00:00:08 Speaker 1: This is me eater podcast coming at you shirtless, severely bug bitten and in my case, underwear listening podcast. You can't predict anything, all right. So I'm wearing my underwearing all my clothes and um, but I'm in bed. And remember the old sitcoms and they couldn't show couples in bed. I do. So they had the show that couple has always had like little beds, like two little beds with a night stand between them. And I was like, how a couple slept in old sitcoms and TV shows? That's how me and Mark Kenyon A Right now we're in a hotel room and we're in little beds, laying in little beds. Um and and and Doug during In and the Eagle are in little chairs facing us, but we're in chairs. Uh, Mark Kenyon, Now you like, like I think you've even said the sport that that that you're you use the term like you're a white tail guy. Yeah, taking you like I understand what it means. I want you to explain for you know, what it means to be a white tail guy, because like I always say that I'm a big game generalist, which isn't really a category you know, no one types in big game generalists into search engines, the truth about big game general truth about big game generalists. But what is how your small game exploits fit into being a big game generalist. Well, I'm a hunting generalist, but in terms of talking about big game. Yeah, in terms of big game of a big game generalist. But I'm a hunting generalist with an emphasis on big game generalistness. But what does the white tail guy mark for me? A white tail guy means that that's when I grew up on So that was almost all I hunted, growing up with white tails, and now it's still comprises probably of my hunting and then most of my year otherwise. I mean, I'm doing white tail relaid stuff almost the entire year, from January through December, whether it's hunting or scouting or preparing spots or all sorts of different things. So when I say I'm a white tail guy, I mean that is like my number one passion. It's also how I make my living. And then I have you know, as my ability to travel and do different things has grown, Um, you know, I've been dabbling in new things which which I've really come to enjoy. If I've been able to go hunting elk now for the last four years. You know, learned how turkey hunt like eight nine years ago, so I love doing that now. And you know, I pussed around with a small game when I was a kid too, but but white tails were what got me with a meat hook in the heart. I'd say, um, is your foot touch on the ground? That's interesting because I think that when TV evolved to allow couples to be in bed in one bed, I think one of the wasn't. I think that one of the people in the couple had to have a foot on the floor. There were crazy rules here. I think that once they could have the same bed that had to be on the floor. So this those are like SCC rules. Yeah, I think the marks fixing to come over into my bed, you know, with that before. It's been a really good trip, Steve. But I can't tell you what's funny is my uh one of my wife's biggest pet peeves about visiting my family is that as soon as I started dating Kylie, they changed my parents. In my bedroom where I grew up, they took out my regular full size bed and replaced it with two little TV slept over. Yeah, so now even we're still married and we sleep in separate beds there, what really, She's like, why do we still do this? But your parents did it for that reason because they explained that it was because the old bed is bad and they had company coming over, spent a weekend, and they happened to know someone who had these almost new beds, and you know, they don't want their son defiling the family home that that might be what's actually happening? How much? How comfortable are you? Like, how comfortable are you saying when you say you make your living doing it? Like like spell off of it? What that means? Because like a lot like most, not most dudes in the world, if you said, hey, do you want to make your living hunting? Not most dudes in the world, most dudes who might be inclined to be listening to this right now would would be like, sure, So what does it look like? What does it mean to be like to be like a professional white tail guy? So what that means for me? It's not actually the hunting that makes my living necessarily, it's content that I create based on those experiences. So I run wired hunt dot com, which is a deer Hunting website and the Wired Hunt podcast, which is a deer hunting podcast. So I make probably my income from at tizing and things related to that. And then I write for most of the big deer hunting magazines and written for Outdoor Life, Feeling, Stream, etcetera. Um, So do some freelance writing um. And then a little bit of like merchandise sales and some digital e books some kind of things like that, but basically content related to white tail hunting. Um in my core audience. And really where I started was like that, you know, the tagline of what you're hunt was deer hunting for the next Generation. So it's been really focused on that really really serious white tail guy that's thinking white tails all your own, and um, you know, producing content around that that lifestyle that that's something I think that you said something to Doug and then Doug said it to me. Um, so I want to circle background and ask you about it. Where there's like a seasonality to hunting, okay, and in the business of hunting. So when I say the business hunting means that's like content, right, just like stuff that people watch for enjoyment, stuff that people watch and read in order to learn equipment that people purchase, just like the activity around hunting is like strongly seasonal, where after Labor Day, um, people start like there's like a creeping interest in hunting, and then it lingers past hunting season kind of through the holidays as people are still thinking about, like it's still freshener head like stuff they wanted to get, stuff they wanted to do. They're still excited about it. They're kind of sharing memories about their fall, and then it sort of peters off and goes away. And uh, Douglas recappy conversation you had with you and you were saying that that it's kind of like in the white tailed world, it's kind of almost not that way anymore. I'd agree with that. Yeah, Like what like why because there's always something to be doing. So I mean, okay, let's just start at the beginning of the year. In January and February, it's postseason scouting, so you can you can scout and see sign and so many different things a lot better during that time frame. Tracks in the snow um as as a stow excuse me, as the snow starts to melt in early March, depending where you're at, then you can really see related signs, so rubs and scrapes and stuff left over from the year before. So there's a lot of that going on January through March, and then you know, late February through March then is shed hunting, and that's huge in the white tail community these days. So I mean tons of interest related to shed hunting. And then once you get later into the spring, then everyone's worked on their habitat projects. So then all April, May June you're talking food plots or timber stand improvements or creating bedding cover or whatever it might be. And then you get into summer and then everybody's talking about hanging my tree stands, getting out your trail cameras to see what kind of bucks are in the area, scouting bean fields, um, getting all your final prep archery practice, rifle practice, whatever is you're doing all the way, and then all of a sudden September and you're you're hunting again in some states October first and others and it's spread out. But yeah, I mean, my every single day of my year something white terror lad is going on. Um except for the last like seven YEA cabout cab when when when you say you're going out in January to check tracks, what exactly are you doing? So, I mean that kind of situation like you might be walking the edges of cut Cordfield and see if you can cut a big track, and if you cut a big track, you might Okay, there's a mature buck potentially here, and if the season is done, that's a great opportunity to follow that track back and determine where that buck's betting. And you know, no risk there if I bump him, no big deal, and youved in the strong likelihood he's gonna be alive next hunting season. And these these mature bucks, at least in the places where I hunt, you know, like Michigan or other heavily pressured states. So there's a lot of hunters. These bucks, they bed places for a reason, like nothing's happening willy nilly. If a buck, if a mature buck is bettered in the area, it's because he knows he's got you know, safety, he's not got a lot of humans going in there. He's got some way to get out of there quickly. He can observe or smell what's happening throughout the day. So when you find those kinds of areas. Not only is that mature buck that's alive right now probably going to continue to use that, but that's probably gonna be you as in the future by future buck. So if that buck, if you kill that deer, someone else is gonna come in there and pick it up. So if you can identify those buck betting areas, you're in a good situation moving forward. So you spend a lot of time backtrack and deer. Sometimes what when you look for a big track, like what what is the I mean, everybody likes to you know, everyone likes to think they know a big track. Okay, where you got that the dew clause or splayed out like the animal gets to a certain way, like talk through some of that stuff, some of the fallacies and truths about like what does a big old buck track look like. I can't say I'm an expert on this, but what I always look for as a four finger track. So something that wide across there, if you've got it, doesn't look like it's a running track. If it's a walking track, a walking four finger wide track. Now consider that my hands are extremely powerful. That a big hand. Yeah, so it's very subjective, I know, that's a walking track, four fingers one on a grown male. And that that's have you heard that, Doug. That's something I've been told a lot. Ye. And the key is the walking tracks, because any of your or any bucks track looks big if it's yes, a running our moving tracks. So yeah, I agree with that. I mean yeah, I mean imagine a four finger track from me, and that's one of my cattle got out. You know, have you ever done a handoff where you take your pressed gar see who's the most powerful. It would be an interesting one. I do want to point out that I did have you on on the handoff length at least. Yeah, but when you factor in height like my proportion. You know, I've told this story for my old man met John Wayne, and John Wayne commented on my old man's hand that stuff, let's be proud of. Yes, what was the comment. I've never shook a hand bigger than mine, And my old man just said, and you never fought in the war and I didn't. He sat it out. He sat it out. His name was not John Wayne, his name is Maryon and he sat the war out. Wow. Uh, I don't know if my dad rubbed his nose in it. The director John Ford rubbed John Wayne's nose in that because Ford uh was in the service and did propaganda films and put his life at tremendous risk many times. And later I went on to make all these great Westerns with John Wayne and Ford would uh. Ford would embarrass and ridicule Wayne Um about his uh lack of service. Interesting, your knowledge about films has surprised man, This dude, I like movies a lot. May not realize you had that catalog in the mind. There interesting big buck tracks? Do they get there's a big huge buck track as he gets older? Does it? Does it round off on the tip? I think it varies? Is very individual. I think you see, this isn't something I've gotten as far to do. But I know some guys and I probably should try to do this more so they will actually go about trying to identify individual bucks by their tracks, and so there will be leading toward. That's what I'm leading towards. So if you want to jump into that, jump into that. Yeah. So there's I haven't done this yet, but there are some guys I know that can look at certain tracks. They can or can they say they can. I can't verify that. But they tell me they can identify like a little chink in it, or rounded edge on one side, or something like the chink chink h something like that. And then so here's something some people do to to make this a little bit easier. Make track catchers. So let's say you have got a food source and maybe there's a handful of trail that leading to that food. So let's just say it's a cornfield and there's a handful of trails leading to that cornfield, and you want to know, how is buck X coming into this area. What some guys will do is they will go in there and they will rake out back up. I'm sorry, yeah, I mean that you're out with your with your knockers and you see a big old buck standing in the field and you're like and you're you're wondering, like what what route is he using to get here? Like how can I head him off? Because once he's in it, I'm not gonna correct. So so in that case, then you're curious, like, you know, back in the woods, what is he doing before he arrives here? And so one whether there's several ways to determine that. One you could observe if you can find an observation stand or something where you can watch that and see to the timber. Number