Ep 143 / Bears, Brotherhood, and Badass Gear

Welcome to the Whitetail Advantage podcast with your host Brett Bovin. Thank you for tuning in and enjoy the show. How's it going everyone?

It's Brett Bovin and welcome to the electronic Campfire. Now we're not politically correct on this show. We have, we have a strong belief that hunting and brotherhood go hand in hand together. So with brotherhood you also get hazing and that you're going to be hazed on. So join the hazing with us. It's all we say. Sundays is our roundtable type segment show covering a variety of different topics. And Today is Sunday, April 6, 2025. It's to our Tuesday show. It's more of our state specific show.

We bring a guest that lives and hunts in that state. We asked them a variety of different questions. Now it was say on the show, recording the slot machine. What I mean by that is help share the show. Just help grow the show and help share the show. That's all we ask of everybody out there. I believe hunting is a dying sport. It's a dying lifestyle. It's not like what it used to be. Whereas it's nowadays where it's more of the deer camps are more kind of electronic nowadays.

That's why I like to call this the electronic campfire. But we'd love to get to the deer camps what they used to be in their own way. But they also do change. So change is good. Sometimes I also do want to take a second and always like to say this. Thank you to all the men and women in the military. Thank you for your service and thank you for your sacrifice. I also like to say thank you to all the men and women in law enforcement.

Firefighters, the doctors, corrections officers, booking officers, construction workers, basically everybody in public service. I just want to say say thank you for your service. Now like I said, Today is Sunday, April 6, 2025.

Tonight we have on myself and the Squatch along with our guest Brian. Some of you might know him as Bitter R Beer. I purposely did that. Johnny's not going to be with us tonight. Thank God. Um, Dave's not going to be here with us either. So it's just. We're just hitting on a milestone tonight. Anyways, so I invite you all to grab a chair and pull up next to Electron campfire and enjoy an amazing conversation. An amazing night. Tonight. We're going to get into some, some amazing topics tonight.

Well, hello. Well hello Brian. Thank you for coming on the show, brother. Yeah man, thanks for having me. And we also have Squatch up there at the top because it's just Squatch. I mean, look at him. He deserves to be up there on a pedestal. He's just so beautiful. I'm not gonna lie. I got beard envy, bud. As soon as I get retired from this job, I'm gonna be you. That's all right. It's all good. We understand what's going on. Everybody Hope everybody's well. I. I have the best beard.

There's no. There's no argument with that. Mine's just a nice, trim, clean cut. I have scruff there. It means it's a manly beard. It's just low maintenance. It's awesome. You don't have to do anything to it. I know. I do a little shampoo here and there, and that's it. He's running the millennial scruff. It's okay. Yeah, that's a good one. Well, Johnny's not here tonight for his segment. And looks like Michael didn't send in any for him. So I'm just going to pick three off top of the dome here.

Let's start off with Squatch. Oh, let's do this. Let's go this route. You have a Squatch, the Loch Ness monster, and Pumpkin head. Oh, man. So let's see. I got a friend one. So I'm gonna friend the squad because, you know, he's my role model. And so I gotta kill one and be. What was it you said? The Loch Ness monster. Oh, lock, kill, lock. This monster. I don't know what happens. Every time I get on this show, I start getting a frog in my throat. Let's see. And see.

So the other one was Pumpkinhead. Pumpkin head. Nah, let's kill Pumpkinhead. Kill Pumpkinhead, Befriend Squatch. And you're locked a sponsor, so we'll leave it at that. All right. Yeah. Brian, you have an alien from the movie Aliens. I'm trying to go like fictional type creatures here. The Predator. Oh, oh. And let's see. Squatch. Give me one more. I'm stuck here. Slimer from Ghostbusters. Oh, yeah, That's a good one. Yeah. Well, that's easy. I'm gonna befriend Predator for sure.

It's an outer space SWAT guy. So we'll just go with that. There you go. I'm going to hunt the slimer. And the other one was the alien. Alien. Yeah. We gonna. We gonna kill that son. I like that. I mean, predator and alien are kind of similar, but you can use. Yeah, actual aliens. Predators just got the man. I think that is just a bad and yet Yes, I get they're bad creatures, they kill people. But in every movie, they somehow turn out to be nice. And you root for the motherfuckers. Oh, yeah.

All right. All right, Brett, so I got three for you. You ready? Okay. Okay. All right. They're not animals, though. Well, they could be considered animals. All right, first one's Bill Cosby. The second one is. The second one is P. Diddy, and the third one is Jeffrey Dahmer. Go. Oh, God, that is so bad. I guess. Okay, so I got Bill Cosby. They gotta get the Bill Cosby with. The pudding in the pool plot. Bill Cosby, pay Diddy and Jeffrey Dahmer. I guess I'm killing Jeffrey Dahmer. Absolutely.

I want to hunt P. Diddy. And I'll be friend Bill Cosby, because I still feel like I can. I'll just put a cover over my drink. There you go. And I could just have a great conversation. I don't know, I feel like. I mean, I don't know how other way you could go about doing that. It's excellent. Perfect. Yeah. I don't know. You know, it's the. That goes through this brain of mine, man. It's like, okay, I gotta come up with something for Brett. Oh, I like it. I like it. It's a good one, right?

Thanks for playing. Yeah, no worries. So now, so in your guys's honor today, I brought. What is that? Talk and bull. Oh, look at that. Oh, they love that. The first part of that. I mean, we're gonna do it. We might as well go all the way. Exactly. Yep, definitely. Well, brother, can you give a little background about yourself? Yeah. So, Brian Ludicke. I live in west central mountains of Idaho. So if you go to Boise and you go about three hours north, you'll find me there.

I'm a police officer for the city of McCall. I work up to have worked here a couple of years, and then I spent a couple of decades with the city of Meridian 54. I've got three super awesome kids and a couple of grandkids and a wife that puts up with my 25 years almost as a policeman's wife. She puts up with the. So, yeah, and then I've been hunting. Started hunting when I was six, just shooting squirrels and doing the typical kid stuff.

And then got my first hunting license in deer tag when I was 12. And here I am 40 some odd years later. Now, tonight's show is going to be interesting because we all know that I don't script my shows. We just go off Campfire type feeling atmosphere. However, you and I have talked before about what we'd like to talk about on the show and you're actually, we'll start off with this route. You're actually considering doing your own podcast for people that are, what was it, 50 or older.

And the older people like that. So it fit perfectly with Squatch and Dave and with those. Yeah, you know, yep, you and I have talked about that quite a bit actually. And kind of the impetus behind that was today's social media. I mean social media is really geared up for the younger crowd, right.

I mean you're millennials, your Gen Zs, et cetera, the hunting community, the kind of the business, if you want to call it that, is really geared up for that group of people because they're the ones that are the professionals at this point. They're the ones that have the disposable income per se and some of the time, et cetera, to do these types of things. And so all the marketing stuff is really geared up for them.

And those of us that are starting to surpass those age limits, we kind of get left behind with some stuff. And we have our own set of challenges when it comes to getting out in the field and doing this stuff. For example, I have kids. They're adults and they have kids. Now you're splitting your time trying to figure out what you're going to do in the fall with, with kids and, or grandkids or whatever the case may be. It just, you have, you know, obviously start having choices to make.

Also when your kids have kids, they still want to go hunting. So guess who gets to go with the grandkids? Right. So there's some of that. The other thing that we're going to focus on, some of the notes that we've put together so far, I've put together so far is fitness. That's really going to be probably the top of the, the top of the billet for a lot of things because how you're in your 30s, right? Right.

Yeah. 31. 31. Okay. So for us, Squatch and I and, and Dave, particularly as you start hitting that 50 year old mark, it really gets harder.

I mean, really gets harder. People don't understand. I was in really good shape at like 45, 46 and the bottom fell out pretty quick. And it just got to the point was it's really difficult and you can't do things the way you did it. Just your joints don't take it. You know, you 41 years old and you know, bench press 335 pounds was no big deal. Do all this different stuff, CrossFit and back squats and all the different things.

Then you wake up and you're 50 and you've got a, you know, compressed disc and lower back, and you've got two shoulder repairs and three knee surgeries and a hip that doesn't like you anymore. Some different things. So you have to tweak those workouts to, to, to fit your, I don't want to say ability level, because that's not what it is, but to, to fit your, Your body's ability to perform.

Well, I'm sure also in the days where you're kind of younger and I know, I'm sure, I don't know if you had this saying in your police academy, but in ours, when you become a cop, you lose the right to be out of shape. And it was just. And I don't give a. We called people that were out of shape fat. And if you were a fat, then we called you out on him because you needed to be in shape. Because you put, you're putting your life on the line. And at the end of the day, you need to get home.

