00:00:08 Speaker 1: This is me eat your podcast coming at you shirtless, severely bitten and in my case, underwear listening podcast. You can't predict anything. Mason's first callahan, Um, yes, sir, do a uh act like go all a sudden died. Okay, Like I'm just like all of a sudden fall over dead and here we are, um, and you realize you need to pick up the show, okay, like you're in the driver's seat, all right, and you know that the first thing that needs to happen is you need to do a thing where where you where you insult the listener and and tell them that they need to go and do the subscribe, you know, make sure there's sub subscribed to the podcast, not just downloading individual episodes, and then and then maybe insult them a little more and then tell them how they need to also give it a good rating. Um, alright, so I'm just like that, Oh my god, Ryan Steve's down all right, listen up, folks. As you know, we've recently lost Steve. But let's be honest, he probably piste off half of you anyway. So what I'm gonna need you to do is go onto iTunes, subscribe, hit the furthest right star so we can keep this ball or rolling that good. Mark, you tried, that was very good. I don't think I can. I don't think I can speak to that at all. Mark can. You can't do any better than that. No, And I'm a podcaster myself, and I feel like I got showed up. That was good. That makes me feel good. Before I did it where I was gonna die and Yanni had to take over and just did not do like he just I think because it wasn't convincing, like I didn't really seem dead enough to him. I thought he had a very authentic little chime in there when he said, oh my gosh, Steve down, that was a good contribution. That's what that was, like the dish to Ryan that really set him up. Yeah, it made him feel like I was kind of thinking about the house. Oh absolutely, Uh, Mark Kenyon got a quick question for you from a dude that wrote in named Danny, not my brother, not my brother Danny. I've been saving this one for you because this is like right up in your this is in your little white tail. Dear world. Ready, I'm ready. Then we'll get into permissions. You know, I can't even never listened to that song, I know, and I really I promised myself. I was like, I'm gonna listen to that before I go out there again. And well I'm singing permissions to the tune of traditions Shiddler around the roof. The we're just talking about over lunch is um Yanni. We're talking about Hubris in Greek tragedy. Yes, yeah, Hubris is uh excessive pride, and the Greek tragedy that's it's usually like what gets you trouble. His excessive pride happens an animated cartoon to the Hercules. So but you know, I think about that, like I remember learning that that in the Hubris is like the trouble of Greek tragedy. But then I think of the one at like Oedipus. Oedipus doesn't know that he's like the story begins where he's adopted but doesn't know he's adopted, and he goes to like a seer, like a like a basically a fortune teller, and the fortune tellers says like, oh, I see your future bright and clear. You're gonna murder your dad and have sex with your ma. But he doesn't always adopted, So he splits down purposely to avoid that. Fath runs away and stumbles into a new town where he kills a feller and has a sex little lady. And guess who they were Yep, his mom pa. But I just don't see. I gotta go, like re look at that and find out where that fits in with the Hubris because that just seems like bad luck. Yeah, I didn't know that that. The overconference bit was every Greek tragedy. I remember Sharon white Hill. When I was in college, I took a class on Greek tragedy with Professor Sharon white Hill, whose husband was a beekeeper. I did a little uh day labor and for him moving the bees around. So Mark, here's your question. Is this related to No, not at all Greek tragedies, says I was just saying about the conversation at lunch, and I keep running around in my head like the only Greek tragedy I remember doesn't seem to have a hubrist element. But that's where in that same story about Oedipus, the edible complex right that you want to have, you want to make love to your ma um. In that same story is where he comes to that city and the thing that the monster tells the riddle, what walks on four legs in the morning, two legs during the day, and three legs in the evening. And if you don't get it, like it kills you. But he gets it. It's man, that you crawl in the morning of your life and then you walk on two legs and then in the end you use a cane. I like it. And that's how he gets into the town to to you know, do the unmentionable the unspeakable. All right, this guy says, Hey, I've been bow hunting for white tails over the last month on public land in Texas. You follow him, follow in the Sam Houston National Force. You know where Sam Houston was killed. Mark oh Man. That was my best guess. Um. You know, Uh, there's like a school thought that Davy Crockett didn't actually that Davy Crockett surrendered. There's a theory based on some like uh personal accounts that came out of the Mexican Army, that Davy Crockett didn't fall at the Alamo heroically, that he surrendered and was executed. I read some stuff and I think it was The Lines of the West was a book I read by the Robert. Yeah, and I think they talked a little bit about how some of the mythology around Crockett isn't quite everything that it was chocked up. Yeah, it's a real shame that people think of Davy Crockett and Daniel Boone not the same kind of guy. So the reason I bring it up, he's hunting the Sam Houston National Force public lands for white tails, and he says, I've been sitting in a tree stand under a few oak trees where I see you plenty of sign but no actual animals. The last day I went out, I started wander around a bit, figuring if they won't come to me, I'll go to them. Picturing it so far country of Texas, somewhere like that, up a few dolls, but never got a good look for a shot. I'm my way back to the truck I turned. I took the dirt road as the understory of the forest can be thick. That's when I see the most dear and it's them crossing the road, noticing me, and then bounding right back into the thick stuff, never to be seen again. Any suggestions on how I can get in front of these animals, I want to continue to hunt with a bowl right through gun season, which starts November four. Well, we're a little late. Well I know if I've been saving it to talk to you about it. Yeah, my feeling is he should not be he needs to stay up in a tree. So it's yeah, does he walk around or does he stay in a tree if he's just hunting with a bow. Yeah, it's pretty tough in a situation like that to stock up on one in flat country in the thick area like that. I mean, it's yeah, it's one. That's one thing if you're up in you know, some bad lands type habitat or like I don't know, eastern Montana, or there's some rolling grassy hills and you can get up on one top, look over the edge and make a sneak on one. But it's really hard to do and even like the Midwest in the flat areas, let alone as thick and nasty. Is that because I imagine a lot of Texas could be, at least from the things I've seen. But there's definitely guys that do it. But I feel like inefficient and you're doing it more just because you want to go through the exercise of still hunting and you know, possibly catch you know, crossing paths with that deer at you're doing it as a as a thing, like a goal you set off for yourself just to do that. Yeah, nothing wrong with that, but I think that's what he's getting, you know, Yeah, he's just trying to kill a deer. What I might say, though, is did he say he's been hunting a month already? Month straight? Chick? Let me check. Um, Well, let's just assume he said he's been hunting for the last month. Okay, he's hunting over the last month. He sees him on the road, and so it sounds like maybe he's um, relatively novice will assumption um, if that's the case. I feel like a lot of people, newer hunters, newer white tail hunters, they find a spot that looks good, like an oak tree, and they're like, all right, this is what I've heard is good, this is where I should be, and they hunt it today and then tomorrow, and then hunt the next day, and they hunt it over and over and over and over again. And I think a lot of newcomers end up trying that and then not seeing many deer. Maybe the first day they saw five does or something like all right, this is it great and the next day they say three, and a week later they say too. And UM. So my first recommendation, knowing very little about the situation, UM, I would say, Okay, let's assume maybe he's been hunting this one oak tree many, many, many times. I would say, first tip raf the bat is switch it up. Hunt totally different places than where you have simply because of that. You gotta you gotta make sure that you are not educating the deer. He has most likely try new areas simply because you can catch them off guard. Um, that's a good starting point. If you can find other oak trees away from where he's been, that might be another place to start, or water other things that might draw on those deer. But we don't a whole lot about a situation. We had to go down there and check it out. I want to. I would like to betting area too. I think he should maybe walk around and look for that. I feel like in Texas. It's so I've never hunted in Texas, so I don't know, but from guys I've talked to down there, it's just very very different than a lot of the very defined habitat types like I encounter where I hunt in the Midwest or even in some places in the Rocky Mountain West where have whitetail hunted, where you can easily determine, Okay, this is a betting area, this is a feeding area, This is likely where they moved through in some of these kind of brushy Texas areas. And I know there's very diverse habitat types of Texas, so this might not be what he's dealing with at all, um, But in a lot of these it's just a brushy, thorny, dry jungle. That's, you know, a homogeneous habitat type. That's really tough to figure out where those focus points are. Yeah, which is why guys hunting that country on private land are all they're all running bait, you know. Another gives you something to gives you some point to focus on. Yeah. Another thing that a lot of guys do in Texas, more so than more so than where I don't at least is rattling. Now, it might be different in public land if it's really heavily hunted down there. I don't know what it's like there, but if it's not too bad, rattling seems to work at a disproportionately high rate in Texas, like off the charts compared to anywhere else. Our buddy in South Carolina, Robert Abernathy, they have fantastic luck rattling up bucks and the swamps in South Carolina. Callahan may or may not have rattled up a mulder this year, that's true. I think indicators would be that, yes, like there's too many odds, like the deer which shouldn't have done what he did, so I feel like the rattling is what ultimately led to his demise. But you definitely don't hear about rattling muld here people that don't know what we're talking about. Uh. Ratling. Rattling is when you take a pair of antlers or something that sounds like antlers and make the simulate the noise of two bucks sparring or fighting, and other bucks will just in there. They're interested in, you know, her dynamics and who's doing what and who's a big man around town. They'll come running up out of curiosity, right Mark, more than it's to join the fight. I think it depends on the deer. Sometimes you'll see a lot of the younger bucks that come running and curiosity but then you do get those, at least in the white tail side of things. You get these big mature bucks if you have one in the area that will come in looking it kicks mass really like he comes in like in in and not just trying to look from way off like fired up to the tree. It's crazy how sometimes these deer can pinpoint and literally be right underneath your tree looking around where is he at? And that's why I like, I feel like that the deer that I saw that morning, they were moving hard to make it in the picture, but said right to left down this ridge. I'm on a spur ridge that down low where I can see this this ridge, and you know, rattled for probably twenty minutes, um, you know, short sequences, and and moved tan yards straight up my spur ridge. And here's this set of legs on my ridge pointing downwards straight to me, and I can see through the brush that you know, here's this old face, heavy horned deer of some unknown size just staring my direction. I was like, oh, maybe I shouldn't have moved, and you want to blouch in him though I did he actually so he ultimately did take off and followed the direction of the deer that I'd seen earlier in the day and and I moved to get a better van manage point of that area. And Doug the uh funding pirt about this to me? Anyways? They're nice, is uh pack uh pack pack Iraq Ratlin told him this story. The first thing he said was, I wonder if that's my pack ire it is. In fact, you guys are arguing about this. I thought you'd arguing about a pack raft, no pack rack. I thought you had his pack raft no sorry e contraption, which made me wonder why he was being sold, like like that's cool. Yeah, uh so Doug, and the whole morning is making so much more sense now. And I mean I had my rifles set up on my bag crack that thing like one too three and looked up and he had marched seven yards out of the remember for no reason. I mean he was free and easy, so um and boom yeah yeah so uh. And we've had some some kind of similar scenarios where we don't know definitively with with the Muley's, but all signs point to yes, they definitely fight all the time. Why would they not be interesting to him? But because you could be like, Oh, I don't know, I'm gonna go see if rattling white tails works. If you don't know what you're doing and you just went up saying a treat, you said tree thirty times clacking antlers together, and nothing's gonna show up, and you'd be like, it doesn't work. So it might just be that people don't do it with those because it hasn't been done. Now, Yanni, have you ever I don't want to spend too much time time about this, but have you ever heard of someone like clacking elk antlers together, like rattling for elk? Because people thrash brush for elk? Sure, I've heard I've heard it. I've heard people doing it by accident because they found like a set of sheds and then like a bull comes screaming by, so they obviously rattled him in. But I've never heard of someone packing. Can you don't need to just packed a little packed? The pack rack? Yeah, pack rack looks like um, but if this crack is not gonna sound like to six point bulls going at it? You've ever heard that in the woods Man? A different cadence deep? Yeah, and then the hoof sounds that you hear with it and just the thrashing. I mean, I don't even know if one man alone, you'd be lathered in a sweat if you were actually trying to like replicate that sound like it might just be impossible to make it. I would like to let everybody know that Joanna can't expect a nice little Christmas present with little juice in there, because I've had the pack rack for so long, uh, you know, hopefully hopefully before Christmas, because we're going to Mexico in January for cuz here I'd like to add it with me there because you are not getting yours back from keeping u um, you know real quick. I do not wonder if maybe the story of Oedipus isn't Greek tragedy. Well, I just don't think the assumption is hubrious is everything wouldn't like the thin doesn't Maybe the the that story doesn't count as Greek tragedy. Maybe it's just mythology and not Greek tragedy. But the point is, Um, I think that the biggest I think the biggest hurdle people have when they wanted, the biggest hurdle that people who are wanting to get into hunting or who have been introduced to hunting and want to continue to do it. The biggest hurdle they have is the spot to hunt. Absolutely, people are like, oh kids these days, they just wanna play video games, like like, yeah, a lot of them do. But I think that the people who the people that I have met who have been introduced to hunting, later when you go like hey man, what's up you've been