
1:00:14
Speaker 1: the white tail system, um but but it is a
1:00:19
Speaker 1: down vest. It's a very light you can crunch it
1:00:22
Speaker 1: up to almost nothing. And I will walk to my
1:00:26
Speaker 1: tree stand with basically just a you know, something very
1:00:30
Speaker 1: light on, maybe that hoodie, the sick Of hoodie. Then
1:00:34
Speaker 1: I will uh get into my tree stand, I'll set
1:00:38
Speaker 1: up everything that I need to set up, let my
1:00:40
Speaker 1: body cool down a little bit. I will throw on
1:00:44
Speaker 1: one of my mid layers and then overtop of my
1:00:47
Speaker 1: mid layer. Before I put my shell on, I will
1:00:50
Speaker 1: put on that Kelvin light vest and it does an
1:00:55
Speaker 1: outstanding job of blocking wind and holding warmth. Yeah, and
1:01:01
Speaker 1: it's in and lightweight and not bulky, very lightweight, very
1:01:05
Speaker 1: like I'm telling you, you can wad it up and
1:01:07
Speaker 1: put it into like a cargo pant pocket. Yeah. Yeah,
1:01:10
Speaker 1: that having like horrible insulation like that, that isn't like
1:01:13
Speaker 1: a pain in the butt to carry with you in
1:01:15
Speaker 1: and out of the woods when you're not wearing it
1:01:16
Speaker 1: is something I love to right. The other piece for
1:01:21
Speaker 1: me um is the Marino Ultra Light Beanie. The Marino Beanie,
1:01:29
Speaker 1: and I I there's times when I'm wearing a stocking
1:01:34
Speaker 1: cap and it just over time, it just feels like
1:01:38
Speaker 1: it starts to irritate either my hair or it keeps
1:01:41
Speaker 1: sliding up or it Uh, I don't know. It's not
1:01:45
Speaker 1: covering what it needs to cover. Uh. And that ultra
1:01:48
Speaker 1: light beanie does an awesome job of not only keeping
1:01:52
Speaker 1: you warm while you're walking to the stand, right, it
1:01:55
Speaker 1: wicks away that moisture. But once you get in the
1:01:57
Speaker 1: stand you can pull it down. It's gonna cover your ears.
1:02:01
Speaker 1: It's gonna do um, It's not gonna slide up. And
1:02:05
Speaker 1: for as thin as it is, it does a great
1:02:08
Speaker 1: job holding warmth into your head, which is as we
1:02:12
Speaker 1: all know, like eight percent of the heat lost from
1:02:14
Speaker 1: your body goes through your head. Nice. Yeah, I've got
1:02:17
Speaker 1: one of those two, and I agree. It's nice. You
1:02:20
Speaker 1: mentioned like how sometimes you get your tae with like
1:02:22
Speaker 1: a bigger, thicker hat, like pushing into your hair, ears
1:02:26
Speaker 1: or something. I agree having a lightweight hat is nice
1:02:28
Speaker 1: to just avoid that. And it's it's kind of crazy
1:02:31
Speaker 1: because there's sometimes where I don't know, if you ever
1:02:34
Speaker 1: get this, your head may be kind of hot, so
1:02:36
Speaker 1: you'll take your hat off and it becomes difficult to
1:02:40
Speaker 1: regulate your the rest of your body. And I'm talking
1:02:43
Speaker 1: in extremely cold situations like late season hunts, where you
1:02:48
Speaker 1: take your hat off and then you get cold and
1:02:50
Speaker 1: you put your hat on, and then your body is
1:02:52
Speaker 1: kind of cold, and but your head is kind of hot.
1:02:55
Speaker 1: You know. I've run into some scenarios like that and that,
1:02:58
Speaker 1: and it's a it's a very really simple and from
1:03:01
Speaker 1: a from a cost standpoint, it's a great introductory introductory.
1:03:08
Speaker 1: Is that how you say it? Introductory? Yeah, introductory introductory. Uh,
1:03:13
Speaker 1: piece of piece of equipment from sick because it's not
1:03:17
Speaker 1: too crazy expensive. Yeah, that's that's an easy one to
1:03:20
Speaker 1: pick up and try out. And and the is there
1:03:24
Speaker 1: any is there any other pieces you're gonna mention or
1:03:26
Speaker 1: less that would kind of segue into something I would mention? Yeah, yep,
1:03:29
Speaker 1: I think those for me, those are the two that
1:03:32
Speaker 1: that stick out a lot nice. Well, I mean, as
1:03:36
Speaker 1: you mentioned the light marino wool hat is a great option.
1:03:39
Speaker 1: They also have bass layers of the same type of
1:03:42
Speaker 1: fabric that are really super nice. I also use one
1:03:45
Speaker 1: of their Core late their Core light bass layers, which
1:03:49
Speaker 1: are synthetic. They're not in wool um, but they're synthetic
1:03:53
Speaker 1: bass layers, and I just think these are like the
1:03:55
Speaker 1: most one of the most important pieces that wear. No
1:03:57
Speaker 1: matter what type of clothing you wear, make sure you
1:04:00
Speaker 1: get some kind of moisture wicking bass layer. It makes
1:04:03
Speaker 1: such a huge difference, um, to get that sweat off you,
1:04:07
Speaker 1: to get you dried off, because when you walk in
1:04:09
Speaker 1: and out, no matter how hard you try to take
1:04:11
Speaker 1: it easy and try not to sweat, you still do.
1:04:13
Speaker 1: At least I do. I can't. There's no way I
1:04:15
Speaker 1: can walk to a standard not sweat somewhat. Um. So
1:04:18
Speaker 1: being able to have that moisture taken off of your
1:04:20
Speaker 1: your skin by a bass layer, UM makes all the
1:04:24
Speaker 1: difference in the world being comfortable with staying warm. UM.
1:04:28
Speaker 1: So definitely get equality set of bass layers. So for me,
1:04:32
Speaker 1: that's the Core Lightweight system from situ UM. Then I
1:04:36
Speaker 1: think you were alluding to this earlier. I love the
1:04:39
Speaker 1: fanatic hoodie, right, you do too. Um. We've talked about
1:04:42
Speaker 1: any thing before, but it's got so many cool little
1:04:45
Speaker 1: built in features. Unless it's crazy, crazy hot, I am
1:04:48
Speaker 1: wearing that hoodie every single time I go out. It's
1:04:50
Speaker 1: not like a thick sweatshirt hoodie. It's more like a
1:04:53
Speaker 1: thick longsleeve shirt. UM. And it's got this really nice
1:04:57
Speaker 1: tight hood It's got a built in face mask that
1:04:59
Speaker 1: you can take on or off. It has a little
1:05:02
Speaker 1: kangaroo pocket for your hands. It has these built in
1:05:05
Speaker 1: hand mits that you can be you know, almost like
1:05:08
Speaker 1: wearing gloves. If it's really cold in the morning, you
1:05:10
Speaker 1: can slip over the cover on your hands. You can
1:05:12
Speaker 1: hold your bow and not freeze your hand off. Um.
1:05:14
Speaker 1: Some really nice smart features in there. So I've got
1:05:17
Speaker 1: the lightweight core bass layers I'm usually gonna wear in
1:05:21
Speaker 1: the early to mid season, I'm wearing my Stratus pants um,
1:05:25
Speaker 1: and then I'm going to have the Fanatic hoodie, and
1:05:28
Speaker 1: then when it gets a little bit colder, I then
1:05:30
Speaker 1: put on the Fanatic vest, which is similar primal loft insulation,
1:05:34
Speaker 1: the wind stopper fabric that they have treatment that blocks
1:05:38
Speaker 1: the wind. It's pretty lightweight, packable, not quite as small
1:05:41
Speaker 1: as the the kelvin that you mentioned, Dan, but it's
1:05:45
Speaker 1: got some of the other features that the Fanatic jacket has,
1:05:47
Speaker 1: which is like, um, it's got the sideway zip that
1:05:50
Speaker 1: again allows for the kangaroo pocket handwarm pocket, which is
1:05:53
Speaker 1: just so nice to have. It's got a little built
1:05:56
Speaker 1: in like range finder grunt tupocket on the side. So
1:06:00
Speaker 1: I just got that last year and ended up wearing
1:06:02
Speaker 1: that and a lot of my hunts. And then once
1:06:04
Speaker 1: it gets super cold, then I switched out. I get
1:06:07
Speaker 1: rid of the stras pants and instead of put on
1:06:09
Speaker 1: the fanatic bibbs and the Fanatic jacket when it's like
1:06:12
Speaker 1: uber cold. And so that's my main system. That's what
1:06:15
Speaker 1: I'm rotating in and out. I'd say like eighty percent
1:06:18
Speaker 1: of my hunts, it's just the Stratas pants, Fanatic hoodie,
1:06:21
Speaker 1: Fanatic vest um. But then once you get to like
1:06:25
Speaker 1: late November and December, then I'm going to the bigger
1:06:28
Speaker 1: stuff that's super warm, wind proof. I mean, that's going
1:06:32
Speaker 1: to keep you out in the woods when you need
1:06:33
Speaker 1: to be so um. I Also he did mention the shacket,
1:06:36
Speaker 1: which is a piece that I really like as well.
