00:00:02 Speaker 1: Welcome to the Wire 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 Kenyan, and this is episode number three and eleven, and today in the show, we're gonna be talking about pre rut hunting strategies and then we're joined by two new hunters to discuss some close buck encounters and our recent mentor hunt in Michigan. Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast, brought to you by Onyx. Today, we've got a fun show, We've got an interesting show, a couple of different things we're gonna be covering. Joining me here shortly is Josh further Hilliard and two new hunters, Dan Jo Joe and Mike Romine, who joined us recently for a Field to four event here in Michigan. Now, this is a program ran in this case jointly by the Quality Deer Management Association and back Country Hunters and Anglers in which we trained up eight new hunters and paired them with mentors for a weekend of hunting and camaraderie. And I was privileged to get to be one of those mentors. So today we're going to recap that event, and here from Mike and Dan about you know, what brought them to hunting, what brought them to this event, the challenges they've faced trying to learn how to do this whole thing, and this whole experience they had this past weekend meant to them, and how it hopefully helped arm them for the future. And I just gotta tell you the at least for me, the experience was was awesome. Uh. And I'm just I'm gonna be doubling down on doing this kind of thing and trying to help mentor more people because I just can't tell you how much fun it was to share my love of hunting with someone who was actively interested in learning, like craving a learning opportunity and just not having anyone else to go to. UM. It was great. It was very fulfilling, and it's a need. There's a lot of people out there who want to learn who don't have a friend or a family member or a place or a resource to help get started. So I hope coming out of this you will I don't know, I think after you hear from these two guys who both had really cool close encounters, I think once you hear they're they're raw motion from these experience, I don't know. It just brought me back to my early days and I loved it. So that's what we're gonna chat about here in a second. But before we get to all that, I do want to make sure we talk some deer hunting strategy because when this podcast drops, if you're listening to it on the day it comes out, that's October nineteen, and that's basically what I consider the beginning of the pre run for most parts of the country. That means things are going to be getting real good here soon. So I want to make sure I'm arming you all with at least a few ideas or reminder as we head into these important hunting dates. Um, So I thought I would give you kind of a real quick cliff notes set of advice to keep in mind, kind of a compilation of high level pointers that that I picked up over my years hunting, or from the many conversations we've had with so many great hunters on this podcast. So you know, if you listen to the podcasts all the time, this isn't brand new stuff. This is reminders. But hopefully we can put it together an assistinct way here to to make sure we're thinking about the right things as we get into the we're really approaching it, the super Bowl, the white tail season, I mean, it's getting good. So some quick ideas to keep in mind. Number One, this upcoming time time frame, let's say October through the thirty one or so Halloween time frame, This can be one of the absolute best times of year to kill an old mature buck that's local to your property. You know, if you've got a home buddy bucket deer that maybe you've seen a bun or you know he spends a lot of time in your farm, or maybe it's a deer that you're always getting on camera all over the place, but it's always after dark. This is possibly your best chance to kill him because in the coming days two stosterone levels are really going to be getting high for your local bucks, and they're gonna be feeling real frisky. But the does probably won't be ready to breed yet, at least not in any kind of really high numbers. So what you're looking at and what you're gonna have is a mature buck that wants to get on his feet a little bit earlier than usual. To scope out does. But he's not going to be going full bore yet. He's not gonna be cruising all over the country. He's gonna be sticking close to his local stomping grounds. And if you know what the buck's usual routine is, or at least no some of the like the key stopping points along the way, you can really take advantage of that knowledge right now and catch him when he's just a little bit more vulnerable. But if we wait, and if you're not doing this, if you're not getting after it right now, if you fast forward two weeks and we're into November, man, all bets might be off. I mean that buck could be chasing does all over the place. He could take a mile sojourn in a new direction and maybe never makes it back. You just can't predict what these deer will do with much certainty once the rut gets cranking. So the point of all this is to say that if you have a homebody buck right now and you've got him nailed down, if you know where he's bettered, or if you know where he's feeding after darker, some kind of intel like that, this is a really good time to get aggressive. So if the conditions are right, get after him hard. But but remember you still want to hunt this deer on October patterns, So you want to be intercepting him going to his bed or leaving it or heading out to feed. And you're not going to be shifting into those full bore rut strategies yet. Now Number two, speaking of conditions being right at this time of year, if you get a good cold front pushing through, it is game time. I mean, cold fronts are exciting any time of year, but it just seems like a big cold front, and late October just takes things to a whole different level. If I'm seeing a front hitting during that last week of the month or so I'm looking at is just as good as anything happening in November. I mean, I'm canceling work, I'm rushing to get all my chores done, uh, putting the out of office email up, turning off my phone. I'm getting in the tree. No matter what. You just gotta be out for there for those days and aggressive because you can definitely get it done. Um, So keep that in mine. Number three, as we're trying to build the strategy further and we're looking at the conditions. Yes, conditions are good, the time of year is good. That boxing me a little bit more vulnerable now. Number three, look back on trail camera pictures from prior years to help predict what's going to happen over the next few days. If there's a buck that you're after this year and you've had pictures of him from previous years, you've got a hugely important tool at your disposal. Use those pictures to inform your future strategy. They don't just tell you what he did, they can also help tell you what he's going to do. Bucks oftentimes have kind of an annual pattern in which they'll start visiting the same general areas at the same time each year, or they'll start moving in daylight right around the same time each year. Um, there's it's not hard and fast rule, but oftentimes we see this trend. So look for that and use it to predict when and where to hunt that buck over these final October days, you know, because things are gonna get wonky soon. So use that past intel to tell you. Okay, maybe you can look back at all the pictures of of your big eight pointer and the big eight point maybe last year the first daylight pictures of them were October and the year before that, the first daylight pictures were October. If you see that man, you sure his heck better being a tree during that time period. This week, um, if everything lines up, so look at that stuff. Think about that stuff. Number four. Another thing to think about at this time of the year is we're transitioning. Is that calling can start working very well. Right, everything's ramping up to stop thrones rising, Females are edging closer and closer to being an estrus. Uh. Tensions are just really high in the woods. So if you see a buck out of range, it's definitely time to consider making some noise. Now. I personally like to start with something light, like a little contact run just a little, just to try and get a box attention, to see if I can get him curious. Now, if that doesn't work, and if his body language seems okay, he's not getting spooky, next I might try snort. We'se Now, this is a really aggressive call. It sounds like this that's basically like walking into a bar, pushing a guy in back and flipping him the bird. I mean, it's a it's fighting. If it's a real big old buck, you know he's probably or at least hopefully going to come in for a fight. But if it's a wimpy little guy or a little buck, he's probably in a tocktail and run. So so make sure you keep in mind that's not something to do if you're trying to call in a year and a half old buck. Now, finally, it also might be worth trying to rat, you know, smashing antlers together simulate a fight. But I do think this really depends a lot on where you hunt. You know, here in Michigan there's there's a ton of hunters and there's relatively few mature bucks compared to other places. So here I don't like to prattle very much at all, especially not early. Um, but if you're in a state like Kansas or Nebraska or Iowa, one of these states where the fewer hunters but many more mature bucks, you definitely can try cracking the antlers because man, there's no doubt there are a lot of real fights happening at this point. Now, the biggest thing to keep in mind, uh, if you're gonna do this, if you're gonna try some kind of calling, whether it's rattling, grunting, whatever, doble eats. Bucks almost always want to approach a sound they hear a call from the downwind side, if it's possible, they're gonna try to circle down wind of view, So be really careful about that when you choose to call. You know, if you've got a buck that is close to being down into for you, but not quite there and isn't walking in that direction, if you grunt all of a sudden, you're going to trigger him to turn and get down wind of you. You're gonna four him to get down wind of you, and he's gonna wind you and run away. So don't call him that situation. So either try to call when he's way up wind of view, or if you have some kind of barrier behind you that's gonna keep him, you know, keep him from winding your Maybe that's a river or some nasty tangle that a buck's just not gonna