two, you could use trail cameras, so I actually put a camera on trails and stuff and monitor that way. Or a third way is making these track catchers, where you essentially will clear out an area on that trail really clean and flat without leaves and making you a nice even dirt area, and then come back in the next day and see which one of those trails has that big buck track or you know, maybe you saw the buck come off trail X, and you know to go check that track catcher because you know he walked through there, and then you can see that print clearly pressed in there and say, Okay, he came through here, this is what his track looks like. Take a picture of it or something, and in the future you've got one more tool in your chest that you can use to try to pattern that deer are you Are you familiar with umm, not familiar with, but but lion hunters in the desert. The guys that are hunting lions in the absence of snow will carry around little whisk brooms, sometimes full on brooms to dust out just to to to to wipe it clean on any kind of little crossing spots or like dry creek beds just to try to see. We used to do that as all hunting guides, like certain bigger trails that we walked a lot, and you'd get to certain sections that were just like soft and sandy, or you knew that it was some sort of like just a crossing or whatnot. It would often have elk tracks, and so we would clean them out and that way, next time you walk through, you'd be like, oh, somebody was here in the last twenty four hours. You know there's elk in the area. When when fur trap and uh, you know in fur trapping trap muskrat and mink and raccoon and beaver and stuff. You pay a lot of attention to undercut banks, like a lot of animals like to do to move along streams. They'll always use undercut banks because it gives you overhead protection. You know, you're not if you're a little mink work and you're just not exposed to avian predators and whatever else. And there's a lot of food onto there because all the other ship that's trying not to get eaten is also living under the undercut bank, and I would just go along, like go along my hip boots, And anytime you had to undercut bank where's a little bit of sand or mud on the bottom, you just would not even thinking about a kick water up in there to slick it. So the next time he came by, you'd see, you know, you'd like slick it out to make to see if there's a mink work in it or whatever. So yeah, it's it's like a technique that probably has it's probably an invented many times, you know. Yeah, well that makes this a simple but effective Oh yeah. But like the first time someone did it and showed it to me, I was like, I've been like walking this trail for three years, you know, and how got anything? Yeah? Yeah, Um, so that's like the January kind of activity. Now. Shed hunting, Yeah, are people like our dudes hunting sheds because they're trying to learn what kind of bucks are about, or they just hunting sheds they want to find if they'd like to have them. I guess the ladder. I think it's a combination of both. At least for me, it's both. And most of the guys I hang out with it's both. I mean, we write antlers are are cool. I love having a nailer in my hand and getting look at it and turned around. Given the people. Usually I'm giving people with them. Yeah, there are a few far between in Michigan dougs loose with them, schools and whatnot. Yeah, yeah, yeah, you've you're thinking about the end. It's it's funny that you say that, though, because when you Mark was saying, uh, deer hunting, what was it for the next generation. That was one of the conversations that we had up there on the mountain. It was that I'm twice his age, yeah, and I am. It's it's a bitter sweet that's a bitter sweet thing. Though to realize, my god, you're the old guy. You know, they've become less and less important to me. I used to very much just like hoard him, never wanted to give him away, and then eventually I was just like, really, why he's important to me? I think there's a threshold maybe, like I feel like I'm just starting to get to that point where I haven't like at first it was so like I had to and then ten and then twelve, and like it's such a special thing. And then once you get to a certain number yet it's easier to part with them. Um, but if it's on your property, it's nice to know. I mean, I found both sides on a couple of different occasions, and it's like, I want to kill this, dear, or if I kill this year, it's gonna be cool to have a sheds. But this is okay, all right? Uh So to recap, like, now, now I got myself all messed up. I get it the ship, but I wanna get back to the primary question. So with all the trail cameras and watching and looking and scouting and all that kind of ship you're telling me now, and then you'll find a shed antler. Now I want to back up for the real neo fights here. Um, dear, I'm going way backing up. Dear lose their antlers every year. Some people don't really realize this. A deer drops his antler and regenerates it every year. So when people talk about horns and antlers, and sometimes people will say like, oh, that dear is horns, and yeah, okay, that's fine, but it's not a horn. It's an antler horn. An animal keeps his whole life mountain goats, big horn sheep, all that crazy African animals. They got horns, and then you retain your horns. With one exception, the prong horn, the American prong horn or antelope um is, it is the only horned animal that sheds its horn and girls it new every year. And horns are like basically made out of hair. Antlers are like bone. Um. So when we say a shed, we mean like the annual shed and a buckle with some exceptions, but generally a buck every year is going to grow bigger and bigger antlers if he's fortunate enough to live so long and hits what age mark six seven eight older than that they started they started to go back downhill. Yeah, but one and the one of the thousand bucks lives that olde. They just don't live that long too much, it happens to him. Um. So you're telling me that you have and all the thinking and scouting and looking and trail cam in that you're up to, that you'll now and then find a shed antler and be like, I didn't know that this buck existed. Well, it depends if it's property that you hunt that I've been doing all those things. Yeah, that still happens sometimes, so he lived his whole damn year, but shed his antler evaded your attend lots of times that these deer have different ranges. So like the bucks that I'm seeing in the summer and the hunting season, but those those might be very different than a buck that shows up in March and sheds zanndler. For example, there's a deer I've been hunting and watching for a couple of years now that he shows up on this property like the first week in September, right when when the velvet comes off, he relocates that fall range defined property. What do you mean, like like you give it an acreage like what you're talking about. So there's a property in mid Michigan that I hunt that is a nine d acre farm that I have permission to hunt on, so small, relatively small like small farm. Yeah, yeah, I mean it mean it's all relative, right, Um. I mean, like like like in Michigan, when I live in Michigan and we were hunting, we hunted a lot of like working family farms that were big enough to support you know, a family. There's a lot of farms in the range of of three to four acres in the area up man by us. At least, everything's getting fractured, smaller and smaller and smaller properties. I mean, it's all forties and eighties these days. Almost as when I say, um, so I feel somewhat um fortunate to have ninety acres to hunt on there. Um it gives me enough to work with half of its open field, so you can't do much with that, but then the other half has some cover and stuff. Dude, I'm not dogging on having ninety acres. That's fantastic. Yeah, I'm just trying to clarify for people who don't really deal in acreages in their head. We're talking about when you point that out a couple of days ago. That's so funny to hear me talk about properties when hunting out west. That's something you guys don't think about it at all. But yeah, I think that's everyone that I hunt with and around. That's how you work. I've got permission on two properties, or I've got this property that property that you can hunt and you have to um cherish those because they're fleeting getting permission. They can you can lose it quick. You can get kicked off a property, like we joked about. Um and they sell it off from under her or some little some little cousin. Yeah, and then that happens. Cousins are the bane of hunters man, because every d of the owns property. It's inevitable. They got some damn cousin who eventually is gonna come around. I want to tap into his birthright and boot you off the property. But you got a ninety acre property, and then you have freedom to roll them there. But in all the surrounding properties you might not be able to. Whatever happens there is someone else's business. Yeah. Yeah, And I try to get permission as many places as I can, you know, to increase your flexibility and your options and stuff. So in some places I have permission on multiple property, someplaces just a tiny little piece here there. But in this case you have, you have permission on a ninety surrounded by other landowners. Um, and there was a buck of interest. Buck of interest. And yeah, he he shows up in September, He hangs out till January and then he disappears. But I don't understand what you mean, like shows up from where? Like how far away? Could it possibly be? Not a mile or two? I've I've heard and seen examples of a mile or two. Yeah, it could be. It could be just on the other side of your six or forty acre block. Um So, I know like in some cases, like in this case, I a neighbor, a sort of distant neighbor that I keep in communication with, has gotten summer trail cameras with this buck, but I've never seen him before, gotten pictures in the summer, but then he sees him almost never during the fall. I see him all the time during the fall. Do you think he's moving there because of because of something going on with agricultural timing or do you think it has something to do with him prep and coming in because he's fixing to mate some doughs. I can't necessarily put my finger on because you know, the crops are rotating every year. So it's not like he's only going over there on years when it's a soybean here, and then he comes over on mine when it's a soybean. Hear in my on on the property I can hunt there, so it's not necessarily related to that. Um you know, a lot of a lot of times bucks will prefer to summer in areas with more mature cover and stuff because when they've got those big velvet antlers, they're not necessarily wanting to get in the thick, nasty stuff that they nest that they would and then later in the fall. So a lot of times you're gonna see mature bucks in the summer and like habitatic where I'm at, they might bed and hang out in areas of big mature tim stands that are close to like a soybean field or something good summer nutrition. And then once you get into September two stosteronees rising valvet comes off. They start relocating to these fall ranges where number one, there's better fall cover because once those leaves come down, they require a different cover. And then number two, they want to go where there's going to be more does because of course that time periods coming up the rut, but they want to establish their own space from other bucks and they need space. How old this dear that you're looking at? This buck should be five and a half this year, which in Michigan doesn't happen. Yeah, no doubt. I have found that the older of the deer gets, the older of the buck gets, the less he moves tighter core range. Yeah, I've seen it, heard the same, what do you feel as a deer's core range? Like how much? Um? I should say what you feel because it's known now because the tracking data, it's like it's not like intuition anymore, like like how much space does a white tailed deer you use? So I am going to get this specific numbers wrong here, But there's a home range and a core range or kind of terminology that's thrown around. The home range is something like where that buck spends about sevent that let me take it back, Yeah, about seventy of his movements are going to be within that home range, and that can be like three hundred six thousand acre or something like that, like a relatively large area where he might at some point in time turn up. Yeah. But then there's that core range whereas he's spending the very mostly that's the most concentrate amount of his movement, and that can be forty acres so much tighter area where he's betted most of the time, where he's gonna be feeding most of the time. But then there are those these four ways, Like it's it's well proven, especially during the rut, that bucks and even does will take these extended fourays randomly mile two out of their core range, seemingly at random, possibly following a dough or different things like that, and then they'll return back to that core, you know, a week later or something. It's always kind of add something it's interesting to add. Uh, just sort of compare it to what the Arizona guys see with their white tails, because it's so much more open, right, and they get to sort of experience what you're talking