Speaker 1: Welcome to the Wired to Hunt Podcast, your guide to
Speaker 1: the White Tail Woods, presented by first Light, creating proven
Speaker 1: versatile hunting apparel for the stand, saddle or blind. First Light,
Speaker 1: Go Farther, stay Longer, and now your host, Mark Kenyon.
Speaker 2: Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast. This week, I'm
Speaker 2: joined by a longtime co host, Dan Johnson to reflect
Speaker 2: on the past ten seasons of this podcast and the
Speaker 2: deer hunting lessons we've learned along the way. All right,
Speaker 2: welcome to the Wired to Hunt Podcast, brought to you
Speaker 2: by First Light, and today we have got a special
Speaker 2: episode because we are joined by drumroll please, the One,
Speaker 2: the Only, Amiel Bartholomew Johnson, Dan, welcome back to the show.
Speaker 3: Right now. Everybody just hit the stop button.
Speaker 2: Or they're thinking, is Dan's middle name really Bartholomew?
Speaker 3: Yeah, exactly, like this guy is a nerd. How are
Speaker 3: you man, I'm good man, How are you?
Speaker 2: I am well, I'm doing good. I uh, I'm glad
Speaker 2: we get to catch up here a little bit. I've
Speaker 2: been doing something that you inspired me to do. Do
Speaker 2: you have any guesses what that might be?
Speaker 3: See, So, the first thing that popped into my mind
Speaker 3: was inappropriate for even this podcast. So I gotta go
Speaker 3: into I don't know number two. Yeah, I'm gonna guess wrong.
Speaker 3: I'm gonna guess wrong unless it's eighties like started watching
Speaker 3: more eighties movies.
Speaker 2: No, it's not that. Here's what you inspired me to do. Okay,
Speaker 2: you and inspired me to listen to the very first
Speaker 2: Wired podcast of all time?
Speaker 3: Yep, yep.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So here's this crazy man. We have just recently
Speaker 2: entered the tenth season of this podcast.
Speaker 3: Nuts.
Speaker 2: How crazy is that? It's come a long ways? This
Speaker 2: has been a long journey, man, and uh, it's gone.
Speaker 2: Part of me feels like it happened in like a flash,
Speaker 2: and part of me feels like it was a lifetime
Speaker 2: ago that that first happened. You know, I don't know
Speaker 2: where I stand on.
Speaker 3: That, and I'm not sure what kind of caused me.
Speaker 2: Two.
Speaker 3: Okay, so here's here's part of the reason. So you know,
Speaker 3: I have all you know, I have the network, and
Speaker 3: I have the nine Finger Chronicles and things like that,
Speaker 3: and so I was I never ever ever go and
Speaker 3: check the reviews on the podcast, and so you know,
Speaker 3: all these awesome, great reviews and then I then I
Speaker 3: go back and I look at the very like the
Speaker 3: oldest reviews that I possibly have, and how you know,
Speaker 3: there's there's a handful of them that are just like
Speaker 3: one star, try something different, like not good, and so
Speaker 3: I it kind of sparked in my brain. I go, Okay,
Speaker 3: I have to go back to the very first podcast
Speaker 3: that I ever did with Mark and I want to
Speaker 3: listen to our conversation and to see how different it was,
Speaker 3: you know, today than it was. Damn you're ten years ago.
Speaker 2: Yeah, to kind of see what kind of progress you've
Speaker 2: made exactly exactly not much? Well, well what you uh,
Speaker 2: what you when you when you sent me the text,
Speaker 2: tell me that you listen to that. I start having
Speaker 2: the same thoughts that you just mentioned. I was like,
Speaker 2: you know, that might be useful to go back and
Speaker 2: listen and kind of think back on, you know, take
Speaker 2: a little time to reflect back on this ten year
Speaker 2: journey and where it's taken us and what's happened and stuff.
Speaker 2: And so I kind of thought for today, you and
Speaker 2: I could kind of do that on air. We could
Speaker 2: think back to that episode and where we were ten
Speaker 2: years ago, talk a little bit about that, and then
Speaker 2: talk about the progress we have or have not made.
Speaker 2: Now and then also I want to do a little
Speaker 2: bit more reflection and steal another idea from that episode. So,
Speaker 2: if you recall, from episode one of the Wired Hunt podcast,
Speaker 2: our topic of discussion was the best and worst moments
Speaker 2: of our twenty thirteen season, right, So I thought to
Speaker 2: end today's episode, we could do the best and worst
Speaker 2: moments of our twenty twenty two season, since you and
Speaker 2: I have not talked about that together on the show yet,
Speaker 2: So that's my idea for today, is a little bit
Speaker 2: of looking back ten years ago to where we are now,
Speaker 2: and then stealing the idea from that episode's topic to
Speaker 2: kind of round it out. What do you think about that?
Speaker 3: Man, let's do it so.
Speaker 2: So, first off, ten years ago, you and I we
Speaker 2: had got together, maybe a couple weeks before we recorded
Speaker 2: that first podcast. Do you remember what we were doing
Speaker 2: just before that podcast.
Speaker 3: I'll never forget it. I'll never for some reason, and
Speaker 3: I mean this in all seriousness, I'll never forget that
Speaker 3: those days, those couple of days when you came down,
Speaker 3: we did some shed hunting, and man, we were drinking.
Speaker 3: We were drinking some beers at that night at my parents' place.
Speaker 3: And You're like, Hey, dude, I got this crazy idea
Speaker 3: about a podcast, and so it was a shed hunting
Speaker 3: weekend and that's kind of what kicked it off. And
Speaker 3: at that time I was kind of transitioning out of
Speaker 3: White Knuckle and didn't really have anything planned, anything to do,
Speaker 3: and so I was just like, you know what, let's
Speaker 3: and when you asked me, I was like, it was
Speaker 3: a no brainer. It's just like, I don't have anything
Speaker 3: else to do, Let's do it.
Speaker 2: So I feel the same way. The only other thing
Speaker 2: I would add to my recollection of that weekend was
Speaker 2: also that time when you told me go out on
Speaker 2: very thin ice to try to sabotage and kill me
Speaker 2: and try to drown me in an Iowa orri ever.
Speaker 2: Do you remember that part.
Speaker 3: And the steal the podcast idea and do it myself exactly?
Speaker 2: It almost worked.
Speaker 3: So I will say this on top of that, It
Speaker 3: was like last month I was digging through all of
Speaker 3: the old footage that I had and I came across
Speaker 3: that particular interview when you fell through the ice, and
Speaker 3: and the kudos to you for being tough because you
Speaker 3: didn't go back to the truck. We finished shed hunting
Speaker 3: before we headed back to the truck.
Speaker 2: I had to. It was cold too, Yeah, yeah, I
Speaker 2: was so if I remember right, I think it got
Speaker 2: like almost up to my armpits, didn't it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it was right, Yeah, it was. It was deep.
Speaker 3: You fell right by a down tree. The roots were
Speaker 3: exposed and so and so those usually have some deep
Speaker 3: holes surrounding them. And you went, you went like nipple
Speaker 3: high and luckily all your camera gear was up high
Speaker 3: and all of the like the important equipment was up high.
Speaker 2: So yeah, so so real talk. If I had been
Speaker 2: swept under the ice that day and died, do you
Speaker 2: think you would have taken the podcast and then started
Speaker 2: the the Dan Johnson episode back in twenty thirteen.
Speaker 3: I don't know.
Speaker 2: I doubt it.
Speaker 3: I doubt it only because I probably wouldn't have known
Speaker 3: how to do the research to get even started on
Speaker 3: something like that.
Speaker 2: It was it was tenuous there at the beginning, that, yeah,
Speaker 2: for sure. So so yeah, so ten seasons of the
Speaker 2: podcast now and fifteen years of Wired Hunt. I was
Speaker 2: just thinking about this morning. The Wired the website started
Speaker 2: fifteen years ago. Yeah, And what's funny is I you know,
Speaker 2: the tagline for the website and everything for the longest
Speaker 2: time was Deer Hunting for the Next Generation. Yeah, and
Speaker 2: I started it when I was in college. I think
Speaker 2: I was twenty years old, right, I got to thinking
Speaker 2: I am no longer part of the next generation. We
Speaker 2: were like, this is now like deer Hunting for Geriatrics.
Speaker 2: Now we're both getting pretty old. So I don't know
Speaker 2: how that happened, but I wondered what your thoughts were
Speaker 2: now looking back on those good old days when we
Speaker 2: were so young and fresh shot the womb. What did
Speaker 2: you think about how the podcast itself went. Did you
Speaker 2: think that we did you think that we sounded like idiots?
Speaker 2: Did we hold our own from that perspective what we're thinking?
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think right off the bat, there was a
Speaker 3: period of time on the podcast where we both kind
Speaker 3: of sounded We sounded like radio DJs, kind of like
Speaker 3: all right, so, uh we today we're going to talk
Speaker 3: about betting areas, and uh, let's talk about it, you know,
Speaker 3: on betting areas, and you know, just like really rehearsed.
Speaker 3: We sounded really rehearsed. We sounded really like prepared. We
Speaker 3: sounded really I don't know, like we wanted it both
Speaker 3: to work, and so I think we were really kind
Speaker 3: of tight and tense at the beginning, and then it
Speaker 3: took us a while to loosen up and relax. And
Speaker 3: once once we started to do that, I felt like,
Speaker 3: then it then it caught, and then it became something special. Yeah.
Speaker 2: You know, the other thing that stands out to me
Speaker 2: is speaking of podcast reviews. We always used to get
Speaker 2: these reviews that said, why does Dan sound like he's
Speaker 2: recording in a bathroom? It was like, yeah, you realized, like, oh,
Speaker 2: my microphone isn't plugged in or something. It wasn't.
