00:00:08 Speaker 1: This is Me Eat podcast coming at you shirtless, severely bug bitten and in my case, underwear listening past. You can't predict anything. Kurt Roscoe dude wrote in to say that you were harder than a woodpeckers. I want to say, like a woodpeckers pecker, But that wasn't what he said. But it had a ring to it. But it was like harder than a woodpecker's beak. But I don't think that was it. I guess it is a comment, but he was referring more to the eating of the of your trick of your hot tip of just instead of putting boiling water into freeze dry food envelopes, you just put regular water in there at noon in order there will be people rehydrated by nighttime. Yeah, and that makes one harder than a woodpeckers pack or whatever it was. Uh, were you employing that strategy on your I did a couple of days. Yeah, yeah, but it got so that was one thing I didn't you know mentioned before, is it got so cold that sometimes it just never rehydrates or it was almost crazing way it was it was snowing, So that can create its own problems too. I brought more fuel. Surprisingly enough, after our conversations, I got to thinking about it, and I thought you did. You did on several things. The first thing is is that I brought a pair of sunglasses. Oh yeah, but they were a cheap pair and I lost him on the hike. Ind so they didn't do me much good. Some dude loving it, yeah something, I liked it, and then I stuffed him in my pocket. Next thing, they're gone, and that's the where it goes. I haven't brought I didn't bring some glad doll sheep hunting, and I didn't bring a melk hunting. You talked me out of it, and we wouldn't have used them on our sheep punt. There's maybe a day. But you know out there too, I feel like the sun is so low. It's not like you know, at those higher latitudes right where you're not getting that like direct sun. It just is like you've seen that stuff where you're hunting at super high latitudes where especially get later in the year where it just seems like it's dawn and then sometime around one or two o'clock nothing changes. But you just saw a sunden registering as evening because the sun is at this super low, shallow angle way off at the horizon. It just is like dawn all day and at some point you just jumped to thinking of it as the evening. And it never feels like mid day. It's almost a flat light. It seems like almost like a cloudy day, yeah, type of it's never that just you know, bearing down on you. But you went out. Uh so, what tell us what happens? We'd like talked about the prelude this is this is Kurt doing the impossible hunt. Yeah, so, um explain the impot I like to call it the impossible hunt. I've never done it. Yeah, well, uh so we've talked about it before. There are five districts in the state of Montana that are they call them the Unlimited Sheep Hunts, and they're unlimited in the sense that anybody can purchase a tag from anywhere and go and each each one of the units has a quota typically right around two sheep two legal rams, which in most cases ends up being you know, five year old ram. It's a checked their eggs, but kind of a four and five eighths or uh what would I say, little under three quarter and and so from there. Uh, the season stays open for about two and a half months all the way through regular rifle season, as long as the quota stays open. And that's really kind of the h I hunted at four years and killed one, killed one. Yeah, yeah, well I should clarify it. I will have hunted at four years by next year. So yeah, if I've hunted it three years so far, because if you get one, you have to take seven years. I'll take seven years off. Yeah. So you just finished your seven year hiatus and went this year went, didn't see a single hold on. I don't understand this was your fourth season or not. No, next year will be my fourth season. I said, like, how many times are you going to You did it once? Yep, you did the underlimited unit once, saw sheep or didn't see sheep. I didn't see sheep. You did it once and didn't see it. You did it again, killed one, yep. Waited seven years, ye did it, and we'll getting what happened. Yeah didn't you ship? Nope? And then next year you're going who knows? Yeah, yeah, who knows. Yeah, that'll be the fun part. Didn't see a single one, No, didn't see a single one. Are you looking, that's all you do. Yeah, like your secrets special canyon. Yeah, WHI you hunted before I did? Well, I headed that direction. I made it nine miles in when I hunted it the last time, and this time I went a bit further and got about seventeen miles and uh kind of started working my way back from there. And yeah, that was just the program. You know. You get to a nice spot where you can glass and then spend as much of the day behind the spotting scope and binoculars as you can just trying to pick out you know, you're looking little rock slides, avalanche shoots, any anywhere you think it's gonna hold game, and just keep changing your angle, try and find bedded during the day and obviously the hot times during the evenings and in the mornings. So they're pretty u creposcular, like just like an elk or a mule there, like you're gonna see them on their feet mostly early in late yeah, I think typically. But the other thing I found too is that I haven't found necessarily especially elk, is that you'll see him get up and move around during the day at random times, like taking No I've caught him. I've caught him feeding, okay, in the middle of the day or you know, late mornings. Um, so yeah, you just never know. I think it's the key is just to be behind the glass and be ready for whenever they are moving. What name for me the mammals that you saw the way over? Two pounds? I saw grizzly bear, black bear, goats, a couple of meals there on the way in, and that was it. It's pretty devoid of game, no ELK, not even an ELK. Grizzlies just one. Yeah, way off for up in your business. No, he was. He was just right across the canyon, right where I was glassing for sheep. Yeah, just rumming around. What was the black beard doing? He was running away from me. I jumped him in the timber coming Yeah. No, no ELK. How days you spend glasses? Ah? Six? I was in there six and then the unit shutdown. The unit shut down. Yeah. Have you talked to the guys that mind up getting them? No? Uh yeah, you know you hear little rumors. I don't know exactly where they were, um, but you know, the first one happened pretty quick, and then the second one was a few days into the season and did you run into any other sheep hunters? I did not, not where I was. But when I got back to about the nine mile mark, I saw a couple more camps in that area, and then you know a few other camps on the way out from there. Yeah, yeah, so I didn't. Oh huh, nobody was around horse camp. There was one camp. There was a horse camp. I was really surprised to see horses back in there. I hadn't seen him that far and it's too rough a ground for horses. Yeah. Yeah, I'm no expert on horses, but it's it is just chunky, rocky boulder, you know, lots of exposure and spots um. So yeah, I was. I was surprised to see him there. What was the longest period you sat sitting in one spot? The spent sitting in one spot without moving your without moving at all, probably three or four hours, and then I'd try to get up and at least change you know, by a couple of hundred yards. But the wind that so my camp was up over eleven thousand feet and I just you'd have to find spots that are secluded or hidden behind rocks too, just because the wind just relentless but well it's cold and you can't keep your glass still. Yeah, yeah, you know, thirty wind coming across some of those plateaus during the day soul. After a while, it does, it starts to feel like you go a little bit insane, man, Yeah, it does. Yeah, So, you know, but being able to tuck off of one edge and get into some you know, larger boulders, there's a lot of structure in there, so if you can find a nice spot, but it all just spend it on wind direction and you know where you were. But I had I have several other friends that were hunting the district, so including me, there was you know, four other groups of good buddies that I talked to after they got out. In between our four groups, you know, one group saw two sheep and so it was just it was one of those years you know, they're they're they're not. So do you feel that they were in your Did you just hunt one canyon? No? I hunted. I I had a I had a plan where I just sequentially worked through the different canyons and and it really depended on on the time of day two because there's some stuff you can't glass in the morning that they would be better to glass in the evening or the sun comes up you get the glare you just can't pick it apart like you need to. Or or the wind. You know, it's hard to be on one side of the mountain when you're getting this constant wind coming through in the morning. Seeing nice beds and nice sheep ship and everything. Uh No, there isn't a lot up And that's that's kind of the differences. I was glassing from a spot that really isn't gonna hold sheep. You know, you're area where you're sitting. Yeah, yeah, yeah, look, but that's it. Yeah, trying to find goodvantage. You should have been with us, man, we saw a dandy, Yeah, real dandy. Different state. Yeah, if you have ferment in southeast Washington. Yeah, a lot of beds, a lot of tracks, and then one nice big ram. So is the fact that you're calling us the impossible hunt because it's an unlimited hunt. Everyone's going and they're chasing them and there's just success. Yeah. For example, the United I hunted this year. They didn't ever take a ram out of last year. Yeah, two and half season. Yeah, this isn't the units where they're trying to wipe them out right. No. That yeah, that was that was a little bit different. That was a very unique situation in the tendoise here, and that was like a pneumonia thing. That was a pneumonia thing, you know that they decided to, you know, turn over and ask the hunters to help with the management of it. Can you I have seventeen big horn points? Can I do the unlimited hunt without using my event teen points? That's a really good question. I'm not sure I believe you can, because man, I want to go. I know at some point you'd lose them though, so I don't know if you could put in or if you could, that would be something you'd have to check in their eggs. What I needed to happen is you to get one and then you'd want to go and just mess around in your seven year period, and I would go with