about through their binoculars at two miles away. You know. We talked to some guys that killed box that they've seen like sleeping underneath the same cactus or same oak tree, you know, dozens of days, you know, like and just they don't move. Sometimes these boxes live in one little bitty canyon, you know, and sleep under the same tree. There's a story we heard about a desert white tail. You might remember the details, Johnnie. Someone someone in our circle um of associates had found a desert white tailor a CU's deer under a tree and it was a big, nice bucket. It wasn't seasoned, and it had distinctive antlers. And then they looked for it and looked for it and looked for it. Over the next several years, is this right. They could never find it, and then one day they found it again laying under the tree. Just was there probably like maybe it was just in that little pocket the whole time. But yeah, but what they talked about, these guys are hunt CUSI a lot because you because you're looking at it. It's like like in the Midwest, all white of activities like hidden from view, you know, and you have to do all the stuff. But like out there where it's open, Yeah, you can get back and just observe the whole thing. They talk about his glass up a big buck, finding his like identifying his little zone, and then just finding a little sniper's perch somewhere like in the vicinity of his zone. And then you just lay there for a couple of days waiting for him to do his and you just like peeking in on it, you know, which isn't the luxury you have now in flat flat timbered brushy country. I will point out though, to your point, you're honest store of at those core and home ranges in the amount of movement, even a white tail in Midwest or Northeast that is very habitat dependent too. So I mean, if you're in an area where they have to travel much farther distances to get between decent food and good security cover, it can be much larger. But I think in an area where it's evenly dispersed cover, food, water, etcetera. I think those numbers tend to be in that range. So the buck you're talking about, the buck that got to be five and a half years old, how did he get to be five and a half years old? Like? How is he avoided getting shot four times? So when just every bucket shot or not everybody, every buck of bench she gets hit by a car, killed by coyotes, shot by a gun, or just whatever other accidents befall tangled up in a woven wire fence like I've seen it quite a number of times over the years. Like just stuff happens to him. Yeah, so I think a lot of luck, right, I mean, because all those things you listed up fences, cars, coyotes, none of that stuff has happened yet. But outside of luck, I think two things. Number One, he has a very tight core range like he I've never had a buck that I've hunted and observed that is so habitual in a small area that he uses like I during the hunting season. Because of how this property lays out. There's a big hill up towards the front of it that I can sit on and I can look down over. I can actually see a decent ways into this area some fields, and you can actually see into this brush you like multiflora rose type stuff that great cover and tall grass. But from high I can see down into it. And so you guys ever chase cotton tails down that multiflora rolls because that's on a neighboring property, but I can see it um and that buck during the hunting season is there almost every day. I mean, he stakes stays in a very small are so I know he's possibly gonna come feed on the property I can hunt. He's gonna bed just over the edge into the thick stuff. And then if I hunt, you know, one of these one or two stands where I can see that area, I can almost almost guarantee you I'm going to see him. Our dudes hunting that property too, not often. So that's the thing we've got going is that there's a hunter there that doesn't go in very often, so he has kind of sanctuary there on that property most of the year. And then on the property I can hunt. I'm very very careful about how I hunt it and one I hunt it. So he's got kind of a two property section there that's almost hunter hunting pressure free that he can roam around. And so he's got that going for him. Are you friendly with the other guy? Yes? He is he a wearing this buck also? Um? Yes, Now he doesn't know. We haven't talked about to the degree I'm obsessed with this buck. Yeah, he might be aware, like, oh I heard there was a big buck back there. That's what a lot of people think of it, but they don't think of it like what is it actually up to? Yeah? Yeah, so so but yeah, we we've like had drinks together and I mentioned, oh, there's this nice buck that I see every once in a while. And so he's on board with the idea of let's let's just let's let dear get bigger and stuff. Yes, yes, yes, I think he's not quite um as serious about as I am. But we've talked about in the past and it sounds like he's not interested in shooting a year and a half old bucks and stuff. So there's a couple of different people I've I've I had to meet everyone I can in the area, and most of them want to see you know, bucks get a little bit of age on him, so that's a good thing. In the general area, there's a handful propers where they don't do that, a couple of propers where they do. Um. But then the second or the third thing, I guess that has allowed this buck to get to that point. And maybe I'm gonna take too much credit for myself, but I've chosen not to kill him. Um. So the very first year I saw him, I saw him the night before, the night before opening day of bow season in Michigan, and he was a nice three and a half year old buck. Was the best looking buck I had seen on the property that year, and at that point I was I was interested in shooting at three and a half yield there in Michigan because that's still hard to find two. So he was a buck that I would shoot. But opening night came in, a different buck came and I killed that deer, and so I decaid, I'm not gonna kill this other deer now because I've already taken one off this property. So I was just gonna shoot those the rest of the season. So he got he got a free pass the rest of that year. I had him within bow range later in the season and chose not to shoot him. Last year. Um, he'd be a four year old, and again I was seeing him a lot, learned a lot about him from the past year. So I definitely wanted to shoot him last year. Had I saw him with my own eyes twenty seven times during the season. Last year, UM had him Yeah crazy right, UM had a shot at him at forty yards one evening, but it was like right at last night, and I just didn't feel comfortable taking a shot in those conditions. Oh, but you would have shot him last year. I would have shot him last year. How many have so last year he probably would have been like a hundred mid one one thirty eight pointer. Four year old is a four year old, UM, which is a really good Michigan buck um. But so he had all these encounters earlier in the season. Gun season comes and I was like, you know, I think I couldn't pull it off. He's probably gonna killed during gun season. You know, I made you made peace of that reality, Like I had an awesome experience with this year. He's probably gone. But lo and behold, December shows up, he's still alive, and something like clicked in my mind, and like early of December when I realized he made it through all October, he made it through all of November in the rut and gun season, and I kind of realized, Wow, this deer could actually make it another year. Um, and I had already I'd already killed two bucks. I'd already killed two bucks last year and several does. And I realized I don't need to fill another tag. I don't need to kill this buck. He probably could make it the next year. And I've just come like it's been a very unique thing to be able to watch it here. Over two years, I've become, you know, so invested in like this experience, in this interaction with this deer, that I kind of got to the point where I was like, you know what I'd like to I'd like to see if he'll be around next year. Yeah. But as a writer at this point, as a writer, you almost can't kill it, some bitch, at this point, you gotta be like the story would be. And there he was, And I had this chance. You ever see the movie The Golden Seal. No, there he was. I had a chance. And then just like you ever see Uh Deer Hunter, what, Oh my goodness, I know I should. I saw The hun five times by the time I was thirty. Vietnam movie. You don't know like I've heard of it. I just hadn't seen it. It's boys in Pennsylvania grew up in the in the mining world. Every year they hunt, they know, they go up and hunt the mountains every year, and they go off to Vietnam. Um one of them in the Green Berets. They wind up in a prison camp. Two of them wind up in the prison camp together. The VC used them to make bats on Russian Roulette. They get deeply damaged. Come home. Robert de Niro uh goes up back hunting with his friends. Uh. For some weird reason of red stag comes out. Uh. The movies they always you know, you always fine in American movies there has got red stags in them, like they did. They make that mistake and last in the Mohican know who made the movie definitely is not a wild lef. So stay comes out. But the nero uh doesn't shoot it steady starts, you know, He's like it's over, it's over, and doesn't shoot the Golden Seal it's a very valuable seal. And you say seal. Are we talking what kind of seal? Seal? I don't know a ring seal. I can't rather it was when I was a kid, So it's an animal gets crack at it. Yeah, dude finally gets crack at it. The size not to take the shot. He's like, Noah, I can't do it. So I think, now this buck, when you get the chance, you gotta be like, let him walk off into the sunset, man, because don't you think you know him too well now to shoot him? Well, I mean it's definitely getting that. I've got nothing your dog. I wouldn't shoot a dog. I would shoot is this deer? After all of these years of interactions, how are you gonna then go jab an arrow into him? I know it's a really weird paradox um, dude, because because you're a percent right after the movie and in the end, he's like, ma'am, look at his face, he's gonna pull back and shoot that year having your socks, Doug, I'm wearing my comfy shoes without socks, dude, post hunt, let him let him out there and m toes out. So now I'm interested in this buck. Uh he's going to get where exactly is all My friends threatened to do that too. Not Uh so he continues to be in eight or is. He's starting to get some junkers so up to this point, really so I have that's fine, that's fine. I'm trying to get some heavy ship here right him finally take he got his stickers. Well, so, so he is a he is a tight and tall eight pointer. He has been that the last two years. He's just gotten heavier every year. But I don't know what he looks like this year because I haven't seen haven't seen him because he's on the because he's on the instry place. So I saw he's gonna show up, You don't, I don't so right right about a car right about now is when he uses shows out. So there's still a lot of this is not a done deal yet. Oh no, it's not done deal. But in December he made it through the hunting season. He made it all the way through March. I saw him in March still carrying think so you you don't know, I don't know. There was there's he's not walking under your tree stand every night, right, not yet? But while starting right about now. He usually starts to never found a chet? What have you name? What's his name? Don't tell me he doesn't have a name. He has a name. He has a name. That's what his white tailed guys do know. You saw me name it? Care? Yeah, you named one snow angels, so I won't be ashamed at all of Well, I named him snow king, snow angela snowflake. He picked up a lot of names, all sort of based off of snow thing. Did uh? What does his name? You don't want to tell me, I will tell you. And I know it does sound ridiculous to some people from outside, but no, it's an efficiency thing is It's an efficient That's all it is. Yeah, because of game stuff, L says lhol Fabio. We do it with a hint of um um sarcasm sarcasm. But I think everyone at this point does with a hint of sarcasm. Almost everyone does with hin sarcas because there's some outlandish names out there. Yeah, but I mean, what am I gonna do for three years? Oh? You know that one eight pointer that I've seen twenties seven times? Well, I did try to I did try to dub a carib but we're looking at that one Caribo way over there. Yes he did, but it just was cumbersome, and so we settled on snow Angel. So this buck I refer to as holy Field because he's got a chunk missing out of his ear, so it was a natural fit. And uh and yeah, hopefully he'll be there when I get back to Dude, I'm gonna think so much less of you if you jab an arrow into this deer after all of this time together. But on balance, I'd be really disappointed if you get if you get the opportunity. But you know what, here's here's no way looking at it. He's walking dead. What do you mean he's gonna get killed? Like, yeah, he's just like he's at the end of his time on Earth. It's it's five and a half by someone or something. Yes, it was interesting though last year, so I have a podcast, so I talked about all these things with my own audience a lot, and so the story of holy Field has become like