00:00:01 Speaker 1: Hey, I'm Tyler and I and you're listening to the Element podcast. What's happening on my woods? People? We are. We're trying to figure out anything we can do to hunt right now. Deer seasons are closing all around us, and we're still wanting to h We're tired of it. So, uh, we're chasing pigs, We're chasing squirrels, whatever we can get our deer, get her paws on deer, some types of deer. We chased a deer recently. We chase them down. Come you put my aces to work, chase them. Yeah, that's right, man, chasing January did chase one the other day. I guess we kind of told that story recently on the podcast. We're all really tired, so if you're a continued listener, we appreciate you sticking through the last one. We were all real tired at the end of a long trip, but it made for a slower pace, kind of nicer hang out session. Today is gonna be a lot of tactics stuff. Um uh, Tactics might not be the right word for it, but it kind of it's part of the process, you know. It's not like how to kill a deer. Necessarily, but it's how to get into a tree so that you can kill a deer. Yeah, it doesn't really tell you where to set what treaty set in, but it tells you how to get into a tree effectively safely. You know, we're going to talk to our buddy Chad Rice Chadwick Rice as he's sometimes called. That's his full name or part of his full name. I guess, I like what Actually, that's what I call n So I'm gonna talk to him. He's from Cruiser Saddles. If you don't know, he is the brainchild over there. He uh created Cruiser saddles, which are the saddles we use, super comfortable and the chech is two super good dude who hunts and uh takes what he learns in the field and applies it to the stuff he produces. So also takes good care of his family. He does. He's good. He's always like again, man, gotta chick on my wife and see what she needs to get done tonight. You know it's good man, He's a good dude. We uh we actually hung out with him were we in Nashville. We hung out with him a couple of times. Yeah, that was fun or once maybe going out way past my bedtime, eating ice cream and all kinds of stuff. Yeah, some good stuff that was good ice cream. Uh. And we had a really good Indian food place that burned me down. The thing I got was too hot. I got like hot food and it wasn't bad, but it was just like I couldn't enjoy it because it was People don't talk about any of food, but it's like a for sure, probably like top two or three hottest food in the world. Yeah. I feel like Thai food gets gets the reputation. Mexican food can some kind sometimes be spicy. I don't think Mexican foods all that hot. It's just the Yankees who doesn't. They don't have like the palette for black pepper. I'm sorry, y'all are listening from Michigan right now, he's talking about you. Okay, Hey, Mark did him well? D Mark Kenyon can hold his own when it comes to pepper and Mark. Yeah, way to go, Mark. It's something right uh uh anyways, Uh yeah, well you hung out with him doing that. We hung out with him, uh, doing some turkey hunting him. The guys went out and deer hunting with him for the Tennessee velvet season. So Chad's a good friend, he's a given guy, and he uh makes the saddles that we use. We don't always exclusively use saddles, though, no we don't. We spent some time on the ground, quite a bit of time on the ground, actually, more than what I even intend to usually, Like I said, out this year trying to sit in a tree, and I still killed a couple of deer from the ground. So yeah, it's uh, you know, it's just one of those things that you can use kind of guilt free. You know. It's like eating a piece of kale. You know, you get the food that you need, you don't really get the taste that you need, but you, uh, you're guilt free at the end of the thing. Man, I don't know I had kale in years. I used to the worst food, thinking with cattleen or dressing because I thought it was healthy. You know. I heard a guy explained this pretty good the other day. This is way off topic, but that's how we do. He was like, you know, if I was trying to distribute seeds, I would make something tasty around that seeds to encourage people to eat me. Um. If I was trying to live my life as a green plant and not get eating on I would make it to where it's not good for you, and where when you ate it you had addverse effects, which might have something to do with while when you eat a lot of greens you have adverse effects. Right. So it's kind of like, well, maybe maybe we need to rethink this greens thing, because let me tell you something, when I'm eating red meat mangoes, I'm peak performance, yes and honestly, uh, like on that hunt the other day, we went on a couple other times, a lot of meat, a lot of fruit. Maybe told till you here and there, and I tell you what, man, he's a fruit for sure. Uh fruitcake. Man? What can you say that about that guy? Yeah? Man, he never gonna let us on this show. Hey man, we're just other Texas podcast hang out, but the powerful grade Joe Rogan I like the show sometimes, uh, sometimes not. But anyways, Um, what we thought we might talk about a little bit here kind of leading into chad Um what was not is uh we talked about some of our top setups from this dear season, like when we felt like we were in the chips in the setup was like money, right, Tyler, Can you think of one of those times that you felt that way? I got two of them that are about a week apart. Um Nebraska, So a place that I hunted actually sat what eighty something yards from where I sat the year before, which you sat in that night, and I going in that night. I felt like I really wanted to sit in that area that I ended up sitting in because of I had seen a good buck earlier in the hunt the year before when I killed like in that area. So I kind of worked my way up through that stuff. You helped me out. We're trying to make a decision on you know, what is the the best place for me to sit that evening, And eventually we got far enough into this place and close enough to the old the stand that we found like the trail and it is drought, but it was like just beat down man, And I was like, oh, dude, I can sit there and shoot from this tree. This is gonna be awesome. Man. When we got set up in that tree, you know, I had probably the most comfortable like, uh, when a deer comes down this trail, um, I can shoot, It's you know the trail I best I could get was like thirty yards twenty eight yards something like that. So under thirty yards um to the trail. UM didn't have to worry about when too much UM. And I just I made a killer shot. And it was because I wasn't just doing something wag monkey in a tree or on the ground and trying to you know, being all off kilter and stuff. And I ended up making a really good shot. But it just felt like that evening, you know, bed defeed, I was sitting pretty far from you know, like right in the middle of food and bed pretty much and she felt good about it. And then and then, uh, kind of same deal in South Dakota a little different, but had uh basically bed at a buck in what you'd call maybe a peninsula, even though the creek system was pretty dry, actually real dry, pretty much all the way across. It was a peninsula that had been derived from this creek system. And then there was a water hole that I had assumed was in there, and I assumed correctly. Once I got in there, I found the waterhole sick trail coming right into it. Uh. The tree was a mess. It was a lot different than the Nebraska tree, just a real bad angle everything was creaky and cracky, and all the bark wanted to come off, and I couldn't get my platform, you know, just because of the angle. It didn't want to sit on the tree very well. And I finally made it work, but it just like every time I moved that the bark wanted to move and stuff and crack. So it was not the most comfortable setups and I ended up making not a so great shot. But I felt really good knowing where the trail was that if the deer came out that