speaker-0: Ready to awake this morning? Yep. Ready to roll. Ready to rock and roll. Renzo's back, you're back. How's it been? How's the summer been? It's great. How's it? Good summer?

speaker-1: Back. Yeah, it's been really good. Fishing wasn't as good as I wanted it to be. bass.

speaker-0: ⁓ really? And not good?

speaker-1: I mean, it good. We still caught a bunch, but caught more big fish last year. It was really cold this year and the fish weren't I I'm not like real good at bass fishing by any means. I'm kind of pretty beginner-esque on ⁓ on it. We can I can catch some fish and like I have years of knowledge on that lake. Mm-hmm. They just weren't in the same spots. Like the the spots weren't producing like they have been the last couple of years. The water was a lot colder, weather was a lot colder than the last couple of years. Right. Caught a lot of fish, but way more big fish the last couple of years than

speaker-2: We talk in largemouths or small mouths?

speaker-1: Brownies. Small.

speaker-0: Which is the better fish?

speaker-1: I like smalls. I I think they're meaner and more aggressive.

speaker-2: They just fight sometimes a little bit.

speaker-0: difference. I've caught one bass in my life. ⁓ that's okay. I mean I took my kid and we just it was not very big.

speaker-1: How fun was it? We caught the biggest fish we caught last year was pushing four. ⁓ yeah. Which is a big small amount. The biggest fish we caught this year was two point nine. And we caught like three or four of those, like two sevens to two nines. I mean decent fish, but not like last year. Last year we caught we caught multiple four pounders, like loaf the one big one and then like a couple right at four and then a pile of like three and a half.

speaker-0: Seems like That was good fish. Gotcha. What's a big what's a big largemouth way?

speaker-1: Dude, if you break four, I I I don't know. Like if anybody's a professional bass fisher out there, I'd love to know. But it's I mean, anytime you break four, that's like a fish. Every time I mean anytime we pulled one of those into the boat, it's like holy shit, that's a big fish.

speaker-0: Big thing.

speaker-2: Would it come to any surprise to you guys if I told you I have a smallmouth bass mounted in my house? No. You do? Yeah. Your house here? Yeah. In my ⁓ reloading room. ⁓ gotcha. And you walk in and it's behind the door. The big five five pound smallmouth.

speaker-0: Hey. Where's that?

speaker-1: That's a giant. The big one from last year I had mounted in Turtle's room. He begged me to mount it in his room. Yeah.

speaker-2: No, I thought though. Not fishing for bass, I was fishing for walleye. And some like I don't know what you want to call ⁓ I can't remember, but down deep and got a small mouth. Way back in the day. I was probably in high school.

speaker-1: Sounds about

speaker-0: Goes this. And you rolled you you reeled that thing in and you were like, Yep, getting it mounted. Yeah.

speaker-1: Five pounder? And you were deep? How deep?

speaker-2: Like I don't know, like twenty feet probably. But trying to catch walleye and yeah. Thought I had a walleye and all of a sudden reel it up. What do you I don't even remember.

speaker-1: It's perfect, actually.

speaker-0: What'd catch it on, you murmure? How how do you have it mounted? Is it like the like spl like splash form with the mouth open and the

speaker-2: I have a picture of my phone.

speaker-0: You guys remember those Billy the Bass like ⁓ toys that were on the wall that would talk? Yeah, those were great. Remember there was an old guy that lived he lived in in Annemony Canyon, basically. Old dude named Scott. But anyway, he had this he had a Billy the Bass. I remember I was scared to death of that guy. Go over his good storyteller, but that was the one thing I remember. He had it right over the front door. Yeah, pretty hilarious.

speaker-1: Things took over for a while, by the way. That's a lot of house. But yeah, so I mean other than slow fishing, good. It was awesome. Dude, my kid starts school in like ten days. Twelve ⁓ no. Yeah, like twelve days.

speaker-0: Summer feels like it's flown by. Yeah, kids are getting go back to school. I know that ⁓

speaker-2: August tenth. Yeah. School opener. Yeah.

speaker-1: It's crazy.

speaker-0: I know, it is wild. It feels like it flew by. Every year I'm like, I'm gonna get out ahead of it and it just inevitably rolls by. It's been kind of a cool summer. I don't know if that's just because the last at least where I'm from anyway, like the last two weeks has been like really overcast and rainy.

speaker-1: Vegas has been the devil's hole for hot. It's been brutal. Well, I shouldn't say that. It's been hotter than hot like right now. Like yes the last, you know, five days plus.

speaker-0: Has it been hotter than the hotel?

speaker-2: Yeah.

speaker-0: You guys haven't been hitting like one eighteen or anything like it did here a couple of years ago or you

speaker-1: That's crazy. That's that's Phoenix type weather. Like that's crazy for us. For us, like one twelve is insane. And we've we've had how many days of one twelve in the last two weeks?

speaker-2: Yeah, I think we're like five to seven degrees above average right now. Yeah.

speaker-0: I don't think we've had a day over a hundred, which usually not that I can remember anyway, it's been like nineties, mid nineties, low nineties, but I haven't seen a day at a hundred yet, which seems cooler than usual. It's been kinda good to see some of these rains. I don't know if you have you guys had monsoons down here? Any rains? No. Really? Yeah.

speaker-1: Yeah, it's all hitting you guys and north of you.

speaker-0: We've had rain probably the last ten days. Those afternoon big clouds build up and and we've had some like real hard storms. I've seen some video of like major flooding, which has been pretty interesting to see. Even in areas that like didn't burn. I mean everybody is you probably see online everybody's kinda posting those pictures of the beaver fire. Yeah. That cottonwood fire and all the you know, the sooty looking runoff and all the trees and stuff that are coming down. But even other units that didn't burn at all, like the Penguinch Lake or Monroe or whatever, a lot of those are getting flooded too.

speaker-1: I got I got a cool story for ya. So I was up at up in Penguitch this weekend, up at the ranch and fishing, hanging out with my kid, teaching my kid how to shoot a shotgun. Another phenomenal story I can tell you. Very long story, so we can save it for later. But we're out there, crazy rainstorm comes in, thunder, lightning, the whole deal, I'm sitting in the garage, watching it all go. Hear a lightning bolt snap. I'm like, ⁓ shit, that one was close. You know, I'm talking to Turtle and my wife. I'm like, that one was close. Like there was no delay. Like when you hear the snap, I'm like, okay. Storm passes. We go up to shoot and I see smoke. And I'm like, that's odd. So go get closer. We hike in. That lightning had to have been that bolt. It drilled a tree right down the middle. blazing fire, caught on fire all the way to the bottom. Thankfully the mountain's already burned, obviously. Right. Because if it wasn't that one would've would have done it. Dude, it was it split this tree right down the middle. Called it in. Even though it's already burnt, but like still you like it's it's a little nerve wracking. And ⁓ where's the video? It's pretty cool, dude.

speaker-0: Nowhere to go. Did you call it in or just let it ride? Cool. Every once in a while when you're out hiking around, you know you're hunting, you'll see one of those trees that you can tell it's just had a lightning bolt right down the middle of it, which is always pretty wild.

speaker-1: Crazy to see just like how perfectly down the middle this thing was split. Yeah.

speaker-0: Blows it out. Yeah.

speaker-2: those fires in Utah out right now, contained?

speaker-0: ⁓ I think a lot of them, yeah, for the most part. I haven't been up to date like the last few days, ⁓ but I think a lot of them are are pretty well whipped. Yeah. I know yeah, yeah. ⁓ yeah, check that out.

speaker-1: You can wow when I zoom in at the top, you can just tell it split right down the middle. Yeah. On fire. Top end of the and then fire all the way down to the ground with as wet as it was too and it was still on fire. So thankfully the mountain had already burned. Yeah. That that tree took it just the middle.

speaker-0: Yeah, that's Right down the middle. So crazy. Huh. Yeah, I think they're mostly contained. I think mostly what they're worried about now is all the f the the flooding that's come ⁓ on the back end of that Cottonwood fire. I mean they That first big rainstorm we had, they closed I fifteen down, I think, for several hours both both north and southbound. And if you've seen video of actually the town of Beaver, like that North Crate country, there's a bunch of houses up there. I mean, they were looked to me like two or three feet deep in sludge, it looked like. It looked like it it got hit pretty hard. It's rough. And then ⁓ if you've ever taken that road from like junction past Piette Reservoir and you're headed like north towards Richville. ⁓ that's just like big open expanses of sagebrush that lead up into the mountains. And I saw video of just tons of mud flow coming all the way out across the road. Like all the way out eighty nine. Yeah. Which is pretty is pretty wild to see.

speaker-1: Like why c why not the huge rain before the fire?

speaker-0: I don't know man. It's ⁓ it'll do good things for that mountain for sure. In the in the long run, but I mean

speaker-1: Look what it's done to Penguich. I mean it's Penguin's awesome.

speaker-0: For sure. Yeah, it's been it's been a weird year. Been so far this summer. It's been strange. You get all that hot heat and early fires and now you get all the rain and yeah, it would have been good to have like a little bit more interspersed yeah intermittently throughout, but you just get what you get. Yeah. They're saying it's gonna be a wet fall, like the rest of the fall. That's what I'm hearing, is like the rest of August and September.

speaker-2: Let's hope.

speaker-1: They're saying it's supposed to be a warm, super wet winter. It's deep snow. That's what the I mean that that's what they're saying. I'm not a meteorologist.

speaker-0: Interesting. Really? Wet, heavy snow. States like Nevada it'd be great if you get if you get some of that 'cause you never really have all that high country anywhere. Yeah, it'd be awesome for Nevada. Be great for Arizona. Good for New Mexico.

speaker-1: have winter kill, so it'd be awesome. Arizona's been getting it too. They've been getting the monsoons. It's been it's been skipping us.

speaker-2: So you're saying it would be nice to have a tag next year in some of these desert states. I wish I could I wish I could plan that.

speaker-1: Yes. Look, how much can you act ⁓ the weatherman's wrong ninety percent day to day, so how right can they be six months from now? Who knows? But they're all yeah, I mean that's everyone's talking about because the the ocean's so warm this year and it's causing whatever it's causing a hurricane right now ⁓ down in ⁓ I can't remember, so like the waves in California right now are burying people.

speaker-0: That's right.

speaker-1: You see that? It's like it's a crazy summer so far 'cause I guess ⁓ the temperature of the ocean is what they're all

speaker-0: Yeah, my youngest was in California and said the brakes were huge. Yeah. He was like trying to body surf it and he's like, I don't know, this is probably good. Yeah, it's like and this is more than this ⁓ Utah kid can take.

speaker-1: mask.

speaker-2: Yeah.

speaker-1: So if they're if they're right with everything that's going on what it's causing right now leads to, you know, the trends from the past. Say it leads to a wet winter, I guess. Yeah, that's what they're what's gonna be.

speaker-0: Yeah. Yeah, interesting. ⁓ we're almost ready to hunt. We're we're raw we're like knocking on the door of hunting season. I was looking at my calendar day. What are we? Five

speaker-2: Five days away from Archer Antelope here in Nevada. Five days, August first. We're recording here on the twenty eighth. Five or four? One, two, three, four. Yeah. Five. Open them

speaker-0: Five days Yeah, that is wild. Five days from Opener Archery Antelope and then you got Archery Me Deer starts the tenth. Yeah. And then Utah where I'm from starts the fifteenth. ⁓ so I thought today we would kind of talk some scouting. ⁓ and then like I I get w we gotta hit promos and stuff too, but I was thinking specifically, like if you've been out looking, which I think there's a lot of people that have, ⁓ like how do you take your scouting efforts from Point A to point B. Like you found a buck or you found a bull. You really want to kill it. Like what's the next step in that scouting and what does it look like? So I thought we'd run through that. I know you have some situations that you from your hunt last year. I'm also curious as to like I was also curious. I wanted to ask you today, just like what are you planning for the year? 'Cause I don't know. I don't know if it's like top secret or if you're just any tag. How do you feel about it?

speaker-1: Thanks Trill. No, my wife, I don't have a tag. You don't have tags. No, my wife has two. Not not great. I'm caught in just I'm caught in no man's land right now. I drew I drew my tags. ⁓ drew some in multiple in some years that I I would have loved to have spread out. So I could have had one now, but it's not how it works. So yeah, I'm in I'm in no man's land. Probably this year and next year.

speaker-0: How you feel about it?

