Ep 145 / Limb-Itless: How Aaron Ritter is Changing the Game for Amputee Hunters

Welcome to the Whitetail Advantage podcast with. Your host Brett Bovin. Thank you for tuning in and enjoy the show.

What is up everyone? This is Brett Bovin and welcome to Electronic Campfire. Now we're not politically correct on the show. Strongly believe hunting and brotherhood go hand in hand. So yes, there will be hazing on the show. And we invite you to haze along with us. Be a part of the brotherhood and welcome to it. Now I'm not going to go through the whole spiel. We all know Sundays is a roundtable show where we cover a variety of different topics. Tuesdays are state specific show.

And that being said, I do have a saying on the show that we like to say. Here we are quarter in the slot machine. I strongly believe hunting is a dying sport. It's a dying lifestyle. And I. I already tell that Johnny and Dave and Squash like oh, let's listen to Brett go on and on about the intro. Let's get to the show. I know we're making it brief. We all know what I'm going to say. Qu slot machine help share a show.

I do always like to take a second and say thank you to all the men and women in the military. Thank you for your service and thank you for your sacrifice. And also I want to say thank you to all the police officers, the firefighters, the construction workers, corrections officers, everyone in public service. I just want to say thank you for your service. We're greatly appreciative. Now Today is Sunday, April 13th, 2025. Tonight is episode 145. Holy. We're so close. Episode 150. I can't that.

Wow. Time flies by, man. Tonight we have a good awesome guest on tonight. His name's Aaron. Excited to pick his brain. Don't want to get too much into it and have him give us a little background about himself. So now I invite you all to pull up chair around the electronic campfire with us and let's have an amazing night. What is up, John? What is up, Squatch? Howdy. What is going on everyone? It's going good. See I. Squatch, I. I left this the intro somewhat brief. It wasn't forever.

Oh, Brett, you did a wonderful job tonight. I'd like to congratulate you on your quickness. It's been really amazing. I appreciate that. Yeah, I can feel the genuine, genuine yes. Yeah. I was just gonna say you spoke very clearly and very well documented. But you just went and f that right up. Yeah, I just screwed that all up to the pooch right there. I love your thing, Squatch. Oh, my feet. Yeah, he's actually getting foot jobs. No, it's from walking around all day today on my big old feet.

What's this say? Oh, it's blurry. It was way. It was way shorter than last. He's watching it a lot. He's watched the shows because he's seen me hold up the love letter that. To Mrs. Bovin, who I have an awesome crush on. I mean, so I had a bonfire. Beautiful. She's beautiful. If you guys. You got to see Mrs. Bowen. What a. What a beautiful woman. So we'll say this before. Also, let me say this real quick. Hi, Aaron, our guest tonight. Hi. How's it going? Hey, guys. I am good.

Thank you for having me on your show. I'll. I'll just. I'll let you guys go ahead and get rid of some of your. Your excess energy. Talk about your. Your wool happy sock for a minute, and then. And we'll dive into some good content. Good deal. Yeah. I had a bonfire on yesterday with. To celebrate my son's birthday. And we were celebrating Easter. And my mom and I, we had a conversation. Squatch. I'll just leave it at that. And. Yeah, let's just say you made. Yeah, I'll say this. You made.

You made someone very happy. The other person in my life, that's my father. We'll just leave that to us. It's a. It's a nice. Nice thing. But I. You know, hey, listen, I respect your dad. I think he's a great guy and everything, but, you know, when I see a man. Woman. When I see a beautiful woman, I. I can't help myself. I'm. I'm a Squatch. I just. I'm attracted to the female race. I can't help it. Michael's asking. We can call Mrs. Bovin tonight. No, we're gonna.

We'll do that for another night. Yeah, we've got a guest. Michael. Yeah. I'm sorry, Aaron, for Michael's question here. He's very selfish. John, do you have any questions? We want to run your segment or. We're not going to do that tonight? No, we're good. Let's just run a normal show. I. I don't have anything planned. I got in late last night. I haven't done anything yet, so. Sorry.

Aaron, can you give a little background about yourself for some people that might not know you? So wait a minute. Are we not gonna ask what we're gonna eat, what we're gonna hunt, and what we're gonna kill? I mean, if you want to. I can make one up on the spot right now. Well, hey, you don't need to. I have one for you. Oh, really? Wow. Yeah. All right, so hunt, eat or kill. A can of smoked oysters, a can of Vienna sausages or a can of sardines. Those are your three options. Go to work.

I am eating the smoked oysters all day. Dollar store oysters, the better. I will fight the Vienna sausages because that's just what I would do. It seems easy. And then I would, I would kill the other one. I would kill the sardines. No, I, I enjoy sardines. They're, they're pretty tasty. But smoked oysters, all day, I'd eat those all day. All right. All right. Now, now I'm, I'm happy to introduce myself. Am I cleared hot? Yes, sir. I'm, I'm Aaron Ritter.

I, I currently reside on the Eastern shore of Maryland. I'm, I'm about seven miles off of the Chesapeake Bay and about a 30 minute drive from the Atlantic Ocean. So I'm, I'm almost as close to the Atlantic as I can get without living on the beach. I was born and raised in Washington State. I, I grew up in southwest Washington. Multi generational family of hunting and fishing.

Grew up fishing for what we call silver fish, so salmon, steelhead and trout and, and grew up hunting blacktail deer and elk for the most part. A lot, a lot of upland bird as well. But that's what I cut my, my teeth doing up in the Cascades. Joined the Navy when, when I graduated high school in 1991 and went in the Navy for four years. Got out, did a lot of things, but ultimately became a firefighter in the city of Walla Walla. That's a real, that's a real place by the way.

And, and I, I was really enjoyed serving my community, but decided that I wanted to go back and serve my country. So in my early 30s, I put in a package to go through Navy, well, EOD school and as a, as a Navy guy and I made it through the program and I, I just stayed the course and I retired from Navy EOD in 2021.

Since then I have fully immersed myself back into the roots of my upbringing and have sought a lot of mental and physical rehabilitation and health through the wilderness and the outdoors and hunting primarily archery. And so now I'm a, like a Navy EOD tech. I have become a jack of many trades in the, in the outdoor space. I have a website, I have published some blogs and gear reviews, but I'M kind of lazy about that and actually I haven't probably done that for about a year.

I've been published in some different articles and I published my own book recently. It was a self authored, self published book. I have my own podcast. I've been blessed with the opportunity to travel the nation and speak at a multitude of different outdoor shows.

I am the founder and president of a national nonprofit that is focused on putting archery equipment in the hands of amputees in order to share what I have learned and what I use to better our health and physical fitness, mental health and physical fitness through the sport of archery. So that's, that's, that is kind of me in a nutshell.

I am married, my wife and I have a fantastic 7 year old chocolate lab and I am a, I'm a full time student at Liberty University obtaining my bachelor's of in science in Christian leadership and Business management. And, and I serve my church. So that's me. Right, everybody? Well, thanks for tuning in. Tune in next week. Yeah, that's been the best background that anyone's ever given for themselves. Very organized throughout the entire running of the show. 140 plus episodes.

That's hands down the back. Take notes, take notes. That's how you're supposed to open up. Appreciate it, guys. Well, I, I left a couple of important things out. I. And maybe this is why I'm on the show. I, I love backcountry hunting. I love tree saddle hunting. Cool. I love doing them simultaneously. And yes, I am a firm believer that backcountry spring turkey hunting is no different than September archery elk. Yeah, let's get into that, let's get into that debate.

Yeah. Because this year I'm actually hunting my first elk in Oregon. Nice. And I can't wait for that. And I was out there last month doing some scouting. I've got my buddies out there in Oregon. They're helping me out with everything. And I just got to go out there and put an arrow in one. So that seems easy, right? But I am so looking forward to it. And then spring turkey for us here in Michigan starts the end of April and I'm doing a veterans hunt for wild turkey.