And if you are out of shape, you near that. If it comes to a life and death type of situation. If you're working out and you get. And I'm assuming when you get older, you're. Because you're putting so much pressure on your. Just your joints from working out younger and your body can take that, but the more you get older, because you were doing that for so long, over a period of time, it's just deteriorating those ligaments and those joints all together.

By the time you get up to your guys's age, I'm assuming they're just basically shot, I'm assuming. And I'm no doctor or anything, I'm just. It takes a toll on you, man. It really does. I mean, I'm sure like everybody else, we've. We've did our due diligence of working hard our whole lives. I mean, you know, from the time I was five years old, I was stacking firewood in the back of a trailer up in the woods and, you know, just physical labor my whole life.

I did landscaping for over 21 years by myself, basically short spell. A guy I called my son, he worked with me for a while and it helped out. But, you know, after 21 years of bouncing around on stuff, man, my back, Swiss cheese. I got a tumor alongside my spine that's about the size of my fist. It's like a fatty cyst that's kind of like into my. One side of my spine. So it hurts. It puts a lot of pressure on my back. I gotta probably have it taken out.

But you know, just, I'm just, you know, every day you just bear through it. And I'm sure, you know, Root could tell you too, you know, it's. I could totally concur too. And you know, you'll be like, like I was fishing the other day and I was like jumping around off of some rocks and I'm like getting all wobbly up there. I'm like, man, this, this is freaking nuts. I used to be able to just freaking turn around, go right over here.

Now I gotta watch what the hell I'm doing, you know, because you, you don't have to, you know, you just, you just got to grin and bear it and move on and one and, and squatch. You, you bring up a good point. Because as we, as we lose, as we age, we lose dexterity and we lose some balance too. And it, you really have to work hard to, to maintain that. Yeah. You come hunt and we've, we've talked hunting back east is a little bit different than hunting out in the west, right? Oh yeah, absolutely.

But it's nothing for us to strap on a 40, 50, 60, 70 pound pack or more. If you got meat in it and have to traverse, you know, the Rocky Mountains to get in and out of where you're going. Yes sir. You know, it's a deal. And so all these different things that you can do to bring your balance back or at least maintain what you've got and, and start strengthening those, those minor muscles and stuff. It's, it's, it's a big deal.

You know, I, the other thing, I treated my body like a freaking amusement park when I was younger. Me too. Yeah. And I'm paying, I'm paying for that now, right. I've got enough titanium in me that I think the Chinese want to start shipping me rare earth metals. Well, with getting up there in age, how do you get with the mental aspect of it, Brian, from like what you were like getting over that mental aspect of. Well, I'm not what I used to be.

When I'm in my 20s or 30s, I still gotta grind it out. Expect. And I'm. We're just talking about like in general. Give me your general type atmosphere of it. But also hunting out west because it's obviously a lot different than hunting out east. But hunting in general, you still gotta get over that point. Though, Right. You still gotta get up and start move over stuff. Right. So as far as basically sticking to it. Right. Basically just grinding it out. That's a mindset.

I just, I don't quit even ask my, you ask my kids and my son in law specifically if he's on here. You know, we packed his elk out out of a hell hole and a half this, this past November and you know, I beat him to the truck. But you know, he, you know, you just put one foot in front of the other and you, you, you just, you just do, you know. I don't, that's a mindset. I, you, you can't you step on a landmine on that one, Brett. But I mean really, you either have that or you don't.

I think I, I don't. Yeah. You just basically suck it the up and move on. Yeah. If you have it in your mind that you can't do it, then you're not gonna, I mean really, that's just the end of it. I, I, I don't quit. I, we've talked about some stuff, some of my injuries, whatnot, and I had to overcome quite a bit to get back to where I am. Yeah. And I still fight that battle, especially with the, with the strength and balance as a result of it. Um, but you know, you keep, you know, persevere.

I want to be out there doing this. It's, it's my happy place. So you know, I, I put the work in. Like when I was in the police academy, I hurt my knee. It fucked it up pretty good. And I'm trying to get back into shape because I always use that as an excuse to not make it back into shape. It's like, oh, my knee, my knee kills. Kills. Eventually you just get the point where it's like, well, I'm, I'm a fat now. I need to get back in shape. I got two kids now and you just suck it the up.

And every time I go out there running and I'm getting, and I'm working out, don't get me wrong, it sucks. But you also just get to a point where it's just like, all right, it hurts. Just suck it up and move on. Just accept it and just, it's not going to get any worse. So just accept it. Yeah. And, and you know, you, we have, we modify and adjust. Right.

I work with a trainer who's your age actually, and he and I hunt together periodically and, and, and do some stuff, I shoot with him and, but he understands the aging process because he's also a physical therapist. So he gets it, he gets the injury. He was, he helped me through my original injury. What did he say? PSE mobile. Which is, it's a. Dave says getting don't mean you don't. You can't. Getting old don't mean you can't be fit. Just takes, takes more by definition old age.

I gotta put these on to see it. But you know, Jared Gonzalez is his kid's name and he works with me quite a bit. We, we, we talk daily about some of the different things, how I'm feeling, what, what, what hurts, what doesn't. You know, what we need to do. I don't run anymore with my, my knee injury. I, I just don't. Broadside ambush. You tell him Brett. Don't be a. It's true, Frankie.

But you know, he, we do things on a spin bike or we'll do things on a rower or we'll do, you know, different stuff that's going to be lower impact on, on the body that, but still keeps that heart rate going. Plus I do quite a bit of weighted packing, rucking, whatever you want to call it. But yeah, and I've been. But you're adapting to those situations like you can modify like you just said workouts and I love.

If I had a pool I'd do it more aquatic workouts because there's like zero impact on, on your ligaments and your joints compared to actual running on pavement. And there's a lot of resistance. Exactly. So you're building up muscle on top of not hurting yourself in the same aspect of it too. So it's a one on one gain scenario type deal. So beyond, beyond fitness to, to, to kind of, kind of close the circle on this, on this podcast deal. Some of the other things that come up too are time.

You know, we, we have a limited amount of time left to hunt. I mean, let's just call it what it is, right? I'm 54 years old. You, you figure the average male is living to the age of what, 78, you know, as I give me 20, 24 years. Yeah. Right. That's not a lot of time on the grand scheme of things. And then, you know, so how do you balance the time with, with all these different things and, and get out there and then. I don't know about you, you squats.

But did, did any of you guys start getting in the points game early in life? Not myself. No, I, I haven't because I've mostly always hunted out this way. You know, not really, but I'M going to look into doing it, you know, more. So I put it out to the chat.

How many of those guys that are out there that are, you know, older than 40, let's say, have started getting points in places like Wyoming or Montana or Kansas or Iowa or, you know, Ohio, whatever it is that you're, you know, what your game is. But there's not many of us that did that because really, it wasn't on our radar and there wasn't Internet. Right, right, right. So you had to.

You had to sort through all these booklets and all these regulations to try to sort out, you know, how to even apply. It was just kind of a general pain in the ass. So a lot of us, myself included, and get involved in. So there's hunts I'd like to do that I'll never catch up on. I'll never. I'll give you an example. I've been putting in for antelope points and organs. I just. One of the things I just love to hunt is antelope.

I've been putting them for points in an antelope for quite a while, but I can't catch it. So this year I finally decided, you know, I've got enough points to draw a doe tag. And so screw it, I'm going to put in the doe tag and go out there with. With my black powder and on a rifle hunt and make it a little bit more difficult and go out, enjoy it. Yeah. The average life expectancy of a male is 75.6 years. Oh, thanks, Brett. Fuck off. I've got like, you know, what was it? 75.6. 75.6.

Yeah. He just gave three years off my hunting right there. Well, I've got basically a bovin. A little. Little less than a bovin lifetime to live to hunt. That's great. Yeah, Yeah, I got. A quarter century really isn't a lot when a quarter century isn't a lot in the grand scheme. I mean, you know, you look back at my career, I've been doing that a quarter century and it went by in a flash. So. Yeah. Yeah. And thank you, Brian, for your service. Oh, heck, yeah. Thanks for your service, brother.

But I also think with the. The points aspect of it, I mean, really, I didn't know about points because I didn't grow up in that type of family.

