Ep. 73: Yuletide Hunts With Friends and Family

to the Cutting the Distance Christmas Special. You know, for me, Christmas really has always been just a special time, special time to spend with friends and family, A special time that I remember a lot of the hunts around this time because we get together, we get to go out, we share meals, and most of that's wild game meals. Um. Hunting and family and food and Christmas all kind of combined for me this time of year. Um, you know, even even in this weird year, I think Christmas can

always kind of feels like a special time. You know, some people have experienced some really hard times this year, and and then there's been some good times mixed in, So you know, I think that maybe we just I thought it might be kind of fun to do this Christmas Special podcast, share a couple of cool tips on maybe some holiday hunting, some some ways you can cook up some game, and then and then give some stuff

away as well. So there's that. But before we do that, I think I'm gonna just share a Christmas story from the Christmas Eve two thousand three in the most Christmas ee way I know how q magical walking music. It was the day before Christmas out in the marsh. Not a duck was flying. The game seems sparse. The decoys were set around the water in pairs with a hole

in the middle, hoping the birds would land there. I was tucked in the toolies, sitting on my stool with thoughts of green head and sprig landing in this small pool. I and my waiters my gun camo clad. I was hunting for the duck feast we always had. Went through the air. Some teal wings hissed. I threw up my gun shot three times and missed. While disappointed there was no splash, I sat back down and let the time slowly pass. The skies were all empty, not a duck

in sight. I got off my stool to call it a night. I packed up the decoys and the cold winter air. It looked like Christmas dinner. I would have nothing to share. As I walked towards the swim hole on the weight of the truck. I heard the quack of a single, lone duck, and what to my wondrous eyes did appear a hen mallard jumping out of the pond. Right here. I clicked off the safety and threw up the stock. I swung the bead and touched around. Off the flight of the bird immediately stalled in a puff

of feathers. It fell in a ball. I quickly ran over to find my game. A jump shot hen was what I had claimed. Well, it was a lot shy of a Christmas feast, lacking the meat of a brace of geese. I have to admit I was glad for the luck I avoided being skunk when I hit this duck. Its feathers were brown. It's bill fairly bleak. There is no band nestled on its feet. But that didn't matter to me one bit. I had some meat and was proud of it. When I got back home, I spoke

not a word. I went out back and plucked my bird. I heated the oven for a fine Christmas roast. The rest of the family wanted to toast. I had to explain as I got into sight, it will be a merry Christmas for all, but only one duck for dinner tonight. From my hunting Field Notes December two thousand three said Corey ducks duck shot one headed mallard. I jumped off

the swim hoole. I remember that Christmas fairly well. I was a senior in high school and my family had spent Christmas actually that Christmas morning in a wall tent on the river in Montana. It was down the way from where my grandpa lived. We had this awesome fireplace roaring in there, and we actually made a nice wood mantle on the back of the wall tent by the stove where we hung our stockings. We decked it out and included a Christmas tree and lights. It was pretty

pretty magical tent on the river there. Honestly, when I think back about it, is one of the most memorable Christmas mornings I think I've had. We woke up early and we celebrated. We exchange gifts too together in the tent. It was dark outside, still, the tent was all lit up, and we just listened to the river and Christmas music and just enjoy each other's company. And honestly, I don't

remember any of the gifts exchange. But I do remember how much fun I had with my brothers and parents spending Christmas together, hanging out in the wall tent, and it was just one one definite Christmas to remember. One thing that I definitely take from it was the fact that I got to spend the time with with my family. And that's all that when it comes time this time of year, that's those are the things that I remember.

Those are the things that I cherish. Speaking of family, you know this time of year, maybe you've got a few extra days off, Um, you've got a little bit of time. I think it's a great time to take friends, to take family, people that hunt and people that don't hunt out in the field with you. I know that some of my favorite memories are spent on small game trips, some hunts around this time of year when people have got time off, and you know, my brothers would go,

my dad would go, even my mom would come. She wouldn't hunt, but she would just enjoy the experience of going out doing something that's not a full intensive have to pack in twenty miles half to pre plan, have to have all these tags, but just something that you can go out and do. It's fun. You know, you make it fun for the people around you that time of like, pack the yetie rambler full of hot chocolate, hit the trail, head out and enjoy the time with

