00:00:08 Speaker 1: This is the Meat Eater Podcast coming at you shirtless, severely bug bitten, and in my case, underwear. Listening to podcast, you can't predict anything. The Meat Eater Podcast is brought to you by First Light. Whether you're checking trail cams, hanging deer stands, or scouting for ELP. First Light has performance apparel to support every hunter in every environment. Check it out at first light dot com. F I R S T L I T E dot com. All Right, Dave Smith this year from DSD. Dave Smith decoys hates doing podcasts. 00:00:44 Speaker 2: I'm glad to be here. I thanks so much for. 00:00:49 Speaker 3: Guy knows a lot about hunting. 00:00:50 Speaker 1: He knows a lot about hunting. 00:00:52 Speaker 4: Yeah, every time I talk to him, I've learned something new that I've never learned in the whatever thirty one almost thirty two years i've. 00:00:59 Speaker 1: Been Yeah, he's an artist. Yeah, an artist, decoy designer, built a great business. Dave Smith Decoy's likes. 00:01:08 Speaker 3: To hunt comfortably. 00:01:09 Speaker 1: Likes to hunt comfortably, self deprecating, funny, well more could you ask? You're already married though? Right? 00:01:15 Speaker 2: Well, I mean, I'm just jealous of all you guys that can actually move around the mountains and everything like that and are physically fit and everything. So I just hunt the way that I have to. And also I've noticed that I'm old. I'm like easily the oldest person in this entire organization. 00:01:34 Speaker 1: Oh yeah, you might have beat Brody. 00:01:37 Speaker 2: Whoever he is, I'd call him a kid. 00:01:40 Speaker 1: How old you? 00:01:41 Speaker 2: I just turned sixty. 00:01:42 Speaker 1: Yeah, you might be the oldest person. 00:01:45 Speaker 2: That's right. So you guys, I expect to be treated as such exactly. 00:01:54 Speaker 1: We also got Jason Phelps joined to remotely. He's gonna tell you with with the Elk bugle coming up, Elk's Heason't coming up, Elk Archie Phelps is going to share with you our esteemed listeners. Three I I asked him three things that people are to keep in mind, and he's going to share three things that people ought to keep in mind. We got a chaster here, Uncle Chastey seth Krin's wearing her headphones today. Mm hmm, fills over in his little corner. Everything's great. We got a couple announcements. Make up top. We are re kicking off playing on his phone, trying to plug stuff. 00:02:39 Speaker 5: Me too. 00:02:39 Speaker 1: Listen, We're re kicking off the auction House of Oddities, which comes and goes, as you know. But holy smokes, the lineup this year? So, uh, when when's it start? Krinn this week? 00:02:53 Speaker 5: Oh it does this week? 00:02:56 Speaker 1: How's that possible? Oh? Yeah, this week? I'm with you. We have I'm holding a couple lels for one of thing I'm not holding. I don't know if Sunday it might wind up on the auctionsvanities? Is we finally after forever? So we bought a punt gun at an antique auction for way more money than I'd care to admit. But the barrel, I'm only holding the action. The barrel takes a couple of people to hold. Yeah, if you watch it on if you're listening on YouTube, you can see what I'm talking about. 00:03:27 Speaker 3: You. 00:03:28 Speaker 1: It takes two people to pick the barrel up. It's a one hundred pound barrel. Yeah, it's seven feet it's seven feet long. 00:03:37 Speaker 5: Is there going to be a raffle for who gets to hold the barrel when we shoot it? 00:03:42 Speaker 1: No, because I think the liability You don't hold the barrel when you shoot. 00:03:45 Speaker 5: Yeah, two people don't hold it. 00:03:48 Speaker 1: The way a punt gun works. You had a little vessel. You had a little boat picture like a little canoe that just basically accommodates the punt gun. It's well, no, it's on a frame and it's on a slide. It's on a frame. You don't move the punt gun, you move the boat. It's on a sliding block filled with bags of sand. Or they would use sea oats to absorb some of the recoil because that boat when you pull the trigger, that boat's going backwards. The shell. I'm holding the shell right now, this shell, so it's a two gage shotgun, but this is the shell is nine inches long. This thing throws over a pound. 00:04:34 Speaker 2: Let made forgetting things. 00:04:39 Speaker 1: And you would go up often at night. You would go up on rafted ducks, aim your boat at them, cock it and pull the rope. So well, you're safe right now. So almost had an accident this morning. So we had to go to an engineering firm to get AMMO made. I'm holding an original casing. It's a two gage shotgun, gauge being inverse like wire and whatnot. They don't sell it as such, but it's basically a two gage shotgun. We went to an engineering. 00:05:21 Speaker 5: Meaning that if you took a pound of lead and split it into two balls, one of the balls will fit. Is that how it goes? 00:05:28 Speaker 2: Yeah? 00:05:29 Speaker 1: Well the way yeah, I shouldn't say yeah. So what we did is, yes, gauge traditionally comes from A twelve gage shotgun means twelve It takes twelve leads spheres that diameter to comprise a pound. A twenty gage shotgun takes twenty lead spheres that diameter to comprise a pound. A four to ten is obviously a measurement four tenths of what does it hold true for the two gauge? So this is just extra affilated up on board diameter. But I haven't correlated it to lead spheres. But I'm assuming, I'm assuming, so they didn't sell them as such. But yeah, and it also the other thing about it is the casing is I'll do that. I'll make a lead sphere with my micrometer. Perhaps we sent it to an engineering firm and they made us a partial shell with a primer. And I needed to test the punt gun. So I have here, I'm cocking it. You can hear that's the cocking. Here's the rope pull. Now when you hit it on your finger, you could feel the firing pin. But we didn't. We wanted to make sure before we went through all this hassle, we wanted to make sure that the mechanism was still good in it. So these guys loaded up a primed practice shell today in demonstrating how a shotgun shell normally worked, I wasn't really thinking clear. First off, I cut the shit I'll open, poured the shot off, pulled the wad out, dumped the powder out on my work bench, and I wanted to knock the primer out of there, but I had it upside down and I was trying to push out and couldn't get it. So I eventually took a Phillip screwdriver and put it through the shell against the primer and was trying to push it out, but wouldn't come. So I picked up a pair of bullnose plyers travers plyers and whapped the end of that thing going the wrong direction, but it's still activated. That summer bitch scared the ship out of me that primer off with all that powder land there. Man, Oh my god, man, I could have hurt my eyeballs. That would have been the thing is. It would have really hurt your eyeballs because it was right in my face. It's probably and that was even the moment I took At the moment I took those bullnose plyers and was kind of coming down on that handle that screwdriver. I was second, does it work in reverse? That powder was like what eighteen inches away? But it could have just as well. I would not have done anything different if that powder was like right in a pile below. 00:08:12 Speaker 5: The But you think that it would have been the flash that would hurt your eyes or just a debris. 00:08:18 Speaker 1: Can we just a oh yeah, just a debris from that primer hurt my eyes. Yeah, it was loud. That Spencer's like I need some hearing protection. Yeah, you need some eye protection. So we screwed it in. You see it like this thing, So this punt gun action threads in right the like you know, you'd kill twenty ducks with a shot with this thing, and a good that'd be good. I we have a whole book. We have a book called The Outlaw Gunner. It's about punt gunners. And he was like, people get the wrong idea. Twenty is a good pole, nine is a good poll. It's people weren't killing whole flocks of ducks with a single shot from a punt gun. But mile Man, who was old when he had me. Mile Man remembers seeing punt gunners, legal punk gunners that had three punk guns stacked one off the water. Then you pull the next rope and it hits them as they're get taken flight, and the third shot hits them a little higher. He said, they had three of them stacked at different angles. I don't know where the hell he was when he saw that. 00:09:17 Speaker 6: How wide does the spread? 00:09:19 Speaker 1: I don't know yet. So you remember Gallagher, the comedian Gallagher? Okay, wow, I'm out. Do you know about Gallagher? 00:09:30 Speaker 5: What about you? 00:09:30 Speaker 2: Two? 00:09:32 Speaker 5: Too young for Gallagher? I know Gallaer's young. 00:09:37 Speaker 4: Striped shirt and the. 00:09:44 Speaker 1: Husky. Remember when you were a kid and if the word husky if you were like a chunky kid pants pants, Yeah, you like and it met It was meant for like kind of chunky kids. 00:09:55 Speaker 4: I remember my mom brought me home a pair of husky pants one time by accidentally, and I thought she was saying I was like fat. 00:10:02 Speaker 1: Kind of tore me up a bit. But so Gallagher there is Gallagher. Imagine weird al if he was husky and bald but still had all the long hair, so like it's the kind of long hair, and it's kind of a sweet look when you go bald on top of you grow real long that little half moon toilet seat deal, but you grow that out long. But I'm gonna do it and slick it back. 00:10:30 Speaker 3: Man. 00:10:34 Speaker 1: Anyways, Gallagher had two Gallagher had two groups. He had two lines of comedy and they were very different, but he'd combine them into one set. One of his things was how ridiculous in the English language was, so he get a lot of mileage. How could there be like there th h e r e, you know, but then there's there th h e i r And he got tremendo amount of mileage out of the idiosyncrasies of the English language how things spell. And then he started to lose people or whatever, and he'd get out in huge sledgehammer and fruit and he would proceed to smash fruit with a sledgehammer. And people in the know would buy tickets to Gallagher and they would wear raincoats and get viscueen and whatnot to protect themselves. And Gallagher would set up a watermelon or whatever and hit it with a hammer, point being that's what this punt gun is for. 00:11:37 Speaker 2: So when you were saying you were asking me if I knew of Gallagher. I was just sitting there thinking, like the first thing that came to my mind was that dumb comedian. And I was sitting there trying to well, that can't be it, Like, who's this person knows all about waterfowl lore? You know, I'm trying to think, who's Gallagher? Who's Gallagher? 00:11:52 Speaker 6: You know? 00:11:53 Speaker 1: We want to shoot stuff like watermelons and whatnot with this punk gun. 00:11:59 Speaker 2: There you go. 00:11:59 Speaker 1: But one of the things I want to do is just put out a couple of sheets of plywood at fifty sixty yards whatever and see what kind of pattern you get out of those. 00:12:07 Speaker 4: We can put out a whole flock of Dave Smith Decoy's. 00:12:10 Speaker 1: Well, I'm going to round up I'm going to round up people that have old faded out like I have some in my collection. I have some old faded out, you knows. I get old flambos or like they like they paint the beak and the wrong spot on them and whatnot. Get some of those and line them out and maybe shoot at them. When we do want to put a pound of let out into a pond, is the problem? 00:12:35 Speaker 5: Yeah, when we do that, we should paint the decoys in such a way that the shot would really read well. 00:12:42 Speaker 1: Or fill them with that stuff that people fill decoy targets with nowadays. 00:12:49 Speaker 2: Then you know with the ones that blow up, you know that they got hit. 00:12:52 Speaker 1: Yeah, we'll figure it out. 00:12:54 Speaker 2: I know the perfect guy that you got to talk to Worth Matthewson. 00:12:57 Speaker 1: Is he a punt gun man? 00:12:58 Speaker 2: Well, he knows all about him, and he does. He still hunts with an eight age. It goes to Scotland every year and hunts. And he's he's a heck of a great guy and just a water fell and mentor of mine. And he's been around a long time. 00:13:12 Speaker 1: So really and he knows about he'd be able to share with us some info about punt. 00:13:15 Speaker 2: Gun absolutely punk gun. He he might. I'll check with him, I'll send it, I'll call him up. He might. He talks about him all the time. 00:13:25 Speaker 1: You see how this is it Holland and Holland h and h punk uh huh. And the barrel you couldn't see it. I mean, the the this part's beautiful, it's very ornate, it's all inscribed, but the barrel just looks like a cannon off of warship and someone had painted a gunship gray and I drembled off the I drembled off some of the paint. You can see the old address that London street, the address for H and H in London. It's cool man, but that's that. Well, I talk about auction House of Oddities. That's not in it. But sorry, if you got your hopes, yeah, you got your hopes up well, point being, it might someday be there Auction House of Adities. This year you could do an opening weekend deer hunt at Doug Dirt at the Duran family farm. Or you can go on a turkey hunt at the Durham family farm and get a tour of the Duran family farm. And when you're there, ask Doug if you will take you to the spring House and depending on your age, ask for the spring House story. 00:14:31 Speaker 3: M hmmm. Is that the odd part about it? 00:14:35 Speaker 1: Because I'll make a house of odd Yeah, Doug's a odd guy. Okay, He'll probably take you down to get kurds. 00:14:42 Speaker 5: Yeah, you'll definitely go for a over the Carr. 00:14:44 Speaker 7: Valley you'll take You'll take Duran Road and Doug will drive around real slow and tell you like stories about murdering mayhem and cousins and who owned what and what that guy this and that right and that tree one time, and you know one time he urinated all over the top of that stop sign, but his friend tried to do the same and shat his. 00:15:12 Speaker 3: Pants, Like, I don't know, that's pretty odd. 00:15:16 Speaker 1: And then you'll get to do You'll get to do a hunt on the Durham farm where we filmed hunts and have done hunts, and I take my kids there every year for spring turkey or a deer hunt in the Durham farmers for three hundreds. So that's in the auction house of Hoonities. You you bid, win the package, and then pick what you want and you get a tour of the Durham family farm. The oddity part, I don't know. 00:15:40 Speaker 3: It's what you just said, Oh that spring house. 00:15:43 Speaker 1: Go to the spring House and depending on age and everything, Doug might tell you the spring house tail. 00:15:49 Speaker 3: I don't think i've heard that one. 00:15:51 Speaker 1: Well I have not, kids have not. Maybe you should have bid on that chester a handmade log home from Naughty log Homes. Real, really, I'm not kidding you. Twelve by twenty trappers cabin they're donating they have donated to our Land Access Initiative. A log home, a twelve by twenty two hundred and forty foot square trappers cabin, four foot overhang off the front, shipped anywhere? 00:16:17 Speaker 4: Wow, what do you mean anywhere when you auction? 00:16:22 Speaker 1: When you buy it at auction, you'll have to pay to have it shipped. Oh, but they're in Idaho. 00:16:28 Speaker 2: Say I could use one of those up at the shack. 00:16:31 Speaker 1: Better dig Yeah, factor that in better dig D. 00:16:35 Speaker 5: I think you're meant to say, because I need one of those in Wisconsin. 00:16:37 Speaker 1: You need to talk to someone with a Chinook helicopter. Yeah, and get it dropped in where you want it. Twelve by twenty. I wish I had that damn thing. Yeah, a lot of art so people might have seen can we can we put? We don't have? I wish I had this in here from Jamie Wild Art. She did the commission to painting of mine of the wolves disemboweling device and eating it alive. She also does a lot of canine art. So we have a print of my commission to painting, which hangs just outside our studio door, of the wolves eating a bison alive while still staying there and disemboweling it, a print of that that Jamie and I will both sign, and then a piece of custom work from Jamie. We have custom artwork from Kelsey Morris, Seth Morris's wife, Kelsey Morris of Studio Gallery. What's it called? Yeah, the Studio Studio Gallery and three Forks Montana. Dinner for four at my house. That's an auction item. You three friends come to my house and we will serve you many courses of phenomenal food at my house. Yannie's going to join in, I believe, I don't know if he knows it yet, there to serve. 00:17:59 Speaker 5: This is separate from a big giveaway dinner at your different dinner. 00:18:02 Speaker 2: Is there. 00:18:05 Speaker 1: That one? Yeah, if you want it to be vegan, I'll make it vegan. If you win the auction, that you win the auction, it's up to you. No, we have another giveaway dinner that we're doing here at the office. This is a dinner at my house. You and three friends come to my house. I will cook you dinner. Yani will be there to help serve. We'll get a whole bunch of our crew down there to help with the meal. A fob Harness an f O b f HF harness called the Fur Trappers Edition, where we're gonna Paul Lewis from f HF is going to face one of his fob inyl harnesses in furs that I caught sweet. If you want it done and mink, will do it in mink. If you want don Martin, will do it in Martin. If you want done in Beaver, will do it in Beaver. So you get a fur fob harness one of a kind that's up for auction. The elk Bugle tube that Phelps used on the hunt where he and I hunted in New Mexico signed scrolling down. I'm holding right now. If you're watching, you can see this. I'm holding an arrow that says Ted Nugent ninety one. Now check this out. I gotta put my spectacles on, gearing up ready. We had a while ago, long time ago, Uncle Teddy Teddy Nuggets, as Cal calls him. We called him Uncle Ted growing up. We had him on the show and he talked about doing a show and rock. He talked about doing a show in northern Michigan where he missed a target. A guy wrote it in and said, I had to be working backstage security for that concert up at the Castle in Charlolavoyle, Charlavoy. After the shot and subsequent missed, Ted's assistant came back and set Ted's bow and arrow down on a table that was just backstage. Long story short, they asked the security guy to keep an eye on the bow until they come back and retrieve it after the show. Just left it on a table, Bye and bye. Here comes the guy that comes and grabs the bow and goes to walk off with it. Teds like, or the guy the scary guys like, tell you doing? He goes, they told me to grab the bow. He said, no, no, no, no U. Someone told me to wash the bow till Ted comes gets it. You ain't him. I'm holding the bow. Another guy comes up and says, what's going on? He said. This guy says he's supposed to pick up the bow? Why not being the guy who was trying to steal the boat. Now the arrow that Ted had missed with was broken. When Ted found out that the guy saved his bow from getting stolen, he said, let me know if there's ever anything I can do for you. The guy said, yeah, you could. I would like to have that arrow. Uncle Ted then signed the arrow. We have the full in art. This is called the provenance. The provenance, we have the provenence of the arrow. I then emailed Uncle Ted and said, check this story out. His reply was, damn cool. Huh, this will be in the auction House of Audities a lunum shaft Ted Nugent ninety one. That's cool checks out. And the one freaking story. 