The Blacktail Coach Podcast
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The Blacktail Coach Podcast
Into the Dark: Overcoming Fear and Physical Limits in the Woods
Every hunter faces unseen adversaries more challenging than elusive game—our own mental and physical limitations. What keeps many would-be hunters from success isn't lack of skill but fear of the dark, anxiety about wildlife encounters, or the physical constraints we all eventually face.
The darkness of the woods triggers primal fears. "It's either pitch black where you can't see your hand in front of your face, or when the moon's out, it's like almost daylight," Dave explains, highlighting how unfamiliarity breeds anxiety. Both hosts share personal stories of eerie wildlife encounters—from bears suddenly bolting from dense brush to mysterious movement in thick salal—and how repetition and knowledge transform terror into understanding. "The more times you put yourself in that position, the less scary those things become," Aaron notes, echoing the advice that helped both men overcome their trepidations.
Physical limitations represent an even more universal challenge. "Your body is only going to give you so many hunts," Dave observes, reflecting on how quickly decades of hunting opportunity slip away. For aging hunters, adapting becomes crucial—whether lowering bow poundage, selecting more accessible hunting areas, or maintaining year-round fitness focused on joint health. Their conversation explores practical adaptations from specialized gear to alternative hunting methods that extend hunting careers.
Perhaps most profound is their discussion of isolation in hunting. While some relish the solitude, others find the quiet hours alone with their thoughts unbearable. The hosts share wisdom about embracing this time for reflection and self-discovery, along with practical advice for those who struggle with it.
Ready to extend your hunting career by overcoming the obstacles rarely discussed on hunting shows? Listen now, and discover how addressing these challenges might just make you a more successful, fulfilled hunter for years to come.
Bootcamp & Coaching
Welcome back to the Blacktail Coach Podcast. I'm Aaron and I'm Dave, so this week we want to talk about overcoming challenges, both physical and mental. So, as we've done the classes, I know that this becomes an issue and we actually just recently did a kind of a seminar quick seminar just the other night with a group of guys who are getting older and, as you say, you know, we only have so many hunts, hunts in us and so wanting to stay out in the field as long as possible or possibly get out in the field, I think for you know, for changing the way you hunt, whether it's tree stand or something like that, or even being new to hunting, I think there's some mental challenges and for anybody there could be some physical challenges of getting out there and hunting Right, right, right.
Speaker 2:Learning to pivot is what I like to call it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so let's start off, I think, with let's start off with new hunters and I'm thinking about this because we've had conversations related to when you're going out there and walking out in the woods in the dark or coming back in the dark, because I know you've mentioned that you've guys who you've mentored in the past. They end their hunts early because they don't want to be out in the woods.
Speaker 2:Oh, you're referring to being afraid of the dark they don't want to be out in the woods.
Speaker 1:Oh, you're referring to them being afraid of the dark, basically with what's out there. And you know, you've always said there's nothing out there at night. That isn't there during the day, right, but it is. I can imagine just being a little spookier you know as you're walking out, yeah.
Speaker 1:And you know it's something I don't know. If I actually really thought about it, I would say there's some more anxiety when, if you're coming down out of a tree stand in the dark or going up into a tree stand or a ladder stand in the dark, just because you know you might have a light on but you're fumbling around a little bit more. So what was your process of just kind of getting used to that, or was that never really much of an issue for you?
Speaker 2:Well, I think there's anxiety for everybody to some extent. Now the level of anxiety obviously is different with everybody that goes out there, but I think because we're so visually driven as humans that when we're limited on that aspect we tend to get a little nervous and it builds up anxiety. And when it's dark out especially, I mean and the funny thing is, this is how it is when you're out in the deep timber or up in the mountains.
Speaker 2:It's either pitch black, where you can't see your hand in front of your face, or when the moon's out, it's like almost daylight. You can see everything yeah you know what I mean. Because there's no, there's no ambient light coming from any street lamps or or cities off in the distance you know what I mean, and so it's it's one or the other. It never seems to be in the middle somewhere. It's.
Speaker 1:It always seems to be one or the other there is a bit of a, since you mentioned, when it's like the moon's out, there's a level of creepiness To how bright it gets. How bright it gets. Yeah, and I know I've gone camping when there was a full moon out and there's no ambient light whatsoever. We were up by Mount Adams and Trout Lake that area camping and bright out Like you didn't need to have a flashlight to move around.
