How To Hunt Deer - Off Season Conversation

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2:00This episode sponsored by Maximus Tribe. You train, you track, you eat right. But if you're over 40, you've felt it. The results don't match the effort anymore. That's not willpower, it's biology. Hormones drop, metabolism slows. Your body stops responding the way it used to. This is the online clinic that reverses your decline with prescription performance medicines. GLP-1's testosterone and peptides that reduce belly fat, restore energy, and boost recovery. Over 50,000 high performers have already broken through their plateaus. If you're ready to turn your hard work into measurable results, go to MaximusTribe.com. That's MaximusTribe.com. IPVanish protects every device you own. Your phone, your laptop, your smart TV. If it connects to the internet, it should be protected. IPVanish encrypts your connection and masks your IP address, helping keep your browsing private at home and on public Wi-Fi. And with no device limits, one account covers everything. Stream with added privacy.

3:00Brow securely. Connect with confidence. Right now, save 83% off the two-year plan. Get started today at IPVanish.com slash audio. And take control of your privacy with IPVanish. If you're a podcast host, listen up this once for you. My name is Ally Jackson. I'm the host of Finding Mr. Hyte, a dating and relationship podcast that I've been doing for four years now, sharing my positive and practical approach to dating that's built on my own life experience. And I wanted to share another experience that I've had, my secret behind monetizing my show. It's called Red Circle. And I was just telling my colleague about how much I love their platform, with Red Circle not only am I getting a seamless hosting experience, but I also love the support I receive in AdSales. It's not just typical AdSales either. It's targeted opportunities based on my show and my life. And the platform is super simple. You just set your preferences and Red Circle matches you with sponsors that align with your show. You can vet every opportunity, and their platform gives you great analytics. More recently too, my Red Circle team has brought me opportunities outside of my podcast on social media. To really augment the podcast partnerships, bring them full circle.

4:02I just can't recommend them enough. If you want to give it a try, go to redcircle.com to get your free trial. That's redcircle.com for a free trial. All right, everybody. This is the, I don't know about you, Jason, but I'm going to call this the tired and extremely tired episode of the How to Hunt Dear podcast. We had a huge weekend here in Iowa just running around. We had state wrestling and I'm tired this morning, dude. Yeah. I didn't, we didn't get back till, it was after nine o'clock last night. We left Friday and we went to Springfield for two of the girls we're competing in tumbling competition all weekend. And as you know, it goes, luck would have it having the most kids out of everybody that tumbles there. One of them is tumbling at nine o'clock on Friday night and then five o'clock on Sunday night. And it's like, dude, I mean, yeah, so we're exhausted, but we made it through and we're awake in its Monday and it's going to be 72 degrees here.

5:04And we finally got some rain. We finally got some. That's a fact. And it wasn't just a little bit of rain. I don't know where you guys got. We got hammered with rain. Yep. So did we. I was actually supposed to go shed hunt Friday morning before we left for Springfield and the guy kind of called it off like, dude, it's going to be too much. And I'm like, yeah, I know I saw what I'm seeing. So we're, we're probably going to go here in the next week or two. This is on some, it's like a sanctuary property across from my best piece that I have. So kind of excited about that. So that's in the radar, hopefully here for the next week or two, but man, I started painting in the addition on Friday morning. And I don't know about you, but there's something about painting that just sucks. Yeah, dude, dude, painting does suck, man. My wife, it seems like every five-ish years she wants to paint the inside of the house a different color. And we have one of those split for your homes.

6:04But we don't have like a, like our stairwell, our stairway kind of angles up into the living room from the entryway and then goes down. So we don't have like this. If we paint, so the upstairs and the downstairs are connected by walls that were on a normal house, they wouldn't be there. And so if we paint, we have to paint the whole house upstairs and downstairs. And every five years she wants to do that roughly. And so the other day she was like, man, I'm thinking about this new paint color. And I'm like, I'm not fucking painting it. I'm sorry. I'm not doing it. And I apologize for my language, but that's how much I hate how much I hate painting, dude. I'm just like, you do it all by yourself because I don't want to do it. I don't want to do it at all. And you know, I'm kind of caught between like, you know, this addition, I want it to look nice and everything, obviously. And you know, we have kids, so we have available soldiers to work, you know, but I don't want

7:09paint all over everything, you know, so it's like, dude, I got to do it myself. My wife's freaking 30 weeks pregnant and it's like, I'm going to have to do it. So yeah, needless to say, that's how Friday was. And then today I'm going to, I'm not, I can't even say the word finish because, you know, fresh drywall, it just takes forever. It seems like to actually get that first coat to like soak in and then you get it soaked in. But man, I'll tell you what, we, so we got home and I checked the mailbox last night and I knew this was coming. So this wasn't a big surprise. But like you want to talk about just a kick in the, you know, we had to have these big industrial electric heaters running in this addition because the way they open the house up, basically our kitchen's going to be opened up into a big mudroom. So they had to take the wall, the north wall, the house down and then they put foam board up and that's been up for a probably month. So they wanted to heat that existing addition or the new addition before they did all the

8:12HVAC and stuff and they still haven't done the HVAC. So we got our electric bill. Oh my god, Dan. You talk about $500 extra for one month of heating that addition just because of those electric heaters. I run off of like what a oven or a, you know, a dryer would run off of, you know, plug in wise. It's a 50 amp breaker. I was just like, I looked at her and I'm like, I don't know what it takes, but this guy's got to finish this job here soon. Yeah. Yeah. I feel you buddy. I feel you. Yeah. Because I didn't have an electrical outlet. I had an electrical or electric bill issue. I had a website deal that I had to fix. And so I migrated part of my data over to another platform that we use. I'm just going to keep it that simple. And I had a little brain fart when I did that and in order for me to move, I made the