00:21:18 Speaker 5: You might have already said this, but he missed the target? Is that the one where he missed a target and then he decided to get down on his hands and knees. 00:21:24 Speaker 1: And no I shared that story with him. That was at a whiplash bash. He missed a target and then got down on his knees and he missed the target of a white buffalo before doing great white buffalo got down on his knees and bowed before the white buffalo target. Me and my late friend Eric Kern. We didn't catch that one. But me and my late friend Eric Kern went to the whiplash bash and Uncle Ted threw out jerky and me and Eric picked up some jerky off florin ate it. 00:21:56 Speaker 3: Rock and roll Nice Times has some rock and roll right there. 00:22:01 Speaker 1: That's in the auction House of aodities, my personal weather be Mark five chambered and three hundred win mag Left Handed, which we fillmed a bunch of media episodes is in the Auction House of Oddities. And also if you've if you watched the show, you've seen a hundred times the singer a moose gets up and charges me, and I go something like that that gun. Now, if you watch that episode, you'll see that the gun appears to misfire. So a lot of people have asked about the misfire. It didn't. I shot at the moose that ran off, and I changed. I immediately instinctively chambered around, ran after the moose and forgot that I had chambered the round because I had hit in the brisket and it went down and got up, and I knew it was probably not mortally wounded, so it wasn't like, oh well, wait, let him run off and die. So I ran after him to try to get another one in him the minute I started running. Later, reviewing the footage, the minute I started running, I rechambered, so I had three in the I had three in the magazine, none in the chamber, chambered shot the bowl, two shots left spit the empty out, put a live in started running forgot spit the live out. Put live in shot at the moose again as it ran through the brush, chambered again. Now I'm empty. I walk up to the moos to dispatch it and click. So people are like, oh, gun miss fired. The gun didn't miss fire. That gun's fine. I still own it today. It is a Carolina custom rifle chambered in three hundred short. Make that gun from that moose charge and those episodes will be in the auction house of Aodities. 00:23:36 Speaker 2: I have a quick question. You just said, you just referred to that moose as charging, Like I just watched an episode not too long ago of a six hundred pound grizzly bear running at you and cal as fast as American run and you called it false charging, And I'm just kind of curious what does charging look like? 00:23:57 Speaker 1: And if he made contact with me? 00:23:58 Speaker 4: Okay? 00:23:59 Speaker 2: So I was like, it was like you come home, you know, from somewhere, and your your truck is riddled and bullets and stuff, and what do you say to your wife, like, oh, I got false shot at Like none of the bullets actually hit me, So I got false shot at like, yeah. 00:24:15 Speaker 1: Krin, I'm holding up another item from the auction as about it. These come from these are from some a pair. 00:24:21 Speaker 6: Of Steve caught Martin's is past year. 00:24:24 Speaker 1: Had a hat made for my wife. We had the tails left over. Wow, Krina is fashioned. He's into gorgeous earrings. Yeah, describing Grin. 00:24:33 Speaker 6: So there Herkimer quartz diamonds from a podcast listener, Herkimer her herk diamonds and uh the mink this oops, pardoned me the Martin tails from Steve's Martin's and then a sterling silver wire wrap. So it's all sterling silver stone. 00:25:02 Speaker 5: I did, but I think it might have closed up. 00:25:07 Speaker 6: This is this is like an adorning costume for the Latvian eagle. Martin tails. 00:25:17 Speaker 5: So sweet. 00:25:20 Speaker 1: So the Auction House of Oodities back better than ever. All of the money raised in the Auction House of Oodities goes to our own land access initiative. With the land access initiative, we've done so we contributed on a land access a public land purchase in Maine. We participated on a public land access purchase in northwest Montana cala Is, eyeballing one along the Yellowstone River right now. And plus we will use some of the items. Another item I should throw this in. You know the Missouri corner crossers. This is kind of freshest morning. Yeah, the famous Missouri corner crossers. They have donated their ladder. So you can buy a piece of American history at the media or auctional sdvice. You can buy the device that has now been covered by every news agency on the planet, still working its way through the courts. You can buy the ladder used in the Wyoming corner crossing case. The stipulation there is the revenue from that, and this is part of land access. The revenue for that will go in illegal defense fund, which has been mighty successful thus far, a legal defense fund for the corner crossers who have been putting a Regardless of how you feel about whether corner crossing should be legal or not, these guys have been placed in an extremely unfortunate position after getting very mixed signals from multiple law enforcement and land management agencies, and they are at this point they have come victims of a system that is whacked. 00:27:05 Speaker 6: And there's many more items than that, many more items. 00:27:09 Speaker 2: I have something I could donate, but it's really there's nothing compared to those things. But I just thought of something. I have an owl coughing and one of the and there's an exposed bone and it has a leg band on it. 00:27:25 Speaker 6: That taxidermy coughing. 00:27:29 Speaker 2: Yeah, out pellet. So it ate a bird that was banded and it coughed up all the feathers and bones, and right on the outside of all of. 00:27:38 Speaker 5: It is let me get it clear, for an owl pellet, is is a coughing. So an owl eats. 00:27:53 Speaker 1: In our in our book Catching Crayfish Count the Stars, we have a thing about We have an instructional about how to dissolve and dissemble owl pellets in order to see what all they've been up to. So when owl will eat its food whole and then digest food and regurgitates the bones in these little balls. And you'll look at these little balls and like a standard thing to see in these little balls is mouse jaws. They stand out real good mouse molers. 00:28:22 Speaker 5: But you'll answer my question, is another word for an owl pellet and owl coughing? 00:28:27 Speaker 1: I've never heard him. I never heard that word. 00:28:29 Speaker 2: So the reason why that we've used that term before us a lot of people know that it's it's that they're not pooping. It it's not. 00:28:39 Speaker 1: Because they might think it's gross. 00:28:40 Speaker 2: If you shat it out, it wouldn't be quiet, as the auction value would definitely go down, will shift. It wasn't Yeah, if it was a piece of owl shit. 00:28:49 Speaker 1: Man, We've had some see we've had some auction House of Oddities donations that we've had lawyers prevent us from selling. This is one of those things. 00:28:58 Speaker 3: It's like me showing up at his house with Luke Comb's guitar and like playing him a song on one of them that they. 00:29:04 Speaker 1: Next, Yeah, that brought up liability problems. You could be lured into his sorted, some kind of sorted. 00:29:15 Speaker 3: Put the lotion on the skin. 00:29:17 Speaker 1: Yeah, it was gonna be we had one of those. Chester is gonna show up like you could have them. He'll wear whatever you want, right down to right down to his his thong. 00:29:26 Speaker 3: Said that I never agreed to that, even. 00:29:30 Speaker 1: Like I'm on there at midnight. The thong. 00:29:35 Speaker 4: One got nixed with Spencer and I getting tattooed. 00:29:38 Speaker 1: Oh yeah, that got mixed. You were gonna be able to pick whatever tattoo you wanted on Seth and Spencer. That got mixed. A lot of things get mixed, so he just gets better, just like do you remember when I was a little boy, they would do a fundraiser. Jerry Lewis, the actor Jerry Lewis would do fundraiser for ms. Remember Jerry's kids. He would do a fundraiser and he would do it for forty eight hours, just get delirious at the end. I feel like that right now. You can't even tell what he's saying at the end of it was a whole part of the event that he would stay up that long. 00:30:13 Speaker 2: Wow. 00:30:13 Speaker 1: But this is like that because it just keeps getting better and better. Dave Smith has now donated and I will pell it with a banded bird foot sticking out of it. Did you lacker it to hold it together? Is it pretty good? 00:30:25 Speaker 5: No? 00:30:25 Speaker 2: It's it holds together really well. It's just in a little plexa glass case. I might have to come up with a more decorative case or something to put it in. But it's just sitting, you know, it's just sitting at my house. It's it'll be there till the next glacial period if I don't do something, you know, with it. 00:30:42 Speaker 3: So do you know what kind of bird it is? 00:30:45 Speaker 1: Yeah? 00:30:45 Speaker 2: I think it was a pigeon. 00:30:47 Speaker 3: Pigeon. 00:30:47 Speaker 1: Yeah, oh yeah, that makes sense, all right. The auction's about it. He's coming soon, better than ever. All the money goes to land Access your initiative. We will be using the funds primarily for land access purchases, enhancing and improving public access. One other little money thing. This is kind of a convoluted story. There's these animal rights activists that in Nevada the target bear biologists. Oddly, they target Nevada state agency bear biologists. One of these animal rights activists actually had a restraining order against her for harassing and targeting a female biologist with a Nevada State wildlife agency. 00:31:41 Speaker 5: There are Facebook pages to give a little more context around them. Says that this page is dedicated to monitoring and publicizing the actions Nevada Department of Wildlife and the why is it cut off? Sorry, I guess they just fail to write a full sentence, but gives you an idea. They're like they're watching everybody animals there. 00:32:11 Speaker 1: At a state agency at bear biologists could be engaged in a ton of different things. They could be doing and monitoring. They could be doing disease research, they could be doing population demographics distribution. But inevitably they're going to get rolled into dealing with problem bears as well, and oftentimes in states that have really high black bear populations. I'm not even saying this is going on here. I'm just clarifying for people in states that have really high black bear populations, it is so expensive in all times, oftentimes futile to relocate black bears. Oftentimes problem black bears will get euthanized because you could spend you could send someone on an eight hour drive in some direction to drop off the bear, but the once the bear is habituated and tuned into human food sources, there's nowhere you're going to put it where you're taking it out of action. It's also very expensive, consumes tons of time. You have very stable bear populations, so a lot of times someone has to make the calm the bears get euthanized. Okay, it's not work that anybody likes to do, but a bear biologist can get They're doing a lot of stuff to help enhance improve bear populations. They're also sometimes involved in lethal control. I'm not even that sits outside of what I'm talking about now, but this guy, Carl Lackey, So these guys start this Facebook page and targeting this individual, Carl Lackey. He sues him for defamation. The animal rights activists spend one hundred and fifty grand defending themselves on free speech grounds, okay, meaning that they host a Facebook page and people are making threatening remarks on this page, but ultimately, because of free speech issues, they can't be held responsible for what other people are saying. I'm not weighing in on, you know, I'm a free speech advocate. I'm not weighing in on that it was a right decision, wrong decision. What I'm weighing in on is that here you have a state bare biologist doing his job, okay, getting threatened and harassed by animal rights activists. And the long and short of it is they won their free speech case. Okay, they won it, that's fine, But now this biologist is personally liable for the one hundred and fifty k that has been found liable for the one hundred and fifty k that the people he was suing for defamation and harassment had to spend in their legal bills. Does it GoFundMe for the guy? If you can help out, he needs to make up this one hundred and fifty grand that he owes these people and again not weighing like I understand a platform isn't responsible for comments to get posted on their platform. Okay, who cares so much to help this guy out in his line of work and trying to defend him and his family from online harassment has incurred a massive bill. 00:35:04 Speaker 3: Yeah that's that's shitty. 00:35:06 Speaker 1: Yeah, that's right, and doing state wildlife work, Yeah, doing your job. It's insane that he's just supposed to suck it up and have these people start like trying to broadcast as whereabouts his image calling on people to do acts against him. 00:35:21 Speaker 3: I wonder if people like that feel good about themselves after giving this dude threats or whatever they did, and then making them pay him, you know, back one hundred and fifty thousand dollars. I wonder if they're like, yes. 00:35:38 Speaker 1: Yeah, probably because they've already arrived at some kind of mental calculus that an individual bear's life is more valuable than an individual human's life, or an individual not even that, and that a bear, the individual bears life is more valuable than the life of a public servant working on behalf of wildlife. So yeah, I imagine they've gotten their mentally, the o fund me is uh www dot go fund me, dot com. Here's where it gets complicated, sorry, dot com, slash f slash, Carl dash, lackey dash, bear dash, biologists type some. 00:36:17 Speaker 6: Version of that, go fund me and google his name. 00:36:22 Speaker 1: Yeah. 00:36:22 Speaker 2: Well, and one thing we got to remember is we need good people in the world to become biologists. And you know, this will de incentivize people to become biologists who would want to become a biologist. It'll be the situation we are with politicians, like, oh, the good people of the world don't want to be politicians. We need good biologists. 00:36:41 Speaker 1: Oh yeah, and have yeah, and and uh, you know, in our neighborhood right now, we're dealing with a bear that is really pushing people's tolerance. Like our whole neighborhood. We've got this whole tax exchange going and he's now in people's garages, you know, and like the bear is pushing people's tolerance. And at a point that bear is gonna wind up not alive. If someone from the state agency needs to come out and trap that bear. It's not like they're like, yippie, I get to go, you know, I mean, it's just like they're like they've tried with this bear. They have tried their hardest to button up the situation and make the bear not a problem. They've at this point, they've got months into the into trying to help people help this bear by stop the cause. But at a point, probably maybe the way it's looking, something's gonna need something's gonna happen. And the fact that that person would become like an online target because they get sent out to do a thing a public safety issue, it's ridiculous. But again I'm not speaking to the particulars of why this guy got targeted. Go ahead and read up on that on your own. I'm just pointing out the complex and he's a whole thing. 00:38:01 Speaker 8: Phelps you ready, Yeah, yep, Okay. So I was asked to come on talk about since September's right around the corner Archie, ELK kind of consumes September, at least in my life. So we're gonna talk about ELK bugles and kind of what they are, when to use them, and what I think about when we're trying to make those. So the first up is location bugles. This is a call when we're out in the woods. We're gonna use that ninety percent of the time while we're hunting and we're just looking to get a response from another bowl. I like to think of it as kind of that that game of Marco Polo. Right, I'm going to make a sound, It's it's non threatening. I'm just trying to get a response. So after my morning lasting session throughout the day, as I'm walking ridgelines trails, when i get to a new spot that I feel bul can hear me, I'll bugle. 00:38:56 Speaker 1: I in my. 00:38:56 Speaker 8: Opinion, it can't do much harm. And a lot of times people say you bogle too much, and and a lot of times I'll get six to eight hundred yards away when I was just two or three hundred yards away from a bull, and I'll finally get him to respond. So there's sometimes not any rhyme or reason when a bull here is here whin he'll elect to respond? And so what is a location bugle? And do the people that say you call too much? Do they kill more bulls than you? 00:39:24 Speaker 6: Not? 00:39:24 Speaker 8: Usually I don't want to. I don't want to be that guy. But you try not to not to talk about that, And like there are times, there are times where you don't bigle a lot, but that's kind of our our go to so a location bugle, and some people we've in my opinion, we've coined terms that that we use to describe and Elk's vocals, you know, and so location bugle might be one thing here. This is kind of what we call it. So it's a a two to three note high pitched bugle that you're just trying to elicit that response. And so being high pitched, we're gonna apply a little bit of pressure if you're using a diaphragm, if you're using like our Easy Bugler system, you're gonna start with more pressure than you would on say a challenge bugle or a moan or you know, a deeper tone, and you're gonna just kind of blow into it very shortly two to three seconds. I want to be able to listen. A lot of times a bull is very quick to respond or and you may not hear it, you may not be able to tell what direction is, or you may miss it all together. So, in my opinion, a two to three note high pitched bugle lasting three seconds maximum. It's a clean bugle, non threatening. You don't add any groul, you don't add any resonance into it's just a high note looking to get a response. And you know you're doing a location bugle right when the volume and the tone and the resonance kind of rings your own ears, you don't. You know a lot of guys are like, I'm not getting as many responses. I like to be as loud as possible. I want that bugle to reach as many elk as possible, high pitched and short. And that's really the extent of it. And as much out calling as we do, and all these different types of bugles, grunch chuckles, challenge vehicles, you know, all the cow calling. I would say that once again, ninety percent of the time. This is the call I do all year long until we locate able. You want to rip one out for us, yeah, I'll turn away from the mic so I don't blow it out. 00:41:19 Speaker 9: But this is where our location beagle sounds like, tell us what you're using. 00:41:25 Speaker 1: This? That was a bad Uh. 00:41:27 Speaker 8: This is actually a new call that we're we're bringing out in twenty three, So it's going to be in a in our freedom pack. So I'll just I'll leave it there. But I had it sitting on my desk, so it's a brand new it's it's our amp diaphragm. It'd be really similar to like the Maverick in our lineup. 00:41:40 Speaker 1: And then you got what in your hand. 00:41:43 Speaker 9: So this is our metal Beagle tube. It's the one I've been using the last couple of years. 00:41:47 Speaker 8: We do have our new unleashed V tube, but this one had a cover on it and I didn't have to run downstairs and grab one. 00:41:53 Speaker 1: That's a well thought. 