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The Element

E78: Focus (feat. Michael Hunsucker of Heartland Bowhunter on How to Make Great Shots on Whitetail Deer, Great Hunting Stories, and Much More)

THE ELEMENT — two hunters seated beside two deer, MEATEATER podcast, presented by First Lite

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1h26m

Today we have the pleasure of "bro-ing" it up with Michael Hunsucker of Heartland Bowhunter Television Show. We get to hear a couple of really great stories about a big buck that somehow escapes Mike in Iowa this past year along with a cool snapshot of the Brown Bear hunt that Mike was able to partake in this year. The main subject however, is about how to make great shots on these wary little things we call Whitetails.

Mike making a clutch shot in his homestate of Missouri:

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00:00:00 Speaker 1: Hey, this is Tyler Jones and you're listening to the Element podcast. What's happening all of its people? We're here in the mouse house again, which has this mouse house turned into a scorpion house? Maybe I found my third dead one last night? Really third? Well, I found two dead ones in one live one which I was here, you were here, was actually alive on Facebook or something or something or try to get me. But no, I've been spraying for bugs and last night I sprayed it up like around my um oven and like four or five centipede crawled out and ain't talking about like the little ones live under logs up about like the one that would hurt put you in the hospital, rought your skin. Now, I'm like, I don't want to be the paranoid type, but I'm kind of like, man, I might ada wear some house shoes around here or something. And we had a toad in my house today. I'm not sure if it was a toad or frog. It looked like a toad, but then when it would jump like a frog, and it kind of when it jumped, it had some sprawled out, froggy looking legs, you know, but it was like, you know how my insulation is kind of like light color, bluish whatever. He was camouflaged to it. Oh, it's like when he would jump, he would have like yellow a picture of dots and stuff. NA just let him go. I was tired. It was early in the morning anyway. Yeah, so I been hunting bugs and toads. But that's about it right now. We got a lot of a lot of hunting going on. We're close. I just turned in my application for Texas Big Game Hunts. Me too, so excited about that. I applied for a lot of stuff, but I'm I did my best to like not because I think you don't get double points when you double apply, Like say you apply for whitetail archery, you don't get two points if you apply for two units. So I only I didn't very few things that I double apply for, and it was things that like if I draw, the hunted would be killer, you know. So that's the only reason I did that. That's pretty much how I was like overall, Like if it I didn't, I don't know. I just there's some hunts on there that probably are kind of mediocre, you know, and I feel like I want to go on a good hunt. If I'm gonna sit there and wait for years to draw. And I'm here's the deal, man, I'm not gonna sacrifice, you know, a couple of good days in the November twenties to go to the the place. I don't know when I could be doing that in a place that I've scouted, you know, closer to home or whatever. So I thought the same thing, man. And I mean, also, you look at like Texas is large, and like, I mean, some of these places are ten hours or whatever from from home here, and I'm like looking at like, there's a lot of states I could hit within ten hours of here, a lot of big Bucks, which hours. Some of that stuff fit down the Rio Grand Valley. I'm sure it would be awesome. Yeah, No way am I going down there to hunt? No way? Yeah? Yeah, I really. I would ask if you're listening, not to put in for an alligator ever, because that's one thing I wanted to go do and I don't need you putting in and ruining my odds, you know. And just I think it's already over. But if you applied for problem one this year, you shouldn't have because I'm gonna draw it. So it's fine. Yeah, you lost three bucks there, so yeah, I I uh that that's when I put in four two. I mean, who knows if we'll ever draw that. I don't know what the actual the thing is Texas is like it wants to do this Western style application process and the whole point system everything, but like it like the people running it have more of a Eastern style of thinking. Yeah, and uh, it's not very like you. They don't provide very good odds and and things like that. It is strange and this is even what we're going to talk about. So but it's what we're talking about. But it's strange how like we in Texas it's broken down into like individual w m A s and stuff and everywhere else pretty much in the lower forty eight it's broken down into units, you know, so like say if you draw Southern Nowa, you can visit every w m A in your deer unit, you know, Or you draw Colorado, you can go to every national forest and your unit. You know. Like it's really strange how it's in that way it is man and I feel like also some of the hunts are like guided by I'm not guided, but like, hey, we're gonna take you to a stand and put you here, And I'm like, I don't know. Some of the hunts have ridiculous regulations in general, only weapons of to seventy or larger caliber. And it's like, say, first of all, I'm I like the bow hunt, all right, and if it's within forty yards, I'm just as lethal as a two seven. It's just the way it is. Well, here's another things like they allow two fifties fifties across the state, but then all of a sudden, you draw a hunt and they're not gonna let you shoot. Yeah, exactly. I don't know who. I don't mean idea. I don't either, but they're trying, No guys are. They are trying. So we'll give them that. At least we have opportunity of this stuff, because, to be honest, and I was like, I don't know, fifteen or so, I didn't know this stuff existed. I don't know how long Texas draw hunts have been around, but I mean we the only thing I ever knew about growing up for a long long time was the big game. Uh, like the ones they really promote that are like probably ten dollars or whatever they are, and you can shoot a big horn and Grand Slam or whatever, those like couple of hunts that they always you know, Guided South Texas Deer Hunt yeah and Mason Mountain. Yeah. So like all these all these things, you know, and and uh, there's only like four four hunts that they ever like really promote. So like, yeah, I never knew about him either until a couple of years ago. And then I realized that Texas also has like no grace period. So like if you don't put in for one year, you lose all your points. That's insane. That's not how you did It's not how they do it anywhere. You know, they give you a grace period. But anyway, you know, speaking of the West and the East dynamic and like people uh, people that are involved in the East and come from the East and do the Western thing. Uh. We're talking with Michael Huntsucker today, who is on the heart Lambo Hunter Show and he you know started out doing a lot of the deer hunting and east you know, in the Midwest there, so the Eastern style. And then we're gonna end up talking to him about an incredible Western style hunt that he was able to participate in this year. And you might be able to watch that on TV pretty soon if you hasn't already showed. I'm not sure Casey's looking up the schedule right now. But anyway, before we get to that, I wanted to say real quick that if you listen last week, you know this, but we have an on ex premium membership that we're giving away. Um, it's actually we have two of them, and they waited too to acquire. This member hip is to give us an incredible five star review on iTunes. It's real simple. You don't have to go follow nobody, you don't have to go put three comments and tag eight hundred friends. You just go to iTunes, you give us a five star review, and you get the chance at one of two of these membership vouchers that Casey and I have acquired so recently. So we're giving away too. So that means that like, even though somebody else wins, you can win too. How cool is that? Uh? And you know, just in case you're like, well, I can download the Onyx half on my phone and look at it right now. I don't know why I need to. These are for premium memberships, which means you get to see all the landowner information, all the public land. You know, different layers or whatever you can tune into like the new q D M a c w D layer and stuff like that. Um, but it's really helpful if you're trying to like scratch around find some new properties, right like what we do a lot, it's what we use and is how um you and I are both are constantly working trying to find new places to hunt. And it's it can it can pay off. You can get some landowner information, frome and stuff. So pretty valuable little tool for sure. I was making phone calls today based off of my research last night on on X you know. So uh, you just it gives you. It gives you a world of opportunity, you know. And honestly, like last year, we were able to kill the buck that I killed because you were using on X, you know. And so it's it's a it's a handy thing to have, so don't forget Go give us a review on iTunes if you already have. Literally you you can find anybody that has an iTunes account, they don't have to be a hunter, and just give us a review through their account and you'll be entered to win. As long as you remember what's what's your code names. Um. But anyway, we went out this when when when when do we go out? Was it Monday? It was monday? It was uh, it's but it's been a week, okay, so yeah, so it So we went out last week and we did a pretty heavy trail camera pool. We started bright and early in the morning. I got there when the sun has already started to get hot and pulled uh seven eight cameras. Baby, I don't remember something a lot of them and they were a few of them on the same property, but we had other properties, um throughout the day that we could make it too, that we're on the way or whatever. Um. And it was lackluster to say the least. But we did have one shooter we did we did. It was actually one of those new cameras we got from Extus had had set on video mode. And I don't know if we know that buck or not. It's hard to tell. He's got a big body and he's you know, mostly developed up top. Like this time of year, they you can pretty much tell what you're gonna get out of a bug. You know, they might put on a little bit extrenches here and there, but he's he's definitely a shooter. He's been sure Buck he's gonna be four and a half plus. I think he's probably more on the upp arenda like the fives or six is um got a big frame, big G two's brows. Still it was just one video of that dear, and and last year we were getting matched their groups like consistently. So it's there's a little bit of confusion involved here with like what's gone what's happening if like some of the hunting pressure from last season is carrying over into like some some changes in you