you after I draw my regular one. See that's that's probably a good plan. So there's a lot of steps that need to fall into place here. But I'm kind of curious about it, man. Yeah, um, okay, So not a single elk, A lot of wind, A lot of wind. Were you regretting? Were you liking it? I don't know. It was perfect. It was. I mean it was. It was a great hunt. Yeah. The only thing is that it just wasn't long enough. Yes, snowed on me one day is And you know, in my position, one of the things that's that's really important is getting good days of field to test your products. So that that was a big part of being able to do that, and those type of conditions are very conducive to doing that. The limits of stuff. Yeah, I see the limits of stuff and see how they truly perform, because it's one thing to go out and wear something for a hike. It's a totally different thing to live in it. Yeah. So what kind of stuff you're tested? Ah, we have like future things. Yeah, yeah, we we have quite a bit of stuff coming out here January. So yeah, you can get all tight lipped. Yeah, there's there's some of it that like just give me like a you know, like a like a whatever you can. Well, I'll just say I was I was very warm at night in my sleeping bag. Yeah yeah, yeah, Yeah. We have a couple coming out in that line, so really Yeah, side zipp or center zip side classic Yeah, vent then you can vent. Yeah, he's been running like the old schooling this hoodless sleeping bag for warm weather. Yeah, I don't know they made those anymore. I didn't either. Well, it's a special um Nemo makes it. It's uh, I think it's called there are galy tensor combination. But it's meant to be like a warm weather backcountry hunters set up where no hood to lighten it up, no bottom insulation lighten it up. You're sleeping pack slides in there and to act as your bottom insulation. So I mean the whole rig is I mean the bag compresses down to like this. I think it's right out of pound. It's a fifteen degree or you know, you're the pad is a pound, so your whole kids at two pounds. And it's even got like a waterproof sort of barrier over the bottom two feet so if your feet are sticking out from underneath your shelter, you know, if you're just running a tent or something. You know. So it's pretty good. But yeah, as it gets colder, um, you'd like you missed that hood. So you guys didn't make a sleeping bag. Just say, just say, would you just come out with like a single fifteen or would you come out with a with a zero I think I think if we were going to do it, we'd probably come out with two. Yeah, yeah, if you wouldn't wind up being like a like a negative and a fifteen, or it would probably end up being in that fifteen and then a zero range and totally only two and they would be conservative at that, you know, at that, and then these would probably be filled with u parts from a bird or parts the oil field, very very likely from a part from a bird. Yeah, woodpecker beaks water repellent birds. After twenty two decades, I think of sleeping in bags stags two decades. Sorry, like from the old test, was trying the whole test, people would have to be six years old. I was trying to say twenty years and then somehow as I was saying it turned into decades. Um. But I've had a negative twenty and I've had bags I think as warm as forty or forty five, and just like those fringes. Sure, if you got all the money in the world and you just want to have every bag from the specific situation, sure have them. But for for me, what I do and how I hunt a fifteen and zero gets it done. I'm a four. I like four because I got a way ass negative mm hmm, which is nice at times. I don't use it that much, but I have a way ass negative nemo bag down then I like to have. But you understand, like the peculiarities of my life. Man, we're like, I get a lot of gear. This isn't like I'm going down to the store and buying all these no. I know. I was trying to present it when I was saying from from a normal average Jones. Then I'm gonna present at the average Joe. So scrap the one. Because you can combo your bags anyways. You can take two bags in combo, so scrap. I would never go by the mega negative. I would have a zero fifteen. And then this isn't like breaking the bank because when I'm up with my fish shack and stuff and it's super warm, but you gotta bring a sleeping bag. I like just a summer weight bag. But they don't charge any money for those anyways, So I don't think you need that synthetic summer weight bag. I feel like you can just rock your fifteen or twenty degree bag, but open I use that the summer. That's what use running like a blanket. I've done that. Um. So meanwhile, while you were out there, were did you got the dates? Were you hunting? Were you hunting white tails at the same time when I was in uh, say that seventh No, I went in the Okay, So that's when I ended my hunt. Yeah, I hunt it from the first through the tenth. No, Snow, I was down weight on the valley the other side of stay. It's funny these two things that mark Canyon's deal and your deal would be in the same state because you're like hunting big horns at eleven thousand feet marks out in the bad lands ish bad lands, that sort of appearance. It's hot and low chasing white tails and what was going on? What was your deal? Well? I was hunting Montana first, and then if I could fill in Montana tag, I was gonna go over to North Dakota and try to fill at TAG over there. So you just got like little little spots, little spots public land. How many states do you have little white tail spots in? Oh? Jeez, um, five or six seven? Something like that. I mean usually hunt like Michigan, Ohio, and either Indiana or Illinois or Nebraska. I one of those states, like usually those three states like every year some cycle there and then I've been adding in like a western state every year and then western one. But I've you know, love Montanas. I've been hitting that the last three years. Do you go out and hunt white tails in Wyoming? No, but I want to. I've I've looked at it. I have some ideas where to go. You don't hunt any white You don't hunt any public land in Michigan. Day do southern Michigan, southern and northern. Yeah, I've got some southern land stuff that I hit like on days when the conditions aren't great to go into my really good areas that you know, I'm trying to wait for the right time to hit that stuff. But I still on a hunt. There's a couple of pieces of public land that I kind of dive in and try like aggressive tactics that I wouldn't normally try. What kind of public land I'm even what county stuffy Um. We used to hunt some public land in Michigan that wasn't even really that public. It was like it was a property owned by a township. So nothing you're looking at is ever gonna say like, hey go here, if you know, like if you go to a state website and you're like, here's places it's not gonna name. It was a township where someone had at one point. I don't understand how this works. Someone at one point in time came in and they like surveyed the whole thing. We're gonna break it up into lots. And this is on a lake, they're gonna break it up into lots. I don't know how it happened, but it fell back into the township's hands and we hunted waterfowl on it, trapped snap turtles on it, shot a lot of ducks off it. There were deer on it, hunted squirrels on it. Public land but kind of like no one locals treated it publicly, but it was not like a destination public land. ONYX opening up, open up everyone's eyes to that kind of stuff, right, Yeah, but it doesn't interpret it for you though you might look and be like, that's township. We went down and asked the township, like the township had a commissioner, and we went down there and said what is up with this? And he, guys said, I can't tell you not to go on it. I can't tell you to go on it. I can't really tell you not to go on it, and we took that to be go ahead. We took that to be the welcome invite. Yeah, that's reasonable. So you you chase him on county land and some state land up north. We've got my little family deer campus, a little forty acre piece, but it's surrounded by state forest. So I grew up hunting that state forest, just roaming around swamps, and that was this huge willderness to me as a kid. But you haven't gotten that Michigan yet this year. No, it hasn't opened up yet. October they still round the October one opener they do. That's just a few days away. I'm excited. I've been looking at cameras. You're heading out there now, Yeah, after this and getting the truck and drive twenty four hours back home and uh three days from now or four days from now, get after those white tails at home. Um? And what happened? How did you? I mean, I know how your Montana deal went down, but explain the whole, like what your situation was. Um. So this was a piece of public land the east side of Montana. Um. Basically, what I look for when I'm finding these spots is is public land that is either adjacent to or intersects with a rip with a river corridor. So looking for those riparian areas where there's that great cover and food that these white tails need in these air areas. And what's kind of cool about Western white tail hunting versus at home is at home, the white tail habitat is spread out over everywhere. These deer are all over the place. In my Tanner, Wyoming or Colorado or the Dakota's it's it's kind of crammed down into the smaller corridors. So you're kind of amazing. I noticed that in my house. I mean there's like a distinct line where it's like below that line, that's where the white tails live, and above that line is where the mule deers. When I'm sitting in my new house, we've got white tails zigzagging across our yard. And last night we with the spot and scope we glassed up too like impressive mule deer box up above our house. You got anyone white tail hunting your backyard, get wouldn't go over, would go over. I've a saw our car about hunting one this morning. Man about our car about tagged out. Yeah, it'll happen. Um. But yeah, So over the years I've found a handful of different little spots like this, And this is a spot that i'd gone and scouted and shed hunt in the spring, looked it over, real good fun. A lot of antlers like the looks of it. Um. And when you're out there, you've seeing other tree stands, other trio cams. Not at all. It was very different than back home. And again I think it's because because people here don't care about what you're always it's marked untouched white tailed paradise. It's like Eastern