Ep. 984: 10 Steps to Becoming a Happier Hunter This Season with Eric Clark and Derek Malcore

00:00:01
Speaker 1: Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast, your guide to the white Tail Woods presented by first Light, creating proven versatile hunting apparel for the stand, saddle or blind. First Light, Go Farther, Stay Longer, and now your host, Mark Kenyon, Welcome to the.

00:00:20
Speaker 2: Wired to Hunt podcast.

00:00:22
Speaker 3: This week on the show, I’m joined by Eric Clark and Derek Melcorp of the Okayist Hunter podcast to discuss ten simple steps to follow to become a happier and more satisfied deer hunter. All right, welcome back to the Wired Hunt podcast, brought to you by First Light and their Camo for Conservation initiative, and today we are talking through the ten simple steps or the ten commandments to follow to become a happier deer hunter. I think this is the perfect conversation to have right now, with just about one third of our hunting season left ahead of us. If you are disappointed with how your season has been going so far, if you have not had the success you wanted, if you have not had the fun you hoped for, if you have not been as satisfied and full of joy and fun as you were hoping this season would be today’s chap, I think will be exactly what you need, because this conversation is all about recentering ourselves, getting back to understanding the why behind our hunting. Why are we out there, why do we come to this, Why did we fall in love with hunting? And are we thinking about that when we go out there.

00:01:40
Speaker 2: In the woods.

00:01:41
Speaker 3: That’s what I want us to consider today, because I do think in our twenty first century, modern day deer hunting culture, it’s very easy to get sucked into these other things, to become obsessed with somebody else’s goals or expectations. I think that we have to do what everybody else is doing, or that we need to kill a big, giant bucker, that we need to kill this deer because if we don’t, we’ll be a failure, or whatever that version might be for yourself. There’s many ways that deer hunting today can lose the fun. It can become something that was not what you originally came to when you first became a deer hunter. That’s a story that I’ve told many of you over the years as I have kind of seen this happen in my own life. And today I want to chat with two guys that have done a great job of speaking about this on their own platform, the okayst Hunter Podcast, which is all about kind of trying to recenter hunters on.

00:02:37
Speaker 2: Sharing the hunt.

00:02:37
Speaker 3: With the people you care about, not judging other people hunting your own hunt, doing this because it’s fun, having fun with it, enjoying it with those people you care about. All the stuff that I think is what brought so many of us to the table.

00:02:50
Speaker 2: All that is what I.

00:02:51
Speaker 3: Think is what ultimately was why we all got into deer hunting in the first place, before we lost sight of that maybe amidst social media and TV and YouTube and inches of antler and whatever else it might be. So today Derek and Eric are going to help me follow up a conversation that we started three years ago. We first had these guys in the show three years ago to start talking through this journey that we’ve all been on, and today I wanted to revisit it, explore maybe where we are as a culture now. Have things changed it all since twenty twenty two? Are things getting better? Are things getting worse?

00:03:25
Speaker 2: Also? Then with that said, what does that mean for the future? What can we do now to make the best of the twenty twenty five season or whatever? Year it is that you’re listening to this.

00:03:36
Speaker 3: If you are in a kind of a bad state of affairs, if you’re bummed out about your season, this conversation I think should help you flip the switch. Remember why we got into this, remember what’s actually important, and these ten steps that Derek and Eric are going to walk us through, I think can help you become a happier and more satisfied hunter without a doubt this season.

00:03:59
Speaker 2: Before it’s all said.

00:04:00
Speaker 3: Done so, without any further ado, let’s get to my chat with Eric and Derek.

00:04:04
Speaker 2: Hope you enjoy it all right with me?

00:04:11
Speaker 3: Now on the line is Eric Clark and Derek melcor Welcome back to the show.

00:04:17
Speaker 2: Guys.

00:04:19
Speaker 4: Thanks thanks for welcoming us back.

00:04:22
Speaker 2: It’s my pleasure.

00:04:24
Speaker 3: As we were talking about before we started recording, this conversation that we had three years ago, I guess now was one that in the years since, I’ve realized has been more and more important.

00:04:39
Speaker 5: You know.

00:04:40
Speaker 3: I think when we had that chat, I was just kind of in the early stages of a little bit of a you know, self, a period of self reflection.

00:04:49
Speaker 2: I think about why I.

00:04:50
Speaker 3: Hunt and how I hunt and what it means to me and I’d been going over that over a couple of years leading into that chat we had, and in the three years since that transformation of so has continued. And so it seemed like three years since that point now after we had this really good chat about maybe this different side of deer hunting, that this mission that you guys have been pushing forward with the okayist hunter, I want to revisit it. And I wanted to see, you know, what you guys think about where we are now, about how maybe your own thoughts have changed, about how maybe the culture of hunting has possibly changed in those years. And then I wanted to review what we had kind of stumbled on at the end of that chat, which was the ten commandments of being an okay ast Hunter. And I’ve kind of thought about that this could almost stand as like the ten commandments of being a fun hunter, almost, or a deer hunter that has a fun season.

00:05:43
Speaker 2: Something like that.

00:05:43
Speaker 3: You could you could zoom out a little bit and have it apply to it to a lot of people.

00:05:48
Speaker 2: So all that said, I’m glad you’re here.

00:05:51
Speaker 3: I’m doing that thing where I ramble, but I’m gonna read you one more thing, and I’m gonna let you guys talk. Your stated mission on your website says, our mission is to put an end to deer and buck shaming and make it okay to hunt, how you hunt, and for whatever you hunt for. It’s not about the most miles hiked, the biggest buck, or the latest gear. We believe hunting is about having fun and making everlasting memories. Hunt for fun, not trophies, make everlasting mad make everlasting memories, and make the best use of what you have. Does that mission still stand now? Do you guys still feel like that is the most important thing for you guys to be pushing forward and what gets you up and on the podcast and chatting online and doing all the different things you do. Does that still because I know you wrote that and started this whole thing years and years ago, does all that still ring true to you today?

00:06:48
Speaker 4: Yeah? I mean I don’t have to think of it at all. It does, which is mean I’m not going to my own hornet’s. The point is the fact that that is still standing is impressive to even me that that’s what we are continuing to do. I’m like a little surprised actually, and we haven’t had to change our logo we’ve done no branding updates, Like it just reminds me of the Dress Blues and Marine Corps. They’re the only ones in all of the DoD the Armed Services that haven’t changed their uniform and everyone else is going through rebranding every four years. Like, we’re doing what we said we’re going to do and we’re staying the course. And that’s hard to do when your counterculture brand in the market might not respond right away. It makes you wonder, like, are we making a difference? Is it for the better? We are rubbing people the wrong way at times? Should we be listening to them? Reading Ryan Holliday’s latest book, Wisdom Takes Work, I’m like, boy, I hope that I’m in the right line here and that I’m taking feedback in a way that opens my mind to the holistic thing. And I hope we don’t have a negative impact, we have a positive one. And I think the messages that we get, the emails, the dms, the comments, the reviews, it’s all pointing to that north star. So it tells me we’re in the right track here.

00:08:03
Speaker 5: I think about it, It’s almost like maybe we’re in a little bit slower lane of like the you know, popular culture of hunting and whatnot, and you talk about like not having a brand and whatever, like I feel like to keep doing the coolest, most hardcore thing. Like he’s constantly, constantly, constantly updating. It’s hard to stay at the forefront of that. But doing the right thing is like the slow and steady lane. And I think that’s what the mission that you described all those years ago is getting at, is like doing the right thing by yourself and by others. And I think when you do something like that, that principle stands the ground and stands through time. And I think that’s what we’re seeing now is more and more people who are like, dude, you guys around something like that’s that’s what it should be.

00:08:46
Speaker 4: Then you have to say something several times, several different ways, Like every day we post on the internet, like I’m just saying the same stuff. And you know, for someone who’s followed Gary Vaynerchuck for his career, it’s like he’s saying the same stuff, Ramsey saying the same stuff. You find these people are brands that say the same thing, but it’s continuously relevant and sometimes as humans we need to hear it. A couple different ways or several different times to finally like seep in and go oh yeah, wow they are saying that, Or you check back in years right after falling off and you’re like, oh, they’re still saying the same stuff. That’s great. They’re staying true, you know, so I think that’s interesting.

00:09:22
Speaker 2: Yeah.

00:09:22
Speaker 3: So, I know we talked about this back in twenty twenty two, but for people who didn’t hear that conversation, I want to at least kind of set the groundwork a little bit of what you guys kind of stand for. Can you paint a picture for me, Eric of what led you to want to share this counterculture message of sorts, Like what what’s the diagnosis of the problem that led you to wanting to do this thing?