speaker-1: Not not good. Not great. Not great. I mean, granted, I could have I could have tags. Like I could draw tags for sure. For sure. Just am I willing to draw them or take my wife. Right. Take my kid. My kid got very good with a shotgun this weekend. Like incredibly good for a seven year old. So like focus on taking them too, you know. That's kind of where I'm at for this season.

speaker-2: Yeah. J I'm just saying I've had my computer open and I'm looking at tag opportunities right now and another tag just popped up. Fir on first come, first

speaker-1: I c yes. Yeah. I could have I could have a tag for sure. I could I could draw I can draw Arizona, I can draw Colorado. ⁓ I could, you know, put in for the easy draw stuff in Nevada, Idaho. Like I could draw tags. I just chose just write it out and go after these tags I really want and focus on my wife and kid this year, potentially next year or two. Right. Because I think that's what it's gonna take is another two years of points for the tags that I really want.

speaker-0: Not listen. I was just texting Elaine. Sorry to tell him we need some AC in here. Yeah. You guys are probably already feeling the Yeah, it's interesting. I was wondering how you would feel 'cause I think we talked earlier on in the year and that was kind of your plan for the year. It's like I'm gonna take my wife and you know, I've got some plans for duck hunting and whatnot when you get into that season. But I was wondering when you got to this point, like how would it feel to

speaker-1: Not great. Not great. I mean the f I really enjoy taking other people hunting at this stage of my life, especially my wife. Like it I I love it. It's just as much for me as it is for her. So it's fulfilling. Like I have hunting. I'm I'm nervous. Like I'm jacked up for her. Yeah. You know what mean? ⁓ so I I have like that fulfillment in my hunting life this year. It's just not my tag.

speaker-0: Dear Famo. Sure.

speaker-1: ⁓ it is gonna be weird to not kill an animal though. Like I can't remember the last time I the last year that went by that I did not kill a single animal. Yeah. It's been a long time. Yeah.

speaker-0: Yeah, it's interesting. I don't know how I would feel about that.

speaker-2: Might have to pick up an elk tag. There's no s no spike hunting for you? There you go. There we go. Now we got a little deeper.

speaker-1: Yeah. I'm gonna spike cut.

speaker-0: Okay, there you go.

speaker-1: has a deer tag. I'll buy the spike tag. Yeah, yeah. That's it's like it's fulfilling. You know what mean? Yeah. My wife has two, one really good tag and one fun tag. So like we I get both sides of it with her. Yeah. Her bow is sick. Looks so good. It is? Yeah what is it? The Matthews Ark. No, the yeah the 29, the smaller one.

speaker-0: Okay. So you're doing some hot and

speaker-2: ⁓ but

speaker-0: But it's She been showner well. Thirty? Yeah, yeah, the shorter one. It's I think it's thirty. If it's this year's bow. Yeah.

speaker-1: And it's bottom land limbs and a black riser. Looks so good. Jealous. Orange orange strings. Yeah. It's on my desk. Loves it.

speaker-0: built that out here for her really and she's loving it that's awesome yeah very cool bra

speaker-1: Luckily for her, she's she's strong. She's an athlete. So it's a she's pulling sixty pounds. So like she's she shooting. ⁓ yeah.

speaker-2: Yeah.

speaker-0: She's shooting pretty easy.

speaker-2: She draws more weight than Terrell does.

speaker-0: Yeah. I had a buddy the other day that I was messaging. He he's had some health issues, had had a surgery and he can't pull a bow back, but he's got a brand new bow because he's got an elk tag. And ⁓ He was like, Yeah, I just haven't been able to shoot. He's like, I can kind of get it back and shoot a few arrows, but I just I can't do it consistently. I'm hoping, you know, the doctor's telling me within the next few weeks I'm gonna be able to like get back to full strength. And I was just like, just lower your bow. And he's like, ⁓ yeah, I hadn't really thought about that. And I was like, I bow hunted at sixty pounds for probably five or six years and killed bulls. I didn't have I didn't have any issues with it. But yeah, I don't know. Talking to him I got the feeling, I don't know if it's the case or not, but ⁓ hopefully I'm not putting words in his mouth, but I got the feeling he was like, Yeah, I don't I don't I can't go down to sixty. That's like not the that's not the thing I wanna do.

speaker-1: He's dealing with a health issue which is already unfair. Yeah. Go crossbow. Like take advantage. I mean, you're already dealing with crazy shit you I mean, you're already dealing with crazy stars. It's already unfair he has to deal with health issues. Let's turn the tables and go crossbow.

speaker-0: Go. Yeah, that's funny. ⁓ yeah, I just was like, get some sixty pound mods, man. Just if if it if it boils down to being able to shoot every day, or you're just like waiting till you can get seventy pounds, man. Yeah, I'm like, I think you should just go to sixty Yeah, swallow some pride and just go shoot sixty. But yeah. Yeah. That's cool, man. ⁓ that'll be fun. I'll be I'll be excited to see how she does. That'll be fun.

speaker-2: Get reps, man.

speaker-1: Twenty. Yeah. I'm excited for Alcant that Alcant's gonna be

speaker-0: ⁓ we gotta ha we have a couple promos we need to talk about B mails. Hate me. When does it start, do you know?

speaker-2: They're sick too. Refer a friend starting. ⁓ so this is the twenty eighth. I think it starts August first, which is Saturday.

speaker-0: Okay. And how long does it is about a month? Do we run that for a month? ⁓

speaker-2: Yeah, your guess is good as mine. We'll say roughly a month, but time is of the essence 'cause it's probably one of the sickest promos we ever do or for a print.

speaker-0: Problem.

speaker-1: It's an expensive one for us.

speaker-0: I know, we talked about it yesterday in staff meeting. We have some metrics that I want to touch on. Yeah. Go go ahead, Brady.

speaker-2: So yeah, refer friends super easy. All you have to do is share your email address with your friends and you're obviously a member already. Your friend signed up, you get seventy five bucks, they get seventy five bucks, new at three times. And then the fourth person you refer, we square it up to you and we give you it basically a thousand bucks. Mm-hmm. So not an additional thousand, just square it up to a thousand. So fourth friend you get a thousand total. Total dollars back to the Go Hunt Gear Shop.

speaker-0: Yeah.

speaker-2: So all have to do is use your email address that you sign up for your insider account. Your friends will use that as the promo code when they sign up for an insider account. So get four friends and you get thousand bucks and each one of your friends gets seventy five bucks.

speaker-0: I asked ⁓ Lane yesterday marketing meeting how many people because we've done this promo before. I don't know if it's been one one year or two years, and we typically do it for a couple weeks or a month, but I was asking him how many people have actually like taken full advantage and got a thousand bucks back in the shop? And I thought, how many would I I was thinking he was gonna say like ten.

speaker-1: I know how expensive this promo is, so it's ⁓ it's not fair.

speaker-0: It's way more. He's like way more than a hundred. Yeah. I'm like, what? Yeah. Over a hundred people have picked up a thousand bucks in the shop. Yeah. Which is pretty wild. Mm-hmm.

speaker-1: Or yeah.

speaker-2: It's crazy.

speaker-1: Yeah, do the math. It's very expensive for us.

speaker-0: Yeah. I was really surprised when he told me that. I was like, ⁓ there's people like really getting after it and getting some money back in the gear shop. Yeah.

speaker-2: And if you're confused on how it works, 'cause it is kinda hard to explain, I do believe on the home page of Go Hunt there'll be a little button that'll you can click to go to the little explainer landing page to check it out. But if you need to know it, it's just go hunt dot com slash refer a friend and refer dash a dash friend is the URL to

speaker-0: Yeah, I just ran a Google search and my my little AI overview popped up and gave me the full rundown. That probably cost some somebody a glass of water. Gosh. And ⁓ the energy it took to to produce that. But yeah, it's it's pretty straightforward.

speaker-1: Yeah. Yeah.

speaker-2: And then you can turn around and ⁓ use that thousand bucks on a bunch of brand new Gohan gear of dropping pretty soon.

speaker-0: Yeah, which we have we have a landing. And we keep it we keep asking. I keep trying to pin Lane down and he finally pinned me with a date, which I think it was what, f second week in August, first week in August. Yeah. ⁓ but yeah, we have new ring gear. Tell me what's coming soon then.

speaker-2: Go hunt lightweight hunting pants. Yay! Restock. And I believe the new colorway as well. And then we have puffy pants, puppy jacket. Yes. Do we have the down booties? Are they included puppy gear? Yes. Yes. So down booties. Mm-hmm. ⁓ we obviously have the new Basin Merino in the new Forest Green colorway. Mm-hmm. we have the Marsupial Go Hunt Collab Bion Harness that is live now. Mm-hmm.

speaker-0: Back install.

speaker-2: ⁓ what other new products am I missing here? I think I think we have some atmospheres. Did I hear atmosphere fast?

speaker-0: Yeah. But I don't think that's gonna be in August. But we do have a speaking of vest coming, yeah for sure. Okay. But yeah, the main one's puffy. Puffy pants, puffy jacket. the other one you just mentioned was the ⁓ pants. Pants. That's the one I want to talk about. Yeah. The pants is a big one. So the number of people that have been trying to get a pair of Go Hunt pants, our sincere apologies. The demand was way higher than we thought it might be. Even though I I think everybody thought it was a great pant, ⁓ it did really, really well.

speaker-2: We do that. This is a big one. I love it. I'm taking all my bias out of it. Yeah.

speaker-0: Yeah, I'm gonna make the comment that if you want a pair of go hunt pants, light ult you know, lightweight hunting pants, you you wanna be quick quick to You wanna jump in and get them bought because I don't know how long they'll stick around. ⁓ I know that we have better planning and then better we're gonna have more coming in stock.

speaker-1: You want to be quick on the draw, for sure.

speaker-0: We have that pipeline kind of figured out much better than than we did in the past. So we should be getting restocks much quicker. But I will say, like for this run, if you want a pair, especially before seasons gets gets rolling, ⁓ get it get a pair quick. Cause you they have the little the little the little thing that says notify me when available. Yeah. Somebody told me the other day the number of people that have hit that notify me when available. It's lot. It's a lot. ⁓ It's pretty high. High demand.

speaker-1: So

speaker-0: So jump in and make sure that you get ⁓ Yeah, and you could use your thousand points if you were able to get your refer friends to to get you a bunch of new gear.

speaker-1: I mean, as Lane said earlier, if you do hit the full thousand, you can literally buy one everything. The entire set. Great. That's awesome.

speaker-0: Pretty straight. Yeah, you get outfitted with the whole the whole nine and get ready to go hunting. Yeah. All right. ⁓ and then I have a spotting scope. I wanted to tell you this is just like my own little thing. Have you guys seen this? Seen this? So I wasn't even aware this was coming. ⁓ but I saw them pop up on the website and then I kind of heard the rumblings through the industry, you know, saw some social media posts about it.

speaker-2: Thanks with you I saw it for the first time last week.

speaker-0: But we have, I think we have like 35 of these in stock, I want to say. So this is the Swarovski ⁓ Endura. New spotting scope. So it's one body, like one contiguous body and eyepiece. Like there's not the ATX system that like comes apart with the different objectives in the whole nine. dude, the price point on this is unbelievable for a Suaro. 2800 bucks. Damn. And 95 millimeter objective.

speaker-1: What is it? Wow. It is incredible.

speaker-0: And then twenty by sixty five zoom.

speaker-2: I think sixty five zoom is pretty incredible on a compact package like that.

speaker-0: There are not many optics that come around in the last few years that I've been like, ⁓ I really want one of those. So like, you know, the the SIGs, those were game changers, I thought. Yeah. I mean, it took me took me a minute to get the gist of it. But once I did, I was like, shit, these are awesome. But this thing is like the one thing that I saw pop up and I was like, I gotta get one of those. Yeah, I think it hits the sweet spot for having really good quality glass. ⁓ it's got the HD glass and

speaker-1: Yeah.

speaker-0: The weight, I think you're like fifty three ounces total.

speaker-2: Fifty three ounces, fifty three point three, right on the ⁓

speaker-0: Fifty-three point three. And then you've got more light gathering ability than a sixty-five millimeter, which is I what I've been using forever. And you get five more power zoom. This is like the perfect spotting scope for me.

speaker-2: And it only comes in angled. Also awesome. Yeah. Don't need no strip.

speaker-0: So awesome.

speaker-1: Also the the one way it should be.

speaker-0: in my opinion. yeah, I mean if you you like those straight spotting scopes out there, good on you. I just don't get it. But this is the six spotting scope and like I said we've got thirty thirty some of them available. ⁓ so I would say if you've been looking for a spotting scope this would be the one to buy and I would jump into the gear shop and buy it sooner than later. 'Cause I don't think these are gonna last

speaker-2: Easy for putting in a backpack too, fifteen inches overall length.