1:06:38
Speaker 1: That's basically like a T shirt jacket. Um, it's a
1:06:42
Speaker 1: jacket that just doesn't have sleeves from the elbow down
1:06:45
Speaker 1: and I like that a lot. Um. But when I
1:06:47
Speaker 1: got the Phanatic vest, I ended up going with the
1:06:49
Speaker 1: Fanatic vest a little bit more because that had the
1:06:52
Speaker 1: wind stopper, so that blocked the wind. The shack it
1:06:54
Speaker 1: didn't the shack. It was meant more as an inside piece. Um.
1:06:58
Speaker 1: But both of really nice. Um, I put go ahead.
1:07:04
Speaker 1: I was just gonna say I was actually meaning to
1:07:05
Speaker 1: do a video sometimes here soon going through all the
1:07:08
Speaker 1: different pieces of SICK that I've used, because I actually
1:07:10
Speaker 1: haven't like done a review of it or like a
1:07:13
Speaker 1: comprehensive um walk through by different gear, my different clothing.
1:07:18
Speaker 1: They haven't done that in years, So I was gonna
1:07:19
Speaker 1: do that soon and I'll try to do the next
1:07:21
Speaker 1: few weeks. But this kind of gives you a little
1:07:23
Speaker 1: bit of a preview, I guess, and just kind of
1:07:26
Speaker 1: a word of warning. UM, I just want I should
1:07:29
Speaker 1: have mentioned it when I was talking about it, but
1:07:30
Speaker 1: that Calvin light vest it is not an outer layer piece.
1:07:34
Speaker 1: And what I mean by that is, um, it's not
1:07:37
Speaker 1: designed to get wet and it's loud, so if you're
1:07:41
Speaker 1: gonna use it, use it underneath of another layer of
1:07:46
Speaker 1: something that will muffle the noise on it because it
1:07:48
Speaker 1: does have um. It is kind of I don't even
1:07:52
Speaker 1: know what the term does it say is but it's
1:07:54
Speaker 1: a it's a little noisy if you brush, if you
1:07:57
Speaker 1: brush up against it. But you mentioned the shack at.
1:08:00
Speaker 1: So what I'll do is, depending if it's cold but
1:08:03
Speaker 1: their son um and there's not so much wind, i
1:08:07
Speaker 1: won't wear outer shell, I'll wear a bass layer, I'll
1:08:12
Speaker 1: wear my fanatic hoodie, I will wear the Ultra like
1:08:18
Speaker 1: or the Calvin vest and then I'll put my shack
1:08:20
Speaker 1: at over top of that. So that will that muffles
1:08:24
Speaker 1: that that sound. But I'm telling you right now, it
1:08:26
Speaker 1: stops the wind and it holds the heat very well. Yeah,
1:08:31
Speaker 1: and that shack it is it does have that much
1:08:35
Speaker 1: choiter outer fabric, so that works out nicely for that way.
1:08:38
Speaker 1: That's that's an important thing to remember because when Sika
1:08:41
Speaker 1: produces these pieces, they are really for specific needs and
1:08:44
Speaker 1: so things like that Celsius. That Celsius line is specifically
1:08:48
Speaker 1: for an insulator, a mid layer piece which goes between
1:08:51
Speaker 1: your basse layer and your outer layers. So you know,
1:08:54
Speaker 1: as if if you're going to try this gear, keep
1:08:56
Speaker 1: that in mind that it works as a system. Um,
1:08:58
Speaker 1: and I know a lot of people we need to
1:09:00
Speaker 1: like work our way into it because you might not
1:09:02
Speaker 1: be able to get you know, six things all at once.
1:09:06
Speaker 1: So just think about that when you're when you're putting
1:09:07
Speaker 1: your your pieces together, how they might work together. And
1:09:11
Speaker 1: then if you have to start with one or other,
1:09:13
Speaker 1: you know which ones you get first. So that's something.
1:09:17
Speaker 1: What would you recommend as the very first piece of
1:09:21
Speaker 1: sitka that somebody should pick up? If I can only
1:09:24
Speaker 1: get one individual piece, um, and if I already had
1:09:28
Speaker 1: some bass layers that were serviceable, UM, my very first
1:09:32
Speaker 1: piece will probably the fanaticality, um, just because I wear
1:09:36
Speaker 1: that so much and it's unique compared to like any
1:09:39
Speaker 1: other thing you're gonna have. Um, that's probably my absolute favor. Yeah, yeah,
1:09:45
Speaker 1: I would have to go with it, Like you said,
1:09:48
Speaker 1: the bass layer, like first and foremost. If you don't
1:09:51
Speaker 1: have a good bass layer, get a good bass layer,
1:09:54
Speaker 1: because a bass layer controls your body temperature from you know,
1:10:00
Speaker 1: because before I started doing layering, you'd walk to the
1:10:03
Speaker 1: tree stand, you'd be sweaty, and after thirty minutes, you're
1:10:06
Speaker 1: cold for the entire rest of the hunt, right, those
1:10:10
Speaker 1: cold sweats. Oh yeah, and that sucks. And then you're
1:10:13
Speaker 1: not thinking about hunting, you're thinking about staying warm. So
1:10:17
Speaker 1: if you don't have, if you already have a bass layer,
1:10:20
Speaker 1: a good bass layer, I would have to go with
1:10:23
Speaker 1: the hoodie or dude, I I don't know what it is,
1:10:25
Speaker 1: but that vest is ridiculously good. Yeah, I hear you,
1:10:30
Speaker 1: I hear you. It's just so nice to be able
1:10:32
Speaker 1: to have that quick and easy way to warm up.
1:10:35
Speaker 1: It's like, you know, like you have that mid October,
1:10:37
Speaker 1: late October hunt when it's kind of warm in the day,
1:10:39
Speaker 1: so you're just gonna walk in with your long sleep.
1:10:41
Speaker 1: But then like the last fifteen minutes of daylight, the
1:10:44
Speaker 1: sun starts setting and you start getting that nip in
1:10:46
Speaker 1: the air and you're like, oh, gosh, I wish I
1:10:48
Speaker 1: had something. But you know, lots of times that you do,
1:10:51
Speaker 1: you don't pack it because you don't want to carry something. Well,
1:10:53
Speaker 1: when you've got that little vest like that, that's so convenient,
1:10:57
Speaker 1: it's it's it's there all the time. Yeah, absolutely, So
1:11:00
Speaker 1: that's nice. Okay, So before we get to our next question,
1:11:03
Speaker 1: we're going to pause one more time for a big
1:11:06
Speaker 1: thanks to our partners at White Tailed Properties who stepped
1:11:09
Speaker 1: up big time to help make this podcast possible. And
1:11:12
Speaker 1: as you've been hearing over the past few months, each
1:11:14
Speaker 1: week in this segment, we've been getting some great bits
1:11:16
Speaker 1: and pieces of white tail wisdom from White Tailed Properties
1:11:19
Speaker 1: land specialists. As I'm sure you've been picking up already,
1:11:22
Speaker 1: this team of folks over there is top notch. They
1:11:25
Speaker 1: truly are incredible resources and experts when it comes to
1:11:28
Speaker 1: deer and hunting and habitat improvements and of course buy
1:11:31
Speaker 1: and selling land. And today I want to make sure
1:11:34
Speaker 1: you're aware that White Tailed Properties team members have actually
1:11:36
Speaker 1: appeared in the past on this podcast for entire episodes,
1:11:40
Speaker 1: and those interviews are just jam packed with helpful insight.