9:13move. I pushed everything over to this new platform and then I was like, oh crap. I have all these links that are over here from that. So I had to call my web guy. He helped me fix it. And of course, my web guy sends me a bill. Oh. That's all I'm going to say, like great guy, love the dude to death. But he makes, he needs to make a living too. And I'm just like, oh my God, it took way longer than I thought it was going to take. It's still not done. And I got the, I got a bill in the mail and I'm just like, awesome, right? I think I need to show that bill to my wife. Now she's like, well, we don't do anything on spring break. And I go, hey, look at this bill right right here for $850 for this dude's time. So that week, so I, my business can run. So. So your spring break is at the end of March. I assume. Yeah. It's next week. Not this week. Yep. Not this week, but next week. Okay. So ours is the last week of March. But we, we were having this discussion because we're probably going to be hopefully by spring

10:15break, being able to move into our addition, which is huge because we're not going anywhere this year. Obviously with the expense, well, part of this moving, we had to buy new furniture. And I told you this a few podcasts ago, we ordered furniture from a company that had been a business 98 years and they closed their freaking doors. And now I'm, I'm catching word that they're filing bankruptcy. So we're out $3,000 and there's nothing we can do about it. We could file a lawsuit, but how much money we're going to have in the lawyer, you know, I filed a claim with the better business bureau. I did everything I can do to this point. So we're going to get a free consultation from a lawyer and see where we can go from here. But that's three grand in furniture. That's like, dude. Bye, bye. I would show up to that dude's house with a trailer and I'd be like, okay, I apologize, but I'm taking your furniture out of your house. You owe me. Right. Right. Right. You took my money and then you filed bankruptcy. It's a, dude, it's a crazy story because it's a family owned business for 98 years.

11:15They've moved this and that, well, they were going to make a transition to the two sons or whatever. Well, my wife was reading on Facebook, you know, and she's like, oh, it looks like the two sons are drug addicts and I'm like, why wouldn't they be? You know? Yeah, man. I'm so wrong. My couch is for crack. Right. You know, it's like, you talk about some of the most messed up stuff and like, how much you can just kiss money, goodbye and then we know we're on our way down to Springfield and I look at her and I'm like, do you see these prices of diesel? And so then we're, we're turning around, we're on our way back and I'm like, okay, so I wasn't hallucinating. Like diesel did go up to like 450 here in Illinois and I'm like, do you know how much that cost me to run two trucks per month once the work season starts? I mean, we're talking almost $2,000 just for those two trucks. Yeah. It's crazy. Yeah. I thought we robbed, I thought we robbed Venezuela to make this easier for us or something like that.

12:15I don't know what the hell. I'm just like, what's going on, dude, anyway, anyway, yeah, let's talk some hunting before we blow up into political talk or, you know, the state of the furniture industry here in the US. But let's do a commercial real quick. Yeah. So code boost sense. Let's talk about your accessories and all the things that you can add to your arsenal. And I think code boost sense is probably one of my top things that I use. I mean, obviously you use it year round with a rope a dope kit, making this mock scrapes and everything. But now, you know, I use their full line of detergents and their scent sprays and everything to kind of accommodate all the needs that I have as a hunter, especially being a bow hunter. I like to get close to the animals and being able to use some of the synthetic, you know, sense, it definitely helps. And I feel like it helped me capitalize this past fall with, with having some buck urine

13:15and dough and estrus on the decoys that I was using. Yeah. Yep. Real and synthetic deer urins, fields, scent elimination sprays, body washes, laundry detergent, all the stuff to make you smell like nothing. And then we also have the rope a dope mock scrap kit, the grave digger, you sprinkle that into the mock scrap. All the stuff you could ever want, go to code bluescense.com, discount code, H-T-H-2-0, right? H-T-H-2-0. That's right. Yeah. All right. What are we talking about today, Jason? Well, so I had a couple thoughts and one thought was, you know, I recently went to the doctor myself for the first time in about 15 years, and I got blood work done and everything. And you know, I kind of like, with the way that everything's been, I was looking at, they're going to tell me I'm dying, right? You know, they're going to tell me I've got something wrong with me, you know, so obviously being 45 and you know this, like there's boxes you have to start checking, you know, you

14:18check your prostate, the colonoscopy, and you know, hey, I got kid number six on the way. So I'm getting up a vasectomy and then three years ago, I tore my quad and I still have not, you know, had that repaired. So I go in there the first time and he's like, all right, let's make a list of things that we want to do. And so I make a list and, you know, here I'm thinking, all right, I'm going to get a vasectomy next week and I'm going to be good to work in two weeks and we'll be good to go. Dude, a vasectomy is probably going to take to schedule it until like November for me because I can't do it now. Now that we're almost, I mean, I'm going to be working in a week or so. So it's probably going to be like a November, December timeframe. The other stuff I could probably schedule at any point, you know, colonoscopy, it'd be kind of the same thing, you know, prostate they could just do in-house deal. And the quad, like I'm scratching my head with it because the guys like, you know, maybe you do a little physical therapy and I'm like physical therapy, man, I still run.

15:21I still work out. Like you're missing what I'm saying here, like it's torn, it's balled up and he's like, oh, yeah, definitely something wrong with it. Let's get some imaging. Well, so, you know, you try to schedule the imaging is like to get a MRI that's like pulling teeth too. Yeah. And I got to make this schedule work in order for my work to work to where if I have this surgery, it's got to be end of November, first part of December because it's like six to nine months in rehab. So, and my thought with this conversation was like, you're having your knee replaced and you've already had to start planning like how that affects your dear season. Yep. See, tell us a little bit about like what that looks like as far as your expectations throughout the preseason, but then for this fall. Yeah, dude, I don't know. Honestly, I'm taking it step by step. I have not. Oh, I have decided I am not going to go on any western hunts or out of state hunts this year.

