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Remington McCauley
129 Plays1 year ago
This week Drew is joined by avid outdoorsman and hunter Remington McCauley. Born and raised in Texas Remington made the move to CO and has fully embraced western hunting.
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Transcript
Introduction and Opening Prayer
00:00:07
Speaker
You are listening to the Tricer Podcast, where we talk all things hunting, gear, and the great outdoors. Before we begin, let's start things out right and put God first. Lord Jesus, I thank you for Tricer, and I ask that you can use this podcast as a way to bring joy to all of our listeners. We lay Tricer and this podcast at your feet. Amen. All right, another episode of the Tricer Podcast.
Guest Introduction and Sonora Hunting Trip
00:00:34
Speaker
This week, we have a very smart man. And I say smart because he is a Tricer customer and bringing to Macaulay. How are you doing? Good, man. Good. How about you today? Oh, I'm doing great, man. I just got back from Sonora. It's my first podcast back. Just hammered some giant bucks down in Sonora. And I just can't wait to go back. I already booked another hunt down there, but excited to talk to you. We've been trying to get together for two months, talk about this hunt. You went all into your nephew.
Success Story: Hunting Chubs in Sonora
00:01:00
Speaker
Yeah, no doubt, man. Did you, I didn't see, did you?
00:01:03
Speaker
Kill some nice deer. I never saw any pictures of them.
00:01:07
Speaker
Yeah, dude. I shot an ancient, probably like an eight and a half year old buck. Last year he was probably 118. I don't know if you know anything about Coos Deere. Yeah. Anything over a hundred is big. I know a little bit about him. Yeah. They had a bad drought down Sonora. It wasn't really the best year down there, but he ended up coming this year, like one to seven and a half. We finally take them out, but the equivalent of this buck is 31 inches of mass. You can, it's five inches around and one spot is antler. It's just a massive old buck, which is what I wanted. I wanted an old mature deer.
00:01:36
Speaker
And I wanted something that was cool. And this buck is a freak. Yeah, he's just a freak buck. They call him Chubs. They've been trying to kill him for four years. You see, this buck's just been giant. A bunch of really notable kuzja hunters have been trying to kill this deer, and they haven't been able to kill him. And he hasn't been patterning regularly. And then my first morning ever being in Sonora, this thing came walking in. It was my target buck, and I killed him.
00:02:00
Speaker
I was joking, I'm like, I'll be done by nine o'clock. And I kid you not, 859, this buck came out of the bushes, stood next to this drinker, and I just hammered him. It just, sometimes it worked. Then I had 10 more days of just like shooting javelina. I killed a coup de monde. I called dogs. I just had a blast. Now my father-in-law killed a good buck on like day two, I think, maybe day three. And after that, we were just like a bunch of little kids, man, just out there calling dogs and just having a blast down there.
00:02:30
Speaker
It's a special place. It's like the real Wild West. It really is. It is the Wild West.
Exploring the Wilderness of Sonora
00:02:37
Speaker
They say Alaska is the last frontier. Sonora is very similar. You're out there and there's no planes flying over. That's one thing I heard of the Frank Church. Frank Church is incredible. I will go back any year. But there's still planes. Down there, you literally are alone.
00:02:55
Speaker
We'd drive, we'd drive out every day and hunt and just, you didn't see another person, maybe once in a while, a cowboy would come rolling by a couple of times, maybe a ranch dog or something. But other than that, it is the last frontier, man. It is the Wild West down there for sure. So it was. Yeah, no, I can relate to that. When you're in Alaska, you feel definitely you're remote, but it's even being way on West Texas. It's just something about it that just doesn't feel like there's any laws or.
00:03:20
Speaker
anything to abide by, you're just there doing that country stuff. Yeah, compared to California, there are no laws in Texas. Compared to California, there are very minimal laws. But yeah, you're a Texas boy,
Guest's Hunting Background in Texas and Colorado
00:03:35
Speaker
right? You're from originally, you're in Colorado now, you're originally from Texas, correct? West Texas or no? No, I grew up south of Dallas, but grew up hunting everything from central Texas to
00:03:50
Speaker
Way out west, Arizona, down towards the border, hunted all over the whole state from public land, whitetail hunting to private land, whitetailhunting.com. I basically did everything the state had to offer me and then decided I want some more, a little more challenges. And they want to have to, I wanted to be able to live in it and learn it rather than just being a out of state or visitor.
00:04:20
Speaker
to get a Colorado. Yeah. So with the Texas stuff, because I don't knock it, right? Some point I want to go do it because everyone's done it. I want to go down there and kill a nil guy. My friend's going to kill a nil guy this month. I wanted to go, but I've just been gone way too much. My wife, I got to try and stay married. I have to take a break from hunting at some point in this year.
00:04:44
Speaker
There has to be, there is challenges to it and there is raising the animals, they're doing the whole thing. It's a whole different ecosystem they're building down there for these deer. I don't knock it. It's cool. It's an experience. I'd like to go down there with my father-in-law. I'd love to go sit. He's 75 now. I'd love to go sit some feeders and do that cool thing and just have the coffee. In my mind, I imagine Lazy Boy, like a chair I'm sitting in right now, I imagine this chair and I'm like sitting in there and there's like a buddy heater. I got a coffee.
00:05:13
Speaker
And I'm hunting deer. That's what I imagine my mind. So I still go back every year and hunt. And after August, September, October of here and just, you know, losing 15, 20 pounds and looking like an Ethiopian, it's nice to go sit in a stand with some eaters and eat Twinkies and chill. And also a big part of it is I go back every year because they don't have a age limit for children.
