00:00:02 Speaker 1: Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast, your home for deer hunting news, stories and strategies, and now your host, Mark Kenyon. Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast. I'm your host, Mark Kenyan, and this is episode number two and fifty seven, and this week on the show, my buddy Further and I are joined by the First Light crew up at my family deer Camp to swap hunting stories, laugh a lot, talk gear, and gush over our favorite big game species. All right, so, welcome to the wire Hunt podcast, brought to you by Onyx. For the second time in three episodes or four episodes, we're back doing a deer camp podcast for um for good reason too. I got I don't know if you knew this, Josh, but I got a lot of emails and messages and stuff saying that some people thought that was one of their favorite episodes, the one we did with Dad. That was cool. You had a good couple of guests on that episode. I think that was probably what did it that might be hit. Speaking of which, I thought a good way to start today would be for each one of our real guests here today we got Jordan's, Gregg and Ford. I would like each of you to share your favorite Further story of the week, because I've told you it has a whole bunch of stories about Further. Um, what stands out to you for Forward? Is your favorite story about Further that I shared? Can you come back to me? I gotta think through all of the ones, ever, Greg oh Man, I was hoping I was going to get to go last. Um. I think my favorite Further story to this point, Man, I hate to be cliche, but I think it's the birthday cake story. Birthday. Yeah. I know that was a front runner for a lot of people here, but they're so special about the birthday cakes. And I told the Birthday cake store in the podcast, Josh, I'm sure you haven't. Don't. You can probably skip it now. I don't know if we did. I'll give the real cliff notes version. But we're maybe thirteen or fourteen. And it was my birthday and for my birthday party had a bunch of like my buddies all spent the night and we set up a tent in the backyard of like our suburban neighborhood and we're all going to camp in the tent in the backyard, real real civil, low key stuff, and uh, we're all heading out to the tent in the evening, and uh, I happen to bramp the fact. Oh you know, uh, there's actually coyotes. We've been hearing coyotes out here. And I got this one friend who back in that day, you know, he he liked to partake in the food truck. You know, he was just a little bit. My buddies called him Squash back in the day before he was Further. He was called Squash, had good nickname throughout the years, sub Squash. Squash heard me say something about kyotes and he turn it looked at me and his eyes were huge, like like eight balls, and he says to me, I better bring this birthday kick back inside. He would raise him back inside and I think your phone makes that funky noise and you bring close to your mike by the way. Yeah, Um, he's trying to interfere with the story. He is trying to try and get the Further story stopped, but the Further train is moving. Um, so that's the birthday cake story. And I actually gave the speech at Further's wedding. I was the best man in his wedding and I gave the speech and in that speech, I managed to bring up the birthday cake story, and so brought up kind of midway through the speech. And then my line to end the speech was, and Josh, make sure you don't take any birthday cake in your honeymoon suite tonight. You fit in a couple of good ones in that. I told the birthday cake story. I also told the archery store, which maybe someone Yeah, that was my favorite one, especially the delivery off you know when you referred to a friend that would not be named, came all the way around. That was good. It wasn't a giveaway that I was sitting here just like trying to hide behind my hat or something. Not immediately to me, but not until he said Marks was saying that it was sixty to seventy yards off the mark, your whole head just kind of sank a little bit as big time embellishment on the Marks part. No, I don't do that with my stories. But I'll tell you what this this squashed guy, he didn't miss the target by sixties seventy yards. He hit the driveway, it ricocheted over the road and hit a vehicle. Regional Director, Ladies and gentlemen, right here as you can see this we've been doing all weekend, just sitting around or not week I guess during the week, but sitting around and Mark telling embarrassing stories about me and pretty much par for the course these days. I guess you think you make kind of been asking for are making him the best man your wedding knowing you as I told you guys ago, one of these days of the day is gonna come crashing down from Mark. I'm gonna get my revenge. I want to give. I want to give you further some big props because I did like call you Don't a few weeks ago or a month ago whatever and said, hey, we've got a group of guys from First Like coming to deer Camp for a few days. Um, would you have any interest in coming along and just kind of helping out. It could be nice to have someone else who kind of knows the ropes, who can kind of help run the camp so that I can be working and doing different things like that. And uh, you were so kind to accept that. And you run a top shelf camp. It's been a lot of fun. I've had a good time. Yeah, you run an absolute top shelf camp. So so yeah, we're here up at the cabin further here running the run of the ship. Over here to my left, I got Jordan's how Jordan, can you tell us? Uh? Your your ten second cliff note introduction. Who you are, what you're doing here? Yeah, I'm Jordan Riley. I am one of the owners of Captured Creative up here shooting stills and footage in the last couple of days. Yes. Now, continuing around the clock clockwise, we go to forward, sitting on the leather couch. Sitting on the leather couch, Ford van Fausten, content manager, First Light. Next up, we've got Greg. Yeah, I'm Greg Farrell on the product operations manager at First Light. Here. Uh, working with you guys, trying out some gear and talking product development. Getting some time the tree stand has been great. Yeah. I I feel like when I pitched coming up to this camp. It was months ago. I think when we first had these conversations and I had mentioned, well, I got two different options. We go down south and we could hunt and we probably see good number deer, but it wouldn't be quite as interesting and would experience. We have to, you know, stay in a hotel or something um or maybe the guest bedroom of my house, but we have a tea old baby. That wouldn't be much fun. Um. Or we could go up to my northern Michigan deer camp. One room cabin, no electricity, no water, you know, woodburn and stove of all that, but not as many deer. Now that you have lived this hunt, the trip is coming to a conclusion. Um, So, well, you guys chose Option B. Now that you've lived that, are you happy with that choice? Or do you wish that we'd gone with option now? I'll jump in here first. I guess, um, we're actually just having this conversation at dinner. I think my exact words where I would spend a couple of days at a place like this and see less dear over living out of a hotel and seeing more dear. This is the quintessential in my eyes, deer camp experience. It's a it's a really cool place, a lot of history. Um, kind of the old school Midwestern deer camp scenario. It's hard to beat. I love it. It's great. Yeah, I just didn't not that. I'm I'm new to Midwestern deer camps on the grand scheme of things. But doesn't seem much. You could get much more classic than looking at twenty odd sets of horns here on the wall above the wood stove and single room cabin. Yeah, you guys posted a picture of the Wall of fame here on the first Light Instagram account and someone comment and said that it looks like a row of drumsticks. They weren't real impressed with some of the some of the antlers on the wall here. Yeah, different different places, different deer, different times, different times. We got a bunch here on the wall from the sixties. I see some seventy threes, I see a sixty five. Um stretches the whole a whole lot of time here. Um, Jordan, you've been you're a Minnesota guy, did you ever get do you have a deer camp type situation kind of like this anywhere that you partaket in back in the day. Yeah. Yeah, My my grandparents live in northern Minnesota, kind of northeastern Minnesota, so growing up, ever since I was really little, would go up there. I've actually had more of a trailer set up, but it was still, you know, just kind of same deal, no electricity, no running water. Tell stories about the big bucks that you've seen in the past and probably not see too terribly much during the days, and you actually do go hunting. But it's those stories that I kind of resonate for the good old days. Yeah, do you think I always wonder like if the good old days really were a thing or if it's just every generation thinks that the good old days were good, Like thirty years from now, are we're gonna be looking back at this and go, those are the good old days? Um? And it's just selective memory. I think there's enough history on the wall that would show they did have some good old days. Yes, I guess that's true. In this instance, they've got some some proof to back it up. Man, our neighbor. We're chatting with our neighbor the other day. He stopped in too, have a couple of beverages with us and chit chat, and he told us that he saw six bucks out on the neighboring property here, two of which were as big as our biggest buck on the wall here. Two more Supposedly we're bigger. I'd like to believe that. I'm gonna choose to believe that, especially when it's your neighbors saying that. I definitely want to believe that. Yeah, Well, it keeps you coming up here and keeps you wanting to get out there in the woods and you know, maybe run into one of them. Yeah, so let's chat about the hunt real quick. Then me and Jordan were hunting together, Jordan running the camera. I was on the bow, and um, what we hunted? It's pretty quick trip hunted one evening, one morning, another evening. Um, do you want to you want to walk us through what happened from your perspective from I'm curious what is it like to hunt with me as a cameraman? Because I was on the Mediator podcast a couple of weeks ago and I was with a cameraman on that show. He was filming me for their show, and he was also on the podcast, and so he was like kind of we're kind of all sharing stories about what that was like. And Steve was talking about him and his caraman dynamic, and I was chatting my caraman our dynamic. And then someone on going back to Instagram comments someone they had a whole spiel about how they thought that I sound like a horrible person to have a chastise and criticize my cameraman. I was actually gonna ask Jordan how Mark Mark was me and doing at all. I don't think we had a good time on the tree. We liked it a lot. It was I mean, and going back to it too. It's what I've grown up doing, so it's you know, it's natural for me to climb eighteen feet up in a tree and sit still for hours out of time. And I mean, there definitely is the aspect of still needing to do my job and getting the shots that are needed, but try to try to do my best to not screw everything up for the guy with the boer gun. We're talking about the dynamic cameraman messing up hunts these days, uh, and whether it's better to have a cameraman first or hunter first or both. But I've been on a lot of hunts with Jordan. I can pretty confidently say he's never screwed a hunt up in any way, shape or form that I'm aware of. At least it's good, pretty good record. I thought. I thought it was a pro real real quiet, real still um so quiet, like I didn't even know when he was filling around with the camera in pass situations. Sometimes you hear like loud noises when they start filming or starting to do something. I would never know it, so I'd kind of turn around to start chatting with him about something, and then there's that cameramera. I've actually deemed Jordan is my good luck charm. Yeah, yeah, he's been he's been hot for me the last year or so. Here I've had in the tree than I have by myself. I wish, I wish you would have brought that for this strip. Fare Farrell used all the luck. Couldn't we split him up? That was a problems So yeah, so so sorry to continue. Tell us, tell us about your perspective from the rest of the couple of days. What happened? What do we see? Not not too terribly mud I mean from a content perspective, content perspective, it was great, Um, tell about what eight thirty this morning? Then little little noise walking through the woods. Some des apparently didn't like what they Yeah, coming down there, come down wind of us, blow blowing him south Jordan. What's the sound of deer Max When it's good good, it's it's earth shattering disappointment. I don't know, we want to hear it. Yeah, you're the sound effect man. And then you look at Mark space the mouth noises from Yeah, what else do we hear the trip bald eagle, what's your deem like the sound effects guy, sound efect guy. Let's here, bald eagle. Oh, I got it. Put me on the spot. Man, you just did it. It was very good. I did, but that was no pressure, and I was send in the backseat of a truck. Now everybody's staring at me, and my face is getting all red. Okay, nobody look at Jordan. Nobody look everyone look at further. I'm not not going to be able to crack it. I'm not gonna be able to do it. No, what about the mallard, mate, because we had mallards flying over us. Oh that's really good. I'll try a bald eagle. That's now now absolutely better than that. You'll lose much better than that. Something I really want to be known for our thing just sound effects. Okay, Well, at some point during this episode, I would really encourage you to just jump in with the bald eagle when you work your way up, when you're at least expecting at all. Yeah, yeah, because that that is a cool sound. Actually, we did see bald eagles, we saw mallards. We had the four doughs come down and wind us, and that was kind of it. Unfortunately, although so pretty good must sign really good sign A bunch of scrapes around the spots we hunted the first day and morning, and then this evening I got thinking, well, like my traditional little honey hole here excuse me, has never been the same since further hunted it. That's true, It is true because usually this is the spot I always hunt, and we mentioned this last time we were here. Josh got here day earliest. I said, he you can you hunt the food plots, and so he went and hunted it. You saw three bucks and there's not been a dear scene since acting normally walking through there. What can I say? I know how to keep him away? Yes, So so then though this evening I was like, you know what, let's just go check out a new area um that I haven't hunted in a very long time and just kind of