Speaker 3: It was the settings. Yeah, it was the settings on
Speaker 3: my computer that I didn't change. And so that led
Speaker 3: to one day just me like going in and saying, oh,
Speaker 3: and then you're like, holy cow, what did you do?
Speaker 3: I'm like, I turned my microphone on.
Speaker 2: If that's not like the perfect analogy for everything we're doing,
Speaker 2: that's that was very fitting. So that was pretty funny.
Speaker 2: You know, another thing I noticed too, you you weren't
Speaker 2: affected by this as much. I don't think you when
Speaker 2: I listened to you back then, like other than what
Speaker 2: you just just described, you basically sound like you still
Speaker 2: and maybe maybe you feel differently because it's your own voice.
Speaker 2: But when I listened to my own voice back then,
Speaker 2: it sounded like it sounded like I had just come
Speaker 2: out of getting my wisdom teeth pulled, and like I
Speaker 2: was still like waking up from a drug induced nap,
Speaker 2: or had no vacane still in my mouth or something. Yeah,
Speaker 2: mumble mouth, sleepy mouth. I don't know what it was,
Speaker 2: but I sound like I'm not quite there. I don't
Speaker 2: know what about. But I also have the same thing.
Speaker 2: I went and listened. I went and watched one of
Speaker 2: my first YouTube videos, and it is absolutely painful. It's
Speaker 2: the same thing. It's like that same like I've I
Speaker 2: don't even know how anybody could listen to me back
Speaker 2: then after watching that. So, if nothing else, we've both
Speaker 2: gotten a little bit better at communicating, I guess, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: but what about the content of our conversation. So, like
Speaker 2: I just said, we talked through the best and worst
Speaker 2: moments of our twenty thirteen season. Yeah, And listening to that,
Speaker 2: I was kind of struck a by how much hasn't changed.
Speaker 2: But then there were some things like where I thought
Speaker 2: to myself, all right, we both come a long way
Speaker 2: in certain ways. And at the same time, I was
Speaker 2: shaking my head at the man, you're still battling with
Speaker 2: the same things. Yeah, what what about you? What kind
Speaker 2: of stood up for you when you look back on
Speaker 2: you know, what you were saying back then to where
Speaker 2: you're in now. Yeah, and so maybe can you point
Speaker 2: out those things?
Speaker 3: Yeah? Absolutely, So obviously by then we were to the
Speaker 3: point where we kind of understood how deer uh, how
Speaker 3: their noses worked right, and things like that, and so
Speaker 3: and so, but we were still kind of talking and
Speaker 3: and I want to I don't want to necessarily say
Speaker 3: regurgitating old information that you you know, that the magazines
Speaker 3: had done throughout the years. But what's cool is I
Speaker 3: would say, in the first Man, how many years was
Speaker 3: I on the show? Like the first year on four
Speaker 3: or five?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'd say the first five year on almost every
Speaker 2: single episode.
Speaker 3: Right, And so in that timeframe, we talked to a
Speaker 3: ton of really good either deer hunters or property management
Speaker 3: style hunters, right, And so I think what was cool
Speaker 3: about that is we would talk to let's say, a
Speaker 3: public land guy who would throw a strategy ideas out
Speaker 3: and I think really what happened was me and you
Speaker 3: were able to go out and apply some of those
Speaker 3: practices to our own hunting strategy. Maybe we got some results,
Speaker 3: maybe we didn't, but it allowed us to form some
Speaker 3: different unique opinions about our own methods and really, I
Speaker 3: don't know, and really not only change our interviewing styles
Speaker 3: because we now we had this, we were gaining experience.
Speaker 3: So because we were gaining experience, we had the ability
Speaker 3: to ask better questions to these people. And I think
Speaker 3: once that that damn broke out of the first two years,
Speaker 3: then it's just it started clicking, and that's when the
Speaker 3: content really really started getting good.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you make a really good point, like there's there's
Speaker 2: only so much you can learn from reading or listening
Speaker 2: to other people, right, I mean, you're absolutely right. In
Speaker 2: two thousand thirteen, you know, when I started the podcast
Speaker 2: and rewind five years earlier, when I started the website,
Speaker 2: absolutely in two thousand and eight or two thousand and nine.
Speaker 2: So much of my understanding of deer came from what
Speaker 2: I'd read and watched and listened to, you know, my
Speaker 2: childhood of deer hunting experience, Like my first fifteen years
Speaker 2: were up north hunting in Michigan, where I hardly ever
Speaker 2: saw any deer. I had some basic deer hunting knowledge
Speaker 2: that my family gave me. But basically that was don't move,
Speaker 2: don't make too much noise, sit in the woods for
Speaker 2: a long time, and there's this thing called a rub
Speaker 2: and there's a thing called a scrape, and that's good. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and that's kind of all I knew for the first
Speaker 2: fifteen years. So then, you know, when I started the website,
Speaker 2: it was, well, Okay, I've read this book, I've heard
Speaker 2: this thing, I saw this on the show, so this
Speaker 2: is what you're supposed to do. And it took a
Speaker 2: long time. Like you just mentioned to actually, you know,
Speaker 2: you could understand it like in a textbook kind of way,
Speaker 2: but until you have that real world experience where you've
Speaker 2: done seeing it, seeing when it works, seeing when it
Speaker 2: doesn't work, understand the context. You know, all of that
Speaker 2: builds like a foundation and you can't really have things
Speaker 2: start clicking till you have that real world foundation where
Speaker 2: you've ran all these textbook ideas through your real world filter.
Speaker 2: I guess you know, yeah, and I think that's that's
Speaker 2: that's exactly what happened.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and I'll stay there with you, like, yeah, I'll
Speaker 3: say this real quick. So for me, when when we
Speaker 3: started this. It was the it was spring of twenty fourteen,
Speaker 3: and so twenty uh I was in this period where
Speaker 3: I still hadn't I killed a buck In O seven,
Speaker 3: I killed a buck. In OH nine, I kicked killed
Speaker 3: a buck in twelve, and then thirteen fourteen and fifteen,
Speaker 3: I didn't kill a dear, And so I was I
Speaker 3: was brand new to the to this method of attacking
Speaker 3: and mobile hunting. Even though I was several years into it,
Speaker 3: I hadn't found success. So the cool thing about that
Speaker 3: is that over that period of time, I struck out,
Speaker 3: struck out, struck out, and then I don't know, you know,
Speaker 3: I can't necessarily speak for you, but for me, when
Speaker 3: it started to click in twenty sixteen, then it was like,
Speaker 3: I don't know if you could see a progression, or
Speaker 3: if there was clips that you could go in and
Speaker 3: listen to us talk about certain things and then kind
Speaker 3: of mark the time that it sunk in. For me,
Speaker 3: I would love to go back and hear those conversations.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I actually just met someone I don't know a month
Speaker 2: or so ago at this volunteer habitat Day who had
Speaker 2: said he said that he was on like episode two
Speaker 2: seventy eight or three some I don't know, somewhere back
Speaker 2: in there, he said. He went back and started from
Speaker 2: episode one and was listening all the way through. And
Speaker 2: the thing he said to me is, it's it's been
Speaker 2: so interesting to watch your guys' progression to like hear
Speaker 2: us and how we talk about things differently as we learned,
Speaker 2: you know. And so what took us years he was
Speaker 2: listening to over the course of months, you know, and
Speaker 2: seeing it all happen kind of fast forwarded. And I
Speaker 2: think you're right. I think that has been hopefully the
Speaker 2: same experience that the listeners have had over this decade.
Speaker 2: Right is I've always thought that you and I have
Speaker 2: kind of been like a stand in for the listener,
Speaker 2: Like we are learning right with the audience, Yes, throughout
Speaker 2: this whole process, week by week, year by year. Yeah,
Speaker 2: And and I think I hope what has been happening
Speaker 2: is what has happened for you and I, which is like,
Speaker 2: and I've always tried to say this, I've always tried
Speaker 2: to remind people this, like take it all in, don't
Speaker 2: don't don't make assumptions that this guy won't be interesting,
Speaker 2: or that this person won't be useful or that this
Speaker 2: person is one hundred percent right and everybody else is Wrongly,
Speaker 2: try to take it all in and then filter it
Speaker 2: through your own circumstances, and then test it, test it,
Speaker 2: test it like go out, try all these things, use
Speaker 2: all these ideas, think about these things, and then you'll
Speaker 2: slowly over time start seeing like, let's throw all the
Speaker 2: spaghetti at the wall. It's our unique wall, right, My
Speaker 2: wall is different than your wall, which is different than
Speaker 2: Joe Blow's wall. That's listening, like, we all have different
Speaker 2: things will stick for different people. But find what sticks
Speaker 2: in your place, with your goals, with your circumstances, with
Speaker 2: your resources, and keep going like that. And that I
Speaker 2: think has been I've tried doing that, and that has
Speaker 2: been what's worked well for me is I've tried all
Speaker 2: of these things, and then a lot of my dropped,
Speaker 2: a lot of I said, you know, this isn't for me,
Speaker 2: or this isn't for my area, or this doesn't work
Speaker 2: you know in this situation. But maybe if I travel
Speaker 2: to X place or why place, maybe it will work there. Right,
Speaker 2: And that's you know, that's been kind of the superpower
Speaker 2: I guess of this podcast, I think is just getting
Speaker 2: so many different ideas and and and what I've tried
Speaker 2: to do, and I know what you've tried to do
Speaker 2: is the two of us in these conversations, whether it
Speaker 2: was on this podcast or then on your podcast subsequently,
Speaker 2: you know, trying to dig into people's process, you know,
Speaker 2: like understand why they do things, because if you understand
Speaker 2: why they do things, then you can start to better
Speaker 2: apply that to your situation. So even if even if
Speaker 2: Justin Holland's Worth is hunting a property that's so different
Speaker 2: than you or I, if we understand why he, you know,
Speaker 2: only hunts with X and Y wind on these days,
Speaker 2: then even though I have a very different property, maybe
Speaker 2: I can understand how to apply that same idea. So
Speaker 2: that's that I think has accounted for a lot of
Speaker 2: the growth that we and and probably a lot of
Speaker 2: listeners have had.
