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 saddler blind, first Light,
Speaker 1: Go Farther, Stay Longer, and now your host, Mark Kenyon.
Speaker 1: Welcome to the Wire to Hunt podcast. I'm a guest
Speaker 1: host Tony Peterson, and today I'm speaking with Josh Miller
Speaker 1: and we're talking all about how to find more shed antlers. Hey, guys, quickly,
Speaker 1: want to give you an update. Mark Kenyon here. I'm
Speaker 1: not hosting the podcast today, Tony's got it, but I
Speaker 1: wanted to give you a quick update on my working
Speaker 1: for Wildlife tour. Now. I mentioned this a couple of
Speaker 1: weeks ago, and now I have the full scoop, the
Speaker 1: full details for you. Here's the cliff notes. If you're
Speaker 1: not for I am planning on heading out across the
Speaker 1: country this year to shine a spotlight on volunteer habitat
Speaker 1: improvement opportunities. There's all sorts of conservation organizations that put
Speaker 1: on these volunteer days asking hunters and anglers to come
Speaker 1: out and volunteer their time to work on public lands
Speaker 1: and waters. Maybe that's cleaning up a stream. Maybe that
Speaker 1: is picking up trash, maybe that's planting trees or moving
Speaker 1: invasive species, all kinds of stuff like that is going on,
Speaker 1: and I want to help encourage more of us to
Speaker 1: get out there and help out. So I am excited
Speaker 1: to do that myself this year by going to six
Speaker 1: of these events all across the country, and I'm inviting
Speaker 1: you to join me. We've got events starting out in
Speaker 1: March going all the way through October, and we're hitting
Speaker 1: all or at least most of the regions of the country.
Speaker 1: So here's the scoop on these events. I'm going to
Speaker 1: read you a list of these different events and what
Speaker 1: we're doing, and then I will tell you where to
Speaker 1: get more information where to sign up. One other key note,
Speaker 1: I will have twenty five T shirts to give away
Speaker 1: at each event. The first twenty five volunteers will get
Speaker 1: one of these cool new I Work for Wildlife T
Speaker 1: shirts that I helped design with my buddy Hunter Spencer
Speaker 1: from Metaitors. So little freebe now the events. The first
Speaker 1: one March twenty six, twenty twenty three, that's coming up
Speaker 1: here very soon, and that's going to be just outside
Speaker 1: of Boston, Massachusetts, at the Martin Burns Wildlife Management Area.
Speaker 1: The second event is going to be April twenty second
Speaker 1: up in Kalkaska, Michigan, when we're building brush piles for
Speaker 1: game habitat and a bunch of things in the Traverse
Speaker 1: City Forest Management Unit. Then fast forward to July thirtieth,
Speaker 1: twenty twenty three, we're gonna be in the Panhandled National
Speaker 1: Forest in Idaho working on aspenstand restoration. In August, we're
Speaker 1: going to Missouri to the b. K. Leech Conservation Area
Speaker 1: when in collaboration with BHA. Then in September we're going
Speaker 1: to Mississippi to the De Soto National Forest. And in
Speaker 1: October we're going to Kentucky in the Daniel Boone National Force.
Speaker 1: We're gonna do some very cool white oak acorn collection
Speaker 1: for some local reforestation projects. That's an association with the
Speaker 1: National Deer Association. So we got three events with the NBA,
Speaker 1: two events with BHA, and one event with the Michigan
Speaker 1: United Conservation Clubs. All of these events are going to
Speaker 1: be free, open to the public, and we're just looking
Speaker 1: for folks to come out help out in I'm excited
Speaker 1: to meet you, shake some hands, tell some stories, share pictures,
Speaker 1: and most importantly do something good for these wild critters
Speaker 1: and places that we all enjoy so much. So that's
Speaker 1: the game plan. If you go to the meat eater
Speaker 1: dot com and then search in the little search bar
Speaker 1: on the page for working for Wildlife Tour, you'll see
Speaker 1: this website I'm telling me about. It's got the full
Speaker 1: details for each one of those events, has a photo
Speaker 1: of that T shirt I mentioned. It has the links
Speaker 1: to register, which these organizations would like you to register,
Speaker 1: just so they know how many people will be there
Speaker 1: and what they need to have prepared for that number
Speaker 1: of folks. So head over there, register, come on out.
Speaker 1: It's gonna be a good time. We're gonna be around
Speaker 1: a bunch of like minded people enjoying mother Nature and
Speaker 1: giving back in a great way. And I can't wait.
Speaker 1: So hopefully we'll see you guys first up March twenty
Speaker 1: six in or just outside of Boston. Sounds like a
Speaker 1: really cool wildlife management area that's been work done over
Speaker 1: the years. It supports a lot of different bird species,
Speaker 1: including some less common ones in that area like American woodcock,
Speaker 1: rough grouse, blue winged warblers, all sorts of good stuff
Speaker 1: that'sn't Steven so We're gonna be doing some good work
Speaker 1: out there and having a good time and I will
Speaker 1: see you March twenty six and now back to the
Speaker 1: show with Tony Peterson and another episode of Wired two Hunt.
Speaker 1: Welcome to the Wire to Hunt podcast, which is brought
Speaker 1: to you by First Light. You probably know this is
Speaker 1: not the mustachioed madman Mark Kenyon, but is instead the
Speaker 1: guy who really seems to be holding the whole Wire
Speaker 1: to Hunt thing together. Tony Mark is off on a
Speaker 1: spiritual retreat where he is learning to meditate, harness the
Speaker 1: healing power of crystals, and use astrology to connect on
Speaker 1: a deeper level with deer. Apparently Mark is a Virgo,
Speaker 1: and since most fawns are born in May, the bucks
Speaker 1: he chases are I guess a Taurus, so he's got
Speaker 1: some I don't know dumb theory about that anyway. Today's
Speaker 1: guest is Josh Miller, who lives in Wisconsin and runs
Speaker 1: Riverstone Kennels. In addition to being a shed dog trainer,
Speaker 1: Josh also happens to be a super passionate whitetail hunter.
Speaker 1: This whole show is dedicated to finding antlers. It's about
Speaker 1: where to look for him when to look for him,
Speaker 1: how to get your kids out there and excited about antlers,
Speaker 1: and even how to mix your dogs up in shed
Speaker 1: hunting if you have the desire and the right dogs.
Speaker 1: Of course, even if you're not a passionate shed hunter.
Speaker 1: I think you should give this one a listen, because
Speaker 1: there's plenty of info here that should benefit all deer hunters.
Speaker 1: Josh Miller, how the hell are you, buddy? I'm great, man.
Speaker 1: How are you doing. I'm good. I love talking to you. Man.
Speaker 1: We got we got a lot of stuff to go
Speaker 1: through here. We are coming off of a stupid winner.
Speaker 1: You live over there in Wisconsin, just across the river
Speaker 1: from me, and it is really the time where, you know,
Speaker 1: we kind of got a little bit robbed of our
Speaker 1: shed season this year, this far north, but there's still
Speaker 1: a chance to get out there and find some antlers still. Yeah, man,
Speaker 1: it really has been tough just because of how this
Speaker 1: winner has presented itself. Because you know, for us, we
Speaker 1: keep a really close tab on our gear. You heard
Speaker 1: here on my farm, and it's something that we look
Speaker 1: forward to every single year, especially because you know, my
Speaker 1: daughter is four going on fourteen. You know the way
Speaker 1: that she acts my son is two or two and
Speaker 1: a half rather, and so we're at a point where
Speaker 1: we really like to do this. Yeah, I still like
Speaker 1: to go out and find a couple the kids can
Speaker 1: go be successful and get into it, but they look
Speaker 1: forward to it. And now you know, we're seeing you know,
Speaker 1: deer dropping and then like today, like I just literally
Speaker 1: had yesterday a one antler, you know, buck that had
Speaker 1: just shed. I saw him yesterday with both sides. So
Speaker 1: I have a pretty good idea of where this thing
Speaker 1: probably be. And we're supposed to get two feet of
Speaker 1: snow today. You know, it's like it really makes it tough.
Speaker 1: You're covering those antlers up and he's going to pose
Speaker 1: some challenges. So maybe it'll be a wait until some
Speaker 1: melt off and towards spring a little bit. But but
Speaker 1: you're right, the winner has posed some challenges. Yeah, it
Speaker 1: was a tough year. I mean, we had such weird
Speaker 1: conditions up here with you know, quite a bit of
Speaker 1: snow right away, and then we had weird rain storm
Speaker 1: I think back in January at some point that just
Speaker 1: a bad cross stell out there and then more snow
Speaker 1: and it's just one of those it's one of the
Speaker 1: years where you know, as we get here towards the
Speaker 1: end of March, that's when you can have those days
Speaker 1: where you find like six or eight sheds and you know,
Speaker 1: kind of mix up for the couple you'd pick up
Speaker 1: here and there throughout the season. But there, you know,
Speaker 1: there's still a chance to get out there. And I
Speaker 1: want to talk about that, but I want to get
Speaker 1: into the dog thing a little bit first. We've we've
Speaker 1: done some shed dog episodes before, so I don't want
Speaker 1: I don't want to cover it too completely here, but
Speaker 1: you were kind of one of the pioneers of shed
Speaker 1: dogs back back in the day. You and you and
Speaker 1: Docket and a few people were really pushing that message
Speaker 1: before it took off and it was everywhere. Yeah, you
Speaker 1: know what's so funny about that is the first time
Speaker 1: that it kind of occurred to me that I could
Speaker 1: do this was there's a big state park that's by
Speaker 1: my house and you couldn't hunt it at the time.
Speaker 1: You can now, but you couldn't at the time, so
Speaker 1: it was just a white tail sanctuary, right. And so
Speaker 1: as I was you know, probably like maybe like in
Speaker 1: the eighteen you know, seventeen eighteen year old range I
Speaker 1: had a dog named Easton at the time, who has
Speaker 1: since passed. But we did a lot together all the time, right,
Speaker 1: not just hunting and training wise, but it was like,
Speaker 1: you know, anything I did, Easton was there. And so
Speaker 1: being a very avid archery hunter, very avid white tail hunter,
Speaker 1: you know, shed season was something I looked forward to
Speaker 1: and I loved, you know, putting on those those miles
Speaker 1: with the boots on the ground finding these and the
Speaker 1: first it wasn't even an antler that that piqued my
Speaker 1: interest on this. It was we were in the middle
Speaker 1: of the state park that I don't know how many
Speaker 1: thousands of acres it is, and Easton comes back with
Speaker 1: a tennis ball and I'm sitting here looking around, like,
Speaker 1: am I like stumbling into like you where someone's like
Speaker 1: camped out and living in these woods? Like what the
Speaker 1: heck is going on? Why is there a tennis ball
Speaker 1: in the middle of this whole thing? But he loved
Speaker 1: tennis balls, and I remember bringing that back to me,
Speaker 1: and I was looking at it, going, well, if you
Speaker 1: love this and you can find this in the middle
Speaker 1: of nowhere, why couldn't you actually look for what I'm
Speaker 1: looking for? And we could both be actively hunting for these,
Speaker 1: and at the time, I didn't even really know anyone
Speaker 1: did this. I'm sure there were a lot of people
Speaker 1: that were right, but for me, I had not heard
Speaker 1: of this. I had not you know, research, hit hadn't
Speaker 1: gone through it. So I literally went I was super fortunate.
