Speaker 1: Welcome back to another episode of Cutting the Distance podcast.
Speaker 1: This week's guest is a longtime friend, John Gabriel. He's
Speaker 1: the owner and operator of Apex Advertising. Welcome to the show, John.
Speaker 2: Thank you appreciate you having me on. Good to see
Speaker 2: your face.
Speaker 1: Yeah, good to see you. People probably don't know this,
Speaker 1: but I probably talked to John on the phone more
Speaker 1: than any other human being in my circle of friends.
Speaker 1: And why Well, I really like John. He's a cool
Speaker 1: guy and we share a lot in common. If we
Speaker 1: want to rant or rave about something, it seems like
Speaker 1: we're always on the line doing it, but we actually
Speaker 1: work really close together as John does all the graphic
Speaker 1: layout of our packaging. Our show displays man tons of
Speaker 1: our our graphics at Phelps game calls. So, but I
Speaker 1: think I think you and I met like years ago,
Speaker 1: back when I co founded an elk hunting magazine called
Speaker 1: Extreme Elk Magazine back in the day. I think you
Speaker 1: were kind of helping out with some graphic art assets.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think, Uh Man, has it been that long.
Speaker 2: It's definitely it's been a long time. I remember the magazine.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it was like twenty ten, I think is when
Speaker 1: I first met you and then you know, and then
Speaker 1: like in person, it was shortly thereafter. I think we
Speaker 1: were a bow shoot or something and spent a lot
Speaker 1: of time over the years hanging out and enjoyed your
Speaker 1: your companionship and and your your your take on a
Speaker 1: lot of stuff. Now, John's just not a pretty face
Speaker 1: and uh a wizard for graphic arts. I will say
Speaker 1: he is quite a quite a hunter. And some people specialize.
Speaker 1: I feel like I kind of specialize in elk, but
Speaker 1: I feel like John's kind of a generalist. I feel
Speaker 1: like he's really good and a lot of different hunting.
Speaker 1: So he's really great hunting with bears, elk, antelope, deer, mule, deer.
Speaker 2: Uh.
Speaker 1: He sucks at turkey hunting, but that could be where
Speaker 1: he lives, right, Turkey hunting in Montana is probably not
Speaker 1: the greatest.
Speaker 2: Well, there's birds all around. Well we're just gonna we're
Speaker 2: just gonna throw it out there. I yeah, turkey hunting, Yeah,
Speaker 2: I suck at it. I am me in Turkey's we
Speaker 2: just don't jive.
Speaker 1: So that.
Speaker 2: We're going to change that one of these days.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well you should do it this year. Yeah. Well,
Speaker 1: it seems like anytime you text me or call me
Speaker 1: about in the springtime. About turkeys. You're like these damn things.
Speaker 1: They're like all over the place, but just on the
Speaker 1: wrong side of the fence. They love private property, especially
Speaker 1: Montana they do.
Speaker 2: I know. It's like always by someone's barn or like
Speaker 2: something pecking away in someone's yard. Every time I end
Speaker 2: up finding a big group of them. But I don't know.
Speaker 2: We've had a few out in the woods, but uh yeah,
Speaker 2: I just I don't know. I can't I can't figure
Speaker 2: them out quite yet, so I'll be honest, It's not
Speaker 2: like I've invested a ton of time in them like
Speaker 2: I do with other animals. But maybe this year we'll
Speaker 2: get a little more into it. So I don't know.
Speaker 2: I gotta fill at tagged once.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I think. I think if you put the
Speaker 1: amount of effort into turkey hunting as you do everything else,
Speaker 1: you guys would be slaying them. But I know that
Speaker 1: there's other things take it priority that time of year.
Speaker 1: I mean, bear hunting that's a lot funner than turkey
Speaker 1: hunting for a lot of people, so and I know
Speaker 1: you sure enjoy it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, I think that's kind of the one
Speaker 2: thing that that time of year I'm going out looking
Speaker 2: for bears because they kind of open it pretty much
Speaker 2: at the same time here around April fifteenth, so it's like,
Speaker 2: once that hits, I'm up in the hills watching the
Speaker 2: snow melt looking for a bear rather than I am
Speaker 2: chasing a bird. So I don't know. I mean, maybe
Speaker 2: I should reverse that a little bit though, and go
Speaker 2: spend the first week looking for a bird and then
Speaker 2: focus on the bears, because I don't seem to find
Speaker 2: the bear I want. Untell. I well, like this year,
Speaker 2: I jug it out clear to the end of season,
Speaker 2: so apparently I like waiting around on that. But maybe
Speaker 2: we'll have to dedicate a little more time just some turkeys.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, the same thing could be said about me
Speaker 1: and shooting a deer, an early season mule deer or
Speaker 1: an early season white tail versus elk. Seems like every
Speaker 1: year that first week at Elk archery elk season, I'm
Speaker 1: out beating around and I think, what am I doing.
Speaker 1: I'm not hearing any bugles, it's hot, it's there's nothing going.
Speaker 1: I'm just educating elk. You know what, Next year, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna go deer hunting the first week archery instead. Of
Speaker 1: elk hunting is you know what, there's I'll probably have
Speaker 1: a lot more fun or you know, it's it's something different.
Speaker 1: I've never killed a mule deer with my bow. I'd
Speaker 1: love to, but it's always been every time just like,
Speaker 1: oh elk though, so I can see you know, your
Speaker 1: priorities can be skewed a little bit.
Speaker 2: I'm right there with you. I mean, it's like there's
Speaker 2: been a lot of years when I thought about going
Speaker 2: over to Washington, like hunting white tails and patterning them
Speaker 2: during the summer and like that first week of September
Speaker 2: and you know when it opens and try to you know,
Speaker 2: get a bucked in. But I always enjoyed hunting during
Speaker 2: the rut. It was something to do later, so I
Speaker 2: waited till November. Plus the elk bug. So like you,
Speaker 2: I'm like, I want to be chasing elk. I don't
Speaker 2: want to be out dinking around chasing a deer. So Utah,
Speaker 2: when I lived there was kind of fun because you
Speaker 2: could actually chase them in August, you know, up in
Speaker 2: the high country, so I felt like it never cut
Speaker 2: into my September, so that was great. But once I
Speaker 2: moved away from there, it kind of now I'm back
Speaker 2: in the Elk game.
Speaker 1: So yeah, well I don't feel too sorry for you.
Speaker 1: We'll talk about your game here soon enough. But you
Speaker 1: had a kind of a wild story with your bear
Speaker 1: last spring. I got this text and you're like, I
Speaker 1: got a bear, but I can't find the dang thing,
Speaker 1: and then you know, all this crazy stuff happened, and
Speaker 1: then kind of don't walk us through that. That was
Speaker 1: kind of a funny story, and I liked to make
Speaker 1: I'd made funny a little bit, but it was all
Speaker 1: come from a place of love.
Speaker 2: Yeah, man, that I spent a lot of days up
Speaker 2: looking for a bear last year. I think I was
Speaker 2: like sixteen days or something like. I had like total
Speaker 2: like trying to find a bear from April until the
Speaker 2: end of May. I ended up finding this big bear. Well, actually,
Speaker 2: I hadn't seen a bear for I don't know, a
Speaker 2: couple of weeks at that point, and that morning I
Speaker 2: spot one in the middle of the highway on my
Speaker 2: way up to my spot in right at daylight. And
Speaker 2: I was running behind and had this giant bear across
Speaker 2: the road right in front of me and ran on
Speaker 2: some private and I whatever, So I take off up
Speaker 2: in the hills where I was going sold like an
Speaker 2: hour ago, get up there and sit glass till I
Speaker 2: don't know, it's like eleven o'clock or so nothing. And
Speaker 2: then I was seeing these turkeys back to my turkey,
Speaker 2: so they were down in the bottom of this by
Speaker 2: this creek, way down in this hole. So I decided
Speaker 2: to grab my shotgun and go and chase a bird
Speaker 2: instead of a bear. So I take off dive clear
Speaker 2: down in this hole like a mile from the truck,
Speaker 2: and I'm getting set up on the bird and I
Speaker 2: start calling the bird's coming, and it's coming around this tree,
Speaker 2: and I'm like, I'm finally gonna kill one of these things,
Speaker 2: Like this is great, like I'm gonna shoot this big tom.
Speaker 2: And then I look up past the tomb like over
Speaker 2: in the hillside and i see something black at like
Speaker 2: three hundred yards and I'm like, you've got to be
Speaker 2: kidding me, And I really instantly realized it's like a
Speaker 2: big bear. And so long story short, I throw my
Speaker 2: binos up, I look realize it's a huge bear, and
Speaker 2: I hike clear back out of there. Didn't even shoot
Speaker 2: the turkey, end up spooking the birds off. Didn't even
Speaker 2: shoot this turkey.
Speaker 1: Well, you know what, if Ryan Lampers is listening to this,
Speaker 1: then he would probably be mad if you had to
Speaker 1: shot the turkey, he'd be like, what's wrong with you? Man?
Speaker 2: He probably would here. It gives me enough grief anyways.
Speaker 2: So I hike clear back up out of there, get
Speaker 2: back to my glassy knob, grab my gun, get all
Speaker 2: set up, and I'm watching this hole. I sat there
Speaker 2: all day till dark, never seen the bear. I'm like,
Speaker 2: you crap. So I go back up the next day.
Speaker 2: Nothing And it was like a week later. I go
Speaker 2: back up there, and I knew this bear had to
Speaker 2: be in that area because there's a bunch of elk
Speaker 2: that we're getting ready to calve down in the bottom
Speaker 2: and it's right at the end of May. And I
Speaker 2: had Kylie with me. We come around this corner and
Speaker 2: there's this meadow down in the bottom with a wet
Speaker 2: just like that skunk cabbage grass stuff, and it like
Speaker 2: just a spot where you should see a bear feeding.
Speaker 2: And I've looked in there and looked in there for
Speaker 2: the last three years and never seen one in there.