Speaker 3: Yeah, the other thing that I really let's see, how
Speaker 3: do I put this. I think this podcast happened at
Speaker 3: the very beginning of what I'm going to call in
Speaker 3: awakening in the hunting community and hunting industry, and you
Speaker 3: know everybody, and what I mean by awakening is we
Speaker 3: had some of the biggest names in the industry on
Speaker 3: the podcast and we were able to interview them about
Speaker 3: how they how they do it and what that did,
Speaker 3: and this is my opinion, what that did was not
Speaker 3: necessarily relate, but open the eyes up to the rest
Speaker 3: of the listeners, going, oh my god, I've been trying
Speaker 3: to do this, apply this strategy to maybe a five
Speaker 3: acre or a ten acre farm, when the people who
Speaker 3: I've been taking advice from and doing all this stuff,
Speaker 3: you know, like looking up to have thousands of acres
Speaker 3: of managed property. And so what it did was it
Speaker 3: allowed people to realize that those groups of people are
Speaker 3: the one percenters, and I need to focus on my
Speaker 3: own property kind of just what you said, but look
Speaker 3: other places for serious content that are more relatable to
Speaker 3: the style in which I hunt.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was like and it also kind of showcased,
Speaker 2: you know, and brought to the table certain people like,
Speaker 2: oh wow, so this guy is only killing three year
Speaker 2: old that are at one twenty and he's been doing
Speaker 2: that for decades and decades, and all of a sudden
Speaker 2: we start to realize, like, oh wow, that's actually a
Speaker 2: heck of an accomplishment in those circumstances, and this guy
Speaker 2: has a ton to teach us, and I can learn
Speaker 2: a lot more from this person than I could learn
Speaker 2: from the guy with four two hundred inches or whatever
Speaker 2: it is exactly, You're right, like there was like a
Speaker 2: sheet pulled off of the the magic hat with a
Speaker 2: rabbit in it or something like that. It was like
Speaker 2: the democratization of knowledge, and.
Speaker 3: It just showed that people could be successful, like the
Speaker 3: Anti Mays of the world, could be successful without the
Speaker 3: same resources as some of the you know, the people
Speaker 3: who for so many years we were looking up to.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I will say it, I think it also
Speaker 2: for some of those folks who you know were on
Speaker 2: TV still are on TV. It did give some of
Speaker 2: them an opportunity to detail the work that did go
Speaker 2: into getting what's to have and doing what they have.
Speaker 2: So it's not like I mean, even now, you watch
Speaker 2: an episode of one of these mainstream TV shows. They
Speaker 2: only got twenty two minutes to show you, and it
Speaker 2: looks very easy right on camera, this bock walking to
Speaker 2: a food plot and they shoot the big Deer's the
Speaker 2: fifth big deer of the year. Whatever. Now, yeah, that
Speaker 2: might be unrealistic for ninety nine percent of us, but
Speaker 2: still there was a ton of work. There was a
Speaker 2: ton of effort, there was a lot of planning, there
Speaker 2: was a lot of you know, different kind of stuff.
Speaker 2: So I think it also gave us all a new
Speaker 2: understanding of if that is what you actually want, here's
Speaker 2: what it takes, and do you still want to do that?
Speaker 2: Is that still what you want? Are you willing to
Speaker 2: commit so much money, so much time, so much equipment.
Speaker 2: Is that what you want or not? And I think
Speaker 2: that we have seen now as a community like you
Speaker 2: can do that, but there are also other opportunities too,
Speaker 2: and there's it's fun all the way across the board.
Speaker 2: There's just different goals, there's different ways, there's different styles,
Speaker 2: and I hope I don't know if this is true
Speaker 2: or not, but I hope that part of what maybe
Speaker 2: our impact with the podcast and other podcasts and things
Speaker 2: like that, hopefully some of the impact has been that
Speaker 2: it has helped shift people's idea of success a little bit. Yep,
Speaker 2: you know, maybe maybe fifteen years ago, success was man,
Speaker 2: you gotta get a booner, you gotta get the two hundred,
Speaker 2: you gotta and not saying there's still an obsession there's not.
Speaker 2: I mean, yes, there is still an obsession and interest
Speaker 2: in those things. Today, I'm as guilty as anyone of
Speaker 2: like a big deer. But I hope to some degree
Speaker 2: we have shifted it a little bit away from Antler's
Speaker 2: being the only measure of success to now, you know,
Speaker 2: experience being part of the success, Overcoming challenges, learning, growing,
Speaker 2: setting your own realistic goals for what you want, what's
Speaker 2: enjoyable for you, what's realistic for your area, all these things,
Speaker 2: you know, giving back hopefully, hopefully success. I guess I
Speaker 2: can't speak for anybody else, but I can speak for myself,
Speaker 2: and that success for me is a much more mixed
Speaker 2: pot than it was ten years ago when I thought, man,
Speaker 2: I just got to kill one hundred and fifty in
Speaker 2: four year bucks, and if I can do that, I
Speaker 2: am validated.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah, And to elaborate on that thought past hunting
Speaker 3: and hunting strategy. It was also cool to see the
Speaker 3: sheet pulled off of the scientific and the conservation type content.
Speaker 3: So when you're talking to guys like Matt Ross or
Speaker 3: Bronson Strickland and they start dropping some facts about deer,
Speaker 3: you know, like like I used to think that if
Speaker 3: you killed small antler deer genetically inferior deer, that it
Speaker 3: would mean less of those deer, right, And so when
Speaker 3: I heard this information, like, hey, guess what, it doesn't
Speaker 3: do anything, you know, like like calling deer or that
Speaker 3: quote unquote management buck that you shoot every year, It
Speaker 3: doesn't it doesn't do anything. And so that type of
Speaker 3: information is brought to the light as well, and it
Speaker 3: just kind of exposes that and you're like, oh my god,
Speaker 3: people are telling you not necessarily lies, but half truths.
Speaker 3: And it was it's just kind of like a really
Speaker 3: type moment.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, there's it's. It's it's two things I think happened. One,
Speaker 2: like the mediums of content back in the day just
Speaker 2: weren't very conducive for like a deep understanding, you know,
Speaker 2: I think like the podcast and and just like the
Speaker 2: explosion of long form like YouTube stuff too, has just
Speaker 2: given the chance for people to like dive deep into
Speaker 2: things that you couldn't ten or fifteen years ago. Like
Speaker 2: very few people would read a book, you know, back
Speaker 2: in the day about this stuff into the nitty gritty.
Speaker 2: Just a few hardcore folks would, but a whole lot
Speaker 2: of people would listen to an hour and a half
Speaker 2: with Bronson Strickland as he dives deep into that kind
Speaker 2: of stuff, like you said, So that's that's certainly helped
Speaker 2: a big, a big substantial kind of way. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I don't know, it's been it's been really interesting personally.
Speaker 2: What you know, I could say two things. I can
Speaker 2: say one. Over the last ten years to your point, like,
Speaker 2: I feel like I have grown like leaps and bounds
Speaker 2: as a deer hunter, Like I feel like a completely
Speaker 2: different human being when it comes to you know, just
Speaker 2: understanding what to do, how to do it, when to
Speaker 2: do it. Like I remember, back before the podcast, going
Speaker 2: onto a new property with a buddy of mine letting
Speaker 2: me hunt some property he had access to, and I
Speaker 2: just remember feeling so lost, like I had no idea
Speaker 2: where to start. I walked out there, I'm like, man,
Speaker 2: I don't really know. I mean I can walk. I'm
Speaker 2: going to walk around, find some rubs, some trails, and
Speaker 2: just kind of hope and now you know, I can
Speaker 2: set foot on new properties and just right away be like, okay,
Speaker 2: I know this, I know this, I don't know this
Speaker 2: in this, let's go figure it out and let's make
Speaker 2: an assessment. And just like there's so many examples like
Speaker 2: that where I feel a million times more confident yeah.
Speaker 2: But I say all this to bring up two big
Speaker 2: things that I heard in episode number one that I
Speaker 2: am still experiencing today, Okay, And so I thought it
Speaker 2: might be interesting if you have anything that you heard
Speaker 2: that you're still experienced, I can lead with mine. Yeah.
