Speaker 1: Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast, your guide to
Speaker 1: the White Tail Woods presented by first Light, creating proven
Speaker 1: versatile hunting apparel for the stand, saddle or blind. First
Speaker 1: Light Go farther, stay Longer, and now your host, Mark Kenyon.
Speaker 2: Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast. This week on
Speaker 2: the show, I'm joined by my longtime co hosts Dan
Speaker 2: Johnson and Tony Peterson to discuss our twenty twenty four goals,
Speaker 2: hopes and hitlists. All right, welcome to the Wired to
Speaker 2: Hunt podcast, brought to you by First Light and their
Speaker 2: Camel for Conservation initiative in the brand new White Tail
Speaker 2: line that just came out this summer.
Speaker 3: All sorts of exciting stuff on that front.
Speaker 2: But we are excited to be here today because if
Speaker 2: you're listening to this when it drops, it is the
Speaker 2: end of August, which means hunting season is basically here.
Speaker 2: The three of us here on the show today have
Speaker 2: hunts kicking off relatively soon. We're excited and we are
Speaker 2: here to do our annual goals, hopes and hit lists show.
Speaker 2: So joining me is mister Daniel Johnson and Tony Peterson,
Speaker 2: my two longtime partners in crime brothers from another mother
Speaker 2: bad influences on me. They've brought me down for years,
Speaker 2: still doing it today.
Speaker 3: Thanks for joining me. Guys.
Speaker 4: Wow, Well, if we were brothers from another mother, you
Speaker 4: would have been an accident because we're so much older
Speaker 4: than you, so you were you would have been an
Speaker 4: unplanned pregnancy.
Speaker 2: Well that explains a lot, I would say, and we.
Speaker 5: Can all agree that Mark was probably an accident in right.
Speaker 2: And also, how are you in any way surprised by
Speaker 2: me saying that you guys have been bringing me down?
Speaker 3: Like, how can you act shocked by that?
Speaker 5: Listen? Mark, I don't know if the listeners know this
Speaker 5: or not, but you have altered the course of my
Speaker 5: life since April with that deer poop video that we made.
Speaker 5: And I'm at first they were all going after you,
Speaker 5: and I was like, this is perfect. I'll just lay
Speaker 5: a low. And now I have people coming out of
Speaker 5: the woodwork and they're like, I saw this video you
Speaker 5: guys eating deer poop, and I'm like, oh my god.
Speaker 2: I had someone the other day come up and say, hey, man,
Speaker 2: my brother told me about this video and he asked
Speaker 2: me if you were actually eating deer poop or not.
Speaker 3: You weren't really eating deer poop?
Speaker 5: Were it?
Speaker 3: I'm like, man, how do so many people not get
Speaker 3: the joke?
Speaker 5: My father in law does not even have an email.
Speaker 5: I mean, that's where he's at in life. And I
Speaker 5: sat next to him at one of my daughter's softball
Speaker 5: games the other night, and he's like, Hey, this guy
Speaker 5: that I used to work with sent me a text
Speaker 5: and said he saw a video of you eating deer poop.
Speaker 5: And it's like, how do you explain that to a
Speaker 5: guy who doesn't have you know what I mean?
Speaker 2: But I was like, ah, yeah, So.
Speaker 4: Basically what we're getting at here is I'm the only
Speaker 4: one on this episode that has not had deer poop
Speaker 4: in their mouth.
Speaker 5: Hey, Dan, don't kink shame us. It's twenty twenty four, buddy. Yeah,
Speaker 5: I wouldn't call this kink shaman. Buddy.
Speaker 2: Can you can do whatever you want now, buddy? In
Speaker 2: Mark's case, I would anyways, to be clear with anyone
Speaker 2: who's listening who did not see this video, we did
Speaker 2: not really eat deer poop. We opened a video pretending
Speaker 2: to eat deer poop. It was just chocolate covered raisins.
Speaker 2: I told a funny story about how I've been I've
Speaker 2: been like told this joke before and then we revealed
Speaker 2: at the end of the video. But I think a
Speaker 2: lot of people just saw the social clip or they
Speaker 2: watched the first part of the video, but they didn't
Speaker 2: see the very end. So we may now tony and
Speaker 2: not be known in the history books as the hosts
Speaker 2: of a pretty decent hunting podcast or being half decent writers,
Speaker 2: or or doing some films. We're just gonna be those
Speaker 2: guys that ate the deer ship.
Speaker 5: Yeah, so that's what I've been telling everybody career defining moment, Marcus. Yeah,
Speaker 5: who to throw away video that we did for fun. Now,
Speaker 5: that's who we are. That is who we are. Mark,
Speaker 5: You're like the male version of that hawk to a girl.
Speaker 2: Now, So I don't even I don't this is this
Speaker 2: is a sad mission maybe, but I don't know what
Speaker 2: the hawk to a thing is.
Speaker 5: All right, well we probably shouldn't talk about it. Then,
Speaker 5: Well here's what it is, idiot. No, I'm just.
Speaker 2: I've seen people like say those words, but I've not
Speaker 2: seen the original impetus for the the meme or whatever.
Speaker 3: So all right, we'll do that. I'll trust you on that.
Speaker 2: Are you guys, where's your temperature, Dann, we talked about
Speaker 2: this earlier this week. But where's like your guys's temperature
Speaker 2: on the hunting season? Are you feeling ready? Are you
Speaker 2: feeling excited? Is this like full amped up? Are you
Speaker 2: still on the rise? Where do you stand?
Speaker 5: Kick it off? Tony? Didn't I thought Mark? Didn't you
Speaker 5: just asked Dan that question?
Speaker 2: No, I said me and Dan. Me and Dan talked
Speaker 2: about this a little bit earlier this on his podcast.
Speaker 2: So I'm curious about where you're at today, Tony. Where
Speaker 2: my temperature is at?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 5: Not very warm, buddy? Uh might it might change after
Speaker 5: this week? And I'm heading over with the girls to
Speaker 5: bait some bears and put up some blinds for some deer.
Speaker 5: But I don't know what happened. All the bucks I
Speaker 5: was getting on camera are just gone, and they've been
Speaker 5: gone for like a week, and a lot of natural
Speaker 5: bear movement showed up. So something changed for me. I don't.
Speaker 5: I don't think it's acorns. I've been out a little bit.
Speaker 5: I don't. I don't get that vibe. But maybe there's
Speaker 5: a lot of apples hitting the ground or some kind
Speaker 5: of soft mass situation going on. Uh So I would
Speaker 5: say if it's like a one out of ten. I'm
Speaker 5: at like a read right now, although I do have
Speaker 5: a really big bear to work, so I know that
Speaker 5: doesn't do as much good for this podcast, but maybe
Speaker 5: that brings me to four.
Speaker 3: Okay, four for you Dan, what about you?
Speaker 4: Well, the second that my kids stepped on the school
Speaker 4: bus today, the temperature jumped right and so I was basically,
Speaker 4: you know, a seasonal depression basically from the last day
Speaker 4: of school until the first day of school hits. And
Speaker 4: now the kids are on the bus, I can start focusing.
Speaker 4: I can go organize my garage, get my gear ready,
Speaker 4: shoot my bow more, start planning my first hunt in October,
Speaker 4: and I guess, start putting the pieces of the puzzle together,
Speaker 4: and temperature is rising. I'm not going to give it
Speaker 4: a number, but I'm gonna I'm just saying it's going
Speaker 4: up and up and up.
Speaker 2: Nice, I'm gonna I'm gonna say that. I guess I'm
Speaker 2: a little ahead of the game on you guys. I'm
Speaker 2: I've got a pretty high temperature. I'm pretty amped. I
Speaker 2: just just wrapped up my whitetail prep on most of
Speaker 2: my at least my main zone. I did my last project.
Speaker 2: Got my last projects done yesterday, so I'm feeling good
Speaker 2: about that. I've got one other new property, I've got
Speaker 2: a scout and do a little bit of work on.
Speaker 2: I got to go up to Deer Camp next week
Speaker 2: and get some stuff done there. But once that's done,
Speaker 2: I think I'm ready. So I'm I'm excited. I'm excited
Speaker 2: for Whitetail, So I'm like at a six seven in
Speaker 2: rising And then I'm had like a low underlying stress
Speaker 2: for my Alaska trip coming up, which will which we'll
Speaker 2: get to and talk about more. But I'm I do
Speaker 2: not feel ready for that, and I feel just like
Speaker 2: an underlying low grade ambient stress level all the time
Speaker 2: now whenever I think about that, like between my son, well,
Speaker 2: my oldest son with a broken leg, he's been like
Speaker 2: waking up in the middle of the night like crazy itching,
Speaker 2: and then last night a random like my young son
Speaker 2: woke up just like saying he was hungry and then
Speaker 2: just crying. And so when every time I've been woken
Speaker 2: up in the middle of the night, when I go
Speaker 2: lay back down in bed, I all of a sudden
Speaker 2: start having these like are you ready for this thing?
Speaker 3: Did you plan for this?
Speaker 5: Thing.
Speaker 2: Do you have that thing packed? Do you even know
Speaker 2: what to do in that situation? Is that figured out?
Speaker 5: All?
Speaker 3: For this the last thing?
Speaker 2: So I'm trying to get excited, but mostly just panicked
Speaker 2: on that front.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I dude, if I were you, I would be
Speaker 5: panicked too, because that's a I would not be comfortable
Speaker 5: where you're at right now. Hard to call an outfitter, Mark,
Speaker 5: that's all you're doing? Right?
Speaker 3: No?
Speaker 5: Okay, all right? I think it was just a phone
Speaker 5: call or not. Man man kidd, he likes to scratch,
Speaker 5: uh huh. But well we'll we'll we'll get to my
Speaker 5: Alaska stuff in more detail. But I want to lead
Speaker 5: with you guys, and and that the idea here with
Speaker 5: this podcast for anyone who hasn't heard one of these,
Speaker 5: is that we just want to get everyone listening. Everyone
Speaker 5: in our audience is up to speed on our plans
Speaker 5: for the coming year, What our goals are, you know,
Speaker 5: what particular adventures or experiences or deer we're chasing this year,
Speaker 5: what we're what we're going after. Kind of setting the
Speaker 5: stage so as we, you know, go through the hunting season,
Speaker 5: they kind of know what we're getting after and hopefully
Speaker 5: something to look forward to hearing about So, Dan, yes,
Speaker 5: do you want to open this up? Do you want
Speaker 5: to give us a rundown of the Daniel Johnson hunt
Speaker 5: schedule this year? Okay, it's real simple.
Speaker 4: This year is October first first trip South Dakota looking
Speaker 4: for mule deer.
Speaker 5: This met this dude online, and I'm.
Speaker 3: As all good stories start.
Speaker 5: Met this guy online.
Speaker 4: Actually, he reached out to me via Instagram and he's like, hey, man,
Speaker 4: my crew that I go with doesn't want to go
Speaker 4: or can't go this year, and we hunt relatively in
Speaker 4: the same areas, UH. And he's like, dude, you want
Speaker 4: to team up and and go and try something different?