Do you ever feel like weird that pig and mud. Yeah, it's great because everyone thinks either a little like rats run around their farms and I'm just the happiest kid in the candy store. Yeah, I've heard him called that. They called them like fuel rat through prairie rats or something like that. So I've never seen another tree stand in North Dakota. I saw tree stands, but run in the dudes, we're like, hey, what are you doing? What are you after? I do express surprise, Yeah, really, white tails, there's there's there's elk up there. I'm like, oh, no, you got it all wrong. Sonny. Three years ago, I bumped into two guys white tail hunting the same section I was hunting. They were walking around it with their bows, UM, and then they saw me in a tree and hey, and they turned belly crawling on them. Just yeah. I mean, they weren't to that point yet, but they were upright to do that. You don't do that much. I haven't, but more people are testing the waters with that, and it's intriguing to me. I've been seeing more folks chase white tails on the ground and showing that, you know, it's certainly possible with a bow. UM. So it's something that I'm I'm thinking about experimenting a little bit more with. I've been trying a lot of new things that I'm going to be doing a bunch of new things this year. As far as that kind of stuff, using some different um gear to get in the tree, we can talk about that later. But instead of tree stands, I've been shifting to a tree saddle, UM, which has been something really interesting. UM that helps a lot with the public clan kind of stuff I do. UM. So, yeah, so you came out and shed hunted this spot as a scouting measure, Ye, walked it, found antlers, you know, confirmed what I thought from maps and from previous times. Kind of walk around the area and um, what I really like to find is, like I said, this public land that's intersects with that right parent area. But if it's particularly hard to get to in one way or another, that's of course something that is is a benefit to any public land hunter. Right. You guys talked about that one elk and mule deer. Same thing with white tails. It's just that the bar for being hard to get to as much lower for a white tail hunters. So a mile mile and a half walk is like most white tail guys just won't do that. I'm not saying that they won't, but just typically doesn't happen, and it winds up being like because in that type of honey too, you have a lot of guys that are going out after we're going out in the morning. You just kind of want to get up and right. Yes, not exhibition style. It could be counterproductive because it's like they don't care. Yeah, the white tails aren't necessarily living five miles away from so. So the two spots that I in particular was interested in getting after on this trip, one of them. You had a piece of public land that was from the road to a river, and then that piece of public land that was not very productive. It was grazed over, no cover. UM didn't see that the deer used it much except for yeah and sheep um. I didn't think that they were using that except for not big horns. These are like the basheep um fields, the through field rats and uh, they weren't using this area in daily maybe crossing it at night, but it wasn't gonna be spoted one to hunt. But there was a piece of landlocked public land back behind some private land that you could get to if you walk that river. So we talked about this the other day. But the basic gist of this situation was I I assumed that with the stream Acxis laws in Montana, you could walk that river to get in that private land or to start to get past the private land and hunt the public land. After talking to some people hearing some different ideas on this, it sounds like there were some gray areas around that whether or not I can legally use the public waterway to get to the public land. So I had gotten permission from this private landowner whose land was around the public in the spring to shed hunt it and scott it. Never thing coming into the hunting season. I called him again a week ahead of time, just to confirm. Hayese, it's still okay that I walked the river to get to this public land. It's tucked behind yours. He expressed. You know that, No, not, do not. And you're not saying I want to hunt your place. You're saying him, I'm not hunting your place. I'm passing through exactly and not and I'm not even gonna be on your ground. I'm literally gonna walk the I'm gonna walk in the river. I'm gonna way to the river below the below the banks. No, dear, gonna hear me, see me, smell me. I'm not gonna mess up anyone else's hunting. It's gonna walk the river, step up into the public land. Any beaver signing that river, Um, you know not much. Surprisingly, Um, I didn't see anything like that. Do you ever killed white tailed deer? Kurt Hey, Yeah, yeah, I have when I was living over in the western part of the state. You know, I grew up. What have you done that out there on the western set of state? But I want central man, we go up by my sister in law's place. It's like nasty, thick, but people in rattle in, people rattle in big giants over there. Well, my trip next year. I want to next year to a backpacking white tail hunt in like northern northwestern Montana and northern Idaho. Backpack into some of that stuff. So happily going. I can know some let's do it. Got some hot tips beats. I think that would be really cool, O cay so go on, no beaver sign a white tail. I got permission the spring, but in the fall when I called back, it was like, probably not. I've got family that's gonna be hunting his property. So that kind of threw me. For your tails tails hunt white tiss Yes, they have a like a grandson or son in law or something like that. Who does la ton white tails? Um? And what's your wired to hunt? Fan? I don't know. I didn't go that far. Um. But what's cool? What's what's what makes this piece of public great? I already mentioned the first in the repairent area number two. It's hard to get too because to get to it you have to do this long hiked in the first piece, and then you have to take a half mile down this river. The third thing that's great about it is that on the private land is food. The best food source all around these big alf alfa fields, so you've got irrigated lflf irrigate alf alfa fields. So tons of deer coming in defeat on that private land, and this public land is really nicely tucked right behind that basically, and they're bedding up. And what they're bedding in like Russian olive bushes and some intermittent cottonwood groves. You know, have you seen this down there, because I've seen this in that part of the state where they're actually going up into the canyons. Quite a waste to bed see. I didn't see that in this area, but I was pretty far from the canyon walls. Like the area I was hunting. It was. It was wide enough at that those areas were the sandstone bloffs come down and actually form like like classic like rock wall. Yeah, because we've been in hunting mule deer and sad at night and watched white tails come out of the juniper and ponderosa and there's these little like can they got the bottoms got green ash and come out at night and just do these long tracks down into hit that riparian stuff and then come up through the stage brush and ship and filter up into these little canyons to go to bed at night. They're incredibly adaptable animals. It is amazing the different types of areas they can make work. Um. In this area, there was so much concentrated cover right there along the river that they were just packed in there. Um. So this public was kind of really nicely settled right behind the food, kind of in the midst of the betting, but a bit of a transition from the best betting to the food. So long story short and all this is that I ended up being worried that I wasn't gonna have any more premission permission. So I was looking at the maps trying to find a few other spots. But when I showed up, I went and talked to the landowner, had a really nice conversation with him and his wife, and um, this is you know, it's okay, our family isn't going to be now here for another week or two. Greece and some palms. Uh No, I was just no, no grease and palms, just having a nice friendly chat. And it's a nice boy. Nice wholesome boy. Nice wholesome. Yeah, really you got manipulative. No, it just came up in conversation. I'm not going to hold that back. He really wanted to home. Starving doctor says, you can't ain't even dear meat. I don't know how I did it, but somewhere or another I did get permission, um and yeah. And I was really excited about that because I had all those things going for it, and then he didn't have to be looking over your shoulder like we're talking. You don't want to do that. I didn't want to do anything. Gray means when I was a younger man, Gray ment go now gray means man. I don't know. Yeah, it's not I just hate that feeling. Not worth it. I hate the feeling. Yeah, agree. So it was great to get that green light. Feel really good about that. So I was just camped off the road my truck, sleep in the back of my truck, camping there, and then every day would go on and hunt these deer. And the fourth thing was so good about this area was that that river allould you almost perfect access and exit without notifying deer that there was a human hunter in there at all. Because I could get into that river. I was like four ft below the bank banks. So I would walk that riverbed leaving no scent because I'm in the water almost the whole time. Yeah, I know that. And um, and then basically I'm able to hop right up on shore and get up in a tree. So you were waiters hip waiters I bought. I bought. I was stupid. I bought like fifteen dollar packable waiters wigs. Uh no other hots man, Yeah, I guess. So, I don't know for that long hike, I don't know if they would have put in your pocket. You know what those are the ones without the feet, the one for the plastic boots. But that also the same because then yeah, that probably lets the last long time. Yeah, they last for a long time. But we're talking about is um have we talked Have we covered this for? We must have talked about it in our dull sheet hunt, but yeah, explain them. It's uh, it's basically it looks like an oversized sock that comes all the way up to your crotch. Um almost, it's just got at the top end of it. It's got a little clip that goes around your belt and the bottom has just a very thin, rudimentary sort of soul. But they're big and bagging off that you can