Texas Hunting with Youngsters: A Family Experience
00:05:41
Speaker
You can take a four-year-old down there, hunt license, take five tags, and they can go hunt. So ever since my boy, he was six when he shot his first deer down there. And we go back every year so that he can have free reign of shooting things and practice getting guys to shoot an animal. So that way, but I think it's spoiled him a little bit. The reality of hunting, it can skew it a little bit because it is a little easier down there unless you're
00:06:11
Speaker
if you're chasing a giant bug, a giant whitetail, in my opinion, is one of the hardest animals to kill, but it's unless you're chasing one of those. It's a challenge. The biggest thing with that, my dad likes to make fun of me now because I can't sit still anymore. But you go sit in a freestand from dusk to dawn trying to catch a big deer. And I can't really do that anymore. So I lost that little skill I had.
00:06:41
Speaker
I just want to get down and go chase them. The Sonora hunt, we were sitting in water. It's just the ranch we were on. It's a desert ranch. You cannot glass this ranch. We were talking tall, foot tall brush, just stickers. You can't glass them. So we're sitting in water and it's highly effective. They used to try and glass and they said that just after being there for 20 years, they figured out how to hunt these deer and that's how they do it. And that was very different from me sitting in that blind. And again, I thought I was going to stand for 10 days and I killed my buck in the first
00:07:09
Speaker
freak out two hours of being there. I had like 901, he was dead. And he literally, I shot him and he literally ran 60 yards straight to me and died in front of my blind. It's all on video. It's awesome. I'll release that at some point. I'm working on getting all together for everybody.
00:07:22
Speaker
Yeah, that's definitely a different experience for sure. But I can say that I hunted so hard this year on the other hunts, right? We killed elk, we killed deer, we went on an elk hunt. I was going for 14 days. My body was just... I tore my knee up, my left knee real bad on this Arizona elk hunt we went on. I just coming out of hills, I just messed something up and I don't know if I tore it or sprained it.
00:07:45
Speaker
But I just, I get back and I go straight into the gym and I work out three to five days a week. And I just wasn't healing. And I'll tell you what, like going to Sonora and sitting in a blind for a week. My knee feels incredible. Like I feel like I could do like a box jump now. I can do stuff. Like I'll get on my dirt bike and my knee was killing me on the dirt bike. And now it's like, I can go riding again and not have any pain. So there's something to be said about putting the work in and then having this like, like, I don't want to call it a dove hunt, but like having this hunt where I could
00:08:13
Speaker
kind of chill and be in the blind. When I bought this, like, they had me buy this giant chair from my sports' warehouse. It's like, it looks like a lazy boy. It's just, it's incredible. And he's sitting it, you're just sitting in there hanging out and I'm a talker anyways in the blind. So like I, after I, the first morning I killed, I had someone filming for me. So I was talking to him the whole time. And then after that was my father-in-law. So I'm just getting to sit in the blind, talk a little bit. And all of a sudden, oh crap, there's a javelina. It's a different experience versus like where I'm,
00:08:42
Speaker
If anyone ever hunts with me, they know that all glass from sunrise to sunset, and I'll be at that glassing knob in about an hour before sunrise. And that glassing knob could be three or four miles from our camp, right? Or however far it is. And so I put in the miles. So it was cool to have this like experience down there and go down there. That's, that's what I would describe Sonora as too, is an experience. And we went with the guys from Mad Hunts and I've been talking to them a lot. And we're actually, we're booking a ranch next year to go back down.
00:09:08
Speaker
like 10 tags go back down again next year. And I was on them like you're selling more than a deer hunt is an experience right having this Mexican lady who doesn't speak English making tortillas for you and oh yeah, you're drinking Mexican coffee and you're just you're on this old ranch that's historical hundreds of years old and they're still doing things the old way and
00:09:27
Speaker
it was cool man so yeah i'm gonna go to texas i'm gonna do the same thing over there after this time i'm like i want to go do that i want to go over there and experience it hell it might have been like africa now i was always i don't know i'm like after this i might just go do it just kill some stuff i thought about that i thought about that yeah i know it's its own it's it's obviously not as physically demanding but it's that's mental it's a lot more mental to me anyways because the hike in however far and doing whatever like i kind of thrive off of that and i enjoy it
00:09:56
Speaker
But the mental strain of just, I did this moose hunt last year named Alberta and going in and it was like a 14 day hunt and going into it. I had never done a moose hunt before. So it was my first one and I didn't know what to expect and going into it. I'm thinking it's going to be somewhat physical and it was that type of thing. You're sitting in these one spots call one day after day and you're just sitting and just waiting and just calling and waiting and you're within.
00:10:26
Speaker
500 yards of an area for six days of just sitting in this one area and I was It's it's mentally tasking for sure to be able to just sit there and take that so I have a lot I have a lot of respect for those serious whitetail hunters that really put in that work in that time and It's I would never
Moose Hunting Challenges in Alberta
00:10:45
Speaker
knock it. It's just as much my my style anymore
00:10:50
Speaker
Yeah, and I want to hear about Alberta now too because you told me I want to talk about your kids thing, but I want to hear about Alberta now because you went to, that's awesome. I want to hunt moose. Something to be said about when you went there and you guys called and you sat there, the reason you guys did that is because it's effective, right? And so many times we will do things while hunting
00:11:09
Speaker
Not because it's effective, but because we just want to change. So we'll hike over here. Let's go to this ridge. Let's go to this ridge. And I'll tell you what, I have a much bigger respect now for sitting blind over water from that hunt. And I've killed, I killed my first bull over water. Now I hunted for six days, didn't see an elk. All of a sudden the last night I sat water for the first time and I freaking killed the only elk I saw and he died. So this year, actually my strategy for, man, I'll talk about whatever.