00:41:55 Speaker 8: Yeah, as you can tell, I'm a little I was a little bit lazy. 00:41:58 Speaker 9: I had a diaphragm on my desk and I had a tube on my. 00:42:00 Speaker 8: Dead nice and quick, just yep, just real quick. There were times like I've got examples like in the Bob Marshall and in some places where I would get a response like I couldn't figure out how the bull could hear me that quick decide to make a call and then end it almost at the same time I was. And there's there's lots of examples where if I hadn't have been like a short bugle, I would have missed it all together. 00:42:29 Speaker 1: Yeah, I think it's a similar, dude, just trying to locate turkeys where you want something so fast and abrupt that you can go from making the noise to listening mode real quick. 00:42:39 Speaker 8: Yep, yep, missing it all together or a lot of times, and I talk about this a lot of like not buggling too much at them. There are times where if I can't tell the direction off of that first bigle, I'm like, dang it, now I got to call again, you know, so I know which direction to go or get the wind right. So I really want to try to get as much information out of that first bigle, like it back as I can without screwing it all up. 00:43:04 Speaker 1: So that's the next thing to keep mine. Yep. Yeah. 00:43:08 Speaker 9: And then this next bugle, which actually challenge. 00:43:10 Speaker 5: Ask a quick question, Jason, what do you hear uh bull elk doing location bugles? 00:43:19 Speaker 8: Yeah, yeah, if you if you go out in the morning, don't make a peep and you're in a good spot with you know, the bowl of Cali ratio is high, or there's multiple herds that have joined into you know, an overnight feed zone or whatever it is. You know, we kind of call them those little bit of retfests. They may be challenged back and forth, but you will have bulls just locating. We've been in and It usually happens at better units just because you're getting more action. But we've heard bulls like running up and down ridgelines obviously just looking for cows. When we've called them in. It's been probably your semi mature bulls, not quite big enough to have a heard, but but definitely you know, five and a half years or older, and they'll just run around looking for cows, locate bugleing, and they're very very talkative, and they locate a lot and so that that's really kind of what I relate that to, is well, real elker out there doing the same thing we've heard him do it. We've we've been across the canyon and literally heard a bull walk up a ridge or out a ridge line and beagle its way down. I'm just trying to pick up cows. 00:44:13 Speaker 5: You feel like he's listening for bulls to respond or cows to respond. 00:44:18 Speaker 8: So cows to respond or cows to come to him. Like a lot of times when I've been able to observe like an openings or across the canyon. You know, the way that that nature works is that buwll of bugle and then any cow that's looking, you know, because the cow will choose the bull that she wants to reproduce with. That cow will just walk to that bowl and go check him out and see if he's you know, if he's the one so so in nature, that's how it's working. That bowl is running up and down ridges or outridges, and those cows are going towards him. 00:44:48 Speaker 1: Thank you. Yep. 00:44:51 Speaker 8: So this next bugle, once we've located a bowl, now we're going to go into challenge beagles. And this is where it gets a little bit fuzzy on like what people consider a challenge bugle. You there's screams, there's you know, there's chuckles, there's bark, screams, there's all of this stuff. Elk will do to kind of show aggression. But what I look at in the challenge bugles, when I get in close, I've got the wind right I have. You have to get within that that threat zone. Especially if you're hunting herd bulls a satellite bowl, you've got a little more leniency on how close you have to get. But if you're gonna steal a bull or get him to peel away from his cows, you have to get close. So we're talking getting in within a hundred you know, even closer if possible, wherever the train and the and the vegetation allows. But then we're gonna switch the challenge, Bugles. And and when I switch to a challenge, Bugle. 00:45:36 Speaker 1: Just I want to comment, have time I spent hunting with you? Is your location? Bugles. I don't want to say you're flipping about them, but you're just kind of looking for a good spot where you can hear, you know, maybe see you around a little bit and do them. But when you go into the mode of preparing to do that challenge, Bule, Bugle, you do not take that lightly. No, No, I mean you are like extremely thoughtful about the wind, where you're gonna want to be, the topography probably where exactly is that thing? How might it approach? Yeah? What shot? What shot avenues do you have? How are you going to be how are you going to move to cover or utilize cover like plan B I mean you are doing a lot of chess by that point. Yeah. 00:46:29 Speaker 8: I mean to you know something that everybody's maybe seen our season ten episode in New Mexico. Both are bulls. We got very very tight. We kind of pushed into a spot on yours where we couldn't shoot, but we needed to be that tight and we kind of readjusted, you know, my bawl. We locate him and then we really would we walk for an hour without making a peep, like we put a spot on on X. We went all the way around him to get the wind right and then we literally didn't beagle at him or talk to him again. He didn't make a peep either. We just had to go on our gut. But we didn't make a biegle until he was eighty yards away. And I think you be agled a couple of times. I'd be agle a couple times, and and that bowl literally had to get up out of his bed and walk thirty yards for me to get a shot. And so it's very calculated before we go use these challenge beagles. And like you said, I don't hold anything back. If I did all of these other calculations right and did what I and I feel like I've got a bowl with that right temperament. Yeah, we we're gonna kind of unleash everything we've got. And that's really what I'm going with on this challenge Bagle, is I'm gonna have a little more growl In the beginning of my my Bugle, I'm gonna kind of open up my vocal cords and really kind of get some rasp in the middle. I'm gonna end and and kind of kind of scream at him, and I usually add some grunts to the end of my Challenge Beagle. It's really just kind of throwing the entire kitchen scenk at them to let him know that I'm here to kind of take over your area or I'm in your zone and you're either gonna lose your cows or you're gonna come check me out and see if we're gonna, you know, if we're at. 00:47:51 Speaker 1: Lockhorns, or we're gonna breed him. 00:47:54 Speaker 8: Yeah, yeah, yeah, So that's really what we're going after on the Challenge Bugle. And a lot of times, you know, we could shock in awe whatever you want to call it. A lot of times if you get close enough and you you haven't made another call until you get there, you really give that bowl no other chance besides coming and you know, dealing with you. You've got too close to his cows, he can't take him and run. And that's what we typically will do when we go to Challenge Bugle, and so I can I can demonstrate kind of what my initial challenge bugle is, and a lot of times this bull will answer right back. Or we've painted the picture where we may let a cow call out right prior to our challenge bugle to kind of paint the scene that there's a cow that may be one of his or a cow that came to his bugle, but now there's this other bowl very close willing. 00:48:42 Speaker 9: To take care of her. So this is what my typical challenge, bugle. 00:48:47 Speaker 8: Sound like, little bit more to it, a little bit or ask and you're really not holding anything back. You know, a lot of guys ask me, you know when when we're at shows or when they're talking to me, like, hey, I really want to a bull call that isn't as threatening or it's a smaller bowl. And I've been around a lot of great callers that are just as loud as me. And when you're in the woods, the comparison of somebody that's loud on an elk call that we think versus a real bowl, like it's the the real elk is always exponentially louder. So in my opinion, you can't overblow these calls. You can't be too loud, So we we just give it everything we've got. Where we're loud, we're in their face, we're pointing the bugle tubes at them, and that's kind of what I think is as a challenge bugle. And those are the two that I probably use ninety five percent of the time when we're out there hunting. And then there's those what I would consider kind of the third category, uh, which the first one that I'm going to say is accessory bugles or accessory noises. And raking is one of those sounds that isn't what necessarily in you know, coming from a call, but it's something that we can all do. And there's some great elk hunters out there that rake more than they call, and so we typically always add that in to our calling scenarios. It adds a ton of realism and elk just you know it. I feel it turns our temperature up a little bit, adds some some of that aggressiveness, and it's a sign of the bulls mark in his territory. You know, he's put in his scent and marking those trees. And so I think raking is something that should be included in almost every call in and then you've got all these other sounds that elk will make. You know, and I'm not gonna get into the to the intricacies of whether what I consider a chuckle is different than a grunt. So you got like chuckles, which you usually typically like very quick and almost ape like sounds. You've got grunts, which what I just did it's more elk sound, more of a of a slower paced, more elky. You've got screams, so there's a lot of times where bulls will get madder and like a screaming match, it's very short burst to you know, two seconds max. Where it's very raspy and just kind of a scream. Bulls a lot of times if you do make a sound and they'll see you, they'll bark at you, and then you've got all those moans that that they'll make as there is there following cows or even like glunking is those bulls are right on a hot cow as they're pushing the cal around, and usually if you can hear glunky, you know you're within eighty two hundred yards. And those are kind of those accessory sounds that we always throw in the situations to add more realism. 00:51:27 Speaker 3: Would you say, like, uh, I didn't hear you say like a lip ball in there? Would you say, like, that's like the most aggressive, like because I've heard that before. You know what I'm saying, Like, is that like the the high end of all this most being most suggressive for calling. 00:51:45 Speaker 8: That's a that's a great question, And a lot of times lip balls, I'd use a lot of mimicry. So if the bull I'm calling at me is gonna lip ball in this challenge bugle, I'm gonna do that. If the bull that I'm calling in wants to, you know, do a three second challenge bugle with four runts, I'm gonna mimic him exactly. And one thing I really love to do that really seems to get them more fired up is if I start my bugle about halfway through theirs and I don't let them finish their bugle. It seems to be a way to just like, you know, piss them off a little bit more. And so we use a lot of mimicry. But yeah, lipball is a great way to add to the challenge bugle. You know, one thing I've noticed is the further south you go, the higher percentage of lip bowling type bulls there are the further north you are, it doesn't you know, there may be more chuckles or grunts, Like can you crank out a couple of these noises real quick? 00:52:32 Speaker 2: Yeah? 00:52:33 Speaker 1: So I want to I want to tell you something to that I don't know if I told you about yet. Uh, you're talking about thrash and brush right, yep. One. I was haunting Moose with Clay last year in Alaska. We were going down a hill on the last day of the season. We were going down a hill to go to a bowl that was about a mile away that we just saw, and we were going down the hill fast. It was like evening on the last day. We're running down the hill trying to get to a place, hoping to hit an opening where we might be able to call from. But it was just dense thicket, just like just never ending aspen. As we ran down that hill, We're making so much noise because it was just like there's nothing to lose at that point. We ran down that hill and stopped and realized that bowl we never called that bowl was coming. Two bulls were coming up that hill and met us dead on just because of the noise we're making coming down that hill, yep, And we were making a tell of a lot of noise climbing over all this burned down junk, all this burned down spruced it was growing back as an aspen. Just smash, crash, bam. It probably sounded like a hell of a fight. And we stopped to call and realized that they're standing there like they're looking for us based off that noise. Yep. 00:53:58 Speaker 8: You know, when we were in New Mexico out at a couple of days prior, and one day I was trying to get through an area I knew there were elk and just walking through the grass, I had to hang out behind a tree for about fifteen minutes because that bold chased me down the hill just hearing my feet walk through the grass. And so my dad always kind of joked with me. And we grew up in a rifle hunting elk family, where you know, they go out and hunting their white new balances so they can be absolutely silent. You know, that's the type of elk hunting I grew up with. My Dad's like, you know what, Jason, you're not real quiet. You're meant to be an archvl hunter. And it really did kind of play to my favorite because I'm I'm stepping on sticks and cracking brush and it just kind of works for an archvl hunter, you know, cause an eight hundred pound animal in the landscape, they can be whispered quiet at times, but for the majority of the time they're gonna make noise, which you just add that realism into it. And elk Elk definitely take note on the noises that they're hearing. 00:54:47 Speaker 1: Is yes, especially when if you've ever listened to a half dozen of them playing grab ass on a steep slope, it's loud. 00:54:53 Speaker 3: Oh that's one of my favorite things ever. You're sitting there eating lunch or something and you hear that, you can I can just picture it that that downfall branch go pop and you know, and you're like that was a big animal, you know. 00:55:07 Speaker 9: Yeah, yeah, so raking. 00:55:11 Speaker 1: I can't make that sound in here. 00:55:12 Speaker 8: But you know, I always recommend you get a big stick, and everybody wants to grab a little twig, Like, get something that's robust, not going to break on you through it. 00:55:20 Speaker 1: And the other thing is like yeah before he sets to it, Yeah yeah, I mean. 00:55:26 Speaker 5: Yeah, if you're your knuckles and fingers aren't bloody. You're not making enough noise and trying. 00:55:32 Speaker 8: Yeah, and I like to I like to be as realistic as possible. So I try to find a couple of limbs, you know, from two feet up the tree to four feet and you just kind of rattle back and forth, you know, you hit the brush and you hit the top limb, hit the bottom limb. I don't know if it matters that much, MAYI There are times where I want to break a bunch of small, small limbs just. 00:55:49 Speaker 1: To add to it. 00:55:50 Speaker 8: You know, you can kick the ground, but you know raking, that's that's it's easy. But yeah, like you really need to get into it and and picking up a bigger stick make sure that you can get through that. Chuckles, like I said, are a little more ape like, So a lot of times you'll get these on the end of a bugle around here where I've got roosevelts in my backyard. I grew up with a lot of our bulls chuckling and grunting more so than like the high notes that we're talking about. But here's what a chuckle er. In my opinion, a chuckle sounds like so a little less elk sound a little more ape like, where the grunts are a little more drawn out. They get a little bit more of that high pitch from from the bowl. 00:56:30 Speaker 2: Yeah. 00:56:31 Speaker 1: Man, and his belly gets into it. Yeah, yeah, like his belly is like bouncing, you know, not his belly might be bouncing. I know that's between him and his wife. I'm talking about they have the bull. 00:56:47 Speaker 8: So so here's what I would consider a grunt. It's a little more that elkie sound. Scream like I say, two two and a half second, real raspy, real short. 00:57:02 Speaker 1: And usually when you get a bowld. 00:57:04 Speaker 8: To scream back at you, his temper is very high and we usually have real good success with calling them in and if they scream, I'll typically scream m So it's a scream and then you got your barks, and a lot of times you'll when you do hear a bark, it's it's about my second least favorite sound to hear in the elk wood, aside from wolves howling. But barks usually they have seen seen something they don't like or heard something they don't like, but they can't necessarily get wind on you. So a bark's really a come show me your you know, come show yourself or I'm out of here, I'm on alert. But and then what we will do in response is will bark back at him, because you're basically saying, well, I seen and heard something I don't like. You show yourself. And in twenty nineteen when I was in Wyoming, I have a bowl bark at me, and I bark back at him and he kind of comes trotting out in the middle of open and I was able to get a shot. So always be if you get bark at, bark right back at him. But it's just a quick blast of you know, it's it's a come show yourself sound. 00:58:08 Speaker 1: So you get like he's nervous, and you might set him at ease by by doing it back like oh there's another help. Yeah, yeah, there's you can hold him for a long time with their warning cry is you can turn the tide on antelope big time on prong horns with their own warning call back at. 00:58:28 Speaker 9: Him, get him to hang out. 00:58:31 Speaker 1: They'll they'll start coming more if you start. If you hide and start doing it back at him, it just really gets their curiosity. 00:58:37 Speaker 3: Can you do that? And that's a weird Yeah, it's like a. 00:58:41 Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean I'm not good at it, but man, you can you can take one. It's gonna be out and and he'll start coming. He'll be he'll like turn around and start going back your direction. I don't think they hear it a lot from people, for sure. 00:58:58 Speaker 2: All that out phil idea, Yeah. 00:59:02 Speaker 8: Right, and then uh, you like the mones and stuff, you know, but if they bark, usually what happens. If they don't see what they like, they're gonna run out the ridge and scare every elkre let, every elk in the whole entire country know that they and they bark for you know, until you can't see them anymore. So it's best to get them calm back down. And then mones are just those sounds as he's running his herd as we get in tight, you know, you'll hear him making little sounds that you can't hear from very far away, and we just add those in for for realism. This is kind of what a moan just real light on the latex. So as they're pushing cows around, they're just making small little noises that just at like I say, just you're just adding to the realism. They're more accessory sounds. But there are times when we'll throw those in just to be part. 00:59:50 Speaker 3: I feel like I kind of hear that too sometimes, Jason, when they're they're sleeping, when they're or they're just in their beds right like almost like a moan. It's like a real quiet like little yep. 01:00:03 Speaker 6: You know. 01:00:03 Speaker 8: One thing that they do. It takes a fairly trained ear. But location bugles. We talked about him being high pitch and sharp and to the point, like a betted bull. To a trained ear, we can we can pick out usually when it's a bedded boil. Yeah, the time of day usually helps us do that as well. But you'll know if a bull's on his feet versus betted, especially if you fold that same bowl all morning, his his bugle cuts to about half intensity. It's a real lazy bugle. And so you can, you know, start to tell when that bull's betted. Everything gets a little bit softer and quieter and deeper. 