just slip them right over your boots. So every time you get to a stream crossing, you just pull them out of your pack. We were crossing the stream so much we were we were just hanging them off our shoulders strap and we get there to throw them on. Take five or ten steps to get across the stream, and then you know, take them off and put them back on. Yeah, and they roll up like way smaller than a nerve football. Yeah, there's probably a pound pound and a half. What's the fabric or what what? What's it made of? It's a seventy D nylon, I think some of the yeah, I know there's a flow. Uh. Sometimes they use it to to tin nine long. Some of them are seventy depends on which ones you get. And then um, I believe they use it's a it's a full euro thing. Coding is what they create the so it's reasonably strong. Yeah. Yeah, you wouldn't want to bush flag through a bunch of beaver shoot sticks with him, that's for sure. The guy we bought him from said, if you just leave them on and just start in, hike up the you know stream bed, crossing the stream, and then hike on dry rocks for a while. You're gonna put holes in them quick. So I got something kind of like that, but it must be the much less quality version of that. It's fifteen dollars on Amazon. Basically, it was like an oversight garbage bag that I split up both my legs. I've done that too, Contractor bags, Well, yeah, kind of essentially, that's what it was. You can get a lot of miles out of across the creeks on Contractor bags, probably more than I got out of these. It was that it was that deep though. Huh you needed it up to your hip, Yeah, there are spots were up to your hips, and I ripped at the very first crossing hip a big old hole in it. So then the rest of that night I had to just wade through it and filling it with water. I was like, wow, Okay, So I got soaked that first night, had to drive an hour and a half to the nearest town. The next day. I bought hip waiters. Oh then you bought hip waiters. Yeah, good hip waiters, like those irrigator ones you know. Uh, you climb about a creek. No, no smell ye all nice and dry, All nice and dry your sign and uh flip up into your spot. Are you carrying a tree stand around in your back? Yeah? So that's usually. I've got a tree stand and climbing sticks that I bring with me, which are basically like a big metal stick that's got three steps on it. You strapped out to the tree, climb up, strapped another one to the tree climb up. But this year, like I said, instead of the tree stand, I've got this saddle, which is kind of like a rock climber's harness or like arborust harness um. And then so I attached these sticks to the tree so and climb up to or whatever. And then I attached a rope of the PRUSI knot on the end of it that basically allows me adjust the height of this clip. Suicide prussick or double prussick wraps on top and two raps on bottom. I don't know. Pre tid I didn't pay too much, as we had a big conversation about this the r day when I used to do ir risk work, Like when you tie a prusick. If you look at us, got like four wraps two raps above and two raps below tree climb. When I used to do like tree climbing work, you would just do two below and one above and you can control with your thumb, like the slightest amount of thumb pressure would open the knot and you just like fast like you're supposed to two wraps. Then you got, like forcibly pull the rope through the knot. But the guy worked for would call a suicide knot. He didn't like it, but it was just really nice because just like a little flick your thumb, that knot would open up and you're you know, this would have been definitely been two on top to them. I only bring this up if we're just discussed this year because the same knot is great for tightening tent. Yeah guidelines, Yeah, I can see that, you know. Yeah. Yeah. So basically you've got just clip into this thing and then you are your knees up against the tree and then you're just kind of hanging sitting not not just like legs fall asleep and stuff up there. You've got a you've got a platform that your feet can set on. So there's a couple different options people do. Some people just keep their they have their climbing stick pegs there at at the foot level, or they'll put in a handful of other steps around the tree, or you can attach a small platform. So what I was using is you're you're basically a tree stand, a cast aluminum I think tree stand type platform, but a tiny miniature version of that. So instead of like a thirty inch long tree stand platform, this is like eight inches by ten inches, is a little tiny thing that you can attach to the tree that just gives you some keep your feet and it gives you like a pivot point to allow you then to pivot in different directions around the tree. So I could shoot almost three hundred six degrees anywhere around this tree, spinning around, leaning left, leaning right, um, all the time. You had to practice a lot out of this thing. Off. I did practice a little bit, yeah, but it was it was much more intuitive and comfortable than I had even expected. And so instead of going in there with you know, let's say a ten or twelve pound pack of sticks and then a twelve pound or thirteen pound tree stand, plus my camera gear, plus my backpack, plus my bow range finder, all that other stuff, instead of that, I maybe cut like thirteen pounds right at the gate without carrying that tree standing. Um. So it's much lighter weight hiking in, much less work getting set up in the tree and um comfortable. And so that first night was the first time I'd ever hunted in It was that first night of the season in Montana, and snuck in there, got up into a tree, and it was in this spot where I thought, based off what I had seen in the past, you know, walking around and seeing this area, these deer were in a transition from that Russian alfe type brush were they're bedded through this small, a little open cottonwoody grove towards the private land where that food was behind me. And that's what happened, basically. I was, you know, while I was getting set up in the tree, I had two small year and half a bucks come by, and then the course of the night, just deer after deer after deer flooding out of there. Squirrels like that Russian olivet to eat it, I believe it. Did you see fox squirrels in there? Yeah, I mean it's not a little bit. I'm sure. I'm sure I saw squirrels. I don't know if I paid enough tension to say what they were. But if I'm not a squirrel guy, Like I'm not a skunk guy, but if I see a skunk, I'm like, I register it. There's so many white tails in there, register and squirrel. You know, it's a non native plant. It's a real dell interious. But I have heard about that. It was brought in like the Depression era, wasn't it. It's fast growing, can make wind rolls out of that. I think that was what. But it's you know, it's displacing native trees. Yeah, and it's just yeah, it's like a it's all over the place out there on squirrels. Like. But the deer I love it too. Um. And I saw a lot of deer and eventually, uh at one almost in the same couple of minutes on mature buck. Group of five bucks came by on one side of me, including one mature buck that I would have would have tried to take, and then behind me another mature buck, both of about eight yards on either side of me. No one out there hunting, nobody else out there hunting, um, my little playground, and they look all summary yeah, because I mean most of them are still in velvet, still have their summer coat, kind of orangey coat. Beautiful. I mean, it's neat to be out there in the woods at that point when you're seeing deer look makes as look really because next or thin. They don't have any puffy hair out and looks strange. Their faces look kind of emaciated. Yeah, and I know they're fat and happy. And at that time you're so so fun because these deer are on such a consistent pattern. You know, they're they're going to bed and go to feed. They're gonna bed, They're gonna go to feed. That's basically all they do. Because they're not playing grabbit, they're not playing grab bass. They are very comfortable because they haven't been hunted yet at the very beginning of the season, so you can really see these dear acting very naturally, going about their everyday life. And that's just fun. From a dear enthusiastic I just love watching these critters getting to be in that kind of situation and seeing dear do dear things, you know, rather than back home in Michigan. And by the time you get too laid October, these are deer that feel like they're in the middle of a war. Zone. Um, that are hardly moving daylight at all, and you're not gonna see mature bucks hardly at all or anything like that. They're all nocturnal out here. I'm seeing four and five and six year old bucks happily hanging out, playing with each other, sparring, doing different things. That's just neat. Um. So I was enjoying it from that perspective. You're painting a compelling picture. It's not that great. You should not come out, um. But yeah, the basically just to that first night was that I saw, um a couple of nice bucks that I would have gotten a shot at if I could have been close up, but they're out of range. Um. So I snuck out that night after everything had passed through and had a game plan for the next day. And the issue though, was that the next day I had a wind direction that would have been blowing into that betting area, and I knew, like, this spot is so good if I go, I want to go back in the right away. Right I've seen all these bucks. I knew if I moved my my not my stand. But I moved where I was hunting, like sixty yards farther north to where most of those deer came by. I thought I'd be able to get a shot. I was pretty confident. Well, if the wind was good, I could move sixty yards up there. But win wasn't good. That takes restraint, man, It takes restraint to bag it because the wind's bad. Yeah, and it was. Yeah, it was tough. Like I so badly wanted to go back in there, had seen so many deers like this is such a honey hole. But I just knew if you wait till the conditions are right, you will kill it deer there. If you go back in there tomorrow and just hope to get lucky, you're you're gonna mess it up. So I said, nope, I'm not going to go to the honey hoole. There was one of the piece of public I've seen on the maps that looked pretty good, and I hadn't been to ever before. I thought, well, I'm gonna give this other spot of rest. Wait till the winds right, I'm gonna go check out this new spot. And this new