get through, make sure you're thinking about that wind uh Number five. If you're ever wanting to use scrapes within your hunting strategy, now is the time. Research has shown the buck visitation to scrapes peaks and late October. So if you're new to hunting and you're not familiar with I'm talking about. Basically, scrapes are these big kicked up patches of dirt that you're gonna find out in the woods, maybe the size of I don't know, like a computer desk kicked up. You're gonna see this big patch of dirt and there's gonna be a branch hanging over top of it. This is where a buck will come in. He's gonna kick that I was gonna make that sign. He's gonna take a leak, he's gonna pee in that dirt. He's gonna rub his head on that overhanging branch. He's gonna deposit a bunch of scent. He's essentially leaving a message for other deer. And now oftentimes these visits they're happening after dark, but at this time of year, late October, that's been shown to be the top time for them visiting the scrapes, and it's probably your best opportunity to catch one of those visits during daylight. So especially if you find a fresh scrape that's way back in the cover, it's in some thick stuff, it's in the timber, that can be a dynamite location. UM I personally don't set up very often just to hunt a specific scrape. But what happens for me a lot is I'm in an area for another reason. Maybe I know this is a transition between betting and feeding. I've got pictures of a deer stepping out of this piece of timber or whatever it might be. If I'm in the zone of interest and I'm trying to find the spot within the spot, that's where a scrape comes in really helpful. If I can find that scrape, that helps me zero in on the specific location I want to be within range of. So keep that in mind. Finally, number six, when you're heading out for your next hunt or your next couple hunts here hopefully this week sometime or this weekend, I want you to head into the field thinking and believing that you're going to send an arrow Think through your plan set up with attention to detail. Don't just go out to a random spot for says and giggles. Really try to think it through. Think about you know, what's the wind doing, where do I think the deer betted, Where do I think that they're going to go feed? What do I know from previous sightings, What do my cameras tell me? What do the conditions make me think is going to happen tonight? Think through all that, look at all the data. Put together a well informed, confident hunt. A few well planned hunts like this are just worth so much more than a whole bunch of Willie Nearly hunts. And when you do head in for a hunt with with this kind of background in preparation and place, you're gonna have this sense of confidence and anticipation. That's that's both really exciting and really helpful because when you go in with us old plan and that confidence you get this it's it's like a self fulfilling prophecy effect. You're gonna walk into a little bit slower and a little bit more quietly to your stand. You're gonna be just a little bit more careful moving in the tree stand. You're gonna scan with your binoculars just a little bit more. Your senses are just gonna be cranked, and you're gonna be mentally ready for whatever steps out and that mental readiness that can absolutely make or break your hunt. So get out there over these coming days, be confident, be prepared, and have fun. I mean, this is what we've waited all year for. This is this is it, and I, for one and stoked. So with all that said, the rest of our conversation today, it's about introducing other people to this thing we just talked about. I mean, how how lucky are you and I that we get to hunt and enjoy experiences like this and geek out over laid Tower strategy and dream about November. I mean, this is this is living, but a lot of people never get introduced to it or they're intrigued, they're interested, but I don't know how to get started. They don't know how to do it on their own. That's where mentoring comes in. And and I think, and I hope that after hearing about this mentor hunt experience that I just had that these guys just had, and hear how pactful it was for these new hunters, I think maybe a few more of you will will hopefully be as energized as I am to keep introducing more and more people to this crazy thing we love so much. So that's the game plan. I'm thinking. We take a very quick break here and then we're gonna get right into it all right here with me. Now, I have the infamous Josh further Hilliard, I have Dan jo Jo and I have Mike Romind. Thank you guys all for hopping on to do this chat after we just spent so much time together over the weekend. Absolutely thanks for having us. Yeah, definitely thank you. Hey, it's uh, it's it's my pleasure. I mean, this whole experience we just had, at least for me, was a whole lot of fun. But I like getting to have this kind of debrief opportunity, Like we just had an experience of the last three days, and it's easy to sometimes just get caught up in life and just running forward to whatever the next thing is. And having this podcast afterwards, at least for me, is giving me a nice opportunity to kind of reflect back on it and think about, Okay, why was that such a cool thing, Why would I want to do that again? What did I learn? Um? What could I have done better as a mentor? Um? So I've had an opportunity to do that, and maybe this will give each one of you a little bit of an opportunity to do that too, and hoping maybe folks listening will either learn something or be inspired or get intrigued by what we have to say. So I think I think we're gonn need to start then, Josh, is a quick cliff notes on what this whole thing is, because just before this I had I introduced the basic concept, but we need to hear from you on on what field the fork is. We had a podcast all about this earlier in the year. There's an episode on Mediator where we did a great job explaining this. But for those that haven't heard those, what was this thing that just happened over the weekend? Yeah, so, UM, this was a this is a it's actually a joint UM event this weekend with UH Michigan Chapter of back Country Hunters and Anglers and then Quality Deer Management Association UM. And it was our Field of Fork program UM and b h A has a similar program called Hunting for Sustainability UM. Very similar programs I'll talk about like our Field of Fork program though, UM it's basically what was modeled after UM. So we started this program a few years ago now down at our our national headquarters just outside of Athens, Georgia, UM, where Hank Forrester, who's our Hunting Programs or Hunting Heritage Programs manager UM, and one of his colleagues, UM, Charles Evans, got together and and UH this this program had been out there, and they said, hey, I think we can kind of take this to the next level. UM. So their plan was to go to farmers markets and try to you know, hand out venison samples and then uh kind of use that as a lead into asking people if they would ever um consider hunting or be interested in learning how to hunt UM. And then they would take these people that they signed up with the farmers market and they put him through training UM about dear behavior in the biology and uh hunt shot placement and ethics and UM hunting one on one stuff, just trying to give them a good baseline knowledge of of what they're getting themselves into. And they spend a lot of time at the archery range for this. For this particular program, most people are using cross bows UM just from a proficient see standpoint UM. And then they take them out on a on a hunt UM at some properties that we have at a national headquarters. And it was it was a program that was targeted at adults who are interested in sourcing you know, their own protein or their own local, you know source of food UM. And we kind of thought, what better way or what better resources out there than a lot of these deer in people's backyards for people to have a sustainable source of protein UM, and it was really a big hit. It kind of just took off right away. We had waiting lists for the events that we were putting on in uh in Georgia, and we really piloted it down there for a year or two, and we're starting to expand it out across the country now UM in states where we have branches and a good q DM, a volunteer base in certain states, and I think this year we're gonna have between twenty and of these Field of Fork events across twelve states UM. And again it's it's an adult focused program where we're we're focusing on adults UM who can then go out and replicate UM this type of hunt on their own UM without somebody taking them or without needing to call someone for a ride, or you know, who may have disposable income where they can go purchase gear UM, et cetera. So that's kind of a really high level overview of it. UM. Is that good for for this discussion? Mark, you want me to go into a little bit more detail. No, I think that's I think that's perfect. So, so essentially, what we have here is you and in your partner over at b h A helps set up a version of that kind of event here in Michigan, um where we had eight hunters and eight mentors I think was the number, right, Josh Um and we did that pretty cool situation, rented some cabins in a local state park I guess you would call it, and a bunch of public land all around there, and we were all able to get together for the weekend for the weekend of hunting and camaraderie and all that kind of stuff. And two of the hunters that were there were Mike and Dan. So for you too, what I wanted to hear to start is a little bit of your background because you both have different situations, different circumstances that led you to meeting us this weekend. Um So, I kind of want to just dive into that a little bit because I think it's a it's an interesting thing for for us experienced hunters to be reminded of, you know, how other people might you know, be looking at hunting, how other people might be intrigued by hunting but not knowing where to go to figure out how to do it. Um. So, Dan, do you want to kind of give us a little bit of your background, how you developed an interest in hunting, What the things were, you know, what other outdoor activities maybe brought you into this kind of world and and all that. Yeah, definitely definitely. So. I grew up in southeastern Michigan. I guess you could call it the metropolitan Detroit area. UM. Not really coming from a hunting family, UM, not really having any peers or friends that really got into hunting