01:00:36 Speaker 1: All right, Phelps you good man? Yeah, yeah, thanks for having me on. Yeah man, So everybody as gearing up. Check out Phelps game calls. Uh, just a true Elk call and mastermind elk great elk call maker, great communicator. He'll give you all of his hot spots. Just hit him up. Off Jason, we're gonna have Auction Off Phelps is on x password at the Auction House Bodies. 01:01:03 Speaker 5: If you want to listen to like full I don't know how long the show is usually Jason forty five minutes an hour. Cutting the Distance Yep. 01:01:11 Speaker 1: Yeah, but you can go. Yeah, we're we're just getting ready. 01:01:13 Speaker 8: Dirk's gonna jump on as a as a co host here by time this drop, So we're gonna for the next couple of months. You're gonna get as much elk hunting information as you you want to do. 01:01:22 Speaker 4: That. 01:01:22 Speaker 1: That's that's a great heads up. So thanks for the reminder, Yahni, go listen to Cutting the Distance so hosted by Jason Phelps, Dirt Durham. There that that used to be bi weekly, it's not weekly. And when these boys going to elk mode this time of year, it's just gonna be all elk all the time. So you'll you'll you'll learn more than you can remember by checking that out. And again, man like just lifelong elk hunter, grew up hunting the hardest elk on the planet in the Pacific Northwest. Phenomenal calls. Thanks a lot Phelps. 01:01:55 Speaker 9: Thanks, thanks guys. 01:01:57 Speaker 1: All right, Dave Smith, Yes, why uh give me the crash course on how DSD came into existence. 01:02:07 Speaker 2: The short, not not so boring version. It's all boring. The crash course is I was massively into goose hunting and I didn't have any decoys. I couldn't find any decoys that were working the way that I thought that they. 01:02:23 Speaker 1: Should back up way more than that, Okay, I mean I feel like I was born, I was an anemic child. 01:02:30 Speaker 2: I was born. I was born in Cottonwood, Idaho, and okay, born in Idaho. Well, so yeah, I was born in Idaho. Yeah, I mean my I had an older brother. I say had because he did pass away when I was nineteen. When he was nineteen, I was seventeen, and he and I we dreamed about goose hunting our entire lives, Like we used to literally like drop you know, pictures of goose hunting with crayons. 01:02:54 Speaker 1: So when most kids have drawn army tanks and monster tracks, you guys are growing goose hunting. 01:02:59 Speaker 2: Pretty much, and it's it's kind of a weird thing. I mean, like our dad hunted, but then he was a great, great archer, but he hunted mostly before we were born. But my brother and I, we both had the hunting gene, you know, for sure, we could just tell. And for some reason we were just obsessed with geeese, even though we didn't we didn't really have any exposure to goose hunting, and we didn't even have any geeese around, and so all of a sudden we started getting geese. 01:03:29 Speaker 1: Because you're you're old enough that goose numbers weren't what they are. 01:03:33 Speaker 2: Yeah, So where I live in the Willammett Valley of Oregon, there's they really the only goose was the dusky Canada goose, so and those and so in the sixties, there was an earthquake in Alaska that uplifted the delta where they where they nest, and then all of a sudden, mammalion predators could access it. So the numbers of Dusky Canada geese, you know, really crashed. 01:03:58 Speaker 1: So there was hunt a spot. I have haunted a spot. Haunt I have haunted a spot in Alaska that was hay Fields and it recessed and became marsh in the same earthquake. 01:04:13 Speaker 2: That's oh, that's good to hear. It became a wetland in the earthquake. Yeah, so what happened. 01:04:17 Speaker 1: We're still equipment laying out there. Yeah, that things sunk. 01:04:20 Speaker 2: Yeah, That's that's what I think with all this stuff, there should be there should be an upside. That can't always be a downside only you know, like and that probably that probably helped cacklers, you know. 01:04:30 Speaker 1: Got it. 01:04:31 Speaker 2: So so we had we did have geese in the valley and we couldn't hunt them, and and there was a while where we could. And when I was very young, I I went to you know, quite a quite an effort to hunt, to hunt them, and that's all we could hunt is dusky Kennedy's I mean I built, I would. I would dig pits with a shovel, big huge pits, pits with a shovel, and build these really elaborate wooden pits with like trap doors that you know, sprang open and swivel chairs and everything, and going to off them into those those holes. And I made homemade decoys out of you know, I mean, it was dirt poor, So I made decoys out of like, you know, canvas, bags and anything I possibly could. 01:05:09 Speaker 1: And you know, uh, the first I have pictures of me and my brother Danny in high school hunting geese when they first opened the early goose season in Michigan. And our decoys. We took five gallon buckets, cut them in half length wise and then made plywood heads and laid out all those five gallon buckets with plywood heads on, and then sat smoking making corn cob pipes because the corn was still standing, making corn cob pipes and smoking corn silks. And they're trying to get a goose to land in those buckets. Yeah, I mean, like for us to get a goose to even fly by and range was a big deal. 01:05:52 Speaker 2: Yeah. Well, and it's like, yeah, all those decoys were working reasonably well, and then somebody had to come along and make like an ultra realistic it's arms race, right, yeah, it's exactly. And and and then it kind of had affected the whole industry, you know, so and then everybody had to make realistic decoys. So but in my in my case, I got to the point where more and more geese we were were wintering in our in our valley, So they has numbers improved, Oh, they were just they just kept coming up and up and up, and so. 01:06:23 Speaker 1: There was it was it changing agriculture practices or was just geese numbers were increasing. 01:06:28 Speaker 2: It was neither, honestly neither. So what was happening is all the geese. So the dusky dusky numbers never really came came up to levels that are like they're not they're not huntable or anything like that. What happened was all the geese that were wintering in the Central Valley of California or northern California. It's just started just started wintering in the Willhammette Valley. 01:06:52 Speaker 1: Because of drought patterns or it's not well understood. 01:06:55 Speaker 2: I don't know, because that that changes, that that goes in cycles, you know, every ten or twenty years, and we're starting to get snows where we never had snows before. Things like that has changed, and I don't really know the answer, so that only the geese snow. But so so now we had all these these geese and nobody really knew how to hunt them, and they were trying to work out a way that you could hunt them because the farmers were, you know, kind of alarmed by this, so they worked out a way where you could hunt. You could hunt Canada geese. We had seven subspecies of Canada geese in the valley. 01:07:27 Speaker 1: And but that was before they shrank, didn't it didn't we go just because of lumpers and splitters in taxonomy. Didn't we go from twenty eight geese down to three or four? Well, because the Ornithological Society one day to said, just scrap all that. It's just it's we're splitting hairs. 01:07:47 Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean there's definitely there's definitely some of that. It went from twenty eight down to maybe eleven and one that's extinct. But people still argue about that, you know, like so there's isolating breeding, there's isolated breeding groups, especially of lessers, and some people will say that is a separate subspecies, and some people will say it's the same. And that part is so confusing. I mean, nobody knows the real, the real answer. 01:08:12 Speaker 1: But yeah, maybe because it's all definitional and just varies on the person. It's just it's it's highly subjective, right yeah. 01:08:20 Speaker 2: Yeah, So what what we were most concerned I was concerned about is just like from a legal standpoint, what we could shoot and what we couldn't and everything. So you had to take a course and pass the course that proves that you would know how to hunt without shooting a dusky Canada goose and tell me more. 01:08:38 Speaker 1: I don't know that I've ever laid eyes on a dusky Okay, so tell me what, like, walk me through this. 01:08:43 Speaker 2: They're they're really pretty, they're really neat birds. They're they're and they're sort of cool because they're sort of like our are our original goose. They're kind of like like co hosts am and our cutthroat trout or you know, black tailed deer where I live. So they're medium large goose and they're very, very very dark. So thank god they're really dark, because otherwise, you know, in flight, there wouldn't be any great way to are there. 01:09:07 Speaker 1: Do they still have a white cheek or is that white cheek as duskier too, so that white cheek is white? 01:09:12 Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yep. All Canada geese have a white cheek and some people call them in a white cheek geese and everything. So yeah, they still have that, and it's that believe it or not. Probably illusions have the lowest amount of white on their cheeks, just mostly because it usually doesn't cover the bottom of the throat. But but dusky kenadedies have a pretty prominent white cheek patch and stuff. But they're just really really really dark, and they have they sound different, they act different, they they're in, they're in certain sized groups. They fly around fairly low, and they kind of keep to themselves. They don't they don't mingle too much with other Canada geese. So you take this test and then you get a a goose card that's your permit to hunt, and you can only hunt This is how it was originally. You could only hunt between the hours of eight and. 01:10:09 Speaker 1: Four, ok. 01:10:11 Speaker 2: And you had to check all your geese in at a check station when you were done, and they would carefully measure the Coleman length, which is the measurement of the top of the bill. That was one of the things that they would use, and then like the length of the legs and the color of the breast. And if you shot a dusky Canada goose, your card was punched and you're done for the season. Really yeah, and what year was this, Well, I don't know. This was back in the Yeah, I'm terrible about dates. I mean, this was all up until about eight years ago. So then eight years ago what they did is a. 01:10:49 Speaker 1: Yeah, this is all new to me. Yeah, I had never heard this. 01:10:52 Speaker 2: Yeah, it was kind of cool because it just kept out a lot of you know, the pilgrims, Like you had to be pretty dedicated to this, and and you had to you learned a ton about geese because we would get set up before it would get light. Like some people would go out and they'd start setting up at seven and they'd be set up by eight. Well, the geese are trying to get in, you know, they're trying to get in, uh before that. So what we would always do. 01:11:19 Speaker 1: Is the is the eight am restriction because they want good daylight exactly. 01:11:23 Speaker 2: Yep. They won't you to be able to see to see him. So but it was it worked for us because we just learned so much about geese by being set up and having to watch them for the first hour hour and a half and having them come and land in the decoys and seeing what, you know, what works and what doesn't work. 01:11:41 Speaker 1: And do you ever get your card evoked? 01:11:42 Speaker 2: What's that? 01:11:43 Speaker 1: Did you ever get your card punched? 01:11:45 Speaker 2: I never did? I never did so one time. Brad, you know my partner, Brad, he's a phenomenal goose hunter. He's honestly, he's one of the best goose hunters on the planet. One time he and and one of our one of the other guys that we work with, they got their cards punch because there there's there's also this flock of lessers that hang out around was still like our anchorage, and those birds were fairly dark and fairly large, and so it was close. But we felt like we knew those birds really really well, so we didn't have any problem hunting those. And one time Brad and and I think it was Brian Stone got their cards punched because they shot They shot banded anchorage lessers and we've done that several times, but usually so they have a smaller band than the than the duskies do, so we shoot those with confidence. And most of the checkers at the chech station just know and they also have a reference of band numbers, and so you're supposed to be able to go into the tech station and they'll see that it's a smaller band or they'll check the number and they'll say, okay, you're fine, it's on a dusky. Well, in one case they got their cards punched, and it worked out great for me because they called me and told me and they're like, yeah, we're getting bombed in by all these lessers, and a bunch of them have net collars and you know, radar transmitters and tarsus bands and leg bands, and so I went and sat in their blind. I got to hunt. The next day. They just left all their decoys out and I got it. I got some nice birds. And then they sort of went to a review panel and found out that yeah, they were Anchorage lessers, so they got their cards vindication man and twice for me. Hunting on Willop a Bay, I got to the check station and the checker was gone, and assumed that everyone was done for the day, but I was. I had such a good relationship with the biologists and the state state Policies was in the state of Washington, that they both times they said, okay, Dave, well tell us what you got, you know, tell us what your birds are. And I told him, They're like, okay, yeah, we'll send you a new card. In the sent me a new card right away, so that you know, I was lucky in that respect. But I never got my card punched luckily, Like not for real. I've come dang close. I mean, I you know, I've had I've had some checkers that you know, there's a big turnover of checkers, and some of them really didn't know what they were doing, and some of them did. And you know, I've had some scary situations, but it's fine. I I survived it, you know. And now it's to the point where there's no more check stations. Now it's illegal to shoot a dusky Canada goose. And the problem with that. It's good and bad. But the problem with that is now everybody goose hunts, every duck hunter shoots, you know, a geese flying over and stuff, and so it's just changed the goose hunting dramatically. Like I mean, I had some just beautiful, you know, periods of time, several seasons in a row where I just had just fabulous goose hunting, and a lot of it was because of the difficulties and the check stations. Almost I mean, the funnest hunting of my life was six seasons on Willipa Bay. There were several birds that were they were actually across between a well western and a dusky. They called them whiskies, and the bile just really wanted them gone, and so they would put white neck colors on them, and so none of the locals would bother hunting those birds, because I mean, you know, you go down a tide flat and you're hunting in this huge, this huge area, and it's a pain in the ass to get out there, and you got to figure out how you're going to hide once you get out there, and decoys, getting decoys out there and all that stuff. It was all difficult. And then you get some birds to come in and there's a very good chance that it's going to be a whole bunch of big, dark birds, and none of them have a white collar, so you can't shoot unless it has a white collar. And so now the locals were bothering, and to me, it was just paradise, Like I absolutely loved that. It was just so much fun. And uh, I love shooting you know, those collared birds, and everyone of them had a leg band and I just started, you know, accumulating those, and I it was just super exciting, like every time I shot one, and that was that was the funnest goose hunting I've ever had. 01:16:27 Speaker 1: Do you got land you're pretty loaded up with bands? 01:16:30 Speaker 2: I do, yeah, yeah, And I have over one hundred net collars really yeah, really, and from from a lot of different subspecies, so I can blame Brad Cochrane, I think for that. So I tried to stick with mostly mostly white collars, which doesn't disrupt anything any studies or anything like that. But man, once you once you learned how to spot a collar in the air, and you would think that it'd be like you'd see the color of it or something like that, and it's not it at all. It just it just looks like a little kink in the neck. It just looks kind of like a broken neck. And once you get that down, you can't help yourself but to shoot them. Like when you're hunting cacklers or something like that, that's just the funnest thing ever too. It's just you get a big grind of cacklers going and just keep watching them, keep watching them, and you maybe look at a block of four or five at once and make sure that they're on a line where you have that second that it takes to sit up and shoot. And you know, I mean I went like dozens of days where it didn't fire, shot all day, just watch birds all day long. You wouldn't see one, and once in a while. 01:17:52 Speaker 1: You'd see it was just looking for collared birds. 01:17:54 Speaker 2: Yeah, it was fun. It was just something, I mean, something that we wanted to do, and we've also so you know, always felt like that's how we learned a lot about geese. It is just well, for one, we never wanted to shoot into big flocks. So like when I was hunting those whiskies, I mean, there was only so many of them and they were mixed in with other birds, and I just could not shoot into big flocks or I would have had it ruined, you know, in one season. I wanted it to last and last, and so I was pretty pretty patient. But I would definitely, like on cacklers, I would definitely make that exception because well, one thing about cacklers is they're so gregarious and they're so loud, and they're in such large flocks that if you have a giant grind of cacklers going and you sit up and make one shot and drop a collared bird and get back in your blind instead of getting out and whooping it up and all that stuff whatever, you back in your blind. Most of the time the grind will keep coming because the birds that saw you and saw the boogey man, they kind of freak out. But the birds on the far side of this giant grind. They haven't, they don't know what it is. And what would you keep going? 01:19:08 Speaker 3: What would you consider a in your mind? What's like a giant grind? 01:19:13 Speaker 5: Like how many birds grind? I've never heard that. 01:19:15 Speaker 1: I've never heard that. I know, the grind from just being the daily grind of like getting up so early and setting out decoys and pulling into decoys and just like it's a frequently waterfoul. People will talk about the grind of just how the drudgery of hunting hard. 01:19:32 Speaker 2: Yeah, well that's a that's the real grind for sure. And that's a grind too. Yeah, I mean like a tornado or you know whatever. We've a lot of people have different names for it, but I mean it. You know, it's like we would still probably call it a grind if it was two hundred birds, but but it could be ten thousand, yeah, you know, and and a lot of times it's a thousand. 