Speaker 5: And I was like, yeah, let's do it.
Speaker 3: And hold on, hold on, before we go any further.
Speaker 3: How do you.
Speaker 2: Not fact check but like creep check this dude, Like,
Speaker 2: how do you know you're not getting to a situation
Speaker 2: We're gonna come home married to a new person.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 4: So I go to the uh sex offender's website and
Speaker 4: basically check his address and see if he like, if
Speaker 4: he lives there, and that's pretty much my only check.
Speaker 3: That's it. He clears that bar. We're up.
Speaker 4: Yeah, Yeah, he clears that bar. We're good to go,
Speaker 4: and then it just pulled, I'll get in a car
Speaker 4: with a stranger. I don't care, Okay, I mean, especially
Speaker 4: if you promised me good dear honey.
Speaker 5: Mark. Doesn't this feel like this is going to show
Speaker 5: up on a dateline episode?
Speaker 3: Oh for sure? This is how those documentaries start.
Speaker 4: Dan, Yeah, as long as Keith Morrison is the narrator,
Speaker 4: I'm all good, dude.
Speaker 3: Be a hell of a way to go.
Speaker 2: Okay, So what if I'm I'm and maybe because I'm
Speaker 2: like socially, I'm more just paranoid about getting the weird situations.
Speaker 2: But have you ever thought about, like, are there strings attached?
Speaker 2: Are there weird obligations that you're going to feel like
Speaker 2: now become a thing because of this? Is there anything
Speaker 2: weird about him being like knowing everything about you and
Speaker 2: knowing you and your world and and you not knowing
Speaker 2: anything about him?
Speaker 3: Do you know what I mean?
Speaker 5: Yeah?
Speaker 3: I get It's that kind of thing, right.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I get it. And so.
Speaker 4: It's just all about expectations, right, Like, So the first thing,
Speaker 4: the first conversation that we had was Hey, man, I
Speaker 4: would love to come out with you. We can go
Speaker 4: bounce on your spots. We can go bounce on the
Speaker 4: spots that I've accumulated, and we can. There's so much
Speaker 4: public land out in South Dakota west of the Missouri
Speaker 4: that it's really for me. It's not a huge issue.
Speaker 4: It's not like and as we all know, there's no
Speaker 4: real secrets in blick land anymore. And so there's spots
Speaker 4: that are better than others. In some years they're good,
Speaker 4: and especially out in South Dakota, Man, there's years where
Speaker 4: the rain is good, the grass is tall, and the
Speaker 4: deer there. And then there's other years where there's a
Speaker 4: cattle rotation and all those same things happen, but the
Speaker 4: cattle rotation hits that parcel and it's not good anymore.
Speaker 5: And so.
Speaker 4: One thing that I've found out, especially in those scenarios,
Speaker 4: is you can scout as much as you want, but
Speaker 4: you don't know cattle rotations. You like, you can check
Speaker 4: the rain, you can maybe talk to some locals that
Speaker 4: are out there, but once you get there, you're starting
Speaker 4: from scratch anyway. Get to the point, start glassing, Get
Speaker 4: to the point start glassing, and then you've got to
Speaker 4: just go where the deer are at. And so I'm
Speaker 4: not too concerned about the sharing a spot and then
Speaker 4: him telling his buddies, and then him telling his buddies
Speaker 4: because I went to spots that people told me about
Speaker 4: and I didn't see anybody there, and so I don't know,
Speaker 4: I'm not really worried about that.
Speaker 5: But as far as setting expectations are concerned.
Speaker 4: You know, we went out, we're gonna you know, we're
Speaker 4: gonna go to a couple spots if that he has
Speaker 4: that are closer, like in the central part of South Dakota.
Speaker 4: But then after that, if we don't run into anything,
Speaker 4: we're gonna bounce further west and go to some of
Speaker 4: the spots that I've kind of accumulated over the years.
Speaker 4: And I just set the expectation like, hey, dude, I'm
Speaker 4: willing to do this, no big deal. I'm willing to
Speaker 4: try anything with anybody. Really, but there's I can't, like Tony,
Speaker 4: shut up, dude, but I can't like, I can't promise
Speaker 4: you you're going to be able to come hunt on
Speaker 4: any farm that I have in Iowa, right, so, like
Speaker 4: I'm not doing that trade and so but most of
Speaker 4: the people that I've done this with, this is the
Speaker 4: second guy, like, like I met another guy on I
Speaker 4: met an I met another guy on Instagram, right, and
Speaker 4: we went out to Nebraska one year.
Speaker 2: We had How lucky is Dan that he didn't have
Speaker 2: Instagram back during his college years. Can you imagine what
Speaker 2: kind of trouble he might have gotten.
Speaker 5: Dude, I'd have like thirty kids.
Speaker 3: And some other stuff.
Speaker 5: Yeah. I just want you to keep going, buddy.
Speaker 3: Yeah, keep going.
Speaker 4: For Mark and I these social clips that are just
Speaker 4: going to be cut to me talking about meeting dudes
Speaker 4: on the internet. Yeah, but anyways, right, yeah, yeah, so
Speaker 4: you know, just manage expectations. We talk about what we're
Speaker 4: looking for, and he's like, you know, here's what I've got,
Speaker 4: and then I say, here's what I've got.
Speaker 5: Balance it out.
Speaker 4: I'm not sure if we're driving together yet or if
Speaker 4: we're meeting out there, because if it sucks, we could
Speaker 4: possibly split up and go different directions. But uh, I'm
Speaker 4: to the point now in my attempt to kill a
Speaker 4: mule deer that I'll do just about anything because I've
Speaker 4: gone out there and I've struck out.
Speaker 5: Jesus, Tony, dude, can you can you shut his video off? No,
Speaker 5: I'm just buddy, yeah, man, Hey, So, but sirius.
Speaker 4: But on a serious note, like I am really looking
Speaker 4: forward to going and hunting meal deer by Yeah, got
Speaker 4: a phone call, guys, gotta go.
Speaker 3: Tell me this Dan?
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Uh?
Speaker 2: Is there any big learning you've taken from these? How
Speaker 2: many times five or six years you've gone out now?
Speaker 4: Hm?
Speaker 2: So what's the big like aha thing you're bringing to
Speaker 2: the table or big change? Is there anything that you're
Speaker 2: saying like this year, I'm going to do this differently.
Speaker 4: You know, I got over twenty years in a tree
Speaker 4: stand hunting white tails, right hop in a tree, you know,
Speaker 4: the scent and stuff like that. Here's where I go wrong.
Speaker 5: Mule deer hunting every year.
Speaker 4: Spot something. I've started to learn that you can't just
Speaker 4: spott a deer and move in on it. You have
Speaker 4: to look for all the deer in the area. Okay,
Speaker 4: so I know that. But the thing about this terrain
Speaker 4: that these deer are hunting in are you go on approach? Okay,
Speaker 4: you got the deer locked in, you see the other deer,
Speaker 4: you put a plan together in and then you you
Speaker 4: drop down in. You're sneaking around and then there's four
Speaker 4: other does standing there already on their feet looking at
Speaker 4: you that you have never that you never saw because
Speaker 4: you can drop down three feet, turn behind you and
Speaker 4: see exposed terrain that you did not see while you're
Speaker 4: standing in that location because of the grass, because of it.
Speaker 5: Just like I don't know.
Speaker 4: It's it's crazy out there, and so I'm learning, like
Speaker 4: I'm learning how to get close to them without getting busted. Now,
Speaker 4: if there's no other deer around, I can get close
Speaker 4: and then usually it fails some somewhere around the getting
Speaker 4: into shooting range type of scenario. But when it comes,
Speaker 4: I am I am fam right now because I'm not
Speaker 4: seeing deer that I need to see before I go
Speaker 4: on approach.
Speaker 5: Are you dann what's your like, what's the smallest deer, like,
Speaker 5: what's the lowest standard meal deer that you would stalk? Legal?
Speaker 4: Any anything, any any legal deer out there. I'm putting
Speaker 4: an arrowin. You can't hunt what you can't hunt mulder
Speaker 4: dose in the zone for non residents that I that
Speaker 4: I go to, So that's out of the question. But
Speaker 4: outside of that, any legal mule deer buck is now
Speaker 4: on the table. Nice, do you do you know what
Speaker 4: I would tell you?
Speaker 5: Having hunted out there, hunt like I've spotted in stock
Speaker 5: meal deer out there. Some I'd try really hard to
Speaker 5: go find one of those little groups of like year
Speaker 5: and a half two and a half type bucks, and
Speaker 5: I would figure those deer out. Yeah. Yeah, So they
Speaker 5: kind of tend to do their own thing a little bit,
Speaker 5: and they can give you a little bit to work with,
Speaker 5: yeah sometimes.
Speaker 4: And I've tried that, honestly, I have. So I don't
Speaker 4: know about what you have seen out there, but I
Speaker 4: get out there, I spotted deer. I'm like, I don't
Speaker 4: care what it is, but they're still in some kind
Speaker 4: of bachelor group. And usually the time of year that
Speaker 4: I go, the bachelor groups have a decent mature buck
Speaker 4: and now I'm not talking to giant antler wise, but
Speaker 4: like an older deer that is experienced. And it seems
Speaker 4: to me that these younger deer are hanging around this
Speaker 4: older buck for some sort of reason. And so the
Speaker 4: perfect example was last year, spotted a herd of bucks.
Speaker 4: I mean there was a bachelor group of bucks.
Speaker 5: This was late.
Speaker 4: October, no doze, and the big, mature, old, large antler,
Speaker 4: large body deer sat on this knob and all the
Speaker 4: other I guess younger bucks sat in a circle around him.
Speaker 4: So how the hell am I supposed to stock in
Speaker 4: on that?
Speaker 5: Right? And they're in it?
Speaker 4: There are so everybody says, mule deer dumb, but they
Speaker 4: are so smart with where they bed that they it's
Speaker 4: it's often times impossible to even get in unless you're
Speaker 4: shooting a hundred yards and I'm not shooting a hundred yards.
Speaker 2: Have you ever thought that maybe like this style of
Speaker 2: hunt just isn't in the cards for you, Dan, because
Speaker 2: I just I gotta I gotta imagine like a Yukon
Speaker 2: Cornelius character the size of an offensive lineman trying to
Speaker 2: sneak in on a bunch of deer. Maybe just it's
Speaker 2: not You're just not made for it, buddy.
Speaker 5: Next question, I think you're made. I think you're made
Speaker 5: for dude, spotting in when you're a white tail hunter
Speaker 5: and going out and spotting stock at critters is hard.
Speaker 5: I mean, most of us usually just get there and
Speaker 5: kill a bunch of stuff. But you you probably will too, Dan.
Speaker 4: Some Yeah, yeah someday. Like I've been close, dude, I've
Speaker 4: even arrowed deer. I've my first year out. I you know,
Speaker 4: all I knew back then was get down wind of them,
Speaker 4: or and if they're in a position where you can
Speaker 4: get on top of them and shoot down at them.
