The Blacktail Coach Podcast
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The Blacktail Coach Podcast
Honor in the Hunt: Navigating Ethics, Conservation, and Community
What separates a good hunter from a great one isn't the size of their harvest – it's their commitment to ethical conduct in every aspect of the hunting experience. Aaron and Dave tackle this crucial topic by examining real situations that test hunters' integrity, from respecting private property boundaries to making the hard choice not to take a shot when legal shooting hours have passed.
Through personal stories and hard-earned wisdom, we explore how the treatment of wildlife goes beyond the harvest moment. We discuss responsible baiting practices that minimize disease transmission risk, especially regarding Chronic Wasting Disease concerns. When deer make nose-to-nose contact at concentrated bait piles, they exchange bodily fluids – but spreading minerals and bait over larger areas can significantly reduce this risk.
The conversation takes an unexpected turn when we examine how hunting ethics intersect with family values and teaching moments. One member of our pro staff had his target buck – a 130-class blacktail they call "The Frenchman" – walk into range just six minutes after legal shooting hours two years running. Despite the temptation, he held fire, demonstrating the character we hope to inspire in all hunters.
We also tackle the sometimes thorny issue of sharing hunting grounds and encountering other hunters. Whether discovering someone's tree stand or meeting others at a popular access point, how we handle these interactions reflects our commitment to the hunting community. As Dave wisely notes, "It's just a deer" – no animal is worth compromising your ethics, risking your hunting privileges, or damaging relationships within the hunting community.
Ready to become part of the solution? Join conservation organizations like the Blacktail Deer Foundation today. These groups advocate for hunters' interests year-round at the political level, ensuring our voices are heard when crucial decisions about hunting regulations are made.
Bootcamp & Coaching
Welcome back to the Blacktail Coach Podcast. I'm Aaron and I'm Dave, so getting into our topic for this week ethical hunting. We want to talk about what makes an ethical hunter a good guy hunter. So we've had a couple of instances this year. You had to report someone who was hunting illegally on private property and we got chatting with the game warden.
Speaker 1:Right right, and so just between that and, I think, just some of our interactions, we've just come across people that make you wonder. So we want to talk about with our particular community. We've just tried to make sure that we're working with really good guys. We're promoting ethical, lawful hunting and just what's ethical in certain situations. So we'll get into different topics here, but I want to start out with a responsible treatment of animals. What's ethical when you're dealing with animals?
Speaker 2:That's a great question and I think that you need to preface all of that with how you treat these animals is how the non-hunter or anti-hunter is going to perceive all hunters. Yeah.
Speaker 2:And so we owe it to that animal, as well as to those that are following behind us, to keep this tradition going, because we are threatened with losing our hunting rights and privileges and stuff like that that. We owe it to everybody out there to be ethical in everything that we do, from the harvesting to the transporting, to respecting property lines and all of that stuff. But when it comes to ethical huntings and how to treat the animal, I think a good, for instance, is how we're approaching CWD and the threat of CWD, and how we keep our deer herds healthy and that kind of stuff?
Speaker 2:And if you're baiting them, how do you bait ethically?
Speaker 1:Which includes putting out the minerals.
Speaker 2:Which includes putting out minerals, yes, so that can be a year-round activity.
Speaker 2:Absolutely, and we do a lot of minerals. As far as our group, we have individuals that don't do any, and then we have some that just make up for everybody, yeah, and they're dropping minerals everywhere they go, and both are good, both are fine. It's whatever you want to do, but if you're going to do minerals or if you're going to do bait, do it in a responsible way, and that's something that most guys don't understand. When we say, do it in a responsible way, they're like well, what are you talking about? How do you bait responsibly? Or how do you do minerals responsibly? Well, the reason CWD is on top of mind with everybody is they're thinking that it could come over here.
Speaker 2:To the west side of Washington, to the west side of the Cascades, yeah, and what people don't realize is how that is spread through the prions and it's body fluid. Yeah, and that includes the nose-to-nose contact, because they're constantly licking their nose. So, when deer go nose-to-n nose, they are exchanging bodily fluids. Yeah.
