Ep. 639: Why Looking For Sheds Is Worth It For All Whitetail Hunters with Josh Miller

want to give you an update. Mark Kenyon here. I'm not hosting the podcast today, Tony's got it, but I wanted to give you a quick update on my working for Wildlife tour. Now. I mentioned this a couple of weeks ago, and now I have the full scoop, the full details for you. Here's the cliff notes. If you're not for I am planning on heading out across the country this year to shine a spotlight on volunteer habitat

improvement opportunities. There's all sorts of conservation organizations that put on these volunteer days asking hunters and anglers to come out and volunteer their time to work on public lands and waters. Maybe that's cleaning up a stream. Maybe that is picking up trash, maybe that's planting trees or moving invasive species, all kinds of stuff like that is going on, and I want to help encourage more of us to

get out there and help out. So I am excited to do that myself this year by going to six of these events all across the country, and I'm inviting you to join me. We've got events starting out in March going all the way through October, and we're hitting all or at least most of the regions of the country. So here's the scoop on these events. I'm going to read you a list of these different events and what we're doing, and then I will tell you where to

get more information where to sign up. One other key note, I will have twenty five T shirts to give away at each event. The first twenty five volunteers will get one of these cool new I Work for Wildlife T shirts that I helped design with my buddy Hunter Spencer

from Metaitors. So little freebe now the events. The first one March twenty six, twenty twenty three, that's coming up here very soon, and that's going to be just outside of Boston, Massachusetts, at the Martin Burns Wildlife Management Area. The second event is going to be April twenty second up in Kalkaska, Michigan, when we're building brush piles for game habitat and a bunch of things in the Traverse

City Forest Management Unit. Then fast forward to July thirtieth, twenty twenty three, we're gonna be in the Panhandled National Forest in Idaho working on aspenstand restoration. In August, we're going to Missouri to the b. K. Leech Conservation Area when in collaboration with BHA. Then in September we're going to Mississippi to the De Soto National Forest. And in October we're going to Kentucky in the Daniel Boone National Force. We're gonna do some very cool white oak acorn collection

for some local reforestation projects. That's an association with the National Deer Association. So we got three events with the NBA, two events with BHA, and one event with the Michigan United Conservation Clubs. All of these events are going to be free, open to the public, and we're just looking for folks to come out help out in I'm excited to meet you, shake some hands, tell some stories, share pictures, and most importantly do something good for these wild critters

and places that we all enjoy so much. So that's the game plan. If you go to the meat eater dot com and then search in the little search bar on the page for working for Wildlife Tour, you'll see this website I'm telling me about. It's got the full details for each one of those events, has a photo

of that T shirt I mentioned. It has the links to register, which these organizations would like you to register, just so they know how many people will be there and what they need to have prepared for that number of folks. So head over there, register, come on out. It's gonna be a good time. We're gonna be around a bunch of like minded people enjoying mother Nature and giving back in a great way. And I can't wait. So hopefully we'll see you guys first up March twenty

six in or just outside of Boston. Sounds like a really cool wildlife management area that's been work done over

the years. It supports a lot of different bird species, including some less common ones in that area like American woodcock, rough grouse, blue winged warblers, all sorts of good stuff that'sn't Steven so We're gonna be doing some good work out there and having a good time and I will see you March twenty six and now back to the show with Tony Peterson and another episode of Wired two Hunt. Welcome to the Wire to Hunt podcast, which is brought

to you by First Light. You probably know this is not the mustachioed madman Mark Kenyon, but is instead the guy who really seems to be holding the whole Wire to Hunt thing together. Tony Mark is off on a spiritual retreat where he is learning to meditate, harness the healing power of crystals, and use astrology to connect on a deeper level with deer. Apparently Mark is a Virgo, and since most fawns are born in May, the bucks he chases are I guess a Taurus, so he's got

some I don't know dumb theory about that anyway. Today's guest is Josh Miller, who lives in Wisconsin and runs Riverstone Kennels. In addition to being a shed dog trainer, Josh also happens to be a super passionate whitetail hunter. This whole show is dedicated to finding antlers. It's about where to look for him when to look for him, how to get your kids out there and excited about antlers, and even how to mix your dogs up in shed hunting if you have the desire and the right dogs.

Of course, even if you're not a passionate shed hunter. I think you should give this one a listen, because there's plenty of info here that should benefit all deer hunters. Josh Miller, how the hell are you, buddy? I'm great, man. How are you doing. I'm good. I love talking to you. Man. We got we got a lot of stuff to go through here. We are coming off of a stupid winner.

You live over there in Wisconsin, just across the river from me, and it is really the time where, you know, we kind of got a little bit robbed of our shed season this year, this far north, but there's still a chance to get out there and find some antlers still. Yeah, man, it really has been tough just because of how this winner has presented itself. Because you know, for us, we

keep a really close tab on our gear. You heard here on my farm, and it's something that we look forward to every single year, especially because you know, my daughter is four going on fourteen. You know the way that she acts my son is two or two and a half rather, and so we're at a point where we really like to do this. Yeah, I still like to go out and find a couple the kids can go be successful and get into it, but they look

forward to it. And now you know, we're seeing you know, deer dropping and then like today, like I just literally had yesterday a one antler, you know, buck that had just shed. I saw him yesterday with both sides. So I have a pretty good idea of where this thing probably be. And we're supposed to get two feet of snow today. You know, it's like it really makes it tough. You're covering those antlers up and he's going to pose some challenges. So maybe it'll be a wait until some

melt off and towards spring a little bit. But but you're right, the winner has posed some challenges. Yeah, it

was a tough year. I mean, we had such weird conditions up here with you know, quite a bit of snow right away, and then we had weird rain storm I think back in January at some point that just a bad cross stell out there and then more snow and it's just one of those it's one of the years where you know, as we get here towards the end of March, that's when you can have those days where you find like six or eight sheds and you know, kind of mix up for the couple you'd pick up

here and there throughout the season. But there, you know, there's still a chance to get out there. And I want to talk about that, but I want to get into the dog thing a little bit first. We've we've done some shed dog episodes before, so I don't want I don't want to cover it too completely here, but you were kind of one of the pioneers of shed dogs back back in the day. You and you and Docket and a few people were really pushing that message

before it took off and it was everywhere. Yeah, you know what's so funny about that is the first time that it kind of occurred to me that I could do this was there's a big state park that's by my house and you couldn't hunt it at the time. You can now, but you couldn't at the time, so it was just a white tail sanctuary, right. And so as I was you know, probably like maybe like in the eighteen you know, seventeen eighteen year old range I had a dog named Easton at the time, who has

since passed. But we did a lot together all the time, right, not just hunting and training wise, but it was like, you know, anything I did, Easton was there. And so being a very avid archery hunter, very avid white tail hunter, you know, shed season was something I looked forward to and I loved, you know, putting on those those miles with the boots on the ground finding these and the first it wasn't even an antler that that piqued my

interest on this. It was we were in the middle of the state park that I don't know how many thousands of acres it is, and Easton comes back with a tennis ball and I'm sitting here looking around, like, am I like stumbling into like you where someone's like camped out and living in these woods? Like what the heck is going on? Why is there a tennis ball

in the middle of this whole thing? But he loved tennis balls, and I remember bringing that back to me, and I was looking at it, going, well, if you love this and you can find this in the middle of nowhere, why couldn't you actually look for what I'm looking for? And we could both be actively hunting for these, and at the time, I didn't even really know anyone did this. I'm sure there were a lot of people that were right, but for me, I had not heard

of this. I had not you know, research, hit hadn't gone through it. So I literally went I was super fortunate. I had a teacher that was in high school, one of my shop teachers. He had a beer farm, and so I just asked him, Hey, like, when these start dropping, could I pick a couple up and use it for training. He thought it was a cool idea of trying to

get the dog involved. Um, so I remember going out there with like rubber gloves and a zip block bag and trying to keep these like as fresh as I could, and man like, that's that's just how this started. And it's just kind of crazy here now. I mean there's you know, there's different organizations. They're holding events, and there's people from all over the country that are doing this, and it's really turned into a big deal. Yeah, it's weird.