those close to you, whether they hunt or not. Maybe you'll create a new hunter or just somebody that enjoys getting out and going with you. So I decided to just break down my five top hunts I think you should try between Christmas and New Year. The first is gonna be ducks. Of course, my story was a duck hunt for me. I don't know, it's just duck hunting

around Christmas time is something that I always do. But also I love roast duck around the holidays, So Christmas and New Year's it's something that we generally eat and it's also something it's It's one of those hunts where duck hunting tends to be a more successful hunt than some other hunts. Now, while it can be quite gear intensive. You've got to get the decoys, you might need a boat, you might need all this stuff. Not all duck hunting

has to be that um intensive. If you if you aren't into it or you're thinking about going out trying, I know there's a lot of people that listen to this podcast and maybe don't hunt a lot or just getting into hunting. There's actually a lot of duck hunting to be had that isn't as Biggs gear intensive, and it's more jump shooting, pass shooting, picking spots. So I

would suggest looking for ditches, slews, rivers, marshes um. The specialized gear that you're gonna need for this hunt would be a pair of waiters, which for the longest time I used my fishing waiters. I used just waiter shoes over the top. I wore clothes underneath them, and then I actually threw a pair of camouflaged like army surplus ants over the top of it. I actually wore That's what I did. I wore my tennis shoes underneath my like neoprene fishing waiters, and then just through a pair

of army surplus cameo pants over the top. Yeah, you might look a little jankie, but hey, you're getting out, you're shooting some meat, you're having a good time. You need a shotgun with a plug in it, some steel shot. Obviously, all of the necessary duck stamps and licenses, but finding those slews, those river bottoms, those ditches, things where you can walk up and down, maybe see some birds. Use

your binocular spot in Stockholm. It's a great way to get into duck hunting, to shoot some meat um to start learning and identifying birds. One thing about duck hunting is understanding how to identify birds that are in flight, because there's certain birds you can shoot certain ones you can't. If you're getting into it, if you're new to it, it's a great way to kind of get your bird

identification down before their cruising. Buy in the marsh, watch them, stock them, look at them, understand bring a bird guide if you have to to understand what birds are what, understand the way that they fly when they fly, look at them through your binoculars while they're flying, sneak in, shoot a few and bring some home. One of my favorite ways to cook duck is to roast them. So I generally turn the oven on four degrees, a little bit of salt and pepper on top, and then I

put them in a roasting pan. Sometimes I'll even go like four fifty or higher. What what you want? The key to cooking good duck is just medium rare. You want the if you poke it with a fork. It's done when those the juices start coming out like that rosy pink color. You don't want to overdo it. If you've got a thermometer, I try to keep it right around one. Um is when what I normally roast the duck to I love to pluck my ducks, so I'll pluck them um and then get them and cook them

a whole. But if you breast them, sometimes you can. You can pluck the breast and then breast it out. That's where you just got to take the breast portion away from the rest of the body. Or if you've like to skin them, that's fine to skin it out and then roast the breasts. What I do, if I do it that way, just the rest or even the whole duck, I'll actually set it on top of an

orange slice in the roasting pan. I salt and pepper the bird, maybe a little bit of other herbs, and then I'll, if I if I've got a whole, actually stuff it sometimes with I generally use rosemary, time and apple stuff it. Maybe a little bit of bacon to add some fat back in, but they're already pretty fatty most most ducks. And then I roast it and it doesn't take very long, maybe twenty minutes something like that.

Keep checking it and then what I do when I'm done is I turn the oven on broil to crisp up the skin, and then I coat the tops with orange marmalade and then like underneath the broiler and get that kind of glazed over and make kind of a glaze with it. And that's I like, I love that sweet savory kind of mix of duck. And that's probably my traditional go to Christmas dinner or New Year's dinner is some kind of roast duck in that fashion. So that's a really good hunt to do, maybe you know

Christmas Day. I actually do a lot of duck hunting on Christmas Day. But get out if you've got a few days off between now and New Year's or on New Year's that's a great hunt. It's one that you can kind of take and take some people with. It's fun. I kind of find duck hunting one of those hunts

where you generally go out and get something. Um, if you're just starting out hunting, if you're going to invest in one kind of hunting, duck hunting is a good one to invest in because it generally yields a lot of success for the time spent. Now, there are definitely slow days, days where you come home with that one hand mallard or no hand mallards. There's there's been a few days, have quite a few days whe haven't skunked.