spot kind of had all the same things going forward. The nine number one spot did um. It was along the right pairing corridor, it was hard to get to, and it was tucked behind private land the head food on it. But what made this one hard to get to versus the first was that rather than walking a river, I had to walk more than a mile up on top of this big bluff and then go down one of those steep, nasty canyons like you were talking about. Like basically sliding down this canyon. I had to bring tent poles because I didn't have truck and sticks or anything. So I had like like a tarp pole. Yeah, so it was not ideal, but it was all I had. And I said, well, I need something to give me some kind of support as I'm sliding down this So got down in this sound so bad you needed to repel it. That's a beat of repellent. But that's next year. Um. But got down in this canyon, got in this little piece of public land again, and same kind of deal. They were dear betted back in public russianale of cotton wood brush and they would transition through this little piece of public out towards that private land with the alfalfa. Um. But again it wasn't right close enough. So I did see another mature buck that I would have shot at if I could have but he was about hundred and twenty yards away, a bunch of doughs, some little bucks. Um, not quite as much action as the first night, but again it was I felt good like I've got a second. I've got a second big huge giant buck. Uh, not a big huge giant like m I'd say similar in that, like definitely you know, three or four or five year old somewhere in that. He was probably four or five years old. And um, he's a ten pointer, kind of tight and tall, like one thirties somewhere around maybe one if if we care about score at all. Yeah, I mean it was a buck. Yeah, Um, so it's cool to see that too far away. So then I waited until they all went through way till after dark to everything and transitioned off to those have a fields. Snuck out there again. Now I know I've got two different spots I can work with, so depending on wind direction, whatever other conditions might change, I can adjust. Now you're hunting by yourself, yep, this car camping by yourself. Just car camping. Sleep in the bed of the truck, make a little hot dog on the girl at night, drink a beer, pass out. Don't you wish you had a story like this, Kurt, that sounds nice, and all these rams some more rams, and yeah, it's a different I couldn't decide which ram I wanted to go after. You know, Um, we could go on for a while with the juxtapositions here. Oh yeah, same state, very very different experiences that happened. So next day the wind wasn't right for the first area. So now I'm going back to the honey hole. Honey hoole number one, Go back honey hole number one. And I now have learned something since the first night. I know that the majority of these deer weren't traveling through the middle of this kind of transition. The majority of them were working this edge along the northern spot. So I snuck back in there, this time with the better waiters because I had to go town and get the good waiters, and knowing that I want to go set up in a new tree, snuck in there, got in there pretty early, hanging your tree in the cotton, hanging your slinging the cotton wood, cottonwood, and um, got set up the same kind of deal as the first night. It's very These deer were moving pretty early in the day. They were very comfortable. Yeah. The video, the video you have of your shooting the bucket shot, it looks like it looks like a hundred degrees out the middle of the damn day. Yeah. So I'm not gonna talk about day four. We're still on day three. But jumping ahead each day was warm. I'm saying, it looks like it looks like daytime. All this activity was happening daytime, pretty warm. And again it comes down to these are comfortable, not very hunted deer, and I was I was kind of secretly able to get pretty far back in their movement pattern, right, So these deer were moving past me real alatively early in the day because they still had another couple hundred yards to get to the wide open field where they're gonna feed. Um. So most of mine, it was getting dark eight thirty or something like that maybe or eight fifty at night. It was getting dark, and these deer were coming. The majority of the action I was seeing was between like five forty five and sixty five, So several hours before dark they were passing by me and then making their way out to these fields. So that night got in there, here comes the deer started seeing some young bucks. Some does but I was a little worried because the first group of deer of seeing they actually cut in. They were heading right towards me, but then about sixty yards before they got to where I was going to be, they cut into this Russian aale of stuff and kind of skirted inside away from me, just out of range and this thick stuff, and I'm thinking, O my head and my head, I'm like, gosh, is that what those deer did the night before? And my memory was just wrong? Did I set up thirty yards away from like the perfect spot? And I'm gonna have another night here frustrated seeing all these deer go just out of range. Out for the last first half hour, sitting there kicking myself and thinking, should I just pull everything down and move thirty yards? Um? But there's already deer moving all over the place. I decided to stick it out, and I'm glad I did because around six fifteen or something on those lines, I'm looking over my left shoulder trying to see if there's anything behind me, and when I turned back, there's a big giant buck at fifteen yards right in front of me in my main shooting lane. Right there. Um came no I was looking this way and then turn around he's there looking at No, just kind of waltzon through and this is like full velvet, big, like a tall time kind of curling in great, big, giant templar um beautiful deer. And it was situally instantly knew, oh yeah, that's that's a buck I'd like to get a shot at. Um. The issue was that you know he what he must have done is he must have come out of that russianalef and there was one big bush in front of me about twenty yards and if that deer came from the left right of that tree, of that bush, I would have seen him. But if he came in on that direct line where the bushes in between, would never know till he was right there. That must be what happened. So I see him there two other nice bucks come behind him, so it's a batchel a group of these three bucks. He's right there like he'd be the ideal shot. Like when I planned and saw out when I sat in that tree, was like, this is where I want to get a shot at. Well, that's where he was right now. But he was there before I was holding my bow, before anything. So I see him register. Okay, that's that's a buck I want to get a shot at. And at the same time I try to grab my bow, spin into position and turn my camera on and swinging the camera to get film of him where, yeah, where, And of course that was I was not able to do that fast enough before he got behind some branches and I couldn't get a shot. I was like trying to weasel my way. Can I spin around a little more and like slip it through some branches, But I knew that I wasn't gonna risk some kind of spook shop. He didn't spook. He walked right in and was just kind of like I think, if I remember, he could started coming straight at me. These other two bucks with him did come directly to my tree stand or my tree. My steps were like sniffing around underneath there um and eventually one of them caught windn't of something that they didn't quite like, and one of them bolted. They didn't blow, they didn't really freak out, but the one bolted, and that caused the other two to kind of bounce off and they stopped. He kind of looked around and then just walked away, but no shot opportunity. That was frustrating. You know, I had a great public lam buck there in range close encounter. Couldn't make it happen. Um, But that's how it goes. And then the salt in the wound at the end of the night was that the mature buck that I had seen walked by this spot the first night, the reason why I had moved to this new area. He goes walking by where I sat the first night at the end of the evening, So again i'd seen two different nice shooter bucks. Um. That was day three. Any questions on day three? No, all right, Day four. I appreciate you guys hearing out my whole long white tail stories. Not nearly as adventurous as Kurt's big mountain trip, but there's more exciting in the show notes. We're gonna post all these GPS way points. So day four, a cold front hits. So it's going from like eighty and ninety I think that day the day three is like nineties, and now cold front was hitting overnight. It was gonna drop twenty to thirty degrees. So the next day, day four, is going to be a high of I think in the sixties. So I knew this front's passing. This is going to get the deer moving even earlier. I believed there's it's been great action already, but this should ramp it up even more. Cold frinds are one of those things that more consistently than any other factor will get white till on their feet and moving. So you guys, because they get cold. I don't think it's because they get cold. I think it's um probably because there's some kind of biological drive like you gotta start packing on the food, just trigger or something like that. Um, So, whatever it might be, I figured they'd be moving earlier. So I had been, like I mentioned, seeing mostly activity like five or sixty five somewhere around there. So I've been getting into the tree at like five On this day, I was like, I should get in there at least an hour and a half earlier than that, just in case. So that's like six hours before dark. Kind of ridiculous for early season white tail hunting. You never see that kind of activity early in the day. But it's been great. I better make sure I'm covering my butt so sneak in there. Get to that tree at three thirty in the afternoon. I'm up in the tree at three thirty five, settled my cameras, set my bows. I'm comfortable. I grab a bottle of water because it's you know, it's still a good hike, and there was like a mile and a half hike. Play nuts in here. Yeah, still in those squirrels. Though I can't I can't say one way or another. Confidence don't like I would think, see Dirk can talk. At least you know what kind of tree you were sitting in. Pat Dirkin talked about white tail guys get so focused on one thing, white tails, that they that they that they have blinders