hanging hunt, just scout our way in and try to find something. And there was freshmen down on the ground, so I was hoping, you know, maybe we could cut a fresh track and set up on that and see if something might come back through. This afternoon and took us a long longer time to find some fresh sign that I was hoping. But we did finally work our way far back to the north, up through this kind of high ground area towards the swamp. There's there's a creek that runs and we angle our way that way, and Um, just before we got to that creek, I was trying to make my way kind of angling towards this flooded area a long time ago. There's a bunch of beavers in the area, flooded up, dammed up with this creek and large flooded area that now is a lot of dead trees and cattails and all that kind of stuff. And I think there's a decent amount of activity along that kind of trend that habitat transition. And um, so we're kind of angling towards that, and then I happened to see what looked like like an oval patch where there was no snow. I don't know if you noticed, but we were walking. I stopped and pulled my binoculars because I just caught this, like it looks like a bed, and UM pulled up the buyos and sure enough had to be a bed, and so we walked over to it, and sure enough, there's two beds there some fresh tracks, so I figured, okay, we probably bumped a couple of doughs out of their beds when we were walking in here. So then we stood around for a little bit and I'm thinking, wow, I mean, this isn't a buck bed. I'm surprised bumped a couple of those, but it is the first time we've seen a deer in the area at all, and you know, it might be a sign of a little bit more going on. So I thought, well, let's let's move up kind of up wind of this little stretch of pines. Let's patch high ground, see what else we see. So we slowly snuck our way around here, and um, as we come around the edge again along this transition between you can see the cattails and then there's this high patch with some pines on it. And as we're coming along that line, I know it's a little rub tiny, tiny little tree, and I got, well, hey, that's I guess it's something. And then we're standing there kind of looking at it and just kind of perusing the scene around us, like, oh, there's another one, a little bigger tree. We go walk over to that. I'm like, okay, now we're seeing something. Oh, here's some more fresh tracks. And then while we're standing there, oh there's a nice rub. It's a big rub, went way up tall on the scale of that one. So we're looking at that. I'm like, man, that's a good rub for around here. And then I'm like that that can't be what I think it is. And I go take a step around. There's a big pine tree that's like six inches in diameter maybe, and that sucker was rubbed up. I've never seen tree that big rubbed up up here before. Um, so then I was excited, like we just found like a little zone. What what what kind of screamed up to me is like a buck betting area. This could be a little patch. Mean, it's kind of a prototypical little buck beed, kind of spotty. You're on a little bit of a point that kind of extends into that stuff, a little bit of high ground, and um, with all these rubs concentrate on hilaria, that seemed to scream out good spot. So we're like, oh, well, you know, if there was something better to here, we definitely bumped it. But um, we got nothing better to do, might as well set up and try to hunt it. And that's what we did, I wouldn't call that approach stealthy. Walk in there crunchy, super crunchy. Lots of lots of standing water that was frozen and there's just no way to get through there without crunching ice. And long story short, we did not see a deer to night. But you know, you cut fresh snacks, fresh tracks there right there, Yes, yep, and he was did you think they were buck or dough tracks? And there were a bunch of tracks. Did not end up cutting the buck. But because of the rubs, we were hoping that well, you know, there's a lot of area around there. We didn't walk around yet maybe there there had been. Um, so we didn't see any deer. But what we did see, we're two birds, one with a white head, and it sounded like something something like that. Closer, it's closer than marks, a little higher pitched you had you had a last time, a little bit. But that was good twitter. Um. Yeah, so that was our deer hunt, Greg, Your deer hunt wasn't too terribly different. No, it's similar. I um did uh kind of a hanging hunt the first night. Um further put me onto a good spot where he had seen decent Buck a couple weeks ago. So we kind of went in there and picked us out closer to where that deer had walked through, and you guys had a camera over there. So no, there's good deer movement in the area. Got a set hung and it's at the first evening and it was quiet. Um, we get a little bit of a cold front. I mean it was cold already, but a little bit of a cold front coming through that evening, it seemed like because that next morning it was, which was this morning is pretty chilly. Yeah, and ended up seeing four dos five dolls this morning. Um, they kind of worked through. I think it was the same group that kind of scooted by you guys, moved on towards me, and then end up setting the same set. Want to give that set one more try to night again. It's quiet, but it's I mean typical kind of for when I used to the north Woods, low deer densities, but awesome country. I mean, about as beautiful as you can get in terms of a set. Yeah, I mean it is. It's pretty conscript here. Yeah. Can I interject a quick question? Yeah, when people talk about seeing you know, you just said you saw four dos or five doughs? Which five doughs, four doughs, It doesn't matter, that's not the point of the question. Is that imply that you saw four Antler lists deer? Because I guess where I'm going, it's often I'll see four you know, where I grew up, white Tail, and I'd see four or five Antler lists deer, likely one or two of which would be actually a button buck. When people say I saw four dos, are you saying that you actually saw four confirmed doughs? Are you saying are you using that as shorthand for four Antler lists? Dear? It's a good question for uh. I find myself lots of times. My initial gut reaction is the latter. I'll say I saw four dos, but it's actually maybe two mature doughs and a couple of fawns, one of which maybe was button buck almost a dough I don't know. And then sometimes they'll be like, well, actually two or button bucks two or dos or something like. But I often do find myself defaulting to antler lists, just call them does. Yeah, I don't know. Is that is that the norm? For what's your think? I would say, um, you're the one that brought it up just now. No, no no, no, that used to sometimes sometimes that's definitely the case, especially when they moved through quick. You don't get a good look at him. But um, the last I don't know, probably five or six years, I've really tried to even when I see ant Loo's deer get on my bin and I wasn't confirm if they were does or potentially button bucks. Um, this group actually worked through it probably yards. I was able to get a good look at them, um, and it was definitely all all does. But yeah, that's a good point, especially they moved through quick. You know, if they're not close something, it can be hard to tell. Swish it the naked eye. Have any of you guys ever killed a button buck mistakenly? I haven't. Now try and check a little bit closer. It hasn't happened to me yet, but I've always you know, I was fear of that. Yeah, I was really scouring it and just like kind of my eyes playing tricks on me. Am. I sure that's a dope, but it happened so often it seems like further, have you done that. I've not done that, But I'm in the same bone as Greg, Like, um, if they just go through real quick and I can't identify them, you know, four does or whatever. But if I'm able to get my buyos up and and really see him and identify the mom I saw a button buck or um. But yeah, I have not shot a button buck. But to your point, it does happen all the time. Knock on wood. Yeah, do season for you on me is starting here pretty soon. How many does do you want to get this year? Josh um? I would like to shoot too, just for my personal An interesting point we're talking about earlier. So how many deer do you usually too? Is that what you two to three? My wife and I we usually to have at least like four. As long as we've got four, we're okay. But if I don't have four and it's like late December, my wife is on me. I get out there in hunt does. What are you doing? We need me gotta have four minimum? So you're doing four minimum, two of you? And in what percent job your animal proteins game? Would you say? Oh? I mean there's the occasional store bought chicken very rarely. Otherwise I said um, and then we do um in the past word by like half a hog from an Amish farmer for some work. Um, but red meat and four yeah dough units. Yes, and sometimes you know, if I'm lucky certain years like caribou had a cariboo in their last year side of cariboo in four dos or no sorry caribou and four deer. Well, I guess in the last year was all though, because I didn't kill a buck last year. This year, I've got a little left haar of cariboo. I've got two bucks and um, still eating some venison from last year, but would like to get a minimum with two more. Um. What about you, Greg, I think you were the guy who like caught me off guard with how many of you putting that? Yeah, there's a big number. Yeah, I typically that's kind of interesting. We're doing some like body mass math last ye. But um, from a white tails perspective, um, I like to put about six in the freezer every year. Um. And I'm with Mark. I mean I'm nine nine wild game consumption. I haven't fortunately, I haven't really had to go out and purchased meat other than that, just because that's what I choose to eat. But um, I also have a lot of family members and friends who really enjoy the Venison two and I like to be able to gifted to them and like to be generous with Yeah. Yeah, it's nice to have like a cushion quarreling it away. But I've found even with you know, whether it's actually six white tails or if you do the math and figure out all Okay, I got a cow out this year, a meal deer and kind of figuring that much protein or meat per se um. The freezer will be empty come September October this fall and white tail buck by missing something else and then two white tailed dozes here. So how it's it's it's every single meal are you punching in? Like breakfast venison, lunch, venison, dinner venison? So I feel like we're more like one venison meal if even a night, maybe like four nights a week, maybe five nights a week. Yeah, I bet we'd eat venus in four to five nights a week. Yeah, But I'm with you, We're I would say we're game. Yeah, I'm definitely. I mean it, don't get me wrong. I mean I'll go out, go out to dinner on Friday Saturday night and have a burger, you know whatever. But um, other than uh, you know, the maybe weekly going out to dinner one night a week. It's the other six nights or venison. I'm not very good at cooking for like small groups. It's like one or two or three. So typically I'll make like a huge dinner, whether it's massive pot of chili, big old roast, even you know, steaks. I'll throw eight on the grill and then that becomes dinner for that night, a little bit of left for breakfast, something to launch the next day, and then roll it over. But I mean more often than not. Yeah, it's it's part of three meals a day. I would say for myself, it's a good way to live. I like it. I don't. What's your number four? You know, we're still figuring our equivalent out, I'd say, Um, we actually we had one deer last year, which is slam for sure. Stretch that with a lot of land pills, I'd say, but it sounds like a horrible term just personally from my opinion. Um, I think I think where I want to be is about an elk and a deer a year. Seems that's what that's what we got right now. We're gonna have a little bis in here. It looks like hopefully if things go well, and then I think, yeah, probably elk and deer by the time we've give them some away, probably a full elk and a deer. Can you talk about that bison thing or is that? Yeah? I think so dog's not here, so no, he doesn't know we're giving away so the store and that because a bison hunt is a pretty very unique Yeah, I'm actually I will I'll leave out what hunt it is because I don't want to draw my change the draws for myself next year because my buddy drew it. He's actually his hunting list so far, which I think hasn't been entirely with me. I was with him when he shot his first white tail, which was a button buck which he wasn't supposed to shoot. Story he went from the button buck to ah this uh d I y shammy hunt we did in New Zealand on public land. So he went to right right to the mountain mountain hunt from there, and uh he did. He has done some Colorado l hunting unsuccessfully in between, but then he went ahead and drew a um a bison tag in the West this year on the first year he put in. I think as as he tends to do it seems like, and uh so yeah it we'll be we'll be doing a little bison hunt here in about two weeks, I think. And what's your role that uh uh porter guy, yeah, camp manage, yeah, support all the and I think certainly packing out it's gonna be. Yeah. So you were telling me you had some ideas about how you might because this is a very large animal. Very large animal is it is a cow taggy drew but I believe I don't want to. I think cows away between maybe a thousand and twelve pounds still as opposed to thousand I think for a bowl. Um, So getting it out it's definitely a challenge. Um. The plan, the running plan right now, which may be foolish and may not be is too um either tore in on touring skis to hunt, which you know skis with skins, um shoot the thing and then sort of skid it out on load sleds um which load sleds which are used typically for haul and gear into back country ski huts, um out on the snow. At least that's our running plan right now. I'm not really sure. The good thing is there's a there's an extraction service. If stuff hits the fan, proverbly, we can call and they bring a draft horse out and they'll pack it out. I think we're gonna try and avoid doing that just because of the expense. But if we get in a pinch or what have you, or the snow is not deep enough for our plan to play out, I think we'll have their phone number. Also kind of nice as a backup plan for sure. I'd like the sled idea. Yeah, well, we'll see, we'll see. It depends the area we're gonna be hunting them in. In In theory is I don't think super super it's kind of in a valley, in a rural, mountainous area. Um So in my head, it's like flatish and dragging stuff around on sliders with skis. It's going to be possible, but it could certainly be the kind of thing when you get there and it's just totally not an option. Yeah, like what happens when you got a downhill and