at an early age. UM. But what I did have was some brothers that got me into fishing. UM. So I was kind of always into fishing, and then as I got older, it started kind of expanding my interest in the outdoors to you know, mountain biking, backpacking, hiking. So UM. Kind of developed that interest early on of just being outside and exploring nature. But I always had a curiosity around, you know, the hunting realm of things, and always thought it was something I could see myself getting into, but I didn't necessarily have any avenues to really pursue it with elders that could show me the ropes or friends or friends parents that could take me along. I guess staff forward to uh, the college I had hated a girl that her family had some property in northern Michigan and uh lucky enough to have her dad take me out on a couple of hunts, um, which I thought was super cool and super interesting, and um immediately you know, started to develop that interest of you know, really seeing myself doing this in the future. UM. Kind Of around that same time, I uh, you know, I kind of fell into inheriting a bow from um a brother's friend, and uh, right there, I started shooting it and having some fun with it and kind of saw it as a tool to maybe enable myself to you know, maybe pursue hunting. And at a later point in time, UM, you know, graduated college. Long story shirt short, didn't end up with that girl, so UM, I couldn't really pursue that. Having for hunting, moved to Chicago, kind of got away for from all my outdoor activities that I did for a little bit. UM. A couple of years later, actually moved back to Michigan and kind of picked up where I left off with fishing and hiking and backpacking. UM. So you know that kind of started to develop my interest back into you know, shooting my bow again and maybe seeing if I could pursue hunting again. Um. You know, I think it was one weekend I came across the Mediator show on Netflix, and I think I binge watched all the season like a weekend. So that kind of inspired me right there to maybe really take it seriously. Um you know. With that, I also ran into your podcast, Mark, so I thought that was a cool resource to maybe learn a few things about, you know, some things in my area, being that you're a white tail hunter, you're from Michigan, and maybe pick up on some things there. But what I found was I was getting really excited when I listened to your stuff. I was also getting really frustrated at the same time, because it just made me realize that my situation was super difficult to maybe have a friend tag along or maybe run this by this question I had by you know, uh, an older, more experienced person than I was in the whole hunting um realm, so um, you know kind of stuff. Stuck with it, kept shooting my bow and then um um. I think it was probably a month ago I ran into that Mediator podcast that I think you had mentioned earlier, and they were talking about the fielding Board program. I said, well, well, this could be a cool opportunity for me to maybe learn some things. They meet, some new people, got on the website. I had emailed that emails excuse me, Hank Forrester and uh, Keith asked my contact information belonged to Josh, and uh, you know, I talked to Josh a little bit. Josh told me he had a couple of opportunities, and you know, I figured I'd take him up on it, kind of get out of my comfort zone and maybe, you know, spend a weekend trying to learn and absorbed as much as possible. And uh, you know, that's kind of what what led me to this weekend and meeting you guys and having some some cool, cool experiences and with some cool memories. And now you're on the podcast itself. Hey, there you go, man um out it is. Uh so, what about you, Mike. I know you've got a pretty different set of circumstances than that um, but you still ended up in the same place. Give us, give us your story. Yeah, my background is basically the opposite of his. Um. Interestingly enough, so I grew up in a totally hunting family and big time fisherman. I mean, we were outside all the time, and I grew up hunting rabbits and squirrels and trapping stuff and you know, all kinds of stuff, a lot of gun sport, um, all that kind of stuff. But long story short, UM, I took on a career as a professional chefs and later a restaurant tour and um, you know, nights and weekends work, you know, eighty nine hours a week and basically, um, living the life of a restaurant tour it doesn't leave you a lot of opportunity to get up at four o'clock in the morning because you just went to bet it too. Um. And so it's a it's a tough thing to be able to fit that time in, I guess while you're in that mode. So here I am fifteen years later, and my life is a little bit different, and now I'm kind of seeing to myself, let me work to live instead of live to work, and let me make some time to get back to the things that I love. And one of the things that really interested me about this program is that when I was growing up, I didn't have a lot of what I would call technical training from my dad. You know, he took us out there. But you know, I have my two brothers and myself, So he was trying to sill us all at the same time, and it was more like, here's a spot in a bucket, sit on it, and wait for a deer to come by kind of training. And so I was looking forward to that one on one kind of you know, talks about, you know, how did the deer live, how do they move, why do they move? How do I choose a good spot to hunt? How do I how do I be a more technically advanced hunter as opposed to, you know, throw a bag of corn out there and wait for them to come by. I think we can't throw a corn out there now, but you know, when I was growing up, that's how it was. So that's kind of my story. And you know, it was an awesome opportunity to get back to my roots and to learn and to just you know, I'll never give up a good opportunity for a weekend in a cabin. So it was awesome, awesome experience. Yeah, yeah, it's really cool because one of you came from a hunting background, one of you came from no hunting background. But the end result was that neither one of you was was a hunter, right Mike, you had an opportunity early on, and just you know, there wasn't the the experience and someone to help teach you along the way, and so you kind of fell fell away from it. Career got in the way, and then still no outlet to then learn how to get back into it. And then with Dan increasing increasing interest in the outdoors and then an intrigue and hunting, but no way to really get any hands on experience, no one to show you what's what. Um So the point being, I think for me at least when I got to meet you guys and hear your stories and hear the stories from all the other hunters there in camp, was there's all these different all these different backgrounds of people come from, and there's all these different challenges that might keep them from being interested in hunting to actually becoming a hunter. Like that jump from interested to actually being a hunter is a big one, and there's a bunch of obstacles in the way. This isn't like, I don't know, This isn't like getting into fantasy football, right, I mean, if you if you're interested in fantasy football, you can go online read a couple. I don't read a couple of articles, watch a YouTube video and basically know how to do it, how to get involved, sign up for a league. You don't need to have friends that are into it, you don't need to have anybody who can share with it you anything. You just sign up and do it, and you've got a whole new hobby and there you go. You're a fantasy football person. If you develop an interest in hunting just from watching Mediator or having some family that used to do it, but now you don't know how to get back into it. You know, if you're in that situation, how the heck do you get going? There's so much gear you need, there's the channel of trying to find a place to go. There's a challenge you brought up, Mike, which is, even if you've been out there before, if no one's actually showed you and shared with you the details of what you're trying to do and how to do it, you know, that's a frustrating situation too. Um So, I think it's really easy for people like me or Josh who have been hunting for a long time to take all that for granted, which is which is why, at least for me, this weekend was was a really important reminder that you know, it's it's not a given. It's not easy for someone to get into it. Um. Now, you kind of both alluded to a couple of these things, but especially maybe Dan, especially both of you, really can you elaborate a little bit on what some of those frustrations were, Like you said, it was frustrating Dan when you developed this like interest in hunting. You started listening to the wire Time podcast a little bit, but then it was frustrating. Um, can you just elaborate on the on that a little bit Like these things I just mentioned, is that basically the gist of how you were feeling or or what was it that was making it hard for you to take that next leap and actually get out there in the woods doing this. Yeah, definitely, definitely. So, I mean some of the frustrations I had, you know, you spoke on it a little bit, Mark, was you know, knowing what gear to get get into, right. I Mean, you look at the market and there's a ton of different things you can you can spend your money on, from tree stands to to UH to jackets to you know, our free equipment calls. I mean, you name it. So you know when when people would talk about, you know what, I got this tree stand that helps me do this, I don't really know what exactly they're talking about. I don't have a friend that maybe has this type of tree stand versus a ladder stand that I could ask, well, what do you think is better? What would you think would be more applicable to my certain situation where I'm hunting state land versus private land? Um? Some of those frustrations that I couldn't just readily breach out to somebody and ask, um, there was that aspect of it. Um, there was the whole strategy aspect of it to where you know, some of the the podcast would talk about, you know, a certain wind direction that you would need to be cognizant of, two different food sources that you would need to pay attention for, and and getting out there and trying to find and locate and identify those things. Um was certainly something that I could probably go do by myself, but it would almost be like a guessing game out in the field where I'd point out, okay, well this is an acorn tree, and then you know, I can see I think what