It was kind of like this little underground thing for a while and then and then it just blew up and it was like everywhere you look there was pictures of shed dogs, and you know this this was back when you know, magazine writing was a way bigger part of my job, and it was like everybody wanted that story on shed dogs. You know, it's like, oh, this is kind of like a cool new thing. And then it's sort of it seemed to maybe peek a little bit, and now it's just sort of like part of dog ownership.

Like you meet, you know, primarily people with retrievers, and if they love to deer hunt, there's like a decent chance they've trained their dogs to find antlers or they've gone to somebody like you to have them trained, and it's just sort of become a part of the culture. And I think that's freaking cool. Yeah, yeah, it really is. You know, so we we have our online training program Retriever Roadmap, where you know, we have her library and

great community and all this stuff. Right, but that's the

one topic right now that's really coming up. Or you know, these people and some of these people, you know, they don't necessarily deer hunt, but they're looking for an offseason activity to do with their dogs, and this fits that bill this time of year, and so it's really neat how you know, this can kind of provide not only you know, increase in success for the people that are already out there doing it, but there's people now getting into the shed hunting that have never done it before,

just simply because of the dog. Yeah, I've mixed feelings about that because I feel like I have enough competition shed hunting. But I do love seeing people take their dogs out and you know, try that. And I know I've had because you know, we'll do a lot of shed dog training in the parks by my house, you know, especially in the spring, and people see it and they're

just like drawn to it. And if there's one category of dog owner that has unrealistic expectations of shed dogs, it's the person who's like not not actually a deer hunter, but they see that and they're like, I want to train my dog to do that so I can go out and find antlers too. And I'm like, man, you have no concept of how hard that's actually going to be. Training the dogs isn't like terribly hard, but actually getting out there and finding a bunch of antlers usually is

for those people. But I love seeing the interest anyway. Oh man, Now that's spot on too, because that's one of the things that we when we take dogs in for training for this, we're extremely selective in the people and dogs who would take in for because there is this unrealistic expectation that you're like, hey, my dog just got trained to do this, so let's go hit up the Walmart parking lot. We should find a few and you know what I mean, Like it's just like it

very unrealistic. And like what I always tell people is that if you're going to do this, like it's not gonna mean that you go from finding three a year to eighty three, right, like you might go from finding three to maybe five, like you know, a couple that you would have walked over. It's more about being out there with the dog and you and the dog having another activity to look forward to. You know, the dog's got sitting down to college, and you're not sitting down

to the the college. You're out there being active. But you know, you know, like you still have to be in the area that these deer are when they shed to be successful. You know, if if I go fishing in a lake that has no fish, I'm not going to catch any fish. It's the same thing. And so you know, like if you're a farm or the area that you hunt, you find a lot of sheds out well, your dog is going to have a lot of opportunities to pick them up, which means the dog is gonna get really good at it.

If you if you don't find Manny and your dog gets a chance to pick maybe one or two of a year, well the dog's probably never going to be overly proficient at it. And quite frankly, he doesn't have the opportunity too because he's not in a target rich environment. So you know, there's it's not going to be this you know, feast and you know, from famine to feast once you get a dog trained for it. But there's a lot of positives to being out there together doing it. Yeah.

I mean I was always you know, taking my dogs out with me anyway, but I felt like one of the biggest benefits when I when I trained my you know, the first dog I trained to find him was my Golden, which was three dogs ago now, and one of the things that I just loved about it was, you know, like you said, at that time, even shed hunting really hard. I might find six or eight in an entire winter,

but I went more because she had a job. You know, like it was like kind of dumb, right, Like you're just like, well, it's it's winner, I have nothing to do, and might as well take my dog out. And since my dog no is what we're looking for now, it's just more fun to go shed hunting. So I just go more and I find more antlers. But you know, like you said, it's it's not a game changer as far as like if you're really obsessed with finding tons of antlers, even the best dog out there isn't going

to change your situation like a crazy amount. But it sure is just fun to have them with you now. And isn't it amazing that the dog does that for us? And as far as like getting us out, because if you if you talk to most dog owners, let's just use the water falling for example, if you talk to most dog owners, they'll all tell you the same thing, and I don't even want to go if the dog's

not going. Yeah, right, And so it's just it's so interesting how you know the dog and the relationship that we have with them, How it really does it makes the experiment they experience that much richer for us, to to the point that we would say we don't even want to go if they're not with and so I think that's part of the reason why, you know, going out and having them with their shed hunting, it just makes it more enjoyable. I mean, they just they're lighting

our lives, only different aspects. Yeah, it's so much more fun. And it's what's interesting. I want to ask you about this because you know, I've trained a couple of my dogs to find antlers, and you know, like like my Golden she figured out she was going to get praised no matter what if she brought me a bone, you know, Like so she would bring me all kinds of bones and sometimes antlers. Sometimes not my older dog that I have now, Luna, she if she finds an antler, she'll

bring it to me. She never brings me just a random bone. And I always think, like when we're out there, you know, because we do a lot of late season pheasant hunting and sometimes you know, some of these states you can hunt through January or you know, we used to have that grouse season in Wisconsin that you could hunt through January, and we would find antlers doing that with the dogs. But when we were hunting with the dogs, it was like they're not going to bring you an antler?

Like do you And I want to ask you that, like, do your dogs if you're out hunting something and your dogs found an antler, would they bring it to you? Matt? Maybe yeah. But what I'm the way I see it is like, okay, if if you if you're hunting pheasants, like you're you know you're you're you're having that flaming young right, Like that's that's the hitome. That's what I'm here for. That tracks me up all of a sudden.

Like you look at a ham sandwich. You're going not a big deal, right you You still want that filet? And so that's what that's why I kind of look at it there. Now you take you take the edge off that, and you're like, hey, look we're just out here hunting sheds. Now, all of a sudden, my que words are different, my energy level is probably different, right, And so the dog feeds off that and goes, Okay,

this is what we're doing. But if you're a shed hunting and you get into a patch of grouse or pheasants, like the dog is going to kick into it, right all of a sudden, sheds aren't gonna matter now, I'm onto this, and then they're gonna have to come off that. Like that's that genetic side, right, like feathers and birds like that is ingrained in our dog's DNA, especially if you have you know, the right bloodlines. I mean, it's

it's hard to turn that off, you know. So it's never gonna be an equal you know, uh, you know, pray for them to go after, but you know you can still funnel that where it's a very desirable object. Yeah. Yeah. They When I'm bird hunting with my dogs, they aren't bringing me antlers. But when I'm antler hunting with my dogs and we encounter birds, then it becomes a bird hunt. Like that's right there. They're switching gears that way in

a heartbeat. When you when you started with Easton back in the day and he started bringing me some tennis balls out there and you realize you could do this?