Speaker 4: That's that's all I knew, and so that's what I tried,
Speaker 4: and I've gotten really really close to deer that way. However,
Speaker 4: it's either my mistake or the wind shifts. I don't
Speaker 4: know how many times right at the time where deers
Speaker 4: start to get on their feet at the end of
Speaker 4: the day, there's been a gust of wind hit the
Speaker 4: back of my neck and I'm I'm toast. And it's
Speaker 4: as simple and as quick as that.
Speaker 5: I'm in. I'm in, I'm in, I'm in. I'm in toast.
Speaker 5: How about this fellow you met on Tinder or whatever?
Speaker 5: Has he killed in me? Yes?
Speaker 2: He has, Tony He's yeah, he's I think it's grinder. Anyways, anyways,
Speaker 2: I'm very to hear how this hunt goes.
Speaker 5: Dan.
Speaker 3: I think it's going to be great for you culturally
Speaker 3: and hunting wise, and.
Speaker 4: I think event it's really just going to be like
Speaker 4: social media clips of me at gas stations filling up
Speaker 4: gas and eating food. That's really all you're going to see,
Speaker 4: will it as well? Or you know, pictures through a
Speaker 4: spotting scope at like six hundred yards away.
Speaker 5: In all seriousness, my olk hunting partner is a phenomenal
Speaker 5: Western hunter, and I've mule deer hunted with him, and
Speaker 5: one of his things that really makes a difference on
Speaker 5: meal deer hunts is he is so meticulous about finding
Speaker 5: one in the middle of the day betted. Oh yeah,
Speaker 5: because you always want that first couple hours, in the
Speaker 5: last couple hours, but then you have a lot of
Speaker 5: deer moving and on their feet, and he is like,
Speaker 5: he has really taught me how to sit there and
Speaker 5: pick apart drainages and go find that betted deer because
Speaker 5: if you find him betted at eleven o'clock in the morning,
Speaker 5: that deer might not move, like really might not move
Speaker 5: for like four hours or five hours. So you you know,
Speaker 5: but it's so hard you just get you get into
Speaker 5: that mode where you just overlook them. And I mean,
Speaker 5: that's that's kind of something that when I hunted with him,
Speaker 5: I was like, man, I've been doing this wrong on
Speaker 5: every spot in stock and I've.
Speaker 4: Had yeah, and and yes, I like, I get up,
Speaker 4: I go and I'll take a little break throughout the
Speaker 4: day maybe, but I'm going from one drainage to the
Speaker 4: next or or walking to a high point, picking everything apart,
Speaker 4: and I do that all day long.
Speaker 5: Okay.
Speaker 4: Here's another issue that I've run into with spot and stock,
Speaker 4: and this is something that I am still really green at,
Speaker 4: is first and second beds, right with Neil Deer. I
Speaker 4: don't know how familiar you guys are with this, but
Speaker 4: I've been doing a little reading on this and like
Speaker 4: researching and listening to guys out there like Marlon Holden.
Speaker 4: Do you guys know who he is. He's a dude.
Speaker 4: He's just a straight mual deer slayer, Okay. And so
Speaker 4: he talks about first and second beds a lot, and
Speaker 4: you'll see, like, Okay, he comes, they come out, they
Speaker 4: bed down, it's like eight nine in the morning. You
Speaker 4: go to make a stock on them, but when you
Speaker 4: get into rains, they're not even there anymore because the
Speaker 4: sun hit them. They moved up for their for the
Speaker 4: second bed of the day into a place where now
Speaker 4: it's going to be a little more shady all day.
Speaker 4: And so I've ran into that issue a lot, and
Speaker 4: so you start to read up on some of this stuff,
Speaker 4: like these mule deer guys won't even stock them on
Speaker 4: their first bed, they'll wait till they stand up and
Speaker 4: go to a second bed, and then they're they're there
Speaker 4: for six hours or whatever the case may be. So
Speaker 4: it's it's just a learning process, that is all it is.
Speaker 4: It's just a hard one for me at this point.
Speaker 2: Uh what about Iowa. Well, you've got more than you've
Speaker 2: got two white tail trips, right.
Speaker 5: Right, right?
Speaker 4: I got Iowa this year, and I'm really starting to
Speaker 4: get frustrated with this property, that this new property where
Speaker 4: I've killed the deer the last what two years now,
Speaker 4: and so now there's I went and put my cameras out.
Speaker 4: Deer there, great deer. They're ghost town just kind of
Speaker 4: like what Tony was saying, it's ghost town now, just
Speaker 4: a couple of doze. And then the dog issue again, right,
Speaker 4: neighboring dogs, And like, I'm starting to get extremely frustrated
Speaker 4: with this I got. When I go down to this farm,
Speaker 4: I'm driving three hours to get there. Two yeah, two
Speaker 4: forty five, three hours to get there. You go hunt
Speaker 4: and then some dogs run through blow it out. And
Speaker 4: I don't care what people say about dogs as far
Speaker 4: as long term effect on the landscape, but short term,
Speaker 4: if I'm in a tree stand and dogs run through.
Speaker 4: They they scare the deer away, and that ruins that
Speaker 4: particular hunt. Now I gotta do something because I called
Speaker 4: the sheriff, I called the conservation off Sir. I've been
Speaker 4: in touch with the landowner. It's just not nothing's changing.
Speaker 4: So I think, what that what I'm gonna take. I
Speaker 4: don't know if you guys saw what Bomar did or
Speaker 4: said on one of his podcasts. Yeah, but just chill tony.
Speaker 5: Uh.
Speaker 4: But I'm gonna put him in my truck and I'm
Speaker 4: gonna drive him back to my hometown and I'm gonna
Speaker 4: put him in the pound. And so they have to
Speaker 4: drive three hours to come get that dog, you know
Speaker 4: what I mean. So I don't I gotta do something.
Speaker 4: I can't kill him because they're collared, and so I've
Speaker 4: done my due diligence. Now it's time to take some action.
Speaker 5: So what's the Hey, Mark, just quick, We've gone very
Speaker 5: quickly from worried about worrying about Dan getting kidnapped to
Speaker 5: Dan getting in trouble for dog mapping. Yes, this is uh.
Speaker 3: I'm so glad that we opened with Dan.
Speaker 5: Yeah, me too. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Uh, So what's the plan for catching a dog in
Speaker 2: this situation are you are you bringing treats?
Speaker 3: Do you have some way to do you bring cage
Speaker 3: for the back of your truck or is he gonna
Speaker 3: sit in the front seat with you? Rode shotgun.
Speaker 4: So when I went what not last year, but the
Speaker 4: year before, I believe it was. You know, it took
Speaker 4: me a while to find that that deer, right, it
Speaker 4: took me a day to find that deer. The when
Speaker 4: I was out grid searching, that dog was there. German
Speaker 4: shepherd was there, and I was like, come here, boy,
Speaker 4: you know, and he seemed friendly, and so I was like,
Speaker 4: get out of here, get out of here. This year,
Speaker 4: if I see him, I'm just gonna coax him and
Speaker 4: just be like, come here, take a leash time to
Speaker 4: a tree up at the farmhouse. And then when I leave,
Speaker 4: I'm taking him with me.
Speaker 2: So, okay, I just want to make this very clear.
Speaker 2: Number One, I am supportive of any and all No, no,
Speaker 2: not supportive. I am accepting of any and all choices
Speaker 2: you make with your life, Dan, But I also do
Speaker 2: not condone criminals kidnapping dogs.
Speaker 3: Just so we're clear, is it kidnapping?
Speaker 5: Is it kidnapping? Though, like I have.
Speaker 4: I have been in contact with every single person that
Speaker 4: I need to be in contact with. Right, those dogs
Speaker 4: are on a property that they should not be in right,
Speaker 4: And although I'm not the landowner, I have I have
Speaker 4: responsibilities to that property through the landowner. And so, like,
Speaker 4: I don't know what to do. So let me ask
Speaker 4: you a question. Same thing happens to you, and you're
Speaker 4: driving to another state, to another county, and these dogs
Speaker 4: are ruining every single hunt and all the hard work
Speaker 4: that you've done, and and nothing is done about it,
Speaker 4: and you can't do anything about it. In Iowa, they
Speaker 4: have a law that says if this dog does not
Speaker 4: have a collar on it and it is a nuisance,
Speaker 4: you can shoot it. But both of these dogs have
Speaker 4: collars on them, so I can't shoot these dogs, but
Speaker 4: they are a nuisance, And so I don't know what
Speaker 4: the next step is. I mean, I've done my due diligence.
Speaker 4: I've communicated to these people that this is causing me problems,
Speaker 4: and nobody cares about it. Nobody's doing anything about the landowner.
Speaker 4: The dogs are still running on these properties for the
Speaker 4: past three years now, and I'm done with it, and
Speaker 4: so I'm gonna I'm gonna take them, and I'm gonna
Speaker 4: go put them in a pound somewhere.
Speaker 5: I think that catching a stray random German shepherd is
Speaker 5: going to be a great way for you to have
Speaker 5: the eight fingers chronicles here pretty soon.
Speaker 4: They're not stray though. They belong to a neighboring farm.
Speaker 5: Yes.
Speaker 3: Have you talk to those people? Yes, own the dogs.
Speaker 5: Yes. So Dan Weirdly, one of my buddies who lives
Speaker 5: down in Iowa. He has a lease down there, and
Speaker 5: the last two years he's had the same problem, two
Speaker 5: dogs running through their blowing deer out constantly. He called
Speaker 5: Sheriff CEO the whole thing, and I think the sheriff
Speaker 5: came in with traps to get those dogs. I think
Speaker 5: that how it ended up going might have been the
Speaker 5: conservation officer, but he had the same problem and it
Speaker 5: was all season long. You know, those dogs are on
Speaker 5: trail camera, those deer we're not on trail camera anymore.
Speaker 5: Blew it out. It's a really bad deal, honestly, I
Speaker 5: just look at it.
Speaker 4: From the conservation or the sheriff's time, like, right, so
Speaker 4: in Iowa, there's like one conservation officer for every two counties, right,
Speaker 4: So in the butt, like, Okay, hey, I need you
Speaker 4: to take time out of stopping poachers and trespassers and
Speaker 4: all this stuff to take care of a couple of dogs.
Speaker 4: It's probably really low on their priority list and it's
Speaker 4: not going to get any attention however. And you know,
Speaker 4: I don't make my money. I mean I make my
Speaker 4: money somewhat in this space, right. I don't film my hunts,
Speaker 4: so it's not like I'm losing out on any content
Speaker 4: per se, but it pisses me off. I'm trying to
Speaker 4: do the right thing and now it's time to take
Speaker 4: action period.
Speaker 3: One way or another. There will be good stories coming
Speaker 3: out of this, so I'm appreciative for that.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I'll fight a dog if I have to, I'll
Speaker 5: bite one. I'll bite a dog, Mark, I wouldn't put
Speaker 5: it past you. So that's Iowa.
