00:00:02 Speaker 1: Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast, your home for deer hunting news, stories and strategies, and now your host, Mark Kenyon. Welcome to the wire to Hunt podcast. I'm your host, Mark Kenyon. In this episode number two hundered in sixty nine and today we're talking about a variety of different topics, including some CWD current event news type stuff. We're talking about shed hunting and talking Western white tales with a couple of Westerners. All right, folks, gotta jump in here with a quick pre show to the pregame show story of sorts. Basically, the other night, Dan and I record a very interesting in production forty two minutes of great conversation on a slew of topics. We kind of positioned this podcast is a two parter, so that first one we talked about CWD in the news. We talked about our latest shed hunting exploits and plans. We talked a little bit about our dreams about doing things out west. Very interesting chat. But about halfway through that chat, all of us and I noticed that my application that records my podcast was making a weird flash. And I go and I see that instead of recording our entire conversation, it recorded our entire conversation in one second increments, so a small part of my soul died at that point. I cried a little bit and I told Dan, like, Dan, I don't think this has been recording on my end properly, and he said, well, no worries, man, I've got a record on my side. So I sighed a huge It was huge relief. I get that file back from Dan after we recorded everything, and I hear that there's some still little tiny glitch from my recording issue on my end. So I sat here this morning thinking, Okay, do we ditch this whole thing and do I just record a little boilerplate, you know, two minute intro or do we run with the forty two minute interesting interview. Me and Dan did together and just have a little bit of that audio glitch, and ended up deciding to leave that in there because I think we cover some important and interesting stuff, especially when it comes to a lot of stuff going on to c w D world right now. I wanted to address some important issues there. I think it's worth keeping in there. So if you don't like the way things sound, and it sounds a little bit different than usual, but if you don't like it, feel free. Just a fast forward about forty some minutes and you will get to part two. That sounds terrific, and that is our Western White Tailed interview with Eric and Zach and I think you'll love that. But if it sounds okay to you, stick around for this one. Me and Dan have a great longer than usual intro covering some interesting topics. So thank you for your patients, thank you for your understanding, and uh here's the show. All right, welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast, brought to you by Onyx, and today we've got a fun episode for you. It's kind of a kind of a two parter I guess really a two parter um. In part one, I got my buddy and co host, extraordinary Dan Jensen here with me. Dan, how are you? I'm good here? Listen to this once? Do you hear this? Uh? Yeah, yeah, that's my nub rubbing against my microphone. Okay, just your tenth finger that's not there rubbing that nub. Okay, do we need to start the podcast over? Keep that? So Dan's rubbing his fingerless finger on the microphone, which means he's excited. That's good. Um so so you're hearing me for a little bit, and I wanted to do a sort of a longer intro maybe we usually do a slightly longer pregame show to catch up a bit on what's going on with us and some things going on in the well tail world, especially because in the last week week and a half there's been a whole lot in the news about gear specifically c w D talked about in the mainstream news and going viral on the internet, and a whole bunch of stuff there. So I want to clarify some things about what's going on there. Um. I also want to talk shed hunting a little bit because, uh, you know, it's that time of year. I want to see if you've done anything since we bought last time, and see what's gonna happen for the upcoming ship Railly event um. And then the main gist of this episode, and unfortunately, after you've got a bell, we're gonna bring a couple of guys from Montana, uh to talk about western hunting, specifically western white tail hunting. Um. So I thought you and me might have a few thoughts to share on that. As you know, I know both of us are planning Western hunts of one or another. UM, And then like part two of that is then gonna be we're gonna get Eric Sep Freed and Zack Sandalf Onyx. They live on Montana. They're gonna join in me to kind of share a local westerner's perspective on hunting white tails. UM. You know, you and me have talked a little bit in the past on my experiences out there, but it's always been you know, how I've taken a Midwest white approach and applied it to Western white tails. Um. For one of the first times. Now I'm going to stat with someone who lives out there about how they approach hunting white tails, which is kind of unique, pretty interesting, I thought. Um, so that is kind of what we've done store today, kind of a podcast two parts, and I think it should be a conversation. So that's the plan. Um, Are you down with that? Dan? I'll tell you this, If I was to hack into any software in the world, I would hack into Onyx, and I would hack in to guys who are really good hunters, and I'd find all their spots. That is how I would cheat the system. Now would you would you? I'm gonna say that you would use this power for good, and you would look at the good spot and you wouldn't go and hunt their spots. You would simply use it to build up a data use in your mind of how to choose the right spot in the future. That's that's what you mean, right, That is that couldn't be more far from the truth. I figured, Uh, like I would be at so many places that so many times that people would start to guess that I actually had the ONYX system. Dude, only I know about this spot, How is this dude here? And at my last spot, and like I start running into people like in different states at the exact same location. That'd be one amazing practical joke to like if you somehow get buddies on x waight points saying like you happen to note someplace that he doesn't really care about, and so you just start like messing with him. I would like to do that. Do you and me ever hunt together? If this io I do pans out, I'm totally Um, yeah, dude, there's a lot of interesting It's just it's it's it's a good tool about that. Um. So yeah, well we'll chat with them here in a minute. Um, let's let's let's talk current events events first us before we touch on anything else. UM cwy UM. We used to all the aubub in the news, right yep. Yeah. So for folks in the white tailed community, you've probably seen stuff on Facebook popping around. You've probably seen it on the mainstream news even now to UM. But there's been two CWD related stories have been going all over the place that begin of people reaching out asking for like my thoughts on it, or asking for us to clarify things for people or set the records straight. So I want to take a second here to do that. UM. So the first piece I think when you talk about is the zombie dear articles. UM, you've seen that as well. Correct. There was a interview done a little while back with I believe it was a professor from the University of Minnesota UM, and he made a comment more along the lens of and speaking about CTB in general. UM. He mentioned the fact that while no one has been proven to get no human has been proven to kept to h to get c w D from eating CTWD positive deer. He made the claim, UM in so many words in paraphrasing here, but he made the claim that he thought it was possible or likely or inevitable at some point that could jump the barrier said something along those lines. Um, nothing that has been proven true, I wanted to point out, but he made a comment like that, and then someone wrote a news article headline about talking about how there's the zombie deer walking over twenty four states. UM. And then this thing just blew up and like every news site out there, every media or was reported zombie deer disease. UM. Really kind of freaking non hunters out at a lot of people that aren't actually hunters asked me like, what is this thing? We're all gonna get sick? Um. And it's an interesting thing because you and I both dam we've talked many times here and on our elsewhere about how CWD is something that you know, we need to look at seriously, right, It's something that people should be paying attention to. UM. But I think it happened here is that it has got blown out of UM, blown out of context and blown out of proportion, and you know, blown into this thing that it probably isn't um, which is probably just as dangerous as pretending CWT doesn't matter. Right, UM. I think you know I think the main point here is if you have anyone asking about these zombie deer articles, um, let them know that cdw D is something that is real. It is something that's serious, is something that could have negative ramifications in the long run for dear population in deer hunting. So we gotta get seriously, um. But um, you know it has not been proven, isn't. There's not been a single instance yet where seated has crossed the species bear to humans. And there have been tens of thousands of deer probably eating probably thousands of deer that have been eaten that were positive, and you know there's been no case yet. So so that's that is good, Right, that's good. That hasn't happened yet. And it's not to say that, you know, I guess you can't say one way that if it could happen because I'm not a scientist, but I certainly I don't know. What have we talked about this, dan, would you eat if you if you shot a deer and you got it tested and it was positive, do you eat that deer? So that's that's kind of crazy for me. Here's what I will say. I don't have to test my dear right now, right, should I test, my dear? Maybe I don't, right, But if I knew that at there that there is even a one percent chance that you know, or less than a one percent chance that for some reason it skips to a you know, it could potentially skip to a human, which there has been no scientific uh you know, data to back that. Um. It does have me thinking, though I I feed all the deer I kill, you know, to my family. My kids eat the deer meat. And that's the only thing that would concern me. However, if I knew for a fact after I shot at the deer was c w D positive, I don't know if I would Yeah, yeah, that's it's you know, it would kill me to do that, you know, to killing it, to kill a deer and then just have to throw it all in the trash. I mean I would be. I would absolutely hate that. But to your point, um, I would be. Even though like you said, there's no nothing shown it can happen, you still have that little in the back of your mind that says it could be the first for you know, this could be something that takes decades and decades of decades to show up and all of a sudden. You know, we found out, um, something's going on there, and the Center four Disease Control UM does recommend that you not eat CWD positive deer out of a kind of an abundance of caution. You know, they're they're saying all the same things. We've has not been proven to jump the species bear, but they recommend cushion and and not doing it. So that's kind of what I'm doing. I did have UM three three three deer to which I killed one that bloody killed UM off of the main Michigan property to hunt. We had tests for CWD UM and and nothing positive. So UM, so that's good. But it's definitely something I'm thinking about, and you know, it would be very scary and it would change a whole lot of things. If someday we found out that it did jump the bear, then that changes everything, and that's that's a really really bad scenare that they hope never happened, and that would that would take this whole than at some different levels. So let's just hope that never happened and we're not gonna have to worry about that. But UM, but I think it just you know, it's something you're thinking about, which leads to the second big thing on the CTTD front um within the news lately, which was this video about a cure for c w D. Now did you watch that video? Dan? So? I read something about how this guy says that it can be cured and that, uh, he thinks or I don't know if he thinks, or the research showed that his research showed that bacteria and the prion have something in common, or it's like the priyan travels through a bacteria or vice versa or something like that. And then that's as far as I went. Okay, yeah, so you're you're getting there. Um, the basic gist of the video, um, and this is like at a press conference and the video that went viral that everyone was getting shared. It was just like an embedded video without a title that you couldn't see like a lot of details about who this was or what was going on. But it just looks like an official looking person in front of like an official looking like capital building or something. And then you could see there's like a an insignia on the podium. It just had like a very formal official look. So if you're watching this without knowing anything, it almost looked like someone from the state of Pennsylvania, like Pennsylvania DNR or someone was making this announcement had a very official, real valid verify I kind of feel to it, UM, But that was not actually the case. This is not the State of Pennsylvania's you know, DNR fishing game. This is not the United States and Wildlife for anything in this announcement. This was just a guy who works for the spokesman for UM, an organization called the Unified Sportsman of Pennsylvania. So I don't I don't know anything about this organization out and anything positive about it or negative about US. I can't take a stance on this at all. I'm simp is saying that this was this was a an organization of deer hunters making this statement UM, and the issue with it, well, well, I guess let me explain the statement. First. The statement was like you said that they're claiming there's this cure c w D based off some research that was happening down UM. God, I should have double checks Louisiana State University. I believe UM, a doctor Bastion and this professor down their researcher down there believed that he found UM that the c w D, the prions that we have all seen be associated with CWD and that we believe are the cause and the transferring agent of CWD. His theory was that they're actually not what is transferring c w D. They are actually just