00:11:34
Speaker
My strategy for Arizona, I put in for archery antelope hunts because I have a higher draw odds. It's in August. I'm just going to bring a blind out there and sit water. If I draw and I have a 3% draw, but I'm like, man, like after this hunt snore, I'm like, that's an effective way to hunt. I could do that. And even with some of these deer hunts, you could draw a archery tag in Arizona easier than a rifle tag. So I'm like, I'm going to put in for these archery tags and maybe also go sit water in August.
00:11:59
Speaker
And something's going to come in as long as you don't get like a freak monsoon, you'll be hunting deer. Well, and I think what's funny you actually say that is it's just, I think like with, I don't know if it's just the world we live in, media, whatever, but I think there's a lot of disconnect sometimes between what's effective to kill. And then it's just what everybody thinks is cool. You know what I mean? Yep. A hundred percent. It's cool to say I went and hiked 10 miles. Yeah, that's cool. But.
00:12:28
Speaker
I got, I commend you for being able to do that, but did you, did you, how many animals did you walk past? How many? Like it's, whereas me, I would rather just find a nice freaking nice ridge and glass and find animals and then go attack them rather than just say, I walked 10 miles and more, wore my body out again more for next year and took years off of my.
00:12:51
Speaker
abilities. But yeah, you could just like that moose on the guides kept telling us just stick it out, just stick it out. And we're all sitting there like all elk hunters from Colorado going, Jesus, I can't do this anymore. I need to go find a moose. But for the mark, maybe to find the 1200 pounds. That's what you would, that's what you'd think. And it's so thick up there. They're like, Oh, you're not going to see them. And then next thing you know, you finally see one and you're like, Holy crap, I didn't see it till it was 40 yards from me. But yeah, that's, that's, that's
00:13:20
Speaker
doing effective things. Sometimes it's harder to stick with your game plan, obviously, and follow through with what's actually effective than just doing what you think is going to work. Yeah. Tell me about the Moosa. So you went to Alberta. You was a 14 day hunt. Yeah. So it was a, it was 614. I guess it was actually 12 in the woods. We had eight of us actually got to take my dad, which he's 67.
00:13:49
Speaker
And so it was a bucket list hunt for him that he never was going to be able to do. And we were able to make it work for him as well. It was up there. You have to be guided being out of the country. And so they took us in on, uh, those Argos way 30 or 20, 20 miles back from the trail where we dropped in and we stayed back there for. Ride it and describe it like 12 days and only so
00:14:17
Speaker
It was a really dry year talking about your Sonora thing. It was a really dry year up there and hot and the moose were not, they were not cooperating and it was grueling, but it was dry and hot and they just weren't coming to calls. They weren't moving like they typically do. Typically in a full day hunt, you get opportunity at a few bulls and get to pick one you want and whatnot. But literally only three of three of us out of eight killed.
00:14:47
Speaker
because that's the only thing we saw. It was so slow that the guy had actually canceled his hunt that was like a week and a half after ours, he rescheduled it for this year for the guys just because it was like one of the worst years I've seen. I talked to some other people that had hunted there and it seemed to be the same story across a lot of Canada. It was just that it was so dry and they had all those fires and it was just a weird year. But yeah, two of the guys killed one.
00:15:16
Speaker
Like the third and fourth day. And then I finally killed mine. And going back to that, what works is it was funny. Cause we'd been doing the sitting and calling for, I think it was had been six or seven days. And one of the more, it was a really cold day. And I'd been out with my dad and the guide and my dad was cold and the guide, some of the guy took him back to camp. They walked back, whatever it was a mile and a half or something like that. And I was like.
00:15:44
Speaker
And against the, I wasn't supposed to do it because you're supposed to be as a guide, but I was like, man, I'm just going to go walk some of these roads. And a buddy of mine was hunting. They had him set up maybe five miles from me and I texted him and I sent him to the screenshot. I was like, follow this old login road and let anything, we'll just, maybe we'll push something towards each other. If not, we can hang out in bullshit for a little while because
00:16:08
Speaker
We hadn't seen each other in five days and whatnot. And then I saw, I just went off walking. And then finally I'm going down this old logging cut or whatever day these cuts they have up there. And I'm walking along and, and I see something moving. And then my first thought was the wolf because we'd seen some wolves and we could shoot them because it was a gray color. And so I threw out the rifle on it. And mind you, I had been bow hunting like the first four days.
00:16:38
Speaker
And then I was like, man, if I see one, I want to be able to put it down for sure. Cause I haven't seen nothing. So I picked up the, I picked up the rifle and I had to look through the scope and it's something moving. And then, and I go from thinking that's a wolf and then I see some brown. And so I thought it maybe was a bear and cause my head hadn't seen a moose. And so I was, it was just so disconnected from even thinking it was a moose. I just, it just wasn't even. And then finally it comes walking through and.
00:17:08
Speaker
And it comes up to, it's coming straight at me up that cut. And finally I am able to get a shot at it. It's probably 35 yards from me, which is like, of course, I don't have my bow. I got a rifle. And, but so I shoot one and I was using one of the guides old like Bush guns, this little 300 short Matt Tika that was all beat up and crafting. And.
00:17:35
Speaker
He didn't have his mag and he'd lost his mag. So I put around in this thing, like in the front shoulder to anchor it. So it wouldn't run off into the bushes and, and it runs just straight at me, like 15 yards. And so it's 10 yards from me at this point. And it's just standing there, look, just looking straight at me. And I'm like, Oh crap. And so I'm all fumbling and it doesn't, the rifle doesn't have a mag. So I'm single sheet and I'm all fumbling, getting another bullet out of my freaking.