Speaker 1: I had a teacher that was in high school, one
Speaker 1: of my shop teachers. He had a beer farm, and
Speaker 1: so I just asked him, Hey, like, when these start dropping,
Speaker 1: could I pick a couple up and use it for training.
Speaker 1: He thought it was a cool idea of trying to
Speaker 1: get the dog involved. Um, so I remember going out
Speaker 1: there with like rubber gloves and a zip block bag
Speaker 1: and trying to keep these like as fresh as I could,
Speaker 1: and man like, that's that's just how this started. And
Speaker 1: it's just kind of crazy here now. I mean there's
Speaker 1: you know, there's different organizations. They're holding events, and there's
Speaker 1: people from all over the country that are doing this,
Speaker 1: and it's really turned into a big deal. Yeah, it's weird.
Speaker 1: It was kind of like this little underground thing for
Speaker 1: a while and then and then it just blew up
Speaker 1: and it was like everywhere you look there was pictures
Speaker 1: of shed dogs, and you know this this was back
Speaker 1: when you know, magazine writing was a way bigger part
Speaker 1: of my job, and it was like everybody wanted that
Speaker 1: story on shed dogs. You know, it's like, oh, this
Speaker 1: is kind of like a cool new thing. And then
Speaker 1: it's sort of it seemed to maybe peek a little bit,
Speaker 1: and now it's just sort of like part of dog ownership.
Speaker 1: Like you meet, you know, primarily people with retrievers, and
Speaker 1: if they love to deer hunt, there's like a decent
Speaker 1: chance they've trained their dogs to find antlers or they've
Speaker 1: gone to somebody like you to have them trained, and
Speaker 1: it's just sort of become a part of the culture.
Speaker 1: And I think that's freaking cool. Yeah, yeah, it really is.
Speaker 1: You know, so we we have our online training program
Speaker 1: Retriever Roadmap, where you know, we have her library and
Speaker 1: great community and all this stuff. Right, but that's the
Speaker 1: one topic right now that's really coming up. Or you know,
Speaker 1: these people and some of these people, you know, they
Speaker 1: don't necessarily deer hunt, but they're looking for an offseason
Speaker 1: activity to do with their dogs, and this fits that
Speaker 1: bill this time of year, and so it's really neat
Speaker 1: how you know, this can kind of provide not only
Speaker 1: you know, increase in success for the people that are
Speaker 1: already out there doing it, but there's people now getting
Speaker 1: into the shed hunting that have never done it before,
Speaker 1: just simply because of the dog. Yeah, I've mixed feelings
Speaker 1: about that because I feel like I have enough competition
Speaker 1: shed hunting. But I do love seeing people take their
Speaker 1: dogs out and you know, try that. And I know
Speaker 1: I've had because you know, we'll do a lot of
Speaker 1: shed dog training in the parks by my house, you know,
Speaker 1: especially in the spring, and people see it and they're
Speaker 1: just like drawn to it. And if there's one category
Speaker 1: of dog owner that has unrealistic expectations of shed dogs,
Speaker 1: it's the person who's like not not actually a deer hunter,
Speaker 1: but they see that and they're like, I want to
Speaker 1: train my dog to do that so I can go
Speaker 1: out and find antlers too. And I'm like, man, you
Speaker 1: have no concept of how hard that's actually going to be.
Speaker 1: Training the dogs isn't like terribly hard, but actually getting
Speaker 1: out there and finding a bunch of antlers usually is
Speaker 1: for those people. But I love seeing the interest anyway.
Speaker 1: Oh man, Now that's spot on too, because that's one
Speaker 1: of the things that we when we take dogs in
Speaker 1: for training for this, we're extremely selective in the people
Speaker 1: and dogs who would take in for because there is
Speaker 1: this unrealistic expectation that you're like, hey, my dog just
Speaker 1: got trained to do this, so let's go hit up
Speaker 1: the Walmart parking lot. We should find a few and
Speaker 1: you know what I mean, Like it's just like it
Speaker 1: very unrealistic. And like what I always tell people is
Speaker 1: that if you're going to do this, like it's not
Speaker 1: gonna mean that you go from finding three a year
Speaker 1: to eighty three, right, like you might go from finding
Speaker 1: three to maybe five, like you know, a couple that
Speaker 1: you would have walked over. It's more about being out
Speaker 1: there with the dog and you and the dog having
Speaker 1: another activity to look forward to. You know, the dog's
Speaker 1: got sitting down to college, and you're not sitting down
Speaker 1: to the the college. You're out there being active. But you know,
Speaker 1: you know, like you still have to be in the
Speaker 1: area that these deer are when they shed to be successful.
Speaker 1: You know, if if I go fishing in a lake
Speaker 1: that has no fish, I'm not going to catch any fish.
Speaker 1: It's the same thing. And so you know, like if
Speaker 1: you're a farm or the area that you hunt, you
Speaker 1: find a lot of sheds out well, your dog is
Speaker 1: going to have a lot of opportunities to pick them up,
Speaker 1: which means the dog is gonna get really good at it.
Speaker 1: If you if you don't find Manny and your dog
Speaker 1: gets a chance to pick maybe one or two of
Speaker 1: a year, well the dog's probably never going to be
Speaker 1: overly proficient at it. And quite frankly, he doesn't have
Speaker 1: the opportunity too because he's not in a target rich environment.
Speaker 1: So you know, there's it's not going to be this
Speaker 1: you know, feast and you know, from famine to feast
Speaker 1: once you get a dog trained for it. But there's
Speaker 1: a lot of positives to being out there together doing it. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean I was always you know, taking my dogs
Speaker 1: out with me anyway, but I felt like one of
Speaker 1: the biggest benefits when I when I trained my you know,
Speaker 1: the first dog I trained to find him was my Golden,
Speaker 1: which was three dogs ago now, and one of the
Speaker 1: things that I just loved about it was, you know,
Speaker 1: like you said, at that time, even shed hunting really hard.
Speaker 1: I might find six or eight in an entire winter,
Speaker 1: but I went more because she had a job. You know,
Speaker 1: like it was like kind of dumb, right, Like you're
Speaker 1: just like, well, it's it's winner, I have nothing to do,
Speaker 1: and might as well take my dog out. And since
Speaker 1: my dog no is what we're looking for now, it's
Speaker 1: just more fun to go shed hunting. So I just
Speaker 1: go more and I find more antlers. But you know,
Speaker 1: like you said, it's it's not a game changer as
Speaker 1: far as like if you're really obsessed with finding tons
Speaker 1: of antlers, even the best dog out there isn't going
Speaker 1: to change your situation like a crazy amount. But it
Speaker 1: sure is just fun to have them with you now.
Speaker 1: And isn't it amazing that the dog does that for us?
Speaker 1: And as far as like getting us out, because if
Speaker 1: you if you talk to most dog owners, let's just
Speaker 1: use the water falling for example, if you talk to
Speaker 1: most dog owners, they'll all tell you the same thing,
Speaker 1: and I don't even want to go if the dog's
Speaker 1: not going. Yeah, right, And so it's just it's so
Speaker 1: interesting how you know the dog and the relationship that
Speaker 1: we have with them, How it really does it makes
Speaker 1: the experiment they experience that much richer for us, to
Speaker 1: to the point that we would say we don't even
Speaker 1: want to go if they're not with and so I
Speaker 1: think that's part of the reason why, you know, going
Speaker 1: out and having them with their shed hunting, it just
Speaker 1: makes it more enjoyable. I mean, they just they're lighting
Speaker 1: our lives, only different aspects. Yeah, it's so much more fun.
Speaker 1: And it's what's interesting. I want to ask you about
Speaker 1: this because you know, I've trained a couple of my
Speaker 1: dogs to find antlers, and you know, like like my
Speaker 1: Golden she figured out she was going to get praised
Speaker 1: no matter what if she brought me a bone, you know,
Speaker 1: Like so she would bring me all kinds of bones
Speaker 1: and sometimes antlers. Sometimes not my older dog that I
Speaker 1: have now, Luna, she if she finds an antler, she'll
Speaker 1: bring it to me. She never brings me just a
Speaker 1: random bone. And I always think, like when we're out there,
Speaker 1: you know, because we do a lot of late season
Speaker 1: pheasant hunting and sometimes you know, some of these states
Speaker 1: you can hunt through January or you know, we used
Speaker 1: to have that grouse season in Wisconsin that you could
Speaker 1: hunt through January, and we would find antlers doing that
Speaker 1: with the dogs. But when we were hunting with the dogs,
Speaker 1: it was like they're not going to bring you an antler?
Speaker 1: Like do you And I want to ask you that, like,
Speaker 1: do your dogs if you're out hunting something and your
Speaker 1: dogs found an antler, would they bring it to you? Matt?
Speaker 1: Maybe yeah. But what I'm the way I see it
Speaker 1: is like, okay, if if you if you're hunting pheasants,
Speaker 1: like you're you know you're you're you're having that flaming
Speaker 1: young right, Like that's that's the hitome. That's what I'm
Speaker 1: here for. That tracks me up all of a sudden.
Speaker 1: Like you look at a ham sandwich. You're going not
Speaker 1: a big deal, right you You still want that filet?
Speaker 1: And so that's what that's why I kind of look
Speaker 1: at it there. Now you take you take the edge
Speaker 1: off that, and you're like, hey, look we're just out
Speaker 1: here hunting sheds. Now, all of a sudden, my que
Speaker 1: words are different, my energy level is probably different, right,
Speaker 1: And so the dog feeds off that and goes, Okay,
Speaker 1: this is what we're doing. But if you're a shed
Speaker 1: hunting and you get into a patch of grouse or pheasants,
Speaker 1: like the dog is going to kick into it, right
Speaker 1: all of a sudden, sheds aren't gonna matter now, I'm
Speaker 1: onto this, and then they're gonna have to come off that.
Speaker 1: Like that's that genetic side, right, like feathers and birds
Speaker 1: like that is ingrained in our dog's DNA, especially if
Speaker 1: you have you know, the right bloodlines. I mean, it's
Speaker 1: it's hard to turn that off, you know. So it's
Speaker 1: never gonna be an equal you know, uh, you know,
Speaker 1: pray for them to go after, but you know you
Speaker 1: can still funnel that where it's a very desirable object. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 1: They When I'm bird hunting with my dogs, they aren't
Speaker 1: bringing me antlers. But when I'm antler hunting with my
Speaker 1: dogs and we encounter birds, then it becomes a bird hunt.
Speaker 1: Like that's right there. They're switching gears that way in
Speaker 1: a heartbeat. When you when you started with Easton back
Speaker 1: in the day and he started bringing me some tennis
Speaker 1: balls out there and you realize you could do this?
Speaker 1: What since then? Because I know, like, you know, people
Speaker 1: who look you up, they're gonna see, you know, your
Speaker 1: kennel that you run with, Whitney, your wife, and like
Speaker 1: you're you're so ensconced in the dog world, the bird
Speaker 1: dog world and train you know, a trainer by trade,
Speaker 1: but you're a diehard bow hunter too, Like, what did
Speaker 1: what did those dogs when you went and started doing that?