looks like maybe he's a rub I'm not really sure. So you know, I can pull up a Google image of what that might look like, but you know, at the end of the day, I'm gonna always question myself to definitely say, like, you know, I think I saw one, but not totally sure if I really did. So, I found myself like just super frustrated with that kind of situation that you know, I just you know, wanted to do something about it. And luckily, you know, I got involved with a great program and was fortunate to have like a great mentor take me out and point out all those specific things and say, you know, this is the rub, this is a scrape, this is the wind direction that we're dealing with. We're going to approach the strategy this way. I just thought was just invaluable to me, you know, something that I didn't have before. That kind of opened up my my whole perspective of Okay, this is what I need to do now. So yeah, that's a great that's a great observation. You know something else that I think it was Nick, one of the other mentees, had brought up when we were all chatting over the weekend. He said that one of the big things that had kind of been intimidating to him as he decided he wanted to get into hunting, but was kind of worried about was the whole dealing with the deer after you shoot it, like the all like the whole idea of like, Okay, now I just I just shot this deer. What the heck do I do? I mean, you can watch a YouTube video, you can see it on mediator, you can read an article about it, but it's it's very different there in person. Is that something that kind of weighed in the back of your conscious two? Did you ever look at that and say, Gosh, how the heck am I going to handle that? Oh? Exacinitely definitely. I mean staring at, uh, you know, an animal that I just shot and thinking, Okay, I know I need to do something with that's not exactly sure what and then the fear of messing something up and having you know, things go wrong, and um, you know, I just was a total unknown to me and um unfortunately didn't tag anything this weekend. But I mean having somebody there to kind of help you out, walk you through the whole process is I think so important to learning your way and and figuring out how figuring out how to do things the right way. Yeah, Mike, was there anything else for you that stood as a challenge for you to get back into hunting, or anything that you were getting frustrated with or or something that eventually led you to point where you thought, you know, damn it, I gotta I gotta find someone who's gonna help me, and that led you to this program. Yeah, Well, it's it's kind of interesting because I really have, you know, have all all the equipment that I need, and I have all the stuff that I need, and I even have some of the background, I guess, at least to do the tough type of hunting that I was familiar with from before. Um. However, when I came across this program, it was just like, man, I really need to do that. I need to get out there and I need to learn a little bit more. And it's just like how sometimes in life you just kind of get stuck in a rut where you have things that you want to do, UM, but you just don't necessarily know how to get up and running. And sometimes all you need is just that little bit of a jump start UM that gets you move in. And I think one of the things for me that was really important was that I have these places that are kind of near where I live that I've hunted before, and I feel like at any point in time, I could get up and go there and hunt those places because I've done it before, because somebody set me up there, because I knew what to do. But right here in my backyard, less than ten minutes from my house, I have a huge piece of state land that I could hunt at any time. But but how do I do that? How do I go in there? Where do I where do I look to to find the best spot? It was like, how do I get started doing that? I don't really want to drive two hours to and from where I'm going to hunt. UM, So that to me was really pretty important. And just to tag a little bit onto what Dan was saying, what you guys are talking about with UM dealing with the deer afterwards. Interestingly enough, my job, I'm a professional butcher. UM. We own a butcher shop. UM. I still get calls every season from people that are experienced deer hunters that still don't aren't SUP We're comfortable with how to deal with it afterwards. So I think it's important to note that the network that's built from this event is also really important just to have someone that you can, you know, shoot a text to or send a picture too, and and kind of come back and say, hey, does this look right? Just that reassurance I think is pretty powerful, very very true. I think that ultimately that might be the greatest win out of this whole thing, Like it was a great weekend, but hopefully the the final outcome is long term relationships between all the different mentors and the different mentees and the fact that yeah, like if you Mike or Dan or any of the other folks have a question, or you hit a deer and you need to help tracking or anything like that, you now have people you can call. You now have folks who can help you, or you can chat in the phone with you and walk you through things. And that's probably harder to come by then, we realize, especially if you if you're in a situation where you're not around a bunch of other hunters, Like if you live in Metro Detroit and you're not from a hunting background. Um, I'm I'm guessing Dan, you don't have a whole bunch of buddies that are hunting that could help you do this kind of stuff right based off what you're saying. UM, So whether you know, whether you're in that case with no hunting family or friends, or in Mike's case where you had that background, but you just need someone to actually show you how to do it on your own and not just to sit there and do a Dad said, UM, that's why I think this is pretty cool. So let's get into what happened over the weekend. So you guys found the program, you signed up for it. We all got together Friday night at these cabins that Josh had rented. Um, I'll give like a really quick rundown of the basic situation and then anyone of you guys can jump in here and provide more detail or something. But basically, we had these cabins for the weekend. Friday night, we all got together and just you know, have some beverages, talk, you know, just tell our stories, introduce each other, just get to know each other. Um. And then we cooked a bunch of wild game. We had, Oh gosh, what all do we have? Someone made venison shank, someone made a pheasant stew. I think, um, I made some heart some squirrel yeah maybe that was it was a squirrel stew. Yeah, I think squirrel stew like venison, tortellini, um, some venison, summersauts, all kinds of stuff. Yeah. Um. The goals to have kind of like each mentor bring like a little dish to pass and h preferably wild game. And I think it was all wild game that night. I think. Yeah. Um, Now, Mike, I know you'd had venus in the past, but Dan, had you had venison before that? Yeah? I have a few times just through um, you know my my friend's parents that hell yeah, presented that. Yoh no, have you have venison? Heart? No? I think I missed that this weekend, didn't You didn't even get it this weekend? Man? No, all right, yeah you missed out because it was a damn good Sure. I'm sure I had some of the bad chefs, so so that definitely I could say that was pretty good. That's good. I'm gonna take your comment, Mike and hold that close because you're being a professional chef. I'm quite proud that a professional chef thought my heart turned out well. Yeah, I was honestly super great. I was impressed by all the food that was there that night. Um, you know, I've had a lot of wild game and that they are may not always be good. Um, but this group had a really nice, nice output. Good. I'm glad. The pressure was on. You know, you don't want to cook something up for new hunters and then make it terrible and they're like, oh, what the heck am I here for? Yeah, especially one of those new hunters as as a professional chef. Yeah, exactly. So, but Alton turned up pretty good. And um, we had a bonfire and everyone hung out and had a good time that night, and we all almost everyone stayed at the cabin's over right, So we had very full bunk house of dudes and a lesser full cabin of quite a few. I guess it was. I don't know what was the split, Josh. There was six women and twelve guys had so we had five guys and three gals of the hunters, um, and then we had each of them paired with a mentor of the same sex. So I guess we had we had ten guys and what had have been six ladies, So I think I think nine guys were at the cabin and five ladies were in the women's cabin. Yeah, a lot of room to spread out, they did. We were you and we had to share a futon a bunch of folks and a bunch of folks and bunk beds. Um. But you know, I gotta say for taking that many different people who have most almost everyone hadn't met before. Um, and everyone bunking up and hanging out for three days. Um. I feel like it went surprisingly you well, like everyone got along. It seemed like everyone was really included in conversations and having a good time. UM. I don't know, how did you guys feel, Mike, Dan, did you feel comfortable pretty quickly? Was it? Or was it really awkward? I mean, how did it feel? Oh? I thought no, great. I mean it's just like it takes me back to deer camp, you know, my childhood memory. So everyone's there for the same purpose. Everyone's there too to teach and be taught. And um, it was an awesome group. Yeah. What do you think, Dan? Yeah, no, I thought it was great. I think that first night it came in a little late, and I told you guys straight out, like, you know, definitely out of my comfort zone a little bit. I'm just about to spend a couple of couple of nights with a bunch of dudes. I've never met before. UM, but it turned out really well. I mean we all gathered with a with a common interest in mind, and UM, I think all the conversations that we had and all the things that we did was just a ton of fun until I think it worked out for a Yeah, that's that's stuff. And I was feeling too, it was it was just fun. I mean it was legitically fun, which is a which is a nice thing. Um. And the next morning, though unfortunately, we had to wake up very early, which I just I hate those early mornings. That's the only thing I don't like about hunting is waking up early. But we did. We got up early, we went out and hunted, and and I'll kind of fast