00:18:05
Speaker
by no hardest trying to get it, trying to get this thing loaded while this thing's just sitting here looking at me like I'm about to kill you. And so then finally I get another round and he turns across and I put another one at him and then he's still looking at me and I'm like, God, then he finally fell over. But yeah, I know it was a, it was super cool experience, but going back to that, sometimes you got to follow the process, but then also sometimes you got to get out and make things happen.
00:18:32
Speaker
Oh yeah. I'm definitely not saying that because like when I killed that bull, I actually moved 30 miles south because we just could not work. So every once in a while you got to make a change. If it's just not working, doing the same thing over and over again, it's just, it's not worth it. You got to make the change and you'd be surprised. Sometimes it just, it pays off and it could just be luck. I think some of it is luck, right? Like walking into a bull is luck, but
00:18:57
Speaker
Makes you feel like a genius when it works out. I'll tell you what, when you walk down a trail, all of a sudden there's a moose down at 35 yards and you hammer him. Was that the only moose? Is that the first moose you saw on that hunt on its feet? First and last moose. Yeah. First and last moose I saw. So my dad was back at camp. He hears the shot and I text him, I said, I got one. And so they hop on a quad.
00:19:25
Speaker
and come up that login road to us. And we get out and me and my dad are celebrating, taking pictures, bullshit, talking and doing the whole thing. And we, the guy went to go back to camp to get a chainsaw so that he could get the quad closer up to the bull. So we didn't have to carry that heavy sucker too far. And he, so he goes back to the quad, jumps on the quad, a hundred yards from us, turns around to take off and another bull runs out. So he comes back and gets us and we,
00:19:56
Speaker
chase after that thing, but never could get another shot on it for my dad. But that, yeah, that was the last. And there was four dudes in our camp and four guys in the other camp. And I was the only one to shoot one out of our camp. And it was, so that's one of those times that really shows you and test your hunting partners and everybody's mental fortitude of staying
Mental Toughness in Hunting: Key Strategies
00:20:18
Speaker
positive. And it's easy for people to get down and
00:20:23
Speaker
start getting negative and whatnot. And, but we had a good group of folks as long as we were able to keep Copenhagen in camp. So it stayed out. It stayed pretty good, but yeah, it was a cool experience. And my next one to be in Alaska for sure. That's my next move sign. I don't know that I would go back to Alberta just because the terrain wasn't quite what I like. It was just all flat and thick. And so the going back to that mental side of it is just.
00:20:50
Speaker
You have nowhere to be, get so used to being able to just get up and at least spot animals somewhere to know that there's animals. Right. And when you're in that situation, if you don't see them 40, 50 yards from you, it's, you don't even know that they're on elk hunting. You'll hear them a ridge over bugling. They'll be like, I might not be in them, but they're around. And yeah, so that was, it was interesting. Sure. Yeah. I'm going to, I'm going to do.
00:21:19
Speaker
I want to do a float trip. That's one of my goals. I want to do a float trip for me. Same here. Definitely I'm a high on my list of things I want to do. I just got to figure it out and do it. I need to probably start looking at doing one in 2026, I guess now or 2020. Maybe it's 2025 if I start now. Start looking at it, get something booked. I want to do it before I'm 38 now. Like you said, just start wearing yourself out and try to get it done in the 40s. Yeah, that was a lot.
00:21:45
Speaker
That's a lot of logistics. I've been like in the works of planning one. I'm trying to same type of thing, like 26, something like that, but just getting all the logistics together for that. It's years out when you plan these trips up there. I have questions on the moose thing. I know you wouldn't call for that, but so a couple of things. One, are there no size restrictions up there then for the bulls? There's no size. Okay. That's why I was like, okay. You just see if he has antlers, you're shooting them.
00:22:12
Speaker
your shoe, you should ideally the guide said he wanted us all to walk away with 50 inch bulls, but which is, that's a good bull for up there as a 50 inch bull, but it this year just didn't pan out that way. So we all basically were the first thing we saw him. The funny part about it is one of my buddies that went that he's not super into.
00:22:37
Speaker
roughing it and doing all that stuff. And he was like, he's, I don't care what you guys do. I'm shooting the first one I see as long as it's got antlers, I'm shooting. And he ends up shooting the biggest one of the whole trip and being able to leave early and stuff. And it was pretty funny, but yeah, that we picked up there just because of the, we had a couple, my dad and one of my buddy's dads were going for older. It was a trip that they could still go do without, it wasn't super physically demanding, etc.
00:23:06
Speaker
Yeah, exactly. Well, tents and Argos and quads and stuff taking you to different areas and not having to really cover too, too much country. So for that purpose, it's a great hunt. We drove up there. We took trailers and drove all our meat back. And it was, uh, logistically, it was an easy way to go kill a moose because obviously here, it's, I don't know when I'll ever kill him or get a moose tag in Colorado and.
00:23:32
Speaker
before they're all dead from the wolves anyways. So, but yeah, so that, so yeah, that was, it was a good trip for what we did, but I definitely would, you know, like it was more of an adventure for me. A lot of it's just in the, the hunt. So the other question to have was logistics. What are the logistics like for this hunt? You drove up, you said, what was like a, what does it cost for an Alberta hunt, right? So I know I can do moose in Alaska.
00:24:01
Speaker
for around four to five before tax term before flights. That's getting me into the bush. That's getting a guide. That's getting me in there. I'll probably be eight to nine when I'm said and done with everything. But what does something like this cost go to Alberta? Your biggest cost up there is the, you're basically paying the guy to do all that for you. So you're, I think we were out, I think it was, I think it was about 12.