night, he was going to either come to that water or come down that trail and go to You were in the spot in a in a good position, partly because of your sad on hunt. Yeah, I mean, I don't know if I could have got I'm almost sure I couldn't have got a tree stand. Could you hunt that from the ground, So that's the only way to really hunt. And yeah, the willows are just too thick grass and willows too tall, too thick. It had had to be above just a little bit. So I've got to that I can think of too that I felt really really killer in the tree I killed from South Dakota. It was just that was a money spot, dude. I mean, I could have had de year come in in the spot where I had too much cover and couldn't get shots, but they chance that they were going to filter right to where we were down out of this agg food source down the hill, right to where I was hanging. And it was just perfect, man, because it was an elm tree that had a trunk that went like tin foot up and then it all split out, so there's like separate trunks for me and Greg to both be in and I just had like a perfect little hold. Now, I did, um make a saddles a platform adjustment, like as the started getting daylight and realized like, oh, I need to be up a little higher, which was nice because I could do that quietly. You know, it's not a big stand you're having to move around or anything. I did shoot that deer if I remember correctly. Uh, I don't remember. I think I turned around and shot that deer standing up as opposed to leaning into my tether. But that's kind of the nice thing about having a platform to stand on while you're still you know, saddle hunting, is that you can just you know, stand up and shoot your weak side really good. Um, and then the other spot that I felt really really good at I didn't kill, but you did. UM was recently in South Texas. UM. One thing I learned this year, and you and I both talked about it some too, is shadows and how they can give you away and also how you can hide and hunt in them as well, and the way the sun works. So I go back to Kansas, not a spot where my setup was great, but I killed a really great deer there because this partially because the sun was right on my back and that deer could not figure out what we were because he's blinded whenever he looked at us. Uh, you kind of take that and turn in a different direction. In South Texas, we were down there and we had the sun at our backs, but we had a big uh bush behind us, and then we had grass in front of us that was like almost chin high. When you're sitting down and like literally all it's exposed is your head, and then it's also like back cover to the max. So any deer looking at you is probably gonna see just a black blob and you just you're like in the money, and you killed a buck right there, and we had, you know, like it was weird because there's like, there's that pass, a tall grass there, and on each side was a good trail. So it just felt like and we had seen a good buck go down one of those trails the day before, and you just when you when that happens, you just if you can shoot both those trails, it's pretty good feeling, you know. Well, I felt like something's gonna die that morning. Anything appreciate nice stuff. So I guess kind of to play off of that, uh to say in Chad will be the first one to say it is that saddles are a tool in the toolbox, but it's an effective tool in certain situations. But ground hunting is good too. I think that Tyler and I are both in agreeance that a saddle ground combo just under if you can do your best to understand how to hunt in those two situations, you can hunt a lot of places effectively, for sure. I mean, I think back to some of the stuff we did in Arkansas clay, and I mean I was in a tree a lot and the saddle is just I mean that stuff is so gnarly, so nasty, like those places have either been cut or not been cutting a long time, and so the trees are just wild. Some of them are huge at the base. You know, you have to you have to really work hard to get your saddle into a tree sometimes, but you have the options once you get up there to work your way in between these windows of all these limbs and stuff, and that's you know. Actually I killed a dough on that trip, and I actually sat on the ground, but plan on being in a tree. The reason I couldn't, I didn't get into trees because I just could not find a place where I could shoot. This was this was a place that if you're asking, like if I felt confident in the set up, felt like that I was going to have a shot at some deer that morning, I felt great about it. But I couldn't get into a tree. If I got into a tree, I might killed a really big buck that morning. But I couldn't. It wasn't because the saddle stuff. I couldn't in a tree. It was because there were limbs that I mean, I couldn't get more than like seven ten yards shots with all the limbs that were in this area. It was very unfortunate. But I just I did to get on the ground because I could shoot under all these limbs and that's where you that's what you run into sometimes. And in another reason that, you know, bringing a saddle in with you is good because, uh, if you want to sit on the ground, you don't feel like you just overcommitted or you're not tired and making dumb decisions and getting up in there and not being able to get shots. So yeah, for sure, Well Chad's got a lot of good thoughts on this stuff too. He's uh kind of uh, you know, we are people who have adapted the saddle, are adopted, not adapted to adopted the saddle. Uh, And Chad kind of uh created a saddle kind of out of nothing, you know, just with thoughts about how he can do some things better or whatever. So like he kind of has a different approach, kind of an engineering type mind of things. We have a pretty practical approach to stuff about how it works or it doesn't, you know. And now, don't get me wrong, Chad is a pretty straightforward guy. He says, it's like this man a whole lot. So we're we're really good friends with this dude, and he's got a lot of good stuff to stay. So let's just hear what he has to say. On the phone. It's like this man, we got Chadrick Rice of Cruisers saddles to talk to us about all kinds of stuff. Chad, what's happening? Man, Well, it's like this man. Uh just L I V A and you know, living day to day. Bro oh man, that's hilarious. And all the twenties something you older lost already Michael turned it off. They keep saying the same age. You know, all the twentiesothings do that's right? Yeah, well, uh. One of the things that we've talked about in the past is how we're all Southerners, but you kind of say things different than we do. And uh we say, or I do I shouldn't say, well you I say here's the deal or something like that, and you say, it's like this man, and it's like it's so uh commanding, you know, you just like take control of the situation when we do that. Man, I don't know, man, it's just uh, I don't know. This is a natural thing I do. That's my old man. I guess my old man taught me that. Yeah. You you learn a lot from you old man. Yeah, he's uh, he's very seasoned. So I've learned a lot from that guy. He's done a lot of things. That's good man, that's good. Well you you uh as everybody knows, build the best settle that I've ever put on. Um and uh we've been friends for a while and use your stuff and you dead go spend a lot of time and then things messing around trying to come up with some new stuff to add to or not. You know, it's kind of one of the things. It's it's interesting in in the product world of guess where you know, innovation kind of drives ails sometimes, but at the same time, sometimes you just got something that works, you know, and I know you've got some different things going on and all that kind of stuff, and there's still people selling spacilors out there. Yeah, you know, there's definitely several ways the skin of cats. So yeah, that's another one. You'd like to say a lot. I heard you say, did you so? I never heard