00:09:50
Speaker 2: Can you kind of restate that for us?

00:09:52
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean I would now put that problem into the umbrella of ego sleep. However, I didn’t know that that’s what I was fighting against initially. But it all started when I tagged a small dough. It was like a dophon. It was my first boat kill ever, right when my daughter was born in twenty seventeen, and this idea had been flowing around my head for a while in fact, I was just in the archives of my photos looking for something, and I can see all the other iterations of naming, concepts, logo ideation that had gone into this before we landed on Okay as hunter and like kind of went forth. But it was that it was like I posted a photo that I was really proud of because to me, it was a big deal and it was from the ground. It was like ten yard shot. It was exciting for me. It was my dad was there. That’s always a moniker for me and hunting if he’s there, and it was I’m a girl man who just had his first kid and my dad’s there, and I immediately felt like that twelve year old boil over again over the kill of this little dophon And in no world did my dad shame me for that, Like he’s like, you did it. You got your first boat kill. You should be proud. This is exciting, luckily and small, and you can drag it out really easily because we can walk back. And I was like, okay, so like we can. We’re not snowflakes. We can take banter and like you know, all of that stuff in good fun humor. It’s when it happens for people that don’t know you and don’t have the context and start to say things that are like actually mean and degrading and dehumanizing in some ways, it’s like, we don’t need that, or I thought we were on the same team. I thought this was a brotherhood. We have enough problems outside of our space that we should really not be the neck biting and the head off. So that’s kind of how it started. And then when we kick things off. The big deal for me was when we had people sharing all their photos with us that had never been posted publicly, and so we created a space that felt like I can share with you guys, and I’m not going to have judgment, and now I can talk about this hunt that was the last one of my grandpa, the first one of my kid, my first out of state, my first ever as adult on set, and the story is just poured in. So that was the like we had a bit of a fire starter, and then that was the thing that really fanned the that made it just kind of come alive on its own. No, it’s kind of feed it logs and it just rolls. We kind of know what to do here.

00:12:06
Speaker 3: Yeah, And since then, like you said, you guys have have not only created a safe space I think for people to be excited about whatever their hunt is. But I do feel like you guys have been sharing this message of and correct me if I’m correct me if I’m wrong here putting words in your mouth. But it seems like a lot of your guys’s message is framed around hunting. I guess I’ll put my own words into your mouth. That’s something I’ve said a lot, which is like hunt your own hunt, like hunt for your own reasons. Do what makes you happy, do what satisfies you, enjoy it for your own reasons. Don’t let anybody else’s opinion, anybody else’s goals, anybody else’s version of success, influence you, or make you feel bad about your thing, or add stress or pressure or anxiety, or or take anything away from your version of it. Am I interpreting like the large overarching why of your thing? Is?

00:13:01
Speaker 4: That?

00:13:01
Speaker 2: Is that a correct interpretation?

00:13:03
Speaker 4: Yeah, run your own race is kind of where that came from. Like would you run out if you’re going to do a marathon? Like maybe maybe you’re competing for first, but some people are just gonna do a marathon. It’s on their bucket list and they might ever do one once, they just want to complete it. And so like you could compare yourself to people along the along the race, but what’s the sense in that, Like people at different ages, physiques, gender, physical fitness, Like there’s so many components. And then I think about hunting, and it’s a very intimate thing. It’s it and it’s more than a race because there’s ethics involved in taking an animal’s life. But then there’s also managing a resource. And as long as we’re trusting to some degree of following the law that’s been put in place by public officials to manage a resource, we have been given tags to go handle that resource by filling tags if it’s in the confines of that I have one buck tag for archery, one buck take for gun in Wisconsin, and several dough takes if they’ve already done all the forecasting to sell all those licenses. It’s a very small percentage of the total population of deer in contrast to the number of hunters.

00:14:14
Speaker 5: By the way, shoot what.

00:14:16
Speaker 4: You’re gonna shoot, because inside of that hunt, as we’re what do we gen X? I think I’m thirty nine, what are you? Thirty eight? Thirty nine you’re millennial. I think, okay, millennial. So we have parents that are aging out and we have kids that are coming in. So we’re in this spot where I’m appreciating the hunting lens in a very unique way. My younger twenties is I was a lot of ego, piss and vinegar and trying to test myself against limits. And then having kids, I want them to experience this. And my dad’s starting to age out, and so like now I’m starting to not take care of things for him. But he’s not going to drag a deer on his own anymore. We shouldn’t. He probably shouldn’t. He’s pokey, he’s not getting up there early in the morning, and where he’s forgetting things, he’s like picking easy spots. I’m like, wow, this is the guy that was like pushing me all the time. And now look at the tables trending. So I’m valuing the hunt in a very different sense. I still have my little insulated bow hunt where I can be the Johnny badass that I think I am, but I also want to bring my kids with me more so I’m trying to figure that out. That’s a tricky one for me because I have three of them, like, oh, if I go up my dad, it just yeah, So hunt your own hunt because in the hunter’s journey there’s so many variables. Different states managed to her. Population is differently with different regulations. Some people can’t even shoot those in their in their region. Deer size is very different, whether terrain age, There’s too many things to judge someone else’s hunt based on how you would judge a hunt.

00:15:49
Speaker 5: So I just I’ll just chime in with a smaller piece of that because I think your tag you’re hunt like I’m nervous. That’s a huge part of the mission, and just letting people be excited and enjoy their moment with casting whatever a little bit of shade or shame that your successes may you think may afford you to cast like that. That’s the huge part. But something that I’ve heard over and over again and have really kind of related to is people people have mentioned to us that like hearing about your mishaps and like the mess, the mess relieving the okayest moments, Like hearing that from others was like relieving in itself, because man, I’ve talked to a bunch of people who are like relatively new hunters, and not like just young ones, but like adult onset hunters, And it’s a lot of freaking pressure to a step into this door of like crazy outdoor world all this year? What do I do? How do I do it? Do I have a hunter? But then like to know you’re going to be judged like this this crazy big buck like mantra that everyone marches by, and then all of a sudden, like you’re trying to learn this and you can’t feel like you relax, And I can just feel the anxiety in these younger newer hunters. They’re like, oh man, like, not only do I have to know how to do all this I speak about it, I have to like now figure out how to kill a big year I’ve never even like drawn and go on. Like I could feel that, And talking to a number of like newer hunters and a lot of people have said, man, just hearing like the okat moments you guys have and like the crap that you have done and like said like helped me feel like, oh man, I’m not like really doing that bad like most people are going through this crow because when you only hear the good stuff and how great everything was in your scouting trip and you left out that you forgot your sticks and climbed your true with you know, just your legs and scratch the crap all your like. It makes it more welcoming and just way more relatable content. And I’d say what some of the other things are.

00:17:39
Speaker 3: Yeah, So so let’s let’s content aside. Just speaking about this message that you guys as a group and as individuals have kind of been evangelizing. Do you think it’s being heard?

00:17:54
Speaker 5: Like?

00:17:54
Speaker 3: I don’t mean like, actually, you know, tangibly like X thousands of people have heard me. But I mean like, do you feel like the culture our community are we going in the right direction or are we going the wrong direction? How do you feel about like the trend line right now?

00:18:08
Speaker 2: As far as like.