16:22If I do, it'll be like a last minute thing where where I just maybe hop up into Wisconsin or Minnesota because you those are both over the counter states. Illinois, over the counter, Missouri's over the counter. So I have the opportunity. If I want to go do some public landhunts in a different state, I can do it. I think this is a just like a treading water type year for me where I'm going to probably just hunt Iowa and try to hunt a little bit more than I normally do in Iowa. Maybe pull it, pull the muzzle loader season in, maybe hunt shotgun season, definitely more bow hunting. But I've had I'm going to have to prepare for that because not this week, I'll pull my schedule up. I'm getting my surgery on the 25th of March that's three months later than I originally wanted it. I wanted it in January. Yeah. And so anyway, I'm going to have my knee surgery on the 25th on the 16th.

17:28I believe or on the 17th, I have an all day knee evaluation where I have to go into multiple places, get my blood work done, blood pressure, they're going to take new imaging of my knee and basically take, you know, get it into a schematics, I guess they need to be prepared for the next week. And so this week, I'm heading to, so this week, I'm working on Friday the 13th, I'm pulling my boy out of school and his best friend. And we're going down to the farm, I call it the four hour farm because it takes about four hours to get there here in Iowa, all back roads in order to get to it. And I'm going to move some tree stands, we're going to shed hunt, I'm going to pry freshen up some mineral, I'm going to, what else am I going to do? We're going to get a hotel on Friday night and we're going to stay in a hotel.

18:31And that way we have like two days to do all of this stuff, go look for sheds, I'm going to try to get some hinge cutting, I'm going to try to cut down about 40 trees, 30 trees in that I got permission from the landowner to do so. And basically try to check all of those boxes in a matter of less than 48 hours basically. And so that's how I'm prepping. And the reason why, I think we talked about this also, but the reason why I'm moving my tree stands now is because I think I've kind of identified, you know, I've hunted this farm long enough now where I think I've identified some historical rut funnels. I want to get my tree stands in those funnels into places with more shooting, you know, more shooting lanes and, you know, deer, like deer movement and get my stands in there. So that I don't know how this knee surgery is going to go, like some say it takes 12

19:35years, 12 months to fully recover from a near placement, you know, if you're older they say it takes longer. If you're younger, it might be like me, I'm 45 and it might be a little bit younger less time because I'm, I still work out, you know, I've been working my legs a couple times a week to get them into shape to where hopefully I have a quicker recovery. And I can build my muscle after the surgery back up. I think most of it is just a healing process. It's not any, it's not real any muscle atrophy. It's more like the wound itself has to heal and that's the biggest part of the knee surgery and that takes a couple months to do so. But I'm hoping, you know, from everything that I've heard, I'll be on my feet the day of the surgery, trying to walk on a walker or crutches and it's in and out procedure. So they must, it must be low key enough to where I'm going to go in, I'm going to get it done and I'll be home that night. Yeah.

20:35So well, I could tell you I mean, so my mom is 64, 65 years old and she just had both of her knees done. She had one in November and she had one in January and we were sitting at a basketball tournament a couple of weeks ago and she's like, feel my knee and I was touching her knee and she's like, you feel how hot that is and it was like smoking hot to the touch. And it's just from the friction and stuff and everything stretching and getting used to the new knee. And so I mean, it can be done. I mean, she's, you know, that age, I mean, she's recovering and walking around and everything right now. Yeah. And that's both knees. Yeah. No crutches, no walker, no nothing. So she's doing well with it. Obviously, you know, there's, there's hiccups and there's days that are better than others, you know, but yeah, kind of goes with everything. But one thing I was thinking about when we were in Springfield, we stopped at shields and I've been intrigued by him for quite a while, but I have a hard time actually like biting the bullet is these ebikes and stuff and now you, you got one, correct? Yep. Yep. So how does that play a factor now?

21:35Like is that something that you're going to use this fall quite a bit? Well, I've been using it for strategy, using it as a strategy chest piece for a long period of time now. Or I shouldn't say long. I bought it maybe three years ago, four years ago for South Dakota Mule there. And I dude, the first time I brought it out there to use it, dude, we were, I was going instead of going like a mile in. I was able to, you know, like, you know how public land works and they have, it's not necessarily checker-boarded, but it's like little pieces, connect to little pieces that go into like this big, it's not a hundred percent landlocked, but it's like in order to get back there by staying on public the whole time, it would be like six miles, dude. And I rode that thing back there in six miles in like 30 minutes or, you know what I mean? Yeah. That doesn't make sense. You know, like, it took me maybe an hour to get back six miles as opposed to walking

22:37two miles and it takes me an hour to get back there. And so, dude, that e-bike got me into a lot of places that I couldn't get. And then also from a strategy standpoint here in Iowa, I just use it because dear look at, they see me walking, they're like, huh, what is that thing? I don't like it. I'm going to run away. For me on an e-bike, they will literally stand and watch me, walk, they'll watch me, and they'll disappear behind terrain or trees. That's it. That's it. Do you care to share what brand and pros and cons and CCs and all that stuff with it? Yeah. So, in order for me to take it on public land in South Dakota, I needed a, I needed something that was under 1,000 wattage, whatever that is. And so, it's considered a class one. Now, in order for, again, it has to be under that. Also, in order for me to use it in South Dakota, I have to unplug the throttle on it.