this long running thing that all these people are following. And so last year when I decided, you know, I don't think I don't want to shoot him. This year, um, and I explained, I had a really lengthy conversation all you know, going through my thought process and and why I decided I didn't want to do that. There was a in an incredibly passionate response from a lot of people. A lot of people are like, I totally get it, And then a lot of people, I can't believe you're not gonna shoot it. You're letting us down, Like kill that damn buck what we want to like someone else is gonna kill They wanted a resolution, Yeah, they want a resolution to the story. But you said it was pretty equal, though you had other people that were like, oh, I'd say it was. It was like, totally get what you're saying. But then there was a very loud and passionate ten percent that wants that dear dead UM just to see just yeah, like you said, resolution, like they have their story wrapped up. Like there's a lot of people that feel like they're living vicariously through this experience, Like and because it's been such a consistent thing we talked about UM and some people are probably just so sick and tired of me talking about it. I just want to move on to something new. You know, what's refreshing about you? I like about you One of the things is that the there's sort of these national standards in big bucks, right where people sort of like, what is an acceptable big giant buck is set by like very specific regions that just for a multitude of reasons, are able to produce genuine, big, huge giant bucks, right, Like big huge giant box used to like for a while it was like Alberta, right, That's where big bucks came from, and then it woant not be in that certain place. Is like certain places in Illinois and Iowa started like cranking out big bucks, and they would set sort of the national standard of what's a big buck. So if you're gonna put a buck on like the cover of a magazine, bucks on the covers of magazines are oftentimes not even real bucks you'll have. There are magazines in existence that's who have an editorial stance against the captive servant industry. So they have an editorial stance against pen raised deer and canned hunts, yet they adorn their own covers with pen raised bucks. And it creates the same way that you hear and I'm I'm attuned to this now that I have a daughter, the same way that you hear that there's a standard of beauty put forth by the fashion industry and by the media that is unachievable by most women who don't have the time and money to devote to their appearance. Where we would create like a beauty standard. I mean, you know, I'm aware this. This doesn't keep me up at night, but it's the thing people talk about, the same thing happens with bucks, right, But you have like you, for whatever reason, don't feel that you're able to look and be like, well, what is like good for the area? Like what is a big buck kind of for a normal guy hunting normal kind of little ninety acre parcels of land in a heavily hunted area and celebrate those deer without feeling that you need to go down and and and you go down to Texas to a high fence place to enter into the real white tail guy world. Oh yeah, I think that one of the um one thing that has come out of the deer hunting media world has been just the setting of unrealistic expectations for people, because if you watch TV, all you see are these gigantic bucks being killed so easily, it seems every single time you watch a show. But they're an Aisle or Illinois or Kansas and they're hunting tightly managed thousand acre it's just thing that people can't relate to. But then you get people, even especially maybe newer hunters, that watch that stuff. That's their only way of establishing in context for what is good or what I'm supposed to do. So then they start hunting and they're thinking like, yeah, I shoot a buck like that, and they get disappointed and the frustrated they hang it out like apologetic about their deer all the time, which is that's like the really painful part to me is when people like send you pictures like yeah, it's just a little one, you know, But I'm like, dude, don't be like so disrespectful to the animals. Man. You know, I think any animal you kill, I mean should be celebrated and respected, and that is awesome. I think everybody needs to set their own goals for what that experience, for what experience they want. So for me, you know, I like to target mature bucks because I want a certain experience out of that hunting season. If I were shooting the first year I saw my hunting season be done, it would be an evening and evening event um so so out of my hunting experience, I of course want me. I also want a lengthy experience. I want to be out there for a long period of time. I want to be learning and observing and interacting with these animals. I want to challenge um. And you know, hunting mature buck allows that whole thing to happen, and I enjoy that chess match. I enjoy whether it be a situation like this where I hunt one single property and learn a specific buck like that is a really interesting, unique way to engage with like with an animal. And then I also enjoy the challenge of, like going to a brand new place. I don't know anything there, and I just enjoy the challenge of trying to learn that property and learn what's happening here, How can I interact with how can I set up and kill a deer here? There's something really cool about all these different things. But that buck, this buck you've been watching for these three years, is that right? For three years? You've been aware of him for three years. This buck you've been watched for three years, he knows so intimately, and he's kind of in the autumn of his life. Whether you give him or not. He's in the autumn of his life all that. That's something bitch, still wouldn't make the cover of a magazine. No, No, you're not even close. Like why is that? Okay, I don't mean that socially, which is what let's explore it. Socially. It won't make the cover of the magazine because it doesn't meet sort of the national thing, sort of the the national somewhat false notion of what a big buck is supposed to look. Correct, that's a social aspect. But why is it that that deer could be five and a half years old and be that big. But a deer from Buffalo Connie, Wisconsin, that's five and a half years old, you're gonna be able fit that deer's antlers inside that Buffalo County deer's antlers. So there's two high level things going on there. One would be habited nutrition and one would be genetics. Um. So this buck just doesn't have the genetics to develop into a gigantic deer. Um, he just hears what he is. Gigantic. Gigantic antler deer are very rare. I mean, even in places like Buffalo County, they're still relatively rare compared to the average um. So most mature bucks, probably even in the best places in the in the country, are still going to be you know, a five six year old buck with great habitat nutrition maybe would only be hundred and forty. So they don't all in those places. All old bucks aren't huge, not all. It's it's always a bell curve, right, so there's always gonna be that average. You know, most of your bucks maybe at five or six, might be hundred. Remember when we were in Texas, in the amount of like cold bucks that that manager was shooting that they were, they were in that range. They were hundred forty bucks, but he was shooting him for a couple of reasons. One, they weren't gonna get big. But by taking them all out along with hundreds of dose, he was leaving more habitat, more nutrition for you know, the ones that they're really trying to An interesting thing that that that dude brought up is talk about the stress, right, just less competition with the other dear. He felt that by and this guy's this guy manages an extremely large property for some fairly wealthy individuals, and his mandate is to produce to have this giant property more than ten times the size of the property you're talking about it. I believe um, he's supposed to produce every year two gigantic bucks. That's his mandate, and he's a full time manager on this place to create two gigantic bucks. And his efforts to create two gigantic gigantic bucks. Once he identifies some candidates, they go in and start and systematically remove the competitors of those candidates to give those competitors less stress, because stress inhibits antler growth. I would concur I think that falls into your habitat and or just herd dynamics. So this buck feels like he's just lucky, but meanwhile he's just being watched and coddled. But you would think until you talk to the guy, but then he talks about this that even with all of that, there are bucks that vanish, and there are bucks that all of a sudden that you see him once and never see him again. The mystery, like there's still a tremendous amount of mystery as much as he's like just actively doing this, Like one day one shows up on a camera and you never see him again. But and that's some thick, thick country. I mean you want to talk about Michigan being thick. I mean, this is the country that there's places where you just don't even go into it because it's so thorny and nasty. Yeah, everything's like twelve feet high. Once you get up on a ladder, so holy ship, you can see a long ways, but you can talk on the ground. Yeah, I just can't see anything. But so so that the genetics deal and then the nutrition, yeah, I think and and and then you made a good good soil porcelo soil, and then what what kind of available food sources and everything. So of course deer that live in agricultural country are going to have terrific amounts of food and protein that things they need to grow big anglers um. And then soil does make a big difference too, So that's why you see such tremendous production of big angler deer along like the Mississippi River Corridor and all that stuff going on there by you doug um. So those types of things do lead to these genetic um or these I don't know if you gonna call it freaks, but these huge antler deer that you're just not going to see as often in other places. So how I'm back on your deer again. So how big of a deer, how big of how big of a body is He's a tanker, big old body, just a huge girthy chest. His neck like seamlessly goes right into his shoulders and chest. And when he walks around, he's got those curls on his neck. Yeah, foot on the floor over there, and he's got the sagging belly. Um. So I mean yeah, I mean, I love just a big bodied, mature buck. I mean. And we're talking a lot about inches and antlers and stuff, and I just want to make sure antlers are cool, right, and we enjoy big antler deer there neat to see. They're where, they're rare, they're special because, like we just talked about, large antler deer are are not the the average thing here to see. So there to be, in my opinion, there to be appreciated and valued. And it's neat to hunt. But that's not all there is. Like there's such an antler craze in the white tailed world. So many people are fixated on that that's been around for for for But I just always want to be careful to make sure that even though I might talk about it in a conversation like that, that's not all there is. There's so much more to it. Like so, I'm glad you brought body size and different things like that, or or history and experience of the deer or a set of circumstances. I mean, all those things make that hunt that deer uh special. Yeah, I'm glad you brought that up. Go ahead. Well, I's just gonna say, you know, uh, you folks talk about trophy country and trophy hunts and that sort of stuff, and and and I think it's the same thing with white tails. My my favorite hunts are the ones that we've had these great stories about, you know, a group of people hunting together, you know, we get this dear or or like your story where you watched him for a period of time and and uh, you know, rather than and he came out and well I never saw him before I shot him. And it's not much of a story, you know, it's not it's not that it's not a great deer or anything like that, but I think the story really makes the you know, and maybe the suffering or sort of like we just did you know, we could have shot a caribou hundred yards from our camp. But um, we went out and went through a full experience. I mean each one of us did some more than others. But I don't think that, uh, I want to get back to like the aunt, the scoring system, and what people mean when they say a hundred forty inches of altland. But I'll point out that is a good story if all of a sudden do you didn't know about pops out because the uh, the woods, there's supposed to be an element that's supposed to be it's nice, and there's an element of the unknown and the element of the surprise and the element of mystery. Yeah, I've it like it doesn't like I don't think it needs to be that in order for it to be legit and needs to have like this agricultural overtone where you're like raising this deer up and taking care of him. I think there's lots of different ways that can be neat. I mean, like my experience I'm having with this deer I think is unique and like super valuable and I'm really enjoying it. But I think to your point to showing up in a new place and seeing that deer for the first time, that that that moment when you first see this deer in the shock, like, oh my