Speaker 2: We come around, of course, she looks out the window
Speaker 2: and I stop and she goes, there's a bear stand
Speaker 2: down there in your meadow. What I'm like, no, stop lying,
Speaker 2: And I thought she was pulling my leg and she's like, no,
Speaker 2: I'm being serious, there's a bear stand down there. Well,
Speaker 2: of course, instantly once I realized she was being serious,
Speaker 2: I flew out of the truck and grabbed my gun
Speaker 2: because I thought, you know, I knew it was. It
Speaker 2: had to be that bear because where I spotted him
Speaker 2: the couple of days or the week before, it was
Speaker 2: like down three quarters of a mile from there. And
Speaker 2: I bail out, go around the front of the truck
Speaker 2: down over the hill and it's like this like lodge
Speaker 2: pole thick timber crossed and my short legs, I can't
Speaker 2: really crawl over anything, and you know, so I was
Speaker 2: like scrambling and this bear is only down there, like
Speaker 2: two hundred and fifty yards and I'm trying to get
Speaker 2: a rest, but it's so steep downhill through this timber
Speaker 2: and I can't find anything. So finally I find this
Speaker 2: down tree and I lean across it and I pulled
Speaker 2: a total rookie move and I put the barrel on
Speaker 2: the on the tree. But it was so steep I
Speaker 2: kind of had to to lower my stock, you know
Speaker 2: that like inch and a half two inches that the
Speaker 2: stock is right there down to get the barrel to
Speaker 2: get the angle. If I was taller, I wouldn't have
Speaker 2: had that problem. But I put the barrel on the thing,
Speaker 2: and I wasn't thinking about the harmonics of the barrel,
Speaker 2: and I dialed the gun. It was like two hundred
Speaker 2: and thirty six yards, touched it off, and all I
Speaker 2: hear is Kylie, you missed. And She's yelling down through
Speaker 2: the trees behind me, and I'm like, there's no way
Speaker 2: I missed that bear. And I look and he's just
Speaker 2: standing there. I'm like, oh, so Jack and Ochelle in boom,
Speaker 2: same thing, just stand there. She's like, you missed, and
Speaker 2: I'm just hear her voice like echoing down the timber,
Speaker 2: and I, of course, at this point I'm pissed. I'm like,
Speaker 2: how did I miss that bear?
Speaker 1: Well?
Speaker 2: He runs that time under this big tree and it's
Speaker 2: like the only tree in the meadow. So I'm like
Speaker 2: feeling pretty safe that like he's not gonna be able
Speaker 2: to get away, and I go down through the timber more.
Speaker 2: But I had to get another angle now to like
Speaker 2: look at this tree. Well, finally he takes off, running
Speaker 2: out across the meadow. By that time I had moved
Speaker 2: positions though, and got on another tree. Well that time,
Speaker 2: I put the stock on the tree and I kind
Speaker 2: of have my hand like rested against in the stock
Speaker 2: and kind of everything lean across my arm and he
Speaker 2: runs out across and I figures like three hundred yards
Speaker 2: and I touch it off boom here the bullet hit.
Speaker 2: And I'm like, I know I hit that bear, and
Speaker 2: he takes course at that point too, when it hit him,
Speaker 2: he went into like overdrive, like turned on the after burners,
Speaker 2: and I was like, Okay, that bear's hit. So I
Speaker 2: hike all the way back up through this crap to
Speaker 2: the truck and kay. He's like, I don't think you
Speaker 2: hit it, and I'm like, no, I know I hit
Speaker 2: that bear. And I'm like, did you hear the bullet?
Speaker 2: And watch how fast he ran? And then at that
Speaker 2: point I think I text you and I you know,
Speaker 2: it was like, oh, I shot this bear. And well
Speaker 2: then is when it got wild. So I went around,
Speaker 2: drove around, had to go clear around and come over
Speaker 2: on this other hillside and hike down over the top
Speaker 2: and down in there, and as I start hiking down
Speaker 2: in there, I'm like, well, he should be right around
Speaker 2: here in this creek, and I'm like it's like open
Speaker 2: grassy meadow and I'm nothing, no bear, no sign of blood,
Speaker 2: no tracks, no nothing. And then of course on the
Speaker 2: hillside where I shot from is like this thick lodge
Speaker 2: pole jack for like you can't see five feet. And
Speaker 2: then I started getting kind of nervous, and so I
Speaker 2: think at that point I had like scoured the whole meadow,
Speaker 2: looked where like he ran, found kind of his tracks
Speaker 2: going through the dirt and everything, and well that's when
Speaker 2: it started getting a little western. So at that point
Speaker 2: I think I text you again, and I was like, man,
Speaker 2: like I shot this bear, like I know I hit him.
Speaker 2: I can't find him.
Speaker 1: I don't know.
Speaker 2: I swear he's dead. He's got to be right here.
Speaker 2: And then ended up going up in those trees and well,
Speaker 2: actually I went up in the trees a little bit,
Speaker 2: and then I backtracked, went all the way back up
Speaker 2: to the truck and back around, and then came down
Speaker 2: through the timber on top of him that way, and
Speaker 2: it was so thick I couldn't see anything, and as
Speaker 2: I started down in the trees. Then I heard something
Speaker 2: coming down at me. I must have got like below him,
Speaker 2: and he was alive, and I'm like, oh no, and
Speaker 2: I hear like a bunch of wrestling, and of course
Speaker 2: I can't see anything, and got my rifle and I
Speaker 2: had my ten mil on my binal harness, but I
Speaker 2: probably should have had that. So I kind of like
Speaker 2: got nervous and I backed out, and I just didn't
Speaker 2: know at that point what was going on. I don't know,
Speaker 2: And so I went back to the other hillside, glassing
Speaker 2: across in the timber trying to get a look. Ended
Speaker 2: up going back around it up clear up to the top,
Speaker 2: get the truck, and I'm like, let's go back to
Speaker 2: where I shot from, reassess this whole situation. Like something's
Speaker 2: not right. I didn't know when I heard the noise
Speaker 2: if it was him, there was another bear. I was
Speaker 2: kind of like not sure what was going on. And
Speaker 2: I go all the way back around and looked down
Speaker 2: in the meadow and that thing's laying dead right out
Speaker 2: in the middle of the meadow where I shot the
Speaker 2: first shot.
Speaker 1: Yeah, did he just like could do a big figure
Speaker 1: eight and come get back.
Speaker 2: Or yeah, he went up where I shot where I
Speaker 2: finally hit him on the third shot, and he ran
Speaker 2: up the creek draw into the thick trees, up through
Speaker 2: the blowdowns into the jack Firs, and then when I
Speaker 2: circled under him, he went around and then came down
Speaker 2: and through the jack Firs all the way down. And
Speaker 2: obviously he was hit pretty good, but I had kind
Speaker 2: of spooked him, and you know, it was on that
Speaker 2: death run, and I ended up following his tracks and
Speaker 2: he like went straight down through the jack fers and
Speaker 2: just happened to like run out of steam and like
Speaker 2: cart wheeled out into the meadow and was just like
Speaker 2: laying out in the middle of the meadow. So like
Speaker 2: he was dead in the timber. But I spooked him
Speaker 2: and then he like ran down and like you know,
Speaker 2: ran out of steam one hundred yards down there and
Speaker 2: like lipped out in the meadow and died. But I
Speaker 2: never went back down to the meadow because I'd went
Speaker 2: clear back around on the road and you know, glass
Speaker 2: and trying to see it, and then there he was.
Speaker 2: But yeah, when I went down there, I mean I
Speaker 2: hit him. It was he was quartered away on that
Speaker 2: third shot, but it went up in there and blew
Speaker 2: up everything. So I mean he was, you know, kind
Speaker 2: of on his last leg I think when I spooked him.
Speaker 2: But yeah, it was just such a weird deal to
Speaker 2: like go back, and I thought, honestly when I drove
Speaker 2: back and got out that it was him standing out
Speaker 2: in the meadow because you know, like running away from me,
Speaker 2: right until I realized he was dead. And then of
Speaker 2: course I couldn't believe it at that point, but then
Speaker 2: I had to go clear back around and hike all
Speaker 2: the way back down in there. So yeah, that's right,
Speaker 2: it was a It was a good bear. He was
Speaker 2: actually just got the tooth age back yesterday, and I
Speaker 2: was a seven year old bear. For a mountain bear,
Speaker 2: that's pretty big. But he's almost six and a half feet,
Speaker 2: so I mean he's he's a big, big Montana bear.
Speaker 1: So have a question what caliber of rifle we're using?
Speaker 2: Yeah, So on that one was a six five PRC
Speaker 2: and I had really loaded some one hundred and forty
Speaker 2: grain burgers and had that gun and I just shot
Speaker 2: it a couple of weeks prior at the range doing
Speaker 2: a bunch of load development. Everything was shooting a thousand
Speaker 2: yards and I mean that gun is so deadly, but
Speaker 2: I think the one thing I just wanted to kill
Speaker 2: something with it, to say that I had shot something
Speaker 2: with the six y five, because I had shot an
Speaker 2: antelope the year before, but not with that bullet. It
Speaker 2: was just the factory horned day loads. So I wanted
Speaker 2: just to shoot something with that load. But now looking back,
Speaker 2: I ways should have had like my seven som with
Speaker 2: like a Burger one to eighty or something bigger. I
Speaker 2: won't be shooting a bear with the six five anymore.
Speaker 1: Right, Well, I was going to say, you should probably
Speaker 1: invest in probably the most deadly rifle in the world,
Speaker 1: the six five creed More. I mean, it's going to
Speaker 1: take it up a notch from that six five pr
Speaker 1: or See, it's the six to five creed More. You
Speaker 1: look it up lots of there's a lot a lot
Speaker 1: on the internet about you.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'll take your word for that. I heard I
Speaker 2: heard those guys use the Maverick too.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah they do they. I mean, it's the deadly
Speaker 1: thrill thing. So fast forward to elk season. So archery
Speaker 1: elk season, you're just hunting Montana this year? The list
Speaker 1: last past year. How'd that go.