know, core areas or whatever. But I think we're gonna move some cameras around and and try to figure out some other stuff over there and just to see and then maybe go back and compare some of our previous data and and stuff and just I don't know, try to figure I gotta figure this out, you know. And because the summertime uh pictures and photos thing is plagued us a little bit because last year two things didn't happen. One of our locations. We had a ton of pictures of summertime bucks, timing, ton of videos, didn't see a one of those dear in the flesh and the fall all not one that I can remember. And then on a different property, we were looking and looking and looking and looking for a teenager and we tried hard to get pictures of teenager all over the place, never got summertime pictures of him. And then suddenly in the fall he starts popping up on our cameras. Now we never saw him in the flesh either, but at least he was on our cameras in daytime. Yeah, in daytime a lot. Yeah, I don't know. We were one thing we were kind of laughing just so that we didn't cry about was um Like we just seemed to have some bad luck happened sometimes the trail cameras and so the area that you were talking about when we saw a good buck this time on video, um, we had two truick cameras in there on that property this year, pretty close to each other. Uh, kind of varied habitat areas, but pretty close to each other. And so we thought, man, if we don't get them here, we'll get them here, or maybe we'll get them both and we'll be able to put some pattern to a movement pattern. And so we checked the first one and we weren't able to actually check it because of the way at formats. It wouldn't check on my camera, so and I didn't bring my computer in, so it was out in the truck. Anyway, switch Card set it up, got going. We got to the next camera and a this camera is on a tree that's like a foot diameter maybe yea, and it is crushed by a bigger tree. They're both laying over and our cameras facing straight down like it couldn't have landed, and you know, pointed out there the correct direction it is facing straight down. We're like, good grief. And so we're thinking, okay, well maybe it just happened, you know, that'd be awesome. Um, And we get that. We get the camera pulled off and we go back to the truck and we checked this card and Casey's like, I think there's a duck on here, and so we uh, he was just looking at the little thumbnails. You know. It's so anyway, we had larger pictures. We had a roadrunner on our day and camera and the camera like was literally up for like three days I think before I think two and a half. Yeah, and so we got nothing out of that camera. And that's frustrating because the camera set for over a month, you know, I mean during Yeah, they were put out early, but they we should have been able to see like mature buck basis on, you know, growing or whatever, and also body types to know that, like we're having deer use this area maybe early season, you know, And that's kind of that was our strategy was to let the soaker soak or lit the suckers so at the cameras soaked. And it's a great strategy until it's not. You know, we don't you don't think about that stuff that can go wrong in the woods while you're not there. You know, you put fresh batteries in them and point them away from the sun. You're like, all right, man, go to work. If that's not really how it always works, it doesn't, man. And we also have had another camera on a distant property, uh that was literally had a limb that just fell perfectly into like in between these two trees, one of which was the tree our cameras on, and it just like stuck out like right in front of our camera and so I'm like, oh my goodness. And it really didn't set the camera off very much. Um, but it like the night shots every time they got set off in the night. The camera you know, because that limb was there just blew out the whole screen so you couldn't really see what was in the background setting it off. But at that camera location, something that was cool is we did get one picture of them, a sure buck, but I think you can tell and uh, this is all So we had three pictures of them, Yeah, but only one was really good and you can tell much. So this is all on that PLC that we did. But soon after checking that camera, we found a water hole that's like getting hit pretty hard. And like, if you go back and look at that series of photos, that bucks headed to that water and there's almost no question that's what he's doing. So we moved the camera to that water and that's gonna be probably feeling pretty good about that. There's gonna be some stuff on there that's for exactly unless the tree falls over into the water. So we actually had already set that camera and then we saw the water on the way out and we're like, let's go back and get it. So back and got it and set it up there, and I'm I'm actually I got a lot of faith in that one as opposed to some of the other ones. But um, yeah, we we were unable to in our first couple of months of traill cameras. This this summer, we were unable to pick up Teenager again. So and but you know it was the teenager thing is still frustrating, don't get me wrong, But like as a whole, as public plan hunters, I feel a lot better, even though our trail camera pool is probably you know, a sea as opposed that they were as last year for that first summer pool, because I just think that we just know these areas better, and we know how to hunt them, and we know new places and stuff and things are going to change between now and October, you know, so I'm not discouraged at this point. I just wish we had better pictures. And it's kind of just like the the separate of the hunter, just locking truck camera frost, you know. Yeah, And we were actually able to kind of swing swing by m an area that we kind of recently started calling the pulpit Um on the way back by, and you know, you we probably don't think about this. We don't really have like any bucks on that camera, but there was a lot of those. Is a good thing come late October, you know, So Uh, that's a I mean, that's a that's a great thing, an encouraging thing that we have going for us for sure, you know. Um, but yeah, that PLC can be seen. Um it's one of our more recent videos that we post that posted a lot this last week or so, but that from at that local aation you were just talking about. I actually just went back this week and um looked at quite a few of the pictures from last season, particularly around the rut, and like, man, once bucks show up there, they're like patternable hardcore, it's only they just come through. And I figured this out. Um. We started using deer Lab here while back, and uh we met Old John at the Q. Yeah, yeah we did. Nice guy. So you know, go check out deer Lab and you'll be supporting good people. That's always kind of a valuable thing to me. But I was plugging those pictures in the deer Lab, man, and there's like there's some correlation. There's always and this is just a public land thing, I think, but there's always like some some crazy things that happened, like a mature buck walks through and it's seventy six degrees at two pm, you know, on December eighteenth and like it's super warm front, you know, like why did that happen? Then you're super frustrated. Yeah exactly. But it's like, uh, I used to my youth kids this, and I haven't had to in a while. But like there's a phrase that goes, you're always the rule, not the exception, you know, because people can always come up with an exception like ah, well, you know, if you don't go to college, you're not gonna make any money. And then like somebody will be like, well, actually, you know, blah blah blah. So and so started a burger chain and he has a visiting there, Like yeah, but how often does that happen? Right? Um, But that's just the example to just say that if you can pick out like the patterns that happened most of the time and key on those, you're having a much better chance of killing a bucket than you're like going in there, like you know what, it's late December and hot, I'm gonna go in there and try to find that one that's not doing the normal thing. It doesn't make any sense, right, And that's what I kind of saw on Deer Lab was that you know, if you are in that area at least between November and December fifteenth or so. And that's cool morning in particular with the pressure around they were coming through and some pretty high pressure. I do remember that it was the the average deer movement pressure was thirty point to four and so cold, clear mornings with high pressure, it's time to be there. Oh yeah, which is exciting because you can you can put I mean, that's a pattern that you can you can grasp onto that and know and when you go into something feeling confident like that, I mean lots of data to support that too, you know. And so that's like, I'm really excited about that particular area and that you know, location in particular. Yeah, but what's weird. That's like that's like a rut stand only almost over there, you know, pre rut, post rut. There's not hardly anything. We hunted really close over there, and late October I got I looked at footage of it. The other day. We hunted pretty close over there. Yeah, we it a little afternoon hanging there. We kind of got in there a little too late and that was actually when you dropped my camera. It was by the way, if you're interested buying a lens. Yeah, it's it's deemed up. When I say that, it's still it still shoots really great to photos for sure, but I shoot the majority of my photos with it. But yeah, it's a it's uh, it's definitely got some like bruises on it, you know. So, But anyway, I don't mind, uh swearing the dual deer lab shirts in the PLC. We weren't trying to be twinkies. We just happened. They're just really comfortable and cool and we had just got them like the day before at the QT May conventions. We're all hopped up on ke May. Yeah. So anyway, um, well, since we don't really have any more bucks to talk about, maybe we should let Mike do some talking about his bucks. Let's do it, all right, So on the phone, I've got Michael Hunt Sucker from Harland bow Hunter. What's been going on, dude, Hey, thanks for having you guys. Yeah, trying to beat the summer heat ready for fall, little round. Man, you're not lying. I uh Casey has been like on a ladder, probably like thirty ft closer to the sun today painting the house. So uh we understand that for sure. Yeah, man, it's tough to get motivated to go outside of anyone's this hot. Yeah, no, kid, man, I noticed you guys seem to do or at least on video. You guys are doing a lot of your work this time of year, probably and like the very evening hours probably. Yeah. Yeah, Yeah, we tried to Yeah, we tried to do it once the first thing in the morning, last thing in the evening typically. So yeah, but there's there's so much to be done, you know, sometimes you just gotta work in the midday heat. I know, dude, It's it's brutal. It's brutal. And you guys do a great job, man, with what you do. I'm I'm a big fan of heart landbow