that I heard it before to you, but yeah, so, uh this season though, you did you start like the actual deer hunting stuff was was with Hunter and Brian and them, Is that right? Yeah? Man? So you know Tennessee has an early velvet season. Uh, it starts I believe it's the last weekend in August. So you know, Brian and Hunter and uh the interns at the time came up and uh they came up and uh, you know, I tried to put them on some deer and um, you know it was tough, man, It was really really tough. It was hot, um, you know, but we I got on some deer the first day and that was it. The first day. First or second day, I can't remember. Um. And then like we drove around trying to get permission on quite a few pieces because we just from we're not seeing a lot. And then uh, you know, hell Mary Hunter he uh, he seems to always finish, right, So yeah, he got one on the last day. He made it happen man as a as a cool to watch from here for sure. I I actually was on a hunt. I probably left about the same day they came home as well. I probably left from my hunt, uh, which was a different kind of deer hunt from your deer. But uh, you started there. He started in August. Temps are probably like in the nineties or something pretty hot. And then kind of take us through the season, tell us kind of where you at just high level hit on some of the stuff that you did, most of it pretty local or did you travel something? Well, man, it's like this uh um, Now, yeah, stayed local. UM started off that velvet hut and then you know, regular season opens in September and I hit it pretty hard. As you guys know, have a a pretty giant buck that I've been chasing for the last couple of years. And uh, I got a picture of him, so I was trying to chase him, and I don't know, man, he kind of disappeared. I think he I may have spooked him off the property that I'm able to hunt him on. Um. So unfortunately, I never laid eyes on him this year, but stayed local. Uh. Hunted quite a bit early season, all the way up until like, uh maybe like late October, um, first week in November or something like that. And then unfortunately, I had an issue go on with my eye, my right eye, which is you know, my toime in and eye, and I couldn't I couldn't see my pens on my bow. It was kind of it's a little scary. Actually, it's a it's a condition called u v itis, which is inflammation of your iris and uh, you know, it's like it's very painful. You get blurry vision. Um, so I couldn't even see out of my right eye for like, I think it went on for like six weeks. So it's kind of scary, like kind of like mid November kind of like hyping and you're like, yeah, man, I hadn't really been able to hunts, Like, oh my gosh, you serious? Yeah, Yeah, it's really kind of suck. Um. You know, so like last year, as you guys know, my wife's in law school. So last year, her mid terms like hit right during the rut, so she's studying like a mad woman, and you know, I'm trying to get out when I can. And so last year the rut, Yeah, the rut got ruined because of that. And then this year, as soon as the rut hit, man, like my eye just flared up and you know, just ruining the season. Honestly, Um, is that hereditary or like, what what's up? What's it? I mean, I feel as if they're probably people listening here, like I don't want that either, So how do I not get it? No, it's hereditary. It can be caused. It can It's like inflammation, So I have like high inflammation to my body um, just based off of like I got bad jeans, you know what I mean, thanks to my family. This is hereditary. But it also I mean, you know the lay person can get it as well. Um. It can be caused by it can be caused by injury to the eye, which I didn't have. It's just like a hereditary thing, you know, like adults, you know, senses for some people who creates like a heightened sense in other areas. So for you, you might be just like your your eyes may not be working, but your mind's eye may be working and just creating the best stuff that you know is in the hunting world right now. So my third eye, third eye just now he just had there smelling them deer up like I like, I kind of see blue chi man. Just no, no, none of that happened. None of that happened. Unfortunately. What did you do to uh circrament that? Well, I was gonna say, I did go out quite a bit, um And you know, luckily, I don't know if it's a good thing or not. Honestly, it's not a good thing. But with a with an eye that's injured, I can still shoot a gun with my left eye. So I did go out during gun season and uh still stayed in the woods quite a bit. UM, But unfortunately I just didn't I didn't see anything worth shooting. I saw quite I saw a ton of deer, and uh, I saw a ton of deer. I would shoot with my bow, but I'm not gonna shoot just anything with the gun. And UM back when this uh uv I just first flared up, I actually did shoot at a pretty good buck uh there on that property that I have in my neighborhood. UM probably about a hundred thirty eight pointer. And yeah, he was. He came out with like three minutes left and legal shooting light. I had a decoy set up. He kind of circled around down wind of the decoy, ended up coming like fifteen yards at the base of my tree basically, and UM drew back on him, and I'm like closing my right eye and opening it and trying to just get my pen settled to where I could see it still kind of blurry. But uh, in the midst of all that, I didn't see the grape vine hanging down from the tree right beside me and smashed it so that deer ran out of my life and UM never saw him again. So hunting is hard, man. Bow hunting is hard, man. Like, that's one thing people don't understand. Man. As you watch all like you can sit there and watch it. Uh, thousand videos of dudes killing a deer with a bow on YouTube right now, if you want to go, look for a thousand videos to watch. And they all kill him dead man. And then there are literally millions of dudes out there chasing them this year that most of them have, I mean probably most of them have a miss or a bad hit that they never recovered the deer on. And it's just tough, man, I mean getting shots especially in trees, you know, like sometimes you can't trend the trees. Some states, you can't bait and get a shot at a deer that's standing still, you know, potentially in the rut the deer's running through and you have to grunt stop and he's on edge. Like so many different variables right, and and it really is I don't know. I just like to offer up some encouragement in this one for the listener, because, uh, it's good to hear the guys that you know, you think do it all the time, say, man, I messed it up, you know what I mean? Because you there's some people out there that won't let you see their mess ups. Yeah, plain and simple, And it's on YouTube. All the good ones are on YouTube and you never see the bad ones. And I understand why because there's a bunch of main people out there, you know. But uh, but it is just like I just want to encourage people like even old Chad Rice Man just the coolest cat in the woods still you know, hits a hits a grape vine, you know, every once in a while. So yeah, yeah, most most of the time, I hit a grape everyone. Once in a while, I hit a deer where I'm supposed to. Yeah. Man, it's uh. Bow hunting is probably one of the hardest things I've ever done. It's a game of benches and it can go wrong, uh real quick. But rewarding though, you know when it does. It is it's it's really fun to shoot one and and actually make a really good shot. And you know, you work hard all season and when you when you actually pull it off, man, it is super rewarding. Yeah. A part of a part of like what you're talking about here is you're working. You're working in the off season and during the season sometimes to just make sure everything goes right for you. And a part of UH, deer hunting a lot of times is hunting out of a tree. UM. And so for you, you're you're like going through this season. You know, you're not just