to the rest of the world. Do you feel that you're guilty of that. I'm guilty of that to a degree. I'm aware of the things that are of that are relevant to the hunt, like im, so, I'm aware of the types of trees that they like to feed on. I'm aware of the types of trees that they're more likely to rub on. I'm aware of the types of plant life that I'm focused on because I know that deer will be feeding on this saw raccoon. Would you register it, register? Yeah, I'll register most animals, squirrels. I feel like you're just kind of kind of what I don't know they're beneath my radar. I guess not not in like a not like beneath me. But I just like, there's so many of them usually I can't trigger it. Well, but you're in a you're in the transition zone. You're in the transition zone where there's not in this place. I'm honey, Montana. You're just in the area where they start to where where they you know they they're in the major Riperian corridors nosing westward. Okay, it's like an incomplete map. And yes, that's true. It's just good to know. When I get back, I will register cottontails. Yeah, yeah, I see a cottail. It will click in your mad like, oh, let's grab it. Yeah. Turkeys. Uh, he'd probably just come back and say I saw six mammals over three pounds under Yeah, but when you're seeing when you're seeing like sixty mammals over three pounds for over a hundred pounds, the little two pounders just kind of heart to keep track of. Okay. Well, I'm just requesting for next time that when doing this sort of thing, you don't need to tell me if you saw them in Michigan, because they're they're omnipresent. But I'm just requesting that in in these just keep a mental note duly noted. I will put them in the to do list next time around. So there you are, nuts, you grab a sip of water. Three thirty five in the afternoon, Grab a sip of water, assuming that I'm gonna have some time here to kind of just relax. Yeah, and while I'm and and I lost my main Nalgian water bottle on one of these hikes back and fourth, so the only water bottle I had was one of those great big steel YETI ramblers. And so in my headily, this is stupid to be bringing U out in the woods just because it's big and flashy. So in my head is like, well, I have a couple of SIPs right now. I'm not going to pull it out when there's gonna be deer moving around or anything. Um, but take this big swig and made swig I catch moving out of left of my eye three thirty seven, here's this big giant buck walking right towards me. Stop messing around doing something. And it looked in my head that the first thing I thought I saw the frame of those antlers, said that's that same buck from yesterday. He does not have velvet anymore, so peel is velvet, rubbed it all off overnight in the moment, that's us thinking in retrospect, probably wouldn't have happened that fast. But in my head, I'm like that this must be that same deer had the same kind of tall times curving in um tall browb times. And so I'm I canna let that same thing that happened yesterday happened where I wasn't quick enough to get ready. So he's coming in. I throw the water bottle in my backpack, grond my bow, turn the camera on, spin around, get into the position. All the while he's slowly kind of walking in, and he walks into fifteen yards. Um. I mean, I couldn't have asked for a better situation and got a shot him at like a fifteen and he goes running off and I got an aarrow in a public lamb buck just like that, three thirty seven in the afternoon. The video is funny because you could you could like the camera thing is funny. Yeah, I zoomed way out and the self filming self filming the white to hunt. That's kind of tricky. It's a whole lot of deal man. Yeah, but I got him on foot I got on film. It's not like beautiful footage or anything, but I thought it was great. Yeah, that was a good video. But he looks pretty far. It was a nice shot. Mart definitely wasn't that far. What do I need to do? Just go to bar to hunt dot com. Yeah, well i'd go to the YouTube channel. Maybe go check that out. Um it's on the mediator dot com to um and there's a series. I did a video every day of that hunt. So each day I I showcased what I was doing throughout that day. So there's one, two, three, and then day four and five. I put in one video at the end because double feature, double feature, because I shot this buck um and the shot looked pretty good, Like in my mind's I looked pretty good. I looked at the footage because it so zoomed out, you couldn't really tell, but it looked like it was probably the back of lungs is where I thought the shot was. That's that's one nice thing about having films stuff. Mhmm. It doesn't make it worth it in and of itself, but it's a nice thing of having film and stuff to analyze huge. So based off that, I thought to myself, well, I'm gonna give just just give him a forty five minutes an hour just to be safe, and then I'll go down there and look around, check for blood, do some of that. And so that all happened, and then I got to thinking, well, I'm a mile and a half away from the truck. I don't have like my buck barrito. I have this like sled that I want to just cut him up and carry him out. I should have done that, but as a Michigan guy, like we just don't. I wouldn't. I didn't know. And in retrospect, of course you can do that, because you can do that with elk or meal they or whatever. But in some states back East and you're not to do that. Um So in just my head and it was like, I'm just gonna drag it out like you always do. I saw the little thing you had, a little deer dragger. So it's just basically kind of like a plea sold for that purpose. It's like fifteen bucks. I was gonna buy just a sled, and then when I looked for a sled on Amazon, that popped up specifically called like deer dragons and sled or sometimes get one of those otter sleds um. So I decided to hike back to the truck, get that, unload all my gear that I don't need, changes some light away clothes, come back in. Did all that got back in? That night? Started trying to look for blood. The condensed version of this is that I could not find blood that night. UM started kind of body searching into that thick stuff where I thought he must be because I last saw him going those Russian oil I couldn't believe that he could go too much further, but nothing. So after dark finally got to the point where it just seemed to be fruitless to keep on walking in there. I can't see more in ten yards in front of me. I was really stressed. Yeah, I was pretty upset UM, because it just looked like such a slam dunk that I thought for sure that Buck would be tipping over just inside the brush and he'd be right there because he ran. I watched him run for a couple hundred yards through this open transition, so I would have been I was shocked to see that he wasn't down so soon UM came back in the next morning, first thing, first light, and still couldn't find blood. Um at the shot side, just to tiny a little bit, and then after that, no blood trail. I went to the last spot I saw him again, and I'd watched the video and I was, okay, I'm pretty sure he went in front of this tree, but behind this bush. So I went to that area and then just started walking back and forth, just staring at the ground trying to see anything, and I did end up finding blood. Now I have a little bit of a unique situation and that I've got a little bit of red green color blindness. So red does him pop as much to me is like my buddies. So I'll be like blood trailing with a friend like oh yeah, blood blood, blood blood, and I'm like, oh yeah, oh yeah. Like I have to get down like really like look at it. So now for me, you need to look like the Manson murders before you for it to be a really easy blood track. So I found Now I look more for like the shape of like a blood splatter, or the glimmer of like that little like fluid glare. Yeah, yeah, the sheen, And then I spot that kind of and and I can see, oh yeah, that's red blood. Um. So it's a little bit more difficult for me, a little bit slower process. So maybe someone else would have spot all this blood faster than I did. But I eventually got it. I was able to follow a small blood trail about eight yards and that kind of pointed me into the brush the right way, so now I had a better idea of what his trajectory was. Dried up again, though, I spent the next several hours then circling out from there trying to find more blood or find him. And it's just that, like you said, that thick, nasty Russian olive stuff crawling around on all all fours for most of the time to get underneath it, because like just deer tunnels to there. Um. And after four or five six hours that morning doing that, I stumbled on bole lomhol there it was. Now did it looked like he had tipped over, like curled up. He was tipped over. He wasn't curled up, um, But but I don't know if it was a situation where he was he maybe he had been there for a while. I'm not sure. I don't know how long it took um, but he definitely wasn't like curled up, bedded. He was laying there like he just fell. Was it a cool night. It was a cool night, But he wasn't all like super stiff and regul mortists like you see many of me. Was still good. I was worried about that. If you tasted it yet. No, Um, it was a situation where it was really hot that day when I found him, and I was worried about that. So I found him by that time it was already I don't know, eleven thirty or noon or something, and I don't know seventies or eighties. And then you know, it took a very long time to get him out of there, Drag him through the river, get him out those steep river bay as. I developed like a police system with ropes to get him up and over the bank. Um, you need to develop a system with a knife in a backpack, right, Yeah, lesson learned. We can help you out. Yeah, in retrospect, I made things much harder. But he's not gonna drive home with them a hole anyway. The thing is that you can't, Yeah, you can't drive home with him. You can't cross state lines or anything with CWD and all that too. Um, But got him out of there, get him cleaned up. And what did the netcropsy reveal of your shop placement? It was back of lungs. It ended up being a slightly quartering two shot. So in retrospect, I hadn't realized that he was a little bit quartering to me. So that shot nick to the back of the lungs, liver, and then the front of the stomach, just a little nick off the front of the stomach, and then that exit wound was plugged up with like some of that stuff. Um. And so