00:24:29
Speaker
which was part of the reason we did it was one of the cheapest moose hunts that wasn't a self-guided in the bush hunt in Alaska, right? So it was, yeah, it was right at 12, I'd say, off the door for everything. But that also included they get your tags, they do everything for you to show up and food's there, the whole thing, right? But that also includes they
00:24:52
Speaker
basically unlimited wolf tags. If you get an opportunity on that, they included bear hunts and that, but we didn't get to go do any of that because we hunted for moose the whole time and weren't successful. So if we would have killed out early on moose, we could have went and hunted bear as well. But, but yeah, that's, uh, those Canadians are crazy though. So they're an interesting group of folks. That's what I got to watch a Canadian chase a black bear up the tree out of camp, which was
00:25:20
Speaker
something I've never seen before. He literally chased him up a tree with an axe, poking him in the ass, trying to scare him. He was like, you got to scare them so they don't ever come back again. You don't scare him so bad that he'll be back in camp next year or whatever. But yeah, it was a cool experience. But yeah, logistically, it was super easy. Anybody that just wants to go kill a moose, you know, get guided ones are 25, $30,000 for that.
00:25:47
Speaker
And so that was never an option for me. This one worked out pretty well. Yeah. That's cool, man. That's, that's really cool. Yeah. Yeah. It was good stuff. But yeah. But anyways, too, on this talk about that mule deer hunt, there's all kinds of other hunts where you talk about what this one's just cool. Cause I like the kids stuff. That's, that gets me amped up more than anything these days. Yeah. I've got five of my own. So I know all about the kids stuff. Yeah. You find yourself not even caring to hunt anymore. I'm like, exactly.
00:26:17
Speaker
I got to focus on myself here. This is the first buck I killed in Sonora since 2019. Yeah. We've killed, I think eight deer since then, but it's all been over it. Right. But just honestly, you get a kid a deer, it's harder than getting yourself a deer. So a hundred times. So it's just fun for me. It's more challenging in their teaching. So yeah, tell me about it. So you, your nephew, you got him his second buck in Colorado public land, right?
A Successful Mountain Hunt with a Nephew
00:26:44
Speaker
Yep. Public land. So he's, he's in Texas. That's my, uh, sister's kid. And he's been, this is the second trip up 23, what 22 season. They came up and we went up to Northern Colorado and killed a little, just a little three by that was his first year on more of a zero point type of unit for youth. And we're able to get him a decent one guy, him and my brother-in-law, they hunt a bunch in Texas, but got them just completely just.
00:27:14
Speaker
and hammered and mountain hunting. Yeah, so they both went back and trained all year, both freaking got in shape, lost a bunch of weight, got the gear, got all ready for this year. And we were able to get a tag in a little bit better unit. And we ended more of a high country hunt rather than it was a third season hunt.
00:27:41
Speaker
Yeah, we had snow. It wasn't, this year was a little dry early on in that area. We had decent snow already up higher. We were hunting in that. We were camped somewhere around 9,000 feet, I believe. And then we shot that buck somewhere around 11, something like that. Yeah, no, we were up pretty decent. It's 10 and a half 11 somewhere in that band right there in that last bin type of elevation. And we, so I.
00:28:11
Speaker
And I'd never hunted this unit before. It was actually a buddy of mine was like, y'all should go check this out and see if you can get a tag for it. I never hunted the area. So as soon as he actually got the tag on it, he didn't draw it in the first draw and picked it up in the Colorado does a like a secondary draw now. So a bunch of any tags that weren't allocated, I assume is goes onto that secondary job, but they allocate all of them to youth first and then anything that you don't draw.
00:28:40
Speaker
It goes to whoever else is in the pot, but so he was able to pick up that unit in the secondary draw. And so I, and then I ended up getting one on the leftover list. So I had a tag in my pocket too, just so it's just in case or whatever.
00:28:59
Speaker
but the main focus was on him. But I just went out a little bit. They live in Texas, so I was able to do some scouting prior to them coming up and find us camp spots and areas where, you know, for especially the hunts with the kids like that, it's nice to have a campsite that is that you can do a good amount of glassing from for me. That way we can get there a couple of days early, cover miles of country just with our eyes and
00:29:29
Speaker
trying to pick up animals and have good game plans for opening morning. And so that's what we did. We went two days early, an area that I'd be scouted and then went and scouted myself and whatnot. And we, luckily enough, the first, the first evening we were there, we got camp set up and found, um, a bunch of does and then add two, two nice bucks come out and up in the Aspen.
00:29:59
Speaker
maybe a mile and a half from us, something like that, up to drainage. And they came out and then they were there the next morning as well, which was the day before opening season. And then even that evening, they were there and we have all these, in this area we're at, you can drive to the camp and whatnot. So there's people just coming in by the groves like normal.
00:30:21
Speaker
were like try not to be obvious to where we're looking. I'm like, don't look up there too long while these guys, you turn your glass while these guys drive by. Cause I'm like, don't freak it. If they look, if they think we're looking at something, they'll look up there too. People don't want to do their own work. And then, so we had a game plan. I was, so it was how it was is we had a basically a drainage coming down the mountain on the
00:30:45
Speaker
East facing slope that had all the Aspen's. That's where they've been coming out on the morning, a little bit after the sun started hitting the side of the hill, they would start coming out. And so we came up with a game plan to get up that next morning, open a morning, hike in early, get on the adjacent ridge to the east and try to find some openings where we could see into that area where we'd been seeing them and try to catch them and be within that 300 yard range from them.