Speaker 1:But we're, you know, I'm looking up on this edge, this ledge, we're at like the end of a lava flow and I'm just thinking, boy, it almost feels like what if I looked up there and something was looking back at me, you know, yeah, so there's a little bit of that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I think that everybody, you know, our culture is such that it lends to this horror film type mentality where, oh my gosh, something's out there going to get me. You know, for me it was just taking the time to think the whole thing out in the sense that you know that everybody's afraid of bears. Bears have got some kind of bloodlust, but the reality is, 99.9% of the time bears don't want anything to do with you.
Speaker 1:No, they're terrified of you.
Speaker 2:Yeah, they just take off. They don't want to be, and they're very solitude creatures. They want to be alone. And so, yeah, they don't want to hang out where there's a lot of noise, they don't want to hang out where there's a lot of rustling or anything going on. They just soon get out of the area and be solitude and peace and quiet and do their thing. Now, that's not you know. I say that, but I've been charged twice in all my years of bear hunting.
Speaker 1:But that's like well, bear hunting, okay. So what? 30 years of bear hunting? Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:And both times I would say it was more my fault than anything. What had happened is I unknowingly trapped the bear or pinned the bear in a little area where he couldn't get out? You know, just walking through the woods and all of a sudden, you know, there's a big wall of briars or timber or whatever at its back and I'm walking by and I'm cutting off the only path of escape for it.
Speaker 1:You know what I?
Speaker 2:mean, and so it does the false charge and clacks its teeth and huffs at you and stuff like that. But all in all, bears really don't want anything to do. The only thing that gets me a little nervous at night is the cats, and when I say cats I mean cougars, I don't. You know, bobcats don't scare me so much. But I think that the turning point for me was as I watched Cameron Haynes' video on trophy blacktail hunting, and one of the ways that he trains to get ready for hunting season is he runs with his bow in the dark training for marathons okay and uh, not that I'm out there training for marathons, but I thought that's a great idea to prepare yourself, to prep yourself for being in the dark, and the reason we we get uncomfortable with it is because we're not out there in it very often.
Speaker 2:But when we put ourselves in that position over and over and over again, you become accustomed to some of the things that used to scare you used to creep you out.
Speaker 2:They become old hat and they become less scary because you figured out, oh okay, that sound was a hoot owl. Less scary because you figured out oh okay, that sound was a hoot owl, or that sound was a bird going to roost or something. You know what I mean. You figure it out and you realize oh, it was nothing, it was just my imagination just getting carried away. Yeah. But I mean, I know guys that will not go out until the sun's up and definitely come out before the sun goes down.
Speaker 1:I had a couple and it was my first year when everything's really new, and I think that's where, when it's the newness- is what really kind of can start messing with your head.
Speaker 1:But it was, I had had a camera up and we were I was doing some minerals and I think I was going out to check my camera, maybe refresh the minerals and I had cut a trail in and it was up until maybe the last 20 feet and I had to walk through this little patch of Oregon grape which is real kind of a real thick, heavy leaf and you make a lot of noise. Well, the trail had cut in quiet and I hit that stuff and something moved. So there was a little jackfur that was maybe six feet tall and I couldn't see what was on the other side of it and I kind of stepped into it and I heard something move and I stopped and I listened and nothing, it didn't keep moving. So I okay, maybe I just heard something. I'm just hearing things.
Speaker 2:That's what I was telling myself.
Speaker 1:Well, I took two more steps and a bear bolted out of there. So I'm 15 feet from a bear and I always go in with a pistol because I think that's just smart to do.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:Because I'm going in by myself and you just never know, and it's better to have it and not need it than need it and not have it. Well, that was one time I didn't have my pistol on me and it spooked me and even though it took off and I mean it was down this ridge line- oh, they're lightning fast.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and the reality is he could have killed you if he wanted to, and you wouldn't even. There would have been nothing you could have done.
Speaker 1:It got out of there and, yeah, I just turned around and just beelined it back to my vehicle and after that, and granted, actually since then I've gone out a lot without my pistol, but there was that time and then when I was doing sits up in the tree stand, I always felt a little more secure. I would say tree stand, I always felt a little more secure. I would say, but like one time something is moving through the salal behind me and is coming into me right but I can't see what it is and it's sizable enough where it.