Speaker 2: I so, listening to that first podcast, there were two
Speaker 2: things when we talked about when it came to you know,
Speaker 2: we talked about the best and worst moments of our
Speaker 2: twenty thirteen season. And one of the things that I
Speaker 2: talked about is that I was having this really rough
Speaker 2: twenty thirteen season. I had had all these close calls,
Speaker 2: nothing came together, made mistakes, YadA, YadA, YadA. And I
Speaker 2: talked about how I had let myself get overstressed, overworked up,
Speaker 2: bummed out about it. Just got too much pressure on
Speaker 2: put too much pressure on myself to have success, et cetera,
Speaker 2: et cetera, et cetera. And that ended up being like
Speaker 2: a ten year thing for me, right, I mean, that
Speaker 2: has been an annual thing. Listeners have heard me talk
Speaker 2: about me just working through that, and it really wasn't
Speaker 2: until last year that I felt like I had a
Speaker 2: breakthrough and felt like I was finally getting past that
Speaker 2: so that was interesting to me. That took me about
Speaker 2: ten years to finally stop, to finally mature enough maybe
Speaker 2: to stop being so worked up about a whether or
Speaker 2: not I was able to achieve like the ultimate success
Speaker 2: of my goal of killing a big deer and older
Speaker 2: or whatever it was. And then also not caring what
Speaker 2: other other people thought, and then if I could remove
Speaker 2: those two things then just focus on, you know, the
Speaker 2: experience itself and having fun. Like it took me ten years,
Speaker 2: even in twenty thirteen, I knew it was a problem,
Speaker 2: and it still took me ten years to you know,
Speaker 2: work through that. And I'm not saying, you know, I'm
Speaker 2: not saying it's a thing that I maybe will ever
Speaker 2: fully move past. Maybe that's just part of my personality.
Speaker 2: But I feel like, you know, last year was a
Speaker 2: big fork in the road where I really moved past something.
Speaker 2: So that was interesting to me, and I've talked about
Speaker 2: on the show, and you and I have talked about
Speaker 2: on the show. But I think it's just worth re emphasizing,
Speaker 2: like I don't think there's been anything more important. I'm
Speaker 2: guessing this because at the very beginning of it, but
Speaker 2: I'm guessing this will have been the most important I've
Speaker 2: made in my hunting journey being able to get past that,
Speaker 2: you know, obsession with am I good enough? Do people
Speaker 2: think I'm good enough? Is this deer big enough? Did
Speaker 2: I do good enough? And getting so worked up about
Speaker 2: that and beating myself up for not doing it right,
Speaker 2: or beating myself up if I didn't feel like I
Speaker 2: gave it two thousand percent or everything went right, you know,
Speaker 2: as soon as I was able to move past that
Speaker 2: and start just focusing on enjoying it, you know, so
Speaker 2: many things just it's like turning a movie from black
Speaker 2: and white to color, is what it felt like last year. Yeah,
Speaker 2: So I hope that's something that maybe other people can
Speaker 2: learn from my mistakes. And maybe it's one of those
Speaker 2: things you got to go through it on your own,
Speaker 2: but maybe by hearing my tenure journey on that front,
Speaker 2: some people have, you know, maybe followed along on that
Speaker 2: same journey as me. The second thing I noticed that
Speaker 2: I am still working through was I mentioned in twenty
Speaker 2: thirteen that the worst moment of my season was when
Speaker 2: I was hunting Ohio, big old blizzard pushed through. I
Speaker 2: drove down to hunt southern Ohio to catch his coal front.
Speaker 2: I got set up, couldn't climb into a tree stand
Speaker 2: because it's too icy. So I'm hiding behind a tree,
Speaker 2: standing on the edge of a bedding area and a
Speaker 2: cup bean field, and this nice eight point buck comes
Speaker 2: walking out, and I remember lining up on him and
Speaker 2: taking a crack, and he just stands there. So I
Speaker 2: reload the muzzleloader, take another crack, he just stands there.
Speaker 2: Reload a third time, and then before I get fully reloaded,
Speaker 2: he runs off. And I can't remember if I mentioned
Speaker 2: the episode or not, but I also scoped myself on
Speaker 2: one of those shots, so I had blood dripping down too.
Speaker 2: So I talked about rushing the shot and like not
Speaker 2: being fully in control in that moment, and that has
Speaker 2: been a thing that has again been a reoccurring topic
Speaker 2: of conversation these last ten years. I mean, I missed
Speaker 2: that deer that year. The next year was the year
Speaker 2: that I rushed the shot a little bit on Jawbreaker
Speaker 2: and hit him, you know, back in then testines, Oh,
Speaker 2: I don't know, I mean a handful. I've missed a
Speaker 2: couple other deer since then. I missed that deer two
Speaker 2: years ago in Iowa, missed an eight pointer in Michigan
Speaker 2: somewhere in that window. So I had my I've had
Speaker 2: my share of screwed up shots over these years, and
Speaker 2: I've like tried different releases, and I've tried different processes,
Speaker 2: and I've practiced my tail off. And last year I
Speaker 2: went to an archery coach and totally rebuilt my shooting
Speaker 2: style and process and I think that's helped, but I
Speaker 2: know I'm still still not one hundred percent there. My goal,
Speaker 2: one of my two goals last year, as you know
Speaker 2: we talked about this. One of them was to have fun,
Speaker 2: like to focus on what we just talked about, just
Speaker 2: having fun. And then goal number two was only good shots,
Speaker 2: like you got it, make good shots, and that was
Speaker 2: so important to me, and so I kind of and
Speaker 2: we'll talk about this in a little bit more, but
Speaker 2: I kind of had I would give myself like a
Speaker 2: b on that I only took good shots. So I
Speaker 2: was really glad about that. I had opportunities at some
Speaker 2: shots that I could have taken, but I chose not
Speaker 2: to because like I just didn't want any I want
Speaker 2: nothing but perfect. So I passed on a mature buck
Speaker 2: two different times, once a little out of range and
Speaker 2: once just I was not comfortable and steady, and I
Speaker 2: just I didn't want to risk ruining a great season
Speaker 2: with a bad hit or miss. So I was glad
Speaker 2: about that I had. The first year I killed, I
Speaker 2: felt really good about that shot. The second dear I killed,
Speaker 2: felt decent about the shot. The third dear I killed,
Speaker 2: I felt like I still rushed it a little bit.
Speaker 2: And so I'm working through like these steps. I've got
Speaker 2: this like four step process for my shot process. I'm
Speaker 2: still not getting one hundred percent of the way through,
Speaker 2: one hundred percent slow, one hundred percent of control. I'm
Speaker 2: getting better, but I'm not on the way there. So
Speaker 2: this is all to say that, like that has been
Speaker 2: another one of those like always working on it kind
Speaker 2: of issues for me that maybe that's the case. Maybe
Speaker 2: I know there's some people that don't deal with that
Speaker 2: issue at all. And then I think there's probably other
Speaker 2: people like me that you're probably good enough most of
Speaker 2: the time, but is that okay? Do you want to
Speaker 2: be just good enough most of the time or do
Speaker 2: you want to get to the point where you are
Speaker 2: locked in perfect every time? And if that's what you're
Speaker 2: trying to do, I think that is for some people,
Speaker 2: I guess I can't speak for anyone by myself. For me,
Speaker 2: that has been a year by year continued challenge to
Speaker 2: keep on trying to work on getting one percent better
Speaker 2: whatever it is, because it's a it's a wild crazy
Speaker 2: moment and says situations that I at least have continued
Speaker 2: to have to work on. So those two things stood
Speaker 2: up to me as like man, of of all the
Speaker 2: things I made a ton of progress on, those two
Speaker 2: things have still been like my thing to bear over
Speaker 2: this decade. Yeah, what about you? What are your thoughts
Speaker 2: on that or yourself?
Speaker 3: Yeah? So I think we were putting we were both
Speaker 3: putting a lot of pressure on ourselves that probably didn't
Speaker 3: need to We didn't need to put on ourselves, right,
Speaker 3: both of us. But one thing that I I listened
Speaker 3: to that was how hard, not efficient, but how hard
Speaker 3: I was hunting back then compared to how hard I
Speaker 3: am I'm hunting now, and that I would I was
Speaker 3: worried about. You know, I still thought back then that
Speaker 3: time in the woods. Now, don't get me wrong, time
Speaker 3: in the woods is always a benefit. But if you're
Speaker 3: sacrificing just to be in the woods versus laying off
Speaker 3: and accomplishing something else. I didn't necessarily understand the importance
Speaker 3: of that yet, and so man, I feel like I
Speaker 3: was hunting really hard when I didn't need to be,
Speaker 3: Especially like I knew that the first three weeks of October,
Speaker 3: I probably didn't have that good of a shot at
Speaker 3: going in and knocking down a good deer, and so
Speaker 3: I was just I was going. And I think that
Speaker 3: over the last ten years, one thing that I feel
Speaker 3: like I've gotten better at is just sitting back and observing.
Speaker 3: And that doesn't mean in the tree stand. That also
Speaker 3: means at home, watching watching weather, watching cold fronts, watching
Speaker 3: and observing deer behavior, you know, listening or learning from
Speaker 3: what the trail cameras are telling me, taking all of
Speaker 3: the past information that I've gained throughout the years and
Speaker 3: kind of forming it into things that my brain could
Speaker 3: digest and say, Okay, listen, dude, you don't need to
Speaker 3: be doing this right now. Or hey, last year this,
Speaker 3: you know, this terrain feature was really you know, was
Speaker 3: really good. You should probably get back in there, or
Speaker 3: you know that that paralysis by analysis type of thought process,
Speaker 3: and really what's happened out of that has come more
Speaker 3: of this fluid a strike when the iron's hot type mentality,
Speaker 3: and I'm not I'm not worrying about being in the
Speaker 3: woods when I necessarily don't need to be.
Speaker 2: You make a great point, like there's this difference between
Speaker 2: working harder versus working smarter and an efficiency, and I
Speaker 2: am right there with you. Like in those days, I
Speaker 2: just thought you just needed to pound the ground NonStop
Speaker 2: and be out there every single day you possibly could,
Speaker 2: and like that was like that was the way to success.
