Ep. 940: Janis's Backcountry Mule Deer | 12 in '26

This is an iHeart podcast, Guaranteed Human. Mediter and best-selling author Brian Burrow present Gun Fighters, a new podcast series about the American West and the violence that made its most legendary figures infamous. Davis Tutts staggered forward, shouted, "Boys, I'm kill! I'm kill over dick!" Listen to Gun Fighters starting on September 15th on the iHeart radio app Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. What you just heard were my post-shot-thos after sitting on a buck for over two hours. It seemed like five hours, but maybe it was just two. Welcome to the 12 and 26 podcast, this is a companion show to our 12 and 26 films rolling out this year. Now if you're just tuning into this now and haven't already seen the new film, which by the way I hate calling them films, there's still episodes to be. It is out on the meat-eater channel, please hop over there and watch it and smash the old like and subscribe buttons. There's still more 12 and 26 films coming, so please keep checking back on the meat-eater YouTube channel. Today, I'm here with Garrett Long and Phil, the engineer, to address your questions about my Mule Deer Hunt. Thank you all for writing in, posting questions on YouTube and on social media. We've curated a handful of the most compelling audience questions, and I'm going to do my best to answer them here now. This episode, in particular, is sent around a solo, back country Mule Deer Hunt, kind of solo. I didn't film it myself, so I had Max Bart of there with me, which was a lot of fun. It was in the Western United States. The hunt was remote, incredibly demanding physically. I really tested my skills and patience kind of. It wasn't an easy hunt, but it wasn't the hardest hunt I've been on either. But again, if you haven't watched it, go check it out now and all of this will make a lot more sense. This time around, let's start with some general comments before getting into the actual questions. Good or bad? We will start with a few more of the more critical comments and then move on to what folks seem to enjoy about the film, and then we'll get into some actual questions from all of you. Number one, should I read out the guy's handle, or the person's handle? You can if you want to. I don't think they're trying to stay it out of him. It's just a handle. Kurt Thomason, 46.20, wrote, "Latvian Eagle kidded up like he's a Formula 1 hunter. Guess I'm priced out of this sport too." I wish I could remember exactly what my kit was. I didn't feel like it was too overboard. I feel like I had socks, undies, a pair of pants, probably a base layer, up top. My undies kind of has my bottom base layer, and then usually like a second layer, and I think as my second layer, I was wearing the suppressor, the soft shell jacket, and then I probably just had a big puffy over that because the weather was really nice. I didn't carry any rain gear. So I don't know, Formula 1, I guess that means it's just really, really expensive. I mean, that big down puffy jacket is an expensive jacket, but I think the rest of that kit is probably like 500 bucks. I don't know, man, Formula 1 drivers are pretty sharp. Like, sharp looking. Yeah. You know? I didn't have my hair. I probably didn't get a haircut, like a Formula 1 guy before this hunt. But I always tell everybody, I try to remind people on the old Instagram, that one, you should just get off Instagram and go out hunting. And if like buying first light gear or any other hunting gear is keeping you from hunting because of the price, because you need money for gas or you just need money for food so that you can, you know, just have time to go hunting. Don't buy the stuff. You don't need it. And literally all you need is some kind of a weapon to go hunting. You don't even need camel. You can, people killed stuff in blue jeans and planels for a lot of years before we all got super hyped on camel. So yeah, man, if you're in a spot where you can't do the first light thing, then yeah, just, you can literally wear the clothes that you probably went to work with and just get out there and make it happen. Let's see. At Jack Tackle 57 wrote, he must be an angler, great hunt. Might I suggest a larger caliber rifle, clearly the wind was pushing your bullet at that elevation and those conditions of heavy bullet, over 160 grains will buck the wind a lot better. It's okay to be overgunned and then Rocky Mountains, especially in, man, by the way, you are a great shooter. Well, thanks, Jack. It's like a compliment sandwich, just like to say, you know, he's not wrong, a heavier bullet, which I think actually in the six fives, a buddy of mine was a big time shooter, was telling me about like a one 75 maybe kind of a custom bullet that he got from somewhere. He says over in Sweden, that's all they shoot are like the 175s out of the six five out of the six fives, you know, which they've been shooting it, mousse over there with six fives per well over 100 years. But yeah, he's not wrong, bigger bullet would have been less affected by the wind in that condition. And yeah, I guess my response, why I would probably still carry the gun I was carrying and probably stick with my own 60 grain bullets is that it's like, man, you do a little bit of shooting. You do a lot of carrying. So having that short action and just in just a light setup and that rifle was really nice. Usually once you go to those heavier bullets, you're going to be in a long action magnum. And I don't know, I guess you could just shoot three away and have it and have a heavier bullet. But that wouldn't have gone through the wind as good as your PRC either. Like I don't know, like I think that 180 grain or out of a 308, well, I don't know what the BC's are of a 308 with 180 grain or it's going to be slow. Yeah. Right. But weight is only part of the equation, right. So BC is really just how it flies through the wind, right. And six five PRC has been built around very high BC bolts. I don't know what either shoot in 140s, 156s, you know, they're probably the 140 acubone. Right. Right. Yeah. So that's arguably a little bit light for that caliber. But I think it's easy to say like, well, heavier is better. But man, I can tell you generally speaking out of a 308 year wind holds compared to a 65 PRC or dramatically more. Right. Okay. So I'd have to have a probably a 30 caliber magnum to really make a difference. Yeah. So yeah, sucker around for a week, right, till you get to make a couple shots. Right. So. Yeah. You know, the other answer is that like, you know, you just, and again, I really thought that wind was pretty much coming straight in my face and I wasn't going to get that drift. But I could have gotten closer, you know, where it wouldn't, wouldn't matter as much. Okay. That trash hunt, interesting handle. He says meat eater saying spot burning is a thing dot, dot LOL laugh out loud. Is that what that stands for? Definitely. We can roll this short clip here. Yeah. The spot burning thing is real. I'm just going to try not to do it. I'm backpacking in limiting factors, batteries for camera. So about three, maybe four nights, what we can do. It's chilly. A little bit of snow on the ground. And October pretty excited. Yep. Um, yeah, it's a thing and we discuss it internally, a lot here in me eater. You know, I don't, I try to protect my private land in Wisconsin because I don't need visitors there. And the people that I hunt there with like to go there and just get away and have peace and quiet. So that's kind of why I don't really talk about the county I'm in in Wisconsin when we go there. Um, but in this case where it's, you know, a unit or even a state, you know, all the locals that are mostly hunting there, not somewhere else, you know, they like to. they like to keep their spots to themselves. And I can't blame them for that. So we've decided to talk less about, you know, even even to the extent