trying to kill a deer, but you're also testing gear. You're getting ideas on what you're going to develop, UM that could help you and potentially help others who might be hitting grape vines too or whatever. And how do you like what are some of the things that go through your mind when you're trying to you know, when you're thinking this is something that could help people. What are some of the things I know, you know, you recently just released some news of the A T A that's pretty exciting. UM. But there's there's different there's different products and what you're offering that you're trying to help people basically be more successful, right, I mean, how how do you look at that? Uh? Man? Really? I guess really a start for what I like in a system, like what works well for me? What what's gonna help me be the best mobile hunter? Because that's kind of you know, that's pretty much what we're doing. We're we're we're getting mobile. We're trying to climb crazy trees, trying to be able to get in any tree and uh be lightweight and not have to worry about, you know, the durability or gear. So um, really, for me, it's just about using it, um, figuring out you know, if something works, something doesn't work, if I'm using someone else's product, Like, what do I like about it? Uh? So you know you mentioned we released some news, so we have a a new backpack coming out, and you know pretty much have been using a specific backpack from another manufacturer for the past shoot, I don't know, four years, five years, something like that, and I really like I've bought other packs in the past and tried to replace it, and I just never could because I really liked that backpack. Um, it was just a small day pack. Everything packed in it. Well, it rode really well on my back. Um had a kidney belt on it, so you know it it rode high above the saddle. Uh. So, to be honest, I mean the best uh you know, the best form of flattery, flattery is imitation, right, So uh, basically, just I didn't copy that pack completely, but I did take a lot of the stuff that I liked in that pack and uh, you know, twisted it. So it's like a songwrighting man, Like, there's only so many ways to write a good song that people are gonna like, So how do you change it a little bit and make it your own? You know exactly how many songs have the same four chords, you know what I mean? So, Uh, it's sort of the same thing. Nothing nothing under the sun hasn't been done before already. So it's like, uh, just put your own twists and your own flavor on it. And that's that's sort of what we did with the pack. We made it, uh, saddle hunting specific thick, so you can there there's a place on there that you can put the platforms gonna strap to the back of the pack really easily. Uh you have a huge main compartment, you have a small front compartment. Uh, it's gonna hold everything you need for a day hunt. Um. Really good straps on the side, compression straps on the side, so you can strap sticks or you know for the cell philmer like you guys a camera arm um. So it's really a great versatile, all all around daypack for white tail hunting and and and saddle hunting. How often do you wearing your saddle versus sticking in the pack when you go in? Like what what? What determines that for you? Or do you always wear this? How? Um, it just depends on how far I walk, Honestly, If I if I'm if I know exactly where I want to go and it's a within five hundred six hundred yards of the truck, I'm wearing it. Uh. If I'm going and scouting my way in, I'll just pack the saddle to be honest, because you know, you never know. You never know how long you're gonna be walking around, right, or you might not even hunt that property. You go in and you scout it, you don't see anything. You like, you're probably bouncing up on the ground. Yeah, we end up on the grounds, Yeah, because you're like running out of time. That's what's so advantageous about the saddle game. That case, you know, I found we actually spent we had like two like last day of the season hunts back to back years I think where we this was like probably like seventeen eighteen something like that. It's like a year or so before we started exploring saddles, and we had lightweight mobile stands which were thirteen pounds, you know, and then you got your harness and and of course we had all our camera gear and stuff, such a heavy white tail pack, and we're just using packs that we bought at Walmart or whatever, you know, so they're not a whole lot of frame to them or or whatever. They're kind of uncomfortable. And you go in and you walk like two or three miles trying to scout your way into this new place because it's the last day of the season. Everybody's just slammed, you know, Texas public Land for so many days that season, and you're trying to find something that and you go in and you see somebody stand that you know has boot tracks that are fresh under it, and you're like, oh, that was where I wanted to be, so I gotta move on. And then literally like one year we we did that, and we ended up not hunting because we were just like my shoulders were killing from heavy pack and we were just walking around so much and so defeated. And we like, that's one thing I like about the you know, like we're living in one of the best ages in mobile hunting, because uh, it's something that a lot of people are interested in and and with all like the Tactical Deer Hunting podcast, you can learn good things about how to get in front of deer and you can try new things. These people have these ideas now that they're you know, just like songwriting or creating a saddlebackpack. Like these people are kind of getting this idea and one that's that could work here. What if I just make it my own a little bit? And and then you end up taking you know, uh, lightweight gear in and people are being effective right now using lightweight gear because there's no there's no commitment. You if you don't find the tree that you want or if it's not close enough to the trail that you want to be on, you sit on the ground and you only carried in a few pounds of saddle equipment and it's not killing you, you know, and you just feel like, you know, if you had if you had twenty something pounds of gear on or more for that was for your stand set up, you would want to get into a tree. And sometimes you end up hunting the wrong spot because you know, you felt guilty carrying all that in or whatever. So they's just like so many different, so many different advantages that I like about the saddles. You know, a lot of guys will kind of crack on the platform thing and be like, well, you're caring treestand anyways, and uh, you know not that that isn't partially true. But in the past year you came out with a smaller size platform that I think, uh, it's less about wait and more about profile at that point in time. I love that many one man, I use it all, you know. That's what I pretty much went straight too as soon as we got them. Uh, because you can fit it in trees way better. It's not like you can stick it in your pack instead of having to strap it on the outside. You can stick it down in there and it's literally like it's not there. You know. You you might be able to recall the weight different stuff or whatever, but I mean, how much does that thing? Way, it's a couple of pounds, right, yeah, it's three pounds then, and it's uh, you know, once you learn how to use a platform, uh hunting out of the saddle man, you you really don't need much. Um. So we still wanted to make that thing to where you could stand on it, but also just offer pretty much everything that the big platform offers, but just make it smaller, more lightweight, more compact. And I think we achieve that. And uh man, I love that thing too, dude. I came from a smaller platform, and then you know, we knew we wanted to make the big platform first because it was kind of all the rage at the time. And then for me, I knew I wanted to make a small platform