What since then? Because I know, like, you know, people who look you up, they're gonna see, you know, your kennel that you run with, Whitney, your wife, and like you're you're so ensconced in the dog world, the bird dog world and train you know, a trainer by trade, but you're a diehard bow hunter too, Like, what did what did those dogs when you went and started doing that? What did they teach you about antlers like shed hunting

that you didn't you didn't know before. There had to be something that you picked up with after going out there with your dog. So here's what's so interesting about being out there with you, like before and after And this may have just come through, you know, a natural progression of sources. I grew up and got older and had more experience, But what I found is that when I was shed hunting before, you know how it is

like you are glued to the ground. You know, you're a scan scan, scan, and you're like on top of it, right and man, Like, when I have the dogs out there, what I find more is like I'm finding new late season travel routes. I'm seeing oh my gosh, Like I didn't realize this, this tree was on this edge that

would work great for this wind. And it's almost like a pregame prep for me too, Like I know the dogs are out there doing the work, and if we're in an area that they're probably gonna pick something up, especially if I have more than one dog out there and they're covered a bunch of ground like they're probably gonna find it, They're gonna probably gonna pick it up,

which is great. So I just get to enjoy it more like I don't have to be like I'm still watching, I'm still doing my job, but I'm a little more relaxed doing it, and I find myself, you know, seeing things that wouldn't have seen for and I pick things out.

And it's really an interesting deal because I believe firmly that this is the best scouting time of year, you know, this going into spring before we get leaves, because this is as close to it's going to look like when I'm up in a tree, right, So I don't have to over trim because the foliage that is, you know, is not here or won't be there in the fall, but we'll be there when I'm trying to do this in August. Right. So I love, you know, hanging sets.

I love getting set up for the year, you know, going forward this time, this time of year, and so it's just one of those things that I think I can kind of step back and maybe see things I was blind to otherwise. So that that's an interesting take because I, you know, we just we just did a couple episodes on winter scouting, Like I feel the same way. I've said this a million times. I think winter scouting for deer is the most important time you can spend

outside of actually hunting. I think it's so valuable. But I've always and I know a lot of people who are like this where it's like I'm neither a shed hunter or I'm a winner scouter, but I'm not both, Like it just just can't do it. And so what you're saying is, when you go out there with the dogs, you have you know, you have the confidence that if

they run across when they're going to find it. So you've got some you've got some extra critters working for you there just for the sheer fact of like finding more antlers, but you're also paying attention to them more because you're a dog trainer, So you're watching them in your hands, signaling them, and you're you're reading their body

language and stuff. But it also allows you the chance to sort of take a shed hunt, like what could be a strict shed hunt and turn it into sort of a hybrid deal where you're looking for some antlers but you're also winner scouting. Yeah, for sure. I mean, as much as I love shed hunting, you know, being in the tree, that's that's what it's all about for me, right, So if I can be you know, if I can

be scouting. Unfortunately, I don't have infinite amount of time to be able to do it all, right, so I'm

trying to double duty. I think most of us probably fit in that boat, right, like, well, we always had more time to be out there and yeah, okay, I'm anna shed hunt on this trip, of them skelt on the next one, while most of us have to try to do it all at once, and so to have the dog out there doing the work, yeah, for me, anyways, it just took that little bit of edge out where I could do both at once and be really fishing

at doing both at once. One of the things that I think is really a provides a really good lesson when you're out there with a shed dog, is they will find antlers close to you that you cannot see. I just think, you know, I talked to an uncle of mine one time, and they have horses, and he was always finding antlers. And he you know, he lives way up by Elie, So it's not like he's he's in a part of the country that has a ton of deer, you know. I mean, he's up in the

north country where it's like real low density. And I'm like, how the hell do you find as many antlers as you do? And he's like, we ride horses around, we're looking down on them, and you know, it's so dumb, but you think about that and you go, man, that that perspective, that's a totally different way to look at it, you know. And when you're out there with a dog and you think, man, I'm a real badass shed hunter.

I'm not going to miss one. And then you look over, and especially if you're in some kind of saw grass or swamp or something and your dog is digging away and that that yellow grass and picks one up. It's like, man, you you might not find that antler even if you step on it. And so it kind of makes you realize, like, no matter how good you are, like you're bringing your binoculars, you're slowing down, You're gonna miss antlers no matter what. And I think that lesson is really cool that dogs

teach you. Man, the number of times that one of my dogs, I all of a sudden, just heard bone on teeth and I'm going I look behind, like, I don't know how close I had to have stepped on that thing, but it was close, right, and I missed it. So those are the times you go, oh my gosh, like having the dog here really made that happen. But I none of us are as good as we think we are, you know, it's just the truth of it. I don't know, dude. I've met some people in the

hunting industry who think they're pretty good. Man. I've met some dog trainers like that too, actually, But it is true, and it's it's a good reminder, I think. And you don't need you know, you don't have to train a shed dog to teach you this. But man, if you know how it is, like if you have that betting area, you have that area off of the good food source in the winter where you're like, there's antlers there, like the deer of ben there. I know they're gonna be there.

You think about you walk a route through there, and you go, all right, I'm coming back here in a week or two weeks or three weeks or whatever, I'm gonna walk a different route. I mean, even two days later sometimes and you just walk it and reverse, or you walk it when it's super sunny one day and there's shadows out, and the next time you walk it

it's that nice overcast day where there's no shadows. It's just like the more you're out there doing that, the more you realize, like how easy it is to walk right by those antlers, no question, you know. And I think I think that's a good lesson for a lot of people who are you know, you know kind of like we talked about with a dog owner who's like, oh, I'm gonna train my poodle to go out and find shed antlers because this guy's doing it with a lab

and I don't really understand what's going on. Like when you think about, you know, if you're a you know, if you're shed hunting public land or you know, some of these parks or whatever where there are there's high pressure, like there's a lot of people in there looking at it can feel like a lost cause. But when you know that you've walked right by antlers that are six feet away from you, and you come back the other

way and there they are. Other people are doing the same thing, And so I always kind of take a little hope and that you know, I I live in the suburbs of the Twin Cities, so I don't have a place to shed hunt that doesn't have quite a few people shed hunting it. But I find antlers every year and it's it just say, gives me a little bit of hope. And it's something you learn with dogs, and it's something you learn just by burning you know,

some boot leather and getting out there. Yeah, no question, Yeah, it's it's it's all about getting out there, right, It's all about putting those miles on and taking those walks. And I mean even on some of the private farms you know that we've been on, you know, there's always going to be ones we miss. There's always going to be you know, those deer that are holding later than others.

And for me, that's what kind of keeps it exciting, right, Like I want to go back out and recheck an area, especially if it's a farm that I have, you know, a bunch of eyes on and still running cameras. I know that there's a certain deer, specific deer, especially if there's deer that I let walk. I love that because it feels like I'm now growing up with this, dear saw. I'm at two saw, I'm at three half sheds on

both sides. Of course, that's the epitomes to get a mature dear five six years old and go harvest that deer and have years of anilers. I haven't done that yet, but that's that's one of the goals I really really want, is to have that that growth. But you know, that's that's kind of what keeps me going. It's like it's a grown up Easter egg hunt, right, yeah, all big time.

And you know, I'm glad you said that that you haven't done that yet, because I think it's I think it's very easy to assume that there's a lot of people out there who you know. Even if your name and deer and you have a really really good place to hunt, whether you own it or it's permission or at lease or whatever, it is not that easy to go out and find a shed and then kill the owner of that shed next year, two years or three years.

It's like it looks easy and probably more common because of how we were kind of fed stuff from the hunting industry, but it is really not that common out there, no, And I actually know very few people that have actually done that, And I feel like I manage my farms really tightly, like it's a very what you would call it a session, and it probably is of sorts, but

it's something I really really get into. And every year when you let a deer walk, you're rolling the dice like you are gambling, because there are so many things that can happen. You know, neighbors, you kill, the deer, you know, hit by a car, gets disease, doesn't make it through the winter. Like there's so many things that can go on, and it is it's so uncommon. And then you know the way that these deer you move around.