Hunter and I've uh followed you guys pretty much since season one and and UH really appreciate the work you guys do. Um As a wedding videographer, I get into that side things as well, the production side of things. So um. But I was, you know, sitting here a few weeks ago, and uh, I had one of these rare occasions where I have time to relax and I was able to watch a few hunting VIDs, and uh, so I popped in HB Season three DVD that I've had forever, and it kind of reminded me of something I recognized a long time ago, and that is that you are a cold killer man and so uh you know, like I can't even remember you making a marginal shot really, and I'm sure like you probably would laugh at that because that might have happened somewhere. But first, like, do you do most of your work on your bow or your arrow setups on your own or you are you getting help with that kind of thing? Yeah, well, first of all, I've made marginal shots, I think you know, um, you know a lot of times, you know, you there's always so much you can do. Um, you know, and at the end of the day, you're shooting in a live animals so um. But but yeah, I have been fortunate to make make the good ones of the years. So um. I've actually out of past oh five or six years, I kind of do most of the set up for all of our guys bows and uh I have a boat press and the bow shop and um, so I to them, we get them, get them all dialed up and working, and uh so it's something that I kind of enjoy. I'm not I'm not huge on the tech side of things. Um, but I am I am a perfectionist, so I wanted to be tuned and shooting the best you can. And um, I don't really I don't really dive into the the details to too terribly much, you know, just basically just enough to be be dangerous and get the bow shooting right. So there's guys out there that just love that kind of stuff. I mean, like keybo and Travis Turner is this you know, he loves that techie stuff and like he just like setting up a bow is like his favorite thing to do. That's definitely definitely not my favorite to do. But I like their end result. You know, the result of you know, making sure everything's tune and and and properly set up is the end result is less you know, less ares less mistakes for sure. So does that mean that you catch grief from the team when somebody on the team makes it a bad shot, they blame it on me? Now, you know, I learned a lot of the years to set them up. And you know there's been, you know, been times that I've set stuff up a little bit differently than I probably should have. And uh, and I said, hey, man, if you don't like it. The presses right here? Are you? You're welcome to You're welcome to do yourself. That's right, that's right. So are you. This is just a random question that popped into my mind, but are you, Um do you air on the side of like speed or on the side of weight in an arrow? Um? You know, I definitely would air more on the side of weight and kinetic energy and and uh and wait forward. I've been a bit fund into that in the last couple of years. I've been shooting, shooting a hunter grand brass insert in front of my arrow, so adding weight to the front m just to get more in front of center mass and help with you know, penetration and more southern speed, I mean not speeds and speeds nice but I'm a huge also huge believer. And um, you know the nap kill Zone two blade brownhead I've been shooting. I brought it since they came out with it, and I absolutely love that broadheaded So I want to have, you know, the extra extra punch for that big too much expandable. Um. So that's why I've been shooting the past three or four years. And I just last spring did that that brown bear hunt Coody, that Guylin and how to have a super super heavy you know hair. I set up for that and so I've seen the results first hand. I mean I've got a full pass through on the brown Bear. So um it's pretty pretty mad, you know, amazing when you can accomplish with you know, putting some weight you know, way behind the arrow and uh, you know, opposed to speed. And I like you. I like the flat trajectory, you know, like when the spring for jamp Wat shot a completely different arrow, just a light of arrow shooting the brass that certain, and I wanted to flat yourjectory because you know, you just have a very very tiny margin of the air with a turkey there violent song. So um, you know, it kind of depends on your you know, the game you're hunting and what you're what you're going after, and most people are going to have, you know, different arrows, set up, a different boat, set ups for different times throughout the year. Most of the have won bow one ar I'll get it, um. And and if that was the case, I was just going to be to shoot my deer set up for the turkey season, you know. Um. But since I had to lenient see with the bear hunt having the Severn boats, I tho if I just went with the with a little flatter dejectory for this spring, right, So how I mean when you're changing arrow for the season or something like that for you know, turkeys to deer too, to a big game, you know, very large game, like what is the How long does it take you to get everything back to where you feel comfortable and it's dialed in? Doesn't take a long really, I mean so much of it's just you know, muscle memory, and that doesn't really change is you know, it's just the equipment to changes. So, um, it doesn't take me long to really get comfortable with the bow set up, and which is nice because I mean we're usually shoot a different boat every year and so um, you know that's one of the things is you know, everybod is a little bit different, so there is a little bit of a adjustment period. Um. But I mean for the most part, I I got picked up two of my bows and switched between them, as you you know pretty well. Um, I don't like it. I don't like to switch you know, very often. But um, it's you know one of those things that you know sometimes sometimes you need to. So yeah, so you mentioned muscle memory, and you know, like, what what did it take when you were first when you first started like saying, I really want to get good at shooting a bow. What did it take to get you that place where it's like riding a bike, you know, it's like every time you hop back on, you don't have to think about it too hard it anymore. I just think shooting a lot, and you know, it makes all the difference in the world. And um, I actually, you know it was self taught. You know, way back when when I first started boat hunting, I didn't know anybody else that really boat hunted. And I picked up a bow and and uh, you know just when you went to a local archery shop here in Kansas City, BB Archery, and they set me up with a setting me up with the bow and started shooting. And I just tried to learn all I could. And it was, you know, I was doing a lot of things wrong. And there wasn't a plethora of information there is out there today, So it wasn't like there was you know, podcasts and then blogs and you know all these you know, informational videos. It was kind of one of those things where I just kind of learned from practicing and learned from you know, the results and seeing what I was doing wrong. So um, but the number one thing, I mean, it's the possible memory. And just like anything, I mean, the more you do it, the better you're gonna get. If you, you know, want to be a want of dialing your golf game and do better golfer, If you play golf three times a week, at guarantee, you're gonna get better, you know, if you if you want to catch all the fish every every time you go out, even the more time you spill on the lake, the more you learn them and the more you know, better you get. So sure, it's no different with the boat. Um. And honestly, you know, I'm guilty of of you know, the busier that we've we've gotten, you know, not shooting as much as I probably should. I think everybody is, you know, and certain certain circumstances. So um, it's always good to get back into the swim of things. And like like I was talking about earlier, when it's a something agrees out every day, it's not not the most exciting thing to go outside and shoot your bow up. So yeah, yeah, no, kidding, That's why I usually do that in the evening saying, but it's usually after I've been outside all day anyways, working, so it's not not too bad. But also I've heard that if you just watch people hunt on YouTube enough, like it's kind of like you're doing the rips with them, you know, in there right or no, I'm kidding, not quiet, that's yeah exactly, So you kind of have to get out there and do it yourself. Right. So on that note, though, I like I try to study up on guys who I really respect, like what they do, especially in the shooting world, because I'm not great, you know, I feel like I'm a pretty good shot, but as far as like knowing the ins and outs of archery, like I just don't, you know, kind of like what you were saying, but you're further along in your journey than I am. But like guys like John Dudley or Aaron Snyder, people like that who have been there, been around and done it, you know, I try to learn from them, and there kind of seems to be a general consensus. It's kind of like what you were saying earlier, where you know, a heavier foc not too extreme but but good with good connect energy and a decent aerospeed, you know, kind of all culminate to be a good hunting boast it up. But everybody kind of has their own little tweak or their difference that kind of goes against the grain. Do you have one of those things that you do differently than kind of like the general theory, ah man Um trying to think. I mean, you know, yeah, I mean I don't think I have anything out you know, off the top of just really against the grain. I mean I I I try to find kind of a happy medium, you know, Like I said, I'm not I'm a huge on the speed side of things, and but I really do like the heavier air. Like you said, there's a there's a point where he gets to you know, heavy, so heavy that you know you're you're not your trajectory is not flat enough to really be that efficient. So especially when you're you know, on you know, some of the Western hunts where you're taking longer, longer range shots, you definitely want to be you know, flatter projectory. So um, No, the main thing that I've really done differently, like I said, it's just that hundred grades up front, um and that's really changed changed a lot of my you know, penetration and pass through shots. Yeah, that's cool, and I think that passed through or something. I'm gonna be going for more this year to I'm gonna go back to uh maybe a little bit better penetrating broadhead and and I'm kind of doing the same thing. I'm not going with a hunter up front, but I'm gonna put fifty up front behind a hunt grain broadhead, which is a lot more for me because I've just been, uh, just kind of a speed guy in the asked as much speed as I can get, and uh, I don't think that's where I need to be, you know, especially when you start talking about trying to go up to the Midwest and hunt bigger deer or going out west, you know like y'all do with the Western hunts and shooting