Speaker 2: Was just like death by persistence somehow, you know, And
Speaker 2: you're right, like I think we both have found the
Speaker 2: power of efficiency and doing things smarter versus like the
Speaker 2: blunt force approach, a brute force approach. But I wonder
Speaker 2: this could we have Could you really get to where
Speaker 2: we are now, to where you can actually be efficient
Speaker 2: successfully and know how to apply and when to strike
Speaker 2: at the right moments? Can you ever get there if
Speaker 2: you don't first go through the brute force approach of
Speaker 2: just spending a ton of time out there, Like if
Speaker 2: you couldn't if someone see That's what I'm wondering, is
Speaker 2: I think that maybe that almost you almost have to
Speaker 2: go through that to get that foundation of experience and
Speaker 2: knowledge to ever be able to understand, you know, when's
Speaker 2: the right moment, when's not, or when's the right time
Speaker 2: to push versus when's the right time to stay back.
Speaker 2: Even though we can look back and say there was
Speaker 2: a mistake, maybe it was a good mistake, you know
Speaker 2: what I mean?
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, exactly. So if we're going to go back,
Speaker 3: I want to go back to two thousand and six.
Speaker 3: That's a that's a that's a year for me when
Speaker 3: I said to myself, Okay, I'm wanna, I'm gonna start
Speaker 3: taking bow hunting serious again. And I went blunt force
Speaker 3: and I went quantity of hunts. But that allowed me
Speaker 3: to learn a whole bunch of different things. In the
Speaker 3: next I would say ten ten seasons of hunting. And
Speaker 3: so the thing that really and it's not it's not
Speaker 3: hunting related, but it is a reason why I had
Speaker 3: to be more efficient with my hunting. Episode number one,
Speaker 3: I had a one month old baby, my first child,
Speaker 3: a one month old baby in the house, and so
Speaker 3: I mean, there's no other reason way to to put
Speaker 3: a halt to hunting, like kids, right, having having kids,
Speaker 3: especially a newborn in the house, and so my time
Speaker 3: then was more on not necessarily hunting itself, but thinking
Speaker 3: about hunting, and with that came planning for hunting and
Speaker 3: kind of changing my mindset to you know, the old
Speaker 3: style of war where two people would line up across
Speaker 3: from each other and just just battle it out instead
Speaker 3: of being tactical and flanking, and you know, you know
Speaker 3: what I mean. And so yeah, it's it's that twenty thirteen.
Speaker 3: Right when we started it. I feel like you were
Speaker 3: still in it and I was not. I was still
Speaker 3: in it, but I was on my way out of
Speaker 3: it because I had to. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's amazing how a family will do that.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Here's the thing I think though, if I'm if I
Speaker 2: am listening to this podcast right now and I am
Speaker 2: just starting a few years into hunting, or I'm young,
Speaker 2: maybe I'm twenty, maybe I'm what it is, I think
Speaker 2: if I were listening to this or to that person
Speaker 2: listening right now, who is that person? I would tell
Speaker 2: you don't necessarily rush to try to be the person
Speaker 2: that Dan and I or be like hunting in the
Speaker 2: way that Dan and I are talking. Yet, like, don't
Speaker 2: you know our mutual friend Tony Peterson likes to, you know,
Speaker 2: just hammer on this a lot. Don't make excuses not
Speaker 2: to be in the woods. Don't look for excuses not
Speaker 2: to be in the woods, especially when you're still in
Speaker 2: this like real figuring out kind of stage.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 2: Don't let the weather forecast like if you have a
Speaker 2: weekend open to hunt, and right, you've got limited time
Speaker 2: and this weekend's your weekend. You've got to hunt, but
Speaker 2: the weather looks bad, like, don't let that keep you
Speaker 2: from hunting. You need to get this experience. You need
Speaker 2: to get those days in the field. Don't don't get
Speaker 2: ahead of yourself. Don't worry too much about efficiency before
Speaker 2: you have a foundation. Now, certainly think about that efficiency,
Speaker 2: think about the things we're talking about and try to help,
Speaker 2: you know, let that help you use your quantity it
Speaker 2: more effectively. Right, But but don't use these things as
Speaker 2: excuses not to go, because early on there's nothing more useful.
Speaker 2: You know, we talked about this in the beginning, right,
Speaker 2: I mean it's like we couldn't we couldn't even understand
Speaker 2: what our podcast guests were saying during those first ten
Speaker 2: episodes or whatever in a real full way because we
Speaker 2: didn't even have enough of a foundation in context ourselves
Speaker 2: if we were to listen to those episodes now, like
Speaker 2: when we talk to these other expert guests, I bet
Speaker 2: you we would get a lot more from it now
Speaker 2: because we have ten more years of personal experience, ten
Speaker 2: more years of context, ten more years of success and
Speaker 2: failure that now you know, we've got to We've going
Speaker 2: back to like the throwing spaghetti at the wall and
Speaker 2: seeing what sticks, like we have a much stickier wall.
Speaker 2: Probably now, like we a lot of more of these
Speaker 2: things will make sense to us or we will be
Speaker 2: able to use just because we've we've built this level
Speaker 2: of understanding that's going to make everything else so much
Speaker 2: more useful. So don't don't think that you can skip
Speaker 2: that process. So get out there and you can be
Speaker 2: smarter about how you do that, right. I mean, if
Speaker 2: I were to look back at what I did you
Speaker 2: know in twenty thirteen, I guess I'll use this as
Speaker 2: an example. Twenty thirteen season I was definitely in the
Speaker 2: quantity over quality kind of mode. I thought, Man, every
Speaker 2: single day, I got to be out there. So I
Speaker 2: had a Michigan property that I've just pounded to death
Speaker 2: because I felt like I had to be out there.
Speaker 2: So I probably hunted it. I don't know, twenty thirty
Speaker 2: days something like that of you know, a three month season,
Speaker 2: and this is like seventy acres or something like that,
Speaker 2: seventy eighty acres that I was out there that many times,
Speaker 2: maybe more than that, and I think I've probably did
Speaker 2: like two weeks straight of like all day sits, So
Speaker 2: I mean a ton of hours in the same place
Speaker 2: and getting the same results, like not seeing the deer
Speaker 2: I was after. So maybe in a different world, what
Speaker 2: I could have done if I'm still at that phase
Speaker 2: where I need time and feel to build that foundation,
Speaker 2: but I could have spread it out. I could have
Speaker 2: hunted a couple days on that property and then do
Speaker 2: some more public land stuff, or I probably should have
Speaker 2: knocked on more doors and got permission on some other places.
Speaker 2: Like spreading out your pressure is one of those things
Speaker 2: that still to this day is super important. And that
Speaker 2: was something that I knew that back then, like I
Speaker 2: knew it intellectually, but I did not know how to
Speaker 2: do that or wasn't willing to put in the right
Speaker 2: kind of work to make that possible. So I guess
Speaker 2: that's my point here is there's something to be said
Speaker 2: for hunting smarter versus just pounding your head against the
Speaker 2: wall a thousand times. But there is value in that
Speaker 2: pounding your head against the wall, and you can't skip it.
Speaker 2: Like there's no fast forward button, there's no silver bullet.
Speaker 2: There's nothing that someone could have told me, or there's
Speaker 2: no product I could have bought. There's no book I
Speaker 2: could have read. There's nothing that I could have done
Speaker 2: on Spring twenty thirteen, right then and there that would
Speaker 2: have gotten me to where I am today. Right easily.
Speaker 2: I had to go through these ten years of mistakes, failures, successes, lessons,
Speaker 2: lots of days in the field, and you got to
Speaker 2: just go through that with that constant, open eyed perspective
Speaker 2: of what kind of learned from this? Why did this happen,
Speaker 2: Why did this work, why did this not work? What
Speaker 2: should I try different? I mean that if anything out
Speaker 2: of the last ten years has been like hammered into me,
Speaker 2: it's like taking that approach to this learning, learning, learning,
Speaker 2: asking why testing, testing, testing, If you do those things,
Speaker 2: you can get you can make progress.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And even when you get into that that point
Speaker 3: where you know what you need to do and you
Speaker 3: you even apply it to the woods, there was still
Speaker 3: a period of time when I was getting frustrated because
Speaker 3: the results weren't coming. So the perfect example would have
Speaker 3: been twenty fourteen and twenty fifteen season. I was, I
Speaker 3: was not necessarily hunting as hard because I had, you know,
Speaker 3: kids at that point. But then I also, like I
Speaker 3: really wanted it, and so I was getting frustrated when
Speaker 3: things weren't Like when I would make the perfect access route,
Speaker 3: I would go in and the target animal just wouldn't
Speaker 3: show up, so I would I would hold that frustration
Speaker 3: these days, dude, like if I don't see a deer,
Speaker 3: I understand, right, I get it, And now I don't
Speaker 3: get frustrated anymore. I know that deer don't always do
Speaker 3: the same thing all the time, and there's very rarely
Speaker 3: ever like a slam dunk sure thing in this world
Speaker 3: when it comes to bow hunting mature white tails specifically,
Speaker 3: and so I you just gotta go with the flow
Speaker 3: and stay calm, and and you know it doesn't work out,
Speaker 3: you know, try it again the next time and and
Speaker 3: then it will then it'll work out. But I don't know,
Speaker 3: I was. I can just remember getting so worked up
Speaker 3: when I would when I would apply the strategy perfectly
Speaker 3: and nothing would happen out of it, which just kind
Speaker 3: of leads us to say, you're not in control at all.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so true, There's there's a lot out of your hands.