gosh, this is gonna happen, Like that can be really special to um. But I think, you know, it's just different. I like to surprise, you know, um one of the on our farm. I used to do a lot more trail camera stuff, and I still do a lot of it on client properties, but I don't I haven't had trail cameras out at all this year, and you know, very very few even at the end of the year last year in our property. Words I had in my other other people's property because they're that's what I'm supposed to be doing online sort of like I don't know, kind of like that element of surprise. Also, you hear about this popping up more and more like the white Tail community, like that exact notion being that kind of just like some of us we get overloaded on our cell phones, so like you need to purge it for a while and you just you know, take off your Facebook app or whatever so you're not on there all the time. It's just too much. I know a lot of people that I feel the same way about trail cameras are I know what lost the mystery of it you know everything or no, the deer that you're ever going to see. So I can I can totally understand that I enjoy using trail cameras. But at the same time, I do like the idea of of that mystery, that surprise excitement. So I know, guys that are starting to get rid of them, Yeah, the trail I like trail cams. Like, there's a few things I like about him. One it just you want to becoming more educated, right, You're like, no more, you have more information. You know more about animals and how they move and how they interact with their environment. It's a valuable asset to a lot. Tro Cam images have like a surreal beauty to them that it's just just like that, just the sort of the without the hand of man really there at the second. Just like these like motion sensor activated images sometimes they're just incredible, Like it clicks at a time when a person wouldn't click, and the result is sometimes like stunningly beautiful of animals in their environment, completely unaware of any kind of intrusion. There's a beauty to it. Now when earlier market I want to step back to top of this, you're talking about hundred forty and I think a lot of people don't understand it so well. Mark's referring to is a number that comes from the Boone and Crocket Club, now the Boone and Crockett Club and ORP and or popion. Let's talk about boding Crocket promitt. But Boone and Crockett um originated it, right, and they predate they pre date Pope Young by fifty years. And it's it's essentially the same measuring system. It's just one's bow. Ones. In the late eighteen hundreds early nineteen hundreds, one wildlife populations in America were collapsing and near collapse and some of them gone. Um Theodore Roosevelt and the other number of influential conservationist hunters started a group called the Boone and Crocket Club and their initial mandate, their their initial like reason for existence was to establish and push for the enforcement of game laws in Yellowstone was in the first places. So they had this idea that let's have it be that instead of the unregulated commercial slaughter of wildlife, we will establish bag limits and seasons and parameters under which people hunt. And that was how the Boone and Crockett Club, that was their initial thing. They were starting from the ground up. There was nothing in place. The system of scoring that eventually came out of this was a way to catalog animal populations. And at the time, um, you know, you didn't have genetic stuff, you didn't have sophisticated aging data, and they didn't understand like tooth analysis and all this other kind of ship. A thing that's just very obvious is the antlers on the males or in and bears is the general school size. And so the kind of way to say, like, how can we objectively measure and animals antlers in a way that is replicable where any two individuals could look at it and apply the same metrics to it. And they came up with a scoring system. The thinking being that if you were to score these things and then track these populations over time, since antlers are a product of age and habitat, age and environment, you would be able to see long term term and short term trends and antler growth and tell about the stability of a population. If you have a population, let's say you just there they were in conversation talk about this. Let's say in Colorado you have that every year Colorado produces ten bucks that have that score a two D on this measuring system. Ten meal gear box score a two or better on this measuring system. And then you realize a decade goes by and not a single buck comes out of Colorado scoring a two on this measuring system. You would look and think something is a miss in Colorado. Something is not there that was there once but now not. But now in addition to that, people also, well, let me add another thing to this. Years ago on on an island where I have a hunting and fishing shack, years ago, a non resons allowed to bears on that island every year. Then it became like a bear. Then it became that you have to draw an it's only about a fift chance of being able to get a bear on the island. That was because they had noticed a very slight but gradual decline in the average bear skull coming off of that island, and that hinted to them to the idea of over of the potential for over harvest, that the bears were shrinking, and they felt they were probably shrinking due to selective harvest of large animals. So here's where that like that information that metric ability influenced management policy. Um, but people also just use it and talk about it in a very fluid way, being like when you say that, that's what you're saying. And it's like a handful of measurements you take. You measure each like you measure the main beam and all this other ship and the scoring systems so pervasive that people don't even talk about times anymore. They talk about G two's and all this ship because when you fill out the form, there's measurements like what do the measurements look like? Yeah, you know about heart G one, two, three, four, those are your main times, Yeah, and you got your main beam lengths and your inside spread like his G two his right G two is this and that just because when you fill out the form, that line of the form is for the G two. It was funny when we were looking at our caribou, I was like trying to refer to a point I didn't know. Can I call us? Is this like the G Yeah? Yeah, I haven't looked at how you score? Could I don't know? But that's of marks getting at with with the score thing. But a big like I think that when I saw about in the national sense, like big, huge, giant white tailed box aren't really guarded as big, huge box until they get to like have one inches of antler. That's like the like with mule deer. It's like if I could only kill a two in buck with elk, if I can only kill four inch bull with white tails, it's what I think one seventy because that's boon. That's a booner boon and cracker buck and make the boon and cracker record record books. I mean, but again, it's all relative. Like a guy in New Hampshire if he sees a hun during fifteen or hundred buck, he should be stoked. That's an amazing buck in that area, or in Michigan if you've got to. If so, if you duck is a hoping young buck, um gross well net but um in Michigan is like a pretty nice deer hundred fifty inches a giant deer in Michigan. Um in Wisconsin. I'm sure hundred buck where you're at, it's like it's a nice buck. I would guess, but I don't know. Get shot. Yeah, there's everybody will shoot that deer. But I mean, I'm guessing, like if that bucks you pull up with that in the back of the pickup truck, and people like on nice buck. If you pull up with that buck at the buck pole and opening it to a gun season, there's a two hundred people swarmed around at taking pictures and looking at him. To what degree because of your career? To what degree do you feel like you have to go shoot Big Bucks in order to like maintain your career? Would your career exists if you never shot a Big Buck? So early on, I thought so, I had this pressure like the first few years when you know, I was trying to build this this website, in this brand everything. I thought like, I gotta kill Big Bucks, and I stressed about it every year and stuff. Won't you won't be a businessman, you won't be a white tailed guy, I think. I think, Um, now, I don't worry about that nearly as much because I have not staked my reputation or what I'm doing on in any sense trying to claim like I'm the best deer hunter out there, or I'm an expert all all of stuff. What how I communicate in in in what I do, the service I think I provide. Is I I am a um just voracious learner. I love to learn. I want to consume as much as possible. I want to talk to as many different people as possible. So I'm I'm trying to take in every different input I possibly can, and then I try to share what I learned. And then I share my experiences lots of failures, lots of mistakes, occasional successes, and I share that real experience with my listeners, readers, etcetera. And I think that's much more relatable than the guy that kills a eight years buck every single year, doing it one specific way. Um So now I don't want necessarily where of course, like I need to have some credibility and they can you'd like to see that the things I'm learning and trying and doing are you know, paying off and that you know, okay, he tried to actually talked about X resulted in why? So that content is I think just more relevant to a larger, you know group of the you know, your listeners. And I think that's where your credibility is. Talking with you about white tails. I really enjoyed the conversations, and it's your experiences and the stuff the way you're looking at it all as the credibilities really there, and I think, you know, and the other thing I've done is that I'm not embarrassed to share like everything, and so I've I've shared all sorts of failures and mistakes I've made, and that's pretty rare within the white tailed world too. And so like on someone at one point said like, I just love your stuff, and he's like, and I think it's because you've cornered the market on failure you've done. You've done a great job of sharing all the mistakes you've made. So but you know what, we all make mistakes, we all fail sometimes, just most people don't want to talk about it, and I'm I'm okay putting it out there and um hopefully getting as we go along. Everyone people have the idea that other people don't want to hear about the failures. I probably get more feedback when I like, yeah, yeah, when something bad happens, or I screw something up, like more emails and messages and stuff like, oh that happened to me too, Or I had the same issue but I thought it was the only one, or I didn't. Never they talked about how to deal with it, you know. And so we've walk worked through all sorts different channels that we all experience but very rarely do you get to follow along with with someone else on that experience. And you could do everything right nothing, especially with white tails, you can do everything right, and for whatever reason, that dear turns and goes away and all of that, and it's like you sit there and go, what did I do wrong? There? Wild animals? I think people who are trying to established some notoriety or establish some claim in hunting in order to feed a career, like a media type career and hunting. Uh. You hear of so many examples, like there's a couple every year that come up of where they wind up crossing some pretty serious legal and ethical lines in order to achieve it. For sure, how much do you know the story about the guy we were talking about their day from Michigan, the guy from Michigan, How well do you know? I couldn't give you all the details that I mean, give a sketch of it. Though. The super high level story was back in the nineties, this guy um killed this gigantic buck up in northern Michigan. It was just incredibly widely wide or twice in place, in a place where you just would not see a buck like that, and it was at the time. I don't remember if it was the biggest buck killed in the state at the time where they believed it was, but I got a lot of notoriety. I was telling you guys. I remember, I don't know how how old I was, eight or ten or something like that at the time, but I even at that age, saw this picture in the newspaper and cut out the picture of this buck in the newspaper, put it up on my little board. Everybody saw. My dad was a score. My dad scored for uh, Pope and Young. He's he's like a certified score for Pope Young and Boone and Crockett, m U c c all that ship. So bucks flooded into our house to be scored, and I remember like just the buzz yeah or whatever the hell was called. And it's an impressive looking deer. I mean even still today when you see the pictures. WHOA. But eventually it came out that this was actually not a free ranging deer. This is possibly had been raised in a pen or different you know, um questionable activities had been involved with the with the killing of that dear. So it wasn't legit. It was proved, you know, he didn't wasn't able to enter it officially in the record books. He was kind of ostracized because of that, you know, for a good reason. Um. Some people still today say he was actually a really good legit hunter and he'd killed many bucks in legitimate