Whitetail Rendezvous

Deer Hunting – Whitetail Underground – Eli Gesell

So, Eli, welcome back to the show and let’s just start right where you want to start the show off with Whitetail Underground. Let’s talk about how it began, what it offers, and why people should take a look at it.

Well, it began as me not wanting to ever look back and say, “I wish I would have tried to turn something that I’m passionate into a career.” There’s a couple of things in my life that I kind of look back and say, “What if?,” and, “Why didn’t you try?” And I didn’t want this to be one of those things. In 2015 I almost died of carbon monoxide poisoning and that’s kind of what really fueled the drive to want to try and make this work.

And the name “Whitetail Underground” comes from I feel like what’s represented in hunting media is not normal for everybody and what you can watch nobody really has. So, like, the “underground” part of hunting is what everybody is able to do. We don’t all have big tracts of land, we all can’t hunt highly managed properties. Most of us are on public land and small parcels that we have permission on for free, no big leases. And that’s why I chose that name. I thought that I could put out some material that’s relatable to people, share some stories that I have from home here, and hopefully that people would follow along and I could maybe turn this into something bigger someday.

I feel like what’s represented in hunting media is not normal for everybody and what you can watch nobody really has. So, like, the “underground” part of hunting is what everybody is able to do

, we manage things a little bit different than…I shouldn’t say everybody, because there’s other people that do it the same as we do. For us we have private land, so we can manage things the way we want as we own it. We look for four-and-a-half-plus-year-old bucks. You know, if we have a 140, 150-inch three-year-old, usually that deer gets a free pass. And if we have a 130-inch five-year-old, that deer is going to get shot before that bigger antler buck because that bigger antler buck has potential. There’s also, you know, you flip the dice. Because something could happen, EHD, CWD, hit by a car, predators, there’s a lot of different things that can happen to that.

So, you know, you roll the dice and hope for the best. But when we, you know, try to manage our deer herds, we shoot X amount of does, and then usually try to shoot that, you know, four-and-a-half-year-old or older. Now, if I have special needs hunters or I have youth hunters, then that’s a whole different ball game. For the ones that are experienced hunters, you know, it’s four-and-a-half and older. Usually we then have a list. You know, we’ve started compiling a list because I’ve got so many trail cameras out that we compile a list from year to year to year so we know how old they are. And as we know how old they are and compile this list, we look at some deer and say, you know, “This deer here”…

Like we’ve got a three-year-old this year that last year he did the same thing, he comes out and he’s got a big eight-point side…or a four-point side on his left, but he’s just got two big spikes sticking straight out of his head on the right. Did the same thing last year. That deer needs to come off the farm. So one of the, you know, handicapped hunters or one of the youth hunters, they just want to go up and shoot a buck and get their first buck. Deer like that are great.

You know, you can come out and we’ve got a lot of those deer that are really goofy or, you know, genetically goofy that we want off the farm. Will you ever take… And this is a big…people are like, “Well, you know, you shoot all these, you’re going to get rid of that genetics.” You’ll never get rid of that genetics in wild deer. It’s pretty much impossible from every study I’ve ever seen to get rid of that. But if you can try to help moving it forward, you know, you do anything you can to try to help move it forward.

So that’s kind of the way that we do it, and we do that, you know, in Kansas and we do that here in Wisconsin. South Dakota on the other hand, that’s a whole different ball game. They have a lot of deer on the property we hunt, so everything goes out the door. And if it’s 130 inches or better, they don’t care, they just want their deer shot. And so if we’re not going to shoot them, they have other guys that come in and shoot them. And so they manage it different out there. It’s their farm, you live by their rules. Just like, you know, you come to my farm, we have certain rules that you’re going to live by. And so it’s their farm, we live by their rules. If they say, “Hey, you know what? If it’s 130 inches or better, I don’t care how old it is, you shoot it. Because if you don’t, I’m going to have another group of friends or people come in right behind you and shoot them anyway because I need to get rid of some of these deer.”

And so it’s management is a different tool. And that kind of brings me into something else that we talked about the other day with hunters and hunters not getting along anymore and social media and all these things that are destroying our hunting heritage. And it’s really…it eats at me a lot and it tears me up because… And I know it does you, too. Because if we keep arguing like this, we’re done. Okay?