But as you start to get into it and kind of figure it out, you can find a lot of success hunting it. The next one, I would say it's great with family, with people that are just getting into hunting. Rabbit hunting. It's because it's it's pretty easy and it's pretty easy to be successful. It doesn't take a lot of gear investment. You can use small caliber rifles, small caliber shotguns, four ten shotgun. I know as a kid it was fun to go out with twenty two or

four ten uh hunt rabbits. One other thing is it's a great for new hunters, people that are just getting into it because you can kind of translate a few of the big game tactics, like if you've got snow on the ground, winter times great time to chase rabbits. Snow on the ground, you can find the tracks. It's I just look for like brushy areas. Rabbits love that

kind of thick, brushy stuff. If you've got snow, you just cruise around, look for tracks, walk around, walk up and down creek bottoms and other areas where they tend to be. UM. If you live in more of an agricultural type area, check that the the brush lines and other things they tend to hide out in there. If you've got snow, you'll see their snow. Their tracks. It's like two little tracks followed by bigger tracks in the back of their front legs planting and their back legs

coming up. Kind of looks almost like a deer track in some ways. But you'll see those trails where the rabbits go move a lot, and then just kind of work that brush. Sometimes you can have two people. It's always nice to have a couple of people. Actually you can kind of work the rush, create a line, work it, and get the rabbits to run out and get some shots. I would say that my my favorite way to prepare rabbit,

especially around the holidays. I do two different things. So the backstraps of the rabbit, I generally will cut out fry like chicken strips. That's pretty good. UM, maybe pound it flat, just bread it like chicken strips. But um, one thing that my brother actually does a lot. If we get snowshoe hairs, or you know, if you're new into hunting and you live out west, or you're trying to get someone into hunting, go out shoot a couple of jack rabbits. You might think it's like they're plentiful.

A lot of people see them as trash rabbit. I don't know. I've cooked up plenty of jack rabbits and they taste great, and we generally do it in a rabbit stew, slow cooked. Braise it first, um, brown it in a pan, and then put it in with some like brown gravy mix or some beef stock, chickens ofk whatever you want. Make a nice stew with some potatoes, some carrots, some celery, some herbs. It's a great way to have rabbit, especially on a wintertime. It's like a

it's sort of like a really warm, home cooked meal. Feelum. The next time I would suggest, and this one takes a little more doing, but it's a really I would say more bang for your buck is there's a lot of areas out west across the country anywhere they have late season dough hunts. Uh, they do the doe hunts after the buck season generally is a as a management tool to reduce dear populations. Picking up these dough tags as an incredible hunt is a great way to hone

your skills. It's also great if you're getting into archery. I always suggest people it's like, hey, I want to get into archery, what should I hunt first? White tail does? They give you all the experience. They're very It can be difficult, but the a lot of opportunities, so I think it's kind of a perfect mix of there's a lot of them out there. You don't have to single it out and find one that's legal, which just has to be a doe. But they also are very wary

there it could be hard to get close to. I love to spot in Stockholm. There's a lot of places that I hunt them where I can get a couple, like a I think I can get up to four or five dough tags, and I choose to like spot in Stockholm. There's public land places you can do it, and there's a lot of people that will give you permission to hunt does because if they're trying to manage numbers, some some places you know you need to They need to shoot a lot of dough and they might not

have a lot of people that want to. So it's one of those things too. You can pull out your on X, maybe talk to some people, bring out your family. Um, that's always a good way to get permission sometimes, and then just don't disturb people during their holiday. But um, I think a dough hunt is a great way to kind of get some hunting in this time here. It's fun and it's also a great way to kind of get into maybe another form of hunting. I like to take out, uh, like I've got a muzzleloader or just

you know, a new rifle. Whatever. It's just a it's a really fun hunt. So highly suggest that one of my favorite Christmas recipes is to take the loin like the backstrap, and I do a stuff to loin, so I actually cut I'll take like a filet knife. I'll cut into a large chunk, large section, maybe like a six to eight inch section of backstrap. I'll either open it up that's generally the easiest way, or you can just kind of stick your knife in there and cut it.

But I generally make like a how would I describe it? If you're looking at the round of it. You make like an S cut where you kind of cut around or maybe more like a yeah kind of a top and then down and then back. So what you're doing is you're fileying it out so that whole backstrap can lay out bigger because you're gonna stuff it and then wrap it back up to its original shape. And what I stuff it with, UM, I generally like to make like make it easy on yourself, get like whatever. People

freak out about this, but like some stovetop stuffing. I love it and it's super easy. And then I throw in some dried cranberries with it. And then what I'll do is I'll roll that loin back up and then I make a bacon lattice and I wrap it with that. Then I tie the whole thing up with twine and I'll either smoke it or cook it in the oven or on the barbecue. Just gotta be careful if you're cooking on the oven or the barbecue. You don't want to like flame up, so the best ways in the smoker.