of saying not the state where we're at. Because honestly, it's just not that important, right? It's, I think for the viewer, the adventure on the content that they watch, it's not going to be any less engaging if they don't know the which boundaries we were hunting within. Yeah, I mean, I'm going to challenge that a little bit. I think, you know, we have found, like imagine you draw a tag in Colorado. And you want to look up El Cunningham, Colorado. What do you type in? Right? Colorado, El Cunningham. I do think that there's a subset of the audience that, you know, and a lot of the questions were around like, you know, where they think you might have been. I think there's a large subset of the audience that genuinely does want to know general state of where you're at. A large subset, like more than 25%. Yeah, I think that mostly the people that don't want to know where you're at are the people living in that state. Yeah, you know, so it's a balance for us of like being approachable and everything like that and and show an opportunity. But yeah, I think that we have, we have historical evidence that we have done it to places in the past, the media show. I won't mention which ones, but like I've heard enough where they're like, oh yeah, after you aired that one, things changed around here. You know, took more points to draw my unit or there were more hunting leases all of sudden in this area. People never knew that we had this opportunity here. And of course, we're like, oh, man, that's a bummer because like that's what we're interested in, right? Are these sort of like off the wall? Yeah, opportunities that are neat that you haven't heard about. Like we want to go experience them. We want to share them with the with the viewers. But again, the locals live in there that that spotlight's not good. Yeah, so it's balanced man. Yeah, it's a thing. We're aware of it. We're constantly trying to figure out how to do it, right? Let's see. Whipside. Oh, okay, more comments. Robert Watson - N6Z wrote, "Absolutely respect the accountability and humility at the end when he realized his point of impact wasn't where he thought it was due to the fall in the mountain. Other hunting content creators would have cut that part out and attributed the less than ideal shots to the fall. This is why I'm consistently drawn to meet Eater over others." Side note, "How he was able to find that super secret backcountry roadless area in Texas is amazing." Thanks, Robert. It took a lot of digging on the old ONX, but found it. Yeah, thanks overall. I guess for the nice nice nice words there. Yeah, I just feel like it's for me the whatever the humility and all that is not what I was thinking about including the checking the rifle's zero. It's more like, "Oh, this is what I'm going to do anyways when I get home because I have to because my kids probably going to shoot that rifle a week later at a deer and I need to make sure that it's on." And so it's kind of like, "I'm going to do it. I then want to film it and include it so that people would just see more of the process." Sometimes it's so easy to gloss over that or the things that happen around camp between the times that you're actually out chasing out, whether it's cookings, how you're sleeping, whatever it is, it's just kind of, I don't know, it adds to it, right? When you see more of it. Dalton unguided. Nice. Hardcore. Cold October. Elk and deer season. Cross. Awesome country that looks like it would hold giant deer. 30 doe to one buck ratio. Reaks of blank state. Ha ha. So yeah, Dalton just wanted to try to figure out what state I was on in. Most of the questions were about what. There's a lot of that. Yeah, I didn't look. Try not to, what's I have to. What we're talking about doing is making a fill. We really have to do this. Garrett Long is like our head of content. What is your title again now? You're not head of content. You're the VP of SVP of content. SVP of content, which only matters when the chief of content isn't in the room. Yeah, but like I feel like people are nice to me. I appreciate it. Like Randall, they really get after him in the comments. Like don't say nice things and Randall and I've been thinking it'd be fun just to find all of the worst comments and read them and then like talk smack about them. I think that would be a lot of fun. Yeah. See, Phil, you're already left. I mean, it would be a very fun video, but it would also encourage people to comment on things and bad faith just trying to get trying to get selected for this. That's true. Well, we won't tell them that we're doing it. So just like the people that are trolls already, they would be the ones whose comments we would read. Yeah, yeah. And we would, we would dox the commenters and then make fun of them and their lives and their appearance of course as well, right? Yes. Yes. Okay. Okay. Yeah. All right. So that's the night. That's all for the just straight up comments. Appreciate it. We appreciate you guys watching and interacting. It's great. So with that, let's get into some of the more direct questions from the audience. Garrett, what you got? Yeah, man. So there was actually a lot of questions just about gear in general, blaine ciphers 3406, which it's hard to imagine there's that many blaine ciphers. But he asked, what's the rifle set up scope caliber silencer? Are there any just highlights you want to hit there? A litany of questions about the comments about what caliber and that's one of those things where I should have just addressed it in the episode because people always always wonder and and I'm pulling up the scope so that I don't mess up any of the numbers. Scope wise is the SIG whiskey 6 3 to 18 by 44. First focal plane. Rangefinder probably one of the most important parts of that whole thing. Because now with like the BDX app, we do enough shooting of these rifles. We true one range them. What's the word I'm looking for? Not true one, but you kind of check and make sure that the ballistics of the rangefinder is giving you is actually it true. All right, it is true. But man, it's so slick when you can just range something at 400 yards to think is roughly what that shot was and then it says it right to you and the rangefinder like, yeah, you need to go up 2.5 or 3.0, whatever it was. Just gives you a lot of confidence in making that shot and knowing that you're going to hold that on and it's going to hit pretty much dead on as long as you, you know, execute a nice shot. But that was the SIG cross sawtooth right in a PR in a 6.5 PRC. I did have a I guess like semi custom barrel put on there. It's it's a short 18 inch carbon fiber from proof and you know, the shortness of the barrel it definitely takes away from the velocity. But man, does it make it easy to run a suppressor on there? And man, I just love shooting with a PRC. Yeah, I love shooting with a suppressor these days. So I give up a little bit of velocity to, you know, to be able to run it quiet and reduce that recoil a bunch. So it's a very nice, you know, easy compact rifle to pack around. What else? Well, you never actually said what rangefinder you had. Oh, just I believe it's the Kilo 8. Oh, the 8K. Yeah. Yeah. And then the mid-eater suppressor that's built by a silencer central. Nice, you know, compact. How long is that thing? Six inches. Right under six. It's like five and three quarters, something like that. Does the trick, especially for that smaller caliber, it's a, you know, seems like it's the perfect combo. And then like I said earlier, 140 grain nozzle or acubond loaded up. sig loads those up. Yeah, I can't complain like that all those sig crosses shoot ain't sure better forming just with with those factory ammo from sig. And what's even more important I think at times is that it's deviation of the velocities. It's like you know more about this than I do but I feel like we find a lot of times with the sig ammo it's been like less than 10 feet