getting out? Their thing is usually like no, it's not a place to go, right. People don't live in place where you have a ton of access to public land. It's a pain and an ass to get permissions. It's the number one throughout the new hunter recruitment and and fisherman and the world's changed. Um the advent of pay to play on private land has really changed things where a lot of people that you you should just let guys come hunt, no want to charge money to come hunt. A dear dear friend of mine recently went to that model. Um, So for for some of the year, old point out, he'll be mad that I brought that up. For some of the or he went to that model that has restricted use. I think that there's a thing where we live in I don't know if we live in a more litigious society, but there's at least the perception that we do. And so there's a reluctance on the part of landowners to allow people to come on their land because they feel like they're gonna get sued when the guy twists his ankle. Um, that's the thing that has changed. What else is changed, Mark, I mean, if you look at the bare bone, it's just a supply and demand issue. Right to your point, it's harder and harder to find places to hunt. And now landowners to what you just said there, they're finding that, um, there's value to their land that may they may not be using otherwise. So we're seeing some people that in the past just let guys go hunt whatever, and all of a sudden they find out, oh, Bob down the street got five grand a year to let so and so hunt their place. So so you do have that pay to play model increasing. And then and another thing going on is that I think I think it's fair to say that the level of intensity maybe or further that the hunt that some segment of the hunting population has now has increased pretty substantially over the last decade or two. That most serious, if we're talking white tails as most serious white tail guys. So they're investing in things related to hunting. A huge part of that is land ownership. So I saw that since eleven, private land ownership for hunting has gone up, so more and more people want to own land, so that for the purpose hunting. So then that leaves all the other people that don't own land, Well, then now they've lost even more potential places where they could go. Um. Urban sprawl changing um thoughts on hunting. So areas where the population used to be fine with guys hunting behind the house, Maybe these people just don't want anyone out there with a gun or they're not okay with hunting. So that kind of thing is happening in some urban areas. So there's a lot of different pressures. I think that there's get tougher for the average guy or galda, get us about to go, especially if they're not out west, UM, Midwest and the East. I think it's something in private land ownership. So there's just not a whole lot of public land or places together these days. And it might I realize it might even be like a matter of perception too. They're just seems like it's different now when it's actually not. And it might just be that people who I would kind of bet this that the people who it's important too and really work at it and are smart about it still can go out and have the same level of success in getting permissions of places to hunt on private land. They can still have the same success that everyone had before. MH. But it might just be that when you're getting into it and you don't realize how much work it is, it seems like more daunting or less realistic than it is. Well, I think it's I think it's the work aspect. I think it's harder work to be able to get that access in those places. I think it's still be done the po to take it seriously and are willing to put in the work. Absolutely, they can have lots of places. But for the average person who's either just getting started or who's kind of lukewarm on it, who wants to hunt, but they don't really want to devote a whole lot of their time in a given year defining places. That's the seconda. I think that suffers a lot well than working for permissions. The good friend of mine he is, I mean, he's changing irrigation pipe. He's you know, neighbor calls. He's like, hey, we gotta move cattle. We you know, we're build a new fence. And he's you know, almost sixty and retired. But it's his full time job, like maintaining his bird hunting permissions and his trespassing access and things like that. But he's not necessarily paying for it. He's putting in sweat equity. Right, I was trying to get I want to have Jimmy dorn Um of Bell Tom Pizza down here, and he said he can't because he's traveled right now. And I was saying, yeah, it's like, oh, it's a bummy jim bummer. Jimmy dorn can't come. But he's not really gonna have that much to add anyways, because he hunts a buddy's place who hangs out at his bar, and he hunts a guy's place who he harvest wheat for. And you know he's like, yeah, exactly, meaning that's permissions. I feel it's sort of like, in large measure, comes down to working your connections. Oh yeah, more than cold rolling, because like when I I want to lay out, so like when I was a kid, out the permissions that we had. We did. We hunted on we had a lot of public land around us, but we also hunted on some private farms, and we hunted on private farms of farmers that went to church my parents. So there's like a very strong community connection where you see these people every week and they're in your social circle. But I had trapping. I may attained trapping permissions on about twenty farms in Mouskeegon County, Diego County, Manistee County. Um, what's the county big rabbids is in? Mm hmmm, I don't know. Maccosta County. That's what it is. Permissions over place, and I would make I would go on a PLAT book. This is pre like on X and whatnot. I'd go on a PLAT map and just find every place I wanted to have a permission on it, how to write it down in a let yellow legal pad. And my old man would just tirelessly work the phones, calling, calling, calling, until he could find a personal connection to those people through a mutual friend or somehow would develop an end because he felt your odds increase so greatly if you could find that connection. I know so and so so my old man would like, Oh, i' know a guy up there, an insurance salesman up in Macosta, and he called him and be like, hey, you know, we're my son's looking at these places. He's trying to get on right. He would work at work and he would score. He had a very high success rate on scoring permissions. I remember at the same time, I went and ran an ad in a newspaper Macosta County because I was just trapping beaver and a lot of people hate beavers because beavers plug up your creeks and dams and ditches and whatnot, and so some people love them, some people hate him. I ran an ad in the Macosta newspaper saying, free beaver control, free problem beaver removal. Never got a hit off that ad, but my old man would tear it up by trying to build personal connections. And yeah, you think about when we were on Sandhill Crane's on the Panhandle. How long would it take that dude to get a permission on land? Anyone within a hundred miles dependent. I don't think anyone were too too fast, but it didn't take more than half a day. He would work and he wasn't from there. He is this is a grad student. It's like a grad student who moved to do a PhD program the Texas Panhandle. Where was he just from the Midwest or something nasty for Nancy? Yeah? Yeah, he had his pitch dialed, you know, he had his end sort of just to get the conversation rolling and then you know he explained everything and yeah, and he wasn't working family, but he was just sort of like had some in like had good relationships with some farmers. Was able to build on that and be like, Oh I hunt on so and sols place. That's always a good You call him up, he'll give you the word. He had to work extra hard when we were there because not only did he have to get permission, but when we're there filming, you gotta also get the landowner to sign the location release so that we can film there. Another thing that he thought was very effective is what schools he at? Texas A and M. Right, what schools in Lubbock, Texas not Texas Tech. Look it up. Yeah, edifice is Greek mythology. By the way, I like that it's Greek mythology, not Greek trap. Does account? Was it a play? Like who's the famous play? Right? Back then Pericles. Anyhow, nasty Fanacy Mike went was doing a PhD program at the local university, and the local university is an egg school, like a land Grand egg school, much like the egg school that you live not nearby market. I'm on Michigan State University. And the people in the community respect the school because it's a lot. They have a strong egg program, so farmers know it. Relatives went there and Mike knew this, No was this and would come and say, Hey, I'm a you know, I'm from the Texas Tech. I'm from Texas Tech. I got all these connections. I feel like we're giving away Mike's secrets right now. Did he tell us his own secrets? Well? The flip side of that is growing up in Missoula the surrounding areas. If somebody was like, hey, where are you from when you were knocking on doors, I never said Missoula, they're not gonna say yeah. No. Maybe like if you were from Madison and you went out and started banging on doors out in rural Wisconsin, thinking it's gonna get you somewhere that you're from Madison. If you're doing that, though, I feel like you have to have some some throwback to the air. So like when I'm trying to get permission on Iowa or something, but I'm from Michigan, you encounter that same worry like as soon as you okay please, so as soon as you knock on the door, you' they're gonna say, oh, well where you from? And you know, if I stay him from Michigan, most likely you get one of two reactions. You get one where they get cold and they don't want they have towners there, or they get the curious like you came all the way from Michigan to hunt deer here, really like oh yeah, and then you get a conversation going there. But what I would try to do for the people who you could, since you know, weren't too into the out of towners, I would always say, well, you know, so and so and so and so are my friends. They hunt in the area, they live here, they they they hunt over on Bob and Jerry's down there, um so on and so forth. With you any kind of throwback to touch into the community, I feel like that helps. And then another one of my little things that's led to a lot of the permission I've gotten is that even when they're like, no, you know, we already have someone hunting, or no, we don't want you to hunt, whatever might be. I always try to end that conversation. I keep that conversation going as long as I possibly can, because he never knows. I've had people change their mind after talking to you for a while, if you just end up talking about something random, and then fifteen minutes later, after they see your half decent person, that ends up all of a sudden, Well, you know, Larry doesn't hunt here that often. I guess you could come, um, but if that doesn't happen, I'll always end the conversation. You know, is there anyone else you happen to know that I should, you know, maybe would be worth talking to in the area. And lots of times they'll him and Han and then they'll say, well, I'll go talk to so and so down there. And then when you talk to so and so, you can say, hey, Bob from Extra told me to come down and stop by, and then you're in, and then you can just keep pointing back to the last one was telling me he would never any million years allow me access on his land, but he thought that I should run down and talk to you, you don't phrase it that way. My old man had certain like things that that I still stand by to day on when just comes to banging on doors. So cold calling is pick your time well and the time to do it. I feel we're not having this conversation as the proper amount of structure, trying to find way to impose structure on it. No, never mind, I do want to get around and talk about the small game in. So we want to talk about the small game in. Let's focus for a minute on the dudes and don't of cold rolling. Cold rolling being is not a dude from your mom and dad's church. You're just like just completely a dude coming in with no kind of I'm friends with Doug sorts of things. Right. Uh, My old man and these are things I learned from him that I know to be true. Was very particular about the time that you do this, and you don't do it during a farmer's busy as seasons, which tend to not be during hunting season. You don't do it when they're sitting down to dinner. He felt the window between mid day he thought was appropriate, and he thought that the window between dinner and like winding down getting ready for bed was a good time to approach someone about it, and he felt that you do not do it during hunting season because it's like they've been getting in and day with dudes banging on their door. Like picture of this, like you're in an area, you're trying to hunt geese and you're you got there's some big grain fields and his geese is plowing into the grain fields. Every guy out there is seeing this, and he's going up to the house nearby and banging on the door to see if he can do it. The thing is that you want to approach this guy now when he's getting hit up all the time, but also not when it's so far away that it seems like he doesn't want to commit to something that far out. So like this window of time when you're kind of the first guy to show up, um, but you're talking about something in the foreseeable future that you'd like to be doing. Was He felt that was the time to be making these calls. And then as far as the end thing, you're not gonna go up to a guy probably not gonna go up and just be like, um, hey man, can I come hunt big giant white sail bucks? On your place. That's not gonna be the end, you know, think so I think a better in is gee, mr um, come February, would it be possible that I might come out and hunt squirrels on your place? Because then he's not doing something that's gonna be pissing off the cousin who comes out every year to hunt deer and you wiggle your way in. I had a permission one time from a guy where there was no way he had. Oh there's no way, you know, not gonna happen, not deer in turkeys. I've actually got squirrel permission on this place, and I would go hunt squirrels in the winter, and then I would text message him pictures of the squirrels that I cooked, being like thanks so much, look at what we made with our squirrels, which just tickled him endlessly. Event she he's like, you know, if you want to come on hunt deer and turkeys, go ahead. We do the same thing, but with shed hunting because that gets you in the door, Like, we'll do it in February. March is like a great time to do this, I think, because no one's banged on his door before banging on his door and you can say the same kind of thing. Hey, you know lots of same thing. I'm in Iowa. We're in the area. We've been looking for shed antlers. Curious, maybe that might be okay? Behind I we know's we've got a couple hundred acres or something, and we drove from Michigan just come out here and alers dear lose their antlers. Yeah, and then you get it, get telling a little interesting story about biology, and then um and then yeah, lots of times it seems harmless. And a lot of farmers you shed antlers as a nuisance because they're popping tractor tires. Oh, so you can say, hey, you ever had a tractor tire popped? And then maybe you'll get lucky and say, well, actually that did happen. Yeah, I gotta tell them that's not so much interested and finding shed antlers as I am and prevent entire pops. I've got a deal for you. I can help you to day yep. So so if you get shed hunting permission, then you've got a great reason to come back, you know. So I really appreciate it. Established whether small game hunting or shed hunting or whatever it might be, it's an easy end they feel more comfortable established for poor and then yeah, from there you can see where it goes. Um. Plus, the nice thing about doing any one of those things is it allows you to walk that property, gives an excuse to better learn that property, to decide if it really is, you know, worth your time to try