Speaker 1: What did they teach you about antlers like shed hunting
Speaker 1: that you didn't you didn't know before. There had to
Speaker 1: be something that you picked up with after going out
Speaker 1: there with your dog. So here's what's so interesting about
Speaker 1: being out there with you, like before and after And
Speaker 1: this may have just come through, you know, a natural
Speaker 1: progression of sources. I grew up and got older and
Speaker 1: had more experience, But what I found is that when
Speaker 1: I was shed hunting before, you know how it is
Speaker 1: like you are glued to the ground. You know, you're
Speaker 1: a scan scan, scan, and you're like on top of it,
Speaker 1: right and man, Like, when I have the dogs out there,
Speaker 1: what I find more is like I'm finding new late
Speaker 1: season travel routes. I'm seeing oh my gosh, Like I
Speaker 1: didn't realize this, this tree was on this edge that
Speaker 1: would work great for this wind. And it's almost like
Speaker 1: a pregame prep for me too, Like I know the
Speaker 1: dogs are out there doing the work, and if we're
Speaker 1: in an area that they're probably gonna pick something up,
Speaker 1: especially if I have more than one dog out there
Speaker 1: and they're covered a bunch of ground like they're probably
Speaker 1: gonna find it, They're gonna probably gonna pick it up,
Speaker 1: which is great. So I just get to enjoy it
Speaker 1: more like I don't have to be like I'm still watching,
Speaker 1: I'm still doing my job, but I'm a little more
Speaker 1: relaxed doing it, and I find myself, you know, seeing
Speaker 1: things that wouldn't have seen for and I pick things out.
Speaker 1: And it's really an interesting deal because I believe firmly
Speaker 1: that this is the best scouting time of year, you know,
Speaker 1: this going into spring before we get leaves, because this
Speaker 1: is as close to it's going to look like when
Speaker 1: I'm up in a tree, right, So I don't have
Speaker 1: to over trim because the foliage that is, you know,
Speaker 1: is not here or won't be there in the fall,
Speaker 1: but we'll be there when I'm trying to do this
Speaker 1: in August. Right. So I love, you know, hanging sets.
Speaker 1: I love getting set up for the year, you know,
Speaker 1: going forward this time, this time of year, and so
Speaker 1: it's just one of those things that I think I
Speaker 1: can kind of step back and maybe see things I
Speaker 1: was blind to otherwise. So that that's an interesting take
Speaker 1: because I, you know, we just we just did a
Speaker 1: couple episodes on winter scouting, Like I feel the same way.
Speaker 1: I've said this a million times. I think winter scouting
Speaker 1: for deer is the most important time you can spend
Speaker 1: outside of actually hunting. I think it's so valuable. But
Speaker 1: I've always and I know a lot of people who
Speaker 1: are like this where it's like I'm neither a shed
Speaker 1: hunter or I'm a winner scouter, but I'm not both,
Speaker 1: Like it just just can't do it. And so what
Speaker 1: you're saying is, when you go out there with the dogs,
Speaker 1: you have you know, you have the confidence that if
Speaker 1: they run across when they're going to find it. So
Speaker 1: you've got some you've got some extra critters working for
Speaker 1: you there just for the sheer fact of like finding
Speaker 1: more antlers, but you're also paying attention to them more
Speaker 1: because you're a dog trainer, So you're watching them in
Speaker 1: your hands, signaling them, and you're you're reading their body
Speaker 1: language and stuff. But it also allows you the chance
Speaker 1: to sort of take a shed hunt, like what could
Speaker 1: be a strict shed hunt and turn it into sort
Speaker 1: of a hybrid deal where you're looking for some antlers
Speaker 1: but you're also winner scouting. Yeah, for sure. I mean,
Speaker 1: as much as I love shed hunting, you know, being
Speaker 1: in the tree, that's that's what it's all about for me, right,
Speaker 1: So if I can be you know, if I can
Speaker 1: be scouting. Unfortunately, I don't have infinite amount of time
Speaker 1: to be able to do it all, right, so I'm
Speaker 1: trying to double duty. I think most of us probably
Speaker 1: fit in that boat, right, like, well, we always had
Speaker 1: more time to be out there and yeah, okay, I'm
Speaker 1: anna shed hunt on this trip, of them skelt on
Speaker 1: the next one, while most of us have to try
Speaker 1: to do it all at once, and so to have
Speaker 1: the dog out there doing the work, yeah, for me, anyways,
Speaker 1: it just took that little bit of edge out where
Speaker 1: I could do both at once and be really fishing
Speaker 1: at doing both at once. One of the things that
Speaker 1: I think is really a provides a really good lesson
Speaker 1: when you're out there with a shed dog, is they
Speaker 1: will find antlers close to you that you cannot see.
Speaker 1: I just think, you know, I talked to an uncle
Speaker 1: of mine one time, and they have horses, and he
Speaker 1: was always finding antlers. And he you know, he lives
Speaker 1: way up by Elie, So it's not like he's he's
Speaker 1: in a part of the country that has a ton
Speaker 1: of deer, you know. I mean, he's up in the
Speaker 1: north country where it's like real low density. And I'm like,
Speaker 1: how the hell do you find as many antlers as
Speaker 1: you do? And he's like, we ride horses around, we're
Speaker 1: looking down on them, and you know, it's so dumb,
Speaker 1: but you think about that and you go, man, that
Speaker 1: that perspective, that's a totally different way to look at it,
Speaker 1: you know. And when you're out there with a dog
Speaker 1: and you think, man, I'm a real badass shed hunter.
Speaker 1: I'm not going to miss one. And then you look over,
Speaker 1: and especially if you're in some kind of saw grass
Speaker 1: or swamp or something and your dog is digging away
Speaker 1: and that that yellow grass and picks one up. It's like, man,
Speaker 1: you you might not find that antler even if you
Speaker 1: step on it. And so it kind of makes you realize, like,
Speaker 1: no matter how good you are, like you're bringing your binoculars,
Speaker 1: you're slowing down, You're gonna miss antlers no matter what.
Speaker 1: And I think that lesson is really cool that dogs
Speaker 1: teach you. Man, the number of times that one of
Speaker 1: my dogs, I all of a sudden, just heard bone
Speaker 1: on teeth and I'm going I look behind, like, I
Speaker 1: don't know how close I had to have stepped on
Speaker 1: that thing, but it was close, right, and I missed it.
Speaker 1: So those are the times you go, oh my gosh,
Speaker 1: like having the dog here really made that happen. But
Speaker 1: I none of us are as good as we think
Speaker 1: we are, you know, it's just the truth of it.
Speaker 1: I don't know, dude. I've met some people in the
Speaker 1: hunting industry who think they're pretty good. Man. I've met
Speaker 1: some dog trainers like that too, actually, But it is true,
Speaker 1: and it's it's a good reminder, I think. And you
Speaker 1: don't need you know, you don't have to train a
Speaker 1: shed dog to teach you this. But man, if you
Speaker 1: know how it is, like if you have that betting area,
Speaker 1: you have that area off of the good food source
Speaker 1: in the winter where you're like, there's antlers there, like
Speaker 1: the deer of ben there. I know they're gonna be there.
Speaker 1: You think about you walk a route through there, and
Speaker 1: you go, all right, I'm coming back here in a
Speaker 1: week or two weeks or three weeks or whatever, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna walk a different route. I mean, even two days
Speaker 1: later sometimes and you just walk it and reverse, or
Speaker 1: you walk it when it's super sunny one day and
Speaker 1: there's shadows out, and the next time you walk it
Speaker 1: it's that nice overcast day where there's no shadows. It's
Speaker 1: just like the more you're out there doing that, the
Speaker 1: more you realize, like how easy it is to walk
Speaker 1: right by those antlers, no question, you know. And I
Speaker 1: think I think that's a good lesson for a lot
Speaker 1: of people who are you know, you know kind of
Speaker 1: like we talked about with a dog owner who's like, oh,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna train my poodle to go out and find
Speaker 1: shed antlers because this guy's doing it with a lab
Speaker 1: and I don't really understand what's going on. Like when
Speaker 1: you think about, you know, if you're a you know,
Speaker 1: if you're shed hunting public land or you know, some
Speaker 1: of these parks or whatever where there are there's high pressure,
Speaker 1: like there's a lot of people in there looking at
Speaker 1: it can feel like a lost cause. But when you
Speaker 1: know that you've walked right by antlers that are six
Speaker 1: feet away from you, and you come back the other
Speaker 1: way and there they are. Other people are doing the
Speaker 1: same thing, And so I always kind of take a
Speaker 1: little hope and that you know, I I live in
Speaker 1: the suburbs of the Twin Cities, so I don't have
Speaker 1: a place to shed hunt that doesn't have quite a
Speaker 1: few people shed hunting it. But I find antlers every
Speaker 1: year and it's it just say, gives me a little
Speaker 1: bit of hope. And it's something you learn with dogs,
Speaker 1: and it's something you learn just by burning you know,
Speaker 1: some boot leather and getting out there. Yeah, no question, Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's it's it's all about getting out there, right, It's
Speaker 1: all about putting those miles on and taking those walks.
Speaker 1: And I mean even on some of the private farms
Speaker 1: you know that we've been on, you know, there's always
Speaker 1: going to be ones we miss. There's always going to
Speaker 1: be you know, those deer that are holding later than others.
Speaker 1: And for me, that's what kind of keeps it exciting, right,
Speaker 1: Like I want to go back out and recheck an area,
Speaker 1: especially if it's a farm that I have, you know,
Speaker 1: a bunch of eyes on and still running cameras. I
Speaker 1: know that there's a certain deer, specific deer, especially if
Speaker 1: there's deer that I let walk. I love that because
Speaker 1: it feels like I'm now growing up with this, dear saw.
Speaker 1: I'm at two saw, I'm at three half sheds on
Speaker 1: both sides. Of course, that's the epitomes to get a
Speaker 1: mature dear five six years old and go harvest that
Speaker 1: deer and have years of anilers. I haven't done that yet,
Speaker 1: but that's that's one of the goals I really really want,
Speaker 1: is to have that that growth. But you know, that's
Speaker 1: that's kind of what keeps me going. It's like it's
Speaker 1: a grown up Easter egg hunt, right, yeah, all big time.
Speaker 1: And you know, I'm glad you said that that you
Speaker 1: haven't done that yet, because I think it's I think
Speaker 1: it's very easy to assume that there's a lot of
Speaker 1: people out there who you know. Even if your name
Speaker 1: and deer and you have a really really good place
Speaker 1: to hunt, whether you own it or it's permission or
Speaker 1: at lease or whatever, it is not that easy to
Speaker 1: go out and find a shed and then kill the
Speaker 1: owner of that shed next year, two years or three years.
Speaker 1: It's like it looks easy and probably more common because
Speaker 1: of how we were kind of fed stuff from the
Speaker 1: hunting industry, but it is really not that common out there, no,
Speaker 1: And I actually know very few people that have actually
Speaker 1: done that, And I feel like I manage my farms
Speaker 1: really tightly, like it's a very what you would call
Speaker 1: it a session, and it probably is of sorts, but
Speaker 1: it's something I really really get into. And every year
Speaker 1: when you let a deer walk, you're rolling the dice
Speaker 1: like you are gambling, because there are so many things
Speaker 1: that can happen. You know, neighbors, you kill, the deer,
Speaker 1: you know, hit by a car, gets disease, doesn't make
Speaker 1: it through the winter. Like there's so many things that
Speaker 1: can go on, and it is it's so uncommon. And
Speaker 1: then you know the way that these deer you move around.