forward through most of the hunt. Um, I want to kind of zero in on your guys specific experiences. But uh, we were a hunting public land. Everyone was spread out different places. Almost nobody had hunted here before, so we're all kind of trying to figure out stuff as we went. UM, and we all had our own challenges, I guess, like that first morning, me and Mike we headed out, UM try to get in one place. It was too wet and flooded, so we had to go to another spot, had to come from a different route that I didn't really like, and we got in there late. Didn't see anything, UM and what that first morning? I don't think anyone did anone't see any here the first morning? Or are there a few doughs sided off in the distance, do you remember? I think there's a I think there's a few doughs that were UM sited. Had a couple of people UM bumped here I think on the way in UM. But yeah, no, like real close calls or anything. That first morning. There's a little hectic though. I mean we had people getting ground blind, set up in the dark and all that kind of stuff. So it definitely wasn't an ideal morning. Yeah, you know what you should mention, Josh explain Also like the gear situation, Like you guys had all sorts of gear for people, right, Yeah. So so UM this is kind of where like a lot of the partnerships of the other organizations come into play UM, at least here in Michigan. We're very fortunate we have a couple of trailers that have been UM kind of purchased by different organizations, UH Michigan United Conservation Clubs, UM MWTF for National Wild Turkey Federation, Pheasants Forever UM Michigan DNR has us learned to Hunt program. So we've got a couple of trailers that through Pittman Robertson dollars UM and grants and stuff like that, we've been able to to stock these trailers with crossbows and ground blinds and camo UM and really anything that a new hunter would need, um to to go through a program like this, whether it be deer or they use those trailers for turkey hunts or pheasant hunts. UM, they do a small learn to hunt small games. So we've got all the tools that um, these people need. Uh, they just really need to show up with some you know, if it's gonna be it's pretty cold this weekend, so some like cold gear, um, you know, keep their hands and feet warm, things like that. We've we've got basically everything else for uh, these these new hunters to use. So we're fortunate here that's not available everywhere. That's just um through some partnerships that we've made here in Michigan and organizations working together uh for the same effort. Yeah, that is that was really nice to have. So nobody had to worry about. You know, if you didn't have a bow, or if you didn't have a crossbow, you could still participate. If you didn't have camouflage, you can still participate. If you didn't have whatever we had you covered. Um, that was great. Now, um, Dan, you brought your own crossbow and you got to at least consider using it on that night's hunt. Walk me through your second hunt of the weekend. You were with Jason. Jason Meekoff from back Country Hunters and Anglers was your mentor? UM, Walk me through that night you guys headed in and I had a pretty exciting hunt, right, Yeah, No, it was awesome. So so, like you said, I would have the opportunity of bringing my own com pombo and UM, I wanted to make sure you know, Josh and Jason are comfortable with me using it before I went out in the field and tried to shoot something with that. UM. But it was a cool opportunity for me to use what I've been practicing on a real life experience like this. Um. So Jason took me out. First thing he told me, he said, Hey, I've never hearnded the spot before, but I think it looks pretty good. And I told him, Hey, my trust is in your hands. So we went out. UM got set up and what looks like a really good spot. There's a lot of deer signs, UM got on the ground. Uh. You know, I I had all my gear ready to go. Um Josh had let me a really awesome jacket that I that I took out in the field with me that had a built in face mask, and I was using it to cover up my face to give me a little actual camouflage. But what I found was as I was breathing through the face mask, my glasses a fog off. So UM, I figured, well, hey, I can't really see anything, so I'll take my glasses off. Fast forward to about maybe, Uh can I put real quick? Let me I gotta ask I gotta ask you one thing before we get to what you're about to tell us about. Just describe for me how you felt and maybe maybe I should maybe this is in the morning, but just described to me what was going through your mind when you got out for your first hunt. So maybe this is in the morning when you went out because or no, you didn't go out in the morning because you were shooting your bowl and stuff like that. In the morning. Yeah, so this was your first hunt with Jason in the evening. Okay, so you sit down, you settled, it gets quiet. Where's your head? Are you just like, oh my god, I can't believe this is happening, or are you holy crap, I'm nervous? What if a deer shows up? Like? What are you thinking at this point? So first thought is it's definitely a little cold. Um. But I mean I was just excited and it was just kind of the realm of the unknown at that point, right, So what am I expecting? What should I look out for? I mean, my my brain kind of turned off, um, you know, to only really focus on the matter at hand was let's see some deer. So it was a mixture of a lot of different emotions between you know, not knowing what to expect to you know, okay, if I see a deer, what do I do? Um? Making sure I stay cool, calm and collected. Um. So it was a mixture of a lot of different things. Yeah, okay, so now with that in mind, now we know what your mindset was. Now you got fogged up glasses, you can't see anything. You take them off. What's next? What's next? I was just kind of scanning the woods that were in front of me, and I think I noticed a change in the landscape, and I couldn't really tell what it was. I wanted to say it was a deer, but I didn't know if it was my mind playing tricks on me. So I spent about five minutes trying to convince myself what I was really looking at. And I finally just gave up and said, you know, excrew this, I'm gonna throw the glass back on and see what's out there. I fumbled around through my glasses back on, and then what I was looking at once I threw him back on was a deer staring me right in the eyes, and I immediately said deer. Um, And I guess where I was oriented. I had like a little window between some trees where um, Jason wasn't really able to see what I was looking at because he was sitting kind of behind me and to the right, so he was looking at a pile of woods. And then I was looking through this window at this deer. And what proceeded was probably a staring contest that seemed to have lasted an eternity, and I became overcome with just a roller coaster of different emotions from being nervous to being excited to being cold attack. Um, and I you know, couldn't really control myself and I just started shaking, started shaking. Um. You know, I had the fear of failure in my mind here that I would would have gotten busted and spooked off the deer. Um. At one point, I think the deer put it put its head down, and I became a little more comfortable, thinking, oh, you know, all right, I think we're okay, but the only to have her pop her head back up and can continue to stare right into my eyes. And I think at one point I told Jason, I think I think she's staring into my soul. Man, it's crazy. Yeah, And that that proceeded. Ye, So that proceeded to happen for about twenty minutes. Um. She shipped it off to the right to where what seemed to be my shooting RNE and I took that as an opportunity to maybe get into this and um, right when I did that, I guess what we didn't notice was that there was deer over off to our left. So when I shifted, I had spooked some deer over off to our left, and um, we heard the deer kind of bust out of there and started, you know, I think, blowing at us. Um. And then as I waited to have the other dough that was uh, you know in frontomy pop up into my shooting lane, I think ended up walking off. So although we didn't get a shot at, you know, the deer that was in front of us, it was still just a crazy set of events that occurred and a set of emotions that I'd never never really experienced before, right, just them adrenaline, adrenaline rush that I can't really explain very well. And you were telling us that night, you know, you've you've done all these other things that have given you a rush of excitement, Like I don't remember what your examples were, but you've done a roller coaster ride, You've done this thing, you've done that thing, and nothing else was this type of feeling, right definitely. Yeah, Like I've been out west snowboarding has been you know, the decent amount of my mountain biking, I've caught a ton of fish, But what I felt that night was was I can't compare it to anything else. Yeah, that's that's pretty awesome. That's just hearing like when you came back and shared that story with us, that was, you know, one of the highlights for me, just hearing about the excitement that you had. Um. And that night. That night ended up being doubly exciting because we had some some interesting things going on, me and Mike on our hunt. UM. So we had several interesting things happened. First off, Mike and I went and head back to the same chunk of ground with Hunt in the morning, only to find two trucks parked in the parking lot there. So I'm thinking, well, you know what, we passed by another little spot that didn't have any trucks parking lot, and I looked at the map as we were driving. I was like, oh, I like that too, So that was kind of in the back of my head already. So when we got to the parking lot and saw two other people, I thought, you know what, let's just turn back and go to this other spot. So we go to this other spot park, we get all set, we start hiking in and this was there was a crop field up front and then a bunch of nasty swamp behind it, with a couple of pockets of islands and high ground out in that swamp, and I thought there was a couple of regions that we'd be able to sneak way back in there and get in between where deer might come off of those islands where they'd be bedded coming towards that crop field. Um, and Mike, you got tall boots or did you have boots by then? No, you were still rocking the hikers, I guess, Um, yeah, so we had hikers, but I thought we could get in there. And we're walking down the field