Speaker 2:So if you're doing a bait or a mineral especially guys that are baiting don't just dump it out in one pile. You need to spread it out. You need to spread it out over three, four, five yards and that way there's no or you minimize any nose to nose contact. When we say responsible baiting, that's exactly what we're talking about.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and depending on how much with the mineral, we'll drop it in a line like at least six feet long so that they can be eating in separate spots. But I want to point everybody back to if you want to really understand and really know about CWD and everything about it, especially now that they're taking community input at the state level because they're making a decision about whether or not in Washington we can bait going forward Go back to episode 10. It's our CWD episode with Dr Josie Rose. She is a board-certified vet from the Oregon Zoo and she gave us all of the information we could ever need to know for cwd as far as to really understand how it's spread and to be educated. And that goes back to being an ethical hunter I think it's just being an educated hunter.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know, exactly, exactly and in all honesty, aaron, that should be, you know, one of our top listen to episodes.
Speaker 2:I mean yeah granted, I want them all to be listened to a lot, you know, because I think we put out a lot of good information, but that one there, especially now, with it being the timing so critical, yeah, that should be one that we should all be up on. You know, and why do you spread stuff out? You know why, what is the importance of that, or what is the significance of that, and how does that affect me? You know, and if they you know some guys are if they take away bait and I don't care, it doesn't affect me, well, that's fine, but not everybody is you and even if you don't bait, a lot of like what we do is the minerals right, and then you're gonna be very important for warding off disease and making them strong and healthy.
Speaker 2:So it goes beyond just yeah, it's a dating it's just the start of the downhill slide of things, because then you're going to get into scents and pheromones, because those are bodily fluids and it's like, well, no, then those get outlawed. Some states don't even allow synthetics pheromones or urines and stuff, and yeah, you start getting real limited on it and then you're taking a lot of the work and the determination of someone who says this is how I'm going to draw them in, which is what I do. You know I have a dog in the fight.
Speaker 2:This is how I do it, you know, with pheromones and scents and everything. Well then, you know, guys, well, you're just going to have to do it like the rest of us and go out there and beat the brush and everything. Well, guys, come on. Not everybody has that time capability, not everybody has that physical capability, and just because you're limited on those I have Lyme's disease. I can't do the things I used to do and, in all honesty, I get it. I used to be the guy that would backpack in and do all that stuff and I loved it, and I'm not taken away from that, but I'm unable to do that physically now. So don't punish someone simply because they're physically unable to do the same thing you are. What.
Speaker 2:I would say to you is enjoy it while you can, because your body only has so many hunts left in it. We were all young once.
Speaker 1:So you had touched on how we're being perceived and when you say hunter and I actually lived, actually had a picture and they said they labeled it as a sheep and it was a mountain goat it was like, yeah, you guys really don't know anything about the outdoors and I, anyway, I saw this, but you can't really. We have to take the high ground as far as, like, I can't mock someone for not knowing the difference between a mountain goat and a sheep in a farm, right? So it's, how are you speaking to people and to educate them?
Speaker 2:Well, and see, that's the hard thing, because I think that we've been brainwashed by society in a certain way, of us against them. If we look at a lot of areas in our society, in our culture, we see that it's you against somebody else or your group pitted against. Pit it against somebody else or your group pit it against this group.
Speaker 2:And I mean, we see it in politics, we see it in, and this would definitely fall into politics and at the same time, it would fall into hobbies, you know. I mean there's a lot of political facets to this whole thing, and to think that it's just confined to this little well, we're going to lose our hunting rights. People are you got to look at the bigger picture. It's more than that. We're going to lose not only our hunting rights, we're going to lose our gun rights.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, it's just the stepping stone into the next, into the next, into the next, you know, and so we need to educate. When we're talking to people that are either anti-hunters or don't know much about hunting, we have to educate. And I think of my wife's family. So she's from California, her whole side of her family, on her dad's side, is all from California and they weren't hunters or anything like that, and they had in their mind a very vivid picture of what they thought hunting was all about and about how hunters are as far as the lesser, uneducated, the farm boy.
