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Speaker 1: Welcome to the Wire to Hunt podcast, your home for

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Speaker 1: deer hunting news, stories and strategies, and now your host,

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Speaker 1: Mark Kenyon. Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast. I'm

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Speaker 1: your host, Mark Kenyan. This episode number one sixty six

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Speaker 1: and today the show, we're joined by Josh Boyd, an

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Speaker 1: outdoor writer and an avid big game hunter from northern Montana,

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Speaker 1: and we're diving into Josh's experiences and lessons learned hunting

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Speaker 1: big white tails in the hills and mountains of the

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Speaker 1: Rocky Mountain West. Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast,

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Speaker 1: brought to you by sit Ka Gear, and today we

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Speaker 1: are talking about hunting white tails and hilly and mountainous

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Speaker 1: terrain and we're joined by a guy met earlier this

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Speaker 1: year by the name of Josh Boyd. And Josh is

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Speaker 1: a big game hunter from Montana, an outdoor writer, a

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Speaker 1: force service employee, and a guy that knows how to

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Speaker 1: kill really big white tail bucks in areas that most

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Speaker 1: people would probably never think to chase them. And this

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Speaker 1: conversation was actually recorded earlier the summer while it was

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Speaker 1: in Montana for the Sick Gear Converge event, and I

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Speaker 1: just really enjoyed this conversation and I think even if

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Speaker 1: you hunt in an area far far away from the

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Speaker 1: spots to Josh and Sunning and the spots that he

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Speaker 1: talks about, I think you're still gonna be able to

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Speaker 1: garner some new and helpful ideas. So in a minute here,

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Speaker 1: we're gonna toss it over to that interview. But before that,

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Speaker 1: I wanted to share just a few quick updates. And first,

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Speaker 1: we're not going to have a normal new episode next

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Speaker 1: week because I'm going to be in Alaska for my

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Speaker 1: very first caribou hunt, which I'm very very excited about.

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Speaker 1: But we will be back week after that, and our

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Speaker 1: next episode will be recorded from the field in the

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Speaker 1: middle of my very first white tail hunts of the year.

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Speaker 1: As we've talked about over the past couple of weeks,

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Speaker 1: I'm gonna be on a public land white tail hunt

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Speaker 1: in Monte in A in a public land hunt in

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Speaker 1: North Dakota. So hopefully when we get back, we're gonna

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Speaker 1: have some good stories and lessons learned from all those experiences.

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Speaker 1: Can't wait to share that with you. But in the meantime,

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Speaker 1: I wanted to recommend a couple of our past episodes

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Speaker 1: that you could give a listen to during our off week,

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Speaker 1: especially if you're relatively new to the podcast and haven't

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Speaker 1: gone through all of our old episodes. There's just an

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Speaker 1: absolute huge wealth of information sitting there just waiting to

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Speaker 1: be tapped into. So let me offer a couple for

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Speaker 1: you to get started with, and then feel free to

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Speaker 1: go back start the very beginning and listen in because

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Speaker 1: I think even those old episodes you can learn something from.

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Speaker 1: So first off, I would highly recommend you listen to

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Speaker 1: episode number eighty three with guest Shane Mahoney. And if

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Speaker 1: you're not familiar, Shane is an incredible speaker and conservationist

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Speaker 1: and advocate for wild places and wild animals. And in

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Speaker 1: our episode we go deep into a whole slew of

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Speaker 1: different topics related to the history and future of hunting

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Speaker 1: in America and hunting ethics and our responsibilities as hunters.

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Speaker 1: And it's just a fascinating discus uh and and if

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Speaker 1: you haven't heard it yet, it's it's just a must listen.

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Speaker 1: I think every single person should hear what Shane has

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Speaker 1: to say. I think it's so important, so valuable, So

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Speaker 1: go ahead and get that download right now and queue

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Speaker 1: up for next week. And secondly, if you want a

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Speaker 1: more tactic related podcast. And if somehow you haven't heard

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Speaker 1: this one yet, go back and listen to episode number

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Speaker 1: sixty three. It is one of our very most popular

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Speaker 1: episodes of all time, and it's just jam packed with

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Speaker 1: helpful insights. Everyone talks about how they need to take

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Speaker 1: notes on this one over and over again. And this

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Speaker 1: is the episode with the mad scientist Mark Drury, and

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Speaker 1: in this one we get into all of his theories

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Speaker 1: related to the various factors that he believes influenced deer movement.

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Speaker 1: So we talked about the wind and temperature and barometric

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Speaker 1: pressure and moon phase and all sorts of different things.

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Speaker 1: It's it's just fascinating, one of my favorites too, So

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Speaker 1: there you go. After this episode, make sure to go

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Speaker 1: back and listen to episodes number sixty three and number

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Speaker 1: eighty three, and then we'll get right back into it

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Speaker 1: with new episodes in mid September, hopefully good news from

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Speaker 1: my Alaska hunt and updates on what the heck is

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Speaker 1: happening in Montana and North Dakota. And I'm sure we're

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Speaker 1: gonna hear something new about Dan's kids too, So until then,

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Speaker 1: I hope you enjoyed this one. We're gonna kick it

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Speaker 1: over to our Sickest Story now and then we'll get

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Speaker 1: to my conversation with Josh Boyd. For this week's sick

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Speaker 1: of Story, we're joined by Drake Pollard, who tells us

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Speaker 1: about a special tree on his northern Missouri property. UM.

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Speaker 1: I think for me, UM, the first time I get

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Speaker 1: to north central Missouri for hunting, uh this year and

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Speaker 1: in many years before. UM, I go to my family

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Speaker 1: farm and I visit a stand or a tree that

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Speaker 1: my grandfather UH hunted when he was growing up. And

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Speaker 1: and my family and friends, we've we've used this location

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Speaker 1: many of times, but it's predominantly myself that hunts up

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Speaker 1: there now. And UM, every time I visit the farm,

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Speaker 1: I go to that stand, I go and sit there.

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Speaker 1: My grandfather was an avid hunter. UM. He taught us,

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Speaker 1: you know, the ethical way of doing the right and

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Speaker 1: wrong and and how things need to be handled. UM

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Speaker 1: as an outdoorsman and UM as a kid. He passed away,

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Speaker 1: and UM for me to go to that tree, UM

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Speaker 1: to pay my respects figuratively speaking, UM, I just feel

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Speaker 1: a sense of connection when he's still there. UM. I

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Speaker 1: think it's important for hunters to to maybe get back

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Speaker 1: to that a little bit misday and age and maybe

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Speaker 1: figure out, you know, exactly why we do what we do. Um.

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Speaker 1: Whenever we have an opportunity to visit a special place

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Speaker 1: such like my farm in northern Missouri. So UM, I

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Speaker 1: know as a white tail hunter, that always gets me

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Speaker 1: excited every year to visit that section of the farm.

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Speaker 1: UM and just pay my tribute, my respects to him.

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Speaker 1: On Drake's early season haunts. He wears sick As Equinox system.

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Speaker 1: If you'd like to create a sick of story of

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Speaker 1: your own, or to learn more about sit because technical

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Speaker 1: hunting apparel, visit Sitka gear dot com. So we are

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Speaker 1: here at the sick of Gear Converge event. It's technically

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Speaker 1: day three. I guess we are outside. It's range day.

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Speaker 1: You're gonna hear some shotguns going off behind us, and

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Speaker 1: we're here with Josh Boyd, one of the Big Game

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Speaker 1: ambassadors for sick of Gear. Thanks for doing this, Josh, Yeah,

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Speaker 1: you bet. Thanks for the invite. Mark Yeah, I've just

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Speaker 1: met you two nights ago from our friend Matt McCormick,

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Speaker 1: and he got you talking about the white tail stuff

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Speaker 1: you're doing. He's good at that, and that got pretty excited.

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Speaker 1: So I kind of want to pick your brain about

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Speaker 1: what you're doing chasing these white tails out here in

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Speaker 1: the mountains. And you're also obviously having a lot of

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Speaker 1: success getting after Elk and other big games. So be warned.

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Speaker 1: I'm gonna I'm gonna try to dig as much as

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Speaker 1: I can, all right, just just don't make me lie.

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Speaker 1: I won't do that. I won't do that. We won't

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Speaker 1: ask you for specific locations. Um. So before we get started, though,

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Speaker 1: can you just give a little bit of your background.

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Speaker 1: It sounds like you've done some very interesting things leading

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Speaker 1: up to where you are. Now, what where you're from?

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Speaker 1: What do you do? So? Yeah, I live in northwest Montana, UM,

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Speaker 1: right next to Canada, right next to b C. I'm

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Speaker 1: forty miles as the crow flies from British Columbia, and

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Speaker 1: I'm about twelve miles or so from the Idaho border.

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Speaker 1: So I'm way up in that kind of remote part

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Speaker 1: of the state. Not a whole lot of folks make

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Speaker 1: it up there, and even you know people from Montana,

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Speaker 1: they may be passed through it occasionally, but it's just

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Speaker 1: it has to be a destination for you to go there.

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Speaker 1: Out of the way. Yeah, so that's where I live,

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Speaker 1: and I worked for the U. S Force Service up there,

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Speaker 1: which is a federal agency. If people don't know, we

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Speaker 1: manage all the US for Service, not to be confused

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Speaker 1: with the National Park Service or the BLM or fishing

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Speaker 1: game as people call them. Um. So we do mostly

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Speaker 1: land management up they're not We don't necessarily manage game,

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Speaker 1: so we will manage habitat. And so with the Forest Service,

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Speaker 1: I work in the field of hydrology, specifically uh surface water. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: So can you elaborate on that, because I found that

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Speaker 1: pretty interesting. We're chat and the other day specifically the

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Speaker 1: kind of stuff you're doing and paying attention to other thing. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: So I look at and measure runoff. So I'll measure

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Speaker 1: snowpack in the winter to kind of calculate what kind

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Speaker 1: of runof we're gonna get into our streams in the spring. Um.

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Speaker 1: And then I also you said, then I'll measure that

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Speaker 1: runoff and the sediment that goes along with it. So

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Speaker 1: you know, we're really concerned in that part of the

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Speaker 1: world with bull trout and other native salmon. It's trout

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Speaker 1: species mainly west slope cutthroat and uh so we're we're

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Speaker 1: measuring sediment, uh, the bed sediment and also the suspended sediment,

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Speaker 1: because trout have a hard time surviving and laying a

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Speaker 1: and having those things reach you know, young of the year,

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Speaker 1: hatching out of the out of the gravel. So so

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Speaker 1: we measure a lot of that stuff for our fisheries

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Speaker 1: biology types. And then we also well look at and

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Speaker 1: measure streams to see if they're functioning properly and if not,

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Speaker 1: come up with a plan to fix them or enhance them.

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Speaker 1: And that can range from anything between just adding a

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Speaker 1: little bit of wood here and there, or planting some

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Speaker 1: stuff on the banks right parian vegetation plantings, or it

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Speaker 1: can be like full on channel reconstruction. So um, that's

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Speaker 1: like where we'll we'll completely build a whole new channel

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Speaker 1: and then put the river in it and and hopefully

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Speaker 1: in a natural way. We're not channelizing it. We're actually

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Speaker 1: un channelizing it, so we're sometimes we're putting sinuosity back

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Speaker 1: into it, and we're putting our pools back into it

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Speaker 1: and riffles and runs and all the features that go

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Speaker 1: along with it. So repairing things that have been damaged

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Speaker 1: in some way through I'm assuming man made actions in

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Speaker 1: the past. Generally, yes, it can you know, it could

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Speaker 1: be from wildfire. But also most of the time we're

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Speaker 1: dealing with historic mining activities like plaster mining, and a

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Speaker 1: lot of it is also riparian vegetation removal. So turn

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Speaker 1: to the last century, there was a lot of logging

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Speaker 1: in that country we did there. You know, the technology

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Speaker 1: just wasn't there to build roads, so they used the

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Speaker 1: most convenient way to get the timber out, which was

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Speaker 1: either build a narrow gage railroad up the valley bottom

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Speaker 1: and cut trees on both sides, which means that they're

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Speaker 1: right next to the creek. Or they just went up

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Speaker 1: the creek and cut trees and skidded them into the

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Speaker 1: into the river stream, damned everything up, let the water

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Speaker 1: back up, and then splash knock that damn over. They

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Speaker 1: call them splash dams, and just do log drives down

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Speaker 1: these rivers. So in order to get there wood down

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Speaker 1: into the main system, they had to cut all the

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Speaker 1: wood out of the stream and then they're drying, then

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Speaker 1: they cut all the wood off the sides of the streams.

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Speaker 1: And you know, it doesn't take a whole lot of

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Speaker 1: imagination to figure out what that's gonna do to your

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Speaker 1: due to your habitat. So where I live, it's it's

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Speaker 1: very moist, we get a lot of rain, we get

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Speaker 1: a lot of snow. Um, it's a very different hydrology

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Speaker 1: up there compared to the rest of Montana. So when

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Speaker 1: people think trout fishing Montana, they think the Gallatin and

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Speaker 1: the Madison and these great, big, meandering cottonwood type deals.

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Speaker 1: We don't really have a whole lot of that. Ours

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Speaker 1: are like big cedar, big spruce, a lot of larch,

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Speaker 1: some ponderosa, a little bit of cotton wood. But it's

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Speaker 1: like big heavy, it's kind of like temperate rainforest types

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Speaker 1: kind of Yeah. Yeah, it's it's Pacific maritime influenced. Yes,

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Speaker 1: So how long have you been doing that? Um? Since

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Speaker 1: I got out of college. Uh almost twenty years, eighteen

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Speaker 1: years so, so it's been a while. And it's it's

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Speaker 1: a learner, you know. It's it's I didn't just jump

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Speaker 1: right in and start doing it. It's definitely takes years

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Speaker 1: and years and years to learn what you're doing. So

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Speaker 1: when you look at the health of our waterways in

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Speaker 1: right parian areas like that, what direction ever had it

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Speaker 1: since you started? Do you feel that things have been

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Speaker 1: improving or they declining, and you're just feeling like you're

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Speaker 1: patching up the holes as best as you can. Where

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Speaker 1: are we going? That's a good question. Um, I think

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Speaker 1: we're improving overall. Um. You know, there are some systems

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Speaker 1: that I have a keen eye on and they are

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Speaker 1: they're unraveling. You know, every year I see a little

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Speaker 1: bit more, a little bit more, a little bit more.

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Speaker 1: But overall, like on the National Forest up there up

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Speaker 1: to say, they're improving or or or just maintaining. Um.

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Speaker 1: And we've got a lot of watersheds that are in

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Speaker 1: great shape. So um, it's yeah there, but we have

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Speaker 1: a few bad apples and sometimes those influence down you know,

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Speaker 1: the drainage, you know, other other pieces down downstream. So

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Speaker 1: what type of thing would be like you don't need

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Speaker 1: to say specifics, but what would an example of the

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Speaker 1: types of impacts to be that you're seeing in one

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Speaker 1: of these bad apples that are making them that way

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Speaker 1: in your eyes? Well, So, once these rivers sort of

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Speaker 1: become destabilized, they tend to just make they tend to

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Speaker 1: just keep unraveling. So what happens is the vegetation gets

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Speaker 1: removed from the banks, so you have highly erotable banks

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Speaker 1: UM and we have and that's what we have. We

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Speaker 1: have a lot of glacial till up there and it's

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Speaker 1: it's easily erodable. It is input into the system in

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Speaker 1: a in a large manner. I guess, large quantities go in.