Speaker 1: You know, there's the reality is that on a piece
Speaker 1: of property, there are only so many mature deer that
Speaker 1: can call that property home. Mature bucks, right because of
Speaker 1: how they act, and so you could have an older
Speaker 1: mature deer. This is where you know, taking deer that
Speaker 1: are of the right age. It may not be the
Speaker 1: calvalry you wamp, but because of certain reasons, like that
Speaker 1: buck is never going to get to where you want
Speaker 1: him to be. Could run off that young deer coming
Speaker 1: up to that and then all of a sudden he's gone, right,
Speaker 1: So there's a lot of things that can happen on
Speaker 1: a year to year basis, and that's why I think
Speaker 1: it is so difficult to find those multiple years, get
Speaker 1: that deer to the age that you want them to,
Speaker 1: and harvest that deer. It's a goal of mine. I
Speaker 1: want nothing more to make that happen. But it just
Speaker 1: seems like every year when I think, oh, maybe this
Speaker 1: is it, something happens. Yeah, I don't even I have
Speaker 1: no place where that's even a possibility. I have one
Speaker 1: time in my life where I found an antler and
Speaker 1: then two years later I killed that buck, and it
Speaker 1: was just I didn't I had no clue. I'd kind
Speaker 1: of forgot i'd even found that antler, and then I
Speaker 1: don't remember what I was doing, but I looked at
Speaker 1: it and I go, man's that's blade it up and everything,
Speaker 1: just like the buck that I killed this year and
Speaker 1: then held it up there, and it was just one
Speaker 1: of those lucky deals that he stuck around, and you know,
Speaker 1: I didn't obviously I didn't match him up or thing
Speaker 1: I didn't find the year after. But it's pretty cool
Speaker 1: when that happens. And the other thing about that, you know,
Speaker 1: when you when you talk about that and like, oh,
Speaker 1: I want to kill a buck that's you know, six
Speaker 1: and a half, and I'd love to have match sets
Speaker 1: from you know, the last four years or whatever. Even
Speaker 1: going out and finding a match set unless they fall
Speaker 1: right next to each other is really not that easy. No,
Speaker 1: it's not. Well, the other thing is think about so
Speaker 1: I've read articles now on how they'll find like coyote
Speaker 1: dens that have antlers all over in them. You know,
Speaker 1: they love chewing on them. You're just like a dog, right,
Speaker 1: like just like our domestic dogs, right, And so something
Speaker 1: like that can even happen to where it doesn't even
Speaker 1: give you the opportunity to find both those and you
Speaker 1: could you could walk your tail off, you're not going
Speaker 1: to find them, right. So it's just there's so many things.
Speaker 1: Everything has to go so right for that to happen.
Speaker 1: But it still is one of those things that I
Speaker 1: sit and dream about, like I gotta make this happened
Speaker 1: one year, I gotta make this happen. Well, it'll happen.
Speaker 1: I was going to ask you about that with coyotes
Speaker 1: because I found I found a mule deer shit out
Speaker 1: in western North Dakota one time, and the base was
Speaker 1: nod on, like, how do I describe this? If you
Speaker 1: see like a mouse is chewing on an antler, the
Speaker 1: rodent teeth they're almost like kind of sharp, like you
Speaker 1: took like a sharp tool to it. And if you
Speaker 1: look at how dogs chew down an antler, it's sort
Speaker 1: of like rounded off, you know, like it's like gnawed off.
Speaker 1: And I found that this was years probably twelve thirteen
Speaker 1: years ago. I remember looking at it going, gosh, that's
Speaker 1: that's super weird. It looks like a dog or you
Speaker 1: know what you'd assume as a coyote out there chewed
Speaker 1: on it. And then I remember thinking like, well, of course,
Speaker 1: like why wouldn't they If you could throw an antler
Speaker 1: on my floor and you don't pay attention, my dogs
Speaker 1: will chew that sucker right down to a nub, Like
Speaker 1: why wouldn't a coyote out there, especially if fresh one
Speaker 1: with a little blood on it, they pick that up
Speaker 1: and bring it back to their den. Of course they're
Speaker 1: gonna lay down a chew on it. M Yeah, no doubt. Well,
Speaker 1: and it's just so funny right sometimes, um, you know,
Speaker 1: even if it's right in front of our face and
Speaker 1: we just don't put two and two together, Like you know,
Speaker 1: hard dogs are just like you kayos or I have
Speaker 1: a fox that is so awesome. He's, for whatever reason,
Speaker 1: has chose that my food pot that's right out. I
Speaker 1: had a food pot that I put in right outside
Speaker 1: of our house strictly because my kids, being the ads
Speaker 1: they are, I want you of them to get in
Speaker 1: the outdoors. I want them to be able to you know,
Speaker 1: from the house. Wash deer come in out and you know, hey,
Speaker 1: you know there's a buck. You know, that's where we
Speaker 1: get in the name and the bucks. We can talk about. Oh,
Speaker 1: here's here's Ava's buck, and here's Colt's buck, and y'all
Speaker 1: it makes it fun. It's a family thing, right. But um,
Speaker 1: you know, like this little fox has just decided to
Speaker 1: lay down in this food pot and sun himself and
Speaker 1: it's like, well he lays an act just like the
Speaker 1: dog that's at my feet, you know, doing this. Why
Speaker 1: wouldn't he do the same kind of things like we're
Speaker 1: talking about. Yeah, it is it a red fox, it is.
Speaker 1: We have a red and a gray on our farm.
Speaker 1: We see them pretty frequently and I just absolutely love them.
Speaker 1: They get a pass like I have one of my
Speaker 1: employees loves the kyote hunt and he's like, oh, like
Speaker 1: we should say that. I'm like, no, Like, you can
Speaker 1: shoot all the kyotes out here that you want, But
Speaker 1: I like seeing them. I know that they get into
Speaker 1: the turkey egg and everything else that I don't want,
Speaker 1: but they just like their mannerisms, how they act, the
Speaker 1: way that they kind of use the edges and cover.
Speaker 1: They're just such a cool animal to watch. I just
Speaker 1: get a kick out of sitting here watching them. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think fox are so cool. All right? Do you
Speaker 1: think that that fox set up shop there because the
Speaker 1: coyotes probably aren't going to hang super close to your
Speaker 1: house and the kennel, and that fox knows it. Well,
Speaker 1: what's interesting is that, just like you say, we don't
Speaker 1: see kyotes from the house, we just don't, but we'll
Speaker 1: see them all over, especially during trigger season, we see
Speaker 1: them all over the farm outside of that, And I
Speaker 1: can kind of one hand the number of times that
Speaker 1: I've ever seen a coyote here. And so you think
Speaker 1: about that's the main predator that they're going to have
Speaker 1: to encounter, and if they can simply get away from
Speaker 1: it by getting close to where they or not, you know,
Speaker 1: I mean it makes sense, right, but here I mean
Speaker 1: that red fox, a gray fox is every once in
Speaker 1: a while he'll be there. But what's funny to your point,
Speaker 1: so the kennel, my house, my kennel sit on two
Speaker 1: different parcels to two different forty acres of my farm,
Speaker 1: and the gray fox always round the kennel, the red
Speaker 1: fox always round the house. So to your point, get
Speaker 1: where of the carlots aren't going to be? Yep, I
Speaker 1: think when you start paying attention to that stuff. So
Speaker 1: here in my neighborhood, and in fact, I was out
Speaker 1: with my dogs, I don't know, just a couple days ago,
Speaker 1: and I looked over and there was a red fox
Speaker 1: at the park, sitting there watching us from the other
Speaker 1: side of the soccer field. We have, you know, when
Speaker 1: when when I moved here in two thousand and six,
Speaker 1: I did a lot of wildlife photography in the parks
Speaker 1: around here, just because I had time. You know, I
Speaker 1: was a magazine writer, like I just I spent a
Speaker 1: lot of time watching animals and taking pictures of them.
Speaker 1: And it was we were we were covered in foxes here,
Speaker 1: red foxes. And then I started to see fewer of
Speaker 1: them and see way more coyotes in the parks. But
Speaker 1: when that started happening, we started seeing more fox in
Speaker 1: our neighborhood. And now I see, you know, we we
Speaker 1: have a fox that lives right down the road from us.
Speaker 1: When I take my little girls out to the bus stop,
Speaker 1: we'll look down the street and that fox will walk
Speaker 1: out onto the street and sit on his haunches and
Speaker 1: watch them get on the bus like consistently. And but
Speaker 1: we don't see coyotes in our neighborhood. And so I
Speaker 1: look at that, and I go these patches of you know,
Speaker 1: of woods and fields and stuff where that are that
Speaker 1: are the parks or the farms around here. That's probably
Speaker 1: coyote territory. And now these foxes are like, all right,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna go live in these people's backyards because we
Speaker 1: have all these little patches of woods that are connected
Speaker 1: in these little swamps, and so they just adapted to that.
Speaker 1: And I just think, I think seeing stuff like that
Speaker 1: is so cool. Like I think the more you're exposed
Speaker 1: to that kind of like what nature's doing to make
Speaker 1: it work, the better of a deer hunter you're going
Speaker 1: to get. Because that stuff's happening all over out there
Speaker 1: if you, if you're paying attention to it, it's such
Speaker 1: a fascinating thing to really sit back and observe, especially
Speaker 1: when you have the wherewithal to do what you just did,
Speaker 1: step back and look at the big picture, right because like,
Speaker 1: but we're hunting, we tend to really nail down and
Speaker 1: focus on Hey, like this this one buck has this
Speaker 1: one routine, right, Well, why does they have that routine?
Speaker 1: You know, what factors are making that happen, and what
Speaker 1: and what what other factors are contributing to making those
Speaker 1: factors happen. And it's a it's a pretty pretty wild
Speaker 1: world that we live in. Yeah, it's it's it's wild,
Speaker 1: and it kind of reminds me, you know, it makes
Speaker 1: you think about how much you don't know, you know,
Speaker 1: like how much you don't know that's going on out
Speaker 1: there in the world. And then you think about like
Speaker 1: a lot of the hunters out there, they're they're not
Speaker 1: like this is gonna sound shittier than I mean it,
Speaker 1: but they don't even have a clue either. Like I
Speaker 1: look at like the people I encounter here where I
Speaker 1: live that don't hunt, they don't understand animals at all.
Speaker 1: I mean, I can't tell you how many times, like
Speaker 1: somebody in our neighborhood, or you know somebody that you know,
Speaker 1: we coach their daughter in basketball, or Sethople say oh,
Speaker 1: we saw a wolf in our backyard, you know, and
Speaker 1: you're like, You're like, uh, it was a coyote, you know,
Speaker 1: like that, that kind of stuff happens all the time.
Speaker 1: And then then you deal with like the hunting space.
Speaker 1: And I had a conversation with this dude probably I
Speaker 1: don't know, a couple weeks ago that I was at
Speaker 1: the gym, finished my workout. I'm sitting in the steam
Speaker 1: room and this guy's sitting next to me, and I
Speaker 1: have a I have a fish tattooed on my back
Speaker 1: of my shoulder right like this old tattoo whatever, this
Speaker 1: look like a goldfish. Yeah, I have a carp tattoo.