You know, there's the reality is that on a piece of property, there are only so many mature deer that can call that property home. Mature bucks, right because of how they act, and so you could have an older mature deer. This is where you know, taking deer that are of the right age. It may not be the calvalry you wamp, but because of certain reasons, like that buck is never going to get to where you want

him to be. Could run off that young deer coming up to that and then all of a sudden he's gone, right, So there's a lot of things that can happen on a year to year basis, and that's why I think it is so difficult to find those multiple years, get that deer to the age that you want them to, and harvest that deer. It's a goal of mine. I want nothing more to make that happen. But it just seems like every year when I think, oh, maybe this is it, something happens. Yeah, I don't even I have

no place where that's even a possibility. I have one time in my life where I found an antler and then two years later I killed that buck, and it

was just I didn't I had no clue. I'd kind of forgot i'd even found that antler, and then I don't remember what I was doing, but I looked at it and I go, man's that's blade it up and everything, just like the buck that I killed this year and then held it up there, and it was just one of those lucky deals that he stuck around, and you know, I didn't obviously I didn't match him up or thing I didn't find the year after. But it's pretty cool

when that happens. And the other thing about that, you know, when you when you talk about that and like, oh, I want to kill a buck that's you know, six and a half, and I'd love to have match sets from you know, the last four years or whatever. Even going out and finding a match set unless they fall right next to each other is really not that easy. No, it's not. Well, the other thing is think about so I've read articles now on how they'll find like coyote

dens that have antlers all over in them. You know, they love chewing on them. You're just like a dog, right, like just like our domestic dogs, right, And so something like that can even happen to where it doesn't even give you the opportunity to find both those and you could you could walk your tail off, you're not going to find them, right. So it's just there's so many things. Everything has to go so right for that to happen.

But it still is one of those things that I sit and dream about, like I gotta make this happened one year, I gotta make this happen. Well, it'll happen. I was going to ask you about that with coyotes because I found I found a mule deer shit out in western North Dakota one time, and the base was nod on, like, how do I describe this? If you see like a mouse is chewing on an antler, the rodent teeth they're almost like kind of sharp, like you

took like a sharp tool to it. And if you look at how dogs chew down an antler, it's sort of like rounded off, you know, like it's like gnawed off. And I found that this was years probably twelve thirteen years ago. I remember looking at it going, gosh, that's that's super weird. It looks like a dog or you know what you'd assume as a coyote out there chewed

on it. And then I remember thinking like, well, of course, like why wouldn't they If you could throw an antler on my floor and you don't pay attention, my dogs will chew that sucker right down to a nub, Like why wouldn't a coyote out there, especially if fresh one with a little blood on it, they pick that up and bring it back to their den. Of course they're

gonna lay down a chew on it. M Yeah, no doubt. Well, and it's just so funny right sometimes, um, you know, even if it's right in front of our face and we just don't put two and two together, Like you know, hard dogs are just like you kayos or I have a fox that is so awesome. He's, for whatever reason, has chose that my food pot that's right out. I had a food pot that I put in right outside of our house strictly because my kids, being the ads they are, I want you of them to get in

the outdoors. I want them to be able to you know, from the house. Wash deer come in out and you know, hey, you know there's a buck. You know, that's where we get in the name and the bucks. We can talk about. Oh, here's here's Ava's buck, and here's Colt's buck, and y'all it makes it fun. It's a family thing, right. But um, you know, like this little fox has just decided to lay down in this food pot and sun himself and it's like, well he lays an act just like the

dog that's at my feet, you know, doing this. Why wouldn't he do the same kind of things like we're talking about. Yeah, it is it a red fox, it is. We have a red and a gray on our farm. We see them pretty frequently and I just absolutely love them. They get a pass like I have one of my employees loves the kyote hunt and he's like, oh, like we should say that. I'm like, no, Like, you can shoot all the kyotes out here that you want, But

I like seeing them. I know that they get into the turkey egg and everything else that I don't want, but they just like their mannerisms, how they act, the way that they kind of use the edges and cover. They're just such a cool animal to watch. I just get a kick out of sitting here watching them. Yeah, I think fox are so cool. All right? Do you think that that fox set up shop there because the coyotes probably aren't going to hang super close to your

house and the kennel, and that fox knows it. Well, what's interesting is that, just like you say, we don't see kyotes from the house, we just don't, but we'll see them all over, especially during trigger season, we see them all over the farm outside of that, And I can kind of one hand the number of times that

I've ever seen a coyote here. And so you think about that's the main predator that they're going to have to encounter, and if they can simply get away from it by getting close to where they or not, you know, I mean it makes sense, right, but here I mean that red fox, a gray fox is every once in

a while he'll be there. But what's funny to your point, so the kennel, my house, my kennel sit on two different parcels to two different forty acres of my farm, and the gray fox always round the kennel, the red fox always round the house. So to your point, get where of the carlots aren't going to be? Yep, I

think when you start paying attention to that stuff. So here in my neighborhood, and in fact, I was out with my dogs, I don't know, just a couple days ago, and I looked over and there was a red fox at the park, sitting there watching us from the other side of the soccer field. We have, you know, when when when I moved here in two thousand and six, I did a lot of wildlife photography in the parks

around here, just because I had time. You know, I was a magazine writer, like I just I spent a lot of time watching animals and taking pictures of them. And it was we were we were covered in foxes here, red foxes. And then I started to see fewer of them and see way more coyotes in the parks. But when that started happening, we started seeing more fox in our neighborhood. And now I see, you know, we we have a fox that lives right down the road from us.

When I take my little girls out to the bus stop, we'll look down the street and that fox will walk out onto the street and sit on his haunches and watch them get on the bus like consistently. And but we don't see coyotes in our neighborhood. And so I look at that, and I go these patches of you know, of woods and fields and stuff where that are that are the parks or the farms around here. That's probably

coyote territory. And now these foxes are like, all right, I'm gonna go live in these people's backyards because we have all these little patches of woods that are connected in these little swamps, and so they just adapted to that. And I just think, I think seeing stuff like that is so cool. Like I think the more you're exposed to that kind of like what nature's doing to make it work, the better of a deer hunter you're going

to get. Because that stuff's happening all over out there if you, if you're paying attention to it, it's such a fascinating thing to really sit back and observe, especially when you have the wherewithal to do what you just did, step back and look at the big picture, right because like, but we're hunting, we tend to really nail down and focus on Hey, like this this one buck has this one routine, right, Well, why does they have that routine?

You know, what factors are making that happen, and what and what what other factors are contributing to making those factors happen. And it's a it's a pretty pretty wild world that we live in. Yeah, it's it's it's wild, and it kind of reminds me, you know, it makes you think about how much you don't know, you know, like how much you don't know that's going on out

there in the world. And then you think about like a lot of the hunters out there, they're they're not like this is gonna sound shittier than I mean it, but they don't even have a clue either. Like I look at like the people I encounter here where I live that don't hunt, they don't understand animals at all.