edge and there's a lot of sign like, I mean, there was a whole bunch of tracks, weren't there. I mean, quite a quite a lot of sign. Um, So I was feeling good about that. There were definitely dear eating in this field, probably after dark, I figured, But if we got in the right intercept zone, we catch these doughs coming out. So we get to the point where I want to cut into the woods, get kind of the inside corners field, and I'm looking at my phone to look at the map, and I'm looking at the ground, and look at my phone, look at the ground, and I look up and there's another hunter sitting a tree right in front of us, just like waving like crap. I don't know what you were thinking at that point. We two hunters in one place. Now there's another guy. What were you thinking at this point? Well, you know, we saw hunters everywhere, so I wasn't really surprised. I'm thinking, all right, well, this is another opportunity to see where else we can fit in. So I mean, from my perspective wanting some technical learning, I got a lot of good a lot of good options of where to go. Yeah, I guess you. I guess you learned how the necessity of being able to adapt we had to attach to a lot of stuff. Um, yeah, a lot of changing, Yeah, a lot of changes. So then I slipped back to where we had seen so the tracks coming to the field, because I liked that area too, and I could see in the map that there was a cluster of of high pieces in the swamp with these oak trees out there, so I thought there's probably dear betted out there as well. So we slipped into the swamp, worked our way towards those and got set up in another zone. Sat there for maybe forty five minutes or an hour, and then we heard a cough. Do you remember that? Do you remember the cough because I turned to you, I hear the cough, like, oh, that's a deer. That sounded like a deer cough, because deer cough just like that. Um. But then in the back of my mind, I'm like, or it's a hunter. Let's hope it's not a hunter. And and then I don't know, another fifteen minutes later or something like that. I kept thinking about it, kept thinking about it, and I was like, you know what, I better just take a peek. So I got, I got around the corner, and I don't know, I walked like five yards and then there's another guy sitting on the ground like fifty yards away from us. So that was frustrating. So it's all right, we gotta move again. And so now I decided to move further into the swamp, but got up wind of that guy and trying to kind of cut the distance between these two hunters and trying to find some zone where there might be deer moving that weren't impacted by these other people. And we just slipped along the side of this island, getting closer and closer to like a really wet cat tailed part of the swamp, and it found us about where several trails all came together. You could see two different edges of habitat types, and it seemed like probably the best we could get. And it was down to the last hour or less of daylight at that point, so figure this is the best chance we could have, and we settled down. UM. So tell me this though, Mike, before we get to the end of that hunt. UM. One of your big goals for this experience, it seemed from our conversation and for what you said here, one of those things that you really just wanted, like that next level of knowledge, like how do I do this on my own? How do I actually make sense of what I'm seeing? Um? So you can go out there and do this without you know, the family saying, oh, sit in that bucket. Uh. Do you feel like? Do you tell us about what you learned? Tell about if any of that stuff was helpful that I was saying and sharing with you. UM. Did you come away from this experience with some new ideas and ways to look at it? Oh? Yeah, absolutely. UM. One of the tools that I think is really cool and I'm sure you will appreciate this because I think they're your sponsor, is the on X map. UM. That thing is really awesome to get that kind of UM, high level overview of of looking at it. And you know, I could say firsthand that as we moved around out there, you know, that map was out all the time, and it was really helpful to keep track of where we were and where we were going. UM. And you showed me another of different times like the things that you're looking for on the map UM, and that was really cool to see not only from the map, but then to see it also in real life and connect the theory to to the real life action and how that worked UM. Looking for those edges of different and types of habitat, looking for the feeding ground versus the betting ground UM, and kind of keeping in mind the direction of the wind while trying to get in between those different areas. One thing that was really interesting to me that I've never heard before really is sitting in different areas if it's the morning versus if it's the nighttime. UM, you know, whether they're moving from betting habitat to feeding habitat or the reverse, and how UM you need to adjust your basically your entrance and exit based upon that UM. And so all those things to me were really interesting, and we did them firsthand. So you know, I think that's the kicker. It's one thing to hear about it or listen to it or think about it. It's another thing to be doing it. Um So at this point, you know, I feel like, um, I can absolutely go find a piece of UHUD that I've never been to before and at least getting get a good starting point. Yeah, that's you sound like a pro, Mike. I gotta tell you, whoever taught you really knows what they're doing. Yeah. I think it's probably the training though that he had before this weekend that probably well further helped out there too. Probably. Um So it's okay, I'm very glad to hear that that stuff stuck and that that it made sense. Especially it's it's a great point to think about the fact that these concepts are interesting in theory and interesting here about. But it's really hard for to hit home until you're actually in the field and can confirm all those things. Okay, so we moved to the new spot. How about you walk me through then how the hunt ended. Yeah? Absolutely, so we're thinking in this final spot. I think that was our fourth spot for the day. For the evening the night spots that night yep. And um, you know, we sat down there. It was pretty thick area, lots of lots of tall ground um, and so there's not a whole lot of line of fight going on. And we sat there for that last hour so UM, and just as it was starting to get dark, we could hear the crunching UM, and that was the moment where you know that's either a deer or a hunter. So we kind of just sat there and we perked up, UM, and you get ready, you know, you get into that. For me, it's like you get into that kilmo. You know, you try to be deadly quiet and just really sit still and really listen hard. UM. And it was so amazing. You know, you can almost steal the sticks crunch and it's moving um. And we could tell it was really really close and and you could see a market sea from where he was sitting. But I couldn't see it. I never even did see it um the whole time. UM. And it was it was so exciting, but it was at last, you know, eight ten minutes before the end of shooting light and you know, I couldn't see it at all. And then unfortunately it was just too dark, and there's nothing we could do about it. But you know what, sometimes you get them, sometimes you don't. UM. For me, even that experience, just being so close and and just you know, it's such a multisensory experience. It's just really amazing, uh, to commune with nature in that level. Yeah, it was. It was really exciting for me. I mean I was pumped. Um. Like you said, we could hear we could hear a deer approaching. And you know, as you mentioned, very tall swampy grass. So I just slowly stood up out of my seat to try to see over these grasses. And as I stood up, I could just see antlers and it was a buck walking down this trail right to us. And the way it was set up, as we were positioned with a trail running across like right and right barely in front of us, and then there was a trail that I was running perpendicular to that um on our left, and then there were some trails perpendicular crossing to our right. And this deer was coming from the left side, coming right at us, and all he had to do was keep walking, and he'd crossed the path that was across in front of us. And you could shoot straight down that to this deer. And so when I stood up and saw him, I saw this buck walking right down the path and he was only like by the time he stopped, he was probably three steps away from getting into that. And I was just like, he's right here, He's gonna step right in that, like ready, get ready, um. And then you know, he stopped and froze up. Whether he heard me whispering because I was so excited, or the wind had died down at that point. There was like no wind, so our wind might have settled or swirled. He might have caught our scent um, any number of things might have happened. But he froze up and just didn't move, didn't move, didn't move. And I am looking at my phone and seeing how much time is left with shooting light, and I'm thinking, oh man, we're down to four minutes, down to three minutes, down to like whatever it was. It was. Right at the end, I was like, you know what, I just gotta throw a hail Mary. So I tried just a little contact grunt. I pulled my grunt to just to give a little just on like the off chance, like in the last minute, he might take two more steps because he was curious and what the heck was that? And that didn't work. He didn't move for another minute, and then he bounded off, and I don't bounce, bounced ten yards away and then kept walking again. And it was after shooting hours, but it was it was exciting. And he was really close, right, like, how how far would you say? Oh, yeah, less than ten yards? I mean the ground was super wet, and so you could literally hear those hooks going in the mud, squishing in the bud. I mean it was, it was that close. It was. It was very cool, Yeah, it was. It was fun for me. What was really kind of especially cool um, or at least on my side personally, was that I hunt so much and I've seen so many deer that sometimes, and I hate to say this, but sometimes I take it for granted, you know, seeing a buck or seeing a dough um, because I've been very fortunate to have many of these encounters. But being in this position with someone who is a newer hunter, who who hasn't killed a deal with the ball before like this, and who I know so badly wants to get this opportunity, it made me so so so