Dan Infalt - Chasing Mature Bucks, the Values of Hunting & Sharing the Craft - Episode #65

0:00 What's up friends, welcome back to Ruder Wisconsin. Appreciate you for clicking another episode. Grateful to have you here. Really excited for today's episode with Dan in Fault AKA The Hunting Beast Wisconsin whitetail hunting legend. We talk a lot about the XS and OS of hunting and we also talk a lot about Dan's story. I learned something new about Dan I didn't know about the the DVDs that started his full time career in hunting. IG was introduced Dan to Dan through his YouTube content. Awesome, informative stuff that helps everyday hunters in a really authentic and genuine way. And you'll find that in the conversation today, the same Dan that sat in the chair is the same Dan on YouTube and the same one that's been harvesting monster white tails in Wisconsin for a long, long time. Enjoy the conversation And I'm looking forward to hopefully by the time this drops, I'll be on one of I'll be a have attended one of Dan's workshops.

1:00 Really excited about that. As always, big shout out to our sponsors, Carouser non alcoholic beverages delivered right to your door. Check out their website to check out all the great flavors and maybe reduce or limit alcohol in your life. Epic mortgage people centric mortgage services. They're all about the human element of buying a house. It's one of the biggest milestones in life, right? Let someone who knows the process help you through it and genuine Lynn one-of-a-kind custom trinkets and also custom apparel that she does an awesome job with these cool. You can set up an online shop through Lynn's website and have on demand custom apparel as opposed to ordering 1000 T-shirts when you only need 20 right now. If you dig what we do, please check out our sponsors and let's get into it.

1:50 Dan in fault. So have the ways we try to lift our neighbors. Where did the love go? Yeah, that's a new addition to the studio. I added that I think 2 recording days ago or something.

2:33 I, I got it as a gift from my mother-in-law and I just kind of sat in my basement for a while. And then I have a four year old. So I like, like, I like him doing tangible things with his hands that he can see. We don't like, let him use many like tablets or do TV time or much or anything. So I bought him a record player for Christmas and then I got my wheels turning about. OK, well, maybe this could be like a together thing. It could also be a cool vibe for the studio. So yeah, it's a lot cooler than just a table sitting there. And I can put a little music on for the guests while we're waiting to do new stuff. So yeah, man, I am excited to chat.

3:14 Like I said, I watch your stuff a lot. I appreciate not only like the the message that you have and like all the knowledge, man. Like obviously that all that stuff is all good. But I think what immediately drew me and was just like your authenticity in doing it. Like I can just tell like it screams from you how much you enjoy it. And I've been an outdoorsman for a long time. And I'm, I'm kind of a person where I, I hunt, I've been hunting with my dad since I was young and I didn't, I'm just now becoming a proficient hunter in my life. It took me a long time to get there because the environment that I grew up hunting in, it was we you walk to the same stand you haunted from the middle of October through the end of November.

4:07 And you just like think it's luck that a big buck is going to walk by. And as I've developed as a hunter and now that I'm getting more proficient at killing mature bucks and seeing mature bucks like someone with your knowledge base and not only having it, but being willing to share it is so valuable. And that's what called me. And I could just like from the day one that I'd like. I remember the first video I saw of yourself. Like this dude loves hunting more than anybody I've ever seen. And having those two things, that's a really rare combination. There's a lot of there's a lot of folks that are really great hunters that zip their lips and don't say a word about it. And there's also a lot of people that say they're really good hunters and they walk to the same stand 40 times in the same season. So I guess my kind of where I thought we could start is like some of your, some of your videos are from a long time ago. You started documenting hunting before many people were documenting hunting.

5:07 Correct, you know. How did you decide to do that? Well, I think there was a point where like, you know, if you take a look back into where I came from, you know, I grew up. I'm 59 years old. So I grew up at a time, not a lot of money. Deer hunt was not what it is now. You know, like I lived in southern Wisconsin, everybody drove up north to hunt. Now it's the opposite, you know, but it wasn't easy to get deer and big deer especially, you know, and I kind of strives it to, to kill deer, you know, and, and to get deer.

5:51 And I, what really set me apart from everybody else is everybody had mentors in, in you're of an age you can remember everybody haunted back then. It was, it was just rooted into our tradition. And it was the deer didn't grow to old age. If you got a 2 year old 8 pointer, it was a big deal. And our, our you know, you go to school and your teacher would be like, you got an 8 pointer. Everybody Dan got an 8 pointer. Now they shunned the kids for killing an 8 pointer. It was just wild. Right. It is wild. It's a, it's a whole different world. But the main thing that drew me or made me better, let's say, right, I think, was that I didn't have a mentor.

6:35 My dad did not. He, he shot like 2 deer in his life. He worked 2 jobs to, to have our family outside of the city to get us into the country. So he, you know, there was not a lot of money. I mean, I remember as a kid, I thought it was normal to have dinner and eat like cucumber sandwiches or tomato sandwiches and stuff. But really, that was depression food. You know, I was just talking to my kid about that yesterday, talking about how I grew up. And he was like having a hard time believing that we did that. But he knew a little of it from my my mom when she was alive. But but with no mentor, I didn't have anybody to teach me the bad habits. And back in those days, most people taught to always stay in the same spot until deer came by, never go near bedding areas, not do any of that.

7:27 And I, you know, people would tell me that stuff, but they're not your dad, They're not your, you know, your mentor and just going out on my own and hunting in the backyard, you know, going out into the, to the fields, you know, in the, in the farms and stuff. And hunting is what taught me what I know. And, and any good hunter you ever meet that's really good at hunting, the main ingredient they have is want, they want it so bad that they'll, they'll figure it out, you know, and that's what I had as a kid. I just wanted it so bad. I wanted to, you know, get big bucks and, you know, that kind of thing. So it drove me into that. You know, I think I wandered off your question a little. Bit no, that's it's perfect because I think that with the, you know, talking about the access to mentors that will share knowledge to actually make it happen, it's few and far between.

8:17 So I think that's probably a commonality. Like very proficient hunters. They either found one person that was willing to share some secrets with them from that generation, I'm saying, or they figured it out themselves. And finally, you're on your 5th day of sitting in the same tree. It's probably a guy gets bored and looking at the same trees and you're saying, OK, I know there's probably a big buck over there that I've been trying not to disturb. Let's see if I can get a little closer, little closer. It's funny to bring that up. I was talking with my dad recently and he was telling me a story that I forgot about that he told me when I was a kid about how he had, he was one of five kids. Yeah, similar situation. And he was talking about how they didn't have indoor plumbing until his two oldest sisters were out of high school and they lived in a 2 bedroom house. That's how they grew up.

9:06 And that just brought me to that moment. I kind of off topic, but yeah, it's and that's what I think that's why I'm drawn to your content. That's why I think it it does so well and and like it's just so awesome because we hear constantly about Hunter numbers dwindling and and less licenses being bought and less people doing outdoor activities. And it's something that's sore so core to my being that I love when things try to flip that script, you know? And man, I'm telling you, like anybody who watches, you know, watch four of your videos, you will be able to kill a mature buck next year.

9:46 Like, you'll do it, you know, and that's all. And then, of course, there's all the great stuff like, you know, ripping on Ricky walking through the woods and stuff like that. That was going to be my opening joke today, but I forgot I was going to tell you. Thanks for taking some time away from ripping on Ricky. But like, that is a tremendous value because I think, you know, like anything in life, if, if it doesn't go well right away, people can be more apt to quit. There's less mentors, less people of the adult age that are getting youth into hunting, and then less people overall. So I just love it, man. You know, from my perspective, as you grow in the hunting realm, if you're, if you're trying to be somebody in hunting, which a lot of people are now, you see all these podcasts popping up, all these shows, all these YouTube channels.

10:31 They didn't have that in the past. In the past, you had to have 1/4 of $1,000,000 to get on a show, you know, on TV. Now anybody can, can be in hunting. But as you see them grow that you know there's a lost my track. That's OK. I'm sorry. No, that's OK, but I mean you do get to see develop people. Well, you just had, you just had a cool collaboration with the like 5 different people like the hunting public and stuff. You did a hunt down South that was a really cool. Yeah, that was a great hunt. But that's another example. Like they started from grassroots just for a passion about something and they kept going. But you bring up something I was going to ask you about today. Those first like captured hunts. What was your setup in the tree stand? Like what?

11:16 What was it? What was your video camera like? How? Where? Did you have stuff I've never shown because it's just too beat up and stuff? Some of it I've lost because it's the tapes and stuff that we used to use got deteriorated. Yeah. But my very first cameras were to VHS. That's what you know, that's what you could afford. And that's what there was. And they were giant. They were like 10 lbs and they're like a foot and a half long and. Yeah. And made noise. Yeah. I'd carried it around and film and but I wasn't very good at it, you know? But I filmed anyways, you know, and I've gotten better over time, but I've never tried to be this pristine video guy.

11:57 As a matter of fact, I think it takes a little away from the videos of guys got like drone footage of people walking in and stuff. I mean, when I look at that, what I see is they're more worried about how they look than they are about what's going on. You know what I'm saying? What keeps me on track and keeps me from becoming, and this is kind of what I was getting into before you, you look at these other people that are getting into this and they strive to be somebody so hard that they're just looking for a sponsorship or somebody to attach to or somebody to give them that, you know that boost. And you got to be careful of that because you start becoming fake, you know, you start becoming a representative of this company or this guide service or or whatever rather than a hunter.

12:45 And there's nothing wrong with that. But for me, I don't want that. I, what's kept me on the straight and narrow is I came up with a motto for myself. I, I always think you should have something you live by, you know, and mine was to make people better hunters while making hunters better people. So I'm striving to help people and I keep that in mind and and you know, when somebody comes to me and you know, how would you like that go? Hunter guided, you know, place, we'll let you have the biggest buck and stuff. Instead of going there and shooting that buck and make it believe I'm some kind of hero because I killed a buck somebody else scouted and put me in the tree stand. I look at that as like, well, you're taking that buck away from one of these guys.

13:26 That's pain. You know, I would rather just go out and if I'm, I'm, if I fail, I fail and document the, the experience. You know, when I look at my walls, I don't see the biggest buck as being my biggest accomplishment. The matter of fact, I've got, you know, like 50 miles now and I can't even have them in my house. So I have them at a taxidermy shop. There's a cool video of it with you going through them. And I don't even see them that often. You know, maybe once a year or something, I'll go in there and talk to the guy or something. Probably when I'm bringing a buck. But I went in there the last time, maybe the time before that, but I went in there and I looked at that wall while I was waiting for him. He was with a client and I'm staring at those bucks and there's real big bucks in the wall. And I'm like, when the hell did I shoot that? And you know, I don't remember the ones where you just walked out to a stand and kill the buck. The ones I remember are the ones you worked for, the ones that were hard.