fashion. Um. But for whatever reason, whether it be ego or a desire for notoriety or something to your point, he crossed that line in as if you a way and it's like there are I mean we could if we sat around, we could generate a list as long as your are man, dozens of cases where that happens. Like what is that? Do you understand the pressure? Like have you ever been like man um wired the hunt would get a would get a shot to the arm if if I just could or are you immune to it? I'm immune to it because that's just like not me, Like that's not my thing. Um. But like I said, I did feel that pressure like I should be killing like mature bucks, like you need to you have some kind of credibility. Um. But I've never been like the type that's trying like I have to kill a hunter eight and sure buck or something. I'm not trying to be in the cover of a magazine or something with that. I just want to do something I love, share what I'm learning and help people hopefully. So I've never been a position where I thought like that was gonna sky. I'm not doing TV or anything. Um, but I know lots and lots of people that are. And and I think it comes down to, like your like the why behind it. And so I think some people the why behind wanting a TV show or wanting whatever it is because they want fame and fortune and attention all that kind of stuff. Um My wife has just been different and so I just haven't worried about that. What do you say, Uh, do you ever give advice to people who wish they had a job in the in the like in hunting, like hunting or fishing or whatever, Like you gotta have people come and ask you hundreds and hunters. What do you tell people? Is there an answer? Yeah? I mean yeah, A couple of things. Um, you know I can speak to like content related careers because that's what I do, like the media type stuff. Um, So I would say number one, like figure out what your what whatever medium or type of thing is that you can do, Like either you have a natural skill set or experience in it or a passion. So are you gonna write, are you going to film? Are you going to photograph? Are you going to whatever it might be? Um? So what's like? Okay, once you figure that out, and then number two, just do it, like create stuff, like get out there, have experiences and put it out there. So for me, when I started a blog a website, um yeah, I had no reason that people should have been reading what I had to say. I had no one knew who this Mark Kenyon guy was. Um, but I just created. So I was just constantly writing, constantly producing content. And so so my advice is number one, pick what you what you're passionate about, what you want to do. Number two, do it, create it, and by doing it you get better, Like you can fine tune that craft the more you do it. But if you sit around and thinking, wow, someday I'm going to be a photographer, but I want to wait till I've got the seven thousand dollar camera and I'm gonna wait until this thing and that thing, No, you just gotta get out there with what you have, do it, fine tune your craft and then share it. And if you do that enough and you continue to go oh and continue to get better. And by sharing that, I mean like whether it be through social media or networking in person, you ustablished relationships connections. If you do all those things, and if you get better at all those things, opportunities come about. So for me with my website, I just started writing every Like when I decided I was going to do weird Hunt, I started the website and then every single day, without fail, I was working on every single day, like every day of the week. I had a new article. Weekends, I'd stay up, you know, late at night working on it. I worked before the day job, I work on it after the day job. And I just was like, I'm going to keep doing it. And then I shared on forums. I've connected with everybody I possibly on Facebook and Twitter and eventually Instagram. No, any one of these single one things like was the reason why I was able to do what I'm doing now. But the relentless um chipping away on all those different things I think led to it. So those are the three things that I recommend to most people at very high level. It's not like some secret that I'm sharing UM, but that's that's what's worked for me. UM. And then one other piece of advice, I guess when it comes to content his um, fine, you can't be a generalist when you're starting out, is my my thought. So if you want to be ah, if you want to start a podcast or a website. These days, if you start a general hunting podcast, it's hard to stand out because you can't necessarily create content that's perfect for the audience if you're just doing a little bit of this, a little with that. What I my The way I thought about things earlier was I want to be very niche because if I was very niche, I could say, Okay, this is my audience. This is a very tight slice of people that are my audience. So it was super serious, passionate, relatively young people. And if I know who that audience is, If I'm very clear on who that audience is, it makes um my work as a content creator very easy because I know exactly what's going to resonate with that audience. So then because of that, I'm putting out stuff that was oh man, that's exactly what I've always wanted to see. Because I'm creating content for like one guy or girl first is trying to create everything for everybody. So once you can do that then you have an ability to connect grow from there. And so since I've been able to grow from there, now I can expand and do different things and generalize a touch. But I think that that is a helpful UM process to go through early on. That's interesting, man, that that that part of the other ship is all pretty obvious. But that's an interesting perspective on it. I don't know that I entirely agree with it, but but I like it fair enough. What did you first start writing about then? I mean, obviously it was white tails, but when you were saying I'm trying to connect specifically with a small group of people, what was the So, Yeah, when I started the website, I was like twenty one, and you know, I was you know, at that point, I was just switching to like trying to target mature bucks and stuff. So I was writing about my own experience. At that point, I was writing about things I read. I was writing about UM. I was trying to interview different people, like people that were established new stuff. I was trying to get them on the phone and pick their brains and share some of those experiences. I was doing gear reviews, just anything. I mean, like we were talking about earlier, I'm I was doing something white tail related every day almost. Um, so it's the niche was white tail this sorry, let me let me clarify. So, yes, the niche was white tail, and it was the three sixty five days a year white tail guy. And then again it was everything was with a little bit of an angle towards that younger generation, So the things that my generation was interested in, and then also the way I was communicating those things. So I was communicating with YouTube and Facebook and Twitter and you know, whatever it might be at the time. And then also different technologies and stuff. We talked a lot about so apps to help out with deer hunting or you know, trail cameras or different things related to that. I mean, originally that weird hunt idea in the very beginning was like the intersection of technology with hunting and all that. It's it's kind of changed from there, but early on are the things I was tackling. So what's the what's the future being a white tail guy? The future of being let me ask you this, what are the like, uh, when you look at deer hunting, um, white tail deer hunting, what's like? What's the what do what do you when you look into a crystal ball, what do you see for just the average whatever, like just some new number in the future, do you imagine like what kind of you know, be recognizable? Do you think it's gonna be like seismic changes? When I think about stuff, I'm like, I can't. I just really hired for me to picture of the future right now with the prospects of stuff like c w D. So I think the last decade or so, we've kind of been like the glory days of of white tail hunting in a lot of places. Um, you know, herds have grown tremendously since the sixties and seventies, most places, average age of bucks has been rising tremendously as more and more people are letting young bucks grow, They're paying attention to things like her dynamics, they're trying to improve avatat or you know, think about conservation and kind of what they're doing. So all those things have been happening for for a while. So we're in a generally good place, like reaping the benefits of those activities, generally reaping the benefits of those activities. So I think all those things most people would recognize as a positive trend, I think, um But to your point, there are concerning things like c w D, which is one of those deals that is such a long term issue, like the impacts in the short term for most people right now, it's beyond like what they're looking at. When we say c r D, we're talking about chronic wasting chronic wasting disease. And we did a a very exhaustive conversation with a c w D expert a few podcasts ago, so you can go find that if you want to catch up and what we're talk about. I don't want to recap it all now. But yeah, so like a do Z wildlife disease issue. So those the issues over that, and why I think a lot of people struggle with like looking at head on and why to do something about it, is because it doesn't necessarily have like population level impacts right now that you can see and feel, um verse is something like h D, which is a disease of virus. Excuse me that in one year you can lose your deer herd and that's something like holy crap, all right, that you can feel that and like wrap your head around that. But the c w D you might not necessarily see and feel that. But as I understand it, you know, over the course of decades, population level impacts do start showing up. So in Wyoming, in Colorado, where CWD has been around for a long time, they are seeing that a significant proportion of bucks or deer and the herd are dying every year from CW. So I think it's quite possible that fifty years from now we will be seeing that in a lot of states. What I when I asked that question that that's I like your perspective on it. But when I asked that question, when I look at it, what I'm seeing is the way the relationship people have with deer um, the more social, kind of spiritual relationship that people have with deer, would change if it winds up that we begin to look at deer as disease vectors. That would be a scary situation happen if it were to happen, like a thing that I really the thing that I'm most afraid of, I'm not most afraid of of, Like like a disease like e h. D. Let's say it's gonna come carry away sixty or se dear. I mean that happens all the time. You recover from it like it's a it's a pretty like a natural part of our system that happens. It's like you get these like too many deer disease comes in White's amount, They recover, You get back up and run. In a few years, things go on with chronic wasting wasting disease. The thing I worry about and hasn't thankfully it hasn't happened yet, would be that you'd have some cases where there's irrefutable proof that a person that would that would make the jump and then a person would contract a fatal disease from consuming dear meat. Like just how that would shift public perceptions of the value of deer. And if there's a thing that you can learn if you look at global it's just like global politics, global wildlife issues. Wildlife thrives in places where it has a cultural value. If it does not have cultural value, it does not thrive. Um. The reason we have wildlife in America and the abundance we do is because we've a fixed a tremendous amount of cultural value. It is not here by mistake and as and if it becomes that that we look at dear with suspicion Um I think it's I think it could really have like a really alter things. And and like you being a white tail guy and you talk about like pursuing white tail guys and that's your audience. That's smart because of big game hunters hunt white tails. So we're talking about a major thing here, you know. Um, So that's something that worries me a little bit for sure. Great. I hope that in the interim, in the next forty years, whatever it might be, or whatever the timelines, I hope we find some types of solutions because as a a grim situation to imagine if you're worried about if you can't eat deer anymore, um, because not only does that impact us as hunters, but then also if if if you want to continue hunting. So let's say, okay, CWD is prevalent and we've all decided that there's possibilities of a transferring humans. So people aren't going to eat deer anymore, but hunters continue hunting them from the outside looking in. Now Now one of the most understandable and relatable elements of of why people hunt being looked at from the outside all of a sudden, that's gone. So now non hunters look at what we're doing and saying, so you're just gonna kill these deer and you're gonna toss it out. That would even waste my time with it, same reason I don't waste my time shooting shiploads of carpet stuff. It's like it just would cease to be of any hunt other stuff. But I