because that's what I prefer. Yeah, what I love about UM, I'm I'm a very practical guy, to the point that I almost like, if I get Amazon card for Christmas, I can't even figure out how to spend it because I just like the only things I think about our things that my business could use or something stupid, you know, and I'm just like, I can't. I'm so practical. So that's what I like about UM. You know, like for instance, the backpack, or like some of the sticks that we've used. You know, I've used a lot of different sticks, and for me, I you know, the sticks I go back to are just easy to use, you know. And that's what it cools down to. I'm not and and you know, at some point you get a system that works pretty well for you. It doesn't mean don't try new things. But it's hard to go away from when your practical minded kind of guy go away from stuff unless it really you look at it and you go that's pretty simple if he gets to if it's like, hey, this is a cool new system. You do so many things with it, but it's like you gotta relearn the whole. That's why we were slow to saddle hunting. I think, you know, it's like we you know, you don't know what this thing is and what are all these ropes? You know, I don't understand how these ropes work, you know, But now that I know it, I mean I I literally will just you know, it's like I could probably be asleep while I hang my saddle. You know. I feel like half the time it's like driving to work. You know, you just like you stop at this off side, but you don't remember doing that. You know. Yeah, it's second it's second nature. Man, But you're still not as good as that guy on YouTube who says you need to make sure or whatever and close the screw gate. We get that comment from man, I'm sorry, which I'm sure you should. I'm sure you should write Okay, I'm not saying that, but you also shouldn't tailgate people at sixty miles an hour, but people do it. All that's right to all caps. But you're doing it right now. Not should actually driving that two lane sixty miles an hour? You know you should getting just just get into a bubble wrapping, you know, walk around. Yeah. But to touch on the point man, that you were talking about, like you know, our our our products through like no thrill, no, like they're simple stupid right, because it's at the end of the day, man, if it works, it works like that. I'm seeing a lot of people in the industry just adding all these like, uh, just crazy things to the saddle. But really yeah, it's just it's kind of nuts, man. And uh, at the end of the day, man, we're going out in the woods to kill a deer. But that's the point, um. And for me, I just don't know, man, I mean, we're not trying to get thirty five ft high with two sticks yeah or one yeah, I mean you know, or just like a one stick and like a bunch of rope and yeah, I mean that's the stuff. It's like I'm a little I'm I don't know, I know, you're you do this for a living. You're trying to make efficient systems. But for me, like at some point, like you said, we're trying to hunt. We're not trying to show off our system on you know, some forum or something. You know, we at least some people some people, Yeah, I mean I don't and I know there's all kinds of kinds, but just to me, it's like, you know, what the point of having these things is to hunt? Um? You know, it's kind of like if you're a guitar collector, which I about near am now. Uh, you know, I don't get to play anymore. But if you're a guitar collector and you didn't play the guitars, it's kind of like, what's the point here? You know? So I hate man, I just like to poke fun because it's it's all in good fun. Yeah, Um, to each their own. It's what you like, do it. But like at the end of the day, man, we're trying to kill deer. What's the best way to climb a tree here? What's the best way to get into a tree in your opinion? In my opinion, I like climbing sticks. I like I like the cruiser solution sticks the good idea. So why is the best because we developed them first off. Um no, man, those sticks are pretty sweet. They're they're gonna we're dropping them this year. Um. We unveiled them at a t A. We just had some prototypes. They were kind of rough and you know, we just we wanted to bring them show people. Uh they were kind of rough paintings chipping, but I think people got the idea. Um. But the production run of those are going to be available in June, um as well as the as well as the uh sorry I had a phone call come in as well as the the backpack will be available in June as well. But our sticks are coming in at a pound and a half. We'll offer them in a three pack and a four pack. Um. These are all aluminum climbing sticks. Uh. They uh have a bend in the steps so they're kind of angled away from the tree. Um man, they bite the tree like better than any stick I've ever used. Yeah, those uh that type of foot or whatever you want to call it. I like that a law. I think those bite really the way that shaped. I like those. They buy really well in my opinion. What's the attention system on those? So they're gonna come Um, with an amsteel rope and they will sort of connect to the tree, uh with like a bloat a boat cleat style, UM crossover. It's hard to explain. Basically, there's two tabs that come off each side of the stick. You run the rope around the tree and you kind of just exit over those, uh those tabs, So it's sort of like a boat cleat. And then uh when you sench it, when you push down on the stick, Uh, it's sort of like Chinese finger traps the loose end of the of the rope and do that thing holds really well? Yeah, So you kind of run it kind of a figure eight style, think a couple of times right there, and then whenever you push down, it just locks everything in super quick, exactly quiet, exactly parts four packs or six pounds or so, and you sell them and you'll sell them individually or just three or fours or what you will will sell a three pack a four pack in individual sticks. UM and then uh, we also have a carbon fiber version of that coming out as well, and they'll they'll come they'll come in at one pound three ounces. And see that's you know what's funny, the difference in uh that would be that would total up to almost almost five pounds for a four pack, right, so yeah, yeah, about a pound pound lighter. Yeah so if you yeah, so it's like it's a thing. But as a budget minded guy, you can't. You can't. You don't need to sit there and be like, oh man, I don't have anything worth a hoop because I can't afford the carbon fibre ones. You know what I mean, Like, just be a little tough. Not you ain't gotta be hardly any tougher. It's like this. It's like this when you're you know, when you're a young pup, you got energy. You may not have money, but you got energy. So you get a little older, you might want to be like, you know what, I've been working some time and want to add a little more money into my deer hunting accountants, right, buy some cars. I've been looking at them. Seats with the cooling seats in the new car we've been trying to look at I can't afford them, but looking at him, baby, it'd be nice to have maybe one day, you know, but you start, my wife's car has us it kind of feels like your butt as wet. Yeah, oh yeah, my buck gets went down here in the summer too, so I understand. So why why did you develop the stick? I guess is that kind of what I'm getting to like? You you thought that you could do a better job in certain like parts of the stick I guess, like maybe the cleat or uh you wanted you know this the steps to be angled or whatever. Uh is this the ideal stick? Or do you think that there's room for you to continue to grow in the stick category? Man? In my opinion, it's the ideal stick. It afford you enough room away from the tree, so plenty of foot room. Uh you know there. Although they're not the lightest, they are going to be probably one of the safest uh sticks on the market per weight. Um. They bite to the tree incredibly hard. How long has