Speaker 2: It was fun. We kind of went back to a
Speaker 2: spot that we've had some luck in the past and uh,
Speaker 2: fortunate enough to get a tag and I was really
Speaker 2: looking forward to it. Spent a lot of time, you know,
Speaker 2: kind of scout in the summer like I've done in
Speaker 2: the past, found some really good bowls, kind of set
Speaker 2: my target on a couple, and man, I went over
Speaker 2: opening weekend, just like you talk about hunting the first
Speaker 2: week of September, and it didn't open to I think
Speaker 2: the sixth or seventh this year here, and it was hot,
Speaker 2: the elk weren't doing much pretty. I mean, I found some,
Speaker 2: but it was total summer mode. So I spent the
Speaker 2: first week really just trying to find a couple of
Speaker 2: the bulls that I had found during the summer, and
Speaker 2: had some close calls on a couple, and yeah, it
Speaker 2: was It was interesting. And then all of a sudden,
Speaker 2: we got a rainstorm that moved in here, and anyone
Speaker 2: that knows Montana and the gumbo mud that makes a
Speaker 2: mess in a hurry. So I ended up having to
Speaker 2: move my trailer and get it on some gravel, and
Speaker 2: then the rain hit and I thought I'll kind of
Speaker 2: speel it out and see what happens. It was so bad,
Speaker 2: like even the gravel road turned a straight mud. I
Speaker 2: barely got my trailer out and like four wheel drive
Speaker 2: down the gravel for long ways and it was a disaster.
Speaker 2: So ended up coming I took a week off and
Speaker 2: then ended up coming back with Kylie and then she
Speaker 2: had her wife. Kylie's my wife. We call her Kyle.
Speaker 1: Kyle, and she's kind of like your main hunting partner too.
Speaker 1: You know, you've kind of like doubled down on your
Speaker 1: on your relationship of marriage and hunting partner, and some people,
Speaker 1: I mean, you might take some people off guard if
Speaker 1: you say, yeah, I've been sleeping with my hunting partner.
Speaker 1: I tell him that about my hairstylist. I'm like, I'm
Speaker 1: sleeping with my hairstylist. Well, if that's my wife, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2: I might throw some people off yeah yeah. But yeah,
Speaker 2: So took her back. She had a week off and
Speaker 2: actually nine days, and she'd saved her vacation all year
Speaker 2: and that was kind of all she had left, and
Speaker 2: we went for it, and she kind of had her
Speaker 2: own battle she was dealing with this year versus a
Speaker 2: normal hunting season for her.
Speaker 1: Well, you have, you had an extra, you had a
Speaker 1: plus one in your hunting group.
Speaker 2: We did, we had a plus one. We had we
Speaker 2: had a bean in the oven.
Speaker 1: So fun on the fun in the oven, so to speak,
Speaker 1: fun in the oven. She was with child.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, and so it was exciting for both of us,
Speaker 2: you know, and something obviously I knew that was going
Speaker 2: to change, and you know, affect how we hunted a little.
Speaker 2: And she's like, we'll just see how it goes. And
Speaker 2: so we started hunting. A couple of days went by. Actually,
Speaker 2: the first morning she goes out and she says, I
Speaker 2: just want to kill a bowl with my bow, like
Speaker 2: that was her goal this year. At that point, she
Speaker 2: was twenty seven weeks pregnant, and she says, I just
Speaker 2: want to kill a bowl.
Speaker 1: Cool, doesn't She don't care if it's four hundred inches
Speaker 1: or or four inches.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it didn't matter, you know, Like she was shooting one.
Speaker 2: So daylight happens, we have a bachelor group of bulls
Speaker 2: coming up the hill to us, and uh, I'll never
Speaker 2: forget this. And I'm like behind this tree and I
Speaker 2: start cow calling and there's like, I don't know, six
Speaker 2: eight bowls maybe coming towards us, and I bail over
Speaker 2: the backside of this hill and I'm watching her and
Speaker 2: I see horns start coming over the skyline and she's
Speaker 2: hid by this tree and this like two hundred and
Speaker 2: eighty ninety inch like he's he's like a six, but
Speaker 2: basically a huge five, and he had like a kicker
Speaker 2: on the one side and make him a six and
Speaker 2: like a small crab on the other, but he just
Speaker 2: had huge fronts, good thirds, nice solid bowl. And the
Speaker 2: thing walks and he's like walking head on right at her,
Speaker 2: and I'm like, hmm, well, it's going to get interesting.
Speaker 2: But he's gonna dive off the backside and come looking
Speaker 2: for me, So he's gonna turn broadside. It's literally like
Speaker 2: eighteen nineteen yards from her, and I'm thinking she's gonna
Speaker 2: jar bow. Nope, so let's it walk off. And the
Speaker 2: thing walks right down to me, and I'm just like,
Speaker 2: why didn't we shoot that? And all these other bulls
Speaker 2: are kind of coming right behind and a bunch of
Speaker 2: rag balls and stuff, and finally the bull ends up
Speaker 2: smelling us spooks runs off. I go up to her
Speaker 2: and I'm like.
Speaker 1: What was that?
Speaker 2: Something happened with your bow, Like, what's going on? Like,
Speaker 2: why why don't shoot that ball? You say, and you're
Speaker 2: just killing anything? She goes, what's the first morning? She said,
Speaker 2: I want to shoot something bigger than that. I looked
Speaker 2: at her and I go, you said we are killing anything.
Speaker 2: And I said, now on top of that, we're trophy
Speaker 2: hunting and we're twenty seven weeks pregnant. I said, oh, oh,
Speaker 2: we just added some to this. So anyway, so she
Speaker 2: lets this bowl walk the first morning, and of course,
Speaker 2: you know at that point then things don't go as
Speaker 2: planned after that. Oh yeah, and it was hot, and
Speaker 2: I was kind of thinking, man like you just kind
Speaker 2: of had like the bird in the hand and just
Speaker 2: let it go. And so we hunted, had some good
Speaker 2: opportunities to close calls like the next like five days.
Speaker 2: I mean we had bulls, like honest making moves. Just
Speaker 2: things weren't going right for her. One morning she decided
Speaker 2: to do some logging and she shot like two arrows
Speaker 2: at the same bowls, shot a tree two different times
Speaker 2: on the same bowl, shot another tree in another bowl.
Speaker 1: And she doesn't listen to this, she'd be so mad.
Speaker 2: Told on her, Yeah, she's gonna be She's gonna be furious.
Speaker 2: So she literally logged the whole forest and uh, so,
Speaker 2: long story short, we hunted and fast forward. She made
Speaker 2: it like the whole week. So it was like day
Speaker 2: nine and uh, I'm thinking things are well. She had
Speaker 2: a really close call that morning and we had two
Speaker 2: big bulls that came in. One bowl was just this giant,
Speaker 2: cool bull and he had a broke off right side
Speaker 2: but he had his two brows and then his other
Speaker 2: side he had kind of this club thing going on,
Speaker 2: but like like an eight on the one side, like
Speaker 2: just his giant, huge, crusty old bowl. He was just cool,
Speaker 2: and we almost killed him. And then she ended up
Speaker 2: almost getting a shot at like a three hundred and
Speaker 2: six that morning. And then we had another bowl come
Speaker 2: by us too. There was two bulls came in. They
Speaker 2: started fighting and they were like eighty yards from her
Speaker 2: and they were both really good, solid six points and
Speaker 2: nothing happened. It's no shots, and so we walked back
Speaker 2: to our packs and it was getting warm out. She's like,
Speaker 2: I need to go back, get some lunch, regroup, take
Speaker 2: a nap. She's like, I'm feeling really tired today. And
Speaker 2: I didn't think she was going to make nine days
Speaker 2: period and she ended up making it. So as we're
Speaker 2: walking back to our packs, we literally get to our packs,
Speaker 2: set our bows down, look up and there's like a
Speaker 2: three fifty six point like walking by like forty yards
Speaker 2: and neither of us had a bow in our hand.
Speaker 1: Oh my god.
Speaker 2: And I was like, are you kidding me? And I'm
Speaker 2: like like trying to signal to her, like pick her
Speaker 2: bow up. She doesn't see what's going on. She just
Speaker 2: stands up, bowl takes off. So we end up hiking
Speaker 2: out of there. We come back there in the evening
Speaker 2: because we knew there was a bunch of bowls in
Speaker 2: that area, and it was about I don't know, five
Speaker 2: thirty maybe, and I look about twelve hundred yards off
Speaker 2: and I see this bowl, nice, big seven point. I
Speaker 2: mean I never laid eyes on him before. He's just
Speaker 2: a big old bowl and he only had two ca.
Speaker 2: And we've been dealing with a lot of elk and
Speaker 2: there's like thirty forty fifty seventy cows like every day,
Speaker 2: depending on how the herds are mixing, and we just
Speaker 2: had helk running all over, so it was really hard
Speaker 2: to kind of get close, get a shot and that
Speaker 2: night when I seen that elk with those two cows,
Speaker 2: I was like, this is it. We're killing this thing.
Speaker 2: The wind was in our face. We just had to
Speaker 2: go straight at that elk and cut down in these
Speaker 2: junipers and like climb a canyon up on the other
Speaker 2: side and be perfect. We'll call them right in. She's
Speaker 2: looking at me times passing, let's sit and see what
Speaker 2: they do. All of a sudden, it's like six, She's like,
Speaker 2: I can't go over there. And I'm like, it's like
Speaker 2: twelve hundred yards, Like that's not that far. We won't
Speaker 2: be there in like twenty minutes. And she's like, no,
Speaker 2: it's we're not going to make it by dark. You
Speaker 2: know it's getting dark at like what like seven thirty
Speaker 2: ish maybe, And she goes, I'm not going to make it.
Speaker 2: I said, well, you're gonna make it. We're going and
Speaker 2: she looked at me and she's like And there's times
Speaker 2: like when we're hunting together, like if people knew the
Speaker 2: dynamic between the two of us, it's kind of like
Speaker 2: I'll push her because I know what's she's capable of,
Speaker 2: what she when she can do, and I know she's
Speaker 2: pregnant and everything but it's kind of like, you know,
Speaker 2: one of those things that like I know she can
Speaker 2: do it. It's just trying to like get this point
Speaker 2: with the pregnancy and convince her. And of course I
Speaker 2: didn't want to wear her out. And she goes, well,
Speaker 2: what would the guys do. I said, well, the guy
Speaker 2: we had already been over there forty five minutes ago,
Speaker 2: that thing would have been dead. And she's like, well,
Speaker 2: I'm not one of the guys. I said, well, we
Speaker 2: call you, Kyle. I said, you're one of the guys.