to deer hunt there, whatever it might be. Um. You know, if you're driving out from Michigan, Iowa, most places are worth hunting. But you want to make sure that if you're gonna spend a ton of time and money, that you have a spot that seems half decent. So so mark out of your sort of portfolio places you hunt. What. Um, how many permissions do you have that aren't like aren't like leases just like flat out some dude, out of an act of kindness lets you hunt his place. Uh Um. I probably have six or seven different spots that are just actually more than that, probably eight or nine I guess that are across scattered states that I have permission to hunt that it wasn't through connection, it was just from knocking on doors or random randomly meeting someone. I'm always thinking about permission. So if I meet someone while I'm ount in Montana or Iowa, Ohio or somewhere, and I happen to think they might own land, I will I will try to navigate the conversation there in any way possible reception this uh, this farm you speak of, But yeah, if you hear about something like that, I'm not gonna avoid that conversation. I'm getting getting in there. I got the first thing that comes to mind. And it's amazing how many times, not not most of the time, but some of the time. I guess you'll come to find out that maybe they don't have somebody hunting, or maybe they do. But again, you never know who they might know, who they might know. So I mean, it's one of those things that you just have to always be thinking about it, always be working for it, because it's so easy to lose permission first off, um, So that's a big part of this conversation. I think, too, is just as important as getting it, as you really need to learn how to keep it. Um. But there's a lot of things that happen that are out of your control. So yeah, and you lose it for various reasons. You can lose it because you screw up, and then you deserve to lose it, like not leaving gates the way you found them, driving on wet fields, because there's could be things that that if you grew up, if you if you've grown up around egg land and kind of grow up around working properties, those things you like, know, you don't do that. Someone who's not familiar with that world might do without realizing it's a real problem. Like you might notice that there's tire tracks skirting around the edge of an alfalfa field and be like, oh, I'm gonna drive there, not really realizing at the only time you would ever do that, as if it was just dry, dry, dry, And then you go out and leave a big couple of ruts in the guy's field, you're gonna lose your permission, likely or he gives you. Here's here's the story to happen me One time, me and my brother had turkey hunting permission on a place and he had given me and my brother permission, and one day we had our other brother and a buddy of ours to go honey. Now we were not going to hunt without securing extra permissions for two more people. We go to the guy's house. He's not there, So our first stop was to go down his driveway, but he's not there. We then set off to go look for him, and we come across him and this guy is never even gave us a chance to explain ourselves, was out of his truck beating on our hood because the one thing he said was I'm giving two of you permission. Never even got a chance, honestly, never got a chance to explain to him that we were coming out to find him to inquire about two other individuals. In his mind, it was the conversation was over when he said too, So that was a permission. I lost out of being a kind of a dumbass, kind of assuming that there was some flexibility. It's a bummer, yeah, And to be just like screamed at by someone is difficult, for sure. I had a friend get the harder it is. I had a friend who had permission, who got permission, you know, by way of his knock indoors, and he went to go This was a handful of years ago, and trying to remember his story, but as I remember it, he had gotten permission and then came back there and don't a week later or something with his wife to do some scouting. And this guy lived down this little like two track road way back in the middle of nowhere. So he decided to go down the road park his car, and then his wife was going to stay in the car while he went off and did some scouting or whatever he was doing. Um, he hadn't told the landowner this, and so he goes off to his walking, but his wife is sitting in this car pulled off the side of the road and this guy's farm and this guy comes up from behind. The landowner ends up seeing this car. It wasn't the same vehicle that this friend had used before. So he sees a random car with a lady sitting in the front seat, and he was so mad about somebody trespass he went running up with a shotgun, screaming at her through the window. And uh, just because of you know, lack of communications. But nope, nope, that didn't work out too well for end. If my number one rule is no gray area, there are no assumptions. I'm like, this is exactly the Hey, just so you know, I have this crappy old white Chevy with a gray topper. That's me and it's and then if friends are it's also like the timing conversation and figuring out like what would be kind of valuable to these people, like hey, like you know gates, you knock it all out up front, and then if somebody's like, hey, I know you got permission on that place, can I come to I'm always like, you know, I'll talk to him this winner. We'll see about next next year, because I already got permission this year, and I'm not gonna push my luck this year. Such a tenuous thing, I think, yeah, because then you always got like every farmer's got a cousin or something, so you lose them too, not because you did something bad, but because he's like, oh, you know my cousin. He wants to come out with his cousins. I can't say no to them. So this year is just gonna be too crowded out here. That's a big way that people lose. You kind of have to take advantage why you have it. But yeah, it is this he had a walk that like this line that is not truly even there, uh, because you never know when those properties are gonna go go away forever, and typically when they're gone, they're gone. Um. But at the same time, you can't push your luck either. We used to do a lot of gift giving and then offers of work, like I remember the main farm we hunted as kids. We hunted two main farms as kids. I remember the farmer broke his arm and for weeks my old man had me and my brothers were just little kids. For weeks we were out there shovel and manure. Well, the farmer's arm was broken because my old man would use us. You know, that's something Davy Crockett's dad did. People don't realize that's Davy Crockett. His father hired him out as an indentured servant to satisfy his own debts from the time I think from the time he turned nine, his father would would give his give Davis Davy Crockett's father would give his labor to his debtors. So male man would do a similar thing for hunt permissions. We would go out and shovel manure for Harold zeldn rust That's such a West Michigan name. Yeah. Yeah. The other families are great families and my mom, my mom's still the Frenz these families, but the zelden Rustan's at the zur Lot. So I grew up thinking that everybody had a Z last started a Z no but great, Yeah, so we did that, went out shovel ner. I used to throw hay bales for tom weirds mom, a farmer. I would throw hay bales for him in the summertime. Small price to pay because you only throw hay bales for like a day or two. Yeah, but there's so few people understanding that. It was understanding because we would hunt his place for small game, hunted his place one time for geese in an hour trap. Yeah. He had a handful of properties that he would call you to throw bails and you went through bales. Yeah, and you better drop what you're doing and go. Yeah. It wasn't like a spoken thing. It wasn't like, oh, I'll give you permission on the you know, on the condition that you satisfy X demands. It was just sort of there was like this sort of recipant. It was like this built in understanding of I'm doing something for you, you will do something for me. I once saw have you guys seen the um poison dispensers for gopher holes or prairie dog holes that you can mount on the front of a four wheeler so you drive over the top of the hole, hit the button that drops a little a certain amount of uh poison pellets into the gopher hole. Uh buddy of mind. And I showed up. It was hunting season, but it and it was cold right. The the farmer rancher was like, no, I don't have time for this, and my buddies like, uh, you mind if we just we were asking for archery permission to hunt mule. You're on his place and he's like, what if we just shoot gophers? And it was like this, oh, with bows and arrows, if you're gonna shoot gophers and this is not an exaggeration at all, and this is not like an archery trick shot at all. But it gopher is standing up on the edge of this guy's yard and the guys like, can you hit that one? This is like a fifteen yard shot with a compound bow. Right, it's not not crazy. Uh my buddy, uh kyler shoots the thing and guys like, all right, stay on the roads. That I think is the thing that people, yeah, because like when people are gonna go do a farmer or a property owner of favors, they tend to want to do the enjoyable favors. So you get a lot of guys who, because farmers do need to do a lot of in some areas, need to do a lot of prairie dog work, like controlling prairie dog colonies or ground squirrel colonies which destroy you can destroy crop land or destroy pasture land. So people are like, oh, it doesn't sound half bad. And if that's something this guy really needs to get done and actually pays to have done, I'll volunteer for that. It's less people who are like, hey, man, do need help stringing fence, fixing fence, moving pipe whatever. Yeah, I think that that stuff goes a long way. And there's a lot of guys that aren't gonna take you up on it because like in the time it would teach you what to do and show you all the analyst he could have had it done, but they're impressed that you offered yes. And and to be clear, I think very much this particular rancher was just like kind of had to eat his own words because he's like, there's no way in hell you're gonna hit that prairie dog. And he's like, oh, yeah, I just yeah, go for it type of thing. So and then he's less worried about having deer running around with arrows coming out of weird parts of them. Yeah what else? Mark? Uh, Well, to this point of we're talking keeping permission, we're kind of fast forwarding a little bit from getting it, but I think, yeah, we can stay and I want to stay on and keeping. So not only though it is doing in the gift given yet you mentioned it, which gift giving you. I've done Christmas cards, I've done veggies in the garden, I do venison, all that kind of stuff. But another thing that seems simple, but some people really value it, especially if it's someone who's older, maybe a little more low lee. Um, there's a gentleman. I hunted his property that I know. This guy just wants a friend, like he just wants them to talk to you myself. So I mean when when I had a friend in the truck, Yeah at him. So whenever I'm there, though, he just you make time to just sit in there. You're just planning on forty five minutes that we're gonna talk and we're gonna talk about World War two, and we're gonna talk about the dust Bowl, and we're gonna talk about the book he wrote, and we're gonna talk about how we still love to go dancing, and we'll talk about the same stories every time, and I love it and I appreciate the guy so much, and I say everything, and we talked politics and I disagree with what he says, but no in my head and like you're absolutely right and U and it's great. I mean, it's it's it's I know that he appreciates that so much. And I appreciate, you know, the opportunity to hunt um. And I think there's people out there like that. It is appreciation to I know lot of ranchers where it's like even if you do everything right but you're not, you don't show them that you truly appreciate the work that they've done, how they've maintained their place, kind of the sweat and tears that they've put into it. They're just gonna be like, yeah, I feel a little taken advantage of. So yeah, it is the true interest in the in what's going on out there, like oh boy, I see you did this, and that's everything's looking so good this year, and that that's a big deal. My brother, uh makes veniceon summer sausages and it puts together gift bags for people that he for people who are he has hunting permission. It makes veniceon summer sausages and puts other things in the gift bag and brings that around. Especially. You could be like, hey, I shot this deer on your place and then that made this. Here's this summer sausage. People eat that. Eat it up metaphorically and literally. They may turn around and give it away, but it's a big deal that you drove the ninety miles or whatever to deliver this stuff. We used to hunt on a guy's place, you know. The last man to be legally hanged in Wyoming was Tom Horne. There's a movie about Tom horn Um. He was a stock detective and he was kind of like caught up in he had old fashioned ways of dealing with cattle rustlers that were falling out of favor in his time, Like it was just getting the He was into the early nineteen hunters and you couldn't just ride out and start shooting people who were stealing cattle anymore. And wounded up getting him on the wrong end of a rope and he was hanged and shared in Wyoming. The last man to be illegally hanged Tom Horn, so we had I used to hunt of guys land named Tom Horn. So I brought Tom Horn a book about um Horn that's pretty good, which he appreciated. Now we would also hunt rabbits on his place a lot, and one day I brought him a carrot cake that was decorated with rabbits. And I felt like it really like he didn't didn't get that he didn't get and like standing there like look right, and I remember being like just looking at like what in the world these boys bring me a cake for it? What are it's it's got rabbits on there. You know, we um now that we want rabbits out here. So there's rabbits in the cake. Remember that fell a little flat. But he really liked the Tom hornbook. And so there was like a thought like trying to be like a thoughtful gift to say, hey, thank you so much for allowing us access to your property. And people are pragmatic, and I think people, especially in the agricultural world, are extremely pragmatic relative to other segment of the population. And I think that to be like, you know, how you let us come out and hunt your place. Well, here's all the stuff we cooked with the things we got in your place, like we put it to use and now we're here's something for you. That makes them feel like because when you like love a piece of land and work a piece of land, you'd like to see the land provide the fruits that you're labor. Yeah, And so to have some Joe Shmo you know from town, come out and harvest something off the place and you see that he's using it and sharing it with you, it makes them feel like how they like good about the property's ability to provide a good see. It too for people to remember is you know these farmers and ranchers, they're not folks that really have downtime, Like they can work every minute, every day in perpetuity. And so you're already starting out your footing a little bit of a hole. So like, oh, boys have some free time. Huh, that's gotta be nice. Yeah, So like the last thing that he would ever be doing would be driving around trying to find a place to recreate. Oh yeah. Or you guys choose to sleep outside. I've gotten that so many times. Like your days off, you want to go out and be cold again. We used to have where I grew up. There was a lot of not Amish, but they were like there are men and nights, but they had the same where they cut the same rigid sabbath and their deal like they had like last thing like Yoda and various things like that, and uh, their deal was that you do not hunt. I think they kept a Saturday sabbath, no Saturday hunting. And in fact, when I would trap land men and nite land and I had a lot of permissions with these guys because once I knew some