00:31:15
Speaker
And so we get up early. There's a couple other guys at the same trailhead that we were using to get, go in that direction. And those guys, and mind you, I've got, so it's my, it's my nephew who's 13 and then my son who's nine with me. And we're packing in through six, eight inches of snow to get up maybe a thousand foot of climb, something like that. And nothing too crazy. It wasn't like terrible country. It was relatively easy, but the,
00:31:44
Speaker
Some other guys were in front of us and they went downhill and went down and set a ridge down from us. And we went up the ridge away from them and we get up there and it's, the boys are cold and they, nobody makes a good boot for a nine-year-old that keeps them warm. It seems that I've been able to find. So maybe it's the rails and you get some rails.
00:32:09
Speaker
Oh, yeah, you could probably do that like an actual snow boot. Yeah, like a snow, like a Sorrell, but then your feet are going to sweat. It all depends. I don't know. Kids, my kids thrive. I'm like, how are you wearing that? Like, how are you not miserable? But I don't know. And that's what you've gotten them. For my boys originally, when I was going to, it was like military surplus boots, like women's boots. Uh-huh. For when they were young. And then now they mean, they just, all of a sudden, they hit 13 and all of a sudden they just showed up and they're 13.
00:32:35
Speaker
I'm passing them down my boots now, honestly, because they're both like a size 11, or I think I'm wearing like a size 11 and a half 12 boot, depending on the boot. Just passing them down my boots now. But yeah, originally I was just getting them, whatever you can get them at like REI. It's like my nine year old's hunting right now, or he's wearing like a trail shoe, like I don't know what those would be, like some hippie trail shoe from REI. That's all you can really get. You can't go out and get them like a
00:33:00
Speaker
crispy, but I guess you can get a women's boots. Women's boots work. Oh yeah. For the early season stuff, my boy has just like keen hiking boots. That's what I call keen hippie, but that's what I'm... Hey, if it's an REI, it's hippie. Yeah, it's a keen trail shoes with my kids. I went through those and then I went to the military boot, like a woman's military boot, and then I broke them up. They had a real boot the last couple of years. Yeah, it's like those hippie... Sorry, I apologize, you were kicking. Yeah, yeah. Exactly.
00:33:30
Speaker
Yeah. So, yeah. So going, so we get in there early and you know how it is when it's, you're all, we're all in snow. It's early, but you get up there, everybody's on and off layers, doing the whole thing. And you get up there and finally sit still for 45 minutes sitting in the snow and everybody's, I have help keeping my feet warm. So I'm sitting there freaking toes are freaking cold. And.
00:33:54
Speaker
We're sitting there waiting for the sun to come up some, and it finally comes up. So we were able to move a little more into position because I didn't want to just go bombing in there blinded onto the ridge that faces where we wanted to hunt. And so we hung out on the front of the ridge where we weren't disrupting anything until we started to get a little daylight to where I could start creeping in and being able to glass that hillside without just
00:34:22
Speaker
walking in with, that's another part is with kids and everything else. It's, you've got like a herd of animals behind you trying to get in on animals. My kids are like, I am whispering. I'm whispering right now. Oh my God. Everybody stop.
00:34:42
Speaker
Uh, yeah, I tell you, that's like my nephew and my son that are like best friends too. And they're just like, it just, and I have to, you know, I have to apologize to him afterwards. Cause I'm like, look guys, I'm not trying to be a total frick, but y'all gotta shut up. Just shut up. Unless I ask you something, don't talk. And anyways, we sneak in and get over and spot some does. So we're sitting there just waiting, waiting to see, assuming those bucks are going to come back out and
00:35:12
Speaker
So I'm sitting there and my boy's just, his feet are just freezing and he's, do you have the bit warmers and no, the hand warmers in his boots or no? No, I, my, my, an asshole dad. I didn't put them in there. No. Those help a little bit with the kids. They do help. And honestly, the weather had been pretty nice and I thought that we would form up pretty quick, but it wasn't. So Hillman, my nephew, you're just freezing, but my nephew's just gun hoe to freaking get a buck. And so he's so.
00:35:42
Speaker
My boy, I'm like, Hey, he's almost in tears. His feet are freezing so bad. He's like, yeah, Oh, it's great. No, it is. It happened to him the year before and they got, they got to kill a buck and it it's good lessons for them. They got to have a little grip. Maybe that's why I don't put the hand warmers in there. So I take my boy a hundred yards back to the East on the front side of the ridge. We're sitting and I build him a campfire to more like to warm up.
00:36:12
Speaker
And I'm sitting there and I'm getting the fire going and whatnot, throwing some logs on and my brother-in-law texts me. And he's big buck came out, please advise. And I'm like, shoot it. What's the kid shooting? Seven millimeter 08. That's a perfect cartridge. Oh yeah. I love that gun. I actually let them know one that convinced them to buy it. I just, I have one myself. I'm shut. Elk and mule deer and everything else with that. I love it.
00:36:41
Speaker
And the kids can shoot it, but the, so, but in the text back, it only came out for a second and went up the mountain from us. And so I tell my boy and he's sitting there freezing, trying to warm up. And so I hand him my in reach and I'm like, Hey, look, like I'm going back over there. I'm like, I like, if we don't come back, just push this button and do not leave this spot. I was like, whatever hat do not leave. And he's like, all right, cool. And so.
00:37:11
Speaker
I sneak back around to them and they show me where he went. And so I'm like, all right, I'm going to go up this Ridge and see if I can find another opening to spot this thing up the hill. And also going back to that, they'll be in Texas hunters. One thing that I had to learn coming to Colorado was like you, like the level of being ready is you have to always be ready to shoot. Don't ever.