like a symptom of CWD, and that there was actually a bacteria called a spiral plasma bacteria that is the effective agent, and then primes were like a side effect of it almost, so we were just kind of seeing the side effect but everywhere, Um, while it's this bacteria that is actually the issue. And since it's a bacteria that's causing the issue, he said that, hey, I can develop essentially a cure to that that can be that can be fed to deer um. We can develop ast of different things to deal with in the captives serving industry. We could apply something in mass quantity to wild deer um. And then this spokes whoever this was, UM was then saying, not only will this cure c w D, UM, this could also be used to cure other degenerative brain diseases UM such christ fields, yakos and humans um and all these other different things like that could deal like scrapes and sheep and mad cow disease and cows and very very broad impressive statements like how this is is going to change the world. Um. And it was really exciting hearing it, because like, yes, that is what we need. We need some kind of real solution to this issue of CWD. UM. The bar is that no one has been able to back up this research that this Dr Bashan and I guess is I understand. I've checked with a number of different people in this field who have said that it's really interesting theory, wish it worked, but no one's been able to replicate it. No one's been able to verify, no peer of view has approved it. Um. You know, basically everyone I talked to us that we wish this is true, we wish it could be proven, but no other expert in space agreed with him and can in any way, um, you know, replicate it, um and and show it would be true. So I mean, I hope that maybe there's something new. I hope that maybe that um they're onto something and eventually there's going to be a cure. But the kind of MythBuster thing right now is that this viral video, it's not as proven as the gentleman in the video would like you to think, Um, it seems like a cure for CD. It's not a sure thing. This has not been proven or replicated or verified or vie in any kind of way. And um, you know, let's cross stingers and hope something does happen. But right now, it's not there. Right. And the crazy thing about this all is I knew after getting into it and going to a secondary source. And I think the National Deer Alliance, uh made a post about listen, this would be nice, but it's not accurate. Right, We don't know if this is accurate or not. Number one, I think the video is really old. And number two, it scares me. Like me, I did my further research. I saw this, I questioned it, I went to a reliable source like the National Deer Alliance, and the next thing, I did you know or or I did a little research on my own. But people are literally commenting like, uh, we don't need to worry about c w D anymore. You know, Ted Nugent was right, or or you know, like all these people who are were worried about like they they took that as problem solved, and it's a problem solved. Yeah, it's this is a great example of kind of UM click in social media news issues. I mean, you just can't take what you see on the internet for truth, right, have to get you need to do a little bit of verifying, like said, a little fact checking, check beautable sources, folks that are you know, verified with some kind of level expertise, UM, and see what's really good. And I think this is one of those cases that a lot of people wanted to be true so much that maybe there's like, yes, that's what I've been waiting to see, um and want to celebrate it. But I think the kind of the moral of the story from this video and then the zombie Dear story, the big takeaway from me at least is that these are just great reminders Again the one single thing that I think we can all agree on about CWD, and that's that we need more answers, we need more research, We need more studies done find out what really is happening, UM, because there's just there's too many questions mars right now, there's so many controversies around it. Just need to get some sell stuff, figure it out, so UM, there will one step in the right direction. There was a bill introduced to the House and the set earlier this month, UM called the Chronic Wasting Disease Transmission and Today Study Act, which essentially, UM if this passes, to authorize a special federal study done to help determine how DWT spreads, how it could be prevented in the wild, and it will you know, help divert funds towards something like this too. So every time that we see a bill like this is gonna fund get fund for research. I think that's something that us in the white up community we have to kind of really around any It's it's a simple thing whether you want whether you what you believe in everything that's being said about CTV or whether you are in the Teunusian camp and want to claim it's not a thing. Whichever way are UM, we want answers and research is the only way we're gonna get those answers. So I think that's the we can come together on and and support fund and support things like that. So this is the Chronic Wasting Disease Transmission in servid Day Study Act, which is a mouthful. So you could quite simply remember S three eight two. That's the bill. S three a two. You can search that online and get the full details on it, but point being reached to your senators or your representatives and let them know, Hey, this is something that matters to us. Um. There's a whole lot of deer hunters out there in our state. This is something that matters a lot to the outdoor economy and community. UM, give them a little bump. I think this is one of those things that we can maybe make a difference on. So UM. Absolutely, that's c W D P s A for the day. UM, moving on more fun things. Shed hunting. Have you done any ship hunting since we talked last Uh? Dude, I got six inches or eight inches of snow in my front yard and that's after like a day and a half of falling. Now. However, the good news is is down where I hunt, there's no snow on the ground right now, which has me a little worried like other people might get to my spots before I do. Wow, I assume that you're gonna have all sorts of snow on there. Nope. Uh, there's a like almost like a clear cut band that came through Iowa. Uh and uh, like the lower parts got a couple of inches, we got about eight and uh we still and we that a couple more systems came through dumping four at a time, while down south didn't get any. So um, other than the big drifts, you know, most of the fields are clear and we got some rain that helped out the melting process as well. Oh man, well that might change my plans because I was thinking that I always going to be a complete bust for shed Railly. I was thinking about going down to southern Ohio. Yeah. Now here's the deal, though, I think there's two more chances in the next ten days for us to get snow. Um, and I don't know what part of the states you're gonna get it. Yeah, but it's in the forecast. Okay. Well, I'm just gonna keep on texting you and bugging you, um and hopefully there's not If if there's not snow, can I meet with you at some point during that time period You can be around so I know you've got stuff going, but hopefully we can find a little time to get some get some walking in. Yeah. Absolutely. I don't know what the schedule is right now, and we're gonna we're talking about a little bit about that um here in a couple of minutes. But the Iowa Deer Classic is this weekend, and I have to go uh work do a little work there, and then the following weekend UH is something that I have to attend uh and is also shed Rally, So I have it's gonna be the next two weekends are gonna be really busy. Yeah, well, well I'll be there at some points, so hopeful. So hey, if I have to take a day off of work, I'll take a day off of work. Man. Hey, speaking of and I hope that happened. Um, it's going shed rally. So we're doing a little thing with Wired to Hunt, which you should bot out year old wire Hunt hat or shirt day because I figured there's a whole lot of folks that listen to Wired to Hunt that also participate in shed Rally and want to figure out some way to kind of thank people who have been supporting wire to Hunt, rocking the wire dunt hat and T shirts and things like that. And actually, interestingly, you and me shed hunted together during shed really right when the current wire hunt low hats and shirts came out, do you remember that, Yes, I was rocking I think wired dun hat and teacher and we're shed hunting your spots. And that was the first year of shed. Like, we were walking all over the place and we just be like shed Relly. Yeah, Corey was there too, Yeah, Cola was that was on. Corey fell asleep in the truck. Well, Corey fell asleep, and you guys weren't. You guys weren't very good at walking uh straight lines. And I remember you guys found a shed at the exact same time and then you looked at each other and you guys were both so polite. You're like, oh, man, you can you can get it. And he was like, no, man, no, you can have it. You can have it. No, man, you can you can get it. You can get it. It was pretty funny. Yeah, that was I remember that. Well. Um so, so that is when jef Rally began. Now it's like five years later, and um so, the long way of saying, during Shelly writes this white Tailed Properts deal where they get a whole bunch of folks encourage everybody out there to go and shut onto the same weekend and if you post photos and videos for the hashtag shed Rally, um you get ended to win a bunch of prizes from White Tailed Properties. And now this year. Now, I'm going to do a giveaway with wire Don't so if you participate in shed Rally and you post pictures with that sed Relly hashtag, if you're wearing a wired hat or shirt and you're out there and you put pictures and videos, you'll also be entered into another giveaway. And we're going to get away five prizes. One person is gonna win a Yeti Tundra cooler. It's that the Tundra Halts is their new coolers, got Wilson you can pull around. Another one of these is gonna win a Yeti load out bucket, one of the big fancy buckets, fully loaded with all the different successors and stuff lids and tool straps and seats and interesting things like that. Another person is gonna win a Yetti there six ounce Rambler bottle. Another winner is gonna win at first like catalyst jacket and pant, which is the set of white bell gear I wore a lot during this pass hunting season. And then finally someone's gonna win a Vortex Impact range finder. So pretty sweet, right, pretty pretty sweet surprise. And all you gotta do is where you're wired hunt gear during shed Rally. Uh, and if that's what I'm gonna do is after shed Rally, I want to go click on the shed Reley hashtag and actually add put the wiretunt hashtag in there too, So where your wired dount gear, put wiretunt hashtag in there too. That will make it a little bit eager for me to sort through. Um. But basically, I'll just hit the hashtag in my instagrament feed and I'll just scroll through it, find out the people that wore the wire dunt gear, everyone's names in the hat and we're just gonna randomly select five people and uh you'll get a sweet prizes for for rock and world hunt gear during shed rail. So, um, alright, that'd be fun. Heck yeah, heck yeah, I'm down. Do I do I qualify or not? Yes? Sure you can, you can. Okay, I'm just gonna take like fifty pictures of the same exact shed. I'm gonna be watching out for that, okay, all right, all right, um so yeah that's my that's excited. Shed Rally News. We talked about cd WD issues. Um, main topic today, Dan, once you've got a violence is going to be Western white tail stuff. Um. Now I know you get the Western elk stuff. You're in treged by Western bule Deer. Have any of my stories about my trips out there in Tregue? Yeah, oh absolutely. I mean I've already looked at Wyoming in Montana whitetail hunts. Yeah, it's uh, you mean you you you love the sandhills and we chased mules out there. It's and I've chased white tails out there too. I guess you did see a couple of day ones in here. Yep, I mean it's it's. Um, I'm having a hard time not going up there every year and doing it, which makes it tough because I love al con Um. But I am, just as we were talking about a few weeks ago, for some reason, I'm just getting more and more infatuated with my original infatuation. And I'm having a hard time saying that I won't do a white tail hunt in September West to do an elk instead. I'm having a hard time doing both, just you know, being away of two weeks at a time. Um, So this year, I don't think I'm gonna do it hunt just because I really want to do my white tail hunt. It's just I don't know, I don't know why, but you just see so many deer. They act, you know, they're just very visible. It's cool, really cool age class. You're seeing older deer in the big country, the big skies. Um, I don't know, it's been it's been a fun thing for me. And you definitely called a Western bug in general. Just yeah, the Western hunt. Just how different that is? Right? Yeah, absolutely, It's something that I think about every day. Yeah. So have you made any more progress in your western plans since we've talked like three weeks ago about this topic. Yeah, I mean not too much. Not too much playing on the on the elk side of thing, because really, all I have to do is just organize my gear, you know, practice shooting, get conditioning, uh and pay the tag. Right, the place is already there. I already know where I'm where I would go again, the mule deer side of things in South Dakota. I've talked with a lot of people since the last time we talked. And when I say a lot, I mean like five or six different people, and they were gracious enough to talk to me about how they work at some little tips and tricks that they use, uh um, how to locate them, how to you know, set up on stocks and and all that good stuff, and even you know, not necessarily like hacking into the onyx system to find specific pin points. But they're just like, hey, man, check out this area. Hey, why are you thinking about doing South Dakota instead of going back to your Nebraska stock that you had population strictly population? Um, I think I would have more up your population, yeah, mule deer population. I think I will have a better chance of getting a stock in um in South Dakota on public land than I will on this farm in uh in Nebraska. Interesting. Um, I'm very interested to see how that goes. It's it's a hunt. That's that's always been on my radar, and I e again it's the time thing, like what do you