Speaker 4: On my main farm, I don't have any I don't
Speaker 4: have any trail cameras out yet. I'm way behind on
Speaker 4: that farm. I think I told you about that last
Speaker 4: year where I had a ton of really good deer
Speaker 4: show up last year, and I think it's because actually
Speaker 4: they introduced cattle into these back pastures now that had
Speaker 4: been dormant for so many years, and the deer are
Speaker 4: now having to skirt around the pastures.
Speaker 5: They're not in the.
Speaker 4: Pastures, they're not crossing through the pastures. They're skirting it,
Speaker 4: which is where I hunt, and a lot more deer activity.
Speaker 4: So I'm really looking forward to getting some cameras out
Speaker 4: there and seeing what's going on there.
Speaker 3: Is there on either one of the properties.
Speaker 2: Is there a buck that you're hoping is going to
Speaker 2: be back or that you know of that you're extra
Speaker 2: excited about it, deer like that, anything in particular.
Speaker 4: Yeah, So on the farm with the dogs, there's three
Speaker 4: deer that I've already identified as shooters four years older
Speaker 4: or older. They're all about that one forty five or
Speaker 4: higher type frame.
Speaker 5: My main farm this year.
Speaker 4: Last year had a stud clean ten and he he
Speaker 4: was like one sixty plus last year. This year we're
Speaker 4: looking at you know, I don't have I don't have
Speaker 4: any knowledge of what's on that farm right now, so
Speaker 4: I'm guessing he makes a jump, he'll be booner status
Speaker 4: clean ten. There's a couple other deer that their body
Speaker 4: is going to get them killed. They are like a
Speaker 4: one thirty class eight pointer, but they're they're that two
Speaker 4: fifty two seventy five body size, and so giant bodies
Speaker 4: just like bodybuilder type bucks. And and i'd shoot one
Speaker 4: of one of them as well. So as far as
Speaker 4: deer bucks are concerned, it's not like it used to be.
Speaker 4: But there are really good dear that I would shoot
Speaker 4: nice yep, Kansas, Kansas, I mean, just e scouting. At
Speaker 4: this point, I'll be calling my uncle who lives down
Speaker 4: there here in a little bit. He has access to
Speaker 4: like a couple thousand acres down in Kansas, but thousands
Speaker 4: of acres in Kansas and thousands of acres in Iowa
Speaker 4: are mean something completely different. So he lives in cattle
Speaker 4: pasture ground you know, you know, crick systems is where
Speaker 4: really all the trees are at. So I might have
Speaker 4: access to one of the farms that he hunts on.
Speaker 4: It's still debatable because he shares that with another guy.
Speaker 4: And so I don't necessarily want to just say, hey,
Speaker 4: I'm your nephew, I'm gonna come, I'm want to come
Speaker 4: hunt your property. I just want him to have a
Speaker 4: conversation with his buddy and see if it's cool if
Speaker 4: I come there. I mean, I'm sure, there's gonna be
Speaker 4: expectations of what I can and cannot shoot, Like I
Speaker 4: probably won't be able to shoot extremely young, up and
Speaker 4: comer deer. But if depending on how if I get
Speaker 4: access and this guy's cool with me going there, there's
Speaker 4: places I can go, there's places I can't go. And
Speaker 4: if that falls through, I've scouted walk in Cora engineer
Speaker 4: ground and I'm gonna start bouncing around through all those
Speaker 4: places that I've scouted.
Speaker 3: Nice, simple, just that easy, Just that easy.
Speaker 2: So you know, outside of you getting some restrictions placed
Speaker 2: on you by your uncle or other hunter, what do
Speaker 2: you think your goals are going to be for that trip?
Speaker 3: Otherwise?
Speaker 4: I mean I'd like to run into a one of
Speaker 4: some caliber. Like with any out of state hunt that
Speaker 4: I take, I can't compare it to what I have here, right,
Speaker 4: And so I have some really good ground here in Iowa.
Speaker 4: I understand that, and that dude, I'm not opposed to
Speaker 4: shooting a three year old who walks by. I'm down
Speaker 4: for the experience at this point, and I want I
Speaker 4: want a good deer with a good story and a
Speaker 4: good experience, and that might be a one twenty class
Speaker 4: who walks through on the first morning, or that could
Speaker 4: be an accidental, accidental booner, you know what I mean,
Speaker 4: just anything that comes within shooting range. I don't I
Speaker 4: don't ever really say to myself, here are especially on
Speaker 4: out of state, here are my goals. I'm gonna only
Speaker 4: live up to this one thing.
Speaker 5: It is. It is really hunt by hunt morning, hunt afternoon, hunt?
Speaker 5: Am I tired?
Speaker 4: Am I hungry? Like all these things come into play,
Speaker 4: and if it comes by and I'm in the mood
Speaker 4: to kill, I'm gonna kill.
Speaker 2: Like the infamous White Knuckle Productions video where you said
Speaker 2: that fuck made me say, oh.
Speaker 5: So I shot him? Yep, sure did, Yeah, sure it did.
Speaker 2: Uh well, that's exciting, and that'll be like I'm looking specially,
Speaker 2: it sounds like your uncle's stuff, like much more open country.
Speaker 3: It sounds like, yeah, why pretty cool, wide open.
Speaker 4: And I don't necessarily want to bait per se, but
Speaker 4: if things get hairy out there or I'm struggling, bait
Speaker 4: baiting might be in the cards because it's legal in Kansas,
Speaker 4: So I'm not I don't know, I've never done it before,
Speaker 4: but it's it's it's a it's a what I would
Speaker 4: throw as like a hell Mary type of deal.
Speaker 3: Well, speaking of bait ah tony or are you baiting
Speaker 3: bears this year?
Speaker 5: I am yeah.
Speaker 3: What's uh, what's your year look like?
Speaker 2: Man?
Speaker 5: I uh, I'm gonna spend September trying really hard to
Speaker 5: get the girls on some deer and a bear. Obviously,
Speaker 5: I am gonna I am gonna for the first time
Speaker 5: in a couple of years get a chance to hunt
Speaker 5: for myself in Minnesota on Opening Week, So I'm kind
Speaker 5: of excited for that. And I don't know, you know,
Speaker 5: I kind of mentioned earlier that my trail cameras have
Speaker 5: been I don't I don't have a lot of trail
Speaker 5: cameras out right now, but my bucks disappeared. But randomly
Speaker 5: this year, I've had big deer, like big deer on
Speaker 5: most properties I'm hunting, and so it's kind of cool.
Speaker 5: Like I sent you that picture mark of that one
Speaker 5: in Wisconsin and that year, I have a November plan
Speaker 5: for that deer and I'm going to ride out some
Speaker 5: time for him because he's you know, like Dan talked
Speaker 5: about those two hundred and seventy five pounders that year,
Speaker 5: looks like right now he would dress over two hundred
Speaker 5: no problem, you know. But really I'm going to try
Speaker 5: to get the girls on some deer, maybe try to
Speaker 5: get myself on one. And you know, Minnesota this year,
Speaker 5: our gun season doesn't open till like November ninth, which
Speaker 5: is really late for us. So if I can wrap
Speaker 5: up my eye with situation, I still have some time
Speaker 5: to during the rut. So I'm kind of just I
Speaker 5: don't know, I'm kind of just playing it cool in Minnesota.
Speaker 5: In Wisconsin, I'm not like really gung ho to get
Speaker 5: out there for myself yet, you know, like I really
Speaker 5: want to get the girls on something. But I do
Speaker 5: have mid October North Dakota hunt. It's just going to
Speaker 5: be fun. I'm going to go head over onto the
Speaker 5: western side of the state, try to glass one up
Speaker 5: and kill one on a river bottom. And then I
Speaker 5: drew Iowa and I'm going to go down and try
Speaker 5: to kill a big one on public land. And I
Speaker 5: have a have a plan for that one, to try
Speaker 5: to decoy one, because I think I have a few
Speaker 5: spots where if I sit out all day with a
Speaker 5: dough decoy out, I think I can make it happen.
Speaker 5: And that one as me real excited.
Speaker 2: Now you're taking in one of the full with the
Speaker 2: full big body do decoys that you used last year
Speaker 2: from Dave Smith. How are you going to get that
Speaker 2: deep into public land? He's going to strap that to
Speaker 2: your back. I don't know yet do all it in
Speaker 2: because it's not really a portable decoy.
Speaker 5: Right. The spot that I'm hoping to use it the
Speaker 5: most is not that far of a walk. It's just
Speaker 5: not that fun of a walk, and so I think
Speaker 5: it'll just be I think what I'll have to do
Speaker 5: is go in in the daylight, you know, maybe a
Speaker 5: midday deal first, get it up there, set it up,
Speaker 5: and then just dash it under my tree or something
Speaker 5: or I don't know. I don't know yet how I'm
Speaker 5: going to play that. But that is like a real concern,
Speaker 5: right because especially you know, you're going in for an
Speaker 5: all day sit and carrying everything that you need and
Speaker 5: then you got to carry that sucker in. But I
Speaker 5: think it'll be worth it, and so I'm gonna have
Speaker 5: to figure it out. I'm gonna have to the Last
Speaker 5: time I was down there this spot I'm thinking about,
Speaker 5: I kind of mapped out a route to get up
Speaker 5: there that wasn't like terrible, and so I you know,
Speaker 5: it's easy to think about when you're sitting in your
Speaker 5: office and not trying to sneak through the woods with
Speaker 5: a full body decoy. But I'm going to figure it
Speaker 5: out because I just think it's going to be so
Speaker 5: fun and I think it'll work. I'm sorry, Mark, how
Speaker 5: much success have you had decoying in the past. Not
Speaker 5: very much. But last season we used this decoy twice
Speaker 5: in a row and killed two bucks with it. My
Speaker 5: daughter killed one and I killed one, and it was
Speaker 5: like a magnet. And so November, yeah, so I'm heading
Speaker 5: down to Iowa probably like October twenty sixth, twenty seventh,
Speaker 5: somewhere around there, so i'll be you know, like maybe
Speaker 5: a little bit early, but I think, I don't know,
Speaker 5: I think it'll work, and it just, you know, seeing
Speaker 5: how that decoy worked last year kind of changed how
Speaker 5: I view this because I always looked at decoys like
Speaker 5: they really weren't much of an option for me, Like
Speaker 5: it wasn't something that I was going to build into
Speaker 5: a plan in any meaningful way. But last year I
Speaker 5: was like, we just got to try this, and I
Speaker 5: think it'll work. And it worked so well, and I
Speaker 5: tried it again and it worked exactly the same way,
Speaker 5: and it kind of opened my eyes. This year, I'm
Speaker 5: thinking more not only about Iowa, but if I do
Speaker 5: rut hunt Minnesota, I have some spots where I'm like,
Speaker 5: I think I can go ride it out all day,
Speaker 5: put out that decoy and have a chance there too.
Speaker 5: So it's it's going to be a bigger part of
Speaker 5: my season. I don't know if it'll work out or not,
Speaker 5: but I'm definitely going to try.
Speaker 2: So we talked about this a little bit last season,
Speaker 2: but just you know, for folks that are new or
Speaker 2: to this, you know, the popular thing is to use
Speaker 2: a buck decoy, but you are using a dough decoy.