excited to have a year and a half old buck walking in. I mean, I was just as excited about as when I killed my first dear. So from the mentors side, like that's a really fun thing too. It brings new joy to things that you've done the past, but you're doing it in a new way. And and that was that was pretty cool. So that takes us to the end of night number one. No one killed a deer. A few other people saw a few, but tough sledding again. The next morning we go out, you mean, Mike Man, we put in the work. We hyped in more than a mile for every hunt, um, but we didn't not see anything. The next morning, Dan, you have a story for the last morning you were. You and Jason found a little honeyhole, didn't you. Yeah, I was sure did. Definitely what happened, definitely, So we so we went back to the same spot. UM figured we'd set up in the same location, and UM got in pretty early, UM maybe an hour and a half before UM legal shooting hours, and UH kind of waited it out, I think, UM probably around eight am. UM just kind of doing my normal scan. UM looks to my lapt and I see what looks like a book staring right at me. So once again, UM, kind of that whole slew of emotions kind of overcame me. But this time I kind of knew, you know, it's showtime now, so I got up. I gotta make sure that, um, I'm cool and I do everything right here to potentially have an opportunity to get a shot off. Um. Luckily Jason spotted it as well this time. Um. He gave me a range. He said it was about twenty five yards out, and I said, all right, cool. Um, But what I needed the book to do was maybe take one step out behind this tree to get my my shooting lane, and I would have had a perfect broadside shot at him. So um, I stayed put. Um. Being that the deer kind of saw me, I think he was pretty curious as to what was kind of moving around out there. Um. He ended up turning away actually for a quick second, and Jason brought a grunt tube and gave out a grunt and the deer came right back right back to the same spot, put his head down, and I took that opportunity to pull my bow back at full ter off. So I was ready to go. Um gear picked his head back up, and I was looking at this thing for my people, just ready to let it loose once he took that extra step um. Unfortunately, the dear did exactly the opposite of what we wanted him to do, took a step back and ran up. But what seemed to be you know, like what felt like five minutes, that thirty seconds of what went down was just absolutely incredible. It was so exciting for me to be able to use what kind of I've been taught and what Jason was letting me know what to do and call my emotions and and you know, get myself ready mentally was just so cool. And then I also to have my bow out there and be at full draw at a book was just was so cool. It was it was an amazing experience. How do you feel like you handled the emotions compared to the night before. Was it a similar rush in shaking or were you able to you know, to expect and it wasn't quite the same or what was that like? Yeah, I mean, you know, I definitely had it at first, and I felt that Russian emotions coming, but you know, I put myself in the check and just said it's game time and let's go. Um. But uh, you know, once the deer and off, it was weird. It was like that those same emotions came rushing right back. I started shaking again after, you know, the deer head ran off. But um, you know, I put myself in the position where I knew what to do. I got the opportunity to pull my bow back and and I was just I was just ready to go, you know, I was, you know, putting that position to succeed. And Jason did everything that he could. Unfortunately didn't work out our way. But um, it was still just to have that and be so close. Was um just so cool to be um be out there. Yeah, yeah, that's that must have been very, very exciting. And like we were saying yesterday, you know, the first time I drew back on a buck, I knocked my arrow off the rest and the deer right away. The second time I drew back on a buck, I drew back and was so out of my mind that I released without fully aiming, and I hit a tree. Um, so you handled it much better than I did. So nobody ended up shooting a deer, but at least most of the hunters saw some Most everyone had a little bit of an a counter. Um. So what I'm curre about now or curious about now is what things do you still see as challenges or areas where you still wish you had more help? Um? I mean, Dan, do you think that you are armed and out to go out into the field and hunt on your own, or there's still some obstacles You're like, gosh, I wish I could still get help with this, or I hope someone could come help me with this other thing, or what about that? No, yeah, you know, I definitely feel inspired to get to get out there on my own. Um. I definitely feel confident enough to to at least make the initiative to go out. I think what I would be a little unsure about is making sure that the spot I'm setting up at and the strategy that I have in mind considering everything that we talked about this weekend is robust, um, making sure that I'm playing the win correctly, making sure that I'm picking a spot where I think dear betted and would probably go out and feed. I think might need, you know, I might need to run that by somebody to say, Okay, this is what I'm working with and this is what I'm thinking my strategy is what does it sound like to you? UM? So I think that would probably be the biggest thing for me. UM. But I'm definitely I'm definitely sold on. I'm taking on the challenge. UM. I think that's what I like about it most is there's so much um, There's there's so many different layers of complexity and different aspects of hunting that I think it's it's it's super super cool to maybe take on and and try to figure those things out. I think that's what's so attractive about the whole sport to begin with. Yeah, I definitely can relate to that. What about you, Mike, what are there any things that are still holding you back? Or do you feel armed and inspired to try it on your own? Like where's your head out? Well? I definitely feel like I'm I'm ready. I'm prepared to get out there and try it on my own. As far as like finding a location and picking you know, how I'm going to go about it. I definitely agree with Dan it would be great to have um that kind of soundboard where you can toss some ideas back and now the thing that I'm thinking about next is like, Okay, once I found my spot. Um, once I pick out kind of a game plan, I think there's some more learning that maybe isn't necessary to get started, but things that I want to learn, Like, Um, you know when we were out, you pulled out your grunt to try to get that buck to come in just a few more steps. Jason zusing his grunt kind of for the same thing to get him to move a little bit. It's it's those types of things now that I'm looking to learn a little bit more about. We all know, you can pop into a hunting and shooting story. You can find thousands of calls and trinkets and sent this and you know, spray that. I mean, there's so many different things out there, but just that kind of next level knowledge about you know, what are the fundamental UM toolkit. I guess that that you need just to make those next level decisions. Yeah, that's a great point. Well, it's good to hear. Like, I'm glad that you guys both feel like you least have a starting point um and like, like I talked about with both of you, and I think many of the other mentors did as well. It's our goal as part of this program not to just have a weekend with you, but to have like a long term connection. And so you know you got my phone number. Now if you want to pull up on X and mark away point and say, hey, I'm thinking about hunting here, share that with me, asked me what I think, Like, I'm here for you. I can talk you through like, hey, I think there might be deer in this spot, in this spot and just make sure you access it from the west. Um. Like, those kinds of conversations are so much fun for me and for most other hunters, Like we love seeking out about the strategy. Um So, I think that's probably the coolest thing. And you guys both alluded to this, having that sounding board, having that connection. Now, who can help you think through these things? Um So I said it before I said again, please utilize me in that kind of way. Josh too. And I know all of your other all the other people who met many of them probably said the same things. Um and Mark, that's I mean, that's really the only way this program succeeds. Um. You know, Dan, You're you're no different than anybody else going through the program or saying hey, I I feel like inspired to get out there. But there's still so many different aspects of it. To do it all on your own as daunting, Um, you've got to have that mentor follow up and in that um, you know, relationship where you can still get help because you're gonna need it. Um. So that's that's and that's why we try to pair mentors with people that are at least somewhat close to them where they could, um, you know, come out and hunt with you or whatever. Um. So that's really the only way this this this type of program succeeds as if you have that mentor follow up and um, continuing on that relationship, did you have did you help? How did it work out for you, Jess? Did you have a good mentor some number of years ago? That's funny that yes, because I actually wanted to ask Mike, um how it was being mentored by you, because we we've both now kind of had you as a mentor, and I'd be I'd be interested that For some reason, I feel like Mike's experience is probably much much different than my experience. Yeah, yeah, probably way nicer. So I wanted to know them, like what was like marks like blood pressure doing when you kept running into people out there, like could you just kind of like see like steam starting to come out of his ears or kind of what was his what was his makeup? As you guys kept running into people. I can only imagine how it was, but I'd like to hear it. I mean, honest to god, he was pretty calm and collective. Uh, he didn't really get that flighted up. A couple of times He's like, oh man, there's still more people, and I'm like, yeah, it's okay, We'll just go find another spot, like, no big deal. Well he was pretty calm about it. I know something's happened with Mark. I think this year. I don't know what's going on. Father, That's what it is. Yeah, you could he like he like yell at you and stuff when that deer was come of like don't move like shoot shoot, Like what was like that going? Like what was