you gotta you gotta pick and choose, and I'm gonna have to pick that eventually and try so I'm gonna be watching your experience, CLO. What are you gonna do? As far as um have you have you thought through like logistics to say, in a camp you tell you gonna rent a cabin. If I do it, I'm doing I'm doing it as gangster as possible, and I'm gonna be sleeping in the back of my truck. I have a topper so that but that makes it easy. Um, you know, eat everything out of the back of my truck, have a cooler with me, um, you know all that, all that stuff. There's some BLM land around there, so I can definitely sleep on the BLM land. There's also, like I think there's some campsites around there as well. Um, I don't want to do a hotel if unless I like, for some reason have to. But I want to do it. I want to do it, you know, as hard as possible. Yeah, man, that's the way to do it. Highly. I mean, you've seen my back truck hunts for this last couple of years and something about it. I just I love coming back to the truck after full day hunting. And for me, I don't know if you're doing this with anyone else, but I also I kind of like these solo hunts. When you just get back, it's dark, it's pitch black. You you drink a cold beer at the batail gate. The end of the night by headlamp, you kick back and you're skipping bag. You know, there's nothing but Cody's howling in the distance. There's something cool just being out there on your own. That's that's that's nice and that you just don't get when you're in a hotel. UM. So camping I think is a good choice. In our conversation that we're about to have here with Zack and and Eric, which I recorded for this UM, we actually get into some some thoughts on singing up Western camps too. They've got a lot of experience setting up like UM wall tents for bigger, longer trips, which is an interesting thing too, which is something I haven't done UM, but that's an interesting thing to keep in mind as well. Off to do a group with a bunch of people sending up a big tense not a bad idea. Me and Me and Andy May when we did Nebraska Hunt, we brought a big, like four percent tent. It wasn't quite a wall tent, but it was been enough that we could bring our grill inside a little like what do you call it, not being honing but I'm blanking on this word, but basically like a little outdoor covered area with the grill, and then inside the tent we set to camp chairs in the table and the cooler so that we could eat inside because it's really cold at night, so we could still eat inside the tent and we had the other half of the time with our sleeping bags or gear, and that was that was pretty nice too. Um. I'm a big fan of the hunting camping trips for white tails. It's it's not only it's very common, but it's it's pretty cool. So I've even thought about depends. Not maybe not every day, it's because I live so close to where I hunt in Iowa. But I even thought about maybe an early season, you know, first week of October, if I'm going out there to kill the dough, parked the truck next to a barn at the at the farm, and you know, just chill there overnight and you know, just hunt out the back of the truck just one night. And I think I still think that would be pretty fun. I think you're right for sure. Um, maybe we'll come together some day, do that. Amen for it? I'm all for it. Well, well we'll talk about the later. Hopefully something happens. So, um, you know, I totally forgot to mention something unrelated to going west, but related to our lap topic. Can I like hit the you know when someone's working the turntables of the DJ booth and they can yeah, but then when they want to go backwards in time, then go I mean yea, yeah, Well, I'm gonna hit the turntables, right, I'm gonna rewind the tape and we're going back to shed hunting because it's totally forgotten to tell you that I have found the first sheds of the year. Yeah, I saw that, dude, and I this is like, it's not it's not anywhere close to shirting at all. No, no, no, no, okay, although that's interesting, someone this. So we're going off the rails real fast year. But we did live Mediator podcast last weekend and um, really cool events. People came out to see the podcast, and UM, I get out of my truck after the show and I walk up and I see someone. There's a ticket on the windshield. Son of a gun. I got a ticket. I parked around place and I walk up to it. It's it's not like an official ticket, it's actually like theater tickets. And across the back of the theater tickets it says holy Field Lives. I'm like, oh man, that's kind of creepy that someone news is my vehicle. What kind of funny too? Oh buddy. Um, So that's that's all I've got on holy Field. But but I am nope, not Western ut in Michigan's slash. I am tentatively exploring and this is definitely not a sure thing, but I'm kind of exploring some different possible options to maybe try and purchase a small hunting property in Michigan, possibly in Michigan, possibly in northern Ohio and mother than Indiana because I'm kind of kind of close to the border like that where they all come together, um, and trying me like real small. But I've had you know, we've kind of talked for a long period of time about how I'd love to do it someday. Right, We've had this conversation over the year. Would love to do it, would love to do it, would love to buy something small. Um. So I'm kind of looking at some different routes and maybe being able to do that, mostly because I think it would just be like a really cool like project, like a content thing to talk about on the podcast and to to share across all the different things I'm doing. Like how like we hear about we talk about people buying a property and making something cool that we had Dan Press on several years ago, you and me Dan talking to and he was talking about, Yes, starts small by small property, building something cool, flip it, and then by a little bigger one and then you can do that over the years and finally get to something that is we really want. So I'm wondering maybe I should try to test the theory. Um. And again, this is not a sure thing at all. This is something I'm just had to fiddle in with at the moment um. But I did find a small property that was very instriguing, and I walked it the other day and found three sheds on it. Yeah, let me guess one of them is a boon and crockett from a boot and crockett. No, okay, that's just your luck. Yeah, my lucks are pretty good lately. No, like a spike two pointer and a shed from last year at least year old then would have been a four points side, but in a nice point like a hundred, like a hundred hundred tenants eight point or maybe something like that. Um. But encouraging, you know, walking a property, just trying to see what we think about it, um, and finding some antlers just as you're checking it out. Um. That was cool and the property is very interesting. I'll wait to talk about this property too much until we get you know, if it becomes a real thing. But um, but yeah, a whole bunch of possible things to talk about if if this whole idea comes together. So T B D and all that dan. Um, So that I think is is all I want to talk about today. We talked about sheds, We talked about CWD, talked about how we would love coming out west and how something you should think about. How the rest of our conversation was Zack and Eric be pretty interesting because they've got a lot of unique experience. Um. Anything else you want to cover, dam No, I'm good. I I just got the text from the wife that says, wrap it up. Okay, okay, yes we'll wrap it up. UM. I do want to make one quick announcement, which is is not as much as not fun thing to talk about at all. Um, but I just want to, um, you know, just say a few words about the tragedy that we had in the white Tail community here recently. Someone that you and I both knew well, Um Todd Bringnits, the owner of White white Knuckle Productions, and he did wicked street gear or a tree thrasher. UM passed away UM recently an eight TV accident. And you and I acted Dan. We both met at the White Knuckle Film Productions film school many years ago. UM, so that is you know, that's where this whole thing kind of started. And uh, you know a lot of people were really positively um influenced by Odd. He He brought a lot of enthusiasm excitement to everything he did in the White Tailed world. And I think, UM just a very very very very sad thing. UM. And he left behind a wife and two months old UM son. So I just wanted to mention this fact that, UM, there is a go fund me right now that is helping raise funds to help over the medical costs were incurred over the last week or so. UM, you know while Todd was fighting this, and UM, I think anyone has a little extra forgive to help out K and their son Bagger. UM. That did a great way to try and do that, UM, and you can I will have a link to this on the show notes for a podcast. You can go contribute to that go fund me there, or if you go to the White Knuckle Film Productions UM Facebook page. Well, I'm sure they'll have a link there, or you could go to go fund me and search for Todd prenants there as well. UM, and you'll be able to find a way to up there. So just wanted to give our condolences as the wire Dunk community to the Pregnants family and UM, you know, if anyone can give, that's one way to do it. Otherwise, let's keep everyone affected by this in our prayers and UM, with that we will. I'll tell you what. Let me tell a real quick story. So I was living in Alabama. I got a phone call from my buddy Brent Rich and I was out of Alabama, like I was checked out. I was ready moved back to Iowa. And he's like, hey, man, uh, you're doing any hunting down there. I'm like, no, Man, all I do is work all the time. All I do is He's like, Man, I met this dude. I'm going I go shut hunting with him whatever. You know, We're starting to hang out. He's like this hardcore white tail nut right, And I'm like, oh cool, because I started to miss hunting when I was working all that all those hours down Alabama. I moved back to Iowa, and you know, I have a girl. I have a girlfriend at the time, I have uh, I have a house that I just purchased. And uh. I get a call from my buddy one night and he's like, Hey, this dude Todd is at the bar with me. It's a bar named Key, It's a the bar we always used to hang out at called Kios. He's like, uh, why don't you, Uh, why don't you come meet us out for a couple of beers And I'm like, yeah, okay, man, I'll do that. And uh So the first night I've ever met Todd was at the bar with my buddy Brent, and uh, Todd introduces himself and he goes, what's your name? I said, I'm Dan, and he goes Dallas. And there was no there was no music playing in this bar, so I didn't know how he didn't understand me. I go, I go, no, Dan, Dan Johnson and he goes Dallas, Dallas for Worth And I'm not shooting you. The very first night that I met him is the night I got the name Dallas for Worth, and people to this day still call me by that. That's amazing. I guess I didn't really came from that. For night very first night I ever met while that's that's the story man, and uh and I yeah, man, it's I think a lot of people can can point to Todd or things that he put on that helped bring a lot of us together and brought a lot of joy to the the hunting community. Um yeah, Like the first time I ever heard about you as was on one of the White Knuckle production DVDs, one of those that you were on with Todd, and I remember, and that's a wild character. He's an interesting dude. And then when we met, you know, we kicked off our own friendship. Um. So just just shockingly sad, and I think I think a lot of people are are probably I don't even know what to say. Um there's not just there's nothing to really say. I mean, go go if you feel and if you feel like it, go give some money to the family through through that um go fund me app and help take care of a two months old man. Yeah, and I think kiss your wife, husband or child at night and just appreciate every still day because the thin is guaranteed, and just be thankful if we have. So that let's wrap up this part one. Thank you Dan for making some time for this, and um, let's take a quick break and we'll move on to part two with Dirk and Zach. All right, I'm here now with Eric Siegfried and Zach stand out of Onyx and Uh. First off, guys, thank you for being here. I appreciate you taking the time. Yeah, thanks for having it on. Absolutely, thank you. It's uh, it's always fun to talk to people, at least at least I get a kick out of talking to people that come from a different kind of background or a different perspective on things. You know, we're eventually gonna talk about white tails here, but your guys white tail experiences, I'm imagining, I think from what I gather are pretty different from mine, and those are usually the conversations that, um, that are most fascinating to me. Probably I I'm kind of a sucker for the new and the different. So right out of the gate, I'm excited about that, especially since you guys are hunting out west, which is where where my heart usually lies. So that's a long winded way of saying I'm excited about this. But before we get into that stuff, I do want to kind of lay some background here. UM, and Eric, you founded ONYX, which is a tool I've been using for many years now. It's unbelievably helpful. Um So, I figure I should probably kick this off by saying thank you, thank you for helping me out in a lot of ways. And secondly, how how did this all come together? I got to hear the story of how this product came to be, how it ended up on my phone and opened so often to the dismay of my wife. And maybe a little bit of background on on you personal as a hunter and stuff would be interesting too. Okay, Yeah, so I guess I can give a little background company history. Um So. I started the company in two thousand nine. That's when we launched our first products for the garment GPS unit. It was a micros D card that had a statewide land ownership map and topo map. You just plug right into your garment GPS unit and you could see those property boundaries where you were while you're in the field. So that was the original product we sold after we still sell that product, um and we sold that a lot for the first three years. Then in we came out with the app that basically turned your smartphone into a GPS So that was and since then most people are probably more familiar these days with our smartphone app called on x hunt UM downloaded in the app store. But yeah, that's kind of the overall picture of the company really quickly. UM. I actually a