14:27 And the size doesn't matter to me, you know, I want mature bucks. I want I want an older buck. I want to experience animal you're hunting. And I want it to be on like an equal playing field, same as everybody, that I'm not locking everybody off of a piece of property. And that's not to say I wouldn't hunt private or I wouldn't sometimes go on a guided hunt for the fun of it, but I don't want to portray it as something that's not. And I think by staying real and always be in where other people can do it, it gives them hope it get, you know, there's a lot of people out there like you're just saying that haven't gotten anybody to give them answers. And then when they do go look for answers to get conflicting stories. So what I want to show them is that there's two ways that you can kill a big buck, a mature buck in a place like Wisconsin with the pressures we have.

15:17 You can do it either by buying it or you can earn it. So you're not necessarily out of the picture just cuz you don't have money. You just have to put in the work. Yeah. And I think it within that authenticity, it becomes real for someone, right? Because I think even even someone who's just getting into it can see like when it's not that sure it's fine, it's a different, but it's a different thing. And that becomes an access thing. Like do you have 8 grand to spend to go to a, you know, spend on a guide or something like that? Or do you have a set of four wheels and some legs that you can find some public land to download on X and find yourself a spot?

15:59 Yeah, it's funny you bring that up the, the size thing. I had a story I was going to tell you today. Two years ago I was hunting and there's been a couple times I'm glad I didn't end up taking this buck because I filled my tag with a really good buck later in the season. But I had this one hunt where I was went way deep in on public and it was this really, it was a spot that you would love because it was like very tight. There was one shooting window I was going to have and that was the only deer I was going to see if it came through. And I was laying on the ground and I so I use a crossbow. I'm a crossbow guy, but I was laying on the ground and I had my crossbow sitting next to me and at this little, I think it was 5 pointer if it had brows, it was either three or five came walking in and it did exactly what I wanted it to do what I thought was going to happen.

16:39 I was 3 miles from my car. I beat a ton of brush and water to get in there and there's several days that I've woken up and thought about like kind of wishing I would have taken that buck because it was like a really hard one. I, I got lost walking back to the car. It my GPS died. It was a it was a nightmare, but like that, that's the type of story I think you're getting out when you say something like that. Like it ended up walking up to me and it smelled my crossbow and I just flickered my fingers and that's when I realized I was a human and it ran away. But like that's, I don't know. I, I could tell and that's what I'm getting out. Like from the first videos I saw from you, It's like that you that is what you are and I, I don't know.

17:21 That's the type of content I look for it, not just in hunting, but in life. Just someone in being who they are and just like you know it. I didn't know you had that mission, but that mission screams out and it's like living with purpose and like trying to do something that you feel matters. And I just get that from you. It's awesome. You know, so I was in high school in the early 80s. So at that time frame in Wisconsin, everybody was smoking pot or drinking and getting in trouble. You know, everybody always says that kids are worse now. They're not. They just sit in the basements now and play on computers.

18:01 I actually kind of wished my kids would get in a little trouble. You know, It's like, come on, go do something, you know? But you look at when I was a kid, everybody was getting in trouble, you know, and there was, like, a click. And if you weren't smoking the pot, if you weren't drinking, if you weren't, you know, going out doing the things they were doing, you know, and some something's worse than that, that you weren't part of it. And my escape was hunting. And I think a lot of kids have that or like, like they're like, I don't want to say it this way, but the loser kid in in their own minds, you know, like they're the ones that's that's picked on it. Nobody likes them. Whatever they have an escape.

18:43 You know, there's something about getting in the outdoors where it's like one-on-one with nature and you're, it's like you're forced to sit there and, and look at God, you know, look at what's around you and see the life and death struggles and stuff and things start to click and you start to understand how the world works. You know, I think if everybody haunted, haunted deer, the world would be a friendlier place. They could all get along. A. 100% yeah, I I had I had a lot of times I'll explain especially to the non hunter. I'll explain like the all day rut sits as like an 8 hour meditation. You know, you're in the tree.

19:25 I, I try not to scroll in the tree stand. I try to, you know, be in tune of my surroundings in another of my go to lines is like that's when I feel most alive. The further I am from the car or people in in the woods is when I feel alive. Like 6 years ago I had a chance to. This is the only destination hunt I've ever done. I had a chance to go to Kodiak and hunt Black Tail and like there was nothing like standing at, you know, 2000 feet of elevation after being dropped off on a folk plane at sea level and knowing I was going to be there for 10 days. There's nothing like it, and just that experience alone would shift the perception of a lot of people and. You're right, man, and I think, you know, hunting's, you know, there's a lot of dudes that hunt that are like the the manly thing of it, like but yeah, when you spend hours in a tree sitting there with your thoughts and that's about it, you get a lot of places.

20:25 Yeah, exactly. Yeah. And then there's the whole thing of, you said, the life and death that, you know, there's a, there's a lot of heaviness that comes with taking an animal as big as you are, you know? Yeah. Yeah, Speaking of that, do you, what do you remember that? What was your, what's the story of your first buck? I don't think I've ever seen that. My very first buck. Yeah, I don't think I've ever seen that in any of your content. I'll be honest with you, I wasn't even old enough to haunt, but things were different back in those. 100%, yeah. I went out behind the house and haunted and my parents were OK with it, but everybody was doing it, My neighbors, everything. Yeah. And you got to remember, this is in the 70s, you know, we were feeding families, you know? Yeah. It was a literally it was eating cucumber sandwiches.

21:06 For supper, yeah. I remember waiting for the bus. I didn't have gloves in the cold weather. My mom would make me wear socks on my hands as a little kid. And it was so embarrassing. As soon as she wasn't looking, of course, it'd come off and go in your pocket. But you couldn't talk back to your mom or tell him this is tell her this is embarrassing because, you know, she doesn't have the money to buy you gloves. Yeah. I mean, that's how bad it was. So getting a deer was a huge deal. So my dad would buy A tag and I'd go hunt. OK. You know, And I went back and I, I shot a button buck. I was laying in a field. And I just kind of, I think it was nine years old, you know, and back then you had to be 12. But I kind of was just laying there looking around and I look over and I don't even know how it got up to me, but it was standing about 10 feet from me looking at me. And I remember how much I was shaking as I aimed at and shot it.

21:57 It was like day before Thanksgiving or something. And that was our Thanksgiving meal for everybody, you know, And obviously we had some leftover right for the for the family. But that was my first deer and that one still is locked in my memory. It's hard not to have it be my for my first year was a button buck two shot with iron sights out of a 3030 I got for my grandpa. You know that that's one that always sticks with you, but that adds some, that adds some weight to it. You know, like when it, you know, I, I've heard a lot of stories from old timers about that, about, you know, you hear today, if we hear a story about someone shining a spotlight out a window and shooting a deer, we're going to tear that hunter apart in 1970.

22:43 You hear an old timer telling about that, or you hear your story you just told about. You're old enough to understand that some of the people listen and I think, what's wrong with him? Yeah, I won't turn that one into a clip, don't worry. But, you know, people that did come from that era know exactly what I'm talking about. Yeah, it you were, you were much closer to sustenance living of when hunting meant a whole lot different. It had a different meaning to people than it does now, for the most part. Right. And you know, when that goes back to the conversation I think we're having before we started about like a quick clip thing and like, you catch 30 seconds of someone's life. Well, someone sees the hunting beast, you know, talking about doing that. But it's like 1970.

23:26 And, you know, we need a whole picture of life to develop a true like perception or like opinion about about things. And we don't often get that. So that's why I talk with people for an hour and a half sit here. But I think it's important. You know, it's kind of funny if you look at the whole cycle of things. I don't think a lot of people realize it until they're older, but hunting changes for people through their lives. Oh, yeah. You know, it starts out as like, it's you're proving your manhood, you know, like getting invited into camp to hunt with the adults. It's, it's kind of like you're part of the manhood thing. Then it gets about like, you want to kill a deer to show that you can do it, and then you want to kill a buck, right. And then you get your buck and then you want a bigger buck and then you want to shoot multiple deer. And then you get into this ego phase where it's about how big it is.

24:16 You start measuring them, putting them in books and stuff like that. And then after a while, you come around to calming down a little bit. And it's more about just hunting, getting a good buck and enjoying the thing and, and living life. And, you know, it gets to a point when you're even older, you, you start kind of rooting for the deer. Yeah, I'm kind of happy when they get away. You kind of laugh about it. You know, when I was in my 20s, I probably couldn't laugh when a big buck ran away, but I can't now, you know? It changes throughout your whole life, you know. Do your kids hunt? My son James does OK. My son Danny did when he was younger. Not against it, just don't.

24:59 Yep, James still haunts. He broke his back last year. I saw in a car. Accident. So he didn't get out this season at all and he's had some issues in life. I'm hoping that he comes back around. Yeah, he said. He, he he's real interested in hunting, you know, so he shot some pretty nice bucks right off the bat. I mean, his first 3 deer were all box and all real nice. Nice. You know, So you got a little spoiled. Don't get used to it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I asked. Because I think that's the, that's the natural progression that I'm in right now. You know one of the things that I hate to cut you. Off no do it. But we got on that subject, 1 of the things that bothers him the most about hunting is he just wants to go out and hunt.

25:46 He he'll tell me this in confidence. He'll probably get mad for me telling you this, but he should, he should hear about it. He'll tell me in confidence that he just wants to go hunt and have fun. And everybody's got this expectation of him to shoot big bucks because of who his dad is. Yeah. And I'm like, James, you just go do what you want. You got to be your own person, you know? But he looks at me as like, kind of like, it's it's a bad thing that, you know, he's he's represent me. And I'm like, you're not, you're representing James, you know, and it's, it's harder than you think. You know, think about if you were some famous actor's son or something. Yep, you'd probably have that, that issue, you know, not that I'm famous or anything, but around town. And so he's going to hear about a lot. Yeah, well, I mean, your name and the phrase Wisconsin hunting legend has certainly been used in sentences. So and that's a that's a burden.

26:36 You know, it's a it's certainly is absolutely. It's a, you know, we build up, we build up all kinds of psychological barriers for ourselves that don't need to be there. But it's humans, It's our nature. You know, we have to fight to get through them. Yeah, that's all that's good. But like, so the, the one on the wall on on that side, that was the first buck that I shot that I would consider a mature buck. And I, I was probably, you know, 20-3 at the time or something like that. And speaking to your point from early, I remember walking with my chest high, man. That was my first good one. And now Fast forward to why I asked the question about your kids.

27:16 I have a four year old now and last year I, he had, this year I took him out with me for the first time. We sat for like an hour. It went OK, he liked it, but he got cold and stuff. But last year I got a chance. I, I got, we had a good opening day of rifle season. It happened quick. It fit that he could come out and check out the deer afterwards. And just that experience shifted my it shifted my motivation and like my intention for hunting as you're talking about how you go through seasons of life hunting different things. After seeing that, if he ends up being interested in hunting, I will not care if I ever shoot another deer again, it'll be supporting him. And you know, you want to go to this piece of land, you go to the best spot.