I mean, I can't tell you how many times, like somebody in our neighborhood, or you know somebody that you know, we coach their daughter in basketball, or Sethople say oh, we saw a wolf in our backyard, you know, and you're like, You're like, uh, it was a coyote, you know, like that, that kind of stuff happens all the time. And then then you deal with like the hunting space. And I had a conversation with this dude probably I don't know, a couple weeks ago that I was at

the gym, finished my workout. I'm sitting in the steam room and this guy's sitting next to me, and I have a I have a fish tattooed on my back of my shoulder right like this old tattoo whatever, this look like a goldfish. Yeah, I have a carp tattoo. I'm secretly European. Uh. It's actually the uh the g loomis logo. Uh. Anyway, it's from a from a past life of really really being into fishing. But anyway, this guy's like, oh, what does the tattoo mean. I'm like,

it doesn't mean anything. I just like to fish. And so we start talking and he starts talking about deer hunting, and you know, so anyway we get into it. We're bs and I said, yeah, I worked for Meat Eater, you know. And he's like, oh my god, we watched Metatter all the time. My kids love it. And he's like, you know, you know that the hunting public. I go, yeah, I know those guys and he's like, man, I love

watching them too. I'm like, yeah, they know their stuff, and he looks at me and he goes, he goes, you know what's really crazy. He's like, I've started going out now and watching where the deer come into the fields at night. And then we go sit there and he's like, this deer scouting that those guys are talking about on the hunting public, Like that's the real deal. And I'm like, it never occurred to you to scout deer before that, But that's the reality out there, you

know what I mean, Like there's there's there's different worlds. Yeah. Well, you know what's so interesting to me too, is especially when it comes to whitetail right, because it just seems like, especially when you live where you and I live, everybody white tails right. It seems to me like the people like when I perk up, and I'm like, I want to I want to listen to this person. It's it's the people that are open about man, like like I don't know at all, right, and I'm really interested in

learning more. I'm trying to. Like when when you have people that are like, oh yeah, like you know, most of the time, it's you know, well, I go out my opening weekend of rifle season, I'm going to shoot a buck, any buck, just to say I shout of buck,

shoot my dough and I'm a big bad hunter. It's like, well, I'm not going to learn anything from you for sure, and we probably don't have a lot in common, you know, because like for me, like I chase mature white tails just what I do, right, So like for me, I haven't killed a deer in the last three seasons. My last year I killed was my one ninety and I had a dear that I was chasing this year that I know for a fact. You ended up scoring one Sevenday nine because he was killed with a rifle after

I couldn't seal the deal. But like that trips my trigger. It's the experience, it's the rush, it's the cat and mouse game. That's what trips my trigger. To be honest, the shot is anticlimatic, especially afterwards, right, but um, when people are open about like man, like I just I'm learning this property and I'm like that's that's that just completely trips it to me because I'm like, okay, like you get it right, you know, you're not going to know at all. You know, there's a lot of things

that are going to go on. Like that's what gets me going. It's interesting to me how it seems like the more humble you are with it, the more open you are, and the more you actually end up knowing Yeah, well right, and the more that it just gets you out there, Like the more the more you realize you don't know, the more you want to go out there and just learn. And I think you know, I've been I've been writing about this for some of these Foundations episodes where you know, we the space that I'm in

right now, you know, I'll get an assignment. It's like how to find shed anilers because there's people who are just like I just want to walk into the woods and want to find antlers and like that's like a segment of it, right, But the reality is like one of the biggest benefits to shed hunting isn't that you're going to find some antlers. That's cool, and you can learn some stuff. You know, you get proof of life

and all that. What you know, there's like obviously positives to finding antlers, but there's a huge benefit to just being in the woods now. Like you said, you know, not not just winner scouting, but if you're if you're a rifle hunter and you're listening to this and you're like, you know, I go and sit my power line or I sit my ladder standard whatever, and I hope something comes by, and you know, two days into this season, you don't see any deer every single year because there's

gun hunting pressure out there. Like if you're walking around now now finding concentrations of deer, you're finding some of those places where there was deer are going to hole up when there's a lot of pressure. Like it's not you know, it's not like a direct correlation, right, because there's going to be other factors here because it's winner. But if you find a place where, especially if there's some pressure there where you know you're like I always

find an antler here. Every winner or you know, they it seems like the big bucks like to bed in here. Now, that might be a place you should really be thinking about when the pressure hits there in November and you're not seeing deer, because there's correlations to that stuff beyond just like winter survival and surviving the gun season or whatever, you know, Like it's cover usage, it's how the wind

rolls through the land. There's all kinds of stuff. And the more you're out there now looking for antlers, you're exposing yourself to those spots right well, And if you're especially if you're new and you're trying to learn and understand a property of farm an area, I mean, yeah, if you'd really take it back to a basic level, Okay, how do I start to learn this thing? Like, yes, you're right, you know, patterns are going to change late season,

food sources like all the stuff. Right, But it would be a very easily digestible way to understand an area to go in there and say, hey, I know your bed here, because right now, with their being snow, I can see all the beds like I can visually. Okay, so this area is a bedding area. So from here, where's the food here? The traveler outs and you can at least start to get an idea of what these

you're going to do on this particular property. Yes, again, things might change, but if you are just looking for I'm getting into scouting, how do I use this time here to get a base layer foundation understanding of the area hunt. This is a great way to do it because there's nothing that they can hide. I mean, it's very open, it's very understandable as far as what they're doing, the patterns are doing it in and where they're going. And of course food source might change, right, There's a

lot of things that can change. But again, if you're easy and into it, it's a great time here to take advantage of it. Yeah, well for sure, And like you said, you know that bed to food pattern is going to be written in the snow, or written even if you don't have snow, I mean written in the open the most open wood you're gonna have pretty much the entire year. And there's a lot to learn there. And one of the things you know you brought up about, like betting, I'm not like a huge bed hunter like

it's I'm I'm trying to get better at it. But one of the things that I love about shed hunting because you you know, when you're out there looking for an antler, you're if you see a bunch of beds or you see a big bed in a certain spot, it's you know, it's it's gonna make you a little bit curious, right, and man, seeing seeing like oh, they bet on this secondary knob or this big bed tucked

into this deadfall so nothing could approach from behind. You start to start to just learn some behavior, like there's a reason why these beds are there, or there's a reason why this loan bed is here. There's a reason why this one antler was in the middle of this patch of sumac here in March like this, I think that's stuff so important, and it's just it's just kind of like a woodsmanship thing almost. I guess, Yeah, you're so right, man, there's so much that you can learn

from just spending that time in the woods. And this is this is as as I guess easily read that you can get this time of year. You know, it's just more difficult to come spring, it's more difficult to come fall. And then you don't want to get into these areas in the fall because you don't want to be pushing these year around like this is a great time of year to do that and a great time of year to learn. Yeah, big time. When you take those those little kids out there, are you are you

planting some sheds for them so they're always successful? Oh? Every time, every every time. You know, it's it's great for me because, like what I'm trying to do is ease them into this through success. You know. One of the things I cannot believe. I cannot believe I ever got into hunting, because I remember the first time everyone hunting was a rifle season in Wisconsin. My dad bundled me up. He put me in a twelve foot ladder stand with a rifle and said sit here until I

come back and get you. And I literally sat there with my arms like curled up in like a fetal type position, holding that rifle, closing my eyes, waiting for my dad to come back. It was cold, it was miserable. I had no idea what I was doing. I have no idea why I like this, you know, looking back in that first experience, and so for my kids, it's like, hey, I know, the croppies are biting like crazy. We're gonna

go out, We're gonna catch ten of them. We're gonna have a blast, and then we're gonna be done with them wanting more. Right, Like, I'm like, I want to build this drive. What's the same thing here? Like, I'm not gonna you know, take him out walk for a day, not find anything, let them get bored and go damn can we go home? Can we go back? Like I want to? I want to really build this fire? So oh yeah, So I have, you know, my little easter eggs that they'll plant out for them so they can

go find it. And of course, you know, my daughter if if you were to ask her, she has she has the best eyes and the family because she always sees these things first, you know. So it's it's fun, man. It's just this is one of those things that you talk about, you know, the hunting, and it can be difficult at times to get the family, especially with young kids involved. This is a really easy way to get that going. And then all of a sudden, now you're

watching deer. Well, now you know my kids are understanding, Hey, you know that deer only has one side. That means there's one out there for us to find. It's really fun to see them putting all this together. Shed hunting

with kids is fun. I shattered my little girls worldview this year because I've I've done that their entire life is, you know, carried a backpack out there and got a little separation from them and chucked a few antlers out there, and you know, they thought they were real badass shed hunters for a long time. And to be fair, my one daughter has found antlers that I didn't see or I didn't plant or see like legit finds. The other one never has. And this year, because I'm struggling with that.