little bit of history about me. I I grew up in eastern Montana, UM mainly hunting elk, well, mainly hunting mule deer an antelope when I started. Then I started moving west. I went to school in Bozeman and started doing some artreal hunting UM and my my family actually owned ranch, a ranch on the river bottom, so I did a little bit of white to hunting. My dad got me my first bow when I was sixteen, and I did a little bit of white toil hunting with that right way. But I have done some rifle hunting for white tails, but other than that. Now now living in western Montana Missoula, where the company is, I do some mountain white til hunting. Other than that. Yeah, I've been hearing a lot of good things about that section of the state. I've I've always hunt on the east side of the state, but I'm increasingly intrigued by what's going up there a little bit more to the west and north. So I'm not to not to pick your brain a little bit about that. But um, but going back to the company a little bit, I mean where the idea come from. Was this something that you always wanted to just get better maps of album on your GPS or was this I'm just kind of curious about how you know, how this went from some concept that you had or someone had to being a reality. Yeah. Yeah, kind of an interesting story. Basically moving to Bozeman, Montana for going going to school, Um, I had an experience. I had to try to find places where I could go out cutting and I did that with for Service maps, b LM maps or whatever. Then I had to move to Missoula and basically landing a whole new area where I had to figure out where I could go. So I was using for service maps, using BLM maps, and I was like, gosh, this is hard, hard to actually figure out exactly where you're at relative to property bounties in the field. So that was about two thousand seven when I was having those experiences and just like doing that, having that personal need, I ended up coming up with the idea like just basically, I need this in the field with me, So how can I have this on my GPS when I'm in the field. I was using a total map on my garment GPUSS didn't have the public and private landownership. So came up with the idea, Hey, I need this public land when I'm in the field, how can I get this on my garment GPS unit? And I figured it out and that's how kind of the product came about, which just those personal experiences I had needing to find property boundaries. Yeah, I think you're probably making it sound easier than it was. I'm sure. Being a small time entrepreneur myself at times, I know that putting something out there for the world is no easy tasks. So I'm glad that it's that it was something you could do because we're certainly reaping we're reaping the benefits of it now. Um and Zach, I guess you're kind of reaping the benefits of it too. Working for onyx, UM, can you give us a little low down on on what it is you're doing there and a little bit of your story too. Yeah, Yeah, so absolutely. I work on the marketing team and so I kind of oversee the projects that we're working on in just the different communications and then get to work with the partners as well, so pretty much the team gets to make me look good and make my job easy. But it I've been here for a little over three years now, and I actually graduated college. I'd use the chip, especially, you know Eric growing up in Montana. It was one of those things on support Montana and it did. I mean it, it solved the problem. We uh parents are from eastern Montana, so we do a lot of hunting out there where you're navigating boundaries and you know, you always hear the term checkerboard, and so before we were always uncertain where we were, and then once we got the chip, it changed all that. And so I knew in college I wanted to do something in the hunting industry, and on X was always one that was on my radar because they were located right in my backyard. I graduated from the University of Montana here in Missoula, and they actually had an internship um that I started the day after I graduated. And then that was over three years ago and they haven't been able to get rid of me since. Nice. It sounds like not a bad not a bad thing to be to be doing. It looks like you're somehow you figured out a job that allows you to do a lot of fun stuff too. Because I saw you were on that that mule there hunt with Steve in the whole Anyone's Hunt episodes, right, that was was that New Mexico for Arizona. That was Arizona. So that one was Arizona in December, and that was a good time. We uh, you know, just over the counter archery opportunity that I had never done. I've wanted to hunt Arizona. And we just went down and stayed out, slept under the stars for nine days and went hunted the old here with our bow, and we weren't successful, but we had plenty of opportunities. I ended up coming to full draw on the book at forty six yards and got busted just trying to step out beyond the shrub. But it was a good time. You know. At the first couple of days, we're really just trying to get a lay of the land, kind of learned, you know, these dear movements. But the last couple of days we kind of got a dial and ended up finding some books and had a ton of stocks that we got close but just not quite enough to capitalize. That's hunting I haven't got to watch all the full videos yet, but I've really been enjoying like the behind the scenes stuff on Instagram stories and uh and and falling along with what you guys are doing here recently. So I man, it's funny though it looks as as I was watching that, I was thinking to myself, Man, I gotta get out there and chase some some mule deer. I just went on my first cous deer hunt a couple of weeks ago and got kind of the taste for that mountain hunting for deer um, and so Montana's spotting go to a lot. I'd love to do a mule deer hunt there, but I don't think I ever could convince myself to do it, because you can only get one deer tag in Montana, either mule deer or white tailed deer. And I don't think I can possibly say no to the white tail hunting out there, um, because man, I've gotten so so much enjoyment out of chasing these western white tails. But I'm doing it from a non resident perspective, you know. So I'm from Michigan. I'm used to how we have it here and going out to Montana it's just so different as far as the landscape, as far as the number of deer you see, the number of bucks, the number of quality bucks. It's kind of like a white tailed dream land for me out there. Um, but I always hear from locals that just I don't know. I don't know if people appreciate as much as I do. I'm kind of curious what you guys think or feel about the white tail situation out there, Like, how do you look at and think about Western white tails? Yeah, I mean, I think one of the things that's tough just growing up is Montana has so much opportunity. You know our tag if you buy a deer tag, a large portion of the state is a general unit and there's a couple of areas that will be a permit for meal there. But for the most part, you can shoot either in a ton of different districts and you can hunt them from September during archer season all the way about til you know, early October, and then you can do the rightful season from October ish through the end of November through Thanksgiving weekends. So you have one tag, you get so much opportunity. And what's kind of cool with the landscape of Montana's you can be hunting mountains that can hold white tail hand meal there or you can be you know, in eastern Montana in these bad lands and river bottoms that hold them both. So it's such an opportunity thing, And I think there are folks that lean one way or another, but for me personally, it's one of those things that there are some similarities between how we're hunting them, especially during rifle season, and you know, just being able to you know, shoot either if if you see it. You know, you could go out there intending to have a spots off mule deer hunt, but then all of a a sudden in some egland or river bottom you see a nice white tail and all of a sudden, the hunt changes quickly. Yeah, I bet that that does make a pretty exciting knowing that the options there. If you had to guess, Zach or Eric, what do you think the split is like? If you had to just based off kind of your your friends and people you're around, if they're gonna say, like white tail guys versus mule deer guys, if they had to pick, what do you think it is like? Muliar people? Thirty percent white tailor what's that skew? Or are you guys of all Montanon's you're thinking, yeah, that's tough. I would say I would say probably more white tails are harvested, just because there tend to be more white tails in the western United States or sorry, excuse me, in in the western Montana and there's that's where you kind of run in some permantent areas for meal there. But I think people kind of want to hunt meal there, so I'd say they would say meal there. But I know, like around Missoula, for instance, we have not a lot of general over the counter opportunities from meal there. So there's quite a few more white tail being shot here and up in northwest Montana. But if you go to eastern Montana, there's definitely plenty of white tails out there, but it seems like folks are focusing on meal deer. Yeah. I guess in the circles I hang out with would be I think you're eighty percent mule there's white til yeah, but maybe if you look across the whole state, it might be more like, yeah, sixty percent mule there and thirty tinking, like I don't know natal the majority. Yeah, Now, would you say though that if you looked at the population of deer, it might be more a little bit the opposite direction. Is it safe to say there's probably a lot more white tailed deer the meal there in the state. Is that accurate? That one's tough putting us on plot on that one. I mean, I don't know on that one. I think I think there's plenty opportunity for both. But I think depending on where you're at in the region of the state, you can see more you know, white tails in west western Montana and then mill there. When you get to the east there there's a ton of meal there. And frankl I mean there's a ton of white tails when you get around river Bottom and egg Land. Yeah, yeah, actually interesting dynamic. And in Montana you've got egg egg egg bottoms and river bottoms and creek bottoms in eastern Montana and other places where you got white tails hanging out. But then you get into western Montana the mountains, and you've got actually white tails that have been moving up into the mountains, so you actually have just white tail mountain hunting. And then you also have the typical like river bottom white tail hunting and going out in eastern Montana and other places in western Montana. Yeah, yeah, that's that's got me really intrigued to have been talking about for a while wanting to try to chase some of these these deer up in the mountains because I've done the river by the thing. But um but it definitely does seem like two years this point, the interest exkews probably towards mule there, not just in Montana, but probably a lot of these western states. Um but I know some guys are a little like worried about the spread of white tails. Like white tails are just so adaptable. They seem to be increasing their populations in a lot of areas. I know, like if you look at the longer view over the last couple of decades, it sounds like it's definitely been something that's been growing as far as the white tail prevalence versus mule dear prevalence in certain places and in some places even maybe white tails pushing Mulei's off a little bit. Um. So, I've got a couple of buddies who are always kind of dogging me about like in the white tails so much, like, yeah, keep them keeping by you, we don't want them. Um. Yeah, But I'm a sucker. I'm a sucker for these deer. Um. I've only ever been out there though, hunting um early season, so I've always done the early September archery deal for white tails out there. Um. Does that seem to be at least from my perspective, it seems like there's not a whole lot of attention being paid to them at that point. From all the places I've hunted, I've ran into very few people chasing white tails that time of year. When does the white tail bug hit most people around? You guess is that more of a later in the year kind of thing, a gun thing, or am I just kind of experiencing a unique situation? Now, I definitely agree. I think it's more. You know, Montana, we get the opportunity to hunt here during the ruts, so I would say that's when white tail hunting picks up. Um. There's always folks that will go out and hunt early season and archery, and then in rifle, you know they'll they'll be out more spot in stock once that October rolls around. But for the most part, you know, when you have the opportunity hunt him in the rut, it seems like that's when most people are getting the white tail bug. That's the one thing I've kind of missed out on. I love like that early September time period because it's it's something I can't hunt at that time of year back home, and love getting to see that bed defeat patterns so much just visible activity. But I have always been really I just wondering what the rut is like in these Western states? Is it? Is it pretty wild? Is white tail writing action pretty awesome? Mob? I guess yeah, yeah, absolutely. I mean I last year hunted western and eastern Montana and being able to see how the similarities but also just the differences between them. We have an opportunity for like a it's a river bottom art, it's an extra buck tag we have shooted with a bow and it's in the river bottom, and so like that one, I don't even really you can hunt that from archery season, so September one all the way through January, and I don't really focus on that one until that kind of mid November because I'm looking for them to rut, looking for bucks to be moving, um. And then you know, when I'm hunting eastern Montana with a rifle, that's generally you know, spot and stock, you're trying to find deer, and so locating does. And you know, it's cool because during the rut you have bluck s crewising. So you can look at a group of doughs one day and then the next day, all of a sudden, there's a buck there that hasn't been and so it is one of those things that once the rut starts coming, it's great because you just have so many opportunities to find bucks. Yeah, So one of the things I've always noticed when going out there that's unique compared to some of the other states have hunted is just the the very very high number of bucks compared