a second and you're telling me I think at one point that like average for a lot of factory ammo is going to be more like 20 to 30 feet per second. Yeah. And that like folks like 400 yards it makes a big difference on your point of impact when you know your bullet's not going the same speed as the last bullet you shot for the next bullet you're going to shoot. So yeah that's pretty much it for the rifle set up. Yeah. Calibre silencer. And I think on that so that another question we got by at 306 Vic ZKO 5 he asked about it seems that you're a fan of silencers on your high country hunts and he's just curious for your reasoning says yes speculation but he'd appreciate you to outline kind of why you like to use them. Man I like him on any kind of hunt. High country low country, back country, front country. Man you just don't have to take that extra step of you know throwing in ear protection and it's kind of got built in you know recoil suppression. You know it's not quite as much as a break but golly I don't ever want to shoot a gun with a break on it ever if I don't have to. I just got my hearing tested again recently because we got some new hearing protection and so when you go in to get the molds they also do some testing and then my left ear is so bad that they're actually they're starting the conversation of putting in a hearing aid in my left ear as the right-handed shooter that's the ear that is you know kind of pointed towards the muzzle more and I feel like for the last 10 to you know definitely 15 maybe even come on 20 years like I've been pretty good about like always at the range you know and even having and just a pair of those five times I wear those Howard light it's like a neck band that has the two foamies on it and just can stick those in real fast and I need to take a shot but all that being said man I did enough damage as a youngster that I'm looking at a hearing aid so yeah I don't know I just don't see a reason not to I mean they're so light these days I think carrying that actually a little bit away is is totally worthwhile. Yeah I mean I'm 35 and they say any hearing aid in my left ear there you go either put put on moffs or get a suppressor. All right man shifting gears a little bit another question we got wrote in his name is Garrett actually so it's got to be a pretty smart dude he asked when hunting for mule deer what are some of the best tips for e-scouting? Good question. I think like all any animal you know they need water food cover so even with mule deer you got to be looking for that. I think defining out you know you can always call a biologist or the warden and find out sort of what elevation these deer like to hang at and whatever unit you're hunting depending on the time of year and then go to the to the e-map and you know find those elevations and find country that looks good. I mean for me for mule deer hunting I haven't done too much desert mule deer hunting it's mostly been I don't know I mean we still live we live in the western high-country you know air and desert but I find the feed I guess and with e-scouting you know you're gonna have to find the aspect meaning like which direction is the hill pointing to find the feed the deer need yeah cover next to food with water nearby try I think what else in particular you know spots where too many people can't get to too easily I think that's a good tip for hunt mule deer but honestly it's like this unit that I was in there wasn't a lot of country that didn't have some deer you know some a little bit less than others but I think that man you just kind of had to put your boots on the ground and go and look at it yeah sorry I don't have too much more for that but yeah I found zones that just didn't have too many roads didn't have too many trails and you know places where the deer can feed and not get messed with yeah it reminds me old Randy Newberg said one time that there's a lot more deer habitat than there are deer he's kind of getting had like he just got to go look yeah at a point like you you can do a lot of prep but at a point you just got to go look it's Steve Renella here and it is white tail week at me either that's right the most anticipated week of the year white tail week at me either both seasons are open boxer making rubs and all week we're going deep on the most hunted big game animal in America we're also running the ultimate white tail giveaway that the sort of the premier part of this package is you win a hunt with Mark Canyon and Jordan Bud at Jordan Bud's family ranch in Nebraska where I have hunted Jordan is cool as hell her family's ranch is cool as hell it is great hunting you're gonna have a blast plus yet gear free gear from over 20 brands so keep an eye on me either channels all week and head to the meat eater store to sign up no purchase necessary get all your rules at the meat eater store and on that note a little bit on and and Phil play a clip here but another really good question man that that I've actually thought about is from Kurt's world at Kurt's world and he said with backcountry hunting do you need to worry about scent if you're camping in near your glassing spot hmm man on a on a any I guess backcountry hunt I try not to camp too close to whatever I'm hunting or wherever I think you know the spot I think the animals are gonna be like in that spot sure there was probably deer on the ridge that I camped on I mean you can have to give and take a little bit but you know with hiking sweating as much as I do you know when you're going up and down mountains I mean I don't do any kind of scent control for those types of hunts I usually just feel like when I'm you know going to find a deer by glassing it's gonna be far enough away where no matter what the winds doing they're probably not gonna pick me off by scent hmm once I start making a stalk you know then I'm gonna start worrying about what the winds doing but again I feel like most times you know for 500 yards you can get with these animals with with the wind on your back and they're not really gonna spook you know I'm gonna roll this clip really here yeah I did not achieve my goal of one mule deer before dark but that's not going to determine a camp right on top of a great glassing up and I'll be back on the glass at first like yes you're fine glass like glassing from camp just because you had that buffer where you had you were kind of past that four or five hundred yard so yeah and again like I said there's probably animals on the ridge I was on but you can't I mean you just can't always go where there's zero animals you know and so another question you know you remained optimistic in the video but after glassing for for half a day this made me kind of realize that maybe I have a patience issue where were you like second guessing yourself at all that night when you're sitting up your tent no no I just feel like one one afternoon just without a deer yeah you got to give it more time and honestly it's like in that kind and when you know you're in deer country yeah you got to just give it more time and I always remind myself like I'm only looking for one and maybe it's that kind of a spot where there aren't a lot of other deer that a single big buck or maybe with a couple dose that's where you're gonna find them because when there's less deer and if you're in deer good deer habitat that's more food more cover more all of that for the deer that are in that area and you know Hopefully you're you think the big bucks gonna be gonna be in there, but no, I mean, but I did move after whatever it was two and a half three days When it just seemed like I wasn't seeing enough and it was mostly I was seeing more hunters than deer But yeah, honestly Like I could have had more patients and probably just like stuck to it and stayed in there and eventually turned up a buck in that spot, you know I think so It's because you got to trust it, you know if you like if you're in a good