you've got four pounds of meat that's sliding down behind you. Yeah, yeah, we'll figure that out. I think it'll I think it'll work okay, But yeah, I mean and certainly I think do you ride the sled down. Do you just sit on the sled? I think you kind of cruise down, because going downhill with climbing skins on your skis is also kind of not a not a positive outcome either, So I think you try and avoid super steep stuff. And I also think I doubt will be you know, I imagine us putting a rear quarter that maybe weighs two pounds on the sled and going a piece. Yeah, I don't think we're gonna, you know, try and get half half the bison on the on the sled at one time, I think. But again, it's all it's gonna be a big learning experience. I think just even breaking one down it's gonna be that's really interesting. A lot of have on blades. I think you're going to be very intrigued. You're saying, like, how do you even gut bison? Yeah, whether you pull the two quarters off the uphill side, so to speak, or the exposed side and then you pull the guts out. I mean I can only see myself like entering the bis in rib cage trying to pull the guts and whatnot out, So I don't I don't know how it's gonna go. It'll be an adventure a little bit. Yeah, exactly. Um, jeez, Jordan, what's your dear number of the freezer? I bet, between my wife and I probably do about two a year. Yeah, this year is kind of a frantic experience. This summer in July, I lost my chest freezer. So, yeah, you told me about that. Yeah, that's the worst night there, I can imagine the most sick I think I've ever felt about anything like that. It was miserable just going into the garage after a weekend away with family coming back and smelling and then kind of knowing before he even open the freezer, what what's going on in there? That that event single handedly caused me to go out, And by go out, I guess in this day and age, it means go on to Amazon and purchase a freezer or alarm. Yes, I never knew there was a thing until you told me about. Yeah. Yeah, I think I sold a few of them after telling the story, but bought one too. Yeah. I guess I don't know too terribly much about them, but um, the one that I'm looking into at least is kind of like temperature regulated, so if it yeah, if it gets up above a certain degree in the freezer. It'll let you know so you can go check it before anything gets Yeah, it's it's real basic. It was twenty or thirty bucks. This is almost like I feel like this is a sales pitch for the three yea UM And it's essentially it's got a remote unit that goes into the freezer, sits in there, and then it wirelessly connects to a little thermostatic looking deal that you know is in my kitchen and it tells me room temperature is sixty two and freezer temperature is negative five right now. And if the freezer hits you can program the number I think minds twenty degrees. It starts beeping and you know, the most irritating of ways and lets you know that something's something's amiss are the ones they can get that like goes your phone. There are yes, definitely, I mean they go up and open up for sure in terms of I think quality and whatnot, Like a near scenario, you weren't home so you wouldn't hear it. Yeah, exactly, like exactly, And yeah, I mean I guess it's kind of changed my program too, because before that I had probably only been checking the freezer once a week, you know, so even if it was only a couple of days, I probably could have saved it. But yeah, so now I will definitely be a little bit more paranoid checking every single time I walked by it. I actually had that happen to me that first the first year ever, that shot. Oh yeah, but when I'm still living at home, like right after college, and my dad had had unplugged something in the garage. Yeah, thank you. My dad had unplugged something to the garage and he unplugged the wrong chord and he unplugged the freezer, and it was did you resent him for that? I was pissed for a while. That was your first year, the first first year, and his dad's freezing. It was just a horrible feeling, and he felt he felt really really bad. So now looking back, I was fel bad that I was. I was pretty hard on him about it, really hard on him. And I feel bad now because I know how bad he felt about it. No, No, are used me and to your dad as we heard of my dad. No, we're not mean to your dad. We just we just like that. I don't I we were telling these guys back in the day. We always used to go to your house, you know, we in high school or college. We go out, you know, doing whatever we do late at night with our friends and stuff. And um Josh's house was like a friendly place to crash after the evening. That was like because basement was a good place, was centrally located. You knew it would be open and available. So we all, me and a bunch of our buddies would all go and we all crash at your house tonight. And your dad is just like Greg and that he could be like he could be talking and then seconds later, mid conversation's just be passed out. I can't tell you how many times my dad has just passed out mid conversation with me. Yeah, And then the cool thing about your dad those when he passes out. I feel like this is and you tell me if this is not accurate, but I feel like every time I've ever seen him sleeping, I've seen him sleeping many times having come over to your house like this, He's always storing with his mouth wide open, I mean wide open mouth. His belly is just heathing up and down. He listened to this sometimes take it easy. And we used to used to have a big husky dog and we would take big dog biscuits and stick him your dad's mouth and your dog would jump up and start friends kissing them in the biscuits, like jump right on his belly, and my dad freak out, lunge up. We gave him a hard time about them. We're pretty mean. Never gets old. I love thinking about that every time. UM. Now I don't know where I was going ahead and plan in my head, and we still start talking about Frank and further almost thrown off UM, which brings me back to Greg and the fact that you guys are here. That was pretty cool. You guys reached out and we're interested in spending some time together. Um. You know, started started working with first Light this year, which has been a cool experience getting to know everyone a little bit a little bit better. But the fact that you guys have have reached out pretty proactively quite a bit to get you know, some thoughts for me on some of the gear and UM, get to test out some different things and then to to spend some you know, quality time like this. I was I was excited about that. UM. From your guys perspective, you know what, what were you guys hoping to achieve you know, here doing this and it definitely seems like you guys are prioritizing what we've got going on here in the white Tail world. Yeah, absolutely so, Um, you know, for for a while now, and I don't this is not a recent thing. I mean, we've been making gear that we've used in the white Tail would since two thousand seven. And you know, from at inception of the company that the Ethos has always been making super versatile gear that will you know, keep you comfortable in a wide variety of situations. And you know, initially that offering, that spattering of gear was it was smaller than it is now. You know, as a startup company. We've grown a lot since then. Um, but to that point, we've also you know, we've grown to a point now where you know, previously the offerings that we had, like I said, we're very versatile and you could use them east to west, and we still believe that's true. I mean, the Ethos and most of our design is to design very versatile pieces that can be used anywhere. But that being said, Um, you know, I'm a Wisconsin guy. I grew up in the Bid West and cut my teeth in white tails, there's something to be said for somewhat specialized pieces for specific use cases. UM. And we know that we know that about the West, we know about the East, we know that about the Midwest, and a big push for us, you know, I would say since probably deals and thirteen when we really started coming out with some specific white tail gears to continue to push that movement. And we really want to do the same thing we've done with our Western gear in the white tail space, and that is create products that are revolutionary. We have really no intention on copying what's out there or making things very similar to what's out there. We want to take you know, what we've done in our entire company and all the products that we've released and focus some of that attention and some of that product development and some of that you know, desire to push the boundaries specifically in this white tail space because we think that the groom to do that, UM. And a big part of you know, why we've reached out to you and want to spend some time with you is, you know, we know we can get a lot more done in a few days of talking face to face and hunting together and you know, talking chopper on a cool camp like this about things that we want, things that you want, you know, where you see that we can improve, where we think we can improve, and you know, knock heads for a few days and stuff like that, and we can get a lot done. And our goal is to you know, there's very few guys that spend as many days in a tree stand as you do. And who better to reference or to reach out to you or to knock heads with on the stuff than something like that. Yeah, well, I I appreciate, you know, the opportunity to do that and get to, you know, share my perspective and everything. And I've always thought whether it be product feedback or just deer hunting knowledge or something I've never ever thought of, like me in my perspective being all that terribly important or useful. But I do get a unique opportunity to talk to so many different people, all these different people that spend a whole lot of time in the woods that are really good at what they do, and I get a silk and all that, and I feel like if I'm help well any kind of way, I think it's just by like being a conduit for all these other people's information and getting to people. So I think maybe that's if if I can be helpful, all it might be in that way, I can get a lot of different people's feedback to you guys, And I think that's I've been trying to do a little bit, and that's that's cool. Yeah, I definitely think that's true. And you know I agree with that, um. And I think ultimately for any of these pieces that we design and that we're trying to bring to market, really, in my eyes, you know, as a product guy, where we can make strides and where we can make improvements is talking to, working with and being a part of a spattering of people that spent a lot of days in the field. You know, I know for myself, Um, you know, I, like I said, group in the Midwest, spent a fair amount of time out West. Have recently relocated back to the Midwest. Um. You know, I know for myself in those years that I was specifically living out West, I would still get back and you know, I get ten, twelve, fourteen days in a tree. But when you get that number of days in a tree, your focus is on just getting the job done. You know, my focus was on, Hey, I'm here for a short amount of time. I'm really focused on hunting, you know, the rut. I'd love to kill a good buck, X, Y and Z. You know, when you're present in a specific white tail space for an entire season. You know, but we're early December now, right, most of us started hunting sitting in a tree in mid September, early October. You know, when you get that forty fifty days in a tree, your focus changes a little bit and it's much less. Hey I need to kill a big buck now, or hey I need to do X, Y and Z, And you really have time to start nitpicking, Well, should the zipper go this direction? Should this pocket actually be here? You know? What am I missing in this piece? What do I wish was a little bit different about that? In those perspectives, you know, in our eyes and especially in product development, those are the perspectives that enact major changes and revolutionary changes. And you know, pieces that either already exist, you know, changes to them, or new pieces that we need to come out with. So those perspectives of those, you know, the guys like yourself for anybody else that gets those high number of days in a tree are extremely valuable in product development. UM further, do you want to tell us what your favorite feature was on the Sanctuary bibs. Yeah, there's a there's one feature that I could see myself using quite often actually, uh and there's so many stories about further related to this kind of feature. Yeah, I'm the Sanctuary. The Sanctuary bibs. Yeah, they have like a emergency valve on the back side of them. You can zip open the your rear end and have easy access to, uh um, your undergarments if you need, if you need to use them. All jokes aside, like that is a really smart feature, isn't. It's just it's just it's awesome human nature folks. Uh In anyone who listened to the podcast a couple of weeks ago when I talked about the poop blind story, you know that if I happen to be wearing that set of bibs, it would have been a different scenario a little bit. It would have been a lot easier. Uh So I was really impressed with that. Just like, speaking of which, are you going to have that feature on the mid season piece at any day or is there a reason why you didn't put it in the mid season prototype that I was using. Yeah? So, um, that feature definitely serves one Nature calls um. As you know, the Sanctuary bib is a very it's a very cold weather piece. UM. So ironically, another reason for that feature is it's actually one of the best ways to dump heat. So as opposed to side zips, if you can open up the back of your pants with that zipper and leave that top section open, it's a great way to dump pete. So another reason that that's present in the Sanctuary bibs is because they are so heavy you can still wear them your walk to the stand of a bunch of heat. UM. With the mid season kit, being that it is designed for a more mild climate or mild temperature hunt, we didn't include that feature. Um. It can be a bit it's it's some extra parts and pieces, right, and it's great when you need it. With the mid season kit, because it's designed to be used when it is warmer out, we knew that we weren't going to need to be able to dump as much heat out of those so we didn't include that feature with those pieces. One thing I did really like about that mid season kit was just it It did not feel bulky in any way, shape or form. It was really nice and you know, I always bring this up when I'm giving feedback. I don't like bulky stuff. And what I liked about that those mid season pieces it was very lightweight, UM. So I like the fact that you want a relatively minimalist UM style when it came to a lot of things there to keep it. You know, UM, I'm missing the right word in my head, but not bulky. Trim. It's a trim athletic piece, that's I'm