I think that led to why he was able to go much further than I expected. Those single lung hits, at least for white else, are notorious for being you know, it should be, it should be. It's a shot. You think that that deer would die, but many times they don't, or they go much further than you think. Um. So it's kind of one of those dreaded shots you hear about a lot oh yeah and alkohin one lung as I feel like they'll go miles yeah. Um. So I was fortunate he didn't go too far. I found him. It was a little bit of luck and a little bit of persistence probably um and I was really a music It's a great public land buck, really fun hunt um. So it was great. Then headed in North Dkota. What did you with your dear? So because of that warm weather, I dropped him off of the processor, so he got it frozen. He got frozen if they just get him in the fridge right away. And then he got me up with my friend who was across the border hunting the other spot. We had some uh with that elk. It's got it was hot, lost a little meat, not a little lost meat. And then I got home and uh, I was just like, man, I just gotta dive in and eat something, just find out what I'm dealing with beause I need to set my mind at ease. I took it. I took a huge chunk of it and corned it because I wanted to be like, you feel like that's gonna mask Well, that's the thing, So here's the thing. I'll work backward from there. So I went to an extreme because if it's a little bit sour, I don't you know, it's like you just got a tough Like there's a there's a point at which you're like, yeah, it's a little bit sour, but not enough to warrant. As soon as I corned it looking phenomenal. So now like I know that they that'll work right, Like you damn sure you know that you make like sausage sticks out of it, You probably make regular sausage out of it. I know that I can corn it. And now I'll begin exploring right to the point where you're you know, the end of the rope would be that you're cutting sashini slices like a little bit of coarse sea salt on it, eating it. But I started rather than starting there and have this disappointing experience, I started at what what will I know will be good? My wife aided, kids all ate it, no complaints. I did. Brian it quite long enough, so it was a huge block of it, and when you got in the middle, it was the Brian hadn't hit a little bit brown in the middle. Had it like St. Patty's Day, cabbage, carrots, taters, creamed horse radish. It's so good man. So they they had to fight with about that, like how you do they don't like the corn meat. They just sometimes they were like a pain in the ass man, like boiled cabbage just somehow struck him as like what in the world. I don't know why. Last night I fried him up bourbon fried bourbon, French fries and salad and then ever and then I have to the whole dinner. I don't need to say anything, clean that whole thing out. But with making corn meat, I had to be like, dude, you're gonna have to square up, square up in your seat and eat your food, square up, and eat your food, square up and eat your food. Fried fish, you don't say anything. You just talk to your wife and they just sit there and eat. This is a good good lessons for me to learn fried fish. You got to train them up on it. But coming from the Midwest, like where fried fish is pretty normal, um fried fish and kids, just like just give yourself a break down. Then if you're kind of like because we're strict, man, like we're strict, we don't let him off the hook. As far as they're gonna have to eat what you're putting from. If I cook dogshit, they're gonna be like, you're gonna have to eat that. It's a good way to go. I don't know why. I don't think it actually, I don't know if it actually even helps. If you came and told me, if you came and told me that it was actually detrimental and made your kids worse and less likely to be likable and less likely to be successful, I'd still make them eating because like, it's not about I'm not even playing long game. I'm playing short game. But I don't like to take them to someone else's house. When we go to someone else's house to eat and we're like, you know, square out eat, that's just how that's how it's gonna be. I can't. I'm not gonna have them go there and have to have someone makes some extra thing for them. Yeah. Naturally, I feel like kids, uh like the idea of menu and the palatability of what they'd like to eat will naturally just narrow down if you leave them up to their own device. Where where the reason I always are like, yeah, you're just gonna eat it so heaven, Yeah you know, and that and that gives him that wide range where Yeah, because we hung out with some family of mine last summer and it was it was yeah, look I'm just saying how it was. But there was like adult food and then there was kid food. Yeah, kids love it. Oh, Yeah, if my kid's going to a situation like that, it's like, oh, you could have these buttered noodles. Yeah right, They kids any butter needles every day. Yeah, yeah, you're not there yet. No, he's in the sala food now, still drinking mama's milk, still drinking mama's milk, but twice a day he's having you know, some little veggie easer. He's dabbling with real food chunks of venison in nine months. I'm we're I want to get home. We did it where you chew it up and then give it to like a street pigeon like you Actually no, but I would take meat, chew it all up and then give it to them to eat. They're drinking milk out of their moths breast. They can eat some meat out of other day's mouth. You guys got young kids, are you guys? Do you guys do the like like do you play kadhim or do you know? I know it's uh, they get what we eat and cooking salmon or you'd say yeah, yeah, it's that's really all that we have is wild game salmon, and that's that's the majority of our of our diet. I didn't win one form or another, and no, my wife Nicole does a really good job of that and she the other thing we found is if you keep putting it in front of him, you know, the first couple of times, I'll bucket and and you know, kind of our role as well. If it's a new food, you just have to try it. Yeah, yeah, there you go. Yeah, it's all kinds of stuff. But you know it's it's working because they will be picky if they want. But you know, just the other day, we took him out the sushi and total experiment and the next thing, you know, they're eating everything there where'd you guys go Dave's. It is awesome, but I mean they're eating calamari, they're eating things that you know, most kids don't want to stick a squid in their mouth, you know, to start, but they try. And I'll give you a sack of squid um because we're still sitting on some squid from from Seattle. But I fried it for him and they're like, that's good, right, that's squid. And I grilled him some and I had to defend that it was actually squid, Like, that's not squid. Everyone knows that the squid is fried there's some other bullshit you. Yeah, that's the fact. Yeah, it's fun. I mean it's not fun. It's aggravating, Like it's just like gravating at dinner. I'm just saying the same things over and over. And what I don't get is there will just be that one day when you put it on the plate and they fought it and then it's gone. They just date it all just one day they decided that Okay, yeah, I'm not gonna fight it. I'm just gonna eat this. And ten years ago, kids weren't asking for something else. This had what you had, or you went hungry. Probably probably not even that long ago. I was going I was going to a way safe number. Yeah, yeah, you got anything you want to add, Kurt, lots of good hunting stories, man, I gotta follow up question on very hunting stories because we talked a lot about gear, you know, before you went out, Um, was there anything that you brought but you didn't use? It's done. Yeah, that's that's what I was thinking, is saying a lot of weight but just bringing some pepper spray. Um. No, But funny enough, one of the things that I picked up after we talked about it you guys were talking about bringing a multitool, like a leatherman of some sort. I started thinking, what would I do? Yeah, you know, stay around, got jammed in or you know, a screw comes loose, and you know, I've I've had other little things, but I got one of those little tiny leatherman squirts. Don't know that one? Yeah, well it's it's two ounces and I don't know exactly how much you get done with it, but it's a pretty cool little tool. How's all that stuff? So, yeah, there's a few things like that that I didn't. You got in your head. You did, so you got into my head a little bit. Yeah, and then you're back came in it and I bumped it up. Do you do you bring a butt pad like a sitting pad? Yeah? I do. I took a um therm arrest made those old ridge crests or ridge runner whatever that I can't remember what they were called. It's just a real thin foam ones and just cut it down and we started making the egg crape pad. Yeah exactly. I don't like that. These guys, like guys that work with use the egg crate one, but we only run it because that's all it's available, because yeah, I think we'd all run smooth. And the major gripe is is that the the water if it gets wet, all it just like it's like the land of ten thousand lakes under your butt. Yeah, yeah, yeah that's true. That's true. Yeah, but I still have the old style. I got like a piece whatever is did at one point in time, I got where I cut off just a three ft chunk on my sleeping pad, thinking of my legs that need to be on a pad anyway, don't think about taking a couple more inches off that and making that my sitting pad. No, that's a lot of people to do that. And then to replace your pad, you just put your backpack flat down there. Just it's not gonna be pad you, but it's gonna give you some separation from the cold ground, especially during the winter. I do that. I sit on my pack all the time. I don't even Yeah, yeah, it gets you just that little bit of elevation. Yeah. Yeah, but no, I used I used most everything I brought, you know, other than the survival type things. So, but the follow up questions, that follow up question is was there anything that four days? And you're like, I should have brought that. I wish I had that. Well that one morning I woke up and it was just sucked in and it was blowing, and I started thinking, Man, I wish I would have brought a book. If you could have brought a book, what book would you grab? What do you oh? Man, I don't even know. I probably would ask my wife Nicole when she was reading and grab grab taking her