speaker-0: Dude, it's the best size. This is like the perfect spotting school built for me. I'm jacked about it. Stoked. Anyway, so I hadn't I had a ⁓ it might be.

speaker-1: Yeah. Is that yours? Yeah.

speaker-2: ⁓ Trell's gonna get some use here coming up with this bad dog.

speaker-0: I don't wanna say too much, you know. What if what if people at home hear word that I have a spotting scope? They'll be like, Where'd you get that spotting scope? You know? I don't want the wife listening, being like

speaker-2: It's true.

speaker-0: Where'd we get that, right? You know what mean? That was another funny thing. Brady and I spent a week at TAC, right? And at Brian Head. And how many people did we have walk up and they would be like, take cash? We'd be like, Well, no, we don't have any change or anything for you. Like, if you can get close to it, we can work a deal, right? And then finally, I think Brady or somebody asked somebody like, Why are so many people paying cash? Ask a guy, like, why are you kidding paying cash? And they're like, ⁓ it's just the easiest way to hide it from.

speaker-2: Just say we'd let you borrow it. Uh-huh.

speaker-1: Yeah, yeah. I was like credit card that she doesn't know about. Or ⁓ by the way, a good friend of mine is now two years in a row, first come, first serve, twenty four, archery deer tag. Two years in a row? Two years in a row. Just got one. First to come, first serve.

speaker-0: Like you sneaky buggers, huh? Sneaky. Sneaky sneaky.

speaker-2: Bro, I've been sitting on here and I haven't seen it pop up. I still have it like second minutes ago?

speaker-1: Got it. No.

speaker-0: Brady was asking me if I've ever seen we were talking about it the other day, because you actually saw some numbers, right? Yeah. Did you put it together an article about that?

speaker-2: Aaron, let me pull it up real quick.

speaker-0: Well, you're first come, first serve in Nevada is what we're talking about. So if anybody's listening, they're not aware of that system, essentially what you do is you can turn your tag back in and then the state of Nevada will randomly take that permit and put it up on their website and you can purchase it first come, first serve. A resident has to buy a tag that is returned by a resident, and a non resident can buy a tag that's returned by a non resident. That didn't always used to be the case, but that's the case now.

speaker-2: Yeah, I think it changed in twenty twenty two, twenty twenty three, somewhere on there.

speaker-0: And I think for ⁓ for Nevadans, you guys there's a lot of people that pick up permits that way. I've never seen one. So as a non resident, like I've never seen one pop up ever.

speaker-1: There's very few non resident tags overall, obviously. And I would say if you d are a non resident who drew a Nevada tag, ⁓ turning it in is risky. That's a risky opportunity 'cause you can't ever guarantee yourself the tag.

speaker-0: Yeah, rare, right? What were the numbers though, Brady?

speaker-2: Okay, so I'd highly recommend people check out the article, which is just called ⁓ Nevada's first come, first serve, return, hunting tag, process, information needed to know. It's on the homepage of Goh right now. It won't be on there forever, but I'll probably keep pushing it back to the top as the season goes on. But ⁓ in 2025, there was 1,404 resident tags turned back in that were available picked up on first come first serve. 1404. And these are including some junior tags as well.

speaker-0: thousand?

speaker-2: ⁓ that's a lot of tags. Hundred and thirty non resident tags for a total of one thousand five hundred and thirty-four. And ⁓ Trail would point out his elk antlers antlers. Residents there was ninety-one. Non residents there was six.

speaker-0: Not that many. Yeah, what was the first that was the first thing I said to him.

speaker-1: Yeah, it's not very many.

speaker-2: Deer, antler, mule deer antlered, 633 resident, 90 non-resident. So 90 decent. What about antelope horns longer than ears? Resident 252, non-resident 20. Here's the crazy thing though. All right. Desert bighorn sheep ram. Six for residents.

speaker-0: Decent. But analog. How many? Six people that drew a desert big horse sheep.

speaker-2: Turned back in their ram tag and it was available to be picked up first come, first serve.

speaker-1: That is crazy.

speaker-0: Knowing that, does that change your your level of motivation for monitoring that? Yeah.

speaker-2: California Bighorn Sheep Ram, two of those were available for residents as well. And if you really want to go chase a black bear, there was one black bear turned in. Which is

speaker-0: 'Cause that's the

speaker-2: ⁓ resident elk. Yeah. Ninety one for Antlard.

speaker-0: I mean that's pretty good.

speaker-1: Somebody who picked up a really good tag last year.

speaker-2: So do I. Might have gone on the highway then.

speaker-0: Like if you were just monitoring that thing, you stand a a decent chance of of maybe picking one of those up as a resident. Yeah, so wild. Yeah. I've never seen one pop up as a non resident, but then again, I'm not one to just like sit there and keep it on my screen the whole time, you know? Yeah, I think so too. And then six egg tags though. Ouch. Yeah, that's wild.

speaker-1: Just got a twenty four deer tech. I think that's what it takes.

speaker-2: Like everything in life, the harder you work, the more you create.

speaker-1: More lucky create. Yeah.

speaker-2: So the cool thing is the tags can show up if people don't know any time of the day or night. It's not just like, hey, at ten AM Pacific time, tags are gonna show up. It could be five AM, it could be midnight, it could be noon, anytime.

speaker-0: I wanna know like if anybody out there listening has picked one of these up at like three AM, I wanna hear about it. I would be curious as to what you were doing if you were just do you randomly just like wake up in the middle of the night and first thought is like I'm gonna pull I'm gonna pull up that first it's probably not a bad strategy to be honest. No. You get up in the you know, three AM to take a leak. It's probably a good idea to just have that site loaded and yeah. Have your login information, pull it out.

speaker-2: The guy a couple years ago that picked up the the mountain goat tag when he was working. I think it was super early in the morning, like three, four in the morning, and he was literally sitting in a shitter on a mine in Nevada and had service. Yeah. It was on first come, first serve in a little like porta potty shitter.

speaker-0: What time of day? Really?

speaker-1: That's exactly how I envision tags being

speaker-2: Pick up a mountain. Cool historia. I've said before I would love to have him in his story

speaker-1: That's a legendary life.

speaker-0: Further.

speaker-2: Can't remember where I was at. I was at like one of the hunting shows, talked to a guy, and then he instantly DM'd me because his buddies were like, Brady was talking about you do mountain goat tag and he sent me the full explanation. Crazy I don't know where it would be at my DMs, but it was wild story. And I'm stoked for that guy because of that story. When he looks at that mountain goat every single day, be like, I picked up that tag sitting on the shitter.

speaker-1: On a mine. On a mind.

speaker-2: On a mine. And like sitting on the shitter has its benefits, being on your phone. Absolutely. Where it was like kind of gross, but for him, it paid off.

speaker-0: Do you know the thing I'm thinking about is how many times do you pull your phone out of your pocket and the first thing you go to is Instagram or Facebook. If your first inclination was to go to first come, first serve and check that, you probably would pick something up. Yeah. You probably would see some pop up. That's a good t that's a hot take. I like that.

speaker-2: Yeah. So wherever you're at, use it. I have a bookmark on my phone that's like click log in and I go.

speaker-0: You have a like fast passed, is your login information's already in there?

speaker-2: Well yeah, it's all saved on my computer. But I still have to enter in my stupid like when did you become a resident type thing? It's every Eye. I'm already logged in, you already know I'm a resident. Why do I have to click this extra button wasting and potentially not getting attacked?

speaker-1: ⁓ Yeah. ⁓ Yeah.

speaker-0: Huh. Yeah, play the game. See if you can pick something up. ⁓ you guys

speaker-2: I mean right now as we're sitting here there's an antelope tag. Still sitting nobody's picked that up? It's it's gone away and then another one's came up, so there's been two.

speaker-0: It's s it's still sitting there? Dude, why do you Nevadans not just

speaker-1: It's too far. That's too far for me.

speaker-2: Yeah, I'm not gonna say the unit, but it's that's fine. I could I could pick up an R channel tag right now. Do it. You have a bow. I know, but it's far away.

speaker-1: Part for me.

speaker-0: Why are why have you not Why have you not bought that tag? And you have nothing going on in Argus.

speaker-1: Yeah.

speaker-2: Waiting for a potentially better one or a rifle one.

speaker-1: You have a boat.

speaker-2: I know, I have four days yet to s pick up an an archery analytic.

speaker-0: Buy that tag and go out there and kill a cranker with your bow. What are you even doing?

speaker-2: Yeah. ⁓

speaker-1: If I didn't have school, I would do it.

speaker-0: Yeah, you have an excuse, but he's got no excuse. You got nothing going on. I could buy this table. I can alone would hook me. I would I couldn't say no to that. If I had if I had five days I'm like I could be out analyze.

speaker-1: Excuse.

speaker-2: Yeah.

speaker-1: And it's not a bad unit at all. It's just far.

speaker-0: You got a brand new truck. It's not gonna break down. ⁓ You're gonna buy it right now live.

speaker-1: Let's go. He's so far away, dog.

speaker-0: Dude, it could be a Montana and I would be buying in five days. Anyway.

speaker-2: Decent harvest success. ⁓ another one popped up. Shut you I have two right now on my screen. Sorry guys, everyone always roasts me for having my computer open, but like this is why. Same unit? Different unit. Different unit. So far away. Furthest you can get away.

speaker-1: ⁓

speaker-0: Make a vacation out of it.

speaker-2: Liter literally I have two.

speaker-1: ⁓ dude.

speaker-2: Dude.

speaker-0: What is it?

speaker-1: Come on. If there's if there was a spot if there was a spot to drive I mean that's that's the unit to drive for.

speaker-0: Buy that tag.

speaker-2: Nah, I'm good, dog. I was waiting, you know.

speaker-0: I may be mad at you for the rest of the day.

speaker-1: Dude that that that's a that's a good tag. Yeah.

speaker-2: Someone is gonna benefit by me being an idiot right now. Okay. I hope you I hope whoever picks up his tag shoots a cranker and then sends us a message and be like, Hey the brave, this give you the buck you add. Trail was right. You should have picked up his tag. It was a phenomenal

speaker-0: You could take the rest of the topic matter for the rest of the day and you could apply it.

speaker-1: I could apply it.

speaker-2: I don't have a buck yet and here's how I'm gonna find one leading into what we're gonna talk about.

speaker-0: You do you go out and find a buck and then you how are you gonna kill him? ⁓ I'm gonna lead in with this question, like transitioning into the actual topic at hand. This is a question that I had rolling around in my mind. Yeah. So would you what's the earliest you've ever found a target animal that you wanted to hunt? And if you found that that buck or bull early or late, which would you prefer and why? What are the pros and cons to that?

speaker-2: Okay. Sorry for it.

speaker-0: Would you rather find him early or would you rather find him like five days before the opener?

speaker-2: I'd rather find him early and sit on him and learn everything there is to know about him besides for that one spot. Because I say this with caveat, I found my target buck last year, six days before the opener, and then had to leave and then came back, didn't find him two days before, found him the day before, and then somehow he disappeared opening day. Like his little pattern, I didn't know it was full pattern. Where it was at. So opening day I thought I had him because I saw him the the day before. I was like, I'm gonna I'm gonna kill this buck opening day. And he disappeared opening day. And there was no other pressure in the area. And like I thought I did everything right, trying not to pressure him when I was glassing. So I like glassing like a mile away. Mm-hmm. And he wasn't there opening day, but he was there the day before. So like what if I if I would have found him two or three weekends before, would I've been able to

speaker-0: Go to a backup area.

speaker-2: Backup area and say, okay, he lives here, but he also travels over here and he's making this little loop where I just knew this one spot and then sure I saw him a w a week prior and then I saw him the day before. So is that like his pattern? He's at these two spots this day these days, but then he leaves for three or four days and then comes back. Like I didn't know his backup home. And that's ultimately why I didn't kill him. Find ⁓ early and just camping on ⁓ but also do you f if you find them early and be ⁓ I got a target book in your mind you're like, do you then on the other weekends go look for other backups?

speaker-0: Where I'm at. And then I also have the social the the the distress of like having found a buck, and then you're like, man, I have to live for a month till I can hunt this thing. And it's just like consuming. You know, you think about it all the time. You're like working all the different situations and scenarios out in your head, and then you're trying to you're you're panicked about the potential.

speaker-1: We overthink it.

speaker-2: tags now. Sorry, I'm getting distracted.