And then I will um, I actually like to I'll finish it by browning the bacon after smoking it. You can also not add the bacon it's up to you. I mean, sometimes it's holiday season, get decad and throw some bacon on it. Whatever. Try not to put bacon on everything, but why not. The next one I would suggest would be a quail hunt. Quail are pretty widely distributed. They are fairly easy to find. It's like, find some good brushy spots, some thicker stuff. You can hear them calling.

They make like a I called the chiketa sound that quita. Sure, that was terrible. I can't whistle right now. There mouse tea drive from podcast then, But quail is a great A great hunt, like can be high action, high volume, especially for people just getting into it, taking some people out. Just don't shoot each other in the face. Dick Cheney. Uh, that's uh, you know, make sure you know where everyone's at. Make it fun, make it enjoyable. It's not super physical

most of the time. If you're around agricultural areas, same kind of deal as the rabbits. And actually you can find coil and rabbits in very similar places, especially out west. So that's that's one to think about. Grilled quail is pretty hard to beat. I just I skin them out spatch cockum and then uh, you can marinate them. Sometimes I'll marinate them actually and like a little bit of just like a little bit of olive oil or whatever. You know, it doesn't doesn't have to be anything crazy,

but I generally just grill them as is. They're they're pretty hard to beat, probably one of the best game birds out there. And then the last one, I would say, this is the one that we do is kind of a New Year's tradition, but a pheasant high. It's can be really fun because you know, if you can find some fields, get some permission to hunt pheasants. Uh, find somewhere like there's a lot of walk in areas where the state actually provides land for hunters, like leases land

from private individuals. Access yes programs. Uh, I don't know, someplace called block management. At someplaces. There's all different kinds of programs. Look on your on X, look on whatever. Research areas where there's these kind of places where you can hunt some of this there, you know, CRP type land. Uh. It can be really really fun. One thing that we do is tradition, is we kind of go out. We

we do like a family kind of pheasant hunt. All the friends come out, they bring their wives and even people like everybody that people that maybe don't hunt or aren't really that interested in hunting, we have them get their hunters, hunting licenses, hunters safety whatever. And this is kind of a time where we make it about getting everybody else to try to get something. The nice thing about pheasants is they generally jump pretty close. It's a

larger target, their beautiful bird. It's a it's a lot of fun. It can be a really fun time. Make it an event. Make it we bring out the hot chocolate and the barbecues and just and just have a great time. And then I think one of the best, one of my favorite recipes, just doing kind of a beer canned chicken style with a pheasant later on. Or we take the breasts, we breast them out, use them out to pound of flat and make like chicken palm,

like pheasant palm. Mixing in some bread crumbs, some parmesan, some whipping up, some eggs, so you dredge it in the bread crumbs and then you's in the egg breadcrumb. Do it about twice, stick it in the oven about I don't even know, maybe like three. Don't go too long, cook it, you know, cook it like you would chicken and then top it with some uh provolone is pretty good, and some some pasta sauce, whatever your favorite pasta sauces.

That's a really good way to eat it. You can also do kind of the same thing and then fry it in oil. That's a good way to do it as well, in olive oil. So I say, between those things, you should find yourself something, some way to get out there, get some friends out there, get some family out there, and enjoy the outdoors, enjoy some hunting, and enjoy some awesome Christmas meals. Wouldn't be a Christmas special without uh, some kind of giveaway, just kind of. I just want

to say, as like a thanks for listening. I really appreciate you all tuning in. I mean, I know there's there's a lot of people that are new to listeners, but also the tried and true. I just want to say Merry Christmas to you and your families, and I just thank you very much for the support over the last year. I've really enjoyed doing this podcast mostly because

of you guys. Um I would say, if I'm being a percent honest, I don't know if I necessarily enjoy sitting down and talking in the middle of the night after a long day hunting. But what I do really enjoy is the feedback that I get from you guys, the amazing comments that you've left on wherever you listen, you know, the sharing it and just sharing your experiences with me. That to me makes it worth it. And I really enjoy that aspect of it. That's that's why