23:45So the only way it works is it when I pedal. Yeah. So, there's pedal assist. And so, that's what makes it, and under, if you're under 1,000, or it's like 750, it's either 750 or under 1,000, and it's pedal assist, that's what makes it legal on public land out there. Now, in other states, it's should, I don't know what the rules are for other states. I know, but on Iowa, I don't have to worry about it because it's on private, everything's private in Iowa. Yeah. I just put the throttle on it, and I buzzed back there, instead of, I park my truck up by the road, and I, you know, my half a mile back into the good spot of the farm. I don't have to walk. I don't have to disrupt anything. They think it's like a vehicle of some sort. It's very quiet, and I get back there. I have a little parking area where I dump my, dump my bike, and it's a quiet cat. Is that what you want?

24:45Okay. Okay. Saw it. One second. I got to face the story, because price is a, price is serious. It is. It is. I had a buddy who worked for them, and he sold it to me at, he doesn't work there anymore, but he sold it to me at 50 percent off. Well, let's be honest, buying cannabis shouldn't be complicated, sketchy, or low quality. That's why I want to tell you about mood.com. That's mood.com. mood ships federally legal cannabis straight to your door. No medical card, no hassle, and here's the kicker. The quality is better than anything you'll find at your local dispensary. Yeah, I said it. Whether you're into edibles, concentrates, flour, or just looking to explore, you'll find it all at mood. And it's not just the variety that makes them stand out. Every product is sourced from small American-owned family farms that care deeply about what they grow. It's cannabis you can trust, delivered discreetly, and ready to elevate your mood.

25:49And because you're a listener, you get 20 percent off your first order. Just head to mood.com. That's mood.com to get started. This episode's sponsored by Maximus Tribe. You train, you track, you eat right. But if you're over 40, you've felt it. The results don't match the effort anymore. That's not willpower, it's biology. Formones drop, metabolism slows, your body stops responding the way it used to. Maximus is the online clinic that reverses your decline with prescription performance medicines, GLP1's testosterone and peptides that reduce belly fat, restore energy, and boost recovery. Over 50,000 high performers have already broken through their plateaus. If you're ready to turn your hard work into measurable results, go to MaximusTribe.com. That's MaximusTribe.com. IPVanish protects every device you own, your phone, your laptop, your smart TV, if it connects to the internet, it should be protected. IPVanish encrypts your connection and masks your IP address, helping keep your browsing

26:52private at home and on public Wi-Fi. And with no device limits, one account covers everything. Stream with added privacy. Brow securely. Connect with confidence. Right now, save 83 percent off the two-year plan. Get started today at ipvanish.com slash audio and take control of your privacy with ipvanish. If you're a podcast host, listen up this one for you. My name is Ally Jackson. I'm the host of Finding Mr. Hyte, a dating and relationship podcast that I've been doing for four years now, sharing my positive and practical approach to dating that's built on my own life experience. And I wanted to share another experience that I've had, my secret behind monetizing my show. It's called Red Circle. And I was just telling my colleague about how much I love their platform. With Red Circle, not only am I getting a seamless hosting experience, but I also love the support I receive in ad sales. It's not just typical ad sales either. It's targeted opportunities based on my show and my life. And the platform is super simple. You just set your preferences and Red Circle matches you with sponsors that align with your show. You can vet every opportunity and their platform gives you great analytics.

27:52More recently too, my Red Circle team has brought me opportunities outside of my podcast on social media to really augment the podcast partnerships, bring them full circle. I just can't recommend them enough. If you want to give it a try, go to redcircle.com to get your free trial. Yeah. So instead of paying six grand, I paid three grand for it. So that's kind of where I was going next with it. It was like, obviously, there was a ton of different brands and stuff like that. And we were looking at, I think there was, I think shields had three of them. And quiet cat was one of them. And they had, I don't know if it was entry level or what, it was camo and stuff. But it was like 5,400, but it was on sale for 3,700. And I'm like, man, you know, if this was a long term investment that I really thought would benefit me, I mean, it is an investment in itself. And then you break that down amongst years or months, you know, I, me personally, I've had a hard time doing it because of the cost factor, but also because I've always just relied on my legs.

28:52But then the older that I get, the more I'm realizing like the legs don't keep up as good as they used to, you know. And if I want to go that six miles deep or whatever, like you were saying, it may require something like this. And like this year, I'm hoping to draw South Dakota, you know, like I, I've got points and, and I've kind of been just sitting back. But if I do, my options are, you know, I'm not going to walk as far or I'm going to walk far and be exhausted within the first day or two or, you know, you, you bite the bullet and you buy something like this. So do you have a cart or anything you have with yours or no, just no, no, if I, if I let's say out west, if I'm on that bike and I shoot a light tail and some river bottom, I'll just quarter it or debone it and put it in my game bag and I have a bigger bag that I take out there. And then I'll just pack it out, put it on my back and then I'll just drive it out.

29:53Okay. Iowa, I get back there for strategy. I shoot a deer and then I just pull my truck up into the farm and drag it out of the woods to the, to the closest area I can get my truck into and then pop it up. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. So I just, I don't know, I, you know, my, my wife was standing there when I was looking at him and she's had a, a e-bike, but she had a track and hers was more or less just for recreational purposes, you know, trails, maybe mostly road riding. So she didn't have the big, wide tire and everything. And I, I was looking at it like, I'm kind of serious about this thing, you know, and she's like, yeah, and you're real serious about it and we look at the prices and I'm like, but they're on sale, you know, and yeah, to try to make that, I mean, we talked about hunting land a week or so ago, you know, about making, making these purchases that are that expensive with your spouse, it's, it's like, I can't really rewind 20 years now and go back to when Jason was a little more foolish with that money.