speaker-0: You'd be panicked about the the the potential of like somebody else hunting it. That's what worries me. It doesn't worry me, it just stresses me out.

speaker-1: No. That's a I I get I get hyper focused and consumed by things. I mean Yeah, early 'cause then you can learn so much and you know but that's also this is with the caveat of it not being real life and if it was real life you'd probably go look for other animals too and then you're spun out between eight different places and you don't know what to do and then things get more confusing 'cause you overthought the whole thing and you had to live with it on your mind for a month.

speaker-2: Mm-hmm.

speaker-0: Obviously yeah. So

speaker-1: In a perfect world, find one early and then have the discipline to just sit and learn the one thing 'cause that's like, okay, that's the buck I wanna kill. Let's not try to go find other ones. Be yeah, disciplined to d learn every single thing about But I that's not me. That's not I

speaker-0: There is that like I don't think that's most people, if I'm honest. I think most people, if you find a buck early, you you you see him and you're like, Cool, got him in my pocket. I know kinda where he's at. Yeah, you might go back and take a look, but for ⁓ most people I know, they're like, Okay, now I need to go find D C and D. Yeah. I mean that was that was a question Brady asked me just first thing the other day. He was like, Now what do you do? I'm like, Go look for more.

speaker-2: You move.

speaker-1: Tabs over the month or or so Yeah.

speaker-0: When it's like, is that the thing that you should be doing?

speaker-1: No. The one you want to kill that's not. But I know the r I'm gonna say I would rather the five days before 'cause I know me. Yeah. And I wouldn't do the right thing if I had a month. I wouldn't be able to take it. I would get so hyper consumed and bothered by it. I wanna go find other ones and like not tell myself it's not that big of a deal and let's go find other ones and say five days so in those five days I can be disciplined and sit.

speaker-2: No, I'm probably

speaker-0: That's kinda where my head is too. Yeah, I'm more hyper focused on that one animal and then I also f yeah, I can like I can put the other the possibilities of something else kinda out of my mind. Not enough time I'm gonna focus on this one animal and then I feel like I yeah, I'm more hyper focused on it. And then I also I could live without the the distress that I'm under of like the panic of wondering like what if, how, you know. Yeah. Playing out all the different situations of how it could go right and wrong.

speaker-1: So I'm gonna z for me personally with my ⁓ like how I operate, five days. That's what I would choose.

speaker-0: Yeah, I agree. Yeah, take that, Brady. Maybe we should only go scout like five days prior to the opener. Makes you wonder, doesn't it? Kind of does me too. ⁓ so I'll I'm gonna I wanna take this like from the perspective, let's say that you've you found a you've you found a target animal. And whether you found him ear early or late, ⁓ you've you decided like it's an animal that you want to kill. And we'll we'll talk specifically like mule deer, right? Because we're mule deer season's coming up.

speaker-2: Hey guys.

speaker-1: Canada.

speaker-2: Go mule their archery.

speaker-0: Yeah, we'll go to mule dealer archery. Yeah. Kind of take it from that perspective. Like what are the what are the next steps like of scouting that you well we'll say you're out one morning and you glass up a buck and he's four miles away or two miles away and you see him and you're like, Yep, a hundred percent. That's a two hundred inch deer. Like that's a buck I wanna hunt, right? Like what are your next steps?

speaker-2: Next steps instantly.

speaker-0: Yeah, like let's say you're there on the hill.

speaker-2: There in the hill, instantly I'm gonna get dig scope of ⁓ Get video trail. Good video trail.

speaker-1: Good video. Good video. Like actual digiscope video.

speaker-0: No. I mean what if you were in a hurry and you just didn't grab me? Why are you in a hur why you in a hurry? I'm in a hurry, man. I got stuff to do. I gotta look for another bug.

speaker-1: Ha ha ha.

speaker-2: I I'm instantly gonna get di digiscope video. Okay. I want every angle of this buck. I want ⁓ just to burn the battery down. Like this is your target buck, capture as man as much footage as you can right now. You can always delete it later, you can move it to computer, capture all the footage you can. Okay, watch this deer constantly. Don't get distracted. Two hundred deer, you gotta watch him. I wanna know when he the time I saw him. I'm gonna mark that down. Mm-hmm. I wanna know where he's at in the mountain. So while I'm digiscoping, after I've digiscoped for ten, fifteen minutes, random clips, get all the different angles, front, side, 'cause sometimes you they always sit there and look away for you.

speaker-1: I'm gonna add in one thing to that though. And also dig digiscope of every other deer he's with. Yep. Like very detailed video of every other deer with.

speaker-2: Yep. Get good idea. ⁓

speaker-1: The the things I've had in the past, those smaller deer, they're kinda hard to tell apart, like a small two pointer, small

speaker-0: Nothing distinct distinct about

speaker-1: crazy detailed video on those ones. So if you ever do turn ⁓ up you can make sure it is that exact two or three point. Yeah. So I I go hard on the buddies too.

speaker-2: This is great.

speaker-0: That is a great tip because there's a lot of times when you might be out glass and the first buck you're gonna see is a small buck, right? He's the like the one that's doesn't he's not as keen aware.

speaker-1: And he shows himself more. And the big buck's there, he's just in the trees.

speaker-0: Exactly. Yep. So it's like, ⁓ I see that buck. I should pay attention to that buck before I move on. Like I should really, really pick the area apart.

speaker-2: Yeah, last last year my buck that I was going after, his buddy was like a large eye guard buck and it was really easy to distinguish 'cause large eye small small compact frame but big eye guards, like once I saw that I was like, Okay, he's got a

speaker-1: Yeah. My buck was with a very distinguished four-point real boxy short backs. That was the easy one to tell. But then he also had a two by three friend. Very hard to there was a lot of deer where I was on. It was very hard to tell if that two by three was the same one that I was seeing from day to day. So I had very good video of him. He was a three on the left and a two on the right, and he had a really funky main beam on the left. Lo actually I shouldn't say really funky. You really had to look and it like kind of squiggled at the end. That was his buddy Buck. So I had very detailed video of his friends.

speaker-2: So both those two things, very key. I would say once you do get some time after you did your scope, after you looked at all his buddies, the next step I do is I always carry a rangefinder when I'm scouting. And then some people don't, but I think a range charger is very valuable when you're scouting, is I want to then range from my glassing spot where that buck's at right now. And I want to use the rangefinder tool on GoMet Maps and I want to mark exactly where that buck's at. And where he's feeding. And then if I can keep watching him again where he's gonna go into some trees, maybe I know exactly where he beds, I'll also mark that on there. Yep. And then once he's actually bedded down and I've whatever have more time, then I'm gonna take my phone off my spotter and I'm gonna start taking photos. of what the train looks like from where I'm at to where he's at zoomed out. I'll probably zoom in a little bit. I'll probably do some video as well, like painting back and forth. This is what the train looks like. Putting my finger out there so I can like recognize it. That way I have really good reference points and I can see visually the terrain and where it's around there. And then we're on a note, what's he feeding on?

speaker-1: Yeah.

speaker-2: If I can tell, like try to zoom in on some of the stuff he's if it's a high alpine hunt, you you can be a little easier. You got a bunch of dandelions or whatever. You can actually key on, okay, this is his food source this time of year, so you know what he's eating. ⁓ and then I'm sitting there all day just ⁓ w I wanna watch when he gets up from bed. I wanna know where he's moving to. I wanna know everything I can about this deer and just intimately watch him.

speaker-1: I also go to maps in that downtime to see where I can get closer without messing him up. Like is there a better glassing knob for where he is that I can move into and still not disturb him? 'Cause I want to get as close as possible without messing anything up.

speaker-0: Yeah. Yeah, I mean other things that pop into my mind, so the time of day you brought that up. Like what time did I see this this buck and was he on his feet already? Or did I like watch him kind of get up out of his bed and then start moving? ⁓ like prevailing winds is always really important, I think, to to kind of make note of and write that down and track it. ⁓ it can kind of help you. I'm not I have not been good at this, but I think if you got really analytical about it, you probably could be, of like what I think this deer is going to do based on the weather conditions. directions, the d the way the the wind's blowing, the direction the the sun, like the way that the f the slope is facing and where he was at on that time of the day.

speaker-1: Some deer hate the sun, hate it and don't ever let it touch their bodies. And other ones don't mind it and they will sit out in the sun. So like knowing knowing that I I I shouldn't say like it, but they'll they'll put up with it. Some bucks though like will never let it hit their body. And knowing that like distinguishing that if you can, so you know where you're chasing the shade lines and where you should be looking.

speaker-0: Uh-huh. It's funny, I don't know how many deer I've watched ⁓ like early archery season where you've got a line of bucks feeding on a face and they're like legit right on the shade line. And it as it moves, they're moving right just right along. Always in the shade line.

speaker-1: ⁓ He didn't mind the sun hitting him. Like it didn't bother him. But then there was a couple other deer that like the big four-point, he hated it.

speaker-0: Yeah. Yeah, the other thing that jumped out at me that I was I was thinking as I was out scouting this weekend, ⁓ is just and I don't know if this is the case. I would hope most people are doing this, but at least this is the way my brain works. As I'm sitting looking at a deer, I'm like building a story in my head. And I don't know if it's a good thing or a bad thing. I think it's a good thing, but I'm building a story in my head of like why is he right there right now and which direction he is feeding and why. Like where is he headed? And for me, I'm like, ⁓ looks like he's probably headed downhill. You know, is there water in the bottom? Maybe there's water. Because in my mind, I'm thinking, ⁓ he's probably been bedded all day. It looks to me like he's probably wanting to go downhill. Maybe there's some water in the bottom that I'm not aware aware of. But like I'm trying to build a story based on the slope. I'm like, okay, yeah, the sunset that direction. He's on that face, obviously, because he wants to be in the shade. He's feeding downhill. Maybe he's feeding towards water. It's been a hot day. Like I'm trying to build a story as I'm looking at that buck, but it is just. like one snapshot in on time in time it's like one day one evening one hour so it gets gets interesting what how many days like how many days do you think you need to feel confident and like a pattern do you and do you do you think mule deer can be patterned in your experience you do yeah you said I mean how

speaker-1: Like to what level of detail?

speaker-2: The You can they're predictable, but don't think they're patternable.

speaker-0: I don't know.

speaker-1: Yeah, I I think they're just like humans. They have habits. Like they they if somebody watched me for five days, they would know like I have genuine habits that I Yeah, that I do, right? Like very but it's not identical day to day.

speaker-0: You take the same road. Yeah, but I go to Walmart, but I'm going to Walmart every day.

speaker-1: But every so often you do. Yeah. And it's like if somebody watched I think deer are the same way. Animals are the same way before, you know, before the rut or before like something else gets on their mind. But I think they're very patternable. They're very like they have habits. Every single animal has specific habits to themselves. You don't agree?

speaker-0: I think it's a really good analogy. Like I if you think about a human being, I think about me, right? Like I go to the same places every day, I stop at Maverick for coffee, I shoot my bow in the morning. I'm typically within like a ten minute window of like when I'm at the archery range. Some days I don't though. Like I I didn't go the other day, right? So like I didn't go.

speaker-1: I skip the gym, I'm tired. Yeah. And I sleep longer and yeah, like it. Yeah. I'll change it up. But if somebody watched us for enough, you would have habits that you could grasp onto and be like, okay, I know what to do to run into him. Yeah.

speaker-2: They're patternable in terms of like this small core area. What I'm saying they're not patternable to exactly not gonna bed under that tree every single day. They're not gonna walk that exact trail every single day. So you'd be like, ⁓ I've seen him bed here once. Maybe I might ambush him that one day he comes through this trail and I'm gonna sit there and get a shot out of him in the evening when he gets out of bed. They're not so yes, they do some of the similar things in the similar area. They'll be there. If you see him once, most likely he's somewhere, you know. So let's say not

speaker-1: They have habits.

speaker-2: Yes. You can key onto things. Yes.

speaker-0: Yeah.

speaker-1: Like they cer they like to feed certain times, like to use specific water. That's where they feel safe putting their head down for water and where they feel safe letting their guard down to feed. Yeah. Like they have habits.

speaker-0: Yeah. Dude, if you saw A Buck and you saw him one time, would you feel like that's good I mean, I don't think you would say yes, but would you feel like, ⁓ it's good enough, I kinda know his career, like I know where he's at, but like what i what follow-up plans would you have? If you wanted to go back, what would you be looking for? Would you want to go back at different times of the day? Would you wanna go back and sit and watch him all day long from like point A to you know, sunrise all the way at at night?