Speaker 1: I'm secretly European. Uh. It's actually the uh the g
Speaker 1: loomis logo. Uh. Anyway, it's from a from a past
Speaker 1: life of really really being into fishing. But anyway, this
Speaker 1: guy's like, oh, what does the tattoo mean. I'm like,
Speaker 1: it doesn't mean anything. I just like to fish. And
Speaker 1: so we start talking and he starts talking about deer hunting,
Speaker 1: and you know, so anyway we get into it. We're
Speaker 1: bs and I said, yeah, I worked for Meat Eater,
Speaker 1: you know. And he's like, oh my god, we watched
Speaker 1: Metatter all the time. My kids love it. And he's like,
Speaker 1: you know, you know that the hunting public. I go, yeah,
Speaker 1: I know those guys and he's like, man, I love
Speaker 1: watching them too. I'm like, yeah, they know their stuff,
Speaker 1: and he looks at me and he goes, he goes,
Speaker 1: you know what's really crazy. He's like, I've started going
Speaker 1: out now and watching where the deer come into the
Speaker 1: fields at night. And then we go sit there and
Speaker 1: he's like, this deer scouting that those guys are talking
Speaker 1: about on the hunting public, Like that's the real deal.
Speaker 1: And I'm like, it never occurred to you to scout
Speaker 1: deer before that, But that's the reality out there, you
Speaker 1: know what I mean, Like there's there's there's different worlds. Yeah. Well,
Speaker 1: you know what's so interesting to me too, is especially
Speaker 1: when it comes to whitetail right, because it just seems like,
Speaker 1: especially when you live where you and I live, everybody
Speaker 1: white tails right. It seems to me like the people
Speaker 1: like when I perk up, and I'm like, I want
Speaker 1: to I want to listen to this person. It's it's
Speaker 1: the people that are open about man, like like I
Speaker 1: don't know at all, right, and I'm really interested in
Speaker 1: learning more. I'm trying to. Like when when you have
Speaker 1: people that are like, oh yeah, like you know, most
Speaker 1: of the time, it's you know, well, I go out
Speaker 1: my opening weekend of rifle season, I'm going to shoot
Speaker 1: a buck, any buck, just to say I shout of buck,
Speaker 1: shoot my dough and I'm a big bad hunter. It's like, well,
Speaker 1: I'm not going to learn anything from you for sure,
Speaker 1: and we probably don't have a lot in common, you know,
Speaker 1: because like for me, like I chase mature white tails
Speaker 1: just what I do, right, So like for me, I
Speaker 1: haven't killed a deer in the last three seasons. My
Speaker 1: last year I killed was my one ninety and I
Speaker 1: had a dear that I was chasing this year that
Speaker 1: I know for a fact. You ended up scoring one
Speaker 1: Sevenday nine because he was killed with a rifle after
Speaker 1: I couldn't seal the deal. But like that trips my trigger.
Speaker 1: It's the experience, it's the rush, it's the cat and
Speaker 1: mouse game. That's what trips my trigger. To be honest,
Speaker 1: the shot is anticlimatic, especially afterwards, right, but um, when
Speaker 1: people are open about like man, like I just I'm
Speaker 1: learning this property and I'm like that's that's that just
Speaker 1: completely trips it to me because I'm like, okay, like
Speaker 1: you get it right, you know, you're not going to
Speaker 1: know at all. You know, there's a lot of things
Speaker 1: that are going to go on. Like that's what gets
Speaker 1: me going. It's interesting to me how it seems like
Speaker 1: the more humble you are with it, the more open
Speaker 1: you are, and the more you actually end up knowing Yeah,
Speaker 1: well right, and the more that it just gets you
Speaker 1: out there, Like the more the more you realize you
Speaker 1: don't know, the more you want to go out there
Speaker 1: and just learn. And I think you know, I've been
Speaker 1: I've been writing about this for some of these Foundations
Speaker 1: episodes where you know, we the space that I'm in
Speaker 1: right now, you know, I'll get an assignment. It's like
Speaker 1: how to find shed anilers because there's people who are
Speaker 1: just like I just want to walk into the woods
Speaker 1: and want to find antlers and like that's like a
Speaker 1: segment of it, right, But the reality is like one
Speaker 1: of the biggest benefits to shed hunting isn't that you're
Speaker 1: going to find some antlers. That's cool, and you can
Speaker 1: learn some stuff. You know, you get proof of life
Speaker 1: and all that. What you know, there's like obviously positives
Speaker 1: to finding antlers, but there's a huge benefit to just
Speaker 1: being in the woods now. Like you said, you know,
Speaker 1: not not just winner scouting, but if you're if you're
Speaker 1: a rifle hunter and you're listening to this and you're like,
Speaker 1: you know, I go and sit my power line or
Speaker 1: I sit my ladder standard whatever, and I hope something
Speaker 1: comes by, and you know, two days into this season,
Speaker 1: you don't see any deer every single year because there's
Speaker 1: gun hunting pressure out there. Like if you're walking around
Speaker 1: now now finding concentrations of deer, you're finding some of
Speaker 1: those places where there was deer are going to hole
Speaker 1: up when there's a lot of pressure. Like it's not
Speaker 1: you know, it's not like a direct correlation, right, because
Speaker 1: there's going to be other factors here because it's winner.
Speaker 1: But if you find a place where, especially if there's
Speaker 1: some pressure there where you know you're like I always
Speaker 1: find an antler here. Every winner or you know, they
Speaker 1: it seems like the big bucks like to bed in here. Now,
Speaker 1: that might be a place you should really be thinking
Speaker 1: about when the pressure hits there in November and you're
Speaker 1: not seeing deer, because there's correlations to that stuff beyond
Speaker 1: just like winter survival and surviving the gun season or whatever,
Speaker 1: you know, Like it's cover usage, it's how the wind
Speaker 1: rolls through the land. There's all kinds of stuff. And
Speaker 1: the more you're out there now looking for antlers, you're
Speaker 1: exposing yourself to those spots right well, And if you're
Speaker 1: especially if you're new and you're trying to learn and
Speaker 1: understand a property of farm an area, I mean, yeah,
Speaker 1: if you'd really take it back to a basic level, Okay,
Speaker 1: how do I start to learn this thing? Like, yes,
Speaker 1: you're right, you know, patterns are going to change late season,
Speaker 1: food sources like all the stuff. Right, But it would
Speaker 1: be a very easily digestible way to understand an area
Speaker 1: to go in there and say, hey, I know your
Speaker 1: bed here, because right now, with their being snow, I
Speaker 1: can see all the beds like I can visually. Okay,
Speaker 1: so this area is a bedding area. So from here,
Speaker 1: where's the food here? The traveler outs and you can
Speaker 1: at least start to get an idea of what these
Speaker 1: you're going to do on this particular property. Yes, again,
Speaker 1: things might change, but if you are just looking for
Speaker 1: I'm getting into scouting, how do I use this time
Speaker 1: here to get a base layer foundation understanding of the
Speaker 1: area hunt. This is a great way to do it
Speaker 1: because there's nothing that they can hide. I mean, it's
Speaker 1: very open, it's very understandable as far as what they're doing,
Speaker 1: the patterns are doing it in and where they're going.
Speaker 1: And of course food source might change, right, There's a
Speaker 1: lot of things that can change. But again, if you're
Speaker 1: easy and into it, it's a great time here to
Speaker 1: take advantage of it. Yeah, well for sure, And like
Speaker 1: you said, you know that bed to food pattern is
Speaker 1: going to be written in the snow, or written even
Speaker 1: if you don't have snow, I mean written in the
Speaker 1: open the most open wood you're gonna have pretty much
Speaker 1: the entire year. And there's a lot to learn there.
Speaker 1: And one of the things you know you brought up about,
Speaker 1: like betting, I'm not like a huge bed hunter like
Speaker 1: it's I'm I'm trying to get better at it. But
Speaker 1: one of the things that I love about shed hunting
Speaker 1: because you you know, when you're out there looking for
Speaker 1: an antler, you're if you see a bunch of beds
Speaker 1: or you see a big bed in a certain spot,
Speaker 1: it's you know, it's it's gonna make you a little
Speaker 1: bit curious, right, and man, seeing seeing like oh, they
Speaker 1: bet on this secondary knob or this big bed tucked
Speaker 1: into this deadfall so nothing could approach from behind. You
Speaker 1: start to start to just learn some behavior, like there's
Speaker 1: a reason why these beds are there, or there's a
Speaker 1: reason why this loan bed is here. There's a reason
Speaker 1: why this one antler was in the middle of this
Speaker 1: patch of sumac here in March like this, I think
Speaker 1: that's stuff so important, and it's just it's just kind
Speaker 1: of like a woodsmanship thing almost. I guess, Yeah, you're
Speaker 1: so right, man, there's so much that you can learn
Speaker 1: from just spending that time in the woods. And this
Speaker 1: is this is as as I guess easily read that
Speaker 1: you can get this time of year. You know, it's
Speaker 1: just more difficult to come spring, it's more difficult to
Speaker 1: come fall. And then you don't want to get into
Speaker 1: these areas in the fall because you don't want to
Speaker 1: be pushing these year around like this is a great
Speaker 1: time of year to do that and a great time
Speaker 1: of year to learn. Yeah, big time. When you take
Speaker 1: those those little kids out there, are you are you
Speaker 1: planting some sheds for them so they're always successful? Oh?
Speaker 1: Every time, every every time. You know, it's it's great
Speaker 1: for me because, like what I'm trying to do is
Speaker 1: ease them into this through success. You know. One of
Speaker 1: the things I cannot believe. I cannot believe I ever
Speaker 1: got into hunting, because I remember the first time everyone
Speaker 1: hunting was a rifle season in Wisconsin. My dad bundled
Speaker 1: me up. He put me in a twelve foot ladder
Speaker 1: stand with a rifle and said sit here until I
Speaker 1: come back and get you. And I literally sat there
Speaker 1: with my arms like curled up in like a fetal
Speaker 1: type position, holding that rifle, closing my eyes, waiting for
Speaker 1: my dad to come back. It was cold, it was miserable.
Speaker 1: I had no idea what I was doing. I have
Speaker 1: no idea why I like this, you know, looking back
Speaker 1: in that first experience, and so for my kids, it's like, hey,
Speaker 1: I know, the croppies are biting like crazy. We're gonna
Speaker 1: go out, We're gonna catch ten of them. We're gonna
Speaker 1: have a blast, and then we're gonna be done with
Speaker 1: them wanting more. Right, Like, I'm like, I want to
Speaker 1: build this drive. What's the same thing here? Like, I'm
Speaker 1: not gonna you know, take him out walk for a day,
Speaker 1: not find anything, let them get bored and go damn
Speaker 1: can we go home? Can we go back? Like I
Speaker 1: want to? I want to really build this fire? So
Speaker 1: oh yeah, So I have, you know, my little easter
Speaker 1: eggs that they'll plant out for them so they can
Speaker 1: go find it. And of course, you know, my daughter
Speaker 1: if if you were to ask her, she has she
Speaker 1: has the best eyes and the family because she always
Speaker 1: sees these things first, you know. So it's it's fun, man.
Speaker 1: It's just this is one of those things that you
Speaker 1: talk about, you know, the hunting, and it can be
Speaker 1: difficult at times to get the family, especially with young
Speaker 1: kids involved. This is a really easy way to get
Speaker 1: that going. And then all of a sudden, now you're
Speaker 1: watching deer. Well, now you know my kids are understanding, Hey,
Speaker 1: you know that deer only has one side. That means
Speaker 1: there's one out there for us to find. It's really
Speaker 1: fun to see them putting all this together. Shed hunting
Speaker 1: with kids is fun. I shattered my little girls worldview
Speaker 1: this year because I've I've done that their entire life is,
Speaker 1: you know, carried a backpack out there and got a
Speaker 1: little separation from them and chucked a few antlers out there,
Speaker 1: and you know, they thought they were real badass shed
Speaker 1: hunters for a long time. And to be fair, my
Speaker 1: one daughter has found antlers that I didn't see or
Speaker 1: I didn't plant or see like legit finds. The other
Speaker 1: one never has. And this year, because I'm struggling with that.