Speaker 2: How how are you using it in this situation? And
Speaker 2: why do you think the dough is going to help
Speaker 2: you more than the traditional buck option.
Speaker 5: Well, the original reason that I asked for the dough is,
Speaker 5: you know, like where I'm hunting in northern Wisconsin, there's
Speaker 5: only like eight deer per county, right, So I'm like,
Speaker 5: if I put out that Dave Smith buck that's bigger
Speaker 5: than any deer that's probably going to come in, and
Speaker 5: any dough that sees it is not going to be
Speaker 5: happy with it. And so I'm like, I'm going to
Speaker 5: try this little dough uh. You know it's I mean,
Speaker 5: I kind of look at it as a difference of
Speaker 5: when you turkey hunt. You can put out a full
Speaker 5: strutter and you will get in certain birds, right, But
Speaker 5: some birds are like, Nope, I'm going to skirt that
Speaker 5: and I'm going to show off out here in the field.
Speaker 5: But I'm not coming into that. But you put out
Speaker 5: that quarter strut jake and push him low to the ground.
Speaker 5: Now every bird is like, I'm I'm gonna take a
Speaker 5: swing at that, And I just look at the doe decoy.
Speaker 5: I'm like, I think dose will wig out less on
Speaker 5: it because I know, especially in Iowa Minnesota where I'll
Speaker 5: use it, does will see it. And I think I'll
Speaker 5: have less of a negative reaction from a doe decoy
Speaker 5: standing there. And it's just going to allow it. Just
Speaker 5: in my opinion, you open yourself up to every buck,
Speaker 5: not just the one who looks at that big postured
Speaker 5: up buck and wants to come in and fight it.
Speaker 5: You know, like I don't. I don't want to exclude
Speaker 5: bucks like if deer, if deer would potentially come in
Speaker 5: and sniff that decoy's butt. I want that to happen,
Speaker 5: and I don't want to push them off. And so
Speaker 5: I really think the buck decoy thing, especially that Dave Smith,
Speaker 5: the way it looks like that's sending a pretty clear message.
Speaker 5: And you're not gonna have a little deer come into that,
Speaker 5: you know what I mean, Like you're that that's the
Speaker 5: kind of decoy that could probably push off a three
Speaker 5: year old, you know, like the right three year old,
Speaker 5: or even even a bigger dear that's just not feeling
Speaker 5: the fight. And I just don't see that with a dough.
Speaker 2: Interesting this area, this public spot, you had like a
Speaker 2: really good buck there before, right, that's the same zone.
Speaker 5: Yeah yeah, yeah, so helps and I think he's still there,
Speaker 5: you know, I don't know. I mean I had an
Speaker 5: encounter with him. I hit him in twenty twenty. Never
Speaker 5: found him, and I sent my buddy in there because
Speaker 5: he drew last year and he he had one come
Speaker 5: in that he thought was one pint eighty and he
Speaker 5: was describing it. It's the same spot and he missed
Speaker 5: it at twenty five yards, totally fell apart. And it's
Speaker 5: kind of to me, I mean, who knows, Right, that's
Speaker 5: a couple of years apart, but it was a typical
Speaker 5: mainframe giant and he had the same thing come out.
Speaker 5: He's like, it looked like the way he described it
Speaker 5: was perfect. He said it looked like the final boss
Speaker 5: in a video game. When I looked up, you know,
Speaker 5: and I just think in that little area like that
Speaker 5: are what are the odds? Right?
Speaker 1: Like?
Speaker 5: What are the odds? There's a typical booner on public
Speaker 5: land in this spot when I'm there and then still
Speaker 5: there or also there when my buddy goes in.
Speaker 3: Although it is Iowa, aren't those behind every tree there?
Speaker 5: They are? Yeah, it is the easiest place to hunt.
Speaker 2: Okay, So you told me, like a few weeks back,
Speaker 2: we were together and you said something along the lines
Speaker 2: of you might maybe I'm wrong. I'm pretty sure you
Speaker 2: said that you were thinking of like holding out for
Speaker 2: a really really big buck in Iowa. How serious are
Speaker 2: you about that? Because usually you're, you know, relatively flexible
Speaker 2: with your standards based on the situation everything. How serious
Speaker 2: are you about passing you know, good bucks to hold
Speaker 2: out for that buck or something like it?
Speaker 5: Will I hold out for that buck? I'm not sure,
Speaker 5: but I want a big one down there? You know.
Speaker 5: I mean, I partially just because I want to spend
Speaker 5: the time. The last time I drew that was when
Speaker 5: we did the back forty and so I had to
Speaker 5: hunt in October and not November, so I didn't get
Speaker 5: to experience that spot during the rut. And the other
Speaker 5: two times I drew, IOWA, I did. I just did
Speaker 5: a rut hunt, you know. So yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 5: I want, I want a good one. It'll be I'm
Speaker 5: I'm going down there to have some fun, love it.
Speaker 2: So IOWA high standards, exciting decoy North Dakota, doing your
Speaker 2: standard North Dakota thing. Ah, any particular goal out there
Speaker 2: other than you know.
Speaker 5: She would get well. The last time I was there,
Speaker 5: it was pretty dismal, and that was I think two
Speaker 5: years ago, and so I'm kind of just curious about
Speaker 5: the numbers. But you know how it is, you can
Speaker 5: get out there and glass them up and figure out
Speaker 5: pretty quickly, you know, kind of kind of quantity wise
Speaker 5: what you're dealing with and quality wise. So I don't
Speaker 5: I don't have a I don't have a lot of
Speaker 5: hope for that one because I don't think the numbers
Speaker 5: out there are very good. So that might be kind
Speaker 5: of like Dan South Dakota thing where you're like, get
Speaker 5: a legal deer in front of me. You know. I
Speaker 5: just I don't know till like out there, but I
Speaker 5: will say this, it's pretty interesting this year. And I
Speaker 5: don't know if you're seeing this or not, but I
Speaker 5: feel like the quality of bucks in general this year
Speaker 5: is just a little bit higher after last winter. And
Speaker 5: you know, like I talked about this before, but you know,
Speaker 5: we've been fishing a few tournaments and just like it,
Speaker 5: even in Turkey season, shooting jakes like they were heavier
Speaker 5: than they usually are. The fish are weighing heavier than
Speaker 5: they usually do, and it seems like there's a lot
Speaker 5: of good antler growth out there, and I just wonder
Speaker 5: if it's just correlated to how mild of a winner
Speaker 5: we had last year and how how little stressed those
Speaker 5: critters had on top of a really wet and plentiful spread.
Speaker 3: Right, Yeah, yeah, makes sense.
Speaker 4: I mean I've seen more fonds on trail cameras this
Speaker 4: year than ever before with twins and triplets. I just
Speaker 4: don't know what that means, but I think I think
Speaker 4: the amount of rain that we've had this year is
Speaker 4: gonna there's gonna be some giants coming out of places
Speaker 4: this year.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I do too, Yeah, I do too, so hey, Mark,
Speaker 5: The other thing I'm going to do for the first
Speaker 5: time in a long time is I'm going to rifle
Speaker 5: hunt Wisconsin this year with one of my daughters.
Speaker 3: Nice at the at your Wisconsin properties up north.
Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, sweet, I am gonna this weekend. I am
Speaker 5: going to go poke around a little bit on some
Speaker 5: public land because I might spend a mid day day
Speaker 5: rifle hunting there, or I might bow hunt it too.
Speaker 5: But yeah, I'm kind I'm kind of excited for that.
Speaker 5: I've really only rifle hunted like a few times in
Speaker 5: my life, and it's been probably ten years since I
Speaker 5: rifle hunted a deer, so I think that'll be kind
Speaker 5: of cool.
Speaker 2: Does it set up well up there for rifle hunting
Speaker 2: or is it pretty tight? I mean, like my Northern
Speaker 2: Michigan stuff. You even with a rifle, it's like fifty
Speaker 2: yard shots are closer.
Speaker 5: It's it's tight. It's like it's like bow hunting with
Speaker 5: like a little advantage. Yeah, you know, but that's cool though. Yeah,
Speaker 5: And honestly, I am not a very good shot, so
Speaker 5: I don't want to be sitting on like a power
Speaker 5: line where I can shoot them three hund yards awa,
Speaker 5: because I'm just gonna miss him anyway. Yeah, so I
Speaker 5: want them in bow range when I have a rifle. Yeah.
Speaker 3: I'm not too far from that either.
Speaker 2: So Minnesota, you've got some closer to home stuff that
Speaker 2: you are hoping to target with an archery season, right, yep.
Speaker 2: And Wisconsin is where the bigger bucks though have shown up.
Speaker 2: The big body buck is Wisconsin, right.
Speaker 5: Right, But I do I will say this. I have
Speaker 5: a little twenty five acre chunk that I picked up
Speaker 5: last year close to my house, and they are two
Speaker 5: big deer in there, like really really good deer. But
Speaker 5: it's it's twenty five acres, you know, like and it's
Speaker 5: and it's suburban stuff. So there's sanctuaries everywhere. And so
Speaker 5: I you know, is that the farm with the fruit
Speaker 5: tree in it?
Speaker 3: Right?
Speaker 5: Yeah? Okay, yeah, yeah, there's a there's some apple trees
Speaker 5: in there that are real popular, but a lot of
Speaker 5: I mean this year in you know, over in Wisconsin
Speaker 5: where we're at too, we have some apple trees over there,
Speaker 5: and there were so many apples earlier, and I'm already
Speaker 5: starting to see a lot of them hitting the ground.
Speaker 5: In fact, one of the routes I run here by
Speaker 5: my house, I see apple trees in people's yards and
Speaker 5: I kind of pay attention to them. And just we've
Speaker 5: had pounding rain and a lot of wind lately, and
Speaker 5: it seems like already a lot of the apples around
Speaker 5: the ground. So I'm kind of like, I don't I
Speaker 5: don't know if that's going to be a pattern that
Speaker 5: lasts two through our opener or not. It might be over.
Speaker 2: So, yeah, a lot in your plate Tony Minnesota, Wisconsin
Speaker 2: rifle Hunt, archery hunts, Iowa high Hopes, North Dakota flyer hunt.
Speaker 2: What would be like a success if you had to
Speaker 2: like put one thing, if you could check a box
Speaker 2: that's to one thing for this fall, that would give
Speaker 2: you like the yeah, this is a success. What's the
Speaker 2: one thing of all of these things you hope to
Speaker 2: put the check bart next to?
Speaker 5: Man, I I just I'm to the point now where
Speaker 5: i just want to hunt places. I know I'm going
Speaker 5: to have a ton of fun. And so really, you know,
Speaker 5: last year, last year, we had a really good year
Speaker 5: with the girls, and I had a good year, and
Speaker 5: so kind of at the end of the season. When
Speaker 5: I look at it, if I have like five six
Speaker 5: seven deer in the freezer, and my daughter's got some deer,
Speaker 5: and I had some you know, had some opportunities, I'm like,
Speaker 5: that's that's pretty good for me. I'm not you know,
Speaker 5: I'm not really going down the hit list route just
Speaker 5: because of the places I hunt, Like, I just can't.