speaker-2: Yeah, And what are you looking for? If I first glass him up in the morning, I'd wanna sit there all day, watch him. If I if he's giant, I'm not gonna sit there all day. If not, I'm gonna move on. But if he's giant, I wanna sit there and watch him all day. I wanna see what he does in the evening. I wanna put him back to bed in the evening. I wanna see what he's doing again in the morning if he's doing the same similar thing. And then if p pot possible, coming back whenever I can come back, or if I had a three-day scouting trip, stay on ⁓ all three days. Like why would I why would I leave? Besides for maybe like getting a different vantage point to look into some of the train or see what other glasses

speaker-0: I was gonna ask that. Would you try to gain a different vantage point t even if you're looking at the same terrain, just to understand like what does this terrain look like from this vantage point?

speaker-2: For sure. Yeah, if I want to get a different angle into it and see where he's actually bedding some brush or trees that I can't quite see into from my angle, but I can see him when he comes out in the open, but once he goes to bed I can't. Yeah, sure. Then I might move around a little bit wherever kind of country it is to then be able to look at it from a different angle to maybe see what he's doing midday. I just want to I just want to camp on him. Like I really do. If I had the time, which would be great to literally sit there for three days. Yeah, I do.

speaker-0: Mm-hmm. Yeah, move in with them.

speaker-2: I wanna be I wanna be buddies. Wanna know everything he's doing better than what he does.

speaker-0: Yeah. At what point you transition from like Well, I have two questions. One is like what are you doing at home? So you saw a buck, maybe saw him of a morning and you got a chance to watch him but you're like, Man, I gotta be back to work. So you head back home. Like, what are you doing at home? So that's one question. The other question is is Liv, when do you transition from I've scouted this buck, I've watched this buck. I feel like I have a pretty good idea to then transition to like how to actually kill the buck. I think that's like if you want my opinion, I think that's the step that most people miss. Yeah. I think they watch a buck, they scout it really hard. They they're like, ⁓ I know he likes to bed in that area, I know he likes to feed in this area, I know he generally like gets up here or he goes to bed there. But I don't know that they've ever like really worked out a plan of like what are Yeah, well yeah, how do I kill?

speaker-1: Yeah.

speaker-0: Like how do I get within fifty yards of this thing and actually kill it? I'm myself, I'm not. I've been good at it in the past. Sometimes I'm not though. Sometimes I just sit back and watch. I'm like, wow, that's really cool buck.

speaker-2: Yeah. I think it starts this the sometimes to me the first day or maybe the second day after I watch them do the same thing multiple times, I start already planning in my head how to kill And that's why I'm using those photos and videos. Like that muzzler hunt a couple years ago. No. Just start making

speaker-0: Do you think that's too early though?

speaker-2: You're visualizing it. You're practicing in your head. If this was if this was hunting season right now and the buck is doing this, where would I want to be on that mountain to approach my stock? How can I get into them? Where'd all these other deer at that might be in the way that could blow me? Like, how could I approach this and try to kill it? So that's what you say. Once I'm getting back from a from a scouting trip, I'm taking all those waypoints I marked, marked every single deer, marked where he's some in the morning, where he's bedding, where he's in the evening. And then I'm coming back and I'm analyzing, okay, if he's in these spots and this is my glassing spot, like you're saying, where's the other spots I could potentially glass from during the hunt to get closer to being an easily killable position? Because let's say you're glassing a mile and a half away. Well, I can't sit there every single day, maybe from that distance, but most likely you probably could. But I would like to be a little bit closer.

speaker-0: Man, that's the worst situation, isn't it? Where like you feel like the only spot you can see him from is a distance. And then when you get in tight, you're like I have to pick that point. And if he's not on that point today, I don't see him. I just can't see the breadth of what the landscape offers. That gets hard.

speaker-1: Yeah.

speaker-2: Yeah, so I I'm starting to create that killbox. The killbox mentality mentality around him. Like how how how would I develop a pl or develop a plan to kill this buck after that first scouting trip, if I can?

speaker-0: Yeah. Are you doing you doing that home on your computer? You're cruising that way.

speaker-2: computer just marking more waypoints. And cruise on cruising out on 3D. Okay, this looks like maybe, you know, what what what vegetation potentially is it? Because obviously I was glassing in the field, so I can have those videos to rely on. Was it a bunch of oak brush? It's gonna be really noisy. Is there an easier way I could maybe like sneak through this little strip that's really quiet and get closer to the buck and then he's gonna feed up this way, like start developing that plan, marking potential spots. That way once you get over there, you know like, hey, there's this opening in this little grassy area where you can sneak in rather than going through the thick brush. Like obviously it's real time and you have to make you know modify your plan. But like at least then you'll you'll start to know what the terrain is on that slope where he's at. Just start like visualizing, marking the waypoints, marking reference points, taking all the photos and videos you can to just like create that kill box.

speaker-0: Do you ever risk like would you ever think of risking of like going actually into that area, like diving into it deeper, to be like, I really want to explore it. I want to understand like where this canyon what it where it kind of looks like in the bottom and could do you ever do that do that? I don't either. I just sit way back.

speaker-1: No. But Yeah, way back. To Brady's counterpoint though, like thinking about my hunt last year, not making any excuses because I I fucking missed, but I I am overly aggressive. That's just my mentality. And it's with all kinds of hunting. Like if I hear an elk bugle, I'm just gonna go right at it. Like I'm not gonna try to be cute and you know, like I'm just ⁓ go right at it mentality. In I go into like the kill mode way too fast. That's what I did with my buck last year. It's like Brady's talking about. I immediately go into how do I kill ⁓ I saw him in the same place twice. It's like, okay, that's good enough. I'm immediately into where am I gonna kill him? Mm-hmm. And I jumped into that with my dear last year so fast and I developed a plan so fast in my head that I probably shouldn't have done. That That deer I should have hunted way calmer and on his terms, not on mine. And I hindsight being twenty-twenty, through the hunt I realized he would walk past a certain tree when he was visible and when he was there. He wasn't there a lot. How many ⁓ out of the twenty-something days, I think we saw him like six or seven days.

speaker-2: Yeah.

speaker-1: And I think that had to do with my pressure on him, like me forcing myself into where he felt comfortable instead of letting him come out to me. I I should have I should have propped up a ground blind and just sat in it every day. And just when he walked by, he walked by. And if he didn't, he didn't. But at least I didn't disturb him. And maybe he would have been there more often than he actually was. Right. and like but

speaker-0: ⁓ Yeah.

speaker-1: If I wouldn't have jumped straight into because there was a perfect little canyon that I could walk up, like a little like a drainage. And I'm like, I can get in with him. Totally not worried about wind, not worried about him, you know, visually seeing me. Like I can disappear and I can pop up right with him. No problem. And that's exactly where my mind went. And that's how I hunted him the whole time. And the more days I spend hunting them though. And I realized this one tree. If I would have just put a ground blind right there and hunted out of that ground blind every single day and and kind of watched him more instead of just immediately went into kill mode, I probably would have I probably would have recovered him because the one thing I didn't pay attention to was he was always the lead buck every single time. He was always the lead deer.

speaker-0: Yeah, a much more controlled show. That's a good thing to note, right?

speaker-1: And I didn't and I didn't note that. I di it's like I immediately went into Killmodem, like, ⁓ this is Taylor made for me to cut him off. Like this is a cut off hunt. Like as he's transitioning from feed point to feed point

speaker-0: Is that observation that he was always the lead buck d was that after the fact? Like twenty twenty looking looking back?

speaker-1: It's when I was hunting him. Yeah, but like I realized in the moment. Gotcha. Like 'cause the first time I had a shot at him, he's the lead buck. I'm like, I I have no range. There's I have nothing and he's in the middle of nothing. Right. So like I can't range anything to see how far he is. So I'm like having to sneak and try to range him, range his antlers before he breaks vision line so I have time to draw.

speaker-0: ⁓ you did. Okay.

speaker-1: He's the lead buck. If he would have been the last buck, I could have ranged the first buck, could have ranged the second buck, could have ranged the third buck. When they got off to the left, I could have drawn, wait for him, had the proper range. But I could never get a range on him because he was always the lead buck. So it was always a guess. I never had time to like watch a buck walk, how far are they really? Get back on my bow. It was try to range his antlers, try to guess the angle he's walking at, set my pin sights, draw, cause he was the first year. And all three chances I shot twice, had one other one where I didn't shoot. All three times he was a lead buck. And had I had had to guess both times.

speaker-0: That'd be good until the know, right?

speaker-1: phenomenal and I overlooked I completely overlooked that. I was in the right spot, cut ⁓ off. I was in range and j I just I had no range. I I had no I had to guess.

speaker-0: people wouldn't think I haven't thought about it. Yeah, that's interesting. That's a hard discipline of ⁓ like style or methodology of hunting because if you're if you are to build a ground blind or if it's not feasible to like pack in a gr a blind, right? Like so let's say the area is like more mountainous.

speaker-1: Tailor made for a ground blind. Right. Tailor made.

speaker-0: Even in situation where it wasn't, there might be you might have the ability, like, hey, the best chance, maybe it's just like really noisy environment, real rocky and brushy, and it's like I'm not gonna be able to put a sneak on this buck, right? Or if I do, it's gonna be really hard. You know, just to pick a point and you're like, This buck is likely at some point in the next ten days to walk through this area where I could actually shoot him like that's

speaker-1: I had a ground blind at the base of that tree. I w I would have a range on him. Things would be calm. Right. He wouldn't jump my arrow like he did the first time. And he wouldn't jump my arrow like he did the second time. And also I would have the right range both times. The first one I guessed too far. The second one I guessed too close, hit him, didn't recover him because I it was too low. And he

speaker-0: That's a run off. Like a hard methodology. Like that's a hard style of hunting. Because it's like most days you're not going to see him. You're not gonna have a clue if he's even in the neighborhood, right? But like the one moment that he is, he walks by, he's in range. And I don't think most people, myself included, consider that all that often when you're out hunting like public land, you know, general season type units, spot and stock is like the go to. Everybody thinks like I'm gonna sneak up behind this buck in a classic situation, so I'm gonna lean over a ledge and shoot him, right? Yeah. Reality is it's

speaker-1: Yeah.

speaker-0: I mean all the years I've been hunting it's only happened once, right? On a big deer. So it's like maybe maybe the better opportunity is to like pick your point and sit.

speaker-2: Yeah.

speaker-1: Really bot if you can't tell, it really bothers me that I did not just sit I should have I should have just sat in a ground blind underneath that tree and I would have had a range, it would have been calm, he wouldn't have known I was there. Both times he knew I was there. Mm-hmm. I mean I'm at full draw in the wide open, he's in the wide open. It's like what do you expect, you know?

speaker-0: Yeah, that's interesting food for thought. Got my wheel spinning.

speaker-1: I should have just you know which tree I'm talking about too. That big African American tree. If I would have put a ground blank right there

speaker-0: You'd have to have done like due diligence and know that like, yeah, if I hunt this for ten days he's gonna walk by at once. Sure. Yeah. Yeah. Man, interesting.

speaker-1: Or three times. All three times. After I hit ⁓ after I hit him, it's the tree he went and bedded down. ⁓ he bedded under the after I hit him low. Right. That's the tree he went and bedded down while he was hit and sick while the other bucks kept going off. It's like that was his that's a tree. Like that was a point that they felt very safe with.

speaker-0: Yeah. Talk to me about pressure, Brady Miller.

speaker-2: That's what I was gonna bring up next. Planning for pressure. Is this the circumstance when you might want to go in there and bump a deer, see what he does? Would you ever I don't

speaker-0: How do you plan for pressure? ⁓ my god, that gives me so much anxiety. Bro, the thought of that right now makes my stomach trick.

speaker-2: But when I when I say it's

speaker-1: I don't have a ⁓

speaker-0: Only guy I have the balls is US.

speaker-2: When I say that it's a a soft bump. Not talking about you get right up in his grill.

speaker-1: Dude, my luck it'd be a five yard

speaker-2: Yeah. And it's hard 'cause he could be moving around and like you don't know. But like that's it's hard to plan for pressure. That's where is he where is he gonna go when he gets bumped?

speaker-0: Do you know what's really funny about that is like I have ⁓ like my my truth, if you will, is that that buck will come back. Like he'll be there. I'll be able to find him again. He might go missing for a couple days. He might use the landscape differently, but at my my core, like what I know of deer, I think he's gonna come back. So like I think that. But then the thought of like bumping that deer on purpose to see where he goes scares the living shit out of me.