00:18:10
Speaker 4: Yeah, I’m afraid it’s getting a little bit. I don’t want to be someone that’s creating a fraction, but I feel like it’s getting a little bit fraction. So I think I’m seeing and paying attention to others in my age class. I see Dan Johnson starting to say what we say because he’s experiencing it. I hear you reaching out to us to come back to talk about it because you’re kind of getting down that path. I saw Josh Talker talking about this. I’ve heard Dan Infult now go on to record and talk about how there’s regret from being so motivated towards it, and so is it being heard. I think it’s being heard, it’s being felt. I’m curious who’s going to come up and fill in the void and continue this like line of thought around big Bucks, big Bucks, big Bucks, mature, mature, mature, and I I value QTMA. But that’s different because it’s talking about private land. I would love to talk about that. I just don’t because I don’t talk about things I don’t know, and I don’t have private land, so I don’t have a voice there. So my voice lives in the public land space. And public land is really hard, it’s really pressured in there is the challenge that I thoroughly enjoy as much as all piss and moment at times in certain moments, but I do enjoy it. But it’s in those moments that like there’s a badge of honor that comes with that stuff that I don’t need validation or judgment for doing something that I found to be fun and challenging and intrinsically rewarding, whether I’m with my kid, my dad, or doing it on my own. So I hope it’s being heard. It seems like it is because we’re getting a lot of feedback in a lot of digital places. But we also do physical things too. We host an archery event. We had eighty people at it last year. It’s grown by twenty every year since we’ve done it. And we get people physically literally telling us this stuff. And then we host an event here at our new podcast studio and similar like people came here and hung out with us and shared relatable stories, putting us at the center of it a little bit like, dude, we’re not special. Like what special is the fact that we’re having this conversation and that we’re all sharing these experiences together. And a word or a phrase that I’ve been trying to infuse more and is that hunting is a shared experience or it ought to be. Much like Christopher mckndall’s aka Alex Supertramp with Oh Into the Wild written by John Krackhauer at the end of the whole thing spoiler which if you haven’t read the book or saw the movie by now like tough stuff, but his dying thoughts and his diary were like this life was meant to be shared and experienced together. And I really believe that about deer hunting. It’s way more of a bright spot in the memories when they’re shared. Much like parenting. My wife’s gone for some reason for doing something or working whatever, and I’m doing something like kid and usually she’s there. I’m like, look what they’re doing. We’re sharing this moment together. When she’s gone. It still happens and it’s nice, but it’s always better when I can share it with her. Hunting is not that uniquely different than that, So I think to answer your question, I don’t, Derek, if you have anything else, But it seems like it’s resonating.

00:21:20
Speaker 5: I mean, we notice it more because it’s what we were here about. Possibly, But I would say overall, I think things are slowly starting to trend in a positive direction of just kindness and people being a little bit more understanding and maybe being able to bite their tongue a little bit more. But it’s hard to say because you have a lot on the other side of the fence too that you see a lot of the other also.

00:21:45
Speaker 4: Well, Mark, I have a question for you because my concern is like I’m not trying to create this Kumbaya moment where we’re just sheltering people and making it all kumbay ah positivity.

00:21:55
Speaker 3: Rara.

00:21:55
Speaker 4: I do think it’s hard to make positivity louder than negativity because though the negative is like one percent or less, it’s what sticks out, and it’s what sticks in your mind and memory. When you have that, you can have twenty five people say congratulations, good job, great, great buck, the one person that said something crappy, that’s the one damn thing that you remember, ye, And so then that becomes this like really loud voice in your head, and that’s frustrating. So we’re just kind of drown that out as much as we possibly can and not doing it in such a way that we are becoming like this like ooh, you can’t say naughty things here. That’s not the point. There’s a sensibility, a sensibility to it, and.

00:22:33
Speaker 5: Another thing that so you can speak to this more. But like with the logo and everything, like what you’ve been preaching is not like some people see the logo the little ailer like oh man, these guys just want you to shoot little bucks, Like just okay to shoot little bucks, but like that’s not what your mission was. Your mission ones just like hunt your hunt. And if this is what’s the trophy to you, that’s fine. Other people don’t have to open their mouth about it.

00:22:56
Speaker 4: Yeah, well, the logo is meant to be the memories are greater than the inches, Like it’s a small logo because the hunt means more than that, and it said really, I think they’re to piece together. But the question for you, Mark is like you’re deeply embedded in the industry, working with some of the largest brands, and you’re part of one of the largest brands, So I don’t I wonder what you’re hearing about this kind of undertone, undercurrent of like we’re getting tired of it, you know, of the ego of the.

00:23:26
Speaker 2: So I’m I’m six one way, half dozen the other.

00:23:28
Speaker 3: Because on one hand, I definitely see and feel what you guys are talking about, what I’m talking about, what I’m hearing from more and more of my friends. But there is a little bit of that like bias of like that is the phase of life we’re in, So how much of this is just like, Hey, we’re all becoming young parents, we’re all having this perspective shift. We’re all kind of realizing there’s things more important than a big giant buck, because we have kids, because we’re reaching middle age. So is my sample sized bias. Because of that, one part of me thinks like, hey, I’m hearing this a lot, and maybe it’s a growing trend. People are finally realizing that we don’t have to be a holes. We don’t all have to kill giant bucks. It’s not the end all, be all, et cetera. But on the flip side, social media can sometimes act as a lens of how we believe the world to be. And when I look at social media, if I were to answer this question based on that, I would say it’s getting worse. And I think that’s in many ways because social media rewards the worst of all these things, right. Social media rewards it rewards sensationalism, it rewards trolling, It rewards you know, me, me me me me you suck or me me me me me right. And so you see more and more people I feel like, whether they are willing to admit it or not, a lot of their a lot of their hunting is influenced by what other people are going to think about how big a deer I kill, or whether or not I killed to do this year, or how many pictures I post this year, this thing or that thing, or trying to get more likes or more subscribers or more whatever. Everybody is their own personal brand. Everybody has something they’re trying to sell or get you to do.

00:25:15
Speaker 2: And I say all.

00:25:15
Speaker 3: This obviously hypocritically, because I am doing that too, by asking people to follow my stuff and watch my content all of that stuff. But if that’s taken too far, and if that’s taken to where everyone’s trying to do that, then it becomes this, this this mess of people doing things for the wrong reasons and then ultimately being miserable because of it, and everyone trying to like performatively make it look like they’re having the time of their lives when deep down inside of them it’s hollow.

00:25:46
Speaker 2: I think that’s happening. I certainly had that experience.

00:25:50
Speaker 4: Feel so the movie Groundhog’s Day or in the beginning, Bill Murray just starts to do all of the dumbest, funnest, craziest stuff and then eventually tires them out. And I think about that, like, if I could just kill and hunt big Bucks all day, every day, all the time for the next twenty years. At some point am I gonna am I gonna be satiated from that? I mean maybe like maybe the oh man, let’s describe someone’s dream, you know, But at some point it’s like, isn’t there more to this? Isn’t there more about the camaraderie, the shared experience, the memory, the dragging out together, the joking, the the you know, the mishaps, Like, isn’t there more the meat, the food around the table, the gathering like and none of that comes from big antlers. I just don’t know that. I’m gonna remember the backstrapped for the antlers come my deathbed. That’s just that all is gonna get stripped away, and I’m gonna remember what’s gonna stand out when it all gets eroded or distilled. Is gonna be the people like Derek or Greg or my dad or my kids. Like That’s what I think is important. So I have a really really tough time lately with people just trying to dog us on stuff like that. I’m like, man, I feel like you’re not he seen the forest or the trees or that. I always get that one backwards. But I think you get the idea.

00:27:05
Speaker 2: Yeah, there, you get it.

00:27:17
Speaker 3: So I had a friend called me the other day, good friend who is all ate up with deer hunting. He’s been a longtime friend and you know, listens to all the podcasts and reads all the articles, and for years and years and years now he’s tried to be a better deer hunter, tries to be a great deer hunter. And he texted me the other day, say, hey, Mark, do you have Do you have a couple of minutes to chat. I’m having a little bit of a crisis and I just got to run and by you.

00:27:41
Speaker 2: So I give him a call.

00:27:42
Speaker 3: And he starts laying out for fifteen minutes, discussed all the ways his deer hunting season went wrong, how the neighbors did this, how this thing went wrong, how he doesn’t have enough property, how he doesn’t understand he had six different mature bucks and this thing and that thing, and how X, Y and Z all had you know, made him not have success this year, and he didn’t know where to go or what to do, or why can’t I kill mature buck? And why haven’t I been able to do this? And what am I doing wrong? And so on and so forth. And finally I stopped him. I said, buddy, I don’t think this is what you want to hear. But my answer is not going to be anything tactical. It’s not going to be anything about where you should sit or how you should change your strategy. I think you need to really take some time and reflect about why you are hunting and what you are trying to get out of this and why you came to it in the beginning. And so I asked him some questions, like why did you start to hunt?

00:28:35
Speaker 2: What brings you joy?

00:28:38
Speaker 3: Now what you just described to me the last few weeks of hunting, did that bring you joy?

00:28:41
Speaker 2: Did that bring you happiness? Did that satisfy you?