Speaker 1:I can see it pushing through the brush and I'm like, okay, am I being stalked by a cougar or something? What's's going on? Because I know that they'll come up behind you and I just don't know what this is and I can't really whip around in my. I was just sitting in a ground blind chair and I couldn't whip around to look because I don't want to startle any deer or anything that might be in the area. And it turns out it was a porcupine. It comes walking up next to me and walks by and everything, which was kind of cool, but it was still that what, what's stalking me?
Speaker 2:right, right, right. But I mean you know it's funny because it's every horror show you've ever seen. You know, yeah, the dog man, the moth man, bigfoot, you know freddy krueger you know, j. It's just like dude. You are not that important to the world, just relax.
Speaker 1:And then hearing some bird I'd never heard before making a bunch of racket. And when I'm wearing those headphones or the amplifying ear protection for shooting, well, that's just amplifying everything. Oh, yeah, yeah. For shooting, well, that's just amplifying everything. Oh, yeah, yeah. And I mean even like I got a deer that did a snort wheeze about 40 yards away across this swamp from me. It just scared the crud out of me because I was wearing those and it just sounded like it was right next to me, uh-huh. So there's always those things that yep yeah, there's no familiarity uh when you're new to it.
Speaker 2:And so that unfamiliar or unfamiliarity is what stirs all the fears of all the possibilities of what it could be and how things could transpire in the next few minutes, as it's stalking you and it wants to eat you.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know, and we laugh about it now, but I mean, that's the way guys really think at times, you know yeah, and if I really, if I think through it now, if a cat was coming in, I wouldn't have heard it pushing through brush coming at me yeah exactly you know it would just all of a sudden be on top of me.
Speaker 1:You know, biting my neck, yeah, yeah so, but it was just kind of funny and I know with of me you know, biting my neck, yeah, something, yeah, so, but it was just kind of funny and I know with a lot of the mental it's just doing it over and over again and I you know what's funny is just sitting here talking about it I think that that being out there in the woods because when you get lost, uh, the panic and and the, the anxiety that they can actually just grip you sets in so quick and so easy.
Speaker 2:And I think and it's the same with what we're talking about here as far as going out at night and everything, I think because we're so withdrawn from that on a daily basis, you know, we're not like pioneers. Yeah.
Speaker 2:You know what I mean. We're sleeping in wagons or out under the moon in the rain, that kind of no. We're in homes and they're nice and warm and we're watching TV and whatnot. But I think because we're so withdrawn from that environment that all of the little idiosyncrasies and nuances of being out there take a little bit of time for us to get used to. Nuances of being out there take a little bit of time for us to get used to and we tend to blow things way out of proportion because we don't know them.
Speaker 1:The unfamiliar environment. Right, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:And so.
Speaker 1:So you know, with us doing the style of hunting that we're doing, set hunting, and you're taking the same trail in and the same trail out every day, right Every morning, every evening, set hunting, and you're taking the same trail in and the same trail out every day, right every morning, every evening, so that actually it's, there's not really a fear of getting lost right because you're always going the same place.
Speaker 1:But you've done elk hunting, where it's the run and gun, you know, or spot and stock for guys who are doing that guys may be interested in that getting lost, and now it's. It's harder with like gps it is harder now. Yes, yeah, but that's almost a false sense of security, though too false sense yeah, very much so. But what was it like? How did you keep your bearings in in those situations where you're going in maybe an area you're not familiar with, but but it's that you're going to be moving Right, right?
Speaker 2:And so I didn't always do that until I got a GPS. And my first GPS it was absolutely basic and I used it to get from point A to point B and from point B back to point A. So you know, I'd get out of the rig, turn the GPS on, let it connect to the satellites and then I would mark my truck as a waypoint.
Speaker 2:save that, turn the GPS off, go hunt okay obviously making sure my batteries were brand new every time yeah, yeah yeah, and then go hunt, do what I had to do, whatever, and then when I was done hunting, turn the gps on, let it acquire the satellites and then pull up that waypoint for my truck and I could be five, six miles away from my truck you know, but it's just pointing me right back. You know, some guys will leave their bread crumbs on or their trail tracker, whatever, and it'll give them the exact route to come back on to go back, yeah and I never, I never did that.