things at my wig six or seven hundred pounds. You know, you kind of need to rethink what you've always done. Um, So can you look back, um on an event or maybe a shot at an animal or something that kind of made you rethink and made you think about I need to do a better job and focus more on my shooting, in my accuracy uh. Um, I mean every spring that seems like we're constantly getting humbled with turkeys, you know, just like that's a constant reminder of I mean, you want to challenge, she trys seeing an animal that never stops movie and has vitals the size of an apple, that just makes it makes it tough. So let's still always make me second guests. But the one of anything on the shooting side of things, it's just the animal. You know, keep like understanding the animals, you know, state of mind and behavior and um, you know, if you if you're taking along the ranch shot, you know it's a deer you know, calm or de alert or that makes a big, big difference. Um. And so I would say, like the most important thing that I've kind of gathered over the past handful of years is you know, really be aware of what the animals you know, situation is and and um, you know on those longer, longer range shots, you've just got to be make sure they you know that all these situations are right. So, um, all those little factors play into a role. And it's easy for you know, one step, but one step at forty yards is a you know, it could be a eight or ten or foot foot into foot difference. So, um, you know, just making sure the animals calm and they're kind of element is some of the something that's really important. And even at closer rang shots. I mean, you know, deer jump in the string and you know twenty and thirty yards and can make a e difference. So yeah, you know that's why you know, I just try trying not to stop the year ever unless I actually happen. Yeah, this is this is kind of why I opened up the the can of worms about the arrow set up. Um, you know, string jump is one of the most like intriguing subjects for me the last few years I've been trying to understand it better because, um, I've had some friends then people I've sat in the stand with that if I've seen that happen and it's unfortunate ending a lot of times. So how generally, like, how do you approach the you know, issue of the final moments before releasing an arrow where there might be string jump involved? I mean, how are you how are you foreseeing that? Yeah, I mean I try to this kind of judge the animal that or trying to stop him, and um, I'm you know, you hear you guys all the time talking to like, oh yeah, you just able for the horror game low and anticipate the duck and you know the one time you do that that the animal won't move an inch and you know, spine them or mis hide, and so you know, I never rely on the deer moving or doing anything. UM, I just kind of try to, um, you know, catch them in their most natural natural state and so um. You know that that gets back to a lot of the a lot of the whole you know, shooting thing. And I feel like a lot of guys and this is where you know, I'm not the best shot in the world. I'm not a great target shooter. I don't shoot three D. I don't do I don't do a lot of that that tournament type you know, shooting style. But um, one thing I do do is when I've been able to really compose myself in the heat at the moment, and um, that's something that's huge. I feel like I feel like, you know, my early early bow hunting days, the hardest thing was really to keep your composure and actually really take a spot on the animal, not just pull it back and put the pen on and pull the triggers, so so many people would get so jacked up and excited and as as part of the the whole both hunt side of things. And so I've learned that really really hold that excitement and and really you know, focus in the heat of the moment and then you know, say the exciting for later. So yeah, I actually just took a buddy of mine that never boat hunted at all growing up, and uh, he uh got a boat, got him into the boat and a couple of years ago, and took him out and uh on the saw on his first hunt. Um, not his first time, but his first successful hunting, and uh, you know, he called music. I got a shot. He was hunting a couple of fields down from where I was at and I got one. I think I made a good shot. And he's like like, well, you know where you hit these? Not not exactly what. It sounded good and it looked good, he said it was it's all kind of a blurr. He's like, I don't know, so I'm still shaking, you know. He was just slowly apped up and it's you know, we've all been there, and it's just like one of those things where you know, the more you hunt. The more proportinity as you have, the more you're able to kind of control that that feeling. And um, you know, there's there's people that day. It's still that I know that hunting for years have been very successful, hundreds shot a lot of animals, but they'd still have a very very tough time but you know, controlling their emotions in the human moment, and you know it's resulted in some some missed opportunities and some you know, marginal, marginal shots. So I just can't really get the best of you. Yeah, sure, And I mean I guess it's something that I can definitely commend you on. Everything I've watched you do. It seems like you're so good at maintaining your composure before, during, and after the shot, you know, like the whole time. Um, and you seem like a pretty even killed guy in general. Do you feel like that's something you are blessed with or did you have to take steps to get there? Oh? I've it's definitely gotten better over the years, you know, just just uh, like I said, can control in that excitement I got. You know, I'll never forget my first first you know, attempt at at shooting and at the bow. I been how they draw the bow back because I was so excited, so you know, I was, I was just amped up and don't get the thing drawn back hardly. So uh yeah, it's definitely you know, with experience, you get you know, you know what to do in certain situations, and you do you do, you make a lot of mistakes that you learned from along the ways, and so um, you know, I just you know, I try to focus too much on, you know, the animal itself. I just got to try to slowly, really slow thing down and take everything, you know, minute by minute, you know. I uh, I used to actually work for the state and did a lot of hall and predator control and I felt like being the trigger man so many times helped me a lot with anxiety like that, you know, I uh I shot a lot of animals and pulled the trigger a lot, and I feel like it is really improved. My ability is to just kind of maintain my composure until at least I release, and then usually I get pretty pretty stoked after after, or or just fall apart completely. Actually, when Tyler said he was in the stand with a friend earlier when I dear dropped, that was me he was speaking of and it was pretty tough. But anyways, do you feel like for you having the ability to uh, you know, travel and go to a lot of different hunts and you know, go on dough patrol or in the season that sort of thing, does that help you kind of knocked the rust off of that trigger finger? Oh yeah, absolutely, I mean that like, that's it's just repetition. And you know, every you know, every you know, successful hunt that we have under our belt is you know, one more thing that we've learned. And every situation is different and circumtances are different. You just learn more and where did you go? And so repetition definitely helps in that. In that case, I'm the same way. You know, in the second I released and watched the aerop fly, I just like, you know, I lose it my you know, that's when the shakes started for me. So yeah, I can only imagine on that griz how that how that would have felt. You know, I get pretty shaky on the dough. So that was just crazy. So I was a different it was a different feeling. That's why I was talking to some guys last week about it, and it's like, you know, it's like you had to be like so so like nervous or like so they're so like it was. It was It wasn't a nervous feeling when that bear was coming in. It wasn't like a scared feeling. It was almost like it was almost like the whole thing was happening in slow motion, and I like I drowned out everything else besides me and that bear, and it was just like it was just it was weird, just a weird, eerie feeling, nothing like I've ever felt before. It was one of those things where you're just like, okay, like, don't mess this up like this is you have to make you shot, counting shot in his opportunity, and that bear he just kept coming closer and closer and closer, and their heads are just huge and blocked all their violin and you can't shoot him facing towards you. Um, and when he got to twelve yards, you know, he put his front paws on this this little knoll right in front of us and exposed his chest and enough to where I could take a shot. And my buddy calls it shoot him, and he says, shoot him again, because I was taking I was taking a few seconds because I literally I literally staring down my peep side looking through my site ring, and all I could see was brown fur. And so I had to, like I had to, I had to take my no mike. I had to unacord and look up and make sure I was actually like pointing in the somewhat right direction so I didn't want to miss. And um, you know, I hunkered back down and sweep the trigger and actually still didn't miss a couple of inches into the right of where I was aiming and end up being a perfect shot, went right through his heart and actually hit off of his shoulder blade and ricocheted down and came out of some back hind quarter so full passed through the full wingth of the bear. How many how many great error were you shooting at that bear? I think my erro was like five fifty or a little short side fifty um and like six flc. So um, you know, I'm packing the pretty pretty heavy puns. When I think I was boat, I was shooting a little heavier bow than no, almost like seventy five pounds, so um it was it was pushing it out of there at twelve yards. That's the tool, Brian, you know the full force of it, you know, barely has time to get playing off out of the bows. Yeah, no kid migracious and you were you shooting a fixed play m hmm yeah hell raised review. Yeah man, so yeah, I was like when Coal was like, I don't know about using using the expandable on the brown ware. It's just we don't allow it. Yeah. I was like, man, I've shot every animal that I've shot in the past six years or one of those. I was like, I shot Elk, I've shot you know everything. He's like, yeah, he's just there. That's just different. Mans like their hairs and they're so coarse, and their bones are rib bones are so thick. If you just you just don't want to, you know, take a chance. And so I said, yeah, absolutely and clearly get it an understand. Yeah. Sure. Is that a hunt that like you dreamed of since like a kid, or did it like developed later in life that you wanted to go do that? I think my interest really got peaked from Cold who I want to do