to doves. Like you've got on an average hunt for me back here in Michigan, and you might see fifteen doughs in one buck. But I've never been out to any of my hunts in the Western States for white tails and seeing you know, it's almost always even if I had average it out, I might see ten bucks, ten dos, or five bucks five dolls, Like it seems, at least from my experience, I'm seeing that often. Is that is that something you guys see often too? And then if so, I've always imagined that makes for like a lot of intense competition, a lot of fighting, a lot of chasing during the rut because of that. Do you see that? Yeah, I mean I think definitely. You know, the buck to door ratio is pretty good, especially for white tails. Um. You know, as you were saying earlier, it seems like white tails are a little more resilient than meals here. But I do think, you know, there's there's especially once the rifle season comes. You always hear about like the orange army. Um, there is a lot of competition for these deer. But luckily the white tail population in Montana's doing pretty well across the state. Um, so you do have you know, you do have a pretty good buck to door ratio. It can vary, but I mean, I the white tail I shot this year during the rifle season, I think that day I saw six bucks and we ended up seeing like maybe ten to twelve dolls, so it was two to one dough but still very good, you know, Um, especially when you're going out looking to be able to look through six bucks in the morning is not bad. You know. I haven't noticed anyone to one ratios. It's more like four does to one buck? What I usually see if I had to guess, Yeah, so what about fighting and stuff? Is there a lot of duking it out? Given that just in general, there's a pretty good number of bucks. And again I've I don't know if this is unique, but I've even hunting public land a pretty good spread of age class too. I Mean, it's not like it's all year and a half old for keys like I see in Michigan. Sometimes I see, you know, a couple of year and a half olds, a couple two and a half year olds, a couple of threes, fours. You know there's older deer. Um. Is there some serious competition for those ladies? Have you seen a knockdown brawls? Yeah, I mean I've I've only had the benefits or the opportunity to see white tail box flight once. But the one thing I do know is during the especially like this river Bottom tag I was talking about earlier, Really, what I like to do is I like to set up a decoy in rattle and I've had pretty good success doing that. Um, generally you'll get those younger bucks coming in there. But even this year during rifle season, we were up in the hills and we found a good drainage that was off of private land on public So I was kind of hunting that boundary there and finding you know, where these bucks would be moving up into the hills. And I was able to rattle in that drainage, and we had different bucks coming to check us out and come, you know, to see what's going on. And so if you have ten does running around their six bucks and they're all kind of curious and moving throughout, we ended up rattling one in pretty close. There was a young buck. Um. But I do think you know, that is one thing that it seems like during the rut, especially when you get to that like mid November, Um, there is a ton of opportunity to rattle deer in. They seem to be pretty aggressive at that point and always want to at least come check it out. Yeah, you have wonder about that too. What what was the kind of rattling sequence or strategy you're using, How like you're doing it just once a day or every half hour. I'd love some details on what you found to work out there. Yeah, for sure. So archery, what I'm doing is kind of a river bottom thing. Generally, it's like state sections, so they're pretty small um, And I know these deer kind of in the egg fields on the private or they're going and bedding up over there where there's less pressure. So generally what I'm doing is I'm actually on the ground. I enjoy doing it. They're just because I can be a little more mobile, and so I'll set up and rattle the perimeters of those and I'll generally set up for you know, do a couple of sequences, um within a half hour, and then sit and wait for a little while, see what's going on. And then if nothing's going for forty five minutes or so, I'll pick up and move and I'll kind of just work the whole perimeter um. And you know, there's some areas that I know dear tend to bed and so I'm kind of trying to figure out where those those are where I think box will be in the general vicinity. But then with rifle, honestly moving country, um, you know, looking for dose because if you you know, during the rut, if you find the dose, you can assume there's a block nearby. But then all so just moving country and glass and trying to find deer and then finding places they think they're gonna bedded up in and then setting up a calling. But I would say when I'm rifle hunting, if I'm gonna rattle, I'm I'm much more mobile less calling there and covering country. Yeah, man, that sounds like a fun way to do it, um when you're doing it with the bow in those river bottoms, when you're setting up on the ground. So you describe that set up, I'm curious, like how you're positioning yourself to have some cover or not. But I mean walk me through, like an example of how you set up on the bow for a rattling kind of sequet. That sounds intense. I'm thinking in my head rattling a buck while on the ground with my bow and hoping to get a shot. I I'm very intrigued. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And the one thing I want to preface with this is, I haven't you know these are generally since it's a second buck dag, I'm not. I haven't killed a stud doing this, but I've gotten some younger and nice bucks coming in. But usually I have a couple of areas picked out that you know, I've hunted the areas for a couple of years that I know where these deer going to be vetted, and so I'll try to find like a predominant deer trail that I know there's some movement on, and I'll go and set up and I'll put that decoy out anywhere from forty yards depending on what the covers like. And so I'll generally have them so they're facing kind of quarter into me. And so then when I back up, get a good backdrop. I just bring like a little chair, a little portable chair that I can set up and make sure I'm drawn and I'm tucked in. I don't have anything, you know, really covering me so much in front, but I'm just making sure I have a good backdrop and I'm tucked back. And then so theoretically, and what's happened in the past is I will get their attention and they come looking, and then in the clearing where they have some vision, they're able to see that decoy. And what I found is when I have them kind of quarter in two, when they come to you know, confront them and come up, I will have a good Generally, I'm trying to get like a obviously a broadside or even quartering a way shot in that thirty yard range and so I try to get set up so I have good backdrop, make sure the winds in my face before I set up, and then you know, if I think they're gonna be rattling where they're coming from, all set up according to the wind, and then try to find a trail that I think they'll come into and come in to see that decoy and not have any attention on me. Yeah, I really like that. That's that's uh, that sounds a good way to do it. You mentioned the wind a couple of times, playing the wind and everything, and that's something that I've always found when I compare like what we're doing with my typical white tailed guy back in the Midwest or the East or wherever, compared to folks that've hunted without West is lots of times we like obsess about send control, like really go over the top of trying to minimize any human odor, while on the other flip side, I feel like a lot of folks out west are don't even care about at all. They're just gonna play the wind. They don't worry about trying to minimiz sound. They'll wear their camera clothes all day every day doing whatever is that? How do you how do you fall on that? Do you try to do any kind of sent control one specifically chasing white tails in a scenario like that, or or no, I'll clean, you know, I'll make sure to wash them with stuff and not add any additional scent, and I'll leave them to air out outside. But it is I would agree a percent that I think in the West we try to play the wind. We don't worry about to send control stuff as much. I do, know, like with archery, like I try to make sure my stuff hung out. I'm you know, putting it on when I get to the parking spot. But really I'm playing the wind on that one and worrying about that more so than any scent control on my clothing or myself. But most guys are, I mean during November and the run, most guys are out there with a rifle. You can you're out there doing a rattle and you're setting up maybe in a little elevating spot with more visibility to where you can shoot a hundred yards, so you know, you can play your wind when you're rattling and then make sure your wind going to a safe spot. Yeah, and then you're using a right so you don't have to worry about such close quarters. Yep, yep, exactly. Eric. Can you describe in a little more detail your your kind of typical steps on a lot of these songs, because I know you said you're more rifle focused during the rut too. Is it kind of similar to some of the things that Zach was sharing or do you have a different take? Yeah, I guess I have tried a little bit of rattling, but not a lot of what I've done in the past in eastern Montana. Is I've actually like got to an elevated position and just watch where bucks are coming out in the fields. Froom, I'm talking like two miles away. You're on this like elevated hill where you can look at down all the down around all the river bottoms and eggs fields, so all glass evenings and mornings, and see where bucks are going into bed and coming out the fields. And then if I see a buck that UM interested in, I'll actually use terrain to stock down close with a rifle. And maybe I'm two hundred yards away, but I can usually use some sort of terrain to actually stock in on them and get a shot. Or you can go that you know, if you see one come out of it to a field at night. Maybe you just go back in the morning and try to get in a position where your two hundred yards from that field will do the same thing the next evening, where you actually get close to the next evening to where this book is coming out. Yeah, yeah, I think that's one of my favorite things about Western white tail hunting so far has just been the opportunity to do what you just said, which is observed dear from a distance and then be able to move on them. So often, like what I've got going on back here in some of the states that hunt in the Midwest, you you know, you're if you want to see at least mature bucks, you're not very often can see them out in the open where you can actually see him from you know, half a mile or two d yards even lots of times if you're gonna see something, it's got to be at fifty yards or forty yards or those long distance observations are just tough. So so much of your strategy has to come down to looking at sign or trail cameras or close encounter and then making a small adjustment. But when I've gone you know, North Dakota in Montana. I'm sitting, you know, just like you describe. I'll find a high spot and I'll just watch a mile away and then you can learn so much. Not only is that helpful from a hunting perspective, but that's just for me at least, it's a lot of fun just to get to see the deer and then you know, make a move with it with your tree stand or if you've got a gun, you know, sneak in on foot. Um. That is just just the observation, just simply geeking out about watching deer. That is just I don't know, unique to the Western landscape. It seems like you just the views are unbelievable. Yeah, absolutely, And it always makes it easier, you know, like even if the hunting is not great where you're at, if you're able to go out and see deer to neighboring public ground that they might get an opportunity, you might get an opportunity on. It just keeps you motivated throughout the day when you can just go up and get up high and start glassing to see deer because you always have that. You know, you're always waiting for that opportunity and it it just helps you get through those longer days. Oh yeah, agree with that anymore. I like to just use my spotting scope and uh, you know, take pictures of a a certain deer and kind of watch them over the years and just like photograph them and watch what they do. And one of these spots that I have, you can actually just sit on this high rise and you can see multiple different fields. So you you look at this one field for a little bit and see what they're doing. Then you look over here and see what they're doing. So it's like you're saying, it's really neat to watch. Is that something that people do a whole lot around you guys? That being you know, actually paying attention to specific deer and seeing that same dear year after year. I've always kind of I haven't heard that as much from the West, but back here all the time, like we're seeing the same eight porter year after year. Things like that. Um, does that happen a whole bunch of year kind of neck of the woods? Yeah, I think if they have access from private ground. Maybe The one thing I do here is like someone might see a deer during archery season and then try to come back during rifle and locate that dear if it's like a general area or something like that. But I do think the folks that are watching year to year, Um, it's just on public ground, it's tough that you know, they might get pushed off or someone else might get in there. But you know, there's a ton of folks who have a place that they've been hunting every single year and so then they're able to kind of keep tabs on their deer. Yeah. What what kind of opportunity have you guys seen from a public land perspective? Um, generally pretty good quality hunting in the areas you guys have gone as far as white tails or um, you know, I've thought it's been pretty darned good in the places I've gone. But again I'm comparing it to you know, Michigan, where the public land hunting is really really tough. Have you guys seen pretty pretty good success in public land at all or heard about it as far as white tails? Yeah, yeah, No, I think there's a ton of opportunity and it kind of you know, it depends on what type of hunt you want. So I know, like you know, like the Milk