Speaker 2:I didn't want to, I didn't want to risk, uh, using that battery life, you know, because, uh, there were times where you know your headlamp you're so far away by the time you get halfway back your headlamp is is the batteries there are done. So I'm using the GPS, you know as a light yeah, coming back and whatnot.
Speaker 2:But up until then, before the GPS, I never really strayed that far and I was always really familiar with the country I was going in and what I would do is I would push that envelope just a little bit farther every time. You know what I mean and familiarize myself that way with it. But yeah, when the GPSs came out, man, it was a game changer, because then it wasn't worrying about how to get back to my rig, I was just focused on the hunt and could stay in there and, yeah, focused on the hunt and could stay in there, you know, and and uh, yeah, it was, it was much easier that way.
Speaker 2:But gps's have come a long way, because when they first came out, you really I mean they were offering classes at the college, yeah, to learn how to use them, you know, and now it's, it's so basic and it's so simple.
Speaker 1:Oh, your, your phones have that, that feature and stuff. That's exactly right.
Speaker 2:The only downside is You've got to make sure it's charged.
Speaker 1:You've got to be able to charge it.
Speaker 2:Yep.
Speaker 1:And so you know, with that it's for the anxiety or the mental aspect of it, so that basically my head can stay in the hunt. I have like a backup battery pack, but the battery packs that I use for my heated vest I can also use to. I have a cable I can charge my phone if I needed to.
Speaker 1:And because I'm on my phone playing games all day to just pass the time, so am I, and so, yeah, just to have extra battery life, and I figured out how much battery that my vest will use at which setting, so that I don't kill it with all of it with.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, just sitting there trying to stay warm and stuff. And another one that I see that kind of trips guys up, especially if you're switching to tree stand hunting, which is new for a lot of guys. So going up and you go up pretty high up into trees, you'll be 25 feet up if you can.
Speaker 2:Oh, absolutely.
Speaker 1:And I mean that's pushing it for some guys who just don't like heights. And I know my ladder stand went up to 18 feet and that was tough because I do not like heights and I'm in the most secure type of platform hunting platform that there probably is a ladder stand and it's still really nerve-wracking when you're first starting out yeah. And so any tricks that you've learned for.
Speaker 2:So, and it's funny that you say that you're afraid of heights, aaron, I'm afraid of heights myself, but I'm an electrician by trade and so I spend a lot of time in lifts and climbing ladders and installing lights and all that stuff. So through my trade I've become I don't want to say- Desensitized. Yeah, or comfortable with heights. I've just become acquainted with them and know my limitations more. Yeah.
Speaker 2:And when you first got yours, I kept telling you, the more times you climb up and down, the more relaxed you're going to find yourself becoming, and that's the key right there. You got to put time in on it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know what I mean.
Speaker 2:You just really do. But there's a big misconception that you've got to get up high with a tree stand, and you really don't. I know a guy that doesn't put a tree stand any higher than six foot. Yeah.
Speaker 2:And he kills a lot of animals a lot of animals. And I've killed a lot of bulls over in eastern Oregon out of a tree stand sitting on wallows and for years I had this one set that I couldn't get any higher than 12 feet yeah you know, and I killed, you know, a number of bulls off of that set and it's just you know. It's more along the lines of what you're doing for scent elimination and your ability to stay calm, and still more than anything.
Speaker 1:So it was kind of funny because last year me, my first year I didn't feel like there was any option, Like I had to go up to 18 feet, and I don't know if it was just no, no, you need to go up because you have to be above the air.
Speaker 2:I think we see it on TV At that level.
Speaker 1:But I thought I was kind of picking that up from you and no, no, you want to be up higher. And you gave me the reasons and stuff and so I was like, okay, and I actually loaned my ladder stand to Alex this year and he went up to about 12 feet. He didn't put in one of the sections and I was like, oh yeah, I guess that was an option, but where I was, it made more sense to go up that high. And, as you said, so when I first started out that thing, like I got up there, white knuckled to the, to the seat, and so the platform was at 18 feet and and so I'm sitting about 20. Yeah, probably about 20 feet is where the bottom of my seat was. I didn't want to move at all. I like hitched into the safety line and I mean it was. I sat down and I'm trying to reach behind me.
Speaker 1:I wouldn't just latch in and then sit down where I could see I was just fumbling around with it but not wanting to move Right right Fumbling around with it but not wanting to move, right right, fumbling around with it and then like there was a footrest where you kicked out this bar, that acted like a footrest. I wouldn't kick that because I didn't want to move. Uh-huh, I was just so nervous and by the end it's yeah, everything, it's just nothing. Yeah.