You know, my girls have been hunting in Wisconsin the last couple of years and in the last two years they've killed six deer, you know, and they're they're eleven. So they're like so freaking spoiled, and I'm like, I gotta make this harder. And I think my one daughter is actually gonna hunt with a vertical bow this year because they've been hut with a crossbow and they're gonna they're gonna level up and find that it's a lot harder. But with the shed thing, they were getting really cocky.

So I fussed up to him. I was like, you guys know that all those sheds, except for a couple, were ones that I planted or I saw first, and my one daughter, who hasn't found one, was so pissed. But what happened is this winner. She's been asking me to go more than ever because she's like, I'm going to prove to you that I could find an antler on my own. And so I feel like it was a super lucky parenting win because I didn't I didn't

know how that was gonna go, right. But now she's like competitive because she knows her sister has found some, and so she's like, we're going, I'm gonna show you. And she's pretty hard headed, so she'll she'll find one eventually. But when I told them that, they were like you just to look on their face, they're like, you bastard. Like they were so convinced that they were good at shed hunting and they are absolutely not. Oh gosh, that's that's like telling them the Saint is not real. Dude.

This daughter, I've said this many times. You know they're twins. I've got one who's she She observes everything, She notices everything, little details in nature. She asked questions about stuff where you're like she is into it, and the other one is so oblivious. And so this is a totally random story, but we went to I took my one daughter to Cabella's the other day, the one who actually sees details

and finds antlers. I took her. We bought a bunch of fishing stuff and she saw I can't I think it's called a live target or a living target that live target lures or something, but it's a it's a spider topwater lure, so you know, like a like a grass frog or whatever. But it's a soft plastic but it's a big tarantula looking spider, and she she's infatuated with it. I was like, should we buy it and see if we can catch a smally on it? And

she's like yeah. So I bought it, and then we got home and I was like, you know, we really should use this to prank your sister, Like we should. We should plant this somewhere and scare the shit out of her. Right, So we put this white it's white tarantula looking spider on the middle of the floor in her bathroom, this little bathroom downstairs, and then all day long we're like, oh, honey, you gotta go give the dogs water. Oh, can you go get this? Can you

go get that? She went into that bathroom like six times and never noticed that. So we're like, we sent her down there, and we're like giggling and waiting for the screams to start. She never noticed this enormous fake spider on her floor until the other sister like took

her down and basically made her look at it. And I was like, no, wonder, you don't find any antlers, Like, no wonder, Like you've never been out there and been like, oh, there's an antler over there, Like you can't even see this on a wood floor that you've been feet away from six times today, So so disappointing. Oh gosh, I'm a little more concerned with the reaction that you were hoping to get out of it. Uh, well, I know

it was. It was a little bit mean, but once we started going with it, where like we got to see this through and because that daughter, if a ladybug like lands near her, she freaks out, and so we knew she was gonna We knew it was gonna be a good reaction, but it really actually wasn't because we we had to like put it right in her face and it just didn't work out. But I was like, I was like, here in my head, I'm like, you're

never gonna be a good hunter. Like I don't know how you're ever gonna make it doing this, Like she doesn't notice anything. But maybe maybe this year because she's maybe the stubbornness, the hard headedness will we'll see it through for her. But I just don't know. Oh I'm sure I'm her it will. What do people get wrong about shed hunting? Like, what do you what do you think people who haven't done it a lot or aren't

very successful, what are they missing? I really think the biggest thing is just simply that they're not in the area the sheds are. You know, just because you had deer there in the fall does not mean that they're going to be there in the winter. And just because you know you have a food source doesn't necessarily mean

that you're going to find something. You know, I know a lot of guys that are just walking through a property just because that's what they proper, that's the property that they have, And I totally get that, you know, but it's hard to get discouraged if you're not being successful well because you still have to be where the

deer are, where the deer dropping. And it's one of those things that you know that like for me, I set up all of my farms so that late season I have this time of opportunity and make sure I've got the bedding area and make sure I have the

food and enough food for it to be late. That's a big one, right, Just because you have a food source that's you know, productive in the fall, does not mean that your you know, Corterbaker food plot is still going to be producing enough food for a deer herd field this time of year or that they can get to it. Right. I'm a big corn and beans guy just because of what it offers, especially like right now we're eating two feet of snow. They're still going to

be able to get to that food. So there's a lot of factors, but just you know, the success it really is location. You've got to be where they're going to be, where they drop. Yeah, well I've been thinking about that a lot, you know, because it's it's so common to think about that cut corn field or the cut bean field or whatever. It's like the place to be first. And yeah, like you can find plenty of antlers in food sources, you know, like you just can.

But I also think there's sort of there's sort of a parallel with shed hunting, where people kind of gravitate toward where they can see a lot. So you get into that open field or you get into that really nice deciduous forest without a bunch of undergrowth, and you look around and I know, for me, especially here, you know, close to my house, the antlers I find are almost always like on the edge of a cat tail slew or in some kind of overgrown thicket or something like.

They're very rarely in the nice open spots and the places where it's like comfortable to walk. And it's like it always feels to me kind of like a public land white till hunt, where I'm like, I'm never going to kill one on a field edge on public land, you know, like they're always going to be in the thickest shit they can get into, or some creek bottom

or something. And antlers, to me, at least where I'm shed hunting, it feels like a lot of times those places where they're gonna go, you know, they're gonna bed down in the day, so they're spending quite a bit of time there and they might be browsing around at last light at first light, but sort of concentrated movement

in that. In the thicker stuff is where I tend to find a lot of antlers, and not very often do I find them out in the nice, wide open where I'd like to Yeah, betting grasses, man, like those those are hot beds for me, just because, like I said, betting is where they're going to spend the majority of their time this time of year. They want to conserve calories, they want to conserve energy. They're going to be hanging in those especially for us. You know, these grass areas,

it's it's buffers from wind. You know. They can get down there and they can stay warm, they can stay hidden. That is where we're really successful. But that's also where the dogs come into play, probably the most handy because in those wide open canopy bottoms, in those food plots you can see you know. So yeah, you could lead the dog into it, let the dog pick it up and have fun doing a team work thing. But the dogs that when they surprise you with one. To me,

it tends to be in those betting grasses. Yeah, oh man, me too. And it also in those places where you know, you get into like a I don't know, a thicket of prickly ash or something where like you're just naturally kind of going where you can stand up the most and walk and a dog can just zip through that cover,

you know. I mean, obviously your dog's not quite as tall as a deer, but they're closer together than you know, we are to a lot of the deer, right or you know, I mean it's they can slip through the

cover in a way that deer can as well. And it just feels like a lot of times, you know, kind of like when you're grouse hunting in the woods, like you're like, I want to I want to pick a spot where I'm standing up so I can get a shot, and those dogs are going all over through that cover that you don't want to go into if they if they're good dogs. The same thing happens when you're shed hunting, right for sure? For sure? Now what else are people missing here? Man? What have we not covered?

Do you have like a you know, favorite conditions to shed hunting, like lighting conditions or anything like that. Well, you know, for me, it just seems like there's certain days, you know, from it the best days or the days that you know to do it right, Like whatever day I can get out there is best. But um, you're

like for the bright days. For me, if there's snow in the ground, you know, it always gets a little tougher, just because you know that your eyes are always trying to you know, get off that that fixation of right right right, you know, just like today, Yeah, I'm on the tractor moving snow for three hours and my eyes just hurt right because they're just so you know, you get war out just kind of focusing the whole time.