As I said, there’s, you know, 10% of people that are truly hunters, 10% are truly anti-hunters, that leaves 80% that could go either way. So of them may even try to hunt once in a while and go, “Eh, it’s not for me.” But, you know, and then some are like, “Yeah, I’m an anti, but I’m not really an anti.” They’re the people that we have to sway to keep on our side. But the more we fight amongst ourselves and the more we look like idiots out there doing stupid things, the more that these people want to switch and fight against us. And that just…that eats at me because this is a sport that I absolutely love. I love the shooting sports, I love the hunting, I love the photography work. What’s going to happen to it if we keep fighting? Where’s it going to go?

And so, you know, I look at it with this management thing. Again, you know, you’ve hunted Wisconsin, you’ve hunted all these places, and you look at management, I don’t know what you do on your farm. You know, do they have a management plan on your farm that you hunt, Bruce?

Well, I just want to start by saying it’s always a pleasure to speak from an area of doing it. A lot of people, you know, they discuss things and it’s kind of, “Well, I read this in a book and I heard somebody say this.” But hunting has been a passion of mine, grew up doing it. I started early in life, I guess 11 or 12 Dad took me squirrel hunting. And all of this was done on our own family farm, third-generation Black Angus farmer from Newbern, Alabama.

So in the South mostly the areas that we have a lot of people do catfish farming, cattle, and, you know, just your… Some row-crop farming goes on further south Alabama and some other places.

But got into hunting early and I developed that outdoors passion, I guess, from my dad. Growing up on farm, you got early Saturdays. Even if you come home from the school, if the hay needed to be hauled out to field, I guess you had to get your homework quick, and then we went down to the farm. The farm is…we live in Greensboro, Alabama, born in Greensboro, Alabama. The farm was about 10 minutes from our house. So we weren’t “raised” raised on the farm, it’s where my dad grew up, it was his family land.

And we’d pretty much go down there, we have cattle. And that’s who, I think, is sponsoring my appearance tonight, is the Joe’s Black Angus Farm of Newbern, Alabama. And I’ll put that contact information up later on while we, you know, discuss some other things. But I started the idea of wanting to do something different with our farm once my father retired. He’s an agribusiness teacher of 34 years. And when he retired he said, “Well, I’m going to go down to the farm and I’m going to expand the farm.” And I will grow the farm to where he wants it to be, it’s a passion of his to raise cows, to work the land, to work the soil.

it is about 6:30 a.m. in Colorado and I’m with Fred Eichler and he’s sitting out on the deck and there’s Spanish Peaks behind him. And if you don’t know where that is, well, go on Google Earth and you’ll find out that Fred is an icon in the industry. And he’s just fun, he’s just one of the funnest guys that you’ll ever meet. And he’s like that whether he’s, you know, packing out an elk or loading hay or just hanging out. https://www.realtree.com/big-game-hunting/galleries/north-american-super-slam-29-big-game-animals-you-need

And Fred was one of…was the first one in 2009 to take the super slam, that’s all 29 big game animals, with his recurve. Fred, welcome to the show.

Deer Hunting with Be a Lion Outdoors – CJ James – I’m with Christopher James, also known, a.k.a., as CJ. And he’s a writer and author, DIY hunter, an extreme wilderness fanatic, a fitness person, and he’s an overcomer. He’s faced adversity in his life, and he’s living proof no matter what happens, how bad it seems at the time, you can overcome it and move forward. CJ’s from Calgary, Alberta, Canada, and he fishes at the Bow River which, if you’ve never been on the Bow, you should fish the Bow.

It’s a wonderful, wonderful water body. I mean, our rainbows and brown trouts are Blue Ribbon level. The growth rates are huge. We’ll have a four or five-year-old trout that’s measuring, like, 21 inches. And there’s thousands of them in any stretch of the Bow. If you get a chance to go into my neck of the woods, let me know and I’ll be happy to take you out. It’s just a wonderful, wonderful water body. I’m very lucky to have grown up on it.

Yeah. It’s all that and more. And, CJ, Be A Lion Outdoors, https://bealionoutdoors.wordpress.com/

we’re heading out to actually Mason City, Iowa. We’re gonna meet with a man named Bob Smith. No, that’s not his alias. His company’s name is Big Stick Archery http://www.bigstickarchery.com/ . And if you look around his home there in Mason City, you’re gonna see a lot of big box, and they were all taken with, what I call traditional, a stick and a string traditional archery. And that’s what this episode is gonna be about. It’s hunting way back when. In the warm-up, Bob and I were talking about shooting flaming arrows off the sides of a castle. What a trip that must have been? Bob, welcome to the show.

Thanks. Thanks for having me.