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Speaker 1: When we start seeing UM banks coming apart, massive volumes

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Speaker 1: come into the channel. And so when you start filling

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Speaker 1: your channels up with sediment course sediment, usually UM, they

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Speaker 1: fill up, so they lose capacity. So when they lose capacity,

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Speaker 1: they spread out, so they start moving towards a more

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Speaker 1: of a braided condition UM. And there's a lot of

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Speaker 1: channels that are naturally braided, and they usually have a

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Speaker 1: really high sediment supply like that you think of like

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Speaker 1: the out wash of like glaciers in Alaska. They're all

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Speaker 1: braided high sediment, and that's natural. But a lot of

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Speaker 1: these weren't naturally braided. So what you see is just

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Speaker 1: just continuous unraveling and there's just so much sediment put

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Speaker 1: into the system that it just can't move it out

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Speaker 1: because it's losing stream power. So you fill in the channel,

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Speaker 1: you lose capacity. It spreads out into a larger area

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Speaker 1: you lose um energy, so then it and then it's

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Speaker 1: like it sets it back another step. And when you

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Speaker 1: when a shell, when it spreads out like that, I

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Speaker 1: imagine it's getting shell or which I imagine makes it

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Speaker 1: more susceptible to warming temperatures as well. Absolutely, I was

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Speaker 1: just gonna mention that. So, yeah, you get shallow water,

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Speaker 1: you get increased temper chures, and you have you lose habitat.

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Speaker 1: I e. Pools bad for fish, not good for fish.

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Speaker 1: And we have a threatened species up there, the bull trout.

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Speaker 1: And we have some sensitive and species of concern as well,

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Speaker 1: the West Slope cut throat, and we have a native rainbow,

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Speaker 1: the red band rainbow. Um. They all require cold, clean water,

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Speaker 1: so when you start getting shallow, dirty, warm water, it's

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Speaker 1: tough on them, I imagine. So that's that drives a

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Speaker 1: lot of the work that I do. Interesting. Yeah, And

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Speaker 1: so to get back to the original question, some of

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Speaker 1: the stuff I see that's causing impacts are say bridges

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Speaker 1: being undersized or culverts being too small so they can't

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Speaker 1: pass the flow, and so they um, they squeeze the

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Speaker 1: channel down into a real constriction and basically shotgun like

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Speaker 1: they's going through a fire nozzle that squirts out the

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Speaker 1: other sides, and sometimes it will cause a headcut, you know, downstream,

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Speaker 1: or we have a flood event and the pipe can't

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Speaker 1: handle the flow and flush it washes the road out

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Speaker 1: and all that road sentiment gets washed down the channel.

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Speaker 1: So those are some some modern day impacts that we

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Speaker 1: deal with UM, and that can be from private industrial

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Speaker 1: logging company land, or it can even be on Force

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Speaker 1: service land. We have a lot of a lot of

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Speaker 1: pipes that are that were put in in the fifties, sixties, seventies.

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Speaker 1: UM by our standards today, they're they're too small and

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Speaker 1: they're reaching the end of their lifespan. So UM it's

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Speaker 1: time to replace them. But it's expensive to do funding

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Speaker 1: and we have tons of them. We have a we

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Speaker 1: have a big wish list, and we work on them

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Speaker 1: as we get money trickling in. But it's tough. So

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Speaker 1: that's I want to talk about that. I want to

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Speaker 1: talk about funding UM. Being a Force service employee, how

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Speaker 1: what's your perspective on I mean, there's for a long

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Speaker 1: time there's been this kind of talk, but it's been

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Speaker 1: a little bit louder lately as far as bashing on

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Speaker 1: the FEDS saying that they're mismanaging our federal lands and

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Speaker 1: because of that, these federal lands should be going to

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Speaker 1: the states or private interests. So being within that organization,

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Speaker 1: how does that make you feel? What do you think

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Speaker 1: about that from the inside. Yeah, it's it's tough. So

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Speaker 1: I you know, I live locally, spend all my money locally,

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Speaker 1: and I grew up there, so I mean, I consider

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Speaker 1: myself a local. Then it's tough to hear your neighbors

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Speaker 1: and your you know, your fellow citizens in the area

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Speaker 1: kind of bash on the Feds about how we just

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Speaker 1: need to do this or do that, and you know,

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Speaker 1: that's one opinion, but then we also have other opinions

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Speaker 1: that we have to consider. Um, So, yeah, you know

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Speaker 1: that the anti federal government sentiment is fairly high in

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Speaker 1: that neck of the woods that I live. I mean

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Speaker 1: it's I mean, don't quote, it's roughly eight might be more,

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Speaker 1: might be slightly less federal land. So it's a big

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Speaker 1: block of of federal land. And so I thought you're

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Speaker 1: gonna say it's the people are anti federal lands. I

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Speaker 1: was like, WHOA, Oh, well, I don't know what that

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Speaker 1: number is. Very well could be, but sometimes some days

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Speaker 1: it seem right. But you know, we you know, we

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Speaker 1: try to manage it the best we can with the

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Speaker 1: amount of money that we're given. Um and we seem

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Speaker 1: to be given less money every year every budget cycle.

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Speaker 1: It's like declining budgets, cost of livings go up. I mean,

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Speaker 1: everything is on the increase, inflation, you name it. But

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Speaker 1: our budgets are either flat or declining, which means we're

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Speaker 1: getting less money overall. And we're talking about this at

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Speaker 1: breakfast the other day. The politicians that are calling out

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Speaker 1: the four serves and saying that they they're mismanaging the lands,

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Speaker 1: they can't do a good job, they're doing a horrible job. Well,

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Speaker 1: they are the ones that are slashing your budgets, So

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Speaker 1: they are creating your inability to be able to do

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Speaker 1: your job the way you should be. That then pointing

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Speaker 1: it to you and saying it's your fault and making

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Speaker 1: that as a reason for them to be able to

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Speaker 1: say I should sell them, I should get rid of it.

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Speaker 1: That's kind of the way I understand it. Yeah, and

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Speaker 1: that seems like a just a crop job. Yeah, so

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Speaker 1: that the idea is um. So this is I'm speaking

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Speaker 1: as a private citizen now. But the way I see

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Speaker 1: it is, uh, those politicians, they're they're kind of set

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Speaker 1: out to sort of trip us up intentionally so they

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Speaker 1: can turn it over to the state. They might actually,

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Speaker 1: some of them might actually believe the state could do

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Speaker 1: a better job managing all that property, all that land.

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Speaker 1: But the State of Montana doesn't have a budget to

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Speaker 1: fight the fires that we do, um, which is a

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Speaker 1: huge chunk of our budget, by the way. Um. And

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Speaker 1: and let alone try to fix a lot of these

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Speaker 1: you know, undersized pipes and bridges and you know, unraveling

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Speaker 1: roads and rivers, maintaining trails. So road maintenance backlog is enormous,

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Speaker 1: So the State of Montana can't do it. So the

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Speaker 1: theory is, or it's been thought that, well, in order

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Speaker 1: to pay for some of that stuff, they're gonna have

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Speaker 1: to sell some of that land off or develop it,

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Speaker 1: lease it, do whatever, graze it. Who knows what they

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Speaker 1: plant on doing with it. But um, overall, it's not

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Speaker 1: good for the average American sportsman, not at all, or

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Speaker 1: just recreationist. If you hike, bike whatever, yeah, I do

365
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Speaker 1: all that stuff. I hike bike, fish. I would like

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Speaker 1: the bird watch, I you know, there's all sorts of stuff,

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Speaker 1: and I do it mostly on on public land. It's scary, Yeah,

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Speaker 1: it's hearing those things and then seeing that stuff get

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Speaker 1: momentum right and frustrating. Oh yeah, yeah, it can be

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Speaker 1: very frustrating, but um so working for the Forest Service

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Speaker 1: can be pretty rewarding now at times. So yeah, if

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Speaker 1: you can separate. So I'm pretty much grunt on the

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Speaker 1: ground out in the field all the time, and it

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Speaker 1: allows me to like separate myself from a lot of

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Speaker 1: that stuff. Um So, all the budget and policy and

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00:21:07,960 --> 00:21:10,560
Speaker 1: all that stuff gets dealt with at a higher level

377
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Speaker 1: than me, and I'm thankful for that, and I've made

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Speaker 1: a conscious effort to kind of keep it that way

379
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Speaker 1: because I really like what I do. I like being outside,

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Speaker 1: like seeing tangible effects. Absolutely, yeah, totally see that fishing.

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Speaker 1: Finishing a project is is really fun and exciting, and

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Speaker 1: even if it doesn't work the way you think it

383
00:21:32,200 --> 00:21:34,680
Speaker 1: might or or fail for that matter, it's like you

384
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Speaker 1: learn something and you're gonna go out with more enthusiasm

385
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Speaker 1: the next time out. It would be cool as a

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Speaker 1: as a hunter and angler too, and just outdoor recreationists

387
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Speaker 1: in general. I mean, I feel like all of us,

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Speaker 1: at least at least I do, and I think many

389
00:21:49,080 --> 00:21:51,359
Speaker 1: look at these places and we there's we get so

390
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Speaker 1: much out of it, so much enjoyment from these wild

391
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Speaker 1: landscapes that we can hunt and fish, but I can

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Speaker 1: camp and everything. And I feel like if you use

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Speaker 1: these places enough, you enjoy of them enough, eventually we

394
00:22:00,840 --> 00:22:02,560
Speaker 1: all get to a point where we saying, wow, I

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Speaker 1: should he hope we can leave this here for our

396
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Speaker 1: kids and our kids kids or leave it better. And

397
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Speaker 1: it's got to be pretty neat in near position, and

398
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Speaker 1: into your job, you are active, actually doing tangible things

399
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Speaker 1: to make that really right. It really is. So I

400
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Speaker 1: have a I have a daughter that's about to turn four,

401
00:22:20,200 --> 00:22:24,720
Speaker 1: and she came down last summer. A co worker and

402
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Speaker 1: I were working on a major, major stream restoration project.

403
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Speaker 1: It was five years in the planning and implementation. We

404
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Speaker 1: had a lot of heavy equipment down there, scraping out

405
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Speaker 1: a new channel, putting wood in, putting rock in, dropping

406
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Speaker 1: structures in, and and just rebuilding all the features. And

407
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Speaker 1: my family came down one day middle of the day

408
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Speaker 1: just to visit to see what it looked like. And

409
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Speaker 1: she was running around, jumping up on the rocks, and

410
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Speaker 1: the logs and looking at it um. And so the

411
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Speaker 1: end goal for that project is to have you know,

412
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Speaker 1: giant trees growing there on the banks holding it all

413
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Speaker 1: together at the you know, but I probably won't see it,

414
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Speaker 1: but it's gonna happen in her lifetime, and I hope

415
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Speaker 1: she can remember that she was there and what it

416
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Speaker 1: looked like. I mean, she was three and a half

417
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Speaker 1: at the time. She probably won't. She's pretty smart, but

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Speaker 1: I don't think she will. But we have photos and

419
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Speaker 1: we have a ton of video footage of it, um

420
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Speaker 1: of us doing the work, So it'll be interesting to see, um,

421
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Speaker 1: see what she thinks later on in your life. Excuse me,

422
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Speaker 1: I have over from I gotta getting over a cold.

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Speaker 1: It's happens the best of us. So I can see

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Speaker 1: that being incredibly rewarding, which just like a very cool

425
00:23:46,080 --> 00:23:48,040
Speaker 1: feeling to be able to see that stuff and have

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Speaker 1: your kids someday be able to look back on that. Yeah.

427
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Speaker 1: So yeah, the the total success of a project probably

428
00:23:54,160 --> 00:23:57,639
Speaker 1: won't be measured within my career. I'm thinking, Yeah, it's

429
00:23:57,680 --> 00:24:00,400
Speaker 1: long term stuff. Yeah, for sure, I think think term

430
00:24:00,520 --> 00:24:03,119
Speaker 1: and it's but in the meantime, we're doing what we

431
00:24:03,200 --> 00:24:05,920
Speaker 1: can and trying to get good work done out there.

432
00:24:07,000 --> 00:24:10,680
Speaker 1: So that's good stuff. But you're also doing some good

433
00:24:10,680 --> 00:24:13,440
Speaker 1: stuff in the woods when you're out chasing some critters.

434
00:24:14,040 --> 00:24:16,639
Speaker 1: And you were telling me that you, in addition to

435
00:24:16,640 --> 00:24:18,960
Speaker 1: be an ambassador for second, you also did some writing

436
00:24:19,000 --> 00:24:21,760
Speaker 1: to right. What was that? What were you doing there

437
00:24:21,760 --> 00:24:25,560
Speaker 1: for a while? Um? Well, I started writing, uh for

438
00:24:25,800 --> 00:24:29,280
Speaker 1: some various magazines. I think my very first published article

439
00:24:29,440 --> 00:24:34,240
Speaker 1: was in bow Hunter, and I I kind of was

440
00:24:34,720 --> 00:24:36,560
Speaker 1: looking at some of the stuff that was out there

441
00:24:37,400 --> 00:24:41,600
Speaker 1: and just it wasn't reading anything that I really wanted

442
00:24:41,640 --> 00:24:44,720
Speaker 1: to read about. I wanted to read about adventure. I

443
00:24:44,800 --> 00:24:49,280
Speaker 1: wanted to read about sweaty, bloody toil and hard work,

444
00:24:50,280 --> 00:24:53,200
Speaker 1: and I wasn't seeing that. I mean I would I

445
00:24:53,200 --> 00:24:56,960
Speaker 1: would see certain certain writers would definitely gravitate towards that stuff.

446
00:24:56,960 --> 00:24:59,560
Speaker 1: But I just wanted to write about it. So I'd stuff. Yeah,

447
00:24:59,600 --> 00:25:01,240
Speaker 1: So I'd get some ideas in my head and I

448
00:25:01,280 --> 00:25:04,320
Speaker 1: would just kind of put it on paper and then uh,

449
00:25:04,880 --> 00:25:06,920
Speaker 1: then I would massage a little bit, and then I

450
00:25:06,960 --> 00:25:10,600
Speaker 1: would eventually I decided to submit some stuff and then

451
00:25:10,680 --> 00:25:13,720
Speaker 1: just kind of broke into writing. I mean it was

452
00:25:13,960 --> 00:25:17,240
Speaker 1: like I never got anything turned down that I submitted.

453
00:25:17,320 --> 00:25:19,240
Speaker 1: But I wasn't like trying to write for a living either.

454
00:25:19,760 --> 00:25:22,240
Speaker 1: It was a sort of a hobby and so that's

455
00:25:22,280 --> 00:25:24,840
Speaker 1: kind of how that started. I just just started writing

456
00:25:24,880 --> 00:25:29,359
Speaker 1: what I wanted to read about, and um, the my

457
00:25:29,480 --> 00:25:33,960
Speaker 1: process of writings were pretty pretty inefficient because I'm you know,

458
00:25:34,000 --> 00:25:36,960
Speaker 1: I'm a scientist. I can't I don't write creatively very well,

459
00:25:37,119 --> 00:25:39,520
Speaker 1: so it takes a while to get those juices going.

460
00:25:40,359 --> 00:25:42,960
Speaker 1: So you're writing like a report and then you have

461
00:25:43,119 --> 00:25:47,359
Speaker 1: to p insform that into an enjoyable article. So yeah,

462
00:25:47,480 --> 00:25:50,159
Speaker 1: so I I started writing about that, and then I

463
00:25:50,320 --> 00:25:53,840
Speaker 1: did a few gear gear reviews for some various magazines,

464
00:25:53,960 --> 00:25:57,040
Speaker 1: and then, uh, lately I've been I did I wrote

465
00:25:57,080 --> 00:26:00,520
Speaker 1: a column for um Corey Jacob's and had an Elk

466
00:26:00,560 --> 00:26:03,200
Speaker 1: Hunting magazine a few years ago. I wrote the back

467
00:26:03,240 --> 00:26:06,200
Speaker 1: country hunting column for that because I do most a

468
00:26:06,240 --> 00:26:09,080
Speaker 1: lot of backpack hunting back country stuff for Elk and

469
00:26:09,160 --> 00:26:13,720
Speaker 1: Mule Deer Um. And now I'm kind of writing for

470
00:26:13,720 --> 00:26:17,960
Speaker 1: another website just off and on, mostly product review stuff

471
00:26:18,840 --> 00:26:21,240
Speaker 1: because that's kind of there. It's a geared website. So

472
00:26:21,960 --> 00:26:26,040
Speaker 1: so you've written for who who on the Eastman Eastman's

473
00:26:26,080 --> 00:26:31,120
Speaker 1: Eastman's Bow Hunting, Bow and Arrow when it was still around. Um,

474
00:26:32,000 --> 00:26:39,760
Speaker 1: bow hunting, bow hunter. And it seems like there's somebody else.