It was more. I was geared towards sports, and then it wasn't something that was kind of known about or talked about a whole lot. It was just, yeah, let's go hunt in our neighbor. Our area. Growing up as a kid, I didn't start learning about points that you need points to go out of state to hunt till I was 23, 24, ballpark. When I was like, oh, if I want to go hunt Wyoming, you need maybe six points or something to get in this area.

I was like, well, I wish I knew that When I was 10 years old my dad could start putting points in for my, for my name and by the time I'm 30, I could be stacked up with a ton of points and all these other states. I'm like, well, I'm gonna submit now and get my there and you know. And I think with all these podcast. And meal these communications, you can push that information out there. Yeah, so you've had things that invented, you know, the, the hunt and fool the go hunt.

The you know, Onyx is using, I think they're using hunt, but these different services that are out there that are, you know, are helping educate people. So that's part of it. I'm, I'm a pretty fervent user of go hunt myself. I, you know, for the western hunting, I think it's probably one of, if not the best and you know, and so I've gotten into the points game. But holy am I, you know, I started that four years ago, five years ago, I'll never catch it on some stuff. Right.

So, so going through that with people our age is like, okay, so I want to go hunting every single year. How do I do that? How do I do that? And go, go play the non resident game in some places and what are some cool hunts and, and then managing your expectation. Right. You know, everybody wants to go out shoot a 200 inch builder buck, myself included. But you know, it may not happen for me. Right? Yeah, right. And that's okay.

But if I can go to Wyoming, let's say on three points or four points and go hunt a unit that you know is maybe a little bit high pressure or you know, maybe not, doesn't have the deer densities, etc. You put the work in going back to fitness and some of these other things and dedication and grit, determination and then you can, you can go out on the other end and have a pretty, pretty good hunt.

I. That photograph that you have of me was, it was a hunt very much like that in Utah and a very low density deer unit. You know, I just basically put my nose a grindstone on. There's a question. Go ahead, go ask question. No, I was just gonna. It's better you let him do that because the one I'm gonna ask is going to take a little bit, so go ahead. Oh, my question was just going to ask. Michael's asking you, Brian, if you use cell cams. If so, which kind? I. I'll be honest with you guys.

I don't use cameras at all. I. I have never. Never once used a trail camera of any kind. And I think you and I talked about that. You haven't used those before. I. I have not. I have a buddy that uses them in the northern part of the state where we hunt some whitetails. And honestly, they're. They're pretty handy. I mean, at least he knows what his inventory of whitetail deer are in the places that we hunt. Yeah, I get some really sweet pictures out of it. But in.

In the west central mountains, where I hunt in some different places here in Oregon and, you know, the. The badlands of Montana and some other places. It's just not. It's just not a thing. Yeah. I'll ask you one last question, and I'll lead it to Squatch here, because Michael's gonna ask at one point tonight, have you tried possum yet? Thank you. There we go. I was waiting for it. I mean, because we all ride Michael like a rented mule on that question every single week. Yep. Yeah, you do.

But I can't see the. I can't see the chat. So it was hoping it would come up. I just want to, like. I want to meet the one person that has tried it. And, like, my question is, what got you to the point of trying it? Like, was there nothing else that you could to eat? Because I feel like at that point, you're. You're literally eating. In my opinion, if you're eating a. Pasta, I think that it's gonna be like eating a rat either. But, I mean, I. I don't know, man. I'd be pretty hungry.

It's a big rat. I mean, if I was. If I was starving in the woods, it's game on. I'll cook it and figure out some way to make it taste good. With flavors, of course. You know. Yeah. Yeah. So what I. What I was gonna ask you to get into the. A little bit of the hunting side of this stuff, I guess. You pers. Do you pursue muleys more than you do whitetail out where you are? Actually, I bet money it's a. It's a 50. 50. Okay. So I actually hunt whitetails quite a bit.

Okay, so tell us some of your strategies, your setups of what you're doing to get in on it doesn't matter if it's a whitetail or mule deer. Just. Let's just say you got a good quality buck, you've seen them around, you're seeing his sign, it's starting to get into the rut. And you know, just, just tell me how, how bitter root looks for deer sign where you live and how you go about making your setups. What's, what's your key strategies that you do. So let's start with. Let's.

Let's split that into two because.

Let's start with mule deer because mule deer is a completely different season in the whitetail. Okay. We don't get to hunt. Generally, we don't get to hunt mule deer into the rut at all. Okay. So we're hunting them with muzzleloaders and rifles in October, generally when they're already hard horned and they're brushed up. And so it's a completely different animal. Right. So for mule deer on those hunts, I'm spot and stock.

So I'm going to backpack myself into a mountain someplace to get as big a field of view as I possibly can. And I'll sit there all day, multiple days if I'm seeing deer. So your glass. And not. Not to interrupt you, but your glass. And what kind of glass are you using to scope this stuff out with? Currently I have the Vector X made by Vectronics. Saffron. Vectronics. Cool. And it's a 12 by 42 glass with a set of doubling lenses. So I get to. It's actually 1.7, but so I get to about 18 power.

And I put those on a tripod and I glass with those. Nice. So. And, and I, I'll run that and. And basically kind of, kind of like doing marksmanship kind of stuff. I'll draw the area when I'm looking at. And I'll arrange some different stuff. And so I know what I'm looking at, know the different pieces of terrain and, and feature that I'm looking at. Know how far away it is. I'll upload it on to my mapping system.

Uh, and then so I'll kind of have a picture of what that area looks like and I'll pick every piece. You know, I glass pretty methodically and I'll glass for hours and hours and hours on end. I'm adhd, but when he set me behind a set of binoculars, I can actually focus. But as I think it's. It's busy work. Yeah, you're. You're constantly moving even though it's in small bits and pieces. Right. So I tripod on a panhead and I'll just literally pick an entire mountain apart piece by piece for hours.

So let me interrupt you a little bit. When you're doing that and you're, you're, you're focusing on, on that distance, are you saying to yourself, well, okay, I just saw that, you know, monster, I want to get down and get, get after him. You obviously have to know what your limitations are and how fast you can get on an animal once you spot it, you know, I mean, is that something what you're doing or you just kind of like, well, I'll get to him tomorrow. I know he's in that general area.

You know, how, how do you go about with that, you know? Yeah. So again, if I, if it's the, if it's morning and I've, I've got a buck located, basically, I'll, I'll bet him, yeah, I'll put him to bed and then I'll figure out how to get to a place where I can get inside of his bedding area and take a shot from there. Just like you would, honestly, not too dissimilar from archery hunting in that aspect. Just from a little bit longer distances.

Yep. So I'll get into these areas and I'll sit and wait for them to get up and move and feed in the evening, if it's evening and we have time to get to where they are, I'll go, I'll put the pack on and I'll. And I'll ask. But if we don't have time again, it's the same thing. You basically, they're not going to bed necessarily, or they might, but you're going to basically put them to dark. They're going to be in a geographic spot.

When I put them to dark, I'll go back to camp and then we'll go right back into that spot where we last saw them the night before. Right. And hopefully they're back in that same spot again. We'll already have everything picked out, so we'll know kind of what our ambush looks like when it comes. Hopefully, knock on wood. Everything goes perfectly. Yeah. Nice. My, my question, go ahead. My question to kind of piggyback off of that.

And it was just kind of a comment that Michael's asking, he's asking what kind of, what do you use for a stand wise? And mine was kind of piggyback off of that. Do you have like a mobile type setup or a permanent standstep or is it just ground and pound all the way around. I've got a butt pad made by Ryan Lampers with stealthy hunter if you're familiar. Okay. I don't think so. It's a really pretty sweet foam pad, but that's covered in some waterproof stuff and it's a glassing pad is what it is.

So you basically park your keister on that and the side of a mountain and glass. I've got a very lightweight carbon fiber tripod and a very lightweight pan head. Pan head that I use is like 4 ounces and I use this as glass with these doubling lenses on it. I don't even really carry a spotting scope anymore unless we're going to be someplace where we're going to be glassing a long, long ways. So I try to go. So there's two things. So let me go back a little bit. Swatch for you.

Yeah. If we're backpacking, if we're backpacking in. I'm taking as gear that is light as I possibly can. And so I'm probably not going to have a spotting scope and whatnot. Right. But if we're front, if we're front country camping and I can have the spotting scopes and different things. I don't have all my gear and my life and my food and my tamp and my back. I can afford a little bit more weight in some of these different tools in my pack. Does that make sense? Yeah, absolutely.