And I use archery only as well. And I can't wait. I will be in Oregon the first week of May hunting turkeys. Really? Outstanding. Yep. Okay. Yeah, I'll be out there the first full week of September for archery. Elf. Good for you. You're gonna love it. Are you, are you, are you practicing with any calls? No, I haven't Yet I need to. Well, you're behind the curveball, man. Right now. Right now I'm training for walking in those mountains because I'm like, oh, it's the mountains. It's too easy.

When and when I was out there last month, I was like, holy crap. These are not like any. Yeah, they're. They're going to kick my butt for sure. They're different mountains. Start calling right now. Buy a diaphragm. Start calling right now. Okay, I will do Amazon. I'll do that tonight on the truck. The truck ride to work is a good time to sit there and practice with the diaphragm. It is. Yes, it is. I'm going to have to do that then. Yeah. I want to try and get my first turkey this year.

I hope the frozen section aisle in the grocery store. Great place to start. Oh, man. You know, you get a little pissed off when you fire off the 12 gauge in there, though. They don't like that. Right, right. Well, what happens if I bring my bow in the. In the Walmart and just shoot? You know, if you bring it into. Walmart, you'll blend right in. No one's gonna bat an eye. So, Aaron, what. How is your setup? So which setup? Being a backcountry hunter. Okay. Because I saddle hunt.

I know Squatch does. I'm a single stick guy. Me too. Oh, very nice. So I pack out light, and I just got a new setup I was trying out today, actually, and I'm. I'm liking it. So when you say. When you say a single stick. And for my. From my context, there's. There's three basic setups when it comes to saddle hunting with sticks and platforms. So you have. You have multi stick, which should be fairly obvious. But for those that may not know anything about tree saddle hunting, that's listening in.

You have more than one stick that you're going to climb a tree with. So you. Typically it's three to four sticks that you're going to end up placing on the tree. So that's multi sticking and have a platform for a perch. For a perch point. Then you have the one stick, which is a stick and platform that is integrated together.

And then you have what I call single stick, where you have one climbing stick and then some type of an additional perch with you, whether it is a platform or a ring of steps. And that is my favorite method. I've. I've exercised all three and I own equipment for all three. But my preferred and most used method is the single stick. That is exactly How I started, I did all three. I am a single stick and a platform type of guy. Last year I bought a set of muddy sticks. The Muddy pros.

Yep. And I have a tethered platform. I was using that. Is it the Predator? Yes, it is. Yeah. I actually have it right there and it worked out great. I traveled all over the place. I was able to get into some great spots. Some of the spots I didn't use my platform. I just kept it attached to my back and just used my stick as a platform. Okay. And I was successful this year. I absolutely loved it this year. I traded in for a SOP at two stick, the mut from the muddy to that.

And that shaved about three quarters of my weight right there just from that one stick. And I wear a size 13 boot and that tethered platform. Although it worked out great, it was a little narrow for me for those all day six. So I traded up to the ETOP platform and I haven't played around with it yet, but it's about 4 inches overall wider, which I think is going to help out a lot. Okay. So my very first setup was a modified muddy pro stick and the Predator platform. That was my really.

That was my very first setup and I hunted that thing for almost two years. Yep. Same here. Yeah. Loved it. So my recommendation for you is to play around with something very minimalistic. So my. If you're going to go. If you're planning to take it back country, there's a big difference in what I use.

If I'm walking out behind my house, if I'm going to go for a morning or evening hunt on public ground, driving back and forth to home, or if I'm going to stay in an Airbnb or, or camping out or sleeping in the truck, whatever, versus when I'm putting my life on my back and heading into the wilderness, regardless of state coast, doesn't matter to me. You're heading into the wilderness for multi days. And I look at it this way. There is that. There. There is that cliche term.

It's. It's used a lot. I think it used to be a lot cooler than it is now just because it's. It's used so much. But it, it is very factual. It's ounces equal pounds, pounds equal pain. And the more you put on your back to carry in for the miles, the more energy you're going to expend getting there and then carrying that equipment around with you all day, every day while you're hunting.

And then ultimately the goal is you're going to pack out heavy because you're going to have a tagged critter on your back as well. So I try to, I'm not an extremist in, in the manner of I have super crazy expensive ultralight gear that I have to be really careful with because I'm going to, I'm going, going to break it or rip it. And I'm not on the other end of that scale where I'm just going to gut it out and take the entire kitchen sink with me.

If you're into air operations in the military, we'd call that a wall locker jump. I don't take the entire wall locker with me. I'm, I'm very middle ground on that. I've trimmed my back country tree saddle rig down to seven pounds and it is a, it is a single stick setup, but I don't use a platform, so I use the, the latitude carbon stick. It has a, it has a 2 step 17 inch, 2 step eighter on it and I use the Bowman platform ring of steps. Oh, cool.

And that system, I can hunt that thing dark to dark. Now the key for me is I wear very stiff, crispy boots. If you wear a really stiff boot, that's like having an additional platform on your foot itself.

So when you're on that, that small edge, if you're, if you're up on the balls of your feet on that, on that stick or on the pegs off of that platform, that the stiffness of that boot will provide you an additional stabilization point or platform and will assistant in conserving your energy and comfort. Can I inter. Can I interrupt you just for one second though? You left a very, very important feature about yourself out and explain to people about what you don't have versus what you have.

Well, I didn't. You're making me feel, look, I'm 250 pounds. I don't one stick it. I got four sticks. Oh, I'm like a 55 gallon drum the way I'm built. I'm not like trying to one stick it, but it's an amazing feat. So fill us in, Fill us in on, on what you're missing and how you do it. Because I'm sitting here like, wow, that's awesome. Go ahead.

Okay. So, John, don't let me get sidetracked and forget to talk to you about the benefit of not carrying or strapping a platform to the back to back to your pack to get in and out. All right? Oh, this is going to go on for a while. Aaron. Yeah. So. So the Squatch actually meant to say. I think you were saying it. It's an amazing foot. So I am. That's. That's kind of how I've built my platform. No pun intended. John. On why and how and where I go to speak. And I have a lot of fun with people.

I'm chatting about this in. In Squatch. I'll say that. You guys. What's that movie Dodgeball? You guys ever watch the movie Dodgeball? Oh, that's a good movie. All right. So you know that, you know, they say, you know, if you can dodge a wrench, you can dodge a ball. Well, in the world of tree saddles, to me, if you can climb a ladder stand, you can climb with a tree saddle. It's a mindset, right? So, yeah, I lost my leg in 2012. I am. My right leg. I have.

I have carbon and titanium below my knee with that metal leg. I served nine years on active duty and special operations at a tier level. I. I've ran marathons. I've ran ultra marathons on that thing. I backcountry hunt all over the nation. I. My passion is tree saddle hunting. And. And I do it all over the place. And I. And I do it in the backcountry. I've done a lot of other things on that metal leg, but I guess those are probably the big things. Really.

I don't know if you guys want me to get in the story of how I lost my leg, but I did not lose it in combat. I came home from Iraq and totaled a Harley Davidson. And my leg hit a tree and it completely ripped it off. We were. I was. My upper body or the rest of my body was about 100 meters away from. From my lower limb. Whoa. Damn. Yeah. I have a quick story with one of my. My dad's buddies. I grew up with his son. My. I grew up with his son since we were babies. So I knew them very closely.

And some jackass. On a rainy night, there was road construction that's been happening on this road. Someone took one of the cones from a fallen tree. And his buddy ran into that tree and died from his Harley because someone stole the cone from that man. That's why I gave them up, man. I gave him up. I rode for over 20 something years. Harley's last one I had was a 2016 Softail Slim 110 Screaming Eagle. And it. I just got bad feelings every time I got on it. So that was it.