00:28:44
Speaker 3: And what it came down to is is the more I think about this, and this is what I shared with him, the more I realized that this whole hunting thing is incredibly stupid. It’s incredibly meaningless and selfish and unimportant to the rest of the world unless it is bringing you joy, satisfaction, connecting you to your family members and friends, bringing something good into this world. But whether or not you kill one hundred and seven inch buck or not does not matter. It does not make the world a better place, if it’s taking you away from your friends and family, if it’s taking you away from things that are core to what does truly matter, and if it’s all of those things also making you miserable and stressing you out and keeping you from being able to sleep at night, and you’re doing all of this because you feel you have to prove yourself to somebody else. If that’s what’s happening, this is a horrible waste of your time, and you got to rethink about how to actually make this a worthwhile part of your life. And what it came down to is that you’d lost sight of all that, and I had too over the years, right, And I think there’s a lot of other people out there, And so that’s why, in a long, rambling kind of roundabout way, I wanted to talk about this right now here at the beginning of December, because we’re, you know, for most people, we’re probably about two thirds of the way through the hunting season, right we’re in that back half or the back quarter or the back third of the year. We’re quickly running on time to make something out of this hunting season for a lot of people. And I gotta believe there’s some folks out there who didn’t kill their big buck, or who have been totally stressed out, or who are still obsessed in trying to figure out some way to salvage the season and have that big one for Instagram or whatever.

00:30:26
Speaker 2: There’s people out.

00:30:27
Speaker 3: There who are thinking, like, man, this season sucked or this season was stressful, or how come I don’t feel good about this? Or why aren’t I having fun anymore? Why is this not what it used to be? Or when I wish I could go back to the way it was when I was eighteen and going in the woods and so excited every time I went, And now I feel obligated to go out there, and then the whole time I’m just bitching and moaning about how there’s another spike or there’s another four kyn, there’s no big deer here, and you know, et cetera, et cetera. So what I want to do, what I want to ask you guys to help me with, is to lay out some simple steps for how people can like save their season and not save their season, Like how you know the tactics you need to kill a big giant buck, but how to reclaim the satisfaction and the joy and the the real reason we hunt, which I think is kind of what we achieved when I when we’ve talked a couple of years ago about the ten commandments of this side of hunting. So, would you guys be game to talk through the ten commandments or the eleven commandments? I think is what you guys settled on. The eleven commandments of you know, being a quote unquote okayst hunter, or eleven commandments of having a fun deer hunting season, so that you know, this last month of the season or five weeks or six weeks or whatever it is you have, folks can try to make these types of changes. Does that sound like a plan that we could walk through.

00:31:46
Speaker 4: Yeah, I think I think it’s a worthwhile plan. And I before we go into that plan, I don’t want to discourage anyone from achieving their goals either, Like, oh, for sure, it is important if you do have a goal to see it through because it’s not always gonna be candy bars and lightpops, and it’s gonna feel frustrating, and that is kind of part of it. And I will say even like chopping it up with a buddy, like your buddy had reached out to you, like talking about all the strategy and he’s kind of looking for something very different when you’d offered but that didn’t have itself. That like the number of times I called Derek and hunting season is exponentially greater than when it’s not hunting season because he’s my go to guy and I enjoy that banter. It’s less as much as it’s about the deer at some point that conversationally matters so much because I get in the ground, I always mess it up anyways. It’s more about the chopping it up sparring that happens that I thoroughly enjoy. It’s that time of year when it I think we need atle bit closer. But I do want to say, like, don’t be afraid to move backwards as much as you want to hit your goals. And I recently talked about this, but any good boxing movie with like Rocky as an example, there’s always somebody that beats the piss out of him and he gets his world. His world crumbles because his identity is so wrapped up in being the champ that if he’s not the champ, then who is he? And then there’s the Rocky moment did it and he like comes back And sometimes you got to get knocked down to appreciate the journey back, and you’ll come back even stronger. So this might be the season you’re getting knocked down right now. But just like Ricky Bobby, you know, got in a car crash and eventually ran on the track in his underwear screaming help me. Whoever it was, Oprah, I don’t know, Tom Cruise, Like, you can have your help meet Tom Cruise moment in your underwear freaking out in the marsh. But at some point you might get back in the car with the cougar and and find yourself again. Like, but your identity doesn’t have to be wrapped up in being the big buck killer getting a big one every year, or bigger one every year. They’re being this guy. It’s okay to move backwards a little bit, to find your footing so you can go fast.

00:33:48
Speaker 3: Yeah, and to your point, like, there’s nothing inherently wrong with trying to chase one of these goals and going hard on it, right, That’s that’s not the point I’m trying to make either. It’s it’s if you if doing that is sucking the life and the joy out of it. If you’re doing it and every day you are sighted and you’re like this is what fills me up, Like this is it?

00:34:09
Speaker 2: Then go for it, buddy.

00:34:11
Speaker 3: But I think it’s the people who are doing it and then in the back of their mind are hating it though.

00:34:17
Speaker 2: I think the back of their mind feeling go ahead, Derek.

00:34:21
Speaker 5: Yeah, those same that same mentality that you’re talking about now. Like if you if you’ve been out the last ten mornings and you’re so fixated on your end goal like killing this buck, killing this buck that you’ve like forgot to sit and like look at the sunrise and be like, holy shit, I am lucky for being out here. Yeah, if you haven’t been able to do that on the last couple, like you just need to reset your mind, right, Like what what you’re doing out there? Exactly what Mark said before, Like what are you trying to get out of this? If you enjoy your time? Are you trying to be stressed? As how? With one goal and that’s the end all, be all? And and Eric knows me, and like I set goals and I have things that I like to do in the deal, but man, I enjoy every step of it. And like that’s that’s the first step is like, don’t take your tough self too seriously. Enjoy the moment you have and like, those are moments away from your responsibilities for some of us are families like you better enjoy them. You’re freaking coming back more pissed off than you were when you left you. That’s not good for anybody.

00:35:22
Speaker 3: No, no, that’s lose lose. So so you you mentioned commandment number one. Number one you mentioned was don’t take yourself too seriously. Can you expand a little bit on that? Why that’s important? What you guys mean by that? You know what what that might look like in a hunting season.

00:35:38
Speaker 4: I think you’s had to be a human you can take the hunt seriously, then you should do. You have to respect the animal in the game, and there’s ethics involved in that, and I’m kind of mention that, but I don’t know. You gotta be able to laugh at yourself and like I mean, I’ll literally laugh out loud when something gets tripped. I had to jump out of a tree this year. Not great, not a good moment. What was funny is I have to be unknown, unknown to me because I messed up with Derek said classic his trail camels right below me. So I’m like, dude, when you pull that footage, you’re gonna see some guy falling out of the sky. And I laughed, thinking that that’s going to be something that comes to life.

00:36:15
Speaker 5: How that happens. I think that’s something that probably other people happened.

00:36:19
Speaker 4: And I got up at three in the morning. I drove this horrendous I drove the spot, went through this horrendous marsh. I put waiters on, cross some nasty stuff. Took the waiters off, and I crossed the nasty stuff. I had boots around my neck. I put my boots on. I get all the way out into this Dude, it is just disgusting. And this is the spot that Derek told me to go to. So I’m like, all right, Derek, I’m a badass too. I can do it. And I get out there. I climb this tree. I get uncomfortably high in this tree. I’m like four and a half five sticks high, and uh, it’s skinny and it’s windy, and I’m like, my god, I’m gonna get sea sickness up here. But as I’m towing my bow up it and it got stuck on the bottom two sticks, and I’m like, I really have to climb down and deal with this, like I do get so much, it’s worse. I’m like, I can get it. I can get it. Watch me like break some back. No, I came loose, Okay, I just kept trying to reset it. I got my bow up there, and I’m like, well, those two sticks are screwed. We’ll solve that problem later because there’s no choice. There’s only one way to go. We’ll cross that bridge later. We’ll step on those sticks later. I get down, those two sticks are not reachable no matter what I do. Now there it’s an eight or and a stick and a stick. So I’m like probably ten feet My feet are ten feet off the ground, and I’m like, okay, I have my linemen velt on. I’m like, I don’t not tether, but at my line, I’m like, this isn’t gonna work. I don’t have like spikes on my shoes. I’m just gonna slide down and bash my face and scrape my stomach. Like what’s gonna happen here. I’m just trying to think this through in this moment, and I’m like, I think I gotta jump, so I position my feet on my last possible stick. I unhook my tether and I push back and I jump and I fall bom hit the ground. It’s soft because it’s marshy and nasty, and I I literally get up and I just started laughing.

00:38:04
Speaker 5: Dude, you’re gonna have some funny pres on that.

00:38:09
Speaker 4: Yes, See, like the hunt was pretty serious. Situation could have been dire, Like it wasn’t good I handled it. I think the best I could have. Someone can tell me otherwise. Of course I’re gonna have a better answer. But uh, in that moment, I was really trying to take myself too seriously. Like, boy, if my wife hears this, she’s gonna tell me I’m grounded. Literally, I’m not allowed to hunt out of trees anymore. So, uh, here we are. Yeah, don’t take yourself too seriously.