Speaker 1: You know, my girls have been hunting in Wisconsin the
Speaker 1: last couple of years and in the last two years
Speaker 1: they've killed six deer, you know, and they're they're eleven.
Speaker 1: So they're like so freaking spoiled, and I'm like, I
Speaker 1: gotta make this harder. And I think my one daughter
Speaker 1: is actually gonna hunt with a vertical bow this year
Speaker 1: because they've been hut with a crossbow and they're gonna
Speaker 1: they're gonna level up and find that it's a lot harder.
Speaker 1: But with the shed thing, they were getting really cocky.
Speaker 1: So I fussed up to him. I was like, you
Speaker 1: guys know that all those sheds, except for a couple,
Speaker 1: were ones that I planted or I saw first, and
Speaker 1: my one daughter, who hasn't found one, was so pissed.
Speaker 1: But what happened is this winner. She's been asking me
Speaker 1: to go more than ever because she's like, I'm going
Speaker 1: to prove to you that I could find an antler
Speaker 1: on my own. And so I feel like it was
Speaker 1: a super lucky parenting win because I didn't I didn't
Speaker 1: know how that was gonna go, right. But now she's
Speaker 1: like competitive because she knows her sister has found some,
Speaker 1: and so she's like, we're going, I'm gonna show you.
Speaker 1: And she's pretty hard headed, so she'll she'll find one eventually.
Speaker 1: But when I told them that, they were like you
Speaker 1: just to look on their face, they're like, you bastard.
Speaker 1: Like they were so convinced that they were good at
Speaker 1: shed hunting and they are absolutely not. Oh gosh, that's
Speaker 1: that's like telling them the Saint is not real. Dude.
Speaker 1: This daughter, I've said this many times. You know they're twins.
Speaker 1: I've got one who's she She observes everything, She notices everything,
Speaker 1: little details in nature. She asked questions about stuff where
Speaker 1: you're like she is into it, and the other one
Speaker 1: is so oblivious. And so this is a totally random story,
Speaker 1: but we went to I took my one daughter to
Speaker 1: Cabella's the other day, the one who actually sees details
Speaker 1: and finds antlers. I took her. We bought a bunch
Speaker 1: of fishing stuff and she saw I can't I think
Speaker 1: it's called a live target or a living target that
Speaker 1: live target lures or something, but it's a it's a
Speaker 1: spider topwater lure, so you know, like a like a
Speaker 1: grass frog or whatever. But it's a soft plastic but
Speaker 1: it's a big tarantula looking spider, and she she's infatuated
Speaker 1: with it. I was like, should we buy it and
Speaker 1: see if we can catch a smally on it? And
Speaker 1: she's like yeah. So I bought it, and then we
Speaker 1: got home and I was like, you know, we really
Speaker 1: should use this to prank your sister, Like we should.
Speaker 1: We should plant this somewhere and scare the shit out
Speaker 1: of her. Right, So we put this white it's white
Speaker 1: tarantula looking spider on the middle of the floor in
Speaker 1: her bathroom, this little bathroom downstairs, and then all day
Speaker 1: long we're like, oh, honey, you gotta go give the
Speaker 1: dogs water. Oh, can you go get this? Can you
Speaker 1: go get that? She went into that bathroom like six
Speaker 1: times and never noticed that. So we're like, we sent
Speaker 1: her down there, and we're like giggling and waiting for
Speaker 1: the screams to start. She never noticed this enormous fake
Speaker 1: spider on her floor until the other sister like took
Speaker 1: her down and basically made her look at it. And
Speaker 1: I was like, no, wonder, you don't find any antlers, Like,
Speaker 1: no wonder, Like you've never been out there and been like, oh,
Speaker 1: there's an antler over there, Like you can't even see
Speaker 1: this on a wood floor that you've been feet away
Speaker 1: from six times today, So so disappointing. Oh gosh, I'm
Speaker 1: a little more concerned with the reaction that you were
Speaker 1: hoping to get out of it. Uh, well, I know
Speaker 1: it was. It was a little bit mean, but once
Speaker 1: we started going with it, where like we got to
Speaker 1: see this through and because that daughter, if a ladybug
Speaker 1: like lands near her, she freaks out, and so we
Speaker 1: knew she was gonna We knew it was gonna be
Speaker 1: a good reaction, but it really actually wasn't because we
Speaker 1: we had to like put it right in her face
Speaker 1: and it just didn't work out. But I was like,
Speaker 1: I was like, here in my head, I'm like, you're
Speaker 1: never gonna be a good hunter. Like I don't know
Speaker 1: how you're ever gonna make it doing this, Like she
Speaker 1: doesn't notice anything. But maybe maybe this year because she's
Speaker 1: maybe the stubbornness, the hard headedness will we'll see it
Speaker 1: through for her. But I just don't know. Oh I'm
Speaker 1: sure I'm her it will. What do people get wrong
Speaker 1: about shed hunting? Like, what do you what do you
Speaker 1: think people who haven't done it a lot or aren't
Speaker 1: very successful, what are they missing? I really think the
Speaker 1: biggest thing is just simply that they're not in the
Speaker 1: area the sheds are. You know, just because you had
Speaker 1: deer there in the fall does not mean that they're
Speaker 1: going to be there in the winter. And just because
Speaker 1: you know you have a food source doesn't necessarily mean
Speaker 1: that you're going to find something. You know, I know
Speaker 1: a lot of guys that are just walking through a
Speaker 1: property just because that's what they proper, that's the property
Speaker 1: that they have, And I totally get that, you know,
Speaker 1: but it's hard to get discouraged if you're not being
Speaker 1: successful well because you still have to be where the
Speaker 1: deer are, where the deer dropping. And it's one of
Speaker 1: those things that you know that like for me, I
Speaker 1: set up all of my farms so that late season
Speaker 1: I have this time of opportunity and make sure I've
Speaker 1: got the bedding area and make sure I have the
Speaker 1: food and enough food for it to be late. That's
Speaker 1: a big one, right, Just because you have a food
Speaker 1: source that's you know, productive in the fall, does not
Speaker 1: mean that your you know, Corterbaker food plot is still
Speaker 1: going to be producing enough food for a deer herd
Speaker 1: field this time of year or that they can get
Speaker 1: to it. Right. I'm a big corn and beans guy
Speaker 1: just because of what it offers, especially like right now
Speaker 1: we're eating two feet of snow. They're still going to
Speaker 1: be able to get to that food. So there's a
Speaker 1: lot of factors, but just you know, the success it
Speaker 1: really is location. You've got to be where they're going
Speaker 1: to be, where they drop. Yeah, well I've been thinking
Speaker 1: about that a lot, you know, because it's it's so
Speaker 1: common to think about that cut corn field or the
Speaker 1: cut bean field or whatever. It's like the place to
Speaker 1: be first. And yeah, like you can find plenty of
Speaker 1: antlers in food sources, you know, like you just can.
Speaker 1: But I also think there's sort of there's sort of
Speaker 1: a parallel with shed hunting, where people kind of gravitate
Speaker 1: toward where they can see a lot. So you get
Speaker 1: into that open field or you get into that really
Speaker 1: nice deciduous forest without a bunch of undergrowth, and you
Speaker 1: look around and I know, for me, especially here, you know,
Speaker 1: close to my house, the antlers I find are almost
Speaker 1: always like on the edge of a cat tail slew
Speaker 1: or in some kind of overgrown thicket or something like.
Speaker 1: They're very rarely in the nice open spots and the
Speaker 1: places where it's like comfortable to walk. And it's like
Speaker 1: it always feels to me kind of like a public
Speaker 1: land white till hunt, where I'm like, I'm never going
Speaker 1: to kill one on a field edge on public land,
Speaker 1: you know, like they're always going to be in the
Speaker 1: thickest shit they can get into, or some creek bottom
Speaker 1: or something. And antlers, to me, at least where I'm
Speaker 1: shed hunting, it feels like a lot of times those
Speaker 1: places where they're gonna go, you know, they're gonna bed
Speaker 1: down in the day, so they're spending quite a bit
Speaker 1: of time there and they might be browsing around at
Speaker 1: last light at first light, but sort of concentrated movement
Speaker 1: in that. In the thicker stuff is where I tend
Speaker 1: to find a lot of antlers, and not very often
Speaker 1: do I find them out in the nice, wide open
Speaker 1: where I'd like to Yeah, betting grasses, man, like those
Speaker 1: those are hot beds for me, just because, like I said,
Speaker 1: betting is where they're going to spend the majority of
Speaker 1: their time this time of year. They want to conserve calories,
Speaker 1: they want to conserve energy. They're going to be hanging
Speaker 1: in those especially for us. You know, these grass areas,
Speaker 1: it's it's buffers from wind. You know. They can get
Speaker 1: down there and they can stay warm, they can stay hidden.
Speaker 1: That is where we're really successful. But that's also where
Speaker 1: the dogs come into play, probably the most handy because
Speaker 1: in those wide open canopy bottoms, in those food plots
Speaker 1: you can see you know. So yeah, you could lead
Speaker 1: the dog into it, let the dog pick it up
Speaker 1: and have fun doing a team work thing. But the
Speaker 1: dogs that when they surprise you with one. To me,
Speaker 1: it tends to be in those betting grasses. Yeah, oh man,
Speaker 1: me too. And it also in those places where you know,
Speaker 1: you get into like a I don't know, a thicket
Speaker 1: of prickly ash or something where like you're just naturally
Speaker 1: kind of going where you can stand up the most
Speaker 1: and walk and a dog can just zip through that cover,
Speaker 1: you know. I mean, obviously your dog's not quite as
Speaker 1: tall as a deer, but they're closer together than you know,
Speaker 1: we are to a lot of the deer, right or
Speaker 1: you know, I mean it's they can slip through the
Speaker 1: cover in a way that deer can as well. And
Speaker 1: it just feels like a lot of times, you know,
Speaker 1: kind of like when you're grouse hunting in the woods,
Speaker 1: like you're like, I want to I want to pick
Speaker 1: a spot where I'm standing up so I can get
Speaker 1: a shot, and those dogs are going all over through
Speaker 1: that cover that you don't want to go into if
Speaker 1: they if they're good dogs. The same thing happens when
Speaker 1: you're shed hunting, right for sure? For sure? Now what
Speaker 1: else are people missing here? Man? What have we not covered?
Speaker 1: Do you have like a you know, favorite conditions to
Speaker 1: shed hunting, like lighting conditions or anything like that. Well,
Speaker 1: you know, for me, it just seems like there's certain days,
Speaker 1: you know, from it the best days or the days
Speaker 1: that you know to do it right, Like whatever day
Speaker 1: I can get out there is best. But um, you're
Speaker 1: like for the bright days. For me, if there's snow
Speaker 1: in the ground, you know, it always gets a little tougher,
Speaker 1: just because you know that your eyes are always trying
Speaker 1: to you know, get off that that fixation of right
Speaker 1: right right, you know, just like today, Yeah, I'm on
Speaker 1: the tractor moving snow for three hours and my eyes
Speaker 1: just hurt right because they're just so you know, you
Speaker 1: get war out just kind of focusing the whole time.