Kind of depends on where we're, you know, what the hunt entails. But usually we'll glass for hours. I. I'll find a place, park my keister and. And we'll sit in glass with the, with the, the glass and the tripod for hours. I bring a jetboil and a coffee. I got a titanium coffee cup. And we'll sit and drink coffee all day long. Perfect. Yeah, perfect. And then to, to move on. Squatch for you on the whitetails. Yeah. So we get to hunt whitetails.

Yeah, we get to hunt whitetails into some, some units. Some places we go all the way into December here and we get one tag. Okay. So we get. It's whitetails. It's an either sex tag. So. But we only get one. So I'm usually out looking for a decent buck and. And we're hunting a pretty heavy country. So I do quite, quite a bit of still, still hunting through the timber. Okay. We, we don't, we don't treat hunt out of trees a lot here, but we can.

Yeah. Which ultimately, Brett, you and I've been talking too. That Whole tree saddle thing set up that XOP thing we've been talking about. I've been doing some research on that actually might benefit us out here in the West. Well, that was going to be my question was. Well first off, I didn't realize deer could identify as either sex. So that's kind of new information. Me, you know. Exactly. You're on the west coast. So a buck could identify as a chick and a chick identifies a bug.

Wow. I'm learning everything these days. Like squad if I as a chick one day. So I don't know, I'll still support you, Squatch. Hey, I, I want you to know that I appreciate that and if I ever decided to go that route, I think I might be able to do better than you. But I don't think you could do better than me though. I don't know. I think I'm, I'm the apex of it all. I'm pret boven. Perfect.

But do you think a mobile hunting set from like xop because like we said when we announced it, you and I were talking about more and more and I know you and Dave were talking about it a lot too. Yep, I was talking to Dave quite a bit. Do you think a mobile hunting set from XOP would, would help out. Help you out but also help western hunters out there out west? I think so. Especially when you're talking about some of these.

We don't have the rainforest necessarily that they've got on the west coast of like Oregon and Washington right where, where Johnny's going this fall. But we have some very dense pine and spruce forests in the northern part of the state particularly. It does not have a lot of open spot, you know, a lot of openings, open country, unless it's clear cut timberlands. And so because of that if you can get into some areas that are pretty dense, you can get up a little bit up in the air in a tree.

You, you can see, you know, a fair piece in some of those places from up above. Yeah. So I mean what might, what might benefit you? It just popped into my head and if I was in that situation and you got somebody that you're out there hunting with in a, in a, you know, spot and stalk situation, if somebody was up high in the tree glassing and I mean I, I saddle hunt, you can literally sit there man, and just put your, your face in the tree.

You can put your arms there and stay real steady, you know, glass left and right and you know you're talking to somebody, texting them, saying hey, you Know what? I see a good buck. Get on your feet and get going. You know, it might benefit you guys just to, you know, scope out stuff right out of that, you know, out of that tree. Man, I, I can't imagine it wouldn't hurt you at all. And full disclosure, I actually shot my very first critter of any kind out of a tree this last fall.

That, that whitetail buck I, I shot in northern Idaho this, this past season, that, that big five point was, was out of a stand. I'd never done it before. And you know, he presented a front shot. He actually hit the, hit it, hit a rub and immediately walked to his scrape and his licking branch and hit that. And then he turned and batted a frontal shot. And I put him on the ground at 70 yards with my, my muzzleloader. It was fun. Beautiful.

Different kind of hunt for me it was, but it was, you know, a lot of fun because generally those squats were hunting that stuff. I'm doing a bunch of still hunting. Yeah. And then I hunt the edge, the edge country quite a bit. So you need clear cut timbers and these, these small clears and different things. I'm going to hunt all those edges. Cool. Early morning and late evening. Yep, that's perfect. That's a good setup.

So another question for you in your, let's say, your whitetail, you know, ventures with what you're doing, what is your food source that you're concentrating on out there to get on somebody's deer? Yeah. So again, we're hunting the mountain bucks, right. And you guys had, did you have Troy on? Troy Pottinger, Yeah. Troy Pottinger, Yeah, he was. Episode 44, I think. Yeah. So. So Troy, he's super good. I like, really good at this stuff.

But so we're looking at Forbes stuff that, you know, roots and different things that come out of the ground in these mountain bucks. Yeah, all the late season stuff, some of your, your onions, that kind of stuff. Stuff that's grown out of the late stuff's coming out of the ground. You know, we don't have food plots or anything like that. Right. So they're, they're, they're basically scraping up what's left. Some of the bitter brush, mountain mahogany.

They're, they're big into the mahogany and the bitter brush. And that's both for both, both species, actually. Okay, so those are kind of the pockets I'm looking for. Nice. Well, now, since you're out there in Idaho, what would a hunter. So we're out there, we have a successful hunt now talking to you, it sounds like Dave's gonna beat me to the punch and he's gonna get out there next year. He's coming next year. Yeah. That fucker. I can't get out there till 2027, that dick bag.

So I just want to punch him in his non existent balls. It's gonna be good one. It's gonna be a good one, I'll be honest.

So Dave has a successful hunt out there. What are gonna be the requirements for him heading back home? Like what's he going to need? Is he going to need a giant cooler for the meat if you want. I'm assuming he's going to get it. Wanted a taxidermic mounted. We're all like the steps that you can think of that he's going to need to know to get back home to Michigan. So that's a good question and a little bit loaded too because every state's a little bit different. But for Idaho and I'm going to.

How's Michigan with chronic wasting? Yeah, let's start there. We had one, one, one outbreak last year I think but we're pretty good with it, I believe. Yeah. What's the fishing game? What's their. Whatever game Fish department. What's their rules with. With bringing heads back and stuff? They had to be tested but I can't remember exactly. So don't quote me though. I haven't read that in a while. So for example, Idaho won't let you bring the head back in.

No. No part of the head or the spine or anything that had any type of spinal fluid at all is allowed back in unless it's already been. Been cooked out. Okay. So for example, my Utah buck, I shot that one that you have the photo of. I actually left it with a taxidermist in Utah to have him do it because I didn't have the facilities or anything to boil that head out to get that, that skull back and, and the hide. And I don't have the.

I personally pretty good at skinning stuff but I haven't, I haven't had a lot of experience doing around the eyes and stuff and I didn't want to screw that hide up so I, I took it to somebody local. So it. I have questions about that. So it looks like Dave caught me on the. So I was. Was right. It's CWD is not bad. It now it's ehd so yes. But it has to be brought to end to get tested and if it comes out of state. Right. And he says yes, have to cook it here. So it looks like you. You have.

You had to cook your deer and get everything done there in Utah before you could bring it back. If I wanted to bring the head and the cape back for taxidermy, I would have had to completely take the cape off of the skull. Yeah. Okay. Ahead of time. And then cut the skull cap off and. And. And cook that off, get all that material out of it and then. And get rid of the rest of it to get it back into Idaho. Yeah. I assume we'd. I'm. Because mission's fucking liberal.

I'm assuming we'd have to do the same thing out of state before we bring it back home. I would think so. So there's that. Right. I'm not. I'm. I'm learning. I'm getting better at some of that stuff. I think if I shoot another one out of state, I'll go ahead and do that and go ahead and trim the ice. The only thing that really bothers me is. Is around the eyes. Yeah. It's very thin. Very thin. It's very thin. And you know if you screw it up, you're done. Right.

So. But, you know, at the time, I didn't have that skill set. At least not good enough for a really nice buck. So I just had a taxidermist in Utah do it. Yeah. And so I got to go down there and pick it up. But for. For Dave, when he comes out, if he shoots a good bull, we'll take it two for him to make sure that he's good for Michigan, we'll take it to a buddy of mine lives a little bit south of us. It's. That's a taxidermist. And I'll have him cape it out for him.

So he'll bring the head and cape back. So it'll be all legal for him to get the horns and all that stuff back to a taxidermist. Back your way. Sweet. As far as meat goes. Yeah. Grab the. The. The. What we've done in the past because we hunt all over the place too. And I get those. I buy those rotary motor coolers. I don't put brand X here. It doesn't matter. Right. But. Mm. We'll put. We'll leave em empty, but they're cold.

I'll drop some dry ice in them while we're gone, while we're hunting so they stay good and cold. Um, and then get the meat. I have a cooler at my house, so I have a. A walk in meat cooler. So we get the meat all good and cooled off and, and aged. Once that's done, we'll freeze it and then I'll put it in the ice chest with him with some more dry ice and a towel and top and bottom so it convects and it'll stay frozen all the way home. That's fucking genius level right there.