01:19:53 Speaker 1: You know, you're talking about just like an aggregation of birds that is kind of on the same schedule and they're coming through in a group. Uh there, they might be spread apart by many minutes. 01:20:03 Speaker 2: No, no, no, no, no, I'm talking about a flock. Yeah, a big, a big giant flock. Sometimes other flocks are joining at the same time. 01:20:10 Speaker 1: But so they didn't like it's a grouping that you can like put your eyes on it one time. 01:20:16 Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, yeah. 01:20:19 Speaker 4: Tornado, it's like a snow goose tornado. 01:20:23 Speaker 2: Yeah Tonado, Yeah, yep, exactly, yep. 01:20:35 Speaker 1: All right, get me too, because I asked you a bunch of questions got us off. So at a point you you got into guiding, and then I want to get to how you got into how you thought to make your own decoy, which doesn't occur to everybody. 01:20:51 Speaker 2: Yeah, So I mean the the decoys came first, and then the decoys worked so well that that's what got us into guiding. So I was buying every every brand of decoy that that was available, and and I was I was just the birds just weren't landing in them. And I just and I had everybody tell me like, oh god, you know you're they're not going to land in them. And I was reading like Dennis Hunt books and stuff, and they were saying things like like, uh, you know, decoys are you need them? But at the same time, geese hate them. They're just used to lure birds into gun range, and I just called yeah, yeah, and I was like, I watched real birds land with real birds all the time, and I just felt really confident that that there just has to be a better way, and that this that the whole industry was just really complacent. And I heard people say things like, oh, geese have a you know, a pie sized brain and everything, and I just had way more respect for him than that. So so I set out to sculpt. I did a I do clay sculptures. I don't carve anything. I do everything as a clay sculpture. And I set out to sculpt the most accurate decoy I possibly could. And it was a Taverner's Canada goose. That was my number one goose that I hunted and loved to hunt and everything. And now we call it a lesser because it's that's way more common and people are more familiar with that term, but that's really what the first one was. 01:22:19 Speaker 1: So if you look, when you say way more realistic, I would think that you can correct me on this one. I would think that there's a mad there's an issue of size, there's an issue of contours, shape, say, and there's an issue of coloration. Yep, what what is it for real? 01:22:38 Speaker 2: Well, and one more thing is the finish, And the finish is the biggest one of those of those four. So yeah, the sculpture needs to be you know, anatomically correct and in a pleasing pose. The pose has to be I guess that's a fifth element, right there is the pose. It's really important with turkeys. The pose has to tell what you want. What you want the decoy. 01:23:05 Speaker 1: You don't want to decoy of a scared ass turkey exactly. 01:23:08 Speaker 2: Yeah. But the finish, it turns out, the finish is probably more important than anything, and that is it just can't have the wrong reflections. I mean, you know, birds can see colors that we can't see, and a lot of decoys have you know, some reflection to them, and and all that stuff. And and in some ways we probably luckily stumbled on the right paint. But that that's a big one. That helps a lot. But you know, at the time, the decoys, the decoys that were working the best for me before I made a decoy we're bigfoots and carry light full bodies, and bigfoots were neat because they were they really were. 01:23:52 Speaker 1: What's the funn about that? 01:23:53 Speaker 6: No, it's it's it's funny because Pat Dirkins sent me a report from somebody, well because I mean it's not a real report if you actually read its high substantiated, but about bigfoot behavior of jumping into trees. 01:24:12 Speaker 2: So I just had that. 01:24:13 Speaker 1: Also, I'm talking about the brand Bigfoot decoys, which had like a little pedestal to look like their feet. You were thinking about bigfoots bigfoots. Yeah, sorry, pologies on behalf of grint. I did see. 01:24:27 Speaker 2: We can edit that out, no problem that. Uh yeah, I mean I had a ton of respect for Bigfoot decoys because they were they were made in America, and they really were really goosey. But the problem is they were they were a a large race Canada goose. They were a honker. They were a big, long neck and most of our geese were really small, short necked, you know. So that's why the carry lights looked a little more like our gaze. But we I just needed to make something that was more acculate, and the very first eco that I made it actually had the tail was a separate piece, and the wings were separate. The wing the primary feathers, they were separate pieces that glued on separately. So I had full separation in there. It was like, probably way more than it really needed to be. We made those and they worked so well. It was just unbelievable. 01:25:18 Speaker 1: How many did you make? Well? 01:25:20 Speaker 2: I mean I started out with one pose, just arresting one, and then I finally before I even hunted with that, I realized I needed to make a feeder. And so I had two poses and I went out with and hunted with those, and I would make like eighteen total decoys for my own hunting, and then I kind of realized I need an upright, but that came along later. But they were just they looked like the real birds. So what I figured, what I learned. The biggest epiphany I guess I had was when I was hunting and I had I could have. I mean, I put out twenty four dozen decoys before and if if if six real birds came and landed one hundred and fifty yards away, I any other birds that came would go land with those six. So I realized right away, Yet it's yeah, it's not a number thing. The numbers thing is. What's most important is that they're convinced that those are real birds. And so the beauty of our decoy right now is the way that people have so much damn fun with them is in places where you have normally had to use you know, five dozen, you can use eighteen. And even like on some of the places like the front Range Colorado, where people feel like they have to use twenty dozen, they can use six dozen, and so that that really helps. It just makes it more enjoyable because it's just not as much work. 01:26:47 Speaker 5: Less of a grind. 01:26:48 Speaker 2: Yeah, you're not out there and two of them more's of a grind. Yeah, yeah, Yeah, I can sleep in and I love I love sleep. 01:26:55 Speaker 5: Can you take us through you just sort of casually say, oh, I whipped up eight teen decoys, but what what does that look like? 01:27:03 Speaker 6: And can we also get into like your carving or the materials that you're using, and you know you're kind of. 01:27:11 Speaker 5: Giving away too much? 01:27:12 Speaker 1: Yeah, what were you when you say make them? You had that you made a mold obviously. 01:27:16 Speaker 10: Yeah, so I mean in your garage yep, you had to buy a lot of equipment, right, I had Uh Yeah, I did. I had a I had a shop already just because I've I've made fish replicas like my entire life. My artistic was Ron Petter Is is the greatest fish replica artists that ever lived, by far, and I just was a complete I just bugged the hell out of him for thirty years. 01:27:43 Speaker 3: Do you still do it the fish? 01:27:44 Speaker 2: Yeah? I do, you know, a few. I do just a few, like maybe maybe one a year. 01:27:50 Speaker 6: That's but yeah, that's maybe auction house, don't it. 01:27:53 Speaker 3: I mean they're sounding. 01:27:55 Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm gonna do because of fish people caught. 01:28:00 Speaker 1: What's that look you do a little like like whatever the hell they fish tax drmy is these days, because there's no tax dermy, it's just replicas. 01:28:07 Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah. So I do a lot of steelhead and and I have a lot of molds of steelheads, so and wild steelhead. You know, there's only a few places where you can still keep wild steelhead, but I don't encourage that at all. Wild steelhead are really low in numbers and everything like that. So I have all these molds of fish, you know, up to thirty pounds, and you may I made or I inherited from Ron Pittard either one. So and I've got like I'll be I'm I'm finishing up three point twenty six pounds white crappie for John Brown John, if you're watching, I'm I'm getting it done. I'll have it done, and then I'm doing a big thirty pound steelhead for a guide who's been waiting eight years. He's been he's been really, really, really patient. He's going to be really mad when he sees that he did the Crappie. But so so I and then I have lots of experience in sculpture, in industrial sculpture. So I worked for Nike for seven years. I did clay sculptures of footwear as part of the design process. 01:29:11 Speaker 6: You're like the guy in that movie Air My goodness was at. 01:29:15 Speaker 1: A bad movie. I liked it, dude. We have to talk about that sometime. 01:29:20 Speaker 9: I'll talk you fine, Okay, Oh there you go. 01:29:24 Speaker 1: That had about every problem movie. We'll talk about a You had a job there it did. What did you carve shoes? 01:29:33 Speaker 2: Yeah? Clay sculptures? Yep, seriously, Yeah, I did five. Now I only did the midsol Altsoul, so I didn't have anything to do with the upper. But I did get to do five seasons of Air. Jordan's working with Tinker Hatfield and that was a and my time when Nike was really I'm super thankful for it, like it was really good people. And I learned a ton about molding and casting and and all that stuff. So that was hard I got. I got headhunted from Nike to go to FILA and I worked for And also I'm sorry for any of my friends that work at Nike. And I told you that I didn't get headhunted, that I quit, and now you're just now finding this out, So I apologize. I'm sorry I had to lie to you. And I went to FILA and I was the manager of the model shop there and did more clay sculptures and everything. And before all this, I did class sculptures of taxidermy mannequins. So I worked for research mannequins and did class sculptures animal so so I had the clay experience. I didn't have any training, I but I just winged it and just you know, muscled through it or whatever. Like I'm not I can't do it class sculpture like really well, like really fast or anything like that. And I'm not like a naturally talented at it or anything like that. But I'm pretty good at looking at two things and figuring out what the differences between those. 01:30:56 Speaker 1: Well can tell you one of my favorite writing quotes. I think it was RW You R W Apple. He once said, I can write better than anyone that can write faster than me, and I can write faster than anyone that can write better than me. 01:31:11 Speaker 2: It's perfect. 01:31:13 Speaker 1: Or you have to think of something like that for yourself. 01:31:15 Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, well it sounds like it's already been done. Somebody beat me too it or whatever. But yeah, I mean, I'm I'm slow, and there are some people that are super talented and can do these things super super fast. And and what I mostly have to do is I have to assemble, you know, a blob of clay roughly in the shape before I can. I mean, I more or less have to build something wrong and then start picking it apart. Rather than building something right the first time, I usually just have to get it. I have to get something going and then I can then I can start to see what the difference is. So I got to have really really good reference material I got to have. I got to have that thing to compare it to, so that could be amount or a bunch of photographs or something like that. 01:31:59 Speaker 3: It's great way to go about building something. You just gotta gotta start it. 01:32:04 Speaker 2: Yeah. 01:32:04 Speaker 1: My dad was a wood carving and he said his strategy was if he was making like an otter, he said, I would just start taking away everything that doesn't look like an otter. 01:32:14 Speaker 9: Yeah. 01:32:15 Speaker 2: Well, and that's another thing is I have a lot of respect for wood carvers because you can only subtract material. So in my case, I mean, you put it back when you made a mistake all the time. Yeah. Yeah, so so yeah, then I made I made molds of those first decoys, and I finally had to buy a rotational casting machine, which was a pretty big, pretty big investment. 01:32:39 Speaker 1: And now but at this point, are you're like, you know what, I'm gonna start selling these No, No. 01:32:42 Speaker 5: Hold on, We're get too far ahead of ourselves. 01:32:45 Speaker 4: Yeah. 01:32:46 Speaker 5: Before it, when you just whipped up the eighteen that you first started with, Yeah, how do you whip up eighteen? 01:32:54 Speaker 2: You made the clay sculpture, Okay, made the class sculpture, and then made a still cone rubber mold with a fiberglass shell mold over the top of that to hold it to shape. And then since I didn't have a rotational casting machine, I had to rotate it by hand. That was the workout portion of my of my life and is amazing. 01:33:17 Speaker 1: Man, oh, thank you. 01:33:18 Speaker 2: I appreciate that. 01:33:20 Speaker 5: And the and the rotational part comes because once you spray, so you've got your mold, and then what material would you spray in there? 01:33:30 Speaker 2: So it's liquid, You're a thane, So it's like two parts. You mix A and B together, stir it up and pour it in the mold and then close the mold, and then you rotate it, keep it, keep it. 01:33:42 Speaker 3: Moving, griped to one side or the other. 01:33:44 Speaker 2: Yeah, and coat the whole inside. And then you have to keep rotating it until that stuff is hard, and then you may have to do a second, a second pore so and then I was like, screw this, this is a lot of work. Like you know, I'm not exactly Charles Atlas, and I guess I would have been if I just would have never bought a rotational casting machine. 01:34:05 Speaker 1: D I like, it's like more than a way out of date reference. 01:34:11 Speaker 2: So so I bought a rotational casting machine. And at the time, I when I was working for FILA, like everything that we would make for Fila, everything that we would design for them, they would send it back to the to the group in Italy and the ownership group would say no, no, no, that's not what the Americans want, you know, And and we were just pulling our hair out of They were just turning down everything that we made. And we were sure that we were making really, really really good shoes, and most of the time they wouldn't even make them. And we just I just watched our stock, you know, go from seventy six dollars a share down to five dollars a share over a course of a very short amount of time. So then they finally said, hey, we're going to close the Portland office. Your choices are to move to New York City or Italy. And there was about forty people in the off every single one of us said where we take neither. So now I was out of work, and I was tempted to go back to Nike and stuff like that, but I just I was so into goose hunting, and I as much as I loved, you know, working at Nike and with the people at least at FeelA, it wasn't related to hunting and nature and stuff. So so I was out of a job. In my sweet wife, Elda Smith, I love her so much. Here we are we're just getting married and right at that point, I'm like, you know, lose this high paying job, and I'm just fully expecting her to just, you know, ditch my ass. And she's just like, she's just like, we'll be fine. Whatever you got to do, you know. And I'm like working on this sculpture for six months and I'm having a cash in my four oh one k you know, a little bit out of time to keep you know, keep the roof over our head and stuff like that. And she's just such a sweetheart. She was just like, I believe in you and this will turn into something. And uh and you know, you know, God bless her, but so I did. So then I bought this rotational casting machine and that made it way easier to make these decoys and stuff. And then Brad Cochran and I we were just like we were hunting a lot together. Brad is a phenomenal, phenomenal goose hunter. He really is. He's one of five people in the world that I would actually hunt with these days. 01:36:24 Speaker 5: What makes a phenomenal goose hunter so. 01:36:28 Speaker 1: Brad. 01:36:31 Speaker 2: So Brad is super super hardcore. He is. He is so freaking into it, it's unbelievable. He just absolutely lives for it. After all these years, he is just as passionate about it today as he ever was so and I can't match that because I need to go on. I mean, I'm spade fishing for steelhead, I'm I'm archery black tail hunting. I need to I need these tenure at a time things, and I need new challenges and stuff like that. He is absolutely stuck with it the whole time. And he's just he's just accumulated so much knowledge, and he has great instincts. He like, I rely on my instincts one hundred percent when I'm setting up in the morning, and he has instincts. Plus it's just an incredible knowledge base. So and then he's a great shot. That's important and that and he he can spot callers really well too, and and so like so when you're when you're collar hunting, you can only hunt with somebody who's on the same page as you. You can't go hunting with a bunch of guys. I I've done it. I've shot collars when I've gotten invites, But it's usually people you sit up and shoot, and it's usually everybody's like what you know? And but if you're hunting with someone else who's on the same page, and you're looking at all the birds on the on the right, and he's looking at all the birds on the left, and you know that nobody's gonna shoot until he spot a collar. It's just way better than than than you know, Like, I knew so many people that were hunting big groups, and they were sending me texts saying like done by eight, done by eight, fifteen, done by nine, And then they would say, man, I sure wish I could get a collar, And I'm just like, okay, well I sat out there all day long and I didn't shoot anything, But you know, three or four days of that and you're gonna have a caller, Like you can't you can't be dying to get your limit as quick as possible and then complain that you didn't get a caller because you got it. That's how you get a caller, Why not shooting. 01:38:29 Speaker 3: It is kind of funny the the Waterfall hunters. You hear that a lot done by yeah, done by this. 01:38:38 Speaker 2: That's like, yeah, is it so miserable? You really want to be done so fast? 01:38:42 Speaker 5: Like oh yeah, you want to be at the cracker barrel by nine or whatever. Chat your biscuits and gravy. Yeah right, two questions like one. You can answer this one quickly. If you guys gotten good enough to where you can spot the leg. 01:38:55 Speaker 2: Bands, yeah, yeah, yeah, so you set up for the lighting. We had to that, especially on anchorage lessers, because there was a lot of them that only had a leg band. And so yeah, it's the lighting is everything. So in Oregon we don't have a lot of sunshine, and on a cloudy day it's it's incredibly difficult. So I don't think I have ever gotten a band that didn't bling, that didn't sparkle. I think some people have, and I've tried. I mean I've I've got a giant grind of pintails, and pintails they corkscrew down like swans do, where you can see every one of their legs one after another and stuff like that. I've never gotten, never gotten one that way. And I have gotten several leg band only geese by spotting the leg band and at least one where I spotted the shape like while it's quartering away. But I've gotten several that were the lighting was really really good and as the birds are coming and landing one at a time, you know they're dropping their feet. You set up quick, you don't. You never let them land, Like if a bird lands, our general rule is that they're safe. Like and everybody assumes if we're shooting a lot of bands and colors there. We hear people say all the time, like, yeah, we're gonna we're gonna shoot bands and collars. We just we just let them land and we get out the buy notes. It's like, oh my god, you can't do that because you would shoot twenty five geese, you know, Like so you pretty much have to shoot them out of there. Otherwise, you know, you're just gonna have just too much, too many other. 