Speaker 2: I said, so we're going. So we take off. I
Speaker 2: find the convincerr and I'd bugled a couple of times
Speaker 2: at this bowl in the midst of this, and he
Speaker 2: just would have cut me off, and so I knew
Speaker 2: he was hot. We go all the way down and
Speaker 2: I'm telling you, this is like the slowest like I've
Speaker 2: ever went in on an elk in my life. And
Speaker 2: I'm literally like a couple of steps, turn around, Look
Speaker 2: see what she's doing. A couple more steps. Look she's
Speaker 2: behind me, and I'm just kind of taking my time.
Speaker 2: We get down in this juniper stuff and we start
Speaker 2: going through this kind of creek and like climbing up
Speaker 2: this hill and it was nasty and I bugle. The
Speaker 2: bull cuts me off, and I'm like, cat, we got
Speaker 2: to shut up and just like get up to the
Speaker 2: top and cow call like once we get up there
Speaker 2: will get set up. And I thought when we popped
Speaker 2: out of the trees and be able to see him,
Speaker 2: and we couldn't, and it was perfect. There was like
Speaker 2: fifty yards and a rise broke over and then you
Speaker 2: couldn't see the elk in the meadow and are in
Speaker 2: that kind of this flat, so it was perfect cover
Speaker 2: for us. We get set up and I got her
Speaker 2: next to this tree to my left and she's about,
Speaker 2: I don't know, forty yards from me maybe, and I
Speaker 2: get kind of down over the edge and I cow called.
Speaker 2: The bull cuts me off, and I kind of peek
Speaker 2: my head up, and all of a sudden I see
Speaker 2: ears like the cows, the two cows just walking right
Speaker 2: at us. Here come the horns, the bulls walking right
Speaker 2: at us, and I'm like, oh, I knew this was
Speaker 2: just going to be perfect. And all of a sudden,
Speaker 2: she's ready. The cows walk right into like fifteen yards
Speaker 2: and the bulls at twenty five and just stops, rips
Speaker 2: this big old bugle, and he's like broadside to her,
Speaker 2: and I was like thinking, man, just draw back and
Speaker 2: just shoot that thing. And the lead cow kind of
Speaker 2: churned her head looking back at the bowl, and she
Speaker 2: started to draw, and then the cow whipped its head
Speaker 2: back around and Kylie locked up. And that's one of
Speaker 2: those moments I think is like an experienced, you know,
Speaker 2: like bowhunter like, and she is. I mean, she's killed
Speaker 2: a couple with her bow now and done it, but
Speaker 2: it's like not like she's killed twenty, you know, and
Speaker 2: so she kind of just froze. And I think if
Speaker 2: she just would have drawn back, it would have got
Speaker 2: that split second where all the boat does elk and
Speaker 2: the bowl would have just stared at her and she
Speaker 2: would have got a shot instead. She just was kind
Speaker 2: of like waiting for them to take the attention off
Speaker 2: of her. To finish drawing, had to kind of like
Speaker 2: let her bow back down. She started shaking, and right
Speaker 2: as that happened, they take off and they start running
Speaker 2: right towards me, and they start spinning and looping out,
Speaker 2: and I start cow calling and I look over at her,
Speaker 2: like thinking she's gonna jar a bow and she didn't
Speaker 2: jar bow, and I'm like, crap, I don't know what
Speaker 2: you know to do at this point, And all of
Speaker 2: a sudden, she goes she just yells shoot, and I
Speaker 2: was like okay, And so I just ripped my bow
Speaker 2: back and the bowl I mewing like crazy, and the
Speaker 2: bowl just spins stops quartered away, and I put my
Speaker 2: fifty pin because I'd ranged a piece of sagebrush before
Speaker 2: at forty four when they were coming in, and he
Speaker 2: ran right behind it and then stopped and ended up
Speaker 2: burying the arrow and ran off healing went like a
Speaker 2: hundred maybe hundred yards, and that was it. So wasn't
Speaker 2: like the most ideal situation, you know, with like her
Speaker 2: not getting the shot and everything. But I mean, you
Speaker 2: know it's dead.
Speaker 1: So well, it's funny because you made a social media
Speaker 1: post about it, you know, you kind of give a
Speaker 1: thousand word essay on what happened, kind of a shorter
Speaker 1: version of what you just said, explained and uh and
Speaker 1: and everybody was reading it, and then pretty soon everybody
Speaker 1: started commenting, you know, like YadA, YadA, YadA, pushed my
Speaker 1: wife down and shot her. ELK, that's probably the truth. Start, No,
Speaker 1: I know.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I just told her get out of the way.
Speaker 2: I'm killing this bowl.
Speaker 1: Yeah good, good hunting partner. So she was probably feeling
Speaker 1: energetic and probably packed like a front shoulder in a
Speaker 1: in a hind quarter and the rack out for you
Speaker 1: guys when you were packing.
Speaker 2: Yeah, she did awesome, Like I didn't have to do it.
Speaker 2: She was She cut the whole outc up, did everything.
Speaker 2: She is a real chance, so true team player.
Speaker 1: Yeah, she's a trooper man putting up with all that man.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so no, we I took care of the whole Elk.
Speaker 2: I didn't make her do anything, and it was it
Speaker 2: was fun. And then the next morning do we want
Speaker 2: to talk about that?
Speaker 1: Sure?
Speaker 2: The next morning was kind of the heartbreaker she'd put
Speaker 2: in all this time. We had one morning left and
Speaker 2: got up, We got in late, ate dinner, didn't even
Speaker 2: go to bed. I shoot, it was like two thirty
Speaker 2: three in the morning, and we ended up getting up
Speaker 2: take off at daylight. Didn't hear a bugle nothing. All
Speaker 2: these Elk hauld like disappeared. Not sure where they went.
Speaker 2: There was a huge herd. She's getting frustrated, and I
Speaker 2: was like, we gotta go check one more spot. So
Speaker 2: we go check this other spot. I bugle bowl bugles,
Speaker 2: come over the top, get all set up, get down
Speaker 2: in on him. He's coming in, and then some cattle
Speaker 2: from the ranchers. There's some cattle around the area. They
Speaker 2: ended up get in the middle of the elk and
Speaker 2: busting them. They ran off, and so we take off
Speaker 2: hike all the way down this ridge. She's like, I'm done,
Speaker 2: I'm giving up, I'm over it, like it's I put
Speaker 2: in my time, and Mikay like, you know, like you
Speaker 2: got a couple hours here, like let's just go after this.
Speaker 2: So we all down Popa finally talk her into it again,
Speaker 2: go over this hill and I end up calling this
Speaker 2: bull in and he runs on a dead run, and
Speaker 2: her being pregnant got her. If she wasn't pregnant, she
Speaker 2: would have killed this bowl like instantly. And he comes
Speaker 2: running around this hill head on to her at like
Speaker 2: five yards and it's like a three forty seven by seven,
Speaker 2: like just big bowl, almost like the one that I
Speaker 2: killed the night before, and comes around sees her and
Speaker 2: she couldn't turn her feet quick enough because she was
Speaker 2: watching her feet being pregnant, she didn't want to fall over,
Speaker 2: and so she didn't want to trip, and I totally
Speaker 2: understand that the bull runs down. I stop him at
Speaker 2: forty and broadside. She drew a bow back and then
Speaker 2: he kind of moved. And then right as all that happened,
Speaker 2: the sun was like right there coming over the hill,
Speaker 2: and she like looked through her peep and I stopped.
Speaker 2: And when he ran forward and he stopped, I stopped
Speaker 2: him again. She shot, and she said that the sun
Speaker 2: like kind of came right in her peep, and anyway,
Speaker 2: she d up hitting that bowl ducked, but she hit
Speaker 2: it right in a backstrap and he ran off. And
Speaker 2: this is like the kind of the craziest thing that
Speaker 2: I've seen in a while. That bowl literally had his
Speaker 2: arrow or her arrow was sticking out of his back.
Speaker 2: And I called him back into like fifty and then
Speaker 2: he turned around and went down. There was another bowl
Speaker 2: with some cows like I stand up spoting like three
Speaker 2: quarters of a mile away. That bowl ran all the
Speaker 2: way down there and started fighting that other bowl with
Speaker 2: an arrow sticking out of its back and was trying
Speaker 2: to just take those cows. He was so rutted up
Speaker 2: didn't even care. But we should have killed two big
Speaker 2: sevens in like twelve hours.
Speaker 1: So I mean, if you guys would have done that,
Speaker 1: I mean, what do you do at that point? Hang
Speaker 1: up your bow like yeah we're done. Yeah, we've unaccomplishable.
Speaker 2: I just want to quit hunt.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't believe you, probably not. But then fast forward,
Speaker 1: you went white tail hunting in Washington a pretty nice buck.
Speaker 2: No went you didn't get a nice your buddy.
Speaker 1: Got one, Nick Nay got one. I couldn't remember if
Speaker 1: I think. Yeah, And then I shot the older season.
Speaker 1: You shot an antelope?
Speaker 2: You got did you?
Speaker 1: Did you and Kyle both get an antelope?
Speaker 2: No? She ended up missing a really big goat and
Speaker 2: then didn't want to shoot again with being pregnant with
Speaker 2: the gun, So I don't I don't blame her there.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, and then mule Deer season. What's your opinion
Speaker 1: on Montana Mulder? Are the numbers down? I keep hearing
Speaker 1: numbers are down, like numbers of deer, and then maybe
Speaker 1: age class? Is that that? What? Do you think that's true?
Speaker 2: Yeah? I do. I mean compared to you know, five
Speaker 2: eight years ago, like it's definitely changed. We kind of
Speaker 2: had that rough winner, and I would say numbers are down.
Speaker 2: I think there's still a few good bucks to be had,
Speaker 2: but I think you're really going to work for him
Speaker 2: pretty hard. So I mean I spent I mean I
Speaker 2: hunted hard and killed a decent buck, but I mean
Speaker 2: not you know, one hundred and eighty and s trophy deer.
Speaker 2: But I mean it's it's a nice buck. But yeah,
Speaker 2: I mean we saw some a lot of deer, some
Speaker 2: good deer, but it wasn't definitely wasn't what I would,
Speaker 2: you know, say, like this is stellar hunting, you know,
Speaker 2: I mean we're you know, like you would have had
Speaker 2: We definitely need to make some changes here, and I
Speaker 2: know that there are some changes coming down the pipe
Speaker 2: in Montana where they're talking about moving deer season meal
Speaker 2: deer season, I guess like into October and changing that.