00:38:32
Speaker 2: Yeah great, great?

00:38:34
Speaker 3: Uh point there just to not forget to laugh at yourself, because there’s so many times when things go wrong, right, ninety nine percent of the time, things don’t go the way we want them to. And if you are constantly berating yourself for that, if you’re constantly stressing about that, uh, it’s it’s not gonna be an enjoyable experience. You just have to just chuckle like, oh, well, you know that’s all goes you spook a deer, the deer goes running off, or something else goes wrong. Man, being able to smile, laugh about it and just say, oh it is what it is, that is a superpower for sure.

00:39:10
Speaker 4: Yeah. And on the same hunt again, laughing a spike pretty much pegged me out of the gate and I was like, okay, well there’s no chance that mature book isn’t going to find me. Now, I’m like the stupid done for what am I even doing out here? Again? Laughing at myself?

00:39:29
Speaker 3: You know, in along those same lines, being able to laugh at yourself, I think is one of the easiest ways to mentally pivot and allow you to get back on track. So not only will it help you enjoy yourself more and enjoy the hunt more, but I actually think it will make you a more effective hunter too, because if you are all upset about something that went wrong or how your weak of rutcation has been horrible or whatever it is. If you’re doing that, your head’s not in a good place. You’re not making good decisions, you’re not focused on what is important in that moment. But if you can chuckle about the stupid thing you did, laugh it off, brush it off, and then you’re able to move on, then all of a sudden, your head is clear, your decisions are good, your focus is on point. You are hunting, and that’s that’s a huge thing too, just from an effective standpoint, right.

00:40:15
Speaker 5: That’s that’s a giant And I’m not trying to reminate too much on one here about what you just said. Mark hit me, because if you’ve ever gotten upset or even just like startled or pissed at yourself over something, you can’t think straight for a period of time, at least I can’t, or I make a good choice. Like Mark just mentioned, I was in Illinois this this past November hunting some public and I was taking my time, really trying to do a good job scouting my way in and being aware of everything real slow. And I got right about where I was like starting to look for trees, and I spotted a guy who was like setting up his stand right, and I’m like, okay, yep, and like I wasn’t mad, but like I was startled, and I was like, I’m going to back out of here real quick, and like I just gotten a little bit of a tizzy, a little bit frazzle because I didn’t know quite what to do. So I went back one hundred and fifty yards to this opposite side of this soul spot, and I just started setting up in this tree and I got two sticks up, and I thought to myself, why am I Why am I climbing this tree? Is this because this is a good spot? Or am I just like hunting here? Because it was like close to the spot that I originally looked at. I was like, get down and look at your map, and like I got down, looked at my map, played the window, and I was like I’m taking it down, and I took it all down and like made a better decision. But it took me like twenty minutes to be able to like really think about what I was doing and why I was doing it, because I was just like, yeah, frazzled, and like when you get mad at yourself or pissed at yourself for forgetting something or doing something stupid that time, just I feel like for me longer untill I can make a smart decision. So as far as Effectius goes, you are absolutely.

00:41:48
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, so true.

00:41:50
Speaker 4: All right.

00:41:50
Speaker 2: Commandment number two. Remember where you started? What do you mean by that?

00:41:55
Speaker 4: Okay, so this is fun because Derek, I’m gonna ask you to jog your memory. What did I say to you when we were hanging cell cams this past late summer? Do you remember when we were under the oak tree? It was a very romantic moment. I’m just kidding them. Nice h O.

00:42:16
Speaker 5: Do you have any context of like what being a kid? Oh? Yeah, we were climbing a tree with no climbing sticks, no nothing, and climbed up the tree and we were like, dude, you and you need to stand for this, and you’re like, man, any time I climb a tree just brings me back to being a kid in like childhood. Is that where you’re going to?

00:42:32
Speaker 3: Yees?

00:42:33
Speaker 4: Yeah? So I hunting is the only thing that brings the child like spirit alive in me. When I grew up, I spent a lot of time in the woods starting fires I probably shouldn’t been starting I have the fire department called me a few times building forts, uh, you know, just running around tracking? Do you even though I wasn’t hunting them? Because I was watching hunting shows at a young age and just being obsessed about like the woods. When I go to the woods is a full grown adult male, I still feel like a kid running through the woods. That grounds me. Remember where you started, and to me, that’s like it, like that’s enough to satisfy my soul in any given hunting season, as frustrated as I might get, or as many mistakes that might happen. Rooting myself and why I started and when I got my started, actually hunting in the nickel A that like just pristine wilderness is what really encapsulated me more than deer. When I saw deer, everything beyond just being out there was bonus. Seeing a deer as bonus, have an opportunity a DearS bonus. Getting one was like the ultimate. But bonus is a hard word to define. Everything above and beyond just hunting is bonus to me. So for me, like remember why I started. I started so I could have these experiences, and then I you know, we talked about the shared experience. So for me, that’s how I kind of think about it. I’ll feel anything different.

00:43:53
Speaker 5: Now, Yeah, mine is a little bit different, but extends up to the nickel A. Growing up hunting in the Nicola National Forest, scarce density was low and my dad always would say, hey, we we saw it here today, like that’s a damn good day, like that we were blessed today. And I still think about that every time I climb out of the stand. It’s like, man, I got to see the deer today. To me, you like that’s a win. I’ve taken that with us, even know there’s way more to your down here, like man, here one see one have an experience with one that is a huge, huge win, and like it’s not quite as like down on Earth is like taking it back to a kid, but man, I chalk it up to his wind every single time, or if I learned something, that’s a huge point. So taking it back to the days when just seeing what he was magical.

00:44:37
Speaker 4: When you’re pretty dense, so learning something’s gonna be really hard.

00:44:43
Speaker 2: It’s it’s it’s good to to.

00:44:47
Speaker 3: Remember those things when you’re out there in the moment and reset yourself. But sometimes it’s hard to do, right. I think I’ll just speak for myself when I’m going out there, and for many years I was you’re so focused on what you need to be doing and what you know and what you think you know and what you think is going to happen. Next, and where they’re going to go and what’s going to happen and where you should be and YadA, YadA, YadA YadA. It’s really hard to see and experience a hunt the way we used to when we started, simply because we just are who we are now, we know what we know now, and we have these different goals. But there’s one little cheek code that I found that will take me back to that that will take me back to when I started, will take me back to being young.

00:45:28
Speaker 2: Or to being a new hunter. And that’s bringing a new person.

00:45:32
Speaker 4: Hunting a good point. You see, you’re seeing it through fresh eyes all over again.

00:45:38
Speaker 3: Yeah, taking my kids, taking a new hunter. All of a sudden, you see and experience the hunt through fresh eyes. All the little things are exciting again. They are experiencing things that are brand new and fresh and you know, fascinating to them. And it’s like this flip that switches in you and allows you to enjoy and experience and see those things all over again yourself. And so that’s been like a huge thing for me, and I’ve just continued to lean into that more and more. It makes it so much fun. You’re sharing it all, you know, We’ll get to this later. But it also just makes it a great experience for you for so many other reasons too. But that is a great way just to reset and recenter.

00:46:16
Speaker 2: I think it.

00:46:17
Speaker 3: I’ll even help you on future hunts when you’re not with your kids or the new hunter. I think it like puts this new set of glasses on you that you can keep on for a while, is what I’m trying to say.

00:46:28
Speaker 2: Metaphorical.

00:46:29
Speaker 4: No, I agree with that. I’ve brought a number of people into hunting, and you’re spot on. It’s a great way to experience it.

00:46:36
Speaker 5: The longer you keep those glasses on, the better for every too, the better for yourself.

00:46:42
Speaker 2: Yeah, so true, all right.

00:46:45
Speaker 3: Number four a shooter buck is in the eye of the beholder kind of self explanatory.

00:46:50
Speaker 2: But expand on it for me.

00:46:52
Speaker 4: I mean, I don’t know if we pass on three or not, which is funny because it’s never passed on making memories.

00:46:57
Speaker 2: You’re right, we did. That’s pretty funny. Talk to me about number three and then we’ll get to number four.

00:47:07
Speaker 4: I don’t know how you are in time, but so if you need to press the sun a little, but I can go quicker on some of these but.

00:47:12
Speaker 2: Yeah, well we’ll say we’ll speak a little.