30:55Yeah. Yep. I don't know, man. I, I'm a big advocate of living your best life every single day because you don't know when it's going to be over. I also believe that I got a, like, I'm going to try to take care of myself so I don't have to go in nursing home when I'm 70. Right. You know what I mean? Like, yeah. And then spend, I mean, you hear these nursing home prices, you're just like, my money will be gone in a couple of years at that point. So I'm hoping some, you know, some billionaire who I helped change a tire once, like a long time ago, was like, dude, that Dan Johnson, yeah, he deserves some, he deserves little something from helping me out, right? That's not going to happen. No, it's very similar like we laid down a bed last night and I'm like, I looked at her and I'm like, we honestly need the winning lotto ticket. You know, it's just like, but what are the odds? You know, like you, you know, that one private investor, you know, that one guy that has gobs a land and he just happens to remember you and his will, like, yeah, right, very few

31:59and far between. So, but here's, here's the reality of all that. And this is maybe a good transition into a different topic unless you had anything else that you wanted to talk about. Really? What are we doing? Like what are we doing this for? And I think we may have had a little conversation about this, like later earlier this winner or maybe even into the fall, where everybody's so secretive, everybody's hating on specific weapons, everybody talks shit on each other, whether or not a buck is big enough. And I'm just to the point now where I honestly don't care. Like I am so looking forward to this weekend where we, I can slow down a little bit. I can go out and get my boy and his best friend, maybe hopefully find a shatter too. Hopefully no one else has been on that farm and just do some walking, you know, get them excited about the outdoors. There's a pond there. They can go through rocks and things like that.

33:02And so I'm just like, that's what I'm looking forward to now. I don't like, I don't even care about, I mean, I do big bucks are awesome and that's my goal every year is to try to track one down. But I just, it's not in my head like it used to be, man. Yeah. So I'm going to like answer this in a couple of segments, but did you happen to go to the Iowa deer classic? I was at state wrestling all week. Okay. Okay. So you didn't either. And by the way, I'm sorry. One second. No, go ahead. That I didn't because my daughter is a state champion, a seventh grader who won the seventh and eighth grade division, 104 pounds. She's the state champion. That's awesome. There's no other 104 pounders in the state of Iowa that are better than my daughter. And so I'm just like, yeah, and I'm just jacked about that dude. Yeah. That's awesome. That's great. Um, main reason I asked the, I would deer classic is obviously was this past weekend. And I have taken my kids before and I have not been to a single show in Illinois, Wisconsin

34:08or Iowa in several of years. And you know, we used to go to Madison quite a bit because it was close. And I would take the kids and when they were really little, you know, you could get a picture with a grizzly bear or a black bear cub, you know, or something like that. And I was asking my kids about it, you know, if they remember it, I'm like, nah, I don't really remember. But I know with the baby on the way, I'm hoping that I can potentially do that next spring, you know, the baby would be almost one and we'll be doing it. But there's a part of me and then this is going to kind of answer like what we're doing. Part of me is like things have changed so much in the last 15 to 20 years where going to shows is not what it used to be for me. Yeah. And I know like the hunting industry, quote, unquote, is different than it was then too. You know, we've seen the days of like monster buck videos and jewelry videos and we've seen that go to now. It's all digital and everything's a YouTube or whatever.

35:10Everything's changed there. We were going through a closet here with trying to consolidate things and move things around. Dude, I filled up one and a half totes, like fairly big totes of VHS and DVDs that years ago I bought, you know, because I'd sit and watch tons of hunting videos and now it's like what are you going to do with them? You can't hardly, you can't buy a VCR, you know, and DVDs even like come to buy the wayside. It's like everything has to click on it and download or whatever. Well, all that talk about these shows and stuff, it had me thinking when I was out shed hunting my big piece and it kind of was like a moment for me by myself. I'm walking up to this knob and I specifically remember sitting there turkey hunting with my daughter when she was probably four or five years old on the ground and I'm looking at the radar and I'm watching this thunderstorm like it's it's coming, it's coming, it's

36:11coming and I'd seen 70 turkey the other day and it made me flash back to this turkey hunt and how much that turkey hunt meant to me in being there with my daughter. So we sit there till the very, very edge of this storm and then we get in the car or the truck and we head to one of the closer towns and we go to this cafe and we're watching it monsoon outside but we're just enjoying our breakfast, just just father, daughter enjoying breakfast, you know, after turkey hunt and no, we weren't successful that morning but I asked my daughter just last week, I said, do you remember that? Like because I, because I'm asking you about these bare pictures, you know, and do you remember those things? And so to answer your question in a full like loop all this in together, that's why I'm doing it, Dan. Yeah. Yeah. So to preserve memories with your daughter. Exactly. Yeah. The Iowa deer classic, man, I've been to it so many times. I've been to the Illinois deer classic.