475
00:26:40,480 --> 00:26:46,120
Speaker 1: Rock Slide is a website I've written for. Mm hmm, yeah,

476
00:26:46,160 --> 00:26:48,440
Speaker 1: it seems like there's somebody else. But yeah, just a

477
00:26:48,680 --> 00:26:52,360
Speaker 1: just a handful. So you you have a unique distinction

478
00:26:52,840 --> 00:26:57,080
Speaker 1: as a Western hunter because you are, as I understand it,

479
00:26:57,200 --> 00:26:59,040
Speaker 1: you are on the cover of Eastman's at one point

480
00:26:59,320 --> 00:27:01,200
Speaker 1: with a white tail like the white tail which I

481
00:27:01,240 --> 00:27:02,840
Speaker 1: don't think a whole lot of guys out here give

482
00:27:02,840 --> 00:27:06,359
Speaker 1: a crap about them. Unfortunately, No, but you it was,

483
00:27:06,760 --> 00:27:09,840
Speaker 1: you do, Yeah, it was. It was surprising, and you

484
00:27:09,880 --> 00:27:12,119
Speaker 1: know it was an animal. Well, I mean, we have

485
00:27:12,520 --> 00:27:17,600
Speaker 1: nice white tails out west, and I was really surprised

486
00:27:17,680 --> 00:27:21,040
Speaker 1: that they put it on the cover, um because they

487
00:27:21,119 --> 00:27:23,240
Speaker 1: have a selection of a lot of a lot of them,

488
00:27:23,400 --> 00:27:28,040
Speaker 1: just nice beautiful animals they could pick from. But apparently

489
00:27:28,080 --> 00:27:31,200
Speaker 1: this was an impressive enough white tail. And I had

490
00:27:31,280 --> 00:27:33,960
Speaker 1: I submitted enough photos that they really liked it. They

491
00:27:34,000 --> 00:27:36,240
Speaker 1: were going to publish my story no matter what, because

492
00:27:36,280 --> 00:27:38,720
Speaker 1: they they really liked all the images and it was

493
00:27:38,760 --> 00:27:42,360
Speaker 1: a decent story. But yeah, they picked it for a cover,

494
00:27:42,720 --> 00:27:46,080
Speaker 1: which was kind of surprising, but yeah, I was how

495
00:27:46,320 --> 00:27:50,359
Speaker 1: big um he ended up being like a hundred eighty something.

496
00:27:50,640 --> 00:27:54,000
Speaker 1: He gross like two I think, but he had a

497
00:27:54,359 --> 00:27:56,480
Speaker 1: he had a weird sticker kind of a like a

498
00:27:56,520 --> 00:27:59,920
Speaker 1: weird in line that was sort of weird. It draw

499
00:28:00,200 --> 00:28:03,720
Speaker 1: his net score netsor for fish that I keep hearing that,

500
00:28:04,800 --> 00:28:07,000
Speaker 1: But he was still like netted. He netted like one

501
00:28:07,119 --> 00:28:09,879
Speaker 1: seventies something. That's a giant. Yeah, it's a big western

502
00:28:09,960 --> 00:28:15,080
Speaker 1: wig white deal anywhere? So can you tell us that story? Yeah?

503
00:28:15,720 --> 00:28:21,119
Speaker 1: So I killed. It goes back, it starts the previous season.

504
00:28:21,800 --> 00:28:24,639
Speaker 1: So I shot a really nice mule deer with my

505
00:28:24,760 --> 00:28:29,520
Speaker 1: bow like September eighth or something, and I didn't have

506
00:28:29,640 --> 00:28:31,920
Speaker 1: any other tags anywhere, so I killed a now killed

507
00:28:31,960 --> 00:28:34,960
Speaker 1: now killed a mule deer. So then I didn't have

508
00:28:35,119 --> 00:28:37,080
Speaker 1: tags in Idaho or anywhere else. So I was just

509
00:28:37,160 --> 00:28:39,160
Speaker 1: kind of floating around, just sort of felt like a

510
00:28:40,160 --> 00:28:44,480
Speaker 1: lost child. I didn't have anything to hunt in October November,

511
00:28:44,880 --> 00:28:47,960
Speaker 1: so I did a ton of scouting in November, just

512
00:28:48,120 --> 00:28:50,720
Speaker 1: during the general rifle season. And so I started poking

513
00:28:50,800 --> 00:28:52,920
Speaker 1: around looking for a new couple of new white tail

514
00:28:52,960 --> 00:28:54,760
Speaker 1: spots because we have we have a lot of white

515
00:28:54,760 --> 00:28:59,600
Speaker 1: tails in that part of the world. And I did

516
00:28:59,680 --> 00:29:02,160
Speaker 1: some outing and I found some big rubs and I

517
00:29:02,240 --> 00:29:05,280
Speaker 1: hadn't seen any big deer, but I decided to go

518
00:29:05,480 --> 00:29:07,400
Speaker 1: check out this area that I've always kind of want

519
00:29:07,400 --> 00:29:09,400
Speaker 1: to check out. So I I thought, well, I'm gonna

520
00:29:09,400 --> 00:29:11,640
Speaker 1: do a little trail run through there, small blogging roads

521
00:29:11,680 --> 00:29:12,880
Speaker 1: that are kind of grown up, so it's on a

522
00:29:12,960 --> 00:29:16,520
Speaker 1: trail run. It was the weekend after rifle season ended,

523
00:29:17,120 --> 00:29:19,440
Speaker 1: and I just like popped over this little tiny rise

524
00:29:19,600 --> 00:29:22,479
Speaker 1: and there was a giant buck standing there, like at

525
00:29:22,640 --> 00:29:27,680
Speaker 1: forty yards, dark chocolate antlers, still running still after a dough,

526
00:29:28,200 --> 00:29:30,760
Speaker 1: and he trotted into the into the timber. He's kind

527
00:29:30,760 --> 00:29:32,280
Speaker 1: of right on the edge of this little clear cut

528
00:29:32,840 --> 00:29:35,000
Speaker 1: and he was only yeah, he was close. He trotted

529
00:29:35,040 --> 00:29:39,160
Speaker 1: into this uh in his patch of trees, and I

530
00:29:40,640 --> 00:29:42,800
Speaker 1: I saw him and I thought he was kind of

531
00:29:42,880 --> 00:29:44,720
Speaker 1: going away from me, and like, that thing is a

532
00:29:44,880 --> 00:29:48,400
Speaker 1: giant deer that had to be hunting seven deer. So

533
00:29:48,480 --> 00:29:50,160
Speaker 1: I went back to my house and I called my

534
00:29:50,240 --> 00:29:53,200
Speaker 1: buddy at Homes like, man, I show him I saw

535
00:29:53,400 --> 00:29:56,600
Speaker 1: monster and he's like yeah, yeah, yeah, right, whatever, how big?

536
00:29:56,680 --> 00:29:58,840
Speaker 1: How big is he? And I'm like, oh, he's gotta

537
00:29:58,840 --> 00:30:01,240
Speaker 1: be hunter in seventy in and he's like, okay, cool.

538
00:30:01,840 --> 00:30:05,000
Speaker 1: So then I just became obsessed with this buck. I thought, man,

539
00:30:05,040 --> 00:30:07,960
Speaker 1: they're gonna be shedding here. Towards the end of December,

540
00:30:08,040 --> 00:30:11,320
Speaker 1: first part of January, it was a nice light winter.

541
00:30:12,120 --> 00:30:13,920
Speaker 1: I knew he was a local buck. I knew he

542
00:30:13,960 --> 00:30:17,000
Speaker 1: didn't get pushed in there from the snow, because that's

543
00:30:17,080 --> 00:30:19,000
Speaker 1: part of the issue with where I live. A lot

544
00:30:19,080 --> 00:30:21,880
Speaker 1: of our white tails get pushed. I mean they'll be

545
00:30:22,000 --> 00:30:26,680
Speaker 1: there's summer range can be fifteen miles away, but it

546
00:30:26,840 --> 00:30:30,000
Speaker 1: was still almost summer like conditions. I mean there's no

547
00:30:30,160 --> 00:30:32,360
Speaker 1: snow in the mountains that year, and then that winter

548
00:30:32,680 --> 00:30:35,360
Speaker 1: it just basically this was you're chasing these white tails

549
00:30:35,400 --> 00:30:37,320
Speaker 1: in the mountains. This isn't the river bottoms, no, no, no,

550
00:30:37,600 --> 00:30:42,040
Speaker 1: this is mountains. Yeah, it's big heavy conifer forests. So

551
00:30:42,520 --> 00:30:46,200
Speaker 1: so it's so different white tail in it, right, Yeah,

552
00:30:46,680 --> 00:30:50,200
Speaker 1: I think there's probably similar stuff would be like in

553
00:30:50,280 --> 00:30:52,880
Speaker 1: the mountains of Virginia, West Virginia and stuff like that.

554
00:30:53,040 --> 00:30:57,040
Speaker 1: Maybe essentially um never been there, never hunted him, but

555
00:30:57,520 --> 00:31:00,600
Speaker 1: that's kind of what I guess. So I all this buck.

556
00:31:00,720 --> 00:31:04,160
Speaker 1: I decided to figure out where he lives, how he's living,

557
00:31:04,880 --> 00:31:06,600
Speaker 1: and see if I can shoot him the next year.

558
00:31:06,960 --> 00:31:12,320
Speaker 1: So I found his sheds from the previous year, but

559
00:31:12,440 --> 00:31:14,280
Speaker 1: I couldn't find the sheds from the year that I

560
00:31:14,360 --> 00:31:17,600
Speaker 1: spotted him. But I saw a giant rubs all over

561
00:31:17,640 --> 00:31:20,040
Speaker 1: the place, and I kind of put together this puzzle.

562
00:31:20,720 --> 00:31:23,880
Speaker 1: I'm like, Okay, I'm gonna put a stand here here here,

563
00:31:24,760 --> 00:31:27,680
Speaker 1: and I'm gonna hunt it before the rut kicks in.

564
00:31:27,880 --> 00:31:30,800
Speaker 1: I think I can probably kill this buck if he

565
00:31:32,640 --> 00:31:36,720
Speaker 1: if he keeps to the same patterns, because these rubs

566
00:31:36,760 --> 00:31:40,440
Speaker 1: are finding were giant, like they look like elk rubs,

567
00:31:40,480 --> 00:31:42,720
Speaker 1: but they were definitely white tail. They were way low

568
00:31:42,800 --> 00:31:44,560
Speaker 1: and their full white tail here. But they have been

569
00:31:44,760 --> 00:31:47,600
Speaker 1: The key I thought was they were rubbed more than

570
00:31:47,680 --> 00:31:50,320
Speaker 1: one year. It looked to me like they were rubbed

571
00:31:50,440 --> 00:31:54,360
Speaker 1: multiple years in a row. So if you don't mind,

572
00:31:54,400 --> 00:31:56,080
Speaker 1: I want him pause you. I'm gonna try to break

573
00:31:56,120 --> 00:31:59,080
Speaker 1: all this down as we're going. So you mentioned you

574
00:31:59,120 --> 00:32:01,160
Speaker 1: found those sheds, So I mean, I first I want

575
00:32:01,160 --> 00:32:02,680
Speaker 1: to know how you're you know, what kind of places

576
00:32:02,680 --> 00:32:04,840
Speaker 1: you're looking for these sheds or how are you identifying

577
00:32:04,880 --> 00:32:06,880
Speaker 1: where you think his bedroom is or's things like that.

578
00:32:07,000 --> 00:32:09,239
Speaker 1: I mean, with these mountain white tails, do you think

579
00:32:09,280 --> 00:32:11,800
Speaker 1: they have a consistent place or is are they romano

580
00:32:12,120 --> 00:32:13,760
Speaker 1: all over the place or how do you how do

581
00:32:13,800 --> 00:32:15,960
Speaker 1: you scout in that way to find these rubs, to

582
00:32:16,000 --> 00:32:19,040
Speaker 1: find the bedroom, to find the sheds. Well, I guess

583
00:32:19,080 --> 00:32:22,680
Speaker 1: it's like anything else, um if you just pay attention

584
00:32:22,720 --> 00:32:27,280
Speaker 1: to the details. So everything's real subtle. So you're in

585
00:32:27,360 --> 00:32:31,880
Speaker 1: a you're in a mountainous timber area, but it's not

586
00:32:32,040 --> 00:32:38,440
Speaker 1: all just like continuous, homogeneous cover. There's patches of openings,

587
00:32:38,480 --> 00:32:44,920
Speaker 1: there's patches of really dense timber. There's thicker brushier areas, draws, benches,

588
00:32:45,760 --> 00:32:49,000
Speaker 1: and so they utilize all that stuff differently, and so

589
00:32:49,120 --> 00:32:52,200
Speaker 1: you can kind of tease out like how they where

590
00:32:52,280 --> 00:32:55,360
Speaker 1: they feed, where they might travel to, and from where

591
00:32:55,360 --> 00:32:58,040
Speaker 1: they might be bedding that type of stuff. So I'm

592
00:32:58,120 --> 00:33:00,479
Speaker 1: looking for that stuff as I'm shed hunting, and when

593
00:33:00,520 --> 00:33:02,760
Speaker 1: i'm shed handing, I'm just going everywhere trying to learn

594
00:33:02,880 --> 00:33:06,480
Speaker 1: everything about that area. And so I just travel every trail.

595
00:33:06,520 --> 00:33:10,320
Speaker 1: It's basically I'm just gritting miles and miles of train

596
00:33:10,560 --> 00:33:13,320
Speaker 1: and like documenting everything all on the way, and I

597
00:33:13,400 --> 00:33:16,200
Speaker 1: was also picking up other nice sheds, So I'm like, man,

598
00:33:16,280 --> 00:33:19,440
Speaker 1: there's more than just this deer in here. I definitely

599
00:33:19,440 --> 00:33:22,320
Speaker 1: am hunting this no matter what. But I really, I

600
00:33:22,480 --> 00:33:24,600
Speaker 1: really want to kill this big buck at least see

601
00:33:24,640 --> 00:33:29,600
Speaker 1: him again to validate the my original sighting. I thought, God,

602
00:33:29,680 --> 00:33:33,320
Speaker 1: he's got to be a giant. But so anyway, I

603
00:33:33,760 --> 00:33:37,240
Speaker 1: scouted it, picked up sheds, figured out where I wanted

604
00:33:37,280 --> 00:33:39,400
Speaker 1: to hunt, hang my stands, and how did you make

605
00:33:39,480 --> 00:33:42,280
Speaker 1: that decision? I was basically hanging them right where those

606
00:33:42,320 --> 00:33:45,120
Speaker 1: rubs were, and I could I kind of had a

607
00:33:45,200 --> 00:33:48,600
Speaker 1: couple like you could figure out that they were definitely

608
00:33:48,680 --> 00:33:51,320
Speaker 1: in a line. And so of course you have to

609
00:33:51,320 --> 00:33:53,120
Speaker 1: figure out what your wind patterns are going to do.

610
00:33:53,560 --> 00:33:58,880
Speaker 1: And they're pretty typical mountain wind patterns, which means down

611
00:33:59,000 --> 00:34:02,440
Speaker 1: slopes in the mornings and evenings and up the open

612
00:34:02,480 --> 00:34:07,200
Speaker 1: the day yet mostly thermal um. And so I had

613
00:34:07,280 --> 00:34:09,919
Speaker 1: sort of some areas picked out and where I wanted

614
00:34:09,960 --> 00:34:12,200
Speaker 1: to hunt it, where I wanted to hang, and how

615
00:34:12,280 --> 00:34:14,440
Speaker 1: I wanted to hunt him, Like what time of day

616
00:34:15,000 --> 00:34:16,680
Speaker 1: was it gonna be an evening site, We're gonna meet

617
00:34:16,680 --> 00:34:21,080
Speaker 1: in the morning, that type of stuff. So so this

618
00:34:21,960 --> 00:34:24,320
Speaker 1: this how you're saying, there's a line of rubs indicating

619
00:34:24,400 --> 00:34:27,320
Speaker 1: some form of travel, travel router corridor. Was there some

620
00:34:27,400 --> 00:34:29,680
Speaker 1: type of train feature or cover change? Like, why do

621
00:34:29,719 --> 00:34:32,759
Speaker 1: you think that he was traveling there? Um? What was

622
00:34:32,840 --> 00:34:35,320
Speaker 1: a little of both? Um? So there was. It was

623
00:34:35,440 --> 00:34:38,680
Speaker 1: kind of some old logging activity. So that's another thing

624
00:34:38,760 --> 00:34:41,240
Speaker 1: that we deal with up there, is that the whole

625
00:34:42,360 --> 00:34:45,320
Speaker 1: forest is in different ages. You know, it's it's some

626
00:34:45,440 --> 00:34:47,319
Speaker 1: of has been logged and it is now twenty years old.