I got rid of the damn thing. Squatched. I got out of the hospital. I couldn't even walk. I wasn't weight bearing. Found a new Harley, had my dad hook up my flatbed trailer to the back of my Ford. We drove across town and my dad and the guy I was buying the bike from loaded that Harley onto the trailer and drove it home. And I rode a motorcycle before I was, I was even transferred up to Bethesda. I was still hobbling around with bandages on my limb and I had, it's called a PICC line.

It's like a permanent or it's a semi permanent IV port inside your arm. And I had these pressurized balls of antibiotics that I had to cycle through all day, every day. And, and I rode that Harley around my buddy's neighborhood in that condition on that motorcycle. My mom and dad stood there and watched me do it. At one point I had three bikes in my garage post post accident injury. And it was the December before I, I, I retired that I finally sold my last bike I had. I was hunting so much.

Yeah. That I, when I came home from overseas, I ordered a brand new Harley through the overseas military sales, had it delivered to the dealership in Portsmouth, Virginia. And I picked it up and I used to ride on the average a minimum 3,000 miles a month. And I ordered that new Harley and in, in about three years time, that bike had a thousand miles on it. So I took it back, took it back to the dealership and sold it to him. And I've, I've, I haven't been on a bike since.

Nope. Yeah, hunting will do that. It's one of those addictive sports and lifestyles. For sure it is, man. When you jump all in. And that's, that's a fun question I like to ask people. I did not think we were there yet, but I'm gonna throw it out there. Yeah. I asked this at every, every location I go to speak. Are you a hunter or do you like to hunt? Because to me there's a big difference. Oh, for sure. That's another rabbit hole we can fall down.

So getting out of the military, I mean, I, I did 10 years in, got medically retired and it was, hey, thanks to your service, here's a lapel.

That was it. So once I got out, I was still having a bunch of surgeries on my shoulder and everything like that. And I wanted, I mean, I was just pacing around the house doing nothing. I mean, like it was driving me nuts. And I wanted to get into archery, but I couldn't pull back a bow to my shoulder. I was Going on my third replacement of my shoulder and I bought an old bear lights out bow. As soon as I could pull it back, I was like, no, I'm done.

I sold the crossbow, I picked up that bow and that's all I did was hunt. I mean, I was shooting anything I could with that bow from 10 yards to 20 yards, just as far as I could go. And then it was like, okay, now I'm in the tree. And I had, I have a rifle hunt or shotgun hunt back home. But that was like November 15th to December 1st. I was like a family tradition. If it's brown, it's down. Now I've got this whole world of archery exposed to me and I had no one to show me.

Like I, to actually archery hunt, right? So I'm learning everything on the go. I start placing trail hammers out and I start realizing I'm like this. All I'm doing is building target packets of deer. I see a deer, I'm going to build a target packet on it. There you go. And that's what I did. And oh my God, it escalated so fast. Just like, oh, I need this deer. I need this. I need to fully understand this wirely coming from here and not here. And I've been addicted ever since.

I, I didn't, I didn't catch the username, but I'm seeing some of these comments that are, that are popping up, guys. And oh yeah, there it is. Daniel. Daniel says I'm a killer. That's, that's why I like asking that question. Right. And, and the easiest way for me to reference that is when you're heading to hunting camp. When I'm, when I'm headed out on a hunt, there is.

I no longer ask myself or call a buddy or text a friend and say, I hope there's no. I hope I shoot an animal or, or I hope somebody tags out or I hope we have meat hanging on the meat pole. There's no hope. I split. I put so much time and energy into my hunts that when I, when I depart, I intend to fill a tag. I intend to, to harvest animal. I know where I'm going now.

Obviously, if you're going to go out of state, if you're going to hunt non res, which you guys had a great conversation about that last week. Being a non resident. Brian brought it up at the end of the show. That's a whole nother rabbit hole. We could fall down. You get boots on ground and you have to change locations sometimes, right? Because all of your e scouting when it's in your face.

Sometimes the environment does not look the way you envisioned it or what the mapping engines were showing you or telling you that they were going to look like. So you have to adjust. But if you spend the time and the energy and the prep work prior to you arrive on location with a level of confidence that there's no hope in the back of your mind, the hope should be, how am I going to pack this thing out and get all of this meat home? Because I am going to be successful.

That, to me, that's the difference between being a hunter or. Yeah, I like to hunt. Yeah. I picked up my bow two weeks before season started. I just rummaged through my. My gear. I'm. I'm driving up to hunting camp with my buddies, and I have. I have more beer than I have gear in my car, and we're going to go have a good time. And I'm not. And I'm not saying there's anything wrong with that. If that's how you like to hunt, I think it's awesome. At least you're hunting.

If that's your tradition, if that's what you look forward to every year, I think that's awesome. Please keep buying your. Your license in your tags and go do that and have fun and. And keep influencing other people to go have fun in the wilderness. I have a different mindset. I go do that for a different purpose. I'm. I'm seeking. I'm seeking things in the wilderness that. That some people may not be right. And I take it very, very serious. So that's that. That's why I like to ask that question.

Oh, absolutely. And that was why I wanted to get out, because I'm doing an elk hunt in Oregon this year, and that's why it was important for me to fly out there, see the terrain, actually get boots on brown, and see what I'm facing. What part of Oregon, Elton? So is it the southwest corner? That's. That's where I'm hunting turkeys, man. Is it really? Yeah, yeah. Are you going with a guide, or is it do it yourself? No, one of my buddy.

So my buddies own a seasoning company out there, and they're like, hey, you should come out here, because there's elk in our front yard all the time. I'm going to be there the first week of May. That is awesome. I was there last year. My dad's in his 80s, and that's. That's the only thing he can hunt now. He's had. I mean, he's my, My dad. Physically, he's. He's enjoyed his life and punish punished his body. And so he's at a stage in his 80s now to where he can't walk that far.

And he's had both shoulders completely replaced, so there's. There's only so much recoil he can impart on his shoulder. So he's limited. He's. I bought him a 4 10. Now he's up to a 28 gauge, and that's his max. He. He can't go any heavier than a 28 gauge, so he. He can't hunt big game. So he's hunting turkeys. And luckily, fortunately, he absolutely loves turkey hunting. So we turkey hunt together now. And last year we were in Elkton turkey hunting. Doubled up in one day. Not together, but we.

We both filled tags first day of hunting, and so we're going back. That is outstanding. Small world, man. It really is. That is awesome. So, yeah, I'll be out there in end of August, first week of September, elk hunting. And I have my buddies, they're like, hey, we saw a bunch of elk today. And hey, we. They'll send me videos. And they're like, oh, we have this guy out here scouting. He's like, we want you to come out here and be successful.

And being from the Midwest in Michigan here and saddle hunting. I was like, well, I'm gonna try to saddle hunt out on the west coast. There's nobody saddle hunts out there. Well, no one that I've ever talked to anyways, especially through the show, it's. It's becoming more popular and that's what. I. I am going to make it a point to try to harvest an elk with my saddle out in Oregon. Early, early season like that. You. You have the potential of setting up on a wallow and.

And harvesting an elk out of your saddle. Question. I know you like seafood because the first thing you chose to eat on my list of questions for you both, oysters. Now, have you ever had Dungeness crab? Yes, I have. Have you ever had razor clams? I have. Never mind. Then last night I just got back from Myrtle Beach. I spent a week out there on spring break and it. I absolutely love seafood. Okay, well, never.

I was going to tell you to make sure to drive down the road to the coast from Elkton and have razor clams and Dungeness crab, but you've already done that, so. Oh, I can't wait. I mean, good for you, Aaron. I think we're gonna end up hunting it at some point together. Very soon. Don't threaten me with the good time. Oh, I say that all the time. Brett, you are quiet tonight. I know what's up. Brett? I'm just sitting here. And honestly, sometimes you just sit back and.