Speaker 1:Hillbilly regnits.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know, and it's not that at all there are very, very, very smart people, and a good hunter is always a conservationist. That's what I found.
Speaker 1:So I want to actually talk about conservation groups. So we just recently found out about the Blacktail Deer Foundation and have become members, and we want to encourage everybody to become members, especially a lot of and whether or not you're a blacktail hunter there's the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation.
Speaker 2:there's Mule Deer.
Speaker 1:Foundation, which the Blacktail Deer Foundation is an offshoot. Find the conservation group. The Blacktail Deer Foundation is an offshoot. Find the conservation group the. National Wild Turkey Foundation Federation Federation, find your group and join. You know, pay that fee and join up, because they're the ones who are going to go to your state capitals and advocate on your behalf. Yep, you can go and talk to the committee who's making the decisions based on seasons and whether or not you can pay it and making all these decisions, but they're going to package that well, I think.
Speaker 2:Well, they're in the ear of that politician all the time. Yeah. You know, and that's what we want. We want them in their ear, we want them to be the squeaky wheel. We want them, you know, if being annoying is what gets it so that he hears our message or she hears our message, then that's what we need. But we need people to support them, to support these conservation groups and stuff. And yeah, now more than ever, more than ever, you know, we really need each other.
Speaker 1:And so my suggestion reach out to them, Not only join, but I know that there's very limited local chapters in Washington and, I believe, Oregon as well for the Blacktail Deer Foundation and I hopefully will be talking to them soon about getting a local chapter here up and running. But we work with guys all over the state and that's something that's of interest to you to help build that community for defending our rights and really changing the perception of hunters. Reach out to them, start working on that.
Speaker 2:Absolutely.
Speaker 1:So next thing I want to talk about is the safe aspect of it. There's not only knowing where your bullet and arrow are going, what's your backdrop which, it's interesting, a lot of gun guys are always. You know they're thinking about what's my backdrop, you know where's this bullet going, but when you get out in the woods that can go out the window. The excitement can cause that to go out the window.
Speaker 2:And I think a lot of that's got to do with guys not seeing or having a lot of opportunities at filling their tags, and so when they get the opportunity, there's a mentality that comes over them. That's like I need to take advantage of this. I may not get another one, and so they're willing to sacrifice a little bit of safety to make it happen. Yeah.
Speaker 2:And the reality is, is that that's when bad things happen and bad things can turn into permanent things, and that's not just with the actual shot. I mean, guys do that all the time. We'll get into private property versus public lands, you know, and guys will do that all the time with private property, and I myself have been guilty of that as well, you know. But you know 55 now, and looking back and realizing, oh, that wasn't very smart. You know, but you know 55 now, and and looking back and realizing, oh, that was just that wasn't very smart, you know, and if it were my property, would I have acted the same way? Yeah.
Speaker 2:You know. So there's, there's. I mean, ethics are something that we deal with every day, and it's not just confined to hunting, but the public sees and is watching hunters, and and that's because it's so visible.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know, it really brings in the phrase of being above reproach.
Speaker 2:It does, it does. But you know, someone gets busted for poaching. Yeah, and it's on the news.
Speaker 1:It's on the news.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and it's like, well, they lost their rig or they have this poaching ring or you know, and it's just like, oh my gosh. But a thousand guys ethically harvest an animal and do everything and you never hear about that. Yeah.
Speaker 1:You don't hear about the thousand who do it right. You hear about the one guy who does it wrong, right. And so, fortunately for us, the way we create our sets, and that is something that goes through my mind when I create my set Where's my bullet going? And I'm not going to create a set. In fact, last year, two years ago I guess now, my first year hunting I was in a less than optimal setting direction. But to be in the perfect place, I would have been firing into a direction that I shouldn't be and I knew that. So that changed everything I was going to do. So second part about safety in all situations is remember your family. You know we had one of our guys went to bootcamp, slipped and fell a hundred feet, something like that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, in the snow, down a rock wall and into a lake.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and not necessarily being dumb, but those things happen.
Speaker 2:Just hazardous conditions and he just happened to take a bad step, and that's what happened.