the whatever they call it? How long step to step to step? They're gonna be eighteen inches step to step? Twenty inches overall? Um? They stack like super super tight together. I believe it's only about a quarter inch between the posts whenever you put them on top of each other. Um, how how how high do you think you could most normal dudes could get with no aiders on those with no aids? Um? I would say anywhere from like sixteen to eighteen feet, depending on your stride. I think, I think four sticks you're getting. You're getting eighteen foot pretty easily. You got an eight your system with them, or they just kind of eight are ready and get you some am steel or whatever they're they're eight are ready, but we'll also be offering an eight or system for them. Got you for sure? You know one thing I liked, I don't. I don't use the add on eight as a whole lot. Um. I've used some that come out the bottom of the stick that are attached, but I I never I haven't ever used like am still add on eight ears too much. But this year somebody sent us some and I used them on some sticks. In the way I would use them a lot of times was if I felt like I needed to get higher, like I needed to be higher than my normal set, which I don't really hunt that high. Usually I'm I'm anywhere from like my typical set is twelve to sixteen foot probably and and so, and I feel very comfortable at that distance. Usually it's actually in a decent tree. But uh, if I felt like I either needed to get higher to get shots, um, or like a lot of times you get trees that will split like four ft up and so they got a huge base and then they why at four ft and you can't get your step or or you're you're like rope on your stick around the base of that tree. But you can get it around where it splits because it's you know, half the diameter. Then I would take and put the stick up at like eight foot or six you know whatever. I could reach six seven foot, and uh, I could get my rope around that trunk, and then I would add it like a three step eight or so that I could get to that stick. And I think like that's where that stuffs practical, very practical to me. Plus, if you're not real familiar with eights, I think it can get real dicey when you get higher up in the tree, you know. So I like them on the bottom steps a lot. First, you definitely need to know how to use a nader because it can get a little hairy. The down is harder than the up in my opinion. You know, you're like you can see the thing when you're going up, you can kind of see your foot, but when you're on the way down, especially at night, when it's dark and you're kind of like reaching around down there when your foot just trying to find something. It's kind of sketch. It's where you know, the old lineman's belt is probably a good idea. You know, it's good to have a thing on when you can so absolutely man personally, which you know, some people I guess have seen this in that in that video we did, But personally, I just use like a movable later. So I made I made a three step three step eighter with like a righteous strap hook on it, and I'll just like take that hook and put it on that bottom step of that stick. And then if I don't want to use a nader, I don't have to just lives in my dump pouch. So yeah, pretty sweet little system for sure. So um, we actually did a UM video this past summer on like overcoming difficult shots and some tips and stuff like that from saddle hun from you know for saddle Casey did a really good job with that. UM. Do you when you do you use like a ring of steps or anything like that, or do you pretty much just go here's my platform and I'm gonna set up to get my shots on My strong side is the best of my ability. Yeah, basically, what I'll do is, uh, typically like set up the platform like almost even with that last step on the on the top stick, so at a ninety degree angle around the tree from that stick. So basically whenever I pick out a tree, I'm like, all right, where which way do I want to shoot? And which way what side of the tree do I want my platform on? And I'll basically rotate around the tree about nine degrees or so and start climbing on that side. That way, when I get up to height, I can put my platform where I want it. And that last stick is ninety degrees around the tree, so uh, and then my platforms almost even with it, so I can use the top of that stick as another step around the tree and kind of kind of use it sort of as a ring of steps. But for the for the most part, now I don't carry anything else in the woods besides uh, like I was saying, well, like I was saying, once you learn how to use the platform, man like you don't, you can you can even set your platform way above that last stick and still get three hundred sixty degrees around the trees. As long as it's not like gigantic. Yeah. Yeah, that's when big trees cause problems. Small and tree too big for sure? Man, goodness gracious? Oh yeah. Um. So, uh, you're more of a sitter than you are a leaner, is there right? Uh? No, I wouldn't say that. I'm probably six leaner. You feel like your mobility as a leaner is as good as a sitter as far as in the tree. Um, I mean honestly, honestly, the way we built our platform with that angle in front edge, Like if you if you adjust your tether out far enough from the tree, like your connection point far enough from the tree, you can sit and lean with just all all one motion because you want to be far enough out to where you can use the slant on the front of the platform and then it's like the perfect angle for you to just like sit down, if that makes sense, without without touching the tether at all. Yeah, you know what you're saying. So you can just go from sitting and leaning without adjusting anything, and so realistically, you you are you have the same amount of mobility around the tree because you know that all comes from tether length. The longer your tether length is, the further you can get around the tree. The tighter it is, the more it's going to draw you into the trunk of the tree, and you know it's gonna be harder to get get a shot around the back of the tree. There's a ratio here that I kind of have to miss with sometimes, and it's like bridge length versus tether link length. Is there is there a magic formula to that. I feel like the breach thing is more about the comfort on your hips and then the tether kind of adjust two. Is that right? Yeah, it's like the one to one point six ratio the fibinaci roll. Oh is it now? I'm just kidding. Uh yeah, it's a little nerding out for you there, No, man, it's just uh, it's all personal preference, to be honest with you. I mean we kind of, you know, we kind of like, uh meant for it to be like the same length, like you know, eyeball level when you're standing on the platform is where you want to attach the tether to the tree. And then when you lean out, you want your feet and your you know, your feet to your legs to be that nine perfect nine need degrees and then when you sit down Usually I guess for me, I'm like five eleven. It's the perfect length away from the tree for a sitting position as well. So um and I would say anyone that's taller than that or shorter than that, it's probably close to the exact same. Um. So yeah, I mean it's sort of I guess there's a ratio there. I don't know it, but you know, I think it might be a little personal preference to you from me. I'm not the kind of person that likes to, uh do the monkey walk around the platform too much. I like to I like to turn my body more. I don't like to put a bunch of pressure on the side of the platform and kind of get around the tree that way. So for me, I like a really long bridge. I usually end up with that thing all the way out at the you know, at the stop knot and then a little bit shorter tether and that allows me to have more turned to my body. Uh, if you kind of understand what I'm saying with that, So rotating your hips, yeah, exactly, you rotate your hips more and then you