Speaker 1:It was. You just get more Now. Granted, if I'd used it this last year that was my first year If I'd used it this last year, it would have taken me a while to get used to it again, but it probably would have gone quicker, because it eliminates the element of you know, is this thing going to collapse on me? Well, I used it all year and it didn't.
Speaker 1:I mean you, and I went up in it and sat in it cause it was a double seat one and did just fine, yeah, so that's just it. It's fine, whether it's a I would say tree stand or anything like that, it's just that practice.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you gotta, you gotta, log some hours in on it and and it don't take any time at all.
Speaker 2:You know, I remember when I first started, uh, baiting for bear and this was a couple decades ago and, uh, my cousin and I were doing it together and and we went and got our first tree stands together oh, okay, and uh and so, uh, we both got tree stands and everything and I remember we were, I put mine up and I was probably about 12, 15 feet, uh-huh, maybe 12, more closer to 12, I guess and uh, we went to do my cousins after that, and so I'm not a big guy, you know, and my, my cousin, he he's probably two of me, okay, and he's not fat, he's just no he's very solid, you know he's a linebacker.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, yeah and, and so we're putting his stand up, and and this is back when you had to use the screw in steps oh, the trees and so I got all the steps in there and whatnot, and we're putting his stand up and he's telling me where to put it and how high to go and all this stuff. And then so I get done and he climbs up into it and he's kind of very cautious and everything we both had harnesses on I'm on the ground and everything.
Speaker 2:And I'm like are you sure you don't want that higher? He goes. Are you kidding me? He goes. I'm way up here, he goes. You look like an ant to me, you know this is back when.
Speaker 2:A Bug's Life came out and and he started quoting the caterpillar, he says man, you guys look like little ants down there. And I just started laughing. I walked over and I reached up and I grabbed the deck, the platform of the tree stand from the ground and everything, but he killed a 300-pounder bear from that stand four or five days later. Yeah.
Speaker 2:So again, it's not about how high it's getting out of that that wind stream, yes, but at the same time you're not in that that line of vision either you know, they have a little bit of a ceiling because there's just not a lot of people that tree stand hunt around here so animals don't go through the woods looking up yeah, yeah, but it's just it.
Speaker 1:it's that practice, oh, absolutely, and I know even for, because there's an aspect of for mindset, for overcoming the physical and the mental Well, when you're up shooting down at an angle. That's why they suggest and you've suggested this that if tree stand is new to you, set it up someplace where you can actually shoot your bow at it and I know you had asha out in the backyard practicing from that tree stand. You put up in a tree in your backyard with a, a target yeah but it was.
Speaker 1:But yeah, it's a different shot yeah, you want.
Speaker 2:you want to aim for the bottom third. Uh, just because they, with the way the arrow comes out of the riser and everything, you're going to hit center mass or just above it. If you're aiming for the bottom third and yeah, I did that for Osh and I tell everybody at the seminars my wife prefers to hunt out of ground blinds Well, we were going to Kansas and I knew that she would be hunting out of a tree stand while we were down there.
Speaker 1:Might not be an option, yeah, yeah. So now the physical challenges. You know it might be where you can't do a bow because you can't drop back, or you know there's, there's some physical, there's a certain point where you can't do the 15 miles of walking, or five miles or a mile, and even thinking of, like Bud's dad, he goes in and he can walk in a certain distance, but there's no climbing tree stands, there's no, there's just physically limited on what you're capable of doing.
Speaker 1:There's just physically limited on what you're capable of doing and I know there's ways, like you, and currently DJ is prepping because he's doing a lot of that backcountry stuff and getting into that and he's hiking around with a weighted pack, putting 50 pounds in a pack and walking up and down the hill to the house. But to like to get ready for the physical aspect of just the whole hunt.
Speaker 2:You know, and boy, that's a great question, and I wish people on TV would cover this more often. You know, I've said it a million times to younger guys at seminars and whatnot. In that they'll come up and they'll be like, yeah, I do this, this is, and I just look at it, well, I was young once too. Yeah, and that's something that we're all gonna have in common. It seems like just yesterday I was 18 or in my 20s, you know, and I was hiking, you know, with a pack on full pack, and we were going in, uh, up around packwood and all that and and doing hills and and turkey, hunting the gorge and all that and, and then overnight I became 55, you know, and I got lyme's disease and I got scar tissue in my hips and everything.