Speaker 1:And Dylan, we're still glad you're with us. The world would be not nearly as fun without you. Absolutely, but it's one of those things and when talking to him he talked about that you know he's got a newborn baby girl. Be thinking about where you're going and what's your exit strategy. Can I communicate when I'm in here by myself?
Speaker 2:Yeah, and my son is a great example of that. He's indestructible. Well, you know, you're at that age, I mean he's in his 20s and everything, and I was the same way.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we all were.
Speaker 2:It's the adventure side of this that really appeals to him. Let's go backpacking in and let's elk hunt and deer hunt and all this other stuff, and that's fine, that's great. I wish I could do that. I wish that my body would allow me to do that. But I get the adventure side of it. But that doesn't mean that you have to be unsafe or ignorant of what could happen. Now I'm not saying be negative about everything. Well, what if we get this? What if we did this? What I'm saying is be prepared. That's what I'm saying. Be prepared with an exit, like you said, an exit strategy If something does happen. Dylan happened to have a phone on him.
Speaker 1:And it's not like it was 20 years ago, you know you got those, even if you're out of cell range.
Speaker 2:Yeah, there is so much out there right now to keep you safe as far as equipment and it's not big bulky equipment anymore either. I mean it's stuff that fits in your pocket, and all of this stuff invest in it. Yeah. Invest in it for not just the safety of your well-being, but for the mental safety and health of your family, because they're going to worry about you.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I remember my first year going up in the ladder stand and everything, but I had my plan in place with you guys. If I don't reach out to you by this time, yeah, send help.
Speaker 1:Try to figure it out. Fortunately, actually, I ended up getting cell coverage. I upgraded my phone and I, actually I ended up getting cell coverage. I upgraded my phone and I miraculously, all of a sudden, had cell coverage. But this last year, when I hunted, I didn't have any cell coverage and iPhones had a new satellite deal where you could text. That didn't work all the time and I would have to walk out of the woods, get in my car and drive three, four miles to get to a cell range. And yeah, it's one of those you want to just be thinking ahead of what's my contingency plan if something were to go wrong? And I think about okay, if I've tripped and I can't walk, am I going to be able to drag myself out of the woods to the road and flag down a car? I going to be able to drag myself out of the woods to the road and flag down a car, or do I need to figure out how I'm going to stay here overnight, my ground, blind, or something like that?
Speaker 2:Right right.
Speaker 1:You know, just thinking those things ahead, you know, because we all have families.
Speaker 2:And here's the first and most basic one it's easy to get turned around in the woods.
Speaker 1:It is.
Speaker 2:And all of a sudden you're not on the finger ridge you thought you were on, or you're a mile off of where you thought you were. And yeah, I mean it can turn. I won't say desperate, but it can turn bad, real fast yeah. And you need to have a way to communicate. You need to have a way to reach somebody. And they need to be able to reach you as well. Okay.
Speaker 1:So moving along knowing about the laws, regulations and following them, and we'll get into talking about property and public versus private and all of that. But when we were speaking with the game wardens I asked him hey, so I'm a fairly new hunter. What are some mistakes that new hunters make? What are just some common things? And he said it's not so much that there's a lot of mistakes that new hunters make. He said the biggest deal is people are following 99% of the laws and they fudge that last 1% when they feel like they need to, or, you know, maybe taking a shot a few minutes too late in the evening or things like that.
Speaker 2:From the road when nobody is around? From the roads, yeah.
Speaker 1:So we had one of our pro staff. His target buck came in six minutes after shooting light, so basically six minutes too late. He could not legally shoot that. He could have fudged. It got not an unethical shot because he couldn't clearly see, but also breaking the law.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:Because it would have been too late.
Speaker 2:And that takes a lot of restraint. So hats off to you, jimmy. I know he's talking about you and I got to be honest. That buck is called the Frenchman, that buck is boy, that's a big buck yeah he's in the 130s and that's a hard thing to do.
Speaker 2:But I mean hats off to him for having the character to say you know what I need to make it? I owe it to that deer to make an ethical shot and I have to live with myself knowing that I did fudge. And some people are fine with that yeah, that doesn't bother them.