627
00:34:47,360 --> 00:34:49,799
Speaker 1: Again some of its old growth that could be right

628
00:34:49,880 --> 00:34:53,720
Speaker 1: next to it, and so they'll use those those brakes

629
00:34:55,000 --> 00:34:58,520
Speaker 1: to kind of to travel. So it's like an edge

630
00:34:58,680 --> 00:35:03,279
Speaker 1: within timber. It's a subtle edge. Yeah, And they love

631
00:35:03,360 --> 00:35:06,359
Speaker 1: the sudge as they do. Yeah, they do, and you'll

632
00:35:06,360 --> 00:35:08,399
Speaker 1: see it. They'll they'll hang out on the fresh clear

633
00:35:08,480 --> 00:35:10,359
Speaker 1: cut and they'll hang out on a twenty year old,

634
00:35:10,520 --> 00:35:14,320
Speaker 1: thirty year old clear cut too. So that's kind of

635
00:35:14,400 --> 00:35:15,960
Speaker 1: the stuff I was looking at. I was keying in

636
00:35:16,080 --> 00:35:18,560
Speaker 1: on and I was seeing a pattern there. It's like, oh, yeah,

637
00:35:18,600 --> 00:35:19,960
Speaker 1: there's a rub here, and there's one here, and I

638
00:35:20,000 --> 00:35:22,919
Speaker 1: remember seeing one over there, and they're all big, they're

639
00:35:22,960 --> 00:35:25,040
Speaker 1: all old, definitely from the same buck I found his

640
00:35:25,120 --> 00:35:27,560
Speaker 1: sheds right there. It's like he's got to be right

641
00:35:27,640 --> 00:35:30,200
Speaker 1: in here somewhere. But I never laid eyes on that

642
00:35:30,280 --> 00:35:34,759
Speaker 1: buck again in the whole time that I was in

643
00:35:34,800 --> 00:35:38,160
Speaker 1: their shed hunting. I saw a big buck that had

644
00:35:38,200 --> 00:35:41,040
Speaker 1: shed one day I was out hiking and it could

645
00:35:41,080 --> 00:35:43,320
Speaker 1: have been him me a big floppy years and a

646
00:35:43,400 --> 00:35:48,080
Speaker 1: giant neck and just a big brisket hanging down. But

647
00:35:48,200 --> 00:35:51,759
Speaker 1: I never did see him until this. It was the

648
00:35:51,880 --> 00:35:55,920
Speaker 1: second night that I went into to hunt, and so

649
00:35:55,960 --> 00:35:58,000
Speaker 1: it was November. I waited till November. I figured I'm

650
00:35:58,000 --> 00:36:03,200
Speaker 1: gonna wait till November. Our white tails rut a little later,

651
00:36:04,560 --> 00:36:07,360
Speaker 1: maybe then the Midwest. I'm not sure, but it seems

652
00:36:07,360 --> 00:36:12,000
Speaker 1: like pre rut kind of kicks in hot and heavy,

653
00:36:12,080 --> 00:36:17,680
Speaker 1: maybe early November. So I I think I I had

654
00:36:17,840 --> 00:36:19,800
Speaker 1: three two stands up, and I wanted to hang a

655
00:36:19,920 --> 00:36:23,200
Speaker 1: third one. So I hunted. I hunted a morning and

656
00:36:23,239 --> 00:36:25,640
Speaker 1: I hunted one other evening in two different stands, and

657
00:36:25,680 --> 00:36:27,759
Speaker 1: I'm like, well, I'm gonna just go hunt this last

658
00:36:27,800 --> 00:36:30,759
Speaker 1: place and get a stand up and then I can

659
00:36:30,840 --> 00:36:35,719
Speaker 1: really focus on um timing and just putting some effort in.

660
00:36:36,360 --> 00:36:38,920
Speaker 1: So it was raining. We had like four days of

661
00:36:39,000 --> 00:36:42,320
Speaker 1: straight rain up there. It was a fair temperature, fairly warm,

662
00:36:42,400 --> 00:36:48,160
Speaker 1: probably in the fifties, but it's just that Northwest NonStop drizzle.

663
00:36:49,120 --> 00:36:51,640
Speaker 1: So I crawled in, crawled in up into the brush,

664
00:36:52,280 --> 00:36:54,080
Speaker 1: hiked in and I'm I mean, I'm hiking in like

665
00:36:54,200 --> 00:36:57,960
Speaker 1: a mile and a half probably to hang these stands,

666
00:36:58,040 --> 00:36:59,880
Speaker 1: So it was not like right next to a row.

667
00:37:00,000 --> 00:37:02,120
Speaker 1: I don't know. Now here's a question relate to that.

668
00:37:02,920 --> 00:37:04,920
Speaker 1: You know in the Midwest, and we're planning on how

669
00:37:04,960 --> 00:37:07,560
Speaker 1: to get into hunter places. Your access routes and exit

670
00:37:07,640 --> 00:37:09,440
Speaker 1: routes are really important because you're always trying to fare out.

671
00:37:09,440 --> 00:37:11,520
Speaker 1: How can I get to my stand without spooking these deer?

672
00:37:12,200 --> 00:37:14,480
Speaker 1: Is that I mean? In this type of hatech I

673
00:37:14,520 --> 00:37:16,799
Speaker 1: feel like that's really tough because there's cover everywhere. There's

674
00:37:16,800 --> 00:37:19,239
Speaker 1: super tough. How do you do you worry about that? Yes?

675
00:37:20,040 --> 00:37:24,520
Speaker 1: I did. Um, you just go the extra effort not

676
00:37:24,719 --> 00:37:27,040
Speaker 1: to go where you think they're living, and that might

677
00:37:27,200 --> 00:37:31,640
Speaker 1: mean walking across country, through the through the brush timber

678
00:37:33,320 --> 00:37:35,400
Speaker 1: to get to your stand in the dark. Yeah, So

679
00:37:35,800 --> 00:37:38,360
Speaker 1: make sure your routes are well marked and you know

680
00:37:38,400 --> 00:37:39,960
Speaker 1: where your trees at and you can find in the

681
00:37:40,080 --> 00:37:43,359
Speaker 1: dark type of thing. So you're so you're crawling in there, yep,

682
00:37:43,520 --> 00:37:46,440
Speaker 1: crawling in there. But this hunt, that the hunt that

683
00:37:46,560 --> 00:37:49,320
Speaker 1: I killed this deer was an evening hunt, and I

684
00:37:49,400 --> 00:37:53,920
Speaker 1: had a route picked out going in there, and I

685
00:37:54,840 --> 00:37:57,960
Speaker 1: hiked in there early afternoon, climbed in the tree and

686
00:37:58,080 --> 00:38:00,920
Speaker 1: hung my stand. So I'm using like screwing steps and

687
00:38:01,040 --> 00:38:07,000
Speaker 1: hang on stands, and and I just settled in nice

688
00:38:07,080 --> 00:38:10,040
Speaker 1: quiet evening. The range just kind of let up, and

689
00:38:11,320 --> 00:38:14,920
Speaker 1: I started tickling some antlers together a little bit. And

690
00:38:15,960 --> 00:38:17,920
Speaker 1: then I heard the same thing, like, right out in

691
00:38:18,000 --> 00:38:20,160
Speaker 1: front of me, there's kind of this old, grown up,

692
00:38:20,200 --> 00:38:25,719
Speaker 1: clear cut, heavy kind of heavy region. You know, it's

693
00:38:25,719 --> 00:38:28,359
Speaker 1: probably twenty year old region, so you could see into

694
00:38:28,400 --> 00:38:30,920
Speaker 1: it a little bit, but not very well. And I

695
00:38:31,000 --> 00:38:32,960
Speaker 1: had my bow. I was bow hunting, and this was

696
00:38:33,160 --> 00:38:40,759
Speaker 1: general rifle season, so excuse me again, you're fine, I'll

697
00:38:40,800 --> 00:38:45,479
Speaker 1: take a little drink. I'm not used to this dry weather.

698
00:38:46,960 --> 00:38:51,360
Speaker 1: It's nice. Um. So I crawled in starticularly antlers, and

699
00:38:51,440 --> 00:38:54,120
Speaker 1: out in front of me, I could hear some antlers

700
00:38:54,239 --> 00:38:57,640
Speaker 1: getting tickled together. Like whoa, there's bucks right in front

701
00:38:57,680 --> 00:39:00,239
Speaker 1: of me, fifty yards out in that fixed in that

702
00:39:00,360 --> 00:39:01,759
Speaker 1: thick stuff and you could hear him just kind of

703
00:39:01,800 --> 00:39:04,600
Speaker 1: clicking and clacking, and then I could kind of see

704
00:39:04,760 --> 00:39:06,359
Speaker 1: like start of glassing in there, and I could see

705
00:39:06,400 --> 00:39:08,440
Speaker 1: little body parts and a little antler here, and there

706
00:39:09,400 --> 00:39:13,680
Speaker 1: ended up being three like small bucks, like three or

707
00:39:13,760 --> 00:39:17,480
Speaker 1: four point in white tails. That's a six or eight

708
00:39:17,560 --> 00:39:21,000
Speaker 1: point yea eastern. Sorry about that. That's sorry, I get

709
00:39:21,040 --> 00:39:29,040
Speaker 1: confused language barriers. A couple of three and fours are

710
00:39:29,080 --> 00:39:31,200
Speaker 1: hanging out in there, tickling, and so I think my

711
00:39:31,360 --> 00:39:33,080
Speaker 1: rattling kind of got them all excited, and they're like

712
00:39:33,360 --> 00:39:35,480
Speaker 1: each other, and they found each other and they started sparring.

713
00:39:35,520 --> 00:39:37,000
Speaker 1: Then they fed a little bit in front of me,

714
00:39:37,040 --> 00:39:39,080
Speaker 1: and then they tickled some more. They just kept working

715
00:39:39,160 --> 00:39:41,840
Speaker 1: past me too, you know, off to my right, and

716
00:39:41,920 --> 00:39:44,920
Speaker 1: they are, I mean, it never got more than a

717
00:39:45,040 --> 00:39:47,480
Speaker 1: hundred yards from me, and I could eventually I could

718
00:39:47,520 --> 00:39:48,800
Speaker 1: see them a little better. They got it in some

719
00:39:48,880 --> 00:39:51,320
Speaker 1: more open trees and I could see him feeding and

720
00:39:51,400 --> 00:39:53,800
Speaker 1: then they would spar and then I looked over and

721
00:39:53,840 --> 00:39:56,760
Speaker 1: I could see another buck showed up about the same size.

722
00:39:57,360 --> 00:39:58,960
Speaker 1: He just kind of walked out and then they all

723
00:39:59,200 --> 00:40:02,080
Speaker 1: there's like four him now, just all kind of sparring, tickling,

724
00:40:02,160 --> 00:40:04,359
Speaker 1: making quite a bit of racket, and I'm like, oh,

725
00:40:04,400 --> 00:40:08,200
Speaker 1: this is pretty cool. Um, I'm gonna try some Doughe bleats.

726
00:40:08,239 --> 00:40:10,240
Speaker 1: So I made some. I was using some Doughe bleats

727
00:40:10,320 --> 00:40:13,640
Speaker 1: just to see what their reaction was, and I thought, man,

728
00:40:13,680 --> 00:40:15,480
Speaker 1: they're way over here off to my right. I need

729
00:40:15,560 --> 00:40:17,720
Speaker 1: to be paying attention and what's off to my left?

730
00:40:17,880 --> 00:40:19,960
Speaker 1: So I just kind of glanced back and out in

731
00:40:20,040 --> 00:40:23,200
Speaker 1: that region. I could see the top of this large tree,

732
00:40:24,040 --> 00:40:26,840
Speaker 1: like a fifteen ft large tree, just whipping back and forth,

733
00:40:27,800 --> 00:40:32,239
Speaker 1: and I'm like, whoas there's a buck rubbing that. I'm

734
00:40:32,280 --> 00:40:35,320
Speaker 1: pretty sure and uh, and then like it stopped and

735
00:40:35,360 --> 00:40:38,080
Speaker 1: and out walks this buck. I could see that he

736
00:40:38,200 --> 00:40:40,839
Speaker 1: was just a big, heavy buck, but I couldn't tell

737
00:40:41,040 --> 00:40:43,040
Speaker 1: exactly what he was because he kind of disappeared real

738
00:40:43,120 --> 00:40:45,279
Speaker 1: quick in the trees. But he was coming on a

739
00:40:45,320 --> 00:40:48,800
Speaker 1: bee line right down that edge that I was sitting on,

740
00:40:49,200 --> 00:40:51,560
Speaker 1: and he was heading he was gonna go down eventually

741
00:40:51,560 --> 00:40:53,520
Speaker 1: would have taken him down wind of those small bucks.

742
00:40:53,560 --> 00:40:55,520
Speaker 1: He's probably gonna go down and sent check them. And

743
00:40:56,680 --> 00:40:58,359
Speaker 1: am I ready to think that these deer are still

744
00:40:58,640 --> 00:41:01,640
Speaker 1: like slick from the rain to the real dark foreheads

745
00:41:01,680 --> 00:41:06,200
Speaker 1: and glistening antlers. Absolutely, it's a good way to paint

746
00:41:06,280 --> 00:41:09,080
Speaker 1: the picture. Yeah, So yeah, they're very wet. Yeah, the

747
00:41:09,120 --> 00:41:14,319
Speaker 1: antlers are just sheen, just very shiny, almost red looking. Well,

748
00:41:14,800 --> 00:41:17,640
Speaker 1: and he was he popped out and I could see

749
00:41:17,680 --> 00:41:20,200
Speaker 1: he was all kind of puffed up and kind of

750
00:41:20,280 --> 00:41:22,960
Speaker 1: bristling a little bit, but coming definitely. He's like, well,

751
00:41:23,080 --> 00:41:25,520
Speaker 1: that is a big buck. I don't know if it's

752
00:41:25,560 --> 00:41:27,680
Speaker 1: that giant one I was looking for, but I'm going

753
00:41:27,719 --> 00:41:30,759
Speaker 1: to shoot that one for sure. And and I didn't

754
00:41:30,800 --> 00:41:33,719
Speaker 1: see him until he popped out fifteen yards in front

755
00:41:33,760 --> 00:41:35,680
Speaker 1: of me, and I had my bow in my hand,

756
00:41:35,880 --> 00:41:37,840
Speaker 1: and he was he walked out broadside and I just

757
00:41:37,920 --> 00:41:41,640
Speaker 1: kind of did a little a little burpen black just

758
00:41:41,840 --> 00:41:45,120
Speaker 1: nailed them perfect, and he whirled and he ran and

759
00:41:45,200 --> 00:41:48,640
Speaker 1: I could see him fall over maybe fifty yards away,

760
00:41:49,680 --> 00:41:52,000
Speaker 1: and I thought, oh, he's a big one. He's really heavy.

761
00:41:52,560 --> 00:41:54,600
Speaker 1: But he looked like he had short times because looking

762
00:41:54,640 --> 00:41:57,279
Speaker 1: at him at an angle from my tree stand, and

763
00:41:58,800 --> 00:42:00,880
Speaker 1: but I could just the only was just webbed. He

764
00:42:01,000 --> 00:42:03,600
Speaker 1: just seemed webbed out. And I god, he's just really massive.