And enjoy the conversation and everything that you're saying. I'm just sitting here, taking it all in. Well, I just want to add that Johnny's favorite seafood is the gooey duck. And he doesn't eat it for the flavor. He eats it for the shape. That's right. That's right. But referring to your question earlier about what was it? Do you like to hunt or are you a hunter? My mentality is just in general for. For hunting is every year when I get my tag, my mentality is I'm going to win.

It's me versus them type of deal, and my tag's gonna get filled. For instance, we're going down to Indiana. I do it. It's my own internal thing where I turn into a competition. I want everyone to succeed. And if I see Johnny or Squatch or Dave, whatever the case may be, get a deer before me internally, I'm gonna be throwing like, a little baby fit inside. Like, damn it, they got a deer. And I didn't. I wasn't the first one to do it. But at the end of the day, I'm happy for him.

Don't get me wrong. But I'm like, now I gotta, like, step it up now because there's one less deer in the area. I gotta pick up my own game because I need to fill that tag. And that's just. The tag needs to get filled, and I'm going to fill it. And it's just. That's just how I am. It's how I'm built. It's just an internal thing. I turn it into my own type of competition. But I also want everyone to have fun. And I'm not gonna go like, oh, you, John, you got the deer before me.

I want to go cry in my tent by myself. That's right. It'd be my job to get you on a deer before I shot something down there. Because I feel. I feel better if. If I help others out. And then I feel like I'll be blessed for helping you out. So I would. I would probably try to be there more for you, to help you out, get you in a spot, get you situated. And then, you know what? If they come to the old man, I'll shoot them. I don't care. You know, it's fine with me.

You know, Then my wife Yelled at me. I told her I was getting a doe tag and a buck tag. And I said, well, they're roughly 100 to 200, something like that. I can't remember. She said, well, you're filling all the tags. I said, don't worry, they'll get filled. Whether with my bow or with the truck. That's all that matters. John, we were talking about packing in tree saddle hunting gear. Yeah, I was about to wrap it up into that.

So the, There's a couple of reasons why I use a platform, a ring of steps rather than a platform. One is weight. I, I could not have a seven pound rig if I was not using a ring of steps. They're, they're just light. Yep. The, the other is packability. So when I, when I step away from camp and when I'm climbing a tree, I wear a, I'm a latitude guy, so I wear, I have a latitude saddle. I, I use their dump pouches in one dumb pouch.

I have my, my lineman's belt because I always have a lineman's belt. I have 40ft of repel line. I use Canyon C4. I have two carabiners for said lineman's belt. I use a mad rock for my mechanical device. I have a carabiner for that. And all of that stuff is in one dump pouch. It all fits in that one dump pouch. So that's perfect. I can fit that ring of steps in my second dump pouch. So I don't have, I don't have a platform hanging off of my, my saddle when I'm climbing the tree.

The, the bigger piece of it for me is at some point during the pack in the hunt or the pack out, I will end up with my weapon strapped to the back of my pack. It's inevitable it's going to happen. If I have a metal platform or an alloy platform on my pack, it has to be strapped somewhere on the pack as well. And I don't want to risk having metal on metal or metal on wood, depending upon whether I'm bow hunting, muzzleloader hunting, or, or rifle hunting.

And I have a common misconception in the tree saddle world, especially with guys that are just coming into it is they associate it with archery hunting only. And I have harvested deer out of my tree saddle with my bow, with a compound bow, with my rifle and with a muzzleloader. So it's depending upon what state I'm hunting and what time of year, year it is and what season it is and, or when I say season, it's deer season. Or it's bear season or it's elk season.

But what, what, what type of weapon season we are in that's going to depend on what weapon I have strapped to my pack. And I don't want to have despite the weight and the size of a platform. I don't want to have that risk on my back of if I'm powering down the trail, especially if I'm under a real heavy triple digit loads, I'm not really paying attention and, and I've been writing some notes down here on things that I wanted to talk. One of.

One of my favorite little pearls to throw out for somebody that's going to embark on backcountry hunting. Especially if you never have. I carry headphones in my pack. So when I'm, when I'm traveling real heavy and if I'm not hunting, I mean maybe I'm, I'm going from point A to point B, whether I'm packing into a spot to get established and then I'm going to go hunt or if I'm packing out, especially when I'm packing out from success.

And I use corded headphones so I don't burn batteries recharging electronics. I put in corded headphones, I put on the music of my choice and I crank up the tunes and I just start heading back to the truck with that, with that load on my back. It's brilliant. When I'm in those, when I'm in that mindset I don't, I obviously headphones in. I can't hear what's going on in my pack. But sometimes you don't hear that contact that rubbing and I, and I like to try to take care of my, my weapons.

So I don't. That's another reason why I do not take a alloy platform with me when I'm back country hunting. I go with the ring of steps. I would recommend if you're going to go that route that you practice because one, I never do anything for the first time with a new piece of kit, especially when it's real time. Right. That's John Young. You understand that mentality. Brett. You two. Squatch. I'm, I'm not familiar with your background so maybe you're very familiar with it.

I, I would recommend that you, if you're looking at that route, it's a great route that you try it before you employ it. Yeah. Other than that it's brilliant. So I tried the ring of steps and I actually this was on me. I bought the Hawk arena of steps and it Was just, I have nothing against hawk. It's cheaper material, it's cheaper products. And I tried the arena steps and it wasn't working for me.

And it, I think it was because I did it tighter on the steps or I did the tethered tight around the tree. And the steps are just turn. So easy fix, man. There's, there's two options. Were you using a ratchet strap? No, I wasn't. And that's where I messed up. The other, the other thing too is depending upon the type of steps. So the platform steps are wide. Okay, they're wide. And then I don't use a ratchet strap. I use what's called a cam over buckle. So the cam buckle is not a cam over buckle.

A cam over buckle you can either purchase on eastern woods outdoors or you can go to Marine West Marine Supply. They use them on boats, which, interesting fact, the army has more boats than the Navy. This is true. But the cam over buckle part of it looks like a regular cam buckle, but it has, it has a cam over function.

So you can pull that strap tight and then when you lever it over, it cinches that strap down onto the tree and it gets your ring of steps nearly as secure and tight as a ratchet strap can. But you don't, but you do not have the weight and the noise of that ratchet strap. And what I like about this, the ring of steps that I was using is you can wrap them up and throw them right in your cargo pocket. Correct. And that's exactly how I was walking.

And because I would walk out wearing my saddle and it was probably about a mile walk out or so, so I'd walk out there wearing my saddle. I got the arena steps in my pocket, got the step, the one step in the back. That's all I needed. And there's times where I would come up with, I would have my, my aider, I would take, you know, on that muddy step, I had a, actually a latitude. I actually have it right here, the latitude aider. And I'll take that off on one side and use it as a sling.

So I'd carry my bow and just sling that around my shoulder and just carry my step that way. And I absolutely loved it. That being said, I practiced all spring, all summer, trying different width trees. I mean, I was going all the time going out, find a tree, climb it. What rope do I want to use? How do I want to get down now? Now that I'm up, what's it going to take to get down? And I was doing that weekly until I found out what worked for me.

And then I didn't just find out what worked for me and never did it again. I was constantly going out there, okay, well, now I'm going to do it this way and try to make less noise or what am I going to do with my gear? It was constant improvements and still I was out there today messing around with it, looking for that constant improvement.

The other thing I would recommend, maybe you're doing this, you just haven't mentioned it, especially for anybody that's listening in, that is going to venture into tree saddle hunting. For the first. Once you have a grasp and you're confident on what you want to do and how you want to do it, go to a, I'm going to use a millennial term, go to a safe place at a safe height and learn what you can't do. Learn what your gear can't do.

Get really comfortable falling because what you're going, what you're going to find is you don't fall. And that's a huge key. And John, again, you're going to, you'll probably recognize this saying. It's one of my favorites. Calm breeds calm. And what's different about hunting from a tree saddle that differs from tree stands or lock ons is in a traditional climbing harness, that's a full body harness in your tether is in your shoulder blades.

