00:00:03 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 Wired to Hunt podcast. I'm your host, Mark Kenyan is episode number two D and nineties six and to Dan the show. Dan and I are breaking down our final plans, gear lists, and last minute advice for the first hunts of the two thousand nineteen hunting season. Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast, brought to you by Onyx. It is me and the nine Fingered Wonder from down Under. Dan Johnson, good eye might yeah. I wish you talked this whole episode in Australian accent. Can you do that? I don't like, I don't even know like the terminologies down there. I would just have to say good night. Just used up my whole inventory of Australian phrases to uh what about BlimE me, BlimE me? Or is that English? Like he was he was being a real bugga? I don't know. So, Uh, what I'm hoping we can talk about today, Dan is hunting season eve, like everything that happens just before your first hunt of the year, Because I leave today for North Dakota and I will start hunting in two days. My first white tail hunt of the year is in two days now when this airs, it'll be I'll be in the middle of that hunt when this actually goes out, But when we're recording, it's two days before my hunt starts. And you krim if I'm wrong, But I think your first hunt of the year will start the day after this airs. That's right, I'll be driving to Colorado. Perfect, So I've got the North Dakota white tail hunt. You've got a Colorado elk hunt. I thought we could walk through, you know what that week or a couple of days before you leave for that trip. Looks like all the things you're trying to get in order, all things you're thinking about. Excuse me, I'm burping over here from mine. Have you ever had one of these? Uh bubblis bubbly like a white claw, kind of like a white claw, but it's a non alcoholic. It's like lacroix, but it's probably like those are carbond of water. Very I drink. I drink coffee before noon, I have like two glasses of water, and then I switched to hard liquor. I'm just kidding. In the afternoon, you're not kidding. I don't think you're kidding all. No, I'm kidding. Like I do drink a lot of coffee, but then like at noon, I shut it off and I drink I drink water, and then at night I'll have a beer or a nice glass of whiskey. There you go. Since having Everett, I've started drinking coffee later into the day. Yeah, I'm now drinking like dinner coffee, which I always i was a weird thing when old people did that, and now I totally get it. You gotta stay awake to watch the six o'clock news, fall asleep after that. Yeah, get that six o'clock news. So so I want to talk about what we drink in the evenings. I want to talk about the gear we're bringing for these trips. I want to talk about like our final archery prep before the first time of the year. I want to talk about the strategies that we each have going into that first hunt um and kind of lining out our plan, our contingency plans, Plan A, plan B, plans C. Kind of line everything up so number one, everyone will kind of know what we personally are getting into so you can foul along with that. Story, see what we thought before the hunt, and then we'll have to go come back and do a podcast after our hunts and recap how it ended up going, if we are right or wrong with our ideas what we learned, um, And then I'm also thinking probably people can learn some things from our process as we talked through the things we're trying to do, the things we're thinking about, the gear we're packing, that might help other people get set for their first time. Yep, So you are about one week from your first time. How you feeling well from a physical standpoint, Man, I've been I've been killing the trails. Um. You know this running thing that we started doing right we you started running, Man, I just I got to a point with running where it must be probably a little age, probably the wear and tear in my body throughout the years, where my cardio was getting a lot better, Um, I my legs were getting stronger. So let's I'm gonna break down the three mile runs and how they kind of went. The first mile is just my muscles warming up, basically, right, just like getting warm up. The second mile is pretty good, feeling great, you know, like my cardios in check. I'm not like huffing and puffing. I don't to stop, but somewhere around the three miles, like the start of the three third mile, my my lower back would hurt, my hip would hurt, and my knees would start to hurt. And and it wasn't just like let's run it through, let's try to run it off type of pain. I've had multiple knee surgeries. Um, I think that has led to the hip problem with me not being able to extend my knees the way they need to be. Uh. Some of it's probably eight years in a office chair, you know. At compound all those things, it's just not good. So I've transitioned into a hike routine now to where I'm putting like sixty pounds on my back and then I just there's a small little loop at a local state park, and it's got a good decline in a really good incline, and I either am just walking in a big circle a lot for like an hour or two hours, or I'm just going up and down the hill, up and down the hill and just trying to get my legs as burned out as possible. And that's feeling. You're feeling pretty good after that yeah, I know, like for some reason adding the weight, it's probably the jarring of running, right, that impact really the impact. Yeah, so there's that. Uh. And then basically just the run or the hike itself is very low impact other than you know, I have the weight on my back, but I'm not like there's no jarring movement. Uh. And that's uh, that's easier on my body. And I'm still getting the the um heart rate increase by walking up that big hill and I and I try to do it at a at a good clip nothing. You know, I'm not running, but I'm trying to do it quick. Yeah. That's that's still gonna get you well prepped for season, no doubt about that. You're doing a little bit better than me because the last two weeks I've seriously lost lost the momentum on our on our challenge because for the last two weeks, I've had a camera crew out here filming all day doing a bunch of work on a farm, and it's just been like just kind of really hard to find time to get out in the morning because we're getting out and filming at like six there or seven the morning, and I've been getting home at six and then try to spend a couple of hours of my son and go to sleep next morning doing more stuff. Um, so I've only I think the last two weeks I should have done a minimum of six three mile runs. I think I only did two or three, so that that was a bummer. But I'm hoping it's like, excuse, dude. I know, I know as I as the words leave my mouth, as the words leave my mouth, I just shake my head and myself. Everything sounds like an excuse though. I mean, because the other day, man, I went like, there's I was on a roll. I shot my boat. I was shooting my boat every day, and I was, I was, you know, you know, I was. I was happy that I was shooting my bow. And I it was like eight o'clock at