Speaker 2:And then, like you were saying, the other night, we, we spoke at uh, hunter's Hunt Club, rather, and the first thing, one of the guys comes over and he introduces himself to us and everything. But one of the statements that he made to me right up front really stood out and he says yeah, this club's getting old, we're all aging out. We lost some guys last couple years ago with COVID and everything like that, and I think that the way life is is that you don't recognize that you're aging until it starts happening in increments. Because what I mean is this is that when you're a kid, you can't wait to get out of high school, and it seems like it takes forever to do that, you know. And then you get out of high school or college or whatever, and you're finally on your own and it's like everything seems great, right, or you get married. Yeah.
Speaker 2:And then, all of a sudden, you wake up one morning and 10 years has gone by. You've been graduated for 10 years.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And you're like, wow, where did that time go, right? And then so you're in your 30s, now and everything. And then the next big mile marker for me was about 38. And it was like, my goodness, well, you know, it just seems like yesterday In my mind. I'm still 18. Yeah.
Speaker 2:You know, and now you know, and now you know. Then after that it was 45 and it was like holy cats, I'm 45, I'm the old guy. Now you know 50 it's like oh yeah, and now I'm 55 and in my mind I'm still thinking I can remember being 18. It just seems like it was a week ago, you know yeah and it's gone, and and that's when I started realizing your body is only gonna give you so many hunts.
Speaker 1:And then it's gonna say I'm done and and at a certain point it's going to make those hunts a little more difficult, where you have to adapt right. And I've contemplated like it'd be neat to go elk hunting, but I don't know if I got to walk miles and miles back in and it's hiking, hiking one out, you know where it's a few trips of three miles in and you got to hike some of it out and then go back and get the rest of it and hike it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean I could do that, but it's going to be like 24 hours of straight hiking.
Speaker 2:You're going to be so sore the next day You're not going to get out of bed. There's no amount of ibuprofen that's going to cure that and I sort of think, going back to that, it was just okay. When I was young, I was invincible, and because I thought that way, I made the mistake of not staying on top of my health in the sense that working out and staying in shape. Cameron.
Speaker 2:Haynes works out year-round, and a lot of these guys that hunt well into their 60s and 70s work out year-around From the time that they're young. They start working out year-round and when I say young, I mean in their 20s and 30s Not to be Mr Olympia or the Atlas statue or whatever. They're doing it to stay in shape, to keep their body safe from injury. And that is the key, because when you start hiking and carrying all this stuff on your back, you're breaking down your joints, shoulders, your knees, your, your back, your lower back, your neck. It all adds up, you know, and all of the all of the careless thinking that we did younger ends up coming back to haunt us later on.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know, playing sports hurt and that kind of stuff.
Speaker 2:You know what I mean?
Speaker 1:yeah, but it's a lot of. It's just prepping ahead of time and and and doing something year-round physical, yeah, activity.
Speaker 1:I remember the personal trainer that I had, your uh, motion is lotion, you know, keep moving those joints, keep moving your body, because that's going to keep that movement's going to keep everything right loosened up. And I've noticed that, like I like to go swimming and I noticed my shoulders will really start tightening up and the best cure for that is to go swimming for a month, a couple times a week and just start using all those joints, all those muscles and that movement and I'm fine, yeah, but I noticed like I've got kind of a balky knee and so one of the things it just is. And so there are times if, especially when I'm going into a new area, I'll bring a hiking pole with me for just that extra stability.
Speaker 1:you know cause having that, you got to lift one leg up to step over a log or something like that right and you know, and I'm looking for more areas like I don't want to go down a real steep muddy slope to get to my spot, and that's what I'm saying.
Speaker 2:There's a recognition of limitations yeah, you know what I mean and I think so. I love archery yeah but I think at one point in my hunting career I will become more of an opportunist than I will an archery hunter, in the sense that if I develop bursitis in the shoulder or some kind of arthritis or whatnot, that keeps me from, or I feel it coming on it may be better that I switch to a different weapon that isn't as physically demanding lower my poundage down instead of being, oh, I can pull 70, some pounds.