28:06 I'll find a different spot. Maybe I'll shoot one, maybe I won't. It's it's to the point where but that 24 year old that shot that one, that one was real proud of the having that and it was ready for the next one and the next one and the next one. And it's just the that the seasons of a hunter are important though, because I don't know, I mean, you could go through your whole life just trying to get 2 inches bigger than your last buck, but what's at the end of the tunnel? So if you look, I'm 59 years old, right? So I've been hunting for 50 years. It's really not that long. It's fifty seasons. Yeah. And we change this much over 50 seasons. Yeah. You know, it's, it's, it's kind of amazing when you look back. And how about the how about the external life lessons you get that aren't even hunting related that come with it? Right.

28:57 Or the camaraderie, one of my one of my favorite videos of yours. I was watching. I remember watching this with my wife and I can't remember the fellow's name, but it's the dude with the big beard that you hunt with. And you guys were in the UP. Eric, Eric, yes. And you made these awesome, like sandwiches were like the chunk of meat on it was like, and my wife was like, what are they eating? And like a memory like that, you know, it's it's just adjacent to hunting. But like, I don't know, I almost thought about like having some sandwiches like that for us today. Just absolutely. They were. Comically big and, and just awesome. But like, I think about, you know, the awesome conversations I've had with my dad throughout the years because we hunt, you know, we're at camp or whatever, or just talking more of the outdoors lens.

29:47 One of my best friends grew up in a family that wasn't an outdoor family and it was actually down by Milwaukee. I, I used to live somewhat close and I, I brought him like I taught him how to fish. And now like he told me a couple summers ago that he was showing his kids how to fish. And like, man, you hear something like that. It's, it's not about catching, you know, a 30 inch walleye or you know, a 5 LB largemouth. It's about like that thing that you share that comes with hunting and all the lessons that come with it about persistence and, you know, motivation and doing what others won't and all that stuff, you know? Yeah, exactly. Yeah. So there's a bunch of different directions we could go today.

30:30 I'm going to try not to allow myself to go, continue to go in the weeds of like picking at your hunting knowledge because that's what you do, you know? And we're about sharing the story of the person. But one thing that might kind of toe that line is you do these cool like guided experiences where you'll take a bunch of guys out into the. Workshops. Yeah. And and you'll, you'll scout the land with them and show it. How did those start? And what do you, what do you see develop out of those? Because I bet it's more than hunting too sometimes. Yeah. And I think it's more for the person that comes. I mean, I do get some things out of that. I, I meet some and experience some very unique people.

31:13 You wouldn't believe the type of people that show up because you get the stereotype kind of like you do in anything in life of what that type of person is, right? But I, I, you know, I've had people from every race, I mean every gender, you know, from all over the country show up people you wouldn't expect. And it's always fun to hear their stories and see their journey and hear about what they're struggling about because we, we get really into depth about them personally and stuff in these groups, you know, to how they can advance, you know, but we take them and we, we actually go on public land where I've been very successful.

31:54 And we go to spots where I've shot the videos that you've watched and, and look at where the actual book they watched on video got killed and how, how it lived and where it went there and how I figured out where to hunt and how close I was. You really can't see that perception on video. You know, a lot of times I'm 5075 yards for at least you're about it because they don't move as far as people think in daylight, not when they're 6-7 years old. But it's a real good experience for the people that do come. One of the strangest ones I guess was I had a guy contact me and he said he wanted to come on a workshop and he said, but he was scared to come. And I so I asked him to call me and he called me and he said once he called, I could tell he was Muslim, you know, by his voice.

32:46 And he said he was Muslim and he was scared to come because it was right when all that 911 stuff was happening because I've been doing this for 25 years, you know. But he said, I think people are going to be prejudice or maybe I shouldn't come, you know. And I said, if anybody's got a problem with you, they can leave. And he said, OK, I'll come. So then he came and it was he dressed in like the Muslim type where that their clothes almost looks like a dress. You had a turban on and it was very strange, but he drove a truck covered in deer hunting stickers. That's so awesome dude. It kind of bonds you, you know, it brings all these different type of people together. Hunting does, you know, where, you know, if you walk up to somebody, once you find out they're a hunter, it's it's like they're OK.

33:39 Yeah. We searched for commonalities, people. Yeah. Well, that's kind of funny you bring that up. You asked me like, what Routed was a Routed Wisconsin was all about when he came in today doing 3 episodes today. One was the owner of of like a health type restaurant where it's all about like, eating good whole food. Second person was a musician, third person was you. But there's going to be connection in every conversation. Yeah, I got that connection. I eat real good. I make those sandwiches. Those sandwiches. Absolutely there there is certainly something to be said about eaten wild game and the Wellness benefits of it. But that's a that's a fascinating story. Did he tell you how he started hunting in the 1st place? How he ended up with a truck.

34:23 Full of he, he didn't he, he didn't we, we didn't get into that because he was, he was a little shy to talk, but I didn't want to push him. He was a great guy and we're still friends. I mean, he calls me all the time. He keeps trying to get me to go down to Missouri and and hunt and scout with him. People have been like going to Missouri to hunt. I've I've talked to the seemingly in the last like 2 years I've talked to several people who either like bought a place in Missouri or go to Missouri to hunt. I don't, I don't know why I I do almost all of my hunting in Wisconsin, but they must be a thriving in in some way. That's that's such a cool story, though. And I think that's some of what we were Speaking of earlier.

35:03 Like not only do you get lost in the outdoors and find yourself, but you can find your people. Yeah. Last year I had a guy come from India. He moved from India to Canada because he always wanted to be a hunter and India wouldn't let him haunt. So he saved up and moved to Canada and became a Canadian resident. And then from Canada, when he got there, he didn't know what he was doing and had no friends. So he saw my workshop thing and flew to Wisconsin to come to the workshop to learn how to hunt. That is absolutely amazing. Yeah, his name is Dervish. Man, end of that day you just got to sit down and just reflect on this.

35:47 You got to say to me, I must be doing something right. That's so cool. It's. Amazing how many people you touch you know over the years. Yeah, well, especially with the size of the follower ship that you've grown. And I think that speaks to doing things the right way and just like doing it in a way that you know it's true to you and makes sense. Like when you do that, people gravitate towards you. And then of course, like the wealth of knowledge is ridiculous and that's a draw too. But it's more than that. It's. Oh now I lost my train of thought second time. Something you said in there though really sticks out to me.

36:27 I know I see, look at I I just said it 5 minutes ago that I wasn't going to get in the XS and OS but I have to though I always wondered like you, you always talk about getting as close to betting as possible, so you'll like you'll be 5075 yards from where you're relatively sure that is a better. It depends on the terrain, but yes, that's amazing. So like in swamps and marshes I'll get and sometimes in farmland, depending, I'll get that close. But in Hill Country or or big woods, you just can't get that close. You're going to be back like 200 yards. But if you think of like the wheels of a the spokes of a wheel, you know if that deer is bedded where the the hub is, he go down any one of those trails and the further away he gets, the further he's outside of your range or whatever. Right now there ain't that many spokes coming out of a bed and area, but there might be 3 or 4 trails. But the closer you are, less likely he's going to veer off and wander someplace else.

37:21 Not only that, but they just don't move very far in daylight. Now one day they might move 800 yards and you can't use that as your example. If you get within that range, if he's there, he will move within 5075 yards in daylight. So you will get a chance. But if you're back further and he comes through after dark that day, you're there, he's going to smell you were there and it's over. Like deer will not tolerate human scent near a bedding area. It's kind of funny because where you leave your scent has a huge impact on how deer impacted. Like when you walk in on trails and stuff like I know you have, you see deer cross the trail and you know what, 10 people walk up that trail a day.

38:02 You're like, he didn't even smell to see where the people were. Put that near his bed in there and he'll freak out when he smells you right? And then he'll move to one of his other bed in there. So you got like one chance. So that one chance you got to make right. And most of the really big deer up shot I figured out in spring when they weren't even home because they're not bed in there at that time. Then I come back and fall the right day, the right time and get right in there and kill them. But you have to, when you look at those bedding areas, figure out the timing and exactly when is that deer you know, based on what you're seeing in spring using that bedding area. Yeah. How does that work? How does that work in the marsh, like when you're slopping through, you know, your boot makes the walk And then if it's not a breezy day, like how do you get so close in the in like wetland condition? You think you can go slow and not make noise and that stuff, but you make noise.

38:59 But you sound like a freight train going through cat tails, right? Yeah, but to a deer, you don't. You know why? I'll tell you. Have you ever been in a marsh? You get in marshes. Yeah. So if you're in there and a pheasant hunter walks up on you, do you ever notice they get right up on you before you even notice them? You know why the cat tails act as a sound barrier. It doesn't go through the cat tails that that fast. I get up in a tree, I can hear a deer coming for a mile. I get on the ground. I don't notice them until they're right in front of. Me. That's interesting. I've never thought about it that way, but it makes complete sense. Got to go slow. You can't make a lot of noise, but you get away with more than you think you're going to yourself. You sound like oh, I just blew it. I just blew it. I mean you think about like that.

39:42 I don't know if you watched it but there's a hunt I did about 5-6 years ago in the marsh where I shot an animal is after for about 5 years. There's a 7 year old buck and I was trying to figure them out. I went in there in spring and because I had been hunting this thing so hard. I did see this one. It's the one that he was on kind of this little island with. No, there was no trees around, right? You had to figure out how to get to him. Yes, I did. Yeah, So when you get in there, I mean, that's all water, all cattles. How do you kill them? Yep. I had to find this bed near. And what it was, was like you said that that hump of grass sticking out of the cattails that had some Dogwood on the side of it. And you look in the Dogwood and it's all ripped up or not Dogwood, Willow brush to be exact. But it's all ripped up with rubs. And there's just beds in there everywhere. And you know that this is where that buck lives. And those those rubs are from a significant animal. There's not that many animals out there. So I'm saying he bets here.

40:40 It's a matter of timing. When is he betting there? Well, those that Willow brush loses its leaves in early October. So I'm putting the timing thing together. This is what I'm doing when I'm skeleton, you know, and there ain't no bucking lay on that island in the bare open sun. They'd move into the cattails. So all those beds are being done when they have hard antlers because they're rubbing trees and they might be there before that, but they're the buck that's doing this is betting there when he has hard antlers and before those leaves drop. That's a pretty short window. That's like a month. So I know that that month frame, all those beds were made that have those rubs in them. So I know what timing to be there. So then I got to figure out, well, how's he coming out of here?

41:23 Follow the trail back, find the first tree I could hunt out of that particular spot. Get back to your first point about the noise and stuff. I have to go through that bed near where the buck is to get to the tree. He's getting up on the, you know, 100 yards in from private, walking the private off of the public. I got to walk through him and so I found a way to go all the way around him and skirt a property line. But I'm getting within 100 yards slip around him. So I waited till it was a real windy day because I was going to be walking water up to my knees. Yeah, you know, it's sloshing. But I went in there and I set up the very first time. I didn't kill him. I know you watched a video. So I didn't kill him the first time.