01:40:34 Speaker 5: What is it with the waterfowlers and the collars? 01:40:37 Speaker 1: In the bands? 01:40:38 Speaker 2: There's no antlers, there's no there's no there's no age group or anything like that. 01:40:43 Speaker 5: Like so that's how you guys found like the next like the next level of difficulty where some guy might say I only hunt four and a half year old bucks year older. Yeah, you're like, well to get this with geese, what are we gonna do? So shoot the collar. 01:40:59 Speaker 2: Everybody looks at a different like Brad. Brad made a comment a month ago, and I was just kind of appalled by it. Honestly, he was like saying, like a collar is equivalent to like a three forty ball, and I was like, this is a this is coming. This is definitely a guy who hasn't shot at three forty bull so like, But in his defense, I think what he means is. 01:41:24 Speaker 1: A thing of nature. A collar is a thing made a human factory, exactly exactly. It's like you're handling a bird that's been handled. 01:41:33 Speaker 2: Yep. 01:41:34 Speaker 1: I've always had a real like, I recognize it's cool, and I have a couple of my little box of like special things, but it's been You're not the first person to lay a hand on that bird. Yeah, and some of the magic's going. In fact, it was birds man. 01:41:47 Speaker 2: Yeah, it was one of the number ones. Because I got caught, right, I can't speak to that. Well, what what Brad was getting at, what he was meaning is waterfowlers want a collar as as bad as as big game hunters want a three or fording bowl. 01:42:04 Speaker 1: All right, So at what point did you say to yourself, this has all been great, Johnnie, but we got to move along. 01:42:10 Speaker 2: I understand. 01:42:13 Speaker 1: When you started making them, and here you gotta be honest. You start making decoys for yourself and your garage. You have to in your head, unless you're gonna lie to me, you have to in your head be thinking. I could see going into business making these and selling them. 01:42:31 Speaker 2: I mean that that came about fairly quickly once I realized how expensive the like the materials were and the moles were, and I had I was I really didn't want to because I just wanted for myself because they were working really good. And I am like super super secretive with with so much of my hunting and fishing, and I don't post a lot or anything. I don't have any stickers on my truck and I once in a while I'll take my wife's car so that nobody knows where I'm at or what I'm doing. 01:43:04 Speaker 3: How secretive though, you did just give us a ton of antelope information. 01:43:07 Speaker 2: But we're family, right, you know, Like yeah, and I and he doesn't know this, but I held back some pretty important I mean, just the reality set in that I've got a lot of money in these molds and everything like that, and then and so many people we were asking for them. And then when we started guiding, I was like, well, that's how make the money that's how. 01:43:35 Speaker 1: Make the money back being a successful guide. 01:43:38 Speaker 2: But when you're guiding, more more people than ever asked wanted to buy decoys. So and we were having fun guiding. Brad and I were guiding together, and we were remembering the other day. On one season, we limited out with our clients every single day of the entire season except for two days, but we still killed fifty six geese and the two days. So we were we were doing really well and we were having a lot of fun, and life was good, and gas prices were fairly low and everything like that. But more people ask for for decoys. Gas prices started getting high, more people started hunting. Some of the places that we that we hunted were getting leased out from under us, even by clients and stuff. And Brad, you know, Bradd with an accounting major. The last thing in the world that he wanted to do is go become an accountant. And he was just like, let's let's start making decoys, and and I was all for it. So that's that's what we did. And and it's it's not a super lucrative business, that's for sure, but it's a super fun business. The people, all the clients, all the customers are are great, and everybody that you work with are all super super fun, really really cool people. So I I mean, I could have done a lot better if I'd just stayed at Nike and kept, you know, hammering on my four to one K, I wouldn't be here right now, and i'd be retired, retired. But I have no regrets whatsoever. And I mean, I would just encourage anybody that is just thinking about you know. I mean, I don't want you to quit your job necessarily, but I mean, I mean, it's it's very doable. If an idiot like me can, can you know, scratch out a living and doing something that you just absolutely love. I just encourage people to just go for it. 01:45:35 Speaker 6: You know. 01:45:36 Speaker 4: So at what point did you go from like the Goose decoys to like Turkey decoys or the Buck decoy. 01:45:44 Speaker 1: Yeah? I got turned on you guys years ago because of Turkey decoys. And that was through Yanni. Yeah, Yanni got turned on to them. 01:45:52 Speaker 2: Yeah. And I know, and I feel so bad because you know, my hearing is so bad. In one of our first conversations, you mentioned that, but I didn't hear what you said. You were telling me that it was Yanni, and and I didn't. I didn't hear what you said, and I feel feel really bad, so I apologize, but yeah, I I do. I do kind of recall that and everything like that. But yeah, we so we made Goosey coys for and the the years of all this stuff is kind of hard for me to keep track. I think I started the first Goosey coy in nineteen ninety eight and I finished it in nineteen ninety nine. And uh then Turkey's didn't start until, like I roughly ten years later. 01:46:33 Speaker 1: And how did you get turned down to me? Yannie? 01:46:35 Speaker 2: Jay Scott? Oh yeah, Jay Scott. We love Jay Scott. Yeah, he's a great guy. 01:46:39 Speaker 1: I got a turkey shooting No, he's a watching people shoot turkey son of a gun. 01:46:44 Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, yeah. 01:46:46 Speaker 1: He likes turkey hunting man. 01:46:47 Speaker 2: Yeah he does. He likes he loves turkey, and he loves here. 01:46:50 Speaker 1: He has got you know, he likes being you know, he doesn't surprisingly small amount of hunting himself, I mean as a guide. 01:46:58 Speaker 2: Yeah, he's in on. 01:47:00 Speaker 1: An extraordinary amount of turkey hunts. Yeah, not behind the trigger on the calls, you know. 01:47:06 Speaker 2: Yeah, it's it's funny. He has these incredible opportunities for Elk and cous Dere and you talk to him and he's just so passionate about turkeys, you know, more so than almost anything. But yeah, and so Turkey's it was just we had a lot of our customers talking to us and just saying, my gosh, like, if you guys can make a goose decoy like this, the turkey, the Turkey market, the turkey hunting is ready for an ultra realistic turkey decoy. And there were so many people that didn't like to use Turkey decoys, but a lot of the reasons because most of the turkey decoys were just terrible. And so we you know, I did I did the sculpture of an upright hend and Brad took it to the NWTF show and the I mean, it was just overwhelming support and demand for that. Like we were like kind of like scared if we if we would have had the product, we could have sold so many thousands upon thousands of turkey days over the next five years after that, because it took five years before other companies kind of caught on, like crap dsd is selling the ship out of Turkey decoys. We got to make one, and so we had, you know, we had five or six years of before the rest of the industry caught up, and we were making them as fast as we could make them, but you know, we couldn't catch up. And now now everybody has an ultra realistic turkey decoy and some of them actually looking an awful lot like ours, and that you know that happens, it's a great compliment. And then the Dirty okoy was kind of the same way, though Dirty cooy was kind of a weird thing. So this guy, Randy bird Song how I've actually never met, but he hunted a lot with Lee and Tiffany. He was kind of sending messages through our you know, I don't know, through through through phone calls or our website or email or whatever, saying you got to make a buck decoy. It's got to be in this posturing position. So so I make it. I agreed to one hundred percent. I think he was dead on and I agreed one hundred percent, and I just started on it right away. And I love deer, love deer hunting. 01:49:14 Speaker 1: Where can people go to watch what you let video you show me of bucks working over your buck decoys? Where is that video? Live. 01:49:20 Speaker 2: Yeah, so I have a whole bunch of them. 01:49:22 Speaker 1: I just down one day a bunch of them. Yeah, I want to. Okay, but you guys had a montage put together. 01:49:27 Speaker 2: Oh oh yeah, so that was that was just all our customers. You know. Melissa Bachman, she's she's she's very good, very good hunter, and she's very good at decoying. And you know, decoying is a little different, you know the key. It's like, if you're just a really really good white tail hunter, you're not necessarily a really good decoy hunter. Like it's it's just a little bit of a learning learning curve to it. But she's very good, she's very very good, totally knows what she's doing, and she provides a lot of footage for us. 01:49:57 Speaker 1: Got it. 01:49:57 Speaker 4: Yeah, I always remember seeing the art Lambeau Hunter guys have like wicked footage of using that decoy. 01:50:04 Speaker 2: Those guys are great. 01:50:05 Speaker 5: But is that montage available on your website maybe or or somewhere. No, you just made it the montage. 01:50:13 Speaker 1: No no, No, it's like branded DSD in them. But it's all those bucks doing that same head motion, yeah, smashing a decoy, and they all do that little tip of the head. It's so wild, man. 01:50:22 Speaker 2: Yeah, they rolling their eyes, Their eyes are rolling around in their head, and they lick, They licked their nose. 01:50:28 Speaker 1: They cocked their head. They're always cocked their head at that weird angle. Man. 01:50:31 Speaker 5: Yeah, when you see that there's an explosion getting ready to happen, you're lucky enough to see two mule the or do it. I was just like kind of in and out of Bino's. But my daughter got to watch it through a spotting scope and my brother in law through another spotting scope. But just came in, you know, two big herds of does behind them each and heads almost upside down, and like you're saying, you can see the eyes just doing these weird things. And I mean seconds later, it's like the dog. 01:51:00 Speaker 1: It is like someone putting their hand on their pistol. Yeah, on your pistol. 01:51:07 Speaker 3: When he cocks his head, their blood is just starting to boil and boil. 01:51:11 Speaker 1: And yeah, it's amazing watching deer interact with that thing. Well, some ways, this guy comes what's his name bird Song. 01:51:17 Speaker 2: Yeah, Randy Birdsong, And I just feel like it's really important to point that out because I could not get a hold of him. I wanted to give him a decoy afterwards, and I wanted to tell him thank you and and and all this stuff or whatever, and he just disappeared off the face of the earth. And it's just like no, I mean, he's around somewhere and he just deserves credit for that, and and I want to give him a decoy. 01:51:42 Speaker 1: Well, hopefully someone could pass this along to him. 01:51:44 Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, I remember, I remember watching that guy's hunting stuff back in the day, Randy Bird song. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, he was on TV shows and stuff. 01:51:52 Speaker 2: Yeah, he seemed like a great hunter, and obviously he knows, you know, about white tael behavior and. 01:51:57 Speaker 1: Everything like that. So, so describe the deer's in Yeah. 01:52:01 Speaker 2: So, I mean, first of all, all their you know, all their hair is bristled. It's it's raised in the same way that an animal would do for heating and cooling, and it's just to look big, just to look as large as possible. And then what happens with the deer is when that happens, there's not this this perfect division of hair, so it ended up it'll end up with a bunch of vertical cracks along the side and then vertical cracks along the neck and that's kind of important. And that's on the decoy and everything, and the ears are pinned back as far as they go, and that I think is to make the the the the neck look big and the antlers look big. And so, you know I first made that pose. It's like like with a lot of poses, we had a whole bunch of people saying like, that is the goofiest thing I've ever seen. You'll never sell. It looks like a donkey, blah blah blah. And then people do just a little bit of research and next thing, you know, they find out that we're not so far off. And then the back is just slightly arched, you know, in the head is raised a certain amount, and uh, that's really all it takes. 01:53:09 Speaker 5: Did you choose a specific age class of of buck to mimic? 01:53:15 Speaker 2: Yeah, So all these decoys, because I love blacktail hunting so much, I cheat them just a little bit and I'm I'll make the I'll make the the snout, the muzzle just a little bit shorter and and lean them. This is a terrible thing to admit to all heart. 01:53:32 Speaker 1: You change the decoy for your own blacktail hunting, your own esoteric. 01:53:37 Speaker 2: Well not as specific like like for the actual production decoy, like so every and we sell them all over the Midwest, like that's where they get used like crazy, and and so all you Midwesterners that are using, you know, a DSc pastoring book, I'm sorry that it looks a little bit like a black tail, but that's just what I did. But yeah, it's but the but there is some c things that it doesn't look. It has to look old enough and mature enough to be a threat without being too much of a threat. So it's not going to work in every region. I mean you you know, there are certain parts of the country where that buck would be way too big. 01:54:16 Speaker 1: It's some three hundred and fifty pound one hundred and eighty inch buck. A lot of bucks might be like, yeah he can, I'll let him handle this situation, and. 01:54:24 Speaker 2: They and it brings him down off the bluffs and stuff like that, like in broad daylight. 01:54:28 Speaker 1: Like I. 01:54:30 Speaker 2: My friend Paul Minew He's got five hundred acres in Buffalo County, Wisconsin, and this is a magical place and it's super fun to go and and that decoy has brought big bucks out, you know, in the daylight that I don't think would have otherwise otherwise come out, and we get reports of that all the time. So I'd say the hardest thing is knowing when to shoot, and you don't always get a perfect shot with that. With that buck, you know, like like if you can get him to to be coming and he'll be walking slow, and if you can get him to quarter, you know, a quarter away or a broadside like that. Honestly, is is usually the time to shoot. If the buck crashes the decoy, there's no guarantee you that you're gonna get a shot and at what distance because he'll jump away. Sometimes he keeps running and never stops, and sometimes he jumps away twenty yards and all of a sudden, if you have the decoy at twenty yards, now you got a forty yard shot and you don't know what angle he's gonna So. 01:55:30 Speaker 1: In that video, it's amazing how many of those deer eat it because they're expecting resistance. Yeah that's not there. Yeah, So they're like running into this thing so hard, and you know, they're assuming that there's something that's gonna stop them. But then that thing goes and then they go ass over tea kettle and just get like this totally like but not like if views their toylet like take that. 01:55:53 Speaker 2: Yeah, the then they look back at it like what did I just do? 01:55:56 Speaker 5: Like a level that. 01:55:58 Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm good at that. But that's also why we encourage people to use the stand instead of the steak, because the deer can actually hurt hurt himself on the steak, you know, as they crashed the deco. So the stand breaks away, everything breaks away, and that's that's the best system. And I thought that's all we were selling, is the stand, and those were mine wishes and my instructions. And then I just found out at the GTM that like, no, it comes with a steak, and I'm like, ah, yeah, yeah, like i'd really hold now the steak is fiberglass. But you know the problem is is that they they could hurt their you know, they can hurt their stroke. Crote them on it, and then then you have one heard it scroll them. Yeah yeah I did. That's kind of he became my own fault. Yeah. Well that one was a that was a big four point, like a one hundred and forty inch four point And then what did he do? He grew the next year he grews. I can't remember exactly the the timing of all that, because he crashed the gear in the fall. And then it's like he grew antlers the next year, and they were in velvet and then they that was it. That's that's that's the uh. They never he never came out of velvet ever again. He had his antlers year round and they and over the years they crumbled. They got shorter and shorter and shorter. And he just got gigantic because he didn't go through the rigors of the rut. He just ate all the time and he had didn't have to put, you know, any of his eating into dealing with the rut, you know, So he just got gigantic and and he never came out. 01:57:47 Speaker 5: But his antlers didn't get gigantic, only his body did. 01:57:50 Speaker 3: Yeah. 01:57:50 Speaker 2: No, Well, his antlers never grew again, and they actually got shorter every day because they got so brittle that they would just crumble, the tops of them would crumble down. 01:57:58 Speaker 4: So he hit that decoing. God is nuts caught on the steak. 01:58:02 Speaker 2: Well, we are assuming that I've got some videos. I've got lots of videos of blacktail bucks crashing the decoy. But it happened so fast that I can't tell for sure, but it could have been a barb bar fence or something. We don't know for sure. It was just one of the things that we sort of assume may have happened. We don't unless anybody knows of any I don't know for sure of anything real bad happening, but it looks like for sure something could. 01:58:34 Speaker 1: And then you're working on a female and you're talking about her posture, but you kind of you don't want to make it that her posture is like too much of a good thing, because then a buck might not buy it. 01:58:43 Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, So. 01:58:46 Speaker 1: Like herd is standing on the open like just ready to roll, it's not what you're after. 