So if you come off of your platform or your perch, it wants to pull your back to the tree and your workspace, your problem and workspaces above your head and behind you. When you're tree saddle hunting, you're in a harness that, this is a big crossfit term. It's called your posterior chain. So where your, your, your lower, like your, your buttocks, your hips, this whole center of gravity that we have that, that tree saddle is around the meatiest part of your body.

John, I don't know if you went to jump school, but that, that is the meatiest part of your body, right? That's, that's one of your, that's one of your primary landing points is your buttocks, right? So that that saddle comes around there. And now when you come off that tree, your problem and your workspace is right in front of you and your center of gravity around your strongest muscles, right? So it's, it's a completely different experience.

The other thing that people don't realize is when you're in parachuting operations or in traditional full body harnesses, there is the, the shock syndrome, right? So when you fall, one of the biggest injuries that a lot of guys don't even realize take place is the shock from those straps. In your groin. You have major arteries, it's called the femoral arteries that run down there through your legs and in your, in your groin area. Right.

When you, when you shock load in a traditional harness, you're hammering that point right there. All of your body weight is distributed right through that small webbing. So the smaller the webbing is, the more trauma to a more finite surface area is happening to those nerves and those, those, the artery in there. When you're in a tree saddle, where's, where's all that shock? You're taking it right in the butt. Brett loves that. It's the Brett syndrome. You are taking it right in the butt.

You no longer have that shock load syndrome to the inside of your groin. It's spread, loaded across your butt cheeks. And so when you, when you come off of that stick, when you come off of that platform, and this is going to lead us into talk, I mean, we could start talking about what I call technical trees. You're getting into trees that are leaning into trees that have major bifurcations or a lot of limbs.

When you're navigating through all that garbage to get really good concealment, it's, it's not cover. I had great cover. No, you didn't get concealment. There's a big difference between cover and concealment, right?

Yeah. When you're climbing up into those trees to get that really good concealment, if you're, if your stick kicks out or if your platform kicks out, or if you're trying to take a leak and you're, and all you're standing on is the perch of a latitude stick and a ring of steps and, and you come off your perch, well, it's not a big deal.

However, guys that have never done it, guys that have never practiced it and, or guys that are transitioned swiftly, typically from a tree stand or a lock on and a different type of harness, into a tree saddle. They're nervous about it. And if you don't experience it, it can ruin a hunt in a hurry. That's another reason why I use a 40 foot tether. So one reason is because I do have a metal leg. If that leg ever happened to come off and my legs only come off three times.

It's come off three times, two times, three different locations. All three are great stories. They've, it's never come off in a training scenario. It's never come off when I've been climbing trees. It's never come off during air operations. The thing is secure. But if for any reason I was out hunting by myself because I love solo backcountry hunting, my leg did come off. I have 40 foot of rope that's hang. That's hanging down to the ground. All I have to do is zip down to the ground.

I put my leg back on, I climb back up, I keep hunting. If my stick broke loose, I can zip down to the ground. I can get my stick. I can climb. With your mad rock? Yeah, absolutely. Well, really squatch with. With any. With any type of device, you can get up and down your line. The mad rock is very efficient. It's. It's fast. Yeah, I like it. You know, you could use a figure eight. I mean, there's so many. There's so many different you could use. You know, it's. It's personal preference.

But you can get to the ground safely, and you can get back up to your hunt. Rock climbing's big out here by me, and there's a shop locally by me that, that when I went in to look for those, they recommended that I buy that purchase to get that mad rock. And I'm so glad I did. Versus, like, the kong, whatever, because you have that breaking ability. And if you've got to repel down, you can take yourself down as slow, you know, as you want when you're adjusting with yourself up to a tree.

And it was funny like the first time. Like you said, be in a safe area, like your safe space. I'm up. I was getting used to it. I'm up like one stick, and I'm sitting there, and it was like. And I, like, I let myself back a little bit. I was like, oh, my God. And I'm like, oh, dude, you're only like a half a foot. Foot off the ground. You're okay, you know, so you got to get used to it. You got to get the feel for that stuff. But that's a great, great piece of equipment. It's a little expensive.

It's, you know, everything's an initial investment. But if I could recommend one that's definitely one to have, that's a good one. I agree. I agree. So speaking of investment in gear, I'm. I've stayed. I'm a latitude guy. I do. I, I. I love the guys. I love their mindset. I love their focus and commitment to whitetail. But they're. They're also a Michigan company, too. That means nothing to me. I could care less About Michigan. I have a lot of friends that live in Michigan.

I don't, I don't talk bad about any companies in the outdoor space. That's just not my style. It really doesn't accomplish anything. But I would like to, to give shout outs to what kind of a shout out to one company but make mention of another. So if I was not going to use Latitude Gear, my next two choices in the tree saddle community, one would be XOP and one would be Trophy line.

I already, I think I spilled the beans a little bit to Brett about this, but I wanted to make sure that, that I threw the shout out, especially because they're one of your sponsors. Early on in my venture into the outdoor industry, I had an amputee I believe from Michigan reach out to me. And the guy, he's, he's a bigger guy and he's not quite as mobile as I am. And he reached out to me and asked me if I thought that he could tree saddle hunt.

And my, my response is yeah, man, you, it's not a really a matter of whether you can or can't it. It really boils down to want. And, and I, I share that. I share that with a lot of people. It's like, can you or can't you? How about do you want to? If you want to, then we can figure out a way to get you to can. But if you don't.

Absolutely, John, if you don't want to, that the answer is going to be you can't because you're not going to have the vision, you're not going to have the drive to do it when you want to, especially if you want to bad enough. You're gonna, you're gonna figure out a way. And this guy started doing research and it was the year that XOP came out with their modified saddle with the harness, the upper body harness piece on it and Mongo.

The Mongo I think it's called, I. Don'T remember the name of it, it's been out for a couple of years now. But he looked at that and found interest and he found safety and a comfort zone in it because he had been a ladder stand hunter. So he was familiar with a full body harness. He knew that it worked well for him and that was his comfort zone. So I reached out to XOP on his behalf and XOP provided him with a full tree saddle rig for him to use. Wow. Yeah. Most amazing.

Big props to XOP for that. And I've, I've been friendly with those guys ever since. Whenever I'm at an expo in an event where XOP is in attendance. I love visiting with them. I love seeing their booth. I still have and still use some of their products. In fact, I have two XOP lock ons on my property right now. I stage lock ons and in.

In saddle setups because I mean, they work just fine and you just put them on the backside of a tree, use them just like you do a regular platform in a tree saddle set up. Right. And then you have a lock on there. So I, I have a set of XOP sticks out on my property. Great company. So those are, those are my top three choices. Not that any of the other companies are bad, but Latitude is my, my favorite. And then XOP and Trophy line are the next two.

And you know, even if, if your affordability is hawk, the my only caution to you is, is that if that's what you can afford to get you out into the timber and climbing trees so that you can tree saddle hunt, my caution to you is inspect your gear on a regular basis. Yep, absolutely. And realistically, you should be doing that anyhow.

Yeah. But my recommendation would be if that is your, if that fits your budget hawk equipment, just make sure you are maintaining and inspecting that equipment constantly and it will probably work out fine for you. If you see something that is not right, don't climb it and things will work out all right for you. And it's the same way with backcountry hunting. When I first started backcountry hunting, it was 30 years ago.

The gear that I use then is 100% not the gear that I use now, but it was the gear that was currently available and, or I could afford. And this boils back to the want I wanted to do it, so I obtained the gear that I could afford that would allow me to do what I wanted to do. Anybody can do that with anything in the outdoor industry. Do we answer questions that pop up at any particular point, Brett, or do we just throw them in whenever we see them? Whenever we get a kind of a chance?