765
00:42:04,160 --> 00:42:06,920
Speaker 1: It's like that's a great great deer. So I was

766
00:42:06,960 --> 00:42:10,120
Speaker 1: all excited, climbed out of my stand, went over there,

767
00:42:10,120 --> 00:42:12,480
Speaker 1: and his head was kind of down in some brush.

768
00:42:12,560 --> 00:42:15,719
Speaker 1: When I got there and I pulled his head out

769
00:42:15,760 --> 00:42:19,040
Speaker 1: of the brush, It's like, oh, this thing is a

770
00:42:19,200 --> 00:42:22,480
Speaker 1: big one. This is a really big one. So I

771
00:42:22,680 --> 00:42:25,480
Speaker 1: was just a static and then I started looking at us, like, oh,

772
00:42:25,600 --> 00:42:27,640
Speaker 1: this is definitely that deer that I was looking for.

773
00:42:28,600 --> 00:42:30,160
Speaker 1: Is this that one that looks almost like it was

774
00:42:30,239 --> 00:42:35,440
Speaker 1: related to a moose? That's the wu Yeah, that thing

775
00:42:35,640 --> 00:42:39,680
Speaker 1: is just an absolute monster. So yeah, he he was.

776
00:42:39,840 --> 00:42:41,719
Speaker 1: I mean, it's super rewarding. I put a ton of

777
00:42:41,800 --> 00:42:45,359
Speaker 1: time and effort into it. Um. I have to say

778
00:42:45,440 --> 00:42:49,759
Speaker 1: that when I was doing most of my scouting, my

779
00:42:49,920 --> 00:42:54,440
Speaker 1: wife was in grad school and wasn't living in uh

780
00:42:55,120 --> 00:42:58,239
Speaker 1: in the area. She was over in northern California. No wait,

781
00:42:58,280 --> 00:43:01,160
Speaker 1: she's in Washington doing a re search stuff. So I

782
00:43:01,239 --> 00:43:04,120
Speaker 1: was living on my own. So I was just a bachelor,

783
00:43:04,320 --> 00:43:08,239
Speaker 1: just cruising around, just yeah, doing whatever I wanted. Yeah,

784
00:43:08,320 --> 00:43:11,400
Speaker 1: it was nice. And my wife if gosh, you just

785
00:43:11,480 --> 00:43:13,799
Speaker 1: thought I wasn't complete, It's like, what are you doing?

786
00:43:13,880 --> 00:43:16,520
Speaker 1: You're going to go shed hunting again after work till

787
00:43:16,640 --> 00:43:20,879
Speaker 1: dark in the rain. Okay, I think our wives would

788
00:43:21,040 --> 00:43:24,680
Speaker 1: have a lot to relate to, but they she definitely

789
00:43:24,719 --> 00:43:27,840
Speaker 1: knows it's a passion and she was super excited for

790
00:43:28,000 --> 00:43:31,120
Speaker 1: me when I when I killed that deer and she

791
00:43:31,280 --> 00:43:33,680
Speaker 1: came in the next day with me and helped me

792
00:43:34,080 --> 00:43:36,440
Speaker 1: butcher it up and pack it out and stuff like that.

793
00:43:37,000 --> 00:43:40,200
Speaker 1: That's cool. Yeah, so she's been you know, that's so

794
00:43:40,360 --> 00:43:44,040
Speaker 1: nice to supportive super sparer in that way. That's so

795
00:43:44,200 --> 00:43:47,440
Speaker 1: good off the sit there's oh yeah, good lord. We'll

796
00:43:47,480 --> 00:43:49,560
Speaker 1: have to post this picture if you don't mind, because

797
00:43:49,760 --> 00:43:54,200
Speaker 1: the left side of this deer is nuts. It's so

798
00:43:54,520 --> 00:43:57,320
Speaker 1: widely palmmated. Then the G three has got this deep,

799
00:43:57,400 --> 00:44:02,640
Speaker 1: deep split on the left side. That is a buck. Yeah,

800
00:44:02,920 --> 00:44:06,040
Speaker 1: and so that's a public land ere. That's it's a

801
00:44:06,120 --> 00:44:11,160
Speaker 1: public land buck. And um yeah, anybody can go hunt

802
00:44:11,239 --> 00:44:16,640
Speaker 1: that spot. It's not easy, but um and I haven't

803
00:44:16,680 --> 00:44:18,759
Speaker 1: hunted that I've killed. I kill a couple more deer

804
00:44:18,800 --> 00:44:21,120
Speaker 1: in there after that, and they were all pretty nice.

805
00:44:23,120 --> 00:44:25,239
Speaker 1: All right. We are going to take a real quick

806
00:44:25,320 --> 00:44:28,279
Speaker 1: pause here for a word from our partners at White

807
00:44:28,320 --> 00:44:31,600
Speaker 1: Tailed Properties and our producer Spencer new Hearth is going

808
00:44:31,640 --> 00:44:36,440
Speaker 1: to take it from here this week with White Tailed Properties,

809
00:44:36,680 --> 00:44:39,520
Speaker 1: we are joined by Rich ba, a land specialist out

810
00:44:39,560 --> 00:44:42,520
Speaker 1: of southeastern Iowa, and Rich is going to be telling

811
00:44:42,600 --> 00:44:45,440
Speaker 1: us about what factors are most important for a property

812
00:44:45,480 --> 00:44:50,560
Speaker 1: to hold high numbers of big bucks. Okay, I think

813
00:44:50,600 --> 00:44:54,440
Speaker 1: that mature bucks are are always gonna want to be

814
00:44:54,520 --> 00:44:57,560
Speaker 1: in areas where they have a good thick cover and

815
00:44:57,680 --> 00:45:00,960
Speaker 1: get escape routes, so that buy a hunter or something

816
00:45:01,239 --> 00:45:04,120
Speaker 1: they have a way to escape about going across wide

817
00:45:04,160 --> 00:45:06,800
Speaker 1: open country. So I look for properties with lots of

818
00:45:07,280 --> 00:45:11,000
Speaker 1: thick cover um. And you know, one of the things

819
00:45:11,080 --> 00:45:13,120
Speaker 1: you can do to improve that is you can you

820
00:45:13,160 --> 00:45:16,080
Speaker 1: can play native grasses, you know in open fields or

821
00:45:16,520 --> 00:45:17,880
Speaker 1: people that don't have a lot of cover. And then

822
00:45:17,920 --> 00:45:20,520
Speaker 1: you can also do timber scan improvement work within your

823
00:45:20,560 --> 00:45:24,759
Speaker 1: timber to to make it thicker and more enticing for

824
00:45:25,160 --> 00:45:27,360
Speaker 1: for big dear to live in it. Another thing in

825
00:45:27,400 --> 00:45:29,960
Speaker 1: the Midwest where it gets really cold and the ladder

826
00:45:30,000 --> 00:45:32,920
Speaker 1: parts of the years is having property with self facing

827
00:45:33,560 --> 00:45:36,359
Speaker 1: slopes on them. South aising slopes catch a lot more

828
00:45:36,360 --> 00:45:38,840
Speaker 1: sun and are a lot warmer, and it's where almost

829
00:45:38,880 --> 00:45:40,759
Speaker 1: all the deer you end up wanting the bed, you know,

830
00:45:40,840 --> 00:45:42,800
Speaker 1: when it gets really cold. So those are some of

831
00:45:42,840 --> 00:45:46,520
Speaker 1: the things that I would look for. If you'd like

832
00:45:46,600 --> 00:45:48,879
Speaker 1: to learn more or to see the properties that Rich

833
00:45:49,000 --> 00:45:52,680
Speaker 1: currently has listed for sale, visit white Tail properties dot

834
00:45:52,760 --> 00:45:58,160
Speaker 1: com backslash ball. That's b A U G H. So

835
00:45:58,239 --> 00:46:01,319
Speaker 1: that I mean, guys when they think about heading out west,

836
00:46:01,400 --> 00:46:04,279
Speaker 1: they usually are thinking about mule deer or elk or

837
00:46:04,360 --> 00:46:06,560
Speaker 1: something like that. But there are some serious white Til

838
00:46:06,600 --> 00:46:10,719
Speaker 1: opportunities out here. And there there are yeah, um, there's

839
00:46:10,719 --> 00:46:13,560
Speaker 1: stuff in the river bottoms um and that's a lot

840
00:46:13,600 --> 00:46:15,719
Speaker 1: of the stuff you see on out like outdoor television.

841
00:46:16,200 --> 00:46:19,239
Speaker 1: There's a lot of least properties and outfitters like up

842
00:46:19,280 --> 00:46:24,480
Speaker 1: on the Milk River or even like right here down

843
00:46:24,520 --> 00:46:31,120
Speaker 1: here and Yellowstone Valley. So um on your floehead. Yea,

844
00:46:31,160 --> 00:46:34,279
Speaker 1: the breeze dies down and those things come out. What

845
00:46:34,440 --> 00:46:36,080
Speaker 1: we're dealing with all sorts of stuff. We got wind,

846
00:46:36,160 --> 00:46:39,840
Speaker 1: we have mosquitoes, we had shotguns. It is it is

847
00:46:39,960 --> 00:46:43,160
Speaker 1: rough outdoor podcast. We can't complain. Look at this we've got. Oh,

848
00:46:43,239 --> 00:46:47,480
Speaker 1: it's incredible beautiful mountains all around us. I've never recorded

849
00:46:47,480 --> 00:46:50,000
Speaker 1: a podcast in such a pretty place, so this is

850
00:46:50,200 --> 00:46:52,600
Speaker 1: this is pretty good. Yeah, yeah, I'm not going to

851
00:46:52,719 --> 00:46:56,360
Speaker 1: complain at all. So so Mountain whitetail hunting. Yes, I

852
00:46:56,480 --> 00:46:58,520
Speaker 1: kind of pride a little bit of how you're doing

853
00:46:58,560 --> 00:47:00,960
Speaker 1: stuff there. But talk to me a little bit more

854
00:47:01,000 --> 00:47:03,200
Speaker 1: about the habitat that you're looking for. Is it? Is it?

855
00:47:03,280 --> 00:47:05,400
Speaker 1: Are you totally keying in on these logged out areas?

856
00:47:05,520 --> 00:47:07,400
Speaker 1: Is that like if I were a new guy hunting

857
00:47:07,520 --> 00:47:10,880
Speaker 1: in a forested mountainous region, whether it's West Virginia or

858
00:47:11,040 --> 00:47:13,799
Speaker 1: one of these western states, I guess tell me more

859
00:47:13,840 --> 00:47:18,080
Speaker 1: about finding them first. Um, in my neck of the woods,

860
00:47:18,560 --> 00:47:23,160
Speaker 1: white tails can be anywhere, which is kind of confusing

861
00:47:23,200 --> 00:47:25,680
Speaker 1: to a lot of people because everybody thinks they're they're

862
00:47:25,719 --> 00:47:28,480
Speaker 1: hanging around egg or farm fields, which we have a

863
00:47:28,520 --> 00:47:30,480
Speaker 1: little out in the valley that there's some hay fields

864
00:47:31,080 --> 00:47:33,359
Speaker 1: on the old down in the private stuff, but um,

865
00:47:33,880 --> 00:47:39,000
Speaker 1: most of it is timbered and our white tails they

866
00:47:39,080 --> 00:47:41,359
Speaker 1: live down in the valley bottom. But I've seen them

867
00:47:41,440 --> 00:47:45,480
Speaker 1: up at like seven thousand feet. Um, it's it's crazy.

868
00:47:46,000 --> 00:47:50,279
Speaker 1: The biggest buck I've ever seen in my life was

869
00:47:51,520 --> 00:47:56,080
Speaker 1: late August. I've got dropped off in a helicopter to

870
00:47:56,200 --> 00:47:58,680
Speaker 1: go on the fight of fire put out a small

871
00:47:58,760 --> 00:48:02,319
Speaker 1: fire on the ridge that was probably four miles from

872
00:48:02,320 --> 00:48:06,480
Speaker 1: any road and it had to be six over six

873
00:48:06,560 --> 00:48:10,080
Speaker 1: thousand feet. And I was walking down this ridge and

874
00:48:11,080 --> 00:48:13,560
Speaker 1: up and right in front of me, twenty yards out

875
00:48:13,600 --> 00:48:17,279
Speaker 1: of his bed stands a that was over. He was

876
00:48:17,360 --> 00:48:20,640
Speaker 1: well over two typical. This is the white tail. White tail.

877
00:48:21,200 --> 00:48:23,920
Speaker 1: Giant stood there, looked at me, and it just kind

878
00:48:23,960 --> 00:48:29,720
Speaker 1: of sauntered off the ridge. But I, honestly I wanted

879
00:48:29,760 --> 00:48:32,000
Speaker 1: to go back and hunt that gear. But I don't

880
00:48:32,040 --> 00:48:34,919
Speaker 1: know how you do it. Honestly. There's no trail there.

881
00:48:36,440 --> 00:48:40,040
Speaker 1: You've got this huge, immense ridge. It's like, what are

882
00:48:40,040 --> 00:48:41,880
Speaker 1: you gonna do. You're gonna go just sit on that.

883
00:48:41,960 --> 00:48:43,920
Speaker 1: You're gonna go hike four miles in and sit on

884
00:48:44,000 --> 00:48:46,520
Speaker 1: this ridge all day and wait for him to maybe

885
00:48:46,600 --> 00:48:52,719
Speaker 1: walk by you. It's really tough in any anywhere you go.

886
00:48:52,920 --> 00:48:55,840
Speaker 1: He could have dropped into these big canyons that No,

887
00:48:56,080 --> 00:48:59,360
Speaker 1: there's no trail, there's nothing. There's not even a logging

888
00:48:59,440 --> 00:49:03,080
Speaker 1: road anywhere. There's a crick bottom in the down in

889
00:49:03,160 --> 00:49:05,919
Speaker 1: the very bottom, and that's it. And so I don't

890
00:49:06,800 --> 00:49:09,600
Speaker 1: that buck probably died from a lion or something, you know,

891
00:49:09,800 --> 00:49:13,080
Speaker 1: or old age, but so we have they can be anywhere,

892
00:49:13,560 --> 00:49:16,759
Speaker 1: and they can be any size. You never know what's

893
00:49:16,800 --> 00:49:20,120
Speaker 1: going to step out. That's probably not going to happen

894
00:49:20,800 --> 00:49:24,920
Speaker 1: for most people. But there there we have the genetics

895
00:49:26,280 --> 00:49:28,560
Speaker 1: sounds like it, yeah, and they can reach an old

896
00:49:28,600 --> 00:49:31,360
Speaker 1: age class because they have that cover to survive in

897
00:49:31,600 --> 00:49:36,120
Speaker 1: pressure pressure places people are whited on. It's got to

898
00:49:36,120 --> 00:49:40,480
Speaker 1: be minuscule, right. We have a long season, and there's

899
00:49:40,520 --> 00:49:43,080
Speaker 1: a reason we have long season because we have very

900
00:49:43,160 --> 00:49:46,480
Speaker 1: low pressure. So they can be anywhere. But if I'm

901
00:49:46,600 --> 00:49:50,840
Speaker 1: like trying to narrow things down, probably burn areas, logging areas,

902
00:49:51,360 --> 00:49:55,120
Speaker 1: said you said it earlier. Edges, yeah, ye, anything that

903
00:49:55,200 --> 00:49:59,000
Speaker 1: creates an edge. So a lot of that is logging

904
00:49:59,640 --> 00:50:03,480
Speaker 1: in our part of the world, or fires if it's

905
00:50:03,520 --> 00:50:09,040
Speaker 1: in the right spot, definitely, um or even like you know,

906
00:50:09,080 --> 00:50:11,200
Speaker 1: if you can find like some hay meadow or something

907
00:50:12,440 --> 00:50:14,920
Speaker 1: I was gonna ask, you know, or naturally occurring meadows,

908
00:50:15,040 --> 00:50:19,279
Speaker 1: but they generally tend to like they stick to two

909
00:50:19,320 --> 00:50:24,320
Speaker 1: areas that aren't grassy. They like brows like the Forbes,