think, yeah, I think you'd see it would be It would be both an issue of what we're able to do and it's like a credibility issue to the outside world. It became another conversation that we had UM with someone that I know UM in our area. There the biggest, not their one and only concerned with, their biggest interest in hunting deer is the antlers. I didn't have the same concern about CWD that I didn't. Really that's really upsetting to me because of that. With some of it's the public perception, but some of it's just it's a personal thing. I'm just like, what do you mean? But what they don't realize is when they're looking at when they say that all they care about is antlers, what they're looking at is they're not really thinking about where that value came from. They didn't create that value. They inherited that value when they look at antlers is because those antlers represent something and stand for something, Right, A dude, if you had a dude from Mars come down and land on Earth, he wouldn't see a buck come out and be like some of a bit, some antlers are awesome. He just wouldn't. It's like they value it because they were brought up in a social context that puts the value on that. And the bigness, like the bigness of them is alluring to you because it's a rarity, like like planes, the equestrian planes, Aboriginal bison hunters, like the Blackfeet, the crow. They really valued a white buffalo. It was an anomaly, right, it was like because you had to look at ten thousand to find one and it had an extreme value. So when people say like I just like the antlers, dude, it's like, yeah, okay, you do because of how you where you were brought up, how you were brought up, what the value system of it came in because it was a rarity, because it was an achievement to have one get to be old. Anyways, if you start to chip away at if you start to chip away at like the legacy of deer, the broader cultural meanings of dear you will see a diminishment in that interest. Like that interest is is there's a tremendous foundation there that they might not be able to articulate and they might not know the history of But it's like they didn't come out of a vacuum thinking big antlers are cool. Yeah, it's a learned it's a learned thing. Little kids don't have it, they pick it up. Um So I think that if you know, there are ways in which even that value over time, wouild just cease to be that big of a deal. This is me being my most pessimistic. Now. The other way to look at it would be that, like how ship generally kind of continues along, right, So, um yeah, if I really had to like go and put money on it, I would say, in fifty years, we're still gonna be excited about deer hunting, We're still gonna be excited about big box. But but when you sort of put on this like theoretical what could possibly happen, it winds up being a little more entertaining to to to to to think about the dark side of things, and it just does the rea lity that my maternal grandfather liked to hunt deer. My paternal grandfather liked to hunt deer. My father liked to hunt deer. I like to hunt deer. My kids already excited about hunting deer. I feel that there's like a pretty good momentum there that that my kids, kids kids will be all fired up about deer hunting. So I mean to sound like a big old nas there. You know, I think as long as we as hunters do our part and making sure that's going to be possible in the future, make sure there's places to do it in healthy wildlife to to pursue. I agree, it's probably what's gonna happen. America will probably continue to be a really great country for a long time. But there's some shing I got my eye out for. Yeah, that's true. There's a couple of things I'm watching so yeah, um, yunny thing you want to add in wedge in there and the end. Man, I got a couple things I wanted to talk or ask Mark about or comment on. Um. I feel like with the antlers and the inches, it's sort of like this, there's a there's a it's a little bit of a negative by product right of that scoring system, that it's allowed some maybe like uber competitive people to sort of make hunting into a contest. And I really don't like that. The golf, the golf, the golf if occasion heart set word, the galification of hunting. Yeah, where it's like it's just not it's just like this personal experience journey, Like you were explaining good the other day, we're hunting teas just sort of this lifelong thing that you're involved in, you know. And you know I've mentioned this before. I have friends have quit scoring animals because they realized how much it affected the way they felt about it, Like they would harvest this animal. It was a great trip, it was everything was awesome about it, and they got home, put the tape on it, and it changed it somehow. And that's like, that's like it's a it's a bad byproduct, you know, Like it started with I think such good intentions, you know, And I just want to be clear. I spent again to like the martian or the outsider looking in when we talk abo, Yeah, when we talk about like seeing the hundred deer, yes, we're using that as in another efficient way to talk about what we know is a great big buck um, but it's um. It's again because it is that rarity and anomaly. It's like going to see a you know, five hundred foot waterfall somewhere or seeing like the triple rainbow. Yeah. I agree with you. Yeah, but it's just like it's not a contest, and I feel like, yeah, we need to just you know, monitor ourselves on that. And uh, yeah, I always remember that there's more to that. But my question to you, Mark, was you talked a lot about um, like picking your times to not hunting certain properties a lot. We talked about this the other day. Yeah, and you mentioned I think in the last hour as well. Right, Like you're just like real selective, you know about when you're gonna go hunt this bucket. It might only be three or four days in a season, right, So does that limit you're hunting to the point where because I'm kind of like listening, I'm like, man, I want to get out and hunt more. Or do you have other properties where you're still getting You're like, I'm not lacking hunting time because I'm sitting there waiting for the time to strike. So the way I do kind of real quick. So I'm feeling awful about something. You know, people used to pay to see beard ladies and old circus. It was a joke. I was making a joke about how people used to pay money in the old Barnum and Bailey days, like you pay money to go see a bearded lady. Oh, I didn't know that I had heard I had heard of that. I have not. It was like a part of the circus anyways, to your question, because I thought that that could potentially feel a little lot of feeling because I was making an old circus joke. It just of the landed plate, right. But so to Yanni's question, Um, so yes, it would be the latter. So I have I tried to have as many different places as I can hunt as possible, so I can spread that hunting pressure across a number of different areas. So in this case with this buck, I know there's certain times of the year, based on my analysis over the years, that he's more vulnerable. So I'll be looking for certain factors such as temperature and wind direction, etcetera, etcetera. If those things look right the first couple of days of the season, that's one of my best opportunities. First shot him. So I'm hunt the first day or two this season. If the conditions are right after that, I'm going to stay out because he just does not moved in daylight on the property. I can hunt from like from the first week of October through around like the um for whatever reason, he's a little more careful during that time and lots of times. What people have found in what I've seen too, is that deer have relatively consistent annual patterns, so where you can see that a buck is going to be using a certain area, or he becomes more daylight active in a certain area year after year around the same general time frame. So this buck around, he all of a sudden a light switch for him in particular switches. So I had a shot at him on the twenty four and two fifteen, and I had a shot him on the twenty two the exact same place, and I started picking more trail camera pictures in the exact same place at that same time. From So for that like two and a half week period, I'll have I'll be hunting some public land, I'll be hunting in Ohio, I'll be hunting my family's little property up in northern Michigan. So yeah, I think in a perfect world you'd like to have permission or public access to keep hunting a lot, But just any one particular place is going to have a smaller number of hunts. Um. It's just picking, picking the right times, and then you know, trying to have a concise kind of surgical rich when you go on there. But you're getting enough hunting hunting days in to keep yourself happy, because you know you're gonna apply a certain amount of pressure, so you need places to apply that apply that pressure. So you just in that case, you have to be willing to knock on a lot of doors or figure out how to hunt public land, or if you've got the funds to access land in some other way, do that. Um. But yeah, we get that question a lot. I want to hunt more. I wouldn't want to hunt this way, and you don't need to hunt that way all. I mean, that's just if you're hunting in a situation like I am, where it's heavily pressured, and if you're targeting the mature bucks, those types of tactics are most often the best way to go about it. But if you're just trying to you know, shoot any deer to fill a freezer, go ahead and hunt your heart out, um, because you can. You can shoot those and and year link bocks doing that kind of thing. Um, I want to hit my concluders because it's a good place to wedge them in one. When you're talking about the light switches and that buck starts coming out on October, it's that's kind of literal because that has ship has a lot to do with like the photo period, length of day. Um. Yeah, yeah, I'm not like, I don't need to present it as I'm telling you something you don't know, but I'm it's just interesting if people are just beginning to think about animals in a detailed way. It's so much of animal activity is really triggered by if you see consistency, like to the calendar day consistency with animals, What's what you're seeing is effects of changing day length, which triggers many things. Yeah, change like photo periods create windows of time, and then within those windows of time, there are many other factors that contribute. Um. So that's a nice thing to keep your eye on when you start to when you really want to get detailed about learning about wildlife. But the thing and you kind of touched in this a minute ago, but it struck me the r day as we're having this like age old argument where someone would be like, oh man, you're like the best time to hunt is when you can, And I was presenting that because I was talking about we're talking about people who don't who think that moon phase affects dear movements and they won't hunt if the moon's not right, And we were discussing a counter argument would be like, if you can be out in the woods, be out in the woods. And Mark was like, well, no, not really, and just reiterate again why why maybe not when you can be out in the woods, be out in the woods. So again, if you're trying to kill an old buck, these bucks are very savvy to human intrusion, So every time you go into a property, you increase the odds of that buck learning about your presence. So you're educating that buck and or the larger deer herd every time you step foot in there, whether it's to tinker with a tree stand or move a trail camera or to hunt. Every time you go in there, you are educating deer. So you're leaving sen creating visual disturbance etcetera, etcetera. So your odds for success in the future decrease some percentage points every time you go in there. So my thought processes, if I'm trying to kill the mature buck, I want the odds of reward to be as high as possible, because I know that there's gonna be a some level of risk every time, So I want to find the lowest risk and the highest reward days. Strike on those days, minimize the number of intrusions so that I don't educate more dear because you can educate that buck, or if you educate the dough herd, and you know, let's say in a situation where a mature dough or a handful mature dough starts picking up on the fact that I'm rolling into this little corner of the property every couple of days, then she doesn't come around anymore, or when she comes in, she looks right at the tree stand. If that happens, and the buck happened, buck I'm after happening to be happens to be a hundred yards behind him, sees her spook, or maybe that buck would have followed her in towards a tree stand. On November one, but because now those doughs know not to move in there during daylight, Now he won't follow her in there. I always need to be thinking about the impacts of hunting pressure, human intrusion, and then yeah, I mean, it's just it's an odds thing. I'm constantly the scale every single hunt I go into, I just have these two hands. I like, Okay, what are the things in favor of reward? So what do I have going for me? Maybe it's the time of year, Maybe it's the conditions, Maybe it's an up. Maybe I saw him in daylight recently moving. Maybe I know that a certain food source is going to be particularly palatable