night, and then this, uh or seven thirty or something. Then a storm rolled in and it got dark real quick, so I couldn't shoot my bow. And I came up and I was like, oh, well, I was talking to some Wow, I couldn't shoot my bow because of this. Well, I could have done it other times throughout the day, or I could have changed the schedule, or I could have made it work if I forced it but I don't know. I just I didn't And it's just like there's there comes a certain point at when you're a man that you can't even say things like that. You shouldn't even say things like that anymore, because it's it is just an excuse. Just got on it. Yeah, absolutely So for me, the last six weeks since I got home from our western trip, I've been trying to shoot at least every day of the work week, so at least five times a week I've been shooting. And I was really good on that until it just this last week week and have two weeks and I'd say it's probably every other day during that period, but still feeling pretty good. But I think this is a good thing to touch on here, leading up to your first ton of the year, you know, really try to ramp up how much I shoot UM shooting a minimum of I don't know, half hour a day or something like that, just trying to get reps in and keep like your muscles feeling good and everything like that. And then more recently I started switching to trying to shoot more in a situation similar to what I would be in UM in natural hunt. So I've I've got a metal pole in the back of my barnen kind of like a stripper pole, I guess you could say. And Um, I hook up my tether for my saddle on that and I can actually sit in my saddle from this pole and shoot at my targets behind the house with that. So I've been shooting from the saddle to try to prepare for the actual hunt situation here recently. UM, that's one thing I'm doing here at the very end, just to try to replicate those exact scenarios, replicate shooting from some different angles. Um. What else, if anything, are you doing in the final days? Um, as far as trying to get zeroed in before the hunt or how are you doing you kind of alluded to some stuff from an archery standpoint. Do you have anything on like what your final Art three situations looking like as we're seven days out from the first time. Yeah, dude, UM, this is hard to admit, but I've I've kind of come across the problem recently and I have no idea what the hell is going on. The month of July I was shooting. I bet you there was only six days in the month of July that I didn't hunt that I didn't shoot my bow, and that was because we went on a little vacation. Uh. And then August it kind of continued. Um. I was shooting at least four uh four or five days a week up until a week and a half ago. I'm not sure what what has happened, but my accuracy. I cannot get my pen to settle on the target anymore. And I've been shooting a lot this year. You know, I had I had that Texas hunt. I had to just I had to start preparing for the hunting season that much earlier, right, And I don't, dude, I don't know it it is it is. It is a mind job, like it is messing with me mentally, and so you know, I draw back, I get settled, and I just cannot like the routine's not there anymore, or something's not there anymore. The and then and then because you're not settling well and it's getting your mind, then it's like the pins kind of floating left or right down and then as soon as the pin hits the bulls eye, you try to slam the pin or the trigger down so you hit it just right right. So I'm trying. There's there's times where I'm trying to anticipate the shot, right, I'm trying to you know, I'm trying to time it, which is bad, I know. But there's also times where July and early August I was not having this problem. I was, you know, sixty yards probably the size of a softball groups. That's pretty good if yeah for me, uh, you know, I'm hitting I'm hitting real tight. Uh even even earlier this week Monday and Tuesday really good, you know, kind of like really good groups. Step back to fifty and sixty something's happening and I just cannot. And then I had a conversation with I. I actually called up Andy May yesterday and I'm like, I expressed this with him, and he kind of walked me through things to try and things to do, and I think that got into my head. And now I am like, I'm I'm shanking twenty yard shots. Yeah. Once, he once it gets in your head, I mean, this is exactly what I was dealing with last year. Yeah, because I started trying to rethink everything and got really into my head. And that's when I try. I was trying this new process with a with an index finger released still and then finally I had to say, you know what, I just have to tear it all down. Yeah, and this your start one to the back tension. I wonder if you're kind of experiencing someone something similar to that. Yeah, So I would say, undoubtedly this is some form of target panic. I try. I can't even get a group tight enough too, a consistent group tight enough right now on the fifty and sixty range to tune my site because I don't know, like it could be left, it could be right, it could be high, it could be low. Um, I know my bow is on because I will still execute perfect shots. What I what I would say, but a group of four, I'm not. I'm not hitting the grouping that I that I should be right now. So I talked to another guy and I said, uh, dude, what do I need to do? And he right now, he goes, dude, just set your bow down for a day or two. Put it, put it down, walk away from it, try not to think about it. But this is where the dilemma hits. I'm going to I'm going to this guy's house on Sunday to have him basically evaluate my shot. He's really good archer. Um, he lives near me, so I'm heading over and I want him to break me down evaluate it. The thing that I can't stop thinking about is I leave next Friday, just over a week two l khunt, and I need to be on point for that, right or I have to start making like say, well, dude, you're not taking a shot past forty or you're not taking a shot past thirty or or something like that. And I don't want that to happen. So I'm taking active steps right now to try to educate myself and get other people involved to help me fix this problem and hopefully, and the crappy thing about it is I have to fix this problem with the equipment that I currently have because I can't switch to a back tension release right now, yes, seven days out, and my equipment it like I need a longer draw link on my bow if I'm going to go to a back tension release. So it's I'm a little frustrated, but I don't know what I need to do. I need to chill out. I need to like get out of my head. Yeah, I think you're it's embarrassing to talk about. It's almost like erectile dysfunction. Consider this is like e D for bow hunters right right, Well, this is a safe place, Dan, and you know six out of ten men deal with this challenge, and we can get something discreetly sent to your house that will help. I wish they made a pill that would improve you accuracy every day. You're taking two pills every day, then, um, I think you your your buddies, right, take