Speaker 2:But being a father and my biggest responsibility is to my family, to my kids, what they see me do, they're gonna mimic yeah you know, and so it's like, well, no, I, I live with that, and so I try to always be a person of of character and and uh, good ethics when I'm out there. But it's not easy all the time. When you're given a situation like that, it's like that's only six minutes, you know uh-huh yeah and I mean it's a buck of a lifetime for a lot of guys and it's like, well, no, jimmy hats off yeah that took some mental strength there willing to wait another year yeah, yeah before and this is year two that he's that that buck has done that to him yes
Speaker 1:twice so yeah, so it's understanding and observing harvest rules and and bag limits and you know point minimums and and all that and seasons and not you're out elk hunting maybe modern elk and that big buck walks out in front of you. It's well, it's only a day late and I'm.
Speaker 2:No one is gonna see me yeah, I can pull it out at night.
Speaker 1:We've all had that temptation and see and that, but that's that was what that game warden was talking about. It's a day early, a day late. It's trying to fudge those. And we don't, we just don't.
Speaker 2:I don't need that kind of fame, I don't need to be on the news. You know, and that's exactly what happens, and you know the repercussions of that is you could lose that hunting privilege, and it is a privilege. You could lose that hunting privilege for a number of years. You know, if you do get caught and if you're a father, then you got to explain that to your kids. Well, how come? How come we're not going hunting? How come you're not hunting, dad? Yeah, you know what I mean. And then, well, it's not. You got to relive that embarrassment, you know.
Speaker 1:Well, I broke the law you know it was interesting when I first started. I and I mean it made total sense, but it took like really I've seen the law when I was reading through the regs a couple years ago. You can't just shoot an animal and just leave it there like I don't want to crawl down in that ravine and go collect my harvest.
Speaker 2:You can't do that, or they'll cut off the horns and and leave, yeah and leave the rest, I just want horns and backstrap and whatnot. That kind of stuff, stuff, just, oh, that just grinds my gears.
Speaker 1:But that's one of those things where I didn't realize that you couldn't do something like that.
Speaker 2:Oh, oh, I see what you're saying.
Speaker 1:And so I was like oh, it's one of those, and I think this whole, like what we're talking about, it's just really knowing the laws.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:Or the regs and really understanding them, because there might be stuff that, yeah, you might be surprised. Oh, I didn't realize that I couldn't do that and you know that was one of the things with tagging, you know, attaching your license to the deer antler before you start walking out of the woods. We started. You know DJ was helping me right and we started dragging just a little ways. He's like oh wait where's your license?
Speaker 1:You need to put that on there now and before. I mean, it wasn't like you get out to your car and nope, you got to do it right now. And he showed me and you know you cut out the date and then how to attach it, where to attach it, and it was like, okay, that was helpful. But if I'd been by myself I might have just dragged the thing out and not had any ideas.
Speaker 2:And see, that's it right there. The game warden doesn't accept ignorance as an excuse. You know, because everybody's going to give him that Well, I didn't know. But guys, don't realize, it's your responsibility to know, it's your responsibility. It's not the game warden's responsibility to tell you. It's your responsibility to know. That guy that shot that buck in front of my wife and I was on private property and I told him five, six times it's on private property. He goes well, it's not posted. And I kept telling him in the state of Washington it doesn't have to be posted. And it didn't slow him. The guy's wife was literally crying. She was crying and he actually made her get out and shoot that buck and I was just like what kind of experience is that for her?
Speaker 1:And we talked about that with a family affair in that situation Asha was talking about that, but they're going to hold and this is where it really gets down to being an ethical hunter, because people might be learning how to hunt from you, right, right. That memory is going to play in her mind every time, but she's the one who broke the law by shooting the animal Right. Well, it doesn't cost him anything. She's the one who's going to get cited, so I'm willing to fudge because you're the one who's going to get cited.
Speaker 2:So, eh, I'm willing to fudge, because you're the one who's going to get busted. You're the one pulling the trigger. How?
Speaker 1:unethical, Like that's kind of a, that's just a crappy thing to do.