1:11:43
Speaker 1: So once you're done listening to this one, if you
1:11:46
Speaker 1: have a little more time or maybe bookmark these for later,
1:11:49
Speaker 1: check out episode number forty six with Dan Pereze and
1:11:52
Speaker 1: which we talk about shut hunting, Episode number ninety two
1:11:55
Speaker 1: with Ben Harshine, where we talk about using maps to
1:11:57
Speaker 1: improve your hunting number. Again with Dan perez And we
1:12:01
Speaker 1: talked about how average jokes can go about buying their
1:12:03
Speaker 1: first piece of hunting land. Episode one eleven with Jake
1:12:07
Speaker 1: Elinger in which we cover all sorts of small property
1:12:10
Speaker 1: hunting and habitat ideas, and then an episode one nineteen
1:12:13
Speaker 1: with Tony Hansen in which we discuss tactics for hunting
1:12:16
Speaker 1: heavily pressured areas. These are some great episodes. I think
1:12:19
Speaker 1: you really enjoy them, so check them out. And if
1:12:21
Speaker 1: you want to learn more about white tail properties in general,
1:12:24
Speaker 1: you can visit white tailed properties dot com. Now back
1:12:29
Speaker 1: to the show. Okay, next question, um, next, let's see here. Okay,
1:12:36
Speaker 1: this is from Charlie S. Charlie is a sixteen year
1:12:40
Speaker 1: old white tail and turkey hunter. In the past few years,
1:12:43
Speaker 1: he's really gotten in deer hunting on his father's two
1:12:45
Speaker 1: and fifty acre farm in Ohio. The farm has seventy
1:12:49
Speaker 1: acres of woods, so that means it's a lot of
1:12:52
Speaker 1: open field. To his dad isn't a big deer hunt
1:12:55
Speaker 1: at all, so he has practically learned everything on his
1:12:57
Speaker 1: own from watching hunting shows and video was Um. He's
1:13:01
Speaker 1: wondering what he can do to two more consistently draw
1:13:05
Speaker 1: in mature bucks and make the woods an ideal home
1:13:08
Speaker 1: for deer. He said, last year he killed a nice
1:13:11
Speaker 1: eight pointer and he was just wondering how kid like
1:13:13
Speaker 1: me could advance my hunting skills and make a better
1:13:15
Speaker 1: white tail property. So big, that's a big question, very
1:13:20
Speaker 1: big and broad question. I figured we could like maybe
1:13:23
Speaker 1: touch on a few intro ideas for him. Maybe I'll
1:13:25
Speaker 1: let you, I'll let you kick it off. Okay, So
1:13:30
Speaker 1: if i'm you know, hopefully hopefully Charlie, your dad can
1:13:34
Speaker 1: help you out, or someone who can help you out
1:13:36
Speaker 1: that has some equipment or something um or experience doing
1:13:40
Speaker 1: these types of things. But if you've got two fifty acres,
1:13:42
Speaker 1: of which seventy acres maybe our woods, if the rest
1:13:45
Speaker 1: is like you know, some farm field that maybe you
1:13:48
Speaker 1: can't mess around with. Let's now just think about that
1:13:50
Speaker 1: seventy acres um and I think rather than like talking
1:13:54
Speaker 1: like really really detailed, I would recommend zooming out a
1:13:57
Speaker 1: little bit and look at the big picture. So look
1:14:00
Speaker 1: at your property and look at like what do I
1:14:03
Speaker 1: have the deer want and need? So what kind of
1:14:06
Speaker 1: food do we have in this property? You know, what
1:14:08
Speaker 1: are the crops that are planned around here? What kind
1:14:10
Speaker 1: of foods in the woods? Is there a lot of understory,
1:14:13
Speaker 1: lots of new brush and growth of the deer eating.
1:14:16
Speaker 1: Are there a lot of oak trees and acorns and stuff?
1:14:19
Speaker 1: Are there apple trees or some other type of master
1:14:21
Speaker 1: tree that's producing good food? So figure, okay, what kind
1:14:23
Speaker 1: of food do I have? Look and see what kind
1:14:25
Speaker 1: of water do I have? Do you have any water? Um?
1:14:27
Speaker 1: And then they're what kind of cover do I have?
1:14:29
Speaker 1: Do I do I have good security cover? Because right,
1:14:31
Speaker 1: those are the three things dear need. They need food, water,
1:14:33
Speaker 1: and they need security in the form of some type
1:14:35
Speaker 1: of cover. So identify that stuff on your property, figure
1:14:39
Speaker 1: out what you have which you don't have. Then zoom
1:14:41
Speaker 1: out further and look at your neighbors and try to,
1:14:44
Speaker 1: you know, based on looking at the maps or from
1:14:46
Speaker 1: talking to them or looking over the fence line or
1:14:48
Speaker 1: something like that, try to see what do they have.
1:14:50
Speaker 1: Do they have lots of food? Do they have lots
1:14:52
Speaker 1: of cover? Do they have lots of water? Do they
1:14:54
Speaker 1: not have any of those things? Now you can start
1:14:57
Speaker 1: to see where the discrepancies are and that it's gonna
1:15:00
Speaker 1: help you improve your property in the in the most
1:15:03
Speaker 1: bang for your buck type of way. So let's just
1:15:06
Speaker 1: say hypothetically that your neighbor has got the best food
1:15:10
Speaker 1: in the world. He's got food plots all over the place.
1:15:14
Speaker 1: It's a deer buffet, but he's got no cover. It's
1:15:18
Speaker 1: just like big mature timber and it's wide open um.
1:15:22
Speaker 1: What you can probably reasonably guess is that the deer
1:15:25
Speaker 1: going to feed over there, but they're not going to
1:15:26
Speaker 1: bed over there in that junkie wallet cover, or you know,
1:15:29
Speaker 1: if they do, they could be easily convinced to go
1:15:31
Speaker 1: somewhere else. So there's an opportunity for you there. You
1:15:34
Speaker 1: now have an opportunity to say, Okay, I know that
1:15:37
Speaker 1: covers lacking around me. Maybe I can produce the very
1:15:39
Speaker 1: best cover in the area. And if you do that,
1:15:41
Speaker 1: you're gonna get a disproportionate number of deer coming to
1:15:44
Speaker 1: spend time on your property because you're providing something that's
1:15:47
Speaker 1: unique in the area that they want and need. Um.
1:15:50
Speaker 1: So that's one way to think about where to spend
1:15:52
Speaker 1: your time and energy when trying to improve it. It
1:15:54
Speaker 1: might be the other way around. Maybe you know, maybe
1:15:57
Speaker 1: there's tons of cover on the neighbors but no food. Well,
1:16:00
Speaker 1: now maybe you can carve out some food plots in
1:16:02
Speaker 1: your woods, open up some area. Um, you know, if
1:16:08
Speaker 1: if all those things being equal and like everything is
1:16:10
Speaker 1: the same all around you and you just want to
1:16:12
Speaker 1: try to improve improve your property a little bit, obviously,
1:16:15
Speaker 1: i'd say, you know, start small. If it's just you
1:16:17
Speaker 1: and your dad working on it. Um, there's some easy
1:16:19
Speaker 1: things you can do. If there's any way you can
1:16:21
Speaker 1: clear out a few little areas to plant some like
1:16:23
Speaker 1: honey hoole type food plots, some little food plots that
1:16:26
Speaker 1: can help you attract deer to a specific location. Um,
1:16:29
Speaker 1: that's a great way to improve your hunting and also
1:16:33
Speaker 1: provide some things to your property. They're going to increase
1:16:35
Speaker 1: deer activity. And then also try to improve a couple
1:16:38
Speaker 1: of areas for cover. So I would try to identify
1:16:40
Speaker 1: someplace within that woods that can be some type of
1:16:43
Speaker 1: sanctuary that you never go into, that you leave as
1:16:45
Speaker 1: a place that the that some deer can can bet
1:16:48
Speaker 1: in and live in and not feel that they're getting
1:16:50
Speaker 1: pressure all time. If you can provide that security, you're
1:16:53
Speaker 1: gonna hold deer. And then if you've got that, then
1:16:56
Speaker 1: you know, okay, there's gonna be dear better than that sanctuary.