01:58:50 Speaker 2: Yeah yeah. So and the same thing we had to worry about age too, because if we made her, you know, a big giant mature dough, then you know, there are a lot of does would would you know, blow out her and and that could cause a lot of problems and stuff like that. So so she's she's also supposed to be she's supposed to look like she's just of breeding age, like just old enough to to breed without being like a big old, you know horse face like you know, dominant dough and then yeah, her body posture, she's mostly standing and relax and stuff. But but yeah, just a little hint she's dropped down in the rear a little bit kind of look you know, kind of look like it could happen here. Yeah, and maybe yeah it's where the and you know those bucks like they like blacktail bucks. I can't wait to use on blacktails because blacktails if I mean one of the primary areas that I had blacktails that I think last year there was like twenty twenty two bucks and two dos. So if you if you use a but a you know, a buck decoy hasn't been very effective there, but a dough decoy, like any blacktail buck will just come running right up to it, because if they see a dough, I mean, they just come running up up to it right away. Like there. You know, it's like we've all been there. You know, it's like you get desperate. 02:00:14 Speaker 3: So it's like Bosman twelve years ago. 02:00:17 Speaker 2: Yeah, and she you know, I've had some some people tell me that I've seen her like like, oh my gosh, you should have had her in the full squatting position, you know, like and I don't one hundred percent agree with that. Just because you know, the dough stands. He the dough stands to be bred really only when the buck is right right on her. So so for her to be standing, you know, standing to be bred, it might not look so much standing almost squatting. Yeah, it's it's a little low. It's lower than our than our decoy. And you know, like what we were saying is it could end up looking like she's just like taking a ship or whatever. And so if she's out in the middle and like, oh, there's a dope, Oh she's taking a ship, It's like, I don't know, I mean, that's might not be the most appealing thing or whatever, but I know a black seal buck would charge heright in there. You sell what you're doing. 02:01:13 Speaker 4: You sell the pelletsers on. 02:01:15 Speaker 2: She can't ship, she can't ship forever. 02:01:27 Speaker 5: Two questions earlier, you said in Buffalo County, it would make these bucks come out that otherwise would not have come out in daylight. Yeah, can you explain that a little bit more because I'm trying to figure out, like how do they get the like did they place them where the buck could see the. 02:01:43 Speaker 3: Bluff? 02:01:44 Speaker 2: Yeah, so that's bluff country and in Buffalo county. So it's a lot of there's ag and then there's you know, rocky rocky bluffs all around it, and that the deer all we don't go up into the and we don't go up really, we don't go more than fifty yards into that ever. I mean, not even for chad hunting or anything like. Like literally there's so munch of that that know human that's a sanctuary. Yeah, that's a sanctuary, yep. 02:02:09 Speaker 5: And so their cruise along that edge, they look down in the field, they see the decoy. 02:02:13 Speaker 2: Yeah, but you know, those those cruising bucks don't look. They are just they just do not know. Look. Yeah, yeah, they'll yeah, they're all scent checking areas and stuff. And sometimes they will literally be on the other side of the top of the bluff then that the way that the wind comes up the bluff and it curls and stuff. It's it's kind of kind of crazy what they do, but but they are betted, and they do get up occasionally because they know they're in such a sanctuary that they know that they're safe and everything like that. They get up and feed a little bit, and they're betted and stuff like that, and they might watch you set up the decoy and then like I mean, and some of that is assuming because you know you can't you can't really see them up there. And then but you are in a big, wide open field. Yeah. Yeah, you drove up in a bad boy buggy and you get get the decoy out and everything, and you do it early enough in the in the afternoon, you know, And then that's at the times and when they would be able to see you. But otherwise it would be in the in the mornings when it's dark. And but there's times when we don't really want to do that either too, because in the mornings, in the dark, those bucks are moving or moving around and they're down on the bottom. Just like with blacktail hunting, I don't even hunt mornings. I give them the mornings. I don't. I do not like going in my tree stand or ground blind and bumping deer out or anything like that. I go in in the middle of the day and sit till dark, because I can get out of a stand with deer around at dark, but I can't get into a stand in the mornings with the dark. And I think that's one of the biggest problems that people have with blacktails and that's. 02:03:49 Speaker 1: How I've I want to come out and hunt blacktails with you, man, man. 02:03:52 Speaker 2: Yeah, come on out, Like there's the the way that I've finally cracked it the code is by getting permission on good private properties, because some of the public stuff is just kind of horrible or burnt to the ground. But I spent six six years writing over one hundred letters a year in the spring and ended up with some with some pretty good properties. I just have to kind of get the okay, the okay from the landowners and stuff. But I mean, some of them are just super great, great people. And yeah, blacktails are super fun. They're not They're not as smart and cagy and difficult as white tails, so they're not nearly as like those Midwest white tails are crazy when it comes to human scent and encroachment and pressure and all that stuff. And they are just super super smart. And everybody that hunt blacktails assumes and it always wants to believe that blacktails are the smartest, most cage just thing. The thing about blacktails is they're hearing is really really good. So the clothing, you know, has to be unbelievably quiet to get your get your bow drawn. And then the other thing is that they just don't come out in the daytime, know, like white tails do. But other than that they are very forgiving, like I could like and I can't hunt the same tree stand in the Midwest, you know, more than two times probably for white tails and it's done, you've burned it probably for the season. But with blacktails, I've I've hunted the same tree stand like seven seven days in a row. So you can get away with murder with with blacktails, you just need you just need them to come out during the day. That's the hardest. That's the lot, that's really the difficult part about them. 02:05:32 Speaker 5: How do you deal with the scent issue around running a deer decoy? 02:05:37 Speaker 2: Well, so the most important thing is that it's it's been manufactured long long enough and it's aired out long enough since it's been manufactured. So that's that's the biggest thing. And then you don't touch it with your hands. So your dear decoy will work. It'll work reasonably good. If you buy one in July and then air it out and everything, it's gonna work good. But it will work. It's like a like a mink box or something. It'll work better every year as it gets older, more earthy, yeah, more earthy and and and scent free and everything with that, and you just don't touch it with uh, don't touch it with your bare hands, and you know, don't don't don't breathe on it, and then don't you don't ever put scent on it. You know, if you want to use any kind of scent, you put it, you know, under the decoy or near the decoy or something like that. But you keep the decoy sent free because if you put scent on it, you know that that'll get kind of rancid over time and stuff. But you also don't put scent all over the ground or anything like that, because then then you can't pull that scent with you when you leave. I mean that That's what's worked for me, is I'll put scent you know, like in a in a bottle or with you know, with cotton or whatever you got to do, and just open it underneath the decoy. That's when I do use scent. It doesn't matter that much, I mean, Or I'll put tarsus, you know, tarsus glands, tarsal glands from a from a buck. That does work at times pretty pretty pretty darn well with black tails. 02:07:15 Speaker 1: If you were listened to Clay's Bear Grease podcast. No, he had an episode called Deer Stories, and there's a guy that tells a story about shooting the buck and taking the glands off and tying the glands to his ankles, and he gets his ass kicked by a buck. 02:07:30 Speaker 2: Yeah, I probably wouldn't. 02:07:32 Speaker 1: Realize this buck is coming down his trail and is coming for him. Oh geez, it's a funny story. 02:07:38 Speaker 2: Well it could have. That could have been way worse, because that could have been like dough dough in heat scent. You know, like, as long as it the buck just wanted. 02:07:47 Speaker 1: To kill him, that's not as humiliating. 02:07:53 Speaker 2: Yeah, he can he can. 02:07:54 Speaker 4: Live, So David, when you're sitting like say, I'm sitting in a tree stand facing a field and I want to put decoy out, how do I place that decoy for the best. 02:08:03 Speaker 2: Shot, I mean like maybe quartering away and but that just that just depends like a quartering quartering away would be with a dough and and and then possibly quartering two with a buck. 02:08:18 Speaker 3: But I'll tell you what, right, wind dependent? 02:08:22 Speaker 2: Yeah, it's wind dependent. Yeah, they'll they'll try to they'll try to get down window, try to get down wind of it and stuff, and so with a buck, you know, quartering two works pretty good, but there is no guarantee whatsoever, Like anytime you think that you know how they're going to approach it. Like people, the the idea of quartering two is the idea of behind behind that is that they'll come and come head on. They just don't do that. I mean they don't. They definitely don't do that with any major consistency because the the the way to do damage is to ram one like completely on the on the side in the root cage, and so there's just a lot of deer Decoying is just super fun because it's not a guaranteed thing. There's there's certain things that it does for you, like you can get your bodrawn so easily, like when you're using a buck decoy because they're just so distracted. But there's also the downsides and that is like you're not sure you're gonna gonna get a good shot or whatever. But I think quartering two is probably the best. And that's assuming that you have the wind more or less in your face. 02:09:35 Speaker 1: Gotcha? 02:09:36 Speaker 5: Will you hunt them in like woodland, forested terrain or you always sticking to more of an open fuel type place where deer can see it as from far away as possible. 02:09:49 Speaker 2: So I have I've set up for blacktails in old growth timber, but not successful, not success. I've tried it in the in the woods, but the best successes that I've that I've had and I'm not majorly into deer decoying. I will be now that now that we have a dough, But the best successes that I have have been on the edge of a where ag meets meets timber. And that's the same with blacktails too. Meadowee Meadowee areas and stuff. I'm old old a man and orchard that I hunt. I've had success with the blacktail decoy there. But with white tails, I mean I've had it to where they're coming along through the woods and all of a sudden they see it and they kind of it kind of kind of startles them a little bit, because yeah, I mean, it's just I mean, it's it's just like we were talking about with the antelope blind and stuff. It's just better if they can see it from a distance away. 02:10:51 Speaker 1: But have you used it in conjunction with rattling where they're expecting to find something standing there. That's what I feel like the real value would be is he's coming in, but then all of a sudden like oh there it is. 02:11:02 Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean I have but like my gosh, one of my hunting partners justin Kasmar, he gets so mad at me because I'll go sometimes the whole season without rattling. Rattling is super fun. And I've rattled in some nice bucks and shot some with my bow in the in the upper Clackamus and that's public land blacktails. But I like now that I'm hunting more down in the valley, I treat all my goose hunting has taught me that everything, everything about goose hunting is not educating animals. That's what goose hunting. That's still that's the trick of the whole thing. And so so now that's affected all my other hunting. So that's why I mean, I've like on elk hunting, I've shot some big bulls and I've even got some you know, by by calling and stuff. But I've got more auditory stand on ground, bline and everything like that, like all, and I would be a way better elk hunter if I was willing to move into those those areas and move where I need to. But I'm just so about staying on the perimeter, staying out of those creepy you know Heidi holes, out of those bedrooms, and giving them all kinds of space and all kinds of refuge. Give him the mornings, give him, give them tons of space and the the It bites me in the ass at times, for sure. But what what I love about it is if you don't if you don't kill one, you have the next day and the next day and the next day and the next day. 02:12:30 Speaker 1: You should write a hunting book like Dunk and Gil Chris book Hunt High. 02:12:35 Speaker 2: I've never knowing that. 02:12:37 Speaker 1: Well I shouldn't say that, but anyway, what. 02:12:39 Speaker 6: Would it be called? 02:12:42 Speaker 2: Hunt the Perimeter? 02:12:44 Speaker 1: Well, see, the thing about Hunt High is just so it's a lifelong hunter and it's just all these like really just general pieces of information. One minute he's talking about is can't how he likes there's that up as camp stove next to me. He's talking about the way mountain goats act. But just it's just gold all through the whole thing, just random. He kind of accidentally writes, like hemingway, it just it's just a page upon page of just gold ruminations from a fairy seasoned hunter and a lot of stuff. You're like, I haven't thought about that that way before. I haven't thought about that way before. You know, you got a lot of that stuff laid up in you. 02:13:25 Speaker 2: I want to read it. I want to read that. 02:13:27 Speaker 1: What was funny? Man is? 02:13:29 Speaker 2: Yeah? Good? 02:13:29 Speaker 1: He's dead, So check this out. He's dead and he's self published these books. And and when I started talking about and I always put him on like favorite book lists and all that huh high. And it got to me where if you wanted to buy one, it was hundreds of dollars because we'd driven a lot of interest. One day I lent mine to someone and someone took it and never gave it back. So I went online and bought one for one hundred bucks from some dude in Texas. And I just buy it on Amazon unused books, and it comes with a sticky note on it that says, dude, you're the reason I bought this book. 02:14:01 Speaker 2: Wow, that's cool. Yeah that worth worth. Matthewsons has lent me a couple of books about the early Martin Trappers and Wayne Nigs and Pouli Rossboro and Martin I have known is one of them. And it's the same thing. You go to try to find those books like Worth lent me one of them and gave me he gave me the other. But yeah, trying to find those books on Amazon U this is next time possible. But I sure would like to get more and more copies. Those books are incredible. 02:14:36 Speaker 1: Let me hit you with one last one before we end. If you not place in Turkey decoys properly, do you think you'd be doing more damage than than good? Meaning you got a gobbler, he's coming in right, Can you ever have it be that it'd be just better not even to use the damn thing than to have it set the way you have it set. 02:14:56 Speaker 2: You mean because because he's going to be searching and covering. 02:15:00 Speaker 5: Do you know, because you would put your decoy out in such a manner or in such a pose and position that when he sees it, he's like, what that's not what that ends supposed to be doing. I'm out of here. 02:15:10 Speaker 2: Oh, let me let me. 02:15:11 Speaker 1: Phrase it a different way. How important is placement over just having the presence be there? 02:15:18 Speaker 2: Well, I've only ever done it the right way, so no, I don't. I don't know. I mean, I just you know, you can. You can screw up goose decoys really bad, really bad because yeah placement. Yeah, you can have them all face into the wind. You can have them crooked on their steaks, you can have them spread way too far apart. And people do all of those things all the time, and it can make a huge, huge, huge difference. On turkeys. I mean, I haven't really found a really wrong way. I I haven't seen any spreads from our from our customers where I looked at it and just went, you know, like I I think you know, because turkeys are they're they're a little different than geese, and I I'm sure there is a wrong way to do it, but. 02:16:14 Speaker 1: There's not as sensitive safe to say just basically what you're telling me. It's not as sensitive as waterfoul placement. 02:16:21 Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure. 02:16:22 Speaker 1: I mean you think it's as an end, But you wouldn't say the same thing about deer. You think there is a you found that there is like the wrong place and wrong way to set deer decoys. Well, I mean you don't like them in timber. 02:16:35 Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't like them in timber, but I probably need to experiment more on that and stuff. So I wouldn't consider myself to be an authority on that. And I like to experiment a lot. And and the animals always surprise me. You know. Every time I think that there's a rule, they the animals show me otherwise. 02:17:02 Speaker 6: I know that. 02:17:03 Speaker 2: You know, there's times there's times when using a strutter like a like let's see, i'd say there's times when using hens only has helped me make some good shots with my bow because the birds came in strutting. And then there's times when when using uh, you know, a gobbler decoys has made me miss some pretty important birds like that would have really meant a lot to me. And I couldn't get my boat my bow drawn, or I couldn't came hot on it came into hot. They'll also come in and just put off, and you're thinking what I do wrong? And after a while, I didn't do anything wrong. He saw that thing and didn't like it. 02:17:45 Speaker 1: You know, idea that happens, man, I know it does. 02:17:50 Speaker 3: I know I surprised him before. Where they come over, you have your decoy up, They come over a little knoll or something too close. They see that they don't feel like duking it out. 02:18:01 Speaker 2: Yeah, oh yeah, totally. Well. And I've had I've had blacktail bucksty that where they stepped out one hundred yards away and saw the decoy and I was just like, oh my god, it's it's happening. And I'm getting back, putting my release on and everything, and I'm all excited, and I'm just waiting and waiting and waiting, and I look and I look and expecting him to be, you know, real close, and now he's high high tailing it away. Definitely. 