00:00:00
Speaker 1: I do enjoy suffering weirdly, especially if it’s with someone else. So on a race day, for sure, there’s something about that shared suffering, and obviously we share that during hunting season, race day is super fun. It’s fun to see your progress progress, so you know, you’re doing some of the races you’ve done in the past and if you can improve cycling, specifically mountain bike, and half the time you’re suffering, but half the time you just really having a lot of fun. You know, you suffered going up, you get to bomb the stuff going back down, and it’s just a lot of fun. But you know, I am the kind of person that’s very analytical, so I spent a lot of times in the winter training indoors, and so that’s really not fun at all, but it is fun to look at for me anyway, fun to look at the numbers and see, Okay, wow, I have this power zone for two minutes. That’s the greatest ten minute power zone that I’ve ever had. And so I find the little things to be old. I’m kind of weird like that. I can work out by myself. I don’t really need anyone, although it’s much more fun with others, But I find the joys in those little things out here.
00:01:16
Speaker 2: The stakes are real. Effective preparation starts with fitness, but it requires so much more. This show explores the tools, knowledge, resilience, and skills needed to be ready when it matters the most. Join me Rich Browning as we apply the decades of wisdom I’ve gained through training and competition to hunting in the back country. This is in Pursuit, brought to you by Mount Numps in collaboration with Mayhem Hunt Real Treat Today. The Man, the Myth, the legend, David Curtis led Man. Yeah, a lot of accolades. One of the cooler ones is just David Curtis. He’s the man. He’s good friend of ours, been a good friend for a long time. I’ll have to get into the first time we ever met story because it’s kind of funny. We’ll get there, but just been a we’ve been friends now for shoot ten years ish, Yeah, probably right at ten years. I’ll get into the that part at some point. But yeah, I heard the story. Probably what maybe actually I don’t know.
00:02:30
Speaker 3: I don’t think I have.
00:02:31
Speaker 2: But one of the cooler things just last year, as far as athleticism, he’s he is a dad. How many five five? Now with the adoption final.
00:02:42
Speaker 1: One four by on one one foster one foster.
00:02:46
Speaker 2: I don’t know if you guys, Yeah, almost adopted. So Dad Outdoorsman lives in the mountains in Leadville, Colorado, is the one of peer pressure me into doing it. Didn’t take much peer pressure but to doing the Leadville one hundred has also done the lead Man last year, which the documentary should be coming out pretty soon soon. Yeah, they documented the whole deal. So that’s all six races six yep, we have to do five of them, but you did six of them. Yeah, so he did. It’s a marathon. A couple of weeks later the fifty to fifty so he starts.
00:03:21
Speaker 1: This weekend, Okay later. I did both fiftys. That’s at the beginning of July, back to back days. Same course, ones on the bike then ones on your feet. Uh ten k run than the two hundred mills, different courses.
00:03:41
Speaker 2: Technically have to do one of the fifties, right, but you did both.
00:03:43
Speaker 1: You only have to do one of the fifties.
00:03:45
Speaker 2: Okay, interesting, Yeah, you only have to do one of the fifties. I would like to I think Silver Rush I might actually one of these years, try to do the ride, not the run. I just don’t want to be on a bike for eight hours again. Just it took all the fun out of mountain biking for me.
00:04:00
Speaker 3: I’m currently at that spot where.
00:04:02
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, yes, like all right, here we go again. So but yeah, that’s cool. Uh three and sixty five days in a row. You ate only meat that you killed.
00:04:14
Speaker 1: Yeah, I forgot about that story. Uh, year, I didn’t. It wasn’t carnival, right, everything, But as far as meat goes, it was only the meat that I harvested myself.
00:04:26
Speaker 2: Yeah, and you guys raised some chickens and goats and that type of stuff, so you ate some of that, but a lot of it was game meat.
00:04:32
Speaker 1: Yep, yeah, barely wild game, some chickens, some farm animals. But yeah, I was fortunate enough to have a good year prior to that fall, and I’ve always wanted to do that, so I said, it’s do it this year. And so oftentimes that Matt. You know, if I was going somewhere, I’d bring a little sack lunch or at least sack meat, or just who went out to dinner? I just eat a salad, which wasn’t fun. But that was yeah.
00:05:07
Speaker 2: Heck, yeah, then I’m trying to think n Z Camper’s doing that still building out special order pull behind trailers. He actually built up a spinner van as well, and so doing that as well as working for the city of Leadville for the water on the.
00:05:24
Speaker 1: Front Range of Colorado. But I live in Leadville, That’s where most of the water comes from. And so yeah, I got I wear many hats. I guess you can say many many hats. I wouldn’t call myself a man or legend, but myth for sure, myth for sure, pretty low key.
00:05:42
Speaker 2: Yeah, I would say good friend too. Let’s kind of we’ll talk about your I guess outdoors journey because you started a lot like myself a little bit later in life and very self taught. And then also, you know, with us, we’ve hunted a lot together and I’ve had a ton of ton of memories. But I guess just kind of start off with you know, your first, yeah, introduction into the outdoor space.