looking for. Triman Athletic is how typically Mark's middle name. Thank you squash. Yeah, I think we can talk maybe a little bit about that now. Most of the listeners that have used our first light white tail line before would be familiar with the Woodberry Jacket UM as well as potentially the Sanctuary kit, and one of our big focuses UM this year was the redesign of what we would consider a mid season kit. And this is supposed to be your piece that you know, it's your mid to late October through the November, so basically through Thanksgiving. And you know I was wearing it this week. You know, we were in the high twenties, low thirties, UM, and it's supposed to hit that sweet spot of when the majority of guys and gals are really focused on the white tails. And one thing that we did notice, the Woodberry is a great piece. I mean, we all use it a ton. I love that that jacket, but it was a little bit too heavy for that sweet spot in terms of time on the calendar when you're gonna be you know, hunting the rut, pre rut, post rout, et cetera. So we went back to the drawing board with this piece, and um, we have a top and a bottom bib style bottom, and then a jack to go along with it, and the focus exactly we're talking about markets. We wanted to be a trim piece that didn't feel bulky, that could take you through that entire season. Um, keep you warm, keep you dry, block the wind, super quiet um, and it's easy to move around. And that was really our goal that you know, both the top and the bottom, that whole kit. Yeah, and then and and I had one version of the prototype, and I liked it quite a lot. Um, but I did have a few pieces of feedback and already you've got a modified version of that that seems to have taken a lot of those things that you'd read my mind before I even shared a bunch of stuff with you guys. Um that seems like an even improved version of it, which I'm excited to try soon. Yeah. Absolutely so a big part of our design processes, we don't want our customers to be the guinea pigs. And we've got great guys like you and a bunch of other pro staff and field testers that kind of get a chance to use this stuff, you know, late in the development, but yet still with time to make modifications. So when we bring this product to market, it's been used for entire seasons. We've gathered a bunch of feedback on it, um, and we did exactly that with this piece. Um. The piece has got a bunch of cool features specific to the white tail guy or gal um, whether it's pocketing, whether it's passed through for kangaroo pockets, so you can keep thin gloves on to operate your release and even with your bow hand you know, bulk there and things of that nature. But let's I want to make sure to mention that specific because that is nice. You've got so on the bib right, you've got you've got a regular center zip jacket correct, um, so that you know you've a regular pockets in the jacket, but then on the inside, right, you're wearing your bibs on the kind of just below your chest, there's a kangaro pocket on the bibbs. So what was smart about you guys. What you guys did here is that you've got venting zippers on either side of the jacket, so you can open that up if you want to vent. But then it also allows you to create a hand opening to pass your hands into the jacket inside and then place them inside of the kangaroo pocket on the bibbs. Right. And that's a pretty a pretty nice way to get that kangaroo hand orb type feature while still maintaining a regular jacket style. Um. That was pretty slick. Yeah, And you know that was a design feature that we struggled with for a while. You know, there's a bunch of different ways to integrate essentially a muff into the jacket, you know, whether it be with a different style of zipper, different configuration of zipper, etcetera. Um, some of those can be a little bit tough to operate at certain points. UM, but you know, we knew that especially for white tail bow hunters. UM, we value the ability to not wear bulky gloves at any point. And really, you know, what I've found in that space is that the only way to really keep your hands warm if you're not wearing bulky gloves is they have to be close your body and they have to be together. Um, you know. And another thing specific to you know, I think the way most of us hunt is even if you only have a four hunder, your walk in your stand, a lot of times you're not wearing your jacket in because you gotta walk in, you gotta climb your stand, et cetera, especially during the early season. So what we really want to do was we wanted to integrate that kangaroo, you know, that pouch pocket into the bid. So you know, say it's October and it's on the warmer end. You know, maybe that jacket never comes on, but yet you still have that pouch feature built into the bid because you may be wearing lighter layers on top of the bid over it or you know, solo um and then to the same realm when it does get you know, into early November, mid late November, and you're going to integrate the jacket, we still want to be able to utilize that same pouch without adding bulk or ama for a funky zipper um, which is why we designed the past through pockets. Yeah, let's look real quick. I want to put a time out on this conversation because this is future Mark talking to you now, and I want to give your heads up on something kind of cool that we decided to put out there. Given the fact that with the First Light guys in to hunt with me, we wanted to to run a little special opportunity for everyone listening because I've been getting so many questions and emails, as I mentioned already about what kind of First Light stuff am I wearing? And we actually have first Like gear for sale over on the Meat Eater website, and we're going to run a special promotion for you guys, giving you twenty off any of the First Light that we've got on sale, plus free shipping on orders over fifty dollars. So you can get this stuff by going to the meat eater dot com and then clicking over into the shop. And when you click into the shop, you're gonna see all this stuff. Stuff like the Sanctuary Bibbs is where Jack and I was just talking about. That stuff is twenty off and I've just been hearing from so many people that are interested in trying the stuff out. If you if you've been interested, this is a great time to do it. Fifty orders or more or free shipping by using promo code wired as W I R e D. Find that over at the meat eater dot com clicking to the shop you'll see it all right there. Now back to the conversation. So for someone listening who there are decked out and whatever stuff they like to wear, they don't care about first light, They're not gonna buy some new stuff, or they they've got their own favorite brand or anything like that. I think what's interesting for that guy or girl. Still, what I've always found interesting, regardless of my brand affinities or whatever I'm wearing and stuff is it's always kind of intriguing just to hear, like what the process that goes into making high end equipment like this, Like can you walk us through? Because I gotta from from what little inset I do have, it seems like it is a process. It's not something you guys just like throw something at the wall and all of sudden it happens. Talking to a number of different companies in different spaces, it's it's always been interesting to me to hear about that that behind the scenes. Where how does this go from like an idea or two, hey, we need to start doing X for the white Tail guys and girls or whatever. What does that look like to the point where something actually finally does get launched to the world. That's a great question, and honestly, it's a question that I could not have answered before I had been involved in it, you know, because from an outside perspective, and I always had it too, I was guilty. It's like, oh cool, you come up with something, you build it, you build it, and then you bring to market, right, and it seems easy. It seems easy, um to that point though, I mean I joke with my friends at this point, I constantly I'm writing the wrong date, like when I read out checked when I date things, because in my world, we're working two years out so right now, you know, we're working on products they're gonna be coming out two years from now and stuff we're I mean, we're already into prototype being two thousand twenty stuff. So and that's how long it takes us to get through you know. This basically from idea concept like putting a list of bullet points on paper. This is what is what we want to design. This is what it needs to do to essentially getting to a you know, a vector diagram and architectural draft of that building. The first rounds of trial pieces, you know, getting those in house and testing them, going to second, third, fourth, fifth rounds before we even are feel confident in putting it in the hands of our pro staffers are testers. You know, they get a full year in the pieces and then we got a little bit of time to make changes, and you know, two years later that's when we can finally bring it to market. So it's definitely a lengthy process, and we could make it go quicker, you know, we could get things to market much quicker than that. But a big part of where we come from as a company, and I mentioned this before, I don't mean it sounds like a broken record, but we don't want our customers to be the guinea pigs. You know, this stuff needs to be tested, perfected, perfect before it gets in the hands of any of our consumers. So long story short, you know, we're essentially working on a two year cycle. Um a full year of that is testing in a full year that is designed and prototyping. M that's gotta be I don't know for someone who myself I speak about here. It's so driven by instant gratification and some different things. That's gotta be a little bit difficult um to be working on things that you're not going to see the the fruits of your labor come to fruition until two. It's it's an interesting perspective, you know, because you're involved and you know what's coming and it's not there yet. It's not you know, ready to come to market yet, but you know what's coming down the pipe. And after you finally bring that line to market, you know, for that first year, you want to be excited about it and you want to you know, shake your own hand, impair yourself on the back. But guess what, that next year cycle has already started or cranking on those pieces. So it's a fun, fast based environment. And you know, for for guys like us that you have an awesome opportunity to work for a company that really drives innovation. It's it's great because it's ever changing and the work has never done and it's very gratifying when those pieces do get to market, and you know, our customers and guys like you are are stoked on them. You know that's our ultimate goal. But yeah, yeah, it's gonna be cool feeling. Um So. So I don't wanna um go overboard talking about products and stuff all day, but I do get I get inudated with people asking me questions. Ever since you know, I started UM testing out a lot of first like year this year, have been getting so many questions, what piece should I be wearing for this scenario? Or what jacket is that? Or what basically are you wearing? Or what this? What that? With this? Do you want to share it like us? I mean a quick cliff notes one oh one on the first light white tail you know, pieces or a couple of things that you think are worth mentioning or anything like that. Just to touch on a handful of you mentioned this mid season prototype that I've been using that you use here that's gonna be coming out sometimes soon, right listen that in January? Okay? Is there is there any other quick rundown you want to share that the folks you know about UM or as a white tailed guy or girl, I should you know, look at as one of my first options or anything like that, yeah, I could definitely do that maybe just and I'm sorry, I will tease that. I actually we just put together a video that's gonna come out, so rather than me going through this whole thing right now, we did just film a video where I walked through my whole system for this season. So I tested out all sorts of different gear this year, and I kind of I think I've got to kind of nailed down to what my favorite set was for the early season, my favorite stuff for like the middle of the season during the rut, and now what I'm wearing now during the late season. So I share that in a video that hopefully we'll be live for people to watch the day after this podcast comes out. Um, so I'll tease that, go to the wire Tunk YouTube channel now for soon for that. But Greg, no, that would be that would be perfect. We get, Um, we get that same question a lot. Um. I think maybe the best kind of route for this is I'll give a real mile high overview here and then if Ford or Jordan wants to fill in any gaps or you know, markred further as well, Um, you can do that in addition to that. And you know, I definitely want to say, we got a good chunk of our customer service team at this point, our Midwest born and bread. So these boys have spent some time in tree stands. And if you ever any questions with regard to your white tail kit, UM, there's plenty of people that if you give the officer the rank, can help you out. But yeah, just about half of them at this point. Yeah, I think we're yeah, almost fifty. Yeah, we're actually just remarking that so many of the applications we get for internships, for jobs what have you are actually from sort of the certainly Midwest and maybe even like northern northern Midwest, probably wrong where Great Lakes region, I guess, interestingly enough, And at this point, what do we have four people maybe from the Midwest overall at least a lot of a lot of white tail knowledge in the office. But I think you know, long story short. You know, First Light was founded on Marino wool. You know, that's where our company was started, UM, and it started at bass layers, and obviously it's expanded to a full line of bass layers, mid layers outer where, but UM, especially for and I think sometimes this gets overlooked for the white tail guy or gal. You really can't go wrong with Marino wool because it does everything that a serious white tail hunter needs. It's quiet, um, it's owder resistant, it's gonna keep you fairly cool. It breathes super well. It's gonna keep you cool on that hike in. And then even if you do get you know, potentially a little bit sweated up on the hike in, um, it's gonna keep you warm and dry fairly quickly once you actually get into the stand. So, you know, for the early season or if you're you know, tail grounds I would say, you know, are in the southern hemisphere or excuse me, in the southern US. Um, you know, you you can't go wrong with those Marino pieces. So we make a Marino pants called the Obsidian Um that's a great bottom layer for really any of your white tail endeavors because it regulates body temperature super well. Like I