Speaker 2:You know, and I could when I was. I mean, I worked in an archery shop and I was yarding bows back all day long, you know, and it's like building those shoulder and the back muscles up and pulling 70. I was drawn 80 pounds on some of the bows at the shop.
Speaker 2:But you know, you look, you kind of lose that alpha male machismo push through the pain right after a while and you realize okay, let's not be stupid, let's just be smart, because I want to keep doing this, because I want to keep doing this, and that's the motivating factor, with both the physical and the mental, is okay, I want to keep doing this.
Speaker 1:So what's the best way to approach this? And even thinking about like gear. So I have a regular pair of hiking boots and I really like you know, I need to go get some new ones, but my lacrosse-style boots get better traction but they don't really have the angles, but it's like I of want, would rather have the traction when I'm walking out there, right, so I end up wearing those out when I'm kind of walking around, but they're not as, like, my feet hurt more. So there's almost that trade-off like which? Which way do I want to go with with this? But thinking through like gear, like I said, you know, having that extra battery pack before I go out, having you know when I'm going out and checking out a new area, you know, and I carry a pistol with me what kind of footwear am I wearing? What kind of clothing am I wearing? Do I have?
Speaker 1:If something were to happen and I got stuck out in the woods, because you know, you slip, you fall and you might be laying out in the woods for several, okay, do I have an emergency blanket? You know, can I? Am I going to be able to survive a night right right out in the? You know just if I'm going out and checking my cameras on it, walking on a trail that I've walked 30, 40, 50 times already, you know. But something happened. I wasn't paying attention, like my first year, the last night coming in uh, the last night as I was leaving, last night I was hunting I decided, well, I'm just going to haul all this stuff out with me and I even went and got my trail camera. So I'm loaded down with stuff, and I stepped over the first log that I'd stepped over a dozen, 50 times already, and I forgot about the second one, because all this stuff is like hanging from me, just face planted right into the ground, and I think I face plant at least once or twice a year. It's just par for the course.
Speaker 2:But and that's a real. That's a real thing because at our age I was you start losing yours and it's funny because I was an athlete, you know, and I mean I played sports in college, you know, it was just very much an athlete and have always considered myself that and yeah, now my sense of balance, the only kid, it starts going and it's kind of humbling, you know.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but it's a reality and you have to face that yeah, I've, I've actually started and I need to actually get back to doing it again, but I've tried doing some different types of yoga and it actually helps, not just like with the strength and everything but balance and all of that.
Speaker 1:So that's just one of those like I never thought I'd try yoga, but it's going to help my. It helps my hunts because it helps keep me safer. But it was funny when I you know it's dark I've got gear all over me and I face plant into the ground and I remember the last couple of times I've slipped and fallen. It's just you lay there for a minute and you don't want to move because you don't want to find out that you really did hurt yourself. Yeah.
Speaker 1:And then you slowly move your body. Okay, nothing, no sharp pain. Okay, I didn't break anything, we're good, I can stand up. And because no cell coverage, I'm gonna have to drag myself 100, 150 yards to this, to the road, and hope I can get out of there otherwise. So yeah, it's just one of those.
Speaker 2:As you get older, your thought process changes, your way of thinking changes because you start recognizing your mortality, I guess is a way to say it. You're not invincible. Everybody was young once and we all age and that's going to happen to everyone. But if you want to keep doing this, you know you gotta, you gotta start taking care of yourself when you're young so that you can do it longer when you're old. You know, I, I tell guys, uh, my son and my daughter, you know, uh, they're, they're kind of they're at the age where they're, they're starting their careers and they're, and they're, they're getting going and whatnot. And we talk about finances pretty openly and we always have with our kids and stuff. And who is the financial guy?
Speaker 1:Dave Ramsey.
Speaker 2:Dave Ramsey has that saying, that quote that says if you want to live like no one else, you need to live like no one else now. Yeah. And the point being that he's making there is that if you want to be able to retire early and live, you know, like you know Comfortably, Comfortably you know, like your friends are working until they're 70 to retire, or something like that, and you're retiring at 58.
Speaker 2:You've got to be able to make yourself live in the present, like you're not like anyone else, like your friends are out spending money, you're saving it, you're paying, you're being responsible, you're paying bills, you're paying the mortgage, double payments on the mortgage, so that you can live like nobody else later yeah you know, and it's like that, when, when you start thinking about hunting and if you want to keep doing this and live like nobody else later, that's your age I mean you have to take care of yourself now, yeah yeah you got to live like nobody else.