00:06:15
Speaker 1: Yeah, I feel like it’s always been in my blood. I grew up on the Front Range of Colorado, but I didn’t get out much. My getting out was just riding my Walmart bike around the block. We didn’t have a ton of money, so we really never went anywhere. But anytime I had an opportunity to go to a church camp or anything like that, who was always so exciting to me to get out there into the woods and experience in nature. So I felt like it was only a matter of time. And then in twenty twelve, I think it was somewhere there is when I moved to Ludville and just kind of dove in head first with all of the outdoor stuff. I didn’t really hunt much, if at all. As a kid. I might have joined an uncle or two here and there just to go and drive around look for deer, but that was really it. But maybe like twenty thirteen fourteen, somewhere in there, got invited to Elk Camp for the first time and showed up, and honestly, now I look back and the guys who taught me were really just teaching themselves too, so from there there. But yeah, my buddy, you know, he had been hunting in that area for a couple of years at that time and pretty much just said go west and if you get lost, go back east and you’ll find camp. And so that’s what I did. But it was more like west than north of the south, of the east of the west, and pretty much spent three days lost in the woods. Eventually found my way back to camp. Didn’t see anything. If that is what hunting was, then I don’t want to hunt.
00:07:57
Speaker 4: Nope, but times yeah, I learned so much in those three days, just understanding what it’s like to be out there and on your own and understanding what.
00:08:09
Speaker 1: It takes to survive and you know, control your emotions. Even though I never actually took a shot at anything, I learned so much. And to be honest, there’s a lot of lessons to be learned in the suffering. And that’s what it really was, which is time spent in a state of suffer fest, I guess you could say. But I was kind of hooked to that even if that was hunting, Like I do that again, I try it again. So went back the next year and I think since that year, I’ve never gone a year without bringing Phil in the freezer. And so that was kind of my introduction to hunting. Pretty much self taught from then on. Now there’s so much information out there, podcasts and scouting and you know, go hunting, all their stuff that they offer you can learn a lot before even it out and actually put boots on the ground. Back then, it was a compass and a map and just good luck. Many and so learned a lot and yeah, that’s kind of how I got started and really has taken off from there. It was primarily a rifle hunter. In the last five six years a bit more exclusively a bow hunter. But I still mix it up. I love waterfowl, hut and I kind of love it all. If there’s something to be had or taken that I’ll definitely leave it a shot.
00:09:32
Speaker 2: Yeah. We were talking nutrition yesterday yesterday, and we forgot to mention the goose chili we had the one year you were there for that. Yeah, yeah, Yeah. Curtis like, we got chili one night and we’re like sweet and then we finished and he’s like, it’s goose chili. It was fine. Didn’t be good? It was good.
00:09:50
Speaker 1: Yeah, you fell to the next three we did.
00:09:52
Speaker 2: We did feel it the next couple of days or two. Yeah, it was. It was definitely a heavy chili. But you know, one of the cool things to is you take the kids a lot, you know, maybe talk a little bit about getting the kids into it and how you kind of did that. You know, what is super beneficial for you as you live in basically where you can where the kids can hunt for you. It’s a little bit harder to get a tag, but usually I feel like the kids always have tags around where you guys are at you guys are in Colorado, So it’s a it’s been pretty cool to see, you know, the kids, and you know, we always kind of talk back and forth. We’re doing a little bit more of the Eastern stuff with the kids right now. And then you know, now, after having Trice out there this last time, I think he could actually handle the physical side of it, but the emotional and mental and sitting still, I don’t think he’s there yet. I think Lakeland might be there, but maybe talk about you know, at what point did you have I guess Emery was probably the first one to go and at what age she kind of started then Noah from there.
00:10:52
Speaker 1: Yeah, I guess to first start by saying that we’re kind of living on I guess, kind of remote part of Colorado. Five kids or foster family, and my wife homeschools them all. She’s amazing, So we obviously have the mentality of really spending as much time with the kids as we can, because that’s really what discipleship is when you look at it biblically. You know, Jesus’ disciples were just guys that follow him around and taught from them. Now, obviously I’m may not be the greatest dad in the world or the best husband in the world, but I do my best to lead by example, and we find a lot of value in just having them follow you around. I mean, honestly, that’s kind of what homeschooling is. Yes, there’s some bookwork, but more than anything that with me in the shop, that with me with me, you know, half the time, that with me at work doing stuff. You know, We’ve got sheep and goats and chickens, and I’m out there every day and they’re just kind of following me around. And I try to instill that in them as much as possible, just because there’s so much value in just watching me do what I do. And so with hunting, kind of the same thing. Honestly, they started hunting with me before they can even hunt. I think Embury the first time I took her on a big game hunt, she was probably nine or ten years old, and in Colorado, you can’t hunt big game until you twelve, and so just to get that experience, just being out there, spending time with him. I mean, even if we’re not successful, just spending time with the children is obviously so so important. But yeah, she turned twelve, got her some tags, and she was successful. I think she took a buck, maybe a dough two. Saying with Noah, he’s now fifteen. He’s been hunting a few years. He really loves to bowhunt, that’s his thing.
00:12:57
Speaker 2: Got a cow last year, right.
00:12:59
Speaker 1: He got a cow. So in Colorado you can carry over a bow tag into rifle seasons if it’s not an antler tag.
00:13:07
Speaker 2: Gotcha.
00:13:09
Speaker 1: He had an either sex tag al either sex tag, so he can carry that tag over into rifle season and hot count. Last year was a tough year for everyone. It was so warm. They’re so hard to find. You can glass them up way up the tree line in November and so it’s super difficult to get to them. But man, we put in the work. We started September first and just could not could not take one and through all the rifle seasons and it was the last season of the Colorado Big Game hunt, and he took one on the last day of the last season.