a day or two to just kind of try to step away from it and then and then see what he thinks. And then I would just even if you know, he helps point out a couple of things and all of a sudden you're shooting pretty good again. I would like, for whatever it's worth, my two cents would be, do not be afraid to restrict yourself more from a range perspective. Don't go out there thinking like, oh I gotta shoot fifty or sixty yards, because that's what al hunters always do, you know, I mean, you know what happens when we make these mistakes in the field. Um, don't feel bad going out there and say, you know what, I'm not gonna shoot past forty or I'm not gonna shoot past thirty, because if just doing that will improve your confidence, just that actually being in the woods all of a sudden, you're thirty yard forty yard shot, You're gonna feel better, I know when you're gonna take that sixty, that first shot or hopefully your only shot at sixty a week from now. Even if you're shooting okay in the field, it's still gonna be a little bit less than ideal because this is like a little virus that gets in your brain. It's gonna be hard to complete. Shake. So just to be a badass, a's stalking, get close to that, some bitch, um'll be You'll be fine. Yeah, Like I know that where I'm going in the Elk Woods is not I'm not going to have a sixt yard shot. It's deadfall all over right. I mean, I'm not gonna have a sixty yard shot. And if I do, um, there's a chance I'm not even gonna take it. Just because of the places that we're going that have the ability to have a sixty yard shot. The terrain is just it's like way up or it's way down, and it's just, um, I don't know. So you know, just if I'm comparing last year to this year, I probably won't even have a sixty yard shot. What's concerning me is this South Dakota hunt where there's no terrain or there's no obstructions right other than the terrain, So there's a good chance that I'm gonna have to make a fifty yard shot. Right. So, UM, I want to get this bug beat well, hopefully by the time I leave for this elk hunt, but for sure by the time I want to leave for this uh for the mule deer hunt. And what I've learned is the past five days I've tried to shoot out of this, and I don't think you can just shoot out of this problem like this. You might want to even just like and maybe Andy recommend this to like, just tear it back down to basics for a few days and just like blind bail shoot, just work on getting a good, perfect release without worrying about aiming at something. Just shoot at five yards and just shoot a hundred times that and just feel comfortable getting that unanticipated release, not this like panicky, gotta hit it right when it touches the bull's eye. Um, just simply feeling good with that might be a nice place to start. But I will I won't give you. I won't be the third or fourth person tell any what to do. You just do whatever your buddy tells you, and and stay stay, stay strong, have faith you'll get out of it. Yeah, I'm confident. I just need to shake this little bump. It just kind of freaks me out because it's the first time I've ever had anything like this happen. Yeah, hey, I and definitely relate. I know that feeling. So what about you, man, I mean like you've you've been shooting your bow a lot preparing for this. But what about the gear on this North Dakota hunt? What's the what's the prep from a gear standpoint? You know, it's kind of cool. I feel like I just finished packing my truck and I feel like there's not nearly as much gear as I used to have to take on these trips, which is kind of a nice thing, um, because you know what these trips are are gonna hold. I know what these trips and tail. I've kind of been able to minimalize my setup, so I know, like, I know exactly what I need. I don't need to bring anything extra. So I've got you know, I've got this truck bed organizer, so one side has got like a little area of like kitchen stuff, because I'm camping out my truck on public land this whole time. So I've got like some basic kitchen and cooking stuff. I've got room in this big drawer for a little portable table, camp chair, um, sleeping bags, sleeping pad, and that's all in one draw And then the left drawer, I've just got my basic hunting accessories. Um. So I've got my buyos and bino harness. I've got my release I've got extra broadheads, extra field tips. I've got my little wind checker. I've got a grunt tube just in case. I've got um oh couple pull up ropes. And then I've got my saddle, my saddle tether, my lineman's belt, and my platform, one set of sticks, and then a couple of tripods because I'm gonna be doing a lot of glassing and scouting from a distance on this hunt. So I've got one tripod with a spotting scope um that I'm gonna put a phone scope attachment on so i can see in film deer through my phone. And then I've got another little tripod with a set of eighteen power binos um these kaibabs and vortex, and I use those on that Mexican Hunt Mexico last year, and man, I no idea how nice that could be, Like super high power binos on a tripod. When you're doing this kind of hunt, like for your South Dakota hunt, you might want to get a tripod for your binos because that just makes glassing. It's hard to the spotting scope. I got a vortex spotting scope. God, yeah, it's a little heavy, but you know out we're we're hunting there. I don't think it's gonna be a big, a big issue. I got the I got a main fro dough tripod with the spotting scope, so I think that's going to replace my binos as far as a you know, a glassing perspective this year. I will say, though, you might just want to get the binocular attachment to so you can actually pop on the binocular onto the same tripods. You could pull off the spotting scope and put your binoculars on them. Because what I found, for whatever it's worth, the spotting scope is great for like zeroing in on something real far and like getting a great look at it from a distance. So let's say you see a buck and you're like, is that a shoe? It or not. Put the spotter on it and you can really zero in. But it's not easy to scan. It's really hard to scan for long periods of time with a spotting scope. With the binos on a tripod, you can sit there and scan for hours, just go left or right, left or right, right to left, left or right and just scour a piece of terrain. And it's crazy how much it helps to have it on a tripod. I never believed it until I started using it last year. And it makes like a monstrous difference with how clearly you can see things far off. And this is when you're like when you're looking five yards away or that kind of thing. Like, it makes big, big difference, So keep that in mind. You can get the little attachments, they're pretty cheap. Um, then it wos just be interchange between your spotter and your binos. But that'll be huge. That'll be huge for me on this trip because I'm just gonna sit up on top of hills and glass these river bottoms every morning and the first evening when I get there and try to figure out what's going on. But but yeah, so a spotter and binos, two tripods, a