speaker-1: I know somebody who that worked very well for though. That's how they killed him. Because it was gonna be a pressure there was multiple people hunting it. And he wanted to know where the deer was gonna go the first time he got bumped. So he didn't even hunt him in his real spot. He waited for him to get the other hunters bumped him trying to kill him. He went into the spot where he goes and that's where he killed him.

speaker-2: They learned it and then they be able to kill them.

speaker-0: I guess I'm spiraling.

speaker-1: Now the granted that's one that's one st that's one story.

speaker-2: The the last time I killed an archery buck, I missed him on day two. He's in the velvet in the same in this basin. And then I killed him I think two days later. And he had just he still stayed in the same basin. I didn't see him the d directly the day after. ⁓

speaker-1: Yeah.

speaker-2: six, seven hundred feet lower on the mountain and I was able to kill him. So like that pressure, like you said, bumped him, did not know where he went, so I didn't have that intel. But like you're saying I knew he was s gonna stay somewhere in there.

speaker-0: If you did know though, you'd have gone right to where you thought he was.

speaker-2: Yeah, I would have glass it from a different angle and be like, Hey, I know he's here, this is what he does, and I can drop down lower in the mountain and glass this little spot from a different angle and hopefully be able to turn him up 'cause he was he was in there. But I just couldn't dig him up.

speaker-0: Whoof I like everything that you're saying, but it scares me. That like worries me to death, you know what I mean?

speaker-1: The thought of losing a deer is scary.

speaker-2: Yeah, do you do you bump him and then he just he's so smart and old, two hundred inch deer, these just never I'm like, Bye Felicia, he's gone.

speaker-0: It is funny though, but it goes against my core of what I know. It's like I don't know that I don't think he's leaving. I think he'll come back. Like I think he'll be there again, you know? And it would be really handy to know if you'd found a buck, like where does he go when he feels pressure.

speaker-1: There's a famous story in Wyoming, I don't wanna put any I'm not gonna put any names out or anything, but had a friend helping on a very, very, very big buck in the high country of Wyoming and they bumped that buck on purpose as well, just to see, and it disappeared forever. Never came back.

speaker-2: Yeah.

speaker-0: I hate this story.

speaker-1: Never came back. That's a it's a very famous story and I'm sure you guys will know when I tell you, but it was a a famous Wyoming deer and they did it early and then never saw it again the entire hunt and then on the winter range there he was. Yeah.

speaker-2: Then the fli on the flip side of all this though, how concerned are you that you are creating pressure on the deer by your vehicle being parked where it is multiple times? Let's say you do find that buck early and you're like, I every weekend I'm gonna be camping on this buck. You're parked there every single day. And the same glassing point. When do you start thinking of like maybe I need to move where I park, maybe I need to do something totally different because you are potentially creating more pressure on your buck? Even though someone might not know it's there, but it's like, Hey, I keep seeing the same vehicle here every single time.

speaker-0: I know and that's the thing. I was I was thinking about that as you're saying it. I've been thinking about it all week. But yeah, I mean if you're driving down a road and you're up there scouting and you're just like cutting country and I see the same vehicle every week, you're you start thinking. You're like, why is that guy there every single week? You know what I mean? It does make you wonder, and I think it'd be a real douche move if you just move in on that.

speaker-2: You know he's there. be a douche move, 100%.

speaker-0: But it is public land and I totally get it, right? Yeah, you start to make you curious. Yeah, you start to wonder why, right?

speaker-2: And even if you're not parking near them, you're gonna maybe try to look into that spot and like do you do you stop then going after that deer?

speaker-0: So here I don't know, man.

speaker-2: Because you don't want to add additional pressure to it.

speaker-0: Yeah, that's true. Do you here's the thing, so when you're scouting, do you try to do you ever g take measures to like hide your vehicle? Or do you just roll with it and go? Or is it being there a good thing? 'Cause there's two sides of that coin. Yeah. There's the the the coin that you hide it, right? So the side that you hide your vehicle, nobody ever knows you're in there and you're

speaker-1: Mm-hmm.

speaker-0: Somebody else comes in or are you there every single weekend? You leave your vehicle, it's like, man, this is a shining star that I am here every effing weekend. Yeah. Like if you want to haunt this area, awesome. Just know I'm here. Yeah.

speaker-2: That's the route I went last year. I parked my vehicle way closer than what I wanted to do. I was talking about once once I found the deer and then the scouting trip and then where I camped right before the hunt, then I would have liked to do, but I'm like, well, I have to park here because if I don't, someone else is gonna probably park here and hike in. Where now it's like, well, I'm obviously hunting here. Maybe they'll give me the grace and not hunt on top of me. Obviously they still can. My thought was to Park closer to what I really wanted to do just to kinda like establish like hey I'm hunting here. Not trying to be a dick about it, but just like, yeah, I I'm parking here because you know, I'm hunting here.

speaker-0: That's kinda how I lean it's and I've I mean I don't know if this is a dick move or not, but I've been known to you know, if I've run into somebody and I have an animal and I'm hunting it and I run into them and they're like, hey, what are you doing up here? I'm like, well I'm up here hunting and I've got the next three weeks off and I've got

speaker-1: And I'll be here.

speaker-2: Part of it, if I was on the opposite side of that spectrum, I would almost appreciate that more than if someone was trying to hide their vehicle and parked it way further away, but then hiked all the way in because now I'm gonna go and hunt that spot. And then I would have liked to known, like, ⁓ you're hunting here. So I'm not gonna waste my time, but also didn't mean to wreck your hunt because you parked three miles away and were trying to sneak in and hike over to the same basin to try to do the covert thing, which is like if you had known you're there, I wouldn't have hunted the deer. Mm-hmm. I would have

speaker-0: I'm not gonna waste my time.

speaker-2: So there's all sorts of like gaming and thoughts and

speaker-0: I like the it's the gamesmanship in it. Some of it I love and some of it I hate, you know. There's nothing better than just knowing you have an animal that's like this is all mine based on where he's at, you know. It's I love that feeling, but it's just not the the the case.

speaker-2: From ⁓

speaker-0: Very rarely.

speaker-2: Did I bump the buck too last year? Like I literally saw him a week before in scouting, saw him the day before opener, and then where I was camped and where my truck was, and then obviously I had some buddies come in. Like, did that buck somehow move closer that one evening? 'Cause that was his pattern I didn't know about, and because I was camped there, did I blow him out? Because I was trying to like establish I'm hunting here. Maybe ⁓

speaker-1: W those deer are so weird though. Like they're just weird animals. ⁓

speaker-0: Yeah, it's all there's so many variables, right? It's like is the fact that like there's more, you know, it's hearing more vehicles like on the road, like ⁓ there's three today instead of the one that I heard. That seems weird, you know? Like I don't know what they're registering, but there is yeah, it makes you wonder, huh? Yeah. before opening day, so like you've you've done all your scouting, like you're going into opening day. What's your like what is your What do you have as a plan? Like are you just going up to that point? I'm like, I'm just gonna see what happens, or do you have like a checklist in your mind of like what you want to happen? Do you do you understand what I'm driving at?

speaker-2: Yeah, I mean I obviously I have my A glassing point glassing point, my B glassing area. Like if he's not here, here's where I think he's gonna be, so I know where to move to to potentially glass from it. Hopefully I have all my homework and done all my research ahead of time with maps once I got back. Like that's the biggest key is just un knowing the landscape, knowing where to go. If okay, if he's not here, here's where I can move to, potentially dig him up again.

speaker-0: Yeah. I haven't always been good at this, but the I was thinking about it ⁓ over the weekend was like prior to opening day, I should have an idea of like where I want to be based on that day. Like, is it overcast? And if it's overcast, I should go to this point instead of this point. You know, like which direction is the wind blowing? you know, where is the last place that I I saw this animal? Where is his likely bedding and feeding area? And if it feels like he has changed due to some sort of con condition, whether it's pressure, we already talked about that. It's probably a great idea to know what he does under pressure, right? That's the more I think about it, that makes sense. Like maybe it's time to go bump a deer.

speaker-2: Maybe we should try it on a different year.

speaker-0: Yeah, it's a little unnerving, but I think, yeah, I've never been like great at this. Like I I think it is probably like if you really want to kill a buck, you probably do really have to get down into the weeds. Like on that individual day, what is the best location to try to hunt that buck?

speaker-2: And have already done all your other work. Like if it's a high country area and there's no water up there, have you already packed water up? Right. Like there's a whole other thought process there. Like are you going all in on this spot? You're carrying six liters up, storing water ahead of time, establishing a camp. Like, are you there for the long haul, or are you gonna go up for four days, come back down, resupply, and go up in a different area? Like there's so many different things depending on the terrain, the state you're hunting. Yeah, there's a lot to think about. So you bring in a side by side in case things get weird and you have to go travel a bunch of roads you've never been on before. Like, mm-hmm. What are you doing? Try to kill ⁓

speaker-0: Yeah, there's lot of planning and prep, huh? Goes into it. Do you think how much percentage wise like of killing a big buck, how much of it was preseason and how much of it was actually season?

speaker-2: ninety f nine percent of it preseason if you're gonna talk have a big buck scout and try to kill it. And I mean depends on the hunt. Like obviously those later rut hunts anything can change. But like in talking to archery hunt, yeah. Pre works everything. Scout scouting's scouting's for f finding a big deer to set up to kill, opening days for killing. Or that first couple days is for killing. Not for trying to find a deer.

speaker-0: Yeah. Yeah, I was thinking about this this podcast, and it's like what we were gonna talk about. I think so many people, myself, sometimes it's like I I think scouting is like, ⁓ I'm gonna go out and find a deer. And I and like I go out and find the deer and I like notch that, I put the book on the shelf and it's like, Kate did that, found the buck, but like I think so much of it is like that next level. Okay, I need to figure out how to actually kill that deer. Yeah. And that's yeah, two totally different things.

speaker-2: Totally different things.

speaker-1: And then even a third layer to that that I'm so mad at myself still for is like in changing on the fly. Like after the first two chances, I ⁓ why didn't I put a ground line up after that? I knew then like that's this is probably how I should do it and I still just tried to force it.

speaker-2: Did you have a thought in your head though that you give an expectation to this hunt and like that's the only way you want to do it? Feel spot stocks way more legal.

speaker-1: I wanted to cut them off and I think it's cool. You know, like I that's what I wanted to do. Yeah. I don't want to sit in a blind. But so I knew after four or five days of hunting that deer, like, ⁓ I should put a ground line up right there.

speaker-2: Being willing to adapt.

speaker-0: Mm-hmm.

speaker-1: 'Cause even if he's not here, his buddies are still walking by it. So I got I got stuck. Like I was so stuck.

speaker-0: Dude, it's hard to pivot though, isn't it? Yeah, you g you you have a kind of an idea of how you want this thing to happen, or like, ⁓ this is the the way that I kind of know how to kill an animal and you just get pigeonholed with it. It's almost like you get blind to the fact that there might be another way to do it.

speaker-1: stuck. And then when he disappeared for ten, twelve days, whatever it was, then I was like overly like ⁓ aggressive, wanting to kill him the next time he showed up. So the last thing I was thinking about is like, ⁓ yeah, I'll sit in a blind for twelve hours a day for eight days. You know what I mean?

speaker-0: Yeah. I think sometimes it takes like creativity, right? And some problem solving in the moment that like is maybe outside of what we think of of the norm. Yeah. Maybe you do have to go there and like sleep right there in his bedroom and be there as close as possible 'cause he hits timber, you know, really ear really early and it's a bit of a gamble, but maybe it's one you might have to

speaker-1: I should have pivoted and just sat in a ground line for the

speaker-0: It really is like f solving a puzzle, huh?

speaker-2: True puzzle.

speaker-1: Yeah. Yeah, I had two weeks of scouting on ⁓ I had five days of hunting well, more than that. Like seven days of hunting in on ⁓ two seeing ⁓ twice in those seven days. And I sh I knew then, like, to pivot and I just didn't. Really frustrating.