with? Actually we went to high school together, so it was kind of a crazy, crazy deal. He moved up out of high school and moved up to the lasted has been a guy ever since. And um, you know through that that I was exposed to some of the brown burg hunts that they were doing. You know, I was like, man, like, this is something that I have to me just it's just such a copy had such a beautiful place. Anyways, and um, I went into the Blacktail hunt there six or seven years ago, and uh, from the from the time I did that, Okay, I'll be back kind of, I'll go back to do the Brown Burre almlethough, I just got to do it, so um, it's it's one of the things that I you know, I didn't really get team series about until until I had been, you know, somebody to kind of turn me onto it. But it's it was definitely like a bucket of this time for me. And you know, I didn't think that it was something it was gonna happen so soon. You know, it was just a quick opportunity to Cole had more. Somebody he had that had the hunbook had to back out and so I was able to fill that spot kind of last minute and make it happen. So that's awesome. I think I would have to mainly prepare a lot if it was somebody could call me up and said, Hey, I gota opening you want to go on a grizzly hunt. I just it seems like a lot of pressure. That happened real fast. Yeah, I didn't think twice. But after I said yes, I'm like, okay, oh boy, he was, yeah, I can totally see. What's the uh, what's the best brown bear recipe that you've made so far? Well, so Cole Cole has a sou Cole has a buddy who's a professional chef. He cooks for a living. And actually most people don't even don't even eat the brown bear eat the eat the brown bear is because of the troop noses that they carry, so they don't carrying diseases. Um. And so we actually but we did cut cut one of the backtracks out and he made a He was out of town when we got back, so I didn't get to try it, but colsonet snapchat instead. It was pretty good. He made a some sort of student. You have to cook it too, get The problem is you have to cook the meat to a certain temperature in a certain way to make sure that the disease is something uh taken care of it. So um, something that that I wouldn't have trusted myself to do. I know that I'm pretty novilous when it comes to the cooking side of things. But I get thrown on the trailer and let it roll. But that's about it. Yeah, I don't blame you. That's diseases kind of tripped me out a little bit, so I totally get that. So you know, well, I go, You're talking about like your side picture and aiming on that that brown bear and you didn't really have to worry about this at the twelve yards. But UM, I have a scenario. I want to run past you, and I just kind of there's two ways of doing this. I want to see what your way is, because you seem to just be so good at making the arrow hit where you wanted to. Um. So you've got a deer at like, uh thirty six yards okay, and you've got a thirty yard pen and a forty yard pen, assuming that's you're a fixed pien guy, and um, you know you kind of have to find a way to make that air or go between pins. So do you put the animal halfway between the two pins or do you aim high with the thirty or low with the forty, assuming where the error is going to go in between the two pins. Um, yeah, yeah, Usually I'm splitting the pins. Typically, you know, I'll kind of you know, imagine where you know that forty here thirty six yards, it will be thirty thirty six. You know, you just split the difference kind of deal. But uh, you know, occasionally all it's twenty three, I'll hold by twenty just an inchlow or whatever and current and child sorry and uh, you know, hold higher, hold low. It's real close. But um, within the middle, I even try to just kind of split, you know, split the difference so you don't know, you don't see too much of a difference. How that you know, a closer range. It's really when you get out to the five episode. Yeah yeah, catch you. So when you get to a stand, are there certain things you kind of certain rituals or are you going to call them that you go through almost like a mental checklist that um, you kind of prepare for before you get that opportunity to shoot at a deer that allow you to have, you know, more confidence when you're shooting and make better shots. I mean, I don't know if it took in the mental checklist surgery, but I do like to get the bow knocked there and come to full draw and make sure everything you know, no issues happened on the way and walk in and um like kind of try to envision, you know, where the deer might be and kind of check a couple of your shooting lanes and that type of stuff. Make sure it makes clear. Um, but nothing nothing over the top. I mean, but I definitely would recommend you know, not gonna drawing the bow back, making sure nothing's you know, stringing gonna come off the cable. Um, you just gotta be careful when you let down. I've heard some I've heard the stories that people gripping their bow and working it real hard and letting down and string coming off off the camp. So that's terrible because you think about it when you I mean, when you go to these bows, now, I have such a strong let off, you know that that when you go to let down, it's like letting some nothing and all of a sudden when you know it wants to go down. And so people people naturally just gripped their through their bow hands so hard and they say, you know, I'm gripping enough to take the twist the cans, you know, out of angle with the stream doesn't take much for to just get out of that little group and pop right off. That's scary right there. Yeah. Um, So, like I guess further, say further in the hunt, when you see that target buck or whatever the dear is that you're targeting, um, can you kind of runs through your thought process from the time you see um a target until basically he runs out of side after you release zero. Um. Yeah, I mean most of times, you know, I'm try to get my bow in my hand if it's a if it's a buck or in that dear, I'm gon shoot. You know, had a ready um, you know, trying to move as much as possible, and that's you know, that's key to you know, shooting a relaxed calm deer. You know, you don't want to alert them or you don't want to have any any instance where they'll catch on you. So UM, I like to hear my bow in my hand to be ready for the shot because what I try to do is is obviously you know, try to think about what's gonna happen, what the deer is gonna do where they're headed, um, and they can kind of come up with an ideal spot to where you want to shoot them, and then constantly, I mean I'm focused on not on at all on the rack of the deer. I'm looking like literally focused entirely on my behavior of the deer. Because a lot of you know, being successful when it comes to bow hunting, I think is there's knowing when to take the shot. Um. You know, a lot of guys get excited, they rush it, they put you know, they shoot before they should. Um. A lot of guys, you know, maybe you're too conservative and and wait until their windows passed and then the deer is too closed or a quarter two comes at the bottom tree, you know who knows. And so I think I'm just constantly watching their behavior trying to decide, you know, when that time is that that you're gonna draw back. And uh, so you guys haven't seen this this yet, but you'll see at this fall and then maybe you guys will regret and you know, asking me about being a stone cold killer podcast. Um, we had a buck this this year in Iowa, and uh the buck we were after it was just a weird deal. We were the the deer were using this food plot in the morning, which we don't usually hot food plots in the morning, but um, they were coming in after, you know, after the lights, so legal lights. So it was like not was gonna be blowing him out in the dark. So we hunted the spot and the wind was supposed to be some of the like northeast to wind her sorry, yes, northeast wind, and um, the wind was just swirling like many times when it's in east wind, it's just kind of swirled, and we hadn't seen much at all, and then all of a sudden, here comes our target buck and in the wind that basically was blowing straight south, and he's coming straight from our north and wind blowing right to him, and he's he's getting ready to cut cut you know, our path, our windpath. Well he I don't know if it's swirled around him or what. He walks right through it and doesn't look like he's spooked or nervous at all. And so I'm like, okay, well he's past our wind now I know that for sure. Is I'm like, I'm a grunt at him, and I think this is our only option. I mean, like, you know, you hate to ground it the DearS any anywhere close to marginally down wind, but I let him get you know, always past our wind and I hit him with a grunt and he popped up and alert and looks and he's any circles actually kind of away from the that one side. It's coming closer closer, and it's this big pile of drop time buck. It's like it's just it's uh. And he's coming, you know, coming down basically towards our tree line that we're in and I lost sight of him, and I don't know, I'm gonna start raking this tree act like a buck making a scrape, and so I grabbed my rally, you know, and start breaking the three raking in three raking three. All of a sudden, bom here it comes right now are frind in our fence line, coming right to us, and he's staring, you know, looking at and and this is the hardest thing about calling and you know, calling to a deer that you know when it's calm and the winds are swirling. But he's like, you know, he's looking for that source and he's you know, coming to this food plug on the zoop plot and I'm just like trying to find a chance to draw on the second he like is walking or somebody calling, you know, I'm underrawing he's taking He's takes in the step one step, two steps, looking, another step, looking, and just never really had much of a chance. And so when he went to take a few more steps, I finally because he was even in bow range at this point, he was like forty five yards and and and he was out from behind all the trees in the wide open, and so I like he would take a couple of steps times that drew my bows slowly as I could as possible and got to full draw. And he took a couple more steps and was just looking in the direction of you know, down past us where I was raking, and I picked a spot and the release the arrow, and then he just dropped and came out of his skin and shot right over the back. And so man, and it just is one of those scenarios where just like, you know, I can't make myself aim like below the deer, like I couldn't. I can't do that. I you know, I put my I think he was kind of remember how far it was. I want to say he was like thirty five. I think I put my thirty like, you know, right just showing on his heart at the top of his heart, and um, I mean he just dropped big time and he was on high alert. And you know that was the fact that you know, I kind of I knew that going into it, but and I guess I could have and should have aimed lower. I just you know, I would hate to