Speaker 2:I mean if your wife is crying because she doesn't want to shoot this buck that you're trying to make her shoot. I mean, do you think she wants to go hunting anymore?
Speaker 1:Yeah, so much for winning people over. Exactly. So you know there's knowing weapons, and are you on public land versus private land? And if it's public land, like sierra pacific or yeah, you have access to it, but what are the rules governing access you?
Speaker 2:know we all understand, or no, or no, e-bike, or you know, is it walk only Can I get a pass, a permit to do this. Do I need one to walk in?
Speaker 1:Is it closed for fire danger?
Speaker 1:Yeah there's so much to know, yeah and you have to observe those because they'll bust you for it. But it's just as long as you know ahead of time, you can avoid all of that. The last thing I want to talk about is there's a lot of hunters out there. That the last thing I want to talk about is there's a lot of hunters out there. And how do you work with other hunters and not against? And so I'm thinking about, you know the thought that popped into my head. So we're hunting sets and one of mine. Well, you have sets on a mainline and I have sets on a mainline. Well, I go to this one and there are six other rigs already parked at the gate when I show up and I I would do more of an afternoon hunt, but six rigs all parked there, right, right. So why don't you talk about if there's, if there's six guys or six groups all showing up at 4 am? How do you handle that situation?
Speaker 2:That's a really good question, aaron, and I think that every area is different, because every area is a different size. I can think of one spot that I used to go in and hunt that if there were two rigs there, it was already one guy too many, just because there was not enough acreage there that you were not going to either bump into another hunter or bump their animal, and so you don't want to cork anybody on their hunt. You know what I mean. That's just. That's just. You don't want anyone to do it to you, so you should do it to others.
Speaker 2:That's just common courtesy, and if I'm the last one there, well, I'm the one that's going to leave you know, if I'm the first one there and then typically you know, I'm going to hey introduce myself and say this is what I plan on doing and everything like that, and I'll leave it up to that guy to see, because I don't own the woods, you know, and I can just hope that he's going to be ethical.
Speaker 1:It's a shared space.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and say, hey, you know what, you were here, I'm going to let you have it, and so, and sometimes they do that, sometimes they don't, but I'm not going to stoop to becoming that guy. That's Too bad.
Speaker 1:Yeah, the guy who hunted that buck on the private property because he was just flat out rude to you. And my wife he tried to extend a bit of an olive branch Right After warning him, he was still a jerk about it.
Speaker 2:And it goes back to what we were talking about earlier the moment, the excitement in the moment, took over. He kept saying it's not posted, it's not posted. And I kept telling him it doesn't matter, in the state of Washington it doesn't have to be, but the excitement. It was a sizable buck. Yeah.
Speaker 2:And he just the excitement. He just would not listen to reason and guys I mean ultimately the guys that have come to the in-person classes and the online classes and the seminars. You've heard me say this before and some guys get offended when I say this, but here's the reality of it. It's just a deer. Yeah.
Speaker 2:It's just a deer. Okay, I can teach guys all day long on how to get big trophy record book bucks in front of them, so don't be thinking that's your only opportunity. If you seek out people who are successful and that want to teach, you'll have opportunities at other bucks. It's just the way it is. It's only a deer. Why would you risk the financial punishment, the material punishment, the physical punishment of losing your license, and all of that for a deer?
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know I understand the excitement. I do, I really do. I was there. Well, I'm on the other side of that now and it's like no guys, it doesn't have to be like that you know, and as far as gates and whatnot, I've gone to main lines and there's been six other rigs parked here. I know that that main line goes out there for miles. Yeah. And I know what I'm hunting versus what they're hunting and I've gone in those and never seen those guys and I didn't either.
Speaker 1:I mean, I walked in and I actually had three guys came out and it looked like father, son and grandfather. Three generations. The only thing that annoyed me about them is so they had their rifles. They had a mount on the front of their bike so that their rifles were on the front but pointing like left to right type of thing. Yeah.
Speaker 1:It wasn't pointing straight up. They all three rode by me with their rifle barrels pointed at me, and I about came unglued for that aspect because it was just stupid. But then I'm like okay, who's the idiot who designed that?