of the people in that community could get permissions anywhere in the community. You pulled your traps like by dusk on Friday. Yeah, kind of they were not even on the land working. You pulled them and then re put them back out again. And it's just like a thing like I can't even begin to understand where you're coming from. But it's your place, Okay, Yes, if that's the rule, seemingly not that definitely doesn't seem arbitrary. But it was just like a different thing you were invited into. But no, I mean it goes that's a unilateral right, it's our universal rather rather the you may be on one place that the guy's like, oh yeah, drive wherever. Don't assume the next property is gonna be the same way. You're like, what do you mean your body down the road? Lets me drive through the field that's not gonna go over Well, yeah, guys that are touchy about driving, we would also this offer, like, well, does park at the house and ever even touched the car, just walk from the house. You're worried about gates and driving and all that, we won't even drive And some people like that sounds good. Great. Yeah, I've always thought that's important, just to make sure you know where do you want to part? Where should drive? Like that always seems to be one of those sticking points. It's good to have laid out ahead of time, like you said earlier, layout and get as many things on the table up front as possible. No no question marks if you can so no, no, Mark Kenny, You're an organized guy. So we handle. We touched on get kicked off once you've had it. We touched on maintaining. We're talking a bit about getting. Should we talk about getting or yeah, let's talk about get. Definitely need to talk a little more about Can I share my process? Oh please? Because I'm pretty now. I already mentioned like I'm always thinking about permission, so if if random up tunities pop up, I always tried to take it um So once like, I was driving around in Montana looking for places to hunt and ran across the guy that had a flat tire, so stopped to help him out. As I'm helping with his tires, before I can starts. You don't have old land, you know anybody that does? No, I just have a jack. But but any type of happenstance like that, you know, sometimes good things come on that. But when you don't have a situation like that, when I'm simply what happened there, I was, I was joking. Yeah, So I got out yeah on likes because I helped him out and give him a drive back home and were just chit chat and he's like, well, what are you doing out here? I was like, oh, I'm just trying to find a place to deer hunt and I knew and he's like, well, you know, we have all this land over here, and gosh, it was real nice to you to help us out and everything. I was like, I'm happy to do it. And then he brought me over for a beer. We're having a beer and then we keep talking, He's like, so you really like to hunt hunt? I was telling more and more about it, and by the end of you know, like an hour drinking beer and helping out, I had access. So yeah, that's good old American elbow grease access getting right there, man. Yeah, But it doesn't always come now, Yeah, it doesn't come falling out of the sky like that all time. So I kind of have like a process that I go through when it comes to to the to your point of being organized. This is where that comes out, I guess for me, because I think the biggest thing when it comes to getting hunting permission, at least around where I'm at, which is you know, south central Michigan, UM, where there's lots and lots and lots and lots of hunters, like deer hunters in the state now somewhere around there, um. And then the vast majority of that vast majority of that's crammed in the bottom third of the state. There's tons of pressure are yeah. Yeah, So everyone's trying to get permission to hunt. So it's a numbers game. And whether that's you know, down by me or almost anywhere, it comes down to being a numbers game. Like you just need to go into it, in my opinion, knowing that you're gonna get a lot of nose so you need to ask a lot of people to get that one yes. So what I do is I would say, out of fifteen, fifteen to twenty asks, i'll get one to two yeses. So we'll say one to ten um so rejection a lot of rejections. So I planned for that. And I hate I hate coal, coal knocking on doors like I'm nervous, I'm uncomfortable about it. I don't like to have uncomfortable conversations with people I don't know it. Also, I know that about myself. So I forced myself into a process to get past that. So I go and I look at PLAT maps or whatever digital online g S maps are out there or whatever, look at aerial maps and pick out. I always try to get a list of at least ten twenty properties that I would like to get permission on. I make a list and I find the landowner information so I know the names and the addresses for every one of those ten to fifteen places. Will say so. For example, I did this in Iowa, and a lot of people think that to hunt in Iowa at least in the white tail world. That's like the mecca of the white tailed world. Everyone thinks that's where the biggest deer are, that's the best deer hunting in the country. So people assume you need to pay an outfit or five thousand dollars or pay ten thousand dollars a year for a least or something to go and hunt there. Um, I want to hunt there for free. So I did this. I put together a list um between looking at all these different things, and then all was a sadde a couple of friends in the area who said, hey, you know, this property looks like one you should look at. I've I've seen a big buck in that field. So I put together the list. I have fifteen properties and then the same area general region within like fifteen man maybe ten miles. Um. So I don't like knocking in doors and cold knocking. So because of that, what like a door to door salesman banging on the door and saying, hey, my name is Mark. Can I go on? Yeah, that's that's an uncomfortable thing, but sometimes that's what you have to do. So what I make myself do is I'm gonna do that and I'm gonna do all of it in one dy. I'm gonna knock on fifteen doors, and one day I'm gonna have a list. I don't have a plan, and that first store you go up to is I don't want to do this. I should just go back to Michigan. But you get through that, You get through that door knock, and it goes okay, you didn't get yelled at, you didn't get shot. It was okay. The next one feels a little bit better. The next one is even better, and then by four, five, six, seven, it's a snowball effect, and by twelve fifteen it's piece cake, nothing to it. So I can get through so many door knocking. That's but that is still your initial point of contact. Well, so it's like bang, bang on the door. This is if I've exercised all their options. So this is if you know, I've went through my whole personal network and there's nothing. This is if I've tried to, you know, strike up conversation in a hardware store or at the bar or whatever. I mean, anyway you can get a connection. Is is the best. This is if I have zero, if I have nothing else to work with, if I'm completely in the dark. Starting from grounds zero, you get the list. You try if you know anything. I mean, I'm trying to think of a good example. Um, but any little bit of tidbit of information about the people or the area. Yes, anything like that, Like I'll slap a Hawkeye sticker on my truck when I put high school teams. Yeah, big deal, innum, But but yeah, you can do it. I got permission on over a thousand and over a thousand acres in Iowa for zero dollars um out of state dude. And then and it came came down to things that I said earlier. Where so I think you got to present yourself, you know, as a non dangerous, somewhat respectable person. You don't want to go up there in like a suit and tie and seeing like all toity. But I don't think you also want to show up like you've been shoveling maneuver for the last seventeen days and you're someone who looks a little sketchy. I think there's like a middle ground. So present yourself in a respectable way, have a decent thing planned about how you want to start a conversation. And then I always try to let that conversation go anywhere it wants for as long as it wants um. Even if they come out and say no, you know you can't hunt here. I'll keep chatting them up for as long as they want to chat because you know, I don't want to be disrespectful and bother them. Like if they want to be out of the conversation, you know, I'll be out of your hair. Sorry to bother you. But many times people just want chat sometimes especially I feel like some of these, you know, a slightly older gentleman, maybe it's on a farm and ile or whatever it might be, roll Ohio where to my point earlier, sometimes they just want chat um and many times does lead to different opportunities. And then you leverage that last one, so you say, oh, Bob sent me, and then Bill sent me, and then as you keep going those things, they kind of all they all work together. I think another important thing, and I want to stay with your process. Best. Want to interject on a couple of points. When doing cold door knocking, go by yourself. Do not unless you can go with your wife or better a four year old. The best thing that could happen is you go with your kids. I cannot wait for my up. One of the those the most excited about this. You'll be tearing permissions a new one when you can go up with kids. The more you're probably doing it with the baby Bjorn sat right to your chest, walk right up. Because one you're just playing on like a basic innate human thing where you sort of like appreciate seeing like a father, like interacting with children in a way, or you're trying to like introduce them to the out of doors and be outside with them and and you know, and their kids come up to them and look them in the eye and you know, shake their hands. That just resonates with people. Don't go up there were three dudes, because you can want to making someone uneasy with a bunch of people. It's like go up by yourself, or if you can't go up with your spouse or go up with your children. Don't people off these Also, it's like four guys standing outside the door. And I think the way you're dressing is important too, because if you're like if you're in a suit here and be wandering like what are you either door to door proselytizing or sellings. It's just it's just weird and off but clean, caught, put together, look him in the eye. State your purpose. I've you know, seen where people come up and they like beat around the bush so much and sort of creates attention where the person's like, why are you at my door? So make your intentions known fairly quickly. There's like this one school thought that you're supposed to go up and start complimenting them on the place. But unless you're able to pull that off in a very authentic way, I think it can be off putting. Yeah, beautiful proper, couldn't help, but notice your beautiful property here. Like people are like, come on, bro, is a dollar harvester? Come on, like polite, But unless you can really pull it off, don't come up and do just like like sort of like cynical acts of flattery as a way to you know, as a way to establish when someone. If I get a knock on the door and I come up, some guys like beautiful house you have here, I'm like, oh my god, where's this going? Boy? This is going somewhere? Or I don't want to go to the point of making your intentions known quickly, relatively quickly. I also think clearly because sometimes if you just generically say, hey, can I get permission to hunt here? That's like a lot to consider if you make it very clear maybe I'm just looking for somewhere to bow hunt for one week this year. If you're only going to be in that area for a week or whatever, it might be Specify what weapons, Specify how long or how often or anything like that, um because many times that will make them feel more comfortable or be your specific request might fit into their you know, set up, when a general request wouldn't. That's another permission I lost. I one time got a permission to trap muskrats on a large marsh and it was like a difficult march to get access to. And I got access to the march to a guy who wanted being a theater teacher, and he very plately after a while said like, I didn't realize that it was something that that needs to be done every day, so in the few I didn't lose it kind of lost. It's like in the future, um let's work on picking out like a handful of days. Because he didn't know that you might trap three months and in a giant place. He might be like using that point of access. It's just like in his mind he just pictured something that would happen a few times. But I do to yourself also to your point um starting out where you're talking about like a finite period of time this weekend, would it be okay if we hunted thing? Because you could always do it successfully, stick to your word. Everyone's happy. You go back again, and then it might turn into that you know what, just you know, you know the you know the place, you know the rules, help yourself. That happens all the time that you get in and eventually a guys just like you guys are you guys know what's up out here? Never any problem with you guys, go ahead and eliminate that vagary. Right, It's like I want hunting permission. That that's so much a place like Iowa that's upland birds and turkeys and uh sometimes mule deer and white tailor. Right, I don't think there's oh no western Nebraska. But it's like, yeah, well my kids really like to hunt pheasants. You know, said knock that stuff out of the gate before they have a chance to say no to it. Be real specific, finite amount of days will be out of your hair before you even though I used to have a permission where we can hunt everything but rabbits, and rabbits is usually the way to get in. But this guy had a kid who had rabbit dogs. Yeah, so he was like, sure, anything, but the thing that you probably think I would most readily let you go do is off limits. Yeah. We had a great permission outside of um actually kind of outside a red lodge and guys like, yeah, you guys can hunt. Here's like how the place lays out. Have a great time, but just uh, you can kill all the turkeys you see, and you can kill all the elky see, but don't shooting anything else because you know they're coming back from some disease or something. So of course all we see are like white tails and pheasants. You know. It was like just bizarre, O. We're old out there, you know. Yeah. And that's not a point you to argue with someone. It's just like okay, yeah, that needs to be your attitude. Yeah, you can't explain it either. You can't be like, well, okay statistically and talk to the biologists and just so you know, here's this and it's like, oh, so you know my play is better than I do, all right, Mark keep walking us through the process. Well, I mean, I think we've kind of covered the all the bases of my process. You start by looking at all the maps, and and even before that, something I do is if I'm going into let's say I want to hunt a state of heaven hunted before we're gonna go back a little bit further in time here, I want to hunt a new state. Let's say I want to hunt in Illinois for white tails this year one. And if I'm going into that goal with hey, I want to be able shoot him ature buck, maybe for free, like I want to have a free permission. Um. So, first I'm gonna be looking at the map, like an aerial map of the state, and then you can start laying over things like, um hoping young record book data or something like that, which can tell you, you know, it's a rough estimate. Okay, Pope, young bucks, probably mature or whatever might whatever your goal might be. That's one way to say, Okay, it looks like this, this corner of Illinois looks like there's some disproportionately high quality hunting this little corner here. So then I can look at those specific counties. I'll pick a county Okay, I like the looks of you know what this area might be. And then I'll zoom in look at arials and try to find properties on arials that look like the right type of cover and habitat that could be high quality. And then you lay over the property ownership stuff and then pick out your specific places. Um. But then after