Speaker 2: And you can't really hunt the rut anymore, which I think,
Speaker 2: you know, I'd be okay for that, but I know
Speaker 2: there a lot of people wouldn't be.
Speaker 1: But yeah, it's kind of a unique, you know area
Speaker 1: right now. It's you can't hardly hunt mealier in the
Speaker 1: rut anywhere, you know, with the high powered rifle ye.
Speaker 1: So you know, you kind of look at like what's
Speaker 1: what's given but what's gained. Like you may give up
Speaker 1: that rut hunt, but man, in five years you're gonna
Speaker 1: have incredible meal they're hunting again. So I mean, to me,
Speaker 1: it's worth it, you know, being a steward and a sportsman,
Speaker 1: I don't I don't mind kind of you know, putting
Speaker 1: things back here and there to to to better the herd.
Speaker 1: For sure.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm with you. I think, you know, if we
Speaker 2: did make a change, you know, and it's like take
Speaker 2: that out of take the rut, like the rifle out
Speaker 2: of the rut. They what they're proposing is you could
Speaker 2: still hunt white tail, which there's a I mean a
Speaker 2: pile of white tail for guys if they want to hunt,
Speaker 2: you know, white tail here in which I'm all for.
Speaker 2: But if you could take some of the mule deer
Speaker 2: out and limit tags and you know, a handful all
Speaker 2: eastern Montana, like, you know, if you could just limit
Speaker 2: the amount of tags over there. A lot of people
Speaker 2: don't see it this way, but it's like, man, even
Speaker 2: if you only got to hunt them every two three years,
Speaker 2: but you know, you could go out and like have
Speaker 2: a chance a like a nice you know, mature big
Speaker 2: buck and you know one hundred and seventy inch plus deer.
Speaker 2: I mean, I would be all for that, but I
Speaker 2: know a lot of people think that you're just taking
Speaker 2: opportunity away and they don't get a hunt. And it
Speaker 2: eastern Montana. You know, it's easier deer hunting, you know,
Speaker 2: than other places than climbing the mountains in western Montana.
Speaker 2: So I understand it, but I don't know.
Speaker 1: I guess yeah, but you know, like back to your opportunity,
Speaker 1: It is like, yeah, you have an opportunity to have
Speaker 1: a tag and get out there and hunt. But you
Speaker 1: hear a lot of feedback from a lot of camps.
Speaker 1: They're saying, yeah, we hunted hard for eight ten days
Speaker 1: and we saw a three point a little three point
Speaker 1: was as big as we saw, or a forky like
Speaker 1: they're just not seeing, you know, and then deer numbers,
Speaker 1: you know, we're way down. So in my mind, it's like, man,
Speaker 1: it's a it's a lot of effort, you know, for
Speaker 1: a lot of different people to get to that part
Speaker 1: of the world, whether you're driving across states or if
Speaker 1: you're a resident, even driving across that state to go
Speaker 1: over there and have the opportunity to hunt something like
Speaker 1: that that you're just probably not interested in taking home
Speaker 1: with you. You know, maybe it, you know, maybe it's
Speaker 1: okay to you know, do it every other year, every
Speaker 1: third year to where there's the animals to come back.
Speaker 2: Yeah, one hundred percent. And I do feel for the
Speaker 2: non residence in a way, you know, coming over here,
Speaker 2: because I mean I used to be one. But it's
Speaker 2: like when you drive that far and you know, spend
Speaker 2: the money, especially on a non resident tag, and you
Speaker 2: come over here, it's like, I understand you want to
Speaker 2: fill your tag before you go back home because you've
Speaker 2: invested so much. And I get that one hundred percent,
Speaker 2: but it's also I mean, you could have a chance
Speaker 2: to come over here, and especially as a non resident
Speaker 2: now you're probably only going to come hunt Montana every
Speaker 2: two three years, and so it's like at that point
Speaker 2: if you could limit you know, some of the hunting
Speaker 2: and change things for a little bit, man Like, wouldn't
Speaker 2: you want to come here from an out of state perspective?
Speaker 2: And you're like, man, I went to Montana and shot
Speaker 2: a nice, big, solid four point buck or you know
Speaker 2: some big mature deer. I mean, I don't know, I
Speaker 2: mean I guess it just depends what you're after. I know,
Speaker 2: we're all at different experiences and you know, some of
Speaker 2: them like I'm okay eating my tag. You know, it's
Speaker 2: like I don't really care, Like I want to shoot
Speaker 2: a nice mature tear just like Washington. You know, it's
Speaker 2: like white tails and stuff like that. Like I didn't
Speaker 2: shoot one. I had one buck in particular I was
Speaker 2: after and I'm okay, Like I ended up getting the
Speaker 2: weather got the best of me and snowed out because
Speaker 2: I was in a rental truck and stuff. But it
Speaker 2: is what it is.
Speaker 1: So yeah, well I always like to say I like
Speaker 1: to be part of the solution, not part of the problem,
Speaker 1: So that anytime you start weighing in on those kind
Speaker 1: of things, like I always try to look through it
Speaker 1: that with those kind of lenses and be like, you know,
Speaker 1: is this is this solving problems or is this creating
Speaker 1: adding to the problem. It's like, well, you know, take
Speaker 1: my selfish wants out and be like, okay, you know,
Speaker 1: maybe I don't have to you know, be you know,
Speaker 1: hunt as much, or you know, I could pass up
Speaker 1: or I give up a little season, or give up
Speaker 1: a little this or that to to have a better
Speaker 1: experience when I do get to go, so yep, but hey,
Speaker 1: I want to switch gears here a little bit, and
Speaker 1: it's time for the pendle and whiskey Q and A.
Speaker 1: It's not just poured, it's earned. And I keep getting
Speaker 1: this question sliding into my dms on Instagram and and
Speaker 1: I'm sure you probably get them to what's your workout routine? No,
Speaker 1: just kidding. On Instagram, I'm listed as a fitness model, yes,
Speaker 1: but I'm pretty sure nobody's going to ask me for
Speaker 1: my workout routine. But the question is, and I've got
Speaker 1: this one for years, how do I get into the
Speaker 1: hunting industry? What's your take on that?
Speaker 2: John Man, I've definitely got that question a lot too,
Speaker 2: especially doing what I do for work. Man, that that
Speaker 2: is a very loaded question. And I guess let's kind
Speaker 2: of like start here, like, are you just wanting to
Speaker 2: get into the hunting industry because you see guys and
Speaker 2: you think that all we do is hunt, and we
Speaker 2: go on these hunts and get all this free gear
Speaker 2: and get all this big honey, or are you wanting
Speaker 2: to get into the hunting industry because it's your passion
Speaker 2: and you want to go work for a company and
Speaker 2: like make your career out of that. So it's something
Speaker 2: you want to do for the next thirty years and retire,
Speaker 2: you know. So I guess let's kind of like dive
Speaker 2: down the one rabbit hole. Because I started my business
Speaker 2: almost fourteen years ago and maybe longer somewhere in that ballpark.
Speaker 2: I was doing stuff before that, but officially with my business.
Speaker 2: But yeah, you know, it was kind of like I
Speaker 2: wanted to be in the industry because I saw that
Speaker 2: and I thought, oh man, all these guys get to
Speaker 2: go hunt for a living and they're going on all
Speaker 2: these big extravagant hunts, all this free gear, free bows
Speaker 2: and you know sites and all you name it, you know,
Speaker 2: out calls like whatever. It was like, that's kind of
Speaker 2: how I perceived it, I guess, you know, in the beginning.
Speaker 2: And the one thing that I will say all these
Speaker 2: years later down the road, yeah, I work way more
Speaker 2: now than I probably would if I just worked a
Speaker 2: nine to five somewhere and hunts to clock and just
Speaker 2: went and decided to go and you know, hunt and
Speaker 2: enjoy my time hunting. Are there perks of being in
Speaker 2: the industry? Yeah? Sure, I mean there's times you might
Speaker 2: get a you know, call and get a free bow
Speaker 2: or get this or you know, some free gear here
Speaker 2: and there, but that also comes at a cost because
Speaker 2: you know, it's like one of those things that now
Speaker 2: those companies generally want something in return, and so you
Speaker 2: go on a hunt or go to the archery range
Speaker 2: or you're at home, and you know you have to
Speaker 2: go and provide and produce this content for them because
Speaker 2: they want that in return to help promote the product.
Speaker 2: So now you've just added another layer of work to
Speaker 2: your career in the hunting industry per se. And so
Speaker 2: you really can stack it up in a hurry to
Speaker 2: where you're not just hunting. I mean, how many times
Speaker 2: have we been in the woods and you know it's like, oh, hey,
Speaker 2: we got to get that this shot for so and so,
Speaker 2: we got to hold on, we got to get this
Speaker 2: video for them, we got to do this. And it's
Speaker 2: like you spend a lot more time working than necessarily not.
Speaker 2: But I think if you want to get in the
Speaker 2: hunting industry and like you just wanted to be like
Speaker 2: a part of it, there's I've met so many great people.
Speaker 2: I mean obviously yourself and I mean, you know you've
Speaker 2: been one of my best friendships, you know, for years.
Speaker 2: And it's like there's a lot of good people that
Speaker 2: we've met, you know, and Jason and you know, Phelps
Speaker 2: and I mean, Chris Pass going. I mean, we could
Speaker 2: go down the list and start naming people, but it's
Speaker 2: like so many great people in different states, and you
Speaker 2: know that we all come together and I feel like
Speaker 2: we go to these shows and we don't always get
Speaker 2: to see each other throughout the year, and we end
Speaker 2: up going to the Hunt Expo in Salt Lake or
Speaker 2: like these other shows just to like get in one
Speaker 2: room together to be able to go and you know,
Speaker 2: have a good time, have dinner together. But that side
Speaker 2: the hunting industry, it's like, I don't know, are people
Speaker 2: wanting to be in it for the friendships. Are they
Speaker 2: wanting to be in it because they think that they
Speaker 2: just get it's like this glamorous thing that they get
Speaker 2: a hunt all the time and get all this free
Speaker 2: stuff because I mean we still pay for our own
Speaker 2: stuff at times, so you know, it's like not a
Speaker 2: not just this gravy train of I want to be
Speaker 2: in it, but if you do it for the right reasons,
Speaker 2: I mean, there's definitely some good to come from it.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, yeah, I definitely I agree. Yeah the first thing, Yeah,
Speaker 1: you nailed it, Like define what you're trying to get
Speaker 1: out of it? Are you trying to have a career,
Speaker 1: like just a nine to five job in the hunting industry?