Yeah, there was. Michael asked where did the question go? Let me find it real quick. He asked this question, Aaron, what is your favorite shotgun for hunting? So I really only hunt with a shotgun for turkey now. I, I left. I've never been a waterfowl guy and I, I don't hunt for upland bird much anymore, so my shotgun is for turkey hunting. I've owned several and up until this year, my favorite so far has been the Rete Massamara. And I, I'VE hunted that for a couple of years.

I absolutely love it. It's a 20 gauge. It's light, it's fast, it's mobile and with the right loads. I'm a big fan of Aaron Satterfield and Satisfatties. He does custom custom ammunition loads and his turkey shells are incredible. And I had a. I've used pattern master chokes. I have used what is kind of the name of the choke that I was using last year and I've switched to a new choke. Man. I'm looking at it right here. It's right here. It Jebs. I used a Jebs last year.

So this Jeb's choke on my 20 gauge with Aaron's saddies fatties TSS loads. Devastating. Absolutely devastating. I can kill a turkey at 60 yards with that shotgun set up. If I have a nice clean shot and a good stable rest. I can kill a Turkey ethically at 60 yards with that 20 gauge man. This year I put a rectifier choke on it. I'm really excited to go out and try the rectifier choke on it. But I have a custom turkey gun that is will be assembled next week. It is an over and under.

I really don't want to let the cat out of the bag. Well, when are you guys publishing the show? Oh, it's live. Never mind. Well, the audio version is going to be released tomorrow. Tomorrow. Okay. So I have a. Aaron Satterfield not only custom loads ammunition. He is a very talented metal worker and gunsmith. Nice. So I sent a 28 gauge over and under to him. Vortex sent me their brand new and Viper enclosed red dot.

Aaron was able to mount that red dot directly onto the rib of that gun without having to use any like a willow creep mount or anything else. He directly mounted that Vortex site to that over and under. We stripped it down completely. The stock went to a guy down in Texas. His name is Scott Paul of Twisted Arrow Hydrographics. He dipped the stock for me. Aaron had a local guy engrave and Sarakote my gun. So it's a three. It's a three color Cerakote that match. I'm a big Badlands guy.

I love Badlands gear. My favorite pattern is the approach pattern. So that's the gut the stock is dipped in in Badlands approach and we have a. The base of it is a like a Badlands brown. It has a lighter tan turkey tracks along the breach the side the the the sides of the breach of the gun. It has be limitless on the upper Barrel engraved in green. Be faithful on the lower barrel in green. And then my two different chokes are cerakoted in the same green as the engraving.

That is going to be my turkey gun. It's been nicknamed Maccabee, and that is an old testament biblical reference. The Maccabees were. They were books in the Bible. Well, yes, but they were a specific group of people. They were Jewish. They were considered guerrilla war fighters of their era. Yep. And Maccabee, if it's translated into English, means hammer. So that's why I've nicknamed it. I've nicknamed it Maccabee because it is going to be a turkey hammer. I like that. That's good.

So we were talking on the show for our spring turkey here that we were going to go back to the old school traditional bow. So Dave, who's not with us today in Squatch, is using traditional bow. And I took it one step beyond and bought a 1953 bear Montana lawn bow. And I'm like, I'm gonna be doing that. So I've been out practicing all the time with that thing. And that was such a game changer because I shoot an elite bow, and I absolutely love that thing.

I mean, I can stack them in at 100 yards all day with that. And I got that lawn bow, man. I was like, oh, 20 yards, no problem. I was like, holy crap. Let me move it up to five and start working back. Yeah. And it humbles you, man, being able to shoot 100 yards and then not even be able to hit a target at 20. And you're just like, all right, I'm going back to the basics right here. And I'm looking forward to it, man. I pursued turkey with a bear Kodiak for three years from.

From 2000 and spring of spring of 03, 04 and 05, I pursue. I pursued turkeys in the blue mountains of Washington state. With that, that recurve, I built all my own arrows hunting them alone. I went to full draw a couple of times. Busted every single time. Never even let loose an arrow. Yo. I have not bow hunted for turkey since. And there's a reason for that. I've had opportunities.

I planted the wrong seed in my head that the only way I would harvest my first turkey with archery equipment would be if I did it alone with traditional equipment. That has to be my first bird. So I've set myself up for failure, man. That is. Yeah, I. I'm doing a veterans disabled veterans turkey hunt next month. And I asked the guy, I'm like, hey, can I bring my bow, and he's just like, really? Like, we'll have any shotgun you want to use. I'm like, no, I, I really want to bring my bow.

Yeah, absolutely. Like, go for it. Good for you, man. I'm looking forward to it. Nice. I'm hoping to get my first bird with a bow. I told myself a long time ago that when I get my first bird, it's gonna, I'm gonna do it solely with a, with my bow, and nothing's gonna stop me otherwise from doing that. Nice, Brett. Yeah. And they, they helped me get my tag, so I made sure I got everything set up in the right area in the zone for where I'm gonna be hunting.

And either Johnny and Dave's gonna come to the property and help me get my first bird and looking forward to it. And I told him I'm doing this with my bow. I don't give a. Because I bought my bow. The bow that I'm going to be using is a prime bow that I bought from my dad. However, he hurt his shoulder the same year I bought it for him. And it's a longer one because he solely used fingers as his release. And unfortunately, he can't draw back a bow anymore, so he has to use a crossbow.

And so I'm going to say, screw it. I was going to sell it, but I said, no, I want to use it for turkeys now. What prime is it? I couldn't tell you. I don't remember. I bought this thing a couple years ago, and it's my first chance to finally get out of its box. I, I, I owned a couple of primes. My, I had the black, the Black series, the Black 3. Loved that bow. Super good. It came out in 2018. I know that. Okay. Yeah, the black series. I, I had the Black three. Loved it. Great bow.

Prime's a great company. Oh, there now. What, what bow are you shooting right now, Aaron? I'm shooting a Hoyt. Okay. I have a, I have the, the Alpex 33, I have the RX9, and I have the Ventum 34 battle worn edition. Okay. Very nice. Nice. This year I, I will be hunting Primarily with the RX9. Okay. I'm, that is a awesome looking bow. I would, I would love to try it out, but I bought my very first brand new bow. To me. Well, I've always bought used or something like that.

And last year I was like, you know what? I'm gonna buy my first bow, buy it brand new. And my buddy, he's like, we were gonna go hunt Colorado elk last year, but we never got drawn. And he shoots a PSE carbon and he's like, you have to get a carbon bow because your hands won't get as pulled in the winters. And he's from Minnesota. I was like, all right. And I've shot elite for a while now, so I got the elite carbon era. And oh my God, I love that thing.

Great bow, John. Oh my God. That's a good bow. That, that bow. I can see like I have that and I have the, I have the option nine and I have a cure and I, I absolutely love all elite. But that, that era is just unbelievably smooth and fast. I mean I, I absolutely love that bow. That solid bow, man. Good choice. Well, Aaron, we're going to be wrapping it up for tonight and we want to ask a couple rapid fire segments before we let you go. Okay, brother. Send it. All right.

Besides hunting, do you have any other hobbies or interests? I do. I, I fish. I don't fish as much as I used to, but I love fishing out of a kayak and, or fishing off of a paddle board. My buddy, he's a big fisherman. Dan, he's. He's still a part of the team here. He just hasn't been on the show in a while. But when it comes to bass fishing, if I need any advice, I go straight to him.

And we've been trying to do more kayaking, fishing and, and together, but we've just been so busy doing with our own things. But. And I, I love to run. It's how I met my wife. My wife and I met at my first ultra. So we, we've, I've, I've. I. I didn't really touch on this earlier when, when the Squatch asked me to share about my, my peg leg. Since losing my leg, I ran my first marathon. I'd never ran a marathon prior to limb loss. I qualified and ran a Boston three times.