1:16:59
Speaker 1: And maybe you create too little tiny eighth acre food
1:17:01
Speaker 1: plots that are about a hundred yards away each and
1:17:04
Speaker 1: you know that, Okay, if I can get to this
1:17:06
Speaker 1: little food plot, there's probably gonna be deer coming from
1:17:08
Speaker 1: that sanctuary. UM. And now you just set up your
1:17:10
Speaker 1: tree stands in between, or you think about how you
1:17:13
Speaker 1: can hunt with wind to make sure you're not blowing
1:17:14
Speaker 1: into that sanctuary. UM. So just I mean this is
1:17:18
Speaker 1: this is very high level, simplified, but just a few
1:17:21
Speaker 1: things to think about. UM. You know, just try to
1:17:23
Speaker 1: get something start. It's hard to do a ton of
1:17:25
Speaker 1: things all once. So I'd like, you know, do a
1:17:27
Speaker 1: little hinge cutting this where you're cutting a tree halfway,
1:17:30
Speaker 1: pushing it over, and that's a great way to create
1:17:32
Speaker 1: new cover to open up the canopy. UM. Or maybe
1:17:36
Speaker 1: your dad or someone can hire someone to come at
1:17:38
Speaker 1: you know, someone from a logging company and they might
1:17:40
Speaker 1: do a selective cut and part your timber in that
1:17:42
Speaker 1: sanctuary area to create a great cover. UM. Maybe pick
1:17:45
Speaker 1: one of the things that I've just mentioned and look
1:17:47
Speaker 1: into it more, do some more reading, UM and try
1:17:50
Speaker 1: that out this year, and then the next year you
1:17:51
Speaker 1: try a little more. The next year you try a
1:17:53
Speaker 1: little more. UM. But at a high level. Look at
1:17:56
Speaker 1: what you've got, Look what your neighbors have. Try to
1:17:59
Speaker 1: fill that gap up. And um, remember deer need food, cover, water,
1:18:04
Speaker 1: and some security. So that's what I got, Dan Nice.
1:18:10
Speaker 1: So here's my take. Right, you're sixteen years old. Uh,
1:18:14
Speaker 1: you're able to work, right, And I don't know if
1:18:17
Speaker 1: you work for your dad on the farm or you
1:18:19
Speaker 1: have a job, but if your dad is the farmer
1:18:24
Speaker 1: of this property, that means you have a hundred and
1:18:27
Speaker 1: what eighty acres of egg on your property. I would
1:18:31
Speaker 1: start off and not necessarily worry about food plots, but
1:18:35
Speaker 1: talk to your dad or the farmer about leaving some
1:18:38
Speaker 1: of that crop standing, uh for egg food plots. Right,
1:18:43
Speaker 1: I mean you have a hundred and eighty acre food
1:18:46
Speaker 1: plot on your property, So talk to whoever the farmer
1:18:49
Speaker 1: is about leaving some of that soybeans I take it,
1:18:53
Speaker 1: or corn standing. And that is just a great opportunity
1:18:57
Speaker 1: to concentrate deer that are already coming to a field
1:19:01
Speaker 1: down into a smaller area. And I think what you'll
1:19:04
Speaker 1: find is, especially late season, uh, you'll be able to
1:19:08
Speaker 1: catch a lot of deer coming to some of those
1:19:12
Speaker 1: uh standing egg fields that haven't been cut yet uh
1:19:16
Speaker 1: so trade labor for whether you need to help your
1:19:21
Speaker 1: dad or whoever the farmer is on this piece of property,
1:19:23
Speaker 1: say hey, I'll be able to I'll do some work
1:19:25
Speaker 1: for you around the farm if you leave you know, uh,
1:19:29
Speaker 1: an acre or two standing. I don't and I don't
1:19:32
Speaker 1: even know how many bushels are in an acre and
1:19:36
Speaker 1: what that would cost, you know, the farmer, to to
1:19:38
Speaker 1: actually leave it up. But that is that's the very
1:19:43
Speaker 1: first thing that um popped into my head. Would be, uh,
1:19:49
Speaker 1: would be to to leave some some kind of crop
1:19:52
Speaker 1: standing if if that's an option. The second thing is
1:19:56
Speaker 1: learn how to run a chainsaw, and there tons of
1:20:00
Speaker 1: information out there on how to hingecut, how to create betting.
1:20:04
Speaker 1: Read up on that. And then the other thing is
1:20:07
Speaker 1: and I I think I heard him say strategy in
1:20:11
Speaker 1: that question, right. If not, let's just throw it in there, okay,
1:20:15
Speaker 1: But my strategy is to stop watching outdoor television and
1:20:21
Speaker 1: do not listen to what those people are telling you,
1:20:25
Speaker 1: because a majority of outdoor television is hunting highly managed
1:20:30
Speaker 1: farms on giant food plots that are um. You know
1:20:35
Speaker 1: that that that piece of property is manicured for one
1:20:39
Speaker 1: reason and one reason only, and that is white tails.
1:20:43
Speaker 1: You are not hunting that kind of property. So you
1:20:46
Speaker 1: need to be as observant as humanly possible on your
1:20:49
Speaker 1: own properties. How do your move in and kind of
1:20:55
Speaker 1: perform a continuous learning type of scenario in your brain document,
1:20:59
Speaker 1: you know, observe where you're finding rubs, where you're finding scrapes,
1:21:03
Speaker 1: and learn on your own property. Yes, some of those people,
1:21:07
Speaker 1: UM can provide you some principles, but it's gonna be
1:21:12
Speaker 1: up to you to apply those principles to your own property.
1:21:16
Speaker 1: So that's just kind of a little rant that I had.
1:21:19
Speaker 1: It's the only person that can make you a better
1:21:22
Speaker 1: hunter as you and and from a property standpoint, you
1:21:26
Speaker 1: have to you have to go on your property. You
1:21:28
Speaker 1: have to scout it every year, multiple times a year.
1:21:31
Speaker 1: You know, within reason, got shed hunting, look for those
1:21:34
Speaker 1: beds after the season is already over, try to find
1:21:37
Speaker 1: those thick areas. And uh, it all comes down to time, right,
1:21:41
Speaker 1: how much time are we going to dedicate to this
1:21:44
Speaker 1: property and to becoming a better deer hunter. Yeah, that's
1:21:48
Speaker 1: some that's some really good advice. I'm glad you mentioned
1:21:50
Speaker 1: that stuff too. UM, A lot of good stuff that
1:21:54
Speaker 1: was a great answer, Dan like to have there what happened?
1:22:00
Speaker 1: I blocked out, Um, I don't want to follow that.
1:22:06
Speaker 1: I was just like, yeah, yeah, good, I don't know
1:22:09
Speaker 1: anything else. I mean, dude, I wish that there was
1:22:14
Speaker 1: podcasts like this when I was growing up, right, because
1:22:19
Speaker 1: when I was growing up, the only type of content
1:22:21
Speaker 1: was magazines that were typically the same type of articles
1:22:26
Speaker 1: that are being written today. Five tips to kill a
1:22:29
Speaker 1: big buck, ten tips to kill a big buck. You know,
1:22:32
Speaker 1: all these tips and tricks, and it's just the same
1:22:35
Speaker 1: information every year, year after year after year, and then
1:22:39
Speaker 1: and then the television shows when I was growing up
1:22:41
Speaker 1: is here comes a buck shoot it, here comes a
1:22:44
Speaker 1: buck shoot it. And I know there's a little bit
1:22:45
Speaker 1: more to that than you know today than there is now,
1:22:48
Speaker 1: but you're not getting an education doing that. It's mostly
1:22:51
Speaker 1: just entertainment. Yeah, exactly, So learn that. Learn now that
1:22:57
Speaker 1: you're in charge, not anybody else. Yeah. And to your point,
1:23:01
Speaker 1: and we're likely very biased, given that we're podcast hosts,
1:23:04
Speaker 1: but but I really do believe that this medium allows
1:23:09
Speaker 1: for level of education that you just can't get with
1:23:13
Speaker 1: any other any of the other things the TV. With
1:23:15
Speaker 1: a magazine article. Um, I can't. I'm sure you've gotten
1:23:19
Speaker 1: the same thing. I can't tell you how many emails
1:23:21
Speaker 1: I've gotten from people that have been listening to this
1:23:23
Speaker 1: over the years, um, who are saying that this has
1:23:26
Speaker 1: changed the way they deer hunt in the past year
1:23:28
Speaker 1: or two more than in thirty years of hunting beforehand. Um.