Yeah. And, you know, you go back and you read the book “Shogun” and you just go back through England and Europe. And longbow archers have been part of, you know, war for a long, long time. I mean, you know, Sun Tzu and all his guys, they had bows. You know, that’s what they…

I don’t know as much about it as you, it sounds like, but yes, I know that, you know, archers were kinda like the go-to guys. I mean, like, they were the guys to have, I think.

Yeah, no, there wasn’t a question about it, because, you know, they had rudimentary cannons and then they had the archers, and they would just shower the sky, I mean, literally hundreds and hundreds of broadhead with flaming or just screaming out. And they would hurt you.

Yeah, yeah.

So, you know, and somebody had to make those bows and make those arrows, and that’s what they…long way to introduce Bob Smith’s Big Stick Archery, because he is a bowyer. And he is a maker of bows, you just can see a couple behind him. And he’s gonna talk to us about why he is building bows. And the other parts of the show is gonna be the adventure of hunting. So, Bob, I’ve talked long enough. Why don’t you jump in and chitchat, and talk to me about being, you know, a builder of recurves and longbows?

Well, one of the…as we were talking about why we hunt and the experiences that we remember so vividly in our own minds and the images that we bring home with us, those memories, those experiences, that is what, at least in my mind, draw us into the field every day, year after year, to hunt, to experience the wildlife, to experience the people, to grow closer with people that have very similar ideas and very similar desires.

Why We Hunt – Melanie Peterson Outdoors

Marc and Melanie

Deer Hunting – Spypoint Trail Camera – Jacob Hacker this is my summer series, this is preseason prep. And I’m very happen to have Jacob Hacker on, he’s the Regional Sales Manager for SpyPoint https://www.spypoint.com. What’s SpyPoint? Well, you’re going to hear all about it in the next hour so. But more important than that we’re going to be talking about preseason prep with your trail cameras, of which SpyPoint is one brand.

Jake, welcome to the show. And let’s roll up and talk about, you know, just the development of the use of spy cameras. Now, you know, security cameras have been around forever, but all of a sudden motion sensors, whitetail deer, and we got a huge industry, don’t we?

Oh, yeah, it’s everywhere. You can’t be in and around the hunting industry now without seeing trail cameras everywhere.

Now do you know the history of when this whole thing started? You know, who was the first guy to figure out, “Wait a minute, if I can use this in my office, I should hang it on a tree”?

I can’t answer that one for you, but I bet he’s sitting pretty and he’s killed some big deer with it though, that’s for sure.

Yeah, because how long… You know, I’m just trying to think. Trail cameras being used, it’s get to be over 10 years, 10, 15 years, don’t you think?

Oh, easily, yeah. I know I started hunting, it was 1999 is the first season that I really started hunting. And, you know, we had trail cameras then. You know, they were 35-millimeter flash cameras, but we still used trail cameras then. So that’s been, gosh, 20 years now? So it’s well before that, I’m sure.

Our Mission is Deer Hunting with Archery Maniacs – Zach Herold

Here at Archery Maniacs https://www.archerymaniacs.com, we believe that archery isn’t just a hobby – it’s a lifestyle. It’s a lifestyle that engulfs you in the great outdoors. A lifestyle that challenges you both physically and mentally. A lifestyle that you can share with friends and family. And like us, most people living the archery lifestyle are always striving to shoot farther, better, more accurately, and more consistently.

How can you do that? By learning. We at Archery Maniacs aim to provide you with the tools and resources to learn more and improve your archery game. Tips on bow tuning…tactics for your next DIY hunt…honest gear reviews…advice from the pros…and more. Listen to the podcast to hear advice from archers of all backgrounds, or check out the blog to read stories from our pro staff shooters. Every part of Archery Maniacs is designed to help you Live Life at Full Draw.

we’re going to go to South Africa. “South Africa?” Yeah, with David Freeburn of Dave Freeburn Safaris. And we’re going to join Melanie Peterson, http://bit.ly/2O6Sv8z in a park in Pinedale, Wyoming. And we’re headed down to Oregon, or over to Oregon since I’m in Colorado, with Marc LeQuieu, https://www.axialprecision.com/. And we have a unique story to share because Melanie is going to first share about winning the Extreme Huntress contest for 2018, and then it’s going to lead to a conversation she had with Dave Freeburn of Dave Freeburn Safaris, https://www.davefreeburn.com/ . And then they had ended up in Cape Town, or Joberg, I don’t know where she flew into. Anyway, and then hunted South Africa for Cape buffalo with an air rifle.