said, it breathes really well, um, super quiet, order resistant, and then depending on what temperature range you're looking at for that early season. You know, we have a variety of Marino tops from a hundred and fifty weight all the way up to three fifty weight that we're great for your uppers. UM any combination of layering those pieces. Again, depending on your situation, you really can't go wrong with those. UM. I'm always a huge proponent of, whether it's really really hot or really really cold, start with a hundred and fifty weight piece on top, because what that's gonna do is it's gonna breathe well, it's gonna drive fast, it's gonna pull that moisture away from your body. It's really going to maintain. You know, what we like to refer to is that microclimate that next to skin, you know, keeping your immediate humidity excuse me, in temperature where it needs to be UM. And then again, depending on what your early season looks like for temperatures, you can either choose to run that by itself or with some additional pieces on top. UM tons of variety there. Obviously I can't cover everybody's situation, and you know the thirty second speel here, but that's really kind of my go to and most people that use their stuff there go to. For an early season, kid is gonna be some combination of obsidian pants and Marino wold top layers. As we move into the mid season. UM, as we mentioned, are you know the slightly cooler attempts. We have a bunch of mid layer pieces that are great. I love the clam with Hoodie. It's a synthetic grid fleece that blocks the wind really well, pairs and works really well with Marino bass layers. UM. And in addition to that, we have our Catalyst kit. It's kind of a revolutionary two layer soft shell that works great. You know, once you get past the point of being able to just run like an obsidian pant with a wool top. It's a two air soft shell, Ultra quiet, ultra breathable, ultra durable. UM. You know. The next step past that was the the mid season kit that you had talked about, Mark, that you'd got a chance to use this year, which will be releasing in January this year. That's gonna be kind of your bread and butter if you're anywhere in the Midwest from early November or excuse me, mid October till late November. UM, a bunch of great white tail specific features. Again, really quiet. It's meant to keep you warm. As those tempts dropped, It's gonna do a great job of you know, shedding moisture preset that you get and blocked the wind, and then you know, past that, you move into the late season and it's our sanctuary kit. It's kind of the ultimate cold weather Burly do it all. So obviously, I know I'm I'm not hitting the details and everybody's specific situations, but I would say those are kind of our bread and butter combinations across the board from September fifteen to you know, middle of January, depending on how your season lays out. Yeah, it's been. Um. You know, every every time you you're testing new things, you never know what to expect, and you're always a little hesitant. Especially you know you get comfortable or even wearing happy what you're doing. Anytime you make a change, it is you know a little bit of cause for concern. There's like those little whispers in the back of your mind, like, oh, what if you don't like it, What if it doesn't do so good on November seven and the big bucks coming in and you get cold or whatever? You have all these whispers and worries. Um, Unfortunately, all those whispers and worries were for not for me. Everything that I've been, all the use so far i've had, I haven't had a single negative experience yet. Um. But I think the coolest thing for one, not maybe the only cool thing, but but something that I have liked so much about what you guys have been doing is the focus that the First Light puts on on giving back on conservation, on public land, UM, on making sure that we focus U saw, on some of these bigger picture things that make what we'd love to do possible to the wildlife, the wild places all that. UM. We had Kel on the show with with me a couple months ago. We we we didn't we didn't l hunt together, talked a little bit about what he what he was, you know, doing back at that point. Um, but is there anything on that front that you guys want to want to share a little about when it comes to First Lights, Um, I don't know. It seems like an important part of what you guys stand for. Yeah, it's it's core. It's core for our company. And it's pretty simple really think Kenton always obviously Kenton one of the co founders of First Light, Kent and grew. He often gets you know, interviewed, uh, talks about what have you on podcasts and what have you? Um, you know, it's a simple equation for us, our customers recreate in wild places, uh, and our our chasing wild critters, and if those places and those critters aren't around, we don't have a business. No, it's not, it's not really an altruistic thing. Even in that regard. It's it's essential to what we do. And what's more, obviously access to in the protection of public lands in the east and the west um are our our corridor us also in soo much as a lot of our customers rely on those places for their hunts, well, for their hunts and and for everything else really be that camping, fishing, skiing, running, you know, the whole gamut of activities, grocery acquisition, grocery acquisition. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's that's pretty key. Like you said, there's there's a certain practicality um that for all of us. You know, you don't need to be just a do gooder. It just makes practical sense to try to fight for these things. And of course we I think all of us that love this stuff so much, we also love it in such a way that we want to give back and we want to make sure the future generations have it as good, if not better in the future. UM. So we don't need to when you explain that at all. But you mentioned something I don't know why. My head totally jumped to a new place. So if you guys want to go back and say anything else, but somehow my mind just jumped to this question because somehow you you were talking about Kenton, and you were talking about first light, and I'm thinking about first light being in Idaho, and I thought about the fact that you were mentioning how you finally got the mule deer bug this year, and this is everything that was run anything I had the last thirty seconds while you were talking, I heard nothing that you said, because this is what happens in the mind of Mark Kenyon. And then I thought to myself, Ford City caught the mule deer bug. Now he finally gets it, and mule des are kind of man, I really like white tailed deer. He doesn't know what he's talking about. White tails are greater than mule deer. Game over, That's what was going on my head. So the question I need to ask each of you guys now, especially further. You can't answer this since you haven't hunting mule there I haven't hunting meal there um. But I know you two have and have you Jordan's just with the camera. You've you've hunted them with a camera. Okay, see quite a bit with a camera, so you can go in there. But for the two of you, you both grew up Midwest or east. You run forward from Maryland right from Wisconsin. You both came from a white tail background, then you lived out in Idaho for a period of time on Mull's, Muli's or white Tails. Who wins in your hearts and minds? Do you want to go first for? That's an easy question for me. We we actually uh so, we had a fairly substantial white Tailed trip this year. Um it was both a marketing endeavor and um I guess fun endeavor as well, but not a lot of gear testing, a lot of testing that mid season kit in Yeah entries for sure. And throughout the process of planning this they were some heated discussions within the group about when this trip should start, and the heated discussions largely revolved around there's a certain camp of people that we're not willing to miss the end of meal dear season, and then there is another camp of people myself, h and a fellow coworker who is also from Wisconsin Paul Peterson that basically said, we would be very willing to throw our meal dear tags in the garbage to not miss the end of pre rut beginning of white tail ruts. So for me, it's it's it's definitely white tails. I mean that's what I kind of cut my teeth on and is my bread and butter. And yeah, the white tails hold a special place in my heart. How do you can you articulate why that is it? All? I had this conversation with Steve the other day and he, you know, I took him out bow hunting in Michigan for white tails, and after that hunt, he was still like, he's like, you know, I get it, but it just doesn't do it for me, like mule deer, which is interesting, I should point out, because he is a Michigander, right, and we grew up hunting white tails just for the uninitiated. Yeah yeah, but now he's all high falutin older guy. Um, so why you've had now a lot of experience with both, why why do the white tails still just make it? You know? I think for me, and don't get me wrong, I have grown too, and similar to Ford, feel like I have finally kind of got bit by the meal of your bug. It's a animal I respect and definitely enjoy pursuing. Um. But for me, the difference lies in the country that we hunt them in and the chess match that goes on hunting mature white tail bucks. Um. They're typically not animals that you first you know, you don't. It's not like a meal that refined it in the glass and then you make a plan to get to it. You know. From these mature white tail bucks, it's you find them maybe in the glass us in the summer, you know, in in fields and X, Y and Z and hopefully on trail camera. Um. But you're essentially, you know, you're trying to outsmart an animal in its own bedroom and taking in so many considerations, whether it be whether win, direction, time of year, um, you know, you name it, and trying to put together a plan to put yourself in a spot to intercept that deer on his normal patterns, his normal day to day and do so in a way that he won't know you're there. And for some reason that that chess match, that whole process, you know, and for us it starts, you know, essentially after one season is over knowing what deer are still around, and then trying to find their sheds in the spring and putting out trail cameras and potentially you know, planning food plots and the spring and summer and then running those trail cameras to that period of time. And it's the all encompassing process of trying to outsmart a very smart animal in a very small area A lot of times that for some reason I just can't get past. It's it's been insanely addicting for me. You know, something is you're talking about that, and I realized I'm preaching to the choir here, But you know, the choir always gets preached us as part of the part of the game. Um, when it comes to white tail hunting, you need to know these good Well, let me take it back. When you're mute, and I've never went mule the hunting, so you can tell me. I don't know, but when I watch mule deer owners on TV UM. But right you're you're spotting an animal. You're seeing that animal in many cases, and you know where he is, and then you try to figure out a way to get to where that animals. And I know that's tremendously challenge in a lot of different ways. But when you're hunting a mature white tail, you need to know that animals so well that you know where he's going to be before he ever gets exactly. You need to predict what he's gonna do weeks or months in advance, and then make sure you are there in that perfect scenario that he goes where you believe he's going to go and doesn't know that you're sitting there waiting for him. And that is such a mental game to put all those pieces together. I say a thousand times that chest match, and everybody listening knows that already, and that's why they listened to this podcast. So we're all just kind of patting ourselves on the heads and say, good job. But well, and it's it's that, and I think it's specially bow hunting white tails. It's that plus some because you know, you may do all those things and you may be within a hundred or a hundred fifty yards of the deer, and to me, that's an accomplishment, Like you've put together fourteen of those fifteen stats. But to have a successful bow hunt on an animal like that, you have to put number fifteen on there, and that's to be within you know, depending on what your range ist, et cetera. Yards, And you know that it's it's hard to do. It's really hard to do. And I think that challenge for me is always I don't know, it's it's trumped anything else, any of my other hunting endeavors, whether it be elk, mule deer, antelope, et cetera. And I know it's there's some nostalgia and in it for me because it's what I grew up doing. But that's always been kind of the thing that's fired me up the most. You know. It's interesting though, and I am this is really the first year I've hunted mule deer seriously in any capacity, and probably many people wouldn't even call what I'm doing serious honestly, because that the level of nuttery around big mule dear box is the same as big white tail box. I've discovered, I would say, is how similar they are actually? You know, I think we tend to think of mule deer in the spot and stock dynamic. You know, yeah, they're over there, let's how do we get to them? But the craftiness of an old mule deer, I think is not it should not be underestimated. Um and I think they share a lot of you know, for example, you see a big buck in July in out West hunting mule deer. You know he's in the drainage. Okay, great, you maybe see him again in August kind of scouting trip. You might not see him again in that drainage potentially. Ever, you know he's probably there, he's quite likely there, but he's in the timber all day. Every day. He might come out for three minutes, five minutes, fifteen minutes at first light, and if you don't happen to be looking at that edge of that timber patch, you never see him. And I think there really is a lot more carryover than I estimated in terms of in terms of that just craftiness, that sneakiness and uh sort of to your point, getting to know uh bucks and and trying to figure out where they're gonna be when they're going to be out of the timber for five minutes, you've got to be in the right place, and that might not even be you know, so what you've seen a mile away, that doesn't help you at all. It's cool to see him again but you have to be close enough and in the right place that when they come out for five minutes, you're there to get them. In the same way, I think that you have to know, you know when a when a box is going to follow a doh through a given area in November, um or or what have you. You know. In the in the white tail side of things, they really actually are I think more similarities than we think between the two. There's a lot of differences, don't get me wrong. Um And I think the pressure element