910
00:50:24,760 --> 00:50:27,359
Speaker 1: other different things like that. So, so is there any

911
00:50:27,560 --> 00:50:29,120
Speaker 1: So it sounds like you just covered it, But one

912
00:50:29,120 --> 00:50:30,960
Speaker 1: of the things I was going to ask is where

913
00:50:30,960 --> 00:50:33,279
Speaker 1: are we finding the feed, Like what's the preferred feed,

914
00:50:33,320 --> 00:50:36,440
Speaker 1: So it's just random openings and these areas of region

915
00:50:36,840 --> 00:50:40,799
Speaker 1: mostly yeah, pretty much. Yeah, they like um yeah, burn

916
00:50:40,920 --> 00:50:44,800
Speaker 1: areas and logging areas. And they don't have to be

917
00:50:44,880 --> 00:50:47,399
Speaker 1: clear cuts either. They can be like a selective cut,

918
00:50:47,680 --> 00:50:50,920
Speaker 1: just like a partial thinning, young gole. Let some sunlight

919
00:50:50,960 --> 00:50:56,600
Speaker 1: in and let that release the the forbes, the vege

920
00:50:56,640 --> 00:51:00,360
Speaker 1: on the ground. You talked, You talked about how rubs

921
00:51:00,360 --> 00:51:02,800
Speaker 1: played apart in that one hunt. What about scrapes? Do

922
00:51:02,840 --> 00:51:04,800
Speaker 1: you pay attention to scrapes at all? You know? I

923
00:51:04,880 --> 00:51:08,920
Speaker 1: see scrapes all over the place and they might mean something,

924
00:51:09,040 --> 00:51:11,360
Speaker 1: but I haven't figured it out. It doesn't play a

925
00:51:11,360 --> 00:51:13,400
Speaker 1: part in what you're doing. Not not for me. I

926
00:51:13,480 --> 00:51:17,799
Speaker 1: haven't really utilized it. I'll definitely take note and be like, WHOA,

927
00:51:17,880 --> 00:51:20,239
Speaker 1: there's scrapes here, and there's a bunch of them and

928
00:51:20,280 --> 00:51:22,600
Speaker 1: they're in a row. But I've never really seen a

929
00:51:22,680 --> 00:51:26,440
Speaker 1: deer traveling a scrape line. I just yeah, it just

930
00:51:26,520 --> 00:51:30,920
Speaker 1: hasn't happened for me. Speaking of scrapes, do you ever

931
00:51:31,000 --> 00:51:32,839
Speaker 1: in trail cameras for white tails? Is that a thing

932
00:51:32,880 --> 00:51:35,520
Speaker 1: you've ever done before? Too busy with all the other

933
00:51:35,600 --> 00:51:37,840
Speaker 1: things too. I have I own one trail camera and

934
00:51:37,880 --> 00:51:40,520
Speaker 1: I set it up one time and it got bit

935
00:51:40,640 --> 00:51:44,600
Speaker 1: in half by grizzly bear. That is something that I

936
00:51:44,600 --> 00:51:46,520
Speaker 1: don't think anyone on my podcast has ever had an

937
00:51:46,560 --> 00:51:52,080
Speaker 1: issue with. Yeah, I was like, well, I'm not doing

938
00:51:52,160 --> 00:51:54,759
Speaker 1: this and even want Yeah, I don't know. They're neat

939
00:51:54,800 --> 00:51:57,800
Speaker 1: and all. But I mean I like looking at people's

940
00:51:57,800 --> 00:52:01,239
Speaker 1: trail camp phones. They're pretty cool. But I just I

941
00:52:01,320 --> 00:52:04,200
Speaker 1: have no interest in it. I just don't care. I

942
00:52:04,600 --> 00:52:07,520
Speaker 1: liked I guess I like to be surprised and what's

943
00:52:07,520 --> 00:52:09,840
Speaker 1: out there. I understand that. Yeah, I've one I've been

944
00:52:09,880 --> 00:52:11,640
Speaker 1: conflicted on that, Like there's a lot of fun and

945
00:52:11,719 --> 00:52:13,680
Speaker 1: seeing what's out there and then getting excited about that

946
00:52:13,760 --> 00:52:16,160
Speaker 1: and going after that buck or whatever. But then there's

947
00:52:16,200 --> 00:52:18,040
Speaker 1: also something really cool about when all of a sudden

948
00:52:18,040 --> 00:52:22,000
Speaker 1: you hear that crack crack, and then you turn over

949
00:52:22,040 --> 00:52:25,560
Speaker 1: your head and then something giant steps that you never

950
00:52:25,680 --> 00:52:28,600
Speaker 1: saw this comfort What is it gonna be here? Yeah?

951
00:52:28,840 --> 00:52:31,960
Speaker 1: That's cool. Yeah, And that is neat about that area too,

952
00:52:32,120 --> 00:52:33,759
Speaker 1: is you just never know what you're gonna see. You

953
00:52:33,840 --> 00:52:37,879
Speaker 1: know me. You can have sheds from all these deer

954
00:52:38,120 --> 00:52:40,600
Speaker 1: and you can have trail camera photos. I have buddies

955
00:52:40,640 --> 00:52:43,000
Speaker 1: of put trail cameras up and you know, they think

956
00:52:43,040 --> 00:52:44,560
Speaker 1: they know what's living there, and they do for the

957
00:52:44,640 --> 00:52:49,960
Speaker 1: most part, but you just never know what's gonna step

958
00:52:50,000 --> 00:52:54,040
Speaker 1: out and just show up. Like that buck living on

959
00:52:54,120 --> 00:52:57,400
Speaker 1: that ridge. Who knows he might have traveled fifteen miles

960
00:52:57,480 --> 00:53:03,839
Speaker 1: down valley to go rut in his pocketed dose somewhere. Yeah,

961
00:53:04,000 --> 00:53:06,200
Speaker 1: but I never heard about him getting killed. I think

962
00:53:06,280 --> 00:53:10,000
Speaker 1: he made made some some splash, I'd say, so, taking

963
00:53:10,040 --> 00:53:13,120
Speaker 1: a buck out of that early country. Yeah. So the

964
00:53:13,800 --> 00:53:18,239
Speaker 1: the neighboring forest a Flathead National Forest. Ah it it

965
00:53:18,480 --> 00:53:22,120
Speaker 1: is uh, it has quite a rep reputation for producing

966
00:53:22,239 --> 00:53:25,800
Speaker 1: giant white tails, mainly you know, from the eighties and nineties,

967
00:53:27,600 --> 00:53:30,359
Speaker 1: so it was back a lot of those deer. There's

968
00:53:30,560 --> 00:53:34,800
Speaker 1: like a bunch that are plus. Yeah, there's some giant

969
00:53:34,880 --> 00:53:37,279
Speaker 1: ones from the from Flathead. I never really knew. But

970
00:53:37,840 --> 00:53:40,560
Speaker 1: this has got me thinking, like what a cool just

971
00:53:40,640 --> 00:53:43,160
Speaker 1: doing a mountain white tail hunt and like do it

972
00:53:43,200 --> 00:53:46,040
Speaker 1: like an like a spike camp like backpack in set

973
00:53:46,120 --> 00:53:48,160
Speaker 1: up a spike camp deep in there and then chase

974
00:53:48,239 --> 00:53:50,600
Speaker 1: white tails in that kind of way. You got a

975
00:53:50,640 --> 00:53:52,319
Speaker 1: backpack full all your gear. Then you throw a tree

976
00:53:52,320 --> 00:53:53,440
Speaker 1: stand on top of that, I maybe you have a

977
00:53:53,560 --> 00:53:55,759
Speaker 1: very heavy load, but what an adventure of a white tail,

978
00:53:56,000 --> 00:53:58,680
Speaker 1: Oh for sure. So there's areas like that are pretty

979
00:53:58,719 --> 00:54:02,160
Speaker 1: famous in in certain circles of the white tail any world,

980
00:54:02,320 --> 00:54:06,880
Speaker 1: like the Swan River Country, Swan Valley on a white tails,

981
00:54:07,560 --> 00:54:10,960
Speaker 1: there's there's been some giants killing in there, so not

982
00:54:11,120 --> 00:54:13,640
Speaker 1: as many though in recent years. And I think a

983
00:54:13,719 --> 00:54:16,560
Speaker 1: lot of it has to do with changes in habitat

984
00:54:17,680 --> 00:54:22,520
Speaker 1: um fairly print a dance predator populations at the full

985
00:54:22,560 --> 00:54:26,880
Speaker 1: suite of predators, grizzly bears, black bears, mountain lions, and wolves.

986
00:54:28,560 --> 00:54:31,360
Speaker 1: We've had some hard winters, some back to back hard winters,

987
00:54:32,200 --> 00:54:35,440
Speaker 1: and it's just kind of adds up to a complex problem.

988
00:54:36,160 --> 00:54:39,080
Speaker 1: And also vegetation management is probably part of it, you know,

989
00:54:39,200 --> 00:54:42,200
Speaker 1: the four service isn't isn't cutting as much timber. They're

990
00:54:42,200 --> 00:54:45,040
Speaker 1: not creating as much brows and openings and whatnot. And

991
00:54:45,200 --> 00:54:47,800
Speaker 1: I think maybe our winter range is becoming more dense,

992
00:54:49,160 --> 00:54:51,480
Speaker 1: densely grown or something I don't know that might have

993
00:54:51,560 --> 00:54:55,759
Speaker 1: an effect. Interesting, So there's a whole bunch of aspects

994
00:54:55,800 --> 00:54:59,399
Speaker 1: to it. It's complex. Back to something you're talking about

995
00:54:59,400 --> 00:55:03,640
Speaker 1: a little earlier with that again, um, do you do

996
00:55:03,719 --> 00:55:07,480
Speaker 1: you find that calling and rattling works pretty well? I'm

997
00:55:07,600 --> 00:55:10,680
Speaker 1: I'm assuming as an outsider, I would think, Hey, I

998
00:55:10,719 --> 00:55:13,279
Speaker 1: could see rattling and calling working pretty good in these

999
00:55:13,320 --> 00:55:16,680
Speaker 1: areas because there's not as much pressure, and it seems like,

1000
00:55:17,080 --> 00:55:19,359
Speaker 1: at least from my experience out in the West, there's

1001
00:55:19,400 --> 00:55:22,880
Speaker 1: more balanced age structure of these dear like comparedly in Michigan.

1002
00:55:23,040 --> 00:55:25,959
Speaker 1: It's like like gray Hunt, I'm seeing like eight percent

1003
00:55:26,000 --> 00:55:27,160
Speaker 1: of the bucks I see our year and a half

1004
00:55:27,200 --> 00:55:29,440
Speaker 1: olds and then one three and a half yearld or

1005
00:55:29,520 --> 00:55:31,440
Speaker 1: maybe one four and a half yearld. I mean, it's crazy.

1006
00:55:31,880 --> 00:55:35,200
Speaker 1: When I came out here, I'm seeing very nice balanced

1007
00:55:35,280 --> 00:55:37,360
Speaker 1: one two, three, four, I mean a lot of older

1008
00:55:37,440 --> 00:55:41,280
Speaker 1: bucks and um, the buck door ratio seems somewhat decent

1009
00:55:41,440 --> 00:55:44,360
Speaker 1: compared to some of the places I'm at. Is that accurate?

1010
00:55:44,360 --> 00:55:46,000
Speaker 1: I guess? Is my assumption accurate there? And then be

1011
00:55:46,560 --> 00:55:49,160
Speaker 1: does that lead to pretty good reactions to calling? Do

1012
00:55:49,200 --> 00:55:53,080
Speaker 1: you think yes? And yes? So yeah we have are

1013
00:55:53,120 --> 00:55:56,520
Speaker 1: it seems like our age a structure is healthy. We

1014
00:55:56,640 --> 00:55:59,680
Speaker 1: have a lot of mature deer and they can live

1015
00:55:59,760 --> 00:56:06,719
Speaker 1: to be fairly old. Um, which creates competition. Um, so yeah,

1016
00:56:06,760 --> 00:56:12,160
Speaker 1: I've had great success. Oh man, I'm sorry about that. Man,

1017
00:56:12,239 --> 00:56:16,040
Speaker 1: it's dry and my throat back, my throat dry. Um.

1018
00:56:16,960 --> 00:56:23,000
Speaker 1: I would say pre rut rattling works really well. The

1019
00:56:24,680 --> 00:56:27,600
Speaker 1: it seems like once those those big bucks start cruising though,

1020
00:56:27,719 --> 00:56:30,160
Speaker 1: there's nothing going to bring him in. I mean, you

1021
00:56:30,320 --> 00:56:33,080
Speaker 1: might have that anomaly where it will happen and it works,

1022
00:56:33,120 --> 00:56:35,959
Speaker 1: but I don't go for it. After I start seeing

1023
00:56:36,000 --> 00:56:39,919
Speaker 1: him chasing really hard, they're going to be on those doughs, yeah,

1024
00:56:40,000 --> 00:56:42,719
Speaker 1: and they'll push them into these little secluded pockets and

1025
00:56:42,800 --> 00:56:44,959
Speaker 1: you might not see him for a few days. There'll

1026
00:56:45,000 --> 00:56:48,439
Speaker 1: be times when I'll be out whitetail hunting and I'll see,

1027
00:56:49,160 --> 00:56:52,960
Speaker 1: you know, forty dos and not one buck, and like,

1028
00:56:53,080 --> 00:56:55,279
Speaker 1: what is going on? Well, that means that that's like

1029
00:56:55,440 --> 00:56:58,600
Speaker 1: the the peak interesting because they're locked down. They're locked down,

1030
00:56:59,719 --> 00:57:02,480
Speaker 1: just disappear and then three days later, everywhere you look

1031
00:57:02,560 --> 00:57:05,239
Speaker 1: there's a buck running somewhere across the hillside through a

1032
00:57:05,280 --> 00:57:07,279
Speaker 1: clear cut, or you know, jumps across the road in

1033
00:57:07,360 --> 00:57:09,440
Speaker 1: front of you. So yeah, I need to get out

1034
00:57:09,440 --> 00:57:10,759
Speaker 1: of here there on the rut because when I was sitting,

1035
00:57:10,800 --> 00:57:12,960
Speaker 1: I like with all the bucks I'm seeing. I cannot

1036
00:57:13,000 --> 00:57:15,040
Speaker 1: imagine what the rut must be like out here, because

1037
00:57:15,120 --> 00:57:18,600
Speaker 1: the competition must be just intense. Yeah, I don't. I

1038
00:57:18,640 --> 00:57:21,920
Speaker 1: wouldn't compare it to Texas. It's nothing like that. But

1039
00:57:22,040 --> 00:57:25,080
Speaker 1: it's definitely i'd say it's healthy, yeah, yeah, and it's

1040
00:57:25,200 --> 00:57:28,320
Speaker 1: it's definitely fun for a white tailed people. They get

1041
00:57:28,360 --> 00:57:31,800
Speaker 1: pretty excited about it when they come out and hunt. Yeah.

1042
00:57:31,880 --> 00:57:34,280
Speaker 1: And we get a fair bit of pressure from like

1043
00:57:34,800 --> 00:57:37,040
Speaker 1: we get a lot of Washington and Idaho guys coming

1044
00:57:37,120 --> 00:57:40,520
Speaker 1: over um and we'll see you know, places from We've

1045
00:57:40,600 --> 00:57:44,800
Speaker 1: I've seen Michigan guys, Wisconsin guys coming out here. So

1046
00:57:44,960 --> 00:57:48,560
Speaker 1: it's not unknown. It's just not super popular. And it's

1047
00:57:48,760 --> 00:57:52,480
Speaker 1: it's tough hunting, you know, it's not it's not easy easy.