42:06 But what I did do was when I got in there, after circling his bed near, I got up a tree, I set up a tree stand and all the sticks and everything got set up and a fawn got up like 15 yards for me, bedded just before dark gets up. Never knew I climbed that tree, set up the stand or anything. A little while later, 20 yards in front of me, a dole got up in front of me. So those deer, I was beating them in the nasty conditions. All that noise you're making, I'm able to get into the spots and that's what I credit to. They can't hear you through those cattails because I've had pheasant hunters pop up all of a sudden. You're 10 feet from you're like, where did you come from?

42:46 How did I not hear you? But I can tell you if you, if you hunt in that situation, you're in a tree. You say, well, I heard Pheasant Hunter from 500 yards out before I could even see his hat, you know, But at ground level, you can't. Yeah, that's that makes complete sense and something I've never thought about my life. I'm like I said, I'm just getting to this point. So now like my proficiency, I'm really I can I can really get at big bucks right now during the rut because I understand how funnels work now and I can like put myself in a really like high percentage area. My next area of evolution is this thing. It's it's like and IA lot of it comes from watching your videos. It's to your credit, like I want to, I want to October 20th, I want to be able to kill a mature buck and I want to do it 100 yards from his betting area.

43:37 Whereas right now, like I've I've developed a tactic that works, but I haven't spent a ton of time doing this. Like the story about me laying on the ground and that that was still in a wooded area. It was just like, not a climbable wooded area, you know? You know, if you, you look at the deer I've killed, if you, if you look at the number of bucks that are like big, what people consider big bucks and shooters, I've killed more during rut and I obviously have a lot more sightings during rut, Right. But when you look at deer when they get to blue, like 5 years old and older, I've killed way more in early season in September than in rut and seen a lot more. I see a lot less deer.

44:22 Yeah, I see a lot less if you include all the deer. Like the nice deer. Yeah, like, say, shooters. I see a lot more shooters in rut. Well, you're talking big mature bucks that are like 5 years old or older. That early season has been the ticket for me. And does that speak to having a little bit more consistency with, you know, where they're going to lay down and you know where they're going to be bedded and you know exactly what they're going to do? You know, deer kind of unpredictable about how they bed. You can figure out these bedding areas and stuff. But if it was rocket science, I'd kill whenever we hunt, right, because of how much work I put into it. But you, you know, I did like a study where I put and I do studies every year, but I I put trail cameras in in all these bedding areas and then just didn't hunt them and watch the bedding areas, you know, to see what happens all year or what's your bucks bed.

45:09 And I and I was real surprised to see it, see how it worked. I did this couple years. There's a timing thing. It is like a two week window on most bed and areas and they'll look like a buck. Beds are all the time. There's like a two week window where those bucks are there more than the rest of the year. And then it's not even every day, you know, like say you got 14 days in that 14 days that there's there six times you, you, you know, it's still less than 50% odds, right? Maybe even less than 69, let's say five times in that still. Great odds as a hunter. Comparatively correct. Yeah. So when you get outside of that two week period where where he's there four or five times, let's say, right, he might be there another four or five times scattered through the year.

45:53 And then there's a lot of little boxes stuff to come in and out in between those times, right? He's got a window of time at each one of these bedding areas and he's there for a specific reason. There's nothing he's doing, you know, half assed. It has to do with the cover at that time of the year. It has to do with the food source. It has to do with being adjacent to doughs. There's reasons he's in the spots he's at, so he shifts those spots and it can be a spot has two different peak times, but you got to hit those windows, you know? Goes to the story of the you know the the thing we've all said. I've never had a picture of this one, but he comes walking The Walking through. Yeah, so that, that is one, one question I had like diagnosing a bedding area that like a lot of times I, I, I as a hunter, I can't get to a spot where I can get in like a, you know, a 20 yard radius of something where and it seems like you're able to do that a lot.

46:53 And like I'll see the beds. I can't, I can't see the, I don't know if you'd call it the bigger picture, but like it's like, yeah, this is probably a nice little bedding area, but I can't drill it down that far. Is there a like what? That's the number one thing I hear at the workshops. We always discuss what you learn. Yeah. And the number one thing that said is I would have walked right through all these bedding areas. I would have thought, this is nothing. OK, now I know how to look at it. And is it? It's hard to explain. I mean, I show it on video, but it's like 1 dimensional. Yeah, you know what I mean? So it's hard to grasp. You can't see your whole surroundings, Yeah. Exactly.

47:35 But it's really terrain based, mature bucks bed and base on terrain for wind, for cover, for protection. I mean, if you think about how they lay down, it's going to be, they look at an area like, OK, somebody's trying to kill me, how can I cover all my bases? So they'll get on a long point or something where they can watch the human axis. You know, if it's a swamp, say there's a point that goes out in the cat tails, they'll sit on that tip. They can monitor the anybody coming down that point, which is where coyotes, people, anything that's coming out of them is going to come. If it comes from the cat tails, they'll hear it. And then they'll put the wind from the cat tails to their back looking up this point.

48:17 Now, if the wind blows down the point, they'll still bed there. They'll just get up and they'll go into the cat tails because now they can smell the point, sure. And they'll, they'll have multiple beds in that area. But a lot of times you can't just you'll look at those beds and you'll say, well, that ain't nothing. And different trains are different. Some trains or something like lower areas, I'll buck my bed there. You know, let's say several bucks bed there. But over a year's time, maybe 40 * a deer bedded there, right? The bed will just be worn out. Or you get a bed like on a hillside or something and you can't even tell it's a bed, you know, unless you got a really trained eye. But that buck's getting up, moving constantly as the wind shifts around because now he's betting based on that wind thermals.

49:06 So it's not always easy. But what is consistent is the terrain type that they bed in. And and it differs from like Hill Country to swamps or whatever. But once you get an eye for that, I get out of a truck and I look at I look at where I'm going to hunt. I'm like the buck's going to come from right there. And that's generally if one comes nine out of 10 times, that's where it's going to come from. And sometimes I can't even explain it. But I've just trained my mind into that from looking at so many bedding areas that I know what the train is and it differs too. So I can't explain it and say this kind of points going to happen. That's because, you know, like you go to, I travel all over the country, as you know, you go down to Iowa and you'll find giant bucks and something that wouldn't hold a rabbit in Wisconsin. But the common theme is it's the best terrain they have that offers some cover.

49:57 You know, so when you look at it like it's a trap and and they're, and they're like a like, like you almost think of them as like an army soldier and, and the other army is US trying to kill them. They're setting themselves up to see, smell or hear you and they're going to they're going to use the train to funnel you, to give you away. You'll, you'll find some of the best buck beds overlooking the trails where people access properties. They'll watch real close to the parking lot where everybody comes in to see where they go. Like they want to know where the where the enemy is. You know, once you understand that, you start to look at the trains.

50:38 It's a repetitive thing and you start to find those deer in the spots and it's like these deer are they like say when they're a year and a half or a fawn or whatever. Let's just take a look at the button buck you shot. Your first deer was a button buck. Mine was a button buck, right? The reason we killed those deer is cuz they're kicked out in a rut and they're the stupidest animal in the woods. Yep. They're just wandering around without their mom now. What? Right. They're very vulnerable during gun season, you know, So when they get to a year and a half, they learn some lessons from that. Fun time, right? Especially if you're on public land.

51:19 They learn some lessons. They get to a year and a half, they're still pretty dumb. They're going to run into some hunters. They're probably going to get past a couple times, hopefully, maybe not, but maybe they learn some life lessons. They get to be two years old. They start to become a pretty smart animal. Oh yeah. They get to three and four and they really get smart. You start getting mature bucks and they're a whole different animal. It's like the difference between hunting a rabbit versus a squirrel. That's a small bucks and big bucks are two different things. And what they do is they learn from mistakes. They learn that when they're abetted, some coyote walked right up to him. Holy crap, where did this come from? And they start to get paranoid. They start to change.

52:00 This is my my opinion. Obviously I'm not talking to the deer, but they're going to, they're going to learn from their environment what they're doing wrong and they get better and better at it. So when I look at it like like, say I break down a 2000 acre marsh, I might find $100 bedding areas that have ripped up rubs in the beds, right? But if I look close, what I'll find is a half dozen of those will be used by mature bucks and they won't use the rest and the rest will just always have two year olds. The older they get, the more picky they get about their beds and exactly where they lay A lot of times in in good terrains. When you get into and you find a big bucks bedding area, when you look at it, the first thing that comes in your mind it's like, Oh my gosh, he is set up so well. How would you ever kill this thing? This is crazy.

52:52 I'm you know when you start scouting in the spring and looking at deers bedding areas, it's very eye opening. And that's one thing I've never done yet. I I don't do. I don't do it. I mean, I do until the until like the spring vegetation comes in like once spring and summer vegetation is there. I I just tend to lean on things that I learned last fall. And get an opening invite. Why don't you come to the workshops? Absolutely, I would love to. Yeah, no charge. Just come on out. I would love to. That would be awesome. Actually I think I saw you post something the other day. You got one cut. Is it next month? I got 1/2 next week Saturday and Saturday and Sunday and then there's a week in between because I didn't want to do Valentine's Day the week after. That's my last two.

53:36 OK. That's when you should come. I'll take you up on that offer. You can go. I would I would love that. There's so much and, and you're, I mean, you're dead on. That's I love the analogy of, you know, the, the old buck versus the young buck that is completely two different animals like the, the, the three or five pointer that walked up and smelled my hand. You know, that's not going to happen with a 5 year old buck. But that's, I don't know. It's, it's very, it's very tricky. And and, you know, hearing the trained eye is, is what it's like, you know, hunting for a mushroom or whatever it is. Like once you kind of learn those things, I remember was this two years ago, I was doing some scouting and I was walking on this place where I, I got this feel that, you know, when you, you get a feeling when you step into a place that you're like, OK, deer spend a lot of time here. Like you, you get one of those.

54:30 And I had that feeling and I never saw the deer. But you know, deer being a creature of edge, I was kind of walking in an area that was easier to walk. And there was a little hill that went down into this very thick brushy stuff. And like 5 seconds before it happened, I was like, there's, there's going to be a, there's monsters in here. And I took 10 more steps and I heard the heavy footed clunk, clunk, clunk run away. And that's just such a satisfying feeling when you can, when you make that start to make that connection in your mind because the, the 20 year old Brad Hunter wasn't doing that. Like I, I didn't put those pieces together. I was looking at trails and more than likely I was looking at big old doe trails and I'm getting all pumped up that there's so many deer walking down, but they're all, you know, doze in a year and a half old bucks. But that's the trained eye.