Rivers and everyone knows about the Milk River and it's great, and they've had some issues with blue tongue and whatnot the last couple of years, but it sounds like they're rebounding. But like I know, for a fact, of northwest Montana there's some really big bucks, but it's difficult hunting um. But a lot of that is public ground, you know, and it's tough. It's thick country and you're kind of still hunting and walking through. But in eastern Montana, we got a ton of great opportunity where you'll have you know, in this checkerboard, you'll have egg land or something coming off the river bottom, and you might have a couple of sections of states. So the deer might predominantly be on private where they're left alone, but every once in a while, especially like during the rut, you can catch deer coming out onto public ground that you can go access. And so I think there's a ton of opportunity. Another great one we have is we have block management, which is private ground for public access for hunting. And so this will be something where it you know, it's more agriculture. Some of it might be you know, in the hills or what they're leasing out for grazing or whatnot. But that's always a great opportunity to access, and it seems like there's a ton of good white tail opportunity on that as well. Yeah, especially when you can rattle and start pulling, pulling deer off your onto the public or from another ranch onto a block management area. Yeah, it's a good strategy. Have you ever done that mark where you're rattling. No, not in not in the West yet. I've definitely, you know, rattled deer off neighboring properties in Midwestern places I've found, um for sure. But but I feel like you guys are saying, it just seems like it would work so well out by you, just given the kind of structure of the deer herds I've encountered. Um. So even as you're saying all this, I'm sitting here wondering, maybe I finally need to move my September bow hunt and try a rut hunt for once out there, just to see what that would be like, because because it just seems like calling in general, grunting, rattling, all that stuff, I'm just betting it's probably significantly more effective than than here, just because I mean, we've got we've got literally seven thousand eight hundred thousand deer hunters here in Michigan that are all rattling and calling and running around the woods, all in a little section. Um. So just that amount, yeah, exactly, So that just changes things so dramatically. These deer are just on They're just walking a real tight rope. They're very paranoid. Um. So you can't get away with a whole lot. But it definitely seems like the pressure is a little bit different, the herds a little bit different. Um. And not just in Montana. I mean I think this probably applies to Wyoming, in Colorado, the Dakotas. I mean everywhere I've been. Um, there's pockets where it's it seems like pretty unique that are would be a lot of fun. So tie on my list to try that out. Um, but to this access. How many years to come out to the west to hunt? Wait till so I have done it now three years? Three or four years? Um. I've hund in Montana three times, in North Dakota once now I guess, um and killed killed two out of three years, could have killed, could have killed three out of three. Um, But was was trying to get pretty picky. But all public land, all just on my own solo hunting, living on the back of my pickup truck parked on some public and just learning it as I go. UM, And I don't know if I've had a more fun hunt. I mean, I really really have been enjoying it for all the reason we were talking about. I mean, you see a ton of deer, you see a lot of nice deer. I haven't had to deal with a whole bunch of other hunters. It just seems like, at least at that time of the year to our earlier conversation, most folks are focusing on mule deer or elk in September. Um, I seem to be the only one crazy enough to be hunting some public land river bottoms for white tails and uh gosh, I mean I've had an absolute blast and UM, but the the access thing is is a tricky deal. And we're kind of talking about you mentioned Black Manage. It was all these different programs that this whole thing is. Where I've been using Onyx probably the most myself is just figuring out where are these little pockets of state land, where these little pockets of b LM, Where are these pieces that you can get to? Um, sometimes it's a roundabout way, like I found a spot this past year where what I was always looking on for public land white tails on the east side was river bottom country that was kind of hard to get to though, and close to agg Field on private land. So I would just scour all the maps all over the state where I could hunt and look for these little pieces of public that would intersect some portion of the river bottom stuff where you would have those crops nearby. And I found one spot that was a little forty acre piece that buttoned up right into that river bottom. There was a big private land ranch on one side of that had a bunch of what looked like probably alfalfa field, some kind of greenfield um. But you had to walk across a really big piece of state land to get to this little piece of blm that was on the her It was more than a more than a mile, might have been closer two miles if I remember, from the road, and you start up high, real high up on this big bluff and then you had to go down like some steep canyons to get to the river bottom. It just didn't seem like something you know, the average guy or girl would want to do on a whim, and so okay, I go on, go eyeball, test it. See if it's actually as gnarly as I think it is from the map, See if I can even do it. I didn't even know if you could physically get down it and get back up it, especially carrying your bow, carrying a tree stand and sticks in my backpack and all the things I needed to pull off the hunt. Um. But I snuck out there first just to scout it earlier in the day, like midday. Found a way to navigate down this little I don't even know you like a box canyon or something, just a really narrow little cut off this bluff. I had to slide down on my butt on parts of it. I brought like a hiking stick to get back out on the way to get back out in the evening, and it just ended up being a honeyhole that I don't think many people either knew was there or knew that they could get to it. Um. But once you got there, it was basically like private land. I don't think anyone else wanted to get in there. Anyone else wanted to walk that far. And you had all these deer bedded on the public land and these like brushy, nasty thickets and cottonwood groves all moving out to that private land of feed and I was seeing I don't know, deer come piling out. Um. That was it was a cool discovery. And I found a handful of spots now like that where Um it's it's some really high quality hunting. As far as I'm concerned, you're not seeing you know, it's not like you're seeing a buck like you might hope to see in Iowa. You know, guys maybe want to see these monstrous bucks in Iowa. I'm not necessarily seeing deer like that on my Western white talents. But I'm seeing a lot of nice bucks. Um. I means that kind of what you guys would say, like nice quality. You know, maturish bucks seem to be definitely available in a lot of spots like where you're at, but maybe not a hundred eight pound buck like you might see an aisle. Yeah, yeah, definitely. I mean, I think there's opportunities to get into that one eighties. Every once in a while you hear about them in certain regions throughout the state, but for the most part, it's you know, you'll find a good mature buck it doesn't seem like we get the body side that you know, you do you see in the Midwest. But as far as antlers, like, generally you can find a good four or five nice mature, you know, four to five year old deer fairly frequently if you're you know, especially if you're going to the extent that you do there and finding these areas that no one else wants to go to, it definitely seems definitely seems possible. And for most how I was gonna say, how when you first, like before you came out to Montana and North Dakota, how did you even pick a region? Like? How did you find an area just to get started? You know, throw a guarded app or did you have kind of an idea of the terrain you wanted to hunt? So I knew kind of the terrain that I thought white tails will be found, and I kind of knew that sounded like river bottoms were the way to go. So I just started looking in a couple of regions where I was playing spending some time already for just I was out there for some vacations with the family, and started saying, Okay, where's river bottoms that look like they might have white tails, and then tried to look at them at the public land border maps and see where public land intersected with river bottom, and I went. I looked at a number of different valleys and number of different river bottoms and just tried to see which one seemed to have a couple of decent public land options. And then when I would go out for vacation one year I was out there in the summer, I was able to actually drive around and check these these spots out. So I went to one valley and just drove the roads in the evenings in July in early August and just tried to find and see if these public land spots that were adjacent to private land um egg fields, see if there's actually a bunch of deer out there. And I went to one area, one valley, and just was not seeing the number of deer. I seeing deer, but wasn't seeing like the quality dearly the older bucks that I would be interested in hunting, didn't see him in a kind of consistent basis on or near public land. Went to another valley, another river, about forty five minutes an hour away, and then all of a sudden, like whoa, all sorts of nice deer, lots of deer, lots of older bucks, um, and some coming right off of public onto great big private fields right there that you could hunt right in the edge of. So that was the first body hunted. And then I kind of just took little rumors of what I heard, like this river is supposed to be good, this river is supposed to be good, and I picked one of them, did the same process, looked for these public pieces that might intersect river, and then took just on a way the most recent place I've hunted, I never had seen it before at all until I showed up to hunted UM. So I just had a bunch of public parcels picked out on ONYX, showed up there on day one and started driving the roads around. They're just looking at with the binocular, scoping it out, and um did a little bit of walking and just very quickly narrowed down, Okay, at these ten chunks I thought might be good, it kind of looks like one or two of them actually might be half decent. And uh So the first year hunting that general area, I didn't kill one. That was last year. But I kind of figured some stuff out and I could have definitely could have killed some some bucks. Um. And then this year I went back to the same area, narrowed down to two spots that I thought would be the best, and it it became you know, pick your pick your buck. There was just a whole lot of opportunity then. So now I'm at the point though, where I feel like I've got that area so figured out. Now I'm kind of I'm probably looking at gift Horse in the Mouth, but I'm thinking about trying to go find a brand new spot just because like that process of figuring out the new area is getting to be so much fun. I almost want to be just see what the next new spot is and can I figure it out? Because this spot almost knock on wood And I'm gonna say this, and if I go back, it is probably gonna be either literal with other hunters there's no deer left or something. But it almost feels like it's too easy now that I figured this spot out, So I might be looking for the next adventure. I don't know. Yeah, no, I agree. I think it makes it fun. You know, it's kind of like opening Day. You just don't know what the opportunities are going to be, so it's it's exciting when you're checking out a new country. Oh yeah, there really is um to to this kind of whole. Um kind of describe my own story how I'm camped out on these public land spots. What's one of the coolest things I found about these kind of hunts at least as like a non nonresident coming in to do a deal like this, you can combine really great deer hunting with also like a fun camping trip. Kind of that whole experience is something that's a little more common out there by you guys, especially with all the public land, national forest or BLM or whatever where you can just pull off the side of the road instead of a base camp right there. Um, I feel like there's a whole lot of neat things going on as far as like these great hunting base camps, wall tent setups and all these things are like what you had down on that Arizona hunt, Zach with your guys camp set up. Do you have any recommendations as far as I don't know the gear that works really well for setting up a good base camp for a hunt like this, Um, any things you've learned over the years as far as properly packing for properly setting it up, the best way to interior, decorate your wall tent or anything like that. Yeah, no, absolutely, So I mean looking from like eastern Montana, when I have traveled across state, we generally will do either like tense if it's earlier in the year, but if it's in that November time, we bring a wall tent. And so what's great is you can travel and we have a couple of areas that we'll plan on staying, but a lot of times we're gonna go just find a peace public ground and we're pulling off the road a little bit and we'll put up just a you know, twelve by twelve wall tent for three to four of us and have a stove to make sure we're staying warm, and we might get you know, we're not just camping right where we're hunting. We might get in the car and travel twenty miles or whatever. But it gives us a good base camp. And so I think the biggest thing is, like, especially in later in the year in November, it can be cold and it gets dark early, so doing stuff that keeps you sane during the night. So we'll have you know, we'll have a portion of the tent that's closed off for cooking and stuff like that, and then generally we're getting back at you know, five to six after dark and then making dinner and playing some games, have you know, lantern in the tent, have the fire going and we're playing card games or whatever, and then you're going to bed pretty early. But that is the one thing is making sure you're comfortable. Um, especially on you know, these extended hunts. The