spot You know it's deer country. You've seen some doves around and again that time of year late October Those deer are starting to move, you know those deer have a little bit of migration That they do and so you know Any morning you could wake up and there's a whole new batch of deer in your zone. Yeah, I mean the rut can bring anything in Do you do? So stick it with the camp theme another question that came in was how does all the clothing you wear Play into your sleeping bag and/or rating Meaning do you put on all your gear at night and then get into a lighter bag? Or do you just always bring the warmest bag possible? I don't bring the warmest bag possible But I also do not put on all my gear to sleep at night I kind of have that in the back of my head is like oh if something really changes in the weather and it gets cold Like I had that option, but I've found that when I wear too many clothes Like I just have a harder time regulating and I end up sort of sweating and then once you sweat You got it, you know, you're gonna get evaporative cooling and you're gonna get colder so I like to You know like I've definitely done like all pair of pants, you know in a base layer for sure or maybe my long johns on the bottom and a base layer up top But I feel like when I get too much over that it just gets too warm in there and I sweat and then that's a bad bad bad gig So in my mind though, I do think about Like in the worst case scenario. Let's just say they're they're calling for you know lows in the upper 20s low 30s But you're like oh, I'm gonna be up on the mountain. So maybe it could drop to 15 one night right like in that scenario Can I survive always ask that question to myself like in the worst case scenario when I'm out there Like can I make it through the night by like I had a big puffy down jacket instead of wearing it I could actually just like lay it over my bag and add some insulation So I more think about it this way where I'll wear I'll bring less clothes Knowing that I have a sleeping bag that if there's like a really cold evening or cold morning I could use that bag wrap it around me do some glassing wrap it around me while I'm preparing food or whatever because it's gonna be probably a very short period of time in the day When it is that cold. So I'm gonna come up. It's gonna warm me up more at night It's like well, you're gonna eat and then you're getting in your bag to go to sleep So you really only have like these short periods when it's gonna be really cold. You kind of have to endure Before you're gonna be finding it. Yep. Yep. Makes sense And then Ryan Ryan Scott Ray wrote in and said how far from a main road did you have to go to find this spot And I there there's a lot of questions similar to this because it did have such a backcountry vibe You know in the week we got the on it like of the the e-scouting question as well Like is there kind of a level where you just know you need to get away from from a main road or is it no no, okay? I don't think so I think it's more about finding a spot where the spots that are overlooked because these days it's like Body of mine like many years ago who's in Colorado. He said it's like he's like everybody that comes here now is like a little mini camhains He's like we were 10 miles in covered up in guys And it's like sometimes that Hurts people because they're like oh the farther I get the better it's gonna be and Sure, there's some truth to that because you are cutting out people The farther you get but it's like How many people does it take to make a place busy, right sure? I mean if there's two or three groups hunting the same basin. It feels real busy So I think it's more about just finding the spots that are like are overlooked And sometimes those can be close to the road. They can be close to town even Because people are just driving by them all the time If there's not easy access, you know, you have to maybe go around some private land to get in there or you got a Paddle of canoe across the reservoir to get in there or there's no trail and so you're like right off the bat You just got to go up some ridge with no trail. I don't know Yeah, so I didn't have to go far from and when they say main road I don't know exactly what they're asking if that's pavement or just something you can drive, but Honestly, I think that that pack out Where we finally killed the buck was it was definitely less than two miles like it it wasn't too too bad Yeah, and so you brought it up, but we had a couple of questions come in and then before you answer up, I'll let Fill play the clip, but a couple of questions came in about you know first spot doesn't work out you go to the second trail head But you just Immediately get off the trail and start bushwhacking it. Mm-hmm. Let's play the clip here Phil Instead of walking up the trail, I decide to cross the creek and bushwhack towards a ridge with no trail Having never been here. I pick the most jungle-like willow thicket in the county to go through Bloody, it's deep. You don't want to just fall in here Half of it Yeah, when I pull planet to just jump the creek the pole like this pointy end stuck between some rocks and it literally pulled it Right out of the upper part of the shaft and never to be seen again This looks like fun That's open 85 yards Talk about some country to get turned around and There's a creek toward left maybe I feel like we crossed that You can tell by my vocabulary. I'm a bit frustrated But maybe this is what it takes to get away from the crowd If it wasn't for Onyx, I'd still be beating the brush Yeah, so I mean it looks like he had to work harder But is that kind of a common strategy of yours where you'll roll into a trail head and just be like Everybody's going this way because that's where the trail goes. I'm going the other way. I mean, you know how it is I mean some trails, you know they zigzag See other term for that Switchback switchback thanks Phil see Phil said he's gonna have nothing to add to the conversation got switched back nailed it That could be a good trivia question actually. Let me hold on folks. I think it's been one really. Yeah, dang it and kind of recently dang it I got I got a host an episode in a week and sorry. No, that's all good. Never know. Um, but Yeah, you never know like The trail's gonna take you to someplace whether it's some ridge and it might be a great ridge to go hunt or a great overlook to go hunt But this just the spot when I was done looking at on X that night. I was like, okay, where I want to go It's like it almost paralleled the trail, but it was up the ridge instead of going up the gut And so eventually when I was on the ridge. I was probably I was glassing across the trail itself Um, but the trail just didn't go up that ridge and I needed to get high so I could glass, right? Um, and I just hadn't scouted it. I mean we I pulled in the night before it was dark And it's like we're almost dark and we just didn't have enough time to really find like where to go exactly When I walked out that evening in dusk, I didn't have to go through that jungle. I literally just went like Hundred yards You know, whatever it was farther west and like went around all that and made a very easy creek crossing and I was out You know, yeah, so Um, yeah, it's like a I don't know if it's like a strategy. I just like pick the spot and to get to that spot That's what I had to go through. Yeah. Yeah, it makes sense Um, and then you know, speaking of of the physicality Uh, you know you at the beginning you said, you know, yeah, I was kind of hard um But but there were a lot of questions about getting prepared for something Like this Can you speak to that in terms of You know, really was this pretty arduous hunt and then, you know, how do you get yourself ready for it, even if you weren't as far back as maybe what it looked like? It certainly looks steep, right? Even just your cross country or your cross canyon to