37:11I've been to the Ohio deer classic or whatever they call it, Expo, Wisconsin. I've been to the A.D.A. show. I've been to, let's see, Illinois, Michigan, Indiana, I've been, I even Nebraska one year. I've been to all those and I just, I don't know, like they're all kind of the same. The Iowa deer classics a little bit amplified a little bit. That's where, I mean, you're going to run into some names and all that stuff, but, you know, the Iowa deer classic is an extreme eye opener for you. You have these conversations and you see these big giant bucks that people kill. And then you ask the quote, like if you were to sit down and have a question, ask a question with them and you're like, you're talking to me about this. And the guy starts throwing numbers is like, yeah, so I manage 800 acres or, or, you know, I have, I have access to 300 acres and that's so instantly, instantly, their ability

38:17to have deer that are unpressured are higher than anybody else, right? And so, and I'm in that boat too, you know, I have, I have access to that, but I share my, most of my main hunting farm with a lot of people. My other property that I have access to really is only 80 acres and of that 80 acres, really only 30 of it is hunnable. And so, that's a little different, but you realize all the money that is being spent into habitat work, into planning literally hundreds of acres of food just for deer, like they bush hog it down and then deer and turkey eat it all year at a wildlife, right? We're talking thousands and thousands and tens of thousands of dollars that some of these people are putting into their habitat work and their land because that's what they love

39:20to do. But, it's not a reality for me, that's not a reality for me, right? Number one, I like, I love deer hunting, dude, it's, it's who, it's part of me, but I'm not going to put that type of money towards that when I have other things I could put money towards, right? And so, kudos to all the people who are doing it and who have done it and who have made their living doing it or have the, you know, who have set their life up to do that, good for them. It's just not a reality to me or normal, I guess you would call average Joe's. Yeah. I mean, I, you know, to go back with these shows, you know, I think they're a great thing, you know, to entry level, there's, there's tons of vendors, there's tons of knowledge, there's tons of trinkets and gadgets and all the things. But man, I've had some of my best conversations at some of the smallest shows, you know, whether it was a small banquet or whether it was a local, over by the Mississippi River every

40:20once in a while, you'll catch like a white tail, weekend, extravaganza type deal or whatever. And I've had some of the best conversations with some of the simplest people, you know, through those small shows, just like come look at their sheds that they found on their property and come learn a little bit about what they're doing for wildlife or, and I think sometimes that's what we, we just miss that, you know, so like, it's like what we're doing, I don't know, everything's always at the tip of our fingertips. Like, I'm sitting here whining about my electric bill or whining about my furniture, you know, when it end goal for me is like, I just want a simple life to where like you said, I'm not 70 years old and bankrupt in a nursing home, like, I don't want to be in a nursing home. So, so if 70 years old, I've got that 20 acre piece of land that you were talking about. Maybe that was my investment, maybe that's what pushes me the next 10 years, you know. Right. Yep. I don't know, man.

41:20I'm like, again, I'm just trying to, I'm just trying to enjoy the outdoors for as long as I possibly can, even longer with my, my son, dude, my son is. So here's a funny story. My father-in-law is a huge wrestling fan, like he's 75 years old, huge wrestling fan. He comes to almost every one of my daughter's meets, okay? And she won state yesterday. And so she was pretty jacked, he was pretty jacked up about that. He was fired up. But then, so this weekend, my oldest boy, he didn't want to go through the whole state thing. So he went to my stepdad with my stepdad and they went fishin' all weekend. And my boy, my boy caught a four over four pounder. So a 4.3 pound bass out of this farm pond, which is his personal bass, my son's biggest bass. Yeah. I think my, I think my father-in-law was more impressed that my son used a wacky worm

42:23to catch that bass than that my daughter is a state champion in wrestling. That's great. He was like, whoa, yeah, he was fired up. So now, yesterday might have been the greatest day of his life. When his granddaughter won a state champion, his, his, his, pulled his grandson, caught a four pounder. Yeah. But that's, that's why you're doing it. Right? Exactly. I mean, it's to loop it back in. It's like, that's why we do these things for those memories and stuff because you don't know, like to your point, like you don't know what tomorrow brings and everything. So I always look at it like not necessarily be adventurous, but get out and experience something new. You know, we, we're hitting like a crossroads with our kids with multiple different sports and stuff to wear, especially the older two. They have more sports at their disposal than they've ever had their entire life. And, and a lot of them are just through the school. So they're having to make some of these decisions because we have so many kids that, you know, maybe we have to stop tumbling now or maybe we have to stop this travel, whatever

43:25right now. And if you want to focus on this thing at school, I mean, that that accounts for five days a week plus games and all the stuff, that's where you put your efforts. But now we can go back to conversations that we've had before where kids are becoming one sport athletes and everything too. You know, I mean, I'm about experiences, my wife's about experiences, we, we loved experience all of it. So I want to show all the kids, you know, what they have, you know, we sit here last night and when we're like, what is our daughter going to do when she's born, what is she going to get into? Is she going to get into the tumbling like the, the three other girl, three of the four other girls have gotten into? You know, is she going to get into wrestling or is she going to get into what's going to be her thing, you know? Yeah. Yeah. I would, I would avoid dance and tumbling. That shit's too expensive. Yeah. Dude, it is crazy, right? My neighbor drove to my neighbor drove to Kansas City, two days of hotel rooms and then

44:29I think another week and they went to Chicago for this cheer competition, her daughters and cheer competition. You know how much time that girl was on stage for a total of, I believe two or three minutes total. That's two days. You kidding me? Yeah. Thousands and thousands of dollars, well, I'll tell you this, it's not that much money to do wrestling, but my daughter wrestled a total of like four minutes and 50 seconds. This in four minutes and 30 seconds, this entire weekend, four matches and, and so all of that time and energy to put into it, oh my God, dude, I'm just like, I can't, I just, that money's ridiculous. It is crazy. That's what, and I told her too, I said when, when my oldest daughter, she's going to be done as she's got one more competition than she's done tumbling. So currently we would have one kid in tumbling and we have literally taken two out of it in

45:29the last year, you know, so to save that money is going to be astronomical. Like the, just sitting and writing a check for that stuff is crazy. But in hindsight, like if you asked me, hey, would you do it again? 100% I'd do it again. That's what the kids wanted to do. That's what they love to do and to be able to give them those experiences, I would do it again, hands down. But yeah, and I say, but like we could find something a little bit cheaper to do too. Yeah. Yeah. So I don't think I'm going to coach football this year. Okay. We can talk about this because this is, this is a topic that we need to talk about actually. Yeah. It's in the fall. I just don't know it like I can coach wrestling it because a lot of it is one on one. You're just like working. But when you're work and even in the practice room for wrestling, it's different baseball. I don't even baseball is a little bit different because it is still a little bit individualized.