is always so much higher or almost always so much higher on white tails that that really changes the game. But it's interesting the similarities between the two. Also, if if someone put a gun to your head right now and said, next season, you only get to hunt one species, dear, it's gonna be white tails or mule deer, you have to choose right now? What is it? Just me personally? Because for the good of the country white tailed deer? Why do you say that? Also? Which is you know, without question, it's the most important, It's the most important game species in North America. In terms of the number of hunters that have meaningful experiences with the game, white tailor are more people I don't want to say more important. That's loaded, but more people they're they're more important to introducing and you know, I don't want to say maintaining. They're more important to the enjoyment and satisfaction. And you know, frankly food source or the are a food source from more hunters than than mildier I think obviously. So that's your cop on answer answer. It's tough for me. The white tailed thing, I think is more nostalgic. I just the institution of deer camps, the memories I have of deer hunting um and sort of the associations are so strong with white tail hunting. I think right now I very much like muled deer hunting more than white tailing currently in my life, very much so gun gun to the head mule deer hunting forward. I appreciate the honesty, Uh, Josh, I don't have any nothing Jordan's from your camera hunting. Does this seem I mean, I definitely I appreciate how you go about meal deer hunting and being from the Midwest, how unique it seems not growing up doing it, but being lucky enough to do at a fair amount this fall. Getting home back to the Midwest back to Minnesota to climb up into a tree stand was one of the most refreshing things I think I could have done. It's just yeah for me, nothing pizza. Yeah. I get this thing where every year around in January or February, I always get in this mode in my mind where I started picking up my Bogle magazine means I'm looking at YouTube and watching some high country meal deer hunt or something like I really want to go do that. So it's then I go plan like an el Cohn or I think I'm gonna go to this meal deer hunter, this whatever big game hunt. And um, that's when I'm always in like different species modes like January February coming off the long white tail season. But every single year, every year, without fail, August and September rolls around and I'm like supposed to be going on an alkhon or something. And this is horrible to say this, but every year, even this year, I had a great come up, like I just want to be in a tree stand hunting white tails, and I got this elkin coming up, but I really want to be checking trail cameras and planning out this hunt. So I don't know I've got a weird disease. Um, I can't I can't focus on anything. But but yeah, let's say not that I wanted to be cured, but I don't think you're on with it. So if you figure out to cure, please don't give it to me, because I'm fully enjoying the disease. With that being said, fingers crossed, I might get to go on a mule deer hunt someday. That's definitely a bucket list hunt that I'd like to do, So one of these years, I'm just gonna show up that board Storre stuff. Yeah, they're just hunting. They are so cool and the country they live in is so cool and uh you know, physically they're so impressive. Um yeah, I don't know, it's just kind of taking me a late. I also just like sitting and looking glassing, which is is a is a big part of mule deer hunting obviously, Um, taking it in and seeing what you see. I don't know, it's it's definitely taken hold. But I love sitting in tree stand Also, don't get me wrong, I think you know the sites you see that are almost always so close to you when you're in a tree stand. You know, it's cool to see stuff a mile away through glass, but having a fox run right underde in a tree stand, it's it's always going to be that intimate, you know, in terms of or or has you learned this year a fox squirrel or a fox far too? What happened with this fox squirrel? What's the what's the fox squirrel story? We've been I could pretend like it didn't tell you. Middle of the rut? Yeah, best time of year, the middle of the rut? What day was that for it? Just so listener, I actually don't remember, but I'm sure that it was the greatest day of the rut ever in the world. It was November five, Go ahead, right right to be To be fair, we hadn't seen we hadn't seen any deer, and didn't see anymore dear out of stand, which makes me feel mildly better about myself again. It was November five. To reiterate, November five. Things tend to happen on November. Yes, so I'm told um anyhow, had had had seen a fox squirrel or two while we were kicking around, had grown up in a place where you actually can't kill fox squirrels on the del Marva Peninsula. It was an endangered species growing up. Um it's actually since been listed. Was interested in perhaps eating a fox squirrel. I hadn't really seen any in the what I don't know, half a dozen days or what are we hunted? And fox squirrels are dear fox squirrel. We've seen a couple of deer um and had one pop out when Jordan and I were hunting at maybe ten yards right under me, I had a judo point arrow. Figured I would subtly dispatch this fox squirrel and continue with the all day sit and uh, so I kind of excitedly pulled an arrow out of the quiver. Jordan probably thought I saw a buck and lined up on this fox squirrel, which was probably not ten yards It's probably more like ten ft. Did you understand what was going on? I totally did, because I saw him take the arrow with a nice broad head off and replace it, replace it with an arrow that had a small game head on it, at which point I side, yeah, you hit records what you did? Did? Yeah? So I lined up on this fox squirrel, I let the arrow go. Huh in retrospect with a target that's probably two inches or three inches wide, probably should have shot a little lower. Took quite a bit of fur off the top of the back of the fox squirrel and the air I was stuck in the mud facing up right under the tree stand. Squirrel walked away, didn't even seem to notice that it would had gotten a haircut. And so I said, hey, I kind of got a pee anyway, I'm a little stiff. I'm just gonna climb down to the base of the tree and grab the arrow out of the dirt. Uh. So I did that, climbed down the ladder, I didn't bring my bow, left my bow hanging notably on the bow hanger on the you know, off to the left, and stand there, grabbed the arrow, looked at the fur side a little bit, uh, took a leak, and climbed back into the climb back into the stand, And as I was sitting, I happened to look to my left and in what appeared to be about ten seconds, watch my bow fall slowly to the earth, the ft down, uh, into the mud, kind of take a hit in the mud, and roll off to the side. So I still don't understand how the boat You're not like when you sat down, just fully bumped into it without kind of noticing, climbing up the ladder um. And I think it must have kind of done sort of a sway sway sway and then fallen off because it I was fully seated by the time it fell off the hangar. It was real life slow motion. Yeah, that thing that I looked over at Jordan. Jordan is now who as we mentioned, very quiet. Jordan is now audibly laughing at me, continues to do so for probably thirty to forty seconds climbed down. I'm like, oh, just an off chance this thing still works. Not so much. Peep was out of line. Timing already felt off. But that that ended that all day set ten thirty in the morning on November five, November again, Wait what it was? November five, five days into the month of November. Correct, And while you were out slinging the arrows a fox squirrels though Greg here was was chasing white tails successfully, I believe too. More or less so, I think it was a couple of days before when you tagged out. I was actually sitting in the cabin on November five. I shut mine on November two. You want to tell seven? Yeah, yeah, so November one, the evening of November one, UM, Paul Peterson, our coworker, we're hunting his property in um southwest Wisconsin, tagged out in a great deer another sweet deer camp as a side note, Yeah, Um, so we got to kind of be a part of that and it really kicked off. It was the first tag we punched on our white tail hunt. Um, so that kind of kicked everything off. November two, Jordan and I actually went into a standum that we hadn't hunted yet. It was the first morning day in general, but morning that we had good win for it, and um, we went and got up in that spot and I said to Jordan's when we climbed into the stand that it just felt like one of those mornings, um, or one of those days for I guess lack of a better term, that obviously you're gonna spend all day in the stand and it felt like one of those days that could potentially be good for rattling. And I'll be full disclosure, I've had to two hunts that ended successfully because of hitting horns together. Um. Both of them are in the a M and both of them felt very similar to kind of the for whatever reason, whether it's in my mind or not. UM, the way they this day had set up. So I kind of told Jorn, I'm like, hey, I'm gonna hit the horns on the hour, every hour, trying to kill him aturebuck fully where I may scare some beer away, but we'll see what happened. So hit at eight am, nothing, We had a doe come through it about eight thirty. UM, hit him at nine am, nothing happened. UM. And then I was a little late on my my ten am hit, so I think it was like ten eleven, ten twelve or something like that. UM clanked the horns together and it had to be not fifteen seconds after I got done rattling, and it just sounded like there was a freight train coming through the woods. And we were joking about this last night when I was telling the story, but I wish I had this on video. I looked up at Jordan's when all the commotions started, and I think his exact words were, that's way too big to be a squirrel. So we kinda got ready, and I mean we heard him coming and UM, basically, long story short, a little spike cruise through right in front of us and um followed by it a very mature great deer. Um. And they were moving so fast. I mean basically it wasn't the tip goal like you know the white tailed grant I had to scream at this year. It was the loudest like bellow I think I've ever heard somebody have to make in order to stop a deer. Yeah, and he uh, he put on the brakes at twenty yards and the rest is kind of history. I think basically. The way the the way it played out is those those two bucks must have been in the vicinity of one another when I hit the horn together and that infuriated the that bigger deer, and um, he started pushing the other one and pushed him right towards us. UM. But yeah, it was. It was an unbelievable hunt. It was one of those where everything kind of came together the way you drawed up. I mean, he came in, his eyes were bulging out of his head, and he was looking for a fight. Um. Luckily we were able to get him aged after I shot. We saw him tip over after I shot him, got the whole thing during got some great pictures, but um, we got him aged after I shot him, and the biologist said he was either you know, five and a half or six and a half, so definitely a mature deer. And yeah, it's one of those, uh, you know, those stereotypical rut hunts that you won't forget. Everything just kind of plays out the way it's opposed to, which, as we all know, rarely happens. But man, then it goes so fast. I can't believe we're already in December now. You look forward to it all year and then it's just like always here and then next you blink exactly it's gone. Yeah, you got to make the best of that's good. It was fun. It was a fun year. It was one of those hunts too, even even not hunting, that hunt's going to stick with me for a long time, you know, some of some part of the kind of wishes that man, I wish I could be, you know, back home or sitting in that hot seat right there too. But even just being able to witness yeah, I mean not everybody gets to see dear act like that, you know, that quickly in that fashion, and that's that was really special to be able to be able to see that and the backslap and you know what happens. After that, Greg called us and we all came out and you know, took pictures and congre adulating to each other and even uh, I believe what was the beer of choice that was consumed. We congratulated, like congratulatory ten thirty beery whatever. It was an honorary line in googles. Yea, yeah, yeah, yeah, that was that was. That was very neat and just to be in a deer camp and I guess really my first Midwestern deer camp and two bucks hanging in the barn and it was cool. Before we move on to the next set of questions, I've got here. I wanted to a quick break to thank our partners at White Tailed Properties and Spencer has a quick word from one of their land specialists. This week with White Tailed Properties, we had joined by Jeff Probes, a land specialists out of Missouri, and Jeff is going to be talking to us about getting started filming your own hunts. Well. I filmed personally, my son and I did for a long time. I was involved in it for over twenty years. My son and I filmed together for about fifteen years, and uh pretty much retired from it now. But I guess The first thing is is don't skimp, skimp on your equipment. If you're wanting to particularly if you're wanting to try to do something on a professional level, get good quality equipment. Obviously high definition cameras. The cameras have changed so much since we were in it. I mean they've got these small little handheld cameras now that take just about as good at quality footage as the old big cameras we used to carry. And um, you know, get good quality footage and get a good mic. Don't go with an onboard mic on this on the cameras that come with a by shotgun mic of good quality. Spend the money, do it right. Use the tree arm. When you're in a tree you get nice, smooth, steady pans. And when you're on the ground if it's if it's feasibly, use the tripod. Just keep your footage nice and steady, whether you're in a tree or on the ground. But the big thing is that don't skimp on equipment. By good stuff, and it'll show with your footage. The quality will show through. If you'd like to learn more and to see the properties that Jeff currently has listened for, visit White Tail properties dot com backslash propes. That's p r O PST. We also want to thank our partners at on x for the support of this podcast, and I want to give you quick heads up about a new feature on the on x Hunt app which is pretty neat. Now, on top of the digital maps that you can see right we've talked about in the past, you can see your aerial views, you can see your topic graphic views, you can mark way points, you can share way points, you can measure distances, you can