55:22 Yeah, I will definitely take you up on that, man, because the you never. I think it's one of the fun things about hunting too, is you never stop learning. The you know, even you you, I'm sure you come across every year something new or novel that you never. Would have thought of. I mean one of the one of the most recent ones was the big ones. Was was it 2 years ago I shot that real big buck in southern Wisconsin and buckthorn swamps. Yeah, yeah. That one, I noticed a whole bunch of cars in that parking lot. There's never that many. There's always one or two. All the sudden there's like 6:00 or 8:00 every day. I'm like something's going on.

56:05 I come to the realization it's all different world. Everybody's using trail cams now, and there's cell cams everywhere. Everywhere I go there's cameras. So if there's something big, there's going to be a lot of trucks. OK, so then it's not like I'm scamming somebody's spot or something. But you look at that and say, OK, what are they missing? And that's what I did. I said, well, they're not getting out in that buckthorn. If there's something big here, that's where it's at. And I shouted the first day I haunted there. So bad ass. That's one thing I was going to ask you about today because of the, the properties that I go to. I, I, I'm kind of just trying to perfect a couple public spots that I have that, that I know that I can kind of get to somewhere where other people won't go.

56:48 And in like I have the terrain down. What's the, what for the common hunter, somebody who's maybe even thinking about just starting doing this in Wisconsin? I think something that you know, you talk with an outdoorsman and they talk about pressure on on public land being a negative thing. two-part question. What what is the real the what's the realism of that pressure right now? Like is it truly like when you go to every piece of public land, you're probably going to run across hunters, sometimes a bunch of them. And two, I already know your answer this, but I want everybody to know the answer this. What is that always a negative when that when that parking lot is full of trucks? So sort of negative in a lot of lot of hunters is that if they kill everything, there's nothing there to kill or if they push the stuff off the land, right?

57:35 But they don't always do that. Hunters have a way of thinking in a way of access and property. And a lot of guys just go to the same trees over and over again. So if you look at a property, figure out where they're not going, you know, for instance, the area where we go do the workshop at, you know, I do that spot because I've killed a lot of bucks in there and it's laid out in a way that's that teaches well. But I've shot a lot of big bucks in there. And I'll tell you what, you go in there and rut and there's usually about 25 cars in that parking lot, 25 trucks, and there's probably more than one person per truck. I mean, an axis is a very large area and I've killed I'd probably say 7 or 8 bucks bigger than Pope and Young out of that parking lot. Nice.

58:27 So numbers of people isn't necessarily a bad thing. Deer have to have a place to hide and they have to grow up. You know, the one thing I look at, look for in Wisconsin, Wisconsin has a lot of pressure. The one thing I look for is water. You know, unless you're in a Hill Country, like in western Wisconsin and it's a different ball game. But if you're in this area, you know, northern Wisconsin, southeastern Wisconsin, you're looking for water that has cover in it because people just don't go in there. They don't penetrate it. And generally there isn't huntable trees and that stuff. I make them huntable trees. You know, I've, I've pulled 3 bushes together with straps to make them sturdy enough to hold my stand so I get elevated enough to shoot.

59:11 Sure, but you got to get into those areas where those deer live. And when you look at a public property, the first thing I do is like I'll study maps of an area and I'll pick up properties based on the features I see on the map. Then I'll do a drive around and look at the properties. I'm looking for stuff where I look at it and I say, you know, you couldn't take 30 guys that get together and do a drive and push this land and kill a deer in there. You can kill deer, but there's going to be deer that can get around you. It's impossible to kill all the deer in there. You know, those are the types of properties I'm looking at. Then I'll dive in and I'll look for sign. And for me, I want to find some rubs that are, you know, waist higher, higher in the center. And then I know there's a big buck that lives there where there's been big bucks that live there. Hopefully you find multiple rubs like that. And if I take the best land features, I'm like, OK, there should be bed in here and there should be bed in here. And I go to those two features and that sign isn't there. I'm not looking at the rest.

1:00:10 Of the property back in the truck. I don't want to waste my time going to another property and I'm finding those features and then when I find those features, then I'll concentrate that property. Then I'll break that whole property down and I'll figure out where all the bucks bet on her. And then I'll I'll have setups in mind for each one of those bed in areas. And then that next fall, I'll go back and I'll go in there for a hunt or two and see if the sign's there because sometimes it's deer get killed, you know, and they're not there the next year. But I'll see the sign and do a hunt. And if I don't see what I like, I'll move on to another property. I might come back and revisit that. But if I go in there and it's got the sign and I don't kill them, then I'll start hunting that area down. Or if I see the deer or if I get a trail camp picture of the deer or something, then I'll take that swamp and I'll say, OK, I know where all the bedding areas are. This is what's going on now.

1:00:57 The acorns are dropping over here. I'll check the bedding by the acorns. I'll hit those beds when it wins, right? You know. Then I'll go over and I'll check this and I'll check that, you know, and I'll just hunt that whole area down until I either kill them or run out of spots. Yeah, that's the rub thing, by the way, is something I'd never heard until I started watching your stuff. I never concentrated on how high or low the rub was on the tree. I would look at my focus. Would, you know, a lot of sign, It's hard to tell. Like it like it's very tough. But my focus would always be like if wherever the main part of the rub is, if I could find some little pieces of the rub that were outside of that, that's what I would look for.

1:01:41 Never even thought about. OK, yeah, obviously a bigger deer is going to be taller. I never thought to like, compare it to the level. That's awesome. I'll tell you what, in Wisconsin a 2 year old buck is usually a pretty good buck. Likewise, they got a good solid rack. Yeah, those deer will RIP up trees like you wouldn't believe, and people think they're on a monster. Yeah, for sure. Yeah, that's a we're kind of we're a little bit spoiled in that realm, aren't we? It's awesome to be able to see it to a 2 year old buck could be a pretty good good buck. But that's very true. Like I I do hunt like I have some private that I hunt a lot and like that it's it's surrounded by farmland adjacent is like 200 acres of swamp that is single owner and then the private.

1:02:25 So it's like, you know, a 2 year old buck there could hypothetically walk 50 yards into the corn every single day and walk back to the bed and just grew into a giant without having any pressure in life. It's a it's a good problem to have, right? Yeah, yeah, the kind of the the property you were talking or like the concept you were talking about earlier is, is one of the public places that I go to a lot. Very heavily pressured. I I find stands all the time, but it's amazing what'll get what'll stop people from walking through in this particular piece of property. There's these beautiful, you park by these beautiful oak ridges.

1:03:06 There's it's all oaks hardwoods it like and there's so many stands in there. It's crazy. And then depending on the route you take, you have to cross between maybe like 200 to at the thicker parts, maybe like 500 yards of like swampy cattail Y, you know, small Alder tree brush type stuff. And on the opposite side of that, there's a bunch of these beautiful like little oak knobs that are higher than the other places around. And I find 10% of the sign in those that I do on that front piece because people don't want to walk through that 200 yards of stuff. And that's what I thought figured you were going to get out of like often times it's just the a little next step, like just do a little bit more than the other guy. You don't have to walk to the back of the 2000 acres all the time.

1:04:01 Sometimes you do. But what I'm trying to develop is the skill or ability to realize what gets another Hunter's way actually, as opposed to like trying to find the deer, because I think I can do that now. But that's changed from the 24 year old guy that sat in the biggest oak tree I could find on a nice Ridge. Like, it's just trying to find out in those instances where if there's three other cars there, where are those three guys compared to where I'm going to go. And I just hope that that I ultimately ask a question because I hope that that doesn't keep too many, like aspiring hunters out of the woods to like drive by the parking lot, you know, at 5:00 in the morning and there's six cars there already.

1:04:44 I don't want them to turn around and go. Home, I've had people tell me that they won't, they won't haunt in a parking lot or somebody there. And my response to them is almost always if if I drove by parking lots because there's cars there, I wouldn't find a place to hunt. You would not, yeah. I actually, one of the largest deer I've ever shot, it actually bottomed out a £300 scale dress that deer, I could have hit my truck with a rock and the that's the parking lot that has 25 trucks in it all the time. Yeah, I was so close to the parking lot because I think live right next to the parking lot because nobody looked at that. Everybody would go and follow this long axis back into the to the woods.

1:05:26 And I think people generally hunt the middle ground. They feel like an idiot next to the road and the middle ground, they feel like they're getting back a little ways. They find some sign. They try to look for the train that they, their mind has been taught deer should live in. Most people think woods, I think deer don't live in the woods. They live in, in like the thick cover, the brush, the edge stuff, right? But they'll go look at those woods and stuff and they'll try to find sign. And you know, you know, they find a big rub, they put a stand over it. You know, it's notorious. You go through the middle of the woods and there's some huge rub. You look, where's the stand? You know, But the far stuff, I'm starting to find a lot of pressure and there's a lot of people getting more skilled at getting back OK.

1:06:08 I used to be able to canoe back and kayak the stuff and wade through rivers and I'm fine and sign everywhere I go. And I think the main thing that's giving people that confidence well, there's two things One of them is Onyx. Yep, Onyx has been probably the biggest game changer for everybody in the country 100%. The other thing is you know, that gives them the confidence to get back here. But the other thing is trail cameras. People eventually wander back there, like scouting or whatever, but they won't go back there for a hunt. But when they drop a camera there and they start getting pictures, then it changes their mind, sure. So I'm starting to see a lot of the deep people. But no matter how much you preach about it, you don't see many people by the road. You just don't.

1:06:53 Yeah, actually just found a great spot recently. As I'm picturing it in my mind as you're talking about it, it's 300 yards from the car. It's directly off the access trail, but everybody goes right. And then I just one day I was like, I wonder what's left? I went left and I found this awesome rub line there's and it's funny because the bedding is actually closer to the road that you come in on then the direction that everyone's going. So it's what it's like, like it's one of those spots where it's like, I think they're, you know, betting very close to the road and then they let everybody walk in. They watch him do it, stay out.

1:07:35 And then I think they they just kind of they can navigate getting to the food that I don't think many people hunt because it's like it's very open and it wouldn't be effective hunting. But I think they do it after dark. But I'm pretty sure I found a spot I can get them at 4:30 on their way there. So I guess I, and I think you kind of answered this already, but it sounds like, I mean overall public in Wisconsin is pretty heavily pressured, would you say? Yes, yeah. Yeah, and it seems. Like it's more pressured and more times too now. So like it used to be nobody came out to rut or at least until October. Now you see opening day, just 20 trucks in a parking lot.

1:08:17 People realize that opening day is good. You know, that didn't used to be the case. But if you look at recent state records and stuff, the the recent biggest bucks that have popped up, they're coming from opening weekends. OK, yeah. And like we said earlier, that does make sense. You know, you can I the year that we brought, we bought the private I was talking about earlier. I wish I would have I wish I would have haunted in that way. My my private, I leave till the rut. Like I don't even go in there because it doesn't, you know, why blow it out in October and then not even be able to hunt? So I don't even go in there during that, but the year we bought the property, we had two giants that were on camera just about every night at a normal time.