little like glass and pad little crazy creek chair that you can Don't you ever heard of one of these. It's like kind of the stadium seas is fold up stadium seats that it's like a lawn chair with really short legs, no legs actually no legs, so it's just basically like a butt pad and a backpad connected by like straps. Right. Um, So I'll use that to sit out there in glass. Um you know, I'm using that back tension release the silver back. Um some bringing that um my bow arrows. What's the tamps supposed to be like up there? As far as the gear that you're the clothing you're gonna be wearing. Yeah, so it's gonna vary. Um, the hottest day looks like could be up in the upper eighties and the coldest you can get in the mornings, um in the upper forties. So it's gonna arrange from upper forties upper eighties. Um, there's gonna be some days with like highs in the high sixties, So I'm I'm looking forward to those high sixty low seventy temperatures for the highs. There's will be some good days, but there's like our two reel hot ones, but mostly I'm wearing like a wool pant or a light um just like a light wool pant. You know this is gonna be pretty warm weather. So first light it's got it's called the obsidian. I rock that, and then UM and then up top just a single light basse layer wool base layer, long sleeve just to be camouflaged but but lightweight. And then I'll have like a little lightweight UM vest just in case it gets cool in the mornings. But overall planning for hot weather. I've got rain garon bringing um. I got a warm hat just in case a freak cold front moves through and it's cooler in the mornings and it looks like right now. But overall pretty pretty minimal stuff. Just a handful base layers, a couple of light pairs of pants, one warmer jacket just in case, y um, and man like that's it. I mean, and I guess I got one big cooler. So I'm bringing out food and drinks and stuff. And then if I kill something, I've got a cooler bringing me back. And I am bringing out a little generator because I'm trying to work out there and trying to keep my computer charged, trying to keep like Azonics batteries charge that stuff. So I'm gonna bring a little generator, um, but all that can fit, all that's gonna fit in my drawers except for the cooler and the generator. Um. And then I've got the whole rest of the back of my truck to sleep in to be there. Um. And then just like my basic clothes, a little defeld clothes, Um, it's gonna be. It's gonna yeah. I mean Andy May was possible going to go, and then he couldn't, and then Spencer was gonna go, and then he bailed last week. So now I'm going solo. Yeah. Um. You know an interesting thing I just just popped on my sticks. I'm bringing my lone Wolf sticks out here, and um Tethered, the same company that makes the saddles that I'm rocking, Um, they just released the thing called their Versus strap, which is basically a strap that you can use on your sticks or something like that. UM that replaces the strap with the big buckle on him. So this way, it's a it's a buckle list strap basically, it's it's a I can't remember exactly what kind of fabric this is, man, but it was incredibly high strength, high tensile strength strap fabric that then has loops, different loops at all these different like every inch is another loop, another loop, another loop, another loop. And so what you just basically do is you put your stick up against the tree, you wrap the verse of strap, what you put one side of the verse strap over that button on your long will stick. You know, I'm talking about where the strap with you should go, and then you just wrap it around the tree and you're keeping it, you know, perfectly a straight up and down, and then you just pick the loop that it would be the tightest on. You pop the loop over the button again as tight as you can go, and then just crank your stick down and then it's on their super tight and you don't need to have a buckle that you have to tighten down and crank and always work about banging around because that's like the one thing I hate with my sticks. Even though I try to tape them, you still can get those little metallic clinks and clanks, you know. And so these little straps I just popped on today, I'm buckless. So I just tightened down all the steps of my lone Wolf sticks to make sure, everything's real quiet and since down real good, and I threw the versus strap songs, so I've got no buckles now, so I'm feeling pretty stealthy. I gonna slip out there with my sticks. I've got got my saddle. We'll slip into a tree, real quiet, real quick and be hunting without you know, needing to tote around a bunch of stuff. So I'm I'm excited from that perspective, and then you know, that's all there is to it. I did bring some game bags and one of my bigger backpacks stuff I do kill one out there. I'm just gonna quarter it out and hike it out because this this I'm probably gonna be hiking in a minimum of a mile, if not a couple of miles in for these these hunts, and a lot of times you have to climb some pretty serious bluffs and cliffs to get out of the river bottom. Um, so I don't want to try dragon one out of that. So that's what's in my truck right now. Cool, dude, it's just a it's this a place that you've hunt before or yeah, this is the show right all right? So saddle, now, I mean you're not. You're not going the land of the tree stand anymore. Yep. The only time I'm using tree stands is like where I where I already have like a semi permanent setup, you know, so on a couple of properties that I've always had stands up, those are still there. That's easy, um, But for my new running guns, it's just a lot easier just running the saddle so and so, like in five years, are you gonna say, dude, I was hunting with the saddle before it was cool. I think I'm too late even to say that the party. I think I think you could say I started saddle hunting when it when it became cool. Maybe Okay, I think I hit it just as it was becoming. But but you need you need to give it a try. I've got I can get you an extra one if you want to give a shot. I don't know, man, I I just can't like number one first, you know, like kind of going back to what you said about the straps and the mods that a lot of people do and you know, trying to go ultra light and you know, like for me, man, even if I'm walking two miles into a tree into a set which I never do, because my farms are just laid out different in the public ground that I go and I hunt on, doesn't I don't need necessarily to walk Let's say, like two miles. I can see where a real light set up would be awesome. Let's say in Virginia, where these guys are basically climbing a thousand up and down to try to get a couple of miles into their you know, to their tree stands. But for me, like the added weight just doesn't bother me that much. I mean, I used to be the guy who was carrying camera equipment with me all the time, right, and all this other extra gear, and it's just like one or two pounds and stuff like that never bothered me. On top of that, all these mods that people are doing, that's cool, I get it, you