Speaker 1: You're like, well, I got to work for some industry,
Speaker 1: do I I might as well be in the hunting
Speaker 1: industry because I like that kind of stuff. Do you think, Oh,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna I want to get into the hunting industry
Speaker 1: because I love to hunt. I have a passionate hunt.
Speaker 1: I really really like hunting, and I want to do
Speaker 1: it for a living. So you have to like like
Speaker 1: quantify like that's a very okay, that's like the very
Speaker 1: entry level like thought process, like I really love it,
Speaker 1: I want to do it for a living. Well, you
Speaker 1: have to like consider like how is how is someone
Speaker 1: going to pay you for you to go hunting? And
Speaker 1: because you love hunting, Like it's kind of a funny
Speaker 1: loaded question. It's like you have to like look beyond that, like, well, yeah,
Speaker 1: we all love hunting. I mean there's not a single
Speaker 1: person that goes hunting consistently that doesn't love hunting. So
Speaker 1: you have to kind of figure out like, Okay, well,
Speaker 1: what is it that I can bring to the table
Speaker 1: to get paid for or get compensated for. I think
Speaker 1: people look, they I think they watch outdoor TV a lot,
Speaker 1: you know, and they'll they'll watch all these hunting TV
Speaker 1: shows and you know, all the different characters and and
Speaker 1: they're like, oh, yeah, you know that those guys just man,
Speaker 1: they have so much fun and they go kill stuff,
Speaker 1: and you know, they wrap all these brands and stuff.
Speaker 1: But like you said, you know, you get all this
Speaker 1: gear or sponsors or stuff. You have deliverables, right, you
Speaker 1: have you know XYZ. You have to provide photos, you
Speaker 1: have to provide content, you have to provide you have
Speaker 1: to use their stuff. Like what if you make a
Speaker 1: commitment and you're like, ah, yeah, I'm gonna use your
Speaker 1: stuff and you start using it, You're like, oh, this
Speaker 1: is trash. I hate this x y Z fabric, soften
Speaker 1: or whatever you know that you're trying to use for
Speaker 1: your hunt. You're like, oh, but you're locked in. You
Speaker 1: said you'd do it. You have to do it when
Speaker 1: you're hunting. That kind of that takes away. It's like, Okay,
Speaker 1: now it's a job. Right, So, I mean there's a
Speaker 1: lot of things to think about there.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And to add to that, I think, like one thing,
Speaker 2: you know, it's like there's so many kids out there
Speaker 2: nowadays too that have a camera and you know, it's
Speaker 2: kind of like a major league baseball player or a
Speaker 2: football player, like professional like whatever. It's like, you know,
Speaker 2: when you're smaller, you start and you know there's little
Speaker 2: league and like all these things, and into high school
Speaker 2: and then college ball, like in the pot starts getting
Speaker 2: smaller and smaller and smaller and pretty quick to actually
Speaker 2: make it to the major league. You know, it's like
Speaker 2: there's only a tiny percentage that do it. And it's
Speaker 2: one of those things that the people that have these
Speaker 2: TV shows and do that. It's like there's so many
Speaker 2: people out there with cameras now going around the woods
Speaker 2: filming their hunts and doing things that the ones that
Speaker 2: truly get paid. I mean, it is like this little
Speaker 2: fraction that even receive any income. And so at that point,
Speaker 2: it's like you better enjoy hunting because you love to hunt.
Speaker 2: And if you're okay with just doing some content and
Speaker 2: trading for a free bo or you know, backpack or
Speaker 2: like whatever, all these companies now too. And I hear
Speaker 2: this a lot because I work with a lot of them,
Speaker 2: is that they absolutely get bombarded with all these people
Speaker 2: now like hey, I'll give you photos like I'll make
Speaker 2: I'll give you some video content. Well, the problem is
Speaker 2: is the more and more people that do that, and
Speaker 2: now it makes it harder and harder and harder for
Speaker 2: anyone to get any money because they're giving away their
Speaker 2: money and product to so many people in return for content.
Speaker 2: Now they don't have any money left to like pay.
Speaker 2: So it's like if you think that you're going to
Speaker 2: come in and just all make the most killer videos
Speaker 2: and we'll do this whole series and do all this stuff,
Speaker 2: and you're gonna, you know, I want one hundred thousand
Speaker 2: dollars check. And it's like, I mean those that's so
Speaker 2: like far fetched to even kind of think that. And
Speaker 2: I'm not saying that to like squash people's dreams and
Speaker 2: this and that, and because I mean it's like I've
Speaker 2: been there one day too, and I think I've lived it,
Speaker 2: and it's like I just realized that. You know. It's
Speaker 2: like if you have a skill set or something that
Speaker 2: you can do, like myself with like designing and building
Speaker 2: websites and those type of things where it's like, but
Speaker 2: I'm actually like working with the companies to try to
Speaker 2: help them make money and progress and do their thing,
Speaker 2: but that I'm not making money even though people think
Speaker 2: I'm in the hunting industry. I am, but it's like
Speaker 2: I'm helping companies. Like, you know, I could do the
Speaker 2: same thing if it was you know, someone selling dog food,
Speaker 2: you know, and like helping them do that. It's the
Speaker 2: same thing. So it's like you almost want to go
Speaker 2: into it and be like, hey, I want to go
Speaker 2: work for a company like a phelps you know, like
Speaker 2: I'm just you know, throwing you out for example. It's
Speaker 2: like go work and learn what they do, and maybe
Speaker 2: the perk is maybe I get to go on an
Speaker 2: ail cunt this year and like go spend time or
Speaker 2: go do this, and like you kind of get rewarded
Speaker 2: in different ways, you know. So I guess it just
Speaker 2: kind of depends, like you know, what what you're what
Speaker 2: you're wanting out of it to and what you want
Speaker 2: to achieve.
Speaker 1: Well, I think that there's a big misconception that you're
Speaker 1: just going to get paid a lot of money if
Speaker 1: you work in the in the hunting industry. You look
Speaker 1: at the folks on you know, outdoor TV, like literally
Speaker 1: like the Sportsman Channel over out Door Outdoor Channel. To
Speaker 1: produce a TV show, they want a couple hundred thousand dollars.
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm not sure what the it is exactly,
Speaker 1: but it's it's a large sum of money for you
Speaker 1: to put your content on their platform, okay, right off
Speaker 1: the bat. So then you go after sponsors, so the sponsors. Basically,
Speaker 1: the the the platform eats up all the money from
Speaker 1: your sponsors. So and that's why I think there's a
Speaker 1: lot of these like like literal TV personalities, they kind
Speaker 1: of have some money already, right, They're not depending on
Speaker 1: sponsors paying their their their their money to buy food
Speaker 1: and electricity and pay their cell phone bill. Right, they
Speaker 1: actually have money already somehow, maybe from working hard at
Speaker 1: in a completely unrelated industry. Maybe they you know, had
Speaker 1: some old money in the family whatever. A lot of
Speaker 1: I think a lot of those folks, you know, you know,
Speaker 1: they've found a way to do it, but it takes
Speaker 1: a ton of money. So outdoor industry. But then you
Speaker 1: look at YouTube, so you're like, oh, well, it doesn't
Speaker 1: cost me anything, and YouTube will pay me. People have
Speaker 1: a huge misconception of what how much money you can
Speaker 1: make off of YouTube videos. You get you get paid
Speaker 1: by YouTube per thousand views on your video. Okay, so
Speaker 1: every thousand views you get paid. Now, if you're doing
Speaker 1: hair and makeup and maybe some cooking that has nothing
Speaker 1: to do with hunting, that just kind of domestic life.
Speaker 1: Those kind of people, they'll make anywhere from five dollars
Speaker 1: per one thousand views to seven or eight dollars, depending
Speaker 1: on on what advertisers will pay. How do how does
Speaker 1: YouTube pay well that people put that put ads that
Speaker 1: the little commercials on YouTube, that's who pays them. So
Speaker 1: it's all a bid. Now nobody really knows exactly how
Speaker 1: it works, but basically these advertisers bid and they say,
Speaker 1: we'll pay this much for this for this kind of programming.
Speaker 1: We'll pay this much for our ad to be there. So,
Speaker 1: you know, I think that what you get paid is
Speaker 1: always fluctuated. Now, I have some friends that have a
Speaker 1: really popular outdoor hunting channel. He was showing me behind
Speaker 1: the scenes on how much they were getting paid. They
Speaker 1: got paid thirty three cents per one thousand views. Thirty
Speaker 1: three cents per one thousand views, So put that in
Speaker 1: your pipe and smoke it. I mean, that's that's that's nothing.
Speaker 1: I mean when you consider that the production costs. You
Speaker 1: have to pay a camera man, you have to buy tags,
Speaker 1: you have to pay for fuel, you have to buy
Speaker 1: your food. I mean, you can spend ten thousand dollars
Speaker 1: if you have to pay a bona fide camera person,
Speaker 1: between camera permit, everything you're gonna spend. You could spend
Speaker 1: up to ten thousand dollars just for a non resident
Speaker 1: hunt somewhere. So for those thirty three cents per one thousand, man,
Speaker 1: you better have a few million people watch your videos, right, yeah,
Speaker 1: so on some of mine, I'll be transparent. On my
Speaker 1: Bugler YouTube, I think I've gotten around three to four
Speaker 1: dollars per one thousand. Now they're not they're not viral videos, right.