measure areas. You can see the public land borders, you can see private land owners and borders. On top of all of that, now you can also see weather data overlaid right in that same spot. So now you can see things like what the temperatures, you can see what the percentage chance of precipitation, you can see what the wind direction, what the barre metric pressure is doing, even the sunrise and sunset times. It's all right there, easily accessible while you're looking at your map. So once again they're just making this tool even more handy and usable, and it is one of those things that you can easily get on your phone. You just gotta go search for on X. That's O n X on the mobile app store of your choice, or you can go on over to onyx maps dot com to learn more. So you've had quite the kind of education on the northern Great Lakes deer hunting tradition. This year you did the Wisconsin camp. Now you're doing the Northern Michigan camp. Totally. Yeah, because where I grew up. Um, I think part of why I think all of this is neat, you know, looking at the wall here with twenty plus buck handlers or sets and hailers. Um, you know, we just we didn't really have quite the deer culture where I grew up in eastern Maryland. I think probably partially because there probably weren't hardly any deer, you know, within even the lifespan of some of the old timers that are still kicking around. I think in the way here, you know, deer just held on in the northern part of the country obviously through sort of the the bad old days for lack of a better word, and and so we don't I don't think we really at least in eastern Maryland. And I think it probably does exist in the Appalachian part of Maryland. But um, we don't have the quite the dear the history history to deer culture, dear camp culture that that you all have up here. So it's pretty neat to experience. Yes, so so there's there's one. You did the Wisconsin camp. Ye, you did the Northern Michigan camp. You had a full spread of fried appetizers tonight of the rest of the feast of the fryer, nothing but Friday vegetables. Anyway, it truly was what's that oblong fried ship. That's pick and then that's the fried sparagus, and that's the fried chicken. Yeah, that's the frieder. Yeah, yeah, I thought the papers are gonna be the pickles. Actually no, no. Um. So, so you've done all that. You've heard the Dirty Point Buck. If anyone hasn't heard that yet, you should YouTube or google the Dirty Point Buck and listening not reggae music apparent line. I still don't understand how you thought. It's like I got this strange Caribbean beat to it too. I don't really understand where that's coming from. Did you see's a dirty pointer? Um? Okay, So that's you're very nearing the end of your Upper Great Lakes Michigan or the final piece of homework. And we talked about this over dinner. But I want to make sure you follow up on this, and anyone listening who has not yet done this needs to. Let's go over on the YouTube and watch Escanaba in the Moonlight and it is truly spelled U d a Escanaba and the Moonlight for for a lifetime worth of one liners and great quotes. You have to go into this with an open mind and a low bar. Yeah, but but it's your words have never been spoken. But if you do that and you have a cold beer and be with some buddies that want to laugh about some stupid stuff, it's gold. What I think I need to do is get uh, you know, a case of spotted to cow if that's still kicking around Paul's hopefully Paul's apartment. Get get Greg and Paul involved, heat some curds and watch, yeah, some past he's maybe a hot dish, too hot? Some wallee? Yeah, fry up some walleye. And did you bring the past he's Reuben. Oh we got the food covered boys exactly. Just have a little levy on the sap. It sounds like a good experience. Oh it is? It is just just go ahead and watch Esking Up in the Moonlight. We'll be all set. And is that something that you can rent, by the way, on Netflix or where would I find this? You can watch it for free on YouTube. That's available for free right now. And it's got a heck of the cast. Jeff Daniels. Jeff Daniels is the star. He's Reuben, He's the buckless Hooper. You're in for a treat. We were talking that we might just have to do this podcast someday. Get like a group of guys together watch Escanaba in the Moonlight and just record the podcast and just commentate the whole movie as we go. That might be a future episode. Well that could be like a like a future like Wired to Hunt thing, like people will get like people have YouTube channels with them commentating on things that they watch. So you think that's like my next my next big thing is just commenting on that movie over and over. Would you have to stream the film and then so people could watch the film as you were commentating, you know, like mystery science What was the mystery science here? Yeah, it would have to be like a video podcast, I guess. Would you'd be able to watch the film and then you'd also see me and further in the corner talking about it. Yeah. Um, so so we do this thing. Um, the mediator crew has been doing this deal they're calling like the hot tip offs where everyone's sitting around, Um, each shares like their own best hunting or fishing tip and UM, so I've been doing a bunch of this, So I'm gonna, um, I'm gonna step out of this one. I'm just gonna put this on on you guys. Orto a podcast version of the Hot Tip Off. You guys are all kind of gear guys, right, you're from the clothing gear side and Jordan's You could either do the clothing gear side or you're also like our camera guy. Um. People are always got lots of questions about photography or filming or different things like that. So I kind of thought it would be kind of cool idea to get a quick hot tip from you guys. Um. It could be about choosing the right clothing, could be out layering, it could be different things to stay more comfortable in the field. Um, if something happens to come up you come to mind in that category. Um, but if not, you're welcome to throw any other kind of hot tip at us, Um, so that I kind of want you you three to give us a hot tip. In the meantime, Josh, do you have any kind of lukewarm tips? Do you want to share? This is this has been a rough, a rough couple of days from a man. You've just been hammering on me. It's just I don't know, it's just low hanging fruit. Um. Do you do you have a Do you have any kind of thoughts? Um? Concluding thoughts? While these guys think of their hot tips, I've got a couple I want to ask them two questions questions. Yeah, do it, but let's do it after they're hot. Yeah, that would delay in my hot tips. Okay, No, he wants to do after your hot tips? Yeah, because you guys might have answers. I don't want to distract My lukewarm tip would be try to find someone else to have to stoke the fire in the middle of the night. I've woken up the first one I had to do like three or four times, and and and I said it already. I want to say it again, despite all the crap I gave you, tremendous camp manager, it's it's tough work. That's I like. I like having your dad and your uncle Steve Brown to kind of be the cample. Usually we're out hunting and they're usually the ones hanging back at camp taking care of work. If word gets out though that you do as good as work as you do, I will say it hasn't been too bad, just kind of hanging around camp. Ford and I've been just kind of hanging around camp during the day because he's not hunting. But it's been, um, it's been. It's been a lot of fun actually, just kind of hanging out at camp and it was enjoying the little joy. Good face to sleep. And I think that we all left out to go hunting this morning and you two went right back to sleep. Yeah, heard the same straight shoot straight, Okay, cool. I like my sleeping bag and put it out in the porch. I don't think this is gonna stay out here too long. You guys walked out and went out and grabbed my sleeping bang. I was posted back up in the couch real quick. I had to put my boots on outside and I think I heard snoring before even walk too far away from the cabin. You can't even talk about last night. We're all like it was, you know, we killed the lights. We're all, we're all all five of us are crammed in this little one room. We've we've got three cots and then me and josh A sharing a pull out couch and we all laying there. Yeah, it's not a big space, not a big space. And we're laying there kind of doing that kind of BS and a little bit before you fall asleep type thing. And we started talking about some props related things, and and Ford it was like, oh, yeah, I bet you we could get you something like that. And then Greg's like, oh, I don't know. You're you're you're cashing, you're writing checks he might not be able to cash. And then we start talking about this new product that Greg should be designing. And then he's like, yeah, you know, I've already thinking through him fifty of the way through. Literally no joke. It wasn't like he was kidding. He literally started snoring seconds after saying that. And then we're we all. I mean, I didn't think it could have been real. Yeah, he is sleeping like that. Are you what is it narcolepsy? Yeah? Is that a real thing for you? It's a gift, you know that I get horizontal and yeah, that's about it. Just be able to fall asleep like Greg can. That's true. And we were not being quiet laughing to figure out that he was sleeping. Yeah, yeah, that but that I think that might lead to my hot tip in in uh Northern Michigan deer camp. His I would say, pull the batteries out of the obnoxious clock before you cut the propane lights. Oh man. Yeah, So first night we all get here and belly laughing probably continued for thirty minutes or what have you, and we're drifting off to sleep, and and really I had not noticed it until the talking ended. You know, there's this woodstuffs kind of clinking and popping. But behind me is this clock is just hammering it and I feel like my eyes are kind of pulsing with the thing. And I'm like, man, I just I really just met Josh and Mark person. I don't want to be that passive, aggressive camp goer that pulls the clock off the wall and mashes it that I don't even know. I can fall asleep with this thing. I'll tell you what. I'm gonna talk to him tomorrow about it so I can get to sleep. Was anybody else thinking, oh yeah, I was. I think we were all thinking like, man, that is loud. I wonder something going to say clocks, I'm laying in bed things. I was already sleeping, so but I was like, oh, wow, that is so loud. That's never been that clock has never it's always been here. It just never is on. I don't think it's ever never worked all the years, and I can remember things got some natural reverb to it. Wow, yeah, it really does. It reminded me. And I don't know why this reminds me because I've read this like twenty years ago, but that Edgar Allan Poe poem. I think it was that we were trying to remember. I feel like there's something to do with this, like loud, yeah, something like that. This clock that just keeps making this noise and drives a got nuts or something like that. Um, And that's what it was reminding me of. So in my head was like, Wow, I'm not gonna be false sleep with that. So I sat there and then I'm like do I want to get up? Like what if they're are sleeping? And then I'm gonna be like making all this noise and then finally I realized, you know what, if anyone's gonna do it, it's probably has to be me, Like, this is my camp, I probably So I stormed out of my bed and went went over there and ripped the battery out. And then as I heard you coming, I was like, oh, yeah, he's going. He's got Everything's cool. I'm gonna be able to false sleep. Fine. I'm surprised you just didn't like nudge me like, hey, that it hurts. Can you take care of that? Oh? It made a big difference. So that's my hot tips. Pull the batteries out of the clock before you cut the lights. Good. Good, especially when with new people. Yes, so I guess it's directed to you. Actually, well no, it's can't manage camp manager. I speak to the camp executive though, so take my marching orders from alto responsibilities in there. Yeah I get that. Uh, Greg, do you have a hot tip? My hot tip is to record directly related to kind of the situation where now late season white tails perfect. So if you um fight, and I'm sure most of us do, cold feet, my hot tip relates to that. What you need to do is you go basically purchase yourself the heaviest felt and or durable wool ish fabric. You can find UM and cut yourself out a piece of it that the shape resembles UM the shape of your platform, and throw that down in your tree stand. Is a barrier between your metal tree stand and your boots. UM, and it will significantly reduce the amount of heat that you lose through your boots into your stand. Keep your feet a whole bunch warmer. So if you can't find super thick felt, by the cheap thin stuff double triple layer it UM. If you know something, it's got a sewing machine that can sew it together for you even better. But UM, any type of felt or even I've even used in the past, UM some of the rigid foam insulation pieces, but any you can get between your boots and your metal tree stand. UM as an insulation berrier will significantly keep your feet warmer. It's a very hot tip. Can I add a Can I add a plus to that? Since we're going off this like white Tail Mule deer Kick. Yeah. Yeah, It's spent a fair amount of time this year in the you know what we often refer to the late season second out half of October, which where we are in the mounds, Idaho, you know, could be fully winter in terms of weather. So doing a lot of sitting, still a lot of glassing. Um, and I go back and forth on insulated boots. Actually, my feet sweat real bad, so I kind of try not to run insulated boots, but when it's twenty degrees and windy, you kind of want the insulated boots and what have you. To Greg's point, another nifty trick, A lot of people obviously cut the close cell foam or cut what app you know, a pad of some description for your butt when you're hunting in the mountains, cut a second one for your feet, and once again you're you're getting your feet off the ground, you're cutting off. That's sort of just the flow of cold, it feels like, from the ground to the rubber your boots. Um. And I think that's kind of a nice halfway point between having a big, heavy insulated boot and running a light and maybe not quite as a warm boot. Do you steal my hot tip? Yeah, you know, I like to think of it as an addendum West East, Yeah, combo, this is I don't know why I thought of this, but related to installation and sleeping bags. I've always heard, right, I feel like I've heard that some people say it's better when you're sleeping and sleeping bag and it's cold, thought, it's better not to wear a bunch of extra layers relative layers. Yeah, do either one of you guys know anything about like what the right or the best way to stay warm and a sleeping bag