00:13:42
Speaker 2: And so we got a lot of those texts throughout the ebbs and flows of the emotions of that from Curtis just kind of kids, boy won boys or idiots. I think it was one that stuck with me because I feel that one pretty regularly with Trice. Loud and they’re loud, they’re obnoxious, and they’re just they’re just morons.
00:14:02
Speaker 1: Yeah. I’ll look back and he’s carrying his bow and out one hand and a fake stick gun in another hand. That’s what the bow is for. You don’t need a fake stick gun.
00:14:14
Speaker 3: You’re really doing it.
00:14:16
Speaker 1: There’s nothing yeah, man like looking back at that hut that wouldn’t happen any other way. I don’t know how many days in the woods together, just having a having a blast. And so yeah, I took a cow on the last day of the last rifle season, and uh, you know, the the the fruit of that was something special, you know. And then of course, you know, we need everything were killed. That’s something that I’ve always taught my kids, and so you know, consuming the thing that you know, my son was able to harvest as certain special the family. Anytime you bust out of some backshop or whatever, you’re always asking the question, whose was this here? We just know it’s cow or dad’s bull, and so that’s always always fun. But yeah, man, just spending as much time as I can with my kids. It’s not just about hunting. It’s all the things. But hunting is definitely at the near the top of the list because there’s so many lessons to be learned in the woods. You know, the adversity, the you know, the taking of the animal, what that looks like, you know, not wasting anything, getting it back home, processing it all. We did all ourselves. You know, last week we had three kid goats born a few years a few weeks ago, and a few days ago. One of the ones that was really struggling, he finally passed. And you know, my two little girls were there with me, my nine and ten year old, and just having them there experience that. As much as you don’t want them to see that, honestly, you do want them to see that. I think people are so disconnected from reality. You go to the fast food restaurant and pick up your Hammiger and having no idea how I got whether from the field to the plate, whether it’s your hunter or a farmer, it’s it’s the entire process and the entire cycle, and it’s important for me to have them see that and go through that and and not be so disconnected from all the things, all the discomforts of life, you know, in that moment, I was kind of teaching them a lesson like this what farmers go through all the time, you know, and so just building that resilience in them is super important to me.
00:16:31
Speaker 2: So yeah, and and Scott does a good job, and it kind of brought this to my attention. I even think about it, you know, like the time one as we when we hunt together. You know, we’ve I’ve talked a lot about how I just you know, would prefer to hunt with one or two other people. Me and Curtis and Scott have hunted a lot together in kind of a little three man group. And the the time there is so intentional, whether you mean that on purpose or not. But you don’t have a phone, you don’t have all these other things kind of pulling you because most of the places we hunt there’s no service, and so there’s just a lot of time together and you know, you’re working together, there’s one singular focus. But you know, there are times where you know, we’ll talk faith stuff on the side of the mountain, We’ll talk about Jesus, we’ll talk about life, we’ll talk about all these things, and that time you don’t realize instead of all these like in passing. You know, we see each other a lot here, but I’d say Curtis is one of my best friends because we’ve spent so much dedicated time together, quality time, quality time, and you lose that, I guess, and you don’t think about that until you’re away from all from a phone, from life and all those things, and so having that with your kids is huge, and you know something that I’m trying to make sure that with with mine, we’re doing that as well.
00:17:51
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think there’s I don’t I’m going to mess up the stat but I’ll just give it an idea of the recent stats saying how much time you actually spend with your kids between the years of zero and eighteen when they I guess technically leave the nest. And this was for like a typical family with kids that are in public school, and the number of hours or total days is daggeringly low.
00:18:18
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, that’s crazy totally.
00:18:22
Speaker 1: You know, if daviage personally, there’s to be sixty seventy years old, the amount of time that you spend with your kids was like a total like a year or.
00:18:30
Speaker 2: Something like that.
00:18:32
Speaker 1: And it’s makes me kind of sad, but at the same time, it just kind of motivates.
00:18:37
Speaker 2: You to be for sure. Yeah, we we went and watched Toy Story last night with the kids and today, Okay, it’s great. The main villain is a tablet, and you’re like, gosh, and so Lakeland, we limit a lot in the summer. We’re like, all right, you get an hour or whatever it is at some point. And so this morning she like asked for some time I get like the updates because I have it locked, and she’s like, hey, can I You know, it sends me this thing. Lake When ONTs more time? I said, after we watched that movie last night, Absolutely, because you know, the villain is the tablet. And so I’m like, no way. I was like, get your butt outside, go do something, you know, because I was out here working out a little bit this morning. We got a competition we’re getting ready for. But yeah, I’m like, man, I I we limit that type of screen time a lot to the kids to where it’s like travel, you know, and there are some benefits to it, but man, it’s just like Trice got some buddies out and I was like, get out of the house. I don’t care what you guys do. We’re about to go put some corn out, uh for in front of cameras, making sure, just checking some inventory on deer. We do have a couple of hogs though we need to get rid of, and a coyote is out in the middle of the day. But it’s not you know, it’s just those types of thing, getting them out, you know, doing things right instead of just being like letting them be kids and grow up, you know, doing doing things. Yeah.