get to that buck after went down. Were you feeling the miles on this one a little bit? Yeah. I didn't have a ton of time to hunt. So I think we ended up killing the buck on like day five. So it's probably not quite long enough to really start getting worn down, too bad. That's definitely a little tired. And you know, a big part of what makes this one more physical is that if you're going to be, you know, sleeping out of your backpack, carrying your shelter, carrying your sleeping bag, carrying your food, all that stuff, you know, it's not much, but it adds, you know, depending on how light your gear is, 10 to 20 pounds to your backpack. And all of a sudden, every step just is a lot harder. So I definitely, I go, I try to go to the gym once, definitely maybe twice a week when I'm in town. And it's called the mountain project. It's in Bozeman and their, their motto sort of like they train the uphill athlete. So people that like to go up and down the mountains around here, whether it's on skis, bikes, their own two feet running, hiking, whatever it is, they have us do things that's going to make, you know, going uphill easier. So there's, it's like every day is leg day in there. I was in there this morning and I did a bunch of squats. I think what else we did, like, I think it was like three different kinds of squats. It was like back squats, sumo squats and so other ones. But like on my legs, you're going to be worn out tomorrow from that workout, but like there's no better feeling when on day three, and this is what I tell people is like everybody has it in them to do it on day one. But doing it on day three and four and five gets harder if you haven't done some kind of training for it. And your training should look like what it's going to be like in the field. Like all of us go out for a hunt that's three days or five days or maybe seven days. So you need to be able to do it one day after another after another after another and not after just one or two days be like, oh my god, I need to take a half day off, right? If you only have five, that's, is that 20% yeah, that's 20% of your, no, one hunt would only be 10% on a five day hunt. Anyway, it's 10% still a lot. You don't want to give it up. Just one afternoon to have a whole day between percent. So yeah, and so like how best to do it? I mean, if it is literally like going to be a, a backcountry mule deer hunt in the mountains, is yes, make every day leg day. Make sure you're, your butt and your, your quads and your calves are strong and make sure that you have some kind of endurance and that doesn't mean that you have to do 20 miles at once, but the kind of endurance that lets you go five days in a row. No prison bots. Yeah, yeah, I don't think you need a prison bod, another, my main elk hunting mentor, Ethan used to always say, uh, legs and lungs, legs and lungs, you know, that's what gets stuff killed in the mountains. And I still believe that, you know, if you have legs and lungs, you're going to be able to get it done. Yeah, and, and so, um, another, uh, person, I don't know, the IVB, little slim, uh, rode in and said, uh, I had the hardwoods for white tail and wonder, what's the difference hunting mule deer out west? Hmm, um, bigger country. Um, and that, that, and if itself, I think makes most of the differences, I mean, we could get into the nuance differences of how mule deer act versus white tail deer act and maybe what they eat. I mean, in a lot of places where we hunt out west, we have both species. The mule deer are usually like down in the riparian areas. I mean, my house is an example of this, like where we, our house sits, like if you look down the hill, you're more likely to see a white tail deer. If you look up the hill, you're more likely to see a mule deer, um, you know, the browse is probably pretty similar, uh, like actually hunting, like hardwoods, it's like, yeah, and the hardwoods that I hunt in Wisconsin, it's like max distance is going to be 200 yards and you don't see those kind of sightlines very often where you can actually see 200 yards, although my little oaks of ant project bucks that trend. Um, but like in the hardwoods, yeah, you're, you're a lot of times trying to kill stuff at 50 yards and under and, uh, mule deer hunting out west, it can happen close range, like you bump something as you're walking somewhere. But again, most people that I know the and hunt like the way I do for mule deer are going to glass something up at, you know, out to a mile and then make a play to get to within rifle range. Um, and, and the, the range is going to be probably dictated and I had to go through this on this on the stock. There was another ridge that would have been a lot faster to get to, but it was going to bump me out to like 600 plus, um, and it actually wasn't as later, you know, looking at it, it wasn't as direct like a, like a look on the hillside that they were on. So I'm glad I went to the other one. But, uh, just like the, that's the, the topography itself dictated how far the shot was going to be, you know, I got as close as I could be without getting on the hill with them, which at that point, you're sort of like going to walk in there and then just hope to get a shot when you jump them, um, and then close as I could get was right there at 400 yards. Um, so shot distances, big difference and, and yeah, there's a lot of way to hunt, a lot of ways to hunt white tells in the hardwoods, you know, whether you're, you know, sitting, flipping around, there is all that. And, you know, you could do that with mule deer too, but most of us feel it's more efficient to glass a lot of country, find, find a deer and then make a move. Um, alright, well, before the next question, Phil, I'll have you play this, uh, this next clip here. The blockbed it, and I got this location marked on X and, uh, I'm trying to make the approach now. If I can get the ridge opposing him, I should be 400 to 500 yards. I have another ridge, that's right between me and the block right now, the shot's going to push it out closer to 600, and I just don't know if I'm comfortable with that. I almost feel like it's worth going up there and check it, a lot of the ridge puts me just over 400. I'm going to go get the closer shot, a little walk, a walk, but, uh, it'll be worth it, plus this ridge is at 600 from the deer, it's awfully big, I just don't know when my shooting lane is going to be, where the other one, I know for a fact, I'll have, it'll be clear for me. Um, yeah, so, so question there, you know, you've been looking for your deer, you find them, uh, when you find your, your target animal, um, and you know, like that, that clock is ticking, how much time do you spend watching behavior bedding them down, getting away of the land versus just, man, we got to cut distance now. Um, well, you can tell from that clip, I was, I was in a hurry, I was in a rush to, uh, to cut the distance and get on them. And I think we had, I say we, 'cause Max was there to, uh, I'd found that buck, it's probably getting on in the morning, you know, I don't know, 839, 930, something like that. And so those deer bedded down pretty soon after we found them. And as soon as that happens, it's like, okay, do you, the best you can to actually mark that spot on the map with on X, right? Figure that out, then figure out, you know, what's going to be the best approach, what's going to be the best place to try to get a shot on them from if they stay there. And then go, um, had they stayed on their feet and kept feeding longer, I probably would have stayed and kept on watching them. The, I mean, there's one, the, there's two clocks ticking. One is the one where they're just going to like walk out of your life, right? They go behind some ridge, you can't see him anymore, they, you know, go up the drainage and leave it. You can't see him anymore. There's the other one where it's like, it's public land. Someone else might be