Yeah. So we, we did that with some, with some deer out of California. We, and some blacktails down there. And they, they were good and cold, but they weren't frozen when we left. But we had enough good convection in those big good coolers that they were not quite froze, but they were not quite thawed out when they got home. So Dave said, I'm just gonna hide in the back of my truck and drive it like I stole it. Yeah, no, I got a buddy, Royal Jory will take cares. Joy Hearns his name.

He's got a taxidermy shop the south of town. So he'll, he'll, he'll square us with. No big deal. You can eat the whole thing. He said better we're just gonna eat the whole thing at your place. He has no, he has no idea if we shoot, you're looking at, you're looking at 8, 900 pounds, bud. Yeah. Yeah. So now you're looking to take, you know, 300 plus pounds of meat home in a cooler. Yeah. So Root, let me ask you this one now. How is it with predators where you're at and where you're hunting?

What, what's your predator intrusion like there? What, what animals are we looking at that's gonna bother you while you're out hunting or you got a deer down and maybe you got to leave it overnight? What kind of stuff do you run into?

So fortunately I live in free America and so we don't have a lot of restrictions as far as our predators go, the exception of the grizzly bear. Okay. Good news is where I, I hunt and where I live predominantly, I do hunt grizzly country. But where, where Dave's coming. We, we don't have them here. So. But black bears are hunted spring and fall. Coyotes are hunted year round. Mountain lions had a season on them until this year. Oh really?

And the fishing game had different units that were year round and some that weren't. And so fishing game has basically made it a year long season. So it's June 1st to or, sorry, July 1st to June 30th I think is what they did statewide. All the same rules still apply. It's just, it's just open year round. We can help with dogs. We, anything you Want to do we do here. Right, right. And then also we have.

We have wolves here and, and we do run bump into them occasionally but they are also hunted and trapped in Idaho and the population is. Is kept in check. So do we have predators? Sure do. They do have predation on the. On deer and, and. And elk particularly in the spring. Yeah, we get some predation on. On calves and fawns in the spring for sure. Nice. But you know I don't. I mean we. The Idaho. Every fishing game agency has its issues. Right.

But I'll be honest, Idaho by and large does a pretty good job. I think Idaho manages their game as an opportunity state, not necessarily as a trophy state I guess as it were. So you know there's, there's good bucks and bulls to be had here. Um but it you. You're looking at more opportunity. So they want guys to. They want guys and girls to be able to go out hunting and not just. So there's, there's.

And I, I know there's some non residents out there that are probably screaming bloody murder at me because the way Idaho system right now for them sucks ass. I do. I'm a. Yes. Idaho system such as. But there are plenty of tags out there available. Yes Michael, we do see your. I see your question there. I'll get to here in a second. I know I was talking to what's his name, Brian from Idaho when we're covering that long ago and he was basically.

I think I believe it's in all the states that you can't hunt grizzlies. Yeah. He was talking about this a story where this guy, he shot this, this grizzly in south defense and it was point blank. Like he let it get like basically within a foot of him and eventually just shot him like four or three. Three or four times something like that. And they're getting ready to charge the motherfucker and basically he was saying it's like don't even. It's no point of even calling it in. Just take your.

Take your stuff, hide it up because you're, you're basically screwed at that point if you get caught Killing grizzly. Yeah. Out of non defense and it's hard to prove self defense in that type of situation. Yeah it's. It's a. It's a thing because they're federally protected. Right. So it's not because the Idaho fishing game, you know it's. It's really not there. It's. It's really not their say in some of that stuff. So you definitely have A a larger burden of proof. Right.

So I go into grizzly country quite a bit. There's some places I go where they are. I carry you know, a handgun with, with some buffalo bore, you know, cast lead bullets specifically. But I also carry a can of bear spray. So I have both options available to me. And you know, we all say, you know, we're all talk big. Right. But you know, I'm. I'm going to try to use the bear spray first.

And that's basically as a result of the Fish and Wildlife Service and not wanting to get it crammed up my ass sideways so. Bad deal. Have you seen that video that was leaked? I think it was from Alaska where it was this guy, he posted a trail camera right in front of his food plot and it's just like this 30,000pound grizzly bear that just was like built like a semi truck just walking. Yep. Yeah, imagine that coming at you. My first instinct isn't to grab my bear spray. Grabbing. Yeah. Right.

Have you, have you seen, have you seen any of. Of stuck in the rut guys? Have you watched any of their stuff? No, I haven't. Okay. He's. They're, they're, they're a little bit north of me, but they hunt in Alaska quite a bit. And his sister. And then we're hunting white goats, hunting mountain goats in Alaska and they had a confrontation with a grizzly bear. That bount went pear shaped like fast. Wow. It's on video. It's, it's pretty, pretty intense video.

If you guys get a chance to watch it there. It, it's like is it as bad. As that one guy that lived up there in Alaska? What's his name? I can't. That guy with the long blonde hair, I want to say it was Chris or something. Decided he was going to live with him and got eaten. Yeah, it caught on video. I mean not video but audio at least. Yeah. Of him screaming for life and his girlfriend screaming for life as they ate him to death. Yeah, his name was Dinner.

That was that as we call his natural selection guys. Yeah, that's a good point. But yeah, no stuck in the rug. Guys have a really good video on that. If you ever, ever have a chance to go look at it. It's like. But in Alaska, interestingly enough, I have a buddy that lives up there. I hunt with quite a bit and he's. He, he says the grizzlies are hunted, you know, really hard. You know, they are up there and they don't. They'll turn in People, they're like yeah, I don't think so.

They'll, they generally go the other way or a lot of times will with the exception of Kodiak, that's a different animal because they're bigger and meaner. But, but he said the black bears don't give a. Nope. He, he'd been mauled by a black bear hunting up there and he said the black bears are meaner nail. So they did statistics that the occurrence of attack from a black bear is more than a grizzly.

I believe that because it's just black bear inhibited so much more ground and where people are actually having, you know, grizzly attacks. People run into black bears. The only difference is they tell you to fight your ass off with a black bear. They tell you to play dead with a grizzly and pretty much going to be dead if you. They would agree with that somebody Dave would agree with that one. Like I said, he got them all pretty good up years ago.

Yeah. I've never been to Alaska so I don't, you know, I don't know. But in the lower 48, you know, the grizzlies aren't hunted so they're not really all that concerned about us. The funny thing that they run into in Alaska with, with guides flying people in on a Super Cub and stuff. A lot of people that haven't been there before bring in bear spray. And think about it. You've got bear spray on a personal plane and you're sitting two feet away from the pilot and you have a boo boo up there.

You end the plane are going down. So now the guides request that you put it in a container outside of the plane. They'll, they'll take it from you before you get on and they have a thing outside the plane and then when you land they'll hand it back to you and say, you know, good luck. Makes sense. But I don't pretty. I guess they had some pretty bad oops. What was that?

Anytime you get pepper spray of any kind out, I mean my line work, you spray one, you spray all, you put it out there, everybody gets it. Everybody gets it. Yeah. Can you imagine on a windy day, you got a grizzly bear, you're, you know, being approached by you spray. It gets in your eyes. You know, all you did was just season yourself up nice for him to have. Yeah. You know, spicy, spicy Italian. Right. I've been pepper sprayed and I'm, I'm most likely enough.

Yeah. And I pepper sprayed someone in one of our padded cells and we went in There like within a second later. And getting pepper sprayed sucks. And I don't, I don't to put yourself in that type of situation because it was always talked about if you're gonna use pepper spray, make sure out in the field, in law enforcement field to be careful about it because you run the risk of getting it in your face. And just a whole bunch of scenarios.

You get a little glimpse of pepper spray in your face, you're basically done for. Unless you prepare yourself off your ass in those type of situations. If you're out there in the field and you got grizzly bear and you accidentally get that grizzly, I'm assuming in you that you, you're done. And then I was reading that like in Wyoming.

I the point I was trying to say with that is I think wyoming, there's like 3,000 grizzlies up there or something and there needs to be like around 100 ballpark and something like that. So I'm curious, I don't know why but I want to know why of why grizzlies aren't hunted here no more. 48 well, they're, they're still on the endangered species. That's right. Yeah but I figured you can't hunt one. Yeah, again, I thought they were getting. Off the endangered species list though.

I thought they were very close to it. Yeah, I think we were pretty close last year to it. But you know, I mean obviously politics being what they are, etc, and I think there were some lawsuits involved in that and it kind of just pumped the breaks.

I personally would like to see the current administration and the, you know, the Forest Service chief or the Department of Agriculture chief and some of the different folks, Fish and Wildlife put their heads together and get these, these bears off the Endangered Species Act. I'll be honest, we did it with wolves and now we have a management program that's very successful in Montana, Wyoming and Idaho regulating the population of wolves throughout with the exception of Yellowstone Park.