1:23:32
Speaker 1: Because we're able to have these long conversations with people,
1:23:34
Speaker 1: get lots and lots of different perspectives, break them down,
1:23:37
Speaker 1: think about them, talk about them, try these things ourselves, um,
1:23:41
Speaker 1: and experiments. So this is a shameless, shameless plug, but um,
1:23:45
Speaker 1: well it's true. Mark. Do you hunt large pieces of
1:23:50
Speaker 1: managed property? Do you use an outfitter? Do you have
1:23:53
Speaker 1: hundreds of acres of food plots? No? No, no, ande
1:23:56
Speaker 1: no right. So I'm not trying to talk ship on
1:23:58
Speaker 1: the people who do have those things, because we all
1:24:02
Speaker 1: have different scenarios, you know, we all have different hand
1:24:07
Speaker 1: of cards that's been dealt to us. But one thing
1:24:09
Speaker 1: that just really pisces me off is when somebody tries
1:24:13
Speaker 1: to give advice to their to the listener, you know,
1:24:17
Speaker 1: when they just pulled up to an outfitter and got
1:24:19
Speaker 1: out sattary stand and killed a deer. I'm sorry for
1:24:22
Speaker 1: the rant. No, and I hear you just say I
1:24:24
Speaker 1: just that's and then I think, I think it gets
1:24:27
Speaker 1: it gets twisted because then you have very impressionable And
1:24:32
Speaker 1: I'm not here to, um, you know, talk trash on
1:24:36
Speaker 1: his age because he's he's he's he emailed you or
1:24:39
Speaker 1: typed in that question because he sincerely wants to know
1:24:42
Speaker 1: how to be a better deer hunter. And if we don't,
1:24:45
Speaker 1: you know, we have a responsibility as content providers in
1:24:49
Speaker 1: my opinion too say stuff that is going to I guess,
1:24:55
Speaker 1: I don't know, I don't you know, I'll just put
1:24:57
Speaker 1: it this way. I don't know about food plots really,
1:25:00
Speaker 1: so I'm not going to really comment on food plots, right,
1:25:03
Speaker 1: right and that kind of stuff. Yes, yes, And I
1:25:07
Speaker 1: think the way I've always looked at it is, I
1:25:11
Speaker 1: like when I'm watching a TV show or something, just
1:25:13
Speaker 1: look at it. What's the right way? Put take it
1:25:17
Speaker 1: forward it Take it for what it is. Yeah, it's
1:25:19
Speaker 1: it's entertainment. But don't try to look at that and
1:25:21
Speaker 1: think that that's what your hunting is going to be
1:25:23
Speaker 1: like or should be like. Because to your point in
1:25:25
Speaker 1: a lot of people either have lots of money, time,
1:25:28
Speaker 1: and energy they put into this area to create this
1:25:30
Speaker 1: amazing spot, which is great and fine, and they have
1:25:33
Speaker 1: that and that's tremendous UM. But you may not have
1:25:36
Speaker 1: those same resources or opportunities, so you're gonna have a
1:25:39
Speaker 1: different set of situations. Work with that you got. But
1:25:42
Speaker 1: I will say, UM, when you do find people that
1:25:46
Speaker 1: seem to be providing advice at least are providing UM
1:25:50
Speaker 1: insight into their own experiences, take that if you can,
1:25:53
Speaker 1: and find ways to apply to your own experience. So
1:25:55
Speaker 1: absolutely absolutely. So what I like what we do here
1:25:59
Speaker 1: and with what you're doing Dan and a number of
1:26:01
Speaker 1: other folks, is we try to get people from all
1:26:03
Speaker 1: sorts of different situations. So sometimes we're talking to someone
1:26:06
Speaker 1: who wants public lane. Sometimes we're talking to somebody who
1:26:09
Speaker 1: hunts a little lease. Sometimes we're talking to someone who
1:26:11
Speaker 1: has two thousand acres that they heavily manage. UM, as
1:26:14
Speaker 1: long as that person is saying, hey, this is what
1:26:16
Speaker 1: I do, this is how it works for me, this
1:26:19
Speaker 1: is what I've learned. UM, just listen to them say hey,
1:26:23
Speaker 1: this may not be the same for me, but maybe
1:26:25
Speaker 1: I can take something from it that I can apply
1:26:27
Speaker 1: to it. And I think if you listen to people
1:26:28
Speaker 1: with through that lens um, you can take little tiny
1:26:31
Speaker 1: pieces and build that puzzle on your own forty acres
1:26:35
Speaker 1: or whatever it might be that you're that you're hunting on. Right,
1:26:38
Speaker 1: I want to say one more thing about a sixteen
1:26:41
Speaker 1: year old kid, right, be a good kid and and
1:26:45
Speaker 1: and I say this because I was an asshole as
1:26:48
Speaker 1: a sixteen year old, right. I was getting in trouble
1:26:50
Speaker 1: all the time. I was, you know, partying and and
1:26:54
Speaker 1: doing all these dumb things. Be good, help your pay
1:27:00
Speaker 1: it's out. And this is gonna sound kind of like
1:27:02
Speaker 1: an after school special or the you know, the more
1:27:05
Speaker 1: you know, but yeah, the whole point is this cold
1:27:10
Speaker 1: fronts coming through in November. You got a dear patterned
1:27:14
Speaker 1: the night before, and you can't hunt him that next
1:27:16
Speaker 1: morning because you got to go to school. So if
1:27:19
Speaker 1: you're a good kid, you talk to your mom, you
1:27:21
Speaker 1: talk to your dad, and you're just like, oh man, dad,
1:27:24
Speaker 1: I can can you call me in for you know,
1:27:28
Speaker 1: Sam sick or I'm gonna be late to school because
1:27:31
Speaker 1: I want to be on this buck. And if you
1:27:32
Speaker 1: work hard on the farm and your dad sees that
1:27:35
Speaker 1: that's your passion, he'll be more likely to help you
1:27:39
Speaker 1: accomplish that goal by maybe making a phone call for
1:27:42
Speaker 1: you someday. It's a great point and and something you
1:27:44
Speaker 1: and we have talked about is like we look back
1:27:47
Speaker 1: on our college years too, and like, I wish we weren't,
1:27:49
Speaker 1: you know, off doing stupid things when we could have,
1:27:51
Speaker 1: you know, we had all that time and not quite
1:27:53
Speaker 1: as much responsibility and obligation as we have now. We
1:27:56
Speaker 1: could have been going on more hunting trips or planning better,
1:27:59
Speaker 1: you know, things on our properties or whatever it might
1:28:01
Speaker 1: have been. We could have been way ahead of where
1:28:03
Speaker 1: we are now if we've been this into it and
1:28:05
Speaker 1: putting as much time into it when we were sixteen
1:28:07
Speaker 1: seventeen eighteen, rather than out chasing girls or something. Um.
1:28:11
Speaker 1: Of course, you know, you gotta enjoy your enjoy your youth.
1:28:14
Speaker 1: But man, be good, get your deer hunting in early.
1:28:18
Speaker 1: Take advantage of the fact that you don't have a
1:28:19
Speaker 1: full time job maybe yet, or the family. And uh,
1:28:25
Speaker 1: there's so much advice I want to give this kid,
1:28:28
Speaker 1: and it's not necessarily advice, but I will. I look
1:28:32
Speaker 1: back now, and I found my passion in life. I
1:28:34
Speaker 1: guess a little bit later than probably what's his name again, Charlie,
1:28:38
Speaker 1: Charlie what Charlie found? Right? So he he's he loves
1:28:42
Speaker 1: to deer hunt. It sounds like right, and he um,
1:28:44
Speaker 1: he wants to get into it and be more successful. Um.
1:28:48
Speaker 1: I just like for me, the things that I thought
1:28:51
Speaker 1: were important as a kid are not important. The things
1:28:54
Speaker 1: that I thought were important as even a young adult,
1:28:58
Speaker 1: or hell, even even in my mid twenties after college,
1:29:01
Speaker 1: we're not important. Like I don't know how much time
1:29:06
Speaker 1: I wasted sitting at a bar, you know, a bar
1:29:09
Speaker 1: stool when I should have been out climbing mountains, hiking
1:29:13
Speaker 1: and um, setting trail cameras, Yeah, setting trail cameras, and
1:29:19
Speaker 1: you know, going on Western trips, you know, saving my
1:29:21
Speaker 1: summer money so I could go on a Western trip,
1:29:25
Speaker 1: and you know, going out to eat all the time,
1:29:28
Speaker 1: and and just wasted time. Don't do what I did, right,
1:29:33
Speaker 1: I mean, find something you're passionate about, you're passionate about,
1:29:37
Speaker 1: and go head first into it. And that's that. I mean,
1:29:41
Speaker 1: this is not about deer hunting at this point. It's
1:29:44
Speaker 1: about don't waste don't don't do dumb sh it like me,
1:29:47
Speaker 1: because that time never comes back. You know what doesn't
1:29:50
Speaker 1: and then then you're then you're thirty six years old saying, man,
1:29:54
Speaker 1: I wish I did this, and you can't live your
1:29:56
Speaker 1: life that way. It's true, it's true. Man. Well, speaking
1:30:02
Speaker 1: of hunting trips, hunting trips, we've got a question. We've
1:30:06
Speaker 1: got two questions about trips um. This one. It might
1:30:10
Speaker 1: be a quick answer because I just did a little
1:30:11
Speaker 1: looking into it. I'm not sure if you're gonna have
1:30:13
Speaker 1: anything to add to this or not, but we'll tackle
1:30:16
Speaker 1: it just in case anyone else is in the same boat.