seeing him or someone else is walking down the ridge that they're on. And also, and they bump them like you don't know, um, so it's, uh, you know, it's a, it's a balance, but I definitely don't, uh, you know, I'd rather be laying there at 400 yards getting bored waiting for him to stand up than like, you know, dilly dally my way over there and then get there and they're not there anymore. So I mean, like the less pressure, I can remember Randy Almer telling me, if you don't know, Randy is like, you know, one of the greatest Western bow hunters ever. And he was talking about watching deer and big bulls for days and watching what they do, where they walk, where they sleep, where they're feeding, how they get in between the two areas until he felt like, okay, I know exactly where I'm going to go and that bull and he's an archer. So he's like, I'm going to go right there and that bull is going to walk by me at, you know, less than 50 yards and I'll kill him, right? But, you know, that's, you know, in a scenario where he felt like someone else wasn't going to come in there and bump him out of there. So then when you're cutting the distance like that, you get to the ridge line that you're, you want to be at, obviously you had to do quite a lot of it. Is there a point where you start pacing yourself a little bit, thinking about heart rate and nerves before you kind of crest that ridge or settle behind your gun? For sure. I mean, especially if they're up on their feet or looking like they're going to get up on their feet, I mean, they were bedded the whole time. We made the approach and slipped in there. So I didn't really have to think about that because I had seen at that point, it seemed like I had a lot of time and I could easily just slip in and, you know, my heart rate had already dropped and not thinking about it. But I can tell you just like from recently being on an elk hunt where I was chasing elk around every single day, like I thought about that a lot as I was like getting in there and you're realizing that like, okay, this might happen. I might get a shot, start, you know, controlling your heart rate and either moving slower or just some deep breaths because you're getting anxious and excited about, you know, the proximity of elk and just trying to calm myself down. But for that buck, I didn't really have to think about it because he was just bedded. So we were able to slip into that 400 yards without having to drop the heart rate. Steve Renella here and it is White Tail Week at Me Eaters. That's right. The most anticipated week of the year, White Tail Week at Me Eaters. Both seasons are open, boxer making rubs and all week we're going deep on the most hunted big game animal in America. We're also running the ultimate White Tail giveaway that the sort of the premier part of this package is you win a hunt with Mark Kenney and Jordan Bud at Jordan Bud's family ranch in Nebraska where I have hunted Jordan is cool as hell. Her family's ranch is cool as hell. It is great hunting. You're going to have a blast plus yet gear free gear from over 20 brands. So keep and I have meat eater channels all week and head to the meat eater store to sign up. No purchase necessary. Get all your rules at the meat eater store. All right. This next question comes with another clip that came from IG on why not shoot your gear when it's bedded. Um, but Phil, let's play that. He's behind that tree. He's bedded. Okay. Now he's going to have to wake up and stand up. It took me about two hours to do this talk and then get in here and get all situated. So my rifle's pretty much pointed at it within a few yards. They were all bedded and a few of the bells are standing now. So the name of the game now is just wait. I'm not a huge fan of shooting them bedded. It certainly can be done, but it's harder to tell where exactly the vitals are. I'm just going to sit here. It's trying to stay comfortable. Keep blasting them and hopefully they'll stand up sooner than later. Pretty bug. Um, yeah. Well, two things with that particular deer is like one, he was beheaded, sorry, he was bedded directly behind that tree top. So I would have had to change positions to maybe to even get an angle, you know, to him. And he was bedded in a little bit of that buck brush or tobacco brush. They call it. So I wasn't even really looking at that opportunity because I felt like that stuff kind of might have been in the way, but mostly it's just because like when a deer or an elk or whatever beds down, it's like not only are they sort of compressing their body and their, you know, legs, you know, get into, you know, kind of a funnier position in their shoulders, roll back or forward or depending on how their, their legs are. But it's not like they just go from standing perfectly broadside and they go straight down onto their belly, right? I mean, they might do that, but a lot of times they're sort of canted over a little bit, right? And their belly is shown and so they're more like almost laying partially on their side. And so, yeah, you can still sort of visualize where exactly the bullet's path should be, but it just gets a little bit trickier. And again, in that situation, like, had he been out of 100 yards? I probably would have just shot one right in there, right? Because it's like, there's just less chance of messing something up, right? I can like pinpoint it in there at 100 yards. And like, if you want, you can shoot him in the ear at 100 yards. If 400 yards, it's like, I want as big of a target as possible and like know exactly what I'm shooting at. And the best opportunity for that is going to come when he's standing and broadside. So yeah, that's why I'm not shooting deer while he's bedding. I mean, again, there really was an opportunity on this one, but even if he was like wide out in the open, it just is, I feel like the targets smaller, the angles of the target are more difficult to understand. So yeah, make sense, man. Well, another, there were quite a few questions in general about kind of wind and everything. You might have answered this a little bit off the top, but as you were laying there on that hillside, were you talking to Max at all about, you know, the feeling that there could be a little bit of a wind going cross canyon between you and that deer before shooting, was it? Now, we talked about it a lot. It's just like, it literally felt like it was coming straight on at us. And straight on or straight from us to the deer, you know, you shouldn't get much, you know, left to right deviation. But as we can see, there was some. Yeah, because I guess that's like a one M O A wind, right? 400 yards, it was about four inches, maybe five inches. Yeah. I can't remember much, man. No, it doesn't, you know, I mean, that mule deer is, you know, a little bit bigger than a white tail, not much. So, you know, honestly, they're, you know, they've got like what, probably a 10 inch circle roughly for vitals. And yeah, you can clearly see in the video that both of my shots, I can't remember now, which I think they go right because I think the first shot he's facing left and I hit him a little back and then he turns his face in the other direction. I ended up hitting him in the neck. Yeah, we can actually play that clip now. Maybe a little low, I think it's a hard shot. Yeah, it's, I mean, that's why I had to go and check that zero, man, because then like we had all that, so we had two hours plus to like set up the shooting position. So I was extremely comfortable. We had moved all the rocks out of the way, like everything was just solid as could be. And then to sort of miss like that right a little bit, it was like, what's going on here, you know? And so we had just, we had definitely discussed the wind a bunch, but like every time we're sitting there feeling it, it just felt like it was just coming right at us. And again, it's kind of like, it's tricky because that's a canyon for