you get the doors knocking, then you know, then it goes to everything I just said every conversation as far as it goes, utilize past connections, keep on going through the list, and then you'll hopefully, out of fifteen or something, you hopefully will get one. And then from there do everything we just talked about when it comes to keeping permission, and then keep building that rapport, keep that relationship up. I always then happen to say, happen of it, even if I get permission and I'm down there a few weeks or a few months later, anyone else around here you think I should chat with, you know, always trying to find another little couple of spots and just keep on branching from there. I always try to get In some states you don't need to do this, but in some states you need permission to go and track a wounded deer. So I'll try to. I mean, you can't cross over on the land. Can you do that anywhere? Yes, there are places where you can go on the land. You do not have permission for the retrieve game retrieval. Really, I know. I know Iowa has that. I know Ohio and Michigan do not. So in Ohio, so I I don't know that any place I'll ever hear about is how you can't. I've never heard about how you can. I think if I if I remember the Iowa law correctly off the top of my head, I think you're just not supposed to have your weapon with you. You need to leave it there across the line or so, you know what, now I think about it, You're right. I remember being somewhere where someone told me that that you can go over the're talking about unting waterfowl. You can go over to get it, but you can't bring a shotgun with you, and you can't bring a dog. Yeah. So so sometimes I should do better at this. Sometimes I preemptively do it. Sometimes it's post But either way, if you preremptively go and talk to your neighbors and get permission, that's a great way to again, just get a foot in the door, build a relationship, because then you're not even doing a big ask. Right, Hey, just just in case I happen to hunt Tom's place, just want to let you know I'm gonna be there, and wanted to just make sure if I happen to hit a deer that comes over here where they'd be okay if I come and to retreat, I'd be happy to let you know in the door. And that is a great trick and lots of times like yeah, yeah, sure, and then you can offer, hey, I'll I'll be sure to let you know, or I'll stop by before I do it, or something like that. It gives you another excuse to stop him and chit chat. Then you start hunting the edge of his property. Well, don't do that just hoping one runs over, sing, go have another chat with put the tree stand right on the fence. But there's there's there's one particular property in mind that Um I'm just I've been working for like six years and someday I'm gonna get permission on this property, permission to shed hunt it. I have permission to retrieve deer on it. Um, and a really nice, really nice people that live there. Um, And you know, if it doesn't work out, that's fine, but maybe someday, you know, this will open up another opportunity to hunt. So I just keep on, keep on, trying to get to know more and more people. Um, and you might get permission. You might just make a new friend, which is great too. Um. And then I think it comes down to then just the work of it. I know so many people who to what we were talking about earlier. So many people complain about not having enough places to hunt or not having any word to hunt. And I think it does come around down to just work. Like you just need to do these kinds of things a lot. I even wish I did them more than I do them, because I still feel like I don't have enough places a lot of time. So like going into two thousand and eighteen already, like just like last week, I was sitting in my I know where it was, I don't know where it was, but I was sitting there, like telling myself, you gotta do better job getting more places next year, Like next year you are gonna have like ten new spots. You gotta do it. You gotta put in the work, you know. Just it's so easy to get lazy or to just be like, I'm okay with these two spots. It's fine. I think we've got we all have a lot of things going on. Or maybe it just it's uncomfortable trying to find places or have these conversations. Um, but if you want it bad enough, you gotta work for I used to know a guy. He was a professional trapper, and he was explaining how he how he like applies all of his permission getting efforts when he looks, and he used a lot of aerial photography, so this is I was thought in him before Google Earth was real, you know, commonly used for this, but he would use aerial photography and he had access to a ton ofment somehow, and a big part of his life and time was just like permissions right And he had identified he worked off of gas lines, so gas line right aways because in this sort of he's in this area where it was mixed like suburban rural interface and kind of like suburban communities up against egg land communities. But he had he identified power lines and gas line right aways is being these strips of like brushy habitat that he felt animals used as travel corridors and also he in his area was a big riparian area, so you had like a big river valley, and the river valley was low bottom lands that weren't developed and it was mostly timbered and brushy along those the river bottoms. So he had a couple of power lines, a gas line right away, and a riparian area. And he just systematically worked every piece of property that butted up against those things that he identified as being like travel corridors that he was interest Like, he hunt a lot of deer and had a lot of deer hunting products that he marketed um but also fox and kyoe. He knew traveled those things that could like they were they were um funnels or channels for wildlife, and that was just how he devoted his time. Like he his goal was to be that he would just own both sides of everything like that to focus his activities. Ye, you had a good turkey permission to spring mm hmm. Yeah, there's nothing real exciting about it. But it was just like yeah, well, and it was almost too good to be true because we saw strutters in a field and then we were like, oh, let's go ask you know, we just drove of quarter mile down the road, pulled in. She's like, oh, yeah, have had it, you know. So we went back out and mof the first set up spoot him up into the trees. But then we chased him and caught up to him like an hour later, and we killed one and went back and we're hoping to just get to go back and say thanks and you know, build on the relationship and uh, maybe he gets sort of like an all access pass. So we're like, yeah, next time. She's like, yeah, just stopped by any time, please ask before you go, you know. So but that was kind of like the thing that supposed he doesn't happen anymore though, yeah, you know. And I was saying at the beginning, how the good old days are over. Everything's different now, but now they come to think of it, last winter, I just want to take my kids small game hunting around where I grew up. And I called my mom to like check around for me. Right, We're just people and it was just there. We just had places to go. No. I heard a story while I was in Wisconsin. Is uh, like I think the guy he just he started talking. He stopped in somewhere, started talking to the to the hite if I think, and she's like, no, no, no, no, husband doesn't let anybody hunting here, doesn't let anybody hunt here. No, no, no no. He's like, well, you know, could it please just you know, She's like, yeah, I come back at five or whatever. So it comes back. He's like, no, I really don't let anybody hunting here. And I think it was the same thing he had, like someone else hunting there. But he's like, you know, I just kept talking to the guy and then sure enough he's like, well that guy doesn't really hunt here that much. I think you can hunt like this little corner over here, there's like the fifteen acres and he just and it was basically all just from a little bit of persistence and then just from having a long conversation. And it was only one who it was two because he came back in the evening, you know, but he's been he said, he's been hunting the place for years. Now. When you say it came back in the evening, you to talk to the husband, because yeah, he wasn't there at the moment. This summer, I was trying to scout some public land in southern Michigan and on my little landownership map I had. There was one access point to the backside of this big chunk of public that looked like very far away from everywhere else, and you could get into some pretty gnarly stuff. So I thought, I really want to try to sculpt that place out. So I go following this map and I turned onto the road what looks to be a public road on this map that leads to a little parking lot. It's just a little two track, and it looks it goes up next to this guy's yard. And I was just like, man, I don't know, but the map says it's good. So I'm like, all right, I'm gonna drive back there. So driving him, driving down the road, and I get maybe half mile down the road, and I see no trespassing signs on either side of the road. And then you get another like quarter mile down the road, and then you see like skull and crossbones on the trees, and then you get a little farther down and there's a skeleton, like a fake skeleton, holding a fake a r rifle. And then it says if you can read this year in my scope, and I'm like, all right, this definitely seems like I'm this must not be the right place. So as I'm seeing all this, I'm like, okay, I need to find somewhere turnaround. And then right when like I see this and I realized, okay, I gotta get out of here, a golf cart comes flying down the road right at men. I'm like, oh jeez, here we go. So the guy pulls up and I bring down my window and at first he's like fiery and like, what the hell are you doing down here? And I was like, you know, I'm looking at my map, so I was looking for this piece of public land access it looked like this took me right to it, and I mean, I'm so sorry. Is this, you know, the private road? And he's like yeah, blah blad. He's he's real fired at first, but I just trying to be polite and explain my situation, so I'll get out of here right away. I'm so sorry, um. And then we got like a little bit of like momentum. He's like, well, I can understand the why you came in here. It used to be a public road, but there are so many guys coming down here and leaving crap. And someone left a dead deer on the side of the road and all this kind of stuff. I got the you know, state to shut it down or something, so now it's private. You can't you can't come down this road, you can't access from here anymore. But we just started talking and we just talked and talked and talked and talked, and finally he's he's talking about how it used to be people that hunted here, and I was thinking about, Okay, maybe I could get just from mission to drive down the road and park in the old parking lot and be able to access the back of the public land. Um, maybe the conversation will take us there in the back of my mind and where we're chatting about things. And then he's talking about back in like the seventies when he used to hunt, and he's talking about his old blinds, and then somehow we get to the chores he's doing these days, and then we're talking about how things are with his wife and how he wishes warmer in their house, and just it was a long time when we went everywhere with him, and I was just kind of listening, you know, And I don't want to sound like I'm always like conniving to try to get I was just gonna bring up not a bad way, but like the here you are, you're like, uh yeah, you're like a manipulator. I don't know, I'm not it's not you, not you everyone, I just it's just you're. You're there, Like here's a guy, you want something from him, he doesn't want anything from you. And like that's like part of the the reason you don't want to go and bang on the door. Like if you were showing up and you're like, I'm gonna go bang on that guy's door and give him a thousand bucks, you'd be so excited to go do it, right, We're like I gotta go bang on his door and bother him to ask him for something. And I don't like asking people for stuff, so it makes it uncomfortable. And I think I think the I think if you see an opportunity or if you're if you're having a conversation with somebody and it seems natural too if an opportunity rises, I don't think there's any harm in letting the conversation go there or ask or just you know, sometimes nothing comes of it. Sometimes like that he said no right off the bat, you still sit and talk to him, Yeah, because then it's a it's the plight thing to do in many cases be sometimes just interesting conversation. And then see, like in this case, we talked all over from every different side of the world, every different possible thing we could have talked about, and somehow got to the point that he's not feeling so good about cutting wood anymore. And I hear him saying, I was like, man, I'm I like cutting wood. Would would that be something if I ever helped out, you know, cutting would um? You know, I'd be happy to help you out. That may be I could just drive down here in park, get the parking lot here, may maybe hunting a couple of times he's like, now we're talking, Yes we are. And then and then come to find out he's not hunting his property anymore. You can hunt my property too. So I just have countless examples of that kind of thing where if you're willing to help out, or if you got in there, yeah, um, and he didn't shoot me and and all that good stuff. It went down pretty well. Stove wood. Not yet, it's gonna be after hunting season, not gonna cut some wood. So yeah, so you just gotta let those things go where they may. Um. And then keep after every year I'm doing something like that, trying to find more spots. Yeah, gift given expressions of gratitude. I'd like to bring up like the the what like non traditional methods and then not really methods. But I just think, like, Uh, what's this saying about? You gotta be on the dance floor, right, Ryan, help me out? Uh, you ought to be on the dance floor. It's kind of like when opportunity knocks, you know, to make Hay when the sunshine or whatever you gotta dance on the music is playing, Maybe make Hay when the sun shines. No, it's definitely not. I can't kill him on the couch. But if you're not aware of the situation, it's not gonna come to you, right, if you're not just like thinking about or sort of like and wo wou terms like have it, you know, like put it out to the universe that you're looking for hunting permissions, right, Just like I just feel like after a couple of years in Bozeman, Right, I'm new to Bozeman and I haven't banged on any doors. I haven't really like made it like a point. I haven't done all these things that Mark's talking about but just sort of through you know, talking to people and chatting them up, and my kids making friends with other kids, and then I meet their parents. And the next in the beginning was social connections. Yeah, but yeah, I felt like we needed to retouch on that and just make sure that we got touch on the dude with the letter. Yeah, I got his letter pulled up. Um, so get done with what you're doing, and it walk us through that appreciation. I think it's like people get to know you over the course of a few years, and I'm like, you know, ya, tell us and his wife after they put their kids to bad We'll sit up in butcher dear until they do it all themselves. And that's almost all they eat. Isn't that amazing? Oh they have him come out and hunt my place. Yeah, that's the type of person that I would let hunt my place, if I let people hunt my place, because hey appreciate it. I want to point out that my brother, My brother has a sign on his property which isn't big because ten acres and his science. What's to say. I think it says trespensers welcome. Yeah, it's great, Um no not, I mean yeah, I mean appreciation is good. But but I just just just keeping your just being open, you know, in all situations to like something like that coming your way. Yeah, but you're kind of talking about like Lavy and pag and stuff though, now about putting it out there to the