1048
00:57:52,720 --> 00:57:56,360
Speaker 1: You gotta be prepared to move to hike, to struggle

1049
00:57:56,360 --> 00:57:58,600
Speaker 1: a little bit, right, Yeah. It's not like what walking

1050
00:57:58,800 --> 00:58:01,080
Speaker 1: fifty yards the tree stand in the backyard and sitting

1051
00:58:01,120 --> 00:58:03,680
Speaker 1: there right. Yeah. And it can be intimidating because it's

1052
00:58:03,800 --> 00:58:07,240
Speaker 1: you're hunting in big mountains and it's it's hard to

1053
00:58:07,360 --> 00:58:10,200
Speaker 1: figure out where to start. So if you have the basics,

1054
00:58:10,400 --> 00:58:16,800
Speaker 1: start thinking about edges and think about where they like

1055
00:58:17,000 --> 00:58:20,880
Speaker 1: to bed just those little weird, subtle key components that

1056
00:58:20,960 --> 00:58:22,840
Speaker 1: they all need and you'll you'll have it figured out.

1057
00:58:23,040 --> 00:58:25,720
Speaker 1: Speaking of betting, have you found mountain of if you've

1058
00:58:25,800 --> 00:58:27,920
Speaker 1: had just maybe haven't needed to go to this level

1059
00:58:27,960 --> 00:58:30,440
Speaker 1: of detail, But do you find that they're betting with

1060
00:58:30,600 --> 00:58:32,880
Speaker 1: any certain types of train features in mind, Like in

1061
00:58:32,960 --> 00:58:35,160
Speaker 1: the East and the Midwest, and like the sledder hill country,

1062
00:58:35,200 --> 00:58:37,720
Speaker 1: we see these bucks lots of times betted on ridge,

1063
00:58:37,760 --> 00:58:39,800
Speaker 1: little knobs off of ridges and stuff where they can

1064
00:58:40,160 --> 00:58:41,760
Speaker 1: have the wind coming down their backs and they can

1065
00:58:41,800 --> 00:58:43,760
Speaker 1: look out on ahead of us. Do you see anything

1066
00:58:43,840 --> 00:58:45,760
Speaker 1: like that happened with these white tails mountain country too.

1067
00:58:45,920 --> 00:58:49,120
Speaker 1: It's a little more random. It seems to be pretty random,

1068
00:58:49,760 --> 00:58:54,280
Speaker 1: but they will, I guess they do prefer places like that.

1069
00:58:54,960 --> 00:58:56,400
Speaker 1: They're kind of like and that's kind of like what

1070
00:58:56,480 --> 00:58:59,640
Speaker 1: a meal or elk they'll bed where they can see

1071
00:58:59,680 --> 00:59:03,040
Speaker 1: below them and smell what's coming from behind him, and

1072
00:59:03,160 --> 00:59:05,400
Speaker 1: that happens to be a lot of these little benches

1073
00:59:06,280 --> 00:59:10,040
Speaker 1: and key features. But yeah, that we're talking features though.

1074
00:59:10,200 --> 00:59:11,560
Speaker 1: One of the things that I like to key in

1075
00:59:11,680 --> 00:59:15,480
Speaker 1: on in that country are like like little dips in

1076
00:59:15,560 --> 00:59:18,920
Speaker 1: a ridgeline like a saddle type like that little saddle,

1077
00:59:19,560 --> 00:59:23,680
Speaker 1: sometimes subtle, sometimes very distinct that those deer will they'll,

1078
00:59:23,920 --> 00:59:26,120
Speaker 1: you know, they'll traverse the side of that thing and

1079
00:59:26,200 --> 00:59:29,040
Speaker 1: then drop into the saddle to cross over the other

1080
00:59:29,160 --> 00:59:32,040
Speaker 1: side to see what's see what's back there. So they

1081
00:59:32,120 --> 00:59:36,440
Speaker 1: generally don't travel our ridge tops like you think that's

1082
00:59:36,480 --> 00:59:39,040
Speaker 1: just to avoid being skylined or just I think it's

1083
00:59:39,200 --> 00:59:41,920
Speaker 1: this laziness to be honest with. It's just the most

1084
00:59:41,960 --> 00:59:45,520
Speaker 1: efficient way, not laziness. But yeah, I mean every everybody

1085
00:59:45,520 --> 00:59:49,200
Speaker 1: wants conserve energy at least resistance, So I think that's

1086
00:59:49,200 --> 00:59:53,760
Speaker 1: what it is. That makes sense. Yeah, And humans seem

1087
00:59:53,800 --> 00:59:56,080
Speaker 1: to travel ridge tops a lot, a lot of trails

1088
00:59:56,120 --> 00:59:58,240
Speaker 1: and stuff. Bro Yeah, just yeah, it's this easy walking

1089
00:59:58,960 --> 01:00:02,080
Speaker 1: for us so side owen's hard for us, and deer

1090
01:00:02,320 --> 01:00:04,960
Speaker 1: are a little better at it. So yeah, it seems

1091
01:00:05,000 --> 01:00:07,520
Speaker 1: like that maybe they'll do it to avoid maybe predators

1092
01:00:07,600 --> 01:00:10,960
Speaker 1: to I don't know, there's cats cruise ridge lines or not.

1093
01:00:11,080 --> 01:00:13,320
Speaker 1: I would assume they would, do you see have you

1094
01:00:13,360 --> 01:00:15,600
Speaker 1: ever seen a cat while any type of big game

1095
01:00:15,640 --> 01:00:19,960
Speaker 1: on out western Oh? Yeah, I see mountlines all the time. Yeah,

1096
01:00:20,240 --> 01:00:24,160
Speaker 1: we have tons of them, and uh yeah, I see

1097
01:00:24,200 --> 01:00:26,120
Speaker 1: them I feel like they're kind of the ghosts of

1098
01:00:26,160 --> 01:00:28,720
Speaker 1: the woods. It's pretty crazy when you do see one.

1099
01:00:29,520 --> 01:00:31,400
Speaker 1: Trying to think when the last time I saw them was.

1100
01:00:31,440 --> 01:00:32,680
Speaker 1: It was seeming like it was just a couple of

1101
01:00:32,760 --> 01:00:36,840
Speaker 1: years ago. But yeah, I would say a maybe about

1102
01:00:36,880 --> 01:00:39,880
Speaker 1: every three or four years, I'll see a lion that

1103
01:00:39,960 --> 01:00:43,320
Speaker 1: hasn't been trigued by rounds. Um, We've got a lot

1104
01:00:43,360 --> 01:00:45,280
Speaker 1: of guys that chase cats in that part of the

1105
01:00:45,360 --> 01:00:49,400
Speaker 1: world out there. It is really neat. I read a

1106
01:00:49,440 --> 01:00:51,560
Speaker 1: close call, see one up clothes are they always offer

1107
01:00:51,600 --> 01:00:53,520
Speaker 1: them the distance kind of slinking away. They usually just

1108
01:00:53,600 --> 01:00:56,880
Speaker 1: slink away. Yeah. Yeah, I have seen a few that, um,

1109
01:00:57,040 --> 01:00:58,840
Speaker 1: I didn't know I was there, But most of the

1110
01:00:58,880 --> 01:01:02,680
Speaker 1: time they do school and they're heading away. Yeah, it's

1111
01:01:02,680 --> 01:01:06,640
Speaker 1: pretty cool they are. They're amazing. That tail is just immense.

1112
01:01:06,680 --> 01:01:08,440
Speaker 1: When you see it hanging off the back of it

1113
01:01:08,560 --> 01:01:11,880
Speaker 1: was like it's kind of shocking, like how big it is?

1114
01:01:12,680 --> 01:01:16,240
Speaker 1: A big Yeah, they're really neat. And then when you

1115
01:01:16,320 --> 01:01:19,240
Speaker 1: walk up, like I've been on some hound hunts before

1116
01:01:20,040 --> 01:01:23,280
Speaker 1: and you walk up to one in a tree, you'll

1117
01:01:23,320 --> 01:01:26,160
Speaker 1: have four, three, four or five dogs at the bottom

1118
01:01:26,160 --> 01:01:28,720
Speaker 1: of the tree just barking like crazy. But when you

1119
01:01:28,760 --> 01:01:31,960
Speaker 1: walk up, that lion is just looking at you and

1120
01:01:32,160 --> 01:01:35,680
Speaker 1: and only you. It's just like watching you walk around,

1121
01:01:35,960 --> 01:01:38,360
Speaker 1: and it doesn't even care about the dogs. It's it's

1122
01:01:38,440 --> 01:01:41,040
Speaker 1: kind of eerie. Yeah. Yeah, I think you'd get used

1123
01:01:41,040 --> 01:01:43,280
Speaker 1: to it as a as a houndsman, but I'm not.

1124
01:01:44,240 --> 01:01:49,160
Speaker 1: I'm not a houndsman, and maybe I'm maybe I'm weird

1125
01:01:49,280 --> 01:01:53,160
Speaker 1: like this, but there is like a certain something I

1126
01:01:53,720 --> 01:01:55,840
Speaker 1: enjoy the idea of knowing I'm not the only predator

1127
01:01:55,920 --> 01:01:57,720
Speaker 1: out there, and knowing that I'm maybe not the top

1128
01:01:57,760 --> 01:02:00,240
Speaker 1: of the food chain. It's humbling and it's there's little

1129
01:02:00,240 --> 01:02:01,760
Speaker 1: more electricity in the air. I feel like when you

1130
01:02:01,840 --> 01:02:05,520
Speaker 1: know there's some other critters out there that are, you know,

1131
01:02:05,880 --> 01:02:08,480
Speaker 1: above above you on that chain and doing the same

1132
01:02:08,520 --> 01:02:10,440
Speaker 1: thing you're trying to do the too. I agree, No,

1133
01:02:11,080 --> 01:02:15,560
Speaker 1: it's uh, it adds a different feel knowing that you're

1134
01:02:15,600 --> 01:02:20,240
Speaker 1: in an intact ecosystem. I think if they weren't there,

1135
01:02:20,480 --> 01:02:25,120
Speaker 1: it just you know something's missing. Yeah, So it's nice

1136
01:02:25,160 --> 01:02:30,360
Speaker 1: to have predators. I like them, I mean, and I

1137
01:02:30,440 --> 01:02:34,200
Speaker 1: think they need to be managed as well. But um, yeah,

1138
01:02:34,280 --> 01:02:38,439
Speaker 1: I have no issues with sharing the world with those things.

1139
01:02:38,640 --> 01:02:41,400
Speaker 1: I mean, they're they're making a they're trying to make

1140
01:02:41,400 --> 01:02:43,720
Speaker 1: a living out there, right, and it's a tough place.

1141
01:02:44,560 --> 01:02:48,120
Speaker 1: I can't imagine respect for that. Yeah. Yeah, if I

1142
01:02:48,200 --> 01:02:51,760
Speaker 1: get tired and hungry, I'm just going to go home. Yeah,

1143
01:02:52,280 --> 01:02:55,440
Speaker 1: grab some n eat, snuggle up by the fire with

1144
01:02:55,520 --> 01:02:58,080
Speaker 1: a cup of coffee. They're out there in the rain

1145
01:02:58,200 --> 01:03:01,480
Speaker 1: and that easy, trying to eat some then every day. Yeah,

1146
01:03:01,560 --> 01:03:04,760
Speaker 1: it's an existence. It is. It's amazing and uh yeah,

1147
01:03:04,760 --> 01:03:07,800
Speaker 1: they're amazing creatures. So I don't I've seen a few

1148
01:03:07,840 --> 01:03:11,200
Speaker 1: wolves out and about, um, but it's so thick, you

1149
01:03:11,320 --> 01:03:13,640
Speaker 1: just it's tough to get a good view of things.

1150
01:03:13,720 --> 01:03:15,400
Speaker 1: You know. You just see maybe a glimpse of them

1151
01:03:15,760 --> 01:03:17,840
Speaker 1: going across the road because you're you know, I'm out

1152
01:03:17,880 --> 01:03:20,000
Speaker 1: in the woods lot driving around at work, so I

1153
01:03:20,080 --> 01:03:23,240
Speaker 1: see a lot of stuff at work, but usually it's

1154
01:03:23,320 --> 01:03:25,880
Speaker 1: just a streak. I was like, well it was a

1155
01:03:25,920 --> 01:03:30,960
Speaker 1: big black dog with a collar. That was definitely a wolf. Yeah,

1156
01:03:31,120 --> 01:03:35,919
Speaker 1: grizzly encounters had many of those, Um seeing a bunch Yeah,

1157
01:03:36,080 --> 01:03:39,840
Speaker 1: no real, I wouldn't say encounters. Um, they usually just

1158
01:03:41,080 --> 01:03:43,040
Speaker 1: turn around and get the heck out of there. Want

1159
01:03:43,040 --> 01:03:48,200
Speaker 1: to do the thing. Yeah, yeah, they up where I

1160
01:03:48,320 --> 01:03:52,640
Speaker 1: live there pretty uh, there's not very many. I mean

1161
01:03:52,720 --> 01:03:55,400
Speaker 1: there's like the they estimate the population to be like

1162
01:03:55,520 --> 01:03:59,919
Speaker 1: fifty five or something, and that's for the entire eco

1163
01:04:00,080 --> 01:04:04,200
Speaker 1: system there, so it's pretty rare. Yeah, they think there

1164
01:04:04,200 --> 01:04:06,600
Speaker 1: should be roughly about a hundred living there, but so

1165
01:04:06,680 --> 01:04:10,360
Speaker 1: they're roughly halfway there for Recovery interesting. But yeah, you'll

1166
01:04:10,400 --> 01:04:13,080
Speaker 1: see him every once in a while. Saw look to

1167
01:04:13,240 --> 01:04:17,400
Speaker 1: me like kind of a younger male grizzly this year

1168
01:04:17,440 --> 01:04:20,440
Speaker 1: when I was out spring bear hunting. Um he was

1169
01:04:20,480 --> 01:04:23,040
Speaker 1: standing on the road just kind of look warder what

1170
01:04:23,120 --> 01:04:26,120
Speaker 1: that guy was. But yeah, it was pretty neat to see. Yeah,

1171
01:04:26,160 --> 01:04:27,360
Speaker 1: you see him every once in a while. I don't

1172
01:04:27,360 --> 01:04:30,200
Speaker 1: see him every year, but I mean a guy probably

1173
01:04:30,280 --> 01:04:32,600
Speaker 1: could if you wanted to go find him, look for

1174
01:04:32,760 --> 01:04:35,840
Speaker 1: him and find some grizz every year this spring when

1175
01:04:35,840 --> 01:04:37,600
Speaker 1: we're out, we're down this neck of the woods this

1176
01:04:37,640 --> 01:04:43,120
Speaker 1: spring earlier, and we saw right around here that's insane

1177
01:04:43,640 --> 01:04:47,080
Speaker 1: over the course of like a week. That is awesome. Yeah,

1178
01:04:48,080 --> 01:04:50,280
Speaker 1: they're a whole different beast when you see him. They

1179
01:04:50,400 --> 01:04:54,920
Speaker 1: just have a whole different demeanor. Yes, it seems like

1180
01:04:55,280 --> 01:04:59,439
Speaker 1: in the the temperature in the room rises when they're

1181
01:04:59,480 --> 01:05:02,400
Speaker 1: somewhere there. When you're looking at one of those, everything

1182
01:05:02,520 --> 01:05:05,480
Speaker 1: is a little bit more yeah something. Yeah, yeah, this

1183
01:05:05,760 --> 01:05:08,720
Speaker 1: this part of the state is it's dance with grizz

1184
01:05:09,800 --> 01:05:12,360
Speaker 1: You know. It sounds like it sounds like they're working

1185
01:05:12,440 --> 01:05:15,360
Speaker 1: on delisting. So I heard it happened, didn't get announced

1186
01:05:15,400 --> 01:05:20,120
Speaker 1: like yesterday towards it. Yeah, that's interesting. It's a whole

1187
01:05:20,120 --> 01:05:23,880
Speaker 1: another conversation, absolutely, and one I don't know much about. Yeah,

1188
01:05:25,440 --> 01:05:27,880
Speaker 1: so you can read the paper get more information, and

1189
01:05:27,920 --> 01:05:31,040
Speaker 1: there's lots of talk about that. So we've been talking

1190
01:05:31,080 --> 01:05:33,560
Speaker 1: about western white tail stuff. But there's also a whole

1191
01:05:33,600 --> 01:05:36,560
Speaker 1: lot of guys in Michigan or Ohio or New York

1192
01:05:36,720 --> 01:05:38,920
Speaker 1: or Alabama, all these guys that dream of coming out

1193
01:05:39,000 --> 01:05:41,840
Speaker 1: here someday to chase elk or mule deer, antelope or

1194
01:05:41,880 --> 01:05:43,640
Speaker 1: something like that. Do you have any advice for someone

1195
01:05:43,680 --> 01:05:45,920
Speaker 1: who wants come and try hunt like that? And you've

1196
01:05:45,960 --> 01:05:47,640
Speaker 1: been living this and doing this whole life, but if

1197
01:05:47,720 --> 01:05:50,160
Speaker 1: you were new, um, what do you wish that you

1198
01:05:50,240 --> 01:05:52,320
Speaker 1: knew at the beginning that maybe these guys could pick

1199
01:05:52,400 --> 01:05:55,560
Speaker 1: up from you now? M I would say, guys that

1200
01:05:55,640 --> 01:05:58,320
Speaker 1: want to come out and just experience a western hunt.