I've ran the Marine Corps Marathon a couple of times. I, I really got into ultras. I've. I've ran a 60k since losing my leg. I really love to run. My wife and I are returning to the Marine Corps this year for. It's a big anniversary year for them. So we're going to go run the Marine Corps Marathon together again. We, we really, really like running and, and functional fitness is, is, is a hobby as well. So. And riding. That's awesome. What animals on your bucket list to hunt? That's.

I really prepped myself for that, Brett, before coming on your show, for me, it's not really about the critter. For me, it's the experience. I just like to go hunt. And if I can do it in the backcountry setting or off of that platform, that's what I want to go do. I've. I've given up the kind of the bucket list items of. I've got to have this critter and this critter and this critter and this critter. I've got to get my this or I got to get my that. I really don't have that mindset anymore.

I will say this. If you back me into a corner and tell me that I have to give you one or two animals that I have to go pursue, I would want to go after Alaska caribou. But if I do it, it's going to be either dropped in by airplane or on an airboat and then leave me alone for seven to 10 days, maybe with one or two buddies. Just. It is the last frontier, right? I mean, it's, it's far. To me, Alaska is well beyond Africa now.

Besides, the animals that are down there, it's not what safaris were 50, 70, 100 years ago. It's modernized Alaska. You get dropped off by a bush plane in Alaska, you are 100% on your own. So for me, the number one would be being dropped off in Alaska for caribou. The other one might sound simple and mundane, but a backcountry trip into New Mexico for a nice big bull archery season, that, that would be. That would be second one. Second runner up. That would be amazing. Alaska, last frontier.

I loved that show when it was out there back in the day, and I just wanted to. I almost moved out there to be Alaska State trooper. I never pulled the trigger. They give out big bonuses, man. They did. They. They still do. And I think it was at the time when I was doing it, it was, I remember 20,000 signing bonus just to join them. I was like, holy shit. And then you had moving costs. They'd help you with that. And I'm just not a big fan of snow. I can't stand snow. It's not too late, Brett.

You could always live your dream out of clubbing seals. I could. Imagine having a, like a king penguin mounted in your office on the back round of your show. It'd be great. Squat. Did you just say that his life dream is to go clubbing with seals? Like going to raves with Navy seals. That's his life dream. Oh, yeah, he loves. He loves. All right. Yeah, he's. He's down, man. So Brad's like, me, like, we should never be in the seals because I don't have the hair for it. I mean, we.

We would work with them all the time, and those dudes, their hair was unbeatable. Brett, I have a really close friend that's. That's a Navy seal. I'll hook you guys up, and maybe he'll go to a rave with you, and we will fill that bucket list item. You can go clubbing with the seal, my friend. Thank you. You're welcome. It's gonna be great. Get it on. What is an animal you want to try eating? So that would be back to my Alaska trip. I've never had caribou, so I'd like to try caribou.

And then I'm going to back back my Oregon outdoor brothers play from last week. And cougar backstrap. Oh, I hear that's really tasty. Just to make Michael happy. Oh, my God. Have you ever tried possum? I have not. I would not be opposed to it. I've heard it's really good. Possum. Raccoon. And I've seen a lot of traffic on social media from the. The National Forest Service and federal. The federal. Holy cow. My mind just went blank. Guys like Blackwater, Nash. Sorry. National Refuge. Oh, yeah.

That. They encourage you to eat mountain beaver. It's supposed to be really, really good, huh? No, we. We. When I go to the Upper peninsula in Michigan, we'll eat porcupine. And when I was in New York, we ate porcupine. I've heard that, too. Yeah, that was surprisingly tasty. Yeah. So what else you got? What has been your favorite state you've hunted? That one. I. Man, I'm gonna tell you, I really. I don't have a favorite state.

I just want to go put my backpack on, find a location that I can get away from the masses, and hunt backcountry style. That is my favorite. My favorite state to hunt is the backcountry state of mind. How about that? I like. I absolutely love it. Is there a specific words, man? Damn it. Is there a particular state that's at the top of your list that you want to hunt in that type of. Style that I've never been to? Yeah. It would be new. It'd be backcountry. New Mexico for archery.

Yeah. Last two, they're kind of serious. Now, if you could pick anybody, you need 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? Are we able to time travel or, or bring people to a different age in their life? If there you can. Yes, actually. I like that idea. Yeah. Okay. That would be my dad.

I, I really wish that my, I could hunt one time with my dad to where he was in a physical state where we could pack in together and share the, the wilderness for three, five, seven days. Hunting together in that environment. That would be. That's it, man. That'd be amazing. That's it. Now who do you think, what do you think we as fellow hunters could or should do to improve the hunting community as a whole? It's the same thing that Brian said last week.

Man, we are eating ourselves from the inside out and we're doing it at so many different levels and there's so much hypocrisy and if we all just focused on being positive and our own hunting space and when I say our own hunting space, meaning if I'm in the state of Maryland and state of Maryland says it's legal for me to use a crossbow and if I choose to spot in stock on public ground with a crossbow during archery season, then I'm not going to sit here and throw stones at you because you want

to hunt with a high speed compound bow from a tree stand or a climber stand or a lock on stand or a tree saddle. I still respect you for that. I, I don't like the animal shaming. I'm not a big fan of naming my deer. If that's what you want to do, then go name your deer. Just don't slam each other for it. We're being torn apart from the inside out to ourselves. We do more damage pretty much on a daily basis than all of the exterior organizations that are fighting against us.

And I just, it breaks my heart you see grown men attacking brand new hunters because they, they shoot a spike or a two point or you know, somebody out in the Northwest would call it a fork and horn. Right? It's my tag. If I'm hunting public ground, it's my tag. It might, maybe I have certain reasons for. I harvested that animal. It's none of your business. It's my business. It just, it does, it's, it's heartbreaking for me. I am, I'm going to throw this out there and answer that question.

And it frames it really well. If you're a compound guy and you're bashing crossbow dudes, I just find it interesting because you're shooting in a vertical bow that pretty much has, is the same, has the same capability as a crossbow. Right. I, I, I own a crossbow. I've harvested deer with the crossbow. I haven't used that crossbow for several years.

I now own it as a low barrier of entry for new hunters and, or if I have somebody like my dad comes out, my dad can't draw a bow, but he can ethically and accurately shoot a crossbow and harvest with it. But if you really want to get in the nuts and bolts of archery, if you're against a crossbow, then I really think you should be shooting traditional equipment because that's really where archery began. Right. And Brian, Brian threw out black powder last show.

So I'm gonna, I'm gonna throw another abstract way of looking at that. If you're an archery guy and you're a muzzleloader and if you're an archery guy that complains about crossbows, yet you shoot an inline muzzleloader with a magnified optic on said muzzleloader, that's no different than shooting a crossbow in archery season. Now again this is Aaron Ritter's opinion, but if that's the, if that's the stand that you want to take, then shoot traditional equipment.

And when you're muzzleloading, you probably should be using a flintlock or a cap gun. You should not be hunting with an inline because it's the same thing in my opinion. So that's, that's, that's where I'm at. I, I just, I just think it's a shame how negative and toxic the industry is. But most of that's on social media, guys. If you go to an expo, if you go to an event, if you're down in your local shop, it's typically pretty positive.

But social media and in YouTube and that whole scene, it's, it is, it's, it's pretty, it's pretty toxic. People dragging around their dirty diapers and unfortunately that's where the public gets to see us. The anti hunters don't go to hunting expos, they don't hang out in your local hunting store. They just watch us on social media just tearing ourselves apart and it's, it's sad. Yeah, I think Dave had a situation last year, the year before.

I'm not going to say the story because I don't know in full detail or he was on this Facebook group, whatever the case may be on social media and this young 20 year old kid, never hunted before, was asking simply where he could spots that he could possibly hunt and all these Older German just started bashing the. Out of him of. And I'm not going to say exactly everything because I don't know the whole details of. All I know are the things I'm mentioning and Dave stepped in and, and back that.