speaker-2: When when we i let's say you have a big maybe I'm jumping ahead, but let's say you had a big buck scouted, mm-hmm. You hunted for two three days, can't find him. What are you doing then to try to find him or are you going to a backup buck? Obviously it might depend on how big he is, but like

speaker-0: Yeah, I'm gonna stick with it. Yeah. Yeah. I think if it's a buck that you're you're you like and he's like, Yeah, this is a big buck that I would love to tag. It's like I said, I my my belief is they just they don't go anywhere. I think they teep they keep a pretty tight home range. I think he's still there, you're just not seeing him, right? So my my inclination is to stick with it. And again, like it depends on what your objectives are. Like if your objective is just to hunt and kill any buck and have a good hunt, that's not the most fun style of hunting. Like you're gonna sit there for days and days probably and not see him at all. sucks. I was telling you earlier, like deer hunting, archery deer hunting sucks. It's not fun. Especially when you get to like a level where you're like, okay, this is what I want to try to kill. Like this is the the size quote me whatever I'll size. This is the the number of inches that like I want to try to kill the l ab above and beyond, right? Like when you get to that, it's like a lot of just grinding away. Like and you find a buck that meets that objective and you're just like, okay, I gotta write it out for the next fifteen days. Like I'm here day in, day out. Not fun. But it's what it takes, you a lot of downtime. ⁓ my God. So much downtime. Especially the middle of the days. And those are long days.

speaker-1: ⁓ I like the look. A lot of doubt. The longest of days. Guns up at four fifty, you know, and you got two hours in the morning, then what?

speaker-0: Yeah, like this weekend. D this weekend I was out looking. I would go to bed at like eleven o'clock 'cause I was moving to a new area to keep looking. Go to bed and then sun comes up six o'clock is like you can see right in the morning, you're getting very sh very little sleep, especially if you're having to hike in and out. Yeah. I was like, man, these long summer days, especially as you move into those early hunts in August, man, they can just beat you down 'cause you're just not getting as much sleep and recovery as you you used to. Yeah. You're not you're not used to it. But yeah, it can be really For twelve hours. Middle of the day is hotter than hell. All the deer are usually in bed by eight o'clock in the morning. Yeah. Yeah, those are hard. That's why you gotta figure out how to kill ⁓ quick. Cause I don't wanna sit for fifteen days.

speaker-1: Yeah, be done with it.

speaker-2: Before before the season opens, are you tracking your hiking distance to glassing knobs and your travel distance between to on roads to you know when to get in there?

speaker-0: But yeah, I I think you should.

speaker-2: So like you like like let's say you have a two two and a half mile hike and y you gotta do it the morning, are you waking up an hour beforehand or are you gonna give yourself two and a half hours to get in there? Like how do you determining that factor when you've don't track it? Okay.

speaker-0: Yeah, you should. I mean, to me a lot of it's just a feel, right? Like I look at it and like that's the elevation gain and this is kind of the shape I'm in. I should be able to cover that in two hours, but whether it's two hours and fifteen minutes or, you know, an hour and thirty five

speaker-2: But you've done it before, why haven't you tracked Here's

speaker-0: Here's what are here's what I am good at. I'm really good at getting up like extra early and being where I need to be, giving myself ample time. So it's like if I think that's a two hour hike, ⁓ I'm probably gonna be there an hour before I need to be just to set up and you know, be glassing. I am pretty good about that. I don't like getting beat to areas by other people, especially if I know there's people in the area.

speaker-2: What do you do if you were the first one there and you were there two hours before sunrise opening day? ⁓ and you but you get all of a sudden you see some headlamps coming in.

speaker-0: Yeah. ⁓ man, shine my headlamp back at. I don't know. I have done that, yeah. Yeah, especially if they walk right up to your knob, right? What is the is that is that a dick move? Like if you see a headlight, if you're up there, you're already at your glassing point and it's you know forty five minutes before light and you see some headlamps coming up the the drainage. Both sides of the coin, if you were the guy hiking up the ridge, would you appreciate if somebody hits you with a headlamp?

speaker-2: I would appreciate it.

speaker-1: That's I was letting you finish. But I think that's common courtesy. I want I want you to shine me. Like let me know. Okay, awesome. You you're there. You're there. Yeah. Like I'll I'll go somewhere else.

speaker-2: What about if you're both on the trail or not even a trail bushwhacking? Foot race. But you go you have you ha you kind of are having a foot race. Someone is in front of you. And you're behind, you continue going and anticipate they're gonna split off because maybe you have a canyon mind like, hey, I have this little hidden pocket over here, that's where I want to go. I don't know exactly where they're going. Maybe they're going to the main canyon. You keep kind of you keep kind of going and if you they go away, you go to your spot or I've done it before where I've either been the first person or I've been the second person and I followed someone for a little bit and I'm a fast hiker, so normally I catch up to people. And obviously I talk to the person right away and I'm like, Hey, where are you going? You were in front of me. You have full right to do whatever you want right now. I'm giving you everything and then wherever you want to go, if you're going to this main spot, I will back up. And I just talk through it. And they're like, ⁓ yeah, we're going over here. I'm like, ⁓ do you care if I go over here? And they said, Sure. Yeah. I don't like confrontation. I don't do anything. I'm not like, Hey, I'm both for I'm going to that spot as well. You're not an No.

speaker-1: Arizona Hothead. What the what the fuck are you doing here?

speaker-2: No. I'm like if it's just if there was a dude up hunting in the same general area, we'd probably be best friends. So like I treat I treat it that way. Like, hey you're in the same spot as me, you found similar deer, like

speaker-1: That's how I treated you. Like we're both

speaker-2: Be nice about it. Yeah. That's what we want to get at.

speaker-0: Yeah, man, that's hard. You can't walk away from it completely. Like if you walk away from it every day. Yeah, it's not like it's not like it's anybody's animal. Do you know what I mean? It's not like you can lay claim to it.

speaker-1: Different spot to look in to watch what's happening. Like I I'm being completely honest. I'm gonna sit there and watch if you kill it or not. I'm gonna watch what you do, what the deer does while you're in there. It's like it's another opportunity for information with that stuff going on in the animal. Yeah, I'm not leaving. I'm just go to a different spot. Yeah.

speaker-0: Yeah. Mm-hmm.

speaker-2: You are okay.

speaker-0: Thought I would feel like better about it after this podcast, but I just feel more anxious. I feel more

speaker-2: About having a buck and you want to kill him?

speaker-0: Yeah, like having a buck that you'd be interested in killing and then just like all the all the things, all the factors that go into this, all the variables. Yeah. It's there's so much that goes into it. Like it's it's hard it's a puzzle. It's really hard to figure out sometimes.

speaker-2: So you found a buck, you want to kill it. What is other steps you're doing right now to help you try to kill that buck? Besides for scouting and e scouting. Boots on the ground scouting and then digital. For those two things, what are you all still doing to try to kill that buck?

speaker-0: Scouting, he's scouting. I'm doing those. I'm thinking through equipment pretty heavy and I'm I'm trying to figure out like Do I go up there and stay? ⁓ is it better to like relieve the pressure and hike in and out, you know? Well, I can tell you one thing I haven't thought about in a really long time, but I've been thinking about today on the drive down. Was like, when's the last time I took all my hunting clothes and threw them in a bag with a bunch of aspen leaves and pine leaves to like get that, you know, and wash them in the scent killer spray and all that stuff, you know? Like I hadn't thought about that in a really long time, but I'm thinking about it now. Yeah. I'm like, is it time to do that?

speaker-2: Try and everything you can to kill it.

speaker-0: Right. Everything yeah, I'm going to for sure. Why not? Yeah. Yeah, that there's that.

speaker-2: Are you are you ramping up your practice? Does having a big deer spotted make you more apt to want to shoot more?

speaker-0: Yeah, shooting my bow. I I shoot a lot anyway, but it it

speaker-1: Have you do you think this is a long shot kind of a buck? So I I I had built in my mind that my dear last year was gonna be a long shot. And neither it was never very tight.

speaker-0: It could be short, it could be not super long. Yeah. S based on where it's at, I would say it would be fairly close quarters, I would think.

speaker-1: Yeah, I didn't I didn't think that. That caught me by surprise. 'Cause I in my head I'm like, this is gonna be a sixty yard type of shot. Like just cause it it's wide open. Sure. So if I can get behind the last tree in his transition, like it's the last tree and wherever he is, I'm gonna have to shoot from. Yeah. Ended up being close.

speaker-0: Definitely had me thinking about ⁓ my pins and being like, how how confident am I that my pins are precisely sighted in? It's also had me thinking about elevation and sight tapes because it's like, is my sight tape that I have on my bow that I practice and sighted in at my range, which is like fifty, seven hundred feet, is that how how close is that at ten? Mm-hmm. You know? So that's got me thinking about that for sure and wanting to test it out.

speaker-2: Have you started like if you're an elk hunter, have you started shooting with your backpack on? Have you started practicing like that?

speaker-0: Yeah, a little bit. Not that's another thing I've been thinking about 'cause it's like it's great. Like I could see a whole lot better and I can sh I could shoot pretty good with them, but hiking around with them, especially when it's hot and dusty and dry, it's not all that awesome. It's really hard to keep ⁓ clean, right? 'Cause always sweat running down the inside of the lens.

speaker-1: Are you wearing your glasses when you're shooting at Yeah.

speaker-0: They are really dirty right now, actually, 'cause I was out all weekend. But ⁓ yeah, I need to clean them and I gotta figure that out. It's like when do you do you put ⁓ in a pocket and store ⁓ when you're hiking around and then pull ⁓ out when you're trying to stock and then you're in the mode. You're like, ⁓ I got my glasses. Yes. And then I've been thinking, like, how much does the glare off the glass? Is that gonna be a problem? I don't know. There's like a lot of decisions to make. Yeah. Yeah, it'll be kinda interesting to see how it goes.

speaker-1: Yeah. It's your first time hunting with them, right?

speaker-0: Yeah, there's a lot of like a lot of details, man. It's a lot of stuff to consider and think about, both on the scouting side and also like just prep to get ready. ⁓ you know, I've got arrows ready to go, broadheads match, two arrows. I've shot all of them. Those are all good to go. All of them are paper-tune, ready to rip. But yeah, I've definitely been thinking about my pins and like third access, because I think there's likelihood you'd be shooting some angles uphill or down. It's like when the it's it's like when the when it hits the road, you know what I mean? When the rubber hits the road, it's like man, it gets getting real. Yeah.

speaker-1: Yeah.

speaker-2: Did didn't we have a conversation with Neville at TAC about boots on, boots off on stock?

speaker-0: Yeah, Neville, what's your take on this? This would be interesting. Cause this is something you should probably know 'cause it's gonna depend on whether you end up packing some stocking shoes or some wool socks, or you just go at it with your boots. Neville's of the opinion, he thinks you're better off with just leaving your boots on because you get better traction, like better bite into the ground. He's like you just have to go slower.

speaker-2: And you can he said you can still be quiet with boots on. What you think?

speaker-1: You can't be as quiet with boots on. No chance you can. You can't be as quiet. But like where I was hunting last year, there was no reason to take my boots off. The amount of sage that was there like ⁓ the noise was coming from my legs rubbing against sage. Not much.

speaker-0: I don't think you can either. I was gonna ask you, do you ever consider taking your pants off? They work? ⁓ you never

speaker-1: I did. I'd never took my pants off. I think you would not have to consider it though, 'cause there was a couple spots where like that was the noise. That was the constriction of like how hard I could press into ⁓ Yeah. But then also like

speaker-2: I never did I never did a scope half.

speaker-0: Would you feel any sort of way if you were out in the woods like would you have any thought like I'm gonna take my pants off and make this stock in my undies? No pride?

speaker-1: I I mean I say this now bec yeah, I say that if I had to be naked to shoot that deer I would do it. Like it does it does it I don't care. You know what I mean? Like if that was that's what would have got me that deer, I would have I would have done it.

speaker-2: You would have done it.

speaker-0: Yeah.

speaker-2: Because I'm just

speaker-1: I'm mad that I the one thing I probably should have done I didn't do, so it's like I I would have done anything now looking back on it.

speaker-0: Yeah, I I mean I I'm gonna I'm gonna give stocking shoes. like I've used wool socks in the

speaker-1: I bought stocking shoes for last year, but when I went in there I had ⁓ in my backpack the very first morning I went in there, but it was all so soft. Everything was so soft. It was my feet were not the issue.

speaker-2: Are you gonna use those sheep feet ⁓ stealth bombers? I'm gonna

speaker-0: Yeah. And try ⁓ out before then for sure. Just to break ⁓ a bit. Yeah, break ⁓ in, see how quiet they might be. Yeah. If I think there's an advantage over just like a pair of heavy duty wool socks, but

speaker-1: I had those ancient.

speaker-2: Yeah, sure.

speaker-0: Yeah. Yeah. Those are dope because you could hike around in those if you needed to, you know. Like there's enough padding in ⁓ that you you'd be okay.