1201
01:05:58,440 --> 01:06:01,400
Speaker 1: Just just dip their toe in the in the stream,

1202
01:06:01,600 --> 01:06:05,120
Speaker 1: so to speak. Um, I would say, come out and

1203
01:06:05,200 --> 01:06:09,200
Speaker 1: try an antalope punt, trying a rifle, analope punt slash

1204
01:06:09,400 --> 01:06:12,800
Speaker 1: mule deer, combo hunt or something rifle. Um, because you

1205
01:06:12,880 --> 01:06:15,320
Speaker 1: can do that out on the prairie. The logistics are

1206
01:06:15,360 --> 01:06:18,560
Speaker 1: fairly easy. You see a lot of animals. You kind

1207
01:06:18,600 --> 01:06:21,120
Speaker 1: of figure out what it's like to drive out this

1208
01:06:21,240 --> 01:06:23,080
Speaker 1: way because it could be a long drive and that

1209
01:06:23,160 --> 01:06:26,680
Speaker 1: can be logistically kind of a nightmare and costly. So

1210
01:06:26,760 --> 01:06:28,960
Speaker 1: you kind of get that worked out of the system

1211
01:06:29,000 --> 01:06:31,000
Speaker 1: and figured out and maybe how to do things a

1212
01:06:31,040 --> 01:06:34,439
Speaker 1: little more efficiently. UM I would I would say start

1213
01:06:34,480 --> 01:06:37,520
Speaker 1: out with that. But if you're just dying the hunt

1214
01:06:39,440 --> 01:06:42,160
Speaker 1: mule deer or elk in the back country or even

1215
01:06:42,200 --> 01:06:49,160
Speaker 1: the front country, just go with low expectations trophy size.

1216
01:06:49,360 --> 01:06:51,080
Speaker 1: Everybody comes out with a number in their head. It

1217
01:06:51,120 --> 01:06:53,800
Speaker 1: seems like I want a hundred and seventy in mule

1218
01:06:53,880 --> 01:06:57,680
Speaker 1: deer and I want a three twenty inch bowl. Come

1219
01:06:57,720 --> 01:07:03,840
Speaker 1: out here and try it, and then shoot an elk wherever,

1220
01:07:04,000 --> 01:07:08,360
Speaker 1: shoot any elk and pack it out and just see

1221
01:07:08,480 --> 01:07:12,280
Speaker 1: what you think of experience it. Yeah, and you might

1222
01:07:12,440 --> 01:07:15,280
Speaker 1: think this is the worst thing have ever done. I

1223
01:07:15,360 --> 01:07:20,440
Speaker 1: am never doing that ever again. So, I mean, everybody

1224
01:07:20,560 --> 01:07:23,600
Speaker 1: likes to research gear and they like to think about

1225
01:07:24,960 --> 01:07:29,680
Speaker 1: the glory of success. But I just say to the

1226
01:07:29,760 --> 01:07:32,600
Speaker 1: guys that want to come out, try it and just

1227
01:07:33,600 --> 01:07:39,920
Speaker 1: go small. Think small, and and and simple at first. Guys.

1228
01:07:39,960 --> 01:07:43,960
Speaker 1: I you read about all the time on on rock Slide,

1229
01:07:44,000 --> 01:07:46,000
Speaker 1: guys that were coming out for the first trip and

1230
01:07:46,040 --> 01:07:48,320
Speaker 1: they want to go do a ten day backpacking trip

1231
01:07:48,400 --> 01:07:52,280
Speaker 1: for elk solo, Like, are you kidding me? He that

1232
01:07:52,560 --> 01:07:56,160
Speaker 1: is gonna be a nightmare of a trip. Unless you

1233
01:07:56,280 --> 01:08:01,280
Speaker 1: are a person of just another world. That's a tough hunt.

1234
01:08:02,000 --> 01:08:06,680
Speaker 1: I mean, yeah, right, I live. I live in some

1235
01:08:06,840 --> 01:08:10,000
Speaker 1: rugged country and I hunt solo all the time, and

1236
01:08:10,080 --> 01:08:13,920
Speaker 1: I backcountry hunt solo quite a bit, and just getting

1237
01:08:13,960 --> 01:08:18,639
Speaker 1: an elk out of the mountains is unbelievably hard by yourself,

1238
01:08:20,560 --> 01:08:24,160
Speaker 1: and to do it in the back country, it's it's crazy. So,

1239
01:08:25,320 --> 01:08:31,200
Speaker 1: um yeah, i'd see, just set realistic goals and um yeah,

1240
01:08:31,320 --> 01:08:34,000
Speaker 1: take some baby steps. Don't just dive head right on.

1241
01:08:34,280 --> 01:08:37,000
Speaker 1: Just you know you're not gonna just dive straight into

1242
01:08:37,080 --> 01:08:41,360
Speaker 1: a stream and think you're gonna come out looking great.

1243
01:08:41,960 --> 01:08:44,040
Speaker 1: It's gonna be tough. You might it might happen, but

1244
01:08:44,160 --> 01:08:48,080
Speaker 1: boy it's gonna be rare. So do some research. Get

1245
01:08:48,160 --> 01:08:50,280
Speaker 1: the right here. Do you do research on here? But

1246
01:08:50,360 --> 01:08:53,439
Speaker 1: also just yeah, do research on what you think you

1247
01:08:53,680 --> 01:08:56,519
Speaker 1: might be able to handle, which is tough to do.

1248
01:08:56,800 --> 01:08:58,680
Speaker 1: And that's why I say take baby steps when you

1249
01:08:58,760 --> 01:09:02,240
Speaker 1: come out. And I like your advice too, to shoot

1250
01:09:03,240 --> 01:09:05,719
Speaker 1: the first thing you have an opportunity or do something,

1251
01:09:05,960 --> 01:09:08,040
Speaker 1: because that is a big part of that experience. And

1252
01:09:08,600 --> 01:09:10,360
Speaker 1: and and for me, it was like in the moment,

1253
01:09:10,439 --> 01:09:12,439
Speaker 1: it might feel like the worst, but it's it's the best.

1254
01:09:12,640 --> 01:09:14,560
Speaker 1: It is, it's all said and done. You did that

1255
01:09:14,680 --> 01:09:18,559
Speaker 1: like the after I packed my first alcohol and after

1256
01:09:19,560 --> 01:09:21,439
Speaker 1: what was I don't know. We think like sixteen miles

1257
01:09:21,560 --> 01:09:23,840
Speaker 1: that day, up and down, up and down, and we

1258
01:09:23,960 --> 01:09:25,880
Speaker 1: dropped that pack. It was like I shot my bowl

1259
01:09:25,960 --> 01:09:28,360
Speaker 1: at eight in the morning. By nine o'clock at night,

1260
01:09:28,400 --> 01:09:30,000
Speaker 1: we finally made it to back to the minivan. We

1261
01:09:30,040 --> 01:09:32,040
Speaker 1: took a minivan out of ice, made it back to

1262
01:09:32,080 --> 01:09:35,760
Speaker 1: the minivan after eleven thirteen hours of whatever this was,

1263
01:09:36,400 --> 01:09:38,880
Speaker 1: and dropped that pack, collapse on the ground and laid

1264
01:09:38,920 --> 01:09:41,040
Speaker 1: there for thirty minutes, just trying to breathe, and I

1265
01:09:41,160 --> 01:09:43,720
Speaker 1: was like, oh am, I still alive. But looking back

1266
01:09:43,800 --> 01:09:46,200
Speaker 1: on that as like the coolest thing I've ever done. Yeah,

1267
01:09:46,520 --> 01:09:49,559
Speaker 1: you were more. Yeah, You're probably never more alive at

1268
01:09:49,640 --> 01:09:54,400
Speaker 1: that point. Absolutely, and have to get that opportunity is

1269
01:09:54,720 --> 01:09:57,360
Speaker 1: even if it was a year and a half old

1270
01:09:57,400 --> 01:09:59,679
Speaker 1: cow or great big bowl no matter what, or mule

1271
01:09:59,760 --> 01:10:05,240
Speaker 1: there mean experience that. Yeah, No, absolutely, and then you

1272
01:10:05,320 --> 01:10:10,280
Speaker 1: can move on to bigger and better and greater hunts. Yeah.

1273
01:10:10,439 --> 01:10:12,479
Speaker 1: And you you you kind of learned. It takes a

1274
01:10:12,520 --> 01:10:15,599
Speaker 1: while to learn an area. We're talking about this earlier.

1275
01:10:15,640 --> 01:10:20,759
Speaker 1: It's just nice to go someplace new and put boots

1276
01:10:20,800 --> 01:10:25,000
Speaker 1: on the ground and just learn it, explore. Have an adventure.

1277
01:10:25,960 --> 01:10:29,360
Speaker 1: Doesn't have to be a back country kill yourself adventure,

1278
01:10:29,439 --> 01:10:31,800
Speaker 1: just but have an adventure. Keep an open mind, be

1279
01:10:32,000 --> 01:10:37,800
Speaker 1: curious and coositive and and figure stuff out. That's it's

1280
01:10:37,840 --> 01:10:40,240
Speaker 1: super fun. Guys that want to come out and hunt,

1281
01:10:40,280 --> 01:10:42,760
Speaker 1: they'll most of them love it. I feel like in

1282
01:10:42,840 --> 01:10:45,040
Speaker 1: the white tailed world, it's easy to get hung up

1283
01:10:45,040 --> 01:10:46,600
Speaker 1: on two things. It's easy to get hung up on

1284
01:10:47,200 --> 01:10:48,880
Speaker 1: hunt in the same place all the time. A lot

1285
01:10:48,920 --> 01:10:50,720
Speaker 1: of guys just hunt their little piece of property that

1286
01:10:50,800 --> 01:10:52,840
Speaker 1: they grew up on or that they have access to it,

1287
01:10:52,840 --> 01:10:55,000
Speaker 1: and so they always do that. Or it's easy to

1288
01:10:55,040 --> 01:10:57,920
Speaker 1: get hung up on the big buck mentality because the

1289
01:10:58,040 --> 01:11:00,800
Speaker 1: media pushes giant antlers. All right, there's those two things.

1290
01:11:00,840 --> 01:11:02,840
Speaker 1: That's so easy to get stuck in that kind of rut.

1291
01:11:03,720 --> 01:11:06,800
Speaker 1: And I just I've been fortunate to have some opportunities

1292
01:11:06,800 --> 01:11:09,240
Speaker 1: to go some new places, and man, it is so

1293
01:11:09,439 --> 01:11:11,720
Speaker 1: worth just trying to get out of that rut. Don't

1294
01:11:11,760 --> 01:11:14,639
Speaker 1: worry about the antlers. Don't worry about going on outside

1295
01:11:14,680 --> 01:11:17,160
Speaker 1: your comfort zone, because when you do, you find some

1296
01:11:17,280 --> 01:11:21,160
Speaker 1: pretty incredible places, some incredible experiences, and and that's what

1297
01:11:21,240 --> 01:11:23,760
Speaker 1: it's all about in the long run. Ye. And you

1298
01:11:23,840 --> 01:11:26,160
Speaker 1: make some great you meet great people too when you

1299
01:11:26,280 --> 01:11:28,200
Speaker 1: do it, it seems like and then by trying this

1300
01:11:28,280 --> 01:11:30,240
Speaker 1: new thing, you become a better hunter and that can

1301
01:11:30,320 --> 01:11:33,320
Speaker 1: translate back to everything else you're doing back home too. Um,

1302
01:11:33,320 --> 01:11:36,880
Speaker 1: you're gonna learn things about yourself, about these animals, um,

1303
01:11:37,320 --> 01:11:39,960
Speaker 1: and that all helps in the long run. So get

1304
01:11:40,000 --> 01:11:43,920
Speaker 1: out there, do this stuff. Absolutely awesome. Well, I think

1305
01:11:43,960 --> 01:11:46,120
Speaker 1: we kept a long enough. Josh, this is fun. Yeah,

1306
01:11:46,439 --> 01:11:49,280
Speaker 1: thanks for having me, Mark, I appreciate it. Any any final,

1307
01:11:50,000 --> 01:11:51,800
Speaker 1: any final words of wisdom. We want to leave our

1308
01:11:51,840 --> 01:11:56,439
Speaker 1: listeners with to say, if you want to come out

1309
01:11:56,600 --> 01:12:02,519
Speaker 1: and hunt Western white tails, do it. Don't think I don't.

1310
01:12:02,560 --> 01:12:06,760
Speaker 1: Don't think that they're the same creature that they are

1311
01:12:06,880 --> 01:12:10,760
Speaker 1: back East, because they're slightly different, and keep an open

1312
01:12:10,840 --> 01:12:14,840
Speaker 1: mind and you just might be really surprised at what

1313
01:12:14,960 --> 01:12:19,320
Speaker 1: you're gonna find out there. So yeah, awesome, But all

1314
01:12:19,360 --> 01:12:22,200
Speaker 1: I gotta say, well, I can't wait to get back

1315
01:12:22,240 --> 01:12:25,080
Speaker 1: out here. Yeah, all right, thank you, Josh, you bat Mark,

1316
01:12:26,439 --> 01:12:28,920
Speaker 1: And that is it. Like I just mentioned a little

1317
01:12:28,960 --> 01:12:30,800
Speaker 1: earlier at the beginning, well at the beginning of the show,

1318
01:12:31,560 --> 01:12:34,080
Speaker 1: we are off next week, like I mentioned, so I'd

1319
01:12:34,200 --> 01:12:37,160
Speaker 1: highly recommend you checking out episodes number sixty three with

1320
01:12:37,280 --> 01:12:40,840
Speaker 1: Mark Drury and episode eighty three with Shane Mahoney to

1321
01:12:41,040 --> 01:12:44,360
Speaker 1: get you through that that week gap. Although although there

1322
01:12:44,400 --> 01:12:46,280
Speaker 1: might be a little bonus episode coming, I'll give a

1323
01:12:46,320 --> 01:12:48,840
Speaker 1: little teaser here if you're if you're still listening, there

1324
01:12:49,000 --> 01:12:51,720
Speaker 1: is something worth checking back for next week. But other

1325
01:12:51,800 --> 01:12:54,360
Speaker 1: than that, check out these other two. And before we go,

1326
01:12:54,479 --> 01:12:55,960
Speaker 1: I want to give a big thank you to our

1327
01:12:56,040 --> 01:13:00,040
Speaker 1: partners at SI Gear. YETI Cooler's Matthew's Archery, may of

1328
01:13:00,080 --> 01:13:03,600
Speaker 1: an Optics, Whitetail Institute of North America, Trophy Ridge and

1329
01:13:03,800 --> 01:13:07,280
Speaker 1: Hunter a Maps, And finally, of course, thank you all

1330
01:13:07,439 --> 01:13:09,920
Speaker 1: for listening. I hope you enjoyed this one, and if

1331
01:13:09,960 --> 01:13:12,760
Speaker 1: you're hunting seasons opening up soon, good luck out there,

1332
01:13:12,960 --> 01:13:16,240
Speaker 1: and until next time, stay Wired to Hunt,