That guy up. And I was like the fact. Because Aaron, you said it perfectly. The fact that these grown men. First off, it's hunting. It's not like we're out. It's my land or your land. And you can't know this type of information. That's why we do these podcasts, these YouTube things to share this information to help other people fill tags to give them more information possible. We want to help other people be successful out in the woods. It's not me.

Well, look at me and look at everything I've accomplished. No, that's not what this is about. We want everyone to be successful out in the woods and enjoy this great sport, this great lifestyle that we call hunting. And it's very meaningful to people. And when you see that type of mentality, that type of attitude towards other hunters, it's. It's pitiful in my opinion. And you see that type of thing and it just makes you want to like. And that's when my law enforcement comes in.

I do exactly the same thing that Dave would have done is defend that personally. Hey, message me get here's my number. Let's talk off offhand. And here's my number and stuff like that. And I. Where you see another thing to go off of that, Aaron, because I don't want to take away everything that you just said because it was amazing. We talked about this on shows before where people were taking selfies with the deer a couple years ago and it was a big meme and they would.

There's videos now where they're taking a deer where they first met. And I'm just really, in my opinion that's, that's childish. Like you have to show respect to the animal as well and, and that type of thing along with what you're. You mentioned there, Aaron. I think a lot of things need to be fixed. I guess maybe the word. Or just we need to grow up as individuals and hunters and we're just portraying that we're a bunch of childs. That's. Yeah. It's unfortunate.

So that's, that's, that's, that's, that's where I think we. I think that's what we could do better, guys. I appreciate that. Well, Aaron, thank you so much for coming on the show. Definitely at the schedule you'll come back on. Because I feel like this. We can go on so many other rabbit holes and we can just have a three hour conversation. But next time I won't actually schedule a two hour show with you because I'd be happy. I'd be happy to come back, guys. Yeah. John will end it with Aaron.

John, how can people find you? Even though. Yeah, find me on Whitetail Advantage. I'm here every Sunday and Tuesday. Or check me out on Instagram at Johnny Nitro Night. I'm there. Nitro outdoors. That's. That's where I'm at. Squash. How about you, brother? Hey guys. You can find me always Sunday nights, 8:30 here. And on Tuesday nights, 8:30 here. You can also catch me the Garden State outdoorsman, Frank Mystica, Mike Nitray, all good guys down there. And as always, Instagram, my.

My YouTube channel, outdoors and more with the Squatch. Don't forget guys, I got hats if you want to get one. 30 bucks gets it shipped to your house. You can rep the Squatch wherever you are. And of course don't forget either that we have our Whitetail Advantage stuff that's available on bonfire and you can also find shirts and stuff for me there too. So that's about it. I thank, you know, for, for supporting us the way you guys do. We love the comments and great input tonight. Aaron.

Very, very interesting show. Appreciate. I enjoyed you guys as well. Aaron, how can people reach out to you and follow along your journey? And I also noticed there's a couple things I want you to mention. You get there is a deadline coming up on the 15th and your book. Okay into that. But can you just dive into that in a brief moment? So the most important thing that's near and dear to my heart in my outdoor endeavors is my nonprofit.

It's the I Am 501C3 nonprofit. It's the A3G initiative. Okay. It is the annual amputee archery grant initiative. Spoke on it briefly when we started the show. It is a grant. It's valued at over $30,000. Now we choose one amputee a year. We provide them with an incredible archery and outdoor equipment package. Hoyt is our bow sponsor. So they will receive a 2025 flagship bow that is best fit for them. So we send the information to Hoyt.

They make the recommendation on hey for their draw length, their body size, this, that, and they will maximize potential of this bow. So I can't tell you what it will be, but it will be a Hoyt flagship bow. Then we send Them to the GAS bowstring facility in Clay City, Kentucky. That is where their bow is waiting. They pick out their string design and Eric Griggs, the owner of GAS and his team, they build the bow with the recipient there at gas.

And then they get one on one coaching with Braden Gillentine. While they're there at gas. We send them home with their archery stuff. They practice all summer and then we send them to Texas for a one on one private trophy whitetail hunt. That's a four day event. I'm at both events. Other board members are there. It's all inclusive to them. They why we're there in Texas. I mean we, we throw everything we can at them. And included in this, it's a lifetime hunt, guys.

Their meat processing is donated. They have a custom a 3G Grizzly Cooler waiting for them in Texas. Their meat is shipped to them in that cooler for free. Costs them nothing. They have a full shoulder mount of the animal that they harvest in Texas and the shipping of that shoulder mount for them to their home of residence. It is a lifetime all inclusive whitetail hunt package. That is the A3G man. And it's not just, it's not kill camp guys. We instill ethics. We talk about life improvement.

We talk about how archery improves you mentally and physically. It's man, it's. It is my thing. And again we, we select one recipient a year and that deadline, what we call our amp location. Amp location. That period ends Tuesday. This Tuesday, April, April 15, it closes and we will announce our recipient by the end of the week. And then the, the, the excitement begins and builds and we just love this time of the year when we get to do that. And so then yeah, I wrote a book.

I have it right here. It's available in hard copy. It's available in paperback. There are on my website which is spelling guys Limitless Outdoors. It's L, I M B I T L E S S Outdoors. It's online assigned copies, both hardback and paperback are available on my website or you can go to Amazon and you can order copies on Amazon and then the ebook is available on Amazon as well. The book guys is about my 30 years of backcountry hunting. I started out in the mid-90s.

There was no such thing as cell phones or GPS. I had a, I had a photocopy of a forest service map and a compass. And I've hunted all over the nation backcountry style. I absolutely love it. It's the experience. It's not the, not the harvest that drives my train. And there's some really good stories in there, but you can find that at Limitless Outdoors. I'm on Instagram. Limitless Outdoors, I am on Facebook. Limitless Outdoors, I am on YouTube. Limitless outdoors.

A3G is on Instagram, a3G is on Facebook. Limitless outdoors and a3G is on LinkedIn. And the Limitless podcast is on all of your major podcast platforms. And I publish all video versions on YouTube. It would be awesome if anybody listening to this show would go like and follow all of those platforms for me. It'd be great. Dudes, I have really enjoyed my time on here tonight. I can't thank you enough for hosting me and allowing me to share my story and my platforms and my opinions.

Oh, man, I love them, man. Love them. I am definitely going to be ordering that book tonight, so I can't wait to read it, man. That's awesome. I'm going to make sure to go through and I'm already following all those on Instagram, so I'll make sure to go through and subscribe and follow them and give some reviews on the podcast platforms tonight before I go to bed. Thanks, man. I appreciate it. Well, thank you, Aaron, for coming on the show. I greatly appreciate it.

Yes, we're definitely going to have to schedule a more because we only we do an hour length type shows. Hour and a half. Sometimes a show will go two hours. However, I would like to actually schedule a a two hour session with you because I feel like this show could go on a lot longer and I feel like there's a lot more that we left on the table that we can discuss. Let's talk about turkey hunting and elk. Hunting because dude, I'm. We need to.

Aaron, whether it's text message, phone call, whatever, like we're going to be hunting the same area, so I can't wait, brother. Well, what we could do, we could do is since you're going in May and and Johnny's going in September, we can schedule a guest a time in October and November after you both had your time out there in Oregon. We can talk about that right there. I think that'd be a great idea. Sounds good. All right, guys, call it the Oregon Trail episode. Oh, I like that. I love it.

Well, guys, I hope you have a great rest of your night. Thank you for coming on tonight, guys. Hey, be Limitless. Oh, man. Thank you, Aaron. Thank you, Jay, John and Squash, thank you for coming on the show. I greatly appreciate it. Well, everyone, that's going to conclude another episode of the Whitetail Advantage Podcast. I want to say thank you for everyone that's gathered around the electronic campfire with us tonight.

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We'll see everyone next time. 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.