But there's not really anything you know, for me that way, It's just a matter of of when can I get out? And you know, I just I like to let this snow kind of subside a little bit, especially in the situation like we have now, because like I still have deer that are holding I don't want to blow them out and you know, get their routine kind off because

I know what they're doing. At the same side, I've got the deer that have dropped that are really kind of anty and anxious, like they want to get out there. So if I'm gonna air on a side, I'm gonna air on late, let everything drop, let everything become because a big part of this to me too is, you know,

the deer have their routine here for a reason. You know, I think just out west a camera foras Utah or Colorado, like they just you know, banned shed hunting for the foreseeable future, not that they won't open it up this year, but it's because the winner has been so tough that the deer doing what they're doing for a reason. That's

how they're living. And so the more that you're going and blow them out and get to the point they're not comfortable, get to the point that they're not you know, safe from what they feel like and like you're doing

your herd a disservice. Yeah, all right, So I like to let them have that time, let them have that comfortability, to let them get their routine, let them get through the winter, and then I'm going to go in and try to try to do what I want to do, right, But I'd really try to be very very selective in

one of them. And you know, from a weather standpoint, I guess the one thing I do keep track of is if I'm going into either a big storm like we are now or I'm going into a real cold stretch that I know the deer are going to have to be feeding. I do try not to bugger them up too much in that time, because that's again, at the end of the day, the hole reason I'm doing this is because I care about, you know, my dear herd.

I want you to watch them progress. I want them, you know, to see them, um keep you know, growing and improving. While I'm not going to do that if I if I make it to where they're having a more difficult time surviving than what it already is. Yeah, yeah, I wrestle with that too. And I've I've gotten to the point in my life where if it's if it's bad conditions for them, I just don't go. I just wait.

And I you know, part of that might be just because I tend to have better shed hunts in March anyway, uh you know, I mean, like you, I've I've seen dear you know, we saw a really good one still holding um you know, back there towards the end of February, and you know we I used to find a fair amount of big ones early and that seems to have leveled off a little bit for me, probably because I don't go as much, but it just seems like, man,

you're you're starting to get those rough conditions where they're really strung uggling. It's just not worth it to go push them around. It's just not a good thing. And then you know by the time you get you know, I usually figure or like the third third week of February a lot of the antlers around the ground, not all of them, but you start getting into March, mid March and late March, and it's like that's the time when you're gonna go out, and it's just like it's

gonna be kind of all or nothing. Like you you're gonna have the right conditions. You're gonna get those overcast days. If you're dealing with snow, it's eventually hopefully going to be gone. And you just get those conditions where it's like even though you got cheated out of a bunch of the earlier shed hunting, that's when you can cover serious miles. Plus the weather's you know, like really kind

of catered toward walking a lot. And I just love that, man, Like I love that time frame where it's like you know, your odds are as good then as any time you're gonna go shed hunting at any point, that's right. Yeah, that's probably one of my favorite times too. Let's let's wrap this up talk about dogs a little bit more.

What what do you tell people? Because I know you probably get seven thousand emails and dms a week and like, hey, I want to shed dog, but I don't want this dog, or I don't want that, or I don't want to high drive or I don't want to low drive. What do you what do you tell people generally if they're thinking about getting a dog for shed hunting. Yeah, it's a great question because you know, just like anything, you have to have the right dog. You know, just like

a basketball coach. You know, if if a kid's going to be an all star, he's got to be the right kid, right Like, even with the best coach and the best facility is the best everything. If they're not right, they don't have it, you're not going to go be successful with it. So you know, for us, retrieve drive is the number one thing because you think about it. So we talked about birds versus sheds earlier, right, So like birds, there's a lot of genetic DNA inside most

of these dogs. To say, Hey, I want to do this, but that's a warm, smelling, moving, you know, predator prey, you know, type of situation bird versus a cold, hard, stationary, less than exciting antler or this laying on the ground. And so, you know, just like going back that first story with Easton of why he wanted that so bad

was just simply because he had the retrieve drive. But I funneled it into a tennis ball because at the time they were cheap and easy to throw, and you know, cheap was a big deal for me when I was seventeen years old, Like I needed anything that I could that I could afford, and so it was tennis balls, tennis balls, tennis balls. Well that's why he found a tennis ball in the middle of nowhere, because he loved

it that much. And so what we then do is we take these dogs with these high retrieve drives we funneled into this object in a shed that this is what we want, this this you know, funneled into And the one question we always get is can my dog

be a bird dog and a shed hunting dog? And quite frankly, I think the best dogs tend to be both, right, because it's like they get that that you know, natural side whoising out of them through the birds, that's bread into them, that's there, and then you can just take this drive and this this athletic system and this desire and now it's like, all right, so here's this offseason you know funnel that we're gonna now go try to

accomplish this. And so you can absolutely do with both, but you have to get the right dog to start with, and that really all comes down to retrieve desires. So you get a non retrieving breed, you're probably not going to be as successful at this. Of course, there's always exceptions to this rule. But if you're like, hey, I want to put the odds in my favor that I can go get a dog that is good at this,

it's getting a very highly retrieve driven your dog and breed. Yeah, And we should break that down a little bit because you know, people might be listening to this and going, oh, I can just go get a Golden Retriever and it's going to be a shed dog because it's got Retriever in the name, and it's like the level of retrieving desire you need in a dog and that you need to foster in a dog I mean, it's got to be there naturally and you got to work to bring

it out. But to get them to be excited enough about something that isn't a bird or isn't a ball, like, it's not that easy. It's not as easy as it sounds like. It's not inherent in them. And so you're talking about dogs that are really well bred. You're talking about dogs like the dogs you work with, and you guys are breeding and you know a lot of them you're training. Those bloodlines are super legit and so you know you're starting with the right pieces. They're on an

awful lot of those dogs where that retrieving desire. It's not going to be just like the dog that if you throw a tennis ball in your yard, it's going to go get it and bring it back and spit

it at your feet. It's the dog that's carrying something around in its mouth, you know, from puppyhood on all the time and bringing you sticks and bringing you everything because the off chance that you might just throw something for it, like the dog that lives for that, because it's it's not it's a weird ask to get them to go get antlers, especially when you're out there for three hours and they haven't found one, or you're on you know, two days of shed hunting. You know, if

you if you haven't planned it. A couple like to keep a dog, that's like going to stay in the game. There. They have to w that so bad. Yeah, you're right, you know, just just simply being a retrieving breed doesn't necessarily cut it in this case, because if they don't have that extra level everything you're talking about, right, like the natural want to have something in my mouth, whether that's a slipper, whether that's a shoe, whether that's a sock,

whether that's like these dogs. Yeah, And the thing is that I always think it is funny is that a lot of times people pick up a seventy eight we go puppy bring them home like, oh, we're training, not retrieving. It's like, well, if if a puppy was bred to retrieve, the only reason you bring home a week go puppy and throw a retrieve forward is to validate to yourself you did indeed buy a retriever, Like that's that's bread

into them. When you throw something, they'll go get it, not because they've been taught to do it, but because something inside of them says this is what I'm supposed to do, right, And and that is something that quite frankly, not every breed. Like just because you know someone is breeding dog does not doesn't mean that they have a true knowledge or true intent of why they are doing it.