him low and have him not moving miss a load. So yeah, just one of those deals. You know, every situation is different, you know, you're always learning, So yeah, no kidding, Well, I would look forward to seeing that hunt because, uh, Tyler and I both have Iowa dreams and he thought he was going to get to fulfill those this year and for some reason Iowa dn or did not like him. But so we uh we uh we kind of dream about it, man. So I'm looking forward to to seeing that hunt. And you know you talked about that dear being a tar get deer um and the earlier two you talked about like how you don't concentrate on the antlers. You know, once you once you identified dear, you're gonna shoot him. You know, you just are constantly evaluating his demeanor. Um, do you feel that being very very familiar with your target bucks and being able to recognize them instantly is a big part of that. Oh yeah, that's huge. I mean yeah huge trail cameras have have you know, changed the way that we do thinking and saved saved the lives of a lot of young bucks that that that would have probably got shot with the game running in you know. And then during our rut so um, so when we were just talking about, Sean and I were just uh, we were playing darts this past weekend after the felt we had our film school and and uh, my basement, there's this this buck that I killed in Nebraska with Sean, like one of the very first years we got started filming, and um, We're on on this farm in Nebraska. We hadn't hunted at all, didn't have any cameras on and nothing. We just went I'm blind during the rut and I got up on this big oak, cared and banged the horns together and I rat with him the spike buck, and he came charging down to the tree. And we're sitting here like watching him right underneath us, and all of a sudden, you just hear, you know. I turned around behind the tree. I looked and I'm like, oh, I'm like, shoot you or shooter. You know, I got my bow, I turned around, got my boat, turned back around, come to full girl, and shoot this buck righting in the tree. And you know, all I remember is seeing this buck charging and he's all bristled up, just looks like it just looks like a tank. And I got my boat turned back around, and I'm looking down on this buck and I get to see point. He's got lots of points. He's just got inside times. And I got back to shoot this buck. And and I'm all pumped and everything. And this is one of the only times I've ever experienced ground shrinkage in all the years that I've been bow hunting. But I watched this buck. I could not believe this, dear. I think he was a two year old, maybe a three year old, just an absolute you know, just so much potential. And I just he just got me fooled, just had me flustered, and came in hot and um was bristled up. That's a you know a lot of times a new deer coming into striking a charge off another dew yer coming into a dECOi that pristled up. Man, this looks so much bigger. He keeping big time. But um I'm not saying I wasn't still proud of him. I mean I hadn't. I hadn't killed a whole lot of the deer at that time. But looking back, it's funny because it's just, you know, you hear people talk about ground street kids, and I had never really had that happen, And that's on the only type I had that happened where it's been like whoa, Like this one really got me. Yeah, yeah, that's having that goes back to kind of what you were talking about earlier, where you know, learning how to compose yourself even in like those high intent situations like this past season. I was pretty guilty of it. We rattled in a what may have been a three year old seven point he might have been a two year old, I don't know, but we were on the ground and he like the first time I saw him was about at about fifteen yards, you know, and I was just ready to just smoke this thing, you know, and he blew out before he gave me a shot. But it's the same kind of thing where man, that it was just so intense that I was just was pumped to, you know, take that shot, you know, and looking back, I'm not saying I would have been disappointed with him, but at the same time, um, sometimes you don't want your season end, you know, on on a on a deer like that, and you'd rather just continue hunting and enjoying you know what you do. Um and I know that you guys, uh, you know, travel a little bit and hunt around and do some different things. And and actually there was a an Instagram post that that got a lot of traction this uh, I think it's this past week. Actually, if you shooting a buck in Wyoming, right, you know, yeah, it's pretty sick shot, you know, like you're you're you can just the arrows in the frame the whole time, and it looks like you shot it in like sixty frames per second. I don't know what it was. You know, it's super high SloMo and hundred eighty man okay, yeah that was that is very slow. But you know he's a and you say in the in the in the clip, he's at forty six, which there's a lot of folks that, uh, you know would call that pretty extreme range on a white tail. And you can tell that he is very calm, you know, he's just feeding. It's his calmns dear get um, and I'm I kind of lean towards the other side to where I don't mind stretching it out and taking taking a long shot either. But I wanted to ask you, since you know you're a TV guy and you'll you'll have the show and stuff, do you, um scale back or consider you know, the type of shots that you're gonna take because that you are so high profiler or on film so much. Um. No, I definitely don't see anything back. I mean, I'm not worried about people judging judging me to take a shots. I mean then I'm only worried about he would taking shots that I'm comfortable and confident in. Um. You know, I don't advocate anybody taking the forty five a shot if you're not comfortable with or can't do that, you know. Um, it's one of those things where you know it's total personal preference and then it depends on every every person. Um. You know, I literally that that trip specifically had shot my bow so much and shooting just lights out and UM was really feeling really competent and knowing that I may have a longer shot because you know, out west in those areas. Um, it's just it's not like hunting in the Midwest September um, and so you know, I kind of knew expected it that I would have to take a longer shot, and so, um, you know, it's it's it really depends on everybody and then and uh, you know, their personal level and an archer and and their competence level and so um. You know that year in particular was a doozy for me. I killed my Missouri buck had fifty five yards. I killed my I killed that Wyoming bucket um forty six yards I think it was. And then I killed my Kansas buck the following week at like forty or forty two. And prior to that I had only killed I think my entire bowning career. I think I'd only killed one, may be two bucks over forty yards. Like it just that it was it was just, you know, that just things just having to work out that that year and to where they were just some longer shots and I mean ninety I would say the shots on white tails that for me had been you know, twenty to thirty yards for you know, within thirty fives you know, So it seems like a lot of our you know a lot of times we're money, you know, trails and pinch points in areas where that kind of narrowed down. So that year was just one of those one of those years, you know. So but that but like you said, that deer was was really calm, was was feeding, um was not not alert. And actually that deer I had passed that deer up that morning. He walked for right underneath our stand, like twenty yards before we had camera light and uh went went back into the bed and so we comed there that evening. He came back out and he was feeding right to us. Everything was perfect, and all of a sudden he got to light. Was closer than that, Actually he was. I think he was like thirty five yards and all of a sudden this a little buck pops out and he turned to go run him off the posture. And so he turns to leave the posture him up and a little buck runs off and then you to stopped with heart feeding away from us. And so like I knew at that moment, I was like, Okay, this is my opportunity. You know, I gotta I'm gonna have to take the take the shot of he you know, we would be coming up and been relaxing enough. So yeah, yeah, kind of one of those Tom Brady moments where you go like fourteen games with that interception. Yeah, exactly, So would you. I've seen you shoot several deer while walking. Is there a lot of instances or any particular instances when you would rather shoot a deer walking than grett stop it? He never? I hate I hate shooting you're on the walk, and I would almost never do it. Um, I'm thinking in my head, I'm thinking of the one that you thought it was. Probably I Missouri about a killed a few years back, and it was like fifteen yards, so, um, you know, obviously this buff was close range and I tried to stop him several times and he didn't stop, and so I literally had about three more steps before he was out of my window. So I put it on and squeeze it off, and he was. He was a you know, a steady you know, a slower, steady walk. But I hate, absolutely hate shooting year on the walk out and never never advise anybody anybody do that. You know, it's just one of those deals that, um, you know, it's just bad stuff that can happen real quickly. So um, you know, it's crazy how much they move, like you don't expect like that they're walking, but they literally you can, I mean they can walk afoot you know or whatever within the time that it takes your air to get there exactly. Yeah, and so like that that particular time, and that I don't even know if I do it sifting yards. He was like right in any carture you hum, and so yeah, it's it's it's crazy. Another thing too, that you know, I've noticed a lot of I've seen a lot of experienced a lot of is be in a full draw and on an animal, and like once one time at full draw and I'm I put my pins on the animal. I'm super zoned in and picking the spot, and you take your concentration and you take your your vision off of their you know, their legs, even in their in their head, and you don't notice a lot of things. And I've had instances where the deer stopped not more perfectly calm high literally and just go to squeeze the trigger as he starts to take a step, and you don't see him starting to take those steps. And that happened to me one time in Missouri. Man I hit the deer. It was at forty it was forty forty or forty two yards and something like that, and he uh, you know, it was in the middle of the step as I was releasing and just that little bit of a step hit that hit him back quite a bit. Um And luckily, you know, have the right angle to where I was able to I was able to recover them. But h it's crazy. A lot of times you get zoned in and you don't see the deer's tart to move. So, um, that'll that'll, he'll come to buy chess, So, you know, kind of moving on to Harlan bow Hunter and guys for a like visual standpoint, I feel like y'all are pushing the envelope constantly, and I'm just