atmosphere and stuff like that to the universe. So do you put it out there to the universe? Well, it's like the it's just have it always in the back of your mind and if you happen to have an opportunity to rise, you kind of go there. But some people might see some of the flat tire and strike up a conversation with him, help him out, and never think to mention that you're looking for a place to deer hunt. But I am always thinking about that kind of thing, So I just kind of offhand mention it and it let do that happening. Maybe? Is that kind of I mean, like just kind of allowed networking and the karma of the universe allowed to happen, but also kind of don't you can get all over with it. I just think that it's like you don't have to go be on doors to get a hunting permission? Is my? Is my? Like, like you were so surprised today I remember I was telling about how my dad is a bowl hunter, right, yeah, yeah, it was well he was he is still a home inspector, and through his trade, he's gotten all kinds of hunting permissions, you know, because he's just he's like, but I mean sure, then that's sort of like almost like built. It's like the perfect way, Like you're in someone's house looking at the back, put it out to the universe. That's that you're you're out there interacting with I know. But again it's like nontradious, a little bit nontraditional, right, But I just think that in whatever whatever thing you do as a living or out there daily, there's probably a way that you could network or get hunting permissions. You know. I got in your home area. I got a handful of friends that are chiropractors, and they talk of them. Yeah, how do you have more than one chiropractor friend? Because I actually a good explanation for this. A group of guys all met each other going to chiropractor school, a school in Iowa, um, and they're all really in the hunting and I then became friends with one of them, who then introduced me to the others. So there's a group of three of them that are all chiropractors because of school and now they're some of my best hunting buddies. Well, they see forty people a day and they chat with them for fifteen twenty minutes, and every day they talked to every one of those people about hunting in some way if they happen to be No, there's a connection there, and they have all sorts of different permission because of those types of things. So whether you're a doctor or I don't know whatever, sometimes you can take you avangela. Yeah, if you were a guy, if you were a tractor salesman or a grain buyer. No, yeah, home inspector, I have the I have the worst job for it because I just sit in my home office all by myself every day. You never talked to anyone. I read flagged your foundation. Here, you see this crack, you know what? That's from that whitetail buck over there, that property. Let all. Yeah, I talked about the letter because this is unconventional. I used to think it's just next level, it's next level, but this is like really, this is this is just this guy had we We got a letter after we talked about how we're gonna We talked about how we're gonna talk about getting permissions and had a lot of a handful of enthusiastic uh emails coming from people encouraging us to have the conversation. And one guy shared with us his strategy, and his strategy is not like anything that we've touched on here, and it seems, on one hand, a bit much. On the other hand, it just seems like a really great way for those places where you just can't get it in, you can't figure out a good in. Yeah, and he wanted us to share this to help folks out. His name is Zeric, He's from the southeast Zerk. Should we just read the letter? Do you want to kind of give it a read what he wrote, read how he teed it up, and then and then walk us through the letter. He's not like, I really like this guy's approach. Oh yeah, uh new hunter, Yeah, and relatively new hunter says, and this is just his email to us, just sort of just saying, hey, what's up, um, listen to listen to what I got Because I'm relatively new hunter, forty two years old, but I have access to over a hundred acres of family land within an hour of my home. To expand my hunting locations to within minutes of my home, I developed a boiler plate letter that I customized for attempts to gain access to properties that I scout through online county tax maps that may produce hunting opportunities. When here talking about the online county tax map, he's talking about what used to be known as a plat book or a PLAT map, whereas public information who's paying taxes on what? So you can go down two at the township level in in in the east where you have township level politics, you go to your township, your county and just request a map and that will have all the land parceled out. And this reminds me of something we need to talk about. Not quite man, just so much stuff you can get out of these. You can use these to find places you don't need permissions, but there aren't like actually public land. It's hard for me to explain, mhm, yeah, really quick, just to have the places are they're not like part like they're not like state forest, national forests, but just like weird little hidie holes that are that are places you could go hunt, but there would never be recognized as such off plat maps by looking at who's paying the taxes in it. But go ahead, Mark, just want to interject. The plat maps you can get them from your township hall or whatever. But you can also get digital versions very often if you just google the name of your count and then g I S map. So Kent County g I S map And most counties have an online version of that plat map where you can see the aerial and the property lines and then click on the property and get all their information too. So so go on. So that's what he's talking about. Yeah, and it's close to what you can get on on X right, and you probably get a little bit more info. I don't know if you actually get get phone number, you can get home address name, you can get some property information. It's a great tool man. I used to I used to live on those things. Oh, here's my here's the quote. I was trying to remember opportunity dances with those already on the dance floor. That was good. I like that, all right, all right, So here's this guy. He gets on some plat maps around his area. Um, I've been complimented, complimented by the Oh I'm not reading the letter. It's this is the what he wrote to us. He's been complimented by the professionalism of the letter by end owners and managers that receive it always get a response because of how it is laid out and what is what it offers. I was even contacted by one owner that said that even though he could not permit other hunters on the property because his brother hunts it, he wanted to call me and say that through the years he has received several requests from people to hunt the property and that he had never received a letter so well written concerning that subject. Man, this dude's a writer and he can pitch himself. This guy is onto something. Are you paying attention Mark Kenyon? He goes on to say, I'm no means arrogantly promoting my writing abilities. I'm more of a technical writer than a storyteller. But in this case I think would have developed gets the job done, or at least gets the owner's attention. Listeners are pissing themselves with anticipation. My letter highlights my intentions, what I'm offering in return a little about me, and does it in a way that visually conveys my message and shows I'm an individual that cares for the environment and is a responsible hunter. Not terribly long, but I believe it's not too much that the reader is overloaded and not too short what it would appear, but it was hastily typed out just to gain access to as much property as possible. He goes on to say, they just want to share the letter to help us help you guys out and get more permissions, and he also includes a the he's from North Carolina and the North Carolina Wildlife Resource Commission UM has a permission slip that they have on their website that you can just print out that is basically a release release hold harmless and indemnification indemnification produced by the n r A. So he attaches that in there too, to be like, hey you can, I'll sign this. You sign it. And then, because we live in a litigious world, he's given them a yeah. He's like a liability release because yeah, especially people that don't know much about hunting, and this guy's UM. I thought we got out of this that he Yeah, he was like looking for stuff closer to home. I think he was like looking to map. You can tell he's looking at spots sometimes that are small they're kind of yeah, closer to uh you know, urban zones, and uh so people might not be you know, talking about hunting much requests he's because he's looking at this little chunks man like little you know. I got the sense, you know, like he wouldn't be overlooking some little twenty or thirty acre wedge land somewhere, you know, which is another good point, Like that's another good way to find spots is sometimes those are the best, most likely places you can't get permission. Don't get over zealous and try to get the spot, take the ten in the twenty and um yeah, all right, go on ni um. That's about all he had to say. So I'll go to read his letter. I feel that the letter starts out almost kind of a little creepy because he's sort of saying like, and have I been watching you? No? Yeah, a little bit um because again, if but it obviously works if you're not familiar, because I think there's plenty of people that probably buy a piece of property, or you buy a house that sits on even if it's a quarter eco lot. And maybe besides, when you flipped through like the signing all the papers at the mortgage house, right. I was like, the only time you looked at the plat map, right, that that came in that package. Right, A lot of people maybe have never really looked at like an aerial view of their property. Right, So he includes it in there, and and it has an outline of his property. So is it too much to kind of say what he says for you to tell us what he says? No? Okay, Yeah, he says, Hello, my name is Eric. I'm contacting you concerning the property you own on x y Z Road south of x y Z City in x y Z County, North Carolina, specifically parcel number six seven. And then there's a little map and the little parcels outlined, and then he even has like a um what you call like a little bubble, you know, it's a little arrow pointing, Yes, this is your property. This is the one I'm asking about. I take it back. That's that creepy dot's strike use creepy mark. That's that creepy diligent. Yeah, fine line between creepy and diligence. And like we've been talking about, he's eliminating the gray area, right, They're like, what of my places? Very very likely amitating gray? This dude, gets that done. This forty seven point eight seven acre parcel appears to be a mix of pine and hardwood stands and mayhold habitat for wild turkey, deer, and small game. I would like to enquire about the possibility to scout and legally hunt his parcel. In return for the opportunity to access is parcel to both scout to legally hunt, I'm offering a few items to help preserve the property. First would be marking the property per the n C Oldline standard was purple paint along the public roadways to indicate the properties private. And then no unauthorized entry or hunting is allowed. Talk about service and yourself and acting as though you're servicing someone else, he's saying. And not only that, but I will go and let other guys know, buzz off, this is now my hunt spot. And they explains the purple paint law how it came to be, and there's even a little diagram of like where the purple paint needs to be on the tree, how high off off the ground. Yeah, and this is good because a lot of people are like, man, you know again, No, I need to keep half dogging on the guy. But I like at all, because here's the guy. He might not even realize that that's what you're supposed to do to mark it off limits. So now all of a sudden he's like, oh, I should I guess I'd better do that. I didn't know I needed to do that, and now here's this fine young gentleman offering to do it for me. He continues to um explain that the marking per the Landowner Protection Act will give Wildlife officers the ability to directly address, insite anyone on the property without written permission to access or hunt the property. He's educating. Second, this parcel is large and could have unauthorized entry on the property and unwanted illegal dumping. Should we explain that most people know what that is, right, Yeah, people like trying to get rid of an old couch and a broken washing machine. Yeah yeah, never on. This isn't entirely bad because I've killed a lot of rabbits out of that stuff. Rabbits like that stuff. For some reason, they can't come up with five and a half bucks to take it to the city dump. Yeah yeah, the washing machine, It's like, all right, it's good rabbit habit. Tab When you just see like ten white garbage bags. They're eventually gonna ripped apart, you know. Oh it's when I recently took my wife on the last holiday season. I took my wife on stot of a tour of all my former hunting spots and just driving around in a vehicle being like, oh, yeah, one time we and another time and you wouldn't believed that what in here? And that after a couple of hours, my wife was like, I just cannot believe all the appliances that are out in these woods, like welcome to West Michigan's where appliances go to die. And that time of year, they're very visible because there's no full All the leaves are down and it all just looks like it's like couches and appliance And I'm like, after a while, yeahest you don't see it anymore. It just feels like the woods. Um. So that's a safe assumption. That's a safe assumption that there are there is garbage dumping. During scouting trips, I would gather garbage that I can hand carrying bags and report any unauthorized activity on the property. The goal would be to leave the property cleaner than it was found and helped prevent any future costly clean up when development, agricultural use, or future sales occur as for me. So then he uh basically introduces himself his wife like a little bio man. What he does. There's a picture of he and his wife. I forgot him and his wife. Um he is a code enforcement officer. Oh yeah, good guy to know. Yeah, because if he was a guy that helps people who have been injured on other people's property get big settlements, that would not work well for him. I wouldn't. I wouldn't include that in my letter. But a code enforcer, if I'm gonna let someone of my land's gonna be a code enforcer. Man. Now it continues with the education which I like. He says this property is not within city limits and therefore discharging a firearms legal, but due to nearby residential properties, rifle hunting would only occur on sections of the property that would be far away from homes where responsible shots would be made if a clear shot. If a clear safe shot is presented, I am both the rifle hunter and a bow hunter and carry all items out with me that taken to a property during a hunt. This means that no deer stands or blinds, or any other item would be left on the property. I also recognize that there may be a question of liability for harm or injury to anyone on the property, either participating scouting or hunting. As a hunter, I recognize that harm or injuries may occur on any property that may hold natural or unnatural obstacles or dangerous I also use tetheror safety harnesses when I use climber tree stands. If granted permission, I would sign a waiver removing any owner's liability to injuries or harm to myself and others you permit to be with me while on the property. And then he goes on to talk about the the letter provided by the curacy of the n r A let we talked about earlier. UM some of my requests I'm offering to mark the property is private for the Landowner Protection Act, become eyes for reporting issues that maybe of concern for you the landowner, and clean up the property is manageable to bree is found in exchange for access to the property for scouting and legal hunting. Name basically signs off says thank you for the