Park. I, I think the same could be done in, in with for sure in Wyoming, Montana and Idaho under the same exact footprint, the same map, the same, same basic thing. The problem you're going to have is you're going to have, you know, your, your organs, your Washingtons, your California's that you know, may or may not sign on to that. And the problem is what's the point when they had. It has nothing to do with them.

That's like when we have wolf problems up in the up and we're asking people in Detroit, well what do you guys Think we need to do with the wolf population up in the Upper Peninsula. Why the matter to them doesn't affect them in any way. Yeah, it's no different than like when they fraking talk about on, you know, like save the freaking planet and all this. You know, let's put money out towards a koala bear. When's the last time you see one of them, you know? Well, so, yeah, and so I can.

I, I mean, I'll, I'll go down this, I'll go down the yellow brick road with you guys on this. Here's, here's the thing that all the folks that are opposed to. And right now the bear hunting, black bear hunting is, is on mountain lions. Obviously. The thing in Colorado this past year, Prop 127. Right? You guys heard about that? Yes, no, I have. Yeah, I've heard. Yeah. Okay, so, so that, you know, they're cute little cuddly bears and they're cute little cuddly kitties and, and they're not.

Um, they're, they're, they eat everything, frankly. Um, and the, the challenge that we have is, or the argument is, well, if we just let them go and we stop hunting and then they'll just. The populations will manage themselves. I mean, that's not the case. Um, that may have been the case in, you know, 1830 when there was absolutely zero population with the exception of some, you know, trappers in the mountains and the indigenous Indian population United States.

Now we have metropolitan centers like Denver, Colorado Springs, Boise, Idaho, Billings, Montana, Bozeman, all these, you know, you name it, put it, put a name to it, where all these migration routes and all these animals have now been impacted and their winter grounds and their summer grounds, all these different things have been impacted by, by us.

So we, under the North American model have to continue to manage both predator and prey species for the betterment of those species, both of them, predator and prey. If we're going to have any critters on the landscape for people to watch and people to hunt and people to do anything else with, it has to be done at. The North American model of conservation is very clear on this and has worked for, you know, 100 years. So, you know, the, the grizzly bear is no exception to that.

I do think the, the Trump administration will, will get this moved forward. It's. And it's up to them to do it and it's not going to come without lawsuits because that's just what happens. But I think it'll get done. I sure hope he gets through on the constitutional carry. Because this state to state crap is just ridiculous. It is, it's ridiculous. It is. It looks like though you guys on the wolf side, it looks like you guys are going to be in on the management plan.

Now I see some news that the, for probably eastern states are going to have, have the, have the wolves coming in out of Canada et cetera, are going to have some sort of management plans coming. Oh yeah, yeah. I've been hearing more and more rumbles that there's going to be some type of season put into place. Yeah. Because they're being delisted, you know, across the board.

And so as that happens, each state will have the opportunity to, to, to put their management plan in place and, and start controlling those numbers. But like Dave says, they're talking about it but who the fuck knows?

Like ah, I, I think there's, I, I. So the thing in, in Colorado the, excuse me, the Prop 127 on the mountains lines was a kind of a. It transcended party, it transcended age group, it transcended a lot of different things in Colorado and people figured out pretty quickly that maybe this isn't what is being told to us. Maybe this, this isn't just cute cuddly little critters and people, people have decided that management of this stuff is, is necessary.

The, the voters in, in Colorado have had some buyer's remorse on the wolf legislation they let pass a couple years ago. There's, there's some data on that. If you listen to Dan Gates at all. He's got some, he's got some pretty interesting insight into a lot of that. And you know, in Idaho and Montana, Wyoming we've been managing the wolf predators for quite some time. And I said very successfully I might add. We have very good stable populations in, in all three states. You know, we don't.

It's not like we hate wolves. I don't, I think they're cool, they're cool animal but everything has to be you know, kept at a moderate level. Right. Deer and elk species too.

So in, in my area right now they're looking at, they did some fly, some fly numbers and some different things and looking at elk particularly and they found a pretty significant over populate, not overpopulation but they're significantly over their target population numbers right now in, in a couple of areas that I live near and they're going to do some management to bring that number back in line with what their objectives. Right.

So there's going to, in some areas there's going to be a lot more tag opportunity. And in other places in Idaho where the, where the population is under objective, they're going to reduce the number of tags. So the, the predator and prey population, same thing. It's all part of that management system. Yeah. And I think a lot of places they need to, at least here in Michigan, you need to look at other states and how they do things.

How can you take the blueprint of what they're doing and try to improve it in your own state in their, in your own way, at least just looking at it like, all right, this is what they're doing on, on every level. How can we implement one little, one little thing into our own game here in the state? Let me just say, how can we take what you guys are doing out in Idaho and implement something here in Michigan, make it better?

I think we should be a lot of more communication, more open line between states. And I, I can't speak for the East. Right. Because I just don't know. But I, I do know that most of the states in the west, as far as their management and some different things, they, the, the, the agencies communicate. They, they do, they do do some work, collaborative work on. And, and they meet, they have meetings and different things.

So, you know, deer and elk species and, and antelope, bears, et cetera, they're doing. Again, I know there's going to be some people out there just going to scream my name and in vain out there, but I, I think the game agencies do with. They're doing okay, right? I think they're doing okay. I don't. Can we be better? Sure. But are they horrible? No, I don't, I don't think so. With the exception of Utah right now, which kicked us in the teeth with a 100% increase in.

Yeah. But, you know, it is what it is. And they're not. They've. They've sent emails out to us that said they're not implementing those changes immediately, but they will at some point. They've left the door open for it. So, so there's a couple questions here for. Yeah, go for it. From Michael. Oh, Michael. Yeah, I know. I can't believe Michael has questions. That's, that's not like. Well, I'm honestly, I'm surprised he hasn't texted me them at this point.

He's been bugging me saying like, oh, you're just ignoring my questions. Like, no, Michael, I have a shrimp run. Ignoring my phone. Michael, you little. Yeah, for those folks that, those folks that don't know the, the, the the group of us that are all the three of us are here and then Dave and Johnny and, and little Michael give each other a ration of on a fairly frequent basis on, on this group chat. And it's actually pretty amusing.

Yes. It's a lot harsher than what we portray and also harsher than what we would dish out to everyone that watches and fan of the show. Oh yeah, the things on the chat, not on the show. His first question is what is your favorite hunting rifle to use, brand and caliber. Okay for a rifle like a center fire rifle? Yeah, that's what I currently shoot a Seins Havoc and 65 PRC that I have outfitted with a benchmark carbon barrel and it's suppressed.

And if I'm going to hunt with a center fire rifle, it will be that while it's the one I'll pull out of the cabinet first. Nice. And with you being law enforcement, he's asking, you're allowed to carry in all 50 states, correct? Same as my dad. Yes, that's what I thought. There are some limitations, but yeah, you. Still have to abide by all the other state laws. General carries. Yeah. So, so for example, I, you know, you can't take a, you can't take a suppressor into California.

It doesn't, no matter who you are, that kind of thing. Right. There's some things that you can and can't do, but yeah. And that will continue after retirement as a, as a, as a retired officer. So I have a, a little, a little card carrying card in the batch says I'm retired, I get to carry. So here's the next question. Oh my gosh. Oh, it's happen, it's Michael. I'm good. How do, how do all of you guys feel about lesbians, LGBTQ people being cops? I've worked with some of them.

I don't give a. It doesn't, that, yeah, there's, there's zero issue there for me. I don't, it don't matter. I really don't care. I, I, I so just, just make, put Michael to use on some of this stuff. I don't care who you are. I really don't. I don't care who you love. I don't care. I don't, I don't care that Dave's a lesbian. He's a lesbian trapped in a man's body is what he is. Yes, I am too. That's it. So yeah, it doesn't matter. I don't, I don't give a shit.

I, you, you, I, yeah, Yeah, I really. It doesn't matter, right, if you're working. In law or just in general, if that's what you are. Just in general. Okay. It's. I'll make fun of all day left and right. It's the people that I make fun of that are out there. Like I post on my, my personal Facebook page where they're out there doing pony stick, pony competition and human puppies rolling around on the mat.

I'll make fun of you people, but if you're gay and lesbian or whatever the case may be, I just don't give a fuck. But I'm going to make fun of it if I see a video of it. Don't get me wrong. And I've worked with some, some lesbians and some gay people in law enforcement. The only time I ever had issues with them is when it came to politics. And I'm not going to get under that part of it in the show. But yeah, outside of that, that you're gonna have that with anybody. But it.