00:19:57
Speaker 3: And when I was growing up, my dad would tell us like, if you are inside not doing something, I will find something for you to do outside. So we usually never inside. It was always a chore that you never wanted to do.
00:20:11
Speaker 1: Like I’ve I’ve heard it said many times that quality time is better than quantity, but I actually pushed back against that. I think, just spend as much time as you can with your kid. It doesn’t have to be quality. I don’t even know what quality even means. Yeah, yeah, but like fight with your kids, like I mean all the time that you spend with them is.
00:20:31
Speaker 2: In money time. Yeah, just be around them or you know, even if it’s like hey, come on, like I’ll I mean, these guys know I bring my kids to the gym all the time. Do I see them half the time? Probably not half of the time. You know, they’re just running around doing whatever. As long as I keep them like hey, everybody, the rule is, don’t let them get on the TV. And you know, they’re usually just bouncing around doing you know, god knows what in that building, but they’re they’re there, you know, Like I guess, just being accessible to them where they know that they can come find me no matter what. As long as you know we’re not on a podcasts or filming something. I’m like, hey, you know, if you guys need me, I’m here, but just go go be right, go do things.
00:21:10
Speaker 3: Yeah, my daughter is getting to an age where she knows when dad’s leaving.
00:21:14
Speaker 2: No, oh, it sucks, it sucks.
00:21:17
Speaker 3: It crushes me.
00:21:18
Speaker 2: Well, Curtis knows too, and I’m about to that phase, like you’re gonna have that phase and then there’s another phase coming where she wants you to be gone all the time. Lakeland we were I’ve just been pushing her a little bit because she’s she’s a good athlete, but she just does not take the initiative to do stuff. Go work on it herself. Like when she’s at practice, she’ll work as hard as she can. But I’m like, hey, we have a basketball go at home, we have all this stuff, like go out and just do something. I don’t care if it’s like just make some free throws or just shoot around or whatever. And so I’m hard on the like, hey, at fourteen, you can get a phone. And she’s eleven, almost twelve. I was like, at fourteen, we’ll discuss. And so she’s you know, all of her friends have phones, and I’m like, no, we’re doing it. Well. Yes. The other day we’re playing pig and she’s like, if I do this, can I get a phone? And I’m like, I gotta tell you what. It’s probably a half court shot. I was like, when you can make that shot without running and just shoot it. She’s never gonna do it, but at least it gave her like a little goal of like, all right, I’m gonna get out here and shoot from this spot to I mean she’s not even close. And then she does that, and you can see she’s getting discouraged. I’m all right, and I’m I don’t play basketball, ill never have really. I can athlete enough, but I’m just a horrible shot. But I’m like, if you can beat me one on one, then you can have a phone. And it got to three nothing. It was bad, and so I was like trying to give her at least a point. I was not gonna let her win, but I was gonna give her a point for her, just her. And she was pressing so hard that she just kept doinking the rim and it ended up with her running to the house crying. So, man, I’m not sure I handle that correctly. We’ll see, but yeah, man, it’s it’s when they want to hang take it in man, because it’s there’s gonna come a point where fifty percent of the time I’m the good guy and fifty percent of the time Hillary is the good guy.
00:23:03
Speaker 1: So oh yeah, for sure, I know this for a hunting podcast. But yeah, I’m passionate about being a dad, and I always tell my kids I’m not here to be here friend, I’m here to be here dad.
00:23:14
Speaker 2: Yeah, totally.
00:23:15
Speaker 1: I mean, obviously I want to be there.
00:23:16
Speaker 2: I want to be a friend too. But yeah, friendly, but it’ll come it comes in waves, comes in waves. Yeah, that’s I mean, it is a hunting podcast, but I think that’s part of its being a dad and a lot of guys listen to this, and it’s that’s a huge part of you know, what we’re trying to instill in our family is is exactly what you were saying with harvesting and being them being around and you know, just it’s it’s cool that my kids don’t get all grossed out when we go, you know, clean a deer or anything like that. And honestly, I’d never cleaned or you know, feel dressed anything and by myself until I was thirty five or thirty six years old. And I’m like, that’s not going to happen for my kids. Like they’re you know every time now, Like with the neighbors, I’m like, when you kill something, let us know where come help. And you know, they’re not grossed out by any of that, and they’re all up in it. And like when we kill something, I’m the first thing I do is I go get the kids, and they’re out there and just being a part of it. So the connection you’re saying to food and to life and death. There’s so many just good life lessons there.
00:24:21
Speaker 1: Yeah, but then just of course teaching them everything you know about hunting and yeah, what it takes to take an animal, and you know, do I hope that my kids continue to hunt as they age and grow and to adults. Yeah, I hope. So eventually they’ll have to decide for themselves. But I’m going to do everything I can to teach them, you know, some of my my passions and some of the things that are important to me, and hopefully that they take heed to that and you know, someday do it themselves without me. But you know, I can’t control all the decisions they’re going to make as adults. I’m just here as kids to do anything I can to teach them, and eventually they have to decide for themselves.