1:30:17
Speaker 1: We got a question from Chris m who goes to
1:30:20
Speaker 1: Kansas every year on a rut cation, but he started
1:30:23
Speaker 1: putting in for Iowa points as well, and he expects
1:30:27
Speaker 1: to get drawn in a few years when he has
1:30:30
Speaker 1: his third preference point. Um. The issue, though, he says
1:30:33
Speaker 1: that the Iowa application, this is the nonresident application process
1:30:37
Speaker 1: starts after the Kansas application ends um and you also
1:30:42
Speaker 1: find out about your Kansas tag before you can get
1:30:45
Speaker 1: drawn for Iowa. So the dilemma is that if you
1:30:47
Speaker 1: get drawn for Kansas and also get drawn for Iowa,
1:30:50
Speaker 1: you can't get a refund on your Kansas tag um
1:30:53
Speaker 1: if you only want to go to Iowa and you
1:30:54
Speaker 1: can't do both. Um. So his questions, what do I
1:30:57
Speaker 1: do in the situation if I want to try to
1:30:58
Speaker 1: draw an Iowa tag but I don't want to not
1:31:01
Speaker 1: be able to hunt Kansas is his question if he can't,
1:31:04
Speaker 1: you know, get the IOA tag. So I looked into
1:31:07
Speaker 1: a little bit further um and what I would recommend
1:31:11
Speaker 1: because he doesn't want to he does he wants to
1:31:14
Speaker 1: avoid being a situation where he can't get either tag,
1:31:17
Speaker 1: but he loved to hunt Iowa some day. So I
1:31:19
Speaker 1: would say two things. Number one, Iowa publishes the drawing
1:31:22
Speaker 1: odds from the previous year for non resident applications. So
1:31:27
Speaker 1: look up on the Iowa dn our website and look
1:31:29
Speaker 1: at those those odds for the unit for the zone
1:31:33
Speaker 1: that you are that you're trying to hunt, and they'll
1:31:36
Speaker 1: tell you that you know, people with two points in
1:31:38
Speaker 1: this unit, you know of them drew and people in
1:31:42
Speaker 1: this unit with three points got you know whatever it is.
1:31:47
Speaker 1: Use that to kind of educate yourself. And when you
1:31:49
Speaker 1: think you really will get that tag, um the year
1:31:53
Speaker 1: that you have the preference points that gets you, you know,
1:31:57
Speaker 1: or better odds of drawing your Iowa tag. And then
1:32:00
Speaker 1: is assuming you can't do both. UM, I would recommend
1:32:02
Speaker 1: that year you don't apply for Kansas, you just apply
1:32:06
Speaker 1: for Iowa. UM. And I say that because Kansas does
1:32:10
Speaker 1: offer leftover tags four units if the quota isn't filled
1:32:14
Speaker 1: after the application process, So you could apply for Iowa
1:32:18
Speaker 1: and if you didn't get it, there could still be
1:32:20
Speaker 1: a chance that Kansas has leftover tags after the application
1:32:24
Speaker 1: that you can buy online, first comfort served. UM. So
1:32:27
Speaker 1: that's a possibility. UM. And then hopefully you know you
1:32:31
Speaker 1: picked you know, you didn't apply for Iowa until that
1:32:34
Speaker 1: year where you had really good chances, So you're probably
1:32:36
Speaker 1: gonna dry your Iowa tag. But on the off chance
1:32:39
Speaker 1: you don't, you've got the leftover option with Kansas. And
1:32:42
Speaker 1: on the off chance that neither of those things happened,
1:32:44
Speaker 1: you didn't get your Iowa tag, there was no leftover
1:32:46
Speaker 1: tags left in Kansas. I'd say, screw Iowa, screw Kansas.
1:32:50
Speaker 1: Go hunt in Nebraska or Missouri or Oklahoma, one of
1:32:54
Speaker 1: these other states that are right around Iowa or Kansas
1:32:57
Speaker 1: that are in my opinion, probably just as good in
1:33:00
Speaker 1: a lot of areas, and you can get that tag
1:33:02
Speaker 1: over the counter, less money. And uh, there's lots of
1:33:06
Speaker 1: great honey in all those states two where you have
1:33:07
Speaker 1: just as good at a hunt. So that's that's why
1:33:10
Speaker 1: I take on that. Anything else, your dad, Dan, No,
1:33:15
Speaker 1: I think you you hit it. Just try to alternate years, man,
1:33:18
Speaker 1: or just get to a point in your Iowa tag
1:33:20
Speaker 1: system where you you know you're gonna draw, right, So
1:33:24
Speaker 1: maybe go one extra year on buying an Iowa tag
1:33:28
Speaker 1: hunt Kansas guaranteed and then don't even apply for Kansas
1:33:32
Speaker 1: when you know you have the right amount of point
1:33:34
Speaker 1: to hunt Iowa. Yeah. I mean there's there's units in
1:33:38
Speaker 1: Iowa where if you have three or four points, like
1:33:40
Speaker 1: you're guaranteed to draw. Um. So just look at those
1:33:44
Speaker 1: drawing odds for the year before, figure out what unit
1:33:47
Speaker 1: is going to give you the pretty much guaranteed draw
1:33:49
Speaker 1: and um, and pick that year to do just Iowa.
1:33:52
Speaker 1: That's what I would do. Okay, last two questions, Dan,
1:33:56
Speaker 1: they're kind of related to the same thing. And UM,
1:33:59
Speaker 1: you and me both I think can add some thoughts
1:34:01
Speaker 1: on this. This is a little outside of the usual. UM,
1:34:03
Speaker 1: but we both had some experiences out there, and I
1:34:06
Speaker 1: know I get a lot of emails asking about this
1:34:08
Speaker 1: kind of thing, so I thought we talked about it. UM.
1:34:10
Speaker 1: First questions from Brody, he says he got a slightly
1:34:13
Speaker 1: unusual quest based on your me marks extensive travel throughout
1:34:18
Speaker 1: the Western United States. He's looking for a potential honeymoon
1:34:21
Speaker 1: destination last week of September, and he wondered if we
1:34:25
Speaker 1: had some ideas of some ecosystems or areas that would
1:34:27
Speaker 1: provide stunning views and plenty of wildlife for them to
1:34:31
Speaker 1: go explore. That's question A, and question B is from Derek,
1:34:36
Speaker 1: who is asking something similar. He uh said he listened
1:34:39
Speaker 1: to one of our podcasts where we talked about my
1:34:41
Speaker 1: shitty camping situation. He said, yeah, he said that was
1:34:46
Speaker 1: very intriguing UM, and he had some questions about the trip.
1:34:50
Speaker 1: He would like to get some details about the route
1:34:53
Speaker 1: of the trip, things we stopped by, checked out, places
1:34:56
Speaker 1: to camp, things worth doing with a dog, um, anything
1:35:00
Speaker 1: like that. UM. He also was curious about if tent
1:35:03
Speaker 1: camping was okay in areas with bears and grizzly bears
1:35:06
Speaker 1: and whatnot. UM. So, basically, Brody and Derek are both
1:35:09
Speaker 1: looking for some recommended vacation spots and ideas for heading
1:35:14
Speaker 1: to the West for the first time. You've done this
1:35:16
Speaker 1: a few times now, Dan, I know it's in your blood.
1:35:19
Speaker 1: Based on what you've seen so far, what would you recommend? Alright, Well,
1:35:23
Speaker 1: I'm gonna leave most of this to you because you
1:35:26
Speaker 1: have the most experience with this kind of thing. So
1:35:29
Speaker 1: I'm just gonna give some specific examples to the places
1:35:33
Speaker 1: that I've been. Uh, dude, Rocky Mountain National Park is gorgeous,
1:35:38
Speaker 1: plenty of camping opportunities there. Um, you go a little
1:35:41
Speaker 1: bit further west, there is a small town called Georgetown, Colorado,
1:35:48
Speaker 1: west of Denver. I think it's right off the interstate.