00:37:42
Speaker
think you're going to have a minute to get your gun set up or you know what I'm saying? And so that bucket came out and they just weren't set up to shoot. And so they didn't get the opportunity because this is what I told them. I was like, man, suit as soon as you see, shoot if you want it, shoot. So I go up the hill to go try to find another spot to get on this buck. And I just hooked it up the hill quick as fast as I could to try to
00:38:12
Speaker
cut him off and I told them to stay there in case he followed some does back towards them. And I get up, up the ridge, maybe two, 300 yards. And I finally find another opening and I find the buck and he's up there just hanging with these does. And so I text my brother in law and I'm like, Hey, like y'all follow my tracks and just get up here as fast as you can. I don't know how long he's going to hang. And, uh,
00:38:40
Speaker
So I'm sitting there and I have a tag in my pocket. That's a nice buck that I'm sitting there going, they don't make it. I might just go ahead. I might just go ahead and- Uncle of the Year award right there. Yeah, exactly. So next thing I know, I'm sitting there and just waiting on them, waiting. And then I hear a bunch of huffing and puffing behind me as my nephew. And he'd already left his dad behind because he's so jacked up.
00:39:07
Speaker
And his dad was like, just go, I can't keep up, just go. And so he gets up there and he comes just in, just like boring sweat, just freaking. And I was like, all right, sit down. Just sit down for a minute because he's all like, where's it at? I'm going to shoot. I'm like, no, you're not. Just sit down for a minute. Get your composure. Cause it was a, was a 300 and maybe 15 yard shot on your, there was no like areas to be prone. So it was leaning against trees type of shot. And.
00:39:37
Speaker
So he gets his breath back to him and whatnot. And by that time his dad had made it up there, which was cool. And, and his dad has a, like a, I think he had like a, bought like a Christensen arm, but he didn't have quite as good a scope and they hadn't really sighted him for that distance. So I was like, here you can use my gun and which I've been shooting all year, shooting my boy, shot stuff with it. I had shot stuff with it. Everything as I knew it was great. He takes my gun, gets it.
00:40:06
Speaker
Suits suits this buck. I can tell it hits him, but I don't know I'm looking at him until he's hit the does run off He moves downhill on the opposite direction of the does so I'm like he's here I'm like can you see him try to get another round and he shoots again and messes and I'm like what the hell's going on because the kid can shoot like he's a good shot and and then I'm like well send him keep shooting He shoots him again
00:40:34
Speaker
drops it he drops him at that point rolls downhill or whatever we're all celebrating doing all happy and stuff and then i we're all sitting there like just chit chatting and then i'm like wailing because that's my son's name and i'm like he's still down the mountain so he's just down there the mountain sitting in the campfire so i take off and haul ass down the mountain to go back to hill
00:40:56
Speaker
And I get back down to the him and he's, I was like, you hear a sheet and whatnot. And he's hell yeah. Did y'all didn't hear me? Yell woo after you shot. And I was like, no, we didn't. And he goes, yeah, I was going to give you all about another 20 minutes to get here. And I was going to go ahead and push that button. I was like, no. I was like, that was for like, we never came back. So anyways, we all pack up and go over there to the buck and is that shot that he dropped him and he hit him right in the eyeball.
00:41:25
Speaker
I saw that picture later on. Yeah. So he, so the first shot he'd hit him in the hip and the other shot, he hit him right in the eyeball. And, um, I'm like, what the hell? So to jump forward, I had shot my gun after that and at a hundred yards, I guess it got knocked and it was like shooting eight inches, probably to the right at a hundred yards. And so at 300, I was like, that makes sense. So while we're having such issues, cause I'm
00:41:54
Speaker
that probably don't shoot my guns as much as I should and yeah but anyways yeah so we did that thing and we were able to pack it out pretty okay pack out it wasn't too rough on the boys I made the boys carry a good amount of it and because it's they want to go I believe they should carry their weight but yeah I know so that was really the gist of it got him a freaking it was a cool 2x2 like it's just a big old 2x2 real interesting
00:42:22
Speaker
I thought it was a three, so it's a two by, it's wide though. No, it was a three by two. Sorry. One of them had a four. You're right. I got the picture here. Yeah. On the right side, he's three. Yeah. It's kind of like a split G2 almost. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's still, the hooks were super wide and I saw the picture. I'm like, man, did that kid shoot that buck in the eye?
00:42:46
Speaker
I didn't want to ask because something's happening. You just don't talk about it. I wasn't sure if you're going to say, yeah, I shot him in the eye because eyeballs like missing. So that's what happened. Shooting with kids, man, things happen out there. And anyone tells me that their kid's a crack shot and hits every animal they shoot at is probably not telling the truth. Cause I've had some rodeos, a lot of killed animals. Our boys have cut a lot of stuff. Now they're getting a lot, the older they get, the better they're getting. But especially those first few years, man. And we had some.
00:43:15
Speaker
I'm looking at him like, were you even, were your eyes open? Like, how did you? We've had plenty of those. And I tell him, I'm like, you take, try to take a couple things from it. One is that you practice as much as you should have. And two, we didn't make sure the gun was on before we went on that line. Cause we'd been hunting so much. And then, and then three of this, some people get feel bad cause they made a bad shot or whatever. I'm like manages as long as you put in the word.
00:43:45
Speaker
and shit happens and it goes back to that key thing to just keep shooting until it hits the ground. That's my theory. Oh yeah. Once you pull, once the trigger has been pulled at that point, it's you're going to shoot, right? Like you're going to try and kill this animal, especially if you get a bad shot. Sometimes you just got to put one in. I had a deer, I don't know if I've told the story or not before. I shot a mule deer 430 yards up 11,000 foot elevation here in the Sierras in California.