is. Should you wear a bunch of layers or do you want to reduce layers it's just wear basse layers or I don't know if there's anywhere within the realm of any of you actually have the science on it. Before I offer my on in scientific two cents, and I think you should go first. Oh good, put myself out there. I have never really been man enough to try the naked stuffer. When you say naked stuffer, what do we sell the idea there being? The idea there being that you shouldn't, to your point, be wearing a bunch of clothes. You should have all those clothes in the bag with you, killing the dead space, but you don't necessarily want to have them on you, is the theory. I have never really manned up and tried that. More than you know, in a significant way. I just always feel like I'm plenty warm when I've got extra layers on in my sleeping bag, and I don't feel a need to try the alternative, but haven't given it probably, like I said, more than three nights of of a chance to prove itself. I usually wear a bunch of layers, like if it's really cool thought and I'm as sleep back, I layer up. Yeah, totally, but I've I've never tested the theory too, and I've wondered I will I try to. I don't like having a lot of buckles or zippers or you know, uh gramas or you know, kind of anything like that on my clothes. I'm usually in sort of sawt you know, wool layers or what have you, but I do generally keep layers on. I have started actually with our Chamberlain puffy or eight hundred pill Puffy. Last year came out with sort of what we call this, you know, super down jacket for lack of a better word, mountaineering grade puppy jacket eight hundred filled down, very very warm. I've actually started taking that and when I'm not using it as a pillow, if I do get super cold, I'll wrap that on top of my sleeping bag, almost like an additional blanket. Um, and that seems to help, you know, I'm sure maybe there are other ways that might be better to do that, but I've definitely done that. It seems to be it seems to be a little warmer. Yeah. I mean, now tell me I'm wrong, right, No, I won't. I was gonna fully admit I'm not the authority on this either because I am. I'm a crazy hot sleep bur I just have never really had issues with staying warm when I sleep. Um, So for me, even when it gets really cold, I'm not I can't say that it's the most efficient, but I'll keep a couple of layers on and I'm typically fine. Yeah. So I think the word I wonder if if similar to when you're exerting your like you don't want to become too terribly sweaty. You want something quick moisture way when you're hunting or hike or anything. You know, is the same issue present when you're sleeping a sleeping bag, like you don't want to overheat for it? Yeah, I would, I would say it is. Yeah, so I avoid that, but it's hard. Sometimes I think you should keep wearing layers, especially when we're sharing a pull up. Come keep up with the layers at least for one more night tonight. Yeah, you might want to try it today. It might be good to the to the stuffing point though. One one thing that I definitely recommend, which has been a game changer for me, is make sure whatever clothes you're gonna put on in the morning, you stuff in your bag with you, because then not only they're taking to that dead space, but they're nice and warm when you throw them on. Yeah that's nice. You kind of pull them on in the bag already got out of the bag. And another addendum to that, I would say, I sleep in sort of my core layers, and I don't take those off in the morning, you know. So if I'm wearing long John's into my sleeping bag, I'm gonna get out and put stuff on top of them. I'm really gonna try and avoid taking off any next to skin layers or even mid layers often because you're just that heat just yeah, gone at twenty degrees or whatever when you get out of your bag. Another bag stuffing thought, um uh, we're gonna just not make any more jokes. Um, if you happen to like step in a puddle or in a creek or something, your socks get soaked. Back in the day, I used to think, Oh, the thing to do is hang your socks up. That's not the thing to do. The thing to do is take your wet socks, throw them in the bottom in your bag, or if you're a real man, I suppose is you put them on your torso that's the inside dry them the quickest. If you put them like on your leg or in between your long long john and you're like in between your legs, yeah, I think actually I mean to to to be not to be in appropriate about it, but I think probably inside of your leg is the warmest spot in terms of or you know, and you're the crotches of your armpits um, I think are sort of the warmest areas that will dry that gear the quickest. It won't be super pleasant to stuff a wet sock into your arm bit or into your long right on, but I've definitely done it before and it it certainly works better than hanging a wet sock and thirty two degree weather in your tent. Yeah, that doesn't not not too effective. Okay, so enough of stuffing things. Yeah, the whole stuffing thoughts there, Jordan, Do you want to wrap us up with your hot tip? Yeah, minus one kind of a new piece of gear this year that has allowed me to do a few new things. But if you're a photographer or even someone who's taking like a new hunter out, just to give you a little bit more flexibility, especially on the photo side of things, is try saddle. That's one thing that I've done this year, almost exclusively for photo hunts. That definitely changes the game as far as flexibility, either in the same tree or you know, a different tree, trying to get different different vantage points. But it um it allows you to be a little bit more creative and sneak around a little bit versus just standing or sitting in a tree stand kind of being a little bit more stationary. Yeah. You you definitely you're swinging around doing all those acrobatics in the tree to get different angles of their cameras carefully, carefully. Yes, you never screw things up. And it seems to be a sort of a trend or a I think maybe the correct term would be a retrend almost perhaps the picking up momentum lately. Definitely I'm right there with you. Yeah, you've started recently on the saddle front. And this year another another of our first light team guys, Taylor Chamberlain, who Jordan and I did sort of a suburban hunting short film on um hunts upboards of a hundred fifty days a year in a tree saddle. I think that was sort of a big wake up to Jordan and I in terms of the potential efficacy of of the saddle haunts. Yeah, it's a lot easier to go hiking and wearing what you're gonna be in versus carrying fifteen pounds in your back extra. I mean it saved us probably ten minutes tonight. Yes, save us time, save us. Wait, we had a decent hike in there tonight, hanging hunting, and it was really nice that neither one of us head to carry stamp. So I'm right there with you. Um, what's the bald eagle? Sound like you got the rhythm? I've got the caidens down. It's a pitch thing. It's more of a whistle though, when you feel like probably yeah, yeah, h From my advantage point, you're at there one in the cabin. Yeah, I went out inside for a second I heard I heard one out there. They are cool, the same one. They're very cool. Yeah, we saw last night and tonight or this morning tonight, I can't remember America America. Um, alright, Well, any concluding thoughts real quick or any final things we want to add anything we didn't hit that needs to be touched on real fast? My two cold cushions. All right, you guys can see what I'm wearing is an under garments, right, what's the difference? What is it? What are the advantage of like a marino wool over like a synthetic and and you were working like a synthetic and like pretty well kind of hype more compression type two compression type Greg, can you answer the question? But my short answers stank spelled s t A and ka um. There's so there's definitely advantage that both. Um. A synthetic is its pros are that it's going to dry faster. So typically, you know, when we're trying to get guys out guys or gals excuse me outfitted for a hunt. Um, it's largely based off of the environment that they're going to be in, and synthetics will consistently dry quicker than marinos, and inherently that's their benefit. However, what we've found is that what we know to be true UM is that with a marino wool based layer, it's going to regulate your your body temperature better, both on both ends of the extremes. So when it's really hot out that marinos actually keeping you cold or keeping you cooler, and what's really cold out, it's actually keeping you warmer. And that's a hard kind of concept to wrap your brain around until you think about where that wool comes from. That wool comes from sheep that live at really high elevations that in the summer it's really really hot and in the winter it's really really cold. So that's one of the major advantages of it. UM. The second major advantage of marino wool over a synthetic to forward point is going to be stink naturally with no additives, no treatments, UM, nothing additional done to the fiber. It resists odor at the bacteria level, so it doesn't allow bacteria to grow on it. And there for three five seven days in your hunt, you're gonna be able to stand, you know, share sleep bag with yourself for you know, being in tent with a buddy or whatever it might be, UM, or even just you know, be comfortable with your overall hygiene. So that's a big benefit of as well. And I would add to that because as Greg mentioned, it's not a treatment. It doesn't wash out. A marino garment is not going to stink years later also, whereas a synthetic is going to start to get stink your and stink near to the point where it's pretty close to permanently stinking. I've got one. I've got a couple that I feel like I always need to bring because I do feel like they start to build up a stink quicker. But I've got one like I can't even wear any or because exactly and I have three or four of us, and I just the bass layers of something that I haven't invested much time or money into. UM. But I'm starting to realize I think I need to make some changes because I'm wearing stuff that I you know, that I was I would wear growing up in sports and stuff because that's what you wore as a base UM. But I think it's I think I need to You guys know that Josh was an Athlete of the Year in high school. In what capacity across the whole high school. He was the athlete of the year. That's impressive. Yeah, especially was that was that before or after he hit the car with an arrow? That's a great question. Similar time at the same time from you kind of peaked in one capacity and bottom down and that was badminton, kayaking and table ten us. Yeah. Well you told your dad that last week and he was what he say, wow, of judging by you now I'm whereever, thanks Dave. Oh no, no, okay, So that was that was number one? Thank you? Wait what sports did you play? Leaving hanging? It wasn't badman baseball and basketball in all seriousness, like we we for whatever reason, we've turned that into a thing we mock you about. But yeah, you're super good at sports. Thanks, just another reason to make fun of me. Play college baseball, yeah, squash, further hilliard and then number two. I asked Mark this last week, and I don't think he gave me a very good answer. First light, is there is there a meaning behind the name and what's the significance I told you of the logo because that's something I was like, I asked about what I don't know, is there a significance about it, or like I thought, it was like the sun coming behind a mountain. Yeah, you got it. I mean first Light is kind of when things happen and in a big game, hunting, you know, world. And the symbol is, uh, you know, the sun coming over the mountains ostensibly of central Idaho where we're where we're based. It's not an X and a D yes the sun peeking over a mountain. We got a lot of that through the years, for sure, that X D brand. It's pretty cool, just like the pistol. Yeah, yeah, all right, that's that's all. That'sn't my two computers good stuff. Well, thank you guys for coming. I had a lot of fun meeting you guys. Yeah, thanks for managing absolutely anytime you hope to have you guys. Speaking from Mark, I love to have you guys back. I like to have you here to the Canyon camp whenever you like. No, I mean, the sentiment is felt from the First Light side of things too. We appreciate you guys hosting us and obviously uh this has been productive on a number of levels, both product development and just hanging out and having a great time and sharing camp with a bunch of great guys. So we appreciate you hosting us and have us up here. If I do anything in soon, Yeah, it's a good time. Anything anything else from real forton. No, it's cool as hell, It's really cool. It's special. It's it's just special to be kind of a small part of this tradition. Jordan. Yeah, deer Camp is a special place. It's it's awesome. I think that's a good way to a good way to end it. And I agree, Deer Camp is awesome. Deer Camp as cool as hell. And uh, from my perspective, this is a place that I've come to you my whole life since I can remember. Um, but it has been so cool, or a couple more recent years to get to share it with a few more people and get to see other people experienced this place and come to appreciate the same things I've come to appreciate you now. First bringing Josh into the fold, and that's been really cool. Now getting to, you know, bring a few other people out here that that has, you know, just enriched the history here even more, and uh brought me a lot of joy and and uh, you know, just there's nothing like it all of a sudden here chatting our our neighbor body stopping by last night telling funny stories. I mean, you can't. You can't beat that kind of stuff. You cannot, you can. So uh. With that, want to wrap it up, and before we shut this thing down completely, I just want to remind you all what I said about and about an hour ago within the podcast, which is where are running a special deal on first light. So if you heard any of this you're interested in trying out some first light or you've been considering it for a while, you can go on over to the meat eater dot com where we've got some first light gear up there and available, and we're offering it twenty percent off for those of you listening. All you gotta do is use wired that's a promo code wired w I R E D to get off all of that first light off and free shipping on orders over fifty bucks. Just got to go to the meat eater dot com go to the shop and you'll see it all there. And with that we will shut this down. Thank you all for listening, Thanks for being here with us. I hope you've got some great hunts still planned. I hope you're still getting out into the true you're the blind. May snow storms and cold temperatures be heading your way, so that's nice. Mature deer will be on their feet and on the food and until next time, stay wired Ton