00:47:14
Speaker 4: It’s a it’s a way to be a little bit like uh contract or like it’s a word I’m looking for your like contradictive to in a harsh kind of way, like a start contradiction to you should let them go, you should let them walk, You should have passed, you should have you should have passed on that one, And I passed on this one. And it was just a way to like really stand out there. And and then once we got people’s attention with that, it’s then time to take it a step further, which is well, no, no, no, just never pass on making memories. And and the point of that is like, yeah, I don’t shoot whatever you want to do, but don’t pass on making a memory right now. And if that moment got you going, if that got the heart pounding, you got your pee hot, whatever the saying is, then then don’t pass in that moment or soak it up however you want to. But it’s really to try to ground you. I’m like, what’s happening in front of you right now.

00:48:06
Speaker 5: I think one way that I’ve taken that too is outside of like the actual hunt is I’ve tried really hard. Man. I I’m an only child, so I’m pretty like self serving and like I you know, you tell yourself like, oh man, I’m busy. I can’t you know, like go do this or somebody asked me to do that. But I’ve like really tried to like never to not pass on the moments where people like invite your order their deer camp or like like help on a drag, like those are actually the things that I enjoy absolutely the most. Like if you call me and say that you shot at the ear and you need help, like unless there’s a serious emergency, I’ll be like, dude, I’m gonna be there, Like I will go and help you, because I’d really come to like love those moments and enjoy those. So I think that’s one way that I kind of took that is outside of like never passing on a deer, like if somebody’s asking me to do something, or someone needs help, or someone wants to go to the after the shop, and just look like take those moments they’re gonna be. They’re maybe like short term, you might think that they’re like messing your system up or they’re taking away from what you wanted to do by long term, those are going to be huge building blocks for something much greater.

00:49:07
Speaker 3: Great take Yeah, that that resonates so much. That’s that’s that’s how I interpreted that one and exactly how I feel. And that also can apply to a little bit of what we just talked about, which is also you know, if if someone new is like, hey, I’d love to go hunting with you sometimes, or when my son after school says, hey, can I go hunting with you today?

00:49:27
Speaker 4: Dad?

00:49:28
Speaker 2: And I had plans to.

00:49:28
Speaker 3: Go somewhere else, deep in the you know, deep in the property and do a big swing to try to kill my target buck, and then instead my seven year olds hey day, can I go? I’m realizing now that you know, that’s the kind of memory I would rather have.

00:49:42
Speaker 2: That’s the kind of thing that’s actually really important.

00:49:44
Speaker 3: And someday, you know, as the song says, I’ll be hunting by myself someday and I won’t have that opportunity. So you got to take those chances to actually build those core memories with people. The matter over just another deer on the wall, which isn’t always as important as we sometimes make it out to be. So that’s a perfect transition, though to the actual next one now, which is a shooter buck is in the eye of the beholder. Uh sorry, I skip that one.

00:50:22
Speaker 4: Eric, That’s all good. Now tell me a little more somewhere in the shooter buck hat today it happens to be. Yeah, look, it’s different for everybody. And we talk about adult onset hunters or kids or grandpa’s or ourselves. It really is. A shooter is different to everybody. I now you hear you know in every hunting show where vibe it’s a shooter? Is he a shooter? You have to shooter? Like means it’s big enough that you want to shoot it. It’s just relative. It’s relative to you on your journey and not just hunting way you’re in life too. Liked someone messages I think it was last year. I don’t remember the details, and I won’t go into it now because I’m trying to be quick. But it was like they had cancer and they’re like, I’m just not able to hunt the way that I used to hunt now, and it’s sad for me. But like, you wouldn’t believe what a spike buck would do for me now because I’m not even sure that I can go hunt versus before this. Yeah, I was after you know, one hundred and sixty inch deer, and like, I’m not sad that I can’t do anymore. I just want to have the opportunity to go hunt. So, like a shooter has changed, and that’s the context that people are like stripping from this stuff and shaming, and it’s it really is in the inferior. Probably if you’re a full drive and then it’s a shooter. It’s as simple as that for me.

00:51:40
Speaker 5: I think everybody realizes that for themselves and like what it’s good for them, But I think what we’re really wanting people to realize is that context that they don’t have is so important for so many other people. So like, just because it wasn’t a shooter for you, please don’t arm your warrior that guy with a spike who you didn’t know maybe had cancer, Like this was the absol my biggest triumphant he’s had in a year or two. Like that. That’s the reminder is like the shooter buck isn’t for you. You didn’t have to use your take on it, So don’t worry about what it was to them, Say a good job at them on the back, and move on.

00:52:14
Speaker 2: Yeah, so important.

00:52:18
Speaker 3: Which I think is is naturally segueing us into number five on our game you really did, which is congratulate people you don’t know. I think it’s a great message of you know, just transitioning from let’s not judge people’s bucks, let’s not judge people’s decisions on how they hunt or what they choose to target, and let’s take it one step further, which is, actually, let’s be happy for other people.

00:52:44
Speaker 2: Let’s not be.

00:52:45
Speaker 3: Jealous, let’s not demean let’s not you know, crap on someone for what they’re trying to do. Let’s actually support it and celebrate with them.

00:52:54
Speaker 5: Right.

00:52:54
Speaker 2: I love that you guys include that.

00:52:57
Speaker 4: Yeah, I think reference right and Holiday Earlier and the Wisdom Book. But I think I just looked up a quote really quick because I can’t remember he said it for It was one of the stoics that he’s like talking about, But it was like, don’t go out of your way to make life harder for someone else. Life’s already hard enough by the one who lightens the load, not only the one who adds to it. So like, you don’t know if someone’s going through It’s like it’s like the road rage stuff almost, you know, you put a label on every single car driving like had a midlife crisis, just had a baby, has to go to the bathroom really bad. Like there’s a million reasons people are doing what they’re doing behind the wheel, but we don’t treat them as humans. We treat them as an inanimate object that we’re really pissed at because they cut us off or something, or they’re driving slow or they whatever. You don’t know that anyone’s story behind this stuff, so like just say congratulations. If you have an opinion, you don’t always have to share it. And why go out of your way to make someone else’s life hard for no reason at all? Like let them enjoy their moment.

00:53:53
Speaker 5: And obviously there was in both levels like social media, it’s easy to say great job. That’s the man that the in persons where you meet someone in public who just took a dear, I don’t care what the deer is. You have the opportunity to make that night amazing for them by like hyping them up there just being like, dude, dragon, like great work, you know how far was the shot? Just ask them some questions and just get into it with them, especially if they’re by themselves. We just talked about sharing the hunt is such an important part of it. Sharing it with a stranger can be pretty awesome too, if that stranger’s nice and kind and asking, and like, we have the opportunity to be that stranger every time we’re in the woods.

00:54:30
Speaker 4: So like, that’s such a simple, Well, who’s mark, who’s the first person you call when you tag a deer? Like maybe maybe the first one to three people, Like who do you typically reach out to you right away?

00:54:40
Speaker 3: It’s gonna be my wife and kids, and then my my hunting buddy group text, which is like seven hunting buddies all.

00:54:48
Speaker 4: Once in the history of your hunting career. I’m willing to stake not my life, but a very large sum of money that none of them have ever like fired back out of that first caller text, why’d you shoot that one? Yeah, no chance, you’re I’ve ever done anything other than hype you up, be there with you, be excited, and if anything, you’re the one that’s hard on yourself. Well it wasn’t big, And they’re like that doesn’t matter. You know, you got one. You know, Like, how is that not the reaction we should have for everybody?

00:55:24
Speaker 2: Yeah? So true, so true. Command number six, bring a buddy.

00:55:33
Speaker 4: You talked about that. We kind of touch on that already, Like that’s a good way to see the hunting, like hunting through the lens of renewal and.

00:55:42
Speaker 3: Just and just it it brings a different level of just. I mean, sharing these things with people we care about makes it so fun. It changes the dynamic, it changes your focus. I talked about this a couple of weeks ago, but on this Iowa trip that I had a couple, you know, earlier in November, I shared a bunch of hunts with my friends out there who were just tagging it, like just literally out there to sit with me, just to have fun. And we sat in the blind and they didn’t go hunting on their own. They instead just sat in the blind with me to shoot some bull, shoot the bowl and you know, see what happens and maybe be there for a cool encounter, maybe filming on the cell phone.

00:56:16
Speaker 2: Just we have that and we just had a riot.