Speaker 5: That's just not like a great way to go about
Speaker 5: it for me. So I don't you know, it's not
Speaker 5: like I got to get three big bucks or it's
Speaker 5: a failure. You know, Like that North Dakota thing. There's
Speaker 5: a lot of places I could go that would be better,
Speaker 5: I think, But I just love it out there, you know,
Speaker 5: you know that terrain, and like it's just it's kind
Speaker 5: of the same thing the reason that Dan keeps going
Speaker 5: to South Dakota. It's not it's not because it's just
Speaker 5: like an easy kill.
Speaker 3: It's not just killing anything, dude.
Speaker 5: It's because the terrain. The terrain is so cool and
Speaker 5: it's just different from what you're used to. And I
Speaker 5: I'm to the point now where I just like I
Speaker 5: want as many hunts like that because I just love
Speaker 5: being there, you know.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, I get that. That's awesome. Okay, well, I
Speaker 3: guess that brings it to me. So I'll run you
Speaker 3: through the schedule real quick.
Speaker 2: As I alluded to earlier, I've got the big Alaska
Speaker 2: trip in which first part of that trip is a
Speaker 2: blacktail hunt there in Southeast Alaska, doing an interesting story
Speaker 2: film up there about some changes going on in that
Speaker 2: part of the world and why it's happening and why
Speaker 2: some different critters are showing up in places they never
Speaker 2: used to. So that's an interesting one. And then a
Speaker 2: few days I'm spending days after that doing some salmon fishing,
Speaker 2: which would be cool.
Speaker 3: So that's like an almost two week trip, big excursion.
Speaker 2: Like I mentioned earlier, I feel, you know, there's so
Speaker 2: many question marks around that it's got me a little anxious,
Speaker 2: but also it's going to be one of those very
Speaker 2: special experiences.
Speaker 3: So excited about that.
Speaker 5: What's your bear defense plan for that trip?
Speaker 2: Well, I'll have bear spray and I have a ten
Speaker 2: milimeter a sig P three twenty I think is what
Speaker 2: it is. So I'll have a ten mil on the
Speaker 2: bino harness and bear spray underneath. And then there's also
Speaker 2: a friend going with me. Who's very experienced in the
Speaker 2: area and actually does like bear what he leads, like
Speaker 2: bear watching trips and all that kind of stuff up there.
Speaker 2: So the dudes like very Alaskan bear brown bear savvy.
Speaker 2: So I feel really comfortable in grizzly country like here
Speaker 2: in the lower forty eight, you know, spend a lot
Speaker 2: of time and so I feel fine with that. But
Speaker 2: this does feel like slightly different. So it would be
Speaker 2: nice to be with someone for that part of the
Speaker 2: trip who's experienced with that version of a grizzly And.
Speaker 5: Can you be real honest here, how much time have
Speaker 5: you spent standing in front of the mirror pulling that
Speaker 5: pistol out of the holster and aiming it quickly because
Speaker 5: I know it's not zero?
Speaker 2: Yeah, with my shirt off and face painted underath my eyes.
Speaker 2: You're a tough man, you're big, you're strong, Mark. Yeah,
Speaker 2: not not zero at all. That's that's a daily occurrence here.
Speaker 2: My wife's really loving it. Yes, okay, yeah, so uh yeah,
Speaker 2: super dense grizzly brown bear population so big old suckers,
Speaker 2: I understand. I'd love to I'd love to see some,
Speaker 2: you know, like I love I think they're incredible animals,
Speaker 2: So I'd love to observe from afar.
Speaker 3: I just don't want anything too close.
Speaker 5: Is this a rifle or a bow hunt rifle? Rifle?
Speaker 3: Okay, yeah, so I will have plenty of firepower.
Speaker 4: I talked with some of the Vortex dudes who went
Speaker 4: on that well I think it was last year or
Speaker 4: the year before or something like that, and they had
Speaker 4: they had an absolute blast.
Speaker 3: Yeah, looks looked incredible.
Speaker 2: So yeah, I think it'll be one of those lifeless trips,
Speaker 2: you know that I'll be able to look back on
Speaker 2: and have a great story.
Speaker 3: And I have an experience.
Speaker 2: So I'm trying to trying to get past the little
Speaker 2: bit of anxiety and just be like, hey, it's gonna
Speaker 2: be fun. It's gonna be an amazing thing. I will
Speaker 2: tell you though, Honestly, the thing that I'm thinking I'm
Speaker 2: dreading the most about it is and this sounds so cheesy,
Speaker 2: but you guys will get it. It's a long time
Speaker 2: away from the kids. Like it's a very It's about
Speaker 2: as long of a trip as i'd ever want to do.
Speaker 2: I like a few years ago, I think I set
Speaker 2: my max like, man, I'm not doing any trips more
Speaker 2: than like ten days, like seven days is really what
Speaker 2: I prefer. But this one has had to stretch out
Speaker 2: because there's all these travel like I had to hop
Speaker 2: on so many different planes, and there's all these travel logistics,
Speaker 2: and then tack and on the there's the film, there's
Speaker 2: a black Tail, the Blacktail Hunt, and then I'm also
Speaker 2: doing this this salmon thing for a project, and so
Speaker 2: there's no way I could do two separate trips to
Speaker 2: do all that. So the only way to do this
Speaker 2: is that for just to be a big trip. So
Speaker 2: it's going to be like twelve or thirteen days, which
Speaker 2: is going to be tough.
Speaker 5: So well, and that's the kind of trip that could
Speaker 5: turn into longer just by weather for some of the
Speaker 5: flights you have probably huh.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, that's a fair point. You're at the mercy
Speaker 2: of You're at the mercy of the conditions. So yeah,
Speaker 2: I don't know, it's gonna be a it's a little
Speaker 2: hard to feel sorry for you. Yeah, I'm not asking
Speaker 2: for any pity, not asking for any pity. It'll be great.
Speaker 2: So that one's early September, and then I'm gonna do
Speaker 2: a Kentucky public land hunt, which will be cool. But
Speaker 2: I have low expectations as far as like deer. That's
Speaker 2: for a project about we're telling a story about the
Speaker 2: working for Wildlife tour. I've been doing so all these
Speaker 2: different public land habitat improvement volunteer days I've been going on,
Speaker 2: and we did one in Kentucky and so we filmed
Speaker 2: that and then we're gonna come back and do a
Speaker 2: hunt in that area too, so we're able to tell
Speaker 2: that story and explore you know, that project, which would
Speaker 2: be really cool. But it's like big woods, big hills,
Speaker 2: no egg, you know, just tough situation for trying to
Speaker 2: kill deer. So my hopes on that are just any
Speaker 2: legal deer. Probably unless I get out there, it's it's
Speaker 2: probably going to be November. Yeah, I think that's probably
Speaker 2: I can't do in September because I'm gone for two
Speaker 2: weeks already with Alaska. And then October, you know, I
Speaker 2: want my first couple of days for Michigan like I
Speaker 2: always do, and then you and me, Tony, we've got
Speaker 2: to go to Louisiana for this meteor fishing thing. So
Speaker 2: that's like a big chunk of time in the middle
Speaker 2: of October, and then late October is usually my best
Speaker 2: spot again, my best time again for Michigan, just one
Speaker 2: of my one of my main zones here, like for
Speaker 2: whatever reason, like late October is like when stuff really
Speaker 2: kicks off a little bit earlier than other places I hunt.
Speaker 2: So I think it makes sense to push the Kentucky
Speaker 2: thing in November, both because of those things I just describe,
Speaker 2: but then also because this hunt is probably gonna be
Speaker 2: like a terrain thing, like sitting terrain funnels, and that's
Speaker 2: obviously a rout thing. So probably that'll be the game
Speaker 2: plan for Kentucky is find some kind of saddle, find
Speaker 2: some kind of you know, funnel, some kind of topography
Speaker 2: that pushes whatever deer travel is there into a smaller zone,
Speaker 2: and ride it out.
Speaker 5: So you might get on a water thing down there too.
Speaker 2: Yeah maybe, I guess I never thought about that at
Speaker 2: that time of year, but yeah, and I'm sure you
Speaker 2: know I'll find the oaks too, So that's Kentucky. I
Speaker 2: picked up some surprise kind of access in Illinois recently,
Speaker 2: so I'm gonna be going down to Illinois in November
Speaker 2: as well. And this is a situation where got access
Speaker 2: to a bunch of properties through a meet through a
Speaker 2: friend of a friend who is, you know, being very
Speaker 2: generous with me and a couple of friends to go
Speaker 2: and hunt their spots.
Speaker 3: We're gonna help him with like some marketing stuff that
Speaker 3: he wants some help with.
Speaker 2: And it's an interesting one because it's all new, but
Speaker 2: it also is probably better than most anything I've I've
Speaker 2: hunted in the past as far as like potential, because
Speaker 2: this is you know, primo Illinois ground that's not being
Speaker 2: heavily hunted. And then we kind of have free rein
Speaker 2: on we do have free rein a bunch of this.
Speaker 2: So part of me just wants to be like, hey,
Speaker 2: you know, you're not gonna a ton of time, just
Speaker 2: shoot a decent buck.
Speaker 3: A part of me says, though, Geese, like, you don't
Speaker 3: have to shoot a buck.
Speaker 2: You could just kind of like you're saying, Tony, it's like,
Speaker 2: it's just fun to hunt in the area where you
Speaker 2: have the chance to see something like extra special that
Speaker 2: I just would never see in my usual places. And
Speaker 2: this is the kind of spot, like it's not unheard
Speaker 2: of that I could see one hundred and eighty inch
Speaker 2: buck or something.
Speaker 3: I could see the biggest dear of my life down here.
Speaker 2: So part of me just wants to be like, hey,
Speaker 2: let's just ride it out, see what happens, because you
Speaker 2: could see a giant and I haven't had a chance
Speaker 2: to like hunt really big deer for a number of
Speaker 2: years now, just haven't had the place that's got that,
Speaker 2: so I might just kind of see see what comes
Speaker 2: through and have some fun with it and try to
Speaker 2: like see the thing like enjoy the Illinois kind of
Speaker 2: like the Iowa, you know.
Speaker 3: Experience.
Speaker 2: So so I'm excited about that, but don't have a
Speaker 2: whole lot it's all new. So i'd got like one
Speaker 2: day I went down there a week or two ago
Speaker 2: and just did like a speed scout, like drove around glass,
Speaker 2: checked out these properties in the road, did a quick
Speaker 2: run through of five different parcels. They're mostly like there's
Speaker 2: like a twenty, there's like an eighteen, there's two twenties,
Speaker 2: there's an eighty.
Speaker 3: There's a couple other ones that are bigger that we
Speaker 3: can access earlier in the year and late in the year,
Speaker 3: but not in November.
Speaker 2: So there's there's kind of a collection of a bunch
Speaker 2: of different spots, and I just try to get like
Speaker 2: a quick idea of like what's the lay of the
Speaker 2: land put out a few cameras. The cameras have been
Speaker 2: dead so far, so I have no idea what might
Speaker 2: be out there eventually, but I imagine there will be
Speaker 2: something exciting once we get into the season.