book. Yeah, what's good, that's funny because I packed around a No. Actually I did read an article out of a out of a magazine last week. Yeah. I like to bring magazines because I was thinking the back of my head I could burn them. Yeah, and the light. Yeah. And if you know, with our we're always the cruise, so you don't feel bad ripping articles out and passing around. You know. I might have told this story before. This is my concluding thought. We got stuck in the fog one time hunting sheet for a couple of days. I tell this. My brother had a book. It's like the It was the biography. How the hell he wanted with this book? This is not the New York Times best seller list. It was a really old biography of the first Superintendent of the Nally National Park. But he had a paperback and we got stuck in the fog, and so he took it, cut it in thirds right down the spine, and he's like, well, I get the first third first because it's my book and I want to after to read. I got read like the second third first, and then we because there's three of us, switched it around. Then you got to read the middle or whatever. Then you got to read the beginning, and he got to read it the proper order. But that got us through a couple of days of sitting in a tent reading about that guy. The best part of that book I don't really The only detailed book I remember is how vital it was for the people he hung out with to kill a bear in the fall for lard did It was just of paramount importance to stock up on a large were they black bear black bears in the fall? To render out the large for baking, because if you didn't have large, this was no fun. Bacon biscuits, wild fruit pie cross now not knowing can you use the fat from sheep or anything else in the same It doesn't have people like, here's the thing, I was just reading this book, uh, Land of feast and famine, which is about fur trappers and the you know, they kind of were flirting with the edge of the Arctic and the boreal forest in northwest territories. Point being, this is in the nineteen this is in the early uh. Now we look at like deer tallow. Okay, Like dear fat is waxy and people trim it off because the flavors off it spoils in your freezer. It's coats the inside of your mouth with wax. These guys would trade in. They would trade and rump fat. So when you like, if you kill a summer deer, you've seen this mark, no doubt where you skin it and along the rump you got these big flat hunks of fat. They would square those pieces up and use it as a currency. It was of such value to them to slice and eat it. And that's tallow. But like you don't When we were kids, we would, Me and my buddy Eddie Lulfs used to take dear fat and melt it on a burner and put it on our boots to water proof our boots. But it doesn't smell that great. If you take bear fat, which is more like you know, it's not waxy. So you take bear fat, mountain lion fat would work because that's not why acually at all we were eating that. That's pretty good pig fat, and that renders into a lard. You can make a similar product with deer, but it's tallow. So you ever tried rendering beer like me, Eddie Lulas rendered a bunch of it, and my friend Layton and that and the product you get from that is still smells. It doesn't smell nice. It doesn't say waxy to eat. My friend Layton would do. He did a couple versions. He would make a boot waterproof and he would get he would go out and harvest his own pine pitch. He would track honeybees. He'd sit in his yard and see a honeybee and he'd watch it. You know, the tom petty song. I can track a single bee to its hive. Layton couldn't. He would. He would be in his yard. You'd be in his yard and a honeybe had come by. He watched that honeybee go and he'd mark in his mind where he saw that honeybee vanish. The next day or whenever he had more time, he'd stand in that spot and wait till honey bee came by and mark where it went, and again and again and again until he was standing there at the hive with his chainsaw, and he chainsaw the tree apart and get the bees wax out. He'd go out to harvest his own pine pitch. He would wound pine trees and get the pitch and then render down dear fat and calmbo to make like a tribe blend waterproofing agent. It was hardcore. Was hardcore. He one time had a sheep and a bear killed a sheep, and he killed the bear and fell to the hole and it ate the bear. The whole thing worked out for it might have been a goat sat his own goat carcass, mourning over his goat carcass while waiting for the bear to come back to his way. Hardcore. He was a tree man, arborist. Um. What was the point? I was making point being, I don't well, I don't think he would bake, and I can't say this with certitude certainty. I don't think he would bake with deer tallow. I think that someone should try, and that might even try this year. But you can definitely bake with bear lard. And at one time rendered down fat from a buffalo, and that fat was good, and I kept some of that in a jar just to see how long it lasts, and I kept it for five six years, and the colors slowly changed over time. It started out pretty orange because the caratin, because it was in the summer in their fat turns orange and the summer are eating the one they're on green grass um. And over time it turned kind of whitish and then kind of yellowish. But it was good to eat. But that fat's good to eat. It's not waxy, and it's not off tasting. But the off tasting is something that we've only recently decided is off tasting, because, like I said, if you read about indigenous people as they trafficked in it and liked it, they didn't, I think it was off tasting. Apparently. Yeah, that's my concluding thought. You got a cluder mark, you know. I guess the only thing I would say is just um. And we've talked about this in the past, but one of the greatest challenges that a lot of hunters, especially east of the Mississippi, deal with his access finding places to hunt in their places continue to lose people are losing permission. Stuff is getting leased up. It's harder, Yeah, And I think I just echo the fact that there are a lot of great public land opportunities for white tiled deer hunters. It doesn't I think there's a misconception and it's changing, definitely, just changing over the last three to five years. But there's been this misconception that public land for deer hunters is lousy. Um. And there are spots that are really challenging, no doubt about it. But you can find you down to your state game area and parking the marked parking lot. Yeah, it might be a little chaotic, yeah, but you can find like really interesting, exciting opportunities that you don't need to pay lease fee, You don't need to pay an outfitter um, especially if you go west of them, if you can take a little drive, go west of the Mississippi, these great plain states have tremendous white tail hunting opportunities that are not getting tapped into. And it's a fun little adventure camp out. See a new country hot dogs. He hot dogs, grew up a steak, he baked beans out of can for squirrels, paid more attention to squirrels. So I would just say, you know, it's possible. It's a lot of fun, doesn't need to cost a lot of money. Um, something considered Janice. And if you want to be a sheep hunter, you don't have to go to Alaska and pay twenty thousand dollars or he gets super lucky. You can come to Montana and just over the counter buying going to Great Hike. Just get a beautiful scenic window. Don't need to bring a rifle. But yeah, he could be a sheep hunter for next to nothing. A guy wrote in he always looks at the show notes and sees it talk to you. You know, it's like your names are in there. He was thinking it was Janie. He's like, man, it's Janis person never says ship. He's expecting to hear a female. It's like Steve and his Yanni guy. But then Janie must be someone like an engineer who never gets to talk. I think I've told you this before, but one of my first jobs was answering phones for my dad when his company is just based at his house and after school, UM, I would just roll in and answer phones for two or three hours. Building this is funny, Building inspector, and uh, I would it was before when I was really young, before my voice broke. Then nobody could tell, and so I would just roll with it. They just thought they were speaking to a young woman, I guess. Jane says like, yeah, yeah, really yeah, I mean so I was. I mean, I was young, you know, I was probably I don't know, twelve. So you've got a good character to be able to do that, just running with it, like, you know, my wife is real mean and didn't change your name to my name. Me check into a hotel. We check into a hotel and they call up. They're like, hi, mr Finch. I'm always like man, and have you come down everybody? How did that go? Or maybe that's not a conversation for this po go Why is she so mean? No? No, no, like, how did the decision to keep Finch versus because she she swindled me. She said, well, I don't feel like going through all the paperwork. When my passport expires, maybe i'll do it. Then passport came and went. She went out and got like a little email address that kind of throws a nod. It's it's horrible. I have to say. I say, this is the thing I always bring up, like I say like, um, people have to be like, oh, the Ronello's are coming over, and her too. My wife's reasoning was she had had that name already for nearly thirty years. She should have been sick of it. Right there you go, So she kept hers too. Oh yeah, me and Yanni. Man, I got no. We got no control over our women. Man. So that's why you guys get along. So while you can kind of convincer women, our women just our women just run over us, man. But that we got no say enough. That's brutal, you know, we just sit there and just take it. Mrs Kanyan and Mrs Rasco. Yeah, oh yeah, no questions there these days it's fifty fifty. Yeah. I feel like I know a lot of gals that I'd be annoyed if my daughter took some dude's name. Really, yeah, it's from her name. She's got a good name. It's got a good ring to it. Hold on, there's a name for what you just did. It's called the pockets Urt. You got your conclude hers final thoughts, Oh, man, I'm doing good. You got it all. You're spent. Yeah, yeah, it was really interesting. No, that was mine was two It was working off of marks, telling everybody can go be a sheep hunter from next. That was a good concluder, all right, man, guys, uh, next time you got a couple of hunting stories, you know where to find us, come back and join it. Thanks. Thanks,