know, it's awesome. I love that you that people are excited about that. But for me, like, I guess I've never been the kind of guy who made a crap ton of noise setting up a tree stand. Don't get me wrong, there's times where a little dink might happen, But I feel like I'm fairly observant and about the noise that I'm making. And I don't need like all the straps and the tape and the stuff. The second that the accessories or the secondary market type things on my on my stand. So I don't know. I I don't personally do that stuff, but I can I understand why people do. Yeah, fair enough, man, I uh, I hear what you're saying. And there's definitely like something we said about you've got to come a level of your setup and if it ain't broke, don't fix it. I get that too. So and me, like a strong wind and a saddle, I'd probably just be like wrapped around that tree like a tether ball. I think I'm trying to convince you try saddle, just because I want to see your big gass up swinging in a tree like that. Fur about so, I'm like it would be something. So, So that's my setup. That's what I'm bringing out there. Um, you know, relatively simple. What about you? What do you? What do you bringing on your hunt? And so I have the luxury of hunting. I'm this elkin. I'm hunting out of an actual cabin right, there's no electricity, there's no running water or anything like that, just a uh four square walls and a roof in four walls and a roof up in the mountains. Right, So that's where I get to come home to every night. So for me, I'm I'm bringing everything for this, right, I just in case. Right, I don't have to worry about Wait, I don't have to worry about only being able to carry this much stuff or whatnot. So I have the luxury of bringing all my gear with me. I have a big it's called a bronch box. Have you ever heard of them? So it's this big, almost like a giant YETI cooler, But it's just a box that you can keep your gear in. There's some dividers in it and whatnot. So I'm I I load one of those all the way up. I have my bowcase, uh that I put all my archery equipment in, and then a couple of extra duffel bags for let's say, clothes around camp, you know, some additional tennis shoes, like my hygiene products, toothbrush and contact solution and stuff like that. So I'm able to get away with bringing everything. Um now, when I actually load up and head into the mountains, I mean, did you want me to get into detail about that? Sure what's in your pack when you head in the mountains. So it's that's pretty simplified because I do get to come home every night to a place like not necessarily a drop camp. I have everything I need for the day. So in my pack is my raincoat, uh my basically bars and apple for the day. Um, I'm usually running about five leaders of water. I have two bladders that I that I run. You're carrying five leaders in these day? Yeah, d of water. I drink all of it. That's a lot of draft. And that's just for for a day like that's your day hunt every morning. So you have five nail Jane bottles with you, no bladders, but I mean the equivalent of five nail Geane bottles. That's five leaders. Yeah, I guess so. But but I'm telling you for you man, I am. I do not want to get sick. And you don't care about weight. Now now I really understand you don't care about extra weight. Well I do, right, But like water is important, so I'm not bringing in a ton of other stuff. I have game bags that I have in there. I have a raincoat, and I have my food for the day. Um, I have on my pack, right and that's that's really it. That's in my pack, right. I have a binocular case that holds my release. Um, I'm taking two trekking polls. I have my Vortex range finder. I have my Vortex binoculars. Are you running? Oh man, I got him. I got him like five years ago. Uh razor h d S or something like that. Okay, yeah, so those and then um, I have a cow call and that's all kind of packed into my bino case. They have a little pocket on the side of him. And what kind of cow call are you is? And you using a read? Are you using a like a big hand call? I'm using It's not a big hand call. It fits in my hand. Uh. And it's it has a read in it, but it's not a diaphragm, That's what I mean. Yeah, So I'm using one of those. And then this year I bought a bugle tube, which you want to see a lot of neighbors come outside of their door and I the front yard. I was sitting in my garage practicing my bugles the other night and like five neighbors all came out to see what the hell is going on? So I got my bugle tube. Um, and that's gonna be kind of wrapped around my waist or around my shoulders so I can easily get to it if I need it. And then my bow right, I got my prime with my day six arrows so real heavy arrow um, my wasp broad heads and fixed mechanical fixed fixed, dude, I got it. I'm sticking with fixed for a while and the grains under now. But my total arrowweight is fi this year. Um. Other than that, just like my boots are crispy, I'm I invested in some gators this year, so because one thing that I was walking through the grass and even one crick that runs down the mountain, and my boots didn't my socks didn't get wet, but my pants would get wet, and once they get wet, they kind of went up and it would They still dried out throughout the day, but it was still a little uncomfortable, you know, having the you know, from the boot to the bottom of your calf just like that six inches wet. So I bought some gators hopefully to alleviate that problem. And then I'm running some alpaca and wool socks. I'm running, uh, you know, some sick apex hoodie I'm running a then the Sick of Mountain pants, the Sick of Mountain jacket, I have uh an insulation. My installation layer is the Calvin Lightweight vest and then just a regular hat. And that's really it. Man. What game bags do you use? Okay, so I have a I have some that I wore, but some dudes actually sent me some in the mail and it's called crack SHAWL g R A K K S A W. And they're reusable, so they're actually made from the same material that your tent tarp or the cover of your tent would be the rain tarp, so it's really lightweight. They all have toggles on them so you can zip it shut and um so I'm gonna be bringing those with me. And then I also have some just like those cloth game bags that are pretty much disposable as well, but these game bags look pretty sweet, so I'll be and I guess yeah, those game bags will be in there with me too. So, so you guys have like beds and sheets and like really nice sleeping accommodations as Kevin. No no sheets, but there is a mattress um that has like when we get there, we gotta it's in like a this latext it almost looks like it's a condom for a bed for a mattress. So then we take that off and then we just put our sleeping bags on top of that. So yes, we get a lay on a mattress every night, which is awesome. That is nice. I U I rock. That just made me think of like my camping gear. The mattress I'm using is much different than that. I've got a little therm arrest neo light and um, just a small like the little backpacking inflatable one. Um, and then you bring them back