Honestly, I hadn't, I just worked with him and there's no. Anything differently when they. I went to a call or anything in those regards, I didn't. That's not the first thing I think of. Well, I got the lesbian coming behind me or I got the gay dude coming right there. I don't keep. I got backup coming and thank God. Yeah. All right. So, yeah, they're my brother. Like I said, I don't give a damn who you love. I, I was, I was in favor of getting marriage legalized because if they're go.

If they're going to be married, they should have health benefits. You know, I mean, I don't. If they want to be in the misery like we are, then it. Then join the party. Yeah, I, Yeah, I just don't give a. I really don't. I, I don't care for the, Some of the. I don't care for st. Targeting our kids on some of this stuff. That's. That's kind of where I draw the line. But that's really not, that's not the LBGT community that the LBG Q like in Colorado. They just posted. I think it was.

They're allowed. They're forcing. I can't remember exactly, but they're forcing it to be taught in schools. And if your parent, if the parents don't agree to it or, or bend at the will with the teachings of it and the schools, then they have the right to take your kids away. Yeah. In Colorado. Again, I, I live in free America, we, we don't, we don't have those issues here. And, and you know, if you, if you don't give a. Who you're married to, I don't care.

And we really don't have a whole lot of, of that garbage going on in our schools here. We just don't. So. Good. Well, Brian, we're wrapping up here with the rapid fire segment. It's been awesome leading up to this point. Don't get me wrong. Squash, do you have any other questions for, for Brian before we give up into the rapid fire segment? The only thing I was gonna just bring up real quick, I was just curious if he bow hunts out there. I don't. I used to.

I had, I had injury to both eyes and I had my lenses replaced. And so as a result, I can't see. Not only do I have the old man glasses. Yeah. But I don't have the ability to focus up close, so I can't see the pins. So I switched to black powder hunting years after that. Gotcha. So that's kind of my, my archery, I'll be honest. And so I, I do most of my hunting nowadays with, is with some form of a muzzle loader. Okay, cool. I take back what I said then.

Michael's asking if I can show my gun since I'm working out. Maybe next show. Brother Dave's got a question for you. Ask Brian about his badass new pack he got for his hunting trip. Oh, yeah, it's probably the same one we're gonna have Dave get too. I'll be honest. I just picked up an Exo Mountain Sports K4. I have a Nimrod Outdoors pack right now. That's a carbon fiber pack that I've loved and I've, I've had it for the last five years.

And then my middle child decided he wanted to take it and did. So I started doing some, some looking around and I ended up. I ended up talking with, with Steve over at Exo and he, he set me up with this pack. So it's a 3500. It's 5.6 pounds, complete with the gun scabbard and the bag and the accessory pouch and the Nalgene bottle holder. It's. Yeah, it's pretty, pretty well done. It's got a gigantic belt on it, gigantic pad on it.

And because they're in, in the Boise area, I was down there for a class and I went into the shop and he. They had their guys fit me in it and everything else. It's pretty bitching here's. Squatch. Dave has a door the analys. Couldn't that be a Diego path? That was a good one squad. Dave says I got two of them. Yeah, one for him and one for Johnny. Oh my God. Okay. Yeah.

So I've been talking to Dave about make sure he's got the right pack when we get out there because you got to have something that's going to pack me up because dude, you better. Have oxygen in that. Yeah, that dude might die in the first mile hike. So. So here's the good news for Dave. I mean I guess. What's your elevation where you guys are at? Shitty. Like none. Like none. Yeah. Basically zero. He's gonna want to.

Yeah. It'll be a little bit of an adjustment but I'm not going to have him much above 6,800, 7,000ft, I'll be honest. Oh I'm killing him. So it won't be getting shape. They've get in shape anyways.

Brian, besides hunting, do you have any other hobbies or interests? Yeah, my kids and my family. If I'm not hunting, I'm trying to spend as much time with. With all those folks as I can. And unfortunately my kids and stuff are spread out across the four winds right now. But we do try. My wife and I get together and. And do try. That's kind of my. Kind of my thing. I do some precision rifle competitions here and there. Nice. But yeah, outside of. Outside of hunting and fitness, really my.

My passion is my. Is my family. So what animals on your bucket list to hunt? Can I have two? Yeah, you can have two. All right. First. First and foremost, I. I really want to. I really want to hunt a mountain lion and I want to hunt a mountain lion with. With somebody that's got dogs. And I want to do it with my black powder rifle. I haven't been able to put that together yet. But it's like way up high on my bucket list of things to do. The other thing is again, this twofold.

I'm really want to go hunt a sika blacktail in Alaska. Oh yeah. Ooh yeah. Yeah. And conversely like the exact polar opposite of that. A coos whitetail in the south. So I haven't heard anyone say cues. I think that's a first. Coup's deer. Yeah, I think that's a first on the show. Yeah. It depends on. It's kind of like tomato or tomato. Some people call it cows because I think the person who found the was actually his name was pronounced cows. Oh really?

Just. But like you know The Americans that we are, we butchered it and call it coos deer now. So it's fine. Well, Brett, you were. You were meaning, like, as a trophy, though, right, with that, or were you just talking about the pronunciation, What I said about the coups deer. Did you mean you. Nobody had said that before. Like, as a trophy to go after, or do you mean the pronunciation of it? Oh, like the. The. Oh, I see what you're saying. The actual hunting of it. Yeah. Oh, okay. I got you.

Yeah, I'm. I. I want to get those. Both of those done. I. I really want you, Dave. What did he say? He's saying brett's lost you dick. I just. I wasn't sure exactly. Yeah, that's all right. Yeah. What. What is an animal you want to try eating? Mountain lion, for sure. By. By. No, no question. I. That's what I've heard. And I, you know, everybody I've listened to and everybody I've talked to said it's fan freaking tastic. And that's. And that's where. That's what. That's my thing.

Yeah, that's what I want to do. So I'd love to try a mountain. I actually, I have. I've been asking that question, and I have yet to come up with an animal that I want to try, but I've been hearing great things about an animal. I'm. Mountain lions. I've never tried elk. I want. Actually, no, I take that back. I've tried a piece. I've tried elk. That's delicious. So I guess my next one will be mountain lion, maybe. Yeah. What has been your favorite state you've hunted?

I'm gonna say, even though they kick this in the teeth with their rate increases. I had a blast when I hunted Utah a couple years ago. I had a ball. It was a muzzleloader hunt. It was late September, early October. I hunted an area that was. Was pretty low pressure, but also very low deer densities, so you weren't seeing tons and tons of deer, but, God, this country was spectacular. The people in the town nearby that I was hunting in were fantastic. The. I don't know. It just.

The whole experience from start to finish on that deal, including the guy that even took my deer in for taxidermy. If you don't. If you don't mind, I'll just throw his name out there, but David Butts is his name, and he does a bunch of stuff for safari club International, whatnot. I guess he's pretty well known, but he. He took me and he's like, ah, yeah, bring it to me. I'll take care of you. So I had a, I had a fantastic experience hunting in Utah. Not enough to pay double, but it was fun.

What is the top state you want to hunt next? Wyoming. Wyoming. I want to go to Alaska. Yeah. So I want to go to Alaska and hunt and sick of blacktail. But the reason why I say Wyoming is because my son, my son in law and my daughter, my youngest daughter, and we have points in Wyoming and I want to take the kids and do a deer camp. And we're kind of debating on whether we're going to do mule deer or whitetails in Wyoming. We all have enough points.

It's kind of one of those things that we're trying to put together a family deal and Wyoming is going to be where we're going to go. Well, we had someone on recently that we could help get you hooked up. We've talked. Oh, I bet that's good. All right, good. We've talked. Yeah, we've, we've talked. He's, he's, he's been. Actually, I'll be honest with you, he's been super helpful. So, yeah, he's a great guy. He's an awesome. Yes. Yeah, very much so. He's super dude for the guy.

For people that don't know, we've been referring to Towson from Wyoming. He was on the show two weeks ago, I think. So. That's awesome. That might have been three. About three weeks ago, I think. Yeah, actually, yeah. Yeah. He, I reached out to him right after the show and he's, he's been, he's been fun. But yeah, he's been asking me, he's been asking me a bunch of questions for the saddle set up with, with xop. So I rambled off a couple different things for him.