02:18:23 Speaker 1: I mean, you see a lot of them plow in to beat that thing to death. But it does happen where they put off and they, like I used to think in Neville Ice, think that we spooked that bird. Someone moves, someone spooked that bird. But the turkey bile just Robert Abernathy, who's a very experienced decoy, yeah, has been decoying for a long time. 02:18:42 Speaker 2: Yep. 02:18:42 Speaker 1: He's convinced too. He says, I think sometimes those birds come in, they see that, they see that gobbler, and they don't like it well, and they're putting off. They're putting off or just ghosting out because of that presence. He still uses it, but he says that's the thing that happens. 02:18:57 Speaker 2: Yeah, I agree one hundred percent. And also you just never know what what that decoy represents. It could be could represent a bird that he's already familiar with and is already you know, uh lower lower on the hierarchy level. 02:19:11 Speaker 1: Then like he hears a hen, he comes in and be like, daw damn it, Gobbler's already here, Billy's here. Last week. 02:19:19 Speaker 2: My answer to that is went in doubt. Well, for one, you know, you use a lot of hens and a lot of like praining hens and feeding hens. That always looks makes everything look you know, relaxed and stuff. And even if there's a gobbler there. And then also you know, like our three quarter strut jake, which is actually a half strut jake and somehow it got named a three quarter shrut jake. But that's for another day. But but that's a good decoy to use with a bunch of hens because it looks a little less intimidating and and it just looks like, well, I mean, I've had so many times when uh gobblers will come in that I know are even a mature tom that I know is not really a dominant bird. And even with even with the jake there, they just come in slow enough and then before I know, they're mounting one of the one of the decoys. And you can also put a submissive Hannah distance away, like so he's not necessarily standing over her and stuff. So it feels like there's always a combination that will give you the best chance. But there's always going to be situations for just you've slat and I'm. 02:20:27 Speaker 1: Glad our body guys Uck's who's very seasoned turkey hunter. He has a little rule. He like, he's not the kind of guy that believes that everything is, you know, one way or the other. But he has a little rule for himself. He don't set a male decoy in the evening because he's like, they're just not in that mood. I don't think. Yeah, he goes, you're just less like he finds in the evening. You're less likely to get that I'm gonna kick that thing's ass response in the evening and you're more likely to push him off. And he likes hens in the evening because they're just more mingly. You know, he might want to find them to the roost whatever. But they're not wanting to deal with the big old strutter at night. Yeah, that's just his take on it. Right. 02:21:06 Speaker 2: So I have killed some some big mature toms, like where it was like literally in the last five minutes of shooting time, and and I've had them go one hundred yards out of their way to come up to the decoys. But the lesson that I've learned, and I've got burned multiple times doing it, is they'll come up and they'll jump on They'll they'll jump at the decoy one time and then I'm like thinking, Okay, here we go. It's gonna it's just gonna thrash the decoy for the longest time and I'm gonna have this perfect shot. They'll jump on the decoy one time and they're about done. That's it. Like, it's just I agree with without one hundred percent. And that's if they even jump at the decoy. Sometimes they'll come up, but I mean there's in the evening, Yeah, in the evenings, late at night, it's just and that's only when it's a if there is a if there's a tom that is the absolute boss and he's got lots of hens and he's gonna go up to roost and he sees uh, he sees a strutter with hens. A lot of times they will come and check it out, but they're not gonna be aggressive. And I've I've killed some nice ones with my bow at real close range that that way. But I've learned the hard way that you don't have much time, you better shoot. You better shoot, like as he's approaching the decoy, because you're not gonna get get him. I've never had one just thrash the decoy like crazy, like they do and like midmorn. 02:22:31 Speaker 1: I can't get in your head that like I'm gonna have a big show and then sometime later shoot him. Yeah, yeah, yep, that's the thing I still do hunting turkeys is now and then maybe not. But I usually when I get a shot, I take it. 02:22:45 Speaker 2: Yeah. 02:22:46 Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, even though you will see where you know, they come in and interact with the decoy for a long time. Like if there's the one I want and I get a shot, I'm shooting. 02:22:56 Speaker 2: Yeah you know what I mean. 02:22:57 Speaker 1: Yeah, I just rather than expecting that it's gonna be this crazy you know, fight and breeding decoys and all that kind of stuff. 02:23:06 Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, and some of that. It's just it's just so weird. Like I mean, and Brad and I have joked about like what what if humans did exactly the things that turkeys has done, because we've had we've had times when this this, this whole flock comes in and there will be I mean, they're like humping the decoys and they're fighting the decoys, and they're fighting each other, and they're humping each other and and it's like some of this stuff. And then we'll shoot one and sometimes we'll use like a Magnus bullhead or and it just shoots there to decapitates them instantly, and we feel like sometimes that's a good way to get a quick, clean kill. And then like this this turkey's laying there with no head and it's flopping around and other ones are coming in and jumping on top of it and trying to fight it, and and it's just like it's just so bizarre. 02:23:58 Speaker 1: I got some bars I could remember that that might have been a little bit of the groove, but that's about it. Man. Yeah, it is way way different than folks. And they can fly. 02:24:10 Speaker 2: I had a blacktail buck a few years ago that came in and gave me a really good shot, and I double belonged him and he went short distance and betted down, and five minutes later a nice big blacktail buck came in and and just went right over to that. He just went he just knew right where that buck was, just by scent really and kicked him up out of his bed and what Yeah, kicked him up out of his bed, and then he went and bedded down it down again, and he went and kicked him up out of his bed again, and I was like, I don't know what to do. And so yeah, there's there's a lot of strange things that happened in nature, and yeah, I agree like that show. You know, it's like some shows are better than others, Like a big grind of geese. That's a really pretty show and it's really really neat thing and it's worthwhile and if you don't shoot at all, like that's just super fun and it's a totally successful day. But you know, when turkeys come in, I agree, if you get a good, quick, clean kill, you know that's and you're there to kill one, and you know it's like you take take take the shot. You don't have to necessarily see him, like beating up a decoy for an hour. 02:25:18 Speaker 1: Yeah, you know our buddy Parker Hall. He thinks that if you kill a turkey over a decoy, you go to Hell, which makes me wonder, where's the guy that makes turkey decoys end up? 02:25:28 Speaker 2: Park Special Place? 02:25:31 Speaker 1: They got a real hot corner in the basement. 02:25:35 Speaker 2: Now it's I've had say that too. 02:25:38 Speaker 1: They that would be maybe that's Dave's book of hunting tidbits called Hell's Basement in the old days. In the old days, we would have named this episode Hell's Basement. 02:25:48 Speaker 5: Jay Scott's ripping what little Harry has left out here, and you say you just let him, you know, shoot him as you as soon as you can, because he likes to him he likes to sit there and watch the Yeah. 02:26:00 Speaker 1: Yeah, he likes to get him with me. 02:26:02 Speaker 5: He enjoys the show. 02:26:04 Speaker 1: I like to get him coming, all right, Dave Smith, thanks for coming on, man, thanks for having me. I know who told me you don't do you don't do podcasts, may be really eager to have you on. Yeah, you know, the guys that really want to do them to make me leary. 02:26:19 Speaker 2: Now, the people that I work with are probably surprise that I even you know, agreed to it, but I just you know, things have changed now and I just want to be as cooperative and helpful as possible. 02:26:30 Speaker 5: So well, listen, you did such a good job. I've already told Karin and put you back on the put you on the returning guest. 02:26:39 Speaker 1: Oh yeah, you got to join the all timers, man. 02:26:41 Speaker 2: You know, bring them, Bring Brad Brad Cochran and Mike Callian, Greg Hogan, Scott Sprucker, those guys. I'm not kidding they they have a lot of information. They're super fun, fun guys. 02:26:53 Speaker 1: And next time we next time you guys, I want you to bring your whole team. Okay, we're just gonna do where they got to think. We used to do these things called hot tip offs, where it was like a showdown of hot tips. We should revitalize hot tip off. 02:27:05 Speaker 5: Yeah, I was watching something the other day. I was watching yesterday vitalizing him right now on the website. 02:27:12 Speaker 1: That's great, So hot tip off, you have a competition who's got the hottest tip. You bring all your crew in and you guys could have an hour long hot tip off or just goes around the table and then we'll score it and we'll wind up with a winner out. 02:27:27 Speaker 2: Of the hole just goes round and round and round and round. 02:27:31 Speaker 1: And then we'll score the whole performance. 02:27:34 Speaker 5: How good are you in the kitchen? 02:27:35 Speaker 1: GSD? Hot tip off? 02:27:37 Speaker 2: What's that? 02:27:37 Speaker 5: How good are you in the kitchen? 02:27:39 Speaker 2: Terrible? 02:27:40 Speaker 1: You're married? Right? 02:27:42 Speaker 2: What's that? 02:27:42 Speaker 1: You're married or not? 02:27:43 Speaker 3: Yeah? 02:27:43 Speaker 2: Yeah? Yeah, Luckily you. 02:27:45 Speaker 5: Guys will still be fun to play. 02:27:47 Speaker 1: Been married a long time? Yeah, yeah, I think you'd be good at trivia man. 02:27:52 Speaker 5: Yeah, but if you're not, if you if you say you're terrible in the kitchen, boy, that really that's twenty five percent of the questions. 02:27:57 Speaker 3: Yeah, but I bet you he's got some hot tips about it being in the kitchen, like get a frozen peat. 02:28:07 Speaker 2: It'll be twenty twenty five years of spring. And my wife is of Mexican descent. She's a great cook. She doesn't think that she is, but uh she Everything she makes is amazing. 02:28:17 Speaker 1: So was your wife born in Mexico? 02:28:21 Speaker 2: No, No, she wasn't born. She's like think three generations as Yeah, but twenty five years. Got the whole She's got all the traditions down and everything, and that her grandma didn't speak any English at all, and and where her parents live in eastern Washington. It's just you know, we go over there and make to Molly's and and it's a lot of culture, Mexican culture. 02:28:45 Speaker 1: I once traded someone a bunch of a woman from damn it Comish. I can remember where she's from. She's from Central America. Either way. They make to Mollies slightly different than Mexican Tomali's, I know, because they would put like a dried fruit in them. 02:29:06 Speaker 5: Uh huh. 02:29:07 Speaker 1: Where was she from? Man? Maybe Columbia? Okay, So so I gave her a bunch of muskox meat, the deal being that she made Tomali's with that muskox meat, but I got half of the yield, which she thought was a screaming deal. I thought it was a screaming deal. So whatever, she made like twenty pounds worth of muskox meat Tomali's, which is a shitload of Tmali's, and then I got half of the take. 02:29:36 Speaker 2: Nice. 02:29:37 Speaker 1: No, it was a phenomenal deal. I had them all lined up like bars of gold in my freezer. Man, but we went through them pretty quick. But they had like dried fruit, which I thought was interesting. 02:29:46 Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't have to find out what that is. But yeah, they our family doesn't do it like that, just traditional with pork meat and all that. 02:29:55 Speaker 1: Give me your hottest piece of marriage advice. Give me a hot tip off on marriage advice. 02:30:01 Speaker 2: I mean, I just I don't know. I just feel like I just got so lucky and I'm just so blessed and everything like that. I don't, I don't know what. I just I think my wife is just the rock of our of our family, and she's just a total sweetheart and and you know, it's like she's the reason though I guess why I don't do very many trips, Like I feel like I found her sort of late in life, even though we've been married twenty five years or whatever. And so I love my home life so much so it's turned me into a homebody like steelhead steelhead fishing and bass fishing and you know some you know a lot of stuff that I do or stuff that's close close to home, because. 02:30:39 Speaker 1: I like you home, Yeah, eating them to Molly's and you. 02:30:42 Speaker 2: Never know how much time you'll how much time you'll have, you know. 02:30:45 Speaker 1: I got some marriage advice, find the right to buy. Tony had this little tidbit one time. He said he and I were both got in trouble with our wives one time, which we didn't even deserve because we had taken all of our kids claim digging. So you think, how could you be in any trouble, Like normally, if I take my kids to do something, my wife's very very happy with me. Right if they're all gone, there's nothing complain about. Anyways, on this trip, he Tony had his kid in one of those kid carriers on your back clam digging, but he didn't tire in there, and he's out in the water and leans over comes right out of that back back carrier because he was like leaning over fishing around in the water for something. He's on the way home, we got pulled over by post like next thing. You know, it's like one in the morning. It's just a whole late deal. Anyways, he said to me, Steve, and I got yelled at, but my wife on speakerphone. He got yelled at but his wife. He said to me, Steve, if we were the way they wanted us to be, they wouldn't like us. My wife she said, yeah, I would. 02:31:53 Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that's true. 02:31:55 Speaker 1: I don't think that's marriage advice. That's just funny, all right. Maybe like a meat eater's guy, do marriage advice. 02:32:04 Speaker 3: I come up with a couple of tips. 02:32:07 Speaker 1: I don't know about you, Chester. I heard of Chester get yelled at eastbound and westbound on the same highway. 02:32:13 Speaker 6: Man, But then he's just got to sing that beautiful song that he wrote, and then he'll make everyone weep. Just be forgiven. 02:32:24 Speaker 1: Yeah, I've been driving down roll of Chester. He's in all kinds of trouble because he's late from getting home from fishing. And I said, well, here you supposed to be doing when you get home? He said, going fishing. He was late for his second fishing trip because he'd been going too long on his first fishing trip of the day. 02:32:42 Speaker 2: That's yeah, it's always bad. You tell you, you tell your wife are going, you're going for a half a day, and you come home she's like, I thought you were going for half a day, and you're like, well, twelve hours is half a day. 02:32:53 Speaker 1: In Chester's defense, he was supposed to take his white fish and she was pissed that he was at home from his other fishing to do that fishing. All right, Thanks coming on, Dave, Did you like it? 02:33:03 Speaker 2: Thanks for having me? I appreciate it. I was like it or hate it. 02:33:06 Speaker 1: I liked it. 02:33:07 Speaker 2: I was kind of stressing it a little bit. I didn't sleep much last night. 02:33:11 Speaker 1: Don't go on all kinds of other podcasts, you know what I mean. Don't become one of them guys. 02:33:17 Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, no, no, keep it tight, man, We'll keep it, yeah, for sure, keep it tight. 02:33:23 Speaker 6: And everyone can find uh Dave's decoys at Dave smith decoys dot com. 02:33:31 Speaker 2: We haven't. 02:33:31 Speaker 6: We'll merged that into the meat Eater site at some point soon. But right now, it's he. 02:33:37 Speaker 1: Prefers DSD because he's he's so modest. He doesn't like being such a showboat. That's why he always goes to DSD. 02:33:43 Speaker 6: I'm just I'm just giving the audience the u r L. Well see the decoys are. 02:33:49 Speaker 1: To prefer DSD. I get, yeah, because he doesn't want to detract from his co workers' efforts by Dave's Yeah. 02:33:56 Speaker 2: That's the thing is like we and that's that's one of the things that's we're having a hard time with that adjustment of and everyone's having a hard time with that adjustment. Is at d SC we've always operated as a group, you know, and made all our decisions as a group. And and a consensus and you know, discussing everything, and so there's definitely not one person that is sort of the you know, the north star of DSD a. 02:34:26 Speaker 1: Lot of muscle. 02:34:28 Speaker 6: You're so self deprecating. 02:34:30 Speaker 2: Yeah, well, I don't know. I mean, I've just been I've just been real like like like I I definitely you know, I didn't do anything. I mostly just work in my in my shop a distance away from the from the decoy shop and do clay sculptures and everything, and so you know, I just surrounded myself with people that are really good at at all those other all those other things, and I never wanted to be super involved with the you know, with all the headaches of the business side of it and stuff like that, and so you know, we're just definitely we're definitely a team and operate operate that way and stuff, and so you know, that's take some adjustment for everyone to realize that I'm I am not you know, I am not the the the decision maker representative and you know of D of DSD. 02:35:23 Speaker 1: Well Decoys doesn't lend someone to think that that, Like when you're talking to Dave Smith, you. 02:35:31 Speaker 2: Know, yeah, I get that, I get that and again I tried, you're. 02:35:35 Speaker 1: Willing to see that? 02:35:37 Speaker 3: Yeah, okay, well you guys do make some really really good realistic decoys. Like the other day when I saw more of that full spread, I was very impressed. 02:35:48 Speaker 2: Oh thanks, Jess, I say that. 02:35:51 Speaker 1: You know, we didn't even get into we got to wrap up, we didn't get into fur trapping. 02:35:55 Speaker 2: Oh yeah, you just have to come back. 02:35:58 Speaker 1: Maybe make a Martin decoy who for trapping. 02:36:02 Speaker 2: Is one of the things that helps me set up ground blinds and tree stands. Like I think if like if you, if you don't have that, I think you're you're, you know, sadly missing out a tiny little bit unsetting. 02:36:16 Speaker 1: Oh, it's very educational. We'll save that for the next time you're on. 02:36:19 Speaker 2: Sounds good, you'll come on. 02:36:20 Speaker 1: We'll do a hot tip off with you and your guys. Then you'll come on, we'll talk for trapping. 02:36:24 Speaker 3: Sounds great, and then you win trivia. 02:36:28 Speaker 1: I think I'm gonna still beat them, maybe beat them horribly bad. All right, man, don't go doing a bunch of podcasts. 02:36:38 Speaker 2: Now, don't worry. 02:36:55 Speaker 1: Seal Gray Shine like Suit in the sun. 02:37:04 Speaker 2: Ride, Ride, Ride on along, sweetheart. 02:37:13 Speaker 3: We're done. 02:37:14 Speaker 1: Beat this damp horse to death, taking a new one and ride away. 02:37:23 Speaker 6: We're done beat this damn horse today, so take a new one and ride on.