Speaker 1: You know, I don't have a million people watch my stuff,
Speaker 1: and I haven't put any real new content on there
Speaker 1: in quite some time. But the residuals, the residual stuff
Speaker 1: that's on there, I get a couple hundred bucks a
Speaker 1: year basically pay aid from YouTube. So not a lot
Speaker 1: of money, not, I mean, you can't even buy a
Speaker 1: non resident tag anywhere for that kind of money. So
Speaker 1: people kind of think they have this misconception you're gonna
Speaker 1: make a lot of money if you get in the
Speaker 1: industry and start cranking out content right away. One of
Speaker 1: the things I like to recommend is, and you kind
Speaker 1: of you kind of alluded to this a little bit
Speaker 1: on on your on your job and your craft, is
Speaker 1: become an expert. Right. I don't care if you're talking
Speaker 1: to what kind of industry you're in. I don't care
Speaker 1: if it's automotive whatever. Become an expert and you will
Speaker 1: find an opportunity. Right. So, for instance, I am really
Speaker 1: good with el calls. I've been elk hunting for thirty
Speaker 1: five years. The first four years I literally hunted every
Speaker 1: single day of September the whole every year I was
Speaker 1: in high school. By the time I graduated high school,
Speaker 1: I had more elk hunting time in the most adults
Speaker 1: have in a lifetime. Right. And then it just compounds
Speaker 1: from there. Right. So I've I feel like, I don't
Speaker 1: want to try to come off conceited, but I feel
Speaker 1: like I'm a subject matter expert on elk hunting to
Speaker 1: a certain degree. Do I learn stuff every year. Absolutely,
Speaker 1: I'm always learning more. But I have a lot of
Speaker 1: reps and I have and I'm pretty damn good at
Speaker 1: using an ELK call. Now I found a spot. I
Speaker 1: work for an ELK calling company. There's there's my niche.
Speaker 1: There's my niche. Now, if you're trying to be like, okay, cool,
Speaker 1: well I'm going to be an expert, well you have
Speaker 1: to look at the industry and think, okay, where are
Speaker 1: the gaps within that industry? Okay, we have subject matter
Speaker 1: experts on bows, on shooting, our archery, on broad hands,
Speaker 1: on arrows, whatever it may be. There are some gaps there.
Speaker 1: Of course, that's the kind of thing that you need to,
Speaker 1: you know, to look at. Now. It can't be it
Speaker 1: can't be. It can't be something forced. You can't be
Speaker 1: saying well, I'm gonna do this just because I want
Speaker 1: to all thes and the likes. You literally have to like.
Speaker 1: You have to be passionate about it. You have to
Speaker 1: be one hundred percent real. And I think you know
Speaker 1: that's why I've done well because I I live and
Speaker 1: breathe this. Whether I had a job working for a
Speaker 1: call company or not, I've lived and breathed elk hunting
Speaker 1: my entire life. Back when I had, you know, maybe
Speaker 1: a week a year to hunt, I used that week.
Speaker 1: If I had weekends hunt, I used that week. I mean,
Speaker 1: I was always elk hunting and enjoying it. So I
Speaker 1: didn't really set out to like get an industry job
Speaker 1: in my life. I didn't say, like, someday, I'm gonna
Speaker 1: get a job in the industry. No. I just worked
Speaker 1: hard at my craft because I loved it, and one
Speaker 1: day I got noticed and things start, doors start opening up,
Speaker 1: and I think you have to really look at it
Speaker 1: that way. But it's not easy. You can't just say, cool, well,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna learn how to use an up bugle. I
Speaker 1: can bugle really good. I'm gonna go get a for
Speaker 1: a call company tomorrow or next year. Man, I mean,
Speaker 1: you're gonna have to work your ass off. You have
Speaker 1: to work your ass off to get to that point
Speaker 1: of being an expert. And then once you become an expert,
Speaker 1: you're going to have to continue to work your ass off.
Speaker 2: One hundred percent. And you know, unless you just want
Speaker 2: to go like work for that call company and like
Speaker 2: maybe you want to try to get your foot in
Speaker 2: the door and just like stock boxes, you know, shipping
Speaker 2: orders like doing whatever, or customer service or like some
Speaker 2: way to kind of work your way into it. But
Speaker 2: I'm I agree with everything that you said one hundred
Speaker 2: and ten percent. You know, I grew up working in
Speaker 2: an archery shop and that was kind of like I
Speaker 2: loved bows, you know, it was like I loved the
Speaker 2: idea of archery. And you know, I still to this day,
Speaker 2: like I have my own little pro shop, like in
Speaker 2: my gun room in my house because i love working
Speaker 2: on my own stuff and I'm super passionate about it.
Speaker 2: And that's I think one thing for me that like
Speaker 2: even I don't portray to the outside world, but is
Speaker 2: like my love for like tinkering and like the little
Speaker 2: things that go on behind the scenes. And I'm such
Speaker 2: a nerd when it comes to that stuff and tuning
Speaker 2: my bows and like arrows and like doing all that.
Speaker 2: But it's something that like I've kind of kept close
Speaker 2: to me because I enjoy it so much that it's
Speaker 2: like the one thing where I'm like, oh yeah, like
Speaker 2: I do this and I go out and I'll mess
Speaker 2: around with my bow and my gun room and like whatever,
Speaker 2: because it's like my like little hobby like my passion.
Speaker 2: On the side, I could talk I could go to
Speaker 2: any of these shows, you know, and talk archery all
Speaker 2: day long, you know, or guns like anything, but it's
Speaker 2: like the archery side, Like I could go and do
Speaker 2: that all day because I love it, like outside of
Speaker 2: just hunting. Obviously I love to hunt. But then you know,
Speaker 2: it's like like my business. You know, I was driven to,
Speaker 2: you know, figure out I wanted to build websites and
Speaker 2: taught myself how to do that long time ago and
Speaker 2: design work and all that. Obviously went to college and
Speaker 2: all that, but you know, it was kind of one
Speaker 2: of those things that I was so driven I want
Speaker 2: my thing, Like I wanted to own my own business
Speaker 2: so bad, and it was like didn't even really correlate
Speaker 2: to hunting at that time. It was like I wanted to.
Speaker 2: I was driven because I wanted to be so good
Speaker 2: at like designing or building websites or marketing and like
Speaker 2: doing stuff like that and like helping companies grow. It
Speaker 2: just like went to the hunting industry because I had
Speaker 2: a lot of passionate about it and there at that time,
Speaker 2: you know, I mean there still is, but it was like
Speaker 2: there was that hole that niche and I found my
Speaker 2: niche and you know, did it and went for it,
Speaker 2: and you know, here I am today. But it was like,
Speaker 2: if you find something that you're passionate about, you can
Speaker 2: kind of adapt and do that and keep growing, you know,
Speaker 2: with your knowledge and everything else is times change. That's
Speaker 2: where you know, I think you'll do good and you know, succeed.
Speaker 2: So yeah, there's a lot of ways to get in
Speaker 2: the industry if you just want to be in it,
Speaker 2: if you just want to go work for a company
Speaker 2: and go to these trade shows. And you know, I
Speaker 2: feel like some of the shows like the Hunt Expo
Speaker 2: and you know, Shot Show and ATA and some of
Speaker 2: these other shows and Sheep Show and all these and
Speaker 2: I feel like people see it on social media and
Speaker 2: it's like a fomo thing. You know, they're like, oh man,
Speaker 2: there's everyone, like all these hunters are there and they're
Speaker 2: doing this and having a good time together. And I
Speaker 2: almost feel like like you create this fomo like people
Speaker 2: feel like they're missing out and they want to be
Speaker 2: a part of it, and they feel like they have
Speaker 2: to be in the industry just to like go and
Speaker 2: enjoy and like do that. And like I said, it
Speaker 2: is a lot of fun and like, you know, we
Speaker 2: have a good time in talking to people and meeting
Speaker 2: people and you know everything. But yeah, I mean you
Speaker 2: can go do all that, go work for a company
Speaker 2: and just enjoy and like have that be one of
Speaker 2: the purposes of your job and love life, you know.
Speaker 1: So right, Well back to that. Being an expert. I
Speaker 1: mean being as expert though is like an un and
Speaker 1: you say, oh, yeah, you do marketing and build websites.
Speaker 1: But what people don't know the other things you do.
Speaker 1: Like you're a professional photographer. You have to take stock
Speaker 1: photo imagery, so John does all of our stock imagery
Speaker 1: for our ELK calls, like like all that, Like you're
Speaker 1: doing that all the time. Video work, you know, let's
Speaker 1: say somebody wanted you to do something like some kind
Speaker 1: of video work, you can do that. Like there's so
Speaker 1: much that you have to perfect and be good at
Speaker 1: and be an expert on to make this. So you
Speaker 1: don't just be like, oh yeah, well I'm gonna learn
Speaker 1: how to I'm gonna be an expert at blown an
Speaker 1: ELK bugle. Well people don't know, like, okay, well my
Speaker 1: job not only do I blowing out ELK bugle pretty good,
Speaker 1: and I'm really good at talking to people about ELK calls.
Speaker 1: I mean that's just that's like probably the smallest part
Speaker 1: of my job. We film these hunts every fall. Now
Speaker 1: I may not film them, but I'm editing them. So
Speaker 1: I have to be an expert at using Adobe Premier
Speaker 1: or whatever kind of platform you want to use to
Speaker 1: to edit your films with. Oh, there's pictures to edit. Oh,
Speaker 1: I have to edit those two. Oh, John and I.
Speaker 1: You and I work together on designing packaging, So I'm
Speaker 1: not I don't have any skills. I can draw something
Speaker 1: out on a cocktail napkin, but I can say, all right,
Speaker 1: I want it to look like this, and then we
Speaker 1: have to have a good enough report to work together
Speaker 1: to find what works, what will work from your standpoint
Speaker 1: in ours social medium. Uh. Management, I've got to do
Speaker 1: all of that product product development, you know, and testing
Speaker 1: like it's. It goes way beyond just like yeah, cool,
Speaker 1: it sounds good, We'll do it like it's so there's
Speaker 1: so much to it, so it's like an onion. You
Speaker 1: kind of pull it back and it's like you find
Speaker 1: one more layer that you have to be good at
Speaker 1: something written word, you know, Now, I'm on a podcast,
Speaker 1: so you know, I have to be able to talk
Speaker 1: about stuff with guests and find people that are interesting
Speaker 1: to talk to. So it just seems to never end.
Speaker 1: But those things are out there. There's ad those opportunities
Speaker 1: out there, but it's not just going to fall into
Speaker 1: your lap overnight. And honestly, you look at like industry jobs,
Speaker 1: you might look at it this way. Some of the
Speaker 1: probably the highest paid people into the hunting industry are
Speaker 1: people at a corporate level, you know, at upper management,
Speaker 1: who have a degree, They went to college, they worked,
Speaker 1: and they started out and they worked somewhere else. They
Speaker 1: probably didn't even start out in the hunting industry and
Speaker 1: finally got into the hunting industry because they like the
Speaker 1: outdoors or they like hunting, and then they spent some
Speaker 1: time there with some successful track records and they climb
Speaker 1: the corporate letter. Now they hold really good jobs with
Speaker 1: really secure salaries in some big companies. You know, those
Speaker 1: are those are jobs. Those are the kind of jobs
Speaker 1: you know a lot of people probably would like to
Speaker 1: have if they had skill set. Uh, manufacturing jobs, you know,
Speaker 1: whether you're you know, a machinist or a whatever, whatever
Speaker 1: kind of you know, stuff that you could can can manufacture.