And so I think it's even more important, Like if this is your number one goal to have a shed hunting dog, I think it is even more imperative that you take your time and get a very well bred dog that has a natural mouth and natural retreat in mind that you can funnel to this because if they're done, if they're not going to have it, Like, if they don't want to do it, you're not going to teach them to want to do it. They have to have

that from the get go. Yeah, and there's there's kind of a misperception out there, And I know you've dealt with this a lot because you specialize in British labs and there's the you know, the stereotypes around them, and

there's the stereotypes around the American labs. And the reality is like people look at it and go, well, I don't want a high drive dog, but I want a dog to do this, and do that, and do this and do that, and they're like, well, I want I want the calm dog at home and the dog that's going to be nuts in the pheasant field or never stop looking for antlers in the minute we get out

of the truck. And it's like, you don't you kind of don't understand what you're asking there, Like you if you want that high retrieving desire, you're going to have somewhat of a high drive dog. Like they just you can't divorce the two. And it's you're not going to get this magical dog that just comes out of the package and it's you know, a sloth at home and this fiery beast out in the field. Like it's just it's not really how it shakes out with real dogs. Yeah.

Well the other thing too is that, yeah, I think we have now titled quote unquote drive in a way that we can manipulate that meaning to what fits us. Right. So what I mean by that is that you have a dog that is in a duck blind and is sitting there and the whole time just sitting there wanting all jacked up, Like people go, oh, it's just so driven. Wow, Like I have I'm literally looking at right now one two, three, four or five, six, seven seven Master on hundred hundred

Trooper Champions have all the talent in the world. I don't think you've heard a single peep out of them

in the background. They will make a single noise. They have all the drive in the world, they have all the desire to go do this, but they're under control, right, Like, so there there's a difference there and drive and control and so yeah, like you're right, Like the hard part is like you can't be like, well, I want I want, uh, you know, a vehicle that's a Lamborghini when I want a Lamborghini, and a super Duty when I want a Super Duty and school bus when I want to school

like you know, like you really have to be honest with yourself. Okay, what do I want? What do I need? And then from there it's all about finding the right breeder. If you can find the right breeder that can can connect those dots for you, someone that you can trust, you will get that right dog. But it does take that. You're not going to open up newspaper and say, hey, farmer John had a you know, literate puppies and you

know someone for hundred bucks each like you could. Don't get me wrong, you could, but again we're talking about how do you put the odds in your favor. That's not how you do it. Yeah, I wish, I wish we could talk about this for another seven hours or Metia or would just let me do a freaking dog podcast, But they won't. Uh, but I want. But anybody who's listening to this wants to tell them they should, they should, you know, wants to let me know that we should

have a dog podcast. Please please reach out to them and tell them. Uh. What I want to say on that is there there's this kind of idea that you're talking about, right, Like you know, if you if you want that component, if you want that high retrieving desire, there's a way to get it, and it's going to be in the bloodlines and the pedigrees like it. That's it, Like you're you could get lucky and come across it, but you're not consistently going to get that in any

other way. Like you have to know that, and people get hesitant on that, and I get it, you know, not everybody's looking for a dog to do the same things you and I are. But when you look at a dog that has that has been bred to retrieve, like it's really gonna be one that's like, I'm gonna go get that bumper five thousand times in a row if you throw it five thousand times. A lot of people look at that as a negative, but I look at it not being a professional trainer like you, I go, man,

there's my dog's reward, its entire life. And if I know what my dog's reward is, I know how to train my dog to do all kinds of stuff that benefits me as a bird hunter, as a shed hunter, as somebody who just wants control of my dog and

a different environments at home and parks whatever. That aspect of retrievers, like the high drive, high retrieving desire thing that is so fun to work with and can actually, even though it sounds like it's a pain in the ass, can actually make the process of developing a dog so

much easier. Oh man, there is a single guy playing in the NBA that didn't love basketball growing up, right, And quite frankly, there's probably a bunch of very very talented players that never made it that far because they didn't have that desire, right like they That's one thing you cannot teach, and so you know that the desire is such a big piece of this that you know, and it's something that again I go back to the breeding,

because that's what it's all about. Like you have to get with the breeder that truly has a why, like why are they doing this? And why are they breeding the dogs that they have? Like I truly believe most breeders out there breeding the dogs that they're breeding because those are the dogs that they have, right and they can make a sales pitcher on it all that they want,

but that's why they're breeding those dogs. And so it's like for me, like I want to find a breeder that is doing things for a reason, that has a process that's being selective because if they've done all that work for me, now it's way less for me to have to do and I can just trust what they're doing. They are on the same wavelength as I am, the same thought process, looking they know what I'm looking for. I trust them. I'm gonna get the right dog. Once you have the right dog, it is all about the

situations that you put that dog into. So yeah, it's on you from there. But if you have the right dog, it's going to be possible. If you don't, it's just not. I don't care how much time you put into it and how much you know, don't care how much time or how much work you put into it. It's never going to work out like what you want. If the dog doesn't want to go do it big time, big time. If you if you want a good way to sort of guide you on this a little bit, you think

about the average dog buying process. If you if you go look up whatever you know you want. You want a black lab. You want to yell a lab whatever, I don't care what color it is. You want a lab. And you're like, I'm you could go find that. You could find litters of labs everywhere. But when you start talking to breeders, if if you're the only one asking questions, if they're like, we'll sell you this dog because we've got a litter coming up, and they don't ask you like,

what are you gonna do with it? What's your experience with dogs? Like, you know, do you fessan hunt to your gross hunt? What do you do? You're probably not talking to somebody who's breeding a dog for high drive

and sort of specific standards. That way. But if you go to somebody and you're like, hey, I want to buy one of your dogs, and they're like, okay, I got a bunch of questions for you, then you might start to be on the right track, because those are people who don't want to place a dog that's been bred really well for certain tasks with somebody who's not going to let that dog do that and encourage that

that's right. That's probably the number one piece of feedback that I get when people go through our puppy process and get a puppy from us, it's, oh my gosh, you guys were so thorough And when they ever followed it up with you know, how do you go about it or why do you go about that? The way I say it is, look, I am all about, you know, my customer experience. I know it's weirdest kind of say, you know, from a dog standpoint, because we don't look

at at these puppies says your products right. But the reality is I run my business like a business, not as a hobby, and so when I look at that, I go, Okay, my customer experience is all about them getting the right dog right. Like if I get the wrong dog. It doesn't matter how well it's bread, it doesn't matter how healthy it is, it doesn't matter. Like

if it's not the right fit. Like the dog could be great, people could be great, but just not the right fit for each other, the customer experience is not going to be a positive one. And so that's why we are so over the top, so thorough on that process because I feel like that's our job, you know, in this and of course you know, you could always find a situation where it doesn't work out. But it's amazing how often we get an email you go a year later going, I cannot believe you picked the absolute

right dog for us. Well, it wasn't my accident. Yep, yep, I love it, buddy. Where can people find you out there? Because everybody listening to this wants a puppy now, so where can they go? Right? So, Riverstone Kennels, you can find us either on the web www dot Riverstone Kennels dot com, find us on Facebook, on Instagram we do

a lot on there. Can also find us on YouTube as we're doing more content on their showing our hunts, showing some of the day to day with the training and if anyways out there are looking to train their own dog. Www. Dot Retriever Roadmap dot com is a huge video library that I've put together over years and years and years, and it's all about giving you a lot of different options of how to train your dog

at home to be successful. And what's so cool about that as a community that's kind of come from that of people are getting together training, people are helping each other out with different situations. It's really really a neat thing. So that is a Retriever Roadmap. Awesome, love it, buddy, Thank you so much for coming on man, you bet pal anytime you guys have a great rest of the winter and go find some more sets with those girls.

We will, Buddy. That's it for this week, folks, be sure to tune in next week for some more whitetail goodness. This has been the Weird to Hunt podcast. I'm your guest host, Tony Peterson. As I always, thank you so

much for listening. If you're looking for more whitetail content, you can head on over to our YouTube channel to check out our weekly how to content, or you can go to the Mediator dot com slash wired and read articles by Mark myself, Alex gilstrom Beaumartonic a whole bunch of absolute white tail killers