interested, what does the creative process look for you guys as you're heading into each project. I mean, I think our number one goal is to kind of basically tell the stories the best we can and and really you know, portray our lifestyle as bow hunters to general public, and um, you know, it's our goal to be able to be able to show an episode of our show to somebody who doesn't hunt, and they might not they may not understand hunting or appreciate hunting. But they'll get it and they'll they'll see why we are so passionate about what we do. And you know, if we can interests or open the eyes of people that are you know, non hunters or even anti hunters. Um. You know, that's that's a huge step for us, is to to really get people to you know, look at hunting in a different in a different light, in different aspect. Because when we got started, we're getting ready the kickoff phone for our twelve seasons, so we were doing it for twelve years and twelve years ago, I can I can tell you absolutely the hunter present certainty that there was nobody telling any stories about hunting. It was it was rock and roll music and highlight real kill shots and well yeah, I mean, yeah, hunting is exciting. There's exciting moments and and um, you know, at the end of the day, a lot of a lot of success determined is by the the the animal. But that's not what it's all about, and that's not why we do what we do. And there's so much more that goes into and that the whole experience that makes us so rewarding. UM. And that was like when we got started, that was kind of our focus was to be like, okay, like we need to portray this experience in this lifestyle, not this kill shot in this um you know, this deer, this specific animal or or this racked And I think, you know, we were one of the first, you know, our first of our first trailers we ever released that didn't show a single kill shot. It was like, people are like, whoa, that was so much different, you know, it was almost it was almost refreshing for sure. So yeah, um, you know that was kind of our our take on things. And and man, how times have changed, you know the past ten twelve years, the content that that our industry is putting out of the hole has gotten so much better. And um, there's so much more respect paid to the animals and so much more you know, put into the put into hunting and just to kill. So I think that's something that's huge. And this helped with you know, getting our sport you know, more more mainstream. Yeah, and kudos to you guys. I think that a lot of that stems from what you guys started. I mean, I think y'all are huge influence in visual media these days. Within the hunting community and and so I can appreciate that for sure. Thank you. Yeah, we strive to be sure you are leaders. Um. You know, most of the creatives that I've met, they like they just want to create and they hate mixing business with their art. And you know, personally, I know that like there has to be there has to be some kind of business management, uh, to have like to make money so that you have sufficient time to make your art as good as it could be. You know, So like are you guys, you know, are you a business mind or do you have certain individuals that handle different aspects um so that some can like focus certain energies towards creativity or like how do you guys manage all that? Yeah? I know absolutely the huge business side of it. And uh, yeah that's what That's what Sean I both actually with the school for so we both studied doesn't Management entrepreneurship and in college as we were you know, getting started with HB and so, um, we kind of learned it as we were experiencing it. And uh, in our industry, the way it works is, you know we're kind of forced. You've got you're kind of forcing the business aspect this side of things I mean, um, in order to you know, pay our bills and and and purchase the air time and and do all that. You know, we have gendering sponsorship feller than revenue and UM. So you know, there's definitely a huge business aspect of it. And you know, I always laugh with people like man like you not for a living. You have a dream job. And I'm not. I'm not disputing that I have a dream job, but I will I will every day dispute that I hunt for a living too. It's so much more to it than that. But I wouldn't change it for the world. I mean, we we love what we do and and you know it's it's it's a blacks Yeah. So what are what are the difficult things that you deal with that maybe like the general person wouldn't see. The most difficult thing was getting started. Was was us not compromising our style and our approach to to fit within the mold of advertisers of the cowdor industry UM twelve years ago? You know it was you know, we want you to use this product and talk about it and tell everybody how it's the best and why you use it. And we weren't going to do that. I mean, we we the opportunity we saw, you know, for our for our show, and our concept was not including I couldn't couldn't have killed this buck without my botech boat, and I was never you couldn't fay me enough to say that. So yes, yeah, we believe in botech bows and we use bote both that people know that we use them, but we're not going to show products on people's throat. And so it was tough to get companies to understand that and to adapt to that, and it cost up a lot of relationships and partnerships in the beginning, I'm sure. Um, But as we grew and as as people saw that it was working, that people appreciated the soft sell people. They they they looked at our show and felt that it was more genuine, more real. Um. And and you know that that marketing was still effective. Um, it's just a different way of marketing and it's more of a more of a lifestyle marketing techniques as opposed to h you know, impression style techniques. So um. You know, we've over the years have been very fortunate to you know, retain a lot of the companies that we've been working with since the very beginning, and so, um, I think I said a lot from you know, the approach and how I do things, and um, you know, we're fortunate too because we you know, we get to work with people that we believe in. And that's the one they do that we were always starring on is not you know, not not compromising our our beliefs or or using something that we don't really believe in just to you know, pay a bill, I just to just to collect to check you know, it's something that, um, you know, our integrity is more important than that. And honestly, I mean, as much as we hunt, we want to use the absolute best stuff out there, and a lot of times the absolute best stuff out there is coming from a smaller company that that makes a freemium product that doesn't have a huge marketing budget. And so we've we've had to work and create custom different packages for different companies that that we want to do you know, you know, work with so we could use it in their products I prodily believe in. So we've been really fortunate to to be able to work with some great people. That's cool, man, that's uh. I got a lot of respect for you guys, and and more so after hearing all that. For sure, Man, Mike, I can't tell you how much I appreciate your time. I know you're a busy man. Hey, absolutely, man, no problem. We're just moving into our new office space here. And so I'm I was hanging up some deer heads today and I got a couple of the guys in in the office working on some new new episodes coming up. So cool. So what's what's on the horizon for you guys? Uh so as far as this coming up season or as far as like the TV shows coming out, whatever you got going on that you think it's cool, that's gonna happen soon. Um, let's see. So coming up on the show, we on the show, we had a couple of episodes coming out, the Mule Deer Hunts from Montana and uh yeah, so got some pool cool Melier on set last year. That's how we kind of I keep my season off in Colorade on Montana. Um, So that they're coming up and that that I want, not that I was telling you about that will be on the that will be on the show coming up. I redeem myself after I missed the Beautiful, Beautiful Monster drop time. But that's good. I end up killing a really really old matured year that comes in and just destroys the decoy that blows it up. So it was about about as exciting and I get so, yeah, that's cool, that's cool. Yeah, that's pretty cool. And then um, this fall and will kick things off. We're heading to Utah and less than a month, um to kick things off the wild hunt out there. Sean drew too elk tags this year and Montana. I can't draw New Mexico, man, I can't do it. That's the closest elk cutting dust pretty much. And uh, I drew heally unit in two eleven and it's a long story I won't tell you right now, but basically he didn't get to go on the trip and since then I can't draw. I don't know. Dang, yeah, I I had not had much luck drawing as well. I for five years straight and didn't drawing. So I bought a I bought a land on her tag three years ago and killed my first ball on that tag. And then two years later I dressed through a tag and uh killed my best best bowl to date. So um, so I've killed I've killed two bold and and been on two hunts in New Mexico. So awesome. Sean has had the opposite luck he's He's had some he's had some really tough lucky hunted the UL last year, and I mean this this so this will be out, This will be coming out on an episode Behind the Draw coming out soon. Um, just had an incredible, incredible but just one of those things where it just didn't quitely come together and you'll see some most incredible acounters that he just you know, he I'm not saying he was too conservative, but it was one of those things where looking back, you know, the first thing his guide of course, and everybody said, oh, yeah, well you could have done this, you could have done that, you could have shot him right there, and sounds like yeah, listen, like this is a Helil tag, like I'm not taking a chance and wounding the bowl and done. Yeah. I make sure you know I'm gonna make a counsel. I don't play him, you know one bit or uh, you know, making the decisions he did. And then you know, it's one of the deals that you just gotta live with it and and and accept that that you know, what you did was what you did, and and you can't go back and change things. So but he had an incredible hunts of awesome en countered. Um, so I think this is years. This year, I think it was a little bit of calm after a few you know, he's hunted Arizona a couple of times, had a real tough hunt when Arizona tag and he's drawn. So I'm thinking this years in the year between those gween those two months, I think he got to me how to be able to there stud cool. So what uh well, some of those hunts be airing on the Outdoor channel, I guess and at what times? Yeah? So uh yeah, So the TWOV episodes are gonna be airing on the Outpork channel. Um, we're on Monday at one thirty pm, Tuesday four thirty pm, and neither all eastern Thursday and nine pm and Friday at four thirty am if you guys are super earlier on the East coast. Cool. But yeh on Thurday night