Speaker 1: Maybe even if you're just packaging things. I mean, companies
Speaker 1: have to take it from the idea to packaging to
Speaker 1: putting it into a box and shipping it. You know,
Speaker 1: maybe it maybe it's e commerce, you know, maybe you're
Speaker 1: you're really good at that kind of stuff. You can
Speaker 1: you can make a heck a good heck of a
Speaker 1: good living in the outdoor industry, in the e commerce side,
Speaker 1: or like you a designer, uh, photographer, film production, basically
Speaker 1: any kind of a you look at any kind of
Speaker 1: a normal business in any industry, those those businesses have
Speaker 1: the same support structure as everything in the hunting industry.
Speaker 1: So you know, maybe maybe you want to work for
Speaker 1: a hunting company because you love it, but you have
Speaker 1: a skill set in accounting or what or whatever it is,
Speaker 1: there's a spot for you.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean that that's so spot on. It's like,
Speaker 2: you know, just like if you're gonna go work for
Speaker 2: Boeing or Amazon or like whatever, you know, there's still
Speaker 2: jobs like that those companies offer in the hunting industry.
Speaker 2: So it's like you can go work for someone and
Speaker 2: have a great career, you know, just working for a
Speaker 2: company and you know, like they're in we you and
Speaker 2: I both know a lot of great hunting companies that
Speaker 2: are out there too, you know. And some of the
Speaker 2: perks that some of these people get it seems like
Speaker 2: they get more time off and all this, and I'm
Speaker 2: over here just slaving away, killing myself with my own business.
Speaker 2: But you know, it's like people have great opportunities, you know,
Speaker 2: and they're gonna go do things. And maybe you know,
Speaker 2: some of these people in two you know, it's like
Speaker 2: maybe they're they're they want to be in the hunting
Speaker 2: industry because they idolize some people and it's like they
Speaker 2: maybe they just want to meet them and do that,
Speaker 2: and you know, whatever, whatever it is, it's like this,
Speaker 2: it is a great industry to be in, and you
Speaker 2: will make awesome friendships. And regardless of what level you
Speaker 2: are at a company, if you went and work somewhere
Speaker 2: or doing it on your own or whatever you're doing,
Speaker 2: there are you know, some really great people. And I
Speaker 2: think that's like that in any industry, you know, snowboarding,
Speaker 2: you know, golf, whatever you your passion is, you're going
Speaker 2: to meet the people and like minded people. We just
Speaker 2: all happen to really like hunting and spend a lot
Speaker 2: of time doing it as much as we can outside
Speaker 2: of working, you know, And I think that's kind of
Speaker 2: what it boils down to. But if you want to
Speaker 2: be in the industry, I mean, find your niche, that
Speaker 2: something you're good at, and then figure out how you
Speaker 2: want to apply it.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, I mean even I've seen guys get at
Speaker 1: their foot in the door with companies just getting to
Speaker 1: know people at a trade show. They'll go up, they'll
Speaker 1: introduce themselves. One of our good buddies, Cody Wilson, he
Speaker 1: come up to the Phelips booth years ago and just
Speaker 1: shot the breeze with us for a whole weekend, you know,
Speaker 1: and got to know him. Just awesome dude, great hunter,
Speaker 1: good guy, has a great nine to five job, but
Speaker 1: he wanted to he wanted to kind of be part
Speaker 1: of the hunting industry, you know, because he enjoyed the
Speaker 1: people and and you know, and every year Cody comes
Speaker 1: and helps us out at the Phelips booth, at at
Speaker 1: the trade show, at at the Honeyex bo in Salt Lake,
Speaker 1: and we've built an awesome friendship with him. He went
Speaker 1: el hunting with me last fall just loved the guy.
Speaker 1: But you know it's it all starts somewhere, you know.
Speaker 1: So there's a lot of companies they they need those
Speaker 1: kind of help or you know at trade shows, you know,
Speaker 1: they get they get to know somebody there. You know,
Speaker 1: maybe they come able to come back the next year
Speaker 1: or to the next show work as an ambassador. Maybe
Speaker 1: they can even just maybe they'll even get paid. You
Speaker 1: just never know. There's opportunities to get your foot in
Speaker 1: the door. And uh and if you're a good person
Speaker 1: and disguise the limit.
Speaker 2: Right yep, one hundred percent.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So anyway, well I think that'll be we'll just
Speaker 1: wrap it up with that thought. You know, there are
Speaker 1: disguise the limit on that the hunting industry. You can
Speaker 1: get in there, but you have to really be specific
Speaker 1: on really what you're trying to accomplish, what do you
Speaker 1: bring to the table, And you know you can you
Speaker 1: can go along ways, just like just like any career, honestly.
Speaker 2: So that's right, that's right. And one thing we'll kind
Speaker 2: of add this caveat in there too, because it seems
Speaker 2: like the YouTube thing, you know, it's kind of everyone
Speaker 2: wants to have their own videos and be on YouTube.
Speaker 2: And do all that kind of a final thought on that,
Speaker 2: you know, and keep doing your career that you're doing now,
Speaker 2: you know, and and kind of you know, do this
Speaker 2: as a side hustle, you know, like it's your second job,
Speaker 2: you know, if you will and start filming and doing things,
Speaker 2: and you know, maybe maybe you just want to be
Speaker 2: recognized by some of these companies or get some gear.
Speaker 2: Maybe that's like we kind of mentioned, like that's your
Speaker 2: thing and that if that's your thought of being in
Speaker 2: the industry, just do it then, like no one, you know,
Speaker 2: no one's holding you back but yourself. So it's like,
Speaker 2: go out and achieve it. And all great things come
Speaker 2: with a lot of hard work. So put in the
Speaker 2: hours and punch the time clock and you'll get there.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah. I think some of the you know, YouTube creators,
Speaker 1: they just they put videos out just because they love it.
Speaker 1: They want to share their experiences and with their friends
Speaker 1: and family and and they're not looking for anything other
Speaker 1: than you know, you know, bringing that you know, bring
Speaker 1: enjoyed other people, and they enjoy the the the craft
Speaker 1: of filming and editing. I love film production. I really
Speaker 1: enjoy it. Like now, going through my al cut from
Speaker 1: this fall, I've been saying a few beadwords and it's
Speaker 1: been a grind. But when you have a good hunt
Speaker 1: and you can edit that thing up and put it
Speaker 1: out there, and just like I find it very satisfying,
Speaker 1: you know, it's it's it's really it's really fun. So
Speaker 1: it has to be something you enjoy and it has to be,
Speaker 1: you know, something you're passionate about. So well, thanks man.
Speaker 1: I really appreciate you coming on as always. We haven't
Speaker 1: had you on here for a while, but appreciate it
Speaker 1: and look forward to your your hunting season twenty twenty five.
Speaker 1: I always get to live vicariously through you in Montana
Speaker 1: because I probably won't draw the Montana deck again this year,
Speaker 1: but I always enjoy watching you and your wife's adventures
Speaker 1: over there.
Speaker 2: So yeah, I appreciate that, and likewise always uh, you know,
Speaker 2: especially now we got the little one that's going to
Speaker 2: be we're going to be toting around with us this year,
Speaker 2: so that's going to add some new adventures in itself,
Speaker 2: but I'll be living vicariously through you and Jason and
Speaker 2: everyone else that's off traveling the states here.
Speaker 1: So yeah, but well, I have a hunch that you
Speaker 1: guys will be just fine with that little peanut running
Speaker 1: around with you. I feel like you're going to have
Speaker 1: an awesome hunt and a good fall and real good experience.
Speaker 1: It's never too early to take your kids.
Speaker 2: Hunting, never, I know. And that's kind of the thing.
Speaker 2: I mean, spring bear obviously, I mean she's six weeks old,
Speaker 2: I guess now, but it's like spring bear coming in April,
Speaker 2: because right now is what February fourth and Kylie made
Speaker 2: comments to my dad that we were going spring bear
Speaker 2: hunting and we were taking her. And my Dad's like, oh,
Speaker 2: you guys might have to give up hunting for a
Speaker 2: few years, and Kylie said, no, she's we're going, So
Speaker 2: I mean absolutely, it just just how we do things.
Speaker 2: But it'll be fun.
Speaker 1: How did how did all the Native Americans back in
Speaker 1: that you think about it? All these Native Americans? Of course,
Speaker 1: you know, the women didn't probably go on the hunt
Speaker 1: too much, but man, they were living like they were camping, right,
Speaker 1: I mean, it was it's a rough existence and those
Speaker 1: people were just flaying. They had babies and moved babies
Speaker 1: and went across America. I mean, they were a tough people.
Speaker 1: And I'm like, geez, we have it way better these
Speaker 1: days with the I mean diaper. Yeah, I mean, you
Speaker 1: name it. You know it's at her fingertips. I mean,
Speaker 1: there's no excuse to not to get out and take
Speaker 1: your kids hunting with you and bet in the woods exactly.
Speaker 2: No, you know, agree, hundred percent. So I mean we're
Speaker 2: looking forward to it. It'll all add a new new
Speaker 2: level and I hope it, I'll be honest, kind of
Speaker 2: my my main goal this year is just to see
Speaker 2: Kylie get an elk. And last year we have a
Speaker 2: picture of her with my bowl that she's holding her
Speaker 2: baby bump in the picture, And this year I'd love
Speaker 2: for her to kill one and actually have like little
Speaker 2: one in her arms, you know, over the elk. So
Speaker 2: I think that would be kind of just a cool,
Speaker 2: you know, like full circle thing, and that's kind of
Speaker 2: my goal.
Speaker 1: So yeah, you know, it'll happen.
Speaker 2: It'll happen.
Speaker 1: I can't wait to see it. Yeah, all right, Well
Speaker 1: thanks again, John. We'll catch everybody on the flip flop
Speaker 2: Can