46:34But like when you're trying to teach an offensive line to block a certain way, dude, I've done it for a handful of years now. I honestly don't know if I have the energy to do it again. Like the kids give some of the kids who are ready to go. They're great listeners. Some of them are don't care or they don't want to be there. They're forced to be there. We got kids who are, you know, they're afraid to hit and it's not that I'm giving up per se because I don't mind coaching football. It's just I coach everything else and I almost want to take a fall off to and just enjoy watching my kids play the sport instead of coaching it. And at the same time, my oldest boy now, he doesn't want to play football. He just wants to do wrestling and baseball and fish and hunt. And I'm like, dude, what's my favorite time of year?

47:34Fall? Dude, I can go out and I can take him fishing every day, not every day, but you know, I can hunting with me. Just go find a piece of public sit on the ground and kind of see what we see and all that stuff. Yeah. We just had this conversation because my son's been doing winter workouts for football for the last two and a half, two and a half months and it ends here at the end of March. And then there'll be a couple of month break and then they'll have camp and then they'll start practices. Well, I got asked a head coach's team this year and I've helped the last three or so before now. And this is technically the last year that I could coach him because then he'll be going into middle school to where they have a team at school. So unless I'm on that staff, I'm not coaching anymore. So last potential year, but then we're also having a newborn, you know, so it's like there's part of me that wants to do this because this is my last opportunity with a son to do football. And then there's a part of me that's like, I don't, I don't want to.

48:36Like I just want to sit and enjoy it and I want to enjoy the other kids and I want to enjoy the baby, you know, and so I'm having a hard time with that like we're going to have five girls, one boy and this is my last chance to do this with him. Or do I just watch him? Yeah. I don't, I'm struggling with it and it may sound simple, it may sound dumb, you know, but it's like I could coach his team, head coach his team and maybe we sucked, maybe we were awesome. I don't know, but I got to do it with him versus hindsight. I don't do it. I sit back and I watch and then that's what's going to happen. I'm going to say no, I'm not going to sign up to be the coach and then probably two weeks before the season starts, I'm going to get a coach by the guy who runs it and he's going to lean on me and I'll probably give in and I'll say yeah, okay, I'll coach. Which means that there's no early season hunting, it's like there's nothing and then

49:38there's the rut which I miss one game for, I believe, or it's done, it's usually done by mid-October and so after that, it's just, but I don't know because as my sons start to get older, practices aren't just two times a week anymore, they're five days a week now. And I'm just like holy cow, dude, it takes a, it actually does take a special person to show up a special type of coach to show up and go, go through that process, not just for their own kids, but for all the kids. Oh, well, and you're not dealing with just the kids. I mean, you've got, if you've got 30 athletes, you've got 30 sets of parents, you know, and you're in charge of the organization, the application, all that stuff. Yep. So, yeah, that's, that's a lot of what I've been thinking about too is how much so I want to deal with all that on top of it and it's just busy, you know, only, you know, only your own business to try to make all that stuff work and function and be here and be there. Yes, you can set your schedule to some degree, but you also have to still work, you know,

50:43so yeah, there's, there's a lot of that. But one last thing I want to talk about kind of the day was we touched on it a little bit and so you've talked about South Dakota and your experiences in the past and like now, like using an e-bike and everything, you know, my hopes are that I can get to South Dakota this fall and I'm just looking at it as I would any out of state, huh, whether it's a Nebraska or like last fall with Colorado, I'm going to do a lot of online scouting and stuff. Now, listening to like your past experiences in South Dakota, this last year, you ran into tons of doves, correct, this past year, yeah, this past year. This past year, what did we run into? Yeah, we did, yeah, not a ton numbers were down, where we were at, but we saw, we saw a lot, but not the most we've ever seen.

51:44I didn't see anything was any type of substantial antlers. I mean, maybe the biggest buck we saw was maybe a hundred incher outside of that, lots of doves and that's it. Yeah. So I guess my, my ultimate question is and we've, we've, we've, we did this in Nebraska, you know, we, we've gone off of our previous experiences. We've gone off of friends, pins of where they've gone and everything before. What would be your number one best advice for somebody going to a new location out of state that they've never been into? What would they do from here to there? What's that look like to you? Number one, so there's, it's, it's really three things, we're four, half of it's four. Number one, shoot your weapon, right? Number two, get physical. And these are in no order, right, get in better shape than what you are because if you go out, but if you're going someplace where you have to, let's say, stick it to white

52:44tails here, if I'm going to Wisconsin, I need to be in shape to climb up and down hills, I need to be in shape good enough to set up and tear down tree stands every day and move them around. I need to, or if I'm going to shoot from the ground, so you need to be mobile. So fitness, getting in good shape and the other one is scouting legit. I'm going to add scouting into where you're going to hunt, how you're going to hunt, what season you're going to hunt, and then that will determine your gear. So those four-ish things, I would be checking your gear, I would be east scouting and making phone calls and communicating with anybody that you know that lives in that state, talk to them about it, but a lot of east scouting, if you have availability, let's say you're single, you're young, and dude, drive out there over spring break or over a long weekend, I know guys who live in like Ohio and they drive out to Colorado, they'll take a Friday