Speaker 2: All you can do is control what you can and
Speaker 2: then let the rest slide, Let the rest like hit
Speaker 2: your back and bounce off. You know, there's you just
Speaker 2: gotta kind of, like you said, roll the punches, roll
Speaker 2: the situation, and remember like this is just I always
Speaker 2: have to remind myself of this, like why are we
Speaker 2: out there doing this? We're doing this because it's supposed
Speaker 2: to be fun. This is like, this is our hobby,
Speaker 2: this is our passion, this is our lifestyle, this is
Speaker 2: this thing that we claim to love so much. Why
Speaker 2: in the world are we sitting out there beating ourselves
Speaker 2: up and making ourselves miserable while we're doing it. I
Speaker 2: don't think people do that when they like, I don't know,
Speaker 2: when their hobby is a video game and they like
Speaker 2: playing a video game, or when people like to watch sports,
Speaker 2: or when people like to play maybe people play golf
Speaker 2: beat themselves up, but I don't know. You know, you're
Speaker 2: doing this because you're trying to have fun. Why are
Speaker 2: you letting. Why are you making it so serious that
Speaker 2: you are stealing that away from yourself? Yeah, I mean
Speaker 2: I just go back and over and over, like nobody
Speaker 2: cares if you kill a deer.
Speaker 3: No, Nope, especially in today's world. Even if you do
Speaker 3: kill a deer, a giant deer, and you post it
Speaker 3: and all that stuff, people forget about it in yeah,
Speaker 3: half a day or a week or whatever, right, and
Speaker 3: it's onto the next thing. So that's why it's like,
Speaker 3: and just to finish your thought there, I mean, it
Speaker 3: is truly about you and nobody else.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and you just I mean, like we talked about,
Speaker 2: that's been a process for me. It's taken me a
Speaker 2: long time. It's easier said than done. But man, is
Speaker 2: that's just so so critical because the fund can be
Speaker 2: sucked out of this fast if you let it. But
Speaker 2: at the same time, it can be reclaimed very easily
Speaker 2: with just like that attitude shift. It's totally a mental shift.
Speaker 2: So we're kind of talking about this, like from twenty
Speaker 2: thirteen to now, how we've progressed. I think the twenty
Speaker 2: twenty two season, I guess is a perfect example of
Speaker 2: what that progression could be because we can compare twenty
Speaker 2: twenty two to twenty twenty thirteen. And so what we
Speaker 2: probably should have done was I should have probably told
Speaker 2: people the week before this to go back and listen
Speaker 2: to episode one that everyone listening now would have had
Speaker 2: the same context that we have. But maybe people can
Speaker 2: do that afterwards. But anyways, worst moment of your twenty
Speaker 2: twenty two season and then the best moments of our
Speaker 2: twenty two two season, does it? Does something come to
Speaker 2: mind for you were out the gate? Or do you
Speaker 2: want me to start and let's start with the worst.
Speaker 2: We'll start with the bad, will I'm with the good?
Speaker 3: Okay? So here's where this mindset really comes into play
Speaker 3: is that, like, when you think about it, there really
Speaker 3: is no bad part, especially if you keep a positive
Speaker 3: mental attitude. I mean, you're outside, you're doing what you love,
Speaker 3: and you know, as long as you're healthy and as
Speaker 3: long as you can get out and you have a
Speaker 3: place to hunt and you know you're able to get out.
Speaker 3: You know, however, many times that your schedule and lifestyle allows, Man,
Speaker 3: that's a good Like I've realized that's a good thing.
Speaker 3: That's a that's a really good thing. So if you
Speaker 3: take that layer off of it then, And you want
Speaker 3: to talk about things that didn't go right, man, I
Speaker 3: don't like I don't it would It would be hard
Speaker 3: for me to nitpick something in my twenty twenty two
Speaker 3: season where I was like, oh, that sucks. I got
Speaker 3: bit by a dog in South Dakota and that is
Speaker 3: the that was literally the worst part of my season
Speaker 3: from a strategy standpoint, I'm not one hundred percent sure
Speaker 3: of what I could have done better in order to
Speaker 3: you know, from from a Western Yeah, I'm sure there's
Speaker 3: a whole bunch of things, but I'm in that learning
Speaker 3: process still. Iowa tree stand saddle hunting. Man, I don't
Speaker 3: think I did anything too terribly wrong. I just applied
Speaker 3: the method that I have been for the last ten years,
Speaker 3: and you know, I got the job done.
Speaker 2: That's a good thing.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's a good thing.
Speaker 2: That's a very good thing. And I like your point,
Speaker 2: like you don't even you can almost eliminate the idea
Speaker 2: of like a worst moment or a bad moment just
Speaker 2: with your attitude. Yeah, that's a really good point. So
Speaker 2: my worst moment I had a fleeting worst moment and
Speaker 2: it was one that again comes down to like how
Speaker 2: you deal with it with your mental attitude. And that
Speaker 2: was the night I shot my Nebraska buck. And so,
Speaker 2: like I mentioned a few minutes ago, you know, my
Speaker 2: one of my two goals going to last year was
Speaker 2: good shots only right. I just wanted to make perfect shots.
Speaker 2: That was this thing that I worked on so hard
Speaker 2: last year and just wanted to be perfect. And so
Speaker 2: this deer that I got a shot at, it was
Speaker 2: the first night of this hunt in Nebraska. This great, big,
Speaker 2: giant seven pointer comes in and I shoot him, and
Speaker 2: in the moment, it was right before the end of
Speaker 2: shooting light, and he dropped and I just couldn't tell
Speaker 2: where I hit him. I thought I maybe shot right
Speaker 2: over him, and the like the first second after I
Speaker 2: shot him, I thought I shot over and I thought
Speaker 2: I missed. So I was pissed off that I thought
Speaker 2: I missed this deer. I couldn't believe I blew it.
Speaker 2: And I think about all these things I just said.
Speaker 2: I rebuilt my shooting process. I'd worked so hard with this,
Speaker 2: you know, just shot a doll last week, killed a
Speaker 2: nice belt a couple weeks before that. Like, I thought
Speaker 2: I was making such good progress, and then this thing happened. Again.
Speaker 2: So I was devastating that moment that I let it
Speaker 2: happen again, went down, checked the arrow and actually did
Speaker 2: have pretty good blood on the arrow, and so, okay, now,
Speaker 2: so I did hit it. I must have hit him high,
Speaker 2: because I just felt like in that moment, I just
Speaker 2: felt like it it was high and I couldn't tell
Speaker 2: if I grazed the top or hit high or missed above.
Speaker 2: It was something like that. So now see the blood,
Speaker 2: see the arrow, get in the blood trail, end up
Speaker 2: having pretty good blood, track the deer a couple hundred yards,
Speaker 2: and then the blood kinds of dries up, and now
Speaker 2: I'm more like, man, are we pushing this deer? I
Speaker 2: just don't know, and end up backing out for the night,
Speaker 2: decide I'm gonna come back in the next morning and
Speaker 2: try to pick it up with daylight. So that night
Speaker 2: was the worst moment of my season, because I mean,
Speaker 2: we've all been most of us have been there where
Speaker 2: you just don't know if you're gonna find that deer,
Speaker 2: if you wounded it, if you killed it, if you
Speaker 2: didn't you know what happened, Like those moments when you're
Speaker 2: on a blood trail and it's just like not going
Speaker 2: the way you wanted to, and you're just not sure
Speaker 2: what's gonna happen, and you're feeling increasingly increasingly anxious, Like
Speaker 2: those are those are tough moments. And so that night,
Speaker 2: laying in bed, I was just like you know, leading
Speaker 2: into the season, I was just sick of I don't
Speaker 2: I don't want any more missus. I don't want any
Speaker 2: more bad hits. I'm just so over that and trying
Speaker 2: everything I possibly can do to eliminate that, even though
Speaker 2: I know you can't on one hundred percent eliminate it.
Speaker 2: So I was beating myself up pretty bad about that.
Speaker 2: That was my low point.
Speaker 4: Now.
Speaker 2: Fortunately, the next morning we went out there and the
Speaker 2: deer was like ten yards away from where he stopped.
Speaker 2: He was right in front of us. I don't know
Speaker 2: how we didn't see him, and it ended up being
Speaker 2: a double long shot.
Speaker 3: It was.
Speaker 2: It was high, high, top of both lungs, but he
Speaker 2: was dead right away. I just got unlucky that we
Speaker 2: stopped a little bit too soon. So I ended up
Speaker 2: working out okay. Now, like I mentioned earlier, I still
Speaker 2: could have slowed down more on that shot, so I
Speaker 2: know I still have work to do.
Speaker 4: There.
Speaker 2: But that was my worst moment. Yeah, and it fortunately
Speaker 2: led still had a good outcome, still a good teaching moment.
Speaker 2: But I had that one moment during the season where
Speaker 2: I was feeling rough. So that was the worst moment
Speaker 2: for me.
Speaker 3: I guess if I was going to break it down,
Speaker 3: I had. I had that moment with a buck I
Speaker 3: shot here in Iowa this year. I mean that whole
Speaker 3: debacle where my arrow fell out of my bow. He
Speaker 3: saw it happen, and then he kind of took a
Speaker 3: couple backward steps and started flanking away and I shot,
Speaker 3: You know, I I shot him while he was taking
Speaker 3: small steps and I ended up hitting him, you know,
Speaker 3: back liver guts, right and so and so if I
Speaker 3: was really going to break all that down apart, maybe
Speaker 3: I would have done something a little bit different. But
Speaker 3: also it's a perfect example of you kind of got
Speaker 3: to be ready for anything, and and you know that
Speaker 3: that was a that was the low part of that story.
Speaker 2: In am I am? I remembering this story?
Speaker 4: Ray?
Speaker 2: Is this the one where you brought in a drone
Speaker 2: and stuff and then you ended up like stumbling on
Speaker 2: him later though, when you finally did find him.