sleeping bag. Yep, what's your bag these days? So? Um, I got it right here. Let me check it is a alps. It's an ALP's negative negative or no way, it's either negative twenty or zero. You'll be toasty. Yeah. So but I'm telling you, man, it gets cold up there. What I expected temperature range out there. So let's see, the last day that we were there last year was it was like eight the day we left a mountain. But every morning walking up it was like thirty five degrees in the mornings. Uh, and then it would you would you get up to about the fifties so there's parts where when you're in the shade, you're doing a lot of getting dressed and undressing. Right, So I can remember the one day, the one of the like the third day of the hunt, we hike in, right, so all I'm doing is wearing my base layer top and my pants, and then we get there and I instantly start to get cold, right, so I gotta put on my insulation, like to put on my shell and that that keeps you warm. But then you start moving again, then you're too hot, so you gotta take all that off, put it back into your pack, and you're just doing that whenever you stop. You need because that I remember one time we set up and I didn't put I was really hot and I didn't put my insulation layer back on, and I got at the end of the calling sequence. I was almost shaken because I was so cold. And that happened in that was like high forties and for that by by the time that was all happening for that morning hunt. And it kind of makes you realize, like that's why layering is so important, because you have to control you have to control it. If I didn't have anything up there, man, I would have had to go back down to the to the cabin. Yeah, when you're way out there more important. And you're, like you said, such a variable activity levels and that kind of hunt got to be be able just with it, no doubt about that. So, speaking of varying activity levels and stuff and going down with the cabin or heading out in the morning, do you have, like now is your second year hunting this place, do you guys have like a very specific game plan going into day one? Like do you know what you're gonna do? Are you showing up and just gonna stand outside the cabin and figure it out? Yeah? So I think there there's like there's one big area that has multiple spots in it, and then there is another area that has two big area that has two other spots. And what I mean spots, I mean these meadows at the top of the at the almost the top of these mountains, right we're talking. We start off at about ten thousand two feet is where the cabin is, and then we're getting up to about eleven three I think was the highest we got last year. So, um, we know what we're doing. It's just a matter of where we're going, if that makes sense. So we'll we'll either go to Spot A or we'll go to Spot B, and then we'll work these meadows throughout this face of this mountain. So you so you know of a handful of these meadows, tell me, like what you're doing. Let's say it's early morning, first day, you decide we're to go to Meadow A. What does that actually mean? What does your morning hunt look like working your way to A? Or do you do you hike in before daylight and get to a daylight? And then like, what are you actually doing that? First? Okay, so we're leaving. Let's let's I'm just gonna walk you through what we did the most last year. So wake up, eat breakfast, get dressed. Telling how how long before daylight is this? We're talking about an hour before daylight. We're leaving. We're leaving an hour before daylight. It takes us roughly forty minutes to an hour to get to our first stop. Where it's now we can start seeing things, right, it's it's gray light. And just you know, first, it's so loud in the correct when we're walking in it, you can't hear anything else except the creek you get up off on the first Uh, this first plateau kind of this bench, then you can start the crick noise goes away, then you can start listening right that's when we start to call right up, right away, and we're not to the first meadow yet. We're calling on our way into the meadow or setting up for the first listening, watching, and then moving our way up to this first meadow, and then we'll set up another calling sequence, work our way up the meadow, do another calling sequence. Because these meadows are real long, they're basically avalanche shoots that UM and either an avalanche has destroyed all the trees coming on the way down and that's where the grass has grown up, or just over time maybe a mud slide or a rock slide or or straight up trees just didn't grow there and that's where the grass grows. So that's where these these elk are feeding throughout the night and morning and evenings. And then we just do that to all the different meadow right bounce, bounce throughout and if we hear a bugle, let's say, we just drop what we're doing and we go straight for it. Nice And how do you feel this year coming into year two of this spot again? UM confidence level? Like, how likely do you think you're are you going to this? Like I'm gonna get one. So here's what I'll say. I'm gonna take my archery skills out of the equation right now, because you know, I'm a little shook for that. But from a from a strategy standpoint and getting there, man, I feel like last year we had I'm gonna say three encounters. One of them I screwed up on and I think I moved and whatever was coming in saw me. The other one took a s by surprise, and then the other encounter that we had, my buddy Ryan the broadhead hit the shoulder and there was zero almost zero penetration. So so we're going to week later now, that's one week closer to the rut. So I think we're gonna we're gonna hear a lot more bugles, We're gonna be able to make a lot more moves and a lot more adjustments and kind of know where the Elk are at because of it just being one week closer to their rut. We're we're gonna be there from the six or the or the seventh, and we're leaving on the fifth morning of the fifteen. So However, many days that is of being able to try to locate where these animals are at, and just that with knowing how the terrain lays and knowing what we did last year, I feel confident the group that I'm with will have another crack at a a llegal bowl. Are you ready for the suffer fest? The suffer fest that if someone kills one getting it off the mountain? Right, So here's the cool part. Now, it's still gonna suck, But we go up from the cabin. Means that wherever we shoot, we're only going down for the for the most part. So it's not like I'm gonna have to shoot it in this big gorge and then hike at five or eight hundred feet straight up. Now, I don't know where this animal is gonna die, But for the most part, everywhere that we were last year is a descent down to the camp. Yeah, that's nice. So it's not even like where we're in Idaho, where even when you're coming back, the still ups and downs all the way. Dude, I have nightmares about that place. Really. Oh dude, I just remember, like a grown man like you had been out there all summer and you were walking and you got those long ass