Speaker 2:It's like we're all looking for some kind of the next new and latest and greatest thing that helps you do whatever, whether it's carry your weapon in or haul your animal out, or or keep you warm longer or dry or whatever. But you know, like I said, being ethical is a 24-hour job. We're always, as hunters, we're always having to be on top of it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and it's it was. At the moment I wasn't quite sure that I could handle it really well, uh-huh. And so I'm new to hunting, but I'm a gun guy and I've been Right, I've had guns years, grew up shooting all of that, and so it's always been drilled into my head, though-.
Speaker 2:Yeah, muzzle control.
Speaker 1:Muzzle control and it just to like ride by and not really even be thinking about it. And I know the guns were unloaded. I hope the guns were unloaded Just for their own safety. It's like why would you ride around with a bicycle Walking in and out of the woods? My weapon isn't loaded. Just until I get to my set set and then I load my rifle. I could slip, I could fall, you know. Going back to the, remembering I got a family. Well, I'm going to shoot the deer at my set. I'm not going to shoot the deer on my. I could potentially see a deer walking and I have to my set. But that's just a decision. I don't want to walk around uneven ground with a loaded weapon ready to shoot. So, anyway, it was just one of those where let it slide and, yeah, I didn't know how I could at the in the moment I was just a little more irritated than than anything, so I just let it slide and stuff.
Speaker 1:But but thinking about, we're sharing the forest and we just recently had someone who's in one of our, who was in our online class, mention that he went out looking for some spots and saw a feeder out there and wondered who might that be? Maybe potentially someone from one of our classes who had put out something, or a random person trying to draw deer into the area. You never know, but we rarely catch anybody walking by our cameras just because of where we're hunting.
Speaker 2:I haven't had a person on my camera in probably three, four years now and I'm not that far off a main line, you know, at any of my sets and stuff, so but it's just the habitat that we're in. But yeah, they asked if we knew of up in that area where they had found that. And I would say this guys, if you stumble across a tree stand or a ground blind, do the right thing and just go the other direction. Yeah, let them have that spot.
Speaker 2:There's plenty of deer out there. There's plenty of I won't say there's plenty of elk, but there's plenty of deer out there to share and whatnot. Don't cork somebody else. I've had people come up and say that they found a tree stand and they went up and they sat in it for hours. Well, that may be fine and good and you think you didn't hurt anyone, but the reality is is the guy who set up that tree stand. He's been prepping that spot for months and it's like he's done all this labor to clear, shooting lanes and putting out whether he's putting out bait or putting out sands or whatever he's doing to draw those deer in. Or maybe he's doing to draw those deer in, or maybe he's just hunting a travel corridor, but either way, he is the one who's put the labor into this and you're robbing him of that, uh, and trying to steal it from him by harvesting, you know, the buck that he knows that's in there, or bucks and stuff.
Speaker 1:just there's plenty of deer out there. You can blow out his spot if you get spotted right right deer. So I actually had and it was during elk, it was elk modern and it was right before. I think it was like the last day when he was on camera, but I saw him. He came into my set and I could see him on camera. He walked in and he's looking and he knows what he sees. But then he turned around and he left and I was very appreciative of that Kudos to him.
Speaker 1:And I've seen him on my cameras three times. That's the only real person, the only hunter not real person, but the only hunter I've seen on my set, but it's one of those. Okay, I see somebody's hunting here. You're going to run into guys and I think what we talk about is just strike up a conversation.
Speaker 2:Yeah, let them know your plans. Yeah. That way you guys could communicate and whatnot. And I've gone into or I've talked to people that said you know, I've been hunting an area, I've been scouting it out and everything, and then I hear somebody else has been doing the same thing in there. I just, I just turn around and you can have, because it's not worth losing a friendship.
Speaker 2:Number one to me. Number two if you come to the classes, if you sign up for any of the bootcamp or anything like that, you're going to figure out there's a lot more big bucks out there than you realize and I can show you how to find them. I'm confident enough that I can walk away from that and turn around in the same season and find at least one, if not two, more shooters. You know what I mean. So, it's not worth losing that friendship.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and it's funny because I have a few spots in my kind of back pocket, but I have three really great spots, so I don't need to go explore these other areas.