Speaker 1: But there's not really anything you know, for me that way,
Speaker 1: It's just a matter of of when can I get out?
Speaker 1: And you know, I just I like to let this
Speaker 1: snow kind of subside a little bit, especially in the
Speaker 1: situation like we have now, because like I still have
Speaker 1: deer that are holding I don't want to blow them
Speaker 1: out and you know, get their routine kind off because
Speaker 1: I know what they're doing. At the same side, I've
Speaker 1: got the deer that have dropped that are really kind
Speaker 1: of anty and anxious, like they want to get out there.
Speaker 1: So if I'm gonna air on a side, I'm gonna
Speaker 1: air on late, let everything drop, let everything become because
Speaker 1: a big part of this to me too is, you know,
Speaker 1: the deer have their routine here for a reason. You know,
Speaker 1: I think just out west a camera foras Utah or Colorado,
Speaker 1: like they just you know, banned shed hunting for the
Speaker 1: foreseeable future, not that they won't open it up this year,
Speaker 1: but it's because the winner has been so tough that
Speaker 1: the deer doing what they're doing for a reason. That's
Speaker 1: how they're living. And so the more that you're going
Speaker 1: and blow them out and get to the point they're
Speaker 1: not comfortable, get to the point that they're not you know,
Speaker 1: safe from what they feel like and like you're doing
Speaker 1: your herd a disservice. Yeah, all right, So I like
Speaker 1: to let them have that time, let them have that comfortability,
Speaker 1: to let them get their routine, let them get through
Speaker 1: the winter, and then I'm going to go in and
Speaker 1: try to try to do what I want to do, right,
Speaker 1: But I'd really try to be very very selective in
Speaker 1: one of them. And you know, from a weather standpoint,
Speaker 1: I guess the one thing I do keep track of
Speaker 1: is if I'm going into either a big storm like
Speaker 1: we are now or I'm going into a real cold
Speaker 1: stretch that I know the deer are going to have
Speaker 1: to be feeding. I do try not to bugger them
Speaker 1: up too much in that time, because that's again, at
Speaker 1: the end of the day, the hole reason I'm doing
Speaker 1: this is because I care about, you know, my dear herd.
Speaker 1: I want you to watch them progress. I want them,
Speaker 1: you know, to see them, um keep you know, growing
Speaker 1: and improving. While I'm not going to do that if
Speaker 1: I if I make it to where they're having a
Speaker 1: more difficult time surviving than what it already is. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I wrestle with that too. And I've I've gotten to
Speaker 1: the point in my life where if it's if it's
Speaker 1: bad conditions for them, I just don't go. I just wait.
Speaker 1: And I you know, part of that might be just
Speaker 1: because I tend to have better shed hunts in March anyway,
Speaker 1: uh you know, I mean, like you, I've I've seen
Speaker 1: dear you know, we saw a really good one still
Speaker 1: holding um you know, back there towards the end of February,
Speaker 1: and you know we I used to find a fair
Speaker 1: amount of big ones early and that seems to have
Speaker 1: leveled off a little bit for me, probably because I
Speaker 1: don't go as much, but it just seems like, man,
Speaker 1: you're you're starting to get those rough conditions where they're
Speaker 1: really strung uggling. It's just not worth it to go
Speaker 1: push them around. It's just not a good thing. And
Speaker 1: then you know by the time you get you know,
Speaker 1: I usually figure or like the third third week of
Speaker 1: February a lot of the antlers around the ground, not
Speaker 1: all of them, but you start getting into March, mid
Speaker 1: March and late March, and it's like that's the time
Speaker 1: when you're gonna go out, and it's just like it's
Speaker 1: gonna be kind of all or nothing. Like you you're
Speaker 1: gonna have the right conditions. You're gonna get those overcast days.
Speaker 1: If you're dealing with snow, it's eventually hopefully going to
Speaker 1: be gone. And you just get those conditions where it's
Speaker 1: like even though you got cheated out of a bunch
Speaker 1: of the earlier shed hunting, that's when you can cover
Speaker 1: serious miles. Plus the weather's you know, like really kind
Speaker 1: of catered toward walking a lot. And I just love that, man,
Speaker 1: Like I love that time frame where it's like you know,
Speaker 1: your odds are as good then as any time you're
Speaker 1: gonna go shed hunting at any point, that's right. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's probably one of my favorite times too. Let's let's
Speaker 1: wrap this up talk about dogs a little bit more.
Speaker 1: What what do you tell people? Because I know you
Speaker 1: probably get seven thousand emails and dms a week and like, hey,
Speaker 1: I want to shed dog, but I don't want this dog,
Speaker 1: or I don't want that, or I don't want to
Speaker 1: high drive or I don't want to low drive. What
Speaker 1: do you what do you tell people generally if they're
Speaker 1: thinking about getting a dog for shed hunting. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: a great question because you know, just like anything, you
Speaker 1: have to have the right dog. You know, just like
Speaker 1: a basketball coach. You know, if if a kid's going
Speaker 1: to be an all star, he's got to be the
Speaker 1: right kid, right Like, even with the best coach and
Speaker 1: the best facility is the best everything. If they're not right,
Speaker 1: they don't have it, you're not going to go be
Speaker 1: successful with it. So you know, for us, retrieve drive
Speaker 1: is the number one thing because you think about it.
Speaker 1: So we talked about birds versus sheds earlier, right, So
Speaker 1: like birds, there's a lot of genetic DNA inside most
Speaker 1: of these dogs. To say, Hey, I want to do this,
Speaker 1: but that's a warm, smelling, moving, you know, predator prey,
Speaker 1: you know, type of situation bird versus a cold, hard, stationary,
Speaker 1: less than exciting antler or this laying on the ground.
Speaker 1: And so, you know, just like going back that first
Speaker 1: story with Easton of why he wanted that so bad
Speaker 1: was just simply because he had the retrieve drive. But
Speaker 1: I funneled it into a tennis ball because at the
Speaker 1: time they were cheap and easy to throw, and you know,
Speaker 1: cheap was a big deal for me when I was
Speaker 1: seventeen years old, Like I needed anything that I could
Speaker 1: that I could afford, and so it was tennis balls,
Speaker 1: tennis balls, tennis balls. Well that's why he found a
Speaker 1: tennis ball in the middle of nowhere, because he loved
Speaker 1: it that much. And so what we then do is
Speaker 1: we take these dogs with these high retrieve drives we
Speaker 1: funneled into this object in a shed that this is
Speaker 1: what we want, this this you know, funneled into And
Speaker 1: the one question we always get is can my dog
Speaker 1: be a bird dog and a shed hunting dog? And
Speaker 1: quite frankly, I think the best dogs tend to be both, right,
Speaker 1: because it's like they get that that you know, natural
Speaker 1: side whoising out of them through the birds, that's bread
Speaker 1: into them, that's there, and then you can just take
Speaker 1: this drive and this this athletic system and this desire
Speaker 1: and now it's like, all right, so here's this offseason
Speaker 1: you know funnel that we're gonna now go try to
Speaker 1: accomplish this. And so you can absolutely do with both,
Speaker 1: but you have to get the right dog to start with,
Speaker 1: and that really all comes down to retrieve desires. So
Speaker 1: you get a non retrieving breed, you're probably not going
Speaker 1: to be as successful at this. Of course, there's always
Speaker 1: exceptions to this rule. But if you're like, hey, I
Speaker 1: want to put the odds in my favor that I
Speaker 1: can go get a dog that is good at this,
Speaker 1: it's getting a very highly retrieve driven your dog and breed. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And we should break that down a little bit because
Speaker 1: you know, people might be listening to this and going, oh,
Speaker 1: I can just go get a Golden Retriever and it's
Speaker 1: going to be a shed dog because it's got Retriever
Speaker 1: in the name, and it's like the level of retrieving
Speaker 1: desire you need in a dog and that you need
Speaker 1: to foster in a dog I mean, it's got to
Speaker 1: be there naturally and you got to work to bring
Speaker 1: it out. But to get them to be excited enough
Speaker 1: about something that isn't a bird or isn't a ball, like,
Speaker 1: it's not that easy. It's not as easy as it
Speaker 1: sounds like. It's not inherent in them. And so you're
Speaker 1: talking about dogs that are really well bred. You're talking
Speaker 1: about dogs like the dogs you work with, and you
Speaker 1: guys are breeding and you know a lot of them
Speaker 1: you're training. Those bloodlines are super legit and so you
Speaker 1: know you're starting with the right pieces. They're on an
Speaker 1: awful lot of those dogs where that retrieving desire. It's
Speaker 1: not going to be just like the dog that if
Speaker 1: you throw a tennis ball in your yard, it's going
Speaker 1: to go get it and bring it back and spit
Speaker 1: it at your feet. It's the dog that's carrying something
Speaker 1: around in its mouth, you know, from puppyhood on all
Speaker 1: the time and bringing you sticks and bringing you everything
Speaker 1: because the off chance that you might just throw something
Speaker 1: for it, like the dog that lives for that, because
Speaker 1: it's it's not it's a weird ask to get them
Speaker 1: to go get antlers, especially when you're out there for
Speaker 1: three hours and they haven't found one, or you're on
Speaker 1: you know, two days of shed hunting. You know, if
Speaker 1: you if you haven't planned it. A couple like to
Speaker 1: keep a dog, that's like going to stay in the game. There.
Speaker 1: They have to w that so bad. Yeah, you're right,
Speaker 1: you know, just just simply being a retrieving breed doesn't
Speaker 1: necessarily cut it in this case, because if they don't
Speaker 1: have that extra level everything you're talking about, right, like
Speaker 1: the natural want to have something in my mouth, whether
Speaker 1: that's a slipper, whether that's a shoe, whether that's a sock,
Speaker 1: whether that's like these dogs. Yeah, And the thing is
Speaker 1: that I always think it is funny is that a
Speaker 1: lot of times people pick up a seventy eight we
Speaker 1: go puppy bring them home like, oh, we're training, not retrieving.
Speaker 1: It's like, well, if if a puppy was bred to retrieve,
Speaker 1: the only reason you bring home a week go puppy
Speaker 1: and throw a retrieve forward is to validate to yourself
Speaker 1: you did indeed buy a retriever, Like that's that's bread
Speaker 1: into them. When you throw something, they'll go get it,
Speaker 1: not because they've been taught to do it, but because
Speaker 1: something inside of them says this is what I'm supposed
Speaker 1: to do, right, And and that is something that quite frankly,
Speaker 1: not every breed. Like just because you know someone is
Speaker 1: breeding dog does not doesn't mean that they have a
Speaker 1: true knowledge or true intent of why they are doing it.