can you know, really get all your angles that way. You know. I shot a deer this year at like the five o'clock angle which was dude, it was tough. You know, that's a tough one, man. And uh it was in a real I was really high in a tree, which is not really standard for me, you know. Uh, so like it was just like a real awkward position and uh I was able to hold that for about three or four minutes, you know, before was like, Okay, I gotta do something, you know, Like, I don't know, there's just uh, there's no perfect answer until we figure out how to levitates. And I don't think that's gonna happen anytime soon, you know. So you always have these these kind of weak spots or whatever in any set up right, I don't know, dude, things are getting crazy. You might be levitating before you know it. Mean, I might be. Yeah, I don't know, but I feel like, uh, you know, that's that's one of the things with the saddles. It's like, yeah, maybe you might have a strong side and the weak side or whatever, but man, just the mobility it gives you over a preset stand or whatever, it's just so huge, and it's you know, when we first started doing saddle stuff and talking to you and in different things we're kinding. Yeah, man, we'll probably spend some time tree stand, spend some time in saddle, and I ain't touch the tree standing like three years, you know. Like it's weird how it happens that way. And uh, I know. And I've talked to so many people at trade shows and stuff and they're like, you know, they're like everyone else. They're like, man, I was so skeptical of this at first, and they're like, now that I've been doing it for the last season or two or whatever, it's like, I'm never going back. And it's like, man, it's it's uh, you know, I didn't I didn't invent this thing. I just put my own spin on it. And I guess been around forever. But like with the Internet and with YouTube and all that stuff, it's just come back to uh the forefront and gotten popular. Well, you were a rock climber, so I mean it's, uh, it's something that you have a lot of knowledge about, you know, the system at least, right sure, And I mean I think that's what you know, God prepares us and everything that we do. Man. Like I've done a lot of things, uh professionally that have that have gotten me to this point. I feel like and uh, you know, rock climbing for the saddle thing, the saddle game. It's like what helped me develop what I did, you know, our saddle and and get the geometry right and get the feel of it right. And yeah, I mean it's uh, I don't know, it's I guess I do have a little bit of expertise there, but it's I don't know. Man. Yeah, rock climbing. Rock climbing definitely helped, but it's uh, it's been around forever and uh, you know, you just think about all the deer that would have died. Yeah, everyone was doing what they're doing now. If you if you had been one of the only saddle guys hunting ladd of saddles in the eighties on public land when people didn't want to be doing that too much, or nineties or whatever, smoking, Yeah, you know, that's funny. So speaking of like different tactics and stuff, you know, to kind of go back to putting a bowl in your season, I noticed that, you know, when we were talking, you're sending messages and stuff. Uh, you did a lot of decoy hunting this year. Is that kind of a newer thing for you or is that a did you have like a thought with that was it? Did you have something to do with your eye problems you had? Um? No, Basically, he's saying that he put a decoy and hunted it. He hunted the decoy. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I shot the decoytime he did. No, no, no, but no, I mean this property I'm hunting in my neighborhood. Like there, it's super thick. It's an overgrown nursery, so as you can imagine, like it's super thick in there, and uh, there's a few open spots, and I was just kind of had the thought of, like, well, these deer don't really like to move through through the open spots that much or where I can actually get in a tree and actually get a shot. So uh, it's more about just dear manipulation, move you know, movement manipulation, just trying to get them to move where I needed them to move. Um. And also just to get like the focus off of me. Um because like a lot of a lot of the trees that I can hunt on that property, uh, they don't have a ton of cover so um. And also I've never hunted over decoys, so I just wanted to try it. It's pretty fun, it's pretty cool. Man like I got. I had a lot of like a little one year olds or one and a half year old's like come into the decoy man, and just like I got a ton of video footage of a bunch of like fourcorn deer coming to the coming to the decoy. So if y'all ever need any of that, let me know. It sounds good, but uh no, but I mean it did work in one scenario with that big deer. Um, he came. He came out at like I don't know, He's probably sixty yards away when he stepped out of the woods. There's a small little field, like a little bit of an overgrown field on this property. He stepped out, I watched him make a scrape, and then he caught eyes on the decoy, and then he kind of came around, uh down wind of the decoy, which put him fifteen yards under my tree. Otherwise, otherwise I don't think he would have came in bow range. Um, I think he would have cut straight across the field and stayed fifty to sixty yards away from me. Okay, the deer was within fifteen yards. And then what happened, Well, that's when I hit that great vibe. Oh, that was the okay, Yeah, yeah, so that's my that's my least favorite song. So going forward now, like looking towards next season, man, uh uh, if you're thinking about this, you know, our problem that you've been having is are you thinking about making some adjustments to your set up to maybe help you be able to hunt more? Like? What are you thinking about on that front? Well, you know, this isn't the first time this Eiffeler that's happened to me. Uh. The last time it happened, I was probably in my early twenties. So I'm happening. I'm hoping that it never happens again. But if it does happen again, maybe I'll be in my mid forties. Yeah, that's a long long time from that. I won't have to worry about that for next season. Is it all? Was it in the right eye of last time to you? I can't remember, dude, And that's too skateboarding twelve thirteen, fourteen years ago. I got you back when I was a heath and you know, probably drunk half the time. You know, Yeah, it's all fuzzy back in You're you're kind of a stickbow man sometimes too. Uh. Is that something that would be potentially something you do since you can shoot uh you know your yeah with the deco. Well, yeah, I mean I could have. I don't know. I didn't think about that. I actually took the recur about quite a bit early season and shot I actually shot at a little six pointer and I misjudged the yardage and like basically cut a couple of hairs off. How many times do you actually this year at at deer? Uh, let's see three times, alright, decent flaming once that once in early season with the stickbow, I miss that dear. Uh once whenever my eye flared up and miss that dear. And then I did kill one deer this year, nice man. So and then other than that, I didn't do much hunting. Got deer to eat. It's good. Besides, besides duck hunting, I've been doing a lot of Yeah, I was about the same man. What's your favorite duck? Oh man? Probably uh, as far as the look of the duck, well also the taste probably uh, drake wood duck alright, man, super cool duck man. Probably one of the coolest looking ducks there are. I got a bunch in here, for sure. They are. They are super cool. Tasty. Uh, they make cool sounds. They live in different places than other ducks. Man eat acorns hole, Yeah, yeah, eat acorns hole. That's right, they do. I think my favorite. Yeah, those are cool looking. Man. I don't know why. I just like him a lot. I never killed one, really, never have had one mounted. One time it got stolen