1:35:51
Speaker 1: And then there's a road that leads all the way
1:35:54
Speaker 1: up to um Mount Beard stat which is a fourteen
1:35:58
Speaker 1: thousand foot peak. In other there's a you know, like
1:36:01
Speaker 1: fifty four or fourteeners in uh, Colorado. There's some camping
1:36:05
Speaker 1: up up there, but absolutely gorgeous views throughout that entire area. Um,
1:36:14
Speaker 1: and then I'm very partial to the planes, man like.
1:36:18
Speaker 1: I love that wide open stuff. So um, this isn't
1:36:22
Speaker 1: necessarily way out west, but Lake McConaughey in Nebraska, north
1:36:27
Speaker 1: of Ogalala, It's it's a crystal clear lake, it's white
1:36:31
Speaker 1: sand beach, and you can camp. You can pull your
1:36:35
Speaker 1: car or truck in camp er right on the sand
1:36:39
Speaker 1: and make um and in camp right there on the
1:36:44
Speaker 1: on the shore. That's awesome. Uh. And then, dude, the
1:36:48
Speaker 1: last one that might overlap you a little bit is
1:36:52
Speaker 1: even though I bought a very expensive tent tent there,
1:36:57
Speaker 1: did Jackson Hole, Wyoming is kind of a cool little
1:37:00
Speaker 1: little town. Oh yeah? Oh yeah? And did we did
1:37:03
Speaker 1: we get to go towards the did you get to
1:37:05
Speaker 1: see the two towns or was it cloudy and raining
1:37:07
Speaker 1: that day? Well? I don't think we made it. We
1:37:11
Speaker 1: didn't go north and it was foggy, so we didn't
1:37:15
Speaker 1: see a long ways away. Um, we saw some of
1:37:17
Speaker 1: the rockies. And dude, I tell you what, in driving
1:37:22
Speaker 1: through Colorado is awesome and fun. But driving through southern
1:37:25
Speaker 1: Wyoming in that wide open and you can see mountains
1:37:29
Speaker 1: in the far distance, you can see mountains up close. Um,
1:37:33
Speaker 1: I'm sure that is definitely a road you've taken several
1:37:36
Speaker 1: times now. But any it's hard because anywhere out there
1:37:43
Speaker 1: is stunning. Yeah, I agree, lots of lots of great
1:37:47
Speaker 1: places to check out. I Um, it's been just super
1:37:51
Speaker 1: lucky to have been able to spend a lot of
1:37:53
Speaker 1: time out in these places. And I've been able to
1:37:54
Speaker 1: hang out in the Southwest and like Arizona and Utah.
1:37:57
Speaker 1: I've been able to go out to some of the
1:37:59
Speaker 1: stuff in the Northwest, like Mount Rainier and the Cascades
1:38:02
Speaker 1: and some of that. When I was really young, did
1:38:04
Speaker 1: some backpacking and camping climbing out in the Sierra Nevadas
1:38:07
Speaker 1: and like Yosemite and King's Canyon and Sequoia National Parks
1:38:10
Speaker 1: out there. Um. But my absolute favorite general region is
1:38:17
Speaker 1: the Northern Rocky Mountains, um, that interior mountain west of Idaho,
1:38:21
Speaker 1: Wyoming and Montana. It has just got that sweet spot
1:38:24
Speaker 1: for me of like absolutely stunning terrain, the mountains, the plains,
1:38:29
Speaker 1: the glacial lakes, the rivers, it's all just absolutely gorgeous.
1:38:34
Speaker 1: But then you also have the full suite of wildlife
1:38:38
Speaker 1: still there in most of these places, So unlike Utah
1:38:42
Speaker 1: or California or um, you know, even Colorado, when you're
1:38:47
Speaker 1: in Idaho, Wyoming or Montana and parts of those three states,
1:38:50
Speaker 1: you can still see buffalo, grizzly bears, wolves, and then
1:38:56
Speaker 1: all the other big game you know, elk, moose, antelope, yield, deer,
1:39:00
Speaker 1: white tails, coyotes. Um, just a wild life is unbelievable. Um.
1:39:05
Speaker 1: So he Brody asked you if there's some specific ecosystems
1:39:09
Speaker 1: or areas. Number one, my number one favorite place in
1:39:12
Speaker 1: the world is the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem. So that is
1:39:15
Speaker 1: this area. It's a large area that is much more
1:39:18
Speaker 1: than just Yellowstone Park, but Yellowstone Park is kind of
1:39:20
Speaker 1: at the core of it. And this is at the
1:39:22
Speaker 1: corner of Wyoming, Montana, and Idaho where they all come together.
1:39:25
Speaker 1: That's north western Wyoming. There's just all this amazing stuff
1:39:30
Speaker 1: right there. This is where the town of Jackson Hole is. Uh,
1:39:32
Speaker 1: this is where the town of Bozeman, Montana. All these
1:39:36
Speaker 1: places that I spent so much time in, Um, they're
1:39:38
Speaker 1: all kind of right around this. So within that you've
1:39:41
Speaker 1: got Grand Teton National Park and a bunch of National
1:39:44
Speaker 1: forests and wilderness areas right around there. That is one
1:39:47
Speaker 1: of my absolute favorite places in the world. UM. You know,
1:39:50
Speaker 1: we we all hunt not too far from that. UM.
1:39:53
Speaker 1: I backpack out there, fly fish out there. Um we've
1:39:56
Speaker 1: we've stayed out there for a few summers. The Titans
1:39:59
Speaker 1: are probably the gorgeous mountain range in the lower forty
1:40:02
Speaker 1: eight that I that I've seen. Um, so you can't
1:40:06
Speaker 1: go wrong with like base camping in Grand Teton National
1:40:09
Speaker 1: Park and doing stuff out there. And Brody said he's
1:40:12
Speaker 1: gonna be there in the last week of September. So
1:40:13
Speaker 1: if you're out there in that area around the t
1:40:15
Speaker 1: tons um or just heading north a little bit into Yellowstone,
1:40:19
Speaker 1: all that whole area is loaded with elk. So you're
1:40:21
Speaker 1: gonna here, You're gonna be hearing elk screaming. Um, You're
1:40:24
Speaker 1: gonna see all sorts of wildlife. It's beautiful, crisp and
1:40:27
Speaker 1: clear out there. I mean you were there with me
1:40:29
Speaker 1: in September. Dans Aspens are changing colors. Um, you know,
1:40:33
Speaker 1: comfortable days but cool, crisp nights and mornings. Um. Like
1:40:40
Speaker 1: senses the smell you step outside of a dusty state,
1:40:45
Speaker 1: I mean, like where I live. You know, yeah, there's
1:40:48
Speaker 1: cities and towns and stuff like that, but you get
1:40:50
Speaker 1: out west and there's something about a sense of smell,
1:40:55
Speaker 1: like especially like the sage right that just stays with
1:40:59
Speaker 1: you longer almost than some of the other sites that
1:41:03
Speaker 1: you can can hear or see. It's crazy and it's
1:41:06
Speaker 1: like it's at least for me as soon as I
1:41:07
Speaker 1: get out of the car for the first time when
1:41:09
Speaker 1: I get to somewhere like that and you you breathe
1:41:11
Speaker 1: in that, like you said, the sage and the pine,
1:41:13
Speaker 1: it's like it's like a rush of memories and like
1:41:16
Speaker 1: feelings all at once from all the previous times you've
1:41:20
Speaker 1: experienced that. It's just like I love it. So g
1:41:25
Speaker 1: y E probably my favorite place in the world. Um,
1:41:28
Speaker 1: the northern uh Rocky Mountain area. Um, gosh, what do
1:41:33
Speaker 1: you call it? Um? I'm blanking on this, But up
1:41:35
Speaker 1: around Glacier National Park, there's the Bob Marshall Wilderness, There's
1:41:39
Speaker 1: the Low Low National Forest. There's a bunch of stuff
1:41:43
Speaker 1: right up there by the Canadian border. That is another
1:41:45
Speaker 1: absolutely beautiful place. Lots and lots of things there to do. Um. So,
1:41:50
Speaker 1: if I were to probably pick my two favorite places
1:41:52
Speaker 1: in the world to go do something out in the
1:41:54
Speaker 1: Mountain West, I'd say first somewhere around the Rockies or
1:41:57
Speaker 1: somewhere around the g y E. So I'd probably start
1:41:59
Speaker 1: in Action and the Ta Tons, and then i'd move
1:42:02
Speaker 1: into Yellowstone for a little bit, and I'd see Yellowstone
1:42:04
Speaker 1: because you just have to see Yellowstone. Um, make sure
1:42:07
Speaker 1: you hit Lamar Valley. That's this valley in the park
1:42:09
Speaker 1: where there's just thousands of buffalo and all sorts of
1:42:12
Speaker 1: wildlife and beautiful views. Um. And then hike in the
1:42:17
Speaker 1: Ta Tons, do some stuff like that fly fish the
1:42:19
Speaker 1: Snake River or the ta Ton River which is on
1:42:21
Speaker 1: the Idaho side of the line. There um, great fishing.