last thing you want to do is make this investment to come out to do a fourd to five day hunt, and then you start getting tired and losing focus on day two because you're uncomfortable at night and you're cold, you know, trying to sleep in just a sleeping bag and maybe a backpack intent And there's many people that do it that way, and I think for us, like we've just found like if you're comfortable when you're sleeping, you're able to hunt harder, longer, but earlier in the year when it's nicer. Um things that we've kind of like doing is what you're talking about is just a truck stopper and being able just to have like a you're sleeping pad in there and you can be mobile. It's really nice just being able to uh find a spot, check it out for a couple of days. If you don't like it, load your stuff up quick and get moved into the next one, and then pull your cooler out and pull everything out and just sleep in the back and that gives you a little storm coverage there. Yeah. Yeah, definitely come to like that style. That that's you know, like what I've been doing, and that the flexibility of it is so nice. When we're We're doing North Dakota hunt this past year and I've been hunting Montana. I filled my tag. I met up with a friend of mine that was North Dakota not too far away, doing the same thing, and he had been struggling. Wasn't finding the deer we thought we were gonna be finding there. So I as took one night in one morning and just scouted, trying to hit up high spots, kind of doing what we're talking about earlier, getting up on high spots, looking out over long areas and trying to see, you know, are there even the deer we want to hunt here at all? And after an evening in the morning of doing that kind of long distance glass, and I decided, you know what, I just I don't think it's happening right now. If we had another week to really dive in, maybe we could figure out these where these deer are, and maybe they're back in the cover and they're not coming out to feed where we thought they would be. But I made the decision that I think we could probably better use our last two days by just going to a brand new area where it looks like there's a bunch more open egg fields that we could get close to and and glass up some deer. And so it was really easy to say, all right, camps just in the back of the truck, just throw you know, your camp chair in there and go. It wasn't like some huge operation of tearing down a massive camp or hooking up a trailer. And you know that stuff, while really nice, can sometimes make it harder for you to be nimble and um in some situations. That's nice to have, at least in the one I was, and that worked out perfect. But yeah, absolutely, it's always nice when you can be mobile um and it is just so convenient because it's like, you know, you can only bring so much with a truck in the topper so you don't overpack, and you can pull out and make a quick camp and set your chairs up, and then you could tear it down just as fast at the same time, though, you can make it however nice you want it. Really, you could just do a topper, or you can do a full like camper in the back of the truck, that type of camper, I don't know. Yeah, Or you can pull a little trailer. I've got a jumping jack trailer that I use. It's just a canvas tint that pops out. Or you could go full on. You could go hardside and smaller trailer just a little more difficult to turn around in things, but you can just pull off the side of roads, set that thing up, be good to go. Or you could just like you said, be even more mobile and quick by just camping in the fact of your pickup under your topper. How do you like that jumping jack? I've seen those. I've been kind of intrigued by that. I like it a lot. Yeah. Nice, and it's easy to tow, nice and lightweight, easy to turn around, and a little bit higher off the ground so I can still take it through crick crossings and stuff. If you get a little more off road. That's what I like about it. You can pull my camper pretty much anywhere. I don't worry about dragging it through a crick crossing or something. That time, well, we spent some time during fair season. I mean that thing. It was cold and snowy, and that thing came up a mountain road that was pretty bumping. And you know, they just have them set up so they are durable and meant to go. Really the only constraint you have is you know, just backing up and getting around on roads. But otherwise, like those things are pretty solid and easy to pull with you wherever you want to go hunting. Is that is that? Also the one that has a portion of the trailer is like open platform for you to put gear or a four wheeler or something like that, And I thinking the same one. Yeah, that's the one that they all have that set up where it pulls up and then you can put gear on top, or a t V S or your razor or whatever you want. Yeah, that's slick. That's really slick. Um cycle on TV. Yeah, So so back to the um Back to the wall tent though, because this is something as much as I like my very nimble mobile truck camper style. UM, I do think I want to try one of these slightly more relaxing. I don't have more relaxing, slightly more luxurious camping experience, specially if I came out in November when it would be awfully cold. UM. I know zero about wall tents, about the right gear to bring along for a hunt or for a setup like that. UM. Is there any specific things you found, like should you be bringing I see lots of cots. People usually bring cots instead of sleeping on the ground pads. Um do you recommend something like that? Any specific models, any specific camping or cooking gear setups that worked well for you guys and the wall tent set up. Um, I'm I'm really used to minimalist camping. I'm curious to hear if there's anything from the wall tent side that's that's a little different. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely, So like with the wall thing, you know, if it's November and we're gonna be there for four or five days, we can pack a little. We can pack more stuff than if we're planning on just doing like if we have sleep in the back of our pickup or whatever. But with ours, Like it's a pretty simple tent um. I think we got it from Cabella's. You know, it's under a thousand bucks. And then we just got a stove, a wood stove that goes with it. And so what's nice is, you know, the biggest thing is heat when it's when it's that cold and then get down to zero and be windy, being able to come back and dry your boots off and just be warm it is great. But then the other thing is like a cot. I seriously recommend a cot. I think ours are just they're not ultra light or anything. They're just the Cabella's ones. But it, uh, that's just nice because it gets you up off the ground so you're not losing all that heat from the frozen ground. And so the other thing too is storage wise, being able to take your pack or you're rifle or you know, your boots and put them underneath because you got all these cops laid out in the tent. So it helps with storage and then cooking. Really, I mean we pretty good. We take you know, one of those just like you know, there's a hundred different models, you know, I know, it's like a Coleman two burner stove and I know Camscheff as one and there's all sorts of different models and that a pot in one pan, and then we usually are bringing stuff. You know, we'll bring some elk steaks if we have them, some of the just like easy mac macaroni and cheese, stuff like that that we're just cooking. And then the other thing that you can run into in a lot of these areas if you're kind of away from towns is water and bringing enough water. So we'll have like a five gallon jug, plenty of water bottles and stuff like that. You're using it to clean up. You know, you'll heat up water after a couple of days and use that to clean up. But then also just cooking and stuff like that. But generally we'll pull up the back of the pickup so it's right out front of the tent and we cook kind of on there, or we'll have it in the tent if we only have a couple of people, but then everything just gets stored in the pickup that's not in the tent. And then you know, definitely want camp chairs, places to sit so you can play cards at night. But really the biggest thing is just you know, if we're gonna bring a wall tent. We want to be comfortable, so we're going to make sure that we have something to cook with. We're gonna have our cots and probably have a couple of camp chairs to hang out because you know, you got four to five hours of dark to burn each night, so just trying to find something to Yeah, that makes sense. What kind of size do you recommend? I'm guessing maybe like two to four people. Do you get like the smallest possible? I'm curious lots of times, like when you buy two person backpacking tent, really that's gonna be kind of a one person tentant or like you and your wife. But oftentimes like a two person backpacking intent would be really really really tight for two adult men. Is that kind of same deal with wall tents? Like, if you want to get something that's gonna hold four guys, you probably don't want to buy a tent they say for four, because that's still gonna be too cramped. Is that the same kind of deal. Yeah, especially if you're gonna put a stove in it. You know that stove takes up some room and you can't you can only sleep so close to it. It's putting off a lot of heat. So I think you know ours is a twelve by twelve and four the max you would want to fit. And that's with putting stuff under your cots and then also putting stuff in the pickup. UM. But you know they make these wall tents. There's so many different models. They make some that are like ten by twenty just giant, and you have like a cooking quarters and then you have your sleeping stuff. That one's much more comfortable. But if you're looking like anywhere from two to four, you could definitely get away with like a twelve by twelve something around that nature, um, and then just planing it on store and some of your stuff and your pickup outside. But it's it's incredible because now you know, you see a lot of guys with these teepees and stuff like that. Um. I know Eric has one, and you can put a stove in there. And you can get these what they call like eight ten man teath bees. Really you're sleeping like maybe board or four or four in there, but they're just much lighter. You can take the more places. They're pretty quick to set up. UM. So there's a lot of different variations of it. I think kind of a common thing when you're using the late season. It's just having a heat source and being able to put a stove in there. It's really the biggest convenience factor. Yeah, those those tints are funny. Like you talked about the TV tins, they rate them as how many people can they domino in. Here's the regular size of the person. How many people can be domino in this thing? And so it's an eight person tent, but really that's like a three person with all the gear you have. Yeah, comfortably maybe four. So yeah, they always rate them by how many they can like tetricize into the tin. But I don't think the wall tents are like that. They're just more like twelve by twelve or so rated by people they can they Yeah, they generally recommend how many can fit in there. But I've found like with a you know, a ten by ten twall, twelve by twelve three is comfortable. Four you're getting tight, but you can do it. Yeah, So for someone now I'm kind of thinking in my head about right, we're kind of laying out the things to be thinking about if you're gonna come out to do your first Western whitetail hunt in a state like Montana, North Dakota, Wyoming, something like that. Um, we've talked through a lot of stuff when it comes to the tactics that are gonna work. We've talked a little bit aout the camping. Another thing that would be on my mind if I had never been out there before, let's say, in that November time frame for the rut, I'd be a little worried about getting around and like the conditions. Um, if it's you know, I've been out there on some of these roads in the spring when they get super super muddy. Um, is there anything that someone should be thinking about as far as the vehicles they bring, or like worrying about snow and wind? Should you bring studs or something like that or chains as far as that kind of stuff for in November Hunt, do we have to worry about that kind of weather in the Northern Rockies, northern Great Plains or you know my being an over paranoid Michigander. Yeah, depending on where you're going, they're definitely places you can get into pickles when the when the strain or snow start coming down. So yeah, you definitely should be thinking about bringing a high clearance four by four vehicle. I mean, if you're looking anywhere in eastern Montana where you got a gumbo and haven't been to night, type soil that gums up your tires. That can get really nasty. If you get like a one inch wet snow or just one half an inch rain, sometimes you have to be prepared to just like let that dry or let it freeze the next morning. So yeah, brings change. I mean if you're looking at like Ford Pack area, eastern Montana type hunting, Yeah, I have a four wheel drive, have good tires, bring change just to be safe. Yeah, I think the good tires is a huge one. Um, regardless where you're at the state. If you're on these mountain roads up here, there's rocks all over, you know, they're the cliffs I had to break in or whatever. And then in eastern Montana still have rocks even though it's a lot of gumbo. And the last thing you want to do is have to change a tire and then not have a spare. Probably should go back to town and get another, get a patch, or get another one. So having good like you know, ten flat tires that are pretty durable. Um, I've had to use chains a couple of times this year. And then the other thing is a shovel, um, snow, mud, whatever it is. You can get stuck in some areas and have to dig yourself out. So, you know, I think the key things are definitely having a good four by four, make sure you have some good decent clearance if you're gonna be going through some cracks and stuff like that. Good tires, chains never hurt in a shovel or pretty important there. Or if you've scouted there's county roads that are graveled, well, if you can you can always develop your plan around sticking to those and then camping off of those gravel roads, then you can be pretty safe. You don't have to worry so much about gumbo and everything. So there is a way to do it where you can be safe about not having to get stuff and just have