Speaker 5: So that's Illinois, is it. Were you down there with
Speaker 5: Tyler and Casey? Yeah, yeah, So you're gonna watch those
Speaker 5: guys burn through twenty acre property in eight minutes.
Speaker 3: It's funny.
Speaker 2: Casey said to me, He's like, you know, it's gonna
Speaker 2: be great hunting with you because I know you're not
Speaker 2: gonna go mess something up for me. I'm like, yeah,
Speaker 2: you're gonna be the one messing up for me. I
Speaker 2: recognize that. Fortunately, there's enough like different little spots, like
Speaker 2: I think we're gonna be able to spread out and.
Speaker 3: You know, have some fun.
Speaker 2: And again, like I've got not low expectations, but I'm
Speaker 2: not like worried about it. I'm not super stressed, Like
Speaker 2: I don't have a lot into it yet. So this
Speaker 2: is just like, hey, go have a fun adventure, see
Speaker 2: what's possible out there, learn these new places, try and
Speaker 2: have a good time with it. So that's Illinois, and
Speaker 2: then of course Michigan. The family deer camp. Gonna be
Speaker 2: going up there.
Speaker 3: For gun season with the kids and my dad and
Speaker 3: uncles and friends.
Speaker 2: So excited about that. One continue to see that place improve.
Speaker 2: Last year, you know, we put a lot of time
Speaker 2: into improving it and did not have the success hunting.
Speaker 2: Didn't see much hunting, but we had pictures of more
Speaker 2: mature bucks than ever before in daylight, Like all around us.
Speaker 2: There was like there's a giant one hundred and ten
Speaker 2: yards or one hundred and forty something away from my
Speaker 2: dad while he was out there hunting, so like we're
Speaker 2: in the mix. They're around like three or four or
Speaker 2: five different mature bucks all there at the same time.
Speaker 2: Never ever have had that, and like deer, not just
Speaker 2: mature deer, but like deer that I would shoot anywhere
Speaker 2: caliber deer.
Speaker 3: So that's exciting.
Speaker 5: Hold on, so hold on, isn't it? I think there's
Speaker 5: an interesting case study here where you talk about going
Speaker 5: to a brand new place in Illinois and the trophy
Speaker 5: potential there and what you can run into and the
Speaker 5: focus on that and how fun that'll be, and then
Speaker 5: at the same time you're like, we've got this up
Speaker 5: North Michigan property that in your head you kind of
Speaker 5: think of as being like a way lower quality place,
Speaker 5: but now you have good, good deer there, but you
Speaker 5: wouldn't prioritize that over Illinois, you know what I mean,
Speaker 5: Like even though you know you have this little pocket
Speaker 5: of big ones, it's like that that pole of the
Speaker 5: premiere white tail state so hard to get over for.
Speaker 2: Sure, and it's and it's uh, there's still like a
Speaker 2: deer density thing too, Like knowing there's some mature box
Speaker 2: up north has been very exciting, but still like I
Speaker 2: went the entire hunting season there last year.
Speaker 3: Seeing one deer.
Speaker 2: And I'm not a horrible deer hunter, and I saw
Speaker 2: one deer up there, even though like yeah, maybe, oh
Speaker 2: so it's I'm I'm I am still living on like
Speaker 2: hope and pictures up there, right, so we're making progress.
Speaker 3: The photos are.
Speaker 2: I know it will happen eventually for someone We're gonna
Speaker 2: get a deer up there. It's gonna be amazing, But
Speaker 2: it's still like a slog, you know. So my hope
Speaker 2: is that we're gonna get to a point where we
Speaker 2: can go and sit with the kids and like have
Speaker 2: a decent chance of seeing deer, just making exciting for
Speaker 2: the kids, and for my dad to be able to
Speaker 2: shoot something up there would all be would be great.
Speaker 3: So that's the hope.
Speaker 2: And and yeah, we're gonna be going up there here
Speaker 2: next we probably and do a little bit of final
Speaker 2: prep work there, but but yeah, we'll see what happens.
Speaker 3: Fingers crossed. And then southern Michigan.
Speaker 2: That's where a lot of my attention has been recently,
Speaker 2: just getting ready on the local stuff. And then kind
Speaker 2: of the two big stories there are. I lost one
Speaker 2: of my big permission farms this year, but I also
Speaker 2: picked up some new permissions. On one of those new
Speaker 2: permission pieces, I'm particularly excited about. It's sixty acres, of
Speaker 2: which fifty six of it is cornfield. But the four
Speaker 2: acres of cover are tucked up next to a big
Speaker 2: swamp system in an area that I've always known has
Speaker 2: good deer, Like I drive around here a lot summer
Speaker 2: evenings looking for deer, So for years I've known this
Speaker 2: zone has some good deer because you know, usually swamps
Speaker 2: are where deer get age in Michigan because you can
Speaker 2: just get away from hunting pressure. And so a number
Speaker 2: of years ago I knocked on a bunch of doors
Speaker 2: around here, try to get. At one point, I did
Speaker 2: get a permission that lasted a year, saw a really
Speaker 2: good buck, lost permission the next year, but finally picked
Speaker 2: up a new access just four acres. But those four acres,
Speaker 2: like I said, there's some oaks, there's like super tall grass, brushy,
Speaker 2: nasty stuff. I went there and scouted. When I was
Speaker 2: slipping in their scouting, I saw and bumped like a
Speaker 2: probably a three year old eight pointer that was just
Speaker 2: feeding in the standing corn that didn't see me until
Speaker 2: my wind swirled. And then I bumped another buck that
Speaker 2: was at least a three year old if not older,
Speaker 2: bedded in the tall grass, like one hundred yards from there.
Speaker 2: So just when I walked through there saw two bucks
Speaker 2: that were probably three year older.
Speaker 3: I put up two.
Speaker 2: Cameras, which is pretty dense for four acres, but I
Speaker 2: put two cameras on two different good looking kind of
Speaker 2: entries off that swamp into this corn. And I have
Speaker 2: one slammer mature buck that's like he has at least
Speaker 2: twelve inch prow times if not taller, like really cool,
Speaker 2: another like really solid eight pointer, a twelve pointer that's
Speaker 2: not like a huge antlered one, but like a lot
Speaker 2: of points. I'm like a cool deer. He's he's three
Speaker 2: or four, so like at least three deer that I'm
Speaker 2: pretty interested in taking a shot at. And I wouldn't
Speaker 2: be shocked if you know. There's plenty more that roll
Speaker 2: through once you get later into the season too. So
Speaker 2: excited about that little Heidi Hole spot. And there's a
Speaker 2: couple other zones that I have to still scout and
Speaker 2: explore on these new accesses. There's another piece that's a
Speaker 2: little bit bigger that I'm hoping to check out next week.
Speaker 2: And long story short, would be fun to have some
Speaker 2: success on one of these new spots. And then there's
Speaker 2: the local area I've hunted for many years where I've
Speaker 2: got these deer I've gotten to know over the years.
Speaker 2: And big story there is there's two bucks back from
Speaker 2: past years. There's the deer my oldest son named Bulldozer
Speaker 2: passed him a bunch as a three year old, passed
Speaker 2: him last year as a four year old. During gun season.
Speaker 2: We found his match set. This spring, my youngest son,
Speaker 2: Colt found well. I found it first and pretending not
Speaker 2: to know he was there, and went back got Colt
Speaker 2: brought him out. He got to find it, pick it up,
Speaker 2: super sayings. He's a five year old huge body deer,
Speaker 2: like really really big body buck. He's blind in one eye,
Speaker 2: got injured in the fight last year, seems like, and
Speaker 2: he's just like a solid nine pointer, so he's one
Speaker 2: of the bucks that'd be interested in taking a crack at.
Speaker 2: And then the second one is a four year old
Speaker 2: who passed a bunch last year and my youngest son
Speaker 2: decided to call him Bear Deer, so Bear Deer blew up.
Speaker 3: He is big.
Speaker 2: He's a really big, main frame nine pointer with an
Speaker 2: inside tye off of his right G two, so tech me.
Speaker 3: He's got ten.
Speaker 2: Points, tall, great time layth like a like a big deer,
Speaker 2: biggest Frank big close. He's probably the closest I've had
Speaker 2: to that since Frank. He's pushing towards that mark. So
Speaker 2: that's another interesting one. And both of them, I've been
Speaker 2: able to glass them this summer. I've got lots of
Speaker 2: pictures of them. They're they're they're hanging out a lot
Speaker 2: right now. Over the past two years. Both of them
Speaker 2: were pretty homebodyish during the season, so I have decent
Speaker 2: expectations of them hanging around, and I feel like pretty
Speaker 2: well dialed on. You know, they're always they always three curveballs.
Speaker 2: So I know I'm not too confident in anyone playing,
Speaker 2: but I've got a decent sense of how I want
Speaker 2: to approach it and excited about that.
Speaker 3: Both the boys are super excited.
Speaker 5: You know.
Speaker 2: This is an area that they've been able to scout
Speaker 2: with me, that they've been able to be unhunted with
Speaker 2: me in the past.
Speaker 3: They've seen these deer in the past.
Speaker 2: So what I like about this area is like the
Speaker 2: family has been very involved in it and that makes
Speaker 2: it fun in a different kind of way. So that's
Speaker 2: the season. That's what I've got on the on the
Speaker 2: on the docket. You know, would love to shoot one
Speaker 2: of those two bucks in Michigan. Would love to kill
Speaker 2: a buck either up north or one of one of
Speaker 2: these bonus properties with lower standards. Any deer in Alaska,
Speaker 2: any deer in Kentucky, Illinois will kind of see how
Speaker 2: it is. Like I said, I might want to just
Speaker 2: ride it out and see what's possible. And biggest goal though,
Speaker 2: above all of those things, is this has been the
Speaker 2: same thing the last two years. But I just want
Speaker 2: to keep it fun, avoid the stress, avoid you know,
Speaker 2: the downside of die hard deer hunting, like just keep
Speaker 2: it fun, enjoy myself, and everything seems to work out
Speaker 2: better when I'm doing that, rather than over analyzing, over stressing,
Speaker 2: overworking myself up about this because I think maybe you
Speaker 2: were you know, I were talking about this, Dan, but like,
Speaker 2: we're not caring cancer, we aren't rocket scientists, We're not
Speaker 2: doing anything that's that important. We're out there hunting deer.
Speaker 2: It's not the end of the world. If something goes wrong,
Speaker 2: it's not the end of the world. If the plan's
Speaker 2: not going right, it's not the end of the world.
Speaker 2: If I make a stupid mistake, just enjoy it, soak
Speaker 2: it up, enjoy time outside, get out there with a family,
Speaker 2: you know, try to pursue my goals, but do it
Speaker 2: in a way that is, you know, like filling my cup,
Speaker 2: not draining it. So that's that's the focus again this year.
Speaker 5: I can agree with that.