00:56:20
Speaker 3: One did not help my chances of killing a big deer, having another person in the tree, having extra sound in scent and all that kind of stuff, but it made it so fun. It was such a great change of pace from you know, so many solo hunts when you’re just out there doing everything you possibly kind of kill a deer, and instead doing a hunt where it’s slightly less serious but a whole lot of fun like that is a great way just to rejuvenate yourself, refresh your season, refresh the week, whatever it is. That’s another cheat code for just instantly changing. If you’re feeling.

00:56:52
Speaker 2: Down about your season, do that, and.

00:56:53
Speaker 3: I almost guarantee it things will be better after that.

00:56:57
Speaker 5: I think that goes across the board too. It’s not even just hunting. Like my buddy Mike, who comments into our podcast all the time, he shot a really nice block up by credits, which is they don’t have a ton of pigture and shout the biggest deer they’ve ever shot shout off their property thirty years seven point really nice. He brought it home, it’s been sitting there for a few days. We called and talked about the story and he’s like, Dude, I’m stressing. I don’t know what to do with this. I kind of want like a cool thing with the antlers. It’s the biggest one I’ve ever got, but I don’t know what to do. And I was like, WHOA, what do you like? Are you working tomorrow? And he was like, WHOA, not really, like all my bosses are office right before thanks getting He’s like, I can take the day off. I was like, I’m off, bring a deer to my house. Let’s process it. He’s never processed a deer, never cutting up. I was like, we’ll do your euro. We’ll process it tomorrow. I got the kids home, we’ll all be a part of it. I come and see the process. I don’t know he’ll ever want to do it again. But he was like, dude, I respect how much like work this is Because he’s like this is more than I thought. Yeah, And I was like, dude, but do you see how like breaking down like just this, like he said, due, I learned so much just taking that deer apart. So like even that, like even those little things like you might think might not be a big thing. I did it chew up a bunch of my day. Yeah, but it was so worth it, like hearing ask questions and like doing it all together, and my son’s running the vacuum seat, learn my daughter’s like off take It was a great day. Yeah, So include friends if you always much as you can.

00:58:22
Speaker 3: Yeah, number seven, Always be learning and love the process. You’re speaking my language.

00:58:30
Speaker 4: I mean, you can’t not be learning when you’re doing this stuff. It’s just constant learning, and usually almost always the hard way. Like I’m going to be very conscious about where I set my boat when I’m climbing my tree because I never want that to happen ever again. And you know, as much as I am the okase hunter, I really do tend to learn things the first time time I make the mistake, I won’t probably make that mistake again. If I do, then like, oh my gosh, then it’s a really funny story. I’m laughing at myself. But you gotta love the whole process, like like I think it’s Derek you said, like if you’re just folks on the endgame of killing a baby boy, killing by whatever, like you’re not you’re missing kind of like the journey there. So if you don’t love the process and the journey, the outcome isn’t going to do it for either. At some point it’s not going to be enough. So yeah, that’s kind of the I think we all love it. We’re we’re deer hunting. I will say, I think there are people that hunt for the grip and grin, and I think they probably don’t enjoy the process as much as the rest of us. And that’s a little sad for me. And I’m not sure that all of them stay in that zone. I think some of them could graduate into being true hunters, but the folks that are in it for that, they’re going to have a pret route awakening.

00:59:41
Speaker 3: Because deer hunting is freaking hard well, and I think people can start in the right place and slip into that. Right.

00:59:48
Speaker 4: The other direction is a good point, right.

00:59:50
Speaker 3: Like, you started just loving it, and then you got to a point where you felt like you had to kill the big deer, or you put these pressures on yourself, or you set these goals and then all of a sudden, it was that thing that mattered more than anything, and then you started losing that. I mean, that’s my story, right, My story was that I became so goal oriented, so focused on achieving these missions or whatever it was, that I started to lose the joy in the process, and I was beating myself up because if I didn’t reach that end goal, which even the very best guys out there don’t nine times out of ten, right, and I had to I had to learn and recenter and remember that man, enjoy the little things, learn from the mistakes, right. I think a simple little trick is like kind of back to what we talked about earlier.

01:00:35
Speaker 2: When you screw up or.

01:00:36
Speaker 3: When something goes wrong, or when the cards aren’t in your favor, rather than getting pissed, rather than beating yourself up, laugh it off, and then recognize like, all right, hey, I learned something. You know, there’s there’s a learning opportunity. I’m going to be a little bit better next time, or I’m not going to make that same mistake next time, or I’ll know better a little bit next time, because that’s what every single one of those stupid mistakes is. That is actually a step towards being a little bit different next time around. So that’s a good thing. You just learned something, You just stumbled on some new crazy way to screw it up that hopefully you won’t be the next time. We’ll really do slightly differently. And so you got you got to learn to love those little scrubs and learn and to love those challenges and then also just learn to love the daily little bits and.

01:01:18
Speaker 2: Pieces of it, because that’s what it is.

01:01:19
Speaker 3: Ninety nine percent of the time, right, the big buck happens once. You know, for most people, it’s once every handful of years, so you better enjoy all the in between.

01:01:31
Speaker 5: So true, one last little piece out throwing their mark, And I guess it almost goes with some of the other stuff you’re talking about, like they’re bringing buddy, but like learning that you can or sorry, yeah, figuring out that you can learn from everyone and not just the most seasoned of the season, and like roping those newer hunters into the conversation when everyone’s standing around, it’s really intimidating because everyone’s talking about, well, they’re whold did this and blah blah blah, and they don’t know what the hell’s going on, but asking them what they said how it went, because you, I mean, I learned a lot from talking to newer hunters and what they were thinking and what they were doing, and I think being open to that, like truly being able to learn from and roping them in is just helpful.

01:02:15
Speaker 3: Yeah, Commandment number eight. If you don’t have anything nice to say, keep it to yourself.

01:02:21
Speaker 4: Yeah, we kind of tip we hit on that one already too, which is good, and we were kind of like makes it pretty obvious here. Yeah, I mean really, but.

01:02:29
Speaker 3: A great explicit reminder, a special in our social media digital world that we all live in nowadays. Yeah, and never, it’s never understood it. I’m just I have a a really hard time understanding why people are compelled to say negative, nasty things to other people online.

01:02:47
Speaker 2: Like, I don’t get it.

01:02:48
Speaker 4: I don’t either, man.

01:02:49
Speaker 5: It can’t make them feel it can’t. There’s no way that somehow it does something.

01:02:55
Speaker 4: They’re going through their own thing and they there must be out it’s spilling over. There are people that are trolls that are just funny, like they’ll say things but you know that there’s a sense of humor to it, and I’ll just laugh at that. Like it’s always the guys that are like, well, yeah, you gotta get a spotlight. I’m like, okay, well that’s not what we do, but okay, it’s funny. I can pick up on your humor here, you know. But no, the guys that just say nasty stuff, it’s just like, gosh, I don’t I don’t even have any stake in what you’re saying anymore, because I know you’re in a pretty bad place.

01:03:26
Speaker 3: Like yeah, yeah, for sure, and then I think for those people on the receiving end of it, it’s it’s hard to do this in practice, but you just gotta try to recognize what you just said, Eric, which is like, they’re the one with the problem. If someone is saying this like they’re in a bad place, they’re going through something, you know, just try to feel sorry for them and not feel sorry for yourself, because that’s you know, you just can’t let that negativity in.

01:03:53
Speaker 2: And again, very hard to do, very hard to ignore that.

01:03:56
Speaker 3: Like you said earlier, you might have a hundred congratulations than one nasty comment. It’s that nasty comment that sticks with you. Man, Life’s life’s too short to dwell on. What’s some idiot from ten states away thinks about your deer or your hunt, or your goals or anything like that.

01:04:12
Speaker 4: Does he see in the movie Green Street Hooligans, Mark oh Man, that’s it. No, it is a classic, which who’s the main Elijah Wood, which you would never think would be and the guy from the Sense of Anarchy, the British dude. Anyway, he’s like he calls his best friends having a problem with this new person that’s entered their group, and he’s like, just would wouldn’t let it go, and he goes, mate, you got a problem with me, it’s your problem. That’s like one of the best lines.

01:04:42
Speaker 2: That’s a good loan.

01:04:44
Speaker 3: So commandment number nine is kind of a natural build off of some of the other things we talked about, which was being mindful, be mindful of the hunting journey, and however one is different. So this is probably just another way of saying hunt your own hunt, or your tag your hunt, or like what you mentioned about how you know that spike might have been meant the world to someone, So why are we trying to impose our.

01:05:05
Speaker 4: Thoughts on it?