Speaker 2:I really want to. So in those three spots, how many shooters do you have?
Speaker 1:Oh geez, I have like seven or eight or something.
Speaker 2:There you go yeah. Which is why.
Speaker 1:I'm not going further but, and so I've offered those up. When I know somebody's in the area.
Speaker 1:Right, and that's. I would say that's a great thing about just have a conversation with someone. Hey, you know what I'm hunting this particular spot and everything like that. But hey, let's, I would even like let's just go right over here and I'll show you a couple other spots I found and you can have them, because I have no intention of ever going in there, but I know that they're potentially great spots right, you know, if they don't want to take it and if they don't?
Speaker 2:yeah, that's cool, everything, but you know you're, you're two years into this, yeah, two years into this, and you have seven shooters yeah it's like there's guys that have hunted 14 years and don't know where two shooters are let alone seven, you know.
Speaker 2:So it's like, well, no, they're out there, they're not that hard to find. Once you realize what these animals are looking for and, given that and having that mindset, you're able to walk away from a spot and not be confrontational. Yeah, you know what I mean. And have the confidence where you can know my season's far from over, I can get this done. Yeah, yeah, my season's far from over, I can get this done.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know, yeah. So the last thing and we'll end on it is not sharing other people's spots. Okay, number one, you are not ethical. You're just a horrible person if you give away other people's spots. I'm laughing, and we know that you can't trust them.
Speaker 2:I'm laughing because I've had that happen to me.
Speaker 2:I don't know how many times you know where, and sometimes there's been like three or four times where I've just ended up saying you know what? You've already told other people about this spot and they've come up and they asked me if they can go in. These people that heard from so-and-so and it's like, oh my gosh. So there's been a couple that I've absolutely abandoned anymore and everything. And here's the thing. Here's the thing you need to realize. When somebody does that, it's insecurity. Yeah, this is a sport filled with ego and somebody is doing that to impress somebody else. And I don't necessarily get mad. I used to, when I was younger, get mad at someone for doing that. Anymore. I hate to say it like this, but I feel sorry for them Because you don't have to do that. People will like you for who you are. Don't try and be something you're not. Yeah.
Speaker 2:And just come to the person whose spot it is and see what they say. Ask them first before you tell somebody else.
Speaker 1:It is one of our biggest rules so we have during the bootcamp, we ask guys to share their spots so that we can help them with locating e-scouting.
Speaker 2:Share with us. They don't Share with us, not with each other necessarily.
Speaker 1:And during our coaching, show us your waypoints so we can talk through this.
Speaker 2:And you can tell who's been burned. Totally get it.
Speaker 1:I totally get it, but it is rule number one. If you do that goodbye, you are no longer associated with us, because it's just not necessary. Yeah, and it's a crummy thing to do to somebody.
Speaker 2:It really is.
Speaker 1:If you're going to take somebody's spot and understanding it can be breaking rules or any of this other stuff we talked about. It can be tempting, especially if you're in an area with really high hunting pressure. Right, Just like well, we've got to share it, and it's just one of those you know you got to negotiate.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know it can be done it can be done fairly yeah it can be done without any backstabbing or, you know, secrecy or anything like that. As far as you know, hey, let's sneak in behind this, let's get in front of this guy while he's calling, or whatever you know.
Speaker 2:And it doesn't have to be that way, guys. There's a lot of animals out there. It's just a matter of putting yourself or being able to locate habitat, and that's. I keep going back to that, because that's the one thing that has made a huge difference in my hunting career is knowing where these animals want to be. If you know what you're looking for, you're going to have opportunity after opportunity after opportunity. Yeah.
Speaker 1:So ultimately be an ethical hunter, Yep. Be the good guy. The way you treat each other, the way you treat people's property, the way you treat your family by making the right decisions when you're out there and stuff.
Speaker 2:Be the good guy.
Speaker 1:All right, we'll see you all next week.