00:25:05
Speaker 2: Yeah, I’m just trying to create people that I want to hang out with. That’s totally pretty much it. You know, I really like hanging out with my kids, and so I’m like, hey, you know, we off off outdoor stuff, Like we watched Tigers baseball. Like my eleven year old little girl knows seven or eight of the Tigers starters, and like, hey, you know who’s winning, and oh, the Yankees and like last night we watched the game, and so that stuff’s cool to me. And and and then also being able to have just multiple facets where we interlock and and you know, me and Curtis have talked about it, but we’ve been Me and Lakeland especially watched The Chosen together, and that’s been a ton of fun for her, like to have those types of conversations, faith conversations that at eleven years old, I my brain wasn’t even you know, I was going to church because I had to not because you know, it was something like Lakeland and the kids will ask to watch The Chosen, which I think is pretty cool. Yeah.
00:25:56
Speaker 3: One of my daughter’s favorite things to do when we have guests over, his point to the euromount and say that’s what you’re eating. And then she’ll have we have a hunting scrap book, and she’ll bring the scrap book and show all of the hunting pictures from to the guests. And I think it’s so funny because they’re like, oh, cool, Like there, it’s very like like you said before, like it’s a little foreign to them. Well what do you mean? So we talk about it and it’s a natural conversation about meat and all that. But I also have had the privilege of spending a day hunting with David, Emery, Noah and Ali actually your wife. Yeah, I was tagging along. We all had I think Ali maybe had a tag and then Emery actually ended up shooting a rabbit. And that was just a really cool experience just to sit back and watch because I think I think I was either engaged or about to be married or something like that. We didn’t have kids yet, but it really motivated me to just like, I don’t know, I’m excited to share those moments with my kids and watching because I was David, Ali and Noah were up ahead of a bit, and then it was Emery and I and then Emory saw the rabbit. So it was kind of like I was helping Emory line it up. And then when she actually shot it, the amount of joy that she had to like show her dad that she got something was just something that really really lit me up.
00:27:18
Speaker 2: It was cool. Its special.
00:27:20
Speaker 3: Yeah do you remember that, David?
00:27:22
Speaker 1: I do?
00:27:22
Speaker 2: Yeah?
00:27:23
Speaker 1: Yeah, was that when you took your first bull one day?
00:27:25
Speaker 3: Yep, first bull?
00:27:28
Speaker 1: I remember that? Was man. The stories never get old, No, never.
00:27:34
Speaker 2: Yeah, Curtis and Ali we all hunted in groups, in separate groups. They spotted a cow that I ended up shooting, and then spotted another cow that matt ended up missing a couple of times.
00:27:45
Speaker 1: Yep, yeah, alt here and there. She’s not a passionate hunter, but she’s not against.
00:27:51
Speaker 3: And she took it like a champ that day because that was not an easy day on the feet. And obviously you still have to be a parent because Noah wants to, like, you know, not hold gun the proper way. It’s pointing at people things like that. And it was like, I was very impressed with Ali that day too, totally.
00:28:13
Speaker 2: Yeah. Has she harvested anything yet or killed anything yet?
00:28:16
Speaker 1: Well, yeah, she’s taken a few deer. I don’t think she’s taking an LK yet. I’m waiting. I’m waiting to try and get her a good bull tag in one of my units next door to me, which is not quite a trophy unit, but it’s up there. And so she’s just been hunting deer about every two or three years. And she took a buck I think two years ago. She do another buck take this year close by as well, and so her thing as of now with all the kids. She likes to hunt, but not to go too far from home. So we’ve been hunting close to units where we can go out for a morning and then come back home and go out for an evening and come back home. So that’s been working out. One of the hardest part is about my fall, is just balancing everything that’s going on with my stuff and the kids and Alley stuff and may him hunt stuff. So yeah, I think it’s been been working out. Well.
00:29:14
Speaker 2: Yeah, so you’ve got to hunt this fall. Speaking of that, going to Alaska.
00:29:18
Speaker 1: Yep, Alaska. My first trip up there. It’ll be a moose river float hunt, about ten days.
00:29:25
Speaker 2: On the river DIY or with Well, you’ve got to have a resident there, right, and is that I forget how it’ll.
00:29:32
Speaker 1: Be at least me and my buddy. The third guy might be backing out. I’m not quite sure yet spot, but yeah, that maybe a scot It’ll be kind of DIY. So it’s outfitted, but it’s not guided, so they take care of all the logistics. They’ve got the bushplane to drop off to pick up. They’ve got the rafts there, the tent and some other gear, but everything else is up to us. To make it happen. So we’ll be on our own for about ten days. We float down the river. Still need to do some eat Scotland and find some good jaws, find some places to camp for a few days before we decide to pick up paddle and continue on. And so still have a lot of work to do, and it’s right around the corner, to be honest, But yeah, I’m looking forward to that. That’s been one of my dreams for years.
00:30:22
Speaker 2: You’re going, is it either a weapon.
00:30:26
Speaker 1: It’s any method of take. I was pretty set on a bow, but I’ve since switched. It’s just not worth taking the chance. I don’t know when I’ll get back up there again, so if I do do it again, I’ll probably do archery. But yeah, I think I’m gonna take the old boomstick nice.
00:30:44
Speaker 2: Yeah. I figure when the kids are either gone or uninterested in me being gone for a couple of days, that’s when I’ll be able to archery only. But at this point, I’m any method of taking. We were talking about in Texas where we’re on that access hunt, and you could get it done if you had a week with a bow. I mean, jeff Helm kills them like every other hour I think, but uh, you know, I’m I’m an equal opportunity killer at this point where it’s like I would love to kill and I love archery, but I would be lying if I’ve ever been disappointed killing anything with the rifle. I’m like, oh, okay, I mean I I yeah, I just I like hunting.