Speaker 4: But there's something, especially when I go out to South
Speaker 4: Dakota and Tony you mentioned it about the environment, that
Speaker 4: I just love the plane states Man. There's something about
Speaker 4: sitting on top of a hill and looking for infinity
Speaker 4: until your eyes just can't work anymore. There's something about
Speaker 4: that that I love. But there's also this aspect of
Speaker 4: that that I feel, especially you really feel it when
Speaker 4: you go on an elk hunt, especially at higher elevations,
Speaker 4: where your body is just wasted by the end of
Speaker 4: the day, okay, And there's something about falling asleep before
Speaker 4: your head hits the pillow in your sleeping bag that
Speaker 4: I know I did something right, whether I felt like
Speaker 4: it or not, because of the physical energy that I
Speaker 4: put into that those hunts. And so there's something about
Speaker 4: that that I don't get with white tail hunting. And
Speaker 4: so to me, when I feel that and i'm I'm
Speaker 4: walking up the last hill to my truck of the day,
Speaker 4: my legs are just screaming at me, or I'm I
Speaker 4: don't know, I'm exhausted and all I want to do
Speaker 4: is stuff my face before I fall asleep, then then
Speaker 4: that's a successful day for me, right, And so it's different.
Speaker 4: It's different for white tail because I've been doing it
Speaker 4: along and it's it's I don't want to say it's easy,
Speaker 4: but i'm I'm I'm knowledgeable about it, which makes it
Speaker 4: easier for me. And then there's there's a lot less
Speaker 4: of that guessing involved. So so that's why I love
Speaker 4: going out West, because you're guessing at sometimes like shit,
Speaker 4: I don't know what I'm doing. I'm just gonna go,
Speaker 4: and because you have to go. If you don't go,
Speaker 4: then then you're just sitting in your truck and I
Speaker 4: don't know.
Speaker 5: That's I love that. Well, dude, those those hunts, like
Speaker 5: you're talking about that meal deer hunt, I think that's
Speaker 5: like the most fun you can have with a bow.
Speaker 5: Go hunt, break the terrain, go spot and stock meal deer.
Speaker 5: So fun, all all day, fun, all day.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's a good point.
Speaker 2: Final words of wisdom or a final thought you want
Speaker 2: to leave folks with as we're about to kick off
Speaker 2: hunting season, is there any last thing before folks start
Speaker 2: hitting the woods, start hitting the mountains, start hitting the planes,
Speaker 2: whatever it is, what do you want to leave them with?
Speaker 5: Dan?
Speaker 3: You lead us off.
Speaker 4: I feel, especially for bow hunters and all new hunters,
Speaker 4: shoot as many deer as you have tags for. If
Speaker 4: you if you're a new hunter, or you're you are
Speaker 4: a even somewhat experienced hunter, fill your tags, shoot your
Speaker 4: shoot your rifle, shoot your bow, fill the freezer. Right,
Speaker 4: I don't know That's something that I don't want to
Speaker 4: say I regret, but it's something that I wish I
Speaker 4: did when I was first starting out, because I skipped
Speaker 4: a whole bunch of steps and went right into hunting
Speaker 4: big mature deer. And I wish there for a couple
Speaker 4: of years. I want I would have went into and
Speaker 4: it's brown its down type mode. And so my suggestion
Speaker 4: for anybody out there, especially if you're even even experienced guys,
Speaker 4: just shoot a couple dose, man, Just let the arrows fly,
Speaker 4: let the bullets fly, stack some bodies, and then after
Speaker 4: that's all over, then get into like the chess match
Speaker 4: stuff you can you can do both.
Speaker 5: You can do both. And my goal this year is
Speaker 5: to put more meat.
Speaker 3: In the freezer.
Speaker 5: Love it.
Speaker 3: What about you, Tony Man?
Speaker 5: I think I think the thing that keeps me going,
Speaker 5: that I think we're are messaging from top down in
Speaker 5: the white tail space is be super cautious, preserve your spots,
Speaker 5: you know, wait till that buck's daylighting on the cell camera,
Speaker 5: then go in and hunt him. And we have all
Speaker 5: these rules kind of like unspoken rules built in to
Speaker 5: keep us out of the woods and not try new stuff,
Speaker 5: like not risk things, and I'm to the point now
Speaker 5: where when I try new stuff, that's the most fun
Speaker 5: I have. So like the decoy thing last year when
Speaker 5: I really don't have like a ton of faith in it,
Speaker 5: but I'm like, I'm gonna go down this path or
Speaker 5: that muzzloader hunt I did last year in western Minnesota
Speaker 5: and the cattails louse. That was the most fun I
Speaker 5: had last season. I didn't kill a deer, but that
Speaker 5: new environment that kicks my ass and forces me to
Speaker 5: solve new problems. I think. I think we go into
Speaker 5: a season and we're like I want the hunt to happen,
Speaker 5: like I want it to happen where I want it
Speaker 5: to happen in the whole thing, and you know, oftentimes
Speaker 5: it doesn't. But also when we have that mentality, we
Speaker 5: stay out of the woods or like we're like, well,
Speaker 5: I you know, I'm not going to hunt October tenth
Speaker 5: when I could wait and it's gonna be October twenty
Speaker 5: fifth with a cold front. I'm like, man, you're just
Speaker 5: not gonna hunt. And so I'm like, find find ways
Speaker 5: to hunt and try new stuff, like still hunting, like
Speaker 5: stalking them whatever, killing one from the ground. You know,
Speaker 5: like we always talk about our goals, and everybody defaults
Speaker 5: to like I want to buck bigger than one I've
Speaker 5: ever killed, or I want a one forty class or
Speaker 5: I want a mature buck. And I find myself sometimes
Speaker 5: where I'm like, I'm going to try to kill a
Speaker 5: dough from the ground in the big woods. And you know,
Speaker 5: it's like a little goal, right. It puts me in
Speaker 5: a situation where I'm trying new stuff and it just
Speaker 5: changes it for me. It like changes how I view
Speaker 5: the season, and it changes how much I want to
Speaker 5: go all the time. Because when you have something like that,
Speaker 5: you know, if you're like I'm going to go do
Speaker 5: that in the beginning October on some kind of big
Speaker 5: woods acorn pattern or whatever, you know you're not gonna
Speaker 5: kill a big one. Probably you're probably not gonna you
Speaker 5: might not even be within the same section as a
Speaker 5: big one. But you're still actively hunting and trying new stuff.
Speaker 5: And man, like you said, when you're when you're having
Speaker 5: fun out there and you're enjoying it, the things just
Speaker 5: fall into place. Like you run into big deer where
Speaker 5: you're not supposed to and you kill deer in cool ways,
Speaker 5: and it's just like it's a different kind of season
Speaker 5: than being ultra cautious just to like try to have
Speaker 5: a couple of hunts where your odds are the highest.
Speaker 5: Like that's I'm going the other way on that stuff.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I like that.
Speaker 2: I definitely have found the more I've experimented in those
Speaker 2: kinds of ways, the more the more confidence you build
Speaker 2: than that. I think a lot of it comes from
Speaker 2: like just feeling, oh, I can't do this kind of
Speaker 2: stuff because you didn't have experience with it, you know,
Speaker 2: the confidence everyone tells you not to do that. But
Speaker 2: as soon as you try a couple of these things
Speaker 2: and you realize like, oh this is possible, Oh this
Speaker 2: led to a good thing, it opens up the doors
Speaker 2: for so much more. So, Yeah, I can attest to
Speaker 2: that as well. I think my final thought would kind
Speaker 2: of tag on a little bit to something you mentioned there,
Speaker 2: which is, you know, just hunting your hunt, your own
Speaker 2: hunt this year. And this is something we've talked about
Speaker 2: for years, but I continue to need to hear it
Speaker 2: myself and I continue to want to share with other
Speaker 2: people because it's just so important. You know, Comparison is
Speaker 2: the thief of joy, right, That's a great line. I think,
Speaker 2: I don't know where who that came from, but comparison
Speaker 2: is the thief of joy. As soon as you start
Speaker 2: comparing yourself to other people and worrying about how big
Speaker 2: a deer you shoot compared to this other person, or
Speaker 2: how many deer you shoot compared to the other person,
Speaker 2: or if this thing's better than this thing, or that
Speaker 2: guy's better than you. As soon as you start doing that,
Speaker 2: you start losing the fun. You start stressed out, You
Speaker 2: start doing things for the wrong reasons. You start going
Speaker 2: down a path that just doesn't take you anywhere good.
Speaker 2: And I've been down that path before, and I want
Speaker 2: to avoid that as much as possible myself.
Speaker 3: Keep it fun.
Speaker 2: Hunt for your own reasons, have your own goals. Don't
Speaker 2: feel like something you see on Instagram or something you
Speaker 2: heard on a podcast has to be the same way
Speaker 2: you do things. You know, pursue things at the level
Speaker 2: you're at. Like Dan said, like don't jump straight to
Speaker 2: try to hold out for big giant bucks. If you've
Speaker 2: never killed any buck, right, hunt some does. Hunt young bucks.
Speaker 2: Do it shamelessly, be proud, enjoy it, be you know it.
Speaker 2: Take all of those experiences for what they are, and
Speaker 2: if you never want to try to kill a big
Speaker 2: giant buck, great, no big deal. If you do, that's
Speaker 2: fine too. If you fail, a whole bunch along the
Speaker 2: way happens to us all do things for your own reasons.
Speaker 2: Enjoy it, learn, try new things, and remember we're not
Speaker 2: saving the world here, we're deer hunting, so have fun
Speaker 2: with it. Get out there with your friends and family.
Speaker 2: Don't do the thing that I have done a lot
Speaker 2: in the past, which is like skip breakfast with your
Speaker 2: buddies or miss out on something important just because you're
Speaker 2: so obsessed with trying to you know, not make one possible,
Speaker 2: tiny mistake. Yeah it's important, work hard. Yeah, it's important
Speaker 2: to do things the right way, but also give yourself
Speaker 2: a little bit of grace and enjoy yourself. At least
Speaker 2: that's the advice that I've needed, so for whatever it's worth. Hopefully,
Speaker 2: hopefully everybody has a great season. I'm excited to see
Speaker 2: how it goes for you too. I hope Dan survives
Speaker 2: as South Dakota Adventures and we'll be able to come
Speaker 2: here at the end of the season and have some
Speaker 2: very interesting stories to share. Thank you, guys, Good luck, guys.
Speaker 2: All right, and that's going to wrap it up for
Speaker 2: that one. I hope you enjoyed that, a lot of laughs,
Speaker 2: a lot of uh. It's exciting for all three of us.
Speaker 2: I think to start imagining what this upcoming season might hold.
Speaker 2: And as you heard, a lot of adventures coming up,
Speaker 2: a lot of opportunities for some good stories, some lessons learned,
Speaker 2: and you know, a little bit of the unexpected certainly.
Speaker 2: So thanks for being here. I hope you've got some
Speaker 2: exciting adventures coming up here soon. I'm wishing you the
Speaker 2: best of luck if your season is kicking off here soon.
Speaker 2: And until next time, stay wired to hunh