legs and you were making it look easy, and here I was just like I was whining like a baby. Oh rus start, but you get there? Yeah, uh but yeah, I mean, I hope I'm going with two other guys, and I just man, I'd love to kill three elk. I'm gonna probably shoot for I think that's what I like. That moderate expectations. Yeah, no, man, I think it's uh, first elk that steps out in front of me that's legal is going to get shot. So can you shoot a cow? Yep? So even if there's bugling around you and a cow steps out twenty yards and it's like a gimme and I don't know, it just depends on what kind of conversation I want to have with the wife. She's like, you went to Colorado and to bring anything back again. So it's like I can't share the whole story of how a cow was standing broadside at twenty yards, but you know, like fifty yards into the timber was was a bulb bugling right behind her, but he decided to never come out. You know, Like, I don't know, I guess I guess my answer to that question is I'll just probably play it by ear. Yeah, fair enough. So what's your North Dakota deal? Like, are you only shooting booners or what? Yeah, that's always do now jehuh, Dan's just hold out for booters. No, I'd say, um, I have I would love to shoot a four year old or older, right, But if I get it, it's gonna be a lot depending on Like I'm gonna kind of take I don't want to say inventory, but kind of take inventory of the situation when I get there the first few days, if I'm seeing like some really nice bucks, like I do believe there are mature bucks there that could be like really nice mature bucks. And if I'm seeing dear like that, I feel like I have enough time that I could work them and I could get a shot at you know, uh fifty type four or five year old buck. Um is what I would you know, that'd be over the moon, super duper happy if something like that happened. But if the first couple of days I'm not seeing anything like that at all, If I'm just seeing you know, three year olds, If basically I want to shoot at the top, you know, five percent of what's out there, the top two percent of one out there. So if it's the best year I'm seeing or like three year olds or one twenty or something, and I'm hunting, I have six days and that's all I've seen, then I'd be pretty happy shooting a nice three year old. Um. But that's that's like the lowest. That's my floor. UM, Like a really good three year old would be the floor. And I might not. I don't know. I feel like even that might it will be like in the moment situation, I'm not sure. Um. More and more, it's like I just want that big bodied, obviously old buck. Um. But at the same time, sometimes you know buck's coming in and you get excited and you're like, that's a good one and you take the shot and then maybe he was three, but who cares? Is a cool experience. Well that's the thing. This is your first time ever hunting in North Dakota, right, Well, no, I hunted like two days last year. So you know, last year I killed that buck in Montana and then I made I met up with Josh at this same place and then for one night and one morning I glassed. We didn't see anything we wanted to hunt, and so then after that we pulled the plug, drove like an hour and a half or two hours to another spot, and then we hunt did another glass to night in the morning, and then we hunted a night in the morning. Um, and it came close on a couple of bucks at that new spot. But this, this original place is just it's a really cool area. I know they're there. It's like a thorn in my side that we didn't figure it out last year. So I've got one too. I've got two different glassing knobs that I've been to that I like as far as places where I can set up with a spotting scope and binoculars and glass like miles of river bottom and try to see something if if nothing's happening there. I've got another area that I found on on X that is within hiking distance of one of those points. So I was set up camp but one glassing knob and then hike in a cross the river, hike about two miles to get to this other area. And it just looks excuse me, it looks dying. In my last year, I drove around. There were some roads um that you leave some public lane you get into private and there was some like alf offa fields and this private land, and this stretch of public land is on the other side of the river from that, so it's really hard to get to. But if I were to start in the public hike two miles, I can get behind that private land where that alfalfa is, and I would just be shocked if there's not a whole bunch of deer in and around that. So that would be kind of brutal to hike in, you know, two plus miles every day, in and out, in and out. But um, that would be option C if A and B if the easier spots don't work out, And then if that doesn't work out, I've got I've got probably seven or eight more places just marked on the map that I've never been but that looks similar to these spots. So you know, basically, I'm looking for places where there's public land that meets the river and then there's some good cover down along the river, which usually looks like cottonwood trees and cedars and like some willow brush and stuff like that. If you've got enough like that along these river bottoms, um usually have some white tails in there. So I'll just bounce between every one of those and basically the game plan is find a high spot, sit up there for a morning, you know, and I won't I won't hunt the mornings until I know there's actually a buck. I won't hunt otherwise I'll spend mornings glassing trying to find one. And this is that kind of location where you can just see long distances. Um. So I'm going to get there the night before opening day. So I'm gonna glass the night before in my first like idea location, glass the next morning, and then hopefully after those two scouting sessions, I'll know where to move into with the saddle for that first night's hunt. Um. And I'm gonna keep on doing that, but I'm not going to be I'm not gonna be afraid to also like push in there, you know, like if the first couple of nights from my glassing knob off the road, I can't see anything. I also think it's worth one of the things. I talked to a friend of mine who's hunting in this general area before, and he had talked about how a lot of the bucks he'd seen in the past it's stuck closer to the river right in like this willow brush more than you might spect um. So part of me wonders if when I was hunting their last year or glassing their last year, I was just missing these deer that are right in the edge of the river working in that thick stuff. Like I'm talking like maybe it's ten yards on either side of the river, but it's thick, and so they might have been just working parallel to the river and you wouldn't see them unless you were actually down in the river bottom. And uh, I want to explore that idea too, and not right stuff off too quickly. But that's it. It's gonna be spotting. Then I see something, I'm gonna move in for the kill. Um and then if that doesn't work out, it for day or two, then I'll probably retreat back, try to spot another area, try