opportunity permissions. That's good. I like that guy. One thing that makes me want to add I think I'm running out of things I wanted to add. I've talked about a bunch of times. Maybe I haven't told you about it. Market. There's a guy down in the Carolina, this guy by the name of Joe, who has a group back You have ever told you about backyard bow pro Uh? Is this? I think I may have heard of it. These guys, they there's a lot of you know, small parcel like suburban rural interface type properties in their area, and they got together a group where they have the group has a proficiency test. The group conducts background checks on members they and they have like a bunch of rules, and they're very active in food bank donations. And they're also very active in getting permissions from a person and then assuring that that person gets a butchered and wrapped deer from their own property delivered back to them. So when you can go and seek permission and be like, all of the bow hunters in our group have all done background checks, we have a lot they have a liability waiver system. We've all passed proficiency tasks. We have like a seal of approval from our organization. Backyard bow Pro and we provide ex services of the community and we will offer x services to you if you're interested in having venison from your own property. And and that is how they and they have tremendous success. Do they cap like the number of people allowed on the property? I don't think. I don't know enough about it, and you know, and and I haven't talked to them in a while, um, but it was it was a thing that they were having great success with. So just go look them up. If they're not around anymore, they won't be around anymore. But I feel that they're around still. Backyard bow Pro. Interesting idea, but maybe, like you were saying, you could just use it sort of as like as as part of your resume. You're over there talking to him, you're kind of getting close, and you're like, oh, yeah, belonging to this group is sort of certified me to be out. Yeah, sure, you'd be like if you can go online and check it out and see what kind of standards we have and and find out, you know, when you've got this sort of seal of approval from and granted it's almost like self serving, but just like an interesting way to sort of because there's no there's no like state or federal version of It's just something that like private people have to come up with the sort of come and be like that that a person who might and then and their specialty is dealing with people who are otherwise would otherwise be very uneasy with hunting that works well for him. Any final things you want to add, cal Um, I got one one thing that I disagreed with with what Mark said, Mark, Mark Kenyon, Um, so you wanted to hunt Iowa and people are under the assumption that coming from out of state, you gotta pay five thousand bucks. But you want to hunt Iowa for free. None of what we were talking about is hunting for free. You're not paying necessary paying cash money. But all of this stuff is, you know, you're, you know, in some cases providing a service. For some cases you're just letting them know that there's some good folks out there and you're willing to sit down and have a cup of coffee. But um, you know you're going on somebody's nothing's for free, right um? And it's if you go I don't really understand what you're saying. If you go up and knock on a door to a place where somebody is working their butts off to make some sort of living on a on a farmer ranch, and your attitude is I'm gonna get something for absolutely nothing from you. It's not gonna work out well. But in all fairness, the distinction not that I need to speak from Mark. The distinction Marcus John is like doing entering into a lease agreement or not. Yeah, no you're not, You're not doing that. But it's also it truly is. I think in most scenarios there's there's some sort of an exchange. It's not just don't go knocking on somebody's door looking for something for nothing. Got that, Mark, I got that. You gotta Rebuttal I think I would say, I mean, I agree with you. I think it was just a poorly war worded maybe explanation of the fact that simply that don't look at as costs being prohibitive to you being to hunt places, because sometimes you can still get access that doesn't require monetary payment. Now, of course you need to provide. You got to give them, whether it be conversation or simply uh, respect for their property, all these different things. Um, yes, definitely you don't want to be going in there. The thing is you are people. Some people do carry around this kind of ludicrous idea that they're somehow doing a great service to the land owner just by being out there deer hunt. It's like most guys, if they really are, like most guys are, like, man, Um, I got all these deer and I just can't find anyone who's willing. And I have looked high and low, who's willing to come out and shoot these great, big giant box on my place. It's like, not really your problem. And even we get a lot of letters from people saying, I keep hearing about all the wild pig problems in Texas. You think they'd be paying me to come hunt pigs, but I can't get a pig permission because the guy that owns the lane is like the only thing I hate more than pigs is letting dudes I don't know come around run around my property with guns like that's even more of a nuisance than pigs. So I do think you have to go into it that you are as graciously as possible, Um, and without being a suck up. You are coming in and saying I'm asking a favor of you. You're inconveniencing them. Yeah, and I like, I am open to ways in which I could offset that through just politeness, gratitude, offers of help. But at the core here I am not please understand, I'm not looking at this any other way than I am saying to you, May I please? Yeah, absolutely, because if not, you got the balance all mixed up, especially the case of a coveted animal like a deer, yeah or whatever. You know, people love watching big old roosters straight across their lawns too, you know what we're talking about. Jack rabbits backed during the dust bowlt maybe, but generally it's like the guy is like, Okay, buddy, I'll do you a good turn and allow you access to my property, and I would expect some human decency back from you. Yeah. Yeahnny got nothing on that. You're spot on. Folks can't see it. But Yanni had a nod. He was nodding like he liked. He was agreeing with that. Yeah, he was thinking about dancing being on the floor. Mark um, Mark Kenyon, you want you wanna plug word to hunt podcasts and people are interested in like the d the nitty grittys, the nitty grittys, of deer hunting. Yeah, while you're done podcasts and not all this crazy flying around an airplanes out and more wilderness landscapes. But like the nitty gritty, sitting on the back forty chasing white tails three sixty five days a year, that is what we talk about. The Saga of holy Field. Didn't even talk about holy Field. Dude, we're gonna talk about it. Do you feel that, like, how many years have been trying to get this deer? Well, I've been watching him three years. The first year I passed on him, so I didn't want to hu in the first year. So two years I've been actively trying to kill um. And now you didn't do it again, I still got time. Are you are you feeling any Uh? We've talked about this before because you're like, you know, you guy that makes his living talking about deer hunt. Are you feel any sort of like uh, like like professional, Like, are you feeling like? Man? You know I didn't get the deer. Do I still have my claim to legitimacy? I'm not worried about my claim to legitimacy um, because like we talked about last year, I never based my claim to legitimacy based on whether or not I was going to kill more dear than anyone else or whatever it might be. Um, but I do feel pressure both internal and external. The internal pressure someone else is going to get them quite like or he'll get hit by a car. Yeah, yeah, but I mean the internal pressures. I have put so much time and energy into it. Like any thing, whether it be all the time and energy put into writing a book or a project you're working on or anything. If you invest a ton of time and energy, there's a lot of pressure to get whatever outcome you're getting or hoping for, and so I have. This season has been a little bit of has caused me to reflect a little bit on getting back to the enjoyment of it and not being so focused on the outcome because I've gotten a little bit too deep into that and have lost the fun in a little bit of it. Like I got just so frustrated with a lot of things that were going on. Um, So I have to maintain that balance because I'm very achievement oriented and very very goal oriented. I can get obsessed with things like that. So I need to constantly like relax, get back to what why you do this? The love of what you're doing. Don't focus so much on whether or not you can kill this one single deer. But but that has been my season. I have, you know, put nine pc of all my time in the last three months or whatever it's been to try and to kill this one deer. You've been seeing them? Yeah, Um, how many times have you seen him? I've had eleven encounters with him? I think this is embarrassing. I tell the story. I've told the story on on my podcast More people here than yours. Um, November seven, I had him at twenty yards at eleven o'clock in the morning. Um, late in the morning. Yeah, late in the morning. What was he doing? Uh? He was just I think he was cruising, checking betting areas for betted does in the middle of the day. But I hadn't seen anything for a couple of hours, so I had become a little bit distracted. And I was facing this direction, and I was holding my phone through the phone and looking up every you know, looking up every three seconds, and looked down the phone and I hear a little crunch behind my back, turned like that, and he's twenty yards away, spinning and running away. So I had him within shooting range. And I muffed it because I was on my phone. He's paranoid. Oh. But the next three days later I went back in close to that area and I had him within shooting range, but he was behind brush. Um. Later that day, one third in the afternoon that day, he came chasing a doll out of the bedding area sixty yards um, but running through there. Um. Then I've had him many more times that like eight um, that kind of thing. So seeing him a lot, had the close calls, but it's it'll be like he'll be here, and then I'll sit here, and then the next day I'll be sitting there, and he'll be there, and then the next day I'll be there, and then you see that I'm always one day behind him or one day ahead of him, like he'll be where I was yesterday sometimes. Um. So we've been playing cat and mouse and hasn't worked out yet. But last year I saw got a good look at you though. Oh he definitely that was the one time he's ever seen me to mine that I know off. Of course he might have seen me when I don't know, but that's the one time in the three years of hunted. Yeah, So that I had a mental breakdown after Yeah, weird hunt, right, that's like the irony of that, so I had I wasn't. I was a bad place after that that For that next hour, I was in a real bad place. But I mentally, mentally, I was just so upset with myself that I all this, I mean so much talked around and because some hammen, you're upset, you didn't wanna tell me what it was that might have been. But but to what I mentioned earlier, so that happened, I was really piste off at myself, frustrated. Um, all my buddies we usually go down and hunt Ohio some property. We got dollar together and we spent like a week or so in there. Um, so they went down a few days ahead of time. But I kept pushing it back. I was like, I gotta focus on holy Field. I can't go kept pushing it back, pushing it back, pushing it back. I hadn't gone it earlier in the season like we usually do, so I was missing out on this camaraderie aspect of my hunting season that I usually have. But I had to kill holy Fields. I gotta stay here, I focus on him. Well, this thing happened and I was really frustrated. That night I moved and though I didn't see him that night. Um, but after that evening's hunt. And this is over course of the twenty seven day period, I hunted twenty six days for him, and fifteen of those were fifteen hour sits or fourteen hour sis. I was there, give me the rundown. Twenty seven days I hunted. Um. So from October November ninet hunted every day but one, and then fifteen of those days where all day sits where I would get in the head out to the tree stand two hours before daylight and I wouldn't come in until you know, after dark. Um. So I you piss into the bottle up there, not pissed for out the tree us come up and smell that. Yeah, especially, you should get dog during. You should try to hire dog during to piss of your treat because it work. Maybe he's got he's got photo evidence that buck. You should see if you get something from I shot a buck once right after finishing peing like moments. Um. But the point of my story being that that night or that day had been very frustrated with things, and then I went, you know, from like the low place of being really upset at myself to that, starting to think, why am I getting so upset about this? Like, I'm hunting, this is supposed to I love so many things about this. Why am I letting myself get so caught up in this too? Finally, by the end of that night, realizing, you know what, I just need to step away from it for a little bit. So I'm gonna go down to Ohio with my friends, spend a little time with them, um, you know, get back to some of the things that really matter here versus just killing one specific deer that I arbiturely have chosen to be the only thing that will make me happy this season for some stupid So I go down to Ohio and the second damn down there, my best friend kills the first buck he's killed in like four years, and I got to be there with him, help him recover. I actually saw the whole thing happened from across the valley and got to help him drag it out, got him do all that kind of stuff with him. Um, and it was It was the best moment of my whole hunting season. Getting to share that moment with my buddy and be a part of that and help out, and it just kind of reminded me, you know, in the end, those other things that really matter most. So I'm really, I'm really glad I made that decision. Was a great just reminder to to focus on the important stuff. And you know, hopefully holy Field still alive. I haven't. I haven't hunted there in the last like eight days and general fire. Yeah, I tend I usually stay out. I hunted Opening day. I usually don't, but I hunt an opening day. The no I took a gun on actually, um, and you're gonna shoot how we feel if you had a chance. Yeah, that was another thing I didn't up deciding I'm gonna shot him with whatever is legal. Um, I'm I'm not a purist. I like bow hunting. I love bo hunting. I do that the most, But I'm not fundamentally posed to shooting him with a gun. But you passed on him another time with a gun last year. That was because he knew that he would at that point, he knew that it would live. I thought, I hoped that he would make it to this year. So last year I chose not to try to kill him with any weapon. And I could have killed with a muzzler sixty yards last year. Um, but shows at that point in the season because there's only like, you know, twelve days left of the season or whatever to see if you can make to this year. So but that that is like another pressure. So there was like the internal pressures and then like there's a lot of people that have been following along with the story and like want to see what happens, and so I have felt some of that external pressure. But I'm trying to say that doesn't matter. Just hunt your hunt and enjoy it and learn from it and share what happens along the way. And that's that's what I'm trying to do. So when was the last you know? But you would probably have caught wind if someone got him, right, because you know the guys in your area. I think I would know. There's a there's a couple of people that I don't know, so if one of them killed, I wouldn't have found out was the last day you