you, right? And so maybe it was right there at the muzzle, but then, you know, 20 or 30 yards out from that, it was blowing left to right, you know? So yeah, we just, we just couldn't really feel it that it was, it was going to push, push that much left to right. Yeah, it's crazy how much it can move man. And you are one of the more, I'd say this if you weren't here, you're one of the more methodical shooters I've been around to. And I think it just goes to show that those cross canyon shots can be really tricky because so much is happening between you and the animal that just doesn't make make sense sometimes. But buck is down. I mean, the good thing is is that you stayed on scope. You had good follow-up shot. What's going to speaking of that, let's just make another comment on I didn't even think about this for the suppressor. It's like staying on scope, staying on target for follow-up shots, seeing what your shots are doing like 400 yards with that setup with the with the one I'm going to attribute this to the suppressor. But like I was watching my bullets hit him. And man, that is huge intel because what if it was like, you know, what if both of them hit way low? And I'm like, okay, obviously like my dope is wrong, right? Well, if you know they both hit low, it's like, okay, we'll make the adjustment to hit 10 inches higher and shoot again, right? But if your gun is bucking so much that you're losing that sight picture and you don't know where you're hitting, then that's when stuff gets western because you're like, oh my gosh, I've waited all I've put all this, you know, into this. Now I have my opportunity. It's not going my way and you can get rattled really easily. And the next thing you know, you burn up all 10 rounds of ammo that you brought with you and he's still walking around on the hillside. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, it's a debate right now in comp shooting suppressors versus brakes. Because a lot of being able to track your bullet going through the air, right, has to do with whether or not you're reacting to the concussion that a break can cause. So you're talking about recoil management and a break does a little bit better job. But your ability to keep your eyes open and watch that thing go through the air. Man, the suppressor, you can't beat it. And you're not really when you flint, you know, and I don't mean flinch when pulling the trigger when you flinch on recoil, you're not really reacting to the recoil gun. It's a 6 5 PRC, right? I think it's yeah, I think it's more the sound and the concussion and the concussion, right? Yeah. So it's a really good point. I mean, I think that's why my girls are good shooters is because they've never shot a gun that scares them. They've never had a deal with that. Maybe a little bit on like shooting 20 gauge shotgun, but like with rifles. Yeah, there's calm as can be because they're not like they're not scared of the recoil or the bang the concussion or whatever it might be. That's great. So buck is down. What's going through your mind immediately post shot pumped? You know, we were close enough in those mountains to town that and it was early enough in the afternoon where once that buck was down, we started figuring out, you know, what was going to take the hike over to him, butcher him, you know, film all of it and then hike him out that we would probably be able to have pizza and beer, you know, we'd be like pushing it like we're going to come in right at closing time, but more likely instead of eating another rehydrated meal, we're going to be, you know, pizza and beer. So did you? Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah, it's left in a hotel. All right. In a bed with sheets. Which is, you know, I think it's funny because like you always think about you that you really want that, but honestly, like it's a better story and it's in the end, it ends up probably being more fun to go back to camp, eat whatever you got, maybe we had some beers there or not, I don't know, but you make a fire, you celebrate there, and that's honestly probably a better like story to tell later than you're like, well, yeah, we just rushed out of there, made it to a hotel and pizza and beer, you know, because we're also soft, that's that's what we need, you know, but yeah, just like just pumps, you know, when it happens and it all it all comes through, you want to you want to get over there and get your hands on him, and you know, it was, it was early, it was late enough that and it turned out the so that we got to the truck, maybe I don't know, 30 minutes after dark, and I don't know, hiking around on those mountains off trail, it's it's always nicer to do that in the daylight. Yeah, and he was on pretty steep hillside, how long does it take for you to break down a mule deer? You know, you had Max there, was he helping with that process much? Yeah, he helped. Yeah, I was for a bull elk, it's about two hours, you know, so for a mule deer, it's honestly probably not that much faster, yeah, it's smaller, but you sort of still have all the same parts that you have to deal with, so I don't know, 90 minutes to two hours to get him, excuse me, to get him actually in game bags and, you know, in the pack, so yeah, not too bad, you know, and it all takes longer when we're filming. That's that's what really adds time is that you can't rush through it, you know, you got to give the camera operator time to get the shots that they want to give. Sure. Any idea how much your pack weighed once you upload it up? Oh, man, Max helped, you know, pack some meat out too. It wasn't too, too bad. If I just had to throw a number out there, 70, very manageable, you know, like enough that you like feel the strain on your hips a little bit and your knees a little bit, you know, come when you're coming off of a steep hillside, but you know, I packed the track and poles around everywhere, although I only had one that was in working order for that pack out, but yeah, I mean, just enough that you know, like you're carrying a pack and, you know, the hips are gonna hurt a little bit when you get to the bottom, but definitely not a hundred pounds. I think once I get to a hundred, I'm strongly considering like making two 50s versus one 100. I just know too many people that have backs that are going to probably be a problem for the rest of their lives and a lot of it came from and maybe it wasn't packing me. Maybe it was from, you know, shuffling too big and heaviest snow at one time or whatever it was, but like I don't want that problem in my life until I die. Like I want to have a good strong back and so I got no problem going back twice. Yeah, yeah, saving my back. Um, I thought a pretty thoughtful question, Derek, the fancy caveman, um, wrote, uh, can you do a deep dive on putting the food in the dead deer's mouth? Oh, sure. I can't remember exactly where I picked that up. It was definitely at the original elk camp that I guided at in Colorado. I mean, I wish I could remember like who exactly brought that to my attention, but um, I think at the time when I learned about it, I think I was looking for a way to, you know, maybe respect the animal a little bit or like in Europe, a big thing is they, you know, they put, you always see the, the bows of, um, you know, usually it's like a spruce branch or something on the animal. And if you watch the Latvia episodes, you'll see that a lot of it is like to cover up the wound, like there in Europe, at least where I've been in Europe, it's like a sign of disrespect to like take pictures of the wound. Like they want that animal to look, you know, as much as it was when it was alive, not, I mean, not really recreating it being alive, but just like, like that wound is somehow disrespectful to show it. So they cover that up. Um, and again, I don't know where I picked it up from, but it was just sort of like a, hey, if you're like sort of moving on from this