Speaker 3: Oh no, dog, Yeah, dog. A dog came in, and
Speaker 3: a dog came in found a different dead, different buck,
Speaker 3: a different buck, and I was like, no way I
Speaker 3: shot this buck.
Speaker 2: No way I shot this buck.
Speaker 3: Right, he was like one hundred and thirty inch eight pointer,
Speaker 3: I mean, just tiny.
Speaker 2: And and so I was like, there's thousands of Michigan
Speaker 2: hunters right now who are pissed at you for calling me.
Speaker 3: Point two year old one hundred and thirty class, you know.
Speaker 3: But anyways, but anyway, and I'm just like, no way,
Speaker 3: I shot this deer. And I was I was about
Speaker 3: ready to tag him, and like, say, okay, I guess
Speaker 3: I shot this deer. And I go, one second, I'm
Speaker 3: gonna look for the wound channel here because I know
Speaker 3: where I hit him. And there was no woond channel
Speaker 3: at all. And so the guy with a dog we
Speaker 3: went for a little bit longer, and he's like, hey man,
Speaker 3: this buck here is ruining this dog's or this dog scent.
Speaker 3: This deer is ruining this dog scent because he can't
Speaker 3: find a scent trail if this dead deer is in
Speaker 3: the area. So I went back out there later that
Speaker 3: afternoon and ended up finding him.
Speaker 2: Yeah. That was a wild one. Yeah, wild, and I
Speaker 2: don't know was that was when you did find that buck.
Speaker 2: Was that the best moment of your season when that
Speaker 2: worry all of a sudden disappeared, or what was your
Speaker 2: best moment? Would you say?
Speaker 3: Yeah, Yeah, I would say this whole hunt was just
Speaker 3: the fact that I wasn't able to get used as
Speaker 3: meat because the coyotes got to him before I did,
Speaker 3: and so that that was a low part, I guess
Speaker 3: you would say too. But the cool part about this
Speaker 3: was I would say, the thing that I'm happy with
Speaker 3: is that this was on a brand new farm that
Speaker 3: I got access to in I think it was late
Speaker 3: August or it was late August or September. And then
Speaker 3: I went in and I know it must have been
Speaker 3: late August or something like that, and I threw up
Speaker 3: trail camera like I threw up one trail camera. I
Speaker 3: started the process of e scouting. I didn't want to
Speaker 3: go in and do it. I hunted a couple times
Speaker 3: in October, started to figure it out a little bit.
Speaker 3: And so the positive or the good takeaway there is
Speaker 3: that I applied my method to this farm and I
Speaker 3: got success. And so it just I don't know it
Speaker 3: it kept encouraging me that hey, what I'm doing is right,
Speaker 3: it is working, so keep doing it.
Speaker 2: That's such a good feeling, like when you when you're
Speaker 2: trying something and seeing those positive results come back real time.
Speaker 3: Yep.
Speaker 2: That's that is one of the very coolest things about
Speaker 2: deer hunting. There's like a whole lot of places in
Speaker 2: life where you can try some new thing, implement some
Speaker 2: new strategy and just take it. You won't see the
Speaker 2: results clearly, but in deer hunting you can usually many
Speaker 2: times get like pretty quick feedback like does this work
Speaker 2: or does this not? Did I make progress or did
Speaker 2: I not? Was this the right move?
Speaker 4: Was it not.
Speaker 2: It's a pretty tangible thing most of the time, and
Speaker 2: that's I think that's part of what makes it so fun.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Absolutely absolutely, And I'm on a roll with that,
Speaker 3: and so it's it's encouraging when I can say, hey, man,
Speaker 3: my method worked in My method worked in twenty twenty two,
Speaker 3: it worked in twenty twenty one, it worked. I got
Speaker 3: lucky in twenty twenty with the deer when I saw
Speaker 3: him raking a tree as I'm walking into the timber.
Speaker 3: It worked in twenty nineteen, it worked in twenty eighteen,
Speaker 3: and then the other two were kind of just more
Speaker 3: of well I would if I want to be serious
Speaker 3: about it. It's worked for the last ten seasons since
Speaker 3: twenty sixteen, well not ten seasons, but twenty sixteen. And
Speaker 3: so it's re encouraging that that, you know, I mean
Speaker 3: ten years of shooting a target buck. That's that's that's
Speaker 3: reassuring to me that, hey, man, you just keep just
Speaker 3: keep doing what you're doing, be able to be mobile,
Speaker 3: be able to have different thoughts and ideas, and then
Speaker 3: apply it how you see fit. And when it works
Speaker 3: like that, man, it feels pretty good. Yeah.
Speaker 2: I can't argue with that. My best moment then yes,
Speaker 2: And I'll say moments this. So I guess my worst
Speaker 2: and best both relate to the two goals I had
Speaker 2: last year. So if if the worst one was related
Speaker 2: to my shooting goal, my best part is related to
Speaker 2: the keep a fun goal. And one of the big
Speaker 2: things I did last year was was pull back on
Speaker 2: planning hunts or scheduling things that are just going to
Speaker 2: be like what's going to give you the best chance
Speaker 2: to kill big deer, and instead like prioritize fun. And
Speaker 2: part of that is prioritize, like your family, and and
Speaker 2: so that led to some experiences that are, without a doubt,
Speaker 2: like highlights of my season. So one of those highlights
Speaker 2: was carving out a big chunk of time to go
Speaker 2: to my family deer camp and be up there with
Speaker 2: my dad and take my son effort first first, like
Speaker 2: full deer camp kind of weak almost like four days
Speaker 2: I think we have. And so just getting to have
Speaker 2: him up the cabin for an extended period of time
Speaker 2: hunting with me every day, you know, just like seeing
Speaker 2: his joy in those experiences was just so cool. Like
Speaker 2: one day we found a buck track and so it's
Speaker 2: basically let's do whatever's fun. So I was like, do
Speaker 2: you want to track this buck? It's like, yeah, let's
Speaker 2: do it. And so We're tracking this buck through the snow,
Speaker 2: and I'm assuming it's a buck based on the track,
Speaker 2: and We're in this thick pine stand. It was very
Speaker 2: deep snow, and every once in a while there was
Speaker 2: like big clumps of snow that would fall out of
Speaker 2: the pine trees and collapse down the ground. And so
Speaker 2: sometimes that would happen like way off in the distance,
Speaker 2: and it would look like like a big dark thing
Speaker 2: moving off in the distance. Okay. So at one point
Speaker 2: we're tracking along and he's so excited and I'm, you know,
Speaker 2: getting them pumped up about it and stuff, and all
Speaker 2: of a sudden he sees what must have been, at
Speaker 2: least I'm assuming must have been one of these clumps
Speaker 2: of snow falling way off in the distance. Like, Dad,
Speaker 2: I just saw the buck go off from the distance.
Speaker 2: I just saw him, Dad, I saw him, and I
Speaker 2: was like, oh man, that's awesome. He's just up there.
Speaker 2: We were both really excited. And then he turns to
Speaker 2: me because he's facing towards it, towards this what I
Speaker 2: assumed to be a fake deer. He turns back towards
Speaker 2: me and he says, I have tears in my eyes
Speaker 2: because I'm so excited, and I see tears coming down
Speaker 2: his cheeks. He's so excited and fired up by the
Speaker 2: fact that we maybe saw this buck. He was crying
Speaker 2: from joy. I mean, that was just like, I mean,
Speaker 2: can you imagine anything better than that?
Speaker 3: Right? Yeah?
Speaker 2: So I got to go and spend deer camp with him,
Speaker 2: and then later in the year I took him out
Speaker 2: on a number of other hunts back in southern Michigan.
Speaker 2: We had like really fun experiences, saw a lot of deer,
Speaker 2: got to see a buck that we were after, so
Speaker 2: he was fired up about it. And then I was
Speaker 2: able to kill two different bucks locally in Michigan that
Speaker 2: both of my sons were able to come out and
Speaker 2: help me track. So I got to have my boys
Speaker 2: there to help orcover two different bucks. Just like so cool.
Speaker 2: And this is the first year that Colt, my youngest,
Speaker 2: was like old enough to really get it too. And uh,
Speaker 2: just having them there, being on the blood trail, having
Speaker 2: them be so excited to walk up on the deer
Speaker 2: and all that kind of stuff. That was by far
Speaker 2: the coolest stuff of the year. Just being there with
Speaker 2: the boys, having them experience that, having them actually like understand,
Speaker 2: be excited about it, geeked out about it, getting to
Speaker 2: interact and see the things out there. Those were hugh
Speaker 2: two highlights. Yeah, and just such a great reminder of
Speaker 2: you know what really matters?
Speaker 3: Yeah, agree, one hundred percent. Man, I love like, I
Speaker 3: don't know again, what's the same and what's different. My
Speaker 3: same is the same as my passion for this. But
Speaker 3: what's different is that I don't care. I just want
Speaker 3: to be like if you ask me, hey, Dane, what
Speaker 3: do you want to do? All day long? Every day?