I said, you know, pick, pick something out for the saddle that you think is going to work for you. And you know, when you get your list together, hit me back up and you know, I'll tell you to go from there. But yeah, and I'm, I've been talking to Dave and Brett too. Same thing. Because I think you guys know I'm headed to Virginia in November. Okay. Eastern whitetail hunt. So it's a good place to go. And I'll say this real quick. I was Dave, the reason we got into XOps.

It all started off with Dave and I was looking at their stuff and I was like, I was also looking at other companies with their satellite equipment stuff. And when I talked to Dave, and him and I were talking more and more about xop. One key, one factor that stood out to me from their stuff besides the price point and the quality work that goes into it and everything. With xop, I saw a photo today of the Hyperlite from Trophy Line.

Their sticks, just like a majority of other sticks, they're so close to the tree that you're basically just, you're on your tippy toes. And they actually took a photo of it and it was a great photo, get me wrong, but it was proof that all you're doing is basically just having your toe, your tippy toes on it. Compared to the XOP stick, you actually can get all the way up to like the, like the middle of your foot, almost your heel. Yeah. On an actual stick.

And so you actually feel like you're on it, not just like, ah, am I barely on the stick? Yeah, I wouldn't like that at all. Exactly. So you had to take that into account. I, I wasn't think I wasn't looking at that point when he and I were talking about stuff. And so that's something amazing about XOP is that aspect alone. Yeah, I'm certainly in, in the market because of this thing in, in Virginia. And that's going to be a backpack hunt into the national forest too.

So something like that, that's quick and movable would be pretty badass. And, and then I could turn around and figure out how to use it in our, in our forest up here.

So last two questions, they are very deep questions. If you could pick anybody, you can get a family member and a non family member to go on a hunting trip with or share a campfire with one time. Who would they be? Oh, good. Well, I mean it's the age old answer, right. The family member would be to bring back my grandfather who actually got me into this. You know, he, he passed away in 1989 and his and my last hunt together we were on the side of building out a stroke.

So if I could have that moment back, I, you know, and actually have a successful hunt, that would be just freaking awesome. And then Hollywood Dave, he's a guide in Utah and lives out in Nevada. He's a mentor of mine and I, we don't get to hunt together just because he's a guide and he's out doing his thing. But if I could go on a hunt with Dave, that would be, that's me out. So, last question. What do you think we as fellow hunters could or should do to improve the hunting community as a whole?

We need to get along. We need to quit. We need to quit squawking at each other about, you know, rifle hunters are this and bow hunters or that muzzleloader guys. You guys are just a bunch of idiots. So you know that, that kind of thing, you know, is it white tails or is it me do cares. Get out in the field and go enjoy it. Go enjoy it with your families or enjoy it by yourself. You solo hunt, whatever the case may be. And, and quit. Quit this infighting amongst ourselves and stuff.

I mean, I just get so tired of. And social media is going to be the death of us all, to be honest. And it's, it's so rampant across that thing. It's like some of the comments on YouTube, on people's stuff. It's like, what purpose does that have? Why are we. Who cares? I think that's the biggest thing we need to act as. Go back to the folks that are opposed to the things that we do and they're very well funded and very well organized lobby and they get along.

You don't see any infighting amongst the Humane Society of the United States and this other X group. I can't remember the name Colorado right now, top of my head. But you don't see them arguing with each other on anything. They work together and they make.

And they bring in a ton of money to their lobby, you know, and we can't even, we can't even decide whether, you know, if the bird hunting or deer hunting or elk hunting or, you know, you know, you, you hunt whitetails in the east, you know, you know, it just, it's just on and on and on. I, I get tired of it. No, I agree with you. Yeah, there's. People might look at the show and they're like, well, oh man, they really hate each other. Constantly picking on each other, this and that. No, it's not.

It's love all the way around with us. We just, that's. Yeah, it comes hand in hand with that point of it.

Teasing your boys, teasing your bros is one thing, but, but some of the vitro that's on, on some of these, some of these chat rooms and whatever else these, the comment sections and different things are on social media. It's just unacceptable. I can't remember what exactly what the comment was, but somebody made a comment on.

I can't think of his name right now, but one of the, you know, a pretty preeminent guy does some stuff, you know, and has some pretty good videos out there and somebody just ran him over the, over the Coals over what he was doing. And like, dude, it was entertaining. You shot a nice buck. Leave it at that. Yeah. So yeah, that's the trend. It's the number one thing that a lot of people need to do is stop fighting with each other. Yeah, just shut up. Yeah, you're all out there doing the same.

It's just we don't do it exactly the same way. And it's like, you know, just do your thing, man. Leave people alone. Be happy for them if they're happy and just leave it at that, you know? Yeah. Yeah. You know, some, some of this stuff with people because they're non resident. You know, I mean, and that's, that's. I mean it's in the same breath this stuff. This state doesn't like non residents from that state. This, I mean it just, it's like enough we're all non resident somewhere. True. We, we.

We all go other different places and we're all non resident. Just, just. You know, anybody that comes to my state that, that wants to reach out to me, I'm in some different places out there and I'm not going to go give them no. Tell them creek for sure. But I will point guys at least in a direction so that they can at least make. Make themselves successful. If they put the work in with the information I give them, they'll be successful.

They don't put the work in and it's not like it's a give me. I'm not giving them the. But I'm. I'm certainly giving them some helpful hints. Right. And I get a bunch of guys that text me or email me or send me a message on social media each year that have been successful in some of these different areas. They're appreciative of it and I think that's awesome. So. And again, I'll probably get a whole bunch of hate for. For letting non residents come into Idaho. Well, people also need.

Just need to grow the up and be mature. I, I don't, I don't give a. Whatever. Somebody wants to have some help come to Idaho and hunt some. You know, I will certainly at least give them some. Some education. Well, Brian, thank you so much for coming on the show, brother. We greatly appreciate it. Thank you for being fan of the show as well. And everyone that doesn't know. Yes, we talk to Brian a lot. Just off air too. We text a lot. Gives us some information and it's just awesome.

Like you said, we're in our group texts with him as well and well, it's Branch. You know, you guys are my. You guys are my friends back east. So yeah. And so yeah, you guys are welcome in my home to come hunting anytime. So Casa. Yeah, for sure. Brian, how can people want to reach out to you and follow along your journey? How can they do that? Social media. I'm on Instagram, predominantly Instagram and X. Bitterroot Reaper. Can't miss it. Got the my deer and death.

For anyone that wants to know, real quick, give a quick brief of what's it mean. What does Bitter Reaper mean? So a Bitterroots is a mountain range that straddles wild earthquakes, Montana and Idaho. It's a pretty famous range. Jim Bridger and a bunch of the other. Most of the other trappers hunted and trapped in those areas. So it's. It's a pretty famous area in both of those places. So it's kind of that straddles my state, straddles Montana. And then Reaper is just, you know, that's what I do.

Yeah. I go out and find bucks and. And then my freezer squash like to str. Squatch likes to straddle guys. Squatch. How can people follow? Well, that is kind of true. I do like the straddle guys especially, you know, we're in a tent. Like we're gonna be when we get out to freaking. I'm gonna be in that camper and you're gonna see a chicken. But it's not because of that reason. Yeah. Problem with us is it's like Velcro. You might stick. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So as always, you guys know you can find me here at 8:30pm on the wait till Advantage Sundays and Tuesdays because I'm like a staple of this place. Right. You guys also can find me at the Garden State Outdoorsman podcast with Mike Nitrate, Frank Mustika. Frankie's just heading up the helm now for the Garden State Outdoorsman.

Now he took the show over and you can also follow me on Instagram, outdoors and more with the squatch and my YouTube channel that's pretty much non existent because I'm in between seasons right now on YouTube under the same header. Well, Squatch and Brian, thank you guys for coming on the show, guys. Yeah, man. Hope you guys enjoy your rest of your night. Thank you. Appreciate it, bud. Oh, man. Like I said, love Squatch. I love Brian. Great guys.

Well, everyone, that's going to conclude another episode of the Whitetail Advantage podcast. I want to say thank you to everyone that's gathered around the electronic campfire with us. Now, if this show made you laugh made you think, gave you a new perspective. Please hit that like and subscribe button. You listen to this on the audio version. It'd be greatly appreciative if you can use a five star rating as well.

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Now Tuesday, April 8th I believe it is. Yes. Now there's our Tuesday show, but we don't have a guest for that day so that what we're doing on Tuesday is we're having trivia night. So we're looking forward to that. That being said, thank you everyone and we'll see you one next time. Have a good night. Thank you for tuning in to another episode of the Whitetail Advantage podcast. We hope you enjoyed the show and. We will see you next time.