to locate something moving a lot of observation sits, and then moving for the kill, observation ship moving for the kill, and do that for seven days and hopefully get close enough to one eventually. Is this a tag that you can if you run into a mule deer buck you can shoot one of those two? No, this is white tail only, okay, but that's fine with me. Yeah, that's awesome. And I'm a sucker for the white tails. Yeah, yeah, it's it's just a fun it's a fun way to hunt. So they're so visible. There's a big, wide open landscapes and just the prettiest country you could ever ask for. So yeah, and in solo. I mean I've done a hand for quite a few of these solo trips. Now it's it's at times it seems like it's lonely, but other times like I really like, you know, you just hike in hunt, hike back to the truck. It's dark. You get back to the truck, I just crack a beer or drink or something sitting the tailgate. It's dark, there's nothing but the stars out. Just kind of be able to sit there with your thoughts and sleeping, sleeping back, wake up early the next morning, get perched up on a ledge with some coffee and glass whole valley and do that for a week. You kind of refine yourself. I think kind of brings you back down to to your center. So I'll tell you one of that was one of my favorite things about hunting um in Nebraska, when I went out there in the sand hills and I assuming it's gonna be a little bit like this with South Dakota is just the vastness and being able to see a long ways with no manmade structures. It makes you kind of realize how small and insignificant that we are in this whole grand scheme of things, right, how small? Like in Iowa, there's trees everywhere right hunt you can't you can't necessarily see a long ways unless you get out west of the state or to a high point. But like out there, you can see until you can't see any anymore, if that makes sense. Like your eyes, your eyes don't have the ability to see further than what they're seeing. And that makes me feel small and I love that feeling. I'm absolutely right there with you, definitely definitely love those wide open vistas and uh and kind of feeling insignificant in the bigger scheme of things. So with that said, let's wrap this up with one alreading word of advice to all of our fellow hunters listening. There's seasons. Everyone's seasons are kicking off here soon. So this is our our parting words to take into your first huns of the year. Dan, what do you want to leave folks with? It's it's dude, It's easy, have fun, like we think about this all the time, like all the time, and I've kind of realized over the past couple of years, is if you're if you are putting any additional pressure on yourself to do anything that has to do with killing this an animal. Sometimes pressure is good. Sometimes you need that little kick in the butt to go accomplish something like movie tree standard whatnot. But overall, it's got to be fun like. And for me, I just love doing this from my fun standpoint that I just want everybody to like take a deep breath and just realize why we do this. And I think that the older I get and the more I do it, it's not about inches and it's not about even age class. Those are things that I look for, but it's not why I do it. And if you can, if you can just embrace that that feeling, I think you're going to have a lot more fun in the woods. Very very wise words. I will jump off of that with the kind of the opposite advice, but but but no, no, what I would say is definitely have fun, but realize that it's not always going to be fun like. Stuff will go wrong. So my advice will be when the ship hits the fan, when something inevitably goes wrong, when you missed that buck of a lifetime, when you get your tree stand stolen, when someone trespasses and blows up the farm. Just remember that everyone has that stuff happen, the best hunters out there, It happens to them all. It's the people that push through it that eventually reach their goal. So just know, like, all right, that happened. As quickly as you can, let that water pass under the bridge, and you move on and take that next step more quickly, you can get to having fun again. Do not let that stuff break you. It's so easy for that stuff to stress you out and take the fun out of it. I've been there. I think you have two damn where something goes wrong and your plans get screwed up and you're not reaching your goals and you're not seeing the bucks and you've hunted seven days straight and you're miserable and like, man, screw this ship, and then you want to give up. Try to as quickly as possible when that crappy stuff happens, like recognize that, all right, that sucked. That was a huge bummer, But I'm not going to let that impact me from this point forward. At that point, then you gotta let go. You gotta stop pointing back to you gotta stop blaming it, you gotta stop letting that thing hang over you. And instead it's okay, Now, what can I do next? What's the next step I can take to move back towards that fun thing, to move back towards that goal had And I think that that will lead to type too. Fun. So in the moment, you're pushing through some crap, but if you push through it and you make it to the other side, it will be really fun looking back and knowing that you were able to get through it and you maybe you accomplish your goal, maybe you killed that deer or whatever it is you're trying to do. Maybe it didn't, but it will still be fun to be able to look back and say, dang it, I left it all on the field, I gave it my best, and that was a pretty cool thing too. So that would be that would be my suggestion. Keep keep all that in mind, get after it, and have a damn good time. Amen. Amen, Well, good luck on your North Dakota hunt. Man Um keep me posted. Thank you, Dan, good luck on your Elk hunt. I will probably not be home before you leave, so this is goodbye for both of us. I hope we returned safely, and let's record a podcast after each of our hunts and share our wild success stories. Right, Hey, I like that fingers crossed? Hey, I take that? Uh what, I can't do that, buddy, Okay, let's try toes crossed to cross? Dan, you just imagine if you could cross your toes, you'd have some long ass toes. Man, you can't cross your toes. I'm crossing my toes right now. Must have some I do have long time. My wife says I have finger toes. That's gross. I just imagine how long you're okay, shut it down and that's a rap? How long? My what is? And that is a rap? Hope you enjoyed this one. Um. Both Dan and I obviously are very excited for the first hunts of the year, and as you're listening to this, my hunts actually in the middle or possibly wrapping up here very soon, so I will have reports for you very shortly. Um, if you haven't been already following on on wire Hunt's Instagram account, and definitely check that out because I'm hosting daily updates there as I go along, letting you know everything that's happening. So until next time, best of luck if you are out there hunting too, and until next time, stay wired to hunt.

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