00:31:25
Speaker 1: I love shooting my bow. I just like the feeling. But I don’t do it because it’s like harder if I’m a better hunter, because technically, you know, the longbow hunters will say, we’ll do it this way. Oh yeah, you know the primitive hunter spear. It’s like, well, how far back do you want to legal? Then?
00:31:44
Speaker 2: Just legal minus the crossbow in archery season.
00:31:50
Speaker 3: Yeah, that’s that’s our that’s our line.
00:31:51
Speaker 2: That’s my cut off. That’s my cut off.
00:31:54
Speaker 4: You if you want to do in the dark gun, you mean the dark dark gun.
00:32:00
Speaker 2: I bought one for the kids. Uh so once again the like, I think there are people that could use them an archery but uh but man, after I was I was against able bodied males using uh crossbows in archery season, and then I shot one after I bought one for the kids, and now I’m like double against it. I mean the first day I took it out and I laid prone in my driveway at ninety yards and pulled the trigger and the arrow was like it blew my mind.
00:32:36
Speaker 1: Yeah, that’s crazy. It’s more gun than it.
00:32:38
Speaker 2: Oh, it really is. Yeah.
00:32:40
Speaker 3: So just the idea of just being able to get get prone to begin with. That’s not an archery thing. No, no, exactly, you can’t get prone with your bow.
00:32:52
Speaker 1: Have you talked about this on here? You might be losing some followers that we have, which time crossbow?
00:32:58
Speaker 2: Oh man, well whatever, bring it up everyone once in a while. Yeah, at this point, I lose followers every time I open my mouth. So I just you know, it is what it is.
00:33:07
Speaker 1: That’s it.
00:33:09
Speaker 3: So David talk to me about like, I don’t know the balance between being in an endurance athlete and then like using that endurance and using that training to be a hunter, and like the crossover of the two and how they kind of work together versus maybe potentially they don’t work together.
00:33:30
Speaker 1: Yeah, no, they definitely do. I think as a hunter does value really in any kind of fitness. I think at the tip of the spear, endurance is probably key just because you’re on your feet moving all day sometimes days, you know, weeks sometimes, But you know, I find extreme value in of course the endurance side of things, but the strangth side of things, you know, even the Mayhem Hunt camp we did a couple of weeks ago. You know, I haven’t been lifting as much as I wanted to, and I can feel it just like doing what we did and the amount of hiking that we did. I can, you know, fill it in my hip flexers and my core and some of the things I don’t use as much. So I find a lot of value in all modalities. But you know, for me lately, it’s been primarily endurance. I kind of bit that I guess, bug bit that bug I guess. I don’t know. Back in twenty nineteen when I first did the Leadville one hundred bike race, and I’ve kind of just been riding that wave ever since. I still enjoy doing that, So that’s primarily what I do. And I do for sure see a direct correlation with the endurance side of things and my fitness on the mountain. You know, prior to that, I was primarily just lifting ways to doing the CrossFit thing and enjoy that and definitely how me in the woods. Like I said, both are valuable. I think the endurance side of things are a little bit more valuable, at least for me anyway. And I just you know, I’m in a season in my life where I just enjoy riding my bike, you know, running a little bit. Ran a lot last year, not as much anymore, but I think part of.
00:35:21
Speaker 3: You ran a lot last year.
00:35:22
Speaker 2: Yeah.
00:35:23
Speaker 1: Yeah. I think part of the conversation around fitness, in particular to hunting is finding something that you could actually utilize and enjoy doing. You know, if it’s just a chore to like the gym, then it’s just not fun at all, you know. And I still think there’s a lot of value in just finding that discipline and doing it anyway. But at the same time, like you want to enjoy doing the things that you’re doing.
00:35:47
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, a couple of times a week you need to do something that you don’t enjoy, but for the most part, it needs to be something that you enjoy.
00:35:54
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, for sure.
00:35:56
Speaker 2: Man, You’re you’re build too, You’re you’re an endurance like you’ve kind of found your nick, which I guess you would say, like you’re an endurance guy, like you’re built for that and you’re really good at it.
00:36:06
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, I don’t know I’m really good at it, but I think that I, you know, I’ve found something that I definitely enjoy and I do think i’m you know, at least inside the top, you know, ten percent of sure of the cyclist or the endurance athletes out there. At least that’s what the data says. You know, I’m the kind of person that goes all in on anything I do, and so when I was doing CrossFit, I was all in into that and you know, never really there was never anything special doing that, you know, did some commps, never really get anything outside of that regional or anything. But I enjoyed it, and you know, same with endurance. I really enjoy doing that, especially when you can compete at some of the higher level you know races. You know, I’ve done a few this year and was able to podium at the one we did together. I did another twenty four hour with another group of guys back in February, and I think we were third in that one, maybe fourth.
00:37:08
Speaker 2: And so.
00:37:10
Speaker 1: Yeah, I’d say good enough to be able to be in that you know top and you know, being up here in the mountains is just kind of inevitable that you find a.
00:37:23
Speaker 2: Trail and stay on it one.