knew that he was still in the living? I had him at eighty yards twice the night before fire up season. Okay, so how old is it? He's I and half I believe he's getting in the autumn of his life man. Yeah, there's there's not many bucks that older on my neck of the woods there, and I've hunted this property six or seven years, and this is the first buck that I know. This made it the first first five and a half year five and a half year old deer that's there. There's just three year olds would be usually be the oldest deer in the area. So, um, he's an anomaly. So it's been really cool to have that opportunity to see a deer so many times. I mean last year I saw him twenty seven times. This year it's been eleven so far. Um, and you got how long now because the rifle's gonna end? And you got how long did bow hunt him? Well, muzzler season now opens the day after fire up season, and you're getting on that yeah, and then uh and that's done the seventeenth and after that's bow you'de not gonna take that letter. Yeah, And he was reading and sent that letter to everyone's around that property and just locked that place up with just me permissions. I'll get that buck better, hopefully. Someone I know. I'm like, you know somebody I wanted to I wanted to be you because because because it means so much to you. You know, maybe that's silly that it matters so much to me. I don't know. I'm sure I'm gonna learn because that's that's you're at and the thing that you're interested in, you're in the You're in in it the deepest way possible. Yeah, to just be that you like would go out. Most people walk around the woods. They don't know what's going on. If you go out and sort of identify this specific animal and those entire history and then like focus on them and try to get them rather than just sort of the blind random luck that happens. But I've also pointed out that it's gonna be sad too, with how well you know him. It was like shooting your brother, no doubt about. We're talking at lunch. We're talking at lunt about how I'm about who Greece Um, about being over confident or like you know, putting the deer on the wall before you shoot him and stuff. And as you guys were talking about, I was thinking in my head how I've envisioned what it would be like to shoot him, Like I've thought about that moment, like walking up on him, um, and I felt moments of like that already, Like I can't I don't remember when this, but but I actively remember thinking about shooting him and walking up and like holding his head and like feeling an immense amount of sadness about that moment. You had a mind movie about it. Yeah, yeah, And so I know I know I will feel that way. I've I've I've hunted other deer in multiple years and had like many counters. I've had a shallower version of this in the past, and even those times, you know, you feel any deer I kill, there's a sense of of I don't know if more sadness, immense respect, a whole slew of different types of emotions. And I know that that will happen again with if I'm fortunate enough to kill this dear. I'm sure I will feel that, but maybe in a in a different way than before too. When we touched on this before, I remember Yanny saying he's got the feeling that way about a deer just in the afternoon. Yeah, just watching the buck all day, watching waiting for him the stand up. You know, are you started being like, oh a little bugger seven times? I mean that's well, I mean every different scenario, right, so that's add a little more depth to the character. And I've never ever ever had anything like this happened before to this degree. I mean the year before was probably four or five times. Last year twenty seven eleven, this time, I mean that's pretty astronomical. So last question for you, if if you get them or someone else gets them, do you have you already picked out what buck is next? What buck you're gonna start like obsessing over next? Do is there a contender? There's a contender, you got one you might decide to obsess over well, just because like this, it's a small property. It's a single small property in a heavily hunted area, so there's almost only ever one like shooter buck any given year, like a mature buck and that area like three years old. Sometimes it's like the oldest buck will be. But there's a three year old this year. That's like a nice three year old um who I would love to see make it to next year. I'm really really hoping he makes it. He's like just a nice wide eight pointer um. And as we white tail guys do, I named him. This is uh a self fulfilling prophecy, is what my hope will be I'm naming him Survivor so that he's the buck I really want to survive this year. So that buck, are you gonna change his name when you start wanting to right next year, he's got to switch it up to dead. So now you're just like helping him along. And I've seen him a lot this year too. He's cool deer and and most likely all these deer won't even be around when I get back to hunting in a couple of days. But he gotta hope. And because I have been picked up by other hunters, probably you never know. I mean, I do what I can to try to um have an environment where they might be able to make it through, you know, like we talked about last year or last podcast. UM, so hopefully they'll be a few bucks to make it throw. But something, yeah, bro, and some do they always do. I just want to say, I just I really understand about like getting on the phone at eleven am. And I was so lucky this I was in Wisconsin hunting gun deer this year and sitting in tree stands and I forgot my phone opening day. It was like the best thing that ever happened to me. Like I was kind of stressed like we like drove for me five minutes and then to walk back into the property and not like in the car, I'm like, gosh, I run back and get it, you know, pictures. But I knew really in the back of my head. No, like mid day, you're gonna be like emailing and freaking yeah, flipping Instagram, you know. And uh, but that first day, I was the worst tree stand sitter I've been. And again, I just haven't been doing it a lot in the last twenty years. But man, you just forget. And I had a pretty open set up, like they had cut all around this tree stand is somebody else had put it up there years ago. But I think what you used to have pretty good cut her. I mean I was now just like playing to the to the world. It's I had to be an extra good sitter, you know. And and by like you got lighted seven and by like eight, I'm just like, you're being way too fidgety on it. You're being way too fidgety, you know. And the first like six d I see, I'm just seeing flax because they're seeing me a long time before, you know, because it's just why like you got like a chest like a breast pocket. If you're like dying of guilt about stuff you're supposed to be doing, but you're sitting out in the woods instead, and you're trying to like even if you're trying to maintain the appearance that you are at work, right, you haven't shared with you This is just like a tip I'm giving people, Like my work structure is that I need to act like I'm not hunting. But if I was in one, if you get like a breast pocket, uh, and you just ease er out like a like a poker player close to the chest, I'm doing it right now. Ease are out, do what you gotta do. Ease er back, and you know, spooking deer. No no, I'm not saying that necessarily. The phone was um, but you are taking yourself out of the game. You should know about coming and you should be like getting, yeah, what gets the tree and positioning yourself for when he's coming. You don't know he's coming, and he's just yeah, but just speaking to the the like the idea of being a good tree stand hunter and a good you know, Eastern white tail hunter. It just requires you to freaking sit still, move your head slowly you know, don't jerk your whole body around when you're looking over your shoulder behind the tree, you know, and just it's I just remember like on Sunday morning when I got into the tree, and like midday, I was like, all right, I've done a really good job the last four hours. You know, I've just been like sitting here, like not moving, not dicking around, not going in for more sneakers and more snacks than another couple of kids candies to the Halloween candy confiscated. Maintaining that focus though, it's tough when you're doing day after day after day all day and you're sitting. Yeah, people think it's easy. Oh they're just sitting a tree all day. I know. It's compared now, compared to you know, Rocky Mountain el hunting or whatever, it's not the same kind of physical way and tilS like a different kind of a different dude. We got a friend, Jeff Lander, who guides this is bow only area up outside of Edmonton, Alberta. And by the time Rut comes there, they're dealing in like negative zero weather hunting November up there. And to hear his stories about what it takes two tree stand hunt in November and Alberta is like it's like some harrowing tales of endurance, and just like the clothes, and just to try to manage everything because you gotta have You gotta be at some point be able to whip out bare fingers and shoot the damn dear and like to be able to be warm enough to pull all that off in a way that makes sense. There's no joke, man, I believe in the focus factor is so much larger than anybody has put You can't put enough words on paper on it. It's like you have got in the tree stand, which admittedly have done at this point. Let's just call it zero compared to everybody else in the room. And then but the mule deer, rightful, elk whatever, man it the second you let your head go out of okay, do or die? This is it. This is my opportunity. And the second you wander away from that mentally, you make mistakes. I mean, you just do absolutely, man, mental focus. I want to touch on one thing I keep wanting to come back to and in big time white tailed guy world, thinking it is okay to snake her out and just whizz off the edge of tree stands, Yeah, snaker out. That's the general practice. That is the general practice. I've read study. There's been studies done to test the reaction of deer to human urine, a placebo, dear, earine, etcetera, etcetera, a handful of different things, and there's no noticeable impact. So buck me and juice is just may not be particular to dog. I think he's just seeing a universal effect. I've had it happened three times. I've got a joke with my buddies that when I'm not seeing dear, I'll be like, well, I thought I had bucked juice, so I would be like, well, it's trying to try to bring him in. So I've had big buck encounters three times while doing that. Yeah, because that's what I do. But I always feel a little bit like, I'm like, I bet you that the big time white tail guys are like truckers with the bottle, with the bottle that they then throw off a highway over pass. There might be some, but but most I hear, what what do you think about the sound though? Because I got a story about that that brings in bucks. Don't tell me on opening day, some doughs I can't see. I think they're doughs, but they're what do you call it? When they just like they blow at you, just bow. I can't see them. A couple of I'll do the noise. People who don't know the noise we're talking about, Yeah, it's pretty good. It's the worst noise in the world. And do then I'll do the out version, y'all, even do a good out version. Yeah, here's an antilope. Here's what antilope does. So and there it is. That's a good one. I'd a lot nothing that makes its adent all because they blew at me once and thirty minutes goes by, so I'm thinking they just went in the other direction, well, along the same ridge that they're on. Thirty minutes later, I need to take a leak, So I just moved a little bit and make a bunch of movement. And as soon as I start, my piece starts hitting the leaves down the low and I'm like, God, that's awfully loud. You know, I'm like, damn it. You know it's on the same ridge. So I don't know. Coincidence. Might have been the same deer and they were aware of me already, and so they were just like, are you down there again? Or but here's the thing, I don't really do it that way. I aim it back so arches out, it kind of hits the tree broadcast, which is quiet. So I was gonna say my recommended trajectory is to hit a tree trunk close to you. That makes it much quiet. You don't make like a little leaf pile down there and go on it. But well, like I said, I was in the middle of a clear cut. Okay, I know I should have just yeah, I had. It was one of these all days. Throw a long distance because you're when you're fourteen feet up, you can lander, not Jeff lander the lander. You can land or way out yonder or to whatever. And yeah, I don't like to go on the leaves because this is real loud. If you're in close, you've got to be conscious of everything. And had some very painful, prolonged peas in close on mule deer archery. What do you mean where you're like every sound matters. You've basically stripped down to nakedness because you think everything's making Yeah, yeah, but it can be part of your calling game for ELK too. You've heard elk p in the woods. Yeah, well that's that's what I go back to those you know, when a deer peas and the story about the noise. Yeah, like there's some kind of leaf liquid noise there. So all day sit and I'm just like lunchtime. So I've reached in for an apple. I take a bite out of an apple, and just as I do that, I see something off to my left. I'm in some thick bedding cover and there's a buck, like twenty yards. It would been like a kind of wettish day had already been there. He had been walking through and just kind of come into an opening, and I'm like, mid bite of my apple. Jesus, a deer right there. So I'm thinking he saw me, but he didn't. I watched him. He just kind of fiddling around. It was like a bunch of down maple tree leaves I remember seeing there. And so he was there for like ten minutes, eleven minutes, twelve minutes, and I'm watching him and he's just fiddling around and he won't leave, and now he's at like twelve yards eleven yards, and this whole time, I have to pee. I gotta pee, I gotta pee, I gotta pee. In this Finally, like the stupid buck won't get out of here, I gotta pee, and I'm like, you know what, let's see what happens. So I just took a pe off the tree while wa channel buck twelve yards away. See what happened. And I went into leaves and couldn't reach a tree. Couldn't reach a tree trump so peeing off the stand into leaves with about twelve yards away, and he looked up, looked in the area of that sound for like five seconds as it was going, and then he just kept hearing it, and he's like munch on leaves or whatever, and then his head back down eating this stuff. I didn't care one bit. I wouldn't recommend that after I would never have never recommend doing They're just they've been doing where they have been playing disembodied human voices to animals out in the woods to get their response. They don't like it. I believe that they don't like it that they have cameras set up so they know when they're there and they can play a disembodied human voice and no, what's the message though, Well, they've been using the als a brasive voices they can find, so they use pundits from the extreme left and extreme right. That's part of the study. I think they're using like Rachel man Out and Bill O'Reilly or something like that, like the voices that they like, these sort of like voices that tend to make some segment of the population extremely angry. It's a prolonged debate over three months. They're not controlling for enough. I remember that being a part of it. They're they're they're the part I read they were looking at lions with how my Olwain lions would respond to human voice, and they're not big fans. Um. All right, Mark Kenyon, thank you for very much for joining us. Thank you, it's been fun. Callahan again, thank you. No, that was awesome. Mark. Thanks and you can find these guys. You can find callahana old cal four oh six. Right, that is correct. Well, see a l four oh six. I never thought i'd go on this line. That's your Instagram handle, okay, four oh six, Mark Kenny wire to hunt you runn under wire to hunt. I'm across it all yep, Instagram, Facebook, etcetera, etcetera. All right, thanks guys,