Activate The Hunt Podcast

This week’s podcast episode is with someone I’ve recently connected with through social media, his name is Aaron Schmuas. Aaron is a passionate hunter and outdoorsman originally from Montana. He reached out to me on Instagram because he wanted to send me a copy of his book “Ten Rules for Finding a Hunting Partner”. I read the book while sitting in a ground blind during turkey season and knew right away after reading the book that I wanted to get him on the show for a conversation. Sit back and relax, you’ll really enjoy this one! 

Taking someone on their first hunt is not only rewarding for the person you’re taking, but I found out first hand that it’s even more rewarding for the hunting mentor. 

In this episode, I have a conversation with my friend Ryan Michler, who is just getting started as a hunter. I took him on his first hunt and after the hunt, we sat down to talk about his whole experience and journey as a new hunter. 

A few topics covered include; Ryan’s journey to becoming a better man and how that involves hunting, the perception and misconception of hunting, preparing for the hunt, lessons learned from the hunt, and why you should try hunting. 

One of the first hunts I tried outside of deer hunting was turkey hunting. I was in my first year of college and it had just recently been announced that the zone I hunted in in Minnesota, was going to have a turkey season again after many years of not having one. At this point in my life, I was looking for new ways to spend time hunting, so I quickly started researching how to hunt wild turkeys. 

My main source of information at that time came from magazine articles and watching Primos Truth About Hunting on TV. I would spend all of my time outside of studying and classes learning everything I could about turkey hunting. I would say that today’s hunters are lucky to have so many more resources, like this podcast, to learn about different hunting methods and tactics. 

Anyway, that spring, I ended up calling in a big Tom turkey and missed it with my bow. On the last day of the season, I hunted with my dad, and we had a memorable hunt together. We ended up calling in a big gobbler and my dad made a great shot! I’ll never forget the reaction we had! Since that day, I've been addicted to spring turkey hunting. 

On today’s episode I have a great conversation with 3x grand national turkey calling champion and expert turkey hunter Scott Ellis. We cover many turkey hunting topics, including Scouting and location wild turkeys, how to setup after locating turkeys, calling tactics in different situations, the importance of learning how to call properly, the best strategy to bring in a henned up gobbler and so much more. If you're a hunter who's just getting into turkey hunting this is a great episode for you! 

In today’s social media driven world, it’s easy to follow someone online and think they have it all together as a hunter. Unfortunately, our culture today has urged us to only post our successes online, which is very deceiving and can be discouraging for some, especially new hunters. 

My guest today, Mark Kenyon, has been someone that I’ve enjoyed following on social media for many years because he doesn’t just post about his successes as a hunter but also posts about the journey of growing and learning as a hunter. 

In today’s podcast episode we talk about many important hunting tips for new hunters, including tips for finding a place to hunt, Mark’s system for getting hunting access on private land, the next steps you should take as a hunter once you get hunting access, what is shed hunting and why do hunters do it, Mark’s best shed hunting tips and tactics, and early season deer scouting. 

Show notes: http://activatethehunt.com/009

One of the biggest challenges faced by hunters today is finding a place to hunt. Luckily, our forefathers set aside millions of acres of wild, public land for all of us to hunt on. If you do your research and put in a little effort, you will find some great public land hunting spots all over the country, and have an opportunity to kill wild game this hunting season!

My guest today, Shane Simpson, talks about his experiences as a lifelong public land deer hunter. He explains how he finds a piece of public land to hunt on, what to expect hunting on public land, and his strategies for scouting and hunting on public land!