starting now. Um, so those are all the things will tell me how high or low that chance of reward will be. And then I look at the chances of risk. So what things could lead to me being you know, spotted, or what could lead to me blow on my cover? So maybe it's wind, Maybe it's how many times I've been in there. Maybe it's the time of year. Maybe it's you know, how the neighbors are are hunting or doing something like that. So all those things factor into every single hunt. Um for me, at least, you know, you talked about white tail. Guys will invent moves that kind of reminiscent of professional wrestling moves like you talked about, like the bumping dump bumping dump. I would if I was you, I would think of a move called the canyon. So what's then? It would be that you sneak onto all the neighboring properties after dark and just make life hell for those deer, thinking that they will naturally congregate on thee where you have permission. What were we just talking about that whole deal crossing the line. So every night you're just going through core feeding and betting areas just like raising Holy hell, now here's okay. This is that made me that I'm joking because Matt, that's what Mark does and it is called the Kend. Definitely not what to do. But one thing I do I do do um is I kind of call it like my guns season sanctuary strategy. So I think about, like if there's a property that I have sould access to, So again this if we keep referring to this ninety acres, this is like the one place I have that nobody else hans, so I have the opportunity to do things there that otherwise you know, if other guys are coming in out, I wouldn't. So my thought process is that November, you know, in Michigan, the Orange Rimy comes out, hundreds and hundreds of thousands of deer hunters in the woods. It's a dramatic increase in hunting pressure. Most of the deer in Michigan killed during the first day of guns season, and then over the course of the next couple of weeks. I choose not to hunt this property at all during gun season because my thoughts are that I create a sanctuary if vacuuman's vacuums and deer from all the surrounding properties during that time period. So dozens and dozens of hunters are all around, they're all hunting with the guns. All these deer are looking for somewhere there's not hunters. That's what happens to be this property. All these deer flood in there. This achieves two things for me. Number One, it pulls in deer in the short term. So if there is a mature buck that I'm after, it's more likely that he'll survive through gun season than I can continue to target him the late season or under the future. And then number two, in the long term, a lot of year and a half old bucks come pouring, or two and a half year old bucks bucks I'd like to see make it to an older age class. I'd like to see a more balanced age structure. So I think I can have a disproportionate impact on the deer herd a general area, even though I'm only hunting a little piece of it. I can have a disproportionate impact because I create a safe place during the most dangerous time. More deer can make it through um And I can't quantify the impact that's had, but anecdotally, I do believe it has made it positive impact. I've seen mature bucks that I don't think would have made it if I was in there mucking around all the time. I would call that the crowdsourced canyon. Do you monitor that property then during the gun season so that the guy next door, the guy on the other side, because that small property, like that dude just walks on the edge of Yeah, it's only you're like talking about something a quarter Wisconsin. You wait till the packers are playing and then go on the neighbors legs. You know, damn sure, he's not out in the woods yeah, so so yeah, I mean there's always that risk, right, But I've tried to establish positive relationships with the neighbors, so I'm I'm trusting Number two. I do have trail cameras all over the place that are monitoring edges and stuff, and I think I try to make that known. There's posted signs all around the explicitly say that there are you know, trail cameras monitoring this property really, um so that if you if you were to come on there, you know there's a good risk that, um you're gonna get spotted and prosecuted. So I try to manage that as possible, and I'll even try to. I try to. I try to be nearby. It is often, and I go through that. You gotta make your presence. Yeah. I throw at the guy in the bar every once in a while, I just walks it. Ramy beats up a guy and announces to everyone that he has a picture of him on his property. I don't I don't disbelieve that. Because today we walked into a restaurant and Doug's afraid to sit down with his back towards the group because he's the words some of might come up and clock he's got gunfighters. Doug got any concluders, Uh yes, but one of the would we would go on for a long time, so I gotta skip that one. Skip that one well, but it is something I'd like to talk to you about in the future, and that is about how you gain access to property. That would be good. I got a lot of say a lot about yeah, yeah, and one thing, and I want to do a whole episode called permissions. Will you come back on for that? I think that's really uh, you know, and of course on my place, if you're famous guy, you get to come and hunt and fiddle around the roof that song. Traditions, Yeah, traditions do permisitions. Um, So okay. I never know how much you guys sing either. That was something I learned on this trail. We sing a lot, especially when we all know the song. So yeah, so that's something for another time, you know. I guess the other thing that I would say is that the most uh interesting part and and enjoyable part of all this for me is Um. And I know why you two guys are getting along so well in Yanni too with is that there's the passion that you have for um. What it is that you do. Uh. I mean it's almost as if you came to this um in in both of your where you know, where you're making your living, because first you are passionate about hunting in animals and conservation and all of that, and then the rest of it followed as opposed to I'm gonna I'm gonna be a TV guy or I'm gonna be a podcast guy or whatever, and so then god, what am I gonna do it about? Um? And I just don't think that you can create that authenticity without that passion and sincerity. And I think that's really um, I think that's really important. And uh, the thing that ties it all together. Yeah, I learned that in tenth grade from my teacher Robert Heaton, who said what many writing teachers say and others should say, is I'm right what you know? Yeah, well that's cool. I mean, it's it's it's it's wonderful know about Shakespeare, sospeare that excuses me from that assignment. Um, you already did my concluder. You're good on yours. Doc. I'm good too good And I like to do thanks, um, And I do like your suggestion for the way asked bigger one just permissions, um mark concluders. You got your wedding ring off. Slowly he lost his shoes. Now he lost his wedding ring. I hope your wife not list. We're laying in bed. It's real quick. You're like a ring fiddler. I'm a ring fiddler. I've I've lost it, and like car seat cushion or like you know, down in the cracks and stuff. Many times I would be, but my fingers have changed. They've become more powerful to where I can't get mine off. I'll tell you a story, though, even though it's your turn for a concluder. When I was a kid, we were butchering a snap and turtle and my old man somehow in the process lost his wedding ring, and my mother was devastated. He was all upset and search and search, and eventually he got to where he remembered that he had rinsed all the turtle meat in this big tub and then pulled the turtle meat out, and then later took the tub and it dumped it in the garden just like water, and went out and was looking around the garden and found the wedding ring where he dumped after like running it through in his head like what could have possibly happened in that ring and eventually occurred to him and there it wasn't the gal I don't remember. How was a little we found a few in gup piles. We'd be back at camp and the guy, you know, all of a a sudden go oh oh no. A few twice it happened that I can remember. We go back and you know, because it gets that bloods can be slick, you know, and if you don't have those, you know, ever powerful fingers that continue to grow. And you know, my father livering baby pigs found at the pig Bacon years later. Uh. One time I was out we're floating um fishing and and uh I saw where a bunch of ravens were dicking around in the trees off the off the river. And we started going over and it's just bear trails, like new bear trails leaning this area, and someone had butchered to moose and so it's an area the size of this hotel room. It's just matted down grass. You know, they're just in there really heavy, like feeding on the carcase is totally gone and laying in the middle of this room sized piece of matted ground is a leather man that looks licked clean, just like glistening in the sun lander and you can tell that some dude like lost it. Butcher and his moose, and eventually all the ship that was obscuring it from his view has been mopped up and then cleaned. The part of this thing looked like off the factory floor laying in there. I still have that thing. I still have that was over a decade ago. I keep it kind of a special place. Not it's not in my medicine box, but it's in a place where it could someday make its way. It hasn't been upgraded to the medicine box, but it's close. Mark your concluder. After a few delays there, I'm sorry, that's okay. Uh Well, I guess first, I just want to thank you so much for having me here for this trip and this experience and being on here in the podcast. It's been unbelievable experience. I think me and Doug have just said it over and over and over again to each other. They just look at each other and we wow, just amazing. Thank you. Um. And I guess I was just I was trying to think here about things we've talked about and things we haven't yet talked about, um and something that is worth noting. And maybe it's I think it's maybe more so it's a kind of a white tail guy thing. Is that I'm generalizing here, but I think very often we white tail guys get something that I kind of referred to as conservation tunnel vision, where we start looking at just our back forty or our little place or our property, and we're very focused on just what's happening there. I just want to make sure, I mean, these are good things. Maybe doing some habitat work or you know, killing dose because that's going to help your herd or whatever it might be. You care about that little slice, and that's important and good. But what I worry sometimes within my little community is that sometimes we fail to pay attention or care about the bigger picture things as much, like public land issues or clean air, clean water, um or whatever it might be. So one of the things I always try to remind my white tail brotherhood is that all these bigger picture issues they impact all of us too, um So, so try to listen and hear about all these different issues. Educate yourself, care about your back forty but also look at these bigger picture things that impact your hunting rights or the ability for us to have you know, vibrant wildlife populations across the country. Like it or not, your back is part of the earth. Yeah, exactly, so I think you know, that's all I That's all I'd add to is that we are a part of a very large, connected world, and um, let's take care of it. Have you ever heard the idea? It's a theoretical concept that Okay, like like think of your own body, like you're an organism, right, and at being an organism, you have you're made up of many organs that have all these functions. So you have circulatory system, right, you're like taking in liquids, pulling things, expelling things, and you're this part. And then you also have more cells that aren't you than that are you. When you think of all the micro organisms that comprise your gatten, that live on you as parasites or in symbiotic relationships with yourselves with yourself, Um, there's this theoretical concept that you would think of the earth as an organism, And at first it seems kind of trippy and like a little bit out there, but once you start thinking about if you imagine the earth as an organism and it has a circulatory system, and it breathes, and it has blood, and it has micro organisms within it. It's just like something when you like land about at night. It's fun to start imagining that that you you are one of those microbes, the same that you have millions and millions of microbes in you. You are one of those microbes that is part of this organism, the earth, and your concept of your world. If you imagine if those microbes in your gut had consciousness, their consciousness would lead them to think that they are the thing. They are the thing that matters, and this body that gives them life and that they exist in is just this broader other that they don't really get because they are the point of existence. And expand that outward and outward and outward, and it becomes an interesting mental exercise. And I think if we all looked at things a little bit more that way, it could lead to some positive things. Alright, man, Thanks tuning in