1:42:25
Speaker 1: Not is busy on that side of the mountains. UM.
1:42:27
Speaker 1: And then head up to northern Montana if you can,
1:42:29
Speaker 1: to the area on Glacier just unbelievable mountains again, lots
1:42:33
Speaker 1: and lots of wildlife UM. And then one of the
1:42:36
Speaker 1: things I'd recommend is sort of to your point, Dan,
1:42:40
Speaker 1: get out on the plains. So if you're like, if
1:42:42
Speaker 1: you're in Montana. One of my favorite things about Montana,
1:42:44
Speaker 1: probably why Montana is my favorite state, is because it
1:42:47
Speaker 1: has the mountains. The western third of the state is
1:42:50
Speaker 1: just so many different mountain ranges and so many different
1:42:52
Speaker 1: rivers and just unbelievable vertical terrain rock and ice and
1:42:57
Speaker 1: pine trees and just unbelievable. But then you also have
1:43:00
Speaker 1: this other side of the state that's just vast, wide
1:43:04
Speaker 1: open rolling hills and grasslands and bad lands and coolies
1:43:09
Speaker 1: and all these breaks and buttes and brock and just
1:43:13
Speaker 1: bizarre different wild features. You've got all these different ecosystems
1:43:16
Speaker 1: and terrain, um, and it's just big, open and empty.
1:43:21
Speaker 1: You can. I mean, one of my favorite things when
1:43:23
Speaker 1: I was out there deer hunting in Montana is that
1:43:25
Speaker 1: I could just pull out. I could stop my car
1:43:27
Speaker 1: in the middle of the road, and I could step
1:43:29
Speaker 1: out of my car stand in the middle of this
1:43:31
Speaker 1: road and to spin around circles, and I didn't need
1:43:34
Speaker 1: to worry about another car driving. I didn't need to
1:43:36
Speaker 1: worry about seeing a house or a person or light.
1:43:39
Speaker 1: I could just look out and see mountains on either side,
1:43:41
Speaker 1: this huge wide valley of swaying grasses, and maybe some
1:43:45
Speaker 1: elk way off from the distance, or a bunch of
1:43:46
Speaker 1: mule there nearby, and perfect silence. And it's just that
1:43:51
Speaker 1: is like heaven for me, just being somewhere like that.
1:43:54
Speaker 1: And there's so much of that out there in Montana, UM,
1:43:58
Speaker 1: and in a lot of these western states you can
1:43:59
Speaker 1: find it too, UM. But that's kind of my little
1:44:03
Speaker 1: favorite spot. UM. And man, I could I could talk
1:44:06
Speaker 1: for days about all these different things. But right I
1:44:08
Speaker 1: love me some white tails. But there's some great stuff
1:44:10
Speaker 1: above and beyond that too. Now, I don't know if
1:44:14
Speaker 1: your wives, like if you're going on a honeymoon and
1:44:17
Speaker 1: don't have multiple wives right now, but like this guy
1:44:22
Speaker 1: right he's going on his honeymoon, you might want to
1:44:25
Speaker 1: consider if she's not into the hiking, backpacking, um, you
1:44:30
Speaker 1: know outdoor scene like you that you know, obviously it
1:44:33
Speaker 1: can't be a one sided trip. Uh, make sure you
1:44:37
Speaker 1: do some fun things because I'd hate to see your
1:44:40
Speaker 1: your marriage start off on a wrong foot. So I
1:44:45
Speaker 1: went out to western Washington north of Seattle for a
1:44:49
Speaker 1: wedding once and um went to the it's called Whibley Island, um,
1:44:55
Speaker 1: and it was what's the Puget Sound, uh way on
1:44:59
Speaker 1: the north part of bit had to take a ferry
1:45:01
Speaker 1: to get there. That's the only way. And then we
1:45:03
Speaker 1: um went took two more ferries to a Olympic Olympic
1:45:09
Speaker 1: National Park on the Washington basically peninsula that shoots up
1:45:15
Speaker 1: towards towards the north, basically the border that's that is
1:45:19
Speaker 1: an absolutely gorgeous place as well, from from zero to
1:45:24
Speaker 1: five thousand feet just like that, Yeah, Pacific Northwest, and
1:45:29
Speaker 1: that's a that's a beautiful mountains, but a very different field.
1:45:32
Speaker 1: You know, it's like absolutely so wet and green and
1:45:35
Speaker 1: lush rainforest, um and very cool. We're just we're so
1:45:38
Speaker 1: lucky here in America to have a wide variety of
1:45:42
Speaker 1: different places. I mean, I don't there's I don't know.
1:45:46
Speaker 1: I mean there's not a whole lot of places in
1:45:47
Speaker 1: the world where you can see as you can sample
1:45:49
Speaker 1: as many different ecosystems and places and see such world
1:45:53
Speaker 1: class scenery and wildlife. And you know, goes back to
1:45:56
Speaker 1: what we talked about a lot public land. Baby, We're
1:45:59
Speaker 1: so lucky to have all these places because, um, some
1:46:02
Speaker 1: very forward thinking men and women a long time ago
1:46:05
Speaker 1: decided to fight for these places. And man, I am
1:46:07
Speaker 1: very very glad about him. Absolutely. Well, we've talked a
1:46:14
Speaker 1: long time today, We've talked a long time about this
1:46:17
Speaker 1: random stuff. Yeah. So all good. I mean that's I
1:46:20
Speaker 1: love that stuff. Yeah. Hopefully hopefully there's still three or
1:46:23
Speaker 1: four people still listening that enjoyed. I think I think
1:46:28
Speaker 1: this is a good place to wrap it up, though.
1:46:30
Speaker 1: So do you have anything else you want to cover? No, man,
1:46:33
Speaker 1: just that sixteen year old kid. Man, Uh be good,
1:46:38
Speaker 1: be good. Chase your dreams, don't chase your dreams. Don't
1:46:42
Speaker 1: be like Dan, keep all your fingers. Yeah and uh
1:46:46
Speaker 1: and with that, let's shut this one down. Oh but
1:46:48
Speaker 1: before we shut down down, I just want to say again,
1:46:51
Speaker 1: thank you so much for those antlers. Yeah, no worries, dude,
1:46:54
Speaker 1: that's so cool. They're meant to be in Mark kitten
1:46:57
Speaker 1: In's house. Well they will be forever and four always.
1:47:01
Speaker 1: And that right there is our episode. A few quick
1:47:04
Speaker 1: updates for you. First off, like I mentioned earlier, follow
1:47:08
Speaker 1: along with the Sick Converge event this week by checking
1:47:11
Speaker 1: out the Wired to Hunt Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook accounts.
1:47:14
Speaker 1: And speaking of social media, as I mentioned last week,
1:47:17
Speaker 1: I'm taking over the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership Instagram next week.
1:47:22
Speaker 1: That's the week of June seventeen, and I'll be posting
1:47:26
Speaker 1: some cool stories and photos there over those five days.
1:47:29
Speaker 1: So check out the TRCP insta. I think you'll enjoy
1:47:32
Speaker 1: that stuff. And with all that said, big things too.
1:47:35
Speaker 1: Sick of gear YETI Cooler's Matthews Archery may have an
1:47:38
Speaker 1: optics white Tail, Institute of North America, Trophy Ridge and
1:47:42
Speaker 1: Hunt Terra maps, And of course, thank you all for listening.
1:47:46
Speaker 1: I'm certain you are the coolest bunch of hunting podcast
1:47:50
Speaker 1: listeners out there, and damn good hunters too, so have
1:47:53
Speaker 1: a great week and stay wired to hunt U