world that we're at now and you're going to, you know, we're dead deer go to deer heaven. Like here's a little snack for the road ahead. Um, I think no matter what you do, I think what you, the real thing that you get out of it and that it does for everybody is that it's, it just slows everything down for a second and makes you think about it and whether it um, lets you just look around a little bit and appreciate the country you're in or just say thanks, you know, for the animal for being there or thanks to the, you know, uh, big game biologists that do all the work to have those animals there. Whatever it is, just I, I always, um, I regret it when we kill something and then we rush out of that situation as fast as we can. Someone's like, okay, go get the can am and you're going to chop it up and blah, blah, blah. We'll have pizza and beer and no time, right? It's like, there's no reason to rush out of there. Like enjoy it, you know, like soak it in. You're going to be gone from that place. You may never go back to that same ridge, you know, look around. Um, and I think that that's, now I realize that that's kind of what that does is by just taking a moment to, you know, think about that as it just, it's just kind of, slows everything down a little bit and you get to just get a little bit more, add a little bit more to the experience. That's great. That does it for questions. Anything you'd want to, you want to finalize here? Oh man, get out there and go hunting. That's all. Figure out a way to do it. Yeah, don't let having a bi-expensive gear keep you from doing it and don't let stupid internet keep you from doing it like Instagram. Quit scrolling and figure out a way to buy a pair of boots and a gun so you can get out there and go hunting. That's great. But you got one last clip. Yeah, there's one last clip I think. It's just man, it's a good headspace that I think we should all be in. This is a surprise. I don't know what feels going to play now. I was just thinking about how heavy my pack was starting to feel. Oh, shoulders getting a little sore, hips are feeling it. Still got a couple miles to go to the truck. But then I thought man, how lucky am I and how lucky are we that we get to just do this for fun and we have this opportunity for everybody and enjoy the public lands and these hunt opportunities. All the things to be grateful for when we get to do this. Not just the public lands, you know, your family that lets you go and do this. Employer in my case pays me to go do this and have a great time and the wildlife managers to make sure that we have these abundant populations of game that we get to hunt. There's going to be a lot of people forget to say thank you to but instead of complaining about how heavy the pack feels it's better just to think about how grateful I am that even have the opportunity to have a heavy pack like this. Thanks for watching. We'll see you next time. Slippery. Almost went down hard there. In my old age, Garrett, I'm losing my balance a little bit. Yeah, that's, you know, that is a good head space to be into, you know, always remember how fortunate we all are. I'm trying to bring that around to tell me what you think about this. I've been doing some announcing. I was telling you about the varsity volleyball games here at Boseman High and it seems like for some reason people have quit singing the national anthem instead we just listen to like a recording where we listen to if there's a singer that comes to sing it we listen to them sing it which in some cases I agree in that case maybe it's better just to listen but like I feel like growing up we always sang the national anthem. Yeah, and so and I feel like that it's kind of in the same head space it's like when you sing the national anthem you're like oh yeah that's right like we're all Americans and we're sort of like you're you're you take a second to be like oh yeah even though we all don't always think the same way and things aren't going you know the way we think they should be going or whatever it's like we should still all appreciate you know being Americans and getting to live in this country because it's pretty sweet compared to a lot of other places where you could be in situations you could be in and so I think singing that national anthem is a good way to remind us of all of that and uh same thing there when you're out hunting the hot and sucks and you not seeing them it's like man just just like think about how like it's pretty awesome because again like I can compare it to Europe like they in Latvia at least like they don't have like even even it's probably not even two percent of like sort of the vastness of what we have especially in the Rocky Mountains and I would even say in a lot of places back in the east where they have large tracks and national force where you can literally walk for miles because it's not a thing in Latvia to go walk for miles and uh it's um it's something that we have we should all appreciate and remember you know that it's uh it's a real privilege yeah man it's a good reminder for all of us there there's always something to bitch about right but uh life is pretty good on the side um and you're right we always did sing along to the national anthem for I don't know yeah so I'm trying to bring it back I asked him to sing along when I uh I did I announced a game on Saturday I heard a little bit of it um a lot of people are gonna be coming back because it's gonna be the same parents coming back to see the same you know players and so I'm hoping it's gonna catch on I'm hope because like honestly like I looked at the words beforehand I'm like I know it pretty good but I should like brush up a little bit right because it's a lot easier to sing when you're like very like you know what the words are and um it's easy to forget the lyrics sometimes but do you think you could sing it right now yeah every single word no problem yeah I think so man like but you know I went to a one-room schoolhouse where you know that's how we would start a lot of our day yeah raising the flag and yeah I think you know when I don't sing it now we're way off topic but you know I not all of us have like a singing voice like fill you know and I know I know you might be getting judged by the you know the little ladies staying next to you but that's fine like you we're all there in it together and um you know there's great singers there's bad ones and then there's everybody in between you know and it doesn't really matter how how it sounds I think it's just like you know it's like a show of community sure I'm sure there's a hunting pair a little there yeah well I think it's just about being grateful for what we have yep that's great thank you all for listening and watching if you went to youtube to watch this and uh hopefully you like the video and um yeah I just got done filming an elk hunt that will probably be a long episode of all kinds of action that you'll be able to watch next year um what is that it that's it nothing else from you Phil think we're good to sign off y'all keep it real go hunting it's Steve Renella here and it is white tail weak at meat eater that's right the most anticipated week of the year white tail weak at meat eater both seasons are open boxer making rubs and all weak we're going deep on the most hunted big game animal in america we're also running the ultimate white tail giveaway that the sort of the premier part of this package is you win a hunt with mart canning and jordan bud at jordan bud's family ranch in the braska where I have hunted Jordan is cool as hell her family's ranch is cool as hell it is great hunting you're gonna have a blast plus yet gear free gear from over 20 brands so keep an eye on meat eater channels all week and head to the meat eater store to sign up no purchase necessary get all your rules at the meat eater store This is an iHeart podcast. 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