to develop your plan around sticking to those gravel county roads more than anything. Yeah, and this is this is really focusing on kind of that later rifle season when the weather can be variable and you got anything from you know, we've had November it's been sixty degrees in raining, or it can be zero and snowing. So mountains or eastern Montana. It's if you're going to be venturing around, it's not a bad idea to be prepared. But like Eric said, you can find these county roads where they'll be maintained and you'll be pretty safe if you stick to those. Yeah, is there anything else now that we're talking about it? Like for a first time Western hunter and I guess you know we're talking about white tail hunters, but maybe even someone who's trying one of the other species. Are there any other big, big, just I don't know what I call it, something that you really want to make sure keep in the back of your mind if you're coming out here, try something like this for the first time. UM. I mean, I know there's a million ways that you go with this, but if there's anything that jumped out to you, like don't forget to bring a shovel. That was a great one, um, any other ones like that you'd want to leave someone with the keep in mind they wanted to give us a shot, So you might bring a gun cleaning kid if you're if you're rifle hunting, just in case the same situation you get muddy and you drop your rifle and you get mud stuck up the barrel or snow. It's always good to have a little yeah yeah snake or something. Yeah. And I think the other thing is like definitely doing the research ahead of time on the areas you're gonna be hunting and making sure you know the rigs. You know, like I said earlier, there are some areas that are permit areas and they can be right next to them. They might be the only one in that region and you run into that with Meal there specifically, but if you're coming out to Montana, you have the opportunity to do both. So I think the biggest thing is just making sure you know all the different hunting districts. And this is talking more Montana specifically, but one thing we've had come up recently that we haven't had to worry about is c w D and so we have some of these areas where they want you to check them in. You have to be careful on how you're transporting this animal and just some different regulations around that, and so that's something we haven't had to worry about. But even you know, as residents were hunting every year, we are now having to educate ourselves and make sure we know you know where we're at exactly based on you know, if we're gonna be traveling through or whatnot. Yeah, so you guys have a new or relatively new layer on ONYX that shows c w D cases. Right, how does how does that work? What exactly does it show on that front? Just so I think that is helpful for people that might be going to a new area need to figure out do they need to worry about that or not? Right? Yeah, yeah, absolutely, So we worked with q d m A on that one, and so they've been collecting those different counties that have the c w D cases and really what the idea on that one is is to highlight that you know, if you want to hunt in that county, you need to do your research and make sure you know what the regulations are. And so it's a nationwide layer, but you can kind of look at them. The one thing with it is like you know, trying to get the data, it's not going to be you know, it's tough to keep it right. You gotta make sure you know on which days you're going based on the year when it's updated. But the biggest thing is if you see it, it'll tell you, you you know, if it's an area of interest or if it's if it's in that county, then it allows you to you know, contact Montana f w P and be able to figure out what the regulations are, what you should be looking for, how you should handle the animal um and things like that. And so it's a good starting place to kind of see if you know, if you're throwing a darted the map and you're going to go hunt this unit, just so you have all the information, you make sure that you can be confident and not have to worry about any of the regulations around that. Yeah. And I think as a response to hunter, if you do you see that there's ever been a c w D case in that county, you should take it upon yourself to bone that animal out and saw the school plate to where you're not transporting that c w D into another area, especially if you're gonna take it back to wherever your home state is. Yeah, better, better safe and sorry. And to to the earlier point, there are certainly a lot of regulations around it that you just don't want to you don't want to make a mistake there. So I think that's very handy to be able to get that information on in one nice place. And I guess that's kind of a nice uh segue into kind of last thing I thought would be worth touching on before we wrap things up, which is just you know, I've talked a lot about how I've been using on X over the years, just chatting and chatting about it on the podcast and whatnot. But are there any specific things that you think that white tail guys or girls should know specifically about that tool, Any features maybe that are overlooked, any layers of people maybe aren't taking advantage of as much as they should. Um uh, there's a whole lot to us, so I think it's easy for people to miss things. Is there anything that jumps out to you guys that we should leave folks with it to check out next time they're on there. Yeah, we don't see enough people using sharing in the app. You can share way points with people, So I even think of like the Midwest, when you if you have a buddy come to your place that you lease or whatever, all you gotta do is share a waypoint of a true stand with them, and you might be able to send them out to that true stand without ever having to like take them out there. Just give them the waypoint and should draw a line of where they're supposed to walk. And you don't even have to walk them out there the next morning. You can just turn them loose and they can be very confident that they can get to that true stand as long as they have that waypoint and that wine. It's you know, to add on that. The other thing you can do is sharing with loved ones. You know, just if you're going to travel out to Montana and being able to share it with you know, maybe a hunting buddy, so someone knows the general area that you are. Maybe it's just where your camp is. You know, you're obviously not going to share your hunting locations with everyone, but being able to share them with your close hunting buddies and your loved ones just for peace of mind UM is another, you know, a great way to use it. UM Definitely when you're pointing out different areas. If you're sharing a location, but the one we find a lot is a lot of folks sharing it just for peace of mind, so someone knows where they're at. Yeah, yeah, that's a good way to just make sure I make sure you don't do what I've done in the past one year I I have been telling my wife for hour was every day, And then I switched up my plans and moved to a new area and didn't have cell phone service for a whole day, and more than twenty four hours passed by from last time she'd heard from me, and she kind of got worried. Had the cops go check on my campsite? I wasn't there anymore, So don't don't make the mistake I've made. Oh man, that was a tough lesson to learn, but um, yeah, I mean, there's those things you mentioned, are are all things I've done very helpful. That the sending a tech you can just text away point to to a friend, and that works a whole lot better than saying, Okay, park at the big oak tree, follow the you know, the glowing tabs for hundred yards, then you get across the creek, go left fifty yards, wait for the owl to hoot, and then you know you're there. I mean, that's that doesn't work all that The shared waypoint improve things dramatically. So I'm I'm appreciative of the two of you guys have put out there, and uh, I appreciate you guys taking the time to talk about it and share some of your experiences out there chasing chasing white Tails and the promised land Um. I'll be back this year. I'm looking forward to it. So anything you guys want to wrap up with any other final things that people should look out for as far age future features, or maybe maybe talk through exactly where they can find onyx online if if people aren't familiar with it too. Yeah, yeah, absolutely so, I mean you can always if you haven't tried the app, you can just install it. You get seven days free, so you can try everything out for free, and then if you enjoy it, you can purchase one state where you can purchase all fifty and um features coming out. I mean, I think one big thing I want to get to before that is we you know, we have nationwide public and private boundaries and land ownership names and so the one thing that commonly happens is we're getting these from the individual on ease and so it can be outdated and if that's the case, we do appreciate it when customers send those in and report those there's because that just helps us be more accurate. But also on top of that, you know, requested features, we definitely listen to them UM and helps us make a better product. So we look at all the customers as boots on the ground for us, just helping, you know, try to get a product that works for everyone, no matter where you're hunting, if you're hunting white tails in the mountain the western Montana or if you're hunting them over in Michigan by you and so looking at it, some of the feedback we've gone is UM being able to just folks want to be able to share more, and so this is something on our radar. UM. We're working on it and definitely will be one of the features coming up is just being able to share more of your data, so multiple way points, maybe tracks, shape, stuff like that, and so you can share those with like a hunting buddy if you're sharing a property that you're hunting on, or if you want to go share like you know, we want to share it to you. Mark some of our white tail hunting spots in Montana to be able to share like a it's like a playlist. UM. The other thing is you know when and weather. We release that this fall, and we're going to continue to expand upon that and provide more information some forecasting stuff and stuff like that that will come out here in the future and then you know that really we have a couple other things that we're keeping under wraps. But I think the biggest thing is if there are features that folks want to see, you know, they can always we we see the ones that they put on our social media and ask about that. We definitely take those into account and we pass those up the chain and make sure our engineers here them and we start to kind of prioritize and see what folks wanna have in the app. That's great. Yeah, yeah, I like story. Yeah, I like your story. Mark on how you're using public land to get down to these river bottoms and taking a one or two mile hike. That's that's a cool adventure. If you're if you're coming from out east or Midwest, coming to Montana, coming to North Dakota, I think that's really cool adventure to be able to come out and camp and do those hikes every day, set up tree stand, learn what the white tails are doing in the area. Maybe there's an opportunity to do a five mile meb you can find some public land that's a five mile hike down to a river where you actually got to set up a base camp and then maybe you have an old square mile of river bottom all to yourself, I guarantee and September in Montana whitetil hunting with the boat, you likely have that all to yourself, unless there's of course private landowners who's hunting it something. But yeah, I really like that strategy that you just described, um, and you can really make an adventure out of it. So yeah, so I just encourage people to think like that, have a plan, get on on X and have a couple of different options to check them out, like you're saying, and yeah, get out and have an adventure. They're definitely there's definitely an opportunity in states like Montana and your neighboring states there to to take your white tail hunting to just a different place, you know. Like I mentioned earlier, I love these new experiences and you can take something that you of a lot, like a white tailed deer, and then experience hunting that animal and it's just a completely different situation. Um, whether it's backpacking in or hiking into a river bottom, or just being in a wide up in different landscape and seeing different places. It's it's a really cool thing that. I mean, anyone who's listened to Wired Hunt knows that I've encouraged this many times before. But I'll just say it again. You know, go out there and and experience these different things, push yourself to two new areas, to new types of hunting. It's gonna make you better hunter. You're gonna have a whole lot of fun doing it. And UH, a little bit of adventure in your life is UH is not going to hurt anything at all. So UM, that's my little pep talk for the day. And UH and Eric Zach, I just I appreciate taking the time of chat. It's a lot of fun. Yeah, thanks for having enough. We'll have to do it again soon and hopefully when I'm out there next time for hunt, maybe we can circle up and UH and have a have a cold beverage and swap hunt stories again. Absolutely. Yeah, I'm looking forward to the backcountry white tail hunt. It's gonna happen alright. And that's another episode in the books. One quick additional piece of information about the shed Rally giveaway that we talked about earlier in the episode. If you don't have a Wired Hunt hat or shirt yet, I meant to mention this earlier, but we've got a little discount code going on for you if you do want to pick something up twenty off Wired Hunt Hats and Shirts over at the meat eater dot com store if you use the promo code W two H SHED. That's W, the number two, the letter H, and then the words shed s H E D use that code to get off Wired Hunt Hats and shirts and uh. Then, as we talked about earlier, just wear that gear during SHED rally and you'll be entered to win in the giveaway. So thank you for listening, thanks for being patient and understanding of the weird audio thing there in the first half. I know that didn't sound great. Um hopefully for those that did stick around for it, you found our conversation interesting and I miss we will be uh fixing that issue in the future. So thank you for listening, Thanks for everything, and until next time, stay wired. Dont hm M

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