Speaker 2:Now you got to be doing the exercise when everybody else is out eating the junk food and all that stuff. Yeah, because it comes back to haunt you.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it really does and I know, probably a silver lining. I mean I would prefer that we we were still able to bait, but the silver lining is that we don't have to go in every couple of days and farmer carry 40 pounds worth of apples a half mile up and down over. You know, up and down different terrain and everything like that, but it was funny.
Speaker 1:So by the end of season, like when I first started, you know it's a bit more of a workout, but by the end of season it was like pop in, pop out, go do my other set another half mile in what can and it's I'm in decent shape. Yeah, it's like okay, this it gets easier yeah that's just the thing is. It just gets easier the more you do it it's that right you know that continual movement.
Speaker 1:So last thing, and this is probably, uh, the mental challenge of the and for some people it's not much of a challenge, but some it might be is the isolation, like some guys wouldn't consider. I don't think going hunting alone and sitting in a tray stand or a ground blind, or even if spot and stock or uh glassing clear cuts or you know whatever type of hunting you're doing, but just to go do that alone and being able to sit there by yourself all day.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I love that.
Speaker 1:I do too.
Speaker 2:I mean, I seriously love that. I remember a few about 10, 15 years back. I was working for another company and, uh, I was in a position where I would take the whole month of september off and we would hunt over in eastern oregon uh, me and and a bunch of guys, a bunch of buddies and whatnot, and and we'd all go over for the opening weekend for elk and they would come back after that weekend.
Speaker 2:They would pack up sunday and head home and I stayed over there the whole time, the whole month by myself. Uh, well, I say not the whole month. They, they would come back, you know, the last week and a half, two weeks of season yeah which is the end of september, but I would stay over there for weeks by myself and uh, yeah, I just I didn't. That kind of stuff never bothered me. You know, I like being alone with my thoughts, I recharge, I guess.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:You know, for me that's the way it is, but I get it. Some people don't like being alone, they don't like the solitude, they don't look forward to the quiet or anything like that. They want the life to be busy. And I get that. We're all wired a little different and there's nothing wrong with that, but I mean you gotta find a way to occupy your mind.
Speaker 2:Even if you're by yourself, you still have to find a way to occupy your mind and you have to be comfortable with being with you, with you and like an extreme version so we were talking about.
Speaker 1:So this last season I went out early and I was in stand just right before six, maybe five, 10 minutes before six, and it wasn't light out till about 7.30. Well.
Speaker 1:I couldn't turn on my phone to start playing games or anything like that, so I had to sit in the dark not doing anything for an hour and a half Just pitch black. If I held my hand in front of my face couldn't see it. It was just pitch black and I couldn't do anything. I just had to sit there and do nothing, and for some people that's got to be torture. Oh, yeah, but for me well, this is part of it. It's that. It's part of what I'm doing this hunt.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And there's a lot of soul searching that goes on. You find out who you really are. And I tell my wife all the time I wouldn't be a good pioneer, because those are real men. You know what I mean. Uh-huh, all that. I wouldn't be a good pioneer Because those were real men, you know what I mean. I mean I like creature comforts, I like coming home and taking a shower every day. I don't have to come home every day, I can stay out. You know I would stay. Like I said, I took the month off and stayed over there and showered about every four or five days and you know, go into town and do laundry and whatnot. But you're talking pioneers, those guys I mean. You get a rash, they just live with it.
Speaker 1:You know what I?
Speaker 2:mean it's not like they're running down to the pharmacy or 7-Eleven or anything like that. I mean they were real men, but we're all softer now and I don't mean that in a negative way. That's just the reality of our culture. We really are and that's all right. That's all right. And if you find yourself that you can't handle the solitude, a little bit of advice drive on down to Walmart, go into the sporting section, buy yourself a Wilson volleyball put a handprint on it and set it next to you in the stand.
Speaker 2:Talk to it when you want. Don't let anyone see you talking to it.
Speaker 1:You don't even have to talk out loud because Wilson he's mental telepathy. That's right, he knows and he can respond. Yeah. Yeah, but just keep you crazy in the woods.
Speaker 2:There you go.
Speaker 1:And with that I think we're done. So we'll talk to you next week. Bye-bye.