00:44:13
Speaker
And I watched that deer run 20 feet and just dump over dead. And I'm like, these dead. And I'm with my kid at the time. My kid was probably nine at the time, 10. And we had weird backpack on him. So I'm like, we pack everything up and we hike over there. And it must've been 30 minutes later, we walk up there and that deer is sideways and his foot is straight out. And I'm like, that's a really strange position. And that buck, I got 10 foot from it, stood up. It lit up for 30 minutes. Had to be 30 minutes.
00:44:40
Speaker
Instead of it started running towards a canyon and I pulled him right up his butt and killed him. And it was a mess. I mean, you never want to clean that, but it was like, I'm either going to shoot this buck or it's going to go die in the bottom of this canyon down here. And I'm never going to get it. And I shot him going over a rise, put it right up his butt and killed him. Because once you do the deed, once you've shot him, you really do need to put rounds in the animal instead. Because it's going to die, but it might be two miles from where you are. So even if you do get one in its back hip, it's better than putting one just a little bit of liver or a little bit of lung and
00:45:10
Speaker
especially with elk man deer a little bit those coups jeered those things they don't like a coyote but yeah you should elk you really just are putting start once you fire you'd be another round you're right back in that chamber ready to go again because they're just tough as nails man and they just like to just once they're shot for some reason just to go into the nastiest shit in the world and stuff if i can stop them from going
00:45:36
Speaker
Sometimes you shoot him and they just stand there. And you're just like, what? You even shot? Shoot him again. And all kill shots and things just stand there dead on his feet to stand there. There's just so much blood in their body. But man, that was really cool. You're, you're great. You're a great podcast. You're a great interview. We gotta do it again. Yeah, dude. That was fun. So there's all kinds of stories, but to go back to that. So I just ordered your, I was looking for a new tripod and you can edit this out or whatever, but I was looking for a new tripod and that's how I came across you guys was.
00:46:07
Speaker
Just doing a little research. And so that hunt, actually it wasn't that hunt. It was a hunt out East was the first time I'd used it, but that hunt, I used it a lot. And I, I beat the shit out of my stuff. If having a gun that was shooting eight inches to the right, doesn't tell you that, but so far it's held up great and I really like it. So it's been a good set up. I got the taller one. The, what is that? The, is it your BC? Is that what it is? The AD. Okay. This is the taller one. Yeah. You're running my pan head too.
00:46:37
Speaker
No, the panhead. Yep. Yeah. And so I'm, I'm six and three and I, and so finding one that I trust is going to be tall enough and it's still stable and all that kind of crap when it's all extended like that. There's always a concern of mine, but, but yeah, the way you do it with the more of the weight down low and whatnot seem to really was more stable than any of my views. I've used outdoorsmen and Siri and some of those guys and not to say those aren't good, but I really liked how it was.
00:47:05
Speaker
It just felt more anchored to the ground when I was using it. Cause we had, I was running a 65 millimeter spotter on it and we were having like 30, 40 mile an hour winds on this knob we're on. Cause I picked a crappy spot to a camp. So we were in a ton of wind all the time and I never, never blew over once. Never. So it was, I was pretty impressed and it was.
00:47:29
Speaker
I like it. So I'm probably going to pick up one of your gun clamps next. Yeah, that's going to tell you, dude, that gun clamp is just, it's money, dude. Like I had a guy text me, I have his podcast this week, Robert Clark. He's, dude, we're two out, two dead this week. That gun clamp, that thing's awesome. Like 500 yard shots, man. And we killed three elk over 300 on, I killed down in Mexico. We probably killed five or six animals in Mexico last week often. It's just.
00:47:55
Speaker
That gun clamp is really bitchin'. People are gonna- Well, being able to just swap it out quick is nice. It's Arca Swiss. Arca's built into it. It's billet machine. It's not a giant clamp, which is nice. So it's light and it's small. So it's like 9.7 ounces. And we've already, we're only pre-ordering right now that we sold like a hundred of them in the first week, just pre-orders. People are gonna- Hell yeah. We're gonna sell, once they start getting them, it's gonna be like the LP panhead and the tripods. Everyone's gonna buy them. It's just, it's when you hold it, you're like, oh, it's a very quality part.
00:48:25
Speaker
Yeah. You take a giant block of aluminum machine into that thing. And it's really nice. No, I was, I was pretty impressed with all your stuff. I did the Bino mount with the foot connect adapter. It fit right into my freaking Sworo SLCs. It made everything was great. So I was super happy with all of it so far. So it's been good, but yeah. It's awesome. Dude, where can we, do you want people to find? Are you public on Instagram or are you private?
00:48:52
Speaker
No, I'm private, man. I'm not a- I'm not very influential. No, man. You ain't going to catch me hashtagging nothing. That's for sure. I have a daily job that I, that's where I make money. But, but yeah, no, I'm always, if there's ever, I love helping people though. So if anyone ever wants to bring kids to Colorado and need some help or buy some all about helping kids or not.
00:49:13
Speaker
If you're a grown man, I don't really care. If you really not call me, you can go figure it out. But if it's about helping a kid, I'll, uh, I'll give you a few, help you with some spots or whatnot. But yeah, you got any kids, get them a tag. Remington is well now. Yeah. Yeah. No doubt. But yeah, man. But yeah, it was a good, thanks for having me on and all that. So it's good meeting you. Yeah. Let's do it again. Yeah. No doubt. Let's do it again, bro. Thank you. All right, man. Thanks. I'll talk to you later.
00:49:45
Speaker
Thank you for listening to the Tricer Podcast. Do us a favor, or like and subscribe on whatever platform you're listening on. Give us a follow on Instagram and Facebook at tricerusa. And go check out all of our innovative gear at www.tricerusa.com. Until next time, shoot straight, have fun, and always put God first.