Speaker 3: I just want to hang out with my kids. Man,
Speaker 3: That's all I want to do. And so whether that's
Speaker 3: doing my passion or doing something that they love, I'm
Speaker 3: realizing that I have this passion, but that my passion
Speaker 3: is really secondary to everything else in my life. And
Speaker 3: so if I can get my kids to come and
Speaker 3: do these things with me, which so far they like
Speaker 3: to do, awesome. But if not, man, I don't care.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And man, that's been such a great reminder. Like
Speaker 2: We've talked about this in previous years, but one of
Speaker 2: the best little tools that I've had now to help
Speaker 2: reverse any kind of downer feeling I'm getting when I'm hunting,
Speaker 2: if I'm out there. And I did this when I
Speaker 2: thought I when I wasn't sure about that shot on
Speaker 2: that Nebraska buck, and I was beating myself up. Whenever
Speaker 2: I found like myself at the moment like that, I
Speaker 2: always remember, like in the end, this does not matter
Speaker 2: that much. Like I still have my kid, my kids
Speaker 2: are healthy, I've got a wonderful family. I'm gonna go home,
Speaker 2: you know, next week and get to give them a
Speaker 2: hug at night, read them a story like that's the
Speaker 2: only thing that really really really matters. So that perspective
Speaker 2: is so important. Absolutely, so that said, Dan, And that's
Speaker 2: another thing like I've been saying that said for ten
Speaker 2: years now, over and over again, an obnoxious amount of
Speaker 2: the time. So that being said, quickly, let's preview for
Speaker 2: folks a little snippet of what they have to look
Speaker 2: forward to as far as our stories for the twenty
Speaker 2: twenty three season. What do you have planned so far?
Speaker 3: You know, it's always Iowa. You know, it's always going
Speaker 3: through the process. You know here next month in June.
Speaker 3: I'm going to be not sure when this launches, but
Speaker 3: June is usually camera deployment month for me. And get
Speaker 3: some get a little mineral out. There's some places where
Speaker 3: I've already dumped the mineral, get some cameras over there,
Speaker 3: start taking inventory. Collecting velvet pictures is probably, to this
Speaker 3: day one of my favorite things to do is just
Speaker 3: look at velvet trail camera pictures.
Speaker 2: Man.
Speaker 3: I don't know why, but I love it. Just found
Speaker 3: out a couple of weeks ago that I drew South
Speaker 3: Dakota again, so I've been going back to South Dakota.
Speaker 3: I'll find out here in probably the next three or
Speaker 3: four days if I draw Kansas, and so that that's
Speaker 3: potentially on the schedule. If I draw Kansas, I might
Speaker 3: as well haunt Oklahoma since I'll be close and and
Speaker 3: and so that that that's always a possibility. But that's
Speaker 3: that's the deer hunting right there. And then outside of that, man,
Speaker 3: it's just life. And this is going to sound crazy,
Speaker 3: maybe it's not crazy, but like I said, man, I
Speaker 3: really do like spending time with my kids. And one
Speaker 3: one way I spend time with my kids and is
Speaker 3: coaching them in sports. And recently I have fallen in
Speaker 3: love with coaching and especially little kids that they don't
Speaker 3: necessarily have egos yet they're not they don't think they're
Speaker 3: the best type of scenarios. And so I coached my
Speaker 3: son's uh first and second he's a second grader. I
Speaker 3: coach his first and second grade football. I'm coaching is baseball.
Speaker 3: I'll probably coach my son's T ball league this this summer.
Speaker 3: And you know, I just I love doing that type
Speaker 3: of stuff and I want to continue to do to
Speaker 3: more of that on top of you know, the fishing
Speaker 3: and all the other outdoor activities.
Speaker 2: Nice. Yeah, that sounds it sounds like you're gonna be busy.
Speaker 2: That's a lot of coach.
Speaker 3: Yeah, dude, we have something every single We just got
Speaker 3: done with spring football last week, so we were doing
Speaker 3: something six nights of the week, six days of the week,
Speaker 3: and so now work down to five.
Speaker 2: I think, yikes. Yeah, it sounds like my worst nightmare.
Speaker 2: But kudos to you.
Speaker 3: Well, at some point your boys, you know, they're gonna
Speaker 3: get into activities and uh, someone's gonna have to shuttle
Speaker 3: them back and forth. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm I'm uh, it's true. True. For now, I'm
Speaker 2: I'm enjoying the fact that the evening activities enjoy. Let's
Speaker 2: go catch minnows, let's go catch fish, let's go for
Speaker 2: a hike. But someday, you're probably right, they're gonna say, hey, dad,
Speaker 2: I wanna go to football or I want to play basketball,
Speaker 2: and yep, that'll be all right too.
Speaker 3: Are you already out in Idaho?
Speaker 2: Yeah, yep, we gotut here two weeks ago. So yes.
Speaker 2: We spent the last two weekends, one weekend camping in
Speaker 2: Grand Teeton National Park. Last weekend it was Yellowstone National Park.
Speaker 2: Been hiking fishing, mental catching, rock throwing, rock climbing. Uh,
Speaker 2: they've been, they've been enjoying the outside.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I didn't understand. I mean when I was a kid,
Speaker 3: I loved it. But you mentioned rock throwing. Kids love
Speaker 3: throwing rocks.
Speaker 2: Man obsessed with it. Yeah, it's a yeah, I don't
Speaker 2: quite understand it, but it is endlessly enthralling to these
Speaker 2: little boys. So yeah, man, that sounds like a great
Speaker 2: schedule My year coming up as far as hunting season,
Speaker 2: looks like a September trip to do like an Upper
Speaker 2: Great Lakes adventure of sorts. I think I'm gonna try
Speaker 2: to put together a little road trip where I'll be
Speaker 2: doing some fishing in the boundary waters and some grouse
Speaker 2: hunting up there and then screwed over the border to
Speaker 2: Wisconsin and do a deer hunt. So I'm gonna pair.
Speaker 2: I'm gonna do like a deer hunting Upper Great Lakes
Speaker 2: road trip that showcases like the diversity of experiences you
Speaker 2: can have, Like you can do one of these trips,
Speaker 2: and it's not just about killing big buck. It's about
Speaker 2: having a cool, diverse experience. So camping, canoeing, fishing, hunting,
Speaker 2: I'm gonna I'm gonna do that. Yeah, so I'm excited
Speaker 2: about that one.
Speaker 3: I've been to the Boundary waters. Man, that's fun. Uh
Speaker 3: My uncle, my great uncle used to have a cabin
Speaker 3: on Oak Island, the furthest uh most point in Minnesota.
Speaker 3: Nice how it goes, it goes, It kind of jets
Speaker 3: up just for a little bit, and in that little
Speaker 3: area of the Boundary Waters is an island and so
Speaker 3: uh man, that was h that was a fun experience
Speaker 3: up there.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's It's an incredible country. So excited, excited about that.
Speaker 2: And then I'm gonna do a bunch of local stuff again,
Speaker 2: my usual local Michigan hunts have got a few bucks
Speaker 2: that made it through the last year that I'm excited
Speaker 2: to see again. And then I'm going to spend some
Speaker 2: extended time on the back forty again.
Speaker 3: Awesome.
Speaker 2: We're gonna hopefully some more mentoring of new hunters out there,
Speaker 2: and then also try to help one or two of
Speaker 2: my past mentees hopefully get their first archery deer or
Speaker 2: first buck and do a film talking about the progress
Speaker 2: that's been made out there and how all these different
Speaker 2: new folks have gotten to have their first hunting experiences
Speaker 2: on the property and kind of showcase the progress we've
Speaker 2: made out there, so that'll be a fun hunt. We're
Speaker 2: gonna do a longer hunt, like maybe a week or
Speaker 2: so up at my northern Michigan property with my dad
Speaker 2: again and try to get him his first buck up
Speaker 2: there in a long time. And we've been doing some
Speaker 2: big habitat work this spring. We did a bunch of
Speaker 2: cutting and making some wildlife openings and a couple of
Speaker 2: new food plots and really expanding kind of the quality
Speaker 2: habitat there. So I'm gonna hopefully really set it up
Speaker 2: nicely for my dad to have a chance at a
Speaker 2: deer up there, which would be really cool. So pumped
Speaker 2: for that. And then I think I'll be going back
Speaker 2: to Nebraska again during the rut and trying to line
Speaker 2: up a Illinois property been working on all year. Has
Speaker 2: not come together yet, but I'm still banking on an
Speaker 2: Illinois hunt too. So that's my That's what my season
Speaker 2: looks like this year.
Speaker 3: Sounds good, So sounds good.
Speaker 2: Should be should be fun. Uh Well, I don't know, man,
Speaker 2: That's what I got for this week's episode. You got
Speaker 2: anything else you want to talk about?
Speaker 3: Not really, man, I think, Uh it was. It's fun
Speaker 3: catching up like this and looking back. Uh, I don't know,
Speaker 3: I dwelling on different parts of our lives and then
Speaker 3: seeing how, you know, how things have changed or haven't changed,
Speaker 3: and uh how much we went from radio DJ to
Speaker 3: to just like normal conversation.
Speaker 2: Yeah, thank goodness, Yeah, thank goodness. Hey and Dan, what
Speaker 2: is your middle name?
Speaker 3: Keith?
Speaker 4: Gee?
Speaker 2: I think Bartholomew so better, but uh, I guess Keith
Speaker 2: can work.
Speaker 3: I'm glad I have been to Dame is not Bartholomew.
Speaker 3: You know, I would have been bullied by my own
Speaker 3: friends if they found out my middle name was Bartholomew.
Speaker 2: Deservedly so yes, yes, yes, all right man, thanks for
Speaker 2: doing this. It's good to catch up.
Speaker 3: Ay, same to you, man, all.
Speaker 2: Right, and that is a wrap for this week's show.
Speaker 2: Hope you enjoyed this kind of blast from the past
Speaker 2: reflection on the past decade. It's gone so fast, pretty wild.
Speaker 2: I hope you've been along for the ride for a
Speaker 2: I don't know, maybe all of it or a big
Speaker 2: part of it, and that you found this to be
Speaker 2: a valuable you see your time as much as it
Speaker 2: has been for me and Dan, Thank you for being
Speaker 2: along for that journey, thank you for being a part
Speaker 2: of this community, and until next time, thanks for staying
Speaker 2: wired to hunt.