his directions like when that deer was coming. No, I mean he didn't yell at me at all that even while before we now he took the time to ask me kind of like what are my what are my goals? What am I here to learn? What? Why am I you? And he addressed those things really head on. I mean the whole time I told him I was like to learn technical stuff and and he just kind of spewed information for the rest of the trip. So it was great. He really did exactly what I asked him to do. So it was a great experience, man. And no yelling mom, that's that's great. I'm happy to hear that. I'm happy to hear you had a good, positive experience. It sounds like, Josh, maybe you're the problem. It's too sensitive. No, I will say though. I remember when that buck was coming in. I was like not yelling, but I was like forcefully whispering to try and make sure you heard me. I'm like, he's right here, get ready. I was pretty excited. Um yeah, but yeah, it was. It was a good time, and I'm glad that you guys had a positive experience. And um, I think the final thing I just want to run through is for you, Josh, for those people listening, just once again, and I've tried to share this a lot of places, but can you just run down one more time how people can get involved with this, whether they want to be a mentor and help folks out and volunteer, or if they whether they want to be a mentee and want to get help with this program. How can people do that? Yeah, no for sure. So so we've got a like a landing page on on qdma's website that's basically everything Field the Fork UM. Any of the podcasts like this one that we've done UM about Field of Fork is house there. We've got the video or the film that we just launched on Field to Fork a few weeks back. That's that's on there. It's got a bunch of the articles that have been written written about UM the Field of Fork programs. If you just go to QDMA dot com. I believe it's forward slash Field of Fork UM. It takes your right to that UM from a national standpoint. If you'd like to to get in touch with someone at q d M a um uh, whether you're a new hunter or someone who wants to mentor reach out to Hank Forrester. UM. H Forrester at QDMA dot com is his email. The market Street could probably put that on your show notes or something like that. UM. And then if you're if you're in Michigan or Indiana or like western Ohio, definitely feel free to reach out to me. UM. I can get your pointed in the right direction hopefully, UM or really, if you're anywhere you can, you can reach out to me and I can get you where you need to be. UM And my emails is j Hilliard at q dm A dot com. Perfect all right, well, highly highly. I can't highly recommend enough for those of you that do hunt. For those of you out there listening to the podcasts that love to get on the woods and love to be out in nature and learn about deer and hunt deer and feed your families and feed your friends. If you've had that privilege in that experience, you owe it. And I don't mean to be preachy here, but you owe it to everyone else to give it back a little bit and to make sure that other people get to experience that joy and that powerful connection to it's too simply put, it's too awesome of the thing that we have to not share with people. So I can tell you that, go ahead, Josh. No. And I was just gonna say, and it doesn't have to be a program like this to get someone new out there, right. I mean, if you know a friend or a family member or a neighbor, just take them out with you. It doesn't have to be like a formal program like this. I mean, these are a lot of fun, they're they're great, but you know, to really move the needle, it's it's got to be hunters that are just willing to take somebody out with them. So, even if it's not through a program like this, just just take someone with you, even if they just sit with you to to experience it. Um, it can definitely make a difference. Very true. And what about final thoughts from you guys, Mike, how about you? If you if you were to be able to let's say there's an auditorium full of people that you're standing in front of and they're all folks like you guys. Either they've never hunted before, or maybe they had a little bit of hunting experience in the past, but they fell away from it and now they're considering trying to get back into it again. If you had that group of people in front of you, Uh, what would you tell him right now about trying hunting again, or about this programmer or anything that you learned over the weekend. Well, I just think that it's such a powerful experience and for me, it's about so much more than just the deer just to kill. It's really, you know, it's the whole experience, Like when do you get an opportunity to go sit in the woods, Like I was telling you, Um, you know, after our first hunt. One of the times that I liked the most is after that first forty five minutes or so, when the rest of nature forgets that you're there and everything comes back to life and all of a sudden, the squirrels are out, and the chipmunks are out, the birds. Um, we had a great experience with red bill hawk. Um. You know, we found a bunch of really awesome mushrooms out there for a Simon chef, so I I seek out about the forage and you know, we talked about the fact that you can eat cat tails and like all kinds of stuff. And so for me, it's that whole nature experience. It's like it's like going to church. Man. You get a time to sit there with your thoughts and to be a smaller part of a bigger world. And um, hopefully you get the opportunity to to experience with the kill and the stocking of a of a beautiful animal. So I mean, it's it's really something that everybody should take. You just got out there and try. You just have to try it. It's a great, great experience. And what about you, Dan, what would you tell to that auditorium. Yeah, I means similar to what Mike said. I I mean just being out there. It was just such a great way to disconnect from all the other pressures and and things going on in your day to day life and just turn it off and and focusing on you know, what's going on around you out in the field. It's just such a fun experience, whether you see Dear or not, just to take a step out and and find some find some land, maybe find some friends, like like minded interests, and and head out there and just enjoy enjoy the resources that you have right in front of you. And um, you know, I definitely have a lot of respects for what you know, you guys are doing with this programming. I mean, it's just it's it's bigger than just teaching people how to hunt, right, I mean, I know, Mark, you've talked about how the number of hunters are on the decline, and getting people out there and introducing them to this sport is uh, you know, there's a longer term goal with all of this. It's it's it's going to help protect you know, our wildlife resources, the money that's spent towards you know, different management of habitat. It's it's bigger than just taking us out. It's it's ensuring the future of what we have and making sure that you know, tomorrow is is protected. So UM, it's it's a great it's a great program, and it's you know, definitely a lot of a lot of respect for what um these programs are doing and any mentor that goes out and helps get new people involved in the sport. I think it's it's amazing. Yeah. Yeah, well I couldn't have said it better. Um, you guys have got it nailed. I might need to hire you to be um to be spokespeople for this. Yeah, you guys are very true. Yeah, let me know, Well, this is this is great. I appreciate you guys coming out and taking a leap and trying something new and getting out of your comfort zone and um joining us for this experience. It was so much fun, I think for everyone, and I'm I'm excited and reinvigorated to keep at it and hopefully share this kind of thing with more people. So I will leave you guys with one uh, piece of homework, just one to do list, and that is that you both need to go out and hunt again, and you both need to either call me or text me beforehand and after to talk about what you're going to try to do and how it went, so we can have some strategy debrief sessions. UM. Selfishly, that's probably my favorite thing during hunting season and maybe it'll help you guess a little too. So can you do that? Yeah? Hell, yeah, absolutely, man, perfect alright, Mark, Can I just kind of just say one more thing here before we wrap up. I just want to give a big shout out and thank you to um all the mentees that that did come out, the new hunters that came out UM for this weekend, and I also did one last weekend in the Lansing area, So between the two weekends we had sixteen new hunters out in the woods. UM. So a huge thank you to all of all of these new hunters that signed up and actually showed up to do it. And another big thank you and shout out to all the mentors who came out. I mean, we can't do these types programs without dedicated volunteers and people really taking the time out of their own hunting schedule, um to come out and and and help out with these types of programs. And um, you know we had mentors, you know, sixteen mentors for each weekend, so um we had a couple even double up that did both weekends. So huge. Thank you to all those guys and gals that took time out of their schedules that I'm sure they're busy and and wanted to give back to a program like this. So so thank you to all of you who went through this program. It was it was awesome putting both of these on. And um, it's a lot of work, but man, it is well well worth it, and I guess I should say well done to you two further, that's a lot of work, so good job organizing it. It turned out great. You did a day and good job and um and I think on that note, we will wrap it up. So good luck Mike, good luck Dan, and let's stay in touch. Sounds good. Thanks, It was an honor. Thank you, Thank you guys, thanks for having us and that's gonna do it. Folk, thank you for listening. I hope this gives you just a little bit more information or a little bit more of kicking the behind to introduce new folks to this wonderful thing that we get to do, which is hunting. Uh. And hopefully those tips at the front end on hunting the pre rut we're helpful as well. I'm excited for you guys, I'm excited for my own hunts. UH. Next time we chat, I'll be back from the boundary waters with an update. Hopefully there's some stories to share there, and the rut will basically do haunahs, so holy smokes, hope you're ready hold onto your seats. So until next time, good luck hunting and stay wired to hunt.