00:37:28
Speaker 3: Hundred to be exact. So what is it about endurance that you actually enjoy because obviously a lot of endurance is not very fun. So, like, I don’t know, what is it for you that keeps you coming back to signing up with these big efforts in big races, a big training blocks.
00:37:46
Speaker 1: Yeah, sorry, if it sounds windy, the wind’s blowing on now we’re good. Yeah, But I don’t know. I think there’s a lot of things that I do enjoy suffering weirdly, especially if it’s with someone else. So on a race day, for sure, there’s something about that shared suffering, and obviously we share that during hunting season. You know, race day is super fun. It’s fun to see your progress progress, so you know, redoing some of the races you’ve done in the past and if you can improve, you know, then cycling, specifically mountain biking, you know, half the time you’re suffering, but half the time you’re just really having a lot of fun. You know, you suffer going out, you get to bomb the stuff going back down, and it’s just a lot of fun. But you know, I am the kind of person that’s very analytical. So I spent a lot of times in the winter training indoors, and so that’s really not fun at all, but it is fun to look at for me anyway, fun to look at the numbers and see, Okay, wow, I have this power zone for ten minutes. That’s the greatest ten minute power zone that I’ve ever held. And so I find the little thing to be yeah, break, But I’m kind of weird like that. I can work out by myself. I don’t really need anyone, although it’s much more fun with others, but I find the joys in those little things.
00:39:17
Speaker 2: Yeah, we joked that. I think we might have told that story where the first time we killed that bull, we all thought Curtis hated us and he was never gonna hunt with us again. And we got back and he was like, this was the most fun I’ve ever had on a hunt ever. WHOA Yeah. Yeah, He’s just a man of few words and get a chuckle out of him every once in a while you’re like, Okay, I’m doing something right. But now that I know you, I’m like, oh, okay, he’s enjoying the whole. He enjoys the whole. Process. He’s just not going to say it, but you know we’re close enough now that packing.
00:39:44
Speaker 1: Out an animal might be the funnest thing on the planet. Something about that. And I was kind of you a couple of weeks ago that, you know, everything leading up to that point just straight up sucks.
00:39:59
Speaker 2: It’s all, and you’re like, why am I doing this?
00:40:01
Speaker 1: Like two hours ago, you didn’t see anything. There’s not an animal on this mountain. Like, I’m ready to go home empty.
00:40:07
Speaker 2: I suck this, wasting my family, wasting.
00:40:12
Speaker 1: Matter of a couple hours, you got meat on your back and you’re having the most fun that you can have.
00:40:17
Speaker 2: That was us. That was us this year. You know, like last morning Scott’s deathly ill. Me and Curtis just kind of go out. We’re like, all right, we’ll see what we can do. We watched this herd for probably what hour, hour and a half of just like it was cool because we’re watching these cows and like there’s these birds on the back of these cows picking bugs off, and we’re just kind of sitting there and it’s cold. We’re like, ah, we should go get in the sun for a second. Curtis turns around one way. He’s like I smell something. I turn around the back the other way. There’s a herd about what eight or ten of them, and I’m like, bull, legal, bull, give me the m away. He sets up the camera dead bull, Like You’re just within in an instant.
00:40:54
Speaker 1: I mean, we literally had I think we made it a goal, like we got to be back to camp at what like eleventh there is something for you to make your flight. So we’re taking down the minutes at this point, ready to walk that walk a Shine, which we’ve.
00:41:09
Speaker 2: Done so many, so many times.
00:41:11
Speaker 1: It’s only inevitable here within the next fifteen minutes, it’s going to be happening.
00:41:15
Speaker 2: And just like that, Just like that, Curtis like, let’s just go warm up in the sun and check this other side. And sure enough, there they were. So all right, so I’ll give you the how I Met Curtis story. Yeah, all right, So we’re was that twenty fifteen.
00:41:32
Speaker 1: I want to say twenty fifteen.
00:41:34
Speaker 2: Were we did that CrossFit moto tour?
00:41:38
Speaker 3: Oh yes, yes, yes, and so I remember seeing that.
00:41:40
Speaker 2: Yeah, So we’re just kind of hanging out and we stopped in Leadville and uh, Castro actually have the picture posted a picture, and we were at Sugar Loaf.
00:41:49
Speaker 1: Campground, yep.
00:41:51
Speaker 2: And we’re just kind of hanging out there at you know, Castro takes his picture, says Leadville, Colorado, like he always did whatever. And we’re sitting there by the fire, and of a sudden, this person walks out of the darkness and he’s like, hey, I know this is weird. I saw in Dave’s instagram. You guys were here. He’s like just a fan wanted to meet you guys. It’s literally my house is right here, because I think he lived next door to it at that point, and.
00:42:14
Speaker 1: Yeah, you finished your story, then I’ll tell my story.
00:42:18
Speaker 2: And so then he just brought I think you brought a towel pack of cors light, I think, and we’re like, hey, you know, and we’d all just sat around the fire and seriously hung out, which now I know, Curtis is the most outside of your like personality that I ever thought of. And then that crazy a couple years later, you know, didn’t really talk to him or see him ever again. And then Billings was like, hey, this guy saw that we were sleeping in a enclosed trailer and Frozer balls off and you know, he makes these and he said for some social media he’d make us one. I was like sweet. So the Curtis shows up, drives it out and he’s like, we’ve met before, and I was like where and he tells me. I’m like, oh, dude, that’s crazy. Like most of the time people are like, yeah, we’ve met before, and then they tell me a circle stance and we meet a lot of people, but there’s only one person that kind of walks out of the darkness, and so that’s that’s how we met. Curtis Nice.