01:05:07
Speaker 3: But is there anything else you would add to that? As we kind of have our last thought on this kind of theme.

01:05:13
Speaker 4: Now, I mean that there are stages too, Like I think they’re not in priority, they’re not in like chronological order per se. Then the stages of one hundreds, like what is it tagging out shooting you’re basically shooting everything right and you figure, you know, I’m gonna shoot every year that walks like cause I’m trying to get it figured out. Then there’s like what the trophy stage sportsmen, there’s the method, and then Sportsmen was like the last one. So there’s five of these stages. Like we talked about the guy that had cancer, Like you can go backwards in the stage, you can jump ahead, like it doesn’t happen in order. But everyone’s at a different place in the journey, and so typically the judgment that happens can end up being that everyone’s assuming that everyone’s at your stage, like not everyone’s at the the trophy stage right now or the method stage. They might be at the limiting out stage and you’re bashing them, but they haven’t realized that there’s four other stages that go through yet, you know, so just be mindful.

01:06:07
Speaker 5: Of that and the house stages, Chamber Mark, that’s you’re a great example for this, Like anyone who’s followed your content for a dozen years watched you go through the progression of like all the tactics and like you did so much intense learning about mature Box and then your goal was to set out and you have these cool adventure hunts and you would do it. And now you’re slowly shifting years like now that you don’t appreciate it as much, the Mature Deer Chase. You’re realizing there’s other things. So like people are moving constantly and like what makes them happy, And I think that’s the best thing. You’re not moving, that’s where guys get stuck. You get stuck in the trophy stage. And also you’re pissing in a moving about everyone who hunts around you. Everyone’s doing it wrong. It’s good to ebb and flow within that and just keep in mindful of like what maybe impacting other people’s situations.

01:06:55
Speaker 4: By the way, there’s no way also ready to do it right either. For that matter, you’re not going to please the internet. You’re just not going to please the internet. So like it well.

01:07:05
Speaker 3: And that’s that’s kind of exactly what I was going to say, which is, don’t let anybody else’s stage of the journey make you feel bad about where you naturally are either, right, So if if you like, we can’t let somebody else’s expectations or somebody else’s success or somebody else’s set of goals, you know, make us feel bad about the fact that actually the thing that is bringing me joy right now or where I am in my life is that, Yeah, I just want to I do want to hold out for a big giant buck. And all my friends say I’m crazy because I’m passing on all these other deer, and but that’s what I want to do. That’s where I’m at, or vice versa. Maybe is hate that three pointer comes by and I’m so stoked and I want to do that, But all my other buddies are these big buck killers and they only you know, hold out for five year olds, and I better not shoot that dink because that’s not what we do.

01:07:50
Speaker 2: It’s it’s it all kind of dials back.

01:07:52
Speaker 3: It all goes back to having your We have to almost like silo this experience, like hunting. You said this, Eric, it’s such an intimate and personal thing. It’s it really isn’t meant to be shared at scale with all these people who don’t have the context. You don’t know, you don’t have real relationships, right. It used to be this is something we Yeah, we used to share this just with our closest friends and family members for thousands of years.

01:08:19
Speaker 2: That’s what humanity did.

01:08:20
Speaker 3: This, this core thing to being a human, this most intimate, personal, meaningful thing of taking another life and hunting and feeding your family, this very powerful thing. All of a sudden, now we are removing all of that depth from the experience and putting just the surface level image of it to the rest of the world and letting people’s reactions to that surface level image metaphorically speaking, then influence why we do what we do or how we feel what we do. It’s just not it doesn’t make sense that would ever work out that way.

01:08:55
Speaker 2: You know, it’s.

01:08:58
Speaker 4: And I’ll add on and that if you put this in like the fitness realm lens, if you have a guy that was three hundred pounds that worked his way into being you know, peak fitness level, he’s never gonna judge the guy that’s three hundred pounds coming into the gym because he’s been there. Anyone that’s been there and at a high level of success isn’t going to judge you. It’s the people that haven’t been there that seem to cast the most judgment, which I find to be interesting. So like typically the people that throw in the shade, like the guys that are respectable and have done good and done well and have had success, I think by and large aren’t going to be the ones casting those stones like they’re just not You’re not gonna hear Derek melcoor poop pooing someone. You’re gonna hear mar Kenyan poo pooing someone, You’re gonna hear Tony Peterson pooh pooing someone unless they’re like poaching or doing something unethical. They’re not going to come at someone for like where they’re at in their journey of hunting. So keep that in mind, folks.

01:09:54
Speaker 2: Yeah, very good point.

01:09:58
Speaker 3: The last two commandments, i’ll for the sake of time, since I kept you guys late here tonight, we’ll read these two real quick here, comandm Number ten is sort of something similar to what we’ve been circling around, which is never passing up time outdoors and hunting with family or friends, right, and then number eleven celebrating failure, which I think goes back to our you know, laughing at yourself and always be learning. But with those two things said, and I feel like we’ve done a really good job now of kind of circling all around this general theme of hunting your own hunt and really thinking about the why and removing everybody else’s thoughts and you expectations of you from it. What’s the last thing you would want someone to hear today before they set off for this last part of their hunting season. What’s the final thing that somebody should carry with them as they turn this off and they move on to hunting the late season and hopefully closing out their year with some fun with some family and maybe with some more deer meat in the freezer.

01:11:02
Speaker 5: I’m a pretty pretty strong believe and this whole, the whole conversation tonight, everything kind of centered around doing the right thing and trying to model what we would like others to do to us. I’m a really big believer in like the you know, the car mane, that you get out of it what you put into it. And I’ve had many seasons like this, and this season was no different. I’ve been really blessed behind everything good that happened to be this season was something good that I got to help someone else with and whether that was a track or drag stopping over to enjoy something everything that we talked about, like, the more you really buy into that and just try to have fun and make other people’s experiences fun, the more fun you’re going to have, the more success you’re going to find. Because your mindset’s going to be clear. Like Mark mentioned before, You’re not going to be so caught up in the anxiety of which scrape line. Do I hunt tonight? What is my cell camera?

01:11:53
Speaker 2: Like?

01:11:54
Speaker 5: Just relax, have fun, enjoy your time doing what we do. Because it only comes once a year. That would be my last bit.

01:12:03
Speaker 4: Yeah, Like my cousin Jeremy said on the strade with you, he’s like November first when it comes once a year. So like, soak it up, enjoy it for the right reasons. Don’t get you down on yourself. I always seem to like quotes a lot learning this about myself. Success and failure aren’t opposites. They’re two sides of the same coin, but they both have the same output that like it. It just signifies that the results of the same thing, which is trying. So like if you had failure the season or you had success, they’re both the result of trying. So they’re on a spectrum. They’re not opposite of each other. So if you’re failing this year, that means you tried and that’s a big deal, and it means you probably learned a lot. If you succeeded, that means you tried and you just got the different side of the coin flip this year. Because it’s dear honey, so have fun out there. Shared the experience as much as you can, and don’t be yourself up too hard. I know we all can because you can kind of get especially in social media, you just get the phoonmo hitting real hard sometimes so but be ensure the moment it does happen to and if if you get it done, soak it up because it’s not gonna happen again from maybe a couple you never know.

01:13:19
Speaker 3: Well, guys, I think this is uh, this was a great conversation. It’s it’s what I think probably a lot of people need is a little bit of a reset and in a reminder to really soak up these last few weeks or days or or month or so of the season and get back to the important stuff. So I appreciate you guys taking time to help us do that.

01:13:39
Speaker 4: Thanks for having us. Yeah, but a pleasure, Mark, thank you.

01:13:42
Speaker 3: Before I let you go, very briefly, can you give me a quick rundown of where folks can find your podcast or content anything else they should know?

01:13:50
Speaker 4: Oh just okays Hunter dot com. Okay a y E s T. Hunter dot com. I’ll take care everywhere you need to go. I wouldn’t find what you find your journey. See what speaks to you.

01:14:04
Speaker 2: Amazing.

01:14:04
Speaker 3: Thank you guys, all right, and that’s going to do it for our show today. Thank you for tuning in, thanks for being with us, and please, until next time, have fun out there.

01:14:17
Speaker 2: Follow these rules, follow these.

01:14:18
Speaker 3: Commandments, these ideas, these steps that we can all take to re discover the joy to become happier, more satisfied, more helpful, kind, joyful hunters to all of those around us, because that’s what’s all about. Let’s enjoy this thing, Let’s have a great time out there. Let’s end this hunting season in style, and until next

01:14:41
Speaker 2: Time, stay wired to Hunt.