1:08:58 And I was, I was just getting excited for the rut. You know, I was like, oh, this is going to be good. The rut popped off and they they ghosted, you know, they disappeared, but I'm pretty sure they were killable. You know, September 17th or whatever opening day was a. Lot of guys will tell me like that like with a certain property that they'll stay out of it until rut because this is a really good spot. So I'll stay out till rut and my question is usually why? I try not to I, I at least for my aspect. I try not to disturb the doe's that are there. OK, because I think this one spot that I've killed several deer in the past few years, there's betting areas on each side. And then I I found this really good pinch point where Buxel cruise the downwind side and I can do several different wins from that stand because it it they just access differently depending on which way the winds blowing.

1:09:51 And I at least this is my theory, if I start climbing in that stand at, you know, early October and my wind blows into one of those bedding areas, the doze will figure me out, the doze will leave, and then the bucks are going to cruise that once or twice. You're doing that right. OK. I wasn't implying something. Yeah, what I was implying is that not everybody's doing it right. So what I mean by that is, is a lot of guys just think because there's some rubs and because it's a good area, they should stay out till rot. And. You got to look at when is the deer there, right? Because like I said, that that there's a distinct period of time when they bed in the spot.

1:10:33 Yeah. And they can leave a lot of sign in that time. I mean, they can be in a spot because of an acorn flat and be competing for those acorns to leave a lot of rubs down. And the guy I look at that and go, I ain't going in there till rut, rut. There's no deer there. In a lot of spots in Wisconsin, all the acorns will be eaten, especially with swampy lowlanders, limited acorns, you know, So I wouldn't let that dispel somebody from hunting a spot. What you said was you're you're you're between 2 doe bedding areas and supply right there. I'm out to rut. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. And that's this type of stuff, man. Like, I, you know, I think about all the time I spent in the woods to even get to that point, to even know that or understand it. And I just think about all the time I spent hanging in trees where I had no shot, no shot of getting anything but A5. Pointer, you know I can't, I can't even sit in a tree. If if I don't believe I'm going to kill a big buck, I literally go out in every setup.

1:11:30 I think I'm going to kill this buck tonight. Yeah. And if I didn't believe that, I'd go home. Yeah. And when I fail, I get up the next morning and go out and believe that. And that's why I'm successful because I can do that 20 times in a row without it affecting me. Some people, their morals are, I shouldn't say morals, but they're they're self being is just destroyed if they don't see a deer in 20 days. And you know, that's another thing is a lot of guys got to see deer. So when they're not seeing deer, they start gravitating back to food sources. They start dating back to funnels and stuff like that, and they'll see deer, but then they're hunting deer, not big bucks. They're two different animals. 100% yeah. Oh, I just had a question in there about that. Oh, oh.

1:12:11 What do you think? Because I run into that too, and I don't know if it's the general impatience of society or, but what do you what do you think? Like the accessibility in the amount of like hunting footage has to do with that people that don't do it like you, but people that it's a you know, they do 20 minute episodes and every episode is when they kill a big buck. Do you think that's had of any had of had anything to do with that of people just like expecting it when it's really so incredibly hard to do? I I think that actually has come the opposite. I think it makes a guy think what am I doing wrong? OK, interesting. But you know, when you see those hunts, you got to realize those guys are hunting on pristine managed land, right? You know, and another thing I think that gets people to hunt like field edges and stuff where you really don't in season see very many mature bucks and field edges. You can you can do it.

1:13:02 There's there's cases where I'll hunt like that, but not many. You know, most of the time I'm in right where they'll move in daylight and that's it. And a buck on. We talked about lessons growing those deer and how they bed, how they act when they move based on lessons. You know, most of the mature bucks I've shot on public land, you can find projectile holes in them. You can find wounds in them. They got a little bit of a limp. Most of them you really broad heads out of the shoulders. Yeah, when they get to be. Not most of the deer I should. But when you shoot one of those mature older ones that I'm hunting for years, when they start to get in that 567 years old, even some of the four year olds, I mean, I've seen broadhead holes. A couple of my mounts have broadhead holes through the air, through the ears, through the ears. Two of them do.

1:13:47 Two of them do. Yeah. One of them has a wound in its neck. And you know, I've pulled broadheads out. I shot a buck one time. I hit it in the leg. And I ended up having to track it along with us tracking it. And I hit it bad. I ended up tracking it for two days, just sparse snow. And when I finally caught up to it, I don't know what it was doing or why, but it ran right at me. I don't know if it didn't know where I was or if it just it's last rah. I have no idea. But it was gun season. I picked up the gun and I shot it right here, right in the middle of the neck there in the white patch. And it's skilled to a halt in front of me. And I was shocked. It was a 3030 that there's no bullet hole in the back of the neck.

1:14:27 And when we butchered it, the bullet just by chance, hit dead center in the middle of a broadhead, which was a bodkin from like one of those ones that they use in a wooden arrows. OK. It hit the center of that broadhead, bent the broadhead and pushed it into the spine and broke its spine. That broadhead was grown into its neck, you know, But I find broadheads, stuff like that in those deer all the time. So now you get in that public, that private land that managed land that you're watching these videos with, you know, one of these higher end people like Drurys or something. Not knocking him. He's got a great. We'd all like to have what he has. Yeah. But you watch those videos, that's not reality. Those deer have never seen that. They've never been shot.

1:15:08 They've been watched your whole life. And when they run into a hunter, it's a good experience. It's not a bad experience. Yeah, I've, I've haunted managed lands. I've been a managed lands and you have 3 year old deer walk out and look at you in the tree and go back to feed. And you will not have that on public in Wisconsin, I guarantee it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I saw one of those recently. It was a cool video. It was a, it was a guy's daughter. And the guy had one of these. He had, you know, several 100 acres of pristinely managed land walked out and you could tell like they were confident that they were going to shoot good deer that day. And it was gun season. And they I was, I was really impressed that they said it in the episode that the guy said that that area like he had a tower blind there and everything. That area hadn't been accessed by foot in over a year. Like no one had stepped in.

1:16:01 It was this beautiful, lush food plot with thick brush around it. And to have the ability to let that sit for over a year until your daughter was going to come and hunt it. You're right. We all would like that because it it turns it into, you know, we're talking a lot about the science of deer hunting that turns it a little bit more into the experience of deer hunting of that kind because like, I don't know it, it's not, it's still not fish in a barrel. But you're right. Like how many times in the daylight have Wisconsin hunter in any type of pressure property seen a good buck in the middle of the field in the day? It happens, but it's not a lot. Very rarely, yeah.

1:16:43 And generally it's, you know, November 9th. And they've got a really specific reason they're standing out in that thing. Oh, man, you must put a lot of miles on your vehicle, huh? Yeah. I actually I just went out to that legends hunt. This last one I did out in in Massachusetts. I got an oil change before I went and I put 6000 on on an oil change because I do the synthetic. So do I, yeah. I got home, I needed an oil change. I was only out there for four days. What are those ones? You were up in the UP You you you 2 had a spot that was pretty good if I remember right. And then I can't remember if the snow melted or something, something happened and then you ended up just like, OK, we're going to go check out another spot. And then in the video, you were like, yeah, this was two hours away.

1:17:36 We'll be lucky enough to make it back. It didn't. I'm not the afternoon, right? That might have been the same one where you ate the sandwiches, actually, now that I'm thinking of it. But man, there's. I do that all the time. I love hopping around. Yeah. You know, for me a lot of these travel trips are about experience in the areas you know as a YouTube if you want to call me that. Oh, you certainly are. Who travels in haunts? The best way to have success with people watching your videos is to go to places that have high percentages of success. I have a tendency to pick the hard place. You said the UP, you know Michigan, you know, lower Michigan, you know, you know, I love the challenge. I love to do what people tell me I can't do. Like when somebody says you can't come here and do that here, These bucks ain't the same. I'm like, Oh yeah, I got that little piece in me, you know? Yeah, yeah.

1:18:30 Well, sometimes that that motivation is why you're ultimately good at something you do anyway, because it's it's kind of that, you know, chip on your shoulder like thing like, OK, yeah, I've always been that type of person too. Like tell me I can't do something. Like I like it when someone tells me I can't do it because then it's going to push me a little bit further than I would have went anyway to do it. And man, to tell you the truth, I mean, this type of hunting, the type of hunting you do it, it takes that because I mean it, it, I don't know a whole lot of people that would call it fun walking through that 600 yards of Alder brush with water up to your, you know, middle of your leg. That's not the outdoors that I'm finding all this satisfaction in, but it gets me there.

1:19:15 But what what makes you walk through that? It's that motivation to say, OK, like I I want to do this for a reason. And sure, the seasons of the hunter might develop the reason differently, but something has to drive you to do it. Otherwise there wouldn't be 12 guys sitting. You know who you just walked by on the way you're. Part of it is, you know, is to prove to yourself you can do it. Yeah. You know, like, like, you know, a lot of guys will tell me, I can't believe you hump actor. What if you shoot a buck? Great. That's what I'm there for, you know? But I've never, ever worried about how am I going to get this deer out? No, I shoot. The deer. And then I may ask that question, Oh my God, how are we going to do this? I can't say in my later years, I'm pretty careful about where I shoot a doe.

1:20:04 But as far as bucks, if I want to shoot that buck, I don't care where it's at. We'll find a way to get it out. Yeah. What do you normally do? Do you do you quarter them and pack them out or are you know Wisconsin just started? Allowing quartering recently, yeah. And when they did even now you have to take the whole deer out so you can only leave the entrills. OK, so what's the use of packing? Have you got to take the hide that the legs? That's true. You still got to hold deer. Yeah. So I usually use a sled and in some cases a cart and a sled. OK. The carts work well on dry land if sled works on anything, but you take the sled through the cattails and stuff like that really easy through marsh. You can actually pull them over logs and stuff.

1:20:45 We use those like ice fishing sleds, you know, they work really well for getting deer on. Yeah, that and what the, the, the sled probably just rides in your vehicle all season, right until it needs to come out and. If I'm anywhere away from home, it's in the truck. Sure. From your home, it's usually in the yard. Sure. So shifting gears a little bit here, you mentioned a couple minutes ago about hunting all over the country. This is going to take us away from the X's and OS of hunting a little bit, but it like, how did how have you made that come to life? Like is hunting your is hunting your job?

1:21:26 Like is that what is that how you look at YouTube? Is that? Kind of what I'm doing, I want to do. Yeah. I don't ever want to do something because that's what's going to make me money or yeah, that's what's going to get me views. I'm not about that. I believe if you're a solid person and you, you do what you believe and you'll do way better. Like I see a lot of my friends who are Youtubers and hunting read the comments and adjust based on people's criticisms. Sure. I don't think you should ever do that. Yeah. Somebody doesn't like you, who you are, that you live with, that I am who I am. I'm not changing who I am for those people. So I'm hunting out of state because I want to, because I want to extend my hunting. I want to have fun. I want to see new places.