Speaker 1: And so I think it's even more important, Like if
Speaker 1: this is your number one goal to have a shed
Speaker 1: hunting dog, I think it is even more imperative that
Speaker 1: you take your time and get a very well bred
Speaker 1: dog that has a natural mouth and natural retreat in
Speaker 1: mind that you can funnel to this because if they're done,
Speaker 1: if they're not going to have it, Like, if they
Speaker 1: don't want to do it, you're not going to teach
Speaker 1: them to want to do it. They have to have
Speaker 1: that from the get go. Yeah, and there's there's kind
Speaker 1: of a misperception out there, And I know you've dealt
Speaker 1: with this a lot because you specialize in British labs
Speaker 1: and there's the you know, the stereotypes around them, and
Speaker 1: there's the stereotypes around the American labs. And the reality
Speaker 1: is like people look at it and go, well, I
Speaker 1: don't want a high drive dog, but I want a
Speaker 1: dog to do this, and do that, and do this
Speaker 1: and do that, and they're like, well, I want I
Speaker 1: want the calm dog at home and the dog that's
Speaker 1: going to be nuts in the pheasant field or never
Speaker 1: stop looking for antlers in the minute we get out
Speaker 1: of the truck. And it's like, you don't you kind
Speaker 1: of don't understand what you're asking there, Like you if
Speaker 1: you want that high retrieving desire, you're going to have
Speaker 1: somewhat of a high drive dog. Like they just you
Speaker 1: can't divorce the two. And it's you're not going to
Speaker 1: get this magical dog that just comes out of the
Speaker 1: package and it's you know, a sloth at home and
Speaker 1: this fiery beast out in the field. Like it's just
Speaker 1: it's not really how it shakes out with real dogs. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Well the other thing too is that, yeah, I think
Speaker 1: we have now titled quote unquote drive in a way
Speaker 1: that we can manipulate that meaning to what fits us. Right.
Speaker 1: So what I mean by that is that you have
Speaker 1: a dog that is in a duck blind and is
Speaker 1: sitting there and the whole time just sitting there wanting
Speaker 1: all jacked up, Like people go, oh, it's just so driven. Wow,
Speaker 1: Like I have I'm literally looking at right now one two, three,
Speaker 1: four or five, six, seven seven Master on hundred hundred
Speaker 1: Trooper Champions have all the talent in the world. I
Speaker 1: don't think you've heard a single peep out of them
Speaker 1: in the background. They will make a single noise. They
Speaker 1: have all the drive in the world, they have all
Speaker 1: the desire to go do this, but they're under control, right, Like,
Speaker 1: so there there's a difference there and drive and control
Speaker 1: and so yeah, like you're right, Like the hard part
Speaker 1: is like you can't be like, well, I want I want, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, a vehicle that's a Lamborghini when I want
Speaker 1: a Lamborghini, and a super Duty when I want a
Speaker 1: Super Duty and school bus when I want to school
Speaker 1: like you know, like you really have to be honest
Speaker 1: with yourself. Okay, what do I want? What do I need?
Speaker 1: And then from there it's all about finding the right breeder.
Speaker 1: If you can find the right breeder that can can
Speaker 1: connect those dots for you, someone that you can trust,
Speaker 1: you will get that right dog. But it does take that.
Speaker 1: You're not going to open up newspaper and say, hey,
Speaker 1: farmer John had a you know, literate puppies and you
Speaker 1: know someone for hundred bucks each like you could. Don't
Speaker 1: get me wrong, you could, but again we're talking about
Speaker 1: how do you put the odds in your favor. That's
Speaker 1: not how you do it. Yeah, I wish, I wish
Speaker 1: we could talk about this for another seven hours or
Speaker 1: Metia or would just let me do a freaking dog podcast,
Speaker 1: But they won't. Uh, but I want. But anybody who's
Speaker 1: listening to this wants to tell them they should, they should,
Speaker 1: you know, wants to let me know that we should
Speaker 1: have a dog podcast. Please please reach out to them
Speaker 1: and tell them. Uh. What I want to say on
Speaker 1: that is there there's this kind of idea that you're
Speaker 1: talking about, right, Like you know, if you if you
Speaker 1: want that component, if you want that high retrieving desire,
Speaker 1: there's a way to get it, and it's going to
Speaker 1: be in the bloodlines and the pedigrees like it. That's it,
Speaker 1: Like you're you could get lucky and come across it,
Speaker 1: but you're not consistently going to get that in any
Speaker 1: other way. Like you have to know that, and people
Speaker 1: get hesitant on that, and I get it, you know,
Speaker 1: not everybody's looking for a dog to do the same
Speaker 1: things you and I are. But when you look at
Speaker 1: a dog that has that has been bred to retrieve,
Speaker 1: like it's really gonna be one that's like, I'm gonna
Speaker 1: go get that bumper five thousand times in a row
Speaker 1: if you throw it five thousand times. A lot of
Speaker 1: people look at that as a negative, but I look
Speaker 1: at it not being a professional trainer like you, I go, man,
Speaker 1: there's my dog's reward, its entire life. And if I
Speaker 1: know what my dog's reward is, I know how to
Speaker 1: train my dog to do all kinds of stuff that
Speaker 1: benefits me as a bird hunter, as a shed hunter,
Speaker 1: as somebody who just wants control of my dog and
Speaker 1: a different environments at home and parks whatever. That aspect
Speaker 1: of retrievers, like the high drive, high retrieving desire thing
Speaker 1: that is so fun to work with and can actually,
Speaker 1: even though it sounds like it's a pain in the ass,
Speaker 1: can actually make the process of developing a dog so
Speaker 1: much easier. Oh man, there is a single guy playing
Speaker 1: in the NBA that didn't love basketball growing up, right,
Speaker 1: And quite frankly, there's probably a bunch of very very
Speaker 1: talented players that never made it that far because they
Speaker 1: didn't have that desire, right like they That's one thing
Speaker 1: you cannot teach, and so you know that the desire
Speaker 1: is such a big piece of this that you know,
Speaker 1: and it's something that again I go back to the breeding,
Speaker 1: because that's what it's all about. Like you have to
Speaker 1: get with the breeder that truly has a why, like
Speaker 1: why are they doing this? And why are they breeding
Speaker 1: the dogs that they have? Like I truly believe most
Speaker 1: breeders out there breeding the dogs that they're breeding because
Speaker 1: those are the dogs that they have, right and they
Speaker 1: can make a sales pitcher on it all that they want,
Speaker 1: but that's why they're breeding those dogs. And so it's
Speaker 1: like for me, like I want to find a breeder
Speaker 1: that is doing things for a reason, that has a
Speaker 1: process that's being selective because if they've done all that
Speaker 1: work for me, now it's way less for me to
Speaker 1: have to do and I can just trust what they're doing.
Speaker 1: They are on the same wavelength as I am, the
Speaker 1: same thought process, looking they know what I'm looking for.
Speaker 1: I trust them. I'm gonna get the right dog. Once
Speaker 1: you have the right dog, it is all about the
Speaker 1: situations that you put that dog into. So yeah, it's
Speaker 1: on you from there. But if you have the right dog,
Speaker 1: it's going to be possible. If you don't, it's just not.
Speaker 1: I don't care how much time you put into it
Speaker 1: and how much you know, don't care how much time
Speaker 1: or how much work you put into it. It's never
Speaker 1: going to work out like what you want. If the
Speaker 1: dog doesn't want to go do it big time, big time.
Speaker 1: If you if you want a good way to sort
Speaker 1: of guide you on this a little bit, you think
Speaker 1: about the average dog buying process. If you if you
Speaker 1: go look up whatever you know you want. You want
Speaker 1: a black lab. You want to yell a lab whatever,
Speaker 1: I don't care what color it is. You want a lab.
Speaker 1: And you're like, I'm you could go find that. You
Speaker 1: could find litters of labs everywhere. But when you start
Speaker 1: talking to breeders, if if you're the only one asking questions,
Speaker 1: if they're like, we'll sell you this dog because we've
Speaker 1: got a litter coming up, and they don't ask you like,
Speaker 1: what are you gonna do with it? What's your experience
Speaker 1: with dogs? Like, you know, do you fessan hunt to
Speaker 1: your gross hunt? What do you do? You're probably not
Speaker 1: talking to somebody who's breeding a dog for high drive
Speaker 1: and sort of specific standards. That way. But if you
Speaker 1: go to somebody and you're like, hey, I want to
Speaker 1: buy one of your dogs, and they're like, okay, I
Speaker 1: got a bunch of questions for you, then you might
Speaker 1: start to be on the right track, because those are
Speaker 1: people who don't want to place a dog that's been
Speaker 1: bred really well for certain tasks with somebody who's not
Speaker 1: going to let that dog do that and encourage that
Speaker 1: that's right. That's probably the number one piece of feedback
Speaker 1: that I get when people go through our puppy process
Speaker 1: and get a puppy from us, it's, oh my gosh,
Speaker 1: you guys were so thorough And when they ever followed
Speaker 1: it up with you know, how do you go about
Speaker 1: it or why do you go about that? The way
Speaker 1: I say it is, look, I am all about, you know,
Speaker 1: my customer experience. I know it's weirdest kind of say,
Speaker 1: you know, from a dog standpoint, because we don't look
Speaker 1: at at these puppies says your products right. But the
Speaker 1: reality is I run my business like a business, not
Speaker 1: as a hobby, and so when I look at that,
Speaker 1: I go, Okay, my customer experience is all about them
Speaker 1: getting the right dog right. Like if I get the
Speaker 1: wrong dog. It doesn't matter how well it's bread, it
Speaker 1: doesn't matter how healthy it is, it doesn't matter. Like
Speaker 1: if it's not the right fit. Like the dog could
Speaker 1: be great, people could be great, but just not the
Speaker 1: right fit for each other, the customer experience is not
Speaker 1: going to be a positive one. And so that's why
Speaker 1: we are so over the top, so thorough on that
Speaker 1: process because I feel like that's our job, you know,
Speaker 1: in this and of course you know, you could always
Speaker 1: find a situation where it doesn't work out. But it's
Speaker 1: amazing how often we get an email you go a
Speaker 1: year later going, I cannot believe you picked the absolute
Speaker 1: right dog for us. Well, it wasn't my accident. Yep, yep,
Speaker 1: I love it, buddy. Where can people find you out there?
Speaker 1: Because everybody listening to this wants a puppy now, so
Speaker 1: where can they go? Right? So, Riverstone Kennels, you can
Speaker 1: find us either on the web www dot Riverstone Kennels
Speaker 1: dot com, find us on Facebook, on Instagram we do
Speaker 1: a lot on there. Can also find us on YouTube
Speaker 1: as we're doing more content on their showing our hunts,
Speaker 1: showing some of the day to day with the training
Speaker 1: and if anyways out there are looking to train their
Speaker 1: own dog. Www. Dot Retriever Roadmap dot com is a
Speaker 1: huge video library that I've put together over years and
Speaker 1: years and years, and it's all about giving you a
Speaker 1: lot of different options of how to train your dog
Speaker 1: at home to be successful. And what's so cool about
Speaker 1: that as a community that's kind of come from that
Speaker 1: of people are getting together training, people are helping each
Speaker 1: other out with different situations. It's really really a neat thing.
Speaker 1: So that is a Retriever Roadmap. Awesome, love it, buddy,
Speaker 1: Thank you so much for coming on man, you bet
Speaker 1: pal anytime you guys have a great rest of the
Speaker 1: winter and go find some more sets with those girls.
Speaker 1: We will, Buddy. That's it for this week, folks, be
Speaker 1: sure to tune in next week for some more whitetail goodness.
Speaker 1: This has been the Weird to Hunt podcast. I'm your
Speaker 1: guest host, Tony Peterson. As I always, thank you so
Speaker 1: much for listening. If you're looking for more whitetail content,
Speaker 1: you can head on over to our YouTube channel to
Speaker 1: check out our weekly how to content, or you can
Speaker 1: go to the Mediator dot com slash wired and read
Speaker 1: articles by Mark myself, Alex gilstrom Beaumartonic a whole bunch
Speaker 1: of absolute white tail killers