I do it. That's what I love about it. And so I think it's really cool that that we've created an awesome community of people that are trying through hardcore hunters all the way to the people just getting into it. So I thank you guys for listening. I thank you for your continued support. UM last year, I tried to figure out ways to do the giveaway because you know, it's like I kind of have to do it, and I'll do it in combination with social media. So if

you don't have those things, I apologize. It just makes it easier for me to figure out ways to to get some stuff given away. So I've got some. I I did this last year as well, and I thought I thought it worked really well. And what I don't want to do because sometimes if I do just to giveaway on like Instagram, there's so many people that the odds are just terrible. So I wanted to be like, if you you put out a little effort, you listen to the podcast, then your odds will be a lot better.

So the first giveaway, I've got some awesome YETI mugs for some people, some different ramblers, So I'll maybe I've got half a dozen of those, maybe a dozen of those. So what we're gonna do. I'm gonna make a post, like a post about the podcast, and then as the secret to just the people that listen, uh in the comments, put some kind of mug emoji, whether it's the beer mug, whether it's the some form of cup emoji. I'm sure you can find that figure that out. I looked there

was like quite a few different ones. So you put some form of cup emoji, and then I will randomly select the winners out of those, uh, those people that do that, So that should help your odds. There won't be like thousands of people. That will just be the people that listen to the people that take the time to do it, and that's cool be rewarded for that. So um, that's that's one of the ways one of

the secret podcast prizes. The next oh, I did this one last year with a different product, and um, the odds were super good. So the next one, I've got a custom Gerber knife, So you can actually go on design whatever you want on the knife ad. You choose exactly what knife you want. Um like, put your name on it, put images on it. Put I mean, just like crazy cool stuff. Um, so this one what I did, and I kind of like this because it kind of

narrowed the amount of people and what they did. But so go on my Instagram page anywhere that you see a knife, just comment like it could be an old post, it could be a new post, it doesn't matter. Just scroll through a few of the pictures. If you see a knife or whatever in the thing in the post, just say something about the podcast it does. I'll figure it out. I think there's like dates on there, so

I can kind of figure out. Then I'm going to randomly I've got I know which images have stuff, so I'm gonna randomly pick the image and then the people that have commented on the image. I will randomly pick the person on that the person that one last year, um, the image that actually I got randomly drawn. There was like six comments on it, so it was like a one or it was actually three. It was like a one in three chance of winning the prize last year,

so that was pretty sweet. Um, you know, there was a lot on some photos, but this, I don't you don't have to go like super deep, you know, just whatever, just the last you know, twenty photos or whatever. But um, most people just did it on the one, and a couple of people listened and did it on the other ones, and they did it on all the ones they saw that person one. So that's just something, uh, give that if you want to enter that. And then and then

I did this last year as well. I thought it was kind of fun, just kind of like a photo contest. I've got a pair of diamondback ten by I think of ten by forty two h d S Vortex's binoculars, So if you want to try to win those, just if you got an image, take a picture or you have an image that you've already done, tag me in it at Remy Warren and then add the hashtag hashtag glassing forward, because I'll search that hashtag and then it'll just be kind of a photo contest of sorts under

that theme glassing forward last year's winner. I think his daughter was just like out there looking. It was kind of a cool like he had a cool concept of it. Um, that was the winner. I actually may just randomize him. But I'll take the maybe my top ten favorite photos and then I'll just do a random thing off of that. So that's how you can win your Christmas swag. Um, I will close all that. Let's say we'll give it five days from today, so before New Year's Um, actually

let's just close it. Let's just close it by next week before the next podcast comes out, which is New Year's Eve. So best of luck to you all. And actually, you know some of the mugs I'm not gonna do today, So if anybody listens, those people will be rewarded. If you're listening to this on Christmas Eve, your hardcore, if you give me that cup thing, we'll just as you have a couple of those away, those ramblers away that way, it's it's my own giveaway. It's just loose, just like

that's the way I like to do it. So until then, Merry Christmas. You have Filthy Animals next week, Oh before I forget next week I'm gonna do some just because it's New Year's and we got New Year's Eve coming up. Just some stuff to think about getting into next year, like an action plan to be more successful, some fitness stuff, some shooting stuff, some hunt planning stuff. Will get all that dialed then, so going into the next year, you can make your plan, you can be set, and you're

gonna be ready for success. All right, Merry Christmas everyone, and to you all a good night.