53:47off, they'll drive straight through their young, they have the ability to do that, they scout for elk for two days and then they get in a car Monday morning and drive all the way back and then so they take two days off and they on a four day window and they'll go out there and scout for elk or you can do that in any state for any species really, but I know guys who come, we're launching this in white tail season, they're in shed season right now, I know guys that come and scout public land and shed hunt while they're here. So a lot of different, a lot of different opportunities, but scout, east scout, prepare and then go to fitness, shoot your weapon, check your gear. Okay, so then my next part of that would be in all the hunts that you've done out of state, what has been some of the most eye opening things that maybe you didn't realize

54:49to that you were going to encounter or expect and then what would be something that you like, oh, I forgot this or I should have planned for that. What would be your thoughts on those? The first thing that pops into my head was I wore the wrong boots one year. I wore like a work boot instead of a hiking boot, that was a huge mistake. So from a gear standpoint, my gear was not on point, but that was also a learning experience where like I wasn't wearing marina wool. I was wearing cotton and I got cold and wet and like sweating and it didn't, it just didn't work. Okay. So obviously the gear, but the thing that most people are going to run, run into when they go to a different state is access. Okay. There's not just a parking, there's a lot of places where it's not just a parking lot that says park here. Or you see a fence line and this happens a lot with walk in and they do it, they do

55:54it purposely that way. Okay. So they say something is walk in, but then from the fence that you see, you'll see one sign that says this is not walk in and you can literally see the next sign, maybe 20 yards past that. So there's a 20 yard buffer from the road to the actual where the walk in starts and you're not allowed to walk across that. You have to find the other area which is extremely difficult at some points where you have to walk way around something to get back into it. So it's not just a little walk into it, access knowing where you can and can't go. Certain places like, for example, Nebraska has some ground, what the road, the member we

56:55found that one road that we can access the backside of the, I think it was some state ground and we had a camping back there, you know, like knowing what roads you can be on to. Yep. Knowing what roads are very important and you have to call because there's a number on a road and it says it's a road, but then at certain times a year, it's not a road. So there's that and the other thing would be if you're doing like a walk in, here's a perfect example. If you're going walk in like walking in Kansas, walk in in Nebraska, walk in in North Dakota, I'm trying to think of other states with walk like good walk in anyway, other Eastern states that like this too, but they're only walk in. The landowner is only given permission walk in for bow hunting or has only given permission during the archery season or all year round except for fesent season. So and if fesent season overlaps with deer season, well, then you can't hunt in that,

58:00you can't deer hunt in there because it's fesent season. So a lot of times like in certain states that have a, like even in South Dakota, the second fesent season comes in, they close their walk in down and they fesent hunt it and you can't deer hunt it. So it's just, it's just doing a little bit of research knowing where you can go knowing where you can't go, talking to people. It's almost like being a detective a little bit where you have to do some research, try to find leads or whatever, talk with people. I'm lucky. I know a lot of guys who travel to hunt and they've helped me out in the past and I've helped out some guys in the past by maybe sharing some pins or, you know, talking about specific areas, what we've seen, what we haven't seen, all of that kind of stuff. How much do you enjoy the process of being successful in finding your own spot versus using somebody else's pin?

59:00All right. So I ran into a guy or I know a guy who's a very successful, non-resident honor, like he shows up, something's dying, you know, he's really good and he told me, dude, he's just like, yeah, it's cool to do your own research and find your own spot, but there's no secret spots anymore. Once on X came out and those types of apps came out, there's no more secret spots. And he goes, I am all about getting information from other people, I am all about sharing information with guys I know and trust and that kind of stuff. And I am all for that kind of experience. And so I'm just, I don't know, man, I used to be pretty quiet about it. Now, it's not like if you're listening to this, thinking you're going to get information off me, you're not, but you know what I mean? But if I know, like, let's say a buddy of mine, I'll share and I'll definitely share

1:00:04information with him. If you're like, Dan here, you tell me about South Dakota, I'll be like, go check this area out, go check this area out, I'll even drop some pins for some glassing points, you know, for you and stuff like that. But I'm not going to, I'm not just handing out great information to people, like I don't know. Well, yeah, well, I was going to say, I think we could take this thing all the way back to where we started and wrap it up with, you know, what are we doing? Well, I know you, you know me, I'm going to, if you're, if you're heading to an area, I'm sending you some pins and I'm going to look at the enjoyment on your face when you have success and that's going to be success for me. So like part of what I'm doing is seeing my people, you know, succeed as well. Yeah, I actually know a couple guys who go to North Dakota every year and they're like in a rotation. So they've become friends, I think one group is in Kentucky, the other group is in Wisconsin and then another guy lives in Missouri and they go to the same area, but on different

1:01:10years, different three year rotation. So if they go in, so there's always constant information coming into this group of guys, and they rotate through this every single year and they go to the same spot and they're very successful when they go because of that. Well, and they probably love seeing each other's success, you know, if it's not my year to be in South Dakota and it was your year and you, you'd bagged a, you know, four by four, like that's awesome, you know, and that's, that's part of it, you know, going back to what are we doing? Well, that's it right there because they'll come a day when maybe we take our kids out of state and we're doing that with them as well. So. Yep. Absolutely. Well, this has been a really good BS session. I got to get the kids on the bus. Oh, I'm already late. Yeah, you're. So whatever, if he misses it, I'm going that direction anyway. Have a good one, man. Just wanted to let everybody know, please go to iTunes or Spotify, Apple Podcast, wherever you download the How to Hunt deer podcast, please give us a five star review. That really helps us out. Go to iTunes and subscribe to the How to Hunt deer YouTube channel, leave a review there

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