them my dad's fishing lodge. Oh man, I killed a killed a stud drake hooded merganser. Oh yeah, out on the river a couple of weeks back. I'm gonna get him down. I saw it. Not technically a duck, I guess, But yeah, they're cool, man. They I saw the duck commander guys one time. Uh. They hunted out of a blind that was like fifteen ft there have you? Have you been thinking about potentially saddle hunting for ducks? You know? I went hunting out on real Foot Lake in a blind that was in the middle of the lake and we stood from like, you know, before daylight until three pm every day. And I'm like, dad, gum, and I think I can make some sort of like saddle mesh seat to go in this blood the wheels wheels were turned, but call it the Real Foot saddle Man. I've been enjoying. I've been enjoying the duck hunting. Um. You know, it's a nice little change of like my crappy deer season. So I've had some good luck. Yeah. Well, you know, bird hunting. What I like about it a lot is that a lot of times it's just less pressure overall. You just get to chat with your friends and talk a little bit until there's birds coming in, and it's just more social. It's you're hunting more people usually, and there's a little more action usually, and and there's no pressure because, uh, most people can't see the bands on the legs and outside of that, you know, a real trophy is only like if you can see a gigantic pin behind a pintail or something. You know, all mallard's kind of look the same until you get them up close. So it's a man, it's less pressure. All the ducks flying in there look the same to me. Black things swooping right now, I'll tell you this that we gotta we got a farm pond pretty close to my house that we've been hunting, and uh, the first Canadian goose I ever killed off that pond. While ever period, I had a band on it so that I got ruined. Yeah, yeah, some things tell I feel like there's a high ratio of those things that are banded compared to how many are the Greaters at least it seems like it's like and also like a lot of times guys, Uh, there were some guys around here that it's been a while, but this is a story I heard growing up that uh they had. This was back before this was a thing really around here, and it's still not it's still special. But like they had a bunch of Greaters land on the pond. There's like eight of them, and so they all went out there the next morning shot them. When they all came in one group and they shot all of them, nothing left and every single one of them had bands. It's like they hanged together throughout their migration a lot of times, like more often than I mean, who told you this story though, because well that's pretty reliable for us. These guys have done some stuff that's way better than that, you know, our guests, you could say, or way bigger deal. So they got no reason to why about it. If it was you know, Eric or Casey, I might not believe it, but be looking at them a little sidework that uh so, so those Canadian geese that we shot that morning, a group of five came in. We killed four out of that volley, and uh three of them had bands on their legs. Man, you're right, man, they do hang. I used to birds of a feather flock to man, that's why we're talking to you. We Uh I used to man, I used to love water fowlon which I still do. I just don't get to do it because, um, you know, nobody really cares what I have to say about duck hunting. They care about deer. Deer hunting is your job now, I guess so, I guess so that's unfortunate for a short period time, yea, until I get fine. Chad, tell us where the best way for somebody to go get a saddle? How should they do that? Man? Come see us at www Dot Cruiser dot com, or give us a ring on the telephone. Man, we love to talk to people. Our shop numbers nine three, one, eight five four zero four to zero. Hey, there's a new shop coming or a new place. You're gonna be able to sell these things? Maybe that's right? And then we uh, we just acquired fifteen acres and uh five of those acres are going to uh be the new home of Cruiser Saddles Headquarters Worldwide. Worldwide, Yeah, worldwide. Um, but yeah, We're we're building a new facility and uh one of the coolest parts of it that I'm excited about is We're we're gonna be opening up a bow shop inside of it as well. So cool. Man, Um, We're gonna be uh. So you know, it's gonna sort of be a destination place like you can come to uh cruisers Worldwide headquarters and also maybe bring your boat to get tuned or buy something else you need. So yeah, the chances the back ten acres, there's something that's gonna see some cruiser testing having in like uh with deer back there. Man. Unfortunately, there's no woods on it, so I'm gonna have to go do some door kalking because there's plenty of like woods around and there's definitely some good, good good deer in that area. So I'm gonna definitely have to go be friendly with all my neighbors and try to get some permission. Man. Yeah, that's cool. Well, I'm excited about that for you man, It's it's a big time. It's gonna be I mean y'all, y'all facility you have now, it's pretty cool. But I know I got like you've got some big plans for some cool stuff to go down, so I can't wait to come visit. Many appreciate the time today. Congrats on on the deer you got this year and all the ducks and all the fun you got to have. And we appreciate of course just friendship, man, you really are and uh I love to know you as a brother and and just get to hang out and talk. Man. So appreciate the time today. Absolutely absolutely man, love you guys, and uh appreciate the friendship and uh can't wait to see where it goes in the future. Real, yes, sir, We'll see you soon, dude, all right, gotta see you guys. Like you mentioned at the beginning of this episode. Actually, I shot a buck recently in South Texas and uh the guys were down there with us, the whole crew, as Brian likes to say, the Core six, but he's he's tongue in cheek there. But they were actually uh doing some sick fishing on the coast down there, sish in the area, some sishing, uh some clear water. They were catching toads man, and uh, we they made a whole video out of it. Uh, and we're gonna I think they're gonna like ended up a big video with all the catches and everything, and it's gonna be the stuff, you know, hundred catches in a hundred seconds kind of thing or something. What. I don't know what they're gonna do, but they just put out one where they caught a few fish, uh kind of nice trout and cooked it. Actually, you cooked it. You did a great job as a little snack for us one not. We just put that out and go check it out on YouTube if you want, and there'll be more another video of that to come and more from that trip as well as Uh, it would be the dark meat side of things, you know. I like that. Yeah, yeah, it sounds good. If you haven't, we really appreciate it. If subscribe on YouTube, follow us over there, check us out on Socialist as well. All that stuff will be linked below. Uh and uh, guys, it's never over a lot of y'all might be done hunting right now for it. Man, it's postseason scouting time, and I know y'all get burnt out on it, but let me tell you postseason scouting is the best scout, so it's the place to kill, it's where you learn stuff. We'll probably talk more about that coming up here in the future. We're actually gonna get out tomorrow and do some uh small game hunting, some pig hunting, some boating around, some camera pulling, and I guarantee you we're gonna be scouting while we're doing it because Tyler and I cannot help we get distracted. So we'll probably have some more stuff to talk about on that front here pretty soon. Also, check that out on our Instagram stories we'll have we'll be running some of that stuff on the stories. Good idea, man, good idea. Go check out the stories. You kind of see how that play by play goes on math. Remember that post us and scouting is the best guy. And remember this is your element. Live in it.