speaker-2: So you're thinking you're gonna do some practice stalks at your archery range, maybe? Like just like 'cause that's one thing you probably don't practice, right? Never. You never practice stuff.

speaker-0: I'm high. No. Do you think there's people out there practicing

speaker-2: Practicing how to roll roll your foot. If you kick a rock, try to catch it. I think it's a good thing to practice.

speaker-1: I think it's a phenomenal thing to practice. I should people should practice it. Why don't? It sucks. And and 'cause it's like you it's come kinda almost feel ridiculous in the moment.

speaker-0: Why do you think people practice it? Hard.

speaker-2: Here you True. I'm gonna paint a picture for you. This is what you're gonna do. This is what you're gonna do. You're gonna take one of your kids, you're gonna take your dog, you're gonna go to the mountain somewhere, you're gonna put your kid and your dog down below you, you're gonna get their wind right. You're gonna stalk in on your dog. If you can sneak up on your dog with your dog being alert.

speaker-0: See if I can sneak up on my dog see It'd be pretty easy. She sh pretty shaggy.

speaker-2: But like find a way to practice. Like find a way to go.

speaker-0: Nobody's fine.

speaker-1: Does or something go see all questions?

speaker-0: Yeah, that's an interesting thought because it's it it is the skill that matters the most if if you're honest. Like being able to make the shot, like there's a lot of people that can make a shot, right? If you can get within fifty yards, if you've got moderate practice, you could probably make a shot, right? But the actual stock side of it is yeah, it's hard and it's like nobody's practicing, myself included.

speaker-2: You're only practicing it that day that you're doing it on the hunt.

speaker-0: Yeah. First time, right?

speaker-2: First one of the year. It's like you want that to be a good one, maybe you should have practiced it. Like you practice your bow, you practice everything else.

speaker-0: That's pretty true. That is true.

speaker-2: And like you said, breaking in those new

speaker-0: So mundane and boring, doesn't it? To like go try to just creep around as quiet as you can.

speaker-2: So does paper tuning every single arrow.

speaker-0: Yeah, I know, that's more enjoyable. That is funny. There's like different parts of a haunt that different people enjoy. Some people love the stock. They like love the sneaky, the approach, like being as me either. Yeah, I love I love the you know, the shooting side of it, the technical side of it. I like the glassing and stuff.

speaker-1: I like sitting back glassing, watching and then yeah, the technical side.

speaker-0: I mean, if I'm being completely honest with you, that's like I don't enjoy the stock itself.

speaker-2: mentally wreck you that side of it, or like your anticipation just like

speaker-0: It's just not fun. It's yeah, it's hot. Yeah, it's just like not the f the enjoyable part. The enjoyable part is like the finding, the glassing, getting in range is fun and executing a shot and then making that work. But the actual stock itself is like stressful. You do really you like the stock part of it. Like you've you actually enjoy it.

speaker-2: Could you just sweat in? Yeah.

speaker-1: Yeah. ⁓

speaker-2: Love it. 'Cause I know I have a deer at the end of the in whatever in the area and I am working my way towards that. Like if I even if I'm grabbing a rifle, like making an approach, like that is so exciting to me. Like any second it could happen.

speaker-0: The excitement for me starts when I'm like in range. When I get within range and I can see it's developing and I'm like, yeah, I'm going to get to full draw and I'm gonna get gonna get an opportunity to execute a shot. That's fun. Like that's exciting. Leading up into that point, I don't die. It's like so stressful.

speaker-1: Like the two hundred to one hundred range. It's just disgusting. Fun.

speaker-0: ⁓ brutal. It's disgusting. No. Yeah, that's interesting, huh? I haven't really ever thought about it. Tease it apart like that, but you're right, I don't enjoy that part of it.

speaker-1: Yeah, I don't I don't. Like the two hundred to one hundred range is disgusting. It's not fun. The whole time you like you want to throw up, you're so stressed to not mess anything up. Trying to like pay attention to every hair on your neck with the wind, like, ⁓ is it switching? ⁓ your stomach drops cause you feel it on the back of your neck and you're like, ⁓ sh

speaker-2: I love weapon in hand and some.

speaker-0: Yeah, and this goes back to the Yeah, like yeah. Shit. Yeah, I don't like that either. This goes back to the point of like you practice the things that you enjoy, right? Yeah. And you very rarely practice the things that you don't really enjoy. So it's like stalking. That's probably why I don't practice it. I would love to hear from somebody if they're out there trying to sneak up on people. That'd be hilarious. That'd be hilarious. ⁓ yeah. Yeah, wild. You probably get really good at it. I think it's

speaker-2: That'd be great. Trying to stalk some deer in a park.

speaker-1: Yeah, honestly it would be something to practice for sure.

speaker-2: Where's the

speaker-0: Pretty clear to me if you just like look across the landscape of people that you know do it that that are like super consistent, like that there's something about them that they do differently, like whether they enjoy it or they're better at it or whatever it might be. And I don't think it's the shot part of the situation that they're great at.

speaker-2: You're probably great at reading the terrain, know how to move through it, know when to grab your wind in your case.

speaker-1: They're really good at stocking. Mm-hmm.

speaker-0: For sure.

speaker-2: Let's practice some stocks. Do you want do wan do you wanna go outside right now and go practice?

speaker-0: ⁓ F. ⁓ yeah, maybe we will. do you have anything else you want to talk about? We've been going for a hot minute, but

speaker-2: How are we going for a hot minute? What about if you don't have a buck found right now? What would you be doing? Just if you've been out scouting two or three times, you got three weeks left till the opener. What are you doing right now to find the deer?

speaker-0: Yeah, that's a good ⁓ every every available morning and evening that I've got, like I'm hitting a new area and I'm glassing a new spot. Like I'm not gonna I'm not gonna go back to I'm probably not gonna go back to the old areas, right? I guess it depends on how much potential you think it holds, right? If you've hunted it before and you're like, Yeah, I have seen big deer in here before, I just didn't see one today. I have an area like that, for example, like ⁓ I've seen I've seen some really good bucks in that area. I've been to that area this year and I didn't see a big buck, but I saw other bucks. So in the back of my mind, I'm always like, yeah, maybe there is still a big buck there. I just didn't see him that morning, right? So I might go back and check that if I've got an available opportunity to do that. But otherwise I'm I'm hitting as many new areas as I can. And a lot of the a lot of the times I'm like burning the midnight oil. Like I'm going to bed, like pulling off the side of the road, or I'm backpacked in somewhere super late, like midnight, and I'm getting up really early and I'm moving to a new area to glass it.

speaker-2: So you're unique in the fact you live in a state where you can do that. Mm-hmm. What if you're from Pennsylvania and you made your first scouting trip middle of July and you had four days and you did not find what you were going after, didn't see very many deer at all, and you have to go back home and now the next time you can come out, let's say TV say you have when you're hunting, maybe a day before, maybe two days before, what's tip typical of someone? Obviously it's a bigger tag, you might have more days beforehand, but what is that person from Pennsylvania doing if they did not find a deer? in the summer on one scouting trip that they could

speaker-0: And you're doing the same process of e scouting, you're still just trying to find the best areas that you you think would hold.

speaker-2: You're taking some of the intel you learned on the first scouting trip, boots on the ground, you're now converting it to e scouting, doing as much homework as you can.

speaker-0: Yeah, and I might be making a lot of phone calls and just talking to big as many people as I possibly can. I'd probably jump into my insider account and I would scroll down through the unit profile and find out people that have commented and hunted Yeah, and I would start reaching out to people. I think it's like one of the very best ways that you can gain intel. It's not like they're always gonna tell you where a big buck is, but they might say, Hey, yeah, I hunted that area ten years ago. I remember seeing a good buck here. That's just like one more little piece that you're like, I should check that. So yeah, I think I think that one's

speaker-1: Not the people.

speaker-0: Really important. That one's been super beneficial to me in the past. Even if I knew about a buck, I just ran into somebody and I was like, Hey, I'm looking for this buck. If you see any of it's like you're a cop, you know, you're out looking for a perp and you're like, have you seen this deer individual? Have you seen this deer? And they're like, Yeah, I have seen him actually. So I'm right over there. You're like, sick, that's where I'm going, you know? Yeah. So yeah, I think I think that's a part of it.

speaker-1: Networking.

speaker-0: I don't know, it's exciting. It's also stressful.

speaker-1: This is I'm so excited for my wife's Elk Hunt. I know it's different. It's Elk and I know, but no scouting, no nothing. It's a great unit. No scouting going into it with absolutely no preconceived like thoughts or considerations.

speaker-0: You can do that for elk. 'Cause it's like once you get into archery season, they're roaming anyway.

speaker-1: Yeah. So it's like it's gonna be so fun, just me and her out there and like whatever we see, if one's cool and she likes it, let's shoot it. No stress.

speaker-0: That's why That's why I'll die on a hill that elk hunting's more fun than Mule Deer hunting. I mean I will die on that hill for the rest of my life. Mule deer hunting is stressful. The only fun part of it is when it actually works out. The the process can be really stressful.

speaker-1: So it's so much so that it doesn't even feel real when it does work out. Did that really just happen? Yeah. Like how how did that happen? Question of all of it. That's how hard it is.

speaker-2: That's instantly what I think.

speaker-0: Feels impossible. Yeah. I think killing a big mule deer buck with your bow I think it's the hardest thing. Yeah. At least the hardest thing I've done.

speaker-1: The hardest thing. There's no question. It is the hardest thing.

speaker-0: Yeah, I can't think of anything else that would be harder. At least at least that I've done. I think it's the most challenging thing in hunting. Mm-hmm. Yeah. And if I don't know, it's the the line from Ricky Bobby like, and if you don't if you don't chew big red, then p you. That's this the sentence that pops to my mind. Yeah. Anyway, good luck to folks. yeah, I hope if you haven't found a buck, I hope you you are. And if you have found one, I hope you're trying to figure out how to kill him. ⁓ kill him, right?

speaker-1: I agree.

speaker-2: Whatever you can do to find out everything about that. Put in the work now.

speaker-1: We start seeing everyone practicing stalking after this podcast. ⁓

speaker-0: Yes. I feel like that's a meme, like a f a coming meme that could happen. People trying to sneak up.

speaker-2: That guy was practicing. ⁓

speaker-0: You think that was real? Crazy. See the old guy that got thrown in the air? yeah. That wasn't a small guy. It was like a flip of the head.

speaker-1: See that.

speaker-2: Where

speaker-1: Do you see how easily he threw him in the air? Dude, it was like nothing. He didn't even load up. He was like off balance when he did it and he just a little flick and the guy's twenty feet in the air. Did he does anybody else did he go there in their mind? Like the he was off balance. He was like sideways off balance, like not on all fours, and just a little flick in the g a two hundred and fifty pound guy is twenty feet in the air. Crazy.

speaker-0: Yeah, it wasn't like you really Yeah, the power of that animal is nuts. I got a hand to the guy. He did look like he was pretty spry for I mean, he evaded it for a hot second.

speaker-1: He did. There was cars behind him though. Did you notice that? Why would you not go that way instead of just the merry-go-round around the tree? Like why not make a break forward into the cars?

speaker-0: Yeah. Yeah, I don't know. I thought I heard somewhere that he had a grandson with him, that he was like trying to try trying to per trying to protect, you know. And he might have been tucked away in the trees and so maybe he was trying to maintain like some proximity to his kid.

speaker-1: That guy then. take everything back and that is that's a local hero then. ⁓ did not know I did not know that. You didn't break for the trees. Break for the cars instead of the tree.

speaker-0: I was questioning why.

speaker-2: Sorry, guys, down a rabbit hole. I was just talking about the bison stalking other humans.

speaker-0: You know in Utah there was a guy, do you guys remember that a few years ago there was a guy dr dressed up like a mountain goat that kept getting reported? Yeah, and he was ⁓ I think he had a permit and he was trying to figure out if he had a costume that looked like a goat, how close he could get to him. That's true, he was. Yeah, good on him. Mm-hmm. I hate this podcast. What I learned on this podcast is I probably gotta go bump a deer just to see what he does. And then I gotta practice stalking.

speaker-2: That guy was out there practicing. Doing practicing.

speaker-1: It's talking.

speaker-2: And you got so much anxiety and

speaker-0: This was a terrible idea. We're gonna put this one out.

speaker-2: Maybe you should stop eating meat for the next three weeks too. Don't like don't smell like a predator.

speaker-0: No.

speaker-1: Ha ha ha.

speaker-2: Putting the kibosh on that.

speaker-0: Alright. Alright. Have a go and we'll see you next time.

speaker-2: Fun one.