00:43:09
Speaker 1: Yeah. So, as you mentioned before, I’m not a super social person. No, but it was around that time where I wanted to start like being more social and so yeah, I saw Dave’s posts and I’m like, I’m just gonna go say hello. I don’t even care. And at the time living like literally blocks away from there, so I might have drove, I might have walked, I don’t know, but yeah, I just showed up and said, hey, just wanted to meet you. You’re here. I’m probably the only person that saw this post that actually knew where you guys were. No one knows what Sugar Loaf Campground is, and uh, to my surprise, you guys were like I just wanted to say hello and shake your hand, but I said, hey, join the party. Watch Dan burn some popcorn.
00:43:55
Speaker 2: Oh, Dan did burn popcorn. That’s the most dan thing ever, Old Dingleberry.
00:44:01
Speaker 1: It’s the one thing that you can’t mess up.
00:44:03
Speaker 3: Just yeah, I can, just I can just picture David. I look at the sandlot quote, don’t.
00:44:11
Speaker 2: Be a goog. Help, don’t go talk to him. He didn’t know it was It wasn’t.
00:44:18
Speaker 1: Nansey campers. Not long after that, still doing it a little bit, kind of not taking as many orders purposefully, just because I wanted to spend more time with the kids. And uh, you know, my daughter’s sixteen now, she’s only got a couple more years left, So still doing it on the side, not as much, but yeah, that’s kind of just my my goal now.
00:44:42
Speaker 2: And the got a spreet sweet sprinter van out of the deal, though.
00:44:46
Speaker 3: Yeah, the quality of these campers is insult like. The attention to detail he brings to it and the work he puts in is top.
00:44:54
Speaker 2: Notch for sure.
00:44:56
Speaker 1: Yes, yeah, I still enjoy doing that. The band was a blast I was doing. I went from doing a twenty twenty for sprinder Van whatever year it is, to a nineteen sixty four airstream lamb yard and so yeah, yeah, quite the difference.
00:45:16
Speaker 2: Yeah, big difference.
00:45:18
Speaker 1: Yeah, remodeling this thing is like, yeah, kind of with a headache, but I’m having fun.
00:45:24
Speaker 2: Cool. Well, Curtis, appreciate you coming on man.
00:45:27
Speaker 1: Yeah.
00:45:28
Speaker 2: Yeah, So just at ENSI Campers. Is that still the Instagram?
00:45:33
Speaker 1: Yeah, I still have ENSI Campers. I got my own handle. You can just google it, David Curtis will probably show up. Me and my son are planning on starting to rebind Bibles, which is I don’t think I told you that, no, but yeah, I took him to the Museum of the Bible and ever since then he’s always kind of been a Bible nerd too. And I was telling him and let’s let’s find some old Bibles and we buy them. Maybe he has some new ones too, So probably gonna start that pretty soon. See what happens. That’s awesome podcast.
00:46:05
Speaker 2: I was about to say, yeah, you said he sent us one. There’s two King James from sixteen Yeah.
00:46:12
Speaker 1: I collect a bunch of old Bibles too, And I think I was showing you one of the first edition King James Bible sixteen thirteen, so two years after it first came out and compared to that to the sixteen Await Geneva Bible. But I’m a church history nerd, so I primarily collect Bibles throughout the Reformation.
00:46:32
Speaker 2: Period, from the ten Chapters into that book you sent. Oh yeah, yeah, we rode our way back from Anniversary. I just had a headphone in. Hillary was listening to some Dateline podcasts and she said, what do you listen to? I was like, you really want to know? She’s like, yeah, I was like early church history. She was like, you’re such a nerd. Yeah, it’s cool though. Yeah, it is very interesting, intriguing, especially with my Catholic slash Protestant both background. So it’s been interesting. That’s it a whole another podcast.
00:47:01
Speaker 3: Yeah, hold conversation Curtis that we’re still having.
00:47:04
Speaker 2: About say, Dods is going to get angry here, so we got to know that’s not true. I’m just kidding. It’s touching.
00:47:11
Speaker 1: Still still working on don Yeah yeah, yeah, doing that and then racing a little bit, not doing lead Man fifty and that’s pretty much my year.
00:47:24
Speaker 2: Cool. Well, Curtis, we appreciate you appreciate me.
00:47:30
Speaker 1: I feel bad not recording out there. I haven’t been out there. In so long. But life is getting the best of me right now. Just so busy.
00:47:37
Speaker 2: You’re good. Hopefully I get that uh uh antelope tag and we’ll be out there in August.
00:47:43
Speaker 1: So yeah, oh yeah, yeah, let me know. If not, whenever the leed Man document Documentary Jobs people will do a special podcast.
00:47:50
Speaker 2: Should we will?
00:47:51
Speaker 1: For sure?
00:47:52
Speaker 2: Yeah?
00:47:52
Speaker 1: Sure do that to share some stories about let Man.
00:47:56
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, I can’t wait to watch it. I’m fired up.
00:47:59
Speaker 3: I’m fired up and I’m watching Scott. I’m handle that the.
00:48:04
Speaker 2: All right, peace
00:48:07
Speaker 3: M hm
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