is our prime primary and then we'll be coming out with new episodes of Behind the Draw, which is our digital uh digital web series, and those will be coming out through our YouTube channel and hopefully going coming through the game was on Prime as well, Um coming up here this song that's awesome. We'll linked to all that for the listener. And uh, I highly suggest going and watching those as a really cool little snapshots of the things that you guys go through. And um man, I have like said a lot of respect for you guys, appreciate your time. Lastly, what's the what's the best way for somebody to connect with HB or with you? Yeah, social media is gonna be the best round. I mean Facebook, Instagram or our website. Um, you know we'll be We're on Twitter as well, but yeah, I mean social media is the easiest way to keep keep up with books going on between you know, new TV episodes coming out and digital episodes coming out and let's looks, you know, behind the scenes type of stuff on the field. So the magic social media you can really you can even watch Sean cook some venison on this trigger groom. Maybe all right, it's funny that's you know, not determinent thing but the subject. But I was just gonna say it's funny. You know, it's cool to see you know, so much emphasis behind people that uh, you know, caring about what their what they're consuming in a in a time now or everything is you know, all natural or getting nono. You know people, I've heard some really cool stories people who you know, are non hunters that decided to get in the hunting because of that. So yeah, that's sure. That's a whole other, whole other topic. But that's a pretty pretty exciting time though. Or it is, man, it sure is. It's a good way for us to have uh stronger Uh, I guess push you would say, or pool however that you want to say it in you know, our I guess political spectrum or uh, you know, and also within like you said, those who are no hunters and and that kind of thing. So yeah, it's recipes out there now too. Yeah that's true. It's you know, you don't just put in flower and egg and throw it in the deep friar like like they used to at least when I was growing up. Yeah, I think you do that one about. It's true. I mean, I'm not saying I hate it at all. Uh. Well, cool man, I appreciate it. I appreciate your time. Thanks again, dude, and uh, I hope we'll talk to you soon. Best of luck this year, all right, all right, we'll see you, I know we got to talk to Sean earlier the spring, but uh, you know, getting getting Mike on the phone, it's just a it's a cool thing for me. I don't like fanboy out much, but I have literally followed heart Lambo Hunterson's pretty much year one and and uh really admire their work from you know, coming from a wedding videographer here, you know, I love the production uh standard that they said, you know, if you couldn't already tell and um not to mention those guys you know are just like, uh, from the ground up kind of guys, you know, and easy going and and uh knowledgeable about deer especially, you know, and so it's cool to see see them branching out into the Western stuff a little bit. You know. It's something that I think a lot of US Eastern deer hunting types, you know, kind of aspired to do at some point. And uh, you know, I'm definitely looking forward to seeing the big old bear hunt that he did. Man seems awesome. Yeah, Man, I don't know if if I can handle myself for the grizzly beerry at twelve yards. I really like shoot a BlackBerry, but a grizz I like grizz through the spot in scope. I think, yeah, I think that's where I like. I was actually looking at some grizzly footage today that I shot in British Columbia and I was like, he was like four yards and that was plenty close. Like I was watching him run off in SloMo and this clip that I had, and I was like, he almost seems like he's running towards us just a bit. I'm like, can't they cover ten yards in a bound? And that probably haven't I heard that. I've heard some pretty wicked stats about if they run like thirty miles an hour or whatever, it's like forty bounds between you and that bear. They can do that pretty and yeah, yeah, it's a it's crazy, you know. And um, it was good to have Mike on. But we have lots of great guests lined up over the next couple of months. Like you guys, I think are really gonna be uh you know, hopefully you guys like what we're what we're putting out there, because it's a lot of good deer hunting guests coming up coming up here soon. We've got a lot of this stuff that we backlog throughout the summer a little bit so you know, it will kind of be maybe uh weird hearing somebody say right now it's snowing or whatever, like we did with Mark Kaiser. But uh, but still like the information that can be gained. I feel like it's pretty tremendous. And people have some really good stories. Man. The are guys that have been doing it for a long time and girls, and it's gonna be uh an exciting lead up to season here. Um and you know, really this is the final push of your preseason scouting. I feel like, you know, we're we're hitt in August here. You basically, uh, some states have basically a month before deer season starts. Some have a month and a half, and then some of us Texans and others have you know, just to write at two months or or so. And so if you're willing to brave hunter degrees for opening days. Yeah, but but if you you know, if you got a dear pattern, it might be worth it. You good time to do it. So yeah, for sure, it's a it's not even a month till we get to pull the trigger on something. Yeah, I guarantee you, I mean pulling those dove decoys down off that life fixture and going after some doves. Sometimes there's it's hard to beat a little love on the grill, you know what I'm saying. So Um, anyway, before we get to Deer season, we have some major things that are coming up, one of which is our Deer Honey film from last year, and I'm telling y'all, I am jacked of about it. I can't help me, Like, I can't work on it or just watch any of it without like being like I need to be in a standby. Now you can watch it after this. We can't. I've got it. It's it's really uh, just missing a couple of clips that I'm going to add in there just to help sell the story a little bit better. But I mean, it's awesome, awesome film, you know. And of course I think that because it's you know, a buck that I killed in the story that I lived or whatever. But I think you guys are really gonna like it. Um. So that's looking we're looking to release that. We're hoping beginning of September is somewhere in there maybe, so you guys have like a team minus a month or so before you get to see that. And I'm really excited to bring that to you. I'm really proud of it. I know Casey is really proud of the footage he shot because he was nervous about hitting focus and all that. I mean, big deer, public land, you know, first one one. It's just such a big situation, you know, and that was kind of the weird deals. Like in the moment, I wasn't very nervous about hitting focus because I thought it looked pretty good. What I was worried the most about was jumping when you shot and jarring the camera. And I think I don't really remember what my hands were doing when it happened, but I think like when I knew you're fixing the shoot, I think I pulled my hands back off the camera, so I wasn't touching it at all that way. But I didn't jump, like I was just like zoned in and just you'll just have to watch the film and find out what happened. You moved pretty good on him as he left. Man, it was it really man, You you killed it. You killed the footage, not just there killed the deer. Kill that. But yeah, we've got that coming up, and then uh, you know, I I'll let you guys in on this stuff, probably before I should, but I'm really wanting to release a version of the One Eyed Jack you know film, And I know you guys are probably exhausted to hearing about this deer, but it meant a lot to me. The footage was really awesome, the story of the season was incredible. And so what we've got essentially on our channel right now is a season long, twenty six minute or whatever film that shows all this, you know, all the season, and I feel like it's sufficient to tell the story for sure. I actually would prefer it to be that way out of any of them. But then I've got this full draw filter which was kind of held to the standard of three and a half minutes, and I feel like that, being that that is dedicated just to Jack, it's not enough to tell the story. So I'm probably gonna put like this little mid level footage and try to add a few extra clips in there that you maybe you haven't seen before and this kind of thing, and and release that. Plus, not to mention, we have, uh, we have a lot more listeners and a lot more subscribers on YouTube that may not have dug back into the archives that far that may be interested in what we're putting out. So we're just gonna kinda re release maybe like a ten twelve minute version something like that that kind of tells the story a little better of and eye jack Um and focuses on on him and not the entire season or whatever. So I'm pretty excited to release those two things um between. Now in Deer season, Casey has an elk hunt, I believe, right, probably probably, so we're still not well, no, I'm I'm going to elk hunting. But uh, I just looked at the Colorado lift over licenses today and now my wheels are turning it all the different things that you could go do. But big horn sheep, No, they don't have any lift over. I did have a friend draw a big horn cheap tag on his first year putting in the sheet detail. First year putting in there's always a chance people, I know it. It's crazy, just like Lloyd said, wasn't that Lloyd? Uh dumb and dumber. Yeah, so you're saying, yep, that's right man, that's right. So anyway, Oh, the other night I did a deer drive and found a toad like big deer, and I took a picture of It's on Instagram. Go check it out if you're interested. But for East Texas Buck where we live, stupid as a stud like triple G two split looking things on both sides and it's crazy big browth times and everything. It's one of those deer words, like how do you even score that thing? You know, I kind of gonna have that kind of thing going on. He was cool man too, and saw a deer that would probably score like fourteen. Yeah spokes, that's pretty good. So I didn't have quite the same drive. Yeah, well, I didn't expect to have that drive. And I actually almost missed that deer. I was like driving and I had to like look backwards basically to see him. I was, you know, just have my head on a swivel. Luckily, and I saw him and that other deer back there and anyway there on Instagram check them out the pretty pretty cool deer. I feel like people are ready to see deer this time of year, and so, uh, I was excited to get that picture. But anyway, um, whether it's deer driving or going and putting drug combs out in the hundred degree heat, you know, make sure you get out in it and remember this is your element living in

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