1:22:08 I want to travel. That's why I'm doing it. I'm just fortunate enough that I'm getting paid to do it. Yeah, but I'm getting paid to do what I want to do. Yeah. And I think that's why I have a genuine following where the people are are a little more, you know, like, I don't know how to say it like, like clubish. Yeah, you build a community. Yeah, exactly. It's a community. It's a little more of a like like like a brand. Not brand's a bad word, but a community because those people are like my friends. Yep. You know, and if somebody doesn't like what I'm doing, you know, like somebody will criticize me on on comments, I'll say it's probably in for you. If you, if you, if you just watched a 2 hour video and you're mad because there wasn't a kill at the end. Watch juries.

1:22:50 He's got kills in the end of every one of them. I like his videos too. Go over there. Yeah, you know, yeah. You're wasting your time here. Yeah, but you have, you have been able to build it into just like being able to do what you're passionate about every day. That's something we I talk about with a lot of the different guests from different realms that we have on the podcast. Like, you know, there's the the adage is like do what you love and you'll never work a day in your life. It's all kind of bullshit, you know, like it's not. There's some truth in that. But at the same time, there's a whole lot more that goes into it than that, but that's mainly what I was getting at. Like you've been able to sustain all everything else that comes with life through through a passion of hunting.

1:23:34 That's amazing. And for and how long like, because I know in a couple videos, like you told some stories back about like having a job that, you know, you knew there was going to be a big buck somewhere and you're like, OK, this job doesn't matter. I'm going to get this buck. Like how long did hunting sustain your, your career? How long were you able to make that support your life? For supporting my life, I would say it started that way probably in the early 2000s when I started making DV DS. DV DS are the first way I was making money. OK, you know. I've never. I didn't even know those existed. DVDs. Yeah. I have a collection of DVDs that that's really, it was, it's kind of funny because you're rooted in Wisconsin.

1:24:17 It's really what started the whole trend with the mobile hunting with everybody in Wisconsin is those DVDs really, you know, I've got a website. You've been on my website. Oh yeah, yeah, the website. The Like forum, yeah, yeah. So that website, when it started, the people that came in there and really got into what I was doing because nobody had really heard about bed hunting or any of that stuff until I started started releasing it. That I started all that as I started building these DVDs and releasing these DVDs and, and literally my Marshbucks DVD is probably sold more than any Drury's video ever sold. If you just think about that for a second, it's still selling. When I was leaving to come here, my wife had about 15 or 20 of them sitting on the counter for that day's orders. And we, we made that video probably 2010, you know, and it's still selling like that.

1:25:07 That's awesome. But yeah, we, we made videos that really layout the exact path on how, how to be successful. So it's not, it's not a kill video. It's, you know what I mean? It's a, it's a instructional video, like a book, but a video. So we got Marsh book, Marsh bedding, Hill bedding, farm bedding, swamp bedding, those are all DV DS we sell. OK, yeah, that's interesting. Like my introduction to you and virtually all of my content that I've taken in is via the YouTube channel, like like that's how I got introduced to your stuff. I had never seen the DV DS, but that's funny because you know, when I asked you about the way, the way earlier, the way earlier when you had just started with like the VHS recorder and stuff, what it reminded me of is I, I remind, I remember when I was a kid or just watching over and over and over again the tree lounge videos. Do you remember those with the 2 old folks that were like, that's, that's awesome.

1:26:06 I'm going to have to check into that. And so in those that's like a how to instructional correct? Maybe like a more, there's a little. Bit of entertainment to it but not much. OK. I mean, it shows hunts and stuff, OK, but it's more of the why and how and you know, exactly how the betting works, how each scenario. So it breaks down like like the marsh bucks will breakdown every way of buck beds and marsh, it'll show maps, it'll show where they lay, it'll show hunts that were successful figuring that out and each train will do that. OK. So it's broken down into terrains because the hunting is so much different in each one of those terrains. Basically what I was getting at before was when I released those videos and that that website, that website really took off in its early years.

1:26:50 So a lot of the people that were in that website are your well known people now. Andy May, he came from there. Aaron Warburton from the Hunting Public. He would call me up. He bought the videos to train his guys literally because he was working with Bill Winky at the time. Sure. And then he quit and he modeled what we're doing, you know, the Hunting Public. Yeah. You know, and a lot of that, I mean the do it yourself, Bull Hunter, all those guys came out of that realm from that, from that stuff, from what we created. That's awesome. That's the type of impact that I'm talking about. Like that. That is like culture shifting, you know, that's the type of stuff that can keep hunters in the woods and excite people.

1:27:36 That's. It it's, it's to to me, it's something to be proud of. Yeah. I think a lot of the younger guys don't even realize I've done that. Yeah. Like you didn't. Yeah. But I mean, it's something to be proud of for me because it's accomplishing the goals that I set out to to to accomplish. Absolutely. And leaving such a positive footprint on something that's been such a central piece in your life, like leaving such a a trail behind you of folks of bread crumbs that people can pick up and use tomorrow. You know, in the same same regards, you know, for me growing up, I always looked up to Miles Keller. You know, Miles Keller is no, see, that's one of my points.

1:28:19 Miles Keller was an icon in Wisconsin. He is now about 80 years old. He's still alive or not in Wisconsin. He's he's from Minnesota, but he was an icon across the country. He shot more popping young bucks than anybody in the country at a time frame like in the 80s, maybe even a little bit of the Seventies, 80s and 90s when I was growing up. He had more Pope and Young's by quite a bit than anybody else. And he would travel around the country doing that at a time when nobody traveled. That's what kind of got me into this stuff, right? I remember him coming to Wisconsin on a hunt, going in a public land and shooting this Wisconsin State record that held for many, many, many years, a very large 8 pointer.

1:29:09 And that was a state record for like 10 years or something. And that guy was an icon. And he was in every magazine. He was on the cover, all the magazines, there's books about him, there's Google's name. And now he's forgotten. And one day I'll be forgotten, you know, And, and I look at that and I just see it's so crazy that people don't even know who he is now, you know, because he was really like the icon of of hunting and, you know, and I think for me, it's just OK that I know what I've done, you know, You know what I mean? Yeah. It doesn't have to be world spread or anything. I've got a goal. And I want to, you know, I want to see some of these young people get a jump by what I give them and become more than I ever been.

1:29:53 Yeah. I want to see them that they aspire to do that. I mean, quite often some young kid will come up. I don't have enough money to come to workshop and I'll just come on, you know, and I'll take them hunting and stuff and help them. And you know, for me, I want to see this grow. I want to see more people come into hunting instead of go out of it. I want to see more families hunt instead of just a man, you know, whole family, you know. That's been such a positive trend in the industry. I have so many females getting out in the woods. I love it hunting and. And whole families, yeah. Yeah. And yeah. And yeah, the kids, daughters, sons, yeah, that's, that's what we need. That's and like to have the not only the knowledge and ability, but the willingness to do it, you know, not share the knowledge, but go through the logistical aspects like whenever, whenever, like when you decided on the DVDs, between that and your last job, there was probably a lot of decisions that had to be made in that point about taking a risk. You know, where you were at in your family life. What did you need to do to sustain your life? But you decided to devote time, effort and energy into something that you were passionate about.

1:31:07 And Rick, it's like you see that in I hope you see that in in the fruits of your labor when you talk about those folks. Because like for the females that get out into the woods now, there's probably somebody that are is their person, you know, that they looked up to and they're like, OK, she can do it. I can and you maybe that's a cool question, actually. How often do you get that? Like are you pretty? I I doubt. I doubt you're very inconspicuous when you get out of the car at the public land and there's somebody else there and there's Dan Infall. Like do you get people that walk up and it happens a lot. I bet it actually like when I out with Eric and those guys that they're always like, oh, come on, Every time somebody gets out and yells, oh, Dan, you know, but I always take the time to go over and say hi and be nice, you know, And I actually enjoy it. I enjoy meeting people in the conversations. And it's not always about the hunt. It's about helping people.

1:32:06 So that's helping people, going over and meeting them. Everybody wants to tell you their story. They want to tell you about the buck they haunted, you know and you know. I bet it comes with the territory. I know when I told my dad I was going to have you on, he was pumped up. He watches you on YouTube all the time too. And that comes with the territory. And it's it's such AI don't know. I'm surprised at how far reaching it has because like, you know, you go down South, you walk into a restaurant in the middle of nowhere, you know, in some town that has one restaurant and a gas station, you know, and people come up and they know you and it's like, it's crazy, you know, went to Massachusetts. I'm walking in the woods and I'm 5075 yards from the road and somebody stops Dan involved, and I'm like, yeah. And I walk all the way back.

1:32:57 I was with Ricky. He was like, come on. And the guy starts telling me he started hunting because of me and stuff. And you, you hear that a lot. And honestly, he starts crying and just gives me this giant hug. It's a little awkward, but cool, too. But cool, too. Yeah. You know. Man what that means, and for me that that's worth its weight in gold, you know. But like man, if you. You know, that's why I put up with all the hate and stuff, because you get a lot of hate. Do you jealously hate? Oh yeah, a lot. From the outdoors community. Oh yeah, I'm constantly deleting comments and stuff. It's, it's, it's a shame, but I do.

1:33:39 But the thing that keeps me going is the positives, you know, the positive comments and stuff. Outside of. You look shocked. I am actually. In hunting, what I've seen is a lot of the younger guys got this big eagle want to be somebody and their way of being somebody is to put everybody down that's above them. Like, well, he did it cuz he's poaching or he did it because he's, he's in some other state that's better or whatever. But it gets to the point where it's actually hate. I've actually had people make death threats and everything else. I had some guys attack my wife in a gas station over me shooting 2 deer in the same year. When remember when Wisconsin had the CWD thing and you could shoot multiple bucks? I shot 2 bucks and these guys went nuts on her and said they were going to kill me and all kinds of stuff. She wouldn't gas station, she had to call the cops. Yeah, I mean, we've had some crazy stuff. We had a, you know, I had a guy come up the driveway with a gun and threaten my son.

1:34:37 You know, where is he? I want to talk to him. I I mean, it gets a little nuts just over stupid deer. So I mean, it would be real easy for me to just disappear, but I think I've all right. I'd have to probably get a face change, but it'd be really easy to just disappear out of hunting. And I can understand why some people don't want that, you know? That amazes me so. Everybody I know that's big tells me the same thing. They get the same stuff, just most people are quiet about it. They just, they don't excite it or anything, you know? Yeah, don't bring it up. Yeah. So I spend very little time in the comments section on social media because of that. Maybe that's why I'm a little bit out of the loop. Like IA lot of times so much, so much of that stuff is reflections of people's image of themselves.

1:35:22 You know, like they're not doing what they want to do, so they're going to put you down for doing it. Like there's no progress made in that at all. But being like, I've consumed so much of your content and I just, you know, outs, I guess that you rattled a couple of them off there. But like, man, what? What is there even to complain about, you know, I guess. You know, for me, if I don't like something, I just don't watch, right? You know it's not normal people, but if you have 100,000 people watching your videos there's going to be some nut jobs. It just is, yeah. And that that's one of the negatives of social media and and things that have happened, like it gives the fringes almost the highlighted voice because the normal people like you and I have that mentality. We're not like if we don't like it, I'll just click on to the next video and it's fine.

1:36:10 I'll look at the next thing. But the fringes that get the highlighted that like they get hot put on this pedestal or they have a stage on social media because they're willing to put something asinine in a comment and see it. But man, the and you know, the more I think about it, I guess the less surprised I get because there is a ton of infighting and hunting that doesn't have to happen. Like big buck versus small buck It was. Kind of like, as that started coming down, it was kind of shocking to me because I always thought, like, hunters are the best people in the community. They're the nicest, most polite people because most of the hunters, you know, in your general area are. Yeah, You know, So it's kind of shocking to me that the way some people act.

1:36:53 Yeah. And it's bad as a black eye to us. I've always said that if everybody that's in that social media groups and stuff like that, they see that just instantly blocked that guy when he's got no voice and he can't, he'll, he'll start thinking about it. It's a proverbial punch in the nose. Because when we were kids, as you know, if you mouthed off or you said something that didn't, didn't belong there, well, you'd, you'd get faced off. You'd, you'd have to face this guy, right? And and there'd be some punches thrown. And you can't punch throws from a distance you, you know, so people know that. So these people have a voice because they're long distance throwing their comments, you know? What the wild stories though?

1:37:34 So someone came up your driveway with a gun, threatened your son? There was a person that lives nearby me. He actually he's in prison now. I'll go figure. Well, makes sense. He lived in a garage that somebody let him live in the garage because he was like a bomb. But apparently I was the Buckeye shot was his. I was the second one, and I shouldn't have been able to shoot that second. Whether it's legal or not, you know, sure. But I mean, you got to be pretty nuts to come somebody's driveway with a gun. And it turned out at the time he was a felon. You couldn't even have a gun. Nice, you know, So yeah, it gets kind of nuts. And that part I, that part I assumed as much because that part of the jealousy and hunting, I think everybody sees maybe not like of course not to driving up somebody's driveway with a gun, but like coming out of a public spot, I'm sure you've run into it with all the bucks you've killed, like coming out of a public spot with, you know, somebody's buck that they've been watching, I'm sure. You've had some.

1:38:32 Most people, the overall majority are excited for you. They're happy, absolutely. And they might say, oh, my gosh, you know, they catch you on the trail dragging it out, which you don't, You try to sneak them out, right? But you're dragging it out. And someone will come up and be like, oh, no, that's the buck I was hunting. But they're genuinely excited for you. Yeah. You're like, oh, you sucker, and you killed my buck. But they're smiling. They're happy. They shake your hand and they get a picture with you with the buck, you know, fine, you know, and, and actually it's probably good for those people to know that that buck's not there no more for sure, you know, But I really try to get them out without nobody know when I was there. Hell yeah, yeah. I saw a really funny video the other day. It was a guy taking a taking a good buck out of the woods on a cart and he came across the trail camera and it was just on the edge of it. The word.

1:39:18 You could kind of see him, but he must have noticed the trail camera and he backed up in front of it and like held up the antlers to the trail camera and waved to the guy and just kind of did one of these like, I got it, you know, just kind of let them know that was the one. But man, what a that it just brings you to the, you know, we spent an hour talking about passion through a positive lens of something that you do because you love. And it just, it just sucks that that that other side like where I don't know. That's what you got to draw the line is, is, is one thing like I can handle that, you can probably handle that, but I don't want my wife, family who who have nothing to do with what I'm doing. Yeah, absolutely.

1:40:05 That's just a crazy in A to walk up to somebody's wife in a gas station and it cost somebody. Even to know that that's my wife. I mean, how do they even know that? Right. Yeah, I've never seen her in a video. That's why you. Don't see her on my Facebook pages or anything else. That's why that's hidden how she looks or anything else. That's why it's hidden, because it needs to be. Yeah, and. Then that's something. I mean, you can't even have your wife on your Facebook page. Yeah. You know, think about that. Same thing, I very rarely share anything of my kid even on my personal social medias but definitely not on the podcast. I can't share when I'm leaving on a hunt or anything like that. Yeah, sometimes it gets shared because of sponsors and stuff like that.

1:40:45 Sure. But we had to put, we put a security system up, you know, we put cameras up. So then I shouldn't have to where I live, but we did, you know, I got my wife concealed carry, you know, and it's a, it's a sad thing. I mean, I'm just hunting you. Know, isn't that isn't that wild absolutely wild. It comes back to a recreational pastime that should be enjoyable for the people who party. Yeah. Well, let's end on a high note. Dan, what you have that awesome video. We, we briefly touched on it earlier where you, you walk through some of the bucks in, in the taxidermist place. What, what is the, and you might have told the story already because it might be the island one. But like when you look back on it, what's the, what's the buck story that like when someone asks you to tell them, like why maybe not why you hunt, but like, what is that one story you would go to from a buck story that you look back on? It's always the front of your mind. I guess probably my first really big buck, man, she had some nice books.

1:41:56 But the first very, very big buck, that was a buck that I shot in 1989 on Thanksgiving Day. I haunted that buck by three or four years. I had at least one shed from every year from home from two years on and it was a time frame when 2 year olds were a big deal. And that was the one deer that like whatever it was like 86 or 87 or whatever was a 2 year old that was a nice buck that made it.

1:42:36 And then the next year he was a really nice buck made Pope and young as a three-year old. I didn't kill him. And in the next year we had a really big wreck, you know, like one 40s at that time. That was a really big wreck, you know, And that deer taught me how to hunt because I'd already been molding myself on my own, you know. But as a young man back then, I was starting to realize that the closer you got to the thick stuff, the more you saw him in daylight. Everybody else saying stay away from that. You're going to spook all the year off the property. I'm thinking, wow, the closer I get, the more chances I get. What are you crazy? So I kept pushing that envelope. But then when the season ended and I want to find those sheds, I started looking for the sheds and let's see where he was coming from.

1:43:24 You walk in and you find the beds and your stuff and you're like, oh, wow, if I was just set up right here. He said to put the two and two together. And I started like rapidly looking through all these bedding areas, you know, and finding them and then find out, figuring out how to haunt them. And I still had, I was still missing a lot of the pieces because I've still learning, right? This is, you know, in the 80s. So I came up with this plan and I had shot him that year. I shot him in the ass with the bolt, had a bad shot and luckily I didn't kill him. But that next year with the spring and stuff, I went and I scouted all those bedding areas, figured that out and I still didn't kill him with a bowl, but I seen him a whole bunch of times.

1:44:05 Now all of a sudden I was having all the kinds of more interactions with him getting close, but not quite close enough. I'd be set up wrong or too far back or, you know, I still figuring things out, you know, and I wouldn't know when he's going to bed where I just, that's a bedding area. You know, I didn't have no timing or anything like that. So when gun season came, I came up with this plan that I was going to hunt down all those bedding areas one after another with the gun and I was just going to sneak through them. So I, I, I figured out really quick that if I went in wind and nose, they're looking straight downwind, smelling from behind. They'd bust me every time. So I'd come in from a cross wind and then usually there'd be some deer in there. And I was starting to pass box at that time because of this buck.

1:44:52 You know, we're usually in that in that time frame, 2 year old buck was a big deal. You, you, you'd probably shoot it. I'm starting to let those go. I can remember my telling my dad that. And they got to the point where I couldn't tell him because he was about meat. He was about feeding the family. Yeah. And he's like, we're going to have antler stupid soup again, you know. So I got through the whole week without getting a chance to kill this deer. And then it got to be Thanksgiving Day. And Thanksgiving was a huge deal for my mom, you know, you brought the whole family together, you know, and, and stuff. And I wanted to go hunt. And she's like, you can go in the morning, but you got to be back here by this time and clean, you know? OK, All right.

1:45:35 So I go out and I go through all these bed and areas and it's getting close to time, but there's this one spot I want to go to that's way back where this is what used to be a farm field. And now it's just weeds and brush, right? It's below yet is it hasn't turned to trees or anything yet or saplings or anything. But in the middle of it's a draw, you know, a drainage draw and where the erosion made a draw and it never got farmed. And it's all full of Dogwood and nasty stuff in the steep. And then scouting in that, that spring, I found a whole bunch of rubs and beds in there. I thought this thing's living here. But if you remember from those old farms, they'd have farm dumps. So that whole draw was filled up with garbage, but there's beds in between the garbage and stuff. So I was trying to think about how could you go in here? Because you're going from this way, He's going to roll out the other side.

1:46:26 You come up with the guts of it, he's going to come up with the top. How do I go about this? And I'm looking at it and I thought if I come from the top, I can see both sides, but once I step in, I can't. So went up on the top and there's a car, like an old rotten out car in the garbage in there, right in the middle of a really thick spot where I thought was near the bedding that I'd seen in spring. And I picked up a rock and I threw it on top of the car and got ready. And the buck jumped up and ran out into the field. And it was him. And out of the excitement, I had loaded the gun and I realized I was just spraying bullets. Remember, I was a lot younger. You know, this is 89, right?

1:47:08 Thanksgiving of 89. So I realized I was spraying bullets and then I was going to run out of bullets. You know, you had five shots, you know, So I get the, the, the old shotgun up and I tried to concentrate on the next two or whatever. I thought I had two left. And I, and I shoot the, the shot, miss again, pumping another shell and click. Oh, wait, I miscounted. I didn't touch his buck and he turns and he runs off. I'm like, oh, crap. There's a little bit of sparse snow, and I'm thinking if I run and I haul ass, I might be able to get to the top of this hill and see him looking back or something, you know. So I throw a couple shells in there and I start running and I'm running to where he ran and and I'm trying to look down where the sparse knows where his tracks are. And I see blood spray all over the place. And I stop and I'm looking at like, what the hell? And I look up and he'd gotten around the corner and fill over dead.

1:47:57 That last shot went through his heart. You got him. Yeah. And that buck just changed a whole direction of dam. That's what Bill to I am now because it that's what sent me down this path, the hunting of that buck and how I figured him out. And then from there on, the rest is history, correct? That's amazing. I appreciate your time. Thanks for coming and chatting. This is fun. It was awesome to hear your story. Sorry if I made it too much about hunting, it's just what I'm built of. I knew where I knew it was going to happen anyway because that, like that, you know, I say we tell the stories of the people, but that is you. You know that that is you. And, and quite frankly, I knew I was going to get there too, because like, I, if I could pick your brain for 8 hours, I probably would. I'm, I'm one of many that that would. So thanks for making the trip up. I'm I'm going to take up your offer on, on one of the workshops.

1:48:50 Sounds fantastic. Take care.